Monthly Archives: February 2018

#1565: Luke Skywalker – Millenium Falcon Gunner Station

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

LUKE SKYWALKER – MILLENIUM FALCON GUNNER STATION

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

In the ‘90s, the toy aisle was ruled by gimmicks.  Whatever your toy was, it needed a cool gimmick.  The trouble for Kenner’s just recently relaunched Star Wars brand was that it’s not super easy to work goofy ‘90s gimmicks into the confines of the established brand.  In ’96, they gave it a go, offering up a Deluxe line, featuring four of the franchise’s heaviest hitters, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and a Stormtrooper, all packed with some big honking missile launching contraption.  Suffice it to say, the line was not exactly the smash hit Kenner was hoping for, so they went back to the drawing board.  The 1997 Deluxe offerings were all much more sensible, and by 1998, they’d even come up with a decent theme: Gunner Stations.  Remember the gunner stations used by Luke and Han in their escape from the Death Star?  Those were pretty cool, right?  Well, Kenner certainly thought so, and offered up new figures of both Luke and Han, each packed with one of the stations.  I’ll be looking at Luke today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Variations of Farmboy Luke weren’t exactly uncommon in 1998, but this one does give us a slight tweak that’s not been done as a figure since.  Like the Smuggler Han figure I looked at a few months back, this figure depicts Luke with a headset, as well as the belt he took from his Stormtrooper disguise.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  Unlike the last version of Farmboy Luke I looked at from this line, this particular figure comes from after the line had largely fixed those wonky proportions, so Luke no longer looks like he’s been juicing hardcore.  I think there’s perhaps an argument to made for him looking a little flat in some places, but he certainly looks a lot better than he did.  He’s also sporting a head based on the second style of standard Luke from this line.  This head was definitely an improvement on the prior one, and while it’s still not a spot-on likeness of Hamill, it’s certainly closer than before.  This particular version has been tweaked to give him the headset, which also means he’s got a full ear showing on one side, which I think was a first as far as Luke Skywalkers go.  The paint on this figure is pretty standard.  The application is all pretty clean, though there’s a bit of slop under his left eye.  Overall, though, a solid effort.

THE GUNNER STATION ITSELF

Luke himself is really more of an accessory to the main selling point of this set, which is the Gunner station.  Once assembled, the station is pretty sizable, standing about 7 inches tall and measuring 6 inches deep.  The seat and turret are one connected piece, attached to the base via a hinge.  The hinge isn’t particularly strong, so the seat ends up just resting on the platform beneath it if there’s a figure in place.  There’s a faux-window piece that clips over the main gun, which does its best to sell this as being one of the Falcon’s two guns.  That being said, aside from the window and the general shape of the gun, the overall layout of the station is a bit different from the one seen in the movie.  I guess it’s more about the spirit, though.  As far as paint goes, it’s confined to the main section of the gun, which has some slight blaster scarring, which looks reasonable enough.  There’s also a decal back on the monitor, which replicates the screen in front of Luke in the movie.  Beyond that, it’s just molded plastic.  There’s also a sort of missile launching feature.  The barrels of the gun can be fired in succession when you turn the gear at the back of the gun.  It’s not spring loaded and the missiles don’t actually click into place or anything. which can be a bit on the annoying side when you’re picking this thing up and moving it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I was much younger, every year when school finished up, my Nana would take me and my cousin Rusty out and buy us a few small things as a small treat for finishing out the year.  We were each given a set amount we could spend, and I had gotten one or two other things (what they were, I can’t for the life of me remember), and I still had a little bit left to spend, and I believe this guy was marked down.  He was actually my go-to Luke for a good while, and stayed my stand-by Farmboy Luke until I started collecting as an adult.

