Monthly Archives: June 2017

#1338: Vampire Buffy

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

VAMPIRE BUFFY

BUFFY: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER PALZ (PALISADES)

Wow, two Palisades reviews in a row.  Isn’t that upbeat?  Wanna hear about another failed line?  It’s okay, this one was marginally less of a failure.  Back when they were in the swing of things, Palisades was grabbing the license to all the cool cult-followed properties that they could.  While the master license for Buffy action figures was elsewhere, they managed to snag the rights to produce a line of block figures.  Initially, they had attempted to strike up a deal with Diamond Select in order to produce some Buffy Minimates.  For whatever reason, the plans fell through, so Palisades decided to tweak the design sheets ever so slightly and create their own line of block figures, dubbed “Palz.”  They were actually pretty darn awesome, and ended up introducing some nice ideas that would later be adopted by Minimates proper.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of the variants of the line’s title character, Buffy Summers.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Vampire Buffy was released as an exclusive through ToyFare magazine, and she hit around the same time as Series 1 of the main line.  She’s based on Buffy’s appearance during the first season episode “Nightmares.”  It was actually pretty nice, because Willow’s alt look was from that episode, and there was even a club-exclusive Xander, so the main trio were all represented.  The figure stands about 3 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Like the previously reviewed Willow, she’s built on the female body (because Palz actually had gender specific bodies), with an add-on for her hair.  The hair is somewhat reflective of her look from the show, though it’s not quite spot on for Season 1.  It’s still a nice piece, though.  The paintwork on her is decent enough; it’s certainly vibrant, and I always appreciated how Palisades added depth to the faces, with shading and the like.  It works particularly well for the vampire design.  As was common with these figures, she’s got a second face on the back of the head; this one gives us a standard Buffy face, for those that just wanted a basic Buffy out of this figure.  Buffy is lighter than a lot of Palz when it comes to accessories, but she still has her fair share.  There’s a tombstone (the same as the standard Series 1 Buffy, but this time with writing on it), two books, a purse, and a jacket with a pair of sleeved arms.  The jacket’s cool in theory, but due to the fragile nature of the plastic used for the figure, I wasn’t willing to risk putting it on her, lest I break one of the shoulder joints (this was actually my second of this figure; the first broke in several places).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in my review of Willow, a sizable chunk of my Palz collection was courtesy of a very, very nice member of the Minimate Multiverse forum.  Both Vampire Buffys I own are from that chunk.  I wasn’t really dying to track her down on her own, since there are plenty of other Buffy Palz to be had, but it’s nice to have her to round out the set.  She’s okay, but does suffer from being one of the more lackluster entries in the line.  She’s decent enough, but the other Buffys all had a little extra to offer, which makes this one a little more “meh.”

#1337: Battle Acroyear

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

BATTLE ACROYEAR

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

“Described as an ‘Enemy of the Micronauts’, this stalwart warrior is surely still a hero among his people and a formidable knight to his allies. Clad in his distinctive crimson and white armor, and possessing the strength to wield his massive Power Sword against the powerful intergalactic foes of his people, what childhood imagination couldn’t give Acroyear the chance to be a ‘good guy’?”

