Monthly Archives: October 2021

#2921: In Space Black Ranger

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

IN SPACE BLACK RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

When it comes to Power Rangers, there’s not much I love more than Power Rangers In Space, the show’s sixth season.  It hit at just the right time for me to catch most of it first run as a kid, and it’s also just genuinely one of the show’s best seasons, all things considered.  As a kid, I never did get the whole line-up in toy form, but I’ve always wanted them, and now, as an adult, that’s something I can more genuinely work on.  Lightning Collection has been doing a pretty alright job for the team, with three members already released, two more already in the pipeline for release, and the sixth showing up somewhere as of yet unrevealed.  Boy, I do sure hope he’s not an exclusive.  That sure wouldn’t make me so happy.  Don’t make me not happy, Hasbro.  Before I descend into madness anymore, let’s look at the latest addition to the In Space line-up, Carlos Vallerte, aka the Black Space Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

In Space Black Ranger was released in the 9th standard assortment of Hasbro’s Power Rangers: Lightning Collection.  He’s the third Space Ranger to join the line, and is one of two Zordon Era figures in this particular assortment, the other being the Tenga Warrior from Mighty Morphin’.  Carlos follows in his predecessor Adam’s footsteps, with his first figure in the line being his second Ranger incarnation, and also his second Ranger color, since, in a reverse of Adam, Carlos began as a Green Ranger and switched to black in his second season, when the Japanese footage changed over.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  Carlos’s mold is a total re-use of the one that we saw used for Andros, which makes total sense, since the male rangers were all pretty close in build, and this was one of the few seasons where the only differences on the helmets were painted.  It was a good mold the first time around, and it’s still a good mold here.  The paint obviously changes things up, swapping the red of the first figure for black, as well as changing the shaping on his visor, and adding the extra lining around the black dome on the helmet, since, well, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see it.  Carlos is packed with an alternate unmasked head, as well as two sets of hands (gripping and a fist/open gesture combo), his Lunar Lance, Astro Blaster, and an effects piece for the lance.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Completing the In Space team is pretty much the top of my list when it comes to this line, so I’ve been mad hype about each successive figure announced.  I’ve always had something of a soft spot for Carlos in particular, so him being a relatively early addition to the line-up was very cool.  Sure, there’s not a ton of new going on here, but he still works very well, and each additional figure just really makes the whole team dynamic work just a little bit better.  Have I mentioned that I can’t wait to get the rest of the team?

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2920: Lord Zedd & Rita Repulsa

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LORD ZEDD & RITA REPULSA

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

The central villain of the first three seasons of Power Rangers, and perhaps the franchise’s foe with the most iron-clad name recognition is Rita Repulsa.  Unfortunately, despite the franchise being as toy-driven as it is, Rita’s never been quite so lucky in the world of toys.  During the show’s original run, her figure never made it past the prototype stage, and when she finally did get a figure in one of the legacy sets many years later, it was a rather infamously bad offering.  Even in the Lightning Collection, a line generally kinder to villains, she’s stuck in an exclusive two-pack with a figure a lot of people already grabbed.  No respect…

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd are a GameStop-exclusive Power Rangers: Lightning Collection two-pack, released last fall.  Rita is an all-new figure who has as of yet not been planned for another release, while Zedd is almost identical to his single release.

RITA REPULSA

Let’s at least give Rita the courtesy of reviewing her first, shall we?  I mean, she is kind of the star attraction here.  It’s not like anyone was buying the set for Zedd.  No, it’s all about Rita.  Rita was originally completely sourced from Power Rangers‘ re-used Zyuranger footage’s Witch Bandora, portrayed by actress Machiko Soga, and overdubbed by Barbara Goodson.  When they ran out of Zyuranger footage in Season 2, Carla Perez was cast in the part for the new footage (still overdubbed by Goodson), with the reasoning in-universe being an attempt on Rita’s part to try and woo Zedd.  For the purposes of this figure, they’ve chosed to base her on Soga, which is probably the more distinctive of the two actresses, but is also amusing from a standpoint of Soga’s Rita never actually interacting with Zedd, since he was himself a wholly American creation.  All that said, the two looks really aren’t that drastically different, and really, it does make sense to go with the more commonly associated actress.  The figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall and she has 34 points of articulation.  Rita breaks the traditions of what we’ve seen from this line so far and goes for a mixed media set-up for her outfit.  The dress is all cloth, presumably because it allows them to got the slightly cheaper route of re-using one of the female Ranger bodies underneath of it.  Beyond that, she gets a new head, chest piece, feet, hands, and bracelets.  The head is nice because it’s a properly expressive face for the character.  She’s very angry and is gritting her teeth, as she was quite prone to do on the show.  It’s a shame there’s not an extra head with a mad cackling grin, but I suppose that’s an option for perhaps a non-exclusive release down the line.  Rita’s paint work is generally alright.  There’s quite a lot of detailing on the face, which works out surprisingly well, and there’s some extra embroidering on the dress, which gets the proper patterning.  Rita gets quite an involved selection of accessories.  There are two sets of hands, as well as her staff, which make up the more general stuff.  Since the set is *technically* based on “The Wedding” (ignoring the whole “it’s the wrong actress” thing), she also gets her bouquet of flowers, the love potion she uses on Zedd, their wedding cake, and what I believe are supposed to be the Zeo crystals.  That’s actually quite a bit of stuff.

