Triple Toy Threat!

This week, I was invited to two advance movie screenings. One starred Scarlet Witch, Shadow King, & Mantis. The other starred Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, & Punisher. So I went to the first. Not only did I enjoy it very much, it’s tangentially in the nerdy wheelhouse. Unfortunately I’m not supposed to tell you about it because of a stupid NDA which prevents me from building advance buzz for the movie without being subject to legal action.  Unless the point of that clause is reverse psychology. Even with the astronomical odds of the studio reading my blog, I’ll err on the side of paranoia & talk toys today.

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The Bradford Exchange of Canada is producing a talking 12″ Justin Trudeau doll! Several articles are reporting that this is a bizarre product, seemingly oblivious to the fact that replicas of prominent political leaders are quite common in the high end 1/6 scale doll world. What’s actually bizarre is that the Bradford Exchange & its international affiliate websites refuse to sell this Prime Minister effigy outside of Canada!

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Speaking of dreamy world leaders, here’s T’Challa!

Includes authentic Wakandan jungle diorama!

2016’s Final Casualty Will Be Itself

Welcome to the first blog after our one hundredth! It’s also the last I’ll be writing this year. We’re almost out of 2016! At first I thought people were overreacting about how bad 2016 was, but the year wore me down too. Even my first publisher went belly up. This is specifically not a retrospective post, however, because the year hasn’t finished yet.

To the future we must point our gaze! The big question is now whether 2016 will be slain by the greenery of 2017 or will this year snuff itself out?  Good riddance to 2016! Welcome, 2017!* Now I’ll use the metaphor of annual death & rebirth to segue into an iZombie & X-Men mashup that loses its mirth if you analyze it within the bounds of either fandom.

Both Anna Paquin & Rose McIver were in The Piano!

Collector’s Edition Blog #100!

This is my hundredth blog! I don’t believe it either! Arithmomaniac readers may notice that there’s actually 101 entries on this blog, but I don’t count my reblog of Cain S. Latrani’s review of The Dolorous Adventure of Brother Banenose.  Contrariwise this one is full of my own substantive content! I made it to 100 installments of Matt The Catania in under two years by sometimes posting twice a week. See, I can be productive when there’s no immediate monetary gain! To celebrate this milestone, I’m writing about whatever I damn well please (as opposed to those previous ninety-nine posts)!

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The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is Marvel’s most delightful comic book. In other news, you can describe water in three states. This is a comic book that’s unashamed of making you learn stuff like how to count to thirty-one on each hand. Eventually it will teach me an entire college education’s worth of computer programming at a fraction of the cost! Where else can you get a Choose Your Own Adventure comic about defeating Swarm, the breakout villain of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark? (Note to self: publish your review of S-M: TOTD while it’s still timely!) Marvel really should’ve put the romance cover to the second #8 (now do you see the folly of constantly cancelling & restarting series?) as the cover for the fourth volume to better match its title, “I Kissed A Squirrel & I Liked It.” (Sadly it lacks Squirrel Girl’s story from Secret Wars: Secret Love.) It, along with Mark Waid’s Daredevil, are the only things that have ever made me care about the Mole Man. Who knew Tricephalous was such a romantic? HawkGuy is the worst, bro!

Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe! thankfully skews closer to Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe than Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe. Did you know I was the first customer to get it signed by Erica Henderson & Ryan North the World’s Tallest Torontonian at NYCC? I read it months ago but didn’t review it until now because I don’t being on top of things.

I asked for the personalization to prevent me from selling it … unless I find someone else named Matt.

I just wanted proof of the custom inscription, by my cat just had to make herself the center of photographic attention.

This Custom Is A Rogue One

Yes, you read the headline right. This custom is a Rogue one. It’s just not a Rogue One custom. Now that I’ve lured all you Star Wars fans in, gaze upon my custom X-Men: Evolution Rogue action figure! (Now with moderately improved photographs! Who would’ve thunk daylight would’ve been the missing ingredient?)

This custom began its life as an X-Treme Rogue, unfortunately afflicted with some broken joints.  Once I got a replacement, I made this one into goth Rogue from X-Men: Evolution since Toy Biz never made one. The first was fortuitously misassembled with the sleeveless arms of her long-haired variant to make this easier. Her pallid complexion gets washed out in photographs, but I assure you she’s the spitting image of legitimutant vampire Kate Beckinsale.

I’m a bit disappointed this look never made it into mainline continuity like Logan’s lame second suit, inferior to the orange original. The closest it got was this Julie Bell cover where the the green has sadly been replaced by icky yellow. Even with model sheets, promo images, & clips, matching the cartoon colors proved tricky because animators hate consistency. It took me until recently to get the shoulder pads right. In violation of cartoon accuracy, I gave her the collar she only wore in civilian attire.  I extended the green down her sleeves since it’s Rogue’s signature color. Part of me wants to repaint her boots & gloves green too for color unity. The other part of me likes that this costume has so many colors in it to reflect Rogue absorbing various powers. So tell me whether or not I should keep tinkering with it. My easily malleable mind might even be swayed by you.

If you prefer this mutie belle when she leeches all the alien-augmented muscle mass out of Ms. Marvel, check out my other Rogue custom.

