#84: Marvel Universe - SDCC 2011 exclusive Sentinel

Way back when the Marvel Universe Sentinel was announced, I assumed it would be coming out sooner than it did. But I suppose they are keeping their super sized figures at one a year, which is a good idea for keeping things spaced out. Naturally, I wanted one, as I didn't really get into Marvel figures until after the Marvel Legends build-a-figure Sentinel was long gone from store shelves. When the Sentinel was finally given a release date, I pre-ordered mine online. The normal retail release comes in a purple and silver color scheme (I guess that's something more modern?) rather than the classic blue and purple like the exclusive version. Although I prefer the classic color scheme I didn't think I'd be able to get my hands on the exclusive, so I ordered it anyway. Then during one of the panels, the news came out that the better color scheme would probably be finding its way to retail at some point, so I cancelled my pre-order. Then Hasbrotoyshop.com put all the Hasbro exclusives up for sale while I was at work. Apparently they were dealing with Mattycollector.com style problems on their website due to all the crazy toy ordering traffic. By the time I got to check the site, I was on lunch, and using my phone, so ordering was a slower process than normal. The final confirmation page never fully loaded, so I wasn't sure if my order had gone through. About twenty minutes later, I did get the order confirmation e-mail, but since my Paypal account hadn't been fully charged yet (they had done the authorization charge, but hadn't actually taken the money), I still wasn't sure if it had gone through. Finally, a few days later I hadn't heard anything about the order shipping, so I e-mailed, and it turns out the Sentinel had shipped that very day. Finally!

So, because this is a Comic-Con exclusive, the packaging is actually something interesting to talk about. First, it's huge. The box it came in is about three feet square. Opening that up, there's the actual box the Sentinel comes in, featuring some cool Joe Quesada artwork. That box opens up suitcase style to reveal the carded Sentinel within.

That's right, like last year's exclusive version of Galactus, the Sentinel comes packaged in a ridiculously oversized version of the regular Marvel Universe cards. I really appreciate Hasbro's dedication to this gimmick, because nothing's as amusing as an object that's a giant version of an everyday object (like the artwork of Claes Oldenburg!). I liked this giant oversized card so much that I hung it on my wall after I took out the Sentinel. The artwork on the main box would be cool to hang on the wall, too.

Sooooo. It's pretty damn cool. It's appropriately huge and has a very nice heft to it. There's a button on its chest that makes it speak various phrases, as well as making its eyes light up. There's actually a certain amount of parts reuse from Galactus. The torso and the upper arms and legs are the same. There is a softer plastic chest piece that makes their chests look different. So the lower legs and forearms, as well as the head are different. This reuse of pieces leads to my biggest complaint about the figure: no palm blasters! Whenever I think of Sentinels, they're always blasting away at mutants with their palms, so that omission is kind of disappointing. Overall, I think it's really cool and definitely worth adding to the collection.

HALT, MUTANT!