Category Archives: Reviews

#0092: Loki & Heimdall

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

LOKI & HEIMDALL

MARVEL MINIMATES

So, the sequel to Thor, entitled Thor: The Dark World was released this past November.  I very much enjoyed the first Thor, so I was quite excited for the sequel’s release.  Well, sometimes, things aren’t quite what you hoped they’d be.  I saw The Dark World, and while it wasn’t a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, it was far from what I’d hoped it would be.  In particular, I found the villains lackluster, which is why my first review of the recently released minimates from the movie is not of Thor & Malekith, the hero and villain of the film.  I didn’t particularly need another Thor, and Malekith wasn’t interesting enough for me to feel the need to buy him.

Regardless, the movie did have its good parts, and two of the best parts are contained in this set here:  Loki & Heimdall!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Loki and Heimdall were released as part of the 53rd wave of Diamond’s Marvel Minimates line, the wave released to coincide with Thor: The Dark World.

LOKI

First up, it’s the guy you love to hate or hate to love, Loki!  Loki is presented here in his more cleaned up look that he sports for most of the movie.  He’s built on the typical Minimate body, so he stands about 2 ½ inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Loki has 4 sculpted add-ons:  Hair, coat, and bracelets.  The coat is brand new to this figure, and it’s quite well done.  All the different layers are defined well, and it looks quite sharp.  The hair and bracelets are reused.  The hair has been used a few times before, and the bracelets were last used on the Avengers version of Loki.  Loki’s main detailing is on his face and legs.  The legs have a nice subtle line work detailing the tops of Loki’s boots.  The face is fairly sharp;y detailed and has a decent resemblance of Tom Hiddleston.  Loki includes a set of Asgardian handcuffs and a clear display stand.  The handcuffs are much appreciated, as Loki spends a good portion of the film in them, and I’m really glad the clear stands have become a standard accessory.

HEIMDALL

Next, it’s the guy cancelling the apocalypse.  Wait, sorry, wrong movie.  It’s Idris Elba’s other big role this year:  Heimdall!  Like Loki, Heimdall is built on the basic Minimate body, so he’s got the usual height and articulation.  Heimdall has 6 sculpted pieces:  helmet, torso cover, bracelets, and boots.  All of these pieces are brand new to Heimdall, and all of them are expertly handled.  The ornate detailing of the armor is impressive.  The basic paint work on the sculpted parts is pretty well done.  Not perfect, but certainly passable.  Detail-wise, he has detailing on his face, arms and legs.  The arms and legs offer some nice texturing, and the face offers a rather good likeness of Idris Elba.  Heimdall includes his sword and a clear display stand.  The sword is as impressively sculpted as the rest of Heimdall, and really fits the figure well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked this set up from my local comicbook store Cosmic Comix.  I really like this set.  It’s nice to get Heimdall after he was overlooked in the first Thor movie, and Loki is definitely the best version done so far of the movie version of the character.  I almost wonder if Diamond may have done themselves a disservice packing these two together, as they are hands down the two best Minimates in the wave.

#0091: Hal Jordan

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

HAL JORDAN

GREEN LANTERN (MOVIE)

Having rounded up all of my Christmas gift reviews (barring any late gifts, I suppose), I’ll be moving back to my regularly scheduled programming of random figures from my vast collection.  A large subset of my collection is solely Green Lantern items, due to me being a really big fan of the character.  Being such a fan, sometimes I buy stuff solely because it’s Green Lantern.  That was the case with today’s figure, which hails from Mattel’s toy line to tie in with 2011’s Green Lantern movie.  It’s the basic version of the main character, Hal Jordan.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hal was released in the first wave of figures from Mattel’s Green Lantern line, which came out a few short weeks before the movie’s release.    He stands about 4 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation.    He’s based on Hal’s fully GL’ed up look from the movie.  The sculpt is passable, though the details are a bit on the soft side. The likeness on the head is pretty good, with a decent representation of Ryan Reynolds from the movie.  The paint is fine, nothing spectacular, but there’s no slop of smudges which is nice, but details like Green Lantern’s power ring are left completely unpainted.  This gives the figure a cheap look, but it’s wasn’t a “cheap” figure to buy.  Hal includes a clear green construct.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Yeah, so this figure is, well he’s not very good.  If he’d been released 10 years earlier, perhaps it’d be okay, but not for a modern day figure.  It’s cheaply made, the paint is as simplistic as possible, and he has practically no articulation, which means he’s not a very entertaining figure.  I have this figure because and only because it’s a Green Lantern action figure.

