HOORAY FOR OUR FIRST FEATURE ARTICLE!
Talk about never ending. We literally have been working on so many side projects that the first article has not really quite appeared. Finally, it is here.
Venenor and I have for a long time written back and forth to each other on a number of topics. Usually, one of us sends the other a number of topics or things of interest to respond to in kind. This usually goes back and forth a few times until we start new topics or new emails overlap. However, instead of keeping them private, we are making it all public. Transparency at its folks.
But here it is, our first feature: The Never Ending Trade (of opinions).
Trade: The Legend of Zelda: Rare Imports
Saint: I finally pulled the trigger and ordered the Figma Link figure. After two failed preorders and watching prices increase dramatically, the quest to claim Link has hopefully come to a close. I received a $40 gift certificate to Amazon for Christmas, and while it was going to go towards the Doctor Who Sonic Screw Driver universal remote, it was used towards the figure. My limit for this figure was around $50 plus shipping. Big Bad Toy Store lost it’s preorders for around $50 apiece due to Diamond Distributor screwing something up. After that went down, I found another import store that would eventually lost them for the same price about a month and a half later. When all of the sources for these figures dried up, prices shot up on the secondary market. Ebay wouldn’t help unless I found a lucky “Buy It Now” auction (and there was at a time several for around $50), so I was forced to us Amazon. The gift certificate covered most of what I was unwilling to pay for, leaving me with around $60 to pay. Every review of this figure has been stellar and it’s something I’ve been craving since I first heard of it. I’m hoping it arrives quickly and doesn’t break right out of the package.
Venenor: That’s probably one of the coolest figures to come out in a while. I’ve looked at some other Figma figures (mainly Metroid’s Samus) and they’re very well done. In-hand you’ll have a better perspective but I look forward to your review. I’m glad you pulled the trigger because you mentioned it in just about every conversation between us for the last few months.
Trade: Toy Fair Predictions of an Event that has already happened
Saint: Toy Fair is upon us (and as of this posting, has past). Mattel really jump started the whole thing by showing off several figures I don’t want. I wonder if the couple of polls they are running on He-Man.org will be of any use. The prototype for Grayskull seems…underwhelming thus far but it is growing on me. It will be a wait and see and I’m assuming we will see the final product by SDCC. I’m looking forward to some surprises out of Toy Fair but I’m thinking we will not see much.
Venenor: Ah, ToyFair time. Let us all soak in the reveals and wait anxiously for them to finally get released. As for the Matty reveals, I read that Digital River apparently had those pics in a public folder on their site that someone found and then leaked. Conspiracy?? I wouldn’t be surprised if Mattel purposefully had those reveals “leaked” to stir up some pre-ToyFair buzz. But if Mattel has their panel and they only show what was leaked then it’d be safe to say DR screwed up again. Regarding the reveals I think all of them look pretty solid for who they’re supposed to be. Mantenna is the obvious star of the group. Shokoti, Icer and NA He-Man are also great. As far as the others, since I don’t plan on getting those characters anyway I can’t give them their just-due but considering the execution I think they were done as good as the rest. One thing that pops into my head is wondering whether or not Mantenna is going to get the Ram-Man treatment as an “oversized” figure. He has lots of new tooling like Ram-Man and you have to consider the fact that the extra limbs make him slightly up-sized in parts/materials compared to regular sub figures. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mantenna has the $33 price tag versus the now standard $27. Mantenna is that damn good that I’d pay the $33 for. Castle Grayskull is in prototype mode so I’m gonna take a fairly neutral stance for now. I agree though that the “face” of CG from above the brow to the nasal cavity is a bit narrow. The cheekbones don’t help to hide that either. So far the interior is shaping up and the mtvgeek.com sneak peek of the prisoner chamber and jawbridge look cool.
Trade: John McClain, GI Joe
Saint: The Bruce Willis Joe Colton figure looks great, but I’m assuming it will be short packed. The Joe line has shot up in price, almost $11-12. They removed articulation and added giant ridiculous weapons. Bruce Willis will be worth it when I can get him, but the beauty of Joes has left: Lower priced, higher quality figures. Bye bye.
Venenor: Ugh, the dreaded term “shortpacked” rears its ugly head again. If we were talking the comic strip it’d be different. Anyway, if he is the shortpack fig it’ll suck tremendously. That’s all the douchebag scalpers need to know so they can buy them all and screw the collectors. It’ll be cool having this fig though. Give him one of Snake Eyes’ kitanas and he can slice up redneck sodomizers like Butch from Pulp Fiction, let him wear some of some of Zartan’s masks and he can be The Jackal or do what I’m gonna do and have him ask Cobra troopers “head or gut” as Joe Hallenbeck.
Trade: Wrestling Rant
Saint: Since the Royal Rumble, the only reason I’m watching WWE is Jericho, Punk, and Brock. They buried Zigglerindefinitely, Cena is just a rerun of everything we’ve seen before, Rock is just promoting movies when he has time (come on Champ, wrestle a match on network TV), and nothing else maintains my interest. Unless we get another Jericho/Punk match, an Undertaker/Punk match, or Brock VS anyone but Triple H match, I will not be watching this year.
