A lot of companies had fun exclusives available at this year’s New York Comic Con. Some caused long lines, bottlenecks, and hurt feelings (lookin’ at you Funko and Toy Tokyo). Others, like the exclusive Mighty Meeples 3pks from Cryptozoic, were easy to get, inexpensive, and a lot of fun. Let’s take a closer look.
Now, some might be asking “What are Mighty Meeples?”. Valid question, as even I had to ask when I first heard about this line at Toy Fair. Originating 15 years or so ago in Europe, the meeple, short for “my people”, is a 1″ tall wooden figure, which can feature an oversized look at popular characters, etc. Popular in table-top gaming, Cryptozoic is now creating lines and sets here in the US. So far, a mystery pack set of DC Comics characters is coming to retail shortly, and in 2017 there will be a special Ghostbusters tin set coming. All of the exclusive packs from New York Comic Con are extensions on these lines.
DC Comics Mighty Meeples
The DC Comic exclusives continue the set beyond the 30 characters in the blind packaged set, with the nine additional characters being:
31- Apache Chief 32- Black Vulcan 33- Samurai
34- The Flash 35- Green Lantern 36- Hawkman (all Golden Age)
37- Metamorpho 38- Power Girl 39- B’Wana Beast
Additionally, the line will continue in 2017 with a special tin of Batman Rogues Gallery, featuring some of the best Batman villains of all time. It looks like Riddler is exclusive to this tin, with the other villains possibly getting a different color scheme.
Ghostbusters
This Ghostbusters three pack of exclusives continue the line that will be introduced in a special Ecto-1 collection tin, which includes a super-sized Stay Puft Meeple!
This exclusive 3pk contains:
7: Slimed Peter Venkman 8: Slimed Ray Stantz 9: Exclusive Slimer
Not too sure why this Slimer is “exclusive”… possible that he is just a “first to market” edition or something.
Overall, I like how these convention exclusive packs can give fans characters that might be less mainstream than your Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc, or variant versions of the characters, liked the “slimed” variants. I also appreciate that there is a numbering system to the set, making it easy to figure out which numbers you are missing. I intend to bring my set around to game nights when my family and friends gather to play board games.
While the convention exclusive packs are not available online to purchase, our friends over at Entertainment Earth have the regular releases of Mighty Meeples up for pre-order, and more! You can check out all of what’s available from Cryptozoic Entertainment, here.