Action Figures For the Questioning #013: Hasbro

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Action Figures For the Questioning

I’ve been in the action figure world for about 20 years.  So, it’s safe to say I’ve got a fair bit of knowledge on the terms that tend to be thrown around by collectors with little or no explanation as to what they mean.  I generally try to explain a concept on its first appearance on this site, but much as Stan Lee once said to assume every comic book was somebody’s first, I too must assume that every review on this site might be the first to be read by a new visitor.  As such, I’ve decided to put together a guide to some of the more frequently used terms and names that might show up.

HASBRO

Hasbro

What is it?:

Probably the largest producer of action figures.  They originated the term action figure with the original GI Joe.  They currently produce Star Wars and Marvel toys, and previously made DC toys as well.  They have bought out numerous smaller companies over the years, and are best known for their work with the 3 ¾ inch scale.  They have a tendency to pack figures with pointless missile launchers.

#0234: Captain America – Classic & Winter Soldier

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA – CLASSIC & WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

Cap&WinterSoldier

I love Minimates. That’s no secret. I also loved Captain America: The Winter Soldier (I’ve seen it six times). These are things that have been said many times on this site. So why bring them up? BECAUSE I JUST GOT THE MINIMATES FROM CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDER! Whoa, sorry about that. I’m very excited. You see, short of spending an insane amount of money on the Hot Toys figures, the Minimates are the only way to get all of the main characters in a single scale. Plus they’re Minimates! Today, I’ll be kicking off my reviews of the series with the film’s two title characters: Captain America and The Winter Soldier!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This set was released as part of Marvel Minimates Series 55, which was a series based on the Captain America: The Winter Soldier film released this summer.

CAPTAIN AMERICA – CLASSIC

CapClassic

Cap, like just about every other Minimate, is built on the standard Minimate body. As such, he stands about 2 ½ inches tall and features 14 points of articulation. This figure depicts Cap in his “classic” costume from the movie, which is the one he wears during the last act of the film. It’s essentially his uniform from The First Avenger, but it tweaks the stripes on the abdomen, brightens the brown areas, and ditches the holster and side-arm from that film. The figure features sculpted helmet and belt add-ons to help facilitate the look. Both of these pieces appear to be new to this figure, sharply sculpted and look spot on to the movie. The paint work on this figure is a bit mixed. To Diamond’s credit, the detail line work is nothing short of amazing. All the lines are nice and sharp, and the level of detailing is just great! They’ve even succeeded in giving us a pretty great Chris Evans likeness. Unfortunately, the base paint work is not so great. The ends of his gloves are very uneven, the colors routinely go out of detail lines, and you can see that the A on the helmet is pretty far off center. Also, my Cap’s helmet has a smear of silver across the nose, which is incredibly distracting. Cap includes a spare hair piece, his mighty shield, a hand to attach the shield to, and a clear display stand.

WINTER SOLDIER

WinterSoldierUnmaskedWinter Soldier is built on the same basic body as Cap, so he has all the same stats there. He depicts the main Winter Soldier look in the film, the same one shown on all the other WS merchandise. Given its presence in most of the Soldier’s important scenes, I’ve got no complaints there. Bucky features five sculpted add-ons: Mask/Hair, shoulder gear, belt, and a holster for both legs. These pieces all look to be new to this figure, and they all seem to do an admirable job replicating Bucky’s look in the movie. The mask perhaps sits a bit too low, but it’s not so low that it ruins the figure. Bucky seems to have come out a bit better than Cap in the paint department. Like Cap, all of the detail lines are really sharp, and the work on the legs in particular is quite impressive. The Sebastian Stan likeness is much better this time than it was on Diamond’s version of Bucky from the first film. On a side note: Am I the only one that didn’t really notice the eye shadow in the movie? I saw it in one or two scenes, but it was mostly absent. Yet, every single figure has it caked on there. Fortunately, it’s handled pretty well here, nowhere near the monstrosity that was the Hasbro version. The best part of this figure is his accessory selection. He’s armed to the teeth, with a sniper rifle, two sub machine guns, a hand gun, and two knives, plus an alternate hairpiece without the mask and a clear display stand thrown in for good measure! One additional thing I might have liked to have seen is a hair piece without the goggles, to replicate his look from his first fight with Cap, but I wouldn’t want to be too greedy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This series was originally supposed to be released closer to the film’s opening weekend, but was met with a few delays. They were finally released the first week in June, while I happened to be out of town. Fortunately, my awesome dad picked them up for me the day they came out. He even brought them with him when he came to bring me home!

