Tag Archives: 00s

#0109: Night Creeper

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

NIGHT CREEPER

GI JOE: SPY TROOPS

Today, I’ll be taking a look at an entry in the original Action Figure toyline, G.I. Joe!  Like my last G.I. Joe review, this figure hails from the Real American Hero incarnation of the line.  In the early 2000s, Hasbro attempted to bring this incarnation back after a few years of hiatus.  The reinvented line started as a simple “G.I. Joe vs. Cobra” idea, but quickly moved from gimmick to gimmick to keep things fresh.  One of those gimmicks was called “Spy Troops” and revolved around certain figures featuring special gear that would allow them to blend in with their enemies.  This time around, I’ll be looking at one of the Cobra forces from the line, the Night Creeper.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Night Creeper was released as part of the 2003 wave of Spy Troops figures.  He was paired in a two pack with Kamukura, one of the many G.I. Joe ninjas.  The Night Creepers were one of Cobras many ninja armies, so the pairing makes sense.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and features 20 points of articulation.  The sculpt on the figure is a bit dated now, with an odd kind of “v” shape to the body and long arms, but at the time, it was actually quite good.  Viewed through that lens, it’s pretty good, if not perfect.  There’s lots of cool little details present, which give the figure a lot of character.  The paint on the figure is minimal, with most of the figure being molded in the appropriate shade of blue, but the small amounts of paint present are all nice and clean.  The Night Creeper was actually very well accessorized, with a sword for his basic look, plus a dive mask, re-breather, flippers, and a harpoon gun to allow the Creeper to masquerade as G.I. Joe Wetsuit.  I’ve lost the Wetsuit pieces, but they did the job quite convincingly, and actually made for a slightly better figure than the official Wetsuit release. [EDIT 08/21/26 — I found the Wetsuit pieces and talked about them in this review’s Addendum!]

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually bought Night Creeper solely for the Kamukura figure that was packed with him, but I quickly grew to like the Night Creeper a bit more.  The early 2000s G.I. Joe line was far from perfect, and was even downright bad at times, but the Night Creeper was one of the better figures.

#0075: Luke Cage

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

LUKE CAGE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

Today, it’s my second look at the early 2000s juggernaut, Marvel Legends.  I’ve mentioned in the past my issues with this line’s tendency to draw out the worst in the collector market, but the figure’s themselves weren’t always bad.  I’ll be looking at one of the figure’s from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run with the line: Luke Cage, sometimes known as Power Man.  Sweet Christmas!

Luke Cage was a character created in the 70s to somewhat tie-in to the trend of “blaxplotation” movies.  Marvel wanted to try and appeal to that market, so they created Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.  He starred in his own series for a while, that was very 70s.  When his own series started to suffer, he was rolled in with fellow 70s character Iron Fist.  It was here that the two characters found their audience, and it’s how they’re often remembered.  When the 70s passed, Cage fell into obscurity, but he came into a bit of a revival in the last few years, and is set to appear in his own Netflix-original miniseries in 2015.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Cage was released as part of the 14th Series of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends line.  He’s a little bit over 6 inches tall, and he has 35 points of articulation.  The figure depicts Luke in his original yellow and black look.  It’s incredibly dated, but given that the character seems to just where normal clothes these days, this is the most interesting look the character’s had.  Luke’s sculpt isn’t too bad.  The body sculpt is one of the better ones that the line had to offer.  It doesn’t have some of the stranger proportions that plagued the line, although his super articulation does make some parts of the sculpt look a little…off.  The head looks fine, if a bit on the angry side.  Most of the figure is molded in the proper color, but there’s some nice accent work done to bring out the sculpt’s details.  Cage included a piece of Series 14’s Build-A-Figure Mojo, and a copy of his first appearance.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In my last review of a Marvel Legends figure, I lamented how difficult it was to get a hold of the figures.  Well, but the last two series or so of the line, this was less the case, so I had no real issues getting Luke here.

