Mirymate

Scorpion... very cool. Now we wait to see if he's with or without the tail spike. I assume given AA's attention to detail, they won't make the same mistake TB did and put the 90's cartoon mask on him the first time around. Course if it's that new green haired chick, I'll be ticked. Going to be a loooong 24 hours till we get the next code.

Talk about your good news / bad news situation... The good news is they're making a Moonstone!! Sure, I'd rather the old crested helmet design, but it's a Moonstone none the less! And a new Bullseye. The bad news? I have zero chance of getting these retail. Both local TRU's are very well scalped. The one in Cary, the employees even joke about it. I'm still trying to decide if I want to pay scalping prices for Wonder Man / Union Jack. Missed them by minutes, minutes!! My house is about 30 mins acroos town from the closest TRU, and obviously with two kids in school / preschool I can't hit a TRU every morning. So I got the ISDN number for the Wonderman 2 pack, and was calling every morning at 9 to see if they had arrived. So one Saturday I called and much to my delight, they had arrived on the truck that Friday afternoon and were set out that morning. Heart racing, I asked the employee to hold me one until I could get there. In the time it took her to walk from her CS desk to the aisle, the Scalpers cleaned them out of all the TRU exclusive packs. Tha's right, they were there and gone within ten minutes of opening. Can't compete with that.

I found this Imaginext ebay auction that has the kind of sets I meant. The set in stores right now is gonna be a bit too large, since as I said the line has been inching up in scale. The sets being offered in the auction are older, and of a smaller more minimat-like scale. You can see the police station we've use here.

Ah but there's a difference in not wanting a Spider-Man take up a spot in a boxed set that really should go to the Ben Grimm, SW Doom, or Molecule Man (Really it should go to Klaw, but they didn't have a spot for right-ins), and wanting a Spider-Man wave for just for the villains. And really, you could make the Amazing Bag-Man version of Spider-Man if the Vulture, Electro, or Lizard is with him and I'll be there happily. Actually, I think I'd rather have a mate with a little "Kick Me" sign on his back to the one suggsted for the SW set. Little removable bag mask, bare feet, yeah I think I would like to see that. YMMV Of course it just as easily be a House of M themed wave too. Which would save me some green. Or it could be another random selection, and they'll make the masses happy and give us Kang... with another Spider-Man, Wolverine, or Hulk just to balance out the karma.

Thank you for the warm welcome. I'll try not to wear it out too quickly. And as to the R-Man... I saw that he was coming, but I will probably end up making one anyway. Sure the orange getup is probably a more realistic containment suit, but I prefer the glowing-fat-chinaman-in-a-tunic look. (followed closely by glowing-fat-chinaman-in-a-1950's-women's-bathingsuit look) I have an admitted odd facination with the second Masters of Evil. Not sure why. But R-Man, Klaw, Melter, and Whirlwind are among my all time favorite Marvel villains and the first group I think of when I hear Masters of Evil. I know, it's weird. But we already have an Ultron... Still think they'd make a smokin boxed set in any scale Okay maybe not smokin in the SuperHero Squad scale, but you know what I mean. Okay maybe you don't, but I'd buy the set at least. In any scale. I'm pathetic that way.

Next time we set them up, I'll try to remember to snap a couple of shots. Floor's full of Micro-Megazords, and a "marble dropper" right now, but I'll see if I can influence the "reset".

Heh. Or at least get a good picture. Maybe with your Avengers #1 boxed set figures looking on... My Cap's mask is stuck too. Niether heat nor cold has helped. Oh I can get it off... with a pair of needle-nosed plires. Keep thinking about putting a hole in the top of the mask to try and keep it from getting such good suction, but I fear that any hole big enough to do that will weak the mask too much. So for right now, the mask stays on and Hawkeye stole poor Steve's hair. (all those white boy Avengers look alike anyway) It's a shame, because the paint job on Cap is first rate. Guess from what I read this is a classic case of be careful what you wish for. And my only other gripe with the set was a lack of accessories. Spidey could have used a reissued webline, just to up the value of another, nearly identicle Spider-Man. Villain wise I'm glad for Doom's side arm and Magnus' little power balls, but I think Gobby needed a pumkin bomb, either a bomb hand or new separate piece. And that Skull was begging for a Cosmic Cube accessory. No idea how to do it, but that's what would make that mate perfect.

Let me share a few happy discoveries my boys and I have made with minimates and accessories. Keep in mind, we are looking more for playsets than display pieces. Old Imaginext sets look great with minimates. Not the stuff you can find in stores now, they've slowly scaled up the last few years. But the stuff they made when the line was new works wondewrfully well. The figures are off, and just look weird combined with mates. (kids don't mind, but it drives Dad nuts) They had a series early on that consisted mostly of Cops, firemen, and construction crews. We have most of the cop stuff, including the jailhouse. Works wonderfully, and gives us a place to put the bad guys after a beat down. The handcuffs even work, better even than the bat-cuffs! The Imaginext Dinosaurs look pretty good, if gawdily colored, scale wise. Every superhero has to fight Dinosaurs at some point, right? The Imaginext you want is the sets where you could take apart and rebuild the playsets. Plenty of it to be found on Ebay. Also, this is just one of those happy acident kind of things, but the Justice League Watchtower works MUCH better as a base for the DC mates than it does with the much larger JL/JLU toys it was actually designed for. Sure they're a little short for the elevator, but that thing jams if you look at it funny anyway. If you happen to have one, try it out.

