2007

Because of the very brief time span between Toy Fair and New York Comic Con this year, a few companies decided to hold onto some ‘big reveals’ until NYCC and show them off to the public at large, instead of just members of the industry. This made for what some collectors have called ‘a disappointing Toy Fair’, but an exciting NYCC.

One such company was Hasbro, whose Marvel Legends line is the talk of the town. You know, if you’re talking about a town entirely full of XBox 360s and Doritos and people with breathing issues. Despite this popularity, they didn’t show off anything new at Toy Fair, but had the next two waves safely displayed and encased at NYCC, confirming rumors of future character lineups (which crafty techo-nerds had already gleaned from Wal-Mart stock charts and lost bits of HTML on Hasbro’s website). Wave three will include Bucky (the Captain America sidekick), First Appearance Captain America, Marvel Girl (and variant), Black Knight, Astonishing X-Men Cyclops, X3 Colossus, Danger, and a HYDRA soldier (and variant) with a Brood Queen Build-A-Figure tying them all together. These are pictured in the photos above and in the NYCC photo gallery. The late reveal of these might seem unnecessary, but the manner in which they were revealed presents a very collector-friendly stance that Hasbro is trying to make, in spite of allegations that figure quality has dropped significantly since they took over the line. I don’t care what anyone says – my Annihilus is probably one of the most awesome things to ever fall over onto me while I’m sleeping, excluding of course the array of clumsy but beautiful women that I find myself with.

DC Direct revealed series seven of Justice, a continuing series of figures based on the artwork of Alex Ross, but the showing was unfortunately confusing. Two of the figures included in this wave are Armored Superman and Armored Aquaman, both of whom were slated to appear in a canceled wave comprised entirely of armored heroes (along with Batman, the female Nightwing, and Flamebird). Both of these figures appeared to be almost completely solid colored, with no paint detailing. In addition to that, a Gorilla Grodd figure was on display that re-used the body of the previous Grodd figure, and a John Stewart Green Lantern that re-used a Hal Jordan Body and the head of another previous Stewart figure which looked nothing at all like the artwork of Alex Ross. Since series 5 only just came out two weeks ago, and every figure to date has been excellent, we can hope that the figures on display were only placeholders for the actual figures being sculpted and painted. If not, I have to say that this is the first wave of Justice figures I’m going to completely skip.

Mezco didn’t allow photography of their Goonies line at Toy Fair, where we saw them in their full, painted glory, but unpainted prototypes were on display at NYCC, along with a few replica movie props. As mentioned in the Toy Fair coverage, these still present exceptional likenesses. While Mezco sometimes pursues cartoon figures, or portrays properties in a cartoonish manner, but they’re more spot-on with likenesses than any other company producing toys.

WizKids also displayed at NYCC, revealing the entire line of DC Heroclix : Origins figures for the first time, and a few crucial figure game stats. I haven’t been this excited for a wave of Heroclix in a long time, usually just buying a case each wave to keep up on my collection for the next time I actually sit down and play. I recall discussing a DC Comics based Heroclix set with former brand manager Jason Mical at Toy Fair about two years ago, and putting in my formal argument to do a set based on Golden Age characters, or at least classic ones – mostly to satisfy my jones for an Alan Scott Green Lantern. Finally, my dream set is being released, and in only three days! It will feature such characters as First Appearance Batman and Superman, Mirror Master (with an additional sculpt depicting him in a mirror), Shadow Thief (with another additional sculpt depicting him in his flat and flexible alternate form), Doom Patrol’s Robotman, Mister Mind, Golden Age Sandman, Shazam (with a neat, but suggestive, sculpt of him transforming from little Billy Batson). Overall, very exciting to be able to add these characters to an army. The only Marvel Heroclix figure on display was the colossal Fin Fang Foom, two of which were being given away in gaming competitions during the Con. These are not available yet, but will become so during the summer convention season, much like Galactus and Spectre were in past years.

Next year’s NYCC will happen in April, increasing that divide between Toy Fair and itself, and giving companies more time to prepare their annual exclusives, so there’s hope yet to establish a higher volume of new items for sale by then. The Con will also have increased space, hopefully delaying (or preventing entirely) that good ol’ New York Shuffle, wherein you can’t really place one foot more than three inches in front of the other.

Overall, NYCC has become a convention worth attending, so if you’re in the NYC area, check it out. But don’t get in my way.

