Poe’s Point > Vykron Thoughts

May 1, 2012 | Poe

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu1Ujp72TCM&h=284&w=500]

Mattel has posted a new video with Scott Neitlich explaining the Vykron SDCC exclusive and showing off the packaging.

One thing I didn’t initially realize about these figures – the boots and cuffs are half-parts that clip on, rather than full parts that encompass the limb and snap on a la the original Toy Biz Iron Man. I understand it as a cost-saving measure, but it makes the figures significantly more like “Cosplay He-Man.”

To be fair, I think this is a great exclusive, and this post by “Prince Adam’s Dad” explains it as well as I could:

Personally, I’m unlikely to pick it up. It’s a neat concept and a cool part of the line’s history, but it just doesn’t fit into what I’m doing with my collection. However, there are plenty of people who will be interested in him. More to the point, there are plenty of people who will be interested in three or four of him to display in each of his forms and MOC.

So it’s a non-essential figure that some people will buy multiples of – sounds like the perfect convention exclusive to me. (more…)

Poe’s Point > Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles

March 26, 2012 | Poe

I suppose I should comment on the Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles controversy, which has had a ridiculous amount of media coverage, with articles appearing in major newspapers and parody videos popping up on Conan. I was a HUGE Turtles fan from 1989-1991, so I feel on fairly solid ground in expressing an opinion. (more…)

Poe’s Point > A Peek into the Madness of Mattycollector’s Return Policy

January 4, 2012 | Poe

So, here’s an update on my Wind Raider situation.

The long-suffering Dr. Mrs. Ghostal, who ordered my Wind Raider using her own account as as Christmas gift, had to call Digital River to request a replacement. DMG hates making cold calls to anyone, so we were already in a bad place.

We bypassed the standard customer service and called the Escalation Department directly. This probably saved us three to five business days of bureaucratic runaround, but both DMG and I suspect Digital River will soon close down this backdoor and require a ticket number from customer service before allowing someone to talk to the Escalation Dept. This would support what we now believe is an unofficial policy to try to make getting replacements so difficult as to cause the customer to give up entirely.

Adding this image and link so that it shows up in search results for DR.

I had read that the Escalation Dept. often sent out a replacement without asking for a return, but in this case we were asked to box up the Wind Raider and send it back. Here’s where it gets even more frustrating. Rather than simply emailing us a UPS label to stick on the box–or even letting us just bring the damned box to a UPS store–we have to give the box to a UPS delivery person, who will have the label. The UPS person will apparently arrive sometime during business hours in the next three days.  (more…)

Poe’s Point > Top Five Saturday Morning Cartoons

December 31, 2011 | Poe

A version of this article was originally posted on my old website, Biggerboat, on 1/31/2007.

I’ve often declared my life’s goal to make every day feel like Saturday morning. If there’s anything that makes me regret the linear direction of space-time and ache for the past as all mortals do, it’s that I can never truly recapture what it feels like to be a young kid on a Saturday morning.

Growing up in the 1980s following the FCC’s deregulation of children’s programming, Saturday morning offered a bevy of options for the child who, having woken at six a.m. to enjoy as much of his school-free day as possible, would wolf down three bowls of sugar-loaded cereal while watching colorful talking animals and consequence-free cartoon violence. True, many of the shows were little more than half-hour advertisements for toys, or candy, or Mr. T. But what Saturday morning cartoons really offered children was a time when television catered just to them. No boring adult dramas or shows they weren’t allowed to watch. Saturday morning TV belonged to kids. (more…)

Poe’s Point > Thoughts on the Mighty Spector & Other PowerCon Reveals

September 29, 2011 | Poe

Unfortunately there are no good official pics of the Mattel PowerCon reveals. There are a few tiny, watermarked images on Mattycollector that do the figures no justice and are really just sad. The best pics I’ve found are in this post on the Fwoosh, so that’s what I’ll be referring to in this article.

