Tag Archives: Marvel

#2914: Spider-Man – Negative Zone

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

SPIDER-MAN — NEGATIVE ZONE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Spider-Man’s Negative Zone suit allows him to absorb the Negative Zone’s dark energy and even merge with shadows. By doing so, the wall crawler becomes practically invisible, which gives him a major advantage against his enemies.”

Last fall, Hasbro leaned pretty heavily into the retro carded style for Marvel Legends, specifically for their Spider-Man sub-section of the line.  There was a dedicated assortment of figures, as well as a handful of one-offs and exclusives.  Target got themselves two different variants on Spidey himself for their exclusives.  I looked at Cyborg Spider-Man last year, but I never got around to the other one, Negative Zone Spider-Man, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Negative Zone Spider-Man was released at the tail end of November of last year, alongside Gambit, Rogue, and Cyborg Spider-Man, as a small set of Target-exclusive Retro Collection offerings for Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line.  Like Cyborg Spider-Man, this is the Negative Zone suit’s third time in toy form, also following a Toy Biz 5 inch figure and a Minimate, just like Cyborg.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The figure is a total repaint of Pizza Spidey.  It’s an interesting choice, really.  I don’t dislike Pizza Spidey in the slightest, and it was the standard Spidey for several years, but I find it funny that Hasbro tooled up a new standard Spidey for this very sub-line, and yet none of the variants on Spidey made use of the new parts.  Maybe they felt Negative Zone should be a skinnier Spider-Man?  Like I said, I don’t mind so much, but it is curious.  It’s all paint that makes the difference here.  He’s in a stark all black and white, as is accurate for the design, and it does look pretty sharp, I must say.  I just dig the sleekness, and the Pizza Spidey body emphasizes that.  Also something that excites me is the accessory selection, because for the first time in far too long, we get a Pizza Spidey release that actually gets the full range of hands.  How about that?  Boy how I missed the full range of hands.  He also gets the pizza, but in Negative Zone colors, which is pretty fun.  No half-masked head for eating the pizza, but I’ll learn to live with it, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Neither of the Spidey variants from this round were essential to me, as I was far more focused on Gambit and Rogue at the time.  Target was running that “Buy 2 get 1 Free” sale at the time that they dropped them, and the only reason I really got Cyborg over this one was that this one wasn’t in stock at the moment I was ordering.  I saw him once or twice in-store, but I wasn’t in a rush.  I wound up getting him finally when one got traded into All Time.  I know, it’s quite a thrilling story, right?  Well, I guess more a touch thrilling than “I bought it at Target.”  I didn’t think much of the figure, but he’s actually pretty fun, and I’m glad I finally snagged one.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2913: Deadpool & Negasonic Teenage Warhead

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

DEADPOOL & NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Wisecracking Wade Wilson and stoic Ellie Phimister team up to defend all mutants.”

Almost an entire year ago, I looked at Domino and Cable, who made up either half or two-thirds of Hasbro’s slightly late tie-ins for Deadpool 2.  Notably, I did *not* look at the title character, which did seem a bit odd, didn’t it?  Yeah, it seemed that way to me too.  I assure you, it wasn’t an intentional slight; I really did mean to review him, and his packmate Negasonic Teenage Warhead, right around the same time, but, as you can see, that didn’t happen.  Which I guess makes these tie-ins a bit more than slight on the lateness scale.  My apologies.  I guess I’ll just get to them now.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Deadpool and Negasonic Teenage Warhead are the second of the two standard release two-packs for the X-Men Movie sub-line of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends.  They were supposed to be released at the same time as the Magneto and Xavier set, but that didn’t really seem to happen.  A small amount of them shipped to people who’d placed online preorders, and a small amount showed up in stores, but there were no notable signs of stocking the way the rest of the line dropped, and most retailers had them continually pushed back for the better part of a year.  It seems that they’re finally starting to truly make their way out, now, though, so that’s good, since this was probably the most in-demand item from the whole sub-line.

DEADPOOL

Deadpool has no shortage of action figures, but the less than stellar relationship between Fox and Disney the last decade or so meant that actual proper movie toys weren’t a thing, at least until now…or last year, I guess, if you want to be more technical.  Deadpool’s movie costume was not only quite comics accurate, it also changed very little between his two films, meaning that this one figure can also pull double duty for both movies, which is exactly what it does.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  His articulation structure is pretty darn good, working in a set of butterfly shoulders, and making sure he’s got the pinless construction on the elbows and knees, making him a rather slick figure.  His sculpt was initially all-new to him, but was subsequently re-used for the single-release ash-covered Deadpool that was an Amazon-exclusive last fall.  It’s quite an impressive sculpt, which does a strong job of capturing the costume design from the movie.  It’s rather distinctive and it translates well.  I quite like how they’ve handled all the texturing on his outfit.  The figure’s paint work is generally pretty solid.  It follows the slightly toned down scheme of the film’s design, but it again looks pretty good as a toy, and the application’s all pretty clean and sharp.  Deadpool is quite well accessorized, with four sets of hands, two pistols, two katanas, a knife, and a small stuffed unicorn.  The hands are all in different poses, but two pairs are all black like in the first movie, and two have the silver stripes from the second.  While it’s nice to have the options, it does somewhat limit what you can do with him, since you have to make sure the style of gloves match.  I feel like the original plan was probably to do a full set of hands in both styles, but it probably didn’t cost out.  The two pistols are Forge’s sci-fi styled gun, which isn’t really true to the movie.  Also, there are more film accurate pistols in the holsters, even, but they aren’t meant to be removed.  They’re separate pieces that have been glued in place, so you *can* remove them, but I gave it a fair try, and didn’t really want to force it.  Presumably, this is some sort of a request from Disney, who are trying to downplay the use of real firearms with Marvel figures.

