Tag Archives: Marvel

#1344: The Thing

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

THE THING

FANTASTIC FOUR: DELUXE EDITION (TOY BIZ)

“Ben Grimm became the Thing after he was bombarded by cosmic rays in a space flight gone awry with scientist Reed Richards.  Since then he has dedicated his life to fighting crime as a founding member of the Fantastic Four, fending off many foes with the mere words — it’s clobberin’ time!”

It’s been 3 years since I reviewed a figure of Benjamin J. Grimm, better known as the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing.  That’s quite a long time.  It’s a bit surprising, really, since he’s the FF member I own the most figures of, so you’d think he’d show up a little more frequently, but no.  Well, I’m fixing that today, and I’m also looking at yet another of the old Toy Biz 10-inch figures.  That’s always fun!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Thing was part of the second assortment of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four: Deluxe Edition line.  I think.  It got a little hard to follow after the first three-figure assortment.  The main thing to note is that they only ever released Ben and Johnny in this scale (flip side, they only did Reed and Sue in the Famous Covers style.  So, it works out, I guess?)  The figure stands a little over 10 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  As I’ve noted a few times before, the 10-inch figures made use of the two-up prototypes used for the 5-inch line.  This is partly true for the Thing, but he also has a pretty healthy helping of new or tweaked parts, presumably to help with costs.  The only part that looks to be a straight re-use is the head, which is a pretty great Ben Grimm head, so that’s certainly a good thing.  The rest of the parts follow the general look of the smaller figure, but he’s been given a much straighter stance, thereby giving the figure less overall bulk.  He’s still quite a bit more sizable than the other figures in the line, so it’s not a really big change.  In general, he also seems a little more boxy than his smaller counterpart, which doesn’t look quite as good, but once again, it’s not a huge difference.  Regardless, the head sculpt is the real star here.  The paint on Ben is pretty basic; he’s molded mostly in orange, with a bit of blue and while for his shorts and eyes.  What’s there is pretty decent, though obviously the paint on my figure has seen better days.  This figure was originally packed with a protective helmet, emulating the helmet Ben wore in the comics when he had the robotic suit to replace his lost powers.  It was rare that a 10-inch figure got an extra not included with the smaller figure, but this was the one that got it.  If only mine still had his.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have this guy growing up.  He didn’t hang around stores long, and he also didn’t get any prominent re-releases like some of the other figures.  This guy’s actually the first item I’m reviewing from my pretty awesome haul I picked up from Bobakhan Toys, which is a super awesome toy store I found just outside of Seattle while I was there with Super Awesome Girlfriend’s family.  I was, admittedly, a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of toys in the store, so I was trying to pick and chose a few things that most stood out to me.  Super Awesome Girlfriend picked this guy up and insisted I get him.  I can’t say that I really fought her.  I like this guy.  He’s not quite as cool as the 5-inch version, but he’s still pretty awesome.  And Ben’s my favorite FF member, so that probably helps with the cool factor as well.

#1337: Battle Acroyear

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BATTLE ACROYEAR

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

“Described as an ‘Enemy of the Micronauts’, this stalwart warrior is surely still a hero among his people and a formidable knight to his allies. Clad in his distinctive crimson and white armor, and possessing the strength to wield his massive Power Sword against the powerful intergalactic foes of his people, what childhood imagination couldn’t give Acroyear the chance to be a ‘good guy’?”