Poor Palisades and their poor cursed Micronauts line.  Though its parent line, Microman, has been a pretty strong seller in Japan, the American-ized adaptation never quite took off the same way.  Mego saw decent success into the ‘80s, but it quickly dwindled under the juggernaut that was Star Wars.  20 years later, fan favorite company Palisades did their very best to bring new life to the line, but they ran into roadblocks at every turn.  The worst of it really hit right at the beginning. The factory producing Series 1 of the relaunched line pulled a fast one on Palisades, by sending them sub-contracted “production samples” which in no way represented the actual quality of the product being produced.  When the Series 1 figures arrived, Palisades was left with a stock that was subpar, with pretty much no funds to replace them.  Worse, stores were already getting the stock, so there was little they could do.  They quickly shifted production to another factory, and put into production a Series 1.5, which offered slightly fixed figures built on the Series 1 molds, with the hopes of tiding collectors over until proper corrected Series 1 figures could be produced later down the line (this, sadly, never happened).  Each Series 1 figure was given a new deco, with some sort of neat backstory to it.  My personal favorite was Battle Acroyear, the redressing of (you guessed it) Acroyear!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted, Battle Acroyear was part of the Series 1.5 assortment of Palisades’ Micronauts line.  The Series 1 Acroyears were perhaps the most negatively effected by the poor quality; the heavy metal torsos would cause the plastic around the joints of the limbs to disintegrate into dust almost immediately after opening, leaving collectors with little more than a pile of wobbly plastic bits.  That’s hardly going to do justice to one of the greatest warriors of all time, so the replacement was necessary.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 13 points of articulation.  Unlike most of the rest of the line, which used an internal band construction similar to vintage G.I. Joes, Acroyear uses a solid construction.  Like I said above, the figure has a die-cast metal toros, with plastic limbs and head.  Fortunately, unlike his predecessors, this guy’s legs can actually hold his wait, pretty well I might add.  Really, the construction on this guy is really solid; he feels like he could survive most things (and mine’s made it through a few shelf dives, so I know from experience).  The details of the sculpt are nice and clean, and appropriately reto-sci-fi.  While all of the Palisades Micronauts had minor deviations from their Mego counterparts, Acroyear’s were even more minor than most; there’s some slight tweaking to the shape of the head, but it’s the sort of thing that you can really only tell if you’re looking right at both figures.  Paint schemes were a defining factor for the Series 1.5 figures.  While the Series 1 Acroyears had deviated pretty wildly from the classic Acroyear colors, this one brings it back a bit, albeit with a twist.  The original Acroyears were all the same basic colors, with three different accent colors: blue, green, and pink.  This figure gives us a fourth accent color: red.  This is actually a pretty cool reference, as red was the color used for the heroic Prince Acroyear, the main Acroyear from the Marvel Comics adaptation from the ‘80s.*  It’s a color scheme that really works well with the design, and he certainly stands out on the shelf.  Acroyear includes a battle sword (a much larger replacement for the original figure’s smaller dagger), a spy drone, his extra large wing pack, and clear display stand.  The sword is suitably awesome, and the wings are cool, even if they aren’t quite as nifty as Space Glider’s.  The spy drone is interesting enough, and serves a secondary function: Acroyear can be “transformed” into a tank-like thing, using the drone as a turret of sorts.  Not as advanced as later Transformers, but cool nonetheless.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually had one of the Series 1 Acroyears back in the day.  Fell to pieces in like a day.  One of the more depressing action figure interludes of my childhood.  This figure ended up in my collection a fair bit later, after the secondary market prices on most of the line had shot pretty far up.  Cosmic Comix bought someone’s toy collection, and there were a handful of Micronauts in it, which I ended up getting for a steal.  Battle Acroyear was among them, and he’s easily my favorite of the bunch.  In fact, I think he’s my favorite Palisades Micronaut period.  He’s just a really fun toy.

*Since the team already had plenty of blue and green, Acroyear’s third color was chosen for his primary look.  However, due to the limitations of printing in comics, pink would have been nearly impossible to render consistently, so he was shifted to a straight red.

#1336: Astonishing Wolverine

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

ASTONISHING WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Little is known about the man known as Logan whose past remains shrouded in mystery. The feral warrior, code-named Wolverine, possesses genetically endowed animal-keen senses of smell, sight, and hearing, as well as a mutant healing factor that can mend almost any wound. His deadliest weapons are his razor-sharp claws and skeleton both made of unbreakable metal alloy called Adamantium. However, with these abilities comes a curse, a bezerker rage that he must forever struggle to control. Now Logan must contain the beast raging within while he battles to protect a world that fears and hates him.”

