Monthly Archives: July 2017

#1353: Wasabi No-Ginger – Stealth

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

WASABI NO-GINGER – STEALTH

BIG HERO 6 (BANDAI)

Hey, you guys, guess what?  It’s been two weeks since my last Big Hero 6 review.  I guess it’s time for another.  This one’s my final review from the series (at least for the time being), and so I figured I might as well go back to the very beginning.  My first BH6 review was a Wasabi figure, and so’s my last one.  Let’s have a look, shall we?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wasabi was released in the third series of Bandai’s Big Hero 6 line, which was the “stealth” series.  Big surprise, that means that Wasabi is a stealth variant.  Also big surprise, he’s the same mold as the standard Wasabi.  By extension, he too is about 3 1/2 inches tall and he has 13 points of articulation.  The sculpt’s the same, for better and for worse.  It has the same ups and downs, which means he’s still got one of the best sculpts of the line.  The main changes to the figure are the paint, which has been made more subdued…mostly.  The green’s a lot darker, and there’s more black interspersed (which, by the way, has the added side-bonus of making him look a bit like a Green Lantern, which I’m definitely okay with), but there are also a few more bright spots mixed in as well. Still, he’s definitely darker as a whole.  The work is clean, and seems to be even cleaner than the original Wasabi, which is certainly a plus.  Like his predecessor, this guy includes his energy blade attachments.  I still think translucent plastic would look cooler, but the neon green looks cool.  Wasabi doesn’t have the coat included with the original, but upon looking through the other Wasabi’s on hand when I got this guy, it would appear that later shipments of the original figure were missing the coat as well.  He didn’t have it in the movie, anyway, so it’s not a huge loss, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Have you read all of my other Big Hero 6 reviews?  No?  Go read them.  Good, now you can probably guess where this guy came from.  Yep, he’s another Ollie’s purchase.  I wasn’t initially going to get him, but Super Awesome Girlfriend and I were collectively getting the rest of the team, and I felt weird not getting a Wasabi, especially since he’s my favorite and all.  There’s not a whole lot that’s different here, but he’s still a pretty entertaining figure, and I think he’s the best of the stealth figures, at least going by what I’ve seen.

#1352: Power Ring

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

POWER RING

DC COMICS SUPER VILLAINS (DC COLLECTIBLES)

“Fearful, doubting, and self-destructive.  A coward at his core, Power Ring is able to negate any Green Lantern rings with his Lantern.”

Oh hey, it’s a DC thing.  That’s cool and different, I guess.

So, I don’t actually know if I’ve discussed the DC Multiverse here on the site just yet.  Back when DC was doing things other than being the worst at everything, they decided that they wanted to have multiple versions of their characters in play, and thus introduced the multiverse concept.  It started with Earth 2, which housed the Golden Age versions of DC heroes, but Earth 2 was quickly followed by Earth 3, a world that was the exact opposite of the primary Earth.  Columbus was an American explorer who discovered Europe, President John Wilkes Booth was assassinated by actor Abraham Lincoln, and instead of the heroic Justice League, the world was patrolled by the villainous Crime Syndicate.  Even after the destruction of the Multiverse, the Crime Syndicate have cropped up a few times over the years, most recently in the big crossover event Forever Evil.  Today, I’ll be looking at the evil Green Lantern-equivalent, Power Ring!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Power Ring was released as part of DC Collectibles’ post-New 52 DC Comics Super Villains line.  He was part of the first half of the two Crime Syndicate assortments, alongside Ultraman, Superwoman, and Owlman.  The figure stands about 6 3/4 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  All of the figures in the set were, of course, based on the versions of the characters from Forever Evil, and Power Ring was no exception.  That being said, Power Ring’s design was the one that was almost completely identical to his classic design, which is cool by me.  The sculpt was unique to this figure, and is a pretty solid recreation of David Finch’s depiction of Power Ring from the mini-series.  It’s largely pretty clean, it’s well proportioned, and the articulation is worked-in rather organically.  The head sculpt is a slight bit more heroic than Power Ring is usually depicted, but it’s still a little more sinister than the average Hal Jordan, and that’s what matters.  The one thing that really solidifies this as a modern Power Ring is the right arm, which is showing the weird spreading infection thing that he had in the mini-series.  It’s not my favorite concept, but the actual detail work on the figure is well-rendered, adds some extra oomph to the sculpt.  My one major issue with this figure is an issue of durability; he hails from the time before DCC stopped using clear plastic for all of the joints.  While taking the photos for the review, my Power Ring’s hand just sort of fell off.  I was able to fix it with some glue, and the mobility wasn’t lost, but it’s still not a very comforting thing to have happen to a figure, and it certainly made me more cautious when posing him.  The paintwork on this figure is solidly handled; the dark metallic green is quite clean, and sets him apart from other figures.  I also really dig the pearlescent white on the gloves and boots.  I do feel like the green on the raised veins of his right arm are a little too present; slightly more subtle would have been better, I think.  Still, pretty solid overall.  Power Ring was originally packaged with his power battery.  My figure, however, was picked up loose, so he came sans the battery.  I’m not much of a fan of the modern battery design, so I can’t say it’s a huge loss on my part.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This is a figure I’ve almost picked up a ton of times, but always passed on for other things.  I ultimately ended up finding him at this place called Orbit DVD, just outside of Asheville, NC, just a few weeks ago.  Ultimately, despite his New 52-inspired origins, he’s probably the best version of Power Ring on the market.  He’s not perfect, but he’s pretty fun overall.  It’s a shame that he juuuuuust predates the switch to the new Icons scale, because it means he doesn’t fit with much in my collection.

