Its about that time of the year again.

All the toy companies gather in New York to unveil their plans for the coming year. The event doesn’t actually start until tomorrow, but information and pictures are already making their way to our little set of tubes on Inter-net. We’ll try and do one Toy Fair post a day and maybe one wrap up post for the event so as not to clutter the news page.

Read on for info on GI Joe, Transformers, Marvel Legends, and more!

[Read the rest of this entry…]

TNI has a couple of interesting interviews up that both touch upon DC Comics action figures. First up is Ryan Mansaur, brand manager for DC Superheroes at Mattel. Next up is Georg Brewer of DC Direct.

I thought it was interesting to find out just how hamstrung Mattel is on the DC Superheroes line (the first decent answer to Marvel Legends from Mattel so far). DC Direct is similarly limited in their control since they contract sculptors instead of doing all the sculpting in-house like Toy Biz did. I always had reservations about DC Direct because of their inconsistency from line to line. Apparently, the outsourcing is the main reason at fault for that, but they are looking to correct that. I still think they underestimate the need for better articulation, but I’m a pretty hardcore Marvel Legends fan so you’d have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

The Four Horsemen have posted the fifth round of their FANtastic Exclusive polls to determine this year’s action figure. This round focuses on weapons. The Elephant Swordsman will feature two large swords as seen in his concept art, but this poll will determine a third bladed weapon. You can check out the next round at the FANtastic Exclusive site.

Some of you may remember a little video I made on the 2006 exclusive.

Marvel has recently put out a number of straight-to-DVD animated features including the Ultimate Avengers and the Ultimate Avengers 2. The latest in this series is The Invincible Iron Man. It only makes sense for Marvel to choose Iron Man to get his own animated feature with a full length live action feature film currently in the works. While the Ultimate Avengers films were based on Marvel’s Ultimate universe canon, the Iron Man story is taken from traditional Marvel continuity updated so that it makes sense for audiences of today.

Read the rest of the review after the jump. No spoilers are in the review. Beware the comments, though.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

He-man.org is reporting the details of the release for the second and final volume to the New Adventures of He-man. The set is scheduled to be released on March 27, 2007.

I never received a press release for this volume, which is odd since I got one for the first volume. He-man.org does say that there will be more documentaries, art cards, easter eggs, profiles and more as extras in the set. Having just purchased the first volume, I can say that they definitely have put together a nice package. The art cards are definitely a nice touch. They allow modern comic artists to give a glimpse at how they would portray pieces of the He-Man universe.

This year, the GI Joe brand celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the 3.25 inch toy line. To celebrate, Hasbro has created a line consisting of the top 25 fan-favorite characters in the 3.25 inch figure style. These figures will feature added articulation that seem to be comparable to the Marvel Legends Showdown figures currently available in stores.

MasterCollector had revealed the news of this line and were going to announce a new figure each day this week to the collector club (and still are), but Hasbro accidentally posted pictures of the entire first wave of 10 figures, effectively letting the cat out of the bag. To add insult to injury, just after the initial announcement, CobraIsland.com posted the listing of the first wave that someone from the TNI boards found in the computer at the toy store for which they work. Oddly though, the listing does not match the pictures that were revealed.

Here’s the listing for those too lazy to follow hyperlinks:

GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY STORM SHADOW
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERS SNAKE EYES WITH WOLF
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY COBRA OFFICER
GIJ 25TH ANNIVER CORBRA COMMANDER W/HOOD
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY FLINT
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY BEACHHEAD
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY SERPENTOR
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY BUZZER
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY LADY JAYE
GIJ 25TH ANNIV COBRA TROOPER

Yesterday was the fourth day of announcements so the following figures have already been announced in order: Storm Shadow, Duke, Scarlett, and Gung Ho. The figures all seem to sport outfits that are based on their original figures from the first line.

I have posted all ten of the images after the jump. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t look. I’ll be darned if these aren’t some good looking figures, though.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

This station identification has been brought to you by another lazy sunday with too many toys.

She-Hulk and WonderMan are brought to us today via the minimatemultiverse forums. I’m pretty excited about this entire wave. Tomorrow the entire wave will be revealed all together. It’s unlikely, though, that anything new is left to be shown.