Tag Archives: 90s

#0369: Drake & Alien Arachnid

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

DRAKE & ALIEN ARACHNID

ALIENS VS MARINE(KENNER)

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

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

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

DRAKE

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

ALIEN ARACHNID

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

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

#0368: Corporal Hicks & King Alien

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

CORPORAL HICKS & KING ALIEN

ALIENS VS MARINE(KENNER)

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

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

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

CORPORAL HICKS

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

KING ALIEN

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

#0367: Zauriel

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

ZAURIEL

JLA (HASBRO)

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

THE FIGURE ITSELF

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

#0365: Havok

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

HAVOK

X-MEN (TOYBIZ)

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

THE FIGURE ITSELF

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

#0363: ATAX

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

ATAX

ALIENS (KENNER)

Since Kenner’s Aliens line was originally based on the cancelled Operation: Aliens cartoon, the line did some experimenting with the property. One of the most famous things was adding more diversity to the designs of the Xenomorphs, but one of the other areas that showed some changes was the characters who made up the group of Colonial Marines that faced off against the aliens. While mainstays like Ripley, Hicks, and Bishop remained, a couple of the marines were replaced by characters such as ATAX (which stood for “Alien Tactical Advantage Explorer”), the figure I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

ATAX was part of the second assortment of Aliens figures. The figure is 5 inches tall and features 5 points of articulation. ATAX is one of the marines without a movie counterpart, so presumably his design is based on something from the cartoon. ATAX’s sculpt was unique to him. It’s a pretty solid sculpt, though he does seem a little large-headed. The details in the sculpt are all very well handled, which is really great. ATAX has a more Xeno-inspired look, which certainly makes him stand out amongst the Marines. The paintwork on ATAX is pretty great. It’s better than what we saw on Apone, and this figure has less of a reliance on the decals and such. ATAX’s figure is largely dependent on his accessories, which sadly my figure is lacking. His deal is that he’s supposed to be some sort of an infiltration specialist, so he included several clip on armor pieces to allow him to disguise himself as a Xeno. It’s certainly a unique idea, but seeing as there is never any evidence in the movies that the Xenos recognize each other by sight, I have to wonder just how successful ATAX will be in his infiltration. Maybe that’s why we didn’t see him in the movie…

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I first got into the Aliens line (which was somewhere around the early 2000s, roughly 10 years after it ended), I was mostly focused on just getting characters from the movie. So, ATAX was kind of below my radar. However, when I came across a few Aliens figures while browsing Yesterday’s Fun, ATAX was amongst them and I just couldn’t say no. He’s a goofy figure to be sure, but he’s actually quite well done. I imagine he’d be even better if he had all his pieces…

#0362: Sgt Apone

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

SGT APONE

ALIENS (KENNER)

In the 80s and 90s, it wasn’t uncommon for toy companies to get the rights to movies that were a bit outside of the target audience for… toys. Things like Rambo, Robocop, and Terminator 2, all very definitely aimed at adults, were treated to their very own lines of action figures very clearly aimed at kids. Kenner’s Aliens looks like this at first glance, but in actuality they were meant to tie in with Operation: Aliens, a proposed Saturday-morning cartoon based on the 1986 film. When plans for the cartoon were scrapped, Kenner was left with lots of already produced merchandise, leading to them rebranding the line as just Aliens. The Marines offered in the line were based on those that would have been the characters in the cartoon, which means some of them weren’t from the movie. However, a fair number of movie characters made it through, including Sgt. Apone, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Apone was released in the first series of Aliens figures. The figure is 5 inches tall and features 6 points of articulation. Unlike the previously reviewed Ripley, Apone’s design doesn’t have much in common with his movie counterpart. Admittedly, the face does look a bit like Al Matthews, which is nice to see. The rest of the figure is very clearly meant to be based on the Apone design from the failed cartoon. At the very least, it’s an interesting design. The sculpt manages to make it look pretty good. There’s a lot of detail work, especially in the armored pieces on his arm and shoulders, but then there are large areas on his lower half with virtually no detail at all. It’s a mixed look. The paint on Apone is decent, if a bit basic. There are a few fuzzy lines, but nothing too bad. With the exception of the “No Bugs” written on his t-shirt, the rest of the little touches are actually decals, not paint. Apone included some sort of rocket launcher accessory, but I bought mine loose, so he never had whatever it was.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Aliens figures were released in 1992.  That’s actually within my lifetime, but just barely. Needless to say, I wasn’t buying action figures at less than one, so I didn’t start getting the Aliens figures until much later. Apone is one of the last additions to that set; I didn’t get him until just this summer. I picked Apone up from Yesterday’s Fun, while on vacation with my family. Apone is one of the characters who changed the much for this line, but he’s not a bad figure.

