Just got back from Scott Pilgrim. Have a statue preorder.

My Straxus wasn't shipped alone.  His new casemate is War for Cybertron Megatron.  This is funny to me, because as I mentioned yesterday, he and Straxus shared bodies for most of the comics, and some believe it was actually Straxus-in-Megatron that became Galvatron in 2005!  So, hell, maybe my new Megatron toy is Straxus, too.

The previous two WFC figures, Optimus and Bumblebee, were kind of annoying messes.  Megatron thankfully does not follow this pattern.  In fact, he's pretty friggin' great.  He's by far the best of the video-game based dudes so far.  (With only Soundwave and Cliffjumper, that we know of, to eventually follow.)

It's pretty neat how he works.  In robot mode, he doesn't even feel like a Transformer.  Instead, he feels and plays like a cohesive robot action figure.  He seals up perfectly, with practically no visible transformation joints.  This might mean that his transformation is going to be on the pathetic side, but this isn't the case.  He splits up and folds into himself pretty amazingly.  Sure, his tank mode is really made up, which helps, but it's not like it looks like a Megatron robot rolling around on his stomach or anything.  His robot mode form is well hidden.  In fact, most of it is hidden beneath his fusion cannon and the undersides of his feet.  His forearms split open and form treads in a way not really seen before.

The forearm transformation is one of the few weak links, however.  They're not very sturdy in either vehicle mode (you can also fold them under the chassis to make a hover-tank).  Another is the missile launcher button placement on the cannon.  It's right above the connection point for securing the weapon to the arm, so if you want to apply the right kind of force to the weapon to snap it on, you definitely have to push down on the button.  I've lost the missile so many times already.  At the moment, I keep it in my pants pocket.  (I should make sure I find a safer place for it.)

Anyway, these grumbles aside, he's fantastic.  I've extolled the glory of open-sculpted palms before, but Megatron's are the best I've seen.  They're sculpted perfectly for aiming and firing his cannon arm.  They're in that relaxed pose you'd expect, with the cascadingly-curled digits.  It helps the toy come alive.

Thank god there are so few big-name early-G1 Decepticons.  Once you pump out Megatron and the Seekers, maybe a Triple Changer or two, and Devastator, sure, maybe fit in a Ravage somewhere... you start running out of options, you know?  So on the third round of Generation 1 Dudes Recreated Toyline, you're gonna have to start getting creative.

So say hello to Straxus.  Okay, his toy's called Darkmount, after his fortress, because of some trademark trouble, but who the fuck cares.  It's fucking Straxus, god dammit. Jesus Christ.  Fucking.  Straxus.  The ferocity of my boner is incalculable.

Even though he's twenty-five years old, Straxus has never gotten a toy before.  This is his first.  Back in 1985, the Marvel Comics showed us a peek at what life was like on Cybertron.  And it was pretty shitty there, if you can imagine.  And the shittiest place was Polyhex, particularly its capital fortress Darkmount where Lord Straxus ruled.  You know what he liked to do with his day?  Yell at people and throw them into the smelting pools.  And because that wasn't enough Throwing People Into Smelting Pools, he had all his dudes round up everyone they could find so that they could also get thrown into the smelting pools.  He was an unstable, contrary dictator who could get his way simply because he was bigger and meaner than everyone else.  If the Space Bridge was malfunctioning, and marching guys into it to die wasn't actually solving the problem, well, who cares, send more guys into there.  Maybe eventually one of them would magically fix it by walking into it and dying.  He had better things to do, like throw people into smelting pools.

He was pretty fucking great.

But he was only there for Blaster to kill him.  He wasn't a toy.  He wasn't somebody that Hasbro wanted to sell.  He filled a story need.  So he was terrible and horrible, and at the end of his second issue he got to die.  That was all he was fated to do.

Yet it wasn't the end, weirdly enough.  Simon Furman, the Marvel UK writer, was trying to weave stories in and around the US material.  So he brought Straxus back as, well, a head.  A head in a jar.  And so for a while Straxus ran things even though he was just a friggin' head.  Even Megatron showed up to Cybertron and was bossed around by this guy.  Straxus's balls, even though they were severely fried and probably floating somewhere in unspace, were absolutely huge.  He talked in his creepy font as a head in a jar and told Megatron to bring him a friggin' sammich.

