I'm Playing With: April 2007

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I like toys. I'm secure in my maturity (or lack thereof). And toys were meant to played with. So, yes, I open rare and exclusive items, and mess with them, "Toy Story" style. Hard-core toy collectors should probably not read this blog.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Moon Knight and Man-Thing ...

One of my pet peeves is speculators. Folks who buy things on the speculation they'll go up in price, and then sell them for a higher margin.

This arguably nearly destroyed the comic book market in the 1990s, and it's pretty bad in the toy market -- and pretty obvious with the Marvel Legends line of toys.

I'm a fan. I get characters I like and sculpts that are cool. I'm not interested in paying a premium for toys I'm going to open, play with, and do animated films with.

A couple of the (multitude of) figures I've wanted recently are Man-Thing and Moon Knight. But not the "regular" Moon Knight (who, oddly is in a black, Batman-esque suit). No, I wanted the "variant" Moon Knight (who's wearing his correct silver duds).

I was never able to find the correctly attired MK in the stores, but I've recently been sucked into the eBay Marvel Legends aftermarket, and had been bidding on figures I want, with (usually) low ceilings. Just to see if I got lucky.

I scored this bad-boy for $13.01, which, though not the $8 I'd have rather paid for it, is way better than the $25 it regularly goes for on the aftermarket.

And Marvel's Man-Thing is just a weird, cool character (like Deathlok or Beta Ray Bill) from an older Marvel Legends series, and I got him for way less than MK. And he beat out DC's Swamp Thing by just a few months in 1971. That's worth something, right?

On the technical side, these are both good sculpts. All of the joints are good, though Man-Thing's got a tendency to drift in his midriff, which is probably to be expected (he is made of swamp muck, after all).

Moon Knight's got lots of jointage, and comes with a staff and nunchakus (which look to be recycles from the Daredevil Face-Off figure). The attention to detail is nice, and the add-on rubber belt also has a loop on the back (under the cape) for storing the nunchakus. Nice!

Man-Thing was sculpted by Phil Ramirez, and Moon Knight was sculpted by rockstar Dave Cortes.

Labels: comic books, Marvel Legends, Toy Biz, variant

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Captain America (paperweight)

Someone who knows me and loves me better than they ought (and more than I deserve) got me this Captain America paperweight.

Cold cast resin, hand painted, and very cool (those are fabric stretches across his chest), this Cap gets shelf treatment, and won't likely be holding down any papers (to be honest, I don't have a large wind problem in my office).

And the word balloon? Given the events during and fallout from Marvel's "Civil War" arc, I think signs point to something along these lines down the Marvel publishing road. I just added the "upper body" as a nod to how extreme resurrection stories can become (uh, "Heroes Reborn"?).

We'll see how prescient I am.

Speaking of "Heroes Reborn" which, if you know of an inexpensive "Heroes Reborn" version of Captain America (factory or custom), let me know.

I say "inexpensive", because it's just going to be used as a punching bag for my other Captain Americas...

Labels: comic books

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Monday, April 2, 2007

The Kingpin

Kingpin action figure from the Marvel Legends Face Off series

This is the variant Kingpin from the Marvel Legends Face Off series. This is the cat that goes with the variant Daredevil I've got wailing on Bullseye.

Yes, I continue to take my variants out of their packaging. Then pose them. Then mock them. Repeatedly. Because I care for them.

This is actually a very good sculpt and paint job, and I prefer it to the standard white (comparatively serene) mold and paint job.

The downside is he's a hefty rotund sculpt, so posing is restricted by his center of gravity. His massive center of gravity.

Labels: comic books, Marvel Legends, Toy Biz, variant

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