The Rumor Buster

Comic-Style Abomination, A First Look at Mystique, and the Gamma Lab Up Close!

First, as a follow-up to an earlier post, I checked out Animation Magazine again to see if I could find any information on a bigger shot of that promotional art they featured. As you’ll remember from my post here we saw Ultimate Nick Fury and others, but some of the figures were crossed off.

Sometime after I posted the link (or else it was there and I totally missed it) they posted the full shot. So what do we see? Abomination is NOT the movie Abomination I thought he was! Great news for fans of the comic style figures. The white hand with the gun was Mystique (in what is our first artwork featuring her I might add) and Super-Skrull is also there. The white hand over Cyclops’s shoulder was Iceman, and Hulk and Captain America also make full appearances.

But no Spider-Man.

Secondly, Cool Toy Review has this preview of the Gamma Lab Adventure, which is just a repaint of the Bank playset from the Spider-Man line. The paintjob for the apartment/garage section is a bit more Spider-like than the previous red, yellow, grey and white colors, but the maroon and orange Gamma Lab is… daring.

One fun game is to look at the box art for possible upcoming characters. When the Gamma Lab first appeared, the appearance of a comic Green Goblin took some people by surprise, but now that we’ve seen a larger shot, you’ll see comic book 616 Abomination (taking place before his battle with Red Hulk in Hulk 1 for obvious reasons), flying Iron Man, comic Green Goblin, comic Hobgoblin hiding behind Spidey’s apartment window, comic Venom, comic Doctor Octopus (sitting on his arms just like his recent release), fist-punching Thing from the upcoming Hulk wave 2 (where he accompanies She-Hulk), and of course Spider-Man and Hulk.

For those keeping track at home, if you purchased the original Bank Heist set, the later version of the Bank Heist set with the re-cast Spider-Car, the new Gamma Lab, and the Spider-Vehicles, you’ll have a whopping total of 5 vehicles, 4 of which use almost entirely the same mold (the Spider-Vehicle has a spring-loaded action feature, but otherwise the bodies for all 4 are the same) to drive your 20+ Spider-Men into battle on.

I think this is the first post where I talk about both about how many Spider-Men we have, and how conspicuously absent he is from other aspects of the line, so yeah, it gets a “too many Spider-Men” AND A “where’s Spider-Man” tag.

Iron Man Toys vs. Hulk Toys

I know I’ve talked about the disparity between Hulk toys and Iron Man toys before, specifically here but so far it’s been a feeling. And then I read this on Seeking Alpha

“F. Peter Cuneo

With regard to the size of the Hasbro line, it’s a modest line. I think that though from Marvel’s standpoint and from retailers’ standpoint, there is always a bit of conservatism when it comes to a first film in a franchise. So retailers were conservative in their ordering patterns, which makes sense, and Hasbro and Marvel also were conservative in the size of the line that we produced.

We certainly think that with the sequel, that that line would be substantially larger.”

That was in response to a representative from RBC Capital Markets asking “can you clarify how many Hasbro related SKUs you have coming from Iron Man?”

So there you go. “Conservatism.”

With luck, the next Iron Man movie will have a better merchandising presence, and hopefully some Super Hero Squad toys that aren’t waves of repaints.

Hulk Wave 2

Usually these things have a bit of notice, a coming soon or a pre-order or something, but Hasbro Toy Shop put out Hulk Wave 2 for order sometime over the weekend. With express shipping, you can have these gentlemen, and one fine jade lady, in your house by May 13.

In this wave, we have:

She-Hulk/Thing
Wolverine/Grey Hulk
Hulk/Absorbing Man
Hulk/Black Bolt

The Hulks are re-paints (although, since the Gamma Lab playset isn’t out yet, I suppose it’s a toss-up for which of that Hulk sculpt is the re-paint), as is Wolverine, but Black Bolt and She-Hulk are oft requested, and Absorbing Man is an always welcome villain.

The downside: I can’t find any coupon codes to share with everyone.

Agent/Soldier. Tinker/Tailor.

