That one time Loot Crate's Thanos Oven Mitt burned people

 By Mark Rodriguez

Subscription boxes have really fallen as the novelty of getting random geek-related items in the mail every month seemed to have died down. Back in the day Loot Crate and Nerd Block were the top dogs when it came to geek boxes. As the years went on several boxes just died out, like the Nerd Block, the TMNT Box, 1Up Box and the SuperGeekBox. Loot Crate is still alive and kicking.. or not... it's really hard to say as no one seems to post unboxing videos anymore, though the site is still up. Currently food-related boxes are all the rage keeping the overall business model active. Other than then ProWrestlingCrate and All Elite Crate are still going strong.

This takes us back to the one time where one of the Loot Crate items turned out to be dangerous and had to be recalled. The box came with things related to the Hulk and DBZ, but the item in question was the oven mitt that was designed to look like the Infinity Gauntlet.

Pic courtesy of Crate Joy. I hope whoever unboxed this one was careful with the mitt back in the day and didn't get hurt

While the mitt looked cool, it seems it wasn't good to use as an actual oven mitt. It seems several people have reported actually getting badly burned when using this glove for its intended purpose. Lootcrate has told everyone to stop using the mitt and to put it someplace safe. They're going to either refund people or replace it with something of equal value. They're weren't exactly sure what they're going to do since they've never encountered something like this before.

I'm guessing the material the glove was made of wasn't thick enough to withstand standard oven temperatures. Honestly, this is something I'd keep on display somewhere and not use as an actual oven mitt to prevent any burn or grease stains getting on it... but that's just me. Loot Crate has said that they received 241 reports of injuries including burns and the glove melting on the user's skin. Ouch.

So we jump ahead to August of 2016 to see what they would give in exchange for the defective glove. It seems the replacement items were a t-shirt and a Simpsons keychain. I'm never found out what the t-shirt was and I kinda hope it was still related to Thanos. I mean, hey, you get 2 items in exchange for one, but imagine being a fan of Marvel and getting a t-shirt of some random show or series you don't care about instead. The Simpsons keychain seems totally random though, but hey, at least they did something to make up for a previous defective item.

 

I give credit to Loot Crate to warning people not to use the mitt and stepping up to offer replacement items. Nowadays I don't know what's going on with Loot Crate. They have lost of their classic boxes like Loot Gaming, Loot Anime and WWE Crate. It looks like you can still purchase the box, but the site only tells you it's a monthly box. There no longer seems to be a monthly theme, or a promise that this box will contain something related to Wolverine or the Ninja Turtles for example. 

Without knowing what's coming, or even if anything is coming due to lack of unboxing videos of current boxes online... I honestly cannot recommend you to purchase Loot Crate at this point. It's really sad that Loot Crate has fallen so low, but as long as their website is still up... there's always hope for a comeback? Maybe?

Do any of you guys out there still use Loot Crate? If so, have you received any of the boxes in the last couple of months? So far I have not heard any official word of it shutting down, but if so, let me know.