Monday, February 29, 2016

New York Toy Fair 2016


For a host of reasons Steve and I thought that we would not be able to attend New York Toy Fair this year. However, we figured it costs us nothing to register so let's do that at the very least. Well, in the end we were able to make it up to New York City on Saturday the 13th for Toy Fair.

Toy Fair just happened to be on one of the coldest days of the year. The last few years we had snow for Toy Fair, but this year we battled bitter cold and brutal winds. We took the train up from our neck of the woods of NJ up to Penn Station. Once we got there we took a look at the line for taxis and said "f that", manned up, and walked our asses to the Javits Center.



I will say up front that overall I was not blown away by Toy Fair. Some companies really did a great job while others were just kind of meh. Some of the companies that were highlights of the day for us were S.H. Figuarts, DC Collectibles, Kidrobot, The Loyal Subjects, Mezco, and NECA. We visited other booths, but many had very little worth mentioning here. We didn't even bother stopping by the McFarlane booth because we just don't care about it and Todd is too cool for school.

We only stayed for a few hours due to other family commitments, but we made the most of our time there. Once we got checked in we did a quick run through of the hall before it was time for our appointments. There is no way we can possibly go through every cool item we saw from every company so we will give you some of the highlights of the day.

As we strolled around we checked lots of sweet new stuff from companies such as Play Arts, Good Smile, Four Horseman Studios, etc. Due to our time constraints we couldn't visit each of these booths as long as we would have liked, but at least we still got to check them out.

Bluefin Booth

The Bluefin booth was awesome as usual. The had lots of great S.H. Figurarts stuff on display. Some of what they had out included Dragonball Z, Freddie Mercury, and TMNT figures. I saw the TMNT figures up close back in October at NYCC, but it was nice to see them in person again. As a huge TMNT fan I will be getting all four of them. Sentinel Toys had some excellent Iron Man, War Machine, and Hulk Buster figures out. Storm Collectibles had some very impressive looking Mortal Kombat figures on display too. 

Vinyl Figures: Kidrobot & The Loyal Subjects

There was a lot of fun, new vinyl figures at Toy Fair. Kidrobot had their new wave of TMNT figures on display. I was very impressed with their 8" Shredder and Triceraton figures. Again, both of those will be definite buys for me. The Loyal Subjects also had lots of good stuff. Of course, we were most excited to see the new G.I. JOE and TMNT figures, but they had many other lines as well. They included My Little Pony, Masters of the Universe, Power Rangers, Mr. Potato Head, etc.

DC Collectibles

Three companies that we really enjoyed were DC Collectibles, Mezco Toyz, and NECA Toys. DC had new ICON figures out. We first saw the ICON figures back at the 2015 NY Toy Fair. We like this line quite a bit and are happy to see the line continue to be successful and grow. Another highlight of their booth was the Batman the Animated Series Deluxe Batmobile set. It's a beast. They also had out the Rainbow Batman Collection, Designer series, and Film series. This is the second year in a row where we have walked away from the DC Collectibles booth very excited.

Mezco Toyz

Mezco Toyz had another kick ass booth. If you follow us then you know that we are really big fans of their One:12 figures. That line is kicking ass and that isn't going to change anytime soon. At Toy Fair they had many new One:12 figures on display. Those included two Universal Frankensteins, Space Ghost, Star Trek, Shazam, The Flash, Professor Zoom, Green Arrow, two Punishers, two Captain Americas, three Dare Devils, Superman, as well as Batman and Superman from Dawn of Justice. On top of that, they saw the success of their Dredd Lawmaster figure and decided to kick it up a notch. This year they showed an sweet One:12 Batmobile. It is big, and it is beautiful! While the One:12 figures did take up most of our attention they also had other cool stuff out such as the Thundercats line. I'm glad to see them back.

NECA Toys

We saved our favorite booth for last. Randy Falk and NECA Toys bring it every single year, and this year was no exception. Most companies have maybe one or two reveals that make you say wow. Not NECA. Not only did they tease multiple new items for weeks leading up to Toy Fair, but they saved plenty of secrets for the show.