To say that the New York Comic Con 2006 was an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. It would be like comparing a papercut to the fine, incisive mark of the guillotine. The memory made coming to NYCC 2007 a much dreaded, though still impossibly alluring, experience. I’m pleased to report an enormous increase in Con quality over last year.

The lines around Javits

While Friday’s opening ceremonies saw a handful of industry-only events, award ceremonies and a short speech by the amazing Stephen Colbert (who is also an alarmingly intense Lord of the Rings fan), I eschewed these things for participation in the heart of the Convention, occurring on Saturday and Sunday. And by ‘heart’, I mean ’seventeen miles of entrails, wrapping obscenely around the entirety of the Javits building’. Yes, Saturday morning’s line was absurdly long, traversing the front of the building, around the side in February’s harsh winds off of the Hudson, and snaking back around into a lower level. Unbelievably, the line moved with relative ease and we were inside before too long, making nerdy friends along the way.

NYCC was divided up into a few distinct areas. We had the indie presses and artists around the backs and right-hand side of the main hall, enormous company kiosks and displays (including people playing Guitar Hero in the back of a tricked out car) dominating the front and central areas, and vendors spotted throughout the center and left-hand side. Upstairs was the narrow ‘Artists Alley’, where more mainstream artists were relegated to signing, and beyond them, a large room opened up into a tabletop gaming area. Around the edges of this were seated the cream of B-list celebrities, including the omnipresent Peter Mayhew (aka Chewbacca, who will be at every convention until the end of time itself), Gary Coleman (who became irate when someone took TWO photos of him instead of one), Hayden Panettiere, and the cast of Buffy.

My main objective for attending NYCC was to get Jeff Smith to sign my Bizarro Comics hardcover, so let me get this little negativity out of the way before I get into how fun the convention was as a whole. See, Jeff Smith’s booth was only a short segment of the aisle, and in the singular hour that he was signing, the line would constantly extend past the end of said booth. An angry man in a green shirt, clearly paid well to be angry and green, would yell at anyone who stood beyond the invisible point that marked the end of Jeff Smith’s signing space. In addition to that, the fine folks who owned the next booth over, Markosia Comics, we doing a great job at hurling epithets and insults about how we were ruining their business by forming a line in front of their booth. NYCC organizers, I urge you to perhaps allocate a smarter arrangement of space when you have a name as big as Jeff Smith signing comics. I gave up after the frustrating demoralization from both booths, but not before I was guilted into buying a comic from the people whose lives I was apparently ruining by standing there. I missed Jeff Smith’s autograph because of this instance of poor planning and my personal unwillingness to have someone yelling in my ear for an hour, and I may never get a chance to meet him again. I reiterate that the rest of the convention proved to be unexpectedly rewarding, but this was a dark spot on the rest of the day.

As a collector of original comic art and signatures, I much prefer interacting with the artist in question over later purchasing something that they had anonymously put their name on. The monetary value of the signature is the same, but the richness of the experience is incomparable.

Tim Biskup

The highlights, and unreproducible experiences, are always these people. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Evan Dorkin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Michael Whelan and a handful of other creators that have inspired me greatly over the years. This year, I happened to meet Sket One, the completely amazing Tim Biskup, Bill Plympton (who is a down-to-Earth guy and easy to talk to, and did a sketch for me), and the highlight of the Convention, and perhaps my life, Major Victory.

L to R : Feedback, Major Victory & Fat Momma

See, I’m a colossal Major Victory fan, even more so than being a fan of ‘Who Wants To Be A Superhero?’ He’s a real person who had presented this positive life-model that I found inspiring. While I was hanging out with some friends on Sunday morning before the con officially opened, Fat Momma brushed past me to get to the end of a line. Lo and behold, Feedback and Major Victory were right behind her. I was quickly reduced to a squealing girl, said something like ‘Oh sweet Jesus I’m your biggest fan!’, and Major Victory gave me a noncommittal ‘thanks’ and moved on. But it was enough. I’d met my personal hero through some amazing twist of fate… and I acted like a schoolgirl before I knew what hit me. I’d immortalized this guy in wooden robot form – what greater honor is there? I also took photos of him while he wasn’t looking.

And can there ever be such indignity as that which someone suffers upon meeting one’s idols and kinda wets oneself a little? I submit that there cannot be. But I don’t think I would have changed anything.

