Shopping Assist: New Super Hero Squad

A couple quick points to help you on your hunt...

1) A user on Marvelousnews.com's forums is saying that Hulk movie Super Hero Squads have started hitting Targets in Missouri today (we already talked about comic stores earlier today, and Hasbro Toy Shop has had for sale for a while)

2) City In Crisis and Winter Soldier are up for pre-order on Hasbro Toy Shop with August 14, 2008 (8/14/08) as the shipping date.

Happy shopping!

Hulk Super Hero Squad hits Comic Stores

For those going to the comic stores this fine day, you should be able to find Wave 1 (aka, Assortment 200801) of Hulk Super Hero Squad. Assuming your comic stores stock comic-related toys, of course.

Just as a reminder for loyal comic book shop fans: you can often pre-order Super Hero Squad figures from your local store just by giving them the Previews code, and if you don't know the Previews code, ask them and in many cases, they'll happily help you out, although they may want a deposit. Your comic store may charge more than Walmart or Hasbro's online store, but depending on your gas prices and shipping fees, comic stores are still a great (although mostly under-utilized) source of Super Hero Squad figures.

Hulk Wave 3 SKUs

So Boywithgun has released the newest set of Walmart SKUs, this time featuring the likely third wave of Hulk figures:

HLK GRAY HLK LEADER 65356933645
HLK 2PK HULK ZZZAX 65356933646
HLK HULK DOC SAMSON 65356933647
HLK HULK SOH 65356922648

We all know my policy on "fill in the blanks" when it comes to Walmart SKUs, but luckily there's not many blanks to fill in. Leaders, Zzzax and Doc Samson are going to be welcome additions to anyone's collection. Villains in particular are always welcome!

SOH is, of course, the souce of speculation. Son of Hulk IS a good call though, and I can't think of any other Hulk related characters off the top of my head that might be an "SOH" but it is a little interesting that the other SKUs used many more characters, so SONOFHULK should not have been a problem. Like all these other waves, we'll hold off until we get more information.

It's going to be interesting to see how many of the Hulks and HLKs are going to be repaints.

And finally, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hasbro likes Hulk more than Iron Man. Ok, not entirely true, but just to keep the Super Hero Squad tally going we have

Hulk: 3 waves of 2 packs, a multi-pack with a vehicle, a playset (albeit, a re-release). Of the character selection, we've got oft-requested characters like She-Hulk and Black Bolt, plus lots of fan favorites like Leader, Absorbing Man, Zzzax and Doc Samson.

Iron Man: 2 waves of 2 4-packs. Of those 2 waves, one is entirely repaints, despite the number of Iron Man armors that are still not made. When all is said and done 1 "new character" in the repaint packs: Ultimate War Machine. Of the 16 figures in the 4 4-packs, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man and Ultimate WM are the only new characters (unless you want to give a round of applause to an official, non Collector's Pack repaint version of War Machine.) 12 Iron Men, many of whom are repaints. Even Spider-Man got new sculpts!

And the repaints themselves... with desert armor Iron Man and red-and-yellow "War Machine" are a little questionable when we've got great concepts still waiting... Stealth Iron Man (an easy repaint, as customizers have shown), Thorbuster Iron Man, Iron Man 2020, 90's Animated/Galactic Storm style Iron Man, Repulsor Ray shooting Iron Man, translucent stealth-tech Iron Man. How about Mandarin? Blacklash? Maria Hill, Daisy Johnson, Dum Dum Dugan or even a generic SHIELD Soldier? Granted, Iron Man's rogue's gallery doesn't strike much fear, but you could probably make some lifelong fans with a Chemistro figure. How about a new Doctor Doom sculpt? Different versions of Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man? His Mighty Avengers teammates Black Widow and Wonder Man? A Stark Labs playset a la the Gamma Lab?

For the most important man in the Marvel Universe (arguably) to be treated this poorly... Tony Stark really needs to put some pressure on Hasbro.

Attack of the Iron Man Repaints!

Yup, those photos from NYC of 8 carefully grouped Iron Men were a sign of things to come.

The Crimson Dynamo Attacks Item Number 78767

and

The Genius of Tony Stark Item Number 78768

And the solicitation text:

Crimson Dynamo Attacks

"The nuclear-powered Super Villain known as the CRIMSON DYNAMO attacks one of Stark International's secluded desert storage facilities, intent on stealing what technology he can sell, and destroying the rest. Luckily, IRON MAN is there, testing his new desert combat armor. Using his remote systems, he takes control of two other powerful armor systems and turns the tables on his attacker!

Team up with these funky figures and create exciting adventures right in your own living room! Small in stature but big on fun, these cool characters are sure to save the day from a boring afternoon. So get ready to do battle with the Super Hero Squad!

Includes CRIMSON DYNAMO, WAR MACHINE, Classic IRON MAN and Desert Armor IRON MAN figures."

and The Genius of Tony Stark:

"No matter where Tony Stark goes, he never stops inventing. He is a restless thinker, and a constant engineer. Over the years, he has built dozens of battle suits, both for himself and his friends and allies. Every single one is the best of its kind, a top-of-the-line suit of armor designed to seek and destroy evil wherever it hides.

Team up with these funky figures and create exciting adventures right in your own living room! Small in stature but big on fun, these cool characters are sure to save the day from a boring afternoon. So get ready to do battle with the Super Hero Squad!

Includes Iron SPIDER-MAN, Ultimate WAR MACHINE, HULKBUSTER IRON MAN and 1st Appearance IRON MAN figures."

In short, it looks like the ugly brown Iron Man is now "Desert Armor" and not "Extremis Iron Man" as some sites have decided. Iron Spider-Man looks more metallic and a more classic Crayola red. The Crimson Dynamo looks like he's got some metallic reds, so here's hoping we have at least moderate repaints for all the characters (that way variant hunters aren't stuck with dupes.)

And on a semi-related note, did I already mention how you shouldn't keep calling a character "First Appearance" when you've already released 2 different versions of his "first appearance" look, and now you're onto his next armor design/color scheme?

Ever wonder who does that great Super Hero Squad artwork?

Not necessarily a rumor, per se, but it's hard to find out information regarding the artists involved with these very distinctive designs. However, Create Magazine has some of the art from the latest Iron Man 4-packs.

Also check out Harry Moore Design's website for other promotional art Harry Moore Designs has done for past Marvel toy lines like the Avengers United and X-Men Onslaught lines from the 90's.

Spider-Man is disproportionately represented.

Not really a myth, just something I want to get off my chest... no matter why you rationalize it Spider-Man is disproportionately represented in Super Hero Squad. With the current information regarding upcoming waves, Spider-Man continues to be 25% of the figures produced, not counting the movie-related lines.

The abundance of Spider-Men is one of the main complaints amongst collectors and we all acknowledge that it's because Spider-Man is popular. Movies, cartoons, toy lines, merchandising. Nobody is saying Spidey should go away (although, it's worth noting that the first 4 waves of Super Hero Squad were all Spider-Man free, and then the movie line came out.

