Mars Attacks Review Addendum: The State of Mezco

November 6, 2012 | Poe

Poe’s Note: I wrote this as a preamble to my Mars Attacks Martian Commander review before deciding it was a bit too off-topic.  Still, I hate to throw away content, so feel free to read and discuss.

It’s been a long time since I bought a Mezco figure. Mezco was arguably my favorite toy company from 2004-2006, when they were producing their amazing Hellboy movie and comic lines, as well as their line based on The Goon. But shortly after the Hellboy comic line ended with one last figure (the Abe Sapien exclusive), Mezco embarked upon a run of toy lines based on properties that were mediocre-to-flops: Heroes, The Spirit, The Wolf Man, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,* The Green Hornet – for a brief time you could almost predict the failure of a movie at the box office by whether Mezco had the license. Even Mezco’s figures for Hellboy: The Golden Army were of pretty bad quality, both in the plastic used (trenchcoats that look and felt like individually-wrapped cheese slices) or construction (skirted figures with no legs, i.e. salt-shakers).

To make matters worse, for many of these lines Mezco decided to move backward from the rest of the industry** and incorporate less articulation than they did for Hellboy or the Goon (though this was most likely due to the higher cost of licenses).

But Mezco seems to be getting back on track. With the mega-popular Living Dead Dolls keeping the toy company going, they’ve started branching out to things like the mini-urban vinyl DC Mez-Itz (which I’m not that fond of, but seem to be popular) and their large–scale ThunderCats figures. We’re also starting to see the return of some six-inch scale figures based niche-but-cool licenses and including decent articulation. One example is Earthworm Jim, who had great upper-body articulation though he lacked any leg articulation. And now, Jim is followed by the Martian Commander from Mars Attacks.

* To be fair, the Scott Pilgrim figures were based on the comic (though clearly timed to coincide with the film’s release), and were reportedly pretty cool figures.

**Except McFarlane

Sightings > Disney in talks to buy Hasbro?

November 6, 2012 | Poe

Here’s some new grist for the rumor mill, courtesy MTV Geek: Disney may be in talks to buy Hasbro, thereby picking up some big brands like G.I. Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony.

It’s just a rumor at this point, but does anyone else think – if this turns out to be at all true – that it’s all happening a little too fast? First Disney buys Marvel, then Lucasfilm, and now Hasbro? The crossover fan in me (and I’m a big crossover fan – it’s my weakness) is imagining all sorts of cool possibilities, but as someone who’s skeptical that giant corporations are a good thing for the world in general, the idea of one company owning so many different geek properties is vaguely troubling to me. What do you think? Would this be a good or bad thing?

Review > Martian Commander (Mars Attacks, Mezco)

November 5, 2012 | Poe

My fondness for Mars Attacks is a bit random. I never owned any of the cards as a kid, and my interest in the franchise came about solely due to the hype around Tim Burton film – which, it turned out, I hated. I’m not going to get into whether it’s actually a bad film or not – for all I know it’s got some sort of cult following now – but when I saw it, I strongly disliked the goofy, humor-based approach Burton took. From the cards and comics I got the impression Mars Attacks was all about over-the-top gore, black humor (not just dark, but black like a charred heart in a smoldering fire), sadism, and military-style action.

Burton’s film had goofy gore, dark but not black humor, and silly action. He made a film that was a homage to the science fiction B-movies of the 1950s. But the 1962 Mars Attacks card set was all about taking the the clichés of those films – aliens shooting ray guns at humans, giant insects, attempted interspecies rape – to a realistic extreme that is merely suggested in the films themselves. (more…)

DASH – The Value of a Membership

November 2, 2012 | Poe

New PGPoA sponsor DASH sends along the following update. –PG

The Value of a DASH Membership

If you still don’t see the value of a membership on Collector-ActionFigures, then we’ve got a lot to show you. You might think DASH is just about our giveaways, since we’re giving away Sideshow Collectibles Snake Eyes and Transformers Masterpiece Thundercracker prizes totaling in value at over $250 right now. Those contests are a great reason to Like DASH on Facebook, sign up for a free membership, and become a part of the DASH Collector’s Club, but they’re far from the only reason to join DASH today.

One of the real values in a DASH membership are the values themselves. The Catalog features more than 40,000 figures with associated loose and packaged values. Not only does this help buyers and sellers find the exact right price for their items, it also gives collectors and in-depth look at their collection and what it’s worth. If you’re looking to see precisely what you have and get an idea what your efforts have been worth, than a DASH collection report is the only way to do it.

This sample collection report shows a user with 870 items valued at more than $15,000.

The only way to get this kind of detailed collection report is with an upgraded membership on Collector-ActionFigures. Join the DASH Collector’s Club and finally take your first good long look at your collection.

Toy Aisle Trolls > H.E.R.B.I.E. Goes Bananas

November 2, 2012 | 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@poeghostal.com.

Poe’s Note: …and by “goes bananas” I mean, “somehow gains Franklin Richards’ reality-altering abilities in order to remake the Fantastic Four with his preferred line-up and constumes.” —PG

Submitted by: TS