FIG PHOTOS: Wolverine Meme

LOOK, ALF CAME WITH A FRAMED PICTURE OF ALF AND WHEN I THINK OF A FRAMED PICTURE I THINK OF THIS AND I HAVE A CARTOON WOLVERINE WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!
 

MORE PREORDER: Peter Parker / Smythe

 I mean, these guys were both in the Sinister 11 picture, so yeah, I obviously got them.

DREAM GUEST: Alf on Hey! (EW)

“You’re always saying ‘I kill me.’ Why so negative? Why not ‘I love me?’”

I don’t know why the Alf figure gave me so many ideas. I go where the muse strikes me and I am not in control. There’s two more on deck for fuck’s sake.

PRE-OUT-OF-ORDER ACQUIRED: MMPR REmstered Red Ranger

 

Why did the worst Remastered figure shop three months early, and before the Black Ranger, which was supposed to be out in August? Do not question Hasbro or their ways.

FIG PHOTO: “Alf Ego” Ethalf Page

  So, this is mostly just for me?

NEW TOY: Schroedinger’s Cat-Eater (NECA Ultimate ALF)

 What’s the oipposite of an impulse purchase?

FIG PHOTO: Spider-Verse vs. The Sinister… 11?

 The genesis of this photo is very, very basic. “Man, I’ve been getting a lot of Spidey villains lately.” And I have! 

So I went through and grabbed every one I could find except Michael Keaton Vulture because one, I’m excluding MCU from this (I have VERY few MCU Spidey figures overall) and two, he’s an utter pain in the ass to photograph. So, ten villains.

So then it was “How many Spider-People do I have, not counting the three different “red-and-blue-costume” Spideys. Hey, that also makes 10.

I had originally thought about trying to pose each side as single pictures, or possibly two groups per side, but I did the math on the stands I have, the space I had available, and the verticality I wanted and quickly gave up on that plan.

So I posed and shot all 20 figures individually, composited them, layered them, rearranged them, found a few spots where I wanted a lower layer to overlap a higher layer (a lot with Doc Ock’s tentacles) and erased bits accordingly.

Then my Smythe/Peter Parker two pack charged to my card a couple months early so I realized I needed to wait a bit. 

When it arrived, I added Smythe to what is now the Sinister 11, and Peter Parker to where he needed to be. 

So then it was just doing some adjustments so that the lighting mismatches didn’t stand out too too much, and boom, done. The full list:

SPIDERVERSE: Marvel Legends Spidey (Amazing Friends 3-Pack); Spider-Verse 1 Miles, Gwen, Peter B. Parker, Noir, and Ham; Spider-Verse 2 Punk and Woman; Toy Biz Marvel Legends Symbiote Spider-Man, comics 2099. Animated Series Peter Parker.

SINISTER 11: Retro-card Tarantula, Lizard, Scorpion and Rhino; Animated 2-Pack Goblin, Doc Ock and Smythe; Into The Spider-Verse Wave Fog-Man, Prowler, and Stilt-Man BAF; Venom (Venom/Knull 2-Pack, wings off).

Mortal Kombat 1 (The Toy, Not THe Game)

 Arcade games are one of my favorite figure props. There have been a few lately as working toys that I’ve used, but none of the working miniature machines in the standard arcade game style are right. For various reasons, their proportions are off.

So when I was poking around for various 1/12-scale game-related items, I stumbled across this on Etsy. It’s a basic plastic cast arcade game mold and printed, applied stickers for a wide variety of games for 20 bucks plus shipping. It’s the right proportions, and a wide variety of sticker applications are available.

I went with the original Mortal Kombat, because, well, it’s absolutely classic. I would have gotten the original vector Star Wars game, but they don’t have unique molds for games with unique controllers or cabinets. I might have gotten like three if the Star Wars and/or the Tron had accurate controllers, but I understand why they don’t.

Anyway, it arrived quickly and looks good. But how well does it work with my figures?

Player 1 AND Player 2!

