#4150: Jetstorm

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

JETSTORM

BEAST MACHINES (McDONALD’S)

In this site’s 14 year run, there have been only two McDonald’s Happy Meal toy reviews, and only one of them was actually written by me.  These days, they don’t tend to be anything all that impressive, but back in the day, back in the ‘90s?  Well, also then they were frequently not that impressive, let’s all be honest.  But every so often you got some that went above the grade.  Offered something at the very least close to the level of quality you might actually even intentionally pay money for.  Today’s one of those.  Let’s talk about Beast Machines.  After a successful three season run with Beast Wars, Hasbro decided they wanted a sequel show, with the remaining cast of Wars returning to Cybertron after leaving prehistoric Earth, and facing Megatron and his army of Vehicons.  While Beast Wars was certainly no stranger to some pathos and serializing of the story, Machines took it even further, and the results were…well, they were mixed to say the least.  Between the two shows, two of the surviving Maximals, Silverbolt and Rhinox, found their sparks reformatted and transferred over to the bodies of two of the Vehicon generals, Jetstorm and Tankor.  Intrigue!  Silverbolt’s kinda my guy when it comes to Beast Wars, so keeping with that theme, I do also kinda like Jetstorm, and I’m looking at his Happy Meal toy today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jetstorm was released as one of the 9 available toys in McDonald’s Beast Machines promotion, which ran in August of 2000, alongside the show’s second season’s debut.  They covered pretty much the whole core cast of the show, with figures that could transform into both modes for the characters, at least to some degree.  In his robot mode, Jetstorm is about 3 1/2 inches tall (I won’t say “stands” for reasons I’ll get to shortly) and he has 7 workable points of articulation.  So, why not “stands?” Because he really doesn’t.  In the show, Jetstorm would simply hover around when in his robot mode, and as such doesn’t *really* have legs.  The Hasbro figures (which were all quite off model) just gave him legs.  This one, on the other hand…well, you can split the nose of his jet mode in two and make it sort of sit flat, so there’s I guess sort of a way to make him stand like that.  It’s not really very stable, though, and obviously not accurate.  For most of the photos, as you can see, I’ve got him on a flight stand I personally provided, but he’s otherwise not great with remaining upright.  How’s that sculpt, though?  Honestly?  Not terrible.  Sure, he’s kind of chunky and clunky and all the other “unkies,” but compared to what Hasbro put out in the main line, it’s probably the closest any Jetstorm figure gets to actually being show accurate.  He’s even kind of posable, and also pretty decently painted, again, given the market here.  He transforms into his jet-mode, as you would expect, and it’s obviously gonna be pretty simple, but it works well, and the mode is sufficiently different from the robot one, as well as being decently accurate to the show model.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I watched a *little* Beast Wars when it was on, but not much.  Beast Machines, on the other hand, I actually saw a lot of in its first run.  Fox Kids was also running Avengers: United They Stand and Digimon in ’99, so I got into pretty much watching the whole block, Machines included.  I didn’t *love* it, but I dug the Jetstorm stuff, and then some re-runs of Wars caught me up to speed on Silverbolt, and I really liked him, so that kind of stuck.  Back in 2000, my cousin Rusty got this guy, and he didn’t really care about it, so I ultimately got to keep it, and I always rather liked it.  I couldn’t tell you what happened to it over the years, but I missed it.  Seven years working at a toy store gives you a lot of access to pretty much everything, so I did eventually see this guy come through, and Max pretty much forced me to take him home.  He really had to twist my arm on that one, I swear.  He’s fun.  He’s basic and clunky, and definitely a toy that came packaged with some food, but within the confines of what he is, he’s really cool.

#4149: Dr. Mid-Nite

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

DR. MID-NITE

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“The original Doctor Mid-Nite, Dr. Charles McNider, lost his sight to a grenade, and fought crime alongside the original Justice Society of America.”

