Neo Classic Iron Man and Stilt Man

Stilt Man!

Yeah, screw Neo Classical Iron Man, that's a ridiculous name. New Classic is an oxymoron.

But STILT MAN! He doesn't come with normal feet, because what would be the point. He just comes with stilt legs. Modular stilt legs.

I love it when the more ridiculous villians and heroes of the Marvel Universe get minimates.

Super Wrestler

Oh Europeans, it isn't a super wrestler, it's a luchador. Although coming from the company that also named other figures in the series "Mexican" and "Tribal Hunter," the accuracy of anything ethnic isn't shocking.

Yeah, this is part of the blind bag collector's series. But it wasn't until after I got this guy that I found out that if you go online there are secret codes you can use to figure out what's inside each bag. Fortunately the liberal policy of the toy store to paw the bags to get a sense for each figure's shape and my powers of deduction meant I was able to get one of the 4 figures I want from this wave.

Seventh Doctor & Electronic TARDIS

This is the 7th Doctor. There's two versions released, one is of his creame colored coat from his earlier stories. That one is packaged with a Dalek. This one is from the later stories, when he wore a darker jacket. They're esentially the same except the color of the jacket and the head sculpt is identical. But they were sold out of the other one, so I got this one. And it only is available with an Electronic TARDIS.

But I already have an Electronic TARDIS. Yes I do. But this one is different, for one thing it's a lighter color blue, but that's not all. In the classic Doctor Who series the TARDIS wsa lighter colored, but it also varied in size depending on which TARDIS prop they were using that year. Sometimes it was tall and skinny, other times it was very large. So it's difficult to say this is inaccurate. But it's easy to say that it's smaller than the one sold from the Doctor Who: the New Series of toys. Also, the phone panels are differnt. In the New Series TARDIS the phone was attached to the back of the sign and was essentially cut out from the door, so you saw the interior through the hole. In the Classic Series TARDIS the phone is given its own little cubby and has a rotary phone in there.

In the New Series TARDIS they put in a sticker on the interior to look like the TARDIS interior is within. In the Classic Series TARDIS it looks like a hollow plasic shell. Like in the episodes when the TARDIS breaks and it's not longer a TARDIS anymore.

Also, and this is a small thing: The spring loaded door which allows the door to stay open. That's broken on the Classic TARDIS I got. So that sucks. And as a final thing, I haven't put batteries in them, but the Classic Series TARDIS makes fewer noises, limited to the take off & landing noise. The New Series TARDIS is supposed to also do emergency sirens and various malfunctioning crashing noises. I haven't decided which TARDIS I like better. That broken spring on the door really sucks though.

UPDATE: I contacted the retailer and they sent me a new TARDIS for free, along with a SASE to send back the broken one.

Ecto-1

My desire for an Ecto-1 Hot Wheel had reached the point of near futility, where I began to tell myself that I didn't really want one after all. I took a look at Mario's and began some sour grapes rationalization, telling myself it looked stupid.

Then of course a week later I found one and quickly bought it. And... well I think it wasn't worth the effort I put into searching for it, but it's a nice little Hot Wheel. Really it could look like shit and as long as it had the Ghostbusters Logo I think it'd still have the near hysteria of collectors as it does now. But it looks like the Ecto-1 would if everything that wasn't part of the original car was made of dull black plastic.

Meanwhile on the ramp and loop, the Ecto-1 failed to clear the loop, usually a sign that the car is too light. And holding it in your hand you certainly miss the feeling of a heavy metal toy car.

Ramp Distance: DNF

Blue Beetle (3)

DC Comic's creative direction has pretty much lost me, but before it did they had just enough time to make me a fan of the new Blue Beetle comic. Because of that I've always been a big fan of the Jaime Reyes, the third Blue Beetle, character and when I heard they were making a DCUC figure of him I knew it was on my must have list. Since it's DCUC, I prepared for the worst. Those suckers are always hard to find when they're first scheduled.

But I got one and now I am happy. His joints seem a little looser than the other DCUC figures I own, but they hold up, and he retains a pose well. Standing him up is no problem, so hooray on that front. Accessory wise the Blue Beetle (3) comes with a pair of detachable wings which are really easy to take off and put back on using a series of pegs on the back. Despite this ease, they stay fairly well stuck to the back until you want to take them off again. They're also light enough that the figure still stands upright with them on. Oh, and one note, it's just the wings. The beetle scarab shaped backpack that produces the figure's pincher head halo is part of the figure proper.

He also comes with a blade which snaps onto the arm, a pin of Ted Kord from the JLI first issue cover, and a leg of Trigon. But screw it, I'm not getting any other Trigon BAF figures so it's just a leg. A leg that the Blue Beetle maybe tore off someone?

Lego Police Boat

This small sucker is one of the Target Easter exclusives that Lego puts out. Every holiday that features an obscene set of merchandise it seems like Lego and Target put out a small mini-set in a poly-bag for stocking stuffers or Easter baskets or Halloween treats. The Mini-X-Wing I showed earlier was also for Easter, but since this Lego set doesn't have to worry about licensing it happent o be a bit cheaper.

Featuring 30 pieces (four of which are for the stubble mini-fig, which is one of the few mini-figs I actually like the cut of) this little police boat makes me think I need more Lego boats. It's just that awesome. The form and design are perfect, even with so few pieces. This looks like a real vehicle, not some implausible dream from the land of imagination like the Power Miners vehicles.

Look at the detail, there's even levers for the motor!

Yeah, so this was only available at Easter so you can't get it now.... This is not a consumer advice blog. Clearly.

Play 'n Build Animal Pals II

So I went to Subway Sandwiches today and noticed that the kids meal toy for toddlers under 3 were Mega Bloks. Mega Blocks are one of the Lego knockoffs in the US, but rather than offer a Duplo clone to toddlers Mega Bloks offers oversized blocks, basically giant lego like blocks. And since the Kids meal costs about the same as a regular sandwich I decided to go for it. I'm so smart with my money.... not really, but it made sense at the time.

From what I can tell about previous Subway megablocks, they usually give you 3 blocks with a sticker on them to create a design. Since right now the regular kids meal has a wildlife theme you can see that they've attached animal stickers to these blocks. One side is a panda, the other side a giraffe. And something that came as a surprise, there's sculpted feet.... with one side as panda feet and the other side something resembling deformed giraffe feet. I don't know why that's better than a regular block... it certainly is worse if you want to put the feet on other Mega Bloks because the feet protrude and get in the way of the other studs.

As you can see, one of the benefits of having two animals printed on the blocks is that you can mix and match. I call this a Panraffe.