LORD ZEDD

Remember when getting a Lord Zedd was a cool novelty?  Boy, how’d they suck the joy out of this one?  Okay, I guess it’s not all bad. This figure is largely the same as the Series 1 release, just with a touch of extra paint on his hands and accessories.  Probably should have just included those details the first time around, right?  Maybe they could have tried actually chroming the armor.  Or even making it so the armor sits a little more securely.  As it stands, it feels kind of weak and lacking.  I mean, the new paint on the hands does look better and all, but still.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set being announced as a GameStop-exclusive came not too long after me officially swearing off supporting GameStop as a company, so I was definitely not about rushing out to buy this one.  Likewise, I wasn’t really in a hurry to drop a bunch of money just to get another Lord Zedd, since I already felt rather content with the first one.  I opted to play the waiting game, and it worked out, since one got traded into All Time just a few weeks ago, giving me an easier excuse to pick it up.  Zedd’s improvements are minor, but between the two, this is the one I’ll keep.  Rita’s certainly the star here, and while she’s not perfect, she is honestly pretty good.  Certainly the best Rita figure out there, and I do appreciate them giving her all the extras to help offset the cost.  Ultimately, I feel this set shouldn’t have been an exclusive, I think it should have been earlier in the line, and I think it should have been a debut for both characters contained, because that would have generally made it a little more appealing.  There are drawbacks to that, too, of course, but it just seems more sensible than what we ended up with.  Hopefully, Hasbro’s planning to give Rita another release on her own, so that fans aren’t forced to pay a premium and wind up with an extra Zedd.

#2919: Van Helsing

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

VAN HELSING

DRACULA (MEGO)

It’s October, which is classically a kind of a spooky month, I guess.  I don’t frequently get too invested in all the spooky stuff the way some people do, but I can enjoy it well enough, and I’ve certainly got some knowledge of various things spooky.  When it comes to classic monsters, Universal Studios really set the pace in the ’30s and ’40s, but as they began to fade away, many of those same monsters would be reimagined by Hammer Film Productions, whose horror films became a staple of the ’60s and ’70s.  Perhaps their best known work are their Dracula films, starring the late Christopher Lee in the titular role.  Playing opposite Lee in the role of heroic vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, was Peter Cushing, whose take on Van Helsing (and one of his descendants) would help to shape later portrayals of the character.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Van Helsing is part of Mego’s Horror line, and was released in the latest assortment of mixed figures.  He was originally supposed to be released at the beginning of August, but he crept into the end of September.  As with other entries in the line, he’s showing up in a mix of specialty stores and select Targets.  The figure stands 8 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  He’s build on the updated Type 2 body, which is a decent enough standard starting point.  Cushing was just a pretty regular guy.  The all-new head sculpt here does a pretty great job of capturing Cushing’s likeness.  It’s not often that we see a younger Cushing in toy form, but it works out well here.  He’s got rather distinctive features, and they lend themselves to this style pretty well.  This is actually the second time Cushing’s gotten a Mego-style figure, since he was also in Classic TV Toys’ Space: 1999 line.  I think the likeness here is a little bit better.  The paint work is pretty basic, but it gets the job done, and everything is pretty much in line with where it should be.  Van Helsing is clearly meant to based on his look from the first Hammer Dracula film, and he gets an outfit based on that.  It features his jacket, shirt/tie (one piece like on the Cheers figures), pants, and a pair of rubber shores.  They’re all really goofy looking, but, of course, that’s really part of the style, and he matches well.  Van Helsing is packed with a rather small stake, which is probably going to go flying the first time he gets jostled, being lost for the rest of eternity.  Or something like that.  Given is tendency to use both a hammer and stake together in the films, just the stake is perhaps a little light.  Honestly, I would have liked to get the candlesticks for the cross he makes during the film’s climactic battle, but I guess those might be a little harder for him to hold properly.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Van Helsing was initially intended as a birthday present from my parents, but he got delayed, so I had to wait a bit for him.  Worse things have happened.  While I’m not necessarily the biggest Hammer Horror fan, I’ve always quite liked Cushing’s take on Van Helsing, and I’m glad he finally got some figure treatment.  He’s goofy and hokey, but I do really like him.

