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| Godzilla added for scale. Damn that's a big box! |
Gather round one and all for my last
mystery box of the year, albeit probably not the final unboxing, just
the last belonging to me. I decided to send 2015 off with a bang and
give Marvel Collector Corps a try. The Guardians of the
Galaxy/Christmas theme wasn't so much the draw as was my general
intuition and the promise of this being their biggest box yet. Is it
a golden gift from the stars, or just a dank lump of coal? Let's find
out.
If you've never looked into Marvel
Collector Corps before, here's the deal. For a somewhat misleading
base price of $25 you get a box Marvel comics, shirts, toys,
accessories, etc all exclusive to this service and made by the folks
at Funko As you can guess, this makes an exclusive Funko Pop the
usual centerpiece for each box. That alone should be a deciding
factor for most people cause if you don't like Funko stuff, this
service isn't for you. Also be aware that this company is fairly new
to the mystery box game so there's been many reported problems in
both customer service and quality control. Each installment has
brought with it fewer issues so they are learning from their
mistakes, but the advisement is still valid.
You're probably wondering why I
claimed the price was misleading. Well the package itself is $25,
that much is true. Once you add shipping & handling along with
taxes it ends up being something more like $34. Now if you were to
take this as your one and only subscription service, the bi-monthly
element makes that price a bit more palatable. Still a decent chunk
to ask for just one box and the $7 shipping isn't all too amazing
either. First off the packages go out in waves, which means there
were spoilers online before mine even shipped out. Determination and
careful web browsing kept everything a mystery. Secondly, UPS much
like Fedex before them brought the box all the way to my hometown
only to leave it with the Post Office to deliver on the following
day. Don't understand how that makes any business sense. Anyway, on
to the goodies found within.
Every Funko box whether it be Marvel
or Star Wars has included both a pin and patch. They're both decent
quality items as well. Groot will join all the my other pins on the
bedroom lampshade. Rocket on the other hand is sort of a conundrum as
I don't wear hats or have a primary backpack, anything like that.
Never really been a patch person anyway. It's still neat and pairs
nicely with the pin.
Reaching into the box proper yielded a
comic. Each month has an exclusive variant cover of whatever issue is
included. This time we've got Guardians of Infinity #1 with a sweet
image of Rocket decorating a Grootmas tree. I wondered if this was a
preview of the pop cause if it was, I would have totally lost my
shit. I mean this just looks cool. Haven't read the comic yet. It'll
go into the reading pile before finding a place in the long box.
I assumed the next item on the agenda
would be a t-shirt as is usually the case, but not this time. No sir,
this ain't no measly shirt but a glorious scarf. On one side is a
potted Groot, and the other bares the Guardians logo along with
shadowy figures of their respective pops. Nothing else in this box
inspired quite as much glee as this scarf. I need lots of equipment
for winter walks and now I've got a bitching' piece of flare to show
peacock while I traverse the tundra.
High on scarf fumes I dug in once
again and felt two different boxes. I figured the larger one was the
pop and decided to save it for last, it's smaller neighbor turned out
to be rather unexpected. This double pack of holiday Groot and Rocket
didn't strike me as very unique at first. Sure they're nice & all
but there's a mass market Christmas Groot already so being with his
buddy and having bobble heads didn't seem like enough. A little later
I realized these are actually ornaments which upped the cool factor
significantly. Kept the box for later storage since they're still
exclusive pops, but for now they guard our presents from the branches
above.
Time to figure out what that larger
box was. Could this have been one of those packages with multiple
pops or maybe some other Funko collectible? Actually it's a mug. A
Star Lord mug no less. Wasn't completely surprised by this one since
there had been rumors of a Funko Home item joining the box and both
Rocket & Groot are widely available in stores, making Peter Quill
the next obvious choice. No complaints though. I love me a fine mug
and am more than willing to savor delicious coffee from a
spaceman's head.
And that's everything. There's no
weird filler to top off the box, just a base set of solid items. So
how do I feel about it? Well let's consider that this box was
fighting an uphill battle due to me not being a huge Guardians fan,
the somewhat higher price point, oh and it arriving on a really bad
day of work that left me very irritable. Even so, I liked it a lot.
The pin, patch, and comic were all decent small items. The scarf and
mug are both sweet! As for the pop I would have proffered something a
little more extravagant like the Grootmas tree from the comic cover.
Still, having them serve as ornaments as well as the apparent start
of a new product line is very cool. Not everyone agrees with me
though.
After hopping online today and
checking out some other folks reactions I found some of em to be
pretty pissed. Why's that you ask? Well Funko promises at least one
exclusive pop in each box, but the little guys are called “Pop
Bobblers,” possibly a new type altogether, which means some people
look at this as false advertising or some kind of corporate betrayal.
Likewise there were folks complaining in advance about rumors of a
mug. Why someone wouldn't want an awesome mug is beyond me. Beyond
that are youtube and message board rants bemoaning the lack of
traditional pops I even saw one asshole throw his mug onto his
driveway. Cause why sell, trade, or possibly donate something when
you can throw a fit for youtube views? What a spoiled cunt.
Marvel Collector Corps served its
purpose as a fine finisher for my mystery box purchases this year. I
can and will use just about everything in it which is a major
complement for this kind of service. Most of all, I'm rather tempted
to come back for another helping or two. February is themed around
Deadpool, something I'm not a huge fan of but it could be fun, April
on the other hand is almost guaranteed to be Captain America: Civil
War, squeeeee! Time will tell if I continue to subscribe, or chose
to do something responsible with my money. Ha, like that'll ever
happen.
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