Day 334

 Day 334 November 30^th

Review of NYCC Exclusive Spider Man and Fire Chief Max

This is one really cool idea for an exclusive 2-pack and even better to have it at the New York comic con!

            Packaging – This exclusive uses the new style of packaging which has the new and improved larger window and it still rocks!  The artwork on the front no longer runs the risk of obscuring the minimates inside and is also used on the side flaps, which provides a nice consistent feel to the package.  The back showcases the entire wave along with a small bio/write up box for both characters.  The colour used on this package is a dark blue.

Spider Man – The biggest thing that immediately stands out with this minimate is the fact that it is not just another Spider Man but is in fact a Spider Man in fire fighter gear!  You can clearly see Spidey’s mask and torso costume and his red hands but after that it is all firefighter.  He is wearing the open fire chief jacket which is standard to the M.A.X. fire chief sets.  The major difference with the jacket is on the back it has NYCC 2011 on the back of it, giving a nod to the con at which it was first available.  Spidey also has the black fire fighters pants and boots.  The other bit of gear is the red helmet.  Unlike the previous fire fighter releases this helmet has got the number 62 on it, a little nod to the year of the first Spider Man comic!  Great touch there DST!  The colours on this minimate are so crisp and bold, it looks awesome! Spidey also comes with his webline, which really is just a great thing to get and no matter how many I have kickin around here I always welcome another one or ten.

Fire Chief Max – The first thing that jumps out at me here is the fact that this fire chef appears to have a name, and DST did confirm it that he is in fact named Max, a first in the more generic civilian minimates to be named.  This is basically a re-release of the M.A.X. fire fighter, all the gear is the same and paint/tampos are the same.  The helmets are the same bright red as Spideys and both have the number 62 as well.  The back of the jacket also displays the same NYCC 2011 logo as Spideys does, which makes sense.  I really do love the M.A.X. minimates and this is just one more bit of that, even though he will live in the Marvel display case!  Max does come with the feet, arms and hair to have him displayed in his more off duty/firehouse look too.

This set surprised me in the fact that it was very much like a standard M.A.X. set in the amount of gear that came with it.  Not only does Max have the parts to be in a casual look but there are also 2 heavy duty flashlights with straps, 2 axes and the helmet with mask and oxygen tank harness gear too!  The only thing I found lacking in this set were the fire extinguishers, seemed to be an odd piece to be missing from a fire fighters themed set.  I think on a whole this set is a fun addition to my collection without a doubt and will be gathering some extras as the younger fans are going to love it!  I hope that down the road DST might be able to give use a fire hose type accessory similar to how Pallisade did it in the Die Hard PALZ line.  I do have to give this set 4.5 out of 5 for missing a fire extinguisher, vital to fire safety! 

Day 333

  Day 333November 29^th

Review of Marvel wave 42

Thunderstrike and Kronan Stone Man

This is hands down one of my most anticipated waves this year.  I have become such a fan of the Thor part of the Marvel universe that I am over the moon to get these!  I was only able to get 2 out the 4 packs at this time so my review of the other 2 sets will come as soon as I can get them!

            Packaging – Wave 42 uses the new style of packaging which has the new and improved larger window and it still rocks!  The artwork on the front no longer runs the risk of obscuring the minimates inside and is also used on the side flaps, which provides a nice consistent feel to the package.  The back showcases the entire wave along with a small bio/write up box for both characters.

Thunderstrike – One thing that this years Thor movie did was remind me how much I have always enjoyed the character and I embarked on a massive gathering of trade paperbacks to give myself more understanding of the mythos.  I have read Thor comics off and on and always enjoyed them but never kept up with the character.  Well now I have a huge pile of books to read and I love it!  One of my particular standouts in my past of comic collecting was from the 1990’s when they replaced Thor with a more ‘modern’ styled character named Thunderstrike.  I really liked not only the look of this character but also the idea that this was a Thor who was also just a regular guy not a god come to earth.  So when I started gathering up Thor comics I was pretty pumped that they announced a collection of Eric Masterson’s most important comics, starting with his time as Thor proper and also including the first issue of Thunderstrike.  Then on top of that DST blows me away by announcing a Thunderstrike minimate too!  This minimate nails the look so perfectly I don’t know where to start!  The boots look great and they got his vest down pat as well.  Nice clean lines and colours all throughout the minimate especially in his face and beard!  The ponytailed hair piece works great over the collar of the vest.  The mystical mace, Thunderstrike, is dead on to the comics, from the shape to the ‘T’ on the head of it and right down to the chain at the base of the handle!  All Win!  If I had to nitpick a little it would be the lack of his earring, but that would be tough to do, and the missing glove on his left hand, but those really are minor details and can’t obscure how awesome this minimate is! All in all this is another great looking minimate and one that I am very happy to add to the collection, as well as a spare or two for customs/general playing lol!