But knowing that Spider-Man is now and will forever be a big seller doesn't change the fact that he's disproportionately represented. There are 3 times as many Spider-Men as his nearest competitors (Iron Man and Hulk) and that's because the recent movie lines result in a nice surplus of those two. There are 5 times as many Spider-Men as there are characters like Wolverine, Captain Ameirca, Ghost Rider, Punisher, any member of the Fantastic Four. WOLVERINE! Wolverine the star of 3 separate titles (Wolverine, Wolverine Origins and Wolverine First Class), leader of X-Force, co-star of New Avengers, Astonishing X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, star of 3 X-Men movies, major player in the animated X-Men, X-Men Evolution and the upcoming Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon.

One can argue that Spider-Man is more popular than Wolverine, but 5 times as popular? Are sales of 2-packs featuring Spider-Man that much higher than sales of 2-packs featuring Wolverine?

Marvel has many popular characters, and while Spider-Man may be the most popular, that doesn't mean other iconic characters like Wolverine "hurt" sales, or that making 1 Spider-Man 2-pack per wave would result in some catastrophic loss.

Sorry that this post is a bit of a soapbox (which you've come to expect from me) but for the life of me I wish people would stop subscribing to the concept that the line would be in some form of great and terrible danger if Spider-Man were not in (literally) every other 2-pack.

Oh, and by the way, look at eBay, online retailers any retail location that managed to get past Wave 1's Angel and Colossus 2-pack. What packs are the rarest, hardest to find and most demanded, first to sell out on Hasbro's online toy shop even. Beast/Iceman, Rogue/Gambit, Phoenix/Wolverine, Black Panther/Storm, Antman/Doctor Strange (baffling, but true), Human Torch/Silver Surfer. Beast/Iceman gets to the top of most Most Wanted lists because of the rarity and distribution problems, but for all the others... it's a solid combination of wanted character, good sculpt and general demand.

The Super Hero Squad Recall

I first read about "the recall scenario" in a discussion about Hulk Wave 1 products hitting stores before the street date. I thought of posting about it, but when I saw a few forum posts last night claiming there had been a recall I figured I just had to post information (interestingly enough, rather than just locking down the recall thread or explaining how there's not actually a recall, the thread asking about the potential recall was totally deleted from the forum.)

In short:

There is no recall.

The Hulk toys are not supposed to be shelved and sold yet. Some stores (only Walmarts according to the forum posts, but other stores like Meijers have apparently been seen allocating the shelf space) put the new 2-packs on the shelves. So far, everyone that has tried purchasing the figures has reported the same result: "Sale Not Allowed."

To get around this, some individuals are using peg-warmers like the Angel/Colossus 2-pack to scan the price at the self-check-out registers and then just using multiple swipes to make their purchases. Others are trying the squeaky-wheel technique (complaining up the chain of command until the purchase is allowed.) but the problem is that the Sale Not Allowed defense is a great counter-argument. We CAN'T sell it. We're not allowed.

I haven't seen the boxes myself, but some posts on trader forums indicate that the boxes clearly mark a 5/1 street date, but even if the boxes don't say that, we can see that Hasbro's Toy Shop doesn't have the wave being shipped until 5/14 (and from past experience with the Iron Man 4-packs, and the current Spider-Woman wave of 2-packs, their shipping date tends to be a few weeks after official release.) It's also telling that the figures are still listed for sale on Hasbro's website, where they could easily take the listings down in the event of a recall. And the fact that only Hulk Wave 1 toys that are not actually available for sale yet are the only Super Hero Squad toys affected by the recall, leaving the earlier Super Hero Squad waves and even the current wave, un-affected should also send a message.

The biggest indication that there's not a recall (of a toy that has not been released yet): It's not listed on any of the recall sites. Recalls.gov, US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and Hasbro's own recall site are going to be the first places you'll see a recall announced.

In sum: No recall, just over-eager stockboys and merchandisers.

Stealth Iron Man: Blue vs. Black.

I've noticed that one trend in Super Hero Squad rumors tends to be costumes. I've previously discussed 616 Mr. Fantastic, Sabretooth, and even Ultimate Hulk (although that was more of a size thing than a costume) and now I'm addressing the greatest burning question right now: Why do customizers make Stealth Iron Man dark blue?

The answers tend to vary... I've heard that customizers do it because that's the way the other action figures represent Stealth Iron Man, which is too simplistic. I've heard that it's easier to do blue, which, once again is rather simplistic.

Actually, let me back up a bit... the question of why the armors are painted blue comes from the perception that stealth means black. While yes, the original Iron Manual does refer to the stealth armor as jet black, color was not such an issue with later designs as the "stealth" aspect of the armor came from energy bending, wave evading, super-duper technology.

Back to the blue armor...

The mother of all answers came from a gent who said, and I'll paraphrase to make it sound LESS crazy... "before digital printing, there was no way to produce black, so dark blue was used."

Note, the actual language had a little dis-jointed language and some talk of "pre-90's digital printing", but without proper structure so it's impossible to tell if he's talking about (a) printing before the 1990's digital printing, or (b) digital printing before the 1990's. I'm going to assume he means (a) because... well... that's the crazy answer that makes more sense.

Now, the actual answer as to why Stealth Iron Man is dark blue: Because it almost always gets drawn that way! All the way back to Iron Man 152. Cover Browser shows a nice cover of Iron Man 152.

Yes, the background, which was some early photo/art collage style (and in my opinion, done much more tastefully than the Marvel Universe card set from the late 90’s that tried the same thing) is blue, but to the discerning eyes (or, as I like to call ‘em, “most people”) you’ll notice black. The armor is black, the text is black, the line art is black.

Now, having never had a chance to interview the artist, I can’t tell you if the dark blue highlights were chosen for pure aesthetics (as opposed to using, say, gray-tones, or white highlights) but I can tell you the look is sharp. Green highlights? Dark red? A gray-tone Iron Man in a full-color comic? Maybe the right artist could pull them off, but the dark blue on black just works.

So why blue? I can’t speak for each customizer, but it’s either a mistaken perception that the blue highlights are the actual color of the armor, an attempt to recreate the classic, iconic armor color scheme, or maybe just because it looks good.

Either way, lack of pre-90’s black ink isn’t the answer.

Now, of course, I feel the urge to address the no-black ink rumor (well, I guess it’s more of a belief or an assumption.) It’s bunk. Total bunk. As fans of the “dot” art look that resulted from half-toning in pre-90’s printing will know, (see recent issues of Mighty Avengers for Iron Man, Doctor Doom and the Sentry in a half-toned adventure) that dot look from old comics comes from the CMYK printing process that was used in early printing.

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (aka Black) inks are used in various combinations to create the remaining spectrum of colors. Layman’s answer: the pattern of the ink “dots” results in what we see.

For good (but more technical than I want to get into) explanations, try Tech Color’s explanation, or, Manga Tutorials explanation of the difference between CMYK and RGB printing techniques, off-set printing versus digital printing, or this piece from Comic Artists Direct, which is dated, but so isn’t all good history, and finally the fine folks at Gutter Zombie discuss the differences in CMYK and RGB printing in depth.

When all is said and done though, the fact that black ink is one of the 4 essential parts of color printing in “pre-90’s digital coloring”, pretty much shuts down the claim that the Stealth Armor is blue because black wasn’t available.

Now, keep in mind I've simplified the explanations to make it more user-friendly, but if you're at all interested in the secret world of four color printing, check out those links and use them as a gateway. Who knows... maybe now you'll enjoy that Mighty Avengers story a little more.

