Author Archives: Ethan Wilson

#2372: Snake Eyes

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

SNAKE EYES

G.I. JOE: CLASSIFIED SERIES (HASBRO)

In 2016, after an attempt to revitalize the line with a 50th Anniversary celebration after numerous re-brandings of the core line, the G.I. Joe brand was retired from retail, with its only continuation being in the form of a handful of Collector’s Club exclusives and a one SDCC exclusive from Hasbro that wasn’t even specifically Joe-centered.  In 2018 there were exactly two Collector’s Club-exclusive, and the rest was silence.  With over a year of no new Joe at all, the fanbase kind of folded in on itself, with most of the focus shifting to the old vintage line, because they were desperate to have *something* to buy.  After that year-plus of silence (to the point of even leaving G.I. Joe off of a brand poster that included freaking *Visionaries* of all things), Hasbro went into 2020 with a plan to revitalize Joe again.  The Snake Eyes movie is supposed to be hitting theaters this year, the mobile game was officially launched in January, and Hasbro’s bringing G.I. Joe back to retail in the form of a new 6-inch scale line, much in the style of their Legends, Black Series, and Lightning Collection lines.  So far, we’ve seen most of the first series (which is tentatively hitting in June, but who knows at this point?), and the line has officially been kicked off with a deluxe version of everyone’s favorite ninja-commando-mute, Snake Eyes!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Snake Eyes is figure 00 in the newly launched G.I. Joe: Classified Series.  He was offered exclusively though Hasbro Pulse, and, as the “00” denotes, he’s meant as a preview for the line proper.  The rumor mill is speculating that the core figure of this release will be going to regular retail with the rest of the line, making all of the deluxe-ness the real exclusive part of this one.  Speaking of the deluxe-ness of this release, before I dive into reviewing the actual toy proper, I would like to mention the packaging of this release.  Though I’m not usually all that interested in what my figures get to me in, this release deserves a special mention, because Hasbro’s really gone the extra mile here, with a heavy cardboard construction, and an almost faux-leather exterior.  The intricate design on the front and back of the box is really impressively applied, and said design is also included as a pretty cool print when you open the box.  Inside the box, there’s a foam tray with spots for the core boxed Snake Eyes (in a variation of what will be the line’s standard packaging) and all of the exclusive extras.  It’s one hell of a presentation, and shows that Hasbro’s really invested in the significance of this release.  Alright, we’ve discussed the beauty that is the box, now we tear it open and look at the guy inside.  Snake Eyes stands just shy of 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 37 points of articulation.  Hasbro’s gotten pretty impressive with their articulation on their 6-inch-scale lines as of late, but Snake Eyes takes that to the next level, adding things like butterfly shoulders, a ball-jointed waist, and drop-hips to the equation.  He also fuses the Black Series double-ball-jointed neck design with the Legends hinge joint, which gives the best of both worlds in terms of range.  He’s a very, very posable figure is what I’m getting at here.  However, it’s worth noting that the figure’s sculpt really doesn’t suffer to grant him this posability.  Said sculpt is clearly patterned after Snake’s v2 figure, which is generally considered his most distinctive look, and a good starting point for any new version of the character.  He’s not a straight adaptation of that design, though, as Hasbro is clearly building a new aesthetic for the Joes for this new line.  The broad strokes are all the same.  He’s got the knight-style visor, the bandolier with grenades, and all the pouches and straps are in more or less the same spot.  However, when you take a closer look at the smaller details, that’s where the changes come in.  They’ve followed a bit in the footsteps of the movies, giving him a more armored appearance, at least on the head and torso.  Within that set-up, he gets some extra webgear on his shoulders, which is really the only part of this design I’m a little iffy on.  Honestly, I don’t hate it, but I think it stands out a little too much from what’s around it.  I think the fact that I can hone in on one specific thing like that and say it’s slightly off speaks to the sleekness of the rest of the sculpt, though.  I really do appreciate how well they homaged the v2 release with this sculpt.  In terms of the paint, Snake Eyes goes a fair bit more involved than the usual figure of him.  He still keeps things predominantly very dark, but it’s not quite as much straight black.  There’s a lot of variance to the browns, and there’s also some nice change-ups in the finish on the black sections as well, making the different sections look like different materials.  It’s really nicely handled, especially given how easily they could have just left things all-black.  In terms of accessories, there are really two groups with this figure.  Firstly, there’s what is actually included in his smaller box with him.  He gets a sword (which according to Tim is more of a messer than a katanna, and I’m inclined to believe him there), an Uzi, a Beretta m93r with a removable silencer, a knife, a backpack, a sheath for the sword (which can plug either straight into his back or onto the pack), and two extra hands, one holding throwing stars, the other flat.  The Uzi, sword, and backpack do a great job of replicating the v2 figure’s accessories, and the Beretta, knife, and extra hands just accent things further.  Outside of his own packaging, Snake Eyes also gets a whole Dojo wall full of weapons.  The wall itself is a nice piece in its own right, and its got spots for the 2 sai, 2 axes, 2 kama, spear, long sword, and katana included alongside it in the box.  Snake Eyes can use these extra weapons if you like, or they make for a pretty killer display behind him.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got a slight heads up that a 6-inch Joe line was coming, so I was pretty eagerly awaiting its arrival.  Once this guy was shown off, I knew I needed one.  Max was kind enough to let me use his Pulse account so that we could both order one, meaning I got in on the ground floor with this guy.  And then I got him literally the day everything started shutting down around here, so I’ve gotten a lot of time to mess with him.  I love this figure.  I love this figure so much.  This is pretty much everything I wanted out of this line, and I’m really excited for the rest of the line to hit so that this guy can have some companions.  Until then, he’ll just have to face off against my Fortnite Havoc figure that’s totally not just a 6-inch Firefly.

