100 replies to this topic

[dankingery]

well, with a well deserved day off of work i decided that i'd go on a hunt for some marvel universe figs. after checking with a friend to see if i had his needs list correct i set out into what can only be described as surface of the sun temeratures. it's 99 degrees outside right now, which translates into pizza oven temps in my car. a black car with broken air conditioning makes me want to stop shopping after one stop. but i sucked it up and powered through seven more stops.

the first stop didn't bode well for the day. i was set upon by a horde of unwanted toys. the likes of ronin and the hand ninjas attacked me in wave after wave of un-coolness. it's almost like they asked for cases of just those two figures with black panther as a chase or something because there were a couple of him as well.

my second stop proved to be much better. first off, i scored a bullseye for my buddy and picked up a thing for myself. i know he's not hard to find, but i finally talked myself into getting him. black boots version of course.

while scouring their aisles for toy goodness i stumbled upon the dc version of super hero squad for batman the brave and the bold. let me just say this. they are cool figures. i really liked them. i spent a few minutes examining them. they were packaged as a toys r us exclusive. eight figures. i very nearly bought them. then i looked at the price and nearly shouted HOLY shizznit!!! at the top of my lungs. fortunately i only said it loud enough to offend six virgin ears on the aisle instead of the whole store. the asking price for these guys was $24. outrageous! they were great, but i wouldn't spend half that price on them. their size is about 75% the size of super hero squad. the plastic looks very similar and paint apps on the three packages were all of equal high quality. but there is no way they should be $24. i hope these hit the clearance aisle someday.

i also ran across the mega bloks halo kits. these were also over priced, but not as grossly as the dc brave and bold buddies or whatever they were called. can't remember now. anyway, the halo sets look really cool. i checked out the ghost, hornet, scorpion and pelican sets. the block models are top notch and are so well designed that you'd be able to compare them to the actual toys. as for the figures, these are what really caught my eye. so far i've only seen elites, grunts and spartans. but every single one of them look amazing. if you could buy figure sets separate from the vehicles i would buy up a bunch of them. i'm still considering collecting this line, but the only thing stopping me is the price. it's higher than it should be. $12 for small vehicles, $20 (i think) for mid sized vehicles and $40 for the biggies. if you're a die hard halo fan, which i'm not, you really should check these out.

well, back to the hunt. my next stop was starting to look as bad as the first. i couldn't find any universe figs initially. luckily i was hunting for a comic deadpool and started digging through their infinite selection of origin and xmen figures. at the very bottom on the left peg in the very back were three universe figures. one of which was daredevil. one of the three my friend wanted. two down and one to go, i was doing pretty good for him but had yet to find a red or gray hulk for myself.

i stopped a couple of other places only to come up empty handed then hit the freeway. i had a few more stops on my itinerary. needless to say all but the last stop proved eventful. i rounded up the very last plasma dragon i had been searching for. sawskreech is now mine and i am left only with two precursors to obtain before i have everything.

so, how hot was it? well, the 20 minute car ride was long enough that my king size kitkat i bought at the last stop was completely liquefied by the time i got home. that's too damn hot. i had it in the shade no less. well, that's my story. hope you enjoyed it as much as i'm going to enjoy playing with my new toys.

[Scumdogg]

Wooo, i do better on your toy hunting trips than i do on 95% of my own!

Off to update my needs list in the Marvel Universe thread!

Oh hey i forgot to ask, how were those Brave and the Bold figures packed? For $24 was there at least a lot of figures? When i was at TRU the other day i saw two things from the line. One was Batman, Gentleman Ghost, and some sort of ghost/skeleton horse. The other was Batman with a breathing apparatus and a Batboat. Those were $12.99 each. There were pics of the other figures on the back, but with no clue as to how they'd be packaged.

EDIT: Never mind, i fail at reading comprehension. $24 seems excessive for a single pack sure, but if you break it down by figure they're as cheap or cheaper than Superhero Squad. Those things are like $7 now for 2 figures.

Edited by Scumdogg, 17 July 2009 - 01:07 PM.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Great Scores on the Bullseye and Daredevil! I have yet to see anymore since I bought mine, and the fact that we are up to wave 5 now, it's a miracle you even found them at all!

