One of the most dangerous enemies the Federation has ever encountered, the relentless biomechanical Borg are preparing a new assault on the Alpha Quadrant and they’ve got their glowing eyes set on invading your collection!  Plus by collecting six of these deadly drones you will acquire the necessary components to build your own figure-sized electronic Borg Alcove!

The first series of Borg action figures includes a Borg Drone, the Borg version of Seven of Nine as seen in the Star Trek Voyager episode “Scorpion,” a recently-assimilated Half-Borg Starfleet Crewmember and the Previews Exclusive Seven of Nine in her standard maroon Voyager attire.  Each figure will include one of three different Borg Alcove components, with the PX Seven of Nine and the limited Half-Borg Starfleet Crewmember sharing the same component.

Look for more news and images of the upcoming second series of Borg action figures, which will include more of your favorite Borg characters and villains.  This first assortment was sculpted by Rudy Garcia and Jerry Macaluso and is scheduled to arrive in stores May 2009.

Standing approximately 2inches tall, Mezco’s new take the ever popular Hellboy and friends is sure to make even a troll smile. This case of includes twelve 2packs featuring the following figures:
* Hellboy with Big Baby- Whatever you do, don’t make Hellboy wake the baby!
*Prince Nuada- The leader of the elves.
*Hellboy in black shirt- Hellboy ponders his next move.
*Abe Sapian- Hellboy’s aquatic pal.
*Hellboy in action stance- He’s crouched down and ready to fight!
*Johan- Hellboy’s ectoplasmic teammate.
*Wink- Prince Nuada’s troll sidekick.
*Golden Army Soldier- A member of the 49,000 member supernatural army built by goblin metalsmiths.
With BPRD Buddies you relive your favorite Hellboy adventures, or create new ones of your own!

Available for pre-order now at finer retailers everywhere. Appearing in stores June 2009.

As you may recall, I gave Hasbro a little bit of grief a few weeks ago about their (IMO) mishandling of the Marvel Legends line of action figures. Today I picked up a new figure that I like so much I have to give them some props: The Ultimate War Machine figure from the Ares Build-A-Figure line. I have a few minor complaints, like the sloppiness of the paint applications on the turquoise nipples (or whatever those things are), and for the life of me I can’t get the helmet off because it’s wedged on to the head too damn tight. But it’s got a great sculpt; a much better color scheme than the Ultimate Iron Man figure it originated from; and, best of all, the joints all work the way they’re supposed to work. Kudos, Hasbro, for making a great little toy. Now, can we talk about that $15 price tag you’re slapping on all your new figures?

I love Mattel’s DC Classics line. I love this line so much I want to take it back behind the middle school and get it pregnant. The sculpts by the Four Horsemen are awesome; the Collect-and-Connect figures, while not as impressive as some of the better Marvel BAFs like Sentinel and Fin Fang Foom, are still well worth hunting down the individual figures in order to put them together; and the selection of characters has been mind-boggling. Did you ever think we’d see the day when you could drive to Toys R Us to buy Gentleman Ghost and Killer Moth? Unfortunately, I have a major complaint about the line, in that they are ridiculously hard to find. The first series just sat around collecting dust for months. I still see Penguin and Orion sitting on shelves every once in a while. The third series was much more difficult to find. Most of the time, I could only find a few lone Hal Jordans plaintively hoping for someone to come along and take them home like abandoned puppies at a pet shelter. And for some odd reason, series two just now seems to be arriving at stores at the exact same time as series four. WTF? Even the earlier Marvel Legends figures were easier to find. I’m not sure why stores are having such a hard time keeping them in stock. Maybe there’s a distribution problem, or the stores aren’t ordering enough cases, or they’re just so popular the stores are selling through them as fast as they get them stocked. Either way, there has to be a way of solving this problem, right?

Mezco presents The Spirit movie product based on the upcoming big budget December 2008 film, a sinister gut wrenching tale of a hero born, murdered and born again. Written and directed by genre-twister Frank Miller.

This deluxe 12″ scale vinyl figure is fully articulated & comes with a highly detailed real cloth trench coat, removable hat & alternate hands. packaged in a collector friendly window box.

