Tag Archives: Hasbro

#1210: C-3PO

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

C-3PO

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Black Series has been running almost 5 years now, and over the course of that 5 years, we’ve gotten the main look for just about every major character from the Original Trilogy.  However, one major character has been pretty consistently absent: C-3PO.  Now, obviously, with a character like Threepio, it’s not a question of if he’s going to be made, but rather when he’s going to be made.  You don’t just willy nilly leave out one of two characters to appear in every film in the franchise.  So, when his name popped up as one of 2016’s upcoming figures, no one was really surprised.  Well, that is, not until they saw the figure, standing there in all his red-armed, The Force Awakens-glory.  Why would the first release of this much anticipated character be what is undoubtedly a one-off look?  It turns out Hasbro had more up their sleeve, and a regular Threepio found its way to release.  I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

c3pobs2This C-3PO figure is Walgreens’ 2016 Star Wars: The Black Series exclusive.  This has been a point of contention for a lot of fans, since many of them think this Threepio should have had the main retail slot, and the Force Awakens figure should have been made the exclusive, citing the second version as a less necessary variant.  While I can’t argue with that, I can sort of understand why the figures ended up the way they did.  In 2015, Walgreens got stuck in the Emperor’s Wrath Darth Vader as their exclusive, and sales on him were pretty soft.  With that in mind, I can easily see Walgreens pushing for a higher profile exclusive.  On Hasbro’s side, I can see them feeling that Threepio might be more easily acquired for some fans as an exclusive item shipped in solid cases of himself, as opposed to being stuck in a revision assortment of the main line, which may or may not get put out (I can attest to having seen more of this guy out in the wild than I’ve seen of his red-armed counterpart).  In addition, Threepio has traditionally been a slower seller than the rest of the main characters, a fact Hasbro is likely banking on.  Ultimately, it’s not the ideal solution, but it’s workable.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and has 21 points of articulation.  Early reports had me worried that this guy wouldn’t be very posable.  The final figure lacks any elbow joints, but this ends up having little effect on the posability, and the rest of the joints offer a more than serviceable range of motion.  Threepio’s sculpt is shared with his Force Awakens version, but is otherwise totally new.  It’s a very strong sculpt, and does a really solid job of capturing Threepio’s basic design.  There’s a lot of really sharp detail work, and he’s definitely one of the best figures in the line in terms of working in the articulation.  The arms do seem a touch long when compared to the legs, but it’s only barely noticeable, and far from the worst case of this in the line.  Threepio’s paint is pretty decently handled; Hasbro let fans know from the get-go that this figure wasn’t going to be vac-metalized like many of the smaller Threepios have been.  Some fans were a bit let-down by this, but I find myself not minding that much.  While the process is fine on smaller figures, it can rob a sculpt of a lot of its best details, and on larger, more articulated items, it can also be rather susceptible to damage.  I was happy to see they opted for gold paint instead of gold plastic, as it allows for a brighter sheen and a more consistent application of the color.  The only part that seems a bit odd to me is the eyes; rather than the usual flat yellow, they’ve been done with three white dots on each eye.  It’s not terrible looking from far away, but looks quite strange up close.  Threepio includes no accessories, which is a real letdown, especially since there are technically no new sculpted pieces here.  The communicator from the Death Star would have been nice, especially since they already have the tooling for it. Oh well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

News broke on this guy back around Rogue Friday, and I pretty much immediately started looking for him.  I didn’t have much luck, but on a hunch, I stopped at a slightly out of the way Walgreens on the way home from grabbing some dinner last month.  He wasn’t in the proper action figure aisle, but I remembered that a lot of Walgreens stores had a separate Star Wars end display, and, sure enough, there he was.  Odd choice of distribution aside, this is a really good figure, easily the best Threepio that Hasbro’s put out.  Hopefully everyone that wants one can get one!

