Tag Archives: 00s

#1336: Astonishing Wolverine

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

ASTONISHING WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Little is known about the man known as Logan whose past remains shrouded in mystery. The feral warrior, code-named Wolverine, possesses genetically endowed animal-keen senses of smell, sight, and hearing, as well as a mutant healing factor that can mend almost any wound. His deadliest weapons are his razor-sharp claws and skeleton both made of unbreakable metal alloy called Adamantium. However, with these abilities comes a curse, a bezerker rage that he must forever struggle to control. Now Logan must contain the beast raging within while he battles to protect a world that fears and hates him.”

Though my opinion of it has waned in recent years, at the time of its release, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men was a serious breath of fresh air.  I was never much impressed by Morrison’s “let’s put everyone in black leather and completely disregard prior character interpretation” New X-Men run that immediately preceded it, so taking the X-Men a bit more back to basics was pretty cool.  I also really liked John Cassidy’s art for the series, as well as his returning of several of the cast to more classically inspired costumes.  While most of the team eventually made it into toy form, it took quite a while.  Unsurprisingly, the first team member to make it into plastic was Wolverine, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astonishing Wolverine was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, also known as the “Apocalypse Series.”  It was the fourth Wolverine in the line, and was at the time his current look. There were both masked and unmasked versions of this guy; the one I’m looking at today is the masked version, obviously.  This figure also served as the inspiration for the larger Marvel Legends Icons version of the character, although he was slightly tweaked to offer an alternate version of this costume.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall (it’s one of the first times they actually got his scale right) and he has 40 points of articulation.  In terms of sculpt, this figure was all-new, and he’s based on Cassidy’s work from the comics, albeit somewhat loosely, since Cassidy’s style doesn’t quite lend itself to super-articulated action figures.  The head’s definitely the best work; there’s a lot of smaller detail work that looks really nice, without being too over-done like a lot of Legends Wolverines.  The rest of the body was good for the time, but doesn’t as much hold up to scrutiny these days.  Once again, there’s a lot detail work that’s really nice on the stitching and the piping.  However, he’s really, really scrawny, which removes some of his intimidation factor.  It’s the worst in the legs, where the precedence clearly went to the joints, resulting in an almost skeletal set of limbs.  And of course, they split the belt in two for the waist articulation.  Why did they do that?  Beats me.  Seems it would have made a lot more sense to go either above or below.  Worst case scenario, you could do the joint where it is currently and have the belt be an add-on.  But splitting it right down the middle just seems lazy to me, like the base body was already sculpted and they added the details later without taking placement into account.  On the plus side of things, he’s probably got the best claws we got on a TB ML Wolverine; they’re well-shaped, unlikely to break off, and resistant to heavy warping.  In terms of paint work, the figure’s decent enough.  The base colors match up pretty well with what was being used on the comics, and most of the application is fairly clean.  The only part that’s a little odd is the arm hair, which really just looks like a bunch of brown tally marks that someone’s drawn on him.  Wolverine included no accessories of his own, but he did come packed with one of the legs of Apocalypse.  So, that’s cool, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was a Christmas present from my friend Charlie.  He and I shared a love of Marvel Legends, and in particular, we were both on the lookout for the perfect Wolverine.  So, when this series hit, he made sure that I got this guy, which was very nice of him (I repaid the favor a year later when I made sure he got a completed Mojo Build-A-Figure).  He’s definitely got some flaws, but I really do think he was Toy Biz’s best take on Wolverine, and the best Legends version  of the character until Hasbro’s recent Brown Costume figure.  It’s honestly a little surprising that TB never retooled him into a more conventional Wolverine.

#1329: Iron Man

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

IRON MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“To the public, Tony Stark is a handsome, jet-setting industrialist and inventor. What they don’t know is that he leads a second life as Iron Man. The armored Avenger gets his fantastic powers from his suit of micro-mesh armor. It gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly via his jet boots, and a variety of built-in weapons, foremost among these being his devastating repulsor rays! Iron Man is dedicated to defeating those forces that would threaten the security of the nation and the entire world.”