Edit: Confession time... the "no black ink in pre-90's digital printing" guy was my word count stalker. I was going to give idiocy the benefit of anonymity, until I ran across him randomly flamebaiting me in a forum thread I'd never participated in and telling me to not bother posting. On top of being called stupid for not believing Hasbro reps secretly pulled Collector's Pack out of anti-wheelchair sentiment and then explaining their rational to a friend of some guy on the internet (and then having my insulter backpeddle by saying he never said I was stupid, just that I've never said anything smart) I wonder why I was trying to be nice. Try and do a nice thing for someone and this is what you get. Sheesh!

The Squad so far...

Cool Toy Review's big reveal for tonight is apparently this snapshot from Marvel's presentation showcasing the Squad so far. Worth noting? Collector's Pack 2 Professor X, Iceman, Juggernaut, Shadowcat, Chrome Silver Surfer (alright... the whole CP2 is there...), Kraven, the upcoming new Ultimate Hulk and re-done Galactus, both the Gray and the Silver First Appearance Iron Man...

It does not feature the City in Crisis and Winter Soldier figures (at least I didn't see them), or the Electro wave, or most of the upcoming Hulk and IM repaints, so imagine the spread to get a bit bigger next year.

It's actually pretty impressive to see them all in one place... less so for those of us that already have our figures stored in one place (with the exception of those elusive unreleased figures.)

How many Spider-Men do you see?

More Super Hero Squad photos from NYCC

I know I ragged on Cool Toy Review for jumping on the Guess-the-SKU bandwagon with the Wolverine/Hand Ninja (back when all we had for news on the set was "The H"), but they're not bad folks. In fact, they've even got more photos of the Super Hero Squad figures shown at this year's NYCC.

Obviously the big news was our first look at Mary Jane and the City in Crisis set, and the big rumor was the dubious Wheelchair theory discussed in other posts, but the eagle-eyed observers will notice subtler things, namely all those re-paints.

First off, you'll notice that there were 8 Iron Man related figures grouped together here so it's a good sign we'll be getting Iron Man wave. No word yet on whether it will be another wave of 4-packs (as the first Iron Men were, and as repaint sets usually go), or whether it'll be 2-packs like the Hulk figures, but we'll see soon enough. I still can't tell if Crimson Dynamo is a different paint job but my computer screen may just be off. Same goes for Iron-Spider-Man, but even if he's a straight re-release fans of Avengers: The Initiative will know why they need 2 suit Scarlet Spiders (and why 3 suits is currently too many.)

In prior posts we mentioned how Ares and Thor look less metallic than the current photos, but looking at Spidey's squirting a black web which is a relief to variant hunters who purchased the Target white-web shooting Spider-Man shown in earlier promo shots. Shield-slinging Cap looks a lot darker than the other Captain Americas we see, and Red Skull's Cosmic Cube is gray, not the clear plastic we've seen on Hasbro Toy Shop.

As we discussed in the Prototypes post what you see isn't always what you get. Will these turn out to be surprise paint-change variants like the Silver Iron Man/Gray Iron Man Hall of Armor 4-packs, or is it just a matter of prototypes not matching end results?

We'll find out soon since most of these figures are scheduled for release on Hasbro Toy Shop within the next month and a half.

City in Crisis, Winter Soldier official pictures.

And for real breaking news (as opposed to just rumor squashing)...

Hasbro also has up the first official pic of City In Crisis here and the Winter Soldier set is here

City in Crisis Description:

Spider-Man has battled his entire life to keep his loved ones safe, but sometimes even his best isn't enough. Two of his most dangerous enemies have kidnapped Mary Jane! They've got her captive in a position too precarious for the wall crawler to take any chances.

Help Spidey save the day and come to the aid of his smart and sassy girlfriend, Mary Jane! Fun four-pack of chunky, stylized characters includes Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson, Green Goblin and Sandman figures.


Winter Soldier Description:

Cap's old partner Bucky is back, but he's been brainwashed by the bad guys, and become the dangerous Winter Soldier! Captain America and Falcon rush to find him, hoping to stop him before he gets into real trouble. Unfortunately, Crossbones is waiting for them, and he can't wait to tear into the two Super Heroes.

Team up with this fun, four-pack and create lots of exciting adventures! Chunky, stylized characters include Captain America, Falcon, Winter Soldier and Crossbones figures.



Long story short: no, you can not tell your Super Hero Squad figures from their foreheads alone, that was not Kraven's mane, and official is cool.

Blade, Red Skull at Hasbro.com

The Abomination 2-pack for the Hulk movie wave 1 is available for pre-order now at Hasbro Toy Shop and today they've added the new Blade, Sentry, Red Skull and Electro 2-packs.

Those last 4 aren't up for pre-order yet, but they've got entries which is usually a good sign that pre-orders are coming.

Addition to the Collector's Pack Post

You can tell I was pre-occupied last night when I posted about the Collector's Pack.

I forgot to mention that marketing decisions and character selection are done before sculpting, drafting of solicitation material, release of that solicitation materials to the public, and demonstrations of promo-shots. Hasbro has been known to announce less-than-desired figures before, but they always follow through with the figure.

In character selection, marketing and manufacturing typically look at what figures will sell, what figures are requested, (and during the Jesse Falcon Toybiz Marvel Legends era) what figures complete sets.

Deciding, ex post facto, that the wheelchair was going to undersell the line, is not just bizarre marketing strategy, wasteful and counter-intuitive but... well... this is a family blog so we'll watch our language.

The original poster has followed up with information that he didn't hear the information, but that it came from a friend who heard it from a rep (telephone game! I love it!)

The gentleman who's spreading it is using anecdotal evidence that Professor X has been a peg-warmer before, but... well... one man's experience is not necessarily determinative of the rest.

Points other people have made on the thread: well... my word count stalker posted to roll his eyes and say "here we go again", and a Mr. Woodsmok pointed out that 4 months isn't much headtime for Hasbro to get production amped up, packaged, sent out to the multi-national corporation that is Walmart (and who typically pre-orders way in advance), etc., etc.

But like I said, maybe it'll turn out to be true. Maybe not.

Fresh off the rumor truck: The new Collector's Pack

The freshest rumor I've come across yet: That Collector's Pack 2 will be released this August as a Walmart Exclusive.

Key parts of the rumor:
1) That it was pulled because Hasbro thought kids didn't want characters in wheelchairs (which is non-sensical because if that was the case, Hasbro would have replaced Xavier with any other character they could think of, including another repaint which would lower the cost of the unit even further. Besides that, of course, we have the fact that Professor X is a long-time mainstay of toy lines featuring the X-Men, from back in the days of 5-inch Toy Biz, X-Men movie figures, The Marvel Legends Galactus series, so why marketing or whoever would think that one figure out of the 8 in the pack would negatively effect sales to the point it offsets the market for collectors who want new characters for their sets...)

2) That demand for Xavier brought the set back from the dead (which doesn't carry on with the anecdotal experience of message board travelling where people are either calling for Chrome Silver Surfer, Iceman in Booties, or debating Shadowcat's sculpt)

3) That Professor X will come with Cerebro, which means either the sculpt is going to be re-done or we're going to have the first ever non-attached figure accessory (what toy-manufacturers like to call a choking hazard in a line that's safe for 3 and up)

4) That it's a Walmart exclusive.

