Category Archives: Reviews

#3071: Thor, Thunderstrike, & Kronan Stone Men

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

ERIC MASTERSON AS THOR, THUNDERSTRIKE, & KRONAN STONE MAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Remember when Thor actually had a secret identity?  And then he didn’t?  And then he did again, but it was a different guy?  And then he didn’t again, but that guy from before had a *different* secret identity?  Man, Thor comics is weird…

Today, we’re jumping back into the world of Minimates for just a bit, specifically looking over at the Thor side of things, with a Thor variant, a variant of that Thor variant, and a stone guy, but not that stone guy that every one knows.  Confused?  Yeah, me too.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Eric Masterson as Thunderstrike and the Kronan Stone Man were released in the 42nd Series of Marvel Minimates, with Eric as Thor swapping out for Thunderstrike in the one-per-case variant set.  The whole assortment was a split between Captain America and Thor, serving as a loose tie-in to the two characters getting their live-action films in 2011.

ERIC MASTERSON AS THOR

Introduced as a supporting player in the book, Eric Masterson took over as Thor’s human host, after Thor had been without one since he and Don Blake had split a few years prior.  Eric was a different sort of Thor, a more working class sort of character.  Also, he had a beard, which was a departure at the time…not so much any more.  This is not the first time we received an Eric Masterson as Thor ‘mate; the first one was also a variant set, released alongside the main version of Thor waaaaaaay back in Series 16.  The figure is built on the standard post-C3 base body, which stands about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Thor has seven add-on pieces, for his helmet/hair, cape/shoulderpads, arm bands, belt, and boots.  With the exception of the armbands, which, like the original Thor ‘mate, are re-used from DC’s Stargirl, and the belt, which is also from the original Thor, the pieces were new to this figure, or at the very least the wave, since there were a few shared parts going around.  Due one would assume to budgetary reasons, the original Masterson Thor used the same helmet as the standard, with only paint to replicate his signature armored mask.  This figure, however gets his own uniquely sculpted helm, with hair designed to work in conjunction with the high sitting cape.  It’s a very impressively detailed piece.  The cape itself is a somewhat impressive piece.  Prior Thor capes seemed to lack some of the grandeur of how his comics incarnations tended to look, but this one does its very best to live up to it, swooping up and out from his shoulders in quite a dynamic fashion.  It can at times make him a tiny bit top-heavy, but for this look, I think it’s worth it.   The prior Thor used a very bulky set of boots, which made posing his legs very awkward.  This figure uses the streamlined style of boot introduced with the Secret Invasion set’s Wolverine, which results in an accurate, detailed depiction of Thor’s footwear that isn’t too restricting.  Thor’s paintwork is quite nicely handled.  The basic colors are all a good match, and I quite like the way they’ve made his…torso circles (?) reflective.  By far the best part is the face that’s under that mask.  Not only is it perfectly aligned to the mask, but it also gives us a very expressive, very angry looking Masterson.  Thor is packed with one accessory: his hammer Mjolnir.  It’s the more sizable model introduced a few years prior with the Reborn Thor, but this time it has “Whosever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of THOR” written on its side.  A small, but fun change.

ERIC MASTERSON AS THUNDERSTRIKE

When it was decided that the original Thor was going to return, Marvel didn’t want to just shunt Eric off to the land of forgotten comic book characters, so a new weapon, Thunderstrike, was created for him, and he took on the name to match.  As Eric’s main identity, Thunderstrike served as the non-variant set’s anchor.  Thunderstrike, like Thor, uses seven add-on pieces.  The armbands and belt are the same ones used for Thor, and he gets a new hair piece, vest, and boots.  These new pieces are all excellently sculpted, featuring quite a bit of detailing, not always seen on prior figures.  The vest’s collar is popped up, as was Thunderstrike’s style, and his pony tail has been smartly sculpted to match.  It does make posing the head a little bit tricky, but not impossible.  The boots are designed in a fashion similar to the Thor figure, but since Thunderstrike’s boots are intentionally bulkier, they wrap a bit around the sides of the leg as well.  Thunderstrike’s paintwork is a good match for Thor’s.  It’s similarly clean, and crisp, and the differing way of handling his chest detailing reflects how things were handled in the comics.  The face is slightly different from the one under Thor’s mask, but the details make it clear that this is the same guy, just with a slightly different expression.  The cool thing is that you can swap the heads between the two, resulting in a calmer Thor and an angrier Thunderstrike, which is definitely a nice little bonus.  Thunderstrike is, unsurprisingly, packed with his mace Thunderstrike, a unique sculpt for this set.  It’s a reasonable match for the weapon from the comics, though doesn’t quite have the imposing power of Mjolnir.

