Blog – Page 3 – Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation

Call for Help Completing My MOTUC Reviews

On April 16, 2013

As I mentioned a while back, I’m now officially a cherry picker on Masters of the Universe Classics. This includes selling off some of the figures I don’t want as they arrive from this year’s subscription. In addition, my interest in MOTUC has, not waned per se, but become more moderated, so that I’ve even fallen behind on the items IÂ amÂ holding on to.

However, I feel a strong obligation to ensure this site has a complete archive of reviews of MOTUC. As such, I’m officially soliciting guest reviews of MOTUC figures.

A Poester’s Alternate Review of He-Man & the Masters of the Universe #1

By Poe

On March 26, 2013

In Blog

Poester DB sends along this dissenting opinion to my review of the first issue of DC’sÂ He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. (Warning: contains spoilers for the entire miniseries.)

I am going to have to disagree with you on this one, Poe. I read tons of comics nowadays, and have read all of these with the exception of the origin of Skeletor which I don’t have. I agree with you some about the art, but not about the story.

I have heard much bashing of Issue #1. Typical of the MOTU fans I reckon. And I probably sound like Scott Nitelich (spelling?) when I say “Hello! We are getting a NEW COMIC! We should be thankful!” But it’s true. There has been a long dry spell in media related to MOTU since the Mike Young and MV Creations era.

But this time it is really different, and I can see why some people of put off by it. But hear me out please. My He-Man is the same as most peoples…The He-Man from Filmation and the Mini-Comics. The Prince Adam angle has been riffed on a lot. “Mineternia” has not so much. I feel that the writers have done well in advancing the stories forward. We can have a new context to put familiar characters…a context that is going more for the Barbarian angle, I think.

Poe, you mentioned that He-Man would appear on the front of every comic, whether Adam transformed or not….I say “So. That hot babe that Conan is painted with on the cover of his comic NEVER APPEARED IN THE STORY!!!” The cover got your attention, though. Then when you opened the book, you didn’t get what you expected. Isn’t it BETTER that way? If it was what we expected, then it would get old fast. (Prince Adam is transforming AGAIN…time to get a Snicker Bar from the kitchen…) (Or even better. James Eatock’s “This time the artists took special care with the transformation…..)

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Mars Attacks Review Addendum: The State of Mezco

By Poe

On November 6, 2012

In Blog

Poe’s Note: I wrote this as a preamble to my Mars Attacks Martian Commander review before deciding it was a bit too off-topic. Â Still, I hate to throw away content, so feel free to read and discuss.

It’s been a long time since I bought a Mezco figure. Mezco was arguably my favorite toy company from 2004-2006, when they were producing their amazing Hellboy movie and comic lines, as well as their line based onÂ The Goon. But shortly after theÂ HellboyÂ comic line ended with one last figure (theÂ Abe Sapien exclusive), Mezco embarked upon a run of toy lines based on properties that were mediocre-to-flops:Â Heroes,Â The Spirit,Â The Wolf Man,Â Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,* The Green HornetÂ – for a brief time you could almost predict the failure of a movie at the box office by whether Mezco had the license.Â Even Mezco’s figures forÂ Hellboy: The Golden ArmyÂ were of pretty bad quality, both in the plastic used (trenchcoats that look and felt like individually-wrapped cheese slices) or construction (skirted figures with no legs, i.e. salt-shakers).

To make matters worse, for many of these lines Mezco decided to move backward from the rest of the industry** and incorporate less articulation than they did for Hellboy or the Goon (though this was most likely due to the higher cost of licenses).

But Mezco seems to be getting back on track. With the mega-popularÂ Living Dead DollsÂ keeping the toy company going, they’ve started branching out to things like the mini-urban vinylÂ DC Mez-ItzÂ (which I’m not that fond of, but seem to be popular) and theirÂ large–scaleÂ ThunderCatsÂ figures. We’re also starting to see the return of some six-inch scale figures based niche-but-cool licenses and including decent articulation. One example isÂ Earthworm Jim,Â who had great upper-body articulation though he lacked any leg articulation. And now, Jim is followed by the Martian Commander fromÂ Mars Attacks.

* To be fair, the Scott Pilgrim figures were based on the comic (though clearly timed to coincide with the film’s release), and were reportedly pretty cool figures.

