DSTZach

My biggest question now is... when will the "late April" get here so I can pre-order these bad boys?!

I had them fix that to May. I was recently told Mid-May for the release, and I don't know that online will have them sooner than that.

Also, we still have SDCC... so maybe there'll be some more neat exclusives for the convention that'll give us new characters!

This.

Wait, Thor comes with TWO spinny hammers? So if you get wave 44 and the box, you have FOUR spinny hammers?

I may have just changed my mind entirely.

No, no, no -- each comes with a regular hammer and a spinny hammer, like the one MvC3 Thor has. You get four hammers, but only two spinny hammers.

Also, Zach, that Hawkeye shot is fantastic. If you haven't already and are allowed to, please post non-shilouettey version in the General Pictures thread.

Thanks! I like the silhouette better, and I actually didn't darken that pic AT ALL. The sun was behind a cloud, it was overcast, and that's just how it came out. Then the sun came out, I changed my angle slightly, and I got the non-silho blue-sky shot. Literally, within 15 seconds of each other. So weird. I gave them outdoor Kang and Grim Reaper shots, too, but they didn't use them.

My guess is that the 7 characters for wave 44 and these 3 shown today were all planned at the same time and were going to be offered in some configuration, a wave, a set, something, as the comics tie in to the Avengers movie. 8 figures in these sets... could be canceled TRU wave being repurposed into 2 sets. Could be any number of things. Who knows... or rather we know who knows, but they probably won't tell cause it's moot at this point. It is what it is. We've begged for Kang, and now he's on the way. Yip-eee.

And thanks for the pep talk, Zach.

You're welcome! And these were never planned for TRU. TRU and specialty were separate starting with 43. Disney wanted box sets, they wanted the big guns, and this seemed like the best option, rather than scrambling to come up with even MORE slightly different versions of the characters. (There may have been a crunch factor that limited development time, as well, I'm not sure.) Remember, Disney is considered a specialty store, too.

Well, now you see why I never showed you the silhos of the other figures. Because you'd seen them.

I don't think this will hurt specialty sales in general, because most comic shops don't compete with Disney Stores due to their limited locations, but I do feel bad for Luke, because I know a lot of the hardcores were a tough sell on that wave already.

BUT, I think you will want to keep your orders with Luke, for the following reasons:

1. Ant-Man 2.0 and Sentry are awesome.

2. Hank Pym can be displayed three different ways -- short Ant-Man, tall Giant-Man and regular height unmasked Pym. (He comes with hair.) So you actually need three of those.

3. Thor comes with extra helmetless hair and an extra clean-shaven face. He also comes with both regular and spinny hammers.

4. Hawkeye comes with hair and a quiver full of individual arrows.

5. Iron Man comes with blue boot jets.

Will post tray pics and box pics soon.

Oh, and I do not remember mentioning a wave with Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Moon Knight in it.

Wait until the Tomb Raider Minimates show up, she can raid all of those tombs. Does Nathan Drake hang out in tombs? I have no idea.

And that video is amazing, Luke. I was waiting, waiting, waiting, then all of a sudden somebody threw a helicopter at me. NICE.

Aw, you guys...

Although, technically, this may be the year Ghostbusters Minimates ended. :sad:

On the bright side, I just wrote Previews text for Santa's Ship! Plus, Expendables, Tomb Raider, Knight Rider, etc. It's been a good year, and will keep getting better. SDCC will be pretty cool. And something may happen this year that will pay off next year, so it's a two-fer.

Overall, these look great! I really like that Movie Nick Fury and that awesome grenade launcher!

Quibble I have: Much like the Thing, it's too bad that Hulk is going to also suffer from "some have great hands, some have so-so hands". I wish there was some uniformity with this... as the forthcoming "Smart Hulk" shown at C2E2 shows the basic, non-fingered hands this one does. If it did come with those new ones, you could easily swap 'em on the Series 43 version.

I'm sure these new hands will get re-used at some point.

Sorry, all. This is the second time it's been bumped -- I honestly thought it would run last week. I'd be mad, but they're being very nice about promoting stuff for us (I got bumped by a story on series 45). Plus we may work together on a larger project down the road.