Iron Man is easily one of Marvel’s best known characters these days, but that wasn’t always the case.  Aside from a brief cartoon runs in the ‘60s and ‘90s, he was largely out of the public eye until his 2008 film.  So, in 2002, when Toy Biz launched Marvel Legends as a follow-up to their successful Spider-Man: Classics line, and had Iron Man as one of the headliners of Series 1’s four figure assortment, it was a pretty big deal.  It’s hard to believe now, but when Marvel Legends debuted, the most demanded figure by far was the Iron Man.  Can you even imagine a time when the fanbase didn’t let out a collective groan at the inclusion of an Iron Man figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted in the intro, Iron Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line.  There were actually two Iron Men in the assortment; the regular release reviewed here, and the one-per-case horned-mask variant.  Even later, there was also a Walmart-exclusive release, which decked this guy out in his stealth colors.  This guy is based on Tony’s classic armor from the 60s and 70s, which at this point hadn’t been released in plastic form for almost two decades.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 38 points of articulation.  Some of the articulation (particularly the neck movement and the mid-torso joint) is a bit antiquated, but it’s mostly pretty workable.  Amusingly, some of the articulation the was more quickly deemed out of date within the line itself has actually become the more standard way of doing things, so in some ways he fits in better with the more recent Hasbro offerings than he does the later TB offerings.  Iron Man sported what was, at the time, an all-new sculpt, which would later be used for the Silver Centurion armor, as well as War Machine and Magneto.  The build is a little bulkier than the usual depictions of the classic Iron Man armor, but it actually makes sense, since it’s supposed to be wrapped around a normal-sized guy; it’d have to be a little heftier in real life.  The proportions are actually pretty solid for a figure of this era.  Compare this guy to his Series-mate Captain America, and you’ll note that he’s got a much more balanced anatomy.  He even avoids the dreaded duck feet!  The articulation is also pretty well worked-in for a Toy Biz offering; sure, there are still some spots where compromise has been made (the waist really sticks out), but it’s generally a good middle-ground.  In terms of detail work, this guy goes a bit more simplistic than later TB fare (another reason he fits in a bit better with the Hasbro stuff), but that’s definitely a plus.  All of the important details are there, they’re all very sharply defined.  The figure has a removable faceplate, which reveals Tony Stark beneath the mask.  I’ve always felt he bore a resemblance to Timothy Dalton, which is a neat little “what-if” casting idea.  The face has some of the best work on the whole figure, which shows real commitment on the sculptor’s part, since it’s largely going un-seen.  The faceplate is molded to fit into the contours of the face, and it actually stays in place really well.  In terms of paint, Iron Man’s handled really well. He’s got the base red and yellow, which are nice and vibrant, and then on top of that, there’s a hint of silver lightly applied to all the armored portions of the figure, which makes him look suitably metallic, while avoiding the issues of blending that plague the Iron Men that use gold in place of the yellow. Iron Man was packed with a display stand designed to look like a Stark Industries satellite and a reprint of Iron Man #149 (which contains “Doomquest,” one of my favorite Iron Man stories).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from my Nana.  Every year, she’d take me and my cousin to Toys R Us at the end of school and let us each pick out one or two things.   Of course, I went through the usual back and forth, having to reassure her that yes I really did want this Iron Man fellow instead of a handful of Attack of the Clones figures like my cousin was getting.  At the time, this guy was still pretty hard to get, so finding him so quickly was pretty sweet.  He was my very first Marvel Legend, and I gotta say, dragging him out for the purpose of this review has reminded me that he’s still very definitely one of my favorites.  As far as classic Iron Men go, this guy really hasn’t been topped.

#1328: The Wolf Man

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

THE WOLF MAN

VAN HELSING: MONSTER SLAYER (JAKKS PACIFIC)