#2371: Harley Quinn

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

HARLEY QUINN

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“When she first met The Joker, Dr. Harleen Quinzel was his psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum.  Instead of treating her patient, she fell in love with him and became his prankster partner in crime known as Harley Quinn.  Although mentally unhinged, Harley is highly intelligent.  She’s a skilled gymnast and her agility makes her an adept fighter.  Like The Joker, she uses a variety of weaponized gag props in her chaos-creating crimes.”

Hey, remember how McFarlane has the DC license now?  And remember how Spin Master also has it?  And how I’m really leaning into that Spin Master curve?  Well, it could only last for so long, I suppose.  In an effort to make my way through some of the stuff sitting on my “to review” pile, I’m grabbing a few things I’ve kind of been putting off.  Today’s entry is definitely in the “putting it off” category.  Guess I can’t put it off any further.  Okay, here’s Harley Quinn.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Harley Quinn is part the…well, still technically the first assortment of McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line, but exactly where she falls in that is a little debatable.  She’s not part of the Superman/Batman portion that we first saw, and she’s not part of the more Bat-family-themed build-a-vehicle assortment that Nightwing was in.  Technically, she was shown off alongside Green Arrow from Arrow and Green Lantern from JLU, neither of whom she really ties in with all that well.  It hasn’t got any less confusing since I reviewed Nightwing is the general theme of what I’m getting at here.  Harley is, according to the box anyway, based on her appearance in her self-titled miniseries from the comics, which introduced her into the mainstream DCU.  I’ll get to that.  The figure stands just over 7 inches tall and has 35 points of articulation.  Compared to the rest of the line, Harley’s not only too tall; she’s just flat out too big.  She’s not actually taller than Nightwing and Superman, but thanks to the way the parts of her body are scaled internally, she looks like she’s taller than they are.  It’s really the head that throws things off the most, because it’s so large.  Also?  Clearly not based on her main DCU design.  That head’s unquestionably meant to be an animated-style Harley, and there’s nothing about it that indicates otherwise.  Given they were already doing actual animation-based figures in the strange collection of figures that makes up “Series 1”, I’m not sure why they didn’t just say she was an animated Harley.  Okay, actually I kinda do get why, but that’ll come up later.  Whatever the case, the head’s not a great piece, even for an animated look, because it’s kinda off-model for any version of Harley we’ve seen before.  Below the neck, Harley suddenly doesn’t seem quite as animation-styled, but I wouldn’t really classify it as realistic either.  There’s a definite style there, but whose I couldn’t really say.  The part that really bugs me is the shoes, which are the usual pixie shoes, but inexplicably have high heels on them?  I don’t know how that works, and I don’t want to.  Harley in high-heels just feels wrong to me, though.  Of the three McFarlane DC figures I’ve looked at, Harley’s probably got the most basic paint scheme.  I don’t know that I’d call it “cleaner”, because the actual application is kinda messy.  There’s a noticeably splotch of white on the left shoulder, and in general the transitions between colors aren’t very clean.  It’s not terrible, though, and I don’t know that it’s really messier than the other two; there’s just less extra work to distract from the errors.  Harley is packed with a mallet, a gun with a “Bang” flag, a display stand, and a collector’s card.  The mallet is the weirdest part, because it’s definitely meant to be more real world, and therefore doesn’t fit with the rest of the figure at all.  Sure, there’s a lot of nice work on it, but why does it come with *this* figure?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The animated figures from Multiverse kind of repulse me, and though she’s not technically an animated figure, so does Harley.  From the prototype shots, I knew I didn’t like her, and in person that didn’t change.  So, why do I have her?  It’s Max’s fault.  He bought her because he decided to buy a whole set of them, and after opening her up and messing with her for a bit, he decided he didn’t really need to keep her, and passed her along to me for the purposes of reviewing.  There it is Max.  I reviewed her.  I hope you’re happy.  Ultimately, I’m cooling on this whole McFarlane DC thing pretty quickly.  While Superman and Nightwing held my interest at first, I ultimately don’t have much to say about them a month after the fact.  And a month with Harley sitting on the shelf waiting to be reviewed did nothing to really make me like her any more than I did when I first looked at her.