#1564: Okoye

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

OKOYE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Remember on Wednesday, when I reviewed Nakia?  And I mentioned not knowing a whole lot about the character?  Well, that goes double for today’s subject, Okoye.  I know she’s played by Danai Gurira from The Walking Dead….and that’s really about it.  And, of course, as the Build-A-Figure, there’s no packaging bio for me to fall back on.  A quick glance at her very short Marvel Wiki entry tells me she’s another of T’Challa’s body guards, so there’s that.  Now she’s got a figure, and I’m reviewing it here today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Okoye (not “Okay” as my spellcheck keeps insisting) is, as noted above, the Build-A-Figure for the recent Black Panther-themed series of Marvel Legends.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  Construction-wise, this figure is very similar to the Nakia figure, which is sensible given their similar employment.  It’s worth noting, though, that she has a completely unique sculpt, which I will admit was rather a surprise to me.  I had really expected some shared parts here, but I’m glad Hasbro went for screen accurate over economical.  I was a little disappointed to find that Okoye’s articulation was a bit more restricted than Nakia, especially at the elbows.  That said, she’s still very posable.  It just makes getting her spear in both hands a little more difficult.  Fortunately, her sculpt is just as strong as Nakia’s, delivering a very detail-filled sculpt that really looks like what we’ve seen of Okoye from the promos.  Her head has a pretty solid likeness of Gurira, which I think is a lot stronger than any of McFarlane’s attempts with their Michonne figures.  You can really tell who this is supposed to be.  I also like that they’ve given her a stern and serious expression that still manages to avoid having her look too much like a mannequin.  I think the paint plays a big part in that too.  Okoye has the face printing again, and she’s by far the best example I’ve seen.  There’s also some really sharp work on her head tattoos.  The rest of the body is also pretty decent, though I do wish there were some sort of accent work on her wrist bracers; they look a little goofy with just the straight gold plastic.  Build-A-Figures being accessories themselves, they don’t tend to be too heavy on extras.  Okoye does include her spear, though, which is certainly a plus, and essentially puts her on par with the rest of the assortment.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since I don’t really know Okoye, I wasn’t initially sure I was going to complete this Build-A-Figure.  Of course, before I knew it, I’d ended up with all but two of her pieces.  Tim offered me his Killmonger piece, and I found Panther in fairly short order, so there we go.  As with Nakia, it’s a figure I wasn’t really expecting anything from, but one I’m actually rather happy with.  And, for those of you keeping track at home, this is the second Build-A-Figure of a character I don’t know that Hasbro has managed to get me to complete.  I think I’m just too easy a target at this point.

#1563: Invincible Iron Man

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

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Technological upgrades and weapons help Iron Man bring order to any battle.”

Since Tim took the last Build-A-Figure contributing figure in the latest series of Marvel Legends, I suppose I’ll just round the main series out by looking at the only figure in the set *not* to come with a piece of Okoye.  It’s an Iron Man.  I know, that’s very different and unusual.  No, wait, it’s the other thing.  Predictable and highly expected.  Yeah, that’s it.  Iron Man’s been a fixture of Marvel Legends since its start, so there’s precedent, I suppose.  Plus, with his near limitless armor variations, there are plenty of good excuses for new figures.  Let’s go with that.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Invincible Iron Man is ostensibly part of the Okoye Series of Marvel Legends.  Like Namor and Black Bolt before him, he doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with Panther, but I guess Hasbro just really wanted a known quantity in this assortment, sort of like when they did the same exact thing for the first Guardians assortment back in 2014.  Maybe it’ll actually work out for this time and stores won’t still be trying to unload this Iron Man four years from now like what happened with the Space Armor.  Believe it or not, this is actually the first main-series-released Iron Man since the Civil War-based Mark 46 from 2016, and the first comic-based Tony since 2015.  That seems kind of crazy to me. The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  This Iron Man is based his armor from Marvel’s 2015 “All-New, All-Different” relaunch.  I’m actually quite a fan of this design, so I’m happy to see it chosen for this spot.  What makes me even happier is that it got a dedicated original sculpt.  It does a very nice job of translating the armor’s sleek design into plastic form, and also does a pretty solid job of keeping all of the posability up to what it should be.  From a structural standpoint, this figure feels rather similar to the Mk 46, just a bit skinnier.  I really liked the 46, so I’m definitely on board with this figure taking after it.  I only have one complaint about the sculpt, and it’s something totally confined to my figure.  He’s got a divot on the right side of his helmeted head, which makes it look like he’s taken some serious damage on that side.  It’s fortunately not visible from every angle, but once you see it, it’s hard to un-see it.  Still, that’s a one-off fluke, and it can’t be held against the figure as a whole.  I’m not even that bugged by it, since this figure also includes an unmasked Tony Stark head, which I absolutely love, and will probably end up displaying on the figure most of the time.  It’s just such a sharp and character-filled sculpt, and it looks really good on the body.  The paint on this figure is about on par with other Iron Men from the line.  Lots of red and gold.  The application is clean, and I like the warm-toned colors they’ve chosen.  The unmasked head gets the best work really, with a paint job that accentuates the character of the sculpt very nicely.  In addition to the extra head, Iron Man is packed with a pair of hands open for blasting, two blast effect pieces (re-used from the Mk 46), and a clip-on cannon piece.  The open hands look nice, but I was sad to discover they didn’t have wrist hinges like the main hands.  I’m delighted to see the repulser blasts crop up again, and they continue to add to the posing options for compatible Iron Men.  The cannon seems a bit extraneous to me, but it’s not without merit, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Heavy hitters tend to be the thorn in any collectors side, but this was an Iron Man I was actually quite looking forward to.  As I noted above, I like the design, and he was the only character missing from the ANAD Avengers line-up.  Super Awesome Girlfirend ended up getting me this figure at the same time as Nakia.  I gotta say, I really like this one.  It’s clear that Hasbro put in the effort to just make a good figure all-around, and this guy’s possibly the best Legends Iron Man they’ve released.  Small QC issues aside, he’s pretty awesome.

