Tag Archives: Hasbro

#3707: Marcus Brody

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

MARCUS BRODY

INDIANA JONES: ADVENTURE SERIES (HASBRO)

In the more than a decade that I’ve been running the site, I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones only in passing, and only, like, three times at that.  I guess it’s just one of those franchises I’ve never had a major connection to.  Like, I’ve seen all the movies, and they certainly have their moments.  Last Crusade is genuinely just a good movie, which I do really enjoy, but outside of that one, they’re all just fine enough, I guess.  I’ve tried on the toys a few times in the past, and I just always wind up falling right back out of it.  I ended up passing on Adventure Series, Hasbro’s 6-inch line from 2023, pretty much as a whole because I couldn’t ultimately see myself sticking with it.  That being said, in all of the toy coverage over the years, we’ve never gotten a figure of my favorite character from the films, Marcus Brody, played by Denholm Elliot, whose other roles weren’t really keen for action figure coverage either.  There’s a sincere lack of Trading Places action figures is all I’m saying.  Hasbro did actually offer Marcus up for Adventure Series, though, and I got one, so I’m looking at British-guy-in-a-suit Denholm Elliot today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Marcus Brody was released in a Fan Channel-exclusive Indiana Jones: Adventure Series two-pack, alongside a variant of Rene Belloq.  It’s a multi-pack of guys in suits.  Odd choice, especially since the two don’t share any scenes in Raiders.  I think they interacted a bit in the expanded universe, so maybe that’s what we’re going with?  Look, it got us a Marcus figure, so I’m not gonna stress about it too much.  The figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 31 points of articulation.  His articulation, which is pretty typical for the line as a whole, is a lot like the modern Black Series set-up, which works pretty well, and also makes a fair bit of sense.  It’s not, like, super great for crazy posing or anything, but it works fine for the type of character Marcus is supposed to be.  Marcus’ sculpt is a pretty respectable one.  It’s again got a Black Series vibe to it, which works fine by me.  The head’s got a pretty respectable likeness of Denholm Elliot, which is the most important part.  The suit sculpt is a little softer, but it does alright.  The multi-layered construction definitely works well.  The color work is generally basic.  The most in depth work’s on the face, which is using the printing.  Most of the rest of it’s molded plastic.  It’s generally clean.  There’s not a ton going on, but it’s accurate.  Marcus is packed with an apple (our second one of those in this scale from Hasbro, though its a different mold than the one packed with He-Who-Remains) and his large book, which opens up to a fully detailed interior page.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Marcus is my favorite part of the franchise largely because of Denholm Elliot in the role.  I’m a big fan of Elliot’s other roles, especially Trading Places and Noises Off, so the prospect of owning a figure of him was definitely a cool one.  I wanted to snag this figure, but the two-pack set-up was tricky, especially because I didn’t really want Belloq.  Matty wanted to go into a Gamestop a couple of months ago, though, and they happened to have the set on clearance, which made the whole thing easier to justify.  I offloaded the Belloq, and now I’ve just got a Denholm Elliot figure, which is pretty nifty.  Now, if I could just manage to find 1/12 scale figures of Eddie Murphy and Jaime Lee Curtis, I’d be all set for my own Trading Places set-up.

#3706: Doctor Strange

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

DOCTOR STRANGE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Stephen Strange was a brilliant surgeon before an accident ruined his hands. Now he defends our reality from supernatural threats as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme.”