NEGASONIC TEENAGE WARHEAD

While Deadpool may be no stranger to action figures, Negasonic Teenage Warhead has thus far only had the one.  Admittedly, prior to being featured in the first Deadpool, the character struggled to be considered even D-List, so there wasn’t much call for toys before this.  While Deadpool had more or less the same look between the two movies, Negasonic had two fairly divergent designs for the two films.  This figure opts for her Deadpool 2 design, which is really the more fully formed and actually toy worthy of the two.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Negasonic breaks from the movie X-Men norm and is largely re-using parts, specifically the Spider-Girl body.  It’s really not a bad match, and it’s just a decent starting point in general, plus, with as many new parts as the X-Men Movie figures had, it was a good way to save some money on tooling.  She still gets a new head, upper torso, upper arms, and a belt add-on piece, which help to keep her fairly movie accurate.  The head’s got an okay likeness of actress Brianna Hildebrand, at least from a sculpting standpoint (paint’s perhaps a different story), and the rest of the parts are all pretty good matches for her on-screen design.  The paint work is a bit of a mixed bag; the base work is okay, but the face paint on mine’s not quite right, resulting in her looking a little bit doofy.  Her eyes are definitely not pointing the same way, and that’s not ideal.  Negasonic is packed with two sets of hands (fists and open gesture) as well as Scarlet Witch’s effects pieces, presumably to emulate her powers in some fashion.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wanted this set, not so much for Deadpool, since I’ve got plenty of figures of him, but actually for the Negasonic figure.  But, then I got both Domino and Cable, and so it made sense to have Deadpool too, so I decided I was down for both parts.  And then I patiently waited for the set to arrive….and that was a lot of waiting, now wasn’t it?  When I found out these were coming in, I honestly expected some sort of diabolos ex machina sort of a thing to ensue and prevent me from getting them yet again, but it didn’t, and now I have them.  How about that?  Sure, I wish Negasonic’s face paint were better, but otherwise, it’s quite a nice set, and I’m happy to finally have them.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with these figures to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2912: Sentinel

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

SENTINEL

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Its body a towering, technological marvel, the Sentinel scans the world for its quarry, a searching light emanating from its chest, its glowing eyes a warning… and a threat. Programmed with only one objective, to destroy all mutant life on Earth, the Sentinel will not hesitate, will not falter, and will never ever stop hunting.”

Man, past-Ethan really needs to stop anticipating future-Ethan needing a pick-me-up…

From an early stage of this site, I’ve been versed in supporting action figures not just from an end-of-the-process side, but also from a more preemptive side as well.  I’ve backed my fair share of KickStarters, but those are typically smaller upstarts.  It’s a bit different when the biggest toy company in the world gets in on it.  But, that’s exactly what Hasbro did in 2018, when they launched HasLab, where larger scale items that might not otherwise get made could be backed directly by the fans who wanted them.  Last summer, they added their very first Marvel project to this initiative in the form of the giant purple mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels. Shocking very few of my readers, I’m sure, I got in on this gravy train before the end of the campaign last year.  We’ve had a bit of a wait, but the Sentinel started arriving in collectors’ hands in the last few weeks, and I’m taking a look at mine today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Sentinel was a the inaugural Marvel Legends HasLab project, launched in July of 2020, and ending August 30th. The initial goal was a rather modest 6,000 backers, but the campaign wound up as an unprecedented success, reaching 365% of its needed backers by its end.  It entered production shortly after, and began shipping out in September of this year.  The figure stands 26 1/2 inches tall and he has an astoundingly high 72 points of articulation, 40 of which come just from the hands, which have articulation at every one of knuckles.  The rest of the movement isn’t quite as involved, but he’s got a solid range of motion considering how big and chunky he is.  One point of concern once the figures started arriving and getting reviewed was the tolerancing on the knee joints.  There was some concern that they were too loose out of the box, and weren’t offering enough tension to keep the figure standing.  In hand, the issue isn’t as bad as it seemed initially, at least when it comes to my figure.  While the knees aren’t super tight, and they would likely benefit from the presence of some ratchets (curiously absent, given that the elbows have them), I found it quite easy to get the figure into that sweet spot to keep him standing.  He’s stable enough to stay standing on my rather thick carpeted floor for over 2 hours without any other support, so I consider that a win.  The Sentinels have had an evolving look over the years, but this one is specifically patterned on the design used for House/Powers of X.  It matches with the set of X-Men we just got at the start of the year, and is also a fairly nice update on the classic Sentinel design, which honestly makes for a strong translation to toy form.  There’s a lot more design work to put into the larger surface area of the figure, but it’s not enough to overcomplicate him too much.  The sculpt is, of course, a wholly unique offering, since there’s not really any prior releases to borrow from.  The engineering is rather impressive, with most of the armor plates being actual separate parts assembled over a core body, since it’s something that’s actually possible to do at this scale.  It results in the figure having a lot of depth and sharp detailing, which really helps sell the robot nature of the design.  In terms of color work the very segmented construction of the Sentinel allows for a lot of the heavy lifting to be done with molded plastic, but that doesn’t stop him from still having quite a lot of actual paint work as well.  It’s generally all pretty good, with no real issues of slop or bleed over.  There’s quite a bit of smaller detailing that can be easy to miss, as well, with some separate coloring on the wires beneath some of the plating, and even painting on the smaller rivets holding the armor in place.  There’s a lot going on beyond just the surface level, just like with the sculpt.  The Sentinel also features a light-up effect, which runs on three AAA batteries.  Pressing the core on the figure’s torso lights up both the core and the eyes of the figure.  There are three different colors which can be activated by pressing the button additional times, and it turns itself off after 30 seconds.  It’s rather bright, and works fairly well.  The additional colors add some nice variety when it comes to display, although it’s too bad there’s no way to keep the lights on for a longer period.