Before Matt Murdock’s debut as Daredevil in 1964, the premier visually impaired vigilante was Dr. Mid-Nite, a golden age DC hero who first appeared in 1941.  In contrast to Murdock, who was truly blind (albeit with greatly increased senses otherwise), McNider’s vision returned in the dark, allowing him to still see at night or through use of special darkened lenses.  What does that mean?  Mostly, it means that sick-ass goggles were a standard part of his costume design, and who doesn’t love that?  Toy makers certainly do, if the decent number of Dr. Mid-Nite figures out there is anything to go by.  Here’s another one!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dr. Mid-Nite is the final figure in the 14th assortment of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, where he’s figure 72 in the overall line-up.  He’s the third of three JSA members in this set, seen here in his classic costume.  The figure stands just under 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Mid-Nite is built on the line’s original Superman base body, admittedly not one of my favorites, mostly due to the kind of oversized nature of it.  McNider was classically shown to be of a more average build, so I’d have more expected the Flash-style build.  It seems to have been largely chosen because they had the cuffed boots for it, used by Black Adam in this same assortment.  It’s worth noting that the Starman from the three pack was on the same mold, and McNider did pass himself off as Ted in-universe for a while, so there’s at least some internal consistency there.  He gets a new head sculpt and a belt add-on piece.  Sizing aside, it all fits together pretty well, and I do especially like the head sculpt, which manages to get Mid-Nite’s classic look down pretty great.  It’s all topped off with a cloth cape piece, and its honestly one of the best capes in this last run of figures.  There’s just something about the particular material that hangs really well on the figure.  The color work on this figure is appropriately bright and eye catching, which I always do like.  The paint application’s generally okay, though there’s some notable slop and bleed over around the goggles on the head, which I don’t love.  Otherwise, though, it all works out okay.  Mid-Nite includes no accessories, which isn’t all that odd for the line, but I do kind of wish they’d included his pet owl Hooty.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I quite like the JSA in general, but Dr. Mid-Nite’s always been a particular favorite of mine, going back to the old DC Direct PVC collection figurine.  I’ve picked up a few of his other figures over the years, but, with the advent of adding more JSA members to the Super Powers line-up, he’s certainly been high on my list.  He was by far the figure in this set I was most looking forward to.  While I’m not crazy about the choice of base body, I do still love the final product, and he’s absolutely my favorite of the set.

#4148: Penance

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

PENANCE

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“The young woman called Penance possesses the mutant ability to internalize negative energy around her, turning her body into a diamond-hard, razor-sharp weapon. Held prisoner by the energy-stealing mutant Empath for an undetermined number of years, she escaped and was transported to the doorstep of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Now, Banshee and Emma Frost face the challenge of reaching out to help a girl who can slice apart anything she touches”

Okay, so there’s this Marvel character named Penance, and their identity is all mysterious, and they’re wrapped up in some sort of weird…bondage related gear, and their gimmick is like, pain, and being literally edgy.  Would you believe that this has happened twice, with two completely unrelated characters?  Because it has.  And one of them is objectively better than the other, but given that one of them was “let’s take Speedball, a fun lovable character and make him angsty and broody and just totally ruin him,” the other one being “better” isn’t exactly high praise, but it’s where we are here.  Introduced in Generation X #1, Penance was a big ol’ mystery character, though she was originally intended to be a random Yugoslavian girl named Yvette.  A creative team change just kind of made things more complicated, as it was revealed that Penance was in fact Monet St Croix, and that her fellow Gen X team-member who was supposedly Monet was actually Monet’s younger twin sisters Nicole and Claudette fused into one being, masquerading as their older sister.  An altercation with Emplate (who was revealed to be the eldest St Croix sibling, Marius) put Monet back in her own body, and the twins into Penance’s body, but then they got removed as well, and the body that was Penance continued on as “the Hollow” for a bit?  Are you confused?  Well, yeah, that tracks.  Me too.  Anyway, here’s this figure of Penance, from when she was secretly Monet St Croix…well, at least in continuity, if perhaps not in reality.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Penance was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Generation X tie-in line.  She’s the final team member in the set, though I suppose “team member” is at times a loose term with her.  She’s got the uniform, though, is more what I’m getting at.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  Penance’s sculpt has a lot of similarities to Chamber in its approach, with its even more limited articulation relative to the others in the line, the sort of softer detailing, and the decision to put her in a team uniform she was wearing on the covers, but still not in the book at this point.  The softness is odd, especially for a character like Penance, whose whole gimmick is “real sharp.”  It’s not the worst, overall, and it covers the basic details of her design alright.  I think the head, particularly the hair, seems to miss the mark a bit on how she looked in the comics.  It’s just got too much volume and roundness in its shape.  Penance has a built in slashing action feature; pushing down the lever on her back swings the arms up and down. In terms of coloring, Penance is sort of brighter than she maybe should be, I feel.  She was wearing mostly black in the comics, but here it’s a sort of mid-tone purple.  It seems…off?  I feel like the softness of the sculpt wouldn’t be as obvious if it weren’t as bright.  Penance was packed with four shackle pieces that go on her arms and legs, as well as a display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t really have much of an attachment to Penance as a character, aside from knowing this figure existed, and reading some early issues of the comics back in the day, and she’s not exactly one I really invested myself in after the fact.  She’s…you know…kinda confusing.  The figure isn’t confusing, I suppose, but she’s also not great.  It’s a design that didn’t really translate all that well, and without the attachment to the character like I had with Chamber, it’s hard to feel much about this figure.  It…is?  So, that’s what she’s got going for her.  Existence.  Well, it puts her ahead of some of the other team members.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0096: Time Traveler

