Rejected Big Shots: Week 2!

Justin here! Now that Big Shots are back in the magazine, I’m going to be posting a new “new” Big Shot photo every week and running down some of the rejected (but still funny) captions our writers cooked up for them. Here’s this week’s:

Hoover (Army Men, Playing Mantis) and the Zanti Ant (Outer Limits, Sideshow Collectibles)

HOOVER: Nope, still no trace of the Sarge. What could have happened to him?
ANT: Beats me!
ANT 2: Um, could you put that down and come over here for a second? I have to ask your torso a question.

HOOVER: I dunno, maybe Sarge had a point. Maybe I AM crazy. What do you think?
ANT: Listen, Hoover, even if the Sarge COULD see and hear me too, would God have wanted you to kill him any less?
HOOVER 2: Aw, you’re right. Anyway, here’s where I buried his skull.

ANT: …and that hack Roddenberry RUINED “City on the Edge of Forever” completely!
HOOVER: Mr. Ellison, why did you even BOTHER getting a World of Warcraft subscription?

HOOVER: So let me get this straight. Your father…
ANT: …Banged uglies with a Spider-broad. What is it you’re not understanding here?

HOOVER: *Sigh* OK, I’ll humor you. “What has six appendages and feeds its larvae through trophallaxis, or regurgitation.”
ANT (BIG TEXT): THIS GUYYY!

Grundy’s Gang: A DC Universe Classics Wave 3 Review

This week, Mattel sent us a box of the currently available DC Universe Classics Wave 3 figures. The set includes Nightwing, Robin and Green Lantern Hal Jordan in their current costumes, Sinestro in both his classic and Sinestro Corps costumes and Deathstroke with masked and unmasked head, plus a Solomon Grundy build-a-figure.

Full disclosure time, I am a big DC fan and a huge fan of this line and Wave 3 does not disappoint whatsoever. Before I get into the individual figures, I’ve got to say that this wave has excellent playability right out of the box (assuming you buy the full set…in a box). You’ve got archenemies Hal Jordan and Sinestro who can fight right out of the package along with the tag team duo of Nightwing and Robin taking on Deathstroke the Terminator. Or you can have everyone throw down with Solomon Grundy, newest member of the Sinestro Corps (though that might involve some paint customization).

SOLOMON GRUNDY

Okay, usually I’d start with the individual figures, but I’m super-jazzed about this build-a-figure. Grundy looks like he crawled right out of the swamp on Monday with his huge fists and boots. I’ve noticed with some previous snap-together figures that the joints don’t feel right and don’t really move in the way that I like when I’m playing with a figure (right now, Nightwing and Robin are doing the best they can to topple Grundy on my desk), but Grundy doesn’t have that problem. He moves a bit stiffly, but once you get the joints worked he’s a great figure. And HUGE. He stands at just under 9.5 inches and 11 with his fist pumped proudly in the air.

NIGHTWING

Good old Dick Grayson makes his first DCUC appearance here in his current costume accompanied by those two small bars he throws at people. You can snap them neatly on his back when he’s not doing that whole beating the crap out of bad guys thing. LIke the rest of the figures, Nightwing is super-flexible. Heck you could pose him in all your favorite Scott McDaniel stances. My only problem with the figure is that the face looks a little dull. There’s not a lot going on there. I’d like to see maybe a smirk or something, showing that he’s not as dark and brooding as his former partner.

ROBIN

Speaking of former partners, Tim Drake makes his first Mattel action figure appearance in his current costume with this line. I actually had the pleasure of getting this figure early before the First Annual ToyFare Hall of Fame awards and have been staring at him on my bulletin board ever since. as he hangs from a peg by his trusty bo staff (he also comes with a batarang). Another highly poseable figure (I’m going to stop saying it because they all could rollerskate under a really low limbo bar), Robin’s face captures some of the seriousness of the character (his mom, dad, best friend and, for a while, girlfriend were all murdered). He’s also a little bit shorter than Nightwing which is a great touch.