As massive and impressive as the Sentinel proper is, there are still quite a few extras included with him.  The most basic of the accessories is the tendril, classically used for capturing mutants more easily.  It’s about 18 inches long, and it’s bendy, so you can wrap it around smaller figures.  It’s able to be plugged into the palm of either hand.  Initially, we were just getting the one, but given the success of the campaign, Hasbro added a second one with no additional charge, so now he can capture two mutants at the same time.  Double the mutant capturing power!  There were four stretch goals for the campaign, three of which got us extra parts for the core figure.  The first tier gave us an extra head to turn this figure into Master Mold, a frequently used, more advanced Sentinel that can manufacture other Sentinels.  Typically, he’s a lot larger than the average Sentinel, which this head sort of meets halfway by being larger than the standard head.  It’s not a perfect remedy, but it’s not terrible either, and it’s not like a properly scaled Master Mold was really in the cards.  He’d effectively have to be the size of a person.  At least this way we have some sort of representation.  The second tier was yet another alternate head, this time a battle-damaged variant of the standard, and with an alternate right hand to match.  The Sentinels are constantly being torn apart by the mutants they hunt down, so these are pretty awesome extras, and they can even be used as the parts to another fallen Sentinel for the purposes of display.  The fourth tier added one last alternate head, this time around the Tri-Sentinel, the merging of three Sentinels created by Loki during the “Acts of Vengence” story line in the ’90s.  Like Master Mold, it’s a bit of a compromise, since a proper Tri-Sentinel should have additional limbs as well, but again, it’s better to get some sort of representation here than none at all.

In addition to the parts for the Sentinel proper, there were two more extras in the form of two whole additional standard-sized figures.  From the very beginning, the Sentinel was going to be packed with Bastion, the humanoid Master Mold/Nimrod hybrid introduced during “Operation: Zero Tolerance.”  Bastion is based on his more recent appearances, matching up more with the Sentinel, I suppose.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Bastion is based on the Spider-UK body, with a new head and torso parts.  The new parts mesh well with the old and do a solid job of capturing Bastion’s creepy hybrid appearance.  His paint work is generally pretty decent, though I did find a little more slop here than on the main Sentinel.  Bastion actually gets an accessory of his own, an alternate head that allows for him to serve as a generic Prime Sentinel, one of Bastion’s rank and file human/sentinel hybrids.  Big flex putting an army builder in with a $350 figure, but I guess the bigger figure’s an army builder too, so it makes some sense.  It helps that it’s a pretty nice head in its own right.

The other figure included follows in the footsteps of the extra head included with Bastion.  If you’re going to have a generic male Prime Sentinel, it’s nice to have a female one as well.  The female Prime Sentinel was added as the third tier stretch goal.  She’s about 6 1/4 inches tall and has 27 points of articulation.  She has a mix of a few different base body parts, as well as an all-new head and upper torso.  Since it was the ’90s, the female Prime Sentinels had to have specific details that still allowed for them to show off the feminine traits even more hard core, so she’s got slightly different torso armor, and her hair is exposed at the top of her head.  Ultimately, she looks more like a female Bastion, with the white hair and everything.  It’s not a bad look, but it’s funny how different they are.  Her paint work is a little bit better than Bastion’s, at least on mine, which means there aren’t any real issues to report.  The Prime Sentinel got no additional accessories, but honestly, at this point, can you really complain?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been in love with the Sentinel design since I got my very first Toy Biz Sentinel back in the day.  I very excitedly collected all of the Toy Biz Legends fallen Sentinel bases, and then very excitedly built the actual Toy Biz Legends Build-A-Figure.  But I’ve always longed for something more to proper scale.  When this figure was shown off, it didn’t take much for me to decide to back him.  So, I jumped on board last August, and then I began my patient wait for him to arrive.  I knew he was going to be big and impressive, but it’s honestly something that pictures just don’t do justice.  Seeing him in person and actually getting to mess with him has been so much fun.  And now I’ve got to work out just what the hell I’m gonna actually do with him.