Although the figure quickly sold out on the Mezco official online store, it is available along with the 7″ Spirit figures at Toys R Us and other fine retailers.

The Spirit movie opens nationwide on Christmas day, 12/25/2008.

Photo credit Jason Jerde
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The day after Christmas, Mattel and MattyCollector.com dropped this bomb on JLU collectors all over the world:

Hey JLU Collectors,

We already revealed quite a lot at SDCC 2008 of our 2009 line up, but wanted to give everyone a little holiday treat before the New Year. Take a gander at the image! We are not revealing where this figure fits into the line-up quite yet, but you will see her in the first half of 2009!

Can you believe it?  Amanda Waller of Cadmus?   While she played an important part of the Final season of Justice League Unlimited, I don’t think any collector REALLY expected that Mattel would ever make her.   Can’t wait to see what else they reveal at New York Comic Con!

For more of Mattel’s recent DC Universe reveals check out ActionFigureInsider.com

Four new DCUC 2-packs popped up for pre-order on web retailer BigBadToysStore.com today and the collecting community took notice.   The 2-packs listed were:

DC Universe Classics Two-Packs - Batman Vs. Clayface

DC Universe Classics Two-Packs - Superman Vs. Classic Brainiac

DC Universe Classics Two-Packs - Lex Luthor Vs. Supergirl

DC Universe Classics Two-Packs - Golden Age Hawkman & Golden Age Hawkgirl

You can see the listings here: http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/list.aspx?list=1000

Shortly thereafter Mattel representative “Toy Guru” gave fans of this line a bit more clarification on these sets:

“So here is the deal with the new DCUC 2 packs and new IH Mallah’s Revenge 6 packs that has shown up on some Internet sites.

These are currently “proposed” packs which we would very much like to get to. What are the factors holding them up you say? Well fan interest that is what!

To generate this, we have offered these packs to online retailers in hopes of generating enough pre-sales and support going into production. If we do receive that and can hit the minimum order quantity we need to go into production, these packs will roll out throughout 2009.

You can read more of the details on Mattel’s plans for these 2-packs here.

Hasbro has drawn the ire of toy-collecting fans in the couple of years since they took over the Marvel Legends line, and for good reason. Honestly, they’ve done a really half-assed job compared to Toy Biz, the company that started the line. Spare paint applications, decreased articulation, and inferior sculpts are just a few of the problems fans are having with the line. To be fair, Hasbro has produced a few stellar figures, such as Hercules and She-Hulk. But they’ve released far more pieces of crap, like Ultimate Wolverine and Bucky, two of the worst action figures produced in the last decade or so. And for those comic fans screaming bloody murder about comic book cover prices going up to $3.99, consider this: Hasbro has raised the SRP of Marvel Legends figures from $10 to $15 in one fell swoop. Ouch.

All bitching aside, Hasbro recently released new pics of their latest 12-inch Marvel Icons line, and they look friggin’ great. You can check out the shots of the new Daredevil, Nightcrawler, Phoenix and Colossus at Superhero Times. Colossus in particular has me drooling:

That’s a fantastic sculpt, and the paint job looks great. Of course, that’s a publicity photo, and the actual product may look inferior in comparison since Hasbro tends to use flattering lighting for these shots (just like ABC does for Barbara Walters). But the Icon figures Hasbro has released so far have been pretty good for the most part, so I’m optimistic this line will be worth checking out.

Diamond Select Toys and Toys R Us are excited to announce a new partnership that will bring the latest DST products to Toys R Us stores nationwide!  That’s right, now you can find all your favorite collector toys by visiting the greatest toy store there is!

The geek-chic U.S.S. Enterprise from the classic Star Trek series can now be found on Toys R Us shelves just in time for the holiday shopping season and this is just the tip of the interstellar iceberg for Star Trek fans.  We’ve also got two exclusive Star Trek action figures shipping very soon and a host of other new and best-selling surprises to unveil over the coming months.