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#1204: Director Krennic

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

DIRECTOR KRENNIC

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE (HASBRO)

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So, now that we’re in February, we’re sort of in that slow time of the year for toy collecting.  It’s been over a month since the onslaught of product pushed out for Christmas, and we’re still a couple of weeks away from all of Toy Fair’s cool reveals.  Of course, that just makes it the perfect time for me to catch up on some overdue reviews of things I got before the new year, now doesn’t it?

Back in December, I took a look at one of the two figures of Director Orson Krennic, the primary antagonist of Rogue One.  Well, I did manage to find the other figure, so now I’ll be taking a look at him too!  Yippee!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

krennicsmall2Krennic was released as part of the second series of Rogue One figures from Hasbro.  He was apparently only one to a case, so he’s been the most difficult of the series to track down at retail (which is why he’s the very last Series 2 figures I’m reviewing.)  His figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has the usual 5 points of articulation.  For some figures, the lowered articulation can be very limiting, but for a character like Krennic, who seems to spend a lot of his time just standing around, it’s actually not terrible.  The smaller Krennic has another all-new sculpt, but, like his larger counterpart, I wouldn’t be shocked to see this put into use for some other Imperial Officers at some point.  While this figure isn’t packing any ground breaking detail work, the quality of the sculpt is still really solid.  All the important uniform details are there, and the head even has a passing resemblance to Mendelsohn (I actually think it’s a little better than the larger figure in that regard).  The figure is topped off by a plastic cape, which is quite nicely rendered, and easily the highlight of this particular figure.  Krennic’s paintwork is pretty good overall; the colors match the onscreen look and the application is fairly clean.  The eyes are a bit goofy; he looks like someone just told him they don’t like Star Wars; but they’re actually a bit cleaner than this scale usually gets.  Krennic includes his custom blaster pistol, which is sporting a good deal more paint than the average weapon in this line, and he also comes with the requisite giant missile launcher, which is just as silly and goofy as you’re all expecting it to be.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Krennic was the source of much searching after I got the rest of Series 2 back on Black Friday.  I ended up finding him while killing some time at a sort of out of the way Target.  He was my consolation prize for not breaking down and buying the AT-ACT while it was on clearance.  Having already gotten the Black Series figure, there’s not a ton of new ground with this guy, but I’m still happy to have found him, if for nothing more than completion’s sake.

#1195: Cannonball & Domino

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

CANNONBALL & DOMINO

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

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Hasbro’s early days with the Marvel license were an odd time.  Truth be told, they didn’t really come into their own with the product until somewhere around Iron Man 2, which was a good three years into their run with the license.  Until then, there were some weird experiments, intermixed with just sort of copying a lot of Toy Biz’s stuff, mostly when it came to Marvel Legends.  The first two series of their Legends were almost entirely chosen and designed by Toy Biz, which gave them a bit of time to figure out some of their own stuff for the half-formed Series 3 assortment.  The first two series hit in early 2007, and the third wouldn’t hit until almost the end of the year.  Hasbro filled the gap between two and three with a handful of exclusives.  Today, I look at Cannonball and Domino, one of those exclusives.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cannonball and Domino were a Walmart-exclusive two-pack.  They were released alongside the similarly exclusive Cable and Marvel Girl two-pack in the summer of 2007, as only the third round of Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends.  Both characters were at something of a low-point in terms of relevance, but and were actually the first X-Force alumni outside of Cable and Deadpool to join the line.

