Category Archives: Reviews

#1200: Thor

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

THOR

THE AVENGERS (HOT TOYS)

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Well, it looks like I made it another hundred reviews.  That’s cool, I guess.  Admittedly, we’re getting to the point where 100 reviews doesn’t feel like that big a deal anymore.  I mean, I’ve done it 12 times, so, maybe I should up the interval again.  I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s an ’00 review, which means it’s time for another high-end figure review.  Once again, it’s a figure from our friends over at Hot Toys.  More than a few of my Hot Toys figures hail from the MCU, and today’s entry is no exception.  Yes, it’s the God of Thunder himself, Thor Odinson!  Is the last name too much?  It sounds goofy, doesn’t it.  But, well, that’s his name.  So there it is.  Onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

thorht2Thor is figure 175 in Hot Toys’ Movie Masterpiece Series, which puts him smack dab between the Avengers versions of Captain America and Loki, which is sensible.  Like those two, he’s based on his appearance in The Avengers, specifically his fully armored up look from the film’s climactic battle.  He hit in early 2013, which was actually pretty good turnaround for a HT figure of the time, arriving less than a year after the movie he was based on.  The figure stands about 12 1/2 inches tall and has “over 30 points of articulation” going by the blurb on the Sideshow website. 

First off, let’s have a look at Thor’s noggin.  When this figure was first shown, there was quite a bit of contention over the likeness on the head, due to the prototype shots looking less than stellar (he looked more like Leonardo DiCaprio than Chris Hemsworth, and those two don’t particularly look similar).  The final product showcased a marked improvement.  The final sculpt isn’t a spot-on Hemsworth likeness, but it’s very, very good.  A lot of it depends on the thorht3angle; when viewed from the right, as seen in the close-up shot, it’s clearly Hemsworth, but flip over to the other side and the likeness gets off pretty quickly.  You can always tell who he’s supposed to be, but it’s not always very convincing.  Likeness aside, the actual detail work is solid regardless; his face has tons of subtle little wrinkles and such, which really make him look like a real person, and the detailing on the stubble of his beard is surprisingly well-rendered.  Thor has long hair, and no matter how you handle that, there are always some compromises.  HT opted to go sculpted for this figure, which I think was the right call.  The hair is decent enough, but there are definitely some section s that are more convincingly hair than others.  Also, there’s a seam running near the front of his head, which is more present than I’d like.  As far as paint for the head, it’s the usual HT standard of insanely lifelike.  Really, it’s quite impressive how well down they have this.  The eyes in particular are what really sells it for me; there’s just so much life behind them.

Thor’s costume more of a mixed media effort than usual for HT.  The vest, pants, cape, and the red sections of the wrist bands are all cloth pieces, and are mostly tailored pretty well to the body.  The pants look a little odd in certain poses, almost looking backwards at times, but they’re not bad.  I like the brightness of the cape, and it’s a good, sturdy material, which is always a plus.  The rest of Thor’s costume pieces (the outer vest, sleeves, wrist guards, and boots) are constructed from various sculpted elements.  By and large, they do a good job capturing the movie’s designs.  The sleeves are a rubber cover for the arms, and do most of the work to give the arms actual shape.  They look good, but end up being very limiting when it comes to posing the arms; the elbows barely have even 45 degrees of movement, and even then, they have a tendency to slowly return to a straighter pose, due to the heaviness and thickness of the material.  Later Thor figures tackled the sleeves/arms by just putting a joint on the outside, but they were still figuring everything out for this guy.  The boots are each two pieces: a foot and a slip-over piece that covers the shin.  This is nice from a movement perspective, but ends up looking a little goofy in practice.

Thor isn’t super heavy on the accessories, but he does have a few fun pieces.  He comes with:

  • 9 hands
  • Mjolnir
  • The Tesseract in its fun little carrying case from the end of the movie
  • Display stand

thorinventoryThe hands come in relaxed (L and R), fists (L and R), tight grip (L and R), loose grip (L), and wide gesture (L and R).  They’re all very nicely sculpted, and look like real hands.  They’re a bit difficult to swap out, but do ad some nice expressiveness to the figure.

Mjolnir is definitely the main highlight here.  It’s made from metal, which gives it some really nice heft, and there’s even a little leather strap at the bottom, just like in the movie.

The Tesseract is definitely the most unique of the pieces. It’s sort of fun, and allows Thor to be posed with the Loki figure, like at the end of the movie.  It also continued the trend of giving us all possible variations of the Tesseract, after the normal one from Red Skull and the one in the metal case from Nick Fury.

Last up is the stand, which is the same basic stand we’ve seen tons of times before.  There’s a logo for Avengers and Thor’s name is on the front.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I pretty much have Thor because I was getting the rest of the Avengers line-up from the first movie, but what’s kind of amusing about him is that he was really the lynchpin of me getting the whole set.  Initially, I had just planned to get Black Widow and Hawkeye to put with my Mech Test Tony Stark and First Avenger Captain America.  Then I realized I would have most of the team, so I went ahead and pre-ordered Thor, which eventually led to me picking up both the Mark VII and Hulk, and realizing I might as well get Cap as well.  So really, it’s Thor’s fault.  Silly Thor.

