Monthly Archives: February 2017

#1216: Knightfall Batman

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

KNIGHTFALL BATMAN

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

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‘90s comics are notorious for fostering an over-arching tone of “not your daddy’s comics,” I guess in an attempt to make the genre seem more hip and fly (see?  I’m one of the cool kids!  I can get home with the downies).  One of the ways they did this was by performing lots of edgy stunts that “rocked the comics world to its core!”  Green Lantern went nuts and dismantled the corps, Superman died and was replaced by four off-shoot characters, etc.  Even Batman wasn’t exempt, thanks to the “Knightfall” story arc that ran through all the Bat-titles in the early ‘90s, where newly-introduced villain Bane bested and crippled Bruce Wayne, necessitating his replacement by Jean-Paul Valley, a far more anti-heroic character.  The story is actually pretty well-regarded, mostly because it dove head-on into a lot of the tropes associated with the ‘90s anti-hero boom and deconstructed them, with the final moral of the story being that the new style of Batman just didn’t work as well as the original.  Since the story hit right on the cusp of the superhero toy boom, several of the key characters got figures at the time of the story.  The final, more armored incarnation of Valley’s Batman has been a particular favorite of toy companies, even in current times.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

azbatsdcm2Knightfall Batman was released as part of Mattel’s smaller-scale DC Comics Multiverse line.  He’s one of the many Arkham Origins-based figures from the line, and like a good portion of those figures, he represents one of the many skins that could be swapped out for Batman’s standard look.  Said skin is based on Jean-Paul Valley’s late Knightfall look (though not his *latest* look; the armored sections got a bit more tech-y as the story progressed).  It’s the look most associated with the storyline as a whole, so it’s certainly a strong choice of both skin and figure.  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  As with so many Mattel figures, the articulation  scheme is rather archaic, but at this point I sort of just expect that.  If Mattel’s determined to stay just behind the pack, I can’t stop them.  The sculpt is decent enough, I suppose.  It’s about on par with the other figures I’ve gotten from the line; the basic look is pretty solid, but there’s not a whole lot of small detail work or anything that really makes it stand out.  There’s also the incredibly awkward way the front of the belt is handled.  It’s supposed to not have a buckle, but since they made the belt a separate piece (because reasons), the tunic is interrupted twice where the belt connects, which ruins the visual flow.  And, of course, there are the huge hands, because no one at Mattel knows how to scale hands for this size figure, I guess.  The paint on the figure is passable, but, like the sculpt, a little uninspired.  The colors all more or less match up, but they’re just… unexciting.  The blue is dark, the gold is dull, the yellow is cold, and the black is just very flat.  Application is also a bit sloppy, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen from Mattel.  The figure includes no accessories, which is a slight letdown.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Have I mentioned Super Awesome Girlfriend’s stress buying before?  Yeah, this guy’s a case of that.  She stopped at a Walgreens on the drive to her parents’ and this was one of the handful of figures she grabbed for me (after verifying I didn’t already own him).  Is he a perfect figure?  No.  Is he an exciting figure?  Not incredibly so, but he has his merits.  I’ve owned worse figures, and I like the design enough that I’m happy to own a figure of it.

#1215: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Didn’t I just review a Toy Biz Marvel Legends figure?  Man, usually I’m better about spacing this sorts of things out.  Ah well.  Well, the last review looked at a figure from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run; today’s review jumps back a bit, looking at the line’s second year.  So, without further ado, here’s Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

