August Hauls!

[andersonh1]

Springer is an excellent Transformer, well worth owning.

Today's comics: Daredevil Dark Nights #3, Batman 66 #1, RID #19, and Superior Spider Man #15. The next issue of Green Lantern was out as well, but I put that off until next week.

[BWprowl]

Shipment from AmiAmi arrived: Super Action Statue Joseph Joestar from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part II: Battle Tendency. Finally got into JoJo late last year thanks to the new anime, and Part II was just amazing all the way through, and that’s mostly because Joseph here was an absolute blast of a lead, and his figure getting reissued is as good an excuse as any to try out this SAS line, which I generally hear good things about. It’s a good bit bigger than I’ve become used to from other similar lines like figma and S.H. Figuarts, owing to the tall, model-esque proportions of JJBA characters. Articulation works very well, he’s got those in/out shoulder swivels I’ve only seen before on those UFC figures, along with waist and ab joints with terrific range, and good articulation everywhere else, letting him pull off the myriad of outlandish poses the series is known for. It makes this toy a lot of fun to mess with, since I feel inspired to put him in all manner of crazy positions, rather than the more standard attacks and so forth I’ve done with other toys. The fact that he has a terrific stand to assist with that helps. Weapons are great, having his clackers, hammer, and the big crossbow from his chariot race with Wham. Other accessories are pretty light, just the usual assortment of hands, his detachable scarf piece, and one extra head with Caesar’s headband, but no swappable faces for either. Still, the whole package works out well. My only other complaint is that I’m not crazy about the color scheme of this release; I prefer a brown-haired Joseph, though the blue here doesn’t look too bad, and it’s not like they had to accommodate me (for the uninitiated, JJBA characters have no set color scheme; Araki just colors them whatever he wants in the colored illustrations, and the anime imitated this by having the color schemes of everyone shift at different points during episodes). A very solid figure, it inspires me to think about getting a few more (maybe Cars and Old Joseph, at least).

[JediTricks]

Hasbro Star Wars Naboo Fighter - an online buddy found me one of these rare ships (killed by distribution failure) at Tuesday Morning and sent it. Lots of very small stickers. The overall sculpt is pretty good, a few nits could be picked but the general feel is that it's good for scale and features. Wings aren't as tightly attached as I'd like, but not too wobbly, easily removable for battle damage or storage. The best feature is the sliding canopy, so glad they included this. The hidden missile launchers in the engines are ok too but could have used more detail. The droid slot is too big, I had to put in a little cardboard to lift the droid to the proper height.

Yeah, DvD also mentioned on his sightings page that his Trailmurderer had two left doors, just like yours. Made me worried that it might be endemic, especially since I didn't know what to *look* for as I was examining it in the package (now I know that they're just on the arms), but I gambled and won, so I'm happy.

Ah, I see. No, if you re-read it, that's my report to DvD. He says "Target in West LA CA. Trailcutter had two left doors, looks like there's QC issues beyond just the easily broken bit. " I'm the report in West LA.

This comes down to the divide between me purely as a consumer/fan and how I look at it from a marketing/wanting it to succeed perspective. Because I know that blue tends to not do as well on the pegs, but damn the shade they chose and the way they use it and arrange the packaging just looks so pretty to my eyes. The big box Supreme Predaking comes in especially works well with the colors (definitely getting that beast next paycheck). It also does well contrasting against the regular BH packaging, so maybe it'll work out for them.

The packaging on Abominus is a miss though, way too much empty space in that box to make the mini-Gestalt inside look impressive, it borderline looks like a repack by some unscrupulous consumer. They should've gone with something more like what ROTF Legends Devastator came in. I mean, I'm still gonna get it eventually, but still.

Not sure what the volume is on these, but they're moving alright around here so far.