I took a break from Marvel reviews all last month, largely because we’re in a waiting period on new Marvel Legends, which make up a substantial portion of my Marvel reviews.  Of course, that doesn’t stop me from digging into my backlog, I suppose.  I’ve had a number of “new” figures sitting off to the side waiting for a Legends-light period to slot them in, and I’m officially dusting some of them off!  And I do mean that literally…they’ve been sitting for a while you guys.  Anyway, here’s our second ever classic Doctor Strange, released more than a decade after the first!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Doctor Strange is a Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends release, hitting in 2022 as a loose tie-in with the release of Multiverse of Madness.  He was only actually available online, rather than in-store, but that wasn’t a widely promoted thing, so it was easy to miss.  As noted in the intro, this was the first classic comic Strange since Toy Biz’s initial release of the character, all the way back in the Galactus Series, since Hasbro’s been sticking more to the modern side of things.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Structurally, Strange makes use of the lower half of the ANAD 2099 body, as well as the upper arms from Kang.  Beyond that, he’s all-new, though a number of the parts were re-used for the Spider-Man: Animated and Wong two-pack Strange releases.  Ultimately, it’s a good mix of parts, which does a really good job of conveying the flow and depth of the design.  The cape (which is one piece that is thus far totally unique to this release) is glued in place at the front, so it’s not going anywhere.  On one hand, it’s a little annoying not to be able to display him sans-cloak, but on the other it means it’s not flopping about and falling off, which I do like.  There are two main heads with this release, one “standard” and the other meditating.  What’s interesting is that they aren’t just a simple change of expression, but also have different hair styles.  The meditating one is more ’70s-inspired (and was in fact sculpted by Paul Harding, based on his own “Marvel In the ’70s” Doctor Strange sculpture), while the other is shorter and more modern.  I generally prefer the meditating one, but it’s limited by those closed eyes.  This is definitely one of those “wish I could swap the hair pieces” moments.  Strange’s color work isn’t bad.  It’s certainly bright and colorful.  The yellow paint on his cape is particularly sloppy, and I find the greying temples on both heads to be a little unsubtle in their application, but generally, things look okay.  Doctor Strange is packed with a third, masked head, based on his era of extra super-hero-y-ness in the ’60s.  It’s just a repainted Silver Surfer head, and it doesn’t actually match the body it comes with, but how else am I gonna build my Kurt Busiek’s The Order line-up?  Strange is also packed with two pairs of hands (spell casting and a fist/grip combo), spell effects pieces, the Wand of Watoomb, and the Axe of Angarruumus, which is all pretty fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I recall this figure being shown off, and I recall him going up on Walmart.com, but I never did get around to ordering him or putting any real effort at all into tracking him down.  It’s not that I didn’t want one, but I did still have the Toy Biz release, which is really, really good, and I just wasn’t in a rush to deal with getting a Walmart exclusive.  One with a broken tape seal showed up a few months after the fact at All Time, and I took that as a good sign that I should get one.  He’s a solid classic Strange, and a good update to the Toy Biz release.  I can’t say there’s much to him beyond that, but does there really have to be?

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.

#3703: Darth Vader

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

DARTH VADER

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE (HASBRO)

“Inside the Death Star’s detention corridor, Darth Vader is intent on snapping Princess Leia’s defiance. Accompanied by an Imperial interrogation droid, the Sith Lord enters cell 2187, determined to learn the location of the hidden Rebel base from his royal prisoner”

Jumping from one caped guy in black to the next, in 1/18 scale no less!  So, look, guys, I have a lot of Star Wars figures sitting around here.  There’s a notable backlog of those guys I gotta work my way through, so I might as well do a little bit of that now.  And, if I’ve got a helping of Star Wars reviews coming at you, you know I gotta start it off with Power of the Force, because here I am with a bunch of Power of the Force, specifically.  The line had an impressive coverage of the depth of characters from the galaxy far, far away, but it also had a lot of variants of the main characters from the original trilogy.  For characters with similar looks for all three films, such as Darth Vader, the figures were pretty similar and meant to be more all-purpose, but before the end of the line, they started going a bit more movie-specific.  I’m looking at the line’s last take on Vader today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Darth Vader was added to the Power of the Force line in 1999, as part of the first of the two CommTech assortments that wrapped up the line.  As the line’s last hurrah, there was certainly a focus on heavy hitters.  The figure stands just over 4 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  He’s got those extra swivels on his elbows, as the line experimented with going beyond the basic 6 they’d launched with.  It doesn’t do a ton, but it adds to the variety, I suppose.  For his last entry in the line, Vader goes decidedly back to the beginning, with our very first specifically A New Hope-inspired Vader, focussing directly on his appearance in the interrogation scene.  His sculpt was all-new, and is quite a strong one.  It wound up getting re-used a bit down the line due to how strong it was.  It’s a little pre-posed, again going into the scene specific bit, with his hands posed near his belt.  The proportions are solid, moving entirely away from the buff look of the early figures.  The details are also really sharp, which is nice.  The cape is cloth this time, which is a little awkward at this scale, but ultimately works okay if you get the posing right.  His paint work is simple, largely relying on molded black plastic, but there’s some variety worked in there.  Vader was packed with the interrogation droid (aka Dr. Ball, MD), who has its own little flight stand.  He’s also got the CommTech stand, for CommTech stand purposes.  He is, notably, devoid of a lightsaber, since there’s a hilt sculpted to the body, and he doesn’t use the saber in the Interrogation scene.  Later uses of the mold would fix that, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It took me a surprisingly long time to get this figure.  When I really jumped into the Power of the Force thing, All Time even had a sealed one, but I didn’t snag him at the time, and he sold before I got him.  My first encounter with this mold was actually one if its later uses, namely the comic pack version, so I did at least know what to expect.  I wound up snagging this one loose just a few months ago.  He’s honestly pretty solid, and probably the best Vader in the line, so it’s a good note to go out on.