As far as ‘the people’ at the convention were concerned, the morning-until-noon stretch saw relative calm and mobility on the main floor. As the afternoons crept in, we were kinda forced into body-to-body shuffle-mode. I remarked to one booth-bound woman that I’d been inadvertently touched at the Con by more people in more places than during the entirety of my sexual maturity. I think that might have creeped her out a little, but it’s not like I was saying ‘How about one more, baby? I found a place that no one got to yet!’

Collectors’ Quest is offering a free DVD of NYCC highlights right here for the next few days, so get in on that! Stay tuned for more con reactions, a ton of new toy photos, and a five thousand word essay on how awesome it is that next year’s NYCC will be in April and I won’t have to carry my damned coat around.

Toy Fair is such a monumental event that even after four days of exploration and thousands upon thousands of words of reminiscence, I’ve barely scraped the surface of its presence. So here’s the rest of it, in record time, with what are sure to be grievous omissions which I’ll apologize for later.

In the past few weeks, I’ve described the offerings of Hasbro, Mattel, DC Direct, Sideshow Collectibles, and a handful of others, as well as posted a large photo gallery of my findings.

Often while traversing the floors of the Javits center, we’d be easily distracted by some other luminous bastion of awesomeness between us and our destination. One such surprise was the Attakus booth, a company based in Montreal which specializes in large-scale statues of Marvel and Star Wars characters, as well as a few smaller statues of the ‘erotic’ and fantasy variety. I’d never seen an Attakus piece in person, since importing things from elsewhere is never a cheap endeavor, but their quality and scale was impressive. We spent quite a lot of time circling their booth, photographing everything, including the awe-inspiring Millennium Falcon replica that was in scale with Hasbro’s 3 3/4” scale figures. Of course, it was only a half-replica, cut down the middle like a spaceship-dollhouse for easy access, but it included every internal and external detail down to the Dejarik Holochess set, with the entire display set up to look like the Rebel escape from the Death Star in A New Hope, complete with the Obi Wan and Darth Vader duel. Reps from neighboring booths were constantly streaming over to take another look inside the Falcon. Our photos of their booth can be seen here.

We also visited Marvel Toys, formerly Toy Biz, and saw their wonderful Legendary Heroes license. They’ve decided that if they can’t do Marvel characters anymore, and DC has the licenses to their own characters tied up in themselves and Mattel, they’d dip into the quirky third-tier of comics and tap the independent publishers for characters, which they’d then execute in their notable, revolutionary style. The initial lineups include both familiar and unfamiliar characters to me, but the first two waves will continue the popular Build-A-Figure theme. If you collect all six figures, you can build a large, unusually complex seventh figure from the extra parts included – a gimmick that has done very well for them over the past few years in their Marvel Legends line. The first set will include a huge Pitt figure from Image Comics, and the second wave will include a Monkeyman (with one of the figures being his partner, O’Brien). People might recognize Savage Dragon, Judge Dredd and Witchblade among the figures, as well as a Conan the Barbarian, but many of the characters elude even a hardcore geekonerd like me. It’s like the 90’s exploded all up in there, but the figures are at least visually interesting enough to support the line. I’m all about Mike Allred’s Madman, this time. Scope out their wares here.

There’s been some contention between Marvel Toys and Shocker Toys, as both sought to pursue licenses from ‘indie’ publishers and creators at the same time, often butting heads and having contracts slip out from each others’ grasps. Shocker Toys has oft been at odds with the toy world in general, being the very apotheosis of the underdog toymaker, fightin’ his way to the top. Their PR model differs greatly from the tried and true traditions of the toy industry, as Shocker has been revealing their hopes and aspirations, figure sculpts in every stage of completion, and sending out brutally honest (and sometimes emotional) statements to the press. The usual model states that toy companies will only talk about things that are 100% secure properties and only show off near-completed items, but Shocker is more organic in their approach. In laying the process bare before any of his touted products have even hit retail, Shocker Toys’ owner Geoff Beckett has created some discomfort for everyone involved. In meeting with him at Toy Fair though, I found him to be a very amicable guy, enthusiastic to a fault about his work. On display were his own series of Indie Spotlight figures, including Scud : The Disposable Assassin, Shadowhawk, and Katchoo from Strangers in Paradise, as well as an in-progress sculpt of my personal favorite character ever, The Maxx. With any luck, I convinced him to include Maxx’s love interest, Julie, in the first set of figures and a Mr. Gone sometime in the future. While these items still have work to be done on them, it’s a good start to what can be a great companion piece to Marvel Toys’ stuff (especially since Maxx and Pitt once battled / teamed up). Shocker Toys also had their in-progress GWAR figures on display, and discussed their rights to make figures of both Metalocalypse and Venture Brothers figures. If they can pull it off, their licenses have more appeal to me than what Marvel Toys has announced. Time will tell if the figures match up to the hype. We have a few photos here.

