#2916: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

RETURN OF MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Justice and virtue have found their champion… a super-soldier named Captain America!”

In 2012, Hasbro changed the game for Marvel Legends.  And not in the way that you might think.  I mean, yeah that’s the year that they brought the line back from its hiatus, but it wasn’t just that.  See, in Series 2 of this newly launched line, released in the spring of that year, they introduced one of the most single-handedly influential things that their run on the line has experienced.  What am I talking about?  I’m talking about Bucky Cap, the body that a metric ton of the modern line uses as a starting point.  Just on this site alone, I’ve reviewed 70 of them.  And if you don’t believe me, just check out the absurd amount of hyper links that make up these two sentences where I’m referencing the number of uses, because, I assure you, it’s, like, a lot of uses, more uses perhaps than I have any right to have here on this site, and yet here they all are.  In the seven years I’ve been reviewing Legends, I’ve talked a lot about this base body, and yet, I’ve never actually looked at the original use.  So now, as the molds begin to enter into their twilight years, let’s jump back to where it all started.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released in the Arnim Zola Series of Return of Marvel Legends, which was the second line-up for the line.  It hit in the spring of 2012, about six months after Bucky had given the title of Captain America back to Steve and resumed operations as the Winter Soldier, which is about right for timing on these sorts of things, really.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The articulation on this mold has become rather standardized and just part of the background noise these days, but it was a really great effort for the time.  Legends were still working their way out of the “twisting meat” era at the time, so having something that was not only really posable, but also didn’t have to look terrible to get there was a pretty big deal.  At this point, some of the joints are a little restricted, but even now it does still hold up alright. For the first use of the mold, it’s actually maybe a little small for Bucky as Cap, at least in the context of the line that followed.  At the time, scale was still a little all over the place, though, so it didn’t seem quite so out of place.  It certainly wasn’t a bad match from a looks standpoint, generally doing a pretty solid job of recreating Bucky Cap’s design from the comic in a spot-on fashion.  In terms of unique parts, he has a head sculpt featuring his his slightly tweaked version of the mask (notably missing the ears, as it should be), an add-on for his belt, and forearms and shins depicting his rolled up gloves and buccaneer boots.  Later figures would retool the arms and legs to have more standardized parts, though the gloves and boots would remain in service for other figures as well.  The head and belt have remained unique to this particular figure, which is sensible, given that they have more limited applications.  The do work well with the rest of the body, though the whole body has presumably designed to work as Bucky Cap first, and then retrofitted for re-use later.  Bucky Cap’s paint work is generally pretty nice.  The metallic blue fits the design perfectly, and the application’s really not bad for the time, since Hasbro was still contending with some iffy QC.  The “A” on his head is slightly off center on mine, but all things considered, it’s not too bad.  Bucky Cap was packed with a handgun and knife, both of which could be stored in his belt, as well as his shield, and one of the legs to Arnim Zola.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I discussed yesterday, I was hesitant to get back into Legends when it relaunched, so I didn’t pick up any of the early ROML figures new.  I think I saw this guy maybe once, but didn’t think much of it.  In light of this being such an influential figure, though, as well as being a Captain America, I did feel compelled to track it down.  I wound up snagging it from Gidget’s Gadgets in Rehobeth Beach a few years back while vacationing with my family.  He’s been sitting in my office area unopened for a couple of years (for shame, I know), but I finally got to opening him up a few months ago, and felt compelled to finally get around to reviewing him.  I’ve looked at so much of him before, so many times, but it’s honestly a very good mold, and I totally get why Hasbro was so attached to re-using it as much as they did.  As we enter into a full decade of use for it, though, I do have to wonder what base body is going to take up the baton from it, after it did the same for the Bullseye body about 5 years ago.  Until then, you do have to admire its range.

#2915: Hawkeye

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

HAWKEYE

RETURN OF MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“None can equal the marksmanship of Hawkeye, the world’s greatest sharpshooter!”