#1199: Mystery Machine (w/ Fred Jones)

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

MYSTERY MACHINE (W/ FRED JONES)

SCOOBY DOO (CHARACTER OPTIONS)

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In addition to being a comics geek and a sci-fi geek, I’m also quite a bit of an animation geek.  Obviously, I love the cartoons of the ‘90s, being the ones I grew up with and all, but access to the likes of Boomerang and Cartoon Network also afforded me an appreciation for a number of older cartoons.  Of course, it hardly takes an animation geek to be familiar with today’s subject of review.  Scooby Doo hit the airwaves in 1969 and there’s been at least one new iteration of it every decade since, keeping it pretty squarely in the public eye.  As I noted in my previous Scooby–based review, I actually don’t have a particularly large selection of Scooby Doo items in my collection, but as with just about everything there isn’t enough of in my collection, I’m working on it.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of the fixtures of the franchise, the Mystery Machine, along with perpetual driver of said machine, Fred Jones.

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

mysterymachine5The Myster Machine was released as part of the latest iteration of Character Options’ Scooby Doo line, which hit last year.  While lots of places seemed to have the two-packs featuring the one member of the gang each packed with a ghost, the Mystery Machine seems to be a slightly rarer find (for me anyway).  The vehicle is 6 1/4 inches tall, 5 inches wide, and 9 1/4 inches long.  In terms of design, exactly what version of the Mystery Machine this is supposed to be is a little hard to place.  Near as I can tell, it’s not actually based on any specific design for the MM, but is instead a somewhat stylized take on the classic design.  I think a lot of this may be due to some mold re-use, as it appears this mold initially showed up as the “Goo’busters Mystery Machine,” which was a playset designed to go with a line of Superhero Squad/Galactic Heroes-style line of Scooby characters.  That would mysterymachine6explain the harsher stylization present here.  It doesn’t look awful, provided you aren’t looking for a really faithful recreation of the original vehicle.  The biggest complaint I have is that it’s rather difficult to get the full-sized figures into the front, since it wasn’t designed with them in mind.  Aside from that, it’s actually remarkably well-scaled, to the point that it was only after a considerable amount of digging around that I realized it was originally made for the smaller guys.  It’s worth noting that it’s clearly designed as a playset first and a functioning Mystery Machine second.  There aren’t any functioning doors (the figures are placed in the front through the hatch at the top), there’s no actual seating in the back, and the steering wheel doesn’t turn.  It does at the very least have actual moving wheels on the bottom.  From what I’ve read online, this mysterymachine3is a change from prior releases, so I guess they’re learning.  Yay!  The back of the van folds out into a…thing.  Not really sure what.  I guess it’s supposed to be a crime solving lab or something? The original release had some traps and stuff built in, but this one leaves those out, so we just end up with a lot of flat surfaces with printed on details.  It’s kind of cool, but a little confusing.  Also, the fold-out feature results in some rather ugly hinges running along the middle of the van, which is really unfortunate.  Could those not have been worked into the interior of the design?  The paint on the Mystery Machine is rather on the sloppy side, especially around the edges of the green sections.  Of course, actual paint is minimal; most of the details are decals.  By and large, this is a perfectly fine way of handling the details (since they’re mostly on large, flat surfaces anyway), but there are some peeling edges and, in the case of the flowers on the side, some issues with underlying paint showing through.  There’s a valiant effort to ignore a few of the sculpted elements to bring the design closer to the classic look, which works about as well as anything else on this thing.  For accessories, the Mystery Machine includes one main extra, and that’s….

THE FIGURE ITSELF

mysterymachine8….Fred Jones!  Fred (who, fun fact, was named after CBS executive Fred Silverman, who was a driving force for getting Scooby Doo, Where Are You? on the air) is the leader of Mystery Inc, the owner of the Mystery Machine in at least a few versions of the story, and above all, the guy usually seen driving the Mystery Machine, making him quite the sensible inclusion here.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Fred is based on his slightly updated design from Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, where he was given a slightly more brawny physique and a more pronounced lantern jaw of justice.  I actually quite liked his redesign from that show, so I’m happy it’s the version they went with.  It’s transition into three-dimensions isn’t too terrible; he looks a little off from certain angles, but that’s the sort of thing you expect with action figures of two-dimensional designs.  The legs could stand to be a little longer, and the torso a little less tubular, and his chin should probably be a little less pronounced.  He sort of reminds me of the Kenner Batman: The Animated Series figures, being slightly off-model, but still pretty solid as an action figure.  The paint on Fred is a good deal cleaner than we saw on the Mystery Machine.  While he’s still not devoid of sloppiness, especially around his hairline, the overall appearance is a lot cleaner.  His eyes are also kinda goofy, thanks to no one really being very sure of how exactly this style of eye should be done in 3D.  He looks a bit surprised.  While my figure is pretty decent, I should note that I had to pick through four of this set, and finding a combo of good paint on both Fred and the Mystery Machine was pretty much impossible.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Fred’s my favorite character from Scooby Doo.  Prior to picking up this set, he made up half of my Scooby Doo collection (granted, it was a collection of TWO figures, but still).  So, when I spotted the two-packs last year, I immediately flipped through the rack to find the set Fred was in.  Imagine my dismay when I discovered they doubled up on Scooby instead of including him.  Now, all of my issues would have been resolved had there simply been a picture of the Mystery Machine and the included Fred figure somewhere on the packaging for the two-packs, but Character Options didn’t see fit to actually inform their customers what was actually out.  So, instead of tracking this set down early last year, I ended up stumbling upon it at the K-Mart near where my family vacations for Christmas.  It was even marked down to $15.  There’s a whole extra $10 they could have gotten out of me if I’d known this thing existed (to say nothing of me forking over the cash for the rest of the gang).   Ah well, I got my Fred figure, and that’s really what matters.  Ultimately, this is a more toy-etic set than I tend to go for in modern toys, but I can’t say I’m unhappy with the purchase.