While I obviously got this guy directly through Hasbro, I’d still like to give a shout out to my sponsors at All Time Toys, who allowed me use of the back room photo tent so that I could actually get proper pictures of this guy for the review.  That was an absolute godsend.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2910: Ant-Man

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

ANT-MAN

AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND (TOY BIZ)

“As the leader of the Avengers, Dr. Hank Pym is Ant-Man! Ant-Man blends brilliant battlefield strategies with a guide-by-example bravery to unite Earth’s mightiest heroes against the forces of evil. The symbol on his chest means Ant-Man will always heed the call, ‘Avengers Assemble!'”

In 1999, after the massive success of their Spider-Man and X-Men animated series (and in light of the at least moderate success of Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and The Incredible Hulk), Marvel tried to bank on a few more cartoons.  From the “big team of colorful heroes” angle, we got Avengers: United They Stand, an ill-fated attempt at getting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes out to a wider audience before the MCU would do so far more successfully.  I’m an unashamed fan of the show, but it didn’t really hit with most people, and has generally been seen as a black mark on the team’s reputation in larger media terms.  Something notable about the show was its shift away from the big names in favor of focusing on the lower tier mainstays of the team.  In accordance with that, for the purposes of the show, the team’s leader wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man, but rather Ant-Man, specifically of the Hank Pym variety.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ant-Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s tie-in line for Avengers: United They Stand, not that it was anything other than a clerical numbering, since all of the figures from both assortments shipped at the same time.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  He’s remarkably posable for this era of figures, which certainly makes him a very playable figure.  Ant-Man had an all-new sculpt, based on his design from the show.  The show gave a good portion of the cast some rather radically different designs, Ant-Man included.  He got a whole armored appearance within the show, removing him quite a bit from his classic attire.  In retrospect, it’s not quite as crazy different, though, since elements of it would make their way into Scott Lang’s early ’00s re-design, and likewise would become part of the character’s MCU design.  He’s actually closer to the MCU Ant-Man than the classic is in many ways, making him a fair bit more recognizable.  I guess that’s an unintended bonus.  The sculpt does a respectable job of capturing the style of the show’s animation and translating into a working figure.  It honestly ends up looking pretty darn good, and may even be the best of the sculpts this line produced.  Heck, it’s just one of Toy Biz’s best 5-inch Marvel sculpts.  He’s even got a fully removable helmet, which was pretty great at the time.  The only slight oddity to the sculpt is his “action feature”; in order to simulate his ability to grow into Giant-Man in the show, they gave him extending limbs.  It’s not the worst concept in theory, but it doesn’t really give the intended effect; he just looks like he’s really stretchy.  Fortunately, it doesn’t at all impede the figure’s function at normal scale.  His paint work’s not bad for the era.  It’s a lot of base work, and it’s pretty cleanly applied.  There’s a little bit of wear on the hair on mine, but it’s otherwise held up pretty well in the two decades I’ve owned it, so I’ll consider that a win.  Ant-Man was packed with his removable helmet, a miniature version of himself, and the mini-ship he would ride around in on the show.  The ship could be placed on his back, like on the show, and could be fully deployed by using the magnet on his forearm to unlock it.  I’ve lost half of mini Ant-Man, because he was literally an inch tall and I was 7, as well as the hatch for the vehicle, because, again, 7, so, you know, that’s how it works.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I absolutely love this figure.  He’s probably my favorite figure from this line.  He just really works.  Despite that, he’s one of the very last figures I actually got from the line.  The line was rather scarce at launch, so finding multiples of figures wasn’t super likely.  Because of this, my dad and I wound up sharing most of the line, at least at first.  He wound up getting the first Ant-Man.  However, as the line began to become more plentiful, I started getting more of them, and Ant-Man was one of the last three I had left to get.  I mentioned this to my Grandmother, and she asked for a list of the three I was missing.  The next week, when I went over to their house, she pulled this guy out for me, having bought him in the mean time, and he very quickly became one of my favorites.  He holds up remarkably well, and I still really like him.

#2904: X-Force Cannonball & Shatterstar

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

X-FORCE CANNONBALL & SHATTERSTAR

MARVEL MINIMATES

Marvel Minimates have always paid very close attention to ‘90s Marvel, specifically the X-Men side of things. In 2010, we even got a small subset of Liefeld-inspired X-Force Minimates, which included Liefeld-favorite Cannonball and Liefeld-creation Shatterstar!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cannonball and Shatterstar were released in the ninth TRU-exclusive series of Marvel Minimates, which hit at the tail end of 2010.