In light of the success of 2012’s Avengers film, and how it served to highlight pretty much the whole cast, Hawkeye actually managed to get his own solo book for the first time in a good while.  Written by Matt Fraction and pencilled primarily by David Aja, the series delved into Hawkeye’s more down-to-earth status compared to the rest of the Avengers, and has become quite the definitive take on him, even serving as a clear inspiration for his upcoming Disney+ live action show.  To keep the character at least a little more in line with his movie counterpart, he got a radical redesign (as far as the 616 version of the character was concerned; it wasn’t too far removed from the Ultimate version’s standard gear), which actually got a pretty quick turnaround on toy treatment.  In early 2013, it found itself getting the Legends treatment, and I’m taking a look at that particular figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkeye was released in the Rocket Raccoon Series of the Return of Marvel Legends, which was in fact one of the last assortments of that incarnation of the line.  It was quite scarce on the distribution front, and was so ill-supported by retailers that its refresh cases never went into production, meaning that Hawkeye’s swap figure, a more classic version of the character, wouldn’t get released until the Allfather Series in 2015.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Rather amusingly, I’ve actually reviewed every single piece of this figure before, though, in his defense, a number of the parts were actually new at the time.  He’s build on the Bucky Cap body, and has the novelty of being only the second re-use of it.  Subsequent Hawkeye’s have followed suit, which makes sense.  His harness came from Commander Rogers, and his belt came from US Agent, although I’ve looked at both via their many other releases since.  New to this figure were the head and quiver.  The head would eventually be re-used as Yellow Daredevil’s unmasked head.  It works better for Clint than it did Matt, and actually does an okay job of merging Aja’s very distinct Clint Barton design with something more in line with the rest of the line.  At least it’s not too Hasbro-face-y.  The quiver was a re-working of the movie version, but was tweaked to actually give him arrows, and wound up being re-used on the Allfather version (as was intended when he was just a swap as well).  All in all, it’s not a bad set-up, and clearly there were a lot of worthwhile parts here.  In terms of paint, this figure’s not bad.  He definitely emulates the “house style” version of this Hawkeye suit, more so that Aja’s design specifically, since there’s a more involved design on the chest, and more purple on the boots.  It still works pretty well for capturing the feel, though.  Hawkeye was packed with his bow, which was re-used from the movie release, and would continue to see use later in the line as well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never once saw a single figure from this set at retail.  I don’t know that I would have bought this one if I’d seen him at the time, since I still wasn’t back into Legends, and I probably would have been waiting for the variant anyway.  That said, I do like a good Hawkeye no matter what, and when this one got traded into All Time a few months ago, it was hard to say no.  It’s funny reviewing something I’ve reviewed all of the parts of beforehand, but they do really mesh well here.  He’s quite a nice figure, and still holds up very well.

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.

#2914: Spider-Man – Negative Zone

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

SPIDER-MAN — NEGATIVE ZONE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Spider-Man’s Negative Zone suit allows him to absorb the Negative Zone’s dark energy and even merge with shadows. By doing so, the wall crawler becomes practically invisible, which gives him a major advantage against his enemies.”

Last fall, Hasbro leaned pretty heavily into the retro carded style for Marvel Legends, specifically for their Spider-Man sub-section of the line.  There was a dedicated assortment of figures, as well as a handful of one-offs and exclusives.  Target got themselves two different variants on Spidey himself for their exclusives.  I looked at Cyborg Spider-Man last year, but I never got around to the other one, Negative Zone Spider-Man, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Negative Zone Spider-Man was released at the tail end of November of last year, alongside Gambit, Rogue, and Cyborg Spider-Man, as a small set of Target-exclusive Retro Collection offerings for Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line.  Like Cyborg Spider-Man, this is the Negative Zone suit’s third time in toy form, also following a Toy Biz 5 inch figure and a Minimate, just like Cyborg.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The figure is a total repaint of Pizza Spidey.  It’s an interesting choice, really.  I don’t dislike Pizza Spidey in the slightest, and it was the standard Spidey for several years, but I find it funny that Hasbro tooled up a new standard Spidey for this very sub-line, and yet none of the variants on Spidey made use of the new parts.  Maybe they felt Negative Zone should be a skinnier Spider-Man?  Like I said, I don’t mind so much, but it is curious.  It’s all paint that makes the difference here.  He’s in a stark all black and white, as is accurate for the design, and it does look pretty sharp, I must say.  I just dig the sleekness, and the Pizza Spidey body emphasizes that.  Also something that excites me is the accessory selection, because for the first time in far too long, we get a Pizza Spidey release that actually gets the full range of hands.  How about that?  Boy how I missed the full range of hands.  He also gets the pizza, but in Negative Zone colors, which is pretty fun.  No half-masked head for eating the pizza, but I’ll learn to live with it, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Neither of the Spidey variants from this round were essential to me, as I was far more focused on Gambit and Rogue at the time.  Target was running that “Buy 2 get 1 Free” sale at the time that they dropped them, and the only reason I really got Cyborg over this one was that this one wasn’t in stock at the moment I was ordering.  I saw him once or twice in-store, but I wasn’t in a rush.  I wound up getting him finally when one got traded into All Time.  I know, it’s quite a thrilling story, right?  Well, I guess more a touch thrilling than “I bought it at Target.”  I didn’t think much of the figure, but he’s actually pretty fun, and I’m glad I finally snagged 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.

#2913: Deadpool & Negasonic Teenage Warhead

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

DEADPOOL & NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Wisecracking Wade Wilson and stoic Ellie Phimister team up to defend all mutants.”

