The UK Toy Discussion

Discussion in 'Transformers Toy Discussion' started by Boardwise, Feb 23, 2011.

  1. Siege Fan

    Siege Fan Well-Known Member

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    After All Star and his Batman stuff from a few years ago I really don't get 'fun' from Morrison tbh. Once Batman and Son was over it was just 'Here's the kitchen sink, I've filled it with some random shit somebody else can clean up'. Critics hailed it to keep the peace, the sales numbers were there as a result, and nobody could quite bring themselves to admit he was a central reason for the endless reboots. Snyder, rather overrated IMO, then looks like a genius for telling even vaguely coherent stories afterwards. When they eventually got into the realms of 'What if the Waynes...' they just dismantled the foundations and so it was endless Joker stories.

    I think it was @DeadBiscuit who mentioned the detective side of it, that's what they need to focus on now. Not Bobby Ewing in the shower BS. Batman has been utterly fucked for years since Morrison IMO. Currently it's a hundred variations of Bats, you pick your favourite design, the story has totally gone out the window.... it kills me because I came in with Hush and worked my way backwards!
     
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  2. Seeaich

    Seeaich Inaction Master

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    Oh, Good GOD - YES!!! Ironside is like Clancy Brown he does get voice acting, and brings it to the Mic - any other Darkseid is measured against him, and I can almost hear in my head how much fun he would've had & would've been with the acid sarcasm of DKR Bats and the pass agg repartee between Bruce & Alfred!
     
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  3. Siege Fan

    Siege Fan Well-Known Member

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    Didn't know that, cheers!
     
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  4. motorthing

    motorthing Too old for this $hit

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    Ah Batman/DC. What can be done with ye.....?

    I'm totally out of step with most in that I quite liked DC right up to Miller and The Dark Knight, and bailed out right afterwards.

    I was already over Miller Worship with his below lukewarm return to Daredevil and Ninjas-with-everything obsession beginning to get in the way of his storytelling. And TDK seems to have been where the '80s lost the one thing it had going for it: Chrome plated, air-brushed optimism despite/in the face of Armageddon.

    That's why I still like Transformers. They've never lost that flavour. Not even Bay could completely trash it.

    Miller's take just meshed a little too well with the zeitgeist. Demystifying everything makes nothing actually special and worth staying engaged with. Moore was guilty of this too. Comics weren't allowed to be comics anymore, they had to be great, meaningful works capable of placating book critics and literary snobs.

    And while a few of the Graphic Novel crowd succeeded in getting that kind of acclaim - a lot of it just wasn't much of a read for a young man who had grown up with the Silver/Bronze Age and had no problems admitting the odd punchfest was just as enjoyable (and valid) and life-affirming as the Grim & Grit.

    Literally the only two things that got me back into DC were Morrison's JLA in the later 90's and Hush made me finally re-engage with Batman. The gorgeous visuals helped.

    Since then I just can't do it. Batman now looks like Todd McFarlane won the 90s afterall and isn't it about time the fecking Joker just STAYED in prison and aged for a bit. Give something/anything else a bloody look in.

    And if all that reads as rather bitter......it is. Say what you want about Morrison, but that JLA run of his finally recaptured that sense of purpose, of heroics and optimism that I'd been yearning for. I've not found it again. That was over 20 years ago.

    And fuck Zac Snyder too while we are at it.

    I could really do with that SS86 Hot Rod about now. Hurry the fuck up will ya!
     
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  5. Seeaich

    Seeaich Inaction Master

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    Every so often Xabungle rears it's head!
    Was it you who got onto nabbing the modern figures, @Brooticus?

    Xabungle haunts TF fandom, or at least those of us with 80s childhoods, as it seems just about every one of us at one point had a copy the KO figure of it's main mecha in some form - Myself included!
    This thing here:
    Screen Shot 2021-02-20 at 23.32.07.png
     
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  6. Vertex

    Vertex Nose Enjoyer

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    I remember not liking his version of Catwoman on any occasion we see her. And as for Dark Knight Strikes Back, it's hey look Robin's legal now! So here she comes on rollerskates, ASS SHOT! I mean come on....I'm so used to ridiculous cheesecake in superhero comics I don't really notice it anymore unless it's _really_ embarassing but this is Robin, you know? BAD FRANK BAD! :D 

    With apologies to our comics-shop owning Threadizens, I am sorry to say that I read Holy Terror without paying for it, egged on by BFF and the rest of my comics-loving crew like a bunch of cowardly custards who were quite happy for me to take one for the team. It was an interesting read, alright...:p 

    Am looking at the TPB on eBay as we speak! :eek: 

    I think there was a cheap Xabungle toy in Woolies for a while. My mate had one, it was more fun than it looked.

