Yes! First up, A Crayon Haiku #81 -- which features a figure from a set that I bought waaaay back during my stint at KB Toys (I think that was in 2000?) and just got around to opening. Kinda crazy, isn't it? This was from the period just prior to the advent of Marvel Legends, where ToyBiz seemed a bit pressed for ideas and started releasing all kinds of wacky versions of characters. I don't have any of the Monster Armor X-Men, but those were also pretty insane.

So the main feature of the day is a review of the "Transformers Animated" McDonald's Happy Meal Lugnut... which also contains brief reviews of three of the other TFA figurines as well as a healthy heap of speculation concerning these guys' obvious inferiority when compared to other Happy Meal toys. Hasbro is sinister indeed!

With this article, you might also notice that I'm trying out yet another javascript image viewer thingy: Shadowbox. It's definitely got more features than Lightbox, and I love that it displays a list of numbers that'll let you skip to images in a given set, but as always your input will be appreciated. It might be a little difficult to assess the value of the gallery list given that the sets in the Lugnut piece are limited to two images (though if you think I should start having the galleries consist of all images in an article, let me know), so I've implemented Shadowbox on the Mai & Chun-Li review given its larger galleries in places. Assuming there are no strong objections, I'll probably end up going back and replacing Lightbox with Shadowbox in all of the previous Lightbox articles!

In other news, if you're interested in reading my work elsewhere, I've got two guest reviews up on Superarticulated: one of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Aslan figure and another of the Target exclusive Marvel Legends Movie Hulk. Not that you should only visit SA to read my stuff, though, as the site has all kinds of fantastic action figure news and reviews! So yes, do check it out.

Next time, the MADBALLS return to Scary-Crayon. Stay tuned!

...and pink pachyderm power in A Crayon Haiku #80! I got my Chalice of Guudenuph figure from the Four Horsemen a while ago and I have to say he is pretty doggone awesome. I may give him a more thorough review in the near future, but suffice it to say that he is a fantastic exclusive indeed!

Now that we've gotten that appetizer out of the way, let's talk about the more substantial content. First among these, Mickey of Strange Cousin Susan is back with Sarah Jane Smith Fashionista Fever! Part Two (which is also crossposted on her site)! So do be sure to keep the love coming and check out her continued analysis of Sarah Jane's sundry wardrobe selections -- which, as Mickey notes, have much improved compared to the fashion atrocities we saw in the previous installment. And there are boots! We love boots.

And speaking of different outfits and boots (!), our two-page review of the SDCC 2005 Exclusive Capcom vs SNK 2 Mai & Chun-Li 2-pack has both, given Chun's choice footwear and the fact that the exclusive set features the girls wearing non-traditional colors. The review features a lot of unchecked gushing and lots of screencaps (another similarity to Fashionista Fever!) and even potentially redundant articulation tables (do let me know if those are a bit much, won't you?), but yeah. Quality control issues notwithstanding, I really like these figures.

Oh, and there are plenty of sprites with altered colors throughout the piece -- I initially made these because I needed to convince myself that Chun-Li and Mai could actually look good in these alternate schemes before ordering them. (Yes, I know... I'm very strange.) Most of the original sprites came from The Fighter's Generation, though I did grab some from Kikouken.com as well. That latter website is a particularly awesome resource for Chun-Li fans (and I've known about it for a while, so I'm surprised I haven't linked to it in the context of our earlier SF-related articles), so you'll definitely want to visit if you fall into that demographic. And while I'm plugging SF sites, there's also FightingStreet.com, which I may or may not have mentioned before. The site owner liked our SF crossover article, so you know he/she has good taste!

I guess that'll do it for now, but here's a reminder that "Turn Left" is airing tonight on the SciFi Channel -- so if you've been avoiding our review of the episode because of potential spoilers, do remember to check out our piece once you've watched it. Even if you do enjoy the episode, hopefully you'll find some of the criticisms therein to be valid.

Until next time!

UPDATE: I just saw that our pal SAG over at SuperArticulated recently posted reviews of the SOTA Street Fighter Round 1 and Round 2 figures, so fighting game aficionados with a thing for action figures should probably check those out as well. I still think CvS2 Chun-Li gets the win in terms of the sculpt -- and you'll see what I mean about how lovely these ladies look when you compare Mai's backside to the SOTA Cammy's droopy posterior -- but the superiority of the SOTA figures' articulation simply cannot be denied.