Almost an entire year ago, I looked at Domino and Cable, who made up either half or two-thirds of Hasbro’s slightly late tie-ins for Deadpool 2.  Notably, I did *not* look at the title character, which did seem a bit odd, didn’t it?  Yeah, it seemed that way to me too.  I assure you, it wasn’t an intentional slight; I really did mean to review him, and his packmate Negasonic Teenage Warhead, right around the same time, but, as you can see, that didn’t happen.  Which I guess makes these tie-ins a bit more than slight on the lateness scale.  My apologies.  I guess I’ll just get to them now.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Deadpool and Negasonic Teenage Warhead are the second of the two standard release two-packs for the X-Men Movie sub-line of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends.  They were supposed to be released at the same time as the Magneto and Xavier set, but that didn’t really seem to happen.  A small amount of them shipped to people who’d placed online preorders, and a small amount showed up in stores, but there were no notable signs of stocking the way the rest of the line dropped, and most retailers had them continually pushed back for the better part of a year.  It seems that they’re finally starting to truly make their way out, now, though, so that’s good, since this was probably the most in-demand item from the whole sub-line.

DEADPOOL

Deadpool has no shortage of action figures, but the less than stellar relationship between Fox and Disney the last decade or so meant that actual proper movie toys weren’t a thing, at least until now…or last year, I guess, if you want to be more technical.  Deadpool’s movie costume was not only quite comics accurate, it also changed very little between his two films, meaning that this one figure can also pull double duty for both movies, which is exactly what it does.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  His articulation structure is pretty darn good, working in a set of butterfly shoulders, and making sure he’s got the pinless construction on the elbows and knees, making him a rather slick figure.  His sculpt was initially all-new to him, but was subsequently re-used for the single-release ash-covered Deadpool that was an Amazon-exclusive last fall.  It’s quite an impressive sculpt, which does a strong job of capturing the costume design from the movie.  It’s rather distinctive and it translates well.  I quite like how they’ve handled all the texturing on his outfit.  The figure’s paint work is generally pretty solid.  It follows the slightly toned down scheme of the film’s design, but it again looks pretty good as a toy, and the application’s all pretty clean and sharp.  Deadpool is quite well accessorized, with four sets of hands, two pistols, two katanas, a knife, and a small stuffed unicorn.  The hands are all in different poses, but two pairs are all black like in the first movie, and two have the silver stripes from the second.  While it’s nice to have the options, it does somewhat limit what you can do with him, since you have to make sure the style of gloves match.  I feel like the original plan was probably to do a full set of hands in both styles, but it probably didn’t cost out.  The two pistols are Forge’s sci-fi styled gun, which isn’t really true to the movie.  Also, there are more film accurate pistols in the holsters, even, but they aren’t meant to be removed.  They’re separate pieces that have been glued in place, so you *can* remove them, but I gave it a fair try, and didn’t really want to force it.  Presumably, this is some sort of a request from Disney, who are trying to downplay the use of real firearms with Marvel figures.

NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

While Deadpool may be no stranger to action figures, Negasonic Teenage Warhead has thus far only had the one.  Admittedly, prior to being featured in the first Deadpool, the character struggled to be considered even D-List, so there wasn’t much call for toys before this.  While Deadpool had more or less the same look between the two movies, Negasonic had two fairly divergent designs for the two films.  This figure opts for her Deadpool 2 design, which is really the more fully formed and actually toy worthy of the two.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Negasonic breaks from the movie X-Men norm and is largely re-using parts, specifically the Spider-Girl body.  It’s really not a bad match, and it’s just a decent starting point in general, plus, with as many new parts as the X-Men Movie figures had, it was a good way to save some money on tooling.  She still gets a new head, upper torso, upper arms, and a belt add-on piece, which help to keep her fairly movie accurate.  The head’s got an okay likeness of actress Brianna Hildebrand, at least from a sculpting standpoint (paint’s perhaps a different story), and the rest of the parts are all pretty good matches for her on-screen design.  The paint work is a bit of a mixed bag; the base work is okay, but the face paint on mine’s not quite right, resulting in her looking a little bit doofy.  Her eyes are definitely not pointing the same way, and that’s not ideal.  Negasonic is packed with two sets of hands (fists and open gesture) as well as Scarlet Witch’s effects pieces, presumably to emulate her powers in some fashion.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wanted this set, not so much for Deadpool, since I’ve got plenty of figures of him, but actually for the Negasonic figure.  But, then I got both Domino and Cable, and so it made sense to have Deadpool too, so I decided I was down for both parts.  And then I patiently waited for the set to arrive….and that was a lot of waiting, now wasn’t it?  When I found out these were coming in, I honestly expected some sort of diabolos ex machina sort of a thing to ensue and prevent me from getting them yet again, but it didn’t, and now I have them.  How about that?  Sure, I wish Negasonic’s face paint were better, but otherwise, it’s quite a nice set, and I’m happy to finally have them.

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

#2912: Sentinel

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

SENTINEL

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Its body a towering, technological marvel, the Sentinel scans the world for its quarry, a searching light emanating from its chest, its glowing eyes a warning… and a threat. Programmed with only one objective, to destroy all mutant life on Earth, the Sentinel will not hesitate, will not falter, and will never ever stop hunting.”

