ICE SWORD — 1ST STEEL LEGION

BATTLE FOR THE STARS (JOYTOY)

Remember when I was talking about Joytoy, that new corner of the toy world for me?  Well, why not talk about them just a little bit more.  Three reviews just doesn’t quite seem like enough of them.  And, in the spirit of the pattern I’ve thus far had going, which is mecha, then figure, then mecha, I’m gonna go ahead and look at another of the figures.  In addition to loosely aping popular franchises to come up with cool mecha designs, they also do a little bit of loose aping of other various sci-fi concepts.  Amongst them, space-y soldiers in high-tech armor, that are in no way meant to be Halo Spartans or anything like that.  Why would you think that?  Anyway, without further ado, here’s Ice Sword.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ice Sword is part of Joytoy’s Battle for the Stars branding, specifically as part of their “1st Steel Legion” sub-set, which is a set of four different armored-up figures, all of whom are effectively the next step up from the single-release figures like Grice Anna.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Obviously, given the full armor set-up, his range of motion is somewhat restricted in a few spots, most notably the shoulders, but for the most part he’s still very mobile.  Ice Sword’s sculpt has a fair bit of overlap with fellow 1st Steel Legion member Black Sickle.  Given the whole shared Legion set-up, it’s not a terribly surprising or unreasonable bit of re-use, since you would expect some degree of standard-issue-ness to the whole thing.  The structure of the sculpt has a full under-lying body, with all of the armored parts being separate pieces.  The armor is polished and geometric, with plenty of technical details, seams, joints, and all sorts of doo-dads.  I like it.  It’s a good modern sci-fi armor set-up.  Clearly influenced by other things, but still rather unique.  It’s all removable in theory, I suppose, though in practice it seems like a bit much to undertake.  Joytoy themselves don’t advertise the armor as removable beyond the helmets.  Said helmet is Ice Sword’s main “unique” piece for this release.  I dig the Spartan (and I mean that in a historical sense, not a Halo one) influence of the design.  It’s very clean and classically heroic, and it just meshes very well with the rest of the armor.  Under the helmet is a full unmasked sculpt.  It’s rather grizzled, and there’s plenty of detailing.  I’m not big on the top-knot, but it’s an alright sculpt on the technical side.  What really makes each of the 1st Steel Legion figures shine is their unique color scheme.  Ice Sword is predominantly white, as you might expect from someone with “Ice” in their name, though he gets some red detailing, as well as just a splash of blue.  It gives him a vaguely Captain America-esque feel, at least to me.  The paint work on this guy is pretty solid overall.  There’s a little bit of bleed over on some of the edges, but nothing major, and the work on the insignias and markings is all nice and sharp.  There’s a little bit of a wash on the armor, so that it looks a little broken-in, but it’s not too overpowering.  Ice Sword is packed with a sword (rather unsurprisingly), a shotgun, a small machine gun, a pistol, a small shield, and three sets of hands (in fists, loose grip, and tight grip).  It’s an impressive selection, especially when compared to the last 1/18 figure I looked at from the line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since getting the Grice Anna figure back in December, I’ve looked at a few other of the 1/18 figures to possibly grab, especially as they’ve come into All Time.  All of the 1st Steel Legion are pretty interesting looking figures, but Ice Sword was the first one that really jumped out at me.  I’m not entirely sure why, especially given that he’s not even the all-green one with a hammer (who both Max and Tim are still trying to sell me on), but I just liked the look a lot.  He’s a ton of fun.  He’s different from the Mechas, and honestly a bit different from Anna, but I really like him.

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