Toy Aisle Trolls is a feature highlighting acts of vandalism to in-store toy items. If you find a ruined package, a stolen figure, a swapped-out figure, or any other such acts, take a photo (cell phone photos are fine if they’re not blurry) and email them to poe AT poeghostal.com. Also, please note: I’m deliberately being over-the-top with my condemnation of these people–I don’t actually wish bodily harm upon them. Just severe mental anguish.

Poester FM sends along this gem.

The figure that is actually in the package is from Toybiz’s ill-fated “Super Hero Show Down” line– an attempt in 2004 by the then-current manufacturer of the Marvel figures to dip into the 3.75″ market. The figures were almost “snap kit” in quality with simply ball sockets for joints made of light weight plastic. They were touted as “poseable game pieces” for a figure-based game that utterly failed to take off. (Some retailers such as SmallJoes.com still have them in stock at clearance prices.) The line wasn’t widely embraced by retailers and eventually ended up at close-out prices at stores such as Big Lots. The figures were prone to loose joints, breakage, and frequently had shoddy paint apps.

What was replaced was the new Iron Man movie “comic series” classic Iron Man figure– part of Hasbro’s current Iron Man 2 line of figures. He’s remarkably sturdy, poseable, and appropriate bulky– things that the SHS figure was not.

Intended figure
Replaced figure

Someone took an old most-likely clearanced figure from their collection and “upgraded” him with a better more recent classic Iron Man, returning the craptacular SHS version in the process.

Karmic Payback: Every time he hears a single bar from Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” he pisses his pants and forgets who he is for a while.