Though my opinion of it has waned in recent years, at the time of its release, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men was a serious breath of fresh air.  I was never much impressed by Morrison’s “let’s put everyone in black leather and completely disregard prior character interpretation” New X-Men run that immediately preceded it, so taking the X-Men a bit more back to basics was pretty cool.  I also really liked John Cassidy’s art for the series, as well as his returning of several of the cast to more classically inspired costumes.  While most of the team eventually made it into toy form, it took quite a while.  Unsurprisingly, the first team member to make it into plastic was Wolverine, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astonishing Wolverine was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, also known as the “Apocalypse Series.”  It was the fourth Wolverine in the line, and was at the time his current look. There were both masked and unmasked versions of this guy; the one I’m looking at today is the masked version, obviously.  This figure also served as the inspiration for the larger Marvel Legends Icons version of the character, although he was slightly tweaked to offer an alternate version of this costume.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall (it’s one of the first times they actually got his scale right) and he has 40 points of articulation.  In terms of sculpt, this figure was all-new, and he’s based on Cassidy’s work from the comics, albeit somewhat loosely, since Cassidy’s style doesn’t quite lend itself to super-articulated action figures.  The head’s definitely the best work; there’s a lot of smaller detail work that looks really nice, without being too over-done like a lot of Legends Wolverines.  The rest of the body was good for the time, but doesn’t as much hold up to scrutiny these days.  Once again, there’s a lot detail work that’s really nice on the stitching and the piping.  However, he’s really, really scrawny, which removes some of his intimidation factor.  It’s the worst in the legs, where the precedence clearly went to the joints, resulting in an almost skeletal set of limbs.  And of course, they split the belt in two for the waist articulation.  Why did they do that?  Beats me.  Seems it would have made a lot more sense to go either above or below.  Worst case scenario, you could do the joint where it is currently and have the belt be an add-on.  But splitting it right down the middle just seems lazy to me, like the base body was already sculpted and they added the details later without taking placement into account.  On the plus side of things, he’s probably got the best claws we got on a TB ML Wolverine; they’re well-shaped, unlikely to break off, and resistant to heavy warping.  In terms of paint work, the figure’s decent enough.  The base colors match up pretty well with what was being used on the comics, and most of the application is fairly clean.  The only part that’s a little odd is the arm hair, which really just looks like a bunch of brown tally marks that someone’s drawn on him.  Wolverine included no accessories of his own, but he did come packed with one of the legs of Apocalypse.  So, that’s cool, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was a Christmas present from my friend Charlie.  He and I shared a love of Marvel Legends, and in particular, we were both on the lookout for the perfect Wolverine.  So, when this series hit, he made sure that I got this guy, which was very nice of him (I repaid the favor a year later when I made sure he got a completed Mojo Build-A-Figure).  He’s definitely got some flaws, but I really do think he was Toy Biz’s best take on Wolverine, and the best Legends version  of the character until Hasbro’s recent Brown Costume figure.  It’s honestly a little surprising that TB never retooled him into a more conventional Wolverine.

#1335: Rex “The Doctor” Lewis

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

REX “THE DOCTOR” LEWIS

GI JOE: RISE OF COBRA

“Rex is the chief experimental doctor for M.A.R.S. Industries and developer of advanced nanotechnology. Disfigured in an explosion, he relies on life support equipment as he launches a diabolical plan to satisfy his thirst for power and revenge. ”

