KOMIKON 2010!
Well looks like I’ll be filing for another leave this month so that I can attend the 6th Annual Philippine Komiks Convention, or KOMIKON on November 13.
I haven’t been to one since back in college, though I’ve been to the Metro Comic Con a few times since and the Renaissance event as well. Since this event’s right next door to work, and since I haven’t actually bought a comic other than the two Trese books in a while now, I think I’ll give this a look see.
The 6th Annual Philippine Komiks Convention (KOMIKON) 2010
November 13, 2010, Saturday
Starmall Trade Hall
(corner EDSA and Shaw Blvd., Mandaluyong City)
Php 80 entrance fee
Guests – Abrera Father and Son, Harvey Tolibao, Stephen Segovia, Carlo Pagulayan
For more information, visit www.komikon.org
Christmas Toy Fair 2010
There are two annual toy events I never miss, and they aren’t the ones you’d expect (unless you’ve been reading my blog regularly - and in that case, you are my new best friend). My blog post a month ago about the Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale would give you an idea about the first one, but the second one isn’t the big ToyCon, or the Hasbro Toy Fairs.
It’s the annual Christmas Toy Fair that’s held at the Megatrade Hall during December.
This little event is headed by the same super guys that set up the big ToyCon that usually happens during the Summer. Except it’s smaller. While the ToyCon hogs 3 of the Megatrade Halls, this little gem only occupies about one half of one. So why do I love it so much? well, there are several reasons, some of them not all that great.
ONE: It’s in December.
More moolah to spend. The timing is perfect really, since this thing happens the weekend after a payday, and a few weeks after we all get our Christmas bonuses. Yay for disposable income.
TWO: It’s small.
The reason I always seem to change my mind about attending the conventions boils down to the crowds. I’m still an American at heart and I’ve still got all the personal space issues that come with that. I can barely stand 20 minutes on the MRT (our mass transit train), let alone a whole day pressing the flesh with thousands of other people. Trust me when I say that people in Western countries have NO IDEA what crowded is until they’ve been here. There is no such thing as maximum capacity here.
The Chrismas Toy Fair is different. By this time, most people have blown their wad on all the other toy conventions; ToyCon, Komikon, Metro Manila Comic Con, Collecticon, Tagcom, and a dozen of others through out the year. Then you have all the other toystores having their own year-end clearance sales: Richwell, Toytown, Hobbes & Landes, CADS, WasabiToys, Great Toys, etc. All of those normally happen in the last quarter as well. By the time December rolls around, collectors are pooped, so going here isn’t such a chore. Attendance is normally pretty good, but it doesn’t get crazy, and there’s always space to move around.
THREE: There’s a good chance of a bargain.
Collectors know the usual suspects who show up at this and other conventions. Most of them have their own stalls in Greenhills. The others are fellow collectors who need to unload a lot of their stuff. This being the last chance for the year for them to get their wares in front of a largeish crowd, they maybe a little more open to haggling. Now, I suck at haggling (I once asked a seller if he was SURE he wanted to let go of a book at “so cheap” a price - true story), so any extra chance of success is welcome. I normally go on the first and the last days of the sale, just to check and see if there are any last minute finds that I can buy on the cheap.
Now there are a few things to keep in mind about this event, so here’s some Dos and Don’ts.
Don’t go here expecting to find that one, super-rare toy that you’ve been searching for for the past 20 years. The chances you’ll find it here are infinitesimal. Stick to eBay.
Don’t expect to see huge 95% discounts on those toys you’ve been eyeing in Toy Kingdom. The days of Buy One Take One Marvel Legends and price slashing on Transformers are gone. We all had fun with it, let’s move on.
Don’t be a dick and bitch on the boards the next day about not finding anything and still having to pay the entrance fee. If you’re that hard up, you probably shouldn’t have gone in the first place.
Do go around and do a quick look at all the tables before you hunker down and buy. Sometimes sellers have the same item at different prices, especially if you’re not to picky about the state of the packaging or paint. NOTE: This doesn’t apply to hard to find stuff. If you see a loose Marvel Universe Archangel for p400, don’t be an idiot. Buy it on the spot.
