This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection 27 27

[Cat]

Yeah, no offence, but it looks like a bad mold-pull, leading to it 'collapsing' and everything looking so squished. Plus the number of ops just don't appear to be there. 

Sorry. 

[F For Fake]

On 3/19/2022 at 1:35 AM, B2D327 said:

I was collecting the Famous Covers line back in the early 2000s. I ended up giving them all to my son and leaving the boxes behind in a storage cubby when I moved. I think it was the nostalgia of the Mego line that drew me to them but other than the Doctor Doomand and maybe Rogue, I never really gained any attachment to them. 

Indeed, at the time this was the closest thing we had to Mego on the market. The reproductions hadn't begun in earnest, and no one else was really making Mego-style stuff. It's kind of crazy how much we have going on today, with Mego back to actually making toys, as well as Neca and several other companies making Mego knockoffs. At the time First Appearances was the only option. I always loved the Wolverine figure with the rubbery mask. I had all of these, and then sold them. I'd consider buying a set if I could find them cheap enough, but I don't want to take the time to piece together the whole collection. 

[F For Fake]

On 3/21/2022 at 2:52 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

The ThreeZero Bumblebee arrived today. Nice looking figure, but it may as well be a statue, it's so delicate. 

Here it is with both heads.

Wow, that's crazy. The ThreeZero stuff is funky, but cool. But yeah, I feel like I'm going to break it just by looking at this pic! ha

[fantastic_four]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:26 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Yeah, no offence, but it looks like a bad mold-pull, leading to it 'collapsing' and everything looking so squished. Plus the number of ops just don't appear to be there. 

I own 30 Mafex figures and have never seen any QC as bad as that though.  But most Mafex figures have Chinese bootleg versions, so I'm still guessing that's what it is.  The easiest way to tell is if you got it from any Chinese seller on eBay or Mercari, or from Aliexpress (which is in China), then it's usually a bootleg.  Not always, but usually.

China has no respect for the intellectual property of other nations and refuses to stop their citizens from pirating anything.  That even extends to Chinese government agencies who also steal and bootleg intellectual property prolifically.  They seem to view piracy as an integral part in growing their economy, which it most definitely does do for them.  As a result never trust ANYTHING that comes from China, and be wary of bootlegged products that might be bought by people from other countries and sold as original.  I'm sure there are more than a few examples of US sellers who specialize in buying cheap Chinese bootlegs and selling them at market prices as authentic.

Of course most manufactured goods in the world do come from China, but it's foreign companies who design and sell them and they just use China for the manufacturing.  So it's fine to buy an Apple iPhone that was probably made in China, but do not buy that thing from any other seller, particularly ones located in China.  If you look at the boxes for Mafex figures you can see that they, like everyone else, outsource even their own manufacturing across the East China Sea over to China (Medicom is a Japanese company for anyone unfamiliar with Medicom and their Mafex line of figures).

I have heard the quickest way to know if any Mafex figure is a bootleg is to look at the hologram sticker on the bottom of the package.  I've heard bootlegs have no hologram sticker, but authentic figures do.  I haven't verified that myself though so I don't know whether or not the bootleg companies have tried to do their own ripoff hologram stickers on some figures.

Edited March 21, 2022 by fantastic_four

[B2D327]

On 3/21/2022 at 9:49 AM, fantastic_four said:

Is that one of the Chinese bootleg versions?  I've considered getting that figure a few times, and the face on yours looks different than the images I've seen before shown below.

Pretty sure it is since it was only $15 shipped from China 🤣. Just a place keeper until I pick up a Mezco 1:12 or Hot Toys 1:6

[B2D327]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:26 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Yeah, no offence, but it looks like a bad mold-pull, leading to it 'collapsing' and everything looking so squished. Plus the number of ops just don't appear to be there. 

Sorry. 

None taken. Just a placekeeper for now 

[B2D327]

On 3/21/2022 at 11:32 AM, F For Fake said:

Indeed, at the time this was the closest thing we had to Mego on the market. The reproductions hadn't begun in earnest, and no one else was really making Mego-style stuff. It's kind of crazy how much we have going on today, with Mego back to actually making toys, as well as Neca and several other companies making Mego knockoffs. At the time First Appearances was the only option. I always loved the Wolverine figure with the rubbery mask. I had all of these, and then sold them. I'd consider buying a set if I could find them cheap enough, but I don't want to take the time to piece together the whole collection. 

Yeah, I recently saw the Doctor Doom still sealed nib for a decent price but decided to pass since I fell out of love with the majority of the other figures and it doesn’t fit the scale of what I’ve been picking up recently. All of my og Mego figures are stored away but if I decide to start displaying them again, I might look into some similar scale figures again.

[F For Fake]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:16 PM, B2D327 said:

Yeah, I recently saw the Doctor Doom still sealed nib for a decent price but decided to pass since I fell out of love with the majority of the other figures and it doesn’t fit the scale of what I’ve been picking up recently. All of my og Mego figures are stored away but if I decide to start displaying them again, I might look into some similar scale figures again.

