Tag Archives: Hasbro

#0996: Han Solo

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

HAN SOLO

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

HanStarkiller1

Continuing off of what I said about Leia and Han yesterday: given the sizeable role of Han in The Force Awakens, it was no shock that he was the first of the pair to get added to the toyline.  It was a bit surprising that he was not offered in the higher-end 3 ¾ inch line, though.  However, that’s something that Hasbro has now amended, if perhaps not quite in the way we were expecting.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

HanStarkiller2Like Leia, Han was released in the fourth series of Walmart’s exclusive 3 ¾ inch Star Wars: The Black Series.  This is the second Han in this line (though the first one was from Jedi) and the third Force Awakens Han overall.  So, how is this not quite the Han we were expecting?  Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s wearing his cold weather gear, which Han has for (parts of) the attack on Starkiller Base.  It’s not a look that he has for long, and it’s certainly less of a signature look than the black jacket. With that being said, it’s far less of an issue with Han than it was with Leia, since this isn’t Han’s first figure from TFA and it’s also not a bad look.  The figure is about 4 inches tall and has 24 points of articulation.  The sculpt isn’t quite as good as his 6-inch counterpart, but it’s not bad.  The body definitely gets the best work, with tons of really great texturing on the jacket in particular.  I’m also glad that the holster can be plugged and unplugged from his leg, allowing for some additional movement that the prior Han did not.  I’m having trouble seeing much Harrison Ford in the head, but I think that may have more to do with paint than anything else.  Structurally, the head sculpt doesn’t look too far off from the 6-inch version, which was pretty good.  So, about that paint.  It could definitely be better.  The body isn’t bad, but the head is a bit of a mess.  Ignoring the brown hair (which seems to be a licensing thing), the application on the eyes is just off.  They’re not properly placed and they’re at least twice as big as they should be.  Han’s definitely got the crazy eyes going on.  The brown hair and larger eyes also have the misfortune of making him look far younger than he should, which is not what you want from an old-man Han.  Han includes his blaster pistol, which is nicely sculpted and very well painted.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Just as with Leia, I didn’t find Han at any of the Walmarts near me.  In fact, I didn’t find him at all: Super Awesome Girlfriend did!  Han’s a figure that could definitely use some improvement.  He had a high bar to clear after the truly amazing 6-inch Han, and he didn’t quite do it.  That being said, he’s certainly not a bad figure.  I’d be curious to see if a better paint job could breathe some new life into him.

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#0995: Princess Leia Organa

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

PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

LeiaTFA1

When the initial few waves of The Force Awakens product hit, the old guard of characters were largely absent, despite the large role of Han Solo in the film, and the decently-sized (and certainly incredibly important) role of Leia Organa. Around February of this year, Han found his way into both the 3 ¾ and 6 inch-scale lines, but Leia was still noticeably absent. Until now, that is!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

