Tag Archives: Marvel

#1221: Goliath

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

GOLIATH

MARVEL UNIVERSE: GIGANTIC BATTLES (HASBRO)

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Black Panther is the Marvel Universe’s first prominent African character and not long after his introduction in 1966, they introduced their first noteworthy African-American character into their super hero world in the form of Hank Pym’s lab assistant, Bill Foster.  Bill was a big deal at the time, being totally competent in his job, and being the best expert in Pym Particles outside of Pym himself, all while avoiding many of the negative stereotypes that struck most black characters at the time.  In the ‘70s, he was promoted to a super hero in his own right, taking on the role of Black Goliath.  He then eventually took on Hank’s old Giant-Man name for a time, before retiring for a bit due to health issues.  In the early ‘00s, he was brought back, dropping the “Black” from his name and simply going by “Goliath.”  Then he got dragged into the stupidity of Civil War and ended up dead.  Thanks, Millar.  Well, at the very least he got an action figure out of all of it.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

billfoster2Goliath was released in the second series of Hasbro’s Marvel Universe: Gigantic Battles line, a sub-line of their main Marvel Universe line.  He was originally packed with Ragnarok, the evil clone version of Thor from Civil War, as well as Civil War #4, the issue where Bill died.  Those two parts of the set were a little morbid for me, so I got rid of them.  Just the Bill figure for me!  The figure stands about 12 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Bill is wearing the costume he was sporting during Civil War (though it was introduced just prior to that, I believe during Dan Slott and Andrea Di Vito’s The Thing mini-series).  It was a short-lived look, but also one of Bill’s best designs, lacking a lot of the dated design elements his other designs possessed. Structurally, the figure’s mostly a re-use of the Marvel Icons Cyclops figure, the same body used for the previously reviewed SDCC-exclusive Giant-Man, as well as the Gigantic Battles version of Hank Pym Goliath.  As I noted in the Giant-Man review, it’s a body that’s started looking quite dated in recent years.  It’s really gangly, and the articulation isn’t particularly well worked-in.  The gangly-ness of the body is particularly notable with Bill, who was classically depicted as having a fair bit of mass in his giant form.  That being said, one of my major issues with its use on Giant-Man was how the sculpted costume details didn’t line-up with his design.  That’s not an issue for Bill, which results in him looking a whole lot less strange when compared to Hank.  Bill had a new head sculpt, which remains one of Hasbro’s greatest head sculpts to date.  The level of detail on this sculpt is really incredible, to the point that it almost kinda looks out of place on this particular body.  He’s also got an add-on belt piece, which covers up the sculpted x-belt-buckle.  Due to its design and size, it covers the original belt much better than the piece on the Giant-Man figure.  In terms of paint, Bill’s fairly decent.  The base colors match up pretty well with the comics, and there’s some nice airbrushing present on several parts of the costume.  Since the arms they used have sculpted seams and folds, they couldn’t do the proper bare arms, so instead they’re black like the pants and boots.  It sort of looks off, but I guess it works alright.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bill is actually one of my favorite comics characters.  It all goes back to his appearance in the tie-in comics for Avengers: United They Stand, which is one of my personal favorite runs of Avengers comics.  I liked him there, which led to me tracking down some of his other appearances (with the Champions, another favorite team of mine, as well as in his short-lived solo series).  He’s just one of those cool background characters that I really enjoy, and I was beyond pissed when he was killed in Civil War.  I was super thrilled when Hasbro announced him as part of this line, and waited patiently for the two years it took for him to make it to retail.  Goliath isn’t one of Hasbro’s best, especially in light of the leaps and bounds they’ve made with Legends, but he was actually one of the best entries in the MU line at the time, and he’s the only Bill Foster action figure out there.

