X-Men Toys at the Toy Fair 2013

Toy Fair 2013 took place from February 10-13 where "nearly 20,000 retailers, wholesalers, importers, buying groups & trade guests" attended to check out the 150,000 innovative toys & games that were on display across 375,000 net square feet of exhibit space. Naturally, X-Men toys had to be here! Behold the gorgeous goods...(Note: I'm not captioning all the images, just the "lesser-known" ones. Any queries can be asked in the comments.)

Hasbro Wolverine Marvel Legends (4" line)

^Last one is of Puck.

Hasbro Marvel Legends (6" line)
^Fourth one is of Age of Apocalypse Jean Grey.

Hasbro Marvel Universe (3.75 line)

^Cloak & Dagger respectively

Hasbro Marvel Universe Team Pack (3.75 line)

Hasbro Wolverine All Stars (3.75 line)

^Second is Silver Samurai & third is a Hand ninja

Hasbro Mr. Potato Head


Kotobukiya
Diamond Select Minimates

Personally, I love the Phoenix 5 Cyke, Emma Frost, Rogue, Archangel, classic & White Crown Jean, & ALL those gorgeous Kotobukiya statues! What are your faves from this lineup? Sound off in the comments below!


CREDITS:
Marvel
ToyArk
SuperHeroHype

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Deadpool does a...Marilyn Monroe?

Most of you may know by now that  I'm part of a group on Facebook, Comic Book Nerds Are Hot, that has a weekly task (called Artists Assemble), where group members draw a pic based on a weekly theme chosen by resident artist extraordinaire Adam Bayes. This week the topic is "Deadpool Variant". Knowing what a big goofball Deadpool is, my mind began racing with ideas when...

I thought, how about have Wade Wilson parody Marilyn Monroe? I mean he has donned Phoenix's costume  before, so slipping into Marilyn's iconic white dress shouldn't be a problem for him right? WRONG! He's pissed! Check out the art I created below.

I used the following images as inspiration & reference.

 

So what do y'all think? Post your (constructive) comments & criticisms below...

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The Marvel Avengers Alliance PVP Season 5 Diary

Player v/s Player Season 5 began just three days ago on Marvel Avengers Alliance, & Wolverine's clone, Laura Kinney aka X-23, is up for grabs! I thought I'd share some new PVP updates that have been incorporated for S05 as well as a few pointers (though I don't claim to be a PVP expert AT ALL).

New Changes
*PVP Daily Spin- Perhaps the biggest (& coolest) change in PVP this season is that you get another daily bonus spin everday after winning five PVP fights. The good thing is that the only lame item up for grabs here is the challenge points.
You can check out the stats for the weapon, on the right. The other items (besides the weapon, gold, CPs & challenge points) are basically high PVP bonus items that you can slot in to increase your PVP Armory Bonus.

*Bonus XP Battles changes- Two very nice changes out here:
1) You now get 100 XP, not 50, for winning every Bonus XP Battle!
2) Losses are not counted in the Bonus XP battle quota for the day. So if you lose a bonus XP battle it won't be counted & your next win will be counted instead, fetching you a guaranteed 100 XPs for you agent & un-maxed out heroes for ALL 5 bonus fights! Of course, that's if  you consider that your agent & both heroes are still standing at the end of each of the 5 wins- dead team members will get 25 XP instead of the previous 12 XP.

*Decrease in Hero bonus- This you may have noticed some days before the new season would begin. Personally I think it's a good change cos I think it those high hero bonuses may have partly been the reason behind the crappy last couple of PVP seasons...Below I've posted screenshots of my hero bonus . Left is the old high bonus & right is the current lowered bonus. Note: This is just meant to give you an idea of the change- you won't be able to accurately calculate the difference for, as you can see, I've done a lot of shifting, leveling up & buying of new heroes.

*Changes in League requirements- To the left are the current season's rewards along with their requirements. Last season though, to get into Gold you had to rank in the top 35% & for Diamond you had to be top 15%. Yeah, not digging this new change at all.

Some Pointers
*Don't give up on PVP. Some of you (like me) may have been burned in the past by PVP, scarred for life even. But this season it would be foolish to not play PVP at all. Besides the obvious rewards of 100,000 silver & at least being able to bag the 10 gold too, there's the daily spin now that you just CAN'T pass up!

*Take it slow in the first few weeks of the season. Just win your Bonus XP fights & get your daily spin. Other than that I'd say put PVP on the backburner for now...Unless you got a side task to win some PVPs. I've got friends who reached a 900+ ranking but then dropped by 100 or more after going offline. No point wasting so much time & energy just to get knocked down.

*The last few days are a bitch! So just keep at it then & don't get down when you find yourself knocked back down cos that does happen in the last couple of days.

*There's no "It-pair" for PVP anymore. So now is the time to keep experimenting with different heroes & weapons. Keep changing it up & keeping note of your score when you go offline. If you even go +5 in your ranking, you know you probably did something right.

*For offlines, try putting in a counter weapon. It apparently seems to work. (Tip courtesy my Facebook friend Teri Diaz).

