Discount Shopping Adventures, May 2017

It's been a while since I checked out the local discount chains (in this case Tuesday Morning and Big Lots), so last week I decided to pay them a visit.  I took some photos of the toy aisle offerings and thought I'd share them with you guys!

Doll shelf at Tuesday Morning: Fashion dolls and play doll outfits.

Retro Week: ToyBiz Psylocke in the Snow

Betsy, waist-deep in snow.

I've been saying that I'd get around to doing a few retro week posts for a couple of months now, but it took being snowed in to get to it!  Out of the basement today is Psylocke from ToyBiz's X-men Classics with Light-Up Weapon series from the 90s.  Amazingly, her batteries aren't dead!

It's all photos from here!

Funko Friday: Pops in the garden

After a week of playline doll reviews, I thought it was time to change things up a bit, so I took my four human-style Funko POP figures outside for some end-of-the-week photos.

L-R: Hiccup, Jamie, Hook & Bucky.

Happy Canada Day!

It's July already! Where did the first half of the year go?  Regardless of that, I hope that everyone is having a great summer - and if you're in Canada, enjoy your day off!

The Canadian superheros of Alpha Flight are ready to watch some fireworks.

Monday Minis: Lightening Thor from Marvel 500 Series 4

The other day I was wandering through the toy aisle, minding my own business when I noticed that the Marvel 500 blind bags had a new display. And since a new display means a new series (at least new since the last time I picked one of these up), I decided to grab a bag and see what I'd find.

As is standard, there's not much to say about the figures themselves (they're tiny and unarticulated - although this one is somewhat unique in that he is made of a semi-translucent rather than an opaque plastic), so I'll let the photos do the talking.

Random Toy of the Day: X-Men Minimates (DST)

It's a new year, so how about some new (or at least new-to-me) Minimates?

My first new minimates of 2016 are the X-Men Beast, Storm, Cyclops, Shadowcat and Colossus, and came to me via Gwen of the cooking/AG blog A Peek into the Pantry (Cheers, Gwen!).  As usual, Minimates are pretty standard block figures, so there's not much to say about them, so on with the photos!

Out of the Bag: Punisher & Green Goblin (Hasbro's Marvel 500 Series 1)

From the Marvel 500 line: Green Goblin & the Punisher

It seems like every month I swear off of mystery mini figures, and yet somehow every month I'm back with more.  But at least this time there's one difference: they're micro-mini figures!

The Marvel 500 series is a blind bag micro-mini toy line (they're about a third of the size of Funko's mini figures) that sells for around $2.50USD.  There are 24 figures in series one, and they're sold in single mystery bags.  The figures themselves are very basic - no articulation and limited painting, but for the size and price that shouldn't come as much of  a surprise. The two that I opened turned out to be the Punisher and the Green Goblin.

Out of the Box: Funko's Avengers Age of Ultron Mystery Minis

The Iron Man/Hulkbuster mystery mini

Once again, just days after swearing off mini figures, I'm back with another pair of them.  Up this time are two figures from Funko's Avengers: Age of Ultron tie-in mystery minis.  As with all of Funko's Marvel figures, these minis are bobbleheads rather than the static figures that most of their other lines are (licencing complexities, is apparently the reason for that).

Unlike some of these Mystery Mini lines, there are no chase figures in this release: all of the figures appear in at a 1/12 frequency.  With odds like that, I thought it would be interesting to see who I'd get - unfortunately the two I picked weren't any of my favourites, but hey - that happens with blind boxes.  And the two figures I have are nicely detailed, so at least they're interesting to look at.

Random Toy of the Day: Forge (Toy Biz Marvel Universe)

Forge, Toy Biz Marvel Universe edition

Because one light-weight 10" figure was not enough!


After picking up the 10" Toy Biz Union Jack last month, I wasn't planning on adding more figures from that line to my collection.  Given the age of the line, I wasn't expecting to come across that many more of them - and certainly not new/in-box ones.

