New Stuff, April and May 2009

It's been a while since I posted on anything I've gotten lately, partly because I don't buy new toys as often as I used, and partly because I'm too lazy to post pictures when I do get stuff. So, here you go.

Art Asylum Star Trek figures (l-r) Captain Terrel and Admiral Kirk (doublecross) from Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, Dr Beverly Crusher and Ensign Wesley Crusher from The Next Generation. From Marvel Legends Brood Queen series Marvel Girl and Danger.

DCUC 7 Big Barda no helmet variant

NECA Terminator 2 T-800 Endoskeleton (2009)

Halo 3 Blue Hayabusa

Ninja's can't catch you if you're on fire - Dr McNinja

Atom Smasher Arrives

It's been a while since I posted pictures of new toys. These are getting to be quite old now, but better late than never.

Pirate Spawn from the most recent, and final Spawn series.

McFarlane Halo 3 figures - Wave 4 Red EOD and Wave 3 Red/Silver Elite, along with POTC Elizabeth Swann's Necklace and Jack Sparrow's Dragon Ring, which I got for the great price of $5 each.

And the ones I was looking forward to the most, and have had for about three weeks now, DCUC wave 7 - Atom Smasher wave

At the time of the above picture I had only opened the two figures shown, but I have since opened the rest and assembled Atom Smasher, and the figures are every bit as cool as I expected. Except for Flash, who I didn't expect to be that exciting, despite being a key character of the JLA, he's very much neater than I expected.

Atom Smasher is also pretty cool, for what I expected to be a boring figure, cause he's just some tall guy, rather than a giant zombie, or killer robot, or the Son of Darkseid. I'm glad they made him, and it makes me look forward to Giganta more.

Remember Kids: From Hell's heart, I stab at thee... For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee... - Khan Noonien Singh

Pic of the Day 15

New Halo 3 6th scale helmet, from McFarlane Toys. I love mini helmets of this nature.

Bullets don't hurt me. But I know pain. Sometimes I like to share it with people like you.

Pic of the Day 12

Halo 3 Brute Stalker by McFarlane Toys. The Halo 3 line is great, but in order to be the completionist I want to be of DCUC I'll be almost completely dropping this line. I'll still get the little mini helmets though. I love mini helmets.

Remember Kids: Resistance is futile!

Halo 3 2009 Want List

It's been a while since I posted, and since I still haven't been able to get back to watching Batman: The Animated Series (for a variety of reasons, the next good reason will be that I'll be getting Guitar Hero 2 and Rock Band for the XBox 360 tomorrow, who knows when anyone will see me again).

Anyway, I thought I'd throw together a post with the next few Halo3 figures I'm looking to get, since the first wave of 2009 should be hitting soon. The waves announced so far have rejected the Campaign/Multiplayer divisions of the last few series' , instead calling themselves the Equipment Edition, because they come with some sort of larger accessory that can be used during the game.

2009 Wave 1 Equipment Edition

There are quite a few neat looking figures in this wave, but I still stick with my Red & Blue only rule for UNSC troops, so all I have on that front for this wave is the Red EOD and the Blue Hayabusa (which looks to be my favorite of the two, and possibly of everything I have). I think this is the first series that's seen the release of the Security armor, which looks neat, but it's not being released in a color I can buy, so I hope we see it in red and blue before too long.

I'm a little more lax in my Red/Blue rule for Covenant figures, I try to get one of each unique alien, though I've missed a few, and double up on others. Red/Blue Covenant get passes so do have duplicates of somem, so this last wave I'm getting three variants of the same Elite figure, since there's an exclusive Red/silver (still need) and Blue/Yellow (have) version in addition to the standard blue version. And I just realized this whole section is pointless. I was trying to get to the point that the Tan Elite Combat in this upcoming wave is a new armor configuration than the previous Elites, but it's not, so I'm not going to get it, since I already have Red/Blue vevrsions of it.

I might get Master Chief since he'll come with the Rocket Launcher, but I might wait for a Red/Blue Spartan to get it. Additionally, the Red EOD will be re-released in wave 2 of this year, with a different accessory, I think I'll get that one, since the accessory is a red version of the thing that the Blue Hayabusa gets, although if it looks like too many figures in the next wave I'll grab this one. But right now it looks like I only need one figure from this wave.

