Slimer Cereal

Slimer Cereal

Funko

The mediocrity of Funko Pops is now part of a complete and balanced breakfast!  As if a bag of "Oops, All Green Fruit Loops" for $8 wasn't enough, you get a prize inside the box:  a Pop of Slimer at less than 1/4 the size of the regular one!

The box art is colorful and fun, and it even has a Ghostbusters maze on the back, but that's where the fun ends.  If only they had gone the extra mile with a hologram cover or had ghost marshmallows like the days of yore.  

This is a Gamestop exclusive, not currently available online for shipping.  I was able to track down a box at one of my local stores by using their site's store search.

"He's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes."

I am being a little hard on it.  It is fun enough for the price.  I got two big bowls of cereal and a box and toy for the GB collection.  No hard feelings, Funko?  I know I rag on you a lot.  You might be able to improve my outlook on your products by shipping me some long-gone Indiana Jones Pops park exclusives.  Anyway, there should be a similar Stay Puft cereal headed to Gamestop in the near future.  Until then, find something better to eat for breakfast!

Black Ant and Atomica

Black Ant and Atomica

Hasbro Marvel Legends - DC Collectibles

An evil "Ant Man" teaming up with an evil "Atom!"  Are the combined efforts of our minuscule men (and women) of might enough to stop these tiny terrors?!  Finally, a mini DC and Marvel team-up...right here in my blog!

I really had no clue about the origins of Black Ant.  I assumed he was just a new Ant Man in the pages of the current comics I don't follow.  But after picking up his Walgreen's exclusive Marvel Legends figure for $10, I read up on him.  He's a flawed hero turned evil replicant?  Man, if the box had said "Evil Ant Man," I would have snapped him up at full price!

I'm not a fan of the reused "Pizza" Spider-man body.  It should be for Spidey only!  But, the color scheme works, and the paintjob on the eyes looks pretty creepy.  Considering the reuse and no build-a-figure pack-in, he should have some sort of accessories to put him on the must-have list.  C'mon...not even a miniature version of himself?!  Weak.

Atomica doesn't disappoint in that area AND features a new sculpt from DC Collectibles.  She would be priced slightly higher than Marvel Legends, but the accessories help balance that out.  The evil Atom, Atomica's costume reflects that of her heroic, alternate universe counterpart.  The goggles and belt are especially detailed.  Like the other DC Icons, she scales a bit small in true 6-inch, but that works considering that she's a girl and has the size-changing gimmick.

So, she doesn't come with a mini version of herself, BUT she does come with a mini version of the Ray Palmer Atom AND a dwarf-sized version of the Ryan Choi Atom.  Cool!  Ray comes with a stand and a "shrinking" effect.  Man, this is the second mid-sized Ryan Atom on my shelf...he needs a full-scale figure!  How about his Injustice 2 look, DDC?

It was nice getting to set up an action figure scene that didn't require some diorama or background for a change.  Also, as cool as Paul Rudd is...how much cooler would Ant Man be if he were a young Martin Landau?  Gotta love those inspired Toy Biz headsculpts!

Jabba's Palace

Jabba's Palace Adventure Set

Hasbro Walmart Exclusive

So Hasbro throws a bone to those of us that didn't fall for their Sail Barge hostage gambit.  It is a great consolation prize.  A new playset that isn't made of cardboard?! (Hasbro, you're all over the map here.)  Awesome!

For $50 you get three sculpted walls of Jabba's Palace.  This is great for all the 3 3/4'' fans who have amassed a slew of palace denizens over decades of collecting.  The paint looks appropriately weathered and sandy (it gets everywhere).  The back side of the main wall leaves a bit to be desired as far as detail, but the smaller walls, though hollowed, do have some fake tech and other bits sculpted into them.

The main wall has some nice "metal" grates and two taxidermy animal heads on display.  The Tauntaun head is spot on.  Not sure if this is a completely new sculpt, or if they chopped the head off an old one and called it a day. (The newest tauntaun I have is from the "Power of the Force 2" days.)

  

The Jerba head is an all-new sculpt, because we've never had a fully rendered jerba figure before.  Wait...it's called a "jerba?"  I actually had to look that up.  Well, I'll be!  It's in a background shot of "A New Hope!"  Not very grand of Jabba to display one of Tatooine's several common equivalents of a camel.  I mean, the tauntaun being from a foreign, icy clime is pretty exotic for a desert world, and the Rancor is definitely out of it's element.  Maybe there's a story behind it, like it belonged to a rival crime lord that was one of Jabba's first hits.  Perhaps it was used in a manner like the horse head scene in Godfather Part II?

The wall is also home to Jabba's favorite display piece, Han Solo in Carbonite.  Yes, included in the price is a vintage-carded Han with arm shackles and a separate carbonite slab.  The sculpts are decent, but only one side of the slab has paint detail and freed Han has a sloppy hairline.  And like most Han and Indiana Jones figures, maybe not the best Harrison Ford likeness we've seen.  The slab has a magnet inside so you can activate the playset's only action feature.  It sticks in place and can be raised or lowered an inch by way of a switch on the back of the wall.  Far from exciting, but it is a small detail that's nice to have.  Gotta give Leia a break there...she's so short, after all.

