Everybody into the Pool – DCUC Wave 4

August 15, 2008 | Poe

(NOTE: Contest is now closed. Good luck all!)

You know the rules by now – you pick a day, post it in a comment below, and if my case of DCUC Wave 4 arrives on that day (or closest to your chosen day), you win the extra figure. It looks like this time it will be a Batman Beyond figure.

Is it fun? You bet! Just ask our previous winners, AskedForIt and Dwaltrip. Both of whom are eligible again. And I totally heard them say they were going to beat you this time, too. Are you going to take that? (more…)

The Original Terminator

August 15, 2008 | Poe

deathstroke

Just wanted to highlight this photo I took, which I’m pretty pleased with (though I may re-stage it, with darker lighting and maybe some background to give it a context).

I remember Deathstroke’s solo title came out around 1991 when I was obsessed with Terminator 2. DC made sure to push that “Deathstroke the Terminator” nickname back then, which was fair, since ol’ Slade Wilson predated the first Terminator film by a few years. I never picked up the comic, but I remember thinking Deathstroke looked pretty badass with all those guns and swords. For the record, in a straight fight i’d have to say Deathstroke would demolish a Terminator (except maybe the T-1000).

Odds ‘n Ends > Better Late than Never (Updated)

August 14, 2008 | Poe

ODD: Sorry for the late O&E–believe it or not, I clean forgot about it this week until after I’d spent two hours working on the King Grayskull review.

Speaking of which, that seems to have gone over well, so I think I’ll make the “It Figures” a regular weekly feature (probably on Thursdays). I’ll keep the “Inside the Actors Studio”-style format, and in general I’ll try to review new figures, though I’m sure some old favorites will sneak in there too. For next week, though, it will be a choice between the NECA Mousers exclusive, the Hulk Legends Wendigo, and a round-robin DCUC Wave 3. Which would you like to see?

END: I’ll write more about this in a later post, but the case of DCUC Wave 3 figures I received have a surprising amount of quality control problems. I’ve been inordinately lucky, QC-wise, with most of my online orders over the years. Not so this time.

Hal Jordan’s chest emblem is off-center, Solomon Grundy’s right arm has a gap at the bicep, and the tab holding Deathstroke’s scabbard was glued in wrong, requiring twenty minutes of painstaking Dremel work before the sword would slide in. But the most egregious crime is that my Sinestro Corps Sinestro’s chest emblem is smeared. It looks awful. My Robin and Nightwing are fine; however, it’s been reported that many Robins have an over-sized right hand (possibly from a larger figure, like Black Manta), so watch out for that.

After all the discussion on this site over the last few months, it seems I have to eat a little humble pie when it comes to ordering online. If I’d seen these in a store, I would have passed up Sinestro and Hal Jordan, or at least tried to find ones with better paint jobs.

ODD: October will be here in just a couple scant months, and that means Halloween Month here at PGPoA. If you have any Halloween- or horror-themed ideas or requests for posts, let me know.

END: I forgot to mention–congratulations to Dwaltrip for winning the second “Everybody into the Pool” DCUC contest! With his pick of July 31, he came closest to the actual arrival date of my DCUC3 case.

I’ll put up the contest for DCUC Wave 4 very soon…

It Figures > King Grayskull

August 12, 2008 | Poe

My guest today is one King Grayskull, ancestor of Prince Adam (a.k.a He-Man, though you didn’t hear it from me) and the very first figure from Mattel’s new Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) line.

Thanks for being here, Your Highness.

Thanks for having me, Poe.

So tell me a little about yourself. Who is King Grayskull?

Well, I was a character created for the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of years before Prince Adam was born, I built Castle Grayskull and protected Eternia from Hordak–and let me tell you, that guy is an ass. He makes Sauron look like the Purple Pieman.

Anyway, when I died in battle, I transferred my power into what’s now called the “Power Sword.” To me it was just a sword, though. I think I got it in a yankee swap.

You’re looking remarkably healthy for a dead man.

Thanks. You know I’m just an action figure, right?

Of course, of course. Speaking of which, how does MOTUC differ from previous MOTU lines?

Well, unlike all three previous lines (Masters of the Universe, the New Adventures of He-Man, and the 2002 Masters of the Universe), MOTU Classics is targeted specifically to collectors, not kids. (more…)

Poe Gets Married

August 11, 2008 | Poe

I’m back!

