BotCon's continued to roll out the exclusive toy previews.  Last week we got Breakdown, who is roughly the fifteen millionth Breakdown BotCon has done in its time.  But the first in G1 colors!  And the first that referenced his head design in the original cartoon, which was entirely different from the one his toy had.

But I've sort of hit Breakdown saturation, so I didn't blog about it.

This week, though, I'm excited again.  BotCon's revealed their third toy, Drag Strip, who's also in original Drag Strip colors.  ...as a girl.  Ha ha ha.  She's been female-ized!  There's only so many sports car molds in the Animated toyline, see, and Arcee happened to be one of them.  So this is a thing that has happened.

I'm actually all for it.  Arcee's a great mold, and the Transformers universe can use more chicks.  Especially yellow ones.  The BotCon Twitter feed seems to suggest she's characterized as Kill Bill's the Black Mamba, who was also a sword-wielding yellow chick.  Watch out for your eyes!

NOTE: No, you are not the first and/or only person to come here and make a HUR HUR DRAG AMIRITE?? joke.  They tire me.  They will be deleted.  If you want them, try every single other Transformers forum or blog on the face of the planet.

Just 'cuz Shortpacked! only runs M-W-F on non-story weeks doesn't mean I'm taking a nap today!  There's still new comics from me over at Dumbing of Age.

Today's strip was about "Spine Buster" Batman, but it's far from the weirdest thing in the current Batman: Brave and the Bold wave of action figures. It's not even the only thing related to spinal injury infliction! There's also "Spine Shocker" Batman, who comes with a giant serrated taser weapon. And let's not forget "Chainsaw Attack" Batman who, yes, comes with a giant chainsaw. Batman's parents weren't killed by a giant chainsaw, so hacking his enemies' limbs off one by one is well within his moral code.

But, really, the strangest is "Kickpuncher" The Joker. I was in the middle of my honeymoon when my friend Graham alerted me to this toy's existence. It was that important. See, Kickpuncher is a B-movie superhero within the world of NBC's Community, which is absolutely the best thing on television. Kickpuncher's superpower is that his punches have the power of kicks. He is amazing and it is a crime that NBC's webstore has zero Kickpuncher merchandise.

"Kickpuncher" The Joker has to be a reference to Kickpuncher of NBC's Community.  I mean, come on.  What the hell else would explain this?  It's insane.  It's absolutely insane.  And it's so bittersweet.  Mattel was sure to put a "TM" symbol after Kickpuncher, so unless Mattel cranks out some Community toys, any Kickpuncher toy is gonna have some legal hurdles.  It's awesome and terrible at the same time.  My soul burns.

"Kickpuncher" The Joker comes with a giant hand-held Bat-shaped brass knuckles weapon.  It's obviously recycled from some previous Batman figure, because, well, it's a Bat-shaped brass knuckles weapon.  Which he holds like a gun or crossbow.  Look, I don't know.  Just go with it.

It doesn't seem fair, what with Batman coming after his spine with chainsaws.

As soon as I had Reveal the Shield Jazz in my hands, I knew that there'd quickly be a Reprolabels "upgrade" set for it.  Since most of Jazz's paint was used up giving him what racing deco he has (plus, uh, painting his forearms white), there wasn't bound to be much budget left for paint elsewhere.  So his rear window and taillights are unpainted.  If Reprolabels didn't exist, that's the kind of thing I'd actually bother to try to paint myself.  But they do and so I won't!

The thing of biggest concern to me was the Rub Sign on his roof.  The Reprolabels set includes new stripe stickers that complete the full length from hood to trunk, but since it's a more intricate stripe than the one the toy has, I couldn't just put the missing trunk stripe stickers on and call it a day.  Then it wouldn't match!  But putting the roof stripe on meant potentially covering up the Rub Sign.  That just wouldn't do.

Thankfully, I was able to peel the Rub Sign off without any problem, and it was still sticky enough afterwards to plop it right back on after I'd applied the new roof stripe sticker.  I was even able to center it a little better, so that's another plus.  Mission accomplished!

The set gives you an option between putting a "real" Autobot symbol on his chest/hood or leaving it blank.  Since I was keeping the Rub Sign, I chose the blank option, of course.  That's not the only option on the sheet.  Hell, half of his sticker sheet is a choice between four different sponsor decoes.  You can either have everything say "MARTINI RACING" like on the original toy, have it say either "AUTOBOT JAZZ" or "AGENT MEISTER" like on the reissues of the original toy, or have the text left blank.  Choosing between these was actually a little rough.  I mean, the "MEISTER" stickers were never a real option, but the other three were all vaguely appealing.  In the end, I decided to go for original toy accuracy and choose the "MARTINI" stickers.  Those go on the doors, on the spoiler, and on the top of the windshield.

