But I was a man on a mission when it came to the con floor. See, you may not know it, but the Midwest is quickly becoming a hub of the action figure universe (or, really it has been for awhile and I’m just now catching on to it). While I failed in locating the Bio-Mechanial Ordnance Gestalt fellas, I did succeed in finding the folks of True Cast Studio, Fantastic Plastic Toys, and TheGodBeast!

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Fantastic Plastic Toys had their Mystical Warriors of the Ring on sale, including a con exclusive pearlescent green. The coolest thing about MWOTR was that I heard about them through word of mouth at the con before I even hit up the booth. A reader recognized me from Facebook (which credit to him, because I rarely post pictures of this ol’ mug). While talking to me about various things site & con-related, he told me that I had to go check out the MWOTR line at this particular booth. That was pretty funny, but well deserved. It turns out both the reader I met and the line’s creator, Mark Vasquez, are huge wrestling fans. It is that love of wrestling that comes pouring out of MWOTR. The first three figures were on display and were a ton of fun just to set up and play with on the rings provided at the booth. I picked up a two sets of the figures and one ring, along with some comics and other promo material, so keep an eye out for that review here at IAT pretty soon, but I will tell you that I was amazed just watching Mark set the ring up for the pictures. The figures are pre-posed, but so much thought has gone into that pose that the interactivity of the figures rivals 5 POA toys. He was setting them up in moves or having them interact with the ring… it was really neat. I’ll talk more about it here soon.

Since my con reporting skills are a little rusty, I’m going to need to sit down with Mark for an interview here and get the scoop on the latest news on MWOTR again, but the most important thing is how excited Mark was about the product. It was great to hear his passion as he discussed his upcoming plans for the line. I love supporting labors of love and he earned a big fan yesterday both in terms of the great stuff he’s putting out and the love he puts into it. Making his debut at Planet was the 5″ Leo figure. I love the little guys, but the craftmanship on the big guy was incredible. Also debuting was a new figure in the standard scale, a fighting elephant, Tembo. He looked snazzy in gold and I think he might end up being one of my favorites in the line so far (when he’s released!). We’ll catch up with Mark here soon, but expect big things from MWOTR and fast. Oh, and I did mention they let me play with the Arcane Federation Belt? I don’t have the occasion to wear too many championship belts (we should start some type of toy blogger smackdown), but this belt was the real deal and looked great. If you’re at C2E2 keep an eye out of MWOTR!

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After Mark and I wrapped up our MWOTR talk, I got to finally meet Marty “TheGodBeast” Hansen. I’ve been buying products from Marty for years, back to the old days when he was doing custom MOTU weapons… for MO2K. Yeah. TGB has already gotten some IAT love for his key role in bringing the amazing Armorvor to life, but TGB has now moved to an all-new, even bigger, full overseas production project: Kabuto Mushi. You haven’t heard much about Kabuto Mushi at IAT because I completely spaced the initial drop and missed out on the first releases.

It was okay, I gave myself a little pep talk in the mirror, but the wound wasn’t fully healed until today because TGB had some Kabuto Mushi on sale at Planet. I snagged the new pearlescent blue and one of the pearlecent green figures I missed from the drop. I opened up one in the car on the way home (And temporarily lost the Mini-Mushi… Mom always told me to wait til I get home) and while you’ll get the full review in coming days, I was really surprised at how unique Kabuto was while still being Glyos-compatible. Everyone in Matt’s extended family continues to fascinate me with their diversity. Kabuto is different from Callgrim which is diffrent from Weaponeers of Monkaa, from Robo Force, and so forth. I’m not sure what I’m saying – it’s 2am – but maybe just the unique take each of the designers take on how to use the Glyos joints? Doc Kent’s personality is in Robo Force. The SMC boys are in Monkaa. And, having followed TGB for so long, I can tell Kabuto Mushi springs from his mind. It’s just neat.

TGB also gave IAT an exclusive sneak peek on some upcoming Glyos Crayboths featuring the two colors from the latest run of Kabuto Mushi:

After Marty talked to me about Kabuto and the challenges with going to full production (which I’m a toy nerd, it was riveting!), he & Mark also gave my wife and I a tour of the other items in the True Cast booth like the Walking Dud and the Grotesques lines. Walking Dud is Available Now in the True Cast Store and the Grotesques are coming soon. Mark had a great story about the Grotesques, the original sculptor, I want to say Adam Smith of True Cast, had created them and sold them to a collector some years ago. The large, fully painted version in picture five below is one of the originals. After selling them back in the day, that was pretty much that. But TGB has been pulling for Adam to delve back into his past and bring back Grotesques as a smaller collectible. The only problem? Those originals had long since been sold, right? Well, it turns out the collector who had purchased them years before was none other than TGB’s brother! I loved that story and I think it gives these “new” Grotesuques a heck of a background to get the ball rolling. I’m looking forward to seeing those in production soon too. And speaking of production! TGB clued me in that the Walking Dud will also be going into production and released in PVC later this year!

Both Mark & TGB had plenty more to tell me, so I’m hopeful to land a full interview with both of them here soon when we have more time to talk. It sounds like great things are in the future for both fellas and we’ll keep you apprised of what they have going on here at IAT!

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Overall, I had a great time at Planet Comicon. My thanks goes out to Mark & Marty for being so generous with their time. It was great to meet those guys. They’ll never read this, but I want to thank the TNG cast for being so awesome and well worth the price of admission to Trektacular. I also want to thank Chris Jackson and his staff at Planet Comicon. This was my first time attending in the new venue and it’s amazing. Chris is one of the hardest working guys I know and his passion and drive to make Planet as big & bold as possible is remarkable. It’s great having such a fantastic convention to go to here in the midwest. And finally, I also want to thank my lovely wife. She took over camera duties while we were at the con. She took all the great pictures from the True Cast booth and around the convention. She did a great job. Though I did have to remind her a time or two take pictures of the cosplayers. At least the girls, she was happy to photograph the dudes. She was most excited about Quailman. Sigh. LOL Thank you, sweetheart!

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