RIP Lemmy

RIP Lemmy Kilmister, 12.28.2015.

There certainly will be more to come on this topic.

Ghosts of Past Christmas Presents: Transformers Masterpiece Ghost Starscream

Easily the jewel in the crown of translucent Starscream figures is the Masterpiece, MP-3G. The original Masterpiece Seeker mold has been maligned a fair amount since its 2006 release, and in 2012 it was slightly redesigned and released to a fair deal of acclaim, the same figure save for remolded legs that dealt with the pretty awkward hip pieces. This Ghost version was released in 2010.

Ghost of Christmas Presents: Transformers: Generations Volume 3 Infiltrator Starscream

Infiltrator Starscream is a translucent version of the Fall of Cybertron Starscream mold, and was available as some type of Japanese magazine exclusive. He comes with practically every weapon from the game as well. 

Unlike the Henkei! Ghost of Starscream, this figure is mostly red plastic, giving him a much more solid look under normal light. From a distance it looks like just a Seeker in red, and it is only close up that his translucent nature is apparent. The legs are a smoky grey plastic, as is much of the torso, and this inclusion of colors makes this figure a bit more visually stimulating than the Henkei! one as well. The two are impressive for what appears to be the opposite reasons: Henkei! for its clearness and Infiltrator for his colors. 

Ghosts of Christmas' Past: Transformers: Henkei! Ghost Starscream

Of all the wealth of characters in the Transformers universe, my favorite is and always has been Starscream, the treacherous lieutenant of Megatron and commander of the Seekers, the elite air commandos. In Transformers The Movie, the 1986 animated feature and still only watchable big screen Transformers venture, Starscream is blasted by Galvatron and later, in Season 3 of the G1 cartoon, comes back as a ghost and causes hijinks. This spectral Starscream winds up being kind of a thing, appearing in an episode of Beast Wars in 1996 as well. 

Every so often, Takara in Japan puts out a Starscream figure in translucent plastic as a special Ghost of Starscream, and every year, there is a Christmas. My wife has made a habit of getting me a Ghost of Starscream for Christmas and, as Christmas is once again approaching, I thought I’d take some time here on the Coffin to take a look at these interesting and fairly unique entries in the Transformers toy catalog, compliments of my wife. About a month ago, I won an eBay auction for the first such figure, an eHobby exclusive G1 Starscream; but it is thanks to my wife that I have any of these, really.

The first Ghost of Starscream figure I got was the Henkei! version, a translucent Classics Starscream. The Classics Seeker first appeared in 2007,  and by now I don’t think there’s a Transformers fan alive that hasn’t handled one. There will probably be a more thorough write up on this general figure coming in the future, so I’m going to keep this focused on this specific one. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars: Combaticons Blast Off, Swindle and Vortex

What is this for Combiner Wars, Wave 5? Sure.

Wave 5 of Combiner Wars is the Combaticons. Remember the first two waves, the ones that split up the Arialbots and Stunticons? Before the Protectobots all came out at once and the world was a happier place? Yeah. While I don’t know when I’ll find the remaining two, a trip to Target today yielded three of the Combaticons. They are all repaints or retools of existent molds, so for the most part there are few surprises here.

Transformers: Masterpiece Bluestreak

The Transformers Masterpiece line is an interesting one to me. Super accurate G1 versions of the best or most beloved characters, given accurate robot and alt modes. Or at least, that’s the idea. For the most part, these things all come together pretty excellently, but there are exceptions. When the line was first starting up in the early 2000s, I was pretty much all in on it. Then it was ‘rebooted’ a few years back, and I didn’t have much of an interest. I think one of the issues was that the new line began with another Optimus Prime and is mainly Autobot focused, and on top of that, it contains some Autobots that I just don’t care about as characters.  The new-ish Masterpiece line does contain some really impressive looking toys, however, and by all accounts they are still deserving of the name. There are some that I would like to get a hold of. When they do get US releases, they are Toys R Us exclusives, which makes them often difficult to hunt down and more expensive on the aftermarket than I’m comfortable with.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens General Pre-release Thoughts

It has been over ten years since the last installment in the Star Wars saga. Tomorrow night, December 17^th, 2015, the seventh chapter will hit US theaters. My oft-written of wife got us tickets for the Thursday night opening, so we I don’t have to wait another excruciating day to see it. I’m dealing with a lot of feels right now about the new movie, and I wanted to take some time and try to deal with them.

