The San Diego Comic Con is fast approaching (July 23-26) and Hasbro has just announced one of their “exclusive” SDCC releases for 2009.

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of the TRANSFORMERS brand, OPTIMUS PRIME, leader of the AUTOBOTS and one of the most well known characters from the TRANSFORMERS brand lore, is getting the popular MIGHTY MUGGS line treatment for San Diego Comic-Con. This special edition OPTIMUS PRIME MIGHTY MUGG figure, which comes with a detachable cannon, shines with a metallic finish and comes in commemorative foil packaging.

Some collectors are a bit p’ed that they’re just releasing a shiny version of a Mugg that already exists (fair enough too), but some are also saying that the release is vague enough to perhaps allow for them to actually be releasing a “Revenge of the Fallen” movie version of Optimus Prime instead. We’ll wait and see.

Previous SDCC exclusive Muggs include Iron Man (a metallic-paint movie version), Peter Parker, Commander Gree (Clone Wars Trooper) and of course the golden Indiana Jones Fertility Idol. All are only available at ComicCon, and then later on of course through online stores or eBay.

Rumor has it that there’ll be another Star Wars exclusive Mighty Mugg announced, so we’ll keep you posted as soon as anything happens. In the meantime, if you’re going to ComicCon this year and would like to help an Aussie collector out by picking up some of these Mighty Muggs for him, please email (hello AT toytragic DOT com) Toy Tragic

OK, so I have some good news and some not-so-good Mighty Muggs news. The good news is that I picked up Starscream and Grimlock yesterday (Transformers Wave 2 – the ones that didn’t get canceled) and they are winging their way through the postal system to come and take up residence in the man-cave. You can check them out on the Mighty Muggs page.

The not-so-good news is a further negative comment from Hasbro about the future of Mighty Muggs. There has been a lot said lately about Hasbro’s apparent decision to sell all Mighty Muggs (in the US at least) through Toys’R'Us stores only (no longer through retail giants such as WalMart, Target, etc), and further comments lately from Hasbro about expanding on the range also seem to indicate that there’s a limited lifespan on the product. Still not sure what to make of all of this, and what effect it will have here locally, and I’m waiting to see what happens with a rumored new line of Transformers Mighty Muggs relfecting the upcoming Revenge of the Fallen movie.

Had the thrill of being able to go on a huge Mighty Muggs spree today, and did extremely well. I managed to pick up for myself …

• Transformers – Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Soundwave (all Wave 1)
• Marvel – IronMan, Wolverine (all Wave 1)
• Star Wars – Chewbacca (Wave 1), C3-PO (Wave 2), Clone Commander Cody (Wave 3), Anakin Skywalker, Captain Rex (Wave 5)
• Star Wars Exclusives (Target) – Biggs Darklighter, Bossk, Teebo, Snowtrooper
  

Guess I’ll be spending my weekend putting up some more shelves!

Let me just say that this is very out-of-the-ordinary for me to get this much  in one go, and is only because I was able to offload some other items recently. Plus I have a very loving wife who was happy for me to indulge myself I’ve been limiting new purchases recently to Mighty Muggs and Phantom Comics (cause all my Cubeecraft is free!) and so at least I have a very specific range of items to try and find when I do have some cash allocated to my collection. And when you find those ones that you’ve been wanting to add to your collection, doesn’t it feel great!

This weekend I plan to head into Comics Etc in Brisbane for some more “Mugg hunting”, and will issue another Mighty Muggs Alert if anything cool turns up!

Simple – they’re made from 100% recycled awesome. That’s what the box says, and I’m inclined to agree with them! (more…)