Phantom Who: The War Games

Welcome to Phantom Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who podcast, which I co-host. There I am known as “Dave” because “Phantom Troublemaker” takes up too much room on the stationary. Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.

For the first year we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An Unearthly Child and wrapping up the current regenerations with The Eleventh Hour, we’ll be covering the first and last stories of each of the first eleven Doctors.

Last time on Phantom Who…

The second Doctor, along with Ben and Polly, thwarted the Daleks’ integration into and eventual takeover of a colony on the planet Vulcan. From there, the evil fascist pepperpots were planning to propagate their species and launch a takeover of the entire galaxy.

Since then, the Doctor has had many adventures and gained new companions in the form of Jamie McCrimmon – a Scot from the 18^th century – and Zoe Heriot – an astrophysicist from a space station in the 21^st century.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Madame Masque By Hasbro

Continuing the theme of characters that I have never heard of is today’s new Marvel Legend figure – Madame Masque.

I had to look her up on Wikipedia because a masked woman is just too interesting for me to resist. Her story is very cool, to the point where I’d like to try and track down some of the pertinent issues.

Comic Book Wednesday - Saga Survey

There’s a new comic out called Saga. It is written by Brian K. Vaughn and arted by Fiona Staples. It’s really, really good and you should go buy it. There was a survey in the back of issue 2 that I decided I would fill out, mail in, and also post here. Because that’s the sort of thing I do. And that image is from issue 1, not 2. I used 2 last week and wanted something different.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Drax By Hasbro

I have no idea who the crap this guy is.

Seriously – the extent of my knowledge is that he was also released in 3 ¾” scale in a Guardians of the Galaxy 3-pack.

To keep this from being the worst, shortest intro in the history of Needless Things, I’m going to do a quick run-down of green folks from the Marvel Legends line.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Thunderball By Hasbro

I know absolutely nothing about “Marvel’s Wrecking Crew”. Honestly I never even would have bought this guy if I didn’t need the Arnim Zola piece. He’s awfully generic.

Actually, that’s not true. He’s very original in that he looks like what would happen if Power Man and Iron Fist had a kid.

To keep this from being the worst, shortest intro in the history of Needless Things, I’m going to do a quick run-down of black folks from the Marvel Legends line.

Ancient Toys of Yesteryear – Marvel Legends: Deathlok By Toy Biz

Yes, I know that this is in no way an actual ancient toy, or even really all that old; I just wanted a funny title for the odd review that I’ll end up doing of a toy that is not currently available at retail.

I do pick up older toys to fill holes in my collection or just because I think they’re neat. Sometimes I won’t bother reviewing them, but sometimes I will. I feel they should have a distinct separation from my regular toy reviews.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Deathlok. He’s shown up from time to time in some of the books I read and has never really done anything for me. He looks cool and all, I just never got into his character. At least not until Rick Remender made the unlikely and surprising call to add the time-displaced cyborg to his X-Force team.

Statue Review – X-Infernus Darkchilde Comiquette By Sideshow Collectibles

I’ve never reviewed a statue before and I might not ever do it again, but I spent over two hundred bucks on this thing and I’m damn sure going to get some mileage out of it.

I’m not as fond of statues and busts as I am of toys and action figures, but I do own quite a few. Sometimes one of those items will be just the right character in just the right pose and it’ll get me. The first one I fell victim to was a statue of Wolverine infected by the Brood, from the cover of Uncanny X-Men #234. Not only do I love that story arc, but that was the first comic about the X-Men I ever bought. So I had to buy the statue.

I bought this Comiquette of Illyana Rasputin for similar reasons.

Comic Book Wednesday - 4/18

It’s time again for one of my meandering, long-winded comic book round-ups.

Not much has changed on my pull list, but the next few months are going to be interesting as DC shakes up the creative teams on the New 52 titles. I’ll discuss each individually as they come up, but suffice it to say that a lot of the DC books I am reading are still in my box every month due to the creative teams and not the characters.

Actually, while I’m thinking about it, let me go ahead and address the New 52 now that we’re just over six months in.

I’m over it.Not "stop buying it" over it, just "cut the crap and go back to the regular continuity" over it.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Dark Wolverine (Unmasked Variant) By Hasbro

I have not been a big fan of Wolverine’s son.

Of course, the only stories I’ve read that featured him were his first appearance back in Wolverine Origins and the part he played in FrankenCastle. I wasn’t crazy about Daken initially, though I did sort of appreciate what went on in the Punisher story. And from what I hear the character has developed quite a bit since then.

Phantom Who: Power of the Daleks

Welcome to Phantom Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who podcast, which I co-host. Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.

For the first year we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An Unearthly Child and wrapping up the current regenerations with The Eleventh Hour, we’ll be covering the first and last stories of each of the first eleven Doctors.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Klaw By Hasbro

I don’t know who “Marvel’s Klaw” (as they call him on the box) is, I just know that he’s pretty stupid-looking. Yeah, yeah – I know he’s a Kirby creation. It’s obvious from looking at him. But I just don’t dig him.

