Monthly Archives: January 2024

#3535: Clea

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

CLEA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0014:  Despite how many figures her husband Stephen Strange has received over the years, this marks the very first action figure for Clea.

My comics reading is, at its core, very heavily influenced by my dad.  In part, that’s based on what he would buy me to read as a kid, which frequently included copies of some of his favorite stories from when he was growing up.  However, it’s also due to us effectively sharing a reading pile when I was growing up.  This resulted in some quirkier books that he was following becoming my first real introduction to certain characters.  In the early ’00s, Kurt Busiek had a run on Defenders, which eventually spun into The Order, where the “heavy hitter” Defenders went rogue, and it was up to the second stringers (namely Nighthawk, Hellcat, and Valkyrie) to stop them.  At one point, they assemble a team of distaff counterparts to Dr. Strange, Hulk, Namor, and Silver Surfer, which, amongst others features Clea as the counterpart to her husband.  It marked my first introduction to Clea, and it’s stuck with me since.  It sure has taken a long time for a figure of her to finally show up, but here we are.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Clea is figure 6 in the Mindless One Series of Marvel Legends.  She’s the final of the singles, and something of an outlier, being a more mystically-themed figure in a set of otherwise Marvel Knights and street-level heroes.  On the flipside, however, she’s the only one that’s got any real ties to the Mindless One Build-A-Figure, so she’s got that going for her.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  She’s making use of a decent little bank of re-used parts, largely centered around a slightly upgraded Phoenix base body.  She’s got a new head, upper torso, and sash piece, which add up to a solid approximation of Clea’s classic design.  All in all, a nice selection of new parts, though her hair on the head sculpt is perhaps a touch flat.  Still, overall not bad.  Clea’s color work is fun, because it’s a lot of purples, and you don’t see those shades quite as often.  The face get’s some very clean, very lifelike work, and the patterning on the legs is surprisingly well handled.  Clea is packed with two sets of hands and two of the swirly effect pieces in purple, as well as the right arm of the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I don’t know that I’d say Clea’s a character I had an undying need for or anything, but at the same time, it’s kind of surprising that she’s never gotten any sort of figure before.  So, in that regard, this figure is pretty cool, and she also turned out pretty nicely on top of that.  But mostly, she makes me want to put together a full line-up of the distaff counterparts from The Order.  What are the odds we might see a Ardina?  Probably really low, right?

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 and their eBay storefront.

Mutant X Re-Read #24: The Gift of Fear!

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Mutant X Re-Read

THE GIFT OF FEAR!

MUTANT X #23 (MARVEL COMICS)

“In another place–in another life–Alex Summers led a team of mutants in a battle against oppression. His methods were extreme, his tactics questionable, but–in his soul–he knew that he was fighting for the greater good.

Now that soul has been transferred to another world, and Summers, also known as Havok, has found himself living a lie, allied with a team of mutants who are sinister, parallel versions of his friends and family. It is to this dark, new place that Havok has come, where he stands as a man alone… a mutant alone. Alex Summers is Mutant X.

Fear him. Fear for him.”

25 years ago, Marvel Comics launched Mutant X, a Havok led X-spinoff. I recently came into a complete run of the series, and so now I’m going to re-read the series once a week, and you guys get to come along for the ride!

This week, Havok runs into Cyclops…but like, not the one you’re thinking of…or the other one.  It makes more sense in context, in “The Gift of Fear!”

THE ISSUE ITSELF

Mutant X #23 is cover dated September 2000 and has story and art by Howard Mackie, Tom Lyle, Andrew Pepoy, and Cliff Rathburn.

