Adventures in Loot! Month two: Villains!

Well, it's that time of month again! Lootcrate is on the prowl and have delivered a fresh box off wonders onto my doorstep and into my heart. I found last month's crate to be extremely agreeable, with plenty of fun stuff (and one magnificent t-shirt! That I've worn since and is incredibly comfortable) but also a fair bit of filler that I'm still shrugging over. Although I think I need to apologise to MLG just a little, because their armband was utterly fantastic at keeping my PICC line in place and not flapping around when I went out. So good job and thank you guys! But that was last month, this is this month, so let's crack it open and see what's inside!

First of all, I am utterly enamoured with this box. I don't know if they're all the same and it's printed on, I think it must be for the amount of work it would require otherwise, but I love the markered on style and every joke on there hits the mark. I especially love the Killing Joke homage on the camera. You have to give these guys respect when even their boxes are tiny little works of joyful artwork.

And then we come to the contents, and I can tell you already that I love that t-shirt. I can't even see it all, but that design made me smile like the Joker when I saw it and I cannot wait to wear it. The rest also looks fairly tantalising under there, mind...

Here we go! The main design in all it's glory. My friend and I debated endlessly about this t-shirt, speculating it was either going to be Loki, Ledger Joker or the big daddy of them all - Darth vader. I have to admit I'm surprised it's not Darth, considering the high comic focus of the rest of the box (spoiler!) but I'm very happy with this. It's a great compromise between the big two, a really fun design and both villains really blend into each other into an intriguing concept. My only complaint is that the t-shirt itself isn't of as good a quality as the previous one in the Transform box, the material feels thinner and it just doesn't feel as robust. Then again, it's by no means poorly made - In fact, this was the quality I was expecting from the Transform t-shirt, and that one bowled me over, so I figure last month was just special. 

But the good times with clothing don't stop there! Marvel seems determined to kit me out for my trip back to the ward tomorrow, as there's these wonderful Deadpool socks! I don't really have much to say about these, other than I love them and this is the kind of thing I invested in Lootcrate for. Great, geeky merch that I never knew I wanted to own, but now I do own them want the whole world to know I own.

A gaggle of assorted bits and pieces, including this months badge, which I'm hoping will act as the mirror of next months badge, two fantastic trinkets in the Bowser fridge magnet and the Darth Vader keyring. Bowser has joined my Batman and Kano magnets in the part of the fridge I seem to be cultivating for geeky nonsense.

And a documentary from DC, which I'm very much looking forward to watching back on the ward. Again, hopefully we might see it's sister in a crate next month! Speaking of DC, their other contribution to the crate is perhaps the only thing in it that really misses for me.

I'm not really into Harley Quinn or the Ledger mouther Joker that's spawned since The Dark Knight so these don't do anything for me, but they're still nice pieces of art in their own right. If anybody feels like they want to give them a good home, give me a shout!

Then we pull out the pre-advertised star of the show, the Lootcrate exclusive issue of Rocket Racoon. It's a lovely cover indeed, and the comic itself is a lot of fun. I love Skottie Young's art and his style really fits Rocket and Groot. Not sure it hooked me in enough to get the next issue, also kind of thought the swear words censored by various symbols was a little distracting - But then it was nice to see a comic that could be enjoyed by a younger audience so I'm glad they didn't go all out on the language. Besides, how can you dislike a comic that has such great sound effects? 

FRAGBABOOM indeed! 

Heck, even when you get to the very last item, this is a box that just keeps on giving! 

I really can't fail to love this one. The items and the box art really enforce the Villains theme and give it a great touch of personality. If I was to be picky I'd say that a comic about Rocket, that doesn't really feature a big villain as focus, perhaps wasn't the best choice - But then again, it was very savvy marketing and I'm not complaining. One could also make the case it's a little too comic book focused, but that doesn't bother me one bit. Besides, if there's a genre that's defined by its villains it's comic books - Most of the classic, memorable and well developed icons of evil rise up from their pages and I have no problem with them being paid homage too here. This crate has been utterly fantastic, though, and I can only hope next months Heroes themed one matches up! 

From Cover to Cover: Waylander.

So, it's come to this. Last month it was distribution, this time it's technical difficulties. The blog for The Fountain Society is all nicely written up and ready to go, bar a few images and touches of editing, the problem? It's also currently trapped on a laptop that's deader than dead. Unfortunately there's not much I can do about that this month, but hopefully with everything crossed I'll be able to pull it out of the electronic limbo it's stuck in and present it to you here. What I will say is the book surprised me, given the authors pedigree in the horror genre it wasn't what I expected at all. As for anything beyond that, next month. I promise.

