Decapitron

So Decapitron is from the Puppet Master horror movies. His name isn't a reference to him decapitating people, it's a reference to his ability to swap out his heads. All the Puppets in the Puppet Master movies have the soul of a person the Puppet Master originally knew, and Decapitron, introduced in Puppet Master 4, is one of the most powerful because it houses the soul of Andre Toulon, the creator of the puppets.

Decapitron comes with three heads, because that's what he had in the movies. In the package he's got the head of the Puppet Master himself, Andre Toulon. The other heads are a robot head that allows Decapitron to shoot electric bolts at people and a blank "off-mode" head. I think. I only saw 20 minutes of Puppet Master 4.

The first thing I checked on Decapitron was the joints. Cut joint wrists were the first disappointment. The Cut neck joint was kind of disappointing too, but more common on this scale. Although once I began to play with the interchangable heads, the cut neck made sense. At first I thought the shoulder joints were cut joints, but after playing with it for a second I realized that it was actually the jacket restricting the joint movement. A little rejiggering revealed a more typical ball joint.

As for the interchangable heads. Unlike other 1:6 scale heads, where you're meant to pull them of a peg, these ones have a weird tab system. Well, look.

Oh, and incidentally, this is one of the smaller 1:6 scale figures out there. Here's what it looks like compared to a sideshow clone trooper.

AMP Ep 62: Titles? Something about 2012

Ep 62 of the Articulated Monster Podcast is up. It ends up being some sort of 2012 year in review, with AJ hosting a segment about the best and worst toys of 2012 when we look at the OAFE list.

AMP Ep 61: 2 Years in the Making

People get sick and then they record short intro to their podcast like we did this week. I just put together some of our old conversations that got cut. They're all from a couple years ago, before I stopped caring and just put our entire conversation up.

Longshot and Dazzler

Hey look, everyone, it's Longshot and Dazzler. From the 80's. Back when I didn't read comic books!

.....

......

The Queen

It's a Lego version of the Queen of England if she were an anthropomorphic car.

Eat that Kafka!

I'm not paying $60 for the entire set that the Queen comes from to shove it in Franz Kafka's face, fortunately it turns out eBay hates German writers too.

Toxic Avenger

Oh, Shocker Toys. The only toy company that makes Mattel look on the ball. And They were totally going to make block-style minifigures... and they kinda came out but no one noticed, probably because no one ever saw them in stores.

But give Shocker credit, they know that to get attention you need to actually have product available at comiccon. Hence they actually create a Toxic Crusader minifiure for Comiccon. And it came with real accessories! A mop! A barrel that's supposedly full of toxic waste!

Hey, who remembers seeing the non Comiccon variant in stores? Or anywhere? Anyone?

Yeah.

I got one through BBTS. Because I love the Troma ethic and well-articulated minifigs. Incidentally, Shocker sold the Indie Spotlight license to another company, which is desperately trying to get public sourcing for it. Previous attempts have failed... failed spectacularly. (Incidentally, don't pledge. Unlike Kickstarter, the sites being used recently automatically charge regardless of whether goals are met. They keep your money even if their goal isn't met and they can't produce anything.)

AMP Episode 60: Mario Large and in Charge

Episode 60 of the Articulated Monster Podcast. Mario hosted.

'Nuff Said!

Green Lantern (Lego)

Oh Galidor, what have you wrought. These Giant Superhero Legos are a mix of the worst parts of Galidor and Bionical to create what are essentially non-magentic versions of magnetix action figures with disturbingly normal heads. It's like someone cut off Hal Jordan's head and put it on a crude robot body.

Wait, that would make an awesome story line.

But this is not that story line, it's just a really lame mech thing.

I got this as a birthday gift though, so at least I know I was able to experience this because someone else bought it for me.

Kraaaaaaaaaang!

So the weird thing about the Kra'ang figure is that it's a weird plastic mask piece that goes over a minifigure head. It's not even its own minifigure head. I do bot understand that decision. At all.

But then again, I'm not a Norwegian toy designer.

Oh yeah, these

I found the TMNT Legos at Toys R Us this weekend. I keep forgetting that any Nickelodeon property is fodder for Legos.... Clarissa Explains it All Lego Friends sets, people. Make it happen.

Actually, even if there were no turtles, I might pick up the set for a Giant Alien brain driving a space ship.

Using the Hudson filter

Get it?

