Got entire TRU X-Men wave within 2 days of first live sighting!

[DSmith]

Life is good!!!

 

So I did buy Cyclops and Stryfe on ToysRUs.com when I started seeing everyone receiving shipment notifications. But of course Storm and Magneto were unavailable on the website.

 

So with sightings in New Jersey, I went looking after work yesterday for the wave in the wild, but didn't get to Times Square Toys R Us until around 2pm. They had Wolverine and Cyclops only, maybe 5 Cyclops and 7 or 8 Wolverines. I picked the best-painted Wolverine, though it wasn't getting me any closer to building a Jubilee figure. I brought the figure to an employee named Latoya, who seemed nice, and she looked in the computer to see if they had anymore in stock. She said they did have more in stock, but their "stock" is in a warehouse in New Jersey. She could tell I really wanted Storm and Magneto, and she offered to get more into the store, they'd be in by the next morning (this morning, Friday, today). She told me they could write the name on the box for me so I could get the figures I want, and I should get there by 10am (when they open). I was thrilled, promised to name my first child Latoya, bought the Wolverine (face sculpt looks great, and I'm not crazy about the character of Wolverine), and headed out.

 

After that I went back to my home borough of Queens, I stopped at the TRU at the 46th street stop on the M/R trains. They had remnants of the wave, I think one Wolverine and one Cyclops. I scanned it, thinking the scanner would tell me if it was in stock, and it only told me the price, so I asked a guy, who scanned it with his own scanner and said they had no more. Oh well.

 

Went to the TRU in Rego Park after that, and saw none of them. I scanned the one I bought at Times Square but still it didn't tell me if there were any in stock. Asked someone and it said they had 2 on the floor and none in backstock. I went back and poked around everywhere, only finding a Cyclops mixed into the Captain America Legends. I hadn't noticed before cause both packagings have the blue accents. But since I already bought Cyclops on the website I handed it off to some other guy who asked if that was the only one I found. We chatted a little and he was disappointed that it was only Cyclops, and as I was leaving I saw him walking the store, NOT with the figure, so I guess he didn't want that one.

 

Woke up bright and early today, to make it on time to the TRU in Times Square for my meeting with Latoya, who had promised she was gonna be there.

 

I didn't know if I was supposed to meet her for the figures or just get them from the pegs since she had told me to be there at store opening. I got there about 10 minutes before opening, stood at the door listening to a scalper #$#@# and moan about some TRU employee handling his packaged toy that he was trying to get a price adjustment on, throwing it in the bag for him, etc. Seemed like a really unhappy person. Talked about a new TRU opening somewhere that he could be at instead of here trying to return a toy that he can't sell in the condition it's in anymore after the employee handled it roughly and the packaging is no longer mint. Then saw an Asian man trying to get in before the store opened and started spouting racist comments about Asian people shopping final clearance items. Such a miserable scalper! I was fuming that this man is so sad.

 

ANYWAY, the store opened and I raced to the pegs. Was the first to make it to the pegs. There were more of the wave out this morning. Pegs were NOT full by any stretch, maybe 8 pegs, 2-3 figures per peg for the X-Men wave. Found one Magneto, there were about 4 Stryfes, 6 or 7 Cyclops and Wolverines. I grabbed the Magneto, just in case, and looked around for my buddy Latoya. She was surprised I arrived at 10am, but she told me to be there! I was there! She had put both a Magneto and a Storm aside for me behind the register. She pulled them out and asked if I would take a survey for her. I gladly agreed to, and then compared the two Magnetos for better paint. They both looked about the same for paint, but there were plastic defects on the belt of the Magneto she held for me, so I kept the Magneto I found on the pegs, and of course took the one Storm she held for me. Rung it up, then did a survey directly on the computer about the service she provided for me, and raved about her as much as the survey would allow. We talked about how I collect and how I hate scalpers and how these figures she saved for me are going for like $70 a piece on eBay because of scalpers, so I was so grateful to her for the time and money she saved me by doing this for me. She was happy to do it. She apparently was motivated by wanting me to do the survey for her, but the point is she went above and beyond for a customer, which is the spirit of why the survey exists in a customer service business, so I had no problem doing her that favor.

 

When I got home from Times Square TRU, I received the package from my online purchase, my Cyclops and Stryfe figures! Got my whole wave by the day after I first saw figures live! So happy!

