More Hasbro Sketchbook pages

Logan Lubera has some pages from the SDCC Hasbro sketchbook up on his Deviant Art page, and if you look closely, like at the Wolverine/Cyclops sketch, or the Captain America sketch, you'll see some familiar faces in their Super Hero Squad forms.

Hasbro's Convention Sketchbook

The ever talented Logan Lubera of Hasbro Design has posted the cover of Hasbro's SDCC Sketchbook over at his page here. Browse his gallery for examples of his great work (he's partly responsible for those giant Hulks used in recent theatre promotions and up for auction at Marvel.com so if that doesn't make him your hero, what will?)

Anyway, looks like visitors to San Diego Comic Con have one more thing to add to their basket! Hopefully we'll be able to see some of those sketches soon.

Super Hero Squad Puzzles

Confirming that Super Hero Squad is spreading out far and wide as a brand, enjoy these puzzles shown here. This follows the release of similar Iron Man puzzles shown here

The official product description is:

"The ultimate puzzles for young super hero fans! The colorful scenes feature Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, and other heroes in action. Who will win the battle? Add and change the stickers so that no two scenes ever look the same!"

Approximate Retail: 7.99 (but since two puzzles are shown, is that price for both?

Ages: 5 and up (while the toys themselves are 3 and up)

Pieces: 70

One puzzle is a Spider-Man-heavy scene featuring Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man and Hawkeye going against Venom, classic Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. As stated above, included is a set of stickers, this time featuring Wasp, a pumpkin bomb, and a few power signatures (looks like webs, flames, an arrow, some rocks.)

The other is an interesting ditty with Wolverine, Cyclops and partially iced up Bobby Drake/Iceman going against Sabretooth and Magneto. This puzzle, interestingly enough, is shown coming with an Ant-Man sticker and Thor's hammer Mjolnir.

Both feature mostly the same stock art we've seen from the boxes of the figures themselves. I can't recall seeing the Venom art on any figure's before, but Hawkeye, Bobby Drake, Sabretooth et al look like simple flips of the art from their packs, which just further rubs in our faces how the mid-90's sleek Sabretooth costume most remember from X-Men The Animated Series or the early Jim Lee issues of adjectiveless X-Men was not the costume we received.

Hopefully future puzzles, if there are any, feature more original art, but in the meantime these could be worse right?

Comic-Style Abomination, A First Look at Mystique, and the Gamma Lab Up Close!

First, as a follow-up to an earlier post, I checked out Animation Magazine again to see if I could find any information on a bigger shot of that promotional art they featured. As you'll remember from my post here we saw Ultimate Nick Fury and others, but some of the figures were crossed off.

Sometime after I posted the link (or else it was there and I totally missed it) they posted the full shot. So what do we see? Abomination is NOT the movie Abomination I thought he was! Great news for fans of the comic style figures. The white hand with the gun was Mystique (in what is our first artwork featuring her I might add) and Super-Skrull is also there. The white hand over Cyclops's shoulder was Iceman, and Hulk and Captain America also make full appearances.

But no Spider-Man.

Secondly, Cool Toy Review has this preview of the Gamma Lab Adventure, which is just a repaint of the Bank playset from the Spider-Man line. The paintjob for the apartment/garage section is a bit more Spider-like than the previous red, yellow, grey and white colors, but the maroon and orange Gamma Lab is… daring.

One fun game is to look at the box art for possible upcoming characters. When the Gamma Lab first appeared, the appearance of a comic Green Goblin took some people by surprise, but now that we’ve seen a larger shot, you’ll see comic book 616 Abomination (taking place before his battle with Red Hulk in Hulk 1 for obvious reasons), flying Iron Man, comic Green Goblin, comic Hobgoblin hiding behind Spidey’s apartment window, comic Venom, comic Doctor Octopus (sitting on his arms just like his recent release), fist-punching Thing from the upcoming Hulk wave 2 (where he accompanies She-Hulk), and of course Spider-Man and Hulk.

For those keeping track at home, if you purchased the original Bank Heist set, the later version of the Bank Heist set with the re-cast Spider-Car, the new Gamma Lab, and the Spider-Vehicles, you’ll have a whopping total of 5 vehicles, 4 of which use almost entirely the same mold (the Spider-Vehicle has a spring-loaded action feature, but otherwise the bodies for all 4 are the same) to drive your 20+ Spider-Men into battle on.

I think this is the first post where I talk about both about how many Spider-Men we have, and how conspicuously absent he is from other aspects of the line, so yeah, it gets a "too many Spider-Men" AND A "where's Spider-Man" tag.

More New Super Hero Squad Artwork

I wonder where these cool pieces of promo art keep coming from. It seems like most people continue to use the same stock art, but a couple sites just happen to luck into some interesting pieces. Like VGBlogger for instance, with it's interesting picture of Human Torch, Silver Surfer, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America (I knew they'd make up after the Super Hero Squad Civil War!) Falcon and Wolverine. It's going to be interesting to see characters like Falcon, Ultimate Nick Fury (as seen in the last post about promo artwork here) and others sharing the spot-light in the upcoming installments of the franchise.

Once again, note the lack of Spider-Man. Some sites are reporting that Spider-Man is in the cartoon and the action figure lines, but mention of Spidey has been suspiciously scrubbed from much of the promotional artwork and the official press releases.

First look at the Squad Cartoon?

I'm hesitant to post a link to an article that basically says everything the other articles are already saying, but Animation Magazine gets a pass for having what may be an early look into the cartoon's world. The art is small, but mostly recognizable. I see Captain America's shield, Ultimate Nick Fury, Wolverine, Cyclops (Jim Lee version), Iron Man, Hulk, and a white arm that could be anyone from Iceman to a member of the Fantastic Four.

On the bad guy side, Loki, Magneto, Doctor Doom, Abomination (the movie style, of course), and a white hand holding a gun. Mystique? Punisher? Hopefully someone will point to a larger version of this animated artwork soon.

And still no Spider-Man.

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.