Fighter Pods and Green Friends

So the Hulk has been on my butt about getting some of those new Star Wars Fighter Pods things that just popped up at Walmart. He's just crazy about his mini figures! We made a deal: I'd get a pack if I can keep Boba Fett. He wanted Yoda (because he's green... duh). What were our chances of getting what we wanted? Read on to find out!


Someone looks happy.

So these things come blind-bagged for 3 bucks a bag. Each bag includes two mini figures and a "Fighter Pod." One of the two mini figures is exclusive to the blind bag series and the other is of the kind available in other sets.


Evidently there's some stupid games you can play with the pods. Bleh.

So... how blind are these bags? Not very. In every bag there's a small hole punched in the bottom right that lets you see a little bit of details about the figures you have in each bag. The figures aren't packed inside the ball, so you can move them around inside the bag.


Holey, holey, holey.

But beyond all that is the fact that the white parts of the bag are almost totally see-through. If you can work the figures down below the stupid ball thing you can press them against the white plastic and see them clearly. That's how I managed to find exactly what I wanted.


So... how accurate was my method?


Extremely.

These suckers are adorable. I am totally serious about just how cute these things are. The look on Yoda's face is priceless.


"Raaaaargh! Hulk love green elf!"

When I first saw these I wanted to dismiss the "Fighter Pod" as a piece of useless plastic.


I mean... you can store your figures in them, sure... but they kinda roll all over the place...


And you can spin them, I guess... wait... they don't do that very well either.


But the coolest thing about them is that one half of the ball has a peg that perfectly fits the hole in the bottom of the figure's body. I mean.... they don't really need a stand, but they look kinda spiffy on there. Sadly, it's only on one half... the other peg is too small for the hole in the figures.



They're roughly the same size as the Squinkies, but they aren't as squishy and are sculpted much more dynamically. I really dig the aesthetics of this line over the Squinkies. Squinkies are more cute, and these guys have a bit of edginess to the designs.

So... what does Hulk think of them? I'd ask him, but he's kinda busy right now:





These are tiny (less than one inch tall) figurines... and you only get two to a pack. They're not the best value, to be honest. There are non-blind packs available with 4 figures together with 4 Fighter Pods for 6 bucks, and then there is a set with 8 (I believe) figures, several Fighter Pods, and a couple of cutesy Star Wars vehicles like the Millennium Falcon or Darth Maul's ship done up in this style for like 12 bucks. Either way they run over a dollar a piece per figure... not terrible, but then not fantastic either. I got the one figure I really wanted, so unless I see another one that I can't live without I think I'm good for now.

Well... there were a few Stormtroopers I liked...

Rok 'n' Roll

I just finished a new custom Star Wars figure. He' up on eBay now... Click the picture to see many more pictures and information about the character!

Yes... the background picture is from a Gears of War screen shot. XD

Death Watch

I'm not a huge fan of the new Clone Wars cartoon on Cartoon Network. I think the show is beautiful... don't get me wrong. I think it's one of the most cutting-edge animated features on TV. I'm just not happy at all with the overt preachiness of the whole thing. They take every opportunity they can to cram some of their world-view down the viewer's throats-- that's fine if you dig it-- I don't. That's just my gripe-- it's distracting to me. Classic Star Wars was a LOT more subtle about its social commentary.

That said, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the show was the injection of Mandalorian awesome that came this last season. The introduced the Death Watch, a group of Mandalorians who wanted to return Mandalore to its warrior past directly conflicting with the (hyper-unrealistically) pacifistic leadership of the Duchess of Mandalore. The leader of the Death Watch was the governor of the moon Concordia, Pre Vizsla. For those of you who may not know it, Pre Vizsla was a baaaad dude. If you can find episodes online, try to watch the episodes The Mandalore Plot, Voyage of Temptation, and Duchess of Mandalore-- trust me... the way they handled the Mandalorians was just awesome.

Enough back story... people don't come here for TV show reviews... they want TOYS!!!

I found the Pre Vizsla figure in town last night. I've been waiting for this figure since those episodes aired. So... how is the toy? Let's find out!

