Odds ‘n Ends > Futuretro, Toy Fair, Matty Subs, Snout Spout/Stay Puft QC Problems, & a Plastic Granamyr

February 9, 2012 | Poe

  • Just a heads-up–for a variety of reasons, I won’t be attending Toy Fair next week like I did last year. I will, however, be offering my usual armchair coverage, and I will have someone representing PGPoA–JediN8–who will be taking photos and tweeting from the Mattel and Hasbro collector events, as well as the Fair itself.
  • I also won’t be able to attend the Four Horsemen’s now-annual show, this one called Toypocalypse II: Futuretro, on Friday night at Toy Tokyo in NYC. It’s looking to be quite an event, though. In addition to the Horsemen and Outer Space Men creator Mel Birnkrant, there are three visiting artists: Sucklord, who may already be familiar to many of you; Abdi Farah, who won the first season of Bravo’s “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” and Kymia Nawabi, the winner of the same show’s second season. As I understand it, all of them will be presenting their own Outer Space Men customs. Speaking of OSM, they will also have a set of four OSM with new paint jobs designed by OSM creator Mel Birnkrant himself, signed by Mr. Birnkrant and the Horsemen, as well as a print of the above painting by the superb Nathan Baertsch (you can get the whole shebang–figures and print–for $125). It looks like it’s going to be an awesome time, and I’m hatefully envious of everyone who gets to go.
  • Speaking of Toy Fair, Paul Nomad of the blog Idle Hands is doing his usual thing where he gets all the pre-Toy Fair scoops through whatever mysterious black magic (or maybe just blackmail?) he employs. There’s lot of interesting stuff there, so be sure to check it out.
  • Mattycollector.com has added the long-awaited subscription manager to their website, though be aware that it won’t really work yet, since–as was explained months ago–February subs can’t be combined. Be aware that (as far as I can tell) you actually shouldn’t have to take any action to combine your subs. That should happen automatically. However, if you want them separate, you have to adjust that in the settings. You can also update your credit card info for each subscription from this new section.
  • It seems that Snout Spout‘s foam trunk may have a tendency to break or tear. Of course this is unsurprising, and again, I don’t get why Mattel couldn’t just use the hard rubber from the vintage figure of twenty-five years ago.
  • In addition, it sounds like the foam giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Men are turning yellow. Mattel’s response was “Yes, totally aware of this issue and we have the CPI team looking into it. We hope to have an update soon.” This, after they just answered in December that “[a]ll of our figures, no matter what the material, go through extensive internal simulated aging and humidity testing. If product does not pass, we do not ship it.” Nonetheless, I give credit to Mattel for admitting to the problem, though I have no idea what they can do about it. Unless there’s a really easy fix for it, the only thing they could do would be to offer a refund, and I have a hard time seeing that happening.
  • Anyway, all of this QC/foam stuff led fans to create a thread on He-Man.org pleading for Granamyr to be made of plastic and not foam, to which Scott Neitlich replied that Granamyr would not be made of foam and would be made from the same plastic as Tytus and Megator. So, some good news there.
  • He-Man.org has posted the first part of an interesting interview with Nathan Bitner, the boy who invented this month’s MOTUC 30th Anniversary figure, Fearless Photog.

Toy Aisle Trolls > Total Bummer

February 7, 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.

Submitted by: J T

J T writes: “Came across this in a zellers in Toronto. At first I thought it was a new Black Manta…then I realized it was something else I can’t identify.”

Karmic Payback: May the sun and the spring breeze warm you and caress you like an apple–as you hang from a tree.

Review > Clawful (Masters of the Universe Classics)

February 2, 2012 | Poe

Clawful has always been my go-to guy for terrible Masters of the Universe names. Along with Two-Bad, nothing reminds you more that this is was a toy line aimed squarely at young children than a name like Clawful.

I never owned Clawful as a kid, or even knew anyone who did. The character could have been pretty cool but for one glaring problem: a ridiculous, cartoonish head. (more…)

Ask Mattel > Final Edition

February 1, 2012 | Poe

Here’s PGPoA’s final (for now) edition of Ask Mattel.

Barbecue17 asks: What does Mattel consider a legitimate QC issue that would warrant figures to be delayed or exchanged in mass? For some figures who customers have perceived as having problems, these have been responses from some Mattel reps: “Mossman is not a bath toy.” “It’s not a big deal! Reviewers didn’t notice the backward shoulders.” “The figure is not defective, it just is not working as perfect as we will like.” Recently, we have seen widespread QC problems with Swiftwind’s legs. How defective or “not working as perfect as we would like” would a figure have to be for Mattel to take action on a QC issue? Missing limbs?

We don’t have a specific rule for this but we do replace any defective product so if a figure is assembled incorrect you can return it for a corrected item.

