Tag Archives: Mattel

#1243: Mr. Freeze

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

MR FREEZE

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

What am I reviewing today? <checks review docket> Mr. Freeze.  DC Comics Multiverse.  Mattel.  *sigh* Well, I’m sure this’ll be a joyous review.

Okay, so my hate for Mattel is no secret, nor is my general dislike of their current DC line, dubbed DC Comics Multiverse, which, in its small-scale form, never even came close to living up to that name.  Might as well have called it “Batman & Friends: Arkham Style (and also three ‘80s movies that get two figures each).”  Yes, there was more than a small focus on the Arkham games in this line.  And that’s not inherently bad; the Arkham games were a popular series, and a solid source of cool toys; but there’s a whole lot more DC out there, and returning to the days of no one but Batman getting any toys doesn’t exactly thrill me (the larger scale line looks like it’s avoiding this for now, which is good).  Anyway, I don’t hate Batman or his rogue’s gallery, so I’m not completely unwilling to pick up the stray figure here and there.  One of my all time favorite Bat-Villains is Mr. Freeze, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mr Freeze was released in the very first series of DC Comics Multiverse figures from Mattel.  He’s based on his appearance in Arkham City, the second Arkham game.  It’s not a terrible Freeze design; it feels a little over  complicated for my taste, but it fits alright with the rest of the Arkham game aesthetic, which I guess is really the main point.  The figure stands a little over 4 inches tall and has 17 points of articulation.  The articulation is like a lot of the other figures in this line, where the lower half has reasonable movement, but the upper half is mostly pretty restricted.  Freeze’s shoulder pads in particular limit when can be done with his arms.  Also, the lack of bicep movement is a real killer on Freeze, since it means he cant hold his freeze gun with both hands.  Freeze’s sculpt was all-new to him, and it’s honestly one of the best sculpts this line had to offer.  There are some slight oddities to the proportions, especially when it comes to the placement of the pelvis.  The feet also are a bit clown shoe-y, which looks pretty goofy.  The head and helmet is a pretty solid implementation; his head is connected to the waist joint, which subverts the usual issues with neck movement on Mr. Freeze figures, so that’s something Mattel actually did right.  The paint on Freeze is decent enough.  It’s pretty straight forward work, with solid color work, and no real accent work to speak of.  The application is all pretty clean, and he has some brighter colors that help him stand out from the pack a bit.  Mr. Freeze is packed with his freeze gun, which as I noted above, he can only hold one handed.  It doesn’t look awful that way, so I guess it’s not the end of the world.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with Knightfall Batman and Detective Mode Bane, Mr. Freeze was given to me by Super Awesome Girlfriend, who purchased him for me during one of her stress-buying sprees.  I gotta say, I came into this review kinda down on this figure, but I’ve come out the other side actually kind of liking this guy.  I mean, he’s still far from perfect, but he’s certainly not as bad as the last few Mattel items I’ve looked at.

