Prepare yourself for the latest Minimates revolution, Minimates MAX! Minimates MAX or Mobile Action Xtreme is an all new line of original creation Minimates being shown to the world for the first time at this years Toy Fair in NY.  This line will include original vehicles that are large enough to contain multiple figures as well as feature the ability to interconnect with other vehicles in the line to create larger vehicles or all new creations. The figures in the MAX line will spread out over several genres, each emphasizing a unique play pattern.  The line will roll out this fall in stores nation wide and feature , Pirates, police, fire, and the long awaited Battle Beast (this years special Toy Fair giveaway) . Each line will feature a unique twist befitting the Miniamtes name. Keep an eye on www.artasylum.com as well as www.minimates.com for the latest news. The new website www.mobileactionxtreme.com will also be debuting this summer.

And see MORE of what DST has planned for the MiniMates MAX line in our 2010 DST Toy Fair gallery!

Earlier this week on their Facebook page, the gang at Mattel gave fans their first look at a packaged sample of Keldor as well as a look at his bio.

MOTU Fans, For longer than we can remember, the background of Keldor™ has been shrouded in mystery… but in preparation of his arrival on June 15th here at MattyCollector.com, we herewith reveal his bio! Keldor™ was the first figure in the 2002 line aimed directly at collectors, sold first at SDCC in 2003. So, with this amazing figure we have really come full circle. Not only does this bio reveal major secrets from the past of Skeletor®, but Keldor™ also includes a removable cape that can be used for your Skeletor® figures as well! He comes with both halves of the Power Sword® in purple (the only time we will do both halves in purple) and the acid vial that wounded him in battle with his half-brother, King Randor™.       Please note that Keldor™ is a “quarterly” figure and not part of the Club Eternia™ subscription. You can get him for your own at 12:00 Noon Eastern / 9:00am Pacific on Tuesday, June 15th here at MattyCollector.com.

COLLECTORS REJOICE OVER ALL-NEW DOMO QEE!

MARCH 4, MILWAUKIE, OR—Dark Horse Deluxe, the product arm of Dark Horse Comics, has announced a special exclusive variant in their popular line of toys based on fashion and viral superstar Domo. The Domo Qee figure is unique to the Hong Kong–based toy company Toy2R and has been a massive hit since the line was launched in 2009.

The debut Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) will be held at McCormick Place, located at 2301 South Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Dates are April 16–18, 2010.

The convention exclusive features Domo covered with a Hawaiian-style print, setting it apart from previously released figures in the series. Only 1,200 of this special variant have been manufactured, and they will be made available to both casual fans and collectors at the Dark Horse Comics booth in the exhibit hall on a first-come, first-served basis.

“We made a Domo Qee exclusive for Comic-Con International in San Diego last summer,” Dark Horse’s vice president of product development, David Scroggy, recalled. “We were surprised to find it had sold out by the end of the first day of the show. We made even fewer of them this time around, and as this promises to be a very well-attended first-time event, we advise attendees to drop by early if they are interested in owning one.”

The release of the C2E2 variant closely follows the on-sale date of the second “mystery box” series of Domo Qee toys, which are scheduled for release on March 31, 2010. This “blind-box” assortment features figures individually packed at random. The only way to know which is inside is to purchase it! In the Domo blind-box assortment, figures are sold in counter displays of fifteen, and each display box of fifteen figures is packed into a master carton of four cases.

The special two-inch version of the lovable mascot turned iconic viral superstar from Japan’s NHK television network is growing in popularity in the United States. Dark Horse was an early licensee of Domo, under the auspices of licensing agency Big Tent Entertainment, and has already produced sold-out limited editions of Domo as various sizes and colors of flocked vinyl figures, stationery, journals, and sculpted magnets. Party lights, sticky note books, and other new Domo items are on tap for summer.

Starting from a very unusual place as an advertising icon, Domo’s unique look and personality have catapulted the character from four hundred television spots in Japan into one of the Internet’s biggest sensations, sparking worldwide recognition. As the poster child for personalized, user-generated content, Domo has been able to transition from popularity within Japan to a worldwide following, spawning countless fan-made images, websites, and videos, along with a first-ever licensed product line including plush, toys, fashion, and collectibles selling at major trend retailers nationwide.