Thanks for sharing.

[mrjayberry]

Dankingery-sending you a pm

[dankingery]

scum: i never said super hero squad was fair priced. i ran into some on the clearance rack that was the deadpool, sabretooth, wolverine phoenix set. almost bought it, but decided to keep my spending limited today. as for the brave and the bold 8-pack. it was just a standard windowed flat box similar to the gormiti 5-pack or cybotronix: mars creation set.

urs: no miracles here. utah is a collector wasteland. we'll get a couple of waves of a cool line, and then when the stinkers don't sell and sit around forever they don't bother to order the later waves with the really cool figs in them.

mjb: message received.

[StalkingButler]

I was hoping you found some handful of heroes. . .guess it will still be a while

[dankingery]

yeah, i was hoping too. i think by my third stop i quit looking though. i may have glossed right over them in all honesty. although i think the toys r us would have been the first place to get them out here and i was still on full alert at that time. i did end up seeing more of those marvel/transformer cross over toys today. still don't like them. don't even like the concept really. some things don't go well together. like vanilla ice cream and diarrhea.

also, forgot to mention the new joe toys i didn't notice before. they've got new combat heroes for the movie. of the ones i saw, snake eyes is the only looker in the bunch. the rest are pretty forgettable. may still get snake eyes, but will pass on the rest. also, after a much closer inspection of the new regular joe figs i've decided they're not as great as i first thought. i do think this is because of the flawed new character designs for the movie. the zartan figure has to be the biggest disappointment. i was going to consider redboxing this movie eventually, now i think i'll avoid it like the plague completely. just like the chun li movie. ugh.

[StalkingButler]

yeah, i was hoping too. i think by my third stop i quit looking though. i may have glossed right over them in all honesty. although i think the toys r us would have been the first place to get them out here and i was still on full alert at that time. i did end up seeing more of those marvel/transformer cross over toys today. still don't like them. don't even like the concept really. some things don't go well together. like vanilla ice cream and diarrhea.

also, forgot to mention the new joe toys i didn't notice before. they've got new combat heroes for the movie. of the ones i saw, snake eyes is the only looker in the bunch. the rest are pretty forgettable. may still get snake eyes, but will pass on the rest. also, after a much closer inspection of the new regular joe figs i've decided they're not as great as i first thought. i do think this is because of the flawed new character designs for the movie. the zartan figure has to be the biggest disappointment. i was going to consider redboxing this movie eventually, now i think i'll avoid it like the plague completely. just like the chun li movie. ugh.

I didn't see chun li either.

I'll probably end up watching the new GI JOE, but more as just checking out a new action flick, less of trying to connect with anything from my childhood. The GI JOE I new as a kid just isn't represented very well in the movie, as far as I can tell without seeing it.

[Scumdogg]

I've heard GI Joe is better than Transformers 2. Whatever that means.

[bronchuseven]

Man, as hot as 99 is to you Dan, it would feel like a blast of winter air here in tex-ass! It's been well over 100 every day for weeks.. last Thursday it actually got up to 106 (42 C) which was blast-furnace, brain-meltingly hot. I'm also rolling in a black car with no AC.. so you can imagine how sweaty I am when I get home from work! Even better, only one of my windows rolls down anymore (f%^$ing electric windows).. thankfully, it's the driver's window!

Nice hunt story by the way.. didn't mean to hijack your thread; I just wanted to complain a little about the furnace waiting for me outside my front door

[dankingery]

it's totally cool bronchuseven. thankfully my windows all work, but they're not power so it's a pain in the ass sometimes. we hit over 100 on thursday. but i only had to work outside in that temp. it was not pleasant. the facility i was working at is out in the middle of the desert here. somehow the temp was about 10 degrees higher than it should be. todays suppose to be even hotter than yesterday and i still need to go to the store and pick up a fig for a friend for a trade i'm doing. i'm planning on leaving much earlier today and i only have the one stop to do. then i'll just hang out all day in my air conditioned home.

