More Superheroes by the Pound (Store)!
I masked up and headed early into town for a rare visit, a few important things to do but once done, a quick recce peep into my local Poundland.
Good to see the usual reliable Shelfie material of bagged ‘penny dreadful’ 100 soldier figures for £1 from a few months back, still in store or available online.
Even better to see a new set of superheroes, a set to grab as these usually appear and vanish quite fast.
This is my third such Superhero set.
Previously on Pound Store Plastic Warriors Superheroes ….
My first 2018 post on pre-named Pound Store Superheroes:
At four for a pound, they are not quite The Six Million Dollar Man or as I said in my second 2019 post that foolishly: “Some people may look down on such ”bootlego” budget figures at four Superheroes for a Pound. 25pMan anyone? The QuarterofaQuid Kid?”
Interesting urban nightscape and Japanese writing on the box graphics.
Including a simple minifigure base would be good.
A cape with hole punched head hole can be easily added of cloth or plastic, based on the simple Lego ones.
I like the oddly worded title descriptors as well of this third Set Of superheroes . Branded BUILDX, these are “Superheroes Defend Mighty + Strong” and “Earth Defenders”. Big claims for four small figures for a pound, but with a child’s imagination they might indeed become Mighty Superheroes, Earth Defenders etc.
These are produced by PDLZ (for Poundland). Batch / lot: 30/2021 Ref 26-2833/PL2021 and 497916, for those who like to know these things. As usual, Not suitable for under threes due to small parts.
What I like quite childishly about them is their not quite official hints at proper franchised (far too expensive) Lego minifigure ones.
Left – with Dark hair, an Iron Man / Tony Stark type vibe to this one – light Oddbeard trim – Oddbeard? Stubble?
Second left – a white Power Ranger or even a Stormtrooper body feel if you swap heads around to this one although in this case “I’m not a short Stormtrooper, I’m not Luke Skywalker, I’m not here to rescue you …”
Third – vaguely Spiderman, dark Spider-Man, Deadpool but with that weird wild smile, could be a villain?
Fourth – Sort of Spider-Man / Captain America – Captain Generica perhaps?
I presume some of these figures could be female. They have a trim synched waist, which otherwise accentuates their muscly torso and shoulders.
The hands or fingers are more well modelled or defined than usual.
The head also has a useful Lego dot type top for carrying or attaching further blocks.
Origin Stories or Where do you get them from?
These £1 superhero figures are sadly not available online from Poundland’s Poundshop. Sold out!
Interestingly the poundshop.com website lists the set as “includes 2 superheroes and 2 bad guys” – which is which?
Instead Poundshop.com (the online offer of Poundland) currently have a £5 Superheroes car rocket launcher Hero Rescue with the odd one (or two?) yellow and red hero or henchman.
https://www.poundshop.com/buildx-brix-set-superheroes-defend-mighty-strong-hero-rescue-216pc-6.html
I enjoy the sight of all this bright lively packaging.
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The shop also had more Lego compatible block figures including these Alien / stylish space figures. As always if you like them, buy (lots of) them when you see them, they are often not there when you return.
You could of course start mixing heads, torsos and legs for an all new quartet of mix and match Pound Store superheroes.
On The Naming of Superheroes …
What I also like about these Pound Store superheroes is how you, the player or child has to do the hard work of naming and back story for each character. None of that easily all done for you Marvel DC Universe stuff.
Alternatively, if inspiration doesn’t strike …
‘The Temporal Lad’ is intriguing for a time traveller perhaps or maybe the name of a racehorse. “Temporal Lad, coming up on the inside …”
There are some fun websites with random superhero name generators, for example: Impossible Girl which came up on:
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/hero-names.php
Or superhero group / gang / henchman names:
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/superhero-team-names.php
These examples above and below are from Name Generator Fun
https://www.namegeneratorfun.com/superhero
The Legendary Shadow, The Silver Hourglass or The Crimson Laser, anyone?
