Thor Hammer & helmet Sideshow Archive set

Thor Archive Set Hammer & Helmet by Sideshow Collectibles

What is an archive set? That was my first question about 6-7 years ago when I first heard about these. Basically it's a pure display piece (in every sense of the word)  it captures everything to do with the character without the character. For me it is pretty awesome because you get to see the weapons up close. What makes the hero or villain you can literally hold in your hand.
The sideshow pieces are made to a 1/4 scale meaning perfect for you budget and small enough to save you a ton of space instead of dealing with super large life size prop replicas. First of the detail is fantastic the amount of time and effort to design and mass produce these is unheard of. I'll let the pictures explain, down to business. I'm Going to do a reverse order this time bring the suspense to the front instead of making you all wait. Let me know if you like this method better.


The Goods What you care about:
The Archive set (the piece): The paint job is stunning, the piece looks like it's straight out of Thor's Asgarian utility room. The wood display is not actually wood, the paint job makes it look so real. As well the base isn't stone, both the base and the wood display are made out of polystone and probably metal on the inside to make the frame. The stone base has rune like markings on each side with the classic Thor logo on the front (even the shading is done in the paint job). The hammer (Mjolnir) is heavy the entire piece is made out of solid metal (probably weighs about 1lb) with the handle wrapped in leather (just like the comics). His winged helmet is also made out of solid metal (probably about 1/2 pound) with an awesome silver sparkle flecked paint job and hand painted feathers. Each then mount on to the wood display part (the winged helmet mounts with a peg in the middle and the hammer just rest on the 2 horizontal dragon looking pegs.

 Sideshow Thor Archive Hammer and Winged Helmet Front view, Side view, Back View and the under side Numbered edition

The Winged Helmet and Hammer (Mjolnir): the up close look at both the winged helmet and hammer reveals an amazing amount of detail given to each individual piece. Quality control must have been really strict. I'm more amazed at the helmet than the hammer due to the fact that the detail required to pull off the helmet was actually thoughtfully designed and then exceptionally executed. Sideshow didn't just have the feathers painted, they had them machine stamped into metal and then hand painted. They did that on the outward and inward facing parts of the helmet. The Hammer WOW a solid piece of metal with a textured paint pattern and to top it off, the embossed inscription of what it takes to wield Thor's hammer (Mjolnir). The leather wrapped handle looks great as well the little detail at the bottom of the handle. Sideshow there's really no one out there that comes close to your attention to detail and price point.

Thor's Hammer and Helmet up close. You can see the detail and the quality of workmanship

The 4 Colour Box: looks great and really shows off the piece. Even before opening and seeing the piece you know what you are getting into. The excitement just grows from there.

Sideshow Archive Thor Hammer and Helmet set 4 colour box front, back and side

Styrofoam Packing

The Styrofoam: Packed well and to save space this piece should save you a bit on shipping but the weight alone will probably make that saving negligible. Trust me though the weight is what makes this piece ever penny.


The Verdict: the fully metal pieces, life like wood and stone base give this the look of fiction really becoming reality. Get you hands on one of these comic fans, especially you Thor guys. You won't regret it.

5 Thrown Hammers out of 5

Captain America History and tribute. Get ready for the movie.

In preparation for the Upcoming Captain America movie, it's time to get all caught up and a little hyped for the movie. As well there are a couple of coupons that we were presented to pass on to you.

First the coupons, get $5 off 2 of these new vintage Captain America T-Shirts from Crazy Dog T's
Use code ICEPOP
http://www.crazydogtshirts.com/servlet/the-2670/X-tshirts%2C-X-t/Detail

http://www.crazydogtshirts.com/servlet/the-2694/X-tshirts%2C-X-t/Detail






Second is the tribute to what was and now is Captain America.
Click image to enlarge

Via: Military VA Loan

Captain America Trailer 2 MOVIE HD

Captain America HD trailer 2

Here it is new footage and FIGHT SCENES. Cap with a gun, with a motorcycle, Cap with Howard Stark. BUT NO CAP THROWING SHIELD SCENES Just a small tease. Oh well Take what you can get 3 more weeks to go.

Captain America official trailer 2

WAH! The real official trailer for the upcoming Captain America trailer. For a movie set in the 1950s looks pretty awesome and authentic. I'm going to probably skip reading any good writing material from marvel and focus on the movies. Seems to me it just makes them a ton more money and that's where their focus and resources are going. Well here it is. Enjoy.

Leave your thoughts at the bottom.

Thor Trailer 2, Post Superbowl 2011 Action

Part 2 Is the Thor Trailer. This one wasn't as good as the Captain America one. But the movie still looks pretty cool.

