#3708: Durge

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

DURGE

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars is something I don’t talk about with any real frequency, but that’s not for lack of love, I assure you.  It’s easily the best thing from the prequel era released during the run of the three films, and even when you expand past that, it’s really only rivaled by the 3D Clone Wars, and that one needed a much longer run to achieve the rivalry.  While the show worked with a lot of pre-existing characters, it had a few originals, which included Separatist Bounty Hunter Durge, who serves as one of the notable antagonists.  Durge is surprisingly sparse on action figure coverage, but was at the very least part of the short tie-in line for the show.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Durge was released as a single figure in the second assortment of animated Star Wars: Clone Wars figures, released in 2003.  He was also subsequently re-released in 2005 as part of the “Sith Attack Pack” entry in the Commemorative DVD Collection, alongside Asajj Ventress and General Grievous.  Mine is the single release, though the two are more or less identical.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  As with all of the 2D animated figures, this one prioritizes form over function.  His articulation his limited to the neck, the shoulders, and wrists, with no movement below the torso at all.  The movement he *does* have is largely for minor tweaks to the one predetermined pose he’s got.  Ultimately, with Tartakovsky’s style, the glorified statue approach is the best way to handle things.  It translates very well to this set-up, and they’ve made him work pretty well from most angles.  He’s clean and he’s very stylized, and it’s very clear who it’s supposed to be.  His color work is flat colors, capturing the cel animation’s coloring set-up.  The application’s all fairly clean, and there’s no notable missing details.  He’s packed with his jousting-lance-thingy from the show, as well as one of the stands that was packed with all of the figures.  It’s not much, but none of these figures were very accessory heavy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As much as I loved the show, I had very few of the figures from it at the time of their release.  The line was just generally hard to find.  Durge in particular was one I wanted but never could get.  I wound up getting him from Cosmic Comix back in late 2017, I believe?  I even took the photos that accompany this review back when I got him, but I just kept putting off writing the actual review until this very moment.  That’s just how I roll sometimes.  He’s pretty par for the course on this line.  They’re not astoundingly fun to mess with, I suppose, but they sure do look really cool.

#3707: Marcus Brody

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

MARCUS BRODY

INDIANA JONES: ADVENTURE SERIES (HASBRO)

In the more than a decade that I’ve been running the site, I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones only in passing, and only, like, three times at that.  I guess it’s just one of those franchises I’ve never had a major connection to.  Like, I’ve seen all the movies, and they certainly have their moments.  Last Crusade is genuinely just a good movie, which I do really enjoy, but outside of that one, they’re all just fine enough, I guess.  I’ve tried on the toys a few times in the past, and I just always wind up falling right back out of it.  I ended up passing on Adventure Series, Hasbro’s 6-inch line from 2023, pretty much as a whole because I couldn’t ultimately see myself sticking with it.  That being said, in all of the toy coverage over the years, we’ve never gotten a figure of my favorite character from the films, Marcus Brody, played by Denholm Elliot, whose other roles weren’t really keen for action figure coverage either.  There’s a sincere lack of Trading Places action figures is all I’m saying.  Hasbro did actually offer Marcus up for Adventure Series, though, and I got one, so I’m looking at British-guy-in-a-suit Denholm Elliot today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Marcus Brody was released in a Fan Channel-exclusive Indiana Jones: Adventure Series two-pack, alongside a variant of Rene Belloq.  It’s a multi-pack of guys in suits.  Odd choice, especially since the two don’t share any scenes in Raiders.  I think they interacted a bit in the expanded universe, so maybe that’s what we’re going with?  Look, it got us a Marcus figure, so I’m not gonna stress about it too much.  The figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 31 points of articulation.  His articulation, which is pretty typical for the line as a whole, is a lot like the modern Black Series set-up, which works pretty well, and also makes a fair bit of sense.  It’s not, like, super great for crazy posing or anything, but it works fine for the type of character Marcus is supposed to be.  Marcus’ sculpt is a pretty respectable one.  It’s again got a Black Series vibe to it, which works fine by me.  The head’s got a pretty respectable likeness of Denholm Elliot, which is the most important part.  The suit sculpt is a little softer, but it does alright.  The multi-layered construction definitely works well.  The color work is generally basic.  The most in depth work’s on the face, which is using the printing.  Most of the rest of it’s molded plastic.  It’s generally clean.  There’s not a ton going on, but it’s accurate.  Marcus is packed with an apple (our second one of those in this scale from Hasbro, though its a different mold than the one packed with He-Who-Remains) and his large book, which opens up to a fully detailed interior page.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Marcus is my favorite part of the franchise largely because of Denholm Elliot in the role.  I’m a big fan of Elliot’s other roles, especially Trading Places and Noises Off, so the prospect of owning a figure of him was definitely a cool one.  I wanted to snag this figure, but the two-pack set-up was tricky, especially because I didn’t really want Belloq.  Matty wanted to go into a Gamestop a couple of months ago, though, and they happened to have the set on clearance, which made the whole thing easier to justify.  I offloaded the Belloq, and now I’ve just got a Denholm Elliot figure, which is pretty nifty.  Now, if I could just manage to find 1/12 scale figures of Eddie Murphy and Jaime Lee Curtis, I’d be all set for my own Trading Places set-up.