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#1198: Mark V Iron Man & War Machine

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

MARK V IRON MAN & WAR MACHINE

MARVEL MINIMATES

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Ah, Iron Man 2, the one entry in the MCU we all sort of pretend didn’t happen.  The first chink in the armor, if you will.  Admittedly, it’s not a bad movie, just an okay one, hurt by being the sequel to one of the biggest surprise hits of 2008.  Some of the ideas presented there really weren’t bad, and if nothing else, the toys from the movie were cool.  Two of my favorite parts of the movie (and thus some of my favorite entries from the toy lines) were the suitcase armor and Rhodey taking up the War Machine mantle.  The Mark V and War Machine just so happened to be packed together for their Minimates.  How convenient!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The Mark V and War Machine were part of the Iron Man 2-tie-in assortment of Marvel Minimates.  They were one of the pair of two-packs shared between the TRU-exclusive assortment and specialty Series 35 (the other being Mark IV and Whiplash).

MARK V IRON MAN

mkvwm2Though somewhat short-lived, the Mark V suitcase armor was one of the real highlights of IM2, being a fun concept, a fun design, and getting easily the coolest fight scene in the movie.  The figure is about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The Mark V has add-ons for his helmet, shoulderpads, gloves, boots, and belt.  The helmet is the same piece used for Marks IV, VI, and VII, but aside from that these pieces were new to this guy.  They match up well enough with his on-screen design, and he doesn’t suffer from being overly bulked up like a lot of the Iron Man armors from this time period.  In addition to the add-on pieces, the IM2 ‘mates also ramped up the use of specialized pieces, especially for arms and legs.  The Mark V gets new upper arms and legs, which, like the add-on pieces follow the movie design quite well, and also help to prevent him for getting too big.  The paint on this guy is particularly nice, with the metallic red in particular really standing out as really sleek and polished.  Under his helmet, there’s a nice, angry/determined Tony Stark, who even shows some damage from his battle with Whiplash, making him a nice departure from the slew of other Tonys with the same basic face.  The Mark V was packed with an extra hairpiece (a recolored version of Kyle Reese’s), as well as a pair of flesh-toned hands.

WAR MACHINE

mkvwm4From the moment Rhodey quipped “Next time, baby” to the Mark II in Iron Man, I was anxiously awaiting War Machine’s introduction in the sequel.  Of course, we lost the first Rhodey in the mean time, so there was no “Next time” for that particular iteration of the character.  That being said, I think Cheadle ultimately brought more to the role, and was especially good for the transition of Rhodey to true super hero.  This was Cheadle’s first of several ‘mates.  This one’s particularly heavy on the extra sculpted pieces, with add-ons for the helmet, chest piece, and gloves/forearm guns, as well as unique legs and upper arms.  Pretty much the whole basic ‘mate body is covered when this guy’s armored up.  The parts are generally pretty well sculpted, but I do feel this guy suffers a bit from that overly bulked up look that I mentioned the Mark V avoided.  It’s not awful, nor is it super out of character for War Machine, but he still looks a little on the pudgy side from some angles.  Rhodey’s paint work is decent enough, if not as exciting or polished as the Mark V.  Under the armor, there’s some nice extra torso detailing, as well as a fully detailed Rodey head.  In lieu of the hair piece from the first movie’s Rhodey, this guy’s hair is painted on, which I think more accurately portrays the close-cropped look from the film.  As far as the likeness, I can’t say I see all that much of Cheadle in the face on this one, but it’s still a pretty nice head.  Rhodey included a large gattling gun and missile launcher to plug into his torso piece, as well as a separate helmet with the faceplate flipped up, and a pair of flesh-toned hands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This was around the time I was faithfully buying my Minimates from Cosmic Comix, but for whatever reason, his shipment of these guys never materialized.  I was hardly going to miss out on this pair, so I ended up grabbing them from TRU along with the two TRU-exclusive sets.  I find that a lot of these ‘mates haven’t aged the best, but these two still hold up pretty well, and I’m happy to still have them!