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra isn’t a particularly well-regarded movie.  It definitely took some…different approaches to the source material.  I myself kind of enjoyed the movie, but with the caveat that I liked it as it’s own, separate thing.  It’s a good spy-flick, but the Joe label is a bit misplaced.  Misplacing of labels seems to have gone around a lot in this movie.  I absolutely loved Joseph Gordon Levitt’s turn as Doctor Mindbender.  The only problem is that as it turns out, the mysteriously named “The Doctor,” despite checking off every mark for Mindbender (including the character’s signature monocle), is actually Cobra Commander.  Odd choice.  But hey, cool action figures, though!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Rex “The Doctor” Lewis was released in the third series of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra tie-in line, which hit a little while after the film’s release.  Presumably, he was in a later assortment so that the reveal that he was Baroness’s not-quite-dead brother Rex could be kept secret.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 22 points of articulation.  The sculpt for the Doctor was all-new to him, and as far as I know, it’s not been re-used (well, apart from the labcoat, which has shown up on a few figures).  The sculpt is certainly different.  Hasbro opted to not be 100% faithful to the film’s version of Rex, who dressed more like an actual scientist (well, apart from the headgear).  This figure has some sort of  Edward Scissorhands get-up.  Which, with the addition of the jacket, ends up looking about the same as the movie design anyway, so I guess it didn’t really matter.  The head stays pretty faithful, apart from the loss of the monocle thing.  The hair and breathing apparatus are both removable, allowing you to view the fully unmasked Rex, who actually looks a fair bit like Levitt in the scar make-up from the film.  Despite being removable, the hair and rebreather fit pretty tightly to the head, and look pretty decent overall, and they also both stay in place really well, which is a definite plus.  The paint on the Doctor is largely confined to the head (everything else is mostly black plastic).  The detail work is actually pretty great, and they convey the scarred nature of his skin quite nicely.  The Doctor is packed with a pair of claw gloves, a giant nanite-injector claw-thing, a pistol, a rifle, a briefcase with three containers of nanites, and a display stand with “THE DOCTOR” printed on it.  Not a bad assortment of extras!  The case with the nanites and the claw gloves are definitely my favorites, but they’re all pretty fun extras.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Doctor was one of my favorite parts of Rise of Cobra, so I was a little dismayed that he wasn’t out when the film hit.  I patiently waited for his release, and ended up finding him at the local Walmart while grabbing some Christmas decorations with my Dad.  He’s one of the better entries in the Rise of Cobra line, and one of my favorite modern-era Joes in general.  Not bad for a figure from a movie nobody likes!

The Blaster In Question #0011: Crossbolt

Posted by Tim Marron in Nerf Reviews and tagged with , , ,

CROSSBOLT

N-STRIKE ELITE

I’ve mentioned before that the vast majority of the bow and crossbow type Nerf blasters fall under the Rebelle series.  Every so often, however, one of the other lines will get a bow of some sort, and that is the case for this week’s blaster, the Crossbolt.  This blaster in particular also fits into the category of blasters that I greatly enjoy but is fairly widely disliked by other Nerfers.  I can maybe understand some of the more common complaints, but not enough for it to ruin the blaster for me.  I’ll get to that in a little bit.  Let’s take a look at the blaster.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

The Crossbolt was released in 2015 as part of the N-Strike Elite series.  It is a magazine-fed, elastic powered crossbow type blaster, which makes it very unique among Elite blasters as there are no other crossbows or “stringer” blasters in the line.  Additionally, it is one of the only two blasters to feature a bullpup configuration (firing mechanism behind the trigger) along with the Rayven.  Aside from this, the blaster is entirely original.  The main 3 of the aforementioned complaints about the Crossbolt focus around the ergonomics of the blaster.  The first issue concerns the bow arms protruding into the path one’s hand might take traveling from a forward grip to the priming slide at the top of the blaster.  While this is admittedly a hurdle few other blasters have, a simple twist of the firing-hand wrist solves the problem quite nicely.  This is also achieved without any of the straight up goofy flailing and fumbling I’ve seen some people do while trying to illustrate that plastic is solid and hands can’t go through it.  The second issue it the magazine release.  This, I can understand a little more because it is true that the placement and style of the magazine release make it fairly easy to accidentally bump the mag so that it falls out of the blaster.  I’ve even found that the release button doesn’t necessarily need to be pressed to cause the magazine to come loose.  The conclusion I came to was that the back of the blaster is not, in fact, a stock and that the blaster is not intended to be shouldered, a theory i felt was supported by how hard it is to line up the sights if it’s shouldered.  Could Nerf have designed it better to avoid this problem?  Yes, but it’s really the kind of problem you learn to avoid pretty quickly, so it’s still not a deal breaker.  Lastly, a lot of grown-up Nerfers like myself (but not including myself in this instance) complained that the dimensions of the thumb-hole grip were cramped and left parts of the blaster digging into their hands and/or wrists.  This, I absolutely don’t get.  Maybe I have weirdly perfect Crossbolt hands.  Either way, I’ve had zero problems with the grip and actually find it quite comfortable for such a compact blaster.  As I said, the Crossbolt features some fairly basic sights along the top as well as not one, but two jam access doors due to the slightly more complex internal structure of the blaster.  There is also an attachment rail on the underside of the barrel for accessories.  As with other stringer blasters, firing the Crossbolt is very quiet compared to an air plunger blaster, although priming each shot does make a good bit of noise as there are plenty of catches and latches along the stroke.  The string in the Crossbolt seems to have a noticeable amount more tension than with other stringer blasters and this definitely shows in performance as darts fly far and fast, hitting with good, solid impact, making this more of an outdoor blaster.  The Crossbolt comes packaged with a 12-round magazine and 12 Elite darts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I felt it was important to highlight the fact that this is a really fun, unique blaster because I remember, after it came out, seeing reviews with goofballs smacking their hands into the bow arms intentionally in an attempt to make their point like a cheesy infomercial.  I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite blaster, but it is entertaining in its own right, and entirely undeserving of the bad wrap it’s gotten over the years.