CANNONBALL

cannonballdomino3Sam Guthrie is one of the more successful characters from his era of comics.  Cannonball started out as a member of the New Mutants and not only make it all the way through that series’ run, heal also transferred into its follow-up X-Force, and then moved onto the main X-Men team, where he was a pretty prominent character for a while.  He fell back into obscurity for a bit, but was recently brought on as one of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers, which seems to have gone pretty well for him.  This figure is loosely based on his first X-Force design (loosely due to the necessities of parts re-use, which I’ll touch on in a sec).  He stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 39 points of articulation.  That’s a lot of movement, but, as you can see, it’s sort of at the cost of the sculpt.  The sculpt, it should be noted, originally hails from Toy Biz’s Johhny Blaze version of Ghost Rider.  It was heralded as a great sculpt at the time, but it’s sort of specifically tailored to Blaze, since it’s skeletally skinny.  It’s not that Cannonball hasn’t frequently been depicted as rail thin (because he was for most of his early career), but this seems a bit extreme even for him.  It probably doesn’t help that when he was with the X-Force he was usually depicted as only being a little smaller than Cable.  The point is, this figure makes Sam look more than a little emaciated.  For what it’s worth, the costume details do match up surprisingly well with his X-Force togs, and there’s a lot of really fun detail sculpted into this figure.  I can get why they wanted to re-use the parts, it’s just a bit questionable, that’s all.  As far as new pieces go, Sam got a new head, which captures his slender mug pretty well, as well as a weird dicky sort of piece that slips over GR’s exposed neck and shoulders.  They do their job well enough, and also fit pretty well with the body (though the neck is a bit jarringly smooth).  One last thing about the sculpt: Sam is a testament to why you should avoid soft rubber on action figures.  There’s rubber for the upper torso, and while mine has held up okay (only two very small tears), I’ve seen others that weren’t so fortunate. The paintwork on Cannonball is decent enough.  It takes his color scheme from the comics and translates it into something a bit more consumable by the human eye.  The application is mostly pretty clean but there’s some slop here and there, especially on the white piping of the jumpsuit.  Cannonball included no accessories.

DOMINO

cannonballdomino2Domino’s not a character I really have that much affinity for, so I don’t know a whole lot about her.  She’s got luck-based powers, but it was the ‘90s so that translated to “carries a gun.”  Everything seemed to translate to “carries a gun” in the ‘90s.  Domino’s had her fair share of looks over the years (mostly because no one can make up their minds about how to draw her), and this figure seems to be based on her look from the early ‘00s.  She stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and has 33 points of articulation.  Despite all that articulation, she still can’t sit, thanks to being built on a body from Toy Biz’s period of useless hip joints.  Bleh.  She uses the body of the X-Treme Rogue from TB’s 2006 X-Men line.  It’s actually a pretty good match for the art I’ve been able to find of Domino in this costume.  The proportions are still quite on the wonky side, and don’t get me started on whatever the heck’s going on with the torso (she moves at the boobs and the abdomen?  That’s odd), but Toy Biz certainly produced worse, and Hasbro put out worse the same year as this figure’s release.  So, this isn’t awful.  The head and hands were unique to this figure.  The head is a pretty decent, no-nonsense head, and looks like the later interpretations of Domino.  The hands are sculpted to hold her guns, which is a nice thing to see on a character whose whole thing is having guns.  Domino also got a new add-on piece for her belt, which is fixed with a holster for each leg.  The holsters would probably limit hip movement, but the actual hip joints beat them to it, so not a huge loss, I guess.  Domino’s paintwork is alright.  There’s some really strong work on the head, but the jumpsuit exhibits a lot of slop, in very obvious places.  Domino was packed with a pair of pistols (I seem to have misplaced one of mine…)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When these figures were released, my dad was after the Marvel Girl from the other set.  When he finally found them, our local Walmart was already clearancing them, so he went ahead and grabbed this set as well, on the off chance that I might want it.  As luck would have it, I was still into collecting action figures that particular day, so I did want this set!  Who would have guessed?  Despite not knowing a whole lot about him, I’ve always had a soft spot for Cannonball, and this figure was no exception.  I can point to all the figure’s flaws, but I still really like him.  Domino?  She’s just sort of there.  She’s not a bad figure, but I just feel nothing about her, so she just came along for the ride.  Of course, now that I actually have a Cable, she’s not quite as out of place, so that’s good!