#1239: Katana

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

KATANA

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

Hey, remember when I was talking about Suicide Squad yesterday?  Well, I’m gonna do some more talking about it today.  If I’m very lucky, this will be my last bit of talking on the Suicide Squad front.  As noted yesterday, one of the biggest flaws with the movie was just how under-utilized anyone not named “Deadshot” or “Harley Quinn” was.  Boomer at least got some characterization (mostly due to Jai Courtney’s scenery chewing performance), but today’s focus, Katana, gets a whole lot of nothing.  No fancy introduction, no particularly good fights, next to no dialogue, and no anything else that would make her even slightly interesting.  Karen Fukuhara really tried to inject something into the character, but there just wasn’t anything there to work with.  Anyway, she got a figure, which I’m looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Like yesterday’s Captain Boomerang, Katana was released in the second Suicide Squad-themed assortment of Mattel’s DC Comics Multiverse, which hit well after the movie’s release, thereby guaranteeing that most audiences would have zero interest in the figure.  You know what might have solved this problem?  Shipping all six figures at the same time! (In Mattel’s defense, the most recent series of Multiverse wasn’t split in two, so maybe they’re learning)  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 25 points of articulation.  The ab crunch can move a little bit this time, but not much more than Deadshot’s.  Of course, the elbows and knees are both unable to make it to a full 90 degree angle (really restricting for a sword wielding character).  Also, the ankles on this figure are essentially useless, which makes it very hard to get her to stand.  How do you screw up ankles this badly?  Okay, the movement’s not good, but it’s all for the sake of the sculpt, right? Well, that wasn’t the case with Boomerang, so it’s probably not a shock to find it’s not the case here.  All of the joints stick out like sore thumbs, her torso is flat and thick, her arms are super spindly, the legs and pelvis continue the trend of not really looking like any human ever, and the head doesn’t really resemble Fukuhara at all. Perhaps the worst piece of this already pretty bad sculpt is the sash which holds the sheaths for her swords.  The sash itself is super thick and juts out really far from the figure’s hip, in a way pretty much no real fabric ever would.  The sheaths are separate pieces, and they are actually too small to properly fit in the proper slots, leading them to shift out of place a lot.  This is particularly bad with the smaller front sheath, which tends to naturally fall so it hands straight down, thereby making Katana look like she has a certain appendage that she shouldn’t really have.  It’s really a mess.  Who looked at that and went “yeah, that’s okay?”   As far as the paint goes, Katana’s alright, I guess.  The colors are all pretty basic, but there’s at least some interesting character work on the left leg and the back of her jacket.  She looks way too clean to be from the movie, but she fits with the other figures in that regard.  Katana includes a long blade and a short blade, neither of which she can actually hold properly, as well as the head and pelvis of Killer Croc, the CnC I’ll never be finishing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

After determining that Boomerang was only $1, I went back and also grabbed a Katana figure.  Not really sure why her, aside from the whole $1 thing.  I was actually in a bit of a hurry, so these were the only two I grabbed, and by the time I made it back to that particular Walmart, they’d been mostly cleaned out.  Alas, no more crappy $1 action figures for me.  I’m not gonna lie, Katana’s a really rough figure.  I’d have a hard time telling you whether she or Boomerang was the worse figure, just due to the large number of issues associated with both of them.  For $1, I feel like I got what I paid for, but I can’t imagine ever being willing to spend even close to full retail on this thing, even if I *had* liked the movie.

#1238: Boomerang

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

BOOMERANG

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

To quote Jack Sparrow, “There should be a captain in there somewhere.”