Hey, remember when Hugh Jackman starred in a Van Helsing movie?  I know, I know, you were trying to forget.  Why’d I have to go and bring it up again?  Well, the reason is very simple: there were toys.  And, big shock, I had a bunch of them.  For the most part I’ve phased them out of my collection, but one item still remains.  It’s the subject of today’s review, The Wolfman, who within the context of the film isn’t the usual “wolfman” Larry Talbot, but is instead Velkan Valerious, brother to…oh who really cares?  He’s a werewolf.  There ends the list of interesting things about him.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Wolf Man was released as part of Jakks Pacific’s basic Van Helsing: Monster Slayer line.  There were a couple minor variations on this basic figure; mine’s the one with “magic transformation color change,” which pretty much translates to “the actual Wolf Man bit has this clear patch at the front.”  The figure is just under 4 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  The actual figure is just an un-transformed Velkan figure, which has him sporting the Bruce Banner shredded pants (they never did explain in the movie where those pants when he was the werewolf, by the way).  The sculpt was okay.  None of the figures in this line were particularly noteworthy, and Velkan seems to be the middle-est of the middling sculpts.  The proportions of the sculpt are passable; the hands and feet seem a little small, and the shoulders are definitely set too far apart, but that’s about it.  A lot of the work, especially on the body, definitely seems a bit rudimentary for the time when this was released.  The head bears a passing resemblance to actor Will Kemp, though he’s completely clean shaven here, and he wasn’t in the movie.  There’s some nice detail work on the hair, so that’s cool.  The paint is also pretty basic.  He’s mostly just molded in the appropriate colors.  The only real paint work is on the face, which seems oddly dirty.  He wasn’t exactly squeaky clean in the movie, but it seems a bit odd when compared to the rest of the figure.  The “Wolf Man” part of this Wolf Man figure is actually just a rubber suit that you pull over the Velkan figure.  I’m gonna be honest, it’s not ideal.  The basic sculpt is fine, but since it’s just thick rubber cover, there’s no actual articulation, and since it’s just rubber and not something sturdy, there’s actually no way for the thing to stand, especially with Velkan inside it.  Also, since the “magic transformation color change” bit requires the piece to molded in clear plastic, and paint on rubber is prone to chipping, the figure is invariably left with random clear patches all over.  Why exactly didn’t they just make this a whole separate figure?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, believe it or not, I actually liked Van Helsing when it was released.  In my defense, I was 11.  Anyway, I ended up getting a bunch of the figures for my birthday that year, and the Wolf Man was one of them.  He was always my favorite of the bunch, so when I got rid of the set, he remained.  The figure’s not anything to write home about; he’s a kind of bland figure based on a flat character from a mediocre movie.

#1319: Joker

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

THE JOKER

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

“The Clown Prince of Crime is Batman’s deadliest and most unpredictable foe. Rumored to be a failed stand-up comedian turned petty criminal who fell into a vat of chemical waste while escaping from the scene of a crime – that incident turned his skin white and his hair green. Batman knows the Joker is certifiably insane, which makes the end result of his action  that much more deadly.”

A common complaint of DC Universe Classics was about its over-reliance on oddball, C and D-list characters that most of the general public hadn’t heard of, and the subsequent delaying of heavy hitter characters until too far into the line’s run.  Case in point: the Joker.  Batman’s greatest foe, and we had to wait more than a year to get him (made especially egregious by Harley Quinn’s presence in Series freaking 2).  Obviously, in a line like this, you want to hold some heavy hitters back, but 10 series seems like a bit much.  But, with the line wrapped and gone, at least he got a figure.  I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Joker was released in Series 10 of DC Universe Classics.  I’ve been reviewing a lot of this particular series lately.  Not for any particular reason, or anything; just luck of the draw I suppose.  As I’ve noted in prior reviews, the series was the line’s second Walmart-exclusive series.  While it was far less scarce than the first, it still seems a little odd that DC’s most recognizable villain was relegated to a store-exclusive release.  There’s a reason this guy has one of the heftier aftermarket prices in the line.  Anyway, the figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  Joker is seen here in an appearance that’s about as classic as he can get (specifically, he’s modeled after his Super Powers figure as this was really when the line was leaning hard into the recreation of Super Powers).  He’s built on the body that was introduced with Gentleman Ghost, which was designed with Joker in mind.  In that effect, the cut of the suit matches up pretty well with classic depictions of Joker.  The body showcases a lot of Mattel’s troubles with working articulation into a sculpt naturally.  It’s nowhere near as bad as some of their more recent work, but it’s definitely not the strongest showing from DCUC.  On the plus side, it’s not awful to look at, especially if you chose a decent pose.  He had a unique head and neck, which are definitely the star pieces of this figure.  He also has a tweaked jacket, which removes the cape from Gentleman Ghost and adds a flower to his lapel.  It’s an okay piece, but slightly marred by the weird panel in the back where the cape was originally attached.  Why does Mattel insist on attaching capes with that huge rectangular peg?  I don’t think I’ll ever know.  The paint work on the figure’s actually pretty good.  The colors are nice and bold, and there’s some really well-executed accenting, especially on the hair and the vest.  The pinstripes on the legs could probably stand to be a little straighter, but they look decent enough.  Joker was actually pretty well accessorized.  He includes a joker-head cane, some playing card, a laughing fish, and a large green mallet (deliberately pattered after the one included with the Super Powers figure).  They were all pretty solid extras, among the best in the line.  He also included the right leg of Imperiex, the Series’ CnC.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Joker came from the same assortment of trips to Walmart with my Dad that netted me the previously reviewed Beast Boy.  I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but he was definitely a later find, since he was the most sought after initially.  He’s not one of my favorite DCUC figures, but that’s hardly because he’s bad.  He’s actually very well executed, apart from the slightly lackluster handling of the articulation.  For me, he just suffered from being “yet another Joker” in a series full of brand-new characters, but I suppose I’m a bit counter to most fans in that respect.

