Can a Phoenix bring the Walking Dead back to life?

This year's TRU fan poll box set was for the Avenger's Vs. X-men series and this set had an updated Scarlet Witch, new minimate Protector and then a very unique minimate Phoenix buster Iron Man.

Here's an up close of this very cool unique minimate.

And what he look like under the big piece of the armor.

I also snagged some of the Walking Dead minimates. These are based on the comic, not the show but still just as cool. Here you have Glen, Rick, and Shane.

Here are the zombies that came with the main characters.

Thank you Shopko

Normally I am not a Shopko shopper because frankly they don't have a good selection of toys and their prices suck, however they saved me from missing out on a lego set that I desperately wanted.  This Jabba's Palace set was one I wanted since I first saw pics of it but then it came out priced at 120 (or 140 at TRU) which is way too much for a set with so few pieces so I bought the Salacious Crumb minifig on ebay and resigned myself to missing out.  But then Shopko's toy ad had the set priced at 90$ and 30$ off a lego set is already a great deal but the ad also had a 10$ off coupon for puchases over 75$ so I got the set for 80$!!!!! This is a great looking set and better yet it is full of great new minifigures! Take a look! (Sorry for the cheesy pic of me but my wife had to have one since technically this is my Christmas present)

Street Fighter Vs Battle Beasts Vs Wave 47

Great package from Lukestoysstore.com in the mail today. Got my wave 1 of Street Fighter Vs. Tekken. I didn't want the Tekken I got it for the SF characters which include Poison, Cammi, Sagat, and Ken.  I love finally adding more to my SF minimates.  I would love to get the rest of the cast from the Super SF II that I had on SNES this takes a good bite out of it!

Then this is the first Battle Beasts two pack released at SDCC this year it has the Ram Vorin and the Dragonfly Zik.  These look cool but the upcoming wave 1 Walrus and Snake are so amazing I can't wait for those.

Here we have Wave 47 of Marvel which included a Wolverine and the Alien Brood and the a Brood infected Wolverine is the variant.

Here we have some great favorites, Longshot and Dazzler which I was super excited for because they were both part of the card sets I collected as a kid.

Then we got a great updated bulked up Colossus. (He came with a Rogue that I didn't want)  This was a great wave and there are 3 more waves announced at this point (up to wave 50) so they will just keep on coming!

Flight of the Alphas and ultimates

So we already have Alpha flight box set one from afx from SDCC. Well box set number 2 was from NYCC and it includes Sasquatch, Aurora (with a extra hand piece so she can hold hands with Northstar from the first set), Snowbird, and Shaman.  I love the Sasquatch figure!

Then the newest TRU wave included the last two characters to round out the team includes Box and Vindicator.

The same TRU wave also had Ultimate Captain America and the new Miles Morales Spiderman.

Then a new Iron Man (which always makes me happy) and a new beefed up Rhino. I love this Rhino but will be keeping my original Rhino since it was in the first box set of minimates I ever bought.

AFX also offered Thundercats #2 set from NYCC which was a bad guys set which included Jackalman, Slythe, little Wolfrat, Monkian, and Vultureman. These Thundercats minimates are by far the best non marvel stuff they have made in a long long time!

Lego my LOTR

So on our vacation last week to Disneyland the only souvenir that I came home with were items from the Lego Store.  I bought this Darth Maul Key Chain to add to the red case you can see which has all my lightsaber lego characters in it.

Then I got a magnet set of LOTR lego guys that had a Ring Wraith (I had to have that since they cancelled the minimate wave that was supposed to have him in it) and then Frodo.

The magnet set also had Samwise and then I got a keychain of Gandalf that I removed the keychain from.  This was quite the small haul for a vacation for me!

MOTUCSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So this month's MOTUC figure (atleast the one that I am keeping the other was Frosta) is Rattlor from the Snake Men.  He came with an extendo neck piece.  I am not the biggest fan of his head but he is still awesome! Read the bio below.

Then this Snake Men two pack came last month and I wasn't sure I was going to keep it until I opened Rattlor and then I decided these were a keep. These are great generic but cool looking figures.  I really like my palace guards so these compliment those nicely and add to the Snake men army. (There is Snake Face coming next year too) You can read the bio below.

Your skull is showing.

So went to TRU because I had a toy dream last night and when that happens I usually find something I want or something awesome. Well here was the something awesome!  So I found the first figures on the new card back and lucily they had one left of this great ROTJ Vader with the Emperor's force lightning around him and his helmet is somewhat transluscent so you can see his skull! so fracking awesome!  His hand is also removeable since ya know it gets hacked by Luke.

 I also found something that I wanted.  So one of the first series of minimates I collected was the Street Fighter Darkstalkers and they had a second wave announced that was never produced so when they announced the Street Fighter Vs. Tekken wave I was super pumped.  Of course I don't care for the Tekken guys that came with these two but I am so excited to have Guile and Zangief now to flesh out my SF collection as SSF 2 was one of my favorite games to play on the SNES.  Specialty shops wave 1 comes out soon so there will be more characters to add to the collection!

The better to see you with my dear!

So when I was a kid I had a bunch of MOTU figures but 99% of them were hand me downs from my brothers.  There was one figure that I can clearly remember opening because it was MINE and that was Mekaneck so you can imagine how excited I was to get this MOTUC figure in the mail today. He doesn't have the extendo neck feature that the old figure had but it did come with two neck pieces that you can attach to make his neck longer.  Read the bio below!

