Tag Archives: Blue Beetle

#3727: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

DC ICONS (DC COLLECTIBLES)

Oh, man, DC Icons.  It’s been, like, two years since I talked about that one, and even then, it was a one-off, generally retrospective review.  It’s unfortunate that the line was as short-lived as it was, especially given the number of late-run figures that got cancelled before the end.  To this day, the death of the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold set still haunts me.  It’s just out there, waiting.  Watching.  Waiting, but again.  At the very least, on the Blue Beetle front, while we may not have gotten Ted Kord, we did get his successor Jaime Reyes, which isn’t so bad a consolation prize.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle was figure 06 in the DC Icons line-up.  He was part of the second round of figures, wedged in between Flash and Black Adam in the numbering. The figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  The articulation on the line’s earlier figures was a bit tricky, but by the second round they’d started fixing things up.  Beetle’s set-up was honestly amongst the best, especially when it came to the hip articulation.  The only drawback is the shoulder set-up, which, due to the armor, are a bit stiff, but certainly still workable.  The design for this figure was done by Ivan Reis, as were pretty much all of the line, specifically cued in on his Infinite Crisis design, though it’s worth noting that’s effectively the same general look he’s had since his original appearances.  The sculpt proper was handled by Paul Harding, and it’s truly one of the best for the line.  It’s a very sleek recreation of his armored appearance, not terribly far removed from the DCUC figure, I suppose, but certainly sharper and with more depth to the assembly, thanks to some of the armored pieces being overlayed pieces on the core body.  The color work for Beetle is a little different from other Jaime figures in that it’s not directly metallic.  Rather, it’s a flatter coloring, but with a minor metallic sheen, which reads closer to how he presents on the printed page.  Jaime is packed with his wings, which are pretty much a standard, as well as two different gun attachments, which swap out at the forearms.  It’s a slightly lighter selection compared to others in the line, but it’s not bare minimum.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wanted one of these when they were first released, but as the most desired figure in the second set, he was honestly never super plentiful.  When I got back into the line a little later, he was still no easier to get, so I’ve just been keeping my eye out for a while.  Thankfully, one turned up at All Time, so I got a chance to finally snag one.  He’s a solid, pretty fun figure, and another strong Jaime Reyes figure.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3699: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

DC SUPER HEROES (HASBRO)

For years, Blue Beetle was theorized to be in the unproduced fourth wave of Kenner’s Super Powers, but when the full line-up was finally found, this was proven untrue. What *was* true, however, was that Blue Beetle was meant to be in the unproduced fourth wave of *another* Kenner DC line, namely Total Justice. Our first hint of this was his appearance in several pages of the Total Justice coloring book, eventually followed up by shots of the prototype. While Kenner themselves would never produce a Blue Beetle figure, their successors at Hasbro would eventually put out Kenner’s scrapped one, giving Ted his very first action figure in the process.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle was released as part of one of the four DC Super Heroes two-packs released via HasbroCollectors.com in 1999. He was packed alongside a Flash variant and a tiny version of the Atom wearing his Teen Titans costume. The figure is about 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation. Beetle’s sculpt was new to him, but, like a lot of the Total Justice sculpts, parts were reused in the JLA line. In particular, his legs were used by Red Tornado. The sculpt is…well, let’s call it interesting. It’s hands down one of the most preposed and hardest to get standing sculpts of the TJ era. As you can see, I actually had to use a Protech stand to keep him upright for the photos. He’s also exceptionally skinny, made even more egregious because Ted’s usually a slightly stockier guy. Here, he looks like a swimmer, and a particularly skinny one at that.  That said, I do quite like the etched-in details for the costume, something that most of the JLA fill-in figures wound up lacking.  His head uses a multi-part assembly for the googles, which allows them to be clear plastic.  Unfortunately, there’s no actual light piping or anything, so the ultimate result is kind of a muddy amber appearance.  In terms of the rest of coloring, he’s decent enough.  A little on the dark side, and while I’m never one to complain about metallic blue, I don’t know that it quite feels right for Ted as a character.  Application is at least pretty cleanly handled, though.  Despite having a left hand clearly molded to hold something, Ted was without any accessories of his own.  Presumably, had he been released single, there would have been some sort of fractal armor accessory, which we see a little more of in those coloring book pages.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t recall the exact circumstances that lead to me getting this figure.  I know I owned the whole boxed set he came from, and I know I got them from my parents for some sort of occasion.  Maybe Valentines Day?  I remember that Cosmic Comix had all four of the sets in stock, and I’d gotten the Green Lantern/Doctor Polaris and Superboy/King Shark sets already, and I’d looked at this one a bunch of times, so I’d wager my dad probably caught me eying it and bought it for later.  This was my first real exposure to Blue Beetle, and it’s admittedly not all that great a figure.  I do really appreciate the quaintness of him, though.

