TFC Toys Hercules: Heavy Labor

  

Heavy Labor is the TFC Toys version of G1 Constructicon Long Haul, and he just may be my favorite member of the team individually. The toy, not necessarily the character; that distinction belongs to another, and I have no doubts that stories about him will surface when we finally get to him. But that’s for another time, and now is the time for Heavy Labor.

SOTA Nightmares of Lovecraft: The Ghoul

  

In 2005, State of the Art Toys released a set of three figures representing two of the greatest creations from American horror literature luminary, Howard Philips Lovecraft. The two figures were Dagon and Cthulhu. Cthulhu would be released in three versions: green, black and light blue. Dagon would get a single release. The third figure in the set was this guy, the Ghoul from Lovecraft’s 1926 story “Pickman’s Model”. In 2007, I would acquire four of the five figures in this set, and in 2015 I’d decide that I wanted to write on them. So, probably better late than never, here is the first one: Pickman’s Ghoul.

Transformers: Masterpiece Soundwave and Friends

I’m not entirely sure how to classify this release. The original Masterpiece Soundwave got a domestic release as a Toys R Us exclusive, packaged with all five of the (then current) cassette minions. But this is not that release, as I was never able to find one and was never interested in it to the point that I was willing to spend the over $200 the set typically went for on eBay. Around the middle of 2016, it was announced that a “special edition” of Masterpiece Soundwave was going to be released in the Asian market, and that it was the Toys R Us version, complete with minions. That is the version that I own, and I got it for a cool $160, which is not that far off the original Toys R Us price.

So, I guess, get ready for the review that everyone already knows about, as this toy has been out for a long time. I had always heard excellent things about this figure, and was really happy to get a chance at it without having to pay a crazy aftermarket price. He’d been on my C2E2 hunt list for two years, and I did see him there once, but again, prices.

Mass Burial: Dodheimsgard – A Umbra Omega

The latest addition to the Dodheimsgard discography is actually the one I was most excited about hearing, and was honestly the first real serious listen I’d ever given the band. My interest in 2015’s A Umbra Omega was spurred by my absolute love of Aldrahn’s 2014 record with The Deathtrip, the fantastic Deep Drone Master. That is a terrific album that I may get to writing about one day, but for now, it will suffice to say that Deep Drone Master set the table for A Umbra Omega.

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Snowtrooper and AT-AT Driver

  It’s been a while since we’ve talked Star Wars toys here at the Coffin, but given the recent release of Rogue One on video, it felt like the right time to get back into that spirit. Things have been quiet on the Black Series front, following the pretty cool news from New York Toy Fair that the Original Trilogy characters will be rereleased in vintage styled blister cards. I’m actually pretty excited about that, but that’s more for an abandoned article I was putting together which will no doubt see the light of Internet day at some point in the future. The only other real Black Series news recently has been the Target exclusive AT-ACT driver figure from Rogue One, a repaint of the ScarifTrooper.

But, while we’re on the subject of Imperial Troopers and vehicle drivers, let’s talk about these two guys, both rather different figures but not exactly full articles to themselves kind of guys. By now, this blog has spent a ton of time examining various Imperial, First Order and Clone army troopers, so I don’t know what else can really be said about the individual figures. But let’s have some fun and take a look anyway, because we all know how much we’ve missed doing this.

Transformers: Titans Return Gnaw

The Sharkticons have generally presented an issue in the Transformers toy mythos. A seemingly endless pack of faceless, wild mechcannibals first portrayed in the 1986 movie, the Sharkticons made the jump to physical toy form in the personage of Gnaw, A Sharkticon. I guess the army building concept wasn’t in vogue at that time, or maybe Hasbro wasn’t intending or counting on Gnaws being bought en masse to army build. So Gnaw became a/the single sentient Sharkticon, and theoretically a Decepticon, although was never granted a real personality or anything, and his affiliation seems to be with whoever is standing closest to him at any given time. He was perhaps the genesis of the toy-only character in the franchise.

Mass Burial: Dodheimsgard -- Supervillain Outcast

 

Supervillain Outcast is the second attempt at experimental Black Metal from Norway’s Dodheimsgard, and is generally shunned. Released in 2007, a whopping eight years after 666 International, much of the scene had moved beyond the band, and a fairly common thought was that Dodheimsgard was now trying to do something different for attention. By 2007, the “acceptable” form of experimental Black Metal was changing once again, and this time, aided by the Internet, the change was soon to be accompanied by a mandate that it was ok for bands to be identical to each other and still classify as unique, so long as they were widely unknown by the general masses. The Cascadian scene was beginning to stir, and Black Metal was growing tamer and more generally acceptable in its tamer form.