The last option it gives you is between two personalized license plates.  You can choose between "JAZZ" or "1984."  I chose... neither!  Or both, depending on how you look at it.  Because Jazz's transformation slices up the rear end of the car like a stack of party cheese, each license plate sticker is actually four stickers, each with one character on them.  J-A-Z-Z or 1-9-8-4.  I decided to use J-A-Z-1, because the idea of Jazz  himself not being able to nab his name for his vanity license plate amused me.  Plus, well, it looks more like a license plate that way.

In the end, I'm pretty damn happy.  Jazz looks a little less bare, plus putting on stickers is fun.  And I feel like he's personalized.  He's mine, dammit!  Nobody else's Jazz has "JAZ1" on their license plate!  ...unless you steal my idea.

*glare*

(Here's the toy before stickers.)

It's that time again!  And same as last year, the Transformers Wiki is sending me and another fellow over to Times Square in New York this weekend for  Hasbro's Toy Fair 2011 Collectors Event, where we'll be learning about G.I. Joe, Transformers, Marvel, Star Wars, and all sorts of other things.  But, really, we'll be there for the Transformers.  Coming with me this year is Matthew Karpowich, otherwise known as "Monzo" on the Internet.  He's our dude who sets up this stuff, and was the guy who netted us this opportunity for the first time last year, so he's more than earned his right to attend.  Plus he's got a mind like a steel trap.  I won't even have to pay attention.

Because Toy Fair stuff is gearing up, USA Today gives us a look at the first Transformers Prime toy, Deluxe Class Arcee!  Woooooo!  Man, I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull these off, especially Arcee, but they really seem to have done it.  I mean, I was trusting Hasbro/Tomy to be able to do so, I guess, since, well, they managed to succeed at engineering Animated-style toys, but it's hard to truly believe until you see it.

So here we are.

UPDATE: Oh, hey, and UGO has Starscream.

UPDATE 2: And IGN has Bumblebee.

UPDATE 3: And Ain't it Cool News has a Prime/Megs/kids giftset.

On this day in 1988, "I Risk My Life For Earth" first aired in Japan.  It was an episode of Headmasters, Japan's first domestic Transformers series.

It is not a great episode.

However, Omni Productions dubbed it into something resembling English for Malaysia and Singapore.  It is through this dub that the episode becomes fantastic.  I give you: "Life Can Be Sacrificed for Peace on Earth."



Part 2
Part 3

And just think, it could have been even better.  The dialog scripts for these episodes called Scorponok "Chandler."  Yes.  Chandler.

Hey, remember last year when Tfwiki.net and Allspark.com put their money together to get a 25-year-old catalog off eBay and put the unused money towards Hasbro Childrens Hospital?  Well, we're auctioning it back into the wild, with the full proceeds going towards that same charity.  Go take a look.

Those of you who watch my DeviantArt account have seen this already, but here's some Friendship Is Magic-style art of Sodomuffin.  It's the only content-protected image on my DA account.

Sodomuffin is the creation of my pal Ron.  His birthday was this week, so Sodomuffin's return is sort of a little birthday present to him.  (Here's her original appearance in Shortpacked!.)

When you become known for certain things, sometimes you have to live up to your reputation.  For example, if you regularly follow this blog, you know that I love orange toys.  The more obnoxious, the better.  You also know that I love Lex Luthor in Power Suit Armor.  I especially love Lex Luthor in Power Suit Armor when he's making a goofy face.

And so this thing existed.

I mean, in one way, I'm kind of meh about it.  I didn't read any Darkest Night or Brightest Day whatever.  I've never read the Sinestro Corps.  I've never read a single Green Lantern book in my life.  I just don't really care about Green Lantern.  I liked John Stewart a lot in Justice League, but that's the extent of my interest in all things Green Lantern.  If I see the Green Lantern film this summer, it will be because I am a bigger fan of Ryan Reynolds.

But... bright translucent Lex Luthor in his Power Suit with a goofy-ass face.

Another wrinkle in my decision was learning that DC Universe Classics is also going to be doing a version of "Orange Lantern Lex Luthor" or whatever.  Mattel's stuff is way more poseable than DC Direct's, so it would be a more fun toy to fiddle with.  But it didn't have the goofy face.  I had to choose between better toy or goofy face.

I guess I chose goofy face.