So, Suicide Squad was DC’s less sucky live action film from last year.  Of course, when your claim to fame is “not as bad as Dawn of Justice,” you may not be on the strongest footing.  As I noted in my review of Mattel’s version of Deadshot from the film, it did have its moments where it didn’t totally suck, or at least hinted at not sucking as much.  It was kind of like watching a clumsy kid on a bike riding up a ramp; there’s promise, and you hope things end well, but it pretty much always ends with a disappointing crash of reality, and leaves all the participants worse than they were at the start.  With a few exceptions, the movie’s cast really did try their best to salvage the film, putting in the best performances they could of the material they were handed.  Outside of Will Smith (who almost manages to save the movie), the performance I was most impressed by was Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang.  After seeing him give a number of rather forgettable turns as generic action heroes, Courtney actually did the good captain some justice.  The fact that he was so underused (especially given Boomer’s long history with the Squad) is one of the film’s greatest failings.  He ended up getting a figure from Mattel, which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Boomerang was released in the second assortment of the Suicide Squad sub-set of DC Comics Multiverse, which hit stores late last year, well after anyone was actually interested in Suicide Squad figures.  Good move there Mattel.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 23 points of articulation….in theory.  As I noted in the Deadshot review, a lot of the joints on this figure are significantly limited in range of motion.  The elbows can at least make it to 90 degrees, which is something.  Of course, on the flipside, there’s the torso crunch; remember how Deadshot’s ab-crunch was essentially useless?  Well, Boomerang goes right past “essentially” and straight to “completely.”  Seriously, the joint cannot move.  At all.  What is even the point of including this joint if it literally provides no extra movement.  All it does is stick out like a sore thumb on the sculpt.  All of the articulation sticks out, as a matter of fact; there doesn’t appear to be even the slightest attempt to work any of the joints into the sculpt organically, resulting in a figure that strangely offers the worst of both worlds in regards to sculpt and movement.  I guess the sculpt has some merit.  The head looks passably like Jai Courtney’s Boomer, albeit one who’s been scrubbed and cleaned within an inch of his life.  He’s also got a rather bland expression, which seems rather out of place. The rest of the body is…well its there.  Most of the details are rather on the soft side, and he looks rather clunky and outdated compared to most modern figures.  The worst offender is the torso/pelvis, which isn’t really shaped like any human ever, much less Boomerang from the movie.  The coat is inaccurate, mostly because it’s just a re-use of the Dark Knight Rises Bane coat.  They aren’t really that close in design, and it also doesn’t fit the new body sculpt, so it just looks awkward and poofy.  Under the coat, there’s a holster piece, which is glued in place.  It looks rather weird and tacked on, and it can’t really hold a boomerang all that well, thanks mostly to the ill-fitting jacket.  The paintwork on Boomerang isn’t the worst work I’ve seen, but it’s not particularly great.  Everything is just solid colors, with no real weathering, which is really essential on a figure like this.  There’s several noticeable occurrences of slop, and overspray on the neckline.  Lots of details, such as the zipper on his shirt and the buttons on his jacket are just left completely unpainted.  And, to top it all off, the silver paint they used is already starting to flake off.  Boomerang comes packed with three of his namesake weapon.  They are each stamped with a large “CHINA” branding, but what else is new.  They don’t really resemble any of the boomerangs he uses in the film, and on top of that he can’t actually *hold* them, thanks to his hands being sculpted into weird, generic grip poses.  If you’re already sculpting him new hands, why not at least make it so he can hold his signature weapon?  Boomerang also includes the other arm of Killer Croc, which he, amusingly, can actually hold pretty well.  Maybe Mattel thought they were actually making a figure of Captain Killer Croc Arm?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ethan, you didn’t like the movie, you don’t like Mattel, and you don’t like DC Comics Multiverse.  Why, dear God why, did you buy this figure?  That’s a good question.  Remember how I got the Son of Batman figure for $5 on clearance?  Well, this guy was sitting next to him on the shelf.  He had no price tag, but I was curious, so I took him to the price scanner, to see if he was also $5.  He wasn’t.  No, he, along with all of the other Suicide Squad figures at my local Walmart, was $1.  And for $1, there are few action figures I’d say no to.  This is an awful figure, make no mistake.  Don’t pay full price, ever.  But if you see one for $1?  Well, okay, he’s still awful, but at least he’s cheap, and therefore a little more worth it.  At least this way my Deadshot figure’s less lonely.

#1236: Aztek

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

AZTEK

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED (MATTEL)

As much as I talk down on Mattel, it should be noted that I still hold some of the stuff they’ve done in pretty high esteem.  In particular, their run on the Justice League Unlimited line, while far from perfect, did get us a whole lot of minor DC characters who would have never seen toys any other way.  Such is the case with Aztek, a character from the ‘90s who never really took off, but has always had a pretty steady fanbase.  He made a few brief appearances in JLU, and it was enough to net him a figure, which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Aztek was initially released in the second series of three-packs from Mattel’s Justice League Unlimited line, where he was packed with Superman and Sinestro.  Why those two?  Your guess is as good as mine.  It’s worth noting that the packaging for this set incorrectly listed his name as “Aztec,” which is the name of the civilization, not the character.  Good research there Matty.  Aztek was later released single-carded, and his name was correct there, so I guess they learned.  The figure stands about 4 3/4 inches tall and has the usual 5 points of articulation.  He was built on the medium-sized male body (a retooled Green Lantern mold), with a unique head and arms, as well as the legs of Red Tornado and an add-on for his chest piece.  The new pieces were all pretty solid work.  The head’s sort of stuck looking a bit up all the time, but I suppose there are worse things.  The add-on for the torso lines up surprisingly well with the sculpted shoulder pads of the arms, so that’s actually pretty cool, as are the details on the gauntlets.  The paintwork on Aztek is decent.  It was a bit better when he was still brand new, as he’s plagued by the same issue that so many gold-painted figures from this era tend to be plagued by.  At one point, his shoulders matched with the torso, but no longer.  I’m still iffy on the whole concept of metallic colors on the animated figures at all, but I guess it is what it is.  Aztek included no accessories (unless you count the other two figures in the set), as was the norm with figures in the three-packs.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Aztek (and his pack-mates) back when he was new.  I believe I found him at a Walmart outside of Dewey Beach, while on a brief weekend trip with my family.  I was a pretty big collector of the line at the time, so I was pretty pumped to have found the set in stores, especially after the rarity of most of the first series three-packs.  Ultimately, I don’t know much about Aztek or have a ton of attachment to him, but this figure’s decent enough, and is on par with JLU when it was at its best.