X-FORCE CANNONBALL

Not Cannonball’s first or last time as a Minimate, this particular take on the former New Mutant gives us his first Liefeld design, which, despite my usual distaste for things Liefeld, is actually one of the better takes on Cannonball.  Cannonball is built with four add-on pieces, for his hair/goggles, coat, and gloves. The gloves are just standard flared gloves (DC flared gloves, though; not Captain America flared gloves), but do their job well enough. The hair piece and jacket are both new, and do a reasonable job of capturing Sam’s in-book appearance. The hair could perhaps stand to be a little sharper in terms of detailing, but the coat definitely turned out well.  The paint on Cannonball is reasonable overall, but some of the application is rather sloppy. The boots on my figure are particularly messy. This assortment falls during the stretch of time where the plastic quality on Minimates took a bit of a dive. They aren’t hit by the worst of it, but you can sort of see the difference in the coloring of the skin-tone on the head, and how the paint takes to the plastic (detail lines here are generally a bit duller).  In terms of accessories, Cannonball’s only got one, but it’s a good one. He’s got a blast effect piece that plugs into the bottom of his torso in place of his legs, depicting how he is usually drawn when using his powers.

X-FORCE SHATTERSTAR

This figure marked Shatterstar’s debut as a Minimate, appropriately in his debut costume from the pages of New Mutants #99. Shatterstar is a character with a history of truly hideous costumes. This one is hardly an exception.  Shatterstar has add-on pieces for his hair/headgear, shoulderpad/scarf, belt, and gloves. The gloves are the same ones used on Cannonball, but beyond that, all of the other add-ons were new to Shatterstar.  They’re decent enough recreations of his gear from the comics, goofy as they may be. Shatterstar also has the poofy sleeved upper arms that first showed up on the Series 29 90s Storm. I’ve never been overly fond of these pieces, given how far they stick out from the chest block. Just the standard arms might have worked better, especially on a figure that’s already as bulked up as this one.  Shatterstar’s paint is rather similar to Cannonball’s. There’s some serious slop on the changeover from white to black on the legs. He’s also plagued by the same issues of plastic quality. The skintone’s a sickly color, and the white has always been a little bit yellowed. Just an overall messy piece of work.  Shatterstar is packed with a pair of his signature twin-bladed swords. They’re decent enough on their own merits (apart from some slight warping from the packaging), but the choice of hands for him means he has some serious trouble properly holding them. Getting them into his hands can take some serious effort.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This pack marked a rather easy to acquire purchase for me back when they were new, surprisingly.  I wound up finding them on a last minute stop at TRU during the holiday season, when I wasn’t actually expecting to find anything.  Cannonball is an overall decent rendition of the character, slightly held back by a few quality issues.  Shatterstar is a flawed figure, in both design and execution. Had the execution been there, I think he still would have been fine, but he had the misfortune of being released during one of the roughest periods of quality control, so he ends up really middle of the road. Not awful, but not so great either.

 

#2897: War Machine & Maya Hansen

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

WAR MACHINE & MAYA HANSEN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Now listen up, here’s the story, about a little guy who..isn’t content to not review a War Machine this week.  So, yeah, I’m pulling out an MCU set, going back to Iron Man 3 for a look at War Machine and pack-mate Maya Hansen!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pack was part of Series 49 of Marvel Minimates, the specialty component of the Iron Man 3-tie-in ‘mates.  It’s one of the two sets contained there in which was completely exclusive (although War Machine didn’t really feel all that exclusive after the three nearly identical releases that followed).

WAR MACHINE

The actual War Machine armor doesn’t appear in Iron Man 3 proper, but it did figure prominently into the merchandising, and has a somewhat minor role in AoU. It’s just the same as his Iron Patriot armor, but done up in his more traditional War Machine colors.  Structurally, this figure’s the same as the Iron Patriot ‘mate. He’s got add-ons for the helmet, torso piece, waist, upper arms, boots, and gloves. I thought the armor looked just a bit pudgy on that figure, and I still feel that’s the case here, but it’s not horrible at all.  I think it’s really the helmet that throws it off.  His paint is pretty decently handled.  I do quite like the Air Force linsignias from the gloves, and his facial likeness works pretty well for Cheadle.   War Machine includes the usual clear display stand.

MAYA HANSEN

Maya was a moderately prominent character in the comics, especially at the time of the Extremis arc, so she was a sensible choice for the movie.  Of course, she doesn’t really do a whole lot in the movie, but as Extremis’ creator, I think she earned her spot here.  She has three add-on pieces, one for her hair, one for her skirt, and one for her purse.  All three parts are re-used, but they work for her look, so its sensible.  They’re well-sculpted, and the hair in particular is one I quite like, so I’m always down for seeing it crop back up.  Maya’s paintwork is solid work.  It’s clean, and she’s actually rather colorful for a civilian.  The funky pattern on her skirt certainly helps things.  Her likeness is actually a pretty surprising match for Rebecca Hall, especially given how simple it is, but it turned out quite well.  Like Rhodey, Maya’s only accessory is a clear display stand, but I’m not sure what else she could have been given.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with most Minimates of this vintage, I picked these up the day they were released from my local comic book store, Cosmic Comix.  I recall getting the whole set on a run to the store in the middle of a day of classes, and then carrying them all around in my bag while wandering around campus that day, opening them up one set at a time as I had the chance.  War Machine is a sensible case for parts re-use, and is a pretty solid figure.  Of course, he’s a little harder to like in light of the three almost identical releases we’ve gotten since, but that’s hardly this figure’s fault.  Maya’s far from the most thrilling figure in the set, but she’s also not the most boring, so she exists in a nice middle ground.  Ultimately, this set’s probably the least spectacular of those included in the line-up, but it’s not a bad one.

