Out of the Box: Green Lantern & Cyborg (Hero Plug & Play)

Out of the box today are the two figures that I mentioned in my Discount Shopping Adventures - two game piece figures of Green Lantern and Cyborg. As mentioned in that post, I found them at Tuesday Morning for $2.99, although apparently they normally retail for as high as $12.99 (although $9.99 seems to be the more common price).

DC Super Heroes: The Watchtower is a Plug & Play game that seems to have a similar theme to  the more well-know Skylanders or Disney Infinity games in that they involve attaching different character figures to a base that communicates with the game.  These figures are smaller and lighter than most of the ones from those other games though, and reminded me a little of Heroclix figures (although they are quite a bit larger than those ones).

Let's open up the box!

Minimates Week: Captain Britain (Series 31 version)

Captain Britain

Being new to the Minimates line, there have been a few releases that I missed which are now either unavailable or which have doubled (or more) in price.  I was worried that the two Captain Britain figures would fall into that category, but I was lucky enough to find a loose one for a reasonable price (I, of course, needed them for my Captain Britain room).

This particular version was part of a general series of 8 Marvel characters, each of which was originally packaged with one other figure (this one came with Shadowcat).  He includes the basic MiniMates head, body, and limbs along with two option pieces - the Captain Britain facemask and a long, flowing mane of blonde hair.

Since finding this figure, I've also found the Excalibur series release on its own as well.  That one hasn't arrived yet, but I'm looking forward to having the pair on display together.  But that's for another day, so on with the photos of this one!

The Wish List: Dolls, Figures and... throw pillows?

I haven't been making any major collection purchases this summer (in part because of all the travelling), but every now and then a preorder item pops up somewhere and catches my eye - and just these week there have been several, so I thought I'd take a break from sorting through the older items in my mother's basement and share a few upcoming items that I'm watching.

Photo credit.

First up is a re-release of Soom's Chrom, with brown tan as one of the resin options.  He's on their Super Gem body which, while not their largest, is still 65cm tall - and I've been holding off on adding any SD+ sized dolls to my collection for three years now.  Still, I've admired this sculpt before, so it's tempting.

He'll be available for pre-order through the end of the month, so I have time to think it over.








Next up is Titan's upcoming (January 2015) release of a series of Dragon Age mini figures, to be sold as blind bags (or boxes).  I'm generally grumpy about the idea of blind bags over the price of $2, but knowing my ridiculous fondness for the Dragon Age games (and the franchise as a whole) that fan-feeling is probably going to get the better of me.

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I didn't follow SDCC this year (aside from checking for a couple of game demos), but when I noticed the new Monster High Vandala Doubloons, she ended up on my watch list as well (both because I like the pirate concept, and because she needs to join the figure-with-prosthesis collection).

 And then last night I came across this Captain Britain throw pillow over on Studio6.  It might not be my favourite piece of fan art, but I can't help but think that it would look fantastic in my Captain Britain-themed guest room...

Photo Credit

And finally just this morning I was scanning recent posts over at toyhaven and discovered that Fewture/ArtStorm is putting out three figures based on characters from Fringe.  I was slow to get into that show (I'm currently working my way through season 4), and I'd always wondered why there wasn't more merchandise.

The Olivia isn't a great likeness, but the other two look decent.

And that's it!  At least for now...

Random Toy of the Day: Captain Britain (Eaglemoss)

Today's mini-post is a reveal about the latest addition to my Captain Britain collection.

This Captain Britain figure is from Eaglemoss Publications' Classic Marvel Figurine Collection, which was a magazine series of Marvel characters accompanied by hand-painted lead figurines.  The Captain Britain issue/figure was issue #21in the series.

The figurine is posed in a very simple stance, but it's colours are deep, and it's richly painted, so it still makes for an eye-catching display piece.  Some of the paint on the base of mine has chipped, but since I'm the second owner of it, that was something I was expecting (and it's something that would be easy enough to repaint).

This is the first figure from this line that I've picked up, but I'm impressed enough that I don't think it will be the last!

The Captain Britain wall

Before we moved, I had the clever idea that I would frame some of my favourite comics and let the rest go into storage.  I searched for comic frames, decided they were overpriced, found Youseph Tanha's Ikea Comic Book Photo Frame Hack post, discovered that the Ikea in Burlington didn't have those frames, and then finally discovered that Dollarama did have the size and picked up a few.  And then our move was bumped up by a month and the project fell by the wayside.

But the frames (and the longboxes) made their way south with me, and this week I finally put a few of them together along with a couple of figures in/on a shadowbox.  Making the cut for round one (I still have a couple more frames waiting to be used) were issues #1 and #100 of Excalibur and #1 of Captain Britain and MI:13.   I'm not 100% sold on the spacing (I may rehang to get the gaps a little more even), but overall I'm pleased!

On top of the box is my mystery Captain Britain figure - I picked him up from the loose figure box at Chinook and Hobby West back in 2008ish, and there were a couple of releases with the same look, so I don't actually know which one he's from.  The smaller figure in the 70s-style uniform is from the recent "great battles" release, which I found in the clearance bin at Winners about a year ago.