#1232: Son of Batman

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

SON OF BATMAN

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

Two Mattel figures in a row?  Uh oh, this can’t be good.  Nah, it’s okay guys, things aren’t ugly (just wait until next week, though; oh boy).  Today, let’s have another look at Mattel’s DC Comics Multiverse line.  It’s been a real mixed bag, to be sure.  It started more than a little rocky, and has been the subject of a lot of changes, the most prominent of them being a jump from 3 3/4-inch scale to 6-inch.  The 6-inch line spent most of its inaugural year devoted to the lackluster Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad lines, but there were some slightly less sucky items in there.  For me, the best stuff was definitely released in the Dark Knight Returns 30th Anniversary sub-set of the line, which more or less returned back to the DC Universe Classic days.  Today, I’ll be looking at another figure from that set, the Son of Batman!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Son of Batman was part of the three-figure Batman: The Dark Knight Returns series of the DC Comics Multiverse line, which was exclusive to Walmart.  For those not familiar with the story, the Son of Batman isn’t one particular character, but rather one member of the larger Sons of Batman gang, which is formed from the remnants of the Mutant Gang after the Mutant Leader is taken out by Batman.  There are quite a few of them, and they don’t have a completely uniform look, but this one more or less checks all the basic boxes, and can suitably pass for just about any of the members.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  While the majority of the Dark Knight Returns figures were built on a variant of the Masters of the Universe Classics body, the S.O.B. (clever, right?) breaks from the back, making use of the medium-sized DCUC body.  Specifically, he uses the body of the Green Lantern Corps boxed set Guy Gardner figure, along with an all-new head and forearms.  While the DCUC bodies were alright for their time, at the time of this figure’s release, the pieces were eight years old, and very much showing their age.  This is most evident in the articulation, which, in addition to not being very well worked into the sculpt, is also not privy to the best range of motion.  The knees can’t quite make a 90 degree angle, and the elbows barely even make it to 45.  This is kind of ridiculous for a collector-aimed figure from 2016.  Also, some parts of the mold, the hands especially, are showing some serious degradation from over-use.  Those things aside, the body is hardly the worst thing ever, and at least he fits in with the older line, I guess.  As for the decision to re-use the Guy Gardner pieces, they work alright I guess, and he does bear a passing resemblance to the basic S.O.B. look.  There are some inaccuracies (the big belt being the most glaring, but the turtleneck is wrong too), but it’s pretty much a certainty that this figure only got made because of the limited number of new pieces required, so it was slightly off or nothing.  The new pieces are pretty basic stuff, but reasonable enough.  They match up with the pre-existing parts, and the head still retains a little of the Miller flair (albeit a more cleaned up version).  As far as paint, the S.O.B. is pretty basic.  Mostly, he’s molded in the appropriate colors, with some very moderate solid color application here and there.  There’s no real accent work to speak of, and the only paint of note is on the eyes and bat tattoo on the face, which is, admittedly pretty sharp work.  The S.O.B. is packed with a rifle and a torch.  They’re decent enough pieces (aside from the giant “CHINA” stamped into the side of each of them; seriously Mattel, you don’t have to label every single piece; we can figure it out on our own), though he can’t actually hold the rifle the right way, since it was outside of the budget to give him new hands, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I’ve noted in several of the prior anniversary figure reviews, I’m at best a moderate fan of DKR.  So, the Son of Batman wasn’t incredibly high on my list.  On top of that, he was the short pack of the exclusive assortment, and an army builder to boot, so I didn’t exactly have much cause to run into him.  When I moved down to SC, the closest Walmart actually had one, which I picked up and looked at several times, over the course of several months.  Eventually, I found him moved over to the clearance section, with a tag that read $5.00.  For a quarter of the price, I figured he was worth it.  And honestly, yeah, he’s worth it.  Full price?  That’s iffy.  The fact is, this guy’s made from parts that are at least five years out of date, and for the same price, you could get a Marvel Legends or Black Series figure from Hasbro, or one of the Aliens or Predator figures from NECA, and those offer a much better value.  Still, he’s worth what I paid for him, and that’s good enough for me.