#0090: Mother of Ultra

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

MOTHER OF ULTRA

ULTRA-ACT

 

It’s the 12th and final day of my post-Christmas Review.  Which is kind of cool because I totally didn’t plan for it to be a 12 days of Christmas thing, but it kinda turned out that way.  Neat.

Today, I’m looking at the Ultra-Act line for a 6th time.  This time, it’s not an actually an Ultraman, it’s Mother of Ultra.  I feel I should point out that the name is a bit misleading.  She’s only the mother of one of the Ultramen, and it’s not even the one just named Ultraman, it’s Taro.  Mother of Taro would be more accurate.  Oh well, on to the review.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mother of Ultra was released as one of the 2013 online exclusives for the Ultra-Act line.  It’s not too different from a normal release, just a bit more difficult to get a hold of one.  She’s a little over 6 inches tall, and has 38 points of articulation.  From what I’ve seen, her sculpt appears to be pretty spot on to how she looked in her various appearances throughout the years.  Her look has remained pretty constant, but she’s had two different face designs in her appearances, so Bandai has included two different heads so you can pick your favorite.  One has softer angles and more flatly set eyes, while the other has harsher angles, a stronger jawline, and eyes on more of a slant, in a similar fashion to most of the Ultraman designs.  I personally prefer the softer of the two sculpts, but I appreciate being given the choice between the two.  The paint work is up to the usual standard of the line, which is very good.  Everything is applied very cleanly, and she looks to have no slop or missed lines.  The paint work is pretty much in par with the original Ultraman, whose paint was pretty much flawless.   Keeping up with the rest of the line, Mother of Ultra is quite well accessorized.  She’s got the extra head, an energy effect that plugs onto her wrist, a bucket of water with two handles, and 3 pairs of hands: karate chop, fists, and open gesture.  I’ve already touched on the extra head, so I won’t go into it again.  The blast effect is pretty cool, and swaps on with ease.  The bucket of water is actually an accessory for Taro, and it has one handle with his hand already attached and one without.  The hands are pretty standard for the line, and all swap out easily, and look nicely detailed.  Mother of Ultra’s the first Ultra-Act figure without an extra color timer (well, Seven didn’t have one, but he doesn’t have any color timer at all!) which is different.  I suppose Mother of Ultra’s never really needed one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mother of Ultra was purchased by me with an amazon gift card given to me by my wonderful Aunt Susan.  She’s a really fun figure, perhaps one of the most fun in the line.  I was looking forward to the figure, but I didn’t realize how great she’d be in person.  She’s one of the more pricy figures in the line due to her exclusive status, but if you can find one for a decent deal, it’s a superb figure!

BONUS MINI REVIEW!

While I was on vacation over the holiday, I stopped by a nice little store by the beach that sells lots of older toys.  They were selling a few of the old vinyl Ultraman figures, and they had a Mother of Ultra.  I picked her up for the heck of it and thought I might do a little comparison.

It’s kind of a testament to how far the figures have come over the years.  This version of Mother of Ultra appears to have been released in 1988.  She stands roughly the same height as the Ultra-Act version, and she has a whopping 3 points of articulation.  You can see that the paint has worn off, and having owned some of the vinyl figures before, I can say that was a common problem.  The sculpt isn’t terrible on this figure, though.  Sure, the proportions aren’t the greatest, but compared to stuff of the time it’s about average.  Overall, it’s a fun little figure, and I’m willing to give it a break, given that it cost me less than a tenth of what the Ultra-Act version did!

#0089: Evil Tiga

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

EVIL TIGA

ULTRA-ACT

It’s Day 11 of my post-Christmas Review, and I’ll be continuing the jump back to the Ultra-Act line that I started yesterday.  Yesterday, I looked at Ultraseven, the second Ultraman.   Today, I’ll be jumping forward to a figure from Ultraman Tiga, the first series of Ultraman after it was revived in the 90s.  I won’t be looking at Tiga himself, however, but rather his doppelganger Evil Tiga.

