#116: Marvel Legends (Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2) - Mantis

It took a while (not many people are selling Mantis parts on Ebay), but I finally got the rest of the pieces I needed to assemble Mantis. *insert obligatory grumbling about Mantis being a build a figure and not a regular carded release here* Anyway, as a major addition to the cast, I'm glad Mantis didn't have to wait a few years to get a figure. It's a nice looking figure, and the metallic green really catches the eye.

#115: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Supreme Leader Snoke

Since he only appeared as a giant hologram in the last movie, Hasbro didn't bother making a six inch figure for Snoke. But he appears in the flesh for The Last Jedi, so now he gets a figure. Sadly, he remains as enigmatic as ever, although I assume his backstory will be filled in with a tie-in novel at some point. Although a golden bathrobe is not the costume I would have expected for the leader of a bunch of Imperial wannabes, I will give Snoke points for originality in not choosing a more Sith-like set of black robes. Since it's all soft goods, he's fully articulated, and the costume doesn't get in the way of his movement. In case anybody wonders what Snoke is wearing under that robe, the answer is short white pants and gold slippers. There are no accessories included, although I can't really think of any that would be appropriate.

#114: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Resistance Tech Rose

Now that I've finally seen The Last Jedi and have some context for the figures I've bought from the movie, here's Rose, who is a new character. I'm not getting into any spoiler territory, but I liked the movie, and I liked the character. Rose looks like she did onscreen, in her comfy looking Resistance tech jumpsuit, armed with a blaster rifle, and taser (which clips on to her belt). I think my favorite thing about the figure is the expression on her face, which to me looks like she's having trouble believing that she just heard say something incredibly dumb.

#113: Marvel Legends (Spider-Man Homecoming) - Vulture's Flight Gear

I finished collecting all theses pieces a little while ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting about it. Otherwise, I am almost completely caught up with my blogging, with only entries I purchased this month left to get to. So, the thing about the Vulture's wings is that they have a massive wingspan. There's no way they could have released this as a standard solo carded figure without coming up with a new pricepoint. So it does make some sense to have the wings be the build a figure for this series. I think this is the second version of the Vulture's wings, which he uses for the heist in the climax of the movie.

#112: Marvel Legends Series (12 inch) - Thor

It took a little longer to find Thor on sale than it did Hulk (and then of course, the day after I bought it, I found a better deal), but I finally did, and here he is. I think this is my favorite Thor figure. It's just really cool looking. And it has a soft goods cape that, due to the larger scale, actually looks good. There are two sets of hands: fists and gripping. There are two versions of Mjolnir: standard and partially translucent for lightning throwing action. Best of all, there are two heads: one bearded and one clean shaven. There are also two sets of hair: one for going bare headed, and one for the helmet. The hair slips on and off the heads, so you can choose for Thor to be in any combination of facial hair and helmet wearing that you'd like. I am on record as being both pro-beard and pro-awesome helmets, so that's how I'm displaying my Thor. There's even a loop on Thor's belt to hold Mjolnir.

#111: Star Wars The Black Series (A New Hope) - Jawa

I went to a Target that's not my usual one, and there was a random endcap filled with Jawa and Death Squad Commanders. I'd been on the lookout for the Jawa figure for a while, so that was a nice find. Sadly, the days of getting two Jawas for the price of one figure seems to have passed. While the Jawa is fully articulated, its leg articulation is mostly rendered moot by the plastic robes. It comes with two blunderbuss looking blasters, one of which is connected by a cord to a pack on its belt.

#110: Transformers Titans Return - Cosmos

There have been a couple modern versions of Cosmos released over the past few years, but they have generally been hard to find. Or at least, I've never seen any for sale without substantial secondary markups. But this release has been pretty easy to find. Oh, and for the record, I bought this on Black Friday, so I'm now less than a month behind on my blogging. This wasn't on sale or anything, but it just happened to be Black Friday when I bought it. Cosmos is one of the smaller scaled Transformers, so robot mode is fairly basic and has no accessories. But it looks cool.

The real appeal of Cosmos, for me, is the absolutely ridiculous alt-mode of a flying saucer. If other Autobots can turn into exotic sports cars, a UFO might as well be an acceptable alt-mode as well.

#109: Marvel Legends (Thor Ragnarok) - Thor and Valkyrie

Valkyrie is one of the key new characters introduced in Ragnarok, so naturally the only way to get a figure of her is in a two pack. Thor is a retooled and repainted version of the solo release. He's got a bare head, less armor, and includes Heimdall's sword as well as a lightning effects piece (spoilers?). It's not a bad figure, and it's different, so your mileage may vary on whether it's different enough to make the double dipping acceptable. Valkyrie is the real star of this set, of course. She's a nice looking figure and comes with her cool sword as well as a scabbard. The scabbard doesn't properly attach to her, although it can tuck into her belt. It's not perfect, but it works.