Poor Palisades and their poor cursed Micronauts line.  Though its parent line, Microman, has been a pretty strong seller in Japan, the American-ized adaptation never quite took off the same way.  Mego saw decent success into the ‘80s, but it quickly dwindled under the juggernaut that was Star Wars.  20 years later, fan favorite company Palisades did their very best to bring new life to the line, but they ran into roadblocks at every turn.  The worst of it really hit right at the beginning. The factory producing Series 1 of the relaunched line pulled a fast one on Palisades, by sending them sub-contracted “production samples” which in no way represented the actual quality of the product being produced.  When the Series 1 figures arrived, Palisades was left with a stock that was subpar, with pretty much no funds to replace them.  Worse, stores were already getting the stock, so there was little they could do.  They quickly shifted production to another factory, and put into production a Series 1.5, which offered slightly fixed figures built on the Series 1 molds, with the hopes of tiding collectors over until proper corrected Series 1 figures could be produced later down the line (this, sadly, never happened).  Each Series 1 figure was given a new deco, with some sort of neat backstory to it.  My personal favorite was Battle Acroyear, the redressing of (you guessed it) Acroyear!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted, Battle Acroyear was part of the Series 1.5 assortment of Palisades’ Micronauts line.  The Series 1 Acroyears were perhaps the most negatively effected by the poor quality; the heavy metal torsos would cause the plastic around the joints of the limbs to disintegrate into dust almost immediately after opening, leaving collectors with little more than a pile of wobbly plastic bits.  That’s hardly going to do justice to one of the greatest warriors of all time, so the replacement was necessary.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 13 points of articulation.  Unlike most of the rest of the line, which used an internal band construction similar to vintage G.I. Joes, Acroyear uses a solid construction.  Like I said above, the figure has a die-cast metal toros, with plastic limbs and head.  Fortunately, unlike his predecessors, this guy’s legs can actually hold his wait, pretty well I might add.  Really, the construction on this guy is really solid; he feels like he could survive most things (and mine’s made it through a few shelf dives, so I know from experience).  The details of the sculpt are nice and clean, and appropriately reto-sci-fi.  While all of the Palisades Micronauts had minor deviations from their Mego counterparts, Acroyear’s were even more minor than most; there’s some slight tweaking to the shape of the head, but it’s the sort of thing that you can really only tell if you’re looking right at both figures.  Paint schemes were a defining factor for the Series 1.5 figures.  While the Series 1 Acroyears had deviated pretty wildly from the classic Acroyear colors, this one brings it back a bit, albeit with a twist.  The original Acroyears were all the same basic colors, with three different accent colors: blue, green, and pink.  This figure gives us a fourth accent color: red.  This is actually a pretty cool reference, as red was the color used for the heroic Prince Acroyear, the main Acroyear from the Marvel Comics adaptation from the ‘80s.*  It’s a color scheme that really works well with the design, and he certainly stands out on the shelf.  Acroyear includes a battle sword (a much larger replacement for the original figure’s smaller dagger), a spy drone, his extra large wing pack, and clear display stand.  The sword is suitably awesome, and the wings are cool, even if they aren’t quite as nifty as Space Glider’s.  The spy drone is interesting enough, and serves a secondary function: Acroyear can be “transformed” into a tank-like thing, using the drone as a turret of sorts.  Not as advanced as later Transformers, but cool nonetheless.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually had one of the Series 1 Acroyears back in the day.  Fell to pieces in like a day.  One of the more depressing action figure interludes of my childhood.  This figure ended up in my collection a fair bit later, after the secondary market prices on most of the line had shot pretty far up.  Cosmic Comix bought someone’s toy collection, and there were a handful of Micronauts in it, which I ended up getting for a steal.  Battle Acroyear was among them, and he’s easily my favorite of the bunch.  In fact, I think he’s my favorite Palisades Micronaut period.  He’s just a really fun toy.

*Since the team already had plenty of blue and green, Acroyear’s third color was chosen for his primary look.  However, due to the limitations of printing in comics, pink would have been nearly impossible to render consistently, so he was shifted to a straight red.

#1336: Astonishing Wolverine

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ASTONISHING WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Little is known about the man known as Logan whose past remains shrouded in mystery. The feral warrior, code-named Wolverine, possesses genetically endowed animal-keen senses of smell, sight, and hearing, as well as a mutant healing factor that can mend almost any wound. His deadliest weapons are his razor-sharp claws and skeleton both made of unbreakable metal alloy called Adamantium. However, with these abilities comes a curse, a bezerker rage that he must forever struggle to control. Now Logan must contain the beast raging within while he battles to protect a world that fears and hates him.”