It’s a long standing tradition in the Ultraman universe for there to be an evil variant of the main character, and Evil Tiga continues the trend.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Evil Tiga was released as part of the Ultra-Act line in 2011.  I think.  I’m not sure, because all the copyright info is in Japanese, but near as I can tell from looking around, this guy was released in 2011.  He’s based on the character’s appearance in the Ultraman Tiga series in the 90s.  Evil Tiga stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  The articulation here isn’t quite as good as it is on the others.  In particular it can be difficult to get his legs to line up properly.  However, given that this figure was released a while before the others I’ve looked at, I’m willing to give him a bit of a pass.  The sculpt on Evil Tiga is pretty much on par with the rest of the line, though he seems to be a little bit rougher than some of the others.  I’m once again going to give him a pass, given when he was released.  The paint on the figure isn’t bad.  There’s a little bit of slop here and there, but nothing so bad as to ruin the figure.  I did notice a few scuffs around the abdomen, but I think that might have to do with the tightness of the articulation in that area.  Like with the other figures in the Ultra-Act line, Evil Tiga has a decent selection of accessories, although it seems a bit lighter than some of the others.  He includes an alternate color timer, his “Evil Barrier”, his “Evil Shot”, and 8 hands: Fists, Karate chop, open gesture, and open wide.  The color timer is pretty much just like the others, a neat throw in with little practical use.  The Evil barrier is a cool piece, and can be swapped with the color timer with relative ease.  The Evil Shot is similar to the ultra-beam included with others, but this one slips over the wrist as opposed to being attached to a hand.  The hands are mostly the same as hands used on other Ultramen, with the exception of the “wide-open” hands, which allow for some cool “evil” poses.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Evil Tiga was purchased by me using a gift card I received from my Grandmother for Christmas.  Thanks Grandmother!  I mostly picked him up given his low price compared to other figures I was looking at, and the fact that I think he’s just got a really cool design.  At the lower price, I’m willing to forgive a lot of the smaller flaws the figure has and just enjoy him for the cool toy he is.  And he’s definitely a pretty cool toy!

#0088: Ultraseven

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

ULTRASEVEN

ULTRA-ACT

For Day 10 of my post-Christmas Review, I’ll be jumping back over to the Ultra-Act line.  This time around, I’ll be looking at the recent release of the second Ultraman to have his own show, Ultraseven.

Ultraseven has the distinction of being possible the most popular of the Ultramen in Japan itself, which means he’s had multiple series and has a tendency to show up in the later ultra-series.  Most recently, Ultraseven made an appearance as the father of Ultraman Zero, one of the more recent Ultramen.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultraseven was released as part of the Ultra-Act line in late 2013.  Like the others in the line, he was a single release, not part of a wave or assortment. This is the second release of Ultraseven in the line.   He received an update for pretty much the same reasons as the original Ultraman.  Ultraseven stands just over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  Like with Taro, the joints on Seven are a bit tighter than those on the original Ultraman, which makes the figure a little bit sturdier.  Seven’s sculpt lives up to the rest of the line.  He has a lot of similarities to Taro, as he is one of the more detailed Ultraman designs.  Everything looks accurate to the character’s design on the show.  Seven’s been given a slightly more heroic build on the figure, but I kind of like it.  It makes him stand out a bit more.  The paint on Seven is probably the best I’ve seen so far in the line, but Seven also has one of the more simplistic paint schemes, so I suppose it wasn’t too hard to pull off.  Keeping in line with the other Ultra-Act figures, Seven has a nice selection of accessories.  He includes a plug to hook him onto one of the FigArts stands, two boomerangs, a slash effect for the boomerang, a spare shoulder piece and 13 hands: fists (L and R), grasping (L and R), open gesture (L and R), saluting (L and R), karate chop (L and R), a right hand for holding the boomerang by its point, a peace sign, and a right hand with a blast attached.  The plug is really only useful if you buy one of Bandai’s separately sold stands, but I suppose it’s a nice touch.  The boomerangs are slightly different; one has a slightly longer front to allow it to be plugged into Seven’s head and the other is a bit shorter to be hooked into the slash effect.  The shoulder piece is similar to the piece included with Taro and Dyna, being partially bent to allow for deeper poses at the shoulders.  The hands are all well sculpted, and swap out relatively easily, adding a lot of options for various poses.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Seven was purchased by me using a gift card I received from my Grandmother for Christmas.  Thanks Grandmother!  Seven was one of the Ultras I’d wanted for a while, but not as much as some of the others.  I was really glad to get him, and he’s a lot of fun in hand.  Bandai obviously put a lot of effort into making him one of the better figures in the line.

#0087: The Alien

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

ALIEN

ALIEN REACTION

It’s Day 9 of my post-Christmas Review, and it’s my final review of the Alien ReAction line by Funko.  If you haven’t read my previous reviews of the line and you want a little bit of backstory, go here to my review of Ripley.