#3667: Blue Beetle & The Bug

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

BLUE BEETLE & THE BUG

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

Back in the ’90s, the Super Powers fandom had a lot of hypothetical discussions about what characters the line might have done had it continued.  In 2004, Jason “Toy Otter” Geyer’s Super Powers Archive ran a huge piece regarding the discovery of Kenner prototypes, which revealed what the next wave or two of the line would have been.  One of the most notable omissions from Kenner’s plan, at least going by characters that had long been theorized to be part of any continuation, was Ted Kord, aka Blue Beetle.  He may not have been marked to get his due from Kenner (for Super Powers, anyway; they *had* planned to do him for the scrapped fourth wave of Total Justice, and that figure was eventually released by Hasbro), but that doesn’t mean he was completely overlooked, because he’s part of the McFarlane revival!  And it’s not just him!  He got a vehicle, too!  And….I’m actually excited?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle is part of Series 7 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, which was released early summer this year.  Beetle is one of the two figures in the set that’s not a variant on a prior figure, and if you’re counting Kilowog as a Green Lantern, he’s the only truly new character entirely.  Ted is seen here in his classic attire, which is the absolute correct choice for such a release.  The figure stands a hair under 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  I’ve been talking a lot about scaling with this line, and I’m going to continue to do so.  Ted’s scaling is by far the best I’ve seen from the line.  He’s actually just exactly the size he should be, with no issues at all.  He’ll fit right in with the vintage stuff.  Aiding with that is the sculpt, which is…well, it’s just really nice, you guys.  Everything about it feels just very genuine and on the mark for Super Powers.   The build, the detailing, the slight preposing, the stance of the legs.  Sure, there’s the visible pins, which aren’t quite right, but everything else works well enough that I just don’t notice them.  His costume elements are all sculpted, it should be noted, with raised edges for the darker blue sections.  Kenner didn’t lean on purely painting for much of the detailing on their figures, so this just helps to further push the authenticity.  The goggles are a separate piece, fitted into the head, which keeps the lines sharp, and the face gets a nice, friendly, slightly whimsical that fits the character so well.  The paint work is generally clean, with very minimal slop, and it’s a good match for his comics appearances.  He’s got no accessories, which isn’t the end of the world, but it’s a shame he didn’t get his BB gun.  It’s really the only thing I can note as an issue here.

Of course, if you’d still like to accessorize your Blue Beetle, there’s always the option of going for The Bug, Blue Beetle’s Mobile headquarters.  McFarlane’s been keeping up with doing a few vehicles to coincide with the figures, and The Bug hit right alongside Ted.  It’s pretty great timing, not just for tying in with the Ted figure, but also since the Bug was quite prominent in last year’s Blue Beetle movie.  The vehicle measures 11 1/2 inches long by 12 inches wide.  It’s sporting an all-new sculpt, which, like Ted, is a good match for the vintage line’s work.  Having handled the vintage Batmobile, the Bug has a very similar feel to its construction, right down to the polished exterior with the cool transparent windows.  It’s even got its own action feature!  The’s a grapple on the bottom, which Ted can hang from.  It pulls out, and can spring back when the hatch on the bottom is pressed.  Accessing the interior of the ship is really easy; the “wings” on the back are spring loaded and pop up when you press the button on the back.  Inside, there’s two seats at the front, one for Ted, and one for that Booster Gold figure that got shown off on the back of this box.  There’s also a whole little space set-up in the back for the mobile HQ bit, which is certainly nifty.  There’s not paint on the Bug, but it does get a few decals.  The inside gets the most of them, with coverage for all of the consoles, and even a mock-up of the internal hatch to match the sculpted one on the bottom.  Outside, there’s a fun little “I heart NY” sticker on the back, which is a great little character touch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This pair right here is the thing that truly broke me on the McFarlane Super Powers.  I’d seen others that looked cool enough, but nothing I *needed*.  Then they showed off these two and I just had to have them.  They haven’t been the easiest items in the line to get.  I found the Bug at the same time as the Peacemaker three-pack, but there was no Ted in sight.  I almost passed, but my Dad insisted on getting it for me, which gave me the push to track Ted down online.  I’m glad I did, because I haven’t been happier with a McFarlane offering.  Honestly, I haven’t been happier with a DC offering in a very long time.  I’ve wanted a Super Powers continuation since I was a kid, and this right here is exactly what I wanted.

