Rocket City Toy and Comic Expo: A Con Review!

A fellow toy collector hit me up and invited me to go a smaller toy show, the Rocket City Toy and Comic Expo!

Here is a rundown of some pieces of interest I found at the show!

The Rocket City Toy and Comic Expo took place in Huntsville, AL at the Jaycee Building on October 1, 2022. Admission was $5!

Hasbro made some awesome 1/6 scale Planet of the Apes in the 90's for the 30th anniversary of the first movie; these had 90's Action Man bodies. Above was the first wave. The second wave came in cheaper canister packaging and included Astronaut Taylor, Zira, Ape Sergeant, and Ape Soldier. $20 is a fair price for each and I love to get multiples of the ape soldiers.

One of the most iconic Star Wars costumes was Princess Leia's Jabba slave attire. The toys of this version of Leia are always a hot seller with collectors. Unfortunately, Disney is trying their best to erase this part of Lucasfilm history, because of their subjugation to political correctness. The figure above will probably never be made again until Disney get its head out of its fourth point of contact. That being said, $50 for Slave Leia loose is really not bad considering most Star Wars Black Series figures start at about $30 now.

Boss Fight Studios makes some super cool 1/18 figures ranging from fantasy, zombie, and other miscellaneous licenses. Above is their stab at Zorro. I have handled this figure before, and it is just as playable, durable, and detailed as 3rd Generation (25th Anniversary) 1/18 G.I. Joes! This series also has a Zorro paired with his horse, Tornado, and a few other side characters from his long cinematic history!

About 20 years ago, Sideshow Collectibles actually made toys that hit retail stores. They made these Universal Monsters figures at the odd scale of 8 inches without soft goods. These are definitely not ideal action figures, but they did have a larger array of characters, which is not common for most companies that tackle the terrific Universal Monsters licence.

Flash Gordon is my dad's favorite science fiction character. He loves the fantastic world of the original comic strip that was never quite executed correctly in live action. In the 70's, Mego made a 10-inch line of Flash Gordon figures based on the original comic consisting of Flash, Dale Arden, Dr. Zarkov, and Ming the Merciless. Flash Gordon was often missing from the shelves, leaving only the side characters to be easily bought. According to the Mego Musuem, these were supposed to kick off 10" figures for Mego, but the scale did not sell well.

The early 2000's Toybiz Spiderman Classics line, one of the sister lines to Marvel Legends, spit out many crazy superposable 6-inch scale iterations of ole Spidey. One of them was the Spider-Hulk figure! Believe it or not, this figure was packaged by itself as a normal figure in the wave for about $7.99 at most stores. I did not purchase this figure when he came out, and sadly, he has skyrocketed in price. Unfortunately, there are also very accurate bootleg versions of this figure floating around too, so it might be a while longer until I get my hands on this goofy figure. 

In the third grade, the Toby Maguire Spiderman with gargoyle ledge was the first Marvel 6-inch superposable figure I got, and it kicked off a Marvel Legends obsession that still affects my wallet today. When poor Toby fell out of Marvel cannon/relevance with the hire of Andrew Garfield, all of the Raimi Spiderman merchandise became rock bottom cheap. I bought the above Goblin along with a bunch of other Raimi era characters for no more than $15 each during this era of Garfield movies. It is good to stay loyal to what you actually love, because everything Toby Maguire shot up with the release of the No Way Home flick!

Many of the 1/18 Joes that came out after the Rise of Cobra movie line in 2009 have really shot up on the secondary market. The Shadow Tracker above is from the Pursuit of Cobra line and is way of out my buying league, but I have been picking these up slowly as I see reasonable.

Seth of Ed's Pet World in Birmingham, AL is a familiar face I encounter at many toy shows. He is a super guy and gives great prices on many hard-to-find toys! When Seth made me an offer I could not refuse, I was sure to buy the Joe Club exclusive version of Cross Country. I am not a huge fan of this character, but his Confederate attire will scare Hasbro from ever making him properly again.

The Rocket City Toy and Comic Expo had a decent selection of toys and fair prices. For $5 admission, I will be sure to come back next year if convenient!

-Chuck