surferml2Silver Surfer was released in Series 5 of Marvel Legends, which hit stores starting in November of 2003.  Series 5 is easily one of my favorite series from TB’s run with the line, and in a lot of ways showcased the line’s true potential.  It was also the last series where just about every figure was easily obtained, and thus the last series I have un-compromised memories about.  Anyway, this figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation.  Surfer exhibits one of the earliest attempts at using a buck system for Legends.  He was built on the body initially designed for the second Spider-Man Classics Daredevil figure.  I always thought the body was too beefy for DD, but it’s not a bad choice for the Surfer.  It’s a sculpt that, like so many of the TB Legends, hasn’t aged super well.  The shoulders are a bit large, and the legs are somewhat gangly, but the general appearance isn’t awful.  My figure suffers from a minor assembly error: his left forearm is actually a right forearm, just flipped around, meaning the musculature doesn’t quite line up the right way.  Nothing major, but a slight annoyance.  The head sculpt on Surfer is fairly decent.  It’s stylistically consistent with the body, and presents a pretty reasonable version of the Surfer’s noggin.  It’s a little more alien than he tends to be depicted, and certainly on the cartoony side, but a fun sculpt nonetheless.  The Surfer exhibits some of the finer paintwork from TB’s Legends.  It may not seem like much at first glance, but there’s a really nice quality to the silver paint chosen; it’s much more vibrant and lively than the silvers you tend to see on production pieces.  There’s also the slightest hint of blue, airbrushed over the figure, which really helps connect him with the comics version of the Surfer, who was often highlighted with blue.  Over the years, various Silver Surfer figures have handled his titular surfboard all sorts of different ways.  This is probably one of the more interesting ones.  There’s a magnet in each foot, and the core section of the board is metal.  In theory, this allows you to affix him to the board while also leaving it without any visible footpegs when he’s not standing on it.  Of course, since molding the whole board in metal would be cost prohibitive, they had to sort of split the difference, and give the board a plastic frame, which doesn’t quite mesh with the metal section, and sort of messes up the whole seamlessness of the board.  Still, fun gimmick, though.  There was also an included chunk of space rock with an articulated arm attached, allowing for the board to be posed as if it were flying.  Perhaps the oddest accessory included with Surfer (and maybe even one of the oddest accessories of all time) is the Howard the Duck figure.  As far as I know, Howard and the Surfer have never met, so why they chose to pair these two up is anyone’s guess.  Nevertheless, it’s a proper action figure of its own, with four whole points of articulation, and an incredibly well-detailed sculpt that looks like it jumped straight out of a classic ‘70s Howard comic appearance. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s Disney’s fault.  No, not because they own Marvel.  They didn’t yet when this figure was released.  Anyway, I got this figure while visiting Disney World back in 2003.  Series 5 had just started hitting stores, and my family went to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few things.  My dad and I walked back to the toy aisle (as we do), and they had a Nick Fury and two Silver Surfers.  I wanted one of the Surfers, but my dad convinced me to wait.  Later that week, we needed to stop by again for batteries I think.  My dad went in on his own, and when he got back to the car, he was carrying this guy.  Turns out, he walked back to the toy aisle to check if they still had these, and when he got there they were all gone.  When he turned to walk back to the registers, he happened to look down and spotted this one lone Silver Surfer on the ground.  This figure’s not perfect, but he’s one of the better Surfer figures out there, even 13 years after his release.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0004: Night Flight Batman

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

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It’s another Friday, which means it’s time for another Flashback Friday Figure Addendum!  This week, I continue the trend of the last three FFFAs, and wrap up my Batman Forever-based addendum, with another look at Night Flight Batman!

Today’s review is the last of the Batman Forever reviews.  It’s a third variant of Batman.  This is another brief review.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

This is another Batman from the Batman Forever line.  He’s yet another fairly-typical-but-not-THE-typical-version(let’s go with FTBNTTV for short).  Night Flight Batman probably has the most descriptive name of the many batmen in the line, as his big feature was a giant set of wings(Lost long ago by silly child-Ethan).  There was certainly a fanbase for the pre-face “Night” amongst the Kenner think tank.  I get that he’s Batman and all, but seriously, Night’s a bit unoriginal.  The actual figure is pretty basic.  Note that I didn’t lose the cape on this one,  he never had one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I do actually recall getting this one.  I liked the “basicness” of this one, so my grandmother bought it for me.   He actually didn’t get much playtime as Batman himself.  Instead, he had his face and torso covered in black tape so that I could use him as Black Panther with my Avengers.  Yeah, I was that kid…

Less than 200 words on that review.  Couldn’t replicate that if I tried.  I spent more time talking about his name than the actual figure!

