More of the same! More of the same!
Shortpacked!: Relive all your favorite beating-a-dead-horse moments!
Today's comic was put together after reading this interview on Newsarama. Y'know, I was enjoying the new G.I. Joe so far because it was shiny and new, so I hope their creators were lying through their teeth for this interview for the sake of pandering to the old-school fan. Because, dude, I will quit reading it right now if the concept laid forth in the interview turns out accurate.
But onward! Thanks everyone, because Roomies! preorders are shaping up pretty nicely! At last count, I think I need only about 10-15 more preorders and then we've sealed this thing. It's definitely doable! Go team! Just a few more!
BotCon.com has put up preview images of the next 2009 box set figure, Landshark! You can't go wrong with a name like Landshark. Well, you can go a little boring, if we're going by the color scheme. It's pretty conventional, if appreciably decoed with many nibblets of color above and beyond the usual paint operation count. But I still like him bunches. It helps that he's an entirely new character, which we haven't really gotten in a boxset since 2005. He's also a mold I really, really like. Plus he's an old-dude practical jokester! I bet he knocks on the apartment doors of young single women and tells them he's a dolphin. It's a classic.
But 'nuff of that. Settle down for yet another not-by-me review from Greg Sepelak!
Of the three Wal-Mart exclusive Star Wars Comic Packs, the set of Keoulkeech, Machook and Kettch is the one I was looking the most forward to. I do have a certain urge to army build, and when it's a bunch of different-looking guys instead of a ton of the same guy (like Clone Troopers) I'm even happier. Hasbro's been putting out a fairly steady stream of Ewok figures in the last few years in varying levels of "good buy for the money". These three are sort of average value for the money all told. Sometimes you get two Ewoks in a single normal carded release, sometimes only one.
The Ewoks proper are recycled molds, but come with all-new Stormtrooper armor and I think a new stone axe for Kettch. Keoul and Machook are the same body and mostly the same head, but Keoul's noggin is slightly retooled to fold down his ears so he can wear the helmet. Without any headgear on, the ears and the orange coloration give him an uncanny resemblance to Fozzie Bear. I need a tiny polka-dot handkerchief and brown hat for him stat. The helmet, by the way, is severely oversized compared to the normal Stormtooper noggin.
The three blend mostly well into a group of Ewok figures... well, their bodies do. Their headdresses are pretty primary, a stylistic choice Hasbro takes for all of the Comic Packs with old Marvel comic in them. They match the colors in those, which can lead to some funky-weird yet awesome packs. But all in all, it's not too bad and they fit well.
Speaking of Marvel comics, this set comes with "Small Wars", a post-Jedi tale that is really goofy, yet it amuses me greatly. The basic upshot is that Hirog, a cowardly bug-alien in a beret, is sneakily and incompetently attempting to break apart the newly-victorious Rebel Alliance by forcing a war between its two most minor races, the Ewokas and Lashbees, then blowing up the commanders of the Alliance in the confusion. The whole thing is pretty silly, and the art ranges from competent to just odd... and yet, I'm much more pleased by it than the other two in the set. Maybe because it's a self-contained tale with a resolution (again, fuck decompressed storytelling), though I think the main reason is that it doesn't try to be super-serious. It kind of takes the "light science fantasy" of Star Wars a little too far in that direction, but I appreciate that more than going too far the other way.
Hey, it's David again. Ewoks! I remember them. Anyway, I'm totally stoked for Landshark. I'm anticipating him by far the most of this year's BotCon set. (Woulda been Kup, but man that mold choice leaves me cold...)