#2370: Great Saiyaman

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GREAT SAIYAMAN

S.H. FIGUARTS (BANDAI)

Oh wow, another Dragon Ball review?  This soon?  Is the reviewer going crazy?  Or is it just that he’s got no means of getting new toys and so therefore just has to make his way through pretty much whatever he’s got sitting here waiting to be reviewed in order to keep up with a daily review schedule?  I think it might actually be both, but I’ll let you know when I figure it out for sure.  So, Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z‘s got a couple of time skips built into it.  The first is of course the big jump from Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Z, which sees Goku and his friends go from kids to adults.  However, within Z, there’s also another sizable jump following the resolution of “Cell Games”, doing a similar time skip to what we saw with Goku, but this time with his son Gohan, who takes over as the series’ main focus, at least until his dad comes back from the dead…again.  During his time as lead, a high-school aged Gohan takes on the secret identity of the Great Saiyaman in order to protect the city without giving away his identity.  I’m looking at a figure of that identity today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Great Saiyaman was released in 2019 as part of the Dragon Ball Z-sub-set of the S.H. Figuarts line.  He’s the third Gohan figure, slotting right in the middle between the previously released kid Gohan and adult Gohan.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and he has 37 points of articulation.  Saiyaman scales pretty well with the rest of the Figuarts Dragon Ball stuff I’ve got, excepting of course the Krillin that’s out of scale with everything else.  The sculpt is probably the sturdiest and cleanest of the Dragon Ball figures I’ve looked at.  The articulation doesn’t break up the sculpt too much, and he seems to follow pretty closely to the animation designs for the character.  The only part of the figure I don’t really much care for is his cape, which has a hard plastic construction (except for the part on the shoulders, which is rubber), which makes it really awkward to handle.  It doesn’t help that it also doesn’t stay in place particularly well, meaning it falls off a lot during normal posing.  If you can get it to work with you, however, it makes for some dynamic looks.  The paint work on Saiyaman is pretty simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a solid application.  It seems to match pretty well with the show in terms of color, and I quite like the slightly different finish they’ve given the helmet.  It does well to differentiate it as a different, harder material than the other portions of the costume.  As with most Figuarts releases, Saiyaman is quite a well accessorized.  He’s got four sets of hands (in fists, open gesture, wide open gesture, and flat), two faceplates for the standard helmeted head (calm and angry), a plug for the spot on his back where the cape usually goes (should you wish to display him without it), an alternate left forearm without his watch, and not one, not two, but three separate extra heads.  He’s got his “tournament” look with the bandana and sunglasses, which is kind of the standard alt look for this costume, as well as a standard unmasked Gohan, and a Super Saiyan Gohan.   What I find most impressive about this release is how many distinct alternate appearances he’s got thanks to all those parts; you can effectively build four different figures with the parts included here.  I’m planning to stick with the helmeted look, but boy is it tricky to stick with just one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Though my main focus with DBZ is the Android Saga, which is before the time-skip that leads to this guy, I did watch this particular chunk of Gohan’s story pretty regularly when it was airing on Cartoon Network.  I’m also just generally a fan of Super Heroes, so this part of the story always stuck out to me.  The story of how I got this Saiyaman figure is pretty similar to how I got Krillin, though without the “I missed out on the previous version” bit.  I recall him being announced, and I thought about picking him up a few times, but never did get around to it.  He was traded into All Time, and I still had some trade credit to burn, so he was mine.  I didn’t have much in the way of expectations for this figure, and I wasn’t sure about what to do with him on his own, but this figure’s such a nice package deal to himself, and I’m really glad I decided to grab him.

#2369: Secret War Captain America

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SECRET WAR CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Recruited by Nick Fury for an undercover mission, Captain America serves SHIELD in the pursuit of justice.”

Comics like to re-use names.  Take, for instance, this figure, and the story he’s sourced from.  Is “Secret War Captain America” from Secret Wars, Marvel’s cross-company event designed to help sell action figures?  Or perhaps Secret Wars II, its sequel?  Or how about Secret Wars, the 2015 cross-company event designed to help sell that comics were still a relevant thing and these crossovers were still totally worth doing and you should really buy them all?  It’s a resounding “no” to all three.  No, he’s from Secret War, a Brian Michael Bendis-written event from 2003, which, despite its name, is completely and totally unrelated to the three other events I listed.  Oh, Bendis.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Secret War Captain America was part of the Abomination Series of Marvel Legends, which was the last of the three Cap-themed Civil War tie-in assortments released in 2016.  Hasbro was eager to get as much mileage as possible out of the new Cap pieces they’d tooled up for the Reaper body, and also needed a third Cap variant, so this guy got the nod, being based on Gabriele Dell’Otto’s stealth uniform Cap from the previously mentioned event series.  Cap’s costume from this series is apparently a favorite for toy companies, since its had both a Legends and a Minimates release, while none of the other heroes costumes have graced toy form.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  As I noted above, this guy was built on the Reaper body, specifically the one with all the Cap-specific parts that was first used for the Cap-Wolf figure.  That means he’s got the flared boots and gloves.  He also re-uses the head from the RoML Ultimate Captain America, since it lacks the 3D head wings of Cap-Wolf’s standard head.  Also, doesn’t have that same horrible, hideous face, so that’s a plus.  He does get one new piece, an add-on for his belt, which appears to be fairly accurate to the source material.  Of all the things to spring for new tooling on, this one seems a little odd, but to be fair, it’s really the only new piece he needed.  The main changes are made via the paint, which really gets the stealthier colors of the design down. He’s still got the trappings of your standard Captain America color scheme, but toned way down to allow for something slightly stealthier…even if it’s not like he’s really actually hiding who he is.  Whatever the case, it looks cool.  Cap is packed with the same shield as all of the post-Reaper Caps, and also includes the throwing effect for the shield, which I reviewed with the 80th Cap, but was debuted with this particular figure.  As I noted in that review, it’s a fun extra piece, and definitely added some pop to what could have been a drab release.  Cap was also packed with the right arm of the Abomination Build-A-Figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

