Toy Fair 2011 > Thundercats (Bandai)

February 17, 2011 | Poe

DSCF0383

(You can peruse my Thundercats gallery here.)

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of being given a tour of Bandai’s showroom, which included their much-anticipated Thundercats product line. My tour was conducted by Katie O’Neill of Weber Shandwick, although Bandai marketing director Brehan Maul was the one who personally guided me through their Thundercats world. (more…)

MOTUC Bio Discussion #37 > King Hssss

February 17, 2011 | Poe

Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!

King Hssss Bio

Real Name: Hssss of the Viper House

A servant of the Unnamed One, Hssss was chosen to lead an army of Snake Men to the planet of Eternia to plunder its magical secrets. He ruled Eternia for three centuries until a rebellion formed under D’vann Grayskull. Soon afterwards, the Horde invaded and Hssss was drawn into a three-way war. All three sides agreed to a temporary truce in order to construct the Three Towers, but Hssss was betrayed by Hordak and in time was banished to the Void by the Elders and Zodak. For five thousand years he and his army waited until Evil-Lyn and a Snake Men descendant named Kobra Kahn opened the Snake Pit to free them. King Hssss often tricks foes by appearing heroic but then transforms into a seething mass of serpents and leads the Snake Men into battle!

Portrait art source: Original card art

(more…)

Toy Aisle Trolls > Tony’s Latest Suit Kind of Sucks

February 17, 2011 | Poe

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.

Nerdbot sends in this fine example of human behavior.

Writes Nerdbot:

I found this gem at a Toys R Us in Queens, New York. It was, as you can see, a Marvel Legends two-pack that was supposed to contain the stealth Iron Man. In its place is… well, I have no idea. Maybe a bootleg Iron Man? Or knock-off Power Ranger? For all I know it could be a cool Japanese import. (With some of the strange swaps we’ve seen lately, anything is possible.) I like that the troll inserted the mystery figure’s throwing star accessories, too. A real mensch.

I shudder to think I may have been within a few miles of this travesty this weekend. What the hell is that thing?

Note the bastard swiped the alternate Tony Stark and Sharon Carter heads, too–it seems all he was willing to leave was Sharon herself. And consider this: slime molds are better practitioners of a moral existence than this petty thief.

Masters of Destruction

February 16, 2011 | Poe

Today’s Teefury shirt is so awesome, my head bulged momentarily from near-explosion. While I go see a doctor about that, you order this. It’ll be gone in thirteen hours, so order soon!

Review > King Hssss (Masters of the Universe Classics)

February 16, 2011 | Poe

I’m fairly certain King Hssss (then known as harder-to-trademark King Hiss) was the last Masters of the Universe action figure I owned as a child. I have a distinct memory of playing with him at my family’s first house, which we moved to a year or so after I’d mostly lost interest in MOTU. Somehow, King Hiss had an appeal beyond being part of the MOTU universe; I think it was the sheer awesomeness of the three-snake inner body. I was also quite fond of the green color scheme and the generally reptilian looks.

I know this is blasphemy to some, but I was never all that fond of the 200X King Hiss. From a design standpoint, they turned him into the standard D&D mummy-lich creature, a tenth-generation photocopy of Xaltotun from Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon (200X Hiss also has quite a bit of Mumm-Ra in there, though obviously Mumm-Ra has quite a bit of Xaltotun as well). As the brief comic strip on the original card art shows, the play pattern of the original King Hiss figure was that he was an evil snake-creature masquerading as a heroic-looking character (note the similarity of his mask to another famous master of disguise). Even the first minicomic to feature King Hiss played on this idea, and his packaging referred to him as the “dreadful disguised leader of the Snake Men.” 200X King Hiss, though? You see him coming, you reach for your sword hilt.

Again, I know many of you are going to disagree with me on this, but I actually prefer this look for Hiss. Er, Hssss. (more…)

Toy Fair Day 2 > Masters of the Universe Classics

February 15, 2011 | Poe

DSCF0248

First off, just so you all know, I only went to Toy Fair for Saturday and Sunday. But I’ve got plenty to write up about–so much that I’ve decided to break it down. I’m going to discuss a few topics, like MOTUC, in its own post; others, like NECA’s licenses, I’ll group into one post.

First up, we have Masters of the Universe Classics (you can see my pics gallery here). Previously unannounced/unrevealed figures:

Before we go any further, be sure to vote on the Man-E-Faces color issue (this is an official vote by Mattel). What’s all this then, you say? Well, the original Man-E-Faces figure had a blue-and-orange color scheme. But anecdotal evidence, such as the vintage packaging art, suggests the orange parts were actually supposed to be flesh-colored. The figure on display at Toy Fair had a sort of in-between coloring–orange-ish pink–and I thought it was a great compromise, so I voted for that. But you should vote as you think best. (more…)

Bastards of the Universe > “‘Toy Fair Week’ is not a federal holiday, sadly”

February 15, 2011 | googum


While I’m looking forward to this year’s Toy Fair coverage, I’m really curious what’s going to jump out and grab me. The deluxe Thundercats figures looked good to me, while I’m not as excited for the 3 3/4″ lines like Thor and Captain America. (They look nice, I’m just trying to get out of that scale!) I’m hoping to see new Marvel Legends and DCUC, and maybe a line or two to come out of nowhere. I guess we’ll see…!