#0372: O’Malley & Queen Face Hugger

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

O’MALLEY & QUEEN FACE HUGGER

ALIENS (KENNER)

Okay, so here’s another Kenner Aliens review. This review plays a bit more into Kenner’s wackier sensibilities with the line, while at the same time not going super overboard. What’s noteworthy about this set is that it’s the only set who’s Alien is not a “Xenomorph.” So, let’s have a look at the last of the 10th Anniversary two-packs, O’Malley vs. The Queen Face Hugger.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

O’Malley and the Queen Face Hugger are the final two-pack from the KB Exclusive Aliens Vs. Marine line. They are both repaints of figures from the previous Aliens line.

O’MALLEY

O’Malley! Hey, remember that guy? They hero of the… The guy who does the… He has the… Okay, okay, yeah, O’Malley is another Marine created by Kenner. He’s not really as goofy as ATAX, but he’s still a bit out there. In case the name and the hair hadn’t clued you in, O’Malley is supposed to be Irish. O’Malley is 5 inches tall and he sports 6 points of articulation. The figure makes use of the sculpt from the O’Malley figure meant to see a wide release in the 3rd Series. This featured a unique head sculpt, which may very well be the best Marine sculpt from the line. For a character that seems so one note and bland on the surface, O’Malley’s head sculpt is full of character. He’s got a smug look of assurance on his face (no way he’s making it out of the movie alive looking like that. Sorry O’Malley, your name might as well be Toast). He’s also got a really nasty scar over his eye. Obviously, he’s had a run in with some nasty beasts before. From the neck down, O’Malley shares his sculpt with Corporal Hicks. Hicks’s body sculpt is probably my favorite of the Marine sculpts, so I’m in favor of the re-use here. It’s a quality sculpt and it matches the head nicely. The paint work on O’Malley is more or less the same as it was on Hicks, with changes for the head and some tweaks to the accents on the torso. Everything is nice and cleanly done. O’Malley included a flamethrower clip-on, similar to Hicks’s claw thing, as well as what has to be one of the goofiest weapons in the Aliens line. It’s some kind of grappling thing on an accordion type arm. It’s kind of a funny weapon, but there it is.

QUEEN FACE HUGGER

Okay, so the name on this one kind of confuses me. So, is this a face hugger that has a queen embryo, or is it like the queen of the face huggers? What’s the deal Kenner? Well, Kenner’s kinda defunct now, so I guess we’ll never know. The Face Hugger is about 3 inches in height, 5 inches wide, and 6 inches long. That, by the way, makes this particular Face Hugger about 20x the size of what the actual Face Huggers should be. So, it’s not really a Face Hugger so much as an everything hugger. The figure doesn’t really have any articulation. There’s some movement, but it’s all tied into the action feature. The sculpt is a re-use of the original Series 3 Face Hugger. It’s a pretty good sculpt, and it’s surprisingly accurate to the Face Hugger design from the movies. There’s quite a bit of texturing, and they’ve added some spiky bits, similar to the changes present on the Scorpion Alien. The Face Hugger has what is probably the most drastic paint scheme change of all of the 10th Anniversary figures. The original figure’s paint scheme was similar to the regular Aliens. For this figure, they went with something more faithful to the actual Face Hugger. It’s an improvement, but it also makes the size of this thing even weirder! The Face Hugger included no accessories, but it does have a few action features. The tail can be pulled and retracted, the legs have a jumping action similar to the Alien Arachnid, and the mouth has a pullback opening feature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

O’Malley and the Face Hugger were yet another piece of the large lot of Kenner Aliens figures I won on ebay. Neither one of them was super high on my list of desired figures, but they were part of the lot, so I figured why not. In hand, I was pleasantly surprised by this set. The Face Hugger’s kinda odd, but O’Malley is really quite a nice figure. It’s strange that Kenner put this level of effort into a character that no one cares about, but this really is one of their better figures. All in all, this is a pretty winning set.