LeiaTFA2Princess Leia was released in the fourth series of the Force Awakens-themed 3 ¾ inch Star Wars: The Black Series, a line which remains exclusive to Walmart. So, first bone of contention with this figure: the name. In the movie, it’s kind of a point that Leia’s not really royalty any more, and she’s almost exclusively referred to as “General Organa.” It’s a small thing, but it’s an important change for her character. The fact that the box just lists her as “Princess Leia Organa” is kind of annoying (and doubly so, since there’s already another figure in this line with that *exact* name, which is just confusing everybody). Of course, the name’s pretty easy to move past, since I didn’t keep her in the package. What’s a little less easy to move past is the costume choice. Leia spends most of her screen time in a military uniform, which is not unlike her look from the Endor scenes in Jedi. She then spends about 5 minutes at the very end of the movie in a blue dress. We got the blue dress look, which I can’t say is my favorite. Alas, I don’t work for Hasbro, so I guess I’ll just deal. The figure stands about 3 ½ inches tall and has 22 points of articulation. She can get some decent motion out of her arms and neck, so that’s good. For what it’s worth, there’s a full body sculpt under her dress (she’s keeping it modest with a full-body stocking), articulated legs and all. The legs are rather limited, both by the obtrusive dress piece and by the decision to only give her cut joints at her hips.  Just as in the movie, her dress has a two-piece design, with the outer “jacket” being made from soft plastic and the under dress being real cloth. They mesh together pretty well, and it’s sort of a best of both worlds thing, preserving look and some of the movement as well. Issues with the design aside, I will admit that this is a pretty solid sculpt. The head captures Carrie Fisher pretty nicely, and I like the small texture details on the sculpted parts of the dress quite a bit. Leia actually doesn’t have much paint, with most of the dress being molded in the same blue. She gets some paint on her head, obviously. It’s not terrible, but it could certainly be better, especially the eyes. Leia includes no accessories, which is a bit of a bummer.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve not had much luck with getting the Walmart-exclusive Black Series figures in my area, so I’ve yet to see any of these figures near me. However, Super Awesome Girlfriend is not cursed like me, and ended up just finding Leia by accident one day. Yay for me! I’ll be honest: this isn’t the Leia figure I was hoping for. Her other Force Awakens look is far more action figure-worthy, and would just make for an all-around better figure. With that said, this figure isn’t terrible, and I’ll definitely take this over no Leia at all. Here’s hoping the other version’s on the way.

#0979: Ant-Man & Winter Soldier

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

ANT-MAN & WINTER SOLDIER

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR – MINIVERSE

AntMan&WS1

Wow, it’s been two whole months since Civil War hit theatres. Consequently, that also means it’s been about a month and a half since I saw Civil War. That doesn’t seem right. I might have to fix that. In the meantime, how about a nice Civil War-themed review? Yeah, that’ll be cool. Today, let’s stick firmly on the #TeamCap side, with Ant-Man and Winter Soldier!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Ant-Man and Winter Soldier are one of the two-packs in the second series of Hasbro’s current Captain America: Civil War Miniverse line, which just started hitting stores not too long ago. They’re yet another somewhat odd pairing, since Scott and Bucky don’t really spend much time interacting, but oh well.

ANT-MAN

AntMan&WS2Both Guardians and Age of Ultron got their own 2 ½ inch lines, but poor Ant-Man was not so lucky. Which is kinda weird, since he’s the character who it makes the sense to have available in lots of different scales (especially smaller ones). But it’s okay, because he’s got a 2 ½ inch figure now! This figure stands just over 2 ½ inches tall and he has the same 5 points of articulation as any other figure in this line. Ant-Man is based on his slightly tweaked design from Civil War, which wasn’t a bad look. I can’t really say I like or dislike this look more than his last one, since they’re ultimately pretty similar. His sculpt does a pretty nice job of capturing the design from the movie, and he has quite a lot of very sharp detail work. He’s one of the more pre-posed figures from the line, with a rather wide stance and his arms slightly angled from his side. I’m not sure exactly what look they were going for, but it’s not as odd as some of the pre-posed figures I’ve gotten over the years. The Miniverse line is generally a bit light on the painted details, which can prove a problem for those with more intricate designs, such as Ant-Man’s. That being said, this is one of the few figures in the line not to lose too many painted details. Sure, there’s still a few silver accents here and there missing, but most of the important stuff is there. Of the two figures in this set, Ant-Man is the one that gets the weird armor thing. On the plus side, it seems the armor’s main purpose is to make Ant-Man a bit larger, to simulate his Giant-Man look, making it the first of these armor sets not to be totally useless.

