Hot Wheels: Spider-Man Maximum Venom, #1 - '70 Dodge Hemi Challenger / Venomized Spider-Man

 

'70 Dodge Hemi Challenger / Venomized Spider-Man

2020 Walmart exclusive series

Marvel Legends: White Rabbit

With so many things to collect these days I had to figure out a way to scale back my own collecting goals and for Marvel Legends that meant just sticking to Spider-Man characters and related villains. What I didn't expect however was for the supervillainess, White Rabbit to show up in a Spider-Man themed series.

White Rabbit (Dr. Lorina Dodson) made her first appearance in Marvel Comics' Marvel Team-Up #131 (1983). She has popped up over the years as a B level villain in the New York crime syndicate. Personally I was thrilled she received a figure, even though I had already planned on buying since she also came packaged with Demogoblin's glider piece.

While I don't keep the packaging for these Marvel Legends figures, I do adore the beautiful renditions of the characters on the side of the packaging. The back of the box has a small bio for each character, bonus multi-language!

I love the overlook of this figure as I think the designers have captured her comic likeness. The body appears to be reused from the Typhoid Mary figure that was a part of the Monster Venom BAF wave. I don't know if the wooly looking boots or trench coat are reused pieces or new sculpts.

The paint apps on the figure are nicely done, especially on the  face. The sculpt of the rabbit ears and flowing dirty blonde hair are perfect. Her pink bowtie is a separate piece and can be moved and I imagine if you were to pop off her head the bow could be removed.

While I'm not the best at posing modern action figures, White Rabbit does come loaded with articulation that we've come to expect with Marvel Legends. I don't know if it's my specimen, but the legs seem to be slighted bowed right out of the package. You can tell if you spread out her legs/feet in a dynamic pose, but if you pull them together to make her stand straight up I think it's noticeable.

She comes with two accessories, a umbrella and a blast effect. Much like the Penguin in the Batman's world, White Rabbit's umbrella also doubles as a gun. The small, semi-translucent yellow blast effect fits nicely on the tip of the umbrella. 

Being that White Rabbit is part of the Demogoblin Build-A-Figure wave, she is packaged with this awesome glider for the classic Spider-Man villain. I love that it also comes with a clear stand. Where was this piece when the earlier Green Goblin figure was released?!

Overall this is a great figure of a rather obscure villain. I know not everyone will care for her as she isn't a top tier character, but that's what so great about the Marvel Legends series is that they are starting to give lesser known characters the figure treatment.

New Comic Wednesday - The Late Edition

April is the beginning of my business' busy season so I apologize for getting this post out so late, but I was excited to share some of this week's books...and a few stragglers.

I was pumped back in the day when the now defunct Dreamwave Productions got the rights to produce new Transformers comics. While my relationship w/ the old Marvel series was sparse, these new TF comics came at the right time. I loved the art and while the stories left a lot to be desired at times, I kept buying. Eventually when the license ended up with IDW I gave it a try...but after a year or so I just didn't care for the direction my beloved 'bots were going.

I really haven't followed anything IDW did with Transformers. The only "new" book I red was last year's Free Comic Book Day issue of Unicron...something or other...and I don't even remember what went on in that book. When I heard that the franchise was going to get a reboot I thought now may be the time to give IDW another chance. While I still haven't gotten around to reading the first issue, I picked up the 2nd issue thinking I'd enjoy it. Well I haven't read this one either...but I'll be on the road this upcoming week traveling for work and I always take a comic book board box with me full of my backlog so I will be getting caught up.

I've been giving non-Marvel titles a look here and there and The Girl in the Bay has been a fun ride. I really enjoyed the first issue and immediately couldn't wait for the 2nd issue to come out to advance the story. If you've haven't heard of the book - it's basically a murder mystery w/ a sci-fi twist. Very fun ride, highly recommended.

I loved Linda Carter as Wonder Woman when I was a little boy, but that was the extent of my "relationship" with the character. I try not to be one of those type of guys that buys a book for it's cover, but dang it if Jenny Frison didn't put out some awesome art. That alone got me hooked on the current WW title. Even those issue 66 wasn't done by Jenny, it's still a beautiful cover none the less. The story they've been telling isn't half bad either...

I recently picked up an old Crypt of Shadows book at a local show and loved it. I vaguely remember seeing this new #1 solicited in Previews, but I didn't order it. Well it was sitting on the front of the shelf as I was leaving the store the other day and caught my eye. I've already dropped this book in my box to read this week while I'm on the road...looks great based on the cover.