    Also I've posted about this before I'm sure, but the glimpses of anime I caught as a kid, in Beatties or other model shops, or by finding nameless toys that were a long way from home....it fascinated me, that there was clearly this world of bright and fascinating adventures and yet I was almost completely sure I would never find out any more about any of it......

    I liked Hush a lot, I think that was Loeb? Ultimates 3 was so absolutely dreadful we couldn't believe what we were seeing, I mean what the actual fuck? I don't normally sell my TPBs but that one went straight out the door again! :eek: 

    Tell you what I have absolutely enjoyed in relatively recent times and that is Prophet. Proper far-future SF, full of haunting moments and grotesque carnage, and some affecting characters several of whom who are actually Liefeld lads & lasses as this is a (tongue in cheek) continuation of the very 90s original. Very good fun!
     
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  7. Ottertron

    Ottertron Moon-faced assassin of joy

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    I can't bear Neal Adams' modern work. He only seems to be able to draw that one facial expression and his writing is embarrassingly overwrought. Seems like he only gets work now because of the quality of his older work to me.

    Most enjoyable Batman things I've read over the last few years were Batman: Creature Of The Night by Kurt Busiek and John Paul Leon and Batman Universe by Bendis - who hasn't been THIS enjoyable in fucking YEARS - and Nick Derington.

    I love Batman but pretty much all of the Batman comics I enjoy are from the 80s. I liked O'Neill, Barr, Collins and Grant. Snyder's run had it's moments but, ultimately, it didn't feel like Batman. As to what's happening now, no thanks.
     
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  8. Decepticreeps100

    Decepticreeps100 Covered in Scorpions, all covered in Scorpions

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    My Magneto hair is even more Magneto-ey now IMG-20200703-WA0001.jpg IMG_20210220_234002_855~2.jpg
     
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  9. CZ Hazard

    CZ Hazard @DiabraveSid

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    Yeah, credit to Loeb I enjoyed Hush. Probably 90% visuals and 10% for the story, but it is a high octane Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster where the editors finally realised it doesn't cost more to have every page full of your A list cast and top special effects. Was a great period to be selling Batman. I think I actually preferred the Animated movie ending where Hush was just Riddler all along, Hush has been a little tainted by his follow up issues, and the return of Jason Todd which I will always feel was a stupid idea. He was worth more tonthe mythos dead. I think Three Jokers was the final nail in the DCU Batman coffin for me. Game over. I'm out. I'll wrap up Tom King's Batman / Catwoman and walk away. It needs a complete year zero fresh reboot that doesn't try to keep all five Robins as canon whilst also claiming he's only been Batman for a few years.

    And yeah, Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum put the Ultimate universe into a tailspin it never ever recovered from. Utter guttersnipe trash.

    My favourite thing about Hush was watching Mark Millar spend the next few years trying to emulate it. Wolverine Enemy of the State and MK Spider-man were such blatant rip-offs.

    Bendis' Batman was surprisingly fun.

    I want them to put Bendis on Nightwing while the character is still slightly readable. I think he could do a great job with Bludhaven as a whole.
     
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  10. Seeaich

    Seeaich Inaction Master

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    To be fair to Ol' Uncle Not-So-Affable Al, he does admit that "[T]hey're still working out the ramifications of me being a bit grumpy 15 years ago."
    Nobody tell the poor bugger Bruce Timm stuck a Batgirl schtupping onto the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke.
    Why couldn't he have bunged some cash at Axel Braun to do the XXX version, instead of putting his personal perversion into official DC animation canon, the (quite literal) wanker!
    My one consolation is that it's drawn in a horrible simplified-for-cheapness Bolland-aping style and not the BTAS classic look, thank fuck!
    What a waste of Conroy & Hamill wrapping their chops around Moore dialogue though!
    Still remember my mate Matt who used to work in the local comic shop slipping me the first Mozza JLA issue to preview, and I was hooked from Supes:"Strange. I didn't hear your heartbeat." Bats:"Hh. Gadget worked. Are you able to detect microwaves, Superman?"
    And I don't think poor Kyle Rayner's ever been as well-written since!
    Sadly, they were out of #1 & #2 by the time I had the cash to grab 'em but luckily JLA went so gangbusters they did that trade of the first three issues pretty much by #4!
    (#3 was the first on my standing order.)
    The nearest thing to that hit, and it's still in the past somewhat, is when JLA became JLU and really took off. God rest 'im Dwayne McDuffie steered that ship damned well!
    Plus that entire voice cast was inspired - Jeffrey Combs as The Question?
    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Napalm

    Napalm Drinking About Robots TFW2005 Supporter

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    Gonna need to pull these lads out of storage with all this chat about them. Absolutely excellent pieces. Double Evil especially. So much presence and brilliant in hand feel.

