How I Imagine My Wife Feels

...really....all the time.

Living Up To The Image

A cool couple of cosplayers. 

Hasbro's Black Widow...Harder Than A Golden Snitch To Find.

Why Hasbro...why would you do this.

Your designers worked hard to make a awesome figure and a cool bonus figure and your marketing department worked really hard to sell them. Yet you let your distribution department totally undo all this hard work, and quite frankly, create just a little bit of animosity from your customer base.

Marvel Legends Infinite Series: Captain America the Winter Soldier Line, Wave 1-2. A Cool group of figures, even a Hydra and a AIM foot soldier to "army build" if you want. The "build a figure", or BAF as they are known in the collector community, is a very cool S.H.I.E.L.D. Mandroid figure. For those that don't know, Mandroids are S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in battle suits using Stark Tech. Think bulkier less powerful versions of Warmachine.

The Figure Itself is cool. They re-used some parts of a previous BAF (War-Monger from an Iron-Man wave). My beef with this wave is the Black Widow figure.

Nothing to do with the figure itself, it looks fantastic from what I can tell. And there in lies the problem. In the two or three months this figure has been out (give or take), despite extensive and exhaustive searches I have yet to find one of these figures retail. And I am not the only one. Many in the collecting community have been bemoaning the scarcity of this figure. Some say that "well female figures are always had to find." to which I would reply, (pardon my language) bullshit. 

That may have been the case twenty or thirty years ago with "boy toy" lines, and the outdated argument that "boy don't want to play with girl figures." I have two sons, and when they were still playing with toys they didn't really care; a superhero is a superhero. But seeing as these company's don't cater to just kids as much as adult collectors these days that argument holds even less weight. In the last few decades since, I think collectors have shown we like the female figures as much as the male. And if by chance you still have some company executive with this line of thinking working for you, well...time to pass him his "golden parachute" and move into the 21st century. At this point they are only doing more harm that good. 

From what I can figure out is the figure in question is "short packed" to one per case. Now as a rule, I am not a perfectionist (out of thy package I say!!) or completest when I collect

Arms...arms everywhere.

figures. I buy what I like and that is it. If I like the BAF in a wave, I will buy figures I don't necessarily want to complete the BAF. And I understand that this process of short packing can create what figure collectors call a "chase" figure. something rare that you have to hunt around for. Which can be fun as long as "hard to find" doesn't become "impossible to find".

But the whole point of the "Build-A-Figure" in a action figure line is to get consumers to buy the whole line. DO NOT include the main piece of your BAF in a figure you plan to short pack. The fact that I liked the Black Widow figure and the Mandroid just pissed me off with this wave. And at the same time you had variant figures packed with the arms (Red Skull/Hydra Trooper & Baron Zemo/AIM Trooper), so now you have collectors everywhere with an over abundance of extra arms.

If I were a hard core perfectionist collector, or at the very least not so stubborn and pig headed, I could find this figure online somewhere if necessary. but a couple of things, a). is it really necessary? No with a little better planing Hasbro could have avoided this whole mess. b). It has now become a point of pride to try and track one down in the shops, and c). I just refuse to pay some of the insane mark up prices for this figure on the secondary market. Not that I haven't in the past, I have no problem picking stuff up online. Even stuff a little over priced, but its a mater of honour and principal now.

On a secondary note, my understanding is that she doesn't come with any guns (any you see in posed pictures are added) even though they include an extra set of hands sculpted to hold them. Yet another bad and somewhat odd decision from Hasbro. Why bother with the extra hands at all if no guns.

So all they have really accomplished with this figure is to piss off a lot of fans and hard core collectors. I know I will be very leery about picking up any BAF sets from Marvel Legends in the future unless I know for a fact I will be able to find them all... preferably retail. 

In the mean time...some beauty shots!

*Firearms not included

 

We have two agents MIA. Someone get Director Fury on the horn.

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Trekker

I love Star Trek.

Always have, from as far back as I can remember. There is really not one incarnation of the franchise that I don't enjoy (although I do have some issues with the "JJ-verse" and his "starwars-ification" of Star Trek, but that is something I have talked about before and will most likely talk about again but that is a post for another time.

At the end of the day though, when I think of Star Trek I think of the Original Series. That is what Star Trek is...what I grew upon and for trekkies during the lean years of the 70's all that there was. Sure, there was the Animated Series, and lots of
cool books and fan fiction. And it was this fan base back if the 70's that really kick started the whole modern sci-fi convention.
Finally in 1979 we got Star Trek the Motion Picture. It was originally supposed to be a reboot of the series, but the success of Star Wars prompted the studio to re-work it  into a movie. And for the first time in years, despite its flaws,we got to see a new Star Trek story. It began a golden age for Star Trek fans. New interest, new movies, eventually leading to Star Trek the Next Generation, and beyond.

