Nukem if you've got 'em...

...and if you ain't got 'em?


So it's 6.01am, alarm blares, clumsy hand reaches to stifle the unwelcome sound of enforced consciousness.
What's the first vision that greets you in your waking life?

Valkyrie pouring your coffee? Quadrupedal fur ball licking your face? Your own hand trying to block out the impending light of dawn?

Or, like me, is there a fifty/fifty chance you're greeted by the proverbial chauvinist cigar-chomper? A steroid-built, bubblegum-chewing shaved-ape? A mega-macho, anti-hero, male-fantasy character produced by a bunch of mouth-breathing key-punchers?

Namely the Duke...

...coming into focus yet...?

...I gave in and got my first Neca figure. I have plenty of Mezco produced action-figures, never opened any of those, but this Neca figure didn't last 5 minutes without my greasy mits tearing into it.

...plenty nice write up...

More where that beautiful idiocy came from.

Tee Hee

I LIKE IT! (my only complaint is that I now spend hours under my work desk retrieving that 16mm cigar)

Now, let's recall where it all began.
If I say, "Remember the original Duke Nukem?", over half of the folks I'm asking instantly refer to Duke Nukem 3D, the first-person-shooter produced around 1996 .

Aww. No love for Apogee's 1991 PC platformer...? Crystal Caves? Secret Agent? Commander Keen?

If only the parents knew where this was going. Duke was always meant to have, what, attitude?
But heck, so does Sonic the Hedgehog.

I just don't see Sonic the Hedgehog smoking, womanizing and playing with poo in the dark future.

Anyways, the proof is in the pudding. And this is some seriously radio-active pudding. Neca have done well to capture the ludicrous beef-cake that is Duke Nukem.
Maybe too well...

Takin' a macro photograph of human skin is always disgusting, but one doesn't expect the same kinda' grotesque to be captured in toy form. The whole 'dark-wash on matte' effect kinda' worked out neat. There's also the nice random aspect to some of the detailing.
Unfortunately one of those 'random-aspects' wound up on Dukes top lip, making it appear as though he's caught a little Pig Cop intestine on his face during the heat of battle...

...or he's just really lazy at wiping his nose. I wouldn't put it past him.

He can do the whole dynamic pose shot. Basically though, your other action-figures will be privileged to recieve so much as a blase kick in the groin.

In aiming his weapon, he gives the impression he's not really paying close attention to where he's firing, which is probably about right with Duke. Considering Lady Luck is, well, a lady and all. Therefore putty in his hands (like all dames, right?).

Let's face it. The Duke figure is probably designed to sit around chomping stogies while the earth gets pulverized around him. Of course he is clutching a handgun in his downtime, but that's just Duke Nukem... he probably shaves with that thing.

16mm of carcinogenic goodness...

Mean.
C'mon, it ain' often you pick up an action-figure what smokes. That it is actually a removable accessory is not only hilarious, but hell for anybody who is tryin' to quit.

So, yeah. 3D Realms took their lil' side-scrollin' Apogee guy, gave him ceegars, sunnies and a penchant for the babes.
Gearbox Games took that guy and brought him into current 1st person gaming.
Finally Neca gives our evolved, some might say devovled, Duke the sculpted posey plastic treatment and voila! I'm a happier camper than before.

There are previous versions of Duke toys, plus some way funky extra-terrestrials in that line. Though I think this version of the Duke captures his 'bastardry' a little better.

Who knows, maybe one day we'll get to see a figure in his original 8-bit awesomeness.

Well, until they turn Commander Keen into a junky vampire...

..sigh, yep.

"If your picture is worth a thousand words, both could use a little improvement." - Rihia2k

Friend Or Foto...

It's Pizzadama...

To The Undeath...

Out With The Old, In With the New King...

"Do you not want to be in my gang?"

War is over if you want me...

Awwdama!...

"...but, but Hick's claw, no fair!..."

ROBOLECH...

My Not So Pretty...

He-Minion

Nep, Think I'll Just Do It Tomorrow...

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• GAME ON!
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•  "It's impossible to do anything tomorrow, you can only do it today" - Rihia2k 

Six In the City...

...or, Lust in Trenslation.

It shouldn't be that hard.

A mere 2504.35km South East across the water and, voila! I'm home.

In fact, it isn't that hard.

-"Horticultural experiment, now what did I say?"

-"Horticultural experiment, sir."

-"Good. Relevant economics?"

-"Why, Relevant economics, I heard."

-"How about, number six..."

-"..."

-"Hello?"

-"..."

-"Hello?!"

Maybe, just maybe, it's the accent.