That left me in a bit of a predicament this month. I could either let the segment lie, which I'm reluctant to do as it's one of my few staples and I have to be honest, ideas aren't exactly coming hard and fast lay around the hospital ward. Rewrite The Fountain Society blog, which I was also reluctant to do until I've at least tried to summon it from my old hard drive. Or move on to the next title. I've decided to go for that option, and this month I'm covering a book suggested to me by Alan. To try and note even the majority of Alan's prolific career as a writer and editor would probably take me more time than giving my impressions on the book itself, but he's most recently been involved as one of the architects of Revolutionary War, a comic re-introducing the Marvel UK heroes to a whole new era, and also a comic documenting the history of the first World War through the eyes of those in the trenches with artist Lalit Kumar Sharma. I urge you to go check them out, as he's a keen professional and more importantly, just one of the friendliest people you could hope to meet.

Waylander is a fantasy novel written by Daid Gemmell and first published in 1986. The King of the Drenai is dead and their Kingdom under siege by the ruthless and overly ambitious vagrians. With defeat looming on all sides, all hope seems to rest on Dardalion, a man of peace turned into an avatar of war, and the Waylander. A man haunted by his past, who hopes that one, last desperate good deed can not only save the Drenai people, but also allow himself to finally forgive himself the sins of a tainted past. 

You know, Waylander is just a breath of fresh air. It really is. There are absolutely no quirks to this book, no complex lore, politics or heraldry to grasp and very little subtext lying below the surface. This is a world of two great armies pitched against each other, where the deeds of a few brave men can turn the tide of history and you always, always bet on the man with the least to live for and the quickest weapon. I'm being in no way disparaging when I say any of this, I think it's fantastic! It reminds me of Conan and the old Black Library Warhammer books, where great heroes rise and monsters are cleaved through and men live and die by their own follies. 

That's not to say this isn't a world handled with care. The backdrop that David Gemmel builds isn't as meticulously crafted as perhaps Tolkien, George R. R. Martin or even our friend from last month Philip Pullman would bring together but it more than does the job. He creates a world that is easy to settle into with stakes that are easy to understand, and then invests you into those stakes through the characters he introduces. Be it through a matter of personal honour and forgiveness or some higher calling as one man, in one tiny regiment standing against insurmountable odds.  At the end of the day Waylander presents a power struggle, and it would be easy to fall into the line of thought that we root for one side because one is good and one is evil. But as the story progresses we see that men are men, the most noble and heroic are just as capable of terrible things as those who have lived lives devoted to petty evil are of great deeds. We only care more for the one side because we see their story more clearly. 

I think this attitude towards the nature of good and evil serves the book well. There are characters in the book who interpret the conflict as something of a battle between light and dark, and I think if the reader wants to take that away from the text they're perfectly welcome too, but for me there seemed to be a little more bubbling under the surface. It wasn't obvious, or pushed into the face of the reader, but the overarching theme of the book seemed to be that the spirit of man was capable of anything given the right catalyst, or perhaps it is simply destiny that drives a man who has been a wretch all his life to end it in the most honourable way possible. 

This brings me onto one of the most intriguing concepts in the book, the Source. The Source is something of a mix of the Force and a conventional Christian God. It is supposedly all around us, guiding our movements, and even shows true, tangible power through Dardalion at points, but unlike the more physical presence of the Force it is more intangible. More like the Christian faith's God, much of the time the characters simply have to trust that it is there and will guide them. It's interesting because it adds a whole new dynamic to events, does Waylander pass his trials due to luck, coincidence and the unpredictable nature of mankind? Or does the Source make fools, heroes and martyrs of us all? Subtly moving the pieces and tweaking alignments and behaviour to serve it's grander purpose, in which Waylander and the Dranei war are only a small part. These are questions left to the reader, and indeed the characters themselves. Giving the Source just enough power to be mystical, but leaving it to be ambiguous enough to wonder if it's really all that they say it is. 

If I were to pick up one flaw in the book, it's that some of the dialogue is very stilted, especially early on. The first interactions between Danyal and Waylander, and even carrying over to other conversations between Dardalion, Waylander and Danyal later on just seemed stiff and wooden. I'm not sure if I got used to it or if the flow between characters just got better the more familiar and conversational they became with each other, but I found it tough going at first. I was also left wanting more from the epilogue. Everything was wrapped up nicely enough, but it just felt like the entire thing was more of a 'By the way, this is what happened in the next thirty or so years after the conflict!' than an actual capstone on immediate events. Like those little text boxes at the end of films that tell you what happened to the characters after their crazy adventures - And you learn that most of them died in really zany ways you wouldn't have minded seeing on screen. It's a minor niggle, and perhaps the sequels do more to delve into what happened next, I'll find out when I get to them but either way it's irrelevant for this book. 