#3511: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

CLASSIC HEROES (DC DIRECT)

“Picking up the mantle of his predecessor, and lacking the mystical blue scarab that gave Garrett super-powers, Ted Kord turned his skills as an acrobat and Olympic-level athlete to fighting crime as the new BLUE BEETLE! With the technical knowhow to create the flying Bug, his mobile crime-fighting base, Blue Beetle is a potent force against the underworld!”

One of the best things about this year’s Blue Beetle movie (which is really, really good by the way, so please check it out) was how lovingly faithful it was to the legacy of the character.  While the story is very definitely Jaime’s, the scarab’s two previous owners are both addressed.  Ted Kord may not directly appear in the film, there’s no denying that he is a very much an integral player in the overall story, and a lot of his history with the role is explored, which was so very cool.  Of course, with no Ted on-screen, there’s no Ted for the minor amount of tie-in toys, so I’ll just have to rely on my backlog of them for a while, huh?  Let’s take a jump back to early in his figure run, then!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle was released in DC Direct’s Classic Heroes line-up.  He was released in June of 2002, back when they were still just kind of one long-running line with each assortment fitting a different theme.  Classic Heroes was a set specifically based on the characters DC had acquired from other companies, with Beetle and The Question showcasing Charlton Comics, and wave-mates Phantom Lady and Uncle Sam showcasing Quality Comics.  This marked Ted’s second figure, following up on his JLA figure from 1999.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Blue Beetle got a unique sculpt for this release.  He’s definitely patterned more on his earliest DC appearances, prior to his “Bwa-ha-ha” era, but not quite going full Charlton in design.  It’s a good sculpt, very clean and concise.  It’s not super posable, but it does the basics, much like the Legion figures from the same era.  Ted’s got a fairly realistic and balanced set of proportions, so he’s not superhuman, which feels right for the character.  His lower legs do seem maybe a touch too short, but it’s pretty minor.  The goggles are a separate piece on the head, allowing you to see his eyes beneath, which is definitely a cool touch.  Beetle’s paint work is very clean and very sharp, which I really dig.  The colors are quite bold, and feel proper for the character.  I love how the black line-work turned out, and his eyes look really good beneath the goggles.  Ted is packed with his BB Gun and grapple line.  The grapple has a suction cup on the end, so you can hang him from windows and such, which is really great fun.  The only downside is that he’s only got one gripping hand, so he hand hold onto the line and his BB gun at the same time.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I knew of Blue Beetle more as a concept than an actual character when this figure came out, but his release actually got me more interested.  Unfortunately, my local comic shop, Cosmic Comix, sold out of him before I could actually get one back in the day, and I’ve not seen one in person since.  Well, that is, until Cosmic Comix got one traded in over the summer.  Hey, it’s a fun little roundabout way of getting the figure, I suppose.  I’m glad I finally found this guy, because I do really love him.  I’ve gotten other versions of Ted since this one’s release, but something about this one just seems so…quaint?  I don’t know, but I love it.

#3456: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

“When the Rock of Eternity exploded, the alien scarab encased within it fell to Texas and bonded to Jamie Reyes’ spine, making him the 3rd Blue Beetle. Jaime found that with a mere thought, he could use it to generate armor, tools and weaponry. He also learned the scarab was an advance agent for an expanionist alien species, that had bonded with Jaime. Together they beat back the alien attacks and Jaime’s heroic efforts earned him a spot in the Teen Titans.”

