Tag Archives: Dum Dum Dugan

#3639: S.H.I.E.L.D Three-Pack

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

NICK FURY JR., DUM DUM DUGAN, & SHARON CARTER

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0118: We’ve gotten two figures of Nick Fury Jr, and both times he’s also doubled as a way to get a new release of previous director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Back when I was really into Minimates, one of my more obsessive collecting habits was SHIELD agents.  I loved them, and I had sooooooo many of them.  Just a whole army, with all sorts of different heads.  Some of them were named agents from the comics, and some of them were my own unique creations.  But they were all awesome.  In the midst of all of that, the set that I’m looking at today would have blown my mind.  Maybe it’s less mind-blowing now, but that doesn’t make it less cool.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Nick Fury Jr, Dum Dum Dugan, and Sharon Carter make up the “S.H.I.E.L.D. Three-Pack”, a Fan Channel-exclusive Marvel Legends offering.  Curiously, it’s specifically “Captain America” branded, even though Cap himself isn’t in the set.  Sharon’s a long-time supporting cast member for him, and Dugan and both Nicks are recurring in Cap stories, but…still seems like a *slightly* odd choice of branding.  Ah, well.

NICK FURY JR.

Originally introduced as “Marcus Johnson” in the pages of Battle Scars, Nick Fury Jr (revealed to be Marcus’s birth name, following the reveal that he’s also the original Fury’s biological son) is a pretty thinly veiled attempt at getting a Nick Fury in the mainstream universe who looked like the Nick Fury in the movies and cartoons, right down to him happening to lose the same eye as his father, so that he’s still got the eyepatch.  Honestly, though?  It’s far from the most contrived thing we’ve seen in the comics; at least they didn’t try to come up with some way to actually turn the original Nick into a black guy.  Jr hasn’t gotten a Legends figure before.  He did get a Minimate, and, depending on how you classify the designs, a 3 3/4-inch figure.  But no Legends.  This one’s in a standard issue SHIELD uniform, as opposed to the Super Soldier-style uniform he tended to wear, presumably to give the body a broader usage.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  He’s built using the Vulcan body as a starting point, which is reasonable enough.  It’s really just the arms and legs that are re-used, though.  He gets a new head, torso, forearms, and boots, as well as new add-on pieces for his belt and holster.  There’s a lot of sculpted elements going into the uniform, and they work very well to replicate the comics design, right down to the piping and zipper on the jumpsuit portion of the torso.  The head sculpt is obviously a more generic take on the character, rather than being too dialed in on the specifically Jackson-inspired likeness he oft sports in the comics.  It’s an okay sculpt, but…I don’t know, it feels maybe a touch off for the character, at least to my eyes.  Surprising pretty much no one, Jr is also packed with an extra head based on Nick Sr.  It’s a different sculpt entirely from the last version of Nick Sr.  It takes back a bit more of his grizzled nature than the Giant-Man Series release, but he’s not quite as haggard as the old Toy Biz figure.  The figure’s color work is pretty basic stuff.  There’s a pretty cool SHIELD insignia on his shoulder, and the other painted details are all nice and clean.  There’s one notable thing, where his neck is left unpainted above what is clearly a sculpted collar, but that’s obviously meant to facilitate this figure being both versions of Nick.  Nick is packed with six hands (a pair of fists, a pair of gripping, and two different gesturing left hands), three different pistols, a knife, two firing effects, and two smoke effects.

DUM DUM DUGAN

Dum Dum Dugan debuted right alongside Nick Sr as one of his Howling Commandos back in 1963, and came right along with him when SHIELD was founded.  He’s been one of Marvel’s most recurring SHIELD agents, and is certainly one of the most distinctive.  He’s gotten the Legends treatment once before, but it’s been a good long while, and that one wasn’t so great in the first place.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  Dugan uses a number of the same parts as Nick, but gets a new head sculpt, which is a very strong offering.  He’s got his bowler hat and everything!  He also has a new torso piece, which makes him a little bulkier than Nick, for a bit of variety.  His paint work more or less matches Nick’s, with the expected change-up for the head.  He also gets the proper coloring on the top of the neck, which looks a little cleaner than the other figure.  Dugan gets the same accessory selection as Nick, minus the more specialized of the pistols.

