Schwag Brag of Mystery: Gravity Falls toys, Dinosaurs, And July!

A long overdue Schwag Brag!  As you may well know (from scrolling down) I didn't do ANYTHING from the end of June, through all of July, and then halfway into August!  That's why this Schwag Brag is gona be so big.  Siddown, shaddap, and take a look!

First off: I found Gravity Falls toys!  On one hand, this is awesome!  On the other hand: Jazwares keeps getting toy licenses!  At the very least, it IS giving Jazwares a chance to improve, though they are really taking their time in that respect.

To give you some background: Gravity Falls is a current cartoon on Disney Channel.  I highly suggest checking it out, if you can.  Well written, hilarious, and an interesting series of mysteries running through the episodes.

I honestly didn't expect toys from this series, but here they are!  (I had expected at least a freakin' DVD first, but Disney doesn't seem to like putting their shows on DVD).  Jazwares got the license, so, while they have improved and these figures aren't terrible, you can still see some of Jazware's trademarks, such as:

 - Paint errors!  If you want these, be sure to check through a bunch, because the paintwork is awful!  I got lucky.  Plus: For some crazy reason, Mabel's blush is the same color as her hair...brown.  So she has chocolate on her face.

 - Cheap-Feeling!  I wouldn't drop these, 'cause Grunkle Stan's loose arms sure don't make me feel good.  The paint work is just BEGGING to be scratched off, too.  Any drop wouldn't probably give you a nice scuff.  Bill Cipher also broke right off his stand while I was moving these around, though I glued him back in place with no problem.

Add to that the fact that they're probably gona be sought-after and not worth after-market prices and you've got another strangely expensive Jazwares product that doesn't line up with the quality they put in to their items. 

I will say good things, though!  They look pretty dang close to the source material (if not a bit surprised, when brought to the 3D realm) and my love for the show erases most of my distaste for Jazwares and their confusing and continued existence in the toy business.  The kids have limited articulation, but that works in Jazwares' favor, 'cause the less articulation they have to butcher, the better!  You can see what I mean in the loose arms of Grunkle Stan; they are on discs and move outward, so that means they have to rattle around, I guess.

Another good thing is that they all have open hands, so you can have them hold things, depending on the size of the items.  Would have been nice to get Mabel's grappling hook, or Grunkle Stan's eight-ball cane, or Dipper's all-important Book that is at the center of the show, but we still get important things.  Waddles, for instance, and Bill Cipher is the BEST out of all of them (could have gone without the barfing Gnome, though I won't lie: It's still funny, 'cause I'm juvenile and easily pleased). 

Alright, ENOUGH!  I had my say, but it wasn't enough of a say for a whole post, so on with the SCHWAG BRAG! 

Here's an SDCC exclusive from the Four Horsemen:  Dark Mist Decimus Hrabban!  He's from their bird-people line and is what you'd expect, if you have any of these.  The arms are a little loose at the bicep swivel, but otherwise he's nice and doesn't feel brittle!  My only problem is that he comes with an alternate open-mouthed head, and IT IS HAAAARD to get that head off!  I mean seriously hard.  I wanted to show it off here, but I didn't feel like wrenching that head off again.

Playmobil continues to make awesome things!  They started a show (that I haven't seen) called "Super 4", where, rather than picking one of the many Playmobil themes, they instead choose ALL of them and make a team of a Fairy, Pirate, Knight, and Secret Agent.  It's a friggin' brilliant idea (hope the show is good) and calls back to my childhood of mixing all my toys across genres and toylines. 

This is a mech called a "Cleano Robot" piloted by a pirate named Sharkbeard. 

The pirate reminds me of Captain Nemo from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and his mechanical eye extends:

All good things!  Especially the boxiness of the robot.  Love them box-like robots!

These are my first blind bagged Lego guys in a while: I skipped at least two or three waves.  Just got tired of looking for the ones I wanted.  I saw the Halloween theme on these, though, and couldn't resist!  My favorites are the skeleton-costume guy and the ghost.

Also in blind-bagged news:  The current Imaginext series!  Possibly the best yet, starring:

A glow in the dark ghost with a translucent green skeleton underneath!  I swear to you, nobody from Mattel called me up and asked for my opinion on what figures to make next.  This just happened.  I'm pretty sure they have a probe implanted in my head, though.  That's gotta be it. 

DINOSAUR OR DINOSAUR THEMED THINGS

This is the Power Rangers' current dino-themed Megazord.  It's in the 5 inch scale and sports some nice articulation!  I love that T-rex head on it's shoulder.

I found tiny dinosaurs at a hobby shop.

YAAAAY!

I also picked up a different and unrelated tiny dinosaur on a trip sometime during my period of not-posting.

It's from a company called Schleich that does hand painted figurines.  You've probably seen their super-detailed dinosaurs all over the place (the mouths on the larger ones open and close). 

VIDEO GAME THINGS

Jakks Pacific's "World of Nintendo" toyline has a few different scales.  The smaller scale (but not the smallest) has branched out into enemies, and I loved the look of this piranha plant. 

