While also K-Mart priced, and with an awful
neck joint, Black Widow (2004) was too important to skip, being connected to both the Avengers and Daredevil. Taskmaster (2016) is a frequent villain in my comics, ensuring I grabbed him on sale much later. This was important as they both
provided movie justification for when the two pack of Natasha’s on screen “parents”
went on sale. (2021) Although, they both fulfilled “NEED”s anyway. The Red
Guardian was hilarious and came with an action figure of himself. (As should be
clear by now, “NEED” has a widely varied definition.) Melena was equally important
as Rachel Weisz and I share the exact same birth date. Granted, she looks infinitely better in a white cat suit. (Again… widely varied.)
He’s…
Kind of dull. 
His look is nothing special outside of a bit of shininess. He has a
typical, thief minded, bad guy mind set and has powers that cause structural
damage and ground shakes, meaning he would come with zero accessories no matter what.
However, he was a member of Freedom
Force, the government sponsored Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that played a huge
role in my comics back in the West Coast Avengers days. Due to unrelated to
that group reasons, I have assembled most of the team. While both the early
Hasbro build a figure (2007) and the special edition oversized recent single
figure Blob (2023) show absolutely no signs of their stratospheric price rise ever abating, and no
version of Marvel Legends has ever hinted at making a Destiny figure, I
couldn’t pass up the Avalanche sale on the off chance that changed someday. (With the recent Destiny and Mystique wedding issue, there is hope.)
[Later Edit- They just announced a Destiny!
In an exclusive two-pack with another Rogue which will likely never go on sale...Alas.]
Similarly, sometimes Spaces develop by
accident. Because of being a huge Daredevil fan and having a Marvel Knights
shelf, I had all of the available villains from the Netflix
Defenders shows without planning to, and almost all of the heroes.
(Yes, that is an American flag design painted all over Nuke's face.
Yes, someone who thinks they should be president of this country has used the same imagery as a mentally unstable supervillain.
Yes, feel free to draw the obvious conclusion.)
Shortly followed by a bit of online auction hunting
for the store exclusive Claire Temple (2018) from a two-pack, came a visit to a
Toys R Us on the verge of closing for Jessica Jones, (2017) and then I had all
of the heroes.
Note my clever use of high end photo
manipulation using MSPaint to get Hellcat (2015) in the shot after I forgot to
put her in the first one and flat out refused to knock down the entire Marvel
Knights core shelf again to retake the picture.
Other times, it is a sale key character to
fill a Space that I waited years for. In only one case, however, I did not wait
for a sale since the character was only available to direct market online stores.
As a child of the Eighties, I NEEDED to fill the Space to complete Spider-Man
and His Amazing Friends when Firestar (2021 with Ms. Lion!!!!) came out. This is one case where time has not affected my opinion of this purchase. Frequently the ones I decided to buy have their price tank shortly after, while the ones I did not skyrocket. (Yet another case of the toy shelves mocking me.) Ms. Jones's price point has held rock solid, likely due to the exclusive direct market offering, for three years. The
villains on the upstairs shelf to help celebrate this momentous occasion both
appeared in the cartoon.
Doctor Doom (2007) was there…
because he’s awesome.
because he’s awesome.
Electro (2016) was there to celebrate the
finding of a rare Spidey related figure auction on sale!
Rogue (2016) was almost at this level to
fill in the X-Men team of my youth. I amazingly found her on sale shortly after her release before her
price jumped up. Way back on Toy Biz wave four (2003) there was a brief period
where Kay-Bee allowed mail orders of entire waves. I owned a Gambit… even more briefly.
Since I first switched away from Marvel (the first time) before he became prominent, I returned him,
generating yet another foolish moment I congratulated myself for saving money on an
early cheap wave. Little did I know that Anabelle would become a big fan of my X-Men
Animated Series disks and give me a hard time nearly nonstop for “giving up” Gambit,
one of her favorite characters. She did make a “Gambit coming soon” post-it to
fill in for him before he came out. It still lives on the shelf along with an
Apokolips post-it she drew to commemorate me not getting that initial, giant build a figure (2005) after his motion picture debut. (Meaning my own shelves mock me.)
Fortunately, Gambit’s Hasbro rerelease (2019) dipped in price a bit early on like Rogue's did, and we were able to assemble the X-men ’97 cast on the upstairs shelf.
Not only that, but Anabelle could put together all the characters Kelly Thompson (her favorite writer, who she's had a couple letters published in her titles he added proudly) had in her books at the time.
They also allowed our Valentines Day display of our favorite Marvel couples, because all three of us are romantic nerds.
I expected to make some money back on the initial purchase by selling the Ex Nihilo figure (loose after getting the "NEEDED" build a figure part, of course) since I had never heard of the golden, one horned monstrosity. Granted I had never heard of the oversized white tiger man that was the build a figure for one wave, but
HEY! GIANT WHITE TIGER MAN! COOL!!!!
So, he could stay. (Apparently his name is Titus. Good to know. Now I know him...sort of.)
Who am I to argue with that kind of impeccable logic.
As should be crystal clear by now, she also has a (lesser) problem.
This group of figures led to an on-sale
birthday gift of the going out of business Toys R Us Exclusive full-sized
Groot. (2017)
As should be crystal clear by now, she also has a (lesser) problem.
I also watched the sale price to add a Marvel Studios 10th
anniversary Ronan (2018) to the party.
Observant folks may have noticed by this point my addiction has thrown any and all original “target time” thoughts of the collection out the window along with freely including movie versions of characters. Part of the reasoning is what an amazing job the actors have done in the roles, part is how good the likenesses on many of the figures are...
Observant folks may have noticed by this point my addiction has thrown any and all original “target time” thoughts of the collection out the window along with freely including movie versions of characters. Part of the reasoning is what an amazing job the actors have done in the roles, part is how good the likenesses on many of the figures are...
and part is the crystal clear nature of my problem.
Having those movie versions is fine
though, and not only because I’m an addict. They allow for the Entertainment
Center shelf to be used for recreations recognizable by many.
Rosa has stronger memories of the films better than the
comics and chose what she called “The Schwarma Eating Avengers” when it was her
turn to pick.
For home releases and rewatches, it
allowed me to celebrate emotionally memorable moments from Endgame, such
as right before:
“I went for the head.”
And the devastating:
“Can you hear me? It's Peter. Hey... we won. Mr. Stark.
“I went for the head.”
And the devastating:
“Can you hear me? It's Peter. Hey... we won. Mr. Stark.
We won, Mr. Stark.
We won, you did it, sir, you did it.”
*Peter (and the rest of us) cries*
“I'm sorry, Tony.”
Tony's spirit was apparently ferried to the afterlife by a musical Hippopotamus for Christmas. I guess the figures don't always take part in the Holiday Celebrations.
*Peter (and the rest of us) cries*
“I'm sorry, Tony.”
Click to continue Part 7
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