I totally get that, but I gotta say, the Doom figure is absolutely one of the best in the line. The "armor" is soft and rubbery, but it has a nice amount of detail, and the cape/cowl are really nice. In fact, if I could only have one figure in the line, he's probably the one I'd pick. They can be hit or miss in the quality dept, for sure.

[B2D327]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:19 PM, F For Fake said:

I totally get that, but I gotta say, the Doom figure is absolutely one of the best in the line. The "armor" is soft and rubbery, but it has a nice amount of detail, and the cape/cowl are really nice. In fact, if I could only have one figure in the line, he's probably the one I'd pick. They can be hit or miss in the quality dept, for sure.

Yeah, it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly it was that put me off but the Doom was probably the one that kept true to the character’s appearance best until the Marvel Legends FF version came out. It really was a well designed figure

[B2D327]

These came in today too

[B2D327]

On 3/21/2022 at 12:20 PM, fantastic_four said:

I own 30 Mafex figures and have never seen any QC as bad as that though.  But most Mafex figures have Chinese bootleg versions, so I'm still guessing that's what it is.  The easiest way to tell is if you got it from any Chinese seller on eBay or Mercari, or from Aliexpress (which is in China), then it's usually a bootleg.  Not always, but usually.

China has no respect for the intellectual property of other nations and refuses to stop their citizens from pirating anything.  That even extends to Chinese government agencies who also steal and bootleg intellectual property prolifically.  They seem to view piracy as an integral part in growing their economy, which it most definitely does do for them.  As a result never trust ANYTHING that comes from China, and be wary of bootlegged products that might be bought by people from other countries and sold as original.  I'm sure there are more than a few examples of US sellers who specialize in buying cheap Chinese bootlegs and selling them at market prices as authentic.

Of course most manufactured goods in the world do come from China, but it's foreign companies who design and sell them and they just use China for the manufacturing.  So it's fine to buy an Apple iPhone that was probably made in China, but do not buy that thing from any other seller, particularly ones located in China.  If you look at the boxes for Mafex figures you can see that they, like everyone else, outsource even their own manufacturing across the East China Sea over to China (Medicom is a Japanese company for anyone unfamiliar with Medicom and their Mafex line of figures).

I have heard the quickest way to know if any Mafex figure is a bootleg is to look at the hologram sticker on the bottom of the package.  I've heard bootlegs have no hologram sticker, but authentic figures do.  I haven't verified that myself though so I don't know whether or not the bootleg companies have tried to do their own ripoff hologram stickers on some figures.

I pretty much look at anything from Aliexpress as a bootleg considering where it’s coming from and you are correct about the holograms as well as the badging on most of the packaging coming from China, not to mention they offer figures with or without a box. As long as you know what you’re getting, I can live with a lower quality place holder until I find an officially licensed one here and there. The factories are usually the same too aside from quality control, you basically get factory seconds or thirds that didn’t pass inspection. As a shoe collector, this was also common and tons of counterfeits entered the market until people became more familiar with materials and how the serial numbers on the tongue coincided with the factory and place of manufacture among other little details one needed to look out for especially among the Air Jordan line. 
   The Amazing Yamaguchi stuff is one of those lines that even the knock offs are extremely close in quality using the same molds, materials and factories as the official. The difference is usually a quality control issue like a paint defect or excess pvc that was overlooked when coming out of the mold and a matte finish to the packaging instead of a gloss finish but the one surefire way to tell is the back of the box is printed upside down 

[Cat]

On 3/22/2022 at 1:33 AM, F For Fake said:

Wow, that's crazy. The ThreeZero stuff is funky, but cool. But yeah, I feel like I'm going to break it just by looking at this pic! ha

The ball joints for changing hands are so needlessly tiny I'll literally never be doing it again, and am shocked I successfully did it once with no breakage. If you look closely at the second picture, there's actually no neck peg holding the head on, the head's just sitting there. The neck came out with the other head, was firmly stuck in there, and felt too soft to try and use implements on. I also didn't want to try other methods out of fear of paint reaction (he's a very whiffy boi, very strong smell of fresh paint, I was actually wondering if he was even dry, he is, but wow he reeks) so it'll keep that head forever, which is fine. It's probably the head I would have gone with.

I'm going to put him up against the old Palisades G1 'Bee statue. My Palisades' Bee like all others, has cracked hips, but he'd still holding, so it'd be nice to have this one next to him as a juxtaposition. Then it would have been nice to use the battle mask, but oh well, I can live without it. 

[F For Fake]

On 3/21/2022 at 6:03 PM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

The ball joints for changing hands are so needlessly tiny I'll literally never be doing it again, and am shocked I successfully did it once with no breakage. If you look closely at the second picture, there's actually no neck peg holding the head on, the head's just sitting there. The neck came out with the other head, was firmly stuck in there, and felt too soft to try and use implements on. I also didn't want to try other methods out of fear of paint reaction (he's a very whiffy boi, very strong smell of fresh paint, I was actually wondering if he was even dry, he is, but wow he reeks) so it'll keep that head forever, which is fine. It's probably the head I would have gone with.

