Bernard at the Facebook UK Collectors page has confirmed that Black Series Wave 5 is now available at Asda. It had been previously reported that these had been found at Asda Living stores, but Bernard located these at an Asda Supermarket in Wigan. The price is £19.97

I've just finished reading Star Wars, A New Dawn, and have uploaded my review to Amazon.co.uk CLICK HERE for my review CLICK HERE to purchase the book

As originally broken by Robin Edmonds on the UK Star Wars Black Facebook Page, I can now confirm that Smyths Customer Service are advising customers that once the current stock of Black Series has sold through on clearance they will no longer be stocking that line. That leaves SWB6 collectors Toys R Us on the high street, or independents. Although Asda may be about to enter the market having recently added SWBS6 to the Asda Living stores. Smyths in general seem to have suffered on two fronts. Firstly they went heavy, as may did, on wave 2 and got stuck with Slave Leia and Greedo, to a lesser extent, as peg warmers for over a year. With all the figures on one SKU the system would rarely replenish with newer stock as Leia & Greedo weren't selling. They also went heavy in on the Deluxe wave, but although they got it ahead of TRU, they were later than a lot of the online stores and collectors had pretty much got what they wanted by that point (clearances prices in the states wouldnt have helped) The Smyths news is disappointing for SWBS6 fans in the UK, but probably not all doom and gloom as am sure they will be back, along with many other new retailers, when the Force Awakens product hits in September, Wether that will include 6" figures is yet to be seen

Popped into Smyths at Middlebrook Bolton today to find an even smaller Star Wars section, but within this some significant reductions. Star Wars Black 6" figures were down to £5, Granted all they had at Bolton were Leia and Greedo, but Smyths have had up to wave 3 so there may be some other gems out there. They also had the 16 piece Star Wars Command versus packs for a fiver and the Star Wars Rebels Stormtrooper Blaster for £10. I have since heard via @UKToyCollector on Twitter that Deluxe Black Series, where stocks exist, are down to £20 and the Star Destroyer Command set down to £20 Clearance of a line isnt unusual, and its difficult to second guess what this means to Smyths. In my opinion Command only worked as a Pocket Money Toy - the 9 and 12 piece sets were perfect as Supermarket pickups at £5 and £10 respectively, the larger sets just havent worked. For Black Series this may signal the end of Smyths stocking them until the Force Awakens merchandise hits. Smyths obviously ordered pretty big with wave 2 and the majority of stores have sat with multiple Leia and Greedo's for over 12-months. That surely shows as a slow/nil seller on any reports? I would hope the outlook is more positive and that with 2015 waves on their way Smyths are preparing for a mini reset ahead of the TFA launch in September

We are under a week until Toy Fair... CLICK HERE for our latest Round Up

We've just passed our 6-month anniversary, and how the Archives have changed. Our old host was proving inflexible for our needs so we are in the process of moving house. The new site can be found at www.mephitsu.wix.com/home The old site will remain in place while we move all our stuff. We also have a brand new Facebook page (likes wanted please) and continue to grow our Twitter presence slowly but surely Thanks to all those of you who have visited and supported us

Looks like both Darth Vader (February) and Princess Leia (March) #1 comics from Marvel are coming with an Action Figure Variant to match the Vintage cardback Luke cover that was one of the many Star Wars #1 variants. Pre-orders for both are up at Forbidden Planet, links below... Darth Vader #1 Princess Leia #1

The CLICK HERE The smaller scale ships have an expected due date of March 2015 The Elite Scale ships have an expected due date of November 2015