Man, past-Ethan really needs to stop anticipating future-Ethan needing a pick-me-up…

From an early stage of this site, I’ve been versed in supporting action figures not just from an end-of-the-process side, but also from a more preemptive side as well.  I’ve backed my fair share of KickStarters, but those are typically smaller upstarts.  It’s a bit different when the biggest toy company in the world gets in on it.  But, that’s exactly what Hasbro did in 2018, when they launched HasLab, where larger scale items that might not otherwise get made could be backed directly by the fans who wanted them.  Last summer, they added their very first Marvel project to this initiative in the form of the giant purple mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels. Shocking very few of my readers, I’m sure, I got in on this gravy train before the end of the campaign last year.  We’ve had a bit of a wait, but the Sentinel started arriving in collectors’ hands in the last few weeks, and I’m taking a look at mine today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Sentinel was a the inaugural Marvel Legends HasLab project, launched in July of 2020, and ending August 30th. The initial goal was a rather modest 6,000 backers, but the campaign wound up as an unprecedented success, reaching 365% of its needed backers by its end.  It entered production shortly after, and began shipping out in September of this year.  The figure stands 26 1/2 inches tall and he has an astoundingly high 72 points of articulation, 40 of which come just from the hands, which have articulation at every one of knuckles.  The rest of the movement isn’t quite as involved, but he’s got a solid range of motion considering how big and chunky he is.  One point of concern once the figures started arriving and getting reviewed was the tolerancing on the knee joints.  There was some concern that they were too loose out of the box, and weren’t offering enough tension to keep the figure standing.  In hand, the issue isn’t as bad as it seemed initially, at least when it comes to my figure.  While the knees aren’t super tight, and they would likely benefit from the presence of some ratchets (curiously absent, given that the elbows have them), I found it quite easy to get the figure into that sweet spot to keep him standing.  He’s stable enough to stay standing on my rather thick carpeted floor for over 2 hours without any other support, so I consider that a win.  The Sentinels have had an evolving look over the years, but this one is specifically patterned on the design used for House/Powers of X.  It matches with the set of X-Men we just got at the start of the year, and is also a fairly nice update on the classic Sentinel design, which honestly makes for a strong translation to toy form.  There’s a lot more design work to put into the larger surface area of the figure, but it’s not enough to overcomplicate him too much.  The sculpt is, of course, a wholly unique offering, since there’s not really any prior releases to borrow from.  The engineering is rather impressive, with most of the armor plates being actual separate parts assembled over a core body, since it’s something that’s actually possible to do at this scale.  It results in the figure having a lot of depth and sharp detailing, which really helps sell the robot nature of the design.  In terms of color work the very segmented construction of the Sentinel allows for a lot of the heavy lifting to be done with molded plastic, but that doesn’t stop him from still having quite a lot of actual paint work as well.  It’s generally all pretty good, with no real issues of slop or bleed over.  There’s quite a bit of smaller detailing that can be easy to miss, as well, with some separate coloring on the wires beneath some of the plating, and even painting on the smaller rivets holding the armor in place.  There’s a lot going on beyond just the surface level, just like with the sculpt.  The Sentinel also features a light-up effect, which runs on three AAA batteries.  Pressing the core on the figure’s torso lights up both the core and the eyes of the figure.  There are three different colors which can be activated by pressing the button additional times, and it turns itself off after 30 seconds.  It’s rather bright, and works fairly well.  The additional colors add some nice variety when it comes to display, although it’s too bad there’s no way to keep the lights on for a longer period.

As massive and impressive as the Sentinel proper is, there are still quite a few extras included with him.  The most basic of the accessories is the tendril, classically used for capturing mutants more easily.  It’s about 18 inches long, and it’s bendy, so you can wrap it around smaller figures.  It’s able to be plugged into the palm of either hand.  Initially, we were just getting the one, but given the success of the campaign, Hasbro added a second one with no additional charge, so now he can capture two mutants at the same time.  Double the mutant capturing power!  There were four stretch goals for the campaign, three of which got us extra parts for the core figure.  The first tier gave us an extra head to turn this figure into Master Mold, a frequently used, more advanced Sentinel that can manufacture other Sentinels.  Typically, he’s a lot larger than the average Sentinel, which this head sort of meets halfway by being larger than the standard head.  It’s not a perfect remedy, but it’s not terrible either, and it’s not like a properly scaled Master Mold was really in the cards.  He’d effectively have to be the size of a person.  At least this way we have some sort of representation.  The second tier was yet another alternate head, this time a battle-damaged variant of the standard, and with an alternate right hand to match.  The Sentinels are constantly being torn apart by the mutants they hunt down, so these are pretty awesome extras, and they can even be used as the parts to another fallen Sentinel for the purposes of display.  The fourth tier added one last alternate head, this time around the Tri-Sentinel, the merging of three Sentinels created by Loki during the “Acts of Vengence” story line in the ’90s.  Like Master Mold, it’s a bit of a compromise, since a proper Tri-Sentinel should have additional limbs as well, but again, it’s better to get some sort of representation here than none at all.

