POP! WWE - Shawn Michaels (Wrestlemania XII)

Long time between drinks, eh? Life has been a bit chaotic the last few weeks, in part because I’m transitioning into a new role at my day job. Fun fun fun! But here we are again today. Hopefully things will be back to a more regular schedule shortly, but of course we’ll have to wait and see.

Shawn Michaels was one of my favourite wrestlers as a teen, but I have no real memory of how that happened. I was pretty indifferent to D-Generation X, so I can only assume I saw him pull off an impressive match on an old VHS or something. Given the limited access we had to WWE TV product in Australia back in the late 90s, it may have even have been as simple as seeing a photo of him and being impressed by his look.

His flamboyant in-ring work and outfits helped endear him to multiple generations of wrestling fans, both as a member of tag team The Rockers, as a solo star and then part of D-Generation X. A good relationship with management helped keep him in the limelight throughout his long career, but these days he works behind the scenes as a trainer. Now there are plenty of stories about his backstage shenanigans – and of course, the Montreal Screwjob is always going to loom large in his legacy – but the man’s talent can’t be denied. He’s one of the absolute best to ever step in a ring, and was one of the few wrestlers who was lucky enough to go out on a high. 

We did already get a Shawn Michaels POP, a year or so ago. It wasn’t bad, but it also just kind of looks like a dude with long hair and flamboyant pants. This particular figure is quite a bit more distinctive; it’s based on Michaels’ entry gear for Wrestlemania XII. He ziplined to the arena, and it looked amazing! You can watch it here, if you’re so inclined.  

In POP form, it isn’t quite as spectacular as the real thing. There’s a bunch of sculpted detail to capture all the intricate elements of the real outfit, but many of them remain unpainted, which is a bit of a shame. The prototype -- pictured above -- had quite a bit more coverage.

Perhaps the biggest issue though is that the face doesn’t really capture Shawn Michaels' likeness. He’s a very distinctive-looking guy, but at the time he didn’t have facial hair – so it’s tougher to capture his likeness in the limitations of the POP format, in comparison to say, Mick Foley.

Still, the white and silver outfit is quite unique among the WWE POPs yet produced, and it certainly stands out on the shelf. So Shawn Michaels is a good, if not quite great POP. I feel like the definitive one may still be to come, further down the line.

Don’t forget, you can stay in touch with me via the following means:

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You can also buy my horror e-book, Lost Tunnels, here  

Lupine Record Club: Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods

Here we are in 2018, with a new Immortal album! Northern Chaos Gods comes a staggering 9 years after their last release, with subsequent years caught up in a mix of touring, legal battles and of course, the departure of frontman Abbath. It’s not an issue that I necessarily want to dwell on, but it is something that’s kind of inherent to discussing this album. It's tempting to use language like “Black Metal Fleetwood Mac” but I feel that would be kind of lazy and also insulting to people on all sides of the argument.

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The splintering of Immortal upset me quite a lot when it happened. I was making a tentative return to metal after a couple of years off, and there had been rumblings of a new album after the solid but not spectacular All Shall Fall. Abbath and Demonaz still seemed like an unshakeable duo, coming across as a favourite wrestling tag team in more ways than one. But obviously not all was well…and, well, I don’t run a gossip rag here, but let’s just say that accusations got thrown around from all parties involved.  

I actually met Abbath in late 2015, when he was visiting Australia to promote his then-upcoming first album. I was lucky enough to be by the stage door as he was finishing up soundcheck. He was very kind; he accepted my compliments graciously and took time to take several photos with an overweight 30-year old starstruck fan who was trying to find his place in the world again. It was a small gesture, but one that has stuck with me in the years since. So it’s fair to say that I would like a reunion of a more classic line-up, but who knows whether that will happen or not in the future?

Regardless, the dust has now settled and the various legal issues appear to have been resolved; Abbath has pumped out one album and has a second in the works, while Immortal have regrouped as the duo of Demonaz and Horgh.  Northern Chaos Gods has been a long time coming, but was it worth the wait?

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I decided to be fairly extravagant for Northern Chaos Gods – I picked it up on LP, opting for the white with black splatter vinyl (only 500 released, folks!). I had reasonable faith it would be a high-quality product, if not life-changing.  

The sound harkens back to a pre-At the Heart of Winter Immortal, though the engineering and production is more in line with Sons of Northern Darkness – not surprising, given that Peter Tägtgren is behind the decks again and also filling in on bass. Lyrically, it’s exactly what you’d expect. Blashyrkh and Ravendark feature prominently. Immortal’s lyrics have always had the qualities of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign sourcebook filtered through the Norwegian landscape, which is very much one of the reasons I enjoy them so much.

