Happy Catra Day

May 16, 2011 | Poe

I nearly forgot that today was a Mattycollector day. Catra’s the only new MOTUC item, although there are reissues of Stratos, Whiplash, and She-Ra. If you don’t have a Whiplash yet, I highly recommend him.

A friend asked me whether to pick up the reissue She-Ra if he didn’t have one, since “She-Ra 2.0” is coming (the retooled She-Ra who will be better able to sit on Swift Wind). Well, the thing to know is that She-Ra 2.0 won’t have the Filmation-style She-Ra head; it will have a tiara-less head with a removable toy-style mask (which will fix on via a clip instead of the giant square hole). Most people consider the Filmation-style head the “true” She-Ra, but it all depends on your preferences. She-Ra 2.0’s head will be removable and interchangeable with the regular She-Ra’s.

Anyway, here’s the link to the all-in-one order page. There’s a lot of Green Lantern stuff on sale this month, too, though I don’t think any of it is exclusive to Mattycollector and apparently Green Man and the Retro-Action Guy Gardner are exclusive to Mattycollector. You know what would have been a good use of Mattycollector? Selling that Green Lantern 5-pack. Or even better, individual figures from that set. Maybe someday.

Megator & Man-E-Faces’…’s?…Packaging Revealed

May 13, 2011 | Poe

Mattel has posted packaging pics & bios for Man-E-Faces and Megator, both due this August.

I’ve been thinking I may start doing bio discussions upon their revealing, rather than waiting until I’ve had a chance to scan the actual packaging (I’ll still do that and include them in the review, though). Anyone care either way?

As for these, it’s notable that both of these figures will have “mystery” accessories. I’m with IAT in hoping for a gross zombie head for Megator. That said, the whole thing about resurrecting him is…kinda weird, but cool, I think. Those are my ever-so-erudite thoughts on the matter, at least until the official bio discussion.

As for Man-E-Faces: he was always one of my favorites as a kid. I loved the vintage figure, I loved the 200X figure, and I’m really like the MOTUC version, too. Of the figures coming out between now and August, it’s a tie for me between MEF and Battleground Teela for the one I’m most excited about (Catra, I’m afraid, wins “least”).

Any guesses on MEF’s secret accessory? Or did we already do this?

Toy Aisle Trolls > Bait’ll They Get a Load of Me

May 10, 2011 | Poe

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.

Joker Black Manta 2-pack

Submitted by: Mainman

What It’s Supposed to Look Like: This

The Problem: There have been many, many terrible Aquaman storylines over the years, but I doubt anyone remembers the one where Orin’s soul was exchanged with the Joker’s.

Karmic Payback: Every single time the douche who did this goes on yet another desperate date through an online dating service, the person he meets will always be approximately 20% older, 75% uglier, and of a 60% different gender than what the person’s profile picture showed.

Writes Mainman: “Here’s one where the Aquaman from the Undersea Assault set has been replaced with a DC Superheroes Joker. I love that this particular troll didn’t think the customer service staff would notice anything odd about the Joker being in Aquaman’s spot, as long as they included Hawkgirl’s spear to fill in for the missing trident. Because without the spear, the jig would surely be up…”

Mattel brings back Manglors!

May 9, 2011 | Poe

No, not really (sorry for getting your hopes up, Manglors fans!).

One of my favorite toys as a kid were Manglors. Made by Ideal in the 1980s, Manglors were rubbery figures, and the idea was you could tear off their limbs and then stick them back on. It didn’t really work out in practice–once you’d torn off the limbs and re-assembled them, they looked pretty sad and were never quite the same. It’s the sort of toy that lasted maybe a week.

Photo from Plaidstallions.com

Memories of those toys came to me today when I saw Mattel’s pics of Swamp Thing’s articulation, with noticeable tearing at the wrist.

Click for larger version

Of course, this is (presumably?) a prototype, so it’s hard to know whether this will be an issue with the production figure. Mattel’s track record has most fans assuming it will be, though.

On a side note, a lot of people are already comparing this to DC Super Heroes Clayface. I must admit to having never encountered any problems at all with my Clayface (knock on wood)–after plenty of display and posing, both of my figure’s arms are dark and there is no tearing. Perhaps I just got a really good one.

Odds ‘n Ends > Mighty Edition

May 6, 2011 | Poe

  • As you’ve no doubt noticed, it’s been very, very dead around here lately. That should change over the next week or so, and much more so by the end of the month. Real life has been interfering, but fear not, I’ll soon nip that in the bud.
  • In other news, the early reviews of Catra, the Faceless One and Battleground Teela are all over the place. Here are the Fwoosh’s, and here are Pixel Dan’s. Remember to hate both VeeBee and Pixel Dan for all these freebies. Because I totally do.
  • The Creative Licensing Corporation spilled the beans on two of NECA’s new licenses: Rambo and Evil Dead II. They misspelled NECA a few times, which seems…odd. So far we know we’ll get Rambo and Ash figures. No shocks there, but I do have to say, of all the McFarlane figures NECA’s redone, Ash is probably the most warranted. McFarlane’s Ash was terrible. And after all the hard work we ED freaks had put into getting it…I used to be VERY into Evil Dead. I tried so damned hard to like that figure at the time, but it was awful. Just awful. Awkwardly pre-posed, barely articulated, and frankly Toy Biz’s Autolycus figure looked more like Bruce Campbell than this one did (OK, that’s an exaggeration). The best thing about that figure were the accessories. Anyway, I have little doubt that NECA will kick McFarlane’s Ash into the stratosphere. A redo that’s long overdue.
  • Oh, I almost forgot: Thor comes out today. You going tonight?

Ask Mattel > May 1 Edition

May 3, 2011 | Poe

Damn, I love that art.

Anyway, it’s time for another round of Ask Mattel. (I refuse to acknowledge a corporate mascot by name, nor pretend he actually exists.) My thoughts are in the blue boxes/captions. –PG

1.) Poe asks: Are there any plans to do more Arkham City figures beyond Batman and Two-Face in the Batman: Legacy line?

Yes. We’ll have the next wave at SDCC to show off.

Awesome.

2.) Toyman2581 asks: What is up with those strange yellow lanterns that come with all the Sinestro Corps figures in DCUC and DC Retro action? In the comics, all the yellow lanterns look just like the green ones. (more…)