Yesterday, Hasbro kicked off the first in a series Mandalorian-related product releases dubbed Mando Mondays. With a slate of awesome new toys and a livestream featuring various cast members from The Mandalorian, it should have been an exciting event for collectors of all ages.
Instead, it turned into yet another frustrating failure by Hasbro’s biggest retail partners.
Let’s take a look at the reveals for the Star Wars Vintage Collection and Black Series toylines, some of which you might actually be able to buy.
Star Wars: Black Series
Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) & The Child
Star Wars Black Series/Mando Monday
WOW! How cool is this release? In addition to The Mandalorian/Din Djarin with a removable helmet, we also get The Child in his pram along with a ton of cool accessories. It’s more than enough to make the $34.99 retail price tag worth it.
Unfortunately, this pairing of The Mandalorian‘s two main characters is a Target exclusive. If you thought they handled Star Wars pre-orders badly the last time, it was infinitely worse this time around.
Based on reports from multiple buyers (including myself), Din Djarin & The Child were available on Target’s website for less than 60 seconds before scalper bots cleaned out the entire inventory. The set is currently being hawked on Ebay for between $100 – $140. I would tell you not to pay such an egregious mark ups to those douchnozzles, but I also understand not wanting to go into a crowded Target in December (when it allegedly goes on sale) during a pandemic.
But you never know. Maybe Target.com will put the item back up for another 30 seconds on December 1. If you’d like to waste your time checking, you can bookmark the product page.
Biker Scout with Speeder Bike & The Child
Star Wars Black Series/Mando Monday
If that last item’s scarcity made you mad enough to punch a baby, then we’ve got some good news: You can now own a figure of the infamous biker scout who repeatedly slugged everyone’s favorite green infant in The Mandalorian‘s Season 1 finale.
All joking aside, this is a great looking set. The sculpt on the scout and his speeder bike (which comes with a much needed/appreciated flight stand) is beautiful. The Child also looks fantastic, although the expression on his poor little face can’t help but break your heart.
Add in some neat accessories, and the $49.99 price is…well, still a bit steep. If you don’t have a biker scout in your Black Series collection, however, then this would be a great way to add one.
The set is also an Amazon exclusive, which means you can still actually pre-order it (as of this evening) without any issues. Say what you want about Jeff Bezos and his 25 bathrooms, but at least the dude’s company can handle the distribution for an exclusive item properly.
Star Wars: The Vintage Collection
Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) & The Child
Star Wars: The Vintage Collection/Mando Monday
Once again, we have a fantastic looking set featuring the two main characters from The Mandalorian along with a boatload of cool accessories (and a removable helmet for Din Djarin).
This time, however, the set is a Walmart exclusive, which comes with its own set of problems.
This past weekend, Din Djarin & The Child went up on Walmart’s website without any description or pictures. Thankfully, Yakface.com reported on this rumored item back in June, making it a fairly safe bet you could buy one and know what you were getting. Walmart took the link down a few hours later, but not before a bunch of folks managed to pre-order it.
Unfortunately, the price was wrong–and not in the good direction. Instead of costing $17.99, the set was listed for $24.99. It remained that price when it was officially put on sale at 4:00 PM..and promptly went out of stock at 4:01 PM. It then went back in stock yesterday evening for $17.86 and is still available for pre-order (with an expected arrival in December).
Based on comments over at Jedi Temple Archives, it appears that the folks who paid $24.99 might be stuck with that price. Unfortunately, that might be the least of our worries when pre-ordering from Walmart, which has proven to be a complete crapshoot when it comes to exclusive items.
Remember that awesome Black Series wave for the last season of Clone Wars that was exclusive to Walmart? Remember how a bunch of us pre-ordered it back in July? Well, the wave is now hitting stores while those of us who pre-ordered are getting multiple delay notices.
It makes you wonder if the people running Walmart’s distribution chain should be required to watch my favorite Seinfeld moment.
Unfortunately, it appears that trying to get Walmart to honor a pre-order is about as productive as Jerry’s rant with the attendant from Worthy Car Rental was.
According to a thread on the /r/ghostbusters subreddit, people who pre-ordered Walmart’s exclusive retro Ghostbusters figures either had their orders outright canceled or were strongly encouraged by customer service to cancel them.
But that’s preposterous. A big, ethical company like Walmart would never:
- Use pre-order customers as insurance for an exclusive item.
- See that the item is selling through.
- Send pre-orders to the store, forcing those customers to cancel and go into brick-and-mortar locations, which saves Walmart money on shipping and generates more potential sales of other items in their on site inventory.
Nope. Not Walmart. Never in a million years.
Meanwhile, I’ll be crossing my fingers that Din Djarin & The Child make it to my doorstep before Christmas.
The Armorer
Star Wars: The Vintage Collection/Mando Monday
This figure is a must buy in any scale, but especially 3.75. Now I just need more Stormtroopers so I can create a scene of her kicking all their asses.
The Armorer retails for $12.99. The figure is available now for pre-order from your preferred online retailer with an expected arrival in Spring of 2021.
Moff Gideon
Star Wars: The Vintage Collection/Mando Monday
What’s this? A great and highly demanded character making their debut in The Vintage Collection before The Black Series? It feels like 2012 again!
In all seriousness, what a fantastic looking figure. The sculpt, facial likeness of Giancarlo Esposito, and clothing are all superb. But when you add in that darksaber, it’s truly a blessing that this one wasn’t made into another hard-to-find exclusive.
Moff Gideon retails for $12.99. The figure is available now for pre-order from your preferred online retailer with an expected arrival in Spring of 2021.
Miscellaneous Mando Monday Reveals
Razor Crest Photos
In case you were worried that the Haslab Razor Crest wasn’t going to look awesome, we got our first pictures of it (almost) fully painted/detailed. While I do wish we got some electronic lights, I can’t deny that seeing that metallic finish has me all types of excited to find space for this one next year.
Space Toilet sighted! (Mando Monday)
Razor Crest/Mando Monday
Star Wars Retro Collection: Mandalorian Wave
Star Wars Retro Collection/Mando Monday
We also got our first good look at the Mandalorian wave of 5 POS POA retro figures, which honestly don’t do anything for me. If you were really looking forward to these, though, then I can still be happy for you.
They are currently available for preorder from your preferred online retailer with an expected arrival in May of 2021. Each figure retails for $9.99 (oof), but you can buy the whole 7-figure set from Entertainment Earth for $83.99 (OOF).
The Child Animatronic Toy with Carrier
Animatronic The Child/Mando Monday
This adorable little fella (available for preorder from shopDisney) will set you back $79.99, but it makes sounds and comes with a carrier. If I lived in a city with a subway system, I’d be tempted to commute with this strapped to my chest.
The Child Animatronic Toy with Carrier is expected to arrive in late November, which gives David Brooke plenty of time to get me this for Christmas…or for at least one of us to get this as a congratulatory gift for our recently engaged Editor-in-Chief, Patrick Ross!
Monopoly: Star Wars The Mandalorian Edition
Mandalorian Monopoly/Mando Monday
Not sure this one is worth the $49.99 price tag, but if someone hates you enough to rope you into a game of Monopoly, this might be the most tolerable way to suffer through it.
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