Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

§ May 31st, 2012 § Filed under End of Civilization § 30 Comments

Civilization is still ending, and so am I! …Er, wait, let me rephrase that. …Ah, never mind, let’s just jump right in and see what the new edition of Diamond Previews (for the month of June 2012) has in store for us! Crack open your copy and follow along!

p. 67 – Game of Thrones Iron Throne Replica:


“You see, Little Billy, back in the olden times, before toothpicks were invented, hobbyists used to make models from old swords they just had strewn about the castle.”

p. 100 – Green Lantern Annual #1:


I hope I see one of those “bloody” Lantern insignias tattooed on someone’s arm twenty years later, like I did with the Superman bloody-S tattoo.

p. 116 – Superman Earth One Vol. 2 HC:


Well, here’s at least one point in Earth One‘s favor – Supes still has his red shorts.

p. 123 – Legends of the Dark Knight Alan Davis HC:


Includes Detective Comics #569 – 575…#575, of course, being the first chapter of the four-part “Year Two” storyline, with the other three parts, drawn by Todd McFarlane, not included. …Thanks, DC…I’ll price our backstock on those accordingly! (Please insert evil laugh here.)

p. 140 – V for Vendetta Book & Mask Set:


Why don’t they do these for more graphic novels? Like, box a Flash mask with the Trial of the Flash book? Or pack in a giant mouse head with the Maus graphic novel?

Or maybe DC could have converted V for Vendetta into 3D and put little red ‘n’ blue lenses in the V mask. That’d be awesome.

p. 159 – Danger Girl/G.I. Joe #2:


So is IDW just gonna team up all their licenses? Where’s my Popeye/Dick Tracy team-up, where Popeye just beats the daylights out of Flattop? Or Magic the Gathering Vs. Dungeons & Dragons, where Magic just suddenly comes out of nowhere and pounds D&D into dust? C’mon, you guys at IDW know you want to.

p. 233 – Cylon Raiders T-Shirt:


How ’bout “The Green Bay Frakkers?” You can have that for free, Antarctic.

p. 273 – DC Super Pets Hopping Hero TP:

“Sobek the evil crocodile is on the loose! Luckily, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny is close by.”

Ahem…I believe you mean “Hoppy the Shazam Bunny.”

p. 370 – Firefly A Celebration – Anniversary Edition HC:


Wait, so this is for the tenth anniversary of the show? It’s been off the air for ten years and people are still going on about trying to get it back? …I don’t feel so bad about my several petitions to get Doctor, Doctor back on the air, then, since that’s about as likely.

p. 382 – V for Vendetta Black Line Mask White T-Shirt:


For a second there, I thought that “Our Kind of Guy” text was actually part of the shirt, and not just ad copy. …That would probably make this a better shirt, actually.

p. 383 – Community “Inspector Spacetime” Light Blue T-Shirt:


I’ve never seen one second of Community, have no idea who’s in it or what it’s even about, and I’m already sick of this friggin’ Doctor Who parody. “Oh, hey, wait, is that a mildly-amusing one-off gag I hear? Quick, let’s run it into the ground as quickly and thoroughly as possible!”

p. 394 – Blackest Night costumes:


“Why, Little Billy, aren’t you precious? You’re dressed as…something I’ve never seen before, I think. Are you supposed to be the Devil?”

p. 394 – Superman Second Skin Costume Hero:


Just think, the New 52 version of Superman could’ve looked like this. If you’re disturbed by No-Panties Superman, try dealing with Once-ler-sleeved, no-faced, half-dressed-as-Clark Superman.

p. 396 – The Walking Dead Little Girl Zombie Adult Costume:


Ah, a new selection from the “This Is A Fetish for Someone” fashion line….

p. 403 – Santa’s Ship Minimate Vehicle:


“…So you see, Little Billy, Santa was cursed to wander the skies forever in his flying boat, and he and his crew are forced to make gifts that they must pass out in full every Christmas, or they will meet with an even more terrifying fate.”

“Mike, why is Little Billy crying?”