Do ask the sellers if they’d consider a discount for multiple purchases, or if they’re willing to give you a few pesos off to meet your budget. NOTE: offering p250 for a p500 toy is bad form, and you deserved to be kicked in the nuts.
Do set up a meet with friends. Vendors normally have bins of loose toys and there’s no way to predict what they’ll bring out or when they’ll need to replenish their tables. It’s nice to come in in the morning, watch a movie, eat lunch with friends, then come back later to see what’s new.
Do have a budget. You’ll have a far better experience if you set a limit to what you can spend, rather than determining before hand what you are looking for. I’ve been meaning to meet my budget for 4 years running… One day we’ll run into each other and we’ll have some crazy stories to tell.
Maybe this year.
***
5th Christmas Toy Fair and Mom’s Holiday Finds
December 17-19, 2010, 10am-10pm
SM Megatrade Hall 1, 5th Level
For more information, visit Toyconph.com
Auctions – Dec 17-19
Christmas Cosplay – Dec 18, registration at 10am-2pm, parade starts at 2pm.
Toy Donation Drive – Dec 17-19
RED
More than I love the action genre, I love the heist genre. The heist genre is characterized by a plot that involves a group of people doing something that is usually highly dangerous and generally illegal, and which requires a very involved plan and lots of misdirection. The stories written around a heist movie often feature distinct characters as every one has a part to play in the “plan”.
Action movies on the other hand are normally about the spectacle of the set piece. The big explosions, the one liners, the “big bad”. These pictures are usually star vehicles that require a headliner who can draw in the box office numbers and justify their high price tags. As such, there isn’t that much room for the development of other characters.
Take The Expendables for example. I know a lot of people who loved this movie, but when I saw it I was underwhelmed. At first, I thought it might have been because I had recently watched The A-Team and The Losers, both movies about para-military teams that had been disavowed and were out for revenge. After watching it a few times though, I decided that it’s because the actors in The Expendables are pretty much just fill in material, used to populate the frame behind Stallone. The movie is as mastabatory as the last Rambo film was; an excuse for Stallone to flex his muscles.
Fortunately, like The A-Team and The Losers, RED is more of an ensemble piece.
The star of the show is Bruce Willis. Or at least he’s the first guy we see. He plays Francis “Frank” Moses, an ex-CIA assassin who’s been classified as “Retired, Extremely Dangerous” by his former handlers. Attempting to lead a normal life, Frank starts up a telephone relationship with a call center operator, Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker), who’s helping him with his pension checks. One night, he finds that he’s been targeted for liquidation by a “wet Team” and he’s got to save both himself and Sarah from a bevy of bloodthristy spooks.
But as I said, this is a group effort, so Frank isn’t the only one in trouble. Also on the CIA’s hit list is Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), another retiree dying slowly of liver cancer and Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich), an out-of-his-mind conspiracy theorist. Later they’re joined by Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox), an overly romantic KGB agent, and Victoria (Helen Mirren), an MI6 operative who’s been baking cookies since the end of the cold war.
Rounding out the cast is Ernest Borgnine in a small role, Richard Dreyfuss as one of the bad guys, Julian McMahon as the Vice President, and my man crush of the moment, Karl Urban as the CIA’s go to guy, William Cooper.
With a cast that good, there’s no way that Willis can hog the limelight.
Each of the operatives has their own little personality that really makes the movie entertaining. For instance, Freeman is a bit of a lech, Malkovich is completely nuts, and Helen Mirren is frighteningly cold blooded. Even the smaller roles had some good scenes to really bite into.
The film is decidedly more humorous than the source material, a series of 3 comics published in 2003 by Wildstorm, written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Cully Hamner. Ellis has been quoted as saying that this adaptation is a completely different animal from his series, differences arising from the fact that the short story needed to be filled in and characters fleshed out. I felt the did a very good job and even if it’s not that true to the original, it is highly entertaining.
The action sequences are just as good as any in the three movies I mentioned previously, if not as preposterous as some. There are also scenes built around some hilarious performances like Frank and Sarah meeting Boggs for the first time. Ghille suit for the win!