#3706: Doctor Strange

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

DOCTOR STRANGE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Stephen Strange was a brilliant surgeon before an accident ruined his hands. Now he defends our reality from supernatural threats as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme.”

I took a break from Marvel reviews all last month, largely because we’re in a waiting period on new Marvel Legends, which make up a substantial portion of my Marvel reviews.  Of course, that doesn’t stop me from digging into my backlog, I suppose.  I’ve had a number of “new” figures sitting off to the side waiting for a Legends-light period to slot them in, and I’m officially dusting some of them off!  And I do mean that literally…they’ve been sitting for a while you guys.  Anyway, here’s our second ever classic Doctor Strange, released more than a decade after the first!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Doctor Strange is a Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends release, hitting in 2022 as a loose tie-in with the release of Multiverse of Madness.  He was only actually available online, rather than in-store, but that wasn’t a widely promoted thing, so it was easy to miss.  As noted in the intro, this was the first classic comic Strange since Toy Biz’s initial release of the character, all the way back in the Galactus Series, since Hasbro’s been sticking more to the modern side of things.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Structurally, Strange makes use of the lower half of the ANAD 2099 body, as well as the upper arms from Kang.  Beyond that, he’s all-new, though a number of the parts were re-used for the Spider-Man: Animated and Wong two-pack Strange releases.  Ultimately, it’s a good mix of parts, which does a really good job of conveying the flow and depth of the design.  The cape (which is one piece that is thus far totally unique to this release) is glued in place at the front, so it’s not going anywhere.  On one hand, it’s a little annoying not to be able to display him sans-cloak, but on the other it means it’s not flopping about and falling off, which I do like.  There are two main heads with this release, one “standard” and the other meditating.  What’s interesting is that they aren’t just a simple change of expression, but also have different hair styles.  The meditating one is more ’70s-inspired (and was in fact sculpted by Paul Harding, based on his own “Marvel In the ’70s” Doctor Strange sculpture), while the other is shorter and more modern.  I generally prefer the meditating one, but it’s limited by those closed eyes.  This is definitely one of those “wish I could swap the hair pieces” moments.  Strange’s color work isn’t bad.  It’s certainly bright and colorful.  The yellow paint on his cape is particularly sloppy, and I find the greying temples on both heads to be a little unsubtle in their application, but generally, things look okay.  Doctor Strange is packed with a third, masked head, based on his era of extra super-hero-y-ness in the ’60s.  It’s just a repainted Silver Surfer head, and it doesn’t actually match the body it comes with, but how else am I gonna build my Kurt Busiek’s The Order line-up?  Strange is also packed with two pairs of hands (spell casting and a fist/grip combo), spell effects pieces, the Wand of Watoomb, and the Axe of Angarruumus, which is all pretty fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I recall this figure being shown off, and I recall him going up on Walmart.com, but I never did get around to ordering him or putting any real effort at all into tracking him down.  It’s not that I didn’t want one, but I did still have the Toy Biz release, which is really, really good, and I just wasn’t in a rush to deal with getting a Walmart exclusive.  One with a broken tape seal showed up a few months after the fact at All Time, and I took that as a good sign that I should get one.  He’s a solid classic Strange, and a good update to the Toy Biz release.  I can’t say there’s much to him beyond that, but does there really have to be?