KRONAN STONE MAN

The Kronan Stone Men, or as they were then known, the Stone Men of Saturn, were Thor’s very first antagonists, appearing alongside him in Journey into Mystery #83.  Though never incredibly prominent, they’ve been hanging around the Marvel Universe ever since, and, most recently, gained a little bit of notoriety via Korg, the goofy, inept stone man from Planet Hulk and Thor: Ragnarok.  Though I’ve no doubt their presence in Thor’s debut certainly played a part in getting them this slot, I’d say the biggest push to include them in this series was parts re-use. Apart from the head, which is a unique piece depicting the Stone Man’s pointier noggin, these pieces were all sculpted for prior figures.  The bulk of the pieces come from the re-worked Thing minimate from Series 37.  Technically, the hands are new, since they didn’t make it onto the production version of that figure, but they were certainly sculpted for him.  Given the similarities between the Thing and the Stone Men, the re-use is certainly sensible.  The skirt piece is from waaaay back in wave 1 of the line, borrowed from Elektra.  It’s a somewhat archaic piece, and certainly more geometric and flat than more recent offerings, but for the Stone Men it works.  The Kronans’ paintwork is decent enough.  Not particularly thrilling or anything, but that’s the Stone Men.  They’ve gone with their brown/tan coloring from JiM #83’s interiors, rather than the green from the cover.  This also allows for an easy enough conversion to a comics version of Korg, which is a nice bonus.  The Stone Man is packed with two different styles of blaster, in both large and small sizes.  Both were new to this particular figure, and the pairing allows for some different options for army building.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked these sets up, along with the rest of the assortment, from Luke’s Toy Store, back when they were new.  Though not a new figure, Eric Masterson Thor was certainly a very welcome redo, and trumps the original release in just about every way.  He may be an off-shoot variant, but he’s one of the best Thors available.  It’s always nice to get a new character, and Thunderstrike was definitely a very welcome addition to this line-up.  He perhaps lacks some of Thor’s flair, but that’s a bit by design.  A few series after introduction of the army builder idea to the line, DST seemed to hit a bit of a low point, running out of exciting choices.  The Kronan Stone Man, while not an *awful* choice was kind of a little bit that way.  Technically, it’s a fine figure, and it’s a credible character choice, but it’s really just hard to get excited.  They can’t all be winners.

#3070: Fezzik

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

FEZZIK

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (MCFARLANE TOYS)

Providing the natural pair-off to Princess Bride’s dark and brooding Inigo, is the large, jovial, and friendly Fezzik.  Fezzik is the classic jolly giant, portrayed by a real-life jolly giant, Andre the Giant.  Did I say “giant” enough?  Though author William Goldman wrote the role of Fezzik specifically with Andre in mind, he was not the first actor cast in the role.  When the film first went into production, Andre was unavailable, so the role was initially given to a relatively unknown actor by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Production stalled, and by the time it picked back up, Schwarzenegger was, well, not so unknown, and Andre was available.  But there exists an alternate reality where The Princess Bride starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, by Last Action Hero rules, a corresponding reality where Fezzik was played by Sylvester Stallone.  Crazy, huh?  Also weird to acknowledge an example of us being in the objectively better reality.  How about that?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Fezzik is a Megafig release from McFarlane’s The Princess Bride line, designed to correspond with the standard Series 1 figures.  For those of you playing at home, that means that McFarlane actually gave us the whole core cast in one shot.  No weird oddball choices or obviously missing characters.  Are…are they aloud to do that?  Well, I guess we’ll give it a try.  Fezzik stands 9 1/4 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  Right off the bat, the biggest issue with this figure is…well, how big he is.  Andre the Giant was 7’4″ tall, which, given that Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin are both right about 6′ tall, that should make this figure about an inch shorter than he currently is.  Hey, nobody ever said McFarlane was any good at scale.  In fact, it’s usually the opposite.  It’s a shock the other three were as well balanced as they were.  Ultimately, Fezzik is noticeably larger than the rest of the cast, and so is this figure.  So, he should be smaller, but he’s not, and we’ll just have to make the best of it.  Speaking of “the best of it”, despite the larger than it should be stature, the sculpt on Fezzik is probably the strongest of the figures so far.  The detailing, especially the texturing on his clothing is really top notch, and the bulk of the body matches well with Andre’s real-life build.  The head sculpt isn’t a spot-on recreation of Andre’s likeness; the hair’s a little too tidy, and the face seems a touch elongated.  That said, it captures a lot of the important elements in terms of quick recognition, and I’m especially pleased that they’ve gone with a more jovial expression for the face, as that feels far more in keeping with Fezzik as a character.  The real down turn for this figure winds up being the paint work.  It’s not terrible, but there are some notable issues.  Like the rest of the series, he’s got the side-eye going on, which is annoying.  On top of that, he’s got some fairly heavy shading on the eyes, which makes him look a bit like a racoon, as well as on the lower face.  Andre was fairly clean shaven in the film, and didn’t have any odd shading on his eyes, so the choice to do this extra shading, especially coupled with his general skin color feeling a bit paler than it should, makes him look a little spooky and sickly, which I don’t think is the intent.  Fezzik is packed with a rock (specifically the one meant to be thrown at Westley’s head), a peanut, and a display stand.  So, umm, about the peanut?  Yeah, Fezzik never actually has one.  Nor does anyone, at any point in the film.  This is a no-peanuts film.  It’s obviously a reference to Fezzik’s “Anybody want a peanut?” line, during the rhyming sequence.  But, the thing is, he doesn’t actually have one, and he’s actually just using the question to annoy Vizzini.  It’s a great scene, but, well, again, there’s no actual peanut.  Also, this peanut is, like, three times the size it should be, and looks downright ridiculous.  Why is it here?  Mostly to justify pushing the cloak off to a second release, which honestly feels rather weak.  I’d have much rather had the cloak.  I mean, what am I gonna do with this on the shelf?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