But as seems to be happening to me quite a lot lately, I did end up coming across another one - new in-box and a character that I collect.  So naturally I couldn't just leave him on the shelf -  he had to join my army of action figures.

The figure itself is fairly similar to Union Jack, so since I don't have much to add, it's all photos from here:

Coming up after the move...

Moving day is just over a week away, so while I do have a few unboxed items to photograph, I'm going to be spending the next week putting things back into their boxes, so I think I'll wait on opening those up.

Still, before I get into the packing, I thought I'd take a quick photo of the toys that are newly arrived but being packed away immediately:

Coming soon...

It's not a huge backlog: just two Minimates sets (a Dragon Age set of four and a Marvel set of two) and two American Girl mini Dolls (Grace, the 2015 Girl of the Year and the new version of Samantha), but they'll just have to wait! ;)

Out of the Box: Union Jack (Toy Biz Marvel Universe)

Toy Biz Union Jack.

When the "All New Invaders" series ended a few weeks ago, I found myself in the mood to pick up a couple of tie-in figures.  The first of which was the Hasbro Union Jack that I posted about last month.  Having that purchase in my browsing history lead me to some of the older figures of the same character, and somehow (*cough*) one of them ended up in my cart.

On the opposite size of the size spectrum as the Hasbro figure, this 1998 Union Jack stands just over 10" (25cm)  in height.  The Toy Biz Marvel Universe figures are strangely light weight for their height (they appear to be made of a fairly light plastic), and have fairly minimalistic features.  I think the features would have been a turn-off on a non-masked character, but since Union Jack's look is minimalist on its own, it works for this one.

Random Toy of the Day: Minimates Falcon and Winter Soldier

In the box.

Alright, I'm almost through the Minimates!  Just a few more posts and my whole collection of the little things will be documented.  Of course at that point I'll probably end up picking up a few more (there's a Dragon Age series coming out this summer that I have my eye on), but that's an issue for another day.

Today's pair are Winter Soldier and Falcon.  These two both have the standard Minimate body, but come with more than the average number of accessories - two stands (one standard, one "flight" version), multiple weapons, and even an arm-sitting falcon. I'd say that the stand out piece in this set are the broad wings on Falcon.

Out of the Box: Kotobukiya's "Marvel Now" Hawkeye

I'd been catching up on Matt Fraction's run on Marvel's Hawkeye comics recently, and while I've been enjoying the series, I hadn't considered buying any tie-in products.  But then I read Traci's posts over at A Wild Review Appears about her Kotobukiya Nightwing and Green Arrow figures, and was taken by the amount of detail on them - so I started looking at Kotobukiya's back catalogue, and somehow (*cough*) this figure ended up in my cart.

Kotobukiya's figures are non-articulated, so it would be fair to call them statues rather than action figures, although I tend to see these as slightly closer to toys than decor (although they're clearly not designed to hold up to play, as I'll talk about later).  The figures come on a with a magnetic base (and magnets in his feet), which would be brilliant on an articulated figure since it increases the display options, but on this static figure, just means that the figure is never completely secure on the stand.

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!

Minimates Week: Alpha Flight

The Alpha Flight Minimates, in the box.

This two-box set is a good example of why I wasn't quicker to get into collecting these toys.   I really only wanted two of the Alpha Flight figures: the twins.  And of course they separated them into two different sets, which means that I needed to either pay a premium to someone who had the full series and had unboxed it, or buy the whole thing.  I did the latter, so instead of two new figures, I now have eight.

Grumpiness about the inability to purchase individual figures aside, overall I was quite impressed with these - each figure had a solid amount of detail and clearly looked like the characters from the comic.  The accessories were decent as well, and included an ice effect for Snowbird, air platforms for the flying characters, and a hand-holding joint for the twins, (who also each had two hair options although Aurora's dark wig doesn't actually fit on her head).

Random Toy of the Day: Aurora & Northstar (Toy Biz)

I'm back on my regular schedule next week, so today will be the last of these mini-posts (at least for now!).

