Tag Archives: Hand Ninja

#3538: Mindless One Series Wrap-Up

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

IRON MAN, LADY BULLSEYE, FIST NINJA, & MINDLESS ONE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0017:  The “Marvel Knights” branding exists because of Marvel’s bankruptcy in the late ’90s, which caused them to hand over the publishing rights for a handful of lower tier characters to Event Comics.  The line proved a success, allowing the characters and attitudes of the stories to be folded back into the mainstream Marvel Universe in the mid ’00s.

As someone who’s been following Marvel Legends for pretty much the entirety of its over 20 year run, I’ve encountered an issue more recently where I don’t really feel the need to own *everything* Hasbro puts out for the line.  But, I do still have access to review most of it, so, I’m embracing my new format I launched last summer, and folding it into my tweaked format I launched at the beginning of the year, and here we are with another series wrap-up, where I throw all the figures I opted not to keep into a blender single wrap-up review.  So, let’s jump into another one of these!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Iron Man, Lady Bullseye, and the Fist Ninja are figures 1, 3, and 5, respectively, from the Mindless One Series of Marvel Legends.  There are the last three figures that contribute to the Mindless One Build-A-Figure, which is built by collecting parts from 6 of the 7 figures in the series.

IRON MAN

2022 saw the release of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, a tactical RPG which is *sort of* related to the Marvel comics “Midnight Sons” but only passingly so.  They share some of the same characters and a vaguely supernatural flair, so there’s that.  Since they wanted heavy hitters that the Midnight “Sons” line-up couldn’t provide, the game added some typically less supernatural characters who are nevertheless bigger names.  That included this dude, because you gotta have an Iron Man.  Despite being a kind of forced addition, Iron Man has turned around and also been most of the merchandising for the game (Ghost Rider got a limited release Pop!, but even then, Iron Man got 2 of those, so he still comes out ahead).  And Legends is just another piece in that arsenal.  The figure stands just over 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  He’s a largely parts re-use figure, making use of most of the first  Gamerverse Iron Man body.  It’s a kind of stiff body in terms of articulation; it felt out of date when it was new, and it’s only gotten more so in the years since.  The details also don’t quite match up with the game model, but they’re close enough to fudge it, I suppose.  He does at least get a new head, torso, and shoulder pads, courtesy of sculptor Dennis Chan, to move his design a little closer to the game look.  I generally like them more than the prior pieces, but it feels like there’s something off about the way the neck works, so his head sits up too high.  You can pose it to look a little better, but it remains somewhat awkward to work with.  His color work follows the game aesthetic, making him black and gold.  It’s similar to his Marvel Now! design from the comics, and doesn’t look terrible here.  It’s at least somewhat unique.  The application of the paint is pretty cleanly handled, and isn’t missing any major details, which is a plus.  Iron Man is packed with two sets of hands (in open and fists), as well as two blast effects in red, and the right leg of the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

LADY BULLSEYE

Hey, you know Bullseye?  Well, make him a woman, and you’ve got Lady Bullseye.  Okay, it’s a touch more involved than that…but not as much as you might think.  Lady Bullseye was introduced during Ed Brubaker’s Daredevil run and hasn’t ever really had anything of note done with her; mostly, she just gets used to stand-in for Bullseye proper when he’s not around.  At the very least, she gets a pretty cool and unique design, rather than just being stuck with some derivation of Bullseye proper’s costume.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 29 points of articulation.  Lady Bullseye’s base is the same combination of existing body parts that Spinneret used.  It’s not a terrible set-up, since it’s got a good articulation scheme and fairly balanced proportions.  It’s only rather frustrating point is how many holes there are on the back of the torso, just from all of its prior uses.  The WCA Spider-Woman had used the Dagger torso to avoid this issue, and it honestly worked pretty well, so it’s a shame they aren’t doing that more.  Lady Bullseye gets a new head sculpt, which is a pretty nice piece.  It matches well with her usual comics depiction, and manages to give her an expression that doesn’t look totally devoid of emotion, which is always a plus, especially for female characters.  Her paint work does a pretty solid job of capturing her distinctive design, and doing it cleanly.  Lady Bullseye is actually pretty well accessorized, with two sets of hands (in fists and gripping), a katanna, two sais, and two fans, as well as the torso piece for the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