There was no way I was going to miss out on completing this particular set, and the Fezzik was included right from the get-go, with no weirdness surrounding likeness or anything, was a definite plus on getting me on-board for the whole thing.  Inigo’s my favorite, and the strongest of the set, but I think Fezzik’s a pretty strong second.  There are still some definite issues with the final release (it wouldn’t be a true McFarlane release if their weren’t), but ultimately, the good of the figure shines through them.  All-in-all, it’s a stronger set of figures than it has any right to be, and at this point, I’m just happy to have them.  I’m on board for more and will be picking up (most of) Series 2, but if the line stopped right here, I’d still be pretty happy.

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.

#3069: Inigo Montoya

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

INIGO MONTOYA

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (MCFARLANE TOYS)

While Buttercup and Westley are likable protagonists whom the story is undoubtedly centered upon, the success of The Princess Bride really lies with its supporting players, and their own respective journeys.  Perhaps the film’s most satisfying journey is that of Inigo Montoya (of “Hello my name is” fame), who begins the film as just a hired sword, albeit a terribly likable one, and finishes the story by tracking down the man who killed his father and finally gaining the vengeance he had been hunting for two decades, only to discover that vengeance is ultimately rather hollow.  It’s a powerful and impactful story, with a lot of weight to it for something that’s ostensibly a comedy.  And now he’s got an action figure, which I’m gonna take a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Inigo Montoya is the third and final figure in the first standard assortment of McFarlane’s The Princess Bride line.  Inigo’s only got the one look in the film, but it does sort of evolve in how disheveled he appears.  This figure’s rather on the cleaner side, signifying he’s from earlier in the film’s run time.  The figure stands a little over 7 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  His articulation is really just the standard McFarlane fare.  It works decently with the sculpt, and manages to not break up the sculpt too badly.  His sculpt is all-new, but as with the others in the first set, most of his sculpt will see re-use on his Series 2 counterpart.  It’s honestly a pretty solid offering.  The proportions are slightly lanky, but not nearly as gangly and awkward as Westley’s were, and the general fit together is much better.  The leg articulation works in a bit oddly, but it’s again better than Westley.  The detailing on the outfit is definitely impressive; they’ve done quite a nice job of replicating Inigo’s very worn-in attire.  The head’s got a passable likeness of Mandy Patinkin; it’s a bit caricature, but it’s fairly easily recognized.  The more dour expression certainly works here, and they’ve even remembered to include the scars on his cheeks.  The hair is a little thick and un-hair-like, but it gets the proper shaping, which certainly is the most important thing.  Inigo’s paint work is honestly the best of the bunch.  It’s still rather basic, but there’s enough detailing to make it work.  Curiously, despite Inigo generally being scruffier than Westley, this figure doesn’t get stuck with the heavy shadowing on the lower half of the face, or any scruff at all, actually.  I think it works in his favor, and the rest of the face detailing is pretty solid.  I like the slight shading under his eyes.  The two things I don’t like are the fact that the shoulder cups are molded in flesh tone, revealing the clashing color scheme when he’s posed, and, as with all of the figures, the dreaded side-eye.  As with Westley, he’s looking the opposite direction of his sword hand, and, just like Westley, this further emphasizes the general stupidness of not including alternate left hands for these two.  He does include his rather ornate sword, as well as a display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