Not… bad. It’s a little small, because it’s strict 6” scale and most of my ostensibly 6” scale figures run larger than that to various degrees. Marvel Legends looks good, but my Jazwares Hnagman Adam Page looked huge next to it. One of the problems is that a lot of figures have longer than normally-proportioned legs, so while on a normal arcade machine, your waist would line up pretty good with where the controllers live, here they ride higher, so you have to do knee bends to get their hands anywhere near the controls. But it can be worked with, and it’s not like there are even better alternatives out there to choose from.

Sea Of Starsfield

Maybe it’s because I’m old, but if you look at the games I’ve spent time with, enjoyed, or beaten over the past few years, the one thing they have in common is that they’re easy to play.

NEW TOY: Tarantula!

 

So, me, nostalgia, and memory have a real complicated relationship.

Hulk And His Friends Are Quite The Crew

 

Under no circumstances should you Google the title of this post. You have been warned.

August ended up being a light month, with at least three preorders pushed into a future month. But I did get two Hulks.

Twisted Metal, Foundation, and Invasion

The FOURTH Law of Robotics says I GET TO FUCK ONE!

 OK. Haven’t had a ton of hobby (or writing about hobby) energy for a few weeks, but I have had the time and energy to binge three different mediocre streaming genre shows, so let’s get into that for a bit.

NEW TOYS: Preorder Party!

 August is a moderate-to-large month for preorders, and the last week or so saw about half of them drop.

BEATEN/PLATINUMED: Synapse (PSVR2)

 

It took me about two weeks to beat Synapse on the first two difficulty levels, and another three weeks to beat the third and final difficulty level.

OFF THE SHELF: The Marvels

 

It is the most microscopic of tiniest of problems, but this entire year has been very confusing when it comes to how, when, where, and for how long Target gets, stocks, and clearances any given Marvel Legends wave.

FIG PHOTO: The Egghead Club

So, as I just mentioned, I had  a second reason for wanting Marvel Legends’ Egghead. It’s because I also had DC’s Egghead, specifically, Vincent Price Egghead from Batman ‘66. And two Eggheads means fun, and for me, fun means spending a not insignificant chunk of my Saturday trying to stop the photo site I got this free cafe image from to stop fucking e-mailing me. Oh, and also making this picture.

The egg cups on the table were Cathy’s idea, and boy is Google’s algorithm gonna have a fun time making head or tails of THAT search.

But this image was just the setup. The beginning of the story. Exposition, if you will. I had a more intricate narrative in mind, a deeper story to tel, and for that, I had to look to the Marvel Legends Fantastic Four wave:

Was it villainy? Snobbishness? The fact that Reed Richards’ head wasn’t currently shaped like an egg, even though it could be?  We may never know. Like all great art, the perspective of those viewing it is what matters. 

SLOW MONTH: Marvel’s Egghead

The last two weeks have been very calm before the storm, while I wait for the slate of August preorders (currently at 8 figs assuming nothing else ships early) and try to beat Synapse. 

This was an online impulse buy that ended up taking forever to get to ,e because when I got around to pulling the trigger once I had enough preorders for free shipping, it was backordered. It’s Egghead, from the Marvel Legends Quantumania wave. 

Egghead is a weird deep cut Marvel villain that I mostly know from Avengers cartoon, and I mostly got him because he’s a weird deep cut and for another reason I’m working on. I didn’t care about the rest of the wave because I already have perfectly fine Ant Man and Wasp figures, and MCU Kang is now… problematic. 

He came with the big torso of the Giant Cassie Lang build a figure, which means he came with nothing but his gun, but otherwise he’s a solid, very middle of the road Legends figure. 

Synapse (PSVR2)

 

Synapse is the first PSVR2 game to dent my face and drain my controller batteries.

FIG PHOTO: [waka waka waka] DON’T LOOK, MARION! [waka waka waka]

 

NEW TOYS: The Day Of Tiny, Tiny Shit

BANANA FOR SCALE

I need to stress the importance of one thing right off the bat.CLEARANCE DOESN’T COUNT. Any collecting rules, self-imposed restrictions, or past statements are rendered completely invalid if the price point gets low enough.