While I’m not quite as happy with the paint on Cap as I’d have liked, the overall work on these figures is pretty great, and Winter Soldier is at the very least the most accurate version of the character available, if not the best! I’m hopeful that the issues with Cap are more or less limited to my set, as I’d hate to see this be a widespread issue.

#0233: Wonder Man & She-Hulk

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

WONDER MAN & SHE-HULK

MARVEL MINIMATES

WonderMan&SheHulk

Hey! More Minimates! Everybody’s favorite! Yes, it’s another review based on a piece of my extensive Minimates collection. Once again, this one comes from the flagship line, Marvel Minimates. This time around, the set contains two Avengers, Wonder Man and She-Hulk. For those of you unfamiliar with the characters (like a certain screen writer currently in Warner Brothers’ employ), click the links in their names to read about them in the Backstories section.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were released as part of the series 16 of the Marvel Minimates line. The series was Avengers themed.

WONDER MAN

Wonder Man is built on the basic Minimate body, which means he has the usual 14 points of articulation and stands about 2 ½ inches tall. He’s based on the character’s look during John Byrne’s run on West Coast Avengers (the hair and stern expression are the easiest giveaways) but he can also pass for several similar looks he’s sported. He features brand new hair and belt add-ons. I’m not crazy about the hair, but it does fit the mullet he sported for some of Byrne’s run. The belt is a pretty much perfect representation of the one the character sported, so that’s cool. Wonder Man’s paint is basic, but has a sort of an elegant simplicity to it. I might have liked a slightly more jovial facial expression, but this one’s still a valid choice. The paint is cleanly applied overall, though there is a slight bit of fuzz on the lines of his boots. Wonder Man included no accessories.

SHE-HULK

Like Wonder Man, She-Hulk is built on the standard Minimate body, so she has the usual stats. She is represented here in her purple and white costume that she wore during her tenure in the Avengers in the early 2000s, as well as her solo series from the same time. Seeing as this was the look she sported during her best known stint on the Avengers, it makes sense to place it in an Avengers themed series. She features a sculpted hair piece, which is a re-use from Ultimate Storm, way back in series 3. The hair isn’t bad, but it does have a sculpted lightning-bolt earring, which looks out of place on She-Hulk. It’s odd because the prototype pictures showed her reusing the oft-used Spider Woman hair, which lacks such distinctive features. The change is a bit baffling. Shulkie has a decent set of paint apps, and has some nice line work on her face and torso. The face has the appropriate light expression that she’s been known to sport, and it looks pretty good. She features the same fuzzy lines issue as Wonder Man, but it’s not too distracting. She-Hulk included a bent metal bar, though it was a bit too big for her to hold properly.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These were originally meant to be released on my birthday of that year. They ended up being pushed back about a month, but my Dad bought them for me anyway, just a bit late. They’re certainly older figures, but they aren’t horribly dated, especially if you can find some better hair pieces for the two of them. Wonder Man has always been one of my favorite Avengers, so I was glad to get him, especially so early into the line. She-Hulk is pretty cool, too, and great for people who are big fans of the character!

Action Figures For The Questioning #012: Exclusive

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Action Figures For the Questioning

I’ve been in the action figure world for about 20 years.  So, it’s safe to say I’ve got a fair bit of knowledge on the terms that tend to be thrown around by collectors with little or no explanation as to what they mean.  I generally try to explain a concept on its first appearance on this site, but much as Stan Lee once said to assume every comic book was somebody’s first, I too must assume that every review on this site might be the first to be read by a new visitor.  As such, I’ve decided to put together a guide to some of the more frequently used terms and names that might show up.

EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive(Green)

What is it?:

A figure only available from a certain place (first-hand, anyway).  Can be a specific store, such as Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, or possibly and event such as San Diego Comicon.  Usually a figure that is desirable to more hard-core fans, but not a general audience.  Store-exclusives are usually meant to be a sign of good faith to the store to encourage them to support the line.