#1215: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Didn’t I just review a Toy Biz Marvel Legends figure?  Man, usually I’m better about spacing this sorts of things out.  Ah well.  Well, the last review looked at a figure from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run; today’s review jumps back a bit, looking at the line’s second year.  So, without further ado, here’s Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

surferml2Silver Surfer was released in Series 5 of Marvel Legends, which hit stores starting in November of 2003.  Series 5 is easily one of my favorite series from TB’s run with the line, and in a lot of ways showcased the line’s true potential.  It was also the last series where just about every figure was easily obtained, and thus the last series I have un-compromised memories about.  Anyway, this figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation.  Surfer exhibits one of the earliest attempts at using a buck system for Legends.  He was built on the body initially designed for the second Spider-Man Classics Daredevil figure.  I always thought the body was too beefy for DD, but it’s not a bad choice for the Surfer.  It’s a sculpt that, like so many of the TB Legends, hasn’t aged super well.  The shoulders are a bit large, and the legs are somewhat gangly, but the general appearance isn’t awful.  My figure suffers from a minor assembly error: his left forearm is actually a right forearm, just flipped around, meaning the musculature doesn’t quite line up the right way.  Nothing major, but a slight annoyance.  The head sculpt on Surfer is fairly decent.  It’s stylistically consistent with the body, and presents a pretty reasonable version of the Surfer’s noggin.  It’s a little more alien than he tends to be depicted, and certainly on the cartoony side, but a fun sculpt nonetheless.  The Surfer exhibits some of the finer paintwork from TB’s Legends.  It may not seem like much at first glance, but there’s a really nice quality to the silver paint chosen; it’s much more vibrant and lively than the silvers you tend to see on production pieces.  There’s also the slightest hint of blue, airbrushed over the figure, which really helps connect him with the comics version of the Surfer, who was often highlighted with blue.  Over the years, various Silver Surfer figures have handled his titular surfboard all sorts of different ways.  This is probably one of the more interesting ones.  There’s a magnet in each foot, and the core section of the board is metal.  In theory, this allows you to affix him to the board while also leaving it without any visible footpegs when he’s not standing on it.  Of course, since molding the whole board in metal would be cost prohibitive, they had to sort of split the difference, and give the board a plastic frame, which doesn’t quite mesh with the metal section, and sort of messes up the whole seamlessness of the board.  Still, fun gimmick, though.  There was also an included chunk of space rock with an articulated arm attached, allowing for the board to be posed as if it were flying.  Perhaps the oddest accessory included with Surfer (and maybe even one of the oddest accessories of all time) is the Howard the Duck figure.  As far as I know, Howard and the Surfer have never met, so why they chose to pair these two up is anyone’s guess.  Nevertheless, it’s a proper action figure of its own, with four whole points of articulation, and an incredibly well-detailed sculpt that looks like it jumped straight out of a classic ‘70s Howard comic appearance. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s Disney’s fault.  No, not because they own Marvel.  They didn’t yet when this figure was released.  Anyway, I got this figure while visiting Disney World back in 2003.  Series 5 had just started hitting stores, and my family went to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few things.  My dad and I walked back to the toy aisle (as we do), and they had a Nick Fury and two Silver Surfers.  I wanted one of the Surfers, but my dad convinced me to wait.  Later that week, we needed to stop by again for batteries I think.  My dad went in on his own, and when he got back to the car, he was carrying this guy.  Turns out, he walked back to the toy aisle to check if they still had these, and when he got there they were all gone.  When he turned to walk back to the registers, he happened to look down and spotted this one lone Silver Surfer on the ground.  This figure’s not perfect, but he’s one of the better Surfer figures out there, even 13 years after his release.

#1213: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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I’ve been a Falcon fan for quite some time, and while that’s really easy nowadays when you can walk into just about any store and have your pick of *multiple* Sam Wilson figures, that was hardly the case a decade ago.  That being said, even as a minor character, Sam’s actually been pretty lucky when it comes to action figures, finding his way into the relatively compressed line-ups of Mego’s World’s Greatest Superheroes and Mattel’s Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, as well as getting five different figures during Toy Biz’s tenure with the Marvel license.  Today, I’ll be looking at Toy Biz’s last stab at the character, courtesy of Marvel Legends!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