Kronan Stone Man – This is a great choice for an army builder in a mostly Thor centric waved since they are from a very early part in the Thor comics.  DST goes all out to give us some great looking Stone Men, using many of the new sculpted pieces that they have been working with for various Thing minimates.  They did a great job getting the head shape right and I like that they will not shy away from using fully sculpted heads when needed.  Many fans are pretty excited that the forearms/hands used here were ones that we originally saw on the prototype for one of the newer Thing minimates but the actual production piece did not have these new pieces.  I think these new ones look amazing and look forward to seeing them used on future Thing minimates!  The stone men come with a large and small blaster which is pretty comic accurate.  The one down fall to this minimate is the bulky arms pieces, which can line up to look really seamless but really can restrict the movement of the arms.  This is the catch 22 of the more bulky/sculpted pieces especially in the shoulder/arm and legs; they can sometimes hinder the awesome articulation and possibility of the minimate.  In the end I am happy to have an accurate looking character but it can be a bit frustrating if it limits the playability too much.

This set is a grand slam for DST and the Marvel minimates line!  Thunderstrike is virtually perfect to his comic look and the stone man army builder is a great choice and another nice addition to the collection!  I can’t even let the couple little quibbles I have stop me from giving this set a 5 out of 5!  Go out and get this set as soon as you can!

Day 332

 Day 332 November 28^th

Review of Marvel wave 42

Armoured Thor and Beta Ray Bill

This is hands down one of my most anticipated waves this year.  I have become such a fan of the Thor part of the Marvel universe that I am over the moon to get these!  I was only able to get 2 out the 4 packs at this time so my review of the other 2 sets will come as soon as I can get them!

            Packaging – Wave 42 uses the new style of packaging which has the new and improved larger window and it still rocks!  The artwork on the front no longer runs the risk of obscuring the minimates inside and is also used on the side flaps, which provides a nice consistent feel to the package.  The back showcases the entire wave along with a small bio/write up box for both characters.

Beta Ray Bill – While some might look down on this minimate since it is essentially the same as the one that was just released in the SDCC box set I would beg to differ.  While the previous one looked great in the set it was released this one looks even better!  The colours here are more metallic which reflect the more current look Beta Ray Bill and in the comics and I love the metallic look of his helmet!  Even his hammer, Stormbreaker, has a more metallic look to it!  The other standout feature in this minimate is that the head has gotten a bit more paint attention and looks lightyears better!  It may not seem like much but just these little changes make this minimate standout a lot compared to the first one!

Armoured Thor – This look came about in the comics at a time when Thor had been enchanted and was in a weakened state and unable to withstand the physical punishment of combat he created this mystical armour to help him.  DST really did a great job getting this look dead on without adding too much restrictive bulk to the minimate.  I especially love the attention to the detail that Thor only had a bracer on one wrist due to an injury and they reflect that in the minimate only including one bracer piece!  I really like the way they got the chain mail headgear that comes down under the helmet and covers the back of the neck too, spot on!  The helm itself is golden with silver wings and even the portion that covers over the yes lines up to the eyes beneath!  I am happy to see that they stuck to the bigger look for Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir, including the enchantment engraved on the side.  The boots are using the newer half design to limit the need of bigger bulky boots of days past.  The other new idea DST has employed in this wave with the Thor minimates is a new way of doing his cape.  It really adds the bigger grandeur that Thor’s capes tend to have by having holders coming from the shoulders but it does not add to the bulk of the minimate and even does not restrict the movement of the arm a whole bunch.  Nice design job there DST!  Included in this set as well are the long locks for Thor to be displayed with his helmet off.  I do really enjoy the epicness that is Thor’s beard on this minimate, so much so that I may have to get a second to use that face in some custom ideas!

