Category Archives: Reviews

#1220: Baron Soontir Fel & Hobbie Klivian

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

BARON SOONTIR FEL & HOBBIE KLIVIAN

STAR WARS: COMIC PACKS (HASBRO)

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On top of the usual movie faire, a lot of the success of Star Wars is due to its continued presence in other media during the periods between films.  Star Wars has had pretty much a consistent comics presence ever since Marvel first adapted the first film.  Dark Horse Comics took over in the ‘90s and had a rather lengthy and very successful run with the license.  There were lots of different series over the years, but one of the most popular by far was X-Wing Rogue Squadron, which followed several of the X-Wing pilots we met throughout the Original Trilogy.  When Hasbro renewed the Star Wars license following Revenge of the Sith, one of the ways they kept things fresh was with comic-based figures, and a number of them were based on Rogue Squadron, including the pair I’m looking at today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Baron Soontir Fel and Hobbie Klivian were pack 12 in Hasbro’s Star Wars: Comic Packs, and they were officially part of the 30th Anniversary line as well.  The two included figures are based on their appearance in issue #24 of Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron, which was included in the set with them.

BARON SOONTIR FEL

baronhobbie2Baron Soontir Fel.  Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in quite some time.  No, wait, scratch that, that’s a name I’ve heard never.  Yeah, I got no clue who this guy is.  Going by the gear, he’s a TIE Fighter pilot, so that’s cool.  Obviously, he plays a part in Rogue Squadron, so…yeah.  Anyway, the figure stands a little over 4 inches tall (he actually seems  a little out of scale), and he has 16 points, which was really good for the time.  The sculpt for this figure is actually pretty strong, but it’s also a little odd, because it feels less like a Star Wars sculpt and more like one of the GI Joe: 25th Anniversary figures.  That’s not really a knock against the figure himself, since I quite liked a lot of the 25th Anniversary line, but it does make him stand out quite a bit from the rest of his peers.  It may have to do with his pack-mate being a bit older in style (more on that in a bit).  In terms of his sculpt, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on.  His jumpsuit has some awesome texture work, and all of the various parts of his uniform are quite sharply detailed.  His helmet and chest apparatus are removable, revealing his head and the rest of his uniform beneath.  The head sculpt is sufficiently smug and Imeperial, so that’s cool.  I also like that the helmet is pretty decently scaled to the body, and is probably one of the best trooper helmets I’ve seen at this scale.  As far as paint goes, the Baron is pretty solid.  He’s mostly grey and black, but all of the application is nice and clean, and he looks decent enough.  In addition to the removable helmet and chest piece, the Baron is packed with a small blaster pistol, which is the same style as the Biker Scout.  It’s a cool piece, and it can be stowed in his holster.

HOBBIE KLIVIAN

baronhobbie3Okay, I kinda know Hobbie.  I think.  I recognize the name.  He’s not really distinctive enough that I could point him out to you in the movies, but I know he’s in there, so that’s good, I guess.  The figure stands just under 4 inches tall and has 10 points of articulation.  He’s a lot stiffer than the Baron, which is a little sad.  A lot of that has to do with being built on the body of the 2004 Dutch Vander figure.  The line made a lot of leaps and bounds between Vander’s release and Hobbie’s, which made Hobbie feel a little out of place at the time.  He’s not really helped by being packed with Baron Fel, who was rather ahead of his time.  Nevertheless, Hobbie’s certainly not a bad figure on his own merits.  He’s got all the basic X-Wing pilot gear, and the sculpt is really sharply rendered.  I love the amount of detail they were able to get into all of the folds and wrinkles on the jumpsuit.  Also, he comes from an era when Star Wars figures were really good at hiding articulation, so his sculpt is at the very least very aesthetically pleasing.  His only truly new piece is his head, which is rather on the generic side.  He’s sporting a cap under his helmet, which aids in the generic-ness.  Honestly, this feels like the closest you can get to a straight up generic X-Wing pilot.  In terms of paint, Hobbie is once again pretty solid.  The colors all match up to what you’d expect from an X-Wing pilot.  In particular, I rather like the custom details on the helmet.  The figure includes his removable helmet, as well as a later pistol.  No holster for this guy, but his arm’s in a permanent gun-holding pose anyway, so I can’t really see many people posing him without it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These two were a gift from Super Awesome Girlfriend.  She got them for me last summer during a visit to Yesterday’s Fun.  Honestly, they’re the sort of set I might have overlooked on my own.  And that would have been too bad.  They’re not going to blow anyone out of the water, but they’re certainly a fun little pair, and a worthy addition to my collection!

