battlecat

If we didn't have variants, I don't think many of the cool variants we have gotten would have made it into any regular wave release -- okay Black Spidey would have, sure, but probably not Stealth Iron Man, Frosted Iceman, Diamond Emma Frost or Black Electra. I like those Mates because they're cool, not because they were a bitch to find. Even if DST released 8 per wave like DC, we likely wouldn't be getting a lot of the cool alternate versions we have, like Blondy Archangel... we'd get two completely different characters instead (which I'm sure would appeal to some, but I think we already get plenty of Mates these days, when you add in all the box sets and exclusives etc). Plus half the time the variant doesn't interest me (like, say, slapping a beard on Thor) and I get to save a few bucks. So I'm all for them.

Looks like you're the lucky sonuva, Deadpool! :biggrin: I'm still waiting on my Animated order... looks like BBTS thought they got all 3 waves in on the Saturday, and so sent me notice the whole lot had arrived, but the waves 2 and 3 figures didn't switch to "in stock" on their website until later that week, and finally shipped last friday. No big deal, but I want to get my mitts on them already... Grimlock's underbite put me off a bit in the initial photos I saw, but it's grown on me a lot and now I think he's probably my favorite in the whole line. And I'm pretty sure that the Universe figures were at my comic shop (in Toronto) this week, but I was in a rush so I didn't pay much attention. (Don't know if this means they'll be widely available in Canada though, since they do import stuff.)

Just out of curiosity, what kind of cliffhanger were you expecting?

I forgot that the Spider-man one came out around the same time as SM3 -- between that and the Iron Man box they're putting out next month, it's looking good that they'll release a comic-based set to capitalize on the Wolvie movie, which I'd be much more interested in than the inevitable movie mates wave. Personally, I'd love to see Weapon X, Gambit, Deadpool and Jubilee, but any of them would be enough to make me buy a set.

The Donster -- last I heard it was still 2009 for the second half of the season.

Ackbar! http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product...amp;mode=retail

Well I don't know if I'm in my right mind or not , but the mini vinyl Maxx figure Shocker's putting out is looking pretty good to me (much better than the prototype pics for their 6" one)... Oh and I was too lazy to check and see if they've got any that you're missing here, but here's another list of SD exclusives with photos: http://2008reviews.figures.com/showgallery.php?cat=875

I've seen them all over the place here, but been waiting on my BBTS preorders -- should finally ship out today. I wasn't expecting the wave 2 and 3 figures to show up at the same time as wave 1 though, so that'll be cool to get them all together. I'm getting Bumblebee, Prowl, Blackarachnia and Grimlock, and might grab a Jazz later... the rest of the designs don't appeal to me as much (in the toys I mean, I think the overall character design on the show is great). In this weekend's episode (the one that aired in Canada anyway),

I have these two, if it helps: Spidey - 6 53569 29960 8 Venom - 6 53569 30407 4

We already got one of them, don't we? http://www.minimatedatabase.com/figure.php?i=508 That's true, and also the other version they released looks exactly like Vision did when they found him as a ghost-hologram or whatever at the beginning of YA. The fact that DST made him in those 2 versions is probably the strongest indicator that they'll make YA mates at some point -- though they might wait until Marvel finally gets around to starting the series back up again.

I'm trying to limit myself on these because of the size. I don't really like the style they use for ones with human faces, so that helps. But I had to pick up the awesome Spidey, and that meant grabbing Venom too. Plus I've got Chewie, Vader and C3P0 from the SW line. The price seems good to me, but probably just because they're basically a mass-produced take on designer toys, and real designer/vinyl toys tend to cost a whole lot. I like the Venom tongue much more here than on the Minimate -- the first Marvel toy I ever bought, back in the early '90s, and was a Venom whose tongue stuck out when you pressed a lever on his back, so both of them just remind me of that...

I'm not even remotely a completist, and only buy the ones I really like, and apparently I really like 119 of them (so good job DST!). 120 if you include my cobbled together (don't want to throw around the word "custom" for what's basically a mix-and-match + black Sharpie) non-translucent Kitty Pryde. 121 if you include the Sentinel. At first counting them made me feel uncomfortably aware of how much money I've spent on all this, but then reading about BHM's Mate Barn made me feel better.

Well, that's potentially awesome. Runaways is probably the best thing Marvel has done in the last 5-10 years (well, up until Vaughan left the series - hope they get him to write the movie), so you should check it out... Don't know if they'd work as minimates though, since they're so civilian. And I don't know if they'd look right in the same scale as "adult" minimates, especially Molly who's like 12. But the Young Avengers, even though I'm not that into the series, have some pretty cool costumes that would work great.