falconml2Falcon was released in Series 14 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, which was their penultimate series for the line.  There were two versions of Falcon available: classic and modern.  The one seen here is the more common classic version, based on Falcon’s second costume.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  Falcon was built on the body from the first ML Iron Fist, which is an interesting choice to say the least.  While the Iron Fist body looked great in the prototype stage, it suffered from some real issues on the final figure, and a lot of that was passed on to Falcon.  The biggest issue is the shoulders, which jut way too far out.  Also, the under the shoulder joint fails to go all the way into the torso, leaving his arms forever slightly out to the side.  He looks like his arms are connected to his torso by a weird tube thing.  In addition to the arms, the exposed portion of the torso looks more like a grill rack than an actual person’s pecs, which makes Falcon look rather frightening.  Beyond that?  I guess the rest of the sculpt is decent enough.  The body was a lot less gangly than a lot of the TB Legends so that’s good, and the legs are actually not badly done (well, apart from those crazy nonexistent muscles).  In addition to the Iron Fist pieces, Falcon got a new head, forearms, hands, and feet, as well as slightly tweaked upper arms and shins.  The head’s always been one of my favorites from this era of Legends; it just really seems to capture the character well, and just has a nice heroic quality about it in general.  The hands are probably some of the most convincing hands TB ever put on one of their Legends, but also serve to showcase just how stupid the finger articulation was most of the time; what good does that joint do the figure?  The forearms and biceps have the wings attached.  The segmentation of the design allows for much more natural posing than was exhibited in the MU Falcon, and the wings are quite nicely detailed, with each feather being carefully defined and textured.  In terms of paint, Falcon is about what you’d expect from a TB-era Legends figure; lots of washes and airbrushing that vernally looked much better on the prototype than on the mass produced figure.  For some reason, all of the joint pins have been done in bright red plastic.  In the case of the elbows and gloves, this means there’s paint somewhat sloppily thrown over them to cover this up, but for the discs in the shoulders and the neck, this means a bright red stripe running across his skin.  Also, this figure seems to be exhibiting an issue similar to the Young Avengers Patriot figure where the pieces molded in white are slowly soaking up the color from the much darker joint pins, which is a slightly disturbing thing to see.  Both versions of Falcon were also plagued by a mix-up in the assemble process, causing the paint on the pelvises to actually correspond with the other version of the figure.  Amusingly, a similar issue showed up on the prototypes, only it was the forearms/hands that were mixed up that time.  Falcon included his trusty bird sidekick Redwing, who can be plugged into Sam’s back, as well as the lower torso of Series 14’s BaF Mojo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Series 14 is one of the few series of Legends where I wanted every figure in the line-up, and Falcon here was no exception.  While I actually got most of this particular series for Christmas the year they were released, I didn’t get Falcon as a gift.  I ended up getting him from Cosmic Comix, who were getting a pretty steady stream of Legends at that point.  The figure hasn’t aged very well at all, but I was very happy with him back in the day.  I’d love to see Hasbro redo this guy at some point.

#1208: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

MARVEL SELECT

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Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve reviewed a Marvel Select figure. <Looks back at reviews>  Holy crap, it’s been 506 reviews since I last looked at a Marvel Select figure.  That’s quite a while.  Well, why not pull something out of the archives, then?  Today, I’ll be jumping over into the world of Marvel’s merry mutants, the X-Men, and looking at one of my personal favorite members of the team, Piotr Rasputin, aka Colossus.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