First up: Stinkor. You know, for all we’ve been told about how the designers have been told to minimize the Millennium features on MOTUC figures, we’re getting an awful lot of Millennium features on these figures. Stinkor gets a new gun, stink-tanks on his back, and a Millennium-style head (along with a repainted Mer-Man vintage head). I’m not the biggest Stinkor fan. He was a bit too goofy and gimmicky even for five-year-old Poe. But the Four Horsemen have done a great job on his design, and I won’t begrudge him his place in my collection–I have a hunch he’ll actually be one of those figures that grows on me once I have him in hand. (more…)

Thoughts on the MOTUC Reveals

July 29, 2011 | Poe

The Four Horsemen were kind enough to provide some glorious high-res studio shots of the MOTUC reveals from SDCC, so here’s my figure-for-figure thoughts on each one.

Demo-Man > Easily my favorite reveal among a lot of awesome reveals. Not only does he have a highly detailed, almost entirely original sculpt that’s dead-on to the artwork, but he comes with a bad-ass scimitar, a huge flail, and two extra heads, including an Alfredo Alcala-style Skeletor head, which will placed on my “default” Skeletor as soon as Demo-Man arrives. I’m not sure what the deal is with the other skull, though it reminds me of the Evilution Demon. (more…)

Poe’s Point > Obligatory Club Infinite Earths Post

July 28, 2011 | Poe

A few fellow collectors have asked me to promote Club Infinite Earths. I recommend you read NoisyDvL5’s thoughts on the matter, as he’s much more passionate about it than I am.

Thing is, the Club isn’t doing so well. As of this writing it hasn’t even hit 20% of the subscriptions needed to put it into production. And as I imagine the majority of these subscriptions are sold in the first day or two of the sale, I have to say this seems like a lost cause already.
(more…)

Poe’s Point > Perspectives on the King Hssss Shouldergate

March 22, 2011 | Poe

There is a lot of anger among fans about King Hssss’s reversed shoulders. I was part of a Roast Gooble podcast the other day in which this topic was discussed at length (it’ll be posted later this week), but I think it was Val “JVS3” Staples who most accurately described my own feeling on the matter: fatigue. I just can’t muster the indignation this time. Part of it is because I managed to correct the problem, but part of it is just being tired of the drama surrounding this line of toys.

I’m tired of the QC mistakes, of course.

I’m also tired of the discussions about the mistakes, the price, the subscription, the Mattycollector website, the character selection, and the 200X/MOTUC arguments, all of which have been so negative in tone (on He-Man.org, here, and elsewhere) that it’s made me consider quitting PGPoA so I can enjoy my hobby in peace. Or at least dropping the news and figure reviews and focusing on articles about vintage lines, childhood memories, interviews and so forth. (more…)

Poe’s Point > Man-E-Regrets

March 9, 2011 | Poe

So, the Man-E-Faces color vote is over, and as expected, half/flesh-half/orange won. I voted for half-and-half back when the poll started. It was my first instinct upon being told about it at Toy Fair, and I didn’t question it at that time.

But I’ve changed my mind. It’s not that I specifically wish one of the other choices had won, but rather, I think either of the other choices should have won. This should have been an either-or situation. (more…)

Poe’s Point > The Next Generation

December 8, 2010 | Poe

A few months back, my friends Dave and Jenn came over to our apartment with their three-year-old son, Aaron. Dave and Jenn both are geeks, though Jenn moreso than Dave. Aaron is just about that age where action figures start to get interesting, and in this era where videogames are slowly supplanting good old-fashioned toys, I consider it the solemn duty of all collectors to try and instill a love of toys in all children.

With that in mind, I brought Aaron into the computer room, a.k.a. the Toy Room. He was entranced by the shelves upon shelves of Masters of the Universe Classics, Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles and assorted vintage toys on display. This, I thought, is what you get when you can spend your own money on whatever you want, as I thought back to the all the toys I might have gotten had I the disposable income available that I have now. (more…)