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

#3705: Ultra Magnus

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

ULTRA MAGNUS

TRANSFORMERS GALAXY VERSION (BLOKEES)

I haven’t reviewed anything Transformers-related here on the site since way back in June, when I left off with a Ultra Magnus that didn’t transform.  I’m picking things back up today with….an Ultra Magnus that doesn’t transform.  Look, I just always come back to the Magnus, alright?  Today, I’m diving into new thing, Blokees, which, despite the fact that my mind keeps reading it as “Bloke-ees”, is actually “Blok-ees”, you know, like a “block”.  Clever, right?  I mean, I guess.  Anyway, Blokees is a company that does little small scale figure model kits, with their first major endeavor being Transformers.  There’s an Ultra Magnus to be had, and who am I to say no?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultra Magnus is part of the Transformers Galaxy Version line’s fourth assortment, dubbed “Fractured Space-Time.”  He’s one of the standard 1 in 9 blind box figures from the set, making him an even chance compared to all the other standards.  This is the line’s second Magnus, following up on the requisite white Optimus repaint in the third series.  This one, however, is the proper fully armored Magnus that everyone really wants.  Since these are model kits, they’re unassembled right out of the box.  You get three parts trees and a bag of loose parts, which you assemble to get the figure.  Assembly isn’t bad.  It’s not too intense, but you definitely want to make sure you get things right the first time around, because it holds together really tightly, and it can be tricky to pull things back apart to fix them.  But, as I said, once assembled, the figure holds together really well, and gives him a pretty solid weight.  When assembled, the figure stands 4 1/4 inches tall and he has 18 points of articulation.  The sculpt for this guy is clearly animation based, specifically on the G1 cartoon, as are most of the Galaxy Version kits.  A lot of the core parts are shared between all of the figures in the set, and those all work well.  The Magnus-specific parts are all really nicely handled, very clean, and mesh well with the standard parts.  There’s some slight deforming to the design, but it’s pretty minor on Magnus specifically.  Magnus’s color work, which is largely achieved via the separate plastic pieces, is quite vibrant.  There’s a little bit of extra detailing on a few of the parts to fully sell the design.  Magnus’s build also gives him two sets of hands to swap out (gripping and open gesture), his rifle, an energon cube, a faction insignia, and a stand.  That’s actually quite a bit for such a small package, and covers pretty much all of your bases.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Blokees just sort of materialized out of nowhere, but they’ve been everywhere and I was very definitely curious about them, and was looking for a good jumping on point to try.  Hey, there’s a Magnus!  That sure is a nice jumping on point.  Of course, they’re blind boxed, so I couldn’t just grab one.  But, if you buy a whole case, you’re guaranteed a full set, so, you know, easiest way to get a Magnus, right?  Look, don’t fight me on this.  I actually wound up getting the whole case so that I could try them out with Matty, who’s always looking for fun things to occupy his time.  We’ve been having a great time building them together, and I got a little Magnus out of the deal.  It’s a really fun little figure, and a really fun product in general.  Just a great all around product, especially for the price.

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

#3704: Red Skull

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

RED SKULL

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“The Red Skull, a notorious American enemy during World War II, continues in his quest toward world domination. And being the military and political genius that he is, the world better beware! Traditionally an enemy of Captain America, this evil villain has recently turned his attentions towards the amazing Spider-Man and his heroic exploits. And not that weapons-master Red Skull has employed his special “Giant Skull Catcher” device, this villain of all villains makes any rival easy prey!”

Nazis.  I hate these guys.