I’ve saved the best for last, with this one.  Today, I’ll be looking at the title character, the Big Chap, The Alien himself.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Alien is, of course, part of the first wave of the Alien ReAction line.  The Alien only really has the one look once it’s fully grown, and that’s the look depicted here.  The Alien stands closer to 4 inches, making him a bit taller than the rest of the figures in the line, and he’s got 6 points of articulation.   While it’s fairly obviously still a sculpt from the late 70s, it’s a pretty good one.  I’d say that the alien is probably on par with Kane sculpt-wise.  The details look to correspond pretty well to the design of the creature from the movie.  The clear head dome is removable, which allows you to see the head underneath and also allows you to operate the Alien’s inner mouth.  The inner mouth works nice and smoothly, when you push down the lever-thing.  There’s not much paint to speak of on the Alien.  His teeth are painted silver, and there’s a bit of paint denoting a few of the ridges underneath of the dome.   All of the paintwork is clean, with no real slop.  The alien has no accessories, but given that it’s a larger and more complex figure than the others, that’s perfectly alright.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like all the others in the first wave, this bad boy was a gift from my superbly amazingly supportive parents.  He’s probably the best figure in the series, which is good, because he’s probably the most important.

All in all, this was a really cool line of figures.  I’d really like to see Funko tackle another series.  It’d be really cool to get Parker, Lambert and Brett so we can finally have the whole crew.  And would it be too much to ask for a set of ALIENS figures to go with them?

#0086: Ash

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

ASH

ALIEN REACTION

It’s Day 8 of my post-Christmas review, and I’m continuing my reviews of Funko’s Alien ReAction line.  If this is the first of the ReAction reviews you’ve read, go here to check out my review of Ripley, which explains the background of the line.  Today, I’m looking at the Nostromo’s science officer Ash.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ash here was a part of the first wave of the Alien ReAction line.  Ash has two looks over the course of the film, but they’ve depicted him here in the more formal uniform he wears for the majority of his time in the film.  Ash stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  Ash’s sculpt is pretty on par with the rest of the line.  It’s not bad, just simplistic, which isn’t much of a surprise, given when the figure was sculpted.  All the important details are present, but he can seem a bit bland at times.  The likeness on the head sculpt is iffy at best, but it bears a passing resemblance to Ian Holm, which is about as much as you can ask of a figure of the time.  As with the rest of the wave, Ash features a rather simplistic paint scheme.  It’s all pretty well done, and looks pretty good.  I do have one complaint, though.  They’ve painted Ash’s hair black, while Ian Holm looked to have grey hair in the film.  The black hair was also present on Kenner’s prototype, so perhaps that’s what the studio wanted.  Ash also includes the motion detector that he builds to track the film’s alien.  Like with the flamethrower, it seems a bit on the small side, but it fits the style of the line, so that’s alright.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with the rest of the series, I received Ash as a (slightly late) Christmas gift from way-too-supportive-of-my-crazy-habits parents.  Ash probably takes second to last place as far as my line-up of the wave goes, but that’s not a bad thing.  He just suffers from a slightly blander design than, say, the Alien or Kane in his space suit.  Like Dallas, Ash adds a lot to the wave as a whole, and I’m sure will go over well with fans of the film.

#0085: Kane

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

KANE

ALIEN REACTION

For Day 7 of my post-Christmas Review, I’ll be taking a look at another figure from the first wave of Funko’s Alien ReAction line.  For the details of how this line came to be, go ahead and read up about it in my review of Ripley.

Today, I’ll be looking at the Alien’s first true victim, Kane.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kane was part of the first wave of the Alien ReAction series.  Kane has a few looks over the course of the film, but they decided to depict him in his space suit from the scenes where the crew explores the planet.  It’s probably the best choice for a character like Kane, as most of his key scenes occur on the planet surface.  Kane stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  Kane probably has the best sculpt in the line, and it’s a pretty good sculpt even by today’s standards.  The suit has texturing on pretty much every surface of the figure, which is certainly impressive.  While the facial likeness isn’t anything amazing, I was actually surprised by how much of John Hurt I could see in it, which is really neat.  The paint is once again on the simple side, but it does its job, and looks appropriate to what the figure’s going for.  Kane’s only real accessory is his removable helmet, which is really cool.  It clicks on well and stays in place without much issue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like with Ripley and Dallas, Kane was a gift from my super awesome parents.  He’s definitely a top contender for best in the wave, and he’s just a lot of fun in general.  I’m hopeful that Funko decides to continue the line so that we can get Lambert and Dallas in their accompanying space suits.  I feel like Kane’s a figure that you could enjoy even if you aren’t a big fan of the style.