Overall, Waylander is a top draw fantasy adventure about men hacking other men to pieces in the name of honour, and I loved it. It really cheered me up and pulled me through the last couple of days on the ward, and managed to settle me back into reading quite nicely. Minor niggles prevent me from slapping a full five Monkeys on it, but it is more than worth your time and if I gave half monkeys, I would certainly hand it one. As it is, I don't cut monkeys in half. That's just cruel and unusual. 

Four out of five Monkeys in a Hat. 

Next month... I'd like to tell you The Fountain Society, but if that falls through I think I might pull out The Stars My Destination instead. We'll see. 

The Gene of an Idea.

This week has been a rough one. Indeed, the past two weeks have been rough in general. After making a surprise return to hospital, I've since suffered a rather brutal dental proceedure, a scary turn for the worst invoving an infected IV line, three changes of anti-biotics and technical difficulties that for the time being have brought my laptop to its knees. My laptop that happened to contain the freshly finished draft of my Cover to Cover blog of The Fountain Society.

So yes, in all this hasn't been a fun ride and unsurprisingly this page has suffered. Ideas are flowing like dry mud and the energy to write them up just hasn't been there. I suppose a break wouldn't be the worst thing in the world considering everything I laid out above, but it seems a shame to let this fall by the wayside when I managed to keep on top of it the last six weeks I was in here, and also there's the future to consider. If I let it drop now, when do I pick it back up? When I'm out? When I'm fully recovered? No, I don't want to present myself with the excuse to fall into laziness once I get home, and with that in mind a stroke of inspiration hit me the other day.

While I've been in here I've been picking up copies of Warhammer Visions from the newsagents downstairs. For those who don't know, it's a new coffee table style magazine that is packed from cover to cover with pretty pictures of Games Workshop products. I wouldn't usually touch it, I'm out of the Warhammer game and the magazine itself is as expensive as the figures, but I'm in hospital. I get bored. It breaks the day up. Inside last month's issue they ran a feature on a Tyranid army painted in gloss black with yellow highlights. It was so simple but so gorgeous. I'd never seen solid black Nids before, which is baffling when you consider the entire army is just the alien from Alien wearing various different exoskeletons. But it looked so right, so blindingly obvious, that I knew I had to try it.

I knew I had some genestealers from an old Space Hulk set lying around at home, so when I was on day release yesterday I dug them out. I was kind of dismayed to see I'd already put most of them together, and teenage me had made an utter mess of most of them, but I did find a good couple to experiment on. I knew I couldn't really start yesterday, being the victim of Count Cannula and all, but I also knew I wanted to make sure that when I was ready - I was going to do this. So I undercoated him.

And now he lives with me in the hospital, and everytime I'm feeling low, out of energy or like I'll never recover and this will never end, I can look over and be reminded that when I do get out - I have stuff to do. I have a life to live. And even though it doesn't always seem it now, there's more to life than these four walls and the people within them. One day I'll be out and painting. I'll be out and writing. I'll be out, getting on with my life and pursuing the things I love and care about like everyone else. It's funny what can motivate us, what can inspire us and I already expect most of the nurses to see my little friend and make faces at him, wonder what kind of stupid things I'm into and why I'd bring such a horrible thing onto the ward. But for me, he's important, and as long as I remember what he represents, the world can go swing.

Plus, y'know, he does kinda brighten up the place in his own way...

Always backing the wrong horse...

So, technical difficulties have put the brakes on the blog I wanted to post today (and yes, it was the Fountain Society blog. Seems my opinion and that book just aren't meant to be!) so I decided to go a little introspective and discuss a feeling that started to wash over me a few years ago. Somehow, I almost always seem to feel like I wind up backing the wrong horse. Not in the literal sense, mind. I don't gamble and know so little about sport I'm surprised I know which ball goes with which sport, and which sports don't have balls to begin with, but in the pop culture sense.

Now I'm pretty sure this feeling is just a big old pile of nonsense that my brain invented to account for the times where I've felt very much outside the groove. Afterall, I love the Marvel movies and who doesn't? But even then I loved the Edward Norton Hulk movie much more than some of the other, more beloved ones (indeed, I've seen Incredible Hulk torn to shreds and taken for granted as a terrible movie so many times it makes me sad) and while I enjoy The Avengers, I still think it's weaker than the standalone movies that led up too it.

This extends out to television and even ridiculous things like collectibles too. I thought Being Human handled it's complete cast change superbly and I was super invested in seeing where they were going with it. Turns out where they were going was nowhere as it was cancelled shortly after. When I was collecting the DC figurine collection, there was always some level of... I don't want to call it despair, but fatigue that it seemed to live in the shadow of its older brother the Marvel one. True at the end there was only a twenty figurine difference, but it always seemed as though the fanbase was a little more involved and enthusiastic on the other side of the fence.