#1318: Logan

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

LOGAN

X-MEN: THE MOVIE (TOY BIZ)

“Logan is a loner by nature and a hunter by trade.  Dressed in civilian gear of jeans, leather jacket, and flannel shirt, no one would ever know this ordinary looking man possesses the untamed savagery of a wild beast combined with the battle-skills of an international secret agent.  His power to heal virtually any wound in minutes combined with his superhumanly keen animal senses and razor sharp adamantium claws and skeleton make him the perfect fighting machine called Wolverine”

Who wrote this bio?  And did they have any idea who the character was going in?  Or what figure this bio would be going with?  I enjoy that the bio describes a completely different set of civilian clothes than this figure is actually wearing, but I think my favorite part may be “battle-skills of an international secret agent.”  That’s one specific descriptor, let me tell you.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Logan was released in Series 3* of Toy Biz’s X-Men: The Movie line, which tied in with (big surprise here) 2000’s X-Men film.  The figure stands a whopping 7 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The X-Men: The Movie figures were already pretty out of scale at the time of their release (being Toy Biz’s very first 6-inch figures), but Wolverine takes this to ridiculous levels, being about an inch out of scale with even the figures from his own line.  He’s larger than Sabertooth for pete’s sake!  Why is he so freaking huge?  Because of re-use, that’s why.  He’s built on the body of the Power Slam WCW Wrestlers Hak figure.  The WCW stuff was always much larger than the Marvel stuff Toy Biz did, and Hak was even pretty sizable for his own line.  I’m not entirely sure why Toy Biz opted to re-use this particular body.  I guess they felt they just had to have another Wolverine in there?  Completely divorced from the line that spawned him, I guess Logan’s sculpt isn’t terrible.  He got a new set of lower arms and feet, and what appears to be the Series 1 Wolverine head sculpt scaled up.  The pieces all mesh okay together.  The head definitely resembles Jackman as Wolverine, though it’s not quite as good as later figures would be.  The build seems rather on the bulky side for Wolverine as seen in the movies, and his proportions in some spots look like he’s trying to smuggle meat in his clothes or something. You’ll note that my figure is missing three of his claws; this isn’t by design, they just fell off, because this figure had some of the most easy to tear claws of any Wolverine figure.  In addition to the sculpted parts, Logan also has a cloth jacket.  It’s kind of thick and oddly shaped, and makes him look even puffier than he already was.  Paint on this guy was okay, but nothing tremendously exciting.  The colors are well chosen, and the jeans in particular have some nice accent work.  This Logan is from post movie release, so he’s after Toy Biz started adding the goofy painted on sideburns to all the movie Wolverines in an effort to make them more accurate.  It looks really goofy.  Super goofy.  Crazy goofy.  The figure was packed with a small dog tag that isn’t even remotely close to proper scale.  He’s also got the “action feature” which I think is supposed to swing his arms back and forth when the torso is turned, but it never looks like anything more than panicked flailing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Series 3 X-Men: The Movie figures were rather hard to come by at first, even Logan.  He was one of the last ones I got, courtesy of my parents, who bought him for me while they were on a weekend trip to the beach.  I know I really wanted one at the time, but boy is this figure odd in retrospect.  Not only does he feel rather redundant (he was the fourth civilian version of the character in the line), but he’s also just laden with strange design choices.

*Though this series was dubbed “Series 3” by Toy Biz, it was effectively Series 2 of the line, as the first 2 series were released simultaneously in order to have all of the main characters on shelves for the film’s release.

#1314: Nightwing

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

NIGHTWING

BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL (DC DIRECT)

“As Batman’s former ward, Nightwing returns to Gotham City to fight crime during the absence of his mentor.”