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#1194: First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader

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

FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER SQUAD LEADER

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

fosquadleader1

It’s been almost a week since the last time I looked at a Star Wars toy.  And I amassed quite a number of them towards the backend of last year, so there’s just sort of this pile of them waiting to be reviewed.  Here’s one off the pile.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

fosquadleader2The First Order Stormtrooper Squad Leader was part of the early 2016 Snow Gear assortment, alongside unmasked Kylo Ren and Nien Nunb).  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  In terms of construction, the Squad Leader uses the same basic tooling as the standard FO Trooper (and by extension, all of it’s deviations, reviewed in the First Order Legion set), which is sensible.  As I noted when I reviewed it before, it’s a pretty strong sculpt, and accurately recreates the First Order armor from the movie.  The main appeal of this figure is the web-gear, which is unique to this guy.  It’s a combination of the Heavy Artillery Trooper’s ammo vest with an Officer’s pauldron.  It’s different enough to keep him interesting, which I guess is the point.  Paintwork for this figure is pretty much on par with the other FO Troopers I’ve looked at.  There are some fuzzy lines here and there, but by and large he’s pretty good.  The Squad Leader includes a basic blaster rifle, as well as a much larger blaster that’s part of the build-a-whatsit.  It’s kind of a cool piece, though it’s actually taller than he his, so getting him to hold it is kind of tricky.  Still, better than a lot of the pieces included with these figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Being part of one of the later assortments of the Force Awakens line, this guy never really showed up at retail in full force.  I ended up getting this guy from Cosmic Comix during their Biggest Sale of the Year! (TM).  I like the Heavy Trooper look, and I liked this variation of it, so I got him.  Is he really different from figures I already own?  Not really, but he’s still pretty fun.

#1193: A.I.M. Soldier

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

A.I.M. SOLDIER

MARVEL LEGENDS INFINITE SERIES

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Back when Toy Biz was still handling Marvel toys, they were prone to showing off figures that would never see the light of day (and they frequently showed them after these decisions were made, because apparently someone working there just loooooved rubbing salt in wounds).  For the 13th series of Marvel Legends, dubbed “Bring on the Bad Guys,” they initially planned to pack each villain with one of the Marvel universe’s many faceless henchmen, but they were eventually cut and replaced with the Onslaught Build-A-Figure.  Seven henchmen were shown: a Skull, a Brood, a Hand Ninja, a Hellfire Club Guard, a Doom Bot, a Hydra Agent, and an A.I.M. Soldier.  The Scrull and Brood eventually were released as part of DST’s Marvel Select line, and Hasbro would release their own versions of the Hydra Agent and Hand Ninja.  When it came time to make an A.I.M. Soldier, Hasbro has switched to the smaller-scale Marvel Universe line; he was a cool figure and all, but it just wasn’t the same.  Eight years after Series 13’s release, the A.I.M. Soldier finally made his way into Marvel Legends.  That’s the figure I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