#1351: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL UNIVERSE 10-INCH (TOY BIZ)

“Transporting himself back to the present day, the Spider-Man of the year 2099 materializes right in Avengers Mansion. Facing Captain America and She-Hulk, Spider-Man uses his amazing powers to escape. Scouring his now unfamiliar surroundings, this futuristic Spider-Man searches for the one who possesses the information he needs before he can return home – Wolverine!”

Okay, I know I’m not supposed to critique the bios, but this one’s really odd for Cap.  Like, all of the 10-inch figures from this era did this whole odd scenario used to tie together a bunch of random characters thing, but the fact that the bio goes out of its way to single out Wolverine and Spider-Man 2099, but just gives a passing mention to Cap seems a little bit odd.  *sigh*  I’m getting distracted….

Hey everybody, and to my American readers, Happy Fourth of July!  To my non-American readers, happy Tuesday, I guess.  I’m honoring this Fourth of July the same way I honor it every year: by reviewing a Captain America figure.  Let’s get onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released as part of Toy Biz’s Marvel Universe 10-Inch line in 1997, alongside the also mentioned She-Hulk, Spider-Man 2099, and a Wolverine of some sort.  Cap is seen here in his classic costume, more or less.  The figure stands about 10 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  He’s built using the same body used for the un-flamed-on Johnny Storm figure from the Fantastic Four line, which is quite amusing nowadays, but was completely un-connected to anything back when this figure was new.  The body’s okay for him, I suppose, though it’s a little small for Cap.  It also lacks the buccaneer boots, though those weren’t going to happen without all-new tooling anyway.  There are some artifacts of the old sculpt’s costume, which look slightly out of place, but are generally not too obvious or distracting.  The head is an upscaling of the Electro Spark Captain America from the 5-inch Spider-Man line.  As I noted in my review of the smaller figure, it’s a bit angry for my taste, but it’s not terrible.  Honestly, I think it looks a bit better at a larger size, so that’s actually pretty cool.  The paint is generally pretty decent.  The colors are all pretty bright, and the application is rather clean.  I’m not sure why he’s missing his pupils, but worse things have happened.  Cap was packed with his mighty shield.  It was a cool piece, but sadly mine was lost somewhere along the way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from one of my family’s summer trips to the beach back in the ‘90s.  My parents always took me to get something from the KB Toys in the nearby outlets, and this was the figure I decided to get that year, no doubt purchased alongside a VHS with some episodes  of the Ruby-Spears Captain America cartoon.  He was one of the earlier Cap figures I owned, probably my second after the Electro Spark figure.  He was definitely one of my  favorites of the 10-inch figures, and I still like him quite a bit, even if he’s a bit goofy.