WINTER SOLDIER

AntMan&WS3This is the second Winter Soldier we’ve gotten from this line of figures, but this is the first one to actually be based on his look from Civil War. Like Ant-Man, this guy stands a little over 2 ½ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. Surprisingly enough, this figure doesn’t share any parts with his Series 1 counterpart. His sculpt is quite well-handled, with lots of excellent detailing. The likeness isn’t a spot-on Sebastian Stan, but at this scale it’s good enough. Also, as with many of the figures in the line, the feet are a bit large, but the proportions are otherwise pretty good. Bucky has a much more subdued pose than most of the line, which is actually kind of nice to see. The paintwork here is pretty simple, being limited to the head, torso, and left arm, but the application is nice and clean, and he looks about right for the movie design. Winter Soldier has no accessories, but if all he was gonna get was more goofy armor, I’m not really going to complain.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up these two from Target. They were the only new set the store had in stock, which means I missed out on the Scarlet Witch set, but hey, this is a decent consolation. Unlike a lot of the other sets from this line, where there’s one good figure and one iffy figure, this set contains two pretty solid additions to the line. Definitely glad I got them!

#0976: Commander Gree

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

COMMANDER GREE

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS

GreeCW1

The Star Wars prequels are almost universally loathed. However, as bad as the movies as a whole may be, there are definitely some ideas and concepts present that were actually kind of cool, if under-explored. On the plus side, the animated Clone Wars show, was able to take a lot of those concepts and apply them to a narrative that didn’t totally suck. Possibly my favorite part of the prequels was the Clone army, who were actually given a ton of development and individualized treatment in Clone Wars. While many of the clones used in the show were new characters, the cartoon also took the chance to flesh out almost all of the named clones from Revenge of the Sith, including my personal favorite, Clone Commander Gree.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GreeCW2Commander Gree was released in the 2009 assortment of Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars tie-in line. The figure stands about 3 ¾ inches tall and has 24 points of articulation. He represents Gree as he appears in the earlier part of the show, prior to the time skip. He’s seen here wearing his standard Phase I trooper armor, and as such, he uses the same basic parts as all the other basic clones in the line. The body isn’t a spot-on recreation of the cartoon design: the lower torso and the limbs are noticeably a little thicker, presumably to offer more stability. That said, it’s very close to what was seen in the show. Like most of the Clone commanders in the line, Gree features a removeable helmet. The helmet itself is nicely handled, and looks more or less the same as the second iteration of the non-removeable clone helmet. Under the helmet is Gree’s head, which is sporting his rather goody twin mohawked look. It’s a decent enough recreation of his look from the show, though it does look a little older than his on-screen counterpart. It’s also slightly on the small side, but that kind of comes with the removeable helmet territory. Gree gets a unique belt piece with a holster, as well as a bandolier add-on piece. These two pieces help to add a nice flair of uniqueness to him, which is certainly cool. Gree’s paintwork is handled pretty well. Early in the show’s run, the animation models were a bit less advanced. This affected Gree more than most, since his rather complex camo design was far too much to handle. So, his Clone Wars design is just the basic clone look, but with extensive green accents. The figure replicates this pretty well, and the overall application is nice and clean. Gree included a large blaster rifle, a blaster pistol, and a large missile missile launcher. Because Hasbro.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, I don’t recall exactly where I got Gree. I’m pretty sure it was a Target. I know I got him while he was still a relatively new figure.  The Clone Wars line was definitely a fun one, and Gree is a pretty strong showing.

GreeCW3

#0968: Marvel’s Vision

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

MARVEL’S VISION

MARVEL LEGENDS – 3.75 (HASBRO)

VisionJonas1

One of the few good things to come out of the storytelling travesty that was “Avengers Disassembled” was the creation of Young Avengers, a pretty fantastic tribute to the various legacies from throughout Avengers history. During the events of “Disassembled,” the Vision, who is himself a legacy in a few ways, was killed. Young Avengers brought him back…sort of. The original Vision remained dead, but through a combination of remnants of his programming, and Iron Lad/Kang the Conqueror’s armor (and just a dash of his pre-Kang personality thrown in for good measure), Vision 2.0 was created. He served as an interesting take on the concept of the Vision, at times even more human than his predecessor. Jonas (Vision 2.0’s preferred name) has gotten a figure before, courtesy of DST’s Marvel Minimates, but Hasbro’s seen fit to give him another, although only die-hard Young Avengers might recognize it at first.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