Though my opinion of it has waned in recent years, at the time of its release, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men was a serious breath of fresh air.  I was never much impressed by Morrison’s “let’s put everyone in black leather and completely disregard prior character interpretation” New X-Men run that immediately preceded it, so taking the X-Men a bit more back to basics was pretty cool.  I also really liked John Cassidy’s art for the series, as well as his returning of several of the cast to more classically inspired costumes.  While most of the team eventually made it into toy form, it took quite a while.  Unsurprisingly, the first team member to make it into plastic was Wolverine, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astonishing Wolverine was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, also known as the “Apocalypse Series.”  It was the fourth Wolverine in the line, and was at the time his current look. There were both masked and unmasked versions of this guy; the one I’m looking at today is the masked version, obviously.  This figure also served as the inspiration for the larger Marvel Legends Icons version of the character, although he was slightly tweaked to offer an alternate version of this costume.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall (it’s one of the first times they actually got his scale right) and he has 40 points of articulation.  In terms of sculpt, this figure was all-new, and he’s based on Cassidy’s work from the comics, albeit somewhat loosely, since Cassidy’s style doesn’t quite lend itself to super-articulated action figures.  The head’s definitely the best work; there’s a lot of smaller detail work that looks really nice, without being too over-done like a lot of Legends Wolverines.  The rest of the body was good for the time, but doesn’t as much hold up to scrutiny these days.  Once again, there’s a lot detail work that’s really nice on the stitching and the piping.  However, he’s really, really scrawny, which removes some of his intimidation factor.  It’s the worst in the legs, where the precedence clearly went to the joints, resulting in an almost skeletal set of limbs.  And of course, they split the belt in two for the waist articulation.  Why did they do that?  Beats me.  Seems it would have made a lot more sense to go either above or below.  Worst case scenario, you could do the joint where it is currently and have the belt be an add-on.  But splitting it right down the middle just seems lazy to me, like the base body was already sculpted and they added the details later without taking placement into account.  On the plus side of things, he’s probably got the best claws we got on a TB ML Wolverine; they’re well-shaped, unlikely to break off, and resistant to heavy warping.  In terms of paint work, the figure’s decent enough.  The base colors match up pretty well with what was being used on the comics, and most of the application is fairly clean.  The only part that’s a little odd is the arm hair, which really just looks like a bunch of brown tally marks that someone’s drawn on him.  Wolverine included no accessories of his own, but he did come packed with one of the legs of Apocalypse.  So, that’s cool, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was a Christmas present from my friend Charlie.  He and I shared a love of Marvel Legends, and in particular, we were both on the lookout for the perfect Wolverine.  So, when this series hit, he made sure that I got this guy, which was very nice of him (I repaid the favor a year later when I made sure he got a completed Mojo Build-A-Figure).  He’s definitely got some flaws, but I really do think he was Toy Biz’s best take on Wolverine, and the best Legends version  of the character until Hasbro’s recent Brown Costume figure.  It’s honestly a little surprising that TB never retooled him into a more conventional Wolverine.

#1332: Skin

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SKIN

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“Angela Espinosa’s body has six extra feet of skin – this is his mutant ‘gift’???. Even he doesn’t quite understand how it works and although he would never admit it, that scares him. He’s come to Xavier’s School form the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles to learn to control his skin, at least enough for him to appear as he did before his powers developed – normal.”

In the ‘90s, the X-Men were Marvel’s hottest property by far.  To cash-in on this success, they turned around and launched like a million spin-offs.  The more teen-oriented team of hip, fliggity-fly youngsters was Generation X, which was super, super ‘90s.  It had a pretty decent following back in the day, and since Toy Biz was giving a toyline to just about everything under the son, it also had one of those.  Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of the team’s central members, Skin!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Skin was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X line of figures.  He appears to be patterned after the character’s earlier appearances in the book, before he got all scruffy.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  For some reason, the Generation X figures were less articulated than most of Toy Biz’s Marvel output from the same time.  Perhaps it was to minimize potential risk on the financial side of things, should the line fail?  I don’t know.  Anyway, Skin was an all-new sculpt.  It seems to take the Kenner route, offering a more preposed figure with less movement.  It looks pretty solid; I like all the little minor details, like the folds in his skin.  In makes for quite a unique looking figure.  I also appreciate that his costume isn’t simply depicted as painted on, but actually has some dimension to it.  Now, if you want to get picky, the hands and feet shouldn’t be done the way they are here, since the skeletal structure is clearly elongated here, and his abilities only actually had to do with his skin.  That being said, most artists tended to ignore this rule, so the figure’s hardly inaccurate.  The paint work on the figure is okay, but there are a few issues.  The base work is overall okay, but the magenta on the arms and legs doesn’t quite match the torso.  It’s not as bad in person as it is in the photos, but it’s still noticeable.  The yellow paint is also a bit prone to chipping, which is a little annoying, but otherwise he’s pretty decent.  The figure has a “Growing Fingers” action feature on his left hand.  There’s a little latch on the forearm, and when you release it, the fingers shoot forward a half-inch or so.  It’s pretty much the same mechanic that was used on several of TB’s Wolverine figures, and it works pretty well, without disrupting the overall look of the figure too much.  Skin was packed with a back pack that can be clipped on his back.  It originally had a little headset attachment, but I’ve lost mine.  [EDIT 12/19/25 — But then I replaced it!]

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I missed out on most of the Generation X figures when they were new.  Around 2000 or so, I got some still-packaged mid-90s figures, and the whole first series of Gen X figures was pictured on the back, leading me to attempt to track down Skin and his team-mate Chamber.  It wasn’t easy (we had eBay, but the ‘90s action figures market wasn’t really there yet), but I eventually found both figures at a nearby comic book store for a pretty decent price.  Despite never being super huge into Generation X, I’ve always really liked this figure, and he holds up pretty well.

