Saturday, February 6, 2016

Barbecue's Bonfire: 2/6/2016

   We're only a week away from New York Toy Fair 2016! And Deadpool! And Valentine's Day! Good stuff! To whet your appetite for Toy Fair next week, here's a picture I just found last night of the new Harley Quinn ver.2 from Kotobukiya's DC Bishoujo line. Looks pretty good so far!  They also showed a teaser from the upcoming Spider-Gwen which, along with Lady Deadpool, makes me want to expand into the Marvel side of Kotobukiya's offerings. On the complete opposite end of the toy spectrum, Imaginext has suddenly become huge at my house. My little one is nuts about them and we've been having a blast most evenings. I ordered the little one a bunch of playsets, most of which should arrive in the post later today. Since I don't watch football me and the little one are going to sit sit around and have an Imaginext party tomorrow night while everyone else we know is preoccupied.
   Anyways, join me this week as I talk about hunting down Star Wars: The Black Series figures, Batman Eternal, my gut reaction to the Hasbro/ Mattel merger rumors, NECA's upcoming Rocky 40th Anniversary line, DC Collectibles' Black and White Batgirl statue, and more...




  *Recently I've decided that I want to go back and pick up some figures from Hasbro's 6 inch Star Wars: The Black Series. I've managed to pick some up here and there that I missed the first time and I've done a trade for a few others. I'm still looking for quite a few, though, and thus I've updated my list on Barbecue's Trading Post. Let me know if you have a Yoda, Bespin Luke, or Anakin Skywalker to trade. I'll happily work to see what I have that you'd like to own to trade for them.



 *I just finished reading all three volumes of Batman Eternal by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ray Fawkes, Kyle Higgins, and Tim Seeley and I have to say that it is pretty amazing! I loved the heck out of this story. To me, it was the perfect mixture of a good Batman story: A great sprawling storyline like Knightfall, a full cast of characters like Hush, plenty of crazy Grant Morrison-esque nods to the past, and Scott Snyder's exceptional handling of Gotham as a character itself. I love how many characters are in the 52 issues of this story and how they still manage to all get a chance to shine.  I'm a fan and it makes me wish that DC Collectibles would give this series a good action figure line. If you're going to read this, make sure you're at least caught up on the first 6 volumes of the main Batman title, although the other books such as Red Hood and the Outlaws, Batgirl, Batwing, Nightwing, and Batman & Robin will help out, too. It does pull a little from all of them, but mostly Batman.


* Last week on Barbecue's Bonfire I talked about how I was told that I was the "Best Customer" at the Chinese/ Japanese restaurant I eat lunch at a few times (or more) a week. Well, it turns out that the Best Customer has some responsibilities: I walked in one day this week and the extremely nice lady who runs the restaurant asked me to help her write the text for a sign. I did my duty as best customer and helped write up the text for a sign to let large trucks know that the restaurant's parking lot is not a thru-street. I was proud of my work and have received many extra fortune cookies and an egg roll for my efforts. My ultimate goal is to have a dish named after me.



* NECA has finally announced their upcoming Rocky 40th Anniversary line! I really think NECA's work on the Rocky line is where you can see NECA transition from making more statuesque figures into their current well articulated figures with amazing articulation. I own a few of the earlier figures (The Rocky and Apollo 2 pack, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, and the "Bloody Spit" Rocky) but I'm glad NECA is doing a mixture of rereleases and new figures, as some of the earlier figures are hard to find. Let's hope Creed and Rocky Balboa get some love here, too.



