More New Stuff

Who knows if I'll ever post all the pictures I've taken over the last several months of things I've purchased or traded for. But here's some stuff to point out.

Iron Man 2. These are 4 inch scale figures, which hasn't been my thing for a couple of years now, but these are really great figures, both in look and in execution, and they weren't too expensive, so I couldn't pass them up.

Some Green Lantern books I've been trying to get for a while, finally got a good enough deal on. Also 52, which I've been trying to get for a long time, for under $10, this one significantly under.

I finally got my hands on the Batman: War Games series, to go along with the prelude, Batman: War Drums, which I've had for a long time now. Picked up War Crimes cheap to finish off the tale. Good reading, I really liked it, Stephanie Brown/Spoiler/Robin is one of my favorite characters. Pity she dies at the end. :(

A few weeks ago I found the last two figures I needed to complete the Public Enemies mini-line, which I mostly bought for the Collect & Connect figure, Brimstone, but I don't have as much issue with these figures as do others. The new animated movie,Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, is awesome, by the way.

Going along with the Green Lantern books above, I finally bought some of the Blackest Night figures from DC Direct (Blackest Night being the story line that the GL books have been leading up to for several years). Got the wave 2 Black Lantern Martian Manhunter, and wave 3 (Star Sapphire, Black Lantern Aquaman, Orange Lantern Larfleeze, and Green Lantern Arisia). Probably won't be keeping all of these, Aquaman isn't as cool as I'd hoped, though I hear the Black Lanterns look better in big groups, so one solution would be to buy more (and wave 4 is ALL Black Lanterns). Also got most of JLA Classified Classics wave 2, which I am definitely keeping, because I LOVE the Ed McGuinness style figures. Batgirl, Green Lantern and beard/hook hand Aquaman will join the rest of the Ed McG figs proudly on the shelf that will be set aside for them one of these days. Can't wait for wave 3.

I can't recall if I've posted about the World of Warcraft figures here or not. If not, they're gorgeously sculpted plastic statues, and I've followed the line with interest since it began, only taking the plunge to buy a few in the last few months, so I've missed a few really good ones, but great people on the Fwoosh helped me get some I'd missed for good prices. One of the Deluxe figures I've been eyeing has been sitting at the overpriced FYE for a while, starting at $49.99, msrp is $39.99 I think, but with shipping it was about the same on eBay as FYE. I told myself when I saw it at FYE for $30 I'd buy it. A couple of weeks ago, there it was, marked for $29.99, so I took it to the register. However, it didn't ring up at the marked price, but lo and behold, it rang up for $14.99. So I win. She's awesome. And a large figure, takes up too much room, but awesome anyway.

I finally surrendered to something I've been fighting for years, and bought myself a Transformer I intended to keep. Of all the toys I had as a kid, I think Transformers hold the most nostalgia for me. ALthough in analyzing my likes for them, I find I generally don't care for the robot mode much, just the vehicle mode. But I don't really want to buy a toy vehicle, but one that can turn into a giant robot. Even if I don't ever intend to change it. Strange.

Anyway, I've always had a thing for the Aircraft Transformers, I had the Generation 1 Ramjet, and the used and abused remains of it's carcass still resides at my parents house, quite the worse for the wear. When the Masterpiece Skywarp hit Walmart last year I really wanted it, but the $60 price was quite outside my range. Around here they're now clearanced to $25-$30, but that still seemed a bit much for my budget, so I strengthened my resolve not to get into Transformers, because I was afraid of where it would end up (and rightly so, I've started looking through checklists of what's available, and my want list is not small), but when I found them for $15 on the way to Las Vegas last month, I had to buy one. Actually, I bought two, and I'm toying with keeping both, to display both modes, because the Decepticon Jets have always had cool robot modes. Am I talking too much?

I've been watching this 2 pack at Walmart for a while now. It started out at $19.98. Then it was clearanced all the way down to $19.86, but I made myself hold out for the next round of clearances. It finally dropped to $11, which is comparable to the single carded figures, and it has a ton of accessories, so it was definitely worth the wait.

Some misc stuff I've had for a while, or picked up in Las Vegas my recent trip there.

And that's enough for now.