Any time I walk into their booth I immediately get ADD. There are so many cool lines and new figures that it is difficult to keep my focus. I will go through many of the new goodies that NECA will be bringing to us during the first half of the year. Yes, that's right. Everything they had at the show is still only for the first half of the year! NECA is moving along at full speed, and I couldn't be happier.

Let's begin with Pacific Rim. It looks like the line is slowing down and may be coming to an end, but NECA had one hell of a run. The movie didn't do all that well at the box office and there isn't any new stuff to support the line. Who knows? With the word that talks have begun to make Pacific Rim 2 maybe that will change. The Pacific Rim figure they had out that I liked the best was Hardship. Of course, that wasn't all that they had. There was also Mutavore and Ultimate Gypsy Danger. All are very cool. They will go well with the new Ultimate Striker Eureka which we just recently reviewed.

They also had new Retro figures. The new ones were Captain Spaulding of House of 1000 Corpses, Weird Al, TCM 2 Leatherface, the card art for Chop Top, and the Wyld Stallyns of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. They also had the new, extremely limited Hateful Eight figures displayed.

On the Horror front, aside from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they also had the new Ash vs Evil Dead series out with a fantastic diorama. We also chatted with Randy about the new Friday the 13th Ultimate Jason that is planned. Horror fans have plenty of new things to look forward to this year.

One of my favorite NECA lines is their Video Game Appearance figures. Randy made me one happy guy with the magic he made happen this year. We had already learned about the Contra figures which we got to see up close, but then we see a VGA version of Simon from Castlevania! Talk about nostalgia. Other video games figures on display included Nathan Drake of Unchartered 4, and Kratos of God of War. Kratos looks down right mean and is awesome. We plan on picking him up soon as he is already out right now.

Randy also has some re-releases planned for those who missed out on some great figures in the past. Get ready for some amazing ROCKY and TERMINATOR figures! The Rocky figures will be a mix of re-released figures as well as new. The first wave out will be from Rocky 3 and includes two Clubber Lang's and two Rocky's. The new Rocky with the championship belt happens to be my favorite one. I will be buying all of them to put up on the shelves in my office at work. The Rocky 3 figures will come in a black and gold window box packaging. The next series will be Rocky 4 and will come in red packaging.

One of our favorite figures of the day was the Ulimate version of the Tech Noir T-800. This thing comes loaded with accessories. After all, he knows his weapons buddy. He has three different heads, an extra hand, damaged forearm, surgical scissors, .45 long-slide with laser sighting, Uzi 9mm, and a 12 gauge pump action shotgun. Sorry, no phased plasma rifle in 40 watt range! As usual, the sculpting on this figure looks fantastic.

We also got to have our first up close look at the Cinemachines line. This line epitomizes what NECA is about...film accurate, highly detailed, fully functional figures/vehicles at a price that won't cost you an arm and a leg. When these were shown online I thought that they were very cool. I mean who wouldn't want to have the vehicles from movies such as Aliens and Terminator? But what really sold me is when Randy let us play with them at Toy Fair. They are beautiful and quite sturdy. They put a lot of work into these and the end result if the perfect mix of detail and functionality. These are going to sell extremely well.

NECA also had an array of life-sized foam replicas on display. I made sure to get a picture with Batman. Along with him was Harley Quinn, Slimer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and Alien egg with face hugger. 

Next up is the 1/4 scale figures. This is when my head just about exploded. Imagine my surprise when I walk in and see a 1/4 scale TMNT original movie version of Dona-freaking-tello!!! Everyone knows that TMNT is my true love when it comes to toys and collecting. The figure we saw is not the final product, but it looked sweet. It is beautifully painted and is about 16 1/2". NECA will be releasing all of the Turtles in time. I, for one, can't wait and will be pre-ordering every single one of these. I'm glad to see NECA involved with TMNT once again. Who knows where this could lead?

There were other 1/4 scale figures on display as well. They include Batman: Arkham City Harley Quinn, Batman Begins Batman, Dawn of Justice Batman, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk!!! The Hulk is a behemoth. The fact that NECA was able to make a figure this big for UNDER $250 is just crazy. I wanted to see this figure up close ever since he was first shown at SDCC. One thing to note is that the pants on the Hulk are NOT FINAL. NECA will be changing these so that they match the grey and black ones from the movie.