#1329: Iron Man

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

IRON MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“To the public, Tony Stark is a handsome, jet-setting industrialist and inventor. What they don’t know is that he leads a second life as Iron Man. The armored Avenger gets his fantastic powers from his suit of micro-mesh armor. It gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly via his jet boots, and a variety of built-in weapons, foremost among these being his devastating repulsor rays! Iron Man is dedicated to defeating those forces that would threaten the security of the nation and the entire world.”

Iron Man is easily one of Marvel’s best known characters these days, but that wasn’t always the case.  Aside from a brief cartoon runs in the ‘60s and ‘90s, he was largely out of the public eye until his 2008 film.  So, in 2002, when Toy Biz launched Marvel Legends as a follow-up to their successful Spider-Man: Classics line, and had Iron Man as one of the headliners of Series 1’s four figure assortment, it was a pretty big deal.  It’s hard to believe now, but when Marvel Legends debuted, the most demanded figure by far was the Iron Man.  Can you even imagine a time when the fanbase didn’t let out a collective groan at the inclusion of an Iron Man figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted in the intro, Iron Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line.  There were actually two Iron Men in the assortment; the regular release reviewed here, and the one-per-case horned-mask variant.  Even later, there was also a Walmart-exclusive release, which decked this guy out in his stealth colors.  This guy is based on Tony’s classic armor from the 60s and 70s, which at this point hadn’t been released in plastic form for almost two decades.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 38 points of articulation.  Some of the articulation (particularly the neck movement and the mid-torso joint) is a bit antiquated, but it’s mostly pretty workable.  Amusingly, some of the articulation the was more quickly deemed out of date within the line itself has actually become the more standard way of doing things, so in some ways he fits in better with the more recent Hasbro offerings than he does the later TB offerings.  Iron Man sported what was, at the time, an all-new sculpt, which would later be used for the Silver Centurion armor, as well as War Machine and Magneto.  The build is a little bulkier than the usual depictions of the classic Iron Man armor, but it actually makes sense, since it’s supposed to be wrapped around a normal-sized guy; it’d have to be a little heftier in real life.  The proportions are actually pretty solid for a figure of this era.  Compare this guy to his Series-mate Captain America, and you’ll note that he’s got a much more balanced anatomy.  He even avoids the dreaded duck feet!  The articulation is also pretty well worked-in for a Toy Biz offering; sure, there are still some spots where compromise has been made (the waist really sticks out), but it’s generally a good middle-ground.  In terms of detail work, this guy goes a bit more simplistic than later TB fare (another reason he fits in a bit better with the Hasbro stuff), but that’s definitely a plus.  All of the important details are there, they’re all very sharply defined.  The figure has a removable faceplate, which reveals Tony Stark beneath the mask.  I’ve always felt he bore a resemblance to Timothy Dalton, which is a neat little “what-if” casting idea.  The face has some of the best work on the whole figure, which shows real commitment on the sculptor’s part, since it’s largely going un-seen.  The faceplate is molded to fit into the contours of the face, and it actually stays in place really well.  In terms of paint, Iron Man’s handled really well. He’s got the base red and yellow, which are nice and vibrant, and then on top of that, there’s a hint of silver lightly applied to all the armored portions of the figure, which makes him look suitably metallic, while avoiding the issues of blending that plague the Iron Men that use gold in place of the yellow. Iron Man was packed with a display stand designed to look like a Stark Industries satellite and a reprint of Iron Man #149 (which contains “Doomquest,” one of my favorite Iron Man stories).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from my Nana.  Every year, she’d take me and my cousin to Toys R Us at the end of school and let us each pick out one or two things.   Of course, I went through the usual back and forth, having to reassure her that yes I really did want this Iron Man fellow instead of a handful of Attack of the Clones figures like my cousin was getting.  At the time, this guy was still pretty hard to get, so finding him so quickly was pretty sweet.  He was my very first Marvel Legend, and I gotta say, dragging him out for the purpose of this review has reminded me that he’s still very definitely one of my favorites.  As far as classic Iron Men go, this guy really hasn’t been topped.

#1326: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

MARVEL COMICS FAMOUS COVERS (TOY BIZ)

“Born with the mutant ability to fire powerful optic blast from his eyes, Cyclops is cursed to forever wear a protective Ruby quarts visor to control his uncanny ability. As one of the founding members of the X-Men, Scott Summers help build the team and eventually became a team leader.”

