Author Archives: Ethan Wilson

#0287: The Heavy

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

THE HEAVY

TEAM FORTRESS 2

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Birthday Reviews chug along, now working into Part 7. We’re nearing the end, but we aren’t there just yet! Today, I’ll be looking at a video game figure, a first for me, but not for the site. Most interestingly, while I have played a few video games, and I do have some figures from them, this one doesn’t come from a game I’ve personally played. But toy, so…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Heavy3The Heavy was released as part of the first series of NECA’s Team Fortress 2 line. This particular version is the Blue Release, which was put out a little while after the initial Red Release. The figure stands just shy of 8 inches tall and features 32 points of articulation. He’s based, shockingly enough, on the design of the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. The figure has an all new sculpt, which isn’t too surprising, given the unique nature of the character designs in the game. The sculpt seems to be pretty spot on to the design from the game. Some changes have been made here and there to facilitate the articulation and make the figure a bit more stable, but they’re minor changes. The blocky nature of the design really translates nicely to figure form, which is a definite plus. The paint work marks the distinguishing feature between the two versions of the character. I have the Blue Version, which means I have the one painted blue, which is what the Heavy looks like when a player is playing on the Blue team. The default looks tend to be Red, but Blue was a little easier to find, so it works for me. Otherwise, the paint all seems to be done pretty well. There aren’t any noticeable occurrences of slop or bleed over.  The Heavy comes armed with his big gun and a shotgun, as well as a pair of hands to properly hold both.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Heavy was given to me by my really cool brother this year for my birthday. I’ve never actually played TF2, but I know of it, and I’ve always found the designs, particularly the Heavy’s, to be pretty cool. This is definitely a neat figure, and probably even more so to someone who’s actually played the game!

#0286: Tenth Doctor’s Companions

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

ROSE TYLER, SARAH JANE, MARTHA JONES, DONNA NOBLE, ASTRID & K-9

DOCTOR WHO

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After yesterday’s brief break, we return to the Birthday Reviews with Part 6! I’ve wrapped up my Power Rangers (well, the ones I received as gifts, anyway…) so I’ll be moving on to some of the other gifts I got this year. This time around it’s Doctor Who themed, which is something I’ve looked at only once before on this blog. This time I’m not looking at the Doctor himself, but rather several of his companions.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These six were released as a boxed set, based on the companions of the Tenth incarnation of the Doctor. All of them were previously released on their own, but this is the first time I’ve seen any of them, so I’ll be treating them as new.

ROSE TYLER

10Companions6Rose is the new Doctor’s first companion, a hold-over from the Ninth Doctor’s time. The figure is about 5 inches tall and features 11 points of articulation. She’s based on Rose from the Tenth Doctor’s first season, specifically from the episode where he fights Satan in space. Yeah. The sculpt is all new, as far as I can tell, and it’s pretty good. The body seems well proportioned, and the face is a pretty great likeness of Billie Piper, so that’s cool. The hair is a bit chunky, but it’s not terrible. The arms lack elbow articulation, I assume to prevent the sculpt of the bare arms from being interrupted. It looks nice, but it does mean the arms are very limited in what you can do with them. The paint work is nice and clean, no bleed over or slop, which is all pretty good.

SARAH JANE

10Companions2Sarah Jane is only one of Ten’s companions in the loosest sense of the term. She appeared in a few episodes of his tenure, but she was never his sole companion. She was, however, a long-time companion to the Fourth incarnation of the Doctor. She stands about 5 inches tall and features 13 points of articulation. She’s based on her appearance on the show during Ten’s first season, which seems sensible for the set. The figure’s sculpt is pretty good overall, though she may actually be a little too young looking for the actress at the time of her appearance with Ten. That seems preferable to the opposite, so I can’t complain too much. The body sculpt looks pretty reasonably proportioned and detailed, and her hair looks more accurate than Rose, so that’s good. The paint work on Sarah is pretty clean, nothing amazingly impressive, but not bad by any means.