That's one of the nice thing about being a father... My youngest is 3 1/2, so I get to collect both... for the children you understand, for the children.(we have a LOT of "Iron Mans" and "Pectaclr Pider-Mans", but since he's only 3 he hasn't learned to hate pointless variants yet. Give him time, he'll learn) Of course the downside there is Richie has a Kang for his collection. (and the cute thing is, it's one of the few SHS guys that doesn't have a MM equivelant so he's always asking his older brother "why don' you haff da blue-face bad guy?" Way to rub salt in the wound buddy.)

This wave reminds me a lot of wave 23, really random grouping of characters with a villian in the variant pack. At least this time, we actually want multiples of the bad guy. But point well taken. We do need more villains. Lots more villains... maybe an all villain WAVE!! Or at least a couple of boxed sets. Like a Wreckng Crew boxed set. And one for the Brotherhood. And the second Masters of Evil, darn it! And my apologies, karamazov80. I somehow missed the bone claws on my first look. the newbie stands humbled on his third post. Take it as a sign of just how unimpressed I was with the figure.

What... no Prowler? (at least as much a "Spider-villian" as Rocket Racer at this point) Totally agree with about Doc Ock. Otto should never ever be able to reach more with his arms than his tentacles. With Spider-Man rogues, I really, really NEED to have a complete original Sinister Six, and after that everything else is gravy. (I do like me some good gravy though) ML made me wait a long time to achieve that goal, and buy 2 boxed sets full of repaints. I'm praying mates will be nicer to me.

Cool indeed. Still not sold on the Wolverine-as-soldier... but I want a second Hydra agent. (actually I'd pass on BOTH Wolverines for but for the Hydra agents, but I digress) One quibble with WWW (aside from it's existence), shouldn't those be BONE claws? Just sayin'. Black Panther is the star of the wave to me, modern and classic look, and I only have to buy him once to get it. WooHoo! Would love... LOVE to be able to get sets of just army builders as someone suggested. And before someone pipes up: Yes we know, Storm's Jim Lee costume isn't really white. It's shiny black and drawn with white highlights to the point it was often mistaken for white, especially in the 90's cartoon series. But it looks darn good, so let's not get hung up on this old point.

Considering how fast you guys cracked the code last time, it's actually not that odd. Even with all the omissions and reversals, we still have a credible guess before sundown. House of M Spider-Man, huh? Does that mean an entire House of M wave or another round of random Minimates? An HoM wave would give them an excuse for another Hulk, Iron Man, Thing AND Wolverine too. And we know how much they love that. Or are we on the random character wave, and Spider-Man centered wave to end/start the year cycle again (like 23 & 24). Hoping for the later, as it increases the odds of Electro and Vulture... or at least some Vulturion army builders.

My perspective on this beast is probably a bit different from most. Unlike a lot of folks who bought this as a display piece, this was always meant to be a place to park the Batmobile (albeit the minimobile at time of purchase). After a few very headache filled afternoons, we went and got a small piece of thin wood. We didn't glue the blocks together, but we did glue the base down onto the wood. (used liquid nails or maybe Gorilla glue, whichever was on-hand that day) That keeps the main support flat, and it can even be played with by two kids. It's still wobbly. One bad turn with a Batmobile and the whole thing threatens to fall. But nearly as much as it did before we glued the base done. And yeah, we did it in such a way to allow the big computer thing to still rotate around. The other advantage to gluing the base down? I don't have to find a place to keep storing the completed set, just a shoebox of parts and hunk of wood. Further improvement to the thing have been on my to-do list since we bought in. I just never remember to take height measurements on all the lower supports when it's set up. They need beefing up. Would lose the open walk space, but maybe some built in recesses, a few stickers, and you could rig some labs, or bat-a-rang storage. Man, it could be fun just to play with the whole design. But that's my advice, glue that base plate down flat to something, not the bricks.

Just thought I'd take a second to introduce myself. My name is Clay and I'm in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. (Sometimes known as the land that distributers forgot) My usual net handle is MiryClay, (as in mire) a nickname someone some 25 years ago would be hurtful, but I've used ever since in everything from fanfiction to my brief stint in radio. I've been an action figure collector as long as I can remember. Super Powers, Secret Wars, Marvel Legends, if it's been a major comics related toy line, I've probably got a large plastic bin full of it. Oh and Transformers from day one. Like many fortunate toy geeks, I found a terribly tolerant woman, and married her. 13 years of marriage and two great kids later, she's still terribly tolerant and I'm still glad I married her. It's actually my oldest son that got me into minimates. Ages ago, we came across the Target and Wal-Mart mate two packs. Lookin' for a bargain and seeing they were about $5-6 for two figures, I figured sure why not. We got a few, which turned into a few more, which turned into quite a lot by now. It's something he and I look for together either online or at the few places that carry them local. But for most of the time it's been slow going. For my boy, Mates fall after Animated Transformers, Ben 10, and now Wolverine and the X-men for his hard earned allowance. Lately, I had a decision to make... Marvel Legends is winding down. TF Classics/Universe is going on another hiatus. And I really had to decide if I was going to go whole hog on the 3 3/4 DC and Marvel stuff, or not. Ultimately, I decided that given the choice I would rather concentrate on new Marvel Minimates and trying to run down the Marvel and DC stuff I missed than start a whole new scale from scratch. The boys think it's great, Dad going whole hog on "their" toys. Remember that terribly tolerant wife? Yeah she's makin the worried face at me. Because she knows how these things go. I'll get really enthused about a collection, start hunting down piece and eBay hagglin' and pre ordering sets... But she knew what was comin'. I'm already lookin' at holes in certain collections... Like how, with the right parts, characters like Jim Gordon and Alfred would be relatively simple to make and a Gamma Hulk to Radioactive Man... Well you see where this is going don't you? (not there yet, but if I make it through June without making an Alfred for our C3 Batcave I will be stunned) So off to the races we go.