Now I can’t say I was hugely shocked by any of this; Demonaz was the guitarist of Immortal for years before Abbath and remained the lyricist even after departing from active musical duties. In 2011 he also released a solo album, March of the Norse, which definitely shared some auditory similarities with his main band – this should have been a clue, if nothing else.

Yet while it blasts in all the right places, is incredibly and is loaded with the Immortal tropes we’ve come to know and love over the years, I can’t help but feel that there’s a certain X factor missing. The easy answer is to point to Abbath’s absence, but I don’t necessarily think that’s true; one need only look to All Shall Fall to see that his presence is not a guarantee of excellence.

Perhaps it’s more to do with the way the genre has evolved over the years. In the decades since what we now call black metal was developed, it’s taken on a huge myriad of forms far beyond what Venom, Celtic Frost, Celtic Frost and their fellow pioneers could have imagined. Today, staunch retro traditionalists exist alongside the avant-garde – often on the same concert billing – all competing for the listener’s attention. Northern Chaos Gods’ production marks it as a modern product, but in many ways it could have stepped straight out of the mid-90s.

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Immortal are, and will likely remain, polarising. Their willingness to embrace the inherent silliness of the black metal aesthetic – if not always knowingly – sours many who consider themselves more trve and kvlt. Yet their lack of involvement in the far-right politics or illegal activities of many of their fellow Norwegians has meant that they’ve also been embraced by many who might have never dipped their toes into black metal otherwise. Whether or not you feel that is a good thing is largely irrelevant at this stage, because that Viking longship sailed literal decades ago. *EDIT* And just to be very clear, I do not think those activities were good. Nor am I in favour of gatekeeping. 

In many ways Immortal were in a no-win situation for this album. Release an album similar to older material and be accused of trading on past glories; deviate from the formula and alienate the core fanbase. Ultimately, my suspicions about Northern Chaos Gods were proven correct. It is a high-quality product, though not life-changing – it’s unlikely to win new fans, but I suspect the band themselves aren’t too worried about that at this point. Perhaps more importantly, it sets a promising precedent for further material from the “new” Immortal.

POP! Movies – The Pale Man (Pan’s Laybrinth)

I had pretty mixed feelings when I first heard about Pan’s Labyrinth. In 2006, the only Guillermo del Toro films I’d seen were Blade II and Hellboy – both a lot of fun, but not necessarily inspiring confidence in the idea of a literal fairy tale movie. 

Additionally, Tim Burton was having quite a commercial renaissance at the time, and I was worried that Pan’s Labyrinth would hop on that train and become an overload of *cough* delightfully quirky *cough* imagery*. But I decided to make the trip to Sydney to see it. Fortunately, my fears were misplaced – it was a fantastic film, and one I think of very fondly to this day.

Aside from the faun, one of the most memorable characters/monsters is the subject of today’s review – The Pale Man. I suppose to modern eyes the Pale Man probably looks most like Slender Man or something**. But this was a pre-Slender Man world, so its design actually draws from the tenome, a creature from Japanese mythology.

A hideous, child-eating monster, he’s terrifying when he shows up. We never get a lot of context about exactly what he is or where he came from, but it’s readily apparent that he’s been eating children for quite a long time. del Toro has described the beast as a criticism of the Catholic Church; hoarding luxuries and preying on children.

The POP itself is…okay. The limitations of the format mean there’s not as much emphasis on the hand-eyes as there probably should be. Instead, it’s all about his horribly jowly eyeless face. Far enough, but something is definitely lost in translation.  

Additionally, he doesn’t include a stand, nor do his feet have slots for them. This is a problem, as his inhumanly skinniness is quite integral to the character. In tandem with the front-heavy head, the slightest amount of warping to the legs will render him nearly unable to stand. Mine does, but he’s definitely kind of wobbly.  

Since it’s been 12 years since Pan’s Labyrinth was released, it’s not unreasonable to ask why we’re only getting merchandise for the film now. I don’t really remember any from the time – it seems there’s been a few bits and pieces in the years that followed, but they’ve mostly been high-end busts and statues, well out of the range of the more casual collector. I can only assume it’s partially fuelled by the massive success of del Toro’s most recent film, The Shape of Water, which in turn has helped spark greater interest in pretty much all of his past films.

While it’s nice to get an affordable and readily available version of the Pale Man, I don’t think he’s a particularly great POP. The balance issues and the loss of some of his most distinct features in translation place him squarely in the “okay” column. Instead, I’d suggest waiting for the upcoming NECA figure, which also comes complete with his throne.

*I get why people like Tim Burton, and there are a number of his films I do enjoy. But he definitely has his signature style elements, and I had a very low tolerance for them at this particular time of my life.  

** Interestingly, Doug Jones did play a kind of ersatz Slender Man in a 2015 horror film.