Finally ran into the new Xeno wave in the wild, snatching them up as quickly as I could.

Just curious...to anyone who has Maalox, (that's what I've been calling the white "prototype" Xeno) are you able to confirm if there is a variant of him? Be it accidental or intended...I have heard rumors about a more translucent version of Maalox, as well as the more bone colored "painted" version that I have here. Some YouTube reviewers have also mentioned this in their reviews, but I haven't been able to find any good pictures or reviews that 100% confirm their existence. Mine is definitely the more bone colored one, as it's slathered in paint (or...Maalox...if you will..,) making it a lot less translucent than I would have liked...

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...f7c3f404e8.jpg

It kills me how all of you guys find these toys in stores local to you, i can't ever find jack local to me... lol that's why i always end up ordering online.

I miss the days of having toy stores to choose from ... Play Co. and K·B Toys.

Damn straight. I used to find all kinds of awesome toys at KB.

Sweet I have yet to find these at my TRU and my Hastings just had 3 Grids for some reason but I ordered mine online back when they were released.

I think Randy was asked about a variant of the proto-chap being made and the answer was a "no." Apparently it's just a rumor that got started somewhere somehow. Grid on the other hand does sport a variant figure where his nails are either silver or the blue-black color.

Good to know that the rumor has been shot down by Randy. Since Maalox appears to be made of clear plastic, it's my guess that someone probably just got a bad wash that made their figure appear more translucent than others. Way to keep an ear to the ground dude.

My Grid has the silver nails. Did I win the super-rare one a case reward?...lol. Time to check eBay! kappa...

I didn't know there were claw variants, but I'm glad that I got the one with the silver nails, as it matches my regular AVP warrior, giving them some uniformity, as opposed to Grid sneaking off for a trip to the manicurist when the Queen wasn't looking.

I don't think either Grid is rare over the other it's just a neat little chance for some to be different. Like at Hastings two of the Grids were blue-black nailed and the other was silver nailed, or Joe's gallery for example uses one with the blue-black nails. It's about as much of a difference aesthetically as the 1/4 scale Big Chap having either type of lips.

I was just foolin over the whole "did I get the rare one" bit...hence the "kappa"...just showing my age and throwing us back to a time where we worried about full or half circles on the back of Boba Fett's hands, or whether Darth Vader's lightsaber was 3 inches, or 3.75 inches...

Well, aside from the blades being upside down and smelling like a fresh coat of paint (test strips tomorrow!), it's a nice figure. The left knee joint will only move at the top hinge but warm water or blow dryer should loosen up the bottom part. All other articulation is good. Havent swamped out hands yet and have to admit I'm a little weary that the pins will snap right off. I'll have to heat them up really good for good measure.

For a KO it is what it is. All my Preds are legit except this 'Big Red' but I'm happy since it's just part of my Batman: Dead End setup.

QUICK EDIT:
I just flipped the blades and it looks better now. Was simple to do really.

http://i68.tinypic.com/2pplmkx.jpg

http://i68.tinypic.com/70ur0y.jpg

NICE! Just need Albino Predator now....

Glad to see you were able to swap the blades. I thought that it was possible to remove them and switch them around, since they are not secured with a sliding tab like the older McFarlane ones were.

Yeah it's pretty easy to remove them. Just slide all the way out until it stops, then lift up and 'wiggle'. Getting them back in is a bit tricky though. You have to flip up the middle 'hinge' then finagle it in there.

Albino Predator is going to cost me. I dont even see but a few on eBay to begin with.
I kick myself for not getting any of the SDCC Predators. I always went with the horror NECA items at the booth because I was collecting that stuff for a long time.

@PlayTime: cool that you were able to fix the blades with no real hassle and that you have a Big Red now (original or KO doesn't matter since it's opened and being enjoyed now). Albino will be a tougher hunt but I'd imagine that one'll show up for a good price at some time or another.

The City Hunter I ordered came in today but I won't be home until tomorrow. I'll be sure to post a pic or two of him when I get home.

And here he is.
http://i.imgur.com/OHDnzdF.jpg
The package was mangled all to hell but he seems to be in pretty good shape. There are a couple of things that need some fine tuning though. His left hand is really loose so I'll need a dab of superglue to fix it, the netting on his chest looks like it could use a few touch-ups here and there, and the two satchel things he was wearing need the strings reglued on. One side came loose on both of them during the trip I guess.

Now this may be me because I haven't seen the movie in a good while but wasn't his mask a darker bronze color? It seems a bit too bright.

Re: netting paint. I don't think there's a single predator I have (who has painted netting) that has 100% aligned paint. Like 90% of the netting will be right on spot and then just BAM left ribs off target. Celtic is the closest to perfect but the spacing is bigger so it's probably easier for them to paint.