    They don't forget that they're making toys, Fans Hobby, and as a result the play value of these things elevate them amongst their peers. Power Baser is fiddly those first couple of times combining him but once you know what you're doing it's fine. Just awesome looking chunky things you're not afraid to throw about.

    20190319_105241_20190319121754295.jpg
    20190321_071130_20190321073226806.jpg
    20191231_121802.jpg
    20191231_121736.jpg

    And if you're on the fence with these lads, don't be. Bruisers.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  12. Siege Fan

    Siege Fan Well-Known Member

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    The Batman fundamentals have just been destroyed over the last ten years with Snyder at least (Can't even remember the sheer bollocks Morrison gave us in that regard). Not only did they remove the orphan aspect, his entire reason for existing, they still needed new internet headlines and so every member of his formerly immediate and extended family had a dark secret that went nowhere.

    As you say, it needs to go right back to the start, there's no cherrypicking from this mound of shit. There should be a bible for whoever becomes the writers going forward. Unassailable thou shalt not fuck with the Wayne family tree or change Batman's origins. Same with the Bat family and the villains. Batman does not die because you need a headline. Nor does he have 5 incarnations across as many comics. And so on.

    But my guess is from Hush onwards at the very least, some of those designs and ideas sold a LOT of merch. So we're stuck.

    On that note, I'd LOVE to see actual Batman sales figures alongside their demographics in today's market. How many young people buy Batman now? I struggle to even imagine it... but I'm wrong, surely? And what sort of glutton for punishment is still reading the Joker stories?!
    ...

    And once again Royal Fail can't get their online payment system to work... I never had a single problem with that site until RM was sold. Funny that.
     
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  13. Risk

    Risk Unknown Member

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    @SJW here is one I made earlier and here are some more new bad photos of Fans Hobby excellence:


    8A53F226-233E-449D-A865-B9DEA6970517.jpeg 428D3155-2904-4635-BE4F-E334661AFE80.jpeg 845C8112-D698-4F8D-9CB8-AC6C934D99CA.jpeg C90A6420-D7B9-4E9E-A468-02E7CEF58E74.jpeg 3C947AEC-2154-44AD-848B-4655783A438E.jpeg 14E6CCB5-6AD1-4389-8A99-CAC14A9CCA88.jpeg 44E77D9A-B2FB-4243-99F5-A888572E72AA.jpeg DE541FC0-1332-4D66-96DF-A003EFC42234.jpeg EA6B12B6-579A-443F-AB28-15089CB124FA.jpeg
     
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  14. Siege Fan

    Siege Fan Well-Known Member

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  15. Popemon

    Popemon Well-Known Member

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    Fortress Maximus: Maximum Gunishment

    IMG_0908 (2).JPG

    You gotta hand it to Sixgun. He really is the godfather of weaponizing.
     
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  16. Siege Fan

    Siege Fan Well-Known Member

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    He-Man: It's got Chuck Norris!

    Snout Spout: Even more water will help!

    Extendar: Thing just grabbed Chuck Norris, I'm outta here!

    CHUCK.jpg

    It wasn't the first time Dom had driven to a castle to test his eyesight...

    CASTLE.jpg

    Buzz Off: Rescue me? Uh, yes, save me!

    Battle Cat: The fuck...?

    RESCUE.jpg

    Oh yeah, seems there's running changes to the Origins figures, card art, shiny armour and unpainted boot straps for the big lad.

    MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE ORIGINS BATTLE ARMOR HE-MAN & SKELETOR DELUXE 2021 887961929614 | eBay
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2021
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  17. Ottertron

    Ottertron Moon-faced assassin of joy

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    Fans Hobby are the undisputed reigning kings of sheer C H O M K.

    Still hoping they fix the terrible alt-mode and resurrect their Roadbuster in the near future. I love MMCs take on him but that Fans Hobby robit mode is some OG Hulk shit.
     
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  18. Brum Bot

    Brum Bot "Give them Victory... or Give them Death"

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    “They’ll ask me how I got her, I said ‘I saved my money’s”
     
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  19. Vertex

    Vertex Nose Enjoyer

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    I remember that well, good choice sir! Although one might say that it justifies the existence of International Rugby Challenge by being hilllarious and putting the dreadfulness of the game to a higher purpose (and giving it 2%, well AP always did like to use the ratings scale properly! :cool: )

    The staff of AP were clearly having fun and wanted us to have fun too! Plus, they gave us Bombuzal. Must find that and stick it on an emulator ASAP! :) 
     
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  20. Loosecannon

    Loosecannon Cos I know I'm right...

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    Yeah but admit it, you quite like it and referring to it like that! :) 

    They are impressive, I just wish they were a little smaller. They took up so much room!
     
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