This set is another home run for DST and the Marvel minimates line!  Both of these minimates look great and are detailed to near perfection!  It doesn’t always happen that we can get two great minimates out of the same pack but I cannot find any reason to give this set any less than 5 out of 5!  Great job DST!!

Day 331

Day 331 November 27^th

Sundays with my Son

            I was really hoping that dad would let me have the red gator battle beast that came with his minimate case but it was even better when he gave me my own case with the minimate!  Now I have a case for some of my minimates and this cool red gator too!

Day 330

Day 330 November 26^th

Skrull control art

            This is the second piece of control art that I received this week.  I love the super tight pencils that Uriel uses on this one, especially in the facial details!  One of the other things that can be seen on this one is where the original plan was for the skrull to have a top chest/shoulder piece similar to the original super skrull minimate but it was scrapped and erased, but you can still see the lines pressed into the paper.  This along with the Daken and Kye’s Chun Li control art are being added to the museum display.

Day 329

Day 329 November 25^th

Daken control art

            Here was a nice surprise I got in the mail, a couple pieces of control art!  I really enjoy the Daken minimate and am intrigued by the character for some reason so getting this piece was awesome!  There is not a lot of detail to the minimate itself so the control art is nice and crisp and simple too.  I do love seeing how Uriel drew that badass Mohawk though – I love that hairpiece!

Day 328

Day 328 November 24^th

2.5 inch white blank with clear head test shot

            Another oddity piece to my collection this blank with a clear head is a pretty neat little piece of curiosity.  There never were any promotional blanks made in the 2.5 inch scale so it is really neat to see this test shot.

Day 327

Day 327 November 23^rd

San Diego Comic Con Series 2 M.A.X. Giveaways

            The M.A.X. giveaways at the San Diego Comic Con were advance preview releases of the characters in series two.  There was a firefighter, a law enforcement officer, a search and rescuer and an undersea rescuer.  All of them were in their most geared up look and came with some accessories.  These are exactly the same as what came in the two-packs; they just came out earlier as a teaser/warm up for their official release.  Personally I love this idea as they are not new characters so it was not as pressing to hunt for but awesome to get to help build my numbers!

Day 326

Day 326 November 22^nd

San Diego Comic Con Calico Jack’s Pirate Raiders Giveaways

            As per usual DST had some minimate giveaways at this year’s San Diego Comic Con.  Unlike other years though their giveaways were a bit different; instead of being new characters or blanks this year the give away minimates were re-releases, or advanced releases.  In this case the four main characters of the Calico Jack pirate line were released in single packs, one per day of the con.  On the last day you could also get a box that you then could put the four minimates in, effectively making your own Calico Jack box set!  This was a fun idea I thought and will become one of only a few minimates I will keep in package.  The boxes were numbered out of 250, but I have heard and seen boxes that were un-numbered.  Mine is number 208.  I love the bios on the back of the package for each character!

Day 325

Day 325 November 21^st

Sabretooth

            For the longest time the only minimate of Sabretooth was this Ultimate version which was good and bad.  Bad because I really disliked the look and how they handled the character in the Ultimate universe.  Good because he is one of my favourite characters and by the time they did release him in a regular universe look minimates had come a long way and they turned out great!

Day 324

Day 324 November 20^th

Sundays with my Son

            I think the Egyptian ghost is really neat looking and I love that he has a mask on the head underneath too!!

Day 323

 

Day 323 November 19^th

Saturday celebrations!

            Happy Birthday to my lovely wife!  On this day I am showcasing her minimate collection. 

There is her Robot of course, and she also has another one that is encased in soap from a project I had done a few years ago. 

Next up is a snowman made by Minimate Multiverse member Cappy – she loves snowmen so when I had saw this one I had to ask Cappy about it and ended up getting it from him for her. 

Next is Ma Hunkel Red Tornado – she just thought it was a pretty neat looking minimate.  

Now is another snowman that I made for her thanks to a Xevoz snowman head.  

Lastly and probably one of her most favorite minimates is her Jack from Jack in the Box.  At the time of this creation they had been running some pretty funny commercial on T.V. and on our trip to Seattle to see her favourite band we had to stop at a Jack in the Box so we could get the antenna ball head.  We also met fellow collectors Cappy and Don on that trip which was very cool indeed.  Once we were home she was not sure what to do with it and she came up with the idea to turn it into a minimate custom!  I will gladly help get extras of any minimate she wants to add to her own collection.