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.

#3697: Alpha Ranger

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

ALPHA RANGER

XEVOZ (HASBRO)

Do you ever have one of those moments where you see something and, like, a whole branch of memories you’ve largely forgotten just all click into place?  I mean, I guess I sort of do that a bit.  Sort of a theme of this site, isn’t it?  Am I being weird?  Probably.  But, you know, like the good sort of quirky weird, right?  Right.  So, the aforementioned “core memory unlocker” in this case is Xevoz.  If you’re not familiar (by which I mean if you weren’t a ten-to-twelve-year-old in the early ’00s who caught their two year run), Xevoz was a line of constructible action figures made by Hasbro, who licensed out the general style from Stikfas, another early ’00s line, albeit one aimed at a slightly older audience.  They were rather customizable, and each built around a core concept or idea, with a “standard” look open to variations.  They launched with minimal fanfare in early 2004, and ran four waves up through mid-2005, at which point the line ended with less fanfare than it started.  They never really had the same cultural impact of other lines, and they exist now only in my memory.  Like Leonardo DiCaprio.  Or Torengos.  Anyway, here’s a review of a Xevoz guy!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Alpha Ranger was one of the three “Basics” in Wave 1 of Xevoz.  They were the lowest price-point figures, and generally kept the parts count a little lower and the designs a little less involved.  In addition to dividing the figures into different price points, there were also different factions within the fictitious world of Xevoz.  Alpha Ranger is one of the “Neo-Sapiens”, which is what happens when you mix Keanu Reeves with Doug Jones.  Okay, not really.  Abe did wear a lot of black, though.  I’m getting sidetracked.  In actuality, they were the standard sci-fi humans of the set-up.  The Alpha Ranger’s main body set-up is made up of 15 parts, and results in a figure that stands about 6 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The core, stripped-down body has him in a rather basic jump-suit, with minimal additional detailing.  In general, the line was pretty stylized and blocky, which aided with the customizing approach.  This represents a pretty standard “human” in the style, which is a neat view.  The standard build as shown in the instructions that accompany the figure uses the helmeted head, and puts on his shoulder and knee pads, as well as his chest plate and back pack.  It results in a design that’s not terribly far-removed from a Colonial Marine, which is cool by me.  Certainly fits my vibe in collecting.  I also quite enjoy the visor on the helmet, because it’s got this sort of Cyclops meets Deadshot feel, which also works for me.  There’s a handful of additional parts (though less than others, since he’s a “Basic”), including two different heads (one a basic unhelmeted look, the other one that looks a bit like a shrunken head; the second one is supposed to be this set’s “gag” piece, which was one sort of humorous piece included with each set), a smart-gun-style Pulse Cannon (complete with arm attachment), a rifle, a knife, and a pistol.  You can reconfigure stuff and swap out parts to get a number of different looks, which is especially cool if you’re looking to get an army of these guys set-up.  The paint on Xevoz was generally minimal, but what’s there works out alight.  Any additional detailing was addressed by stickers, which there were a good number of, in case you wanted extra customization.  Personally, I’m not much of a stickers guy, but it’s still cool.  There was also, like, a game that they tried with them?  You assembled this little hex-thingy, and there were stats based on the different pieces included.  I never got much into it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had a small handful of these as a kid.  I remember the KB Toys my grandmother frequently took me and my brother to had a bunch of them, and they were on clearance, so this was probably at the tail end of the run?  The Alpha Ranger was one of the ones I had.  I lost parts to most of them, and so they kind of just faded out of my memory.  It’s okay, though, because All Time came through with the save.  A collection of Xevoz got traded in, and did the previously mentioned core-memory-unlocking.  There was an Alpha Ranger, missing exactly one piece, and after a quick dig, I found that piece from my original.  It was destiny!  I’m quite happy to have him back, but now I just need to avoid jumping back in.

