|
Well, after a few months of being too lazy to go out and pick up a copy of Toyfare, I finally did, and can give you a report on the future of some toy lines.
First off, is the announcement of a toy line for the X-Men movie coming out in July. It's being done by Toy Biz, and will have the main characters and villains from the movie including two different versions of Wolverine, one as Wolverine and one as his alter ego, Logan. Also will be Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Jean Grey, Cyclops; and bad guys like Magneto, Sabretooth, Toad and Mystique. There will also be playsets, vehicles, and two packs of figures mostly focusing on Wolverine and another character. From the pictures that I have seen, it seems to me that they are good likenesses of the people from the movie. Some people will not like this line or the movie simply because the writers/producer/director decided to make the X-Men more "Matrix like", and I'm inclined to agree with them. I think the figures will sell, but I won't be purchasing any though, and I will not see the movie either.
Next, the Star Wars line will be releasing a few figures over the rest of the year from both the Power of the Force line and their Phantom Menace line. I think I may have mentioned this last month, but they are now releasing the figures on a new card without a CommTech chip, and combining the two lines. Hopefully this means that we will see a price drop of $0.50 or more on figures. They will be replacing the CommTech chips with some sort of bio card. I have not seen any of these, but hopefully these will be like those that they had on the back of the first releases of the figures way back in 1995. Also, I'm glad to hear that they may be releasing IG-88, Biker Scout and Plo Koon (a Jedi Council member from the Phantom Menace). They may be released in the new lines later this year. Let me just say that I've seen the Biker Scout on the Hasbro's Star Wars page and let me tell you it looks awesome. The Y-Wing is hopefully still on schedule for a June release and I'll have a review of it as soon as I can get my hands on one. Later on this year or early next year will be another Target exclusive. This one is going to be a twelve-inch Biker Scout figure and a Speeder Bike. This one I've also seen pictures of on-line and it is also vary nice looking, but until I see it in person, I'll hold off on passing further judgment.
Lastly, more news on the GI Joe front. The web site yojoe.com is reporting that Hasbro is going to be releasing new GI Joe figure packs. This time they will be packed in twos rather than in threes and should be available in all stores rather than being a Toys R Us exclusive. The line will consist of ten figures with six of them being GI Joe's and four being Cobras. The GI Joe's will be: Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Dusty, Law & Order, General Tomahawk (lots of speculation on who this might be) and Dial Tone. The Cobra's will be Cobra Commander, Chameleon (this might be Zartan), Firefly (Hopefully in gray instead of white) and Undertow (they were Destro's Frogmen in the original line.) Along with the new action figure two packs, there will be three vehicles coming out as well. The first is the MOBAT tank that came out in the second series of re-releases with the figures Thunderwing and Heavy Duty. Second is the Dragonfly helicopter, it is unknown whether or not Wild Bill will be included or not. Third will the C.U.D.A. submarine with a Lampreys pilot. Hopefully, with the year between the last line and this line, they have improved the plastic and the O-Rings used to hold the figures.
As always comments, ideas for articles, autographed pictures of sports stars, money or other things can be sent to the e-mail address in the by line and I'll respond to it as soon as possible.
|