Star Trek: New Voyages episode with George Takei

What prompted this particular post was a web series called "Star Trek Continues". I came across it purely by chance the other day, and...wow! This was fantastic! Now I like to pride myself on being a bit of a geek and keeping up to date on all things going on in nerd-dom. Not much escapes my Sauron like gaze. I have been aware of many
fan based series over the years, two of the best being "Star Trek:New Voyages" (aka. Star Trek:Phase II) and "Starship Farragut". So how this little gem slipped by me I have no idea.
The production value is top notch, with excellent stories and a marvelous cast. Playing Kirk is an actor I had heard of before by the name of Vic Mignogna. An excellent, actor most well known for his voice work in Full Metal Alchemist, Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. He bares a resemblance to William Shatner and uses all the right mannerisms to make you believe he is Kirk. Two other cast members that stand out are Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame as Sulu and Chris Doohan, the son of the late James Doohan playing the role his father made so iconic as Mr. Scott. The rest of the cast are excellent as well. I just can't say enough about how excellent this series, and the others as well, is. if you have a little free time I recommend that you check Star Trek Continues, and the others out.

Cast of Star Trek Continues

Also on the horizon for old school Star Trek fans is Star Trek: Axanar. Another Crowed funded endeavour through Kickstarter with names like Richard Hatch (Apollo-original BSG), Michael Hogan (Col. Tigh, Re-boot BSG), JG Hertzler (Martok, DS9) and Gary Graham (Enterprise) as Ambassador Soval. It tells the story of Garth of Izar, one of Kirk's personal heroes and the model for all Starfleet captains after him. Set 21 years before the Original series it is the story of the battle of Axanar, a pivotal point in federation history during a four year war with the Klingon's and the one that cemented Garth's fame and the Federation's future.

All this got me to thinking. What an outstanding time to be a Star Trek fan. With the quality of these fan based episodes, thanks to the love of some vary talented, dedicated fans and the level of CGI technology available these days, to some of the awesome toys and collectibles coming out and a cool MMO in Star Trek: Online. As well as the rebooted universe. There is so much cool stuff to see, do and choose from. truly a new "golden age" of Star Trek fandom.

To the Great Bird of the Galaxy, thanks for everything Gene!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Happy Star Wars Day to you all! It's a pretty awesome time to be a fan of that Galaxy Far, Far Away. From all the exciting news coming out about "Star Wars VII", extra "season 6" episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Netflix and the new animated series out in the fall, Star Wars: Rebels. Lots to be happy about on this Star Wars Day!

This sexy and seductive Dark Lord, brought to you by the folks over at Blue Milk Special. One of the best Star Wars web comics around. If you haven't ever checked them out, your missing something fantastic!

First Contact Day!

Happy First Contact Day to all the Star Trek Fans out there! April 5, 2063! Only 49 more years to go!!  Live long and prosper!

Who You Gonna Call...

This just looks so cool.

"Ghostbusters" Ecto1 and the boys. Word is these are early production pictures of a soon to be released Lego kit. In response to fan requests. This will be the second time Lego has done this.

They released this "Back to the Future" Delorian last year, which I picked up of course. Can't wait to get this one as well!

50th Anniversary of Doctor Who

50 years of Doctor Who. I have to say I am amazed by the popularity of Doctor Who, but I guess I shouldn't be. It's no different than the popularity of any other fantasy and science fiction genre right now. Everything that those of us that where geeks and nerds twenty or thirty years ago is now cool, popular and trendy. Just goes to show, if the idea is strong and the story's are good and well written it can go on for fifty years. and with a little luck, fifty more.

Happy 50th Anniversary Doctor!

Where To Start?

Many years ago, I used to be an avid comic book collector. Some of my fondest memories when I was a kid were going to visit my grandfather at his barber shop. He always had comics mixed in with the other magazines. And if there wasn't anything interesting he would always give my brother and I a dollar and we would run around the corner to this little store and by the latest issues of Superman, Batman, Spider-man or The Fantastic Four. As I go older I kept buying comics, until buy became collecting. Then came a number of things that slowly over time weened me off of hardcore collecting. The first was the early 1990's and the greed of the comic company's, with multiple covers and variants of variants. It became almost a chore to go to the comic shop. Then our son was born. Now anyone who has been a parent knows how fast any "extra income" disappears with kids. Over the years, I still read and buy comics. I tend to stick to my favorite artists, writers and titles, only venturing into something new from time to time if it jumps out at me. When I do get into a series, I tend to pick up the collected volume trade books from where ever I see them. Comic shop, book store, make no difference to me.

