The UNSC Cryo Bay 97088 made its worldwide debut at a Canadian convention last month, but today it made its American unveiling at New York Comic-Con 2012! I had my first chance to get up-close and personal with the UNSC Cryo-Bay 97088 set from the Mega Bloks Halo 4 line. This is the preview set for the Halo 4 Mega Bloks series, and should be available in stores as early as November 2012.

The “big deal” with this set is, of course, that it will be the first set other than the $250 Halo Mega Bloks Forward Unto Dawn set to feature an official Mega Bloks Master Chief figure. It’s tough to believe that this is only the second Master Chief Mega Bloks figure with over a hundred Halo Mega Bloks sets released over the past few years, but it’s a strange-but-true fact.

The 72-piece set has a really cool-looking Cortana hologram that plugs into a base. This Cortana figure doesn’t light up like the one from the Mega Bloks Halo UNSC Forward Unto Dawn set’s does, but this set also only costs $12.99 compared to the $249.99 that the Forward Unto Dawn costs. For 1/20th the price, I can cope without Cortana being able to light up.

The box for the UNSC Cryo Bay 97088 was also present at the MEGA Brands booth. This is not a mock-up of the box–this is the final production design of the Halo 4 Mega Bloks UNSC Cryo Bay box.

In addition, I was able to get a photo of the back of the Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Cryo Bay 97088 box back, as well as a close-up of the text from the back of the box. It’s a pretty mundane and spoiler-free set description, so you can read without fear of ruining any important plot points from “Halo 4”.

The back of the box also features three of the Halo Mega Bloks summer 2012 sets, all of which have already been released in stores: the Halo Mega Bloks Warthog Resistance 97011, UNSC Armory II 96996, and Brute Chieftain Charge 96993. According to the staff at the MEGA Brands booth, the packaging for the UNSC Cryo Bay is final, so we’ll have to wait until later to get glimpses at some of the unrevealed 2013 Halo Mega Bloks sets.

The Halo Mega Bloks UNSC Cryo Bay 97088 is scheduled to be released in late October/early November 2012 at a retail price of $12.99. Online retailers and Walmart will receive the first shipments of the set, with other retailers following shortly thereafter. I’ll be on-hand at New York Comic-Con 2012 for the rest of the weekend, and will report on any additional new sets that MEGA Brands reveals in the Halo Mega Bloks line during the show.