Blue Beetle’s suddenly all topical and relevant, and I honestly really love that.  While it’s too bad that the movie didn’t do great at the box office (that’s what happens when you blow your entire marketing budget for the year on The Flash), but it was certainly well-received by all those that actually saw it, and it was just confirmed by James Gunn that Xolo Maridueña will be one of the actors carried forward in his role by the new DCU.  I consider all of that a plus, and I hope it leads to plenty more awesome Blue Beetle merch.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to entertain myself with the prior awesome Blue Beetle merch.  Somehow, I think I’ll manage.  It’s been a bit since I’ve looked at anything DC Universe Classics, so let’s do that for a change!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle was released in the Trigon Series of DC Universe Classics.  It was the 13th series in the line, and is honestly kind of oddball, but in the best possible way.  At this point, Mattel was trying their “All-Stars” initiative, where one figure in each set was sans CnC piece (which Hasbro would later borrow when they relaunched Marvel Legends).  It was typically the set’s heavy hitter, which in the case of this line-up wound up being Jaime.  Good for him.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  At this point in the line, Mattel had begun experimenting with the articulation a touch.  DCUC was okay, but never anything amazing, but they did try to step them up a little bit, with modifications wherever they could fit them in.  Jaime was one of the line’s best articulated figures in its entire run, largely by virtue of needing to be a totally new sculpt, giving Mattel something of a blank canvas to work with on that front.  He gets both double elbows *and* double knees, which weren’t often seen, as well as universal joints at the wrists.  He’s still somewhat plagued by the reduced mobility on the joints that was common to the line, but given what we were usually working with, he’s quite impressive.  As I noted above, Jaime is an all-new sculpt, and it’s really good.  The figure isn’t saddled with the weirdly wide or overly bulky proportions of the line’s other figures.  All of his costume details are also sculpted, rather than anything relying purely on paint, again in contrast to much of the line.  He’s also got an evergreen appearance that fits with the general aesthetic of the line, while also staying true to how he was frequently depicted in his own book.  Heck, even the articulation is worked in pretty well.  Beetle’s paint work is pretty fun; the blue is a metallic sheen, which looks very slick, and the paint application is all quite clean.  The only slight downside is that he doesn’t get pupils on his eyes, but he honestly makes it work.  Jaime was packed with a removable set of wings to plug onto his back (which don’t require removing the horns from the scarab, Todd), as well as a weapon attachment for his arm.  He doesn’t get his arm cannon, which is a slight bummer, but, again, compared to the rest of the line, he was really ahead.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I’ve stated before, I’ve been a fan of Jaime since shortly after his introduction.  I had his first DCD figure as soon as it hit, and for a lot of DCUC figures, I didn’t necessarily look to replace (at first, anyway), but this guy was a definite upgrade, who I very happily added to my collection the minute I found one at retail.  He’s hands down the best figure that DCUC spawned, and he holds up really well, even all these years later. 

#3448: Battle Mode Blue Beetle

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

BATTLE MODE BLUE BEETLE

DC MULTIVERSE (McFARLANE TOYS)

Warner Brothers really is trying to figure out how the heck to handle DC movies.  It’s crazy, because it really shouldn’t be this hard to figure out making movies about some of the best known pop culture icons on the planet, but it’s honestly pretty classic DC.  They’re really bad at understanding their own stuff.  If they were better at it, they might have not spent their entire marketing budget for the year on the dumpster fire that was The Flash, and might have saved enough to give poor Blue Beetle something more than one proper trailer.  You know, maybe put some support behind the best DC project since the Nolan trilogy.  Heck, the best DC project since Christopher Reeve’s Superman.  Yeah, I said it.  And I stand by it.  After trying desperately for years to find their Iron Man equivalent, DC finally made one in Blue Beetle…and they missed the mark by not actually getting people to see it.  That’s gotta sting.  Well, at least I got the best love letter to the Blue Beetle mythos a fan could ever hope for.  It’s a decent consolation prize.  Oh yeah, and there’s some toys, too.  Not a ton, you know, because the the flubbed marketing thing.  Also, McFarlane.  Still, Blue Beetle.  Calling it a win where I can.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Battle Mode Blue Beetle is one of two Blue Beetle figures released in the main tie-in assortment of McFarlane’s DC Multiverse.  There’s another Blue Beetle with the arm cannon and sword, as well as a deluxe Carapax MegaFig, but I’m gonna look at “Battle Mode” Blue Beetle.  You know, the one that comes with wings and no weapons of any kind.  Like a Battle Mode.  The figure stands about 7 inches tall and he has 37 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is the standard McFarlane set-up, with the addition of two swivels on the wings/horns….allegedly.  The wing/horn swivels aren’t actually good for much, but I’ll get to that in a moment.  There’s layers here.  The bulk of this figure’s sculpt is shared with the other Blue Beetle from the assortment.  It makes sense, since it’s always the same core suit in the movie, and he just cycles through different attachments.  Honestly, it’s even a pretty darn good sculpt.  It looks a lot like the movie suit, it has a lot of sharp detailing, and, apart from the arms being a touch too long, it has pretty solid proportions.  Because it’s shared with the other figure, you can also still remove the left forearm, allowing you to swap in the other figure’s cannon arm, if you so choose.  Heck, it even moves pretty well.  The core body, that is.  It’s McFarlane, though, so you’re all waiting for this to take a turn, right?  Well, here’s where that happens.  You know how this figure has Beetle’s wing attachments?  And they’re removable, even?  Yeah, well the horns, which are always visible on the back of the suit when its powered up, are attached to the wings.  So, you can’t give him the horns without the wings…you know, the way he looks for most of the movie’s runtime.  Also, because of the angle that the horns are attached to the wings, you also can’t have the wings posed in anything but a straight out angle, otherwise the horns get caught on each other and bump into his head.  This figure does at least *have* the horns, which is more than can be said for the other figure, which just lacks them outright.  If they’d just been sculpted onto the actual backpack piece, there’d be no issue.  Heck, I’d have settled for a separate set of horn pieces to swap out for the wings, since they’re easily removed.  But, nope, we just get the ones attached to the wings.  That’s annoying.  Moving back to better things, the paint work on this figure is also pretty good.  The base colors are clean, and I love that metallic blue.  Then there’s a bunch of accenting which gives him a little more wear and tear, while also still not going too overboard.  I can certainly appreciate that.  Beetle is packed with six different hands (a pair of fists, a right open gesture, a right pointing, a left thumbs up, and a left peace sign), a standard display stand, and a card.  The hands are fantastic and I love having them.  The stand is surprising because it’s not a flight stand, which seems odd, but it’s better than nothing.  And the card is infuriating because it shows Jaime with the horns but no wings.  You know, the way this figure can never be displayed.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was quite a bit of a Ted Kord fan back when Jaime was first introduced.  And, despite Jaime’s comics origin requiring Ted being shot in the head, I still really liked Jaime.  I followed his first solo series, I followed his back-ups in Booster Gold, and I even followed Generation Lost.  I drew the line at the New 52 incarnation, but that’s a whole other thing.  I love Jaime just as much as Ted, and I was very excited when this movie was announced.  In case you didn’t gather from the intro, I loved the film when I saw it in the theatre as well.  And even though it’s McFarlane, I still wanted one of the figures.  This figure is so frustrating because he’s *so* insanely close to being the best thing McFarlane’s done with DC.  He’s got a solid sculpt, good paint, the awesome extra hands….they just got the horns wrong.  And, like, doubly wrong, because the way they are, you can’t even use the wings right, either.  We’re so close!  Thankfully, there are some people out there doing kits with just the horns as a separate piece, but I really shouldn’t have to resort to third party pieces to get the standard look for a character.  But, hey, it’s Blue Beetle.  I’ll take what I can get.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3208: Blue Beetle & Booster Gold

