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I wasn't quite expecting Commander Comet, the Man from Venus to be the token clear red figure in Galactic Holiday 2011-- I was actually expecting it to be the man from the red planet, for obvious reasons. Commander Comet looks really good in red, but obviously a little devilish with his glowing eyes and firey skin.
Because of Toy Fair in New York, figures like Mystron got written up a long time before they were posted-- this is what we call planning ahead. As the third release of the character, and technically the third pre-release as the painted version had yet to ship as of his release, this particular Mystron was cast in a bizarre green color. I say "bizarre" because, while appropriate for the Christmas season, I generally don't think of "green" when I think of "the center of the Earth" or, more specifically, Hell. Brown? Sure. Red? Absolutely. Smokey grey? Yes. But not green, even though it turns out the ghostly color really works well for this devilish creation.
The original Alpha 7 seemed like a sensible choice back in the 1960s, a small Martian which basically showcased everything mankind might have thought about when it came to benevolent "little green men" on the red planet. When these were larger, 6-inch tall figures, a shorter character was less of a big deal-- the pricing was different, and it didn't feel like-- forgive the pun-- you were being short-changed. While still a nice figure, the rising costs of the set combined with the positively tiny character tend to devalue the set a bit. The Galactic Holiday collection still looks wonderful and the bright colors go well with the rest of the line, but it's hard to be as excited when it comes down to bang for the buck.
Continuing a holiday tradition (for two years now), Electron+ comes to you in a clear colorless plastic-- this is only the second completely "clear" figure in the line, the first being last year's Galactic Holiday Xodiac. This time around, the figure features painted eyes, bright blue accessories... and not much else. Arguably, he's the best of the bunch.
Over at Store Horsemen are the Galactic Holiday 2011 Figures. They're up for pre-order now and, as previously reported, available with turquoise or lavender accessories-- or random! (I picked random.) A post on the Horsemen forum alluded to these going fast... which... well, you can still get the 2010 guys. But they did run out of the 2010 Infinity Series finally (for now) so you might not want to wait too much. A set of the 4 figures (not including both variants) will set you back about $63.
While no pricing has been listed just yet, the Four Horsemen posted shots of all 4 (technically 8) flavors of their new holiday figures, due to ship real soon. Mystron is green, Electron+ is clear colorless, Alpha 7 is blue, and Commander Comet is, oddly, red.