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.

Crankstart and Galvatron

I decided to give the Kre-O transformer minifigs another chance, mostly because there was a two for one sale and Galvatron sort of impressed me when I read other people's look at the figure. I had hopes that Crankstart, who turns into a four wheeled vehicle, would look a lot better than the other minifigures.

Sadly I was wrong. He looks exactly as I feared, a figure tipped on its side. Just one that has wheels attached to his feet.

Meanwhile Galvatron was actually pretty good. And best of all, his transformation was more than just disassembling him and reassembling him in a different way. He actually sort of transformed without removing that many parts. And best of all, he doesn't look like someone just tipped him on his side.

And they did a damn good job with his robot mode. A friend happened to see it and could recognize him immediately.

Kyle Rayner & Kilowog (SDCC 2012 exclusive)

Having never been to a comic convention, I've long missed out on the con exclusive game. But luckily since college I've made friends who do attend such gatherings, and so for the last two years my friend Kelly has been able to pick up exclusive toys being offered at San Diego Comic Con for me. Last year she grabbed the Hasbro Indiana Jones six-figure set (I'm still rightfully apologizing for her having to carry a three foot-long box through the packed con floor), and this July she was able to snag the first DC Collectibles (formerly DC Direct) Green Lantern 3 3/4"-scale two-pack.

Well, the snagging was a little more difficult than it should've been. See, the deal behind this series of non-retail two-packs is that DC intends them to be exclusive to certain big-time conventions (the second set containing John Stewart and Atrocitus was exclusive to the recent New York Comic Con, for instance). The company further stated that the line wouldn't progress beyond the first two-pack if it didn't sell out at SDCC. Apparently DC anticipated astronomical demand, as it instituted a complicated voucher system to ensure people didn't buy too many, as they had done with DC Direct's multi-colored Hal Jordan figures a while ago. How complicated, you ask? So complicated that Kelly wasn't able to buy a set for me until the last day. And so complicated that when she went to the booth to see if she could finally give them money for something they want to sell, there were still huge piles of the set left over. Unsurprisingly, at that point scoring one wasn't all that difficult.

Despite the logistical foul-up that resulted in heaps of unpurchased Kyle Rayner/Kilowog sets, it seems sales were decent enough to warrant continuing the line. Anyway, I wasn't able to pick up my set from Kelly and pay her back until last month, and I haven't been able to write up my review until now, but I gots things to say about this pair of Lanterns and I hope you don't mind hearing about them.

AMP Episode 55: Castle Graysuck

After last week's technical problems, episode 55 is now here. AJ and Mario have technical problems of their own but they join in about halfway through.



Obviously we spend some time talking about Mattel's Castle Grayskull preorder, since it allows us to mock Mattel a little more.