Guest Review > Battles Super Police & S.W.A.T. Police Super City Hero

January 10, 2011 | Monte

The following is a guest review by Monte Williams.

I recently joked with my wife that I am thirty-three years old, and I am finally set to have my first grown-up Christmas. Turns out I was mistaken…

I have lived and worked for eighteen months now in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa. Last year, Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation hosted my unique if cheerfully irrelevant review of a pair of African tribal dolls we purchased here in Asmara for our daughter. While I’ve no doubt that you’re all chomping at the bit for analysis of the rest of the dolls in the series, I must regretfully confess that I have not purchased any of the remaining dolls. Sadder still, I have purchased no new G.I. Joe toys! As you can probably imagine, the Pursuit of Cobra photos at Generals Joes and Chase Variant haunt me, but I’ll have to wait until we visit the States next summer and hope that the prices on eBay for Spirit and Recondo won’t be too astronomical by that time. (more…)

Odds ‘n Ends > Procrastination

January 9, 2011 | Poe

  • Man, I still have so much stuff to get through…reviews of Buzz-Off, King Grayskull, the Outer Space Men, the new NECA Alien vs. Predator 2-pack, the second Weapons Pak, a few Retro Action figures, and a few other surprises…
  • PGPoA was included in a list of the “Top 40 Doll Collecting Blogs” on the website OnlineCollege.org. Fellow blogger Newton Gimmick of Infinite Hollywood also made the list. I won’t bother with the whole “action figures aren’t dolls” thing, mostly because I’m not that self-deluded, and will just be happy with the publicity.
  • I haven’t updated about or even mentioned the big news that THQ picked up the general Mattel license. Of course, the only salient question for most of us is whether we’ll see a MOTU videogame. I say it’s unlikely except in a movie year, unless we’re talking some sort of XBLA game (perhaps a 2D fighter or a TMNT Arcade-style brawler?). But at least THQ didn’t say no outright, and I know for a fact there are some THQ employees who are MOTU fans and will push for a game.
  • You’re all following the daily updates about Scarabus from the Four Horsemen, right? Man, if they can get the QC on these things on par with Xetheus (as opposed to the various Ramathorr variants), they’ll be incredible action figures.
  • Speaking of the Horsemen, this looks interesting.
  • I watched Predators last night, and really enjoyed it. It’s incredibly faithful to the original film…perhaps a bit too much so, to be honest…but it’s fun and pretty well acted, and features the craziest and possibly best Laurence Fishburne performance in a career full of crazy performances. He’s come a long way since Cowboy Curtis…like 80 pounds long, I think. But still the movie wa–WHY THE HELL DID I COME ACROSS THIS WHEN DOING A SEARCH FOR COWBOY CURTIS IMAGES? What is WRONG with people?! The horror, the horror…(quick, connect that quote back to Laurence Fishburne!)

10 Infamous Action Figure Variants

January 9, 2011 | Poe

I actually missed the fact that I had another list posted at Topless Robot on Thursday:

10 Infamous Action Figure Variants

This one was tricky to write. One thing to understand is that I tried to focus explicitly on factory errors and running changes–things that weren’t intentionally made as limited variants or collector’s items. So no Pimp Daddy Destro or Holiday Hal on this list.

The black Jimmy Hart is my favorite, though.

Big thanks to Newton Gimmick, FakeEyes22 and the good folks the RTM Toy Buzz for helping me out with some of the research for this list.

He-Man: Buy the Power of Grayskull

January 7, 2011 | Poe

Man this is hilarious. Well done, sirs!

Thanks to Mecha-Shiva for sending me this link weeks ago, though I only watched it last night for the first time. Yes, I’m that lazy busy.

Vintage Toy Ads > Knight Rider KITT & Care Bear Cousins

January 7, 2011 | Poe

One of the niftiest things about Kenner’s KITT toy from the early ’80s was that there was a small dial underneath the car that allowed you change the speed of the voice; this was intended to counteract the tendency of the voice to go too fast when the batteries were new, and slow down when the batteries were dying. A nifty feature–which apparently everyone forgot about during the making of this ad. Those are clearly new batteries in KITT–it sounds like Mr. Feeny doing an Alvin & the Chipmunks impression.

The girl on the bottom right at the end of the Care Bear Cousins ad just doesn’t seem that into it.

Pic of the Day

January 7, 2011 | Poe

Xevoz Sledge Trooper

Xevoz Sledge Trooper by paulmkelly

Pic of the Day

January 6, 2011 | Poe

Batman vs Predator

Batman vs Predator by nokturnuzz

Bastards of the Universe > “Voting for Royalty”

January 5, 2011 | googum

Last time, the Bastards met 339/1, royalty of…whatever the hell he is. Battlecat wanted the guys to help him out, and predictably, they aren’t really having it; since in large portions of Eternia there are more kings than subjects. Why is that? I guess because, ‘King of the Bee People’ or whatever looks better on a package than ‘Noble Drone!’ or ‘Mighty Serf!’ Although, I guess I don’t know every Masters of the Universe bio, so if there’s one for Eternia’s Toughest Peasant or something, please tell me.

Valkyrie is the first new Marvel Legends I’ve bought in years; somewhat ironically since she was originally intended for the 2008 Hulk/Fin Fang Foom wave. She’s not perfect–the leg articulation may be a little outdated–but she’s not bad at all.

Pic of the Day

January 5, 2011 | Poe

NECA - War Paint Conan

NECA – War Paint Conan by egrka