In addition to the parts for the Sentinel proper, there were two more extras in the form of two whole additional standard-sized figures.  From the very beginning, the Sentinel was going to be packed with Bastion, the humanoid Master Mold/Nimrod hybrid introduced during “Operation: Zero Tolerance.”  Bastion is based on his more recent appearances, matching up more with the Sentinel, I suppose.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Bastion is based on the Spider-UK body, with a new head and torso parts.  The new parts mesh well with the old and do a solid job of capturing Bastion’s creepy hybrid appearance.  His paint work is generally pretty decent, though I did find a little more slop here than on the main Sentinel.  Bastion actually gets an accessory of his own, an alternate head that allows for him to serve as a generic Prime Sentinel, one of Bastion’s rank and file human/sentinel hybrids.  Big flex putting an army builder in with a $350 figure, but I guess the bigger figure’s an army builder too, so it makes some sense.  It helps that it’s a pretty nice head in its own right.

The other figure included follows in the footsteps of the extra head included with Bastion.  If you’re going to have a generic male Prime Sentinel, it’s nice to have a female one as well.  The female Prime Sentinel was added as the third tier stretch goal.  She’s about 6 1/4 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  She has a mix of a few different base body parts, as well as an all-new head and upper torso.  Since it was the ’90s, the female Prime Sentinels had to have specific details that still allowed for them to show off the feminine traits even more hard core, so she’s got slightly different torso armor, and her hair is exposed at the top of her head.  Ultimately, she looks more like a female Bastion, with the white hair and everything.  It’s not a bad look, but it’s funny how different they are.  Her paint work is a little bit better than Bastion’s, at least on mine, which means there aren’t any real issues to report.  The Prime Sentinel got no additional accessories, but honestly, at this point, can you really complain?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been in love with the Sentinel design since I got my very first Toy Biz Sentinel back in the day.  I very excitedly collected all of the Toy Biz Legends fallen Sentinel bases, and then very excitedly built the actual Toy Biz Legends Build-A-Figure.  But I’ve always longed for something more to proper scale.  When this figure was shown off, it didn’t take much for me to decide to back him.  So, I jumped on board last August, and then I began my patient wait for him to arrive.  I knew he was going to be big and impressive, but it’s honestly something that pictures just don’t do justice.  Seeing him in person and actually getting to mess with him has been so much fun.  And now I’ve got to work out just what the hell I’m gonna actually do with him.

While I obviously got this guy directly through Hasbro, I’d still like to give a shout out to my sponsors at All Time Toys, who allowed me use of the back room photo tent so that I could actually get proper pictures of this guy for the review.  That was an absolute godsend.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2911: Bib Fortuna

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

BIB FORTUNA

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

Behold the biggest surprise return Star Wars character of 2020, Bib Fortuna.  Sure, Boba Fett gets all that fuss around him, but we all knew that would happen anyway.  And I’m still not entirely convinced it was Boba anyway.  I mean, did you see how he actually had an impact on the plot and like a character arc, and like dialogue, and like something to do other than just suck?  I feel like that’s not very Boba Fett.  What if he’s another clone?  What if that’s the real twist of Book of Boba Fett?  What if he was really Rex the whole time?  Yeah, that’d be cool.  Wait, I’ve gotten too far off track ragging on Boba Fett.  What was I doing?  Right, Bib Fortuna review.  Of course.  How could I possibly get distracted from that?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bib Fortuna was added to the Power of the Force II line in 1997, a year with quite a solid helping of Jabba’s Palace related characters.  Guess they really wanted to have them all ready for the playset the next year.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has the usual 6 points of articulation.  Bib is rather restricted on the articulation front, thanks to a handful of his design cues.  The tendrils on the head negate most of the neck movement, and the robes negate most of the leg and waist movement.  So, while all that articulation is present, he’s not really much more posable than, say, the Royal Guard.  His sculpt is still kind of from the transitional period of the line, so he’s kind of got some of that lingering bulkiness, which makes him not terribly far removed from his Mandalorian appearance, I guess.  The head’s kind of light on detailing for an alien from the line, and while there’s a fully detailed body beneath the rubber robes, there’s also no easy way to see it, since the robes can’t make it over his head.  In general, the detailing on him does seem to be a little softer than other entries from the line, which is too bad.  It’s not terrible, but not great either.  In terms of paint, he’s likewise not bad, but also not terribly inspiring.  The base work is alright, but it’s really just bare minimum.  Also, the blues seem a little too bright to me, but that might just be personal perception.  Bib was packed with a small blaster pistol, you know, for all that cool action stuff he gets into.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bib is an alright character, I guess, and it was cool seeing him show back up after three decades, but I’m not sure he makes for the most exciting action figure.  This one’s really only good for standing there, which, admittedly, is all the character really does anyway, so I can’t fault them there.  This one wasn’t one I had as a kid, nor was he one I wanted as a kid.  I got his rather recently, as part of a batch of PotF figures I picked up from All Time in the fall of 2019.  He’s okay.  Not super exciting, but he stands behind Jabba well enough.

#2910: Ant-Man

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

ANT-MAN

AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND (TOY BIZ)

“As the leader of the Avengers, Dr. Hank Pym is Ant-Man! Ant-Man blends brilliant battlefield strategies with a guide-by-example bravery to unite Earth’s mightiest heroes against the forces of evil. The symbol on his chest means Ant-Man will always heed the call, ‘Avengers Assemble!'”

In 1999, after the massive success of their Spider-Man and X-Men animated series (and in light of the at least moderate success of Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and The Incredible Hulk), Marvel tried to bank on a few more cartoons.  From the “big team of colorful heroes” angle, we got Avengers: United They Stand, an ill-fated attempt at getting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes out to a wider audience before the MCU would do so far more successfully.  I’m an unashamed fan of the show, but it didn’t really hit with most people, and has generally been seen as a black mark on the team’s reputation in larger media terms.  Something notable about the show was its shift away from the big names in favor of focusing on the lower tier mainstays of the team.  In accordance with that, for the purposes of the show, the team’s leader wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man, but rather Ant-Man, specifically of the Hank Pym variety.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ant-Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s tie-in line for Avengers: United They Stand, not that it was anything other than a clerical numbering, since all of the figures from both assortments shipped at the same time.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  He’s remarkably posable for this era of figures, which certainly makes him a very playable figure.  Ant-Man had an all-new sculpt, based on his design from the show.  The show gave a good portion of the cast some rather radically different designs, Ant-Man included.  He got a whole armored appearance within the show, removing him quite a bit from his classic attire.  In retrospect, it’s not quite as crazy different, though, since elements of it would make their way into Scott Lang’s early ’00s re-design, and likewise would become part of the character’s MCU design.  He’s actually closer to the MCU Ant-Man than the classic is in many ways, making him a fair bit more recognizable.  I guess that’s an unintended bonus.  The sculpt does a respectable job of capturing the style of the show’s animation and translating into a working figure.  It honestly ends up looking pretty darn good, and may even be the best of the sculpts this line produced.  Heck, it’s just one of Toy Biz’s best 5-inch Marvel sculpts.  He’s even got a fully removable helmet, which was pretty great at the time.  The only slight oddity to the sculpt is his “action feature”; in order to simulate his ability to grow into Giant-Man in the show, they gave him extending limbs.  It’s not the worst concept in theory, but it doesn’t really give the intended effect; he just looks like he’s really stretchy.  Fortunately, it doesn’t at all impede the figure’s function at normal scale.  His paint work’s not bad for the era.  It’s a lot of base work, and it’s pretty cleanly applied.  There’s a little bit of wear on the hair on mine, but it’s otherwise held up pretty well in the two decades I’ve owned it, so I’ll consider that a win.  Ant-Man was packed with his removable helmet, a miniature version of himself, and the mini-ship he would ride around in on the show.  The ship could be placed on his back, like on the show, and could be fully deployed by using the magnet on his forearm to unlock it.  I’ve lost half of mini Ant-Man, because he was literally an inch tall and I was 7, as well as the hatch for the vehicle, because, again, 7, so, you know, that’s how it works.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I absolutely love this figure.  He’s probably my favorite figure from this line.  He just really works.  Despite that, he’s one of the very last figures I actually got from the line.  The line was rather scarce at launch, so finding multiples of figures wasn’t super likely.  Because of this, my dad and I wound up sharing most of the line, at least at first.  He wound up getting the first Ant-Man.  However, as the line began to become more plentiful, I started getting more of them, and Ant-Man was one of the last three I had left to get.  I mentioned this to my Grandmother, and she asked for a list of the three I was missing.  The next week, when I went over to their house, she pulled this guy out for me, having bought him in the mean time, and he very quickly became one of my favorites.  He holds up remarkably well, and I still really like him.

#2909: Shriek Unmasked

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

SHRIEK UNMASKED

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“Walter Shreeve was a skilled audio engineer living in Neo-Gotham, trying to fund his research in the field of sonics. Unable to do so, Shreeve used his highly advanced sound technology to build an armored suit capable of demolishing buildings with sonic blasts. Going by the name Shriek, he was soon hired to destroy Batman and nearly succeeded, but lost his hearing in the ensuing battle. He was then sent to Blackgate Penitentiary where he was able to continue his research behind bars. Since then, Shriek has managed to break out on occasion, each time seeking revenge against Batman and wreaking havoc on the citizens of Neo-Gotham!”