NYCC Alpha Flight Box Set 2

Only available at NYCC or exclusive online retailer, if you want to complete your Alpha Flight minimate collection you need this. What's Alpha Flight without Sasquatch, Essentially the Hulk if he was Canadian and turned into a cryptozoological creature? Also, possibly magic. And Snowbird the goddess of nature in the great white north and Shaman who... Okay, clearly this is the set filled with the Canadian Stereotypes. I'm shocked they didn't include a Mountie (aka Captain Canuck, he joined Alpha Flight in the early 2000's)

Instead they included the French Canadian who has MPD and spends half her time as a nun. The other half is a slutty femme fatale anti-hero. Is that a Canadian stereotype? I'm not well versed in French Canadian depictions. She comes with a special alternate hand though, to simulate when she used to hold hands with her twin brother in order to make their superpowers go into overdrive. It's kinda sweet.

X-23 and Felicia

I don't really go to comic book stores as often as I used to. And certainly not any that regularly carry the minimates I'm looking for. So to get the comic shop exclusives of X-23 and Felicia, I had to order online and ignore the She-Hulk/Chun Li set since I already own enough minimates of those figures.

And this is all about Felicia (although X-23 is a pretty good minimate too. KNIFE FEET!) She's another of the cancelled Street Fighter figures from a decade ago. And now that she's out I'm a little depressed that I have a minimate of a catgirl. It seems so Otakuish. And that's not even a real word..

Zangief vs. Marduk

Don't know who Marduk is, don't care. But Zangief... If not for Zangief, who will crush man's skull in thighs? He's a man Determined to show the strength of Russia through the power of grappling and wrestling, even though he's fighting people who can shoot fireballs out of their hands. He is Zangief!

AMP Episode 59: Mario's Comfort Zone

New episode of the podcast is up a lot of rambling and then we try to get Mario to talk continuously about potential Star Wars spin-offs for a whole minute. We might have to make that a regular segment.

Johann Sebastian Joust

I've tried not to do this kind of thing, but screw it:

Johann Sebastian Joust is a game that uses Playstation Move controllers, but is played without ever looking at a screen. In fact right now it's only available as an early test build that's only able to run on a Macintosh. The idea is that each player holds a move controller. You have to get the other players to move their controller beyond the acceptable threshold (determined by the pace of the music) while keeping your controller as safe as possible. Last player standing wins.



Go and fund the kickstarter to get this game made on PSN, Mac and PC. (It's packaged with other games with equally unique premises). If you don't have a PS3, you can fund it at a level where they give you the controllers. PSN has agreed that funding this game essentially counts as a preorder if the funding is successful. They're being very generous considering the developers are essentially making a game that must use Playstation controllers but can be played on non-Playstation systems.

But go fund the game so they can make copies and I can finally play this game.

2012 Birthday Haul

I've finally received all my birthday presents (thank you to all my generous friends), so here's a brief rundown of all the toys I got as gifts this year.

My present from Mario was a Gremlins 2 Gizmo. Who doesn't love Gizmo? People who hate joy, that's who. This version is a completely new sculpt that shares no pieces with NECA's first Gizmo from a few years back. The stumpy little guy boasts a surprising amount of articulation -- up to and including his ears and even his eyes, which can be moved via a dial on the back of his head -- though naturally the shape of his body restricts the poses he can be put in. Additionally, the eyes have a tendency to shift out of place, so if you want to set Gizmo's gaze into a certain position, make sure to keep the tab that comes inserted in the dial when the figure is sealed in the packaging. Said tab secures the placement of the eyes and is easy to remove and reinsert. In any event, Gizmo is as adorable as can be -- everyone should own at least one Mogwai!

James gave me two figures, the first of which was Grapple Blast Black Widow. Given my collection of Marvel movie action figures is focused on the 6" scale, I've refrained from buying any 4" Avengers toys up to this point, though I have considered picking up that new 8-pack featuring all the characters. Well, now that I have the best figure from that line, obtaining the set is kind of needless now. The sculpt is really good, and unlike a lot of the 4" Avengers, Black Widow suffers from almost no budget-induced articulation cuts (the lack of a waist joint is the most glaring omission). Due to the way one of her pistols was shoved into her hand in the packaging, my Black Widow is perpetually wagging her finger at naughty supervillains. Sounds like something a Russian would do.

James said his intention in giving me a Golden Age Atom was to get me a DC Universe Classics offering that he knew I wouldn't buy myself. His judgement was astute: the original Atom is one of the few JSA characters I care absolutely nothing for, and the implementation of typical lazy Mattel reuse (his shirt is painted on, for chrissakes!) made him a very unappealing purchase at retail price. Having him in hand, I must say he's pretty fun to play around with, as many Mattel 6" DC figures are. But then every one in a while I look at it and remember that his shirt is painted on and that the company decided to approximate the character's Rudy-like short stature by merely producing him on a regular-sized body with slightly-shorter shin pieces, and then I feel really bad that the Four Horsemen's talents has been so wasted on this line. But yeah, this Atom ain't too bad after all. Still wouldn't have bought it myself, but that's what friends are for, right?