 

The wave review:

 

Wolverine Unmasked: I really like the face sculpt, which is the main selling point of the figure. Paint overall is good, but a little weak on his chest X emblem, where the blue underneath shows through the X more than the half where the yellow is underneath. This seemed an issue on EVERY live Wolverine I saw, so I couldn't avoid it. The other difference between this and the Wolverine wave version is the X logo on his belt buckle. I tried to pop off his head to see if I could put the masked head on this body, or put the unmasked head on the other body, but the head didn't pop off easily so I didn't want to force it. The claws are nice and straight and no real messiness on the rest of the paint. Face is clean. Another one I saw had a black nose, so really uneven quality control, particularly on Wolverine.

 

Cyclops: The figure I'm least excited about. I've never seen this costume before the figure, consider it a really uninspired looking outfit and the X facemask doesn't make sense to me, like can his eyes really see through the lines of the X and does his beam shoot from it in an X shape now? All that aside, the figure is decent, paint is about 90% clean. I like his pouch belt, and it doesn't appear to move, I guess it's glued on. The quality control issue I noticed most is the unevenness on the X on his face. One swipe of the X looks like thicker paint than the other, so there wasn't one clean, even, flat X on any Cyclops face I've seen yet. The one I got from the website is fairly even, so I can't complain. I'm keeping Astonishing Cyclops from the Wolverine wave in my display, so this guy is going in the drawer anyway.

 

Stryfe: This is a character from the time I was actually reading comics, the initial run of X-Force when it used to be the New Mutants comic and changed over to the Cable-run team illustrated by Rob Liefield. I never much cared for Stryfe, but the figure looks pretty sharp. I don't see much room for there to be many paint issues on the figure since he's only about two shades of silver and the clean lines of color separation pretty much follow the sculpt. So I looked at the eyes on all the Stryfes and they all looked a fairly clean and even yellow. Mine that came in the box from online has great paint apps. The belt/loincloth on Stryfe is loose, not glued on, but sits cleanly on his waist. The sword is a bit underwhelming. Is it from the comic? I don't even think it's worth displaying. Looks too short to be in scale to the figure anyway for some reason. Extra attention needs to be paid to this figure when picking it up since it contains the Jubilee head, so keep an eye on her quality control when it comes to eye paint, lips, etc. I also noticed in the store for the first time that the energy blasts aren't a plain pink/purple, they have little silver glitter inside the plastic to add some shine and light reflection I guess. Thought that was a nice touch.

 

Magneto: This was a remake about 12 years in the making, so I was really excited for this figure. Looks AMAZING! Good facial expression, clean paint, nice wash to define musculature on the torso, his helmet is an extra piece on top of the head sculpt (but not removable, he's likely bald underneath), and it looks like the ornament on his helmet is also a separate piece glued into the helmet. Cape is great and big and billowy... He's just everything I need him to be. Paint areas to watch for are the gloves and boots... the red is painted over the purple plastic so it could be weak in areas, but looks fine on the one I got. The wrists aren't articulated, the articulation is at the edge of the glove. The purple portion painted on his chest has a weak spot in the center of the neck, but I can't tell that while he's displayed. The cape has a peg that inserts into his back to stabilize it. I have no qualms about Magneto! Love it!

 

Storm: First off, I am also unfamiliar with this costume, but I love it, and also love that she's back to the Mohawk look. So much detail in her hair! Paint applications on my Storm are great. There's a slight uneven spot where the black on her chest is supposed to connect to the gold and it doesn't quite line up like in the promotional photo, but I won't lose sleep over it. Upper lip paint is a little off from the sculpt. But not a worry, the lip still looks clean and full. I was glad that the figure wasn't packaged with the cape covering the body like in the promo photos. It would stop you from being able to see how well/poorly the body was painted, if given the choice of more than one Storm when selecting the one to buy. The cape is an unusual material, not sure if it's ever been used before. But I like it either way. It holds the gold paint on its edge very well. The little gold rubber bands around the wrists hold the cape on sufficiently (but it is anchored into the mid-torso joint within the body) and apparently are part of the comic-accurate bracelets on her costume anyway. Storm is my shining star in this wave and so glad to have an updated version of her.

 

Jubilee: This BAF is worth it to me, cause I've enjoyed the character since the 90s X-Men cartoon from when I was growing up. Wish it was her classic costume, blue shorts, pink tee, but hey, that was more than 20 years ago, I can evolve. It's a basic enough costume anyway. With minimal details, it's hard to find a flaw in Jubilee, and the one risk and worry is a solid face on her. The glasses are a nice shiny purple, and it's worth noting that her face color is painted on black plastic, so the jawline is about where the paint ends so be careful in selecting your Jubilee face! Every face I saw in person looked good, though. Otherwise she's all good. Love the hair sculpt also!