Captain America Official Trailer 1, Post 2011 Superbowl Action

First up in a series of 4 is the first Captain America Trailer and Poster. Its short but looks pretty good. Can't wait for it.

Thor Official Trailer 1

Well the first trailer for the Thor movie has finally been released... and it looks good. From paramount studios and Marvel they have done a good job. If you watched the after credits extras of Iron Man 2 you would have seen the sneek peak of Thor's hammer in Mexico.
My only question is where's the winged helmet? I spotted a glimpse but it seems they want to just push that to the back and lets Chris Hemsworth hair shine out. Also the story has been written by J. Michael Straczynski which is a real bonus. Enjoy and keep your eyes peeled for the big Thor hammer review coming soon.
Release Date is May 2011

director:	Kenneth Branagh
studio:	Paramount Pictures
producer(s):	Kevin Feige
screenplay:	Mark Protosevich
cast:	Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgård, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Joshua Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, Colm Feore

Mary Jane Comiquette Statue Review Sideshow

An edition size of 2000, it's the Mary Jane comiquette statue by sideshow collectibles. Another piece in the sideshow Adam Hughes collaboration collection. Released in 2007, there were 2 versions an exclusive and regular. The exclusive came with the control art, which I don't have. In this case the control art doesn't much look like the actual piece. The piece is more slim and the hair more straight and flat. Overall the piece looks awesome and is probably the best representation of Mary Jane to date.


The Goods (What you care about):
The Brown Shipper: The box does well to keep the piece safe, any bumps or drops though and expect to see the same damage on the 4 color box as well.





The 4 Color Box: I liked it, the choice of colors and font really suit the piece. As usual Sideshow puts the effort in to make a different box for each piece.

The Statue: There were a few things that I noticed about the sample pre-production piece and the actual released product. The hair and that touches the right side of the face was actually attached to the head in the released pieces, where as the pre production piece had the hair separate. Why the complaint? Well with the released piece the hair and the face had to be painted and it looked as though the skin is extending into the face giving it a weird finish. Other then that the piece looks really good. The skin tones are very life like. Everything is in proportion and nothing really hangs out that can be easily broken off.

Assembly is actually really fast and easy. There are 3 pieces the base, the figure and the washing bucket. Put the base on a level surface, then place the peg on the feet into the peg hole on the base make sure her hands are over the table. Now the washing bucket. It has a magnet built into the bottom and felt so it wont scratch the table or fall off. This is were you need to be careful. Put the base on the table and fit the spider-man costume (parallel to the figure body) into the fingers of the right hand. then just fit the left side of the costume into the left hand. The left hand doesn't really hold the costume. DON'T Twist the costume or else you'll break the right hand fingers off.
A tank top, blue jeans and... pink panties seems to sum up the super model wife of Peter Parker. The costume she washes isn't the original red and blue costume, it's the black and red. It kind of sucks but i guess it goes to show that Spider-man only has one of each costume, and she's washing this one to be ready for him for his next adventure.
Sideshow has done it again and made a great piece, add this to any collection whether is spider-man, or just a woman of comics collection. This is a well needed addition for any completest just try not to break the bank as right now it's about $300 to acquire this one.

4.5 Full Super Kleen Bottles out of 5

White Queen Emma Frost Exclusive Comiquette Sideshow Review

Here's a particularly special piece. Sculpted off the works of Adam Hughes this one is a little PG-13. This has become one of the most highly sought after female collectibles to date. With an exclusive run of only 900 pieces (2000 for the regular edition), and with a pose like this, it's a keeper. Now the pose for you married guys may or may not work in the house, if your woman is confident and secure I don't think she'll have much against a capturing of 2-D art brought into the realm of 3 Dimensions. I'm sure a tasteful answer like that will help her to understand, otherwise it'll live in the box and you'll have to reference our photos to remember it. Anyways... originally released in 2006 the sculpt and attention to detail may be even better then the stuff coming out now.

The Goods What you care about:
Brown Shipper: well its a brown box nothing more to it, oh by the way this is the exclusive version so enjoy that on the box.

From left to right: Brown shipper box, Front of the 4 colour box, side and the back

Four Color box: unlike the Magnetto Comiquette the purple works really well. It delivers just the right amount icy cold that suits the White Queens character. It's quickly obvious that the purple doesn't seem to cool down the piece or the White Queen. The full sculpt is revealed on the sides and back of the box and it's obvious this is a PG-13 piece. It's like a scene captured from the bed room of the White Queen, a long day of screwing over the X-Men it's time to go to bed.

