In December of 1977, all I really wanted for Christmas was a lightsaber, just like the ones that the Jedi Knights used in "Star Wars." I did find one waiting for me under the tinsel-covered tree that year but, sadly, instead a fearsome weapon, it was a black flashlight with a flimsy plastic tube stuck on top. The disappointment, even for an 8-year-old, was a bitter one.

I'm guessing that the person who spent $240,000 at a Calabasas Hills auction last week to take home the lightsaber prop used by actor Mark Hamill in "Star Wars" possesses a similar childhood memory... and a much bigger bank account. But you don't need to be a millionaire these days to get your hands on quality fanboy treasures; we live in the golden era of gadgets and geeky totems and if you need the perfect gift for a fan of sci-fi or comics, well, I have the droids you're looking for.

R2-D2 aquarium: You have to ask yourself: What took someone so long to think of putting tropical fish inside of a sleek, 20-inch tall replica of everyone's favorite astromech droid from "Star Wars"? Hammacher Schlemmer has this beautiful bleeping fish tank for a mere $129.95, and it's more than just a barrel-shaped novelty: The domed head rotates upon verbal command, there's a built-in periscope to spy on your gourami and the LED lights morph change from red to blue to green. Now if they would just make a Boba Fett birdcage...

Captain Kirk's chair: Want to add command presence to your living room? Worried that the world doesn't know how passionate you are about Starfleet? Then this is the chance to take your home decor where no reasonable man has gone before. This $2,700 replica of Capt. Kirk's chair from the bridge of the USS Enterprise is part of a big push by CBS Consumer Products to sell more items related to the original show, from Enterprise-shaped golf putters to Mr. Spock PEZ dispensers. They say the chair will be on sale any day now, ready for any mission you or your green girlfriend can dream up. It will be on sale through Diamond Select Toys and, according to its makers, the deluxe swivel chair is built to last, makes numerous sound effects and even recites William Shatner's entire monologue from the original series. Put it in your den and set your neighbors on "stunned"...

"Battlestar Galactica" toaster: You can worry about the future of humanity but with this sleek ebony kitchen appliance you won't have to worry about burning your bread! The $65 toaster available at the Sci Fi store burns two messages into your breakfast slice: "Cylon" or the ever-delicate "Frak Off!" The toast tastes especially good with, ahem, Starbucks coffee.

Graphic novels: If you want to buy something a little less gimmicky, there are some great graphic novels on sale all major booksellers this holiday. For someone who enjoyed "The Dark Knight" film, try Brian Azzarello's grim and gruesome "Joker" (it's not for kids) or one of the many new re-issues of "Watchmen," which will be arriving in theaters in March, the nicest being the $75 "Absolute Edition Watchmen," which has be re-colored and comes with lavish packaging that pays homage to the 1986 landmark book. For something really unexpected, get "The Happy Warrior," ($38) on sale through Levenger, which collects the 1950s biography of Winston Churchill that ran in the weekly issues of Eagle Comics in the U.K., or "The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics," ($18) a hefty anthology with gritty gangster tales both vintage and modern.

It's an exciting time here at Hero Complex as we approach our five-month anniversary. We're getting a lot of new contributors. One of them is Nathan Olivarez-Giles, who has this dispatch...

It's time to put your monocle on: "The Umbrella Academy" is in Los Angeles in a big way.

Dark Horse Comics is celebrating the quirky and compelling "Academy" here to mark the release of "The Umbrella Academy: Dallas," the second installment of the critically acclaimed series.

The first issue of the "Dallas" book hits stores Wednesday (Nov. 26), and at 8 p.m. on Friday (Nov. 28), Gerard Way, author of "Academy" and lead singer of My Chemical Romance, will be signing autographs at Southern California's famous comics landmark Golden Apple (7018 Melrose Ave).

Meanwhile, Secret Headquarters (3817 W. Sunset Blvd.), the great comics store and gallery in Silver Lake, is displaying Way’s concept sketches for the first "Umbrella" series, "Apocalypse Suite," as well as the original art by Way's Brazilian-born collaborator, Gabriel Bá.

That exhibit will run through Dec. 11. To celebrate, Way and Dark Horse hosted a party on Friday at the gallery. Way said he adores the place and his band has a history with it; he and his band mates often founds themselves roaming its aisles while working on their third studio album back in 2006.

“When we were working on 'The Black Parade,' we lived up the hill on Micheltorena, and we’d come down here all the time,” Way said of Secret Headquarters. “If I owned a comic book shop, I’d want it to be just like this.”

EXCLUSIVE

I ran into one of my favorite people in comics and music, Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance fame, backstage at the Spike TV Scream 2008 Awards. We wandered around a bit, and I was fortunate enough to introduce him to both Frank Miller and Tim Burton (I do love my job). Way was in such a good mood that he gave me the major lowdown on "The Umbrella Academy" ramping up as a film project at Universal. He talked about his hopes to bring in people such as "Children of Men" director Alfonso Cuarón, Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood ("Chicago," "Sweeney Todd") and perhaps screenwriter Diablo Cody, who picked up an Academy Award for "Juno."

GB: So what's the good word on "The Umbrella Academy"?