#0371: Hudson & Scorpion Alien

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

HUDSON & SCORPION ALIEN

ALIENS (KENNER)

The problem with doing large theme weeks and the like is that as you near the end, you really run out of interesting things to say to introduce the figures. Then you have to write these weird meta intros talking about how you have nothing to say in the intro. (BEAT)

So, how ’bout them Aliens figures? Yesterday, I looked at one key Marine missing from Kenner’s first series of Aliens; today, I’ll be looking at the other. That Marine is, of course, Private Hudson, everyone’s favorite over-confidant marine turned whimpering mess! I’ll be taking a look at his proper US release from the Aliens Vs. Marine two-packs, along with the Scorpion Alien.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Hudson and the Scorpion Alien were released in a two-pack in the 10th Anniversary Aliens Vs. Marine line. The line was released exclusively at KB Toys, and it was made up of repaints from the previous Kenner Aliens line.

HUDSON

Hudson is easily the selling point of this set. His Series 3 figure never saw a proper US release, leaving a Paxton sized hole in many fans’ Aliens collections. Hudson is about 5 inches tall and he features 6 points of articulation. He sports a new head sculpt, which doesn’t really have much in common with Bill Paxton’s portrayal of the character, but that’s not really news with this line. Hudson has a screaming expression, which fits okay with the character and does make him stand out a bit more from the other, more passive Marines. His sculpted helmet doesn’t match the one on Hicks, which is moderately annoying, but I suppose they wanted each of the Marines to have a unique look. From the neck down, Hudson’s sculpt is the same as Series 1’s Apone figure. Aside from the somewhat odd metal arm thing, it’s a pretty good starting point for a basic Marine, so I guess it works okay. It’s too bad he couldn’t get a unique sculpt like Vasquez, but if only one could get a new sculpt, Kenner made the right choice. Hudson’s paint work is on par with the rest of the Marines; it’s all pretty cleanly applied, and his lower half is molded in the same multi-colored plastic seen on all of the Marines. Hudson has one of the more diverse paint jobs in the series, though it’s not like it’s anything super exciting. Hudson includes a rifle of some sort (not a pulse rifle), and a large backpack thingy with three missiles to launch. Unfortunately, the backpack is a bit on the heavy side, which makes Hudson impossible to stand while wearing it.

SCORPION ALIEN

Believe it or not, against all odds and in spite of the name, the Scorpion Alien is not a Kenner original. It’s actually one of the main line’s closest attempts to capture the standard Xenomorph design. It also happens to be one of the best Aliens in the line, for what it’s worth. The figure is about 5 inches tall and features 5 points of articulation. This figure makes use of the sculpt from the original Scorpion Alien, released in the first series of the original Kenner Aliens line. It’s a decent quality sculpt. There are lots of small details and texture work, and the figure really has some nice dimension. It’s perhaps a tad wider than it should be, but not excessively so. The design of the alien is definitely based on the Xeno’s appearance in Aliens, though there have been a few changes made. The design as a whole is a bit spikier, and a lot of the design has been streamlined, I’d assume to present a more easily animated look. The figure is slightly pre-posed, and it can take a little work to get the figure to stand, but it’s not too difficult to keep the figure vertical. There was definitely a consistent theme to the paint work on the figures in the Aliens Vs. Marine line, and the Scorpion Alien is no exception. He’s molded in semi-metallic black/grey plastic with some silver accents to bring out the details. The silver on this figure is easily the most subtle of this line, which really does this figure some serious favors. The Scorpion Alien included no accessories, but he did feature one of the line’s coolest action features. When the button on the figure’s lower back is pressed, the figure’s upper half pops apart, as if the Scorpion Alien has just been shot by one of the Marines. It’s a fun action feature and it really adds quite a bit of entertainment value to this figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Hudson and the Scorpion Alien are another piece of the large lot of Kenner Aliens figures I won recently on ebay. These are two of the figures I was most eager to get ahold of from the line, so I was definitely glad they were amongst the set. Hudson is an essential Marine and the Scorpion Alien is my personal favorite Kenner take on the standard Xeno design. All in all, I really like this set. Sure, Hudson’s slightly goofy, but he’s not a bad figure, and he’s packed with an outstanding Alien.

