Rosa from Newsy.com was kind enough to direct me to a video on their site offering some insight from the recent news about the Marvel Comics and Disney “merger” (or takeover, as would be more appropriate). They posted a great video looking at different media angles as well as fan opinions, and I’ve embedded it below:
Time will tell what this ultimately means for both companies, as well as their licensors (like Hasbro), but you can be sure there will be some sorts of changes coming down the pipe. You can find the original video on their site here.
Our man cmderinchief is back at it again, with some more breakdowns of recently released and soon-to-be-released figures! Over at JoeBattleLines, he’s posted a couple of very nice galleries of the upcoming Tunnel Rat/Monkeywrench Wal-Mart 2-Pack as well as the not yet released Bench-Press Toys “R” Us Exclusive. Check ’em out below!
I know my reviews have slacked a bit, but only because I couldn’t find these items in stores! Finally got my hands on what I wanted, though, and the most in depth reviews you’ll find anywhere have been posted to the Rise of COBRA Review Page! Also, follow the links below.
A big thanks goes out to Dennis of the COBRA Collection Blog, who has done a review and kindly shared a wealth of images for the upcoming COBRA Mantis vehicle w/ Aqua-Viper. Part of the Alpha series of Rise of COBRA vehicles, the Mantis is a repaint/re-release of the Valor Vs. Venom Sting Raider, and actually fits in with the movie style pretty well. The movie deco Lamprey repaint (now with a cool removable helmet) finishes off the package very nicely. Check out the images below!
We’d already heard that the Wal-Mart 2-Packs were available online, but for the first time, according to a HissTank member, they’ve also been found at a brick & mortar store in New York. Along with that revalation, another HissTank poster reveals that he scored the second wave of Target Exclusives at his local store as well.
Gotta love these August store shelf resets… Let the hunt begin again!
Over on JoeBattleLines, Mysterious Stranger has posted a great image featuring two of the excellent JoeCon Exclusive Crimson Guard paratroopers as well as the ever elusive San Diego ComicCon Sideshow Collectibles COBRA Commander. The end result is a whole lotta red that also set him back a whole lotta green. But the picture is absolutely bad ass.
The guys at The Terror Drome are continuing their great “Pictorial Reviews” this time tackling the very recently released Senior Ranking Officer 3-Packs, exclusive to Toys “R” Us. These sets each have their own unique identity with some pluses and minuses…personally, I really like the green camouflage redeco of Sgt. Stone, and I like Speed Metal as well, even if he is just a minor repaint and head swap. Love the Destro in the COBRA pack as well, very reminiscent of his video game appearence, which is great.
Anyway, you can check out the Joe review here, and the COBRA one here. Images are hosted below.
I was definitely not a big fan of the Snarler cycle w/ Rollbar and Beachhead when I first saw it, but I’m starting to come around. Beachhead still doesn’t look real great (though he’s a nice match for the video game version) but Rollbar looks awesome and the bike itself is looking better and better as well. MadMac from JoeBattleLines has posted a great series of images as well as a nice little review. Check it out, and I’ve also hosted the images below.
I know I’ve posted most of these images before, but when I got these again in the mail, I took an even closer look at the rediculously high resolution images and a few more things caught my eye. Let’s see how many folks had this all figured out before I did. :shifty:
Wave 5 is something that I’ve bounced back and forth on relentlessly since we first got images. City Strike Snake Eyes makes that wave, but other figures were really starting to impress me, too, even if there are a lot of reused parts. Both in Waves 4 & 5 there is an almost brutal amount of reused tooling, though Hasbro does their best to camouflage it.
no images were found
Now Duke and Arctic Storm Shadow are obvious (though Storm Shadow is actually better masqueraded than I initially thought). Desert-Viper and Ripcord, though, I think are masked fairly well. Desert-Viper is essentially an Elite-Viper with the MARS Officer webgear in a different paint scheme and with the scarf from Hostile Environment Major Bludd. It all comes together nicely, though. Ripcord uses a lot of the Pit Commando as a base, it would appear. I’d bet the boonie hat is from that set, and of course, the combat vest as well. Not sure where the arms come from, but if the Pit Commando is used as the base, I’m glad we’ve got new arms, because the Dusty arms are a lot less poseable than many of these new ones. Ripcord also comes with a bevy of reused weapons, a lot of them from the still unreleased Resolute Baroness.
So while it’s not nearly as obvious with Wave 5 as it was with Wave 4, there seems to be just as much reused tooling, though perhaps disguised a bit better.
Also got the images from the latest round of Target Exclusive vehicles.
no images were found
That SNAKE w/ “Viper Commando” (again, why are they phasing out the Neo-Viper codename?) is absolutely KICK ASS. Love the black, and I really dig that darker colored Viper. I may grab a couple of those, though I’ll probably skip the rest. No real interest on the movie Wet Suit, that funky colored Air-Viper is bleh, and I’ve got no real interest in the Arashikage Cycle Storm Shadow either. The “racing suit” kind of looks neat, but I’ve got 3 of those bikes already, don’t need any more.
Lastly, we also got the first look at the upcoming Arashikage Temple set w/ Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, due to be a Wal-Mart Exclusive.
no images were found
What was it your mother said? If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all? Well, a ton of accessories come with this set, that’s for sure. Beyond that the colors are pretty lame, and the figures don’t offer anything interesting either. A swing and a miss on this one, I really think. Would have been neat to have seen the unreleased Training Snake Eyes from the Resolute Comic Packs in here, but as it stands, pretty dull stuff.
I brought the point up on the site earlier this morning, but unfortunately haven’t had much time today to follow up with keeping up with the new addition and all, so I poked around tonight, and discovered a very good article on Reuters talking about the very same concerns I had in regards to the Disney/Marvel merger and how it could end up affecting toy makers, Hasbro in particular.
Reuters brings up some good points, mentioning that current licensing deals will stay intact, “Hasbro’s agreement with Marvel to make toys and games based on the latter’s characters extends through 2017”. However, from there on out, things may get murky, “especially since Disney has a longer history with Hasbro’s arch-rival Mattel Inc.”
Where Hasbro might feel an even bigger pinch, however, is in their recently announced television deal with Discovery Kids. Apparently, thought in industry circles is that Hasbro intended to offer a slate of Marvel related programming on that channel, but obviously with this new move, those programs would more likely drift over to Disney XD instead. Lots of legalese, and a lot of stuff that many of us don’t care about, but regardless, this could get interesting, and even though Hasbro will be cranking out Marvel figures for at least the next 7 years, they may feel the pinch in other areas, and it might be a big one.