Did these hit the shelves today?

I'm seeing next week.

ive been following these reveals for the last few days, spazzing out on my own

Grim Reaper is probably one of my favorite Avengers villains so im SOOOOOO EXCITED to be getting a mate of him

also Zach, is the reveal date still today at a later time? or are you going to be continuing to do silhouetted reveals of each mate to countdown to an official reveal? im fine with either

Those are the only three silhouettes I shot, and you'll see why when they announce the sets. But I gave them lit versions of these photos in addition to the official photography of the full sets, so I hope you like those, as well.

I was told it would run today, but not when. You all may want to take five, focus on your day jobs or school or whatever until end of day EST. I've seen them post stories at 5:30 sometimes.

Sorry for the teases, I just thought you guys would get a kick out of them. I did this for you all, and the <500 people following Minimates on Twitter were an afterthought.

Hey everyone! After being a member for a few years, I've decided I should probably be a more active poster as a direct result of Zach initially thinking I was a girl at the C2E2 minimates panel this year.

Sorry about that. You were a half-mile away. Don't be so shy next time! Multiversers belong in the front row.

Marvel knows where, and they know when. "When" is slightly farther away than I indicated, but not much farther.

No idea when Marvel will post, but they'll be showing a full set. Or two.

Sorry to sully this thread with this nonsense, BTW. Probably should have just started a new one. I need to start more threads.

I forgot.

And you should probably stop speculating.

The timing of the release has to do with content, but the timing of the reveal had to do with the outlet. We don't like to advance-promote exclusives too far in advance, especially if there is no pre-order available.

Awesome, so then these should be available really soon!

I'm pretty sure they'll be hitting in the next week or two, but I will confirm.

I have a packaged sample in hand, yes. These are mostly test shots, though. Close to final. May post another tonight. AT MIDNIGHT. MUAHAHAHAHAHAH.

...If I remember.

That's a wicked cool shot, Zach.

Thanks, man. Posting your Vorin pic everywhere. Little Rubber Guys, Facebook, everywhere.

Another shot I took for a thing.

Is there anything more beautiful than a man's love for translucent plastic? Bravo.

Man, I really want to enter this... I don't want to win, just make a beast.

Can't wait to see the TRU pics.

And Zach, would you say that some of the hope with these is that this line will build some interest in Maximum Zombies also so that they can maybe come along after the WD line ends or is getting close to ending/

I think there's hope we'll revisit those designs someday, yes. But right now we just want the WD line to do well. Wave 2 is shaping up nicely, and should come hot on the heels of Wave 1.

Great shot Geo. And Ivan, once again you have managed to make Minimates disturbing. I mistyped "Minimare" just now, and I think that sums it up. Well done.

Yeah, you shot my build-a-minimate. He was the one with the green body, green skrull head, gold armor and green cape. I had issues getting him together because I as a bit greedy and wanted him to have both chest armor and a cape. Sorry about that. I did try to get through as quick as possible, since there were two kids behind me, and I wanted to make sure they got as much time as they could building their mates. But I did trim up all the pieces a little bit when I got back home, and got the chest armor, cape and helmet to all work together fit very nicely. Now he looks really nice, and is acting as a villain to my animal thor minimates. Once you know me, it's pretty hard to not spot me, with my wild, long hair, beard and flannels. My wife, Jenny, was also with me.

I remember you!

Zach, I mean no offence by this, because the fault lies with the source material, not the translation to minimate form. But I can, and have, made better and more iconic zombies with a little black paint and some red splatter effects.

"It's not the toys, I've just made better toys with two ingredients." None taken, dude. :biggrin:

They'll still have some of the sculpted parts. And we're trying to make the zombies look different. Hopefully you'll want to get them all. Will release the TRU Series 1 pic soon.

Tomb Raider is the most recognizable video game character in the world, and has starred in two movies. Kratos is, and has, not. Would have been cool, though.

Sony gets paid a guarantee regardless of how well they sell. I'm sure if the Sony line had done well at retail, we'd have tried to do another. But I don't think it did.

Before you pay high prices on eBay for them, ask anybody on this board to pick them up for you at TRU. Pretty sure most places still have them on sale.