VisionJonas2Jonas was released in the second series of Hasbro’s 3 ¾ inch scale Marvel Legends line (formerly Marvel Universe, then Avengers Infinite, then Marvel Infinite). Though he is clearly meant to be Vision 2.0, the packaging simply lists him as “Marvel’s Vision.” Given that the two Visions aren’t far off from each other in design, and the fact that the general public is still getting used to the first Vision, I can’t say it was a bad move to leave off the “2.0.” The figure stands about 4 inches tall and has 19 points of articulation. The figure is built on the new medium male body (the same one used on Machine Man and Yondu), which is actually a pretty good fit for Vision. It’s certainly better than the body used by the last 3 ¾ version of the character. I suppose you could argue that Jonas should perhaps be a little smaller than the original Vision, but different artists drew him different ways, so I can’t really find fault with it. The figure uses the cape from the prior Vision, which was probably the best part of that figure, along with a new head sculpt. The head is a fairly generic Vision head. I might have liked something with a bit more resemblance to Jim Cheung’s art, but this works just fine. The paint work on Vision is passable, but it could be better. There’s quite a bit of slop, especially in the face, which is rather annoying. The metallic yellow looks cool, but I do wish they’d done something more exciting than flat green for the rest of the costume. The Minimate was partially translucent, which was fun, but even just making the green metallic would have been something. Vision includes no accessories, which isn’t too shocking, since I can’t really think of any extras that could be included. That being said, given the rising costs of these figures, anything to help offset the price would certainly be appreciated.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Vision from my local Toys R Us, while out and about with Super Awesome Girlfriend. It’s not often I find a figure I’m looking for so quickly after its release, so that was nice. I was actually a bit surprised when this figure was announced. The Young Avengers book’s been done for a couple of years, and Jonas was dead and forgotten even before that. Of course I’ll hardly complain about getting another Young Avenger, even if he’s only the second member in this scale. Hey, Kate, Wiccan, and Hulkling are still kicking around, maybe we might get 3 ¾ inch versions of them too!

VisionJonas3

#0965: Takodana Encounter

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

MAZ KANATA, REY, FINN, & BB-8

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Takodana1

It’s hard to believe it’s been six months since The Force Awakens hit theatres. What’s harder to believe is that finding the figures from the film hasn’t gotten any easier, despite Hasbro putting out several new pack-outs of figures. It seems like every store I go to has the same 6 figures they’ve had since last October. Fortunately, there are a few new products trickling in, giving us a few characters who were missing from initial assortments. One of the film’s more popular additions to the mythos was Maz Kanata, a well-traveled bar owner who seems poised to be the next Yoda (well, if Luke doesn’t beat her to it!). She’s been mostly absent from the various toy lines (she was in a Lego set, but that’s it), but Hasbro’s finally put out their own figure of her. Of course, you have to buy three other figures to get it, but that’s not the point.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Takodana6Maz, Rey, Finn, & BB-8 were released in the “Takodana Encounter” set as part of Hasbro’s 3 ¾-inch line of Star Wars: The Force Awakens figures. Maz is the only new figure included, and the other three are re-packs. Rey includes a lightsaber that her single release didn’t have, but other than that these three are the same figures I reviewed here, here, and here.

