Archive for August, 2008:
Hulk Wave 3, FINALLY for order on HTS
Hulk Wave 3 is offiicially up for order on Hasbro Toy Shop.
Not sure if there are many other coupon codes out there, but SPRREQ8 still gets you 10% off (meaning if you purchase all 4 sets, 5.99 a set, $6.97 for shipping, your total after the coupon is only $30.79.)
So go, show the Hulk your love!
Also worth noting is that the figures are (according to their site) in stock for quick shipping. I wonder if HTS has done much market research into what’s a better strategy:
1) allowing pre-orders for accurate order information but running the risk that when figures are found earlier, the pre-orders are canceled, or that in the event of a delay people (like us) are bugging them for answers or
2) Waiting until figures are in stock and ready to go before allowing orders, while running the risk that buyers are going to go elsewhere (Big Bad Toy Store, Entertainment Earth) to make sure they get the figures.
And in an unrelated note, anyone have any solutions for the army of Hulks many of us have collected?
Hulk Wave 3 pictures
Seantified has sent over some pictures of a couple of the new Hulk sets. He included comparisons of two of the Hulks (the Hulk that comes with Zzzax is a darker shade of green than the original version packed with Spider-Woman). For articulation he says Zzzax moves at his waist and head only while Skaar moves at his right shoulder, head, waist, and left wrist (for the knife).
Speaking of Skaar though, it looks like he’s going to be appearing in the upcoming Hulk Family one-shot, featuring Hulk, She-Hulk, Scorpion (the female version of the character who may or may not be the biological daughter of Bruce Banner), Skaar (aptly named the Son of Hulk), and the genetic result of Thundra’s theft of Hulk’s cell samples during Hulk: Raging Thunder. So that’s one known child, one genetic offspring, and one child of questionable paternity… he’s going to be giving Cyclops and Wolverine a lesson in absentee parenting.
Checklists are updated
After way too long the Super Hero Squad checklists have been updated. We’ve been meaning to update them for a while, but because of the recent wackiness with Hasbro (Red Hulk being listed, Green Hulk being shipped. Nick Fury being shown on the slides at SDCC 2008, while blond SHIELD Agent is listed in Big Bad Toy Store’s pre-orders, so on) we considered waiting. The problem with that, is that there’s always going to be something new so we’d always find a new reason to postpone it.
For those that are unfamiliar with our checklists, we maintain two separate lists: One is for the “set collectors” which breaks down the offerings by wave, and includes things like playsets and vehicles. The other is for collectors who don’t care much for repaints, repacks and resculpts, and just lists which characters are released (counting mainstream comic book, Ultimate, and Movie versions separately).
With characters going up to the slides shown at San Diego, we have 137 characters present and accounted for, which is pretty good for a line soon to be celebrating its second major Christmas. Can the line keep up this pace of almost 70 characters a year? Assuming Hasbro keeps the line going through to December 31, 2011 (the expiration date of the Hasbro/Marvel contract, assuming the extension option for Spider-Man 4 isn’t exercised) 70 characters a year would mean 210 additional characters, almost 350 different characters total. Granted, that depends on a lot of maybes (maybe the line continues selling, maybe Hasbro continues developing both fan-favorite back-catalog characters and current properties) but half a toy-line’s fun is its potential, right?
Speaking of milestones, we’re almost at 200 posts here at Rumorbuster in a few days short of 5 full months. While we didn’t start using analytics until after the site started, 2313 people have visited more than 9 times, and almost 500 people have visited over 101 times. I know that’s nothing compared to a big site, but we’re still happy to know at least a few people find some use from this project. Big thank yous to all you regular visitors, and especially everyone that’s sent in comments, questions or suggestions.
Edit: And we just updated the index too, but since it was only a small update, no sense posting separately to talk about it, right?
Hulk Wave 3 in the wild
Seantified just let us know that Hulk Wave 3 is hitting retail, specifically the Toys R Us at Walnut hill and 75 in Dallas Texas. Along with Wave 3, they’ve re-stocked on the Sand Pit Stand Off set. He also noted that of 6 Zzzax’s, they were all transparent. Has anyone seen an opaque Zzzax like the one shown in pictures at SDCC, or was that just an early production model, like the way Thor and Ares had different paint jobs when they were first shown?
