DSTZach

When does the new series actually come out?

Pretty sure boxed set 4 is coming out any week now.

[begin rant]

I gotta say, overall, I'm really sad how this line was handled. I was ecstatic when it was announced, but only have a warthog and about 4 or so figs in my collection. Halo has such a huge universe and has more to it than Spartan armor variants which is all I see in this line besides the occasional alien. I would have been able to bear the variants if they would have been packed with unique guns but there's only been 8 weapons made and repacked so far. I really wish they would have made another vehicle rather than 6 warthogs as well. Ghost, wraith, banshee, mongoose, scorpion all would have been amazing.

[End of rant]

Sorry we had to scrap the Scorpion. We had big plans for the end of this year, but they were not to be. Do you count all of the new guns in the Noble Team vehicle sets in your tally? Pretty sure that's the only place you can get the sniper rifle and shotgun (so far).

If it makes anyone feel any better, I have no gators. I got one shortly after I came on board last year, and gave it away to a contest winner. I'm not sad about it, because I know the regular line will give me more Beasts than I know what to do with. (And I'm an old school Beasts fan.)

That said, as former press I have certainly gotten my share of Toy Fair exclusives over the years. And while it was a nice perk for me, I can see the value of giving a retailer something special. Many of them are fans themselves -- the ultimate fans, because they buy all of these toys to sell them to other fans. I have never met a specialty toy retailer who didn't like toys. If not for them liking and buying our products, we would have far fewer avenues to bring these items to you guys. So consider the retailer promo a necessary rarity.

Dear Zach -

If you ever need a liver, kidney, brain, heart, baby, place to stay in Indianapolis, tesseract cube, soul to sacrifice to Mephisto, coupon for Red Burrito, etc...

Let me know. You're a prince among men, sir. These two box sets have, in the past two days, gone from "meh" to "WOW" for me. You even prompted me to strip off Arnim Zola Cap's leather jacket and offer it up to Iron Man 2's Black Widow - along with my spare Rachel Grey hairpiece - to create '90s Black Widow. The result is way off from perfect, but it's certainly workable, and it's not even a look I LIKE for the character. It just seems "right" to go alongside the rest of the roster.

http://www.forevergeek.com/wp-content/media/2012/04/Black-Widow-2.jpg

Prince among men or uncanny marketing genius? Just doing my job, although doing it in my spare time.

And that's my favorite Widow look! With or without the jacket. I dig the short hair. Anybody come with a grey bodysuit?

Let me post some pictures of the blister trays, see if I can get you guys excited.

You should do tray shots more often.

You know, one of the biggest pops at the C2E2 panel was when I showed the trays for The Expendables. Granted, that was because the Expendables trays look like Charlton Heston's rec room exploded, but I'll have to do more of them.

Thanks for the photos sir. I know this is off-topic Zach, but I was looking through an old thread and saw a quote from you about how awesome the AFX and SDCC sets were going to be. Mattel announced what they were offering today, do you know when we'll find out what DST's got in store for us?

I know Chuck likes to announce closer to the event, so probably not for another month or so. But I'll see if he'd like to mix it up this year. We have a bunch, and they're all pretty cool. Not all of them are ready yet, though. Maybe he'll let me stagger them out, announce a new one every week. We'll see. I know people like to know what they need to track down.

Before you break the bank, fatcow, or sell your soul to minijeff, keep in mind that there will likely be another Gator made made at some point, one that fits in a little better with the current look of the line. I'm not saying he'll be in Wave 1, but I've seen the comic design, and it's pretty dope. And there will be multiple painted Vorins.

And screamfleet, I have to say I read your first comment and had to double-check what board I was on. I feel like I have never met a casual collector here.

do both sets come with the new normal stands? or is it only the one in the grim reaper set?

also does ironman have a face under his helmet?

by the way, these look awesome!!!

There was no second tray in the Kang set, so I'm assuming no basic stand, just the teleportation stand. But Tony needs no hair:

Zach, is Thor's armor permanently like that or is it just pushed over? It looks skewed right (or left, in the pic) in every shot, figured i'd ask...

I think mine was just warped. Hopefully it's not widespread, as mine was a packaged sample. Did I never post packaging pics? Dang.

Well, I guess I can scratch 2 more mates off my list. Grim Reaper even has the crazy smile I designed! Unfortunately, I can't justify buying 2 whole box sets for only 2 minimates! I just don't want any more of those particular A-listers (Cap, Thor, IM. Hulk)anymore!

Those are some great designs, Chas! Hope you find some way to get these guys.

Emergency meeting at Kindle 5.

does anyone know if the grim reaper will have any accessories

I know! I know! I know!

No.

BUT his hand is a scythe. And his mask comes off, although he's one of the only guys who doesn't get a hair piece.

Zach, your photos are always cool, but that Hawkeye shot looking over the rooftop is easily the best EVER. Wow.

Thank you! I posted the unadulterated non-darkened silho shot over in the General Minimates pictures thread, and I think I like that one even better.

Those are really great, what camera are you using?

Let's see... Sony Cyber-Shot Super SteadyShot DSC-H5? The company had it in a drawer in the NY office when I came on board. I pretty much carry it on me at all times now.

