Toy Bender

The 2009 Toy Fair had lots and lots of Star Wars news and since I’m only mildly interested in Star Wars toys these days, I decided to drop my thoughts (mostly) in one post. I’ve gone through Jedi Insider’s Star Wars coverage from the 2009 Toy Fair and commented on what interested me the most.

Mail-Away Figure For 2009

Wow, how stupid. Qui-Gon Jinn and the Eopie farting animal from the 10th anniversary celebration of that embarrassment known as The Phantom Menace. This is for all the Star Wars collectors that drive me nuts with their, “make this obscure character no one but four of us care about” and “why don’t we have a *insert retarded looking beast here* toy yet?” type of pleas.

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More and more stuff is leaking out as the G.I. Joe live action movie tie-in toys are being spotted. This last week saw this poorly photographed image of the product offering from the line:

There’s pics of what we’ve seen already, the standard roleplay items, and the obligatory Mr. Potato Head as a Joe. The thing that interests me the most is the huge Pit play set. It doesn’t seem to be getting very much loving from the collecting community and I’m not sure why. Is it the shape? Is it because it’s from the movie and not the U.S.S. Flagg? Further images have surfaced since the 2009 Toy Fair has kicked off and they’ve lead to even more arguing back and forth.

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Over on Hasbro.com Hasbro is giving fans a chance to vote on adding some of their favorite heroes to the Marvel Universe line up (the 3 3/4ths scale Marvel figures). Voting ends March 5th and on March 16th they’ll announce the top five characters that will immortalized into plastic.

Now remember when voting kids, if you pick a figure that’s fairly popular they’ll probably will make it anyway. For example, Psylocke will eventually make it in plastic form with or without your vote. Save your votes for obscure characters so they have a chance to shine!

Here’s my top five that are duking it out for my vote:

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Everyone’s favorite toy news site Wired… ah hem… recently revealed several G.I. Joe toys from the upcoming live action flick. The most interesting to fans is the reveal of the movie’s version of the Night Raven:

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This couldn’t be a worse year to be broke. First there’s the Ghostbusters toys and now there’s the upcoming Marvel Universe 3 3/4ths inch scale figures that I want so desperately. Aside from the figures that have been shown off before, I was most impressed by this trio of figures in the right side of this image:

By Crom, it’s the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends! The only figure missing is their stupid dog! It’s like someone at Hasbro has somehow tapped my brain for all the cool things that I like and decided to make a toy based upon those things.

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Images of the G.I. Joe Resolute box set are now out and hot damn, do
In the tradition of Hasbro doing something because it’s worked before comes a G.I. Joe Resolute box set, which is similar to the 25th Anniversary sets that were responsible for me being addicted to G.I. Joe again.

I’ll admit it, the figures look bad ass. Playing on the updated, yet familiar look first seen in the singled carded Resolute figures (of which I’ve seen only one stinking Duke in the store) this box set has a Cobra Commander, a B.A.T., two Cobra Troopers, and a Duke. Oh yeah, there’s also some bigger, spring loaded weapons in there that look like they are geared for the kid crowd.

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I came to a horrible realization last night that I’ve tried to supress… I’m completely indifferent to Transformers figures. I’m both stunned and amazed that when I go into a toy aisle, I barely even give Transformers a second glance and I really don’t pay attention to Transformers news. For some reason this bothers me, not only because I run a toy blog where I must write about the toys and Transformers is a huge brand, but also as a person who wonders if I’m betraying my childhood self who had been obsessed with the Transforming ‘bots.

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There’s some interesting pictures that have surfaced showing off possible upcoming Star Wars Clone Wars tie-in products that are worth sharing. Out of the group of pics, the Clone Turbo tank box mock up is the most interesting, because it is smaller than the AT-TE, but larger than most Star Wars vehicles made these days. Does this mean that the big vehicles sold enough to warrant making more? Oh Crom, I hope so. If big vehicles sell for Star Wars, that would only encourage Hasbro to make them for other lines like G.I. Joe.

Note: I swear he had a better picture of it, but this was the only one I could find where it was pictured when I came back to the site. It’s the box under the ARC-170.

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I haven’t posted a lot of new Star Wars figure info in quite some time, because frankly there really hasn’t been much exciting coming out of Star Wars figure selection in awhile. To be fair, they’ve made almost every single character that appeared on screen for at least a split second, so there’s no much left that’s really newsworthy. The new batch of figures in the Star Wars Legacy Collection Wave 6 have a couple of neat picks though.

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Toy collectors can be an odd bunch, specifically when it comes to collecting female figures. There’s some of us that like having some hawt girl toys, perhaps to make up for the hawt girls in real life that could never be possessed by you no matter how many poems you left in their locker and how many times you threatened to kill her cat. Anyway, there’s was a custom Scarlet figure that sold on eBay that targeted that special segment of the collecting community.

Sadly, the eBay seller didn’t write much that you could make fun of, but the pictures speak volumes.

Warning: There’s some explicit pictures. I apologize if you are looking at this via a feed I apologize, the overlords have it set to “full.”

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So a couple of G.I. Joe Resolute comic two packs have been revealed on the internets and they are bringing Joe fans two most requested figures Tunnel Rat and Shockwave, but there’s a problem here. Take a look at this picture:

Now I know that Tunnel Rat is Asian, but don’t you think this is a little over the line? Maybe this is just a guilty white man alarm that’s being tripped for no reason or maybe this is a sculpt that really is a little too… um how to say this… racist World War II era caricature? You decide!

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Target is going to get some more exclusive G.I. Joe vehicle action in the guise of a Conquest fighter jet and a Rattler. What’s that? They already had both of those vehicles? No, my friend. You are mistaken, as these vehicles are completely new!

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You know what’s great? Helping others. This time of the year is the perfect time to help the less fortunate, because there are a lot of kids out there that might not be able to have a good *insert religious or secular holiday here* this year. That’s where Toys For Tots and ToyBender come in. If you donate a toy(s) to Toys For Tots, you’ll have the chance to win some fabulous prizes!

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Are you avoiding G.I. Joe live action movie based action figures because you’re worried about spoilers? Too bad.

What you see here is a figure three pack from the upcoming live action Joe flick, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Supposedly it is an Iron Grenadier (Destro’s tough as nails and somewhat fancy special troops) three pack.

The most surprising thing about this set? It’s not horribly vomit inducing. That’s all I can hope for from any G.I. Joe toy based on the upcoming flick.

Thanks to: Toyark

I’ve fallen a bit behind on my G.I. Joe news, so let’s catch up a bit. There’s two items that came out in the last week or so that are really worth noting if you are a Joe fan. The first is the reveal of Cobra Commander from the cartoon, G.I. Joe Resolute.

He’s nice and all, but I’m pretty burnt out on Cobra Commanders. To get me to buy one, he’s got to be pretty damn fancy. I’m talking hand stitched doily fancy.

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