#0370: Vasquez & Night Cougar Alien

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

VASQUEZ & NIGHT COUGAR ALIEN

ALIENS VS MARINE(KENNER)

The initial offering of Marines in Kenner’s Aliens line is interesting. We got pretty decent Ripley and Hicks figures, but we also got Apone and Drake, two characters who are absent from the last two-thirds of the movie entirely, and a nearly unrecognizable version of Bishop. Key players like Vasquez and Hudson were absent, and when we finally got an additional Marine in the second series, it was ATAX, a character invented exclusively for the toyline. When the third series hit, Kenner tried to amend this, offering both Vasquez and Hudson, but it was too little too late. Retailers in the US were having trouble moving the Marines from the first two series, leading to the cases containing the Series 3 Marines to be returned and, ultimately, destroyed. A fair number saw release outside the US, but not in nearly the same numbers, leaving US Aliens fans out in the cold. Fortunately, the 10th Anniversary Aliens Vs. Marine came to the rescue, offering a proper release of all three of the Marines, albeit in altered colors. Today, I’ll be taking a look at the first of those, Vasquez, along with her foe, the Night Cougar Alien.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Vasquez and the Night Cougar Alien were released as a two-pack in the KB Toys Exclusive Aliens Vs. Marine line, which was done as a celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Aliens. Both figures made use of previous sculpts with all-new paint schemes.

VASQUEZ

Vasquez is definitely a key part of what make Aliens so great. She was a really fun character who added a lot to the group of survivors as they battled the Alien hoards (and Paul Reiser). Unfortunately, her role as smartgunner kinda got taken by Drake in the first series (both are smartgunners in the movie, but Kenner seemed set on each Marine having their own gimmick), so she ended up being a little more generic here. Vasquez stands just shy of 5 inches tall and features 5 points of articulation. I don’t know why she didn’t get waist articulation like the others, but it’s not there. Vasquez is a total re-use of the Series 3 Vasquez, who was actually the only of the Series 3 Marines to get her own body sculpt. While she’s not a pitch perfect Vasquez, she’s probably the most film-accurate Marine Kenner put out. Some of the details are a little on the soft side, but she’s definitely Vasquez, and I’m amazed by the lack of 90s-fication that was so present on the other Marines. The paint on Vasquez only furthers her as the most accurate Marine. In the more traditional colors, she’s pretty much spot on to how Vasquez looked in the movie. My one complaint would be that she’s definitely way too pale to be Vasquez. Other than that, her paint is pretty good for the time. She doesn’t really have any slop or bleed over to speak of. Vasquez’s smartgun gimmick was taken, so she doesn’t have one of those, but she does come with what I believe is the only example of a proper pulse rifle from the Kenner line, as well as some large missile launching thing that she has trouble standing with.

NIGHT COUGAR ALIEN

So, the Night Cougar Alien is another Kenner original. That being said, apart from a terrible name, it’s actually one of the better aliens, and it’s got some precedent. Its quadrupedal design is similar to that of Alien3 ’s Dog Alien. I am by no means a fan of the movie, but the design wasn’t bad. The Night Cougar is about 4 inches tall and 6 inches long, and it features 5 points of articulation (there’s a 6th, but it’s tied to the action feature.) The Night Cougar Alien re-uses the sculpt of the original Series 3 version, which was itself a repaint of the Panther Alien. It’s a pretty good sculpt. Some of the details, particularly on the torso are a little soft and basic, but they aren’t too bad, and the figure does offer a fair job of conveying some depth. The figure features a more conventional Alien design than the previous two, which makes this figure work a lot better aesthetically. The original Night Cougar featured some pretty bold red highlights. This figure opts for the more subdued look that all of these two-pack aliens have. While the King was kind of hurt by such a change, I think the Night Cougar really makes it work. It helps that the Night Cougar has the subtlest work with the silver highlights, which really makes the figure look its best. This marks the first Alien to have an accessory; it includes a missile that can be plugged into the figure’s back. When the figures front legs are pushed forward, the head ducks down and the missile fires. As far as action features go, that’s a good one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Just like Hicks and the King, and Drake and the Arachnid, Vasquez and the Night Cougar Alien were part of a large lot of Kenner Aliens figures I won on ebay. Vasquez is one of my main interests in getting the lot, so there was definitely some pressure for this set to deliver. Fortunately, this set is one of my favorites from this series. Vasquez marks one of Kenner’s best efforts on a Marine, and the Night Cougar Alien is one of their better aliens, which makes this set a real winner!

