Nothing can equal the fun of actually playing with your toys, but a close second is watching them come to life before your eyes. The new X-Men Darktide DVD set gives you toys and a movie, so you can see the little guys in action. And action is half of action figure!

What you get with this set are four Marvel Minimates and a DVD with a mini-movie on it. The characters included are Juggernaut, Magneto, Wolverine and Cyclops and they only differ slightly from the regular release of each figure. They are the same with the exception of their expressions, which are new for this set. Juggernaut still has his extra hair piece so you can display him without his helmet, but unfortunately Magneto isn't similarly equipped.

The Darktide movie was created by Dave School and is completely computer animated. It has the four included characters plus Sentinels, Mystique, Storm and the Beast in Minimate form and will play on regular DVD players so you won't have to watch it on your computer.

The movie is more of a serial episode, and once you take out the credits it clocks in at around seven minutes of feature time. It's a nice, short little tale that just whets the appetite to see more and even has some voice work of Art Asylum's head inmate Digger. Here's a hint - A Digger would need claws to dig...

The reason for the shortness was the amount of time the school had to prepare the video. It took around six weeks to create and turned out very nicely. There are even little touches like the initial Marvel logo appearing with comic pages in the background that feature art in the Marvel Minimate style.

This set is a great thing for Marvel Minimates even though it is essentially a re-issue of older figures. Why? Well, it's marketed to new collectors and it will have a high print run, both of which will be good in the long run. Bringing in new collectors will help keep the line going and expanding, and Diamond Select is planning to continue with Marvel Minimates for a long time to come. The high print run helps the bottom line of the entire line, also a good thing.

It's understandable that some of the die-hards feel like they wanted more with this set, but you just have to understand that it is geared for new folks more than the core collectors. It uses more recognizable characters and it is taking advantage of the marketing buzz for X3 to get to more people interested. Or, in fortune cookie-speak - a hide tide causes everyone's boat to rise.

But the question is - should you get it. If you have all the characters already and new expressions aren't important to you, you'd be buying it for the DVD only. The movie is cool, but only seven minutes long so keep that in mind. If you don't have any of the characters, it is a great deal to get four figures and a movie for around $20.

Where to buy the X-Men Darktide DVD Set: The retail on this set is $20-25 and you can get it at your local comics shop and in Target stores once it makes it through their distribution chain. You can also get it from the following RTM sponsors: Big Bad Toy Store, Alter Ego Comics, and YouBuyNow.com. (Be sure to check the other RTM sponsors, listed on the Shop Center.)