#0067: Breaker

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

BREAKER

GI JOE: RISE OF COBRA

Today’s figure comes from the original action figure line:  GI Joe.  It’s far from one of the original figures, but he’s part of the line, so…umm…there’s that.  Anyway, it’s Breaker (who, incidentally was one of the original 13 figures from the 3 ¾ incarnation of the line) from the 2009 GI Joe movie, Rise of Cobra.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Breaker was released in the first series of Hasbro’s tie-in line for Rise of Cobra.  He’s based on Breaker’s more casual look from the film, instead of his “impact armor” look.  The figure stands roughly 3 ¾ inches tall and has 16 points of articulation.  The sculpt is pretty good overall, with nice texturing and folds and such.  The head sculpt is a decent approximation of the actor who plays Breaker in the film.  However good the sculpt is, it doesn’t matter, because the paint is where this figure falls apart.  The paint is thickly applied, and kind of haphazardly applied.  The paint on the body is a bit better, but still leaves a lot to be desired.  Breaker is accessorized with a removable vest, a machine gun, a handgun, a laptop, a big freaking missile launcher, and a stand with his name on it.  The missile launcher isn’t pictured, because I got rid of it, along with all the other over-sized missile launchers Hasbro seems intent on giving us.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Breaker along with several other figures from the line at the time of the movie’s release.  I liked the character, so I bought the figure.  Mistakes may have been made.

#0054: Green Lantern – Emerald Shield

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

GREEN LANTERN – EMERALD SHIELD

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH (DC DIRECT)

So, I’m a big Green Lantern fan, and as such, I have a whole lot of Green Lantern stuff.  Here’s a piece of that collection.  It’s another DC Direct review, this time from one of their many Green Lantern lines.  This line was done to correspond with Green Lantern: Rebirth, the series that brought the long dead Hal Jordan back from the dead.  I’ll be looking at one of the variants of Hal Jordan from that line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hal was released as a part of DC Direct’s Green Lantern: Rebirth line.  He was a Toyfare exclusive*.  He was a recast of the regular Green Lantern from the line.   He stands a little over 6 inches and has 13 points of articulation.  Like I said, he shares his sculpt with the basic Hal Jordan from the line, but this is the first of the two I’ll be looking at, so I’ll examine it here.  It’s a nice sculpt, with basic smooth lines.  The details of the costume are etched in.  The musculature of the body is handled pretty well, with no odd proportions.  The head is a decent approximation of Hal, looking somewhat cocky.  With the exception of his logo on his chest, GL  has no paint to speak of, because this particular figure’s gimmick is being molded in translucent green plastic to replicate when GL is all powered up.  GL includes a display stand, a piece that hooks onto the stand to allow GL to hover, and a power batter molded in translucent green.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure, along with the regular version, was a birthday gift from my parents.  It’s great because it combines my love of translucent action figures with my love of Green Lantern!  While the idea has been used several times since, this was really the first time that a GL figure was released in clear green, which made him extra cool at the time!

*ToyFare magazine was a pretty fantastic resource for collectors back in the day, providing not only news on upcoming releases, but also augmenting collectors’ collections with a few exclusive items here and there.

#0041: Robin & Beast Boy

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

ROBIN & BEAST BOY

TEEN TITANS GO! (BANDAI)

Keeping with the theme of cartoon adaptation toy lines from two days ago, I’ll be looking at two of the figures from Bandai’s Teen Titans Go! toy line, released to coincide with the Cartoon Network Teen Titans show.   The figures were released packaged with large, nonsensical vehicles, or packaged in two-packs.  I opted for the second option.  Today, I’ll be looking at the basic versions of Robin and Beast Boy.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This two-pack was released as part of the first series of figures in Bandai’s 3 ½ inch line.

