I wasn't a big fan of G.I. Joe Resolute.  Mind, I didn't hate it or anything, and I did enjoy it as a curiosity.  It was sort of like a trial exercise to see what would happen if you took all of the soul and fun out of G.I. Joe and replace it with as much blood as possible.

But at least it got us more Destro toys!  This guy was supposed to come out in a single pack, but when plans folded, he got pushed into this Internet-exclusive seven-pack of Resolute designs.  (I don't need the rest of them, so they'll be eBayed soon.)

The most notable thing about this Destro, obviously, is the swappable arm.  He comes packaged with the untorn sleeve arm, but sitting next to him in the plastic tray is a torn-sleeve arm revealing he is actually a robot!  Or something.  I recall some of the Resolute design art pegged him as a big metal dude under his clothes.  Perhaps he's a Cyborg?  Regardless, there's two arms.  I think I'll keep him wearing the torn-sleeved arm, since it's more visually interesting.  Maybe keep the other arm hanging limply out of the suitcase.

I'm not sure exactly which of the guns he's supposed to come with.  There's two tiny ones beside him in the tray that obviously fit in his hip holsters.  There's a MARS briefcase that's obviously his.  He comes holding another gun.  But then there's a few guns between him and the Viper that I'm not too sure about.  Oh well.  My Destro doesn't need more than one accessory per (attached) arm, anyhow.

Be sure to catch me this weekend at the Canadian GIJOE Convention!

Today I noticed that my Big Bad Toy Store preorder on the Cobra Resolute seven-pack went through.  Well, crap, I still have the remainders from last year's batch of seven-packs sitting on the floor downstairs waiting to be auctioned off!  Well, let's get that finally done with.

AUCTION!

I took six of the original fourteen figures out of the two sets to keep.  I'm offering the remaining eight figures.  Auction ends in three days!  Happy bidding!

Though I only bought the set to get Dr. Venom, I certainly don't mind owning ... "Adventure Team Commander."  He's a 3 3/4"-scale version of the main 1960s 12-inch G.I. Joe dude, which was reintroduced into the later Marvel comic book issues as Joe Colton.  And then he stayed around for the Devil's Due stories as the grizzled G.I. Joe team leader.    Oh, hey, and he was in that last Joe/Transformers crossover.  So, yeah.  Wouldn't turn him down.  I like the idea of celebrating the early history of the line.

Like Dr. Venom, he's a mix of recycled parts with a new head.  I think he's got... Ace's arms?  Duke or Flint's torso with Snow Job's coat bottoms?  And I think those're Shipwreck's legs again...  The head looks like they took one of the 12-inch noggins and shrunk it.  It's pretty faithful.  I have an earlier Joe Colton figure up in storage and it didn't look half as faithful as this.

(He looks like Bob Vila.)

There are three accessories.  He's got a long-ass rifle, a handgun, and a backpack.  I had some trouble getting the backpack attached.  The vest is very tight on the torso, and it was positioned so that the backpack peghole was half-obscured.  Meanwhile, the backpack's peg was kinda soft.  It took a while and some care, but I did eventually manage to get that peg into the hole without breaking anything.

Man, that reads dirtily.

I've gone on a number of times about how Dr. Venom is awesome -- sometimes in non sequitur, sometimes in preparation for this toy coming out.  Suffice to say, he's some guy in a lab coat and tie who works for Cobra and his name is Dr. Venom.  He does not understand piddly emotions such as "love."  I should not have to explain further.

He's never had a toy until now, probably in part to being, you know, some guy in a friggin' lab coat and tie.  Oh, and his name is Dr. Venom, which I'm sure would raise legal eyebrows somewhere marvelous.  (His packaging presents his name as Dr. Archibald "Venom" Monev.  That's right, his real last name is "venom" backwards.)

The G.I. Joe Collectors' Club is selling him as an exclusive to its members in a big box along with an absolutely huge venus flytrap monster and Joe Colton.  I'm pretty okay with that being the last two-thirds of this set, so it was no big to plunk down the cash for everything.  I'm not a member of the Joe club, but my pal Ron is, so I gave him the money and he got me the set.  Easy cheesey.

His given function is "Evil Scientist."  Sometimes in fiction I feel that is redundant.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Venom is nearly all recycled parts.  He's got the pajama Joe arms, Shipwreck legs, Cobra "Rex" Commander labcoat, and the Cobra Trooper body with a tie painted on.  His head appears to be new.

He comes with four accessories.  Two black handguns and two equally black test tubes with corks in them. The black test tubes are how you know he's an Evil Scientist.  He holds the test tubes easily enough, but his right hand sure has trouble with either of the handguns.  Its non-Kung Fu grip is molded a little small for the gun's handle, so it'll inevitably pop out after the rubbery plastic in the right hand gets bored.  I did manage to get it to stay in his hand long enough to snap a photograph, but only barely.  You can see the gun's kinda blurry as it prepares to pounce out of its place.

Man, remember when Cobra was allowed to be dorky and campy?  I miss those days.  Realistic Cobra sure is fucking boring.

Aha!  I remembered to get a TNI strip done while at the convention this weekend.  However, I brought an uncharged camera and no charger, so today's strip is brought to you by the good graces of Chris Hallbeck (The Book of Biff), who took a photo for me yesterday and emailed it to me when he got home for the night.

The Sunday dealer room at Penguicon is only open four hours (11 - 3) so this'll be a quick day. Then I'll be packing up and starting the 3-4 hour drive home.  My thanks to everyone who came to visit me this weekend.

Here's a quick question: Is there interest in me going to TFCon in Toronto?  It's the weekend before San Diego Comic-Con, which makes me pause, but it might be interesting to do.  Let me know if there's Canadian demand for me up there.

You know how you can never find what you're looking for, instead finding other things you weren't looking for?  That's what happened with my old half-finished Dr. Biggles-Jones kitbash.  I tried to find her, no deal.  Months later, I'm digging around in the attic for something else, and, hey, here she is!  Well.  NOW WHERE'S FRIGGIN' LASERBEAK THAT'S WHY I'M HERE.

Long story short, I'm finally trying on the white ROC Cobra Commander labcoat.  It's pretty big on her!  I'm probably going to have to add "Dremel down the shoulders" to my list of things that she needs to be complete, along with "probably repaint entirely" and "finally get the Scarlett torso to accept the Lady Jaye arms."  And *cross fingers* find a paint that matches her skintone so I can paint over her gloves.

Meanwhile, Cobra Commander looks like a friggin' evil butler.

So as we were debuting the new site this weekend, Frumph says to me, hey, guess what, this is awesome.  See all those folks with no avatars?  Well, what if I told you that if you uploaded your own avatars to a certain directory and did some Comicpress magic, they'd be randomly assigned to unavatared users?

So I says, holy balls!

And so after crankin' out a handful every day since then, there are now a total of 24 avatars in the pool.  If you don't have an avatar and you post, you'll get randomly assigned, say, Sodomuffin.  And then every time you post, you'll keep that Sodomuffin avatar.  (... at least until I upload a new image into the pool, which restarts the math and they all get switched around again)

Since I have so many, and I put so much work into them despite being tiny 64x64 things, I thought I'd show them to you big as a wallpaper.  You are also free to crop them out and make your own avatars on other boards, so long as you give me credit.  I am also wondering if maybe I should try to do this a print or a poster or something in the meager number of hours I have remaining before C2E2, but we'll see.

Enjoy!