#1197: K-2SO

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

K-2SO

STAR WARS: ELITE SERIES

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By now, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to pull up the site at see K-2’s name at the top of the page.  He was by far my favorite part of Rogue One, and one of my favorite parts of the Star Wars universe in general.  I’m steadily working my way to owning every possible action figure version of this guy.  I’ve already gotten the obligatory 3 3/4 inch and Black Series figures, plus the Lego Constraction figure, and even the Pop! figure.  The line I almost always overlook is the Disney’s in-house line of die-cast figures, available exclusively at the Disney Store, but, as with Poe, I did track down the die-cast K-2 figure, which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

k2diecast2K-2 was part of the assortment of Rogue One-related Star Wars: Elite Series released back on Rogue Friday.  The figure stands about 7 1/2 inches tall and has 19 points of articulation.  If you read my Poe review, you’ll probably remember that he was in a 7-inch scale.  Now, if you reference my Black Series K-2 review, you’ll note that I gave that figure’s height at 7 1/2 inches.  No, I didn’t mess either measurement up; these two figures are the exact same size, which means this guy’s actually 1/12 scale, and thus not actually in scale with the rest of the Elite Series figures.  In Disney’s defense, in order to be in proper scale with the rest of the Elite Series, K-2 would have to be almost 9 inches tall; the materials cost alone would mean he’d have to be in his own unique price point.  At this size, he’s still about a half inch taller than Poe, meaning he won’t look horribly out of place.  The flip side of all this is that this figure is perfectly scaled with The Black Series, so if you aren’t happy with your Black Series K-2 or are unable to find that particular figure, you have a second option.  In terms of construction, K-2 is mostly metal, with plastic being used only for his head and hands.  Like Poe, this means he’s a little more restricted in terms of motion than, say his, Black Series counterpart.  However, unlike Poe, where the there were some issues with looking a little too soft due to the metal parts, K-2 seems to do alright on the details.  If anything, he’s the one figure that it makes total sense to do in die-cast, being a droid and all, and his more geometric stylings lend themselves far more to this style of figure.  Another improvement over Poe: all those pesky screws on the back now have covers.  You can still see where they are, but they stick out a whole lot less.  In terms of accuracy to the source material, I think this figure’s actually a little closer to the movie design than the Black Series figure.  The head’s certainly superior on this figure at least.  The rest you can sort of chalk cup to differences of materials.  About the only real negative is the way the neck articulation has been implemented; rather than sticking with the movie design, there’s now a trench running just above the neck, allowing you to place his head straight up, which is just the most unnatural looking thing.  In terms of paint, this K-2 gets the proper gunmetal grey finish that his other figures have lacked, and also gets the proper grey detailing on the shoulder joints.  Aside from that, though, he’s a bit of a step down from the Black Series figure, loosing out on a lot of that figure’s really cool weathering, and also getting an inaccurate Imperial logo on both shoulders.  K-2’s only accessory is a display stand, which is the same as Poe’s.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

K-2 was picked up for me by my Super Awesome Girlfriend while we were out at the mall.  I caught sight of him through the window of the Disney Store on the way to another store and made a note to go back for him, but she snuck off later and grabbed him for me.  I’m a little disappointed that he’s not truly in scale with the Elite Series not because scale matters all that much to me, but more because him being the same size as the Black Series figure now leaves me eternally wondering which one I prefer.  If you want posablity and playability, go with the Black Series, but if you just want a cool looking K-2 for the shelf (and something you can possibly fend off home invaders with), you could do a lot worse than this guy.

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#1196: Dr Z – Rubin Zellar

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

“DR. Z” — RUBIN ZELLAR

SEAQUEST DSV (PLAYMATES)

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Okay, I went slightly ‘90s with yesterday’s Cannonball and Domino review.  I went a little more ‘90s with the Superman Red review.  Today, I’m going full ‘90s.  Yes, today I tackle SeaQuest DSV. SeaQuest, to those of you that don’t know, was a sci-fi series from the early ‘90s set in the futuristic world of 2018, aboard the naval submarine SeaQuest DSV 4600.  It was a little like classic Trek, but in the water.  Its first season was very strong, and heavy on the actual science (each episode ended with Dr. Robert Ballard explaining the science of that week’s plot), and featuring a diverse and fun cast of characters.  There were two seasons after that, but it’s generally in everyone’s best interest not to talk about them.  The series was fortunate enough to get a short-lived line of toys by Playmates (the then current holders of the Trek license, no less), which covered most of the main crew, plus two of the show’s antagonists.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of the antagonists, Biochemical Terrorist Rubin “Dr. Z” Zellar from the episode “Games.”