The Six and their allies face down Xavier and the newly arrived Sinister.  The protoplasm that made up the facsimile of Galactus has broken apart and is forming around the heroes.  The heroes are separated from each other, with the protoplasms each taking on a unique form for each hero.  Captain America faces a Red Skull that mocks his mutant heritage and tells him he’ll never be as good as the original.  Ice-Man is confronted by his racist father.  Bloodstorm is attacked by Dracula, which is witnessed by Gambit, who is himself faced with the last of the Assassin’s Guild.  The Brute’s encounter turns inward, as he his mocked by two prior versions of himself, who decry his buffoonery.  Magneto shakes off the first wave of visions, but is dragged down by a more vague abyss of mutants calling out for his help.  As Alex tries to help Magneto, he is cut off by a vision of Cyclops, who calls Alex an embarrassment.  Alex is saved by Jean and Apocalypse, who tell Alex he is the only one who can bring down Xavier.  Since Alex is new to this world, Xavier hasn’t been able to fully get a hold on his mind.  As Alex and Xavier face off once more, Xavier reveals one upper hand: Scotty, who, alongside Gambit’s daughter Raven, is being held captive by Sinister’s latest creation, this universe’s version of X-Man.  Xavier reveals that his plan relies on the Summers’ genetic stock, which Scotty, Raven, and X-Man all possess.  He will use the three as batteries, allowing him to have the power to unite the entire world into one single unified mind.  Sinister, unaware of the full extent of Xavier’s plan, rebels, and Xavier kills him, turning X-Man to the other side in the process.  Apocalypse takes a blast from Xavier, allowing Alex the chance to unload on Xavier.  As Apocalypse succumbs to the blast, Xavier lets out one more in Alex’s direction.  Brute dives in the way of the blast, and Xavier disappears.  Two weeks later, Hank recovers in a stasis tube, as Alex and Scotty discuss why Scotty and Raven must go with Magneto to join the other X-Men on the Moon.  As the Six discusses their next move, Alex’s mind wanders.  They are all interrupted by the arrival of Brute, who has seemingly regained his intellect once more.

Once more, we get a pretty direct continuation from the prior issue, and one that finally brings some closure to the Xavier arc that’s been running for a while here.  In contrast to much of the run, all of the members of the team finally get a little bit of focus, even if it’s just a one page sequence each.  Despite its prominent place on the cover, Cyclops’s appearance winds up surprisingly brief, but it, like all of the other hallucinations, are really effective at selling what’s going on in everyone’s heads.  We get some interesting yet brief world building, with the reveal that Raven is part of the Summers lineage, as well as the somewhat anticlimactic reveal of X-Man.  And it all ends with a rather compelling cliffhanger, while still wrapping up the overall story.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This issue is one of the few that I vividly recall from the original run.  My dad bought it for me because it had Cyclops on the cover, and I actually remember reading it, almost in its entirety.  It’s an issue I was looking forward to when I began my re-read, but was worried I wouldn’t enjoy as much as I’d hoped as I got deeper into the run.  I was happy to discover that it’s actually just a rather solid story.  It wraps things up, but it’s also a pretty nice little stand-alone issue.

And with the next big plot-line wrapped up, I’m gonna break here for a week, and be back in two weeks with more Mutant X fun!

I snagged this whole run from my usual comics stop, Cosmic Comix, so I want to give them a shout out here, because it was a pretty great find.

#3534: Pre Vizsla

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

PRE VIZSLA

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0013:  Despite sharing Jon Favreau as a voice actor and both being Mandalorians, Pre Vizsla and Paz Vizla are actually *not* directly related.

While I was certainly interested in Clone Wars during its first season, it wasn’t until the second season began the first mainstream delve into Mandalorian culture that I really got interested.  It helped that it was a pretty heavily Obi-Wan-led.  Central to the story was Jon Favreau’s *first* Star wars character, Pre Vizsla, who served as a notable antagonist.  I obviously snagged Pre’s first figure, during the show’s tie-in run, but I’ve been hoping to see him crop up in Black Series for a little while.  Hey, would you look at that?  He cropped up in Black Series.  Well, might as well review him.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Pre Vizsla is figure 17 in the running Clone Wars sub-set of Star Wars: The Black Series‘s Phase IV incarnation.  He’s part of the last assortment from last year, the lone Clone Wars figure in a largely Ahsoka driven set.  While the show tie-in Pre was based on his “Phase I” design, this one (and the VC figure that hit at almost the exact same time) is based on Pre’s later run design, which has previously not gotten toy coverage.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  Pre Vizsla is based on the modified Jango Fett body used by the two prior Clone Wars Mandos.  Given that both of them are supposed to be remainders of Pre’s men after Maul and Bo-Katan split them, it does make a degree of sense.  It’s a slightly clunky body, especially in terms of articulation, but something about the QC on this particular release does feel a little slicker than the prior two I’ve gotten.  He gets an new head, helmet, and belt piece, in order to suitably change him up for Pre.  The helmet is a solid recreation of his later design, and gives him a more unique shaping than the others, which I quite like.  The underlying head is okay; it’s not the best work, and winds up looking a little oddly shaped in profile, but from the front it looks pretty good.  I think it’s slightly thrown off by being on the slightly stockier base body, which contrasts with Pre’s rail-thin appearance in the show.  Pre’s color work makes use of a surprising amount of paint.  It’s all pretty cleanly applied, and the armored portions are particularly sleek looking.  The underlying head again gets the short end of the stick, with a particularly wonky hairline.  The work on the scar is pretty cool, though.  Pre is packed with his rocket pack, two blaster pistols, and the Dark Saber.  The rocket is a new piece, with a removable rocket and posable boosters, and it even has a loop on the back to hold the Dark Saber hilt, which is cool.  The Saber is the same mold included with Moff Gideon, but it’s been painted differently.  I think the white outline really works a lot better, and gives the whole thing a nice bit of pop.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I’m not gonna lie, I waffled a little on this guy after his announcement.  I wanted him all that time, and then I saw him, and I just wasn’t sure.  I think it was the re-used body.  But, I saw him in person, and I liked him enough to jump in.  I’m glad I did, because he actually wound up being a bit better than I’d expected.

