Toy Bender

The Masters of the Universe Classics Hordak has finally made an appearance on MattyCollector.com. He’s going to be available for order on June 15, 2009. Hordak’s accessories include a “magik” staff, a crossbow, and a bat. Price is twenty bucks.

Yep, as much as I like Hordak I’m going to have to skip this for sure. I can’t purchase a twenty dollar figure, much less one that has an eight dollar shipping fee tacked on. Hell, I can’t afford toys in the first place, but now that I’ve had a somewhat of a compulsion to purchase Marvel Universe figures and DC Universe Classics, I’d rather spend my little cash on those lines.

And no, I don’t have a problem with his “real” name. The whole fricking concept is ridiculous from the top down, so having silly names for some of the characters is pretty much par for the course.

Thanks to: Poe Ghostal

All right I know some of you have a big problem with revealing characters that will be in Transformers, but too bad. This is a blog dealing with pop culture and toys and if you want to avoid super minor spoilers you should probably stick to knitting blogs until the movie comes out. However I will respect the other part of the spoilery Jetfire stuff, so that’s after the break.

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Hey kids, it’s Friday already! My how time flies… and how it sometimes slows to a painful crawl. It’s time again for some thoughts and neat-o links. Enjoy!

Item: Wow, having a job with extremely limited internet access sucks. I’m so behind on everything! I’m hoping I can figure out a schedule so I can keep providing fantastic posts for you kids. And yeah this also affects the amount of responses I can make to comments, so if I don’t respond to you in the comments I’m really sorry.

Item: Speaking of internet access, can anyone recommend a laptop in the 500 dollar price range, preferably one that could be purchased at Best Buy?

Item: I remember when I used to put effort into posts. Poe Ghostal has been on fire these last couple of days with this one on action figure stands and this one on the top ten mail-Away figures. I fear this young upstart might be contending for the title of Best Toy Blog ever, which of course I’ve held uncontested.

Item: As long as we are on the subject of top ten lists, this is funny. It’s, “The Top Ten Ways I Want to Die.”

Item: Well, well it looks like Lando the Pimp agrees with me.

Item: As Old Man Musings points out, the registrations for hotels at the San Diego Comic con have opened. Get your room now, fool!

I know I almost never cover DC Universe Classics figures, but it’s mainly because I can’t keep up with it and I know bloggers who do it much better than I could. Still, I couldn’t help having some thoughts about Wave 9 that I’d like to share.

As much as I don’t want to like him because he’s such a J-hole, I dig Black Adam. I just want to root for him the times he’s not being a total jerk, which seems to change on the whims of the writers.

You know, black Adam is one of the few times a hero or villain in comics has had “black” in his or her name and they aren’t, you know, black race wise. I’m just saying.

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The winner of the fans choice figures top five is out and I have to say that I’m really disappointed in everyone who voted, but first here’s the list:

#1 – Archangel

#2 – Winter Soldier

#3 – Havok

#4 – Mystique

#5 – Mary Jane Watson

First of all, they were going to make Mystique, Archangel, and Winter Soldier anyway. The point behind these things is that it’s a chance to get figures they wouldn’t otherwise make. Secondly, Mary Jane Watson? Who wants a figure of the completely worthless Mary Jane Watson? I think the only purpose she could serve is if I swapped her head with another figure to make her into a generic civilian. Here is where I say the unthinkable, so prepare yourselves: I’m glad they retconned the Mary Jane Watson marriage out of Spider-Man comics.

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As much as I have a huge man-crush on Christopher Eccleston, I was really hoping that he’d show up in G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra in a full on metal Destro mask at some point. Well kids, it looks like he will be if the toys are any indication.

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And… just when I was beginning to thing I had nothing toy related to write about today, in comes this fantastic custom set of Lego mini-figures made to look exactly like the crew from Watchmen. The weakest link here is Rorschach who could have used a custom painted head, but I believe the point of this set was to try do make the figures as close to the characters without doing a lot of custom work.

I can’t think of that many Lego sets you could make using Watchmen figures aside from Nite Owl’s ship and his lair. I suppose you could do the Ozymandias winter getaway.

Anyway, some of you might be wondering why I haven’t posted my Watchmen thoughts yet. I haven’t done so for a couple of reasons. The first is that everyone else did already and so I didn’t see a point. Another is that nobody asked, but in case you are wondering I did like it. I liked it a lot. There? You happy now?!

