Ahh, are you still basking in that awesome Comic Con after glow? I know I am. There was so much cool stuff shown that only one thing can be true in the months to come: I will be destitute and I will have awesome toys to blame. The problem is though, a lot of that great stuff won’t be coming out for several months. Don’t worry though, we still have a couple of First Looks to bring you that highlight stuff that you can add to your collections in the very near future. First we have a look at the August 16th shipping Ghostbusters figure – Ray Stantz in his famous blue lab coat. Whilst we are positive that bustin’ makes him feel good, we need to also remember that the good Dr. Stantz is in fact, first and foremost, well, a doctor, and everyone knows that any respectable doctor needs a smart-looing coat to make him very serious. That’s right, parapsychology is nothing to sneeze at.
We are now six figures deep into the Ghostbusters six inch figure line and if SDCC is any indication, we are just getting started. We have also reached our first “different” version of a main character. Way back last October we got our standard ghostbusting Ray Stantz, but now we have the more academic version from the paranormal investigator’s debut commercial.
This is a variant that makes sense from a practical sense, thought it might not be the most exciting, at least not on his own. This mostly-Walter-Peck figure is very accurate, down to his patented “ghost sniffer” (though that instrument was made famous by Ray’s Dr. Venkman counterpart, it’s technical, it’s one of our little toys). The rub is, he REQUIRES the aforementioned Dr. Venkman as well as Egon to make this figure really work. It’s not, “I’M ready to believe you!” it’s “WE’RE ready to believe you!” I know that this is more of a technicality and that the other two OG Ghostbusters will eventually come in this deco, but it still feels funny for Ray to be by himself. C’est la vie, I will just have to be patient I suppose, not one of my strong suits when it comes to toys.
Ray does, however, come with what has to be my favorite pack-in ghost of the line thus far – the subway ghost. The big blue catfish with arms made a brief appearance (characteristic of 95% of the ghosts in both movies) after the previously-released Walter Peck shot down the Containment Unit and unleashed havoc on the city of New York. Like I said, I really dig this figure and I REALLY hope we can continue to get more and more ghosts with future figures. This is an area that I would be okay with Mattel using some of their creative juices to create some original ghosts. This one is cast in a translucent blue plastic and sports a surprising amount of articulation. I count a swivel tail, partial ball shoulders, and elbow hinges so you can get some nice poses out of him. More ghosts! More ghosts I say!
The way I see it, this version of Ray is kind of an investment figure. Sure, he is a good variant of a great scene on his own, you also get a kick ass pack-in ghost with him, but give it time to complete the trick and get the Egon and Peter figures in like outfits. That is reality of a line that has one figure every couple of months, we will have to wait awhile to complete any one set or scene. Then you will have a happenin’ little corner of your Ghostbusters display.
*Thanks as always to Toy Guru and his gang of good guys and gals – it was very nice meeting some of you for the first time at SDCC, can’t wait for that PKE Meter!
Additional Links
