Poe’s Point > Did Storage Wars Stage a Big Action Figure Find?

May 22, 2012 | Poe

Dr. Mrs. Ghostal and I got into the A&E show Storage Wars a few weeks ago. I’ve never been one for these reality shows – I’ve never watched Antiques Roadshow or Pawn Stars or American Pickers and hell, even that one Toy Hunters episode has been sitting on my DVR, unwatched, since January or whenever it aired. But after a comment from Power Pal Ben Leach, I decided to watch a few eps of SW and got hooked.

Of course, like many such shows, you can find no shortage of Internet commentary claiming it’s entirely staged – particularly an episode in which some buyers, Jarrod and his wife Brandi, discover an extremely valuable cache of vintage Mego Super Heroes. There’s a thread about it at the Mego Museum and the consensus is that it was entirely staged; one fellow claims to know the collector who “donated” the figures to the show. (more…)

Avengers: Hulk vs. Hulk

May 7, 2012 | Poe

So, like most of you I saw The Avengers this weekend. It was a very entertaining film, and a lesson for Michael Bay on how to make a blockbuster movie that’s fun and not a three-hour cinematic waterboarding.

Anyway, I came away loving the film’s take on the Hulk, which made me wonder which action figure to get. Since I don’t collect the 3.75″  or 12″ scales, I have two options: the Marvel Select Hulk, and the upcoming Walmart-exclusive 6″ Hasbro Hulk.

Marvel Select HulkHasbro Hulk

They both have their merits. The Marvel Select figure is larger, has more detail, and will doubtless be easier to obtain. On the other hand, the Hasbro Hulk (which is in 6″ scale, so I believe it stands around 7″-8″) is more articulated and cheaper – if I can find it.

How popular is the Marvel Select stuff among you Marvel collectors? Articulation-wise they’ve been moving closer and closer to Hasbro, but they still put greater emphasis on the sculpting.

Which Hulk will you get?

The Avengers Starring Marvel Legends

April 23, 2012 | Poe

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1aXoemMSFc&w=500&h=284]

This redo of the Avengers trailer starring Marvel Legends figures is making the rounds today, so I thought I’d share it here.

The figure choices are obviously a bit dated – as if the filmmaker or one of his friends had picked up some of the really early Marvel Legends, stopped collecting, then dusted them off when they got the idea for this project. (Damn, that Schwarzeneggerian Thor looks laughable now, doesn’t he?) Assuming the idea was to use comic-based figures and not the actual 6″ movie figures, I would have used:

They had the right Loki, though, and as far as I know there’s not a better Bruce Banner out there. And the recent Extremis Iron Man shows up near the end of the trailer. Using Fin Fang Foom at the end was cute.

To be clear, I’m not dissing the video – it’s still an amazing piece of work – I just kept thinking about how old those figures looked. If you’re going to put that much effort into the production, why not spend a couple hundred bucks on better figures? I don’t know though, maybe the figures I listed are really expensive these days on the aftermarket.

Thanks to Topless Robot for the heads-up.