aim2The A.I.M. Soldier was released in the first series of the Captain America: The Winter Solider Marvel Legends Infinite Series.  The official title is “Soldiers of A.I.M.” which he shared with Baron Zemo (who I reviewed back when he was new).  It certainly fits him better than it did Zemo.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  At the time of his release, the A.I.M. Soldier was an all-new sculpt, but most of the body was re-used for last year’s Ghost Rider. He has a different head, obviously, depicting the signature “beekeeper’s mask,” as well as different forearms, and a unique belt.  The overall appearance is that of the classic A.I.M. design.  There are some slight discrepancies on the front of the chest and the specifics of the gloves, due to this body being preemptively designed to work for the comic version of Star-Lord released just a few months after this figure.  The discrepancies aren’t anything incredibly distracting, and there have been enough slight variations to the A.I.M. design that it doesn’t immediately jump out as being “wrong.”  Plus, it’s just an A.I.M. Soldier.  How important is it for them to be spot on?  The figure also gets an add-on piece for his bandolier, which gives him some nice extra details (and also covers up some of those inaccuracies on the torso).  In terms of paint, the A.I.M. Soldier is decent enough.  He manages use lots of yellow without looking totally ridiculous (he’s still ridiculous, but not totally ridiculous), and most of the application is pretty clean.  There’s a slight matching issue with the yellow at the bottom of the belt piece, but that’s really it.  The A.I.M. Soldier included two blasters, one large and one small, as well as right arm of the Mandroid (the same piece included with Zemo).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Mandroid Series was back when Hasbro was  still working out some of their distribution issues, and also still learning some hard lessons about case-packouts.  While I got all of the necessary pieces for the Mandroid, I never had any luck finding the two swap figures.  While I was out for my birthday last year, I found this guy at 2nd Chance Toyz.  He was loose, but I already had the BAF piece, so no big deal there.  I’m glad to finally have him, and I feel he was worth the wait.  Now, I’ll take my Hellfire Club Guard whenever you’re ready, Hasbro.

#1192: Superman Red

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

SUPERMAN RED

JLA (KENNER)

supermanredjla1

A ways back, almost 600 reviews ago now, I tackled the wonderfully ‘90s concept of the electrically powered Superman Blue, DC’s second bid at re-inventing Superman in that particular decade.  Not long after that, I also tackled Superman Red, who was the end result of Superman Blue getting split into two different entities.  The whole thing was ultimately pretty short-lived, but it was timed just perfectly enough that both versions were still the official status quo take on Superman when Kenner launched their JLA line in the ‘90s, thus placing them in the line instead of the more conventional take on the character, and giving us the first of a handful of figures based on the designs.  Today, I’ll be looking at the hot-headed Superman Red!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

supermanredjla2Both Superman Blue and Red were released in the first series of single-carded JLA figures.  However, while Blue was also available in the first boxed set of figures, Red was exclusive to the singles (and is the only figure from Series 1 to be so).  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation for the time.  JLA was largely a way for Kenner to reuse their old Total Justice molds another time (though later assortments would steadily add more and more unique pieces to get a few more characters not released in Total Justice), so it’s not really a surprise that Superman Red was a total re-use.  That being said, he was certainly a more uneventful re-use than some of the other figures.  Most of the first series were just simple repaints of their TJ counterparts, but since Superman’s design had changed more than a little, they had to Frankenstein him a bit to get as close as possible.  He (along with Superman Blue and the evil Hardlight Superman from the second boxed set) uses the torso, arms, and legs of the Total Justice Superman, with the head from Man of Steel’s Hunter Prey Superman (the one packed with Doomsday).  The result is close enough…if you squint.  The body still has the belt, shorts, and boots of the original figure, just painted over as if they aren’t there, which is certainly odd, but not too horribly distracting.  What is distracting is the head’s painting over the clearly defined edges of the head gear, giving him these obvious lines running down his cheeks and across his forehead. Sure, the paint application’s clean for what it is, but what it is is a flagrant disregarding of the actual sculpted material.  On the plus side, he’s a nice, bright red, which means he really pops on the shelf.  So, that sorta makes up for it, right?  JLA figures were usually pretty light on the accessories, but Superman, like the rest of them, includes a display stand.  It’s even in red.   There’s also a cover on the back of his box which can be cut out and placed on the back of his stand.  It’s JLA #7, which is kind of an odd choice, since not only is Superman Red not on the cover, he’s not in the issue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was never much of a fan of Superman Red or Blue growing up.  It was sort of a weird period of time, and all the Superman merchandise was one of these two, and it felt wrong to me.  So, I didn’t have this figure or his blue counterpart (I did have the Hardlight one, though), and instead waited for the proper classic Superman later on in the line.  As time as gone by, I’ve gotten lots of classic Supermen, and now I have this weird nostalgic twinge for these designs.  I found this guy in the bargain bin at this nearby comics and games store called Player’s Choice, and he called to me.  He’s sort of a goofy figure, but it was a goofy concept to begin with.