If the very in depth introduction wasn’t an indicator, Inigo is and has always been my favorite character in The Princess Bride.  His figure was the one I was most looking forward to out of this bunch, and, in hand, I think he’s also the most impressive figure in the bunch.  Apart from the eyes thing and the lack of extra hand, this figure is a lot less hampered by issues than the others, making him genuinely just a pretty solid figure.  I definitely dig this one.

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.

#3068: Dread Pirate Roberts

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

DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (MCFARLANE TOYS)

While Princess Buttercup is the titular character of The Princess Bride, the story’s dashing hero is her love Westley, a former farm-hand, drafted into the life of piracy by the Dread Pirate Roberts (or at least a man using that name).  Westley himself adopts the title and uses it when going on his rescue of Buttercup, following her abduction by Vizzini and his crew.  Westley’s Dread Pirate Roberts attire is one of the film’s most classic looks, making it a logical choice for merchandising opportunities.  That’s not changed with the McFarlane offerings, which include Westley amongst their first assortment.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Dread Pirate Roberts is another piece of the first standard assortment of McFarlane’s The Princess Bride line.  He’s presented here in the full Dread Pirate attire, from before his encounters in the fire swamp.  While the rest of the cast’s treatment has been rather sparse, we’ve had a couple of releases of Westley, specifically in this look, over the years, including one in the very same scale courtesy of NECA.  This one is markedly more articulated than the last.  He stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  Apart from some slight limitations at the elbows, which are honestly to be expected, Westley’s articulation is decent in its range of motion.  Westley’s sculpt is all-new, though a good portion of it will be shared with the second assortment version.  It’s alright.  That’s really the best I can muster.  The individual parts have their strengths, to be sure.  The head sports a passable likeness of Cary Elwes, and the construction of the mask is well handled, with its multi-part construction.  I do miss the slight smile of NECA’s sculpt, but I suppose this expression works well enough for him.  The details of the outfit are pretty sharply handled as well.  The trouble is how it all fits together.  His neck is far too scrawny compared to the head, the articulation of the shoulders makes the arms look disjointed from the torso, and the figure’s pelvis is oddly flat and elongated.  It takes him just a step away from dashing hero, and ultimately lands a little closer to goofy caricature than it should.  The paint work is rather basic, mostly relying on molded colors for the black sections.  It would be nice to see some light variation in finish, especially for the mask, but it reads well enough for what it’s supposed to be.  The part gets the most of the actual paint work is the face.  It’s not awful, though the scruff on the face seems a little heavier than it should be.  Also, once again, he’s got the side-eye going on, which is rather limiting, and is also in the opposite direction of his sword hand, which makes posing tricky.  And that brings us to the accessories.  He’s got his sword and a stand.  It’s not bad, but it’s also very bare bones.  Once again, an alternate head without the side-tracking eyes would be nice, or, I don’t know, perhaps a left hand that could actually hold the sword?  It’s kind of a key piece of the fencing scene, and at the very least, it would allow him to point the sword in the direction the eyes are looking.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure is quite certainly the weakest of the bunch in this round.  It’s definitely amplified by there being a version of him in this scale already, but this guy’s just got issues with his assembly, to say nothing of the eye issue cropping up once again here, and then that very issue highlighting the problems with the accessories.  He’s not bad, and as with the rest of the set, he’s better than I expected, though he’s closer to the quality I’d expected than the rest of them.

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.