At the time that this assortment hit in 2016, I was kinda between jobs, so I didn’t really have the funds to go all-in on it (nor did the line-up or the Build-A-Figure really inspire me to do so), meaning I only picked up the figures I really, really wanted.  Cap didn’t quite make it on that list, and I just never saw him in person again by the time I had the money to spend on him.  Fortunately, All Time managed to get a few of them in as part of a trade, and so I was able to grab one for my Cap collection.  He’s not a standard version of the character, but the stealth look is a cool one, and he was certainly an improvement on the Cap Wolf figure.

Cap was purchased from my friends at All Time Toys. If you’re looking for other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#2368: Deadshot

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

DEADSHOT

ARROW (DC COLLECTIBLES)

CW’s Arrow wrapped up its eight year run at the beginning of this year, sending off its main character via the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.  Seems like the perfect time for me to finally get around to reviewing the toys, doesn’t it?  So, am I looking at Ollie?  Or maybe one of his sidekicks?  Diggle?  No, no, I’m doing my thing and looking at the Arrow-verse version of Floyd Lawton, better known as Deadshot, who was a recurring character in the show until Warner’s kinda silly “no brand confusion” rules required him to be rather suddenly removed so that no one would accidentally mistake him for Will Smith.  Because these two look so much alike, right?  Well, at least he got the toy.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Deadshot was figure 6 in the Arrow line from DC Collectibles…wait, hang on, that can’t be right.  Let me double check my notes…yep, he’s really figure 6.  That just seems really off for some reason, that Deadshot of all characters would pop up that early in the line.  I guess they were still trying to push him pretty hard…you know, before pretending this version didn’t exist and all.  The figure hit shelves in April of 2015…a month after they removed him from the show…okay, seriously, this can’t be right.  No, apparently it is.  Well, I guess he *was* solicited a while a head of that, and that would have been right when the show was amping up to have him be a major part of that Suicide Squad arc that they had to drop.  Man, Arrow was weird.  And DC Collectibles was weird.  It’s okay, they’re both no more, so we’re totally safe from their weirdness.  Weirdness defeated, this figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  He’s pretty well-articulated for a DCC figure, especially one of their TV figures.  He doesn’t have any obviously missing joints like a lot of them, and can pull off a number of cool action poses.  I do wish there was some more range on the arms, especially those elbows, so that there was a little more variety to how he could hold his rifle, but it’s better than I was expecting.  The sculpt is likewise one of the nicer ones I’ve gotten from DCC.  It’s based on his later appearances from the show, after they started doing the Suicide Squad stuff.  It’s a good approximation of all of the signature elements of his classic comics design, while still being CW-ish enough to work in the more real-world setting of Arrow.  It’s also really darn close to what they ended up giving Will Smith in the movie.  Throw a mask on this guy, and like the movie version, you’d have a pretty respectable comics design.  The sculpt does a respectable job of translating all of that into a workable figure. A lot of the DCC TV figures wound up with kind of softer sculpts, and that’s kinda true here, but there’s enough going on that it’s not too bad looking.  The head’s also sporting a passable likeness of Michael Rowe as seen on the show, which is always a plus.  His paintwork is suitably realistic, with the base colors looking clean, and a decent amount of accenting being worked in throughout.  They even managed to do some not totally terrible stubble, which I consider quite a victory.  A Deadshot without some guns would be kind of pointless, so this guy includes three of them.  He’s got a sniper variant of the Galil (which, fun fact, is the Israeli version of the AK platform), as well as two identical Beretta 92s.  The two Berettas are a little odd, since he can really only hold one at a time, and he’s only got the one holster, but hey, I won’t complain about getting an extra accessory.  Special thanks to Tim for helping with the gun ID there.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Deadshot is a figure that I have looked at and almost bought countless times over the course of the last five years.  It’s been the same one, too.  This one Deadshot figure has been at Cosmic Comix since he was released, and I’ve just kept looking at him and ultimately passing.  Despite not really ever getting into the show, I did like their take on Floyd well enough, so it’s not like I didn’t like him, but, ironically, I could never pull the trigger.  However, Cosmic is moving locations later this year, and to prep for that they’ve been running sales on some of the stuff they don’t want to relocate, which included Floyd here.  At half-off, I really couldn’t say no again, so he finally came home with me.  I’m actually really surprised by how much I like this figure, and I’m definitely glad I finally bought him.