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 and their eBay storefront.

#3533: Luke Cage – Power Man

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

LUKE CAGE — POWER MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0012: Luke Cage’s first Marvel Legends release was in Toy Biz’s second-to-last series during their run on the line.

When I sat down to write today’s review, I thought to myself “should I maybe review the original Toy Biz Legends Luke Cage?”  And then I remembered that I *already* did, way back in the first year of the site.  Look, you write 3000 of these things, and you start to forget some things.  I looked back on that old review and saw that I was actually pretty brief on its “Me Half” segment.  I didn’t even mention where I got it.  The thing about that particular series was that it’s one of the ones that I actually wanted all of the figures from, and it’s also one where I didn’t want the Build-A-Figure at all.  They hit right around Christmas, so I actually got a good chunk of them as gifts.  Luke is one of two I didn’t get, but I used some of my Christmas money to buy him at Cosmic Comix, and I was actually pretty happy to get him at the time.  That figure held up better than some of the others from the set, but he’s still more than 15 years old, so you need some updates from time to time.  And I’m certainly not one to say no to a classic Luke Cage!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Cage Power Man is figure 4 in the Mindless Ones Series of Marvel Legends.  He’s a pretty natural fit for the overall Marvel Knights theme of the set.  This is actually Luke’s first standard release Legends figure since the Toy Biz days, as well as his first proper update to the ’70s look.  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  Luke’s sculpt is an all-new one, which is a pretty solid offering.  It’s clean and well defined, and definitely gets the outfit down.  The head’s a little bit bland in terms of expression; I don’t mind a Luke that’s slightly less angry than the first Legend, but this one feels like it dials things back maybe a touch too far.  Still, it’s hardly a bad sculpt.  The only other quirk to the sculpt is how the shirt works; the torso portion is a separate piece from his actual chest, which isn’t generally a bad look, but the holes for the arms are cut a little too large, revealing the chest beneath.  It’s looks a little awkward during certain posing.  Luke’s color work is a lot of molded colors, which works well to keep him clean looking.  He gets paint on his face, which is clean and lifelike.  Luke is packed with two sets of hands, in fists and open gesture, as well as the left leg to the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I’ve not gotten any Legends Luke Cages since the first one, because I just never found one that I liked in the mean time.  I’m not opposed to his more recent designs, but I guess I just hadn’t found the right toy version of any of those looks.  Whatever the case, I’m always going to have a soft spot for this look, so its announcement was definitely cool.  In hand, he’s not perfect, but still solid, which makes him a pretty spot-on successor to the original.  Now, I’d really love a ’70s Iron Fist to go with him.

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 and their eBay storefront.

#3532: Mekaneck

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

MEKANECK

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

Fun FiQ Fact #0011: Despite not being one of the franchise’s central characters, Mekaneck has been included in most incarnations of the Masters of the Universe toyline.