FIST NINJA

The Hand was lacking in derivatives, apparently, so in addition to the ones we already have, we also got “The Fist.”  You know, it’s like a hand, but more violent!  Do you get it?  Do you?  It’s edgy, right?  All joking aside, the Fist may be a pretty tried concept, but they’re part of Chip Zdarksky’s recently wrapped up DD run, which I did actually enjoy.  Also, it ties in well with the King Daredevil figure from this same assortment, which is cool.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  As a derivative of the Hand, the Fist Ninja is, unsurprisingly, using most of the same parts as the standard Hand Ninja.  Honestly, apart from the visible pins, it’s a good set-up of pieces.  The Hand Ninja was a pretty fun figure and, by extension, so is the Fist Ninja.  He gets a new torso, which looks similar to the prior release, but upgrades the articulation scheme, and he also gets a new belt/loincloth piece, which gives him a new spot to stow his sword.  With his sculpt being largely the same, the figure relies on tow things to distinguish him, the first being colors.  He’s not drastically removed from the Hand Ninja, but there’s a fair bit of black accenting the Hand’s predominantly red palette.  I did find the general application of paint to also be sharper on this guy, especially on what we can see of the face. The only thing that slightly annoys me here is the red being ever so slightly different from King Daredevil’s shade.  Why does that annoy me?  I’ll get to that in a moment, when I discuss the other notable change-up from the Hand Ninja: the accessories.  He gets the same sword, as well as one of the two kama from the Hand Ninja, but they’re joined by two sets of hands (in fists and gripping, with the gripping being shared with DD), and an alternate skull head with its own removable hood.  Now, here’s the thing: I’m glad this guy gets the two sets of hands, and it’s cool that the gripping ones are even shared with King DD.  The trouble is that with the shades of red being slightly different between the two, you can’t also use the fists for King DD, which is kind of a bummer.  Ultimately, it’s not really this figure’s fault, though.  In addition to all of his own parts, he also includes the left arm and an extra hand for the Mindless One.

MINDLESS ONE

The Mindless Ones are perhaps one of the more ingenious creations of the early Doctor Strange stories, being a great pre-made army for just about any bad guy to make use of if they so chose.  Despite how tailored they seem to be to unending army building, they’ve never gotten any action figure coverage before this point, which is kind of crazy.  The figure stands just under 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  The Mindless One is sporting a brand-new sculpt, which is honestly a touch surprising for a character of this caliber, but certainly welcome.  The sculpt patterned on a more modern incarnation of the Mindless Ones, specifically seeming to be patterned on one of the illustrations from the Marvel: Avengers Alliance game, a frequent source of inspiration for Hasbro’s Legends over the years.  It’s a good sculpt, with plenty of texturing.  He’s big and stocky as well, and the articulation is surprisingly mobile given his size.  His color work is rather on the basic side, since he’s mostly just molded in a dark grey plastic.  He’s got a separate bright red piece for his “eye,” as well as some rather subtle brown accenting on the body.  The Mindless One gets two sets of hands in fists and open gesture, as well as a really cool energy effect piece that plugs into the eye (and is also patterned on the AA illustration).

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

This set was an interesting one for me, because I was honestly not very interested at first glance, but it kind of evolved.  My initial plan was to just get DD, Clea, and Power Man.  Then I decided I wanted to keep the Build-A-Figure.  Then, after getting the set in hand, I was invested in Blade enough to keep him as well.  Then I shot the photos, and divvied up the reviews and set up the schedule, and felt really confident about what I was keeping…and then I broke on the Fist Ninja too.  I know, I broke the format!  Ultimately, I like this set a lot more than I’d expected to.  The Mindless One is a ton of fun, as is Clea, and they’re both great debuts for the characters.  Blade and Luke are great versions of the characters, and DD is a solid, fun variant.  And, clearly the Fist Ninja was cool enough to push me to keep him.  Honestly, Lady Bullseye only got cut because I have no real attachment to the character.  Iron Man is the only one that I feel is truly a weak figure, and that’s really just because there’s so many Iron Men to choose from.

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 and their eBay storefront.