And I think that's what it comes down too. The perception that the things I like simply aren't as popular as or successful as I feel they should be. Even Doctor Who, which dominates the Earth right now, leaves me cringing because I much prefer the Moffat/Smith era over any other modern era and yet we seem to be in the midst of a backlash at the moment. Not only the usual RTD and David Tennant lovefests, but accusations of sexism and poor writing techniques that, most of the time, RTD actively revelled in. If one more person claims that Moffat is a poorer writer because uses deus ex machinas as a crutch when Davies essentially ended a whole storyline with the 'I do believe in fairies!' sequence from Peter Pan turning the Doctor into space Jesus... I may have to start slapping people.

So, what is there to be done about this niggling little irrational feeling in the back of my head? Is it just a greater symptom of nerd culture, always being on the outside track while the rest of the world enjoys their long running soap operas and all dominating football broadcasts? Well, maybe. But maybe it's also about adjustment of expectation and focusing more on the things you personally love about something than what other people hate about it.

Sure it would've been nice to have more Being Human, but what we got was still some of the best British genre television I've ever seen. Yes the Marvel collection may have been more popular, but I still have over one hundred fantastic figurines and a lot of fond memories from getting them! As for Moffat's Who, four words - Day of the Doctor. And everything that surrounded it.

It seems the universe is also giving me something of a helping hand. You may recall my surprise at In The Flesh getting a second series (something I still haven't managed to catch due to my lengthy hospital stays) and further than this, Utopia is back too! Two highly interesting, really clever sci-fi series that I thought were gone after the first round and there they are, both continuing on. Add to that the recent news that Pacific Rim is lined up for a sequel and I'm a happy bunny. Sure, it'll never hit the giddy heights of Transformers money, but if it did, if it compromised to be that popular, it wouldn't be what I loved. And that's what's important, the things I love may never set the world on fire and they may be killed in their prime, but at least they were bloody excellent while they lasted!

WHAT IF... Captain America was African American!?

If there's one topic that keeps popping up in terms of superhero movies lately, it's the idea of 'racebent', 'colourblind', or whatever other term you wish to label it with casting. This became something of a minor issue for the original Thor movie, when Heimdall, a character who traditionally looked something like this...

Wound up looking more like this...

And overnight became the number one way of telling who was a petty racist in the world of comic books and the movies that surround them. 

Of course, when the movie came out and the rest of the world saw what anybody who'd seen Idris Elba in anything did with the character, any murmur of the character being the wrong colour was soon forgotten (or at least sidelined to the point where the only rebut you'll ever need is a clip of Elba as Heimdall doing anything on screen) and it's also not the first, or last, time something like this has happened. Say what you like about Daredevil, but Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal of Kingpin may well be the best representation that character we can hope for. Then of course there was Laurence Fishburne as Perry White in Man of Steel, an actor who sadly wasn't given the time to show us what he could do with that character, and the more high profile casting of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Yes, I know it's a direct lift from the Ultimates universe, but still the point still stands. All these actors took on characters that are traditionally seen as white, and not only did the world not come to a horrific end, but the vast majority of them were nothing short of superb. 

Now the debate rides again, coming about as a more high profile white character, the Human Torch, has been cast as black actor Michael B. Jordan. Now I have to admit, I don't really have a horse in this race. The only thing I've seen with Jordan in is Chronicle and that was a movie with problems far beyond it's acting talent. Of course, the new Fantastic Four movie also has problems of it's own beyond the race changing of a single character that worry me, but I've been catching little pieces of the debate from time to time and when I heard that John Byrne had chimed in? Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go have a look. I refuse to link to that man's forum, but here's a Bleeding Cool link that about covers it. 

Now I have to admit, I went into reading this expecting to roll my eyes at best, or want to punch my monitor at worst, but despite missing the point in places, providing a genuinely awful example of this kind of casting in other kinds of movies and eventually devolving into the worst excesses of comic book fan entitlement that he blames the public representation of fans for in an earlier paragraph there are points I actually agree with him on, and I think it's one of the most sane and reasonable things I've read from the man on this kind of issue. I mean, he didn't brand a whole gender of a single race hookers just for the colour of their hair this time, so it's progress right? I suppose if I really wanted to take him to task, I'd argue that Stan Lee is big enough and old enough to speak up for himself and a man who writes a story about Big Barda being brainwashed into making hardcore pornography is the very last person who should be lecturing others on respecting Jack Kirby's characters. So wheeling out the whole 'Spirit of what Lee and Kirby intended' is just... Bollocks, quite frankly. But I digress. 