 

#2895: Marvel’s Katy

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

MARVEL’S KATY

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Katy, Shang-Chi’s oldest friend, is free-spirited and fiercely loyal.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hit theatres two weeks ago today, after a few delays, as with all of the Marvel slate right now.  The tie-ins all hit back in the spring, closer to the film’s original release date, but, hey, at least they hit in the same year.  For the Legends side of things, there were four figures in the main assortment, with one additional one as an exclusive off on its own.  Said exclusive is Katy…sorry, *Marvel’s* Katy, Shang-Chi’s best friend, portrayed in the film by Awkwafina.  Katy serves as the film’s everyman, experiencing the weirdness in much the same way as the audience.  She also serves as a nice subversion of the usual Hollywood trope that all Asians know kung-fu, since she’s the one character in the main cast without any real fighting experience.  She’s also just pretty entertaining, so I’m all about it.  Anyway, here’s her figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Katy is a Target-exclusive Marvel Legends release, meant to coincide with the main tie-ins contained in the Mr. Hyde Series.  She started showing up at Targets right around the same time as the main assortment, and actually seemed to show up in pretty decent numbers, at least from my experience.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 28 points of articulation.  The articulation on Katy is notably restricted by both the skirt and her longer hair, as well as the general design of the sleeves.  In general, she’s just not a super agile figure.  Of course, she’s not a super agile character either, so I suppose it sort of works out.  This figure presents Katy in her attire from the film’s climactic battle sequence.  It’s a get-up that’s not quite in line with what she wears for most of the film’s run time, but it’s also not just basic civilian attire, and it means she matches up with Shang-Chi and Xialing’s figures, since they’re also in the final battle attire.  Generally, it makes a lot of sense, and I totally see Hasbro’s angle here.  It’s a decent sculpt.  Maybe not as optimized for posability as it could be, but the likeness on the head’s probably the best of the four from the movie, and the detail work on the outfit’s texturing is really strong.  The paint work on Katy is pretty decent.  It’s mostly pretty basic, but there’s some rather impressive detailing on the collar and belt, matching the floral pattern from the movie.  Katy is packed with a bow, a quiver, a separate arrow, plus two combined arrows meant for filling the quiver, plus, best of all, Morris, the crew’s little animal guide to the supernatural spirit world.  There’s probably one other character who might have made more sense to pack with Morris, but that character was far less likely to get a figure, so Katy’s not a bad second choice.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with the other Shang-Chi figures, not knowing much about the characters when the toys actually hit made Katy sort of a weird sell.  Since she was an exclusive, and as such didn’t just fall into my lap the way the others did, I wasn’t quite as quick to pick her up.  That said, Target wound up putting her on a rather deep clearance rather quickly, which meant she was under $7, and there’s not really any Legends I’d pass at that price.  She didn’t do much for me prior to the film, but after the fact, I was very glad I picked her up.  She’s a decent enough piece, and fits nicely with the rest of the movie figures.

#2894: Melina Vostokoff & Red Guardian

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

MELINA VOSTOKOFF & RED GUARDIAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“After decades of service, Melina Vostokoff distanced herself from the Red Room. But when Natasha Romanoff returns, Melina and Red Guardian must decide where their allegiance lies.”

After a year of delays, Black Widow finally got its release this past July.  It’s still not been entirely smooth sailing, but it did at least clear the slate to let the other movies get released.  The tie-in component for the movie was, unfortunately, too far along when the pandemic hit in 2020 to hold it back, so they shipped to stores more than a year before release, resulting in them being essentially gone by the time the movie actually hit.  Hasbro did at least hold off one piece of merch until after the film’s release, a two-pack of Melina Vostokoff and Alexei Shostakov (aka the Red Guardian), Natasha’s surrogate parents from the film.  I’m taking a look at that pack today.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Melina and Red Guardian are a standalone two-pack Marvel Legends release, designed to tie-in with the movie.  If prior offerings are anything to go by, they were probably meant to be the home media tie-in, hitting some time last fall, but they were able to be pushed back.  Whatever the case, they started hitting retail within the last month or so, and seem to be generally sticking to the specialty channels at the moment.