You have 20 seconds to comply... Despite 3 films, there isn't a great deal of action figure potential in the Robocop trilogy when you consider most characters were corporate bad guys, or street bad guys. Even the other cops were pretty drab. However, if there is one figure that has been begging to be made in 7" Scale it is ED-209, and last year NECA delivered. ED-209 comes boxed and to my knowledge is the biggest 7" scale figure NECA had done at that stage - he has now been surpassed by the Alien Queen. The box will be an issue to MIB/MOC collectors as it is fully sealed with no window to view the product. For loose collectors like me, ED-209 takes some unpacking - but once you have unstrapped ED and brought him out of the box he stands a good 10" high and is very sturdy stood on the two legs. Articulation is limited, but I was surprised you can adjust the height of the legs on a ratchet system. There is also movement in the two weapon arms. The paint job is pretty good, you could argue that some weathering would have been appropriate but that is not to everyone's taste. Weight wise he is probably lighter than I imagined, and although I haven't had any issues yet I have heard stories of the usual NECA fragility and parts breaking a little easier than they should. NECA built in a sound chip to this release and it plays a number of clips taken directly from the film. This hasnt worked for me as the sound is muffled and pretty poorly defined, I also then worry about battery corrosion in the future as I still haven't worked out how to get to the batteries. At the £80 (approx) Price Point that NECA hit with this, it is an awesome figure and adds a real focal point for your collection. It's not as detailed or as articulated as the Hot Toys 1/6 scale - but nor does it need a small mortgage to buy it. I applaud NECA for pushing the boundaries on some of these larger figures and look forward to more in the future. 3 out of 5 for me, the sound-chip was unnecessary and lost ED-209 a mark.

Dead or Alive, you're coming with me... Robocop is one of the definitive pop culture movies of the 1980's and for me as a collector of Movie Action Figures a Robocop representation was a must for the collection. Over recent years the key Robocop Action Figures have come from McFarlane and most recently via NECA who picked up the licence. Having had a look at what was out there on the secondary market and what was coming I plumped for NECA's Robocop with Spring Loaded holster. The figure comes in the usual NECA clamshell with artwork front, back and sides taken from actual pictures of the figure. Robocopy stands around 7" high, in the approx 1/10 scale that NECA works within. Once out of the packaging and the figure is nice and solid, and unlike a number of NECA releases has tight joints. Articulation was never going to be great on what is an armoured figure. But there is movement in the head, arms, shoulders, waist and legs and you can get Robo into a few positions other than neutral posing. He stands reasonably well in neutral, but I have used a Kaiser Doll Stand to get him into a more action orientated position. Paint work is good, for what it is, and the sculpt is pretty spot on. The figure comes with swappable hand with the replacement version having the data spike as seen in the movie when Robocop links up to the Detroit PD computer. He also comes with the hand gun from the movie, which leads us on to the negative with this figure for me - the spring loaded holster. On paper this sounded a great idea, but the issue is that the mechanism is so delicate you will find it popping apart more than opening satisfactory for Robocop to grab his gun. There is also no real detail inside the opening, so once open there is a lack of detail. Close up and leave the holster alone, then Robocop is a nice addition for any fan. As well as this version, the sculpt has been re-used in a damaged version, a Robocop 3 version with jet pack and the new Video Game releases. I give Murphy a 3 out of 5, with two marks docked due to the spring loaded holster and how it could easily ruin a figure. Take that away - say in the damaged version or the Robocop 3 release, and the score will be 4 stars.

Planet of the Apes figures from Neca were only just on my radar in 2014 and had always been pushed aside in preference of other purchases. However with a lack of new releases in other lines for December I asked Santa for a couple of the POTA classic figures to compliment the movie figure collection. Christmas morning and I unwrapped Doctor Zaius Packaging wise, this seems to be a new direction for Neca and from a clamshell into a box very similar to and potentially inspired by the Star Wars Black Series 6". The box art is very nicely done front and back and the colour of the boxes are a match to the primary colours of the character Out of the box and Zaius is the usual articulated action figure you would expect from Neca. He feels solid, although I always worry over joint strength with any Neca figure and dont push them too far. He comes with a walking stick (my 2nd figure in December who needs a walking aid) and I think a bottle of somekind - need to rewatch the movie to find out more about this. He stands and poses very well for an older orang-outang and once grouped with one of the Chimpanzee's and a Gorilla Soldier will form a lovely POTA trio amongst my other movie 7" figures. Bravo to Neca for taking this range on and for going with an expanded core of characters. I dont think this line has major longevity, but it is a nice side project to get 5-6 figures out there for POTA fans. I give it a solid 4/5

Boba Fett was first made available in the Black Series range as an SDCC special box set at the 2013 convention - just ahead of his single release in wave 2. As well as special SDCC presented packaging, this Fett contained the Han in Carbonite block. The Carbonite block could be presented stood up, and also laid flat to look as though Boba is transporting it back to Slave I.