SPARTAN MARK V [B] — WHITE

HALO: THE SPARTAN COLLECTION (JAZWARES)

Oh man, a Halo review?  What is it, 2015?  Or, I guess 2016?  It’s gotta be one of those two, because that’s where they all fell.  What’s that?  Something new?  From Halo?  Are you sure?  Can that be right?  I guess it is.  Yes, it would seem that Microsoft is set on at least *trying* to get people to care about Halo again, and part of that drive is new toys.  Previously, both McFarlane and Mattel had thrown their hats in the ring on that front, but this time around, Jazwares is taking advantage of their general upward trend to put out their own offerings.  As with Fortnite, they’ve got two scales at play, both dedicated to the franchise as a whole.  I’m looking at an offering from the larger scale line today, with a look at the Spartan Mark V [B].

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Spartan Mark V [B] is part of the first assortment of Jazwares’ Halo: The Spartan Collection.  As a Halo: Reach design, he fits with line’s overall emphasis on Reach-related product, hitting right alongside the Kat figure in the same assortment.  He’s just meant to be a generic Spartan, of course, as opposed to one of the named characters from the main game content.  I suppose, technically, you could consider him to be Noble-6, but, of course, he doesn’t fit the “default” Noble-6 configuration that we usually see.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  His sizing makes him technically just a little too small to fit in with 6 inch lines like Legends or Classified, but given the variable sizing on the Spartans, especially the Spartan-IIIs, you can easily fudge it a bit.  I personally don’t find them to be too out of place.  B’s articulation scheme is a pretty impressive set up, with a solid range of motion, and is certainly an improvement over McFarlane and Mattel’s offerings.  Notably, he can actually hold his rifle two handed, and also manages to get a reasonable range on both the hip and knee joints.  In general, the joints a quite nicely implemented, and he’s a lot of fun to mess around with.  I have heard that the tolerancing on the joints can vary a bit from figure to figure, but on mine, they’re really in that “just right” territory.  The sculpt itself is pretty solid for the most part.  It’s not quite on the same level as, say, a Hasbro sculpt, so there are definitely some parts that are a little more basic or rudimentary.  In particular, the upper legs do seem a little more tube-shaped than they should be.  Additionally, the armor is definitely much cleaner than Spartan armor tends to be in the games, which brings him a little more in line with Jazwares’ usual offerings.  The actual armor details are still nice and sharp, though, which is certainly a plus.  There’s also a rather clever piece of design innovation worked into the legs.  Att first glance, there’s no where to place the side-arms on the figure’s legs, which is a bit of a bummer.  But, you can pop out part of the thigh panel on each leg and flip it around, there’s a peg on the underside.  It’s quite sleek, and stays in place well, creating a rather ingenious way of simulating the games’ holster-less storage.The color scheme on this guy is the most notable bit on this particular figure, since differently colored Spartans are kind of a thing for the franchise.  This one is white, which is a fairly nice first color scheme, I suppose.  It’s pretty neutral, but distinctly different from the named characters.  The paint work is largely pretty basic, but there’s some nice accenting for wear on the lower arms and legs.  The coolest part by far, however, is the visor, which is a separate, vac-metalized piece.  It looks really slick.  The B’s accessory selection is pretty strong, with seven different hands (in pairs of gripping, firsts, and relaxed, as well as a flat left hand), plus a VK78 Commando Rifle (which is, rather oddly, an Infinite design, not Reach), and a plasma pistol.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve fallen out of Halo in the last few years, so I haven’t really been keeping up with the toys.  It’s not like there was much to keep up with, of course.  Jazwares really impressed me with their Fortnite stuff, so when they were announced to have the Halo license, I was certainly intrigued.  I was admittedly a little sad that that there weren’t any ODSTs in the first round, because they’re my favorites, but I like the Mark V pretty well too, so when I saw him in person, I figured he was a good figure to try out the line with.  I’m really impressed by this first figure, and I’m definitely going to be paying attention to upcoming releases.