#0084: Dallas

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

CAPTAIN DALLAS

ALIEN REACTION

Day 6 of my post-Christmas Review!  Continuing the theme from yesterday, it’s the next figure from the first wave of Funko’s Alien ReAction line.  For the full story on how the line came to be, check out my review of Ripley.

Today’s figure is the Nostromo’s  ill-fated captain, Dallas.  Let’s see what that’s about!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dallas was released as part of the first wave of the Alien ReAction line.  He’s depicted in his jacketed look he sports for a fair bit of the film.  He stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  Like with Ripley, he doesn’t have a super detailed sculpt, but since it’s a sculpt from 1979, that’s okay.  Of all the sculpts in the line, I feel that Dallas’s is the most dated looking.  The details are all very smooth, and the likeness really isn’t there.  Out of context, people would probably have a difficult time saying who he was.  That’s not to say the sculpt doesn’t have its merits.  The texturing on his jacket looks really good, and is more intricate than I would have expected from a figure of the time.  The paint is once again on the simplistic side, but it’s not badly done.  He has lettering on the back of his coat, which reads “NOSTROMO.”  It’s a really nice touch, and could have been overlooked, so I really appreciate it.  Lastly, Dallas includes the same flamethrower that came with Ripley.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like with Ripley and the rest of the wave, Dallas was a gift from my incredibly awesome parents.  He’s probably my least favorite in the set, but that’s not a bad thing.  I just like him less than some of the cooler figures.  Still, he looks great with the rest of the set, and he’s a cool figure if you’re a fan of the movie or of figures in this style.

#0083: Ripley

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

RIPLEY

ALIEN REACTION

It’s Day 5 of the post-Christmas Review, where I cover the figures I received during the past holiday season.  I’ve looked at one figure from the world of ALIEN before, but for Christmas I received a full set of Funko’s new Alien ReAction line.

The story behind this line is that back in 1979, when ALIEN was released, Kenner acquired the license to produce a line of figures similar to their Star Wars line.  They only released two items, a board game and a large scale version of the Alien from the film.  The Alien was pulled from shelves when it began scaring children, and when that happened, Kenner thought better of their plan to make toys from an R-rated horror film and scrapped their planned 3 ¾ inch line.  The prototypes had been shown and were well known in the toy community as one of the holy grails of unproduced figures.

Flash forward 35 years.  A small company by the name of Super 7 acquired the original prototypes and the license to make them and began taking orders for a fairly small run of the figures.  A few months later, there was a significant amount of buzz surrounding them, and it looked like they might become a very difficult to get item.  But all was well!  Longtime toymaker Funko swooped in to save the day, and partnered with Super 7 to get the figures a wide release!

So, after 35 years of waiting, the first wave of ALIEN Figures has been released.  Today, I’ll be looking at the film’s heroine, Ripley.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

So, Ripley was obviously released as part of the first wave of the Alien ReAction line.  Ripley had a few looks in the movie, but she’s shown here in her jumpsuit that she wears for the majority of the film.  She stands about 3 ¾ inches even and she has 5 points of articulation.  The sculpt isn’t super detailed, but given that it was actually sculpted in ’79, I’m gonna cut it some serious slack.  It’s not bad for the time period, though it’s difficult to see much of Sigourney Weaver in the face.  The jumpsuit looks about right for what she wore, although it doesn’t have some of the finer details that the one in the movie did.  The paint is also on the simple side, but it’s to be expected.  All of the lines are clean, and there’s no real slop to speak of, so it’s well applied.  Quite frankly, anything more detailed would look strange on this sculpt.  Ripley also includes the flamethrower she carries at the end of the film.  It’s a little bit undersized, but that once again fits the aesthetic that the figure is attempting to capture.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ripley, along with the rest of the first wave of the Alien ReAction line, was a gift from my awesome parents.  They missed being here in time for Christmas, but they arrived shortly after, and they were certainly worth the wait.

This isn’t a figure that’s going to appeal to everyone.  You’ve definitely got to have a love of the style of figure that this represents.  But, it’s a perfect style for figures from this movie, in my opinion.  It captures the feel of the time period perfectly.  Ripley may not be a perfect representation of Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal, but it’s definitely a fun little figure!