Vandal Savage is one of my favorite characters, and that's almost entirely due to his appearance in the Justice League episode "Hereafter."  It was an episode in which the parts where Toyman kills Superman and there's a funeral for him and Lobo tries to force himself into the Justice League as a replacement... are not the most interesting parts of the episode.  No, Superman has actually been transported into the future!  And despite losing all his powers because of the deyellowification of the Sun's rays, he steals a car, siphons gas into it, grows a beard, fights some future dogs, slays their leader and wears him, and becomes their master.  Oh, and the world's that way because Vandal Savage kind of destroyed it a few days after Superman "died," but since he's immortal he's still around thousands of years later.  And kind of sad and crazy.

(My god, Phil Morris is awesome.  He's even awesome when he's Martian Manhunter on Smallville.  That is how awesome he is.)

And so I've reeeeeally been wanting a Vandal Savage toy, but I had no idea how much I also wanted a Future Beardy Superman toy until I saw that he would exist.  And  yet both of them almost didn't when their wave never reached retail. However, I am more than happy to get them belatedly and at a markup from MattyCollector.com.  "Hereafter" was one of my favorite episodes, and that's saying a lot considering half of it's about friggin' Superman.

They also came with Batman.  You probably don't need photos of him.  They didn't come with stands, but I used some in the photos anyway.  They also didn't come with an Atmosphere Destroying Missile Launcher, but, well, you know how it is.

Hey, Shortpacked! Book 4 is now available for purchase in the store!

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I got my JLU 7-pack in the mail today, signifying the end of that toyline.  Which means it’s time to finally take stock of all of the duplicate Batmen, Supermen, and whoevers that I amassed in the past decade in the quest to get dudes they were packed with.

When I am done, I plan to just sell them all on eBay for probably five dollars. In the meantime, some preliminary photography.  For example:

1) Man, I am surprised I can only find one extra Martian Manhunter.  Clearly I must have more somewhere!  Did I really only ever end up with just one extra of him?  It seems impossible.

2) My original bin of extras was packed in SUPER TIGHT.  Like, creating-diamonds-out-of-coal-tight.  Related to this tidbit is an observation on how soft and goopy Giganta’s dress is.  Whoops.

2a) (Not entirely limited to Giganta’s dress.  I had one Superman’s cape embedded in the neck of another.)

3) Woo, “I can breathe in space” Batman!

4) Woo, “Atmosphere-destroying missile” Superman!

5) A sweet ass Scuba Flash.  I have a whole team of scuba guys, probably came with an Aquaman, but Flash is the sharpest of those.

There's a chance there might be more JLU stuff, but only because some of their 3-packs (*coughcoughcoughVandalSavagecoughcough*) never made it to retail and Matty's hinted at maybe offering those online maybe.  Maybe.

But meh.  It happens, it happens.  Stick a fork in this toyline.