#1231: Baron Zemo

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

BARON ZEMO

MARVEL SUPER HEROES: SECRET WARS (MATTEL)

zemosw1

Mattel’s Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars is a strange beast.  It’s one of the earliest examples of true cross-media promotion when it came to action figures and comics, since Marvel essentially created a giant cross-over event out of whole cloth simply to give Mattel a slightly easier time of marketing the toys.  But then, Mattel, being Mattel, went and made some really odd choices.  Despite Marvel purposely filling the comic with many of their heaviest hitting heroes and villains, and wrapping them in a neat and tidy package with a bow, Mattel’s character choices for the series are beyond odd.  Sure, there are the clear hits like Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Wolverine, but Marvel mainstays like the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk were absent, while many minor and in some cases rather recent additions to the Marvel ‘verse were released, despite playing no part in the actual comic Mattel specifically requested to have as a tie-in.  One such character was Baron Helmut Zemo.  The character was not a part of the Secret Wars event, and though he had appeared back in 1973, he had only taken on the Baron Zemo identity seen here in ’82, just two years prior to this figure’s release.  He wouldn’t even truly become a major player in the Marvel universe until three years later, during The Avengers “Under Siege” story arc.  An odd choice.  Still, he got the figure, and now, 33 years later, it feels a little less odd to have a Zemo figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

zemosw2Baron Zemo was released in the second series of the Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars line.  As noted above and like everyone else in the series (barring the Black Costumed Spider-Man), he played no part in the Secret Wars maxi-series.  Interestingly, though this figure is clearly meant to be Helmut, the second Baron Zemo, and the back of the package lists his identity as such, the short comic on the back of the box presents a Zemo that far more resembles Heinrich, Helmut’s father.  This was hardly the only discrepancy of this nature in this line, of course.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  Unlike Daredevil and Spider-Man, who’s presence in this line-up seems to have mostly been due to the low number of new parts needed, Zemo actually got an impressive selection of new parts.  The torso is the same basic piece seen on several of the other figures I’ve looked at, but the arms, legs, head, and belt add-on were all unique to this figure.  The new pieces of course are all still victim to the very simplistic style of this line, but Zemo looks passable enough.  There’s some mild texturing on the fur bits, and the folds on the sleeves are rather believable.  The head looks to just bee a slightly re-worked Spider-Man head, but that’s actually not an unfair re-tooling.  A basic masked head is a basic masked head.  In terms of paintwork, I suppose Mattel can have points for effort on this guy, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.  The colors are okay, but the contrast between the mask and the jumpsuit is not as drastic as it should be.  There’s quite a bit of slot, and fuzzy lines all over the place.  Similar to what we saw on Daredevil, the black detail lines seem to start and stop wherever they please, with little regard to aesthetics.  His neck, for instance, has no details, making for a jarring break from the face and the shoulders.  Likewise, the lines have a clear break above his headpiece, which has the unintended effect of making him look like he’s got a bit of a receding hairline.  For accessories, Zemo was given one of the blasters included with Dr. Doom, as well as, what else, a goofy lenticular shield, like the ones included with every other figure in the line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

You know how I keep claiming I never intended to really collect this line?  I think I’ve officially lost the battle, because this is the first figure I’ve bought with no real rationalization.  I got Iron Man because it was the only way to get the classic armor at the time.  Wolverine was $1.  Cap was because I like the character, and wanted him to go with Tony.  Doom and Kang were cheap.  Daredevil and Spider-Man were gifts.  Zemo?  I bought Zemo because I wanted to buy Zemo.  I picked him up from Yesterday’s Fun during the holiday season.  He’s the most I’ve ever personally spent on a Secret Wars figure (which, to be fair, was still a lot less than I’ve paid for most of my Super Powers figures).  Zemo’s what I’ve come to expect from this line: a slightly sub-par figure with a disproportionate amount of charm.  The average collector might not get a lot out of him, but to a hardcore collector like myself, there’s some nice history. 

