Category Archives: Reviews

#3800: Whirlwind

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

WHIRLWIND

IRON MAN (TOY BIZ)

“A mutant born with the power to spin at superhuman velocities, Whirlwind delights in using his special talents to terrorize others-first as the neighborhood bully, and now as a powerful costumed Super Villain! Volatile and brutal, Whirlwind doesn’t really care what target the evil Mandarin sends him to destroy-he’ll obliterate it in an instant with maniacal glee!”

We’re back with the Iron Man reviews today, specifically of the Toy Biz variety because that’s what I like to do. I’m keeping things rolling with the antagonists, I suppose. Today’s entry is Whirlwind! It’s worth noting that despite the show’s insistence on sticking purely to Iron Man villains, not filling in with more interesting villains, Whirlwind’s actually not really an Iron Man villain at all, and is instead an Ant-Man and Wasp villain, but I guess Iron Man just sort of takes what he wants. It does seem kind of cruel to steal from Ant-Man, but, you know, that’s just Tony. He’s a bit cruel. This was Whirlwind’s very first action figure, which was pretty cool for him, so let’s take a look at it!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Whirlwind was released in the second series of Toy Biz’s Iron Man toy line. He’s based on his animated incarnation, which was in turn based on his classic costume, more specifically his second costume design after he added the chain mail and also added a shirt. Thank you for that, Whirlwind. The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation. The articulation on this one is kind of interesting because it’s a sort of a mix of unique and kind of basic. He loses the knee joints, which had become fairly standard of this point, but has disc and peg shoulders. The shoulders are rather loose in order to facilitate his action feature. He also has a waist swivel, but again it’s restricted to facilitate his action feature and isn’t really much for posing. His sculpt is pretty much on par with what we expected from the line. He is a little on the bulky side, but also not bad for Whirlwind. The chainmail detailing is actually pretty good. The hands and feet seemed rather large, and conversely the helmet feels a little small, like it might be difficult to fit an actual head underneath. The face plate is also definitely giving like more ironron Man vibes than Whirlwind usually did, but it’s not bad. Whirlwind’s paintwork is pretty decent, and pretty basic. It’s really just the silver applications. His hands are a little bit more prone to chipping, which is a little bit of a bummer, but not the end of the world. Whirlwind is packed with two removable wrist sawblades, which are super easy to lose, but also super cool. as well as an ID card like the other non-armored characters in the series. Whirlwind has a spinning feature; turning his waist a number of times and then pressing the button on his back to release it will cause his upper half to spin. It works okay, but it does cause some issues with posability.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually got Whirlwind back close to the original run. I’ve brought up Ageless Heroes a few times on the site. It was a comic store, not too far from where I grew up, that went out of business in ’99/’000. They had a lot of Toy Biz Marvel figures and had they put them on pretty deep discount. So, I picked up a lot of them at the time. This one in particular was sort of consolation prize. The Avengers: United They Stand figures have just been released and were very hard to find at first. After a failed trip trying to find them, my dad took me to Ageless Heroes where I picked out this guy. He’s not perfect, but he’s pretty cool and I do really like him. And, it’s not like there’s a plethora of Whirlwind figures out there.

#3799: Tatooine Skiff (with Luke Skywalker)

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

TATOOINE SKIFF (with LUKE SKYWALKER)

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (HASBRO)

“Over the arid Western Dune Sea on Tatooine, Jabba the Hutt sentences his victims to be cast into the maw of the mighty Sarlacc, much to the raucous amusement of his palace minions. In the final attempt to escape from the clutches of the vile crime lord, the Rebel heroes launch a surprise attack. And so…the daring confrontation aboard the Tatooine skiff ignites!”

While I’m very much all-in on the figures for Power of the Force II, I don’t much review the vehicles.  This is partially because I don’t go out of my way to buy the vehicles (they take up a *lot* more space than the figures), and partially because I don’t usually enjoy reviewing the vehicles.  But, I do occasionally jump in with a vehicle, especially the ones on the smaller side, and especially if they had a unique figure.  So, here’s a vehicle that’s on the smaller side that had a unique figure!

