1967 "Vintage" Avengers Figures

Today the family and I visited the Gulf Coast Toy Show in Deer Park, Tx.  While there I spotted what I believed was an unbelievable find, a set of 4 vintage Marvel plastic figures from the 60's!  I talked the guy down 25% on the cost and left feeling very pleased with myself.  As I prepped for this post I found this article: http://spidermancollector.net/wordpress/?p=177.  Here I found that, though the original Marvel figures were released in 1967, they were light gray.  Subsequent releases followed until, finally, bootleg versions were released in the 80's and are easy to spot do to their hard, red plastic.  Today I bought a set of bootlegged 80's reproductions.  That being said, the figures are very cool and I still feel like I got a decent bargain.  Check out the pics below.  I LOVE the sculpt on the Iron Man.

You win some, you lose some.  I had hoped to have snagged a set of the first Avengers figures produced, but at least I got a cool retro-looking set of figures for a decent price.

Monochrome Spidey

For those not in the "know", the Fantastic Four recently lost a member to a temporary death (as it turned out) and changed their name to the Future Foundation.  The new FF sported slick new black & white duds and invited Spider-Man to join in the fun.  I bought the first issue of FF just for the sweet Spider-Man suit.  Now Hasbro has released an awesome new FF Spidey in the latest Marvel Legends series!  Let's check him out!

First off, this is probably the best Spider-Man action figure sculpt yet.  Yes, his hands are frozen in fist/web shooting poses, but considering how bad the more articulated Spider-man hands have been in the past, I'd rather just have one that looks nice for once.  This Spidey is very solid-looking, features great posability, and the paint apps are almost perfect.  I'll compare this new Spidey to my previously displayed one and you can see the difference. The older Spidey features nice details, but he's creepy skinny and while they made him very posable, he just looks odd.  I love this new sculpt and would buy more Spideys from Hasbor if they would repaint this sculpt in the classic red/blue and black suits.

Is this suit design and figure followthrough not incredible?  Love it!

Check out these poses!

Here's the comparison  of the new Spidey to the now-demoted Spidey.  The old Spidey can almost match the pose, but look how awkward and fragile he looks.  Plus, look at those weird hands!  No contest.

I'm not usually a huge Hasbro fan (I haven't forgotten you ToyBiz), but they did Spider-Man right, which goes a long way in my book.  Nice job!

New MOTU Classics - Clawful!

One of my ever-growing collections is the Masters of the Universe Classics. Mattel has taken the classic He-Man toys from the early 1980's and reimagined them as better toys, with the Classic look. You can't find these toys in stores though. You can only buy them at www.MattyCollector.com and they only release one figure a month. Generally the new figure sells out less than 30 minutes after being posted. That's why on the 15th of the month I'm poised with 3-5 browser screens open just trying to get in to buy one.

This year there haven't been many figures released that I wanted to buy. This month was the exception, as July brought the return of Clawful, Skeletor's strong, but dim-witted lobster warrior! They used the same basic body as they did for Buzz-Off and Whiplash, but they set him apart by adding a detailed chest piece, great paint applications, a new shield, and of course, his signature HUGE claw! I'm going to shut up now and let the pictures do the talking for me. Just for fun I dug out the old Clawful from 1984 so you can compare them side-by-side. Enjoy!