I was hoping to hear some good news out the U.K. Toy Fair, but, like all years, no American toy company reveals shit about its toys because the New York Toy Fair is three week's later. I don't know why the U.K. Toy Fair even tries. It's sad, really. Anyways, I've raided the news from the toy sites for everything worse mentioning (mostly through the great Action-Figure.com), which is this:

• Mezco's Series 2 Heroes will include Horn-Rimmed Glasses Guy, Niki/Jessica, Matt Parkman (with Molly accessory), Malcolm MacDowell as Linderman, and Future Peter. Series 3 will include Nathan Petrelli, Adam Munroe, the Haitian, Hiro in samurai armor, and GODDAMN KRISTIN BELL (as Elle). I now have a reason to pray for this toyline's continued success. There are no pictures, just mediocre drawings (Wave 2 and Wave 3) of the characters.

• Corgi (the die-cast car maker) is releasing 7-inch James figures, and what I believe are mini-busts. Darned if they don't have actually have pictures of Bond and LeChiffre from Casino Royale, and they look pretty good! There will also be figures from (sigh) Quantum of Solace (raising the question of who the fuck will be buying a Judi Dench action figure?), and more importantly, the classic Bond films. Wave 1 will include Oddjob, Scaramanga, Vesper Lynd and Honey Ryder; Wave 2 will have Jaws, Baron Samedi, Pussy Galore and Solitaire. There's also a drawing of a Christopher Lee figure from Man with the Golden Gun, which would make me wet myself with joy. Check 'em drawings of 'em here.

• Corgi is also releasing rather awesome Nintendo characters in the U.K., along with a play-sword out of The Legend of Zelda. I feel almost positive Corgi is importing these, but if they're actually making 'em, well done!

• Hot Toys is releasing Chubbies, which are very short, fat Star Wars toys. They look like Weebles, or possibly Mr. Potato Head without any potato-y goodness.

• Halo 3! McFarlane! Here!

• Hasbro's actually refusing to let members of the press see any of its Star Wars toys, apparently because a lot of it is based on the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon due out in late 2008. But someone snapped some Clone Wars Legos, and they look fun, although not fun enough to mend our broken hearts when the cartoon comes out and isn't a 1/4 as good as Genndy Tartakovsky's recent Clone Wars cartoon.

Jesus is coming, kids...and he's going to have really big eyes.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has launched the Bible Anime program, a line of "manga" comic book-inspired religious passages and Bible-based characters aimed at winning over youth in the predominately Roman Catholic country.

"It's our way of reaching out to young people, especially the children, who do not read the Bible. We want to encourage them to read the word of God," Oscar Alunday, a CBCP priest, said.

Instead of just Pokemon or Naruto, he said young Filipinos can now download the Gospel or any of the Bible-based anime characters, which they can pass on to their friends.

Things I would pay to see:

• David using the Fist of the North Star technique on Goliath
• A harem-show starring Moses
• Mary Magdalene as a Sailor Moon-esque magical girl
• Jesus powering up to Super Saiyan

(Via AsiaMedia; the pic is from the mind-shattering Chibi Jesus Fan Page)

This week's geek apparel of the week is a triple-threat from ThinkGeek.com—it's stylish, it's incredibly nerdy and it's a great Valentine's Day gift. Here's how it works: you and your partner each wear one of the shirts. A transmitter then detects how close or far apart the shirts are from each other. When you're walking hand in hand, the shirts' display a full, Zelda-style, heart-based life bar. When you dirft apart, the number of full hearts shrink until you get to that dreaded 2 and a 1/2 hearts-full bar (when the warning beeps start coming on—in the game, not the shirts).

Brilliant! You can even fail to buy the transmitter, if you're a cheapskate, or have no one that loves you. See it in action here!

FUCK AND YES. That's my reaction, mind you, not any kind of guarantee; seeing the only place the possibility of an animated Marvel Zombies has been mentioned is Shocktilyoudrop.com, and there as a rumor.

