The UK ToyFair was last week and there were three items that I thought to be interesting. (All images from Action-Figure.com, specifically starting from this page.)
Marvel Legends Young Avengers Box Set
If you'd ask me to predict which team would be getting a box set, I would have predicted the Thunderbolts because of time in service, if nothing else or hoped for a Golden Age Marvel set featuring the Invaders and the Liberty Legion. That ToyBiz had the Young Avengers on display means that Marvel must understand that the word of mouth about Young Avengers has been better than the buzz for New Avengers.
Here's a picture of the figures in the packaging:
Here's a close-up, less the glare of the previous picture, that show off the characters better:
From left: Iron Lad, Patriot, Hulkling, and Asgardian
Marvel Legends Monsters Box Set
If you told me that ToyBiz was going to release a Champions box set, I'd have believed that before believing a Monsters set was on ToyBiz schedule (and then a Monsters set that didn't include a Man-Thing repaint, to boot). Here's the set:
Here are close-ups of the four figures:
Clockwise from upper left: The Zombie, the Monster of Frankenstein, Werewolf by Night, Dracula.
I know that there are going to be complaints that the Monster and Werewolf figures don't resemble Mike Ploog's art, and that the Dracula sculpt wasn't based on Gene Colan's work. I can understand those complaints. However, the Monster figure does look like it was based on Boris Vallejo's cover paintings from Marvel's old black & white magazine, Monsters Unleashed,
while the Dracula figure looks like it used the Neal Adams-drawn cover for Tomb of Dracula #1 for inspiration.Marvel Legends Masterworks
I hate pre-posed action figures; they might as well be statutes. I hate the high cost of the statues that have come from DC and Marvel; I'd rather buy the unassembled, unpainted resin pieces and make the statue like a model. However, this set looks like it could be both a display piece and a toy that can be played with:
We really are living in a golden age of comic books and comic book-related merchandise.
