By Darth Zirock (Age: 153)

I know it's been several months since my last column, but there was a good reason for it. I was chasing some kids off my lawn and I broke a hip! Fortunately, I was chasing them in my car... Read More >>

It looks like the first wave of 2012 is starting to hit Ebay with an indication of what next year’s promotion will be. Click here (or the lead images) to take a look at a sample auction. Click the thumbnail below to see the full sized Darth Sidious image.  Also, some of this seller’s items are punched.  Could these have been found at retail?

Update: Confirmed with the seller that these were found at a Target store in the Las Vegas area.

It looks like I'm meant to suffer one of two lots in life this holiday season. Either stores overrun by wave 5 or...

Entertainment Earth's Black Friday sale site is up and running. Click through to check it out. Highlights include $10 EE exclusive comic packs and the Republic Attack Shuttle for $54.

BBTS Black Friday Sale is open now. Click through to check it out. A couple notable Star Wars items include a $2 Plourr Ilo and Dllr Nep Comic Pack and a $55 Republic Attack Shuttle.

Hasbro, your continued failure reminds me of someone who gets a zero on a multiple choice test.  You have to actually be trying to fail in order to fail that epically.  In no way am I suggesting the Hasbro is tanking the line on purpose, but the failure is impressive to say the least.

Over the last few days, I’ve been taking pictures of stores FLOODED with what we fans call Wave 5 and what Hasbro calls 2011 wave 1.  This was a pathetic wave when it was new, and it seems to be Hasbro’s go to wave as it’s been omnipresent SINCE JANUARY and was Habro’s belle of the ball to capitalize on fan excitement from the Blu-ray release.  This cow dung wave is the source of so much of our collective ire, the we even submitted a tactfully worded Q&A question about its never ending rotation. 

I’ve been so disgusted about this that, in the heat of the moment, I’ve thought of breaking our own curse word censorship on the front page.  You can decide what word I wanted to replace “blasted” with in the title.  But as the passion caused by seeing pegs dripping with defective or half hearted efforts waned, I decided this was probably a local problem since New England tends to be on the hind end of distribution.  Then I saw our good friends at Jedi Temple Archives posted about similar experiences and I had to react. Only unlike our friends from the Keystone state, our “blessings” with wave 5 are not endemic to Target. Walmart and Toys R Us have been cursed with this wretched disease.

Hasbro, I feel empowered to state for all fans and collectors that you are on notice.  A fourth straight year of mismanagement is more than most of us can take.  If 2012 doesn’t turn the clock back to the way things were for much of 2007, most of us will be gone.  The fact that wave 2 of 2012 only contains five new figures, leads me to believe you have no lessons learned from 2011 and we’re going to be in a similar situation come April. 

Update: Back from my daily lunch run.  The store photographed to the right replenished with two more cases of Wave 5.  A Walmart, which was not pictured and gets about one case every other month, received a case of wave 5.  Looks like I’ll be saving some gas this holiday season.

Santroopers hits us with another image drop of some packaged Movie Heroes items. Click through to check them out.

The answers are back and this time with another late 2012 confirmation. Read more >>

Sadntroopers does it again. They're first to the street with carded pics of the upcoming 2012 Phantom Menace wave. Click through to take a look.