Whiplash!

June 10, 2009 | Poe

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No, it’s not an announcement about the October MOTUC figure–it’s walking Alcoholics Anonymous PSA Mickey Rourke as supervillain Whiplash in Iron Man 2.

I loved Iron Man. I liked Rourke’s performance in Sin City, and while I haven’t seen it yet, I’m sure he deserved his Oscar nomination for The Wrestler. I have faith in Rourke and IM2 director Jon Favreau.

But I’m sorry–Whiplash looks like an over-the-hill biker who took a spill off his Harley and wound up in traction (basically my dream version of Wild Hogs). What’s with Marvel’s new obsession with making their movie villains look so lame?

Here’s hoping this is just some early, temporary outfit before he cleans himself up. ‘Cause if not, the action figure of this dude is going to be about as exciting as Deadpool‘s.

He-Ro review at AFI

June 10, 2009 | Poe

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SpyMagician over at AFI has again made me hate him with his review of an early production sample of He-Ro. The review includes a look at the SDCC sticker and a better look at the bio.

It turns out the “sword of life” is actually the “sword of He.” Plenty of fans over at He-Man.org are unhappy with this idea, but I think it works. It’s sort of like Ra. Buuuut I can see how someone could think it was stupid. I also wish they’d gone with He-Ro’s original real name, “Gray,” but I suppose that might be confusing given the presence of King Grayskull in this canon.

After getting a good look at the black-molded translucent Power Sword, I do wish we could get it as a variant. It looks very cool, like a galaxy contained within a sword.

As for the figure itself–looks great. Can’t wait.

Variant DCUC Wildcat photos

June 8, 2009 | Poe

Here are some high-res photos of the blue variant DCUC Wildcat from Wave 9. Oh, and a pic of the DCIH Anti-Monitor’s packaging. (The pics are big, so you may want to right-click and save them.)

Love that third pic–looks like he’s doing “Smoke on the Water” on air guitar.

ToyFare #144 to debut DCUC Question

June 5, 2009 | Poe

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ToyFare‘s Justin Aclin just announced, via his Twitter account, that next week’s issue will feature the first exclusive photos of the DC Universe Classics Question!

As you may recall, the Question was the winner of a fan voting contest in ToyFare last year. Oh, and be sure to follow Justin on Twitter!

A 6″ Mattel Superman/Batman “Public Enemies” line?

June 5, 2009 | Poe

Rob over at Raving Toy Maniac–who I’ve vouched for here before, and is generally a reliable guy for this sort of thing–says he’s heard something about a 6″ line by Mattel based on Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (presumably the upcoming animated film, since DC Direct has already done a bunch of figures based on the graphic novel). (more…)

JLU SDCC Green Lantern pics

June 4, 2009 | Poe

What’s this? JLU news on PGPoA? No, your eyes do not deceive you!

Mattel has sent along these images of the San Diego Comic Con JLU exclusive Green Lantern set. Love the packaging.

Warning: As is always the policy here at PGPoA, I am posting the images at the full resolution they were sent to me. The packaging images are huge (4+ Mb each), so I recommend saving them rather than trying to view them here on the site.

Monday morning MOTUC missives

June 1, 2009 | Poe

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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.

He-Ro pops up on eBay

May 29, 2009 | Poe

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Those fiendish Hong Kong sellers have struck again…this time giving us a preview of He-Ro. I won’t link to the auction (I don’t want to encourage them), but it’s not hard to find.

A couple things of note:

  • The gem is red, not green, although we knew this was coming.
  • There’s a heavily stylized Grayskull emblem on the back of the cape

All in all, I can’t wait for this fig.