December 2005

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Saturday December 31, 2005 11:46:56 AM #

Picked up Mattel's new DC Superheroes Mass Merchant 6" Line. Well, picked up 3 out of the four anyway. I hadn't planned to get these, but when I saw them in the store, the quality was much better than I thought they would be from the net pictures and there haven't been any DC Directs shipped in quite awhile, plus they turned-out to be in perfect scale (as you can see by the DC Direct Batman in the pic) with DC Direct and Marvel Legends, so I got 'em. The figures came with reprint comics that ranged from the early nineties to about 3 years ago.

As a side note, I didn't pickup the the Batman figure, because, well I've got a few DC Direct Batman figures already. The figure wasn't too bad however. The head was a little small in a Rob Liefeld sort of way but it seemed likely not to standout in a DC Direct collection any more than any of their artist specific lines do. Overall: Good Stuff.

Toynewsi.com has a run down of the next 5 waves of these figures All of which are Batman and Superman family waves. Here's hoping that they branch out with some other non-bats, non-supes runs.

» Toynewsi.com also has pictures of 6" X-men figures that are out now.

Monday December 26, 2005 10:00:39 PM #

Christmas is over. You may now return your seats to the upright positions, unfasten your seatbelts and feel free to walk around the cabin.

Sunday December 18, 2005 9:24:32 PM #

Subliminal background iconic imagery?
(yeah probably not but it "crossed" my mind for a moment during tonight's speech.)

Sunday December 18, 2005 8:29:08 PM #

» Disney's got Pooh ditching Christopher Robin. Pooh and Piglet have a new girl friend instead now. That's cold Disney.

» Heroclix Collateral Damage Ambush Bug Piece.

» Hasbro's 6inch DC Superheros Line

Series 1: (Batman)
Bane, Batman, Scarecrow, Killer Croc

Series 2: (Superman)
Bizarro, Supergirl, Superman, Doomsday

Series 3: (Batman)
Azrael, Battle Damaged Batman, Robin, Mr. Freeze

Series 4: (Batman)
Stealth Jump Batman, Batgirl, Two-Face, Joker

Series 5: (Superman)
Battle Damage Superman, Lex Luthor, Braniac, Superman Mother Box, Darkseid

Not an exciting lineup in my opinion. These are not exactly on the same scale as DC Direct but they are close. Of possible interest: Bizarro, Doomsday(Depending on if it is big enough, noone wants a little Doomsday), Lex Luthor(Purple Jumpsuit would be cool? the Crisis 2 Green Powersuit already looks pretty good), Braniac (Again a Silver age take would be cool since the Crisis 2 looks to have the Super Powers' style figure covered), Darkseid (Seems unlikely that this could be better than the Turner inspired fig that DCD has already solicited).

The above figures may be popular with non-comics store shoppers, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the above, to me, that screams "must have" for anything besides completist collectors.

» Marvel Select to Do Moon Knight Figure. No picture at the link unfortunately.

» Pics of Infinite Crisis Figures. Alexander Luthor (cool), OMAC (very cool, buy a legion of them!), Power Girl (not bad, but maybe it could have been a little more femine?)

» This past week's Toy Fare had the following uncofirmed lineups for the next three Marvel Legend's waves:

Series 13- May 2006:
Abomination, Blackheart, Green Goblin*, Lady Deathstrike, Loki*, Pyro, "unnamed figure"

Series 14- August 2006:
Baron Zemo II, Falcon*, Iron Man 1st Appearance, Longshot, Luke Cage*, Psylocke

Series 15- November 2006:
Beta Ray Bill, Captain Marvel*, Iron Man Thor Buster Armor, Mandarin*, Moon Knight*, Quicksilver*, Spider Woman I*, Wasp*.

* denotes ones I'll likely get

Thursday December 15, 2005 9:04:24 PM #

» Saw King Kong today. Really impressive filmmaking. Now there really isn't much in the way of breaking new ground in terms of story, but boy is it a rollercoaster ride... Once you get to Skull Island it pretty much grabs hold of you and doesn't let go. The New York stuff at the end was very well done, but it's the Skull Island stuff that is going to thrill you. Yeah you've seen dinosaurs in Jurasic Park and you might even have seen a digital ape or two before, but you ain't seen nothing like this. Really at the Zenith as far as popcorn blockbusters go. You're going to want to see this one on the big screen. Good Stuff.

