Star Wars: The Black Series Han Solo and Princess Leia Hoth boxed set

A second day of the 2019 Chicago Polar Vortex makes me think taking a look at this is a pretty good idea.

A European convention exclusive, this really gorgeous boxed set is one of those very rare occurrences where something in the Coffin collection stays in the package, without even intention of opening it, depicting Han and Leia in the halls of the Rebel base on Hoth. Both of these figures have been released already, and should be pretty readily available, but this box was simply too beautiful to pass up. And, your boy Moby almost did . . . .

Mass Burial: Immortal, Damned in Black

Here’s a hot take for a cold January morning: Damned in Black is the album where Immortal really started being Immortal. Following the truly different At the Heart of Winter, Damned returns to shorter songs that chug along with a feeling of canned ferocity that is clearly trying to capture the actual ferocity of other Black Metal bands and records, resulting in something that feels like prefabricated, check the boxes Black Metal that is never the less totally satisfying and enjoyable.

Star Wars: The Black Series Zuckuss

 

Last of the three Disney Store exclusive Black Series figures, Zuckuss is the first actual new one, and the first one that adds actual value to your collection. Zuckuss is the last of the Empire Strikes Back bounty hunters, and with the first batch Archive series figures just about to be delivered, this means that you could finally complete your bounty hunter collection.

In order to talk about this figure, it’s important that we remember an idea that’s been floated around the Coffin for quite some time now, and that is that sometimes, figures are better as part of a team picture than they are individually, and that logic is 100% applicable to Zuckuss here. On his own, this figure is not really much to get worked up over. The head sculpt is nice and insectoid, and the figure comes with a unique blaster, which on its own is usually pretty cool. There is a lush mythology and cast in the Star Wars universe, and it’s easy to think of figure accessories as “just” parts for that figure; but in reality, or the reality of a fictional universe, they are artifacts of that fictional universe. Just like in our reality, not all accessories are the same, and the world has a vast array of weaponry and such in it, as sad as that is on a metaphysical level to say. But aside from the head and blaster, Zuckuss is not much to crow about.

FansProject Intimidator: Last Chance

Last Chance is the second installment in the very first set of Third Party Stunticons, now that apparently they and their Aerialbot nemesis are the hot 3P focus, and is the Dead End stand in. We covered the basics of this figure, in terms of size and build and all of that, a few months back with Car Crash, before shelving the set until the new year in order to try and finish off a bunch of other Coffin articles.

Last Chance, right away, is a gorgeous figure, with that Dead End maroon color just bursting out at you. The robot mode is very interesting, unconventional in places, and it and vehicle mode are nicely stylized in a way that makes the Intimidator team similar to the Warbotron team in that three of the figures are realistic and accurate, while the other two take some risks and wind up being cooler for it. The transformation is real simple, not unusual for a figure of this size, or from this particular set of figures.

Star Wars: The Black Series X-34 Landspeeder and Luke Skywalker

 

 Well, it’s January, so it’s the perfect time to be thinking about warmer, sunnier climes as well as still trying to march through all of the toys I got last year but never got around to examining. That is a long list, kiddies, and I arrived at the realization a few months ago that I could not and did not need to adhere to any particular chronology with my articles, which was a literal blog life saving realization. Anyhow, as predictions of a fair amount of snow come barreling towards Chicago, let’s look at the ’93 Chevy Cavalier of the Star Wars universe, the 6” scaled X-34 Landspeeder.

Oh, right. There’s a Luke Skywalker figure included in this as well.

Mass Burial: Immortal, At the Heart of Winter

Considered by many to be Immortal’s finest work, for some reason, At the Heart of Winter is an album that nevertheless signals a fairly large shift in the Immortal trajectory, trading the short and sharp Black metal attacks for longer and more plodding fare. That adjective choice is not intended to be a slight or signal of disapproval; it just so happens to be accurate. I have personally always fought the notion that this record is an outlier in the catalog, or the “different one,” as future Immortal records will lean heavily on things learned from At the Heart of Winter, but it certainly is the one album that marks a transitional stage in the band.

Star Wars: Black Series Battle Damaged Captain Phasma (The Last Jedi)

 When Toys R Us closed, the status of multiple store exclusive figures was tossed into chaos. Almost all of them would be picked up by other venues, and some of them just ended up at online sources. Black Series Toys R Us exclusives were rescued by the Disney Store, and so were not missed. The second of three, this battle damaged Captain Phasma depicts neo-Boba Fett as she appears in her final scene in The Last Jedi, where she again is imperiled and for the time being presumed dead, because unless a filler comic miniseries is coming from Marvel to smooth over this one, it’s hard to see how she’s going to escape an exploding Star Destroyer and return for Episode IX.

But we all know that she will.

Star Wars: The Black Series Dengar

 One of the bounty hunters that stands around as Vader talks about not disintegrating the crew of the Millennium Falcon, Dengar is one of those figures that wound up in my collection somehow, and now, on the eve of the release of the first wave of Archive figures, containing Boba Fett, Bossk, and IG-88, ended up being totally necessary to have, as the Empire bounty hunter team is about to be complete. Or, is complete, if you’d been buying them since the beginning.

Warbotron: Warbotron

Happy New Year everyone, and here’s to the hopes that 2019 will be a good, healthy, stable year for all of us. Let’s start the Coffin’s New Year with a real challenging question, that being what the combined mode of the Warbotron Combaticons is called? We’re going to go with “Warbotron,” as it sounds good and sensible, but really, you could most likely call this monstrosity anything you like.

And I meant ‘monstrosity’ in a good way.