Spider-Ham

Spider-Ham, the spider that was bitten by a radioactive pig. In a universe where all people are sentient animal cartoon characters, May Porker is a super genius pig who built a radioactive hairdryer that put her in a radioactive daze, whereupon she bit a spider, transferring both her pig genes and super genius but leaving his spider-abilities. Now pretending to be her beloved nephew,
Peter Porker secretly fights crime as Spider-Ham against villains like Ducktor Doom and I only ever read one issue so I don’t know. Anyway, Spider-Ham was a barely remembered children’s comic from the 80s trotted out for nostalgia cameos until the Spider-verse story brought him into the mainstream and our current love for whimsy made him a star! He’s made numerous appearances in the current Spider-man cartoon and is going to appear in the new animated movie voiced by stand-up colossus John Mulaney.

And his Marvel Legend figure sucks! Above the waist he has typical Marvel Legend articulation but everything below the waist is a solid piece of plastic. I would have passed this figure up entirely but he comes with a Pig Venom head to make Pork Grind, his comics version of Venom. I assumed it was meant to go on the Monster Venom Build-A-Figure piece, but it didn’t fit. And it didn’t fit the Spider-ham figure... but it did fit the regular Venom figure... which already had an alternate head. It’s fine, Pork Grind is meant to be a lot bigger than Spider-ham, but I kinda wanted super-oversized Pig Venom.

Hela

I think Hela might be the most revolutionary figure Marvel Legends has ever made. I originally got it because I wanted a figure of goth Cate Blanchett, but holy crap! Her cape is removeable! 

Plastic capes have been the bane of my toy collection. I hate rigid capes that require that a figure only be posed standing up. But removable capes! Great! I want this on all capes figures! I won't get it, but I want it.

Mojo and Spiral

I still can't believe they made a Mojo minimate.

Batroc

They made a 6"  figure of Batroc the Leaper with double jointed knees? Well, you know me. I'm a sucker for any toy of a French stereotype who is considered a credible threat to Captain America because of how hard he can jump on things.

BATROC!

Don't let them fool you by their claims that he is a threat because of his savate (french kickboxing) skills, Batroc's power is that he has really strong French legs that he can French kick or stomp you with.

Marvel super hero mashers

Well, if anything was going to get me into this line it would probably be a Beta Ray Bill figure.

An alien horse head you can put on other Marvel characters! But I resisted. For now.

Marvel figures

Wow. Why is Hawkeye so maniacally happy?

And I found both versions of Beast... but who really wants Gray Beast? Does that version of the character have a fan base?

Payback Wolverine and Classic Sentinel

Payback Wolverine is from when he lost his healing powers and went to work for criminals. Or something like that. I dunno,  I wasn't reading X-men then. Anyway, Wolverine's dead for now so it's weird that there's merch from that period.

But hey, new Sentinel minimate! That's what I like.

Baron Zemo

Wow, what a horrible paint application.

Minimate Monday: Black Friday aftermath edition

I got minimates on Black Friday because of course I did!

Look, as much as I enjoy the concept of All-New X-Men (which for the uninformed is that the original X-Men, early in their careers when they are still young and idyllic, are brought to the present and are horrified by what the X-Men and mutants have turned into) the series has kind of lost its way and their new costumes are ridiculous, so I wasn't really too interested in a wave of minimates of the characters in their new costumes with minimate designs that make them all look like adults, not young teenagers. Fortunately Iceman in ice form just looks like any Iceman and I have yet to truly get my hands on a good Iceman minimate. And it comes with a Sentinel, which, let's face it, is a good army builder figure. So an easy Black Friday buy if it's on sale. Also, metal tentacles!

The other set is Urban Yukio and Black Clan Ninja from the Wolverine in Japan movie wave. But if you ignore that it's Urban Japanese Girl minimate and Ninja minimate. So my desire to own more Asian characters as minimates is sated. Although the ninja comes with a slightly curved sword and his sheath is straight so the sword doesn't fit without tearing the soft plastic it is made of.

Video Games

No toy blogging, playing Disney Infinity and Super Smash Bros.

Interesting note though, after reading comments disappointed about how few female heroes you can play as in the Marvel sets (2 out of 18 total) I decided to look at Disney 1.0.

So yeah, that's 8 female characters out of 29. And only 4 out of the 18 characters that come with playsets so they get plots and dialogue. Disney 2.0 is 7 out of 30!characters are female and The breakdown for playset characters: 2 women out of 21 characters.

That is pretty screwed up considering how many iconic female characters Disney has, and how large the segment is of Disney Infinity players that are women, girls, and men who like female characters.

