Marvelous Mondays! Finally a Mego Hulk Edition!!!

"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrgh Hulk loves his puprle pants!"

I can finally say that after years, since at least 1996, my search for a Mego Hulk has come to an end. Hulk has never really been a strong character for me, sort of love hate, but I have always wanted a Mego Hulk.

He is, to me, the quintessential Hulk. I think it was over the years of reading Toy Fare and their Twisted Mego Theater and later Twisted Toy Theater that I built this Hulk up in my mind as being the coolest Hulk ever. He still is. Check him out!

Hulk looks across the kitchen and spies the pantry.

"Hulk say, quick queue the sad, walking away music!"

"Oh, too sad... that Blind Side movie choke Hulk up..."

"Hey, Hulk have Marvel Buddies at new house. Hulk thinks he might like it here!"

I think I might be done for now with my Marvel Mego Team, of course a sweet Captain America and Falcon would always be welcome, who knows...

Hope you enjoyed this Marvelous Monday as much as I have, now Hulk and I are of to raid the pantry. "HULK NEED COOKIES!"

Excelsior!

Marvelous Mondays! THE BEST FREAKING THOR THERE IS!

I may still be a little overly excited about finding this figure. This is Thor as he appears in the story where he returns from Ragnarök. I have seen this figure on other sites and blogs, but have failed to find him in the wild. Then lo and behold as I wandered down the "small doll aisle" (that's what it's labeled at the store, my wife gets a kick out that everytime) of the Magic Grocery Store I spied some new Marvel Universe Figures and Forsooth! Thor, the Mighty God of Thunder did appear!

I owe you way better pictures, a little of a hurry this morning, sorry : )

Okay, blah blah blah that's how I found him, what's more important is how cool this figure is. When I returned to the house and freed Thor from his plastic prison I was amazed at the overall feel and look of this figure, this may very well be one of the best Marvel Universe figures, no wait, the best action figures ever! I don't say this lightly, there are very few figures that I think are just plain awesome and could even be considered for this lofty position. I mean, I have to open up a figure and just be blown away. Some of my past favorites that hold this position in my collection are Space Ghost, VOTC Stormtrooper and BTAS Combat Belt Batman. He for sure is better than this one!

I say if you are a Thor fan and you see this guy, pick him up! He is awesome!

Excelsior

Marvelous Mondays! The Almost Forgot Edition!

The only thing that sucks about vacation is that it has to end, talk about having your work waiting for you when you return. I was so busy playing catch up I almost forgot my Marvelous Monday Post.

Here's a quick post (and photo) of a recent find. By recent I mean yesterday, so recent I haven't had a chance to set him free from his plastic prison. Okay, so, I was just talking to a friend about when you are on vacation and away from toy stores it doesn't seem like a big deal, then you return and find yourself in a store and its like all the cool stuff came out while you were away.



Now, I actually had seen this one in a Toys R Us a few weeks ago and passed because someone had ripped open the package and removed his foot. What they were going to do with his foot is beyond me, apparently they needed it really bad. Maybe it had two wrong feet like my Green Arrow.

I'm not too familiar with the Extremis story arc, but that is cool because hasbro was thoughtful enough to include a little write up on the back of the package, long story short Tony Stark has little nano-bots in him now that link him to his armor making him virtually invincible. Like all superheroes I guess, the invincible part not the nano-bots. I like that these are starting to come with stands, sort of like the GI Joes.

Still it was cool to see a few of these hanging on the pegs of the Magic Grocery Store, and on the back there are a few others I need to find. I think in this series the Arch Angel and Thor Reborn are supposed to be shipping, two I have to find. Plus the Vintage Looking Cap and Bucky (with a rather un-vintage looking M-16) look like they could be cool.

Well, that's it for this Marvelous Monday, excelsior and all that! Tune back in later in the week for some more of Gonk's Travel Photos and a Spockcation Update!