#1229: Bane – Detective Mode

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

BANE – DETECTIVE MODE

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

banedetvis1

Hey look, another DC Comics Multiverse figure.  These figures are always sooooooooooo great, right?  While the line switched over to the 6-inch scale last year, there are still quite a few entries from its earlier, 3 3/4-inch scale, based primarily on Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight.  I watched my brother play through Knight, so I’m familiar with that one, but I don’t really know Origins all that well.  Amusingly enough, I actually own more Origins merch than any of the other games.  There were just a lot of toys from that one, I guess.  Anyway, I’ll be looking at one of the smaller Origins figures, Bane.  Of course, it’s not a basic Bane.  No, no, this is a wacky variant Bane.  Let’s do this.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

banedetvis2Detective Mode Bane was released in Mattel’s small-scale DC Comics Multiverse line.  I couldn’t begin to tell you what series.  I didn’t follow the line super closely, and from what I can tell online, no one else did either.  The back of his box shows Arkham Knight, Arkham Origin Joker, and some sort of Batman derivation.  I’m guessing he hit around the time of Arkham Knight’s release?  The figure stands a little over four inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  He’s built on the same mold as the standard Arkham Origin Bane figure.  It’s okay, I guess.  Not the worst thing Mattel’s put out.  I guess he sort of looks like Bane from the game.  It’s hardly the most exciting Bane look, and the figure suffers from the same clumsy articulation issues that plagued pretty much this entire line.  The paint’s what makes this figure “unique.”  As his name denotes, he’s based on how Bane looks when he’s viewed by the player using Batman’s Detective Vision in the game.  In the game, this means the foes are seen through an x-ray filter, showing off their skeletons and what not.  For the figure, it means he’s molded in clear blue plastic, with a skeleton pattern hastily painted on the front of the figure.  He ends up looking like one of the Skeleton Men from Scooby Doo, Where Are You?.  I don’t think that was quite what they were going for, but that’s what they got.  An x-ray figure is really the sort of thing you have to fully commit to, not just a quick repaint  (for instance, every “Emperor’s Wrath” Darth Vader has at the very least an actual skull imbedded in the middle of his helmet), so this ends up looking more like a guy wearing goofy makeup than anything else.  Bane included no accessories, because why offer anything new with this figure, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the Knightfall Batman I reviewed two weeks ago, this guy was another figure given to me by my Super Awesome Girlfriend, picked up during one of her stress buys.  The fact that he was a gift from her is probably the best that can be said about him.  I mean, I’ve still owned worse figures, but this one’s not offering a whole lot of positives.  The gimmick is cool in theory, but as usual, Mattel was lazy about it, and that makes him kind of a pointless figure.  I can’t really imagine what the market for this figure is supposed to be.  People who like failed concepts?

#1223: Rodney Copperbottom

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

RODNEY COPPERBOTTOM

ROBOTS (MATTEL)

rodney1

Does anybody else remember Robots?  That CGI comedy from 2005 about a world entirely populated by goofy robots, which starred like a dozen big-name actors?  I myself only remember it every so often, when I see my DVD copy of it sitting on my shelf.  Back when it was released, I actually thought it was really amusing, and I still enjoy it when I sit down and watch it.  But, it just doesn’t seem to have had any sort of lasting impact or anything.  It did manage to get some action figures when it came out, so that’s a plus.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of the many variations of lead character  (and Ewan McGregor-voiced) Rodney Copperbottom.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

rodney2Mattel had the license for Robots, and there were several different scales offered, with less and less characters offered as the scale got larger.  Today’s figure hails from the 7-inch line, which gave us both Rodney and his friend Fender (voiced by Robin Williams in the film).  This scale offered probably the best figures Mattel offered from the license, but at the cost of offering only two characters.  The figure stands about 7 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  The scale is a little odd, since it doesn’t really go with anything, but the styling doesn’t really match up with anything either, so I guess it’s not a big deal.  The articulation is somewhat low by modern standards, but was pretty solid for a non-Marvel Legends line of the time.  In terms of design, Rodney offered a lot of the typical retro-robot design elements, albeit fed through a George Lucas/Ridley Scott used-future sort of filter, and then polished off by a Disney artist.  Are you following all of that?  Yeah, me neither.  The figure actually does a pretty remarkable job of capturing the in-film design for Rodney, which is more than could be said for most of Mattel’s output from the film.  Some of the details are a little on the soft side, but the general look of this figure is actually pretty solid.  The springs on the shins and waist are separate pieces, which is fun, and the waist one is even an actual metal spring (with a weird spinning feature attached to it).  The paintwork for Rodney is decent enough.  One of the issues that plagued all of the Rodney figures was Mattel’s uncertainty as to exactly what shade of blue Rodney was supposed to be.  They were pretty much all a different hue.  This one’s probably the closest, but still seems a bit too warm.  On the plus side, the rest of the paint is pretty good, with clean base work (apart from some slight bleed over around the eyes), and some rather impressive rust detailing on the silver bits of his arms and legs.  Rodney was packed just on his own, with no cool extras or anything, which kinda sucks, since there was some pretty cool stuff they could have given him.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t get Rodney when he was new, for whatever reason.  It’s strange, because I liked the movie a lot, so you’d think I’d track down one of the line’s best figures, but I didn’t.  I ended up finding him at 2nd Avenue while I was there with my brother.  Like everything else I’ve ever gotten there, he was in a bag of several other un-related figures, for $2 or something.  That was enough for me to take the plunge on him.  I’m really glad I did, because he’s a surprisingly fun action figure.  Now I kinda want the Fender figure to go with him.