#3067: Princess Buttercup

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

PRINCESS BUTTERCUP

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (MCFARLANE TOYS)

There are some movies that are just undisputed classics, and The Princess Bride is one of those movies.  It’s adventurous, witty, and terribly quotable.  I think everyone will be quoting it in the future.  Or, you know, the now.  Since that’s kinda what I’m doing.  Despite its fixed placed in the cultural lexicon, the film has never been much of a merchandising juggernaut.  There have been a scant few attempts at toys over the years, mostly amounting to a bunch of orphaned Westley figures and an okay set of Funko Pops.  The first real stab at a true set of figures from the film comes from McFarlane Toys of all places.  I know, I’m just as surprised as you.  Even more surprising?   There’s actually a girl in the line-up!  Look at good old Todd, actually releasing the film’s title character, despite it’s potential to inspire serial killers everywhere.  I guess The Princess Bride is just worth that risk.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Princess Buttercup is part of the first standard series of McFarlane’s Princess Bride line.  She’ll be back again for a variant in series 2, again with the actually putting a girl toy out there.  How crazy.  This first release gives us Buttercup in her red dress that she wears during the horse ride that leads to her capture by Vizzini and his crew.  It’s the look she sports for the first half or so of the movie, and is generally one of her most distinctive, so it’s well-chosen.  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall and she has 35 points of articulation.  In a fashion typical of modern McFarlane figures, there’s a decent portion of the articulation that’s just there for the sake of it being there, with little practical purpose.  I mean, why does Buttercup need toe joints?  That said, the joints do work a little better with the overall sculpt than some of the other figures the company has put out.  Movement is fairly decent, and the joints don’t wind up breaking the sculpt too badly when used, so it’s an overall win.  Buttercup’s sculpt is all-new.  The legs and head might wind up being shared with the Series 2 Buttercup, so there’s already going to be some overlap, but it’s sensible.  All things considered, the sculpt is actually not bad.  The proportions aren’t nearly as wonky as other offerings, and the detailing on the outfit is actually pretty solid.  The lower portion of the dress is soft-goods, which better from a movement standpoint.  In terms of shaping, it has a bit too much of a train for it to be accurate to the red dress, suggesting that this might be sharing a pattern with the Series 2 wedding dress appearance.  Buttercup’s head sculpt is a respectable offering.  It’s not spot-on by any stretch, but given the generally fair features of Robin Wright, there aren’t a ton of immediate details to grab onto, which makes this sort of sculpt a good deal harder.  The straight on view gets it pretty close, but the likeness is lost a bit from other angles.  The general likeness is still certainly there, though, and it’s better than a lot of other McFarlane sculpts.  The paint work on Buttercup is generally pretty okay, apart from the one, rather glaring thing, which is the eyes.  Yes, for reasons only he can truly fathom, Todd decided to pull rank on a large number of figures currently in circulation and give them all some real serious side-eye, as opposed to the standard straight forward look.  It’s not a terrible thing, and does actually allow for a lot of character to be gained.  The trouble is, it’s very limiting.  Were it an alternate head, it would be awesome, but as the only option, it really doesn’t work.  Given that the figure’s only accessory is a stand, the extra head really would have been helpful to make her feel a little more worth the money, all things considered.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies, and very certainly one that brings me a lot of comfort, so I return to it quite a lot.  I’ve always wanted a good set of toys from it, but there’s never really been a good venue.  When McFarlane announced the license, I was skeptical, but hopeful.  Buttercup is better than I expected, that much is for sure.  That said, she’s also held back just the tiniest bit from perfection, largely by those stupid eyes, which were such an easily avoided issue, and one that will plague this whole first assortment, unfortunately.

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.

#3066: Human Torch & The Thing

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

HUMAN TORCH & THE THING

MARVEL MINIMATES


Fun Fact: In both the Specialty and TRU line-ups, Series 8 was devoted to the Fantastic Four.  No idea why, probably just crazy random happenstance, but there it is.  There were four sets in Series 8, and Reed and Sue were both packed with a villain, so you might have thought that was how the whole assortment went: FF/Villain.  Not the case. Since Namor and the Atlantean Soldier got their own pack, FF-members Human Torch and the Thing got packed together. Of course, as antagonistic as these two are known to get, there’s no reason this can’t still be a “versus” pack.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

As noted above, Human Torch and The Thing make up one of four two-packs in the eighth TRU-exclusive series of Marvel Minimates, which was released in the fall of 2010.