FIG PHOTO: Oops! More Tommies!

 

It’s been about eleven months since I completed my collection of Lightning Collection Tommies and completed my plans for the Oops! All Tommies picture. A lot has happened since then, on all kinds of levels, but the second-most relevant* thing to this picture that’s happened was the release of another Tommy, requiring an update to the picture.

I figured Dino Thunder Tommy was older, wiser, had gotten his doctorate in something other than martial arts, somehow, and thus would be imperturbed by being dunked in a giant bowl of cereal, so I made him casually hang out over the bottom of the bowl.

* Technically, the death of Jason David Frank is more relevant to this picture, but I ain’t making tribute art here. Still, it seemed weird not to mention it.

MORE PLASTIC: Playing The Ringside Games

 

Buying wrestling figures, especially AEW figures, from Ringside Collectibles requires playing two games.

Atari Mania (PS4/5)

 

The only feeling about Atari Mania I’m 100A% sure about is “I’m glad I got this on sale.”

JUNE TOYS: The Pre-Orders, AKA Mostly Power Rangers Stuff

 

June’s pre-orders included a lot of multipacks, so while it felt like a light month for purchases, it ended up being a lot of figures.

FIG PHOTOS: Fun With Cap

 

So I have this new Captain America Marvel Legends figure, and the modernish Ultimates look is, to me, reminiscent of one of the most infamous Captain America drawings of all time, Rob Leifeld’s insane bodybuilder-tits pose. So, for fun, I thought I’d shoot Ultimates Cap posed the same way and see how he, if you’ll pardon the expression, stacks up.

Above, you see what they look like when you match the sizes of the shields. Is it a fair comparison? I don’t know. But it’s a funny one. But in the interests of covering all the bases, I also did one where I matched the sizes of the heads:

Once again, the action figure proves, in some ways, woefully inadequate, although nobody’s body-shaming anyone here. 

FULL DISCLOSURE: If they made a Heroes Reborn Captain America action figure with the look and proportions of this Leifeld Cap, I would absolutely buy it in ian instant, because that would be hilarious.t

JUNE TOYS: The Impulse Buys

 

June was split about 70/30 between pre-orders and impulse buys, although there’s still a week left to bring that impulse buy percentage up. Unlikely, but after seeing Guardians 3, the appeal of the entire Guardians 3 wave which I decided against because everyone was in the blue uniforms rose sharply now that I have context for the blue uniforms. Anyway.

THE FIGS OF SPRING FINALE: Spider-Verse!

And so we wrap up May’s toys with two of the Marvel Legends Across The Spider-Verse toys - Spider-Woman and Spider-Punk.

I didn’t need a Miles, Gwen, or Spider-Man 2099 because I have the first two from the first movie, and the comics version of the latter. I passed on The Spot because of his weird proportions but I’m not averse to getting him on clearance. But these I had to have.

This wave is weird because it’s packaged oddly, and everyone’s got even more movie-accurate proportions, compared to the original movie’s more “these designs as a Marvel Legends figure” My preference varies from figure to figure, but tese two work.

Biggest flaw, and I don’t know if it was intended to avoid character spoilers or not, but I really would have liked an unmasked Spider-Punk head after seeing the movie. Otherwise, they’re solid Marvel Legends figures, and more sturdy thank you’d think given their skinny limbs. Not much else to say.

Time to start on June! Only… 17 figs and an accessory set so far this month!

THE FIGS OF SPRING: Wrestling Shit!

 

Ha ha this was supposed to autopost fourvdays ago  

May was a light month for wrestling toys, but what it lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality.

The “New” B5 Trailer And The Dangers Of Nostalgia

 

Hey, everyone! Zathras is back! And he said the thing!

Sorry to any Oldnerd readers who aren’t, in fact, old nerds, but we have to talk about the new Babylon 5 trailer. The one for the animated The Road Home movie.

Nostalgia is increasingly indistinguishable from generative AI.