The problem:

The rumor has no source.

The main source, the one that's posting from place to place, is using a guy from Sirstevesguide by a guy who'd posted 12 times in 3 years who says he heard it from a representative at NYCC (who then kept the information from everyone else). Telephone game anyone?

Does that mean it's guaranteed wrong? Or that there isn't a legitimate source for this information? No. It could happen, and heck, it could happen exactly how this rumor says, but in the meantime we're looking at a fairly unsourced rumor, with questionable authority, based on a dubious premise of action figure discrimination and unusual marketing theory.

Generally with these types of "reports" the toy forums will start the normal circular self-referential stuff that normally goes on (which I already explained once before with the example of A posting one place, B reading the post and reposting, C reading that post and posting elsewhere, with A reading that post and determining that his original post is now verified) and soon enough it will be considered true but at least people reading this will think twice. The irritating part? It's already being posted in the typical forums as truth.

We'll see in August or maybe earlier how much, if any, of Mr. Slayer's rumor turns out to be true but I'm going to treat this rumor the same way I've treated every single "release date" that's been promised so far. You know, the guys who heard it from this guy they met that the pack would come out in May. Then June. October. November. January. No no, February, for real this time. March.

Mary Jane

Ok, now I believe in MJ... Actionfigs.com has a few photos, including a very menacing Green Goblin hovering over Mary Jane. Pics are viewable here. Any day now expect the people who could recognize Kraven from the sliver of his forehead, the ones posting "Kraven is coming in the new four-pack", to start realizing that a plume of orange could just as easily have been Mary Jane Watson Parker's bright red hair. Of course, having not seen the final 4-pack yet, it could be someone else but right now is when everyone posts everywhere about how they called X Fact, and how everyone else was wrong so I might as well jump on board.

Note: This is being published on 4/21/08. I had this saved as a draft a couple days ago and then forgot it. Now that the City in Crisis reveal has come and gone I probably should just shelve it, but oh well. I once posted on a forum saying "huh... I didn't think Wolverine/H was going to be Wolverine/Hulk, and it turned out to be Hand Ninja."

In response, a guy started posting a nonsensical tirade straight out of a 1980's Dan Rather beat-down... screaming nonsense and asking me what I won. Today, with the Crisis reveal, he bravely posted "guess I was right" (yup, 4 guesses later, and after everyone else guessed who was in Crisis LOL.) I shouldn't take delight in this, but since he spent the better part of his afternoon calling me stupid, misusing the term irony and just in general being a jerk to me... yeah. I take a little delight.

Long story short: nobody wins anything on the Internet but damned if it's not fun playing the game. For my next rumor: when the color black was invented.

Minimates v. Super Hero Squad

Why can't we all just get along?

I can't be the only person sick of comparing Super Hero Squad and Minimates. It's a lot like debating who will win in a fight between a roll of dimes and a bagel crafted from smoke by God.

Anyway, that blog entry compares some arbitrary categories (isn't pose ability an aspect of design? Articulation but a part of detail?) and then compares a list of who has a Minimate and who has a Superhero Squad.

The list is riddled with mistakes (Both Super Hero Squad and Minimates having a movie Abomination and a non-movie? Close, but there's no SHS comic Abomination. And "modern" Namor is the one with his 70's black vest?) and general WTF moments ("movie" Lizard and Kraven? Kraven never even came out, let alone a "movie" Kraven, and for that matter, Professor X SHS never came out either) and some questionable math (286 total "characters", with repainted Super Hero Squad Logan counting as two characters because of the repaint, but the 20 SHS Spider-Men lumped essentially into movie or non-movie. And of those 286, 137 are Minimate exclusive, leaving 149 "characters" that are either SHS exclusive or SHS/Minimates, including characters that weren't made or even planned but excluding different sculpts for not being different enough.)

End result on that blog: Minimates win because they have more characters... apparently there are 20 different "character" Spider-Men Minimates but only 7 different "character" SHS.

Long story short: Come on, just enjoy them both, don't try to apply arbitrary factors and sorting techniques to come to the conclusion you (re: Minimate Headquarters) want.

Anatomy of a rumor...

So if you'll remember back a few weeks when I pointed out the Green Goblin in the Mousedroid picture, you may remember there being a little bit of speculation about the mysterious box, mostly obscured and not photographed. There was a bit of orange fuzz and a fraction of a face and so some people went to lengths to try and decipher it, expanding the picture, etc.

Then on the forums the speculation continued... and by speculation, I've got to confess, it was mostly wishful thinking. Basically, I'm going to give a rundown of how one thread on one board, quickly spread and resulted in SHS fans all over the net thinking that City in Crisis is going to be Spidey, Kraven, Green Goblin, Vulture and Mary Jane.

First off, I don't have a problem with the theory that Green Goblin's set is the City In Crisis... I actually suggested that Crisis was going to be the next 4 pack to be shown, and Green Goblin's set would be that set, but back to the anatomy of a rumor.

So the picture is shown, the corner is Green Goblin. Then someone comes out with (and I'm going to slightly change the words to these posts so that they sound a little more grammatical, or at least a little less silly)

"Wouldn't it be nice if the other two figures included Kraven?"
"It is Kraven! I zoomed in, the orange is the main of his vest... the head in the glass is his forehead!"
"Hoping Vulture is in there!"
"Yeah! Me too!"
"Maybe they can put a younger head on it so that it can be a variant!"
"That's totally Kraven. I know my SM characters by forehead alone"
"So the four pack is Kraven, Green Goblin, Vulture and Spider-Man! That's exciting!"
"I think the other people in the set should be chameleon,shocker,electro,or scarlet spider"
"Well, we know that's not going to happen since Kraven is in there"
"Sandman is getting re-released for those who missed it. Probably in the 4-Pack with Green Goblin and Kraven"
"Where's Kraven?"
"Mary Jane was shown but not photographed."
"She's probably in the pack with Green Goblin and upside-down Spidey"
"I bet the 4-Pack will be Green Goblin, Spider-Man (Hanging), Mary Jane... and dunno. Maybe it's not Kraven in that 4-Pack."
"If Mary Jane really was seen she is probably the 4th"
"Where's Vulture?"

Now, a lot of this is simple telephone game BS. A posts their theory, B likes it and posts it elsewhere, C reads it elsewhere and doesn't correctly attribute it was speculation. C posts elsewhere. A reads C's post... finally "confirmation"! Things get changed one word at a time from post to post until finally the original person reads the twisted mutant of a rumor and decides it must be truth. Of course, some people are more notorious than others (for instance, one of the Kraven/Vulture/Goblin rumor spreaders is also behind the myth that Hasbro's release of repaint packs is due to Hasbro's wave cost balancing and thus the pack that balances out Winter Soldier must be a repaint set... his source of info on Hasbro's wave cost balancing? An earlier post wherein someone said they hated repaint sets and he said he thinks Hasbro does it for costs, and he's also behind the multiple postings that City in Crisis was the Emma Frost set, which resulted in the subsequent rumor that there's a second second X-Men theme pack on the horizon.)

So for the rundown:

Truth:
- there's a multi-pack box that we saw the corner of in Australia featuring Green Goblin, and a part of a sliver of a face with some orange-ish stuff around it
- there's photos of Green Goblin, Spider-Man hanging from a lamppost, and repainted Sandman II at Marvelousnews.
- The case of Winter Soldier 4-packs will come with a set called City in Crisis.