For reasons I’ve never been able to fully explain, Mekaneck has been my favorite part of Masters of the Universe since my very first interactions with the franchise. I got into things with the 200x re-launch, and even before that line’s Mekaneck got to retail, I had already tracked down a vintage figure, because I just really wanted the character that badly. For Masters of the Universe Classics, it was the potential inclusion of Mekaneck that finally got me interested in the line, after hemming and hawing on it for a couple of years. I just really like that long-necked guy, I’m pretty much every form. Even when that form requires braving Matty Collector on a day of sale…but it’s okay, because that’s way in the past now, and all I’ve got is the figure, which is far more pleasant a thing. Let’s check him out now!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mekaneck was released as part of the 2012 line-up for Masters of the Universe Classics, which ran during the line’s fourth year. He was the monthly figure for September of that year. Much like with the later Origins release, Mekaneck was the last 1984 character to join Classics. The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation. His sculpt was a lot of re-use. He has the line’s standard barbarian body, with the modified left arm for the symmetrical bracers set-up. Technically, that breaks from his vintage design, but animation tended to go for matching, and Mattel seems to want to reserve the larger bracer for He-Man proper most of the time. Since the Classics version of Stinkor was released before Mekaneck, this figure re-used the chest armor piece, albeit with the peg at the top of the plate glued in place this time, since Mekaneck had no alternate piece to swap out. The one new piece for this release was the head. It was a two piece assembly, with the helmet being separate. The helmet seems to sit a bit high, meaning the goggles don’t line up with where his eyes should be. It was brought up at the time that Mekaneck more than likely had some sort of cybernetic enhancements that make the lenses on the helmet something more than goggles, so they wouldn’t strictly *have* to line up with his actual eyes. It’s a reasonable explanation, but it doesn’t change the fact that literally every other Mekaneck figures has the goggles sitting where they should, and that Classics had a history of figures where molded parts weren’t fitted together properly during production. It was hardly the end of the world, but it was annoying. Mekaneck came from an era of the line where figures were almost entirely painted, allowing the main parts to be batch molded in black plastic. It caused issues for certain figures, but luckily Mekaneck wound up with a pretty good set-up. The only real issue is the lenses of the goggles, which are the same flat silver as the other accents on the helmet. The vintage figure hand mirrored lenses, and the 200x version had green ones. Either would have been nice, but the flat color makes it hard to distinguish any difference in the sculpted elements. Mekaneck was packed with his club, as well as two neck extensions of differing lengths. Technically, the necks can stack for one extra long neck, but the presence of a blue collar at both bases means that it looks a touch odd.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

Obviously, there was no way I was gonna miss this guy, so I had to deal with that fateful day-of sale on Matty Collector, which I honestly recall not being super stressful.  Yay, fun bonus!  After quite a wait for him, I recall being a little bit underwhelmed when he finally made it out.  I bounced back pretty quickly, since I was really just happy to have him, and having him as part of a larger collection of Mekanecks has taken some of the pressure off of him.  He’s not as strong as the later Origins release, and I don’t have the same nostalgia for him as the vintage or 200x releases, but he’s at least a reminder of my time with Classics, for better or for worse.

#3531: Jean Grey

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

JEAN GREY

X-MEN CLASSICS (TOY BIZ)

Fun FiQ Fact #0010: Jean Grey’s Jim Lee costume has received 11 action figures since its debut.

As a kid, my introduction to the X-Men was the animated series, which drove my desire for the whole cast of characters in action figure form.  The toyline running concurrently with the show was actually comics-based, but still generally managed to get a lot of looks that were close enough to work.  There were, however, some omissions, as well as some…odd ways of doing figures.  Despite being a main character on the show, Jean’s only figure in the line proper for most of its run was a single Phoenix figure, which wasn’t her main get-up on the series.  That look got some action figure love, sure, but Toy Biz’s takes always felt a bit monkey’s paw-like; you’d get her, but at some sort of trade off.  My search for a good one ran for a good number of years.  The closest I got was in 2000, and it was a figure that I was honestly pretty thrilled to get, even though she’s maybe not the most thrilling figure at the end of it all.  Still, here she is!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jean Grey is part of Toy Biz’s X-Men Classics line, which they launched in 2000 to run some old molds in new packaging between the toys for X-Men: The Movie and X-Men: Evolution.  While most of the figures were minor tweaks to existing releases, the Battle Blasters figures all got more substantial tweaks, in order to make them less Age of Apocalypse-inspired and more standard.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  Her mold is almost identical to the original “Secret Weapon Force” release, which was just the Jean mold that Toy Biz had on hand at the time, I guess.  It does at the very least fill in the etched lines for the boots and gloves from the mold’s original use as Mystique.  For all of the re-uses the body saw during Toy Biz’s run, I do believe this is the only time they got rid of those.  It definitely helps with the overall look.  The mold’s not bad; the body is basic, and the head, while definitely more dialed into the AoA version of the character, isn’t horrible.  The main change-up, obviously, is the paint, which now puts her in her Jim Lee costume…or at least something close to it.  There are some sculpted details that don’t line up; the hair’s too short, and she lacks the shoulder pads and leg pouches.  That’s kind of expected, and it’s certainly closer than the other repaint they did for this costume.  The only thing that really stands out to me as “off” is the hands being yellow, but even that was a back and forth thing, with it only more recently being decided that she didn’t wear gloves with the costume.  This Jean release got the exact same accessory as her original “Secret Weapon” release: the Catapult Tank Blaster.  It’s a big green and black thing, and it’s hella goofy.  But, hey, at least I got two of them, right?