[Scumdogg]

So i just got back from a Toys R Us run and i saw pretty much all of those tiny Brave and the Bold toys. They had the six packs for $24 (six not eight, so yeah...that's not a good deal at all), plus the $8 2-packs. Again, pricey. Puts them on par with the BPRD buddies, which are from a smaller company with more of a history of overcharging for their products. There's no reason Mattel's prices should be going up as much as they are...it's making Hasbro look like a discount warehouse.

They are *really* cool though. Plastic Man was a standout for me, along with Aquaman and Red Tornado. Seemed like basically everything had a Batman figure in with it though, so even more reason to pass on them. Maybe if there's ever a sale....

[BaltanII]

From the Toy Fair pics, they looked at least good enough to get a pack or two, but I wouldn't bother with more, at that price. Any lists or pics of them in-package?

[Ghost Lion]

Great news! My daughter LOVES Brave and the Bold. I have agood excuse to get those little guys!

[dankingery]

hehe, a good excuse and now a second mortgage to pay for them.

Edited by dankingery, 19 July 2009 - 05:08 PM.

[dankingery]

hit a few of my standard stores today and a smattering of new ones all in the hopes of finding marvel universe goodness. for the most part they all had the same thing, human torch, ronin & hand ninjas. but i was able to find another green hulk (i can't resist the hulk's charms), a silver surfer and iron fist (trade pending). i really really love this line but i'm getting sick to death of the lack of new waves in my area. i've been to nearly 20 stores in a couple of days and i don't ever seem to see anything different. there's still a bunch of stores i haven't been to but i don't know if i'll make it there this weekend.

[mrjayberry]

I hear ya, I see a lot of Blades, and then I found one Wal-Mart, on the other side of town, that was stocked up on the latest wave where I got the other four figures from wave four.

[dankingery]

wow, i don't think i've been this disappointed after a toy run in a long time. only went to one target and one toys r us, but still. the target i went to is usually on the forefront of resets and restocking. they were however the epitome of old toys and empty pegs. i'll have to check them out again on sunday night. not only did they not have any new gormiti or marvel universe. but they had about 3 pegs chock full of x-men origins. that wouldn't have been too bad since they did have several of the comic series figs people have requested to be on my cheap-o-radar. only problem was that they weren't selling them at the super low discount of $2 like the other store. they were still $8!!! that's bullshizznit. those things are not going to sell at those prices. anyway, i after a quick look around and seeing that they were not going to get my money today i left. the only real "highlight" of this trip was the new t-shirts the staff were wearing. hehehe... it's a red t-shirt with the white target logo sporadically placed here and there on the front in different sizes. anyway, if the particular staff member is a full figured woman with a large chest, two of the logos are perfectly placed to look like nipples. i don't know why it tickled my fancy so much. i giggled a few times as i walked to the back of the store and then again on the way out. of course, i'm a breast man, so my mind is always in the gutter like that.

back to the adventure. i swung down to the toys r us that's right close to that target. bare in mind that this is officially the world's worst toys r us. i'm not kidding. the only way it could get any worse is if you caught small pox or respiratory anthrax every time you entered the store. my hopes weren't high, so they weren't dashed when i got to the marvel universe section and found that they hadn't sold any figures since my last visit a week ago. nor had they restocked anything. and why should they, those ronins and hand ninjas look so good on the pegs with their cobweb accessories. they did have some secret saturdays toys next the the batman brave and the bold minis. unfortunately they were the large action figures and not the minis i'm looking for. when my disgust level reached it's peak (looked at the wwe aisle and saw red because of the waste of space that is that aisle) i stormed out and didn't even bother to see if the mega bloks halo shizznit was on sale.

here's how crappy this toy run was, the doctor's appointment i had today afterwords was more fun.

[bronchuseven]

Man... glad I'm not the only one who's disgusted with the love shown to the WWE by TRU! Does anyone actually buy those toys?

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Somehow you made that sad trip sound exciting. Target Nipples and doctor visits.. The only way I figure the doctors visit was more fun for you than the toy hunting is that the nurses were well endowed and playing with action figures while you were in the waiting room.