By far the best sequence for me was Helen Mirren kicking ass in an evening gown though. That definitely beats Stallone punching some anonymous dude in some anonymous place.
And like I said, RED is a heist flick, so there’s a bunch of those “oh, shit!” moments where they pull off some insane stunt that would get any normal unit killed. “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Whoops, wrong movie.
Micromaster Countdown
Though popular in the 1980’s The Transformers really was a creation that came out of the ideals of the previous decade. The space race, which ended 1975, was as much ideological in its motivation as it was technological in its pursuits. Borne out of a sense of competition between enemies, it sparked the idea that there was more to the universe than we thought. It was a time when science was at the forefront of the world’s mind and it was then that we saw for the first time that our world was not some immutable constant, but a fragile piece of real estate in an infinitely large suburb of space.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that The Autobots and Decepticons were an alien race, one bent on conquest, the other on peace with other civilizations. Though the cartoon was created to sell the Hasbro toy line to kids, the characters and back stories came from writers who grew up dreaming about what was out there.
The short biography found on the back of the Micromaster base, Countdown, bears out this theory:
“An intergalactic hero and space explorer. A legend to beings throughout the universe and an inspiration to his fellow Autobots. Fought 1000 battles and circled almost a million stars, defending the rights of the innocent. Transforms to lunar rover with com-link disk that enables him to control the entire defense base from up to 30,000,000 miles away. His interstellar rocket ship converts to mobile launch pad armed with two energy-zapping de-kineto cannons that freeze objects in mid-motion. Ship is also designed to use planetary orbits and gravitational pulls to “slingshot” across entire galaxies in seconds. Command base equipped with laser blasters, high-tech repair bay, interstellar communications center, space-tracking radar, and high-speed launch pad.”
Boxart from Hasbro
Countdown was part of the Micromaster line of Transformers, which was a collection of tiny little robots that that were either packaged as “teams” or as part of a vehicle/commander playset. Countdown is obviously one of the latter, and is the biggest toy released in the subline.
The name “Countdown” refers more to the robot the base, the little guy that commands the staging platform.
Boxart from Hasbro
According to TFWiki.net, Countdown was an Aerospace Commander who volunteered for the Micromaster process. This downsized him to make him more “fuel efficient”. Along with Groundshaker (another Micromaster toy from the time period), he was assigned to stop the Decepticon expansion and to find Optimus Prime and the Ark.
In case you’re wondering, no this wasn’t part of the cartoon continuity, but rather the comic books. The show had stopped aring in America by the time this sub-line came out. Don’t ask me how this crack-pot idea of “fuel efficiency” was sold to the editors. How useful can a human-sized robot be against one that is as big as a jet plane? And why do they still change into cars and trucks and tanks, anyway? Their alt modes are about as useful as that rubber shark repellant Batman used in the 1966 movie.
But to be fair, there was never going to be an easy way for the writers to fit this sub-line into the continuity, to jump from the logic of “Aliens disguised as vehicles” to shortstacked robots. Micromasters was made as an answer to the growing popularity of another toy brand at the time, Micro Machines, which were miniture versions of the die-cast metal cars like Hot Wheels. As such, market forces rather than a genuine evolution of the line were what was acting on it.
The toyline ran only from 1989 to 1990 and came in packages grouped as Patrols, Squads, Transports, Stations or Bases. Patrols were packs of 4 related action figures that stood about 5cm tall. Squads were groups of 6 bots that each formed half of a vehicle. Transports were a pack of one figure and a convertable vehicle that they could ride. Stations were a set of figure and a small playset that transformed into a battle station. The bases were larger playsets that became Transformer headquarters.
Countdown was the Autobot base.
The blue station to the left in that photo is Decepticon Greasepit, not included in the set. The set though, has it’s share of accesories:
Rocket base, rocket, platform, large ramp, helipad, short ramps x3, mechanical arm, large double laser, small double lasers x2, large laser, gunner pod, scout vehicle.
The reason that I’ve got Greasepit in the photo is because I took the photos in this review in an effort to sell off my G1 toys. I know right?! Idiot!