Anyway, long story short, Straxus tried to steal Megatron's body, but things got confused, and maybe Straxus was Megatron after that or maybe he wasn't, and maybe Straxus was even the Megatron who eventually became Galvatron in the movie.  But that's not important.

What's important is Fucking Straxus Toy.

Straxus transformed once in the original comics.  He was a flying cannon thing, akin to Galvatron's alt-mode.  The toy gives him an Earth mode that evokes it closely enough.  It's a half-track tank!  (Or a self-propelled cannon, if you want to get fancy.)  And if that's not close enough, it has a third mode.  Rotate the turret around and open the base of the tank into a tripod, and he's an artillery platform.  Pretend it can fly.

That's not all that's going on.  Starting with Recon Ironhide, a live-action film-style toy, some Transformer figures have sculpted bars and rods on their surfaces so that various weapons can clip onto them interchangeably.  Straxus comes with three such weapons, and they can move around to various points on his body.  Or you can swap them with any of the weapons that come with other contemporary, compatible figures.

But that's just scenery.  The real deal is the robot mode.  I can't believe the proportions on it.  They're so perfect.  He has this giant, broad chest that looks like it was carved out of something bigger than God.  Powerful arms with big meaty fists sprout out of the shoulders.  When he stands, he looks like he's a big wall of robot, as it should rightly be.  Too often the robotic proportions of a design are lost in the actual toy due to transformation needs.  Not here.  Straxus is built like Straxus.

It's too bad he's just a Deluxe.  Deluxe is the only size class that Generations is currently inhabiting, so Straxus didn't really have a choice.  But, really, it's a fucking Straxus, so I think I can deal.  Just don't stand him next to anybody bigger than him.  (For example, I have him up on my desk shelf near BotCon Clench, and that just not flatter Straxus very well, no.)

I seriously can't get over him.  He has his trademark battle-axe, which he can hold in both articulated hands.  Despite the obvious compromises incurred on his design due to his need for an Earth mode, you can still see all of the little Straxus touches.  The triangles on his chest and legs.  The big round shoulders with the trapezoidal biceps.  The perfectly-sculpted serpentine head.

Oh, sure, he's not a perfect figure.  His transformation sometimes requires objects to clip through each other.  (It's pretty complicated, but only in a moderately annoying way.)  Oh, and the neck on mine is misassembled backwards.  It's barely noticeable and doesn't affect transformation, so it's not a dealbreaker.  If the misassembly's not a widespread problem I'll just buy a second one later.  I need to support Straxus anyway.

(The 2002 Destro is my favorite Destro. This is not a shared belief.)

Personally, I'm just excited that he exists, but I liked the punchline too much.  Ethan is so frustrated.  He shouldn't be!  He's getting some!

(And, really, the whole thing is really Blaster's toy's fault anyway.)

Hey, dudes, I am totally in Canada right now.  The wifi here kinda isn't, and so I'm just on one of the lobby terminals.  They let me have 45 minutes online for free!  Hooray!

I got to see the Canadian Joe Convention dealer room setup this evening, and I really shouldn't have, because I remembered that I'm short a lot of Destros and they kind of have them.  Uh oh.  Also, woo, one table has a big pile of Funskool stuff, and that tickles me.  Tomorrow morning I'll get my booth set up and then start saying hello to you folks.

I'm, like, a special guest or something like that.  Because I'm awesome?  Their other special guests include Larry Hama and the original cartoon voices of Lady Jaye and Zartan.  That means I'm as cool as they are, I've decided.  I'm up-cooling myself through the transitive property.  That's right.  Go ahead and stop me.

Oh, and one of their exclusives is the Cobra North SNAKE.  Look at it.  Love it.

See you folks tomorrow at 9am, eh?

Ever so often, Maggie "the wifes" Willis will draw, and when she does, it's pretty damn amazing! I wanted to share her most recent work, some fan art of Full Metal Panic. She draws the smooching nicely. Oh yes.

Tomorrow I leave Ohio for the crazy otherworld of Toronto, Canada! Saturday is host to Canadian GIJoe Convention, where I am an esteemed guest. I will have books for you to buy! Come see me.

