Wizard World Chicago 2005 continued
Page 1: Entrance, goodies, gaming areas and artist alley
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Mattel had quite a bit on display for their DC license. There were several cases with Justice League figures and The
Batman line. You can see the two ups of Catwoman and Batgirl from The Batman here as well as one of the Justice League
displays. Unfortunately the other photos didn't turn out.
Mattel also had some of the props from Batman Begins on display.
There were a few One Piece figures on display as well. There were only five figures shown: Luffy, Zolo, Sangie, Don Krieg
and a second Zolo. From the looks of it, both Zolo and Don Krieg appear to be deluxe figures. There was also a dress up
set of Zolo's three swords. There was also a display of Zach Bell figures with a plush Zach, PVC's and a set with Zach and
Kio.
Of course Mattel had more exclusive figures this year, two of them. But just to make things even more intersting, Mattel
decided to create multiple versions of each figure. Catwoman was available with as many as nine different versions of her
idol accessory. I believe the Batman Begins figure was available both masked and unmasked. Both exclusives were packaged
in windowless boxes so you didn't know which version you were getting until you opened it.
The good news is that they were
much easier to get than Mattel's exclusives in previous years. To begin with, there was no need to wait. If you wanted to
buy the exclusive figures, you had only to walk up to the front of the line and draw a ticket out of a box. You then went
up to the desk and they would check to see if it was a winning ticket. If you won you could buy both for $20 each. But
both figures were available in decent numbers. In fact, by the end of the day, Mattel dropped the raffle bit and anyone
was allowed to just buy as many figures as they wanted.
WizKids had a fairly large booth once again this year. But the interesting thing about their booth is that most of it
is devoted to some very well made gamig boards that they use to demonstrate their games and teach people how to play. In
addition to the Hero Clix setups shown here, they also had one for their pirate themed line and one other line with which
I'm not familiar.
Mezco Toys had a fairly simple setup. They had a one or two representatives selling exclusives in their tent. They also
had three display cases with some of their upcoming figures.
Gentle Giant Studios had a few things on display, most notably their Star Wars Bust Ups and some items for the upcoming
Corpse Bride movie. (The Corpse Bride items were also show in Diamond's booth, but no photographs were allowed of them. I
didn't check to see if Gentle Giant was allowing photos.)
NECA had a nice display of some of the Four Horsemen Masters of the Universe Staction figures and some nice looking
larger statues. I really like the Tongue Lasher statue. I must say that they get my vote for least informed booth personel
of the show as well. One other person was checking out the MOTU statues and lamenting the fact that there was no
articulation anymore. The worker at the booth had no idea why the change had occured or that their company never made the
MOTU figures to begin with. They also had the exclusive King Randor bust. But the way they
distributed it was rather annoying. To start with, upon arriving at the booth there were crudely written signs on
cardboard scraps stating that they would begin selling Randor at 2PM. After passing the booth several time during the day
and seeing the pile of Randors, I returned at about 5 minutes after 2. They had then decided not to just sell them but to
line up everyone who wanted one and make them answer some sort of trivia contest to win a chance to buy the Randor bust. I
didn't even bother to stick around as by that time they had already stopped letting people join the trivia contest.
Of course there were a lot of smaller booths as well. Ertl/RC2 had quite a few products on display, as did Corgi. Upper
Deck had tables up to play some of their new games, including Super Hero Showdown which they mistakenly called Marvel
Legends Showdown. Of course Shocker Toys was there. I give them credit for getting teir product into production, but they
weren't drawing much interest the few times I was there. There were also quite a few smaller comic publishers and misc.
exhibitors such as this one with various movie props.
Page 1: Entrance, goodies, gaming areas and artist alley
Page 3: Marvel, MiniMates, Funimation, Palisades, Diamond and Diamond Select
Cosplayers View them if you dare.
Back to the reviews page