THE FIGURE ITSELF

drz2Dr. Z was released in 1993 as part of the first and only series of Playmates’ SeaQuest DSV line.  He’s based on his early appearance from “Games,” when he’s first picked up by the SeaQuest and is masquerading as a prison warden.  He probably spends a greater portion of the episode wearing a borrowed SeaQuest science staff uniform, but that might have proved slightly confusing in the toyline, since it would have made him look like an actual member of the crew.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall (putting him in the same scale as Playmates’ Trek line) and has 14 points of articulation.  While the Trek figures all got saddled with those wonky v-hips, the SeaQuest figures actually got pretty traditional t-hips, and also got thigh swivels too.  Odd that the unproven show got the better treatment.  The sculpt is pretty similar to the Trek stuff in style, which is to say it’s not super ultra realistic, but it’s still a halfway decent recreation of Zellar’s look from the show.  The head sports a passable likeness of Zellar’s actor Alan Scarfe, and the general proportions are actually a little better than the Trek stuff I’ve looked at.  The standout bit of this figure is definitely the fur coat, which is surprisingly well detailed for a figure of this era and scale.  Zellar’s paintwork is pretty solid; it’s not the most exciting work, but what’s there is nice and clean, and the once again the jacket stands out with some detail work to keep it from being too drab.  Zellar was packed with a number of cool accessories, including a pick axe, a display stand, and a ….weird gun thing.  The coolest piece is the T5-6000 Cryo-Chamber, originally meant to carry Zellar, but in actuality carrying the prison warden he replaced.  It’s just a simple plastic shell with a cardboard illustration on top, but I really like it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Zellar from Yesterday’s Fun this past summer, as he was one of the two SeaQuest figures I didn’t yet have.  There’s no denying he’s a well done figure, but he’s also one of the most frustrating figures from the line.  SeaQuest was hardly defined by its antagonists, so the fact that we got two of them in place of the three missing members of the Season 1 crew, is really annoying.  “Games” is certainly a memorable episode, and Zellar’s a compelling villain, but the success of the episode hinges more on its focus on Dr. Kristin Westphalen, who was absent from the toyline (interestingly enough, she was the only of the three unreleased crew members to get a prototype, but was left unreleased for whatever reason).  Zellar’s presence in the line seems to have come at the expense of the character that would give him an actual reason to be in the line at all, which just feels rather backwards.

#1195: Cannonball & Domino

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

CANNONBALL & DOMINO

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

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Hasbro’s early days with the Marvel license were an odd time.  Truth be told, they didn’t really come into their own with the product until somewhere around Iron Man 2, which was a good three years into their run with the license.  Until then, there were some weird experiments, intermixed with just sort of copying a lot of Toy Biz’s stuff, mostly when it came to Marvel Legends.  The first two series of their Legends were almost entirely chosen and designed by Toy Biz, which gave them a bit of time to figure out some of their own stuff for the half-formed Series 3 assortment.  The first two series hit in early 2007, and the third wouldn’t hit until almost the end of the year.  Hasbro filled the gap between two and three with a handful of exclusives.  Today, I look at Cannonball and Domino, one of those exclusives.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cannonball and Domino were a Walmart-exclusive two-pack.  They were released alongside the similarly exclusive Cable and Marvel Girl two-pack in the summer of 2007, as only the third round of Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends.  Both characters were at something of a low-point in terms of relevance, but and were actually the first X-Force alumni outside of Cable and Deadpool to join the line.

CANNONBALL

cannonballdomino3Sam Guthrie is one of the more successful characters from his era of comics.  Cannonball started out as a member of the New Mutants and not only make it all the way through that series’ run, heal also transferred into its follow-up X-Force, and then moved onto the main X-Men team, where he was a pretty prominent character for a while.  He fell back into obscurity for a bit, but was recently brought on as one of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers, which seems to have gone pretty well for him.  This figure is loosely based on his first X-Force design (loosely due to the necessities of parts re-use, which I’ll touch on in a sec).  He stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 39 points of articulation.  That’s a lot of movement, but, as you can see, it’s sort of at the cost of the sculpt.  The sculpt, it should be noted, originally hails from Toy Biz’s Johhny Blaze version of Ghost Rider.  It was heralded as a great sculpt at the time, but it’s sort of specifically tailored to Blaze, since it’s skeletally skinny.  It’s not that Cannonball hasn’t frequently been depicted as rail thin (because he was for most of his early career), but this seems a bit extreme even for him.  It probably doesn’t help that when he was with the X-Force he was usually depicted as only being a little smaller than Cable.  The point is, this figure makes Sam look more than a little emaciated.  For what it’s worth, the costume details do match up surprisingly well with his X-Force togs, and there’s a lot of really fun detail sculpted into this figure.  I can get why they wanted to re-use the parts, it’s just a bit questionable, that’s all.  As far as new pieces go, Sam got a new head, which captures his slender mug pretty well, as well as a weird dicky sort of piece that slips over GR’s exposed neck and shoulders.  They do their job well enough, and also fit pretty well with the body (though the neck is a bit jarringly smooth).  One last thing about the sculpt: Sam is a testament to why you should avoid soft rubber on action figures.  There’s rubber for the upper torso, and while mine has held up okay (only two very small tears), I’ve seen others that weren’t so fortunate. The paintwork on Cannonball is decent enough.  It takes his color scheme from the comics and translates it into something a bit more consumable by the human eye.  The application is mostly pretty clean but there’s some slop here and there, especially on the white piping of the jumpsuit.  Cannonball included no accessories.