Despite being on the tail end of the first line, this was still undoubtedly G1. Micromasters still shared a lot with their die-cast Diaclone ancestors. For one thing, their articulation was limited to knees and shoulder swivels, and sometimes not even then. Transformations were notorious for their incomplexity. Paint was pretty much just a layer of color on the windows.
However, if you look underneath all of that, I still think that the playability of the whole Transformer line was at it’s height during this period. Because Transformers were always BIG, you could never hope for an official Ark playset, but here, you see your own small part of Little Iacon. What made it even better was that if you had several of the other bases or stations, you could connect them all to the Autobot City and have your own sprawling little ghetto.
This really was the Autobot City that Metroplex should have been. The scale of the Micromaster really brought out the fun, since they could fit into the bays, stand at the computer terminals, or drive down the ramps. When I first got Metroplex, the only ones that could fit in any of his bays were Scamper and Slammer, the two cheapeepay robots that came with him (I didn’t have a lot of the mini-bots).
By the time the sub-line had run it’s course, it was relatively expansive. Two years gave us 12 different patrols, 4 squads, 7 transports, 4 stations and 6 bases. That’s about 90 different figures to populate this city, and this is not counting the various Takara releases.
I never got close to that count for my collection though. I had maybe 20 or so of the figures, but it was enough to make the base homey.
Another thing I loved about Countdown was the different things that you could have your Transformers do with him. Either they were going up and down the ramps, joyriding, or they were taking off on the runway (short in terms of real life, but this is Transformers we’re talking about) or preparing for a shuttle launch in the control center. There was even a repair bay, and parking spaces at the rear. It’s like SM City, Cybertron.
Moreover, if you had stations like Greasepit, you could attach him to the base so that you could have a local gas station. How cool is that?
Alternately, you could transform them and have them serve as early warning anti-air stations:
Even if I sold this toy to make way for the more modern Transformers with better articulation and design, I can’t help but wish I hadn’t. There was just so much more imagination built into these old G1 toys, so much more magic.
I hope the guys who bought these are enjoying them to the fullest.
NOTE: For more great boxart from the G1 toyline, check out Botch’s Transformers Box Art Archive.
Rescue Ratchet
Remember being a kid, daydreaming about what you’d be when you grew up? Between thinking I’d be an archaeologist (Indiana Jones), an offshore oil rig worker (The Transformers), a space cowboy (Star Wars) and a G.I. Joe (well, G.I. Joe), I thought it would be pretty cool to be a doctor. You’d be up to your ears in scratch, hanging with movie stars and famous people, and flying off on the Enterprise saying cool things like, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a Doctor, not a call center agent!” (I was a stupid kid).
This was before I learned that being a doctor meant that you’d have to cut people open, hold their spleens in your hands, regularly examine the results of other people’s bowel movements and stay in school for an extra 10 years. Being the lazy bastard I am, this was something that I could not stomach.
Of course I ended up staying in the University for nearly a decade anyway, but that’s a story for another time.
My point, before I got sidetracked, was that I thought being a doctor was cool. Part of the reason for this was that one of the coolest characters on The transformers was Ratchet, the company medic. He was loads better than Lifeline, the whimpy “pacifist” G.I. Joe, and although he wasn’t seen in the fight a lot, he got some of the coolest jobs along side Wheeljack; creating the Dinobots, kit-bashing Autobot-X together and reparing everyone and their mother during the length of the series.
How can you not love a guy like that?
Of course he was then shot dead during the first 15 minutes of Transformers the Movie and then showed up as a Bayformer in 2007. Oh, the humanity!
After the first movie, he got a Voyager Class toy (which I liked), but apparently, people wanted one that was more “accurate”. Hence the release of the more marketably sized Deluxe Class figure earlier this year.
I never picked that one up because I already had a movie Ratchet I liked, and I didn’t feel like downgrading to a smaller figure. But inevitably, Hasbro came out with “Rescue Ratchet”, a white and red re-deco of the Hummer H2 rescue vehicle. In my warped logic, this translates to “brand new toy”.