THE ITEM ITSELF

The Tatooine Skiff was added to the Star War: Power of the Force line in 1999, at that point officially under the Hasbro brand, following Kenner officially being dissolved.  The set was released exclusively at Target, and paired off the skiff seen in the Sarlacc sequence of Return of the Jedi with a Luke Skywalker variant not available elsewhere.  The Skiff measures about 12 inches long.  It doesn’t really have “articulation,” but it has a number of moving parts and features.  There’s landing gear, which is useful for keeping it not falling over, which you can release using the lever at the top.  The rails on the sides breakaway to simulate damage, and there’s also a button to launch one of the floor panels upward, sending a figure flying.  And that’s all without getting into the plank that Luke is made to walk, which has it’s own flip-down feature, should you choose to murder your Luke Skywalker in such a way.  It’s a lot of features, honestly, and a reminder that this mold wasn’t actually developed by Hasbro (whose vehicles tended to be a bit more collector oriented as we went along), but was in fact a re-use of the vintage Kenner molds, like a lot of this line’s vehicles.  It’s not a bad sculpt at all.  It’s a good match for what we see on the screen, it’s well scaled to the figures, and the gimmicks and features don’t mess with the appearance too much.  There are certainly some parts that are a little flimsier, but it’s generally solid.  There were two colors available; green and tan.  Mine’s the tan one, but the differences were ultimately minor.  The paint work’s not bad; there’s plenty of simulated wear and dirt, which feel right for a thing that’s been out in the desert.

The included Luke is another take on Jedi Luke, which is unsurprising.  He was about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  It’s actually not a bad set-up for movement, since he gets proper knees, and a swivel at the waist and on the right wrist.  His parts consisted of a mix of old and new, with the head shared with all of the later-run Jedi Lukes, and the arms shared with the Complete Galaxy Luke.  The torso, pelvis, and legs were new, and the right had was tweaked to feature the damage to the back of it, which Luke gets during the skiff braw.  Not while he’s on *this* skiff, but still.  It’s a very scene specific Luke, but ultimately a pretty serviceable one.  His paint’s minor, but not bad.  Application’s mostly pretty clean, with only some minor slop on the change-over from his left hand to his sleeve.  He’s packed with his lightsaber, which seems like a solid choice.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Not being much of vehicles guy, I really only had the basics for this line as a kid.  That didn’t include this one.  I got this, I want to say, sometime in late 2018/early 2019?  It came into All Time, and I was just starting my real push to go completist on the line.  I’d already gotten the skiff guard cinema scene set, so I felt like having the actual skiff might not be the silliest thing.  And it’s not.  It’s fun little piece, though it’s really more display than toy.  And, there’s a neat Luke Skywalker variant too!

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3798: Robot ro-K

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

ROBOT RO-K

CUBOYDS (STIKFAS)

Back at the turn of the millennium, action figures were getting a bit experimental again.  The concept of building your own figure was definitely one of those experiments, undertaken by a number of different companies, for a number of different products.  Stikfas, a line of 3 1/4-inch figure kits each put together around a general theme or idea, took the collecting world by storm for a couple of years, eventually even getting the attention of Hasbro, who licensed the brand and even used a lot of its elements for their own in-house brand Xevoz, which I looked at late last year.  Stickfas themselves were sold completely unassembled, in straight molded colors, relying on stickers for detailing, but as the line became more successful, the company dabbled in some pre-assembled and pre-painted figures.  One such creation was Cuboyds, which used the same general assembly, but were, as expected, more squared off in nature.  Here’s one of those.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Robot ro-K was released in the third series of Cuboyds, which was a whole series of robots.  That sure is fun!  Cuboyds were a little smaller than Stikfas, so this guy’s about 2 1/2 inches tall, and he’s got 14 points of articulation.  Like Stikfas and Xevoz, Cuboyds were built entirely on ball joints, which makes this guy quite poseable, and capable of all sorts of goofy robot poses.  His body is very blocky and boxy, as was the intended design.  It’s the exact same mold that all of the Cuboyds used, with no deviations or frills.  It’s got its limitations, especially if you catch one of the hard angles up against one of the joints, but I do dig it’s quirky and simple assembly.  The first two series of Cuboyds followed in Stikfas footsteps, providing a set of stickers to put on a blank body.  This series marked a change, with all four figures getting actual, proper painted details.  ro-K is primarily black, with red feet, and his actual detailing is patterned on a classic wind-up robot.  Of the four offered, ro-K’s always felt like the most refined of the details, and there’s actually quite a lot going on.  It works very well with his boxy sculpt, and the application was all pretty solid.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I somehow managed to miss Stickfas in their earliest run.  I was ultimately introduced to them after they’d left Hasbro.  They routinely set-up a table at Baltimore Comic Con, and that was how I got hooked on my first proper set.  I loved that, and, the next year, I wound up going back with a list.  This guy wasn’t on that list, but he was sitting on the table, and I couldn’t say no.  He just really speaks to me, even now, which is probably why, all these years later, he’s the only one of them still in any condition to be reviewed.