Oh hey, here’s something I haven’t covered before on the site: Famous Covers.  More than a decade before the whole Re-Mego craze started up, Toy Biz attempted their own continuation of Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line.  The figures were originally meant to be the same scale as Mego’s stuff, but for a number of reasons, they were ultimately scaled up a bit.  Nevertheless, it was certainly an interesting venture, and it gave us a pretty darn fun line of figures, albeit one that was completely independent.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of my favorites from the line, Cyclops!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops was released in the fifth series of the Marvel Comics Famous Covers line, which was titled “X-Men Classics.”  It was the first of the two purely X-Men-themed series for the line.  Scott is seen here in his Jim Lee attire (which was his current look at the time), which the box proclaims as specifically being based on his appearance on the cover of X-Men #1.  The figure stands about 8 3/4 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  Cyclops was built in the medium male body, a decision that I’ve pretty much always questioned.  I know Scott’s classically a little bigger than Spider-Man, but making him the same size as Thor and Captain America seems to be a bit much.  Scott got a brand-new head sculpt, which is nice enough.  For some reason, Toy Biz was really big on the screaming expressions for the Famous Covers figures.  Scott’s no exception, but at least it doesn’t look too out of place for him.  There’s some solid detail work on the hair and the visor, as well, so that’s a plus.  The head does seem a touch under-scaled for the body, which makes you wonder if he was originally supposed to be on the smaller body.  The costume is a mixed-media effort.  There’s the basic blue jumpsuit and the shorts, which are both tailored pieces.  They fit pretty well, and are surprisingly slim given the scale.  The harness and belt are one sculpted piece, and they fit well enough to the body (a little better than the recent Marvel Legend, truth be told) and replicate the pieces from the comics pretty well.  The gloves and boots are standard pieces for the line.  They’re made out of rubber, so they allow for a little bit of movement from the wrists and ankles, though not much.  They’re really bulky and goofy, and in the case of the gloves, wrong for the costume.  To me, it would have made more sense to just mold the base hands in yellow and do a cuff at the edge of the sleeve (which is a method they used several other times over the course of the line), but it’s not the worst thing ever, I guess.  Cyclops’s paint work is limited to his head and a few spots on the harness, but what’s there is really strong.  Definitely some of the best work Toy Biz did on their Marvel stuff.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I loved me some Famous Covers growing up.  The timing of this series was such that it made for a perfect Christmas present from my parents, so that’s how I got Cyclops.  I remember being really thrilled to get him (and the rest of the set), and he was one of my favorites for a good while.  The figure’s a bit goofy in retrospect, but I still really like him, and I have very fond memories of the line.

#1322: Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, & Hammer Drones

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

PEPPER POTTS, HAPPY HOGAN, & HAMMER DRONES

MARVEL MINIMATES

I haven’t reviewed Minimates in over a month.  That seems slightly odd.  To be fair, I haven’t actually picked up any new sets since the Doctor Strange assortment, so that probably contributed somewhat.  Since I’m leaning pretty heavily on the back catalog at the moment, it’s only fair that I look back at a small sampling of my rather large Minimate collection.  Today, I’ll be going way back to 2010’s Iron Man 2, with Pepper, Happy, and a pair of Hammer Drones!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Pepper, Happy, and the Hammer Drones were released in Series 35 of the main Marvel Minimates line, which tied-in with the previously mentioned Iron Man 2.  They were the two specialty exclusive sets; Pepper and Happy were each packed with a Hammer Drone, with Pepper being the more heavily packed and Happy as the one-per-case “chase” figure.

PEPPER POTTS

“Tasked with running all of Stark Industries as their new CEO, Pepper Potts must balance her personal friendship with Tony Stark against mounting evidence that the armor-clad hero may be unable to control his own demons.”

Definitely the heaviest-hitteriest-character featured here.  This was Pepper’s second time as a Minimate (her first ‘mate came from the first film).  The figure is a little under 2 1/2 inches tall and has the usual 14 points of articulation.  She’s built on the basic ‘mate body, with add-ons for her hair, skirt, and bracelets.  The skirt was a re-use from the Series 18 Gwen Stacy, and the rest of the add-ons were new to this figure.  I’m not sure exactly which part of the movie she’s from, but her general look is captured.  The end result is decent enough.  Not the most thrilling ‘mate of all time, but she gets the job done, I suppose.  As far as paint goes, she’s fairly bland again, but the colors seem appropriate to the movie, the application is pretty clean, and the Gwenyth Paltrow likeness is decent (certainly better then the first Pepper).  Since this series predates the standard inclusion of display stands, Pepper includes no accessories.  I suppose they could have given here, like, a phone or something, but it’s not a huge deal.

