The Simpsons ULTIMATES! Wave 3

Super7 put Mr. Burns, Ralph Wiggum, and the Kang & Kodos duo into fully articulated 7-inch figures, with the actual props.

Kidrobot didn't invent the vinyl toy, but they invented the trick that made it addictive: blind packaging. You didn't know which figure was in the box until you opened it — a low-probability "chase" figure buried somewhere in every case, the same mechanic a video game would later get dragged in front of regulators for calling a loot box. When they did a 24-figure Simpsons series with Matt Groening back in 2008, that's the machine it ran on: buy, open, hope.

Super7's ULTIMATES! line, whose Wave 3 just landed, doesn't play that game — you pick your figure off the shelf and know exactly what you're getting. Mr. Burns comes with Bobo, his childhood teddy bear; Ralph Wiggum with the "I Choo-Choo-Choose You" Valentine; Kang and Kodos as a pair, alien Maggie included, plus the "How to Cook for Forty Humans" cookbook. Full articulation, real accessories, no gambling required — the collectible-toy industry spent about fifteen years figuring out that "mystery" and "extraction mechanic" are the same word, and this is one of the corners that walked it back.

One thing the box doesn't tell you either way: Kang and Kodos aren't generic sci-fi aliens, they're a Star Trek deep cut. Kang is named after the Klingon captain from "Day of the Dove," Kodos after the mass murderer from "The Conscience of the King." Writers Wallace Wolodarsky and Jay Kogen buried that in the first Treehouse of Horror in 1990, and it's been sitting there for thirty-six years for whoever bothers to look it up.

Found via Super7.