Toy Tribute: Deanna Troi

For the first entry in the ST:TNG Archive featuring one of the main crew members, I thought I'd start with the one and only Deanna Troi. Deanna wasn't one of my favorite characters from the TNG cast, though. Maybe that's because her character was so underutilized. According to the book, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Continuing Mission, Marina Sirtis (the actress who played Troi) claimed that the writers didn't know what to do with her character because she was psychic and therefore a plot destroyer. It was difficult to write around her ability to read the minds of the antagonists and end the story prematurely. But another reason I was never a big Deanna fan is that I always found her character to be repetitive. Guinan often fulfilled the "character who senses something wrong" shoes with less plot-destruction and more plot-construction. Anyway, let's check out all the 4.5" figures related to Deanna Troi from the classic Playmates line.

Toy Review: Bounty Hunters 30th Anniversary 4-LOM and Zuckuss (Star Wars Celebration V Exclusive)

I'm a Star Wars burn-out. After about a decade of heavy collecting that started in 1995, I effectively called it quits after Revenge of the Sith. There's only so much that can be done with the property and the action figure line was getting more than a little repetitive. To lure me back at this point, Hasbro has to either: 1) Make figures of characters that haven't been done before or are in dire need of an upgrade. Yet another insignificantly modified version of Luke, Vader, Boba Fett, or Stormtrooper isn't going to impress me. 2) Appeal to my nostalgia. I wash my hands of the prequels and although the Clone Wars animated figures are kind of cool, I'm not interested in collecting an entirely different style. So along comes this Celebration V exclusive 4-LOM and Zuckuss 2-pack which, although it contains figures we've seen before (and therefore fails requirement #1), they're represented in the same style as the vintage figures (which fulfills requirement #2). Let's check them out!

Toy Pix: Matt's Soundwave Collection

When I went to the Baltimore Comic Con, I stopped by my friend Matt's place and checked out his Soundwave collection. He's taken it upon himself to get every G1 Soundwave packaging/figure variant. And I'm not talking about the periodic TRU reissue from the 2000s, but the real G1 Soundwave releases from the mid-80's heyday of Transformers. There are more packaging variants than you might think, so it's a pretty daunting task. Check out these pics of Matt's incredible collection.

Toy Review: Black Lantern Batman (Blackest Night Wave 5)

I think I've developed an affinity for collecting weird Batman figures. I'm not talking about the Batmen that you often see in the animated lines that are colored in a kaleidoscope of random hues, packaged with whatever uncongruous accessory some toy exec thinks will appeal to kids. I'm talking about Batmen that are thematically and fundamentally strange, drastic deviants from the usual Batman characterizations. Two-Face as Batman is a great example of this (in fact, my review of the figure here probably jump-started this new collecting obsession), as is Batzarro and Composite Superman. And to continue my exploration into Bat-weirdness, I decided to pick up Black Lantern Batman, which is basically a zombified Batman. Let's check him out!