MARTHA JONES

10Companions7Martha was Ten’s first major companion following Rose (Donna showed up first, but she was only in the one episode). She only lasted a season, but she continued to appear for the following season, and also made a few appearances in spin-off series Torchwood. The figure sports 13 points of articulation and stands 5 inches tall. Martha’s sculpt is really quite good, probably the most accurate in this set. The likeness is definitely there, the proportions look great, the detail work is nice, and the articulation doesn’t interrupt too much. That makes for a really good figure. The paint is nice and clean, and accents the sculpt very well, and I like the differences in the finishes on different materials.

DONNA NOBLE

10Companions5Donna first appeared in the episode following Rose’s departure, originally meant as a one episode character before Martha appeared. However, the producers liked Catherine Tate’s performance, and decided to bring her in following Martha leaving as full-time companion at the end of the season. The figure is about 5 inches tall and features 13 points of articulation. She’s based on Donna’s appearance in her first episode as full time companion, which may not have been the best idea. Purely viewed through the window of show accuracy, it’s not a bad sculpt. She looks quite a bit like Tate, and the outfit she wore has been transferred pretty well. The issue at hand is that it’s not very flattering. Under the coat, they’ve accurately conveyed her build, but you can’t tell thanks to the bulky coat. It’s really a shame. The paint work on the figure is pretty good. Everything is cleanly applied, and there aren’t any issues of slop or bleed over.

ASTRID

10Companions8Astrid is the companion in this set with the shortest tenure on the show. Her only appearance is in the Christmas special following Martha’s departure. The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 16 points of articulation. She’s in the only outfit that Astrid ever wore, so I suppose that’s fair. Her sculpt is okay, though not phenomenal. She looks a tad too old to be Astrid, and the proportions seem slightly off. In contrast to Rose, she has elbow joints. Functionally, it’s better, but aesthetically, I’m uncertain. I wonder if there might be some middle ground. The paint work on Astrid is pretty good overall, but the legs do show a little bit of slop.

K-9

10Companions3K-9 is kind of a joint-companion with Sarah Jane. He has pretty much the same amount of interaction with the Tenth Doctor, and was also a long-time companion to the Fourth Doctor. K-9 is about 3 inches tall and 2 inches long, with no articulation. It would have been nice to get some neck articulation, but otherwise, the lack thereof is understandable. The figure is based on K-9’s more beaten up appearance in the first season of Ten’s run. The sculpt is pretty good, and looks to be about spot-on to the prop from the show, so that’s cool. K-9 10Companions4features a removable plate on his right side, allowing a glimpse of his inner workings. The plate can be popped off by pressing the button at the top of his body. The paint work on K-9 is okay. I do wish that some of the scuffs and rust spots were a bit more subtle, but the rest of the paint seems to pretty cleanly applied, which is pretty cool.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Companions set was a super awesome gift from my super awesome girlfriend, given to me for my birthday. She got them for me to compliment the set she gave me for Christmas, and she couldn’t have done a better job picking them out. She was very excited to give them to me, and I was absolutely thrilled to get them! Like the Doctor figure, a lot of these figures have little minor flaws, but as a whole they’re pretty great, and I’m glad my Doctor’s not lonely anymore!

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#0285: Biker Scout & Speeder Bike

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

BIKER SCOUT & SPEEDER BIKE

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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We interrupt the regularly scheduled “Birthday Stuff” reviews for a quick little venture into a galaxy far, far away. You might notice that there are two reviews today. Yeah, they’re both by me, I just screwed up the scheduling. See, I originally intended to publish the Green Ranger review today, just like I did, but I decided I wanted to take a break from the birthday things to review something I was very excited about. Sadly, the day got away from me, so I didn’t get a chance to stop the Green Ranger from auto posting. My bad! Anyway, that means there will be two reviews today, just cuz.

