By Chris Troy

MANDATORY RETAIL CHRISTMAS WARNING: IT’S TWO WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS! UNLESS YOU’RE PAYING AMAZON A GOOD HUNK OF CHANGE PER YEAR FOR EXPRESS SHIPPING, NOW’S NOT THE BEST TIME TO BE SHOPPING ONLINE. LUCKY FOR YOU, Forbidden Planet NYC has a ton of great last minute ideas for the various collectors in your life, which can be acquired by walking into the store, giving us cash or plastic card in exchanged for goods. There’s also the website, if dates aren’t a concern.

So let’s see what’s new this week. We got…some new Bobbleheads in….wait don’t leave, I know that doesn’t sound exciting but follow me here! I’m not the biggest Bobblehead guy in the world either, mostly because I wasn’t around in…the 1960s I guess, when the bobblehead became a thing. I know they reappeared in the late 90s and still exist to date, but I couldn’t tell you why, as I’ve stated it’s not really my scene. HOWEVER, I am a big fan of F/X, and their hit show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” which if you’re not familiar, is a sitcom like “Cheers” only everyone in the main cast is a terrible human being and it leads to hilarity. We won’t be getting IASIP action figures anytime soon as far as I know, but NECA has released talking “It’s Always Sunny” Bobbleheads, which I guess is almost as good? I dunno. But they talk, specifically quoting some of the best lines from the show (sadly not the ones with profanities) and hey, who knows, maybe it will lead to toys at some point if they sell really well (HINT HINT). And that would be great, because my Revoltechs and Marvel Universe figures could really use the company of Charlie Kelly, local business-owner and cat enthusiast. Or at least some “Archer” figures. That would be great.

(This is where I could dump several Tumblr’s worth of IASIP’s gifs. Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t!)

So remember a while back when it seemed like there were new DC Direct toys dropping every other week? It’s kind of happening again, but to a lesser extent thankfully, as we now have 2 different lines of DC Direct toys on the shelves now. First to drop is the 4th wave of Green Lantern figures. I think it’s bull to consider this the 4th wave, considering we’ve been getting bombarded with “Black Night” toys for over a year, but hey, I’m not the numbers dude. This wave consists of Robot Green Lantern (yes, that felt awesome to type out) Stel, Lantern Arkkis Chummuk ( “Chummuk” is hilarious to me by the way), Red Lantern Guy Gardner, and Power Glow Hal Jordan. If you want to call Power Glow Hal a cop out because it’s an older Hal figure re-released in clear green plastic, you are 100% correct: it is. It’s bad and DC Direct should feel bad. On the bright side, you have two more obscure Green Lanterns to add to your Corps. collection, as well as a Red Lantern Guy (who I thought would come with his construct chainsaw but sadly does not). Either way, they’re on sale for about $20 a pop if you’re interested.

The other set of toys DC Direct dropped this week was the 1st wave of the new Arkham City line, based on the awesome game that dropped back in October. The first wave consists of a scrapped character design from Sucker Punch, a Sterling Archer in a Batman costume, and some roid-rager in a Robin costume. Or as the packaging says: Harley Quinn, Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Robin Tim Drake; who spends his off-time as a cage fighter according to the game’s plot. Between that interesting tidbit and Harley dressing like…well, slightly less offensively than her current New 52 version, I question the writing/art direction of the game. But Bat-Archer looks dope and is probably worth the $20 it sells for. I really suggest that if you want any Arkam City figure you buy it immediately, because once Arkham figures sell out, they tend to be gone for good.