What Are Blammoids Anyway!?

Toy of The Day: Blammoids!!!

A few months ago, I was over at Dark Tower Comics in Lincoln Square talking to my friend Charles about new stuff coming out. Stating something of a jaded despondence at the lack of innovation or risk taken on the parts of the mainstream toy companies, he quickly grabbed the July issue of Previews and showed me a fantastic and quirky new line called Blammoids.

As you can see above, they have quite the bit of peculiarity that I enjoy and I found myself recanting my rant on DC Direct in particular not taking any risks.

It turns out that they're taking a huge risk on these cute little paper weights because the vast majority of those who follow DC Direct faithfully absolutely abhor them! Common complaints have been sighted about the shapes of the figures themselves (too bloated, they look like half of the relatives at a Thanksgiving dinner, etc), the lack of articulation (like these were designed to be physically played with - they are afterall designer toys), their detail (why does Aquaman have no face? Where are the Joker's eyes? Where is Hal Jordan's mouth!? Why does Hal look like a dog relieved themselves on his head!?).

Really though, these reasons are why I *like* this line of figures. We ARE afterall talking superheroes here. Typical lines feature these figures looking like Atlas and Zeus in their body sculpts - why not have them bulky like your Uncle Larry and Aunt Barbara? And Firestorm - come on! how could you NOT love that cute little translucent orange flame on his head?! And Sinestro - oh gosh don't get me started on how cute Sinestro is with that little mustache that looks like it's a throwback to the dude in the logo of those Red Baron frozen pizzas...

Many detractors have called these out as cash grabs on the part of DCD - a crass attempt to break into the designer vinyl toy and Japanese influenced toy market. They decry them in the name of the now ended line of Mini Mates (which I was never personally a fan of anyway since they just looked like fancy Lego figures). Being a fan of both DC Direct's traditional figure lines AND designer toys, I think this line is a great thing and shows DC has the back bone to stray from the traditional 5 .75" tall figure with 22 points of articulation.

The wave pictured above drops in early January. The second wave, featuring a great looking Plastic Man, The Creeper, Barbara Gordon era Batgirl, Lex Luthor, Superman and Darkseid releases in April...