Rustin's Spoils of the Week #11

C2E2 edition! This is not the entirety of but certainly the bulk of my haul from the recent Comic Convention in Chicago. Honestly, this represents about half of what I expected to buy. There weren't as many toy dealers as I had hoped and certainly no one had good/low prices. The average price per figure below is $20. Ugh, what a world. At any rate, enjoy this frabjuous potpourri of con haulage!

DC Direct: C2E2 Exclusive White Lantern Batman

50% of the only toy exclusives to the show and thus hotly sought after, this is a very welcome addition to the Blackest Night/Brightest Day collection. The good news is that these were by far the easiest DCD/Graphitti Designs exclusives to acquire yet. The bad news is that they're apparently limited to only 2000, half here and half at Wondercon. Batman is almost a straight repaint of the Justice League of America figure but inexplicably comes with the belt from the Justice League International figure, which is off model for the book. A fine figure, but nothing terribly special.

DC Direct: C2E2 Exclusive White Lantern Flash

A straight repaint of the Blue Lantern Flash from Blackest Night and, similar to Batman, good but not thrillingly different or special. The pearlescent white paint is not very forgiving so all little imperfections are pretty noticeable, unfortunately. The skin is colored plastic, not painted but actually works out fine, other than the bleed over from the mask's paint.

DST: Marvel Select - Magneto

I was never especially partial to Magneto until his return to Ultimate X-Men in which Mark Millar essentially highlighted for me the extreme potential of such a hugely powerful and self-righteous character. So when DST announced Magneto it's like they just took $20 from my wallet. The base is pretty neat, but Colossus' arm seems out of scale and I would have preferred more warped metal in the rubble. The figure itself is pretty cool, with more articulation than I expected (swivel and hinged wrists!) but why the double-hinged knees? If you're going to spend the money, put the articulation in the arms for cripes sakes! It's not like you gave us a hover base or the character is known for running. Also, the cape hinders the balljointed shoulders, sadly. The helmet is a fully separate piece which gives a nice depth and realistic look to it, but it’s too small and too Silver Age for my tastes. I really wish they had done a more modern, longer "cheek guard" helmet, or included one or more alternative helmets. In fact that's what they should have done, a modern version with a newer helmet and metallic paints, and then a Silver Age version with this helmet and brighter colors as the variant. That would have been cool, methinks. "Thank you Charles."

Mattel: Avatar - Parker Selfridge

Come on - it’s Giovanni Ribisi! I had to get the Vanni figure, and he is the bad guy of the movie plus now I have a 4"-scale golf club! I can rant ad infinitum about how, despite the great visuals, the movie was shockingly cliché (read: bad) in virtually every capacity. And now I find the evil corporate guy who is more than happy to destroy any number of species in the pursuit of his own wealth is named Selfridge!?!? See, it’s clever because it makes you think of the word "selfish." And we thought Lucas sucked at naming bad guys...

Mattel: DCUC 13 - Negative Man

I had bought this series from MattyCollector and ended up with the variant. It's cool and all, but not as good as the bandaged version, so fortunately I was able to trade for this one at the con. Seeing as there were 10+ of the variant and only 2 of the standard, it seems that most other collectors agree. As far as the figure, what can I say? It's the same as every other DCUC figure. It'll be interesting to see if they do finish this team because after the two they've done the character designs nosedive hard. But if they think Bronze Tiger is a good idea, then who knows what's comin'?

Mattel: DCUC 14 - Gold

See above. The accessory appendages barely stay on his hands. And seriously what the hell is the point of the diecast pieces? Cheap gimmicks do nothing for me, but apparently do everything for our friend Matty.


Mattel: DCUC 14 - not-Obsidian

Todd Rice? Whatever. This figure does nothing for me, so despite being a big JSA fan, it's straight to the box for this dude. But hey, thanks for the Ultra-Humanite arm!