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , ,

TIME TRAVELER

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

Welcome to Friday everyone! We made it! Hooray!  And I’m here to talk about Micronauts, for a second time in the same week!  Is that even legal?  We’ll find out, I guess.  Here’s a second look at the Time Traveler!

Mego’s Micronauts line of the ‘70s was never a super huge hit, and it was definitely overshadowed by the many toys first toylines of the ‘80s, but it does still have something of a cult following. This cult following helped get the line a relaunch in the early 2000s, courtesy of fan-favorite toy company Palisades. Palisades put a lot of effort into bringing Micronauts back. Sadly, the line was cursed with several pretty awful factory issues, causing the final figures to suffer, hurting the sales of what was already a pretty niche line. This came back to bite Palisades pretty hard, leading to the end of their Micronauts line after just two full series, and their eventual bankruptcy. Kind of a bummer. So hey, how ‘bout those figures, though? Let’s have a look at what is perhaps the most iconic of all Micronauts figures, the Time Traveler!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Time Traveler was part of the first series of Palisades’ Micronauts line. The figure was available in four possible color schemes, two transparent and two opaque. This one is the clear translucent one, which is a pretty direct recreation of one of the original Time Travelers, with just a few minor differences. He’s 3 ¾ inches tall and he has 18 points of articulation, same as his 70s predecessor. Sculpturally, this figure is more or less identical to the original version, but there are a few differences to note. The real differences are on the head, which is a little thinner than the original and features a higher level of detail work. It’s certainly a higher quality sculpt than the original, though I’m not sure I prefer it to the original. It’s in that weird area of being a more modernized sculpt that still possesses many of the style tics of the vintage toy, but without the nostalgic charm. The Time Traveler possesses no actual paint, but his head and all of his chest plates are done in a nice vac-metalized gold. The golden head is actually another change from the vintage figures, where all of the Time Travelers were silver. While the original Time Traveler figures each only included a single chest plate, chosen at random from the four possible designs, Palisades’ Time Traveler included all four of the original plates, as well as two new designs (though, I could only find four of the chest plates when I went to take the pictures!). My personal favorite is the “windows” piece, but they’re all pretty cool. The Time Traveler also included the L-port piece from the original figure, as well as a black display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Palisades’ Micronauts line, amongst other things, was not super easy to find, especially before the introduction of all the online toy buying options we now have. I did end up finding a Time Traveler at an out of the way toy store around the time of release, but it wasn’t this one. Unfortunately, the first series figures were incredibly fragile and he ended up breaking, which was a definite bummer. I ended up getting this guy many years later, courtesy of the Toy Robot Museum, near Allentown, PA. Even with all of the factory issues and the slight changes from the originals, this guy’s a lot of fun, and I’m definitely glad I managed to find one.