MAZ KANATA

Takodana2Maz stands about 2 ½ inches tall and she has the standard 5 points of articulation. Her sculpt is 100% new to her, and it does a pretty admirable job of translating her on-screen appearance into toy form. The head should perhaps be a touch larger than it is, but other than that, they’ve got her pretty much down. Despite her smaller stature, this figure still has quite a bit of detail work, especially on the shirt and vest. Perhaps the only minor drawback I can think of is that the goggles aren’t articulated. They’re still separate pieces, so she’s got fully detailed eyes under there, the lenses are just fixed at the sides. As it stands, the goggles are just the slightest bit misaligned, which a tiny bit annoying. Maz’s paintwork is decent, if not quite as good as the sculpt. The colors are a little TakoDana3brighter than what we see on screen, but not so much so that it stands out as a bad thing. While areas such as the face and feet are quite expertly detailed, there’s some rather noticeable slop right around her belt, where the green of the shirt goes down too far and the yellow of the belt is rather thinly applied. All in all, though, she looks pretty good. Maz includes a blaster, an unlit lightsaber, and a box of junk for the saber to be placed in. That’s a pretty great assortment of pieces, and I love that we finally got a 3 ¾-inch Force Awakens figure without a useless build-a-thingy piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was given to me by my friends Cindy and Lance Woods as a graduation gift, which was very thoughtful of them. I had been wanting to pick this set up, since Maz is one of my favorite parts of the new movie. Maz is undoubtedly the main focus of this set, and I personally feel the whole purchase was warranted just for her, but I can understand why others might feel a little taken advantage of. For new fans, this is a fantastic starter set. For fans who have been following the line the whole time, being forced to buy another Rey, Finn, and BB-8 is probably a little frustrating. That said, one can hardly fault Hasbro for offering another way to get Rey, and I can’t imagine it would be too had to find someone who wants the three repeat figures.

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#0961: Soundwave

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

SOUNDWAVE

TRANSFORMERS: ROBOT HEROES

Soundwave1

Despite being a really big action figure geek (I know, shock and awe, right?), I’ve never had any real affinity for Transformers. I mean, I can appreciate them for what they are, and I like a lot of the designs. I’m a huge fan of halfway decent robot designs. Heck, I even saw two of the films in theatres (maybe that’s not a point in my favor…) Every so often, I find myself looking at a Transformers figure or two, but I think the main thing that keeps me from really getting into them is in the name. For whatever reason, the whole transforming gimmick has never done much for me (which is weird, because I love me some gimmicky action figures!) Fortunately for nut jobs like me, Hasbro’s put out more than a few lines of non-transforming Transformers over the years. In the mid-00s, they were having great success with their more child-friendly Galactic Heroes and Super Hero Squad lines for Star Wars and Marvel, so they brought Transformers into the fold with Robot Heroes. I’ll be looking at that line’s version of Soundwave today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Soundwave2Soundwave was released in the second series of Transformers: Robot Heroes, in a two-pack with Autobot Bumblebee. At this point in the line, the designs were pretty much exclusively Generation 1-based (meaning the original ‘80s line), and Soundwave was no exception. The figure stands a little over 2 inches tall, but he’s squatting, so he’d probably be about 3 inches were he standing up straight. He has three points of articulation, at the neck and each of the shoulders, which was pretty standard for the line. The articulation doesn’t really offer much actual posablity, though. He’s a glorified statue: the pose you see him in is really the only pose you’ll be getting. On the plus side, it suits the character, so that’s good. The sculpt is quite nicely done. His proportions are slightly exaggerated (this was the Heroes style), but he’s far less exaggerated than anything from Galactic Heroes or Super Hero Squad, which I think makes him a bit more versatile. The details are all sharply defined, and he’s got a very nice geometric look about him. He clearly takes a lot of influence from the animated version of Soundwave, which is hardly a bad thing. The paint follows the animated look as well, opting for flat colors instead of the usual metallics. It works quite well with the sculpt and the application is generally pretty clean, though there are a few issues with some slightly misaligned details here and there.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Though I’ve never been much of a Transformers guy, I really liked Robot Heroes. There was a time when I owned just about all of the G1-inspired figures from the line. I’ve since sold the vast majority of them off, but I kept Soundwave for a few reasons. First, he’s always been, my favorite Transformer. Second, he was the first Robot Heroes figure I got. My brother liked Bumblebee, so we bought this set when it was released and split it, and I liked Soundwave enough to pick up a bunch more of the figures. Even with most of the others gone, I still really like this guy.

