Summer is upon us and the toy aisles are starting to heat up! New product has been hitting store shelves, Fall and Winter Preorders are going up on Fan Channels and Convention season is right around the corner. There’s a lot to talk about and I only have a biweekly column to cover it all, so let’s take a look around the world of toys and see what’s noteworthy.
The last time we talked, I sang the praises of the current HasLab project, the G.I. Joe Classified Series Assault Copter Dragonfly (XH-1). I also speculated as to who I believed might be the other two unlockable tiers at 16,000 and 19,000 backers. Suffice it to say, I was off on at least one of them (the 19,000 unlock is still yet to be announced). Recruit number two is Jane “Glenda” Mullighan. If that name isn’t familiar to you, you’re not alone. Glenda was originally only offered in Argentina. She fits the bill as a helicopter pilot and true to many of the HasLab figures, there’s little to no chance we would have ever seen her in the mainline of Classified. Her announcement had the effect of a wet blanket, which has me revisiting my prediction of a W.C. Culbert figure breaking all previous HasLab numbers. If people weren’t excited to get a figure that was only previously released in Argentina, I doubt they’ll be excited to get a figure that was never even produced. Fans can be fickle and it seems as if most would rather have a recognizable name as opposed to something that actually makes sense to include with a helicopter, like a co-pilot. I’m confident we’ll get to that final unlock at some point, but the journey from 16K to 19K might take a bit longer than expected.
We deal in a lot of nostalgia around here, and like many things in life, you can have both good and bad nostalgia depending on your own personal experience with said product. That being said, Hasbro has decided to bring back the Furby! That’s right the toy that was beloved by children, but haunted the dreams of their parents is back! Now that the kids that loved Furby are having kids themselves, it’s time for them to experience those same sleepless nights as they are awoken at 3:30 am to the sound of Furbish coming from somewhere… but where? I know inflation is supposedly still a thing, but the thought of anyone paying $70 for one of these things is a bit gross. If you want to send a shitty gift, you can do so for a lot less.
I mentioned Convention season earlier, and the biggest of them all, San Diego Comic Con is set to kick off on July 20. NECA has some pretty great SDCC Exclusives this year and if you have social anxiety or just can’t make the trip to San Diego, you can still get in on one last preorder TODAY (6/23/23) at 12pm EST. Everything has sold out rather quickly the past two days, so you’ll want to be ready when the drop goes live. If you’re in the market for an Ernie Reyes as Keno figure from TMNT 2 or a 4-pack of Samurai Ninja Turtles from TMNT 3, you’ll need to act fast. Personally, that Glow in the Dark Creature from the Black Lagoon figure is what I’ve been after and gotten shut out each time. Fingers crossed for Friday’s drop!
Those Samurai Turtles are pretty great, but if I’m dropping that kind of money on TMNT figures, I’m going to go with the Mirage figures that my Figure Friday partner wrote about last week. I was lucky enough to find the set at retail and while I originally didn’t plan on picking them up, I got caught up in the heat of the moment. Six more figures later, and I now own nearly the entire collection of Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures and I’ve never even read those damn books (Thank you, E.A. Henson!). Something about the way they translated those characters off the page and into figure form works really well for me. The linework in particular is much better at achieving the animated effect than the cell shading we’ve seen on Marvel Legends in recent years. No need for a full review here, but if you’re on the fence due to the price, they’re worth the investment.
Last, but most certainly not least is another NECA product that I was finally able to get my hands on, Ultimate Warduke from their Dungeons and Dragons line. Warduke is one of those bad ass characters that even if you didn’t know D & D, you probably recognized the character, but couldn’t place him. His red beady eyes peering out from beneath his blue winged helmet and his flaming sword carved out a place in my memory that would never fade. When NECA announced they were getting into D & D and offering Warduke, I knew I had to have him. Once I got him in hand, I was even more pleased. The quality that NECA has put into the figure is fantastic. He’s easily going to make the transition into my Mythic Legions display and not look out of place.