#1350: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“One of the most powerful forces on Earth, Apocalypse has become the greatest villain in the world of the X-Men. Activating the Apocalypse holo-droid, Cyclops helps the X-Men learn how to fight a foe who is as powerful as his is evil. Avoiding blasts from his gattling gun hand, Cyclops, along with Storm and Jubilee, take down the Robot Fighter with a perfectly timed series of attacks!”

Okay, so I’m gonna warn my readers up front: this month is going to be pretty Marvel-heavy.  That’s just what I’ve been picking up a lot of in the last few weeks.  I’ll mix in some other stuff where I can, but there’s a lot of figures to cover.  With that out of the way, I’ll be setting my sights on today’s focus, Cyclops, who hails from Toy Biz’s lengthy X-Men line from the ‘90s.  I know, from the bio, you might have guessed this was an Apocalypse review, but not so.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops was part of the “Robot Fighters” series of X-Men.  This was the 19th Series Toy Biz put out in the X-Men line and it was after they’d run out of steam with the more “normal” figures and switched to more gimmicky sub-lines that allowed for more variants of the main team.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall (he’s less hunched than Gambit, but still loses some height to it) and he has 5 points of articulation.  He loses even more articulation than his series-mates, bringing him down to Total Justice levels.  In fact, in more way than one, this guy feels more at home with Kenner’s TJ line than he does with most of the stuff Toy Biz was producing.  Even the design of his costume (which was unique to the figure and had no basis in the comics, apart from being vaguely inspired by his Jim Lee toggs) feels a lot like one of Kenner’s Fractal Armor designs.  As with Gambit, I’m still not certain how the Danger Room-related bios attached to these figures translates to these new, over-designed costumes, but there it is.  While the costume’s not the greatest, the thing that really holds this guy back is the pre-posing.  While Gambit’s deep crouch was workable with the articulation and allowed for a few decent poses, I have no idea what you’re supposed to do with this guy.  What’s he doing?  Is he shouting “come at me, bro?”  That’s all I can figure with the outstretched arms and slightly cocked head.  But it also appears that he’s in mid-squat or something.  Whatever it is, he’s really pissed off by it.  So pissed off that he’s gritted his teeth to the point of his visor engulfing his nose.  Wait, I think I’ve got it!  The Apocalypse hologram must have played a game of “got your nose” while Scott was right in the middle of his daily squat routine, and now Scott’s all pissed because that’s his very favorite nose, and so he’s ready to start something.  It makes perfect sense now.  The paint work on this figure is actually pretty solid, truth be told.  I like the shade of blue they’ve used, and the application’s all pretty clean for the most part.  They’ve even managed to make all of the yellows match pretty well too!  Cyclops was packed with a robotic recreation of Apocalypse, which is super goofy and super gimmicky.  It fires missiles and when you press the “A” the right arm falls off.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted when I reviewed Gambit, I remember this series hitting retail, but for whatever reason I never got any of them.  I’m a dyed in the wool Cyclops fan, so I was gonna get this guy eventually.  He’s another item from Bobakhan Toys; I fished him out of one of their loose figure bins.  He’s really goofy.  There’s no getting around that.  And, unfortunately, I don’t find him to be as much fun to play with as the Gambit.  That being said, he’s a goofy, very ‘90s Cyclops, and that’s kind of right up my alley.  I’ll just stick him with my Total Justice figures, where he’s less likely to be judged.

#1349: Kat & Carter

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

KAT & CARTER

HALO MINIMATES

I own an amusingly small quantity of Halo Minimates.  How amusingly small?  Well, this will be my third and final Halo Minimates review.  More amusing?  I don’t actually like either of the characters in this set.  Why do I have them?  Read on to find out.  Onto the review!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair was released in the second Toys R Us exclusive series of Halo Minimates, as the resident Halo: Reach pairing in the assortment.

KAT

“As second in command of Noble Team, Lieutenant Commander Kat was considered an exemplary soldier and brilliant cryptanalyst. Even during times of limited intel, her ability to read a situation and react accordingly was considered supernatural, making her invaluable to the team.”