You see, big words aren't the stumbling block, but I've been sent to the stationery section of a store when I asked if they had any pins. Apparently I'd been misunderstood as asking for a pen, which is pronounced 'pan'. Heaven forbid I ever need to enquire about an actual pan because I have no clue what pronounciation options I'm left with. I think, at any rate frying-pan works out as 'payen'.

Secretly I love it, and I'll compile a kiwi/aussie comparison list shortly.

What I don't love so much is when it gets numerical...

-"...and your phone number, sir?"

-"Sure, my mobile number is oh-four-one-nine-double six-double...um, hello?"

-"..."

What they heard is 'sex' in place o' 'six', it's a retarded in-joke across the Tasman.

Okay, okay I do pronounce 'fish' as 'fush', 'his' as 'hus', 'cat' as 'cet', etc.

Still, I get held up with an ,"I'm sorry?"
- "Six"
- "Was that six?"

... of course it was bloody six...

 In relaying numbers, what are the chances I said,"5, 4, 8, 8, sexual intercourse, sexual intercourse, 9, 3, 2"?

Slim I hope.

In fact, Aussie is such a slang-loving country, if I said ""5, 4, 8, 8, double rumpy-pumpy chiko roll, 9, 8, 8, silk purse from a sow's ear", I'd be perfectly understood.

So... adaptive as I am, I'm learning to adjust my 'sixes' to 'seexes', my 'thimbles' to theembles', and a two syllable word that risks ending itself in 'r' gets the 'ah' treatment. ie. lawy-ah, doct-ah, guvn-ah.

-"And what do you do for a living, Mrs. Gillard?"

-"Oh, I'm the Prime Minist-ah. Want some chiko roll?"

-"Nice."  

-"Hmm, Might pick up some Bundy from the Bottle-O before I hit Dubbo by way a' Coonabarabran to get rooted with my old mate."

 and now...

Rihia2k's thoroughly unhelpful and short list of Ocker to Kiwi translations;

****expletive bastardisation of english language warning****

• Ocker "f*ck off" = Kiwi "oh how interesting"
• Ocker "foowill" = Kiwi "fool"
• Ocker "scheeuwl" = Kiwi "school''
• Ocker "too easy, mate" = Kiwi "Ive looked into it & I'll eventually get around to it"
• Ocker "poet's friday" = Kiwi "dropping absolutely everything pending to leave work two hours early and get recreational / unconcious / intoxicated"
• Ocker "c*nt" = Kiwi "any human being, animal, object or plant"
• Ocker "bevan / bogan" = Kiwi "a casual person / the Prime Minister"
• Ocker "no worries" = Kiwi "may be used in place of any actual proper sentence"
•  Ocker "How ya going?" = Kiwi "I notice you have a crossbow bolt in your eye, and a spanner in your spleen but I like your bicycle"

 Heck, enough o' that, it's just too easy to rip into another language's lingo and pronunciation when it's so close to your own. Y'know what? Sometimes there's nothing quite as novel and foreign as that which is so very very similar, but undeniably different.

Greater political and cultural issues aside, Aussies are for the most part, nice, easy-going, casual people, definitely willing to lend a hand. (I find this is in some part due to my chameleon level adaptability, if I may be so immodest: Jack of All People - Master of No-one.)

The Aussie loves nothing if not a good yarn, to chew the fat, and I believe that it's the embracing of their cultural eccentricities that help these young western worlders from going truly insane.

Sorry, I mean Eensane.

"Being from a bi-cultural background, nothing cuts me up worse than a rascist cannibal" - rihia2k.

heh heh, geddit?

Don't Worry. Beast Happy.

Don't worry, beast happy now...

In the wonderful world of stuff, as anyone knows, there's always unlicensed, second banana merch.
Knock-offs, rip-offs, clones, bootlegs, facsimiles, copycats, call 'em what ya will, if you can obtain it, the no-frills budget-brand version is out there.

Depending on which side of the bed you got out of in the morning, there's multiples ways to view them.
On toys in particular, some are unintentionally hilarious - names lost in translation, novel attempts to cash in another popular line. Others are creepy, say an unlicensed Ben 10 with three pupils & backwards arms by accident, or Harry Potter with a huge blob of toxic looking red goo for hair, apparently lead-painted by a blind chimpanzee during an epileptic seizure.

Some companies have gotten things right in the past however. I'm thinking Sungold or Imperial in the 1980s, creating decent figures to play alongside Mattel's Masters of the Universe line, rather than stealing Mattel's concepts word for word. As a result they've achieved a lasting collectable status.

