Monthly Archives: February 2019

The Blaster In Question #0075: Shadow ICS-6

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

BlasterInQuestion1

SHADOW ICS-6

MODULUS (GHOST OPS)

So it turns out I’m not dead and I’m still on this site. Sorry. But speaking of dead things, ghosts, like the Modulus Ghost Ops line of blasters, and yes it is a line now.  You only need 2 points to make a line and we now have the second point. Also apparently not dead is the old style of giving Nerf blasters alphanumeric designations along with their name, so today I’ll be looking at the Shadow ICS-6. 

THE BLASTER ITSELF

The Shadow was released in 2019 as the second only blaster entry into the Ghost Ops subset of the Modulus line. It uses the internal magazine system we’ve seen on blasters like the Magnus and Rey/Han blasters. Functionally, however, it has a slightly different loading system which allows the magazine to be loaded when the blaster is unprimed. Additionally, other external features like copious accessory rails, a barrel attachment point and stock attachment point separate the Shadow from other internal magazine type blasters. Perhaps most notable about the Shadow, somewhat counterintuitively, is its light up feature, much like the Evader that came before it.  The secondary trigger on the grip activates the lights, which create a pretty cool effect especially in low light. I don’t know if it’s just my blaster, but one of the lights is placed in just the right position to shine right into my face when I try to aim the blaster with the lights on, so that’s a little irksome but by no means a deal breaker. Like the Evader, the Shadow has a tiny little switch on the front end that activates one more light inside the barrel when an extension is put on. This won’t affect 95% of barrels out there, but any of the Ghost Ops barrels light up like fiber optics. Performance-wise, the Shadow does more or less how you’d expect a modern Nerf blaster. Shots fly reasonably far and hit equally as hard, maybe not as much as a full-sized blaster, but it is a pistol, kind of. Now we come to my main complaint about the Shadow. When you take into account that it is a 6 shot pistol, it’s huge, a detail not helped by the entirely clear body. This means you can see all of the dead space inside the blaster, which makes the size all the more baffling. I guess it’s not a huge issue, but it bugs me. I guess the extra size does make it just that little bit more intimidating when you bust into your younger sibling’s room and double tap them in the head like a Nerf hitman. The Shadow ICS-6 comes packaged with a barrel attachment and 6 Modulus Elite darts. The light up feature requires 3 AAA batteries but is not needed to operate the blaster otherwise. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION 

I want to be clear on one thing, no pun intended. I really like the Shadow as a blaster. That being said, my knack for picking out blasters that not many other people like seems to be in effect again. From what I’ve been able to find, not many people are really thrilled with the Shadow and I can’t quite understand why. It’s a decent blaster with just a few things that are less than optimal.

#1942: Alpha Flight Boxed Set #2

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

SASQUATCH, SNOWBIRD, AURORA, & SHAMAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

The United States doesn’t hold a total monopoly on North American super hero teams!  No, no, Canada also gets in on the fun, with their own psuedo-Avengers-equivalent, Alpha Flight!  First appearing in the pages of Uncanny X-Men in 1979, the team eventually moved to their own series, and they’ve maintained something of a cult following ever since.  In 2012, that following was prominent enough to warrant a pair of boxed sets, which gave us a rather sizable line-up for the team.  The second, NYCC-exclusive pack is the focus of today’s review!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These four made up the second of the two Alpha Flight boxed sets, released in 2012.  The first was at SDCC, and this one followed up at NYCC as mentioned above.  Though, neither set was a gangbuster, so they were available from a number of retailers after the fact.

SASQUATCH

More than just an urban legend, Sasquatch is Walter Langowski, who has the ability, via either magical or radioactive means depending on your preference, to transform into this hulking creature.  He’s definitely up there in terms of recognition, falling behind Guardian and maybe Puck for best known team member.  Sasquatch takes quite a departure from the standard ‘mate body, getting add-ons for his head/chestcap, hands, upper legs, and feet.  Apart from the upper legs, which are standard bulk-up pieces, everything was new to this figure.  While the pieces work reasonably well, the design of them definitely proves rather on the limiting side in terms of playablity.  The head can’t turn, the arms only barely move, and he falls apart at the waist a lot.  So, really, anything beyond a basic standing pose isn’t happening.  He looks decent enough, though.  The paintwork on Sasquatch is fairly scarce.  He’s mostly just the same orange all around, which is accurate, but maybe not super exciting.  The face is definitely nice, and is a solid recreation of Byrne’s artwork.  Sasquatch has no accessories, since the clear display stands hadn’t *quite* become standard issue.

