Feline Fury

What villainy is this?!?! Wildcat in the clutches of a mysterious foe! What treachery shall befall him? Who, if anyone, can save him?

Come back with me, oh reader, to the beginning:

Where, in addition to my Question variant and Hush, I have now found a DC Infinite Heroes Wildcat!

Wildcat is a great character and one of my all-time favorite superheroes (he trained Bruce Wayne in the sweet science fer cryin' out loud! How cool is that?)

So I am pleased as punch (get it? HAW!) to have this Infinite Heroes version to go along with my DC Direct and JLU versions of Ted Grant; Wildcat!

I especially like the fact that this version has "boxing tape" details added to Ted's hands, which sets him apart from the other toy Wildcats.


I was really looking forward to building a small classic Justice Society of America with Mr. Grant, along with the DCIH Dr. Fate and Spectre, but it turns out the DC Infinite Heroes Fate and Spectre are the modern versions and not the classic forties versions. Fate could probably pass as his older version, but the modern Spectre has a goatee.

Yeah.

So I decided to team Wildcat up with my DC Direct Spectre - because this is THE Spectre, aka Jim Corrigan, and because the Spectre can be any size he wants!


Of course this only makes me want more classic JSA members in the DCIH series, because this Spectre is perfect for them!

Oh yeah, back to our story.

Wildcat has been captured by a mysterious foe. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the Spectre shows up.

Win.

End.

And as for my DCIH roster:

Infinite Heroes: 2
Infinite Villains: 1

Because he can't be everywhere...

It's a Miracle!

Mr. Miracle!


I've been doing a lot of toy trading lately. Out with the old, in with the new, you know. And considering how difficult DCUC is to find in my neck of the redwoods, it's been the only way for me to get my fix!


Then a (Mr.) Miracle happened and I found this guy on a road trip at a Walmart. Of course, I couldn't find those Walmart exclusive DCUC figures at a Walmart, no that'd make too much sense, I find a Mr. Miracle from series six. Series six?!?! I still haven't even completed series three! That's okay, those trades I spoke of earlier actually have me one figure (Captain "Shazam" Marvel) away from completing Kalibak. But I digress.

Mr. Miracle is truly a stand-out figure. Not only is his design fun and true to his classic comic look, but he comes with a bunch of nifty accessories - including a set of binders for the universe's greatest escape artist to, well, escape from!


Ta-da-Daaaaaahhhhh!


No expense was spared on Scott Free, even the bottoms of his boots got attention from the sculptors! Keen.


Mr. Free also came with a couple flying disks that attach to his feet...


...and even they get the star treatment underneath. Methinks someone over at the Four Horsemen (the design team on DCUC) loves Mr. Miracle.


They stay snugly on his feet, and look great when Mr. Miracle is in a flight pose.


But the biggest surprise was a mother box attached to Miracle's belt, beneath his cape! (Don't ask me what I was looking for when I found it though.)


The mother box is removable, but with two fists, Mr. Miracle can't hold onto it. Oh well, an awesome little "extra" nonetheless.

A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind...

Over at his blog entitled What My Dad Saw, a groovy cat named Brian has recently been uploading old sixties Batman TV show View Master images, turning them into gifs so that the rest of us get to see the 3-D effect that the View Master creates. They are a lot of fun, as is the rest of Brian's blog, so I suggest you go over there and check it out.

Brian's View Master images inspired me to attempt to recreate the concept myself. I think I'll try again later with multiple objects in the fore/background, as it doesn't seem to have the same punch when you're just looking at a single object. But I think it's still kind of cool.

What do you think?







UPDATE:

Okay, it seems it's REAL easy to do stereoscopic 3D images in Photoshop. I found this tutorial, and a pair of red/blue 3D glasses, and created these:







The Joker one looks best, perhaps because of his coloration, and because the difference in views is a bit more subtle.

April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008

Today marks the one year anniversary of Heath Ledger's untimely death.

Thank you Mr. Ledger for your undeniably historical role in shaping and defining a timeless, iconic character.



I hope you found peace.

Viva la Joker!

Who Virals the Viralmen?

Looks like the Watchmen movie is all over the viral marketing sitch now, ala The Dark Knight's campaign of last year. Check out this cool video and then go to http://www.thenewfrontiersman.net/ for more!