#0369: Drake & Alien Arachnid

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

DRAKE & ALIEN ARACHNID

ALIENS VS MARINE(KENNER)

Drake. Drake, Drake, Drake, Drake, Drake. Drake, in case you’re wondering, is a character that does actually appear in the movie Aliens. He’s a marine with a decent amount of screen time. That being said, he’s nowhere near as prominent as characters like Hudson or Vasquez, so his inclusion in the proposed Operation: Aliens cartoon, as well as his place in the first series of Aliens figures by Kenner is a bit baffling. But, here he was, so I guess that’s that. Let’s have a look at Kenner’s second Drake, released alongside the Alien Arachnid in 1996.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were released as part of the KB Toys Exclusive Aliens Vs. Marine line, done to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Aliens.

DRAKE

So, I can kinda get Drake’s place in the original line, but his spot here is still weird. There were five sets done for the 10th Anniversary. Of those five, three were used to give a US release to the Marines that were supposed to be in 3rd series of the original line. That left two slots, which were given to Hicks and Drake. Hicks is the most pivotal Marine, so he makes sense. But why Drake was chosen over Ripley, or even Apone, is odd. Anyway, the figure is about 4 ½ inches tall, thanks to his slouch, and he features 6 points of articulation. He makes use of the Series 1 Drake sculpt in its entirety. While it’s not a bad sculpt, it share very few common traits with the Drake of the movie. He’s completely unarmored, wearing a headband, and his hair is quite a bit longer than his movie counterpart’s. At the very least, it’s an expressive sculpt. It looks pretty good, and it certainly stands out from the rest of the marines and their more static sculpts. The paint on Drake is pretty good, probably better than that seen on Hicks. Like Hicks, his lower half has been molded in that swirly green plastic to simulate camo. It works better here, mostly due to Drake’s lack of armor. The rest of the paint is all pretty well applied. There’s a little bit of slop on Drake’s Bandolier, but other than that, everything seems to be nice and clean. Drake included his trademark smartgun, as well as a bayonet to go on the end. Because stabbing the aliens with acid for blood sounds like a wonderful idea. The bayonet doesn’t fit on the gun on my figure, but that’s probably just an issue with mine. Drake also had a feature where turning his waist simulated gunfire.

ALIEN ARACHNID

The Alien Arachnid is yet another of Kenner’s aliens they made up for the line. Some of their designs were great. Some were bad. This falls somewhere in between. The figure is about two inches tall, 4 inches long, and 5 inches wide. The figure really only has 1 point of articulation, at the neck, as the rest of the movement is tied into the action feature. The Alien Arachnid is definitely meant to play up the bug-like nature of the aliens, but “arachnid” isn’t the term they want here, I think. Arachnids have eight legs, and this figure only has six, which would actually make it and “Alien Insect.” I guess that just didn’t have the same ring. They could have just added an extra pair of legs to make it work, though. The Arachnid’s sculpt is passable for the time of release, but it’s not really anything special. The figure has a rubber head, which makes the details there a lot softer. Kenner seemed to take this into account by making the rest of the figure’s details softer to match. The end result is a somewhat cheap looking figure, which is too bad. The Arachnid’s paint is similar to the King Alien’s; the figure is molded in a semi-metallic black plastic, with lots of silver highlights thrown in. The highlights still go a little overboard, but they aren’t terrible. The Alien Arachnid included no accessories, but it featured two action features. The first was a water-spitting feature, done by squeezing the head (after filling it with water), and the second is a lever on the back which pops the back legs up and down and moves the front legs back and forth.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The original Kenner Aliens hit before I was of an age to collect toys, and these anniversary sets hit before I was into Aliens. Like Hicks and the King Alien, this set was part of a lot I won on ebay. I actually had the original Drake at one point, but I lost him at some point, so I can’t really do a direct comparison of the two. Honestly, it’s a bit of a toss-up as to which of the two is “better.” Drake is one of the cooler marine figures, even if he was a bit off-model. The Alien Arachnid is better than the King in my opinion, but still not one of the better ones Kenner offered. All-in-all, this set is okay, but nothing really amazing. But, it’s also one of the cheapest of the 10th Anniversary sets, so if you just want something cheap amd fun, you could do a lot worse than this set.

Alright guys, I powered through what I feel are the weakest sets in this series. Tomorrow, the good stuff kicks in!

#0368: Corporal Hicks & King Alien

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

CORPORAL HICKS & KING ALIEN

ALIENS VS MARINE(KENNER)

After the failure of the proposed Operation: Aliens cartoon, Kenner was left in a bit of a bind. They had already created much of the merchandise for the show and paid for the rights to the characters. They made the best of what they had and released the figures under the Aliens banner, passing them off as an adaption of the 1986 movie. This left the Marines in an unfortunate position, having no real pull with kids who hadn’t seen the movie, and not really resembling the characters from the movie enough to entice people who had seen it. When the third series of the line hit, US retailers weren’t interested in the marines, leading to their exit from the line. The line ended not too long after that. In 1996, it was the 10th Anniversary of Aliens, so Kenner responded by putting out a series of two packs, each featuring a marine and an Alien. Today, I’ll be looking at that line’s release of Corporal Hicks and the King Alien.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This two pack was released as part of the 10th Anniversary Aliens Vs. Marine line(by the way, “Aliens Vs. Marine”? Like, is there just one Marine at a time?). The sets were released exclusively at KB Toys.

CORPORAL HICKS

Hicks is probably the most important Marine in the movie, so it’s not surprising to see he was a part of the tenth anniversary series. His figure is 5 inches tall and features 6 points of articulation, which is actually 1 point above the standard Kenner articulation of the time. The figure is a head to toe repaint of the original Kenner Hicks. It’s one of the more faithful sculpts of the original line, so that’s pretty good. Some of his armor has been tweaked a bit, but he’s really not too far off. The head actually is a pretty decent likeness of Michael Biehn, which is fairly impressive for a figure from this time period. The sculpt also has some of the best proportions of the line, with nothing looking too out of place. Hick’s paint is passable, though it could be better. His torso, pelvis, and legs are molded in a swirly green plastic that sorta simulates camo. This works pretty well for the legs, which should actually be camo, but the torso ends up looking wrong. Some additional paint really could have helped here. Hicks includes a large missile launcher, two missiles, and a claw/gun attachment. These are the same as the accessories included with the original Hicks, just in slightly different colors.

KING ALIEN

The King Alien! One of the most memorable… oh wait, sorry, that’s not right. What the heck is the King Alien? Near as I can tell, he’s toyline escalation. We’d had the Queen Alien, and an even meaner looking Flying Queen. Where do you go from there? King Alien, apparently. The King Alien is about 6 inches tall and features a whole 4, count ‘em, 4 points of articulation. The King Alien is a complete re-use of the King Alien from Series 3 of the original line. That figure had totally new pieces, which surprised me. I had actually expected there to be re-use between this figure and the queens. The sculpt is alright, but not really anything special. It’s a rather boxy sculpt. It sort of follows the Alien aesthetic, but it seems a little strange, even for them. The figure is also incredibly stiff, thanks to the limited articulation and slightly awkward sculpt. It’s not all bad, though. The sculpt is fairly detailed, and it does have some nice texture work. The figure is molded in a slightly metallic black plastic, with additional silver details painted on to give the figure a bit more dimension. It’s all pretty well applied, though the silver details do get a little heavy in some areas. The King Alien includes no accessories, but he does have a spring-loaded pincer feature, activated by pressing a button his back, as well as a water spraying feature, activated by squeezing his tail (and adding water, of course).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I missed out on the original release of these sets (I was collecting toys, but I had yet to see Aliens). I recently won an ebay auction which included a full set of the figures. This set is probably the weakest of this series. The first Hicks figure had a more satisfactory color scheme, in my opinion, and the King Alien isn’t one of Kenner’s better made-up aliens. At least the original King Alien had bright neon colors to keep him interesting. This one ends up suffering. It’s not a bad set, but it’s not surprising that this is the cheapest and most easily found of the tenth anniversary figures.