Rumors:
- one guy says Mary Jane was shown but not pictured.
- one guy says based SOLELY on the rumor that there was a Mary Jane shown, that she's in the 4 pack
- a few people would like to see Vulture.
- a few other people thought those people meant Vulture was included in the four pack.
- because we saw Sandman, Green Goblin and lamppost Spider-Man grouped together, they're likely to be the next set.
- A guy named ransomz on Marvelousnews says that when he talked to a guy named Scott, from marketing, that the third wave of Spider-Man had crap for distribution and "Some of the figures, like Kraven, may be worked back into future waves of the main line"

So that's what's known, and what's unknown. I have to admit, some of the coincidental stuff is more likely (when I saw the Sandman re-paint, Spidey on a lamp-post and Green Goblin, I picked them as the most likely candidates for a four pack) some of the obviously incorrect (I want Vulture =! another Vulture's coming soon) but hopefully as long as people keep pointing out facts from fiction people like you will continue appreciating it.

New York revelations

So NYCC has hit, and so have photos.

Marvelousnews is the big source of photos.

If you flip through you'll see shots of Golden FA Iron Man (uh, it's not First Appearance if it's not a first appearance... but why am I calling it that? Cause others are doing it and I want to be cool), Ultimate Iron Man repainted in War Machine colors, Crimson Dynamo (doesn't look like a repaint to me... maybe it's a little more metallic?), Silver Centurion armor repainted in yellow, the Hulk wave Hulkbuster IM (again... doesn't look repainted to me but maybe?), Tony Stark repainted in brown/gold, War Machine repainted in Iron Man colors, Iron Spidey (again, repaint or not?).

And still going we've got Spider-Man hanging from a lamp-post (back to original sculpts!), a repainted Sandman II (from the Venom set), Crossbones, Falcon, background shots of the recently released Deadpool and Spider-Woman wave, better shots of Red Skull, Sentry (who looks better than I expected after the photo I saw yesterday), Electro and those Spidey re-paints, a less-metalic Thor and Ares (is this a sign of a running change or of an early repaint set?), blurry Green Goblin.

Then some shots of the Hulk toys including the Hulk box set (boxed Abomination's colors are swapped with 2-pack Abomination, and it does look like the box-set will have 2 soldiers, Hulk, Abomination and a larger-than-I-expected Hulkbuster vehicle.

But poke around the photos and see if you find any easter eggs.

Hulk Wave 1

As some of you know, there's a lot of talk about what's going on with the Hulk Wave 1 figures.

When it was first shown, as a low-res scan of 8 figures, a lot of sites began passing around

Hulk & Abomination
Planet Hulk & Silver Savage
World War Hulk & Iron Man
Hulk & TBA

as the list (which as of 4/17/08 is still how it's presented on Cool Toy Review. Then when Toyfair came and went, and we saw the hi-res promo pictures of everyone but Abomination, a few of us collectors started wondering why Abomination wasn't shown. Then last month we saw the carded two-packs which showed everyone from Toyfair, but without the Abomination.

But Cmdstore still listed 4 2-packs, even though they didn't have photos of Abomination. Roughly around this time, Entertainment Earth listed Hulk wave 1 as having 3 2-packs... but no Abomination. Hasbro only offered those 3 for pre-order.

Now, to further complicate matters, Big Bad Toy Store is showing those same 3 2-packs, and one undisclosed 2-pack.

What's even worse: Ebay is being flooded with Abomination and Hulk 2-packs from California.

So long story short, looks like Hulk and Abomination ARE being released, and it looks like they're out now, assuming you live in California, and that there is a full 4 2-packs out.

For the variant hunters, don't worry, this Hulk has blue pants, unlike his multi-pack version. We'll have to wait until we get bigger and better pictures of the Abomination before we can see if he's a variant or not.

Damn that's a lot of links.

Sentry, Electro, Blade and Red Skull photos

Over on The Fwoosh Forums there's a scan of a catalog shot of the new figures. I won't link directly to the picture (since that's a little tasteless for total strangers to burn through the guy's photobucket bandwidth limits) but it's available for viewing in the Super Hero Squad forum.

Most important news: The ad says they start shipping in July. Now, the poster didn't say what company the ad was from, as companies like Entertainment Earth and Hasbro's catalog tend to ship after the figures are already available in stores, so they might hit earlier, but for now, it looks like the totally unsourced and absolutely made-up release date of June that some people are saying is wrong. Now, maybe this catalog is right and it will be July, or maybe the catalog is wrong and they'll hit stores a month before shipping from whereever this catalog is from, but at least it's slightly more reliable than a date picked out of thin air simply because it's somewhat near the pre-order dates for other waves on some other sites (because using that logic, Hasbro's Marvel Legends wave 4 should be hitting any day now.) Well, that's it for the soap-box.

The picture shows that Captain America is going to be in full shield-slinging glory (to go with our holding-the-shield and shield-on-his-back Caps), Punisher is in a trenchcoat with some non-street legal guns blaring from both arms (which solves the complaint people have about Mr. Rocket Launching Punisher from the early waves), Red Skull is in the classic green jumpsuit with a Cosmic Cube.

Blade looks very Wesley Snipes-ish, but that's fine since that's the look most people recognize (although there would be a certain nostalgia factor in a 1970's era Blade), and comes armed with a gun and a sword. Between reality warping cubes, Cap's shield, and the guns-a-blazin Blade and Punishers, this is definitely a more action oriented set of sculpts than we've seen before.

Electro is classic yellow-star-on-his-face, and not Sensational/Animated style or the post-modern mask-off, lightning everywhere style that artists sometimes try to pass off (yeah it's more realistic, but it's not more recognizable.) Fans of the Sinister Six rejoice.

Sentry is the last new sculpt shown, and it's a little... well... I'll hold off until we see more than just a low-res scan of an order form. He looks to be in mid-flight pose, and he's shown as bulkier than Spidey (which he probably should be) but I suppose it is hard to capture the character's powers in SHS format.

The two Spider-Man figures in the line look like re-sculpts, but as I discussed in this previous post promo shots aren't always the end result, and they could just be a place-holders.

If they're NOT place-holders, then one of the Spideys looks to be the white-web shooting Spidey from the Easter single packs (good news for everyone that lives away from a Target, bad news for everyone that picked up the rather over-priced Easter impulse set.)

The other Spidey is a black-webbed (aka "comic" version for those that care) version of the left-hand-shooting, right hand grabbing figure, but it's hard to tell if that hand is open (ie, ready to hold the webbing in the Bank Heist playset) or closed (punching) so we'll have to wait for a clearer picture.

While many people complain about the abundance of Spider-Men, at least we were still getting new sculpts, and even new Spider-Characters (Ben Reilly, the Iron Spidey costume now used by the Scarlet Spiders over in the Initiative) so hopefully this isn't a sign of future trends.

I know Hasbro's sculptors must be running low on ways of making Spidey look unlike the other 20 figures we already have, but just as a bit of pontificating here: Casual collectors will tolerate re-sculpts, and variant collectors will tolerate re-paints, but when it comes to straight up re-issues, you run the risk of alienating those markets.