For those keeping track, this was another 5 and 5 figure; 5 inches tall and five points of articulation.  Some closer looking into this figure and the movie that spawned him has made it clear that he’s actually the closest recreation of the Sonar Suit that the line had to offer, with the exception of the missing cape, of course.  I located his giant wings during The Find last summer.  They’re certainly goofy, and I can’t say they’re the most thrilling thing ever.  This figure was also supposed to have some sort of handheld piece, which was not part of The Find.

I mentioned in the review that this guy spent a lot of his time as Black Panther.  In prep for the photo retakes, I cleaned him as best I could, but there’s pretty much no way to remove the white patches.  This is why you shouldn’t apply duct tape to your action figures, kids!

#1214: Cassian Andor & Imperial Stormtrooper

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CASSIAN ANDOR & IMPERIAL STORMTROOPER

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE (HASBRO)

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Hey look!  More Star Wars stuff!  Yeah!  ….Sorry, sometimes I run out of things to say, so that’s the best intro you’re gonna get out of me.  Let’s just get to the figures already!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cassian and the Stormtrooper are a Toys R Us-exclusive two-pack, which started hitting in early January of this year.  Really, the only exclusive part of the set is pairing; both featured figures have (more or less) been released elsewhere, with Cassian being included with the U-Wing and the Trooper being a standard Series 1 release.

CASSIAN ANDOR

cassiantrooper3This guy’s really the main reason I grabbed this set, since I never picked up the U-Wing.  Thus, my only small-scale Cassian was the Eadu version I looked at back in December, which wasn’t my favorite.  This figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation.  Where I felt the last Cassian was sporting one of the line’s weakest sculpts, I think this may be one of the better ones.  The build is appropriately scrawny, and more in line with Diego Luna’s build than the other Cassian figures have been.  The details on the clothing are also really crisp and sharp, which is especially good given the scale.  The face still isn’t a spot-on Luna likeness, but it’s probably the best one of the bunch, certainly better than the Black Series sculpt.  A slightly better paint job might due its share to fix the resemblance, I suppose.  Speaking of the paint, it’s not terrible.  In fact, going by reports online the cleanness of the application on this figure is much better than that of the U-Wing cassiantrooper5figure, which gives this particular version a leg up.  There are still some parts, the beard in particular, that could stand to be a little more consistent, but at this scale and given the rest of the line, this is pretty good.  Cassian includes his small blaster pistol (sadly, it’s solid silver plastic, a bit of a step-down from the Series 2 figures).  There’s also yet another grapple contraption and a big missile launcher, which I’m lumping in with Cassian, but could honestly go with either included figure.

IMPERIAL STORMTROOPER

cassiantrooper4Remember my review of the Rogue One Series 1 Stormtrooper?  Yeah, this is pretty much the exact same figure.  Not that I’m complaining, of course.  I loved the figure the first time around, and as a troop builder, it’s the sort of figure that I don’t mind having multiples of on the shelf.  There are some slight changes in the paint; he ends up somewhere between the single version and the one packed with Baze.  He’s got the black details on the abdomen that the single release was missing, but still lacks the details on the back of the helmet.  The figure sports the same accessory compliment as the single release: the blaster and the chest-piece.  The pauldron is white this time instead of orange, which is a nice change for variety’s sake, though it’s not like I’ll actually be displaying him with that piece in place.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Big shock, I got this here Toys R Us-exclusive from a Toys R Us, back in early January.  I’d been patiently waiting for its release, since I wanted a brown-jacket Cassian, and didn’t really want the U-Wing (especially after seeing how small a role it played in the final film).  There’s not really anything new here, but its certainly still a fun little set, especially if you haven’t been following the line super closely.