#108: Marvel Legends Series (12 inch) - Spider-Man

Remember when Target started carrying the 12 inch Deadpool, only to clearance it out after seemingly a week? Well, they decided to get an exclusive 12 inch version of Spider-Man in his iconic black costume, then charge ten dollars more for no good reason and I still haven't seen it go on clearance. I'm not always the most patient toy buyer, but I was patient enough to wait for it to go on sale, which eventually it did. Basically, it's a straight repaint of the standard Spider-Man, with one less alternate head. This head is a new sculpt, as the eyes on this one are flat while the standard Spidey's head has eyes with rims. The alternate head is an unmasked Peter Parker with some tendrils of the symbiote reaching up. He also gets the same three sets of hands: fists, open, and thwip pose. Remember how I said this is a repaint and that the alternate head has the symbiote tendrils? That means that this figure has the web shooters sculpted on Spidey's wrists, which the symbiote didn't have. So you can ignore those and pretend this is the symbiote costume or ignore the alternate head and pretend this is the cloth version of the costume he wore after getting rid of the symbiote. I suppose if you're really upset by the shooters, you could sand them off. Me, I'm just going to ignore them.

#107: Marvel Legends Series (12 inch) - Hulk

It's the official release date for The Last Jedi, so here's a toy based on something else that Disney owns: the 12 inch scale Marvel Legends Hulk. The most obvious thing about this Hulk is that it's massive. So much that he is a more expensive price point than the other 12 inch scale figures. Fortunately, this is the best time of year to buy toys online, so I was able to get him for a much better than standard retail price. Unless you count Transformers as action figures (it's debatable), this is definitely the largest figure in my collection. He has two sets of hands: fists and open hands. There are also two heads: one with a more modern haircut featuring a scowl, and one with a more old fashioned bowl haircut featuring a yelling expression.

#106: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Elite Praetorian Guard

Tonight's the night! In a few hours I'll be sitting in a theater watching The Last Jedi. For now though, here's the Elite Praetorian Guard figure. Clearly a First Order analogue of the Imperial Guard, these guys have crazier outfits. Seriously, look at those arms. I don't know what's going on there. Unfortunately, those crazy arms do hinder the elbows. Aside from that, it's a cool figure. Before I got the figure in hand, I thought the lower robes were soft goods, but they are soft plastic instead.

#105: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - General Leia Organa

We didn't get a General Leia figure in this scale for The Force Awakens, but we finally do for The Last Jedi. For me, that completes all the characters from TFA that I felt should have been made into figures, at least in this scale. I don't think the six inch scale will ever be anywhere as comprehensive as the smaller scale, which is both good and bad. Either way, I'm glad to finally get the general as a figure. She has a pistol and an expression on her face that says someone nearby just told her something worthy of disdain.

#104: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Maz Kanata

Backlog update: I bought this figure in October, so now I'm only two months behind in my blogging. Smaller scale aside, there wasn't a Maz figure from The Force Awakens. Going by the bio text on the back of the package, this is a Last Jedi figure, but this definitely looks like a TFA figure. The coolest thing about this Maz is that the lenses on her glasses can swivel up like in the movie. Since the lenses don't actually magnify her eyes, they end up being too large when compared with her onscreen appearance. Oddly, Maz is packaged with her glasses in the up position, revealing her too large eyes. But it's a cool touch either way. For accessories, she has a blaster, and the chest in which Rey found Luke's lightsaber, as well as the lightsaber itself. Those are very definitely TFA accessories.

#103: Star Wars The Black Series (Revenge of the Sith) - Commander Gree

Hey, it's Commander Gree, who was beheaded by Yoda. He's a Toys R Us exclusive. I feel like I've bought so many clone trooper figures in the past 12 years that I have a hard time saying anything else about them. He's got some unique tooling, so he's not just a repaint at least. He's got the usual blaster and blaster rifle, as well as a set of macrobinoculars.

#102: The Nightmare Before Christmas - Lock, Shock, and Barrel

For the price of one figure, here are three figures. Lock, Shock, and Barrel are the three trick or treaters of Halloween Town who hench for Oogie-Boogie. Although they are semi-antagonists, I've always liked the characters. The gag about them looking similar to their costumes when unmasked is fun. These aren't particularly heavily articulated figures, and they are slightly screen-inaccurate but I like the characters enough to overcome any gripes. Accessory-wise, their masks are removable, and there's a lollipop that none of them can hold. Apparently the comic shop version of these figures include their walking claw foot bathtub. I bought mine at Toys R Us, and didn't even know there was an alternate version at the time. Alas.

#101: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - First Order Stormtrooper Executioner

I was thinking that the name of this figure made it sound like it's his job to execute Stormtroopers. Then I read the bio text on the box, and apparently, these guys punish traitorous soldiers. So, maybe Finn is going to have to deal with some of these guys, aside from his fight with Phasma that's shown in the trailer. So yeah, this is just a regular First Order Stormtrooper with a slightly different paint job and some sort of electro-axe instead of a blaster. We've got less than a week left to wait to see what role this trooper will play.