*For your hero bonus, ensure that your Tactician bonus (HP/SP)  is very high. Don't give too much emphasis on Infiltrator bonus (Evasion) as apparently dodge doesn't normally activate since everyone loads attack/accuracy in PVP. Increase your Evasion bonus if you use heroes like Spiderman, Scarlet Witch, etc. (Thanks to my Facebook friend Chrysalis Reyna for this tip)

*Before buying new heroes to up your hero bonus (though that does work too), try & level up the heroes currently in your roster. CPs are hard to come by these days & then there's the part where you'll need to save up for the next Spec Ops epic deploy heroes as well, so your best bet would be to ensure that all your heroes are at level 10 or above so you can at least enjoy the Bronze Elite Bonus.

*If you are deciding to level your heroes right up to level 12, make sure that you level up your Generalist heroes first. This is because not only do they add to your HP/SP bonus but the "Others" bonus means they contribute to all the other bonuses as well. (Tip courtesy Chrysalis Reyna)

And there you have it, that's my PVP Season 5 post. Hope these tips help you. Have some pointers of your own? Post em in the comments below. All the best SHIELD Agents!

There's always gonna be more MAA coverage out here, so if you're new here you can subscribe to my blog via your Gmail/Yahoo/Blogger account & you'll get the updates about when I post any new stuff here. Just click the blue "Join this site" button at the top right. Oh! And if you want to add me on Facebook, click the Facebook button you'll find on the top right of this page & you can message me something like- "Blog reader, MAA." I'm currently at level 217.

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Time for an "All-New" Look!

It's been a while since I've changed up the look of the blog & with the Avengers vs X-Men event long over in the comics, I thought it's about time I change it.

In October last year, Marvel launched its new event following AvX, called Marvel NOW! What's Marvel NOW! you ask? It's basically a sorta revamp of the Marvel Universe in the comics- new creative teams for the various titles as well as changes to the comics universe through character redesigns, new storylines, etc.

All-New X-Men is part of this movement. It kickstarted in November 2012 & mainly revolves around the X-Men First Class (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Iceman & Beast) who travel forward in time, to land in the present & come face-to-face with their future selves.

The blog banner is composed of the beautiful art by Stuart Immonen, which is basically a triptych of the three variant covers he created for All-New X-Men #1. Below is the original gorgeous artwork along with the blog banner:

The font I used for the banner is called Pop Pop. Big thanks to Chris Grisby from the Comic Book Nerds Are Hot Facebook group for letting me know about the font used for the title on the original cover.

I felt it would be a suitable time to use Cyclops for the blog background- he's never featured on my background before & he's pretty much in the forefront of the All New X-Men story- yesteryear Cyke leading the First Class & present-day Scott Summers leading the X-clan. Download the wallpaper (1280 x 1024) below for the artwork.

Hope you guys dig the new look- do let me know in the comments. Here's to some All-New X-citing months ahead right here on the blog!

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2013 Comic Con Schedule & New York Comic Con 2012 cosplay!

We are in the second month of 2013 & that means...Awesome Comic Cons to look forward too! Cool news about comics, movies, TV shows, & toys! Amazing cosplays to gawk at! Below is the schedule of the most popular Comic Cons that will be underway this year.

Comic Convention	Dates	Venue
MegaCon	March 15-17	Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida
WonderCon	March 29-31	Anaheim Convention Center, California
C2E2- Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo	April 26-28	McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois
Wizard World Toronto Comic Con	TBD	Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada
Kapow! Comic-Con	May 19-20	London Business Design Center, London
San Diego Comic Con	July 18-21	San Diego Convention Center, California
Dragon*Con	Aug 30 -   Sept 2	Atlanta, Georgia
New York Comic Con	Oct 10-13	Javits Center, NYC
International Comic Cons
London Super Comic Convention	Feb 23-24	Excel Center, London

Which ones are you guys gonna attend? Gonna cosplay there as well? If you gonna don an X-Men cosplay at any of these Comic Cons mentioned above, do let me know either via the comments below/Facebook/Twitter if you want to be featured in a post...

*------------*------------*

You guys might've seen the 2012 cosplay posts for . I didn't post the same for the New York Comic Con (NYCC) 2012, so here it is. If this is the first cosplay post you're seeing out here it should give you a fair idea about the cosplays to expect in 2013! :D Btw I did decide to continue posting cosplays character-wise, but I won't bother captioning each set with the various costume versions, etc. If you don't recognize something just comment & I'll fill you in.

Psylocke

Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, Cyclops & Hope Summers

Emma Frost

 Rogue & Gambit

 Scarlet Witch & Magneto

 Storm

Wolverine

Deadpool

 X-23

Gender benders

Bishop, Shadowcat, Sebastian Shaw & Selene, Dazzler, Mystique, Nightcrawler, Marrow

Groups

CREDITS:
*Flickr:
-David Ngo
-Annie Fischer
-Marques Stewart

-Steven Leung

-Carlos A. Smith

-Kain Productions
*Facebook: Agressive Comix
*Nerd Bastards- 1, 2
*Geeks Are Sexy- 1, 2

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