#1188: Lando Calrissian

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

LANDO CALRISSIAN

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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For Day 22 of my post-Christmas reviews, I’ll be taking a look at the last of the Star Wars-themed figures I got this year, before once again returning to the world of Marvel (spoilers for tomorrow’s review?)  Today, I’ll be looking at everyone’s favorite suave scoundrel.  No, it’s not Han Solo, why do you ask?  Okay, so it’s everyone’s *second* favorite suave scoundrel, Lando Calrissian!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

landogen2Lando was released as part of Series 5 of Walmart’s exclusive smaller-scale Star Wars: The Black Series line, the same assortment that brought us Wednesday’s Admiral Ackbar figure (along with Ahsoka Tano and a Royal Guard).  Like Ackbar, Lando is a re-release of an earlier Vintage Collection figure.  Also like Ackbar, I don’t have the earlier figure, so this one is new for me.  The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and has 24 points of articulation.  The Vintage Collection was where Hasbro finally started adding in some additional hip movement for some of the figures.  Lando was from later in the line, when they started adding it to non-Jedi/Trooper characters.  At this point the movement was still rather primitive when compared to lots of other small-scale lines like this, but progress is progress.  The sculpt is generally pretty decent.  He’s based on Lando’s General look from Return of the Jedi, which isn’t my go-to Lando look, but it’s a decent enough choice.  The uniform is pretty solid and matches up with the onscreen costume.  The holster is a separate, removable piece, which is actually pretty convenient, since it had a tendency to switch shoulder from shot to shot.  The head sports a passable Billy Dee Williams likeness.  It’s hardly perfect, but it’s about as close as any other likeness this line’s ever given us.  The cape is cloth, and that’s probably the one major detractor about this figure.  It’s not awful; the actual cape bit is decent enough, but the clasp, which is rather thin in the film, is replaced here by a rather thick spandex band.  It’s totally inaccurate and ends up covering a good portion of the rather nicely sculpted collar.  Lando sports some pretty decent paintwork.  Nothing particularly spectacular, or super exciting, but the application is quite clean, continuing the upward trend from Hasbro as of late.  Lando includes a small blaster pistol, which can be placed in the holster.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Just like Admiral Ackbar, Lando was a Christmas present from my Super Awesome Girlfriend, though there’s no special reason behind me getting this guy (aside from an offhand confirmation of “yeah, I like Lando”).  While this isn’t my first choice of costume, this is otherwise a pretty solid figure, and I’m glad to add him to my collection!

#1184: Admiral Ackbar

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

ADMIRAL ACKBAR

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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For the 18th day of my post-Christmas reviews, I’m ducking into the galaxy far, far away for a quick stop.  This time around, I’m heading back to the original trilogy and looking at the best trap-detecting commanding officer in the whole Rebellion, Admiral James Tiberius Ackbar.  No, he’s not really James Tiberius Ackbar, but that felt appropriately Admiralitorial.  Onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