SNOWBIRD

An Inuit goddess, initially limited to the Canadian borders, Snowbird is one of Byrne’s earliest Alpha Flight creations, predating his professional work in comics.  She makes use of two add-on pieces, one for her hair/head-piece, and the other for her cape.  Both pieces were new to this figure, and they work reasonably well.  The cape lacks the grandeur with which Snowbird’s design was usually shown, but that does mean she’s a less restricted and top-heavy figure, so I can totally understand DST’s call on that one.  Snowbird’s paintwork is pretty decent.  The application is clean, and the colors match up well with her comics design. She’s slightly washed out looking, but that’s true to the character.  The face is accurate to her design, but seems…off.  It’s just not particularly appealing to look at, truth be told.  I guess she just doesn’t look quite right on a cylinder.  For accessories, Snowbird just gets a flight stand.  One of her alternate forms would have been cool, but given the two new add-ons she got, not necessary.

AURORA

Though she’s a little lesser known than her brother Northstar, Aurora is still pretty well known, even if it’s largely in connection to her brother.  Splitting the two up between these sets was actually pretty clever. Aurora uses one add-on piece for her hair.  It’s borrowed from Thor‘s Jane foster.  It’s not the most luxurious piece, but it gets the job done, and is a respectable choice. The majority of Aurora’s design is done with paint.  Her white and black combo is quite eye-catching, and really works well in this style.  Due to the very stylized fashion of coloring Northstar and Aurora’s hair, there’s some confusion over what’s the proper coloring.  To ease this issue, Aurora includes the same hairpiece painted both white and black.  She comes wearing the white, but the overall appearance is more or less the same either way.  In addition to the extra hair piece, Aurora also includes a flight stand, as well as an alternate hand, which allows her to hold hands with the Northstar figure from the other set.

SHAMAN

Shaman is exactly what it says on the tin…more or less.  He’s also the least fortunate of the founding members when it comes to toys, as this figure was his very first, and to date, only.  The figure uses add-ons for his hair, belt, and boots.  The boots are the DCD Flash boots (rather than the Invaders Cap boots we tend to see in the Marvel line), and the other two pieces are brand new.  The hair and the belt are quite nicely rendered pieces, with the small detail work on the belt in particular being quite impressive.  The paintwork on Shaman is the nicest in the set.  His face is a good fit for the stalwart Shaman, and the details on his costume are crisp, clean and quite bold.  While I might have liked to see some fringe detailing on the boots, I can’t really fault DST for not attempting it. Shaman included two energy effects pieces, both molded in the same translucent blue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I grabbed this set from my favorite minimate retailer, Luke’s Toy Store.  The set’s a bit more of a mixed bag than the first one.  Sasquatch is passable at best.  Nothing really stands out as exemplary, and he’s certainly got his flaws.  But, this is kind of the same assortment of problems that every larger character runs into.  Snowbird represents a solid attempt from DST, but is sadly another miss, I think largely due to the design not really translating all that well to the style.  Aurora may be a fair standard-issue offering, but she really works in this style, and pairs nicely with her brother.  By far the star of the set, Shaman is a surprisingly good figure, from start to finish.

#1941: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“The strongest of the X-Men, Colossus has the awesome mutant ability to turn his body into living steel! When he is in his living steel form, Colossus can lift as many as forty cars at once. His steel body is so hard that not even a bomb blast can hurt him! Normally Colossus is a quiet and gentle man, but when an evil mutant attacks, Colossus can be as fearsome a foe as any X-Man!”

