I FINALLY saw Nick Fury and the single carded Chitauri on the pegs at K-Mart today. Man, I thought I would never see those things.

I wouldn't have thought it would have been too much to ask for an unhelmeted Chitauri warrior in this line, but I guess so.

So...I only just got around to buying Season 3 on Blu-Ray last week and have been watching several episodes per night to get those out of the way prior to the Season 5 premier/Season 4 Blu-Ray release.

In retrospect, this season got sort of a bad rap, top to bottom it was really not all that terrible, IMHO. It seems like they were experimenting with a number of different things that ultimately did not blend well. The non-sequential continuity jumping stories were confusing. And the political stuff was just brutally tedious.

But after you get through those last 2 banking de-regulation episodes, the rest of the season is all solid arcs - Savage Oppress, Mortiis, Citadel, Wookies & Trandoshans. Good stuff. (Ok, you either loved or hated the Mortiis stuff - I personally loved it, right up until the part where they lost their memory at the end)

I had forgotten about some of the really cool toys that could have been made from this Season: The Selkath bounty hunter, Aurra Sing in Assassin Gear, the transforming janitor/suicide bomb droids, etc etc. Damn shame they can't even repaint a Bossk to put out single carded Trandoshan now.

Looking forward to new stuff, although not as much as previous years, given the sad state of the toy line now.

So much for getting one of these mint for my carded collection. Now I just have to hope whatever warehouse drone pulls my item from the shelf happens to select a decent one. Ugh.

They got it backwards - the last one last year that was all repacks should have been the online exclusive. This is one I would have gladly gone into the store for, even Walmart.

At least they had the sense to put it up on HTS this time, unlike the Mando Shuttle which they could have easily sold off rather than shipping them to Mexico. But then again HTS doesn't seem to know how to pack and ship things without stuff getting all dinged up in transit. Or even before transit. So there's that.

Also mean no chance to nab a bunch of these in February at sweet clearance prices.

I have a Wii but don't know what you are talking about...new version? Upgrade?

FINALLY saw the Deluxe set with Chitauri and Cosmic Chariot today at Target over lunch. Kind of underwhelming after all the anticipation.

Is there any kind of non-helmeted version coming out?

LAME...i foresee a future clearance on these already. It's Lt Renz all over again!

The only thing I know is that they've been available from that same seller for well over a year now. There's red striped ones, too. Did those see retail release? I remember hearing talk of bootleg troopers (as opposed to factory extras or whatever), but the seller's other stuff looks like actual production items.

I've never bought anything from that seller.

Hey, just wanted to thank you again for this information. I just bought my third set of these...first batch yellow striped, second batch red striped, and the latest batch green striped. They are definitely unique from any previous figures ever released in this line in any form. (Although the yellow guys are very close to the 212th clones they out out a few years back)

The main difference, which is apparent right away, is the base plastic is grey, not white. It's hard to tell the difference from the auction photos, but very noticeable in person. These must have been some kind of early production samples or test runs for paints apps or something to that effect I think.

Whatever they are, they are completely weird and cool, and make a fine addition to my collection. I'm definitely making a point to keep hunting for strange stuff like this from overseas. The seller sent them in a padded envelope all the way from China but they arrived safely so no complaints here.

I am thinking it definitely has to be a cancelled item that EE picked up - so there are some great guesses in this thread.  Hopefully Hasbro gave EE a good deal on it since, iirc, Hasbro kinda screwed over EE with the whole Mandalorian Shuttle fiasco which lead to EE cancelling a lot of orders.

My recollection from CVI was that Hasbro claimed to be "disappointed" that EE elected NOT to accept orders on these or something to that effect. Like, they were ready to provide product and EE backed out at the last minute, or balked at the minimum orders or something.

So the distinct implication was that it was a decision by EE, not Hasbro, that ended up being responsible for all those canceled orders. (mine included)

I'm all for the rumored idea of re-releasing the shuttle as a UBP with a squad of Mandos and maybe another ship to help fill things out. That would certainly push it past the $50 mark.

Better not be some damn Fighter Pod thing is all I know!