Overall[great] Story [good] Special Effects [great]
key: [awful] [poor] [ok] [good] [great]

Saturday December 10, 2005 12:10:52 AM #

» I saw Aeon Flux tonight. I went in with pretty low expectations. It was ok. However, with that said, this is not really a movie suited to the big screen. This movie would have worked very well as a Sci-Fi Channel Original Picture. If you approach this movie with a TV science fiction movie mindset, and you are a fan of sci-fi movies, then you may enjoy this as a matinee or a DVD rental. Visually, it's not in league with the cartoon that inspired it but like the cartoon the characters are fairly one dimentional. The motivations of the characters are lightweight and straightforward. The implicit sexuality of the cartoon is pretty much absent in this live action version.

There were some pluses. For a change, a future that is brightly lit is presented. There's almost a Star Trek Next Generation TV Series quality to the city, which while not teribly intricate, I still liked. I also thought some of the techno contraptions were fresh, if a little obfuscated in their execution. Overall for what it was, again, I thought it was ok.

PS, they did the eyelash catching the fly thing. It doesn't work as well in live action, but hey you got to give them props for throwing that in right up front.

Overall [ok] Story [ok] Special Effects [ok]
key: [awful] [poor] [ok] [good] [great]

Friday December 9, 2005 7:21:01 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I watched Sci-Fi's The Triangle this past week. Not a bad cast for this sort of thing, but wow-- incredibly dull. Basically man versus nature, but not in a good Twister sort of way. Essentially they took a movie that would have been dull if 90 minutes and spread it out over like 6 hours with an overly liberal amount of Star Trek psuedo science and a last minute tie-in to The Philedelphia Experiment and well, you get the picture. Not a good sweeps week movie.

» Now, here's a nice obscure 70's character. Not J. Jonah Jameson, if you've seen the Spider-man movies you know who he is. But did you know that the white werewolf in the one piece yellow swimsuit with the ruby crystal in his neck is J. Jonah Jameson's son: John Jameson?

Yep, the dude that Mary Jane Watson almost married in the second movie, the astronaut guy. Well in the 70's he found a ruby gem on the moon and when he came back to earth it fused with him turning him, every full-moon, into Man-Wolf. Anyway Kudo's to Toy Biz for really reaching deep into the Spidey Pantheon and crafting this one out of plastic. Good Stuff.

» Anybody else getting Crisis fatigue? After a year or so of this DC plotline, I'm losing some enthusiasm for it. Still looking forward to the next issue of the main book itself, but the OMACs and now all the little chracter and minor D-List team remnants from the four mini's guest staring everywhere, well it's starting to get a little *yawn* y'know?

Let's Go Surfing

» Toothpaste for Dinner panel warning about the perils of collecting comics. So funny It's at the right -->

Totally true given my post above isn't it?

» Printable Monopoly Money PDFs

» Google Top Ten Golden Rules

» Head Shots of all the X-Men 3 characters

» Publicity shots of Superman Returns

» Boing Boing had a link to some Japanese Battle Pencil Game. Frankly the article bored me and I didn't finish it but it is a novel idea to take a pencil (the typical yellow ones have 6 sides) number the the sides and roll them as dice. Neat idea indeed.

» Clear Heels on Wheels (yeah I made that up, yeah I'm still chuckling over myself at that one.)

» First Look at the New Blue Beetle Costume. Eh. To me it doesn't look like it fits with the Big Seven costumes. In the DCU that has got to be the most important factor in costume design. How will a new costume look standing next to the Justice League? This character doesn't quite look like he belongs with that crew and that's not a good sign for a New DCU character. It's not bad, but he is going to look a little off when they start those Superman, Batman and Green Lantern guest appearances.

» Warren Ellis to take a crack on re-imagining the New Universe next year. I could see picking up something like this and giving it a run of 12 issues. However after that, I think I'll grow bored with it like I did with the Supreme Power series.

Tuesday December 6, 2005 9:32:25 AM #

Let's Go Surfing

» Fully Transformable Transformer Costumes

» Pong Clock

» Brickquest minature gaming with Lego Men.

» New Justice League Figures: Purple suit Lex Luthor, Mirror Master, Copper Head, Dr. Light, Justice Lords, Steel and more.

» DC Comics Superhero Stamps! Including 2 Green Lantern Ones.

» 2003 Clay Shirky article with a snappy title Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity

» Very neat USB connected Air Dart Missle launcher

Friday December 2, 2005 11:42:49 PM #

» Look at this cool Green Lantern Christmas stocking my friends made for me. It's all hand-done and everything.... There were all manner of neat little treats in it too. Very Cool.

I don't spell check and my grammar, sentence and paragraph structure on this site leave alot to be desired. Most times I forget to go back and reread a post to see if it makes sense. Sometimes I type the word "Fnck". Flip the "n" over... I don't have a problem with the word myself, I just type it that way to slip it past overzealous work censorship programs and for the benefit of those that are sensitive to that sort of thing.