Yet another important event in my life that I have been mercifully spared an emotional marathon of anticipation, thanks perversely to a chaotic and seemingly endless schedule of teaching and graded. This has been the story of my 2015: my wedding in May, my honeymoon in August, and now Star Wars in December. These things have all been waiting at the end of the semester, always just beyond reach, only accessibly by finishing the semester and all its related work, like some grotesque item in an RPG that is only attainable after hours and hours of level grinding. I’ve successfully completed all the levels, but then, I end up being beset by thoughts and feelings all at once. That’s hard to deal with.

Since I have been, there has been Star Wars. I truly believed that after 2005 and Revenge of the Sith there would be no further big screen Star Wars adventures, and when Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and practically immediately announced plans for more movies I felt my heart beat hard. The teaser trailer a year ago literally brought a tear to my eye. I had to pull my car over this spring when the first actual trailer came out, Han telling Chewie they were home gave me a feeling that all was right with the world, and that all I needed to do was make it to December. I heard that day, the first time of many, if I’m being honest, my father’s voice in my head. He died in January of 2005, and never saw Revenge of the Sith. He would always say upon news of a new Star Wars movie “I hope I’m alive to see it.” This became something of an unofficial tagline for Star Wars in my still dealing with his death mind, and when that trailer came out in the spring, I heard my father say it again. Except this time, it was me saying it, a little shout out to my dad I guess, who is going to miss his second consecutive Star Wars movie. I’m getting a little teary even thinking about it.

The last time however, we knew what was going to happen. We knew it because it had to happen, because we knew what came next. 

We knew it in the same sense that you already know the happenings of Paradise Lost, because Milton’s genius was likewise working within a fictional universe that had to resolve itself in some very specific ways.

This time, we don’t know. There is nothing that has to line up or follow here; we are in undiscovered country. We have a new bunch of heroes, and a new villain, and some old favs most likely just stopping in for an appearance. For the record, I thought of the evil Luke idea months ago, but my wife thinks it’s terrible. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being true, and I gave a bunch of evidence from the Original Trilogy, verbatim naturally, to support my claim. I am a professor of rhetoric, after all. 

I realized that there is probably not a place to organically insert the Imperial March into this new movie, and that squeezed my heart like nothing I can describe. One of the most iconic themes in all of film, how could it not appear in the next movie? Then, recalling the rousing martial score that accompanied the Clones in Episodes II and III, I felt the dread being replaced with interest as to what the new Imperial March would end up sounding like. 

I’m worried because the prequels were so bad. Sure, we all tried to act like they were fine, and that they were all the things we loved about Star Wars and all that, but they weren’t any good, and they flat out contradicted things and changed things that formed the basis of our universe.

I felt myself lumping enormous pressure on Kylo Ren, he who must somehow fill the shoes of Darth Vader,  and I know that he can’t, but I’m willing to give him an honest try. I like a lot about him, provided all the things we’ve come to know remain true. I like that he’s basically a Sith/Empire sycophant, a guy who’s trying so hard to follow a legacy that he wills himself into being those  things he so adores. 

I’m worried that when the lights go down and the crawl starts I’m going to cry. I know, I know for a fact, I won’t be the only person doing that, because Star Wars, like Harry Potter, is something you grow up with. I learned lessons from the Original Trilogy that I still reflect on daily, and there are moral and philosophical questions from the prequels that my wife and I engage in probably once a week. I’ve been able to get my wife interested in Star Wars, where she previously had no connection at all. I suppose it’s fair, as all of my Harry Potter knowledge is thanks to her. This isn’t so much a concern as it is a certainty, I think: when the crawl starts, I’m going to cry. I’ll shed  few tears and hope my wife doesn’t notice, because she make fun of me afterwards, because that’s the correct way to respond to someone’s emotional investment. Just like when Snape died, and she was practically inconsolable, and I held her in the theater and whispered to her that it was alright, and have spent years telling her that her emotional response was and is perfectly fine and normal.

