The Semi-annual big ol’ look at Marvel toys

HUMBLE BRAG: PAX East is in a few days, which means next week I’ll have a fun little write up about the show next week. Insert your jealousy/rage/apathy/excitement here.

Happy St. Paddy’s day FPNYC Faithful! I thought about doing a special themed article tied into the holiday, but doing an all-green or all-Irish toy list would be lame, and writing up posts drunk is genuinely frowned upon. So instead the theme I’m going with will be “Oh man, lookit new Marvel toys”, a topic I am certainly super-familiar with.

We’ll start with taking a look at a pair of newish Non-Hasbro made Marvel figures! NCA is producing a line of 1/4th scale Avenger figures and is starting off with Captain America himself. It has the best likeness to Chris Evans to date (excluding the Hot Toys stuff) and stands at a whopping 18″. Articulation wise we’re looking at about 25-30 points overall. and when it comes to accessories, you get a pair of alternate hands and Cap’s iconic shield with functional straps. Not bad for about $90, but I wish the shade of blue they went with was a little darker.

And if you want something a little more high end, the Hot Toys Black Widow figure is currently in stock. Hot Toys could have been lazy and just reused their Iron Man 2 Widow, but no, the figure is all-new and rocks a super-eerie likeness to ScarJo herself. It’s actually a far superior figure overall when compared to her IM2 counterpart, and may be one of the BEST female Hot Toy releases to date. This amazing figure comes with a stand with her name on it, a Chitauri weapon, extra hands, 2 pistols, and alternate “Widow Bite” fists/gauntlets. It will set you back about $200, but these are Hot Toys. You pay for what you get.

The Marvel Universe line comes out swinging in 2013, with not only a new wave, but with 2 new 3-packs as well. The first MU wave has a few re-releases (Golden Age Cap, the Hulk in both classic and World War Hulk flavors, Beast and Ultimate Spidey), but makes up for it with some really obscure characters. There’s classic Angel (with a red and white variant), Nova (the Rich Rider Nova-Prime version), Nighthawk, the 80s version of Hercules (with a mace!) and Puck (with Snowbird in bird form). I’m a big fan of the Nova figure myself, but for a wave consisting mostly of B and C-listers, this is a solid set. For the “Greatest Team” 3-packs there’s 2 classic team being represented. The West Coast Avengers set comes with classic Hawkeye (a retooled Dark Avenger Hawkeye if I’m not mistaken) his then-wife, now ex, Mockingbird and War Machine ( a repaint from the IM2 comic line). The other team is the late 80s/early 90s X-men with brown and yellow Wolverine ( I think a reworked Dark Wolverine or one from that Cap/Logan two pace from a few years back, but  I could be wrong), Art Adams-era Longshot, classic Jim Lee era Rogue and X-baby Cyclops. Considering it’s 3 figures for a price that’s cheaper than buying them separately, it’s quite a deal.

Look at that, we’ve ran out of time and we didn’t even get a chance to even look at all the new Iron Man 3 stuffs! It’s like I planned it out this way for a future article or something…. (hehehe I r smart!).