The Age of Ultron Indeed

So the next Avengers movie will be titled THE AVENGERS:THE AGE OF ULTRON.  Sounds good to me!  Ultron is a classic Avengers foe, and is perfectly suited for the big screen.  My only concern is that Hank Pym will not be involved in his creation, it he was in the comics.  But, in Joss we trust, so I have the utmost confidence that Mr. Whedon will deliver a blockbuster in what is shaping up to be a year of blockbusters.  Seriously, 2015 is going to be loaded, I can't wait!

So if Dr. Pym isn't Ultron's creator in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who is?  Well, my money is on Jarvis.  Picture this: Javis' AI goes haywire and somehow inhabits an experimental admantium suit Tony Stark was working on....

As excited as I am for the next Avengers movie, we still have a Thor, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy to look forward to, so I can wait.

Return to Customizing

I have been customizing action figures for over twenty years.  My first real attempt to customize an entire figure was making Forge out of a Toy Biz Punisher figure using Testors enamel paint.  The finished product was shiny, the paint was tacky for weeks, and Forge was saddled with a beady pair of eyes, but it at least looked like who is was supposed to, and that was good enough for me.  And since then I have been customizing figures as a hobby.

While I started out customizing super hero figures, GI Joe is the line where I have done the most work.  8 years ago I stumbled on joecustoms.com and haven't left since.  If you have never been there, I highly recommend checking it out, in addition to featuring some of the most incredible customized action figures you have ever seen, its also the friendliest GI Joe fan site out there.  The customizers there are more than willing to share their tips and trick to improve your customizing skills, and give you feedback on any projects you are currently working on.  When you finish your figure, you can even upload pictures of it for free and share them with the world.  And don't be intimidated, everyone has to start somewhere, see my Forge story above. 

While I said GI Joe is where I've done the most work, the scale of the figures I work on changes often.  I started out on 3 3/4" figures, and have recently began to focus on the original 12" figures from my childhood.  Here are a few sample of things I have done lately, enjoy!

Cobra CommBAT

From the 2013 GI Joe Convention in Indianapolis

Man of Evil

I got tired of waiting for the GI Joe Collectors Club to send me my MOE through the mail, so I made a cast of the Foreign GI Joe head and mad one myself.

Arctic Bulletman

From the 2012 GI Joe Convention in New Orleans

   

 Anton Janus, MARS Chief Geneticist

Same head mold as the Man of Evil, just painted differently and the hair and goatee are flocked.

With GI Joe's presence in the toy aisle shrinking away to almost nothing, customizing is a great way to keep the spirit of the line going, because to me, life with GI Joe in it is a whole lot better than the alternative!

What a long, strange summer it's been!

Wow, where does the time go?!  One minute I'm getting back from Joecon in Indy, and the next thing I know it's three months later!  As long as that's been, there still hasn't been any new GI Joe Retaliation product out, and what has been out is being clearanced out at Target, so looking at it one way, I have beat Hasbro to the punch with new product!

Anyway, this is my notice that I am back, and this is the first of what I hope will be a regular series of posts.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get my F5 finger warmed up for when hasbrotoyshop.com puts out their SDCC Exclusives!

A Crisis in Packaging

Mattel gets a lot of grief over their action figures, and most of it is richly deserved, but every once in a while they do something right.  In this case, it's the packaging for the Infinite Heroes Supergirl figure.  Supergirl is part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths set, which was exclusively available at Mattycollector.com, but somehow found its way to a Tuesday Morning store in Ankeny, Iowa. 

This beauty caught my eye with its homage to the classic cover for issue #7, the issue where Supergirl dies at the hands of the Anti-Monitor.  The Superman seen here is just a cardboard insert, but it still looks pretty cool "holding" Supergirl. 

You couldn't beat the price: $1.99, so i bought it and the Flash figure with the horrified look on his face from the same set.  I'll leave them both on the card, because as great as the packaging is, the figures inside are still really, really bad.

Dreadnoks at Joecon: Drive It Like You Stole It!

Yes, the cheapo video camera strikes again!  I took it to Joecon in Indianapolis and drove it around the sales floor on Sunday.  The vehicle this time is the Dreadnok Thunder Cruiser I made for the 2007 Convention.  I was all set to take the SCAR, but this vehicle was more nimble and easier to drive.  Enjoy.

Joecon 2013 Haul

I unpacked everything I picked up at Joecon, and as always, there's way more there than I thought!