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We all remember the struggle it was to find a complete set of the first Walmart exclusive wave of Mattel’s DC Universe Classics.   Wave 5 was the bane of many collectors and many still have holes in their collection from this wave.  Several of the figures are unreasonably expensive on Ebay currently.   

It took a while to correct that but Mattel has just announced they will be selling sets of DCUC wave 5 on MattyCollector.com in May.  See below for details.

HURLEY, NY- March 16, 2010- TONNER reveals its C2E2 (April 16 – 18, McCormick Place – Chicago, IL ) Exclusive, "HUNTRESSTM  DELUXE" from their "DC Stars" line.

 Matty from MattyCollector.com and ToyGuru, have replied with the answers to our latest round of questions that AFi readers have posted in our forums.     

Q1. What influences Mattel’s decision on which of DC/WB’s Straight-to-Video DC projects that Mattel supports with products and which ones they don’t?  Both Public Enemies and Crisis on Two Earths seem perfect for figure sub-lines, but only PE had figures made.

A1. Sorry, we can’t provide information about how specific toy lines are or are not made, but we do agree- both Public Enemies and Crisis on Earth 2 are great candidates due to the large number of characters!

Q2. What caused the 40% increase in the price of a JLU single figure?  Can we expect to get a higher quality plastic, better QC, or a larger tooling budget for the line now?  Was the increase from the Mattel production side or did Target raise the price?

A2. While the overall price of production has increased, at the end of the day retailers set their own sale prices.

Q3. Now that we have seen our first MOTUC Accessory pack, are we any closer to getting our first DCUC accessory pack?  We need more lanterns for our GL Corps and I’d love to see that Kandor the 4 Horsemen sculpted in it’s original DCUC scale.  Plus more bat-gadgets, mother boxes… Justice League HQ Display cases….

A3. One of the issues with this is that the MOTUC pack was all redecos. We could look into a DCU accessory pack, but there are not as many redeco opportunities. If we allocate tooling to a DCU accessory pack it will take tooling away from the figures and we would prefer to put out the best figures we can!

Q4. WAAAAY back in the day when Mattel just started doing DC 6" figures and only had the license to do 6" Batman and Superman family characters the 4 Horsement sculpted some awesome rooftop bases for figures that were shown (I think it was SDCC 2005) but never manufactured, plus they had some really cool ideas for more.  Any chance those could be revived and sold as MattyCollector.com exclusives?

A4. Similar to the answer above, if we spent money tooling these bases, it would take tooling funds away from figures and we would prefer to put as much tooling into the actual figures as possible rather then do redeco figures in order to tool the bases. What do the fans think?

Q5. The new wave of singles will be hitting soon and I know a lot of people are happy. I am glad to see the singles are back.
Deadshot, Firestorm, Aquaman,Green Arrow and Barda look great ! Can we please know what the next planned wave will have for characters ? I know things got shuffled around but can we at least get 2 or 3 figures in the next JLU singles wave ?  We have seen alot of carded single show but When can we expect to see Volcana, OMAC, Ultraman,(show accurate) Zatanna,Hawkman in new deco, and the (show accurate) RED TORNADO? They have been taken off the back of some of the singles,I think fans want to know if these figures are still in the line up.

A5. The last wave of 2009 JLU singles was a bit skipped over, but we do have plans to get to them again, it just may not be the next wave. We’ll have more info to reveal at SDCC!

The next round of questions have already been turned in, but if you want to get in on the NEXT round we need your questions by March  28th.  Remember they can be about any Mattel product including MOTUC, Ghostbusters and Cars.  You can submit new questions in this thread.

You can find our past Q&A’s here. And you can discuss the answers at our Mattel board.

BBTS 15% OFF SALE

Spring is finally here and its time for the time honored Spring Cleaning sale. We’ve cut pricing by 15% on thousands of instock items – discounts are displayed on all eligible items when you browse through our menus. ‘New’ and ‘Preorder / Backorder’ items are note included, but Vintage Department items, and most Graphic Novels are included. Take a look through any of your favorite product lines for 15% off deals.

