In my defense, it’s an incredible game. Also expect a full review of the “Art of Bioshock Infinite” artbook (published by Dark Horse comics!) in a week or two when I can look at it without fear of spoilers.
Happy Easter FP faithful, assuming you celebrate it, or happy Game of Thrones season 3 premiere day, assuming you have taste and cable. I’m excited for the premiere today, as I will most likely pre-game by drinking heavily and making out-dated “House of Tony Stark” jokes because I’m that type of jerk at parties. I can’t even being to tell you how much GoT merch we have in stock at the store, so if you wanna throw money at the franchise at our store, that would be super great.
So thinking I was clever, I set up this article to discuss the various Iron Man 3 toy lines a few weeks back. While googling images to use earlier today, I came across what seems to be this years Iron Man 3 Halloween costume and MAN, that female Iron Man 3 thing is definitely one of the weirdest takes on the whole “sexy version of super hero costumes” fad. Sexy Ninja Turtle still takes the cake. Anywho, now that I’ve pointed out that train wreck/soon to be popular bar costume come Halloween, let’s get to the toy discussion.
It shouldn’t come to a surprise to anyone when I say Iron Man is the face of the Marvel Universe right now. It’s probably a combination of the fact that Robert Downy Jr (RDJ if you’re nasty) is a dreamboat, and since Iron Man (now appearing in his 4th movie, suck it Green Lantern) is a film property 100% own by Marvel/Disney, the company can push him like there’s now tomorrow for maximum profits. What this means is that Hasbro is pushing the hell out of the tie-in toylines this year. Also considering the fact that “The Avengers” film made hojillion dollars for everyone involved, this make sense, especially with Iron Man being so toyetic.
One of the first new toy lines Hasbro’s debuted in 2013 is the Assemblers line. Why man-children everywhere will complain about limited articulation, the premise of this line sound cool, especially if you are a childrens (willing making a grammatical error here, don’t care), as you can swap out arms/ spring-loaded weapons with the various figures in the line to make your own “customed” Iron Mans/War Machines/Iron Patriots. They’re about $9 a pop, and again, aimed for younger audiences.
Apparently joints are expensive, because the vast majority of the toys released so far as limited in the articulation department. The “Titan Heroes Series” 12″ Iron Man figure (with the Iron Patriot on it’s way) has a whopping 5 points or articulation, the Super Hero Squad IM3 set has wee figures with like 3 points of articulation and the 3.75″ “Iron Man All-Stars” line also rock like 5 points and half the line is the same figure with a different paint job. Whack, I know, but since this is aimed at the kids and their parents like cheap, there’s a market for it.
And while these early figures aren’t exactly collector-friendly, fear not. There’s a wave of Legends-esque figures due out soon, as well as some faux-vinyl figures. And the eventual Hot Toy tie-ins. But we’ll look at those as they drop, because I hit the 500 word mark and that means BIOSHOCK TIME!