#1213: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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I’ve been a Falcon fan for quite some time, and while that’s really easy nowadays when you can walk into just about any store and have your pick of *multiple* Sam Wilson figures, that was hardly the case a decade ago.  That being said, even as a minor character, Sam’s actually been pretty lucky when it comes to action figures, finding his way into the relatively compressed line-ups of Mego’s World’s Greatest Superheroes and Mattel’s Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, as well as getting five different figures during Toy Biz’s tenure with the Marvel license.  Today, I’ll be looking at Toy Biz’s last stab at the character, courtesy of Marvel Legends!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

falconml2Falcon was released in Series 14 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, which was their penultimate series for the line.  There were two versions of Falcon available: classic and modern.  The one seen here is the more common classic version, based on Falcon’s second costume.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  Falcon was built on the body from the first ML Iron Fist, which is an interesting choice to say the least.  While the Iron Fist body looked great in the prototype stage, it suffered from some real issues on the final figure, and a lot of that was passed on to Falcon.  The biggest issue is the shoulders, which jut way too far out.  Also, the under the shoulder joint fails to go all the way into the torso, leaving his arms forever slightly out to the side.  He looks like his arms are connected to his torso by a weird tube thing.  In addition to the arms, the exposed portion of the torso looks more like a grill rack than an actual person’s pecs, which makes Falcon look rather frightening.  Beyond that?  I guess the rest of the sculpt is decent enough.  The body was a lot less gangly than a lot of the TB Legends so that’s good, and the legs are actually not badly done (well, apart from those crazy nonexistent muscles).  In addition to the Iron Fist pieces, Falcon got a new head, forearms, hands, and feet, as well as slightly tweaked upper arms and shins.  The head’s always been one of my favorites from this era of Legends; it just really seems to capture the character well, and just has a nice heroic quality about it in general.  The hands are probably some of the most convincing hands TB ever put on one of their Legends, but also serve to showcase just how stupid the finger articulation was most of the time; what good does that joint do the figure?  The forearms and biceps have the wings attached.  The segmentation of the design allows for much more natural posing than was exhibited in the MU Falcon, and the wings are quite nicely detailed, with each feather being carefully defined and textured.  In terms of paint, Falcon is about what you’d expect from a TB-era Legends figure; lots of washes and airbrushing that vernally looked much better on the prototype than on the mass produced figure.  For some reason, all of the joint pins have been done in bright red plastic.  In the case of the elbows and gloves, this means there’s paint somewhat sloppily thrown over them to cover this up, but for the discs in the shoulders and the neck, this means a bright red stripe running across his skin.  Also, this figure seems to be exhibiting an issue similar to the Young Avengers Patriot figure where the pieces molded in white are slowly soaking up the color from the much darker joint pins, which is a slightly disturbing thing to see.  Both versions of Falcon were also plagued by a mix-up in the assemble process, causing the paint on the pelvises to actually correspond with the other version of the figure.  Amusingly, a similar issue showed up on the prototypes, only it was the forearms/hands that were mixed up that time.  Falcon included his trusty bird sidekick Redwing, who can be plugged into Sam’s back, as well as the lower torso of Series 14’s BaF Mojo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Series 14 is one of the few series of Legends where I wanted every figure in the line-up, and Falcon here was no exception.  While I actually got most of this particular series for Christmas the year they were released, I didn’t get Falcon as a gift.  I ended up getting him from Cosmic Comix, who were getting a pretty steady stream of Legends at that point.  The figure hasn’t aged very well at all, but I was very happy with him back in the day.  I’d love to see Hasbro redo this guy at some point.