I came across a Super Hero Squad checklist the other day and… I can’t even link to it in good conscience. I’m going to give it some leeway, since it looks like a start up… a few pages, just pure rundowns of Adventure Heroes, Super Hero Squad and the like. Nothing fancy (and I should know nothing fancy… the only reason this blog has a color scheme is because it was point and click.) Once the owner has had a chance to work on it a bit and correct some of the mistakes, I’ll happily give it a link.

But it’s guilty of one of my pet peeves: illogical speculation.

Now, there’s levels of speculation… there’s theories, an informed hypothesis, educated guesses, assumptions (incorrect or otherwise), and my least favorite… absolute guesses without any foundation whatsoever.

Most websites and rumor lists have a reasonable basis for their guesses… if they know one character in a two-pack, they’ll guess what the second one is based on appearances and connections. But this one “checklist” decided to go ahead and guess at both parts of a two-pack.

Now just to provide history, a while back Boywithgun announced, amongst some other 2-pack SKUs, one for Soldier/Agent.

This particular checklist arbitrarily decided that it was Hydra Soldier and USAgent. In their defense, like I said, it’s a start-up and it’s as good a guess as any, and they do include question marks for these and many other entries. It reminded me of a run-down of the most logical choices I wrote when the controversy first started.

The candidates: Winter Soldier, USAgent, Agent 13, Shield Agent, AIM Soldier, Hydra Soldier:

Winter Soldier, Pros:
- Winter Soldier has been the focus of the current Captain America title since the first arc, and the book has been a top-10 seller for a while, he’s been the star of the recent Death of Captain America arc which has been boosted by mainstream attention.
- Since there’s already a Winter Soldier figure, they could just re-use the sculpt and save some cash, which is always a selling point.

Cons:
- There’s already a Winter Soldier figure in the Winter Soldier Saga box set (which doesn’t stop Marvel from releasing Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine or others)

USAgent , Pros:
- US Agent got some play last year in Omega Flight and has been a member of the Avengers West Coast, Force Works, Invaders, had some major play in the Maximum Security crossover (which doesn’t say much since it’s like 7 years old and nobody remembers it)

Cons:
- US Agent has a figure, even if it’s just a re-paint of Captain America. If the 5 issue mini-series Omega Flight had the pull necessary to get new figures made, there’s a chance we’d see a Sasquatch first, or maybe a Beta Ray Bill befor getting a new USAgent

SHIELD Agent, Pros:
- SHS has started a trend of one popular/demanded character and one “generic” (with it’s Wolvie/Hand and Hulk/Hulkbuster packs) so they might continue with that theme.
- fans have said SHIELD agents would be a great army builder.
- SHIELD agents have been major players in all of Marvels big sellers and little sellers too, from New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, right on down to the World War Hulk wrap-ups and even low-selling books like the recently canceled Ant-Man so they get around.

Cons:
- SHIELD Agents without 616 Nick Fury are blasphemous.

Hydra Soldier/AIM Soldier , Pros:
- I’ve combined these two because the arguments for them are about the same. They’d be good army builders to satisfy the fans, neither has much mainstream exposure but Hydra’s involvement in Wolverine: Enemy of the State and AIM’s involvement in Captain America have given them recent comic buzz. Ok, Enemy of the State was a while ago.

Cons:
- they’re just army builders. Absent some proof one way or the other, either Hydra or AIM is just as likely as the other, so picking one or the other is just a coin flip.

Agent 13, Pros:
- Sharon Carter, recent star player of Captain America had a bit of mainstream play as Captain America’s lover and killer.
- There’s definitely a fanbase, possibly larger than we’d expect.

Cons:
- Despite recent publicity, is she really famous enough for what is still a relatively new toy line that still has a fair number of other famous characters it could put out?

And the absolute, one billion, trillion to one longshot: Super-Soldier, star of the late DC/Marvel cross-over event “Amalgam Comics” line. He’d be a beloved addition, but lets be honest… there’s almost no way this character is going to get an official figure.

In short, it’s still anybody’s game. Winter Soldier, Agent 13, USAgent, AIM/Hydra/SHIELD Soldiers.
One caveat though: Super Hero Squad hasn’t released a two-pack of two original characters since the Rogue/Gambit, Black Panther/Storm, Antman/Doctor Strange waves. Every pack in the Spider-Woman wave, Psylocke Wave, Carnage Wave, and the Hulk waves (both released and announced) has included at least one character that had previously been released. Past performance is NOT proof of future results, but it’s something to think about.