Okay, so, umm, I was doing this thing where I was trying to work through Toy Biz’s X-Men line series by series.  And I was doing pretty good.  And then I was double checking things and realized I jumped the gun going to Series 2, so I have to do just the tiniest bit of back-tracking and take a look at the team’s resident metal bruiser, Colossus!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Colossus is the final figure in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  At the time of this figure’s release, Piotr had been on the team pretty consistently since his introduction in the ’70s, so he was a natural choice for the line-up.  He’s seen here in his classic costume, which he had just returned to at the time of the figure’s release.  The figure stands 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  All of the figures in the set were originally designed with the lessened articulation, but most of them had it upgraded by the time they hit stores.  Colossus, for whatever reason, was one of two exceptions to this rule.  His sculpt is definitely scrawnier than later Colossi, but honestly he’s not that bad, especially in comparison to the rest of the assortment.  He’s actually a lot more proportionately balanced than most of them, so he looks pretty decent.  He’s rather pre-posed, in order facilitate his action feature.  What is this amazing action feature, you ask?  Well, there’s this lever on his back, and when you pull it down, his arms lift upward, in a weight-lifting sort of action.  I don’t know that it’s really worth the investment the figure gives it, but it’s not the worst.  The paintwork on Colossus is clean and bright.  It’s pretty basic, but it works.  Colossus is packed with a large weight, in order to help sell that weight lifting feature.  It’s a little tricky to keep him standing with it, but it’s doable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Colossus was not part of my collection growing up.  He was, however, part of my brother’s collection.  And as of late, my brother’s been purging a lot of his old figures, and Colossus was the only one I was missing, so, hey, that worked out pretty alright.  There have been better Colossus figures, but as far as 5-inch figures go, he actually still brings quite a bit to the table.

#1940: Iron Man

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

IRON MAN

ONE:12 COLLECTIVE (MEZCO)

“Tony Stark makes you feel, he’s a cool exec with a heart of steel–As Iron Man, all jets ablaze, he’s fightin’ and smitin’ with repulsor rays!”

Thus opens the ’60s Iron Man cartoon, which, hokey as it may be, was my first real introduction to the character.  It wasn’t in the ’60s that I was watching it, of course; I had copies of the VHS tapes released in the mid-90s.  But it definitely gave me an appreciation of the character as he was from the very beginning, and above all, made me really love his classic armor.  In the ’90s, he’d moved onto the upgraded Modular armor, and that was the one that got all the toys.  Now that Iron Man’s one of the biggest superheroes in the market place, the options are more there, and if you’re looking for a nice classic Iron Man, you have a few to choose from.  Hasbro’s been killing it with their Legends figures recently, but an updated classic Iron Man hasn’t crossed their list just yet, so I’m expanding my horizons and jumping over to Mezco’s One:12 Collective for a look at their own take on the old Shellhead.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Iron Man is a relatively recent release for the One:12 line.  Though he was shown off quite some time ago, the standard retail release just started showing up at various stores in the last month or so.  There are actually three versions of this figure available: the standard release (covered here), a PX-exclusive Stealth variant, and a Mezco-exclusive black and gold variant.  It is my opinion, however, that you can’t beat the classic colors.  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall and he has 33 points of articulation.

The One:12 figures are usually a mixed-media affair, and Iron Man still is, but in a different fashion than other figures from the line.  Rather than a cloth costume on a plastic body, Iron Man is a combo of plastic and diecast metal, which I suppose makes sense for a totally armored character.  It gives him a definite heft, which I guess has something of a plus.  It does restrict some of the joints a little bit, which was a slight drag, but ultimately it’s not much different than the average One:12 figure in terms of mobility.  The design of Iron Man’s armor is clearly inspired by Tony’s classic armor from the late ’60s up through the ’80s, but veiled through Mezco’s own unique artistic sensibilities.  Essentially, they took the basic design, and tweaked it to look like it could actually be real armor, assembled on a real person.  It’s a clean, and certainly visually appealing design, and it maintains all of the important classic Iron Man markers.  The torso features a light-up feature for the reactor, with the battery and switch being pretty nicely hidden under the pod on his back.  The helmet has been designed so that you can remove the faceplate, and beneath it is a Tony Stark face which is a suitably generic comic-styled Tony face.  I do appreciate that they avoided the temptation to go heavily toward the RDJ side of things.