DC Direct JLA Build a Scene Statue

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a few weeks now. The story is that a few years ago my wife bought me a nice glass cabinet (Detolf from Ikea) for Christmas, for to display some of my nicer Star Wars items. But being lazy I never set it up. A few weeks ago a came across an excellent deal on part of a Justice League build a statue that I had been watching on eBay for some time. Shortly thereafter I was able to complete the statue for a similarly good deal, so I was prompted to create space in my messy room to display the statue. This resulted in two new bookshelves, hanging two shelves (that my wife had also given me for Christmas years ago), and a substatial rearranging of the toy room. It's still a work in progress, but what follows are two shelves and the top of the Ikea cabinet. As I continue cleaning up and arranging everything I will post pictures. I have a decent sized collection, more people than me should be able to fit in the room to see it.

The first shelf we're looking at consists of my Darth Maul collection: the highlights being the Sideshow Toys 12 inch figure (left rear), the Gentle Giant 1:12 scale statue (right rear), the Master Replicas Collectors Society Exclusive mini saber hilt (left front), and the little Darth Maul bust that I got out of a quarter vending machine while visiting Pennsylvannia for my grandpa's funeral.

The top of the cabinet has some misc items that don't fit inside with the rest of their related items, the Kotobukiya Darth Maul, the Medicom VCD Royal Guard, the DC Direct Cover to Cover Wonder Woman statue, and part 1 of the Batman Family Statue, Catwoman and Robin. Once I have the other 2 pieces to the Batman Family statue I might have to commandeer one of the other shelves for it, but which? Darth Maul, Royal Guard, Boba Fett, or misc?

Finally, the JLA build a scene statue that started all this reorganization. Based on the artwork of Ed Benes, it looks every bit as awesome as I hoped it would be. I'm very pleased with it, glad that I was able to get it at all, and especially glad I got it for half price (due to buying pieces with slight but unnoticeable damage).

A Moment of Silence for our departed friend...

The long nightmare is over, once again I have a computer. My several years old laptop (a Dell Inspiron 9100) crashed a couple weekends ago, and refused resuscitation, leaving me without access to my games, the many, many pictures I had taken for posting here, and without my programming projects. It was a horrible nearly 2 weeks until the replacement machine arrived, but it's here now, and thus begins the long procedure of reinstalling everything, and getting everything set up to my liking. Hopefully I'll be able to revive the Inspiron for just long enough to copy the entire contents of the hard drive over to the new box.

And here it is.

It is a Dell Inspiron 15, which makes for my third Dell Inspiron, though this one cost about $1000 less than the last one I bought, and is at least 3 times as powerful. So far, I like it, though I haven't yet played any games on it, nor done any programming (that's where I get really picky about how the computer works, keyboard layout, shortcut keys, mouse behavior, and so one). The screen is very pretty though, and it's nice as fast (the previous laptop had only 512 MB of RAM, and with Windows XP that's not nearly enough). It has 3 GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo, a 250 GB hard drive, and the extra nice screen (1600x900 resolution). It also weighs half or less than the 9100, which was a beast that could be used to bludgeon a moose to death. I could probably kill a cat with this one, and though there are cats in the neighborhood I wish death upon, I'm not going to use my shiny new laptop to do it.

Now that I have computer with which to write blog posts, and to edit photos with, I can take pictures of the stuff I've received lately, this covers about the last 3 weeks or so. I sold a few Star Wars items a couple of weeks ago, and with that money I went on a little spending spree, mostly for comics, but I got a fair number of toys as well. Let's start with the toys.

My growing interest in Marvel comics is causing me to pollute my collection with Marvel toys. I still have little to no interest in toys under 6", so I'm not touching Marvel Universe (or DC Infinite Heroes for that matter), and I'm by no means interested in acquiring all the past Marvel Legends figures (how ever many hundreds that is), but there are a few I'm trying to get, and now I'm watching current/future releases with interest. To start out my Marvel toy collection (not really, but who cares?) I'm starting out where I started my Marvel Comics collection, with Astonishing X-Men (I've only read 3/4ths of the books Joss Whedon wrote, but they're some of the best comics I've ever read). At the moment, I only have the cheap figures: Emma Frost (Diamond variant), Cyclops and Beast. I really want to get Colossus and Kitty Pryde, but they're the most expensive ones to get. Blarg. I'll just have to be patient.