[dankingery]

not as far as i can tell. but i pay as little attention to that aisle as possible. they almost suckered me into purchasing something with those tiny little wrestlers that are muscle size. but i quickly came out of my stupor and hightailed it out of there.

[dankingery]

Somehow you made that sad trip sound exciting. Target Nipples and doctor visits.. The only way I figure the doctors visit was more fun for you than the toy hunting is that the nurses were well endowed and playing with action figures while you were in the waiting room.

i wish!!!

[Scumdogg]

Man... glad I'm not the only one who's disgusted with the love shown to the WWE by TRU! Does anyone actually buy those toys?

On the plus side, Jakk's is done making WWE toys and the license has been picked up by Mattel. So in theory, all you should see in the future for wrestling figures is four empty pegs.

[BaltanII]

Sorry to disappoint my friend, but wrestling toys do indeed sell, Dan. Somehow. I have a feeling their popularity is in part due to my geographic location. As a matter of fact, the only known toy collector I've met locally (has since moved) collected the things both for himself and his sons. He redeemed himself by also collecting Transformers.

The only toys that I've noticed shelfwarm were those overpriced MUSCLE-sized abominations you mentioned, and some bizarre deformed things that looked like Stretch Armstrong, but worse. Others only seem to stay around, but it's because the topless musclebound men and garish purple-and-white packaging fade into a blur of I-don't-give-a-eff.

[dankingery]

had to hit up target today. i know i'm supposed to like them, but they really piss me off sometimes. first of all, they did have the new 5.5" gormiti, so i picked up octillion octopu...er.. polypus. haven't cracked him yet, so he may or may not have been worth it.

they changed their action figure section entirely. not just one aisle now but two. sadly half of one of those is all toy story. i didn't even know they were still making toy story toys. isn't that movie like a million years old now? they had one row split for star wars & gormiti/bakugan/secret saturdays (which by the way are too expensive. they must be taking a page from the bakugan book of marketing) and one row split with gi joe and transformers. the other aisle was half toy story, half comic properties and then a small section of animal replicas. the last row was dedicated to playskool's action figure-like toys.

i did a quick scan through the marvel universe and was almost nauseous when i realized that after a week they still had all the same figs as before. why can't they ever get anything new? i was about to spit on the aisle in disgust when something below the marvel universe pegs caught my eye. SECRET WARS!!! i can't believe it. there in a heap as if the minimum wage zombie who put them there was completely oblivious to how much respect these packs deserve. i quickly rifled through the six packs they had. hmmmm... how is it that they only have sets 1 & 3. where the eff is 2? that kind of pissed me off. they had three of each. i did my usual paint app comparison and picked out the best of each. after a final judgement i decided the ones i was holding were good enough to buy. however they aren't top of the line, just above average. they were of course head and shoulders above the other packs they had. both cap/klaw packs were awful. neither one of them had actually painted the flesh color around caps eyes, so they were basically just blue with black lines to define the eyes. and klaw, well, have you ever seen someone get hit by a train and then try to paint an action figure? that's about how good he looked. shameful really. the thunderball/spidey sets weren't as bad. they mostly suffered from heavy washes. the worst of the three made it look like spidey's new symbol was just a giant black splotch in the middle of his chest. i picked the one that had a great looking thunderball and a spidey who's, if anything, under-washed. he's missing some of the lines from the web detail on his costume. i'll just fill that in with one of my micron pens. no biggie.

all in all, it could have gone worse, but it should have been better. what i don't get is how they only had secret wars 1 & 3. and not just one of each but three of each and still no set 2. i wonder if target distribution cracks open the cases and repackages them in quantities the store managers ask for. some targets you go to have almost no figures and others you go to have too many. maybe they order on apparent demand. and the store i went to just got the short end of the stick. just a theory. i think it's unlikely because that's just extra effort for something that can easily be solved by just having a clearance sale. i have a doctors appointment tomorrow for a hopefully small/uneventful procedure. i'm hoping afterward i can trick my ride/the wife into taking me to another target to check shizznit out. fingers crossed.

Edited by dankingery, 09 August 2009 - 01:24 PM.