HAPPY HOGAN

“Not only Tony Stark’s bodyguard and chauffeur, Happy Hogan is also one of his closest advisors. As events unfold, however, Happy finds himself torn between his friendship with Tony and his feelings for another…”

Holy abandoned plot-lines Batman!  So, in the initial cut of Iron Man 2, Tony’s driver Harold “Happy” Hogan was supposed to at one point confess his romantic feelings towards Pepper, hinting at their pairing up in the comics.  It was ultimately cut for time, which is, honestly, for the best.  Happy got a greatly increased role in the second film (he doesn’t even get named in the first movie), and so he naturally got a Minimate.  This is, to date, the only action figure of Happy Hogan out there, which is pretty nifty.  Like Pepper, he’s built on the standard base body, plus he’s got add-ons for his hair and jacket.  The hair was new (and a decent enough match for Jon Favreau’s), and the jacket was re-used from Back to the Future’s George McFly.  The end result makes for a decent match-up to Happy’s on-sceen appearance.  The paint is pretty solid, but once again, not anything amazing.  He’s mostly molded in black, with some minor detailing for his shirt/tie, and his face.  The face doesn’t look a ton like Favreau to me, but he *does* look like Happy from the comics, so I don’t mind so much.  On his own, Happy’s another figure that’s not super thrilling.  Fortunately for him, he includes some pretty sweet extras.  He has a pair of boxing gloves (calling back to the boxing scene he has with Tony in the movie), as well as the Mark V in its un-deployed briefcase form, and a pair of handcuffs to hook the briefcase to his wrist.  You’ll need to do some very slight modding if you want one of the cuffs to actually go on the handle of the case, but that’s really the only issue.  Otherwise, it’s a really fun little set-up.

HAMMER DRONES

“Created using a fusion of technologies from Stark Industries, Hammer’s own company and Whiplash’s improvisations – the Hammer Drones are immensely powerful and potentially lethal in the wrong hands.”

That’s a great description…of the other Hammer Drones.  You know, the ones that were actually drones and that played a part in the film’s climax.  These guys?  Not those Hammer Drones.  No, these would be the prototype suits that Vanko scraps early into the film, that get no actual fight time, and aren’t even really drones.  I would guess these guys being in the main assortment instead of the ones that actually featured prominently is yet another example of plans changing in a movie after the reference materials have gone out to the licensees.  Worse things have happened.  At least it’s a decent design, right?  The figure uses the base ‘mate body as a starting point, but gets a non-standard head and thighs, as well as add-ons for the chest piece, gloves, belt, and boots.  The pieces actually make for a pretty cool little toy, though it’s rather far removed from the usual ‘mate aesthetic.  In terms of paint, it’s a lot of grey, but there’s nice work, especially on the little caution sections.  There’s a bit of slop and bleed over here, but nothing too terrible.  Like Pepper, the Hammer Drones include no accessories.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cosmic Comix got gipped on his Series 35 orders, which meant that I missed out on my usual way of getting the specialty exclusives.  I was able to get Pepper from Midtown Comics during a trip to New York that year, but they had already sold Happy by that point.  It took a year or so, but my parents eventually got me one as a Christmas present.  Pepper’s kind of bland and generic, and the Hammer Droids are ultimately rather inconsequential, but Happy is actually a pretty sweet figure!

#1318: Logan

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

LOGAN

X-MEN: THE MOVIE (TOY BIZ)

“Logan is a loner by nature and a hunter by trade.  Dressed in civilian gear of jeans, leather jacket, and flannel shirt, no one would ever know this ordinary looking man possesses the untamed savagery of a wild beast combined with the battle-skills of an international secret agent.  His power to heal virtually any wound in minutes combined with his superhumanly keen animal senses and razor sharp adamantium claws and skeleton make him the perfect fighting machine called Wolverine”