The two things I really took away from all this is the complete agreement that Marvel and DC should be doing more to promote their minority characters. Cripes, doing more to promote their female characters would be wonderful. However I don't think giving Nick Fury an obscure, coloured SHIELD agent as a sidekick is really as powerful a step forward as having one of the top black actors of our time playing the character who is most associated with counter-intelligence in the Marvel universe. Yet I do feel like Marvel in particular could be doing so much more with the minority characters they've already introduced. While War Machine and Falcon are unlikely to be able to support their own movies (yet!) I do have to ask, why wasn't War Machine in Avengers? Pepper Potts was, and she's not even Tony's superheroic partner! Or more importantly, why is there seemingly no sign of Falcon in Avengers 2? He was still with Steve at the end of the movie, surely if there's anyone Rodgers would want to have his back it would be the man who helped him save SHIELD from itself simply because it was the right thing to do. 

The other thing Byrne's comments left me pondering was exactly what makes race important to a character, and how interchangeable it is. Hollywood is pretty ruthless with changing nationalities, or casting actors of one nationality to play a character of another, is this really any different? To me, the answer seems to be 'it depends'. Does it really matter what colour Johnny Storm's skin is? Not really, although it would be nice if they cast Sue as the same race. Yes I know even biological siblings can have different skin colour, but to be honest I'd rather they just cast them both black or both white than having to waste movie time explaining why they are as they are. The important part of Storm's character comes from his firebrand, fun loving personality and the powerful bond he shares with his family - And that's something that transcends skin colour. Heck, somebody in the comments on that article mentioned Reed Richards being played by Denzel Washington and I have to admit... I would be all over that. 

But as I climbed down the rabbit hole, there were some characters where a change of skin tone would fundamentally change them at the core. This became most apparent with time locked characters. Technically as leader of the Howling Commandos, this should have been Fury. But naturally you can't have him stealing Cap's shtick on screen, and I think this, more than his race accounts for a lot of the problems with the character Byrne brought up. He doesn't have his history, his dyed in the wool pedigree like he does in the comics - It simply doesn't work here. So really, we know very little about him other than the fact he lurks around the Helicarrier and gives orders. It's something I'd love to see them expand on, and I'm very glad he finally got some great focus in The Winter Soldier.

Speaking of Cap though, how different would that movie have been at it's very core had they cast a black actor as Steve Rodgers? How many social issues would they have had to tackle head on or look silly for straight up ignoring? His back story could almost be untouched, just take on a more poignant element for the fact that not only are big, dumb jocks getting him down for being too weedy to do well... Most anything really, but society itself is telling him he's a second class citizen. So this runty little guy with no prospects whatsoever decides the only way he can make anything of himself is by joining the army. Literally, the only way.

Of course, this is where the movie could perhaps borrow a lot of elements from the backstory of Isaiah Bradley, an African American who was part of a test program to recreate the super soldier program during World War II. Now you might ask why not just make a movie about Isaiah Bradley, then? Because I think there's something inherently more interesting about the government choosing to test their maiden voyage with this project on minorities, and then rolling it out to get their golden haired, blue eyed, perfect Aryans and other assorted pretty white boys once they knew it was safe. The problem with Isaiah Bradley is he's never going to have the same impact as Captain America, because they already have their perfect product. If that initial experiment that Thorin Oakenshield was so discourteous to disrupt with explosions had only produced a single, solitary super soldier - And he was a person of colour? Well, where does the American government go from there?

Can they still use him as a propaganda piece like they did with Rodgers in the movie? Or do they just package him off on secret, behind enemy lines mission and be content they have a pretty powerful weapon in the war - Just one they'd rather not everybody see! You also have to wonder what Cap himself would do. Would he just roll with whatever his military superiors told him to do, or choose to use his new found power and influence to fix some things at home as well as abroad? There's a great sentiment in the first Captain America movie, where after a life of being pushed around and watching other people be pushed around, Steve Rodgers has dedicated the rest of his days to fighting bullies big and small and sees very little difference between Red Skull and his cronies and the big, dumb guys who made his own life hell other than the scale on which they work. What happens when the people who made your life hell have the law on their side in some circumstances? Hrm. 

Now, I just want to be clear I'm not advocating that this movie should be made. I personally find the idea fascinating, and if pulled off well it would definitely be a thought provoking and potentially eye opening piece. But for somebody who's favourite superhero movie so far is, indeed, Captain America the first, it wouldn't really make for a good punchy, dynamic comic book action movie. Plus I'm a big fan of keeping characters true to their source material on a basic level, I like all the core elements and broad brush strokes to be there to make the character recognisable, while film makers can go wild on the less important things. I just think that when it comes to race? If changing it is a big deal or not really does depend on the extent it effects the character. 