colossusmswilsonColossus is the 75th figure in Diamond Select Toys’ Marvel Select line, released in 2012.  He’s one of only two figures to hit that year, largely due to the focus on a certain team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who happened to have a movie released that year.  He continued the trend of X-Men based upon the early ‘80s line-up of the team (the other X-Man from 2012, Storm, also followed this trend).  The figure stands almost 9 inches tall (he’s a big guy) and he has 30 points of articulation.  He’s one of the earlier instances of near-Marvel-Legends levels of articulation for a Select figure, and it’s genuinely impressive just how much movement they were able to get into this guy, given his mass.  Colossus sported an all-new sculpt.  It doesn’t appear to be based on any particular artist’s rendition of Piotr, but it does lean a little more modern in terms of design sensibilities than a lot of Colossus figures do.  This is most notable in the face, which lacks the usual rounded features in favor of something more sharp and angular.  While I can’t say it’s my go-to Colossus look, it’s certainly not a bad looking rendition of the character.  The body continues some of the stylization present in the face; earlier renditions of Colossus tended to be more consistent in build, but this guy’s definitely favoring his upper body.  He’s almost sporting Bruce Timm anatomy (though he’s definitely not Bruce Timm styled).  There’s one oddity about the body sculpt, specifically the upper body: the upper portion of his tunic is separate from his actual torso.  While it’s not out of the ordinary for such an element to be a separate piece, the fact that it’s not actual fixed in place in any way is slightly odd.  There’s a fully sculpted torso under there, which leads me to wonder if there was a scrapped variant of this figure sporting his outback costume.  Regardless, you’ll only really notice the separate tunic piece when picking the figure up, and it stays in place well enough.  It also adds an extra dimension to the figure, which is always cool.  In terms of paint, Colossus is very nicely rendered.  The colors are all nice and very vibrant, and everything is very cleanly applied.  There’s a nice subtle accenting to the yellow portion of the tunic, which keeps it from being too plans.  I also quite like the metallic work, especially on the arm bracers.  A lot of the X-Men Select figures included a section of the Danger Room as a display base, and Colossus was no exception.  Well, generally speaking.  He comes with a spike wall, clearly meant to be from the Danger Room, but it’s not exactly a stand, since it doesn’t really support him.  Still, it’s a cool piece, and a nice addition to the armory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Colossus was my second Marvel Select figure, picked up during Cosmic Comix’s Biggest Sale of the Year in 2012.  I had initially been planning to pick up Ultron during that year’s sale, but I got a subscriber coupon a week prior and got him then.  I still wanted to take advantage of the sale, and I’ve always liked Colossus, so this guy was my next choice.  The old Marvel Legends figure has always been one of my favorites, so this guy had quite a bit to live up to, and I think he did just that.  He’s really just a very fun figure.

#1200: Thor

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

THOR

THE AVENGERS (HOT TOYS)

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Well, it looks like I made it another hundred reviews.  That’s cool, I guess.  Admittedly, we’re getting to the point where 100 reviews doesn’t feel like that big a deal anymore.  I mean, I’ve done it 12 times, so, maybe I should up the interval again.  I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s an ’00 review, which means it’s time for another high-end figure review.  Once again, it’s a figure from our friends over at Hot Toys.  More than a few of my Hot Toys figures hail from the MCU, and today’s entry is no exception.  Yes, it’s the God of Thunder himself, Thor Odinson!  Is the last name too much?  It sounds goofy, doesn’t it.  But, well, that’s his name.  So there it is.  Onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

thorht2Thor is figure 175 in Hot Toys’ Movie Masterpiece Series, which puts him smack dab between the Avengers versions of Captain America and Loki, which is sensible.  Like those two, he’s based on his appearance in The Avengers, specifically his fully armored up look from the film’s climactic battle.  He hit in early 2013, which was actually pretty good turnaround for a HT figure of the time, arriving less than a year after the movie he was based on.  The figure stands about 12 1/2 inches tall and has “over 30 points of articulation” going by the blurb on the Sideshow website. 

First off, let’s have a look at Thor’s noggin.  When this figure was first shown, there was quite a bit of contention over the likeness on the head, due to the prototype shots looking less than stellar (he looked more like Leonardo DiCaprio than Chris Hemsworth, and those two don’t particularly look similar).  The final product showcased a marked improvement.  The final sculpt isn’t a spot-on Hemsworth likeness, but it’s very, very good.  A lot of it depends on the thorht3angle; when viewed from the right, as seen in the close-up shot, it’s clearly Hemsworth, but flip over to the other side and the likeness gets off pretty quickly.  You can always tell who he’s supposed to be, but it’s not always very convincing.  Likeness aside, the actual detail work is solid regardless; his face has tons of subtle little wrinkles and such, which really make him look like a real person, and the detailing on the stubble of his beard is surprisingly well-rendered.  Thor has long hair, and no matter how you handle that, there are always some compromises.  HT opted to go sculpted for this figure, which I think was the right call.  The hair is decent enough, but there are definitely some section s that are more convincingly hair than others.  Also, there’s a seam running near the front of his head, which is more present than I’d like.  As far as paint for the head, it’s the usual HT standard of insanely lifelike.  Really, it’s quite impressive how well down they have this.  The eyes in particular are what really sells it for me; there’s just so much life behind them.