I’ve touched very briefly on “Knightfall,” the huge cross-over series that introduced Bane, broke Batman’s back, and gave us the new Batman Jean Paul Valley (formerly Azrael).  It’s actually one of the better regarded big cross-over stories of the ‘90s, largely due to DC consciously using common story elements for the time, and addressing some of the issues behind them. The story got some figures as part of the then running Legends of Batman line from Kenner, but no truly devoted line, until 2005, when the story was given a dedicated line of figures, courtesy of DC Direct.  I’ll be looking at one of those figures, Nightwing, today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Nightwing was released as one of the five figures in DCD’s Batman: Knightfall series, which, as I noted above, hit comic stores in 2005.  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall (he’s from the period where the DCD scale creep was really kicking into overdrive, so he was a good half an inch taller then the two prior Nightwings) and he has 11 points of articulation.  He’s sporting his early ’90s costume, which generally isn’t one of my favorites.  It’s largely to do with the particularly egregious mullet that always accompanied it, but also due to the way he tended to be depicted as super bulky in this outfit.  I really have to commend this figure’s sculpt, because it  makes a lot of those issues less present.  In particular, his build is more svelte and similar to DCD’s prior Nightwings, and they’ve also gone with what’s probably the least dated interpretation of the mullet.  The sculpt isn’t perfect, mind you.  There are some slight oddities to the posing; his feet seem a bit wide spread, and I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the left hand.  Also, his thighs seem oddly…flat.  Still, it’s remarkably well done, given how badly it could have turned out, depending on the iteration of the source material they followed.  One of the coolest things about this guy is the paint work.  The application is all pretty clean, and the colors just really pop.  I particularly love the metallic blue color that makes up the majority of the bodysuit.  It’s a good base color, and it really helps accentuate the brighter colors that have been placed on top of it.  Nightwing included a little…disc thing?  I guess it’s some sort of throwing weapon or something?  Mine’s missing his, but he could hold it in his right hand.  He also had a circular display stand with the “Knightfall” logo printed on it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m hard-pressed to come up with all that much interesting about this guy.  I know I bought him from Cosmic Comix, because that’s where I was getting all of my DC Direct figures at the time, but the exact nature of when or why I got him doesn’t seem to be coming to me.  I know I haven’t traditionally been a fan of this look, but this figure changed my mind on that.  While he’s not my favorite DCD Nightwing, but he’s still a very solid entry.  Also, one of only two figure versions of this particular design, for what it’s worth.

#1250: Baron Zemo

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

BARON ZEMO

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

Earlier this month, I took a look at Baron Helmut Zemo, who’s one of my favorite Captain America villains. Well, he’s my favorite Cap villain that’s not a crazy leaping Frenchman…or a robot with face for a torso…look, he’s nearer the top of the list than he is the bottom, alright?  Anyway, I looked at Helmut, but he wasn’t the first Baron Zemo to face off against Cap.  No, that would be his dad, Baron Heinrich Zemo, who, amongst other things, founded the Masters of Evil.  Heinrich hasn’t been quite as prevalent to the toy world as his son, but he’s gotten a few entries.  He was actually the only Baron Zemo to be released during Toy Biz’s lengthy tenure producing Marvel figures, and was even one of the last figures they produced.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Baron Zemo was released in Series 14 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, which was also commonly known as the “Mojo Series” after its Build-A-Figure.  It was the penultimate series of the line, and ended up being rushed into production so that Toy Biz could get it out before passing the license off to Hasbro.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and he has 36 points of articulation.  As with so many of Toy Biz’s Legends figures, there was a definite priority placed on the articulation over the integrity of the sculpt on this guy.  For some, that was less of an issue, but on this guy?  Oh boy, it’s pretty bad.  Now, admittedly, there were some production things that made some problems crop up that weren’t on the initial prototype (mostly the neck), but this guy was always going to look sort of…weird.  His shape is vaguely human, I guess.  The hands and feet were definitely too large, the neck too long, the waist both too high and too thin, and the limbs too skinny.  His clothes are both uncomfortably clingy and oddly loose, in a way that he would have to have them sewn on him that way.  It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I mean, if you take some of the pieces individually, there’s some good stuff there.  The head is pretty good, and captures his comics design pretty well.  The boots are also pretty nice, especially the fur lining.  The holster’s okay, but the gun’s non removable, which is always very frustrating.  Other than that, though, it’s pretty goofy.  Did no one stand back, look at this guy, and go “that looks nothing like a human?”  Because I did that.  On top of the very questionable sculpt, there were also some major quality control issues on this series in particular.  Most of the figures, Zemo included, were saddled with incredibly rubbery joints.  It makes getting him to stand quite difficult, and leaves him always looking the slightest bit deflated.  The paintwork on this guy is probably his strongest aspect.  It’s still not perfect; the gold pieces in particular are a real mess, and the washes can be rather hit and miss.  However, it’s still pretty passable.  Zemo included the head and upper torso of Mojo, as well as a weird staff thing.  The staff is kind of goofy; there’s a hole in the handle and a corresponding peg in his right hand, but he never holds it in a particularly convincing way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got most of Series 14 for as Christmas presents in 2006, and Zemo was amongst them.  I was happy to have him at the time (Legends was my absolute favorite line to collect at that point), but even when he was new, I knew he was less than stellar in execution.  This is definitely a figure I’d like to see Hasbro tackle at some point, especially since I liked their Helmut figure so much.

