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Important Toy News: These might be the most realistic Avengers action figures yet
The pre-Toy Fair hype is escalating quickly, and the days leading up to the massive event have already been chock full of stunning toy news. This time of year is great because it's so full of promise and potential, and companies are willing to show off a lot of collectibles that would otherwise remain behind closed doors.
Important Toy News is on the case, and we've got the latest on McFarlane Toys' licensing bonanza, Kotobukiya's Premier efforts, and Sideshow's Unruly endeavors.
MAKING MONEY MOVES
You may have heard about McFarlane Toys getting in on the DC Multiverse license for 2020, but that's not the only big surprise Todd McFarlane and his talented team have in store for fans. This week, McFarlane Toys formally announced plans for a new Wizarding World of Harry Potter line of action figures and collectibles to arrive beginning this fall. The opening salvo will include Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Voldemort as they appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as well as a Buckbeak figure from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The actual figures haven't been shown off just yet, but we're expecting to get a look at them this weekend at Toy Fair proper.
Additionally, McFarlane Toys teased a killer new video game figure line with the key phrase, "Finish Him!" Now, you won't need many guesses to figure out what that means, especially with Mortal Kombat 11 coming out later this year. NetherRealm has dipped into the action figure realm before and even now has a lot of fantastic figures coming from Storm Collectibles. However, those are aimed at a very specific collector, whereas McFarlane's efforts typically target a wider audience at retail.
Like the Wizarding World line, there aren't any images of what these figures might look like just yet, but with only about 48 hours until Toy Fair kicks off, we don't have long to wait to see what's in store from both of these lines.
PREMIERE PRODUCTS
Already a fine purveyor of detailed and fantastic statues, Kotobukiya announced a new "high end" line of pieces making its debut at Toy Fair this weekend. The ArtFX line has traditionally been one of Koto's most well-received, with terrific style and highly accurate sculpts at a reasonable price. This week, it announced ArtFX Premier, which will apparently take the line to new heights. Rather than the fairly open-ended runs of statues past, ArtFX Premier will instead feature a limited edition size, making them a bit rarer and more special.
According to Kotobukiya, the Premier line will feature even more detailed sculpts than those it already puts out, which is rather hard to believe. Looking at the shadowed preview pictures above, you can certainly see a lot of material detail and textured elements, but it's hard to say that there's more finesse there than Koto's other releases. No size, scale, or price point has been revealed, but we expect to learn those details this weekend. Perhaps we'll also learn which other characters beyond Captain America and Thor will help kick off this new line.
WEIRD, WILD STUFF
Though Sideshow Collectibles doesn't attend Toy Fair, that didn't stop the California-based company from dropping some major news of its own this week. Typically, Sideshow's purview has been in highly detailed, realistic works across all genres and licenses, but a new initiative kicking off this year introduces a bit more of the "street" style art that's been a hit with collectors for the past few years. Unruly Industries takes familiar characters like Spider-Man, Dracula, and Batman and puts a clever new spin on them thanks to designs from a number of talented "urban" artists.
The Unruly Industries brand will encompass DC, Marvel, monsters, kaiju, and original artist works, and give creative minds such as Tracy Tubera, Jesse Hernandez, T Wei, and Tony Riff a place to showcase their skills on licenses they otherwise might not have been able to previously.
About 18 different pieces were announced as part of the first salvo, which you can check out over on Sideshow's site. Some of them look like they'll make great additions to any collection. No pricing or concrete release dates have been announced however, so it remains to be seen just how viable this new line will be for collectors.