ROBIN

First up is the team leader, sidekick to Batman, Robin.  Robin is based on his look from the show.  He stands 3 ½ inches tall and features 9 points of articulation.  I feel it’s necessary to point out that this line was NOT 3 ½ inch scale, but rather every character was exactly 3 ½ inches tall.  It’s fine for the two I’m looking at today, but it will quickly become an issue.   Robin is a decent sculpt, but not the greatest.  The arms have been sculpted to hold the handles of the vehicle it was possible to purchase him with, making them awkward if you bought his separately like I did.  The legs also have a wide stance, and seem to be a tad long and definitely too bulky.  To top it all off, the head is passable at best, but certainly looks off in comparison to the show’s design.  The paint is okay, but there is a fair amount of overspray and fuzzy lines.  As you’ll notice, the paint was also not the most durable variety, with lots of the details scratched off with very little play.

BEAST BOY

Next is the team’s resident funny-man, Beast Boy.  Like Robin, he’s based on his look from the show.  He too stands 3 ½ inches tall and had 9 points of articulation.  He’s got an okay sculpt, but he’s definitely too tall, and his head is too small for his look from the show.  He has the same issue with the oddly positioned arms, and legs that aren’t the right proportion.  The paint on Beast Boy is a bit rougher than Robin, with even more noticeable slop, and a whole lot more wear, with very light play.  Also, the two different purple paints don’t really match very well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These guys were found on an excursion to Toys R Us with my Mom (who is super awesome, and super supportive of my insane hobby).  I recall being really excited to get them at the time, as there was a bit of a delay from the show’s premiere to the release of the toys.  I remember liking them at the time, but as time has gone by, I’ve started to see the flaws more and more.  The line did improve a bit, but man was this first wave a rough one!

#0039: Ferro Lad

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

FERRO LAD

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES (DC DIRECT)

Today, we’re taking a look at another DC Direct figure.  This time around, it’s Ferro Lad, member of the Legion of Superheroes!  For those not in the know, the Legion of Superheroes is a group of teenaged superheroes  from the 30th Century, inspired into heroism by the stories of Superboy (this was back when Superboy was just a younger Clark Kent).  Ferro Lad, who joined the team not too long after they initially appeared, possessed the ability to turn his body into iron, kinda like Colossus of the X-Men (though Ferro Lad appeared about 10 years earlier).  Ferro Lad is mostly noteworthy for his place as the first Legionnaire to die (and stay dead) in the line of duty, sacrificing himself to defeat the Sun-Eater.  According to his creator Jim Shooter, Ferro Lad was meant to be the first black member of the team, an idea that the editors at DC at the time decided to veto.  So, instead, the first black legionnaire was Tyroc.  Thanks guys…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ferro Lad was released as part of the fourth series of DC Direct’s Legion of Superheroes line.  He stands roughly 6 inches tall and features 11 points of articulation.  Ferro Lad was built on the basic legion body that DC Direct introduced in the second series of the line.  It’s a well done base body, and features a decent set of proportions.  I wish it had a bit more articulation, but at least he fits in with the rest of the line.  He features a newly sculpted head, belt and wrist braces.  The belt and wrist braces are add-on pieces.  This works fine for the wrist braces, but the belt doesn’t sit quite right on the body, so it looks a bit odd.    Not terrible, but it could be better.  The head is the most important part, and it’s done very well, in all its simplistic glory.  The rest of the details on the figure are carried out with paint.  With the exception of the flesh tones, all of the paint is done with a nice metallic sheen that fits the character well.  I do wish the rivets were sculpted instead of painted, but the paint does a serviceable job of handling them.  All in all, a solid figure, not the greatest, but far from the worst DC Direct had to offer.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ferro Lad has long been my favorite member of the Legion.  Needless to say, I was extremely excited by DC Direct’s announcement that he’d be in the fourth wave of Legion figures.  It marks one of the earliest instances of me pre-ordering a figure, starting me down a very dangerous path.  When the figure finally arrived, I was thrilled beyond belief to have him.  I recognized the flaws, but I didn’t care, ‘cause I had a FERRO LAD ACTION FIGURE!