Here's another Kotobukiya teaser for their DC Bishoujo line: Wonder Girl! She's a great choice and I'm anxious to see the artwork which I imagine will be released within the next week. Who else do you want to see in the DC Bishoujo line? For me, it's:

1. A ver 2. Catwoman

2. Mera

3. Hawkgirl

4. Katana

5. Talia al Ghul

* So...recent rumors seem to indicate that Hasbro and Mattel have talked about a merger again. Here's my gut reaction: This would be devastating for mainstream, mass market action figure collecting. Besides Hasbro and Mattel, right now the only action figure line that gets any kind of aisle space at places like Wal-Mart and K-Mart is Playmates' TMNT line. Everything else is Hasbro and Mattel. Combine those two and there would be little reason to innovate anymore as there's no competition for shelf space. If you think the mainstream movie lines suck now, wait until HasMat knows that they're not going to get one upped by the competition. The only way I could see this in a positive light would be if it caused some smaller companies like Jakks Pacific, McFarlane, Funko to step up and try to fight for some retail space. I also have the feeling that the smaller properties from these companies that many of us love would almost absolutely disappear unless their were move deals in place.

 * I just got my Batgirl statue from DC Collectibles' Batman Black and White line. I had preordered this from Big Bad Toy Store sometime last year and really had no idea that some folks received this as early as August 2015. I finally received mine this past week. It's a great little statue but I noticed something really odd...the head is removable and is attached via a magnet. I've watched and read other reviews of this statue and haven't heard of this before. Does anyone else have a Batgirl with a magnetic head? Here's my off the cuff conspiracy theory: There were some breakage problems and so DC Collectibles held back a large part of the run of these and fixed the heads with a magnet rather than scrapping the entire run. Does that sound reasonable? My statue is #4536 of 5200, so it's definitely in the latter part of the run.


*I just started The Joker: Endgame, and now I really want a Justice Buster from Mattel's DC Comics Multiverse line, but don't want the Flash or Green arrow figures. Anyone want to sell or trade some extra pieces. Heck, the Joker and Batman are the only figures from this series I think I want. If you have extra "Collect & Connect" pieces, please let me know! This thing does look pretty cool as a figure but it was incredible in the comic.

Well, that's all for this week. Keep checking back as I've got a nice selection of reviews lined up for this week, which should include some more Star Wars Black figures, the new Bella Twins Battle Pack from WWE, some of the newest series of World of Nintendo, an Arkham Knight figure or two, and a few of my Charlotte MiniCon pickups from last week! Have a great week everyone!

6 comments:

  1. Has-Tel ?That may give birth to a line of 6 inch Joes,although GI Joe made by anything other than Hasbro seems sacrilegious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See, my fear is that if something like this happened, Mattel and Hasbro would be more likely to stick to their licensed properties and major sellers (Monster High, MLP, Hot Wheels) and drop off their smaller brands such as G.I. Joe and MOTU unless a movie materializes.

      Delete
  2. I love to hear about the new Kotobukiya. You know that line is my jam. I so hate those BAF lines. Just release the damn figure. I still dream of an Arnim Zola as Kirby designed him but for that I need to buy the entire line AND then open the boxes to get at him. Lost a Galactus and a Sentinel that way. I boycott all BAF...except for Spider Gwen. Which is another Kotobukiya I have seen art for. That's my next one. I would love to see a Hawkgirl with huge wings. Wonder Girl too but which version? I love the original with the ponytail and red shirt. Some like Donna Troy which is okay too if you get her Star Costume variant. Gah.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd love to get some larger figures in those lines too, just sold straight out. If it were a Batman themed series I'd have no problem, but I just don't have any interest in the other characters.

      And as for Wonder Girl? I bet we're getting the Donna Troy version with a red outfit with yellow/ gold stars. Kotobukiya seems to be sticking to the pre- New 52 looks for the first figures of each character.

      Delete
  3. That Mattel and Hasbro deal will be met with some serious ANTI-TRUST adversity!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've seen that mentioned but together they still only make up 25% of the toy market, so I'm not sure there would be problems. While Lego and some other license holders (Funko, Hot Toys, Sideshow) produce product for both licenses, I kind of wonder what Disney and Warner Bros. would think about this deal? There have been rumors that Disney has been interested in buying Hasbro before, too.

      Delete

What'chu talkin' 'bout?