#0960: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

CapCW1

Despite the movie being out for over a month now, the tie-in toys for Captain America: Civil War are still coming out in little dabs and trickles, here and there. There are three assortments of Marvel Legends being released this year to coincide with Civil War, and while the first of those three has been out for a few months, the actual movie-related figures are in the second and third assortments. The second set is starting to hit stores now, and today I’ll be taking a look at the latest version of Captain America!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

CapCW2Cap is part of the second series of this year’s Captain America-inspired Marvel Legends. The series has officially been dubbed the “Giant-Man Series,” after its Build-A-Figure. The figure is about 6 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation. He’s based on Cap’s appearance in Civil War…sort of. Why “sort of”? Well, if you’re a faithful follower of the site, this guy probably looks familiar. That’s because his sculpt is 100% the same as the one used for the Age of Ultron version of Cap. Which in turn means it’s using everything but the torso from the Winter Soldier STRIKE Suit Cap. That’s not a terrible thing; those are both strong figures, mostly due to the high quality of the sculpt.  And, to be fair, the three designs aren’t that different from each other. However, the AoU figure made some compromises on his design for the sake of re-use from the STRIKE Suit Cap, so this figure inherits those compromises, in addition to having several of his own. The AoU figure at least got the new torso to somewhat make up for it, but this figure doesn’t get anything new. At the very least, a new set of hands without the extra holes in the gloves would have been nice. Also, while the sculpt is still very strong, minor flaws that weren’t a big deal the first time around, such as the slightly small stature of the figure, become much more noticeable with each iteration. This isn’t a bad sculpt at all, and independent from the other two figures to use it, this Cap is still quite good. The paintwork on this figure is a marked improvement over the AoU figure, at least in terms of application, which is all around much sharper and exhibits far less bleed over. The actual palette is much more subdued than the AoU figure, which I think suits the sculpt a bit more than the brighter look of the AoU Cap. For accessories, Cap includes his shield (the same as the ones included with the other two Caps), and the head of Giant-Man. He lacks the unmasked head and extra hands of the last two figures, which coupled with the much smaller B-A-F piece and the totally reused sculpt is a serious step down in terms of value.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Super Awesome Girlfriend and I found this figure at a Walmart on the way back from the beach. She asked if I wanted him and I decided I’d be good and skip him, since I already have the other two. So, she decided she’d buy Cap anyway, for herself. Then, when we walked out of the store, she turned to me and said: “Upon further thought, I don’t have space for this Captain America right now. I think I’ll have to leave it with you. Do you think you can take care of it, like a shared custody thing?” She’s crafty that one.

This figure perplexes me. I’ve gotten more or less the same figure twice before, but this time he’s got a far less impressive accessory complement. Plus, they’re putting almost the exact same figure in a three-pack with Spidey, only that one had the missing accessories. I should be annoyed by this figure. But I’m not. Actually, he’s my favorite of the three Caps, and I don’t feel like he’s a waste at all. It’s weird.

CapCW3

#0958: Venom

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

VENOM

SPIDER-MAN: ORIGINS (HASBRO)

VenomSig1

When Hasbro took over the Marvel license, it was actually a little bit of time before they started producing their own molds. The first two series of Marvel Legends had already been designed and sculpted by Toy Biz, which eased the transition there. Since the beginning of Marvel Legends, there was a complementary Spider-Man line. Hasbro kept this tradition up, and launched Spider-Man: Origins, which was a line made up exclusively of repainted figures, offering collectors a second chance at some harder to find molds, and earning them a little bit of good will with the fans. Today, I’ll be looking at one of those repaints, which happens to be a figure of Venom. And awaaaaaay we go!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

