This is probably going to be somewhat of a disappointment to long-time fans of Art Asylum’s Star Trek action figures from the original series. Series 5 was originally slated to include only one of the figures that eventually made it – the Kirk in dress shirt. Missing are Bones in his short-sleeve Sick Bay uniform, and completely new figures for fan favorites Yeoman Janice Rand and Nurse Chapel. The first hints that these figures were at risk of not making it to shelves was in DST’s shipping update from last October. And check the pic of the card back – the original lineup is still there. Tease!
On the upside, the line has been lacking in the villain department, and now we’ll get a Romulan to join Kang the Klingon from Series 3 last year. I’m still seeing lots of remnants of Kirk and Spock from that series at the local TRUs, so I’ve got to wonder how adding what will likely be another Kirk-heavy series will help us get more Trek to shelves.
Star Trek… the Series 5!
Just when you thought we didn’t have any more Original Series figures up our sleeves!
Surprise! Series 5 is coming out!
What does it contain exactly?
Star Trek The Original Series: Series 5 is made of 3 very important characters:
Of course we have our faithful leader, Captain James T. Kirk. But have you seen him in his Green Dress Shirt? Very respectable!
And what about Scotty? No collection is complete without him, you just cannot do it! It’s not enough power!
And finally, Romulan… Hmm… he looks an awlful lot like a Vulcan… could it be coincidence? Or a common ancestry?
This World War Robot "Large Martin" is aptly named - it's 1:1 scale, and is articulated. Photo by J.ME.
If you’re a 3A, World War Robot, or Ashley Woods fan, then you may know (and be extremely jealous) that this weekend, 3A Toys held their Beijing Gathering. When I win the lottery, this will be the type of event I’ll go to. But since I’m still a working stiff, I’ll just have to be happy with other people’s pictures.
We’ll get to our own review of Keldor eventually – I’m looking at you, Sandman! – but in the meantime, we can’t deny his awesomeness. Here’s a handful of reviews from some of our favorite sites.
Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation
It’s funny how Mattel has twice managed to make a Skeletor figure with the head of a casino magician not only desirable, but a fun toy to own. Once I got my Keldor I opened him, fiddled around with him, posed him on the coffee table, and said to Dr. Mrs. Ghostal, “Y’know, I really like him.” There are definitely MOTUC figures I didn’t feel that way about (no offense, your Majesty), but Keldor is not one of them.
The relative lack of new tooling, particularly in regard to the swords, costs Keldor a raven. But overall, this is a fun figure.
I’ve had mixed feelings about Keldor ever since he debuted back in February. It had little to do with the figure itself. I was glad to have Keldor in the line; it’s the swords that got under my collar. I’m not a big fan of the half swords in the toy line and Mattel’s different attempts at explaining why they couldn’t do a classicized version of the evil 200x swords were largely unsatisfactory. I think that took away from the buildup for this figure in my eyes. Instead of getting everybody’s favorite villain before that unfortunate date with a vial of acid, I felt we were getting a figure with bad accessories. I’ll still rant a bit in the accessories section, but Keldor ended up with nice representation in the Classics line despite that drawback.
Keldor has never really been a must have character or variant in my book, but Mattel has managed to do enough here to make the figure interesting enough to me to display. I’m not quite sure where I’ll put him on the shelf, though. There are a couple of obvious (to me) accessories not included and the power swords could be better, but those factors do not detract too much from the final figure.
I’ve just got an excerpt from WizKid’s preview of two of the figures from the upcoming Heroclix Web of Spider-Man set that was announced back in late April – Carnage and Cardiac. But you should really check out the full article, especially if you’re interested in the product planning that goes into producing a set of figures like this.
Today, I have two sneak peaks of figs for you to look at, one from each category. First up, I have a “need.” If you’re going to do a Spider-Man set, you got to have representatives on the Symbiote front. Fans have been bugging (okay, asking) me for a new Carnage since I began working on Clix years ago. Web of Spider-Man includes a powerhouse version of Cletus Kasady that is sure to guarantee “maximum carnage.” Equipped with a vicious Special “Symbiote Blade,” Carnage is a worthy adversary. Next up on my preview board is another fan-demanded piece that conveniently happens to be from the Spider-verse.
Wow, that sculpt is a real shocker! All bad puns aside, what a breath-taking sculpt and paint for this awesome frie-nemy of Spider-Man. While Carnage is a top-line Spider enemy with a couple of major cross-over stories under his belt, Cardiac has a slightly longer and more nuanced relationship with our favorite webhead. He’s a perfect example of the supporting cast that makes Spider-Man’s world so rich and interesting. I can’t wait to show you more figs from the set, and in my next article, we’ll get into one of the meaty mechanics that makes Web truly innovative.