#2681: The Hand Ninja

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

THE HAND NINJA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Skilled in martial arts and espionage, the ninjas of The Hand are a force to be reckoned with.”

Remember how Ethan didn’t really care for the Red Ninjas?  Think that’s gonna come up again?  It’s a pretty safe bet.  First introduced in the pages of Daredevil #174 in 1981 by Frank Miller, the Hand were an ancient order of…well, pretty generic ninjas really.  They share a lot of common ground with the Red Ninjas, serving as a force of rather generic ninjas mostly just there to give the bad guys some minions.  They’ve kind of become the go to ninja foes for the Marvel Universe, and showed up in the second season of Daredevil on Netflix, as well as seasons of other shows that I’d prefer to not acknowledge the existence of at this juncture.  They’re…well, there just kind of generic ninjas, but people seem to have gotten really attached to them.  They’ve shown up twice before as Marvel Legends, but it’s been a little while, so the latest series has given us an update.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Hand Ninja is figure 5 in the Stilt-Man Series of Marvel Legends, and is the first of the the three comics-based figures in the line-up.  He’s sort of a loose attachment to the overall Spider-Man theme of the line-up, falling a bit more into the Daredevil side, but DD stuff usually goes with Spidey anyway, so I guess it works.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  At first glance, the Hand Ninja looked like an all-new mold, but the visible pins on the elbows and knees got me to do a little bit of detective work, and confirm that his arms come from Mordo and the legs (up to the ankle, anyway) come from that same assortment’s Doctor Strange.  Not the worst choice for re-used parts, I suppose, though it’s a shame they couldn’t get reworked like Gwen and Prowler’s re-used parts to bring them up to speed with the new releases.  He still gets a new head, torso, pelvis, and feet, as well as add-ons for his bandolier/sheath and belt/skirt.  These new parts implement some of the newer articulation standards, such as butterfly joints at the shoulders, and the newer balljoint/crunch combo for the torso.  They work pretty well in terms of posing, and I was happy to see that the skirt didn’t impact the posability on the legs too much.  In terms of the newly sculpted parts, I do find that there are some areas where the parts don’t quite fit together as well as I’d like.  The head definitely sits a little too high on the neck, and the bandolier is rather loose and ill-fitted to the torso.  It’s a weird enough fit that I had to double check a few times to see if it was a re-use.  I don’t think it is, but whatever the case, it’s definitely a bit loose.  For the most part, however, the sculpt looks pretty decent, and is a respectable sort of all-encompassing take on the various Hand Ninja looks from over the years, leaning more towards the more basic end of things.  The paint work on the Hand Ninja is a lot of reds, as expected.  They mesh together well, and he’s even got those eerie milky grey/green eyes that we tend to see on Hand Ninjas, which is a nifty enough design.  The Hand Ninja is packed with two sets of hands (gripping and open gesture), a sword, and two Kama.  Aside from having nowhere to keep the Kama when not holding them, it’s a pretty cool set-up.  And, most importantly, the Hand Ninja includes the Stilt-Legs to Stilt-Man, as well as a stand for said legs.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Hand Ninjas don’t, as a rule, thrill me, much like the Red Ninjas.  I don’t tend to like them so much as a story telling device, as I often find them to be kind of bland and boring (ie: most of the of their Netflix appearances).  That being said, they can make a good toy, with the first Hand Ninja Minimate being a pretty stand out piece.  I’ve not picked up any of their earlier Hasbro figures, but I did have the Articulated Icons Basic Red, which was a good stand-in.  Did I need this guy?  No.  But then I saw that he came with Stilt-Man’s Stilt-Legs, and I kind of was locked in.  Ultimately, after being disappointed by the Red Ninja, I was pleasantly surprised by this release.  He’s got his flaws, but I like the overall appearance of the figure.  I don’t see myself army building him, or anything, but he’s perfectly acceptable on his own.

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.

