Monthly Archives: October 2024

#3702: Zorro – Alejandro Murrieta

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

ZORRO — ALEJANDRO MURRIETA

HERO H.A.C.K.S. (BOSS FIGHT STUDIOS)

Oh man, two figures from films with James Horner scores in the same week?  Should I go on?  Maybe some Rocketeer or Wrath of Khan? Titanic if I dare?  Not Avatar, though.  Never Avatar.  Can’t do it.  I haven’t talked directly about Zorro as a concept here on the site.  Honestly, that’s largely because, do to the somewhat confusing and complicated nature of the Zorro licensing making it hard to do a ton of figures.  Like, they’re out there, but it’s always a bit of an ordeal.  There have been a great many incarnations of Zorro over the years, and, by far, my favorite incarnation is The Mask of Zorro, 1998’s reinvention of the franchise starring Antonio Banderas as the successor to the mantle.  Despite the film’s success in the ’90s, it got no direct tie-in figures at the time.  Thankfully, Boss Fight Studio stepped in for the save, and put out their own version of Alejandro Murrieta in figure form!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zorro — Alejandro Murrieta was released under the Hero HACKS branding, as part of the second round of figures celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Zorro franchise.  He was released alongside Elena from the same film.  The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  He’s using Boss Fight’s H.A.C.K.S. set-up for his build and articulation set-up, though the articulation’s evolved just a little bit from the Vitruvian figures I looked at way back when.  Largely, it’s the hips and ankles that have seen re-works, to offer a slightly better range of motion.  It certainly works well.  The sculpt looks to be an all-new one (though it’s possible he might share parts with the other Zorro’s; having not picked them up, I can’t say for sure).  It’s certainly solid.  The articulation on the elbows is a little obvious, presumably to give him better range, but otherwise things are pretty well worked in, and the proportions are well balanced.  The outfit is also nicely detailed.  The masked head doesn’t have a spot-on Banderas likeness, but it’s not too bad, especially for the scale.  You can definitely see who it’s supposed to be, and they got the spirit of the character down.  The hat’s removable, but surprisingly well scaled to the body, and it stays in place without too much trouble.  The cape’s a little bulky and static, making deeper lunging poses a little difficult, but, again, given the scale, not bad at all.  His color work is a lot of black, as expected.  It’s got all the details it should, with some pretty sharp accenting.  The only area that’s a little sloppy is the face, notably the eyes, but generally things look okay.  Alejandro is packed with two sets of hands (gripping and open gesture), an unmasked head, his sword, two whips (one coiled and one uncoiled), and a display stand.  The unmasked head is an okay sculpt, but feels a little too kempt for Alejandro in Mask, feeling more like his Legend of Zorro appearance, which I don’t think any one really wants.  The sword is nice, and can be stored on the belt as well.  The coiled whip can also be stored on the belt…sort of?  The loop is really soft, so it winds up falling off really easily.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mask of Zorro is definitely a favorite of mine, especially when I was a kid.  I even had the poster up over my bed for, like, 15 years.  I’ve wanted some form of Alejandro as Zorro since the movie came out, honestly, but there was nothing but an unrelated Zorro line at the time.  I made due, but it was never really what I wanted.  I recall these figures being shown off, but I wasn’t able to get one when they dropped.  I actually got to mess with the 1/6th scale version of Alejandro a few months back, but he was just too expensive, so I had to pass.  Then, as luck would have it, this one landed in front of me, which was cool, because it was the one I wanted in the first place.  He also wasn’t crazy expensive, which certainly helped.  He’s a very nice, very fun little figure, and I’m glad to finally have 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.

#3701: Peter B. Parker

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

PETER B. PARKER

SV-ACTION (SENTINEL)

When Into the Spider-Verse first came out, it had very minimal toy coverage.  There were some basic figures from Hasbro and a few Funko Pops, but that was really it.  Then the movie was a big hit, and the proper licensing went out, and it was just a field day.  Everyone and their mother was making something.  The 1/12 scale in particular got flocked to, with a bunch of Miles and Peter offerings.  One of the companies in the mix is Sentinel, a company I’ve only recently looked into.  I’m taking a look at their version of Peter B Parker today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Peter B. Parker was released in Sentinel’s SV-Action line in 2021 as a single release.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  As I touched on in my first Sentinel review, their articulation set-up is somewhat unique, being a little more straight forward than a Figuarts release, but still a little more complex than, say, a Legends release.  There’s more nuance to the posing on this one than even the Armored Cap figure I looked at previously.  Generally, the tolerancing on the joints is pretty good, with no real floppiness, and a lack of things being too tight as well.  Peter B has a unique sculpt based on his fully suited-up look from Into the Spider-Verse, which has been a surprising rarity for his figures.  It’s very accurate to the animation model for the character, capturing his more unique build from the movie (right down to the slight paunch he has around his stomach), and working in the articulation without breaking things up too much.  It also handles all of the smaller detailing via sculpted texture work, which covers the whole figure.  It works very well, and again gives him a unique feel.  Peter B’s color work is pretty straight forward, but well handled.  There’s a lot of molded colors, with just enough paint to fill in the change-overs, and the painted vs molded actually match up quite well.  He’s got smaller work for the weblines, which are pretty decent, as well as the eyes, which are bright, clean, and sharp.  Peter B is packed with a whole plethora of extra parts, including four different heads (two masked, two unmasked, with differing expressions), 15 different hands (pairs of relaxed, open gesture, wall crawling, fists, webline gripping, thwipping with attached webs, ungloved, and right hand holding a coffee mug), a pair of glasses, four different webline pieces, and a display stand.  The glasses I feel are destined to get lost, but that’s what it is, I guess.  It’s too bad that we didn’t get an optional jacket and sweatpants, but there are other options for those, so I suppose this one is just more focused on the full suited look.  What he *does* get in addition to the Peter B parts is an extra unmasked head, lower torso, and pelvis, so that he can double as the Peter of Miles’s universe, making him a two-in-one figure, which is very fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Much as I love the Spider-Verse films, I’ve thus-far stuck exclusively to Legends style figures for the characters from it, in part because the Legends have honestly just been pretty solid themselves.  That said, I’ve certainly become more connected to Peter B as a character, especially his journey into fatherhood in Across, which paralleled with my own personal journey, so when this figure landed in front of me, I felt urged to pick him up, especially because I was able to get a good deal on a used one through All Time.  I had initially used the Miles-verse Peter as my true justification for getting, but with the Legends one officially announced, I guess it’s back to really being the Peter B himself that sold me on it.  And, honestly, he’s just a very, very cool figure.  Now I just need to find him a pink bath robe.