The mask should definitely be more copper. I seem to remember quite a few people complaining that the series 7 City Hunter had too light of a mask. Like it's not terribly wrong but you can tell it's not dark enough.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you. The mask on the single carded Series 7 City Hunter was a bit off, as was the armor color, which bore more of a blue-ish hue to it, when it actually should have been a darker, more copper like tone to match his bio-mask. This was part of the reason I do not own this figure, and it was something that NECA sorta corrected when they did the TRU exclusive two pack that came with the camouflaged Berserker. I say sorta, because NECA got the coloring on the legs and body wrong. They did fix the skin tone, making it a bit lighter than the Series 7 release, however they also used a lot more orange than brown paint for the striping the second time around...kinda throwing it off. Of course, this could just be my copy of the figure since I only ever saw this guy out in stores one time, but comparing it to other pictures I have found on the net of the TRU version, this looks to be more the standard as opposed to being a QC anomaly.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...50bf72c8a3.jpg

You can see how the mask and armor are better corrected, but the lack of darker colors in the body patterns throw off the improvements to the body armor. This skin coloring was something that (while not perfect) I felt the original release did right, and while I appreciate NECA going back and trying to correct their mistakes, I feel that they tinkered with the figure a bit too much, throwing off the look. Hopefully this is something that doesn't happen again when the Ultimate Version of City Hunter rolls out.

Oh yeah...as you can see, don't feel too bad about the netting. The painted lines on my TRU 2 pack City Hunter sucks as well, and mine is an official NECA product...lol.

Outside of photos from the film, the best example of how the mask and armor should look comes from the Hot Toys version, which nails it perfectly.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...410_170644.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...410_170146.jpg

Thanks for the info fellas. Think I'll see if I can find some darker bronze paint and fix the coloring up a bit.

All in all I'm just happy to have him. I've been trying to track one down for a good while now.

When I saw Playtime's post about the Big Red I immediately went to Evilbay and bought one for $30. The possibility that it may be a knock off or a bootleg doesn't bother me since I've never seen one in the wild and I've never seen one online for that little money. Then I kept reading this thread and got worried about the Big Red potentially being painted with lead based paint because of something En Saba had posted. So when Big Red showed up yesterday, I ran to the hardware store to pick up some test strips. The test strips are hard to use and immediately started to crumble when I was rubbing them over the rough, sculpted surfaces of the figure but as far as I can tell my Big Red doesn't have any lead in the paint.

Actually, aside from the figure coming with upside down wrist blades I have no real reason to believe that it is a bootleg. The quality is just as good or better than most of my other Predator figures. His joints are all really nice and tight and the paint work is done pretty well. The blister card looks legit too, of course I don't have a known official Big Red to compare it to. I will try to remember to wash up after handling it from now on to stay on the safe side, but overall I am thrilled to finally have him.

Thanks to Playtime for the heads up and everyone else for their insight!

Predator Appreciation

What would be the problem with lead based paint? poisonous? or what? i don't see the problem. hell i was even thinking of buying one, no way i'll spend $100 plus for a authentic big red.

Yeah, lead can build up in your system over time from handling things, like toys, that have been painted with lead based paint. It can make you sick and could even cause death, especially in children. I'm not too worried about it because I don't have kids and don't really play with my figures too much. I mostly just pose and display them on shelves. I think as long as you limit the amount of time you handle the figure and wash your hands afterward, it will probably be fine. And you can pick up a test kit like I did to be certain.

Yeah, the only real issue I had with mine was the smell of fresh paint.
It was pretty strong but has since gone away. I never did get around to testing it for lead because I'm just getting over strep but I did look online at high resolution images to compare and I seriously can not tell any differences.
The card is 100% identical as far as I can tell and sculpt and paint app is spot on. Price would suggest KO/Boot but I dont think so. This may be factory reject for whatever reason (upside down blades?).
I've seen KO/Boots before and the first thing that catches my eye is packaging. It's always either faded and/or blurry. If the packaging is good, then it's usually the figure itself feeling rubbery or really hard plastic feel.

I'll tell you what. If I were to find an Albino Pred for this price, I'd be all over it in an instant.

Factory rejects have become a stronger presence on eBay lately, I'm always skeptical about the price of some MiB older figures since a scalper would be trying to sell theirs in their crappy box but sometimes it can be legit I suppose. I could imagine a small sampling of these predator figures were made wrong and discarded from release so now someone who came into possession of them would be able to sell them for a more decent price. To me eBay is always full of risks since there's never a 100% answer about what you're definitely getting until you have it. If it says it's mint in box but is an older item then it could be a knockoff. If it is relatively new and says mint in box then it could actually be broken and they just put it back in the box and have lied about its condition (this has happened). Plus many more dastardly ways eBay sellers can bend the truth or purposefully take bad pictures to mislead a purchaser about the auction.

Yeah, this hobby is always scary when it comes to eBay. You never know who is out to rip you off. The latest scams are Marvel Legends swapped out with other 'crap' and passed off as 'factory error' and 'rare' and it pisses me off to no end.

When it came to this Big Red, I saw China and a cheap price. I nearly passed it up thinking no way. I'd get it and it would be a poor KO/Boot. Fortunately this seller had really good, clear large pictures of front and back. The one thing I always like to look at is packaging. Many KO/Boots have poor quality that results in faded and/or blurry imagery.
There is currently a large influx of SWBS KO/Boots all over and really cheap. All you have to do is look at the packaging and you know what they are. But they are also not accurate at all and it's very easy to tell.

I have to think there are workers who go through the thrown out stuff after work and just sell it on eBay. Kind of like the batch of 'Rescue' that showed up shortly before the 'legit' ones did through Marvel Unlimited.

I might have to get one as well for that price ! mine will only be shelved as well . no playing with besides initial posing and that's it.