Lobsterman

I've seen nothing new at any of my three stores since the great clearance purge. Two of the stores show a case of ASM2... somewhere... but nobody seems to know exactly where they are.

BMH, I'm curious: If scale if such an issue for the Sentinel, why would even a 3" body be acceptable? The only body size we've ever gotten to true scale has been the Max statue; DST have said that for licensing and other reasons, they're never getting into bodies that size. So it's kind of a moot point, isn't it? If we can't get a Sentinel that's ten times the height of a normal Minimate body, isn't the difference between a 3" and a bulked-up, waist-extendered 2" splitting hairs?

The description says they're 12" across. So, I'd guess a standard 2" Minimate would be about head-height with the second level of the buildings. Not perfect scale, but still potentially pretty nice for display purposes.

I think this could be the best (2") Sentinel you guys have done. I'm not 100% sold on the Galactus gloves, but I don't have a better suggestion.

This could be pretty cool for the Pathfinder mates. If you're not completely sour on Kickstarter... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2087444096/pop-up-miniature-terrain-kit At least with this you would supporting the thing you actually want them to make.

You need to get on these, DST.

Neat! This is like one of the transformation Spideys we've gotten, only 100x cooler. Where might one obtain this thermoreactive paint?

It's a good thing everyone hates the non-sculpted heads on these and were passing on the line anyway. Otherwise we might have some kind of disaster on our hands.

Does the explosion of blind-bagged figures over the last several years not contradict that notion? In general, I think "completists gonna complete" generally holds true because a collector likes a property, not because he likes the act of collecting. Conversely, if he is all OCD about collecting, it shouldn't make any difference. No, man, you're taking it raw!

I honestly don't get all of the doom and gloom on these. So far, I've seen no indication that the blind bag scenario will be any worse than the single pack dump cases we've seen before: even distribution of the characters most people want, a couple shorter packs, and one chase per case. That's it. No nightmare scenarios of 1/144 chases or mystery rares you don't even know you're supposed to be looking for. Zach's been pretty forthright about how they're handling these, so it seems counterproductive to draw these dramatic conclusions about DST having a secret plan to make collecting Minimates impossible just to spite us. I don't feel like DST is trying to screw the collectors, and it sounds like they're making their best effort to construct these blind bags in a way that minimizes the pain. I'm guessing most of us would have bought a case anyway – in this instance, yes, it will be a little annoying to get dupes that aren't army builders, but a case will get you a complete set, as Zach has said. You can sell your dupes to the folks who refuse to participate in the blind bag model, and everyone is happy. Also, I'm sure nobody will be complaining about having extra nunchucks and katanas laying around cough cough Hand ninjas cough. Say these were like the Aliens dump: single window boxed with a one-per-case rare that was just as hard to get as in the blind bag scenario (assuming you don't have a hookup at the comic store who is willing to pull the chase for you on shipment day). Would you be just as opposed to the setup? Because it seems a little silly to take a principled stand against buying these simply because the words "blind bag" are being used. If you're a completist, you're probably buying a case regardless. If you're not, and you're just in it for the Turtles, I'm betting the odds are in your favor to get them, or at worst be able to easily trade for them.

He can stand up without feet.

It seems that DC is going for breadth rather than depth: get their key characters out there in as many different styles as possible for the guys who just have a Batman shelf or a Superman shelf and don't care to collect all of the DCU in one specific format. Two waves, then move on to the next thing.

It would be nice to see a 50/50 split between heroes and villains in this poll, but polls being what they are, it's not too hard to imagine the final shake out being Cap, IM, Hulk, and Thanos. With Ronan appearing in the GOTG movie this summer, one might assume he's a high-visibility villain choice for the "laypeople" doing the real moving of numbers in this poll, but one might also assume it's not going to be his face on the box. While new characters are fun, I think it would be an awful shame for Thane to make it in at Thanos' or Ronan's (or, IMHO, any of the three Avengers') expense. I really hope the two losers still get made...