I'm going to put him up against the old Palisades G1 'Bee statue. My Palisades' Bee like all others, has cracked hips, but he'd still holding, so it'd be nice to have this one next to him as a juxtaposition. Then it would have been nice to use the battle mask, but oh well, I can live without it. 

Wow, that's crazy, gives me anxiety just reading your description! Ha It's a shame that they aren't a bit more durable, because they're not exactly cheap. Seems like a certain amount of sturdiness should be built in with the price point, but I guess it is sacrificed for the overall aesthetic. 

[Cat]

On 3/22/2022 at 11:35 PM, F For Fake said:

Wow, that's crazy, gives me anxiety just reading your description! Ha It's a shame that they aren't a bit more durable, because they're not exactly cheap. Seems like a certain amount of sturdiness should be built in with the price point, but I guess it is sacrificed for the overall aesthetic. 

This probably is considered sturdy for ThreeZero.  but yeah, it's a bit ridiculous. And the fact it comes with a pamphlet showing you how to safely use each joint certainly doesn't reassure me. It may have joints, but I'll be treating this as a statue. Would have been nice to be able to switch heads, but I can't without the neck going with it, and I don't feel comfortable retrieving the neck peg, so he keeps the default look. Oh well, it is what it is. 

[fantastic_four]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:46 PM, B2D327 said:

I pretty much look at anything from Aliexpress as a bootleg considering where it’s coming from

While generally true, there is a smaller subset of authentic stuff on there.  Here's a prime example that captures why they sometimes have cheap authentic stuff--it's the 2016 Marvel Legends Daredevil 12-inch figure that was an SDCC exclusive:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003148251255.html

This popped up along with the 2017 SDCC Thor Battle for Asgard 5-pack of 6-inch figures (the pack has Borr who is Odin's father, Ulik the troll, Lady Thor, Malekith, and Unworthy Thor in it) in early 2021 on Aliexpress, and around the same time Hasbro Pulse also offered a few hundred of the Daredevil 12-inch figure on their web site.  I have to assume this was lost warehouse inventory that was found that Hasbro imported some of but sold the rest locally.  Pretty much all toys are manufactured in China, so when pallets get lost they sometimes get sold from China as well.  It's REALLY hard to identify the small subset of authentic goods on Aliexpress though.  I only took the plunge on the Battle for Asgard Borr and Ulik figures there after someone in another forum alerted me to their presence on Aliexpress and verified that they were the authentic original releases.  And it made sense that they were there since the old Daredevil inventory also bubbled up on Hasbro's Pulse web site.

Another figure that's on Aliexpress that I think is legit is the Hasbro Pulse fan vote Silk figure which sold out in hours last year when they made it available for sale:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004039296132.html

But it's selling for the same prices it does on eBay.  They never re-stocked that figure on Hasbro Pulse after the day it released, so I assume some inventory got lost and bubbled up to Aliexpress somehow.

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by fantastic_four

[F For Fake]

I picked up the Maketoys “Rearend” (aka Tailgate) pack a few months ago. It came with an upgrade kit for “Hurricane” (Cyclonus) but the particular Cyclonus figure it was made to adapt was part of a two pack with Hot Rod that I never felt like paying $40+ to pick up. I finally found a loose set a week or two ago for $25, and decided to upgrade Cyclonus this weekend.

First of all, this was much more of a pain in the butt than I’d expected, as some of these screws are TINY, and not easy to remove. I had to get a new mini screwdriver set, as my usual one was not a perfect fit. Anyway, a few days, an Amazon screwdriver order, and lots of cursing later, he’s complete.

I dig the effect, but compared to the recent Kingdom Cyke mold, this guy seems tiny. Maybe a third party will make a similar upgrade for that one some day. Until then it’s fine.

The Lost Light crew continues to slowly, but surely, expand!

Edited March 24, 2022 by F For Fake

[Cat]

These are the TMNT I preordered and paid for, from the second 90's film, along with Tokka and Rahzar (not shown). Can't wait to get these bad boys in hand. I'm just confused by the extra forearm next to Mikey. It's apparently meant for Donatello, but I don't know why, what's different about it. 

They're still up for preorder for about another 10 days via the NECA store. $150USD for the Turtles, and $80 for Tokka and Rahzar. There's also an extra accessory set for the Turtles, which is $60, containing extra portraits and accessories. I opted not to get it, as I thought it was quite overpriced for what you got, on an already expensive set, but of course YMMV. 

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

Digging through an old box and came across this.

 

[Brandon Shepherd]

On 3/24/2022 at 9:10 AM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Digging through an old box and came across this.

 

That’s awesome!

[Cat]

On 3/25/2022 at 1:10 AM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Digging through an old box and came across this.

 

Come visit me in QLD with that! Just brandish it like it was a real gun, locals will love you for it. I guarantee you'll get a statue in your name.