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.

#3687: R5-D4, BD-72, & Pit Droids

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

R5-D4, BD-72, & PIT DROIDS

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“Peli Motto makes quick work of refueling and repairing battered ships with the help of R5-D4, BD-72, and a team of hyperactive pit droids.”

There’s a lot of cool things going for Star Wars as a concept, but one of the most infinitely marketable pieces has to be the droids. There’s just so many models, and there’s a bunch of unique names thrown at the models, and when they introduce new models, we get to see them get worked into the background with other, older models, and that’s cool too. And there are so many toy possibilities, too, which works out very well for me, a toy collector. The titular character from The Mandalorian having a distrust of droids at the outset did limit the droids he interacted with initially (barring, of course, IG-11, whose just too awesome to be limited), but they’ve worked their way into the show as it’s progressed, and there’s even been enough of them to warrant a whole special pack. How about that?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

R5-D4, BD-72, and the Pit Droids are a Target-exclusive Star Wars: The Black Series offering, which started showing up mid to late summer.

First and foremost, we’ve got the one “proper” figure of the set, R5. R5’s reappearance on the show was a fun little touch, since we’d seen nothing of the little guy since his motivator blew in A New Hope. Obviously, with stuff still happening on Tatooine, it’s not the craziest thing for him to reappear, but I don’t know if anyone was expecting him to actually get to go on a full-fledged mission with Mando.  R5 got a GameStop-exclusive Black Series release back in 2017, but that was on the old, smaller Astromech body.  Since then, of course, Hasbro has totally redone the Astromech, and we actually got an updated R5 on that body last year as a single.  This one is more or less the same as that one, albeit with a few minor differences.  Regardless of release, he’s a new head on the body of R2, which is pretty typical of an R5 (you know, unless he’s the GREATEST R5 FIGURE OF ALL TIME).  It’s a pretty solid mold on its own, and the new head makes it nice and distinctly different from the prior R2.  The one structural difference between this figure and the single is that his motivator panel, removable on the single, is new glued in place.  His paint work is pretty much the same, and is likewise pretty similar to the R2, just with some adjusted colors.  Application is generally pretty clean, which is cool.  I’ll be honest, though, I kind of miss the shiny silver sticker from the GameStop one, as hokey as it might have been.  In terms of accessories, R5 gets the same five attachments as his single release (borrowed from the R2 mold), as well as brand new swappable side panels featuring the jet boosters used by R5 in The Mandalorian.  Presumably, we will at some point see these get used on some form of R2 re-release, since it was the only notable attachment missing from the last one.

Since first debuting as a pack-in figure with the original Cal Kestis figure in 2019, we’ve had our fair share of BD droids.  Most of them have actually just been BD-1, but the BD that appears in The Mandalorian is officially a different droid, BD-72, making this officially a new character.  The mold’s a straight re-use, which is fair enough, because it’s quite a nice one, being surprisingly poseable *and* surprisingly stable for a mold of its size.  It’s got a new deco, which is fairly basic, but heavier on the blues than the original.