#0346: The Riddler

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

RIDDLER

DC SUPER HEROES (TOYBIZ)

If there’s one positive to Toybiz’s DC Super Heroes line, it’s that they managed to do a few more figures in the Super Powers style. Most of the figures weren’t up to the same standards, but some mix in alright. One such figure is the Riddler, the well-known Batman foe. What’s interesting about the Riddler is that is seems that everyone but Kenner wanted to add him to the Super Powers line up. When Argentinian toy company Pacipa purchased the old Super Powers molds, they released their own Riddler, dubbed El Acertijo, made from repainted Green Lantern molds. Toybiz followed suit, also releasing their own version of the Riddler, which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Riddler was released in the first series of Toybiz’s DC Superheroes. The figure is about 4 ½ inches tall and features 7 points of articulation. The first series of DC Superheroes made use of Super Powers molds with some slight retooling, and Riddler follows the trend. He’s a slightly retooled SP Flash figure with a new head. Flash has a pretty great sculpt, so Riddler has a pretty good starting point. They’ve made adjustments to give him his proper gloves and belt, so it makes him different enough from Flash that they don’t look bad on the same shelf. They’ve also tweaked his right hand so that it can hold something, which doesn’t really work. It just makes the fingers look really stubby. The new head is… well it’s a sculpt. It manages to be neither good nor bad. It’s just there. Which is okay, I guess. The paint is fine. Once again, it’s not amazing, but it’s not bad. The question marks are handled pretty well, so that’s good. The figure included no accessories, which is super annoying because they clearly re-sculpted his hand to hold something!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like Green Lantern, Riddler was part of the rather sizeable selection of figures I picked up from Yesterday’s Fun over the summer. I mostly picked up Riddler to accent my Super Powers collection. For that purpose he’s not bad. I must admit, while he’s not a particularly good figure, he’s not horrid either, and he looks okay mixed in with other figures. He’s certainly better that the GL figure and he’s probably one of the best figure’s Toybiz released in this line. So there.

#0345: Green Lantern

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

GREEN LANTERN

DC SUPER HEROES (TOYBIZ)

The now defunct toy company Toybiz is a name that is most commonly associated with making Marvel toys. This isn’t surprising, of course. They ended up bailing Marvel out of bankruptcy in the mid-90s, leading to them becoming a part of Marvel proper and thereby passing the name onto Marvel’s in-house toy making branch. However, their first major property was not Marvel. No, it was actually Marvel’s main competition, DC. See, when Super Powers ended, DC was looking to move the DC license elsewhere. They turned to a small upstart company by the name of Toybiz, who launched a line simply titled DC Superheroes. The line was pretty much the same scale as Kenner’s Super Powers, mostly because it was pretty much just a slightly lower budget version of Super Powers. The sculpts were just slightly tweaked and made out of inferior plastic. Needless to say, DC wasn’t thrilled by this offering, and after just two series, the rights reverted back to Kenner. Today, I’ll be taking a look at that line’s version of Green Lantern!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Lantern was released in the second series of Toybiz’s DC Super Heroes line. The figure is just shy of 5 inches tall and he features 7 points of articulation. The second series is a little different from the first in that they actually featured new sculpts, rather than just retooled SP ones. So, for better or for worse, GL got a brand new sculpt, wholly unique from his SP counterpart. I suppose it’s not fair to compare the work of Kenner at their prime to that of Toybiz in their infancy, but the sculpt of the TB Green Lantern is not up to the quality of his predecessor. The sculpt is wide and oddly proportioned. He’s got these bent arms, which are honestly impressive, because I’m surprised he could bend arms that thick. The torso is huge and ill defined, and the legs lack any real detail. The head looks not unlike a papier-mâché head sculpted over a balloon, which is not a compliment. To top it all off, the joints are horrendously obvious, to the point where you have to question if they did that on purpose. I suppose if I were really trying to find something nice to say, I’d say he bears a passing resemblance to the Filmation version of the character, which isn’t a terrible thing. The paint is…well it’s there. It’s mostly cleanly applied, but other than that, there’s not much to be said of it. The figure is incredibly shiny, which really plays up the whole obvious toy angle. The figure came with an array to let him squirt water from his ring or something. I don’t know, I bought mine loose.  [EDIT 02/06/26 — Through the magic of buying a not loose one, now I have all of his accessories, which I discussed in his Addendum!]

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure is another from the haul I picked up during the summer from the super cool Yesterday’s Fun. As an avid Green Lantern collector, it’s a figure I’d been looking to pick up for some time now, I’d just never gotten around to it. They had one for a reasonable price, so I went for it. Now I’m reminded of why I put off buying it. It’s not a terrible figure, it’s just overwhelmingly mediocre. It feels like one of those incredibly obvious toys they’d use on a TV show to more easily convey that it’s a toy. I just don’t quite know what they were thinking with this one, especially since it followed up figures that re-used the far superior Super Powers sculpts.

