Happy Holidays from the team at Geek Anything! Regardless of what holiday you’re celebrating, what truly matters is spending time with all of your favorite friends and family members and celebrating another collective rotation around the sun! The other most important thing is ensuring that you’re able to find them the very best gift to celebrate the season!
The series finale of 2021 is quickly approaching and several holidays are already well underway! We have been hard at work pouring over our collective wishlists over the last few weeks to come up with our Geek Anything Holiday Gift Guide: 2021 Edition! It’s safe to say if you’re reading our website that you have at least a few people that you’re shopping for that will adore the items on this list. We’ve really crammed and put our heads together to be as comprehensive as possible and came up with a list of our personal favorite “must-have” items that would make the perfect gifts this holiday season (even if a few of them don’t release until next year)!
Previously in Part 1 of our Holiday Gift Guide, we brought you some of our favorite Stocking Stuffers and Home Goods! This week, we are bringing you some real action! Action Figures, that is! Yes, it was inevitable. We are going to bombard you with some of the coolest action figures currently on the market that will make an unforgettable gift! We are also going to take a look at some of our favorite stylized vinyl collectibles from the crew over at Funko, which has become a genre all its own! Scroll on down to check out our recommended collectible holiday cheer!
Action Figures
Diving right in with one of our favorite lines currently on the market, we’d like to bring your attention to this epic line based on the iconic Lord Of The Rings trilogy! The film adaptations of one of the fantasy genre’s most celebrated works are commemorating its 20th Anniversary this year, and the team at Diamond Select Toys saw it as the perfect chance to bring these characters back in a big way! The Lord Of The Rings select line of 7″ scale figures are all fully articulated and come packed with some truly amazing accessories that make it seem as though the film is coming to life in your hands. To make things even better, Diamond Select sweetened the pot for collectors who pick up the first three waves of figures by including parts to build your very own massive figure of the evil Sauron! Wave 1 features Legolas and Gimli, while Wave 2 saw them joined by Frodo and a Nazgul. Wave 3 is just hitting now and sees the addition of Aragorn and a Moria Orc, while the upcoming Wave 4 brings us Gandalf and an Urak-Hai. There is also a special Deluxe Gollum figure that comes with multiple alternative heads and a display base!
Since we’re already on the subject of Diamond Select Toys, aside from Lord Of The Rings, their team has been working hard at producing some absolutely stunning figures based on plenty of other iconic film characters. They recently began working with Disney on licenses like The Rocketeer and TRON, plus their ongoing line for The Muppets is a fan favorite. They produced their first figures for The Crow this year, and their Iron Giant figure is (in my personal opinion) one of the best figures produced in recent years by anyone and an absolute must-have for anyone with even a passing enjoyment of the film. Finally, they just started to tackle the cult classic animated hit Invader Zim with a series of figure 2-packs that includes Disguise Zim with Dib, Alien Zim with Robot Gir, and Disguise Gir with Gaz!
Speaking of cult classics, Diamond Select Toys Minimates line of stylized mini-figures is still going strong after a whopping eighteen years on the market with consistent new releases! The latest pieces that hit the market include Marvel Minimates Series 81 (yes, they’re seriously on Series 81 of this line), plus Diamond Select’s first-ever team-up with Hasbro for licenses like G.I. Joe and Transformers!
Moving right along to a galaxy far, far away, it’s Star Wars! This year’s Star Wars offerings from Hasbro look to be leaning heavily on the new Disney+ streaming series — and that is definitely not a bad thing! From the 6″ scale Star Wars Black Series line, there are figures from the Clone Wars spinoff, The Bad Batch, as well as from the first-ever live-action Star Wars television series, The Mandalorian. Many of your favorites are here including Wrecker, Cobb Vanth, and the Heavy Mandalorian Trooper! There are also classic characters from the original trilogy available, like a Dagobah Training 2-pack that includes both Luke Skywalker and Jedi Master Yoda (and an adorable little backpack for Yoda to ride around in on Luke’s back!). George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise, has once again been immortalized in plastic, and this time he is in a Stormtrooper uniform, making him a must-have for fans of the saga. There are also many new releases for The Star Wars Vintage Collection of 3.75″ scale figures including Ahsoka Tano, Darth Maul, Captain Rex, and an Offworld Jawa.
