NEW “Justice League” Branded DCU Character Car Packaging

UPDATE: I may have jumped the gun on some of the assumptions made in this entry; be sure to read my correction after finishing this article!

Hey hey hey, I really thought we’d have seen Vulture or Doomsday or something by now, didn’t you? Oh well. I was bouncing around on eBay earlier, doing my usual thing, and I ran across a couple of items from a seller that I hadn’t seen before. I screen-capped the pics, so unfortunately they’re a little washed out looking (and small) so there’s not much I can do. You can clearly see the “new” Aquaman and Cyborg – same cars but with the actors featured on the cards instead of illustrations.

That’s pretty cool in an of itself I guess, though I do kind of wonder what the need for all these packaging changes is, especially when it’s just the same car with a different backing.

The real treat was going to be the backs..and luckily the seller provided photos. I guess due to the size of the original uploads, eBay allowed me a slightly “zoomed in” view of the Aquaman back:

It’s difficult to tell, but there are actually some faint words below and to the left of each picture. I’ve tried enhancing them in various ways – I mean we pretty much know what all of them are – but I would like see what they’re officially calling the one second from the left – which is the obvious newcomer to the lot. It looks a lot like that new Batman car C. shared with us a while back, but then again the shot is washed out so much I’d hesitate to definitively label it as such. But then again, we’ve got the rest of the line plus Deadshot thrown in so I dunno.

Here’s the back of Cyborg. It’s a little easier to see that there is actually some text below the images, but still not a great pic overall.

I looked through the rest of the guys stuff – both listed and anything recently sold – just to see if he had any more Justice League-branded stuff, but no cigar. I probably won’t spend my precious monies on these since they look virtually the same as what’s out now, though if you do happen to pick up one and notice a difference (especially in color) do let me know! I am very interested in collecting/documenting those color changes that fall somewhere in that gray area of intentional vs. sloppy and one day I’m going to show you just many of those odd cases I’ve found!

Alrighty then, I’m signing off again for now – actually that’s not true. I’m going back to working on my DC Super Hero Girls article, I just figured I’d take a pause and get this weird little tidbit out there.

New Arrivals! Batman…and Batman

I got 2 new packages in the mail yesterday – regrettably one of them was not the Skyward Sword Link amiibo – but they were a couple of items I’d spotted Sunday night perusing eBay, so kudos to these fellas for getting these in the mail and over to me quickly! (Back when I started this, like Tuesday…)

You know the Hot Wheels boxes with the “Mystery Models” in them? I did a piece on one not too long ago, a Gold Tumbler. And you know, as proud as I was to find one, and then two, and then 5, and then a few more to stockpile for some easy $5 sales on eBay over time, these boxes began to appear everywhere. There’d be 3 or 4 down with the hanging Hot Wheels, and then I’d glance up at the top shelf used partially for storage and notice anywhere from 4 to 10 more boxes! That’s a lot of Gold Tumblers. So when I saw this brand new Gold Arkham Asylum Batmobile as the new Mystery Model, my mind immediately began thinking about just how long it’d take all those Tumbler boxes to clear out. Thinking about all those boxes and simultaneously finding a new Batmobile for less than $5 with shipping included, I decided to go ahead and snag one of ’em off eBay rather than holding out for a release in my area.

And the good news is that if I do happen to stumble across half a dozen of these tomorrow, well, I can easily sell ’em. The Arkham Asylum Batmobile isn’t terribly common in the world of Hot Wheels, so I was glad to add this golden one to my collection alongside my recent acquisition of the red-windowed one from the latest Batman 5-pack.

It’s funny how many different versions of “gold” there are. Somehow they’ve given the Arkham Asylum Batmobile its own special finish, a worthy step up from the strange “yellow” of the Tumbler. Just for comparison, I’ve thrown in a couple of of other cars with gold and metal-flake; the Gas Monkey and Evil Twin. Then there’s the outright mirror finish that can be seen on stuff like Super Chromes – the golden Millennium Falcon.

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Cue some majestic, triumphant music. Something with trumpets and those bassy tribal-like drums. Cymbals crashing like waves. Some mysterious, suspenseful chimes, leading into an unmistakably glorious melody brought about by a crescendo of tubular bells and some choral “oohs and aahhs.” The release comes and brass gives way to the string section as reality sets in and soothes us after the initial orgiastic expression….

Yeah that’s right.