Edit: a few posts down in the thread, someone says that the picture was from Previews, so there you go, a source for the picture.

Sentry, Electro, Red Skull and Blade at Entertainment Earth

Entertainment Earth has recently put up Wave 9 (although "wave" depends on how you see it since some retailers have started lumping 5 and 6 into 5, thus shortening all of the other waves by a number) of the Super Hero Squad for pre-order. It's not really news, since BoyWithAGun already published the skus on a couple web-sites, but Entertainment Earth is listing the wave as:

Spider-Man & Electro
Spider-Man & Sentry
Captain America & Red Skull
Blade & Punisher

Now, when the SKUs were released, we were given almost full names for the release, thus no "wait... is 'Marvel' supposed to be Marvel Girl? Rachel? Jean? Marvel Boy? Captain Marvel?" or "H? Is that Hulk? Hood? Oh... Hand Ninja... that makes sense." so as I said, it's not really breaking news, nor is it confirmation since online retailers can cancel pre-orders if Hasbro changes the wave up, but I thought a few of you may be interested.

Of note: this wave follows the 4 new, 4 re-do trend that's been going on recently.

It will also be the third wave in a row to feature 2 Spider-Men packs (although wave 8 features the Ben Reilly Spider-Man, so whether you want to call that an exception who knows). Skus for the next two waves feature packs with names like SPD, S-M and S-Man, which, if they turn out to be Spider-Man means we will have 5 waves in a row with 2 Spider-Men per wave for an additional 10 Spider-Men this year.

And finally, it's also a great little tip of the hat to the message board posts saying "Hasbro will never make a Red Skull because they're afraid of kids playing with Nazis!"

The End of Marvel Legends! BWAH HA HA

I was going to post a myth about the secret truth behind repaints in 4-packs, but unfortunately can't get to the source of the myth right now (site's down) so maybe I'll take a break later on to post it (assuming the source comes back.)

Instead, I'm going to talk about Marvel Legends for just a second. Basically, ever since the Hasbro take-over, the take-over that resulted in the birth of Super Hero Squad, there has been nothing but internet sturm und drang about (1) the quality of the figures and (2) the ever impending death of the line.

Now this week Super Articulated posted an article about the cancellation of Marvel Legends (or rather, th cancellation of retailers orders for Marvel Legends ICONS).

Since then, a bunch of other places have picked up on this article and everyone is spinning the story darker and darker. Look at the comments of the Super Articulated article for examples of some of the craziest conspiracy theories and angriest F.U.s to Hasbro you'll read on a toy site.

"This is not surprising though and I anticipate the complete cancellation of ML at any time. I only hope I get my FF Foom first. I consider the Hulk series coming to be ML."

"in toy globe wave 4 and 5 said canceled too, so i think this is it for Marvel Legends… a very little smart move from the guys of Marvel given the license to this crappy toy factory, and now a worst move from Hasbro killing the golden eggs chiken"

"3. (kinda pessimistic, but most likely in my opinion) Hasbro has been begrudgingly dragging along the 6″ ML figures at Marvel’s behest, and have finally decided they’re done with that."

Now, those are actually kind of tame compared to some of the other posts I've read, but seriously, wishing a toy company to hell, conspiracy theories that Hasbro was just putting on appearances when they put out the first few waves of Marvel Legends.

But this has all been warm up for my pet peeve: people re-posting suggestions of possible doom-and-gloom on message boards in a totally mis-characterized fashions.

Like this, from the Marvelous New forums:

"In brief, it says that the wave is canceled w/retailers, and that Marvel Legends in general are quite literally the bottom of the totem pole as far as production concerns go. The movie figures can't share space with Marvel Legends, so they're gonna get bumped. I don't really know the source, and I'll wait til NYCC for official word, but this is the trend many of us have been feeling, and this minor confirmantion could end up being big."

Now, here's what the article actually says:
- orders of Icons by online stores have been canceled
- those lines had proposed line-ups already
- the author liked Nightcrawler
- FANS think the Marvel Legends line is doomed.
- Hasbro hasn't told released any information about what comes after lines that aren't released yet.
- the author thinks Hasbro is trying to avoid over-saturating the market with wave 4
- many stores have space for Marvel Legends.
- The stores he's visited ARE OVER SATURATED WITH FIGURES FROM THE LAST TWO MARVEL LEGENDS WAVES.
- And finally, that in the author's opinion Hasbro only cares about movies and the line is doomed but he's not going to officially say it because it's all guesswork.

To sum it up, the author of the original news piece really liked one of the upcoming figures, he's heard nothing but rumors, one rumor said that there was too much crap out filling shelves, and he's got some anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that there actually is too much crap still out there. In short: the line of giant-sized Marvel Icons may be canceled. Everything else is speculation.

I have no information one way or the other regarding the future of the line and that's because there is no information to know. The point of this entire post is to encourage people to look at what "news" is actually saying, what is actually information. Some of the rumors (re: theories) have more sound principles than others, but re-posting an opinion piece based on rumors as "official confirmation" elsewhere doesn't make them facts!

Spider-Woman, Cable and Deadpool wave has hit.

There are two reports on Marvelousnews saying the packs have hit (both in Cali, one saying the store was Target) and of course, eBay is starting to see the scalpers trickle in with $10 Deadpools (first one I saw was coming out of Nevada).

Now, these aren't hard and fast facts, but Hasbrotoyshop is saying they're scheduled for release in about 2 weeks (5/4), and they usually release waves a few weeks after they hit stores... so long story short, it sounds about right.

Super Hero Squad is for kids!

This is my favorite rumor, one that I keep hearing and one that I kind of enjoy.

There are two main forces that support this rumor: Fans of Mature Adult Collector Line X, and Super Hero Squad customizers.

Mature Adult Collectors are generally fans of lines like Marvel Legends, DC Universe Classics, Legendary Comic Book Heroes. The kind of folks that appreciate a good Brood Queen Build-a-Figure or a Red Tornado variant, and who are frustrated at the lack of finger articulation.

The key points, distilled from a few conversations I've had or witnessed with these folk are

- the packaging says they're for 3 and up.
- they're too cute
- "just look at them" (note: that was the direct, non-ironic argument once made to me. "Just look at them"... the equivalent of the legal argument "Come on now!")

The counter points:

- the packaging for Marvel Legends says 4 and up. Thankfully, by cutting off that 3 year old market, Marvel Legends retains it's adult nature. Or maybe Marvel was just concerned about the highly mature Marvel Legends line falling apart easier than Super Hero Squad and thus being more of a choking hazard for it's mature collectors.
- Also "too cute": those ridiculously expensive Marvel Q-Type figures of a couple years ago, the ever popular Justice League Unlimited figures and recent Doctor Who aliens, the Adipose. That doesn't stop you from enjoying any of those does it?
- Just look at them? Come on!


Now, the customizers, they were the shocking realization. People who love the line enough to use it as their muse! But then in their eBay listings and on forums they post things like "well, the line is too kid friendly to ever have a Carnage, Winter Soldier or Red Skull. Keep dreaming!"

I understand a little bit of this is marketing. If you're never going to get figure X, then damned it you shouldn't take your one chance! But it's the people who genuinely think that Super Hero Squad is too kid-friendly to ever have X character that make me a little sad.

