Mass Burial: Immortal, Blizzard Beasts

Blizzard Beasts is another somewhat strange entry in the Immortal discography. The follow up to Battles in the North, Blizzard Beasts is an almost identical listening experience that cleans up that maddening issue its predecessor had with just cutting songs off after three minutes. That adds a whole lot to Blizzard Beasts in terms of listenability, but the album suffers from a different issue.

Marvel Legends: Silver Surfer

 

 

Let me tell you a story: once, not that many years ago, there was a young girl who would play with her cousins. One of her cousins had action figures of Spider-man and the Silver Surfer; this little girl always wanted to play with the Silver Surfer, but found perpetual denial, constantly being forced to play with Spider-man instead.

Some years later, Legends Silver Surfer would be released as a Walgreens exclusive, most likely the fairy godmother equivalent in this story, as that very phrase, “Walgreens exclusive,” is still so odd to hear. A man would purchase this Surfer for that young girl, now all grown up, in a gesture so romantic an entire group text worth of friends cheered it, only to have the woman not be that impressed by the figure that was now hers after all those years of wanting. Fortunately for her, she is married to the guy who runs Child Sized Coffin, so nothing went to waste.

Grave Considerations: Does Size Really Matter?

A few days ago I tried to get my thoughts together on this, and failed, producing a rambling and strange thinkpiece on why I keep this blog. In pursuit of a do-over, here’s what I was actually wanting to talk about: the future of my Third Party collecting, in terms of scale.

It seems that the era of 3P figures being essentially Voyager or Masterpiece scaled toys is reaching its end, to be replaced with figures that will either come in the Legends scale (like Iron Factory and DX9 figures) or continue in the Masterpiece scale (which has essentially come to mean Voyager, but there’s a twist). There are issues for me with both of these directions. If the scene goes Legends scaled, it would mean that I’d to some extent be starting my collecting all over again, as the Coffin shelves are very light on figures of that size. If the scene were to go full Masterpiece scale, that would present an issue when it comes to one of my favorite things about Transformers: combiner teams.

Grave Considerations: Where We Are Going, and Where We Have Been

Well, it’s that time of the year again, the ending time, where we sit back after the conclusion of another long and punishing semester and get some well-earned rest. Additionally, with this posting, the Coffin will break its record for number of posts in a calendar year, set just last year. I often do this, but I wanted to take a bit of time and look back at where this year has taken us, and what directions we think we might be going in once 2019 starts up.

Marvel Legends: Mysterio

 

 Illusionist/hypnotist/special effects wiz Mysterio is one of those figures that sent a shiver through the Coffin from first photo reveal to finally having one in-hand, and was highly sought after. Looked for everywhere, and found nowhere, this copy came to me thanks to eBay, and remains the single physical sighting of the figure that I have had. All of that to say that Mysterio here is highly desired and hard to come by, but man, what a cool figure.

MakeToys: MTRM-08 Despotron

G1 Megatron is one of those characters that toys never seem to get quite right. MP-05 was an admirable but flawed effort, and the recent MP-36 is apparently terrific yet fraught with paint issues and fiddly parts. There have been several Third Party attempts as well, of various degrees of success. The Coffin found its Masterpiece-like G1 Megatron in MakeToys’ excellent Despotron.

MakeToys: Quantron

 I have been ranting and raving about Quantron to anyone who will listen to me for the last seven months, so it’s time, as this year winds down and I try to finish half-written articles that have been languishing on my flash drive since the summer, to give this figure some attention.

Mass Burial: Immortal, Battles in the North

The third Immortal album, Battles in the North may contain some of the bands’ best songs in the title track and “Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons,” but it suffers from one incredible and persistent flaw. And no, it’s not the cover photo.

Or any of the terrible photos in the liner notes, either.

Grave Considerations: Final Fantasy XV

Some of this article may be unfair, as I never finished playing Final Fantasy XV, and had only progressed as far as Leviathan. So my understanding and knowledge of the game, as well as, some may say, my ability to really assess it, are admittedly limited. But, I do feel qualified to make some evaluative statements on the game.

Tamashii Nations Movie Realization Series: Taiko Stormtrooper

 

As the end of this year lurches closer, thoughts begin to turn to upcoming figure releases, and it seems that perhaps no other line that the Coffin collects is set to be more prolific in 2019 than this one. A number of Star Wars characters have been revealed, including New Trilogy characters and most recently, a totally cool looking IG-88, as well as some others from the concurrent Marvel line, which is not on my radar, aside from the just-revealed and STUNNING Black Panther. But, there is a backlog of Tamashii Nations Star Wars figures around here, so let’s try to do something about that with this, the taiko drummer Stormtrooper.

Warbotron WB-01E: Fierce Attack

 The final member of the Warbotron team, Fierce Attack is a Third Party Onslaught, and represents somewhat of a mixture of the entire team aesthetic of sticking to the original inspiration, and trying to doing something stylized and different. I’m not sure it’s too successful, but I’m also not sure that it’s Fierce Attack’s fault.

Transformers: Masterpiece Shockwave

 While we try to curb the high levels of various emotions that inevitably swirl in endless maelstrom at the end of another semester, it is only logical that we take time out to talk about Masterpiece Shockwave, or Laserwave, his Japanese name.

But not really. It's Shockwave.

Star Wars: The Black Series Kylos Ren (The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi)

 Here’s an opportunity to get another multiple figures all handled in one article, so let’s take advantage. Let’s take a look at both of the Black Series Kylo Ren figures, one from The Force Awakens, and the other from The Last Jedi.

 By now, we all should know Kylo Ren; and unless we’re just being difficult, we should also all know that he’s a pretty good antagonist for the New Trilogy. He was a whiney emo kid in Episode VII, but in Episode VIII, he’d rounded out into a pretty developed character, and seems to be the actual tortured soul in the Star Wars universe that Anakin Skywalker was meant to be in his extra poor appearances in the heinous Prequel Trilogy. The former Ben Solo, like the other members of the new cast, has gotten a new 6” figure for each movie, and they are two very different figures.

Grave Considerations: MP-44 Optimus Prime (version 3)

This is being written half in laughter, and half in a rage.

Just this week, Takara released images, at first of a grey prototype and then soon after in color, of MP-44, the third verison of Masterpiece Optimus Prime. This time, again, intended to get Prime in scale and aesthetic with the next iteration of the Masterpiece line, the idea is apparently that this Prime looks the most like Prime in the G1 cartoon, so Masterpieces’ next focus is going to be cartoon accuracy over all. The changes, in my opinion, are mostly cosmetic and rather subtle, although if you sift through enough hot takes online you can find people saying that this Prime is vastly different, and generally for the better, than both MP-01 and MP-10. But to find those, you’re going to have to sift through a lot of takes on this Primes’ greatest feature: his absolutely, totally, 100% ludicrous price tag.

Preorders are up across the etail landscape, and the price for this figure is $450 American dollars.