Signature Series Sand Man!

This is kind of a "I found Something New!" and an "anniversary post" all rolled into one. One year ago today my wife and I were sitting in the middle of the Sony Pictures Lot in Los Angeles enjoying a sneak peek at all that was going to be Spider-Man 3! I just remembered that we made this trip last year at this time. The cool thing is that what ties all this together is we got to mingle with Thomas Haden Church who played Sand Man in the movie, and is pretty funny in real life. This was also the first time my wife said I totally "geeked" out when I got to shake hands with and speak briefly with Avi Arad (don't worry if you are not familiar with the name, true geeks will know and that's all that matters). She said it was a site to see, the inner Fan Boy sneak out and make an appearance. Oh well. I got to meet Avi, we made away with a cool freebie and a few months later Sony sent me a cool Spider-Man 3 Poster, but I'll always remember being able to share the experience with my wife. Okay onto the toy...

I found this during a fluke trip to Target. We actually just finished having a little break from working on the house and ended up at Target with my wife's parents. We were heading out of the store and I noticed a Sand Man in someone's basket so I told everyone I would meet them up front and immediately hoofed it back to the toy isle. There on an end cap being cleared out at five bucks was Sand Man, along with Cyclops from the X-men (which I bought at full price, doh!). I had never even seen these at full price, so I grabbed one and ran back to the front of the store.So now Spider-man has another arch villain to fight.

Compared to the other figures in the Signature Series line he is short on style, articulation, and I found some of the paint applications to be sort of disappointing. Although, he is fairly easy to stand and pose, which amazed me because of his giant sand fist. I am probably one of a very few that actually enjoy this line, and I have gone on record that I enjoyed the DC version of this line as well. I'm really sad to see this Marvel line fade out like the later mentioned DC one, without seeing Iron Man, the Thing, Doctor Doom, Hulk and others join the ranks. I understand that Mr. Fantastic and Johnny Storm have made prototype appearances on the web, so hopefully these will surface somewhere. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an Iron Man in the classic armor, that would be sweet. Oh well, maybe I can go get a clearance Cyclops and do some sewing and modifications and cobble something together. Stay tuned true believer.