Toy Bender

I’m already behind on Star Wars vehicles that I want need and Hasbro isn’t making it any easier. First up is the “Crumb Bomber“:

I’m really not hot on the name, but I love me some Gunship action. What’s great about this gunship, which will be a Toys R Us exclusive, is that it has been retooled a bit. It’s got doors that fully close now as well as new missile pods in the wings. I’ve never opened the one gunship that I have, so I guess perhaps it’s time to let that one go and get this one. Now that a battle pack is going to come out that comes with a gunner pod, I’m totally all about opening up a gunship and loading it with troopers for display.

By the way, does anyone know if someone is making repro stickers for Gunship art yet? I’m going to need to get rid of the Salacious Crumb and replace it with a sexy Twi’lek or two.

The other cool Star Wars vehicle due out is the Clone Wars style Y-Bomber:

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Twilight fans, you know what sucks? Twilight. You know what sucks even more? Jerkholes like me making fun of it all the time. Holy crap has that got to be terrible if you love the book and films. I like some terrible shit, but it’s not popular (at this point) to bash it at the moment. So I’m going to take it easy on you. No more making fun of Twilight to get Twilight fans to make any comments on the post, even though I state I’m doing it to get angry comments from rabid fans, because clearly people miss that part.

The reason I bring Twilight up now is to point out these Twilight inspired Barbie dolls:

Unlike other internet bloggers, I will not make fun of them. I will talk about what I like about them. I really like the fact that Bella Barbie isn’t as Plain Jane as the actress that portrays her. In fact, she’s kind of cute which is a nice change of pace. I could actually believe a vampire would fall in love with this girl. I also like the fact that everyone’s favorite Dracular Edward Cullen isn’t as ugly as a rotten stump. I mean, he’s pretty ugly, but by far not as ugly as Robert Pattinson. Granted Dracular Ken is not the most handsome Dracular in the universe, but he’s not as hideous as his real life counterpart and that makes all the difference.

See, I can play nice and clearly not say mean things about something that has people rabidly defending it. Heck, I may even some day make peace with the ICP crowd and say something nice about ICP.

Heh, probably not.

I used to collect only mint on card toys. I did that because I get more of a nostalgia kick out of carded and box toys than I do for ones that are opened. I also think that a toy in the package can be art. But as much as I like carded toys, I would never spend the insane amount of money I’ve seen go for vintage toys in the package. Take for instance this He-Man with a sled:

The seller is looking for $20,000 for this puppy. Egad! You know what’s even worse, though? The fact that he’s still charging twenty five bucks for shipping. Seriously dude? You can’t throw in shipping when you’re getting the same price some people buy for a new car? What a cheap ass.

I know that there are some of you nerds out there with enough cash to drop on a really expensive toy for no other reason other than it’s rare, but I have to wonder about someone spending this much in the economy we are currently in. Holy crap, I could only imagine buying a He-Man for twenty grand and then losing my job. Of course, I’m looking at this from the perspective of someone who doesn’t have a lot of money. The world may seem a bit different if I’m taking daily dips into a pool of gold.

Playmates released images and details on their new Star Trek figures and I’ve got to admit, amazingly some of them don’t look like total crap!

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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.

I think Back to the Future is one of the few nerd movie franchise that almost everyone can agree is awesome. One of the great things about Back to the Future is that even non-geeks love the film. It’s just that great. Another thing that makes Back to the Future so awesome was the use of the now iconic DeLorean Motor Company’s DMC-12 as the time travel machine (DMC-12 is the model, because there were supposed to be other DeLorean cars just like there’s Chevy and Ford). Lending proof to my credence that anything made into Lego is automatically more fun comes this DeLorean DMC-12 made out of Lego bricks:

As cool as it is, it’s got one feature that pushes it from cool to ball droopingly awesome. It’s actually a remote control Back to the Future DeLorean.

I can’t get over how great this is. I’d make one of my own, but I’m guessing in order to track down all the pieces I’d need to invest a lot of time and money, since I’ve only got a few Lego sets that are meant to be Star Wars vehicles. Who wouldn’t want their very own remote control Lego DeLorean though? In a perfect world Lego would make these. They’d earn another billion dollars and nerds like me could have fun with their new RC toy on the kitchen floor.

Thanks to: The Brothers Brick

I get email news updates from a couple of online stores and while browsing through the latest mailing from Brian’s Toys (one of the fine sponsors of last year’s Joes for Tots contest), I saw that there was going to be an Ewok themed battle pack. Well feast your eyes on this beauty:

What? One Ewok!? Granted he’s got a flying rig there, but one Ewok? And two other dudes? That’s like two and a half figures total! I was suitably upset and wrote this on Twitter:

Paul_Rudolph Thanks to @brianstoys I now know there’s an Ewok battle pack that comes with 1 ewok. Woah, Hasbro way to be generous with the ewoks.

Seriously, this doesn’t even qualify as a battle pack. I know times are tough and they’ve moved from giving us five figures to four or three and a neat pack in, but come on already. This is two and a half figures and a piece of plastic that’s been released several times already.

Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn’t care so much about an Ewok, but awhile back I made the commitment to myself to rebuild my vintage Ewok village to be faster, stronger, and all of that. I need as many Ewoks that I can get my hands on to populate the thing and you’d think an “Ewok Battle Pack” would basically take care of my needs. Hell, they’ve packed two Ewoks on a single card, so you’d think that even now that they are down to four normal figures that they could stuff at least four Ewoks in there plus a bonus into an “Ewok Battle Pack”.

