New Death Star Gunner with removable helmet

I'm a bit worried that he might only look good in this pose.

Hasbro is running out of ideas

Now this is just weird. It's no secret that Hasbro has been repacking their Star Wars figures for years ("She has a new hat!"), but it seems that even Hasbro realizes they need to make the repack thing less obvious. It appears that some marketing wizard in a toy-pitch meeting came up with a novel way to put new paint on old walls. Just look at this - they went back to the old Marvel comic books and decided to paint repacks in the colors of the original artwork. Check out these examples.


I'm not at all impressed with Han and Chewie, they look exactly the same.



Okay, I like Tarkin's color and the red eyes on the stormtrooper are pretty sweet, but not sweet enough to own ("He has new eyes!").


I'm kinda digging the Rebel pilot and, godamnit, I like the Darth too. I'm really pleased that Hasbro is bringing back the cloth capes.

Here's what Rebelscum has to say about it, "Hasbro officially announced last weekend at Comic-Con a new series of 2-packs based on the Expanded Universe series of comic books. These sets will retail for $9.99 and will include a reprint of the original comic, plus 2 action figures.

The initial wave will focus on the classic Marvel Comics Star Wars series, and will be made up of repacked figures from the past, painted up in the same color scheme as they appeared in the panels of the original comic books, complete with shadows and highlights painted on.

Rumor has it that a Luke Skywalker (Stormtrooper disguise) & R2-D2 is also on tap from the Marvel era. No word yet if all 6 issues will be part of this series.

The next batch of these sets will focus on characters from the Dark Horse series of comic books. This time however, instead of repaints of previous figures, these will be made up of new sculpts.

While the internet-exclusive Kir Kanos & Carnor Jax will serve as a precursor to this series, look for the following sets in 2007:

Quinlan Vos & Vilmarh Grahrk
Obi-Wan Kenobi & ARC Trooper Alpha (rumored)
Mara Jade & ???"

I love the Snowspeeder

Yep, it's true. Octopunk, I know you've never really liked the Snowspeeder design, but there's just something so simple yet sleek about it that I've alway grooved on. It's the kind of design that makes you say, "Well of course". It's almost like you ask yourself, "How is it that this wasn't designed before, it's so obvious?" Although I've been increasingly disappointed in the state of Star Wars figures these days, I've been pleased to see that the ships are getting even better quality-wise. Look at the detailing on this baby.

Ithorians RULE

I held this picture back when I was posting yesterday so I could get another post out of it. This makes me want to get a Clone Wars dvd RIGHT NOW so I can watch this dude use his wall of sound to mash droids. Love his big hands, too.

New Star Wars animated-style maquettes

More good news in the category of stuff I can't afford, Gentle Giant is making animated maquettes for Original Trilogy characters. This is the same outfit that made the Clone Wars maquettes I was gabbing about last December (here and here), but what's really amazing is that these aren't based on any actual existing cartoon. It sure makes me wish they were, though.

Click here for a good article on the designing of these pretty bastards.

Another silly blast from the past

More Star Wars fun from the 1980s

Lame Star Trek toys

Terrible Star Trek Mego products

Wow, did you know Mego made other things besides crappy "dolls"? These products are about as much fun as a fart in an elevator. I love how they try to market the calculator as a "toy".

Mobile Action Command

Does anybody here remember these? I had some of these toys but, unusually: 1)I can't recall exactly which ones I had, and 2)not one single piece of plastic from any of these toys survived my childhood. The last thing that lived was the person-holding bucket from the end of the liftarm of this rescue vehicle below. I removed it and pretended my Twiki figure used it as a flying vehicle, like the flying trash can things that Dick Tracy sometimes used. The bucket's gone, but I still have Twiki. Beedie-beedie-beedie.


M.A.C. men were small but kind of cool. Their vehicles had that mildly futuristic look I associated with the background vehicles on Thunderbirds, that "21st century as seen by the 1960's" look. You can see in the bottom picture that they redid the torsos to make them bulkier -- not an improvement. I don't think I ever got any of the buffer M.A.C. men; I preferred the more rectangular torso. I looked on ebay yesterday and only the beefy guys were available.

Check out the M.A.C. archive page here.