Black Batman Hot Rod with the Gold Base

If you did not totally nerd the fuck out with me just then I strongly recommend brushing up on you Character Car-ography, specifically the “vintage” DC sub-area.

Lemme back that shit up for ya’ll no-hip-hoppers. Ok that’s a line from a Missy song but if we could replace “hip-hoppers” with something relevant it would’ve totally worked.

To the best of my knowledge, the DCU series of Character Cars kicked off in 2012 with those packages with the little blue border. Most of these have been re-released, and those that haven’t are evidently common enough to find but will occasionally cost a little more than their counterparts – the original Wonder Woman and Bane come to mind. The older Catwoman and the first Superman probably ought to be in this batch, because the first edition of Superman was painted with metalflake which was absent from subsequent releases and the older Catwoman is noticeably more purple and less pink/red than the newer, magenta/rose version. I fully intend on going into detail about all this minutia one day. And just in case you were wondering there’s been a total of 3 releases: the oldest blue border, followed by the black border, and then the newest ones with the words “Character Cars” on the blister insert, debuting early 2017, possibly late 2016, I’m not 100% sure when they kicked in.

Anyway, 2014 saw the first DC 5-pack, labeled as the Justice League, but it strangely didn’t include any exclusives. In 2015 another Justice League 5-pack was released, recognizable by its black packaging. This pack would (does?) include what is probably the most difficult and most costly DC Character Car to acquire. It’s the same shape as the Batman Hot Rod, only the body is colored black and the frame/chassis is gold. It may not seem like a big deal – and it really isn’t – it’s just that this is only way to procure this particular “configuration” of colors when it comes to the Batman Hot Rod. Note that additionally, Hot Wheels made a “regular” Batman Character Car some time ago, until the blue Batman Hot Rod became the preferred single. A few months ago, a black Batman Hot Rod was released as an exclusive with a Batcave trackset…I wrote an article on the topic, and you can watch me get excited about owning the Black Batman Hot Rod, until I realize – while adding in the pictures that very night – that this new black version had a silver chassis and the coveted old one sported a gold chassis. Yeah, it burst my bubble a little, but at the same time I can appreciate Hot Wheels’ integrity regarding their label of exclusive: both the original black-&-gold remained exclusive while the new black-&-silver could rightly be called exclusive as well.

So like, what, half of you are still rolling your eyes about why I’m nerd-gasming all over the place about it. You might’ve even noticed that a lot of times these 5-packs are available on eBay for significantly cheaper. Not this one. Out of the 3 existing DC/Batman 5-packs, 4 Marvel 5-packs (and one 4-pack), and 4 Star Wars 5-packs, this one labeled “Justice League” with the black background will nearly always be priced at a jaw-dropping amount. They steadily appear on eBay for $100+, and there’s a guy over on Amazon who periodically sells “near mint” packages for $70 to $80 and “package will be damaged” for $60 to $70. It’s weird…it’s always the same guy, he seems to have a few for sale for a while, then they’ll disappear, and then a week, 2 weeks, maybe even a month later he’ll pop up with “near mint” and “acceptable” versions once again, +/- $5.

I’d long considered emailing the guy to make sure that the cars within the damaged packages were in good shape but I never quite brought myself to pull the trigger. I can probably make a little bit of money back on the loose Wonder Woman, but the other 3 are very common and I’d be lucky to get $3 or $4 for them loose.

Not surprisingly, these things aren’t all that common on eBay, though it seems like there’s always one for same at the $100+ mark. I scrolled back through sold versions sometimes and would see auctions top out around $50, maybe $40. I took a look just now and found nothing though I’m sortta confused because I know I saw one up the other day for something like $86. The one I purchased isn’t showing up in search results because get this (I just caught it) – the listing reads “Justice Leagure.”

Alright alright, to begin winding this rather long story down I’ll go ahead and get down to brass tacks – I got my very own 5-pack with moderate wear and tear to the packaging for $40.99 plus another $5 for shipping. Great? Probably not. Good? Definitely. Better deals than this will probably roll through, but then again this is a coveted set that will only gain more value through time…that is unless or until Hot Wheels releases a Batman Hot Rod with these colors…

(If you don’t believe me, check out the very first Star Wars 5-pack which included a Battle Damaged Stormtrooper. This thing was at least $35 all day long…and then that 2-pack with the Battle Damaged Death Trooper and Battle Damaged Stormtrooper 2-pack and snap, it dropped down to $15 or $16 practically overnight.)

