We’re almost done with the nigh-insurmountable mountain of Toy Fair 2008 coverage (here, here, here and here), but no action figure, TV or movie geek could be satiated without a detailed mention of everything that happened over at the Mezco and NECA booths during The Fair.

[Click here for the full Mezco gallery at our Community!]

Now, I’ve been a dedicated Mezco fan since I first saw their Hellboy movie figures back in 2004. The movie hadn’t yet come out, and comic-based movies (and figures based on comic movies) have had a history of, well, sucking - but the Hellboy figures were outstanding items, and the movie turned out to be one of my favorite films. This year, for the first time in 4 years, Mezco’s booth had new Hellboy movie stuff for me to ogle.

Two waves of 6” figures are planned for Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army, due in theaters on July 11th. Like the figures from the first movie, they’ll be fully articulated and sculpted impeccably. Included in the first wave will be Hellboy, Abe Sapien, and finally, Liz Sherman, who was tragically absent from earlier figures. I have a thing for Selma Blair, and that thing is MY LOVE. Also in this first wave will be Johann Krauss, and bad guys Wink & Prince Nuada. The second wave (which was forbidden from photography, but looked stunning) will include a wounded Hellboy & a t-shirt Hellboy, as well as the beautiful Princess Nuada, the horrific Goblin (who is attached to a rickety wooden cart of some kind), and the huge, ominous Angel of Death. It’s a truly amazing collection of figures that completely blew me away. Even as stand-alone monsters, they’re really, really great.

Mezco is adding onto their usual offerings with small busts of Hellboy and the Right Hand of Doom, 18” figures of Hellboy and Abe, and at least eight 3.75” figures. These tiny, Star Wars-sized figures will have all of the articulation and sculpts of the larger figures, so nothing is lost in translation - an amazing feat that other companies would do well to learn from. Mezco revealed to us that while the tiny figures were cheaper in materials cost, the cost for the molds to cast the small figures was actually greater than the cost for the larger figure molds, due to the intricate details. There’s a certain production number somewhere in the middle where the cost justifies the product, and with all of these companies making 3.75” figures this year, I’m curious exactly how it balances.

Of course, Hellboy wasn’t the only license of note, as Mezco also has the Heroes TV show license. None of these figures have been released yet, but Mezco is already three waves deep into the sculpting, and the likenesses are really staggering. I’ve commented here before on the strange, imperfect likenesses that Mezco released as their PR photos, walking a weird line between photorealism and comic-styled artwork. As it turns out, you just need to see them in person. They’ve applied every ounce of accuracy and skill that made me love the Hellboy figures to these Heroes figures. Forget everything you’ve heard about the figures not being perfect likenesses - they ARE perfect - and the character selection couldn’t be better.

The first set of 5 includes Hiro Nakamura, Claire Bennet, Sylar, Peter Petrelli and Mohinder Suresh. Hopefully, the varied images in our gallery here will clarify some of the misperceptions about the figures that I, too, was guilty of. Keep on clicking around though, as ten never-before-seen figures were also revealed! Included in Wave Two are (and I’ll try to say this with as few spoilers as possible), Horn-Rimmed Glasses guy, Niki & Jessica Sanders (with alternate heads), Matt Parkman & Molly Walker, Mr. Linderman, and Future Peter. Wave Three will include Nathan Petrelli, The Haitian, another version of Hiro from season 2, Elle Bishop, and another character from season 2 that’ll pretty much blow your mind if you haven’t been watching loyally as I have.

Mezco rounds out this license with 9” figures of Sylar, Niki / Jessica, Peter and Claire. Also, like every other company’s been doing with toys this year, wait for a 3.75” line. Sylar vs. Darth Vader vs. Serpentor vs. Doctor Doom isn’t very far off now!

It’s also worth mentioning that Mezco is on their 15th series of Living Dead Dolls - the cute-grotesque series of dolls that pays homage to some of history’s most infamous killers and movie murderers. I suppose they’re all either zombies or about to kill someone, but they’re a very popular collection of higher-end dolls that tend to be collected by cute goth girls - so I can’t argue. The less said about ‘Gangsta Babies’, the better. Seriously - I don’t want to get drive-by’d from a stroller.

NECA also had a presence at Toy Fair. This company seems to pick up an odd assortment of movie-related licenses of all genres, but with a focus on fantasy and horror above all else. In the past, they’ve made action figures for Nightmare Before Christmas (a line that just ended, sadly), Planet Terror, 300, Reservoir Dogs and A Christmas Story. Despite the Christmas Story figure line being ostensibly dead for quite a few years now, NECA has just revealed an additional figure for the line in the form of bully Scut Farkus, sculpted in a perfect, creepy sneer.

[See the full NECA Gallery at our Community by clicking here!]

NECA’s Harry Potter line continues, and likely will continue throughout the release of every foreseeable movie, with figures that include all of the wizard kids, Voldemort, Snape, Dumbledore, the Malfoys, Bellatrix, Mad-Eye Moody and even a handful of the fantasy creatures. I’m no Harry Potter fan, nor have I personally seen the movies, but the figures are another example of the great likenesses that NECA captures for cult-favorite characters. There’s only so much I can personally geek-out over. I need to set limits so that I can be a functional adult - it’s nothing personal against Harry Potter.

Speaking of cult-favorite, my personal highlight at the NECA booth was the figure of Beetlejuice, perfectly rendered with a chubby Michael Keaton face and stained, striped suit. It’s the first time we’ve ever had a Beetlejuice figure that wasn’t from a bizarrely tangential animated show. He’s a great movie ‘monster’ as it stands, and I’d love to see figures of Lydia and the families with a build-a-sandworm - though a few less-than-great figures of the ghost family were released some years back. Let’s just start over. And next time you guys make Ghostbusters figures, make some of the Ghostbusters, okay?

Also an unusual license for NECA, but a great one, is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This isn’t the movie license, or even the cartoon license - this is the license to make figures from the original comic books by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Believe it or not, these original comics were a fairly complex drama, and drawn in a very different style than what ended up being animated in the 90s. These comic-accurate figures will all come with red masks and different weapons, and be sculpted to look ‘drawn’, with all of the original ink lines intact. April O’Neil will also join the line (but was forbidden from photography), and a series of black & white turtles (colored like the original comics) will also be released. They will all come with interlocking bases to form a scene together.

In terms of even more entertainment properties, Amok Time is a newcomer company with some interesting licenses. Not only are they making 12” figures from the original Lost in Space, but they’re doing the same for the original Battlestar Galactica, and Gort and Klaatu from ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’. Any of these will stand proudly right next to your high-end Sideshow Collectibles monsters, with a few additional B-movie monsters round out the collection, from movies I’ve never heard of, but look visually entertaining.

[Click here for a gallery of toys from Amok Time in our Community!]

The highlight at Amok Time’s booth was the 12” Elvira figure, which sported another perfect likeness, and would absolutely go well in any ironic monster display. I’ve been told that the figure will be solicited in late 2008, so there’s going to be a wait to even order it. On the bawdy end of things, Amok Time is producing bookends in the likeness of adult film star Seka, as well as a 12” figure of the same. True to form, all of these things, even the bookends, will have removable clothing. Two Bettie Page figures are also being produced, to the delight of pin-up fans everywhere.

Stay tuned for one more post about Toy Fair 2008, in which I summarily round up the rest of the awesomeness and finally put these life-consuming toys behind me until next year.