Friday, December 31, 2010

Let's end 2010 on a classy note!

Hmm, my last post on this blog in 2010.

Yeah I got nothing.

See you next year!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Scud the Disposable Assassin


It's Scud the Disposable Assassin. I enjoyed the comic book a little back in the 90's, but I really ended up loving the creator's later works, so I just enjoy having an action figure of one of his creations. This is a pretty neat toy too.

All the major joints are represented, allowing for some great posing. The ball joints attaching the arms and legs to the torso are a little loose, but they easily pop back in with minimal problems. The only thing I'm concerned about is that the feet are awkward to balance on, so the figure has troubles standing freely.

The packaging is awesome though. It's designed to be reusable, so you can always stick the figure back in after you're done playing with it.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Dharak


I've always been intrigued by the Bakugan toys. They all seem like crude transformers that turn into balls. If they didn't cost a ridiculous amount I would already have bought one. (Since technically they're game pieces and come with cards for the game. So, pretty much they're plastic miniatures.)
So now that McDonalds is giving out fully functional Bakugan, which are actually bigger than the toys, as one of their happy meal toys, I decided to bite the bullet. It's actually cheaper than getting one in a retail store, plus I get a burger.


It's pretty nice, I gotta admit. There's a button on the bottom of the ball which activates some springs, and BAM, it turns into like a robot dragon thing. I am totally unfamiliar with the Bakugan univers, although the Happy Meal box implied that all the characters are named something-oid or something-tor.

Whatever, It's a nice cheap toy. Not bad. But I really don't need another one. I'll just stick with the trasnforming sphere I already have. Although according to the insert that came with it, I guess you can combine two transformed pieces together... Wait, no.

Friday, December 24, 2010

I'm beginning to think it's time to pull back on my Lego fandom

I just want to put it on record that Winter 2010 was when it officially became more expensive to collect Lego than it is to collect Minimates.

A typical Minimate 2 pack: $6.99-$7.49 at Toys R Us depending on the characters licensed.

Cost of a single blind-bagged Lego minifigure: $3.99 at Toys R Us, one of the only places selling them right now.

Yellowjacket & Kree Warrior


Hey look, it's Yellowjacket, the identity that Hank Pym (Ant Man) took when he went insane and beat up his wife. It's also one of his better designed costumes and he started wearing it again in the late 90's. Which is weird because that's when he started up a new relationship with his wife who had forgiven him for the spousal abuse. (To her credit, he had also gone through a lot of therapy and proven time and again that he had gotten better.) It's depicted pretty damn well here, so I like the figure.

There's a variant of this guy as Goliath, one of his versions of Giant Man, which is a much more boring figure so I don't want it.
Also: Kree Warrior. I don't really care that much about the alien races in the Marvel Universe, but hey, Kree look very much like 1950's aliens with their space man outfits. So I'll give it a pass.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Elite Heroes Fire Fighters Fire Chief


The Minimates Max Elite Heroes minimates are civilian hero minimates. So you get generic firemen, cops, soldiers, etc. The faces aren't distinct, but then no minimate face is, so feel free to army build. On the one hand the lack of licensed characters makes them a little dull, but on the other hand you get a bunch more accessories because that money doesn't have to pay anyone for image rights and you also get some background civilian minimates to round out your collection.

So I thought I'd try these guys out. You only get 2 figures per set, but they come with enough accessories and extra parts that you can easily dress up a third figure with it all and not know who it is under there. (Mine is Chekov.)


I mean, look at that. Three fireman hats. And awesome accessories for minimates. An axe! A fire extinguisher! A flashlight! Another axe! The Jaws of life!
I got the Fire Chief set rather than the Fire Fighter set. The difference is that the regular fire fighter doesn't have that open coat. A small difference, but one I wanted.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Wolverine & Blob


I have not really been all that into getting Minimates from the Wolverine: Origins movie. I did get the one that had Agent Zero, since dude was Asian guy in a suit, but I really thought that would be the end of it. Until I found out that the Blob minimate had another figure under his belly and head piece.

Seriously, they put the young thin character inside the older fat figure.

