We've entered the weird zone of time between Christmas and New Year's Day. A week where every day feels like a holiday, even if it's not. People burn off vacation days, work slacks off, and that Christmas good cheer lingers until it's replaced with the joyous drunkenness of New Years. It's an appropriate time to show off a Christmas-themed Minimate custom.

And so I present to you Santa Doom, part of my gift in this year's Minimate Multiverse Secret Santa. It's the perfect blend of the cheer and goodwill of the holidays with the ruthless dictatorship style of Doctor Doom. Please enjoy, and check back in 2008 for continuing Mutantapalooza festivities.

As the holiday season roars into full gear in the next few days, take a moment and remember the mutants. Even though they're hated and feared by a world they've sworn to protect, mutants celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzza too. So if you see any mutants on the street this holiday season, don't just scream and send a Sentinel to kill them. Instead why not smile, look them in the eyes (or eye, or whatever they might have) and wish them a Happy Holidays. Just don't give them any fruitcake. Even mutants hate fruitcake.

This week's featured mutant custom is mohawk Storm. It's like the regular Storm, but with a new haircut. Check it out.

I'm declaring a Mutantapalooza. I've got a whole passel of mutant customs ready to be displayed, and the only way I'm going to able to work through them is through a theme event I just made up that celebrates large bunches of mutants. So sit back and enjoy the Mutantapalooza festivities.

This week's featured mutant custom is Havok, trusted member of the X-Men and brother to Cyclops. Havok is getting released is wave 20 of the Marvel Minimates next year, so now's a great time to post this custom I made before I found out we were getting him. Please enjoy.

CustomCon 18 is long over, so I'm way overdue in adding my entry this year to my own site. So without further delay, I present that wacky media-savvy mutant team, the X-Statix! Check out the Orphan, the Anarchist, U-Go Girl, Venus Dee Milo, Dead Girl and Doop!

Are there more mutants on the way? Maybe...

We're wrapping up our month-long salute to Captain America's allies and foes with Cap's number one enemy - the Red Skull. He's a man so evil that he deserves two Minimate customs.

The Red Skull comes in two different styles for your evil needs. For classic evil, there's the classic Red Skull comes in his old-school green jumpsuit, wielding the Cosmic Cube. For a more formal Red Skull, check out the uniformed Red Skull, dressed in his finest "evil general" outfit. Please enjoy, and check back next year when the Spring Red Skull styles are in stock. We expect the "Beachwear Red Skull" to be very popular.

The power-packed tribute to Captain America's allies and foes continues this week with a man who was Captain America's partner - just not the original Captain America. It's Battlestar, the partner of the John Walker Captain America.

Little-known fact: After John gave up being Cap and became the U.S.Agent, Battlestar tried to stay his partner with the new identity of the 50-Statesman. It didn't catch on.

My salute to the people who have been Captain America's allies and foes continues this week with a look at his foes. Despite his lack of super-powers, Cap never backed down from a fight and always found a way to kick the bad guy's butt. Sometimes with both feet.

Our first villain is the Red Guardian, a Soviet agent trained to be better than Captain America. Cap kicked his butt anyway. That that, Communism!

The second villain is an obscure foe that Cap only fought once - Brain Drain, a Nazi scientist who survives as a disembodied brain on top of a powerful robot body. Cap kicked his robot butt anyway. That that, Nazis!

A while ago, the question was asked - "Why was Minimate Captain America Sad?". The startling answer - because Cap's had dozens of partners and hundreds of enemies, and not one of them have been made into Minimates. It's time to correct this. So I'm asking everyone to write their local Congressman and complain about the lack of Cap-related Minimates. If you need to, look up and see who your Congressman or woman is. Remember, democracy doesn't work unless we're all involved. Know your Congressman - it's what Cap would want you to do.

While you're doing that, I'm going to be posting Cap-related customs all month. First up - Bucky, Cap's first partner, and the standard to all his other sidekicks have been measured.

Once again, the annual celebration of the macabre, creepy and free candy called Halloween is upon us. Fear and sugar hang heavy on the air as my two latest customs are introduced - Marvel's version of the Frankenstein's Monster, and Marvel's version of Death. Now go put a pumpkin on your head and go trick-or-treating.

So, Diamond Select announced waves 19 and 20 of the Marvel Minimates this summer, and the line-ups are chock-full of requested characters. For example, we're getting Ultron, that killer robot who's always fighting the Avengers. Which means I should show off my custom "Strongarms" Ultron before the real one is out to compare it to.

Like some sort of scheduled yearly event, the annual online festival of custom action figures called CustomCon is taking place this week. I encourage you to check it out if you're at all interested in custom action figures.

I also invite you to check out my contribution to CustomCon 18. It's a group of Minimate customs from a comic that I loved - the X-Statix. They're x-tra special.

So, with wave 16 of the Marvel Minimates, we finally got a Wonder Man Minimate, in his trademark black-with-red-W costume. But Wonder Man has worn a lot of costumes, and the majority of them have been poor fashion choices. So I present a couple of customs to pay tribute to the many bad costumes of Wonder Man - First Appearance Wonder Man and Wonder Man in his safari jacket.

I'm also adding my Charitymates Mad Scientist custom to the site. He's on his way to a good home right now, but the second wave of Charitymate customs is on eBay right now, so go check them out.

And finally, to celebrate the anniversary of the site, I gave it a new look. Hit your "Refresh" button if you're still seeing a green background.

Earlier this summer, all-around good guy Fujis organized Charitymates: Monsters for Blood, a charity auction to benefit America's Blood Centers. The auctions began this week with the first eight Minimates, including a very snazzy Mad Scientist custom that I made.

So, with wave 16 of the Marvel Minimates, we finally got a She-Hulk Minimate. I like She-Hulk, probably for the fact that while she started as a derivative character ("It's the Hulk - but with boobs!"), She-Hulk has been used really well over the years and made into a unique character. I even did a bunch of She-Hulk customs years ago - you can see them here, here and here.

So while it's great to have a She-Hulk Minimate, it would be even better to have some She-Hulk villains for her to beat up. So I present my next custom - Titania, who is the only recurring villain She-Hulk has.

Earlier this year, we got a Hydro-Man Minimate as part of a Spider-Man box set. It's a nice enough figure, and certainly better than some of the other figures in the box set (I'm looking at you, transparent-head Sandman). But I was kinda disappointed that they didn't really play up his "change to water" ability more. So I made a Hydro-Man Minimate that did. Please, go check out my version of the a big drip of a super-villain.

We finish up our run of Minimate Hulk friend customs with the Leader in his big brain-shaped head look.

No matter how they beat each other up, the Hulk is never going to like the Leader. So you really can't call them friends, but you could call them casual acquaintances. After all, they see each other every month at Doc Samson's Gamma Group Book Club, and they get along fairly well there.

Minimate Hulk needs friends, even if they are two-headed androids that tried to kill him. So I present the latest custom - the Bi-Beast, the monster with two heads.

Remember: to Hulk, anyone that you can roughhouse with is a friend. Anyone that you can really pound on is a good friend. Bi-Beast may be one of the best friends Hulk has...

In our continuing effort to cheer up Minimate Hulk with more friends, I present the only psychiatrist in the world that can go one-on-one with the Hulk - Doc Samson. Hulk appreciates a friend that will talk to him about his feelings.