Toy review roundup (via Fanmode)

June 24, 2009 | Poe

fanmode-copy Michael Crawford reviews the Hot Toys Terminator Salvation Endoskeleton T-700 1/6-scale figure. Excerpt: “Hard to believe it, but somehow Hot Toys continues to improve.”

Dave Van Domelen reviews the Hasbro Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Deluxe class Autobot Skids, Deep Desert Brawl, Autobot Wheelie and Chromia figures. Excerpt: “… pop a wheelie’ sounds just wrong in the context of the rest of this wave …”

Darren Cilenti reviews the Takara Tomy Transformers Henkei C-16 Dinobot figure from Beast Wars. Excerpt: “A very good update …” (See also.) (more…)

Odds ‘n Ends

June 23, 2009 | Poe

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  • Updates to the site might be a little bit sparser than you’re used to over the next few weeks–I’m feeling a bit burnt-out, due to a combination of things (this awful, endless Northeast weather being a big part of it). But OB1 and I are working on a way to add some user-generated content (like Show and Tell) more easily, so maybe some of you guys can pick up my lazy-ass slack.
  • In other news, Big Bad Toy Store apparently sent out an email informing those who had pre-ordered the Movie Masters series with Jailhouse Joker and Harvey Dent that the pre-orders were canceled, as Mattel had informed them MM would now be a Mattycollector exclusive. This is exactly what I’d expected would happen–Mattel has too much invested in the tooling for those figures not to try to get a bit more profit out of them.

Toy review roundup (via Fanmode)

June 22, 2009 | Poe

fanmode-copy Dave Van Domelen reviews the Hasbro Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Deluxe class Sideways, Sideswipe, Rampage and Breakaway figures. Excerpt: “(Re: Breakaway) It may end up being a pegwarmer, which is a shame, as it’s probably the best overall TOY (i.e. thing for a kid to play with) of the wave.”

Darren Cilenti reviews the Hasbro Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Scout class Ransack figure. Excerpt: “… a mightily impressive effort for the first Transformers biplane.” (See also.)

Darren Cilenti reviews the Hasbro Transformers Universe Classic Series Legends class Jazz figure. Excerpt: “… Jazz’s biggest failing is an injudicious lack of paint in some areas …” (more…)

Pic of the Day

June 22, 2009 | Poe

NOTE: It Figures will be switching to a Tuesday & Thursday schedule for the time being.

the bat by soyboy7

Wizard World Philly Roundup

June 22, 2009 | Poe

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First off, my immense thanks to Doubledumbassonyou for kindly taking some photos of the Four Horsemen’s WWP booth for you to enjoy. Let’s all thank him and, more importantly, click the link and stop by his blog for a spell.

There wasn’t a whole lot of toy news from Mattel or the Four Horsemen, as they’re saving that up for SDCC, but I was able to dig up a few nuggets of information here and there. They also had prototypes of Teela, Webstor, and DCUC Question on display, as well as Egon and Ray from Ghostbusters. (You can find some photos of Teela in the gallery below, and visit Pendragon’s Post for more). (more…)

“Dramaz” at Action-Figure.com

June 22, 2009 | Poe

Somehow I managed to remain completely unaware of this until this past weekend. I’d noticed the scarcity of updates on Action-Figure.com of late, and read Adrian Faulkner’s post about his plan to retire from the site and pass it on to others, but I didn’t know anything about the “Internet dramaz” he referred to.

Some of that drama was revealed last week in a blog post by Paul Nicholasi, a.k.a. Nomad. Nicholasi asserts that he had some sort of understanding with Faulkner that he would take over the site when Faulkner left, but then Faulkner turned around and sold the site to someone Nicholasi alleges Faulkner described as “a bit of an idiot, but he has money.”

You can read Nicholasi’s whole post to get the story, but here’s my first-read impression of what happened. Nicholasi mentions earlier in the post that at its peak, A-F “topped 3 million hits in a day” and “pushed through 40k in affiliate sales for Sideshow Toys.” That’s not chump change, and given that Faulkner had founded the site, I would guess–although I have no inside information here–that selling the site and getting some money out of it was a lot more appealing than just handing it over to Nicholasi, no matter how much work Nicholasi had done for the site over the years.

I can’t blame Faulkner for wanting to make some money off the site he founded. But all the stuff about “hacking” and “police investigations” and so forth casts a dark cloud of suspicion and negative impressions about the whole thing. It’s just ugly.

The sad truth is that Action-Figure.com hasn’t been a relevant force in action figure news for some time now, having been usurped by TNI and the various toyline-specific websites and blogs. Nicholasi’s plan to expand the site to other geek-related topics was ambitious, but given the strong competition in that market (IGN, UGO and Enewsi, just to name a few) it would have been a very tough road to hoe.

So what happens now? I have no idea. I hope Nicholasi lands at some other toy site and continues to provide his excellent brand of toy coverage. And I wish Adrian all the best with his family and health issues. But it’s a shame it had to end this way.

Four Horsemen’s Queen and Her Court Roundup (Updated)

June 19, 2009 | Poe

UPDATE: You can pre-order Biggara and Baddathiir here, Akkuli here, and Oktobria here. Will update with more pre-order links as they appear.

I’d booked a half-hour or so to put together a roundup of all the Four Horsemen’s various Queen figures announced in the past week, but FANtastic Exclusive user xrmc20 beat me to the punch and has very kindly allowed me to copy and paste his write-up here. So be sure thank him, not me–my only contribution was being lazy. (more…)