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

BLUE BEETLE & BOOSTER GOLD

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE TOYS)

Look, I’m not gonna pretend like this is anything more than it is, guys.  Yes, I’m reviewing something else from McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line.  I know.  I’m not surprised either, just disappointed.  Okay, not really disappointed.  Honestly, it’s really not all that bad, I suppose.  Todd’s decisions with the line have generally been middling at best, but there is the occasional offering that sort of accidentally stumbles into being sort of a good idea.  While things are very firmly planted in edgelord territory for most of the line’s offerings, perhaps in an effort to offset that just a little bit, we’ve actually got something that goes pretty anti-edgelord-y, in the form of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold.  Central to the Giffen, DeMatteis, and McGuire “Bwa-ha-ha” run of Justice League, Beetle and Booster have never been A-listers, but they’ve certainly picked up quite a cult following, especially given they’re more jovial nature and their long-term friendship.  They’ve gotten quite few figures over the years, mostly pairing off, since it sure does feel weird to do one without the other.  And, in a move uncharacteristic to McFarlane’s DC run up to this point, they’re actually both available at once, in one concise package even.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are a two-pack release from McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line.  They were announced at the end of July and had a rather quick turnaround, hitting in early September.  As with the rest of the two-packs, they’re their own thing, shipping on their own, which is probably for the best.  Keeps those Bat-variants just a little bit further away.

BLUE BEETLE

“Over the course of a century, three different men from very different backgrounds have taken on the heroic mantle of the Blue Beetle, each making their mark in different ways. The original Beetle was an archaeologist named Dan Garrett, who discovered an ancient Scarab in an old Egyptian tomb that gave him superpowers which he used to fight crime. He was succeeded by the brilliant Ted Kord, who had no powers to speak of, but carried on the Blue Beetle legacy with just his wits and his fists, along with a whole lot of gadgets and a sharp sense of humor.”