Aww... #brohug. I was bummed, too. When I was like "sooooo... my friend is in town..." and my wife shot me a look that said "knowing how long I've been awake with this sick baby in the last three days, you won't finish that sentence," I thought better of it. Also, I honestly didn't mean for my comment to imply this... circumstance... with Bobby was owing to DST being lazy or miserly. I'v been on the receiving end of a vendor error before, and I know what it's like to have to make the call whether it's serious enough to incur the not insignificant cost of pulling the plug on a run – or even reprinting – or just throw something at a wall, curse a bit, and move on with it.

You know, I think a property like PvZ could be perfect for blind bag distribution. The subject matter lends itself to army building, which would take the sting out of getting doubles, triples, quadruples while you're hunting for that chase.

That's a typo. It's supposed to say, "Collect them, all!" Commas matter.

Boots are tampo, thighs are sculpted, chest and shoulder pads are new sculpt. Yay! I am stoked for this set!

Ronan, obviously. Thanos, because he needs bulking-up. IM because I love that armor design. And Hulk, because I want a comic-accurate Armored Hulk without derpy feet. And I would hesitate to assume that the ones that don't get picked will inevitably end up in a TRU wave like they have in the past. Zach it looks like the legs on Hulk are all tampos, can you say how the torso/shoulders are executed? Are those shoulder pads news sculpts, but the torso is the standard cap with tampos, or is it sculpted, too?

I'll preface this by saying I've been collecting Minimates since near to the beginning, and I've been fortunate enough to live near TRUs that plentifully stock exclusives (until the recent…whatever). The only Minimates I don't have in my collection are gold and silver Spidey, along with various retailer blanks, and I'm honestly not interested in those, so I don't consider them personal "grails." I buy full sets from Luke, so I always get the "chase" figure right off the bat. As a result, the only Minimates I ever really want for are the ones that haven't come out yet. I get that momentary thrill of the hunt when TRU exclusives are first spotted in the wild, but that lasts about a week, then I get them, then it's back to waiting another three months for the next series to come out. I suspect that's the case for most reasonably diligent Minimate collectors. Certainly if you just started collecting, there are going to be older figures like Gambit, or Swordsman, or what have you, that are going to be more difficult or more expensive to find, but that's the case with any line you get into late in the game. Maybe rare chase figures could bring some sport back into collecting Minimates. Say what you will about TRU sets, they are not impossible to obtain (until the recent…whatever), between getting help from members on the board or resorting to ebay for a reasonable price. Adding to the mix some rare chases that don't fall into your lap with a bit of effort — knowing that there are some Minimates out there that are going to be your grail, that there's a chance you might never own — could introduce some excitement into collecting the line. Would I be infuriated looking at that white-costume Iron Fist-shaped hole in my collecting knowing he was a 1/144 chase? Absolutely. But would it add a bit of… I don't know, purpose?… to my collecting? I think it might. At least then my collection wouldn't be functionally complete as soon as I opened a new wave. Of course, maybe I'm the only one interested in that sort of excitement.

Or, since this was the chase figure, perhaps they were trying to save on the cost of an additional tampo strike on the legs, arms, and sides of the chest block. The fact that the black collar area is missing from the front of the chest even though there is already a black plate on that surface does make this look more like an "oopsie," though… From a manufacturing standpoint (if it's anything like commercial printing), I would guess that once a figure is in the final paint sample stage the entire lot has already been run, whomever was "press checking" signed off on it, and these are mostly for reference. The error would have to be pretty egregious to justify the cost and delay of making new tampo plates and rerunning them.

Sold!

Confirmed on AFX Facebook page; no SDCC exclusive Minimates.

The trend seems to be SDCC exclusives moving back to their traditional format of one-off bonus sets rather than vehicles to push out new characters to long-time collectors. I think zombie versions of the key characters is probably a no brainer.

Yeah, kind of bummed about that myself. Zach's statement from last year, "expect the unexpected and don't expect the expected" has turned out to be true on many levels lately. I get the sense that AFX put a lot on the line with the Alpha Flight exclusives a couple years ago, and when they turned out to be critically-acclaimed but sales flops, AFX really had to step back and reevaluate how much they were going to invest in Minimates exclusives going forward. Last year's playing-it-safe offerings at SDCC seemed to presage that (and aside from the Deadpool set, even those seemed to linger), and now it's looking like they're really not interested in taking chances on getting stuck with inventory.