#1334: R5-D4

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

R5-D4

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II

Hey guys! I’m not feeling too hot tonight so Super Awesome Girlfriend is helping me write this review. Isn’t she super awesome?

We’re looking at Star Wars stuff again. Something something something, droid info here-wait Ethan is actually reading this over my shoulder, so I should write something real…

Everybody knows C-3PO and R2-D2, but not many people know about R5-D4. Why? Because he blows up early on in the movie. It’s okay though, because he shares a lot of the same parts as R2 so he gets plenty of toys! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Today, we’ll be looking at one of those toys.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

R5-D4 comes from the second year of Kenner’s Star Wars: Power of the Force II line. The figure is about 3 inches tall and depending on how you count articulation, he has 1 or 3 points (this will make sense later…so he says). So umm, surprisingly enough he and R2 don’t star any parts.

The sculpt is pretty accurate, overall, but it has a few inaccuracies. To start with, there’s the weird bar thingy running between the two back feet (roller things). The R2 figure didn’t have this, so why this one does is beyond Ethan’s congested mind. It just looks weird. Beyond that, there’s the weird silver thingies attached to his legs. Why are they there? Nobody knooooooows. Maybe they’re guns? Ehhhh… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The sculpt is also hindered by the action feature. Remember how I mentioned that he explodes in the movie? Well Kenner tried to replicate that…sort of. The top of the figure, the dome, splits in half when you press the special yellow button at the base of the body. There’s also this missile that gets launched because why not? It kind of holds the figure back, because you can’t move the head around due to the missile stored there, which is kind of annoying really. But they tried…I guess. Okay, paint. This figure has paint. Let’s talk paint. It’s sandy looking, which is good because you know Tatooine has lots of sand. You know who hates sand? Anakin hates it, because it gets eeveeeeeeeeeerywhere! Including on this guy! Good work team, go team go. Ethan will probably edit this one later, you know, when his head isn’t full of mucus.

You know what the droid’s head is full of? Missiles…nah, just one, which is his only accessory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This lovely addition to the collection came from the Farpoint charity auction. Ethan has always had a soft spot for R5, which isn’t surprising because he has a soft spot for every robot, droid character. The figure is okay, he’s a bit held back by all the explodey stuff Kenner tried emulating with the figure. They could’ve done a lot worse, so he isn’t bad, just sandy. I honestly have no attachment to the droid, so there’s not much for me to say about it. I guess that’s it? Oh, Ethan just burrowed into the blankets…aaaaaaaaaaand he’s gone. I’m terribly sorry.