Patience is the key to this game. Hasbro has already stated that wave 1 figures will be available through at least wave 4. I don't expect any problem with finding any of them since it seems none of them will be short-packed. Oh, I don't mind waiting, it was just a drag to see and not buy, and I thought any other potential Toronto board members might like a head's up. That's cool that they're going to be so available -- a big part of the reason I didn't want to get them at the big box stores was how ridiculous it was finding that '08 Bumblebee last summer (my first attempt to buy a Transformer) when I could barely find one of the older model versions on the ransacked shelves. And then of course, after all the trouble it took to get one, they released a bunch more 6 months later and they were all over the place As a novice TF collector, it goes against all my toy-buying instincts to wait for things to reappear instead of snapping everything up right away... I mean it's great that Hasbro does it that way, it's just so different from Minimates and everything else...

The spoiler bars? Click and drag your mouse/cursor thing across them, to highlight the text... If anyone lives in Toronto, they have Animated Wave 1 at the Silver Snail... which would be great if I hadn't preordered them at BBTS where they're expected in June. Didn't think they'd get them at the comic shop, and didn't want to hunt through pillaged Walmarts and Toys'R'Uses... but oh well, get them soon enough.

Wow, thanks, battlecat! I've been hoping to find one under $50 for months. Happy to help -- their main page is so busy I almost didn't notice it, so I thought it was worth a post! Anyone catch the last Animated episode? Now that I've gotten used to the character designs, and the Decepticon storyline's up and running, I'm really loving it. -- awesome... edit: didn't think that counted as a spoiler, sorry (also didn't realize it was airing on YTV first, since they're usually behind on everything)

In case anyone's looking for the Revoltech Ultra Magnus variant, BBTS has put up a limited restock preorder thingy here: http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product...amp;mode=retail

Hadn't thought about the voting in that way, but yeah that'd work too... I know they've had some Cylon deaths in the show that were out of range of resurrection ships, I guess I always assumed that if a copy actually full-on died, it would be replaced with a completely fresh copy -- though your way makes more sense now that I think about the Sharon and Six living on Galactica, who must not have voted. I actually really like the way Cylon society has been shown in such an alien way on the show, especially when Baltar was living on the base ship and it was all just so "hazy"... Friday's was good -- I think they're pulling off

Well even if the Cylons killed off the human Tigh at some point and replaced him with Cylon Tigh, the Cylon Tigh would still have "always been one" -- but yeah, they've never said in the show how they inserted the sleeper Cylons into the fleet. I don't know if they've ever said how long Adama's known Tigh, but the Cylons didn't have human models until sometime after they disappeared after the first war, so if he was around that far back I'm guessing he was replaced. The thing with all the copies, is that that's how they've built their society -- thousands of (potentially) individual versions of the 7 models, spread across a fleet of base ships. We know they're potentially individual because their experiences can change them, like the sleeper Sharon or Caprica Sharon joining Galactica, etc. When one of them is killed their consciousness is transmitted to a resurrection ship and inserted into a new body, so the number of each model out there always remains consistent, which is how they could stalemate on votes (at least with the Xena Cylon away in stasis). The final 5 don't have new bodies waiting around on a regular resurrection ship because their identities are supposed to be a secret from the other Cylons for some reason. But they could in theory have their own resurrection ship lurking around somewhere, or a ship full of final 5 copies -- but probably not. They seem to have been designed for a different purpose than the regular 7 Cylons (so aren't part of their 'society'), by whoever/whatever built and programmed the human Cylons in the first place. Anyway, that's my impression of how all the Cylon craziness works...

I don't think it showed how As for excitement over this season, I thought the first two episodes held over that level of excitement from the finale, because like God Magnus said it felt like we were getting somewhere. And we are (there's what, 17 shows left?), but this week's episode was a bit more muddled for sure (although ). Maybe it's something to do with knowing it's ending "soon" -- I had the same lull in excitement with Lost this season, even though I felt like I should be more excited now that they're moving towards a deadline.

That made me so angry! It kind of made me laugh, but only because Also, I can't even begin to guess how they're going to explain Love this show!

Ah, didn't know about that. I guess I wasn't the only one not buying them then... Hopefully the Heroes line will go better for DST since the show is clearly catered towards comic book fans, costumes or no, and until/unless TRU gets back on the Minimate bandwagon, comic shops are still their major marketplace.

I don't actually know... they do sell out faster than Marvel or DC at my comic shop but obviously that means nothing. The only "civvie" line I've been into was BTTF, so I'm right there with you that Minimate likenesses are much more appealing when attached to recognizable costumes like with Marvel Mates, but then like Avenger said, Heroes is ridiculously popular, so hopefully they'll do okay. On a completely different note, I think it's really cool how DST is making some of its recent Mates so "transformable" -- from Havok's "double chest" to the "interior armor" Stark in the Civil War set, and now three different heads for Pym, basically making him two Mates in one! Also I was happy to hear they at least went after the Star Wars liscense, although it's hard to see Lucas saying no to anything considering how many product lines those movies have produced...