Of the two figures in this set, Kat’s the one I loathe the most.  God does Kat suck.  Especially when she’s driving. She’s like the worst driving AI ever implemented in a video game.  But none of that has anything to do with the figure, I guess.  The figure stands about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation (she loses one wrist joint and both ankle joints).  She uses the standard ‘mate body, with add-ons for her helmet, chest plate, left shoulder armor and glove, belt, and boots, as well as a unique right arm, which replicates her robotic replacement from the game.  The pieces are on par with the other Halo ‘mates I’ve looked at; not bad overall, but slightly soft around the edges, when it comes to the finer details.  Still, it’s pretty solid.  In terms of paint, Kat’s okay.  The colors seem to match up pretty well with her in-game counterpart, albeit much cleaner than her armor in the game.  Under the armor, there’s a fully detailed face, with hair and everything detailed.  For some reason, the hair has no actual color, but other than that, the detail work is pretty solid.  Kat comes packed with a Magnum handgun.

CARTER

“During the Fall of Reach, Carter was the Commander of an elite team of Spartans referred to as the Noble Team. Charismatic, reassuring, and also known to be cool under pressure, Carter was considered a born leader. He inspired confidence in all of those under his command.”

Okay, so, admittedly, I don’t dislike Carter quite as much as Kat.  Mostly, I just find him sort of “meh,” which isn’t so great when you’re leading a team of fun, colorful characters. I guess not everyone can be Jorge and Emile.  Like Kat, he’s built on the standard body, though he’s got movement on both wrists.  He has add-ons for his helmet, chest armor, gloves, and boots, as well as unique pieces for his upper arms and legs.  He’s a little on the chunky side, but the pieces are generally pretty  nicely sculpted. The paint on Carter is okay; a little on the drab side, and the blue and grey run together, but it’s decent enough.  As with Kat, there’s a fully detailed head under the helmet.  He actually gets hair color, so that’s a nice step up.  Carter includes a DRM battle rifle, which he can only hold with one hand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Okay, Ethan, you don’t like these two, so why do you own them?  Two reasons: 1) I hadn’t yet played the game when I got them, so I didn’t really know the characters, and 2) my local Toys R Us was closing down, and everything was 75% off.  I’m not crazy about the characters, but the figures are actually pretty cool.

The Blaster In Question #0013: Dual-Strike

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

DUAL-STRIKE

N-STRIKE ELITE

Variety is the spice of life or something.  It keeps things interesting.  But what if you’re in the middle of a foam conflict and you find yourself thinking, “Something new and/or exciting better happen right now or I’m gonna lose it”?  The answer is simple.  Use the selector switch.  What does that mean?  Well, I’ll tell you.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

The Nerf Dual-Strike was released in 2016 as part of the N-Strike Elite series.  The mechanics present in the Dual-Strike are mostly reused with one big exception that I will get into later.  The blaster fires from one of two sets of three barrels linked via a smart AR system.  The interesting part is that one set of barrels fires standard Elite darts while the other fires Mega darts.  On top of that, you can manually control which type of ammo you want to use via the previously mentioned selector switch on the right side of the blaster.  The switch is quite clearly labeled so you know which setting it’s on.  It’s actually pretty impressive that the switch works as well as it does since it’s not uncommon for more complex smart AR setups to want to eject darts prematurely if there’s even the slightest increase in air pressure.  Since I’ve had the DS, I haven’t experienced any air interference from one barrel group to the other, so kudos to Nerf on the engineering behind that.  Now on the other hand, I do have a few mostly subjective complaints about the exterior of the blaster.  I’m not a fan of the style of priming handle on the DS.  I realize it’s simple and just works, but I really don’t like how it sticks way out the back of the blaster when it’s primed.  There are other Nerf blasters that use this same method of priming and I don’t like it on any of them either, all the way back to the Nitefinder.  I just wish there had been a more elegant solution because I know it’s possible.  Also, while the grip is mostly fine, the notch just below the trigger where your middle finger is supposed to sit is way too narrow for my hand, so instead of my finger getting a secure, comfortable hold on the blaster, I have one finger sitting on a random raised edge.  It would have been better if this had either been moved down slightly or just removed entirely.  Again, mostly just my personal preferences, but I figure you must at least slightly value my opinions since you’re most of the way through this post, and if you are, I appreciate that.  There’s also a single attachment rail on the top of the blaster.  As far as functionality is concerned, at it’s most basic, the DS is a more complicated than usual 6-shot pistol which is pretty oddly proportioned to boot.   The Elite darts fly reasonably far and hit as hard as you’d expect a blaster in the Elite series to hit.  The Mega darts, however, don’t have the power behind them that they would have in a dedicated Mega blaster, so shots leave just a little to be desired.  Overall, I’d say the DS is best suited to indoor use for those times when you can’t decide just how mean you want to be to your younger siblings.  The Dual-Strike comes packaged with 3 Elite darts and 3 Mega darts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Dual-Strike is one of those kind of hard to place blasters.  It felt more like a proof of concept rather than a product made to fill a niche in the market.  That being said, it’s plenty of fun for just messing around.  I just see the idea behind it having more potential than the final product we got in the end.  Add that to all this switch and DS talk and I feel like I’m writing up a Nintendo press release.

