As you can probably tell by the frequency of video game jokes in Shortpacked!, (not that often!) I am way more into action figures than I am in video games. This is, after all, a comic strip about a toy store and not Penny Arcade. I will dutifully plow through any new Super Mario game when one makes itself available, but it is not a primary interest of mine. Regardless, sometimes these two interests intersect.
Because I get an email every other day from you guys letting me know, I think it's safe to say that it is general public knowledge that a Big Transformers Game is coming out this month. War for Cybertron is a multiplatform third-person shooter that takes place on Cybertron before the Transformers leave for Earth. Optimus Prime isn't leader yet, he's just "Optimus," sans "Prime." Everyone is in crazy alien hovertank-like modes because Volkswagen Beetles and Freightliner trucks won't exist for another few million years. And, as Hasbro tends to do, they have some action figures of the game's character models.
He likes to drive crotch first.
This is Optimus Prime! He transforms into an "armored tank." This is my... third? toy of a Cybertronian-mode Optimus? First there was the War Within Prime (another pre-Earth story), then I picked up Cybertron mode Optimus Prime from the Animated toyline, and now this. We have an extra housemate this summer, necessitating the packing up of my not-on-display toys in the attic, so I did not feel like digging out the entire attic closet to search through fifteen Rubbermaid containers for these two other dudes to photograph next to my new one. You will just have to imagine them!
He comes packaged in robot mode. I have to admit, this removes a lot of my incentive to do the inaugural transformation, especially since robot-to-vehicle is always much more of a chore than the reverse. With Cybertronian Optimus Prime, this is no exception. He's a little too complicated, but I hate him waaaaaaaaaaay less after attempting the same on his wavemate Cybertronian Bumblebee. Really put things in perspective. Prime is a deceptively complicated toy. I don't think there's an uninterrupted square inch on him. But things peg together well enough in each mode, so no harm no foul. The only annoying part of him in robot mode is his shoulder kibble, which likes to flair up and about when you don't want it to. A good portion of the vehicle mode roof folds onto his back, sorta shellformery, but it packs away out of site well enough.
Megatron's is still bigger.
The most intriguing part of him is his gun. It transforms as well, from robot mode rifle configuration to vehicle mode weapon-mount configuration. There's little springs in it that keep it in one mode or the other - there's no pegs. In weapon-mount configuration, it wraps around itself. In this compacted mode, it's also intended to be mounted on his forearm. (You can see it in this configuration in some concept art.)
My favorite aspect, I think, is his pink highlights. Generally, Prime has yellow highlights, but I really like the pink. It accentuates him in a different way, and it sets him apart from other Primes. And, lord, that's the kind of thing I need at this stage in my collecting days. I have a buttload of Primes.
There's some rumblings that War for Cybertron is going to be the established canon for future Hasbro Transformers ventures. That would include this fall's Transformers: Prime CGI cartoon. So if you want a head start on your TF: Prime collection, this is probably it.
Holy Lord Almighty, it's a new Transformers Animated toy! It is a gift bestowed unto us from the heavens, shrouded in light and majesty. And it's from Japan, because, you know. Fuckin' America.
Transformers Animated is running now over there, in a surprisingly un-totally-rewritten way. (Though they remove a bunch of scenes to accommodate scripted infomercials for the toys.) And since the American toyline has kinda gotten waylaid, I jumped on their release of Blackout. At the moment, it's uncertain whether Blackout will see release over here. Ratchet and Arcee were released as Toys"R"Us exclusives in February, and Rodimus and Ironhide will reportedly see similar release this fall, but otherwise that's all we know of that's coming down the pipeline.
So, hey, hello, Japanese Blackout. It makes it easier that he's not very much like the other Japanese releases of the Animated toys. Most of them have been unevenly covered in metallic paint, which turns me off something fierce. Blackout emerges from this relatively unscathed. He's mostly unpainted matte plastic, like the American line, with a few spots of metallic lime green. I am fine with this. But if he were entirely metallic gunmetal, this purchase would have been a lot more bittersweet.
(Speaking of bittersweet, Blackout only showed up on the Animated cartoon in his pre-Earth body. This toy is based on the body he would have taken would we have gotten Season Four. His very appearance mocks me with what could have been.)
It's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it.
Blackout is notable because he is an Animated character who's based on somebody who originated from the live-action films. I don't really remember Michael Bay's Blackout resembling Wilford Brimley so closely, but I'm not complaining. Still, you can see the inspiration. The helicopter cockpit splits to become the chest in much the same way, with the engines remaining on his shoulders, and the helicopter blades still hang off the top of his back. He's a great cartoony translation of the super-complicated live-action film design.
That said, in several ways he's very much like Animated Lugnut. They're both Voyager Class aircraft Decepticons whose cockpits split to form the torso and reveal their forward-jutting heads, and they're both short and stocky with tiny legs. They both even keep their weapons in their vehicle tails, though Blackout's is much cooler. Lugnut looked like he was basically carrying around a useless vehicle part on a stick; Blackout's rotor weapon shoots a disc.
Blackout is basically a better Lugnut toy. As well as the more playtime-friendly weapon, he also holds together better in robot mode. When you transform his chest into robot mode, everything pegs very securely. Even seamlessly! You can barely tell that it splits apart in transformation back to helicopter mode. His torso looks like an indivisible geometric shape.
Team Chaar REPRESENT!