The paintwork on Iron Man is more involved than the average One:12 figure, and it’s actually pretty nice.  It’s clean, and the metallic colors are smooth and eye-catching.  He’s a bit brighter than a lot of Mezco’s stuff, which is a definite plus for Iron Man.  The face under the mask is up to the usual standard for this line; he’s clean and life-like, which is kind of the most important thing.  Also, the underside of the faceplate has a decal with a HUD, which is a fun, easily missed little touch.

Iron Man lives up to the One:12 standard of being quite well accessorized.  He’s got three sets of hands (in fists, open gesture, and wide palm), two repulsor effects to plug into the open hands, a uni-beam effect that swaps out for the arc reactor, thruster effects for the bottoms of the feet, alternate launching missile pods for the belt, and two missiles to plug into either forearm, as well as a display stand with an optional arm, perfect for all sorts of flight poses.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been searching for my definitive classic Iron Man.  The original Toy Biz Legend held me for a while, but the recent Hasbro offerings make him look slightly out of place.  When this guy was shown off, I was definitely intrigued, especially if he could possibly augment my Legends.  Seeing him in-person, plus having a ton of trade credit with All Time Toys sealed the deal, so this guy came home with.  He’s a very strong figure, and he definitely looks impressive.  His playability isn’t quite that of a Legends figure, so I’m still sort of hoping for Hasbro to take their own stab at an update, but until then, I’m pretty darn happy with this guy.

As I noted above, this guy was picked up from my friends over at All Time Toys. They’ve sold out of this version, but the stealth variant should be coming soon, and they’ve got backstock of some of the prior releases.  If you’re looking for those, or other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#1939: Gorn

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

GORN

STAR TREK (ART ASYLUM)

For an alien that only actually shows up one time in all of The Original Series, the Gorn sure does get a fair bit of toy love.  Every manufacturer to hold the classic Trek license has given us at least one of this guy.  And can you blame them?  Just look at him.  Isn’t he super awesome?  Well, I sure think so.  Among the toy love he has received was a figure during the Art Asylum/Diamond Select years, which gave us some of the most accurate and well-crafted figures that Trek has ever seen.  I’ll be looking at that particular figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Gorn was released in 2002, in the third series of Art Asylum’s Star Trek: The Original Series line, as part of an alien-heavy assortment, which also included a slightly worse for wear Kirk variant, which paired off nicely with this figure.  The Kirk and Gorn were re-released in 2010 in two-pack form, as part of the “Dilithium Collection,” but the Gorn seen here is the original release.  The figure stands 8 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  The Gorn sported an all-new, totally unique sculpt.  It takes the design of the character as seen in “Arena” and idealizes things just a little bit, with the end result being a figure that keeps all of the important details you remember, while avoiding so costume accurate as to look goofy and fake.  He’s a large, hulking figure, with an impressive stature, and he’s packed with tons of detail all throughout.  The head is by far my favorite piece of the figure.  It’s sharply defined, and captures that sort of sneering menace of the character from the episode.  The cross-hatch pattern on the eyes is well-scaled to the rest of the head (earlier figures have been known to make it too large), and he’s just got a great likeness of the mask from the show.  The rest of the body is pretty strong in its own right, with the texturing of the skin continuing all throughout.  The garment he wears is slightly cleaner and smoother, but still has enough detail to keep it from looking jarring when placed next to the very detailed body.  There’s some slight mixed-media going on, with a rubbery material being used for the skirt piece.  It’s surprisingly thin and malleable, which is always a little concerning in regards to long-term integrity, but it seems to have held up in the 15 years since his release.  Gorn’s paintwork is actually some of the nicest that the line had to offer.  The base work is clean, and he’s got some very subtle, very well-applied accenting.  Definitely a very life-like appearance.  The Gorn was packed with the typical Gorn accessories, a spike and a translator, as well as the typical AA Trek accessory, a weird plastic coin.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Gorn is a figure I’ve wanted for quite some time.  In general, AA’s Classic Trek line was never easy to find at retail, and this set in particular was a fan-favorite.  I’d only seen this Gorn in person a few times, and he was always rather pricey.  I finally found him at Factory Antiques (the largest antique mall in the country!…or at least that’s what all the signs say), loose, and for a price I was willing to pay.  He’s a very nice figure, and perhaps the finest Gorn figure ever released.  Personally, I think he’s the best figure to come out of the AA Trek run, but I may be slightly biased.  Whatever the case, I’m just really happy to finally have him in my collection.