DEATHSTROKE

We got the mask-less version of the Terminator in our case, though I think I would have preferred the masked (I’m just a big fan of that half and half look). Deathstroke comes decked out in those cool boots that only pirates and superheroes/villains wear, plus he’s armed to the teeth with a sword and hand gun that slide into his (evil) utility belt, a big honkin’ rifle and bandoleer of bullets that you can sling over his shoulder and his famous shock staff that attaches to the bandoleer. The unmasked version shows of the weariness and sharpness that characterizes Slade Wilson and, of course, he comes with enough pouches and leg belts to make Liefeld proud.

HAL JORDAN

Earth’s number one GL come with a just-a-bit-too-fluorescent GL battery and the confindence the comes with being Hal Jordan. You can pose him in cool action poses both on the ground and in the air. My only complain is that the paint work on the ring comes off as a little sloppy. Yes you can see the indent of the GL symbol, but the paint around it kind of bleeds off the edges. It’s a small gripe, but hey, I’m a big GL fan.

SINESTRO

Like with Deathstroke we only got one version of this figure in house: the Sinestro Corps version. I’ve always thought his other costume is a bit goofy and you can’t go wrong by referencing the best GL story in years (maybe ever). I do have to say that the figure leaves me just a little flat. Part of it is that the thigh joints don’t seem to match up in the right way to get him to stand properly. I mean, you can get him to stay erect if you fiddle with the joints enough, but the lines aren’t super-clean. His bicep joints also don’t seem to line up quite right and I think he should be taller than Hal, but I might be mis-remembering my comic history there. Besides these minor cosmetic (and in-my-head) flaws, I do like the figure, he’s got a great look that says “You will bow before me” and I like seeing him throw down with Hal Jordan. He also comes with a an actual Yellow Power Battery that’ll look great sitting with the Green ones.

–TJ

Big Shots: Week 8

Welcome to our eighth installment of classic Big Shots from ToyFare Magazine’s past. Got a particular fondly remembered Big Shot you’d like to see here? Let us know on the Wizard Universe Message Board.

The Savages: A Savage Land SDCC Box Set Review

Today we’re taking a slightly different approach to the toy review section. Instead of one person writing up the San Diego Exclusive Marvel Legends Savage Land box set, we split the contents of the box among three of the ToyFare ranks. Managing Editor Kate Napolitano got beefcake Ka-Zar, Associate Editor TJ Dietsch got the cheescake Shanna and Designer Jairo Leon got…uh, tigercake Zabu.

Before we get into it, a little background info. The cover of the Savage Land box set was drawn by Frank Cho, who loves drawing jungle girls (including his own Jungle Girl character). It seems as they Marvel Legends took a bit of a cue from his work when producing these figures as well. For the super-uninitiated, The Savage Land is a prehistoric jungle in the middle of icy Antarctica in the Marvel Universe. Ka-Zar’s the king of the jungle, Shanna’s his wife-slash-partner-slash-queen and Zabu is their faithful pet sabertooth tiger.

So, away we go, have at it Kate.

KA-ZAR

If you’ve gotta have a belligerent diapered jungle man glaring down at you from your shelftop, Ka-Zar’s totally the way to go. Not only is he self-sufficient and won’t bug you for late night White Castle, but he’s in with celebs like Spider-Man and the X-Men, so you know the parties are going to be off the wall (in Spider-Man’s case) or off the hook (Spidey again, I suppose—at least after One More Day).

So, go ahead, invite Ka-Zar’s new Marvel Legends figure into your life. And, heck, I’ll even throw in a few reasons below to do it that aren’t quantifiable in the DSM-IV as “aural/visual hallucinations symptomatic of schizoid disorder(s).” Bleh bleh bleh. What was Chucky—a movie prop? I rest my case, you alleged scientists!