So, remember when one of Captain America’s most prominent Toy Biz era releases was inexplicably in their Spider-Man line?  And that was kind of weird?  I mean, I guess there was a whole arc with Cap in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, so it wasn’t *that* weird.  Cap was supposed to get his own cartoon, but it was ultimately the victim of Marvel’s bankruptcy.  That left Cap and his supporting cast without a real landing spot, so Cap was in the Spider-Man line, and so was his nemesis Red Skull, the aforementioned Nazi, who I hate.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Skull was released in 1998 as part of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, as part of the “Flip ‘N Trap” assortment, which was an odd gimmicky assortment under the larger “Sneak Attack” sub-line.  It’s sort of strange that he was in an entirely separate assortment from Cap, and wasn’t even released in the same year, but there it is.  Maybe he sat around for a bit before release?  This was the first ever Red Skull figure, which has its own sort of notability.   The figure is a little over 5 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  Skull got a lot upgraded articulation, which was honestly pretty cool.  The sculpt was an all-new one, and I don’t believe any of it was re-used later.  Despite being in an animation-based line, the Skull’s sculpt doesn’t seem to be based directly on his animated appearance.  It’s more of an all-purpose Red Skull, I guess.  The sculpt’s slightly wonky.  The proportions are slightly odd, with notably large hands and feet.  The head also seems a little too actually skull-like for his usual looks.  The left hand appears to be sculpted to maybe hold, oh, I don’t know, a cube, or something?  But nothing of the sort is included.  The color work on Red Skull is generally basic, but there’s some decent accent work on the head to help with the sculpted details.  Red Skull is packed with his own “Flip ‘N Trap” thingy, which is a backpack with a large red skull thing at the front.  It launches these small yellow rubber spider things.  It’s honestly more of a space filler than anything, and doesn’t really do much for the core figure, but it’s not terrible.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I was a kid, on a trip to Toys R Us with my dad, I recall having the choice between getting this guy or X-Man.  I chose X-Man, because I guess I’m more of a heroes guy.  I did wind up getting Red Skull later down the line, obviously, courtesy they guys over at Cosmic Comix.  I lost some of the weird launcher parts over the years, but I was able to re-complete my figure thanks to trade-in at All Time.  Honestly, he’s kind of a weird figure, but then, so have most of the Red Skull figures.  I guess this one just sort of set the precedent for the ones that followed.  Ultimately, he’s not terrible, but he’s wonky.  I suppose that means he just matches up with the corresponding Cap in quality.

#3703: Darth Vader

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

DARTH VADER

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE (HASBRO)

“Inside the Death Star’s detention corridor, Darth Vader is intent on snapping Princess Leia’s defiance. Accompanied by an Imperial interrogation droid, the Sith Lord enters cell 2187, determined to learn the location of the hidden Rebel base from his royal prisoner”

Jumping from one caped guy in black to the next, in 1/18 scale no less!  So, look, guys, I have a lot of Star Wars figures sitting around here.  There’s a notable backlog of those guys I gotta work my way through, so I might as well do a little bit of that now.  And, if I’ve got a helping of Star Wars reviews coming at you, you know I gotta start it off with Power of the Force, because here I am with a bunch of Power of the Force, specifically.  The line had an impressive coverage of the depth of characters from the galaxy far, far away, but it also had a lot of variants of the main characters from the original trilogy.  For characters with similar looks for all three films, such as Darth Vader, the figures were pretty similar and meant to be more all-purpose, but before the end of the line, they started going a bit more movie-specific.  I’m looking at the line’s last take on Vader today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Darth Vader was added to the Power of the Force line in 1999, as part of the first of the two CommTech assortments that wrapped up the line.  As the line’s last hurrah, there was certainly a focus on heavy hitters.  The figure stands just over 4 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  He’s got those extra swivels on his elbows, as the line experimented with going beyond the basic 6 they’d launched with.  It doesn’t do a ton, but it adds to the variety, I suppose.  For his last entry in the line, Vader goes decidedly back to the beginning, with our very first specifically A New Hope-inspired Vader, focussing directly on his appearance in the interrogation scene.  His sculpt was all-new, and is quite a strong one.  It wound up getting re-used a bit down the line due to how strong it was.  It’s a little pre-posed, again going into the scene specific bit, with his hands posed near his belt.  The proportions are solid, moving entirely away from the buff look of the early figures.  The details are also really sharp, which is nice.  The cape is cloth this time, which is a little awkward at this scale, but ultimately works okay if you get the posing right.  His paint work is simple, largely relying on molded black plastic, but there’s some variety worked in there.  Vader was packed with the interrogation droid (aka Dr. Ball, MD), who has its own little flight stand.  He’s also got the CommTech stand, for CommTech stand purposes.  He is, notably, devoid of a lightsaber, since there’s a hilt sculpted to the body, and he doesn’t use the saber in the Interrogation scene.  Later uses of the mold would fix that, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It took me a surprisingly long time to get this figure.  When I really jumped into the Power of the Force thing, All Time even had a sealed one, but I didn’t snag him at the time, and he sold before I got him.  My first encounter with this mold was actually one if its later uses, namely the comic pack version, so I did at least know what to expect.  I wound up snagging this one loose just a few months ago.  He’s honestly pretty solid, and probably the best Vader in the line, so it’s a good note to go out on.