This is the new packaging for the latest line of figures. Yawn. I throw packages away anyway, so this isn't really my thing. It's a pretty darn busy looking card and bubble though... a lot going on here, mostly pitching the game that you can now play with figures. You know... when I was a kid I didn't need a game to play with my figures. I wonder how much of this game thing is the company trying to pitch games because they think kids like them or because the company just wants to sell game junk. I dunno... kids are weird these days. It's not their fault... everyone else is doing their thinking for them.



The package uses a LOT of plastic. the bubble is just gargantuan. Everything that comes in the package could fit in a MUCH smaller bubble. Seeing the new vintage styled figures sitting next to these on the pegs makes me laugh... they look so much better than these. Just a tiny little bubble over to the left with a HUGE picture of the character on the right: EPIC.



I hate how they only show a few figures on the backs of packages anymore. You want to sell stuff to kids? Give them a flippin' checklist like we used to have on old-school Star wars figures. For years I had a box of old Star Wars card backs with the little pictures of the figures I wanted circled. You know what? It made me want to collect them all. Seeing 3 or 4 pictures of figures doesn't give me much idea of how many are in the series so I can COLLECT ALL THESE AWESOME CHARACTERS!!! Sheesh, Hasbro... do some darn marketing research that doesn't involve asking execs who never collected toys what they think sells toys.



So here he is in all his glory. I think he's a pretty spiffy looking figure. He has some issues, but I'll get to those in a few. You can see the parts of the game that come with him. The display stand doubles as a holder for the game card and you use the included die to roll for all of his abilities. Yawn. If anyone wants his card, stand, and die, just let me know... I don't need them. I'll mail it to you free.



Here's one of my big beefs with the figure: the cape is just horrible. It's huge and the way it's made it never wants to sit correctly. This is one of those few instances where I think a plastic molded piece would have been better. I like the fact that they're doing more fabric pieces, but this one would have benefited from being more rigid and form-fitting.





Still... he looks darn smexy with his sword and cape... when you can get it to settle on the figure properly... annoying thing...



He's a pretty darn poseable figure... this is one of the VERY few Star Wars figures with pin and post hips, so he can be posed in more dynamic stances.



See what I mean?



He has two really well-sculpted and painted blaster pistols that fit in holsters on his thighs. Nice touch!



PEW PEW!!!



Here's another one of my big issues with the figure... the jetpack falls off if you look at it wrong.



The back is made with this big concaved section where the jetpack is supposed to fit.



Unfortunately, the pack wasn't made with the concave section in mind, so the peg baaaarely fits into the hole on the back. I'm probably going to have to put a new, longer peg on it, which is a fairly simple procedure, but when I'm paying 8 bucks for a tiny little toy I shouldn't have to do anything to it to make it work properly. Shame on you Hasbro!



Here he is with other figures. You'll notice he's more in line with the Clone Wars cartoon figures (unless Boba Fett is just a really short dude). That makes sense... since the toy is of a character from the cartoon... duh!

All in all, this is a REALLY nice figure. It has a couple of flaws, but nothing that should prevent anyone from buying it. I wish Star Wars figures cost a couple of dollars less, but it looks like Hasbro is setting the price of 1:18 scale figures right around the 7-8 dollar mark. It's not bad when you buy one or two figures out of a line, but collecting a whole set gets pricey. I guess there isn't much to be done about it. Toy prices are going to keep going up as the costs of making them go up. I'm happy with my purchase, because it's a well-made figure that looks great and poses REALLY well.

Do I recommend the Pre Vizsla figure from the new Clone Wars figure series? Yes... yes I do!



I'm holding out hope that they'll release an animated version of Boba Fett using this mold. We need a sleek Boba Fett like this!

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away"

Georgia on my mind...

I was gone all last week. I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house in Georgia to visit with them a while. I had a blast going to the zoo and the aquarium, hitting all the stores we don't have here, and plundering the antique stores of Braselton. I also got to hang out with some good friends from the area. It was a pretty wicked awesome week.