Ahem. Ka-Zar, for those who may not know, is actually an amalgam of three Ka-Zars that first appeared in comics between 1936 and 1939 for a couple of companies that quickly assimilated into Marvel (resistance being futile). Because of his healthy tenure in comics to date, finally getting a Marvel Legend of our Savage buddy is arguably a decent comics-history footnote (as is his luxurious blond mane, which could decidedly rival his wife’s).

From a pure plastic perspective, Ka-Zar is as superbly constructed as any Legend to date. With finely sculpted features, fluid articulation and a sturdy body that free-stands easily, it’s just gosh-dern Hasbro quality all over. He comes adorned with three sheathed daggers, only one of which—his bowie knife, of course—is an actual accessory you can pull out and stick in his hand (Like this or dislike this as you will).

Compared with wife Shanna, he is shorter, but lacks at least what I think is Shanna’s awkward head angle (she looks a little hunchbacked to me, but he’s fine). Next to Zabu, though, he is perfection—lookin’ ferocious and totally fit to fight. I think in general Hasbro does an excellent job of giving Legends characters genuine expressions, and Ka-Zar is no exception. They gave him a face that agrees with plenty of poses, so feel free to mix him up with his box-mates however you like. I will say, though, that his loin-cloth is a little clunky: at least on my figure, the waistline of the loincloth doesn’t meet his body and you can see where his torso is glued in place. Forgive me, but I truly dig the illusion that my figures are all just frozen little people about to come to life, and don’t appreciate being rudely awakened by the sight of dried Elmer’s.

But I really am being picky—picky for all you toy lovers out there, true—but maybe harshly so. I leave it up to you—because as I said, this Ka-Zar is comic-accurate, long overdue, and devilishly crafted (to go with his She-Devil wife of course). It’s at least worth a good perusal, if not outright buy.

What say you TJ?

SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL

Okay, I’m going to get the obvious out of the way right up front. Yes, this figure is almost naked and yes, it did feel strange when I was trying to loosen all the joints up to get her to pose her on my desk. See, even that last sentence just sounds wrong.

Anyway, once you get past whatever your initial response to the voluptuous, scantily clad She-Devil you can see the craftsmanship that went into making this figure. At first, I wasn’t sure about the joint in the abdomen. Like Kate said up above, it kind of makes her lean forward a bit, giving off a thuggish vibe. But, after thinking on that one (it’s been kind of a slow day) I realized that it makes sense. She’s a bad ass woman living in the jungle with her husband, a tiger and a thousand other weirdos. She’s going to take on a few animalistic qualities. And when your surrounded by so many dangers (read: weirdos) it’s good to have your trusty rifle and big honkin’ knife to keep yourself safe.

I’m also impressed with the poseability of the figure. At first, it felt pretty awkward, but that’s because it took a while to loosen up the joints and now she poses great and will look great alongside Ka-Zar and Zabu on your shelf. Do be careful when it comes to her neck joint though, Justin accidentally popped it off, but luckily it’s a ball-in-socket type thing so you can pop it right back on with no problems.

And finally, I appreciate the detail given to the feet. I can’t really think of another action figure I’ve seen that is barefoot, but Hasbro did a good job with them (though I’m not sure how her toenails stay so white in the jungle, but I digress). Well done folks.

And last but not least, Jairo:

ZABU

Every team needs a saber-tooth tiger. One would expect a two pack Ka-zar and Shanna, but Zabu as well? Now that’s what I call a triple-threat blond crew. Zabu is very similar to the Sigma 6 Storm shadow boxed set, which makes for a cool bonus figure that compliments the set. How else are Ka-Zar and Shanna going to get around the Savage Land? This three exclusive three-pack from Hasbro is a must have for those who are engrossed in the current Secret Invasion storyline.

Well there you have it.

ToyFare # 134: On sale 8/13!

It’s that time of month again! There’s a new issue of ToyFare on sale tomorrow! You might have already seen the cover (above) posted around the Net since it’s mankind’s first look at Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics Skeletor figure, but there’s a lot more to the issue than just that awesomeness!

Contained within these pages you’ll find:

An in-depth feature on the aforementioned Masters of the Universe Classics, featuring interviews with the Mattel team and the Four Horsemen who are making the whole thing happen!