The subject of this review comes from Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Black Series, their very popular 6-inch scaled line of Star Wars figures. So far, they’ve put out three series of figures with another three planned. In addition to that, they’ve also started offering a line of Deluxe figures and vehicles, starting with Jabba the Hutt and today’s focus, the Biker Scout and Speeder bike!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BikerScout2The Biker Scout stands about 6 inches tall and features 31 points of articulation. He’s based on the basic scout design from the final battle on the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. The Biker Scout features an all new sculpt. No re-use from any of the previous figures, and not even any upscaling of pieces from the 3 ¾ inch Biker Scouts. The sculpt is probably the most accurate take on the design over the years. All of the proportions look just right, especially on the helmet, which is a really key area of the design. Do be mindful if you pick one up in person: the helmet is made of softer plastic and it gets pressed up against the packaging in such a way that might warp it a bit. The arms might be just a tad too long, mostly due to the elbow joints, and the hands might be slightly too small, but it doesn’t look too bad with the right pose. The uniform features some pretty great texture work to differentiate the armor from the cloth parts of the costume, which gives the figure a nice bit of dimension. The paint work on the Biker Scout is pretty good, by Hasbro standards at least. The basic paint work is pretty clean, though the visor is a bit fuzzy on the edges. He has a wash over a few of the white areas. It brings out some of the details well, but it might be better if it were just a little bit more subtle. The Scout includes a blaster pistol, which is nice, but mine broke putting it in his hand, so be careful.

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THE VEHICLE ITSELF

BikerScout4The Speeder Bike is effectively the title half of this set, even if the Biker Scout may have gotten more of the tooling put towards him. The bike is about 10 inches long, and about 2 inches tall at its tallest, with articulated back flaps and a rotating gun on the underside. The sculpt is really quite intricate, with lots of really cool details hidden in the various nooks of the sculpt. It looks to be really accurate to the movie, which is cool, and I’m glad to see a speeder bike that is mucked up by an exploding feature. The paint work is pretty good overall, but it is a bit varied. The metal under-workings have some really nice dry-brushed silver details, which is pretty cool, but the silver details on the main body are a bit more solid, which makes them look a bit too placed. Otherwise, the paint is nice, with no slop or bleed over. The Speeder Bike includes a clear(ish) stand that plugs in via ball joint, allowing the bike to be posed in mid-flight.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I found this set at my local Target yesterday. I actually found it completely by accident, since I wasn’t expecting it to be released just yet. I was there looking for a couple of other things, and came across this bad boy, which was very exciting! The Biker Scout is my favorite Trooper design from Star Wars, so I’ve been patiently awaiting his release since the beginning of the Black Series. I am thrilled to finally have this set, and it’s hands down my favorite item from the line!

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#0284: Green Ranger

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

GREEN RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

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Let’s just keep those Birthday Reviews coming, shall we? Today marks Part Five, and there;s still a few more to go! I’ll be looking at another figure from the set of Power Rangers I received this year. This time around it’s the Green Ranger, the first guise of frequent Ranger Tommy Oliver, way back when he was the original sixth ranger. The Green Ranger actually died in the original Japanese show, but he proved to be too popular to kill off in the US, so the producers did their best to keep him in the show, before eventually resorting to using footage from a different Sentai show, and having Tommy become the White Ranger. Tommy had actually stopped being the Green Ranger by the time I started watching, but for some reason, I’ve always like him more in that role than as the White Ranger. Go figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GreenRangerWilsonThe Green Ranger was the second release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a sub line of their main S.H. Figuarts line. He saw release last year, shortly after the Red Ranger. The figure is about 5 ½ inches tall and features 36 pints of articulation. If you want to be nitpicky, he should be a tiny bit taller, because he’s currently the same height as the Red Ranger, who he was definitely taller than in the show, but that’s minor. He actually doesn’t have as many reused parts as one might expect. He has new upper and lower arms, new shins, a sheath in place of the usual holster, an add-on piece over the basic torso for his armor, and an all new head. That’s a fair bit of new stuff. Everything looks pretty great, though the interrupting elbow joints do end up hitting Tommy pretty bad, completely cutting off the trim on the front of his gloves. The armor add on is removable in theory, I suppose, but I doubt it would go back on easily. The helmet is once again a near perfect replica of Tommy’s Dragon themed helmet from the show, which is certainly impressive. The paint work on the Green Ranger is pretty good, though there are a few areas that could be tighter, particularly the gold bands on his arms. Still, there aren’t any really bad screw ups which is always good. Tommy is a bit lighter on the accessories than others, with just a sword and dagger, and five pairs of hands: fists, dagger gripping, sword gripping, open gesture, and dagger playing. You know, so he can use the dagger as a flute, like the show. Don’t question how it worked through the helmet, just don’t!