VenomSig2Venom was released as part of a two-pack in the “Battle-Packs” assortment of Spider-Man: Origins. He was packed with a fairly basic classic Spider-Man. This Venom is just a repaint of the version from Series 4 of Toy Biz’s 6-inch Spider-Man line, a figure which itself made use of re-tooled pieces from the Planet of the Symbiotes Lasher figure. The figure stands 7 ½ inches tall and has 20 points of articulation. Though his articulation count’s fairly high, his actually movement is rather limited, so he’s not good for much besides a basic standing pose. I reviewed this sculpt rather favorably back when it was Lasher, but I’m not sure how well it made the transition into Venom. Some of the details specific to Lasher have been removed, which makes sense, but also robs the sculpt of some of its richness. The new pieces include the head, lower arms, and lower legs. The head’s not a bad piece, though to position of the neck coupled with the limited articulation means he’s stuck looking up forever. The arms and legs aren’t terrible, but they’re rather long and thin (presumably to make him a bit taller than Lasher), which means they don’t match up very well with the stockier pieces from Lasher. They also don’t have the same sort of musculature, which makes them stand out a bit. And that’s not even touching on the clown shoe feet this guy’s sporting. Yeesh. The original release’s paint was one of its weaker points. Toy Biz tried to do blue highlights, and ended up highlighting a bit too much. Hasbro opted to forego the highlights, instead just doing the black parts in a dark blue/grey. It’s not perfect, and it lacks the striking nature of the original design, but it looks better than the original, overall.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This Venom is another figure from the small lot of figures I got from Goodwill a few weeks ago (the same lot that included SM3 Venom and the 12-Inch Symbiote Spider-Man). Neither variation of this figure was ever at the top of my list, but he was in with other figures I was interested in, and the whole thing was only $10. He’s not a super exciting figure, but he’s not horrible either.

#0951: Luke Skywalker – Stormtrooper Disguise

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

LUKE SKYWALKER – STORMTROOPER DISGUISE

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

LukeTrooper1

“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”

I haven’t reviewed any Star Wars: The Black Series figures in a while. And even then, the last handful of them have all been The Force Awakens-related. So, how about an Original Trilogy figure? Yeah, that’ll be nice. The most recurrent character in the line is by far Luke Skywalker. I mean, it’s fair; he is the central character of the first three movies. He also gets a few notable costume changes. One such change is when he steals the armor of an Imperial Stormtrooper in order to infiltrate the Death Star. It’s a rather popular version of the character, and it’s been represented in action figure form since way back in the vintage line. Now, let’s have a look at the latest version!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

LukeTrooper2Luke was released as part of the pre-Force Awakens incarnation of Star Wars: The Black Series, as figure #12. He was released in the 8th assortment of figures, alongside Emperor Palpatine and the Clone Captain. As noted in the intro, this figure is based on Luke’s Stormtrooper disguise look from the second half A New Hope. The figure stands just under 6 inches tall and has 29 points of articulation. Seeing as he was running around in their armor, it’s not a shock to find out that this figure makes some pretty hefty use of the pieces used for the Stormtrooper/Sandtrooper. Luke ends up getting the arms and legs from that figure, along with the head of the X-Wing Luke from Series 1. Those pieces were all pretty good the first time around, and they’re still pretty great here. The head in particular is probably the best Hamill likeness in this scale. Luke also has a new torso and pelvis, which aid in making him “a little short for a Stromtrooper.” The end result looks pretty good, though the arms require some careful posing, as they are a touch on the long side. The paint on Black Series figures has been known to make or break the figures. Luke’s far from the worst I’ve seen from the line, and the head in particular is quite clean. That said, there’s still quite a bit of slop in the changes between black and white, which can be more than a bit distracting. Luke is packed with a standard blaster rifle, a communicator, and a removable Stormtrooper helmet. The helmet is the biggest deal here. It’s similar to the solid head seen on the normal Trooper, but obviously it’s been hollowed out so Luke can wear it. The details are a little softer here, but they don’t look terrible, and he fits in pretty well with the other Troopers.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Luke here was a graduation gift from my Super Awesome Girlfriend. On her way up to visit me, she stopped at a Walgreens and saw this guy there all alone. She picked him up, but between purchasing him and giving him to me, she had convinced herself that I already had him. Imagine her relief when she found out I didn’t actually own one! I never picked this guy up because he looked like a fairly simple re-use figure, but there’s actually a lot to like about this guy. Definitely glad to have him!

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