Immortality Achieved

So here are seven words I never thought I’d get to write:

My action figure is in stores today.

The end result of seventeen months of unbelievable events and a lifelong hope that I might one day walk into a toy store and see myself staring back from the shelf, the G.I. Joe Aqua-Viper Officer is 3.75″ of the stuff that dreams are made of. Which is, it turns out, plastic.

It all started in June of 2008, when I was working in the Czech Republic on G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.  It turned out that I was - courtesy of a legal loophole and Canadian citizenship – the only person in the entire country who could be cast in a role that had fallen through the cracks.  And while my blockbuster debut as Pulse Cannon Technician didn’t make the final cut of the film, it did set into motion the bizarre chain of events that leads all the way to the toy aisle.

You see, ever since I was six years-old, I’ve always wanted to be an action figure.  While that’s probably not all that unique a dream for a little kid, this was an all-consuming quest that was rooted to my very core. After all, it represented a chance to stand shoulder to plastic shoulder with heroes who – in spite of their wee tiny size – were larger than life.  I even listed it as one of a lifetime ambition in my high school yearbook, right next to “obtaining immortality” and “hosting my own talk show.”  And since this unplanned cameo made me part of G.I. Joe’s action figure world for roughly twelve seconds of screentime, I realized that might…maybe…be enough to warrant an eternity in sculpted plastic.  So I approached the unbelievably awesome, incredibly cool and all-around godlike people at Hasbro and asked if they’d consider my request.  Since you can probably already guess their answer, I’ll skip right to the pictures they requested for the head sculpt. Click below to see a larger version of the image – same with any photo in this post.

During the months that followed, I got a series of updates that left me a little uncertain of what to expect.  I received an email that explained how Hasbro was working on making me look “a little cooler,” along with a concept sketch that showed a version of me with black eyebrows, a broken nose and a jagged knife scar across my left eye.  Since that left me with no option but to partially blind myself in a brawl with a colorist in order for people to believe the figure was actually based on me, I was relieved when they forwarded the work-in-progress photo below.

While I wasn’t really sold on the fact that it looked like me, I was relieved the figure at least had blond hair and two eyes.  I figured that was enough for people to squint or take a stiff drink – preferably both – and maybe believe it was me.  Needless to say, that was before I got a look at the finished sculpt.

Somewhere in Rhode Island, there’s a sculptor I’d like to high five.  While the rest of the film’s action figures are based off of digital scans of the actors, he – or she – crafted a terrific likeness based off of nothing more than a few snapshots taken in my office.  Sure, the G.I. Joe fan community’s arrived at a general consensus that the figure’s based on Scott Bakula, but I’m pretty sure that Michelangelo couldn’t have done better. And now, after having scoured eBay to purchase advance copies of my figure direct from factory workers in China, I’m happy to say that the Aqua-Viper Officer – a.k.a. The Official Ryan Landels Action Figure – can be found on the shelves of fine toy stores everywhere.

So that’s one lifetime ambition down – all courtesy of Michelino, Bob, Steve and all the good folks at Hasbro.  And since these Aqua-Viper Officers will probably be around for around 10,000 years, let’s check off “obtaining immortality” from that list in my high school yearbook.  Now does anyone have a talk show they need hosted…?