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Green Ranger is the final figure in the selection of Power Rangers my really stupendous parents bought me for my birthday. I know what you’re thinking: “where’s yellow?” Yellow ended up being a gift to myself. She’s all here and ready to be reviewed in a few days, after all the birthday stuff. Anyway, the Green Ranger is a pretty great figure, and offers a nice bit of individuality to the Rangers display. Plus, he’s green, so…

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#0283: Pink Ranger

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

PINK RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

PinkRanger1

Well, the Birthday reviews continue at a steady pace. Today marks Part Four, and believe me, we still have a ways to go! One of my big gifts this year was a near complete set of the Rangers from Bandai’s latest take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. I’ve looked at three of them so far, and I’ll be looking at another one today. This time around, it’s one of the show’s two female characters (and the show’s ONLY female character in Japan), The Pink Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

PinkRangerWilsonThe Pink Ranger was the fourth release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers subline of the larger S.H. Figuarts line, released at the tail end of last year. The figure is just over 5 inches tall in height and features 36 points of articulation, the same as her male compatriots. Unsurprisingly, the Pink Ranger features a completely new sculpt, given the lack of potential re-use from the male figures. The body is decently proportioned, probably more accurately than the male body, in fact. Also, the elbow and knee joints seem less intrusive this time, which is funny, what with the arms and legs being smaller. She features an add-on skirt piece, which has been split at the sides to allow leg movement, although it still impedes it a bit. At first glance the helmet seems a tad oversized, but looking at some reference, it actually seems pretty accurate to the size on the show. The paint work on the Pink Ranger is just as straight forward as the rest of the rangers. It looks pretty good, although the plastic used for the elbow and knee joints is a slightly different hue of pink than the paint used on the arms and legs. It isn’t too noticeable in person, but it’s fairly apparent in the pictures. She’s got a pretty impressive selection of accessories, including a Blade Blaster in folded up form and a Thunder slinger, which are the same two pieces included with all the basic rangers, as well as her Power Bow, and eight hands: a pair of fists, a karate chop, a loose hand, a pair for gripping the Slinger, one for holding the bow, and a hand with an arrow molded to it. Pink Ranger has one of the better hand selections of the group, and they really add a lot to her display potential.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Pink Ranger was part of the selection of Rangers I received from my totally cool parents for my birthday this year. She offers a nice bit of diversity to the set, which is certainly cool, and it’s nice to see a female figure without super weird proportions. She also lucked out with some of the cooler accessories the line has to offer, which just gives her more points. All in all a pretty great figure!

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#0282: Blue Ranger

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

BLUE RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

BlueRanger1

It’s time for yet another day of post birthday bliss. I’ve got quite a few items to take a look at, so hopefully the bliss will last for a little while. Amongst my many gifts this year was a set of Bandai’s latest take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, so for Birthday Reviews Part Three I’ll be looking at another one of those. Today’s figure is the Blue Ranger, who is incidentally the only of the original rangers to make it through all three seasons of the original show. Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BlueRangerWilsonThe Blue Ranger was sixth, and penultimate release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers subset of the S.H. Figuarts line, and he was released just last month. The figure stands roughly 5 ½ inches tall and has 36 points of articulation. From the neck down, the sculpt of the Blue Ranger is identical to that of the Red and Black Rangers. This isn’t all that surprising for the Rangers, and it’s not a bad body to re-use. I’m still not totally sold on the elbow and knee joints, but it could be worse. The Blue Ranger’s head is all new, and it depicts the Blue Ranger’s triceratops-themed helmet pretty much perfectly. Like the other Rangers before him, the Blue Ranger has a pretty straight forward paint job, with no real slop or bleed over. The blue certainly looks very nice on the body, so that’s cool! The Blue Ranger has a nice selection of accessories, including a folded up Blade Blaster and a Thunder Slinger, both the same as the ones included with Red and Black, plus his Power Lance in both separated and combined forms and four pairs of hands: fists, tight and loose grips, and a pair of flat fists. He also includes the Pink and Yellow pieces for the power blaster, which I’ll be looking at with the Yellow Ranger. The hands are useful over all, though the flat ones are a bit strange, and I wish that we had gotten the Power Lance in fully extended form, but it’s a pretty good selection of stuff.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Blue Ranger was yet another birthday gift, given to me by my super cool parents. The Blue was always my favorite ranger, so it was actually the announcement of his release that got me interested in the line. He’s a pretty great figure, and he’s definitely my favorite!