To make this announcement even better, our newest Toys R Us exclusive Minimates can now be found on store shelves!  Two exclusive sets are included in this first series of Minimates, get ready to bring home Stealth Iron Man & Gauntlet Tony Stark as well as Hulk & Abomination - stars of this year’s biggest Marvel movies!  Plus be on the lookout for our other Marvel Minimate two-packs: Spider-Man & Shocker, Back in Black Spider-Man & Kraven and Cosmic Spider-Man & Transformation Venom!

Plans are already underway to deliver more fantastic and exciting new exclusive releases as well as a selection of the very best new products over the coming months, so stay tuned for more updates!

• Toy company Mattel, which creates numerous lines of toys for DC Comics, has posted images of its DCU Classics Wave 8 on their collector’s site. Wave 8 of the toy line will include Dr. Fate, Gentleman Ghost, Hawkgirl and Vigilante, among others.

• Former Marvel editor Carl Potts shares memories of working with artist Steve Ditko and trying to convince the artist to let him see two Dr. Strange stories that never saw print. “I told him that I’d be happy to look over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages,” Potts says. “That way the pages would never leave his hands, but he still declined to bring them in. Since then I’ve fantasized about what those pages look like and what the story was about. I wonder if I’ll ever find out!”

• Comics retailer Rocketship has an interview with Raina Telgemeier, the artist of the Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel adaptations, up on their blog. On her own site, the artist reveals her webcomic Smile! will be come to print courtesy of Scholastic. She’ll be at Rocketship this Sunday, along with Dave Roman and Matt Loux. Details on the event can be found here.

• Sparkplug Comics posted a video they made at the Alternative Press Expo last weekend.

• Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith will be at the Fantagraphics store in Seattle this weekend. Details here.

• The Comic Book Club in New York will host Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Brian Michael Bendis and Jeff Katz next Tuesday. Details here.

• Via Drawn comes news that United Features is offering its comics content, including years of archives, for free.

• Kevin stole my headline for this one earlier this week: Salman Rushdie says he’s “a world expert on superhero comics.” He also says he’s been approached about doing a graphic novel, but hasn’t said yes yet.

• Here’s two names that might look familiar … Tim O’Shea talks to Frank Santoro, and Chris Mautner talks to Art Spiegelman.

• Colleen Doran shares more agents who work with comics folks.

• Jim Rugg adds to Kevin Church’s J. Jonah Jameson sketch collection.

• This weekend’s Wordstock Book Fair in Portland, Ore. will feature several comic creators, including Mike Mignola, Alison Bechdel and Lynda Barry. Oni Press, Dark Horse Comics and other comic companies will also be there.

Do you remember (assuming you collected the blasted things) that every He-Man and the Masters of the Universe action figure came with a little comic book? Well, this site has them all uploaded for your reading pleasure, albeit with an annoying watermark.

– The Lego enthusiast known as oxcrew has decided to retell the origin of Two-Face using … well, you figure it out. (hat tip: The Ephemerist)

– So Time Magazine is doing gag cartoons now? That’s interesting.

– David Welsh examines Jiro Taniguchi’s The Quest for the Missing Girl.

– Paul Hornschmeier has an amusing new T-shirt available for puchase.

– DJ Coffman and Scott Kurtz go at it on the Internet, and everyone wins.

– Spot the Frog creator Mark Heath has a new Web site up, promoting his gag cartoons.

Warner Bros. picks up film rights to second Nolent comic

Comic creator Alexis Nolent’s Headshot has been snatched up by Warner Bros. Headshot, or Du plomb dans la tête in French, is a graphic novel series that was published in France by Casterman and drawn by Colin Wilson.

As we mentioned back in March, Nolent’s Cyclopes is also being adapted into film by Warner Bros. Meanwhile, Nolent’s The Killer is being adapted at Paramount.

The Ticker

• The big Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game hits North American stores on Nov. 16 and European stores on Nov. 21, just in time for the holidays.

• If you live in Canada, you can watch for several of the upcoming Marvel Comics animated shows, like Iron Man, Avengers and Wolverine, on Teletoons next year. [Variety]

• An animated Hot Wheels show will rev its engines on the Cartoon Network next year. [Variety]

KISS is joining Indiana Jones, Optimus Prime and Spider-Man by being immortalized in potato form — as a set of Mr. Potato Heads. The toys hit the stage in 2009.