#3797: The Tick

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

THE TICK

LONGBOX HEROES (FRESH MONKEY FICTION)

SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!

Yesterday, I took a look at a direct continuation of Kenner’s Super Powers, but today I’m returning to a more indirect continuation.  Early last year, I looked at a few figures from Fresh Monkey Fiction’s Longbox Heroes, a line of independent comic book characters done in the Super Powers style.  While a follow-up to that set is still forthcoming, I only ended up getting a few of the figures from the first one, so there are still plenty for me to potentially pick-up.  There were three Tick figures in the first set, and I had two of them.  The one I didn’t have was the basic Tick, so here he is!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Tick is figure 7 in the first series of Longbox Heroes.  Like all of the non-Rocketeer figures, he was released in March of last year.  There are two Ticks in the line-up; this one is more patterned on the character’s earlier appearances, and is a bit more basic in his approach.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Like the rest of the line, he’s got a sculpt courtesy of Jason “Toy Otter” Geyer.  From the neck down, it’s the same as the other Tick, which is a solid, clean sculpt that captures both the Tick’s usual depictions and the Super Powers aesthetic.  The head is unique, and sports an expression that’s a little more reserved than the big toothy grin from the other release.  It still very much feels like the same character, though, and while it’s not my preferred take on the character, it still works well.  In terms of coloring, this Tick is darker than the other version; it’s more comic than animation, and definitely works a bit better with the more resigned expression.  Tick is on the lighter side, getting only a display stand as his accessory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I sure do love me some Super Powers and I sure do love me some Tick.  I also sure did love me the figures I already got from this line.  So, that’s a great recipe for me being invested in this figure.  That said, when the preorder period was running for these, I opted to go with Disguised Tick, because I liked the general set-up of that one a little more.  That said, I still kinda wanted one after the fact, so when a loose one landed in front of me a few weeks ago, I took that rare opportunity to own another Tick figure.  I think I still prefer the Disguised overall, but more Tick is always a good thing.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3796: Green Lantern – Hal Jordan

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

GREEN LANTERN — HAL JORDAN

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“Hal Jordan’s life was changed twice by crashing aircraft. The first time was when he witnessed the death of his father, pilot Martin Jordan. The second was when, as an adult and trained pilot himself, he was summoned to the crashed wreckage of a spaceship belonging to Abin Sur. Abin explained that he was a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an organization of beings from across the cosmos, armed with power rings fueled by the green energy of all the willpower in the universe. Upon his death, Abin entrusted his ring and duties as the Green Lantern of Earth’s space sector to Hal Jordan.”

I’m angling a lot more towards “comfort” reviews these days, so expect more of that, I guess.  That manifested in a Toy Biz Marvel review yesterday, because I’ve got plenty of those, and they make me happy.  Continuing on things that make me happy, I’ve got a whole stack of McFarlane Super Powers figures, and I genuinely can’t believe that’s where we are, but it is.  My favorite vintage Super Powers figure was Green Lantern, whom I’d already reviewed, but McFarlane did a remake of that one, so, you know what, here’s that one!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Lantern – Hal Jordan was released in the sixth assortment of McFarlane’s Super Powers line.  It was the first assortment of 2024, and he paired off with the previously reviewed Sinestro.  He was the line’s second GL, and the first under the “new” style that is actually the old style.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  In a departure for this line, Hal is actually slightly *shorter* than his vintage counterpart.  Not by much, but it’s there.  Hal’s sculpt, courtesy of Owen Oertling, is designed as a replica of the vintage Kenner one.  It’s actually a pretty close match.  If anything, it takes him a little closer to the Jose Garcia-Lopez illustrations than the original.  I quite like it.  It’s a good, solid update.  In terms of coloring, he’s completely painted, which is an interesting set-up.  His color scheme is the same general look as Kilowog, with the more muted shade of green.  It’s got more of that Super Friends shading, which is a vibe I can certainly appreciate.  Hal is packed with his power battery, which, like the main mold, is modeled on his original, while being slightly different.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Obviously, I’m a bit of a late convert on the McFarlane Super Powers, so I wound up missing this guy at retail.  A lot of people did, as it turns out, which means that this figure is currently more expensive than his vintage counterpart, which is quite an interesting turn of events.  I was thankfully able to get a good deal on a loose one through All Time, which was a good thing, because I really do like this one a lot.  I loved the original, and I love this one too, and I love them for similar, but different reasons.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3795: Blizzard

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

BLIZZARD

IRON MAN (TOY BIZ)

“A once-brilliant scientist driven insane when he tested his portable cold generator on himself, the man now known as the Blizzard has become the twisted enemy of all that is decent. Possessing the ability to create untold amounts of ice and snow with a single thought, the Blizzard always has a chilly reception ready for those who would oppose him-particularly his arch-enemy, Iron Man!”