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I vividly recall finding this figure in a Toys R Us, early December, still in post-X-Men: The Movie bliss, and being absolutely thrilled.  Then less so, because it was early December, which was typically a time of no toy purchases, what with the inevitable onslaught of figures I’d be getting as Christmas gifts.  My parents, however, recognized the significance of the figure, and allowed me to break their usual rule, so that I could finally have the Jean Grey I’d been waiting so long for.  She’s not much to write home about; she’s just the Secret Weapon Force Jean with a new deco, and that one wasn’t anything special either.  But, I was always very happy with her, and she’s still pretty nifty, even if there are better Jim Lee style Jeans these days.

#3530: Blade

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

BLADE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0009: Blade’s first Marvel Legends figure was movie based, and it would take until 2017 for him to actually get a comics-based Legend.  At least the follow-up wasn’t *quite* that bad.

My first introduction to Blade was Spider-Man: The Animated Series, a depiction that made me not jive so much with the Wesley Snipes version of the character from the first movie.  In my defense, I was also kind of 5, and an R-rated super hero movie really wasn’t for me.  Whatever the case, it’s kind of created a division between me and the character, so I never really got into him, beyond perhaps the novelty of him and Moon Knight being each other’s equivalent marks in Marvel’s ’70s horror books.  I do really like his ’70s design, hokey as it may be, but that one’s been rather light on the toy coverage.  As it stands, I haven’t actually owned a Blade figure at all…until now.  How about that?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blade is figure 2 in the Mindless One Series of Marvel Legends.  It’s a Marvel Knights themed set, and he definitely vibes with that (enough that he’s been in both of the two Knights assortments).  Despite including a Build-A-Figure piece, Blade’s this assortment’s double pack.  It makes sense, given how popular his prior figures have been, but it definitely feels like it may have been a late call on Hasbro’s part.  The figure stands just shy of 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Construction wise, he’s using the torso from the last Blade, as well as the arms from ’90s Havok.  Beyond that, he appears to be an all-new set-up.  The sculpt for this guy is pretty solid.  The only real downside I can really find is that his arms can’t really sit flush with his torso, but that’s always been an issue with this mold.  The design here looks to be an amalgamation of a few Blade designs from over the years, settling on something that generally approximates the overall vibe of his early ’00s appearances, post live action movie redesign.  It’s not first appearance Blade, but it’s certainly a very memorable take on him, so I get it.  It’s also very definitely a post-bitten by Morbius Blade, as the headsculpt so clearly shows, with his vampire teeth-baring expression.  It’s certainly a far cry from the last figure’s very pointedly calm expression.  It’s quite dynamic, to be sure.  Blade’s color work is very dark, as expected.  It’s not all strictly black, though.  The jacket and boots are, but the body beneath is a dark grey, and he’s even got a red lining on the coat.  There’s not a ton of paint, with it mostly being limited to the head.  What’s there is very cleanly applied, though.  Blade is packed with a sword, two stakes, two hand-held blade thingies, two pairs of hands (gripping and fists), and the head and energy effect to the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.  That’s actually quite a lot, making Blade one of the few Legends recently to not feel at all light on on extras.  I’d personally have liked an extra head, but I can’t fault them for going with what they did.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I was prepared not to be all that into this figure.  Like I said, my attachment to Blade is minimal.  But, I get *why* this figure got made, and I do like this design more than any of the prior releases.  Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  He’s actually pretty fun.  I’m still holding out hope on that ’70s style Blade sometime soon, but until then, this guy’s a respectable stand-in.

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 and their eBay storefront.