Thor’s costume more of a mixed media effort than usual for HT.  The vest, pants, cape, and the red sections of the wrist bands are all cloth pieces, and are mostly tailored pretty well to the body.  The pants look a little odd in certain poses, almost looking backwards at times, but they’re not bad.  I like the brightness of the cape, and it’s a good, sturdy material, which is always a plus.  The rest of Thor’s costume pieces (the outer vest, sleeves, wrist guards, and boots) are constructed from various sculpted elements.  By and large, they do a good job capturing the movie’s designs.  The sleeves are a rubber cover for the arms, and do most of the work to give the arms actual shape.  They look good, but end up being very limiting when it comes to posing the arms; the elbows barely have even 45 degrees of movement, and even then, they have a tendency to slowly return to a straighter pose, due to the heaviness and thickness of the material.  Later Thor figures tackled the sleeves/arms by just putting a joint on the outside, but they were still figuring everything out for this guy.  The boots are each two pieces: a foot and a slip-over piece that covers the shin.  This is nice from a movement perspective, but ends up looking a little goofy in practice.

Thor isn’t super heavy on the accessories, but he does have a few fun pieces.  He comes with:

  • 9 hands
  • Mjolnir
  • The Tesseract in its fun little carrying case from the end of the movie
  • Display stand

thorinventoryThe hands come in relaxed (L and R), fists (L and R), tight grip (L and R), loose grip (L), and wide gesture (L and R).  They’re all very nicely sculpted, and look like real hands.  They’re a bit difficult to swap out, but do ad some nice expressiveness to the figure.

Mjolnir is definitely the main highlight here.  It’s made from metal, which gives it some really nice heft, and there’s even a little leather strap at the bottom, just like in the movie.

The Tesseract is definitely the most unique of the pieces. It’s sort of fun, and allows Thor to be posed with the Loki figure, like at the end of the movie.  It also continued the trend of giving us all possible variations of the Tesseract, after the normal one from Red Skull and the one in the metal case from Nick Fury.

Last up is the stand, which is the same basic stand we’ve seen tons of times before.  There’s a logo for Avengers and Thor’s name is on the front.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I pretty much have Thor because I was getting the rest of the Avengers line-up from the first movie, but what’s kind of amusing about him is that he was really the lynchpin of me getting the whole set.  Initially, I had just planned to get Black Widow and Hawkeye to put with my Mech Test Tony Stark and First Avenger Captain America.  Then I realized I would have most of the team, so I went ahead and pre-ordered Thor, which eventually led to me picking up both the Mark VII and Hulk, and realizing I might as well get Cap as well.  So really, it’s Thor’s fault.  Silly Thor.

#1198: Mark V Iron Man & War Machine

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

MARK V IRON MAN & WAR MACHINE

MARVEL MINIMATES

mkvwm1

Ah, Iron Man 2, the one entry in the MCU we all sort of pretend didn’t happen.  The first chink in the armor, if you will.  Admittedly, it’s not a bad movie, just an okay one, hurt by being the sequel to one of the biggest surprise hits of 2008.  Some of the ideas presented there really weren’t bad, and if nothing else, the toys from the movie were cool.  Two of my favorite parts of the movie (and thus some of my favorite entries from the toy lines) were the suitcase armor and Rhodey taking up the War Machine mantle.  The Mark V and War Machine just so happened to be packed together for their Minimates.  How convenient!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The Mark V and War Machine were part of the Iron Man 2-tie-in assortment of Marvel Minimates.  They were one of the pair of two-packs shared between the TRU-exclusive assortment and specialty Series 35 (the other being Mark IV and Whiplash).