In October of 2015, I decided to rip the band-aid off on discussing Palisades’ Micronauts, and really did just jump right into it there, huh?  Back when they were new, I was downright obsessed with the Palisades run, but I only owned four of them during the line’s actual run. It was ultimately better that way, I think, because it’s a frustrating line.   My review holds up fine, but I was missing two of the chest plates at the time, which I’ve since found again.  Unfortunately, in the mean time, he’s also succumb to the dreaded Series 1 quality control issues, and one of his elbow joints has cracked, so these new photos are *very* carefully staged.  I do still love these figures, but it’s definitely better from afar.

#4147: Commander Fox

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

COMMANDER FOX

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Commander Fox heads a squad of clone troopers who accompany Padmé to the palace of Ziro the Hutt. She hopes to reopen negotiations with the Hutts, who have been tricked into believing the Jedi abducted Jabba’s son. The commander finds a hostile reception when the group arrives at Ziro’s lavish palace on Coruscant.”

The last time I was talking about Clone Wars, it was the Genndy Tartakovsky 2D-animated series, which actually aired between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but there’s *another* Clone Wars animated series, launched with a 2008 theatrical film that served as the pilot to the show, which ran for seven seasons over the course of 12 years, and actually got a lot more toy coverage.  A lot of toy coverage that I happen to own, so behold, a new Star Wars theme for me to dive into for a good long while!  The back bone of Hasbro’s Clone Wars tie-in line was, unsurprisingly, the clones, and today I’m looking at one of those, Clone Commander Fox!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Commander Fox was released early on in Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars tie-in line, right around the initial launch assortment and the theatrical release of the movie in 2008.  He was an exclusive release to a retail chain that shares his taste in being primarily red.  And also his taste in just being…the worst.  And turning on the people that trusted them.  Man, maybe Fox was a better fit for an exclusive than any of us knew in 2008.  I’m getting side-tracked though, aren’t I?  Fox was a standard packaged figure stuck into a clamshell, which was used to justify charging an extra $6 for him, which didn’t go over well at the time, but then people bought him anyway, so I guess no lesson was really learned.  Fox was seen here in his Phase I armor, which was all we knew him in at the time.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 24 points of articulation.  Fox was entirely built from parts re-used from other figures in the launch assortment.  He’s predominantly the first Captain Rex figure, minus the removable pauldron and with the alternate helmeted head from the first Obi-Wan.  While the parts aren’t bad at all on their own, it’s a slightly awkward combo, mostly owing to the fact that the head sits a bit too high on the neck joint, so he’s got a bit of giraffe neck going on.  Otherwise, the figure’s mostly being sold by the new paint scheme.  The red seems a bit too dark, and the application’s a bit sloppy around the edges, but he’s at the very least pretty unique.  Fox is packed with a DC-15 long blaster rifle, and a pair of DC-17 blaster pistols.  He was notably lacking in the missile launcher style accessory that prominently featured in the early line releases, despite his much higher price point.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I recall Fox being released back in ’08, but I never actually saw one at retail, so I never had a chance to debate whether he was worth the extra money or not.  2008 me probably would have caved, if I’m honest.  That said, it was actually 2019 me that ultimately did the caving, when I got the chance to snag a sealed one through work at a stretch of time where he’d actually fallen a bit in value.  It’s honestly wild that he was so much more expensive than the main line, because he feels rather behind where most of this line was.  He’s certainly not bad, mostly by virtue of working from a really good bank of parts, but he’s a little awkward in his assembly, and he just has this overwhelming feeling of being rather phoned in.  Hasbro just hadn’t quite worked out how to make these repainted exclusive clones work to their advantage just yet for the line.

#4146: Acroyear & Time Traveler

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

ACROYEAR & TIME TRAVELER

MICRONAUTS REACTION+ FIGURES (SUPER 7)

The list of current toy lines I’m actively invested in these days is a very short one.  Mostly, it’s the McFarlane Super Powers and Super 7’s Micronauts.  I’ve loved Micronauts since I was a kid, but it’s been a lot of loving from afar, because vintage pieces in good shape are tricky, and the attempts at reviving the brand can be even trickier.  But, it does seem like Super 7’s been having some success with their go at it, and I’ve been immensely enjoying that, so here I am, looking at the next two offerings in the line, an Acroyear and another Time Traveler!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Acroyear and Time Traveler make up the sixth series of Super 7’s Micronauts ReAction+ Figures line.  If you’ve been following my reviews, you might notice a skip from Series 4 to Series 6; I didn’t miss any figures, but Super 7 apparently counted the SDCC re-packs of Biotron and Karza in new boxes as a “series,” so here we are.