#1938: War Machine & Cull Obsidian

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

WAR MACHINE & CULL OBSIDIAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

“As the Avengers and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A despot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment – the fate of Earth and existence itself has never been more uncertain.”

Man, three Marvel movies in one year sure does have a way of burning out and making it easy for some of the merch to slip through the cracks for way longer than you’d expect.  Good thing I made it through last year unscathed and I don’t have to do it again…crap, I have to do it again, don’t I?  Well, I’d best get through the last of *last* year’s stuff, then, shouldn’t I?  So, without further ado, War Machine & Cull Obsidian!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

War Machine and Cull Obsidian were one of the two Walgreens-exclusives pairings in the second Infinity War-based assortment of Marvel Minimates.  Compared to the more retread-heavy Drax and Gamora, they had a tendency of being the first set to vanish a lot of the time.

WAR MACHINE

After peddling the same War Machine ‘mate three times, DST finally gave us an honest to god update for his Infinity War appearance.  Though not amazingly different from his armor in Civil War, Rhodey’s suit had still been slightly tinkered with for its somewhat brief appearance in IW, so that’s what we’re seeing here.  The figure is based on the standard ‘mate body, with a generic slip-on mask piece, a new torso cap, upper arms, and belt, and the gauntlets from the last five versions of the character.  It does a respectable job of estimating Rhodey’s appearance from the movie.  I don’t mind the move back to printed faces for the helmets, and it’s at the very least consistent with how they handled Tony’s Mark 50 armor.  The more specific parts are as well-sculpted as ever, matching up with the re-used gauntlets in terms of design aesthetic and level of detailing.  The paint work on this figure is better than the last few War Machine’s; the mix of gunmetal grey and silver looks nice, and I’m happy that they kept the camo patterning the armor had in the movie.  It helps to make this armor seem a bit more unique compared to the others.  Under the helmet is another stab at a Don Cheadle likeness.  I think this one’s not as good as the IM2 version, but at least it doesn’t look as goofy as the AoU variant.  War Machine is packed with a flight stand and a standard clear display stand.

CULL OBSIDIAN

Poor Cull Obsidian.  He just can’t catch a break for accuracy.  His Legends release, though an awesomely fun figure, was based on an early design that wasn’t all that close to the final.  The ‘mate clearly was put into production later in the process, as he ends up a lot closer, but there are still some slight inaccuracies.  He gets a unique head, torso cap, upper left arm, and skirt piece, as well as re-using the standard “big guy” parts for his right arm, left hand, legs, and feet.  The detail work on some of the character-specific parts, the head in particular, is a little soft, but the important details are all there, and he’s got more sculpted elements than not.  The design, at least from a sculpting standpoint, isn’t that noticeably different from his final look in the movie.  The paint is is decent, though he’s again a little light on the detailing.  I think it’s the skin that bugs me the most, especially after the Legends figure.  The colors on the costume were ever so slightly tweaked by the time the movie came out as well, but they aren’t terribly far off.  The biggest change from this figure to the screen comes in the form of accessories.  In the movie, Cull has a sort of hammer/axe/chain sort of thing.  Here?  He’s essentially got some space-brass-knuckles.  The Pop! and one of the statues also had these, indicating the weapon he had in the final movie was a very late game adjustment.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked these up…gosh…back in September, if you can believe it.  The second set took forever to hit Walgreens, but I managed to find this particular pair without too much trouble once they actually started showing up.  And then they sat and waited for me to open them for a good four months, because I got distracted and kind of forgot I had them…whoops.  It’s nice to finally get a new War Machine after all this time, and a more accurate Cull Obsidian is pretty cool too.  Definitely not a bad pack.