Flashback Figure Friday #0008: Robin

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , , ,

Hey, look at that, I missed another Friday.  Last week was pretty jam-packed, and I barely had the time to right Friday’s main review, much less a second feature.  Nevertheless, I apologize to all of you who were expecting one of these last week!

This week’s Flashback Friday Figure Addendum is actually less an addendum, and more me going back and finally writing a proper review for #0166: Robin.  Why?  You’ll see in a second.

Okay guys and gals, hang on tight. The site is about to go off! No, not like “off” off. It’s still gonna be here. It’s going off in a metaphorical sense, because today, we’ll be looking at one of the greatest entries into the world of action figures ever.

This figure hails from the very first Batman line released once Mattel had picked up the DC license. I know I’ve been hard on Mattel in the past, but it’s only because I’ve been trying to hold them to the standards they set for themselves so early into their run. You see, this Batman line was important, but not for the ways you think. Oh, sure the Batmen were cool and all (especially those sweet neon colored gun-toting variants!), but the real star of this line was Robin! So, let’s have a look at the greatest toy to ever grace shelves!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Robin was the flagship figure of the first series of Batman. He was the real heavy hitter of the wave, there so that Mattel could take chances on the Joker and Martial Arts Batman. He stands about 5 inches tall, and has 10 points of articulation, which may seem like a low number, but they had to take that awesome sculpt into account. Speaking of that awesome sculpt: has Robin ever looked this cool before? I mean, they really out did themselves. I’ve always found that a bad head sculpt can ruin a great figure. In this case, Mattel has wisely chosen to leave off the head so as to avoid any potential issue. This is the first time I’ve ever truly believed that Robin could make people think he’s anyone other than Tim Drake. I mean, Tim Drake has a head and Robin doesn’t. Can’t be the same guy! I’d also love to commend Mattel on the body sculpt, which perfectly captures Robin’s physique. I mean, those muscles are so realistic! And the torso’s straight posture coupled with the relaxed muscles everywhere else? Perfection. I’m heartbroken to say that I lost the accessories included with Robin. He had his ever present Blade-Shield thingy with his logo on it, which was such an important staple of the character at the time. It even launched discs! Who doesn’t need one of those?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I knew as soon as I saw the prototype pictures of this figure back in 2003 that it was going to be the figure to own. So, naturally, I spent all my time searching for this figure at every nearby store, day and night. Eventually I found one, and after sucker punching a four year old and his grandmother to get it, finally the figure was in my possession!

Yeah, so this was my first April Fool’s Day post.  It’s almost quaint, isn’t it?  This review was more a joke thing than anything.  Now a days, I’d have written the review both ways, but the figure was quite incomplete at the time.  Since I finally found this guy’s freaking head, I guess I can actually review him now!