Day Of The Jackal Lantern!

Guess what I made this year for pumpkin carving?

It’s a jackal lantern! (Curse your spoiler, you dumb headline!) Get it? Sometimes puns are sight gags too! I was considering giving it a Wedjat Eye to decrease the resemblance to an aardvark until I noticed Anubis isn’t usually depicted with one. Learning that real jackals don’t look as classy as ancient Egyptians led me to believe may be the biggest disappointment of my life since I discovered pumpkin pie doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as I imagined pumpkins ought to taste. (Reality never meets my great expectations!) My cat is too scaredy to eat in the same room as the Jack-o-lantern. She was fine with my Ewok-o-lantern, but she draws a line in the litter at canines.

Suicide Squad Goals

The difference between Suicide Squad & the Rio Olympics is that the athletes volunteered.

Just as it broke the August box office record set by the superior Guardians of the Galaxy, my really wordy review of Suicide Squad helped me break some of my own records. August 7, 2016 had my highest number of views so far! I’ve also finally exceeded the amount of visitors I had last year. Thank you, highly polarizing movie! (I guess you helped too, Preacher season one review that I posted the same week.) Why must I always get the best exposure when my book isn’t in print?

With the brutal war raging between movie critics & movie makers,WB might as well quote me on the the DVD. “Suicide Squad is perfectly adequate!”

The other news to pop up over the weekend is the apparently terrible music video for Skrillex’s & Rick Ross’s  “Pink Cadillac Purple Lamborghini” starring Jared Leto’s Joker. Leto was cast specifically so his anti-charm would make the protagonists of BVS:DOJ retroactively endearing, so I’m confident in agreeing that it’s a lousy music video without having seen it. I’m not even going to link it because friends don’t let friends witness bad music videos. People who were paid to endure it tell me it’s like “I’m On A Boat” with all the mirth excised. This song is also about the wrong car. He drove a purple Infiniti G35 Vaydor in the movie.

Did you know there’s already plans for a Harley Quinn movie?  On one paw this could be good since it seemed like Harley’s character development wound up mostly on the cutting room floor. On the other paw, I really don’t want more of the Harley & Joker power couple that David Ayer foisted upon us. He completely missed the point of Harley being a fun yet sympathetic villainess in a dysfunctional relationship. Movie Harley was as much of an unrepentant garbage person as the Joker. It’s only when she was separated from him that she displayed any comedic charm. I’d be all aboard this spinoff if they ditched Suicide Squad’s continuity in favor of what Paul Dini intended.

I wish Mattel released all the figures needed to build Killer Croc at the same. I wish more that he was a figure I could just buy instead of being a BAF. (Well there is a better looking DC Collectibles edition on the way but it sadly lacks the option to go shirtless.) But what I wish most is that the main antagonist had an action figure. Where’s Enchantress?

Prioritize her fancy costume over the grimy one, Mattel & DC Collectibles!

The Joker’s panda henchman got one, & he’s even less of a character than Slipknot! And if Mattel can make not one but but two incredibly banal versions of Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, surely it can make one Amanda Waller.

Who You Gonna Call About Ecto-Cooler?

After years of separation, I finally got my paws on Hi-C Ecto-Cooler again! Sadly, I was not among the bloggers that received a promo for it with bonus slime. The store only had juice boxes instead of the large aluminum cans I prefer. (I did see Ghostbusters-branded Twinkies as well, but I didn’t get them because they were the kind that lacked green filing. Speaking of which, Key Lime TastyKakes don’t have enough.) I miss having Slimer on the label. Since he’s been in the ads for the Ghostbusters reboot that seem to spoil a huge plot development for the secretary, I don’t see why Slimer wouldn’t be back here too for nostalgic corporate synergy. Supposedly he’s absent because Coca-Cola isn’t allowed to use him as a celebrity endorsement anymore?

The juice boxes are genuinely smaller than they were when I was a youngling. After one hearty sip, they’re practically drained. This is a fiendish ploy to make me drink all the cartons in a single sitting then buy more. The included straws are too opaque, so you can’t tell you’re drinking something green through them. As someone who wants to consume all the green things, this is half the fun of Ecto-Cooler. I did confirm that it is still green by pouring it into a glass, but that felt like too much effort on my part when Hi-C could’ve just issued clear straws with it.

The Ecto-Cooler itself tasted … fine? I recall it tasting the same albeit more addictive. I guess from  drinking Juicy Juice’s & Langers’ orange-cocktail juices in the intervening years my palate is no longer wowed by Ecto-Cooler. You brought my ambivalence upon yourself by holding out, Coca-Cola! If I can find it in a format that’s not tiny juice boxes, I may give it another go. Hopefully Coca-Cola will keep Ecto-Cooler on shelves for years to come regardless of how the latest reboot performs at the box office. (I now realize that naming the classic cartoon The Real Ghostbusters is as misleading as HBO billing that made-up show as True Detective.) I am interested to see if a new generation that never tasted Ecto-Cooler before embraces it.

Now let’s see if just mentioning the newest Ghostbusters turns my comments section in a dumpster fire!