Tag Archives: Bucky Barnes

#0262: Winter Soldier

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

WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL SELECT

WintersoldierSelect

On the Fourth of July, I took a look at Diamond Select Toys’ Marvel Select line’s version of Captain America. I wouldn’t want Cap to be lonely, so how about giving him a buddy. And who better than Cap’s bestest friend ever, Bucky Barnes! Okay, actually it’s Winter Soldier, but they’re actually the same person (umm….spoilers?). Anyway, Marvel Select just got a comic version of Winter Soldier, released to tie-in with this summer’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Let’s see how the figure turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Winter Soldier is a Disney Store exclusive from the Marvel Select line, released in early 2014. The figure stands about 7 inches tall and features 29 points of articulation. I believe he’s meant to be based on the Soldier’s most recent look, which is an amalgam of his original comic look and his look in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The figure features an all-new sculpt, and a pretty good one at that. Right off the bat, it’s a more consistent sculpt than a lot of previous Select figures, like Captain America for example. It’s not a perfect sculpt; the chin is perhaps a bit too large, and the arms are a little gangly. Other than that, it’s a great piece of work. The Soldier’s costume allows for lots of textures in the different types of material used in the uniform, and the sculpt handles them all very nicely. The move to a new style of hip joint is probably the greatest thing about the figure, especially looking at the direction of the line as a whole. The new joint is similar to those seen on a DC Universe Classics figure, and it allows for a better range of movement without interrupting the sculpt. I do wish the range of motion was a little bit better on the ankles, but they aren’t terrible. The paint work is pretty decent. There’s no real occurrence of slop or bleed over, and there’s a lot of nice texture work that really accents the sculpt well. Winter Soldier features a nice assortment of accessories, which include a sniper rifle, a handgun, a submachine gun with a strap, a crate with Russian markings, and a stand made to look like a section of wall and floor. The crate in particular is quite impressive, just due to the impressive amount of details present on almost every side.

WinterSoldierSelect2WinterSoldierSelect3WinterSoldierCrate

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Winter Soldier from the Disney Store at the local mall. I was there to take care of a few other things and my friend Tim wanted to stop in the Disney Store to look at the new Guardians of the Galaxy Nerf stuff, which he had spied through the window. While he was looking at those, I happened across the store’s Marvel Select display. I had seen pictures of this guy online, but hadn’t thought much about it. I’m at best a moderate fan of Winter Soldier. Before this year I didn’t even own a single figure of him. But, seeing the figure in person was enough to sway me. I’m definitely glad I decided to get him; he’s probably one of the best figures the Marvel Select line has to offer, and he’s just a pretty great toy in general!

WinterSoldierSelectComparison

#0234: Captain America – Classic & Winter Soldier

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA – CLASSIC & WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

Cap&WinterSoldier

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

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA – CLASSIC

CapClassic

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

WINTER SOLDIER

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

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

#0224: Winter Soldier

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

WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL LEGENDS INFINITY SERIES

WinterSoldier1

Let’s see, so far in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel Legends Infinite Series reviews, I’ve discussed the quality of the film, the quality of the toys, the stupid decisions regarding the pack outs, oh yes, and Nazis, of course. This review ends up getting the short end of the stick, I’m afraid. Well, it’s a review of the film’s title bad guy. If you didn’t know by this point, he’s… SPOILERS

 