Man Bat

Hey everyone, it's Kirk Langstrom, better known as Man-Bat! He turned himself into a giant mutant bat! That's the perfect bad guy for a man with no powers but who calls himself Batman. It's like how Zorro fights werewolves all the time.

This is the minimate of Man Bat from the hard to find second wave of the C3 series of Minimates. They  came with vehicles because it was the only way to get license back then, and since I didn't want to also pay for another Batman with a Batcycle, I couldn't get this guy when he first came out. Now I have him, and really, would you think that he's from the Batman minimate line if you didn't know? He's far more fitting for the Battle Beast minimates line.

Oh look at what I fiund on Black Friday

So does a Megabloks Pandarian count as a "Toys depicting Asians" contender?

AMP Episode 58: Black Friday

New ep is late, but it is up. Mostly we talk about news and Black Friday.


 

Crayon Rings

Seen at Target. If you feel comfortable carving wax then instant Green Lantern accessories.

Beta-Ray Bill

Somewhere, there are people demanding more toys of anthropomorphic space horses. I am one of those people. So good thing they made a Marvel Universe Beta-Ray Bill figure. For all the 4 inches of space horse alien goodness a person can handle. Because space horse. Now with removable cape.

Beta-Ray Bill, proving that Norse mythology would have been better with space aliens.

Batman Fingerboard

Fingerboards are silly. But you know what can make them less silly? Nothing.

But if you put Batman on one it becomes a kind of silly I'd be willing to buy a happy meal to get. Particularly if its Young Justice Batman. Now, I haven't watched much of the show, but what I've seen has made Batman look awesome, primarily by not being told from the point of view of Batman but instead of people who are in awe of Batman.

Chitauri General and Chitauri Footsoldier

I got these a while ago when GoHastings sent me the wrong set. I ordered the variant with Maria Hill. But when I called to complain they cancelled the order, refunded my money and told me to keep these. I would have rather they somehow sent me the thing I ordered instead, but what can I do against the regional monolith that is GoHastings?

I can write a blog post that a dozen people will see is what.

So I guess my dreams of owning a Maria Hill minimate are dashed.

The screwed up part is that I never wanted either of these figures and will probably never open this pack unless I need base parts to cannibalize.

Robocop and Figma

Everybody went and got the Figma Metroid figure, so I wanted to play too. But I don't really care about Samus, so I went and got Figma Robocop instead. Let's see if I enjoy these "rather expensive for a 5 inch figure" toys.

Out of the box and it's pretty neat. a little flimsier than I would have expected, but otherwise good. I really love the posability of the figure and its sturdy enough not to need its figure-stand. On the downside, I have trouble getting some of the accessories to stick properly and I don't even want to try messing with the figure to put in the alternate leg pieces. I can't find the steams or figure out the proper way to pop the thigh parts off. I worry I'm going to break it. Otherwise I kinda like this.

But, I'm interested in what you can do with this scale, so I picked up one of the Figma Ride vehicles. In this case an amusement park Bear Car. How does Robocop look on it.

Hmm... Not perfectly to scale, but close enough. What about some other 5 inch figures?

Huh. So that's a thing.

The Dynamic Duo Funhouse Escape

Ever since I got back into Legos, I've wanted a Lego Riddler. Alas, I had to wait for the return of Batman Legos this year to get one. And then they only released the Riddler as part of this overly large Lego set. I saw it at Toys R Us for $50, mocking me, because even though I wanted all the minifigures, I wasn't paying $50 for it. Of course that's all due to Toys R Us markup, at the actual Lego store you can get this set for $40. Sold.

There's a batcycle made from technic pieces and a carnival set. Actually the carnival set is pretty cool. You get an on-rails rollercoaster cart and many of the parts are designed for play value. There's trap doors that open up, a giant swinging mallet that will knock characters over (and even knock them into the roller coaster cart), and there's a winch to lower any hostages into the fish barrel. There's even a spare Riddler head to be used in one of the Carnival Games. For $40, this is a pretty good set.

Also, as mentioned, awesome minifigs. You get Joker, Riddler, Harley, Batman, Robin...

... heck, you even get exclusive minifigures of Thomas and Martha Wayne!

Or maybe I'm just making crap up at this point.

