Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

Timeless toys man. Sure the yamato 1/48 is all kinds of awesome, but the bandai reissues are classic, and the most durable valkyries to date. Just so advanced for its time, and still a great toy.

Alley Viper is one of the joe team's favorite characters, so theres a chance he will be in the line next year. A lot of fans including myself like him too. Glad to hear about those improvements to the wave 2 figures, thats the first I've heard! Wave 3 looks excellent, Zartan, Firefly, Red Ninja, KICK ASS!

Hasbro said something like "nothing is concrete yet, wait for the check to clear first", with regards to Hama being involved in the movie. Glad you guys are enjoying the news. There was a snippet about the possibility of VEHICLE comic packs also!

Not sure if this is confirmed for sure, but right now I am hearing that Doc will require 6 UPC's from the comic packs. Also, LARRY HAMA WILL BE WRITING ALL NEW COMICS FOR THE COMIC LINE FROM WAVE 3 ONWARD! These will take place in between the old marvel issues or in between panels. Any new figure will first get the realistic/military/original toy colors. Repaints will be retro comic colored in comic packs. Larry Hama pics and glimpse at the new comics!

Surprisingly, its made by Konami.

No prob man! I am VERY excited for the vehicles man, I thought we would get something small like a motorcycle or bubble flight pod, but no, we get mid size classic vehicles to start things off! The movie brings more possibility for bigger vehicles and PLANES!

Joe con is going on right now. Here is some coverage via cooltoyreview.com who thus far, has the best pics. Marketing presentation photo gallery Marketing presentation summary Notes: -The Cobra Night Watch trooper pack and the Red Ninja pack are TRU exclusives. -7-8 of the figures from the battle packs will make an appearance in a special wave for the end of the year. Baroness, the cobra trooper, and another figure will not be in this wave. -Target is getting 3 vehicles in the spring. -8" scale is on hiatus -The original 13 are planned to be in the line. Flash, Grand Slam, Hawk, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Rock and Roll, and Stalker are already covered. I forgot who is left. -The factory in china screwed up Stalker's paint job, and a running change with his original colors is set to appear in wave 3. -The Snake Eyes in the red ninja TRU pack is an homage to the original 82 Snake Eyes design. The original design for Snake Eyes had a black uniform on top, and camo pants, but when the design was finalized, was changed to an all black uniform. -KEEP YOUR OLD BATTLE/FLAG POINTS, WE WILL BE ABLE TO USE THEM IN THE FUTURE! -Comic packs will have new covers based on the old, Ashley Wood is redoing some of them! -Movie toys will be in 3-3/4" scale -Movie is being worked on by the TF movie team -DDP may not be the publisher of the joe comics after their license ends -Hasbro wants to get assistance from Larry Hama on the line. -Blade Destro is a new mold, not a repaint of battle pack Destro like most people thought. Blade Destro is the best Destro I have seen yet. He even has a scabbard! -Futures hitting towards the end of this year should be able to fit into vehicles. -DTC wave 4 will be available through the gijoeclub, and Robot Rebellion Cobra Commander will be available either through the club or next convention(forgot which one). -A poll was done at cooltoyreview.com to give Hasbro a glimpse at who the fan's favorite characters are. Tomax and Xamot are #1. Surprisingly, my favorite character, the almighty Storm Shadow is ranked #12. I will have to say, most of the people voting were most likely older fans such as us. I must admit, I am still surprised by the results. -Vehicle boxes at target will be window boxed and still retain a nostalgic look. Most of this news was via cooltoyreview.com, and what I remembered from other sites. BTW guys, not sure if any of you noticed, but Target does carry BBI's 1/18 scale helicopters and tanks now, which are huge toys. Given this, and the fact that they get great exclusives from hasbro, I think target will be willing to tackle the Night Raven and Skystriker, which are small compared to accurate scaled 1/18 scale vehicles.

Finally got my hands on Samurai Storm Shadow from the 8" line. One of the best Storm Shadow figures ever.

I think the department manager can place orders but whether they get anything in or not depends on how fast they can get supplied. For example, right now a lot of walmarts have Transformers heavily ordered for xmas, and those should be hitting soon, they are already hitting some areas, in preparation for xmas. Stores hit saturation with toys for xmas typically during mid october.