Okay, let’s jump back into the Iron Man villain well, I suppose!  Last week was Whiplash Blacklash, who’s always been sort of forgettable.  Today it’s Blizzard, who’s not as forgettable in general, but is minorly forgettable in the sense that most people don’t know there’s actually two of them.  The full face mask and generally similar designs don’t really help matters there.  Nor does the fact the cartoon the Iron Man line was based on identified Blizzard as one guy, while the toy identified him as another.  Hooray for confusion!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blizzard was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s Iron Man line, as one of the three “antagonist” figures.  He’s an adaptation of Blizzard’s animated design, which was a pretty good, solid “classic” Blizzard design.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  His movement is pretty decent for the era, though it’s not revolutionary or anything.  The sculpt was new at the time (though it saw re-use later down the line for Dormammu of all characters), and it’s generally okay, apart from one odd quirk.  The general build and layout of the costume elements certainly works, but, for some reason, he kinda looks like he has two left feet?  Guess he’s not much of a dancer.  His paint work is limited to a bunch of white on blue plastic.  It honestly works pretty well, though, so it’s pretty striking.  Blizzard is packed with an ice glove attachment for his right hand, an ice cane, and an identification card.  Generally, it’s a nice selection of extras.  He also gets an action feature; much like a number of the earlier Wolverine figures, he has a little thumb-hold on his back, so you can move him at the waist, which will swing his arms up and down.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve always liked Blizzard pretty well, and I especially liked him in the cartoon.  I didn’t get this one new, but I got him *relatively* close to new.  I found him loose at a toy show, in the early ’00s.  He didn’t have any of his accessories, but he worked for my purposes at the time.  I just got the chance to complete him a few weeks ago, when a complete one came in through work.  Aside from the slightly odd foot sculpt, he’s a really nice, pretty basic figure.

#3794: Weequay Skiff Guard

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

WEEQUAY SKIFF GUARD

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

Oooooooooh, every party has a pooper, that’s why we invited Wequay!  …sorry, do we not all just spontaneously break into quotes from Robot Chicken?  Is it just me?  Yeah, actually, that tracks.  Well, in my effort to get through more of the many, many unreviewed Star Wars figures in my collection, we’re jumping into another one, specifically of the Power of the Force variety.  So, here’s the aforementioned party pooper, Weequay (Skiff Guard)!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Weequay Skiff Guard was added to Kenner’s Star Wars: Power of the Force line-up in 1997.  He initially predated the Freeze Frames, but was one of the figures to be rereleased with one later.  However, Weequay is by far the rarest of the Freeze Frame releases, so it doesn’t really turn up much.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  Weequay got an all-new sculpt, which is honestly a pretty good one.  He’s got a fair a bit of pre-posing going on, largely to aid in holding his force pike.  It’s actually pretty dynamic, but doesn’t make him any trickier to stand or anything.  The detailing’s pretty solid; the costume elements are pretty sharp, and the face manages to get that “idealized” version of the mask from the movie, so it’s accurate, but also a little less goofy.  Weequay’s color work is sort of subtle, in that it’s got a bit more going on than you might expect.  It’s a lot of brown, but there’s also some slight blue, and a fair bit of accent work.  The paint work’s all fairly clean, and the sculpted details stand out nicely.  Weequay is packed with his force pike, as well as a brown blaster, for, like, options, I guess?  He can’t actually really hold the blaster, what with the pre-posing for the pike, but you know, I guess there’s the extra?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My most notable exposure to Weequay is in the Robot Chicken Star Wars Specials, where he serves as Boba Fett’s sidekick for a set of running skits (and where the sing-song-y bit from the intro originated).  Beyond that, I don’t know a ton about him, because, well, what’s to know?  I got this guy back in 2018, I think?  I used some Christmas money from my Grandmother to buy a bunch of PotF figures, because I was feeling a touch nostalgic.  He’s actually quite a nice figure, and my favorite of the whole skiff sub-set.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3793: Super Don