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

#3702: Zorro – Alejandro Murrieta

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

ZORRO — ALEJANDRO MURRIETA

HERO H.A.C.K.S. (BOSS FIGHT STUDIOS)

Oh man, two figures from films with James Horner scores in the same week?  Should I go on?  Maybe some Rocketeer or Wrath of Khan? Titanic if I dare?  Not Avatar, though.  Never Avatar.  Can’t do it.  I haven’t talked directly about Zorro as a concept here on the site.  Honestly, that’s largely because, do to the somewhat confusing and complicated nature of the Zorro licensing making it hard to do a ton of figures.  Like, they’re out there, but it’s always a bit of an ordeal.  There have been a great many incarnations of Zorro over the years, and, by far, my favorite incarnation is The Mask of Zorro, 1998’s reinvention of the franchise starring Antonio Banderas as the successor to the mantle.  Despite the film’s success in the ’90s, it got no direct tie-in figures at the time.  Thankfully, Boss Fight Studio stepped in for the save, and put out their own version of Alejandro Murrieta in figure form!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zorro — Alejandro Murrieta was released under the Hero HACKS branding, as part of the second round of figures celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Zorro franchise.  He was released alongside Elena from the same film.  The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  He’s using Boss Fight’s H.A.C.K.S. set-up for his build and articulation set-up, though the articulation’s evolved just a little bit from the Vitruvian figures I looked at way back when.  Largely, it’s the hips and ankles that have seen re-works, to offer a slightly better range of motion.  It certainly works well.  The sculpt looks to be an all-new one (though it’s possible he might share parts with the other Zorro’s; having not picked them up, I can’t say for sure).  It’s certainly solid.  The articulation on the elbows is a little obvious, presumably to give him better range, but otherwise things are pretty well worked in, and the proportions are well balanced.  The outfit is also nicely detailed.  The masked head doesn’t have a spot-on Banderas likeness, but it’s not too bad, especially for the scale.  You can definitely see who it’s supposed to be, and they got the spirit of the character down.  The hat’s removable, but surprisingly well scaled to the body, and it stays in place without too much trouble.  The cape’s a little bulky and static, making deeper lunging poses a little difficult, but, again, given the scale, not bad at all.  His color work is a lot of black, as expected.  It’s got all the details it should, with some pretty sharp accenting.  The only area that’s a little sloppy is the face, notably the eyes, but generally things look okay.  Alejandro is packed with two sets of hands (gripping and open gesture), an unmasked head, his sword, two whips (one coiled and one uncoiled), and a display stand.  The unmasked head is an okay sculpt, but feels a little too kempt for Alejandro in Mask, feeling more like his Legend of Zorro appearance, which I don’t think any one really wants.  The sword is nice, and can be stored on the belt as well.  The coiled whip can also be stored on the belt…sort of?  The loop is really soft, so it winds up falling off really easily.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mask of Zorro is definitely a favorite of mine, especially when I was a kid.  I even had the poster up over my bed for, like, 15 years.  I’ve wanted some form of Alejandro as Zorro since the movie came out, honestly, but there was nothing but an unrelated Zorro line at the time.  I made due, but it was never really what I wanted.  I recall these figures being shown off, but I wasn’t able to get one when they dropped.  I actually got to mess with the 1/6th scale version of Alejandro a few months back, but he was just too expensive, so I had to pass.  Then, as luck would have it, this one landed in front of me, which was cool, because it was the one I wanted in the first place.  He also wasn’t crazy expensive, which certainly helped.  He’s a very nice, very fun little figure, and I’m glad to finally have him.

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

#3701: Peter B. Parker

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

PETER B. PARKER

SV-ACTION (SENTINEL)

