A Mini Update

Hey folks,

I know it's been a while, but things have been crazy with rehearsals for Julius Caesar (opening March 7) and prepping the house for the new baby (a boy named Duncan scheduled for caesarian on June 2). So I haven't had time to write about a number of things (planned but fell by the wayside were the Broadway stage hands strike, the WGA strike, the HD disc based format wars, some movie reviews, TV reviews, comic & book reviews as well as a behind the scenes look at Caesar).

But here I am today because I've got some time (now that my three weeks of rehearsing without a title character are over) and the annual Toy Fair is about to end and since I still love toys (even though I'm in sell-off mode on eBay -- well will be again in a week or two when I get the confidence back after my eBay account was hacked -- its a bit disconcerting to come home after being away for 4 or 5 hours to find that you've started an auction for a Jeep Wrangler which you don't own -- but passwords have been changed and my Paypal account wasn't affected thankfully, but I changed the password anyway)....


So...on to today's missive...

When I was a kid my first action figure experience (after the Fisher Price toys whose modern day versions scare the shit out of me) was Mego's various lines that included "The World's Greatest Super Heroes" (a combo line of both DC and Marvel Heroes & Villains), Star Trek, Planet of the Apes and even The Wizard of Oz. You could have Captain Kirk hook up with Wonder Woman while Captain America beat Doctor Zaius to death with a Munchkin. Or have Spock & the Scarecrow have long philosophical conversations while Joker got eaten by a Mugatu.

Everyone was pretty much the same scale (something that some companies seem to have issues with, but I digress) and there were some neat accessories and playsets.

Today's modern equivalent is much much smaller. You've heard me talk about the "plastic crack" known as MiniMates before. 2007 seemed like it was going to be a banner year for the line as we got 6 waves of DC heroes, 3 waves from the current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, 2 waves from Classic Star Trek, a new bunch of Marvel heroes and some figures from Rocky, 24 and Back to the Future.

It was a cool year for MiniMates in 2007...but 2008 is gonna get even cooler, in spite of some bad news.

And that's where we'll start. We got 6 waves of DC heroes last year. This was a bit of a fluke as the first three waves (and for DC a wave consists of four 2 packs) were supposed to come out in 2006 but got delayed. But it was an amazing six waves. We got big names like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Joker, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, Robin, Penguin, Luthor, Brainiac, Aquaman and smaller names like Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Booster Gold and obscure names like the Golden Age Red Tornado and S.T.R.I.P.E. It was a great mix of characters male and female, villain and hero, modern and Golden Age.

For 2008 DC had already solicited 2 more waves before Toy Fair and one of them actually hit stores the week before Toy Fair. Wave 7 seemed to still contain that nice mix including The Flash & Grodd, Cyborg & Raven from Teen Titans, a "Classic" Batman variant & Clayface and Lobo & Ambush Bug (for that odd pairing of a very popular character and an obscure one). But Wave 8 (which doesn't hit until June) contains the first real mistake. Its too early in this line's life to have variants of the "Big 3" (Batman, Superman & Wonder Woman) from "Elseworld" titles. To give us a Red Son Superman & Wonder Woman pack is just odd. And I'd overlook it IF there were a Wave 9 coming afterwards, but as of now there isn't...and word coming out of Toy Fair is that if sales don't pick up there will never be anything past Wave 8.

This is very unfortunate as these figures are AMAZING and they do seem to be selling well in most places. I think the introduction of odd ball variants so soon into this line was a mistake but its also indicative of bigger problems at DC Direct (they are the company that makes the figures while Art Asylum which holds the MiniMate concepts does the actual designs). DC Direct has been plagued by many other problems like scale issues (a moot point with MiniMates, but they were doing a decent job by using both the 2 inch bodies and the 2.5 inch bodies for "larger" people) and the inability to complete a team properly without adding in yet another Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman.

It will be sad to see these goes, but I don't see there being much to save them. This is actually the second time DC MiniMates have faced extinction. The first was when they were part of Art Asylum's C3 construction line in 2005. The construction blocks were not as good as Lego, but the MiniMates were the draw and DC Direct saw that and made them happen on their own. Now is not the time to abandon them...but maybe Diamond Select Toys (which owns Art Asylum and handles most of the other MiniMate lines) can come to the rescue. We'll see...

Meanwhile, before Toy Fair there were rampant rumors that Diamond Select would no longer be making Marvel MiniMates. Thankfully this is not the case. While Waves 19 & 20 arrive this week, Toy Fair had on display Waves 21, 22 & 23 in addition to a new box set. The box set is from the recent comic book story line "Civil War" and features Nitro, a Battle Damaged Captain America, Spider-Man in his Tony Stark designed costume and a modern Iron Man. Sure it's only one "real" new figure, but Spidey & Iron Man are new designs that make sense. We've had a Battle Damaged Cap before, but this one blows it out of the water. Wave 23 consists of Cloak & Dagger, Nova & Gamora (taking a cue from DC with an obscure character) and War Machine & Spymaster. The variant in this wave is War Machine. You can get him as either Jim Rhodes or Tony Stark (the Waves of 2 Packs from Diamond Select across all of their licenses tend to consist of three 2 packs with a fourth having a variant version of one figure paired with a repeat from the wave -- so here either War Machine still comes with Spymaster and you'd have 2 Spymasters to get all the figures in a wave).