Wow, so much has happened since my last post. I got Lobo, King Grayskull, DCUC Wave 3, a new computer, and oh, I got married, too. I’ll get to all that other stuff later in the week–today is the official post-wedding post. (more…)

THURSDAY THUNDER

August 7, 2008 | Pete

It amuses me to have such a portentous title about, well, really nothing.

Sideshow has listed Medicom’s RAH DBZ Piccolo up for sale. As a closet DBZ fan (shutup), I gotta say…he looks cool. Really cool. I wish there were a line of 6″ scale DBZ figures with ML or DCUC level articulation. SOTA would do a great job, I think…look at their Street Fighter figures. Then I could do entire Fanwank strips of two DBZ characters grunting at each other while they power up! That’s like a month’s worth of strips, right there!

I’m a genius.

Oh, and it’s not really toy-related, but for a fun little time-waster, Sea of Green, author of the Hoosier Journal of Inanity, linked to Fábrica de Heróis! earlier this week, which is a cool little hero generator that allows you to build characters in the DCAU style. The page is entirely in Portuguese, but the creator is at the bottom, and is pretty self-explanatory once you click that ‘Criar!’ button.

That’s all I got today. Have fun!

Inadvertently Inappropriate > The Top 5 Mind-Scarringly Bad Toys

August 6, 2008 | Pete

So Poe and I were chatting online last Wednesday night, and somehow the topic of discussion turned to hilariously inappropriate toys. I say, “We should do a write-up on this…a top ten or something.” Poe says, “Go for it.”

So I did. I present the top five mass-market toys that should probably never reach a child’s hands:

(more…)

Odds ‘n Ends > Fievel Goes West

August 5, 2008 | Pete

Odd: Pictures of Hasbro’s new Marvel Universe 3 3/4″ line are up at Action-Figure.com. While I doubt I’ll be collecting the line personally, having exactly zero figures in that scale, I’m pretty impressed by the quality. That they stand head and shoulders above Mattel’s Infinite Heroes in sculpt and articulation is obvious, but from the looks of it, they might even be better than the Toybiz Marvel Toys Superhero Showdown line.

End: As of two days ago, a Mr. Poe Ghostal is married. And to a doctor! I always knew that boy had a good head on his shoulders. That completes the Power Pal Marriage Extravaganza of 2008, folks–Paul, then myself, and now Poe. Congrats!

Odd: My SDCC contact was able to score me a Lobo and a King Grayskull–but then he had to ship out to Virginia for job training for a couple of weeks. Turns out it’s a good thing though, since I wound up needing the cash for car repairs. Hooray for…new fuel pump?

End: It has been a VERY slow week for toy news, so there’s frankly not much to share here. Anyone have any tips for your fellow collectors? Share ’em in the comments!

All Part of the Plan > Spoiler-iffic Dark Knight Discussion

August 4, 2008 | Pete

Okay, everyone’s probably said a million times over what they loved about The Dark Knight. What didn’t you like? Have any half-baked theories about the next installment? Frustrations over DC’s failure to give other heroes the big-screen treatment?

Then, of course, tell us what your favorite moments were too. 😉

Sonic BOOM

August 2, 2008 | Pete

Ever the diligent blogger that he is, Poe shot me an email from his wedding vacation this morning asking me to share the following message from Corner Store Comics with you:

Just a friendly reminder that our huge SOTA Street Fighter is currently scheduled to kick off on Saturday morning (August 2nd) at approximately 10am PST.

We’ve got nearly 1500 Street Fighter action figures spanning Series 1 through Series 4, including many rare Variants and other and hard-to-find pieces. Some figures will start as low as only $3.00 each.

While you are taking advantage of our SOTA Street Fighter Super Sale, take a look at the upcoming Street Fighter Revolutions action figures, including our Exclusive Metal Zangieff! There is still time to get your pre-order in for a full set of figures, our Zangief, and the Blue Dhalism and Turbo E Honda variants as well. The current expected arrival date for all these figures is late August.

Great news! Our Limited Edition Green Variant Vega Mixed Media Statue by Pop Culture Shock Collectibles sold out in less than eight hours. We are still accepting a couple more Wait List orders, in case any of the existing orders are not completed as anticipated.

These are some crazy prices for 6″ scale figures–if I weren’t flat broke, I wouldn’t have even told you. MINE! ALL MINE!

Yeah, I know. I’m a jerk like that.