Mutant X Re-Read #23: Tremble Before His Might

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Mutant X Re-Read

TREMBLE BEFORE HIS MIGHT

MUTANT X #22 (MARVEL COMICS)

“In another place–in another life–Alex Summers led a team of mutants in a battle against oppression. His methods were extreme, his tactics questionable, but–in his soul–he knew that he was fighting for the greater good.

Now that soul has been transferred to another world, and Summers, also known as Havok, has found himself living a lie, allied with a team of mutants who are sinister, parallel versions of his friends and family. It is to this dark, new place that Havok has come, where he stands as a man alone… a mutant alone. Alex Summers is Mutant X.

Fear him. Fear for him.”

25 years ago, Marvel Comics launched Mutant X, a Havok led X-spinoff. I recently came into a complete run of the series, and so now I’m going to re-read the series once a week, and you guys get to come along for the ride!

This week, the team faces off against Galactus…except that they don’t? Let’s check out the weirdness of “Tremble Before His Might.”

THE ISSUE ITSELF

Mutant X #22 is cover dated August 2000 and has story and art by Howard Mackie, Tom Lyle, Dusty Abell, and Andrew Pepoy.

Xavier does battle with The Six in an attempt to capture Scotty. Havok decides their best strategy is retreat, heading south towards Antarctica. The go to Apocalypse’s ship, meeting up with Magneto, who reveals his survival to the rest of the team, also confirming the survival of the rest of the X-Men in the process. Magneto takes Havok and Captain America to come up with a strategy for attacking Xavier. While the others wait, Ice-Man complains about Cap’s inclusion in the planning, since he’s not even a mutant. Scotty laughs and confirms that Cap actually is a mutant. Apocalypse’s horsemen, led by the Fallen arrive, and an altercation breaks out. Havok breaks it up, but Fallen pushes back, before being put in his place by Apocalypse. Apocalypse reveals that Xavier’s plan to take over the world requires him to create a simulacrum of Galactus, so that he may feed off of the panic of a world that fears being devoured. The Six and the Horsemen travel to New York to battle the fake Galactus. They cause this Galactus to melt into a green goo, revealing him to be a creation of Sinister, who manipulates the goo into several smaller, unfinished creatures.

This issue picks up pretty much directly from the last one, dumping you more or less right into the action. It’s a rather uneven issue, a point really driven home by the drastic shifts in style between Lyle and Abell’s pencils. They seem to have each taken pages at random, so there’s just these sudden jumps where characters suddenly look like completely different people. Most notably, Alex’s hair length varies by several inches from one page to the next. The Fallen’s role also remains ill-explored at best; early stories indicated his nastier persona was the result of a darker history in this universe, but with the change-up to make Apocalypse a less villainous character, this doesn’t fully track. Here, even *he* doesn’t seem to understand his motivations, and his presence seems largely to be about reminding readers the character still exists. He pops in and pops back out about as quickly. We do at least get an official confirmation of the X-Men’s survival this issue, but they still don’t make an appearance. Likewise, we get a reminder of the Starjammers in the form of the imaginary Galactus’ imaginary Heralds, but no proper appearance from them either.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Last issue was a lot of exposition, and this felt like…more exposition. Not really even different exposition. Just more. I did like getting more time with Ice-Man for a change, but the Galactus plot feels kind of extraneous. But, we’ll finally get to the wrap up next time!

I snagged this whole run from my usual comics stop, Cosmic Comix, so I want to give them a shout out here, because it was a pretty great find.

#3529: Professor Huyang

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

PROFESSOR HUYANG

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0008: Huyang’s actor David Tennant is one of two actors in Ahsoka to reprise a role they originated.