Bif! Bang! Pow! was a complete surprise with their presentation of some purely beautiful Flash Gordon action figures, designed by photorealistic comic artist and Flash Gordon fanatic Alex Ross. Toy Fair marked the debut of this company and their products, well, anywhere, and they blew us away with these perfect figures, their rights to produce any character in the movie for future waves, and their 12” scale Big Lebowski figures. They’re still looking for more support, so if you want to see these Flash Gordon guys, speak out!

And speaking of 12” figures, we encountered the UK-based Product Enterprise also. The first question out of my mouth was about their Space Vixens line, which has been put ‘on hiatus’ for now, I was informed. Choking back tears, we explored the rest of their booth to see a heavy Dr. Who focus, including an awesome 12” figure of the Tom Baker Who, crazy-ugly scarf and all. In addition to that, they are producing a line of Daleks – or, Dalek-shaped figures as re-painted by a variety of designers, a la Bearbricks and Dunnys – including the urban artist who identifies himself as, coincidentally enough, ‘Dalek’. A desperately needed synergy between art and sci-fi has been reached. Okay, it’s always been there, but no one really talks about it. Character Options had their array of regular 6” Dr. Who figures on display also, representing characters from the newer incarnation of the show.

Finally, we wandered down the ‘urban arts’ / designer section of the Fair before we called it a day and encountered even more items from the growing world of artsy-cute plush things and cute-scary vinyl figures. Most inspiring was UNKL’s booth – a company that recently exploded onto the art toy scene with a staff of only four people, they’re a real inspiration to aspiring toy creators such as myself and my fellow photographer that day. Of course, it inspired talk of ‘let’s quit our jobs!’ and ‘damn the man!’ and ‘let’s go get a sandwich!’ for the rest of the day, but the truth is that they produce some clever little figures (check out their Unipos), and the booth chick was totally cute.

Of course, Toy Fair is only about 5% action figures, but you wouldn’t know it from how I go on about ‘em for the past two weeks. We were stopped by the excited owner of Potty Monkey, a professional pediatric urologist who’d written a book and created a doll to promote good toilet habits. He also offered us a banana, but we declined. That kind of inventive excitement and energy is what makes the fair really come alive. The appearance of the creepy-but-catchy Alien Creole Band bouncing through the main floor and playing music, taking our photos with Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, the life-sized Batman made of Legos, and the display of cleverly animated and assembled wooden kits were only a scant few of the great things that I wish we’d had more time to explore.

But there’s always next year, too.

So the first stop in this year’s Toy Fair extravaganza was Hasbro. Since many companies have drastically changed their press strategies since last year due to budgetary and strategic realizations, Hasbro actually decided to shuffle the members of the press through their showrooms in small groups on the Saturday preceding the actual Toy Fair, summoning me to the city on a day when I otherwise had nothing planned. Additionally, they’d set up shop at nearby Splashlight Studios instead of a traditional Toy Fair showroom in the usual toy buildings. While I didn’t feel EXACTLY like I was going to wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney or three, it came close. However, a dancing Spider-Man Potato Head danced around outside and ushered me and my traveling companion, Laura, inside. Check out the details in this handy photo gallery!

Hasbro’s most notably collectible properties encompass the enormous Star Wars brand, GI Joe, the newly-acquired Marvel Comics license and Transformers, including the upcoming live-action Transformers movie. While the uber-macho nature of GI Joe has always escaped my ardour, my barely-present awareness of Transformers has now officially flared into a full-on bout of highly contagious Transformeritis. It’s like my robot fetish never registered them, but now I see. It’s okay, though. They were in disguise.

Hasbro announced the slow continuation of the popular Sigma Six line of GI Joe action figures, (a stylized and highly-articulated series in the 6+” scale), and their plans to continue with a more classic GI Joe styling, as well as the return of the Kung-Fu Grip action feature on larger figures. Of course, I was also very distracted by a vat of silver, foam Kung-Fu Grip fists that were being given away to attendees, and a loud British man extolling the history of GI Joe to the Hasbro rep that was giving us our tour and barking over to his lap-dog photographer to get shots of this or that. You could hand me two vastly different GI Joes and I still wouldn’t be sure which one was original flavor and which one was honey barbecue.