#1937: Batman Beyond

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

BATMAN BEYOND

DC SUPER FRIENDS (IMAGINEXT)

“How can Batman protect the future of Gotham City?
He passes down his crime-fighting skills to a younger generation.  This younger Batman has even cooler gadgets too, like this motorcycle that transforms into a glider AND launches disks.”

Though it may be aimed at a younger audience than my usual faire, I keep finding myself called back to Imaginext.  It’s one of the more expansive styles out there.  Above all, they have easily one of the best collections of DC characters on the market right now, covering all sorts of different eras and corners of the universe.  One of the more recent additions is a fairly popular character who doesn’t have quite the toy coverage you might expect, Terry McGuinness, aka Batman Beyond!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Batman Beyond is one of the “figure and vehicle” offerings from Imaginext’s DC Super Friends line, and he started arriving at retail late last year.  The figure stands about 3 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation (with the legs moving as one, just like they always do).  Terry is built on the basic Batman body for this line, which isn’t perhaps the most accurate, but Imaginext is known to tweak some designs ever so slightly.  All it really means is that he’s got some more piping and texturing on his costume than he usual does, and given Terry’s future-setting, it’s not an unreasonable look.  Plus, this way, he still has the glove scallops and utility belt.  The rest of the work is paint, or lack there of.  He’s molded in all black, which is sensible, and helps to downplay all that extra sculpted detailing.  The white and red sections are well-handled and pretty clean looking.  The expression on the final figure is slightly changed from what was shown on the proto, which was using a teeth gritted expression that looked lifted pretty straight from the animation.  On the final release, he’s got this sort of side-leaning grin, which certainly looks goofier, and I suppose a bit friendlier, which was probably the main point.  BB is packed with a bat-styled motorcycle.  It seems a little more conventional in design than the vehicles from the show, but it’s not a bad design, and the choice to give him a cycle is a pretty sensible one for Terry.  The wings are spring-loaded, and can be popped down by a button on the back, which is pretty fun, and, of course, there’s the aforementioned disk launching device, which, while rudimentary, certainly has its value.  There are also three disks provided for it to launch.  Perhaps the only thing not included that I’d have liked to see is a pair of wings, but it’s not the end of the world.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Unlike a lot of my Imaginext purchases, Batman Beyond was actually not a spur of the moment pick-up.  I had heard about the set from Max, and I was actually keeping my eye out for it.  I ended up finding it just before Christmas, while picking up some last minute Christmas supplies at K-Mart of all places.  Yeah, I’m as surprised as you.  I was quite happy to find him, and, as I’d anticipated, he’s just a fun toy.

#1936: Poe Dameron & BB-8

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

POE DAMERON & BB-8

STAR WARS: RESISTANCE (HASBRO)

“A hotshot X-wing pilot for the Resistance, Poe Dameron is a natural leader who keeps an eye on the crew of the Colossus.  When Poe sets out on his own missions, he leaves behind BB-8, a rolling BB unit whose spherical shell is packed with useful tools and computer interface equipment, to work alongside Kaz and the rest of the crew.”

