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.

Just a random war.

Y'know.  For Cybertron.

T Campbell let the cat out of the bag on Friday, so I'm good to let you folks know:  I'm drawing another Fans! storyline!  I know, I know, the last time I drew Fans! it ended forever.  Well, I promise you it won't end forever this time.  (*knock on wood*)  I'm just doing a smaller-scale four-week story.  There's no looming end of the world, but it's no less important to the characters.

Fans! (and writer T Campbell) and I go back a while.  Fans! was a story about a science fiction club that rose to prominence as Earth's most unorthodox government-sanctioned weirdo commando force, so of course it had a crossover with It's Walky!, my tale of an unorthodox government-sanctioned alien commando force.  That was 2003.  In 2005, I drew Fans!'s would-be conclusion during the period between the end of It's Walky! and the beginning of Shortpacked!.

And then in 2008 it came back.  And in 2010 (that's now!) I'm drawing another story, because doing the first one was fun.  It's a different discipline entirely to draw someone else's script versus your own, a creative muscle that I like to flex from time to time.

So next Monday, I'll start linking you my Fans! updates as well as my Shortpacked! updates. Well, at least on the days when I'm not busy at BotCon, anyway.

Cybertronian Optimus Prime was the talk of Friday, and here's his wavemate Cybertronian Bumblebee.  Unlike Optimus Prime, who's had four "pre-Earth" toys to his name, this is Bumblebee's first!  There was going to be one in Titanium Series based on his War Within design, but like the rest of that batch of guys, he was dropped.  And I'm fine with that, because Titanium Series toys weren't terribly great in general.

Cybertronian Bumblebee transforms into a car that looks like a four-wheeled TRON lightcycle.  This results in a pretty slick-looking vehicle.  It's also very broad, using its Deluxe Class mass to be nearly as wide as it is long.  Classics Bumblebee included a sizable accessory to keep Bumblebee himself relatively small while still being worth Deluxe Class dollars, but Cybertronian Bumblebee does no such thing.  He's a big Bee, and he looks bigger than Prime even though they are at the same height.  He's squat and round, but at a different scale, so a lot of his features are bigger relative to Prime's.  Bumblebee's shouldn't be the same size as Prime!  But all of the Generations toyline are Deluxe Class, so this sort of thing's going to be hard to avoid.  Regrettable, regardless.

Like Prime, Bumblebee comes packaged in robot mode.  I thought Prime's transformation to vehicle was rough until I attempted Bumblebee.  It took 15 minutes to get him roughly into vehicle mode, and then another 30 minutes were spent trying to get all his various panels aligned.  Locking one side into place would spring open the other side, and vice versa, rinse/wash/repeat for thirty whole minutes until I gave up.  Man, I wanted to throw him into a wall.  I did not encounter this problem on the second attempt.  I think something very minor inside him, like maybe the wrist orientation, was fudging things up.  But, jeez, I hate Transformers like these.  I just want everything to lock together easily, not a back-and-forth game of fuss.

Bumblebee's sorta a pearlescent gold instead of the usual yellow.  It calls to mind the 1986 Goldbug toy.  Like Cybertronian Optimus Prime's pink accents, the gold color helps distinguish Bumblebee from previous Bumblebee toys.  Oh, and, hey, surprise, 80% of the vehicle mode ends up folded up and stowed on his robot mode back.  It's generally out of the way, though.

His handgun, when not in use, can be stored behind his bumper in either robot or vehicle mode.  The instructions tell you this can only be done in robot mode, but they lie.  So long as you insert the gun halfway through transformation, before the arduous task of getting the legs crammed in there, the gun stows in that same spot easy-as-you-please.  Bumblebee also features a translucent red blade on each wrist that can be ratcheted manually in and out of battle-readiness.

Speaking of Bumblebee's instructions, the art within erroneously depicts Bumblebee with Cliffjumper's head.  Seems we're getting a retool further down the line.

New Saturday Joyce and Walky!

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.

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.

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.

Well, that was some fun fake news which I posted because I am an idiot who can't read.

Let's try for some real news!  Uh...

Um.

Hey, check out this Unicron.  He's Armada Unicron with a new more-G1 head, decoed in more-G1 colors.  Oh, Japan, always finding ways to paint things orange and thus get my attention.

And, uh, hey, watch this, I guess:

Haven't written you many paragraphs recently!  BotCon news has fizzled out for the moment, I have no new toys to gab about, and I don't have any conventions to get you guys pumped up for until early July.  (ConnectiCon!)

Plus, I have a temporary side project I'm working on at the moment.  Dunno if I can say what it is right now, so I'll just note that I have it.

How about that Unicron?  He's TFwiki.net's featured article for June.  He's done a lot of stuff, especially in continuities that weren't ever finished.