Saturday, June 25, 2016

Marvel Collector Corps June Women of Power Unboxing.


As you can probably guess from the slowed rate of updates, I'm still working my morning job at the Alzheimer home. It's only fitting that the place is driving me crazy but I soon plan to have my time there wrapped up. Yes indeed, depending on how a couple events play out I should be back to just having the shelter job somewhere between next week and the end of July. In the meantime nothing is quite as important as maintaining some image of mental health. And what better way to keep ones mood high than a big crate of mystery goodies?

As a big fan of Marvel's various super ladies I was pumped for this month's theme. With so many options for characters to use like X-23 (currently Wolverine), Silk, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel, etc how could this be anything other than a slam dunk? Turns out avoiding spoilers this time around would be quite the ordeal as the box took longer than ever to arrive. DHL was the original carrier who sent the package all the way past Michigan to Chicago area where they handed it off to USPS who required four days to get it back here and another to get it to my porch. To put this in perspective, folks in my area use Chicago for a day trip, so what's the deal post office? Finally I got to dig into this newest offering of Funko/Marvel goodness and for the first time since subscribing, it didn't fully live up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong, it's still a damn fine box, it just missed the mark a little for my personal tastes.

First up is the small stuff. This month's patch is current Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan and it does a fine job of capturing her likeness. I've yet to read the girl's main book though word is it's really something special. I plan on checking out the omnibus coming this fall to catch up on her adventures. Maybe then this patch will be a little more special. Pin duty goes to Spider-Woman Jessica Drew, oddly in her old outfit. I'm a big fan of Jessica and wish she'd gotten a little more attention than just the pin. Still happy to place her on the ever expanding lamp shade pin collection.
It's a little surprising to see Civil War II as our comic as I figured we'd either get a stand-alone super-heroine title or the all female A-Force. This still works for the theme given Captain Marvel's large role with support from She-Hulk and others. Does anybody else find it strange that Carol Danvers is on the exclusive Funko cover twice? Last I check girl doesn't have a clone. The book's pretty decent overall. The beginning is a little off when the writing is trying to be funny but it comes across as sort of awkward and stilted. The art's top notch and there's enough here to keep me interested in checking out the full story once it gets collected.

Next up is clothing. Gotta say these Funko shirts hold up surprisingly well. They've all been comfortable enough that I wear em pretty frequently and so far there's been no major damage of any sort. This month's shirt is a bit underwhelming when compared to the Civil War and Deadpool entries. Nothing terrible mind you just a little bland. Weirder still is that the info card shows three other concepts for the shirt that probably would've turned out better. Why they switched to such a basic design in the end is anyone's guess.

Now for the main feature of every box, toys. The side toys this month are a two piece set of mystery minis featuring Captain Marvel and She-Hulk. These are a nice improvement over the Ant-Man minis from last year which forced coalitionists to trade or shop eBay to complete the set of four. For me however, mystery minis are one of my least liked Funko product lines. They just plan lack the appeal of Pops or quality of Dorbz and Hikari. Not to mention they have a greater tendency to tip over. She-Hulk has tipped nearly once an hour since I got her. These two do have nice sculpts so at least there's that. From the looks of it, I'm guessing Funko still hasn't cleared the Marvel license for use with Rock Candy or Vinyl Vixen lines since this would have been the ideal place to premiere an item like that.

Last up is our newest exclusive Pop, Squirrel Girl. Right up front, I haven't read anything with this character other than her brief stint as Nanny for the New Avengers. As you might assume I've got almost zero connection with her. Even so, I can still admit to a top quality pop when I see one and this is really nice. The detail is already great (just look at that tail!) but when combined with her tiny squirrel friend, it makes for a pretty awesome pop.

As I said earlier, this is still a pretty good box but coming after the excellent Deadpool and Civil War editions makes this one feel a little small and lifeless in comparison. To a certain extent I blame the theme for being too big. If they had narrowed it down to just women from the spider books or members of A-Force or something along those lines it would have been easier to keep expectations in check. Instead I'm left wondering why characters who already have pops and merchandise on the way are included while one like X-23 and Silk can't even get the shirt or Dorbz treatment. The Squirrel Girl pop is absolutely the best part of this box for that very reason. She's a character that doesn't get much in the way of collectibles and they gave her the royal treatment. That's the sort of thing I want to see more from this service.

The theme for August is Spider-Man. Looking forward to it as always. With the pop they've got options such as his new glowy costume or maybe give us the Superior Spider suit from doc ock's days. If we're lucky, maybe one of our web ladies or Black Cat can sneak in on that one.

I might try out another box in July if I can afford it. Depends on when I leave this job, ya know? As I transition outta there you'll definitely see an uptake in my online activities. Got plenty of stuff to post about on here along with articles to edit and finish for Dread Central and a whole article series I want to purpose to another site. Wish me luck on that. With any luck I'll be back to living the broke, one job life soon.

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