Collectables
Cluttering up our shelves this month
We’re not sure if these melamine Star Wars blueprint plates (FPI price £8.99; product code D5965) are square because gastropubs have made round ones unfashionable, or simply because that’s how things are in a galaxy far, far away. Either way, they’re poorly researched kitchenware. Among the seemingly random line drawings are a couple of glaring factual howlers: no, R2-D2 and C-3PO did not ride an escape pod in The Empire Strikes Back, and the Death Star destroyed in A New Hope was not the underconstruction version. Tut.
Hey, what about the Hufflepuffs? Half Moon Bay’s range of Harry Potter bowls (FPI price £9.99 each; product codes F3688, F3689, F3690) includes red Gryffindor or green Slytherin designs – deep and chunky, with the house crest on one side and a Quidditch Captain herald on the other. But what about everyone’s favourite house of herbologists? Don’t they deserve cornflakes too? Ravenclaw are also ignored, but that’s okay because they’re nobody’s faves. There’s also an angular cream and red Hogwarts bowl, which looks like it’s best suited to noodles.
Tony Stark may be a billionaire industrialist playboy, rocking the latest in hi-tech fashion statements, but beneath that charming armoured exterior is a man who loves his coffee. Well, probably. How else to explain why he’s flung the might of Stark Industries’ R&D labs into the creation of this Iron Man travel mug (FPI price £19.99; product code D3895). Colourcoordinated with Shellhead’s livery, it has a 450 ml (16 oz) capacity. Ideal for crafty java hits during superpowered smackdowns.
4 Hulk want hot beverage! Pour tea in Hulk’s mitt or Hulk smash! This cartoony
Hulk fist mug (FPI price £9.99; product code F2034) is very amusing – though there are two issues. Firstly, the reverse side features some horribly prominent bulging veins. Secondly, when holding the thing, it’s awfully tempting to give someone a jokey thump – this could end badly.
5 Being a super-powered Kryptonian must expedite the business of making boiled eggs for brekkie considerably – there’s no hanging around while the water boils, as you just zap it with your heat vision. But a Man of Steel still needs some way of standing them up, which is where this pair of
Superman egg cups (FPI price £7.99; product code F3691) comes in. We particularly like the one with a design of Clark ripping his shirt open – maybe you could felt-tip his face on the egg?
6 Funko’s cutest vinyl figure range continues with these
Civil War Dorbz (FPI price £8.49 each; product codes D5609, D5607, D5606, D5603, D5605, D5611, D5604). Lining up here are Crossbones, Black Widow, Black Panther, Captain America, Falcon, Vision and the Winter Soldier. There are also figures of Iron Man and Ant-Man, plus some variants (Crossbones,
for example, also comes with no mask and a smashed mask!). No sign of Spider-Man, War Machine, Scarlet Witch or Hawkeye, though. If only the film’s makers had also been sensible enough to prune some of the unnecessary heroes…
7 It’s difficult to know where to put this 12” Death Star
plush (FPI price £18.99; product code D5942). It can’t serve as a novelty cushion because of a little button hidden above the weapons dish: press this and it emits one of three movie samples. Annoyingly, when you cut off the card label it leaves two little holes in the fabric. Hey, Underground Toys, why not attach it to the massive care-advice tag instead?