Of course other DCU character cars will come and go, but the acquisition of this Black Batman Hot Rod with Gold Frame is a milestone of its own; not only do I have it, but it also brings me up to speed with the DCU collection. So far, I’ve got all the DC Character Cars that have been released! Now we can look forward to newcomers like that cool Batman car, Swamp Thing, “movie” Flash, and Doomsday!

I’ve got some more Batman stuff to show you, but first, lets take a few minutes to dig into the world of the DC Super Hero Girls and all that’s been happening on that front. Stick around – or at the very least check back once a day – as I bring you a whole buncha stuff from the pinker end of the toy section!

ALERT ALERT! Very Weird Ares Discrepancy…Someone HELP!

This wasn’t exactly what I thought I’d be writing about at the moment, but I think it’s pretty damn important and I want to go ahead and get it all out on the table. I’ma try to bang this out quick, so stick with me.

I was absent-mindedly doing some searching on Google Images for possible upcoming character cars when I ran across something really strange: a picture of what appears to be Ares as a single from Target’s website.

Do you see what I see? Look at the rear quarter panel: it’s a vibrant amber color.

Now this don’t mean shit (necessarily) because Target posts pics of stuff way before release. Just recently we’ve been seeing singles of Ares over on eBay, but as we’d expect, they all look like this:

And that is what they should look like…right? Well of course. We were introduced to Ares a few weeks prior thanks to his debut in a Wonder Woman 2-pack. Typically speaking, and especially lately – though there have certainly been exceptions – 2-packs are designed to include one exclusive and the another car that can be picked up as a single.

On the Wonder Woman 2-pack, we’re clearly told that Wonder Woman is the exclusive. That, in turn, implies that Ares will be available in this same form as a single, at some point. And that’s pretty much what’s happened so far, right? The 2-pack was released, followed by an Ares single, and this single appears to be the same as that in the 2-pack.

All of that makes perfect sense…until Target’s weird ass site went and posted what they posted.

Is this just another one of those random things where small changes are made for seemingly no reason? If so, why are some Ares singles “normal” and other affected by this strange new piece of a paint job? Is it just a fucked up photo…? If you look at the other pics with the car by itself, it appears normal. The yellow-ish piece only appears on the packaged vehicle. Trick of the light? Maybe. But if you visit the actual page on Target’s website and use the zoom feature, it really doesn’t look like we’re seeing an optical illusion.

Man, let me know if you know anything about this thing. It’s weird to be sure. Definitely reach out to me should you see one of these variants for sale! Otherwise, anybody got any best guesses as to what the hell is going on?

Shame…?

Yeah ok. i did it.

I DID IT. I DID IT. I DID IT.

Yep…I fucking broke down. $19.99 + $3.50 + up to 5 days handling = fuck no. But somehow $22.00 + $0.00 + 3 or 4 states away = success.

The $22 free shipping Nebula popped up not long after that $19.99 one. And then the $19.99 one disappeared, nevermind it being the obviously worse deal – even if only marginally worse, it was still blatantly so. And so that Nebula sittin’ up there somewhere in PA (I think) just tore through my brain. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I remember telling myself that I was going to go take a look after I was done. Still there. Click, click, password, bam, ORDER MOTHERFUCKIN’ PLACED. That was that, sometime nearer the morning side of Friday night / Saturday morning.

Super nice guy. Dropped it off in the mail late Saturday morning and even sent me a message. Was I expecting a small box with Nebula today? I dunno, not really. I mean I knew it was possible but my anticipation was tempered appropriately in case it didn’t. I was doing something up front at the desktop computer….watching a parody of Humble I think…heard the mailman (carrier?) thwop clop across the porch, listened to him jam the mail in the box incorrectly (seriously, the front slot is for shit that will fit – if it’s oversized, you open the fucking door on the side), and just as I was about to return my full aural attention to Key of Awesome, I heard the tell-tale “brrreeeep” of the guy’s scanner gun thingamabob. (Do-dad, skitamarink…Whatchmacallit!)

I gave him a couple of seconds to make his way down the steps into the next yard, popped half my body out the door like some kind of deranged hermit, and snatched the small box off the top of the mailbox.

And that’s it. My kid just came back last night, and he was just hella excited to load 2 more cars into Groot Hauler since last week – Battle Damaged Rocket Raccoon and duh, Nebula.