Resident Evil: Retribution

This was going to be a review about the movie Dredd. I've watched it twice so far and plan to do so again. It is fantastic and I suggest you watch it as well (if you're a dude and like lots of guns and violence in your cinema, anyway).

But then I watched this movie, Resident Evil: Retribution. It was just so bad that I felt I had to rant about it for a while.

Transformers Distribution 9/30/2012!

TRANSFORMERS DISTRIBUTION AT TOY KINGDOM MEGAMALL ON SEPT. 30, 2012!

Here's another announcement from Cybertron Philippines!

This Sunday, September 30, inside of Toy Kingdom in the basement of SM Megamall (near the food court), Hasbro Philippines, in cooperation with Playkit and the guys from Cybertron Philippines, will be distributing more new Transformers toys. Here's the list of haulage that is already on the card for the distribution table:

Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

NOTE: Thanks to Nikki W.G.B. of Cybertron Philippines for these figures.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… Heroes in a half-shell… TURTLE POWER!

I miss how cartoons in the 80’s had those catchy theme songs. I miss a lot about those shows. I’m sure millennial babies say the same thing about Dexter’s Lab and Power Puff Girls, but you had to admit that the stuff from the 80's was a totally different animal (just like I’ve got to admit that Looney Tunes blew them all away).

There were always clear cut morals in shows (sometimes hammered home with a PSA like in G.I. Joe) and no one ever seemed to get really hurt (well, except for Optimus Prime that one time, but he came back). It would have been unthinkable to have a show like Transformers: Prime on the air, with bots being torn in half or hacked to pieces. I’m sure Standards and Practices would have vetoed that shit before it got anywhere near Saturday mornings.

Madelman Secret Agent

After I bought those Madelman 2-Packs at Toys 'R' Us, I went online to look up manufacturer and the toy line that those four figures came from. There’s not a lot about the series out there (how did we ever survive without the Internet?) but there was enough to make me sad that I didn’t know about these toys earlier. Though the figures are too generic to really get me excited, but the various 1:10 scale accessories that they come with really make them worthwhile.

Sadly, these aren’t a lot of places that you can buy these things online. Most of the places I found had placeholders, but had notices that the items were out of stock. There was a whole mess of figures that were released by Popular de Juguetes before they went belly up. The Madelman Secret Agent was one of the figures from that search that really killed me since it looked like it had some choice gear that I could use for my gun savvy superheroes.

New Transformers, Star Wars, Marvel and FURBIES!

Hey, guys.

Here's another announcement from those swell guys at Hasbro by way of Cybertron Philippines:

The new Furby (4,999.75) will be launched simultaneously in Toy Kingdom in SM Megamall and Toys ‘R’ Us in Rockwell on September 16, 2012 (That is THIS Sunday).

Simultaneously, these following new toys from Hasbro will also be released at Toy Kingdom in SM Megamall:

Marvel Legends Fantomex

There are some superheroes that, in hindsight, seem a little dumb. I remember when Marrow and Maggot were first introduced (both created by Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira, one of my favorite creative teams on the X-books): I thought they were both awesome. A Morlock girl with an attitude and bones growing out of her skin and a South African who had sentient mutant slugs in place of his digestive system. They weren’t pretty mutants like the original X-Men. These were extreme X-Men (it was the ‘90s) that pushed the limits.

Of course, now, everyone thinks these two characters were completely ridiculous. While I don’t agree (ridiculous are the mutants that came out around the time Morrison took over – Look up Beak), it’s hard to argue a point that’s so subjective.

It kind of makes me wonder how Fantomex will fare after a decade or two.

Marvel Legends Mystique (2012)

Mystique is one of those pseudo-bad guys. She’s been a criminal, and an enemy of the X-Men and other superheroes on more than a few occasions, but she’s been on the side of angels a few times, too. Marvel did something really interesting with her when they made her the foster mother of Rogue, then they did something stupid when they made her the mother of Nightcrawler. The former relationship made for a great story, while the latter smacked of the silliness I usually associate with Hollywood management: “Well… they’re both blue, right? So that means they must be related, right? But wait, he’s German, and he’s got y’know, elf ears and a tail… I know! His father was German! And a demon! BOOM!”

It’s a good thing they pretty much dumped the idea after a while.

Marvel Legends Punisher (2012)

I’ve never collected The Punisher comics. Oh, I’ve had one or two issues in my hoard, but the only one I really remember was a 1992 issue of The Punisher Armory. It had a cover painted by Joe Jusko, which is why I picked it up from the news stand. Inside, there wasn’t really any story, just something like the diary of Frank Castle, with his thoughts on weapons, tactics and various other things that had to do with his war on crime. It was a great read for a teenager who loved geeking out on the details.

In my head, Punisher is a lot like the way he was portrayed in the film Punisher: War Zone. He’s like Hulk: fantasy fulfillment. Who hasn’t wanted to lash out when they got angry? Who hasn’t said “I’ll kill him” when someone’s done something wrong? Don’t we all want to see our crooked politicians go the way of Jigsaw? That’s why people like the guy. He does the kind of stuff you’ve always wanted to do.

It also didn’t hurt that he has a shitload of guns.

Neo-Classic Iron Man

At the end of Armor Wars (Iron Man #231, 1988), Tony Stark had to build a suit of armor to replace his go-to get-up, the MK VII (Silver Centurion), after it was trashed by the aptly named "Firepower" suit built by the US Government to deter its enemies: the MK VIII, or the “Neo-Classic” Armor was that replacement. The suit was harder, faster, better, stronger than those before it, and it made coffee… oh, no, wait. It was called the “coffee pot armor”. This is what I get for getting stuff off the Internet.

I blame Tito Sotto.

Return of Marvel Legends Deadpool

In all honesty, I probably don't really need to do a review of the new Return of Marvel Legends Wave 3 Deadpool. I mean, Hasbro's already given us this very same figure, with the same accessories, in red and blue, when they put out the Deadpool/Warpath Marvel Legends 2-pack about a year ago. This one's just in Wade's relatively new X-Force duds.

If you've been out of comics for a while, Volume 3 of X-Force is no longer Mr. Liefeld's version of The New Mutants. The team was turned into the X-Men's covert assassination squad: if there was something that needed doing that couldn't lead back to the nice and fuzzy X-teams, Cyclops would sic Wolverine and his sociopathic minions on it. While I'm not sure how I feel about the X-Men's move to a darker tone, I have to say I enjoyed the first trade paperback, Angels and Demons (2008) and am eager to read the rest.