…actually Captain America’s best friend, Bucky Barnes, saved from near death and brain washed to become the ultimate assassin. Fun times.  So, let’s take a look at his figure, shall we?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Winter Soldier is part of the second series of Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel Legends Infinite Series. The figure is a little over 6 inches tall and he features 30 points of articulation. He is, of course, based on the character’s appearance in TWS, but is specifically from the middle-ish area of the movie, after he loses the coat he sports in early scenes and before he loses the mask and eye-liner. The figure gets a brand new sculpt, and it’s an impressive one at that. I thought the 3 ¾ inch version’s sculpt was pretty good, and this one just adds even more detail, and a fair bit of extra articulation. The wrist, ankle and abdominal articulation really gives the figure a whole new dimension. If I had one complaint, it would be that the robot arm doesn’t look quite as good with the smaller one, due to the double jointed elbow. However, the added movement is important, so I’m willing to let it slide. The paint work on WS is probably the cleanest I’ve seen on the line so far, which is a comforting thing to see. However, once again, I don’t like the robo-arm quite as much. They’ve given it a dark wash that makes it look rather scummy. It does bring out the details, but the Soldier’s arm was consistently clean and shiny in the movie, so it looks off. Not terrible, mind you, just slightly off. The downfall of this figure, is the accessories. They’re all fine in theory, just not really in execution. First off, there’s the Mandroid leg. That’s pretty straight forward, with no issues. I’ll be looking at that in two days, along with the rest of the Mandroid. Then, there’s the alternate head. Here’s where the trouble begins. Sculpturally, it’s not a bad depiction of Bucky, sans mask. The paint is what messes it up. First, the eye shadow goes waaay to far down his face. It pretty much covers the entirety of his face, for Pete’s sake! Then, they gave him these really thin, drawn on eyebrows, which are set way to high up. He looks very surprised, I must say. With a proper paint job, this head would actually be pretty good. I’ve included a quick photoshop job to demonstrate this. As it is, it’s just…eughhh. Lastly, and leastly, there’s the gun. Well, I say gun. It’s more of a strange red fish thing that happens to have a handle. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it’s certainly not anything he carried in the movie. Is there a reason he can’t have a real gun? Zemo and Red Skull have real guns. Why must Bucky be stuck with this monstrosity? He can’t even hold it like a real gun! I suppose it’s not as bad as Widow’s total lack of guns, but I don’t think it’s much better.

WinterSoldier2(unmasked) WinterSoldier5 WinterSoldier4(accessory) WinterSoldier2(unmaskedCompare)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bucky is the last piece of my series two set I received from Big Bad Toystore. I knew even before I saw the movie I was going to want this guy, so I’m happy to finally have him. The wonky gun thing is a bit of a bummer, but I swapped in the larger rifle from one of my Star Wars: The Black Series Stormtroopers, and that seems to work a bit better. Sure, it’s still not right, but at least it’s based on a real gun, and it’s not a bright color. The alt head is also a bit of a disappointment, but I always intended to display the masked one anyway, so I’m not really bugged by that. Truth be told, Winter Soldier is probably my favorite figure from this line up. He’s a heck of a lot of fun!

WinterSoldier3(Comparison)wbubble

#0184: Precision Strike Winter Soldier

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

PRECISION STRIKE WINTER SOLDIER

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

In case my last two reviews didn’t clue you in, I quite thoroughly enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I think The Avengers still holds up as my favorite of the Marvel Studios films, just for the sheer accomplishment, but CA:TWS is a very close second.

Hasbro’s doing two separate lines of tie-in toys: one in 6 inch scale and one in 3 ¾ inch scale. Thanks to the way the characters have been laid out between the two lines, it appears I’ll be picking up both lines. Today, I’m looking at the 3 ¾ inch version of the (sub) title character, the Winter Soldier, or as he’s billed on the package “Precision Strike Winter Soldier.” Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF
Winter Soldier was part of the first assortment of Captain America: The Winter Soldier figures. He’s based on Winter Soldier’s look for roughly the first half of the film, before he ditches the mask and goggles. I imagine this choice was made to hide the character’s true identity until most of the movie going public has a chance to have it revealed to them. It’s also just a cooler look. The figure stands about 3 ¾ inches tall and has 19 points of articulation. As I mentioned in my review of Cap, the figure is hurt by the lack of wrist, ankle, and waist articulation. Articulation issues aside, the sculpt on this figure is amazing. There’s lots of tiny detail work and textures, and the proportions are much better than they are on many 3 ¾ inch figures. Everything looks spot on to the character’s appearance in the film. The paint manages to live up to the sculpt, which is a rarity amongst Hasbro figures. There’s no slop or bleed over, and they even gave the torso and right arm a nice wash to bring out the details. The accessory selection ends up being the figure’s only real downside. Hasbro has given him a big dumb rocket launcher, and absolutely no guns at all (even though he’s labelled “precision strike”), and his hands are both molded to hold said non-existent guns. Guess he’ll forever be Marvel’s resident Fonzie stand-in…

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had intended to only get the 6 inch scale Winter Soldier, but after finding Falcon at my local Target, I broke down and picked up the 3 ¾ version as well. I’m glad I did. Winter Soldier is easily the best of the three I picked up. Yeah, the lack of wrist joints sucks, as does the stupid rocket launcher, but the sculpt and paint on this guy are really phenomenal. Arm him with a spare GI Joe gun and he’ll be even better. If only someone at Hasbro had thought of that…

#0149: Winter Soldier – Agent of SHIELD & Hydra Elite

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

WINTER SOLDIER –AGENT OF SHIELD & HYDRA ELITE

MARVEL MINIMATES

Okay, so I may have lied about “new Minimates” reviews being done for a while.  Yeah, I was kinda at Toys R Us, and found the one set of figures from TRU wave 18 that I hadn’t found yet.  So, I’m reviewing those today.  It should be a quick review, as I already reviewed one, and the other is only a slight tweak on a figure I already looked at.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Winter Soldier and the Hydra Elite were released as part of the 18th Toys R Us exclusive wave of Marvel Minimates.