While I was in Las Vegas last weekend, visiting as many Walmart and Toys 'R Us as I could, looking for DCUC Imperiex wave and Marvel Legends 2 packs wave 2.5, I got frustrated with not finding anything. So I made an impulse purchase (somewhat fulled by a similar purchase the week before), and grabbed Scorpion Venom. And I'm glad I did, because it's an awesome figure. He'll go nicely with Iron Spider-man (last week's impulse purchase), and it prompted me to try to get the various Carnage figures, a regular Venom, and Spider-man 2099 (the only one of which I have managed to win on eBay).

Speaking of Marvel Legends 2 packs, I've been trying to get the recent ones, particularly Nick Fury/Red Hand Ninja and Maria Hill/Iron Man. My cousin had extras of a couple of them though, so he sold me the Ninja and Maria Hill, still need to find Nick Fury. And earlier this week, ToysRUs.com put the variants up for order, so I ordered 2 each of the Sharon Carter/Stealth Iron Man and Dum Dum Dugan/White Hand Ninja, they should arrive soon this week. My cousin and I made a huge toy run this week, hitting 14 Walmarts, again looking for the blasted Imperiex Wave. We found nothing, except a couple of clearanced Marvel Legends: the Cannonball/Domino and Marvel Girl/Cable 2 packs, and Nova variant Human Torch. I happened to have won Marvel Girl on eBay for a good price, only the day before, so I left that 2 pack, but picked up the Domino pack. She looks pretty good, although she has a severely distended left knee, due to the posing in the packaging. Not being the slightest bit familiar with Cannonball, he's going to eBay. And that covers new Marvel figures, for the time being.

In a rare purchase, I picked up a couple of Star Wars figures. I wasn't entirely sure I would keep the comic pack, but I can't find the receipt now, so I guess it's mine. The comic pack is based on the Legacy comic series, which I was a big fan of, for the short time I bought monthlies. Someday I'll pick up the trades and read the whole story. Anyway, the Imperial Knights design is nifty.

I finally purchased a couple of Witchblade figures I've been looking at for the past couple of years, Ian Nottingham and Sara Pezzini (the Witchblade). They are of comparable size to Marvel Legends, and are nicely detailed, if not terribly pose-able. There's a black dress variant of Sara I'd like to get eventually, and a white suit variant of Nottingham. Someday.

And finally, a DC purchase. Barbie Supergirl, which I just barely missed the first time it showed up on ToysRUs.com on clearance a couple of months ago. She doesn't match with anything else in my collection (size- or style-wise), but she looks really good, so I'll probably keep her, until one of my daughters steals her from me.

On to comics. Let's start with misc stuff. Elektra: The Hand (which was really good, despite not being about Elektra at all), Tales of the Witchblade, and Checkmate: Chimera.

Some Superman and Supergirl comics: Superman: Man of Steel vol 2, Superman: True Brit, Supergirl: Many Happy Returns, and Superman: For All Seasons. I've previously read For All Seasons, it was a good story, though the art's not my favorite. I LOVE Tim Sale's stuff in Batman: Long Halloween and Dark Victory, but I don't think his style works as well for Superman. Plus, the guy's the size of a house, with a chin that Jay Leno must envy. I look forward to Supergirl, I really like Ed Benes' art, and True Brit was written by Kim 'Howard' Johnson and John Cleese of Monty Python, so it should be fun.

Got a bunch of JLA and related comics: The Tenth Circle, Seven Caskets, The Obsidian Age vol 1 (vol 2 was on the way, along with 52 vols 3 and 4, Justice vol 2 and more, but it looks like they're no longer coming, deadbeat seller), Final Night and The Tornado's Path (both of which are extras, and will go back to eBay), New Frontiers vols 1 and 2, and both the hardcover and softcover versions of Matt Wagner's Trinity (one of them will go to eBay, though I don't know which to keep), and Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC/Marvel Crossovers and Justice League: New Beginnings.

And I picked up most of the remaining Grant Morrison New X-Men books, 2-4 and 7, with 6 on the way, just need to grab 5. I still hate Quitely's and Kordy's art, but the stories are mostly pretty good, and the final book was drawn by Marc Silvestri, whose art is gorgeous. I've also been trying to pick up the House of M and Civil War series', and have started off my collection with House of M: Avengers, House of M: Civil War, Civil War: X-Men and Civil War: Iron Man. I look forward to reading them, once I have the complete sets.

And that is everything, that has arrived. There's a few more things on the way, but I'll deal with them when they arrive.

