This week’s Figure Friday is…out of this world! There’s a lot of toy stuff to talk about and a limited amount of space in which to do it, so let’s get down to it.
BUT FIRST.
I’m happy to announce that we’ve partnered with the fine folks Outrun Collectibles, a super cool and CANADIAN online toy store! From here on out all the toys I link to will be with Outrun and EVEN BETTER if you use code BIFFBAMPOP you can get 15% off your order!
There was some news a while back that the Playmates toy company had reacquired the rights to produce Star Trek action figures and this week finally brought us our first glimpse of them. As a life-long trekkie I was glad to hear that they got the license back after McFarlane briefly held it and…promptly did nothing with it. They produced two figures (Kirk & Picard) with the promise of a Star Trek: Discovery line to come…and then nothing.
Truthfully, I thought I had imagined the whole thing so I took to eBay and confirmed that they were indeed REAL figures produced even though I never saw any at stores or knew anyone who bought them. It was a strange blip in the history Star Trek license, to be sure.
Back in the ’90s Playmates had taken the “kitchen sink” approach to producing Trek toys by producing figures for absolutely every character that appeared in the franchise up until that point. The sheer scope of the line made it difficult for me to collect since, as a high school student, I had limited funds and also no car with which to go out and hunt for them. I can still remember the extraordinary measures I had to employ to secure the short packed Tori and Borg figures…
I haven’t done much poking around the internet but I’m wondering who exactly the target market is for these figures. Trek is one of those long running franchises that doesn’t quite have a target demographic so I have to imagine that this line could appeal to younger fans along with the ever mysterious “adult collector.”
The initial offerings will include the Original Series movie era (Kirk, Spock, and Khaaaaaan!), The Next Generation (Picard, Riker, and Data), and Discovery (Burnham and Sara). Also included in the line are replicas of the original Enterprise and a phaser.
Batmania
I honestly need to talk to someone about getting an intern to do all the grunt work that I don’t have time for when producing this column.
McFarlane is continuing to produce DC Multiverse figures at a positively manic rate, most of which are Batmen. I need to figure out A) how many figures they’ve produced to date and B) what percentage of those figures are of Batman. No doubt the data will be out of date by the time I publish it because they’ll have announced at least another dozen figures by then.
But I get it, Batman is cool and Batman sells. If a non-collector is shopping for a casual Bat-fan they want to be able to pick them up a Batman figure and it usually doesn’t matter which. However, I would give my appendix for a Tim Drake Robin or a Wally West Flash.
This week brings us the Tim Fox version of Batman, which is a pretty damn cool design.
Based off Tim Fox’s appearance in DC Future State comes this Batman action figure. This incredibly detailed DC Multiverse Future State Batman 7-Inch Scale Action Figure features ultra articulation with up to 22 moving parts for full range of posing and play. Tim Fox comes with alternate hands, a batarang, and a base. Also included is a collectible art card with figure photography on the front, and character biography on the back.
It’s standard operating procedure for McFarlane at this point to produce “unmasked” versions of their figures as chase figures or retailer exclusives so I’m just going to assume that one is in the works. It would also be completely insulting for them to produce a figure of a Batman that’s a person of colour and only put out a version where the figure’s skin is completely obscured.
This week I came into a couple of figures from the Three Jokers wave while I was out and about which allowed me to cancel my pre-orders. I picked up the Red Hood and Batman from that wave and…they’re pretty ok.
The Red Hood made some waves when it was announced since the figure was not given any pistols but rather came packed with a crowbar (presumably to open some crates or something). I’ve never seen an official statement on it but allegedly the edict from Warner Bros is that they don’t want their figures to have guns. A controversial stance since we Americans love our guns over ALL ELSE. If you really have a hard-on for your toys having guns, the pistol from the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne Batman figure will fit in this figure’s hand.
It’s a curious figure since it’s a partial re-tool and scaled down version of McFarlane’s first near-impossible to find Red Hood figure. The legs and hands are the same but the head, torso, jacket, and upper arms are all new sculpts. The figure was scaled down to fit in with the other figures in the line but seems ever so slightly off. Plus if you stand him next to the original figure there are big “don’t talk to my son ever again” vibes.
On to the Batman from the Three Jokers which is a solid “classic” Batman. All the figures in this line are perfectly modeled after Jason Fabok’s art which is rather impressive. This Batman is a sturdy figure and seems like the midway point between a younger Batman and the hulking square he becomes in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. A word of caution: the paint applications on the figure’s bat symbol were pretty sloppy in the ones I encountered on the pegs. Roughly 3/4 of them had some kind of overspray or the application of paint was slightly off centre…so proceed with caution!
Be sure to visit Outrun Collectibles for pre-orders, sales, and more!