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.

#3700: Cpl Dwayne Hicks

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

CPL DWAYNE HICKS

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES (HIYA TOYS)

The post-Aliens video game Aliens: Colonial Marines had, amongst other things, a long path to its release, taking six years to finally make it to players. It was not well-received at all upon its release, which isn’t the sort of thing you generally want out of a game that took six years to make. It does, at the very least, undo one of Alien 3‘s more disliked elements, the death of Corporal Dwayne Hicks, albeit in a rather convoluted and awkward sort of way. Still, they got Michael Biehn to reprise his role, which was pretty cool, and there were also some cool figures, courtesy of Hiya Toys. I’m looking at their take on Hicks today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cpl Dwayne Hicks was released in the initial run of Hiya Toys’ Aliens: Colonial Marines tie-in line, at the same time as game marine Quintero and fellow film marine Hudson.  They hit in 2016, three years after the game’s release, which seems like a bit of time to wait, but it’s only half as much time as it took for the game to make it out, so, you know, perspective and all that.  All of these figures, even the “movie” ones, were technically game-based, with the non-game characters being based on their multiplayer skins.  Hicks technically exists in both capacities, but this figure, which lacks the scarring he received at the end of Aliens, seems to be the multiplayer/movie version.  The figure stands 4 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  The articulation set-up is ultimately something of a mix between the 25th/30th era G.I. Joes and Hasbro’s Marvel Universe.  Generally, not bad, but the hip pops off a lot, and one of the knees is a little gummy.  Hicks’s sculpt had a lot of overlap with Quintero and Hudson, with them each just getting a unique head sculpt.  The head’s…not great.  It’s rather soft on the details, and the likeness just really isn’t there.  You’d be forgiven for just not realizing this was meant to be Hicks at all.  Below the neck, things are a little better.  The proportions aren’t bad, and the armor detailing is all pretty solid stuff, with the torso armor in particular honestly being pretty strong.  Because of the parts sharing with Quintero and Hudson, his sleeves come down way too far on the arms; Hicks’s sleeves aren’t visible under the armor in the film.  He’s also missing his watch and wrist band, and the lack of wrist coverage also highlights how oddly misshapen the hands are at the base of the wrist.  The color work on this figure leans into the game colors, so his uniform is bluer than the film, and his armor is browner, which makes for rather an odd contrast.  Like, it’s not terribly off, but it’s enough to throw you at first.  The application’s a little thick, but otherwise not too bad.  Hicks is packed with his helmet, shoulder lamp, shotgun, pulse rifle, a pistol, a motion tracker, and a display stand.  The helmet is wildly inaccurate, missing the back neck cover, the ear covers, and the comm, removing the distinctive Colonial Marine silhouette when he’s wearing it, and generally throwing off his look.  It’s a real shame, given how weak the likeness on the underlying head is.  The gun sculpts aren’t bad, but the hands don’t hold any of them particularly well.  Also, the pulse rifle gets no sling, and the shotgun and pistol have no holsters, so he just kind of has to throw them off to the side when not using them, I guess?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I honestly did my best to avoid everything to do with Colonial Marines after it dropped and was so mediocre, and that included the tie-in stuff.  I didn’t even know about these figures until after they’d dropped, and Hicks jumped in price rather quickly, so I never snagged him.  He got traded into All Time a month or two back, missing the shotgun, so I was able to get him for a slightly better deal.  Then the shotgun surfaced, and he was all complete again, which was pretty cool.  Ultimately, he’s not great.  I’m glad I didn’t pay the mark-up on him, because that really would have put me off.  As it stands, he’s a Hicks I didn’t have, and it was very easy for me to snag him, so it was hard to say no.  Sometimes, that’s just how it is.

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.