“Um…I don’t know! I was just telling him about Christmas!”

p. 403 – Marvel Minimates Venom Through the Ages Box Set:


“This is the worst Goth band I’ve ever seen. Let’s get out of here.”

p. 411 – Jumping Brain “DIY Version” 5-Inch Vinyl Figure:


Finally, I can make one of these for my D&D tabletop game.

p. 416 – The Walking Dead Plug-N-Play Game:


Now, I know why toy guns have to be colored like that, so no one playing “Let’s Shoot and Kill the Zombie, i.e. My Kid Sister” won’t get taken out by a SWAT team thinking Little Billy’s holding a real gun, but…man, just look at that thing.

But if they somehow made it into a Captain Power-type thing where you used to gun to shoot at zombies on the actual show, instead of just playing video games built into the gun, then you’d have something, regardless of gun-color.

p. 434 – Magneto Action Statue:


Now, has anyone made an actually-magnetic Magneto statue? It’d be artistic and functional: “Hey, do we have any paperclips?” “Yeah, I think there are a few on the Magneto statue.” “Oh, here they are…thanks!”

p. 437 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Station 1/3300-Scale Model Kit:


I was thinking “did someone actually have to determine this was exactly 1/3300 scale” and “what if they just sorta guesstimated…’oh, it’s, um, 1/2990 scale,’ who’s gonna check” and then I remembered “oh, right, it’s Star Trek.”

p. 440 – Marvel Comics Hawkeye Classic Avengers Fine Art Statue:

Okay, hold on to your shorts, it’s time to separate the nerds from the boys with the following joke:


“Man, just look at those powerful gloved hands!”

(EDIT 6/3/12: Reader Ed explains.)

p. 442 – Star Wars Boba Fett Return of the Jedi Ver. Artfx+ Statue:


Can I also rearrange his limbs into flailing positions to reenact his being taken out by a blind Han Solo and falling into the Sarlacc pit like a chump?

p. 450 – Peanuts Ultra Detail Figures:


There’s something about a three-dimensional representation of Charlie Brown that’s always disturbing. Of course, that may just be I looked at these old 3D sculpture ViewMaster reels of the Peanuts gang as a kid, which are absolutely terrifying and have colored my perceptions of such things for all time.

p. 456 – One Piece Arlong Figuarts Zero:


“AAAARGH! WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME ABOUT DRINKING COLLOIDAL SILVER?”

p. 470 – KISS Panda Plushies:


“Hi! Were you planning on sleeping tonight? …Good! We’ll see you there! Pleasant dreams!”

30 Responses to “Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.”

  • J. R. says:

    My younger brother has one of those bleeding Superman logo tattoos. Of course, it goes nicely with his Donnie Darko, Autobots and Decepticons logo, and BPRD logo tattoos.

  • Adam Ford says:

    sign me up for the doctor, doctor petition, mike!

  • philfromgermany says:

    Little Billy sounds like a fun character. Hope he will he get a tryout issue in progressive showcase soon.

  • J.W.Rollins says:

    I like your magnetic Magneto sculpture idea.

  • Alex says:

    They made a miniature magnetic Magneto helmet around the time the first movie came out, when I would’ve been in junior high. It cost around $25, was just a little smaller than a tennis ball, and did indeed hold paperclips and such. I sold mine for $5 in a garage sale last year to someone who clearly had an appreciation for it.

  • Alex says:

    Also, it’s cool to see that Alan Davis Detective Comics run getting a hardcover treatment, although I don’t know how much they’re asking for it. I recently did price the back issues on Comic Collector Live, and they aren’t cheap. Mike, would you care to elaborate on the content or anything? It’s supposed to be one of the better “fun” runs of Detective, right?

  • John Platt says:

    Inspector Spacetime actually became a rather poignant way to explore the characters in Commu….oh hell, I’m such a geek.

  • I wholeheartedly support the new kids comics DC has been publishing lately, both Tiny Titans and its ilk and these storybooks and so on. But sometimes the mash-ups that come out of the writers mining continuity are wild — Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, a cartoonish character created back in the ’40s, versus Sobek, the man-eating robo-devil from 2006’s 52? I never imagined the twain would meet.

  • I’d settle for a Doctor, Doctor DVD set, personally, just so my friends could finally understand the lines I’ve been quoting out of context for 20 years.

    “This is no time for jokes, Mike.”
    (drops banana peel) “How about sight gags?”