#0367: Zauriel

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

ZAURIEL

JLA (HASBRO)

In the 80s, DC Super Powers came onto the scene and made its mark as the definitive DC toyline. Most DC collectors tend to agree that the spot was usurped by DC Universe Classics just a few short years ago. In the time between those lines, there were a few attempts to recapture the magic of Super Powers. The first was Batman: Total Justice, a line that featured a few Justice League members and villains, while also trying to cash in on Batman’s popularity. Sadly, it only lasted two series before ending. A few years later, another attempt was made, this time under the title JLA. It made use of many of the Total Justice sculpts and added a variety of new characters. The character Hawkman was originally present in Total Justice, but at the time of JLA, several botched reboots let to him being deemed “off-limits.” This led to the creation off Zauriel, who filled Hawkman’s position as dude with wings, both in the comics and in the toyline.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zauriel was released in the 3rd series of JLA. At the time, the line was exclusive to KB Toys. Zauriel is 5 inches in height and he features 7 points of articulation (courtesy of the wings). Zauriel is shown in his armored look, which was the look he was sporting in the JLA comics at the time. While many of the figures in JLA made use of old parts, Zauriel is mostly a new sculpt. The only pieces re-used are the wings, originally used on the Total Justice Hawkman. The sculpt is okay, but not spectacular. Total Justice figures were infamously pre-posed, and this was passed on to JLA. Zauriel stays true to this trend. His legs are rather oddly posed, and the proportions are a bit strange looking. Aesthetically, the sculpt isn’t bad. The armor is pretty well detailed, and the wings look tremendous. The paint on Zauriel is pretty decent. Everything is cleanly applied; there’s no real issues with slop or bleed over. Zauriel included a fiery sword and a JLA logo display stand in white.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Zauriel is a more recent addition to my collection. For whatever reason, I never bought this figure while it was still at retail. I remember seeing it a few times, but I never bought him. I guess I just was unfamiliar with the character. I can’t say I’m super familiar with the character even now, but my local comicbook store, Cosmic Comix, had one marked down to $2.99 the other day. For that price, I figured it was worth it to get one of the few JLA figures I was still missing. Zauriel isn’t really a standout figure or anything, but he’s a decent enough figure.