DOMINO

cannonballdomino2Domino’s not a character I really have that much affinity for, so I don’t know a whole lot about her.  She’s got luck-based powers, but it was the ‘90s so that translated to “carries a gun.”  Everything seemed to translate to “carries a gun” in the ‘90s.  Domino’s had her fair share of looks over the years (mostly because no one can make up their minds about how to draw her), and this figure seems to be based on her look from the early ‘00s.  She stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and has 33 points of articulation.  Despite all that articulation, she still can’t sit, thanks to being built on a body from Toy Biz’s period of useless hip joints.  Bleh.  She uses the body of the X-Treme Rogue from TB’s 2006 X-Men line.  It’s actually a pretty good match for the art I’ve been able to find of Domino in this costume.  The proportions are still quite on the wonky side, and don’t get me started on whatever the heck’s going on with the torso (she moves at the boobs and the abdomen?  That’s odd), but Toy Biz certainly produced worse, and Hasbro put out worse the same year as this figure’s release.  So, this isn’t awful.  The head and hands were unique to this figure.  The head is a pretty decent, no-nonsense head, and looks like the later interpretations of Domino.  The hands are sculpted to hold her guns, which is a nice thing to see on a character whose whole thing is having guns.  Domino also got a new add-on piece for her belt, which is fixed with a holster for each leg.  The holsters would probably limit hip movement, but the actual hip joints beat them to it, so not a huge loss, I guess.  Domino’s paintwork is alright.  There’s some really strong work on the head, but the jumpsuit exhibits a lot of slop, in very obvious places.  Domino was packed with a pair of pistols (I seem to have misplaced one of mine…)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When these figures were released, my dad was after the Marvel Girl from the other set.  When he finally found them, our local Walmart was already clearancing them, so he went ahead and grabbed this set as well, on the off chance that I might want it.  As luck would have it, I was still into collecting action figures that particular day, so I did want this set!  Who would have guessed?  Despite not knowing a whole lot about him, I’ve always had a soft spot for Cannonball, and this figure was no exception.  I can point to all the figure’s flaws, but I still really like him.  Domino?  She’s just sort of there.  She’s not a bad figure, but I just feel nothing about her, so she just came along for the ride.  Of course, now that I actually have a Cable, she’s not quite as out of place, so that’s good!

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#1194: First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader

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

FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER SQUAD LEADER

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

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It’s been almost a week since the last time I looked at a Star Wars toy.  And I amassed quite a number of them towards the backend of last year, so there’s just sort of this pile of them waiting to be reviewed.  Here’s one off the pile.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

fosquadleader2The First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader was part of the early 2016 Snow Gear assortment, alongside unmasked Kylo Ren and Nien Nunb).  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  In terms of construction, the Squad Leader uses the same basic tooling as the standard FO Trooper (and by extension, all of it’s deviations, reviewed in the First Order Legion set), which is sensible.  As I noted when I reviewed it before, it’s a pretty strong sculpt, and accurately recreates the First Order armor from the movie.  The main appeal of this figure is the web-gear, which is unique to this guy.  It’s a combination of the Heavy Artillery Trooper’s ammo vest with an Officer’s pauldron.  It’s different enough to keep him interesting, which I guess is the point.  Paintwork for this figure is pretty much on par with the other FO Troopers I’ve looked at.  There are some fuzzy lines here and there, but by and large he’s pretty good.  The Squad Leader includes a basic blaster rifle, as well as a much larger blaster that’s part of the build-a-whatsit.  It’s kind of a cool piece, though it’s actually taller than he his, so getting him to hold it is kind of tricky.  Still, better than a lot of the pieces included with these figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Being part of one of the later assortments of the Force Awakens line, this guy never really showed up at retail in full force.  I ended up getting this guy from Cosmic Comix during their Biggest Sale of the Year! (TM).  I like the Heavy Trooper look, and I liked this variation of it, so I got him.  Is he really different from figures I already own?  Not really, but he’s still pretty fun.

#1193: A.I.M. Soldier

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

A.I.M. SOLDIER

MARVEL LEGENDS INFINITE SERIES

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Back when Toy Biz was still handling Marvel toys, they were prone to showing off figures that would never see the light of day (and they frequently showed them after these decisions were made, because apparently someone working there just loooooved rubbing salt in wounds).  For the 13th series of Marvel Legends, dubbed “Bring on the Bad Guys,” they initially planned to pack each villain with one of the Marvel universe’s many faceless henchmen, but they were eventually cut and replaced with the Onslaught Build-A-Figure.  Seven henchmen were shown: a Skull, a Brood, a Hand Ninja, a Hellfire Club Guard, a Doom Bot, a Hydra Agent, and an A.I.M. Soldier.  The Scrull and Brood eventually were released as part of DST’s Marvel Select line, and Hasbro would release their own versions of the Hydra Agent and Hand Ninja.  When it came time to make an A.I.M. Soldier, Hasbro has switched to the smaller-scale Marvel Universe line; he was a cool figure and all, but it just wasn’t the same.  Eight years after Series 13’s release, the A.I.M. Soldier finally made his way into Marvel Legends.  That’s the figure I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

