R.I.P. CounterFett

As announced by his wife, CounterFett, one of the co-hosts of that toy podcast I did like 12 years ago, has passed away. This is shocking and sad all at once. I have no words to express how sad I am, so instead I will say that he was a friend, a great guy, and my life was better for having known him.

Ravishing Rick Rude

So here’s something interesting, the pair of legs for the build-a-figure that comes with this figure has almost as many points of articulation than the figure itself. The legs, with their double jointed knees, have ten points of articulation to Rick’s 15. I’ve wanted a Rick Rude figure for a while to indulge in some old school wrestling nostalgia, and $5 clearance was the right price. But if I’m being honest, the thing that sold me were the legs. I want to build a Howard Finkel figure, because holy crap they made a Howard Finkel figure.

Spider-Ham

Spider-Ham, the spider that was bitten by a radioactive pig. In a universe where all people are sentient animal cartoon characters, May Porker is a super genius pig who built a radioactive hairdryer that put her in a radioactive daze, whereupon she bit a spider, transferring both her pig genes and super genius but leaving his spider-abilities. Now pretending to be her beloved nephew,
Peter Porker secretly fights crime as Spider-Ham against villains like Ducktor Doom and I only ever read one issue so I don’t know. Anyway, Spider-Ham was a barely remembered children’s comic from the 80s trotted out for nostalgia cameos until the Spider-verse story brought him into the mainstream and our current love for whimsy made him a star! He’s made numerous appearances in the current Spider-man cartoon and is going to appear in the new animated movie voiced by stand-up colossus John Mulaney.

And his Marvel Legend figure sucks! Above the waist he has typical Marvel Legend articulation but everything below the waist is a solid piece of plastic. I would have passed this figure up entirely but he comes with a Pig Venom head to make Pork Grind, his comics version of Venom. I assumed it was meant to go on the Monster Venom Build-A-Figure piece, but it didn’t fit. And it didn’t fit the Spider-ham figure... but it did fit the regular Venom figure... which already had an alternate head. It’s fine, Pork Grind is meant to be a lot bigger than Spider-ham, but I kinda wanted super-oversized Pig Venom.

My Life As... Vending Machine & Karaoke Machine

I might be in dangerous waters. Today while I was wandering around Wal-Mart, contemplating if I should get the new Harry Potter 12 inch fashion dolls that aren’t Barbie, but it’s Mattel so it’s totally Barbie, I saw the pallet of new stock boxes and looked through it. There’s some talking plush toy called “Fake News” which I’m super worried is a plush Donald Trump... but also: My Life As Vending Machine.

As far as I know, My Life As is Wal-Marts discount version of American Girls. But whereas I completely ignored American Girls, the complex and mundane accessories they put out for My Life As always intrigued me. Like their Washer & Dryer set that actually tumbled clothes. Or their fully functional water fountain. And since I love me some toy vending machines, I asked a store associate if I could get this.... also the box labeled Karaoke Machine...

I haven’t opened it, but by trying out the electronics and looking at the box description, this is a fully functioning vending machine. You have to put in the right amount of toy coins and it will bend your desired product that you stock the machine with. So holy crap, that’s some great role playing potential right there! You know you’ve always sorta wanted to stock a vending machine to see what it was like. Maybe put the wrong can in the wrong spot and watch the hijinks. Pretty good value for $30.

Oh, and the karaoke machine... oh god. It connects to any Bluetooth device and the microphone really works, which means this isn’t a toy karaoke machine, it’s and actual karaoke machine that they just made in miniature. 

I think I love these. And since these are coming out a bunch of the other accessories are on clearance! I might go all in on this line... for my niece... when she gets old enough... She can come over and play with them... I should buy her one of the dolls. I wonder if they come in Asian.

Mister Miracle

I’m not supposed to buy a toy of an alien escape artist who prefers living in Earth’s suburbs when his accessory is a rig he has to escape from while suspended upside down?

C3-PO

Now with standing there passively action!

So I'm at a Walgreens and I'm browsing their anticipatory engorged holiday toy aisle, and I see these 6 inch Star Wars figures for $6.99. These look pretty similar to the Star Wars Black Line, but with less packaging, no accessories, and as far as I can tell almost no articulation. They're basically those 12-inch Titan figures that they sell for $10 but shrunk down to a 6 inch scale.

And that's really what they are. I've opened this guy up and he has 4 points of articulation: ball joint head, cut shoulders and a mid-torso swivel. But considering the $20 Star Was Black C3-PO wasn't a wealth of articulation, I'm down for this. 

I also picked up the Captain Phasma and her gun is permanently affixed to her hand. She has 5 points of articulation: ball joint head, cut shoulders, cut wrist on her gun hand, cut torso. Oh, but bonus, they're buy 2 get 1 free. So I also picked up the First Order Storm Trooper who I have not opened byt based on his welded gun hand, I'm guessing also has 5 points of articulation. For $14, 3 in scale figures of characters I wasn't going to do a lot of posing with anyway is in my mind a great deal. If any stores had more than one set of these guys, it might have been a great way to build a First Order army.

There were also some DC heroes, Marvel heroes and static transformers in this scale. They all sucked. But for some reason the Star Wars figures look very close to the Star Wars Black figures. Go figure.

Jessica Jones

I'm fairly amused that they made a action figure of Netflix's Jessica Jones since the character is just wearing normal clothes so really, it doubles as a Krysten Ritter action figure.

It's a decent figure, but I really can't wait for Marvel Legends female figures to get double jointed elbows like the male figures. And I really like that the leather jacket is made from a thing flexible plastic that doesn't inhibit any movement or poses. No accessories, but what would it have? A broken door?

And as a bonus, the Man-Thing BAF torso can accommodate the Hulk BAF arms from the Thor Ragnarok wave! Now I don't feel like those arms are wasted and I don't have to get a Punisher or Bullaeye figure I don't want. If I complete Man-Thing I can just pretend he did a lot of arm work and wants to show off his muscles so he shaved his arms.