ACROYEAR

Hey, it’s a new mold!  Yay!  Counting the SDCC set, we’ve had two sets in a row that were re-used molds, but we finally get a new one, in the form of the Acroyear.  The Acroyear is one of the signature designs of the original line, forming the backbone of the villainous side, equivalent to the Time Traveller on the side of the heroes (though neither *really* fit those roles in the associated fiction).  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  The original Acroyear (whose mold I looked at via the Palisades Battle Acroyear release) used a solid construction mix of plastic a die-cast, rather than the o-ring construction of others from the line.  As with all the other non-o-ring figures from this line, for this release, he’s been migrated to the o-ring construction.  That said, unlike the “trons” and magnetic figures, this figure maintains the outer appearance and scaling of the original, with one the internals and articulation scheme actually changing.  Mostly, it means he gains swivels on the upper arm and wrists, as well as movement at the waist, while removing the movement on the shins.  While I miss the shin swivels (and the transformation gimmick that accompanied them), I do really like the new joints on the arms.  He also still gets the wheels on the bottoms of the feet, which are quite a lot of fun.  As with many of the original Mego Micronauts, Acroyear was offered in multiple colors, specifically pink, green, and blue.  This release goes with the blue, which isn’t quite the standard, but is a good look, and one I rather like.  The blue chrome looks very slick, and honestly is a lot more saturated than I’d expected.  Acroyear is packed with his wing pack and a small dagger.  The wing pack is scaled down a bit from the vintage (and Palisades) counterparts, but still looks the part.  The turbines are now a removable element, if you’re into that sort of thing.  The dagger matches well with the original, and it’s fine, though I do kind of miss the Palisades-style sword.

TIME TRAVELER

The first Time Traveler release in this line did two of the original four colors at once.  The follow-up did one additional color.  It didn’t take much of a fortune teller to guess there’d be at least one more.  We got blue, yellow, and orange, so the only one missing was clear, which is the one we got here.  Honestly, the clear’s kind of the go-to look for the “main” Time Traveler, so it’s probably the most essential of the bunch.  As with the orange Traveler from Series 4, the mold here seems to be slightly degraded from the Series 3 releases, which were just a bit crisper.  It’s still not a bad mold, though.  This one gets the fourth chest-plate design, the “radio dials” piece, rounding out the set of chest-plates.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The last set of these felt a lot more like playing it safe, so I was definitely hoping for something a little more adventurous this time around.  The Time Traveler was pretty much a lock, but the Acroyear was definitely on my short list of hopes.  I was very happy to see the announcement, and it was honestly kind of crazy that they were just available and in stock with no prior announcement.  The Acroyear is very much the star here.  I love the look, and the changes work well.  I look forward to buying this in the additional two colors, presumably over the course of the next two sets.  Retread though he may be, I do really like the Time Traveler, and I’m glad to have rounded out the four core color variants.  I’m curious if they’ll do the opaque variants, but I’m honestly hoping for a break from the Travelers for a minute, because I desperately need a Space Glider update.

#4145: Wildcat

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

WILDCAT

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“In 1941, boxer Ted Grant was framed for murder and on the run when a comic book inspired him to don a costume and track down the real killer. As Wildcat, Ted cleared his name and, loving the double life, kept going.”

Ted Grant’s adoption of the Wildcat identity wasn’t all that removed from most costumed heroes of the Golden Age.  Guy has run-in with crime, wants to solve crime, puts on mask and adopts vaguely-themed supranym.  He didn’t really have any notable gimmicks, aside from being a boxer, which did at least make more sense for the line to crime fighting career than the myriad of scientists and doctors that got into it most frequently in the Golden Age.  When Earths 1 and 2 merged following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wildcat’s background as a boxer and as one of the old guard super heroes led to him being the guy that trained a lot of the current generation of heroes, which was a pretty good touch, and gave him a solid footing and connection to the modern heroes.  He’s remained a fan favorite, which is pretty great for a guy whose first appearance had him playing second fiddle to Wonder Woman.  Wildcat has been no stranger to action figures over the years, and his latest comes in the form of Super Powers! 