There’s a slightly more serious side to this one as well, I suppose.  In the months since losing Jess, I’ve been trying to find comfort in the stories of people who have experienced a loss similar to my own.  In reading up more on Peter Cushing, and specifically how he responded to the death of his wife in 1971, I really felt like I found a kindred spirit.  His habits and the words he said about his loss really have resonated with me, and the fact that he was able to continue his life in some way after such a devastating loss has served as an inspiration to me.  So this figure, as hokey as he may be, really serves as a symbol to me, and how I can’t just give up.  And I like that.

#2918: Gamorrean Guard

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

GAMORREAN GUARD

STAR WAR: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“The brutish nature of Gamorreans, along with their great strength and violent tendencies, made them excellent mercenaries and guardsmen in Jabba’s desert palace.”

Jabba’s green pig-man guards make for a rather distinctive introduction back into the world of Star Wars during Return of the Jedi‘s opening scenes.  They’re a great merging of puppetry and prosthetics, making for a generally pretty unique design, and one that’s not quickly forgotten.  It’s hard to imagine the whole Jabba’s palace sequence without them present in some fashion, so when Kenner turned their sights on building up that particular locale for Power of the Force in the ’90s, the Gamorrean Guards were right there, along for the ride!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Gamorrean Guard was added to Power of the Force II in 1997, a year that, as I noted last time, is quite packed with Jabba-related characters.  This marked their first time in toy treatment since the vintage line, as was the case for most of these guys in the ’90s.  The figure stands just shy of 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  The vintage Gamorrean sculpt was definitely not bad for the time, so this one had a slightly higher bar to clear than other offerings.  That being said, creatures are certainly where the ’90s line excelled, especially early on, so they were in pretty safe hands here.  The sculpt’s a pretty strong one.  It’s a little bit more pre-posed, but that’s largely just to allow the arms to be bent for holding the weapon just a bit better.  Otherwise, it’s nothing too crazy, just a generally looser stance, I suppose.  The detail work is generally pretty good.  Perhaps a little softer than a modern figure, but very good for the time.  It does a good job of capturing the design of the creatures as we see them in the movie, and it also maintains a generic enough appearance that you could pick up multiples for the purposes of army building, and it would still work pretty well.  The Guard’s paint is pretty basic and overall pretty drab, but that’s as expected, and it does a perfectly adequate job of recreating the base colors as seen in the movie.  I suppose some accenting would do a bit to help the sculpt pop a bit more, but that wasn’t really what this era of the line was about.  There is at least a little accenting on the face, and it does look quite nice.  The Gamorrean was packed with a single vibro axe, which is pretty standard issue for these guys.  It fits nicely in the left hand, and generally looks appropriately menacing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Gamorrean has never been an essential piece of my collection, as much as I do enjoy their presence at the palace.  As such, I was never in much of a hurry to get this one, especially with it not being particularly rare, either.  I wound up snagging this one a little over a year ago, when one with a less than stellar box got traded into All Time.  He’s a pretty cool little figure, and he does what he needs to, which is always nice to see.

#2917: Wasp

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WASP

AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND (TOY BIZ)

With Avengers: United They Stand’s shifted focus on the team’s lower tier characters (for the time, anyway) placing Ant-Man as the show’s central character, it also made for some great extra focus on Hank’s long time partner in fighting crime, Janet Van Dyne, aka the Wasp.  Though she’s always been pretty central to the team in the comics, UTS marked the first time she got any real time in the spotlight with the general populace. And, it got her a third action figure, so that’s pretty cool.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wasp was part of Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Avengers: United They Stand tie-in line, which hit shelves at the same time as Series 2 in the back half of 1999.  The figure stands about 5 1/4 inches tall and she has 16 points of articulation. Wasp isn’t quite as well articulated as Ant-Man (admittedly the best articulated of this particular line), but she’s still better than most figures of the era.  The only thing that really holds her back are those dreaded v-hips, but that was something we’d still be dealing with for another several years. She also benefits from separately articulated wings, as well as a moving “stinger” piece, which is unfortunately missing from mine. Wasp’s sculpt was an all-new, totally unique piece, based on her design from the show, albeit in that slightly tweaked style that we saw with Ant-Man.  Her design from the show was certainly an overhaul of how she tended to look in the comics, but it’s also a far cry from her worst look over the years.  It’s certainly a more armored look, but it was the end of the ‘90s.  This is just how we dressed then, guys.  The sculpt captures the design well enough, and makes it work in the context of Toy Biz’s wider Marvel line at the time.  Probably the weirdest part of the sculpt are the arms, which are a touch too short, comparatively.  Otherwise, it does look pretty solid.  She has two different heads for the purposes of helmeted and unhelmeted looks.  Both sculpts are nicely rendered, and they swap out pretty easily.  Wasp’s paint work is generally pretty solid.  It’s all base work, but it’s cleanly applied, and it’s a little more involved than just a straight recreation of the show’s color scheme.  In addition to the previously mentioned extra head, Wasp was also packed with a small missile launching drone.  It’s a goofy, rather extraneous piece, and that’s probably part of why I have no clue where the one that came with my figure has wound up.  Honestly, the extra head is enough to make it feel worth it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like Ant-Man, Wasp was one of the last figures I got from this line, since my dad had the first one we found. So, she was on that list of the final three figures I gave to my Grandmother, and she picked this one up for me the week after I got Ant-Man.  I was again pretty excited, and she’s another one that I still really like all these years later.

