The San Diego ComicCon has moved into a whole new stratosphere in recent years. Initially merely a large comic convention, it somehow migrated to a Geek Mecca where Hollywood, Comics, and Toy Companies collide to give us glimpses at what cool new things are on the horizon for our nerd pleasure. It is pretty astounding to see just what it has become.
Of course as part of the allure of ComicCon, there are the SDCC Exclusives…toys that are launched at SDCC and for sale initially only at SDCC. This has always created a conflict between the “haves” and the “have nots” which has sometimes generated some hostility not just in the fandom, but directed back at the manufacturers. But Hasbro seems to have found a balance. By offering the items through SDCC, but also at HasbroToyShop, they seem to be able to please everyone, and in recent years there hasn’t been an obvious shortage of opportunities to get what you want.
This is not the case with Mattel, who year after year generates mountains of frustration among their fans with a strange voucher pre-order system that doesn’t even guarantee you a figure if you travel all the way to ComicCon. Not to mention when they post items for sale after the fact, MattyCollector.com gets so hammered that nobody can access the retail store. In general, it seems like a mammoth cluster… you get the idea.
Now not only does Hasbro seem to have the system at least somewhat ironed out, but the numbers of cool exclusives they are getting out there is amazing. Now, most of this is probably because they’re far and away the #1 Boys Toys brand in the market, but it really is incredible just how many cool toys they can get into collectors’ hands through SDCC. Anyone reading this right now already knows about Sgt. Slaughter:
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I mean, look at this figure! Sure there are complaints about the lack of musculature and the placement of the torso joint/USA logo (which I can certainly appreciate) but there is a metric ton of new tooling, great accessories, and even new points of articulation. Any long time fan who has been clamoring for Slaughter is gonna be loving this.
And while I haven’t been keeping up with the Marvel stuff as much as I’d like to, I can’t help but drool at what Hasbro has there as well:
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Before I go on…let me say one thing. Yes that is a TWO FOOT FREAKING TALL CARDED ACTION FIGURE. How awesome is that? Not to mention the bad ass WW II Captain America and an impressive Thor figure to tie into the upcoming movie as well.
Hell, even Star Wars has my interest this year!
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Bet you thought Darth Maul was dead, eh? Hell, I’m an uber-geek and even I thought Darth Maul was dead. What the hell is this? It’s Darth frikken Maul with cyborg horse legs. ROCK.
So yeah…for G.I. Joe fans or for toy fans, Hasbro has got it going on this year. Maybe one day I’ll make it to SDCC…but until then I’ll sit back and enjoy it vicariously through the hundreds of thousands of others. Can’t wait to hear what’s on the horizon!
It amazes me that it really took this long for someone to dream up a real life, full fledged “film franchise” based on existing characters and an existing universe. Throughout the years there have been television series, films, cartoons, and a wealth of media for comic characters, but never once has someone really tried to weave it all together.
Well, Marvel Films, buoyed by the success of their Spider-Man and X-Men franchises finally bit the bullet, created their own movie company, and decided to finally tell a tale that crosses between films and creates a whole new universe in Hollywood. And so far, I’ve been loving it.
The Incredible Hulk was really the film that kicked it all off, featuring a cameo by Robert Downy, Jr as the enigmatic Tony Stark. This, of course, spiraled into the Iron Man film, with another nice little cameo of Nick Fury. Then, as we all know at this point, that catapulted into Iron Man 2 where the whole Avengers Initiative really started to evolve, and we got a peek at Thor’s hammer as we ramp up for Thor in 2011. Of course, Cap’s trusty shield made it’s own appearance as well.
I’ll be honest…I was pretty worried about how “The First Avenger” would be treated in Hollywood. The Hulk is a big green monster… Iron Man is a guy in a high tech suit of battle armored plate. Those things can transcend comic pages and make a nice impact in the “real world” look. Well, Captain America really doesn’t. On the comic page you can see a guy in blue spandex, and it doesn’t look all that out of place. But making that work in Hollywood? Yeah, I was having a hard time seeing how they would work it in. After all, in the 70’s we saw them give it their best shot, and that really wasn’t all that pretty.