If there's anything annoying about him, it's his arm articulation. His shoulders can't swing out from the torso, they can only rotate along an axis. If you want to bend his elbows (since otherwise the torso gets in the way), you have to rotate his arms at the bicep, revealing the giant gaps in his forearms where his hands store in vehicle mode. So he's pretty good at clenching his fist menacingly and little else. (This may be enough for some people.) On the other hand, both of his fingers are individually articulated.
All in all, I think he may be one of the better Animated toys. He's going to look way undersized compared to the rest of his Decepticon peers, since most of his Voyager Class mass went into making him as wide as he is tall (like both Bulkhead and Lugnut), but in a vacuum, he's outstanding. He has a great gimmick, and his visual aesthetic looks great in both vehicle and robot modes. And, hey, if you like automorphing, when you plug his pelvis into his torso, the rotor behind his head automatically springs back. He's pretty awesome.
Yesterday I mentioned that Soundwave was the first of five nominees for the Transformers Hall of Fame. Nominee number 2 is Grimlock, who is equally unsurprising. I mean, yeah, once voting opens, Soundwave has this locked up, but Grimlock is the only guy who could possibly ever steal it from him. Even though he won't.
Just like Soundwave's Hall of Fame bio, Grimlock's also drops some new information about him. His speech impediment has been explained various ways before. In the Marvel stuff, he didn't talk right because talking right was for prissy losers. He talked badly because he wanted to. In the original cartoon, he didn't talk very well because he was a primitive creation of Wheeljack. (In fact, one could say that without a trip to Vector Sigma to endow him with life, he wasn't actually truly alive, but merely a complex machine.)
The Hall of Fame bio claims that his speech is fucked up because Scorponok damaged his voice processor during a battle. Well, okay, let's add that one to the pile, I guess.
Hopefully, Dinobot will be tomorrow's nominee. If not, I may be kind of fucked (I'll explain later), but if he is revealed to be a nominee sometime this week, I wonder what crazy retconned trivia we'll learn about him. Is he Megatron's son? Did he earn his rigid grill structure for pulling off a successful heist? Will we finally learn what a steses pod is?
Who knows. Other than us, potentially sometime tomorrow morning.
Now we just need four smaller ones in various colors.
Oh my merciful lord, I actually have a new toy to talk about!
My Recon Ravage arrived in the mail today, the one I sent away for with my proofs of purchase and shipping and handling and what have you a number of months ago. Yay, mail-in toy exclusive! (For the US, anyway. Elsewhere he's exclusive to Toys"R"Us.) He comes in a big white cardboard box with N.E.S.T. markings, with a letter from Optimus Prime and a coupon inside.
They're fighting, not mounting!
He's friggin' pretty, is what he is. The colors are stolen from the Voltron Black Lion, and used to great effect with the chrome-plated silver they gave him. This is just plain-ol' vaccum-metalized chrome with no additional coloring, so I can rest easy that it's not gonna spiderweb and flake off. Other chrome-related hazards may happen in due time, but flaking is crossed off the list.
(Oh, hey, and he's retooled a tiny bit. There used to be an extra joint in his tail, a tiny balljoint just above the middle hinge. It's gone now. Guess tails were popping off too much? It was kind of an inconvenience on the original version of the mold, and the articulation added little.)
And, hey, guess what, he's a Mini-Con. What, you say! Today Hasbro began unveiling the five fan-choice nominees for their new Transformers Hall of Fame, and Soundwave was nominee #1. (Surprise!) He got a entirely new bio for the occasion, and, uh, hey, his little animal partners are apparently Mini-Cons now. Ha ha. Weird, but not something that bothers me. In fact, the impotent rage from others who ARE bothered will be fun enough in itself. I'm an asshole like that.
So. Biggest Mini-Con toy ever? Naw, I guess that'd be Alternators Ravage.
Once a month for five months, God finds time to bless our planet with his holy ejaculate. This is month four, and so today the latest issue ofLast Stand of the Wreckers is now splashed warmly across our faces.
Sure, the immediate highlight of the issue is a single panel (spoilers) that packs more fanwankery into itself than should be physically possible. But something more subtle I'd like to bring up, nospoilery-like, is this: Transformers are robots. They lose arms, they lose heads, they suffer all sorts of damage. I'm kinda numb to the idea. But, man, in Last Stand of the Wreckers, when physical damage happens, I wince. It's gross. It looks painful. It takes an emotional toll.
This is probably due to both the writing and the art. I think of the characters as real beings, not only due to the strong characterization, but also in the way in which they are drawn. They don't look like a pile of boxes being maneuvered around by the artist like a marionette. They're singular entities. And, man, if they get an ouchie, you can tell by the look on their faces.
I really like that.
And, man, Last Stand of the Wreckers really is an orgy of violence. It's crude and dark and terrible. Many Transformers stories attempt this, but most feel hollow. This does not. That's a feat in itself, above and beyond the easy geeky cameos.
And here's the last of my (published) pictures. That's right! There are photos worse than the ones from yesterday with all the mouth-pooping.
(They were blurry or boring.)
Figgered I should take some pictures of some toys, since this is usually a toy blog. This is DC Direct's "Battle for the Cowl" wave. I totally need that Stephanie Brown Batgirl. And probably that hilarious Two-Face that was infuriatingly only a hallucination.
Sunday was kind of a no man's land for the Webcomics Pavilion... except if you were Jeph Jacques. How I hate him.
Since Sunday was kinda dead, I spent time drawing and coloring on my own. Markers are fun!
Reader asked for Reagan vs Hitler. Reader got Reagan vs Hitler. Hooray for democracy!
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.