The five inch scale continues as well, with a fairly large Goomba (I guess they were pretty big in Mario 64?), Princess Peach, and Fox McCloud.  I'll go over those in more detail in their own post.

STAR WARS HAS NEW STUFF

You were aware that new Star Wars toys came out, right?  Your friends, the news, and all stores in the universe probably wouldn't let you forget! 

I bought a bunch of Star Wars Mashers, and they are pretty neat!  They're tiny bit smaller than the other Mashers, but no less able to Mash with all of them.  I'll probably do a post for these at some point, but I'll say that they could have used some of the disc-hinged shoulders from the older Mashers and Grievous is a bit of a let down.  His back arms are just a backpack.  The backpack comes off and you can plug it into other figure's backs, but you can't pull the arms off and, for some crazy reason, the sabers on his back arms are permanently plugged into his hands!  WHY?  They aren't even molded in there!  They're separate, modified molds of the other two sabers with extra ridges to keep them in the hands!  So strange.  Why waste a mold on that?  Just use the existing mold for the front arms and sabers and allow kids to get four sabers out of this pack!

MICRO MACHINES ARE BACK!  They seem a little more rubbery than the old ones, on the other hand, I have some broken old Star Trek ships, so I guess pieces won't be falling off these new ones (though some wings on the X-Wings are a little bent).  They are what you'd expect from Micro Machines, and I love them.  Mostly because I never had any of the Star Wars ships, from back in the day. 

Which lead to this purchase...

A Star Destroyer that opens up into a playset!  I loved those opening playsets, back in the day, but once again: I never had any of them.  I had to get at least one, and I opted for the BIG GUNS.  I'll cover this closer in a different post.

SUPERHEROS KEEP COMIN'

Went for this Guardians of the Galaxy comic-style set, for multiple reasons.  1.) 'Cause it was an easy way to get the comic Starlord, who has an awesome costume.  2.) I like everyone in this set, even if I haven't read any of the comics and 3.) I get a whole build-a-figure Groot and Rocket with no hunting!  All fine figures and great accessories.  Gamora in particular is freakin' fantastic.

I got Grim Reaper because he's hilarious.  The face, the simple costume, the scythe randomly slapped on his arm.  All of it!  I call him Crazy Pirate Farmer. 

YES!  For once, one of the peg warmers is a figure I was SUPER looking forward to!  Scarlett Spider is one of my favorite 90's costumes, 'cause Ben Reilly cobbled it together from stuff you can buy in the store, pretty much.  I mean, a morph suit, some eyes, a hoodie, and his usual Spider-Man stuff with some 90's pouches and BAM - Scarlett Spider! 

Great figure!  Definitely get 'em if you like the Scarlett Spider.

On the DC side of things: I'm going to stop buying Mattel's DC Multiverse figures.  I've been "just okay" with or disappointed by each one, and usually disappointed with Mattel's lack of knowledge with building functional 3 3/4 figures.  These LOOK nice, but the articulation does them no favors, and they're not very fun.  It's super disappointing with Deathstroke, 'cause he looks so awesome, and you want to do awesome things with it, but the articulation doesn't let you.  No swivel in the biceps, the hands kinda suck, the shoulder pads get in the way, the head barely moves, blahblahblah.  Don't get it.

The other one is Batman Beyond and he gets a sort of pass for being him, but that doesn't make the figure any more fun.

Last one I'll ever get (and probably keep) is X-Ray Bane, because he's translucent and has a skeleton hilariously painted on him.  Look where his rib cage is!  If this is supposed to be an x-ray, then his neck much be LOOONG!  Like, reach-delicious-leaves long. 

I love 'em.

Don't judge me.  Sometimes you go into a comic shop you've never been to before, and you really wana buy something, so you pick something kinda cheap 'cause it makes you laugh.  Fatman won.

MEANWHILE, IN TRANSFORMERS NEWS

The Li'll Seekers are complete!  Skywarp makes the set, and he looks just as nice as the other two.  If I ever pair down the TF collection, I'll probably keep this space-saving trio as my Seeker representatives. 

Warpath!  He doesn't have his distinct cannon coming out of his chest, but the head and the colors are something I've always liked about Warpath, so I'm glad I got 'em. 

This is Brainstorm, a remake of an old Headmaster.  The Headmasters were 80's Transformers whose heads could be removed and turn into robots themselves!  This one does the same, though I'll probably cover all the details at another time.  I love this guy 'cause of the look, the double guns, and the fact that he turns into a ship that looks like a side-scrolling shooter, like the Vic Viper, from Gradius. 

...of course, I didn't feel like Transforming him, so....there we go.  He's cool, trust me.

And finally - FINALLY - we have two more Combiners: Streetwise on the left, and Rook on the right.  If you aren't buying many Transformers...BUY ROOK.  He's seriously awesome, though you'll need another Combiner to make the double-fist look I've got here.  He doesn't have normal hands, rather, his peg holes are facing forward, looking like guns.  You can plug things into them.  Like the Combiner fists!  It's awesome.

WHEW!  That's it, for now!  All the junk from the dead period in July (and a little before and afterward) and a few recent things.  Lots of great stuff out there, people.  Go play with some toys!