WINTER SOLDIER

So, after being turned into a Russian-Assassin, Bucky got better, and became an Agent of SHIELD.  So, he got a haircut and stuck a new bumper sticker on his robot arm.  Now he’s a hero!  Yay!  He’s pretty much the same figure as the last Winter Soldier I looked at.  The difference is that he’s got a different hairpiece, his uniform is a brighter blue, and instead of having a red star on the robot arm, he’s got a white star in a blue circle.  Everything, including the accessories and the detail lines is the same.  I can’t blame Diamond for taking advantage of the near identical looks.  They’re close enough to share parts, but just different enough to require separate figures, and there was demand for both versions.  I still prefer the other version a bit more, though I may swap the robot arms.

HYRDA ELITE

This figure is exactly the same as the Wave 54 Hydra Elite.  Exactly the same.  No minor differences or anything.  However, it is an army builder, so I doubt anyone will complain about it being more plentiful.  I certainly was glad to get another one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, this isn’t the most thrilling set if you’ve already got wave 54, but it’s a decent accent.  Plus, I got it for $3.98, so I’m pretty much just buying it to get another Hydra Elite.  Now I have 4!

#0132: Falcon & The Winter Soldier

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

FALCON & WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

Today is part 2 of 3 of my review of the latest wave of Marvel Minimates.  The wave is themed around Captain America, and I’ll be looking at two of his compatriots, both of whom are set to get pivotal roles in the upcoming Captain America Sequel.  It’s the Falcon and Winter Soldier!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were released as part of the 54th wave of the Marvel Minimates line.

FALCON

First, my favorite part of the set, Sam Wilson aka the Falcon.  Oh, sorry “Marvel’s Falcon.”  ….TM….  The Falcon is depicted here in his more modern outfit, specifically the one he wore during Brubaker run on Captain America.  I would have preferred his classic outfit, but after 54 waves with no Falcon at all, I’ll take what I can get.  Falcon is built on the standard Minimate body, so he stands about 2 ½ inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Falcon features 5 sculpted add-ons:  2 2-piece wings, and a hairpiece.  The hair looks to be new to this figure and the wings were originally sculpted for the Vulture  in the Spider-Man Friends and Foes boxed set.  I would have liked for the mask to be separate piece, so I could swap out the face for one without a goatee, but it looks okay.  The paint isn’t perfect, but it’s serviceable.  The work on the face is sharp, but the body doesn’t quite match up, with some fuzzy lines and a little bit of slop.  Falcon includes his sidekick Redwing, a flight stand, and a clear display stand.

WINTER SOLDIER

Next, it’s Cap’s former sidekick-turned-Russian-Assassin (umm…Spoilers?), Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier.  There used to be a joke that nobody stayed dead in comics except for Uncle Ben, Bucky and Jason Todd.  I am eagerly awaiting the big summer event that brings back Uncle Ben.  Winter Soldier is depicted in his look he sported during the initial Winter Soldier arc.  The key difference between this look and more recent ones is the longer hair and the red star on his robot arm. Winter Soldier is built on the standard body, so he’s got the regular stats.  He features 4 sculpted add-ons: Hair, shoulder holster, belt, and leg holster.  The hair was originally used on Warpath and the shoulder holster originated on the wave 42 SHIELD Agent.  The belt and leg holster look familiar to me, but I can’t figure out for sure where I’ve seen them before.  The leg holster doesn’t quite keep the gun in place, which can get a bit annoying.  The paint is well done on this figure, with no noticeable slop.  The facial expression looks pretty dead-on for the character, with a dead-set determination.  Winter Soldier includes 2 different handguns, a sniper rifle, and a clear display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was part of a larger order I placed with my favorite Minimates retailer, Luke’s Toy Store.  This was one of the sets I was most looking forward to in the wave, as both of these characters are long overdue.  I still hope to get a more classic Falcon down the line, but this one should do all right in its place.  And Winter Soldier is certainly no slouch either.