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

SUPER DON

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (PLAYMATES)

“Out of the mystery of the midnight sewers swoops Super Don, the night Ninja crusader with a secret identity. That’s right, kids! No one knows who this Teenage Mutant Ninja Good Guy really is. His past is shrouded in the secrecy of sewers and cloaked in the aroma of a double anchovy pizza. All we know for sure is that this half-shelled hero hates the Foot Clan with an unbridled passion, and his fiercest foes are Rhinoman and Mighty Bebop. When the sewer signal beckons, you know that Super Don is just a bat wing away. His favorite weapon is the batty boomerang wrist launcher. Ready to answer distress calls on the pizza hotline, Super Don’s got the gear and the guts to deliver justice – even in the dark! The mystery continues with Mr. Pole, Super Don’s saucy sidekick and part-time butler. Perhaps we’ll never know who these dynamic dudes really are – but have you ever noticed, you never see Super Don and Donatello together?”

Well, Playmates sure did a lot of my work there for the intro, didn’t they?  Just a whole novel of information there.  Right, so outside of the in-universe bio, what’s the deal here?  In 1993, as the latest in a run of wacky thematic variants of the Turtles to keep the TMNT line fresh, Playmates released the “Sewer Heroes”, which dressed a Donnie and Mikey up as super heroes, facing down super villain versions of Bebop and Rocksteady.  They were pretty rare at the time, and have subsequently seen a couple of reissues, once in 2016, and again in 2022.  I don’t really have rare vintage Turtle money, but second reissue of a rare vintage Turtle is far more doable.  So, here’s Super Don!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Super Don was released as part of the Retro Reissue portion of Playmates’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line in 2022.  All four of the original figures were put into a “4-pack”, but as with most of the recent TMNT 4-packs, they’re actually four separately packaged figures in a white shipper box.  The figure stands just under 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  He’s a pretty standard assembly for the vintage line.  Not super posable, but decently posable for the time.  He’s got a little bit of pre-posing, but generally nothing crazy.  It takes the standard Donatello, and throws him into spandex, which, honestly it does pretty well.  The gloves in particular are pretty cool, with the extra folds and flair.  He’s also got a cape, which is a neat and drapey, and has a neat sculpted turtle shell pattern to it.  Super Don’s color work is on the darker side, kind of leaning into a bit more of a dark knight, kinda Batmany sort of vibe.  It’s greens and purples, which works well for the Donatello aesthetic.  Super Don is packed with a “T-shield”, a wrist launcher, and a miniature Tad “Sidekick” Pole figure.  They’re all in the same color of plastic, but it’s at least a neat translucent orange.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t go crazy on Turtles, of course, but I do like Donatello and I do like super heroes.  When he was in a 4-pack, I wasn’t really about it.  But, he got traded into All Time on his own, and Max pulled him to the side for me, because, you know, it’s Donatello, and I didn’t have it.  He’s neat.  I don’t know that it’s like, top tier for me or anything, but it’s neat.

#3792: U.S. Airman

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

U.S. AIRMAN

WAR HEROES – WORLD WAR II (*NOT* LION ROCK)