X-Men, DCUC 5 Pack, DCSH Holy Grail

At the end of 2007, there was a little thing called New York Comic Con. Mattel thought it would be cool to make a couple of the harder to find figures from the ending DCSH line available as exclusives at that con - Specifically, Black and Silver Superman (wave 5), and Knight Shadow Batman (wave 8), along with a new Mr Freeze (repaint of wave 3 figure). I had just started collecting the line, and had been lucky to get Knight Shadow Bats and BS Superman pretty easily, and for some stupid reason, that I do not recall, and absolutely cannot fathom, I didn't think I needed a Mr Freeze figure. Now, Batman and Robin was a HORRIBLE film, a travesty like no other in the Super Hero genre, but Mr Freeze is one of Batman's most interesting villains. He's had several great episodes in Batman: The Animated Series (I'm still trying to get a new review up, I swear), and the first full length film from BTAS featured Mr Freeze. My point is, I love the character, but I didn't take advantage of the opportunity I had to get a new figure of him when it came out (through other collectors I know on SWAN, who lived in the area and were going to the con).

I have regretted it for two years now, as the price for the figure on eBay went up to 3 times retail. Sure, I could have gotten the DCSH Wave 3 version for roughly retail, but the NYCC version is FAR superior. Dubbed Tech Suit Mr Freeze, the NYCC Freeze has a much better paint deco. Predominantly black, with electric blue detailing and red accents, this suit looks much more technological, and like the modern comic book styles that I prefer. The wave 3 version had odd coloring on the lower torso of the figure and the forarms, that was nearly the same color as Freeze's skin, so it looks like he's wearing a high-cut shirt, exposing his midriff (rather like Supergirl). Understandably, it looks odd to me, and I wasn't keen on getting it. I set my sights on Tech Suit Freeze, and wondered how I would justify paying over $30 for a single figure.

Things started looking up, when Fwoosher Poe Ghostal made me an awesome trade and I was able to acquire the 2007 SDCC Exclusive Man-Bat figure, it gave me hope that someday I would get Tech Suit Freeze for less than $30. And last week, it happened. In what seems to me to have been a fluke bit of bidding, I won Tech Suit Freeze in an auction for the piddly amount of $18. Another auction ended less than 24 hours later went for $32. I Win.

My cousin is a big fan of Marvel Comics, so we've discussed them at length. He has recommended that I read the Joss Whedon run on Astonishing X-Men, and hey, I'm a Joss Whedon fanboy, so I was interested. It was also recommended to me to read Grant Morrison's New X-Men, if I liked Grant Morrison. I do, I have his run on JLA, and have read half of his Batman stuff, leading up to Final Crisis, So, I picked up the 3 of the 4 Astonishing X-Men trades, New X-Men Vol 1, and since I'm always looking to finish my JLA and Justice League of America collection, I got JLA vol 9 and JLoA Vol 3. I believe I got the following 6 books for about $25 on eBay from various sellers.

Since I've had these for a couple of weeks now, I've read all the X-Men books and one of the DC books. I enjoyed the first of the New X-Men books (E is for Extinction, story by Grant Morrison, art by Frank Quitely). I think Grant Morrison writes good stories, certainly they're often confusing as hell, and this one also featured a bunch of characters that I'm only marginally familiar with, if that. But even his confusing stories have really cool elements to them (remind me to talk about JLA Vol 3: Rock of Ages sometime), so I can still enjoy them, and I did this one.

However, the art is crap. Quitely's art sucks, and I hate it. Everybody is ugly. Cyclops is ugly, Xavier is ugly (okay, he's also an old man, but he looks really old and ugly), Wolverine is REALLY ugly. Emma Frost is freaking supposed to be hot, not look like a fat, ugly 10 year old dressed up like a skank. She should have things like cheekbones instead of baby fat cheeks. I read comics firstly for the story, then I'll reread them later to notice the art more. I usually don't form opinions about the art in the first read through, because I get caugth up in the story too much to notice it enough. Except when it's really awesome (such as Jim Lee in Superman: For Tomorrow or Tim Sale in Batman: The Long Halloween), or when it's really horrible, such as Frank Quitely's art in this book. And unfortunately, he does the art for the first 4 or 5 books. Ugh. When I expressed this opinion on The Fwoosh, there were a few people who said they liked his art, and I think they were referring, at least in part, to stuff rather than the people, but they're SO UGLY that it was really distracting in a lot of places. Jean Gray is by far the most attractive person in the book, but she was still fat of face, and she had no bloody expression on her face. There was one page where she was talking to Scott (her husband) about the way she felt their relationship had been deteriorating, and in three panels where she talked about the different ways she felt (excited to be alive and with him, and then upset at the distance she felt from him). She didn't look like she was concentrating on the 8 things she was levitating, nor did she look happy, nor sad. She looked absolutely bored. But at least she wasn't ugly.