They also had the 1/4 scale LED Jungle Hunter Predator and a 1/4 scale blue Warrior Xenormorph from Aliens. Word is they will also be releasing a brown Warrior in the future. I love the Predator. In fact, I already purchased him. He just arrived this week so I will be shooting pics of him soon. The articulation on the Warrior is excellent. The last time we were visiting the NECA studio they were hard at work on this guy. It was really nice to be able to see the final product in person.  

This leads us into two of our favorite lines that NECA produces, Predator and Alien!!! Let's start with  all of the new Alien stuff coming out...and there's a ton. Right off the bat I have to say that the Alien diorama gets cooler and cooler every time we see it. Of course, there's always new figures being made to put into it as well so I suppose that helps. All of series 8 of the Alien line was on full display. All of the troop builders out there are going to have a blast with the Weyland Commandos. It comes with goggles, pulse rifle, and a knife. 

Back by popular demand is the Dog Alien which just happens to be my favorite Xeno that NECA makes in this scale. It will come in brown and gray variants. 

We have been blessed to have two different versions of Ripley so far, but NECA is always one-upping themselves. They showed off the Aliens 3 Ripley with shaved head. She comes with two sets of arms so you can display her with her jacket on or just in her tank top. She also comes with a flashlight. 

To top it all off, NECA showed off their awesome idea of a Aliens Creature Pack! These are going to fly off the shelves. Each pack will include two face huggers, two chestbursters, a royal Queen face hugger, a Queen burster, AND a light-up stasis chamber. The cool thing is that you can open up the stasis chambers and fill them up with water. I will certainly be buying several of these Creature Packs. NECA is always thinking out of the box which is what keeps collectors of their toys happy. 

Now on to NECA's longest running line (which has no end in sight), Predator! As you all know we love us some Predator.  That is great news for us because NECA showed us a ton of new Predators. We got to see Series 15 (new AVP Predators), Series 16 (Kenner), Scarface (Concrete Jungle), and boxes for Ultimate versions of both the Jungle Hunter and City Hunter!!!!

The AVP Predators include Ancient Predators, Warrior and Temple Guard. The third figure is a masked version of Scar. Each of them come with specific weapons and accessories. The AVP diorama was extremely detailed and sick. Word is the pillars from the display may become available to buy eventually. Now that would be amazing!

The Kenner line brings us Spiked Tail, Stalker, Ghost and Ultimate Clan Leader!!!! Old school Kenner Predator fans will be very pleased with these. Each of these are different and unique. Every single one of these have a removable mask. Stalker glows in the dark like the original one did. Ghost is one of my favorite of the bunch and is based of an unproduced figure by Kenner. Clan Leader is a damn beast! He also has a removable mask as well as a staff and tentacles that can be attached to either the wrists or shoulders.

The VGA Ultimate Scarface is going to be stunning as well. He will come in the window box that we have grown accustomed to for all of NECA's VGA figures. Scarface comes with two different heads, cool armor, spear gun, and maul. 

For all of the fellow Godzilla fans out there we have news for you as well. He was not on display at the show but Randy was kind enough to show us an image of a wax sculpt of the next Godzilla figure which will be the 2001 version...something cool to look forward to.

Last but not least, Randy showed us something totally brand new at Toy Fair. That is their new Dynamic Figure Stand. We noticed a few figures were displayed with these new stands, and then Randy gave us one to try out. We loved it!!! I won't go into very much detail since we just reviewed it recently. If you haven't seen it yet then take look at the review and pictures of it here.

We had a lot of fun covering all of the new toys coming out this year. I hope you enjoyed our review of all of cool stuff that Toy Fair brought us. A huge thank you to Director of Product Development for NECA Toys, Randy Falk. He works diligently with his crew all year long to bring us new and exciting products. He always takes time out of his day to chat with us whether it's about toys or life. He's one of the best dudes in the industry and just so happens to make kick ass toys. Thanks for all of the hard work.

As always, feel free to look us up on Twitter @cobrashadowjoes if you have any questions or want to talk toys.
Photo gallery below:

S.H. Figurarts


Diamond Select Toys


Sentinel Toys


Storm Collectibles


Kidrobot


The Loyal Subjects







DC Collectibles



Mezco



NECA







 


















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