It's insane enough that they put Blob in a movie as part of the elite Weapon X program, but... No. No talking about the Wolverine: Origins movie.

Basically I wanted a Blob figure, but not this Blob figure, until I found out that it doubled as a thin Fred Dukes minimate. So essentially this is a Kevin Durand minimate, and that dude was awesome on Lost. And it even looks like his character on Lost. A Keamy minimate.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Uncanny X-Men Box Set

The problem I have with the Minimate Box sets is that too often I'll only want one or two of the figures, which means I have problems paying $15 for the set. Especially if like this sucker, it's a SDCC exclusive. I wanted this set for Jubilee and Bishop, but it wasn't until I was at a toy show where I could haggle the price down from $10 to $8 that I picked it up. Thank you toy show.

First up is Battle-Ravaged Wolverine and Asteroid M Magneto. Battle Ravaged because there's already a couple figures named Battle-Damaged Wolverine. Meh. Then there's Asteroid M Magneto wearing a what is a very un-intimidating costume from the 80's. Which makes sense, that was the emasculating era of Alan Alda talk about our feelings manliness. Or so I hear, I was 5. This is from Magneto's short lived period of being a good guy when he lead the New Warriors and joined the X-men after helping them out during the Secret Wars, when the Beyonder kept lumping him together with the heroes. It's a bad 80's costume design and should never have been made into a figure. Seriously, just give me another X-men.



Yay, 90's Bishop and Jubilee. Also known as the iconic looks of these characters because everyone stopped reading comic books in the 90's when it imploded on its own hubris... Or something like that. There's been a Bishop figure before, but it was the 2000's Bishop, when Bishop became boring and Marvel had to keep trying to revitalize him because he had been in the present too long to be the "Guy from the distopian future that is stuck in the past." So 90's Bishop is a welcome addition. Although considering we've gotten X-Force Cable and this 90's Bishop, that old Cable/Bishop 2-pack is looking mighty sad.

Also, we get our first Jubilee minimate, and yay, because Jubilee is awesome.



Oh, and they did the thing where they printed Jubilee's non-sunglasses face on the back of her head so you can turn it around.



I dunno, why give the Asian character an Anime face? Is that a comment? It feels like a comment on something.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Box Set


In order these guys are: Chef Demassi, Architect, Black Slime Monster, Azetlor. As you might guess from the name of the box set, these guys are ghosts from the Ghostbusters video game. They were originally supposed to be an exclusive with the collector's Slimer edition of the Ghostbuster video game, but then they dropped it. Then it was an Amazon exclusive. But I picked it up at a toy show for a good deal.

$5.

FUCK YES! I've been meaning to get more ghosts for the Ghostbusters, but I never felt it was worth it to pay $7 to get a ghost and another Ghostbuster minimate. Thanks, I've got the four, I don't need them again in new outfits I don't give a crap about. So this set, this set is awesome.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Dinosorb


From the Grayskull Wiki:

"Meteorbs were originally a Japanese toyline of transforming eggs from Bandai called Tamagoras (タマゴラス) and were released in the USA by Mattel as part of the Masters of the Universe toyline."

I've been looking for one of these all year, trying to indulge some childhood nostalgia. As a kid I had Dinosorb, who turned into a dinosaur and Tuskor, the wooly mamoth. Then today a friend of mine gave me his old Transformers from the garage he was cleaning out and in the middle of it I found this guy!

Hooray! Nostalgia accomplished! Of course the original was purple, not gray, but I'm good with this. I don't know if this is one of the Japanese toyline or not, but I don't care.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Ghostbusters II: "We're Back" Set

Like most young men of my generation, and all generations hence, I love me some Ghostbusters. But damned if the Ghostbuster toys coming out of Matty Collector were way to expensive. Which is why I was pretty much focusing on minimate Ghostbusters, but then Toy R Us put out this 4 pack featuring the boys in their Ghostbusters II outfits and a purchase was made.


I gotta say, out of all the likenesses, Egon's was the best. Technically Slimer's was the best, but of the humans, Egon's was most on target. Unfortunately on mine the Glasses are a bit skewed, and it's difficult to get them in the proper place. Egon is also the one with the most accessories, since he's the one packaged with the Ghost Trap.