#0366: Willow

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

WILLOW

BUFFY PALZ

In the early 2000s, the block figure was in a real upswing. Kubrick had been on the market for a while, and it seemed everyone wanted to get in on the action. Minimates just did okay with their original, larger scale figures, but found a real hit when they launched Marvel Minimates at a smaller size. Up and coming (and , sadly, now-defunct) toy company Palisades launched their own line of block figures, known as PALZ. They managed to get the block figure license for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they used it to launch the new format. Amongst the earliest releases was Buffy’s best friend Willow Rosenberg, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Willow was part of the first series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer PALZ. Each series of PALZ were based around a particular season of the show, and each figure was based on a specific episode of that season. Willow is based on her appearance in the episode “Nightmares,” a first season episode where the nightmares of all the students at Sunnydale High come to life. Willow is built on the female PALZ body, which means she stands about 3 inches tall and features 14 points of articulation. Since this is my first review of PALZ, I’ll review the PALZ body here. It’s not unlike the Minimate body, though it is taller than the basic one and the arms, hands, and feet are noticeably squared off compared to the smoother edges of a Minimate. PALZ are generally made of a more brittle plastic, as well, making them much more likely to break. Not a bad base body, but not without issue. Willow features additional pieces for her hair, skirt and jacket. Everything fits together quite nicely, though her jacket is difficult to get on and off without risk of breakage. The paint work on Willow is pretty good. In particular, I’m impressed by the fact that the polka-dot pattern of her dress goes all the way around. That’s some serious attention to detail! The laces on the shoes are also a nice touch, and the faces on both sides of the head bear a decent resemblance to Allyson Hannigan. What’s that? Why are there two faces? To allow you to give Willow her alternate look of course! Willow includes a spare torso, arms, skirt and hair piece to allow you to depict her in her kimono look from “Nightmares.” In addition, Willow includes a back pack, a computer monitor and keyboard, and a tombstone (just like the rest of Series One).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Willow was part of a large set of Buffy PALZ I got not too long after getting into the line. The story behind how I got them is rather neat. I’ve mentioned my membership at the Minimate Multiverse on this site before. Overall, that site is devoted to Minimates, but there is a decent discussion of other toylines, block figures in particular getting a lot of the focus. The other really cool thing that the Multiverse has is a pretty amazing trade forum. So, when I got into Buffy PALZ, I went there to see if I’d have any luck finding any. I came across a really great guy who goes by the handle Buttheadsmate, who had listed that he had duplicates af just about every PALZ ever made, so I got in touch with him to ask about possibly getting a few of the Buffy PALZ I was most interested in. He responded that he’d need a little time to have a look around to see what he could find, but that he’d get back to me. Not too long after that, he got back to me, offering me an almost complete set of Buffy PALZ for an incredibly good price. I was a poor high school student at the time, so I told him I’d need to double check on money. To that he responded that he knew I was good to repay him, and he really just wanted to send them to me. So, with nothing given on my part, he sent me a huge collection of PALZ, pretty much completing my collection in one fell swoop. All he asked in return was that I help in procuring the occasional TRU exclusive Minimate set, as he couldn’t get them in England. I was so very impressed by his generosity, and I went on to find out that I was far from the first member he had done such a thing for.

Guest Review #0013: Legion

Posted by Tim Marron in Guest Reviews and tagged with , ,

LEGION               

MASS EFFECT 2 (DC Direct)

Legion1

Today’s review is written by Tim Marron.  Check out more from Tim over at Tim’s Blarg and Timsical Thoughts.  Take it away Tim!

If you recall I reviewed the DC Direct figure of Tali from the Mass Effect series some time ago. This time I’ll be taking a look at essentially her synthetic Geth counterpart, Legion, for he is many. It’s still just a single figure though, but whatever. Semantics.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

This figure is based on Legion’s debut appearance in Mass Effect 2. The sculpt is all new, and given the slightly more intricate design of the character, it’s pretty well done. Sadly, as with Tali, the rest is a bit of a downhill trend. Legion has 14 points of articulation but they all feel like they were added after the fact as opposed to cleverly incorporated into the figure’s construction. The range of motion in each of the joints is not terrific either so its practically impossible to get him (it?) into anything resembling a natural pose. At a glance, the paint looks fine, but when you get down into the details the problems get a little difficult to ignore. There are a few spots of bleed over as well as some areas that just look poorly handled, namely, the detailing inside the hole in Legion’s chest which is covered in blue polka-dots. Sure, it’s meant to look like all the little lights of his internal mechanisms, but they don’t conform to any sculptural pattern, they’re just a regular evenly spaced dot pattern laid over a very irregular surface. Legion comes with a sniper rifle and a stand. Sharp eyed readers may notice that my figure has a different rifle than what comes in the box. This is because for whatever reason, DC Direct decided to swap Legion’s and Garrus’ rifles so that Garrus came with a gun that, in game, was exclusively used by Legion. Luckily a friend of mine saw the same issue with her Garrus figure and we agreed to trade rifles for the greater good. Legion has his share of problems. He is a decent depiction of the character if you’re willing to overlook a couple of things, but sadly thats all there is really. There’s not a whole lot of action to go with the figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Legion from my local ToysRUs kind of on an impulse. I already had the Tali figure from the same line so I expected it to have its share of problems. Nevertheless, given how Legion and Tali have a fairly important backstory in the game, I felt compelled to get him. Maybe it was how cool he was in the game, or maybe it’s the fact that, to my knowledge, no one else makes a figure of him. I guess he isn’t really all that many.