I wasn’t even going to buy this guy, but I was so impressed with the rest of the Wave 1 Marvel Legends I had bought I couldn’t help it. I also got all caught up in build-a-figure madness. Which is, of course, why build-a-figures exist. I don’t even give a crap about Terrax, but I already had four pieces of him so of course I might as well go ahead and buy two more figures and build the guy. Besides, Steve Rogers actually looks pretty awesome. Klaw would be the only one that I flat-out didn’t want.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Kobra Khan By Mattel

Despite the fact that I really dig Kobra Khan’s character, I wasn’t all that excited about getting this figure. I think he was one of those that the production pictures just didn’t do much for me. He didn’t look very exciting.

Of course, there was also the fact that the Chinese New Year – which is apparently an event only slightly less disruptive than an alien invasion – has delayed all of Mattycollector.com’s shipments for the foreseeable future.

Phantom Who: The Tenth Planet

Welcome to Phantom Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who podcast, which I co-host. Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.

For the first year we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An Unearthly Child and wrapping up the current regenerations with The Eleventh Hour, we’ll be covering the first and last stories of each of the first eleven Doctors.

Toy Review – Marvel Legends Captain America (Bucky Barnes) By Hasbro

The very first time I saw pictures of the second series of new Marvel Legends I thought Fantomex would be the only figure I bought.

It’s not that the rest of the figures looked bad, they were just characters I either wasn’t familiar with or didn’t care to own. But then I saw that Arnim Zola was to be the build-a-figure for this wave and I knew I was probably going to be spending some money and likely utilizing some eBay afterward. I love Arnim Zola. Even more than MODOK.

After I got the first few figures from wave one I knew I’d be buying all of wave two. They’re just so good. I’ve had a blast collecting DC Universe figures over the past few years and I’m actually looking forward to the Infinite Earths figures, but Mattel’s superheroes just do not compare to Hasbro’s. Having brand new Marvel Legends in hand again was just too exciting.

Platinum Championship... Um, Empire Wrestling - 3/30/2012

Mrs. Troublemaker surprised the heck out of me last week by asking if I wanted to go see PCW Friday night.

It’s not that she doesn’t like wrestling – especially live wrestling, it’s more that with a babysitter available and her choice of what to do I would have expected her to suggest something else. But she’s full of surprises and that’s why I still love her. Well, that and her sweet ass.

So we made our way to the Academy Theater to see the local heroes battle for supremacy.

Don’t Ask Matty, Ask Phantom! 4-4

Disclaimer: Phantom Troublemaker is in no way affiliated with MattyCollector.com, Mattel, Scott Nite-Lik, ToyGuru, or any other toy company in any way. All answers provided in “Ask Phantom” are complete and total bullshit unless otherwise stated.

Hey there, Phantomaniacs, and welcome to the first installment of my all-new “Ask Phantom” column!

As a special unsolicited favor to Matty I have decided to delve into the forums over at MattyCollector.com and answer some of the unanswered questions! If you don’t know, there are sections there where “fans” (because we don’t like to use the “c-word”, it implies a financial obligation!) can submit burning questions about their favorite toy lines to the very people who run those lines!

Unfortunately, toy line managers tend to be busy raping childhoods and pissing on memories; so they can’t get to every question. That’s where I come in! Once a month I’ll select a few questions that have not been answered and answer them here at Needless Things!

Let’s see what the “fans” want to know!

Post-WrestleMania XXVIII Thoughts.

Please don’t take the fact that I’m posting this before my recap of Friday night’s Platinum Championship Empire Wrestling show to mean I place more importance on WWE’s offering or hold it in higher regard. Believe me – I don’t. This weekend just ended up being crazy.

I forgot my camera Friday night and had to use my phone to take pictures, then Mrs. Troublemaker’s when my battery died. For some reason it is a huge pain in the ass to transfer pictures from my phone to the computer and I just haven’t had time to do it yet, so I don’t have my visual references to help out my weak recapping skills. But hang in there. Hopefully it’ll be up tomorrow or Thursday.

Phantom Recap: Game of Thrones Season 1 - Part 4

Warning: There’s a lot of nasty talk in this article and there may even be a couple of pictures of vaginas. Certainly some breasts will show up. And I threw in a dong for the ladies. Or dudes, if that’s your thing.

Pre-emptive note: I knew this would be long, but I didn’t know how long. If I had, I would’ve started posting Tuesday. As things stand I am breaking it up into four parts and posting the final two on Saturday and Sunday; something I rarely do. There’s just no other way to get it done and I really don’t want to put up a 12,000-plus word post. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want me to.

Part 4 (Continued from yesterday)

Remember those two frozen corpses Jon and company found north of the wall? Well, they brought them back home. One night Jon’s dire wolf starts acting all weird and leads Jon to the commander’s quarters. He goes inside and finds one of the corpses. Only, rather than just laying there stinking and rotting like a good corpse, it’s up and walking around and trying to kill the commander. 

Jon, his wolf, and the commander manage to subdue it after Jon throws a torch at it.