Still, it has some weight; Marvel's been cleaning up with their straight-to-DVD cartoons of Iron Man, Ultimate Avengers and Doctor Strange; and Marvel Zombies was one of the best-selling graphic novels of 2007, for it's touching scenes of Spider-man moaning about eating Aunt May; Iron Man keeping the Black Panther alive in a box to slowly eat pieces of his leg (that Iron Man, always thinking ahead!); and "Corporal" America losing the top half of his skull to his own shield. So anyways, I'm irresponsibly reporting the rumor in here in the hope that it spreads, forcing someone to make this bad boy.

I've been keeping mum on this little debacle, as I wanted to make sure it's just wasn't some massive web screw-up, but now it's become clear: anime licensor AD Vision is in some real trouble. I know they opted not to renew their Newtype magazine license (although they're starting PiQ in its place), and they closed their U.K. branch, but now they've actually removed all mention of some of their anime titles from their website, including Devil May Cry and Gainax's Gurren Lagann (shown right), two pretty anticipated releases. ADV finally commented to ANN, saying:

We know there are a lot of rumors swirling about, and that fans are looking for assurances that ADV will continue to distribute the anime series they know and love.

While we can't go into any detail at this time, please know that ADV is working through a few short-term challenges and fully intends to continue our releases.

Fans are freaking out, of course, but they actually have good reason to be; with my years at Anime Insider, I'm 99% sure about the following:

• ADV would never take down those trailers unless the Japanese content providers made the most dire threats possible, such as suing or cutting ADV off from future content; ADV knows that this makes their company look very bad, and intensely screws up their marketing for these titles
• The Japanese would probably not force ADV to take down those trailers unless ADV had really, really screwed something up, most likely failing to make some kind of payment; the Japanese know taking off the trailers screws up their series' marketing, so they're looking at something more important
• The problem is almost surely money, in that ADV failed to make a payment for these series; the company had a rough financial patch a few years ago until it received a large was of cash from Japanese company Sojitz, but I've been hearing rumors that ADV is strapped once again

Despite ADV's claims above, there is every possibility that these series won't be released; the problem would have to be pretty major to get to this level. Panic away, little otaku!

And now Jon Stewart is in Colbert's corner, as the Miss Elizabeth to Colbert's Macho Man Randy Savage.

By Kenny Herzog

There aren’t many events that can lay claim to having had both Prince and Carol Channing as their main attraction. But over the past 42 years, the Super Bowl Halftime Show has seen it all, from conventional marching band fare to Britney Spears trading verses with the only woman more haggard-looking than she is—Steven Tyler—to some middle aged lady’s breast falling out of her Hellraiser costume. Quantifying which ones were the most spectacular successes and phenomenal failures is all relative to whether you like your entertainment predictable and wholesome or epically absurd. We generally lean toward the latter, but taking all criteria into consideration, the following list ranks which Halftime Shows scored a touchdown with a two-point conversion, and which fumbled the ball after getting tackled by the kicker.

By Rob Bricken and John Frusciante

The fourth season of Lost premieres tonight, and we couldn’t be more exciting; for three seasons now, we’ve thrilled to all the castaways and the mysterious goings-on and general mind-fuckery that rules the hit show. But during the lengthy break, we also started thinking that most of the Lost characters are, well…kind of jerks. Assholes, really. And yet, we love to watch them. So without further ado, refresh your Lost memories with this trip down douchebag lane.

By Jon Gutierrez

If we’ve learned anything from "Rocket Man," it’s that not everyone should be allowed into space. Or to make movies, for that matter. However, the combination of giant explosions and possible death by suffocation make even the worst space vessels kind of interesting. Having already seen the best, here are the 10 worst we’ve seen.

• Tonner Doll, known for making exquisite and elaborate dolls of beloved movie and comic characters, will release a Wonder Woman...apparently dressed as some kind of exceedingly patriotic S&M queen. She's called "Justice Protector," but I'd prefer my retinas get protection from this fashion nightmare. Happily, there are only 300 of being made, so my chances of having to see her again is minimal.

• Lego got the Speed Racer movie license. Do you know what this means? Lego figures of Matthew Fox, John Goodman and goddamn Susan Surandon. I'm so close to making my Lego Thelma & Louise a reality!

• The new Playmobil catalogue is out, and it takes a very special kind of nerd to be excited by this. I very much am this kind of nerd. There's a new faux-Sea World, more pirates, some dinosaurs, and more. Enjoy it here, all three of you.