#2367: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

MARVEL UNIVERSE (HASBRO)

“When you weigh almost 2,000 pounds and can’t be stopped by any obstacle on Earth, the term ‘fair fight’ doesn’t normally apply…unless your opponent can lift 75 tons and comes encased in impenetrable organic armor.  The unstoppable Juggernaut!  The unbreakable Colossus!  Look out!”

So, that bio might reveal some things about how this figure *should* be reviewed, which is to say with another figure, since he’s clearly part of a two-pack.  But that ain’t how I roll…well, this time, at least, because I just have the one of them.  I definitely dig me some Colossus, and he definitely has a tendency to really rock as an action figure, which really only makes me dig him that much more, and, well, here we are, I guess.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Colossus is one half of a Marvel Universe “Greatest Battles” two-pack, which is what the Comic Packs became after Hasbro rounded out their Secret Wars celebration.  Like the larger-scale set I looked at a while back, this pack paired off Colossus with Juggernaut, in reference to their battle in X-Men #102 (which was, unsurprisingly, the comic that came included with this pack).  This figure would mark Colossus’s third time in the Marvel Universe line, and following a single-carded release based on his Astonishing costume, and a differently colored “classic” Colossus in the Giant-Size X-Men boxed set.  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 25 points of articulation.  This Colossus draws from the same parts bank as his two predecessors, and is in fact sculpturally identical to the GSXM version, which was just a minor retool of the Astonishing version.  A number of these parts would also later be used for Death’s Head, who I’ve previously reviewed.  While the earlier MU sculpts were definitely wonky, but the time that Colossus was introduced, Hasbro had the formula down really well, and it results in a very nice sculpt for Piotr.  Honestly, I think it’s even a little bit better than the recent Legends sculpt, certainly on the head, at least.  Even his poseability is pretty good, especially for his stature.  There’s no real weak points in the movement, and his neck in particular has a fantastic range.  Really, the only downside to the sculpt is the same thing that afflicted so many MU figures: he’s got some real trouble standing.  Even then, it’s not as bad as some figures in the line.  Throw some ankle rockers on this guy and he’d be pretty much perfect.  The only thing that really differentiates this guy from the GSXM release is how he’s colored.  While that one went for a “real world” color with actual silver, this one opts for stricter comic book coloring, so the colors are (mostly) flat.  It’s a different look, and I’m not sure it works quite as well as the straight silver, but I do kinda dig the only slightly pearlescent grey, in a sort of a kitschy-retro sort of a way.  It reminds me of his appearance on Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, or even the old bendy figure Colossus (which was actually my first Colossus figure).  Colossus included no accessories, unless you want to count that whole second figure that was in the pack.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t get Colossus new, but I have had him for a little while.  Some time back, Cosmic Comix got a bunch of Marvel Universe figures in loose, and had them all out for pretty good prices.  I had the standard Juggernaut from the line, as well as the Astonishing Colossus, so I didn’t pay this set much mind as a two-pack.  However, this guy on his own, as a easy way of getting a classic Colossus, definitely had some appeal to me.  The sculpt is one of the finest the line produced, and the paint may be a little out there, but I can appreciate him for what they were trying to do.  Maybe he wouldn’t be anyone’s fist choice, but I really like him.

#2366: Jabba the Hutt (w/ Han Solo)

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

JABBA THE HUTT (w/ HAN SOLO)

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

For the (first) Special Edition release of A New Hope, one of the primary new features was the re-insertion of a cut scene from the original film, which would have introduced viewers to the gangster Jabba the Hutt two films earlier.  In the scene as it was shot, instead of the huge slug we’d all come to know, Jabba was portrayed by actor Declan Mulholland, who was pretty much just a guy in a lot of furs.  For a number of reasons, the scene was excised, and its important bits were retooled into Han’s confrontation with Greedo, leaving Jabba as an ominous figure not fully realized for two more films.  When the scene was added back in, a Jabba more in line with the creature seen in Jedi was digitally added in to replace Mulholland (something Lucas has maintained was always his plan, though Lucas isn’t exactly the most trustworthy source on such things, since he frequently claims that whatever the current final product may be was always his plan).  Ultimately, thanks to the Greedo scene still being there, the scene’s kinda redundant, slows down the movie, and removes a chunk of Jabba’s menace, and to top it all off, the Jabba CGI model is just nowhere near as convincing as the puppet was.  And that’s not even touching on that magical CGI leap that Han has to take in order to jump over Jabba’s tail… Where was I?  Right, the toys.  They made some toys of this absolute masterpiece of a scene, and I’m taking a look at them today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Jabba and Han were released as one of the Power of the Force II line’s creature sets in 1997, in order to coincide with the release of the Special Editions in theaters, alongside the similarly Special Edition-inspired Ronto with Jawa and Dewback with Sandtrooper.