MARK V IRON MAN

mkvwm2Though somewhat short-lived, the Mark V suitcase armor was one of the real highlights of IM2, being a fun concept, a fun design, and getting easily the coolest fight scene in the movie.  The figure is about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The Mark V has add-ons for his helmet, shoulderpads, gloves, boots, and belt.  The helmet is the same piece used for Marks IV, VI, and VII, but aside from that these pieces were new to this guy.  They match up well enough with his on-screen design, and he doesn’t suffer from being overly bulked up like a lot of the Iron Man armors from this time period.  In addition to the add-on pieces, the IM2 ‘mates also ramped up the use of specialized pieces, especially for arms and legs.  The Mark V gets new upper arms and legs, which, like the add-on pieces follow the movie design quite well, and also help to prevent him for getting too big.  The paint on this guy is particularly nice, with the metallic red in particular really standing out as really sleek and polished.  Under his helmet, there’s a nice, angry/determined Tony Stark, who even shows some damage from his battle with Whiplash, making him a nice departure from the slew of other Tonys with the same basic face.  The Mark V was packed with an extra hairpiece (a recolored version of Kyle Reese’s), as well as a pair of flesh-toned hands.

WAR MACHINE

mkvwm4From the moment Rhodey quipped “Next time, baby” to the Mark II in Iron Man, I was anxiously awaiting War Machine’s introduction in the sequel.  Of course, we lost the first Rhodey in the mean time, so there was no “Next time” for that particular iteration of the character.  That being said, I think Cheadle ultimately brought more to the role, and was especially good for the transition of Rhodey to true super hero.  This was Cheadle’s first of several ‘mates.  This one’s particularly heavy on the extra sculpted pieces, with add-ons for the helmet, chest piece, and gloves/forearm guns, as well as unique legs and upper arms.  Pretty much the whole basic ‘mate body is covered when this guy’s armored up.  The parts are generally pretty well sculpted, but I do feel this guy suffers a bit from that overly bulked up look that I mentioned the Mark V avoided.  It’s not awful, nor is it super out of character for War Machine, but he still looks a little on the pudgy side from some angles.  Rhodey’s paint work is decent enough, if not as exciting or polished as the Mark V.  Under the armor, there’s some nice extra torso detailing, as well as a fully detailed Rodey head.  In lieu of the hair piece from the first movie’s Rhodey, this guy’s hair is painted on, which I think more accurately portrays the close-cropped look from the film.  As far as the likeness, I can’t say I see all that much of Cheadle in the face on this one, but it’s still a pretty nice head.  Rhodey included a large gattling gun and missile launcher to plug into his torso piece, as well as a separate helmet with the faceplate flipped up, and a pair of flesh-toned hands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This was around the time I was faithfully buying my Minimates from Cosmic Comix, but for whatever reason, his shipment of these guys never materialized.  I was hardly going to miss out on this pair, so I ended up grabbing them from TRU along with the two TRU-exclusive sets.  I find that a lot of these ‘mates haven’t aged the best, but these two still hold up pretty well, and I’m happy to still have them!

#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!

cannonballdomino4

#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.

#1190: Daredevil & Punisher

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

DAREDEVIL & PUNISHER

MARVEL MINIMATES

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Today marks the penultimate post-Christmas review for 2016.  This review is more or less a continuation of yesterday’s.  I’ll be looking at the remaining Marvel Minimates based on Netflix’s Daredevil series.  Yesterday’s set was heavy on the civilian looks, but this set turns things around, giving us Daredevil’s official, more superhero-y costume, as well as his fellow Hell’s Kitchen vigilante, Frank Castle, aka the Punisher!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

DD and Punisher were released as an exclusive two-pack at SDCC 2016.  They served as a way of hyping up the rest of the Netflix-based sets, as well as tying into the recently released second season of Daredevil.  The set was supposed to get a wider release following the, but some issues with misplaced product in one of Diamond’s warehouses meant that a good chunk of the sets didn’t arrive until almost the end of 2016.

DAREDEVIL

ddpunisher2After spending 13 episodes in Season 1 sporting the all-black number seen yesterday, the final battle of the season finally gave DD his more familiar red getup.  This figure isn’t *quite* that version, but is instead based on his look from the back 3/4 of Season 2, after a stray bullet from the Punisher cracks his original helmet and he has to get a replacement.  The differences are negligible, really, but it’s still important to note.  The figure uses the standard ‘mate body, and as such stands about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  He’s got add-ons for his mask and thigh holster.  The holster is the same piece seen on yesterday’s Season 1 DD (though flipped to the other leg, as it was in the show), but the mask is all-new to this particular figure.  It’s a decent enough translation of his second mask, though the forehead section seems a little too tall.  It’s a minor enough issue not to really bug me.  His paintwork is far more complex than any of yesterday’s ‘mates, and does a pretty solid job of capturing the suit seen in the show.  The colors are a good match, and all of the line work is nice and sharp.  Under the mask, there’s another Matt Murdock face, this time a bit more intense than either of the two in yesterday’s set.  It’s perfectly fine (the stubble in particular is very impressive), but something about this particular expression messes with the likeness a bit; I’m not seeing much of Charlie Cox in there.  DD is packed with his billy club (the same pieces as the eskrima sticks, but in red this time), an extra hairpiece for an unmasked look, and a clear display stand.