One of my favorite things I picked up was the 2008 12" Convention set "Search for the Sasquatch".  I had been wanting to pick one up for years, and the GIJCC had a special on 2 con sets for $200, so I jumped all over it.

Joecon 2013: The Good, The Bad, and The meh

Another Joecon is in the books, and after a couple of days of resting and reflecting I am ready to go over my experience for the 4 day event.  This year’s convention in Indianapolis was my 7^th one, and as with all of the others before it, it had its highs, lows, and things that were just kind of there.  So without further ado, here is my rundown.

The Good

•      Friends- The biggest draw of Joecon for me is meeting up with my friends from Joecustoms.com, Codename: Iowa, The Trenches and others from the various G.I. Joe boards I frequent.  I remember back to my first Joecon in 2002, and how I wandered around not really talking with other collectors and generally missing out on the camaraderie that makes these events so special.  Communicating on meesage boards is great, but there’s nothing like talking G.I. Joe in person with others who are as passionate as you are about everyone’s favorite Real American Hero.

•       Mary McDonald-Lewis and Bill Ratner- Without a doubt, the nicest, friendliest, and most engaging guests ever at Joecon.  They took the time to talk with everyone who stopped by for an autograph and were genuinely interested in what people had to say.  Bill Ratner even had his own ice breakers when you went up to meet him.  When I approached him he looked at my con badge not saw I was from Iowa and mentioned that he was born in a hospital in Des Moines, at which point we started talking about Iowa and what I did for a living.  I could have stayed and talked with him for a long time, but I noticed the line behind me was starting to back up, so I told him thank you very much and moved on.  I hope they both had as good a time meeting us Joe fans as we did meeting them, they can come back anytime!

•      The Convention Hotel- The JW Marriott was a great place to hold the convention.  The staff was extremely friendly and accommodating, and the convention itself was very close to the elevators to the rooms, which is nice if you had your arms loaded with goodies!  Indianapolis itself is set up perfectly for events like this, a mall and places to eat were all within easy walking distance of the hotel.  Of the seven conventions I have been to, this was the most trouble-free location.

The Bad

•      The Lines- I know the lines for registration and exclusives are always bad, but this year they seemed to be a little bit worse.  Instead of separate lines for cash and credit card purchases there was one huge line that only split into two at the very end.  The total elapsed time for me to pick up my registration and exclusives was almost four hours.  People have been suggesting that the GIJCC make the exclusives available for preorder to cut down on the time in line, but they seem determined to keep things the way they are, so expect long line to remain a part of the Joecon experience.

•      Hasbro- To say Hasbro’s presence this year at Joecon was a minimal would be an understatement.  In years past they had a display set up with cases full of upcoming products, the entire G.I. Joe production staff, and some sort of giveaway to get fans pumped up for the line.  This year we had one case, one table, John Warden, and Derryl DePriest, and that was it.  They brought out new figures from the concept vault for the last hour the dealer’s room was open on Saturday, and then promptly left that night like Bob Irsay moving the Colts out of Baltimore in 1984.  You would think that in a year when G.I. JOE:RETALIATION was released they would have done a little more than this, but instead they chose to mail in this year’s convention appearance, something that doesn’t bode well for the brand going into its 50^th anniversary next year.

•      The Dealers Room- This was the smallest Dealers Room of the seven conventions I have been to.  And of the ones that were there, the product selection left a lot to be desired.  Most of my money went to the GIJCC and their exclusives, although I did manage to snag a complete MASS Device for $30.  A lot of 12” were disappointed by the lack of 12” product, which has been on the decline for a few years, and I can’t say as I blame them, I collect 12” and 3 3/4” figures, and there just wasn’t a lot of that product for sale this convention.

The meh

•      The Awards Dinner/Casino Night- The food was good, but unless you had at least $50,000 in casino money you weren’t going to get squat at the auction.  I know a group of people who pooled their money and had over $73,000 for the auction and left empty handed while others seemed to win just about everything.  I think maybe next time I will skip this event.

•         The Overall Mood- At times it was hard to tell if this was a G.I. Joe convention or memorial service.  Instead of being excited about a brand that had the #1 movie in the world, Hasbro seemed like it was almost a burden to them to be there at all, the 12” collectors were disappointed, there wasn’t any new reveals this time, and the last convention was only 9 months ago, all of which gave the convention a somber tone.  As much fun as I had it seemed like it could have been so much more.