#0331: Mr. Freeze

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

MR FREEZE

BATMAN: THE NEW ADVENTURES (KENNER)

FreezeNA1

Batman: The Animated Series is easily one of the best interpretations of the Batman mythos ever. The characters that benefited best from the series were the more obscure Bat-villains, and none more so than cold-themed villain Mr. Freeze. When the series returned under the New Adventures label, all of the characters received new designs. Freeze received one of the most radical re-designs, and the design eventually made its way into Kenner’s then-current toyline based on the show.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

FreezeNAWilsonMr. Freeze was released in the first year of figures from Kenner’s Batman: The New Adventures line. The figure is based on the character’s appearance in the episode “Cold Comfort” which premiered his TNA design. The figure stands 5 inches tall and features 4 points of articulation. He lacks the usual neck joint present on the Kenner figure, thanks to his removable head. The figure sports a unique sculpt, which is meant to capture the Bruce Timm design of the character. The head is the best part, nicely capturing the gaunt look of Freeze, as well as nicely replicating his clear domed look. The body is pretty good, though the proportions don’t seem quite right. The biggest issue is that the legs are a little bit warped to one side. I’d be tempted to think it was just limited to mine, but ever other figure I’ve seen suffers from the same issue. The figure also has a flip down compartment in his torso, which has some pretty nice mechanical detailing on the inside. Like with the sculpt, the head features the best paint work. Everything is really clean and sharp. On the rest of the body, it’s not terrible, but it’s a little bit sloppy. Mr. Freeze included a freeze gun and a set of robotic legs that his head can be placed on.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mr. Freeze was always one of my favorite characters on the show, so I got Mr. Freeze when he was originally released. I lost the figure’s head, leaving me with a headless body. Recently, I found the head, but because life hates me, the body had gone missing. So, when my local comicbook store, Cosmic Comix, got Mr. Freeze in with a bunch of other loose figures, I just gave up and bought a replacement. The figure is pretty great, and he’s still one of my favorites from the line. I’m glad to have a complete one again!

FreezeNA2

#0291: Yellow Ranger

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

YELLOW RANGER

SH FIGUARTS

YellowRanger1

The Birthday reviews are officially over, so now it’s more or less business as usual. Still, I may be referencing some related things for a little while, just so you’re all aware. One of my main gifts this year was a near complete set of Rangers from Bandai’s most recent take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Being me, I couldn’t let that set be near complete for long. That would be criminal! So, it’s the final piece, the Yellow Ranger! The Yellow Ranger is interesting, because it’s a girl here in the US, but a man in Japan. Through some creative cutting and a few reshoots, they were able to completely change the gender of the character. This does lead to one issue, however: when doing a line of Rangers who are being sold in Japan first but will also be doing a large portion of their sales in America, which version do you release? According to Bandai, both. Yep, the regular release that sees US distribution is the female version, but in Japan they also released an online exclusive male version. How about that? In case you’re wondering, mine’s the girl.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

YellowRangerWilsonThe Yellow Ranger was the seventh, and final, release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers sub-line of their larger S.H. Figuarts line. She was released just last month, not long after the Blue Ranger. The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and features 36 points of articulation. The figure’s sculpt borrows heavily from the Pink Ranger, which isn’t a huge shock. She’s been given a new pelvis piece to accurately represent her uniform’s lack of skirt, as well as a brand new head based on her signature Sabre Tooth Tiger helmet. She probably has one of the sharper helmet designs, and Bandai has managed to translate it pretty much perfectly, so that’s pretty cool. Like with the Pink Ranger, I find that the female body is less plagued by obvious elbow and knee joints than the male, so that’s a plus. The Yellow Ranger’s paint is pretty straight forward, no slop or bleed over. If you’ve seen any of the other Rangers, you’ve seen her. One plus is that the yellows all match better than the pinks on the Pink Ranger, a very definite improvement. The Yellow Ranger has a pretty decent selection of accessories, including a folded up Blade Blaster and a Thunder Slinger, same as the ones included with all the basic Rangers, plus her dual Power Daggers, and four pairs of hands: fists, open gesture, Blade Blaster grip, and Power Dagger grip. The Yellow Ranger also includes an extra Power Axe for use in assembling the Power Blaster, and, most importantly, the instructions for how to assemble the Power Blaster. It goes together without too much trouble, and each of the pieces looks accurate to the individual ones included with the Rangers, plus it’s a pretty key item from the show, so kudos to Bandai for adding in the extra pieces to build it!

YellowRanger2YellowRanger6YellowRanger3

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Yellow Ranger was not amongst the gifts I received for my birthday this year. She was only released a day or two before, and you have to draw the line somewhere, so I wasn’t the slightest bit offended. I ended up getting a little bit of money from my Grandmother, so I put that towards completing my Rangers, which makes the Yellow Ranger sort of a pseudo Birthday gift, I suppose. She’s a pretty great figure and she’s in line with the rest of them, which is really great. Plus, she finishes off the team, which just makes the whole set that much cooler!

YellowRanger4