Friday, August 24, 2018

TFC Toys Poseidon: Thousandkills


 

 Thousandkills is the last of the TFC Toys Seacons, and for quite a while was thought to not be a real figure. Most of the promotional images of Poseidon in his combined mode omitted this unofficial Tentakill, and there truly was a sense that this combiner masterpiece would finish without one of its members. Images and teases began appearing, one of which showed a pot on a stove with Thousandkills’ tentacles hanging over the sides. Then Thousandkills was released, Poseidon was complete, and all was well.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Warbotron WB01-C Sly Strike


 
 
It feels like this is written a lot around here, but it’s time to pick up the pace on some figures that have been sitting around, as new things have been coming in, and more new things will be arriving this week and next. So, the backlog needs to be addressed.

Sly Strike is the third member of the Warbotron Bruticus ( feel like it needs a better name. . . –mr) team, an unofficial version of beloved Combaticon Swindle. Like his immediate predecessor Heavy Noisey, Sly Strike is a very realistic, real world-looking vehicle as well as an accurate to the original robot. He’s also probably the best toy in the set, mostly for his competency, and not for any mind blowing or exceptional reasons. He’s great because he’s really basic, essentially, also like Heavy Noisey.

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Star Wars: The Black Series Lando Calrissian (The Empire Strikes Back)



 
Quite a while ago now this figure came into my possession; at the time a rare example of actually finding a new figure from a new(ish) Wave in a retail store. Just when Black Series Lando was released as a member of whichever Wave is lost on me. I’m pretty sure Lando was in the Wave after the Revan Wave, the Imperial Guard one, and I think he was included in a Wave after that as well. Whatever; I’d never seen one in a store, and wasn’t enthused enough to buy one online by itself, so I grabbed him. Shortly thereafter, my feelings of wanting to backtrack through Black Series figures I’d skipped began to solidify, and I was glad that I found this Lando when I did.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Star Wars: The Black Series Han Solo (Solo: A Star Wars Story)


 

 The standalone Han Solo movie is reportedly the biggest box office flop in the Star Wars franchise. That is an entirely relative statement, as I’m not sure many people would label $265 million dollars in ticket sales a bad thing. But, the movie had a $400 million budget apparently, so in industry terms, it flopped. There are multiple theories as to why this happened, but as is the case with all things Star Wars these days, only a few of them are rational, while many more are fueled by a truly impotent rage coming from the more delicate corners of the fan community.

Sunday, July 29, 2018

MakeToys MTCM-03C: Metalstorm




 

 
Ok, so. It’s been a while since we’ve spent some time on a converting robot action figure, and it feels like that should change.

Metalstorm is the MakeToys Scattershot, the largest figure in their excellent Quantron set. He is by far the largest figure of the team, something which at first makes the other four figures seem much too small, until one looks at it from the G1 perspective, after which point all is just fine. Metalstorm will have a lot of work to do, as he converts from robot to spacecraft to armored spacecraft to armored robot to torso; but not, as the G1 version did, that strange cannon tower, although certainly with enough applied creativity, said additional conversion could be fan moded. Initially, he seems to be the least impressive figure of the five, but given time ends up being really satisfying and fun.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Grave Considerations: TFCon Toronto 2018 and SDCC 2018 Reveals


Hi everyone. I know that this month has been a less than active one around the Coffin, and I don’t really know the reason why. I have been busy with summer classes, and Life has been busy with conventions and new toy reveals and movies and stuff, I just have not been able to find the time or motivation to do much blog-related work. Sure, I have posted a pair of articles this month, and have begun three or four more, but for some unknown reason I’m having a real hard time mustering up the energy to dedicate myself to Coffin business. So I figured I’d take a little time and talk about some toy reveals we’ve gotten this past week, between TFCon Toronto and San Diego Comic Con.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Grave Considerations/Coffin Shaker/Mass Burial: Coal Chamber



This piece sorta just happened out of the blue, inspired by a story I read yesterday online wherein Dez Farfara, vocalist of the generally meh DevilDriver and formerly of the generally rad Coal Chamber, has publicly stated, again, that Coal Chamber is forever broken up, and is not coming back. Apparently, the greater purpose of this interview was to announce that DevilDriver is going to start playing Coal Chamber songs live, which is sort of an interesting possibility, and that this was preceded by another round of Dez calling the old band members and everyone swearing at each other. I kinda just wanted to take a few minutes and talk about this. Part thinkpiece, part album review, part discography dive, it’s hard to really say where this fits, but here it is regardless.