Mattel: Infinite Heroes - Sinestro, Parallax, John Stewart

I love few things more than Sinestro Corps Sinestro, so I had to have this set for that compulsive need. Not to mention it also includes the, to date, the only figure of the awesome Kyle Raynor Parallax. Both of them use the G1 DCIH body, which means pretty lackluster articulation. Parallax features a new head, new (unarticulated) forearms and a shoulder armor/cape piece glued in place. He's definitely the winner of the set. Sinestro is the same as the previous figure. The paint on him is okay but shockingly terrible on the forearms through which the pink skin tone pushes through. They really need a coat of yellow or white between the pink and gold. The third figure is a horribly useless John Stewart in translucent green. The only remotely notable thing is that he's the G2 body.

NECA: Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind Eddie

I've wanted this figure ever since NECA first released him years ago and he was impossible to find. Fortunately, they re-released him late last year. The base is three identical sculpts with slightly different paint that interlocks (surprisingly snugly). The figure is a decent sculpt and features articulation at the waist, balljoint at the ribcage and balljoint at the head. The result is more poseability than I imagined. He's wearing the chained collar, each of the three chains have a plastic peg which anchor into the center of each of the three base panels. The chains are measured perfectly so they all remain taut. A great option too is that they're long enough, and the articulation works out well enough, that you can have Eddie sit in the corner. The base takes up a lot of space, but still looks great. This is the kind of thing where I wish I could get the collar off so that I could chain down other figures in the padded cell.

NECA: The Exorcist - Regan Possessed

This is a "legacy purchase," by which I mean that I wanted and bought it for nostalgia. You see, I'm that one guy who doesn't like Exorcist. However, Regan is a classic "movie maniac" and I recall people requesting and begging for this exact thing all the way back to before Movie Maniacs Series 2. So, to finally have it kind of takes me right back to those early days of the Spawn Message Board, where yo, Poe and I first became aware of one another. Aaaaah, memories! And better yet, it turns out this figure is pretty cool. The sculpting is just gosh darn amazing! The paint is really good, too, with just the right about of pea soup. There's even four, technically five, points or articulation - elbows and shoulders. Of course, the gimmick is the play feature - press a button on the back, below the headboard, and the theme music plays while the head spins about 405° around. I was really curious about how the hair would interact with this and... basically, just as you would want it to. It's cast in the same soft PVC material we're used to for hair and it slides over the shoulders eerily accurately. Some seriously great designing and engineering on this thing. It's a bit pricey (I ended up paying $40) but it is truly another great feather in NECA's cap.

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6 Responses to Rustin's Spoils of the Week #11

  1. Rich says:

    That 4" Giovanni is amazing. If you go see "Sucker Punch" you may have nicer words about the lazy way "Avatar" was scripted. Thank goodness The Hurt Locker kicked its blue a@# at the Academy Awards...or was it the Golden Globes...anyway...
    We got variant Negative Man and wrapped surgical gauze around his skull. If you hold the variant under hot water you can pry the faceplate off and that makes it much cooler then the regular version.
    We have DCUC Iron and just yesterday I found DCUC Mercury at Target. I wasn't going to get it but he sure looks nice. Now I'm on the hook for a Walmart-exclusive Gold. Dang it Mattel. 4Horsemen sculpts on metal men are awesome though.

  2. LotN says:

    You might've just talked me into Regan. She'd probably look good next to Jaws...

    • yo go re says:

      I know he just talked ME into a Regan. If I ever see her in a store...

      • Rustin Parr says:

        I do have to say, see surpased my expectations. I'd argue that NECA is the best company out their today, now that they've really nailed likenesses and become more articulation friendly. They're really delivering on the promises made by McFarlane (in terms of advancement of toys in sculpt) over a decade ago.

        And yeah... actually Regan and Jaws make an oddly awesome sounding pair.

        I've ended up liking this Regan so much I'll probably end up getting that dumb spider-crawl one, too...

  3. Chad B says:

    I picked up that GL 3-pack a couple of weeks ago on clearance, and my John Stewart's knee snapped right out of the package. Was my first purchase of DC figures in that scale, and it definitely didn't entice me towards buying any more. Fortunately that was the weakest link in the set, the other two are pretty nice.

  4. Rustin Parr says:

    Just saw Selfridge at the Mattel Store for $2.99... ugh

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