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wildcat is the second to last figure in the 14th assortment of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, where he’s figure 71 in the overall line-up.  He’s the second of the three JSA figures in this round, sort of serving as a bridge between the more modern (Black Adam) and classic (Dr. Mid-Nite) memberships.  He’s using a more classic version of his costume, pre-hand wrappings and more defined mask, which fits better with the usual Super Powers period, as well as most of the other JSA-ers featured in McFarlane’s updated line.  The figure stands just under 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Wildcat is using the modified Wave 10 version of the newer Superman mold as his base.  It’s got some plusses and minuses.  I think the general stocky build is certainly a good match for the character, and most of the costume details have been cleared, to better align with Ted’s costume.  That said, I’m not much of a fan of the gripping right hand in place of a fist, and the mold has a belt, which is also wrong for Ted.  He gets a new head sculpt, and it’s a little softer on the detailing, but I do particularly like that it’s clearly more defined than “slightly rounder ears on a Batman.”  His color work is very basic.  He’s predominantly just a very dark shade of blue, almost entirely molded plastic, with just a little bit of paint on his face and eyes.  It’s very basic, and like I said above, not really the more modern take on his costume, but it does work for the general style.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I knew Wildcat as a kid from his presence in the JLA/JSA crossovers mostly, but my first distinct memory of the character really was his original DC Direct figure from 2001.  He’s got that understated, but still very cool look, that works really well as an action figure, and fills out the JSA line-up nicely.  I’ve been loving the building up of the JSA that’s been running through McFarlane’s Super Powers, and so I’m happy to have Ted to add to the crowd there.  The figure isn’t without its flaws, but I think he sells the look well, and I’m happy to have him.

Incidentally, my daughter Aubrey, who’s been insisting on helping me open all of these Super Powers figures as they arrive, was immediately enamored with this guy, who she’s taken to calling “Kitty Cat,” and whom she pulls off of my shelf every time she sees him.

#4144: Chamber

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

CHAMBER

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“The privileged life of Jonathan Starsmore was shattered forever when his mutant ability emerged for the first time. Most of his chest and lower jaw was blown away because he couldn’t control the powerful psionic-biokinetic energy that exists within him. Chamber is the oldest of Banshee’s new pupils, but he’ll have to emerge from the shell that his injury has forced him into, before he can emerge as a leader of his fellow students.”

What’s an X-Men team without a guy with energy based powers he can’t control manifesting in a way that makes him an outcast, who also has a penchant for leather jackets? Well, like, I guess that’s maybe the New Mutants?  Generation X was having none of it, though, so when they officially made the group of youngsters that had teamed up during “The Phalanx Covenant” a proper team in Generation X #1, Jonathan “Jono” Starsmore joined the line-up, as Chamber, the guy with no lower jaw or upper chest.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Chamber was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X toyline.  He’s fairly pivotal to the comic’s first few issues, especially in regards to both Emplate and Penance, who were also in Series 1, plus there was also just a big push behind the character (and a sensible one at that, since he remained perhaps the book’s most signature character even well after its ending), so it all tracked pretty well.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  None of the Generation X figures were very posable, but Chamber gets hit harder than most, due to his design removing the possibility of a neck joint, leaving him with just the shoulders and hips.  Chamber’s sculpt was all-new to him and remained unique.  It shows him in his team suit (which in 1995, he still wasn’t really wearing in the book, but it was showing up on the covers), with his signature leather jacket over it.  Chamber’s original prototype had a rather different sculpt, with a more visible break between the energy of his torso and his head, as well as closed fists and a zipped up jacket.  The final product is…well, it’s fine.  The jacket is a separate piece, and it’s got a nice flow about it.  The torso/head is a bit soft on the detailing, which makes it a little tricky to make out exactly what’s going on.  His hair does at least have a nice dynamic flow to it, even if it does somewhat have the consistency of a tootsie roll. Otherwise, the sculpt’s perfectly fine.  He’s a lot less pre-posed than other figures from the line, opting for a more basic standing pose, albeit one with enough flair to not be too boring.  He had a light-up feature worked into the torso, which was the same as the one used on the Fantastic Four Human Torch; pulling the string on his back would create sparks in the torso.  It has the benefit of not relying on batteries, but since it’s just a friction thing, used copies tend to be too worn down to work, and new copies tend to have seized up.  Mine’s somewhere between those two points, but still isn’t in working order.  The color work on Chamber is decent enough.  He matches up with the other team members in terms of uniform colors, and his base application is all pretty clean.  Mine’s taken a beating over the years as you can see.  Chamber is packed with a team logo display stand, and…well, that’s it.  Just the stand. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have Chamber during the original line’s run proper, but I did have him very shortly thereafter.  Sometime in the summer of 2000, I got an X-Men 2099 Meanstreak, and saw the Generation X line-up on the back of his box, and got it into my head that I wanted Chamber and Skin, and my dad did a bit of hunting and we found these two at a comic shop sort of near by.  Chamber was the one I really wanted, and he’s always stood out to me as my favorite member of the team.  The figure’s honestly kind of mediocre, upon review, but the rather cool design of the character still bleeds through, and I do still quite like him.

