As of 2017, there have been a ton of POP’s released for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and most have been exclusive in some sort of fashion. So let’s take a look at all the exclusives for this line (SPOILER: It’s a lot of Groot). This review will be looking at all the exclusives that are currently out. Also, note that none of the pictures are mine.
Amazon:
The first one to talk about is probably one of the most interesting cases in my opinion. At one point Funko accidentally tweeted out the wrong image for this one and made fans go wild hoping that the original one would be the actual one. Sadly it was not the case because of how one of the end credit scenes represented this character. I am talking about Teen Groot. This is one of the taller Groot’s in this current line of POP’s, and it has been hinted at that this is the Groot we will see this May in Infinity War. He stands with his arms crossed and giving a moody look that we all associate with teenagers. This exclusive is still available on Amazon.
FYE:
There are two exclusives from FYE which were both released in the second half of 2017, and both are still pretty available to purchase.
The first one is a Drax exclusive which is rare itself since most of the exclusives on this list are of Groot, Rocket, or Star-Lord. Now I do say that this is a Drax exclusive since he is the bigger object and since he is carrying Groot. As you can see this Groot is in scale with Drax as opposed to most of the other Groots in this line which are only slightly shorter than your standard POP size. As mentioned earlier this is still available for purchase from the FYE site.
The other FYE exclusive is probably obvious since it’s one of three choices and it is the recently released Groot with Cyber Eye. One thing I will say about this is that you’ll be seeing a lot of Groot holding stuff with most of his exclusives. But this has him in his Ravager suit with the cyber eye from the film. He was originally only available for preorders, but that has since opened up to everyone and is now available on the FYE site as well.
Gamestop
I will say that this was one of the harder exclusives for me to find until I found it and now I see it at pretty much every Gamestop I’ve been to in the last nine months. The only real difference between this one and it’s main line counterpart is that this one doesn’t have the jetpack jetstream raising him from the ground. Another point I’d like to make is that his guns look a little like some of the blasters you’d see in a Star Wars product. The last thing of note is that the posing didn’t change all that much for him between the normal figure and his exclusives. But that’s not to say that there are differences. This is still available from Gamestop which is crazy to me since this has been available since the line launched. I picked this up at Wondercon 2017 when it was only available from third-party retailers. But now that it’s available at GameStop, you might as well buy it while they’re available. If you don’t have the money then you can just take their online survey and hope that you win the $100 gift card.
Hot Topic:
Both exclusives feature the icon of the franchise, Groot. One is available for purchase from Hot Topic and the other you’d have to pick up via a third-party.
Unfortunately unavailable from Hot Topic themselves, this was my first POP from this line and started the addiction and collection of this whole line of POPs. The expression on this one is hard to describe since it seems more like a “Woah” expression, but I am not too sure. He is also holding a Ravager symbol while wearing his Ravager outfit. Still cute though.
The other exclusive is still available online or in-store and has Groot in a different pose than pretty much all other figures of his. Here he is sitting in awe while eating candy. This one is probably my favorite from the newer wave of exclusives.
Marvel Collector Corps:
There are two exclusives here. Both are available as well. But there are some caveats to both of them.
This first one came as part of the Guardians of the Galaxy Collector Corps Box that released way back in April of 2017 and features Groot on tp of Rocket. Rocket is in a similar pose as his Gamestop exclusive but without the jetpack added to him and his facial expression is different. Groot is resting on Rocket’s head because clearly Rocket is Groot’s parent. The box is still available if you are a current subscriber to the service and it comes with a Dorbz Ride, POP Shirt, a pin, and a patch. And it is cheaper to get the box than to just purchase the POP.
This is also a current Collector Corps exclusive and is not part of any box. This Groot is the only one that I currently do not have in my collection but is on the way so I might have a separate post for it. This version of Groot has him holding the soundtrack for the second film. Not much else to say at the moment, but it is cool.
Target:
This one is by far my favorite, if only because of how difficult it was to find and just how happy I was when I found it at San Diego Comic-Con in 2017.
The “Life-sized” Groot stands at ten inches tall and is just the regular Groot POP but super-sized. This is only available through a third-party retailer and be prepared to shell out for this one. I am super bummed that I could not find this one at all, even with so many Targets around me. This is the only one I plan on leaving out of the box since this makes a good desk display if you have space on there.
Toys ‘R’ Us
Both of these exclusives are not available except by third-party sellers.
This features Star-Lord with his helmet on with a jetpack and holding one blaster. The only other Star-Lord figure from this line that has the helmet on is the Chase Variant of his main figure. Also somehow one of the harder ones to find since my local TRU had one but just the box with a normal Star-Lord figure in there. It was odd for sure. At least with this one, they couldn’t mess his facial hair up.
This one was part of that new wave but was also available at New York Comic Con last year making it a bit harder to get your hands on. And it rarely restocked n the site as well. As it is currently out of stock, third-party retailers will be charging a bit more for this one. How can you say no to that cute happy face?
Walmart
The last set of exclusives, for now, are not all that surprising given what the rest of the list has provided.
One more Groot for the list and this is just him angry in his Ravager suit. Not much else to it and also only available through a third-party reseller. Even at WonderCon, this one was a bit hard to find for some of us.
And the last one to round out the list is Star-Lord without his jacket or his guns. Although this was announced back in September Walmart had not released it until early December. But this features my favorite space outlaw in just his Gear Shift shirt featured in the film. No Groots in this one.
The one main issue I still have with this line is that there is still no Yondu at all. His likeness from the movie is featured on the shirt from the Collector Corps box but still no POP with the full mohawk. Maybe that might be in the pipeline this year, or maybe I’ll have to turn to a custom one. The other issue is that it is just way too much Groot more than half of the line is Groot. It’s understandable since the character sells, but I feel it is a bit overkill. Unless we get Yondu, then I’ll be ok with more Groots.
For all of your Funko and other collectible news be sure to check back here often as we will be keeping you up to date on what is next for collectors!