L is for The Loyal Subjects

Odd name, crazy product, and it was actually a Walmart exclusive for Easter last year, marketed by Wave 2 LLC as The Loyal Subjects, but  not really available to me at the time, in fact I only re-discovered them by accident the other day! And it's been a bit of a merry-go-round getting them here in time, but we managed by the skin of the hairs on our chinny-chin-chins!

Not knowing how things were going to pan-out I helped myself to all last years promotional images, which as they differ from those on the packaging must be from Walmart's own PR department, a campaign which must have been successful, because dozens of blogs, websites, 'zines and so on, covered them in full, at the time!

I actually managed to locate some reasonably-priced mint ones; there are a fair few sellers around and about, but one is considerably cheaper than the others, so I grabbed two sets in the hope of finding a few glow-in-the-dark or rarer ones, but that's now for another day.

The Loyal Subjects' packaging artwork, There are ten basic sculpts with the glowing variants, and metallic rarities to find . . . there's a silver one on evilBay at the moment for silly money, but they will have sold in vast numbers a year ago (why there are still so many on feebleBay) and even the rare ones will still be turning-up, in mixed junk lots, years from now!

Pleased to see that Walmart put three aliens in their egg (you should get two and one 'other stage'), as I had done the same thing while I still had only a few! I refound them by accident, when some chap was selling a few of the same colour (with Lanard space marines as enemy!), and as soon as the first lot arrived, he listed another lot in a different colour, so I bought those, only for the cycle to repeat a third time!

The cavern! And my three tumbling out of their egg - after careful posing! I've missed out on one variant of blue wrap, and there may be a second green design, but it's not clear from the promotional shots. But all packs have two yellow eggs, so they are commoner than the blue or green.

Not knowing if the eggs would have the right mix, I then found a seller who was offering a set of all ten for a decent price, but when they arrived there was two blue and no purple! So I shot them against the hope a rabbit would be pulled from a hat . . . it was!

It was an honest mistake; he's obviously opened loads to make up the sets, and with four of the poses being very similar (red, green, blue and purple), had accidently sent me two alike, however he then fired-off the purple one in the mail (with a spare egg!) and it arrived earlier in the week, so I could get them finished in time for today! Happy Xenomorphic Easter!

[I'm sending him a UK food parcel (Marmite, Gold Bars, Tunnock's and Jaffa cakes) by way of a 'thank-you'!]

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And this bears a digression - The originals, like most evilBay stuff these days (which really should be called EVILbay) were sent via the 'Global Shipping Program', which 1) isn't global, there's only a few countries signed up to it. 2) Makes everything 8-14 days slower than if they are sent through the normal mail channels, and 3) seems to be a revenue generating scam for eBay, Pitney Bowes and Hermes (UK) while 4) possibly defrauding HMRC (?) as well as hideously overcharging the buyer (and short-changing the seller?), so all three 'agencies' can have a slice of purely invented pie!

Literally everything through the program is taking 10-14 days or longer, with an endless wait at "Global Shipping Center, Erlanger, Kentucky", while everything sent through normal, national, mail systems takes about 5 or 6 days. And while they sit in Erlanger, spurious and nonsensical 'tracking' notes are added every other day or so, dated to a day or two earlier; when there was no note on that date!

Now - I have been told that there's a way of opting out of the Global Shipping Program, but I can't find the button, so any help/thoughts on the subject would be appreciated by me and probably a lot of other readers?

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Facehuggers and Chest Bursters! There are two of each, so a decent set of four eggs should, could, might contain all four! Like the adult Aliens, both Facehuggers are similar, it's really only the tails that differ, These are not in scale with the fully-grown Xenomorphs, but - following the [fictional] 'science' - if the donor/infected . . . inseminated is an elephant or a rhino . . . !

I can't ever get the Spaceballs tap-dancing Burster out of my mind, despite having seen the Alien one may more times! The fact that John Hurt reprises his role "OH no, not again" might have something to do with it!

I was hoping to use the eggs to do an 'opening' video, and might have if the glitch with the purple one hadn't been sorted out, but it was, and I really am pushed for time at the moment (real life stuff), so I'll hold them sealed for now and get it sorted in a year or two, probably for Easter Day again. But; here's promo' shots with both the glowers and a silver Alien.

As I mentioned, the initial seller was including random Lanard troops (also a Walmart exclusive - in the 'States!) and they do make for the best enemy, although Previews Exclusive (PX) / DST (Diamond Select Toys) carried similar sized Colonial Marine troopers from EMCE's 'Nanotoys' design range. For the Facehuggers you'll need an Action Man/G.I.Joe!

Initial shot up at the gravel works a few weeks ago, and a full Xenomorph line-up, taken in the garden this week! The yellow one is a nice sculpt, but hard to get to stand up, while the Orange one is the most menacing, the others all look more curious, or surprised!

Oh! That's me on the radar, I'd better scoot . . . now where's the damn cat gone?!!