#1219: Myzax

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

MYZAX

VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER (PLAYMATES)

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A giant fighting robot is only as good as the giant foes he giant fights.  Giantly.  As much as Voltron is defined by its title character and the five Paladins who pilot him, it’s also very much defined by the Robeasts with which the Defender of the Universe did battle in just about every episode.  The Robeasts are just as much a part of the new series as they were the old.   Playmates line of figures based on the new show includes the Robeasts, starting things off with the show’s premiere RoBeast

THE FIGURE ITSELF

myzax2Myzax is part of the first series of Voltron: Legendary Defender figures.  He’s the only non-Voltron in the lot, and from the looks of things, he’s not as heavily packed as the others.  The figure is just under 5 inches tall and he has 17 points of articulation.  He’s a lot more posable than the Lion Attack Voltron, which is definitely a point in his favor.  He’s still missing the elbow articulation on one arm, but he’s got bicep and thigh swivels, which makes for a lot more posing options than we saw with yesterday’s figure.  Myzax was one of my favorite designs from the new show, and the figure does a pretty respectable job of translating that design into three dimensions.  The arms and legs should probably be a little longer, and his right arm’s a little too thick, but aside from that, most of the details are pretty accurate.  The level of detail could probably be sharper, but he’s about on par with the work seen on Voltron, which is certainly reasonable.   Even the action feature is better worked in than it was on Voltron.  He’s still got the missile launching gimmick, but the actual missile isn’t an integral part of the figure’s design (meaning it’s totally fine to display him without it), and the feature actually half-way replicates his special attack from the show.  Plus, it’s button activated, so it’s less likely to break over time.  The paintwork on the figure is passable, but it could definitely be a bit better.  All there really is to it is the most basic colors.  The application is clean, but he’s missing a lot of the smaller details from the show.  As it stands, he looks alright, but I can’t help but feel he’d look even cooler with a top-notch paint job.  As far as accessories, his only real extra is the missile for the launcher gimmick.  It replicates the energy ball weapon that’s built into his arm in the show.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I found Myzax at the same time as Voltron.  He’s really the figure that sold me on the whole line.  I’d picked up the Voltron and wasn’t sure I wanted him, but I spotted this guy on the back of the card, and he happened to be hidden back behind several Voltrons.  Myzax is my favorite of the Robeasts from the new show so far, so I’m pretty psyched about his inclusion so early in the line.  On top of that, he’s actually a pretty fun figure, and a good indicator of how good this line can be if Playmates puts in the effort.

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#1218: Lion Attack Voltron

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LION ATTACK VOLTRON

VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER (PLAYMATES)

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Back in late January, Netflix dropped the second season of their reboot of Voltron, which proved to be just as good as, if not better than, the show’s first season.  The first season’s release was woefully devoid of accompanying toys, but between the first and second season, Playmates picked up the license and released a selection of action figures about a week before the second season’s premier.  There are a couple of different options for those that want a basic Voltron.  I opted for one of the two smaller versions, which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

voltronld2Lion Attack Voltron is part of the first series of Playmates’ Voltron: Legendary Defender line.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Hardly the most posable figure ever. At the very least, I would have liked some bicep swivels and elbow movement for *both* arms, but I guess what this guy’s got is workable.  There’s certainly worse out there.  This Voltron figure is based on the modern Voltron design, which is really just a sleeker, more rounded out version of the classic design.  The sculpt does a reasonable job of recreating the show look.  He’s a bit stiffer, and some elements (the neck in particular) are rather on the boxy side.  All the details are pretty well defined; some of them are a little on the soft side, but it’s generally pretty solid work.  The wings are removable pieces, but don’t combine into the shield like on the show.  It might be nice to have gotten some alternate extended wings, but maybe those will show up on another figure down the line.  The biggest deviation from his established look is in order to facilitate the action feature.  The head of the Green Lion is actually mounted to a projectile, which juts out of the back of the elbow about an inch.   The actual sculpt has some tweaks to allow the missile to go through more smoothly, which means there’s some odd extra plastic in a few spots.  Fortunately, it’s not too hard to hide these inaccuracies with some careful posing, but it’s still a bit annoying.  Even more annoying is the way the missile launcher works; there’s no actual lock and release button, it’s a more simple tension hold.  The problem with this design when dealing with softer materials like plastic is that it will eventually warp, and eventually the notch that holds the missile in place isn’t strong enough to resist the tension of the spring.  How do I know this will happen?  Because it *already* happened to my figure; after a few days, the hand simply wouldn’t stay in place.  I had to deepen the notch to keep it from firing, and I’ll likely have to keep doing it every so often.  Not something I want to have to do to a mass-produced figure.  Voltron’s paintwork is decent enough.  It’s fairly basic color work, but everything is nice and clean, and colors are bold.  Voltron includes no accessories, but with the missile feature and removable wings, the box doesn’t feel too empty.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The new Voltron toys were actually an in-store surprise for me.  I had heard Playmates had the license, but hadn’t seen any prototypes.  I stumbled upon them while running some errands at Target.  There are two different smaller Voltrons available, and I went with this one because he looked to be the more articulated of the two.  He’s nothing amazing, and I really would have preferred they’d dropped the missile launcher feature in favor of just properly articulating that arm (since mine’s already broken).  Still, he’s not awful, and he’s certainly got some promise.  If Playmates is willing to try and learn from their mistakes, this like could be really fun.

#1217: Michone

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

MICHONE

THE WALKING DEAD (MCFARLANE TOYS)

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So, I guess The Walking Dead TV-show starts up soon.  Or maybe it already started back up.  I don’t actually know, because I haven’t watched the show since about fifteen minutes into this season’s premiere, nor will I be going back.  But, I’ve still got all these figures, so…yeah…  Here’s Michone.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

michone2Michone was released in the first series of McFarlane’s comic-based The Walking Dead line, which hit around the same time as the TV show’s series premiere.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  So, right off the bat, there’s the weird scale thing.  I’ve looked at the TV line and one or two of the comic figures, so the scale’s not new to the site, but it was actually new to this particular line.  It was an odd choice to say the least, since the rest of the industry was doing either 3 3/4 or 6-inch scale at the time.  McFarlane’s gotta be different.  Michone is based on her first appearance from the comics, which is a fairly standard look for her, but at the same time a bit gaudy compared to the character’s look as the series progressed.  The sculpt is alright, I guess.  It certainly wasn’t as bad as some of how of the other figures from the earliest days of this and the TV line.  That being said, while the sculpt isn’t bad, it’s also michone3kind of boring.  The pose is just sort of her standing with her hand holding the katana downwards.  There’s also pretty much no trace of Charlie Adlar’s art style in the sculpt; she instead looks like just some generic sort of super model or something.  Not exactly very indicative of Michone as a character.  I guess it could be worse, though.  She’s not the ultra-hideous figure that the first Rick was.  At the very least, the paint on Michone is actually pretty solid.  The colors are vibrant, which works surprisingly well, and all of the application is very clean.  Miocene was packed with her katana, a power drill, and a spoon.  The sword is pretty much expected, but the drill and spoon are some pretty fun issue specific pieces, even if she didn’t use them in this outfit.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I bought the corresponding Rick figure from this line first, which didn’t really make me want to pursue any of the others.  But, Cosmic Comix had their biggest sale of the year going, and she was 40% off, which was enough for me to go for it.  It’s hard to get super excited about this figure, but she certainly could have been far worse.

#1216: Knightfall Batman

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

KNIGHTFALL BATMAN

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

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‘90s comics are notorious for fostering an over-arching tone of “not your daddy’s comics,” I guess in an attempt to make the genre seem more hip and fly (see?  I’m one of the cool kids!  I can get home with the downies).  One of the ways they did this was by performing lots of edgy stunts that “rocked the comics world to its core!”  Green Lantern went nuts and dismantled the corps, Superman died and was replaced by four off-shoot characters, etc.  Even Batman wasn’t exempt, thanks to the “Knightfall” story arc that ran through all the Bat-titles in the early ‘90s, where newly-introduced villain Bane bested and crippled Bruce Wayne, necessitating his replacement by Jean-Paul Valley, a far more anti-heroic character.  The story is actually pretty well-regarded, mostly because it dove head-on into a lot of the tropes associated with the ‘90s anti-hero boom and deconstructed them, with the final moral of the story being that the new style of Batman just didn’t work as well as the original.  Since the story hit right on the cusp of the superhero toy boom, several of the key characters got figures at the time of the story.  The final, more armored incarnation of Valley’s Batman has been a particular favorite of toy companies, even in current times.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

