The Zavvi ZBox has to be one of the most mainstream players in the UK market for geek subscription boxes. It’s backed by a big company (The Hut Group) which also releases My Geek Box and has a lot of different subscription options, often coming with extra products to entice people to sign up.
In general, it also tends to be a good box. Being backed by a company of Zavvi’s size, it includes both unusual items and some exclusives. The box also benefits from a mini magazine, with short articles and details on the box contents.
If you do sign up with any other incentives, you’ll be paying £19.99 GBP ($28 USD) per month, including delivery within the UK. There are discounts available for longer subscriptions.
The box for March 2016 was delivered smoothly through Royal Mail, although there is never any notification of dispatch until the morning that the box is due to be delivered, which can make planning to be at home to receive the delivery difficult. This is generally one of the better packaged boxes, as there is an outer plastic envelope used to keep the contents secure, although one of the items did have some small transit damage to the packaging.
The ZBoxes are themed and this time the chosen theme was Guardians.
Box Contents
Guardians Of The Galaxy T-Shirt
This is inspired by a T-Shirt worn in the opening scene of Guardians In The Galaxy (although the reference to this one was lost on me until I looked it up).
Unusually, this choice of T-Shirts isn’t an exclusive, as I have found this for sale online from last year (listed at prices at the higher end of the geek T-Shirt range).
I like the grey background and the simple design, although this likely won’t be worn much.
I value this at the T-Shirt standard of $10 USD.
Severus Snape Funko POP! Vinyl
This was one of a selection of Harry Potter related Funko Pop! Vinyls that could have appeared in the boxes.
This one looks well made and represents an interesting character, although the box is rather bashed around, as if this had to be squeezed in to fit in the delivery. It is a 2015 release, so nice and recent.
You can see the Severus Snape Funko POP! Vinyl on Amazon. Typically, this is available for around $10 USD.
Ghostbusters Wallet
This is one of those tough paper wallets, which I believe is made of Tyrex.
It is well made, with plenty of slots for cards and notes, but unfortunately none for coins.
However, I do already own this, as I received the same wallet in the July 2015 Nerd Block.
In Nerd Block, this was billed as an exclusive. The only difference I can see here is that this doesn’t come with a card backing.
I’ve been finding former Nerd Block exclusives appearing in other boxes with increasing regularity, so I may have to rethink some of my valuations of these so-called exclusive products.
For now, I’ll keep the same valuation that I used before, which is $10 USD.
Halo “Hunters In The Dark” Book
This is the second time I’m aware of that Zavvi have put a Halo paperback in their box. They also had one in the XBox Gamer Edition which I received and reviewed recently.
This is a thick novel, which looks like it will be worth a read, originally released in June 2015.
This is billed as a ZBox exclusive, although I can’t see why, as Hunters In The Dark is easily available on Amazon.com. There, it’s received good reviews. There’s also nothing obvious to suggest that this is an alternative printing.
The typical selling price is around $10 USD.
Transformers Ultra Magnus Figure
This is a small figure, celebrating 30 years of Transformers. It looks like there were several different Transformers in the range that could have been included in the box, as this one is different to the picture in the mini magazine.
It also comes with a character card. I believe that you can put the cards from multiple packs together and the reverse sides form a simple puzzle.
This figure is billed as part of series 2 of the line, with 30 figures to collect across both series.
I can’t find out much about this line, which looks like it’s UK manufactured. Based on my experience with similar products, I’ll value this at $5 USD.
Heroes Godsend Comic #1 (Exclusive Cover)
This comic, released by Titan, isn’t included in the mini magazine, but has the logo in the bottom left corner of the cover to show that it’s an exclusive.
This is a the first in a five part prelude to Heroes Reborn, which recently concluded as a TV series.
The Comic Block for October 2015 contained the first in another prelude series to Heroes Reborn (that one was called Heroes Vengeance), so it looks as though the line has been a success.
The artwork is fine and this looks like a decent enough read, which I will certainly dig into.
The cover price for this comic is $3.99 USD.
More from this box: all our Zavvi ZBox reviews.
Box Review
The total value for this Zavvi ZBox is $49 USD. That’s very good value, particularly as I was able to take advantage of a discount for this box.
I always like receiving reading material in boxes, so it’s fun to have got both a paperback novel and a comic in this box. There’s also a Funko POP! Vinyl which I didn’t own and these always see to make boxes seem more substantial as well.
It’d disappointing to have received a duplicate item with the wallet but this is also a useful and quirky item and well-timed around the current Ghostbusters interest.
The Zavvi ZBox is consistently turning around interesting themes with sensible contents. Now is a good time to see what Zavvi have coming up for the future.
Zavvi ZBox has since stopped running, so the subscription link that originally sat here has been retired. You can still browse every Zavvi ZBox review on this site.