[BWprowl]

Still got toys coming in the mail, apparently: Marvel Legends Scarlet Spider arrived from BBTS yesterday. This is the brand-new toy based on the modern Kaine version of Scarlet Spider, aka my favorite comic on shelves right now. The toy measures up. Oh it’s a bare-bones release: absolutely no accessories in the box with it, it’s not even one of the three figures in the wave that comes with a Rocket Raccoon BAF part. But the figure itself is great. I wasn’t sure they’d spring to remold the head (Kaine has a distinctive molded eye look that couldn’t be achieved by just painting over a generic Spider-Man head) but they did, and it looks great. The current ML Spidey body this is based on has plenty of premium articulation points, including pectoral swivels like I just mentioned SAS Joseph having, plus ankle rockers, multiple neck joints, and an ab crunch hinge (I tend to prefer a universal/ball joint in the abs, but this ain’t bad). I’m not crazy about the one eternally-web-slinging hand, but eh. Figure looks snazzy, though it’s a hard paint job to fuck up. It’s a solid figure of probably my current favorite comic-book hero, and that’s all I wanted. Glad I pre-ordered him off BBTS, don’t know that my local stores ever made it past the disastrous Armin Zola wave of ML (I could’ve TOLD you Klaw was going to shelfwarm like a motherfucker!).

Superior Spider-Man ML when? I’d prefer the first costume, but the current costume with more black and the spike-leg-whatevers would be acceptable as well.

[138 Scourge]

Got a neat little present from my girl yesterday. She hooked me up with the Lego Back to the Future DeLorean set. I haven't built the thing yet, but it looks pretty great. In a neat feature, you can build it to match the car's look from the first movie, the awesome upgrades from the second, or the jury-rigged equipment from the third. I'll be going with the second movie look, because c'mon.

[BWprowl]

It's OUT?!

Okay, yeah, I'll be needing that.

[JediTricks]

RID #20.

edit: Postman just delivered Hasbro SW The Black Series 6" Maul from Amazon. I'll post thoughts when I open him.

Got a neat little present from my girl yesterday. She hooked me up with the Lego Back to the Future DeLorean set. I haven't built the thing yet, but it looks pretty great. In a neat feature, you can build it to match the car's look from the first movie, the awesome upgrades from the second, or the jury-rigged equipment from the third. I'll be going with the second movie look, because c'mon.

So rad! Stuff like that keeps tempting me to break my "no more LEGO" rule.

[Shockwave]

I'll be very interested in what you think of the 6" Black series. Hasbro has done amazing things with their 3 3/4" line and I'm curious to see if that trend crosses over to the larger scale. About 6 years ago under the vintage trilogy collection (the ones with the coins), their ANH Vader has yet to be surpassed. That thing had the full three piece removable helmet just like in the movies and a movable head underneath that. Which moved separate from the resperator part at the neck! And that was on top of the already cracked out articulation it already has. The only things on him that don't move are his fingers. There has been no reason to buy another Vader since.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: Green Lantern #23, and the Flash Chronicles vol. 4. I prefer the hardback format, but at $50 per book versus $15 per book for the paperback, sometimes it's better to go cheap. I bought that volume because the only Barry Allen I've ever read has been the modern series immediately prior to Flashpoint and the first six issues of the New 52, and because it contains the "Flash of Two Worlds" story, which I've been interesting in reading for a long time. There were three issues of the current Earth-2 series on the shelf and since we've been discussing it recently I considered buying a couple just to see how the book looks after a year and a half, but it looks like the storyline is building up prior to Robinson's departure, and there isn't really a good jumping on point. Maybe I'll give the new writer a try. But in place of that, I got the original Earth-2 story, which is more to my liking anyway. It reminds me of a Doctor Who episode where one of the older Doctors guest stars, and despite the sometimes clumsy exposition that makes Silver Age stories unreadable for Dom, it's a fun team-up.

[Shockwave]

Found a legends Generations Megatron (the green tank one) at Big Lots last night for $5. So now my Legends figures have a Megatron. Also found the vintage collection Darth Maul at Kmart and it's probably the best Darth Maul that Hasbro could put out. I find myself as impressed with this as I was with the Vader from six years ago. It's about damned time they got Darth Maul right. My only gripe is the cloth external robe, but that can be swapped with other versions for better functionality. He also came with several accessories: Splitable double bladed saber. Lightsaber unlit handle version and the binoculars he used at some point in the movie. one of his wrists also even has his communicator molded into it. And for $8 it was a pretty good buy.