By J. Brent Stewart

In last week's "Plastic Crack", we began the checklist of Marvel Minimates. So, let's get right back into the action with:

Series 3
- Ultimate Wolverine & Sabretooth
- Ultimate Logan & Storm
- Ultimate Cyclops & Jean Grey
- CHASE: Cyclops w/o Visor

Ultimate X-Men. Hooray. I mean, what? I don’t read these books. I don’t want to read these books. All I know is that the costumes are boring, and thus, make for boring action figures.
Still, my compulsion will lead me to get them all.
Chase was Cyke without his visor, with angry red eyes. Look out!

Series 4
- Maskless Spider-Man & Doctor Octopus
- Grab-line Spider-Man & Gwen Stacy
- Battle-damaged Daredevil & Bullseye
- CHASE: Maskless Daredevil

Not enough Spider-Man and Daredevil in your collection yet? Thankfully, AA was here to give you a few more.

Doctorpus, as I prefer to call him, has his neat tentacle things, and Gwen Stacy was another in the non-powered series, produced to flesh out Spidey’s universe. Now you have someone for your Green Goblin to toss off of the top of your bookshelf. At least that’s what I do with her.

Battle-damaged DD introduced what is now a very popular part of the line, being the “torn costume” motif. It’s actually pretty cool. Looks like Bullseye messed DD up but good. He comes with knives, which are good for stabbing Greek assassins.

Slobs.

The chase here was Maskless Daredevil, who actually has eerie blank eyes behind his glasses. It’s the little details like that that give the line so much zip!

Series 5
- Captain America & Absorbing Man
- Civilian Logan & Juggernaut
- Thing & Doctor Doom
- CHASE: Maskless Doctor Doom

At this point we have about five different Spider-Men, but only our first Cap. Luckily, he was worth the wait. The shield, the paint apps, the wings on his cowl; every bit is letter perfect, and makes for one of the best MM’s of the line.

Absorbing Man is a cool character choice and a nice figure, including his giant chain. Now if only we had a Thor for him to tussle with.

We also got our first (of several million) Things in this series, and a really cool Dr. Doom for him to fight with.

Juggernaut is another nice edition, but Wifebeater Wolverine has to be one of the lamest figures yet.

Sales! Sales!! SALES!!

The chase here was a Doom with scarred-up face. He seems unpleasant.

Series 6
- Iron Man & Ghost Rider
- New X-Men Wolverine & New X-Men Phoenix
- Gamma Ray Hulk & The Leader
- CHASE: Stealth Iron Man

Because you can never have too many Wolverine figures, AA gives us his gay bondage outfit…I mean, the gay bondage outfit that is even gayer than his normal gay bondage outfits. And Phoenix shows up in her equally unimpressive black outfit. The trench coat is kind of annoying and tends to make her head pop off.

Saving the day, however, are four GREAT MM’s: A kick-ass classic Iron Man, an even more kick-ass Ghost Rider (with translucent flame and chain), Leader (with big ol’ noggin), and a personal favorite, Gamma Ray Hulk, who is a recast of the previous Hulk in a translucent green plastic.

I’m a sucker for these “clear” figures.

Chase is a purple Stealth Iron Man, for when he’s hiding from Batroc the Leaper in a big barrel of grapes.

Series 7
- Chameleon & Ultimate Spider-Man
- Grey Hulk & Rhino
- Spider-Man 2099 & The Silver Surfer
- CHASE: Chameleon as J. Jonah Jameson

Fearing that we might be going through Spider-withdrawal, what with his absence from two complete waves (gasp!) AA got swingin’ again with Ultimate Spidey (i.e. Spidey with no web lines, perhaps the cheapest re-deco they could have conceived of), and the kinda cool Spider-Man 2099, which took the place of a proposed Thanos figure (that we’ve been promised will show up in a future wave.)

Silver Surfer was previously a Tower Records exclusive, and Gray Hulk/Ultimate Spidey were a con exclusive, I believe. AA must have been hard up for figures in this wave.
Chameleon is kinda bland, but his chase variant comes with a JJJ mask he can wear. I prefer to think that it’s actually JJJ’s face, which Cham is modeling Hannibal Lector style.

Series 8
- Mr. Fantastic & Torch
- Gaijin Wolverine II & Battle-scarred Thing
- Susan Richards & Powerhouse Thing
- CHASE: Invisible Woman

Aside from the avalanche of Things, this is one of the best waves yet. With lots of accessories and great paint apps, MM’s are kicking into high gear.

First off is Mr. Fantastic, who comes with two bendy arms that you can use to replace his old school black mitts. Human Torch comes with a great flying display stand and a jet of fire he can shoot from his hands!

Gaijin Wolvie is the fan favorite Brown Costume, at last. The body is repackaged from the Gaijin Wolvie/Mariko exclusive 2-pack, while his head seems to be a new sculpt.

Battle-scarred Thing is a neat idea for a re-deco, featuring his latter-day uniform, and fugly face from where he tussled with Wolverine. To cap it off, he even comes with the metal mask he wore afterwards! It’s the little details like that, which really make this line special.

Have you ever been worked on? By two guys who are hot for your...

Sue Storm comes with an invisible shield, and Powerhouse Thing has a new huge chest piece. I’m assuming we’ll see Hulk similarly reissued, and this new body sculpt used on new “big” figures.
One gripe is the new headpiece they’re using on Thing. The first thing was PERFECT. This new thing looks strange, like he has big rocky sideburns. Go back to the old head!

The variant was the Invisible Woman, a clear version of the Sue figure.

Series 9
- Blade & Assault Punisher
- Patch & Lady Deathstrike
- New X-Men Cyclops & White Queen
- CHASE: Emma Frost

Blade appears to be an adaptation of his movie counterpart, rather than the classic comic look, but with still, I’ll take it. Assault Punisher looks to be the Marvel Knights version, with big trench coat and plenty of guns and knives. This makes up for the COMPLETE lack of weapons available in the exclusive Classic Punisher/battle-damaged Cap 2 pack from the summer cons.

Marvel Knights Punisher and Movie Blade. Fight to see which one can make to crappiest movie! Go!

Patch and Lady Deathstrike…what can I say except “meh”? More Wolverines. Will it ever stop? I hereby predict that we’ll get the other Patch costume (the blue bodysuit), the Fang costume, and probably a battle-damaged costume, before all is said and done.

White Queen comes in regular and frosty variant editions. Oddly, her “sexiness” doesn’t translate in block figure form. Who knew?

See? She is not sexy.
Next week we'll finish up Marvel Minimates with a list of the exclusives and some of the packaging variations. We'll also address...DC MINIMATES (C3!)