But that’s what Star Wars is. It’s something that you love and live and learn from. It’s something that you got (probably, depending on your age) from older people in your family, and we know, because we see it on social media all the time, it’s something that you give to others. To your kids and your loved ones. You grow up believing that you could be a Jedi if you train hard enough, only to have that dream dashed by idiotic, introduced and forgotten plot points like midicholorians. Star Wars as metaphor for American life: YOU can do anything, and be anyone. So long as you were born into it. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your life working for a junk dealer, complaining about sand. It’s Star Wars as the teenage experience: you grow up idolizing the Jedi because of the tales of their heroism, only to learn that those tales were only true from certain points of view, those same points of view that determine and define good and evil. A person who loves you like a brother will leave you to die in agony rather than grant you a merciful death, only to show up at your awesome living space thirty something years later when your son who was born on that same day is only like 18 somehow, and make it seem like that thing that happened decades ago was all your fault, that it was your fault he left you to die screaming on a planet that was nothing but volcanoes. 

Leading up to the day of my wedding, I kept making these jokes about hoping my dad would show up as a Force ghost. On the day of my wedding, right before my wife walked down the isle, I looked around real quick to see if he did. He didn’t. I’m going to do the same thing in the theater tomorrow night, just like I did in 2005. I know he won’t be a Force ghost, and if he were, he’d probably steal my popcorn and make comments about the other people in the theater. But I got the idea to look for him, and somehow believe sincerely in my heart that he could appear as a Force ghost, from Star Wars, the movies that made the most impossible things seem like they were just a matter of focusing hard enough and reaching out with your feelings. If he were there, when the crawl started, my dad would shed a tear as well.

But tonight brings us finally to a new chapter. A new set of heroes and menace. For Generations, another chapter; a First Contact for a new generation; an Undiscovered Country for all, but, as we know thanks to the promise of continued movies, not a Final Frontier. As the theater descends Into Darkness, and we move Beyond the iconic crawl, and then long after the completion of our Voyage Home, having fought off the ever-present Nemesis of the internet and all its spoilers and theories, ourselves mounting our personal Insurrections filled with Searching and Wrath against out inborn fandom needs to know about our favorite galaxy far, far away, we will have a whole new Star Wars movie to talk about and add to the huge wealth of Star Wars. I can’t wait much longer, and fortunately, we don’t have to.

First star to the right, and straight on until morning.

Star Wars: The Black Series Entertainment Earth Exclusive Troopers

The second of the exclusive box sets, the Entertainment Earth set comes in a far less nice package. I know, I know. I’m not really a guy that makes a big deal out of packaging, but consider the following points: the Black Series boxes are really

nice for mass retail packaging. Secondly, with the book box the Amazon exclusive set came in, there could be nothing but disappointment with this regular, four wide arrangement. Again, this is really only a turn off in light of the Amazon set, but after this initial bummer, this set of figures is just fine.

The set consists of four figures, straight up repaints this time, three of which have some kind of Expanded Universe connection. The four figures are Lt. Oxixo, who was apparently shot down during the Battle of Yavin; a Crimson Stormtrooper, available here for the first time ever as a figure zomg!; R2-Q5, an astromech who contains the Emperor’s personal secret information and was part of a plot to turn all the Death Star II droids against their masters; and a Sandtrooper Sergeant. All of the figures are very nicely done.

Star Wars: The Black Series: Gauvian Enforcer

As I said back in my initial Black Series entry, my interest in the line has been limited to Imperial or Imperial-related figures. That allows me to get my Clones, and whatever First Order stuff catches my eye. This figure is, aside from the Riot Trooper/Poe Dameron two pack Poe, the first purchase that doesn’t meet that criteria. I found the look of this guy interesting from the first images of him that I’d seen, so it was a no-brainer that I’d add it to my Black Series to-buy list. My wife and I found him on a Target shelf, not far enough away from a guy who was looking at the 3.75” version to indicate that said man hadn’t picked this figure off the peg and set him down while perusing other figures. My wife said “Don’t you want this guy?” and picked the box up off the shelf; the man sort of turned and looked at us, first her and then me, and then back to the smaller figure in his hands. “Yes,” I said, and we walked away, receiving a slight type of side eye from the man left in the aisle. Oh, we had many laughs about that, my wife and I, and I christened her as a member of the Taking A Toy Away from Someone Club, and we saw that guy leaving the toy section a few minutes later, with a look that could only be described as disappointed loss on his face. 

This review is for you, whoever you are. 

Star Wars: The Black Series First Order Snowtrooper Commander

Following in the grand Imperial tradition of noting rank via shoulder pads, the First Order Snowtrooper Commander sports the orange. A Toys R Us exclusive, this is a slight variation of the eventual First Order Snowtrooper figure.

Star Wars: The Black Series: Imperial Shock Trooper

The first of three exclusive figure reviews today, the Walmart exclusive Imperial Shock Trooper is a tie in to the Star Wars Battlefront game. An Original Trilogy Stormtrooper with red accents, this is a good looking figure to add to your Imperial line up.

Star Wars: The Black Series: Imperial Speeder Bike and Scout Trooper

There are some characters in the Star Wars universe that are more or less defined by something other than themselves. Things or other characters maybe that provide us with more information on the primary character than the character themselves do. Oh, look: a Scout Trooper, with his signature accessory, the Imperial Speeder Bike, from Return of the Jedi. What could possibly say ‘specialized scout and recon guy’ than a wildly high-speed vehicle for use on a heavily forested planet?

This is a figure I’ve been wanting to write on for a while now, and it seems I finally got around to it. I got this set almost a year ago when one of those stupidly overpriced calendar/random toys for Christmas stores at a mall was closing for the season, so everything was 50% off. That made the price of this guy something like $20, which at the time was a really good price, as I was used to seeing this in stores for around $36.

Star Wars: The Black Series: The Force Awakens Poe Dameron and First Order Riot Trooper

So, we all knew this was going to happen. It was foretold. 

This Black Series two pack, which I think is a Target exclusive, or at least, Target is the only place I’ve ever seen it, contains a Poe Dameron in civilian clothes and a First Order Trooper with some riot gear. I’ve been seeing this for like two months now, each time walking past it and muttering. “Why does there have to be another trooper in a pack that would force me to buy a non-Imperial figure? That would break my one Black Series rule. Why do I want that stupid trooper anyway? It’s just New Hat Syndrome, AGAIN.”  

Transformers: Botcon 2009 Razorclaw

Sure, it’s a little old. Yes, I’ve got more recent exclusives that I could write on, and I will. But on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I just wanted something light to write about.

Botcon 2009 Razorclaw is a three years later companion piece to the pretty excellent 2006 Dawn of Future’s Past boxset, which featured Maximals and Predicons from Beast Wars in their Cybertronian forms, moments prior to the departure of the Axalon to try and apprehend the fugitive Megatron, having stolen the Golden Disks. Razorclaw is featured in the last panel of the convention comic from that year, and there years later got his convention figure. The figure is a repaint of the Cybertron Liobreaker/Nemesis Breaker, which would also be repainted later into Lio Convoy.

Transformers: Combiner Wars: Megatron and Armada Megatron

A long time ago, these figures were what I’d planned to do my first review on, and then that didn’t happen. So why not do them now?

Just like Ultra Magnus, these two Leader class Megatrons are marked under the Combiner Wars line, but don’t have any Combiner Wars-ability. I think that these guys, along with Magnus, are probably continuations of the Generations “Thrilling 30” line, which while hardly thrilling, was composed of the Classics/Generations style updates of figures spanning the history of the franchise. These two are updates of G1 Megatron (again .  . . ) and Armada Megatron from the series of the same name. Both of these figures catch a lot of flak: while the Armada version gets some flak for being the repaint, it’s actually a real solid figure, but the tank mode is wrong and robot mode is lacking some pretty distinctive features; G1 Megatron bears the burden of transforming into a tank since gun modes are pretty much off the table at this point in time. They also get heat for the shoulders and legs.

Coffin Shaker: Firespawn - Shadow Realms

Firespawn is the new project of former (I guess . . .) Entombed man L. G. Petrov, and is a 'supergroup' in a horribly loose sense of the term, comprised of some guys from Necrophobic and Unleashed and a bunch of other lesser Swedeath bands. One general complaint directed at the 'supergroup' is that it takes away from releases by the proper bands, and oh man, is that the case with this.

I'm not much of a fan of the more recent Entombed records, and I wasn't very interested in the recent Entombed A.D. release. I'm not really sure what Firespawn is trying to accomplish, but this record is 42 minutes of boring. It's almost like some old school death metal guys decided to put together an old school death metal-style album because old school death metal is intermittently a thing in the underground. Bands like Horrendous and Entrails, and even one-offs like Gruesome (another 'supergroup') get some steady press and praise, so why not try to cash in on that, especially if you're from Entombed, one of the ORIGINAL old school death metal bands, all the way from the old school days?

Slower, more mid-tempo grinding tunes on here, with some interesting riffs but nothing really worth sticking around for. After hearing this a few times, my only real response was "Man, I wish Necrophobic would put out another album." Honestlly, this isn't even good for that buzz you get from any of the better OSDM projects, or from actual old school death metal. The Emperor and Lucifer Has Spoken are pretty good tunes, but there's not too much reason to keep coming back to this one.

Transfomers: Combiner Wars: Deluxe Autobots

If there’s anything that I’ve learned in the early goings of blogging, it’s that I need to work on my photography skills and my toy posing skills. Small moves.

Hey, remember the Combiner Wars Stunticons? They were repainted as Autobots. Man, I have no interest in them at all. Every time I see them in stores, I think “those look pretty nice, but I don’t like them enough to buy them.” Good thing I’ve got willpower, ‘cause the last few times I’ve walked down the toy aisle, those repaints have been looking pretty nice.

Transformers: Combiner Wars: Ultra Magnus

It’s been a long time since there was an Ultra Magnus that wasn’t an Optimus Prime repaint, and this one sure is not.

Sold under the Combiner Wars line, there is no combining anything going on here with this Leader class Magnus. He doesn’t even combine with his trailer to form armor, because the entire truck transforms into the classic, G1-stlye Magnus, armor and all. But this is not a G1 Magnus, as it draws cues from both the original and the newer IDW Magnus, and both the current MTMTE and the ‘original,’ post ’07 live action movie IDW G1 reboot. He’s like a composite Magnus.

Star Wars: The Black Series Amazon.com Exclusive Stormtroopers

Here’s the Amazon.com exclusive 6” Black Series Trooper pack. This went up for preorder in September, and arrived today.

For starters, the box is very nice. All four of these Stormtrooper repaints come in a book-style box, with the grey on black Black Series artwork. The set consists of a battle damaged Original Trilogy Stormtrooper, the yellow Clone Trooper Commander, a Phase II Clone Trooper from Revenge of the Sith, available for the first time in this set, and a First Order Stormtrooper Officer. Each one comes with the standard weapon loadout for the figures.

Coffin Shaker: Malevolent Creation - Invidious Dominion

I wanted to write about the new album Dead Man’s Path, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. A decent idea then, I thought, would be to write about its predecessor.

Malevolent Creation is one of those bands whose name I’d always known but never gave much of a chance, having settled in my mind that they were just another one of the early New York/Florida death metal bands, but one that didn’t really need a whole lot of my attention. After all, I have my bases covered with all the others, so I should be good, right? I knew a guy who was always pimping The Ten Commandments, but I just never gave the band much of a chance. Envenomed from 2000 caught my attention, and I’d been sort of on and off with the band ever since. Maybe a year and a half ago I decided I was going to devote some time to the bands’ discography, and I’m rather happy that I did.

Invidious Dominion is a solid release, displaying most of the hallmark traits of Malevolent Creation. It is straight to the point, no bells and whistles death metal with a great grinding sound. Malevolent Creation sounds like a table saw or some other type of power tool, and that is a very welcome quality in music for me. That is something that I really love about the old school death metal bands and records, that buzzsaw guitar sound. It’s a clean sound as well, making it apparent that the band knows what they’re doing and they want it to be heard. All metal bands have benefit from improved recording and mixing techniques.

Drumming is solid, the riffs are interesting. Vocally, Malevolent is still doing the murder and violence thing, which is fine. It is nice to have some different death metal subject matter once in a while, and getting away from the standard gore/zombie thing is nice. The vocals have that kind of sing-songy delivery at times, which I think is a Malevolent Creation hallmark. I like the way they arrange the lyrics to rhyme at the end of all the chorus lines, regardless of how that may cause the actual lyric to become a little hokey. Take, for instance, the chorus of Compulsive Face Breaker: “Get back up, piece of shit/Again your face I want to hit.” A lyrical masterwork if ever there was one. I know that with the kind of lame, slam/core cover art that type of tough guy lyric may be expected, but Malevolent isn’t one of those bands.

I have a hard time saying anything critical about this album. It is good, solid death metal, nothing fancy or experimental, nothing different or new, nothing bland or boring despite being the norm from the band. It’s short, around 35 minutes, and that time flies by. A really satisfying listen in the way that most of the third tier death metal bands usually are, so if something like Monstrosity floats your boat, or if you like other Malevolent Creation records, you’ll probably enjoy this. I keep putting it on because while it may not be anything innovative or new, it has that enjoyable quality that keeps dragging me back to listen to tracks like Target Rich Environment, United Hate and Compulsive Face Breaker again and again.