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#0281: Black Ranger

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

BLACK RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

BlackRanger1

It’s that great time of year that is the days that follow my birthday, where I have a wealth of brand new toys to play with. Lucky for all of you, I also get to review them right here on the site. So, here’s Birthday Reviews Part Deux! Continuing on yesterday’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers theme, it’s the Black Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BlackRangerWilsonThe Black Ranger was the fifth release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers off-shoot of their S.h. Figuarts line, and he was released earlier this year. The figure is about 5 ½ inches in height and sports 36 points of articulation. Good or bad (mostly good), the Black Ranger’s sculpt is identical to the Red Ranger’s from the neck down. That being the case, he has the same strengths and faults as that figure. I still find the elbow and knee joints to be a bit distracting, but they aren’t terrible. The Black Ranger does have an all new head sculpt, depicting his mastodon themed helmet. It looks really good, and is easily the best part of the figure. The paint on the Black Ranger is pretty straight forward, with no slop or bleed over. The Ranger body looks especially sharp in black and white, so that’s a definite plus. The Black Ranger includes a pretty hefty selection of accessories, including a thunder slinger and a blade blaster, both of which are the same as the ones included with Red, plus he has his trademark power axe/blaster, and nine different hands: fists, three styles of gripping, and a loose fist right hand. He also includes the Blue and Red Ranger pieces for the power blaster, which I’ll look at when I have the whole team put together.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Black Ranger was another of my birthday gifts, given to me by my really awesome parents. The Black Ranger actually holds a bit more nostalgia for me than the others. Back in the 90s, I had one of the smaller scale Black Ranger action figures, given to me by one of my Dad’s co-workers. I wish I knew what happened to that figure, but I remember I really liked it. Anyway, this figure is certainly a worthy replacement to that one, and it looks great with the rest of the Rangers.

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#0280: Red Ranger

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

RED RANGER

BANDAI SH FIGUARTS

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So, it was my birthday yesterday. And you all missed it. Way to go. Just kidding! Anyway, birthday means opportunity for people to give me gifts, which, unsurprisingly, means that I get a nice assortment of toys. Which means I have new stuff to review! Commence Birthday Reviews Part 1!

Today’s figure hails from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a show that most children of the 90s will probably have a bit of familiarity with. Bandai, (Japan, not America, because Bandai America SUCKS!) has recently begun offering an assortment of figures based on Super Sentai, which is what Power Rangers was in Japan, and for the most recent round of Mighty Morphin’ inspired figures, North American distributers Bluefin have stepped in to offer some officially Power Rangers branded versions for those of us in the US. Let’s get things kicked off with the line’s Red Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

RedRangerWilsonThe Red Ranger was the first release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers off-shoot of their main S.H. Figuarts line. Similarly to Bandai’s Ultra-Act line, Figuarts doesn’t have a typical series lay out, instead opting for individual figure releases. The Red Ranger saw release in 2013. The figure stands about 5 ½ inches tall (a little bit smaller than an Ultra-Act figure) and features 36 points of articulation. He’s based on the basic Red Ranger design from Mighty Morphin’, which is also the same design as the Red Zyuranger in Japan. The Red Ranger got a new sculpt, which seems to be a pretty good approximation of the look on the show. The body is a little bit slimmer than the actual actor, but that’s probably more a stylistic choice than anything. The elbow and knee joints also interrupt the sculpt quite a bit, even cutting off the gloves a bit early in the front. It’s not too bad, but it is slightly annoying, especially since it isn’t an issue that the Ultra-Act figures suffer from. The helmet is by far the figure’s most distinctive part, and Jason’s T-Rex themed helmet looks really great here! The Red Ranger’s paint is fairly straight forward. Nothing too complex, but pretty good. There’s a few very minor issues of some bleed over, especially around the edges of the boots and gloves, but other than that everything looks ship-shape. The Red Ranger is impressively accessorized, with his Power Sword, his Blade Blaster and Thunder Slinger in varying configurations, and five pairs of hands: fists, two figure gesture, and three varieties of gripping.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Red Ranger was one of several gifts from my always awesome parents, given to me for my birthday this year. Back in the 90s, I was a pretty big Power Rangers fan, though I never really had any of the toys. Having these figures offers a nice bit of nostalgia, as well as a pretty cool set of action figures in their own right!