While I was in Georgia I picked up a few things at Toys R Us, and I received a few things from my friends. Just thought I'd share the haul here:




This is the War For Cybertron Cybertronian Optimus Prime figure from Hasbro. It pretty much rules. He's based on the in-game character design from the Transformers: War For Cybertron video game.



It's a deluxe figure, which means it's about 6 inches tall and costs around 12 bucks. This is the first time in a long time I have felt like I got my money's worth in a Transformer this size. He's well articulated and looks pretty darn dynamic in just about any pose.



His weapon stores on his body when not in use, which is a big plus for me... I always dug it when they designed them to do that.



Prime has ball joints all over the place, so he's able to stand really well. The gun he comes with stores on his back...



...or on the back of his forearm. It folds up and is spring-loaded so that it snaps back into shape with the touch of a trigger.



There are several ports on the body that the pegs on the gun fit, so you have all kinds of options for storing/displaying the weapon. The ports are sized to fit classic Transformers weapons, so you can deck him out like crazy!



See what I mean by poseability? He looks so awesome!!!

The design of the figure is deceptive... you think he's going to be easy to transform... and then...



SCIENCE!!!



This is his alternate form... some kind of Cybertronian lowrider.



It's a really powerful looking vehicle with exhaust pipes and extra wheels.



The kneepads fold up to become the tail lights, which is kinda cool. I wonder if they blink when he turns left in robot mode...



It's nice to see the windshields through the armor there. It suggests slightly the big truck Prime would eventually become without being overly earth-vehicle-like in nature.

A very nice figure that's well-worth the price. Grab one while you can... these suckers are hot right now!

A few days later I found a figure I had been looking for since it came out, but I had always missed it in stores.



This is the Mighty Mugg Boba Fett. I'm not really crazy about Mighty Muggs, but I am nuts about Boba Fett. He's a cute little chubby guy, and he makes a great addition to my Boba collection.



I was kinda shocked when I saw him on the shelf. It's the old figure... the package had a fine layer of dust on it, which makes me think it had been in a store room or something. I got him for about half the price of a new one, so YEAH! Oddly enough he didn't come with a gun... that's pretty unusual in my book. I'll have to make him one.


I met up with some friends, and they had a few things for me. We always send stuff to each other because we're pretty much awesome. Yeah. They surprised the crap outta me when they handed me all this awesome stuff...



This is Dark Zagi, a character from Ultraman Nexus. I haven't ever seen any episodes of Nexis, but this dude just looks unbelievably awesome.



He's all armored and shiny black... what a cool looking guy! Evidently he's the master of dark evil or something. I bet Ultraman can whupp him!



This is Skull King. He's one of the Kaiju For Grown Ups from Wonderwall. Japanese artist Touma designed this wicked dude, and this version was released in an extremely limited quantity.



He has a really cool bone-like texture over his body, and he appears to be made of individual bones.



He has a very distinctive look that marks most of Touma's work. He has very sharp, curved lines and a saw tooth grin.



He stands about 8 inches tall and is clear blue rotocast vinyl. I have him stuffed with glow in the dark Glyos parts right now, but I'm going to replace it with glow in the dark Airsoft pellets as soon as I find some. It looks great glowing from the inside out!



This is Armada Optimus Prime. Another friend of mine gave me this this past week because he knows I dig Prime.



It's a really ruggedly awesome looking robot with nice, chunky body parts.



He has electronic features, but the button cell batteries are dead, so I'll have to get some new ones.



He comes with a trailer, but I forgot to get pics of it. Maybe I'll post those at another time. He's so cool looking!



My sister-in-law's son has grown out of his toys, so he let me rummage through his stuff and pull out what I wanted. I snagged this awesome 5 inch Goldar figure...



... and this pretty spiffy American Godzilla. I've never really liked the American Godzilla, but seeing as he appears in Godzilla: Final Wars I couldn't pass him up!



He has a whipping tail, moving jaws, and a roar sound effect. He actually looks really nice sitting with my other Godzillas!

This isn't all the goodies I got on my trip... I just thought I'd show the highlights! Hope you enjoyed it!