Jumping over to the Marvel Comics universe, Hasbro also has some truly astonishing offerings in their long-running 6″ scale Marvel Legends line. One of the beautiful things about this line is the sheer level of variety we have been seeing in it in recent years. Whether you’re looking for figures from the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe release, classic comic book versions of your favorite heroes and villains, or even someone you saw recently in a video game or an animated series, Marvel Legends almost always has you covered! Some of our favorite recent offerings include the new Spider-Man-themed wave which sees both a Black & Gold Suit and an integrated suit figure for the titular hero, plus a new MCU version of Doctor Strange and our first MCU version of J. Jonah Jameson! The wave is rounded out by classic comic versions of Morlun and Shriek, as well as a video game figure of Miles Morales Spider-Man. Did we mention that you can build your very own massive Armadillo figure if you pick up the whole wave? We would also be remiss to not mention the upcoming Retro Carded Web-Armor Spiderman figure that is due to release early next year (preorders still make wonderful gifts and that figure looks amazing!).
Venturing outside the Spider-Verse, there is a new Retro Carded wave themed around The Fantastic Four that gives you the chance to pick up the full team and two of their iconic villains, The High Evolutionary and Psycho-Man! If you’re shopping for an X-Men fan you can snag a Deluxe Apocalypse figure. Or, if you want to go extra hard, you can snag them the new Wolverine-themed 5-figure box set! And, of course, you can’t go wrong with the Deluxe Hydra Stomper as seen in Marvel’s What If…? animated series.
On the opposite end of the mainstream comic book spectrum, McFarlane Toys has been crushing it with their DC Multiverse toyline! The 7″ scale line brings DC Comics fans a healthy variety (if you like Batman) of heroes and villains from the various iterations of the DC Universe with an emphasis placed on recently released movies and comics. While there are some glorious recent comic style releases like Etrigan on the market, the figures that have us most excited are the ones for the highly anticipated upcoming video game Gotham Knights! The game focuses on Batman’s squad of partners, which means that the wave of figures for the game includes most of our favorite sidekicks like Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and The Red Hood!
While on the subject of cool stuff the team at McFarlane Toys has been releasing, it would seem improper of us to not mention their new 7″ scale figure line based on the classic Rob Reiner film, The Princess Bride. The first wave of releases includes The Dread Pirate Roberts, Princess Buttercup, Inigo Montoya, and a Deluxe Fezzik figure. There is no word just yet on if or when we may see a second series of the line, but it seems inconceivable that we wouldn’t get an unmasked Wesley and Prince Humperdink before this line is finished!
If you’re shopping for your favorite horror fan, you can’t go wrong with Jada Toys’ new Universal Monsters line! While Jada isn’t primarily known for making articulated figures, these have quickly become a fan favorite among collectors. The four figures in the set, Dracula, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Bride of Frankenstein, each come with character-specific accessories to recapture the magic of these classic Hollywood icons. These may also be the firs-ever 6″ scale fully articulated figures of the Universal Monsters characters, making them a no-brainer for fans of the scale.
Speaking of horror, another line you should consider is the Ultimate Figures line from NECA Toys! While characters from other genres certainly make appearances (like the absolutely stunning figure of Goliath from Disney’s Gargoyles), the line is primarily horror-based and does exactly what the name suggests by giving collectors that definitive “ultimate” version of their favorite characters! The line touches on countless iconic characters like Ghostface from Scream, Universal Monster‘s original Wolfman, and Gizmo and Stripe from Gremlins! The real showstopper this year is the Ultimate Kessler Wolf from An American Werewolf In London. Somehow, even though this legendary horror film was released a whopping four decades ago, this is the first-ever action figure of the film’s titular monster!
NECA also has a terrific line filled with the cartoon versions of the entertainment icons you know and love, although you may not remember seeing some of them in this style before! With their Toony Classics and Toony Terrors lines, NECA has found a way to bring a new animated spin on many of your favorites, some of which have previously been animated like Ace Ventura, Bill & Ted, and the Back To The Future crew, while others are all new unique animated designs created exclusively for the line including Bob Ross, Quint (and Bruce!) from Jaws, and countless horror icons!