You gotta love the bio calling out that there are three notable Blue Beetles in the last century and then only talking about two of them.  And not even the most notable of the two, at that.  I know, a McFarlane bio being poorly written.  Who’d have thunk?  Ah, well, I think I’d rather talk about the figure than the bio, so let’s do that.  The figure stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  As with all the McFarlane figures, the articulation scheme is pretty set and predictable.  It works better on some than on others, but this one is admittedly on the “better” end of the spectrum.  The wrists are a little awkward, and the elbows and knees are still requiring you to break up the flow of the sculpt, but it’s not awful.  The sculpt is actually not half-bad.  The head is a decent rendition of Ted in costume, right down to that slightly goofy smile, which is really perfect for the character.  The body sculpt is pretty basic, and honestly surprisingly clean for a McFarlane sculpt.  With one exception (which I’ll touch on a little more in the next figure’s section) only details are the actual details for Ted’s costume, as depicted in the comics, even.  No weird extra lines or piping, or armor plating, or odd texturing.  Just a nice, basic sculpt, with a fairly sensible set of proportions.  The paint work on this figure is also pretty sensible, which is likewise surprising.  The colors are generally a good match for his usual depiction, the application is overall pretty clean, and there’s no weird washes or anything to dirty him up.  I do miss the clear goggles like earlier figures have had, but the solid finish isn’t terrible, and I do quite like the slight accenting on the face, just to give him a bit more color.  Ted is packed with his BB gun, the same circular display stand that comes with all of the figures, and a collector card.  The gun is an okay sculpt, but for some reason there’s what looks like a grapple line permanently attached to it, which kind of limits its uses when it comes to posing.  I guess maybe they were worried that Warner might ask for it to be cut from the set if it didn’t have the permanent attachment?

BOOSTER GOLD

“A college football star of the 25th Century who earned the nickname ‘Booster’ on the field. Even though people assured him a professional career of fame and fortune was in his future, he decided he couldn’t wait and wagered on his own games. The scandal ruined his dreams and reputation. Taking a job as a security guard in the Metropolis Space Museum, Mike saw another opportunity after studying the early age of superheroes. With future and alien technology stolen from the museum, and a time machine that was on display, he realized he could not only become a superhero himself in a past era where his criminal history was unknown, but he could also make his good deeds profitable.”

Well, at least Booster’s bio is a bit more on-point.  Given Ted’s, I was half expecting a “Super Nova” mention.  Small victories there.  Though he’s packed with a very much classically-inspired Ted Kord Blue Beetle, Booster goes slightly more modern, by virtue of ditching his somewhat absurd collar from his ’80s appearances.  I suppose I’ll allow it.  Like Beetle, the figure stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  Booster’s sculpt is…well, it’s actually largely the same as Beetle’s.  Booster gets his own head, hands, wrist pieces, and a slightly different pelvis piece, allowing for his slightly different costume design.  The new head is on par with Beetle in terms of quality, but it’s also quite distinctly different.  The flow of the hair is quite nice, and I definitely dig the cheesy grin.  By virtue of the shared base body, Booster’s perhaps a touch too small, but not terribly far off.  What *is* rather off is the boots, which get the tops of Beetle’s boots, which are an entirely different shape.  There’s still the slight shaping of Booster’s boot sculpted above the cuff, which was also present on Beetle.  It was less obvious on Beetle than Beetle’s boots are for Booster; since Booster was getting saddled with the extra detail anyway, I’m not entirely sure why they attempted at double duty here, but at least it’s a minor detail.  Booster’s paint work is okay; not quite as good as Beetle’s, but not terrible.  There’s the obvious painting over of the boot details, which is a bit goofy looking.  Additionally, thanks to the paint on the shins, plus the molded yellow higher up, and then the slightly different material on the knees, there are no less than three different yellows in the space of about an inch.  From the knees up, however, he looks pretty great.  His goggles are opaque, just like Ted’s, and the face likewise gets some really nice accenting to give it a little more life.  Booster is packed with a smart phone (with a yellow case to match his costume), a blast effect to clip onto his wrist, and his robot buddy Skeets, a display stand, and a collector card.  Skeets, rather than getting his own stand or attaching to Booster directly, plugs into the larger base shared between the two of them.  It’s a rather short arm, and not removable from Skeets.  It’s also completely opaque, and it doesn’t plug into anything other than the very large base, which proves rather limiting for him.  But, at least he’s included, which is certainly more than can be said of other Booster Gold figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m less and less enamored with McFarlane’s DC Multiverse as it continues forward, but I’ll admit that these two immediately caught my eye.  Our first preview had no release info, so I was worried they, like pretty much everything else “classic” from McFarlane, would be an exclusive.  I was very glad they weren’t, as it made it much easier for me to actually, you know, get them.  Ted’s the better of the two for sure, but honestly they’re both a lot better than I’d expected.  As with anything McFarlane, there are some drawbacks, but they’re honestly minimal, all things considered.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with these figures to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2481: Blue Beetle

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

BLUE BEETLE

AMAZING HEROES (FRESH MONKEY FICTION)

“When policeman Dan Garret grew tired of the slow pace and red tape of normal police work, he adopted the masked identity of the Blue Beetle to continue his battle to avenge the murder of his father!”

