We had a long day at Toy Fair 2013, checking out some of the latest toys, action figures and other movie-related paraphernalia from a variety of companies both big and small and here are some of the highlights. You can see pictures of everything discussed below and a lot more in our Toy Fair 2013 Gallery.
It wouldn’t be Toy Fair without NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Association), who had tons of new figures and prototypes based on their new licenses, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, of which you can see three of the robotic Jaeger here, Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, Kick-Ass 2, Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit Trilogy,” plus they’ve already started rolling out merchandise for the anticipated The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. (No action figures based on the new characters yet.) The Kick-Ass 2 molds were particularly good, looking just like the characters from the movie. They are also continuing their line of Aliens and Predator toys with some cool 7″ figures of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch from the original 1987 Predator movie, as well as a cool diarama showing Colonial Marines taking on Aliens. They also had four huge quarter-scale action figures including Captain America, Iron Man and both Michael Keaton and Adam West Batman figures. Check out the full NECA gallery by clicking here.
Mattel Toys has their annual Collectors Event, although they kept their Movie Masters figures for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel well hidden in a separate area and they wouldn’t allow us to take pictures. They had figures for Henry Cavill as Superman, Michael Shannon’s General Zod (without his trademark beard!), Russell Crowe’s Jor-El, and Antje Traue’s Faora all of which was been previously revealed.
We saw lots of DC Universe figures, including their new line of Adam West Batman figures based on the campy ’60s television series that included Batman, Robin, the Penguin, the Riddler and of course… Batman with a surfboard! They also had the normal array of figures based on WWE wrestling superstars, Hot Wheels versions of the Bat and Batpod from The Dark Knight Rises and lots more! The real spotlight for the Collectors Event were their new series of Masters of the Universe figures and a prototype for the enormous Castle Grayskull playset which is already being pre-sold online for $275 although it will be a limited run and if they have any left by the on-sale date in November or December, it will cost $300.
Possible the coolest thing Mattel showed off (beyond the Castle Grayskull) was a replica set of “Ecto Goggles” from Ghostbusters, which will run you $110.
Another Toy Fair favorite is the Japanese company Kotobukiya, who had a great roster of Art FX Statues based on Marvel and DC properties as well as classic Star Wars characters. Their Marvel statues included two 15″ figures for Iron Man 3, one of the Iron Man Mark 42 armor and another of the Mark VII armor worn in The Avengers, but some of the non-movie Marvel Universe stuff was equally cool including matching statues of “Spider-Man Unleashed” and “Venom Unbound.”
They’ve also done a series of individual but interlocking statues based on the New 52 Justice League which will be rolling out over the next few months, but the real showpiece was a highly-detailed replica of the Joker from Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke” which included a lamp that lights up via a motion sensor and triggers the sound of a camera shutter to really bring the cover of that classic graphic novel to life.
More DC figures could be found at Square Enix’s booth as part of their Play Arts line, which included characters from Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy” as well as stylish Manga-like alternate versions of Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman and others.
McFarlane Toys was still fairly focused on The Walking Dead with a preview of Series 3 which included a great figure of Carl, as well as toys based on the popular “Assassin’s Creed” video game.
Dark Horse Comics had a lot of great figures based on “Game of Thrones” including Jon Thorn and Ghost, Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister, a 7″ replica of the sword-throne and DireWolf bookends as well as a statue of a White Walker, which unfortunately we weren’t allowed to photograph. But the coolest thing we saw was a great bust of the late Forrest J. Ackermann, founder of the classic horror mag “Famous Monsters of Movieland,” sitting in a chair reading the magazine and smiling.
Biff Bang Pow! showed off a number of action figures based on old school “Doctor Who” episodes and villains, while Underground Toys had a huge line of plush toys based on Star Wars characters like Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Ewoks and R2-D2, but their own Doctor Who line offered neat radio-controlled Daleks and the Doctor’s trusty robot dog K-9.
Funko, which seems to be changing its brand-name to “Pop!”, had a much bigger booth than in past years to accommodate all of their new licenses including the ubiquitous Iron Man 3, vinyl figures based on “Game of Thrones,” Planet of the Apes, Rocky, Ace Ventura, RoboCop, The Hangover and lots more.
If you use an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy 3 and want to show off your favorite Marvel or DC character, we enjoyed talking to the guys from Huckleberry Toys who also have phone covers featuring three characters from Iron Man 3 on the way.
You can see all of the above and more in our TOY FAIR 2013 GALLERY. We also had a chance to see some of the new offerings from Diamond Select, which we’ll post tomorrow morning in a separate article.