Marvelous Mondays! Planet Hulk Smash! Edition

The Part of Gladiator Hulk will be played my my Little Hulkie.

This Marvel Monday I thought I would feature a little current reading, Planet Hulk. This is how far I am on reading comics. Actually this trade paperback was a Birthday Gift from my son this past Birthday. See, I recently saw that the animated Planet Hulk movie was at the ole' Red Box for rental, for a buck plus tax how could you go wrong, so I picked it up one evening for a Hulk viewing.

If you have followed this blog for some time you may or may not know I'm not the Hulk's biggest fan. He is probably one of my least favorite of the Marvel big guns, but on occasion I enjoy a good Hulk story or a nice Hulk toy. I think I can identify with this character more than any other in the Marvel Universe, kinda funny.

My son had recently told me about the planet Hulk story line, I rented the movie (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and made a comment during the second viewing of the movie before it had to be returned that it might be fun to read the complete story and see where they changed stuff. For instance, and a minor spoiler, the part of the Silver Savage (Silver Surfer) is played by Beta Ray Bill. Still it's a fun little surprise and doesn't affect the story in my opinion. Though makes me wish I would have picked up that Silver Savage when I saw him on the pegs that one time.

Hulk get his read on!

Anyway, my son picked up on that comment and being a lover of all kinds of books picked me up the Trade Paper back. Way to go! I'm about half way through it, I'm more of a casual reader, but so far it's an awesome read. Makes me want to pick up the movie and watch some more and maybe hunt down a Gladiator Hulk and Silver Savage. So watch it or read it, this is one Hulk story that I think is tops.

Excelsior

Marvelous Mondays! Origins Edition 1!

So, I have been cleaning up my home office, trying to get it all sorted and organized and I came across some Marvel Trading Cards from 1992. I think these are from the Third Series of cards. I know I have a complete set of Series One, Possibly Series Two, but I had no idea I had any of these. Anyway, today I thought I would throw up the Big Guns, or at least the ones I think are the Big Guns of the Marvel Universe. I even scanned the backs larger so you could read them, so enjoy.



As a kid I loved this character, as an adult I still have a soft spot for this classic. I had a Mego Captain America and I used to throw his little sheild and try to knock over the bad guys, who were usually played by a GI Joe and my friends Mego Penguin figure.





Iron Man, you know the only thing I knew about Iron Man as a kid is that I wanted his Mego Action Figure soooooo bad, it just looked awesome, you know I don't ever remember seeing one in a store and my parents must have not seen him either because I had to buy my own years latter.





Spider-Man, I have an on again off again relationship with Spider-Man, as a kid I liked him, had the Mego Toy and read his comics. As an adult I like him for the most part, have his Mego Toy and every once in awhile I read his comics. Now, my nephew loves, or should I say LOVES, Spider-Man. When we go out to dinner with him and the family the first thing I get assigned to do is draw a Spider-Man on the back of the children's menu. I can't wait to see when he grows up if he still loves the character as much as he does now.

Well, thanks for tuning in for another Marvelous Monday! True Believers, see you next time!

Excelsior!

Marvelous Mondays! Surf's Up Edition!

I opened it up, yep, I tore open the package of the Fantastic Four Movie:Rise of the Silver Surfer, Silver Surfer action figure here and emptied it of it's contents and just tossed the rest. I didn't even get an extra to keep in the package. Earlier in my collecting career I would have just passed out if I heard something like that, now, meh, not so much. Granted if I can afford an extra and it's something I really want to have a packaged version of I might grab an extra, but lately I'm of the mind that these things need to breath, be posed and played with and appreciated.



So what does all that have to do with Marvelous Mondays and Silver Surfer? Nothing really I just loves me some Silver Surfer, go out and enjoy some toys today.


What you're still here? Okay, check out that board. I mean look at it, it looks like it came straight from a cover of a Silver Surfer comic. Like it's in perspective permanently. I really like it though, kind of fun to fly around while waiting for those crazy big photoshop files to save. You know digging this guy out of a tote has put me in a Silver Surfer kinda mood, I should do a grouping of Silver Surfers in the office...