It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose.  After two days of McFarlane DC reviews that weren’t Batman-related, we’ve circled back to what Todd truly knows best about DC.  I mean, it’s not specifically a Batman, of course, but it’s a Batman villain, and it’s also got a stupid variant structure, so we’re right back in that McFarlane comfort zone!

Batman Beyond‘s creator’s strove to give Terry his own unique cast of villains, which wouldn’t just be cheap re-hashes of Bruce’s old foes.  Introduced early on, and becoming a rather recurring opponent, was Walter Shreeve, aka Shriek.  He’s got one of the most distinctive and memorable designs of Terry’s foes, making him a solid choice for toy treatment.  That said, he never did get it during the show’s original run, with his McFarlane figure being his very first…or second, I guess, what with there being two of them and all.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Shriek Unmasked is a solo release within McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line.  As with Batman Beyond, he was preceded by a Target-exclusive release, which also included a Build-A-Figure part, and was fully armored, rather than unmasked.  Yes, in classic McFarlane form, rather than giving us one figure with an extra head, they’re selling us two of the same figure with different heads, and thereby making both figures less valid than one single figure with an extra accessory would have been.  Greeeaaaaat.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  It’s largely the same as the usual set-up, but the movement on the arms is predictably kind of restricted by how the armor works.  To McFarlane’s credit, the movement is all pretty decent, and the arms work better than you might expect at first glance.  The sculpt is a pretty decent piece of work.  He’s technically based on the comics, as was the Batman Beyond, but it’s a good merging of the aesthetics.  The armor’s detailing is pretty sharp and cleanly detailed, and there aren’t too many extra details shoved in to really mess things up, so it’s generally a nice piece.  The head is likewise a very nice piece of work.  It’s real world-styled version of Shreeves, but it really still feels like the character as depicted in the show.  There’s just the right level of slimy sleezebag, and I love it.  Shriek’s paint work is well handled; the suit has some nice contrast on the black/white, and the clear blue parts are definitely fun.  His head has a rather involved paint deco, which gives Shreeves his usual sickly pallor.  He’s clearly a guy who doesn’t get out much.  Shriek is packed with two sound effect pieces, a display stand, and a collector’s card.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy reminds me of exactly why I don’t like how McFarlane does things, because the splitting of the two looks just really sucks all around.  I certainly was down for a Shriek to go with my Batman, but I wasn’t really big on how the helmet looked on the first release.  I wanted an alternate head of some sort, which this figure gave me, but, of course, at the cost of him never actually being helmeted now, which is limiting in its own right.  Sure, I may not be thrilled by the helmet’s design, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the potential option of displaying it.  Ultimately, I was going to feel he was lacking either way, but I felt slightly less so this way, so it’s what I went with.  I do really like this figure, and I think he turned out really well.  He’d be better with the extra head, though.

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

#2908: Green Lantern – John Stewart

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

GREEN LANTERN — JOHN STEWART

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“John Stewart is a former U.S. Marine who uses his military training and discipline to protect Earth, and the rest of Space Sector 2814, as a member of the intergalactic peacekeeping force known as the Green Lantern Corps. As Green Lantern, John wields a power ring, which creates a protective shield around him, allows him to fly, and generates hard-light energy constructs in the form of anything he imagines. Fueled by willpower, Green Lantern’s power ring is one of the mightiest weapons in the universe!”

On the topic of McFarlane not always *just* doing Batman, here’s a bit more in that category.  I’m classically a pretty big Green Lantern fan, and there’s no denying that Todd’s been rather stingy on the GL love.  To date, there’s been a Green Lantern Batman (which only half counts), and two different versions of John Stewart.  I don’t really want to delve into the monstrosity that was the animated-style version, so I guess I’ll look at the other one.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Lantern John Stewart was 2021 release for the DC Multiverse standard line.  Again, there’s the whole distribution thing, which means he showed up early some places, but just showed up rather recently others.  Yay, that’s fun.  The figure stands 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  John’s articulation scheme is again pretty much the same as the other DC McFarlane stuff, but I did find the range of motion on him to be a fair bit more restricted, and also more prone to breaking up the flow of the sculpt.  John’s sculpt was unique to him to start, but most of it’s already planned for a re-use on the upcoming Hal Jordan.  Effectively, this means they kind of designed it with the two uses in mind, so you can sort of see how the details are loosely meant to work for their two differing costume designs.  In simplest terms, that means that no matter which of the two you’re looking at, they’re really over designed, especially for GLs.  There’s just so many unnecessary details just really muddying up the cleanness of the GL design.  It’s especially notable on John, since he’s wearing his more modern, even further streamlined costume.  They didn’t even add extra lines to his costume during the New 52, you guys.  Even New 52 standards knew not to mess up the John Stewart design.  And yet, here we are, with way too much going on.  Todd really does remind me of the old adage “if less is more, think of how much more more could be.”  All the excess detail might be easier to get away with if the actual body sculpt worked, but it’s got kind of wonky proportions, with the arms in particular just being far too long.  I’m also really not digging that the right hand is doing a trigger finger grip; how do you not give a GL a fist for their ring hand?  Topping it all off is the unique head sculpt that’s supposed to be pulling the heavy weight on selling this figure as John Stewart.  Trouble is, it doesn’t really look like John.  It looks like a generic black guy.  They don’t all look the same, I can assure you.  I felt kind of the same way about Mezco’s version of John as well, so maybe there’s just some confusion about his defining facial features.  John’s paint work is alright.  It’s nothing to write home about, and I find myself wishing the greens were a bit brighter, or possibly even metallic.  Just something to make it pop more would be good.  John’s accessories include a construct armor piece for the torso, a construct minigun, a display stand, and a collector’s card.  The minigun isn’t the worst thing ever, but it does really feel a little less joyful and fun than the usual constructs.  I also don’t really like that’s only held, and doesn’t clip on in any way, nor do I like that we missed out on getting a lantern, or maybe some extra hands.  It’s not an awful selection, but it’s not particularly thrilling either.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The general lack of GL focus in the McFarlane output hasn’t really thrilled me.  I wanted to be excited by this guy, but the prototype shots did nothing for me, and seeing him in person didn’t do a lot either.  A loose one wound up coming in at the same time as the Flash figure I reviewed yesterday, so I decided that was the time to give him a try.  He’s…well, he’s really not great.  I want to like him, but I guess I’ve been a little bit spoiled by earlier, better John Stewart figures.  If I’m entirely honest, I pretty much went the whole review just wanting this figure to be the DCUC one, and he’s not, and he’s never gonna be.