PUNISHER

ddpunisher3Frank Castle serves as the antagonist for the first several episodes of Daredevil’s second season, before becoming something of a dueling protagonist as the season progresses.  Season 2 was admittedly a slight step down from the show’s first season, but Jon Bernthal’s turn as the Punisher was easily the high point of the season, and this is coming from a guy who’s never really liked the Punisher.  His presence as the second half of this pack is far from surprising.  Frank spends most of the season in rather normal clothes, but does finally dawn a pretty straight forward Punisher costume during the second season finale.  It’s only on-screen for a few minutes, but it’s a pretty distinctive look.  Punisher uses add-ons for his hair and  coat.  The hair is a new piece, specifically designed to replicate his close-cropped style.  It does alright in that respect, though I feel like something more along the lines of the Red Hulk hairpiece might have done the job a bit better.  The coat is the long coat piece first introduced way back in 2007 on the very first Doc Brown, and it’s a nice, basic piece, which does its job pretty well.  Punisher’s paintwork is more on par with the Season 1 set than DD, being mostly a lot of black.  That being said, there’s a lot of really great detail work on the front of the torso and the belt.  He also has a pretty good likeness of Jon Bernthal, and the detailing on his hair even continues under the hair piece, allowing for him to be displayed with his closer cropped ‘do from earlier in the season (even if he’s not wearing the right jacket and shirt).  In terms of accessories, Frank is packed with a spare set of arms with rolled up sleeves, a machine gun, two handguns, and a clear display stand.  I wouldn’t have minded getting the larger rifle he uses during the final battle with the hand, or even the mini gun he was seen carrying at the very end of the finale, but I guess this assortment works alright too.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since I didn’t attend SDCC, I couldn’t pick up this set in person.  I also missed out on the initial supplies that hit online, so I ended up having to play the waiting game.  Ultimately, they were a Christmas present from my parents (who have been supplying me with pretty much all of my Minimates as of late).  This is a great counterpart to yesterday’s set, and gives me another two of my favorite characters from one of my favorite shows!

#1189: Daredevil Season 1

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

MATT MURDOCK, FOGGY NELSON, WILSON FISK, & CLAIRE TEMPLE

MARVEL MINIMATES

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For day 22 of my post-Christmas reviews, I’m heading back over to the world of Marvel Minimates.  Said Minimates are my first venture into the merchandising for Marvel’s widely successful Netflix shows.  The first (and in my opinion, the best) of those shows is based on Marvel’s resident Man Without Fear, Daredevil.  His show’s success took a lot of people by surprise, especially merchandisers, including DST, who had no plans for any Minimates from the show until well after it started streaming.  Fortunately, they picked up the license for the Netflix stuff last year, and have gotten to work offering some boxed sets, each based on one season of one of the shows.  Up first were Daredevil and Jessica Jones, the former of which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Matt, Foggy, Fisk, and Claire are all based on their Season 1 appearances on Daredevil. The set was released in November of last year.