John Cassady's art in Astonishing X-Men, on the other, is awesome, and I should talk about that more at length, but I'll do so in another post (someday). Also, Joe Benitez's art in the second chapter of The Injustice League is also kinda crappy, excessively stretched and exaggerated. It's strange looking.

And finally, after three or more weeks of looking, including a huge 7 or 8 hour trip hitting around 10 Walmarts, I have at last found the Walmart DCUC 5 pack. Huzzah! Praise be to Darkseid!

San Diego Comic Con 2009 part 3 - DC Direct

More San Diego Comic Con pictures, taken from Michael Crawford's Review of the Week, Toy News International and Action Figure Pics. Looking at DC Direct items today.

Kotobukiya showed off way too much cool Marvel and Star Wars stuff to repost even the highlights, so I'll just link directly to Michael Crawford's Kotobukiya pics. I like Koto's stuff a lot, unfortunately I have neither the room nor the money to buy it, but I love the few pieces I have.

DC Direct is mostly known to me through their action figures, particularly the Superman/Batman line, but I'll cover action figures in another post, they also do some great statues and mini busts. Last year they did a Batman versus Joker Statue, and this year they follow it up with Batman vs Killer Croc. It's a really nice looking statue, very dynamic, though with Batman's splayed cape it'll take a lot of room. Not my room, of course, because I can't afford it, but somebody's room.

However, as nice as that statue looks, the one I really want is the Build-A-Scene statue. The idea is they take a big statue of a group of related characters, and break it up into three separate statues, so it's either more affordable, or so it's easier to produce, or something. Last year it was a statue of the new Justice League of America, two characters to a statue, Batman and Wonder Woman, Superman and Black Canary, and Green Lantern and Flash, each comes with a piece to build Red Tornado, who hovers above the others. I think the JLA statue looks really cool, and I wish I could get it. Each piece is around $150, so maybe if I save my money and try hard enough I could get each piece for $100 on ebay, maybe (some Gentle Giant statues have gotten really cheap when they came out, and some have stayed really cheap). Anyway, this year's statue is The Bat Family, and it's really cool and I really want it. The sections are Nightwing and Huntress, Commissioner Gordon and Batwoman, Catwoman/Gargoyle and Robin, assembling Batman.

Looks like there will be a Green Lanterns statue as well, which I'm assuming will be a Build-A-Scene also, with John Stewart and Guy Gardener, a Manhunter and Kyle Rayner, and Hal Jordan with two Guardians (one is Ganthet), building Alan Scott.

And finally (that I'm covering) a Wonder Woman vs Ares Statue. Ares looks really cool. The DCUC figure is great, but it is overwhelmingly blue (a nice metallic blue to be sure), but I really like the darker theme this one has, with silver trim.

And of course, DCD realizes that putting Batman and Superman on something isn't the only way to sell something, you can also use beautiful women, hence (or so I suppose) the Cover Girls of DC Statues and Women of the DC Universe Busts (har har). I spent a couple of years collecting the Gentle Giant mini busts, being smaller and cheaper than statues they were easier to collect, so naturally I like the Women of DC busts. I don't have any, because they're about the same price as GG busts (which I also don't collect currently), but they're even a little smaller. Also, there are a few my wife wouldn't be happy about me having, so if I can't have them all I'd rather not have any (until I can actually afford to buy a few). Anyway, upcoming Women busts: Raven, Hippolyta (who was the Silver Age (I think) Wonder Woman, which makes this third Wonder Woman bust), Batgirl (this is the second or third Batgirl bust), Vixen, Supergirl (second, I believe), Mera and Catwoman (also the third, I think). I like them all, and someday I may even get some of them.

All pictures of statues and busts from Michael Crawford's San Diego Comic Con Coverage.

I just noticed that Catwoman's base is a bag full of gems and jewelery and money. Very cool.

