What’s this? JLU news on PGPoA? No, your eyes do not deceive you!
Mattel has sent along these images of the San Diego Comic Con JLU exclusive Green Lantern set. Love the packaging.
Warning: As is always the policy here at PGPoA, I am posting the images at the full resolution they were sent to me. The packaging images are huge (4+ Mb each), so I recommend saving them rather than trying to view them here on the site.
PGPoA Pal and creator of Geek Creek, Monte, who will soon be setting off with his family for a multi-year sojourn in Africa, has offered to be the inaugural presenter for the new Show and Tell feature. Remember, if you’d like to submit your own Show and Tell, just email me with a description and some photos.
The blog is yours, Monte! (more…)
This gag might be a bit obscure these days–if you’re not familiar with it, click here.
Michael Crawford reviews the Hot Toys Hellboy II: The Golden Army Hellboy 1/6-scale figure. Excerpt: “Hot Toys is sort of like Pixar these days – it’s hard to judge them on the same scale as everyone else, because their work is so far above the competition.”
yo go re reviews the Hasbro Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Scout class Ransack figure. Excerpt: “Forget the rehashed Ironhides, Starscreams or Bumblebees, and go for something new. Or, in this case, something old.”
yo go re reviews the Diamond Select Toys Marvel Minimates X-Men Origins Wolverine Weapon X Wolverine and Silver Fox Toys R’ Us exclusive two-pack. Excerpt: “… a nice value.” (more…)
OK…so the Most Wanted feature turned out to be a dud. The reason is obvious: if you spread the word about some awesome toy you’re chasing down, you’re just increasing the competition for that toy.
So with that in mind, I’d like to pitch to you all a different feature–Show and Tell. If you own a particular toy you’re very fond of and want to show it off to the world, email me a a few photos of it (or links to online photos I can use, maybe on Flickr), along with the following information:
Any toy is game–from a simple He-Man figure to the most obscure Japanese popy. So come on–this is an invitation to show off your cool stuff and make us all jealous.
Running beneath the bilge water that makes up the majority of the Mattycollector Facebook comments wall is a disturbing undercurrent of homophobia.
The LGBT community has been loosely associated with He-Fans and She-Ravers for a while now, but as He-Man.org founder Val Staples wrote recently, “I don’t think He-Man.org has any more gay fans than any other community for any other ’80s cartoon and/or toy. It’s just that more gay fans feel comfortable being who they are here because they know they aren’t going to be attacked for being who they are.” (more…)
Commander Argus by Dwaltrip
Since first reading about the idea (I can’t remember where) that the Masters of the Universe premise was similar to Jack Kirby’s New Gods, it’s become fun to try and equate various characters. Darkseid is Skeletor, of course; Kalibak is Beast Man; He-Man is Orion; Teela is Big Barda; the Sorceress and King Randor share the duties of the Highfather; Stratos is Lightray; Man-at-Arms is Himon; Granny Goodness is Evil-lyn, and so on. Obviously some of the comparisons work better than others, but none are quite so similar as Zodac and Metron. Both were depicted as cosmic observers who followed the battles between good and evil and occasionally interceded (usually on the side of good). And they both were fond of flying space chairs.
While his original packaging described him as an “Evil Cosmic Enforcer,” most of the 1980s MOTU fiction established Zodac as a “neutral” character, someone who observed the battle between good and evil from a cosmic perspective. What exactly Zodac’s role in these events was a lot less clear. There seem to be a few different types of “neutral cosmic observers.” There’s Metron himself, who seems content to observe from afar but occasionally interferes–usually by helping the good guys. Then there’s Marvel’s Watcher, who’s actually sworn not to interfere but does so anyway, all the time, always by helping the good guys.
Zodac’s a bit more complicated, since he is usually described as a Cosmic Enforcer, suggesting it’s his job to make sure good and evil–or perhaps more logically, order and chaos–are in balance, helping whichever side seems to be losing. By this logic, Zodac should spend a lot of time helping Skeletor, but I can’t think of a specific instance in which he interceded on Skeletor’s behalf. At most, he might not help He-Man as much as he could have. And since Zodac often delivered the moral at the end of cartoon episodes, he was more or less understood by kids to be a “good” character. Personally, however, I would have liked to see a MOTU story in which it turns out the mastermind behind a plot against He-Man was actually Zodac, not Skeletor…a kind of He-Man R.I.P. (more…)
