End of the year, need some toys? Never fear Jedi Master Tolman is here!

What a way to close out the year! So Target got this exclusive Republic Fighter Tank set that I didn't have enough money to buy when it came out so I resigned myself to not getting it especially since I haven't seen it in the store for over a month but I got some Christmas cash and I happened across this one single set in the store earlier this week and so I snagged it up. Now all I need is the attack shuttle set and hopefully I will be good on legos for a while.

Currently I am waiting for my pre-order of Marvel Minimates waves 23 and 24 to come into stock at BBTS.com so that they will be sent to me. However TRU got all of wave 24 on their shelves (minus the variant) but the TRU in Orem never got them so since we were up in SL today we went to a TRU up there and voila they had two of the sets from wave 24. I bought them since there are alternate ways of showing some of the mates in this wave but also because it never hurts to have some extras to trade on my forum and since I bought these and will be getting a whole set of this wave soon I will have extras. Here we have Cosmis Spiderman and Transformation Venom (who has a great Eddie Brock head which you will see when I get my whoel wave).

Then here we have Classic Spiderman and Shocker. This is getting me so impatient to get my order from BBTS which also includes ST wave 5. They should be in stock by the latest the end of next week so I am eagerly waiting to get the rest of wave 24 and wave 23 too.
Then I was excited to see wave 1 of GI Joe Mighty Muggs at TRU and I had to have Xander help me choose between this Snake Eyes and a Cobra Commander and well obviously Snake Eyes won. His sword is awesome! I am sure I will get CC sometime soon so until next year. . . . .

Obsessed? Why yes I am!

Well it is Christmas day and I had to get my post done so that I can actually start reading some of the stuff I got and getting the toys up on display. Here is something my wife got me (along with the lightsaber from a few posts back) This is a SW trivia book that randomly selects one of the 2500 questions in the book, you turn there and select the answer A-D on the little button pad and it tells you if you are right or wrong. (obviously I am right most of the time) I can't get me enough SW and hence. . . . .
here we have the brand new Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia which is 3 volumes, over 1200 pages of SW goodness. It is heavier than a cinder block and ha amazing illustrations in it and it just kicks the previous encyclopedias butt. Not to mention the main author on this baby is in a picture with me at the bottom of this here blog!!! This was from my Mother-in-law and it is just down right amazing. I wish I knew I would have enough time to read this within a reasonable amount of time but given its length and my upcoming lack of time to do anything it may just take me a while to get through this one.

My mother-in-law also got me the two Masters of the Universe Classics figures that came out this month. They are the first in the line and they are amazing looking. Here we have He-Man and
here we have Beast Man. The only compaint I have with these figures is that the packages don't have hangars to put them up on the wall. I can't wait till next month when we get Skeletor!
Then here we have one from my brother in law JD. He got me this Santa Jack from NBC (as well as the DVD Shaun the Sheep off the Baa!) The way they are now making these NBC figures is much higher quality than the others I have and they look and feel awesome.

This is another from my mother-in-law. I always gets the SW Hallmark ornaments for Christmas but never post them here because they aren't really toys they are just collectibles . . . . .I guess that is the same but I had to post this one because it is the Reliant from ST II and it is simply one of the best looking ornaments ever! I love it. Well I also got a significant amount of cash which will serve to publish more posts here soon enough (new lego sets here I come) and I got some other non toy related books and other things too. I love that I am part of a family that has no problem buying me toys for Christmas despite my age. Breanne is the best at understanding my "hobby" or obsession and I love her to death for it. Xander made off with quite the haul this year with a whole bunch of lego sets that he has endless fun with, such an imagination he has. Mara was the prize winner this year with a Barbie house, a play kitchen and just hoards of other things. Well Merry Christmas all of my readers. . . . . . . . . if there are any!

Keep out bright light!

My good friend Eric was cleaning out some old stuff and came across this Gizmo toy a friend gave him a long time ago and of course he thought of me. I am a big Gremlins fan and had quite the collection of Gremlins figures as a kid sothis was a great present he gave me. The best is that it is from Japan so the English translation of some stuff on the box is funny like on the back it says "Can you say the three firm promise" (????) Keep out bright light, keep away from water and never never feed after midnight. The best is the t-shirt that Gizmo is wearing that says no more water! Thanks Eric
Here we have a classic GI Joe that is Blowtorch. I loved this figure as a kid and was way excited to find him on the shelf this morning despite the fact that I missed an enitre wave. I haven't seen any of wave 12 and I still haven't found Airborne from wave 11 oh well this was the figure out of all those waves that I was looking forward to the most. Only two more days till Christmas, wow time flies!

Secret Christmas Invasion

So a store based in the UK called Limited Edition sponsored a giveaway on my forum minimatemultiverse.com and I entered and won. The minimates were a secret until they started showing up at other members and they started posting what they got. Everyone has received a different one so far. They are all known minimate bodies with a Skrull decal and a Santa hat so they are all Secret Invasion Christmas miniamtes. I got Nightwing who is one of my favorites of the DC mates. This is a great custom free minimate and it is very unique, the reasons I love that forum just keep piling up!
Here we have the Mighty Mugg of Plo Koon which is a character that I have really started to like as you can tell from the last post so I couldn't pass up this great Mugg.

End of the Semester Lightsaber salute!

This morning I went and took my one and only final for this semester and was so relieved to have it done. I stopped by Target on the way home (despite the crazy snow covered roads) to hopefully find a new toy to celebrate the successful completion of this long and tiring semester. Lo and Behold I found the Clone Wars Plo Koon figure I wanted and what an incredible figure he is. He is opened obviously to go on the Characters with Lightsabers shelf but this is just one awesome figure. Definitely in my top ten favorite SW figures to date. I mean come on how he could he not be awesome when he comes with two lightsabers and then a two bladed lightsaber type wrist weapon? A little more than a week till Christmass and then as you could guess there will be I am sure several posts of great toys I will receive.

Post 200 in stealth mode

Ok so after several weeks of torture with Toys R Us not getting in their own exclusive product (the little silver sticker on the corner of the package denotes the product as TRU exclusive) I finally got the Stealth Iron Man Gauntlet Tony Stark set (actually I got a few so I could also have Tony out of the Stealth Armor. The set is great because it came as a surprise, meaning I didn't know it was coming out, it also came with the awesome little poster you see and it is just an all around great set. I got an extra set you see in the back to trade on my forums because this is one hot item! This by the way is also my 200th post! WOW that is a but load of toys!

Early Christmas

Due to a great family sale at FYE (Breanne's brother JD works there) we got a sweet 40% off deal on a force FX lightsaber. I have always wanted one but couldn't justify spending full price. We almost bought one for me last year at comic con but ended up not getting it. So Breanne got me an early Christmas present and got me this here Yoda Lighstaber.
It comes with an awesome display stand.

Here you have Jedi Master Tolman!

Today at Walmart I found this here Matt Trakker GI Joe figure. If you know your toys you might be thinking to yourself hey that guy wasn't a GI Joe and you would be correct for if you look closely at the upper right corner you will see the logo for M.A.S.k> (or Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) This was the leader of M.A.S.K. and since Hasbro owns Kenner who made M.A.S.K. they did this incredibly cool crossover figure and gave us Matt Trakker.

Free, Cheap, and Cool

Ok so this was the big minimate thing from a few posts ago that I was excited about it just took a long time to get to me. I was one of the top guessers on my forum for an upcoming wave of minimates (like Gambit and Deadpool!!!!) so Diamond Select Toys gave a free set of minimates to the top guessers. I chose to get some more Iron Man minimates and so I got the whole set finally today (more than a month after the contest ended) and I can now display Tony in his out of armor Mark II and III versions and Obadiah Stane out of his armor as well. The rest of the figures I will use to trade on my forum but it is very cool to get a bunch of free minimates especially a set that is my favorite wave of all!
Then another forum member wanted one of the minimates I have for trade and so he got a sweet deal on a bunch of Fistful of Dollar sets so he traded me one of those sets for one of my extras (one minimates for four ain't bad eh!) SO here we have Ramon Rojo, Marisol, The man with no name, and John Baxter. The accessories on these Clint Eastwood movie sets are just AWESOME!
Then today at Target I got this Cobra Eel from the next wave. They didn't have the other character from this wave that I wanted but I can only imagine it won't take long to find it as the Christmas toy influx has begun!!!!!!!!!