I bought the 3 MPC VF-1s I have for less than msrp at conventions, and one day when a friend of mine gave me a heads up at a local gamestop. The quality after the Rick Hunter version definitely went up. I would have been regretful if I payed full MSRP, but for the prices I bought them for, they aren't bad. They do have features that fans wished the bandais had. However the bandais have the highest amount of durability for valkyrie toys, and also have nostalgia going for them. Quality is very high, the gloss finish is nice, and many of the details were painted and tampo printed on. By the time the reissues came out, Yamato was picking up steam, so the Bandai reissues did not do as well as the Bandai fans hoped. The Bandai has a lot going for it, I say buy your favorite version of the Bandai reissues.

I noticed that too. To be honest, I wish all the figures has the double jointed ball jointed knees that the Spiderman 3 figures have. They are concealed well in the sculpt of the legs. However, I can see why those weren't used since they might have been more fragile at the smaller joe size. Sorry to hear about your Storm Shadow man, that sucks. He's one of the best figures in the line.

Or whichever Macross is planned for 09 commemorates the 25th anniversary of DYRL.

The answer is yes. However in my area its different, I think all the local stores are out of Screamer and Jazz. Starscream sold much more quickly than Jazz. Retailers thinking a movie based toyline would shelfwarm like POTC and Spiderman 3 toys, which still warm shelves despite clearance prices. Basically retailer underestimation. Walmart is ordering heavily for fall, and TRU and Target might be doing the same for the Xmas push. Most toys set for sale during the xmas season hit saturation by next month.

The joe stands are worse, the entire joe logo and stars and stripes are sculpted, making it much more difficult for the joes to stand up. I would have preferred a sole sculpted star in the middle instead. I wonder if the ball joint in the torso if your Storm Shadow figure is broken.

Samurai Storm Shadow, Lockdown, and Toxic Zartan are now being sighted, as well as Combat Squad wave 2, the one with Torpedo. The 8" figures are great toys. Enjoy them while they are still around.

You're welcome man. No worries for Storm Shadow, he is packed in some cases of wave 2.

The flashing red light was implemented to attract kids' attention faster and easier at retail. Wave 1 figures do not have it, but as far as I know, the Zartan wave(3) had it, and the waves afterwards until Sigma 6 name was no longer used on the packaging. BTW guys, wave 2 has been sighted at walmart in California.

Simone Bianchi was the main reason I bought the Loeb Wolverine arc. Bianchi incorporates a lot of design elements with his wonderful ink toned illustrations, and I like that a lot. I was not a big fan of the storyline initially, it took 3-4 issues to get me excited. The artwork was great I have no complaints for that, but it took the story a long time to heat up. I'm not a fan of how in the related books, the simple "all things lead back to Romulus" is taking such precedent as the one clue that will solve it all. The best Wolverine writers were Larry Hama, Erik Larsen(yes his run was short, but it did the deed so to speak), and a few others. I was a fan of Daniel Way's Origins, until Wolverine's son Daken was introduced, as, the son who hates him and was convinced to fight him. That was a way too predictable aspect of the storyline. Currently, Way is filling in the blanks of Wolvy's past with Cap America. I need to catch up on the new Brave and the Bold. I meant to initially solely because Perez was drawing it. I just got done reading Crisis on Infinite Earths, and it was a mistake for me to try reading it in one sitting. It took me 4 days! Drawing that must have been a monumental task for Perez. I just started reading Infinite Crisis, and I read Identity Crisis last year and loved it. I hope Infinite Crisis turns is good, the artwork looks great. I'm dissapointed that Alexander Luthor may turn out to be a villain, but I'll find out once I finish reading it. I've now completed reading Transformers:Infiltration and rereading Escalation. GREAT reads. However I prefer the digest sized manga versions, since they are smaller, cheaper, and since I've got issues with the colors, I like the grayscale version better. I hope a manga version of Escalation comes out soon. Most importantly, the arcs are better as reads when you have all the issues, not having to wait for the next issue to come out. I heard the same thing for Frank Miller's work, which is why there are fans who say All Star Batman and Robin might be better once its done and everything is available in a trade paperback. Furman did an excellent job on the TF books. I like how they tie into Spotlight and how he wrote those too. Not being tied down to the huge marvel continuity helped IMMENSELY. Its funny that Thundercracker and Skywarp are more afraid of Starscream than Megatron. I wonder if Ironhide is dead? I hope not. He didn't get to kick as much ass yet! I'm dissapointed that someone has yet to kick Prowl's ass. Ratchet is now one of my favorite characters. I wonder if Nova Prime is actually alive. Prime sensed his presence when he was in temporary limbo during the fight with Megatron. Su's illustrations depicting Prime fighting Megatron are easily the best we have seen in recent years. I've grown to like Su's illustrations and designs more, and would love it if Hasbro designed toys based off of his designs for their Universe/Classics 2.0 line. I'm sure none of us here would mind seeing his Seekers as $20 Voyager class figures. Just reverse the wings in robot mode. I wonder if Starscream will come back. Megatron is awesome in these books. One of the best things about these books is that there is a consistent cast/roster that isn't too big. It reminds me of Astonishing X men. After reading these books, I hope IDW gets Furman and Su to make a Ratchet Spotlight issue. That would be great. I have a feeling the Autobots will be devastated in the next arc. The Reapers are following Six Shot to earth, the Machination may now have Sunstreaker, and who knows who might follow. BTW, Runabout and Runamuck are great Decepticon versions of Tomax and Xamot. They look awesome in Su's panels too. Tomorrow World War Hulk 4 comes out and I hope Dr. Strange is damaged severely and doesn't pull out some mystic concoction that somehow holds Hulk at bay. This whole miniseries has had vengeful well deserved retribution and I hope it does not lighten up. BTW did anyone pick up the recent issue of Moon Knight from last week? The way he "took care" of Mid-Nite was AWESOME! Also did anyone pick up the Death of Superman animated DVD?

