Marvel Legends: Thanos

 

Man, Byron was right: April really is the cruelest month. What with Star Wars Celebration, numerous birthdays, the start of the NHL Playoffs, the winding down of the Spring semester, and this year, Avengers: Endgame to end not only the month, but the current cycle of the MCU. In honor of that last piece, let’s take a look at Marvel Legends Thanos, in his comic book, and thus best, appearance.

Grave Considerations: Star Wars Celebration 2019

 Last week, my wife and I had the incredible experience and massive pleasure of attending the official Star Wars convention, Celebration, held in sweet home Chicago. The five day festival honors and . . . celebrates . . . all things Star Wars.

What a great time.

The last couple of years have been real rough to be part of a fandom, almost regardless of which fandom it is. Star Wars has had its share of bitching, as has Marvel; sports seem like they’ve been horribly toxic for many years already; the gaming world has always been full of jagoffs. Things really have felt bleak at times; but not Celebration. Star Wars Celebration was a joyful event that focused on all things positive and Star Wars, even though that is redundant. The atmosphere was amazing and universally positive and welcoming, proving that Star Wars really is for everyone. I personally have felt real nerves before both Celebration and last months’ C2E2 specifically because I’m not interested in the full diapered tantrums of haters and the ignorant, and am just hopeful that those people won’t attend conventions devoted to things that they clearly hate, but who can tell, really. The world is full of all kinds of people, even those who would attend an event just to be negative about it. For some reason.

Star Wars: The Black Series C-3PO

Franchise mainstay C-3PO does not make for the most exciting or impressive entry in the Black Series line, but is a necessary one. It was this view that kept him out of the Coffin collection for such a long time, only being welcomed a few weeks ago. The Walgreens exclusive version is the Original Trilogy 3PO, with the silver leg, not the general release from The Force Awakens, with the red arm.

Marvel Legends: Thor

In preparation for the Marvel Comics event “War of the Realms,” let’s have a look at Legends Thor, as she appears in Jason Aaron’s spectacular Thor run dating from 2014 until just last year. Spoilers ahead, for those who don’t know who this Thors’ secret identity is, so proceed with caution.

FansProject Intimidator: Down Force

Apparently, Down Force is the second member of the Intimidator group to be released, not Last Chance, to correct a previous mistake. No matter; regardless of release order, Down Force is the FansProject stand-in for Dragstrip, the loveable psychotic six-wheeled race car member of the Stunticons.

Star Wars: The Black Series Padme Amidala

 

 

Taking a minute before we leave for our second day at Star Wars Celebration 2019 to take a look at one of the most recent Wave of Black Series figures, Padme Amidala as she appears in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It has been stated at some point in the not too distant past that the line would take time in 2019 to focus on the Prequels, since this year marks twenty years since The Phantom Menace was released.  (I think we will talk about The Phantom Menace in the not too distant future here as well, just not right now. –mr)

Ju-Jiang Jet Commander JJ-02B: Jet Harrier

Jet Harrier, or “Harrier,” as he will be known hereafter, is the second member of the “Third Party”/upsized KO Combiner Wars Aerialbot team, known as Slingshot or “Quickslinger” in Hasbro parlance, and the first of the limb figures of the set. Roughly Masterpiece size, Harrier is the same height as MP Sideswipe.

Grave Considerations: So, That Happened. . . .

I had a run in, ever so briefly, with the anti-Last Jedi crowd on Twitter, and I kind of felt the desire to talk about it. They apparently have a whole hashtag movement going on, lashing out not only at Star Wars, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well, driven further to madness apparently by “Captain Marvel”. I’m fairly certain that this was my first personal encounter with this crowd, where I've actively interacted with them, and not just laughed at them from afar. 

A night or so ago, I got involved in a Twitter spat between one of these anti’s (which is what I’ll call them in lieu of anything more solid, since I don’t really know what they’re against, since it seems to be everything –mr) , and by ‘got involved,’ I mean I made a stupid comment against one of their responses. This was liked by another Twitter user, and when I checked out their timeline, I found out they were one of those fans. I responded to a tweet that they’d retweeted, and suddenly I was pulled in to a whole bunch of pretty disturbing stupid. I know, I know, it was my doing to reply to a tweet, so we can all say I brought this upon myself. But fuck that, you know, because I am who I am and sometimes that means I’m a lot smarter than my temper allows me to be.

Star Wars: Archive Pilot Luke Skywalker

 

The Archive series is a thing that has been hotly anticipated around here, offering reissued Black Series figures from earlier portions of the line that people such as I had missed the first time. Excellent. The first Wave is comprised of the three other Empire Strikes Back bounty hunters and pilot suit Luke Skywalker, all of which were missed the first time.

Unique Toys Ordin: O-01 Troll

 Back in October, I had decided that my TFCon 2018 hunt list would include members of the Unique Toys Abominus team, named Ordin. Mere days before the convention, I found and won an eBay auction for the entire set. So, that was pretty easy. Let’s take a look at the first figure in the set, Troll, a Third Party version of Terrorcon Blot.