#1212: Dr. Gero

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

DR. GERO

DRAGON BALL Z (IRWIN TOYS)

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In the four prior Dragon Ball Z-related reviews on this site, I’ve made it no secret that the Android Saga is my favorite era of the show.  That’s been fairly evident in the choices of characters I’ve collected.  Today’s figure, Dr. Gero (aka Android 20), is no different.  Of course, so far, the figures have also all been from Bandai’s SH Figuarts line.  That’s where today’s figure differs, instead hailing from Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line that ran concurrent with the US-run of the show.  Let’s have a look!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

gero2Dr. Gero was released in the fifth series of Irwin’s Dragon Ball Z line, which hit in 2001.  At that point, the show had moved onto the Cell Saga, and most of this series reflects that, with Gero being the only Android Saga figure in the set.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Not a lot of movement there, but it was actually pretty good for the time.  Gero sported a totally unique sculpt, patterned after his appearance on the show.  It’s not quite as accurate as the Figuarts, but still a surprisingly solid recreation.  The basic look is definitely there, and there’s plenty of detail work, especially on the shirt.  I do sort of wish areas such as the pants had a little more detailing to them, and the face is a touch too wide and squat (Gero was quite gaunt), but it’s not horribly off.  I appreciate that they even sculpted in his brain under the dome, since that’s the sort of thing that can get overlooked.  Like the sculpt, the paint isn’t perfect, but is still more than serviceable.  The colors are all a pretty good match for the onscreen appearance, and most of the application is pretty clean.  He doesn’t really have any sort of accent work, which certainly would have helped the sculpt shine a bit more, but for the period, he’s not bad.  Gero was originally packed with his hat to cover his brain dome and a trio of dragon balls, however, my figure did not have them.  Still, that’s a pretty cool assortment of extras, especially for a more minor character like Gero.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never got into DBZ figures when the show was still on.  Almost bought a few of them numerous times, but just never did.  So, I got Gero second hand.  He’s another 2nd Avenue find, actually.  He was in with a bunch of fast food toys and such, for like $2.  Since I had the Figuarts Androids and the likelihood of a Figuarts Gero is rather slim, I figured he was worth it.  He didn’t come with any of the extras and he’s rather beaten up (he’s actually missing part of his right thumb; I carefully shot around that), but he cost me $2 and he scales well enough with the Figuarts stuff that I feel he was worth my time.

#1211: Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge

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

LT. CMDR. GEORDI LaFORGE

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (PLAYMATES)

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While I’ve been exposed to Star Trek pretty much my whole life, my only real solid memories of the franchise from my childhood are seeing Star Trek: First Contact in the theatre when it was released (and subsequently getting it on Laserdisc when it came to home video.  For over a decade, that was literally the only way we owned it.  I’d have to fire up the laserdisc player anytime I wanted to watch it.  I’m not joking).  By extension, my first real memories of Star Trek toys are the figures from that movie, which are still some of my favorites.  Today, I’ll be looking at that line’s version of  Enterprise-E’s chief engineer Geordi LaForge!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