Part two of our Twisted ToyFare Theatre epic, “The Rambo Connection.” See how the cover proclaims it’s the most action-packed TTT ever? It ain’t lying.

The long-awaited return of Big Shots to the price guide!

A look at the design of the new theatrical Star Wars movie, The Clone Wars.

A guide to the hidden geek references in CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”

Plus, Bond’s greatest gadget’s Japans cutest toy designer, fiction’s most violent sports, and the secret rules of “Office Quidditch.”

Oh, and a plug for this blog you’re reading!

Remember, ToyFare # 134 is on sale 8/13 at comic shops, and 8/26 at all other newsstands! Go get it!

And because I love you all and don’t mind embarrassing myself for your amusement, check out the sketch I did of the cover to send to our designer. My dad and brother are both professional artists. Me? …not so much.

- Posted by Justin

Big Shots: Week 7

Welcome to our seventh installment of classic Big Shots from ToyFare Magazine’s past. Got a particular fondly remembered Big Shot you’d like to see here? Let us know on the Wizard Universe Message Board.

Platoon-ing In: A Platoon MiniMates Review

The good folks at Diamond Select sent us a boat-load (really a box-full) of MiniMates for a top secret upcoming project. In that boat/box we got an early look at the Platoon set based on Oliver Stone’s 1986 classic which includes MiniMate interpretations of Sgt. Bob Barnes (Tom Berenger), Sgt. Elias Grodin (Willem Dafoe), Pvt. Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) and Private Gator Lerner (Johnny Depp).

I’ll be honest, it’s been quite a few years since I watched Platoon and I don’t really remember too much of it. But, even considering that, I had absolutely no problem looking at these figures and figuring out who was who. It’s amazing how well the MiniMate masters can capture the essence of an actor or character with what boils down to a few lines on smooth, rounded peg. Kudos to DST’s artists.

As with most of the MiniMates I’ve seen, these ones come with extras. Each comes with a rifle and a helmet (except Dafoe who doesn’t care for protective headgear). The rifles are all the same, but each helmet is unique. Depp’s has rosary beads and a cross, Berenger’s a pack of smokes and Sheen’s a clever saying about burial and butt kissing. Oh and while I’m on the subject of the helmets, they made them big enough to fit over the figures’ movie accurate hair, even though they do look a bit huge.

The uniqueness doesn’t stop there. Each figure has a distinct removable shirt with gear and a backpack (none of which opens or comes off, but it looks freakin’ cool). Underneath, all the non-Dafoe figures sport the same olive drag shirt and dog tags. Dafoe ’s showing off a bare chest, dog tags and mud covered arms.

As always, the fun in MiniMates isn’t just with the specific Mates, but in the potential for further customization. You could have Dafoe fight the Green Goblin or make your own Two and a Half Men set. But seriously, these are great little figures that offer up plenty of play potential (especially considering you can have them take out those damn Cylons in the future) and look fantastic whether you keep them in the packaging or bust them out and pose them around in war-like positions.

Oh yeah, quick note on the above picture. It was a promo image and there’s a few differences between the picture and the actual figures. The pic makes Dafoe look darker than he actually is. Those tan stripes on the front of Sheen’s shirt are actually green and Depp’s zipper is silver and not gold like in the shot. Oh, and there’s helmets which you can’t see obviously.

–TJ

Twisted ToyFare Theatre: Behind the Scenes Week 4

Continuing our regular series peeking behind the scenes of “TTT,” here are the storyboards for “Catch A Rising Starscream,” as drawn by former ToyFare Editor Zach Oat.

JON SAYS: This was one of those TTT’s that really changed a lot from the initial idea. As far as I can remember, it started with a long standing idea to do a Mexican bootleg toy script - mainly because of our love of one bootleg toy we’d found called “Spader-Man”. Originally it was all about Megatron in Mexico and we were going to cut back and see what Starscream was doing when he was gone, but we started thinking Starscream was the better “A” story…it was hard coming up with a real story about the bootlegs. And of course, the whole strike thing came from the Writer’s strike (which I proudly marched in, if I can have a completely pointless digression. Seth Meyers gave me a whistle!).