MELINA VOSTOKOFF

Known in the comics as Iron Maiden, Melina Vostokoff is actually an antagonist of Natasha, and, much like Red Guardian, classically more of a contemporary in terms of age and experience.  For the film, she is given a maternal role, and refitted into a far less antagonistic character, which generally works out pretty well.  Melina was the one major character absent from the tie-in wave of figures last year, so her inclusion here is somewhat expected and very much justified.  In terms of design, she’s been given her all-white suit from the film’s climax, which allows her to match up with the rest of the crew, certainly making it a good choice.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Melina shares most of her parts with the two Widow figures from last year.  Given that she’s explicitly wearing the same gear as Natasha in the final sequence, as well as the fact that the builds between the actresses aren’t too far removed, it’s a sensible choice of re-use.  It’s aided by the fact that the body was a solid piece the first time around, and the second time around, so the third time makes sense too.  She gets an all-new head sculpt, which sports a rather solid likeness of Rachel Weisz, and meshes well with the pre-existing parts.  The torso is also modified slightly, as sort of a merging of the two prior pieces.  She keeps the basic detailing of the deluxe Widow, but gets the back pack from the single release.  Lastly, she ditches the Widow stingers, in the name of screen accuracy, since Melina doesn’t have them.  Her paint work is overall fairly decent.  The head uses the face printing, which turned out well.  The rest of the body relies fairly heavily on molded colors, but it works well.  There are some slight change-ups from the deluxe Widow’s color scheme.  Generally, it seems to make her more accurate, though I do miss the extra painted detail on the belt buckle.  Melina is packed with three sets of hands (in fists, loose grip, and tight grip), dual Markovs, two batons, and a grappling hook.  The hands and guns are shared with deluxe Widow, and the batons come from the single release (albeit with better paint this time), while the grappling hook appears to be an all-new piece.  Not a bad set-up, all things considered.

RED GUARDIAN

Red Guardian was included in the standard tie-in line-up last year, but his figure was notably not as screen accurate as the others, making a second go at him a worthy venture.  He’s seen here in his fully kitted out gear from the movie (something he didn’t have all of the last time around).  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and has 31 points of articulation.  He’s still a little bit on the small side, but at this point, I can be a little more forgiving, since I already dealt with that last year.  From the neck down, he’s the same as the Red Guardian from the main assortment.  The body was the best part of the earlier release, and wasn’t too terribly out of whack, so it’s re-use makes sense here.  To top it off, he gets an all-new head sculpt, this time sporting the helmet that was so notably absent from the first figure.  It’s a very nice piece, and works well with the body.  It designed to work like the more recent MCU Caps, where the helmet and face are separate parts, to aid in giving it proper depth.  Guardian’s new head also gives him the proper, fuller beard that he had in the movie, further aiding in the likeness’s effectiveness.  Red Guardian’s paint work has also been tweaked a bit from the prior version.  He’s got more silver this time around, as well as some extra detailing in a few spots on the costume.  Additionally, the light grey is now closer to white, which is more in line with how it looks in the movie.  In general, it does feel like a sharper appearance, and one that matches the movie just a bit better.  Red Guardian is packed with an alternate unmasked head, which, like the masked one, has a better likeness of Alexi’s disheveled appearance.  He also gets a set of alternate hands without the gloves, plus a miniature Red Guardian action figure like the one used in the movie’s prison break scene, and the same shield as last time, albeit in a darker color scheme this time around.  It’s not a bad selection, and I’m really glad the alternate head is there.  The shield’s kind of extraneous, since he doesn’t actually have it in the movie, and now we have two of them, but far be it from me to complain about extra stuff, especially when it doesn’t feel like anything important got cut.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was glad to finally get to see Black Widow after such a long wait, and I enjoyed it as a fairly by the numbers action film.  It didn’t break any molds, it didn’t change the world, but it was a good time.  Natasha’s family were definitely my favorite part of the movie, so I was eager to get the full line-up.  Melina makes a good addition to the team we already have, and Red Guardian fixes the figure we already got in such a way that prior version is kind of unneeded at this point, I guess.  Definitely a very fun two-pack.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with these figures for review.  If you’re looking for toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#2893: Quicksilver

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

QUICKSILVER

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Quicksilver’s ultra-high-speed capabilities are a major asset to the Avengers in the fight against Ultron.”

