Ok, so you should realize that there are no Giants out just yet, heck the game isn't even out yet!  But, with that aside, things have started to take place revolving around Giants and that has peaked my interest...with good reason too.

I have been too busy to update the blog, or really do much of anything video game related, for several weeks now.  A lot has gone on...Just because I'm not getting to update here, upload vids, or what not doesn't mean I'm not interested...oh quite the contrary my friends!

All this time I still look for variants.  As slim of a chance as it is to find one, it happens.  It has happened to me, and it continues to happen to others.  You just never know...and that is what drives me.

The last 3 weeks things have really gotten interesting.  More and more Giants items are going up for pre-order, getting butchered (Amazon Flameslinger, cough, TRU breaking the street date on the Dragonfire Cannon Battle Pack etc), and of course...stores getting their displays oriented for the influx of Giants!!

But before we go there, let me start with this observation...granted, I WANTED to post it about 6 weeks ago, but oh well.


Check this out:

Look how noticeable the green is on Stump Smash.  It is like a super bright green below his mouth, on top of his stump fists, and then the base is a really dark green.  If you've got an "old" Stump Smash this is a huge difference.  I really like the early release better.  You see this with others (notably Target Exclusive Whirlwind and Walmart Exclusive Drill Sergeant, but that was subtle).  This is a BIG DIFFERENCE.

I didn't get pics, but tonight when I thumbed through the Giants display at Target (more on that later) I saw a very dark blue Slam Bam.  My Slam Bam (looking at him on the pool table right now) is like an "ice blue."  Not sky blue, but a translucent, medium blue.  The one in the Empire of Ice APs I saw at Target and TRU tonight were all dark...think along the lines of Blue Bash.

Don't anyone get riled up...these are NOT variants.  That said, if you are, or know, an astute Skylander collector, they may be worth picking up.  For everyone else, don't bother.  And please, if you do not have Stump Smash...just take this one...don't go out and track down a "new in box" Stumpy from last fall for 5x retail.  It is not worth it!


First up, we have Triple Trouble:

I dubbed this Double Trouble "Triple Trouble" because it looks like he is ready to "boom-shaka-laka" his way out of the blister pack.  I have only seen 4-5 others that were not fully seated and this one really caught my eye so I figured I would share it.  This was at a Target on a trip several weeks ago (they had about 5x the stock of my local store)

Wham-Shell, Ignitor, and the Start of the Move:

So, for those of you veteran hunters out there you likely immediately gravitated to Wham-Shell.  This is honestly about the 4th time I have seen him in retail...ever.  For what it is worth, Zap has also been extremely hard to find in Single Pack form.  You will also notice Ignitor.  And if you must ask, yes...I did find Camo and Lightning Rod hidden a few pegs back.

But, if you followed the blog, you might notice the stray single packs to the bottom left.  Two new hooks appeared this day and I made a point to get them in...Up top they were covered by the usual Wii accessories.

A few weeks later:

What?  More blue space?  Yeah...empty, waiting blue space that is.  Note how everything has tidied up and shifted left.  In addition to the cases showing up, we now have Triple Packs all the way left.  The original display at this store covered only the "bricked" segment.  The "blue pegboard" was always Wii accessories.

Trained eyes will also notice the presence of the Skylanders stylus in the top left as well as what is a very sparse selection of Giants reservation cards (the game, not a figure).


Now, low-and-behold the next week (last week 10/4/12 fyi):

Yep, my store finally got the Giants display!  The thing is, I wasn't even aware of it.  Apparently Activsion has taken to end-caps, at least at Target.  From the video game section, I was exiting and saw an end cap (right past where I was standing).  I skimmed it and found nothing.  As I was leaving that area of store I turned and diagonal from this "new end cap" was the "Giants endcap."  It seriously makes a "Z" if you were to plot it out.  Tweak the end caps and we could be dealing with a compass symbol and an accompanying Freemason conspiracy on variants (I will seriously laugh an hour if someone takes that and throws it out on the net...try me).

Anyway, as one might expect I got pretty excited when I saw the Granite Crusher (Target Exclusive) display.  I immediately tracked down an employee and he said the had told them nothing on that, but that you could reserve a copy of the game.

When I hit the store up tonight it was the same layout.  Usual location (expanded) and two endcaps diagonal from one another.

With that in mind, take a gander at this:

This is TRU last week.  Same set-up as usual, but I did want to note the new backpack and fact that the Legendary Triple Pack was back...last triple pack on left side, bottom.  I wondered where they would put the Giants stuff, and just assumed it would be next to this set-up and possibly across the store like last year at launch (again let me hearken back to the glory days of October 2011 when the game launched and it wasn't popular yet.  Activision sunk some serious cash into all that display space and they literally had not only what you see above (full row), but also a wall on the opposite side with the stone pegboard going up to so high you could spot it from anywhere in the store).

And that brings us to this: