Category Archives: Reviews

#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!

 

#2362: Superman

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

SUPERMAN

DC HEROES UNITE (SPIN MASTER)

Well, I’ve just gotten word that the contents of yesterday’s post count as infringement on National Publications’ IP, so in accordance with that, I guess I have to replace it with a genuine National Publications product.  What am I getting at here?  I guess this is just my lazy attempt at a humorous way of saying “Hey, check out this Superman figure.”  So, uhh, hey, check out this Superman figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Superman is part of the first assortment of the DC Heroes Unite line from Spin Master.  He’s one of the most common figures in the assortment, which is sensible, what with him being a fairly basic Superman and all.  He’s actually a little behind the times, since he’s sporting his second Rebirth-era costume, which has subsequently been replaced by his classic design.  In Spin Master’s defense, however, it still does show up in various licensed art and merch from time to time.  I would also be genuinely shocked if a classic Superman wasn’t already planned for a later release.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 17 points of articulation.  Structurally, this figure is essentially identical to the black suited Superman I already looked at from the line.  The only difference between them is the addition of a cloth cape, which is the same style of piece that Shazam used.  Again, the cape’s not terribly impressive, although I do like the insignia printed on it.  Otherwise, I’m still quite happy with the sculpt of this figure, and probably even a little moreso on this particular figure, since there are a number of details specific to this design that looked a little out of place for the previous release.  In terms of paint, Supes is pretty standard fare.  The application is all pretty cleanly handled, with minor bleedover on my figure.  As with the others in this line, the accessories are blind packaged and there are a few different options.  I got the “Metropolis Mayhem” selection, so my figure has the same selection of extras as my black costumed figure: the armor in blue, the Kryptonite in green, and the eye beams in red.  There is also a collector’s card as well, which is actually the same one included with yesterday’s Shazam figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was really happy with the variant Superman I picked up, and was feeling the need to own one in more classic coloring.  I saw this guy on a routine run through Target, but passed on him at the time, telling myself if he was there the next time I came through I’d grab him.  As luck would have it, he was.  There’s not much new here, since I pretty much looked at him before, but I do still really like him, and I look forward to getting more of this line as I have the opportunity.

#2361: Shazam!

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

SHAZAM!

DC HEROES UNITE (SPIN MASTER)

In the ’40s and ’40s, Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel (now more commonly known as Shazam) was outselling pretty much anything else in the comics market, including National Publications’ (later DC Comics) Superman.  National wasn’t much of a fan of this, and launched a lawsuit positing that Captain Marvel was in fact an illegal infringement on National’s Superman.  In a case that it is widely agreed wouldn’t hold water these days, National successfully defended this point, and Fawcett was forced to cease publication of Captain Marvel, and in fact shut down entirely.  Years later, the character would return, now under National/DC’s banner, and…unable to use his real name on the cover of any book he appeared in, since Marvel Comics had grabbed the title in the time the character was out of publication.  He sort of puttered around in the background of the DCU for a good long while, but has seen something of a resurgence in the last few years, thanks in no small part to the success of the Shazam movie last year.  It’s thanks to this resurgence that Shazam is a natural choice for the launch of Spin Master’s DC product!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Shazam is part of the first assortment of Spin Master’s DC Heroes Unite line, as one of the more common figures in the line-up.  He’s seen here in his current costume, which is the one he’s been sporting since the New 52 relaunch.  It doesn’t quite have the same cleanness of the original design, but it works well enough.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 17 points of articulation.  Shazam is sporting an all-new sculpt, and it’s pretty much on par with the rest of the line so far.  It’s a solid recreation of the character, with a little bit of a stylization to it that works pretty well for this type of line.  I like that, like Superman and Nightwing, he’s got his own distinct build; he’s actually the largest of the ones I’ve looked at (well, excepting King Shark, of course), which feels right given the usual depictions in the comics.  The head manages to really capture that “child in an adult’s body” aspect that the character needs, and the body works in a lot of costume specific details that I honestly wasn’t expecting to see given the other two figures I looked at.  Perhaps the only real downside is the figure’s cape; it’s a rather cheap, very flat piece of almost paper-like cloth.  It’s not terrible, but it does connect to the back a little bit awkwardly, and it’s not so aesthetically pleasing when you view the connection head-on.  From the front, though, it looks alright, and given the price point we’re dealing with here, it doesn’t pull me out of things too badly.  Shazam’s paint work is pretty basic, but for the most part pretty decent.  The only slight issue with mine is that the right boot doesn’t seem to have gotten quite as much coverage as the left, so they’re a little uneven.  Shazam is packed with an electricity effect, a girder, and (coolest of all) a little Billy Batson figurine.  The coloring on these accessories indicates that he’s got the “Metropolis Mayhem” selection.  Regardless of the coloring, I think this is probably the coolest selection of accessories so far on these guys.  There’s also the collector’s card like we saw with the other two figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My Dad was kind enough to pick this guy up for me.  I had shown him the Superman and Nightwing, and he wanted a Superman of his own, and came across this guy at the same time.  I really dig him just like I’ve really dug the other releases I’ve picked up.  Of the two new DC licensees, I gotta say, I’m really feeling the output of Spin Master a bit more than McFarlane.  I’m definitely down for more of the line.