#1216: Knightfall Batman

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

KNIGHTFALL BATMAN

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

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‘90s comics are notorious for fostering an over-arching tone of “not your daddy’s comics,” I guess in an attempt to make the genre seem more hip and fly (see?  I’m one of the cool kids!  I can get home with the downies).  One of the ways they did this was by performing lots of edgy stunts that “rocked the comics world to its core!”  Green Lantern went nuts and dismantled the corps, Superman died and was replaced by four off-shoot characters, etc.  Even Batman wasn’t exempt, thanks to the “Knightfall” story arc that ran through all the Bat-titles in the early ‘90s, where newly-introduced villain Bane bested and crippled Bruce Wayne, necessitating his replacement by Jean-Paul Valley, a far more anti-heroic character.  The story is actually pretty well-regarded, mostly because it dove head-on into a lot of the tropes associated with the ‘90s anti-hero boom and deconstructed them, with the final moral of the story being that the new style of Batman just didn’t work as well as the original.  Since the story hit right on the cusp of the superhero toy boom, several of the key characters got figures at the time of the story.  The final, more armored incarnation of Valley’s Batman has been a particular favorite of toy companies, even in current times.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

azbatsdcm2Knightfall Batman was released as part of Mattel’s smaller-scale DC Comics Multiverse line.  He’s one of the many Arkham Origins-based figures from the line, and like a good portion of those figures, he represents one of the many skins that could be swapped out for Batman’s standard look.  Said skin is based on Jean-Paul Valley’s late Knightfall look (though not his *latest* look; the armored sections got a bit more tech-y as the story progressed).  It’s the look most associated with the storyline as a whole, so it’s certainly a strong choice of both skin and figure.  The figure stands a little under 4 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  As with so many Mattel figures, the articulation  scheme is rather archaic, but at this point I sort of just expect that.  If Mattel’s determined to stay just behind the pack, I can’t stop them.  The sculpt is decent enough, I suppose.  It’s about on par with the other figures I’ve gotten from the line; the basic look is pretty solid, but there’s not a whole lot of small detail work or anything that really makes it stand out.  There’s also the incredibly awkward way the front of the belt is handled.  It’s supposed to not have a buckle, but since they made the belt a separate piece (because reasons), the tunic is interrupted twice where the belt connects, which ruins the visual flow.  And, of course, there are the huge hands, because no one at Mattel knows how to scale hands for this size figure, I guess.  The paint on the figure is passable, but, like the sculpt, a little uninspired.  The colors all more or less match up, but they’re just… unexciting.  The blue is dark, the gold is dull, the yellow is cold, and the black is just very flat.  Application is also a bit sloppy, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen from Mattel.  The figure includes no accessories, which is a slight letdown.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Have I mentioned Super Awesome Girlfriend’s stress buying before?  Yeah, this guy’s a case of that.  She stopped at a Walgreens on the drive to her parents’ and this was one of the handful of figures she grabbed for me (after verifying I didn’t already own him).  Is he a perfect figure?  No.  Is he an exciting figure?  Not incredibly so, but he has his merits.  I’ve owned worse figures, and I like the design enough that I’m happy to own a figure of it.

