NECA has confirmed that their Mogwai series 3 will be indeed be coming out early next year. The line's continuation was previously in doubt following comments that its future depended on the Gremlins and Mogwai series 2 sales. In addition, Toys "R" Us will be selling an exclusive Christmas-themed Gizmo (hopefully) in time for the holidays.

Series 3 will consist of the hotly anticipated Stripe, a sad-faced Gizmo, and a previously unnamed Mogwai whom Neca has dubbed Haskins. I'm personally overjoyed that Stripe will in fact appear, as this mischievous ringleader of Gizmo's errant offspring has always held a special place in my heart. Plus mohawks are cool. Just ask his spiritual successor (or reincarnation), Mohawk, from Gremlins 2. Stripe's expression is intensely cutely evil which should make him a must-own for both fans and non-fans.

While I don't really remember Haskins, he must have been among the original batch from Gremlins given that the "New Batch" had a significantly smaller roster. The character design is fairly cute even if the coloring too greatly resembles Gizmo. As for Gizmo himself, I'm not terribly fond of either the expression or these repeated attempts to give us slightly re-tooled variations of the character in each 3-figure series. A plain version and "combat" Gizmo may have made sense, but now he's just eating up space in the line. I'll likely feel differently about the Toys "R" Us exclusive version, though, as it's not technically a part of the line and its existence (which may turn out to be great) therefore doesn't necessarily matter. The Toys "R" Us exclusive is billed as being a "Gremlins 1 version of Gizmo w/ Santa Hat, Candy Cane, & Trumpet as seen under the Peltzer tree" which, while sounding cute, is guaranteed to not be as awesome as the previous Lightning/Electric Gremlin TRU exclusive.

[ NECA blog ]