HUMAN TORCH

With only two ‘mates prior to this one, poor Johnny was sort of the runt of the family in terms of Minimate coverage.  Well, at least this line didn’t replace him with Herbie, right?  This particular Johnny opted for a fully “Flamed On” look, following the trend of his first ‘mate.  He’s based on the standard post-C3 body, so he’s about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Sculpturally, this Johnny was actually completely identical to his original release (and the Jim Hammond Torch from the Invaders set, for that matter).  He’s got the same hair and fiery shoulder piece.  Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?  After the completely opaque first figure, this Human Torch followed the example set by the Invaders Torch, going for a fully translucent look.  Apart from being molded in an orangish hue and featuring sculpted flame bits, Johnny is otherwise without flame-related details, instead just depicting Johnny’s FF costume. It’s a more modern way of handling Johnny’s flamed on state, similar to the way artists like Mike Wieringo depicted him in the ‘00s, which generally follows with the general overall aesthetic of this particular set of FF. The detail work is all nice and sharp, and I quite like Johnny’s sly grinning expression; very true to the character.  Johnny was packed with a pair of flame effects for his hands, as well as a blast-off stand.

THE THING

Benjamin J Grimm is by far Minimates’ favorite member of the FF. At the time of this release, he already had twice the number of ‘mates that Johnny had, and he had another two right around the corner in Series 37.  The Thing has had the most looks of all the FF members, so there are options to choose from.  This one continues the Weiringo trend of the other team members, giving us a Thing with pants. Woo.  I feel for the sake of full disclosure, I should begin this section by noting that my figure has been slightly modified (see the unmodified version here). The at-retail version of the figure made use of Ultimate Hulk’s bulked up torso piece and toros extender. From a build perspective, it was fine, but it left Ben with an abnormally long torso that just didn’t seem right for the character. Removing the extender piece alleviates some of the issue, but then his torso cap hangs over his belt. On my figure, I took an x-acto blade to the chest piece and trimmed about 1/8 of an inch off the bottom, thus keeping his torso from being so bafflingly tall.  In addition to the torso extender and chest cap pieces, Ben also features add-ons for his brow, hands, boots, and pelvis. The brow and hands are just the standard pieces that have been in use since the first version of the character; they still work reasonably well here. The boots are re-used from the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and I’d be lying if I said they didn’t look super goofy. Points for effort, though.  In terms of paint, Ben was decent enough, but not without some issues. The big problem is that the orange of his brow and hands really doesn’t match the rest of him, which looks kind of odd.
Beyond that, he’s reasonable. The blue matches with the rest of the Four, so he’ll fit in well with this set.  Fortunately for those of us who didn’t like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man feet, Ben has the tops of his boots painted on his legs, as well as a pair of standard feet in black. Sure, his feet will be a little bit tiny, but he’ll look better overall. He also includes a pair of standard hands in orange, should you wish to remove the big Thing hands, but I don’t know who would.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up this set brand new when it first hit, alongside the rest of the assortment.  Having missed out on the original FF run, these were my first go at the team in ‘mate form.  Though perhaps not my preferred take on the character, this Human Torch was a definite improvement on his original release, and fit in very well with his wave-mates.  For a multitude of reasons, this version of the Thing very much feels like an afterthought. Though all of the figures in the wave are made with parts re-use, Thing is the one most negatively affected by it. With the Series 37 version released only a few months after this one, it really felt like this one was only included here as a place holder for that one. The modification helps the figure a little bit, but he hardly feels worth the trouble. Ultimately, this ended up being one of the weakest variants of the character in the line, and a slight slip-up in an otherwise very strong wave of figures.

3065 The Fall of the Wolf:

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

HE LEFT WOLVERINE LEGALLY

THE UNCANNY SUPER MASTER [DTD NORFOLK]

When I woke up, the FIQ spy shouted, “I’m leaving, but he did not help.” Is the war still going on? I’m cooking to learn to say Valentine’s Day – have you ever seen Superstar Dennis?

SAME PICTURE

Isolation of the law. Wolkite appeared here in 1995 under the supervision of Uncanny Master, and DTD claims to be the sole sponsor of Norfolk. This could be a mistake. After all, shoes do not hurt us. You do not want to overdo it with seeds. Two Wolverine lawyers are on the board. This type is called leopard skin.  The picture is about 6 inches tall and has 6 labels. In general, this is a good group, but it can also be difficult. I’m not sure right now. The same meat is used somehow. Enough but not dangerous. Surprisingly, you are adorned. Oh, this guy is amazing. Everything is stuck, the teeth are white and the leaves are dancing. Children are fools.  To accentuate Wolverine’s dress, she wore a color that matched her body. It has a unique base and all the color settings are not very good. Unlike leopards, it is Christmas powder. The design should be simple. If you believe me, you are the worst in the country. Isolation of the law. Wolverine has no weapons. Some have large arms but do not feel comfortable.

HALF OF MY DIRECTIONS

How many things did I need in the early 90’s and more? The Akami family spent the summer in a 99.9 cm Strando store. If you take a picture, you have to try it yourself.