Well, thanks to JoBlo and Aint it Cool News, we have some artwork of what promises to be the actual costume that the film version of Captain America will wear. And Good Lord is it awesome. It certainly seems to use the Ultimates uniform as a base (which is no surprise, considering how much the Hollywood Marvel universe seems to at least sort of follow the Ultimate logic) but it looks like it will translate nearly perfectly on a three dimensional real world plane. Yet, it also manages to pay perfect homage to the actual uniform appearance in the comics as well. They really seem to have captured the best of both worlds.
During my formative years collecting comics, Captain America was one of my favorite heroes. I had nearly an entire run of his books from the 60’s through to the early 90’s before I moved away from comics, and I still have a place in my heart for Steve Rogers. I was thrilled to see that Marvel Films is trying to hard to keep these characters grounded in reality, yet still pull so much influence from the printed page. Awesome stuff.
Okay, I’m pretty on top of things in the Marvel animated slate… but somehow I’m a bit out of the loop.
Apparently, way back on March 4th it was announced that a new Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes animated series would be airing in 2011. Somehow I missed this. In fact, there’s even a trailer online:
Ummm… holy shit?
This looks pretty fun! And it would even appear that a “micro series” featuring back stories for the individual heroes would begin airing this fall. Supposedly 52 episodes have already been ordered, and with an all star cast, this looks like a very cool series.
Unfortunately, though… apparently Spectactular Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men have both been cancelled. It would appear good news always comes with bad. These were two of my favorite animated series in a long time… bummer. Hopefully Avengers can fill the void.
Okay, I’m a fringe Marvel Universe fan at best. The last time I read comics on a regular basis was the 90’s and while I survived Rob Liefield’s path of destruction through the medium as we know it, I did sorta lose track during the Spider-Man clone fiasco, and haven’t really looked back. Sure, I poked my head in on the Ultimate universe, the death of Captain America, and am sort of checking out Siege here and there, but that’s really about it.
Thankfully, for those unusual folks like me, there are the movies and the cartoons to keep me engaged. While most toy geeks lament the fact that the movies and animated series aren’t faithful to the comic roots, those funky nerds like me who don’t really care about the stories and care more about the core characters are able to be kept in the loop without having to worry about the past four pesky decades of continuity. The first Iron Man movie, to me, was the best in class for this recent outcropping of comics flicks (yes, I even rate it above The Dark Knight, heresy on the internetz, I know), and the sequel looks like it will be more of the same.
Even better, the toys for the sequel look to match the quality of Paramount’s tour de force as well. I’m sure the initial toys were probably just dandy as well, but they were six inches tall, which doesn’t fit into my current collection philosophy, which is the smaller the better because I have no space to store crap. Amazingly enough, Hasbro looks to have taken the detail from the six inch figures and squished them down into a 3 3/4″ scale…these figures are smaller, but damn do they look freaking amazing. PopEater.com has revealed a nice batch of these figures, accurate to the film, and while most of them look totally bad ass, the one I’m really focusing my love on is Samuel “Nick Fury” Jackson in some 3 3/4″ glory. Sure, we’ve all got enough Mace Windu’s to choke a stable of horses, but this Jackson actually uses some G.I. Joe parts! And he has a bad ass trench coat.
It’s pretty much the best 3 3/4″ figure ever made…
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I know this is barely G.I. Joe related, but news is a bit slow these days…gotta take some toy joy where I can get it.
I’m sure my credibility is probably shot ever since I gave G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA a relatively positive review, but if nothing else, that only shows what my video game taste is. I don’t need state-of-the-art graphics or revolutionary gameplay. I just need a game to be FUN. And dammit, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was one of the most fun games I’ve played in a very long time. Well, next week, Ultimate Alliance 2 comes out, and I can’t freaking wait! I think this trailer has been around forever, but I just saw it today… check it out. Not a whole lot of gameplay, but some kick ass looking cut scenes and a nifty soundtrack. Looking forward to it.
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.