And finally, he was able to confirm that Skaar and Leader were shortpacked (2 per case, confirming Entertainment Earth’s pre-order listing). If Entertainment Earth is right about the first case revision for Wave 3, Leader’s going to get even harder to find when he moves to 1 per case, but on the plus side, they’re going to be shipping Wave 2 figures in that case revision so there’s still a chance for those that haven’t got She-Hulk yet.
As you guys know, we don’t have anything real to give in exchange for news, photos and interesting chat, but we have plenty of Non-Marvel Unofficial No-Prizes to hand out, and Seantified gets one!
Wave 10 Pre-Order
Since we were using the Wave numbering from Wikipedia as our numbering system, and since someone decided to change it to make Wave 5 and 6 one big wave, which, retroactively, everyone decided they were, we’re going to continue following Wikipedia, and as such, the Mystique wave is now going to be the Wave 10 wave, and we’ll refer to Sentry’s Wave as 9.
With that preamble out of the way, Big Bad Toy Store’s pre-order for Wave 10, shipping in November, now has photos of the figures up. While their listing still says SHIELD Agent, their picture is clearly Nick Fury. Chase? Variant? Accurate, yet not totally, product listing wherein Nick Fury, who is a SHIELD agent, is listed as SHIELD Agent, instead of Nick Fury, possibly to avoid confusion with the previously released Ultimate Nick Fury, who happens to be the Nick Fury they’ve shown in promotional artwork for the upcoming animated series? Incorrect picture where they were sent a file of hi-res promo shots and picked Nick Fury out to be the SHIELD agent?
Who knows, but we’re still going to love that wave!
Genius and Crimson Dynamo sets shipping
While Hasbro may not be on top of their game with shipping City in Crisis and the Winter Soldier sets, at least they’re shipping the Genius of Tony Stark and Crimson Dynamo Attacks sets on time.
Item number: 78767
Item name: Marvel Super Hero Squad – Crimson Dynamo Attacks!
Quantity: 1Item number: 78768
Item name: Marvel Super Hero Squad – The Genius of Tony Stark
Quantity: 1
Hulk Wave 3 on HTS, again
Following up on our discussion earlier today of Hulk Wave 3, it looks as if Hasbro Toy Shop is almost ready to put the figures on the site. Searching for “Hulk” brings up the four new 2-packs, but the listings are still “coming soon”, and some of the listings still contain the price typos noticed earlier, and Doc Samson is showing as the boxed pic for Hulk/Skaar. Hasbro, we love you but you can be such a mess!
Grey Hulk/Leader – Price: $16.99*, Availability: Coming Soon, Ages: 3 & Up, Item #: 78460.
Mini but mighty, this two-pack of figures includes the Gray Hulk figure with fists ready to fly and Leader Villain figure, ready to spring into action!
Hulk/Doc Samson – Price: $5.99, Availability: Coming Soon, Ages: 3 & Up Item #: 78462
Mini but mighty, this two-pack of figures includes the Hulk figure with his gritted-tooth grin and Doc Samson figure, showing off his flexed muscles!
Hulk/Son of Hulk (AKA Skaar) – Price: $5.99, Availability: Coming Soon, Ages: 3 & Up, Item #: 78463
Mini but mighty, this two-pack of figures includes the Hulk figure with “torn” t-shirt and the sword-wielding Son of Hulk figure!
Hulk/Zzzax – Price: $14.99*, Availability: Coming Soon, Ages: 3 & Up, Item #: 78461
Mini but mighty, this two-pack of figures includes the Hulk figure ready for smashin’ good fun and Zzzax figure, the “living” lightning bolt!
*Note the clearly erroneous prices.
With the Iron Man repaint packs, Wave 3 of Hulk, and the City in Crisis and Winter Soldier Saga 4-packs all slowly trickling out at about the same time it seems like we’re going to have another mini-Super Hero Squad flood.