I caved.
Apparently, this little guy is more “accurate” to the movie model and the actual H2 vehicle. Honestly I didn’t really see a problem with the first effort. Hasbro didn’t either, considering they repainted him four or five times over the course of 2 movies. But the Deluxe Class price point (p700) is much more saleable than that of the Voyager Class one (p1600). I think it was a good move on their part to make another toy for both their Voyager mainstays. I just can’t say I like either of them all that much.
His vehicle mode looks more like a Humvee, but I got to say that it doesn’t look all that much like an ambulance any longer. The back of the truck has a spare tire and a platform to hang gear off of, and the top has a port to hold his arm cannon, but where do the injured comrades go? I’ve got no idea. Maybe it’s something like the Doctor’s TARDIS, and opens onto another dimension.
The gun fixture can be removed and (if you have either Lockdown or Axor) can be replaced with the EMP device that the Ratchet character in the Transformers Animated continuity used to carry. In that storyline, the bounty hunter Lockdown had stolen then device, cutting it off of Ratchet’s arm. I think they just included it here to cross-market both the toys,because it doesn’t really add anything to the vehicle mode, and there’s nowhere to put it when he changes to a robot.
Ugh.
Accurate or not, that is one ugly bastard. Look at all that kibble! The Deluxe Class version is a “shellformer” in the truest sense of the word. Basically, the robot parts are all just tucked away and hidden by panels in the vehicle mode. Transformed, the panels fold up and hang off the robot’s various parts. while the core robot may look more like the computer model in the movie, it’s no where near as well integrated.
Seriously, Hasbro?
There are no word to convey my disappointment with this state of affairs. Not only does the panelling take away from the looks of the figure, it also makes posing him annoying as hell. It doesn’t really restrict him, but the fact that you have to push all of that crap out of the way constantly does get irritating.
The picture on the back of the package is also misleading, someone having switched the doors that form his shoulder panels. Unless you physically remove them and swap them out, there’s no way to get him to match that product photo. Which is sad, since he does look better that way.
The gun is another aggravation. It just doesn’t really look that great. It looks sort of like an afterthought really, like it was designed for someone else.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why they’ve use this silly gear gimmick to mount it on his arm when the good old, post and hole system they’ve been using since, what? Energon? has been great. The gun attaches by a serrated square peg at the back of the gun that fits into a square hole on his arm. The serrations push two little bits of red plastic on his arm up when you push it in. I suppose that it approximates a “locking in” mechanism, but those red pieces don’t go all the way up, and it looks retarded. The whole thing is overthought and overly complicated.
They could have saved themselves the trouble and just cut out the same port hole that Lockdown has on his arm to accomodate the EMP projector. Better yet, just give him a standard ROUND hole so you can load him up with any of the guns you have lying around from other Classics toys.
As I said, the articulation gives him a few points in his favor, with balljoints found at his shoulders, elbows, hips, and ankles. His knees are double hinge joints with a swivel thrown in there somewhere, and the ankle has an extra hinge there too. He’s pretty mobile, but again, all that kibble gets in the way.
The feet also bother me. They’re painted in such a way that it looks like he’s wearing sneakers. As if they’re down a player and they asked the old fart standing on the sidelines to sub. Said fart runs to his locker and grabs a pair of the oldest, geektastic shoes and slips them on, raring to take the young guys on at their own game.
Just like in real life, it doesn’t work. Robots should not be wearing Reeboks.
The face is great if you love the Michael Bay look. I don’t.
‘Nuff said.
I really wanted to like this figure, since I was so surprised by the first one, but really, there’s nothing to recommend here. It’s an ugly toy, with a half-assed transformation, and a useless action feature, with an out of place accessory. The only thing it has going for it is the new colors and the articulation, which I’ve got to admit, is great.
Still, it’s not something that can save the figure as a whole. If they had made the various bits and pieces hanging off him removable, that may have added a fe points, but it still would have been on the edge. Right now, I’d have to recommend NOT buying this.
In hindsight, I doubt I’d even buy it from the bargain bin.
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
Enjoy your stay and leave a comment.
Slangards
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