Excelsior!

Marvelous Monday! Old PEZ Head Edition!

Get it? Iron Man is "Old Shell Head", but since he's on a PEZ I called him... Oh never mind. Back in December 2009 we were finishing up our Christmas shopping at a World Market, we like the candy selection for stocking stuffers. We had decided we would look for some little candies for our Nephew since the whole family was getting together for a Christmas Eve party and he might like to have some little things to play with and snack on.

I had spied a Spider-Man PEZ, a newer one than either of the ones I had and new he loved Spider-Man so that was my contribution to the haul, I had thought about picking up one for myself when I noticed one that had a familiar yellow and red look to it.

Freaking Iron Man! I'm getting old because I had no clue this was being made. I mean I'm not a full blown PEZ Head, but I do tend to check them out when I'm in stores and the geek community usually keeps me up on this sort of thing.

Now I used to have a pretty good size PEZ collection, but ended up selling off the ones I really didn't care for. I kept my first Star Wars, my Marvels and the DC Characters that I had found, a few other round out the smaller collection now. But Iron Man, oh he was coming home with me.



I had ate the candy, even though it's not the best and set Iron Man on top of the bookshelf to watch over my other toys and he must have gotten knocked over, because it wasn't until I was dusting that I found him on his side and realized he hadn't made a blog appearance. Even though this is a more modern mask, I'm really digging the classic yellow and red colors. I wonder if they will make a more gold and red to match the movie for Iron Man 2?

Hope you enjoyed this Marverlous Monday! I leave you with this question. What PEZ would you like to see be made? Anything, the sky's the limit!

Marvelous Monday! Friendly Neighborhood Edition

I'm really liking this Marvel monday thing, I usually feel like I do not have enough of a certain subject on the blog and with scheduling Marvel stuff on Mondays it really takes some of the pressure off of making sure I have enough stuff of any one subject posted.

This Marvelous Monday is some left over shots from Toy Biz's first Spider-Man figure, ala 1990. I originally shot these for Reis at Geek Orthodox to use at his About.com gig and thought eventually I would find a home for them here on Eclectorama.

I have heard numerous times how people loath these Toy Biz figures. I agree they are not the best of figures, but at the time these things were a sight for sore eyes in my book. I remember seeing these in store for the first time and made away with the Silver Surfer, Captain America and this Spider-Man. These figures along with the first series of X-Men figures were probably my gateway into collecting action figures outright. I really started with Ninja Turtles, but these opened up whole new doors for me in the Marvel Universe.

I also want to address the issue of playability while talking about this line. See while I was buying these to collect, I was also picking these up for my son to play with. I had already bought a ton of Batman and DC related Heroes for him to throw around, so seeing these Marvels in stores I new it was time to have a Batman / Captain America team up against the Green Goblin and the Joker. See kids do not care about how well these were sculpted as long as they didn't break and we went through very few of these. I think we ended up breaking a Iron Man and a Spider-Man, that was it. Also this felt so much like the old days of Mego to me with DC and Marvels mixing it up. Also what a great way to explain the different Universes to a young one. So, I have a soft spot for these figures and as fugly as they may be will always love them.

Spider-Man at first wasn't all that much my favorite because of the suction cup gimmick, but it did grow on me. Spidey was great for taking along for rides in the car as he would cling onto the windshield. He could be found climbing up the bathroom mirror or raiding the ice box. I am sort of glad now that Toy Biz lead with this feature, I think if they had started with just a normal figure we would have never seen this done. Plus it did in a way make you wish for more Spider-Man without the suction cups. Again, kids didn't care one way or the other.

I also was digging the subscription coupon on the back of the card. I actually filled a couple of these out. My son and I loved getting the latest Captain America in the mail, it was always a fun time reading the latest issue and having battles with the figures. I think I like this mail away better than just a comic pack in. 