Now, ignoring the fact that Carnage's figure has already been shown, promotional art for Winter Soldier has been released, and the Red Skull 2-pack's SKU has been passed on message boards for months now, the theory is flawed.

Unlike DC's policy of not mixing Vertigo and DC because they don't want kids following a character from one line to another and getting into mature territory, Marvel has no such policy, which is why we have Ultimate Hulk and Wolverine so kids can act out that scene in Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine where Hulk bisects the little guy and leaves his bloody entrails on the side of the mountain. We also have abusive traitor Ultimate Giant Man, drunken drunkard Ultimate Iron Man. And I'm pretty sure Ultimate Cap and Nick Fury aren't charmers either.

Just because a character has a hard edge in the comics, doesn't necessarily mean the character is off-limits for Marvel. Crazy psycho-cannibal Venom appears in both Marvel's new Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon and it's mature-readers-esque Thunderbolts (albeit, in two different versions). Serial killer Carnage was last seen being ripped in half by Sentry, and in cutesy form shown at Toyfair NY. Fellow serial killer Sabretooth was recently killed by Wolverine (himself not an all-ages character I might add) and will apparently be resurrected by a mutie-centric KKK Kousin. Winter Soldier, currently the gun-toting Captain America, is shown, guns and all, in promo art. Cable too retains his gun, and murderer of many Punisher was one of the line's earliest figures. Both Punisher and ever cutesy former motorcycle stuntman who made a deal with the devil Ghost Rider will soon see their second sculpts released! Of course, now that Spider-Man makes deals with devils, maybe he should be added to the list of "mature" characters.

So the next time someone points out how the line is aimed at kids, whip out your collection of gun-toting maniacs, serial killers, drunks, and devil-dealers and get them ready for a tea-party in Hell. That'll teach 'em.

Of course, this whole thing could just be a sad commentary on how Marvel realizes that their properties are worth more as merchandise than as gateways to comic books and comic story-telling. Who knows.

We don't have a 616 Mr. Fantastic?

A while ago I stumbled onto someone making a list of Marvel teams and who we had figures of and I was struck by his theory that we don't have a Fantastic Four set.

Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman were really Ultimate versions, at least according to him.

Now, this theory comes from the fact that their costumes have a blue ring around the neck, going around the 4. The Ultimate Fantastic Four have that type of a ring, as seen here and the current F4 costumes don't.

Of course, keen eyes, or at least people that collected comics back when Heroes Return was a great, fresh idea, remember that they used to

It's still not 100% accurate. The Heroes Return uniforms had the ring passing behind the 4 logo, instead of totally encompassing it like the Ultimate version, but overall, there's more 616 than Ultimate.

In favoring the Ultimate theory, you have the ring going just a tiny bit lower than the Heroes Return version of the uniform.

In favoring the 616 theory, you have the fact that the costume necks are closer to 616, most versions of the Ultimate costumes have 3 blues (a light, medium and dark) while these figures only have 2, the fact that Reed has his signature gray hair (albeit, with a very bad paintjob making it look like polka dots), the fact that most versions of the Ultimate F4 costumes have piping and different colored panels going down the sides of the uniforms and the little squares running down the legs.

So given that, I think the weight favor the costumes being slightly imperfect 616 costumes, rather than almost totally not close to being Ultimate costumes.

Then again, this same guy tried to tell me Loki was leader of the Masters of Evil (because he did, in a video game), that Rhino's involvement in one story of Secret Defenders merited the inclusion of the ludicrous "Questing Heroes" team (the invention of fanboys on Wikipedia) but not the Sinister Syndicate which featured in two Spider-Man mini-series and a few appearances in the main titles, that Champions wasn't big enough to get included (but "Questing Heroes" was?) and that Captain America was a Defender. His source? Wikipedia of course.

I am only bringing Mr. Fantastic up because as the picture of a re-done Mr. Fantastic and Galactus has started making the rounds, more and more people are screaming "Yay! Finally a 616 Mr. Fantastic! Yay!" All because some guy somewhere thought a slightly lower circle made the costume "Ultimate" and not "616."

No news about the Green Goblin 4-pack

Bad news from Mousedroid... "MSE6" writes:

"Sorry, we photoshot the entire stand but did not get any retailer information (ie release dates nor assortments)"

Which means he mis-read my question, but still managed to answer it. Until someone who went to Toyfair Australia 2008 steps up, or until Hasbro sends Marvelousnews the newest press photos, all we know is that Green Goblin is in a 4-pack.

Is Ultimate Hulk really that big?

Now that some of us have seen the previews of the upcoming new mega-packs (Ultimate Hulk/Wolverine, Galactus/Mr. Fantastic) that comes on the back of the Avengers Assemble 4-pack, the question goes out: Is Ultimate Hulk really that big?

No. Well, some people think so, but no, not conventionally. Get ready for some ultimate nerdiness... This post will be the longest, most definitive and useless post on the subject of how Ultimate Hulk is not Mega Ultimate Hulk sized you will ever skip over.

You see, there's a book called Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine, known for its lateness, its bizarre art, and its total lack of any real redeeming quality. Ok, that last part is too much. It has some value to someone I'm sure, but the big draw to th series is a famous spread of Hulk ripping Wolverine in half, so that a bisected Wolverine must claw his way across the mountain tops.

Now, some people correctly guessed that the two-pack would feature an Ultimate Hulk based on that concept, with hippy beads and all and that's great, but for the rest of us, no, Hulk is not that big.

What follows are excerpts from the post I made at the height of the "What size is he?" controversy:

"Ultimate Hulk v. Wolverine story itself (or at least the 2 issues of the 4 when they came out in 2005 or 2006, but if you dig it out you'll see that Yu has serious issues with consistency in his artwork. Given the weird perspective and the hugeness of one of Hulk's hands in that pic, he looks large. Now, later in that book you'll see a shot of Hulk surrounded by half-naked women, and he's about twice their size, making him about 10 foot which is what most of the guides seem to indicate. Flip a little later and you'll see a shot of him with his head roughly the size of one of his concubines. But then one of the covers has his head easily twice as big as Wolverines. In the second issue one of the half-naked women has a butt that's as large as Hulk's head, but her head is the size of his ear. Sometimes he's a big as 1.5 cows."

"Here's an unofficial report putting him at 8 http://en.marveldatabase.com/Hulk_(Ultimate), but they took that from the 2008 Ultimate OHOTMU"

"Other Ultimate Hulk sizes http://www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/p-C109586.html - roughly 3 feet taller than Ultimate Iron Man, so we're talking like 4 inches or so SHS size"

"http://www.marvel.com/comics/onsale/covers/0206/ULTWOLH002_cov.jpg - his head is 3 foot (using Wolverine's torso as a measuring stick), but we've already shown that elsewhere in that issue his head is also equal to a woman's butt."

"Here's one of the concubine scenes from Ultimate Hulk vs Wolverine, but not the one with the hugely disproportionate butt http://i3.tinypic.com/wbfifc.jpg"

"http://www.sequart.com/members/graphics/17/Ultimates2n12.jpg where his legs are about as thick as Wolverine's, and with some perspective he's bigger than Thor and Spidey, but not that much bigger than Thing."