Venenor: Jericho is pretty hot with his surprise return. Brock is also gaining steam better than last year by just coming out and being a beast. Punk is still interesting without the strap and I like this bit of anxiety he’s going through trying to get it back. Heyman still delivers time and time again. Ziggs just gets shuffled around over and over, this makes no sense. Then to top it off they gave the rub from Flair to Miz instead of Ziggs only to be topped off by the most gawd-awful Figure-4 since its creation. I like Del Rio’s face turn and how they overhauled his moveset almost completely. Rock as champ is what it is so let’s not waste time fooling ourselves. The WWE machine is trying to generate as much buzz and revenue leading into ‘Mania and Rock as champ is a no-brainer in that regard. Do I agree with it? No. Is this going to make me stop watching? No. There’s plenty that still interests me with the product that lets me bypass this business-oriented glitch. I can safely say that I like this run with the Rock over last year’s so far.
Trade: Return of the Days and Nights of the Third Season of the Walking Dead
Venenor: So we’re a few days from The Walking Dead show picking back up. I’m pretty excited about it and there’s plenty we were left to think about. We’ve got new folks at the prison while Glen and Maggie were saved but Daryl was left behind and is about to square off against his brother Merle in a death match. Oh, and the Governor’s eyesight has been downgraded by 50% which, along with the beheading of his zombie daughter, has undoubtedly opened the floodgates to his rather cleverly hidden malevolence. Lots of shit to resolve, lots of shit to forward to. But one thing perplexes me: what’re the odds that the Gov, Merle and Herschel band together and become pirates?
Saint: Now that the show has returned, I’m not sure how I feel. It still feels like it is progressing as slowly as the first half of the second season. It’s not that the conflicts currently in the show are easily resolved, it is rather that they seem to be deliberately drawing them out. For instance, Merle and Daryl were forced to fight one another after Daryl was caught in the first raid. Then, the group attacks and raids the town AGAIN. And then Rick returns to the prison to still be crazy. It’s just getting old and I’m wanting the show to move a bit faster. I honestly thought they were just trying to extend the second season a few extra episodes by stretching it out, but now it is clear that it may just be the pace of the writers. Speed it up!
Trade: Mini Zombies
Venenor: While on The Walking Dead subject, I bought (and totally dig) the series 2 Minimates. Still gotta track down the Glen pack from series 1 but overall the Minimates have not disappointed at all. Was that a veiled shot at the McFarlane stuff? No, because I don’t mind saying that the “other” TWD figures out there flat-out suck. There’s a little something I’m gonna be working on to make use of these cool little figs. Details will trickle in soon.
Saint: It seems like TWD Minimates are far superior to their McFarlane counterparts. Minimates is just able to cover a much wider range of figures, sculpts, designs, and still manages to maintain a consistent quality. Early looks at the next McFarlane figures don’t look awful, but there’s really no way for them to regain any sort of credibility at this point. McFarlane, at this point, is only around to make NECA look much better than it already is, and NECA has far surpassed all current toy lines.
Trade: Turtles in a Half Hour
Venenor: It looks like the TMNT relaunch is a legit hit. My son’s love it and watch DVR’ed episodes all the time. And when they aren’t watching that they’re watching one of the 3 live-action movies that I got them in a Blu-Ray 3pk for Christmas. It’s very awesome to share in the experience considering how big TMNT was for me as a kid. I can’t lie, I wish Krang had the big Andre-The-Giant-esque robot body but these new Terminator looking ones are pretty cool. What I’m wondering (and hoping for) is will the popularity of this relaunch alter the planned script/story ideas for the live-action movie? Y’know, that one that Mr. Bayformer stirred up a bunch of shit about while simultaneously nut-shotting the fanboys ala Ric Flair when he told them to chill. Anyway, I hope they have some damn sense to merge the two so the kids and adults that’re supporting this TMNT relaunch aren’t totally shit on when they go see the movie.
Saint: I don’t know how much the new TMNT show and toy line will use the original show and toy line as reference. While the core four turtles were done quite well, the other figures are not showing much creativity. Granted, they are very accurate to the show, there is just a lot of inconsistency. They are, however, still amazing sculpts.
I still don’t know what I think about Bay taking over the Turtles franchise. If you have a successful, growing franchise on TV right now, why radically change it? Aliens? Not Teenage? I don’t get it. The show clearly shows that a certain model works, why stray away? Oh, right, Bay knows what the people want really well…
Trade: GI Joe Relaxation
Venenor: In a few months we’ll get GI Joe Retaliation which looks like a sure bet of being a sequel that kicks the original’s ass. It doesn’t have a alotta work to do but so far everything I’ve seen from the trailers and toy line has me pretty anxious. After that there’s plenty of movies hitting the big screen like Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Fast 6, Wolverine, etc. I think with all the usual suspects lined up I’m definitely looking forward to Pacific Rim the most.
The Never Ending Trade 