Distributed by: Diamond Select Toys
So you probably won’t find this one on the last minute shelf at your local grocer or even liquor store. This is for a special group of folks that are a mix of beverage aficionado and comic book geek. So that means it’ll be in the last minute purchase section of shelves right by the register at your local comic book shop or hobby shop.
The Gadget
Of all the things I’ve ever considered in my life such as what it would be like to have Iron Man’s boot jets or what I’d do with Superman’s x-ray vision, I’ve never considered the possibility of utilizing the power cosmic to crack open a cold beverage. Thanks to DST I not only now list that as something to ponder I have executed the task with the Silver Surfer bottle opener. This had to be one of those epiphanies of design that came from some crazy night of boozing and reading comics. Well, ok it probably really wasn’t that crazy. In fact some designer may have just been trying to get into one of those retro soda bottles while 10 pages deep into Avengers Vs. X-Men on his iPad. Whatever the situation the idea did arise that it would be cool to integrate Marvel super heroes into the wild world of bottle openers.
While simply crafting a small super hero stature with a bottle opener jutting out of his head is something that wouldn’t shock me DST is a much more creative company than that. The Silver Surfer’s surf board is really the perfect shape for adding a bottle opener too. The only awkward part of the design is adding the Surfer himself to the board. Sure it would be cool to just have him standing on the board and fly through the air and blast the top off my bottle of beer (Wait have I already had a few?) but storing the opener and just general convenience would become an issue with such a design. So DST decided to have the Surfer sort of lying on the board so the whole thing stays relatively flat. Well, actually he appears to be standing but still flat on the board.
At first I thought the way the Surfer is embedded into the board was a little weird but after using the bottle opener a few times any oddness is totally outweighed by the convenience. The true issue is that someone might mistake him from a distance as being Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Now wait, that would make a cool bottle opener too. You listening DST?
8/10
Design and Build
The Surfer himself actually has some good detail considering that this is a bottle opener and the overall design is heavy duty and literally heavy. This thing is meant to truly be used as a bottle opener and not just something to display. The edges are all nicely rounded and the opener itself fit any bottle I threw at it. I will say the company copyright stamp on the back of the board is way too big and distracting. The combination of cool factor and convenience is well balanced here though and it’s just cool to have something like this that’s truly tough enough to use.
8/10
The Silver Surfer isn’t exactly an A list character and his appearance in live action film was shall we say, not exactly cosmic but he was a great pick for this device and design. Any true Marvel Comics fan should grab one of these.
Overall (Not an Average) 8/10
The Review
The Gadget 8/10
Design and Build 8/10
Overall (Not an Average) 8/10