#2916: Captain America

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CAPTAIN AMERICA

RETURN OF MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Justice and virtue have found their champion… a super-soldier named Captain America!”

In 2012, Hasbro changed the game for Marvel Legends.  And not in the way that you might think.  I mean, yeah that’s the year that they brought the line back from its hiatus, but it wasn’t just that.  See, in Series 2 of this newly launched line, released in the spring of that year, they introduced one of the most single-handedly influential things that their run on the line has experienced.  What am I talking about?  I’m talking about Bucky Cap, the body that a metric ton of the modern line uses as a starting point.  Just on this site alone, I’ve reviewed 70 of them.  And if you don’t believe me, just check out the absurd amount of hyper links that make up these two sentences where I’m referencing the number of uses, because, I assure you, it’s, like, a lot of uses, more uses perhaps than I have any right to have here on this site, and yet here they all are.  In the seven years I’ve been reviewing Legends, I’ve talked a lot about this base body, and yet, I’ve never actually looked at the original use.  So now, as the molds begin to enter into their twilight years, let’s jump back to where it all started.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released in the Arnim Zola Series of Return of Marvel Legends, which was the second line-up for the line.  It hit in the spring of 2012, about six months after Bucky had given the title of Captain America back to Steve and resumed operations as the Winter Soldier, which is about right for timing on these sorts of things, really.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The articulation on this mold has become rather standardized and just part of the background noise these days, but it was a really great effort for the time.  Legends were still working their way out of the “twisting meat” era at the time, so having something that was not only really posable, but also didn’t have to look terrible to get there was a pretty big deal.  At this point, some of the joints are a little restricted, but even now it does still hold up alright. For the first use of the mold, it’s actually maybe a little small for Bucky as Cap, at least in the context of the line that followed.  At the time, scale was still a little all over the place, though, so it didn’t seem quite so out of place.  It certainly wasn’t a bad match from a looks standpoint, generally doing a pretty solid job of recreating Bucky Cap’s design from the comic in a spot-on fashion.  In terms of unique parts, he has a head sculpt featuring his his slightly tweaked version of the mask (notably missing the ears, as it should be), an add-on for his belt, and forearms and shins depicting his rolled up gloves and buccaneer boots.  Later figures would retool the arms and legs to have more standardized parts, though the gloves and boots would remain in service for other figures as well.  The head and belt have remained unique to this particular figure, which is sensible, given that they have more limited applications.  The do work well with the rest of the body, though the whole body has presumably designed to work as Bucky Cap first, and then retrofitted for re-use later.  Bucky Cap’s paint work is generally pretty nice.  The metallic blue fits the design perfectly, and the application’s really not bad for the time, since Hasbro was still contending with some iffy QC.  The “A” on his head is slightly off center on mine, but all things considered, it’s not too bad.  Bucky Cap was packed with a handgun and knife, both of which could be stored in his belt, as well as his shield, and one of the legs to Arnim Zola.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I discussed yesterday, I was hesitant to get back into Legends when it relaunched, so I didn’t pick up any of the early ROML figures new.  I think I saw this guy maybe once, but didn’t think much of it.  In light of this being such an influential figure, though, as well as being a Captain America, I did feel compelled to track it down.  I wound up snagging it from Gidget’s Gadgets in Rehobeth Beach a few years back while vacationing with my family.  He’s been sitting in my office area unopened for a couple of years (for shame, I know), but I finally got to opening him up a few months ago, and felt compelled to finally get around to reviewing him.  I’ve looked at so much of him before, so many times, but it’s honestly a very good mold, and I totally get why Hasbro was so attached to re-using it as much as they did.  As we enter into a full decade of use for it, though, I do have to wonder what base body is going to take up the baton from it, after it did the same for the Bullseye body about 5 years ago.  Until then, you do have to admire its range.

#2915: Hawkeye

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HAWKEYE

RETURN OF MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“None can equal the marksmanship of Hawkeye, the world’s greatest sharpshooter!”

In light of the success of 2012’s Avengers film, and how it served to highlight pretty much the whole cast, Hawkeye actually managed to get his own solo book for the first time in a good while.  Written by Matt Fraction and pencilled primarily by David Aja, the series delved into Hawkeye’s more down-to-earth status compared to the rest of the Avengers, and has become quite the definitive take on him, even serving as a clear inspiration for his upcoming Disney+ live action show.  To keep the character at least a little more in line with his movie counterpart, he got a radical redesign (as far as the 616 version of the character was concerned; it wasn’t too far removed from the Ultimate version’s standard gear), which actually got a pretty quick turnaround on toy treatment.  In early 2013, it found itself getting the Legends treatment, and I’m taking a look at that particular figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkeye was released in the Rocket Raccoon Series of the Return of Marvel Legends, which was in fact one of the last assortments of that incarnation of the line.  It was quite scarce on the distribution front, and was so ill-supported by retailers that its refresh cases never went into production, meaning that Hawkeye’s swap figure, a more classic version of the character, wouldn’t get released until the Allfather Series in 2015.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Rather amusingly, I’ve actually reviewed every single piece of this figure before, though, in his defense, a number of the parts were actually new at the time.  He’s build on the Bucky Cap body, and has the novelty of being only the second re-use of it.  Subsequent Hawkeye’s have followed suit, which makes sense.  His harness came from Commander Rogers, and his belt came from US Agent, although I’ve looked at both via their many other releases since.  New to this figure were the head and quiver.  The head would eventually be re-used as Yellow Daredevil’s unmasked head.  It works better for Clint than it did Matt, and actually does an okay job of merging Aja’s very distinct Clint Barton design with something more in line with the rest of the line.  At least it’s not too Hasbro-face-y.  The quiver was a re-working of the movie version, but was tweaked to actually give him arrows, and wound up being re-used on the Allfather version (as was intended when he was just a swap as well).  All in all, it’s not a bad set-up, and clearly there were a lot of worthwhile parts here.  In terms of paint, this figure’s not bad.  He definitely emulates the “house style” version of this Hawkeye suit, more so that Aja’s design specifically, since there’s a more involved design on the chest, and more purple on the boots.  It still works pretty well for capturing the feel, though.  Hawkeye was packed with his bow, which was re-used from the movie release, and would continue to see use later in the line as well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never once saw a single figure from this set at retail.  I don’t know that I would have bought this one if I’d seen him at the time, since I still wasn’t back into Legends, and I probably would have been waiting for the variant anyway.  That said, I do like a good Hawkeye no matter what, and when this one got traded into All Time a few months ago, it was hard to say no.  It’s funny reviewing something I’ve reviewed all of the parts of beforehand, but they do really mesh well here.  He’s quite a nice figure, and still holds up very well.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2914: Spider-Man – Negative Zone

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

SPIDER-MAN — NEGATIVE ZONE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Spider-Man’s Negative Zone suit allows him to absorb the Negative Zone’s dark energy and even merge with shadows. By doing so, the wall crawler becomes practically invisible, which gives him a major advantage against his enemies.”

Last fall, Hasbro leaned pretty heavily into the retro carded style for Marvel Legends, specifically for their Spider-Man sub-section of the line.  There was a dedicated assortment of figures, as well as a handful of one-offs and exclusives.  Target got themselves two different variants on Spidey himself for their exclusives.  I looked at Cyborg Spider-Man last year, but I never got around to the other one, Negative Zone Spider-Man, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Negative Zone Spider-Man was released at the tail end of November of last year, alongside Gambit, Rogue, and Cyborg Spider-Man, as a small set of Target-exclusive Retro Collection offerings for Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line.  Like Cyborg Spider-Man, this is the Negative Zone suit’s third time in toy form, also following a Toy Biz 5 inch figure and a Minimate, just like Cyborg.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The figure is a total repaint of Pizza Spidey.  It’s an interesting choice, really.  I don’t dislike Pizza Spidey in the slightest, and it was the standard Spidey for several years, but I find it funny that Hasbro tooled up a new standard Spidey for this very sub-line, and yet none of the variants on Spidey made use of the new parts.  Maybe they felt Negative Zone should be a skinnier Spider-Man?  Like I said, I don’t mind so much, but it is curious.  It’s all paint that makes the difference here.  He’s in a stark all black and white, as is accurate for the design, and it does look pretty sharp, I must say.  I just dig the sleekness, and the Pizza Spidey body emphasizes that.  Also something that excites me is the accessory selection, because for the first time in far too long, we get a Pizza Spidey release that actually gets the full range of hands.  How about that?  Boy how I missed the full range of hands.  He also gets the pizza, but in Negative Zone colors, which is pretty fun.  No half-masked head for eating the pizza, but I’ll learn to live with it, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Neither of the Spidey variants from this round were essential to me, as I was far more focused on Gambit and Rogue at the time.  Target was running that “Buy 2 get 1 Free” sale at the time that they dropped them, and the only reason I really got Cyborg over this one was that this one wasn’t in stock at the moment I was ordering.  I saw him once or twice in-store, but I wasn’t in a rush.  I wound up getting him finally when one got traded into All Time.  I know, it’s quite a thrilling story, right?  Well, I guess more a touch thrilling than “I bought it at Target.”  I didn’t think much of the figure, but he’s actually pretty fun, and I’m glad I finally snagged one.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2913: Deadpool & Negasonic Teenage Warhead

