Review Haikus - DC Comics Edition

I have a lot of catching up to do on my acquisitions and posting associated pictures and short reviews. I thought that I would try something different, something to stretch my creative muscles. It is said that if you can't explain something simply, then you don't understand it well enough (Einstein, I think). So I am going to try and write my impressions of my acquisitions through haiku... please be kind.

Batgirl posed strong, proud

Koto you make pretty things

I want more to buy 

Earth 2 is the best

Supes, what happened to your head

Wallet sheds a tear

Huntress and PG

Two friends from another world

Finest figures found

Random acquisitions... comics, Lego, Gentle Giant, DC, Vinylmation, and Pabu!!!

Random stuff from over the past few months...

 Cant' wait to read this one, both the Jedi and Sith books were great. The interior art is very nice.

The latest collections...

Loved the movie, had to see the art...

I've been getting one Gentle Giant bust from each of my favorite Marvel movies.... Rocket is one of the nicer ones.

Cranium Command! You better shape up or you'll be piloting a chicken. Epcot goodness...

These figures are actually pretty terrible, but they might be the only Earth 2 merchandise that gets made...

Legend of Korra sucked me in. Once we realized a Pabu existed, it had to be acquired. Daughter has the Naga.

Stay Brony my firend.

Lots of teeny tiny parts come together for a nice Lego build.

Geeky miscellany...

I just thought I would post some of the random acquisitions I've made over the past few weeks. No theme in this post. I have a bunch of Lego waiting in the wings (more Ultra Agents, Lego Movie, and Guardians of the Galaxy).

Transformers Skrapnel and Reflector

G.I. Joe Collector's Club Cross-Country

Marvel Legends Iron Man

Gentle Giant Darth Malgus mini-bust

Disney Vinylmation Chip and Dale as Ewoks

Lego Ultra Agents - Why are you so cool looking?

OK, Lego Legends of Chima week consisted of one whole post - sorry, I got busy. I'll post some more of the latest wave of Chima sets soon. To tide you over, here are some of the new Lego Ultra Agents sets, specifically Infearno Interception and Tremor Track Infiltration.

Once again, I wasn't planning on collecting this theme, but the design of the vehicles and the "bad guys" were too good to pass up (curse you Lego, shaking fists towards Denmark). It's basically "Agents of SHIELD" in Lego form. 

The villains really stand out here. You can't pass up a guy with a flaming head on a jet surfboard or an armored thug with giant metal fists. These are two of the smaller sets, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Ultra Agents Mission HQ and the Hurricane Heist didn't make it into this blog as well.

The vehicles are fun and well designed. The "spy car" has an ejector seat action feature and the tracked vehicle has giant fists to smash things. Hours of fun!

 

Infearno

 

Agent Solomon Blaze 

Agent Jack Fury 

Tremor

Legends of Chima Week - Scorm's Scorpion Stinger

There are two Lego themes that, for some reason, are very appealing to me (as an adult, and my 12-year old self) - Ninjago and Chima. This week I'll try and post pictures of the Chima sets that I have purchased recently from the spring 2014 assortment. This one is Scorm's Scorpion Stinger. I am not going to go into a huge review, but in general, this is a really nice set. Scorm is a sharp, new minifig with his helmet and "scorpion tail" as the highlights. The model is a lot larger than I thought it would be and it was a fun build (with some ingenious action features with the claws). I am a sucker for most animal themed vehicles (as you'll see with Rogon's Rock Flinger) and I highly recommend this set.

Scorm

 

Cragger

Laval

1994 Iron Man Called

Iron Man #300 (Jan 1994)

Bowen Designs' Modular Iron Man is a statue that I have been wanting for a very long time. I finally treated myself. There is something about this design from 1994 that I thought had a simple elegance - with the red pants, shoulder pads, and gauntlets. Iron Man has donned a lot of suits of armor over the years, and I thought this was a really nice update when it first debuted. Maybe it's just nostalgia, since this design is twenty years old now.

I switched back to an actual camera, so hopefully the pictures look a bit better this time and going forward.

A Winter Soldier's Tale...

So, I wasn't going to ever buy another non-Iron Man Marvel Legends figure, but I thought it would be nice to have a Marvel Now version of Captain America...

This led to picking up a Steve Rogers from Captain America: The Winter Soldier... then a Winter Soldier... then a Baron Zemo... Since I had three of the "build a figure" pieces for the SHIELD Mandroid, why not finish it up? Finding a Black Widow with the torso piece is currently impossible (who has the time to hunt), so I found a nice seller on eBay who had the torso for cheap. With the Red Skull and his Cosmic Cube, I finished the set. So much for not getting any more Marvel Legends.

