It looks like Nerf is the latest brand to find it hard to keep its Comic-Con reveals a secret. Yesterday it announced a pair of blasters from a new Doomlands line featuring clear plastic housings that make their firing mechanisms visible so you’ll finally know exactly how those darts get launched.
Doomlands is also another Nerf line that features unique styling based on a fictional backstory — in this case they exist in a world where an asteroid impact wiped out civilisation almost a hundred years ago. It’s a mix of Mad Max, Star Wars, and Firefly, incorporating both high-tech sci-fi elements and low-tech wild west aesthetics.
The $US25 shotgun-styled Vagabond comes complete with a pump-action reloading mechanism, a six dart rotating barrel, and the aforementioned clear plastic sections of its housing that reveal how the reloading and firing works. The gimmick is kind of reminiscent of the see-through electronics that were all the rage in the ’80s, but it works here. With humanity supposedly being almost completely wiped out and all, you need to make do with whatever you’ve got.
The Vagabond is joined by the $US35 Lawbringer blaster featuring more of an over-sized revolver aesthetic. Instead of just six darts, the Lawbringer has a rotating barrel capable of holding 12 rounds of foam ammunition. And on top you’ll find a visible hammer mechanism that’s used to reload each shot. Perfect for shootouts in the belly of a space ship, or on a dusty back-galaxy planet.
Both Doomlands blasters will be available exclusively at Target starting on August 1. And kids, if you’re having trouble convincing your parents why these new blasters are a must-have addition to your arsenal, just tell them all those see-through sections are actually very educational. The last thing they will want is you learning about blasters on the street. [Nerf]