In the summer of 2014, I backed a good number of action figure-centered Kickstarters, as I was trying to really expand my reviewing options, as well as my reviewing foot print out in that crazy online world.  A pair of the Kickstarters that I backed were for Fresh Monkey Fiction’s Amazing Heroes line, which was devoted to producing figures of some more obscure, largely public domain super heroes.  After running two successful Kickstarter campaigns to get us nine figures to start things out, Fresh Monkey has also been slowly adding more figures as they can, through other channels.  At the beginning of this year, they ran a Jumpstart campaign to get another four figures produced.  I managed to jump in for one of those, Blue Beetle, who I’ll be looking at today.

Now, before I jump into the review proper, I’m sure there are a good number of you going “wait, isn’t Blue Beetle a DC character?”  Yes, yes he is.  And before that, he was also a Charlton Comics character.  However, thanks to a whole bunch of different incarnations in the character’s lineage, the very first Blue Beetle, Dan Garret (note the single “t” at the end of his last name; it’s important), actually went into the public domain.  Charlton picked up the character in the ‘50s, and eventually introduced his successor Ted Kord in the ‘60s, at which point the quietly added a second “t” to the end of his name, making Ted’s true predecessor Dan Garrett a proper Charlton creation.  But, at the end of the day, Garret is still public domain, and therefore easy pickings for this line.  Amusingly, he gets a figure, while Garrett never has.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blue Beetle is one of the four figures produced for Wave 4 of the Amazing Heroes line.  He was produced to demand, and he and the rest of his compatriots started arriving to backers in late June/early July. The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  As with the rest of the line, Blue Beetle is built on a centralized body, patterned on the old Secret Wars bodies from Mattel.  He uses the core body and the bald head piece.  He also gets a little bit of new tooling for his arms, which now sport flared gloves.  It’s a small touch, but it does a lot to make him feel just a bit different from the earlier releases.  In general, this figure’s construction is nicely consistent with the more simplistic and basic feel of the rest of the line.  It definitely works well with Blue Beetle’s design.  The paint work is likewise pretty basic and simple, but it again works pretty well to convey the design.  They’ve opted not to do any hinting of his scale-mail, which seems like the right call, and is also consistent with the Secret Wars stylings, since Cap was the same way.  The application is all really sharp, though, which looks great.  Beetle is packed with an extra unmasked Dan Garret head, which is a repaint of the Captain Action head.  It’s a decent enough match for him, and it’s just nice to have the option.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had to forego most of the post Kickstarter Amazing Heroes offerings due to monetary reasons, which definitely bummed me a bit.  However, once these guys were shown off, I knew I wanted to at least grab this guy.  And hey, even in the midst of everything going on right now, Fresh Monkey still managed to get these guys out in a reasonable amount of time.  Blue Beetle’s pretty basic, but also pretty fun, and it’s nifty that we were finally able to get him in figure form.

#2406: Nite Owl

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

NITE OWL

WATCHMEN (DC DIRECT)

“Awkward, shy, and unnaturally obsessed with masked vigilantes and ornithology, Dan Drieberg was a surprisingly good fit to inherit the mantle of Nite Owl.  He is a talented engineer with a tragic childhood that feeds his needs to help the helpless and fight the good fight.  However, the world is not a perfect place and Dan is forced to constantly question his own morality.”

