Today my
first LootCrate arrived, and now you ask what a LootCrate is.
Well it is
a kind sampler box for nerdy stuff. A Swagbag but without having to attend the
tradeshow. LootCrate has a theme each month and past months have been such as
Dragons (a dragon themed one.. No real surprise there) or Attack on Titanfall (an
Attack on Titan / Titanfall themed one) and it cost 13.37$ (yes… I kid you not…
=) It is kind of adorable). You can read more on lootcrate.com and should you
feel like you want to try a subscription I ask if oyu can use my referral link
as it gives me some loyalty points to spend on fun stuff. Should I get enough
to use i will try to give back to you who helped me get there.
My referral link
So this month’s
theme is Villains so I was pretty sure that I would like what was in the box
since I am a big comics fan and a lot of the promo material for the box have
had the Joker and Harley Quinn in it.
So here is
the box as it looks when I picked it up.
Inside some
lovely scoundrels had doodled all over it. =)
With every
lootcrate you get a small magazine that contains articles, editorials and info
on the items of the month. The cover at is always special made for LootCrate and
the theme of the month.
Now for the
good stuff… The actual stuff. Opening up the crate the first item is a T-Shirt
with a custom print made for LootCrate and the theme of the month.
This month
we see a mashup between the trickster god of Asgard Loki and the clown-prince
of crime the Joker in what can only be described as daringly clashing outfit.
Now this is a mashup i´d like to see in comics… Having the controlled and
scheming chaos of Loki butting heads with the raw chaos of the Joker. Yum yum…
Destruction ensues. The T-shirt itself is black and made from a thin but not
overly cheap material. I will come back on how well the print holds up as this
is my first shirt.
Next up we
have more clothes, as I said before the content of the box varies from month to
month and there is no set patter for what goes in to them beyond the T-shirt,
the magazine and the button(I will get back to that later).
While
Ambush Bug are looking for a pair of argyle socks… I can keep my feet in style
with a pair of Deadpool socks. Now there are people who argue that Deadpool is
not a villain… They might have a point… But seeing as he is an egomaniac that
has no regard for others and most of the time take immense, almost inappropriate
pleasure in causing widespread destruction and chaos I feel it is semantics.
Any way I think they are very cool. Again I will have to come back about
quality as there is no chance in hell I am putting on a pair of socks right now…
You people should be glad I am wearing boxers at all. Bloody heat-wave.
As I mentioned
I am a comics, especially super hero comics so it was nice to get a special
variant cover one in this box. Now you do not need to be a rocket scientist to
figure out why a Guardians of the galaxy tie-in comics ended up in this month’s
crate… But as cool as Thanos is… I´d much rather seen an item with a closer tie
to the theme.
Now I like
a nice poster as much as the next guy and these two, yes there is actually a
perforated line in the middle to split them if you like, these two are fairly
nice but a bit small. Also I have no real good place to put them and I am not
sure what to do with them. So not really a homerun but by no means a bad item, I
just need to figure out a place to put them. Maybe the guest bathroom need some
color. After all who would not enjoy staring on that Joker face while answering
the call?
Rounding
off the comic villains is a documentary (or what you want to call it) that take
a look at the DC stable of villains, narrated by Christopher Lee himself. So if
nothing else you can just close your eyes and listen. I have seen this before
and it is pretty good. Not very deep or digging but still a fairly interesting
bit of work. Also no matter how you turn it DC have some of the most
interesting villains in comics. If Marvel are the masters of the flawed hero,
DC rules the land when it comes to villains with broken but interesting
personalities.
Now you cannot
have a villain crate without the granddaddy of them all, the original man in
black and the most effective practitioner of management by fear. Darth Vader.
Here seen as a small key-chain thingy. It is a soft rubbery material so it is unlikely
to cause any harm to your leg should you bump in to someone or sit down at the
wrong angle, but it also means that it will wear out over time. It can also
most likely be used as an emergency eraser should the need arise. Beyond that
it is a nice detailed (that you can’t see in the photo because I suck.) little
hanger that will look good on both your key-chain and your bag. It is a tad too
heavy for an earring but should work nice as a pendant.
Another original
villain is the big B himself. A nice and fairly big fridge magnet that let
anyone know that there is a castle that need a princess and that you can in
fact be that princess. Or he need more Koopas… Either way if you like fridge
magnets this one is clean and bright with a nice motif.
As with
every LootCrate there is a small collectible button that you can… Well…
Collect. It has the same image as the magazine just a bit cropped and the theme,
month and year printed on the orange ring... Making it a bit hard to read at
times. I would suggest a more contrasting colour.
So did it
live up to my expectations? Yes for the most part, I did some serious research before
getting it so I knew that the content could vary wildly between crates and that
the theme dictated how much or little you would like the content. I feel I absolutely
got my money’s worth even if the content itself can be a bit hard to price due
to a lot of exclusive items. In fact the T-shirt alone was worth the price of
the box in my mind.
I will absolutely
get a few boxes more before I give an absolute verdict but so far so good.