MATT MURDOCK

ddseasonone3Up first, the show’s titular character.  Of course, the box only refers to him by his real identity of Matt Murdock.  It’s fitting, since this is his Season 1 prototype costume, and he hadn’t yet fully embraced the name until a ways into the season.  The costume is a departure from the usual red togs from the comics (or even his red and yellow first appearance costume, of which I am a huge fan), but it’s not without its roots in DD history, being inspired by both his prototype costume from Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear and his costume from his first live-action appearance in “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk” back in the ‘80s.  Matt is built on the usual Minimate body, with add-ons for his mask, belt, and leg holster.  All three add-on pieces are reused, with the mask coming from Iron Fist, the belt being a standard piece, and the holster being introduced with the Series 43 Daredevil.  All of the parts are good fits for his ddseasonone2on-screen design, and the costume translates to Minimate form exceptionally well.  While the paintwork is mostly just flat back, he does have a fully detailed torso, with subtle highlighting to show off his musculature, as well as the tiny bit of red piping on the shoulders.  Under the mask, there’s also a fully detailed Matt Murdock face, with a pretty solid likeness of Charlie Cox.  For his base look, DD includes his wooden eskrima sticks, given to him by…Stick, as well as the usual clear display stand.  He also includes a spare head, hair, torso, tie, suit jacket, hands, and walking stick, allowing you to turn him into a civilian version of Matt.  Supply your own arms and legs, and you’ve got yourself a whole second figure!

FOGGY NELSON

ddseasonone5Matt’s nothing without his law partner Franklin P. Nelson, better known as Foggy.  Foggy’s a pretty major part of Season 1 and the DD mythos as a whole, so his presence here isn’t a huge surprise. The ‘mate’s really just another guy in a suit, but that’s true to the character, so you can hardly blame DST there.  Foggy uses the same basic pieces as Matt’s alt look, as well as the hair from Series 39’s Thor, which is actually a better fit for Foggy than it was for Thor, if I’m honest.  The pieces add up to a decent enough Foggy, so that’s good.  Foggy’s paintwork is once again pretty basic, but the colors are rather unique, and everything is pretty cleanly done.  He’s packed with a briefcase and a tan messenger bag, as well as a clear display stand.  It might have been nice to get some extra shirt sleeves for him, since the pink is rather unique, but it’s not like he comes with nothing.

WILSON FISK

ddseasonone4Season 1 is as much an origin story for Wilson Fisk (better known in the comics as the Kingpin) as it is for Daredevil.  He’s the main antagonist for the whole season, and it would be silly to leave him out.  That being said…he’s really just another guy in a suit.  An important guy in a suit, but still.  He uses two add-ons: his coat/shirt and a waist riser piece to make him a bit taller.  He’s still lacks some of his show counterpart’s intimidation factor, but there’s only so much you can do, right?  The coat is re-used from 24’s Tony Almeida, and its a good fit for the types of suits he wore on the show.  Paint’s once again a lot of black, but he has a slight splash of dark blue for the shirt, as well as a pretty decent likeness of Vincent D’Onofrio as Fisk.  Fisk includes a clear display stand, and that’s it.

CLAIRE TEMPLE

ddseasonone6Effectively the Coulson of the Netflix shows (being the connective tissue that holds them all together), Claire Temple started out in the comics as a Luke Cage supporting character, which made her turning up in the first season of DD a slight surprise.  Her being in this set of Minimates is also a *slight* surprise, since there are a number of characters more prominent than her in the first season (Karen was held back for the Season 2 set, which is fine, but Ben’s another pivotal character still missing.  Of course, he would have been another guy in a suit, so…).  Of course, releasing her here frees up some space in the other sets, so I guess that’s good.  She’s seen here in her “Night Nurse” garb that she’s wearing when she and Matt interrogate a thug on the rooftop.  It’s probably the most visually interesting of her looks, so it’s a good choice.  In her basic layout, she has Lady Sif’s hair, which is a reasonably close match to Rosario Dawson’s hair in the show, and Amy’s hoody.  Her paintwork is a bit more exciting than the others, with like five whole colors.  The application’s all pretty clean, which is always good.  The likeness on the face is a passable Dawson likeness.  It’s maybe sits a tad too high on the headblock, but that’s my only real complaint.  She includes a knife and a clear display stand, as well as a pulled up hood, and an extra head and hands, so as to complete her disguised look from when she was interrogating the guy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was another Christmas present from my parents.  It’s a set I’ve been patiently waiting for, since I really loved DD Season 1.  I know I ragged on this set a bit for being guys in suits, but that’s more because guys in suits aren’t the most exciting things to review.  The actual figures are really a lot of fun, and this set is really worth it just for DD alone.  That guy’s definitely one of my new favorite ‘mates!