ackbar2Admiral Ackbar is part of Walmart’s current exclusive Star Wars: The Black Series.  His assortment (which also included Lando Calrissian, Ahsoka Tano, and a Royal Guard) hit around Rogue Friday.  Ackbar is a re-release of the previous The Vintage Collection Ackbar.  I don’t have that figure, so this one’s new to me.  Yay!  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 18 points of articulation.  He’s based on Ackbar’s Return of the Jedi look which, at the time of the original figure’s release, was the only Ackbar design (since then, he’s appeared in both Clone Wars and The Force Awakens). It’s a very good recreation of his on-screen design.  In fact, it’s probably one of Hasbro’s best Star Wars sculpts, even seven years after its initial release.  The best part is definitely the head sculpt, which perfectly captures Ackbar’s distinctive head prosthetics.  The paintwork on Ackbar is solidly handled.  Like yesterday’s Spider-UK, Ackbar showcases a definite step-up in the overall paint application from Hasbro.  There are some slight differences on this guy’s paint compared to his TVC figure  The black details on his head and hands are a bit less subtle, which is a slight detractor, but the rest of the paint is a lot bolder and crisper, which makes him just look a lot better put together.  Ackbar is packed with a baton and the control panel from his ship (which is rather on the random side, but better than nothing, I suppose).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ackbar was a Christmas gift given to me by my Super Awesome Girlfriend.  We’ve been playing through Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jess particularly loved Ackbar’s extra sassy personality in the game, dubbing him “Sassbar.”  When she found out there was a new Sassbar figure out, she told me I had to get it.  True to form, she went the extra mile and actually got him for me.  I’ve always had a soft spot for the good admiral, and I gotta say, this is easily one of the best Star Wars figures Hasbro’s ever put out there.  He certainly warranted the re-release, and I’m happy it allowed me to get him!

#1183: Spider-UK

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

SPIDER-UK — MULTIVERSE SPIDER-MEN

MARVEL LEGENDS SERIES

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So, it’s been like twelve days since my last Marvel-related review. That feels like a really long time to me.  Well, fear not dear readers, I just so happen to have the perfect figure to quench that Marvel thirst…or something.  That sounds weird.  I withdraw that comment.  Anyway, umm…here’s a Spider-Man?  Yeah, let’s go with that!  It’s not just any Spider-Man, of course.  No, no, this is Billy Braddock, better known as Spider-UK!  He has the distinction of being both the Spider-Man *and* the Captain Britain of his universe, which is pretty cool I guess.  He’s also another addition to the ever-growing Spider-Verse roster, and that’s always a plus in my book.  Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-UK is figure 3 in the Sandman Series of Marvel Legends.  His package name is “Multiverse Spider-Men,” a name he shares with the latest version of Spider-Man 2099.  He’s one of three Spider-Men in this particular assortment, and by far the most obscure of the three, though I feel certain they could go more obscure if they wanted to.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Spider-UK is debuting a new base body.  Sizing wise, it falls between the Bucky Cap and Reaper bodies.  It’s probably a little closer to the Bucky body, which is why some people are thinking this body might be Hasbro’s way of slowly working out the Bucky Cap, or at least lightening its load.  I gotta say, I really like this new base.  The posability is pretty great,  the proportions are very well balanced, and I really dig the small folds here and there to really sell it as someone wearing an actual cloth costume, rather than one that’s just painted on.  This is definitely a base I can see getting a lot of mileage.  The head sculpt is also new, though it looks to share some common ancestry with the Pizza Spidey head.  It’s wider, of course, allowing it to better fit the body (and the character, who was always pretty lantern-jawed).  The majority of his costume details are painted, which is fine by me, since I prefer painted webzines.  The application is all really solid.  The lines are nice and sharp and the color palette is certainly pleasing to the eye.  He definitely follows the upward trend of paint on Legends as of late.  While Spider-UK includes no accessories for himself personally, he does come packed with the left arm of Sandman, which really has made me want to finish this guy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Spider-UK came from, who else, Super Awesome Girlfriend.  We were out at the Walmart near her parents the week before Christmas, and I happened upon this guy, the only figure from the series. I still haven’t seen any of the Space Venom Series, so the fact that this series was already hitting has certainly caught me by surprise.  Funds were tight so I passed.  However, Super Awesome Girlfriend, crafty as she is, asked me to go grab something else, and hid him in the cart.  Then she conveniently had me go look for yet another thing during check-out, all so as to make sure I didn’t see this guy.  She’s crafty like that.  I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another about Spider-UK as a character, but as a figure, he’s pretty awesome!