And I almost let this review finish without noting it, but over the weekend, the site officially made it into its 14th year.  Man, time sure does fly.  Crazy stuff.  Thanks for reading everybody!

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0095: Ultron

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

ULTRON

THE VAULT (TOY BIZ)

We have arrived, dear readers, at another Friday, so it’s time for another installment of Flashback Friday Figure Addendum!  Today, we jump back a decade and some change, with a follow up look at Ultron!

Countdown to Avengers: Age of Ultron: 5 days remaining.

Alright, now we get to the main event! Before, I was looking at figures of the various Avengers members from the upcoming movie, but from here on out, it’s all Ultron all the time! Poor Ultron went quite a while without seeing any action figures. He didn’t even get a figure in Mattel’s Secret Wars line, despite being a part of the comic upon which the toyline had been based (thanks Mattel…). He was finally granted a figure during ToyBiz’s 5-inch Marvel heyday.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultron was released as part of ToyBiz’s The Vault line. The Vault was one of several one series lines that ToyBiz released around the same time, covering lots of different parts of the Marvel universe. The Vault is named after the Marvel universe high-security prison of the same name, and it featured a line-up of three lesser-known Marvel villains. This figure is on the larger side for this scale, at roughly 6 inches in height, and he has 16 points of articulation. The figure features an all-new sculpt, which remained unique to this figure. I’m not 100% certain, but I don’t believe this design is one from the comics. It definitely isn’t the “classic” Ultron, that’s for sure. It plays up the more robotic aspects of the character, which I suppose is a plus, but it lacks the elegant simplicity of the classic design. All that said, it’s a perfectly reasonable sculpt from a purely aesthetic standpoint. There are a nice variety of textures and details, and that helps to liven the figure up a bit. I quite like the clawed hands and two-toed feet. The head is probably the figure’s weakest point(and that’ll be a recurring point for the rest of the week); Ultron’s had loads of different body types over the years, but the one thing to remain fairly consistent is his head. It’s not awful here, but it’s pretty far from the standard Ultron noggin. It’s too thin, and it looks particularly pinched around the antennae. And speaking of those antennae, they represent another pretty big departure from the usual Ultron look. They should be further down on his head, hovering over his cheeks. Instead, they start where his “ears” would be and go upwards, looking a bit like a rabbit’s ears. The figure also suffers from some somewhat wonky paint apps. The actual color of his outer shell is wildly inconsistent, ranging from sliver with very slight blue overtones to a rather deep metallic blue in a few areas. Also, there’s this weird thing on his torso and lower legs where he’s got these strange somewhat transparent dark grey brush strokes. I don’t really know what they’re supposed to be, but they just kind of stick out and they were rather different from figure to figure. Ultron was packed with some sort of containment piece, which went over his head and hands and plugged into his shoulder. It was kind of cool, but ultimately non-essential (and I lost mine anyway). In addition to the restraints, Ultron also has a light-u feature, which made his eyes glow red when a button on his back was pushed.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure was actually my very first exposure to the character of Ultron. My dad, who was an avid Avengers fan, purchased one for himself, and when I asked who he was I was presented with several of his comic appearances to read. I pretty much immediately fell in love with the character. Not long after, I received my own Ultron figure as a Christmas gift from my good friend Pat Sponagle. Sure, he’s not the most accurate Ultron figure, but he was the only one in existence at the time. And, as the old saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. Eventually, I got the more classically inspired United They Stand Ultron, but this one served as one of my favorite figures up to that point, and he still holds some meaning to me. Inaccuracies aside, he’s a good toy.