Side Note: You want to get your blood boiling? You really need to read this review, which pretty much misses the entire point of the film (and consequently the book if the reviewer had read it). Here’s my favorite quote:

And Ronald Reagan is thinking of running for President in 1988. Wow, isn’t that cool that they got it wrong on purpose? I’m so amazed at this “high-brow art” of deliberately getting dates and timelines wrong, you know, just to be “artistic,” and get the drooling of the critics. That is sooooo genius. Like way totally cool.

Oh wait, this one is better:

If you see it yourself, you’re also probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being.

Even if you didn’t like the movie, the idiocy here should really piss you off.

Side, Side Note: Sometimes when I hear Rorschach’s name I think of Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter. Man, that book and movie would have been a hell of a lot different if you swapped those two out.

Thanks to: Brothers Brick

Millionaire Playboy recently posted an article about a few of Mattel’s offerings in the Infinite Crisis series of it’s 3 3/4ths scale figures. There’s not a whole lot of new info, except that the three pack that used to consist of Wondergirl, Supergirl, and Superman will now switch out Superman for Bizarro.

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It’s funny how things work out. After seeing the Marvel Universe and Wolverine Origins figures going for at least 12 bucks a pop at Wondercon (with Deadpool selling for $30), I wrote about it on this here blog. Last Best Angry Man said to just go to the store and pick them up. To show him up, I decided to go to the store to report back to say that there weren’t any. Low and behold, I walk down an aisle in Toys R Us and see associates filling up part of an endcap with the figures. A sort of mania overcame me then and it was all I could do to not buy all of them. I couldn’t escape without grabbing a few of them, so I’ve decided to share my thoughts now that I’ve had a chance to check them out. Remember, I don’t really do toy “reviews” so you’ll have to look else where for those (like here, here, here, and yes here).

Deadpool - Comic Book

Yeah, I have Deadpool. I understand if you’re jealous. Deadpool is hands down the best figure in these lines. He looks great and comes with the most accessories that I’ve gotten with any of these figures. The only minor complaint I have is with the sai. It’s almost as big as him. As an added bonus, he’s sure to make a swell G.I. Joe ninja.

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Here we are again with the rest of the Wondercon 2009 coverage!

Wondercon Pictures:

Since I’m both lazy and I have a crappy computer, I don’t have many interesting pictures to share. However, Savage of Old Man Musings was a picture taking maniac. You can check out his photos on Flickr here. Great White Snark is also showing off his pics and you can see some of them here with more to come in the future.

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There’s more complaining to be had about the Transformers movie, this time it’s been proven that Megatron is in the sequel and he is a crazy alien looking tank:

I wasn’t a super huge fan of the first Transformers flick, although it did turn out much better than I thought it would and in the end I found it enjoyable. Still, I detest the movie style Transformers. The one lone exception is Megatron. The fact he looked so alien really worked to make him look like a total bad ass. The fact that he’s going to be a crazy looking tank in this new film doesn’t bother me at all. It actually fits his character who is a robot that doesn’t feel the need to disguise himself as an Earth vehicle. He doesn’t have to either, he’s friggen Megatron!

Thanks to: Toplessrobot.com

Is it just me or does Storm Shadow look a lot like Steven Segal?

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Remember the awesome assortment of G.I. Joe vehicles that got canceled a few months ago? Well, now they are back and you can pre-order them at sites like Big Bad Toy Store (who generously donated to the Toys for Tots contest this year so perhaps you should pre-order from them?) In case you forgot about the assortment it includes:

Ghost Hawk with Lift Ticket
Arctic HISS with Arctic Driver
Claw Glider with Stratoviper & Flak Cannon with Outback
Stinger Jeep with Stinger Commander

It’s good to see these back again. With the live action movie, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, coming out it’s becoming clear that it pretty much ruined a lot of the momentum for the stuff that we really want. These wave 5 vehicles seemed to be the a victim to Hasbro’s new lust to push out mostly movie related merchandise.

Personally, if I had the means I’d seriously consider buying all of these. The only one that seems to be missing is the Water Moccasin. Did that come out already? I feel like such a moron, but the G.I. Joe supply sucks so bad around here that I never know what’s actually hit shelves or not.

Side Note: On the rare occasion that I could find new stuff, I spotted the Pilot Destro/Shockwave comic two pack at Wal-Mart yesterday. Hot damn, it took a lot of willpower to put that puppy down. The only thing that saved me was focusing on how dumb pilot Destro is.

I enjoyed the idea of the Cobra winter and dessert themed internet exclusive packs as much as the next guy (which I gave away during the Toys for Tots contest this year), but I’m really digging on the next set of G.I. Joe seven packs as seen on Topless Robot:

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Wow, this set is something I’d never see from Lego as an official release. It’s the Lego Gunship/Dropship complete with a AT-OT Walker:

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