Over the weekend I discussed the two new Marvel Play Arts Kai figures I wasn’t expecting to see revealed at the New York Toy Fair 2015–Play Arts Thor and Venom–but I haven’t stopped to chat about the new figure that I was expecting to see.
The second figure in the Play Arts Kai Marvel figure line was on display at the 2015 Toy Fair for the very first time: the Play Arts Kai Spider-Man figure!
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While Hasbro Marvel Legends reigns supreme as the best 6″ Marvel figure line in the United States, Hasbro has much tougher competition if you broaden your search to international figures. And when it comes to 1/12 action figures (6″ scale), there’s no greater competition than with Bandai SH Figuarts!
Although Bandai previously stuck to Iron Man figures, this year, they’re expanding with a series of SH Figuarts Avengers Age of Ultron figures…
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Going into last week’s New York Toy Fair 2015, I thought we’d be lucky if Square-Enix just brought along a prototype of the second Marvel Play Arts Kai figure: Spider-Man.
But I underestimated Square-Enix. Not only did they have the finished Spidey on display at their booth, but also the third action figure in the lineup, Play Arts Kai Thor, and even concept art for the fourth figure: Play Arts Kai Venom!
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I swear I never intended for it to happen, but I developed a genuine affinity to the kid-aimed Marvel Super Hero Mashers line of action figures last year. And while the line has been, uh, “less” warmly received by collectors than it has been by children, it’s turned out to be a solid seller at retail stores. So while Marvel Mashers aren’t the apple of every Marvel fan’s eye, the line will be continuing with plenty of new and popular characters this year. And at the New York Toy Fair 2015 over the weekend, Hasbro revealed the 2015 Marvel Mashers Carnage, Nova, Ant-Man, Rocket Raccoon and more!
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I had the great honor this morning of beginning the New York Toy Fair 2015 with the LEGO Preview Breakfast Event–two hours in the LEGO booth… with free danishes! Free! Of course, as delicious as the danishes were, that wasn’t the high point of the event. No, the high point was getting to see all of the summer 2015 LEGO Marvel sets in person–including the huge and awesome LEGO Marvel Rhino and Sandman Supervillain Team-Up 76037!
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This past week has been a huge–and expensive–week for Marvel collectors, as the official street date for boatloads of Avengers Age of Ultron toys finally arrived! But while tons of Hasbro Avengers Age of Ultron figures and collectibles have begun to stockpile on the shelves, one brand that hasn’t made its Avengers movie presence known at retail yet is LEGO. But fear not! Though the official release date for the LEGO Avengers Age of Ultron sets isn’t until March 2015, the LEGO Iron Man vs. Ultron 76029 set slipped out early and is now up for order!
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There were very few unexpected Marvel toy developments at New York Comic Con 2014 last October, but one announcement that did catch me totally off-guard came from the Square-Enix booth, where Square-Enix quietly announced the Play Arts Kai Marvel Variant figures line! There was only one prototype figure on display at the booth, and we’ve had to wait quite a while to see finished photos, but the time is now upon us: the Marvel Play Arts Kai Iron Man figure is now up for order!
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Over the weekend I discussed the newest three Marvel Super Hero Mashers figures to hit stores (Agent Venom, Hobgoblin and A-Bomb). But that’s not the only ultra-successful-but-only-quasi-popular-with-collectors Marvel toy line to have a new trio of figures released this past week! Another batch of new Marvel figures have also arrived, and it’s a new threesome of Disney Infinity figures: the Disney Infinity Yondu, Ronan and Ultimate Green Goblin are now available for order!
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Marvel Super Hero Mashers and I got off to a rocky start, as I legitimately thought that the line was a joke when I heard about it–and when I found out the figures were actually real, I thought they were even more ridiculous. But when I get the Marvel Mashers Deadpool figure last summer, Hasbro won me over with the stylized, well-articulated, reasonably-priced Marvel Super Hero Mashers figures. And the successful line will be expanding even further in 2015, with a whole assortment of Avengers Age of Ultron Mashers–including the first Marvel Mashers Vision and Ultron figures!
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Most of my attention this week has been focused squarely on topics such as the 2015 Marvel Legends figures and the quickly-exploding assortment of toys and collectibles based on this year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. But now it’s time to step back and chat about a toy line that’s just a notch (or two) below Marvel Legends and Age of Ultron on the popularity scale: Marvel Super Hero Mashers! While we wait for the rest of the Hasbro 2015 Marvel figures to arrive, three new Mashers have already snuck up for sale online: Marvel Mashers Agent Venom, Hobgoblin and A-Bomb!
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When Hasbro marched out the Guardians of the Galaxy 2.5″ figures last year, they weren’t exactly met with abundant love and praise. While the smaller scale allowed Hasbro to produce affordable in-scale vehicles, the figures themselves were lacking in articulation, paint apps and sculpting detail, making them some of the most collector-derided Marvel figures of 2014. Collectors used to the Marvel Universe style of super-articulated 3 3/4″ figures were just not impressed. And it looks like they’ll continue to be unimpressed in 2015, as a series of Hasbro Avengers Age of Ultron 2.5″ figures is on the way… along with a Quinjet and Avengers Tower playset!
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When the first Avengers movie came out, the franchise hadn’t yet proven itself as a record-shattering sales-juggernaut, so many toy manufacturers didn’t give the Avengers the time of day back in 2012. But this year–this year–everybody wants a piece of the Avengers Age of Ultron pie. And that means we are going to get all kinds of wacky, crazy merchandise–my favorite kind of merch. Case in point? This Hot Wheels Avengers Tower Takeover Set, in which, uhhh… well, Iron Man in sports car form tries to drive around a mammoth Ultron and make him explode!
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All good things must come to an end, and the popular Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series is arriving at its end. But in its final season, Ultimate Spider-Man is giving us a similar theme to Dan Slott’s masterpiece comic story-arc, Spider-Verse: Web Warriors! Multiple Spider-Men in the same place at the same time is like Hasbro’s dream, and as such, they’ve now released their latest series of Marvel action figures, including three iterations of Spider-Man… and a new Agent Venom!
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I’m way more comfortable typing than I ever have been talking, so ordinarily I steer as far away from microphones and the like as possible. But there’s an exception to every rule, and there was one invitation to talk that I absolutely could not turn down–because it came from the hosts of my absolute favorite podcast, Marvelicious Toys! So to close out 2014 and ring in 2015, I joined Marjorie, Arnie, Justin and the crew to discuss the Marvel toys year in review and the year ahead on a pair of Marvelicious podcast episodes…
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The New York Toy Fair 2015 isn’t for another month, but it seems that the Hasbro Avengers: Age of Ultron toys just couldn’t wait that long to make their grandiose debut! Of course, it’s not the Marvel Legends figures that everyone’s been waiting for that leaked out onto store shelves early. No, it’s a slightly less beloved line–the Avengers Age of Ultron Titan Hero Series! But while these Avengers AOU Titan Hero Tech figures will absolutely not be for everyone, they do give us our very first look at a Hasbro Hulkbuster Iron Man figure…
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