aim2The A.I.M. Soldier was released in the first series of the Captain America: The Winter Solider Marvel Legends Infinite Series.  The official title is “Soldiers of A.I.M.” which he shared with Baron Zemo (who I reviewed back when he was new).  It certainly fits him better than it did Zemo.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  At the time of his release, the A.I.M. Soldier was an all-new sculpt, but most of the body was re-used for last year’s Ghost Rider. He has a different head, obviously, depicting the signature “beekeeper’s mask,” as well as different forearms, and a unique belt.  The overall appearance is that of the classic A.I.M. design.  There are some slight discrepancies on the front of the chest and the specifics of the gloves, due to this body being preemptively designed to work for the comic version of Star-Lord released just a few months after this figure.  The discrepancies aren’t anything incredibly distracting, and there have been enough slight variations to the A.I.M. design that it doesn’t immediately jump out as being “wrong.”  Plus, it’s just an A.I.M. Soldier.  How important is it for them to be spot on?  The figure also gets an add-on piece for his bandolier, which gives him some nice extra details (and also covers up some of those inaccuracies on the torso).  In terms of paint, the A.I.M. Soldier is decent enough.  He manages use lots of yellow without looking totally ridiculous (he’s still ridiculous, but not totally ridiculous), and most of the application is pretty clean.  There’s a slight matching issue with the yellow at the bottom of the belt piece, but that’s really it.  The A.I.M. Soldier included two blasters, one large and one small, as well as right arm of the Mandroid (the same piece included with Zemo).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Mandroid Series was back when Hasbro was  still working out some of their distribution issues, and also still learning some hard lessons about case-packouts.  While I got all of the necessary pieces for the Mandroid, I never had any luck finding the two swap figures.  While I was out for my birthday last year, I found this guy at 2nd Chance Toyz.  He was loose, but I already had the BAF piece, so no big deal there.  I’m glad to finally have him, and I feel he was worth the wait.  Now, I’ll take my Hellfire Club Guard whenever you’re ready, Hasbro.

#1192: Superman Red

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

SUPERMAN RED

JLA (KENNER)

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A ways back, almost 600 reviews ago now, I tackled the wonderfully ‘90s concept of the electrically powered Superman Blue, DC’s second bid at re-inventing Superman in that particular decade.  Not long after that, I also tackled Superman Red, who was the end result of Superman Blue getting split into two different entities.  The whole thing was ultimately pretty short-lived, but it was timed just perfectly enough that both versions were still the official status quo take on Superman when Kenner launched their JLA line in the ‘90s, thus placing them in the line instead of the more conventional take on the character, and giving us the first of a handful of figures based on the designs.  Today, I’ll be looking at the hot-headed Superman Red!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

supermanredjla2Both Superman Blue and Red were released in the first series of single-carded JLA figures.  However, while Blue was also available in the first boxed set of figures, Red was exclusive to the singles (and is the only figure from Series 1 to be so).  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation for the time.  JLA was largely a way for Kenner to reuse their old Total Justice molds another time (though later assortments would steadily add more and more unique pieces to get a few more characters not released in Total Justice), so it’s not really a surprise that Superman Red was a total re-use.  That being said, he was certainly a more uneventful re-use than some of the other figures.  Most of the first series were just simple repaints of their TJ counterparts, but since Superman’s design had changed more than a little, they had to Frankenstein him a bit to get as close as possible.  He (along with Superman Blue and the evil Hardlight Superman from the second boxed set) uses the torso, arms, and legs of the Total Justice Superman, with the head from Man of Steel’s Hunter Prey Superman (the one packed with Doomsday).  The result is close enough…if you squint.  The body still has the belt, shorts, and boots of the original figure, just painted over as if they aren’t there, which is certainly odd, but not too horribly distracting.  What is distracting is the head’s painting over the clearly defined edges of the head gear, giving him these obvious lines running down his cheeks and across his forehead. Sure, the paint application’s clean for what it is, but what it is is a flagrant disregarding of the actual sculpted material.  On the plus side, he’s a nice, bright red, which means he really pops on the shelf.  So, that sorta makes up for it, right?  JLA figures were usually pretty light on the accessories, but Superman, like the rest of them, includes a display stand.  It’s even in red.   There’s also a cover on the back of his box which can be cut out and placed on the back of his stand.  It’s JLA #7, which is kind of an odd choice, since not only is Superman Red not on the cover, he’s not in the issue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was never much of a fan of Superman Red or Blue growing up.  It was sort of a weird period of time, and all the Superman merchandise was one of these two, and it felt wrong to me.  So, I didn’t have this figure or his blue counterpart (I did have the Hardlight one, though), and instead waited for the proper classic Superman later on in the line.  As time as gone by, I’ve gotten lots of classic Supermen, and now I have this weird nostalgic twinge for these designs.  I found this guy in the bargain bin at this nearby comics and games store called Player’s Choice, and he called to me.  He’s sort of a goofy figure, but it was a goofy concept to begin with.

#1191: Ripley & Newt

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

RIPLEY & NEWT

ALIENS (NECA)

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Here we are at the finish line for the 2016 post-Christmas reviews.  I’m ending things the way I finished them: Aliens!  It’s hardly the Christmas season without a good helping of Aliens merch!

NECA’s a company generally known for doing the “impossible” when it comes to action figure licenses.  When they started off their Aliens line, Hicks, Hudson, and Bishop were the only guaranteed likenesses, and Ripley was most definitely not on the table.  That is, until she was.  But NECA swore up and down there was no way we were getting a Newt figure.  Not only was the likeness not available, but her unique sculpt would make her less than realistic for the line.  No way she was happening.  Until she did.  Yep, during last year’s big Alien Day celebration NECA and actress Carrie Henn unveiled the Newt figure.  She was set for a SDCC release, which made some collectors a bit worried, but NECA assured fans that everyone who wanted a Newt would get one.  They finally made good on that promise, albeit in a slightly roundabout way.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Ripley and Newt were released as part of the “Rescuing Newt” two-pack, which is sort of the last major hurrah of the Aliens anniversary product.  It was originally supposed to hit in November, but was pushed back until right before Christmas.