azbatsdcm2Knightfall Batman was released as part of Mattel’s smaller-scale DC Comics Multiverse line.  He’s one of the many Arkham Origins-based figures from the line, and like a good portion of those figures, he represents one of the many skins that could be swapped out for Batman’s standard look.  Said skin is based on Jean-Paul Valley’s late Knightfall look (though not his *latest* look; the armored sections got a bit more tech-y as the story progressed).  It’s the look most associated with the storyline as a whole, so it’s certainly a strong choice of both skin and figure.  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  As with so many Mattel figures, the articulation  scheme is rather archaic, but at this point I sort of just expect that.  If Mattel’s determined to stay just behind the pack, I can’t stop them.  The sculpt is decent enough, I suppose.  It’s about on par with the other figures I’ve gotten from the line; the basic look is pretty solid, but there’s not a whole lot of small detail work or anything that really makes it stand out.  There’s also the incredibly awkward way the front of the belt is handled.  It’s supposed to not have a buckle, but since they made the belt a separate piece (because reasons), the tunic is interrupted twice where the belt connects, which ruins the visual flow.  And, of course, there are the huge hands, because no one at Mattel knows how to scale hands for this size figure, I guess.  The paint on the figure is passable, but, like the sculpt, a little uninspired.  The colors all more or less match up, but they’re just… unexciting.  The blue is dark, the gold is dull, the yellow is cold, and the black is just very flat.  Application is also a bit sloppy, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen from Mattel.  The figure includes no accessories, which is a slight letdown.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Have I mentioned Super Awesome Girlfriend’s stress buying before?  Yeah, this guy’s a case of that.  She stopped at a Walgreens on the drive to her parents’ and this was one of the handful of figures she grabbed for me (after verifying I didn’t already own him).  Is he a perfect figure?  No.  Is he an exciting figure?  Not incredibly so, but he has his merits.  I’ve owned worse figures, and I like the design enough that I’m happy to own a figure of it.

#1215: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Didn’t I just review a Toy Biz Marvel Legends figure?  Man, usually I’m better about spacing this sorts of things out.  Ah well.  Well, the last review looked at a figure from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run; today’s review jumps back a bit, looking at the line’s second year.  So, without further ado, here’s Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

surferml2Silver Surfer was released in Series 5 of Marvel Legends, which hit stores starting in November of 2003.  Series 5 is easily one of my favorite series from TB’s run with the line, and in a lot of ways showcased the line’s true potential.  It was also the last series where just about every figure was easily obtained, and thus the last series I have un-compromised memories about.  Anyway, this figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation.  Surfer exhibits one of the earliest attempts at using a buck system for Legends.  He was built on the body initially designed for the second Spider-Man Classics Daredevil figure.  I always thought the body was too beefy for DD, but it’s not a bad choice for the Surfer.  It’s a sculpt that, like so many of the TB Legends, hasn’t aged super well.  The shoulders are a bit large, and the legs are somewhat gangly, but the general appearance isn’t awful.  My figure suffers from a minor assembly error: his left forearm is actually a right forearm, just flipped around, meaning the musculature doesn’t quite line up the right way.  Nothing major, but a slight annoyance.  The head sculpt on Surfer is fairly decent.  It’s stylistically consistent with the body, and presents a pretty reasonable version of the Surfer’s noggin.  It’s a little more alien than he tends to be depicted, and certainly on the cartoony side, but a fun sculpt nonetheless.  The Surfer exhibits some of the finer paintwork from TB’s Legends.  It may not seem like much at first glance, but there’s a really nice quality to the silver paint chosen; it’s much more vibrant and lively than the silvers you tend to see on production pieces.  There’s also the slightest hint of blue, airbrushed over the figure, which really helps connect him with the comics version of the Surfer, who was often highlighted with blue.  Over the years, various Silver Surfer figures have handled his titular surfboard all sorts of different ways.  This is probably one of the more interesting ones.  There’s a magnet in each foot, and the core section of the board is metal.  In theory, this allows you to affix him to the board while also leaving it without any visible footpegs when he’s not standing on it.  Of course, since molding the whole board in metal would be cost prohibitive, they had to sort of split the difference, and give the board a plastic frame, which doesn’t quite mesh with the metal section, and sort of messes up the whole seamlessness of the board.  Still, fun gimmick, though.  There was also an included chunk of space rock with an articulated arm attached, allowing for the board to be posed as if it were flying.  Perhaps the oddest accessory included with Surfer (and maybe even one of the oddest accessories of all time) is the Howard the Duck figure.  As far as I know, Howard and the Surfer have never met, so why they chose to pair these two up is anyone’s guess.  Nevertheless, it’s a proper action figure of its own, with four whole points of articulation, and an incredibly well-detailed sculpt that looks like it jumped straight out of a classic ‘70s Howard comic appearance. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s Disney’s fault.  No, not because they own Marvel.  They didn’t yet when this figure was released.  Anyway, I got this figure while visiting Disney World back in 2003.  Series 5 had just started hitting stores, and my family went to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few things.  My dad and I walked back to the toy aisle (as we do), and they had a Nick Fury and two Silver Surfers.  I wanted one of the Surfers, but my dad convinced me to wait.  Later that week, we needed to stop by again for batteries I think.  My dad went in on his own, and when he got back to the car, he was carrying this guy.  Turns out, he walked back to the toy aisle to check if they still had these, and when he got there they were all gone.  When he turned to walk back to the registers, he happened to look down and spotted this one lone Silver Surfer on the ground.  This figure’s not perfect, but he’s one of the better Surfer figures out there, even 13 years after his release.