The four are also packaged with Santa hats. There are actually 2 types of this set out there. One where the hats are already placed on their heads, and one where they are not. Slimer is placed in the packaging differently in both, but the contents of the boxes remain the same. If you can find it, and you want the hats on, get the one where they come with them on already. It's a bitch to get it on some of their heads. Winston's the easiest. Again, it's a pretty good likeness.

With Peter we're getting into tricky territory. The likeness isn't as great, the feet do that weird Mattel feet bend thing, and the hat is a bitch to fit on. (It's hardest on Egon.) Peter looks vaguely like Bill Murray, you can kind of see the similarities, but it's not anywhere near a dead on simulation. Also, I've posed Peter with Wonder Woman to show that these figures are clearly in the Movie Masters scale of the Mattel 6 inch line, which is a wee bit shorter than the DCUC figures.

And then there was Ray. Poor, poor Ray. It looks the sculptor really hates Dan Aykroyd. That's the only reason I can think of for why Ray looks like he's missing a jaw.
Also Slimer, which you saw in the background of the Egon figure. For $60 it's nice to have some larger Ghostbuster figures, but on the whole, I wish they could have all been the same quality as the Egon and Winston figures.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Martha Jones


It's Martha Jones, the Companion from the 3rd Season of Doctor Who. So of course they made a figure of her, and it turns out to be a pretty good one. The outfit they picked is pretty iconic (although to make it look glossy they painted it in a way that feels sticky to the touch, as if it's still half-wet. I swear I'm making finger print impressions every time I touch it and I'm afraid it'll smear or rub off if I'm not delicate.)

I picked Martha up to add some variety to the "Good Guy" shelf of my Doctor Who figures. I'm quite pleased with the figure, although I notice all the companion figures seem to feature this bland non-chalant expression, like they're a little bored.

One thing I like about the sculpt of her wide bottom jeans is that they result in a larger "foot" that serves to balance the figure more when standing up.

I'm really loving the articulation on the Doctor Who figures. If they had ball-jointed shoulders they would be about perfect.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Vashta Narada

Forget the name of this blog folks. I didn't buy this toy. I got this for my birthday from Mario. Considering my birthday was 3 months ago, I really should have gotten to writing about this earlier. But you know what, that didn't happen.

Clearly.

Hmmm, this is kind of becoming a Doctor Who week. Another one. Screw it, I love Doctor Who.
But hey, it's a toy based on corpse in a hazmat suit being controlled by spores that look exactly like shadows. A corpse that was stripped to the bone and eaten by those same spores. Doctor Who, folks. A kids show. Cheery! Let's see Disney make something like that... oh wait, they probably did. They were much darker back in the 60's and 70's.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Cyberwoman


Lord, I can't believe I own a Torchwood toy. Yes, I have a Captain Jack Harkness figure, but that's from the Doctor Who line. This is from a completely seperate company (kinda. Different in the UK, in the US it's distributed by the same company that does the Doctor Who stuff.)

I'm not a fan of Torchwood, but they did a godawful episode that sort of involved Cybermen, and then they made a toy of the half-naked, half-converted Cybercharacter... and I'm a big Cyberman fan and want to collect as many of the 5-inch Cyber figures they make so... I bit the bullet.



Man, this makes the line-up look weird. I've got a Cybermen army lined up and in the middle of them all, a half-naked Cyberwoman. It's like someone is doing a Crossplay swimsuit calendar. Sheesh.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Sea Devil



The Sea Devils are one of those Classic Doctor Who monsters that became iconic despite only appearing twice, and even then with about 10 years in between appearances. This toy is based on their first appearance when they wore netting. In their second appearance they wore samurai armor. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense why.

Considering this toy is based on the limited monster design of the early 70's, it looks pretty spot on. It really conveys the cheap rubber mask look from the serial. (Which was about prehistoric creatures, cousins to the previous season's prehistoric creature the Silurians, who woke up after sea mine testing reactivated their cryogenic stasis pods. The Sea Devils decided they wanted their planet back from the monkeys that had taken over, and so teamed up with the Master. Because that year all the bad guys teamed up with the Master. Seriously.)