24 = 500?

From a tip on my minimate forum I found a great deal on KBtoys.com for this set of 24 minimates that I normally wouldn't purchase but the set (normally 15$) was only 5$ and it was free shipping, in other words I couldn't pass that up. So I snagged this set so we have Michelle Dessler, George Mason, Tony Almeida (all of which I have no idea who they are since I didn't watch season 2) and then the 500th unique minimate Jack Bauer (I took him out of the package last to make sure that #500 was a character that I atleast know! So yeah 500!

So this is minimate #496 and is technically not mine but it will be counted anyway. This is Cheff Duff minimate from the Food Network show Ace of Cakes. My wife loves this show and so at SDCC when we saw that they were making a minimate of him my wife said she had to have him. So here he is and he is hanging on the wall with my minimates and he is a new minimate and he has more accessories than any other minimate before him and is one great little minimate but technically I bought him for my wife.

Here is another armor to add to the Hall of Armor this is Subterranean Armor Iron Man with his power drill. I like the bulkiness of this figure and a good new color scheme too.

Then here we have a new Marvel Legends Iron Man Heroes Reborn version. This figure isn't the greatest looking figure but he is a new version of Iron Man so he had to be added to the Hall. There should be more minimates coming in the mail this week to get me to 500 and then TRU has some new exclusive minimates that I have to hunt down now which so far has proven to be a frustrating process but I will prevail!

Lucky me!

Ok so I have been really lucky with minimates as of late and I will obviously tell you about each one as I post here. This here is the Iron Man Hostile Takeover AFX exclusive set that has not yet been released. See I participated in a contest where for every time you reviewed a product on shopafx.com your name was entered into a drawing to win a production sample of this set. So I went and reviewed all the miniamte sets that I have and a couple of other non minimate products and last friday I got an e-mail that my name was drawn as the winner of the set. Now here it is monday only three days later and it came in the mail, now that is quick an awesome. This set comes with a battle damaged Iron Man and Iron Monger. The IM has flight flaps on his back and unique little flight glove hands. Then the set also has Playboy Tony Stark and the Ten Rings Terrorist Raza. This is obviously a great set since it is Iron Man and it is even better because it was FREE!!!!!!!!!!! Only five more minimates until 500 who is gonna be the lucky 500th minimate in my collection? Tune in soon to find out!

You can't repel toys of this magnitude!

So I actually sold some of my transformers to BBTS (thats big bad toy store) for a butload of in store credit (butload meaning I got a lot more than I paid for these transformers and since I am not a die hard transformer collector I can live with just my one Grimlock Alternator and I sold the other four I had). I used some of this credit to make a purchase of some things that I have been interested in and am saving the rest of the credit for some upcoming minimate waves. First here we have the Previews exclusive Mighty Muggs Admiral Ackbar. I could not pass this one up!

Then here we have a Cosbaby which are these great little toys from Asia somewhere that I wish I could get the whole Iron Man set but they are way too expensive so I will live with this Mark II one.

Here you have a size comparison with a minimate.
Then this is actually the first Cosbaby I ever saw and I love Aliens so I had to pick up atleast one so here is a battle damaged Alien.
Then since I got an Alien I had to also get a Predator with it since these are from teh AVPR movie. So here we have the Wolf Predator and the only thing I don't like about it is that I can't get the mask to stay on him. Otherwise I wish these things were sold over here so they would be cheaper cause they are great!
Then this is actually what I got when I took back those GI Joes to Walmart that I mentioned in the previous post. This is Stealth Strike Iron Man. I just can't seem to get enough iron in my diet! This figure is particulary cool not just because he looks great but because his joints are solid and the plastic in his appendages is not warped like several other figures I have got recently. What a great toy week it has been not to mention the several minimate sets that I have won. . . .oh wait I won't spoil the surprise I will just wait till they come in the mail and talk about it then.

