Our good friend Paul of Toy Bender is selling off a bit of his MOC collection. You can check it out at the Dinosaur Toy Vault.
There’s a ton of great Star Wars stuff, plus some Transformers, Marvel, and videogame figures. Check it out!
Mattel Q&A roundup for June 1
- PGPoA
- The Fwoosh
- Kastor’s Korner
- Action Figure Insider
- Critical Mess
- DC Hall of Justice
- DC Collector
- Action Figure Pics
Interesting tidbits:
- Webstor’s backpack is removable, and it will have the same “climbing” action feature as the 1980s figure.
- There will be a running change to make the Hector Hall Fate’s gloves and boots gold (thereby making him a must-buy for me).
- October and December’s MOTUC figures will be good, November’s will be evil (my guesses: Teela, Mekaneck, and Scare-Glow).
- The exclusive Walmart wave will not contain any All-Star figures.
Paul’s Peg > “A Brief Retrospective on Lightsaber Toting Figures” or “Kids Have it Too Easy”
While going through my collection of open Star Wars figures, it suddenly came to me that kids have it really great when it comes to having figures to clash lightsabers. Back in my day there were only three official Star Wars figures that had lightsabers: Obi-Wan, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader. You may have had multiple versions of Luke, but if you wanted to reenact a lightsaber scene that didn’t involve coloring a toothpick and putting it in the hands of a Stormtrooper, then you had to go with those three choices. These days, there’s a virtual cornucopia of lightsaber wielding figures to choose from.
Before we proceed let me pause for a moment. I’m not saying that kids couldn’t make other figures into evil or good lightsaber battlers. Kids have tons of imagination and can include other figures into their play worlds. Hell, I literally had Steelheart of the Silver Hawks marry Green Lantern at one point in my childhood for one of my “plots” and I also managed to use Encyclopedias to fill in for the Death Star trash compactor. What I’m getting at here is that there’s one thing between having fun as a kid by mixing all your figures and another where you’re trying to fit the stories you make up into the same world of the movies you’ve seen roughly a billion times. (more…)
It Figures #26
Ask Mattel > June 1 Edition
Thanks to all the excellent questions I got from you guys, this round is double the usual size. I’d like to thank Toy Guru for taking the time and effort to answer these!
1.) Can you confirm whether DCUC Wave 10 or Wave 11 is the Walmart exclusive wave?
That will be announced in an upcoming issue of Toy Fare magazine.
2.) Are the spider legs shown in the ToyFare photos of Webstor removable, and how articulated are they?
Webstor’s legs are attached to his backpack. The backpack is removable and with it come the legs. They are also on ball joints and can tuck down pretty discreetly behind his back. That is what you are seeing in the photo.
3.) Newton Gimmick asks: Mattel often suggests that collectors “contact their local toy aisle manager and ask for JLU/DCUC/etc. by name.” Target, Toys R Us and Wal*Mart don’t appear to have toy aisle managers. In some cases like Target, the managers at the stores have little if no control what is shipped to them. So what exactly is Mattel instructing us to do requesting us to do? Can you offer some alternatives to getting our voice heard?
Contacting retailers directly is the best way for fans to have their voices heard. (more…)
Toy review roundup (via Fanmode)
Michael Crawford reviews the Mattel Masters of the Universe Classics Zodac Mattycollector.com exclusive figure. Excerpt: “… if Mattel could just produce mass market action figures with this level of build quality.”
Poe Ghostal reviews the Mattel DC Universe Classics Collect and Connect Giganta figure. Excerpt: “… she’s probably the hottest woman the Horsemen have sculpted so far.”
Poe Ghostal reviews the Mattel DC Universe Classics Vigilante figure. Excerpt: “He’s one of my favorite figures in my second-favorite DCUC wave this far …” (more…)
Monday morning MOTUC missives
Just a couple things for those of you who only come here for your MOTUC news (MisterBigBo, maybe?).
–The secret accessory that comes with Tri-Klops is an adult-size version of the glow-in-the-dark “Grayskull ring.” My thoughts: a nice bonus for particularly nostalgic fans, but not something I’m interested in. I would rather have had a second sword based on the card art. But I have no problems with the ring, and I’m glad those who wanted it get it.
One question, though–those three daggers on his back are supposed to be removable, right? They’re not mentioned among his accessories on his Mattycollector.com page.
–I really like Man-At-Arms’ bio, particularly because it incorporates the concept the Four Horsemen initially developed for the 2002 MOTU line, where Skeletor had united the two halves of the Power Sword (which was what that crazy split sword he had was supposed to be) while Duncan built the techno-sword (and the Sorceress enchanted it) as a replacement.
–Speaking of the techno-sword, in response to a poster who said it was identical to the 2002 sword, the Horsemen wrote, “We thought of that. Compare this version of the 200X Power Sword to one of the originals. We ‘classic-ized’ this version. They look similar, but they’re not the same.” For your convenience, I’ve prepared this side-by-side comparison pic.
–On a side note, I’ll try to get to my Zodac review today or tomorrow. I think it’s going to seem rather superfluous after Michael Crawford’s exhaustive review, though.