RIPLEY

ripleynewtneca2While clearly not the main focus of this set, NECA used this as an opportunity to get the Aliens Ripley out there one more time, for fans who missed her Series 5 release.  However, for those of us that have been faithfully following the line, they made her different enough to not feel like a total repeat.  The first figure depicts Ripley towards the beginning of her journey into the hive, and this one depicts her closer to the end.  I’ve looked at about 90% of this figure twice before; she shares everything below the neck with both the Series 5 Ripley and the TRU-exclusive Kenner Ripley.  I loved the sculpt the first time, and I loved it the second time, and I still love it the third time.  NECA really nailed the details for this look, and I can hardly blame them for wanting to get as much milage out of these pieces as possible.  But enough about the old, what about the new?  Well, Ripley gets a unique head sculpt, which reflects her more dilapidated appearance late in the film.  The hair’s a lot more pressed to her head, the eyes more tired, and the mouth ever so slightly open, showing she’s catching her breath after kicking all that Xeno butt.  I gotta say, I was a little underwhelmed by the sculpt when I saw it in the package, but after taking it out and looking at it from a few different angles, I’e warmed up to it.  The Series 5 version is still my preferred look, and has the better overall Weaver likeness, but this one’s a solid runner up, and, if nothing else, fixes the minor issue of the neck looking a bit underscaled on the last two uses of this body.   As similar as the two may look, the paint work on this figure is also a bit of a change from her Series 5 counterpart.  ripleynewtneca4The basics are all pretty much the same, but the stains on her clothes have definitely intensified from the last figure.  In particular, I think the sweat stains on the shirt look a bit more realistic this time around, which now that I’ve typed it out seems like a very strange compliment to pay something, but there it is.  My one complaint about the figure is something I feel certain is confined to my figure: they pupils are off center from each other, which makes her look a bit cockeyed from certain angles.  It’s not the worst thing ever but you can see it a bit in the shots here.  This Ripley includes the same flamethrower/pulse rifle combo from the first figure, but this time she also includes a nifty flame effect attachment, which is a nice touch that could have very easily been overlooked (it’s also compatible with Frost and Windrix’s flamethrowers as well, which makes it extra fun).

NEWT

ripleynewtneca3Let’s be honest, nobody was really buying this set for the Ripley figure (okay, that’s probably not true….)  The real star here is Rebecca “Newt” Jorden.  The set’s named after her and everything. This figure is a pretty straight re-release of the SDCC version (which is exactly what we were all expecting and what most people wanted).  Of course, I never got the SDCC version, so she’s all-new to me.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 26 points of articulation.  Her sculpt is a pretty solid one.  The face sports a strong Carrie Henn likeness, and the hair’s pretty not-terrible, which is quite a compliment when it comes to long, sculpted hair.  The body feels a touch too lanky to me, but it’s not like it’s really far off, just ever so slightly.  The incredible level of detail seen on the clothes more than makes up for it.  Everything’s got texture on this figure, and it really looks like she’s the character from the movie.  The only slight inaccuracy I noticed is that the tear on the right shoulder of her shirt isn’t quite as large as it is in the movie, and let’s be honest, that’s reaching pretty far.  One area where things could maybe be just a little bit better is Newt’s paint.  It’s far from bad, but there are a few sloppy spots, especially on the transitions from skin to clothing on the knees and wrists.  Her shoes are also not really symmetrical, with a lot of the paint on ripleynewtneca6her left foot missing sculpted lines almost completely.  Of course, each foot is about half an inch in size, so it’s not like it’s the end of the world.  Apart from those issues, the work is generally pretty good, and she’s at the very least on par with Series 1-3 of the line, so she’s not going to stick out or anything.  The SDCC version of Newt included her doll Cassie’s head, Hick’s helmet (which she’s seen wearing in one scene), a flashlight (just like the one included with Bishop), and her citizenship award that the Marines get her name from.  For this figure, everything but Cassie was cut.  While the other extras were certainly cool, Cassie’s really the only essential accessory for Newt, and this way, those that spent extra money on the SDCC version still get a few unique items.  I mean, it’s gonna eat at me from now until the end of time that I’m missing those three pieces, but such is my life.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had originally hoped to be able to get the SDCC version of Newt after the con, as NECA usually finds a few ways of distributing their exclusives, but for a number of reasons, they were unable to do that this year.  This was sort of freaky, because there was something of a delay between the SDCC figure hitting and NECA confirming exactly how they were planning on getting more Newt figures out there, and I almost caved and bought a marked up Newt more than once.  Fortunately, they finally announced this two-pack, and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.  This set ended up being a Christmas present from my parents.  It didn’t actually arrive in time for Christmas morning, but it made it just a few days later, which gave me one last little burst of present opening.  Yay!  This is a pretty great way of not only getting Newt to retail, but also offering up another chance for people to get Ripley.  Both figures are strong additions to the line, and I’m beyond thrilled to add Newt to my collection (and, as an added bonus, now I’ve got an extra Ripley to pilot the Power Loader!)

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