At least this gave me a reason to break any kind of record for the number of times “Ewok” was mentioned in a single post on the internet.

Marvel Universe wave five info is out and it’s a bit underwhelming overall. Fans of Marvel Comics super heroes will be able to finally get their hands on another villain in the classic looking Electro. I realize there’s a lot of heroes that people want, but why the huge lack of villains? More villains please!

Out of all the figures int his wave I would like to get my hands on a Guardian. I know nothing about him, but I always really dug the Canadian costumes that about four heroes have variations of. Other than that, I really don’t need a modern Sub-Mariner, a refill of Spider-Man, or a repaint of Iron Man. In fact, the repaint bothers me because when I saw that there was going to be a Silver Centurion Iron Man I didn’t think he was going to be a lazy repaint. I want the Silver Centurion Iron Man, not that horrid looking current armor in any form.

Thanks to: Marvelous News

I hate to keep writing about my collection of toys and everything related to it, but please bear with me. This is the first time I’ve had all this stuff together in years. Anyway, as I’m digging through everything I discovered to my horror that I have way too many Millennium Falcons. Check this out:

That’s three on the right which are from the classic variety and this is not counting my vintage Falcon that is missing many pieces and is in storage. Then to the left is the big ass Falcon that I was so happy to get last year. How does one end up with three essentially identical toys? Well the first one was the one of the bottom that I purchased way back in the day simply because I could. Since I was strictly a MOC collector it’s remained in the box ever since. The one above that was purchased at discount at a convention because the box sucked. I figured that I could open it up and enjoy it. The final Falcon on the top there was a gift from my parents who saw it at Sam’s Club and got it for me for Christmas. It’s actually my favorite boxed version, because I think it looks neat with the extra characters on top there. I guess that now I’ll have to add two more toys to the sell pile.

Does anyone else have this problem? I mean, do you ever come across a bunch of stuff you realized you didn’t have and even worse, end up with doubles or triples?

Due to the fact that I don’t collect Star Wars figures as much as I used to, I haven’t done many of these round ups. After going through all my figures to pick out ones to sell I’ve becoming interested in Star Wars figures again. Strange how that works. Anyway, I collected a few of my favorite questions from this last round of questions to Hasbro.

Over at Jedi Temple Archives someone is really picky about their orange colored figures:

Jedi Temple Archives: Would you consider a Battle Packs set that would include a take on the 212th Attack Battalion as seen in Revenge of the Sith? And if you did, would you be able to better match the orange color used on the armor so it is more authentic to the film? It almost seems like a no-brainer since the other Battle Packs that have focused on Order 66 have been such great sellers and disappeared quickly, like Betrayal On Felucia or Treachery On Saleucami for example. I am sure collectors and kids alike would love to see these Utapau troopers out again (especially since they have not made it into the Saga Legends line yet). And perhaps you can guarantee collector support if you recolor the orange or provide us with different battle damage applications.

Hasbro: That is a great suggestion for a Battle Pack, and one which we’ll consider for the future. Interesting comment on the orange coloration - we had not heard that one ourselves but will look into it. Thanks.

You know why they hadn’t heard it before? Because nobody with a life gives a shit.

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The following article originally appeared on the Wizard Universe website. Since they purged their archives, I’m mirroring it here.

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I’m no Captain Planet and I hate the new trend to label everything “green”, but I don’t think our society should needlessly waste resources. There always is a bit of talk surrounding toys and their packaging in this regard, due to the fact that some toys create a lot of garbage. I don’t normally think about this issue, but I recently got a hold of of my first Star Wars Evolutions pack* and was pretty much disgusted with the amount of waste. First though, let’s take a look at the package before opening:

Not a bad presentation, but what always bothered me a bit was the size of the box. It’s incredibly long for only the figures. There’s a little note on the box showing that the big square to the left contains additional accessories. I figured with the size of that square you must get some neat stuff.

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Ahh there are some very simple things in life that bring me joy and this custom Danger Mouse Lego creation is one of them. The car by Louise Dade looks great and those mini-figures (made by Louise’s Mom of all people) look perfect as Danger Mouse and Penfold. I really wish this could be purchased in stores.

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You know what I don’t buy any more? Star Wars vehicles from the original movies. There was a period when I went nuts if I found a B-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Bomber, etc., but once I had them in the early ’00s, I was pretty much set. I’m not one to buy several versions of the same vehicle anymore. I’ve somehow grown an unruly lot of Hoth Speeders without really trying and I don’t want to do that again. However, my policy may change when I see a “new” TIE Fighter in stores which is currently in the works. Hasbro has finally gotten around to changing the interior of the classic fighter of the Empire to better resemble the movie model.

They’d made the change to the wings awhile ago by making them much bigger and thereby more movie accurate, but I didn’t want to shell out 40 bucks for the wings. This interior change to the classic TIE is just what it needed. Combine it with the wings and you have a sure fire purchase. The price better not increase for this change though. The TIE isn’t as value packed as many other toys of the same size.

And while we are on the subject, let me share with you with some sadness from my childhood. Even though I had tons of Star Wars toys when I was a kid, I didn’t have a single TIE fighter. It’s strange and very sad to think that I had hours and hours of Star Wars play time without a single epic X-Wing on TIE fighter battle.

There should be some sort of government mandated reparations for that level of suffering.

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.