Toy Aisle Trolls is a feature highlighting acts of vandalism to in-store toy items. If you find a ruined package, a stolen figure, a swapped-out figure, or any other such acts, take a photo (cell phone photos are fine if they’re not blurry) and email them to poe AT poeghostal.com.
Submitted by: Belligerent Monkey
In the early 2000s there was an explosion of minifigures in the collectors’ market: Minimates, Pocket Heroes, Kubricks, Stikfas, and Shockinis, just to name a few. Some were clearly inspired by the classic LEGO minifigures, while others focused more on customizability and interchangeable parts.
My personal favorite minifigures were the original Mez-Itz by Mezco. Unlike other minifigures, Mez-Itz had uniquely-sculpted heads and other accessories. And they had a slew of great licenses, including Aliens, Predator, Robocop, Hellboy, Edward Scissorhands, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even Army of Darkness. Later they expanded to their own unique lines, such as pirates and ninjas (much as Minimates is doing now). Sadly, the line died out when the Pirates and ninjas failed to set the world on fire.
In the intervening years, the vinyl figure movement expanded from its niche into the mass market, primarily in the form of Mighty Muggs and its derivates. Mezco hopped on that bandwagon by mimicking the style and size of Mighty Muggs with their newly re-branded Mez-Itz. Now, they come full circle as they shrink the 6″ Mez-Itz down to two inches. (more…)
For the aesthetic design of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady Studios chose to walk a line between the realism of the Christopher Nolan Batman films and the comic books. While some characters, such as the Scarecrow, deviated significantly from their comic or movie incarnations, others remained fairly truthful to one form or another.
The game’s Batman design is a cross between the bulked-up Batman of the Hush era, with the black bat symbol and the pouch belt, and the survival suit of The Dark Knight, as evinced by the piping and seams on the uniform and the heavily modified gauntlets and boots.
As usual, DC Direct struck with these figures when the iron was ice-cold–they hit stores a good year and a half after the game. The second wave has already come out and there will be more, including an Asylum Killer Croc and an Arkham City Harley Quinn is due in a “few” months (read: July 2012). (more…)
This was the first summer in years that I watched some of the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. It’s not that I don’t love sharks–I do (JAWS is my favorite film). But by the time I was a teenager I’d already watched a lot of shark nature shows, so I suppose I figured there wasn’t much new to learn. Still, I enjoyed Shark Week this year, especially Jaws Comes Home, which examined the recent appearance of numerous great white sharks off my native Massachusetts coast.
More importantly for you, I was inspired to create Bat-Week! I’ve got over twenty unopened Batman-related toys, ranging from 1989 to 2011, and over the next seven days I’ll be reviewing as many of them as possible. So sit back, put on your cape and cowl, sandpaper your vocal cords and enjoy the Batmania.
Questions due by 11:59pm Tuesday, August 30.
I enjoyed the hell out of Captain America: The First Avenger. There seems to be a general consensus among geeks that Thor was a better movie, but I found Thor a bit mediocre–I walked out of the theater and forgot all about it. Captain America was a fun, funny period adventure. In a lot of ways it was a spiritual sequel to The Rocketeer, sharing a setting (WWII) and a director (Joe Johnston). Oh, and the Red Skull was ssssssmokin’.
Put another way: I had no desire to get any Thor action figures, but when I saw pics of the Marvel Select Captain America and Red Skull, I knew I had to have them. As you know, I rarely venture outside Batman for superhero-related toys these days, so clearly something about Captain America must have worked for me.
These figures arrived in comic shops this week. Diamond very kindly sent along these samples for review. And if you want to find out some behind-the-scenes info on the making of these figures, check out this featurette on Marvel.com. (more…)