But wait -- I skipped Waves 21 & 22. Well...both of these are movie based waves and while there were signs saying "no photography" there were leaked pictures of Wave 21. This wave comes from the new Iron Man movie and while I'm unsure of the pairings they showed off Tony Stark, pepper Potts, Jim Rhodes, all 4 Iron Man costumes and what looked like Iron Monger armor as well. Wave 22 is based on The Incredible Hulk sequel and no pictures have shown up so I have no idea of the lineup, but expect the typical 7 figure wave in four 2 packs.

While there were no new Back to the Future sets on display, Diamond did display the already announced Back to the Future Part III 4 pack and the Back to the Future II 2 pack. This will probably be the end of this line as there's not much beyond Jennifer, Clara and Einstein the dog to add. Its been a fun line with a few too many Marty McFly variants (and yet we didn't get his future sister from Part II).

Star Trek's universe gets bigger after the upcoming already announced Wave 3 of classic characters. Waves 4 & 5 branch out into other areas. Wave 4 brings us Sick bay McCoy & Nurse Chapel from the classic series, Picard & Borg from ST:TNG and Kirk & Scotty from Trek II (with Scotty being the variant in either his dress uniform or engineering uniform). Wave 5 brings us Green Shirt Kirk& Yeoman Rand from the classic show, Decker & Illia from ST: TMP and Sisko & Gul Dukat from DS9 (Sisko's the variant as either a Captain or Commander). While I'm glad they're starting to branch out a bit, I wouldn't have minded a few more classic waves first as we're missing some core aliens. Diamond should do with the Klingons and Romulans for this line like they did for the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica (where they released a case of 12 figures that contained a mix of 5 different figures so you could easily create an army).

Battlestar Galactica is represented in both the classic & modern forms. The Classic version gets 2 new packs (each containing 5 figures), one of Colonial Warriors (Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer & Muffit the Dagget) and one of Cylons (Imperious Leader, Baltar, Lucifer, Cylon & Cylon Commander -- the last two are repeats from the case I mentioned earlier). These were already seen before Toy Fair. The modern incarnation gets a 4th Wave (already announced) a 2 pack (already announced), a 5 pack from the recent TV movie Razor (already announced but seen for the first time at Toy fair) and a case from Razor (already announced but seen for the first time at Toy Fair).

24 gets another 4 pack and an "End of Day" 2 pack for Season 3...but these were announced some time ago. There was nothing else on display. I'm assuming that the writer's strike and delay in the airing of Season 7 are what caused no Season 4 MiniMates to be available. I expect we'll see them later in the year.

A number of movies are getting smaller -- The Silence of the Lambs (Clarice, Buffalo Bill and 2 different Lecters -- blue jump suit and straight jacket with mask), Platoon (Pvt. Taylor, Pvt. Lerner, Sgt. Grodin & Sgt. Barnes -- look ma' no repeats), Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Western trilogy A Fistful of Dollars (Rojo, Marisol, Baxter & Joe), For A Few Dollars More Mortimer, El Indio & two Eastwoods in Man With No Name & Monco -- sense a trend? more repeats of "core" characters -- and this set was announced a while ago and will be out first in a few weeks) and The Good The Bad and the Ugly (Angel Eyes, Tuco & two versions of Blondie -- more repeats). We're also getting a two pack from Desperately Seeking Susan containing both Madonna & Roseanna Arquette's characters. Diamond thinks they can sell this, but DC can't get their ass in gear?? Go figure.

Rocky surprisingly returns since Diamond had said they were a bit disappointed in the sales so far with their offerings from the first two films. But the line picks up with a set from Rocky III that thankfully contains only 1 Rocky Balboa (the previous sets each had the Italian Stallion taking up two of four spaces). This set also includes Apollo as Rocky's trainer, Clubber Lang and Thunderlips. There will also be a two pack of Rocky & Paulie from the TV commercials they made in the movie. There may also be a two pack of Rocky (as a loan shark) & Apollo (in his USA boxing costume) as these were shown but there was no card announcing them (the same thing happened at last year's Toy Fair with another Apollo in Business Suit and Adrian that never saw the light of day).

The BIG news on the MiniMate front is the addition of Underground Toys to the mix. Working with Art Asylum for designs we are getting MiniMates from the new version of Doctor Who and I couldn't be happier (well...the birth of our second son Duncan will make me happier, but its all relative). No prototypes were on display, but control art was shown for the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) 2 versions of the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant in both blue suit and brown over coat), Captain Jack (looking more Torchwood than Doctor Who but I suppose its a 3rd Season Captain Jack), Martha Jones and Cybermen (well -- they were on promo art...there was no control art). I have no idea how or when these will be coming out, but I hope they are as successful as Trek and BSG and that we get many many more (like Classic Doctors and monsters). I'm sure making Daleks in this block figure format will be a challenge (if they can get the rights or even bother with it as I think there are toy Daleks already on the market that would be in scale).

I'm sure Diamond will have some more surprises at Comic Con this summer. But 2008 is shaping up to be a better year (and not just for MiniMates) than 2007.

Well...back to Caesar (gotta do some more sound work before tomorrow night's rehearsal)...I hope to be back soon.

Be seeing you.