Example:

Minimates have prominent Toys R Us exclusive waves, with brand new characters not seen elsewhere.

#0232: Johann Kraus

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

JOHANN KRAUS

HELLBOY

I came in somewhat late to the Hellboy scene. My first interaction with the characters and story was the release of the first Hellboy movie in 2004. I saw the movie with a group of friends and had no expectations at all. I actually thought that Abe Sapien was supposed to be the villain! Anyway, the movie was really good, and I was hooked on all things Hellboy. Mezco Toys had the license for the movie, and I picked up a few figures from that line, and then Mezco decided to move onto a line of figures based on the comicbooks. Today, I’ll be looking at that line’s version of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s resident expert on ectoplasmic stuff, Johann Kraus.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Johann was released as part of the second series of comicbook-inspired Hellboy line from Mezco Toys. He stands a little over 7 inches tall and features 15 points of articulation. He’s based on Johann as Mike Mignola drew him. Seeing as Mignola originated the design, that’s a good call. The sculpt does a pretty good job of translating Mignola’s 2D drawings to 3D, which was no easy feat, I’m sure. They’ve incorporated some great texture work all around, which captures the gritty look of the series very nicely. The paint is serviceable, with some pretty decent dry brushing all around. They’ve used a semi-translucent paint on his head, which works nicely to capture his ectoplasmic look. Sadly, my figure has a scratch on his face, which brings the work down a bit, but I’d be exceptionally happy were that not the case. Johann included a spare set of hands to simulate his ectoplasmic powers at work.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Johann from my local comic store (Cosmic Comix) when series two was first released. Shortly after the release of the first Hellboy movie, I picked up an issue of Hellboy Weird Tales, which among other things, contained a story that focused on Johann. It was my first interaction with the character, and I enjoyed him immensely. So, when the figure came out I knew I definitely wanted one. I never got any of the other comicbook Hellboy figures, but Johann is still very entertaining, and a great representation of the character.

Guest Review #0004: Quorra

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

QUORRA

TRON: LEGACY (SPIN MASTER)

Qorra2

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!

As I’ve said before, my action figure collection tends to stem from video games. Today’s figure follows this pattern, even though the game itself exists in a movie, but was then made as a real game, sorta… it’s complicated. Anyway, today I’ll be looking at Quorra from Tron: Legacy. I’ll also be reviewing an action figure of her as well made by Spin Master.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The figure is based on Quorra’s initial appearance in the film when she rescues Sam from GAMES. Regrettably this means that she is depicted wearing her helmet which only stays on for about a minute of screen time and there isn’t the alternate Olivia Wilde, slanted bangs head that everyone hoped for. Quorra stands about 4″ tall and features 23 points of articulation. One of the gimmicks for this line of figures is that they light up, in keeping with the aesthetic of the movie. Aside from the unfortunate perma-helmet, the figure’s sculpt is unique to this character, and is pretty decent with just a few minor hiccups. The legs are a little skinny and the proportions around the waist are slightly off, making Quorra look a just a tad chunky if viewed from the side, but then again this is to accommodate the battery and aforementioned light so I’ll let it slide. Also, for whatever reason, her skirt is made of hard plastic which substantially restricts hip movement which stinks because the overall figure has fairly good range of motion. If it weren’t for the skirt, and maybe the neck, you could probably pull off some cool action poses. The paint keeps up this trend of decent-but-not-fantastic with a few small areas of bleed over as well as a couple spots of careless slop marring and otherwise pristine paint job. Quorra comes packaged with her Identity Disk and sword as well as a stand on which to display her. So overall, yes the figure has its problems, but for the most part I can overlook those flaws because she’s my favorite character from the movie. It also helps that I only paid $5 for the figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I purchased this figure not long after I saw Tron: Legacy for the first time. I knew I wanted a little light up figure after they were cleverly shown off in the opening scene by a horrifically CGI-ed Jeff Bridges, it only became clearer later on who I wanted a figure of. After finding out that the 12″ Impulse Projection line of figures from the movie did not include Quorra, I settled on the 3″ version I have now.