#1214: Cassian Andor & Imperial Stormtrooper

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

CASSIAN ANDOR & IMPERIAL STORMTROOPER

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE (HASBRO)

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Hey look!  More Star Wars stuff!  Yeah!  ….Sorry, sometimes I run out of things to say, so that’s the best intro you’re gonna get out of me.  Let’s just get to the figures already!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cassian and the Stormtrooper are a Toys R Us-exclusive two-pack, which started hitting in early January of this year.  Really, the only exclusive part of the set is pairing; both featured figures have (more or less) been released elsewhere, with Cassian being included with the U-Wing and the Trooper being a standard Series 1 release.

CASSIAN ANDOR

cassiantrooper3This guy’s really the main reason I grabbed this set, since I never picked up the U-Wing.  Thus, my only small-scale Cassian was the Eadu version I looked at back in December, which wasn’t my favorite.  This figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation.  Where I felt the last Cassian was sporting one of the line’s weakest sculpts, I think this may be one of the better ones.  The build is appropriately scrawny, and more in line with Diego Luna’s build than the other Cassian figures have been.  The details on the clothing are also really crisp and sharp, which is especially good given the scale.  The face still isn’t a spot-on Luna likeness, but it’s probably the best one of the bunch, certainly better than the Black Series sculpt.  A slightly better paint job might due its share to fix the resemblance, I suppose.  Speaking of the paint, it’s not terrible.  In fact, going by reports online the cleanness of the application on this figure is much better than that of the U-Wing cassiantrooper5figure, which gives this particular version a leg up.  There are still some parts, the beard in particular, that could stand to be a little more consistent, but at this scale and given the rest of the line, this is pretty good.  Cassian includes his small blaster pistol (sadly, it’s solid silver plastic, a bit of a step-down from the Series 2 figures).  There’s also yet another grapple contraption and a big missile launcher, which I’m lumping in with Cassian, but could honestly go with either included figure.

IMPERIAL STORMTROOPER

cassiantrooper4Remember my review of the Rogue One Series 1 Stormtrooper?  Yeah, this is pretty much the exact same figure.  Not that I’m complaining, of course.  I loved the figure the first time around, and as a troop builder, it’s the sort of figure that I don’t mind having multiples of on the shelf.  There are some slight changes in the paint; he ends up somewhere between the single version and the one packed with Baze.  He’s got the black details on the abdomen that the single release was missing, but still lacks the details on the back of the helmet.  The figure sports the same accessory compliment as the single release: the blaster and the chest-piece.  The pauldron is white this time instead of orange, which is a nice change for variety’s sake, though it’s not like I’ll actually be displaying him with that piece in place.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Big shock, I got this here Toys R Us-exclusive from a Toys R Us, back in early January.  I’d been patiently waiting for its release, since I wanted a brown-jacket Cassian, and didn’t really want the U-Wing (especially after seeing how small a role it played in the final film).  There’s not really anything new here, but its certainly still a fun little set, especially if you haven’t been following the line super closely.