Mysterious Stranger asks: What is the future of the “Action League” line? I’ve been collecting all the Green Lantern related characters and am only missing Kyle Rayner. What are the odds of him being released? (more…)

MOTUC Bio Discussion #45 > The Faceless One

February 1, 2012 | Poe

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

The Faceless One Bio

Real Name: Nikolas Powers

As the ruler of Zalesia, Nikolas Powers was entrusted by King Grayskull to guard the city’s great magical objects – the Havoc Staff and the mystical Ram Stone. Powers was a core member of Grayskull’s Council Of Elders, great mages from across Eternia who had the wisdom to tap into the planet’s hidden magical secrets. But by marrying and having a daughter, he broke the Elder’s treaty with King Hssss to not produce any heirs. Powers was stripped of his humanity, condemned to never leave Zalesia and forced to watch his beloved city destroyed by Serpos. Now called “The Faceless One,” he asked the wizard-warrior He-Ro to use the power of Central Tower to send his daughter Evelyn into the future. There, with his immortality, he hoped to raise her away from the terror of the Great Wars.

In this one biographical sketch, we get far, far more than we ever got about the character from the cartoon. In fact, it strips him entirely of his mystery, even giving him a first and last name (“Nikolas” is most likely a reference to Nicolas Flamel, reputed researcher of the Philosopher’s stone who became much better known thanks to Harry Potter–the Philosopher’s Stone being analogous to the Ram Stone).

I find this bio more interesting for what it leaves out. We were at one point promised an origin for the Havoc Staff–a mystery I wouldn’t mind being explained–but this isn’t it; the Havoc Staff and Ram Stone evidently predate the Faceless One. All the stuff about King Hsss and Powers being a member of the Council of Elders comes from the third volume of the MV Creations Millennium-era comics (which, sadly, I’ve never read, and have never been collected).

Ultimately this bio doesn’t make me any more excited for what was possibly my least favorite MOTUC figure of 2011. I really wish he’d been somehow involved in the creation of the Havoc Staff–it would have added a lot of value to the character for me.

Review > Panthor (Masters of the Universe Classics)

February 1, 2012 | Poe

Continuing my effort to catch up on the MOTUC reviews…

Mattel was nothing if not thrifty with the original Masters of the Universe line in the 1980s. The mold for Battle Cat was borrowed from a Big Jim playset from the 1970s, and Panthor was obviously a repainted, flocked Battle Cat. Mattel is just as concerned with saving money through mold re-use with Masters of the Universe Classics today as they were in the 1980s (if not more so), so there’s not a whole lot to say about Panthor that I didn’t say about Battle Cat. (more…)

Interesting Tidbit About Those Mattycollector Sub Cancellations

February 1, 2012 | Poe

I came across this on the He-Man.org forums (courtesy user “Neil”) and thought it was worth passing along to any of you who may be having (or will have) problems with your credit card authorizations on Mattycollector:

If you are a subscriber, it’s not enough just to change your credit card details. If you do that, it only works for all subsequent transactions. Previous purchases (like your subscriptions) are still tied to your old credit card number. In order to solve that you have to go into your Order History, find the order number for your subscription (probably the one “in progress”) and change the credit card details in there as well. It’ll show you the last four digits of your old card number and you can click on that to make the change.

Now I didn’t realise this until after DR had cancelled my 2011 and 2012 Club Eternia subscriptions. They kept telling me to change my credit card details, and I kept telling them that I had done so…. not realising that I hadn’t changed them in the one place they were looking. Now, it’s utterly their fault for having such a rubbish and non-intuitive system… but I’d rather play their game then have to get them to correct mistakes.

That’s a pretty useful piece of information that I haven’t seen Mattel or Digital River publicize anywhere.

No Questions for Mattel

January 31, 2012 | Poe

Though I know it will cost me some traffic, I’ve decided to stop submitting questions to Mattel for the time being.

There are a few reasons for this, but the two main ones are:

1.) Too frequently, the answers are evasive or unsubstantial. (Besides, many times the same questions get asked by other sites anyway.)

2.) And yes, it’s a little bit because I was miffed by this. If that makes me seem petty, so be it. But at some point you’re done baling and you’ve reached the last straw, y’know?

That’s not to say that something could change–I’m more than willing to listen to some positive outreach from Mattel. But for now, I’m going to focus on getting more interviews with other industry players, like the upcoming pieces I have with the folks behind Battlegrip and October Toys.

If you have questions you really want to ask Mattel, there are many, many other sites that do the Q&As (and more every month).

Review > King Grayskull (Reissue) (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)

January 31, 2012 | Poe

The second version of King Grayskull was released on November 15, 2010, making this easily my most-delayed review of a MOTUC figure. I didn’t even get around to opening him until I started this review. That’s mostly because I prefer the original King Grayskull (my review) and I wasn’t I even wanted to keep this version (but ultimately, being a completist–aside from the DC vs. MOTU sets–I have).

With the upcoming Temple of Darkness Sorceress convention exclusive with the pedestal for the Orb of Sparkle Crest, I decided it was time to open up ol’ D’Vann. (more…)