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Books & Graphic Novels

Cover-AGE: Marvel Avengers Ultron Comics

age of ultron. marvel comics, variant covers
This incredible battle panorama is a highlight of the Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron rollout

Some Assembly Required…
If you’re considering camping out to see the first screening of Marvels’ Avengers 2: the Age of Ultron, you might also have to factor in a stint in front of your local comic book shop. Coming from Marvel Comics in April, just weeks before the May 1, 2015 premiere of the film, will be the release of the first issues of the Ultron Forever series, encompassing Avengers, New Avengers and Ultimate Avengers titles.

To match the epic scope of the film, Marvel has spun up a collector’s treat with two sets of 4 variant covers that when placed together form a panoramic battle-scape. Based on the cinematic poster art by Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen & Andy Park, the images were first revealed at San Diego Comic Con last year. Marvel SVP Sales & Marketing David Gabriel comments, “We’re glad that fans who attended the convention were able to get their hands on them but we’re even more excited to bring them to thousands of fans who may have missed this stunning image.”

The image above represents the juxtaposition of the following books’ covers.
· Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· New Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· New Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· Avengers #44
· Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· New Avengers #33

SkeletonPete Says…
It’s quite tantalizing to see The Vision hovering in the distance on the Variant A Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever cover.
UncannyAvengersUltron1

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Toys & Collectibles

If You Build It, They Will Come: Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0

Design Hybrid Fantasy World Interiors for Your Characters to Live in Via Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0
Design Hybrid Fantasy World Interiors for Your Characters to Live in Via Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0
What’s Happening…
The Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0 Summit will be held on August 16 & 17 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The schedule is listed here, in USA Pacific Time, and you can virtually attend via live streaming.

Questions for the Saturday afternoon panel discussion can be submitted via Twitter using #DisneyInfinity. Use the same hash-tag to vote for your favorite Toy Box 2.0 creations in a competitive showcase/playthrough on Sunday.

What It Is…
As reported earlier the Disney Infinity 2.0 platform will introduce the superheroes of the Marvel Universe into the collector toy/digital game world with some beautiful character sculpts and challenging screen play.

One of Infinity’s strong suits has been the Toy Box environment, a virtual game forge that facilitates the creation of your own worlds to play in. It’s a concept that has been embraced by fans who have submitted “hundreds of thousands of Toy Boxes,” according to John Blackburn VP and General Manager of Avalanche Software. Taking feedback from the “active and vocal” Infinity community, Disney and Avalanche have announced major enhancements to Toy Box’s capabilities.

While free ranging in an environment of your own creation was fun the addition of more structured game play is welcome, as are easier to use creative tools, and the ability to design unique interiors and go inside structures. It’s important to note that all your previous builds will be usable and editable in Toy Box 2.0, as will all game characters, and power discs.

Get Under the Hood and Build Your Own Gamespace in Infinity Toy Box 2.0.
Get Under the Hood and Build Your Own Gamespace in Infinity Toy Box 2.0.

The Details…
Here is the breakdown of Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0 features:

Toy Box Tools
Procedural generation of content can now be accessed and harnessed through two primary systems:
• Creators – Tools that the player can place into the world in real-time, and a themed arrangement will be procedurally build that world within minutes.
• Builders – Non-player characters (NPCs) that a player can drop into their Toy Box to build out detailed worlds.
 
Templates

Players can use these pre-built Toy Box Games ranging from battle arenas to race tracks and customize them using the items saved in their personal Toy Boxes.

Toy Box Games
The Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes Starter Pack will feature Toy Box Game discs, which players can use to access standalone game modes including Tower Defense and Dungeon Crawler games that any character from across the Disney Infinity universe can play.
 
Interiors
Players can now create their own interior levels where they can build rooms and theme them to their favorite characters.  Unlock hundreds of furniture pieces and decorations based on iconic Disney and Marvel properties.
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New Toys
New toys allow players to make more detailed games with beginnings, endings, winners, losers, result screens and virtually any type of game including races, battles, collection-based games, defense games or exploration adventures.
• Challenge Maker – Allows players to create any type of game, including structured games within the Toy Box.
• Toy Box Game Maker – Allows creators to restrict core actions typically available in the Toy Box, such as the use of the magic wand.
• Text Creator – Allows builders to write their own text bubbles in the Toy Box. All text is filtered through a safe chat server for friendly writing.
• Creativi-Toys – More than 75 new Creativi-Toys allow players to customize their Toy Boxes even further.
 
Improved On-Boarding
The introductory Toy Box will now be filled with Game Play Hosts who are available to assign missions and answer questions, as needed. Players are free to learn and explore on their own, but can ask a host for help and they’ll even be rewarded with extra goodies once missions are completed.
 
Updated Online Services
A Newsfeed screen has been added to the main menu, giving the user an overview of the new online services:
• Increased Storage – Storage for locally saved Toy Boxes in a player’s private cloud has increased from 100 to 300 Toy Boxes. Support for downloadable published Toy Boxes has increased from 100 to 100,000 Toy Boxes.
• Like and Search User-Generated Toy Boxes – Players can “like” their favorite published Toy Boxes and find others that are well received. Quickly search through the published Toy Boxes using categories (developer picks, most liked, most downloaded, newest, trending, all Toy Boxes and Disney 1.0), and further refine the search with filters (genre, character required, ability required and Toy Box Games).
• Sharing with Friends – Share Toy Boxes with friends directly using cloud storage.

SkeletonPete Says…
I’m can’t wait to begin battling as The Mighty Thor against Loki and the Frost Giants on the streets of NYC when the 2.0 Edition launches later this season and I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at building an Asgardian game space with Toy Box 2.0.

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SkeletonPete Says Toys & Collectibles

Mighty Thor Highlights from Toy Fair 2011

It was a mind-blowing experience covering the sights and sounds of the Annual Toy Fair at the Javitts Center in New York City with Ken Pierce this week. There’s lots to report on and several posts will follow – both here and on Piercingmetal.com – with specifics on some of the items we found most interesting and fun.

To start off I’ve included some images of the varied treatments given to one of my favorite superhero characters, The Mighty Thor. As most of you know the Marvel Comics based film hits theaters this spring and they’ll be a slew of merch to go along with it. Here’s a sampling from the sublime to the bobble-head.

Click any image to launch lightbox.