The Cover Girls of the DC Universe statues are based on actual comic book covers, featuring the title character in the same pose as the cover. They did a Batman, Superman and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) statue in a similar vein a couple of years ago, so it's a natural progression, but also seems to take advantage of the fact that Super Heroines are very well built in a physically appealing way, and better looking than the heroes. So far announced are Black Canary, Power Girl, Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Zatanna. I think the Wonder Woman is my favorite, but she's also my favorite character of the five, so I could be biased. I don't recall off the top of my head how much these cost (and the internet is unavailable for me to check), but I think they're around $200-$250, so predictably I won't be buying any anytime soon. Or maybe ever.

Apparently realizing that while sex sells, the Heroines aren't the only characters in the DC Universe that deserve busts, even if theirs are better looking, DC Direct have started a Heroes of the DC Universe line. Of course they're starting with the heavy hitters: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, again), Aquaman, The Flash, Shazam and Green Arrow. In contrast to the Women of busts, wherein the subjects seem to be posing for us, the Heroes busts feature the subjects in action, Flash running, Superman heroically breaking chains, Aquaman looks like he's heroically fighting a giant squid or something, GL and Shazam are heroically flying, Green Arrow heroically shooting his bow. I think they'll be an interesting contrast to the more static, flirty and cheesecake-y poses of the girls when displayed mixed together. Unfortunately, it'll be a long time before I have any to display at all, let alone mixed together in interesting ways.

And of course, what is a Hero without his villain? Just a guy in some silly tights, that's what, so DCD is also giving us a Villains of the DC Universe line, currently consisting of The Joker and Darkseid.

Yet another line I'd like to collect, and actually the one I've come the closest to actually buying any of, the Ame-Comi statues. Anime renditions of DC Heroines. Already released we've seen Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Catwoman, Supergirl, Power Girl, Wonder Woman (Armored) and Cheeta. Wonder Woman is by far my favorite looking of the bunch, though I also like Supergirl and Power Girl quite a bit. Upcoming ones include Huntress, Harley Quinn, Hawk Girl, Poison Ivy, Batgirl (Cassie Cain), Catwoman (classic, cool boots!), Black Canary, Wonder Girl, Steel (Tasha), a new Wonder Woman, a girl Robin (as in The Dark Knight Returns and War Games), and a first Hero in the line, Evil Looking Batman.

I wasn't sure how I felt about Batman when I first saw the pre-sale photos, but with the pics from SDCC I'm really liking in. Steel has a very Spawn-esque thing going on, with the asymmetrical costume, particularly the One Big Boot. Something looks odd about it too me, I'm thinking it's her skin color. Maybe it's the lighting, maybe it's just my failing eyes, or perhaps it's even the actual paint, but it seems to have a greenish tint to it, which looks really strange to me. Or possibly it's the giant goggles on her head. Or maybe it's that taking a suit of armor that's supposed to make her invulnerable and turning it into a swimsuit with a Giant Boot and Giant Glove is so incredibly illogical that I can't accept it. Who knows. Or Who cares? It's not like I can afford to buy them anyway. These tend to run for $40-$50, and I'm still kicking myself for not bidding on the Wonder Woman (Armored) that went for $20 the other day on ebay, or having enough to buy Supergirl and Power Girl when they were on clearance at FYE for $18.

The new Wonder Woman is the most risque of them all, followed by Wonder Girl, and the first series Catwoman. I'm not sure how I feel about Wonder Woman, the outfit is odd, and yet kinda cool, her arm bracers are really neat, she's got that Spawn One Boot thing going on again, but the rest of it is really out of character for what I know of Wonder Woman, and even more ridiculously impractical that the swimsuit she normally wears. But she also has a cool axe and Medusa's severed head, so that's pretty cool. Evil, scary looking Batgirl (Cassie) is my favorite of the upcoming ones, but I more or less like them all. Anyway, on to the pictures (pictures by Michael Crawford, except Black Canary and Catwoman by Toy News International).

And one final item from DC Direct to talk about, from their line of Prop Replicas. They've done Superman's cape and belt, Joker's Cane, they announced Batman's utility belt (cool, but not what I want to talk about) and Wonder Woman's tiara and bracers (also pretty cool). But the one I would be most excited to get, is the Lantern Rings, containing a ring from each of the eight lantern corps. I love the idea of the various lantern corps, and a display with all the rings would be a highlight of my collection.