With the somewhat longer hiatus than usual between Solo and Episode IX, plus the ending of Rebels, the market was in need of some other form of Star Wars media to tide us all over.  Enter Star Wars Resistance.  Set prior to The Force Awakens, it follows a group of Resistance pilots, and…uhh, well that’s all I know.  I haven’t actually seen any of it yet.  I *have* seen the toys, or at least some of them, including my main man Poe Dameron, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Poe Dameron and BB-8 are part of the launch for the Star Wars Resistance toyline.  They’re a slightly more deluxe offering, which appears to be replacing the two-packs we got for Last Jedi and Solo.  It gives us Poe in his X-Wing pilot gear, which appears to be (mostly) the same as it is in the films.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. I was a little saddened to see him only sporting the basic 5 joints, after the Last Jedi pilot release added in wrist swivels, but there are enough figures without those joints that it’s not a huge surprise.  Poe is sporting an all-new sculpt, depicting his animated design.  Obviously, it’s not going to fit in with your basic movie figures, but he’s fairly similar to the Rebels figures we’ve been getting the last few years.  He’s long and lanky, and the detail work is more on the reserved side.  His head sculpt, despite being based on an animated incarnation, may very well be the best Poe we’ve seen to date, at least from Hasbro.  He’s certainly more of a caricature than other figures, and it’s still not a perfect match, but it’s certainly better than I was expecting.  Poe’s paintwork is pretty basic, befitting his animated nature.  The application is pretty clean, and the face seems to have a bit more detail than I’m used to seeing on the basic figures.  I’m wondering if this is a change in how the paint is done, similar to the printed faces for Black Series and Legends.  I wouldn’t mind seeing something like this on future figures.  Poe is packed with his helmet (in the more generic blue and white, rather than his black squadron leader coloring), a blaster pistol, and, of course, BB-8.  BB is about an inch tall and has the usual ball-jointed head.  Unlike other small-scale BBs, this one doesn’t have the flattened out section at the bottom; he’s a proper sphere like the Black Series release.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, I *tried* to buy a Poe a lot earlier than I succeeded.  While grabbing a few other things at Target, I saw him there, and thought “hey, there’s a Poe figure I don’t have.”  Little did I know he was still street dated at the time, so I wasn’t able to purchase him.  A week later, I was at the same Target, and all of the Resistance figures that had been there were gone.  No Poe for me.  Then I spotted him stashed back behind another item, and grabbed him, though I still wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to buy him.  Well, as you can see, I was.  Yay.  He’s a fun figure.  Nothing amazing, or Earth-shattering, but he’s nice.

#1935: Spider-Man & Jean DeWolff

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

SPIDER-MAN & JEAN DEWOLFF

MARVEL MINIMATES


In 1985, then up-and-coming writer Peter David penned “The Death of Jean DeWolff.”  Published in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110, the four part story began with the discovery of the titular death of Police Captain Jean DeWolff, a once quite prominent Spider-Man supporting cast-member.  It was rather ground breaking at the time of its publication, shifting the overall tone of the book, and helping to pave the way not only for longer form storytelling, but also darker stories, all within the confines of the mainstream Marvel universe.  In 2012, the story was used as the basis for the 43rd Series of Marvel Minimates.  The first of those sets includes Jean DeWolff herself, alongside Spider-Man.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two are a pair from the aforementioned Series 43 of Marvel Minimates, dubbed the “Jean DeWolff Saga” by a label on the upper right side of the box.

SPIDER-MAN

Though he had at this point ditched the actual symbiote, Peter Parker was still wearing his cloth replica of his black costume at the time of this story.  It’s fairly fortunate, really, as it better fit the more film noir stylings of the story.  In a meta sense, it gave Minimate collectors another chance at the black costumed look; this was the fourth time we’d seen it show up in Minimate form.  Unlike the prior release of this costume, which made use of a removable mask, this one returned back to the straight vanilla body, with no add-ons at all.  Given the general sleekness of this particular design, it was a definite improvement.  The important details are all handled via paint.  This figure takes a page out of the Big Time costume’s book, and augment’s Spidey’s two-toned look with a bit of accent work, detailing not only the musculature of his torso and legs, but also granting a slightly more human shape to his head and face.  In contrast to the Big Time release, whose accenting seemed a bit too subtle, this figure’s seems perhaps a touch too noticeable; that bright blue really stands out, and perhaps robs the design of some of its more striking elements.  Still, it’s far from bad work.  Spider-Man was packed with a webline, a fairly standard inclusion.  Given that he hit retail shelves at the same time as the Best Of version of the character, it’s a little bit of a shame that he doesn’t also get an unmasked head.  Of course, he hit retail shelves at the same time as that figure, so it’s not like an unmasked Peter Parker head was difficult to find.

