BY
Dave
Once again social media has improved my
ability to bring you pictures of the new stuff shown at Toy Fair. Most toy
companies maintain some sort of presence on Instagram or their own blogs online
and seem to recognize the importance of showing their new products directly to
potential consumers. I don’t know if this means the collectors’ market is more
important than ever or if it’s simply evolving business, but whatever the
reason I’m glad it’s happened.
As always I highly recommend you follow
Action Figure Attack on Facebook and Instagram for some excellent press photos. Toy
Ark once again provided thorough coverage and
is the site we used for reference to record this Friday’s Toy Fair episode of
the Needless Things Podcast. For the full list of links to Toy Ark product
pages, click
here!
Reveals didn’t seem to start as early this year, but once
they started they stayed strong all weekend long. Rather than one standout, I
had several contenders for most impressive company this year. There’s very
little in the way of innovation, but mixing classic licenses with vintage
styles seemed to be quite the fad.
Read on to see some of my favorites from the show and of
course, listen to this Friday’s episode of the Needless Things Podcast to
hear me, Ryan, Jay, and Josh discuss all of the hottest reveals!
This year, rather than doing a huge mega-post I’m going
to dole out bite-size posts focusing on small groups or individual companies.
Super 7 had more than enough awesome stuff for one post, so let’s start there!
These guys seem to have given me the most to talk about
this year. From the revitalized ReAction line to frigging buckets, Super 7 had
nothing but pure nostalgic excitement on display in their booth.
ReAction
Alien
Super 7 is revisiting the line that started it all –
their refresh of Kenner’s defunct Alien
toy line is getting a refresh. Movie accurate paint jobs, new tooling, multiple
Alien decos, and 3-packs are making this familiar wave seem fresh and new.
ReAction
Ghosts N’ Goblins
Clearly this one is a passion project. While I wouldn’t
call the classic 8-Bit NES game Ghosts N’
Goblins obscure, it certainly doesn’t have a ton of pop cultural relevance
nowadays. But that’s set to change with a full wave of ReAction figures,
including armored and “naked” versions of the hero, Arthur. I think the cyclops
is my favorite.
ReAction
Legends of Lucha Libre
YES.
This is amazing news and one of my favorite reveals from
the show. I’ve been wanting good quality Lucha figures for a very long time
now. Of course, One:12 or Figures Toy Company would be great, but I’m more than
happy to be looking at these nifty ReAction figures of Tinieblas, Blue Demon,
and I think Mil Mascaras. It’s a bit
hard to tell. But the important part is the right here are three-fifths of the
Champions of Justice. Now we just need Médico Asesino and La Sombra Vengadora.
ReAction
Misfits
The red and black versions of the Fiend came out last
year and are great. Overpriced at $15, but oh-so-satisfying to see hanging on
the wall. I suppose to a certain extent I’m looking at these as premium figures
because Super 7 is putting such gorgeous art on all of the cards (I’m also
leaving them carded).
I didn’t imagine I’d ever need another Fiend, but man
have they hit some sweet spots here. Each figure is themed to cover art and
they all look awesome. I’d like to
say my favorite is the Horror Business one (my favorite Misfits song), but my
favorite is also Halloween and Earth A.D. And the one designed to look like an
old Remco figure. The Bullet version is my least favorite, but it’s still
great.
ReAction
Masters of the Universe
SCAREGLOW!!!
I only have one of these – Trap-Jaw because he’s my guy –
but I’ll probably bring home Scareglow.
ReAction
Pee-Wee’s Playhouse
I never had the old Matchbox Playhouse figures because as
much as I loved the show, at the time I wasn’t really interested in toys of the
characters. I expect that these ReAction versions will be perfect, though we’ll
need a Playhouse playset. Hopefully it’ll be less than a hundred bucks
(probably not).
ReAction
Robotech
These look really neat. Your mileage may vary on the
appeal of non-transforming Veritechs and a hilariously out-of-scale SDF-1, but
I like ‘em. Probably not enough to buy, but I think Super 7 is offering a cool
product here for those that don’t want to spend big bucks to have some Robotech
representation on their shelves. I think casual fans that see these in stores
will be pleased.
ReAction
Universal Monsters 2.0
Super 7 took me by surprise with these all-new sculpts on
their (Funko’s) ReAction Monsters. Featuring fun, more detailed sculpts and
card art by Basil Gogos, these will absolutely be worth the double-dip. I love
that they’re leading with a Metaluna Mutant.
Various
M.U.S.C.L.E. Figures
I love Super 7’s MUSCLE figures, but I hate that they’ve
decided to blind box them. This will effectively end my collection. I assume
this “Keshi Surprise” business is big in Japan and I get that blind boxes are
apparently huge business at American retail, but I hate it. I just want to buy
a set of figures. I don’t want to deal with duplicates and trading and all of
the headaches, hassles, and horseshit that goes along with blind box
collecting.
It’s a huge shame too, because I would’ve been all-in on
those awesome Legends of Lucha Libre figures.
Adios, MUSCLEs.
Super
Buckets
Need something to keep your existing collections of small
figures in? Here you go!
These things look awesome! At first I didn’t think I’d
have anything to do with them, but they’ll be perfect for storing my loose SLUG
Zombies and MUSCLE figures. I can’t quite tell how big they are, but hopefully
they’ll have the capacity for at least a couple dozen of that style of toy.
Frank needs work, though. He’s a little too… something.
Transformers
Super Cyborgs
This aesthetic looks really
familiar, but I can’t quite place it. Whatever the case, I think it looks cool.
I also find it very interesting that
Hasbro is licensing their properties out to other toy companies. And yeah – I know
we’ve already seen things like this from other companies, but these are
for-real action figures, not just little tchotchkes. Having spied GI Joes on
Super 7’s drinkware, I wonder if we could see new Joe toys from another company
since Hasbro has seemingly no interest in the property.
Check back over the next couple of weeks for more on Toy Fair 2018!
I am also pretty annoyed by the decision to blind box the individual M.U.S.C.L.E. figures as Keshi surprise now. Does Super7 actually get most of their stuff out to retail where this would even make any sense? I like the model they've been using since 2015: Pay about $24-$30 dollars and get a complete set. That works. Why screw it up?
ReplyDeleteThey do have a presence in FYE stores. I'm lucky enough to have one pretty close by and they carry the ReAction figures and a few other things. Our pal Beau also tells me that he thinks they said they'd at least have sets of the Princess of Power figures, so maybe those blind boxes are just an option or maybe the retail version. Perhaps they'll carry the sets online.
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