#0279: Groot

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

GROOT

MARVEL LEGENDS

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All good things must come to an end. Also, mediocre things and bad things have to come to an end too. Essentially, what I’m saying is that wherever you stand on the quality of the “Groot Week” reviews, today marks the end of said week. Yes, it’s Groot Week Part 7, featuring the main man himself, Groot!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GrootWilsonGroot was released as the Build-A-Figure for the Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Legends Infinite Series, who could be assembled by acquiring all of the figures in the series. The figure stands about 8 ½ inches tall and features 28 points of articulation. The figure is based on Groot’s appearance in the movie, though it could easily pass for one of the comicbook interpretations of the character. The sculpt is brand new, which is not a shock with a unique looking character such as Groot. I’m honestly impressed at the level of work put into the new pieces, considering none of them have the potential for re-use. Still, the sculpt looks spot on to the look from the movie, and it’s got some really great detail work. In particular, Groot’s face just looks perfect for the character. It would be easy to write the paint work on Groot off as simple, but the more appropriate word would be “subtle.” While the work isn’t immediately obvious, Groot has quite a bit of detail work that helps make him look like a tree-man instead of a hunk of brown plastic. Groot, like many Build-A-Figures before him, is sans-accessories, essentially being an accessory himself. It’s easy to forgive, given his larger stature and impressive detail work.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Groot, being the Build-A-Figure for the series, was purchased piece-by-piece from Amazon. While the rest of the series has been pretty darn good, Groot was my main reason for buying the set. There was a fair bit of pressure for him to be a good figure, and I have to say, he really delivers on that front. Groot has proved to be my favorite figure in the series by far, and completing him makes up for some of the short comings of a few of the others in the series!

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#0278: Nova

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

NOVA

MARVEL LEGENDS INFINITE SERIES

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Groot Week is almost finished, but there’s still one more basic review and then the review of Groot himself left. Today’s figure is Nova, the second half of the two comic-themed figures in Hasbro’s Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Legends Infinite Series. The Nova Corps seems set to play a fairly important role in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so the inclusion of a Nova figure here is certainly a sensible one. Let’s see how the figure turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

NovaWilsonNova is part of the Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Legends Infinite Series. The figure is about 6 inches tall and sports 32 points of articulation (counting the moving shoulder pads). He’s based on the Nova Prime incarnation of the Richard Rider version of Nova, which is the look Richard’s been sporting for the last several years in the comics. It’s a sharp design (both metaphorically and literally), and it’s been fairly prominent in the comics, so it’s a good choice. Nova seems to have a mostly new sculpt.  He looks like he uses the basic male buck seen on figures such as Zemo and Boomerang as a reference point, and he may also use the upper arms, upper legs and feet from that body, but it’s hard to tell. The new pieces look really good, and everything seems accurate to the character’s design. Unfortunately, Nova uses softer plastic than the other figures in the series, so he ends up being rather shaky, and a bit difficult to keep standing. The paint work on Nova is all nice and cleanly applied, with no noticeable slop or bleed over, plus he’s got some pretty sweet shiny metallic coloring going for him. It’s nice to see him break from the pack paint-wise. Like iron Man, Nova’s sole accessory is his Groot piece, which is the right arm in this instance. It’s disappointing to see another figure lacking accessories, but once again, Nova doesn’t really have any accessories that jump to mind.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like all of his series compatriots, Nova was purchased from Amazon once the series became available. Initially, I hadn’t planned on picking up Nova, but once I decided to complete Groot, he became a necessity. I’m a moderate fan of Nova, but I tend to prefer his classic design. Still, this figure does an admirable job translating his newer design. I do wish they’d used a sturdier plastic for him, but it doesn’t ruin the figure, and his issues standing don’t even come close to the ones that plague Gamora. All in all, Nova’s a pretty good figure, and is potentially the figure in the series with the best chance of being a stand alone purchase.

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