  • googum says:

    Why didn’t Alan Davis draw the rest of Batman: Year Two? I still kinda like it, regardless, but still.

    DS9 model? Meh. DS9 model with Defiant? I…I think I just drooled a little.

  • Jonathan Miller says:

    I haven’t thought about Doctor, Doctor in years. Wow.

    Sign me up too, at least for the DVD set!

    (And John Platt, I’m with you. And yes, yes we are.)

  • I’d love to see Alan Moore’s reaction to a 3D version of V for Vendetta with Guy Fawkes 3D glasses…

  • Jon H says:

    The day for magnetic magnetos has passed with the CRT. Because how else are you going to display his powers, that could possibly be better than magnetic color fringing on a CRT screen?

  • The Iron Throne looks positively painful.

    All it lacks are a roll of Charmin on one side and a crusty copy of Playboy on the other.

  • Frowny says:

    “This is the worst Goth band I’ve ever seen. Let’s get out of here.”

    I can guarantee you I’ve seen worse.

  • Robert Rosen says:

    I can’t believe how long I’ve been waiting for that DC/Muppets crossover with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew as Superman’s alter-ego. Finally!

  • Casie says:

    So very funny!
    um…..now I can’t stop thinking about a Popeye/Dick Tracy team-up. Blast!..one day…one day.

  • RDaggle says:

    ““…So you see, Little Billy, Santa was cursed to wander the skies forever in his flying boat,…”

    change Santa to Sinterklaas and you would actually have the Flying Dutchman.

  • Kevin says:

    “Man, just look at those powerful gloved hands!”

    Argh, I don’t get it. Is that a reference to the Nintendo power glove?

  • Walaka says:

    Hello, Dear-dree.

  • Pal Cully says:

    http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/06/01/best-art-ever-this-week-06-01-12/
    Scroll down the Batman “Death in the Family” Pic. Disturbing and funny.

  • Prankster says:

    The thing about Inspector Spacetime is that it’s not particularly hilarious or insightful–the earlier pop culture touchstone parody on Community, “Kickpuncher”, a terrible series of 80s SF movies in the vein of an Albert Pyun ripoff of RoboCop, was a hell of a lot funnier–but I think it was so exciting for Doctor Who fans to see the show get referenced on a (relatively) mainstream American show that they embraced it way, way too eagerly. On the show itself, Inspector Spacetime has provided a good springboard for gags and poignancy in that unique Community way, but in and of itself it’s really a whole lot of nothing. (OK, there have been some amusingly obscure Doctor Who in-jokes for the hardcore, but those came long after IS had already become an inernet phenomenon.)

    For the record, Community is a mostly great but often flawed show, the kind of thing that gets devalued because nerds embrace it SO HARD that it turns other people off. I’m actually a little surprised Community hasn’t become the Firefly of our time.

  • Sarah says:

    “Oh, hey, wait, is that a mildly-amusing one-off gag I hear? Quick, let’s run it into the ground as quickly and thoroughly as possible!”

    …It’s like you’ve never met the Internet, Mike.

  • kidnicky says:

    Ok what im the blue hell is that faceless Superman thing. Seriously.

  • Ed says:

    “Argh, I don’t get it. Is that a reference to the Nintendo power glove?”

    In his first comic book appearance way back when, Hawkeye infamously says “I feel as though the destiny of the entire city below is in my powerful gloved hands” while the illustrations show him to clearly have no gloves (he’s wearing an early/slightly-off-looking version of the classic Hawkeye costume shown above).

  • demoncat says:

    have to admit i am tempted to replace my worn out copy of v with that set mostly for the mask and i can just hear Alan moore screaming about it. those kiss bears can just picture the therapy bill for some kid that winds up with one of those though the Gene one looks like a cartoon character.

  • Bryan says:

    The tossed-off mention of “Doctor, Doctor” reminds me why this is the only blog I follow.

  • g23 says:

    The No-Prize book. It keeps on giving. 30 years later.

  • Derooftrouser says:

    The Wikipedia page for ‘Doctor Doctor’ has all the depth, precise formatting and lack of references that mark it out as somebody’s very special personal project.

    I can’t decide if it’s tragic or brilliant.

  • Fred says:

    So Zombie Flash is basically Scorpius?