geordifc2Geordi was released as part of Playmates’ Star Trek: First Contact line, which hit shelves in early 1996.  The line was noteworthy at the time for abandoning the scale used by all of the prior Playmates Trek figures, opting instead for a larger size.  As such, the figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall.  He sports 14 points of articulation; he and all the other main crew members were given additional thigh swivels, which greatly improved their ability to sit. Of course, the larger scale meant they weren’t compatible with any of the prior vehicles or playsets, so he doesn’t actually have anywhere to sit, but that’s neither here nor there.  Movement is movement.  Prior Trek lines had done their best to give each crew member their own unique body sculpt, but the First Contact figures went for the more obvious shared body idea.  Geordi shares his body with both Data and Picard.  It’s a decent enough sculpt.  The details of the uniform are rather on the simplified side, and they’ve cut down on some things, such as the number of ridges on the grey part, and the seam at the front of the collar.  All of the key details are there, which is good I guess.  Honestly, it’s not that much of a departure from the smaller figures, so I guess the consistency is good.  The build on the body works well enough for Burton (and the other three actors mentioned).  The head sculpt is really big, definitely a bit out of scale with the body.  I don’t think its really any more out of scale than any of the smaller figures, but it’s definitely more noticeable here.  There’s a passable likeness in there, but I can’t say its one of their best (which is kind of a shame, because the First Contact figures overall had some of the best likenesses Playmates produced).  Still, it’s not a bad sculpt, and has some decent texture work, which Playmates didn’t always put on their figures.  The paintwork on Geordi is serviceable.  The body is fairly basic, but it’s clean and the colors are right, so that’s good.  The head has some more in-depth work, and the eyes in particular look really good (Playmates was really good at eyes).  Geordi was packed with an assortment of various gadgets, all molded in black, as well as a display stand shaped like a communicator badge.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Geordi was my second figure from First Contact.  I got him on a day out with my dad, who took me to Toys R Us to get him (and then I think we got lunch and he read me some Norse mythology.  It was a cool day).  I know I specifically requested this figure, because my cousin Noah had one and I really wanted my own.  I remember being surprised that he didn’t include his visor (despite having already seen the movie and knowing he didn’t have it anymore).  He’s not the most thrilling figure, but I have fond memories of getting him, and that certainly goes a long way!

#1210: C-3PO

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

C-3PO

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Black Series has been running almost 5 years now, and over the course of that 5 years, we’ve gotten the main look for just about every major character from the Original Trilogy.  However, one major character has been pretty consistently absent: C-3PO.  Now, obviously, with a character like Threepio, it’s not a question of if he’s going to be made, but rather when he’s going to be made.  You don’t just willy nilly leave out one of two characters to appear in every film in the franchise.  So, when his name popped up as one of 2016’s upcoming figures, no one was really surprised.  Well, that is, not until they saw the figure, standing there in all his red-armed, The Force Awakens-glory.  Why would the first release of this much anticipated character be what is undoubtedly a one-off look?  It turns out Hasbro had more up their sleeve, and a regular Threepio found its way to release.  I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

c3pobs2This C-3PO figure is Walgreens’ 2016 Star Wars: The Black Series exclusive.  This has been a point of contention for a lot of fans, since many of them think this Threepio should have had the main retail slot, and the Force Awakens figure should have been made the exclusive, citing the second version as a less necessary variant.  While I can’t argue with that, I can sort of understand why the figures ended up the way they did.  In 2015, Walgreens got stuck in the Emperor’s Wrath Darth Vader as their exclusive, and sales on him were pretty soft.  With that in mind, I can easily see Walgreens pushing for a higher profile exclusive.  On Hasbro’s side, I can see them feeling that Threepio might be more easily acquired for some fans as an exclusive item shipped in solid cases of himself, as opposed to being stuck in a revision assortment of the main line, which may or may not get put out (I can attest to having seen more of this guy out in the wild than I’ve seen of his red-armed counterpart).  In addition, Threepio has traditionally been a slower seller than the rest of the main characters, a fact Hasbro is likely banking on.  Ultimately, it’s not the ideal solution, but it’s workable.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and has 21 points of articulation.  Early reports had me worried that this guy wouldn’t be very posable.  The final figure lacks any elbow joints, but this ends up having little effect on the posability, and the rest of the joints offer a more than serviceable range of motion.  Threepio’s sculpt is shared with his Force Awakens version, but is otherwise totally new.  It’s a very strong sculpt, and does a really solid job of capturing Threepio’s basic design.  There’s a lot of really sharp detail work, and he’s definitely one of the best figures in the line in terms of working in the articulation.  The arms do seem a touch long when compared to the legs, but it’s only barely noticeable, and far from the worst case of this in the line.  Threepio’s paint is pretty decently handled; Hasbro let fans know from the get-go that this figure wasn’t going to be vac-metalized like many of the smaller Threepios have been.  Some fans were a bit let-down by this, but I find myself not minding that much.  While the process is fine on smaller figures, it can rob a sculpt of a lot of its best details, and on larger, more articulated items, it can also be rather susceptible to damage.  I was happy to see they opted for gold paint instead of gold plastic, as it allows for a brighter sheen and a more consistent application of the color.  The only part that seems a bit odd to me is the eyes; rather than the usual flat yellow, they’ve been done with three white dots on each eye.  It’s not terrible looking from far away, but looks quite strange up close.  Threepio includes no accessories, which is a real letdown, especially since there are technically no new sculpted pieces here.  The communicator from the Death Star would have been nice, especially since they already have the tooling for it. Oh well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