#1333: Noisy Boy

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

NOISY BOY

REAL STEEL (JAKKS PACIFIC)

“The Magma Mangler – Strength: 5%, Speed: 45%, Intelligence: 45%, Special Moves: 5%”

I think I’ve mentioned before on this site that I’m quite a fan of robots.  So, in that respect, it’s probably not a huge surprise that one of my favorite movies in the last decade was Real Steel, a movie about fighting robots.  Based on Richard Matheson’s short-story “Steel,” the movie is essentially two hours of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.  Which is seriously awesome.  The movie’s also full of super awesome robot designs, which make for some cool toys.  Jakks Pacific picked up the license and actually put out just about every ‘bot seen in the movie.  Today, I’ll be looking at a personal favorite of mine, Noisy Boy, the Magma Mangler!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Noisy Boy was released on the first series of Jakks’ basic Real Steel line (there was also a larger deluxe version released, but the basic line had a larger selection, so that’s the one I went with that one).  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 16 points of articulation.  The movement could be a little better.  As it stands, he lacks bicep swivels, a neck joint, and any sort of torso movement.  The figure has a light-up feature, which is why the neck and torso movement isn’t there, but I don’t think there’s any excuse for the missing bicep movement.  He manages alright without it, but it’d definitely add a lot to the figure.  Slight mobility issues aside, his sculpt is actually quite good for the price point.  Some of the details have been softened a bit (especially the spikes on the shoulders, which are now little more than tiny nubs), but all of the important bits are there, and there’s a surprising amount of detail in the legs in particular.  Overall, not a bad sculpt at all, especially from a company like Jakks, who fall more towards the middle of the pack.  The paint work on Noisy Boy is okay; what’s there is generally pretty clean (there’s a little bit of slop on the head, but it’s minor).  The only real issue is that there are a number of missing details, specifically the Japanese characters on his chest and shoulders.  It’s a little frustrating that they’re missing, but they were likely cut due to cost consideration (this is supported by the deluxe figure’s inclusion of the extra details).  Noisy Boy included no accessories, but he had the same mix and match feature employed by all of the smaller-scale figures, allowing for his arms and legs to be switched out with any other compatible figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I loved Real Steel when I saw it in theaters, so it’s not a huge surprise that I went out and bought the figures afterwards.  Noisy Boy was the first figure I got, grabbed from my local Target the day after I saw the movie.  He was the last figure left in the store, which was pretty fortunate, since he was the one I wanted the most.  He’s got some minor issues, but all-in-all, he’s still a pretty solid offering.

#1332: Skin

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

SKIN

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“Angela Espinosa’s body has six extra feet of skin – this is his mutant ‘gift’???. Even he doesn’t quite understand how it works and although he would never admit it, that scares him. He’s come to Xavier’s School form the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles to learn to control his skin, at least enough for him to appear as he did before his powers developed – normal.”