2009 Wave 2 Equipment Edition

This wave has a bunch of nice figures, but most fall just outside my rules, like the White Hayabusa. When I started with Halo3 I planned to get Red, Blue and White figures, but I dropped the White ones after the first wave, just because I didn't want to dedicate that much money to this line. The White Hayabusa is really nice though, and I'd gladly trade my White Mark VI for one. The generic Marine trooper looks pretty nice too, but chances are very good I'll never buy him.

Wave 2 will also see the release of a Blue EVA Spartan. The Red EVA from 2008 Wave 1 was my favorite figure until 2008 Wave 3's Blue EOD was announced, so I'm looking forward to this one. Oh, and it comes with a rocket launcher, so scratch off Master Chief from the possibles list for 2009 Wave 1. I already mentioned the Red EOD, so I won't do so again.

The final figure from the announced 2009 waves is a new armor configuration for the Elites, the Assault version. The first figure is Silver with some redish-purplish highlights. Since it's new I'll get one, unless a Red or Blue one has been announced by the time arrives.

Remember Kids: There is no overkill, there is only reload and open fire.

More New Stuff. Finally

It's been a while since I was able to buy anything. I've been so focused on DCUC that I let the second series of Halo 3 figures pass me by with only one added to my collection. However, with the release of series 3 this past week I went back and arranged a trade for my most wanted figure from 2, pics when it arrives. So, series 3 is out, and I found two of them today at Walmart, the red Hayabusa Spartan and the Combat Elite.

A couple of weeks ago I sold a few extra figures on eBay, got my monthly allowance, and had nothing to buy. I already had DCUC 3, and 4 wasn't due out yet (though it was sighted a week and half ago), but I had all this money burning a hole in my pocket, so I did the only thing I could do. I bought stuff on eBay. I probably should have saved the money until I could order a case of DUCU 4 and 6, but I couldn't contain myself, and a new project came to mind that required a couple of purchases (more on that next post). After far too long a time, stuff has finally been showing up.

I have wanted to read the Batman: No Man's Land story arc for a long time. But the trades are rather expensive, and since it's a long story there are several trades, especially if you count the stories that lead up to it. But I found a seller that let me finagle a good price on the three he had, so now I have volumes 2, 4 and 5 of 5. A few days later I won volume 1 so it's on the way too. I also have a lead on two of the prelude trades (Contagion and Cataclysm) for good prices, except I'm broke again.

I have been trying to get the Batman and Superman Animated Series DVD sets for good prices, and I found good deals on Batman TAS Vol 1 and 3, Superman TAS vol 3 and Justice League Vol 1. This completes my Superman TAS Justice League collections, I still need vol 2 of Batman TAS, both Justice League Unlimited sets, and all three volumes of Batman Beyond (though that's at the bottom of the list).

And finally (for this post) I got one of the somewhat more expensive Sigma 6 figures, for a great price. It's not perfect, it's in somewhat played with condition, his knife and tomahawk need a little touch up paint work, but thanks to Rish Outfield I'm now qualified to make such touch ups. But the important part was the bow and arrows/quiver and they're in great shape, and the figure's nicer than I expected he would be. Presenting Spirit Iron-Knife.

Speaking of painting, I picked up two figures on clearance recently with the intention of painting them. I got the animated Raven Spawn which I plan to do in a black/red deco like the 3" trading figure, and Superman Red, which I plan to go over the red with black, sorta reminiscent of the Justice Lords and Future Superman look from Justice League and Batman Beyond respectively. When I get around to painting them I'll post pics.

There's nowhere left to run! This is the hour of Fin Fang Foom!

I've recently become interested enough in the Marvel Legends line (formerly by Toy Biz, currently by Hasbro) to start trying to acquire some. What really pushed me into following the line is the Build-a-Figure concept, started by Toy Biz with series 10. Each figure of that wave came with a piece of another figure. In this case, they assembled into a Giant Mutant-Killing Robot Sentinel. Sentinel is around 13-14 inches tall, which is nice and big compared to the 6 inch scale for the regular figures. He's kinda hard to put together now, but I'm working on it. I also decided I wanted a few of the other BAFs, such as Onslaught, and Annihilus (which I almost have completed).

