Guardians of the Galaxy Merch

For Day 3 of Guardian week, I'll be showing off some movie related merch.

Before I get to the good stuff, I wanted to talk about the Hasbro toys for a minute. I feel like they dropped the ball a bit this go round. I get what they're doing with scaling down the figures so they can make vehicles inexpensively and I would have loved having those when I was a kid. Toys like that were good in the early 80s.

The only 3.75" scale figures are re-releases from the Marvel Universe line and they're not the movie versions. I'm not a fan of the "bellboy outfit" costumes of the comic versions. So the only option I have for good movie figures are from the $20 Legends line which I can barely find at retail. The only figure I'm looking for, Rocket Raccoon, is the most popular so I can't find him in stores or online. Ok, I have found the whole wave of Legends at a local chain store called Newbury Comics but they price their figures as collectibles instead of using MSRP. They're asking $30 each or $40 for Rocket! No thank you.

Ok, ranting over! Here's some neat stuff that I have found.

I would have thought this movie would have had fast food tie-ins with McDonald's or BK, the two places I generally associate with summer movie toys. Come to think of it, I don't remember any Marvel Studios movie having kids' meal toys. What up with that?

Anyway, I got these cinch bags from Subway for $1 each. If you're lucky you can find a store that will sell them without having to buy a kids meal. They're kid-sized so they're not huge but you could toss a few things in them to carry around, maybe a place to keep your stuff at the beach or something. There's a total of 6 bags to collect, one for each character (although Groot shares his with Rocket) and the team one.

Here are a couple of Mystery Mini Bobbleheads from Funko. I found them in Newbury Comics so I probably overpaid a couple bucks at $7.99 each but I'd been wanting them for so long I didn't care. They're blind boxed (if the word Mystery didn't give it away) but the 12 figures seem to have been given equal distribution so they're all the same "rarity." Some characters have alternate poses and some have glow in the dark or metallic variations.

Ronan over on the left is pretty cool with his hammer and armor. Drax, on the other hand...I don't know if I got a bad figure or what but I'm not really digging it. His head is positioned so that you can't see the face unless he's at your eye level or higher. The pose he's in would be good for him to be sitting high up like he's going to jump down on you, but otherwise you're looking at the top of his head. The peg the head sits on should have been positioned back more so he could be looking forward instead of down.



I know I'll be getting a few more of these to get other characters but I may be trolling Ebay for deals so I can get the exact ones I want.



For now, this is the only Rocket Raccoon that I have but he's adorable! As far as I know, he's a TRU exclusive. Protip: if you get him in the store, check their online price. My store had it for $4 more than the TRU online price! He stands about 15" tall and has wires in his legs so you can kind of make him sit down. There aren't any wires in the arms, which is too bad.

Update: Plush Rocket is also one of the few items available in the Disney Store and they have him at $24.99. They also have an awesome hoodie, but it's not in adult sizes!

In addition to these things, I have seen school supplies like a backpack and matching lunch bag at TRU and notebook and folders at Target. There's also an assortment of books aimed at the younger crowd: movie junior novelization, sticker book, and step into reading books. I'm staying away from spoilers so I haven't checked any of those out beyond their covers.

Finally, it was announced at SDCC that the Guardians are coming to Disney Infinity 2.0. I don't have a console to play the game on, but I may end up picking up the figures for their artistic interpretations. Maybe it's a good thing I can't play the game...