JABBA THE HUTT

The main focus of this set to be sure, this Jabba was the only release of the character in the PotF2 line, and is notable for being the only one to be directly based on the CGI model of the Special Edition.  Small victory there; it wasn’t allowed to spread any further.  The figure is about 4 inches tall by about 7 inches long.  His only really reliable movement is at the shoulders; there’s joints at the mid-section and in the tail, but they’re all linked together in a mechanism-driven movement, which doesn’t really have much motion, truth be told.  I think some more straight-forward joints there would have been better served.  As it stands, he actually can’t even properly get into his basic RotJ sitting pose, which is a bummer if you want to make use of him in the Jabba’s Palace playset.  The sculpt on this guy is clearly tailored after that previously mentioned CGI model, which is evident from Jabba’s slightly skinnier proportions, especially in the head, and his larger eyes.  The texturing on his skin also has that same sort of droopy, almost melted quality of the early CG model.  I guess you can’t really fault Kenner on that; he’s possibly a little better looking than the source material, truth be told.  Jabba’s paint work also draws a bit more from the updated design.  While the original Jabba model had the sort of two-toned thing we see going on here, it was far more subtle.  For the CGI look, it became more pronounced, and that was further emphasized on this guy.  It’s not *awful* but it becomes even more noticeable when compared to his vintage counterpart, which didn’t go for the two-toned thing at all.

HAN SOLO

The creature sets liked to throw at least one standard figure into the mix, and I guess you could do a lot worse than a standard Han Solo.  That’s what this is: a pretty standard Han.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation (no waist joint for this guy).  His sculpt comes from the same basic lineage as the standard ANH Han from the beginning of the line, but he’s a lot like the Gunner Station Han, in that he tones down a lot of the previous Han’s wonky proportions and pre-posing.  Honestly, where it not for the leaps and bounds made by the Cantina Han two years later, this would easily be the best ANH Han in the PotF2 line.  As it stands, he’s at least in that nice mid-ground spot.  Honestly, it’s kind of a shame he only came packed in this set, because I’m certain it led to him getting far more overlooked than he should have.  I certainly did.  His paint work is probably his weakest point.  For some reason, he’s awfully pale, and my figure also has a stray mark of brown across his cheek, which is more than a little distracting.  Han included a unique version of his blaster, which was in a dark blue this time instead of the usual black.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember seeing this set when it was, new, but even as a kid, I wasn’t much of a fan of the updated Jabba, so I never did get one.  That said, I’ve been filling in my PotF2 collection a lot recently, and ended up with the Jabba’s Palace 3D playset, but no Jabba to go with it.  Luckily for me, All Time got one of these traded in, and so I’ve finally added it to my collection.  There’s not really much to write home about on either of these figures, but they do have sort of this quaint “wow, we didn’t know how far the edits would eventually go” quality about them.

#2365: Evolution Rodimus Prime

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

EVOLUTION RODIMUS PRIME

TRANSFORMERS: POWER OF THE PRIMES (HASBRO)

“With the Matrix of Leadership, Autobot Hot Rod becomes leader of the Autobots: Rodimus Prime.”

Two weeks ago, I took a look at Hot Rod, the proposed new lead character of the Transformers franchise as introduced in the 1986 movie.  Though Hot Rod spends most of the film’s run time as just plain old Hot Rod, after taking ownership of the Matrix of Leadership during the film’s climactic battle, Hot Rod becomes “Rodimus Prime,” meaning we had two forms of Rodimus to choose from for pretty much every release going forward.  For the purposes of the 2017 incarnation of the line, Power of the Primes, we actually got both versions of Rodimus in one, with a figure I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Evolution Rodimus Prime was part of the first Leader Class assortment of the Power of the Primes toy line, alongside the similarly-themed Optimus Prime. Straight out of the package, Rodimus is in his full-on Rodimus Prime form.  In this state, the figure stands 9 1/2 inches tall and has 23 points of articulation.  In terms of mobility, the figure’s a bit of a mixed bag.  While he moves alright in the legs, the arms, especially at the shoulders are quite restricted.  There’s a little bit of a workaround if you use the joints further into the shoulder, but the design of the transformation means that you’ll always be stuck with the shoulders proper being at that 90 degree angle.  In terms of construction, he overall makes for a pretty decent recreation of the G1 animated appearance of Rodimus, and is certainly a better looking figure than the original vintage piece.  That said, there’s a fair bit of concession made for his transformation.  He’s got some pretty hefty kibble both on his back and on the undersides of his forearms, meaning that while he looks alright from the front, from an angle things look a little weird.  Additionally, much like the Combiner Wars Magnus I took a look at, Rodimus’ larger size requires a bit of cheating with the plastic, so that he’s not solid all the way through.  Instead, there are a number of hollow sections, mostly in the upper arms and legs, which again make the figure better when viewed from the front.  Lastly, there’s one oddity caused by the line’s main gimmick for the Leader Class figures, which results in there being a smaller set of arms visible on his torso, making him look kinda like his a very big-headed smaller robot that’s piloting a mech suit…which maybe isn’t so far off.  Rodimus Prime includes the Matrix of Leadership, which he can only really store in his chest cavity, since it’s not possible for him to hold in his hands.  He’s also got a long blaster rifle.