#0036: Green Lantern – Armored

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

GREEN LANTERN – ARMORED

JUSTICE (DC DIRECT)

Today’s review is a piece of my quite large Green Lantern collection.  I’m a huge Green Lantern fan, so I have a tendency to buy figures based solely on the fact that they’re Green Lantern.  That’s kinda the case with today’s figure, based on Green Lantern’s armored appearance in Justice.  For those of you who don’t know, Justice was a 12 issue Maxi-Series released by DC Comics a few years ago.  It featured art by Alex Ross and was effectively a more modern day take on Challenge of the Superfriends.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Armored GL was released in the sixth series of DC Direct’s Justice line.  He stands just shy of 7 inches tall, and has 15 points of articulation.  Like I said above, he’s based on Green Lantern’s armored appearance from towards the end of the series, when the Justice League has their final showdown with the Legion of Doom.  It’s a neat design, and also very unique, which helps to break up some of the monotony of some of the other Green Lanterns.  The figure is an all new sculpt, which isn’t surprising given there was little room for reuse.  The body is pretty well done, though like many other DC Direct figures of the same time period, he has a slight pre-posed nature to him that doesn’t really work too well with the articulation given.  Granted, it’s nowhere near as bad here as it was on some others, so it doesn’t bother me too much.  There aren’t really any facial features to depict, but the faceplate looks cool.  Also, a really cool touch on the head is the face on the back of it.  In the comic, GL’s suit was actually Metal Men member Iron wrapping himself around GL for protection, so Iron’s face is shown in the back.  It’s a cool feature and adds a lot to the figure, almost making it a two-in-one figure!  The paint on the figure is solid, with little slop or bleed over.  GL’s only accessory was a stand, which is somewhere in a large box of stands from other DC Direct figures.  It was identical to the stand that was included with every other figure in the line.  It looked fine if you only had one figure on display, but any more and it just becomes overly large and cumbersome.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Armored GL from my local comic store Cosmic Comix during the store’s annual year end sale.  He was one of about 15 DC direct figures that I bought for 45% off of their original price (which brought his price to about $8.50).  I had held off on the figure before, but for that price it was definitely worth it.  He’s a fairly fun figure and I was glad to add him to my collection!

#0032: Mr Mxyptlk

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

MR MXYPTLK

SUPERMAN/BATMAN (DC DIRECT)

Today’s figure is technically only half a figure.  Or rather, half a two pack that was sold as a single figure.  And this figure’s only half the figure he used to be…no, wait… Sorry, I’ll come in again!

Occasionally, there is a character that is of a much smaller stature than most other characters in the line.  Toy companies have gone back and forth on how to handle releasing such characters.  Selling the character by themselves means you either have to come up with a new price point (too difficult), or overcharge for them (which pissed off the fans).  The solution that a lot of companies tend to settle on is including smaller characters as an accessory with another character.

That’s the case with today’s figure:  Mr. Mxyptlk* from DC Direct’s Superman/Batman line.   Mxy was originally packed with the Joker, but I have several Jokers and increasingly less and less space, so I just kept Mxy.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mxy was released as part of the fourth series of DC Direct’s Superman/Batman line.  The series was based on the S/B comic’s “With a Vengeance” story line, which was drawn by artist Ed McGuinness.  As such, Mxy’s based on McGuinness’s rendition of the character.  This isn’t really an issue, as his design stayed pretty much in line with the classic depiction of the character.  Mxy stands about 4 inches tall, and has 5 points of articulation.  The biggest tweak that McGuinness made to Mxy for the story was giving the character a top hat in place of his trademark bowler.  DC Direct decided to please everybody, though, and included both hats with the figure.  The hats are held in place via magnets in the head and each hat.  They work like a charm, and allow you two cool looks for the character.  The paint and sculpt on the figure are both done very well, translating Mcguinness’s clean style to three dimensions expertly.  The paint highlights the sculpt nicely, especially on his face, where the paint makes Mxy’s crazed look even more pronounced.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, as I said above, this guy was only available as part of a two pack with the Joker, who I already have several figures of.  But this is the only Mr. Mxyptlk figure that’s ever been released, or is ever likely to be released, so no way was I passing him up!  So, I bought them both and sold off Joker.  I know, that doesn’t sound like me.  But I had to draw the line somewhere!