#2360: Flint

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

FLINT

G.I. JOE: SIGMA 6 (HASBRO)

“Flint worked with many stealth forces before joining the GIJoe team. He leads espionage operations, while Duke commands tactical missions. Like a cat hunting the night, he is silent and unseen, until he attacks with the full force of his impressive combat skills. He and Snake-Eyes make a perfect team: the knife that cuts the night, and the arrow that pierces the dark. His multi-weapon system can be configured in different ways, and the custom-made sword is this stealthy hunter’s formidable ‘claw.'”

With a new relaunch of G.I. Joe almost upon us (provided the world doesn’t end first, of course), I’m in a mood to delve back into some of their previous re-launches.  Let’s take another look at poor old Sigma 6.  Initially, Sigma 6 placed its focus on a core team of arguably the most memorable (or at least marketable and distinctly different) Joes, upgrading them to a more multipurpose task force, in order to fill some of the spots classically taken up by the ’80s line’s more specialized forces.  However, by the time of the line’s third and final year, they decided to expand things ever so slightly, and reintroduce a few more of the ’80s characters into the fold.  Some of those figures were fairly faithful updates of the old toys, while some of them went a little more for the reinventing side of the line.  Today’s focus, 1985’s Warrant Officer Flint, fell into the latter category, with a pretty hefty rework.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Flint was released in the third Commando wave of the 2007 line-up of G.I. Joe: Sigma 6…well, okay, technically it wasn’t “Sigma 6” anymore, as Hasbro had dropped the branding from the toys after the show stopped airing.  But they were still in the same style and are a continuation of the same line…and otherwise it’s just a line simply titled “G.I. Joe” with no further modifiers.  I’m getting kind of off topic and distracted.  Sorry.  So, Flint was in the penultimate Commando wave of the line, and definitely sticks with the end of the line’s slight move away from some of the stricter team-building they’d been doing previously.  Interestingly, Flint’s bio describes him as a character that’s really, really different from his more “mainstream” counterpart, suggesting that perhaps he had already been planned for an appearance of some sort on the show before it wrapped up?  I know other figures from late in the line were based around un-used cartoon concepts, so maybe Flint was too.  The figure stands a little over 8 inches tall and he has 25 points of articulation.  He’s also got the Kung-Fu grip feature on his right hand, which allows for some slight movement on the fingers, but is designed to snap back into place for a tighter fit on the grip (which is actually a totally different design than the original kung-fu grip; his left hand is actually far closer to the original design).  Flint was an all-new sculpt, and one of the most unique sculpts from the line.  He doesn’t go for the sigma-uniform variant that the other Joes in the line did, making him feel like more of an outsider.  It also gives him a slightly more generic, and slightly more real-world appearance, at least in terms of what he’s wearing.  He still maintains the line’s signature style, of course, but he’s not wearing anything that looks particularly sci-fi-y.  He’s also not wearing anything that looks particularly Flint-y.  About the closest you get to a traditional Flint item is that his cloth vest piece has some straps of pouches that look somewhat like the original figure’s “suspenders.”  The head represents possibly the most radical departure of all.  Not only does he not get Flint’s signature beret, he’s got long hair, possibly the longest hair of any of the main Joes in the line.  It even covers part of his face!  What kind of a warrant officer would stand for that?  The kind that’s not actually a warrant officer, I suppose.  He’s also got a pretty sizable scar running down the left side of his face, but scars are hardly a new development when it comes to the Joes.  Flint was packed some climbing gear, which included his vest and a harness for his pelvis.  He also included a gun which could be broken down into much smaller components, but like a lot of my Sigma 6 collection, my figure is missing a good number of his parts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Sigma 6 was difficult enough to find at retail when retailers were supporting it, so when they stopped supporting it late in the line, the figures became practically non-existent.  By the time of Flint’s introduction, I’d pretty much given up any hope of really getting any of these at retail.  Thanks to some hunting over the years on my part, I’ve managed to actually find a few of the ones I wanted, Flint included.  Flint is an interesting inclusion in the line, especially since the only thing that connects him to the original character is the name Hasbro stuck on the box.  That doesn’t stop him from being a really cool figure, though, and I’m glad I was finally able to add one to my collection.