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

DEADPOOL & NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Wisecracking Wade Wilson and stoic Ellie Phimister team up to defend all mutants.”

Almost an entire year ago, I looked at Domino and Cable, who made up either half or two-thirds of Hasbro’s slightly late tie-ins for Deadpool 2.  Notably, I did *not* look at the title character, which did seem a bit odd, didn’t it?  Yeah, it seemed that way to me too.  I assure you, it wasn’t an intentional slight; I really did mean to review him, and his packmate Negasonic Teenage Warhead, right around the same time, but, as you can see, that didn’t happen.  Which I guess makes these tie-ins a bit more than slight on the lateness scale.  My apologies.  I guess I’ll just get to them now.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Deadpool and Negasonic Teenage Warhead are the second of the two standard release two-packs for the X-Men Movie sub-line of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends.  They were supposed to be released at the same time as the Magneto and Xavier set, but that didn’t really seem to happen.  A small amount of them shipped to people who’d placed online preorders, and a small amount showed up in stores, but there were no notable signs of stocking the way the rest of the line dropped, and most retailers had them continually pushed back for the better part of a year.  It seems that they’re finally starting to truly make their way out, now, though, so that’s good, since this was probably the most in-demand item from the whole sub-line.

DEADPOOL

Deadpool has no shortage of action figures, but the less than stellar relationship between Fox and Disney the last decade or so meant that actual proper movie toys weren’t a thing, at least until now…or last year, I guess, if you want to be more technical.  Deadpool’s movie costume was not only quite comics accurate, it also changed very little between his two films, meaning that this one figure can also pull double duty for both movies, which is exactly what it does.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  His articulation structure is pretty darn good, working in a set of butterfly shoulders, and making sure he’s got the pinless construction on the elbows and knees, making him a rather slick figure.  His sculpt was initially all-new to him, but was subsequently re-used for the single-release ash-covered Deadpool that was an Amazon-exclusive last fall.  It’s quite an impressive sculpt, which does a strong job of capturing the costume design from the movie.  It’s rather distinctive and it translates well.  I quite like how they’ve handled all the texturing on his outfit.  The figure’s paint work is generally pretty solid.  It follows the slightly toned down scheme of the film’s design, but it again looks pretty good as a toy, and the application’s all pretty clean and sharp.  Deadpool is quite well accessorized, with four sets of hands, two pistols, two katanas, a knife, and a small stuffed unicorn.  The hands are all in different poses, but two pairs are all black like in the first movie, and two have the silver stripes from the second.  While it’s nice to have the options, it does somewhat limit what you can do with him, since you have to make sure the style of gloves match.  I feel like the original plan was probably to do a full set of hands in both styles, but it probably didn’t cost out.  The two pistols are Forge’s sci-fi styled gun, which isn’t really true to the movie.  Also, there are more film accurate pistols in the holsters, even, but they aren’t meant to be removed.  They’re separate pieces that have been glued in place, so you *can* remove them, but I gave it a fair try, and didn’t really want to force it.  Presumably, this is some sort of a request from Disney, who are trying to downplay the use of real firearms with Marvel figures.

NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

While Deadpool may be no stranger to action figures, Negasonic Teenage Warhead has thus far only had the one.  Admittedly, prior to being featured in the first Deadpool, the character struggled to be considered even D-List, so there wasn’t much call for toys before this.  While Deadpool had more or less the same look between the two movies, Negasonic had two fairly divergent designs for the two films.  This figure opts for her Deadpool 2 design, which is really the more fully formed and actually toy worthy of the two.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Negasonic breaks from the movie X-Men norm and is largely re-using parts, specifically the Spider-Girl body.  It’s really not a bad match, and it’s just a decent starting point in general, plus, with as many new parts as the X-Men Movie figures had, it was a good way to save some money on tooling.  She still gets a new head, upper torso, upper arms, and a belt add-on piece, which help to keep her fairly movie accurate.  The head’s got an okay likeness of actress Brianna Hildebrand, at least from a sculpting standpoint (paint’s perhaps a different story), and the rest of the parts are all pretty good matches for her on-screen design.  The paint work is a bit of a mixed bag; the base work is okay, but the face paint on mine’s not quite right, resulting in her looking a little bit doofy.  Her eyes are definitely not pointing the same way, and that’s not ideal.  Negasonic is packed with two sets of hands (fists and open gesture) as well as Scarlet Witch’s effects pieces, presumably to emulate her powers in some fashion.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wanted this set, not so much for Deadpool, since I’ve got plenty of figures of him, but actually for the Negasonic figure.  But, then I got both Domino and Cable, and so it made sense to have Deadpool too, so I decided I was down for both parts.  And then I patiently waited for the set to arrive….and that was a lot of waiting, now wasn’t it?  When I found out these were coming in, I honestly expected some sort of diabolos ex machina sort of a thing to ensue and prevent me from getting them yet again, but it didn’t, and now I have them.  How about that?  Sure, I wish Negasonic’s face paint were better, but otherwise, it’s quite a nice set, and I’m happy to finally have them.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with these figures to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2912: Sentinel

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

SENTINEL

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Its body a towering, technological marvel, the Sentinel scans the world for its quarry, a searching light emanating from its chest, its glowing eyes a warning… and a threat. Programmed with only one objective, to destroy all mutant life on Earth, the Sentinel will not hesitate, will not falter, and will never ever stop hunting.”

Man, past-Ethan really needs to stop anticipating future-Ethan needing a pick-me-up…

From an early stage of this site, I’ve been versed in supporting action figures not just from an end-of-the-process side, but also from a more preemptive side as well.  I’ve backed my fair share of KickStarters, but those are typically smaller upstarts.  It’s a bit different when the biggest toy company in the world gets in on it.  But, that’s exactly what Hasbro did in 2018, when they launched HasLab, where larger scale items that might not otherwise get made could be backed directly by the fans who wanted them.  Last summer, they added their very first Marvel project to this initiative in the form of the giant purple mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels. Shocking very few of my readers, I’m sure, I got in on this gravy train before the end of the campaign last year.  We’ve had a bit of a wait, but the Sentinel started arriving in collectors’ hands in the last few weeks, and I’m taking a look at mine today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Sentinel was a the inaugural Marvel Legends HasLab project, launched in July of 2020, and ending August 30th. The initial goal was a rather modest 6,000 backers, but the campaign wound up as an unprecedented success, reaching 365% of its needed backers by its end.  It entered production shortly after, and began shipping out in September of this year.  The figure stands 26 1/2 inches tall and he has an astoundingly high 72 points of articulation, 40 of which come just from the hands, which have articulation at every one of knuckles.  The rest of the movement isn’t quite as involved, but he’s got a solid range of motion considering how big and chunky he is.  One point of concern once the figures started arriving and getting reviewed was the tolerancing on the knee joints.  There was some concern that they were too loose out of the box, and weren’t offering enough tension to keep the figure standing.  In hand, the issue isn’t as bad as it seemed initially, at least when it comes to my figure.  While the knees aren’t super tight, and they would likely benefit from the presence of some ratchets (curiously absent, given that the elbows have them), I found it quite easy to get the figure into that sweet spot to keep him standing.  He’s stable enough to stay standing on my rather thick carpeted floor for over 2 hours without any other support, so I consider that a win.  The Sentinels have had an evolving look over the years, but this one is specifically patterned on the design used for House/Powers of X.  It matches with the set of X-Men we just got at the start of the year, and is also a fairly nice update on the classic Sentinel design, which honestly makes for a strong translation to toy form.  There’s a lot more design work to put into the larger surface area of the figure, but it’s not enough to overcomplicate him too much.  The sculpt is, of course, a wholly unique offering, since there’s not really any prior releases to borrow from.  The engineering is rather impressive, with most of the armor plates being actual separate parts assembled over a core body, since it’s something that’s actually possible to do at this scale.  It results in the figure having a lot of depth and sharp detailing, which really helps sell the robot nature of the design.  In terms of color work the very segmented construction of the Sentinel allows for a lot of the heavy lifting to be done with molded plastic, but that doesn’t stop him from still having quite a lot of actual paint work as well.  It’s generally all pretty good, with no real issues of slop or bleed over.  There’s quite a bit of smaller detailing that can be easy to miss, as well, with some separate coloring on the wires beneath some of the plating, and even painting on the smaller rivets holding the armor in place.  There’s a lot going on beyond just the surface level, just like with the sculpt.  The Sentinel also features a light-up effect, which runs on three AAA batteries.  Pressing the core on the figure’s torso lights up both the core and the eyes of the figure.  There are three different colors which can be activated by pressing the button additional times, and it turns itself off after 30 seconds.  It’s rather bright, and works fairly well.  The additional colors add some nice variety when it comes to display, although it’s too bad there’s no way to keep the lights on for a longer period.