JEAN DEWOLFF

Before becoming the unfortunate victim of the murder that kicks off this story, Jean DeWolff had been a fairly prominent Spider-Man supporting player for about a decade or so.  Jean was introduced by Bill Mantlo while working on Marvel Team-Up in the ’70s, as he wanted a supporting cast member to serve as connective tissue from story to story.  I suppose in that respect, Jean was something of a prototype for the live-action versions of Phil Coulson and Claire Temple.  Jean was always known for her retro sense of fashion, with berets and fishnets and the like; this figure follows that, giving us a look that is a good summation of DeWolff’s classic look.  Jean makes use of two sculpted add-on pieces, one new, one old.  The new was her hair/beret.  It’s a very nicely detailed piece, and manages to make her hat not look totally ridiculous, which is always good with this style of thing.  She also uses the knee-length standard skirt piece, first introduced on the Series 17 Gwen Stacy.  It’s a fairly basic piece and perhaps a little limiting to the articulation, but it gets the job done.  Despite getting more sculpted extras than her pack-mate, Jean doesn’t skimp on the painted details either.  The colorscheme is bright and eye-catching, and the detail lines, especially the stitching on her jacket, is some of the best we’ve seen on a Minimate.  She’s even got the proper cross-hatching on her legs for her fishnets.  That’s definitely a nice touch!  Jean is packed with two accessories: a revolver, and an alternate hand holding her badge.  The revolver comes from the Dollars sets, and is still a great piece.  The badge was originally set to be included in the Beverly Hills Cop set, but with that set’s cancellation, it saw its debut here.  It’s always cool to see such pieces find a new home, and given how Jean’s badge factored into the Death of Jean DeWolff, it’s a smart inclusion here.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This was an assortment I was quite excited for, so I quite eagerly picked them up from Cosmic Comix when they first showed up at retail.  Topping the original Black Costume Spidey is a very steep task indeed, and this one doesn’t quite get there.  He’s very close, and definitely the best of the follow-up black costume releases, but that bright blue detailing holds him back ever so slightly.  Still, a very strong offering.  Jean could have just been a rather forgettable civilian figure, but instead, DST put in the effort to make her one of the best figures in this wave, and certainly the star of this set.

#1934: 8D8

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

8D8

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“Originally designed to work in smelting factories, 8D8 worked under EV-9D9 in Jabba the Hutt’s droid operations center.”

There are a lot of droids in Star Wars, of all sorts of differing models and styles.  When in doubt about what to do for a Star Wars line, they can always bring out the driods.  During Power of the Force II, one of the running sub-goals of the line was re-creating the line-up of the original vintage toyline.  That was a large contributing factor to today’s figure, 8D8, finding his way into the line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

8D8 was released in the 1998 assortment of Power of the Force II.  He’s the second figure of 8D8, and also the final figure of 8D8.  Why no updates since then?  Well, I’m gonna get to that.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Movement-wise, this guy’s not ideal.  He lacks the at the time standard waist joint, which is sort of odd, since the design clearly would have allowed for it.  The design of the hips compared to the arms means that the movement on both the shoulders and the hips is quite restricted.  Guess it all hinges on that sweet neck movement?  Yay?  The sculpt was unique to this figure, and though it comes from later in the run, it’s still kind of plagued by pre-posing.  He’s like, mid-stride, or something.  Whatever the case, he has a lot of trouble standing, and the pre-posing means that his already limited articulation is even further limited if you want to keep him standing.  On the plus side, the actual sculpt is a solid recreation of 8D8 as seen in the movie, and there’s plenty of sharp and clean detail work going on.  The paintwork is also pretty decent.  He’s mostly just molded in an off-white sort of color, but he’s got some silver accenting and his red detailing from the film.  Like the sculpt, it matches up pretty well with what we see on the screen.  8D8 has an “action feature” of light-up eyes.  Nothing super fancy, just a basic light-piping feature, but I guess it gives him a little extra pop.  8D8 is packed with the droid branding device we see him using in the movie, which is one of the better extras from the line.  Also, as a 1998 release, he included a Freeze Frame slide, showing him in the actual movie.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

8D8 is from a recent run on Power of the Force I did, in my ever-expanding mission to get a complete collection of the line.  I got him from my friends at All Time Toys, for essentially nothing, since I was grabbing so many others.  Ultimately, I can’t say he’s a particularly great figure, and I think it’s really just a design that doesn’t so much lend itself to toy-form, which is probably why it hasn’t shown up again.