I really like the BAF idea, as it allows us to get figures we wouldn't normally, like less likely to sell well as a single carded figure, such as a Giant Mutant-Killing Sentinel. A lot of people have complained about Hasbro's BAFs because compared to several of Toy Biz's they're quite small. Ronin is the size of a regular figure, Annihilus is a little bigger, but not 9-10 inches like Onslaught, let alone the Giant Mutant-Killing Robot. But, with Hasbro's latest Marvel Legends line they really tried to match up to Toy Biz's fame with a Giant Green Dragon Monster, by the name of Fin Fang Foom. Derek and I went shopping last night in our weekly toy hunt and found the complete set at Toys R Us. I had been planning to buy the pieces on eBay because I only like two of the figures, but after watching some of the pieces sell for over $15 by themselves I realized it was cheaper to buy all the figures at $15 a pop and sell the ones I don't want.

This wave is know as Hulk Legends and is comprised of eight figures relating to the Incredible Hulk. We've got things like Bruce Banner's cousin the She-Hulk, his son Skaar, Savage Gray Hulk, the Absorbing Man, and then we have more interesting things like Wendigo a demon spirit that possesses people and drives them to violent, mindless ramages until something stronger than it (like the Hulk I guess) stops them. This is one of the only two figures from the set I really like.

The only other figure I like is King Hulk, from the same storyline as Son of Hulk. Something to the effect of people (Superheroes) think Hulk is to dangerous and unpredictable so they put him in a rocket and blast him off into space. He lands on a planet called Sakaar where he finds he fits in great because everyone is violent and mean. He enters into some sort of gladatorial combat (whence comes the Planet Hulk gladiator figure in the Annihilus series, the only figure from that wave I want to get for something other than the Annihilus piece), I guess he wins, eventually kills the evil king, takes his throne and his queen and has a son. Then Earth's 'Superheroes' blow up the planet and kill everyone and everything on it, except Hulk who survives, comes back to Earth and is really not happy. Anyway, the figure is cool, that's why I'm keeping it. He also comes with an axe, but after helping me open several figures Katie was playing with it and I forgot to put it in the picture.

Katie and I spent a good while opening these figures so I could get the pieces for myself and list the extra stuff on eBay, and when we were done this is what we had. As you can see, Foom is comprised of several pieces - 11 spread out over 8 figures, especially compared to DCUC BAFs (Collect & Connect's technically) which only require 5 pieces. Even Sentinel, which is almost as tall as Foom only took 6 pieces.

Once assembled Foom is tall, the packaging says over 15 inches, which I take to mean 15-1/32 or -1/16 inches, but it could be more than that. It doesn't really matter though, because by far he's the tallest thing I have. He will be lots of fun to display against the smaller figures, be it the 6 inch DC and Marvel figures, be it the 5 inch Halo figures, or 3 3/4 Star Wars (and upcoming Marvel figures). In fact, I think the smaller the figures are the cooler Foom will seem. I'm definitely going to give the small Marvel Universe figures a try once they come out, since Wolverine and Iron Man should be some of the earliest figures, and it'll be exciting to set them up with the Star Wars figures and have them take on the Giant Green Dragon.

Okay, enough babbling, right? Let's see him once he's assembled. . Right, that's great and all but it doesn't really show how big he really is, so we've got some comparison pics. As always, click the image for a larger picture.

Fin Fang Foom is awesome. He's also the first Marvel Legends BAF I've completed. And the most expensive. There are a few nits to pick, and since I spent a ton of money on him we'll pick them. King Hulk's left arm is supposed to be silver, but is cast in a plastic that is gray, not shiny or metallic looking at all, and has a bit of a yellow tint to it. I plan to do some touching up of that arm to make it look like he's got a metal sleeve. His skin could use either a dark wash or dry brushing, but I'm not sure which so I'll probably just leave it. Derek thinks the leather stuff needs some work, probably a dark brown or black wash to make it look a little more real, or less like unpainted brown plastic. Some of Fooms joints don't look like they connected well enough, mostly the upper torso area. The arms don't look like they're in far enough, there's too much of a gap, and similarly where the lower and upper torsos connect the gap seems too big. Only the double elbow has enough movement. The ankles and wrists in particular could use more movement, to cover the joint the leg and arm extends too far over the joint, kinda like a sleeve. With some careful trimming the movement range could be enhanced. The knees also could use such tweaking, and maybe the mouth to get it to close a little more. I don't know if I'll make any of these changes though, because he's really great, and I am happy with how he is. He could just move a tad better.

