Happy Holidaze!!!

 

Merry Christmas fellow toy junkies and Happy Holidays to those of you who doesn't celebrate X-mas! Taking a cue from fellow toy bloggers Reis from Hey! Look at my toys! and Bubbashelby from Toyriffic I decided to decorate the house with a nativity scene for Christmas. Due to the holidays I'll be taking a short hiatus but will be back for New Years. Hope all of you are enjoying your respective holidays and are getting tons of awesome toys!

Jedi, troopers and dollies... oh my!

So the past 2 days have proven to be fruitful also. Man talk about a streak!

Busy, busy, busy...

The past 3 days including today have been just a joy as far as actually finding stuff on the shelves go, so yet again I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

2011 Marvel Universe wave 1 and a TRU exclusive henchmen 3-pack
Yeah, I'm a troop builder.
Crap forgot to take a pic of the 2 Guardsman from Iron Man 2!
Oh well...

DC Infinite Heroes Doomsday 6-pack (National Wholesale Liquidators. Who knew!?!)
A GI Joe Pursuit of Cobra Alley Viper (from Sunday)
Carnage
3 Wal-Mart exclusive Hulkbuster soliders from the Incredible Hulk movie line (eBay)
The head to the R5 and leg to the yellow droid (eBay)
Ugnaughts and white droid form Power of the Force (local comic shop)

4 more Alley-Vipers (Monday)

Most of the new wave of Clone Wars figures except for the Zombie Genosian

Zarak from Dungeons & Dragons (eBay)

By the way, does anyone need a Ben Reilly Spider-Man, Rhino, or World War Hulk?
I have extra to trade.

Had a good day @ Target today.
I'll let the pic speak for itself.

Oh Iron Man... what will we do you with you?

Yes it's time for a review and today's pick is none other than Iron Man himself, but this is no ordinary Iron Man, this is the Iron Man of 2020! I really don't know much about him so I'll just post the blurb for the back of his card.

Arno Stark isn't quite the hero his cousin was, but he does his best - as long as the best is what pays. The world of 2020 is less about right and wrong, and more about the bottom line, which is why IRON MAN always works for the highest bidder. Of course, he's also got to answer to his Board, so he tries to keep his eye on the big picture.If a mission won't enhance Stark Industries' stock price, then he almost always regretfully declines.

Huh... interesting... Tony's cousin from the future, and he's kinda a jerk? Well this figure has potential as a villain! This notion is even mentioned in standard HAMMER file, so character-wise he's worth it.

Is the rest of figure worth it? Depends. Let take a look.

Iron Man 2020 is one cog away from being steampunk!

2020's body uses the classic body as a base so it's upper torso is sculpted with it "pecks" too high. Luckily this covered by 2020's extra armor which adds a slighter bigger repulsor and some wicked cog-like shoulder armor. There's also a new belt which covers up the low place crotch armor. What where thinking when this was sculpted Hasbro? Either way this belt also adds heft and replaces the hip discs with some kind of star and a cog. Arno sure loves his cogs!

The last new piece to this figure is it's head. While at a glance it looks like the like the original, it's not. It is a completely new head. The head is bigger and has a jagged mouth that gives it a ferocious look.






The rest is the same as the original Iron Man but with the new additions I think it a figure worth getting but not necessarily on the top of the list. Besides it's an Iron Man so this one will probably be clogging the shelves well after the holidays.

Meanwhile, at Castle Grayskull...

A meeting of villainy takes place.

He hungers...

Are you my daddy?

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice...

I wish I could blog about all the new goodies I got since the Tron Legacy review but unfortunately I am currently in the Dominican Republic for one of my many cousins wedding, best man no less too, but luckily for you I have some pics stashed of one of my many diorama/ action figure projects.

If you go through my blog or have been keeping up since day one, you notice I blog alot about Marvel Universe out of all the 3.75"/ 1:18 figures but that's not all I collect. I also collect Star Wars, GI Joe and DC Universe: Infinite Heroes. Infinite Heroes is good, notice good, not great but good, line from Mattel that I managed to acquire alot of by buying group lots on eBay. Having such population growth of figures prompted me to build something since I didn't  have a case or box to put them in and they were just hanging around on a shelf. The shelf itself was rather square so I came up with the idea to build a diorama of the Hall of Justice from the Superfriends cartoons. It also helped that I was in the middle of a Superfriends watching kick.

So after some research (watching the Superfriends) I came out with plans to build the first part of the Hall; the TroublAlert computer. This is the computer, that just about every episode would feature because this was how they found out what was going on in the world. Heck, it was even featured in the new Young Justice cartoon.

I started out by cutting out the sides and base out of foamcore, which is cheap and light but not as thin as styrene sheets, which I cut out for the console and monitor areas. I also used foamcore because if I made a mistake it wouldn't bother me as much as styrene. Taped them all together to make sure I cut them out well and viola, the beginnings of a TroublAlert Computer.

Unfortunately this is as far as I got with this project. More work has to be done such as planning the console's layout and etching in details for underneath the console area. I also have to glue in some slotted styrene for the monitor. I'm making it so you can switch what is showing on the screen. All in all a good start and Superman seems to agree.

He's coming...

Tron Legacy - Sam Flynn review

So I final broke down and got a Tron Legacy figure. And I say this because since these figures started popping up about a month ago or so and I was intrigued but skeptical. Mostly because while I love the original movie, it's sequel had yet to prove itself to me. Once the new trailers gave us some more story about the film it was just a matter of finding it for right price as I've seen them priced as high as $11.49.

I never get lost in the dark!

The main feature of the Sam Flynn and most figures in the collection is the light up feature. This is done to emulate the look of the film. It's a neat feature and it's super bright. So bright as a matter of fact that it could be used as a mini flashlight. Seriously it can, I tried it myself. Unfortunately this feature uses 3 small watch batteries, so the figure loses its torso articulation.


The rest of the figure however, is fully articulated at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and feet. If you're familiar with Mattel's DC Universe: Infinite Heroes line then you know how the figure is jointed together. Which is nice and well done but i prefer Hasbro's style of joints. Oddly these figures are made by Spinmaster, which amazes me that they landed such a property. You would think Disney would have their favorite toy makers Mattel make the Tron Legacy toys.

Can you see me?

Out of the 6 figures in the collection only 2 figures have and real scuplting to talk about. This stems from the fact that the other 4 figures are wearing helmets despite the fact that Clu, a character both films, is shown NOT wearing a helmet. I suspect that Spinmasters did this as to not spoil some of the mystery of the movie but astute fans would know what Clu looks like under the helmet. Either way, Sam has an okay face sculpt. It's hard to say much more because his face is partially obscured by the clear part of his helmet. I know this sounds weird but it's true.

Sam also has accessories. He comes with an identity disc, baton and stand. Not much to say here as they just make the figure complete but offer none to very little playability. It also doesn't help that the baton doesn't stay very well on the peg to place it on the figure and the ID disc has nowhere else to be held except Sam's hand. Pretty lackluster...

At the end of the day Sam is an okay figure with a nice light up feature. From what I've read on various message boards, I'm inclined to agree with the popular consensus and wait for the rest of the figures to go on clearance. Well except for the Light Cycle, because who DOESN'T want one, real or just a toy?

Indiana Persia...?

Thought this Indiana Jones background would look good with Prince of Persia figures.
What do you think?