Election Day

It's election day. I'd ask you to vote, but if you'd vote for whoever I don't want to win then I'd feel like a fool. So vote, but only if you plan to vote like me. And hopefully you have some sort of telepathy, because I'm not telling you how I'm voting.

Balance Beam

I was so happy to find someone that still had this set in stock. I've been looking for this ever since I found out about it. I grew up around family really into gymnastics, so I remember watching a lot of balance beam as a kid.

Of course the use of a ball and hoop means this set can be used for a rhythmic gymnastics set. I also love that the balance beam is designed so that figures can stand on their hands. Suddenly you can make figures tumble. Awesome.

AMP Episode 57: Star Wars

There wasn't any interesting toy news this week, so instead on the Articulated Monster Podcast, we talk about Disney buying Star Wars. And my friend Aya joins us. Even though it's about Star Wars, Mario maintains his average word count per episode. I almost called this episode "Mario Doesn't Talk About Star Wars" as a joke.

 

Gymnast with Pommel Horse

I love the Olympic Playmobil figures. Sure they might be called "Sports" figures, but let's face it, they're all Summer Olympic sports. I particularly love the accessories that they come with, since it means I can pick up some sports accessories for all the Playmobil figures I have. So the Gymnast's Pommel horse can suddenly become the Pommel horse for a Civil War General!

Daredevil and the Sin Eater

Can I just say that the Sin Eater has the most underwhelming supervillain costume ever. I know that Batman has a bunch of supervillains that have no powers, but a guy running around with a ski mask and a shotgun doesn't get to call himself a supervillain. Even if he is being hunted by Spider-man and Daredevil. Although I actually don't know anything about the Sin Eater. And I really don't need another Daredevil minimate. But I had to get this set to get the Aunt May variant, so here we are.

And yes I opened it anyway.

Samurai and Union Officer

This is not a set. It's two figures I recently picked up from the playmobil website. The Samurai has the upturned, squinty Asian eyes, but I can't get mad because of how much I love the details on the samurai armor.

Meanwhile the Union Officer has a funny mustache. Historical facial hair is always great.

There's just something about the way Playmobil does figures from history that tickles me in the right place. Now if they'd just do some figures from less violent professions, I'd be super thrilled.

Vindicator and Box

Since I'm trying to collect a good Alpha Flight minimate team I decided to go out and get the Toys R Us exclusive set of Vindicator and Box. Vindicator is the female version of Guardian, which makes sense since she's his wife. Heather Hudson took over the role when everyone thought James Hudson died. She became the leader of alpha Flight and got engaged to another Canadian hero, Madison Jeffries.

Jeffries was a support character to Alpha Flight until a bunch of weird crap happened (Madison's insane brother who had the power to manipulate flesh the way Jeffries could manipulate metal, plastic, glass, etc, manipulated then merged with the original operator of the Box armor) and Jeffries was forced to take over the Box armor. Considering his powers, Jeffries was able to reshape the armor into anything he wanted, and helped him move from the third tier Gamma Flight to the first tier Alpha Flight team. During that period he got engaged to Heather Hudson until it was revealed that her husband was actually alive. After that he got married, was brainwashed into helping various villains commit genocide against mutants, and then was rescued and became a member of X-Club, the X-men's super-science team. Damn that was a lot to type out.

Both figures come with a few accessories, including hair and an alternate visor for Vindicator and an alternate hand for Box. Box also has a head underneath his armor, showing the form Madison has when he's merged with the armor.

AMP Ep. 56: Shire Sausage

Episode 56 if the Articulated Monster is up. My friend Aya joins us as we talk about the Denny's Hobbit Menu.

Kung-fu guy

Hai-ya!

Continuing my ongoing quest to get action figures of Asian people, I ended up getting the Series 3 Playmobil figure of this Asian dude. Playmobil figures don't really have names, so I'm calling this dude Asian Kung-Fu Guy.

I know I like to ironically collect unintentionally racist action figures of Asian people, (I'm Asian, I'm sensitive to this kind of thing, especially when the toy manufacturer is from Europe) but this guy is even more racist than I usually expect. He's not just a martial artist. He doesn't just have the slanted eyes that all Playmobil figures of Asian people have. He's got a fu-manchu mustache. Oh, and angry eyebrows so you know his fu-manchu-stache means he's evil.

Which is funny, because if the television show "Kung-Fu" with David Carradine taught me anything, it's that the practitioners of Kung-Fu are supposed to be peaceful people. Oh wait, I didn't see the dragon on his clothes. He's clearly evil.

I don't really think this guy is all that racist. But then I look at the mustache and I don't know. I just don't know.