As massive and impressive as the Sentinel proper is, there are still quite a few extras included with him.  The most basic of the accessories is the tendril, classically used for capturing mutants more easily.  It’s about 18 inches long, and it’s bendy, so you can wrap it around smaller figures.  It’s able to be plugged into the palm of either hand.  Initially, we were just getting the one, but given the success of the campaign, Hasbro added a second one with no additional charge, so now he can capture two mutants at the same time.  Double the mutant capturing power!  There were four stretch goals for the campaign, three of which got us extra parts for the core figure.  The first tier gave us an extra head to turn this figure into Master Mold, a frequently used, more advanced Sentinel that can manufacture other Sentinels.  Typically, he’s a lot larger than the average Sentinel, which this head sort of meets halfway by being larger than the standard head.  It’s not a perfect remedy, but it’s not terrible either, and it’s not like a properly scaled Master Mold was really in the cards.  He’d effectively have to be the size of a person.  At least this way we have some sort of representation.  The second tier was yet another alternate head, this time a battle-damaged variant of the standard, and with an alternate right hand to match.  The Sentinels are constantly being torn apart by the mutants they hunt down, so these are pretty awesome extras, and they can even be used as the parts to another fallen Sentinel for the purposes of display.  The fourth tier added one last alternate head, this time around the Tri-Sentinel, the merging of three Sentinels created by Loki during the “Acts of Vengence” story line in the ’90s.  Like Master Mold, it’s a bit of a compromise, since a proper Tri-Sentinel should have additional limbs as well, but again, it’s better to get some sort of representation here than none at all.

In addition to the parts for the Sentinel proper, there were two more extras in the form of two whole additional standard-sized figures.  From the very beginning, the Sentinel was going to be packed with Bastion, the humanoid Master Mold/Nimrod hybrid introduced during “Operation: Zero Tolerance.”  Bastion is based on his more recent appearances, matching up more with the Sentinel, I suppose.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Bastion is based on the Spider-UK body, with a new head and torso parts.  The new parts mesh well with the old and do a solid job of capturing Bastion’s creepy hybrid appearance.  His paint work is generally pretty decent, though I did find a little more slop here than on the main Sentinel.  Bastion actually gets an accessory of his own, an alternate head that allows for him to serve as a generic Prime Sentinel, one of Bastion’s rank and file human/sentinel hybrids.  Big flex putting an army builder in with a $350 figure, but I guess the bigger figure’s an army builder too, so it makes some sense.  It helps that it’s a pretty nice head in its own right.

The other figure included follows in the footsteps of the extra head included with Bastion.  If you’re going to have a generic male Prime Sentinel, it’s nice to have a female one as well.  The female Prime Sentinel was added as the third tier stretch goal.  She’s about 6 1/4 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  She has a mix of a few different base body parts, as well as an all-new head and upper torso.  Since it was the ’90s, the female Prime Sentinels had to have specific details that still allowed for them to show off the feminine traits even more hard core, so she’s got slightly different torso armor, and her hair is exposed at the top of her head.  Ultimately, she looks more like a female Bastion, with the white hair and everything.  It’s not a bad look, but it’s funny how different they are.  Her paint work is a little bit better than Bastion’s, at least on mine, which means there aren’t any real issues to report.  The Prime Sentinel got no additional accessories, but honestly, at this point, can you really complain?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been in love with the Sentinel design since I got my very first Toy Biz Sentinel back in the day.  I very excitedly collected all of the Toy Biz Legends fallen Sentinel bases, and then very excitedly built the actual Toy Biz Legends Build-A-Figure.  But I’ve always longed for something more to proper scale.  When this figure was shown off, it didn’t take much for me to decide to back him.  So, I jumped on board last August, and then I began my patient wait for him to arrive.  I knew he was going to be big and impressive, but it’s honestly something that pictures just don’t do justice.  Seeing him in person and actually getting to mess with him has been so much fun.  And now I’ve got to work out just what the hell I’m gonna actually do with him.

While I obviously got this guy directly through Hasbro, I’d still like to give a shout out to my sponsors at All Time Toys, who allowed me use of the back room photo tent so that I could actually get proper pictures of this guy for the review.  That was an absolute godsend.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.