 From left: The back story on the White Queen, and the control art print only given with the exclusive 

The Styrofoam: I caution lots of care for this piece. When lifting of the top piece just be careful. There's a lot of protruding plastic pieces that you do not want to break off. So be careful when taking out the cape/cloak. I take out everything else and leave the cape till last. I wish they had made these cape strings an insert but they are attached so if you break them that's it. Luckily if you break them they don't take to much away from the piece. I cant figure out how they came up with the idea to pack this but its expertly packed, and good thing the cape doesn't move around at all in the box so there should be no damage on shipping unless you pack it badly.

 White Queen Emma Frost Statue by Sideshow Collectibles. Click pictures to enlarge. 

The Statue: Stunning and beautifully presented. With the exclusive version you get the chance to compare the real piece with the control art which is pretty cool. All I can say is wow it's nearly identical. The statue hasn't missed a detail.  As well the assembly is very easy. There are 3 pieces and its the minimalist style of the statue that really makes it stand out. Also the statue is huge at 16.5 inches this is one to be highly sought after. The control art for this piece is a little weird with the swirls and flowers, I think it detracts from the actual subject. That's my only thing.
The actual figure is great with everything proportioned really well. The hair is very straight similar to the sort of old school 90s cartoon, which is fine. It gives the very "staunch, proper, out of my league" typical of the Hellfire Club White Queen era. But I would have loved the Greg Horn White Queen hair with a few curls. None the less the statue is awesome even with the hair, I still like it. The paint job is perfect. I really like the pearl white they use for the outfit its just so much nicer then plain white. The pearl white gives it the look of real leather. (Hmmm a premium format of this would be... interesting). The face features are extremely life like with every attention to detail captured. Adam Hughes fans won't be disappointed, this one is a keeper.

5 Pairs of white thigh high boots

out of 5

Moon Knight Silver Statue Review Bowen Designs

Our first review of any Bowen designs statue. For myself I've never really had much of a liking towards the Bowen pieces. Why because they always reminded me of the classic era of comic books. Not that I don't like it but they just weren't real enough for me. I'm a detail collector and the Bowen stuff lacks the fantastic detail. They stuck so close to the classic comics that it limited their creativity. Their signature is the classic statue standing up straight, that's about it. Also I was first a sideshow collector before Bowen. So why Moonknight? Well its a huge piece and it has some better then normal sculpt and a good pose, still the classic Bowen pose though.

The Goods What you care about:
The 4 Color Box: Typical Bowen style. Grey-tone mosaic of different superheroes as the border, followed by the character focused center of the piece. The box makes the piece look awesome, ominous and badass.

The Styrofoam: The one thing that is great about Bowen is that they actually tell you which way to open the statue. I always hate having to guess and in the odd occasion actually open the piece with everything facing down. Which can sometimes break parts of the statue. In this case a nicely labelled "UP" on the proper side avoids this situation.

From Left: You can see the very helpful Up label on the styrofoam which avoids breakages, on the right the piece.

The Statue: Let's start with the base. Its probably one of the more detailed bases in the Bowen collection, the down side is that it's probably more detailed then the actual subject. The base is part of what looks to be an old Gothic building roof top. It fits with the character type, masked crime fighter of the night. The base is also a sort of eerie blue tone as if you would be seeing it on a foggy or rainy night.
Now the subject piece. Like most Bowen pieces the male figures are always I find way over proportioned. In this piece and many others I find the legs and the ads are just to big and they are way to highlighted. The pose is awesome with the flowing cape. Normally I would have a few issues with the paint details on the face but since he has not much of a face it looks good. That's probably why i like this one so much. I still haven't figured out what that little baton thing is that is in his hand, can't see much sense in using that to stop criminals. The cape is done really well and is pretty life like, I think this is the best part of it. A nice surprise was the paint job. Normally the paint job is not the greatest especially around the face and hair. This had none such issue and the paint job is probably one of the best I've seen in a long time, from these guys.

From left to right: Left side, Front, Back and the right side. Looks great not super original though, just kind of plain

Other then that the piece is kind of boring there isn't much happening and the sculpt does not give anything to the imagination. Probably because it's Moon Knight and there isn't a lot going for him except maybe the moon shaped air plane he drives around. I'm Sure if there was something more to this it would have been a real keeper, but as such Bowen has managed to stick very closely to its signature stuff, classic and kind of standing straight up.

Final Thoughts: As a kind of cheesy Batman knock off it's a decent attempt. Next time Bowen get more detail and bring that source material to life. Good creative base but I've seen McFarlane toys that have more going for them then this one in terms of life like and detail. In this case though the lack of detail worked in some spots especially with the face. Moon Knight fans you will want to add this to the collection because it's probably the only piece out there for you to collect. Other fans this is an easy pass or wait for a better one, unless you need the whole marvel universe then that's a different story.

A good attempt
3 Crescent shaped throwing disc out of 6