Not so for a billion of the Transformers knock-offs floating about our planet.
I'll head into a cheap-o store occasionally, purely for a chuckle.
To read names like Super Deformation Robot, Super Change Android, World Soldier Peace Fighter, or just to check out the absurd paint jobs and character profiles on the generic 'Knights' or 'Pirates' lines. Etcetera, etcetera.

How's that? Whoever created Beast Worriers (there's no country or manufacturer printed) didn't even break a sweat creating an original back story. Just stole it right outta' the Transformers Beast Wars handbook. Right down to naming the Maximals and Predacons. Optimus Primal, Megatron, Rattrap, and even throwing the generic Dinobot title in there.
I didn't follow Beast Wars very religiously at all, so didn't know Optimus Primal was a giant bat and Megatron a crocodile.

A laugh and a shame. These don't seem like overly terrible toy designs, but no matter how good our mystery manufacturer made 'em, that is always going to be overshadowed by the fact they wouldn't rustle up their own story concept.

"Never make assumptions based on opposites, water burns as surely as fire cleanses" - Rihia2k.

You have the bite to bear arms...

I don't kill stuff.
Basically. Okay, confess, in recent times I've dealt a mosquito a blow 'r two. That's mostly the influence of my dastardly other half however. Yep, the old set-the-boyfriend-on-the-mozzy syndrome.

Personally I got no probl'm chilling in the company of a cockroach, to many people's disgust I'll even be happy to feed said cockroach some jelly bean if it behaves itself.

On the subject of my other half, her mother doesn't like caterpillars. Really doesn't like them. Guess everyone's got something. For me it's plastic buttons - let's not go down this road.
A lot of folks'll think an irrational dislike of caterpillars is whacky, myself included, but I reckon I'm gonna' change that tune now.

I've been bitten by a generous array of God's glorious designs - mosquitoes, mites, fleas, ants (mmm, formic acid anyone?), cats, dogs-a-plenty (still bear a nose scar), horses, rats (heel to eyelid and everywhere in between), thigh-bruising geese, over-inquisitive goats, I'm sure the list goes on...

Actual accountable caterpillar may vary. (took this shot way back )

 Bleuaaargh!

Just kidding, I think it's gorgeous. But what isn't gorgeous, and nobody told me this is possible when I'm living in poison-paradise, Australia, is getting it's bristles good and in ya.

Lungs and eyes = particularly nasty.

O.K. technically not a bite, but the subsequent burn and itch of getting these hairs in yer thigh (thru jeans mind ya) is no fun.

"Yes, sir. Certainly I'll spend a day, dressed as a ghostbuster, operating a moon buggy with an atari joystick, from a cage 5 storeys up, firing high pressure water everywhere. Oh, yer gonna' pay me for that too? Bonus!"

Heh heh, alright, if you knew me you'd know a decent percentage of my juvenile mind helps fill a day of operating a boom lift and water-blasting walls as - yay, I'm playing Terminator!
Thus, a day of scrub-cutting and line-trimming (in what I can only describe as Poison Ivy's backyard) quickly gets turned by my imagination into - yay, I'm playing Predator!
That said, I'm still a perfectly competent and responsible worker.

One supposed solution to Caterpillar-quills all up in your shizzle, is to get adhesive tape and gently stick-and-peel it over the affected area to remove the fine hairs. Serious, how many Rangers are skipping thru the wilderness with back-packs full of adhesive tape?

I think they'll have to rewrite Predator just for me now...

Poncho - "You're hit! You're bleeding, man!"
Blain Cooper - "I ain't got time to bleed"
Poncho - "Oh, okay. Have you got time to duck?"
(EXPLOSION)
Blain - "..."
Poncho - "Oh, I also saw a caterpillar having a spasm on your trousers. Have you got time to see if it's gone, gently apply and remove adhesive tape, administer a little hydrocortisone, and resist the urge to scratch as it only spreads the hairs around?"
Blain - "It's Nam all over again!"
 
There's little more important to me right now than photoshopping a caterpillar to Jesse Ventura's face, but alas, my photoshop 'puter is outta commish.

You'll get by.

"Chances are, if you're not cheating at the game of life, I'll never see you on the cover of a magazine" - Rihia2k.

To Kilowoggingbird...

... er, it's not as racist as it sounds...

Who knows when a lifelong addiction to little manly man toys will rear it's articulated head?
On the hunt for asparagus, reaching over some old woman's head for the last two packets of tapioca flour, in the "do I, or do I not, want potato chips?" aisle.

As every child knows - gotta' get yer daily dose o' greens... especial if they're on clearance.

They made a Green Lantern movie. Oh, you knew that already? Fine, so anybody care to tell me why writers felt the need to make Hal Jordan another irresponsible comic-to-film cocky hot-head? Should we just blame  Ryan Reynold's Deadpool alone? Or does Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and Rogen's Green Hornet have somethin' doin' there?