Avengers Assemble

Well I got a package in the mail today (a day early!) and it had my Avengers #1 minimate box set. Actually the box had two sets in it because with the accessory pieces you could change the figures up so I got two sets. So you have Golden Armor Iron Man and then Tony Stark without the armor on. Then in the back left you have a modern version of Wasp and then on the right a classic Wasp. Then on the left you have Giant Man and on the left Ant Man. And you have Hulk in the middle there. The Wasp even comes with an additional mask and the Ant Man comes with a hair piece so you can make him Hank Pym. So even thought this only adds 4 new minimates to my count of unique minimates (quickly approaching 500 now) there are 7 new ones to display! I like the customizability of these sets but at the same time I wish they would just stick to one version so that I wouldn't feel bummed only getting one set and only being able to display one version at a time.
Then here we have another character from the new wave of GI Joe. This here is Croc Master and boy he looks pretty evil. He would be like Steve Irwins arch nemesis or something. I also got a Para-Viper and a Wraith figure but when I found out that these are not actual reissued figures from a vintage wave I took them back to Walmart because I get these figures because I they represent the amazingness that was GI Joe from my childhood and I don't have any attachment to newly created figures characters. The figures I took back looked really really cool but there are so many GI Joes coming out I have to put some sort of limit or qualifier on the purchases.

AMAZING!

Ok so on the minimatemultiverse forum that I am a member of there is a section for people to post their custom creations and I am always amazed by the great stuff these guys can make. I wish I has some talent in this area since I have a bunch of extra minimates that I could use to do it (I'll just live with trading them for now). Anyway I was looking through stuff that members have for trade/sale and a member Nervous (Joshua) had these customers he made up for sale and they are flat out the greatest customs I have yet to see. I have always wanted MOTU minimates since I saw a great custom of the Sorceress. Anyway I sent a message to Nervous and he said I could post this pic here so thanks! Man there isn't any other license I would like in minimate form more than MOTU. Oh well for now I can just sate my desire by looking at this picture! I should mention for those of you who had a sad childhood and don't know the characters in this picture we have Trapjaw, Beastman, Skeletor, and Merman.

Heir to the infinities of Iron Man

Here we have some new Comic 2 packs of Star Wars Figures. This here is from Heir to the Empire (which is actually a novel they just put it in comic book format too) We have Grand Admiral Thrawn and Talon Karrde. This was essential to my collection as this book is the one that introduced Mara into the Star Wars universe and I really like both of these characters anyway.

Then here we have a set from the Infinities comic book which is a what if series. This particular set has a white Darth Vader as if he had joined to Rebel Alliance and then you have a sniper Leia because in the series she is the one that takes on the bulk of defeating the Empire.
Then there isn't much better than some new Iron Man figures except when I get them on sale! So TRU was having a 2 for 15 sale and they actually had some new figures out to make taking advantage of the sale a must. Here we have the Mark I suit but the gold version (yes I know that wasn't in the movie but that's ok because it still rocks!)

Then here we have the Atmospheric Diving Armor or the Scuba Steve suit as I like to call it. This is still a great looking suit. There is one more new one in this wave that I want but they didn't have him so stay tuned. . . . . . .

FANG, Claw, Stap.

So Twaga called me this mornin to let me know that Walmart had this new GI Joe vehicle pack that I have been looking for so I cruisedo n down before I went to work and got this here FANG helicopter with the Cobra Viper and the Claw hanglider with the Cobra Pilot. The hanglider is a little different than the one I had as a kid but this FANG helicopter is just awesome! This copter, the HISS tank, and the water mocassin boat (which is coming out soon) were the three that got the most play from me. Thanks Twaga!

