Swords and Spaceships

I love toys, and I especially love toys based on superheroes. I own all the Marvel figures I could possibly want, but DC characters- not so much. I can't see paying $16 and up for DC Direct figures. I own a few of them, but they aren't exactly amazing. I like my toys to be able to pull off more than one or two poses, and I like them cheaper. Along comes Mattel with their DC Superheroes 6" scale line. My prayers are answered in the first two series. I have the obligatory Batman and Superman, but I also have Bizarro, Supergirl, Scarcrow, and kick-ass renditions of Bane and Doomsday. But as Mattel often does, they take a golden oppotunity and screw the pooch on it. I've never seen the two most recent series on pegs locally, and of course, the exclusives in this line are impossible to find. Target stores have exclusive two-packs- Superman/Bizarro, Superman/Clark Kent, and Batman/Batgirl. Of course, the Superman/Bizarro set led off the line, and it still sits on shelves, ho...

If you don't already own this, well, you probably don't come to sites like this one. This was my second favorite summer blockbuster this year, a close second only to Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. Bryan Singer and the cast and crew of this movie did an excellent job in not only creating a new chapter in the already-established Superman-on-film continuity, but adding in a distinct flair of their own that brings it into the 21st century. The story picks up after Superman II (the producers have decided to ignore that III and IV ever happened, to their benefit.) Superman has been gone from Earth for about five or six years, searching for the remnants of Krypton, which some astronomers believe they've found. The world went to Hell for a time, and eventually, people learned to live without Superman always being around. Lois Lane even wrote an editorial for the Daily Planet entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman" for which she is nominated for...

Repacked Star Wars figures coming out next year. And I thought I was going to be done with Star Wars forever. Here, Hasbro is finally opening the floodgates on the figures us fans have wanted again for years- the foreign-only Pit Droids, Dark Troopers, TC-14, VTSC Biker Scout, AOTC Clone Officers, and even some droids that were pack-ins with exclusives. Of course, those I listed above were all chosen by fans. The ones that Hasbro picked for the Saga Legends line leave a lot to be desired. (Does anyone really want to see that particular Anakin Skywalker mold again?) But still, good on them for getting a plain-white AOTC Clone and some TPM and AOTC Battle Droids out again. With all this neat stuff coming out again, Star Wars might move to being my favorite line to collect again.

If there's one good thing about all those Christmas shoppers, it's that they clear out the pegs of old stuff so all the new stuff can be put on shelves. For the last few weeks, I've been hunting like a madman for the last pieces I needed for my Toy Biz Marvel collection. With Hasbro taking over next year and me not continuing on to that (I've seen packaged pics, and the toys suck) I'm going to end with TB's last series, 15- the Modok wave. I first found this wave in early November, and I bought the ones I could- I found the variants of Captain Marvel, Moon Knight, and Spider-Woman, and I also picked up the regular edition of Wasp and the only Beta Ray Bill that was there (BTW, he's the only figure in the series without a variant.) I still lacked Thor Buster Iron Man and the regular Spider-Woman, but I managed to find them tonight, as well as Electro from the Spider-Man line. So now, my Marvel collection is done. I didn't buy everything, and I did buy som...