I’ve encountered a few of these pre-Age of Ultron reviews in my addendums, and its an interesting reflection to see how excited I was for a movie that a lot of people just sort of overlooked.  11 years later, I’ve gone back and forth on my feelings a little bit, but I do think Age of Ultron is still the Avengers movie that feels the most like an actual Avengers comic, so I stand by my excitement.  Part of the countdown was reviewing all of the Ultron figures in my collection at the time, in successive order, which started off with this review.  It’s a review I stand by.  This isn’t a *bad* figure, but it sets a trend for sort of wonky Ultrons, especially from Toy Biz.  Missing from my original review were the figure’s accessories, namely a shoulder-mounted cannon and a set of restraints, which I have subsequent re-discovered.  As noted in the original review, they’re sort of weird and non-essential, but pretty fun.

#4143: Biker Scout

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

BIKER SCOUT

STAR WARS: THE LEGACY COLLECTION (HASBRO)

Oh, we are just rolling through different Star Wars lines around here, aren’t we?  Well, next week I’m settling into a theme that should run for a bit, but before I do that, let’s take another stab into the proverbial dark with a one-off from a line I didn’t really collect, The Legacy Collection.  But, it had a Biker Scout, and I sure do like a Biker Scout action figure, so I sure did get one of those.  So, let’s look at that Biker Scout figure, which I sure am reviewing today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Biker Scout was released in Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Legacy Collection in 2009, as figure 12 in the Build-A-Droid run, contributing a part to L8-L9.  The figure was first released as the 2006 Vintage Saga Collection Biker Scout, then again as part of the “Battle For Endor” set that same year, then in the “Shadow of the Darkside” set also in 2006, again as part of the 30th Anniversary Collection in 2007, and then finally here in 2009, with a number of re-decos and slight tweaks interspersed.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 22 points of articulation.  At this point in the line, the only things that really separate him from a modern figure in terms of movement are the t-hips, something that George Lucas himself was apparently a stickler on in regards to how the joints broke up the sculpt.  I’ve actually looked at the sculpt once before through one of its repaints, the Elite Corps release from 2006.  It’s honestly really solid for its era.  It’s accurate to the source material (and in fact a but more so than some of the later Biker Scout molds) and it moves pretty well.  The structure of the wrist and elbow joints makes his hands prone to popping off from time to time when posing the elbows, but it’s not terrible, and they go right back on.  There were some minor tweaks over the years to the exact paint work on this figure, but they all kind of added up to the same general look.  This release was generally cleaner across most of the armor, confining the dirt more to the feet.  The Biker Scout was packed with his small blaster pistol, which he can hold or holster, as well as one of the legs to L8-L9.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t buy this new, but I did buy it new-ish.  2009 was the start of my senior year of high school, so my spending was a bit more restrained at times, so a lot of stuff I might have casually picked up got overlooked.  My Star Wars focus was almost entirely on Clone Wars, so the old stuff got overlooked.  By college, I was more comfortable in my collecting again, and picking up oddball stuff when I saw it.  This guy was picked up at a mall pop-up toy shop called “Toy Zam” I wanna say?  I visiting some friends in the late fall of 2011, and found this spot in the mall.  They had a bunch of close-out Hasbro stuff from ’09, mostly junk I didn’t need, but this guy was there, and I of like a good Biker Scout.  And he is that.  He’s a good Biker Scout.  Probably my favorite Biker Scout mold, honestly (though I do remain partial to the Power of the Jedi one).