Swords and Spaceships

Dig this one first. Then see the rest. Sure, this Chevy Malibu could be painted up like Prowl just to throw us nerds off the trail. Or it could just be a Chinese police car, since China is apparently a location for some set pieces for this movie. It does seem pretty elaborate for a red herring, but considering how much Bay hated the leaks on the first one, it wouldn't surprise me. I really hope it's not Prowl, since I'd rather see him as a new Nissan Z.

GI Joe goes to IDW Yeah, OK, great. I buy a lot of IDW comics, and they have the Transformers license already. But IDW's books feel painfully thin sometimes, consisting of little dialogue and lots of splash pages. And I loved where Devil's Due was going with the GI Joe: America's Elite book. Le sigh. Issue #35 of that title is out this week, freaks.

Better late than never, eh? It's pretty ambitious, being 26 (!) discs, but maybe it'll be priced reasonably so they can sell them easier. And, at least the whole series will be out in one shot, which like many cartoons put to DVD, doesn't happen. (Witness GI Joe and Gargoyles.)

September 2nd! Crap. I was thinking about buying a Wii here, but I might decide to get a PS3 so I can watch this in its much-deserved hi-def glory. Plus, you never know, the new Indy flick might be released on Blu-Ray this fall too.

*- gold star if you name the reference. So, the Indiana Jones toys are out in full force, and brother, are they awesome. These are the toys I've wanted to own all my life, and thankfully, there are several to choose from. Sallah? You got it. Marion? You can get her figure two ways. And, there's lots of Indy. I have no less than six of them, and there's two others with some traps from the Hovitos temple from Raiders I don't have yet. The figures I own are listed here, because yes, I do have a "mine is bigger than yours" complex when it comes to toys: Radiers of the Lost Ark- Indy w/ fertility idol Belloq Sallah (best fig in the line, hands down) Deluxe Marion Ravenwood w/ Cairo Henchman Deluxe Indy w/ horse (best Indy money can buy, so far) Deluxe Indy w/ark Cairo Swordsman Cairo Indy w/ whip-cracking action Last Crusade: German Soldier w/ motorcycle Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Indy w/ crystal skull (and the figure that gave me the idea for the title of this ...

Clicky. I could totally see him as something like a Scion xB with subwoofers that transform in to Rumble and maybe Ravage, since Frenzy was used up in the first movie.

I've not purchased any Marvel-related toys since Hasbro took over the license. Well, I did buy one Ghost Rider from that movie line (which was pretty neat) and the X3 Beast from the first ML series they did, but those were developed by Toy Biz, so it wasn't a true representation of what Hasbro could do. Then the awful Spider-Man 3 and Fantastic Four 2 toys came out last year and were in a 5" scale, and the Legends price was bumped up to $10, so I walked away. That all changed last week. I picked up the Iron Man movie Mark 03 armor figure, and it blew me away. This weekend, I decided to get the X3 versions of Jean Grey and Juggernaut, since the X-Men movie toys back in 2000 are what got me started on Marvel toys in the first place. I also picked up the Iron Man Stealth Ops armor figure, which is really disappearing fast from Wal-Mart, the chain it's exclusive to. Knowledgeable fans will recognize this as War Machine, though it's not named as such on the package even...

The Joker's Wild As pretty much everyone with a pulse guessed, people are buying up the Joker action figures from The Dark Knight toyline by Mattel and putting them on ebay, where dopes are dumb enough to buy them. Due to Heath Ledger's untimely death earlier this year, people think they can sell these for a mint, and so far, they seem to be right. I speak of the $10-12 Movie Masters 6" version, which is aimed at collectors. I was lucky enough to pick up a Joker and Batman from this line late last week, and I can tell you, if you pay $30 for that Joker figure, you're mad. It's really not that great. However, the Batman figure is amazing, but also not worth $30, but you should totally pick it up for $10. I think this line might take off once the movie hits in July, so you might be able to find the Joker then. I have noticed them disappearing locally, so it's not limited to New York. It's pretty despicable that people will try to profit off toys like that, bu...

Future of Star Trek: The Experience in doubt This is really disheartening. Here, Paramount has this big new relaunch movie coming next year, and the Cedar Fair wants to close this thing. Wow. It's unfortunate, but business is business. I'm very glad I got to go this year, after a decade of waiting to go. I wonder what the Las Vegas Hilton would do without the attraction there, since an entire wing of their casino is dressed up to look like the inside of a spaceship. So anyway, here's a select few pictures I took of the museum part of the Experience this past March when I visited: It's kind of pity that all this stuff will likely be auctioned off and not seen by the public again, but at least Star Trek fans buy it, so it's owned by someone who will take care of it.

It's not a question of IF this movie will suck, it's a question of how hard. Seriously, Bollywood could make a more interesting-looking movie.

This was one of my first purchases from this line, and to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with this one. Sure, I mostly wanted it for the 3.75" scale Ark, but the Indy figure included with it doesn't stand very well, and none of my GI Joe or Star Wars stands seem to fit the peg holes on the feet. What I found most disappointing about this was a lack of a Staff of Ra accessory, since what we saw Indy do in this particular garb was find the Well of Souls in the Map Room. If Hasbro plans on selling a Map Room playset and they include that accessory, then this will be one of the better purchases you can make. The Ark accessory is almost necessary, and so far, this is the only way to get it.

but do you have a right to bear toys? Bills seek punishment for use, display of fake weapons Yeah, let's worry about the children and their toys instead of real gun crime. Someday, they're gonna lock us all up for owning G1 Megatron toys.

Yeah, I know it's a rickroll, but anything involving the Muppets is good to me.