ALIEN Day has been and gone. A lot of good things have been announced and are on their way to us in the coming months. Super7 have already released their latest pair of ALIEN ReAction figures, NECA announced another crew member, Brett, in their popular range of 7 inch REEL TOYS and a few other goodies revealed. While these things are welcome, some absentees were also of interest. The most notable of these I’ve listed below.

Let’s start with Super7. Firstly, some of us were expecting the missing blue carded ReAction Wave 3 figure of Ripley (with Jones) to become available on ALIEN day. We even had confirmation from Super7 that this figure was indeed going to be available on April 26. Unfortunately, no. This didn’t appear. As to why? We have no idea. Presumably, it’s still happening and simply been delayed yet again. Oh well. So be it.

Along with the blue carded Wave 3 Ripley being absent from Super7’s announcement, their previously teased ReAnimated ALIEN figures also had a no show at this year’s 40th Anniversary celebration. As to when we’ll see any more details on these items, is once again, anybody’s guess.  This tease is all that is known about them:

Other ALIEN merchandise from Super7 is also known to be in the works and anticipation for reveals or more information was hoped to be on the cards. Sadly, no. We shall just have to wait.  Especially considering an availability date of June 2019 was provided.  Some suggestions abound that these items may have been cancelled but no information is available either way.

Nonetheless, Super7 will be continuing to release ALIEN product in the coming months. Wave 3 of their SPACE VILLAIN ReAction figure series is coming in June and somewhere down the track, more ALIENS figures will also be launched. It’s a bright future for goodies from Super7, for sure, regardless of some no show items we expected more info on.

NECA also shared in the ALIEN Day missing product line items as well. Of particular note was any announcement of their long overdue purple special edition Hadley’s Hope concept ALIENS warrior figure. This one has been a growing thorn in fans expectations since it’s been overdue for about 18 months now and still no sign of it. Not a good result from a figure that some fans demonstrated loyalty to the company by purchasing everything during 2017 for the privilege of exclusive opportunity to purchase this item. Errmmm… Yeah. This aint good, NECA. You could have at least provided an update on this long overdue item on April 26. But nope. Not a peep. People who’ve pre-ordered the item would have welcomed some ALIEN Day update on this. That would have been a welcome gesture and would have done a lot to appease some of the people who are still waiting for something – anything – regarding this item.

While not officially announced and largely only rumored to exist, another expected announcement from NECA was any word on the release of a figure featuring a new sculpt of the Big Chap. Other rumors persisted that a fresh version of this item was to be released in one quarter scale and was due to be announced on ALIEN Day. To be fair, this lack of announcement wasn’t NECA’s fault. This expectation was fueled largely on rumor and not on any genuine information released by NECA. We’ll forgive them for this false expectation.

While these and other items failed to make any appearance on the day, the most notable absentee was a big one. Many fans I’ve talked to felt the 40th Anniversary would have been an ideal opportunity for Fox to make some kind of announcement – or at least further assurances, at the very least – that a new ALIEN movie was to go into production at some point in the future. Unfortunately, once again, no. This opportunity didn’t arise.

No doubt Disney’s recent purchase and subsequent settlement of Fox in late February has kept any announcements on hold until Fox are ready to make appropriate reveals regarding any future entries in this movie series. We did see a set of 6 ALIEN shorts released during the month lead in to ALIEN day. These 10 minute long Tongal contest winners were terrific and I did enjoy them immensely.

I more or less enjoyed ALIEN Day. A lot of good stuff was announced and some items, like Super7’s new ReAction figures are already available. Each year, though, there always seems to be something missing and this year was no different – and I’ve probably not included everything that went missing on this list, either. No doubt we’ll hear more about these strangely missing items in due course. Well, we hope so, anyway.

-Windebieste.