#1213: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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I’ve been a Falcon fan for quite some time, and while that’s really easy nowadays when you can walk into just about any store and have your pick of *multiple* Sam Wilson figures, that was hardly the case a decade ago.  That being said, even as a minor character, Sam’s actually been pretty lucky when it comes to action figures, finding his way into the relatively compressed line-ups of Mego’s World’s Greatest Superheroes and Mattel’s Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, as well as getting five different figures during Toy Biz’s tenure with the Marvel license.  Today, I’ll be looking at Toy Biz’s last stab at the character, courtesy of Marvel Legends!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

falconml2Falcon was released in Series 14 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, which was their penultimate series for the line.  There were two versions of Falcon available: classic and modern.  The one seen here is the more common classic version, based on Falcon’s second costume.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  Falcon was built on the body from the first ML Iron Fist, which is an interesting choice to say the least.  While the Iron Fist body looked great in the prototype stage, it suffered from some real issues on the final figure, and a lot of that was passed on to Falcon.  The biggest issue is the shoulders, which jut way too far out.  Also, the under the shoulder joint fails to go all the way into the torso, leaving his arms forever slightly out to the side.  He looks like his arms are connected to his torso by a weird tube thing.  In addition to the arms, the exposed portion of the torso looks more like a grill rack than an actual person’s pecs, which makes Falcon look rather frightening.  Beyond that?  I guess the rest of the sculpt is decent enough.  The body was a lot less gangly than a lot of the TB Legends so that’s good, and the legs are actually not badly done (well, apart from those crazy nonexistent muscles).  In addition to the Iron Fist pieces, Falcon got a new head, forearms, hands, and feet, as well as slightly tweaked upper arms and shins.  The head’s always been one of my favorites from this era of Legends; it just really seems to capture the character well, and just has a nice heroic quality about it in general.  The hands are probably some of the most convincing hands TB ever put on one of their Legends, but also serve to showcase just how stupid the finger articulation was most of the time; what good does that joint do the figure?  The forearms and biceps have the wings attached.  The segmentation of the design allows for much more natural posing than was exhibited in the MU Falcon, and the wings are quite nicely detailed, with each feather being carefully defined and textured.  In terms of paint, Falcon is about what you’d expect from a TB-era Legends figure; lots of washes and airbrushing that vernally looked much better on the prototype than on the mass produced figure.  For some reason, all of the joint pins have been done in bright red plastic.  In the case of the elbows and gloves, this means there’s paint somewhat sloppily thrown over them to cover this up, but for the discs in the shoulders and the neck, this means a bright red stripe running across his skin.  Also, this figure seems to be exhibiting an issue similar to the Young Avengers Patriot figure where the pieces molded in white are slowly soaking up the color from the much darker joint pins, which is a slightly disturbing thing to see.  Both versions of Falcon were also plagued by a mix-up in the assemble process, causing the paint on the pelvises to actually correspond with the other version of the figure.  Amusingly, a similar issue showed up on the prototypes, only it was the forearms/hands that were mixed up that time.  Falcon included his trusty bird sidekick Redwing, who can be plugged into Sam’s back, as well as the lower torso of Series 14’s BaF Mojo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Series 14 is one of the few series of Legends where I wanted every figure in the line-up, and Falcon here was no exception.  While I actually got most of this particular series for Christmas the year they were released, I didn’t get Falcon as a gift.  I ended up getting him from Cosmic Comix, who were getting a pretty steady stream of Legends at that point.  The figure hasn’t aged very well at all, but I was very happy with him back in the day.  I’d love to see Hasbro redo this guy at some point.

#1212: Dr. Gero

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

DR. GERO

DRAGON BALL Z (IRWIN TOYS)

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In the four prior Dragon Ball Z-related reviews on this site, I’ve made it no secret that the Android Saga is my favorite era of the show.  That’s been fairly evident in the choices of characters I’ve collected.  Today’s figure, Dr. Gero (aka Android 20), is no different.  Of course, so far, the figures have also all been from Bandai’s SH Figuarts line.  That’s where today’s figure differs, instead hailing from Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line that ran concurrent with the US-run of the show.  Let’s have a look!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

