Sorry, Guys

I am busy as shit. I'm working 24 hours of overtime this week that will possibly end up being 36. It's kicking my ass. I'll be back next week with the new MOTUC and DCSC reviews. I haven't been able to do my ESO updates either. I'm actually a little nervous about finding the time to watch Logopolis before we record the new Earth Station Who Tuesday night. I mean, I've seen it tons so I can totally talk about it anyway, but I'd like one more viewing.

Go watch some Wildboyz.

-Phantom

Toy Review – DC Universe Classics: Red Arrow By Mattel

I honestly don’t know a whole heck of a lot about Roy Harper.

I feel like I say that an awful lot for a guy who claims to be such a big fan of comic books. But whatever. My ignorance is more out of a resistance to trying new things than it is anything else. I like Batman and the X-Men, so I tend to stick with Batman and the X-Men.

The sum total of my knowledge of Speedy/Red Arrow/Arsenal comes from the Teen Titans cartoon, the Young Justice cartoon, and whatever Chris Sims wrote about him back when that awful dead cat story was going on. Well, and the first several issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws, which I enjoyed, but not enough to keep buying it.

Of Batmobiles and Bitching

 

This is less an actual post and more an excuse for me to share a bunch of rad pictures of the Batmobile, which we saw in person this past Saturday.

THE BATMOBILE.

WHICH WE SAW IN PERSON.

Wait, is “in person” correct? I think I’ve always assumed that in person meant that I was physically there to witness whatever it is I’m talking about. But is it actually referring to whatever it is you’re seeing? And if it is an “it” and not a “who” do you say “in person”? Now I’m confused.

Whatever.

Toy Review – DC Universe Classics: Green Arrow By Mattel

I really thought that Hawk and Dove were going to be my last DC Universe Classics purchases. Obviously I’ve got my stupid DC Infinite Earths subscription, but I didn’t foresee buying any more DCUC stuff other than maybe filling in some holes if I happened across cheap older figures.

Then Green Arrow fell off the shelf.

Media Dump June 2012

Got a few more movies that I want to mention but not devote entire posts to.

Earth Station One

Hey Phantomaniacs,

That whole training people at work thing isn't going as badly as I thought it might, but it's still tough to write sometimes. Feel free to go check out some old and mildly updated toy reviews over on the ESO Network. Actually, while you're there check out the story of how I became the co-host of Earth Station Who. I'll be back tomorrow.

-Phantom

Toy Review – Phantom Troublemaker’s Bag of Fun By Dollar Tree

I hate to tread into X-Entertainment Dinosaur Dracula territory here, but I just couldn’t pass up these three items that seemed to be aimed specifically at me. Due to their nature, I also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to crank out an easy post.

We were at Dollar Tree the other day to buy some shower curtain rings. I probably shouldn’t tell you why I was buying shower curtain rings, but I’m going to anyway because the nature of this whole post is a bit ridiculous.

The Goth Ball

Saturday night a week ago there was an event at The Masquerade called the Labyrinth Masquerade Ball. The fact that a masquerade was taking place at The Masquerade was sheer coincidence.

The Labyrinth Masquerade Ball was not the sort of thing that would normally catch my attention. You’d think it would. I like the movie Labyrinth. I wear a mask. But for some reason this event was simply not on my radar until a couple of weeks ago when our new TimeGate friend Rebecca invited us to go.

We made our plans and got our masks and whatnot together. I wasn’t super-excited about the night at first, but I got myself geared up. I knew an event such as this one had the potential to provide me with a ton of material. Much like dinner at Little Szechuan, I looked at things through my blogger eyes and started feeling pretty positive about it. Excited, even.

Phantom Who: Planet of the Spiders

 

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 Doctor spent a good bit of time recovering from a forced regeneration at the hands of the Time Lords. He was exiled to Earth in his TARDIS, but wasn’t going anywhere because the dematerialization circuit had been removed. Those darn Time Lords and their penalties for renegadism.

While the Doctor was recovering in the hospital, then taking a shower, then stealing cloaks, jackets, hats, and cars; there was an invasion going on. Creepy plastic people were doing creepy things all over the world. Naturally the Doctor stopped them.

Once it was all said and done, he agreed to stay on with UNIT as Scientific Advisor and help Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart defend the world from threats both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. All the while, though, the renegade Time Lord kept working on repairing his TARDIS. Eventually he helped his fellow Gallifreyans out of a bind and they let him fix his craft. The very first thing he did was bop off to Metebelis 3 and swipe a certain blue crystal…

Toy Review – DC Signature Collection The Flash – Jay Garrick By Mattel

I wavered a lot on whether or not I was going to subscribe to Mattycollector.com’s Club Infinite Earths.