Okay, let’s have a history lesson.  But, like, not the sort of history lesson you might expect from a review with “WWII” in its title.  I mean, yeah, sure, that’s very important history and all.  Especially now.  But, it’s, like, not my expertise?  And it’s very scary.  So, I’m focusing on a less scary sort of history that I know about.  And that’s toys.  Right, so in 1964, Hasbro invented the action figure with G.I. Joe.  It was a smash success, which of course meant there were lots of imitators.  One of those imitators was the “Fighting Yank”, produced by Mego Corp, who had, in fact, copied Hasbro’s molds, and shut down production when Hasbro threatened legal action.  Mego reformatted into their smaller scale offerings, finding success with their 8-inch licensed offerings.  At the same time, they were brought a concept for a line of military-based figures, using the smaller-scale 7-inch body developed for the Teen Titans figures.  Not wanting to incur Hasbro’s wrath again, this line was released without any reference to Mego.  Primary distribution was handled by Mego’s overseas distributors Lion Rock, whose name was also stamped on all of the figures.  The line was, confusingly, named a different name in most countries, so that’s all fun and good and super easy to track.  Is that what I’m reviewing today?  Not in the slightest.  Confused?  You won’t be, after the next episode of Soap! review on the Figure in Question!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The U.S. Airman is part of the War Heroes All Battle Equipped in World War II line, a manufacturer-less line of Lion Rock-duplicates produced in the ’80s, seemingly exclusively for Woolworth’s.  How manufacturer-less are they?  The back of the neck, where the copyright information was located on the originals, literally looks like a rasp was taken to it.  Fancy.  These figures were, more or less, direct counterparts for official Lion Rock offerings.  The figure stands about 7 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  He’s built on a copy of the Teen Titans base body, which is itself just a slightly miniaturized Mego Type II body.  It’s okay, but the hands are a bit more brittle on this copy, so there’s a crack on one of his thumbs.  The head is scaled to it as though it were an adult, and it’s honestly a pretty nice generic sort of ’40s soldier type.  He’s got an outfit that consists of a bomber jacket, khaki pants, and a pair of plastic boots.  They’re fairly consistent between the official figure and the knock-off, with the one notable change being the use of velcro on the jacket, rather than snaps.  It means things don’t stay closed as well, especially given the scale.  Otherwise, though, the tailoring isn’t too bad.  He also gets an aviation cap and a uniform cap, which both fit nicely on the head, as well as a belt, goggles, a breathing mask, a knife, and a pistol.  I believe he’s also supposed to have a clip board, but mine appears to be missing that.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I spent a lot of my time in the ’90s on the internet pouring over the same handful of toy sites, one of them being Mego Museum, which is how I learned about the existence of any of these figures in the first place.  I never really imagined I’d get one.  And, I suppose I haven’t, now have I.  Anyway, I kept that information locked away in my brain, until the day it was called upon, which was, in fact, the day a bunch of them got traded in at work and I was the guy who knew what the heck they were.  This guy was in the batch.  Since he’s a knock-off, he was cheaper, so it was even harder to pass on the opportunity to get one.  My grandfather was in the Air Force in WWII (or what became the Air Force, at least), so I have an attachment of these sorts of things, and I like that this figure even looks a little bit like he did during the war.  It’s also just kind of a nifty piece of action figure history, and I sure do love that sort of thing.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3791: Nightwing

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

NIGHTWING

BATMAN ’66 (McFARLANE TOYS)

Perhaps the most recurring moment of “didn’t see that coming” for me as of late has been the successes of McFarlane Toys with their handle on the DC license.  I mean, yeah, they had a rocky start, and there are still plenty of very iffy choices abound, but there’s also been a surprising amount of success.  I mean, of all the companies working on the Batman ’66 license, who would have guessed McFarlane would be the ones that would actually get a decent run of it?  They even ran out of actual show-based figures and expanded into other media, which is how we wound up with the opportunity to get a Nightwing figure!  Oh yeah!  Nightwing!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Nightwing was released in Series 10 of McFarlane’s Batman ’66 line.  He’s one of the line’s comics-based figures, coming from the revival comic series launched when all the licensing opened up.  Specifically, he’s from the crossover with Wonder Woman ’77, which moved the Batman cast 11 years into the future, hence the aged up Dick Grayson, sporting a “live action” version of his original Nightwign get-up.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and he has 18 points of articulation.  One of the neat things about the McFarlane Batman ’66 line is that, in contrast to the main McFarlane DC line, it’s 1/12 scale, meaning the figures can still fit in with the Mattel figures, if you’re so inclined.  That said, they’re stylistically a little different, which is to say they don’t suck.  Obviously, with this being adapted from a comics design, there’s a bit of adaptation here to make him fit in more with the actual live-action figures.  There’s a bit of a half-step there; it’s not 100% realism, so there’s something of a flair to it.  It’s honestly, pretty solid.  A little stiff, but the details are sharp, and the design looks good in figure form.  The likeness is also an okay match for Burt Ward circa the ’70s, so there’s a nice feeling of continuity.  The paint work on this guy isn’t bad.  There’s a little bit of slop on some of the changeovers, and the yellow’s a little thin in some spots, but generally things are good.  Nightwing is packed with two different punch effects, one that says “VRONK!” and another that says “CRUNCH!”  What’s “VRONK?” No idea, but I kinda dig it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I have thus far avoided the McFarlane Batman ’66 line in its entirety largely because Mattel just really burned me with their line, and I’ve not been able to really get back into it.  That said, I do really have a soft spot for Nightwing figures and I really like this particular design.  That said, I drag my feet on it a little bit.  I wound up swinging past a GameStop after lunch a couple weekends ago, and they had him, and I was feeling the need to buy a figure, so that worked out pretty well.  He’s honestly pretty fun, and I kinda want more of this line now, because it’s a lot better than the Mattel stuff.