#1348: Dash Rendar

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

DASH RENDAR

STAR WARS: SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE (KENNER)

“In all the galaxy there are few who can fly and shoot like Dash Rendar. Many years ago, as a cadet at the Imperial Acadmey, he continually impressed his superiors with the ability to push vessels beyond their usual limits, executing maneuvers his ships were never meant to perform. He held great promise as a future Imperial officer until a freight vessel piloted by his brother malfunctioned and crashed on Coruscant, destroying a private museum that housed many of the Emperor’s treasures. Though the mishap was not the pilot’s fault, the Emperor banished Rendar’s family and had Dash expelled from the academy. Given his bold disregard for regulation and arrogant confidence, it is doubtful that Dash would have fit in well within the ranks of the Empire anyway. He never hesitates to boast of his skills as an expert pilot and gunner. After his dismissal from the academy, he began a career as a thief and gambler, but soon discovered that his exceptional flying skills were a great asset in the smuggling business. He quickly became very successful, making his services expensive but guaranteed for the right price.”

That is a lot of bio right there.  And it’s especially long for a character who could best be summed up as “Han Solo for that one story where they needed Han Solo, but he was all frozen and stuff.”  That’s my official bio for him, anyway.  Dash is one of the earliest examples of a wholly Expanded Universe character appearing in a Star Wars toyline (he and Prince Xizor, from the same story, appeared at the same time), which is actually pretty nifty.  Sadly, that’s the only time he’s ever gotten a figure, but at least he got the one, meaning that I can review it here today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dash Rendar was released in the first and only series of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, a spin-off of Kenner’s Power of the Force II line.  The figure stands a little over 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  Dash has a unique sculpt, which was based on a number of Dash’s various designs.  Yes, as a totally non-film character, Dash didn’t have one particular design, just more of a general set of generally consistent elements.  He’s got the armor and the padded jumpsuit, which showed up just about everywhere.  He’s also got long sleeves, which kind of look to be unique to this figure; most depictions of him were bare-armed.  To be fair, the sleeves make him fit in a little better with the rest of the Star Wars characters.  In general, Dash’s design really is Han Solo if Han Solo had been designed by a comic book artist in the ‘90s, which is to say he’s a little ridiculous and over-designed.  On the plus side, the slightly exaggerated proportions and pose that most of the PotF2 figures had is right at home with Dash’s uber ‘90s design, which does make him a little more consistent as a whole.  In general, there’s some pretty solid work on Dash’s sculpt.  There’s a lot of fine detail work that you didn’t usually see on figures of this vintage.  Dash’s paint work is pretty decent as well.  The colors are slightly garish, but that fits the character, and at the very least the application’s all really sharp.  The figure was packed with two blasters, one large and one small.  There’s also a back pack, with a little arm that can attach to the larger blaster.  You know, for….reasons.  I don’t know *what* reasons, but I’m sure there are some.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have this Dash figure growing up (though I *did* have his Micro Machine), but I always kind of wanted one.  Of course, since he was the only truly unique figure in the set, he was a little more scarce than the other figures.  I’ve been on the look out for him for a little while, and I ended up finding him at Pop Culture Exchange in Omaha, while on my way back home from Seattle.  Sure, he’s super, super ‘90s, but that’s kind of the best thing about him.  Guess I’m gonna have to get the Outrider for him to pilot now.  Oh darn.