Buyer's remorse, This weekend In buying toys edition

Spent way too much on costume accessories this week at Target, but that's a blog I gave up a while ago. But toys...

 

Picked up a Hot Wheels car of a rocket powered school bus, which is an odd way to power a school bus, and speaks to a growing trend toward fantasy that I'm not entirely comfortable with for Hot Wheels, but I suppose that's what they use the Matchbox line for. Meanwhile, I wanted a Hot Wheels school bus.

Also picked up a Walking Dead minimate pack because it has a good minimate zombie and a comicbook version of the Governor with bonus eyepatch head. Mostly for the minimate zombie.

Then theres a TMNT lego polybag set which I only picked up for the minifigure with a krang image printed on the torso, simulating the awesome giant alien brain in a robot body torso idea.

 

Also got a Daphne minifigure because some asshole opened all the blind bags so I could look inside them and find the ones I wanted. Kinda mixed feelings on this. On the one hand I got what I wanted, on the other hand this is just a huge dick move. If I saw whoever did this I wonder if I would have yelled at the person doing it, adult or kid. I told a store clerk... And they just walked away and I later saw them working an empty cash register. (The box holding the blind packs had been moved to another part of the store too, so they weren't even near the other Scooby Doo building sets.)

 I also picked up the Voodoo Man becuase he's actually the Freak of Crystal Cove from the recent Mystery Inc. series. In that continuity he's actually Fred Jones' father and town mayor who in realitty kidnapped an infant Fred Jones from his real mystery solving parents in order to extort them into staying away from his criminal plans. In an ironic twist, Fred Jones sr learns to love his adopted son and when Fred'ss real parents return The Freak is also revealed to be a better parent and more loving than Fred's real family who are now corrupt adventurers. Man that was a good show. Anyway, they made a figure of the Freak... And then gave him a new name which makes absolutely no sense.

Of course if you check the Character Building website you realize that in the UK, where CB is located, they do things differently there. Like have all 5 members of the Mystery Inc. gang available through the blind packs. It also turns out that 7 of the monsters aren't part of the Scooby Doo line in the UK. For the US Scooby Doo Character Building release CB folded in minifigures from their Monsters vs. Zombie line, possibly to fill out the Scooby line but more likely because it was the only way to get those figures into US stores. 

Borderlands 2 Swag-filled Limited Edition Diamond Plate Loot Chest

What a long ass name for this product. Basically, it's a replica of a Loot Chest from the Borderland game filled with various Borderlands memorabilia. You've got some trading cards and a mask of a Borderlands baddie, all of which have codes that can be entered in the game to unlock those items in the game. Which is pretty cool since the drop ratio of those items in the game naturally is about 0.05%. I actually got one of the guns once, but a power failure corrupted my save file and it was lost forever.

 Other items inside the chest include wanted posters for all the Borderlands 2 playable characters (including the DLC ones, which the previous chest did not). There's also some pretty neat crumpled up newspaper pages that act as packaging materials but you quickly realize are even more bonus content, since they're actually from a newspaper written by characters in the game. Also, some window decals.

The chest itself is pretty solid. Which is good, because the cost for the whole package is $100. If this was some flimsy plastic (like the mask) I'd be pretty  pissed. But this thing could probably survive a few drops and I wouldn't mind using it as a toy chest for some collection or other.

Even cooler: the box the chest comes from simulates an in-game shipping box with additional jokes scrawled over it by various characters. It's pretty great.

Articulated Monster Podcast # 79: Other James Hosts

Hey Everyone, I got too tired to host so instead the other James hosted! I just sat back and talked about stuff.

And don't forget, you can always e-mail us articulatedmonster@yahoo.com and we'll answer your questions during the next podcast.

Sy-Klone

Big Lots cheap MOTUC figure scratches my Nostalgia itch since SyKlone is the MOTU figure I had as a kid. I wish this one had the original's action feature, but I guess his lenticular chest and cut waist joint will have to do.

Hulk, 12 inch Titan series

So, hey, you may have noticed that Hasbro has been putting out some budget 12 inch figures of some of their bigger properties. For about $10 you can get a 12 inch figure with limited articulation and many other budget features. I got a gift card to a department store and decided to pick one up to see what they're like.

I went with the Hulk because he's bigger than any of the other figures and with cut wrist joints he has 2 more joints than most of the other figures. And unlike the Star Wars clone trooper, his hand doesn't have a 6 inch rifle permanently sculpted in his hand.

The sculpting is pretty cartoony, but that's to be expected. This is basically the budget 3 inch figure blown up to 12 inches.  That means all the joints are cut joints. And almost impotent joint in the case of the hips since the articulation is impeded by the sculpted buttocks. You read that right, the sculpt of Hulk's caboose prevents the legs from moving more than a few centimeters.  Fortunately that's just enough adjustment to improve a minor balance issue, but not much more.

Oh, and to save on plastic costs, the figure is hollow. 6 inch figures feel heavier than this figure.

My other issue is one of scale. The Titan figures are slightly shorter than other 12 inch lines. Check out how Hulk, one of the bigger characters in the Marvel universe, compares to the Marvel Legends Icon version of Dr Doom who should pale in size next to the Hulk.

Final verdict: good for the price if you want something low budget for kids that play rough or just to stand up somewhere. Otherwise they're less functional than a cheap Barbie doll. I might use Hulk for a background extra if I do a diorama, but that's it. I could be convinced to use these figures to team build a 12 inch team when other figures in the line aren't appealing to me.

Penguin

Hey, it's the Penguin. Old school comic book Super Powers Penguin, before everyone tried to make him dark and gritty because of the Tim Burton vulgarity version. This Penguin was just a wannabe gentleman who had some cleer umbrella/bird/monocle gadgets. 

But I have trouble justifying buying Mattel figures for full price these days. So good thingario got me this guy for my birthday!

Lego Minifigures series 11

I'm pretty sure that these ever more frequent minifigure series are what's slowly causing my disinterest in Legos. Remember how I was super enthusiastic about Legos? That's no longer the case. And I blame the exhaustion of trying to collect the blind packed minifigures. It's not enough to find them in stock, now I've got try and figure out what's in each bag?

Instead of being happy to buy some Legos I end up being disappointed by my Lego purchases. Even if I get everything I want, the whole process is under a cloud of potential disappointment. And that process, the squeezing, the guessing, that's a tedious process that I now associate with the Lego brand.

Also, the blatant racism is kinda getting to me. The island dude has a bone in his hair? What? I don't demand historical accuracy, but I'd ideally like there to not be a reliance on stereotypes of other cultures. Hair bones should only be used with cavemen.