Who wrote this bio?  And did they have any idea who the character was going in?  Or what figure this bio would be going with?  I enjoy that the bio describes a completely different set of civilian clothes than this figure is actually wearing, but I think my favorite part may be “battle-skills of an international secret agent.”  That’s one specific descriptor, let me tell you.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Logan was released in Series 3* of Toy Biz’s X-Men: The Movie line, which tied in with (big surprise here) 2000’s X-Men film.  The figure stands a whopping 7 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The X-Men: The Movie figures were already pretty out of scale at the time of their release (being Toy Biz’s very first 6-inch figures), but Wolverine takes this to ridiculous levels, being about an inch out of scale with even the figures from his own line.  He’s larger than Sabertooth for pete’s sake!  Why is he so freaking huge?  Because of re-use, that’s why.  He’s built on the body of the Power Slam WCW Wrestlers Hak figure.  The WCW stuff was always much larger than the Marvel stuff Toy Biz did, and Hak was even pretty sizable for his own line.  I’m not entirely sure why Toy Biz opted to re-use this particular body.  I guess they felt they just had to have another Wolverine in there?  Completely divorced from the line that spawned him, I guess Logan’s sculpt isn’t terrible.  He got a new set of lower arms and feet, and what appears to be the Series 1 Wolverine head sculpt scaled up.  The pieces all mesh okay together.  The head definitely resembles Jackman as Wolverine, though it’s not quite as good as later figures would be.  The build seems rather on the bulky side for Wolverine as seen in the movies, and his proportions in some spots look like he’s trying to smuggle meat in his clothes or something. You’ll note that my figure is missing three of his claws; this isn’t by design, they just fell off, because this figure had some of the most easy to tear claws of any Wolverine figure.  In addition to the sculpted parts, Logan also has a cloth jacket.  It’s kind of thick and oddly shaped, and makes him look even puffier than he already was.  Paint on this guy was okay, but nothing tremendously exciting.  The colors are well chosen, and the jeans in particular have some nice accent work.  This Logan is from post movie release, so he’s after Toy Biz started adding the goofy painted on sideburns to all the movie Wolverines in an effort to make them more accurate.  It looks really goofy.  Super goofy.  Crazy goofy.  The figure was packed with a small dog tag that isn’t even remotely close to proper scale.  He’s also got the “action feature” which I think is supposed to swing his arms back and forth when the torso is turned, but it never looks like anything more than panicked flailing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Series 3 X-Men: The Movie figures were rather hard to come by at first, even Logan.  He was one of the last ones I got, courtesy of my parents, who bought him for me while they were on a weekend trip to the beach.  I know I really wanted one at the time, but boy is this figure odd in retrospect.  Not only does he feel rather redundant (he was the fourth civilian version of the character in the line), but he’s also just laden with strange design choices.

*Though this series was dubbed “Series 3” by Toy Biz, it was effectively Series 2 of the line, as the first 2 series were released simultaneously in order to have all of the main characters on shelves for the film’s release.

The Blaster In Question #0008: Star-Lord Quad Blaster

Posted by Tim Marron in Nerf Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

STAR-LORD QUAD BLASTER

MARVEL

It is a well known fact that the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are awesome.  No one disputes this, it’s just true.  As with just about every Marvel movie to come out in the last decade (yeah, Iron Man was in 2008, I had to look it up) there’s been a decent amount of merchandise out there.  Regulars to the site will likely have seen at least one of Ethan’s numerous GotG figure reviews, but what if you’re one of those people who would rather be Star-Lord rather than just have him on your shelf?  Thats where we get the subject of today’s review.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

The Star-Lord Quad Blaster was released in 2014 as a Marvel tie-in product to coincide with the release of the first GotG movie.  Interestingly, there is no Nerf branding anywhere on the blaster, but just a quick mention on the box.  Aside from using a “smart air-restrictor” setup found in a plethora of other Nerf blasters, the Quad Blaster is completely original.  The blaster is operated by priming one or both of the slides on the rear and pulling the trigger.  Unlike the Roughcut and other similar blasters, the Quad Blaster does not have a staggered trigger, if both barrels are primed, both will fire simultaneously.  In addition, the smaller secondary trigger just below the firing trigger releases the latches holding the spring-loaded front ends, causing them to snap back, revealing two extra barrels.  In all honesty, this feature was 85% of the reason I got this blaster.  It’s just a ton of fun fiddling with even if you’re not actively firing the blaster, and if you flick your wrist just right, you can reset the barrel covers without touching them.  Opening the front covers is required to fire the second barrels on the top and bottom.  The blaster is very sleek and definitely has an appropriate sci-fi feel to it, almost like one of the plasma weapons from Halo.  The grip could maybe stand to be a little bigger as I could see someone with larger hands feeling cramped while holding it, but it’s forgivable when you remember the target audience.  The main body of the blaster feels on par with other Nerf blasters in terms of structural integrity, but it is worth noting that the plastic for the priming slides feels a little thin, and the front covers are a smoother, slightly more rubbery plastic than the rest of the blaster.  The priming stroke on the Quad Blaster is very short and not terribly heavy, as such, the performance is limited.  It’s still fine for running around the house, blasting your friends, but even on longer indoor distances, the darts tend to drop off a little sooner than I might like and the impacts can feel kinda flaccid.  Again, I can understand this decision given this is meant for children, and Nerf has to keep it’s own core products competitive, but it’s still a bit of a bummer.  The Star-Lord Quad Blaster comes with 4 Elite darts but with black bodies instead of the traditional blue.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find all 4 of mine but I got 2 and some regular Elites for comparison.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s become sort of a recurring event in my life where every time Chris Pratt is in a movie or tv show (Gotg, Jurassic World, Parks and Rec) people tell me that his character reminds them of myself.  Normally I wouldn’t really take this to heart, but when my own mom is one of the most vocal people on this opinion, I figured I would just roll with it.  I mean, it’s no surprise that I would buy a Nerf blaster, but being attributed with Star-Lord (WHO?!) just moved it up my priority list.

