Apparently the toy collecting world has had some sort of kerfuffle that I was not aware of. Julius Marx of the rather huge toy website Action Figure Insider managed to win the gigantic (and super rare) Anti-Monitor figure that was available at the ‘09 San Diego Comic Con. He posted his victory picture with the title “Lucky Bastard” on Action Figure Insider:
The other day Yo Go Re of OAFE.net (and frequent ToyBender commenter) and I got into a friendly discussion about “price gouging” and “scalping” when it comes to online toy retailers. I have some strong opinions on the matter and so do a lot of other toy collecting types, but mine usually differ from the “let’s grab the pitchforks and torches” mentality that a lot of other collectors have.
Instead of pointlessly discussing why online retailers charge more for toys than say Wal-Mart or Target without any input from an online retailer, I turned to Brian of the online toy shop Brian’s Toys* to get to the bottom of things.
Well, I went on a big hunt on Monday and managed to find one store in Green Bay that had Joes. I’d nearly given up hope, because I went to two Wal-Marts, Toys R Us, and another Target before I finally found it a few of the single carded figures at what I like to call my, “Magic Target.” I should have just gone there first.
Anyway, I’m curious to find out what you Toy Bendenites picked up so far out of the G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra line. Let me know in the comments. Or if you passed on anything, I’d like to hear that too.
McFarlane Toys keeps surprising me with their Halo line. In amongst all the things I don’t want to buy like the stupid Halo helmets, they sneak in something that just begs for my unemployed dollar. First there was the in-scale (to their line) Hunter and now they’ve got an in-scale Mongoose!
Better yet, I checked on Big Bad Toy Store (sponsor of the 2008 Joes for Tots contest!) and the Mongoose is only going to cost twenty bucks. Yeah it’s a small vehicle, but considering prices on toys these days it’s not too shabby. This is especially true for a toy that’s got some neat features like a folding rear seat so you can have some capture the flag action in toy form. Sweet.
I hadn’t heard that McFarlane was planning on making vehicles for the five their five inch Halo line. I’m thinking that the Mongoose and possibly the Covenant Ghost might see the light of day, but its hard to imagine that their are enough people buying these toys to support bigger vehicles at this point. Maybe a few years ago an in scale Warthog might have been feasible. Remember when those huge vehicles and accessories were coming out for twelve inch Joes? Perhaps in the right time something large for the Haloverse could have been a reality, but its doubtful to me that there would be one now. Then again maybe this is a test. Buy as many as you can Halo fans!
The Mongoose is due out in October, so maybe it will cash in on the release of the new Halo expansion game, Halo: ODST.
The Marvel Universe figures all come with info from Marvel’s infamous character Nick Fury. But where is Nick Fury himself? Well, he’s the Mail-away figure for the line and Marvelous News got the scoop on how to get him. Instead of having to collect some sort of token like with G.I. Joe or Star Wars, there’s a special method if you want to get your hands on Mr. Fury. It looks like you’ll have to sign up for Marvel’s Digital Comic book service in order to get him. The service comes in two forms, $24.99 ($8.33 a month) for a 3 month subscription or $59.88 ($4.99 a month) for an annual subscription.
Fans of the Marvel Universe line (me) may look forward to seeing or most likely not seeing Wave 4 revision one at their local toy shoppe. Not only does it offer some of the more popular characters in the line that you may have missed before, but there’s some nice newer ones as well. May I direct you toward the awesomeness that is Moon Knight? Sweet chickens in heat, I’m going to need to get my hands on him. I’ve always been a fan of Moon Knight, but not really a dedicated reader of his comics until a few years ago. Even if you don’t like the character or what they’ve done with him, you’ve got to love that sweet ass costume.
Other figures I am on the look out for include black Spider-Man as well as the Hand Ninja, both of which I’ve passed on already. Seriously, the combination of not having steady income and these things being around eight dollars makes these purchasing decisions a lot harder. I know I’m a repeating parrot on this issue, but seriously eight dollars is too damned much for a three inch piece of plastic. I’m guessing that army building is a bit on the decline these days due to price and the economy. Anyway, I’m glad that I still have a little time before good old Captain America classic version is available.
You know, back when I decided to revive this blog I never thought I’d have so many “Hey, look what I bought” posts in short amount of time, but thems the breaks. Coming back to the Midwest has had it’s benefits for toy collecting. Northern California was a dead zone for me, so it was nice to return to a land where scalpers aren’t as big of a problem and figure swapping is a relatively unknown phenomena.
On a recent trip I decided to stop at what I like to call the “Magic Target”. The Magic Target has offered up plenty of great prizes over the years. This stop was no exception, because I finally got my hands on the G.I. Joe Sting Raider (a.k.a. Water Moccasin). I’ve been wanting this thing forever and I’ve never spotted it before, which isn’t any kind of surprise considering how crappy the hunting was for me.
The Sting Raider is every bit as cool as I hoped it would be. It’s big enough to fit a few figures, which is always a plus when it comes to my vehicle purchases. Another welcome feature is the extra storage spaces and removable engine cowl for “posing” figures in situations with mechanical difficulty. The movable fan and small torpedo are just icing on the cake. I didn’t need another Copperhead figure, but it’s nice that I have yet another addition to my growing collection of Python Patrol Cobras. Now if only I could get a Python Patrol Sting Raider…
Anyway, any thought I have about the Sting Raider is completely overruled by this video by Last Best Angry Man.
If there’s one thing you can’t do is take the toy collecting out of me apparently. In the final days of packing up everything I own in this world that’s not in storage at my dad’s house (mostly the bulk of my toy collection), I just had to stop over at Target to see what was in stock. To my surprise I found Marvel Universe 3 3/4ths scale Iron Man… classic style! Hells yeah, I’ll take a classic Iron Man over the horrid pile of triangles of the current suit.
