Collectors Pack 2 Photos!

Marvelous News is posting photos of the long-awaited second Collectors Pack which looks to be the Kitty/Professor X/"X-Mansion themed" box set discussed in earlier Q&As.

The figures are the ones we've been seeing for a long time now... Prof. X, Kitty Pryde, Chrome Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Juggernaut, Iceman, Wolverine, and Astonishing costume Cyclops, but it's just great to finally see them in a box!

It also looks like the people suggesting that the Colletor's Pack was being retooled to include Kraven, Vulture, Rogue and Beast were wrong, and if that Hasbro Q&A we linked too earlier was correct it going to Toys R Us and will not be a Wal-Mart exclusive as suggested by the "the Collector's Pack was pulled because handicapped figures don't sell" rumor of a few months back.

Kitty and Professor X are coming?

Toymania has a second July Q&A up which has this interesting bit of news:

5. Any chance of a Superhero Squad boxset featuring the 90s X-Men Animated characters and designs (Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Jubilee, Jean Grey, Professor X)?

Answer: There will be a cool new boxset coming out late in the Fall (at Toys R Us) that will feature an X-Mansion theme. It isn't specifically 90's, but it does feature Professor X, Kitty with Lockheed and 6 other X-Men faves. You'll get your 1st look at this one at SDCC this week!

Shucks. Looks like the guy who heard from his friend that the Collector's Pack (ie, Kitty and the Professor) would be a Wal-Mart exclusive this August was just mis-informed. Who could have guessed that?

Actually, we'll play fair here. It's possible that the new box-set featuring Professor X and Shadowcat won't be THE Collector's Pack 2, since we were told it has "6 other X-Men faves" (the original Collector's Pack 2 featured 6 X-Men related characters, a chrome Silver Surfer and a Spider-Man), which could mean that Wal-Mart gets the Collector's Pack 2 while Toys R Us gets this. But then wouldn't Q&A Man have said "Professor X and Kitty come in August to Wal-Mart, then in the fall to Toys R Us"? So while we did suggest shenanigans way back in April when that rumor started, and this Q&A certainly lends credence to that theory, we're willing to eat crow if it turns out we were wrong.

The Champions rumor

And for the other part of my latest rumor-busting romp, a dissection of the Champions rumor.

Basically, the crux of the rumor is that the Champions and X-Men 2 4-packs have been confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

I already discussed the Second X-Men Super Hero Squad theme pack at length in the City in Crisis post which, to summarize: the second X-Men 4-pack already came out, but because early posts with the SKUs called “City in Crisis” “the one with Emma Frost”, when the official name came out everyone assumed City in Crisis had been named changed to reflect Magneto, and then added City in Crisis back into contention when it was revealed that a 4-pack with that name came out. We got both X-Men packs, we know what “Urban Heroes”, “Winter Soldier Sa”, “Avengers”, and “City in Crisis” are now, and eventually when another X-Men pack comes out, everyone is going to assume it was the X-Men pack that we had the SKU for last year. Long story short: it has been confirmed, but it already came and went and we all have bamfing Nightcrawlers on our shelves.

As for Champions, it is not confirmed by Walmart SKUs.

The known SKUs for 4 packs are:
MVL CITY IN CRISIS 65356933020
MVL THEME PK URBAN HEROES 65356930439
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 1 65356930256
MVL THEME PK AVENGER 65356931768
MVL THEME PK X-MEN 2 65356931769
MVL WINTR SOLDIER SA 65356933021
MVL 4PK THE NEW F4 65356935071
MVL 4PK THE DEFENDERS 65356935072
4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
ALIEN INVASION 6535693755

No Champions listed there. There is mention of Champions coming out of coverage of Toyfair 2008 from Marvelousnews but no SKU, and no other information.

If anything, the fact that “The Champions” are a bit of a name-problem for Marvel, as they discovered during the World War Hulk when they originally pitched “The Order” as the Champions as seen here on Newsarama and then had to change plans as seen elsewhere on Newsarama, means it's probable that if and when we do see a Champions set, it may not even be called Champions, at least not officially. It's unlikely that it would be called New F4 or Defenders though.