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#1173: Sidon Ithano & First Mate Quiggold

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

SIDON ITHANO & FIRST MATE QUIGGOLD

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

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Would you look at that?  I’ve made it through a whole week of post-Christmas reviews!  Go me!  For day 7, I’m going back to that galaxy far, far away.  You know what the backbone of Star Wars merchandise is?  You might think it’s Darth Vader, or Stormtroopers, or even R2-D2 or C-3PO, but you’d be wrong.  No, the actual backbone, the thing that’s kept the franchise afloat with a near endless supply of tiny action figures is all of the split-second appearance, no-name characters peppered in to fill out the backgrounds of scenes.  Need to fill a slot in a wave of figures?  Here’s Willrow Hood!  Worried the boxed set doesn’t offer anything new?  How about Snaggletooth?  Need something unique?  Elephant Mon, anyone? Heck, people will spend good money to get a complete set of the bounty hunters from Empire, despite the fact that most of them only appear in that one single scene and only one of them gets even a single line of dialogue.  That’s commitment from the fanbase right there.  Of course, as the prices of oil have risen, these obscure figures are getting fewer and further between.  Fortunately, The Force Awakens provided a great new selection of background characters, which Hasbro in turn took advantage of in order to get some fun new action figures.  Two such characters were Sidon Ithano and his first mate Quiggold, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Ithano and Quiggold were released in the second series of two-packs from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens line.

SIDON ITHANO

sidonianthoquagley3Sidon Ithano is the captain of the Meson Martinet, the ship Finn almost transfers to prior to Rey’s capture by the First Order.  That’s pretty much his whole character (okay, not entirely true; like almost every background Star Wars character, he’s got a whole elaborate backstory, which most people will never know).  He was playable in a side mission in Lego The Force Awakens, which is how I became familiar with him.  His figure stands about 4 inches tall and has the standard 5 points of articulation.  The sculpt is unique to this figure, and is quite impressively rendered.  The helmet is nice and clean, with lots of really sharp lines, and his clothing sports some incredible texture work, which really makes him stand out. Easily one of the best sculpts from the smaller Force Awakens line.  Ithano’s paintwork is fairly straight forward.  The application is pretty clean, and the basic colors seem to match up pretty well with what’s seen in the movie.  The color scheme is also rather on the unique side of things, which adds a nice bright splash of color to the shelf.  Ithano is packed with a blaster rifle…for all you blaster rifle needs?  It’s a cool design, I guess.

FIRST MATE QUIGGOLD

sidonianthoquagley2What good is a captain without his trusty first mate?  I don’t know.  I guess it depends on the quality of the captain, and, by extension, the quality of the first mate.  So, there’s like, a lot of potential variance there I suppose.  Anyway, here’s Quiggold, who’s a guy who gets just as much screen time as the last guy.  He’s also playable in the same Lego game level, where he gets a cool mini gun thing.  So that’s fun.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and has 4 points of articulation.  Where Ithano is tall and lean, Quiggold is short and squat.  The figure’s sculpt does a pretty solid job of conveying his design from the movie.  He looks suitably like a big puppet (which is pretty much what he was) and the details on his skin and clothing are quite nicely rendered.  I wouldn’t mind if he had some more texturing here and there, but he’s certainly reasonable for the scale.  The paintwork on Quiggold is okay, if maybe ever so slightly imbalanced.  There’s some really great work on the face, which makes his skin look quite lifelike.  I just sort of wish the details continued onto the other exposed parts of his skin, but he’s not awful.  Quiggold includes a large missile launcher version of his big gun, which is…well, it’s not as far off as most Hasbro missile launchers, so I guess it’s got that going for it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I received these two as a Christmas present from my Super Awesome Girlfriend.  We’ve been playing through Lego The Force Awakens together, and I quite enjoyed the Crimson Corsair level.  She happened to spy these figures at retail and grabbed them for me.  I very much enjoy this pair of figures.  They’re solid renditions of solid character designs, and you can’t really ask for much more.