He-man.org posted the below image as a teaser for the sixth wave of Masters Of The Universe Mini-Statues. This wave will consist of Jitsu, Mosquitor and a re-done He-man.

Transformers Ultimate Bumblebee in action. All this can be yours for only ninety US dollars.

Theres a lot of ground to cover here, with 2 days of the show already come and gone… [Read the rest of this entry…]

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!

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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 internet has gone absolutely crazy with toys leaks in the past couple weeks, but I won’t waste your time with all of them. Instead, I’ll cherry pick the best, and relevant news, and leave TFW2005 to gobble up every scrap.

First up the comics: The Movie “prequel,” which will be a 4 issue series set before the events of the live action movie. TFarchive has a nice review of the book, which is due on February 21st.

Cover B is something special, showcasing non-movie characters, Arcee, Inferno, and Shockwave (at least one of the hundred one-eye bots HAS to be Shockwave). Don Figueroa is handling the pencils, so it should be pretty interesting to see how the fans’ favorite artist handles some of the fans’ least favorite designs.

Speaking of designs, its about time Dreamworks, ILM, Paramount, or Michael Bay himself fired somebody. Not because the designs are bad (I personally like the fresh approach), but because we have even more spec sheets. This has to be the worst kept secret in Hollywood.
Here are Starscream, Frenzy, Bonecrusher, and Ironhide.

Ok, enough of this concept art, its time for merchandise. [Read the rest of this entry…]

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.

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.

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