Toy Show haul

Went to a toy show and bought some stuff: here's what/why?

Hot Toys Iron Man Mk4 from the Iron Man  2 series. Guy was selling some Hot Toys for original asking price. So I finally got an Hot Toys Iron Man in the classic suit design, which I've wanted for years. Something about the intricate machinery design at this scale is appealing. The big selling point was the articulated fingers.

Guy had some insane deals. Black Widow Hot Toy for $100! But I could only afford this guy. Glad to have him.

Also picked up a used Storm Shadow to fill out my 1:6 scale Cobra army. Some times the cheap Hasbro figures are a better value than the $200 Sideshow ones. Especially when I don't actually want the Sideshow Storm Shadow, I just want to collect a cobra team in 1:6 scale.

A Meanie Babie because I thought it was cute/amusing. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

And I also got Virus Attack Mr Freeze, which is Mr Freeze's internet crime avatar. Or.... You could pretend, like I plan to, that he's 1:6 scale Mr. Freeze post-losing his body. 

That show could be so weird when it wanted to.

Disney Infinity 2.0

I didn't love the first Disney Infinity but there were parts I liked. The game designers promised they fixed all the problems I had and then made it all superhero based.

End result: I bought all the figures on day 1.

I may have a problem. It helps that the figures can double as vinyl collectibles and cost roughly the same as some vinyl collectibles but aren't blind boxes.

Doctor Doom

They made a Titans figure of Doctor Doom, even though he doesn't have a movie tie-in! A cheap 1:6 scale Doctor Doom is great, even with the Titans series limited to cheap plastic and 5 points of articulation.

I figure I can pose him next to my Marvel Legends Icon figure and pretend he's a Doombot. You know, a crude imitation that is easily identifiable but very much a primitive version.

Groot and Nebula

A friend of mine picked up some of those Guardian of the Galaxy bobble heads from Funko and gave me the ones he didn't want. (Blind boxes... they suck so hard.) The figures are basically mini vinyl figures except with a spring connecting their neck and heads, so that they bobble. The Groot bobbles much more than the Nebula since the space where the spring attaches to the head is very narrow, leaving only a minimal amount of bobble movement. Meanwhile Groot's head is barely attached to the body, so the spring gets a lot of freedom to bounce. It has the unfortunate side-effect of making it look like Groot's head is falling off if you look at it at the wrong angle, since the head is, as I mentioned, barely attached to the body, with only the spring connecting the two. Both my friend and I would have preferred these to be simple vinyl figures. The Bobblehead stuff is more annoying than its worth. Also, I prefer bobble heads to be more like the classic ones rather than the Funko design. Because without a base, when you push the head, you're just as likely to push the entire figure over.

Cyborg Spider-Man and Songbird

Look, the Cyborg Spider-Man is cool and all, I like that his headband and cybernetic eye are actually a part of the head piece and not some removable hat like thing. But the reason I really wanted this set was the Songbird figure that helps me complete my set of Norman Osborn era Thunderbolts. The energy bird wings is pretty neat, even if it's possibly the largest accessory/base of a minimate ever. Her hovering effect is accomplished by a peg on the base that plugs into a small hole in her back. It's not the most stable thing ever, and I expect it would snap off eventually if I left it like this, but hopefully it can stand the test of time if I only ever use it a few times.

And hey, Spidey comes with an alternate arm so he only looks like he's had his eye replaced..... geez, why even bother.

Yondu and Sakaar Trooper

A Toys R Us Exclusive minimate 2 pack for Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of them is a blue Michael Rooker? Damn straight I'm getting that. I gotta say, I'm digging the minimalist vibe of the Sakaar Trooper, but wonder how that messed up face is going to work in the movie.

Aleksei Sytsevich and Alistair Smythe

Paul Giamatti and BJ Novak as minimates! 'Nuff said!

Seriously, this might the best thing to come out of Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Clearance Blast

Hey, the Toys R Us Clearance Blast is now at the stage where everything in the blast is at least 80% off. So a lot of things are under $2, which is a magic price where I realize it's cheaper than me buying a hamburger so why not. The downside is that what's leftover isn't very good. But here's some stuff I picked up this weekend.

Heroclix from those app games which also come with figures. Final price: $0.60. I pretty much just wanted these for the X-Men HeroClix, especially 90's Cyclops. Hell, I don't even play HeroClix, I just like them as tiny vinyl statues.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. K'Nex figure. I feel like I knew they made Nascar K'Nex, but they never appealed to me. But the chance to get a minifigure for under $0.50 was too strong a pull. I have no idea if this actually looks like Dale, but I doubt it. Meanwhile this minifigure sucks. The Pac-Man, Super Mario, and Angry Birds K'Nex figures are much better. I guess they need a video game license to make a good minifigure.