While the first Avengers film hit during a period of time when Marvel Legends were dead, so they had to rely on an exclusive run to get the team out in 6-inch scale (and they didn’t even get out the whole team, anyway).  By the time of its sequel, Age of Ultron, Legends was finally getting its footing back, but still wasn’t quite strong enough to support the entire extended line-up of the team as seen in the film.  Three members of the team wound up at mass retail, with an Amazon-exclusive boxed set to fill out the rest of the original core six.  That left the three new additions to the team, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Quicksilver, out of the line-up.  Scarlet Witch and Vision were both able to get toy coverage out of their later appearances, but that didn’t work out quite so well for poor Pietro, who, you know, died in Age of Ultron and all.  We went through two special anniversary lines with no love for Pietro, but a third one would have just been ridiculous, I suppose, so here he is, after six whole years, finally in Legends form!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Quicksilver is part of the 10 piece “Infinity Saga” sub-set of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line.  He’s one of the five standard sized single release figures, and one of four of those to be an actual wide release (because of course we can’t release a Captain America that’s not a Walmart exclusive, right?).  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The range of motion on the joints is all pretty solid, especially on that neck joint.  I do wish the knee joints broke up the sculpt a little bit less when posed, but it’s far from the worst we’ve seen.  I also do dig the full transition to pinless joints here on the elbows and knees.  Quicksilver has an all-new sculpt based on his attire from the film’s final battle, which is a sensible choice, since that’s his most distinctive look, and the one that matches with most of the rest of the team (we still don’t have an AoU Scarlet Witch, so he doesn’t match her at all, of course).  The sculpt is an impressive piece of work.  The head doesn’t quite have a perfect likeness of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, but it’s certainly got a resemblance.  Likewise, the body seems like it might be perhaps a slight bit too small for his build in the film, but it’s again not too far off, and there’s some really amazing texture work going on in the clothing.  Quicksilver’s paint work is pretty basic stuff for the most part.  The head gets the best work, with the face printing to give him a lifelike quality, and some solid accenting on the hair, for his proper eurotrash dye-job appearance.  The rest of the work is rather on the basic side, but it works for what it is.  Quicksilver is packed with two sets of hands, in fists and an open gesture, plus the head, torso, and arm of an Ultron drone.  It sure would be nice to get a full Ultron drone one of these days, but this is certainly a start, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Quicksilver, specifically the Age of Ultron version of the character, was one of Jess’s favorite Marvel characters.  She really, really liked him, and she was really upset when he died.  I think I may still have the marks from her hitting in the theater, in fact.  She was also really upset that he didn’t get the same toy love as the other characters.  This figure was shown off just a few weeks before she died, and she was very excited.  It had been my plan to get her one of her own when they were released, but that didn’t happen.  It’s a shame that she just missed him.  I think she would have been very happy with the end result.  I myself am pretty happy with him, and with the extra meaning he brings along with him.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure for review.  If you’re looking for toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#2890: Havok & Emma Frost

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

HAVOK & EMMA FROST

MARVEL MINIMATES

Summers and Frost are usually two things that don’t mix.  That is, unless we’re talking X-Men, in which case, those two things seem to mix a lot.  Unless, of course, we’re talking about X-Men: First Class, where it’s Alex Summers, not Scott, and therefore no real reason for the two to interact, so they actually never do, and therefore they again don’t mix.  Well, that is, unless you’re talking about the tie-in Minimates.  Which I am.  Yay?

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Havok and Emma Frost were part of the TRU-exclusive First Class tie-in assortment of Marvel Minimates, and are by far the most oddball pairing of the line-up, since, as noted, the two characters never actually meet.  Still, here we are.

HAVOK

Since Scott Summers had been used for the first three X-Men flicks, and was therefore unavailable to be a founding member of the team for the prequel, his brother Alex, better known as Havok, was chosen in his stead, netting himself his second Minimate in the process.  The figure is built on the standard post-C3 ‘mate body, so he’s about 2 1/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  Alex uses add-on pieces for his hair and belt.  The belt is the same piece used for Xavier and Magneto, as well as countless other figures.  It’s basic and it gets the job done.  The hair’s another story.  It’s re-used from Ultimate Iron Man, and it’s not really much of a match for Havok, who was sporting a much more high-and-tight hair style in the film. That said, if you look at some of the concept art from the film, Havok is seen with something much closer to this style. Ultimately, you can swap it out with one of the many MCU Captain America hair pieces, which results in a more accurate appearance.  Havok’s paintwork is about on par with the previously reviewed Xavier figure.  It’s still quite strong, though I’m not sure his likeness is quite as spot-on.  On the plus side, the control-thingy on his chest is still pretty darn cool.  Havok included no accessories.  An effects piece might have been nice, but it was a re-use wave, so no luck there.

EMMA FROST

Since Emma Frost had been used for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and was therefore unavailable for a prequel, Fox decided to say “ah, screw it” and just use her again, but played by a totally different actress and written as an almost entirely different character, with absolutely no explanations.  Sure, let’s go with it.  Emma’s one lone add-on piece is her hair.  It was *technically* new, by virtue of Emma hitting shelves shortly before Peggy Carter, the character it was sculpted for.  It’s still a re-use in essence, though.  It works reasonably well for Emma, and matches up decently with how she looked on-screen.  The paintwork on Emma is reasonably well handled.  Like Havok, I’m not sure the likeness is really there, but it’s not like it looks un-like her.  They’ve opted for Emma’s leather jumpsuited look from early scenes on Shaw’s submarine.  While perhaps not her most distinctive look from the film, I suppose it’s not the most awful choice ever.  On the plus side, this choice of costume also makes it very easy to convert her into a comics-accurate version of Agent 13.  So she’s got that going for her.  Just like Havok, Emma’s got no accessories.  Given how little exposed skin she has, it might have been nice to at the very least get a diamond-form head and hands for her, since there’s no new tooling needed.  As it stands, quite light.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As mentioned previously, I snagged this whole assortment on a family road trip, just before seeing the movie.  I’m a big Havok fan, so I certainly wanted at least him.  While this Havok isn’t quite as strong a ‘mate as either Xavier or Magneto, with one quick fix, he actually turns out pretty alright.  Not a bad addition to the line-up.  Emma’s a perfectly serviceable Minimate, but suffers from not being terribly distinctive.  Overall, an okay set, that’s really the most middle of the pack.