And, of course, since we are smack dab in the middle of the holiday season we couldn’t leave out NECA’s Retro 8″ Holiday Figures! This year’s offerings look to be a series of greatest hits from years past, including Buddy the elf from Elf, Clark Griswold from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and the unforgettable Wet Bandits and Kevin McCallister from Home Alone!
Wrapping up our recommendations for action figures is a little bit of everything! G.I. Joe fans will be thrilled when they unwrap their brand new Cobra B.A.T. and Alley Viper figures from the 6″ G.I. Joe Classified line! Meanwhile, if you’re trying to capture some of that 90s nostalgia, Hasbro has released their first Tigatron figure from Transformers: Beast Wars! They’ve also teamed up with Universal for some phenomenal Transformers Mash-Up figures themed around some of the most beloved films of all time, Jurassic Park and Back To The Future! If none of the other monsters we talked about quite hit the mark, check out Mezco’s Monster Tower Of Fear, an all-new playset that includes Mezco’s unique designs of Frankenstein’s Monster and the Gillman.
Funko
As a company, Funko has spent the last decade making a real name for themselves in the collectibles market. While they’ve been around for much longer than that, the last ten years since they debuted their POP! Vinyl line of stylized static figures have seen the brand shine brighter than anyone else’s in the same market. Funko POP! Vinyls have quickly become one of the easiest collectibles to give as a gift. There is quite literally a POP! Vinyl for everybody!
With all of the new pieces hitting the market every month, it seems nearly impossible to keep track of which ones we should even recommend to you for your gift-giving needs this holiday season. Some of our favorites, though, include POP! Vinyls from:
- The Mummy
- Marvel’s What If…?
- The Mandalorian (which even has a brand new spoilery figure from Season 2)
- Gremlins
- Adventure Time
- Deadpool
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife
- Halo
- The Boys
- Marvel Holiday Cookies (yes really)
- Cobra Kai
- Jingle All The Way
- Brightburn
- The Avengers
- Pokemon
- Xena: Warrior Princess
- The Eternals
If you’re looking to give something a little bit bigger, there are also some fantastic deluxe options available right now. It’s nearly impossible not to want this adorable meditating Grogu POP!, and Homer Simpson with the full living room display would make the perfect gift for a fan of the longest-running scripted series of all time! One of our personal favorites this year is the 6″ Super Sized POP! of Krang from the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series that perfectly captures the menace of the character in their massive android body!
While on the subject of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we know we touched on standard-sized POP! Vinyls already, but I wanted to shine the spotlight on this phenomenal new wave that just released based on the 1991 sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze! Funko has brought us new versions of all four of our titular heroes, plus Tokka, Rahzar, and The Super Shredder! Whether you’re shopping for a fan of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, or Raphael, these are sure to be a smash hit when they’re unwrapped this season! 
Last but far from least, we have some odds and ends from Funko. For a small-scale offering, we’re showcasing the new series of The Office Mini-Moments, which each includes one of the main characters from the series as well as a piece of The Office that will allow you to build a miniature diorama of this iconic location! If you’re trying to make a statement though, you can always go big with this gargantuan 18″ Batman POP! Vinyl figure styled off of Michael Keaton’s costume from Tim Burton’s 1989 masterpiece.
And with that, we bring Part 2 of The Geek Anything Holiday Gift Guide 2021 to a close! Be sure to stick around for the final selections for our list in Part 3 which should be posted soon! Definitely, dial back to Part 1 if you haven’t yet too! There are plenty of gifts out there to choose from besides the ones shown here, but we hope you found our guide helpful! Whether you’re shopping for family, friends, coworkers, or even just something for yourself, we’re wishing you a great holiday season from the team at Geek Anything!
Please Note: If you purchase any of the cool new items featured in this article, we may earn a small commission from this retailer. We thank you for your support but mostly just love showing you all this cool stuff we enjoy talking about!