gero2Dr. Gero was released in the fifth series of Irwin’s Dragon Ball Z line, which hit in 2001.  At that point, the show had moved onto the Cell Saga, and most of this series reflects that, with Gero being the only Android Saga figure in the set.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Not a lot of movement there, but it was actually pretty good for the time.  Gero sported a totally unique sculpt, patterned after his appearance on the show.  It’s not quite as accurate as the Figuarts, but still a surprisingly solid recreation.  The basic look is definitely there, and there’s plenty of detail work, especially on the shirt.  I do sort of wish areas such as the pants had a little more detailing to them, and the face is a touch too wide and squat (Gero was quite gaunt), but it’s not horribly off.  I appreciate that they even sculpted in his brain under the dome, since that’s the sort of thing that can get overlooked.  Like the sculpt, the paint isn’t perfect, but is still more than serviceable.  The colors are all a pretty good match for the onscreen appearance, and most of the application is pretty clean.  He doesn’t really have any sort of accent work, which certainly would have helped the sculpt shine a bit more, but for the period, he’s not bad.  Gero was originally packed with his hat to cover his brain dome and a trio of dragon balls, however, my figure did not have them.  Still, that’s a pretty cool assortment of extras, especially for a more minor character like Gero.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never got into DBZ figures when the show was still on.  Almost bought a few of them numerous times, but just never did.  So, I got Gero second hand.  He’s another 2nd Avenue find, actually.  He was in with a bunch of fast food toys and such, for like $2.  Since I had the Figuarts Androids and the likelihood of a Figuarts Gero is rather slim, I figured he was worth it.  He didn’t come with any of the extras and he’s rather beaten up (he’s actually missing part of his right thumb; I carefully shot around that), but he cost me $2 and he scales well enough with the Figuarts stuff that I feel he was worth my time.

#1211: Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge

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

LT. CMDR. GEORDI LaFORGE

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (PLAYMATES)

geordifc1

While I’ve been exposed to Star Trek pretty much my whole life, my only real solid memories of the franchise from my childhood are seeing Star Trek: First Contact in the theatre when it was released (and subsequently getting it on Laserdisc when it came to home video.  For over a decade, that was literally the only way we owned it.  I’d have to fire up the laserdisc player anytime I wanted to watch it.  I’m not joking).  By extension, my first real memories of Star Trek toys are the figures from that movie, which are still some of my favorites.  Today, I’ll be looking at that line’s version of  Enterprise-E’s chief engineer Geordi LaForge!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

geordifc2Geordi was released as part of Playmates’ Star Trek: First Contact line, which hit shelves in early 1996.  The line was noteworthy at the time for abandoning the scale used by all of the prior Playmates Trek figures, opting instead for a larger size.  As such, the figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall.  He sports 14 points of articulation; he and all the other main crew members were given additional thigh swivels, which greatly improved their ability to sit. Of course, the larger scale meant they weren’t compatible with any of the prior vehicles or playsets, so he doesn’t actually have anywhere to sit, but that’s neither here nor there.  Movement is movement.  Prior Trek lines had done their best to give each crew member their own unique body sculpt, but the First Contact figures went for the more obvious shared body idea.  Geordi shares his body with both Data and Picard.  It’s a decent enough sculpt.  The details of the uniform are rather on the simplified side, and they’ve cut down on some things, such as the number of ridges on the grey part, and the seam at the front of the collar.  All of the key details are there, which is good I guess.  Honestly, it’s not that much of a departure from the smaller figures, so I guess the consistency is good.  The build on the body works well enough for Burton (and the other three actors mentioned).  The head sculpt is really big, definitely a bit out of scale with the body.  I don’t think its really any more out of scale than any of the smaller figures, but it’s definitely more noticeable here.  There’s a passable likeness in there, but I can’t say its one of their best (which is kind of a shame, because the First Contact figures overall had some of the best likenesses Playmates produced).  Still, it’s not a bad sculpt, and has some decent texture work, which Playmates didn’t always put on their figures.  The paintwork on Geordi is serviceable.  The body is fairly basic, but it’s clean and the colors are right, so that’s good.  The head has some more in-depth work, and the eyes in particular look really good (Playmates was really good at eyes).  Geordi was packed with an assortment of various gadgets, all molded in black, as well as a display stand shaped like a communicator badge.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Geordi was my second figure from First Contact.  I got him on a day out with my dad, who took me to Toys R Us to get him (and then I think we got lunch and he read me some Norse mythology.  It was a cool day).  I know I specifically requested this figure, because my cousin Noah had one and I really wanted my own.  I remember being surprised that he didn’t include his visor (despite having already seen the movie and knowing he didn’t have it anymore).  He’s not the most thrilling figure, but I have fond memories of getting him, and that certainly goes a long way!