C'mawn, Mr. Jordan was a total stick in the mud.

Welp. I sure wasn't going outta' my way for any Oa lantern by-products. So I shan't mention the bit where I stood in the aisle and literally flipped a coin to decide what alien I didn't need, but was taking home with the groceries anyway.

Heads and heads again - Kilowog... sweet. Pretty happy to see there was even a Stel in there at all.

My first true encounter with the Green Lantern of Earth, Mr. H. Jordan, was within the pages of a terribly penned JLA Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. As a kid I just couldn't get my head round the idea 'You can do anything cos' o' yer magic ring... absolutely anything! Um, except yellow'.
"That's a bit dicky!", I remember thinking, associating it with schoolyard games of tag involving colour. Or maybe Twister.
Obviously at that point I wasn't benefited with an awareness of the fear emotion as it relates to a colour in the DC universe... bla bla.

Aw, look like! Comes with a plastic pile of power-shot, which can be held any number of four ways (makes for a pretty cool club). This piece of jagged translucent junk arrives in lieu of knees, mind you.
There's somethin'. Scour the net for comments on GL movie figures - you'll be escaping the screen with a deluge of backwash comments regarding the whole poseability thing. You cannot win DC.

Look, folks, these figs have decidedly cool sculpts when compared with basically any 4" figure from a  movie in the last decade.
Ah, and that bitching about poseability? DC, you cannot win. I hear endlessly how Marvel, amongst others, have figures with too much articulation, about how they're dropping like rag doll flies after a play or two. Senór Kilowog Girder Limbs here? He'll do fine.

Oh, and for anybody unfamiliar with Kilowog... before you start dissing him on his porcine jawline just let me fill you in, he has genius level intellect. Sort of like a three-toed MacGyver. Of course, like every genius, that's gonna' come with sacrifices. Say, the knee-bending requirements to perform a squat thrust. Drill Sarge indeed...

Admittedly the GL film did a coupla' things for me.
1) got me all thinking on what Lantern knowledge I might possess from everything I've ever read.
2) had me marvelling at Sarsgaad's beautiful and prominent prosthetic head.

I distinctly recall owning an issue of Green Lantern: Mosaic, # 9, if I ain't wrong. Featurin' Tendon Ripper and John Stewart. Had some love for The Justice Society too, which gave me Earth's Alan Scott. My favourite human Lantern.

Really, I just want to say, "Why'd jou wait so long DC?"

Yep, fair t' say my scanner's in another country so that's one crap photo from the shelf, but look! Is that basically a fracking snake with an Oa power ring?? There's an absurd wealth of extra-terrestrials signed up to The Corps. Leaves me wondering why they didn't exploit this fact earlier. Kenner Super Power's Jordan was yer only real option as an 80's tyke. I wanna' fracking snake with a ring on, how hard is that to make?
Come on, Kenner. Just let a glob of melted goo spill outside of the mold, put a green splat onnit and name it Xk'lth from the planet F'rrdh. I very well might've asked my mother to buy it.

One last thing to think for.
Are there any villians to this GL movie toyline at all? Technically, Sinestro hasn't rebelled at this point, and I see no one tripping over Hector Hammond toys in the coffee aisle. Feel like a hunt and you miiight find a Fallen Guardian, but I reckon that's it.

Villains? Eh?

Feh, procure yerself a handful of moderately obscure action-figures and you've got your pissant space pirate gang right there!!

Overall I'm happy about the idea of Lantern figures making a decent scramble towards kid's toy-boxes across the globe. Alien GLs at that, not just four-limbed two-eyed humans anymore. It bodes well for imagination and while something might look like a sushi-roll or a clothes peg, spruce it up in some green tights, tack a ring on it. Hey presto - hero!

Oh, basic assortment GL figures also come with a ring, and who cares if it don't light up? Imagination is key where a Lantern comes into it, no? Need I mention the ring didn't fit me? My girlfriend wears it just fine though, and as she recites the oath straight off the packet, I'm checking my head size and giggling all creepy-like.
The ring chose her, that's fine, fine. Not jealous... (telekinetic head dance)
IT'S FINE!

"Televisions don't work when nobody is watching them.'' - Rihia2k.

We Don't Want The Youngblood...

But... we'll take it if it's on offer.

Normally I'm not trudging thru a junk market outta' necessity. Normally motive alpha would be combing the paru plastic beaches for toyish treasure. Normally I don't 'work' there.
Normally.