Overall I’ve been very satisfied with Club Eternia. The Masters of the Universe Classics toy line is one of my favorites even though I barely collected He-Man toys when I was a kid. It’s a thrill and a pleasure every month to get those figures in the mail, and the methods of recreating characters and balancing the popular with the obscure is fascinating.

The other side of that is all of the problems this line has had with quality control, customer service, timeliness, and pricing. No matter how you slice it, you are paying $28.70 (or more, depending on your shipping method) for a six-inch-scale action figure. And no matter how cool the figure is, that sucks.

Comic Book Wednesday - June Update

I left my thumb drive at home, so I can’t work on the fifteen different posts I have in progress right now. Thankfully, I do have my backup drive, so I can use one of my old comic book posts and work on a Comic Book Update.

I’d love to do this monthly, but it doesn’t ever seem to happen. I guess that’s fine since I’d really like more than a single issue of a comic to have gone by before I start talking about it. I haven’t taken an inventory lately, so I might very well forget about a title I’m reading. If I do, I’m going to drop it because it obviously isn’t all that great.

Toy Review – Dark Knight Rises Movie Masters Alfred Pennyworth By Mattel

On the one hand it is ridiculous that it has taken this long for Mattel to get around to making an action figure of the second-most-important living character in the Batman mythos. On the other hand, Mattel just released a figure of a fucking butler.

Toy Review – Dark Knight Rises Movie Masters Bane By Mattel

Oh, Bane, you cinematic enigma.

Are you from the Caribbean? Is your mask keeping you alive? Will you use Venom at all? What’s up with that jacket that makes you look like Tom Selleck from Quincy Down Under? Or do I mean Steven Segal from On Deadly Ground? Holy shit – a Michael Caine connection! Is there something in his contract where his costars have to wear sheepskin sometimes? Why the shit aren’t you wearing a luchador mask?

Prometheus TONIGHT!

When I first heard of the rumored connections between Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Alien and his newest movie, Prometheus, I set my mind to avoiding any and all spoilers. Scott himself seemed to be doing his best to deflect questions about this and even the studio was somewhat coy about revealing too much for a while. I didn’t click on any links, I scrolled past pictures any time I saw them, and I didn’t “Like” the movie on Facebook. I was determined to go into Prometheus with as little information as possible and experience it with a completely open mind.

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Slush Head By Mattel

I didn’t know I wanted this guy until I saw he was coming out.

I didn’t pay a whole heck of a lot of attention to New Adventures of He-Man. I did buy a couple of the toys just because I was already a collector and used to pick up anything I thought looked cool. I had He-Man and Skeletor and while I thought they were interesting updates to the old He-Man concept, I did realize I didn’t want to start a whole new line.

Wrestling Update/Impact Wrestling - 5/31/2012

Note: I wrote this before I watched Monday's RAW, where Michael Cole once again took up the role of Worst Person on Television.

So I heard Joey Ryan was going to be on Impact last Thursday night.

I like Joey Ryan and think he’s got a great character. He’s solid in the ring and just generally one of those guys that interests me all around as a wrestler. I follow the guy on Twitter and Facebook and check out his matches when he posts them.

So I was curious to see what he was going to be doing on Impact.

Toy Review – Dark Knight Rises Movie Masters Batman By Mattel

I am a big fan of Mattel’s Movie Masters line.

Yes, I know I sold all of my Green Lantern Movie Masters on eBay. But that movie absolutely sucked balls and the toys just sort of sat there on the shelf reminding me of that fact. They were perfectly good, they just represented suckage. Also, it would have taken way too much effort on my part to complete the line and I couldn’t just have an unfinished set. And, if I had finished the set I would have had to build that utterly retarded Parallax build-a-figure and I didn’t want that piece of shit anywhere near my nice toy collection.

Goodbye, Biscuits & Gravy

            I do believe I might be ready to not go to The Clermont Lounge for a good, long time.

I’ve been feeling that way since Mrs. Troublemaker’s last birthday. Don’t get me wrong - we had an absolutely awesome time. Tons of our friends came out and DJ Quasi Mandisco was amazing. I do believe he is the best live DJ I’ve heard. Well, maybe not the best, but everything he played was to my tastes and my taste is impeccable. So yes – he is the best. It was a truly great night where everybody had a blast and I’ll be hard-pressed to top it for her big birthday next year.

But no matter how much fun it may be, The Clermont is a nasty, nasty place. You can’t touch anything, the floor is so sticky you can’t ever move your chair out of people’s way, the strippers are totally gross, and you go home smelling like you’ve spent an evening in the slave pits of Mordor. I’ve never had a bad time there, but I feel we’ve just been there a bit too much lately. Like, I’ve been waiting for somebody to say, “Wow. You guys are going to The Clermont again?” and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the guy that’s at The Clermont all the time.