Guest Review #0049: Erik Killmonger

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

ERIK KILLMONGER

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Aha! I bet you didn’t expect to see me reviewing figures again? Well as it turns out, I just so happen to fill in a very specific void in Ethan’s action figure collection. That void’s name is Erik. Isn’t that a name that just inspires terror? Erik. That definitely ranks near the top of the list for imposing comic book character names: Bloodwulf, Violator, Slayback, and now Erik. What’s that? I mean, yeah, he’s got a last name too, but “Killmonger” isn’t in the least bit scary and makes him sound like an office temp, so let’s stick with Erik. Now, is Erik’s figure any good? Let’s have a look.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Erik is part of the 2018 Black Panther wave of Marvel Legends, just in time for the movie in February. Now, full honesty, I have next to no idea who Erik is in the context of the comics aside from an antagonist to T’challa, but what I do know is that I’m digging the leopard print in his suited-up look from the trailers. Rather disappointingly, this pattern doesn’t show up all that well on the figure. It’s definitely there, or at least an attempt at it, but it’s just too dark, especially on the helmet. Based on the trailers, it also seems like the patterns on his legs should be gold but they are purely sculptural with no paint. Overall, I feel like the gold in his costume is just too sparse and where it is is too dark. His helmet gets the worst of it as it kind of looks like they gave it one or two passes with a dry brush and left it at that. The gold bits on his hips also suffer from a little bit of bleed. The collar is actually a separate piece of plastic laid into the torso. It’s not detachable or loose, but it’s worth noting that is isn’t paint and therefore has a bit of a different look to the rest of the gold on Erik. There’s a lot of sculpted detail all over the figure, the extent of which makes me think he is completely new tooling but if I’m wrong I’m sure Ethan will chime in with a parenthetical. The quality of the sculpt definitely helps mitigate some of the shortcomings of the paint but doesn’t fully make up for them. The tribal-looking dotted line pattern reaches every single major piece of the figure and even some minor ones like the backs of the knees and hunching shoulders, so that’s pretty impressive. Going in the opposite direction as the paint, the head has by far the most sculpted detail. I can’t tell if the symbols on the sides of his head are meant to mean something but it does look a little like someone face-rolled an emoji keyboard and wound up with diamond ring, airplane, Notre Dame cathedral, and the Eiffel Tower. Maybe Erik has a special friend back in Paris? Why not? I’m not above baseless speculation. What’s even better about the sculpt is that it works very well in conjunction with the articulation, all 32 points of it. For a character like Erik, who, let’s face it, is functionally identical to Black Panther, poseability is pretty important and the figure delivers on that. In particular, I appreciate the inclusion of the hunching shoulders which are often reserved for Spider-Man figures. They allow for more dramatic poses, most notably any kind of leaping or lunging poses to which the figure is very well suited. In addition, thanks to Erik’s included accessories, those lunging leaping attacks can be made with either clawing hands or grasping hands so he can equip some slightly more traditional weapons. From what I can see in promo material, the short spear thing looks spot on, aside from mine being a little warped in the package. The sword is close but the one in the trailers and posters has more of a pointed tip rather than being rounded. There’s also some blade detail that’s missing from the toy, but it’s possible, and in fact quite likely that Hasbro had to come up with the tooling based on early pre-production images that don’t quite match the final cut, so I’m not mad about it. Erik also comes with the left leg to the Build-A-Figure, Okoye, but I guess there’s nothing saying he couldn’t just swing it around like some sort of weird club if you really wanted.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been kind of weirdly hyped about the Black Panther movie coming out. The titular character was easily one of my favorite parts of Captain America: Civil War, so getting a whole movie about him is just fine by me. Now, why didn’t I get a Panther figure? I actually wasn’t as big a fan of the design of the panther costume from the new figures as I was with the Civil War look. The “golden leopard” look, however, I found quite striking in both the trailer and the figure. Interestingly enough, Erik is my first and, currently, only Marvel Legends figure in my collection but I’d say he’s definitely a good one to start with, disappointing paint aside. Maybe if I’m feeling crafty I’ll see about gilding him up myself one day.