Optic Blasts and jet packs!

They are now making individul blind bagged Kre-o Transformer guys so I grabbed bags and felt until I found this Sunstorm!  I really hope they make a Blaster to go along with my Soundwave and then the rest of the seekers too!

Got a minimate package in the mail and this one is actually a SDCC exclusive that I ordered with other stuff so I had to wait for the other stuff to be released before this got shipped to me.  This is from the Avengers Vs. X-men series. You have Hope Summers who has a very cool new jet pack accessory, then a new Cyclops with an optic blast accessory finally (although I put it on my astonighing X-men Cyclops cause I am not keeping this version)  Then you have the best version of Emma Frost yet, and then Colossus in his Juggernaut outfit!  A very cool set.

Then you have two sets from the Fear Itself series. This is the Mighty set which includes a comic version of Odin (finally!), Hawkeye, Spiderman, and Iron Man. Odin let IM use the forge in Asgard to make weapons from Asgardian stuff so that they would have better stuff to fight the bad guys from the other box set. 

Here you have Cul the Serpent, who is Odin's brother who is released by Sin (the daughter of Red Skull also known as Skadi) then you have Grey Gargoyle and Thing as Angrir.  They all get Thor like hammers to terrorize with hence IM needed upgrades to fight them.  This is a cool set but I am not going to keep the Thing/Angrir.  I add the ones I am not keeping to a pile and when it is big enough I sell it as a lot and it helps me fund future purchases!

Super awesome goodness!

In my quest for all things Soundwave I have been watching auctions on ebay for this Action Master version.  These are non transforming transformers and this auction was perfect because it also came with Blaster and was cheaper than other auctions I had watched with only Soundwave so happy day on winning this one! 

Here you have one of the best and most unique TRU exclusive minimates of them all! MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) and Akuma. This is from Marvel Vs Capcom series 3. MODOK is such a great looking minimate I was happy to wait for 25 minutes while the TRU employee searched the backroom for the case of this wave.  Thanks Joe!

Ah the classics and bit of Crumb

So here we have the Donatello (yeah he is the only one I am getting because he is my favorite) from the new TMNT Classics line.  I love that they keep making these classic toys with modern articulation.  This is a great looking figure and he is huge too! 

As I collect Jedi lego minifigures I had to buy this Even Piell. On the left is my new favorite lego minifigure of all time.  They released a new Jabba's Palace set which normally I would have bought but it was way to expensive for how many pieces it was and I am trying to cut back on my legos, so I just bought him all by himself of ebay SALACIOUS CRUMB!!!!!! Love it!

This month's MOTUC figure is none other than Spikor!  I loved this one as a kid and maes me wish that these new ones had the action features of the vintage figures but this one looks great as always!  Read his bio below.

Here we have one of the two SDCC exclusive sets that I actually cared enough about to buy. This is Canada's Avengers, Alpha Flight.  As you can see one of the figure broke right after opening it so hopefully DST will replace the part.  You have Northstar, Marinna, Puck, and Guardian. There are more on the way too from this team so that will be awesome!

Then the best thing to come out of SDCC this year was the first (as there will be more) box set for Thundercats minimates!  These are easily some of my favorite minimates of all (and I have quite a few to choose from).  You ahve Lion-o, Panthro, Snarff (just a small pvc figure) Mumm-Ra and Jaga.  Can't wait for more of these to come out!

Shocking!

I don't get to TRU as much as I used to and it has been a slow time for toys (although SDCC is coming and so the end of this month beginning of August should see a good haul) But I went to TRU today and got this Lightning Gremlin from Gremlins 2!  What a great collectible!

Then I saw a display for the new toys for the upcoming Nickelodeon TMNT show and they had some vehicles and only one figure in the display and thank my lucky star it was Donatello, my favorite and the only one I was planning on buying! There is a Classics line coming too so I should be picking up that Donatello as well. The articulation on this figure is superb and I really dig the look too.  Cowabunga!

This month was a big MOTU month with three items coming out but I only wanted this one so the other two were added to my lot of figures that I am selling on ebay (go to make room for and get money for upcoming stuff!).  This is Horde Prime.  I was concerned because originally the face they showed under the helmet you see there was a really lame bug looking thing but what it actually came as is AWESOME!  You can read his bio below!

I am sensing some seismic activity!

Yeah for TRU carrying minimates!  These are all TRU sets here. First we have the Gwen Stacy Dr. Connors set from the upcoming Amazing Spiderman.

Here we have Vigilante Spiderman and Capt. Stacy. This movie looks like it is going to be a good one!

Here we have some characters that I was really looking forward to because they are not only 90's characters that I loved from my trading card sets but they also fill out the X-Force Roster.

This TRU wave also had a good new Spiderman in that he has a spidey sense accessory and webbing under his arms so finally a new version of Spiderman.  Then we have this awesome Kingpin who came with a Daredevil that I already have. I got rid of my old Kingpin in anticipation of this one coming out and he is awesome!  Then you have First Appearance Punisher who also looks great.

And lastly we have some additional members of the New Mutants in Mirage and Magma.  So far the SDCC announced minimate sets are just ok so I guess I don't really know when it will be until the next set of minimates!  Just wait and see I guess.