First Whiplash...and now a Stroke!

Deathstroke, that is.

This is "Blade Attack Deathstroke" from the Dark Knight movie action figure line by Mattel.



Deathstroke, like Firefly, did not actually appear in the movie. But the toymakers decided he'd make a cool "realistic" villain for your Batman action figure to do battle with, and I must concur.

This guy is clearly an assassin. And a well armed one at that. There is little to connect this figure to Deathstroke's comic counterpart besides the the orange and blue hood, but for some reason it really works, and he actually comes across as much more mysterious and threatening than the comic book Slade Wilson.



You can see his "action feature" button on his back, which is rather large but darkly colored so as not to "stick out" too much. It becomes slightly less obtrusive when he has his sheath attached too.



Oh yeah, and there's the "one eye" thing going on too. Cool.



Slade here is, as always, well armed. However his pistol, bandoleer and knife are not removable. That's fine - less pieces to lose. They are well sculpted and nicely painted and stand out well on the figure, as do his shiny leather gloves and boots.



The sword (and sheath) are removable, and the button I mentioned earler makes Mr. Wilson's sword-holding arm flail in a hacking motion.



Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! Cha! Cha! Cha! Cha!

Bumble Bee Thy Name

I picked up this Transformers Universe Classics series Bumblebee a couple months back. They are now starting to appear on toy aisles more prevalently, along with new representations of Brawn and Beachcomber in the same line-up. I only picked up Bumblebee on that trip, because he's one of my favorite Transformers of all time.



I love these little guys because they are small and cheap (about $4.99) and toys should be cheap. See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite, and gunpowder... and toys. Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!

Sorry about that.

Also, in robot mode they come pretty close to their 80s cartoon likenesses.



For Bumblebee, that means he has a face. Although I have a preference for the original toy Bumblebee's look, it is fun to finally have a small transforming Bumblebee that looks like the cartoon we all grew up with; after only waiting 25 years!



Unfortunately Volkswagen refuses to license their image/likeness to "war toys" (I guess they are still sensitive about that whole WWII thing.)

So Hasbro had to wing it, and pretty much followed the look of their recent Transformers Classics Bumblebee vehicle mode.



From the rear it's a passable Beetle-esque vehicle...



From the front...not so much. Oh well, we can't have everything.



Here he is next to a Matchbox VW Beetle taxi which was released a couple years ago. As you can see Bumblebee is pretty close to 1:64 scale, which makes him a great versatile toy compatible with Transformers, die-cast cars, etc. etc.



On a side note, this is a pretty cool Matchbox Beetle. I got it a couple years ago so you won't find it in stores now, but I think a green/white version is currently available. Of course, the yellow one is more Bumblebee-ish, and therefore my favorite. I can see Bumblebee disguising himself as a taxi to spy on the Decepticons - he is their espionage expert after all!

And the Decepticons are just stupid enough to fall for it.



Here they are from the front. Beep Beep!



You look...familiar.

Change...

I Think I Have Whiplash

Actually, after a recent trip to a local thrift store, I know I have Whiplash!

I was pretty surprised to spot Whiplash in the toy bin of a local thrift store, considering how old he is. He's in pretty good shape too!



When I was a kid, I spent the majority of my time playing with my cousin Cody. Cody had a lot of Transformers, MOTU, Hot Wheels etc. that I didn't have, and I had a lot that he didn't have. It's odd how it worked out that way, I don't know if our parents planned that but I highly doubt it.

Anyways, if I had a certain Masters of the Universe character beyond the main guys like He-Man or Skeletor, chances are Cody didn't have him, and vice versa.

Cody had guys like Ram Man, Spikor, and ugly old Whiplash here. It made for great adventures because no one ever ran into their doppleganger when we played together.



Whiplash's action feature is his rubbery tail, which would whip back around when you twisted his waist to one side or the other. Good times.

Another thing I picked up while at the thrift store was this stupid looking dinosaur:



I don't know if the designer ever saw a picture of what a real dinosaur looked like or not, but this dinosaur looks like he has some sort of glandular disorder.



Look at that huge cranium!



I can see this guy being a blast to play with though, because that gaping maw is just asking for a Star Wars figure to be shoved into it.



I'm not kidding, that boy's head is like Sputnik; spherical but quite pointy at parts!

He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow.