MARCH ACQUISITIONS PART 1: MORE GIFTINGS

Kim-Ra, The Ever-Gromping!

 OK. The last month has been, to put it mildly, a bit bizonkers, and April's not faring much better. April is Las a HUGE month for my pre-orders to start coming due, and since stuff is already wending its way to me, including at least one thing that wasn't supposed to be out until May, I need to clear the decks on March photographing and posting. You don't have to read all this, but like a recipe on the Internet, if you scroll to the end you'll find something fun.

So we start where these things sometimes start, and me turning 54 fucking years old and getting toys for my birthday, because I live my damn life right. As hinted in the thumbnail above, one such gift was the Super7 Ultimates Thundercats Mumm-Ra The Ever Living With Ma-Mutt, a fine counterpoint to the Super7 Ultimates Lion-O I got around Christmas and a fine point for me to probably stop collecting Ultimates except for maybe their various Zords for purposes of figure photography. He is cool with some hefty buts.

So much of this is cool that the disappointments are magnified. The sculpt is great. The accessories are great, and a big improvement over Lion-O of the Four Gang Claw Thingies. The cloth cape is wired and glorious except... to maintain the look, Super7 decided to just have pegs or spikes on the wrists and back, and then holes in the cape to hold them. And the holes are not consistently sized. Left wrist is great. Back center is OK but a little loose. And right wrist doesn't stay on for shit. It's clearly intended for you to get it just right once, put it on the shelf, and then get pissed off two years later when you knock it loose dusting. It's not designed to be used. 

The other beefs are the usual Super7 "look first, functionality second" design modality which leans farther away from functionality than I prefer. But it's still impressive, and my cat loves the oversized window box it comes in.

Next up is Jazwares' AEW Supreme Series 2 Malakai Black, my first toe-dip into the waters of their high-end, pinless, cloth-good, mega-accessorized wrestling line. And boy, is he accessorized. As you can see above, five heads. A second set of legs just so he can have different shorts. The black bone vest thing you see is removable. And he has two different raggedy cloth overshoots, which is insane. All the tattoos. All the masks. All the eye weirdnesses. Just a definitive Malakai Black figure in every way, which really justifies the price point given how I won't be tempted by any of the upcoming regular releases.

This is the SH Figures Pac-Man, a budget release compared to the rest of the SH Figures line, but surprisingly nifty nonetheless. He comes with the ghost and cherries you see, a couple of extra hands in the same style as the picture, and a bonus face to make him wink which I will probably never use. Actually, scratch that. I've had my idea for my next figure series and the winking face will get used there. The articulation is surprisingly good too. Not a ton of poses, but it's Pac-Man, he doesn't do a lot.

Finally, a little Marvel Legends - the X-Men Animated Series Cyclops. I don't love this entire line but it's proving to have some of the most definitive-for-me looks of certain characters, and Cyclops is one of those characters. The cel-shaded version of the 90's Jim Lee costume is and forever will be Cyclops to me, and this figure nails that. No notes.

OK, you made it to the end. I had these four figures, and as sometimes happens, a weird idea popped into my head, and the more I thought about it, the more it worked. I mean, Cyclops is a battle leader. Mumm-Ra is kind of diseased. The House of Black has a lot of death imagery, and Pac-Man eats a lot. So, I present, the New Adventures Of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse!