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.

Transformers: Combiner Wars: Cyclonus

Cyclonus is a retool of the Combiner Wars Silverbolt, and is the torso of a teamless gestalt called Galvatronus. Apparently, Galvatronus is going to be the nemesis of the upcoming Victorion ‘fan built’ combiner.The sorta-story for Galvatronus is that he can use mind control powers to force other Cybertronians to merge with him, so he can produce a team out of pretty much anyone.

Star Wars: The Black Series 6" First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter

Packaging for the TIE Fighter

The TIE itself, well, that’s a lot to take in. Like the pilot, the new TIE fighter is a much different version of the classic craft, modifying much of the original design in order to become a familiar-yet-different ship. Most of the differences are not really noticeable on first inspection, and in fact as I carried out the simple assembly steps, I found myself surprised again and again at the changes, none of which I’d noticed in any of the images of the new TIE, or in the toys I’d seen at the stores. I skipped buying a 3.75” TIE on Force Friday because I thought it was just an old one painted black, and with those big gear things on the insides of the wings. Boy was I missing a lot.