Then here we have some of the new wave of Galactic Heroes (there were two more packs but I didn't have enough moola to get those so I just the these two here) This is Anakin with a great littel Stap. I wish this line would make more vehicles (they have done much better in the last litte while) cause things like this Stap are just awesome. This wave is from the Clone Wars so I love getting stuff that is not just from the main movies.
Here we have Ahsoka Tano and Cpatain Rex. Ahsoka has a very unique grip on her lightsaber and she also has a Rotta the Hutlett on her back.

Mutt but not Mutt Williams

I have been waiting for this next wave Joes for quite some time now and so when I went to Walmart I was excited but at the same time I was frustrated. This was the only figure from the new wave that they had which was frustrating but this was the figure I wanted most from the wave so I was excited. This here Mutt and Junkyard (and Junkyard is the dog not the guy). This was the first GI Joe that was handed down to me when I was kid so this one holds a special place in my heart.

Here is my original Junkyard dog that I still have I loved this guy. He was the guy I always had driving my Vamp jeep (the guy not the dog). So WAHOO!

Thrust of Iron

Normally if something new Iron Man comes out I am all over it! I love these Super Hero Squad guys and they made two four packs of guys right when the toys first came out earlier this year. I got those. Then they were dumb and they made two more four packs but all of the figures in it were just repaints of firgures we already had so I couldn't bring myself to buy them even thought the were "new" they were just repaints. Then they released two more four packs and here is one of them which is based on the movie so it has Mark I, Mark III, War Machine, and Iron Monger. The other set has the figures I wanted more in a classic Iron Man and Stealth Iron Man but then it comes with two villains that I don't want so I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. So bring Billy to the rescue he actually found this movie set for me and put it aside and he bought the other set for himself and doesn't care about the classic Iron Man and so he said he would give it to me so WAHOO! So I will post a pic of that when I get it.

Then here we have a Robot Heroes set that I absolutely had to buy. It has Blaster and Thrust. I had to buy Blaster since I love Soundwave and Blaster is the Autobot version of Soundwave. I wish I had more Blaster stuff but this is a great first addition of Blaster to my collection and as for Thrust. . . . .

When I was a kid my parents one Christmas got me and my brothers each a Seeker (that is a Transformer Jet) for Christmas. Ben got Dirge, Morri got Skywarp, and I got Thrust. Since I don't have the originals anymore I bought the classic re-issues of Dirge and Skywarp but they didn't do one of Thrust so anytime I find something of Thrust I have to buy him because he was mine as a kid so here you see a Myclone Thrust, the World's Smallest Thrust (Which is super super awesome) and then the new Robot Heroes Thrust. So the packaging of those two characters together worked out great for me.

Clones

At Kmart the other day looking for an exclusive Car for Xander I noticed a sign that said their 3.75" SW figures were 4.99 which is 2-3 dollars off normal price of other stores currently so I looked through their pitifully small selection and came across Captain Rex who I have wanted since seeing the Clone Wars movie in August but just never could bring myself to getting him. Now, though, with the figure being on sale and being in the middle of reading the novelization of said movie (which includes a whole lot of Rex's perspective) I couldn't pass him up so here he is.
Then today I came across for the first time Commander Cody and just couldn't resist getting him since I just got Rex.
This figure I got last week and just haven't posted for him yet. This is an Imperial Engineer and says it is from the game Battlefront II but having never played that game I don't know what makes this figure different from what we see int he movie. Oh well I got him anyway.
Then here we have part 1 of the Rebel Pilot Legacy set that I got part 2 of several weeks ago. I got part 2 first because it had cooler looking figures in it and this part 1 set is very similar to a POTF rebel pilots set I got 10 years ago (That set was Wedge Antilles, Arvel Crynyd and Ten Numb). So you have Dorovio Bold who is an X-Wing pilot, Wes Janson a snowspeeder pilot, and Ten Numb a B-wing pilot. I love the pilots so I couldn't pass this set up. There is another set I am debating about that has imperial pilot Biggs Darklighter in it but the other two figures are clone pilots that I don't care about so I dunno!