MWC/Captain Toy's picks for Best/Worst of 2014

[Michael Crawford]

No review tonight - instead, it's that time of year when awards get handed out. The Poppies and People's Pick voting has completed, and it's now time for me to get busy tallying. I expect to have the People's Picks results ready for Sunday night, with the Poppies finishing up on Tuesday. But first there's my picks, and my picks are not just for Best, but also Worst. It's a long read though, so sit back with a cup of tea, or a tasty beer, and settle in for my list:

MWC's Picks for Best and Worst of 2014

I'll have another review on Thursday night, before we get to the full results of the other two contests. Thanks for reading!

Michael
MWC

 

[Lejuan]

Thanks Michael, great selection! It does highlight what a 'meh' year it has been 1/6-wise compared with recent years though. Possibly because I'm not a Marvel nut.

 

[a-dev]

I also voted NECA as best company the past year. The line for the Alien franchise is fantastic. It has the usual QC concerns, figures feel kinda flimsy, but the sculpts and character selection have been excellent and this looks set to continue this year. They're putting out some real grails, things I've wanted since I was a child including big items like Alien Queen, Powerloader (the coming Summer I think) and we also got ED-209 from Robocop for the first time at this scale.

I don't collect the POTA figures but they sure do look fantastic aswell.

 

[Wor-Gar]

From the Poppies:

Taking the number one raspberry is not a traditional toy manufacturing company - it's a toy retailer. Like I said, I'm going a little outside the bounds this time around, but it's worth it. I'm calling out Toys R Us on their ridiculous behavior when confronted by the "Florida Mom" over the selling of Breaking Bad action figures. I'm calling her the "Florida Mom" because a) I don't remember her name and frankly she's not worth the time looking it up and b) I'm hoping that using that moniker might shame the whole state of Florida into improving their educational system so this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

If you missed the story, and I know you didn't, this devote member of the Modern Day Church of Children was told by a friend (she didn't even witness the perversion herself) that Toys R Us was selling Breaking Bad action figures. You know, a bald dude in a wind breaker. Upon hearing this, she went into savior mode, and managed to get 10,000 signatures on a petition, get on national television (because crazy and stupid gets the views), and scared Toys R Us into pulling the figures.

I'm not putting them here because they pulled the figures - I get it. This isn't the first time this happened, and it certainly won't be the last. But even when faced with a counter petition, signed by almost 65,000 clear minded individuals that wanted the figures available, they kept them off the shelf. That sort of mentality, the idea that if one person whines loud enough we all suffer, is a bad, bad attitude to have, and lands the toy retailer in my top spot.




And it also makes me mad.

 

[YankeesFanboy]

Holy crap, some of those collectibles look truly awful.

 

[gothamcityboy]

agree NECA really push their quality in 2014, arkham origin 1/4 was one of the best they ever produce in 1/4 scale. great list mate

 

[Buttmunch]

Just as an FYI Michael, the reports from the Nuremberg Toy Fair is that series 2 of the Simpsons Lego mini figures are on display

The line isn't dead just yet! Here's hoping Smithers is among them because Burns feels incomplete without him.

 

[Michael Crawford]

That's excellent news! I really want a Moe's, although that might be a bit of a stretch. It was very, very difficult getting the Playmates version, convincing FOX that it was okay to do a bar playset because they believed the WoS line was for kids. Silly FOX.

 

[Plastic Bateman]

That's excellent news! I really want a Moe's, although that might be a bit of a stretch. It was very, very difficult getting the Playmates version, convincing FOX that it was okay to do a bar playset because they believed the WoS line was for kids. Silly FOX.

Not entirely on-topic, but I caught some repeats of early episodes recently and it seemed like they'd edited a hell of a lot out of them - especially any scenes of Homer throttling Bart. Sad day when The Simpsons of all things gets sanitised for modern audiences.

 

[galactiboy]

A great read as always, thanks for taking the time to do these Michael!

And I have to say, I completely agree with you on the ReAction figures. The ALIEN ones are incredible and that's of course because those are real vintage pieces. But it seems like rather than try to approach each property with some sensibility of how it would have been sculpted and painted, they just did this cheap one size fits all approach making every figure looks the same and honestly look like crap.

A great counter-point is the Cthulhu kickstarter figures; those things are very retro and vintage in appearance, but have an incredible amount of personalization and detail.

And I'm pretty surprised to see that Adam West bust... I must have missed the review, but that is one of the fugliest collectibles I've seen in long time

 

[Darklord Dave]

Thanks Michael, great selection! It does highlight what a 'meh' year it has been 1/6-wise compared with recent years though. Possibly because I'm not a Marvel nut.

Huh? No year with Batman '66 can be a 'meh' year!

And Harry Potter!

And I'm pretty surprised to see that Adam West bust... I must have missed the review, but that is one of the fugliest collectibles I've seen in long time

Yep, I was so excited for these, but cancelled them all after seeing Michael's review. Thank heavens for Tweeterhead.

 

[galactiboy]

Agreed... the Tweeterhead statues look amazing, great to see Trevor's work getting such a good treatment!

 

[warlock664]

Sideshow's 1:6 Superman is a disappointment to be sure, but how can it make a list of 2014 best & worst, when it didn't achieve general release until the 3rd/4th week of January 2015 ?

 

[Lejuan]

Huh? No year with Batman '66 can be a 'meh' year!

And Harry Potter!

Oh yeah, Harry Potter! I really wish I was into that line, Star Ace are really blitzing it.

 

[EVILFACE]

I would agree that you are completely off the mark with SS Superman. Other than his drawers, he is a pretty kewl figure.