In the ‘90s, the X-Men were Marvel’s hottest property by far.  To cash-in on this success, they turned around and launched like a million spin-offs.  The more teen-oriented team of hip, fliggity-fly youngsters was Generation X, which was super, super ‘90s.  It had a pretty decent following back in the day, and since Toy Biz was giving a toyline to just about everything under the son, it also had one of those.  Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of the team’s central members, Skin!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Skin was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X line of figures.  He appears to be patterned after the character’s earlier appearances in the book, before he got all scruffy.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  For some reason, the Generation X figures were less articulated than most of Toy Biz’s Marvel output from the same time.  Perhaps it was to minimize potential risk on the financial side of things, should the line fail?  I don’t know.  Anyway, Skin was an all-new sculpt.  It seems to take the Kenner route, offering a more preposed figure with less movement.  It looks pretty solid; I like all the little minor details, like the folds in his skin.  In makes for quite a unique looking figure.  I also appreciate that his costume isn’t simply depicted as painted on, but actually has some dimension to it.  Now, if you want to get picky, the hands and feet shouldn’t be done the way they are here, since the skeletal structure is clearly elongated here, and his abilities only actually had to do with his skin.  That being said, most artists tended to ignore this rule, so the figure’s hardly inaccurate.  The paint work on the figure is okay, but there are a few issues.  The base work is overall okay, but the magenta on the arms and legs doesn’t quite match the torso.  It’s not as bad in person as it is in the photos, but it’s still noticeable.  The yellow paint is also a bit prone to chipping, which is a little annoying, but otherwise he’s pretty decent.  The figure has a “Growing Fingers” action feature on his left hand.  There’s a little latch on the forearm, and when you release it, the fingers shoot forward a half-inch or so.  It’s pretty much the same mechanic that was used on several of TB’s Wolverine figures, and it works pretty well, without disrupting the overall look of the figure too much.  Skin was packed with a back pack that can be clipped on his back.  It originally had a little headset attachment, but I’ve lost mine.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I missed out on most of the Generation X figures when they were new.  Around 2000 or so, I got some still-packaged mid-90s figures, and the whole first series of Gen X figures was pictured on the back, leading me to attempt to track down Skin and his team-mate Chamber.  It wasn’t easy (we had eBay, but the ‘90s action figures market wasn’t really there yet), but I eventually found both figures at a nearby comic book store for a pretty decent price.  Despite never being super huge into Generation X, I’ve always really liked this figure, and he holds up pretty well.

#1331: Chief Tyrol & Mortar Pack Cylon

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

CHIEF TYROL & MORTAR PACK CYLON

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA MINIMATES

One of the appealing things about collecting Minimates is the ability to have a very wide range of properties all in one consistent style.  Their main Marvel line is pretty much always running in tandem with at least one line based on a popular Sci-Fi property.  Currently, that’s Aliens, but a few years ago, their sci-fi line of choice was Battlestar Galactica.  While it was never a huge seller, the line ran for 4 series before getting cancelled, and even then it was picked up for another two series by Toys R Us.  I’ll be looking at one of those sets today, so let’s dive right into the review!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Tyrol and the Mortar Pack Cylon were released in the second Toys R Us-exclusive series of Battlestar Galactica Minimates.  This pair is notable for being one for the few sets in the two TRU series not to be re-purposed from the cancelled Series 5 and 6 or New Caprica boxed-set line-ups.

CHIEF TYROL

“One of the more troubled members of the Final Five, Chief Galen Tyrol resigned his commission after the loss of his wife and tried to find happiness with his son Nicky before learning the truth about his family’s past.”

Poor Chief.  Dude was a serious punching bag, especially later in the series.  He was pretty lucky when it came to Minimates, though; this was his third.  The figure is about 2 1/4 inches tall and has the usual 14 points of articulation.  He’s built on the standard base body, with add-ons for his hair and the bottom of his shirt.  The shirt is a standard piece and the hair came from Ghostbusters’ Ray Stanz.  The hair seems a touch bulky for Chief, especially a later in the series Chief, but it’s not terrible.  The rest of the details are rendered via paint.  Early BSG Minimates were a bit more on the simplistic side, but when TRU brought the line back, the level of detail was brought up to par with the more current stuff.  Chief’s got some pretty solid detail work, especially on his uniform.  The likeness on the face is a bit iffy.  Personally, I’ve always felt it looked more like Tamoah Pinikett (who played Helo on the show) than Chief’s actor Aaron Douglas.  I think Douglas just has one of those faces that doesn’t really lend itself to the ‘mate aesthetic, as his earlier ‘mates weren’t much better.  Chief included no accessories, but I’m not exactly sure what you’d give him.

MORTAR PACK CYLON

“Capable of downing enemy aircraft from stealthily concealed positions, Cylon ground forces often include at least one Mortar Pack Cylon Centurion. When damaged in battle, these destructive units can even repair themselves on the fly.”

