Gifts for Geeks, Part the Fifth: Gifts to Drool Over

Not everybody gives gifts this time of year, and not everybody has the money this year to be able to. We understand this, so for your sake (and for our own sake) we promise that we'll do our best not to dwell on the apparent materialism of this time of year after this post.

Yet, we as diehard fans of one thing or another still have hopes and dreams that will not fade with the changing of the seasons; dreams of attaining the impossible.

I want a Nebula-class starship with top- and bottom-mounted 360-degree phaser banks, pulse phaser cannons, quantum torpedoes, modulating shields, phasing cloak, time-warp facilitator, stellar converter, and twin cupholders.

Alex wants a comic book.

(Well, he wants a copy of Detective Comics #27--the first appearance of Batman. That's a bit different.)

So it is in this spirit that we present a sampling of some of the most outrageously rare and prohibitively expensive gifts the average geek could possibly hope for.

But we'll get there in a moment. First, a (lot of) word(s) from Alex:


Now, for my portion of this wishful…wish…list…thing. Now, I could be a jerk and say, “well if I could have anything comics-related, I’d want to understand what the heck happened in the final issue of Batman RIP.” But, since I’m not a jerk, I won’t even mention it, and instead, here’s my list for Santa:

- A work of original art by Frank Miller, Jim Lee, or Mike Mignola. Anything by any of these three will do, but since we’re talking ridiculous pie-in-the-sky gifts here, I’ll take a page each from The Dark Knight Returns, Hush, and Hellboy: Wake the Devil, thank you very much.

- A job at Marvel, DC, Top Cow, or Image.

- A full run of the Alan Moore (and Neil Gaiman) Miracleman hardcovers that are long, long, long out of print, and never again to be reprinted, unless the (many) lawsuits are settled. And, if you can actually find them…they’re not so much with the affordable these days.

- A life size, angry-looking Batman statue.

- Which would look great in that Batcave I’ve always wanted.

- With a Batmobile, of course. Preferably from the first Tim Burton Batman movie (pictured).

And, finally…

- A butler. Named Alfred.


And without further ado: The Big List.

- The One Ring in 22K gold: $849.99.

- A playset of the scene in Star Wars where Vader and Obi-Wan duel in the Death Star as Luke and company make their escape to the Milennium Falcon, in painstakingly accurate detail and to scale with the action figures: Around $3,000. (images and video)

- Hiring Jamie Farr--Klinger, from M*A*S*H--to host a birthday party: $5,000-$10,000

- A 1990 Nintendo World Championships: Gold Edition NES cartridge made especially for the tournament, of which--at most--26 still exist: Upwards of $10,000.

- A home theatre designed to look like a starship bridge from Star Trek: 5,000-8,000 bars of gold-pressed latinum, plus any respect your non-geek friends ever had for you. (Variation 1. Variation 2. I want. Want want.)

- The original Maltese Falcon prop from the 1941 Humphrey Bogart film by the same name: $389,500.

- An original movie poster of the 1927 science fiction classic Metropolis: $690,000.

- William Shakespeare's autograph: Around $500,000,000.

- A rabbit-thing that turns into a spaceship: Priceless.

Of course, if you're a cheapskate looking to skimp on these clearly essential gifts this year, consider gifting that special someone with the Empire State Building.

Normally, this gift would require $2 billion and a great deal of waiting and negotiating, but this year you can get it virtually for free in about 90 minutes with just a little bit of paperwork.


[Image from www.wikipedia.org.]