News broke on this guy back around Rogue Friday, and I pretty much immediately started looking for him.  I didn’t have much luck, but on a hunch, I stopped at a slightly out of the way Walgreens on the way home from grabbing some dinner last month.  He wasn’t in the proper action figure aisle, but I remembered that a lot of Walgreens stores had a separate Star Wars end display, and, sure enough, there he was.  Odd choice of distribution aside, this is a really good figure, easily the best Threepio that Hasbro’s put out.  Hopefully everyone that wants one can get one!

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#1209: The Flash

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

THE FLASH

JUSTICE (DC DIRECT)

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A quick glance around the internet tells me that this may be a slightly controversial opinion, but I really love the work of Alex Ross.  Marvels and Kingdom Come are obviously the standouts, but in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, his work was the best source of classic DC Comics material out there, which was something of a godsend for me, a classic comics fan born into the wrong era. In that regard, his 12-issue maxi-series Justice, which was effectively Challenge of the Superfriends on an even more epic scale, was right up my alley.  The fact that it got a whole line of figures courtesy of DC Direct?  Icing on the cake.  Today, I’ll be looking at my first figure from the line, Barry Allen, aka the Flash!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

flashjust2The Flash was released in the first series of Justice figures from DCD.  This was only the second Barry Allen Flash we’d gotten from them, and the first time he’d been released solo.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Not a ton of movement, but it was an incredible step up from the prior Kingdom Come figures, which had what can be described as “minimal” movement at best.  He’s based, of course, on Alex Ross’s depiction of Barry from not just Justice, but also the tabloid-sized specials DC put in the early ‘00s.  It’s really just Barry’s classic costume styled as if it were made from real fabrics and worn by a real person, but that’s a pretty good look.  The sculpt on this guy was handled by DCD’s main sculptor at the time, Tim Bruckner, and it’s not a bad stab at this particular design.  The main issues I would cite with this figure come from its desire to be two different things simultaneously.  They wanted him to be in a sort of a running pose (something no Flash figure they’d released up to that point was capable of pulling off), but also be able to stand up relatively straight, like the rest of the line.  The end result is a figure with a rather static and stiff upper half, and a lower half that looks to be mid-lunge.  With a bit of careful posing, you can get him to look fine (which is more than can be said for some of DCD’s later output), but he always seems ever so slightly off.  On the plus side, there’s a lot of fun detail work on the sculpt.  The costume sports plenty of wrinkles and stretched fabric, to make it more convincing that he’s not just sporting body paint, and there’s even a seam running down the front, showing how he gets the costume on and off.  The boots are heavily wrinkled and very obviously a different material than the rest of the costume, and there’s even the appropriate treading on the soles.  The head is some pretty solid work as well; the face under the mask displays Barry’s goofy charm pretty well, and the mask has a seam running across the forehead, much like Adam West’s Batman Cowl.  The paintwork on Flash is pretty good, but I have one small complaint: they used gold in place of yellow.  It’s not an uncommon practice, and this is far from the first Flash to do so, but when companies do this, they almost always use this dark and rather dull gold.  In the case of the Flash, this robs him of some of his costume’s boldness and clash, and on this particular figure, it has the unintended effect of sort of reversing the dynamic of his costume and making the red the lighter color in most lighting.  A more vibrant gold would have looked a bit better.  Apart from that, the application is all pretty clean, and I do really like the slightly pearlescent red they’ve gone with.  Barry’s only accessory was a rather large and unruly display stand, which was the same one included with every figure in this line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Despite getting most of my DC Direct figures from Cosmic Comix, I actually got Flash from a Suncoast.  I think CCX had sold out of Flash by the time I got there, so I ended up finding him while on a mall outing with my Grandmother and my cousins.  I think he may have even been on sale.  I was quite excited to get him, since I didn’t yet have a Barry Allen in this scale.  He remained my go-to Flash figure until he was eventually supplanted by the Darwyn Cooke-styled Flash from New Frontier.  He’s not a perfect figure, but he’s a pretty solid one, and he definitely brings back some fond memories.