Nobody is going to care if Aquaman isn't white. Heck, with the casting of native Hawaiian Jason Momoa as the king of Atlantis I think we're going to confirm that for a fact very soon indeed. He's Atlantean, he could technically be any colour he liked. But when you start messing with characters who have very strong connections to a certain culture, time period or geographical area? Then things start getting tricky, as you risk changing that character beyond recognition. The most obvious examples are the minority characters that already exist to try to bring some diversity to the titles, but if we want to step back to the Fantastic Four, think about Doctor Doom. He's the ruler of a small, Eastern European country through hereditary ties, could he really be anything else than what he is and still have it believable? 

At the end of the day though, it's all about one thing - Casting the best man or woman for the job at any given time, and if comic book movies can keep that up? Like they did with Sam Jackson, Michael C. Duncan and Idris Elba? Yeah, I can be a happy bunny and not get too pent up about this issue. Of course, if they don't, I choose less to think of it as an example of 'forced token casting' ruining our movies, and more just flat out bad casting period. I hope whatever happens with the new Fantastic Four movie, Michael B. Jordan is able to prove he's anything but that. 

Adventures in Loot! Month one: Transform!

So, while I was in hospital, during one of my prolonged stages of utter boredom, a friend posted a link to a very curious website with a very curious concept. That website is Loot Crate, and the service they provide is a subscription based package where you hand them money (of course!) and in return they send you a box packed to the gills with hand picked nerd themed curios from a variety of organisations. My interest was piqued, but I thought there was no way I was ever going to be able to afford to even try this out, what with this being an American outfit and myself living in dear old blighty. But much to my surprise, the prices, even combined with international shipping, weren't that unreasonable and looking at past crates on the website that contained t-shirts and Funko figures it seemed that even though each one had its fair share of filler nonsense (more on that later!) these things could definitely be worthwhile. So I signed up. Then I waited.

The waiting period was a curious thing in and of itself. It's clear that Loot Crate are really striving to build a community around them, as I received weekly newsletters containing news they thought might interest me and of course, status updates on the crate itself. The specifics are kept under wraps, but what they do let you know is what the big, flashy item is going to be (in this case, a t-shirt) and the general theme. This months was TRANSFORM, so no prizes for guessing what the main thrust was going to be.

I suppose you could also pick up on some of the things involved in the smaller crate by what they tell you is coming in the Mega Crate. That being the prize sent to the home of one subscriber every month that contains hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. But I wasn't really interested in fishing for clues, I was more interested in cracking open the box

And today, much to my surprise, it arrived!

Have to admit,considering all the menagerie of things they show coming out of it on their website? I expected it to be bigger. But you know what they say about good things and small packages, so let's have a look!

You'll note that I wasn't joking when I said 'rammed to the gills' and it looks like we've got some cool Transformers stuff in there at least (surprise!), let's dig straight into the main event.

T-shirt! I may have mentioned before that I love t-shirts, it's something of an addiction of mine, but I can also be incredibly picky about what I put on my chest. I did expect to have to forlornly sigh say 'Well, it's nice but it's not for me...' but thankfully that's not the case here. I've actually seen this design before, and almost bought it in the past. I never did, but that's largely because I have a much more clever design of a TARDIS transforming into Optimus Prime with a bow-tie, but this is still really cool and will compliment the Doctor Who one perfectly. Clearly I now need mash up's of time machines and transformers to wear every day of the week... H.G. Wells Time Machine Prime, anyone? 

And then we have this! This is where I think I come to understand Loot Crate's business model a little more. I'm going to need time and a couple more boxes to verify, but going off their website a lot of their crates seem to involve these blind boxes, or pieces that are part of a wider collection, so this is almost like a geek sampler menu. You liked that one? Well, if you look on the back of the box... Still, I don't blame them. I think it's clever really. I'm a chronic collector, I had to pull myself back from collecting the Doctor Who Titan blind boxes because I'd go mad. But for people looking for that thrill of the chase, this is a great way to hook them in and make them aware of what's out there. For me though, I just want a cool vinyl robot.

And cool vinyl robot success! I have to admit, I'm not a huge Transformers fan so I have no idea who this is - And honestly, given the style they've rolled with only the very distinct bots like Prime, Bumblebee and Megatron really stand out and look much different from the others going by the box art of them. But he's pretty well made and sturdy for a figure of his size, and it's nice to see he has accessories that actually fit in his hand and look good while he's holding them too. Great head and joint movement as well, left arm is a little loose but you can at least get the poses you want out of it. Even though, obviously, the range of poses is limited. 

And here's the bone fide Transformers stuff all together. As you can see there's a pretty decent sticker back there (apparently there's a Decepticon one too, some people getting one, others the other - Not all crates are created equal!) and a nice little badge and then there's... Um... This...

