San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Preview night was last night and the internet is dealing with an onslaught of previews, announcements, news, and other eye-candy to ogle. Much of this comes from Hot Toys and the Sideshow Collectibles booth. Personally, I’m already 12 hours and about 50 figure announcements behind.
During this most wonderful time of the year, it’s important to remember, however, that our excitement faded to a dull, questioning curiosity, and then a sullen pining as we realized some announced 1/6 scale figures may never make it out of the “Coming Soon” category.
This week, we’re taking the time to remember our fallen prototype friends who never made it to production. We’ll be counting down the top figures we wish would go into production across different licenses this week as SDCC 2019 marches on. Yesterday we kicked of with my personal favorite: Star Wars. Today, we continue with Marvel.
Here are the top 5 Marvel figures I wish would go into production, but, as of yet, haven’t and may never do so.
Now, Marvel figures have had an even bigger roster of releases than even Star Wars from best I can tell. The Avengers line of films has just done such a good job of highlighting each character to the point that each character has its own dedicated following. So, I actually had a harder time finding unreleased figures.
5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Drax
Drax was shown off at SDCC 2017. While there is a prior release from the original Guardians of the Galaxy film, this update had a lot of features we were looking forward to. He had a jetpack that probably chaffed his nipples, that button diorama piece to blow up Ego, and what looked like a baby Groot with bomb.
Was this figure necessary? I guess not because the original release exists and a new prototype from Infinity War has been previewed at SDCC 2019. But, this may have been a fan’s favorite Drax performance.
4. Thor: Ragnarok: Valkyrie
We have had Thor after Thor after Thor released. There’s Original MCU Thor, Thor: The Dark World Thor, Age of Ultron Thor, Roadworn Thor, Gladiator Thor, Deluxe Gladiator Thor, and those last three are all from Thor: Ragnarok. Then, we have Infinity War Thor currently available for Pre-order, and old school Comic Thor from Sideshow Collectibles shipping currently. Not to mention the corpulent Endgame Thor that’s been teased. Is it so hard to believe that there are fans who would want another Asgardian to team up with one of their many Thors?
Alas, it looks like this is one drunken Asgardian we may never add to our collections. Another 2-year-old preview that looks less and less likely to ever become a reality.
3.
Infinity War was released not to long before Endgame. As a result Infinity War Sixth Scale Figures are still being released and previewed. Long beloved and not forgotten film releases get new figures all the time anyway.
Captain America got a promo diorama piece of this particular type of foot soldier, but it would have been cool to have a full blow figure for Infinity War Cap to face off against. It also would have looked good rounding out a pair of Chitauri Soldiers.
2. Avengers: Infinity War: Corvus Glaive
Previewed at SDCC 2018, this guy still has a chance of coming out. After all, Infinity War Sixth Scale Figures are still being released and previewed.
Fans of the Hasbro Marvel Legends line can give Thanos his full Black Order with this year’s release of Ebony Maw in the Endgame Wave 1 of figures.
However, sixth scale collectors come up a little short. As of right now, collectors can have their choice of two Thanos’, one Endgame and one Infinity War. Apart from that, Marvel fans have Chitauri Soldiers and that’s it. Not even a single of Thanos’ generals. It seems where Hot Toys really fall short on releases is Marvel villains. Everybody’s shelf is lousy with heroes, but no villains to face off against apart from multiple Lokis and Thanoses (Thanii? Thanosee? Who care’s there’s only one Thanos, we’ll never need the plural).
1. Spider-Man: Homecoming: Vulture
I thought earlier this week that we were getting a quarter scale Vulture figure. I was wrong about that. It turns out it was a quarter scale Spider-Man with Vulture apparatus diorama base. I’m glad I was wrong because to release a quarter scale Vutlure without giving fans a sixth scale Vulture would have been a huge disappointment. Releasing Spider-Man as a quarter scale Hot Toys Marvel figure makes sense. He’s one of the oldest, most popular, Marvel super heroes. He’s blue chip, evergreen, a cash cow, the belle of the ball. Only Iron Man precedes him in the quarter scale Hot Toys line.
I said before that we really don’t have many villains from Hot Toys’ Marvel releases. We have a few Lokis and Thanos, but nothing specific to the Spider-Man franchise.
If I have listed variations of popular characters release by Hot Toys before Spider-Man must take the cake. There are currently eight different Spider-Men available for pre-order at the time of this writing: PS4 Spider-Man, Upgraded Suit Spider-Man, Stealth Suit Spider-Man, Deluxe Stealth Suit Spider-Man, Movie Promo Spider-Man, Iron Spider, Scarlet Spider, and Spider-Punk.
That doesn’t even account for Spiders that have come before. Or yet to come, for that matter. SDCC 2019 Preview Night included a comic Iron Spider, Negative Suit Iron Spider, Velocity Suit Spider-Man, one with “Light-up Function”, quarter scale Spider-Man. Man, this list is never going to end.
How do we have that many Spiders and no villains to face off against?!
Besides that, Vulture’s wing fuselage looked massive, impressive and just generally fun as all hell to pose and display. There are so many high-flying acrobatic poses I can imagine for Spider-Man versus vulture that its’ just silly to think we might not get the opportunity. What’s even more disheartening is that Mysterio, Hydro-Man, and Molten Man were absent from SDCC 2019 preview night. There’s still more SDCC to go this week, but it ain’t looking good. Yes, there’s a deluxe diorama base for Stealth Spider, but the stagnant pose limits your Spidey posing options.