One more:

Posted pics of the new Marvel box set characters over in that thread, but here they are here, at Geo's request:

Shot Grim Reaper on the train platform near my house in NY. The place is in bad shape. This one used a flash, the silho was in the same place, with no flash, and I added a mask in addition to darkening it.

Hawkeye I put on a DC Direct Batman display base, and lifted up to the sky. The sun came out for this one, the silho pic was just really overcast. Shot within minutes of each other, though.

Shot Kang on the train platform at Secaucus Junction. Shot his silho picture the same day, 90 degrees in the other direction.

Here you go. These were early samples, so they may not be exact -- I didn't compare them to the more recent packaged sample. Will share box and tray shots later today, perhaps.

So we get to pay inflated exclusive prices for what should have been Wave 44 to begin with? Awesome. I understand the need for duplication, but if this was from any other company I wouldn't hesitate to call it a blatant cash grab.

If it helps you guys, think of it like this: we didn't give Disney Kang to make you all buy more Avengers, we gave Disney the Avengers so they would carry Minimates. Disney carrying Minimates is good for everybody. But Disney won't sell 2-packs, they prefer a higher price point. Once they picked the characters they wanted, we had room in the box sets to work in new figures. ENTER KANG.

Why are other message boards not this funny?

Hey Zack I wish this type of info was in the product solicitations as often I don't find out what I should have bought duplicates of until the last minute. Sometimes it's easy to order more other times no so. Thanks for this, now I need another Pym...

We showed both Ant-Man helmets (and all three sets of shoes) at NY Toy Fair two and a half months ago, assumed everyone saw that then. Sorry, Dave.

Zach - None of my local comic shops stocked Wave 43 and a couple who always order Minimates say they never saw it come up for order. Did anything change with wave 43? I know waves are sometimes resolicited and wonder if there is any wave 43 leftover for resoliciting, or if the run was smaller or just sold out with specialty orders faster than usual.

I try not to limit my Minimate spending to single retailer but I thought I'd see wave 43 in stores. I love that wave. Best Spidey ever.

Plenty in stock, and I remember the solicitation well. It definitely ran in Previews, with an ad and everything. Tell them to get on that.

Zach are you going to post some in hand pics?

Gotta mail some stuff out from the NYC office today, but I'll try to post some tonight or tomorrow. I think you boys have had enough excitement for one day.

I think we have already seen kang in color. At least his face. Remember the april fool's joke? How did he/she made such a great kang picture? We never heard from her/him again. Also I posted the pic on dst's fb page. Someone asked when we would finally see kang. In which Zach or chuck replied that he/she has one month to release kang in order to beat DST. My point is that ain't it strange that we see a kang on April fool's from an unknown guy,then Zach or chuck states that he'll be released in one month(which everyone thought was a joke I guess. I never saw anyone post it) and then almost one month later we are gonna see

kang for reals? I think this was DST's way to inform us of kang's coming. What do you think?

That was a Kang-incidence. Whoever posted it is in-Kang-siderate, and un-Kang-ected with DST. There was no Kang-spiracy.

...That said, if we could have put Kang in box set with seven Wolverines, we would have found some way to do it.

Okay, so, Zach, question, since you have them in hand:

Is the purple on Hawkeye more purple like in the un-silhouetted pic you took, or fuchsia (pinkish) like in the (more than likely heavily Photoshopped) group shot?

Purple. The fuchsia one was a painted prototype, while the other one was painted at the factory. The one in the box I'm looking at is close to the factory sample I shot.

LOVING the new MMMV color scheme. So, so, so pretty. Purple is my favorite color! Which is why I am almost as happy as you all to have Kang... and a new Hawkeye, as well.

Next up, I'm "Kang-paigning" for Purple Man, Dragon Man, Wizard, Trapster, Medusa and Graviton.

I never got the FF set but I liked how it was a shared exclusive that actually appeared at my store without a lot of effort in looking for it.

You never got the Future FOundation? I love that set.

Speaking of Kang, is his head a sculpted piece or is that a slipover mask on a normal head? And will Reaper have a hairpiece? Very excited to see the tray pictures!

Slipover mask. Wasn't there a Kang where he just had the blue head? In the old Avengers cartoon, maybe? And no, Reaper doesn't have a hairpiece. But if he was a blonde, he'll have his pick of the toupee shop.

On a side note, I'm glad I can finally break down my only Dark Hawkeye back into his normal state after being QC'ed into a standard version.

Yes, and nobody has to repaint their Fear Itself Hawkeye, either.

Gotta say, I've been looking at those pics now for about an hour, off and on... really nice sets. Only one I don't approve of is Smart Hulk, because he was never an Avenger in that look. My Continuity-Sense is buzzing! But I'm actually happy to have a few extra Thors, because I wanted to upgrade my older Thor 'mates with that cool shoulder pad/cape thing, but the classic Heroic Age Thor helmet doesn't fit with them. So he's going to be fodder, but... good fodder.

Speaking of Hulk and fodder, Hulk actually comes with the open hands movie Hulk has, in comic Hulk colors. Wasn't somebody just asking for more of those?

yeah kids are gonna love Kang and Grim Reaper... as soon as they look up who they are.

Or watch Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I've only seen the first half of Season 1 (Kang makes a kameo, and the Reaper re-appears) but apparently Kang rules the rest of Season 1. Which is why us not making him for so long makes us, what was it? Chowderheads?