Peace be upon you, you have reached the end of the download. Good luck! The pain is excruciating. Happy 1st April new week, so we are out …

There are several ways to deal with eggs in April. Today I read a little introduction. Click here for a simple offer.

#3064: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Alongside his companion Redwing, the Falcon flies wherever he’s needed!”

A year ago, we were in the midst of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier‘s six-episode run, and we hadn’t yet gotten to see Sam Wilson claim the mantle of Captain America, at least in live action.  Instead, he was still hanging onto his identity as the Falcon, a role he’s existed in since 1969.  As the Falcon, Sam’s actually been pretty fortunate in the world of toys, with a rather consistent coverage.  He does have a slight tendency to go a little while between releases, but not so much now that he’s one of Marvel’s bigger names.  With the MCU focus for the character shifting to his Captain America role, there’s still some room for the comics version to hang onto his Falcon roots.  Hasbro did an updated Legends release late in 2020, but they’re coming back around for another pass, this time with a slightly tweaked look.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Falcon joins Tuesday’s Vision as the next figure in a four-figure set of vaguely Disney+ inspired Retro Collection figures for Marvel Legends.  As with Vision, he’s within the loosely structured set, but ships in a solid case on his own, and is thus far a Fan Channel-exclusive.  This is Falcon’s second Hasbro Legends release, and his third Legends figure overall.  The last figure gave us Falcon in his Brubaker and Epting-era outfit.  This one is the same 2011-era outfit worn by the Marvel Universe release; it’s a modern outfit that splits the difference between the modern and classic designs, and it’s honestly a pretty strong look.  I tend to like the exposed arms look a little bit more, so it works for me.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  From a structurally standpoint, this figure is identical to the last Legends Falcon.  Apart from a few minor quibbles about smaller details, notably the fact that the wings are still one-sided with their sculpted details, and that the gauntlets of that mold aren’t quite a match for this design’s longer gloves, it’s a very nicely rendered sculpt, and one I still really, really like.  To mix things up, Falcon gets a new color deco, matching to the updated costume design.  There’s some sloppy edges on a few of the change-overs, notably on the hair line, but it’s overall a pretty solid application.  Falcon includes two different sets of hands, the same ones included with the last release, but in white this time.  Notably *not* included is his sidekick Redwing, who is not only mentioned in the bio, but also specifically listed as one of the accessories on the product description page on Hasbro Pulse.  Presumably, someone didn’t get the memo that there wasn’t already a Redwing sculpt in this scale.  Alas, I’ll just have to dig out the Toy Biz version.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I really liked the last Legends Falcon, so I was content with that one.  That said, he’s rather modern in design, and I always hope for at least the option for a classic Falcon deco.  This one’s not quite a classic design, but it’s a nice middle ground, and I like how the new deco looks on the base body.  I still hold out hope for a proper classic version down the road, but I rather like this one in the mean time.

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.

#3063: Moon Knight

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

MOON KNIGHT

MARVEL UNIVERSE 10-INCH (TOY BIZ)

 

“Returning from a journey to his Kree homeworld, Captain Marvel arrives on Earth to find New York in a panic. Fighting a division of shape-changing Skrull soldiers, the local military are retreating and only the Super Heroes have managed to hold the invaders back. Joining together with the mysterious Moon Knight and the X-Men’s Wolverine, Captain Marvel is able to use his powerful nega-bands to blast the Skrull cannons to dust, and send them retreating back to space.”