#1740: Classic White Tiger & Hand Ninja

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

CLASSIC WHITE TIGER & HAND NINJA

MARVEL MINIMATES

The 38th Series of Marvel Minimates was themed around Marvel’s Daredevil-centric “Shadowland” event.  It wasn’t exactly the most memorable event they’ve run in recent years, but the corresponding wave did at the very least serve to showcase a few of Marvel’s street level heroes, as well as giving us our first crack at one of the more established army builders of the Marvel Universe, the Hand.  Today’s set touches on both of those things, giving us lower-tier character White Tiger, alongside a generic Hand Ninja!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Classic White Tiger and the Hand Ninja were the one-per-case variant set for Marvel Minimates Series 38, with this White Tiger being swapped out for the regular set’s more modern rendition.

CLASSIC WHITE TIGER

By the time of “Shadowland,” Hector Ayala had been dead for a little while, and had passed the title and the amulets that gave him his power on to his niece Angela del Toro (who was the White Tiger that participated in “Shadowland”).That said, how else were we going to get a classic White Tiger? The figure stands 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  White Tiger is almost a vanilla ‘mate.  The only deviation from the main base body is a pair of flared gloves.  I suppose an argument could be made for having the amulet be sculpted, but it honestly works fine as is.  Beyond that, the character’s design is meant to be pretty simple, and the ‘mate gets that right.  The paint on this guy is okay, but does have a few drawbacks.  The overall detail work is pretty solid, and I think they’ve done quite a nice job of capturing all of the musculature and such.  The detail lines don’t appear to be a clean black like others in the assortment.  This, coupled with the largely white palette, makes him look a look a little washed out.  I think the most disappointing thing about the paint, though, are the lines depicting the bands going around his shins.  They’re only on the front and outward-facing side of each leg, which looks rather silly, and is especially noticeable on a tampo-reliant figure such as this one.  There were no accessories included for White Tiger.  I’m not sure what he could have been given, but an extra unmasked head or something might have been nice.  As is, he’s quite light on parts.

HAND NINJA

The Hand were major players in the whole “Shadowland” event, and have been rather prominent over on the Daredevil side of things for a while.  Their inclusion here was definitely sensible, and at the time they were certainly a highly demanded army builder.  The Hand Ninja has no shortage of sculpted parts.  There’s a hood, a vest, a sash, wrapped hands, armored boots, and a pair of sheaths for his Sai.  Amazingly, there’s not a single unique piece on this figure.  The hood comes from Series 29’s Moon Knight, the vest from Series 9’s Lady Deathstrike (with the quiver from Series 20’s Hawkeye glued on the back), the sash from the Previews-exclusive Dark Phoenix, the boots from the Dark Avengers Ares, and the sheaths from Series 28’s Deadpool.  Only the wrapped hands are technically new, and they were actually sculpted for this very same series’ Iron Fist ‘mate.  Despite their multitude of origins, the pieces actually go together quite well, resulting in a very cohesive, and quite unique looking, Hand Ninja.  Most impressively, all of these extra parts can be removed and a standard pair of hands and feet swapped out, allowing for an almost completely different classic Hand Ninja. Paint is relatively simple on this guy when you get down to it.  He’s got two different tones of red, which go well together, and then some detail lines on his face/mask and his torso.  Not a lot going on, but it’s all very clean, and the main shade of red is really bright and eye-catching. In addition to the extra hands and feet that facilitate the classic Hand Ninja transition, this figure also includes two Sai, a large sword, a bow, and an arrow.  These weapons allow you to arm up your army of Hand Ninjas in all sorts of different ways, thus adding an extra level of fun to them.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I purchased this pack and the rest of the series brand-new from Cosmic Comix, back when they were first released.  I remember they hit around the same time as the Thor series and Excalibur boxed set, so I had a lot of Minimates going on there.  They were one of my first sets to be purchased while living on my college campus, and I remember sitting at my desk in my dorm room opening them all up.  This set was a surprisingly solid pairing that quite stuck with me.  Classic White Tiger was a sensible choice for a variant.  He’s one of those characters that’s never really been in the focus, but it was nice to get him in figure form nevertheless.  This figure’s definitely on the simpler side, and he has some flaws, but he’s generally well-executed.  After a couple assortments of sort of weak army builders, the Hand Ninja was a breath of fresh air, not only in terms of choice of character, but also in terms of quality of the end figure.  DST put a lot of effort in on this guy, and also showed that you can really do a lot with re-used parts.  Hands (heh) down the strongest figure in this assortment.