So yeah, X-Men 2 was a confirmed Walmart SKU, but it's already been released, and Champions was mentioned at Toyfair, and reported on Marvelousnews, BUT it's not a confirmed Walmart SKU.

City in Crisis!

Someone just asked on one of the forums about the City in Crisis set currently listed at Entertainment Earth, and so I'm going to take this time to bust another semi-old rumor... that of the 6 4-packs. Well, I'm not going to bust the rumor that there are 6, but rather the identities of the 6.

When the SKU was first announced in January it was rumored to be the X-Men 4-pack with Emma. Since "Urban Heroes" became "Battle For New York" some people assumed that "City In Crisis" became the X-Men pack and combined it in the rumor lists with the X-Men set labeled "X-Men 1"

Further complicating matters is that some people did not merge the two, resulting in people counting the Showdown with Magneto set as City in Crisis, Urban Heroes as the Spider-Man set (which is correct), the new X-Men set (with Juggernaut, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Gambit) as X-Men 1, and "Avenger" as the Ms. Marvel Avengers set. End result? The rumor that we're getting another X-Men 4 pack, and that the Winter Soldier Saga box set is coming as its own wave.

End result: rumor lists are now listing Winter Soldier, X-Men 2, Champions, New Fantastic Four, and Defenders as the upcoming 4-packs even though X-Men 2 has already been shown (as Nightcrawler, Gambit, Juggernaut and Wolverine) and City in Crisis is the probable working name for one of the other three sets (Champions, F4, or Defenders)

Now, we still don't have any solid info on what set City in Crisis is, but we do know that it wasn't X-Men: Showdown with Magneto, that "Second X-Men Theme Pack???" is most likely the already announced "Second X-Men Theme Pack!!!" and should be removed from rumor lists, and finally, that there's 3 other rumored semi-sure thing 4-packs where either one could fit the title City in Crisis.

Edit: Just for fun, after I posted a nice explanation of City in Crisis question and dispelled the myth of the Second Second X-Men Theme Pack, my SHS stalker announced 8 posts down in the thread that he thinks it's going to be one of the three sets I suggested, or maybe that Second Second X-Men Theme Pack that's rumored.

I don't know if the funny part is how, of all the posts of mine he's responded to, this is the one he apparently never read (in part because he agrees with it), or if the funny part is how he missed the first line where I explained how the mis-counting started, with City in Crisis being passed around on message boards as the Emma set and thus the Second Second X-Men Theme Pack was the Second X-Men Theme Pack.

Actually, the funny part is that in 3 months, when another X-Men theme set is announced, he'll be convinced that the rumor was true, a phenomena I encountered earlier with the She-Hulk phenomena. One guy said he saw She-Hulk on promotional material that could never be found again and that bore a striking resemblance to the Spider-Woman promotional material. After 3 months, a website that's also selling the apparently non-existent Abomination/Hulk Wave 1 2-pack claims that She-Hulk is coming out in Wave 2 and the young man proclaimed he was right! He had known She-Hulk was coming!

And then I, of course, explained how she's a solo star in a fairly long-running comic series and has been a recognizable Marvel character for oh, almost 30 years, has been a member of the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Heroes for Hire, SHIELD, and now the Defenders and thus would eventually get a figure. I also said that using that logic, I was going to use secret promotional material I'd seen to announce that I knew comic Green Goblin, Nova, Iron Fist, Spider-Girl, Red Hulk, Moon Knight, Captain Britain, and Hercules were all on their way.

Now it's just a matter of waiting for my top secret source's prophecy to come true... ::twiddling my thumbs::

Edit 2: Oh, and his theory is that City in Crisis is going to be the "New Fantastic Four set" which he feels will have the Wolverine version of the team from three issues dating from 1990-1991. It's not impossible, but wouldn't a more likely version be the New New Fantastic Four, or just a set of new sculpts for the foursome?

Time will tell.