#1313: Northstar & Aurora

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

NORTHSTAR & AURORA

ALPHA FLIGHT (TOY BIZ)

“Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie Beaubier were not your average set of twins. During their adolescence, they each separately found that they possessed the mutant abilities to fly and travel at superhuman speeds.  They have since discovered that whenever they join hands, they produce a radiant strobe effect, often blinding their adversaries into submission!  Putting their respective lives as a professional skier and history teacher behind, “Northstar” and “Aurora” joined Alpha Flight, Canada’s very own super heroes.”

The United States doesn’t hold a total monopoly on North American super hero teams.  Case in point, today’s pair of figures comes from Canada’s premiere super-team, Alpha Flight, who are sort of a cross between the Avengers and the X-Men, but, you know, in Canada.  They’ve never really taken off as a smash success or anything, but the team has something of a cult following.  This was enough to get them a short series of figures during Toy Biz’s long-running 5-inch line.  The whole series was made up of two-packs, and today’s figures are the ones that make the most sense paired up.  Yes, it’s siblings Northstar and Aurora!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were one of the three two-packs released in the first (and only) series of Alpha Flight, released by Toy Biz in 1998. 

NORTHSTAR

Northstar’s probably one of the best known members of Alpha Flight, thanks largely to his affiliation with the X-Men, and thanks also to being one of Marvel’s most prominent gay characters.  He’s had a number of different looks over the years, but he’s seen here in his original costume, which I find to be his best.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and has 10 points of articulation.  The movement on this guy is really odd; he lacks the elbow and knee joints that were fairly standard on 5-inch Marvel figures, but gains extra shoulder and ankle movement, as well as a cut joint on one wrist.  Why just one wrist?  I have no idea.  It’s always bugged me.  The sculpt for Northstar was all-new to him.  It’s okay, but not really one of Toy Biz’s stronger sculpts from this era.  His proportions are kind of odd, and he’s got this strange sort of weird twist to his pose, like he’s trying to pop his back or something.  I mean, there are some interesting elements to the sculpt, and it’s far from bad, but it’s just sort of meh.  The paintwork on Northstar is passable; pretty straightforward color work for the most part.  There’s some slight accenting work on the white sections, which actually looks pretty decent.  As you can see, some of the paint hasn’t held up the best over time, but that’s not really on them.  There’s a bit of slop around the edges, but nothing super awful.

AURORA

Though she’s a little lesser known than her brother, Aurora is still pretty well known, even if it’s largely in connection to her brother.  She’s had less costumes than Northstar, but they’ve wisely gone with the one that matches her brother’s design, and once again I think it’s her best look, so I’m happy it showed up here.  The figure’s about the same height as Northstar and has the same basic articulation, although she has those freaking v-hips that plagued my collecting habits in the ‘90s.  The articulation’s still rather weird, but at least it’s consistent with Northstar.  The wrist articulation is on the other side this time, allowing for them to touch hands.  In general, I find Aurora’s sculpt to be of a higher quality than her brother’s.  The proportions are still kind of off, but less so, and the pre-posing is downplayed.  The head is definitely my favorite part, and it sports a ton of really awesome detail work, especially on the hair.  Her paintwork is fairly similar to Northstar’s, but once again, it’s a slight step up.  Things are a bit cleaner, and the accenting on the white parts are a little more noticeable, which I thing looks a bit better.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked this set up new, I’m fairly certain from a Target.  I didn’t actually know the characters at the time, and mostly wanted them because they sort of resembled the Wonder Twins.  My dad, who bought them for me, also got me the first Essential collection of X-Men around the same time, and had me read Alpha Flight’s first appearance, which was contained there-in, so I knew who they were.  I remember getting them pretty fondly.  They aren’t Toy Biz’s best or anything, but they were probably the best from this particular series of figures, and I’m still pretty happy with them.

Side bar:  I reviewed these figures while at my friend Scott Farquar’s house.  He also owns this set of figures, which were actually given to him by me, almost 20 years ago.  He wanted me to mention that here.  He’s sort of goofy like that.