What The Fuck Were They Thinking!?: Stegron The Dinosaur Man

It's only the second week of September, but its already been a hell of a month action figure-wise.

My local Wal-mart started carrying the ML Rhino BAF Wave, much to my surprise. And then I realized unlike some other waves, I actually want to build Rhino. So far I bought the new Kraven and Ghost Rider figures, then went back for the Chameleon and Superior Venom but only the Chameleon figure was there, besides the Misty Knight/White Tiger and Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider figures required to finish building Rhino.
































































Maybe next week guy, because a good friend alerted that my local Walgreens started to carry the ML Hulkbuster wave.  Bought that waves' Iron Man and Dr. Strange, and wanting that new War Machine figure. Damn he looks good, even though they're using the Don Cheadle face for Rhodey.

Damn you Marvel!!!!!!! Shut up and take my money!!!!!!!

 This last guy is definitely one of the ugliest Iron Man armors ever designed. I'm talking about the Space Armor IM used during his super-short stint as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It was a gift from your friend and mine, Googum, and it contains a much-needed Groot BAF piece.

This figure seems to be using the Bleeding Edge armor as the base, so its not bad articulation-wise, it's just the head piece that's so damn ugly to look at only Helen Keller could love it;)

So yeah, damn good month for figures, not-so-good on my wallet.

Okay, onto to today's Mort of the Month, sorry, I meant to say loser of the week/month, Stegron, the Dinosaur Man(Or quite possibly Walter Simonson's favorite villain).

Let me preface this by saying when it comes to villains, the 70's were not good to Spider-Man. If the writers weren't killing off his long-time girlfriend, they were jobbing him out to the new villain of the week, most of which never made it past C/D/Z-list status.

Enter our boy Stegron:

Created by Len Wein and Gil Kane, Stegron first appeared as Dr. Vincent Stegron, an opportunistic lab assistant to Curt Connors in Marvel Team-Up#19.

Yes, Curt Connors, or as you might know him better, The Lizard!

Yeah, that guy. So you just know already nothing good can come from this.

Anyhoo, Dr. Connors and Dr. Stegron were working on some experiment for SHIELD involving Dinosaur tissue given to them by Ka-Zar for some weird reason.

Unbeknownst to Dr. Connors and SHIELD, Stegron had a huge hard-on for all things dinosaurs. I don't know, maybe he even dry humped a T-Rex statue @ a museum once, IDK, I just know he was really big into Dinosaurs. So much so that he steals the all the experimental dinosaur tissue and runs of to the Savage Land, where he injects the tissue into himself and becomes another cliched scientist turned evil monster.

After getting his ass handed to him by Ka-Zar and Spidey, Stegron would go on to menace the wall-crawler and various other heroes in the MU over the years.

Hell, he even fought against his former boss, the Lizard once, when he kidnapped his son.

As for his powers, well, he's basically a clone of the Lizard; he's got super-strength, endurance and speed, razor-sharp claws, and super-tough, scaly skin.

Here's where it gets both weird and goofy: His other powers are being able to mentally control dinosaurs if there's any around, as well as the reptilian part of other animals and humans. So I guess if Stegron's in your town, hide your dinosaurs and pet reptiles. Maybe even the foam ones that grow in water. Hey, you never know.

Then there's the latest ability he's seemed to developed, being able to absorb the life-force of other dinosaurs and reptiles. I guess that means if he needs a quick pick me up and there's a dinosaur or big lizard around, he'll snack on their life-force like a fat kid in a candy shop.

So that's Stegron in a nutshell, or Dino-eggshell in his case.

But is he really that bad?

 He's a basically a bad clone of a much more popular villain albeit admittedly with a slightly better name. I mean what sounds scarier to you:

 RUN!!!!! The Lizard's loose and he's eating people's faces!!!!!

-or-

RUN!!!! Stegron's on the loose and he's eating people's faces!!!!

Someone definitely seems to like him since he's still around, even in other mediums, like Marvel's kid friendly series, Superhero Squad, and various video game appearences like the one he made in Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

He even has his own action figure. Yes that's right, he really does, and its not a custom-made one, although those exist too.

Nope, Stegron got his very own action figure from Toy Biz back in 1997 as part of a wave called the Vault Series, as in the Vault, which was a high tech prison for super villains in the MU.

 

Stegron was joined by two other figures, Ultron and Typhoid Mary.

It was a truly rare experiment on the part of Toy Biz, but then again they also made figures of characters that were barely a year old too, sooooooo.

I guess for me, it comes down to Stegron not having a good writer do something meaningful with him as a character, which can really be said about most characters that are B/C/D/Z-list 4 Life.

Sometimes they're just waiting for a Nick Spencer or Kieron Gillen to find 'em and love 'em.

But until that happens, Stegron will always be a poor man's Lizard to me.

So, Len Wein. Gil Kane.

WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!?