Unrelated Addendum

I recently encountered Evanescence's (of whom I am a big fan) first CD, Origin, of which I am now a bigger fan. It is such a great album it is a damn shame that it is so hard to come by. Everybody deserves to hear it. So, I present for your listening pleasure the first part of the instrumental end track, Eternal.

HaloSpawn!

New York Comic Con is this weekend, and toy companies are revealing new info on what products are coming this year. The lines I'm most looking forward to hearing about are two of Mattel's lines: DC Universe Classicsand Infinite Heroes, and we've had a couple of tidbits of information (Lightray and Amazo as upcoming DCUC figures).

However, the most exciting bit of news so far comes from McFarlane Toys, the creators of Spawn and the makers of the most awesome Halo 3 figures. They have announced two figures that will be available exclusively at San Diego Comic Con this July, one of which is fairly unimportant (Active Camo CQB Spartan), one of which is a completely lame, silly, fan-service, hokey repaint. And it is also totally awesome and I MUST have it. I present to you the Hellspawn Spartan, or HellSpartan.

2007 Review - Part 1

Well, about the middle of January, I wrote out (on paper!) a big old long post, looking back some of the more memorable (to me) items and such that I bought or was looking forward to last year. Now that's its nearly April I figured it was about time I got around to typing it up and posting it.

Experiences

We'll start with some memorable experiences. First, in August I became a member of the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers - the Lucasfilm sanctioned Star Wars costuming club. I served the Emperor as a Royal Guard until just recently, when I sold the costume. I plan to acquire an Imperial Officer's uniform next, planning a Captain in the Imperial Navy (Captain of a Star Destroyer, thank you very much). I've only been to 6 or 7 events, as most take place an hour's drive or more away, but there's also a family I've seen 3 or 4 times that drive from the far side of the state (5ish hours) so I can't complain too much. The most recent event was on New Year's Eve, at Provo Town Center mall, I even got my picture taken with Ronald McDonald (that's me on his left).

The other experience I want to talk about briefly is that I watched a significant portion of Star Trek. A few years back, during school, I worked at a place that allowed me to watch a lot of TV (it was actually part of my job), and for a couple of months I was able to watch several episodes of ST: The Next Generation and ST: Deep Space Nine. Since then I've wanted to watch all Star Trek, in order (well, maybe not Voyager). Early last year I purchased the first season of the Original Series, and my wife and I watched them all. We really enjoyed them, and about half-way through those we borrowed all 10 movies from a co-worker and watched them, as well. We're now almost done with the second season, and I should probably start looking to pick up the third and final season.

I really like the original crew - in particular Kirk, Spock and McCoy (of course, who doesn't love those three?). I enjoy the Spock/McCoy interaction, all the emotion vs logic. And of course, Kirk really is too entirely awesome. While some of the effects are a bit primitive, or some of the costumes are a little lame, for the most part I don't notice those things, and it's just an excellent show with lots of great stories. I'm really looking forward to finishing it up, and then moving on to The Next Generation.

Purchases

Moving on to items I purchased last year, I can say that like 2006, I spent far too much money this year. I couldn't possibly talk about everything I bought last year in one post so I'll just hit the highlights (but I do intend to at least post pictures of everything, someday).

2007 was the year that I really branched out to collecting things other than Star Wars. I mean, I had a couple of items here and there (like a Batman Begins figure), but I wasn't researching or anticipating figures in other lines. Until Spawn and Mortal Kombat. I happened across a couple of figures at TRU that I couldn't put down, so I got them. I mostly expected them to be one-off purchases, and the MK figure was for sure (in fact, I returned that one and got two better characters off eBay), but it was that purchase that freed me to get into Spawn figures, which led to Halo figures, which led to DC Comics figures (Batman and Superman), which led to 2008 being a very Halo- and DC-centric year.

I bought three Halo 2 figures, but stopped, as the ones I wanted were a little too expensive, and I decided to wait until the Halo 3 figures McFarlane began producing this year. Now that I have received all of mine from the first series, I should be reviewing them in a few of weeks.