#100: Transformers Platinum Series - Optimus Prime and Megatron

The main reason I got back into Transformers as an adult was the Classics line, which was updated versions of the old school G1 toys from when I was a kid. For whatever reason, I never got the Optimus and Megatron toys which were released at the time, although I did get the repainted Optimus as Ultra Magnus. Ten years or so later, fortunately both toys were re-released for the 30th anniversary of the animated movie as part of the platinum series. Since those are usually overpriced, it was doubly fortunate that they were apparently not selling well, and I was able to get the set for a reasonable price from Amazon. Overall, Optimus is a good robot, aside from the chunks of his cab mode that just kind of hang off his forearms. At least in this version, they're clear blue plastic, so maybe they are like energy shields. Oh yeah, the clear plastic. To set this re-release apart from the original. there is a dramatic increase in clear plastic being used. It's really weird, honestly. Similar to Optimus, Megatron is overall pretty cool aside from randomly having wings. At least they look cooler than the bits on Optimus's arms.

Optimus mostly looks good in truck mode, although the blue clear plastic pieces here are really jarring. I dig that there's a huge Autobot logo on his roof. Megatron turns into basically a Nerf gun. Although slightly undersized for my adult hands, it's still really fun as a toy gun. The trigger even clicks when you pull it, which is a nice touch.

#99: Star Wars The Black Series (Rebels) - Grand Admiral Thrawn

One of the good things about Disney getting rid of the old Expanded Universe is that it allows us to ignore all the bad parts, while a lot of the good stuff gets to crossover into the new canon. So of course Thrawn is back. While it remains to be seen if he will still be an important presence after Return of the Jedi, he is now prominent during the rebellion. Judging by the bio text on the back of the package, this is definitely based on Thrawn's appearances in Rebels. Which makes sense, since he's otherwise only appeared in one novel in the new canon so far. For as long as I had to wait for an update to Thrawn in the smaller scale, I'm glad that Hasbro got one out in the six inch scale so quickly.

#98: Pokemon - Mimikyu and Poke Ball

Like much of the rest of the internet, I've been a fan of Mimikyu since it was first revealed over a year ago. Since this toy was released, I've waffled between definitely wanting to buy it, to not wanting to spend 10 bucks for basically a minifigure, to finally just buying it anyway. It's just a little unarticulated Mimikyu, with a Poke ball that opens and can clip on to your belt. It seems way overpriced for what you're getting. It would feel like a better value if Mimikyu was released in a two pack with another Pokemon. Which is probably what will end up happening now that I've bought this version. But hey, now I have a little toy Mimikyu, and that's the important thing here.

#97: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master)

Like his sister Leia, Luke Skywalker did not get a six inch figure based on The Force Awakens. Sure, he didn't show up until the very end of the movie, and he didn't have any lines. But come on. Ah, well, since The Last Jedi apparently picks up directly after the end of TFA, this is functionally a TFA version of Luke, so it works. Luke's only accessory is his hooded cape, which is soft goods. Unfortunately, there's no real good way to keep it in place. There are two very short strings that can be tied together to hold it on. I blame the costume designers for not making it a proper robe, which would stay on a little better in this scale. Because I'm sure costume designers are very concerned with action figure reproductions of their designs.

#96: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Kylo Ren

Another Force Friday figure from The Last Jedi, here's Kylo Ren. He's wearing a similar costume to his appearance in The Force Awakens. For all I know, this is what was under the long robe and scarf, but now with a cape thrown on top. Now that he has a cool facial scar, it seems Kylo no longer feels the need to wear a helmet. Unfortunately, the scar on the figure is pretty hard to see. It's definitely sculpted in, but there's no paint to help it pop, son in this small scale it kind of gets lost. The cape is a plastic piece that is removable and just rest on the shoulders. Naturally, Kylo Ren's lightsaber is included in both activated and unactivated modes. The hilt plugs into his belt.

#95: Star Wars The Black Series (The Last Jedi) - Rey (Jedi Training)

So, this is basically the Rey figure we should have had from The Force Awakens. Sure, her hair and costume are different, but she actually comes with all the accessories that make sense for her. Aside from her trusty staff, she has her lightsaber (#reyisaskywalkerconfirmed) and the blaster Han gave her (#reyisasoloconfirmed) which has a holster on her belt. The costume she's wearing is very similar (Rey loves her armwraps), but with her legs fully covered and a more grey color scheme (#greyjediconfirmed). This figure is an improvement over the previous Rey in that her face is flesh colored plastic rather than being covered in paint. Oddly, she's more tan now. Sadly, Rey does not include a porg. She has three accessories already, so it's not a complaint. Word is that Hasbro will be releasing some sort of porg release in the six inch scale later on.

#94: Star Wars The Black Series (Rebels) - Hera Syndulla

In case you're wondering how far behind I still am, we have now reached my Force Friday haul. So, about three months. But here's another realistically styled character in the line who is from Rebels: Hera Syndulla! I'm always glad to get figures of more characters from Rebels, which is in the middle of its final season. As captain of the Ghost, she's one of the main protagonists from the show. Translated to a more realistic appearance, Hera makes for a nice looking figure. Her only accessory is a small holdout blaster, which has a holster on her boot.