Now we get to the real meat of the set.  Look, R5 and BD are all well and good, but the real reason anyone’s buying this $40 set isn’t for the two minor tweaks to prior releases; no it’s for the Pit Droids!  Though we’ve technically gotten a Black Series Pit Droid once before, it was in one of the Disney Parks-exclusive multipacks, which is far from the most convenient way to get a new mold.  Thankfully, this set makes up for it, with two whole Pit Droids, each in their own color scheme!  Yay!  The figures both stand 4 inches tall and they have 23 points of articulation.  They’re quite poseable, and I’m glad their smaller size doesn’t make them too spindly to allow for that.  The sculpt is a solid recreation of the design from the movies and shows, and definitely looks he part of the Pit Droid.  It’s a nice, clean visual, and it’s translated well here.  But, one of the coolest things about the Pit Droids is how they fold up when not in use.  Their smaller figures could never quite capture that, but these ones actually do!  Sure, it’s a little fiddly to get them there (and there’s no instructions like a Transformer would get), but you can get a surprisingly accurate folded up look out of these two.  In terms of coloring, we get one Pit Droid in tan, and the other in maroon.  The bulk of the coloring for both is molded, of course, with paint for the “eyes”, and a little bit of accenting for both.  On the tan guy, it’s a little more subtle, while the maroon guy gets some more obvious offsetting.  Of the two, I’m partial to maroon, but they’re both fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I quite like Pit Droids, but they’re frequently tricky to get as figures due to weird release schemes.  I wasn’t thrilled when the first Black Series one was stuck in a Parks set with other figures I didn’t really need, so I do like another option.  Not sure Target-exclusive set with other figures I don’t need is *ideal*, but it’s not the worst thing ever.  Since I opted not to grab the single R5 release, he’s not really a double up for me, at least with this mold, and another BD isn’t the worst thing.  Plus, I do get two whole Pit Droids, and they’re truly fantastic little figures, so I’m happy to have them.

#3678: Luke Skywalker – Snowspeeder Prototype Edition

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

LUKE SKYWALKER — SNOWSPEEDER PROTOTYPE EDITION

STAR WARS: RETRO COLLECTION (HASBRO)

“This Luke Skywalker is inspired by the colorful prototypes that enable the development team to look past the deco and focus on the sculpt, analyze mold alignment, and adjust for quality.”

During the action figure production process, there are a number of prototyping stages.  Once the sculpt is completed and has been tooled into a steel mold for the purposes of mass-production, the molds have to be tested to make sure they work properly.  Since you don’t want to use the plastic you’ve paid to use on final production for something that may or may not work and which will effectively be junked once the mold has been confirmed as properly working, factories will run these tests with whatever plastic they have left over from other jobs, often resulting in colorful results.  Over the years, some of the test run prototypes have surfaced, and they’re a fun little quirk of the process.  And, because it’s been determined that there’s money to be made in that particular quirk, Hasbro has jumped on mass-producing them.  Thus far, we’ve gotten six of them as part of the Star Wars: Retro Collection, and I’ve finally gotten one!  Huzzah!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Skywalker (Snowspeeder) Prototype Edition is a Target-exclusive offering for the Retro Collection, as all of the Prototype Editions have been thus far.  He arrived in January of 2023, and is the fifth of the six Prototype Edition releases.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Obviously, all of the Prototype Edition figures are re-using a mold that Hasbro’s already got in production for the main Retro Collection line, but in Luke’s case, he’s notable for being a new, actual in-house Hasbro mold, rather than a recreation of an old Kenner one.  As there were no proper Snowspeeder pilots in the vintage line, Hasbro did a sizeable rework on the X-Wing Pilot Luke from Kenner’s vintage line, bulking him a bit to add the extra padding, as well as making sure he’s got the gloves, and the modified boots.  He also brings the helmet’s visor down over his eyes, as it was more frequently seen in the movie.  For color work, these figures have no paint, instead relying on a variety of different colors for each of the body parts.  There are actually six different variations of color layouts available, with the blue, red, green, yellow, purple, and orange each being applied to a different body part depending on the variant.  This one has blue for the head, red on the torso, orange on the right arm, green on the left arm, yellow on the right leg, and purple on the left leg.  He’s packed with his lightsaber (which is molded in the same color as the head, so it’s blue here) and his grapple.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been low-key wanting one of these since Hasbro started doing them, but not enough to really go hunting for any of them.  Likewise, I kind of wanted this mold, but also not enough to track down its original release with the board game.  This guy landed in front of me, and that made the whole thing a lot easier.  He’s very definitely a novelty, and I don’t see myself going in for any more of them (well, maybe an IG-88 if they did him), but I do like having at least one of them.

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.

#3672: Death’s Head

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

DEATH’S HEAD

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

In 2014, 27 years after the character’s creation, the toyline tie-in chat that’s not legally a toyline tie-in character Death’s Head finally got an action figure, courtesy of Hasbro’s late stages Marvel Universe scale. Just three years later, we got a Marvel Legends Death’s Head figure. Unfortunately, it was Death’s Head II, who’s emphatically not as cool. That figure sold pretty abysmally, and the name took a bit of a hit, hence the rather long wait to get the real Death’s Head as a proper Legends release. His final release is…well there’s some moving parts to how it all worked out, but here he is, and that’s the most important thing, yes?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Death’s Head is a solo release for Marvel Legends. He was initially promoted as an exclusive for SDCC 2024, with a limited stock for Pulse after the con, but it seems Hasbro made more than expected, so after the scramble to get him, we all found out he’s actually a Fan Channel exclusive later in the fall, so the SDCC one was just kind of a preview? SDCC figures have seen re-releases in the past, but usually with some form of change, even if it’s just to the packaging. Not so this time. Speaking of packaging, this guy’s got a ’90s trading card-inspired box, a lot like Havok & Polaris and the Love Triangle set, which is a vibe I very much dig. The figure stands about 8 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation. This figure’s construction uses the same approach as his smaller counterpart, reworking parts from this line’s version of Colossus. It was a good approach at the smaller scale, and it’s still a good approach here. The upper torso has been modified to cut the original shoulder pads shorter, and the upper legs have the knee joints switched to pinless (though the arms remain visibly pinned). He still gets a lot of new parts, including a new head and lower legs, and new overlay pieces for his cape, torso armor, and belt/skirt. I remain impressed by Hasbro’s ability to translate this look into figure form; the head is once again the spitting image of Death’s Head from the comics, and the textured details on the overlays are nicely implemented. I don’t like how the cape is so free-floating, which is actually my main complaint regarding the smaller one, so hooray for consistency! The color work here is alright. He’s not quite as metallic as the smaller figure, which is a little bit of a bummer. Also, I get just paining over some of the Colossus details for some of it, but I’m not sure why the sides of his tunic aren’t painted right at the ab-crunch. It’s like that on the prototype too, so that’s intentional. Weird. Otherwise, he’s very bright, and the application is pretty clean. Death’s Head is packed with two sets of hands (fists and an open gesture/gripping combo), his shield, and an axe, mace, and missile. The shield can be held or go on his back, and you can mount the weapons to the shield, or swap them out for Death’s Head’s hands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I have this fixation on Death’s Head that I can’t fully explain, but it’s just there. As a kid, I remember a CustomCon entry for Bruce Timm-Style Marvel Animated figures, which had a Death’s Head custom featured, and I’ve wanted him as a toy since. I loved the smaller figure, but he’s not my preferred scale, so I’ve been waiting patiently for this one. I wasn’t thrilled that he was going to be exclusive, but Max was kind enough to get me set-up with one as a birthday present. It’s not a perfect figure, but it’s a very, very cool one.