Here is my conundrum. The last few months I have had the urge to get back into collecting a little. But, truth be told, I don't have the first idea of where to start. The books I pick up are still the ones drawn by my favorite artists (I always go for the art primarily, as I am a bit of an artist myself). But as I have gotten older I find that a lot of my favorite artists have now, over the years, become marquee artists, doing special editions, covers, mini-series and the like. Very few work on regular series anymore.

Then on top of that, there is just the material itself. Now just because I haven't been collecting does not mean that I don't keep up with whats happening. I was a little tempted to get back into the game when DC did their New 52 reboot. I picked up a couple of the books, but really wasn't very impressed. The only thing that I have enjoyed from the New 52 has been the "Court of Owls" story line in Batman. I have heard good things about Aquaman and Wonder Woman, but haven't read anything myself yet. Nothing DC is doing right now is very appealing to me. As for Marvel Comics, I have kind of the same problem. My "go to" books are all over the place. There are more Avengers books than I can count. Spider-man is really Doctor Octopus now? and I am not sure what is going on with The Fantastic Four. The AvsX series looked interesting but I was late getting on that bandwagon, so I will wait till the collected trade book(s) come out.

All in all the whole thing is leaving me a little lost. Where is the best place to get back into the game? I guess I will just have to pick a book or two and dive right in.

Yes, Yes It Was...

Every single thing on here I have great memory's of. From Captain Kangaroo to The A-Team. Good times....good times. Although I never did get a Stretch Armstrong.

Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo

Last weekend my wife and daughter along with my son and his girlfriend (although they went down on their own a day early and were doing their own thing most of the weekend) attended the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. What a great time.

We saw lots of cool stuff, like the Bat-mobile from the 60's TV show, and the DeLorean from Back To The Future. Had our pictures taken with some members of the 501st Legion who where there fundraising. We saw all kinds of cool comics and collectibles at the many vendors. Bought a few cool t-shirts and ate some overpriced food. My Daughter was happy as she got to see a few of her favorite actors including Mr. Adam Baldwin (she is a huge "Firefly" fan), and I got some time to myself to cruise the artists area.

Saturday was a little bit out of control because attendance was way more than they had anticipated. It go so bad that the Fire Marshal stopped letting people in which really sucked for some, because staff where telling some people to go outside and around the building to bypass the congestion. It really, really sucked for the husband of a woman in line behind us whose husband was trapped outside because he was trying to get to the photo op for the entire cast of Star Trek: TNG (Cost of photo op ticket: $495 ). Even after explaining this to the people outside, they would not let him back in.

According to the organizers of the event, it wasn't that they oversold tickets just bad timing as much of the congestion was around the ST:TNG events.  And I have to agree. I mean, I am a huge Star Trek fan, but even I took one look at the craziness around all the ST:TNG cast and thought to myself, "There is no way, as much as I would love to get an autograph from Sir Patrick Stewart or Johnathan Frakes, that I am wading into that mess." And the lines they had for some of their guests were woefully too short like Wil Wheaton (his line was quite short. I don't think they took into account his new found  popularity thanks to "The Big Bang Theory"), as was the autograph line for James & Oliver Phelps, aka: Fred & George Weasley (never underestimate the insanity of Harry Potter fans).

Luckily the promoters did their best to honour tickets from Saturday on Sunday as much as they could and you can still get refunds on their website till the end of May. At the end of it all, I think they handled the overflow as well as can  be expected. Even with all the congestion and the standing forever and long days our family had fun. and we even found the time to visit our daughter who lives in Calgary. Best of all, I had a chance to meet and get a picture with Mr. Stan Lee. All in all a fantastic weekend and we can't wait till next year. Excelsior!

Closet Geek?

So, first, what is a closet geek. Those that are know. I have always been a bit of a geek (ok...huge geek). I love Star Trek, Star Wars, anything science fiction for the most part. I collect toys and comic books. My lovely wife says she will have one hell of a garage sale when I die! So what is a closet geek you may ask?

1987...First time I went to a Star Trek convention. It was in Spokane WA. I was so excited to be going to one (I had grown up in a small town and had never had the chance to go to one before). by the end of the day though, after seeing some of the extremes some fans go to...wow! I decided to keep my natural geek-ness to myself as much as possible.

So, if you were to bump into me on the street, I doubt you would know what I am...but its there...it's always there.