Way: "We just had our first meeting at Universal, and it went great. The hardest thing was finding the right building and the right gate. Nah, the meeting was great, really, really great. The book was optioned before [International Comic-Con in] San Diego, and now it's been green-lighted. Now we're talking screenwriters and directors, obviously. There's no director attached yet."

GB: What can you tell us about the process so far and your priorities?

Way: "They want me to be very involved in it. I'm interested in co-scoring it with somebody too. Something like RJ-D2. Something completely different. Do you know what I mean? I think everything he does has an interesting '60s vibe. It almost has that dystopian 'The Prisoner' feel to it."

GB: You would almost want a "Harold & Maude" meets "X-Men" sensibility to an "Umbrella" movie, if that doesn't sound too odd.

Way: "No, basically that's it. Yeah, 'Harold & Maude' meets the 'X-Men.' The soundtrack can't be a straight score. It has to have some kind of quirk to it. I want to make the music super, super interesting."

GB: What do you know about the timetable for the film?

Way: "I've heard 2010 and 2011. I think 2010 is the big Marvel year, right? So maybe 2011. Not that this is going to be like those movies, really. I said going into the meetings that this film has to be really progressive. It can't simply be the next opportunity for a video game. In the way that 'The Dark Knight' made its own rules, it needs to have its own energy. One of the names I was really interested in as far as screenwriters was Diablo Cody. I think it's an unexpected choice. Everything about this book has been making the less-obvious choices."

Gerard Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance and the author of "The Umbrella Academy," is our featured contributor on The Essential Shelf, and this is the second installment of his Top 10 all-time graphic novels. You can find the first installment here. Below are Nos. 5, 6 and 7 on his list:

"The Invisibles: Say You Want A Revolution,” by Grant Morrison:
I could make a Top 10 list of graphic novels of Grant Morrison’s work on its own, telling you to read "We3," "The Filth," "Seaguy" and others, but I realize I need to make this list more broad. I am including "The Invisibles" because of its volume, ambition and scope. Drawing upon everything from “The Prisoner” (the old British sci-fi/spy show) to the Beatles, this series contained some of the craziest concepts ever put into a comic. At times you question if you are even reading a comic and that’s why this work is so important. Visionary and wonderfully experimental.

"Blankets," by Craig Thompson:
Moving away from breakthrough work within the mainstream, this is one of the best autobiographical comics I have ever read, being able to relate to it in a number of ways, including the wonderfully rendered relationship between Craig and his younger brother. A story about faith, love, loss and coming of age, it’s also one of the best drawn graphic novels of all time.

"Stray Bullets: The Innocence of Nihilism,” by David Lapham:
This collects the first issues of Dave Lapham’s crime/drama comics of the same name. One of the more interesting aspects of the book, aside from its all-too-human way of portraying everything from cold-hearted killers to traumatized little girls, is the fact that this comic exploded onto the scene seemingly from nowhere. Dave Lapham created a book, from the previous confines of work for hire, that was better than anything he had done and better than any other book at the time. This book will scare you and the only monsters in it are the ones you can find hanging out in the alleys of the city you live in.

-- Geoff Boucher

We're starting a new feature here at the Hero Complex called The Essential Shelf in which we invite some esteemed talents to tell us about their favorite graphic novels. Our first guest is Gerard Way, the lead singer of the rock band My Chemical Romance and the writer of "The Umbrella Academy," the wonderfully surreal Dark Horse series that (we hear) may be coming to a theater near you in the next few years.

Here's No.'s 8, 9 and 10 on the list of 10 that he e-mailed me, the rest will be posted here over the next few days.

"Hellboy: Seed of Destruction," by Mike Mignola
This book was an inspiration in the format I chose to do 'The Umbrella Academy' in, as well as the publisher, Dark Horse. This comic is extremely pure, it is the opposite of pretentious, and an exercise in storytelling. Combining elements of old-school E.C. Comics horror, adventure, and the occasional history or mythology lesson, it also frees itself from the confines of continuity typically found in mainstream comics. It has a continuity but does not remain chained to it, hopping around the many years an[d] aspects of the main character's life, telling the stories Mike Mignola wants to tell.

"Akira, Vol. 1," by Katsuhiro Otomo
I do enjoy manga but would not consider myself a "super-fan," only really connecting with certain works such as Lone Wolf and Cub, or Tekkon Kinkreet, the more breakthrough works, and Akira, to me, is the daddy of them all. This book collects the serialized comic originally found in 'Young Magazine' in Japan, which must have been very exciting coming out weekly and serialized, and also must have taken a lot of time, as the series is massive. It takes place in a futuristic version of Tokyo, which has rebuilt after another seemingly atomic explosion, and deals with a corrupt government, psychic children, and motorcycle gangs. Some of the best characters I have ever encountered in a comic.

"Wanted," by Mark Millar

I love this book. It came out of nowhere for me, and literally forced me to read it in one sitting. It has a way of tapping into that nihilism of "Fight Club" without being redundant and is a great example of a great modern comic with original ideas. The concept is another brilliant one that makes you jealous you didn't come up with it first, but in reading it you realize that Mark Millar is the only person that could have written it. I haven't seen the film but I imagine, if they at least kept the narration intact, that it is probably an excellent translation, as the main character's inner monologue is what really keeps you hooked, especially from the opening line.

- Geoff Boucher