Along with watching Star Trek I decided that I really like some of the vehicle designs—particularly the Enterprise —enough that I needed a couple ships for my shelves. I set out to get each version of the Enterprise, and was happy to find a Japanese company, Furuta, already had a Star Trek line. They've made several Trek ships around 3-4 inches long, including all of the Enterprise versions (except the NX-01 from the series Enterprise). The Japanese sure to love to blind-packaged stuff, and have rare, hard to find chase variants. In this case, the Enterprise E (from the last three movies) was the chase version so by itself it tended to sell for $20-$25 on eBay. Of course, that's my favorite version, but I didn't want to spend that much on it, so I was lucky to find someone selling a lot of 11 ships, which included all the Enterprise E and the other versions, for a very reasonable price.

I also discovered Corgi International was making a few die cast metal ships in a 6-8 inch scale. They released 3 in 2007, of which I picked up 2—the Original Enterprise, and the Enterprise-D. I hope they continue this line soon, particularly with my two favorite ships the Enterprise-E and the TNG era Romulan Warbird.

Another line I branched into this year was Spawn. It started in May-ish when I saw Spawn X from the first animated style series hanging on the pegs at Toys R Us. The animated Spawn figures are in a style similar to that of the animated Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons, I just couldn't pass it up, and it's been downhill from there. I collect mostly Spawn himself, but occasionally other characters are appeal to me enough for me to get them. I really like the look of Spawn, and McFarlane Toys does an amazing job sculpting the figures. Some of my favorite figures so far are Spawn VI (masked version in particular, but the unmasked is pretty good too) and Medieval Spawn III (both from Series 20), Issues 7 cover art, Raven HellSpawn 2, and of course the animated figures - particularly Raven Spawn and Commando Spawn.

While I'm talking about McFarlane Toys toys I also began and stopped collecting the Dragons line. I found the Eternal Dragon Clan 5 at TRU, and couldn't pass it by. That led to buying a couple older ones off eBay (one of which I've since sold, and getting another one from series 5—the Sorcerer Dragon Clan—and one from series 6—the Ice Dragon Clan. There is still one more I'd like to get, Ice Dragon Clan 7. The line has since ended with series 8, and McFarlane has moved on to a new fantasy line called Blade Masters (or something like that). There are a few figures I would like but I'm not really considering getting any soon.

As mentioned earlier, I started getting into DC Comics figures big time in 2007. Particularly, I'm a big fan of Batman, Superman, Supergirl and Green Lantern, but there are a few other characters I like as well. I learned that DC Direct makes a bunch of great DC figures, and they're really aimed at collectors, although I'm sure kids would enjoy some of them, but they're really a specialty marked company, so prices are a bit higher than the lines by Mattel. One of the great things about DC Direct is they often release figures based on particular comics, so figures are made in the style of the artists that worked on the comics.

My favorite line right now is the Superman/Batman line, based on the comic series of the same name. Most of the waves from that line are based on the artwork of Ed McGuinnes. You can see pictures of some of these on my wantlist of his figures. The second series is based on Michael Turner's art—which I love, his Batman is how I will always picture Batman now—and the recently announced series 6 will be based on the fifth major storyline from the S/B comics: Enemies Among Us.

Unfortunately, I didn't get into DC figures until the end of last year, so I've got a lot of catching up to do, but that's what eBay is for, and so far the best way (read cheapest) I've found to get them is to buy lots of several figures at once, as they usually go for a lower amount per figure as opposed to buying one figure at a time. 2008 will be heavily focused on DC figures, between the various DC Direct lines, and between Mattel's DC Universe Classics line, so you can expect to see several reviews of DC figures this year. Most of what I got last year was the end of Mattel's DC Super Heroes and getting all the good Green Lantern figures DC Direct has released.

I got into swords for a little bit at the beginning of the year, mostly due to learning that there were replicas of the swords from the Highlander TV series and movies. I'm not a big fan of the movies, but I quite enjoyed the TV series. In my extremely outdated series of posts on my overall collection I mention the Highlander figures and the Highlander Swords which I own, so I won't do more than point to those posts and say that I really like swords, those are fun to play with and are some of the favored items that I purchased last year.