NEW PREORDERS

IRON MAN 2 – HOT TOYS WAR MACHINE 1/6 SCALE FIGURE
Hot Toys rolls out another amazing 1/6 scale figure. War Machine will make his debut on the big screen in less than 2 months and you can preorder you 12″ version now at $229.99

IRON MAN 2 – HOT TOYS 1/4 SCALE IRON MAN MARK IV BUST
Another great item from Hot toys, this item features LED-lighted eyes and heart (white light, battery operated) and Metallic red and gold-colored painting on armor, the bust stands around 9.5″ tall

THUNDERCATS MUMM-RA 10″ COLD-CAST PORCELAIN STATUE
Hard Hero has just unveiled the 3rd statue in its awesome series of Thundercats collectibles. Mumm-Ra also comes with Ma Mutt – preorders listed at $179.99

Click here to see the rest….

Fresh off the presses, here is your full look at the upcoming Hot Toys War Machine figure from Iron Man 2.   Better start saving your pennies now!

This guy has got some amazing features such as articulated figures and movable waist plates.   It looks like the official Hot Toys site is down tight now, but there’s more pictures at their Facebook page.

Mattel posted this cautionary tale on their Facebook page this morning to help non-subscription MOTUC  fans who are planning to order Moss Man at the sale tomorrow.

Ok, now that we’ve had a month or so to rest, relax, and recover from the whirlwind that is Toy Fair we’re going to give you a rundown of all the news that was there (yes, there was actually information given out and not just pretty pictures!) First, I’m sure there are still a lot of people out there who don’t realize that not only did AFi shoot a metric ton of photos in NY, but also labeled pretty much all of them! So go check ‘em out here if you haven’t already.

This first recap is actually going to highlight one of the more recent phenomenons of the Toy Fair experience: free swag. I remember back when I first went to Toy Fair in 1997 with Eric Myers. When we went as RTM it was the first time a website was allowed in as media and just getting them to take us seriously back in those early days of the web was very tough; we jumped through a lot of hurdles to be able to get photos and info out to the interwebs as the show was happening. It didn’t take long for other sites to jump on the bandwagon and go through the process to gain press credentials. And over time so many websites did it that now all you need is a blog or Facebook page even marginally devoted to toys to gain access.

But traveling to New York in Winter is time consuming and expensive, so many companies now give away various items just for going to the show and giving them free press. While in the old days it wasn’t terribly unusual for many companies to give out free samples to buyers/press/licensors, now you are likely to find exclusive, limited items being made expressly for the media at the show and nowhere else. Why? To be honest, most companies at this point expect people to sell them to help pay for the trip so they offer toys that have new paint jobs, packaging, etc. to make them a bit more desirable for collectors who aren’t at TF. Heck, some people go to Toy Fair now just to get these freebies! (Full Disclosure: I did put a few of mine on ebay to help pay for my trip, too! Kept some of them, though, and gave away a bunch to friends with kids).

I think Jakks might have been the first to do this with their exclusive wrestler repaints, but pretty much all major companies have something to hand out. Back in ‘98 I don’t think we got anything, but this year we given some really nice items. Shown below are a few of the toys: MOTUC Trap-Jaw from Mattel (They also gave out some WWE figures), Glow-In-The-Dark Alien Force Ben 10 from Bandai (also given out was a new Tamagotcha figurine and a Harumika mannequin). BY far the most talked about goodie bag was that given out by Lego: a white Concept Boba Fett based on designs by Joe Johnston/Ralph McQuarrie and a fancy catalog of all the Star Wars Lego toys, AND a unique "Cube Dude" of Buzz Lightyear signed and numbered by its creator, Pixar Animator Angus MacLane. The most unique item, though, is probably the Hasbro Transformers RPMs Optimus Prime. This one wasn’t given out at the media event for the press (and I don’t think Hasbro gave out any goodies this year to the press at all), but instead was a sample for buyers and licensing partners. It has a custom paint job, exclusive packaging, and Toy Fair 2010 deco. I’ve only seen it reported at one site so far, so not sure how many of these got out but I think it’s safe to say that far less than any of the other collectibles this year.

More to come, with each company getting a recap in the next week! Keep checking back, or just hit the Toy Fair graphic in the sidebar at right to get all the 2010 Toy Fair reports in one place!