JUSTIN SAYS: Believe it or not, this Twisted ToyFare (which ran in issue # 130) was the first full-length strip EVER to focus on the Transformers. As long as I’ve been with the magazine, we’ve been trying to figure out a way to tackle a Transformers strip, but it always eluded us. Finally, we realized the secret was to do the same thing we do with our G.I. Joe and most of our Marvel strips: focus on the villains. For some reason in Twisted ToyFare, villains are just usually normal guys who are trying to get by, whereas heroes are insufferable tools. The note in the final script to read all of Soundwave’s dialogue in Soundwave’s voice in order to make it funnier came from the fact that, in our planning meeting, Zach, Jon and I were all doing the voice, and it’s true: none of his lines would really be funny unless you read them like that.

The Making of ALL NEW Big Shots!

So next week, on August 13, a really important issue of ToyFare hits comic shops. Is it important because of our awesome world-premiere cover of Skeletor from Masters of the Universe Classics, or because it contains the second part of our epic Manly Movie Men Twisted ToyFare? Yes and yes.

But the real reason you should be psyched for the issue is that it features the long (we’re talking four years here)-awaited return of Big Shots to the magazine! Read on for your first EXCLUSIVE look at the newest Big Shots, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re making Big Shots these days!

So I said “how we’re making Big Shots these days” because the process has changed. Back in the day a photographer would just throw a couple of random toys together on a background (which resulted in some truly weird combinations), then a bunch of photos were printed up and physically handed around on a clipboard for the staff to suggest jokes for. Then-Editor-in-Chief Pat McCallum would then pick his favorite and in the mag it would go. It was a really time-intensive process, and I can remember many an afternoon spent staring at a clipboard with NOTHING coming to me in terms of ideas.

Now that Big Shots are back, we’re using a slightly different method to putting them together. First, myself (this is Justin, by the way), Jon and TJ hit the toy library. We spend about 20 minutes rummaging through boxes of toys and pulling out the weirdest, most random toys we can find. Then we sit on the library floor and try to pair the toys up for Big Shots - either toys that seem to fit together thematically, or toys that are weird in complementary ways that we think would make for a good Big Shot.

Next, we drop the toys off with Staff Photographer Dylan Brucie along with suggestions for backgrounds and let him get to work. When he’s done all the photos, we’ve got a half-dozen or so that may or may not make the 4 Big Shot slots that are allotted in each issue nowadays.

I then take the photos and email them to our in-house and out-of-house writers to send back joke suggestions. (Pretty smooth process - during my senior year of college, then-editor Rob Bricken used to physically mail me photo print-outs for me to make Big Shot suggestions for.) I then choose my favorite and the final four go into the price guide, courtesy of Designer Jairo Leon.

To give you an idea of how this works, here’s an ACTUAL BIG SHOT PHOTO from issue 134, as well as some very funny but rejected captions for it. Enjoy! And don’t forget to pick up issue 134 for the real deal!

REJECTED CAPTIONS:

ADAM: Okay, these things are from ‘Dr. Who,’ right?
EVE: How the hell should I know? Do I look like a British nerd?
ADAM 2: Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge my ASS!

EVE: Wait…if I was created from your rib, what
Part of you did THOSE come from?
ADAM: I’d rather not say.

Dalek 1: EAT THE FRUIT FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
Dalek 2: THE FRUIT IS DELICIOUS
Adam: The snake made it sound better.

ADAM: God’s really serious about keeping us away from that tree, huh?
EVE: Is the brown one God or the black one?

Big Shots: Week 6

Welcome to our sixth installment of classic Big Shots from ToyFare Magazine’s past. Got a particular fondly remembered Big Shot you’d like to see here? Let us know on the Wizard Universe Message Board.