Hey, do you know what’s coming out today?  I mean, it’s not anything big, I suppose.  Just a little show with some nobody launching today.  What’s it called?  Oh yeah, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON KNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!  Yes, that’s right, today marks the first episode of the Oscar Isaac-led Moon Knight dropping on Disney+.  I’m beyond stoked, in case you couldn’t tell, and in honor of such an awesome occasion, I’m going to be taking a look at one of my back catalogue Moon Knight figures, whilst I wait for the inevitable Legends treatment from his newest design.  This time, we jump back to the very humble beginnings for Moon Knight when it comes to action figure coverage.  Time to see how far we’ve come!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Moon Knight was released in 1997 as part of Toy Biz’s Marvel Universe 10-Inch line, in a precariously themed assortment that also featured Captain Marvel and Cosmic Wolverine (aka Wolverine in a space suit), both of whom are mentioned in the above wacky packaging text scenario.  The figure stands 10 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  He’s based on the 10-inch Silver Surfer body, itself a larger scaled version of the 5-inch release.  By this point in the line, the right arm had been retooled to remove the odd turntable-spinning hand, so that it now had a more standard elbow joint and a hand for gripping.  The head is the standard Spidey head.  It’s perhaps a little skinny for Moon Knight, but given the general look and feel of the figures in the line, he works to be what he needs to be.  It’s also nice, because it gives him the extra ankle joints, which are certainly helpful for the character.  It’s all topped off with a cloth goods cape, which is sort of goofy looking, but it also looks the part given the rest of the line.  Moon Knight’s paint work is pretty solid.  In order to mix things up a little more, he’s using the white and gold color scheme from Moon Knight’s tenure with the West Coast Avengers.  It’s not his usual go-to, but it’s notably unique in the toy world, since it’s not been used on any figures since.  The application is pretty clean and sharp, and it looks the part.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It was this figure that served as my very first introduction to Moon Knight as a character, though, despite that, I didn’t have that one as a kid.  I remember seeing him at retail, and be intrigued by the character, but by the time I had any idea who he was, the figure was long gone.  The 10-inch figures aren’t the most frequently found figures these days, but I found quite a selection of them at a comic book store, called Collector’s World, near where my family spends their vacation, just a few years ago.  They have sadly closed down in the last few years, but I was at least able to get this Moon Knight that way.  He’s super goofy, but he’s exactly what I’d want out of this type of figure, and I’m never one to shrug away another Moon Knight figure.

#3062: Vision

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

VISION

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Behold the Vision! Stripped of his memories and rebuilt in spectral white, will the vision prove friend or foe to his fellow Avengers?”

Alright, I took a firm week and some change off from reviewing Marvel Legends, but I can really only space them out so far before they start piling up again.  In an effort to avoid that, how about one of those today?  Would that be cool?  A little over a year ago, WandaVision was wrapping up its 9-episode run, and doing a pretty fantastic job of elevating Wanda and Vision even further in the public eye.  Elevated enough for variants and spin-offs, even!  Amongst the many ideas from the comics the show rolled into its runtime was the all-white version of the Vision, originally introduced in “VisionQuest” in the comics.  It’s a look the character wound up sporting in the comics for quite some time, and one with only moderate toy coverage.  In an effort to make up for that, Hasbro’s done another release of him for Legends, which I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Vision is the first in a four-figure set of vaguely Disney+ inspired Retro Collection figures from Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line.  He was shown off alongside variants of Wanda, Falcon, and Loki, though they aren’t a proper assortment, but rather four single release figures that are all just arriving around the same time.  All four are Fan Channel exclusive releases, as well as being slight updates on previously released figures.  This marks Vision’s second figure under the Retro heading, after his standard colors got a release back in 2018.  It also marks the third time Hasbro’s done white Vision, and the second comic-inspired version.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  This Vision’s whole aim is to be a minor re-working of the white Vision from the 2015 three-pack release.  As such, he’s re-using all the parts from that one.  It puts him back on the Bucky Cap body, after the last Retro figure moved him over to the 2099 body.  Honestly, I think Vision makes more sense on the Bucky Cap, but I look forward to seeing him moved over to one of the newer bases moving forward.  He uses the same basic head as all but one of the comic Visions; it’s a rather standard and straight-forward stern looking bald head.  He also re-uses the bare feet from the last white Vision release, which is cool.  Unfortunately, he’s still using that old cape piece as well; it’s better on this design than for any of the other figures that got stuck with it, but boy did I not miss this piece.  It’s just awkward and hard to work with.  Where the three-pack release went for a semi-transparent look, this time around, he’s solid colors.  I liked the transparent look, but I gotta admit, the opaque set-up really works out well.  There’s some slight change-up on the different parts of the costume, with some off-whites to mix things up.  Generally, it works out better than the black lines used to break up the details on the three-pack release.  Another nice change-up from the three-pack?  Extra hands!  The prior release was stuck with just fists, which I’m not crazy about for Vision, but this one gets a set of open gesture ones as well, which really add to the options when it comes to posing him.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t initially intend to grab this figure.  I’ve got the last release, and this one didn’t look terribly different in the prototype shots.  Then I saw him in hand, and I liked him a whole lot more than I’d expected to.  There’s not really much new here, but there’s a lot of small improvements that add up to a generally more pleasing figure, at least for me.  He feels like a definite upgrade.  Now, can I please get his post-Crossing costume?  I’ve been waiting oh so patiently.

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.