Archive for May, 2008
His Bite Was Outta Sight!
Toy Robot Identity Crisis?
He’s still Prime to me.
I know I’m not alone in my feelings of how absurd the notion is in mainstream society for seemingly grown men to collect toys. Since I’m extremely guilty of such a thing (collecting toy robots), I feel ashamed quite often. But when I read threads like this, it is refreshing to say the least. I don’t post often in TF forums, mainly because I have this blog that allows me all the soapbox geekiness I need. But what is funny to me is the notion that the upcoming Transformers Animated toys are somehow less adult than the G1 stuff. Being a guy in my thirties, I’m quite nostalgic about the good old-bad old days of my childhood watching Optimus and company every afternoon after school. And while I didn’t have very many of the toys growing up, I had quite a few.
Let’s face it, toys, unless manufactured by Fisher Price or Playskool, are increasingly being geared toward the adult collector. Why else have toys stores like Toys R’ Us become shadows of their formerly awesome selves? Toy stores today seem to have gotten worse since I was a kid because THEY ARE WORSE. I remember the wonder of going into Lionel Playworld as a kid and that wonderful inhaled wash of chlorine-infused pool supplies as the large hydralic doors opened. I remember being overtaken by the warehouse-like feel of tall shelves, stacked to the ceiling with toys.
Nowadays toy stores are barren shelves and pegs with the newest-latest piece of crap that is perpetrated on our youth today. And that’s just for the kids who actually want to play with toys anymore instead of video games. My local comic store has a better toy selection than sadly three Toys R’ Us stores combined these days, at least around here.
So that leads me into the point of the upcoming Transformers Animated toys. From the get-go Hasbro was targeting 7 year olds and that’s great. Fine. Why not? That’s what the G1 toys were originally geared towards. But the constant bitching by “adult collectors” about the changes to the constant G1 homages present in the Animated cartoon and toys is ridiculous. These are for the new generation of kids. We the “adult collectors” are taken for granted and well, we should be. I know enough completists that will buy anything, even the crappy Movie repaints. I guess arguing the finer points of who toys are intended for has gone on for at least a decade, ever since the 1990s introduction of well-sculpted McFarlane statues.
The new Animated toys are trying to merge the best of both worlds. New Transformers for the new generation, meanwhile attempting to satisfy the “adult collector.” I think any other idea is missing the point. If Hasbro didn’t care at all about the adult collector, they would probably have no Optimus Prime or Megatron or a Classics/Universe line. But I can’t blame them for just expanding on a great idea from 20+ years ago. They don’t have better ideas, so why not just update and adapt from those previous ideas?
Kids really don’t care about the history of some toy line. They just want a badass car that turns into a good looking toy robot. That’s something that is ageless–at least for me. And though I may be ashamed at times to be a 32 year old toy robot collector and comic book reader, the seven year old within could care less.
What accumulated lameness these two past weekends were!
How did it all go down, you may ask? Dig this:
So I went to the Free Comic Book Day at my local paper crack dealer of choice and hooked up on their free books. Luckily, they had all of what I’d hoped. The Alex Ross infused Death Defying ‘Devil, the Transformers Animated full-size one shot, and they even had the Nascar Heroes, and let me tell you, THAT ALONE made it worth it. Amazingly bad—review forthcoming. I promise. But free funny books aside, in my regular subscription I had double doses of Fraction—a new Immortal Iron Fist, the Thor one-shot, and the Daredevil:Blood of the Tarantula one-shot. Three doses of awesome, I’d say. And in addition to all that,I even unexpectedly bought a Takara gift set of Transformers: Car Robots-Build King!!! So much lameness in one day!
Then the following week, I finally saw the Iron Man movie and holy shit was it good. Thank you so much Marvel, you can say you’ve been able to make at least three good movies now. I also bought more comics last Saturday.
Right, well, enough of that!
Reviews!
Thor: Ages of Thunder
First off, the positives. The art is amazing. The concept is amazing. But the dialogue is, and I’m sad to say, not quite so amazing. I usually love Matt Fraction’s writing, but I have to admit that at times this book read a bit too self-consciously like a Fraction story. Maybe I’m just being unfair, but the level of intentional tongue-in-cheekness that is evident in Iron Fist or Casanova just felt a bit wrong to me in a Thor story. I’ve absolutely loved the JMS run on the regular Thor title and I’ve felt like he has done the Norse God of Thunder the proper treatment. Comparatively, when I read this, there were glimmers of pure awesome, but then in a few pages there would be some dialogue that seemed somewhat jarring. So I guess my verdict, if I were to personally grade it, would be a solid B+. Great art, pretty good story, iffy dialogue-that’s that. Still very much a good read and worth your time.
Immortal Iron Fist #14
The Capital Cites of Heaven story arc concludes in double-sized goodness. Countless kicks to the face and the sequence of special moves was pure badass-ness!!! How I love this book. It will truly be a sad day come this summer when the whole creative team changes. But this whole Brubaker/Fraction/Aja creative team will forever overshadow this book. And from what I’ve seen in Previews for when they leave, I’m a little concerned about this title. If you’re not already hip to this one, read it all immediately. You are missing out on what makes comics fun for any age.
Metal Men #8
So the end was finally here for this lovably convoluted series. Lots of science stuff I hardly understand but the visuals and the fun were always in abundance. After reading this I felt very satisfied. I really hope a regular title may come around eventually. Although the DC pattern for me of late has been that if I really enjoy a title, it is not long for this world. (see Catwoman—errrrgghhhh. Still pissed.)