And since I'm trying to build a collection of what I consider to be iconic Doctor Who monsters, I knew I'd eventually need this dude.

He comes with the middle torso piece of the K-1 Robot, which is good since I've only got the top and bottom torso pieces. So now I can connect the three of them into a no-head, no-limbs, torso-only robot freak.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Dalek Drone


When the last series of Doctor Who aired and they introduced the new Dalek design, in five brigh colors, I said to myself, man, they're really pushing for new toys.

And I was right!

This dude was the easiest one to get. It's larger than any other Dalek toy in this scale, but something about it looks wrong. It juts out too much in the back whereas Daleks in the past usually jutted out to the front. As a race that always moves forward and doesn't retreat, that makes sense. But going after years of traditional design, it's very jarring. The Dalek looks like it's hunched over.

This guy is red. I've never had a red Dalek before, and I kind of like it. (I never got the Dalek Supremem when that was easy to find.) I told myself I'd wait until I got this one before I decided if I'd try to get my hands on the other colors. And now that I've got one in my hands... I think I'll pass. The design still freaks me out and the paint is kinda poor quality on the base.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Toy Show Purchases

I went to a toy show in San Jose. While I was there I saw this.



It cost $45 so I did not buy it, but here is what I did buy.

3 Farscape figures. Even though I love Farscape, I never bought the toys because they had horrible articulation and spotty actor likenesses. But then I went to this toy show and found a bunch of Farscape figures at $2 each. I picked up these three after negotiating a 3 for $5 deal. These will actually be the first action figures I've ever purchased with the intention of never opening. I'm going to use them as wall decorations, which is why I'm listing them here instead of giving them a proper entry all to themselves.
Next up is a Lego Advent calendar from 2004. The guy selling this was desperate to unload it once the show was over, so I was able to talk him down to $8. Which is really the best deal ever. Seriously, I just checked, this thing goes for $100 on Amazon and is going for $26 on ebay with 4 days left to bid and $14 shipping. Original price: $15. The dude had no idea about Legos. And I had to explain to him what an advent calendar is. So it's not surprising that he didn't care. Now unfortunately we're already pretty far into December for me to start doing entries on this, so I think I'll save it for another month. We'll do some Advent Calendar entries in January or July or something like that.

This is something I picked up for $1. According to the printing on the bottom this is copyrighted to Harvey Comics, which means this is from a Casper toy line.
I also picked up a few minimates at some good prices, so I'll go over those in future entries.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Imperial Speeder Bike


Yeah, clearly not the cool Speeder bike Lego set, this is the $4 gimp version they sell with a figure in a poly-bag as an impulse item at Toys R' Us. I got it because of the Storm Trooper minifigure and because I was sort of impressed by the tiny speeder bike. If you think of it as like a Speeder Vespa, it sort of works in a hilarious, oh the Empire is so nice letting its little brother play too, kind of way.

So, was it worth it? For $4? No. $3, maybe. The Storm Trooper minifigure is pretty cool.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Doctor Who ebay Lot: The Doubles



These are the figures that I got in the ebay auction but already had. Since I have already reviewed them in this blog, I figured I'd just lump them all together. You've got Professor Yana (and if you'll remember I got him in an ebay auction right before I won this large lot, so hey, money wasted), Jack Harkness, Davros, a Dalek from "Death to the Daleks", a Cyberman from "Tomb of the Cybermen (of which I already have two), and a Dalek that came with the first Doctor.

Okay, so the Daleks and the Cyberman I'm cool with having extras to army build. Those guys thrive on uniformity. But Two Jack Harknesses? (Is that the proper plural?) Two Yanas? I'm probably going to give Davros to Mario for Christmas. I dunno. I gotta find a really big Yana fan. I'm pretty sure there are big Jack Harkness fans out there.

New Widget

So yeah, we're pretty much slowly increasing how much we copy Mario's Blog by adding the "If you like this article you might also like" widget at the end of each post. Yay progress.