I don't know how I missed the 3rd issue of the current Daredevil series so I was glad there were still a few issues on the shelf.

While I really enjoyed Miles' previous series, I haven't been able to get into his current book. I've decided it'll be dropped after this current story line wraps up. Same goes for Champions. I just don't have much of a connection to the characters and from what I've read, this version of Champions may not be around much longer anyhow.

Finally after months and months of teasing, the giant War of the Realms miniseries is finally here. There were a bajillion variant covers and the shop I stopped at the other day just happened to have one of several of the different variants. I don't usually buy the same comic more than once so trying to decide which cover to buy was tough. There were a lot of great art - Oliver Coipel's Lady Sif and Ryan Otley's Spider-Man cover to mention just a few, but I ultimately decided to go with the Frank Cho variant. Simply stunning. Now I just hope this story is a good as Marvel has been hyping it to be. We'll see...

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find: Charlotte Mini-Con 2018 Haul (part 1)

Last Saturday (01/28/18), I made the trip to uptown Charlotte, NC to my old college campus of CPCC at the Grady Cole Center. The best comic shop I've ever had the pleasure of shopping at, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, organizes the Charlotte Mini-Con each January along with the much larger HeroesCon during the summer. It's been awhile since I've been able to attend a comic book show, so I was glad to have made time in my schedule to attend (i.e. - my wife was gracious enough to let me attend!). 

Part of the fun of this event and others is that I get to spend some one-on-one time with my brother. Comics are something that we both enjoy so it's cool to get to share that with him. He is the one afterall that is responsible for getting me hooked on all of these colorful, costumed super heroes. While my reading and collecting comics has come and gone as I've grown up and started a family, my love for the characters has never ceased. I'm predominately a Marvel fan (again, thanks to my brother) and I enjoy most of Marvel's books from the Bronze age. 

In fact, when I go to shows and conventions I rarely look at the "wall books" and sniff out the $.50 boxes. That's were I generally plant myself, though as I'm getting older I start to feel the aches and pains in my body towards the end of the day / the next day after sitting on the floor, leaning over going through so many boxes!

On this trip to the Charlotte Mini-Con, I was able to find several tables that had great deals. I pulled out my phone and fired up the CLZ comic app and I started to dig to see what I could find. For starters I'll share the books I was able to find of one of my favorite characters, Spider-Man.

While my collection of Amazing Spider-Man is meager when compared to many other collector's, it remains one of my favorite titles to search out and try to fill in the holes. It's getting harder and harder to find AMS in cheap boxes so at some point in the near future I may have to set my sights on $1 boxes. *gasp!*

Only found one book I needed from the regular Spider-Man title, issue #51. This one has a foil cover and is a flip book. I found a small chip on the edge of the foil and almost put it back, but it was cheap, filled a hole so why not?

I remember when Web of Spider-Man #1 came out. I remember seeing it on the shelves at Heroes in Charlotte...however back then I wasn't reading comics. Of course by the time I "discovered" Spider-Man, most of his titles, including Web were already well along in their numbering. I've only recently started to buy issues of Web of Spider-Man so I was thrilled to find such a large run...especially for cheap!

At the time of this post, I'm still behind on reading my new books. I'm currently about half way through Civil War II, but before that I completed the Secret Wars mini series. While it wasn't my favorite Marvel event story, one thing that did come out of Secret Wars that I enjoyed was the Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows storyline. 

While I'm not a huge advocate of reversing the One More Day events, I did like reading a married Peter Parker. Toss in his daughter and super-powers and it makes for some fun stories, at least in my opinion. While I bought the Renew Your Vows mini-series, I didn't pick up the series when it became an ongoing series. I kinda regret that and I've been hoping to find back issues at an affordable price. While I only found the first two issues last weekend, I'm glad to have found them and I'm eagerly awaiting to read them.

One of the first Spider-Man stories I read was the now famous (or infamous?) clone story in Amazing Spider-Man. I loved every minute of it and have enjoyed the subsequent stories that took place afterwards. When the Scarlet Spider was given his own series, I wasn't currently buying new books so I've been trying to piece this series together for awhile. I don't usually see this title in $.50 or $1 boxes that often so I was more than happy to gobble up 4 issues that I didn't have, including the last issue of the series, #25.

Anything Venom always seems to be in demand. I found this one lone book of his The Hunted mini-series and according to my CLZ app, I didn't have it. Now I do.

Those are just the Spider-Man related books that I picked up. I'm still working on part 2 where I'll show off the other books that I was able to find on the cheap end. Thanks for stopping by!