Back in the late '90s, Marvel published the "new" Alpha Flight with a set of characters that was largely different from the '80s series.  And then, as that series was wrapping up, Toy Biz brought out a series of toys based on the '80s series.  Seems like strange marketing to me, but having started reading the old series and the new one concurrently, I did end up buying the full line of toys (the line consisted of three two packs - the twins that you see here, Snowbird and Puck and Sasquatch and Vindicator).

The rest of this series is probably still in my mother's basement, but the twins here have been moving around with me, and even though they're not he best quality figures, they are part of my permanent collection.  And at some point I will try to figure out what I did with their teammates.

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!

Random Toy of the Day: Cyclops and Dark Phoenix (Marvel's Greatest Battles Comic Pack)

Dark Phoenix and Cyclops

I'm on holiday this week (and last), so rather than ignore blogging altogether, I thought it would be fun to share some toys that I love but don't have much to say about either because I've posted about similar toys before or just because they're fairly basic.

Up first is Dark Phoenix and Cyclops from one of the Greatest Battles Marvel Comic packs (my Captain Britain figure from this line appears on my Captain Britain wall).

As is standard for this line, they're small, but well-articulated and with a solid amount of detail. 

Out of the Box: Nightcrawler (various versions)

1996 Toy Biz Nightcrawler

I noticed a few Nightcrawler fans commented on my shelf post, so I thought I'd give this guy a moment to shine.

The figure seen in those displays is from a 1996  line from Toy Biz called "Light Up Weapon Classics".  As as the name suggests, this version of the character came with a light-up flaming sword (which I believe I still have, but it's gone into storage along with the Gambit and Psylocke figures that I also had from the line).

This figure has the classic red-and-black costume and the traditional haircut.  The toy has 9 points of articulation and a battery in its back, which powers the sword (you can see the holding spot for it in the figure's right hand).

This seems to be the figure that I see the most custom and repainted versions of, so I think there must have been a lot of these on the market at some point.

Even though this is the only Nightcrawler figure I have

Sales photo, since mine
is in storage.

on display, he's actually not the only one in my collection.  I also have the 1997 "WaterWars" Nightcrawler (as the name suggests, he came with a water gun), which is currently in storage.  That figure is a less attractive toy (it's clearly designed for play rather than display), but the standout feature is that it actually has Kurt in his late-1990s Excalibur look, with the short hair and the goatee.  Since Warren Ellis' run on that title was what got me into superhero books, I've always had a fondness for that incarnation of the character.

And finally, I also have the 2004 "Twist 'Ems" movie-tie in wind-up toy (with functional walking motion), which is small and silly, but also has a surprisingly detailed face sculpt that genuinely looks like that epic make-up job from X-2.  I'd actually thought I'd put that one in storage as well, but it turns out he was actually in my craft box, so here he is:

Comic and movie Nighcrawler, together.

A new aquisition: Daken (Marvel Legends Dark Wolverine)

He's glaring at you.

I was looking through action figure collection photos on Flickr the other day and noticed this guy in someone's collection.  My first reaction was to assume that it was a custom work, because considering that the Daken comic was cancelled, and he's not a character in the movies or the TV series, would there have been demand for an official figure?

But apparently the demand was there, because this is a real thing!  So of course I bought him, because I loved his solo series while it lasted - it had all the soap opera + action that makes a bad/good superhero book (Vague spoilers here: planting bombs in schools!  Tricking people into fighting!  Psychopath girlfriends and power-stealing boyfriends!  Silly crossovers!).





In any case, the figure is decent - well-articulated, clearly looks like the character (although I think the tattoos are a little wrong), and included the random extra of the arm of a build-it-yourself figure.

I did think it was a little weird that they only used the name "Dark Wolverine" on the packaging.  If someone who isn't familiar with the comics saw the package, would they know it was a different character and not just Wolverine with a mohawk?