Last Day – Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter Campaign Ends Tonight

MERRCA2 Four Horsemen Gothitropolis Raven - Pink Flamingo WIP BattlePack_05

As I mentioned in my little Soapbox Sunday rant yesterday, the Four Horsemen’s Kickstarter campaign for the Gothitropolis Ravens has been an unmitigated success. When I talked to them in San Diego, less than a week into the campaign, they were surprised they had hit the $65K target for funding (Kickstarter works on an all or nothing model for funding projects – if you don’t hit the target, you get nothing.) With just about 12 hours to go, they’ve already signed up around thirteen hundred backers who have pledged over a quarter of a million dollars.

If you’re already a backer, now’s the time to adjust your pledges. In the final days of the campaign, the Four Horsemen have been adding extra goodies. The secret figure that was revealed as a stretch goal, the Screaming Eagle, may come with an American flag cape – if they can source a quality one. An additional figure, the Pink Flamingo, was added when the funding totals blew past the regular and bone wings. And stands for the figures (including foot pegs and adjustable clip for flying poses) are now available as add-ons for $3 each.

Continue reading “Last Day – Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter Campaign Ends Tonight”

Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

Matty Tracker 2014 - T-8 Kickstarter - Gothitropolis Ravens by the Four Horsemen - 35 hours to go

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

Continue reading “Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen”

SDCC 2013: Bandai Limited Edition 4-Inch Green Dragon Ranger

This year at San Diego Comic Con, Bandai surprised Power Ranger collectors with 3 exclusives to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers in the US. One of these exclusives was the Green Dragon Ranger with Tribal Power Coin.

Continue reading “SDCC 2013: Bandai Limited Edition 4-Inch Green Dragon Ranger”

Speaking of Hot Toys and Iron Man, Can I Borrow a Couple Grand?

Current Hot Toys Iron Man 3 Line-Up (minus Midas and the Tony Stark figures)

If you wanted to own all the Hot Toys Iron Man 3 armors in this shot from the Hot Toys Facebook page, it would set you back a cool $1,659.94 (if I did the math right). And that’s not counting the Mark 38 Igor and the Mark 39 sub-orbital Gemini armors, because while those two Iron Man armors were shown at San Diego Comic-Con, they haven’t been officially made available for pre-order.

On top of that, there’s an exclusive Mark 21 Midas that was just announced. And then of course, we’ve yet to see Hot Toys versions of the Mark 40 Shotgun or the Mark 16 Sneaky. (Yes, I’ve been Googling Iron Man armors.)

So I think I’m going to need a little more than that.

Continue reading “Speaking of Hot Toys and Iron Man, Can I Borrow a Couple Grand?”

Hot Toys Reveals Iron Man Mark XXI Midas

Hot Toys Iron Man 3 Midas (Mark XXI) 1

The Iron Man franchise is the Arc Reactor powering Hot Toys. For some reason I thought that the Silver Centurion was the last of the armors from Iron Man 3 to make it to figure form – but there’s more. The Mark XXI Midas may just look like a repainted Mark VII, but folks claim that it’s a legit armor from the “Why didn’t Tony Stark do this against the Chitauri in the Avengers?” scene from Iron Man 3. I honestly couldn’t tell you – between the 3D and my old eyes, that fight was just a big metal blur.

According to Hot Toys, Midas will first be available in Asia, with other geographies TBD. Since it bears the “Summer Exclusive” tag, I think if it does get offered in the States, Sideshow is the likely outlet for this limited Hot Toys Midas release.

Continue reading “Hot Toys Reveals Iron Man Mark XXI Midas”

Scroll Up