#0365: Havok

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

HAVOK

X-MEN (TOYBIZ)

So, it’s been a whole year of reviews. I already did the big discussion of that earlier, but I wanted to touch on it here. For my very first review on this site, I took a look at Night Hunter Batman, my very first action figure. For the big one year review, I needed to come up with something special, so I’ve chosen to go with Havok from Toybiz’s X-Men line in the 90s. I’ll get into why I chose this figure shortly.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Havok was released in the “Invasion Series” of Toybiz’s X-Men line. The series hit not long after the third season of X-Men: The Animated Series, which featured Havok’s sole appearance on that show, so he makes sense here. The figure is a little over 5 inches tall and features 8 points of articulation. He’s based on Havok’s 90s appearance, which he sported in the 90s X-Factor and the aforementioned cartoon. It’s a bit of a departure from Havok’s traditional look, but it was what he looked like at the time, and it definitely fits in with the rest of the 90s X-Men line. Havok comes from the line when it was at its bulkiest, so to speak. The figures were originally much thinner, but eventually they bulked up as the line continued. Eventually, they reached sort of a breaking point, which was right around this series. As such, Havok’s sculpt is a little on the hefty side, but it’s not far outside of what he looked like in the comics at the time. The sculpt was all new to this figure, and as far as I know, it wasn’t used for any future figures. It’s certainly a well detailed sculpt. The coat has lots of really great folds and details, and the face is just perfect for Havok. Admittedly, the figure does have some odd proportions. The waist is really thin, the thighs are pretty big, and the arms stick out pretty far. That being said, he’s based on a 90s design, and odd proportions tend to go hand-in-hand with that time period. Can’t fault them for being accurate. The sculpt is topped off with a pretty decent paint job. It’s not super detailed, but its clean and well applied, so that’s good. Havok includes an action feature: when his upper torso is twisted right, his right arm goes up, and when the torso is released, it springs back. The figure also included a small energy blast piece that can be placed in his right hand to work with the action feature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Havok is an important figure to me because he was my one of my two first X-Men figures (the other was the previously reviewed Eric the Red.) The “Invasion Series” was released just as I was getting into super heroes and action figures. For Christmas that year, my Dad got me these two figures, which in turn brought me into the world of X-Men. Thanks to this being my first official X-Man, Havok has to this day remained my very favorite member of the team (I own all but one of his action figures). While this figure has, perhaps, not aged as well as some of the other figures in this line, I still love this figure. It’s also one of the few figures I have more than one of, as I picked up a spare over the summer from Yesterday’s Fun (The spare is seen in the picture with Wilson 4). Man, this is a cool figure!

One year later…

Posted by Ethan Wilson in General

Collection2

Well look at that, it’s been a year.  Okay, if I’m honest, it’s been slightly over a year.  Today marks review number 365, but thanks to a few fill-ins from my buddy Tim, it’s actually taken me 369 days to get here.  Sorry about that.  Still, I made it through a whole freaking year of this!

In one year, I’ve managed to write 197,432 words about 527 unique action figures (and I’ll be bringing that up to 528 figures and 198,005 words later today).  If I were to publish the contents of my reviews in book format, I believe you could officially classify it as a “door-stopper.”

In one year, I’ve managed to get 13,683 total views from 75 countries all over the world.  I’ve gotten 56 followers, and I’ve had 73 comments in all (Not counting those made by yours truly).

The most prevalent line of toys to be reviewed was, unsurprisingly, Minimates, which made up 82 of my 365 reviews.  It’s worth noting, that of the 528 figures reviewed, they represented a total of 190 of those figures.  Going by current numbers, I have reviewed 19.5% of my action figure collection.  It’s important to note that my collection hasn’t stopped growing.  When I started the site, I had just clocked in at 2400 figures.  In the last year, that number’s gone up by almost 300.

While not every review has been a gem to right (or to read, I’m sure), I powered through them, and I think the overall product has been pretty good.  One year in, I’m just starting!

So, thanks to all of you who have stuck around through this first year, thanks to those who joined us part of the way through, and welcome to those who are just joining us.

So that’s pretty much it…