Red Matter 2 (PSVR2)

Red Matter 2 may be the best game on PSVR2

THE TOYS OF SPRING: Rebuying Power Rangers Edition

One of the things I’m trying to avoid in my latest (2020-2023) round of action figure collecting is the impulse to buy Slightly Better Versions. Figures of characters I already have a serviceable version of, but that have come out from a new company, or from the same company with tweaks or updates or deluxe accessories. This post is about utter failure in that regard.

Bold Moves+ (Apple Arcade)

 

DISCLAIMER: Rage-playing games is a bad habit. There are a bajillion good games out there that you could be spending time on. That said, if you have Apple Arcade and are of a rage-playing mindset, great news! Bold Moves+ just came out!

THE TOYS OF APRING: Indiana Jonws Wave 1

 

The biggest of the April drops, or late April/early May by the time the last one finally got to me, is a brand new toy line from Hasbro. Specifically, their very Black Series-esque line of six inch Indiana Jones figures, the Adventure Series. 

The New Password Makes Me Feel Old, Tired, And Cranky

More mugging than central Park in the 70’s.

It doesn’t come out much on the Internet, if at all, but I love a good game show. I even love a pretty good game show. I grew up during Peak Game Show in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and I’ve watched over the decades as game shows have come in and out of fashion, but very few new true greats emerged. 

THE TOYS OF SPRING: Space Shit

 Continuing with the April acquisitions, we have two pre-orders and a Target shelf snag.

SPOILER-FREE: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

 

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse has two unavoidable flaws.

THE TOYS OF SPRING: Batman ‘66 Haul

 

Stately as fuuuuuck!

OK, so it’s been like six weeks, because things have been non-conducive to photographing, compositing, and posting. If you know why you know why, and if you you don’t you needn’t concern yourselves. 

Also, while I did have a tone of shit show up in April, and some more in May, it all showed up in like the last week of the month. So it was May before I got around to shooting it, and then suddenly it was June and a bunch of other shit showed up last week of May and I had to clear THAT off the boards to make way for June’s preorders all shipping in the first week.

So let’s start with the MOST FUN. The vast array of Batman ‘66 stuff that finally shipped from Target, the most important of which is Stately Wayne Manor, which, as Batman 66 playsets go, really goes above and beyond.

FIG PHOTO: Animal Friends?

Look, I've been semi-unintentionally ending up with a lot of animal toys lately. Shoulda threw my Ms. Lion(s) in there too.

March Acquisitions Part 4: Dungeons, Dragons, and Opportunistic Snakes

Back in... January? January, when Hasbro released the Target-exclusive figures based on the old, tacky Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, I was intrigued. Then I saw reviews, and decided that these were not full price purchases. Weird articulation and just a general "you're charging $25 a pop for WHAT now?" vibe.

March Acquisitions Part 3: Preorders and Unintended Consequences

Six! Arms! 

March Acquisitions Part 2: DISCOUNT RAMPAGE

March was supposed to be the slow month. The calm before the April preorder storm. And those fuckers knew it. Especially the fuckers at Hasbro Pulse, who threw a warehouse sale with 30% off a whole pile of stuff.

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.

BEST GIFT: Custom Orange Cassidy and Danhausen

Cathy had been wanting to give me my birthday present early for a couple of weeks. And two Wednesdays before the actual day, I got distracted from feeding the cats dinner (shared household task) because I was watching Orange Cassidy and Danhausen win a Tag Team casino Battle Royale to qualify for the four-way at the Revolution pay per view.

FIG PHOTO SERIES: My Magnum Opus Is Complete

Over four months.

The first picture in this series was completed on Jan 2, 2023. The last one was completed on April 6, motivated in part by the desire to finish before the Mighty Morphin’ 30th anniversary special dropped.

PSVR2: The Software

When last we left off on our VR adventures, I had acquired 10 games. That breaks down to one demo, four free upgrades, one paid but cheap upgrade, and five new titles. Not sure how to break it down but I think I’m just going to go least to most favorite, although none of them are bad.