While I pretty faithfully watched the first two seasons or two of Clone Wars‘ original run, after that my viewing got rather spotty, so I missed a lot of its later additions to the lore.  As such, my first exposure to a lot of its later characters happened during my first proper watch-through, which I did after the whole series got added to Disney+ at launch in 2019.  David Tennant’s Huyang hails from a set of episodes that  otherwise didn’t really care for, but he was certainly a pleasant surprise.  It was a shame that he came into the picture after the tie-in toyline had started to die down.  Thankfully, he was brought back for Ahsoka, giving him another go at this whole action figure thing!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Professor Huyang is figure 7 in the Ahsoka sub-set of Star Wars: The Black Series‘ Phase IV run, and is the third and final Ahsoka-themed figure in the last assortment to hit last year.  This is Huyang’s first figure, but he’ll also be getting a Vintage Collection release later down the line.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation on his core body, plus an extra 6 points granted by the arms on his back-pack. Huyang has a generally pretty decently handled articulation scheme, especially for his design. His right shoulder is a little stuck and stubborn on my copy, and the skirt piece restricts the hip movement a touch, but the range is otherwise pretty impressive, and I was surprised by how stable he was on his feet. The sculpt is an all-new one, and it’s a rather good one at that. Huyang’s design from the show is replicated well, especially when it comes to the more intricate details of his robotic plating. The wiring at the midsection is a little soft, but not terribly so. Huyang’s color work relies pretty heavily on molded plastic, and I’m typically not a huge fan of that when it comes to metallic finishes. In Huyang’s case, I find it doesn’t bug me as much. In the show, he’s not really got the same metallic look as other droids, and this plastic’s also not the swirly kind, so it just works out better. There’s still a fair bit of paint, which is cleanly applied, and hits most of the marks it needs to. The only spot that really feels as though it’s missing application is the tool belt, which is untouched, except for the buckle. Huyang is packed with his pack with the extra arms, a data pad, and a…tool? I don’t know what it is, and even the Hasbro photographers have him holding it quizzically in the stock shots, so it appears even they don’t know for sure. Hey, it’s better that nothing, right?

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I like droids and I like David Tennant, so it makes sense that I’d like Huyang. After Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Hera, Huyang was my favorite part of Ahsoka, and his figure is probably the most I’ve truly enjoyed a Black Series figure in a little while.

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 and their eBay storefront.

#3528: Daredevil

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

DAREDEVIL

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0007:  This is the 20th Daredevil figure I’ve looked at here on the site! Sub-FiQ Fact, I know I just used this for Nightwing last week, but it’s also amusing that the two baton boy acrobats are so close in numbers, right?

I’ve been off and on with Daredevil’s comic runs pretty much since I started reading comics.  Waid and Samnee’s run from a few years back is one of my absolute favorite comics runs ever, and I dropped off the book for a bit after that because, well, how do you follow that up?  I jumped back in with Chip Zdarsky’s run when it started, and while it didn’t hook me quite the same way as the Waid/Samnee run, it was still a strong run in its own right.  It removes Matt from the title role for a while, granting Elektra the spotlight, but when Matt came back, he got a swanky new look, and I’m pretty much always down for a new Daredevil look.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Daredevil is the unnumbered figure in the Mindless One Series of Marvel Legends, which is our second Marvel Knights-themed series, following up on the Man-Thing Series from way back in 2017.  Curiously, while DD is the unnumbered figure and is sans-BaF piece, he’s *not* the set’s double pack in the case, which is a bit of a change-up to how things normally are.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  His articulation set-up is notably a little stiff, especially for a character like Matt, but its generally comparable to the Bucky Cape base that he’s been on previously, I suppose.  It’s also pinless, so at least it looks pretty smooth.  Matt gets a brand new sculpt, based on his “King Daredevil” look from the comics.  It’s essentially taking the costume Elektra was wearing during her time with the mantle and adapting to Matt, which isn’t a terrible way of handling things.  Since taking up the look was preceded by Matt doing a stint in prison, he grew out a beard, which is probably the biggest real visual change, though he also gains a lot more black, as well as adding wraps on the feet to the handwraps that have become a go-to for modern updates to the DD look. The sculpt generally translates the look into figure form pretty decently, with the only specific nit being that his collar piece is missing the hood section from the comics. It sort of came and went there, though, so it’s possible it was actually meant to be a separate piece. Otherwise, the sculpt conveys the book design well, and there’s plenty of depth of detail mixed in. His color work is pretty basic, largely relying on molded colors. Weirdly, his shoulder joints are molded in red, despite them only being visible in sections of the shoulder that are black, which is annoying. Also, his ears wind up being painted to match his beard, which is just plain incorrect. At least the red/black break up is very clean. DD is packed with his usual two piece billy club set-up, as well as a longer bladed staff. It definitely feels light. At the very least, some extra hands would be appreciated, but a hood piece would also have been nice.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

This guy felt pretty inevitable once we got the Elektra version, and it was ultimately his announcement that truly sold me on that figure. I dig a good Matt DD variant. This one isn’t as strong as other recent DD figures, but he’s still a respectably fun figure in his own right.

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 and their eBay storefront.