I was also lucky enough to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier last night, while on vacation. What a great movie. Really great. It was the best G.I. Joe movie I ever saw.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I am still trying to master my mobile phone camera (I WILL figure out how to focus eventually).
 

From the comics - Red Skull, Baron Zemo, Captain America

From the movie - The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers

SHIELD Mandroid

BOOM goes the DC Bombshells!

So, it has been three years since I have posted here... how time flies. At least I have a lot to post about now. I am going to try and start posting more often (promise to self). I am going to focus on just posting pictures of recently acquired "geek-merch" with a few additional comments - Legos, actions figures, statues, books, etc.

For my first entry back, a guilty pleasure of mine, DC Comics Bombshell statues. Pin-up girls plus DC heroines are a can't miss. I love the art style and plan on picking up a couple of more later this year. Here are the three that I have so far.
 

Wonder Woman

Batgirl

Supergirl

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as C-3PO and R2-D2!

Make sure to go see Paul, opening this Friday!

Tron Betrayal Review

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now (I know, I know...). I was going to post it before the opening of Tron: Legacy, and since that was weeks and weeks ago, you can obviously figure out that events have gotten the best of my plans. This review is solely about the Tron: Betrayal graphic novel that fills in the gap between the original Tron and the new movie. Published by Disney Press, it's a 128 page paperback, and an atypical 6" by 9".

I did see Tron: Legacy opening week and I quite enjoyed it. The plot was a bit basic (but multi-layered), but the visuals and music more than made up for that. In fact, it was one of those rare movies where the soundtrack (by Daft Punk) actually made the movie better (see Star Wars). I am very hopeful for a sequel, and if reports are true we'll be getting one soon, in addition to the animated series in 2012.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The book gives us a quick recap of the original movie and then brings us into the life of Kevin Flynn post-destruction of the MCP, with him taking over the ENCOM corporation sometime during the late 80's. Quick plot summary: Flynn creates the Grid, Flynn creates CLU, Flynn's wife gets pregnant, the ISOs "emerge" from the Grid, the Grid gets unstable, Flynn invents the cell phone to talk to his pregnant wife, the Grid gets more unstable, Sam is born, Flynn's wife dies, the Grid gets even more unstable, CLU gets angry, CLU blames the ISOs for the grid getting unstable, CLU gets angrier, the Grid gets more unstable, Flynn resigns as CEO of ENCOM to spend time with Sam, CLU ensures no more ISOs are created, CLU takes over the Grid to create order, Tron is defeated and runs away, Flynn gets trapped in the Grid, the end.

The focus of the story is on Flynn desperately trying to lead a triple life, being the CEO of a major corporation, the creator and overseer of the Grid, and father to Sam. Can everything co-exist? Can you be father, creator and CEO? It is also centered on the evolution of CLU from helper and friend to Flynn to cyber-despot/Lucifer analogy. It also provides plenty of parallels to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and examines in-depth what it is like to live in multiple realities of your own creation.

I liked how the book gave even more depth into CLU as a character than we saw in the movie. Flynn creates CLU to work with Tron (the security program) so he doesn't have to watch the Grid all the time and can spend time in his "real" life. Flynn charges him with creating the perfect system. Of course, with Flynn not being there all the time, and the Grid running on computer time, CLU grows impatient with Flynn.

His impatience grows into anger, arising from both his perceived ambivalence of Flynn and the conflicting nature of his orders. Flynn created CLU to create order, but Flynn also wants to let the natural order be spontaneous (that would confuse me too). This conflict eventually leads to CLU declaring that if the creator can't be here, and he is in the image of the creator, he must also be the creator - leading to him taking over the system. CLU thought he was doing what was best without the guidance of the Flynn. CLU believes that Flynn doesn't care about the world he created, so he will ensure its prosperity his way. CLUs drive to eliminate disorder leads him to wage a secret war against the ISOs and eventually "poison" the Sea of Simulation preventing the birth/emergence of any new ISOs.

For those keeping score at home the ISOs (what Quorra was in the film) are "isomorphic algorithms". Programs that emerged from the very nature of the Grid, they weren't created by anyone. They were born from the complexity of the Grid. In the movie there was only one left, but in the graphic novel they were a thriving separate civilization that embodied chaos to CLU. My guess is that the animated series will focus on the war between CLU and the ISOs.

A couple of questions weren't answered in either the graphic novel or the movie, like how Tron became Rinzler (he just drives off after being defeated in Betrayal) and how Flynn actually got trapped in the Grid. I guess on repeated viewings of the movie, I may discover some answers.

Overall it was an solid companion piece to the movie and if you are a fan of the Tron universe, I would definitely pick this up.