Via Pop Candy

On his Toycutter blog, John Struan spotlights some of the offerings from CustomCon21, the “online convention” dedicated to customized action figures. Among them is this terrific Stan Lee Mighty Mugg, which holds in its little hand a teeny-tiny copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.

Agatsuma Entertainment in Japan is releasing a really adorable little Iron Man figure. This 16 cm tall soft vinyl figure sports a really big head, stubby arms and legs, then finished with a metallic paint job, ready to cap super villain butt in the cutest way possible! The figure retails for 4000 yen.

Found on National Console Support.

I listen to a whole lot of podcasts and one that appears regularly on my iPod is This Modern Death. It’s a podcast “about Modern Horror and Dark Future role-playing games.” In their latest episode, Shaun, Kristin and that other guy discuss media properties in role-playing games. They talk a great deal about some recent entries into the market, such as the Serenity and Battlestar Galactica rpgs.

The hosts regard these games as failures since the systems utilized do not capture the spirit of the setting.

Which got me to thinking…

The system that totally nailed the feel of its setting was the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game (you were wondering what this had to do with comics, right?). From 1985 to 1993, the now-defunct Mayfair Games published DC Heroes. It was a system that fully integrated massively powerful characters such as Superman and less powerful guys like Batman in the same game world. Truly, it allowed players to duplicate the experience of the DC Universe around the table.

The system, the Mayfair Exponential Game System (or MEGS), utilized a logarithmic scale to measure the characters’ skills, attributes and powers. It was an easy system to learn, yet it beautifully expressed the action and feel of the setting.

The game came out right after Crisis on the Infinite Earths. It captured a lot of that Man of Steel re-work in the game as well as other post-Crisis changes.

I am still using the system for my supers games.

While DC Heroes is no longer in print, it is widely available on eBay.

The Podge Cast is a podcast that focuses heavily on the subject of tabletop role-playing games, such as Burning Wheel, Savage Worlds, and — yes — even Dungeons & Dragons. The Podge also covers movies, TV, books and comics. Essentially, whatever the hosts are geeking over today is what they’re going to be talking about.

This week’s episode, titled “Childish Things,” covers the topic of gamer shame, that bit of embarrassment some feel for playing “pretend” in our adult years. That’s a subject folks like you and me know a little bit about. I mean, how many times have you talked around the issue of your hobby?

You and your wife are at a dinner party with your spouse’s co-workers and somebody asks what you’re reading right now. How likely are you to answer truthfully? Something like, “Guardians of the Galaxy. I loves me some Rocket Raccoon, yo!”

Or do you punch it up with some flowery words to make it sound a little less geekish than it actually is? “I am studying an illustrated narrative exploring modern heroism in a nihilist society.”

That works real well until asked for the title and you have to reveal you’re reading Howard The Duck (the Gerber stuff, not that other crap).

This week’s Podge Cast also addresses growing out of comics. Or in their case, growing out of supers comics. Interesting discussion. They are fairly well unified on their dislike of the traditional Marvel and DC universes, but love books like Walking Dead and Preacher.

I am totally going to have to hook them up with the Guardians of the Galaxy trade.

Rocket Raccoon is the frakkin’ shizzle.

A man known only as Professor Plastik has created some downloadable paper model kits of classic golden age superheroes. So far only Superman, the Flash and Batman (based on Chris Ware’s design) are up yet, but many more are promised to roll out over the next several months. (link via the Ephemerist)

For the month of September, Mattel is showcasing the DC Comics Dolls on their Barbie Collector website, and offering three sizes of the DC Barbie desktop calendar featuring the 2008 DC Barbie line-up: Supergirl Barbie Doll, Batgirl Barbie Doll, Wonder Woman Barbie Doll, and that hussy Black Canary Barbie Doll, who is hiding her skanky legs in the back.

Related:
Group calls Black Canary Barbie ‘filth’
Variations on a ThemeL Black Canary Barbie

Action Figure Hub has hi-res images of the first five action figures based on the movie The Spirit. The first five include the title character, The Octopus, Plaster of Paris, Sand Seref and Pathos. They are available for pre-order from Mezco Direct.