I want Hattori Hanzo from Samurai Spirits, Joe Musashi from Shinobi, Shinobi PS2, Hayabusa Ryu from Ninja Gaiden(xbox), and Hayabusa Ryu from Ninja Gaiden II. Slash and Bust versions of each character from Samurai Showdown can be a line in itself.

Anyone think there is actually 2 Macross features to be shown, one for this year to coincide with the series anniversary, and one in 2009 for the 25th DYRL? anniversary?

Nifty. I wonder how they modded it?

Hmm, so Macross F will premiere on the year that is the 25th anniversary of DYRL. I wonder if the 2009 premiere is meant to tie into DYRL?'s anniversary at all?

I like World War Hulk a lot. Morrison's current run on Batman(the issues with Andy Kubert) are great! Hey what is the 616? I keep hearing about that in discussions about the xbooks. Ultimates written by Millar was awesome, however I am very worried about the direction Jeph Loeb is going to take it in. I like some of Loeb's work, like Daredevil:Yellow, but it does not seem like he will be able to keep the level of seriousness in the Ultimate books that Millar was able to do. Loeb said that there were a lot of things that happened in the Ultimate universe that should not have happened. From the interviews I have read, it seems like he is either trying to drastically alter the storyline, or kill it off. I know Hitch and Millar are working on an upcoming Fantastic 4 project, but I hope Ultimates has Millar at least as a supervising editor. Joe Maduereira will be taking over one of the Ultimate volumes, and while I don't mind his work, his work is better suited to Ultimate X-Men than it is to Ultimates. Jae Lee or Alex Maleev would be more well suited towards the Ultimates. BTW I keep hearing about how great Jeph Loeb is due to Batman:Hush. Was it really all that great? Some people talk to me about it as if its the next coming. My main issue with the Transformers books are the colors. If it does not work in greyscale/b/w, it will not work in color. Color jobs are looking less refined, and with splotches at times. Some of the texture work is distracting too. I had criticism for Ej Su's inking a year back, but he has gotten a lot better, and at this point, he is the best sequential artist working on the Transformers books. BTW All Star Batman was delayed not because of Frank Miller, but because of Jim Lee. He was behind on his pencil work. Same reason Wildcats is delayed. I've also been following Moon Knight, its basically a personal storyline of him building himself up from the lowest point in his life. Man does that guy have a ton of baggage!

I think of all the X books, Astonishing X-Men is the best one, it has a consistent roster, and is not that hard to catch up with. I wasn't a big fan of House of M either, the whole mysterious white flash that changes everything was way too simple of a plot device yet made the biggest changes. I have the JSA 2 parter with Wildcat, I thought it was great. I did sit through and read All Star Superman once at a bookstore, I liked it as well.