Name Generators – useful tools for uninspired days. Useful as a handy birthday present to a loved one, your own (machine generated) personalised superhero or super villain name, based on your initials …
Just call me Duke…
Type in your favourite Wargames authors or bloggers as your Supervillian opponents. Donald Featherstone becomes … 
Donald Featherstone, Commander Of Ice … it has a ring to it.
Try it – What would yours be?
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There is a some system or logic to naming superheroes, outlined on the Name Generator Fun website superhero page
Summary of their eight points on ‘How to Create Heroic Names’
1.The Sound of Your Name Matters
2.Add Colour to Your Name
3.Focus on the Nouns in Your Hero Names
4.Add an Adjective to Your Name
5.Choose a Title for Retro Superhero Style …. Doctor / Professor …
6.Create Hero Names with Two Word Phrases … Wildfire
7.Just Add “Man” or “Woman” to Your Name
8.Heroes with Normal Names? Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner etc are already taken.
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Using rules 2, 3, etc I could christen the white figure second left “Yellow Snow”.
Maybe not …
It reminds me a little of The Incredibles films with all the old, retired and never heard of superheroes named or invented for this movie.
They could also be odd masked Britain wrestlers from Saturday TV teatimes in the 1970s, “live from the Fairfield Halls, Croydon”. Sadly there is no battling granny figure included with umbrella accessory for walloping them encouragingly from the side of the ring.
Obviously with such royalty free superheroes, the appropriate soundtrack for them is one of the many royalty free soundtracks or pastiche soundtracks from Youtube. Type in ‘superhero royalty free music’ on YouTube, Musi and you will find an inspiring range of generic superhero movie themes … such as
For example, “Courageous Superhero” Superman Style Theme Stock Music Royalty Free at https://youtube.com/watch?v=r1
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I’m sure there are some suitable wrestling or superhero simple free gaming rules out there as well.
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/free-superhero-wargame-rules.488788/
https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/supers-a-generic-superhero-skirmish-rulebook/
Although my definition of ‘simple’ is probably different from others ..
Blog posted by Duke Ultra (Mark Man Of TIN – I squeak the ‘tin cry’ if dropped) on 9th July 2022
Pound Store Plastic Warriors 
Hi Mark….Very interesting read. A Superhero name generator…now that is not something I would have ever imagined existed…someone has an extraordinary imagination. Regards.
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The name generators are great fun when you have run out of inspiration or want to randomise your named figures, units, super villains, gangs etc. Long periods of happily wasted time can pass as you randomly generate lists and scribbling down possibles looking for that right city, character or nation name.
You have obviously done this in your own head unaided with your TIAN ImagiNations model map of the world.
Donald Featherstone sort of touched on it in his Personalised Wargaming chapter of his Advanced Wargames Book, choosing to list names of famous gamers that you would recognise. Obviously his in joke tribute.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/featherstones-personalised-wargaming-in-the-desert/
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Hi Mark…I cannot lay claim to inventing Tian for my Imagi-Nations. It is actually an anagram of my wife’s name which she created. It just so happens to also be the Chinese word for “heaven” which seemed apt. It does seem like a good way to spend some time so I will have a look at some of the sites you mentioned, just for fun. regards.
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I imagine that it is a useful tool for inventing place names for campaigns – I vaguely remember Henry Hyde editor of Battle Games and the Wargames Compendium writing about amusing or pastiche name generation for ImagiNations. Sticking -tan or -ia on the end of a place is a popular one.
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Perhaps some some heroes called the Obscures might be in order ? They might have super powers like folding napkins into animals, recognising screws and washers by eye or other everyday talents . Perhaps they might be even obscurer such as a knowledge of 15th century Flemish art or whittling animals with a penknife and wood? It would be interesting to see them in action…
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This looks like the sort of arcane knowledge and language ability that would make D&D or RPG character tables more quirkily interesting.
Origami animals would maze some spirits, same as counting the bubbles and cracks delayed witches from entering the house in anti witching glass canes and glass objects (Cornish west country tradition).
Origami or whittled wood animals (ooh! scouting link) could come to life etc. With the right incantation, set of spells of course or right amount of geekery. …
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I think the white ninja guy might be your second villain, he gives off Storm Shadow vibes.
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I shall check this Storm Shadow out …
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