But wait, there's more!  You get a vintage carded Ree-Yees figure.    I really didn't need a more articulated Ree-Yees (having the 5-points of articulation POTF2 Ree AND his Star Tours repack), but he is quite nice.  Thanks to a bad Toyfare magazine gag (comic-paneled shots of toys that were a precursor to Robot Chicken), I cannot hear the name Ree-Yees without it being followed by the band Heart breaking into the chorus of "These Dreams."  "Ree-Yeeeeees goes on when I close my eye-ey-ey-ey-eyes!"

So there you have it.  $50 for a nice display piece/play set with two carded figures inside.  Not too shabby.  The outer packaging is all nice and vintage too, but what a dilemma for mint-on-card collectors...how are you gonna know what condition the figures inside are in, let alone that they are actually in there without cracking it open?  How much do you trust Hasbro?  Anyway, I picked this one up via preorder on Walmart.com but it has come and gone.  Good luck in finding this at your local Walmarts!  Ugh...isn't being an aging 3 3/4" Star Wars collector fun?

Batman Forever

Batman Forever

DC Multiverse - Mattel

So, DC Multiverse has a sub-line with random selections from DC's past live-action endeavors.  I assume the picking and choosing has to do with which actor's rights come the cheapest.  So you get a Linda Carter, but no Christopher Reeve.  Heath Ledger, but no Jack Nicholson.  Danny DeVito, but no Michael Keaton.  It's frustrating, and now even more pointless to jump into these with Mattel closing shop on DC.  I picked up this Val Kilmer Batman on clearance from Gamestop...why not?

You barely get enough Kilmer here in the mouth area, so I hope they didn't spend a bundle for him.  Or maybe they just bungled the execution...sculpt lines are very soft.  The real problem here is that the head articulation ruins the movie look.  It's more of a separate headpiece like the Christian Bale, Dark Knight suit than the movement-limiting cylinders from the Burton productions.  It also makes the head look a bit small to me.  At least the rest of the suit looks good...wait a minute...

WHERE ARE THE BAT-NIPPLES?!  Ugh, the one detail in this suit that was subject to controversy and ridicule so many years ago is missing?!  Everyone remembers the horribly gratuitous suiting up shots from the Schumacher films...how can you screw that up?  Why even do this figure?!  Mattel is notoriously inconsistent in the male nipple department.  Masters of the Universe Classics get nipples, but not superheroes...or even WWE wrestlers?  They're real people!  That's messed up!

And then you go and put the fine print all over the Bat-Butt?!  Where's the definition?!

Well, at least the belt and Bat-Codpiece looks to be accurate...

Silly nitpicks aside, this figure does have a lot of poseability.  The cloth cape helps, but still looks cheap to me, as most cloth accessories on action figures do.  He comes with a couple of interchangeable hands, a batarang, bat-grapnel, and a multi-functional stand.  There is a removable cardboard backdrop of what the figure is supposed to look like, a removable "flight" stand, removable foot peg options, and the bottom opens up for storage of his accessories.

It's an alright figure for nostalgia's sake, I guess.  But I would not have paid the $25 retail price for him.  If you can get him for under $15, go for it.  At the least, you've got another suit for the bat-vault that Bruce can look at and go, "what was I thinking?"

Apocalypse and Archangel

Apocalypse and Archangel

Marvel Legends - Hasbro

Save for Gladiator (the lone oddity), I covered the Apocalypse wave a little while back.  It was a great set all around, but made even better with this long-awaited update for the world's original mutant.  

The Toy Biz ML series 7 Apocalypse was great.  I didn't mind the wider, stockier take.  He looked pretty close to his first appearances in the X-books.  But when they released the giant-sized Apoc build a figure, it was like "Oh, that's how he should look," followed by "when do we get a shrunken-down version of that sculpt?"  This new figure was a long time coming... 

And he matches up with the big figure pretty well aside from shades of blue!  He's proportionally tall and wide, lines and paint are clean,  he's got all the movement he needs, and his cables are flexible and removable.  He looks great, and I'm glad to say my old Apoc found a good home courtesy of Ebay. 

Some accessories would have been nice.  Something to illustrate his shape-shifting ability.  Oh, hey there, Archangel!  What's that?  You've got the boss man covered?  Poseable claw hand!  Awesome!

And, hey, Archangel gets a fair amount of accessories himself.  As a "deluxe" offering, he comes with three alternate heads (regular unmasked, crazy unmasked, Horseman Death)  and, of course, his big-ass wings.  The wing articulation allows for some great poses and his body is capable of supporting the extra weight, unlike my old X-Men Classics version.

Get these while you can, X-fans...it will be a longer time before these come around again, I imagine.  Here's hoping that the original X-Factor lineup is headed our way!