The figure, officially titled “Battle Board Robin,” was released in the first series of Mattel’s 2003 Batman line.  Robin stands about 6 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation.  The main hook of this line at the time was that they’d brought in the Four Horsemen (who had just helped Mattel relaunch Masters of the Universe) to sculpt most of the figures, including the Bat-variants.  There was one exception to this in the first series.  Care to guess who it was?  Yep, it was this here Robin figure, which was handled by Mattel’s in-house team.  In their defense, it’s actually a decent enough sculpt.  It doesn’t look quite as good as the  prototype did, but what figure does?  His muscles are sort of impossible, and I’ve always disliked how stiff he was, bit there are some nice things about the sculpt.  The boots in particular look pretty solid.  But how about that head that I finally found after all these years?  Well, full disclosure: the reason it was missing when I found him was because I had fully intended to replace it with another one.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t particularly good at sculpting at 12, so the replacement I made wasn’t much better.  Ultimately, this one’s okay, but not my favorite Robin head.  I think it’s got a lot to do with the hair, which just doesn’t really look like anything Tim ever sported.  Also, still missing from the figure is his cape.  It was just two pieces of fabric glued together, and was too thick and short to actually hang realistically.  It’s kind of exhibit A of why I prefer capes to be sculpted.  In terms of paint, this figure was fairly basic colors.  For some reason the gloves are black.  Don’t know why, never did.  The accents on the muscles and some of the other sculpted work actually weren’t standard to the figure; I added them around the time that I tried replacing the head.  I really wanted to salvage this figure for some reason.  His only accessory was his titular Battle Board, which was really just a disc launcher than he could also stand on.  It was an odd choice.

There’s actually not a particularly exciting figure regarding the acquisition of this figure.  He, Joker, and the basic (Zipline) Batman were all really hard to find when these figures started hitting stores.  I eventually found him at the KB Toys near where my family vacationed (I got him alongside some Star Trek: Nemesis figures.  Oh what a joyous day that was).  He’s not awful, but he’s also not super great.  The saddest thing is that Mattel never actually returned to this design for Robin (apart from an inaccurate repaint of the later DCUC figure), so this is the best there is from them.   

#1242: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

X-MEN: CLASSICS (TOY BIZ)

I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks searching for the latest Marvel Legends Cyclops figure, with no luck so far (he’s the only one who illudes me.…).  Fortunately for me, I have an extensive backlog of figures I can pull from, allowing me to review a Cyclops just about any time I want to.  Heck, I can even review one that’s wearing the same costume!  In the same scale!  Isn’t that nifty?  I sure think it is!  So, without further ado, here’s a Cyclops figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops hails from the first (and sadly only) series of Toy Biz’s X-Men: Classics line.  Since they had launched Marvel Legends, Toy Biz had been using Spider-Man: Classics to release Spider-related characters in the same style, thereby clearing the way for Legends to release more obscure characters from elsewhere.  In 2004, they launched both X-Men: Classics and Hulk: Classics, in an attempt to do the same with those groups of characters.  Somehow, the X-Men got the short straw, and their line only lasted a single series before the team was rolled back into Marvel Legends (the line didn’t even last long enough for them to actually exit Legends, of course).  On the plus side of things, the line did manage to give us our first version of the X-Men’s stalwart field leader, Cyclops!  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and he has 37 points of articulation.  Due to a light up feature, his neck movement is restricted to just a cut joint, and even then, it can only go so far in each direction.  It’s better than no movement at all, but frustrating that that this guy is hampered by the same issue that the 5-inch figures had finally moved past.  Cyclops had an all-new sculpt, based on his Jim Lee-era design.  Though every piece here is new, I’ve always thought he looked rather similar to the Legends Gambit in terms of aesthetics.  I have to wonder if they had a common starting point.  The sculpt is a bit of a mixed bag if I’m honest.  The head is definitely the strongest bit; it’s probably the best Cyclops sculpt that Toy Biz ever produced, and just encapsulates the character very well.  I wish the body lived up to it.  It’s not awful, but it’s very scrawny.  Sure, Scott’s long had the nickname “Slim,” but this seems a bit excessive.  It also doesn’t help that it’s the Jim Lee design, and Lee always depicted Scott as pretty solid.  The figure suffers from some rather obvious articulation as well (a common issue with TB figures of this era), which only makes the lankiness look worse.  The actual details of the costume are actually pretty nice, and the work on the boots in particular is really top-notch, so that’s a plus.    The paintwork on Scott is okay overall.  The work is mostly pretty clean, and there’s some pretty good accent work.  There’s the usual slight inconsistencies of accenting from piece to piece of the figure, and the head seemed particularly prone to chipping, but other than that it seems fine.  I think my biggest gripe is the shade of blue they used; it just seems too muted for Cyclops.  While Legends was all about the collector driven extras, the Classics lines went a little more toy-etic.  Cyclops included a stand that I believe is meant to replicate a portion of the Danger Room.  There’s a cannon hooked up to one side, and Scott can be hooked up to the pole on the other side.  There’s a box at the top of the pole with a plug that goes into Scott’s back, and a lever at the base of the stand.  When the lever is pulled, Scott spins 90 degrees and his eyes light up, and then the cannon “explodes” via a spring-loaded feature, simulating him hitting it with his optic blast.  It’s quite gimmicky, and never worked particularly well on my figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I first saw this figure, it was as part of Raving Toy Maniac’s coverage of one of the Toy Fairs.  He was there alongside Series 5 and 6 of the main Legends line, with no info as to where he would be showing up.  Eventually we found out.  Of course, 2004 was kind of when Legends was at its worst in terms of scarcity and scalpers, so I never actually saw this guy at retail.  That summer my family took a trip to the large KB Toys warehouse store located in Dover, which I had been to once before, and which housed a huge selection of figures going back almost a decade .  When we arrived at the store, it was cleared out and closed, which was more than a little bit of a bummer.  Feeling bad for me, my Dad tracked this guy down from an online vendor, and bought him for me (he likes to buy me Cyclops figures when I’m down.  It’s a thing).  He paid a whopping $15 with shipping, which is kind of laughable these days.  This figure’s not perfect, but he was one of my favorites for a good long while, and I still think of him quite fondly.