Collectors were salivating for new pictures of Hasbro’s second set of Marvel Legends figures, since their inaugural set was met with a lukewarm (but hopeful) response. While the second wave will include a much-wanted Yellowjacket, She-Hulk, Quicksilver and a few characters from X-3, not a single new figure was on display. A single, carded Battle Armor Thor made an appearance, but the Marvel section was powerfully underwhelming. However, recent rumors have surfaced about future waves including a Build-A-Figure Brood Queen and Ronan the Accuser, as well as Fantastic Four and Spider-Man comic-based waves, also including the Build-A-Figure feature. Hasbro is deciding to focus much of their Marvel license on the Spider-Man 3 movie, including a 5” set of action figures with action features (smaller than most of the existing Marvel figures, and thus causing a scale problem among displays) and many plush and kid-centric Spidey items. As if toys are for kids or something. Also present were some uninspiring Fantastic Four movie figures, leading one to believe that we were missing something larger.

Marvel gaming will also expand from the Attacktix line, on beyond the failed Battle Dice game, and into Marvel Heroscape, which is actually a fairly successful tabletop gaming franchise in the vein of Heroclix and Warcraft.

Laura had wandered off to play with talking parrot toys and oinking pigs, mostly in the predominantly pink section of the showroom.

Next came Star Wars, which was the high point of the Hasbro showrooms for me. The most exciting revelation was that Hasbro plans to create an array of action figures based upon the original Star Wars concept art created by Ralph McQuarrie, which was significantly different between initial concept and final screen execution. Even the most obscure, barely-present Star Wars characters and aliens have been explored three or four times at this point (except for Yarna D’al Gargan, for some reason – kids have seen six-breasted pole-dancers before, guys), so they’re taking it oldschool. In addition to this line, a line of characters for an upcoming Star Wars video game is planned for release (including a battle-damaged Darth Vader), as well as a large collection of new figures that will include 30th anniversary coins, a coin album, and a mail-away offer for a special commemorative coin (which, incidentally, Toy Fair attendees were given for free and is now worth $125 at auction).

The small, cute, kid-friendly Galactic Heroes line will also continue, including fan favorite Momaw Nadon & Han in Carbonite. Probably most stellar was a Darth Vader Transformer that collapses completely into a perfect Death Star sphere. I tastefully refrained from asking about the relative position of the exhaust port. Continuing the existing Star Wars Unleashed mini-battle scene assortments are some great original trilogy arrays. Overall, Hasbro seems to have a large focus on revisiting the original trilogy (instead of the repulsive recent episodes) in deference to the 30th Anniversary events, complete with distinctive new packaging. There was a curious lack of Yodas, as my traveling companion Laura would point out, when she was done deciding that she’d rather have an animatronic parrot instead of a wedding ring.

One thing that Hasbro does that no other toy company has yet dared to approach is to mix and mingle their licenses. In as much, they’re occasionally use both Transformers, Star Wars and Marvel characters all in the same series of toys, such as their Attacktix game. As far as Transformers go, they’ll be focusing all of their energon energies on the Transformers movie. While we were banned from photographing anything in the top-secret Transformers room, we were allowed to snap shots of the high-end Bumblebee Transformer (a prominent character in the film), which includes lights and sounds, and full functionality as both a 10” robot and a sportscar. The rest of the Transformers line will span a large collection of figures, role-play items and huggable plush items which will have cashiers everywhere questioning the maturity of many grown males for the remainder of their adult lives, because laying my head upon a cushiony Optimus Prime is not entirely unappealing.

Hasbro presented us with the bonus of meeting up with the creators and programmers of the Transformers movie video game, who gave us a sample of their in-production gameplay. While still in debugging mode, with cut scenes and final character renderings far from complete, the game still seemed to play beautifully and look exceptional (even with the temporary Justice League Unlimited theme music playing in the background).

Despite the lack of Marvel fan goodies, it was not a disappointing trip. It’s my understanding that Hasbro is holding out for New York Comic Con in two weeks to roll out their big guns, and I’m willing to wait. At the conclusion of their press tours, Hasbro is fairly well known for giving out choice swag in their press kits (including a Darth Vader figure in 2005 that climbed to thousands of dollars at auction). We were given a big, bulky Transformers press kit that included a transforming pen (which is actually pretty neat), and a Spi-Dog, which is an i-Dog painted up like Spider-Man.