"Or if you flip through Ultimates Saga you can see that UH is either 3 or 4 feet taller than a 16 year old Spider-Man, roughly 8 foot tall considering the size of the glass panes he's crawling up, a few feet taller than Thor or Iron Man. Oh, and he might be as big as Giant Man's mouth, so if Giant Man gets up to 60 feet, and Hulk is even 10 feet, that means that perspective wise a person's mouth should be able to stretch to something like 15% of their total height... or about a foot for the average person without their being too much distortion. Ultimates v.2, issue 13 has him a few feet taller than Scarlet Witch and Captain America. In Ultimate Power, he's got a few inches on Ultimate Thing, a little taller than Power Princess. His head is a few inches bigger all around than Wolverines, except when it's not."

"All that just goes to show you that, most times he's basically 1 SHS inch above the other heroes and yeah, in two of the six issues of a mini-series started in 2005 and all but abandoned he's shown to be somewhere between 3 large female butts in size and 2 full Wolverines."

Now, when the response was "don't go by covers, covers never get him right. Look at this cover to see how big he really is..." I chuckled to myself and left the conversation alone. Silly me, using interiors from Ultimates, Ultimate Power, information from OHOTMU, all the perspective troubles of the Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine mini-series itself to prove my point... I should have known that covers are both horribly inaccurate and yet the only proof of his "true" height.

Now, the discussion regarding Wendigo, the next proposed mega-pack basically went the same way, but with less discussion because apparently nobody cares enough about Wendigo to defend him.

In sum: Ultimate Hulk is 18 feet tall... in a poorly drawn imaginary story that's never been completed and on a couple covers. Everywhere else, he's about 9 to 10 foot tall.

there you go, another rumor busted.

Kraven never came out/Prototypes/Collector's Pack 2

I'm very behind with other projects so I haven't had a chance to post a few of the other rumors I'd intended to bust, so I figured I'd cherry pick an easy one, and roll it into 2 others.

Kraven never came out.

Most SHS fans know that. They've read the posts, they've scoured eBay. They know. But it's the newcomers that seem to be surprised.

As a piece of advice, if a figure is released, or even close to release, it'll show up on eBay thanks to people willing to steal them off the assembly lines in overseas factories. That's why people willing to pay $30 to $50 to get Fin Fang Foom a couple months early were able to score deals on eBay. For the rest of us who had no interest in a 400% mark-up, we picked it up at Walmart for $10. Plus tax. Go figure. But THAT should have been the first sign that Kraven never came out.

The second sign is that the review sights never posted him, at least not a "real" picture. The only pics that exist are promotional shots. That means there's a prototype. Just like there's a prototype Storm with upside down cape, and a prototype Venom sculpt shown in the early promotional material for Puma (and was at the last minute replaced with a Venom repaint.) But, just because we've seen those prototypes does NOT mean those sculpts were released.

This didn't stop the speculation. People have insisted that Kraven was released but only in certain areas, that he was delayed by put in refreshers. Some people also suggested he was coming out in May refresher cases for Spider-Man. The problem? The Spider-Man line folded into the main line immediately after Christmas, resulting in the now rare 2-packs featuring Vulture and the Sandman/Venom resculpts.

Now, the current rumor is that he's going into the Collector's Pack 2, which was shown last summer and has not been mentioned officially in months and months. The problem with that, is that there's still no confirmation, not even semi-official confirmation that we'll get a CP2. The contents of CP2 were leaked with CP1, and was erroneously included on listings at sites like Amazon.com for CP1, but CP2 is still a myth. Kitty Pryde, Professor X and Chrome Silver Surfer are still, at least as of now, prototypes that might some day come out. Considering that both Kraven and Collector's Pack 2 are the Super Hero Squad equivalent of vaporware, that means those rumors are just that, rumors. Here's the best part: those rumors are absolutely unfounded. Nobody can site to any authority anywhere even suggesting that Kraven is going to be folded in to the Collector's Pack. Not even a random message board. Nothing. Now, there's also absolutely no authority anywhere suggesting when CP2 is coming, but that doesn't stop some people from randomly assigning months to it (and then re-dating it as soon as that month comes and goes) but once again, there's no authority for any suggested release date. Not even totally unreliable authority, just no authority period.

So there you go: Kraven never came out, the pictures are promo pictures, Collector's Pack 2 is not on any schedule, people who say Kraven is getting folded into it are just going off other people who heard similar rumors.

Since nobody else is breaking the news: Comic Green Goblin

http://www.mousedroid.com/feature/toyfair2008/image/hasbro77.jpg

You'll see that underneath the bank end of the bank playset, there's a box showing both an unidentified orange character, and the much requested comic Green Goblin.

Sigh. I hate having to break news.

I had decided to post it on the SHS forums, but didn't feel like going through the hassle (maybe if every time I posted, I didn't have someone counting my words... but eh, oh well), so I deleted my post. I guess this is the only place you'll hear about it until someone else sees it. Or, sees this and tries to post it as their own.

Edit: Well, it took like 7 hours, but tinyheroes finally picked up the picture. Of course, now there's talk that the orange thing is really Kraven's mane because of the fraction of a head that's poking through the orange. Until someone actually puts up a reasonable picture, it's all speculation at this point, and we all know what this site's policy on speculation is. Seems like a lot of hair if that's Kraven's mane, unless they've taken some dramatic liberties with the art or they resculpted it from http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/products/24277/Spider-Man_Superhero_Squad_Wave_5_Spider-Man_Vs_Kraven/Superheroes/Action_Figures/Marvel/Spider-man/Product.html
but whatever. We'll know soon enough.

Sabretooth's costume

Ok, so there was a bit of a fuss on the SHS forum because someone asked if Sabretooth's costume was comic accurate. My Super Hero Squad stalker (he just follows me from thread to thread, word counting my posts, posting ad hominem attacks, using too much internet short-speak, posting smiley faces and then insisting that he's not not provoking me or that he's not trying to insult me... it's bizarre.)

So, because he thought my post was too long and didn't answer the question, I will post it here, in its entirety:

"The costume isn't something he wore, it's a kitbash of the Sabretooth costume from
http://www.marveldirectory.com/pictures/individuals/s_1d/sabretooth.jpg and the Fang/Wolverine as Fang/Early X-23 costume http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com....ine-as-Fang.jpg http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/fangimpguard1.jpg and the Sabretooth costume that he wore circa Wolverine 48-49 (which was when the fur stopped coming to a point on his chest and became more of a collar. He dumped that look before X-Men 6-8 where he was wearing the slimmer, less furry costume with the pointy gloves."

There you go. He didn't get the difference, so I had to further explain why he was wrong.

"The correct answer is: he never wore that costume, he wore two different costumes that were kind of like that (with changes... the stripe down the belly was black/dark brown, not that light, the one with the fur all around it had a brown briefs look and not the unitard look) if you combined them together, and then they threw on the teeth from Fang's costume."

And then I also followed up with some trivia about the Fang/Sabretooth costume:

"And just to add an interesting factoid (or I thought it was interesting) to Sabretooth and Fang having a look so close to each other: Sabretooth first appeared 2 months before Fang (August and October 77 respectively), both in Chris Claremont stories, with Bryne getting credit for Sabretooth's look, Cockrum for Fang."

Hope many of you saw the differences, or understood the first post (saying "nope, not the same costume") and didn't need the extra assistance. If you did, well, that's good too.