The gimmick for all of the Leader Class releases in Power of the Primes was evolution (as noted by the name of the figure), and much like the Siege Leader Class figures, this was accomplished via a smaller bot with armor to “evolve” it into a larger bot.  Popping off the arms and removing the torso from the legs allows for the torso segment to be transformed into a Deluxe Class-scaled Hot Rod figure, standing 6 inches tall and sporting 19 practical points of articulation.  Like with the larger bot, there are some spots where the articulation is a little bit restricted, this time on the legs (which were actually the shoulders of the larger figure, so I guess that tracks).  The hips don’t have a ton of back and forth motion, and I definitely miss the rocker ankles here.  He’s also missing a waist joint, as well as wrists.  At least in the case of the wrists, there are balljoints at the elbows, so the actual mobility isn’t horribly impacted.  Though this guy has less actual articulation than the larger figure, I did find that it was a little easier to work with on the smaller figure.  The actual sculpt on this guy is actually a pretty solid update of the vintage Rodimus, just with better articulation, and a slightly more animation-faithful appearance.  There are less hollow points in his construction, and in general he fits in pretty well with some of the less greeble-y Siege guys, which is alright by my count.  In this mode, Hot Rod still can’t hold the Matrix, but he can at least make use of the large blaster, which splits into two pieces, replicating Hot Rod’s smaller blasters from his original toy.

As with his vintage counterpart, this smaller Hot Rod figure’s alt-mode is a futuristic sports car.  In fact, it’s pretty much a straight re-creation of the exact future sports car mode used by the vintage figure, with only some rather moderate surface changes between the two.  The transformation process here is really quite simple, and in fact a fair bit of it is just reversing a few things you have to do to transform the Rodimus Prime torso into Hot Rod in the first place.  It’s a pretty slick looking vehicle mode, and like the robot mode is quite accurate to the animation design for said alt-mode.  To take things even further, you can at this point add back in all those parts you set aside when you converted him into Hot Rod, and add them back in as a trailer, because that’s what really signifies the whole Prime thing: a trailer.  No one’s gonna say anything about the fact that there’s a freaking trailer attached to a sports car or anything, because that’s clearly a natural and normal thing to encounter, and is not at all odd or suspicious or strange.  The trailer that is totally inconspicuous is a little trickier of a transformation, mostly when it comes to fitting it onto the car, but it’s not terrible, and like the standard car, the full mode is fairly accurate to the animation, though there are some concessions made to allow the actual car part to remain the same between the two modes.  In this mode, the blasters can be mounted on the trailer for a fully armed effect.  He still can’t hold that Matrix, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I first started to dip my toe in the Transformers water, I looked at this figure while he was still “new”, or at least still in-stock as a regular floor item at All Time.  Ultimately, I didn’t end up getting him, but I resigned that if a used one came through I’d give it some serious thought.  One came in as part of the rather sizable collection of Transformers the store recently received, and in a messed up box that was going to necessitate opening him up anyway.  With the announcement of Arcee, and taking into consideration that I already have a lot of the other “heavy hitters” in some sort of modern form, it was pretty easy to convince myself to finally pick this guy up.  The Rodimus form doesn’t do a ton for me personally, but the inner Hot Rod bot is actually really nice, and a solid addition to my current set-up.  Plus, it meant I got a modern and a vintage Hot Rod in the same day.  How cool is that?

As I noted above,  I got this guy from my friends at All Time Toys, and a good chunk of the collection he came from is still available here.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2364: Jean Grey & Cyclops

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

JEAN GREY & CYCLOPS

MARVEL MINIMATES

I’ve been slowly making my way through the earliest assortments of the Marvel Minimates line.  The X-Men-themed third assortment’s been on the docket for a good long while in particular, since I officially started reviewing it back in December of 2016, with Cyclops and Wolverine.  Today, I’m finally gonna finish it, taking a look at the other Cyclops, as well as the one unreviewed team member, Jean Grey!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This set rounds out Series 3 of the specialty assortments of Marvel Minimates, and like the other sets in the line-up, it’s themed around Ultimate X-Men.  The two figures included here are notable for being the only ones to remain wholly exclusive to the specialty line-up, since Jean was paired up with either of the two Cyclopses and the Cyclops seen here is the one-per-case variant.

JEAN GREY

I’ve only briefly touched on my opinions of the Ultimate designs, especially as they pertain to this set of ‘mates.  Jean got saddled with one of the absolute worst redesigns of the bunch.  For a character whose personality didn’t really change too much from her mainstream counterpart, they managed to stick her with a costume that was divergent in just about every way and held onto pretty much nothing that was signature of the character.  Without a name attached to it, there’s any number of female X-Men that I would guess for this design before arriving on Jean.  But I digress…what of the figure?  Well, she’s on the old style body, with add-ons for the hair and necklace.  The hair is an okay recreation of the style she had in the early Ultimate X-Men issues, and the necklace is the same kinda bulky piece used on Storm.  It gets the job done on recreating the look she’s got in the comics, so I guess that’s good.  The paintwork follows suit, and she gets all of the important details, while going a bit more lax on the smaller details than later entries would.  She’s got the wrapped arms like Storm, which is still a pretty cool detail.