 

All-in-all a solid wave! Clearly Cyclops is the pegwarmer in this wave, and I suspect that all of them will generally sell well.

 

But the moral of my story is that I trusted a good soul who worked for Toys R Us and she came through for me, probably saved me more than $100 if I would have had to resort to buying them online if Latoya hadn't helped me.

 

Pics attached!

 

 

[CharrdWood]

Awesome post/review DS! I think I can save you a LOT of time, however...unless you also live in Rego Park you can skip the TRU in Rego Center. It's a friggin' wasteland. They almost NEVER update their stock. And when they do anything good is gone in 5 minutes. I can't even recall the last time I scored something good there...

[DSmith]

LOL, CharrdWood! Anyone wanting that Cyclops figure coulda found that at Rego Park! Who am I kidding? It's only a few subway stops away from where I live. I'm so paranoid that I can't skip that store. I'm assuming everyone will skip that store and leave the good stuff for me. You know that feeling if you skip that store, it's the one that has the stuff you're looking for?

 

Upon further inspection of the wave...

 

Wolverine's figure was slightly recolored to closer match the Blue/Gold combination of the Original X-Men Toys R Us 5pack. Might this be the new color standard? Astonishing Cyclops from the Wolverine wave pretty much matches it also. I love the richness of the colors, the older Wolverine is a bit more yellow than gold. But worse is that Forge and Kitty Pryce REALLY stand out for those nearly-pastel yellows they're sporting.

 

Storm's eyes aren't just white, they are the same pearlescent White from her costume, so they almost glow in certain lighting. Such a nice subtle extra pop to the figure and something they didn't have to do, but I'm glad they did!

 

I also did a weird head-swapping of all the newer Hasbro X-Women, between Jim Lee Jean Grey, Emma Frost, this new Storm, and X-Force Psylocke. Just for fun. Jubilee couldn't swap because her ball joint is smaller than the other standard women.

 

Really like the Jubilee figure, despite the lack of bells and whistles. The yellow jacket is such a trademark, and yet so simple, but can't stop gravitating towards it. Hoping this "younger girl" body is used for an X-23 update. It works so nicely on Jubilee and Spider-Girl. Both bodies are nearly all-black anyway, has anyone tried to customize an X-23 from this figure yet?

[CharrdWood]

Nah, man, I'm serious...this could be the WORST TRU in the Continental USofA. They SUCK. Or maybe I'm just cross that when I first moved here I passed on the Hulk/Valkyrie ML set when I saw it there the weekend I moved in.

 

But I've very rarely gotten anything from there that can be considered...pfftt..easy to find....

[CharrdWood]

Umm...yeah...you're correct...I did find a Cyclops...it just never occurred to me that someone would want X-Men other than Magneto...

[CharrdWood]

Just got back from a TRU Rego run...they had tons of Stryfe, Cyclops, and Wolverine, but not a single Storm or Magneto...and I was there within 5 minutes of opening. I'm starting to suspect that the good figures are being held back by employees or a scalper has made a deal with one of them. It's impossible for there to be at least 5 of each of those figures and not one Storm or Magneto within that window. I'm not too fussed...I just want Magneto, and I'm sure I'll get him at some point...even if I have to go to Times Square...blecchh...

[DSmith]

Latoya from Times Square said the employees are monitored for their eBay accounts to prevent employees from being scalpers, but I don't know how much that is applied across the company, or more concentrated in Times Square.

 

If all three of those characters are 6 out of 8 in the box, statistically you should have a Storm or a Magneto in the mix. Did you dig around to see if someone stashed them somewhere? Those employees might have bought it... Either way, glad to hear that these are widespread distribution and are being replenished relatively quickly. Even at a cemetery like Rego Park!

[CharrdWood]

Yeah, man, I looked everywhere. They even left a ladder out on the aisle right in front so you know I climbed that thing and surveyed the entire store! I stashed a Stryfe...my younger son was ambivalent about it...

 

As for TRU employees...it would be nearly impossible for the TRU muckety-mucks to monitor the rank-and-file, unless the RaF are dumb enough to give them their eBay seller names. And that totally doesn't rule out them making verbal deals with whomever to funnel all the good stuff into small hands...