#0231: Arnim Zola & Captain America

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

ARNIM ZOLA & CIVIL WAR CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL MINIMATES

ArnimZola&Cap ArnimZola&CapAlt2

Minimates. What more can I say. I’ve reviewed them numerous times before, and I try to think of original anecdotes about them, but there’s really only so much you can say. Still, they are the greatest toyline on the market today, so that’s a big plus. Today, I’ll be looking at Arnim Zola, a recurring Captain America foe, and Captain America himself.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were released as part of the 42nd series of Marvel Minimates. That particular series was meant to loosely tie-in with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, which were both released the same year.

ARNIM ZOLA

Arnim is presented here in his classic “face on a chest monitor” look, which is definitely the one to go with if you’re doing an Arnim Zola figure. He’s built on the usual Minimate body, so he has 14 points of articulation and stands around 2 ½ inches tall. Arnim features a uniquely sculpted camera head and torso piece, as well as reused “puffy sleeves.” The pieces work pretty well, and give a nice depiction of the character’s usual look. The paint work on the figure is all nice and clean, with no slop, bleed-over, or fuzzy lines. He also features some impressive detail work on his “torso face” which pretty much perfectly replicates Arnim’s snickering, disembodied face.

CIVIL WAR CAPTAIN AMERICA

Yes, it’s another Cap. This one has been dubbed “Civil War Captain America” but I’m not really sure why. Cap wasn’t involved with the historical American Civil War (and if he had been, I doubt he would have dressed this way) which only leaves the Marvel cross-over of the same name. However, Cap doesn’t dress like this in that story. It seems that the real inspiration for Cap was actually his incarnation on Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, where he was frequently seen wearing a similar outfit while riding around on his motorcycle. At any rate, the figure is built on the basic Minimate body like Arnim, so he’s got the usual stats. He features a sculpted helmet, jacket, belt, left hand w/ shield strap, and boots. All of the pieces have been used before, with the helmet coming from Ultimate WW2 Cap, the jacket coming from James Rhodes, the belt coming from Cap reborn, the hand coming from one of the movie Caps, and the boots coming from numerous figures. The pieces are all good pieces and work pretty nicely. The painted details aren’t bad, though I’m not the biggest fan of Cap’s face. The Avengers logo on his arm is also a nice touch. Cap includes a spare set of arms and gloves and a proper Cap mask to allow you to display him as a more basic Cap, as well as a hairpiece for all those wanting him unmasked.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got these two along with the rest of series 42 from my favorite online retailer, Luke’s Toy Store! I mostly bought the series for the Thor sets included, but I wanted this one too, mostly for Arnim. In hand, I think they’re both pretty solid ‘mates, but Cap suffers from some serious redundancy.

#0230: Wildebeast

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

WILDEBEAST

TEEN TITANS GO! (BANDAI)

Wildebeast

Some toylines are good, some are mediocre, and some just suck. In general, toys made by Bandai America fall into the last category. How they manage to pick up hot licenses is beyond me, given their dreck-like output. Maybe they know a guy. That must be nice. Today, we venture again into their Teen Titans Go! toyline, based on the Teen Titans TV show of the early 2000s. This time around it’s Wildebeast. Yay.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wildebeast was released as part of series 4 of the Teen Titans Go! line. He stands 3.5 inches tall, just like the rest of the figures in the line because Bandai has no idea how scale works. The figure also only features 5-ish points of articulation, a downgrade from the 9 received by figures in previous series. I say “5-ish” because one of those points is a neck joint that has been rendered functionally useless by the figure’s sculpted mane. The figure’s sculpt isn’t too bad. Nothing to write home about, but fairly accurate to the character’s look on the show. The paintwork is pretty bad. Not only is it incredibly basic, but there is noticeable slop and bleed-over and the colors aren’t really right either. Wildebeast included a single accessory: a rock club that the character never, ever used. Way to go guys.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bandai’s toys suck. Teen Titans Go! was no exception. I mentioned in my review of Robin and Beast Boy that I had a bit of nostalgia for them, having gone on a trip with my Mom to get them. Wildebeast doesn’t get that. I think I probably picked him up from Target, most likely because he was packed with someone else I wanted. I guess it’s not the worst figure ever, but it doesn’t have a whole lot going for it.