#2907: The Flash

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

THE FLASH

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“In a freak lab accident, forensic scientist Barry Allen was struck by lightning and doused with chemicals, which gave him the superpowers of the Speed Force. Now he uses these powers to defend his hometown of Central City—and the rest of the world—from the forces of evil as The Flash! The Fastest Man Alive can run up the sides of buildings, across oceans, and around the world at light speed. He can also vibrate his molecules to phase through solid objects!”

Hey, look at that, sometimes McFarlane doesn’t only do Batman.  I know, it’s a crazy concept.  Sometimes he’ll laser focus in on a different character for just a moment.  And for a little portion of the last year or so, one such laser focused character was the Flash, who’s now had a whole five figures.  Can you believe that?  I mean, I guess it’s possible to believe it.  I mean, there’s like empirical evidence to support it and all.  It’s probably been peer reviewed.  Speaking of reviews, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing here, so why don’t I do that?  Yeah, I think I will!  Let’s jump in on that!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Flash was part of the basic DC Multiverse line-up, hitting retail at roughly the mid-point of last year…some places anyway.  McFarlane’s distribution’s been all over the map, so exact timelines can be weird.  He was the first of the Flash figures McFarlane released, but was quickly followed by the slight retool of this one for the two-pack release with Red Death.  The figure stands 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 33 points of articulation.  Flash’s articulation scheme follows what we’ve become used to with McFarlane’s DC stuff.  The range isn’t bad, but it does have a tendency to break up the sculpt in rather odd ways.  Also, some of the joints, notably on the ankles, are a little on the loose side, so it can be hard to get him to hold poses for terribly long.  But, for the most part, it’s not terrible.  Flash’s sculpt was initially unique, but then saw re-use for the two-pack release, and is getting another re-use for the upcoming Reverse Flash as well.  It’s patterned on his far more ridge-y post-New 52 appearance.  While it’s got a bit too much going on for it to be my preferred Flash, it does seem like it’s more up Todd’s alley.  Also, it’s still his current look, so it adds up.  It does at least make for a pretty nice looking figure, and they didn’t add a bunch of other unnecessary details that don’t need to be there.  The main defining trait of this figure, in contrast to the two-pack release, is the head sculpt.  For this one, he gets a more playful expression with a smile.  It’s a bit cartoony an exaggerated, but it feels appropriate for the character, and I really like it.  The only part I’m a bit iffy on is the ear wings, which seem a little too crazy for my preferred take on Flash.  Otherwise, it’s pretty solid.  Flash’s paint work is generally pretty basic.  It’s bright and colorful, which is a bit of a contrast from the usual McFarlane output, so I won’t really complain on that.  The figure is packed with an assortment of lightning effects, as well as a display stand, so that you can get some more intense running displays…when he remains standing, of course.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When DC Collectibles launched Essentials, I picked up Reverse Flash, but not the standard, because I found basic Flash to be just a touch too bland for my taste.  I still wanted one in a comparable scale, so when this guy was shown off, I was at the very least interested.  Of course, with the wonky distribution and such, All Time never ended up getting theirs, and I couldn’t really be bothered to actually hunt him down.  As luck would have it, he wound up getting traded in loose a couple of months ago, so I was able to pick one up without much fuss.  He’s still got those typical McFarlane things going on, but I do like him a fair bit overall, and he fits in well with my Essentials figures, so I’d call that a win.