Scarabus Pre-Orders tonight at 9pm ET

I know I really haven’t been covering the FANtastic Exclusive stuff nearly as much as I should be, but part of that is because the Horsemen have been doing such a good job of it on their own blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

Still, there’s a major pre-order tonight, so I thought I’d pass the info along. I’m in for the 3-pack. (more…)

Scarabus goes up for pre-order this Tuesday, March 1

The 10-pack of the long, long-awaited Scarabus figure from the Four Horsemen’s FANtastic Exclusive goes up for pre-order this Tuesday. (I own the black/white variants from the Toypocalypse event, and they’re on my long, long list of backlogged reviews.) Looks like the figures themselves will arrive in June.

Details after the jump. (more…)

Odds ‘n Ends > Procrastination

  • Man, I still have so much stuff to get through…reviews of Buzz-Off, King Grayskull, the Outer Space Men, the new NECA Alien vs. Predator 2-pack, the second Weapons Pak, a few Retro Action figures, and a few other surprises…
  • PGPoA was included in a list of the “Top 40 Doll Collecting Blogs” on the website OnlineCollege.org. Fellow blogger Newton Gimmick of Infinite Hollywood also made the list. I won’t bother with the whole “action figures aren’t dolls” thing, mostly because I’m not that self-deluded, and will just be happy with the publicity.
  • I haven’t updated about or even mentioned the big news that THQ picked up the general Mattel license. Of course, the only salient question for most of us is whether we’ll see a MOTU videogame. I say it’s unlikely except in a movie year, unless we’re talking some sort of XBLA game (perhaps a 2D fighter or a TMNT Arcade-style brawler?). But at least THQ didn’t say no outright, and I know for a fact there are some THQ employees who are MOTU fans and will push for a game.
  • You’re all following the daily updates about Scarabus from the Four Horsemen, right? Man, if they can get the QC on these things on par with Xetheus (as opposed to the various Ramathorr variants), they’ll be incredible action figures.
  • Speaking of the Horsemen, this looks interesting.
  • I watched Predators last night, and really enjoyed it. It’s incredibly faithful to the original film…perhaps a bit too much so, to be honest…but it’s fun and pretty well acted, and features the craziest and possibly best Laurence Fishburne performance in a career full of crazy performances. He’s come a long way since Cowboy Curtis…like 80 pounds long, I think. But still the movie wa–WHY THE HELL DID I COME ACROSS THIS WHEN DOING A SEARCH FOR COWBOY CURTIS IMAGES? What is WRONG with people?! The horror, the horror…(quick, connect that quote back to Laurence Fishburne!)

The Third Annual PGPoA Four Horsemen Interview

PGPoA’s anniversary was December 1, and you know what that means–another interview with the Four Horsemen!

As always, I want to thank the fabulous Foursome Horse-some for taking time out of their extremely busy schedule to answer a few questions. In case you haven’t been following it, the Horsemen have been updating their website, FourHorsemen.biz, with frequent shots of the next Fantastic Exclusive, Scarabus. He’s looking incredibly awesome, and he might just be the best FE since Xetheus! (Not a knock on the other FEs, I just love Xetheus…like, a lot.) –PG

POE: For those who may not know, what is the concept behind Symbiotech? Do the figures work together in some way, or does the “symbiotic” aspect have it more to do with the “world” behind the toys?

Eric Treadaway: Symbiotech has been an ever-transforming property story-wise since it’s inception. We originally wanted to create a world where the characters that inhabited this world could look like nearly anything you could possibly imagine, and they’d be set up in pairs that would depend on each other in many ways.

Chris Dahlberg: Then, over over a decade ago now – before we even began making prototypes of the figures, we decided that it’d be cool to not only make an awesome action figure line of this property, but to also incorporate a game into those figures.

Jim Preziosi: That’s where the “tech” part of the Symbiotech name came in. The large characters – the Goleth – would have removable armor that would connect them to the smaller characters – the Pygma – to create a symbiotic link between the two. There were also various weapons and accessories that you could attach to the armor and other weapons and accessories to prepare your characters for battle. A spinner dial connected to the armor would decide movement and battle stats during the game portion, and the armor and accessories would have various values that would allow a character to become more or less powerful during battle.

Cornboy: Since so many other action figure/game hybrids have come along since then and most have failed, we’ve decided just to approach Symbiotech from the “awesome action figure” standpoint for now. If demand is there, once it’s released, who knows, maybe the gaming aspect will make a return in some form or another. There have been LOTS of technological advances since those early days that would allow us to have a lot of fun with that now.

ET: Wait… what was your question again? Haha… (more…)

ToyFare #157 & 2011 Club Eternia/Club Ecto-1 news

The latest issue of ToyFare, #157, hit newsstands this week, and it’s chock (what’s a chock? anyway) full of news. News you didn’t already know. Or maybe you did, but I didn’t. Among the highlights:

  • The Four Horsemen’s new line is Symbiotech, which should be familiar to Fantastic Exclusive voters. Still early on in the production development, but they’re coming!
  • Fantastic Exclusives Scarabus and Raven are still coming–look for more when the Horsemen relaunch the FE website just before SDCC.
  • Mattel will be producing a 6″ Ghostbusters II 4-pack with removable Santa hats which will be available at TRU in October. That’s Toys ‘R Us, Matty haters. Relatively minor bummer: no slime throwers.
  • DCUC Wave 16 includes Jonah Hex and the Creeper, with CnC Bane. (Pics of all, plus Green Lantern Classics ’90s Kyle Rayner, included in magazine).
  • The DCUC Fan Poll candidates, the winner to be turned into a CnC figure, are: Blockbuster, Girder, King Shark, Nekron, Shaggy Man, and Wildebeest. Vote at Wizardworld.com. Nekron will win.
  • JLU is getting the Gray Ghost (might be old news?)
  • Gentle Giant is creating massive 12″ versions of the vintage Boba Fett, Stormtrooper and Walrus Man 3 ¾” figures.
  • DCD Arkham Asylum Bane is just as crazy as the videogame version.
  • There’s a full-page ad of Carnivus (no Whiplash ad, apparently), that says he carries the “Sword of Saz,” which is apparently a reference to the Filmation series–“Saz” was some sort of feline mythological hero.

Mattel also released official news on the 2011 Club Eternia subscription. It’s all-in, so those of you hoping for tiered subscriptions are out of luck, I’m afraid. The sign-up will go from 7/21 at 4 p.m. PT through 8/4 at 4 p.m. PT. The January figure, Club incentive figure, and map poster will be revealed at the Friday SDCC panel.

But wait–there’s more! Ghostbusters fans get their own subscription, Club Ecto-1. It’s $20 for six figures plus a club exclusive figure.

But to quote Geordi La Forge, don’t take my word for it–buy your copy of ToyFare #157 today! Then you get all the pretty pictures.