Iron Man-Viva Las Vegas #1
All the attention in the Iron Man direction is so great for me and I’m going to just enjoy it while it lasts. I find it crazy in a good way that currently there are five Iron-titles on the rack at any given time right now. This book, written by Jon Favreau and coupled with the amazing pencils of Adi Granov, whose work on display is stunning, as always, stands out among the best of the Iron titles. It reads quick and wonderfully. Check it out, especially if you loved the movie.
The Invincible Iron Man #1
Now where Thor: Ages of Thunder left me doubting my Fraction love for just a second, this one came roaring back. Holy frakin’ hell! Love it. Love it. Love it! This is exactly the kind of book for Fraction. Rich playboy, techie-ish stuff, and some James Bond thrown in. This is going to be a fun read from month to month. Salvador Larroca’s art, alone makes this worth the price of admission.
Well that about does it. Two weeks of reviews in one post, not bad I guess.
‘Til next time, I’ve got more reading to do.
Going Postal Over Nothing
It seems like I’ve been buying stuff I didn’t really need from the internet for quite some time now. So long, in fact, that I can barely conceive of what it was like when I was a kid. A time when mail order was always the absolute last resort on anything. It was rare that I ever mailed away for anything as a kid that didn’t turn into a major pain in the ass. And it seemingly took FOREVER. I didn’t dare mail away for the Transformers Reflector set and when you’ve sent out all your allowance money, the last thing you want to do is wait for an eternity. 6-8 weeks was a rather insane timeframe, in retrospect. I worked at an online record store for many years and for something to take that long to get anywhere domestically is rather unlikely. I’d love for someone to plausibly explain to me just how anything sent out in this country domestically could possibly take 6-8 weeks at any method of shipping. I do remember once mailing away Kenner proofs of purchase for the Star Wars Boba Fett figure and waiting for what seemed like forever.
I preface this for a couple reasons. For one thing, I’ve lately had a run of spotty luck on the internet when it comes to getting shit sent to me and not having to deal with some sort of hassle. My recent troubles even sort of date back to the Takara Encore Optimus Prime I ordered from TF Source last summer. That was all well and good—BUT—my trailer was missing the inside canopy! Now I’ve got to track down one somehow from Transformerland, I guess. That was an omen of sorts for the things to come in recent months. Admittedly, this missing canopy had nothing to do with TF Source, as they are hardly responsible for what’s inside or not inside a sealed box. The missing canopy experience reminded me of the countless times in my childhood when I’d opened up my newest G.I. Joe figure, and sometimes within minutes, the arm or head would just break off at the joint. At least that came in handy given that these guys were always engaged in bloody battles against Cobra. Many a time these broken body parts dotted my imaginary bedroom battlefields. However, my Soundwave’s eject button broke in just three hours of play when I got him for my 8th birthday. I still have that childhood toy and somewhere along the line, I lost the door altogether. I now handle my much nicer reissue with great care, as I’d be beyond pissed to have it break on me now.
Recently I found a fantastic online source for cheap, new trade paperbacks, called Instocktrades.com, and as soon as my two books arrived, one was the correct book, the other wasn’t and I had to contact them to send me the right one. I have to say that they definitely made things right. Not only did they not make me send back the mis-shipped trade, but they let me keep it and sent me the right book the same day. A great experience, indeed. Certainly better than the online store where I bought a shirt from in my same state and it took them a month to get it to me. Still rather pissed about that one.
My recent mail order misadventures aside, I must admit that if it were not for the internet, I’d hardly be able to obtain even a quarter of the things I’ve acquired over the years, including my oh so precious toy robots. I’m half expecting some hassle when the Transformers Animated toys I’ve pre-ordered start coming out, although I’ve certainly got more confidence in those, since I’m getting them from both Hasbro Toy Shop and Big Bad Toy Store, instead of some shifty, fly by night, toy robot online merchant. Just as the internet has made it easier than ever to obtain products and information, likewise it has made it easier than ever to spread misinformation and for scammers to take advantage of others.
I waited 8 weeks for this??
I guess what got me writing this in the first place was a bad experience that the Evil King has recently had ordering some Zoids from online store, Toys N’ Joys. It has been anything but joy for the poor Evil King. I feel his pain. But keep in mind that every once in a while, what may seem too good to be true, isn’t. Just this last Sunday night I finally got a hold of a Takara Transformers Collection #6 Reissue Megatron from an Ebay store. It was the first time in a long while I’d seen an Ebay Buy-It-Now price for less than $70 that didn’t have like $25 shipping from Singapore. I even e-mailed the seller and asked if the box was still sealed before I went through with it. Today it arrived and it was everything the seller described. It took two days, not six to eight weeks to arrive. And now I can stop feeling like less of a good toy robot collector knowing that I now possess one that I can hold up liquor stores with. Now as long as Megatron’s head or leg doesn’t fall off tonight, I’ll be completely satisfied.
A lesson in anger management
When you feel a bloodrage coming on, and your bloodlust for a werewolf just can’t be satiated, think twice before confronting it.
See the following example:
So we’ve really learned three important things here.
Let’s review:
1. Anger can get you killed. Especially when werewolf hunting.
2. Apparently werewolves can be quite well-spoken and well-read, despite popular culture’s stereotyping as vicious, bloodthirsty brutes.
3. Werewolves enjoy a fresh, hot meal just as much as the next guy. And poetry.
More of these helpful lessons can be found in Marvel Comics Beware #1.
