Toy Bender

It is my pleasure to give something back to all the great readers of Toy Bender so I’m happy to announce the winner of the 2007 Comic-Con goodies. Oh yes, this stuff is hard to part with, but knowing that it will go to a valued reader soothes the hurt like a Keebler Scooby-Doo graham cracker stick. Have you tried those things? OMG they are awesome! Okay, I’m getting a bit off track here.

And the winner is…

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Remember, the comment contest is still going on. I realize I’ve been having server problems, but I don’t see that many comments in the last few days. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by! Oh yeah, the 300 dollar comment contest is still going on too.

toy, toy collecting, action figure, convention, San Diego Comic-Con, contest, prize

After blowing my McFarlane Halo load earlier in the week, I thought it was high time to share the rest of the images I gathered from the McFarlane Toys booth of goodness.

Spawn

There were enough Spawn figures to satisfy a Spawn fan and more than enough to satisfy a super casual, “Spawn’s kind of neat” follower like myself. The second wave for coolest Spawn figure series, The Adventures of Spawn was all up on display and the figures rocked.

Sultry McBigGun was on hand and she had… a big ass gun:

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Lego’s store, I mean booth, made an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con and while I’d seen mostly everything there at Star Wars Celebration IV (the booth was almost exactly the same except a little larger), they did have a few things worth noting.

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First of all, this is not a joke. As much as it sounds like a joke it is not. This is a no joke zone for a moment… Okay, here we go:

The newest 2007 JoeCon exclusive was announced and it just may just be one of the oddest Joe convention exclusives ever. Just like Sargent Slaughter, this time it’s a wrestling legend with Rowdy Roddy Piper joining the ranks of G.I. Joe toys. Unlike Slaughter who is on the G.I. Joe team, Piper is a member of the Iron Grenadiers, which is Destro’s private army. It kind of makes sense, if you pretend that Piper is actually from Destro’s home turf of Scotland.

There isn’t an image of the figure available at the moment, but if you want to see the file card head on over to Master Collector.com.

By God, I never thought I’d write about Rowdy Roddy Piper on a toy blog or outside of the context of talking about They Live, which is one of the greatest cinematic achievements in decades. But no, a wrestler popular in the 80s is going to be a G.I. Joe. Am I taking crazy pills?

toy, toy collecting, action figure, g.i. joe, collectors club

In the first post detailing the G.I. Joe Hasbro showing at the San Diego Comic-con I showed you the amazing new figure offerings on tap for the 25th Anniversary line. In this short post I’ll share some pictures of some cool 25th Anniversary-like customs on display at the show, which were pretty cool in the “what might be or could be” sense.

First up is one of my favorite figures of all time, the Cobra Alley Viper. Others might make fun of the Alley Viper for his outrageous early 90s day-glo orange and blue camo combo, but those of us with taste look past those poor color choices at one of the greatest Joe figures of all time.

If Hasbro made this figure, rainbows would shoot out of my man junk.

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Now that I’ve gotten the requests out of the way, it’s time to geek out on one of my passions, G.I. Joe. Hundreds of eager folks crowded the Hasbro booth and many of them were drawn to the new 25th Anniversary Joes and the appearance by none other than Sargent Slaughter himself. For me though, it’s all about the toys so seeing a case full of vintage A Real American Hero toys was a welcome sight:

Now let’s get to what we’ve all been waiting for, 25th Anniversary Joe goodness.

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Millionaire collector of fantastic balls and nerd dream maker, Todd McFarlane had one fine showing at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. While the McFarlane Toys booth might not have been the flashiest, the display cases brought plenty of Teh Awesome to the show.

First off, let me please my core audience (basically myself) and show off what Todd had to offer in the way of Halo toys. Here’s a prototype of Master Chief himself:

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Not content to let other toy companies steal the show, NECA had a ton of great figures in their cases as well. I captured images of some of the best and have them here for you.

First up is the ever popular Castlevania figures. There was of course the popular vampire Alucard and Dracula representing along with Simon Belmont:

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It’s contest time again! Back by popular demand, it’s your turn to get some free goodies from San Diego Comic-Con. I’ve got a bunch of stuff here, so here’s a partial list of some of the best items:

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The news that Indiana Jones toys were coming out was first met with awe, then shock, then tears of joy, then a little bit of a moment where there was some sort of strange, unexplainable itch behind the eye, then utter bliss. Let me tell you, seeing the figures at Comic-Con was awesome and made me wish all the more that I could claim the new figures as my own.

One of the coolest things in the Hasbro booth was a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, and man was it sweet looking:

Sadly, many nerds either burst into flame or melted when their curiosity got the best of them.

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….and I’m back. I’ve been to conventions for at least the last six years and I’ve never been to anything like Comic-con (or as I will call it The Beast) in terms of nerdery on such a broad scale. It might be awhile before I can get my photos uploaded and everything together for my patented impressions, but until then here’s some quick impressions and highlights:

- Pimp Daddy Destro was sold out by the time we got there. CURSES!!!!

- Hasbro should work on their display case lighting. It’s nearly impossible to take a decent picture of their figures without being a professional photographer. Their booth was the only one that I had problems with low lighting.

- I managed to run into Toyfare Editor Zach Oat. I’m pretty sure I frightened him.

- I stood about four feet away from most of the female cast of Battlestar Galactica. That was jawesome and by that I mean, “jaw dropping awesome.”

- I managed to snag a ton of free stuff. Yes, there will be a contest. I’m not sure if the things I got are as appealing as the stuff I got from Star Wars Celebration IV, but some of it is pretty nice.

- I’m officially over the edge insane-o about Indiana Jones again. Nice work.

- I hugged a ninja.

That’s all for now! I’ll update with pics of the Con as soon as possible.

Update: Comic-Con Pictures!
SDDC 2007 Wrap Up: The Rest of the Toys
Star Wars at SDCC 2007
Toynami at SDCC 2007
Mattel at SDCC 2007: He-Man!
McFarlane at SDCC: The Rest of the Figures
Lego at SDCC 2007
G.I. Joe at SDCC Part 2
G.I. Joe at SDCC Part 1
McFarlane at SDCC: Halo Time
NECA at San Diego Comic-Con 2007
Indiana Jones at San Diego Comic Con 2007

toy, toy collecting, comic books, conventions, San Diego Comic-Con

What’s that? You thought you were done getting slapped in the face with the heavy hand of fantastic Hasbro figure power? Well, you were dead wrong. I’ve got the final round up of figures that I managed to capture on a tiny memory card.

On the left, you’ll notice the cool ass Boba Fett in his animated colors. Yum.

Crap, is it gay to yum a male action figure?

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The world of Star Wars toys has seen it’s ups and downs when it comes to the amount of 3 and 3/4th scale vehicles on the market. It seems these days the current business model doesn’t support vehicles as much as it used to. All of the vehicles displayed at Celebration IV were re-releases or alterations of previously released vehicles, so there are no pictures of the upcoming AT-PT yet or (hopefully someday) a AT-TE. You can also forget about seeing any nifty play sets either. Still, the vehicles at the show were decent in their own way and worth checking out.

Keep on the lookout for the Target exclusive ARC-170, this time in the Rancor deco scheme. This is the kind of thing that might be a huge hit, because the 29.99 suggested price point is fairly close to the magic 20 dollar mark and the Rancor decor is fairly popular.

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Since a reader requested it, here’s my Lego Star Wars Celebration IV coverage. Oh yes, I do sometimes take requests.

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