Back in 2009, the world didn’t quite yet hate/love Zack Snyder because of what he’d done with a DC property…or did they?  Yes, we got our first taste of Zack Snyder on a DC project with 2009’s Watchmen, which was, as with most Snyder projects, met with mixed emotion.  I myself was a fan of it, being on a real Watchmen kick at the time.  I still like parts of it, but I’ll admit I can see the flaws peaking through these days (honestly, though, I find that’s somewhat true of the original source material as well).  The one definite plus to the film for toy collectors was the chance to finally get some actual figures of the characters from the story, even if they were film based.  Today, I’m looking at Nite Owl!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Nite Owl was released in Series 1 of DC Direct’s Watchmen line, hitting shelves just before the film’s March 2009 release.  This one is specifically Nite Owl II, aka Dan Drieberg, who is the main Nite Owl for the purposes of the story (his mentor Hollis Mason, aka Nite Owl I, would follow in the second series of the line).  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  He’s not incredibly poseable, but he’s fairly standard for a DCD offering of the time, and was one of the most mobile figures in this first assortment.  Nite Owl was an all new sculpt, based on his design from the film.  His look was one of the most changed for the movie, shifting from the comic’s more loose-fitting, kind of basic spandex get-up, into something more like the suits seen in the ’90s Batman films.  The general appearance notes of the design are the same, and it reads as more or less being the same guy, so I think it actually works out alright.  The actual quality of the sculpt is actually pretty darn solid, and I’d again rank him as probably the best in the first series.  The proportions are pretty realistic, the smaller detail work, especially on the main body suit, is all really sharp, and what we can see of his face has a passable Patrick Wilson likeness.  The articulation is also worked in without breaking things up too badly, so it ends up looking pretty alright overall.  The paintwork on this guy is generally pretty good.  It’s fairly involved, with all those different shades of brown.  The application’s all pretty clean, and I definitely dig the metallic colors.  He definitely pops.  Nite Owl was packed with a removable crescent blade on his belt (which he can’t hold, and which fell off of mine and went missing while he was in storage), and a display stand that interlocks with the rest of the figures from the line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wasn’t quite sold on the movie costumes yet when these figures hit, so I ended up passing Nite Owl initially.  By the time the movie hit and I was sold on wanting the figure, he’d sold out most places, so I went a little bit without one.  Fortunately, All Time Toys came to my rescue, all the way back in 2009, a decade before I was even sponsored.  How kind of them!  He’s not got a lot going on, but I dig this figure more than I expected to when I pulled him back out for review.  It probably helps that Nite Owl was my favorite part of the movie, so he’s got that going for him.

#1538: Nite Owl

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

NITE OWL

WATCHMEN (MATTEL)

“Awkward, shy, and unnaturally obsessed with masked vigilantes and ornithology, Dan Drieberg was a surprisingly good fit to inherit the mantle of Nite Owl.  He is a talented engineer with a tragic childhood that feeds his needs to help the helpless and fight the good fight.  However, the world is not a perfect place and Dan is forced to constantly question his own morality.”

I’ve now made it through a full week of my post-Christmas reviews, and now we’re kind of nearing the end of this whole thing.  For today’s review, I’m switching over to a property that I’ve covered a few times on this site, Watchmen.  I was pretty huge into Watchmen a few years back, especially around the time of the film adaptation.  In the years since, my fixation has sort of waned, probably due to the overabundance of grimdark super hero stories in the last several years.  I still appreciate it for what it is, and there’s no denying that the story has lots of exciting designs, just ripe for toy form.  The comics designs are somewhat rare in the toy world, but Mattel put out a set of them a few years back, and I’ll be taking a look at the Nite Owl figure from that set today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Nite Owl was the fourth figure in Mattel’s “Club Black Freighter” subscription, released back in 2013.  He’s based on the comics Nite Owl design, of course, which is a more simplistic look than his more sculpted look from the film, but I feel a slightly more polished and to the point design.  The figure stands 6 3/4 inches tall 23 points of articulation.  The whole Club Black Freighter set was designed to fit stylistically with DC Universe Classics, and a lot of this was done via parts re-use from that line.  For Nite Owl, this means he uses the standard mid-sized arms, legs, and pelvis, along with a new torso and head, as well as add-ons for his cape and belt.  The legs are the end of DCUC legs, meaning they’ve had the rocker-ankles removed.  It’s definitely an annoyance, and it means he can’t really ever keep his feet flat on the ground, which looks rather goofy.  On the plus side, all of the newly sculpted pieces really do look cool.  The head’s a solid piece of work, and replicates Gibbons’ take on Nite Owl quite nicely.  His hard plastic cape, though very cool looking, effectively renders his arms motionless from the elbow up.  The end result to all of this is a figure that’s not really good for anything but standing around.  But at least he looks good, I suppose.  The paint work on Nite Owl is decent enough, and certainly better than a lot of Mattel’s output.  It’s clean and matches well with the art from the book.  It’s not the most thrilling color combination, but that’s true to the character, so one can hardly complain.  Nite Owl is packed with a display stand, three owl-arangs, and a grappling gun, as well as big novelty card thing with an art-deco sort of illustration.  The stand’s fine, but he has some trouble successfully holding any of the other extras.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Nite Owl was another Christmas gift from Super Awesome Girlfriend.  By the time the Club Black Freighter set came along, I was kind of done with Mattel’s whole subscription model and past my Watchmen fixation, so I ended up passing on them.  I almost bought Nite Owl a few times from Matty Collector during a couple of their year-end sales, but never got around to it.  Jess spotted him at the GameStop she works at and grabbed him for me.  He’s sort of an interesting phenomenon, a “super-posable” figure that doesn’t work as much more than a statue.  Ultimately, he’s not a bad figure, but he sort of fails at what he’s supposed to be.  I guess he’s rather par for the course when it comes to Mattel, though.