SHARON CARTER

Sharon’s been a little luckier in Legends, at least in terms of numbers, with two prior comics-based releases, as well as an MCU variant.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 32 points of articulation.  She’s making use of the 60th anniversary Black Widow body from last year, which is a pretty top of the line body, and a solid starting point for Sharon’s white spy suit look.  She gets two new heads, as well as a new add-on for her belt, and a pair of feet with actual soles for her boots.  The heads give us looks with her hair both up and own, but are otherwise the same general look.  Her color work is basic, but generally okay.  The detailing on the faces seems a little dark, especially the shading on the eyes; it just feels a little over done for Sharon.  I’m also not a huge fan of the black for the shoes; it just stands out too much from the rest of the uniform, I feel.  Maybe if they were boots instead, it would look alright, but as is, it’s very jarring.  Sharon is packed with two pistols (one with attached silencer), three sets of hands (trigger fingers, fists, and open gesture), two firing effects, and two smoke effects.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I wasn’t sure I was gonna get this set.  I feel like I say that a lot about Legends these days.  But, there was a Dugan, and I knew I wanted him.  And the last Sharon wasn’t great, so an update didn’t seem like a bad idea.  And Nick didn’t look bad.  So, I’m three for three on it, and there it was in front of me, so I went for it.  I’m very glad I did.  Dugan is fantastic, and Nick’s no slouch either.  Sharon’s still not perfect, but she’s a step-up from the last one, and I like that.

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.

#2026: Captain America & Dum Dum Dugan

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

GOLDEN AGE CAPTAIN AMERICA & DUM DUM DUGAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Even the Cap gets by with a little help from his friends… though he does occasionally have to borrow those friends from some outside sources.  Such was the case with the Howling Commandos, Nick Fury’s WW2-era unit from the comics, who found themselves merged with Captain America’s WW2-era super team The Invaders for the purposes of The First Avenger, and in turn, found themselves treated to some action figures in the process.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Golden Age Captain America and Dum Dum were one of the two TRU-exclusive sets for the Captain America: The First Avenger assortment of Marvel Minimates.

GOLDEN AGE CAPTAIN AMERICA

On the path to getting his proper Captain America uniform, Cap goes through a few trial stages.  The first of these is Cap’s USO show costume, which is the spitting image of Cap’s classic costume from the comics.  Golden Age Cap is made up of six add-on pieces, all of them re-used.  The gloves and boots are the standard Cap pieces, and the belt was taken from the DC Minimates Series 4 Golden Age Flash (fitting, I suppose).  The mask comes from the First Appearance X-Men set, and while it’s not a terrible piece, it’s not strictly speaking accurate to the source material, where he actually had 3D head wings.  Of course, there was no ready-made piece that would quite match, and it would have certainly been a one-off, so the slight deviation is excusable.  Cap’s paint matches the somewhat sephia-toned coloring of the other Caps in this assortment.  It’s pretty cleanly applied overall, and I like the goony facial expression under the mask.  It’s a different look for Cap, and it helps him stand out a bit more from the other variants.  The blue’s perhaps a touch too light (as it stands, it matches with his standard costume, when it really should be a bit deeper), but that’s a minor change, and he’s at least consistent with the Frontline Captain America in that regard.  Golden Age Cap is packed with his shield (the same one included with Frontline Cap), and a spare hairpiece for a proper unmasked look.  A pointing hand might have been cool, or even some of his accessories from his movie serials he was filming, but he makes out alright.

DUM DUM DUGAN

Dum Dum is possibly the most distinctive of the Howling Commandos, in both the movie and the comics.  His presence here was definitely a sensible one, allowing collectors not only one of Cap’s supporting players, but also a very memorable agent of SHIELD who has had far too few action figures over the years.  Dum Dum is built using two unique add-on pieces; one for his hat/hair, and one for his vest.  The hat is a very distinctive and very important piece for Dugan, and this piece is mostly pretty good, but there’s one slightly annoying flaw to it: it’s lopsided!  It should be symmetrical, but it’s very clearly leaning to the right.  The other details are well-rendered and match the movie, but it’s hard to miss that one issue.  The vest is a decent piece in its own right.  I like that it bulks him up a bit, and the options for storing his shotgun and sidearm are much appreciated.  The paintwork on Dum Dum is respectable.  He’s got a lot of brown going on, but that’s accurate to the movie, so no complaints there.  The face doesn’t have much of a Neal McDonoug likeness, but it’s a pitch-perfect Dugan, so it works well enough for me, especially since it can double as the comics version of the character.  Dum Dum is packed with his shotgun and revolver.  Basic pieces we’ve seen many times before, but still solid pieces nonetheless, and perfect choices for the character.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the previously reviewed Gabe Jones and Hydra Flame Trooper, I grabbed these two from a TRU on a road trip with my my family back in 2011.  Golden Age Cap is perhaps the least essential of the three versions of Cap we got for the movie, but he’s a decent enough variant, and certainly more entertaining than all the variants of Wolverine we’ve gotten from his movies.  Dum Dum is a minor but still very important character, who was definitely in need of a figure.  This one, despite one notable flaw, definitely does the character justice, and helps to fill out the SHIELD ranks.