Now there were a few other figures that I wanted there as well, most notably the Hulk and the Hand Ninja, but I was good and stuck to the one figure. The 7.99 price point also helped my decision. Seriously, lower the prices on these damn figures and you’ll make up the money, Hasbro.
Anyway, I’m really pleased with my classic Iron Man. I particularly like that he’s been painted in an actual gold color and not yellow. Still, being the idiot that I am I can’t say that I wouldn’t get a repainted version to more accurately reflect the comic. Anyway, Iron Man pretty kick ass. The only downside is that his open palmed wrist can’t be bent upwards to make a great shooting his repulsor pose. I’m also not a fan of the energy blast accessory. I’m not a fan of the oddly shaped energy cyclone, I’d prefer more of a straight on blast, thank you very much.
It’s Friday and if you can only make it through one more soul crushing day, you have two sweet days of freedom before it all starts over again. This calls for a celebration and some links and random thoughts.
Item: I’m about to beat whoever decided to put NCIS on all the time on USA. My wife won’t stop watching it. It seriously is draining my will to live.
Item: I never thought this would happen to me, but I’m kind of burned out on video games. Hopefully this situation will rectify itself this weekend. Who needs to be productive when there are video games to be played?
Item: As much as I love Twin Peaks, this is God damned disturbing.
Item: Here’s a new Star Wars figure. Hurray, I suppose. Yeah, I feel guilty for not covering Star Wars as much as I used to.
Item: If you ever murder me, could you pleas not put my body in a barrel full of acid? That would be nice. Also, I need to stop watching shows about murder.
Item: Poe makes a good point about the Corner Store Comics credit card scam.
Item: Great White Snark is giving away the two disc DVD of Punisher: War Zone, if you’re interested. I prefer the Thomas Jane Punisher film. In fact, I love that Punisher film. So there!
Item: I almost forgot. I want to welcome any and all new readers. I’ve noticed a few new names popping up in the comments section. Keep it up, you rule!
It wasn’t really that surprising that Hasbro recently announced that it’s Titanium line would be ending after ‘09. They certainly haven’t seemed as hot as they were when they were first introduced. What went wrong?
I was really into the line when it first came out, but there were a few things that quickly became apparent. Number one was that there was an endless parade of repaints. Secondly, when the line started getting mixed together with Transformers and later Marvel ones by inept retailers, I was pretty much done with the whole thing. It was insane trying to find new Titanium vehicles in a sea of Beastmaster Optimus Prime peg warmers. Another nail in the coffin would certainly have to be price. At six to seven bucks a pop, comparatively speaking they are a pretty low value to other toys in that price range. I’d much rather have a G.I. Joe figure over a metal ship.
Is there anyone else who is going to miss the Titanium Series ships?
In order to spur some discussion around this joint and to avoid coming up with post material, I thought why not ask y’all what you thought about last week’s series finale of Battlestar Galactica. I figure that it’s been a few days so even the holdovers that had to wait saw it on their DVRs or even VCRs by now.
I’m not going to say how I felt here. Instead I’ll wait and put it in the comments after I get a few responses, because I want to know your unbiased opinion. Oh… I will say that Tigh yelling in the Strip club was perhaps the greatest moment in television history.
So did you like the end of Battlestar Galactica? Where you happy? Did you know what the frak was going on? Did you even see it?
The Masters of the Universe Classics Hordak has finally made an appearance on MattyCollector.com. He’s going to be available for order on June 15, 2009. Hordak’s accessories include a “magik” staff, a crossbow, and a bat. Price is twenty bucks.
Yep, as much as I like Hordak I’m going to have to skip this for sure. I can’t purchase a twenty dollar figure, much less one that has an eight dollar shipping fee tacked on. Hell, I can’t afford toys in the first place, but now that I’ve had a somewhat of a compulsion to purchase Marvel Universe figures and DC Universe Classics, I’d rather spend my little cash on those lines.
And no, I don’t have a problem with his “real” name. The whole fricking concept is ridiculous from the top down, so having silly names for some of the characters is pretty much par for the course.
Thanks to: Poe Ghostal
All right I know some of you have a big problem with revealing characters that will be in Transformers, but too bad. This is a blog dealing with pop culture and toys and if you want to avoid super minor spoilers you should probably stick to knitting blogs until the movie comes out. However I will respect the other part of the spoilery Jetfire stuff, so that’s after the break.
Hey kids, it’s Friday already! My how time flies… and how it sometimes slows to a painful crawl. It’s time again for some thoughts and neat-o links. Enjoy!
Item: Wow, having a job with extremely limited internet access sucks. I’m so behind on everything! I’m hoping I can figure out a schedule so I can keep providing fantastic posts for you kids. And yeah this also affects the amount of responses I can make to comments, so if I don’t respond to you in the comments I’m really sorry.
Item: Speaking of internet access, can anyone recommend a laptop in the 500 dollar price range, preferably one that could be purchased at Best Buy?
Item: I remember when I used to put effort into posts. Poe Ghostal has been on fire these last couple of days with this one on action figure stands and this one on the top ten mail-Away figures. I fear this young upstart might be contending for the title of Best Toy Blog ever, which of course I’ve held uncontested.
Item: As long as we are on the subject of top ten lists, this is funny. It’s, “The Top Ten Ways I Want to Die.”
Item: Well, well it looks like Lando the Pimp agrees with me.
Item: As Old Man Musings points out, the registrations for hotels at the San Diego Comic con have opened. Get your room now, fool!
I enjoyed the idea of the Cobra winter and dessert themed internet exclusive packs as much as the next guy (which I gave away during the Toys for Tots contest this year), but I’m really digging on the next set of G.I. Joe seven packs as seen on Topless Robot:
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