However, I was at said junk market today, obscenely early, last night's stir-fry on my breath... gimme coffee or gimme death. I swear I tried to turn my head, but if an action-figure is going to the bin I feel obliged, as if it's my absurd duty, to liberate it. One man's trash... yada yada...

There were two, but who wants a double shafting?

Really I'm cramped for space, but hey! Is there an intact action-figure in amongst all that shitey cardboard and plastic? Gimme that!

...whatever...he ain't so young...

Rob Liefeld's Youngblood, aw shucks, what a fad/phase that was. I think Image - I think Savage Drag, I think Savage Dragon action figs -I think TMNT crossovers...

I know, I know. Cats born in 1990 (that're 20 somethin' now) they'd be like "Ooh, Youngblood. I remember that..." whereas I'm more, "Oh, Youngblood...I remember that...".
When it comes to this '90s non-retro junk. Ah. Okay, lay down cardback.

...gee, Spawn, din't see that coming!...

Looking at this line up from '95, can't help thinking I dig basically every other character over Shaft. Honest - Shaft = last pick.
Badrock, Crypt, and Troll in particular have appeal.

Truth be told if Shaft was your favourite Image comics character, you were probably that dude what always played Ryu in Fighter, always went Haohmaru in Shodown, always chose Zero in Kombat. Worse, you got away with it because you always won.

... in case you intended to take an eye out...

 Aww, c'mon. Killrazor? Shi? Stryker? Grunge? Anyone but Shaft... he's just so... generic...

Some o' my bros were fairly gaga in the '90s for Image comics. "Grifter is sooo cool" - gambit rip-off with a military bent, anyone? He smokes, has an overcoat, and cool hair that defies the law of physics. I was, true blue, an X-man geek all over. Sticking to my safe super-powered soap operas from Marvel. Style over substance wi' that Image jazz, I'm tellin'ya! (plus a gazillion ads at the back of every issue)

Profile. If anyone gave a cracked cue-ball's tit...

Look, sometimes you can base your success as a character on whether or not Isaac Hayes has a song about you, but I got trouble recalling the lyrics 'carrot-top' or 'baby-blues' anywhere in Hayes' version of Shaft. I don't think 'Ivy-league jock' was in there either...

-"Who's the man who's got biceps bigger than his entire head?"

-"Shaft."

-"Damn, right!"

...not a crotch shot, I promise...

 Truly? Took me two seconds to notice Shaft's bow might just be set permanent in his right fist there. Interesting, and upon opening...

Never bring a tracksuit to a knife fight, son.

Da. The bow is sculpted in. Unremovable. They were saving on molds that day, huh?

How absolutely Mcfarlane!

Shaft sure has an unhealthy addiction to that long range weapon there. Also, I can't help thinking, if you weren't me (which yore not) you'd find it a reg'lar pain in the ass to get Shaft on his feet. (I have a patient knack for plastic bipedal balance)

Seriously. Why did comic artists in the '90s feel the need to depict heroes with total geisha feet and ankles smaller than their penises?

"Yes. I get to be leader! Again!"

I think it's inevitable we take the time to consider Shaftie's head-gear.

If I missed any obvious choices, seriously tell me!

Shatterstar had all that logical kempo padding. Gambit and Havok, original at least with the lycra. Firestorm had the fact his head was on fire as a visually distracting focal point.

So how does Shaft 'xpect to get away with it, without being noticed?

Eh, duzn't matter. If nothing else Shaft has some alright articulation. I'll never pretend to know what he's carrying in all those strap-pockets (serious course of antibiotics?), or why he don't carry a quiver when he's a frakkin' bow-man, but articulation is ball joint in the right arm, and his knees give him the perfect height for sitting on my girlfriend's temari when she's not around...

If gangstas had bows.

"He's a complicated man, but no one understands him like his ballista."
Aww yeah, he has a projectile all-shooty-trident which is a sweet bonus. Take that Commander Adama! Just don't see how he can pick his nose, let alone make a sandwich now. What with the perma-fix bow an' all. Certainly no reaching for overhead lockers with them shoulder pads either. I won't bother with a back shot. Suffice to say he has buttocks tighter than a klingon's forehead to match a facial expression like he's just stepped on a fetus. Crap, now I feel all sorry for 'im, which I blame purely on readin' Catcher in the Rye prior to this post.

Nya-well you should prob'ly just congratulate me on not breaking into Eels considering all The Boosh I've been watching...

"Look, pour your glass to halfway and be a realist about it whydon'cha?" - Rihia2k

"Bouncy bouncy...oh, such a good time."

I'll be fair - an' say its got good hands-on playability.
Well, shafted myself enough for one day...
Screw it, I've got sweet muscat to drink and bloody Conan comics to read...