#3670: Superior Spider-Man

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

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Let’s go back to the beginning!  Okay, like, maybe the middle?  Post-intermission?  In 2014, after reviving Marvel Legends from its hiatus brought on by effectively running the line into the ground during their first go at things, Hasbro’s Return of Marvel Legends was losing steam, and they needed another angle.  That angle turned out to be mixing the comic assortments with movie tie-ins, under the Marvel Legends Infinite Series banner.  They launched with two sets, one based on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the other on Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The Spidey assortment’s comic Spidey was the still relatively recent Superior Spider-Man redesign, which I reviewed here when it was new….ten years ago.  A decade later, Superior Spider-Man got a brief revival in the comics, and is showing back up in Legends form, too!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Superior Spider-Man is a single deluxe release Marvel Legends figure, under the “Celebrating 85 Years” banner.  He’s based on the second Superior look, which was his more unique, and ultimately more relevant design.  It wound up outliving the original run, with Otto wearing during the time displacements of “Spider-Verse”, and Peter himself wearing it during the recent Superior revival run.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 38 points of articulation.  SpOck re-uses the arms and legs from the Renew Your Vows body, which updates him to most of the modern articulation scheme.  He’s got a new head, torso, and pelvis, courtesy of sculptor Dennis Chan, which match well with the pre-existing stuff, though, for whatever reason, he’s back to the ab-crunch and cut waist, rather than a more modern articulation scheme.  He’s also got modified forearms, which add the gauntlets that were missing from the original release of this costume.  SpOck’s color work is honestly pretty solid.  The base work is pretty clean, and they’ve even got his rather uneven web-lining down alright.  One of the coolest parts, though, is the lenses on the default head, which simulate the reflective lenses from the comics by doing some printed detailing.  It’s quite dynamic, and makes for a very unique appearance next to the other Spideys.  The only issue I ran into on my figure is the presence of some errant red on one of his right hands.  SpOck’s main accessory is his back-pack, complete with…well, I don’t recall if they were actually called “waldoes” when Ock was using thing, but they’re the additional legs, and another major thing missing from the last figure.  Each of the legs gets 8 points of articulation, for a total of 32 points in addition to the 38 of the core body, bringing him up to a whopping 70 points.  They’re a little tricky to work with in some poses, but they’re strong enough to hold the figure aloft, which is really the most important thing.  SpOck is also packed with an extra head with white lenses (if you’re not into the artsier style), a compact back pack without the legs, and three pairs of hands (in fists, thwipping, and open clawed).  If I’m being extra demanding, I’d say I’d like an unmasked Otto as Peter head, like the Minimate version got, but there’s still plenty here.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The prior Superior Spidey was decent for the time, especially with the line still really figuring out its first year in a new direction.  That said, it dried up pretty quickly in terms of distribution, and it also aged pretty quickly.  Add in the missing elements, and the fact that its been a decade since the original, and you’ve got an easy mark for a new offering.  This one’s not perfect, but he’s pretty solid, and definitely brings the look more in line with the more recent standard Spideys.

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.

#3668: Clone Captain Rex

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

CLONE CAPTAIN REX

STAR WARS: THE VINTAGE COLLECTION (HASBRO)

Remember two weeks ago when I ended a lengthy hiatus from Vintage Collection with a review of a Bad Batch-based Captain Rex figure?  Did you know it was almost a review of a *different* Bad Batch-based Captain Rex figure from The Vintage Collection?  I mean, probably not.  I don’t tend to let other people know about my planned reviews in advance.  Anyway, there was the new Rex, so I hotplated him, but I didn’t want to just forget about the other one, so, two Rexes in one month?  Is that really so bad?  I don’t think so.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Clone Captain Rex was released as part of the Amazon-exclusive Bad Batch-themed Star Wars: The Vintage Collection four-pack, alongside three other non-Batch troopers.  He’s numbered VC208, making him numerically the first of the four included figures.  He’s based on Rex’s incognito look from the show, just like his Black Series figure from the same time. The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 26 points of articulation.  Rex is built on the previous Clone Trooper base body, which was first introduced in 2011, and is…well, it certainly shows its age.  The articulation is the earliest implementation of “super-articulated” in its more modern sense.  There’s a lot of movement, but it’s not as intuitive, and it’s a little floppy.  He’s also rather lanky, made only more evident by the removable helmet, which bulks the head up.  He gets a new belt piece and pauldron, as well as a cloth kama and poncho.  The pauldron is a curious oddity, since it’s not the full thing, due to being based directly on the animation models, which had tweaked it so that it wouldn’t clip through the poncho.  It’s not actually meant to be seen, and was swapped out for the full version in all of the scenes without the poncho present.  The helmet is also tweaked to add his extra visor piece.  It’s articulated, but it’s also connected to the range finder, so they both move in tandem, which looks a little weird.  Under the helmet we get an unmasked head, which is just a standard clone head re-used, meaning it’s got too much hair to be Rex, since he had his close cropped hair still in Bad Batch.  The color work is decent enough.  Not too far removed from the more recent one, though the blue paint seems a little more wobbly.  There’s some slop on the hairline, but otherwise, application is decent and pretty clean.  Rex is packed with his twin blaster pistols, which he can hold or holster, as per usual.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I like Rex a lot, but I wasn’t rushing out to buy three other figures just to get this one, especially because its a Vintage Collection release.  So, I opted to play the waiting game.  It worked out, because I was able to snag a loose one through All Time, when it was traded in a couple of months ago.  He’s a rather dated figure, and far moreso than he should be, given he’s only actually three years old.  But, he’s at least a more unique design, and he’s got the poncho to hide some of the worst of it.  Ultimately, it’s another Rex, and I can certainly dig 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.