Shopping Assist: New Super Hero Squad

A couple quick points to help you on your hunt…

1) A user on Marvelousnews.com’s forums is saying that Hulk movie Super Hero Squads have started hitting Targets in Missouri today (we already talked about comic stores earlier today, and Hasbro Toy Shop has had for sale for a while)

2) City In Crisis and Winter Soldier are up for pre-order on Hasbro Toy Shop with August 14, 2008 (8/14/08) as the shipping date.

Happy shopping!

Hulk Super Hero Squad hits Comic Stores

For those going to the comic stores this fine day, you should be able to find Wave 1 (aka, Assortment 200801) of Hulk Super Hero Squad. Assuming your comic stores stock comic-related toys, of course.

Just as a reminder for loyal comic book shop fans: you can often pre-order Super Hero Squad figures from your local store just by giving them the Previews code, and if you don’t know the Previews code, ask them and in many cases, they’ll happily help you out, although they may want a deposit. Your comic store may charge more than Walmart or Hasbro’s online store, but depending on your gas prices and shipping fees, comic stores are still a great (although mostly under-utilized) source of Super Hero Squad figures.

Hulk Wave 3 SKUs

So Boywithgun has released the newest set of Walmart SKUs, this time featuring the likely third wave of Hulk figures:

HLK GRAY HLK LEADER 65356933645
HLK 2PK HULK ZZZAX 65356933646
HLK HULK DOC SAMSON 65356933647
HLK HULK SOH 65356922648

We all know my policy on “fill in the blanks” when it comes to Walmart SKUs, but luckily there’s not many blanks to fill in. Leaders, Zzzax and Doc Samson are going to be welcome additions to anyone’s collection. Villains in particular are always welcome!

SOH is, of course, the souce of speculation. Son of Hulk IS a good call though, and I can’t think of any other Hulk related characters off the top of my head that might be an “SOH” but it is a little interesting that the other SKUs used many more characters, so SONOFHULK should not have been a problem. Like all these other waves, we’ll hold off until we get more information.

It’s going to be interesting to see how many of the Hulks and HLKs are going to be repaints.

And finally, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Hasbro likes Hulk more than Iron Man. Ok, not entirely true, but just to keep the Super Hero Squad tally going we have

Hulk: 3 waves of 2 packs, a multi-pack with a vehicle, a playset (albeit, a re-release). Of the character selection, we’ve got oft-requested characters like She-Hulk and Black Bolt, plus lots of fan favorites like Leader, Absorbing Man, Zzzax and Doc Samson.

Iron Man: 2 waves of 2 4-packs. Of those 2 waves, one is entirely repaints, despite the number of Iron Man armors that are still not made. When all is said and done 1 “new character” in the repaint packs: Ultimate War Machine. Of the 16 figures in the 4 4-packs, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man and Ultimate WM are the only new characters (unless you want to give a round of applause to an official, non Collector’s Pack repaint version of War Machine.) 12 Iron Men, many of whom are repaints. Even Spider-Man got new sculpts!

And the repaints themselves… with desert armor Iron Man and red-and-yellow “War Machine” are a little questionable when we’ve got great concepts still waiting… Stealth Iron Man (an easy repaint, as customizers have shown), Thorbuster Iron Man, Iron Man 2020, 90′s Animated/Galactic Storm style Iron Man, Repulsor Ray shooting Iron Man, translucent stealth-tech Iron Man. How about Mandarin? Blacklash? Maria Hill, Daisy Johnson, Dum Dum Dugan or even a generic SHIELD Soldier? Granted, Iron Man’s rogue’s gallery doesn’t strike much fear, but you could probably make some lifelong fans with a Chemistro figure. How about a new Doctor Doom sculpt? Different versions of Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man? His Mighty Avengers teammates Black Widow and Wonder Man? A Stark Labs playset a la the Gamma Lab?

For the most important man in the Marvel Universe (arguably) to be treated this poorly… Tony Stark really needs to put some pressure on Hasbro.