I've got to be honest with you, this is the most what the feck item in the entire crate. It took me a good five-ten minutes pawing at the packaging and then finally getting it out and prising it open to figure out what it actually did (I didn't discover there was a booklet at the bottom of the box explaining *everything* that was inside until after I'd done this, because I'm clever that way) and when I did I was kind of disappointed. What you see here is a Hexbug, and it's kind of like our friend the blind boxed figure above in that it's one of a set. Basically you flick a switch and it vibrates to the point where it can charge across flat surfaces and then veer dangerously off kitchen work surfaces. Basically the kind of tacky kids toy that Transformers staked it's name on, with the option to get more than one and battle them against each other - Presumably by turning them on and hoping then ram into each other rather than spiral off towards your shoes on an out of control suicide mission. Initially I did kind of tilt my head and wonder if this was really the kind of thing I needed in my life, then I found a flat surface...

And the little kid in me realised there's at least a good couple of hours of fun to be had in this! Not least in dropping it on unsuspecting people and watching them jump out of their skin as this big, vibrating plastic bug suddenly invades their lives.

Glorious.

And then we get down to the aforementioned filler.

MLG nonsense and some Warheads! For those of you unfamiliar with MLG, they're an E-Sports promoter who I mostly know as being associated with Starcraft 2 tournaments but also broadcast and organise events and teams for a variety of games. I think the cross promotion aspect is nice, I know they did something with Polaris last month and I love those guys so I don't mind this in principle, but on the other hand I'm not really all that interested in competitive gaming so these do nothing for me. Still, if anybody wants a black sweat band for any reason whatsoever... I've got your back!

As for the Warheads, not had them in years! Can't remember if they're sold in the UK any more, but if people want to send me sour candy? I am all for this! Plus, who doesn't love candy that comes with health warnings?!

Overall impressions? Not too shabby. I know I'm going to get some joy out of most of the Transformers themed stuff, and to be honest that t-shirt feels so well made and has such a nice design that I think it's practically worth the box price alone. I think the greatest shame with this one though, is that the theme was 'Transform' and yet there was nothing really in the box that lived up to it. Nothing with multiple functions, or changed colour or even... Say... Changed from a robot into a car? The closest you get is the War Heads, which having just put one in my mouth - Holy crap they have a sour kick when you first throw them in! But they soon settle down to something sweet and very enjoyable. I suppose what I'm trying to say is rather than just cherry picking stuff with the Transformers logo on it, a little more creativity and thinking outside the box for things to put in the box could've made this theme something really special.

Still, not a bad start! We'll have to see what fresh delights next month brings!

From Cover to Cover: Northern Lights/The Golden Compass

Hello and welcome back to From Cover to Cover! I know last month I said I was going to be reading The Fountain Society, but there's been a slight change of plan. You see that book isn't available electronically, and getting a hold of a physical copy in the hospital was a mite difficult so I decided to push it back a little. Awfully sorry, Theron. I promise to get right on that next month. In fact, it is ordered and on the way! In the meantime I've decided to take a recommendation from my gorgeous and talented friend, Wanderlust Smith, an extremely talented and gorgeous alternative model who's work you can check out over here.

I've actually had this book lying on my shelf for years, but never got around to reading it, and as there's no better opportunity than an extended hospital stay for catching up with your own personal library, this seemed like a great time to finally get to it!

Northern Lights, or The Golden Compass in the United States, was first published in 1995 as the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. It takes place in another world where the souls of humans are outwardly expressed by animal companions called daemons, and follows Lyra, a young girl under the care of scholars at Jordan University, Oxford. When her best friend, Rodger the kitchen boy, is taken by a group known only as the Gobblers, she vows to save him. Soon she is swept up in an epic journey to Arctic North, where she encounters a host of colourful characters, must escape the manipulative clutches of the devious Miss Coulter and discover the mysteries that lie behind Dust. The strange substance that both Miss Coulter, and her stoic uncle Lord Asriel, are so obsessed by. Oh, and it has armoured bears. And they're awesome!

I'm going to be referring to this book as Northern Lights, mainly because that's the name of the book I read, but also because the reason behind the name change in the US is kind of dumb.You see, originally Philip Pullman was going to name his trilogy The Golden Compasses which gave the US publisher impression that the first book was titled The Golden Compass, singular. Apparently they were so taken by this name, that even after Pullman changed the overarching title to His Dark Materials, they still insisted on using the name because they liked it. Way to support brand cohesion there, guys. I suppose it especially gets to me because, technically, there isn't even a compass in the book, no matter how much the film wanted to re-brand the alethiometer as one.

Naming issues aside, this book is an astounding read, especially on a technical level. It introduces us to a world that is like our own, perhaps stepped back in time a century or so, yet manages to establish its more fantastical elements effortlessly. It doesn't take long for daemons to seem like the most natural thing in the world, so much so that I can't help but feel that perhaps I'm in the wrong world and should, by rights, be in one where I have a daemon of my own, as it sounds wonderful. By the time we get into the realm of witches and armoured bears that talk and have opposable thumbs, well, it all feels perfectly sane and reasonable within the world that Pullman has built. In fact my only quarrel with these elements falls with the witches in particular, and that's more because I'm not sure what purpose they serve story wise other than to swoop in at opportune/inopportune moments to sweep the plot along. But at least I have no trouble accepting them as part of this world, and they do add an interesting wrinkle to the deamon dynamic.