A $0.40 pez dispenser? Sure! That's how much 3 columns of Pex normally cost. So I'm basically getting a free Pez Dispenser. And it's a Muppet. Even better!

$0.80 for minimates? I already have two of this set, and I'm totally going to get it. That's like $0.80 for a Cardassian army builder. Score.

Hey, BattleBeast minimates! Better known as the minimate property that made me realize I don't need every minimate property because the more intricate with unique pieces the figure gets, the less like a minimate it looks like and the less I want it. But for under $2 I wouldn't mind seeing how they do a four legged minimate.

I've been thinking of getting this Kre-O Cityville set for a while, and now that it's under $1 I have no reason to not get it. I'm really impressed by the mechanics of the claw. I'm also really impressed by how well this building set works. I'd totally be up for buying more mechs in this scale, but they don't make them.

It's a World of Warcraft Pandarian on a mount. The Pandarians are a race in the game who have a mystical Far East kung-fu society which is why this post is getting a Toys Depicting Asian tag. I'm actually pretty impressed by the mount, especially since it's a giant turtle and you can take the shell off and put other bricks in its place. It's like a hermit crab, but with a horned turtle instead of a crab.

Oh, and I also picked up some Muppet Whatnot kits because at 80% off they're now $13. Well, the blue ones are. They're keeping the other colors the same price, and I think I know why. They're re-releasing them but with new accessories and new UPC codes. I saw one of the new one, instead of a black goatee you get a brown Magnum PI mustache. Instead of the black wig and green wig you get a white wig and rainbow wig. Stuff like that. Weirdly, based on the cost of individual eye and hair parts ala carte, it's still a better bargain to get the new set rather than the individual parts separately (parts that are near impossible to find online since FAO Schwartz doesn't like selling Whatnot stuff unless you buy a $100 custom made job from their New York Whatnot shop) since you get a free body with them.

Catman and Spider-Girl

I've begun to open a lot of the figures I've put aside in the last few years because I need to make room. Let's start with these two.

Originally introduced as Araña, the character Anya Corazon was rebranded as Spider-Girl because damned if Marvel was going to let a franchise go to waste. When she first debuted she got some press for being a teenaged latina superhero... and now she's a supporting player in the Spider-Man comics wearing a hand-me-down costume from the 80's Spider-Woman. Whatever. The character had/has some potential and that's why I'm celebrating that they made a Marvel Legends figure of her, even if it is in the Amazing Spider-Man Legends wave listed as "Skyline Sirens" so they could use the same packaging for the Black Cat figure. Ugh. Why would you call her a siren? She doesn't sing and no part of her powers has anything to do with music or noise.

Then there's Catman, which I got back when I was trying to build a comprehensive 6-inch set of Batman villains. I've given up on that and have moved on to trying to do that in the 1:6 scale, but I'm still amused they made a Catman action figure, so I opened the toy.

Marvel Labbits and Nog'nz

So this week I found myself picking up some interesting Marvel clearance items. First up was the Kid Robot series of Marvel Labbits.

As you can see, they're Marvel characters interpreted into rabbits. (Labbits is a design Kid Robot has used in the past, so they just superimposed the Marvel properties onto the existing template.) This is hilarious to me, because the Marvel characters are humans, not rabbits. So I decided to pick one up. And then I got another one. And a third. And then I was afraid I'd get a duplicate so I stopped.

I got a Red Skull, Doctor Octopus and Doctor Doom. I really like the Doc Ock with his arms which make it feel like a more substantial figure. The Doom design I like because, hey Doctor Doom. Red Skull I'm kinda meh about, and his Nazi uniform kinda creeps me out a bit. These figures are blind boxed, so even at Clearance I don't think I'll be picking up any more. (Unless they go down to around $2 a pop, which they won't because that's not how the store I got these from does clearance.)

The other thing I picked up were Marvel Nog'nz. I don't know how much these went for originally, but at 50 cents for a pack of two, I was willing to risk it. These are hard plastic, they're pretty much rip-offs of the GoGo's Crazy Bones, and are designed to be played with by chucking them at one another or rolled around like dice. Because they're such hard plastic, they make a very satisfying clinking noise when you shake them together or crash them into one another.

I got the last two bags in the store, and I'm pleased with the selection, mostly. I'd totally pick up a few more bags at the clearance price. Doctor Strange, Cyclops, and Ghost Rider all look ridiculous and adorable when their visages are smashed up and chibi-ized. But War Machine looks like a gray blob.