#1237: Black Queen Jean Grey

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

BLACK QUEEN JEAN GREY

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

I’ve spend the last week and a half hunting for the latest X-Men-themed series of Marvel Legends, which means I’m really in the mood to review some X-Men Legends.  Unfortunately, I haven’t exactly had much luck with finding those particular figures, so I’ll have to dig into my back catalogue to make up for it.  So, today I’ll be looking at one of Hasbro’s earlier X-Men figures, Black Queen Jean Grey!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Black Queen Jean Grey was released as a Toys R Us exclusive, in between the 2nd and 3rd series of Hasbro’s first run with Marvel Legends.  She was one of three such figures that year, and also one of the two of those three to be built on this particular body.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and has 29 points of articulation.  This version of Jean was mostly created to get an extra use out of the Series 1 Emma Frost mold.  Without getting into it too much, the Emma Frost figure isn’t exactly popular with fans.  Were it not for the Legendary Riders Scarlet Witch, she’d easily be the most hideous Marvel Legends figure ever produced.  The body is oddly lanky in all the wrong places, has incredibly obvious joints and large hands, and just generally looks pretty fragile, not befitting the usual depictions of Emma in the comics.  So, the fact that this figure was built on that body was not particularly a point in its favor.  Also, it’s worth noting that, while Emma’s and Jean’s designs were originally pretty close, the Emma figure from Marvel Legends was based on her Astonishing X-Men design, which was a fair bit different from the design Jean was sporting as Black Queen.  The corset’s too short (and not actually a corset if you look closely), and she’s wearing pants, rather than the tights she had in the comics.  With that said, there are some new pieces that sort of help bridge the gap between designs.  The figure gets a new head sculpt, as well as a slightly tweaked clasp on the cape, to remove the original figure’s X-logo (of course, the one on the waist still remains, but whatever).  The head does a lot, and I mean A LOT, to carry this figure, despite the flaws of the body.  It’s definitely some top notch work, and easily the best work Hasbro put out in their first few years with the license.  It manages to capture the character of the Black Queen incarnation of Jean pretty much spot on, with that incredibly devious look she was sporting for most of her time in the identity.  It’s really good work.  The paint also does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of saving the figure from the body sculpt.  The over abundance of black helps to hide a number of the inaccurate details, as well as masking the joints and making the whole body flow just a bit better.  The paintwork is generally pretty cleanly handled, without too much bleed over or noticeable slop.  He palette is still flat, like a lot of the early Hasbro stuff, but it’s actually okay on this figure.  Jean was packed with a whip accessory, which I misplaced at some point over the years.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I found this figure when it was brand new, at a Toys R Us that no longer exists.  I can’t even say why I was there, truth be told, since TRU was going through a particularly depressing period where they stocked absolutely nothing anyone was interested in.  At the time, all of my Legends figures were coming from Cosmic Comix, KB Toys, or Walmart.  But, I was in a TRU, and they had this figure, so I got her.  After the Emma Frost and X3 Jean Grey figures, this was the first figure to make it clear that not *every* female figure from Hasbro was going to totally suck.  Despite her questionable origins, this figure is actually pretty great, and shows how much of a difference a simple palette swap can make.