For the man who has fifteen billion Batmen and Wonder Women
on July 29, 2012 at 10:21 pm
MattyCollector’s started putting the last few remaining JLU three-packs up in their store! Y’know, the ones that were gonna be at retail, but Young Justice toys kind of swooped in and took their spot on the pegs, and also nobody was buying JLU anyway, and then nobody bought Young Justice either. And so you’re gonna be paying online exclusive markup for them, but I find that preferable to the alternative of NOT GETTING VANDAL SAVAGE OH MY GOD GIVE HIM TO ME.
The first set released was Batman/Mongul/Wonder Woman. Obviously, you’re buying this one for Mongul. At least he’s a 100% new sculpt to make up for the repeat WW/Batman guys. (Again, these were supposed to be at retail, which is why those two are in there.) The JLU new sculpts are always fantastic, and Mongul is no exception. These toys really shine when they’re sharp and individualized rather than being a decades-old Superman body with a new head. And so Mongul’s great. And sufficiently huge.
I can’t say all that much about Mongul himself. He was in a really boring episode about a gladiator pit planet, and I tend to skip over that one a lot when I watch through my JLU DVDs. No, Mongul got lucky by being written into Alan Moore’s “For the Man Who Has Everything,” which everyone loves and was then made into an episode of the JLU cartoon. And I feel a little off by saying that, yeah, that episode is why Mongul is awesome, when really it could have been anygoddamnedbody in his role in that story and nothing would have changed. Well, any of the 30 different outer space dictator dudes the Justice League fights, anyway. Jervis Tetch (aka the Mad Hatter) pulled off a similar scheme in “Perchance to Dream,” but I doubt he could have held off Wonder Woman.
I’m just saying, there’s not a lot to Mongul. He’s the guy you go to when Darkseid and Despero are busy.
UPDATE: Decided to watch rewatch Mongul’s episodes, and I hadn’t noticed before that he had a character model tweak, probably because “War World” parts 1 and 2 put me to sleep. When he shows up again in “For the Man Who Has Everything,” he’s a darker purple, some of his silver has been changed to black, and his hat is now purple. He’s also drawn a whole lot better, but that may have just been the animation studio. Anyway, the toy is of his appearance from the Good Episode. Surprise!
I’m pretty sure Mongul was created to be that guy they use so Darkseid wouldn’t look too pathetic.
Did Mattel say anything about the rest of the little Young Justice guys? I know the 6 inch line is getting finished in a two-pack. I’ll hopefully be able to buy that for Miss Martian. I have 90s Superboy. I don’t think anyone could replace him in my heart…
He’s kind of a Captain Ersatz of Thanos, who in turn is a knock-off of Darkseid.
Hey, at least by holding the sets until 2012 they managed to release them on the 20th anniversary of the DCAU.
About Young Justice toys taking up pegs from JLU… due to our local stores having terrible people in charge of the toy-buying, neither Zellers nor Walmart actually STOCKED any JL or JLU figures beyond… well, beyond the wave that had Batman with “I can breathe in space” suit. So we never actually got even a single Young Justice toy either. A couple of the JLU three-packs showed up at the Winners store, but their toy stock is… inconsistant at best and completely random at worst. They seem to get both stock of stuff that floods retail, and stock of stuff that didn’t quite make it to regular retail, like the reissue Blaster that came with two or three cassette bots. Ours never got stock of that item, but appearantly some random Winners did.
Anyway! Yeah, at this point I’m beginning to wonder if “terrible toy sales” might be related to “terrible purchasers” working at retailers. It would certainly explain why we seem to only end up with case after case after case of ONLY the first waves of toys here. Except for Lego, we always seem to get the latest Lego sets right on time. I still haven’t seen a Prime Arcee, Ratchet, Vehicon, Hot Shot, etc… Yeah, “terrible purchasers” have to bear some blame in all of this.
-I’m just saying, there’s not a lot to Mongul. He’s the guy you go to when Darkseid and Despero are busy.-
Yea. Heck, in the comics they can replace Mongul with Mongul Jr. and really barely anyone notices.
Eric Roberts did such a great job voicing Mongul, any time he appears in a tv show or movie, all I can see is Mongul (which makes watching The Dark Knight just that little more interesting).
“It must have been like tearing off your own arm.”
Part of the problem with Young Justice toys was that they were never on the shelves when the cartoon was on. There was even a McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-in toys right when Cartoon Network pulled the show for three months. Justice League and JLU had years to build up their following. Thus there was demand after the show got canned. Now that YJ is on at a time when kids can actually watch it, you would think they would give the toy line a little more time.