#2359: Captain Britain

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

CAPTAIN BRITAIN

MODERN AGE (TOY BIZ)

“As a research assistant at Darkmoor Research Centre, Brian Braddock was a typical physics student.  During a botched theft at the facility, Brian was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident he suffered while trying to escape.  The legendary Merlin the Magician saved Brian’s life and bestowed upon him a mystical suit that gives him superhuman powers, transforming him into Captain Britain.  While the suit Captain Britain wears gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly and erect mystical force shields, he is powerless without it.  As Britain’s honorary protector, keeping the UK safe from peril, Captain Britain is a formidable opponent for any foe.”

At the beginning of their lengthy run with the Marvel license, Toy Biz initially focussed on the Marvel Universe as a whole, before splitting things up into several different lines, most of which were themed around one of the handful of Marvel cartoons which launched during the ’90s.  By the end of the decade, those cartoons were all pretty much wrapped up, but there was still a fair bit of steam in the 5-inch locomotive, so they did several single-assortment series, each with its own theme.  In 1999, they paired two off, a Silver Age and a Modern Age line, covering Marvel’s history through a mix a bigger name and minor characters.  On the more minor side, it was through these assortments that Captain Britain got his first action figure, which I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain Britain was among the four figures in the Modern Age line.  As the only character created post-1975, he was probably the best representation of the assortment’s purpose, especially since he was wearing an ’80s era costume.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Captain Britain was built on the body that began its life as Archangel II, a favorite of Toy Biz’s.  By this point, it had gotten some minor retooling to change-up the posing on the hands and to remove the remains of the wing-flapping mechanism from that figure, meaning he actually looks a bit better than most of the others who used this body.  The head is also re-used, coming from the Iron Man line’s Blacklash figure, though as with the Guardian figure that also used this head, the ponytail has been removed.  While internally its a nice enough assortment of parts, compared to the rest of Toy Biz’s stuff, it did make poor Brian rather small when compared to his comic book incarnation.  This wouldn’t be the last time Toy Biz would make a diminutive Captain Britain, either.  Did no one check the style guide for his height?  His paintwork was really cool…when he was new anyway.  On my figure, it really didn’t hold up to time, and definitely shows a lot more wear and tear than my other figures from the same era.  I have to wonder if it was something to do with the slightly metallic finish?  It certainly looked really nice when he came out of the package.  He’s done up in his Alan Davis-designed costume, which is his best one, really, and certainly the most lasting design.  Like others that use this mold, the details of the costume don’t quite match up to what’s sculpted, but it’s minor here.  Captain Britain was packed with an energy staff (recolored from Gambit) and Lockheed (repacked from Magik), but my figure has neither at this juncture.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got this figure when it was relatively new via a trip to the KB Toys outlet that was near the spot where my family vacationed.  I didn’t know a ton about the character, but I sure thought this figure looked cool.  At the time, I also got an animated Superman, so I recall the two of them facing off a lot during that trip.  Small stature and slightly ratty hold-up of the paint do drag him down a bit, but even in his current state I do really like him and I still have those fond memories!