Grave Considerations: Windy City Comics

A lifetime ago, I was a high school student in Chicago. Across the street, in a strip mall that generally held no other businesses than an Army recruiting station, was a store front that was a staple of my high school life: Windy City Comics, a comic book store, predictably. Friends and I would spend hours there after school, and it is one of the more important locales of my teenage years and one of the more formative in my life in general.

Marvel Legends: Darkhawk

 Strange to think nowadays, when each Marvel movie breaks box office records set by the previous Marvel movie, but in the early portion of the 1990’s, comics were hitting something of a low point in terms of general public interest. Large, earth-shaking events were happening, new characters were being introduced in runs like Maximum Carnage, and legacy characters from companies like DC and Marvel were being pushed in all kinds of relatively unheard of situations, like The Death of Superman. Publishers like DC and Marvel did what almost always works during times of slumping: they introduced a slew of new characters with their own books and cool, xtreme 90’s appearances. Some of them stuck around, some of them did not. Some of them were kinda dumb, and some were pretty cool. An example of the latter is Darkhawk.

Grave Considerations: I Don’t Know, General Thoughts??

Greetings, Loyal Reader,

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Range Trooper (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

 

 Making their debut in this years’ Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Imperial Range Trooper appeared in a bunch of promotional material for the movie and looked like the newly revealed unit would feature in the movie.

LOL.

Star Wars: The Black Series Clone Commander Wolffe

 

 

Yay, another Clone Commander. (seriously. It’s a good thing. –mr) The Clone Wars veteran Wolffe joins Cody, Gree, and Rex in the 6” collection, and like Gree is a store exclusive. This time specific to GameStop, Wolffe is a totally excellent looking figure, and a real welcome addition.

Star Wars: The Black Series 4-LOM

 

“If a character appears on screen it will eventually get a figure” strikes again, as The Black Series wheels out beloved bounty hunter 4-LOM, first, last, and only seen during that one scene on a Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back where Vader has assembled a bunch of bounty hunters to chase after the Millennium Falcon. There is probably some allotment of EU stories for 4-LOM, but they are foreign to me.

Star Wars: The Black Series Gamorrean Guard

 

The 6” Gamorrean Guard is a Target exclusive entry into the Black Series, and is a terrific figure for the cost. Slightly more expensive than a regular Black Series figures, the Gamorrean is big and bulky and solid, and comes with several accessories.

MakeToys MTCM-03D: Overheat

 

Overheat is the MakeToys take on Afterburner, and is, along with Celeritas, the most radical departure from the original G1 Technobots in terms of appearance. Afterburner turns into a futuristic motorcycle, while Overheat transforms into a light bike from Tron. But the alt mode isn’t the only grand departure from the original: the robot mode is also very different looking.