#1208: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

MARVEL SELECT

colossusms1

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve reviewed a Marvel Select figure. <Looks back at reviews>  Holy crap, it’s been 506 reviews since I last looked at a Marvel Select figure.  That’s quite a while.  Well, why not pull something out of the archives, then?  Today, I’ll be jumping over into the world of Marvel’s merry mutants, the X-Men, and looking at one of my personal favorite members of the team, Piotr Rasputin, aka Colossus.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

colossusmswilsonColossus is the 75th figure in Diamond Select Toys’ Marvel Select line, released in 2012.  He’s one of only two figures to hit that year, largely due to the focus on a certain team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who happened to have a movie released that year.  He continued the trend of X-Men based upon the early ‘80s line-up of the team (the other X-Man from 2012, Storm, also followed this trend).  The figure stands almost 9 inches tall (he’s a big guy) and he has 30 points of articulation.  He’s one of the earlier instances of near-Marvel-Legends levels of articulation for a Select figure, and it’s genuinely impressive just how much movement they were able to get into this guy, given his mass.  Colossus sported an all-new sculpt.  It doesn’t appear to be based on any particular artist’s rendition of Piotr, but it does lean a little more modern in terms of design sensibilities than a lot of Colossus figures do.  This is most notable in the face, which lacks the usual rounded features in favor of something more sharp and angular.  While I can’t say it’s my go-to Colossus look, it’s certainly not a bad looking rendition of the character.  The body continues some of the stylization present in the face; earlier renditions of Colossus tended to be more consistent in build, but this guy’s definitely favoring his upper body.  He’s almost sporting Bruce Timm anatomy (though he’s definitely not Bruce Timm styled).  There’s one oddity about the body sculpt, specifically the upper body: the upper portion of his tunic is separate from his actual torso.  While it’s not out of the ordinary for such an element to be a separate piece, the fact that it’s not actual fixed in place in any way is slightly odd.  There’s a fully sculpted torso under there, which leads me to wonder if there was a scrapped variant of this figure sporting his outback costume.  Regardless, you’ll only really notice the separate tunic piece when picking the figure up, and it stays in place well enough.  It also adds an extra dimension to the figure, which is always cool.  In terms of paint, Colossus is very nicely rendered.  The colors are all nice and very vibrant, and everything is very cleanly applied.  There’s a nice subtle accenting to the yellow portion of the tunic, which keeps it from being too plans.  I also quite like the metallic work, especially on the arm bracers.  A lot of the X-Men Select figures included a section of the Danger Room as a display base, and Colossus was no exception.  Well, generally speaking.  He comes with a spike wall, clearly meant to be from the Danger Room, but it’s not exactly a stand, since it doesn’t really support him.  Still, it’s a cool piece, and a nice addition to the armory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Colossus was my second Marvel Select figure, picked up during Cosmic Comix’s Biggest Sale of the Year in 2012.  I had initially been planning to pick up Ultron during that year’s sale, but I got a subscriber coupon a week prior and got him then.  I still wanted to take advantage of the sale, and I’ve always liked Colossus, so this guy was my next choice.  The old Marvel Legends figure has always been one of my favorites, so this guy had quite a bit to live up to, and I think he did just that.  He’s really just a very fun figure.