When Into the Spider-Verse first came out, it had very minimal toy coverage.  There were some basic figures from Hasbro and a few Funko Pops, but that was really it.  Then the movie was a big hit, and the proper licensing went out, and it was just a field day.  Everyone and their mother was making something.  The 1/12 scale in particular got flocked to, with a bunch of Miles and Peter offerings.  One of the companies in the mix is Sentinel, a company I’ve only recently looked into.  I’m taking a look at their version of Peter B Parker today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Peter B. Parker was released in Sentinel’s SV-Action line in 2021 as a single release.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  As I touched on in my first Sentinel review, their articulation set-up is somewhat unique, being a little more straight forward than a Figuarts release, but still a little more complex than, say, a Legends release.  There’s more nuance to the posing on this one than even the Armored Cap figure I looked at previously.  Generally, the tolerancing on the joints is pretty good, with no real floppiness, and a lack of things being too tight as well.  Peter B has a unique sculpt based on his fully suited-up look from Into the Spider-Verse, which has been a surprising rarity for his figures.  It’s very accurate to the animation model for the character, capturing his more unique build from the movie (right down to the slight paunch he has around his stomach), and working in the articulation without breaking things up too much.  It also handles all of the smaller detailing via sculpted texture work, which covers the whole figure.  It works very well, and again gives him a unique feel.  Peter B’s color work is pretty straight forward, but well handled.  There’s a lot of molded colors, with just enough paint to fill in the change-overs, and the painted vs molded actually match up quite well.  He’s got smaller work for the weblines, which are pretty decent, as well as the eyes, which are bright, clean, and sharp.  Peter B is packed with a whole plethora of extra parts, including four different heads (two masked, two unmasked, with differing expressions), 15 different hands (pairs of relaxed, open gesture, wall crawling, fists, webline gripping, thwipping with attached webs, ungloved, and right hand holding a coffee mug), a pair of glasses, four different webline pieces, and a display stand.  The glasses I feel are destined to get lost, but that’s what it is, I guess.  It’s too bad that we didn’t get an optional jacket and sweatpants, but there are other options for those, so I suppose this one is just more focused on the full suited look.  What he *does* get in addition to the Peter B parts is an extra unmasked head, lower torso, and pelvis, so that he can double as the Peter of Miles’s universe, making him a two-in-one figure, which is very fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Much as I love the Spider-Verse films, I’ve thus-far stuck exclusively to Legends style figures for the characters from it, in part because the Legends have honestly just been pretty solid themselves.  That said, I’ve certainly become more connected to Peter B as a character, especially his journey into fatherhood in Across, which paralleled with my own personal journey, so when this figure landed in front of me, I felt urged to pick him up, especially because I was able to get a good deal on a used one through All Time.  I had initially used the Miles-verse Peter as my true justification for getting, but with the Legends one officially announced, I guess it’s back to really being the Peter B himself that sold me on it.  And, honestly, he’s just a very, very cool figure.  Now I just need to find him a pink bath robe.

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

#3700: Cpl Dwayne Hicks

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

CPL DWAYNE HICKS

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES (HIYA TOYS)

The post-Aliens video game Aliens: Colonial Marines had, amongst other things, a long path to its release, taking six years to finally make it to players. It was not well-received at all upon its release, which isn’t the sort of thing you generally want out of a game that took six years to make. It does, at the very least, undo one of Alien 3‘s more disliked elements, the death of Corporal Dwayne Hicks, albeit in a rather convoluted and awkward sort of way. Still, they got Michael Biehn to reprise his role, which was pretty cool, and there were also some cool figures, courtesy of Hiya Toys. I’m looking at their take on Hicks today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cpl Dwayne Hicks was released in the initial run of Hiya Toys’ Aliens: Colonial Marines tie-in line, at the same time as game marine Quintero and fellow film marine Hudson.  They hit in 2016, three years after the game’s release, which seems like a bit of time to wait, but it’s only half as much time as it took for the game to make it out, so, you know, perspective and all that.  All of these figures, even the “movie” ones, were technically game-based, with the non-game characters being based on their multiplayer skins.  Hicks technically exists in both capacities, but this figure, which lacks the scarring he received at the end of Aliens, seems to be the multiplayer/movie version.  The figure stands 4 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  The articulation set-up is ultimately something of a mix between the 25th/30th era G.I. Joes and Hasbro’s Marvel Universe.  Generally, not bad, but the hip pops off a lot, and one of the knees is a little gummy.  Hicks’s sculpt had a lot of overlap with Quintero and Hudson, with them each just getting a unique head sculpt.  The head’s…not great.  It’s rather soft on the details, and the likeness just really isn’t there.  You’d be forgiven for just not realizing this was meant to be Hicks at all.  Below the neck, things are a little better.  The proportions aren’t bad, and the armor detailing is all pretty solid stuff, with the torso armor in particular honestly being pretty strong.  Because of the parts sharing with Quintero and Hudson, his sleeves come down way too far on the arms; Hicks’s sleeves aren’t visible under the armor in the film.  He’s also missing his watch and wrist band, and the lack of wrist coverage also highlights how oddly misshapen the hands are at the base of the wrist.  The color work on this figure leans into the game colors, so his uniform is bluer than the film, and his armor is browner, which makes for rather an odd contrast.  Like, it’s not terribly off, but it’s enough to throw you at first.  The application’s a little thick, but otherwise not too bad.  Hicks is packed with his helmet, shoulder lamp, shotgun, pulse rifle, a pistol, a motion tracker, and a display stand.  The helmet is wildly inaccurate, missing the back neck cover, the ear covers, and the comm, removing the distinctive Colonial Marine silhouette when he’s wearing it, and generally throwing off his look.  It’s a real shame, given how weak the likeness on the underlying head is.  The gun sculpts aren’t bad, but the hands don’t hold any of them particularly well.  Also, the pulse rifle gets no sling, and the shotgun and pistol have no holsters, so he just kind of has to throw them off to the side when not using them, I guess?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I honestly did my best to avoid everything to do with Colonial Marines after it dropped and was so mediocre, and that included the tie-in stuff.  I didn’t even know about these figures until after they’d dropped, and Hicks jumped in price rather quickly, so I never snagged him.  He got traded into All Time a month or two back, missing the shotgun, so I was able to get him for a slightly better deal.  Then the shotgun surfaced, and he was all complete again, which was pretty cool.  Ultimately, he’s not great.  I’m glad I didn’t pay the mark-up on him, because that really would have put me off.  As it stands, he’s a Hicks I didn’t have, and it was very easy for me to snag him, so it was hard to say no.  Sometimes, that’s just how it is.

