Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four First Steps Funko Pops

I don't blame Funko for going as off the rails as it eventually did. It gained national awareness and seemingly had every license in existence. It got as big as possible on a pretty simple idea.

I think the fad is ending, after, what fifteen years? I don't think of myself as someone who was ever a really big fan of Funko, and yet I've got Fantastic Four Pops, Weird Al Pops, Futurama Pops, the occasional Steelers Pop...a few years ago, Target sold an exclusive Rhinox Pop. I bought it. I suppose I'm as much to blame as anyone.

It was inevitable that Funko would make figures for the First Steps movie. These new FF designs are part of the third wave for the superhero team. The Thing and Dr. Doom helped launch the line back in 2008. Just a few years ago, Funko released a bunch of new figures as Marvel brought the title back from its hiatus, and we saw core characters as well as villains like the Mole Man and Super Skrull and a few mega-sized Things to boot. Now we've got a new line, with designs from the movie. I grabbed the Thing in his various poses. Let's take a look!

There are three versions of the character. The first has him in his First Steps costume.

The second is an Amazon exclusive with Ben in a trench coat. Funko upgraded their exclusive stickers relatively recently, probably because the previous ones were easy to fabricate. The new ones have the illusion of depth, and a QR code.

The third is a Target exclusive, with the Thing in his Galactus-chasing spacesuit. Target had space suit versions for all four characters.

Lastly, we've got a Comic-Con exclusive set of all four characters, in Funko's Bitty Pop! line. As the name suggests, these are the familiar molds, just a lot smaller. The figures are all about an inch in height.

This set has all four characters in miniature. Comic-Con also had a regular-sized H.E.R.B.I.E. figure. I wasn't able to grab this at the show, but prices were thankfully pretty low on eBay when I was finally able to grab one -- about $30. I'm glad that these were all pretty easy to find.