I also got several Lord of the Rings items, mainly Gentle Giant items, but a couple SideShow/Weta items as well. Again, I talked about these item in a previous post so I will only say here that my favorite items is probably the large Balrog statue (by SS/W), which I got a rather good deal on, thanks to a friend of mine that lives in New Zealand, works for Weta Workshop and actually worked on the LOTR films. It is an excellent, highly detailed piece, and is quite possibly the best non-Star Wars item I own. The detail in the sculpt and paint is amazing, the thing looks almost real to me. I'll probably do a detailed review of it someday.

Well, that seems like enough for this post. I'll write up my Star Wars summary and post that as part two.

Halo 3 Need List

Since I'm on a needlist making kick, I might as well do one for the McFarlane Toys Halo 3 figures. As Hasbro learned with the Clone Troopers, and Joyride learned with the previous Halo series, it appears that McFarlane has realized they can make one cool figure and repaint it many times and sell it over and over again. They've gone a step farther and indroduced multiple armor variations as well. When series one was announced there were 3 armor variations, but with the announcement of series two they've upped the armor count to 6. Yes, SIX ARMOR variations that I have to buy in at least TWO COLORS, possibly three. If ever there was justification to not collect all 17ish colors this is it. Nevermind the fact that I draw the line at collecting pink and mauve armored troopers.

Mostly I'm focusing on Blue and Red multi-player Spartan figures and Master Chief. I'll also be getting a few of the White Sparans, and maybe one or two of the other exclusive colors, and a few aliens - but only the really cool, armored ones.

Spartan Armor Styles

Close Quarter Battle Armor (CQB)

EOD Armor

EVA Armor

Mark VI Armor - the standard armor

Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST)

Scout

Blue Spartan - Walmart Exclusive

So far as has been announced, all blue and cyan Spartans will be exclusively available from Walmart - hopefully they'll sell them on Walmart.com.

Series 1 Mark VI Spartan

Series 1 CQB Spartan



Series 2 EOD Spartan





Series 3? Scout





Gentle Giant Halo 3 Mini Bust

Red Spartan

Luckily the Red Spartans will be available to any retailer, so I shouldn't have any problems getting these.

Series 1 Mark VI Spartan

Series 1 EVA Spartan

Series 2 CQB Spartan





Gentle Giant Halo 3 Mini Bust

Master Chief

He's the main character from the single-player levels, so I gotta have him.

Series 1


Series 2





Gentle Giant Halo 3 Mini Bust

White Spartan

Available only to specialty retailers, like comic book shops. I'll probably pick all mine up from CornerStoreComics.com, although it's possible F.Y.E. will also have them - but who knows at what price.

series 1 Mark VI Spartan

Series 2 EVA Spartan

Misc Spartans

This is the section for any other multi-player Spartans figures that catch my interest that aren't mentioned above. For example: Transworld stores will be getting gold colored Spartans - could be interesting, but I won't know until we see pics, but if I do want a couple of those this is where they'll be.

McFarlane Collector's Club Exclusive Active Camoflage EVA Spartan





Series 2 TRU Exclusive Brown EVA Spartan





Series 2 Transworld (FYE) Exclusive Gold Mark VI Spartan

Aliens

Brutes

Series 1 Brute Chieftain

Series 2 Brute Stalker

Grunts

Series 1 Grunt green

Series 1 Grunt orange

Misc Aliens

Series 2 Arbiter

Aliens I'm not sure I want or not

Series 2 Drone

Updates

Mar 7: My first set of Halo 3 figures arrived from CornerStoreComics.com, so I was able to scratch off the Red EVA, White Mark VI, and Master Chief. Since I apparently never came back and finished this post with the Covenant figures I wanted, I didn't get to mark off the green Grunt and Brute Chieftain.

Mar 14: Received my Red Mark VI from CSC.com. Also, earlier this week I got the Blue Mark VI from Derek who picked it up for me a week or so ago. Further, yesterday I made arrangements with someone from the GGC forums to acquire the Blue CQB figure, so yippee!

Mar 15: Updated with Series 1 & 2 aliens.

Mar 28: In preparation for pictures of series 3 today, I marked off all of series one (since I received them all within the last couple of weeks) and removed figures I have decided not to get (Jackal Sniper and Gamestop CQB.