One can’t venture to New York City without exploring some of the sights, so after the press appointment, another lady-friend and I explored Giant Robot, Toy Tokyo and Forbidden Planet Comics (where a cashier generously offered to kill me for my Transformers press kit – I declined), and found ourselves a sushi dinner, only to return to the city for another three days. Stay tuned for Marvel Toys, Product Enterprise, Mattel, DC Direct, Diamond Select, Mezco, Sideshow Collectibles and a vast array of toy oddities, including, and remember that you heard it here first, Potty Monkey.

In the meantime, check out the growing photo galleries!

It seems like only yesteryear that I rolled up my sleeves and ninja-kicked my way through the icy corridors of New York City, in yet another epic snowstorm that happened to fall on the exact weekend of Toy Fair and brought the mighty city to a dead halt. I don’t know what it is about the myriad of toy powerhouses showing off their finest wares that draws inclement weather to a city, but it happens like clockwork. Still, no weather is too cold, no head-protecting fedora is too expensive and no toy is too small to make it all worthwhile. Hell, this year, I even bought new boots. Just in case.

I think that this will be my 5th Toy Fair, beginning in the days when my college roommate and I had just started All Nerd Review. We were toy and comic collectors (two things that are inexorably associated), and we managed to assemble enough credentials to break into the Fair (including, well, what turned out to be guest passes from someone working on the building at the time, whom we secretly met under a stairwell). Toy Fair is the holy land for all toy collectors, though access to the inner sanctums is only granted to toy industry professionals and the press. Once inside the multiple, cavernous floors of the Javits center, one is free to roam and observe everything from dolls to RC cars to candies, both available at your local toy store and as-yet-unreleased. Some companies hand out free toys that one can’t get anywhere else, and a choice few toy professionals shoo you away from their booths like a grandmother protecting her sacred bowl of hard candy that you didn’t want anyway because it has cat hair in it. I won’t name any names, but Spider-Man Backpack Lady? I’m talking about you.

Ninety percent of the action figure stuff is hidden away in top-secret showrooms. Since I have a highly articulated plastic Batman arm lodged in one of my ventricles, this is what I’ll primarily be exploring this year. For weeks beforehand, I’ve been setting up appointments to get personal tours of showroom from Hasbro, Mattel, BanDai, Mezco, DC Direct and Marvel Toys (formerly ToyBiz) over a three-day journey, crossed on foot, taxi, train and shuttle bus. This weekend, it all pays off. There’s nothing to buy at Toy Fair, since that honor is left to the various Wizard World and San Diego Comic Cons, but Toy Fair is an event designed primarily to work people into a fierce anticipatory lather without actually instantly gratifying them. Anyone who’s had a girlfriend knows what that’s all about.

In every year past, the larger action figure companies have arranged a singular meeting time for all of the press, which we all lovingly call a ‘nerd herd’ or ‘cattle call’. We all crowd into showrooms, sweaty and irritable, inadvertently rubbing against parts of each other we’d rather not discuss, snap our photos in the din, and stumble out for air. Curiously, many toy companies are giving each press outlet individualized tours this year. This massive change of strategy could possibly reflect the currently faltering state of the toy industry and budgets being redirected away from the large showroom and presentation expenses that these cons entail. McFarlane Toys stopped doing Toy Fair many years ago, and WizKids Games won’t even be attending this year.

We, as collectors, are constantly reminded that the ‘collector’ aspect of toy collecting is completely dwarfed by the general sales of the ‘play’ aspect, but even in the light of that, collectors are being catered to like never before and compromises between mass and specialty markets are being reached. Message board speculation is heavy, and this year, the talk of the town is Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz) and their Indie Legends line of action figures, which will approach popular characters of the early 1990s (arguably a revolutionary time for comics) like never before. Competing with them for the indie spotlight is newcomer Shocker Toys with their… well, Indie Spotlight line of toys, which will encompass characters that Marvel Toys did not license. Fans also look forward to new images and lineups from Hasbro and Mattel, who are the sole possessors of both Marvel and DC Comics action figure properties, respectively. Everything else, as they say, is gravy. Delicious polyurethane gravy.

Stay tuned for more toy news and revelations than any man, or man-child, should have to report.