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

#3699: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

DC SUPER HEROES (HASBRO)

For years, Blue Beetle was theorized to be in the unproduced fourth wave of Kenner’s Super Powers, but when the full line-up was finally found, this was proven untrue. What *was* true, however, was that Blue Beetle was meant to be in the unproduced fourth wave of *another* Kenner DC line, namely Total Justice. Our first hint of this was his appearance in several pages of the Total Justice coloring book, eventually followed up by shots of the prototype. While Kenner themselves would never produce a Blue Beetle figure, their successors at Hasbro would eventually put out Kenner’s scrapped one, giving Ted his very first action figure in the process.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle was released as part of one of the four DC Super Heroes two-packs released via HasbroCollectors.com in 1999. He was packed alongside a Flash variant and a tiny version of the Atom wearing his Teen Titans costume. The figure is about 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation. Beetle’s sculpt was new to him, but, like a lot of the Total Justice sculpts, parts were reused in the JLA line. In particular, his legs were used by Red Tornado. The sculpt is…well, let’s call it interesting. It’s hands down one of the most preposed and hardest to get standing sculpts of the TJ era. As you can see, I actually had to use a Protech stand to keep him upright for the photos. He’s also exceptionally skinny, made even more egregious because Ted’s usually a slightly stockier guy. Here, he looks like a swimmer, and a particularly skinny one at that.  That said, I do quite like the etched-in details for the costume, something that most of the JLA fill-in figures wound up lacking.  His head uses a multi-part assembly for the googles, which allows them to be clear plastic.  Unfortunately, there’s no actual light piping or anything, so the ultimate result is kind of a muddy amber appearance.  In terms of the rest of coloring, he’s decent enough.  A little on the dark side, and while I’m never one to complain about metallic blue, I don’t know that it quite feels right for Ted as a character.  Application is at least pretty cleanly handled, though.  Despite having a left hand clearly molded to hold something, Ted was without any accessories of his own.  Presumably, had he been released single, there would have been some sort of fractal armor accessory, which we see a little more of in those coloring book pages.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t recall the exact circumstances that lead to me getting this figure.  I know I owned the whole boxed set he came from, and I know I got them from my parents for some sort of occasion.  Maybe Valentines Day?  I remember that Cosmic Comix had all four of the sets in stock, and I’d gotten the Green Lantern/Doctor Polaris and Superboy/King Shark sets already, and I’d looked at this one a bunch of times, so I’d wager my dad probably caught me eying it and bought it for later.  This was my first real exposure to Blue Beetle, and it’s admittedly not all that great a figure.  I do really appreciate the quaintness of him, though.