Mass Burial: Immortal, Pure Holocaust

Pure Holocaust is where Immortal really got started. Solid in their version of Norwegian Black Metal and ready to pursue it, Abbath and Daemonez here took full control of their direction and charged forward with confidence and resolve, crafting what is an absolutely criminally underrated album, a crime which besmirches the entire genre. The result is one of the best offerings of the Norwegian scene, a Black Metal classic, and still one of Immortals’ top three records.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism

Immortal is a name that is surprisingly polarizing in the Black metal scene. Formed in 1991 as part of the blossoming Second Wave of Black metal, and absolutely one of the Norwegian scenes’ mainstays, Immortal developed its own lyrical direction around fantasy and mythology, somewhat akin to a band like Enslaved, as opposed to religion and Satan, akin to practically everyone else. Immortal’s members also managed to stay relatively out of trouble, putting them on a different plane of ‘realness’ than guys like Vikernes, and then later being viewed by some as something of a novelty, like a band playing Black metal instead of being a Black metal band. I imagine that that concept will be clarified as this Mass Burial rolls onward. Long, long, long a foundational band in the whole Norwegian/90’s Black metal evolution, a deep dive into the Immortal catalogue is certainly a task, the band having ten proper records, one official live record, and then three Immortal-adjacent albums that are mostly Immortal albums released under different names. (see here –mr).

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Stormtrooper with Blast Effects (Disney Store exclusive)

That’s an alright title, right? The figure is just called “Imperial Stormtrooper,” so my title should be ok, yeah? Sorry, it’s one of those kinds of mornings here at the Coffin, as the five day Thanksgiving Break enters its final day and we begin to steel ourselves for the last ten days of the Fall semester. Over the last few days I’ve been able to get some more stuff photographed, and thought I’d take advantage of the time between laundry to get something looked at quickly.

And believe me, this will not take long.

Mastermind Creations: Magna

 

 Let’s just be honest here to start this read: Magna is the bottom half of Mastermind Creations’ Magna Inventa, a Third Party SkyLynx. And it is the least part of SkyLynx as well. With that said, Magna is actually a pretty good figure all on its own.

You would be totally forgiven for not being terribly impressed with ol’ Magna here, given what it is: a flat cat that transforms into a shuttle gantry. That’s actually being pretty kind in my description: Magna transforms into a rectangle that has some sculpted details on it. Released as the first part of the eventual SkyLynx, Magna offers a whole lot of good fun packed into its totally unassuming package.

MakeToys MTCM-03E: Sonicdrill

 Again, AGAIN, TFSource is advertising the entire MakeToys Quantron set for super cheap, $110 this time for Black Friday, and AGAIN this set me on a rant in the presence of my poor, beleaguered wife about how excellent a set of figures these guys are, and how everyone should buy them. That made me realize that I hadn’t finished writing them up, and had in fact been neglecting Sonicdrill. So, let’s rectify that, shall we?

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Officers

One of the current existential crisis we’ve been going through here at the Coffin is whether or not we’d be able to produce articles on four different Star Wars figures that really only differ from each other in minor ways. The answer was always going to be “no,” but how to proceed was something that took some time to figure out. Ultimately, we decided to just talk about them all at once. So, here are The Black Series Director Orsen Krennic, Grand Moff Tarkin, Admiral Piett, and General Veers.

As a summary, each of these four Imperial Officers have the standard range of Black Series motion, and the standard allotment of joints. They are differentiated only by their heads and accessories. Each of them look as if they just stepped off of the screen, as their sculpts are real clear and accurate. There’s just not a whole lot to say about each of them individually.

TFC Toys: Poseidon

 A full Third Party combiner team reviewed in a single calendar year? Seems kinda amazing, but it’s about to be true. Mentarazor debuted the TFC Toys Seacons back in March, and Thousandkills rounded out the individual figures in August, and after a hiatus, the great god of the seas himself is here in November to finish out the series.  Poseidon is the mammoth combined form of Mentarazor, Cyberjaw, Big Bite, Iron Shell, Deathclaw, and Thousandkills, and it is a combined mode that literally dwarfs other figures.

Star Wars: The Black Series Obi-Wan Kenobi (Force Ghost)

 

Practically the total opposite of the Mimban Stormtrooper, Force Ghost Obi-Wan is an excellently rendered store exclusive. This time native to Walgreens, this figure takes the base Black Series Obi-Wan Kenobi and fancies him up into his Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi look, and the results are excellent.

Star Wars: The Black Series Mimban Stormtrooper (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

 Ha ha! The great Star Wars tradition of making figures of characters who got less than three seconds of screen time strikes again, this time in the form of the ever so briefly depicted Stormtroopers deployed to the muddy surface of Mimban in this springs’ spin off movie, Solo. Even my loving wife couldn’t play along and pretend that she noticed this guy in the movie: when I showed it to her, all she could ask was “who?”

RIP Stan Lee

Grave Considerations: Butters

 

Here’s something a little bit different. Not really a review per say, not a thinkpiece-y entry that the things that usually fall under this category are, but something different. I’m going to review our beloved cat, Butters.

Grave Considerations: TFCon Chicago 2018

This past weekend was TFCon Chicago 2018, the American version of the wildly popular Canadian Transformers fan convention. Havingattended a few years ago, my wife and I went this year as well, and had a great couple of hours. Our first excursion to the convention was one made out of curiosity and marked my initial participation in the Third Party scene; this year, we both returned as grizzled veterans with vaster knowledge and more critical eyes. Let’s take a look back at the afternoon that was, shall we?

FansProject Intimidator: Car Crash

 It’s time to start looking at a new Third Party combiner team, one of two new ones before 2018 comes to a close, in the midst of Warbotron and Quantron and at the end of the Poseidon articles. But, you know, it’s Coffin style to dive in to a new thing when there are still old things in progress. So, let’s look at Car Crash, first of the FansProject Stunticons.