*Pronounced: Mix-Yes-Spit-Lick.  Thanks go to Paul Dini for explaining that for everybody!

#0025: John Stewart

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

JOHN STEWART – GREEN LANTERN

DC MINIMATES

So today is yet another Minimate review.  I promise to take a bit of a break from the Minimates, but they do make up a fairly large chuck of the collection, so they’ll tend to pop up fairly often.

We’re looking at a Minimate from the DC line today.  This figure is Green Lantern John Stewart, the first Minimate produced in DC Direct’s attempted revival of the DC Minimates line after the initial Lego inspired C3 line failed.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

John was a San Diego Comic Con give away, meant to drum up interest in the full DC Minimates line.  Like many Minimate give aways, he features no additional parts, but that’s not an issue with this design.  John is built, unsurprisingly, on the basic Minimate body.  He stands about 2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  John is based on his appearance from the Justice League cartoon, which is a good look.  The lines are all very clean and sharp looking.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Although he was released a while ago, John is a fairly recent addition to my collection.  I don’t know why, as I’m a huge Green Lantern fan and a pretty big fan of John himself, but I’d say it’s mostly to do with him only being available at SDCC.  Anyway, I’ve got one now, and he’s a great addition to my collection.

#0021: The Vision

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

VISION

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

Today, I’m looking at the first of what I’m sure will be many Marvel Legends reviews.  Back in the early 2000s, this was THE line to collect.  They had killer sculpts, awesome paint, and of course, a huge quantity of articulation!  And let’s not forget the scalper appeal.  While this line didn’t start the trend of action figure scalpers, its high demand and tendency to pack fan-favorites as short-packs led to high prices, and a whole lot of “legitimate businessmen” trying to corner the market.  It was so great.  No, wait, I meant the other thing.  Terrible.  It was terrible.   I’ll be looking at the Vision figure from the line.  For those of you who are unaware (which is probably a large portion), the Vision is a long standing member of the Avengers.  He was a synthezoid (basically an android) created by the villain Ultron to destroy the Avengers.  However, he was created using the brain-patterns of Wonder Man, a reluctant villain who the Avengers had tried to help before his unfortunate demise.  Apparently, Wonder Man’s emotions overpowered the synthezoid, and he rebelled against his creator and joined the Avengers.  There’s a lot more to his story, but that’s the basic gist.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Vision was part of the seventh series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line. He stands roughly 6 inches tall and has 33 points of articulation.  He also included a clear poseable stand that can simulate his flying ability.  He was available in both regular and “Phasing” versions.  The regular has a normal paint job, while the phasing is cast in various translucent plastics.  I managed to get a hold of both versions, and since they’re the same sculpt, I’ll be looking at both today.  The phasing version was technically the variant.  I say technically because Vision was only one to a case, meaning which version of him was in said case was fairly random.   Both figures depict Vision in his original green and yellow costume.  Vision was built on a base body, with the details added via paint.  The body’s fine, though the abundance of articulation does give it some odd proportions.  The head is this figure’s real strong point.  It’s an all new sculpt, and it’s really well done.  It has that perfect “just too perfect to be human” look, which is great!  The painted figure has some sharp paint ops that really highlight the sculpt well.  For this reason, I think the regular version is a bit better than the phasing version, as the details can get lost in the clear plastic.  Both figures are topped off by a nicely done rubber cape.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, you saw the displeasure up there about the whole scalpers charging insane prices thing?  Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experience with this figure.  While I was eventually able to track down both versions of this character for my collection, it wasn’t until well after Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends were done and gone.  Being less than one per case (thanks to the variant) he was near impossible to find, and instant scalper bait, resulting in a high after market price.  I was fortunate enough to track down both versions loose from a local toy store that had just bought someone’s collection, which made me a happy collector indeed!