#0229: Green Goblin

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

GREEN GOBLIN

SPIDER-MAN: THE MOVIE (TOYBIZ)

 

The first Spider-Man movie may have been surpassed by other superhero movies in recent years, but when it was released it was my favorite superhero movie, and remained in that spot until it was dislodged by its sequel. The movie was also one of the earliest comicbook based movies to get a decent tie-in toyline, on par with, and perhaps even better than the comic stuff at the time. I’m certain it surprises no one that I owned a few of the figures from that toyline, and today I’ll be looking at one of the figures of the film’s big bad, the Green Goblin.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Goblin was part of the first series of Spider-Man movie figures. The figure stands 6 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation. He has an all new sculpt based on Willem Dafoe’s performance as the character in the film. It’s a pretty good sculpt and, whether you like the suit or not, it’s a good representation of the suit’s design. Under the figure’s removable mask is an unmasked Norman Osborn head, which bares more than a passing resemblance to Dafoe. The resemblance might be a bit closer were it not for the slick back hair style, but it was necessary in order to facilitate the removable mask feature. The mask is a well done piece and is essentially a scaled down version of the real thing, though it is missing the backing it had in the movie. This is once again to aid the removability. The paintwork is cleanly applied, with no real issues with slop or bleed over. His skin tone is a tad too yellow for my tastes, but only a tad. The figure came packaged with his goblin glider and a flight stand, but both of mine have been lost. Sorry! (EDIT: Okay, not quite…)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Green Goblin from the KB Toys in my local mall shortly after the first series was released. That would have been a few months before the release of the movie. For some reason, I wanted Green Goblin, but none of the other figures in the series. So, I only had the Goblin for a while. He’s a quality figure for sure, but that goblin costume looks worse every time I see it.

#0228: MSA-003 Nemo

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

MSA-003 NEMO

HG GUNDAM HGUC

Nemo

And now for something completely different. Previous reviews on the site have been based on finished action figures, purchased by me, fully assembled elsewhere, in processes unknown to me. Not today. No, today, I’ll be taking a look at a figure I built all by myself. Well, not all by myself. There were instructions, and the basic parts were supplied for me. But, I did most of the heavy lifting this time.

Today’s figure comes from Bandai’s line of Gundam model kits. They’re based on designs from the various Gundam anime and manga, and are made up a large assortment of pieces that can be snapped together to form a fully functioning action figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Nemo3The figure I’m looking at is the MSA-003 Nemo, which is apparently a “massed-produced mobile fighting suit.” From what I can tell, it’s an army builder. Anyway, Nemo is figure #150 in Bandai’s HG GUNDAM HGUC model line (I think I got all that right, but it’s a bit difficult to tell with most of the info on the box being in Japanese.) The figure is in 1/144 scale, which means he stands about 5 inches tall. He also features 35 points of articulation, which is certainly impressive for a model. From what I’ve been able to find online, the sculpt looks pretty faithful to the Nemo design, which is a good thing. It’s a nice and clean sculpt, with some pretty great details worked in. Above all, all of the pieces fit together pretty much perfectly, which is the most important part of the kit. The figure features no actual paint work, though it makes use of parts molded in five different colors in order to give the figure the proper color scheme. What can’t be feasibly handled with a solid molded piece is handled via decal. The decals go on without too much trouble (though I did have to put out the tweezers), and stay in place very well. Perhaps my favorite part of the figure is the combination of a silver decal and a piece of translucent orange plastic in order to create Nemo’s visor. It really gives it a great amount of dimension. Amazingly for a model kit, Nemo also includes five interchangeable hands, two beam swords, a machine gun, and a shield. All of these pieces can be used to great effect and offer a lot of variety in display choices.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Nemo from a local hobby store while on a trip there with my Dad. I’ve never been much of a Gundam fan, but I saw Nemo amongst the assortment of kits they had and he just called to me. I liked the color scheme, and I’m a sucker for a cool robot design. I had heard of the Gundam kits, but I didn’t actually have any experience with them. I figured I’d give this one a shot, and I’m glad I did. Putting this figure together was quite a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed getting the insights on how such a figure is assembled. And, at the end of it all, I get an awesome robot dude that’s fully poseable! How cool is that?

Nemo2