Pullman builds his world well, and doesn't really bog down the book explaining the politics, or the geography, or the culture of anything that isn't immediately being dealt with at the time. This, I feel, is a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand it means you become acquainted enough with Gyptian or Pasternore to follow along but it also means that if you try and branch out and focus on the world at large from snippets overheard from scholars, explorers, Coulter and Asriel, you can almost drown in the layers of detail there. Because even though Pullman doesn't force the politics and geography of the world into your face, it's obvious he's put a lot of thought into it. Characters discuss regions we never see, they mention rebellions, wars, the politics of far off nations. It all makes the world seem terribly fleshed out, but at the same time doesn't rely on the crutch of exposition. If anything, Pullman has his characters talk about the world as we would talk about our own, and that's a fairly impressive thing to pull off because writers can become so eager to build their world, that they fall into the trap of giving us a hand held guided tour of it just to make sure we appreciate the work they put in. And that's fine, but unless you're a tourist paired up with a very overeager local, that's not how the world really works.

These layers extend right down to the subtext, this is a novel that I think can be as deep as you want it depending on how much you're willing to peel back. The various orders of power and institute in the book are definite nods to organised Christianity, I'd single out the Catholic church because they seem obsessed with doing strange things to children, but none of them seem to have nearly enough dogma for it. On the face of it they're obsessed with the control of free thought and control and suppression of information (like most church like figures in fiction ever) but Pullman goes deeper, and soon the novel is brushing against the idea of sexual mutilation of young children for religious ends and the idea of his mysterious substance, Dust and the Daemons themselves being tied into the process of puberty and sexual progression. Something the various churches of the world have always tried to control with an iron fist.

I've heard it suggested that Lyra is a Christ like figure, coming into the world to shake the foundations of old time religion and show them a better way. But I don't think this is the case. Lyra and her companions seem more representative of free thought, innocence, knowledge, all the kinds of freedoms the church seek to repress. The Gyptians are travellers who go where they please, look after their own business and try to pay nobody any mind or trouble unless they're being paid mind or trouble themselves. The scholars at Jordan dedicate their life to guarding and passing on knowledge. Lee Scoresby is a freewheeling traveller and Iorek Byrnison and the other bears trust their inbuilt morality and instincts and are stronger for it - Both of whom are true to themselves and their needs, above external influences.

These characters sit in stark contrast to Miss Coulter and the other antagonists, who don't seem particularly content with their lot and are driven by things they're told, either by superiors such as the staff of Bolvangar, or by ancient texts and belief systems that they squander their life and their considerable power to try and interpret or fulfil. Yet, while the characters in this book are generally strong, believable and a joy to read about if there is an issue I take with the novel, it is with the characters.

First of all is Lyra. I think on the whole she's a great character, she's very obviously a child and in over her head, but through ignorance and sheer bullheadeness seems to pull through situations most adults would crumble in. I don't even really mind that she seems overly adept at picking up new skills. It was established from the off she is a bright child, she just needs an exciting way to learn for it to sink in and what's more exciting than an adventure across the world while being the focus of the biggest manhunt in history? What I don't like is that she always seems to be in the right place at the right time, and while much of this story is about destiny and fate and I'm sure you could shrug that off as such, it does become a little brow creasing when she just so happens to leave a party at just the right time for events to happen. Or bursts out of a place at exactly the right time to be saved. In a novel where the narrative is so rich and the story flows so well, these instances stand out in my head because they just bring it all to a juddering, clunking halt.

The other issue is that having reached the end of the book... I don't think I have all that much vested interest in the antagonists any more. Mrs. Coulter never really hooked me in the first place, the most dangerous and shocking thing about her was her monkey, and as for the other antagonist of the book - He was built up as a mysterious, complex character with his own secrets and his own agenda. Turned out he was as much of a spoilt child as Coulter herself, so used to getting his own way simply because he wanted it that he'd break the universe to please his own whims. I suppose it's my own fault. I built him up in my mind, then he turned out to be a much more basic and unlikeable character than I thought.

To scoring then! Northern Lights is a novel that's rich and deep with detail and subtext, the characters are fantastic, the story flows well and it has surprisingly dark edges but then, I suppose it was written as the anti-Narnia so that's to be expected. This is one that I'm sure most have read already, but if you haven't it's definitely worth a look! Four out of five monkeys.

Next week, we'll hopefully be back on track for the Fountain Society!