Next month, on Labor Day weekend, I'm gonna be in Dallas, Texas, for AnimeFest!  I will also have a table there.  I've never conned in Texas before, so it should be a treat.  I'll also have much fun hangin' with my buds Joel Watson (Hijinks Ensue) and James and Mel (Two Lumps).  It'll be a blast!

Guess I should finish packing.  Now where's my passport...?

Oh, phew.

Hey, look, it's more DC Direct stuff!  (Why haven't they done a series based on Amanda Conner's Powergirl material?  C'mon, dudes!)

First up is my Arkham Asylum "Battle Damaged" Batman.  I didn't even know he existed until the last day of Comic-Con.  Earlier in the week I'd seen the pristine AA Batman in the display case, noted he came out in about nine months, and then marked my mental calender to covet him later.  But then my pal Tony (aka Sarevock) came to me Sunday morning, noted he had a chance to get some Arkham Asylum Batman that was exclusive to the show, and hell yeah, yes, give me one of those.  I generally don't care for battle damaged stuff, but here's the thing.  Or things.  First of all, you spend like half the game looking like the battle damaged version of the toy.  So no big.  And second, dude, the non-battle damaged version comes out NEXT YEAR.  I'm pretty okay with getting the roughed-up version that much earlier.  I mean, dude.

He's what you expect in a DC Direct Batman.  Sorta stiff poseability, a stand, and some pretty paintwork.

The Stephanie Batgirl I'd been waiting for for a while.  Seriously, they solicit these things like a year in advance, it feels like.  I've been enjoying her comic, and I wanted one of her in plastic.  She comes with a stand, a batarang, and a nightstick.  The nightstick is way too skinny for her to hold in her hands, but I later discovered a stowing area on the back of her belt that it fits into pretty well.  Again, standard articulation.  And, yay, hooray, Stephanie, you're not dead!

Power Core Combiners are Hasbro's new push for combiner team toys.  The problem with combiners in the past is that they cost a lot to collect all the guys, and so kids rarely manage to get a whole team.  So Hasbro's trying a smaller kind of combiner where you get the whole set for $20.  This means the limbs are just drones instead of separate robot guys, but it at least gives kids what they want for an affordable price.  Toy interchangeability is also the rule of the day, so there's smaller Power Core Combiners two-packs with just a torso and a Mini-Con partner.  The idea is that the more guys you buy, the more ways you can swap an increasing number of limbs around an increasing number of torsos.

Smolder is one of those sold-separately torsos.  What initially hooked me was his basic character conceit.  He's a Decepticon fire engine.  A villainous rescue vehicle.  That's pretty fun, and has been done exactly once before in Transformers as far as my memory allows.  (Barricade.)  His name, Smolder, sweetened the deal.  That's new, great name, not recycled from anybody previous.

And his Mini-Con partner is an axe.

An axe named Chopster.

See how the layers of awesome are being set before us, one by one?  This veritable house of awesome?  Yeah, I see it too.  Part of my brain is demanding of me that Smolder, the emergency officer with an axe, be characterized as Axe Cop.  It kinda works!  Except for the whole "he's a bad guy" thing.  And the "he's the wrong colors" thing.  Well, maybe Shattered Glass Smolder would be Axe Cop...

Anyway, the toys themselves... they're okay!  It should come as no surprise, looking at him, that none of Chopster's modes are particularly fully-realized.  He has four of them, after all!  He transforms into an axe, a robot, a flame cannon, and chest armor for Smolder.  All of them look like a dude folded up, save the dude mode.  Chopster is saved by the awesome name and the whole being-an-axe thing.

Smolder's much better, but not fantastic.  He has a pretty conventional transformation from vehicle to robot, and it leaves him with super-long and massive arms.  Either you position his hands down by his knees or you put his elbows up at his collarbone.  Those are your choices.  They're really, really long arms.

Since he's a Power Core Combiner torso, Smolder combines with the limbs that come with the $20 full-combiner toys.  This means he has a third torso mode with a second, bigger head that flips out.  He's not terribly stable in this mode, but it's fun to put together.  When you plug in the vehicles for his limbs, they automatically convert into arms or legs.  It's pretty neat to see.

In a weird convergence of reality, the "Cyber Missions" episode with Smolder and Chopster went online today.  Chopster screams like a little girl and runs away.