SDCC 2013 - Day 3: Friday 7/19

Today I had an epiphany. It's nothing terrible ground-shaking but it was that simple precipice between saying something and meaning it. The toy exclusives have ruined Comic Con.

I got to the Convention Center at 7:20 this morning and made the Hasbro line my first stop, just for fun. Well, not only was it capped - it was capped at 6:30am. I talked briefly to a guy in line who was last in the third section of upstairs line before it continued down stairs and around the Marriott hotel. He was maybe the half way point in the line and got there at 4:30. Hasbro... that's bullshit! You did it wrong. You failed Con Exclusives. You've made it hard in the past but this... you have moved ahead of Gleek and Rainbow Hal as the worst-managed exclusive collectible experience in Con history.

While I had accepted that I wouldn't be able to get these figures this year, the pure fact that they had to cap the line at the time it was scheduled to begin just sunk me to a new level of resentment that has sullied my entire Con. Even though I've snagged my most desired exclusives both days that won't replace the fact that for all intents and purposes, even though I am here I will never get the Han in Carbonite. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.... AAAAANNNYYYWWWAAAYYYYSSSS.....

Yesterday I found out that there were once again two mini-build exclusives from Lego. One is a dumb Yoda Chronicles thing while the other is a mini Bag End! The latter is a must-have and thus the notoriously rough Lego booth was my first destination. Since I got in line for Hall-entry at 7:30am I was able to hit that booth early enough to get my tickets to buy the exclusives, and to get them (ended up only getting Bag End but did snag the second-to-last BttF set of the day - I'll have it reviewed for you before the official August release!).

From there it was exploration time. It turns out that I was wrong and that many of the familiar booths from the north end of the Hall HAVE indeed survived and are transplanted to the south, including Geek Chic (though the entertaining Barker from last year was M.I.A. [not the singstress])! While down there I picked up my first Weaponeers of Monkaa - a Glow-in-the-Dark one that ties in nicely with my budding love of GitD. Strolling about I came across an Art Book booth selling a cool statue from the Pirates of the Caribbean for only $20! It was a hassle to purchase though as they made everyone 'check' their bags upon entry to the booth AND they had no idea where their stock of that statue was or what they were charging. Nice. On the upswing, there is a booth where they're doing live sculpting and makeup applications, so I watched a bit of that. It was particularly cool since I saw that lady, all made up, walking the floor later in the afternoon.

Another highlight of the South end's vagueries is Varner Studios' booth. Famous for having been Playmates go-to studio during their heyday of the '80s and '90s (it's also where Phil Ramirez got his start) they had a bunch of TMNT prototypes on display - not bad!

I bounced around to a bunch of panels, including:

Mattel: Mattypalooza 2013
Hasbro: Star Wars
Mattel and DC Comics: A Celebration for Collectors of All Ages

Thus, it was really Mattel's big day. I'm pretty disappointed, but not all too surprised, that Ozymandias does not come with Bubastis. That's kind of B.S. based on how spartan most of the releases are and that Comedian gets two accessories. MotUC pretty much completes itself with Two-Bad and while the rest of the stuff looks good, it's nothing that has changed my resolution to drop that subscription like a hot potato - it'll be interesting to see how that process goes for them. The Stan Lee figure is pure novelty, even Stan himself didn't know what the hell to think about it.

The figures for DC Signature Collection look pretty good, and I have to say I'm more excited for "Prisoner" Doomsday than I am for "Unleashed" Doomsday. I really do hope that line continues on.

The new 6" Total Heroes line is interesting. I think I'm ready for something new and what was shown looks good enough, plus everything they talked about at the panel sounded right on track - for instance a $9.99 retail price!

Marvel has had a rotating Movie display swapping out things each day. For instance they had a couple Asgaardian soldiers with a neat book in the morning and, incredibly awesomely all the costumes for the Howlin' Commandos from the first Captain America movie! I love that team so darn much - I wonder if this means we might see some flashbacks in the new movie!?

Later on I swang by Graphitti and picked up those exclusives with relative ease (late night update - crappy paint on my 4" boxset... great) and hit up Entertainment Earth. The latter was selling all of the 4" Venture Bros. figures (save but black shirt Brock) and I was more than happy to take a full set off their hands.

Once the Con wrapped it was back over to the Con Suite for snacks and writing until my much anticipated 8:30pm event - Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo! (Next day update - SON OF A CURSE WORD! Somehow I completely blanked on it and totally missed one of Daniel Pickett's panels during that time! Aaargh) This might have been the American debut of the film; it was shown as part of the Anime Festival at the Marriott Hotel and was screened in Japanese with English subtitles. It was surprising to me how much seeing these familiar characters but with notably different voices affected the experience - not in a big way, just in that the characters didn't feel all that familiar to me. At least Shinji wasn't the whiniest of all bitches in this version. Anyway, as far as the movie goes, we get some pretty awesome action sequences (I was in love with the whole opening) but WOOF... that storyline. And they tell me these Rebuild movies are meant to streamline and clarify the story... YIKES. The phrase "confusing as hell" comes to mind. It was fun to watch this with a crowd, and laugh along with Kaworu's overt flirting. This movie was just so anime-ish and a reminder of why I tend to stay away. Still though... the fights and action were excellent!

And with that - it was back to the hotel for an intense round of sleep.