CYCLOPS

I’ve already reviewed the standard Cyclops, so why not take a look at his slightly different variant.  The variants in the early days of the line were a mixed bag.  While the Symbiote Spidey was honestly too big a design for the one-per-case thing, and Elektra was a whole lot of “meh”, the variant No Visor Cyclops falls into a subset of variants that actually wouldn’t even count as separate figures as the line progressed.  Seriously, the thing that distinguished him from the standard release was merely the fact that he wasn’t wearing his visor; nowadays it’s standard for a Cyclops to just include an extra hair piece.  You were originally meant to pay the price of a two-pack for one single extra part.  It’s a fairly nice extra part, I guess; it’s the same basic hair piece as the regular, but with no visor and actual proper ears.  I also dig that they gave him a slightly different expression, and also added the facial hair that he grew later on in the books, but it’s hard to say there’s all that much exciting about this guy.  He’s an accessory, not a complete figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cyclops and Jean were my second set of Marvel Minimates…just not this actual set.  I got the standard set with the regular Cyclops and Jean.  While I held onto most of the regular Cyclops, I lost most of Jean’s parts over the years.  When All Time got their big collection of Minimates in last year, I took advantage of it to fill in the gaps of my early ‘mates, and picked up a replacement Jean, and finally got that variant Cyclops I’d never had.  Reviewing these two without the standard Cyclops, I’ve kinda realized he was the real lynchpin of the set.  Jean’s got the worst of the team designs, and the variant Cyclops honestly feels a little bit pointless.  All that said, I’m happy to have at least finished out the assortment, even if I’ve realized that the best one of them is the one I’ve had for 17 years.

#2363: Krillin

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

KRILLIN

S.H. FIGUARTS (BANDAI)

It’s been three years since I’ve looked at anything Dragon Ball Z.  It’s not a huge surprise, really, because, while I was a child of the ’90s and therefore it was impossible for me to totally miss the DBZ phenomenon, I still never got *super* into it.  To date, I’ve reviewed my whole collection of stuff from it here on the site; all five pieces of it.  Well, now it’s up to six, thanks to today’s entry: Krillin!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Krillin was released as part of the Dragon Ball-sub-set of S.H. Figurarts in 2018.  You’ll note I said “Dragon Ball” and not “Dragon Ball Z”.  That’s because this figure is actually from the earlier show, and is meant to represent Krillin as a kid, rather than his adult form, which got a Figuarts release much earlier in the line.  Krillin stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation.  If you want to get really technical, Krillin’s a little bit on the large side to be in scale with the rest of the line, but to be fair, this was true of the prior figure as well.  At least this one is shorter than that one, so there’s a loose sense of internal scale.  The Dragon Ball animation was a little looser with the character models than later incarnations of the show, so it’s hard to really nail them down for one single representation in figure form.  The figure does its best, and I think the end result works out okay.  It’s pretty clear who he’s supposed be, and more specifically which version he’s supposed to be.  He also adhere’s pretty well to the line’s pre-existing style, so he blends in alright with other figures.  That said, he does end up a little more toned than he usually looked in the show, bringing him slightly more in line with his DBZ appearances.  I think it’s a good medium, and it works particularly well for this style of figure.  Like the DBZ stuff, Krillin gets multiple heads with differing expressions.  He comes wearing the one with the friendly grin, but there’s also a more devious grin, and a screaming expression.  The likeness on the face is pretty consistent across all three heads, but they still offer a lot of variety to the display options.  Krillin’s paintwork is fairly nice.  Overall, it’s pretty basic, of course, but that’s appropriate for the character.  The application is all nice and sharp, though, and he fits well with the rest of the line style-wise.  To make up for his smaller stature, Krillin is pretty heftily accesorized.  He’s got the three heads I mentioned previously, plus a display stand, a blast effect, 11 hands (L/R fists, L/R wide open gesture, L/R open gesture, L/R peace sign, L/R claw, and R grip), a Dragon Ball, and a…rock with a kanji on it?  I don’t know exactly what that last one is, but I’m guessing its some sort of story specific item.  Whatever the case, a cool selection of extras to be sure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I missed out on getting the DBZ Krillin at a reasonable price, which was a serious bummer, since he was really the last prominent character I wanted for my “Android Saga” collection.  When this guy was released, I looked at him a few times, but just never got around to actually buying him.  One was traded into All Time last month, though, and I had a bunch of trade credit, so he was suddenly a much easier purchase.  He’s actually a pretty nice figure, and not a terrible stand-in for an older Krillin.  I was even able to mod the extra Krillin head included with Android 18 in order to make him look even more like a proper adult Krillin!