Stinkorgate, Cont’d

April 26, 2012 | Poe
Stinkor

Stinkor by soundofdesign, on Flickr

UPDATE: That discussion got way out of hand way too fast. I welcome free speech and I want people to be able to express their opinion, no matter how I much I disagree with it, but I insist on civility. I will accept any and all criticisms about being a tyrant, bully, bad journalist, head-in-the-sand-ostrich or whatever to enforce it. It’s my site and I won’t accept name-calling or general meanness.

To be fair I wiped out all previous comments, but they’re still open if anyone wants to restart the conversation.

I said I wasn’t going to get too involved in this one, and for now I’m sticking to that, though I’ll probably have my say when I review the actual figure. But I thought I’d highlight two things. First, here is the Four Horsemen’s final word, via their Twitter account:

After seeing a photo, that’s definitely not the way we’d intended the forearms to be positioned. Not sure what happened or why. […]we’ve finished it, they have every right to do so. They’re the ones assuming all of the financial responsibility & risk. The bottom line is that this is Mattel’s property. Not ours. If they decide that it’s best to alter something like that after…

I can appreciate the Horsemen’s diplomatic answer here – no suggestion of a production error. But James Sawyer at MOTUCfigures.com isn’t equivocating in his take on the situation: (more…)

Stinkorgate!

April 25, 2012 | Poe

It’s picking up steam! Pixel Dan has the details.

Long story short: Stinkor’s forearms are reversed, Mattel says it’s on purpose, some fans aren’t buying it and think it’s an assembly error Mattel is covering up, and the Four Horsemen’s initial response is ambiguous.

Frankly, I think I’m going to stay out of this one. I’ve got too many reviews to write. This one just doesn’t seem as sexy as the Clusterflock, though.

Odds ‘n Ends > PD revs CIEDCUCGAF, SyFy’s Toy Realities, 4H’s OSM, FOTD has AC2

April 25, 2012 | Poe
SuperMom Accessories

SuperMom Accessories by happyworker

  • Pixel Dan has posted his review of the Club Infinite Earths DC Universe Classics Golden Age Flash.
  • For those who might be wondering, yes, I did subscribe to CIE, but I don’t plan to review them and intend to sell all my figures (with the exception of the Bat-characters, probably). I’m either going to sell them on eBay or maybe just my own store.
  • The SyFy Channel is developing a couple of toy-related reality shows: “Collection Intervention” will assist desperate significant others in forcing their loved ones to sell off some or all of their beloved collections, while the more interesting and less personally invasive “Toy Traveler” features Shane Turgeon, “the Indiana Jones of toy collectors,” as he jets around the world seeking rare and unusual toys. Do we got anything on this Shane Turgeon guy?
  • The Four Horsemen posted some new info on their upcoming Outer Space Men release dates.
  • Don’t forget, Figure of the Day has the entire set of DC’s Arkham City Series 2 on its site for $89.99 w/ free shipping.
  • Phil Reed at Battlegrip has reviewed a pair of Play Arts Kai figures – Arkham Asylum Batman and Halo Reach Jorge. I’ve had the PAKAS Bats on my shelf waiting for a review for weeks now. I’m evidently lazy. Oh, and I’ve had the PAK Halo Master Chief even longer than that.
  • I should be able to announce the winner of the Bat-Libs contest either late today or tomorrow.
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Review > Sorceress (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)

April 24, 2012 | Poe

The character of the Sorceress/Goddess was created by Mattel for the original Masters of the Universe line. However, as many fans know, that original Sorceress was referred to as “The Goddess” and featured a design that was ultimately used for Teela instead. When the Sorceress was introduced as a character in the 1980s Filmation cartoon series, she was redesigned to look like the bird-woman we all know and love. Confused yet?

From the admittedly brief research I did for this review, it appears Filmation redesigned the Sorceress for the cartoon, but that would haven’t caused any rights issues for MOTUC even before they secured the Filmation rights because Mattel (finally) produced the much-desired Sorceress figure at the tail end of the line in 1987. It’s worth noting the Filmation cartoon debuted the new look of the Sorceress in 1984, yet we didn’t get a figure of this central character until three years later. Moreover, the Millennium line only gave us an immobile “Staction“ figure, while it took nearly three years – again – to get a Sorceress figure in Masters of the Universe Classics. (more…)

Figure It Out #12

April 23, 2012 | Poe
Figure It Out #12

Click for a larger version

Congrats to last week’s winner, Zach S, who was the only person to correctly identify the figure as Sweet Tooth from the videogame Twisted Metal, made by DC Unlimited. The other two guesses were for Humungus from the old Mad Max line by N2 Toys, which, to be fair, were pretty good guesses.

Guesses for this week are due to poe@poeghostal.com by 12 noon ET on Friday. Please put “Figure It Out” in your subject line. Winner will be chosen at random from among correct guesses and will receive a Poe Prize (a little vending machine UFO toy, just so you’re not disappointed). Contest is open to all, including Power Pals, friends, family, and international Poesters. One entry per person. Good luck!

The Avengers Starring Marvel Legends

April 23, 2012 | Poe

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1aXoemMSFc&w=500&h=284]

This redo of the Avengers trailer starring Marvel Legends figures is making the rounds today, so I thought I’d share it here.

The figure choices are obviously a bit dated – as if the filmmaker or one of his friends had picked up some of the really early Marvel Legends, stopped collecting, then dusted them off when they got the idea for this project. (Damn, that Schwarzeneggerian Thor looks laughable now, doesn’t he?) Assuming the idea was to use comic-based figures and not the actual 6″ movie figures, I would have used:

They had the right Loki, though, and as far as I know there’s not a better Bruce Banner out there. And the recent Extremis Iron Man shows up near the end of the trailer. Using Fin Fang Foom at the end was cute.

To be clear, I’m not dissing the video – it’s still an amazing piece of work – I just kept thinking about how old those figures looked. If you’re going to put that much effort into the production, why not spend a couple hundred bucks on better figures? I don’t know though, maybe the figures I listed are really expensive these days on the aftermarket.

Thanks to Topless Robot for the heads-up.