Happy Halloween!

Warbotron WB-01D Whirlwind

In celebration of TFCon Chicago 2018, let’s spend some time with a Third Party Transformer, since we haven’t done that for almost two months at this point. Let’s get back on the Warbotron Wagon and talk about the massive letdown that is Whirlwind.

Tamashii Nations Movie Realization Series: Ronin Boba Fett

 

Super behind on these awesome figures, let’s take a look at one my wife got me for my birthday over the summer: Ronin Boba Fett. As was detailed several months ago with Samurai General Darth Vader, this line of roughly 8” figures takes Star Wars characters and reimagines them in the aesthetic of feudal Japan. Ronin were unattached samurai that traveled around seeking employment, which sounds pretty bounty hunterish to me.

Marvel Legends: Carnage

 Holy shit everyone, work. Work has been such a total pain in the ass these last few weeks. There were such high hopes for posting several articles this month, and they all got ruined by the constant, unrelenting onslaught of work. But, now there’s a quiet moment, fresh off finishing another class of essays (one that I started grading two days ago, and feel like an utter failure for needing two days to complete. –mr) so let’s celebrate that with some time spent on action figures.

Carnage is the super villain persona of serial murderer Cletus Kasady, and is the first symbiotic offspring of Venom. First appearing in the Maximum Carnage arc of The Amazing Spider-man way back in the early 90’s, Carnage has been an occasional Spider-man villain, as well as periodically menacing other Marvel characters, and even on occasion getting his own title. (More on solo comics later, specifically the most recent one, as I’ve got feelings about it.—mr)

Transformers: Masterpiece Sideswipe

Sideswipe is the first of the entries in what could be considered the “modern era” of Masterpiece figures, identified as MP-12. The previous two figures numerically are MP-10 Optimus Prime, a smaller and slightly reengineered MP-01 Optimus Prime, and MP-11 Starscream, a slightly reengineered MP-03 Starscream. Sideswipe is the first in the now-long line of new and unique molds, and would usher in the official brave new Masterpiece world. Like many Masterpiece figures since Sideswipe, this had been on the shopping list for quite a while, but for a variety of reasons both financial and of personal motivation, was never actively sought after. The early 2018 release of Sunstreaker solidified the need for Sideswipe, and a TFSource Summer Sale deal made for a great chance to cross Sideswipe off that list.

SOTA Nightmares of Lovecraft: Dagon

Over a year ago, I posted an article on the Ghoul, the first and least entry in the Nightmares of Lovecraft line by now-defunct State of the Art Toys. Now, in honor of October and Halloween, I thought I’d do some work on some more monstrous figures, and thought Dagon would be a good place to start.

MakeToys MTRM-11 Meteor

It has been mentioned before that MakeToys may be my new favorite Third Party company, and it has been mentioned a number of times that Starscream is my favorite Transformers character. So, how will a MakeToys version of Starscream, that came with a fair amount of hype, fare?

The short answer is “pretty damn well.”

Grave Considerations: Bloodborne

I spent a lot of time this summer playing video games. While this is not an unusual pursuit for me, I feel like I played A LOT of video games this summer. I worked my way through all three games in the Dark Souls series, and the new God of War, which I really, really enjoyed while playing and then promptly forgot about once it was finished. I started Monster Hunter World and Breath of the Wild, the latter of which I’ve really been enjoying, and I also was about halfway through my fourth playthrough of one of the best games I’ve ever played: the Dark Souls-adjacent gothic cosmic horror fest Bloodborne.

Grave Considerations: Upgrading the Collection

Previously on Child Sized Coffin:

                “But now, what does my complete G1 Menasor really mean, seeing as right over there is a modern-age Menasor, and its G2 horror of a paintjob version in my closet? G1 Predaking is among the best of the G1 toys, both as a combiner and as individual members. But what does it really mean, seeing as all five Ares figures are posed on my desk at this very moment? What do I do with my G1 Quake, now that I have a newer, better version, and the original just sits in a plastic box?”  “What Shall We Do With Widows?” Sept. 22, 2017

That previous statement was made in the context of my having found a Titans Return Quake, and reaching an understanding that a G1 Quake may no longer be necessary. I’ve gotten back to thinking about this topic the last few months, largely framed by my thoughts of combining TFC Toys Poseidon for the first time during July.