**Except McFarlane

Monster Month > Poe’s Past Monster Reviews

By Poe

On October 13, 2012

In Blog

In celebration of Monster Month, here are some of my past reviews of monstrous toys:

Poe’s Halloween Display

By Poe

On October 11, 2012

In Blog

For Halloween this year, I decided to just throw as many monster/horror figures as I could fit along the shelf above my desk at home.

From left to right:

Diablo 2 Diablo by Blizzard
Dark Alliance Lucifer by Art Asylum
Ghostbusters Slimer by NECA
Silent Screamers Graf Orlok by Aztech Toys
G.I. Joe Zombie Viper by Hasbro
Attack of the Living Dead Earl by Mezco Toyz
Silent Screamers Golem by Mezco Toyz (they had changed their company name by the time it came out)
MOTUC Skeletor by Mattel w/ Demo-Man alternate head
Throne from Marvel Select Mephisto
Dead Space Necromorph by NECA
AvP: Requiem Alien by MECA
Evil Dead II Henrietta by NECA
Nightmares of Lovecraft Cthulhu by SOTA
A Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy by NECA

Just a quick note regarding the site design…

By Poe

On October 4, 2012

In Blog

My wife mentioned my site didn’t look any different to her, except switching to green about halfway down. It turned out she needed to clear her cache in Chrome before the new images appeared. So if the logo of Poe at the top of the blog isn’t like the one directly above, try clearing your browser’s cache (here’s how).

October is Monster Month at PGPoA!

By Poe

On October 1, 2012

In Blog

So as you may have noticed, things are a little different around here. In celebration of All Hallows’ Eve, October is Monster Month at PGPoA! (Big thanks to Wyatt Jones for that great logo!)

I had originally planned to post a review of a monster toy every single day before realizing just how ridiculously impossible that would be for me at this point in my life. So I’ve scaled it back a bit – there will definitely be monster reviews this month, but sprinkled among other, non-monster-y reviews and assorted fun stuff.

Quick Question (Toy Hunter)

By Poe

On September 12, 2012

In Blog

I only have so much time per week (as the recent dearth of posts indicates), but I am curious whether people would be interested in write-ups on the show Toy Hunter? Is this something I really should be watching?

Hangin’ with Mr. Parr & Poe’s On Vacation

By Poe

On May 29, 2012

In Blog

This past weekend I hung out with my good friendÂ Rustin Parr of OAFE, as well as Power Pals PrfktTear & the rarely-seenÂ Sped. Rustin enjoyed his visit and bought something at nearly every place we went to, from a Lego store to Comicazi. I’m sure he’ll write them all up in a Rustin’s Spoils over at OAFE in the near future, so keep an eye out for that.

The most memorable stop was at a Five Below, where Rustin spent fifteen minutes feeling up blind-bagged Playmobil packages to figure out what was inside them.

The store’s security guard kept pacing nearby, as if this represented the most interesting thing that had happened at the store this month.Â The good news is Rustin was able to find what he was looking for with only a modicum of his dignity impaired.

In other news, I’m on vacation for a week starting tomorrow. I’m going to try to set up some posts to go up while I’m gone, and I may write a post if something important comes up while I’m away, but PGPoA will be on hiatus until a week from Thursday.

Poe & the Four Horsemen: How It All Began

By Poe

On July 14, 2011

In Blog

I’d intended to post this on July 3, which would have been the tenth anniversary of the day I received the email below–but then I completely, utterly forgot. Better late than never!

I’ve saved every email I’ve sent and received since 1998. Until recently, most of them were just burned to a disc, but a few weeks back I dumped them all into a secondary Gmail account I created. While searching through them, I discovered this little treat.

Way back when the Millennium Masters of the Universe was first revealed, a lot of fans on He-Man.org were disappointed with the designs. The discussions could be intense–as online discussions often are–and I was one of the strongest defenders. Then, one day, I received this private message via the He-Man.org forums on July 3, 2001:

Hi, Poe.

We’ve been monitoring several message boards for quite a while now,
and we wanted to thank you for all of the support that you’ve given to
both us and the new Masters of the Universe line.

We’re really grateful to have people like you behind us, and we hope
to see you at the San Diego Comic Con.

Thanks again, and we’ll see you soon.

FOUR HORSEMEN

I didn’t make SDCC that year, but I did meet the Horsemen when I visited their studio that summer. To use yet another clichÃ©, the rest, as they say, is history.

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