Marvelous Monday! Wolverine

Welcome to Marvelous Mondays! The What's Up Bub? Edition.

When it comes to Wolverine I run hot and cold, I loves me some brown costume Wolvie and I likes me some of the Blue and Gold costume, on the fence about the civilian clothes version, the leather was okay and meh about any of the others, if there are any left.



So with that I give you another 3-3/4 Hasbro toy. But look it's really not from the Marvel Universe line it's from the Wolverine Movie tie in line, this was the comic branch of that line. What I think is really weird on this toy is that they added ball joints to his hip articulation, but I have yet to see this in the Marvel Universe line, if they did add it I missed it. I really don't know if I like the added feature or not. Sometimes I like it simple, then sometimes I think wouldn't it be cool if Wolverine could do yoga.



This figure came with a red samurai sword and again I was like, meh who cares and it went into my bag of accessories I really don't care much about. I'm sure there is a reason he has a sword and a red one at that, but he's freaking Wolverine! He has claws to take care of his business, and brother business is good!

You know since we are on the topic of Wolverine, I liked the last Wolverine movie. It was what it was for me, an entertaining, rainy Saturday sort of movie. Was it the best of the X-Men series? No not really. Did it have some story issues and plot holes? Yes quite a few. But, I liked it enough that I would watch it again sometime. Then again I dug the Dare Devil movie, even with Ben Afflec.

Marvelous Mondays!

Welcome to Marvelous Mondays! I'm sure this has probably been done before somewhere, but it's a first for me so there you go. Every Monday, unless the weekend was too busy, I will try and post something Marvel from my collection wether it be toy, comic, book, collectable, ad, etc.

What will you see? Well, glad you asked. As you can tell I have no real focus in my collecting habits. Some people only collect a certain character or pop culture property. I'm all over the place. When it comes to Marvel here's a list of characters I like in order of favorite to least favorite:

Number 1: Silver Surfer, Captain America, Iron Man, The Thing, Spider-Man, Hulk

Number 2: All the rest

Short list huh? Needless to say I never really completed one line of toys or story arc in comics, I just floated around the marvel Universe like the Watcher. I only hope I have enough Marvel stuff to keep this going for a while, cause I only plan on maybe adding two more pieces to my toy part of the collection. Well, I hope you enjoy!

Ole Shell Head

Today's Marvelous Monday entry is from the Hasbro Marvel Universe 3-3/4 line of toys. None other that the comic version of the modern armor Iron Man. You know I really cannot tell you if it's the comic version or some armor that they just made up because like Batman in the DC Universe, Iron Man has so many versions of his armor. I really dug the look of this armor so I picked it up. Sometimes I think I'm going to collect nothing but Iron Man toys and then I take a look at some of his armor and forget about it. I generally like the classic version of his armor, but again this looked sort of cool, and it was new and at 3-3/4 scale.

Marvelous Detail!

This was released early last year when Hasbro debuted the Marvel Universe line at this scale. Finally an Iron Man to help out the GI Joes in their fight against Cobra! My only complaint, and I may sound old here, is the price. When these first hit the were in the 8 to 9 dollar range. I remember when larger toys cost less or about the same, so I was sure not to collect them all. They are not too heavy on accessories either. Iron Man came with an energy blast (not pictured), basically a transparent piece you snap onto his arm so it looks like he's using his repulser ray and some little paper file card. As you can see both were tossed aside.

"Fight with repulser rays!"

What really amazes me is that the first Iron Man movie toys were larger and had some of the poorest quality control in my opinion than this guy. Well, at least every Iron Man movie toy I purchased seemed to have issues, this guy really had no problems. Funny how the same company can vary with different lines. I will say Hasbro is probably the king of 3-3/4 scale articulation, something Mattel has not caught up to, and that surprises me.

Hope you enjoyed my first installment of Marvelous Mondays, and hope you return for more of my wandering Marvel Toy Collection.

Excelsior!