The Cylon Centurions were the bread and butter of this line, since they were kind of the easiest way of keeping the packs at least somewhat interesting.  Chief may just be a normal dude in drab clothes, but that’s okay, because he’s packed with this sweet ass robot, right?  The figure uses the same starting base,  as every other Minimate, but with add-ons for the faceplate, chest piece, hands, pelvis, and feet.  They’re the same pieces that had been used countless times before for other Cylons, though the chest piece has been tweaked ever so slightly to allow for the mortar pack to be plugged into it.  The pieces all make for a decent enough approximation of the Cylons from the show.  I wish the upper torso were a little more mobile, and I’d really like to be able to actually use the neck articulation, but it’s decent enough.  The details are nice and sharp, especially on the torso and face, and he looks suitably different from the standard Minimate, without deviating so much as to lose the aesthetic altogether.  The paint is a bit more lax on this guy, but it’s still pretty solid. The gunmetal grey is applied cleanly, and all of the detail work is pretty sharp.  The only accessory is the titular mortar pack.  I don’t know if this was ever actually used on the show, but it’s a pretty cool piece nonetheless.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

There’s not much of an exciting story behind this set.  It hit Toys R Us, and I went and got it from my local store.  That’s really it.  I had a lot of the BSG Minimtates, but I can’t say I was ever super into any of them.  This set’s about average for the line.  Both ‘mates are well made, but there’s not a whole lot of excitement here.  If you like the show and Minimates, I guess you’d like these.

#1330: Arc Trooper

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

ARC TROOPER

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Through the creative vision of Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cartoon Network, the Clone Wars are brought to life in an exciting new series of short animated chapters. A unique animation style captures the drama of this epic period in galactic history along with its outstanding heroes and adversaries. Noble Jedi warriors lead Clone Troopers into battle against the evil Separatist forces and their droid armies. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and their comrades struggle against the rising power of the dark side and confront personal challenges against a backdrop of war-torn planets”

Easily the best thing to come out of the Star Wars prequels is Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars micro series, released in the period between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  It was the most fun that Star Wars had been since the original trilogy.  There were a couple of cool new ideas introduced by the series, including the Advanced Recon Commando Troopers, or ARC Troopers, an advanced group of clones personally trained by Jango Fett before his demise.  I’ll be taking a look at one of them today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The ARC Trooper was released in the 2005 assortment of Hasbro’s animated-style Star Wars: Clone Wars line.  Though the figure is simply named “ARC Trooper,” he appears to be specifically based on Captain Fordo, the lead ARC Trooper from the series.  The figure stands about 3 1/2 inches tall (he’d be closer to 4 if he were standing upright) and he has 4 points of articulation.  This line was specifically based on Tartakovsky’s line-art from the series.  He’s style is very fluid, which means the figures are rather limited on the articulation front.  A number of figures opted for a more static pose, but the ARC Trooper was actually sculpted in a rather pre-posed manner.  He’s mid-stride, with his right outstretched in a commanding motion and his left down by his side holding a blaster.  While I’m generally not a huge fan of pre-posing on action figures, this is definitely one time where it really works, because it aids in capturing that fluid style I was talking about.  The sculpt does an overall pretty solid job of capturing the distinctive design of the clones from the cartoon.  The only slightly off part is the helmet; on the show, the helmets bowed inward at the bottom, but here it flares out.  It doesn’t result in a super different look or anything, but it’s ever so slightly off.  Still, it’s quite a nice sculpt.  The paintwork on this guy is pretty straightforward.  It’s just flat colors, as it should be.  The application is mostly pretty clean, though there’s a bit of slop on the edges of the kama.  Fordo included a pair of blasters, which can either be held or stowed in his fully-functioning holsters.  He also included the same black display stand included with all of the Clone Wars figures, though, surprisingly, he doesn’t really need it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Captain Fordo was my first Clone Wars figure.  I was always interested in the line, but all the figures I wanted were in hot demand at the time, so I could never find them in stores.  I ended up getting this guy while on a day trip with my dad and my brother.  We had gone to a small comic show, which had been a bust in terms of action figures, so my dad took us to a Target on the way back and let us each pick something out.  Christian got an Anakin and I got this guy.  He’s not a super complex figure or anything, but I still really like him, and he reminds me that I should really track down more of this line.