#1156: Justice Guild

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

THE STREAK, TOM TURBINE, BLACK SIREN, & GREEN GUARDSMAN

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED (MATTEL)

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Some of the best characters are the ones that come about because creative teams aren’t allowed to use a pre-existing character.  One of the most famous examples of this is Watchmen, which was originally meant to make use of DC’s recently acquired Charlton characters.  DC seems to do this to their creators rather frequently, as this also cropped up a few times during the course of the DC Animated Universe.  My particular favorite of these was The Justice Guild of America, from the Justice League episode “Legends.”  The episode was originally drafted with the Justice Society in mind, but was ultimately changed when DC decided the direction of the story didn’t fit how they wanted the JSA portrayed.  Fortunately, this worked out pretty well, as it gave the creators more free reign with the characters, and resulted in one of the most entertaining entries in Justice League.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These four were released as one of Matty Collector-exclusive four-packs from Mattel’s Justice League Unlimited line.  Now, it’s a Mattel review, so you’re probably already expecting a bit of Mattel hate.  Well, here it is:  Who in their right mind releases a four-pack based on a five member team?  On top of that, one of the four members released here is Black Siren, who is part of a duo with the unreleased member Catman.  The back of her box even has Catman in both of the screen shots of her!  Were they just rubbing it in our faces?  Seeing as the four-packs were actually just four single-carded figures packed together, and thus there wasn’t an issue of needing to redo the packaging, couldn’t they just have made this a five-pack?  Or, if they really felt the need to go with arbitrary number schemes, couldn’t they have just made it a six-pack and just thrown in a Green Lantern figure to round the set out?  No, that would be sensible.  Can’t have that, especially not on a Matty Collector-exclusive.  It wouldn’t be right!  Okay, I vented, let’s actually look at the figures.

THE STREAK

justiceguild2“The Streak possessed super speed and was the leader of the Justice Guild of America, a team of Super Heroes from a simpler time.  Things got complicated when a group of strange heroes calling themselves the Justice League visited their home town of Seaboard City.” The Streak is the Guild’s answer to Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash.  As such, he takes a lot of design cues from Garrick, but trades out Jay’s more unique helmet for an old-school racing helmet. The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation.  He’s built on the mid-sized body (patterned on Green Lantern’s sculpt), which is a good fit for him.  He has an all-new head, as well as new legs to add in his boot cuffs.  The new pieces do a pretty good job of capturing his look on the show, and the head in particular is a very good rendition of the Streak’s look.  The paint on the Streak is bright, clean, and bold, which are all good things.  The red is noticeably brighter than the JLU version of the Flash (as it should be).  As a whole, this is a design that looks really good as an action figure.

TOM TURBINE

justiceguild4“A power belt allowed Tom Turbine to generate energy as needed.  He and The Justice Guild protected Seaboard City for years, though between missions he continued to work on his pet project: a gateway capable of piercing the dimensional barriers between multiple earths!” Tom Turbine actually has a couple of analogues in the JSA.  While he actually replaced Al Pratt’s the Atom in “Legends,” and borrows from the Atom in a few areas of design, as well as stature, he also has a similar power set and limitations to Hourman, as well as the general demeanor of Mr. Terrific.  This results in him being by far the most unique of the five Justice Guilders, as well as the most rounded.  He’s built on the same medium body as the Streak, but the only piece that’s actually shared is the torso.  The head, arms, and legs are all unique to this figure, and he’s also got an add-on for his belt.  These new pieces are alright, though I can’t say any of them are as spot-on as the Streak.  The legs make him a little shorter, but it’s not actually enough to be all that noticeable.  I do like that the arms have two fists, since that’s sort of key to the character, but I can’t help but sort of wish they’d just sculpted them into the hands on the hips pose he sported a few times in the episode, since it’s not like the articulation’s good for anything anyway.  The head’s really where the accuracy slips up a bit.  It’s close, but just too squared off for Tom, who was slightly rounder in the face.  Tom’s paintwork is pretty solid.  The colors match up with those seen on the show, and everything’s pretty clean.  The change between the neck and the yellow of his shirt isn’t quite as overt as I’d like, but it’s hard to say what they could have done to fix that.

BLACK SIREN

justiceguild5“A nuclear blast destroyed the world Black Siren fought to protect, along with the other members of the Justice Guild.  Then the world and the Guild were back, returned to life by the mental powers of Ray Thompson.  When the truth was revealed, the Guild has to destroy everything again – including themselves.”  Okay, seriously?  That’s Black Siren’s bio?  It’s not even about Black Siren!  It’s just a synopsis of “Legends” (and not even a particularly good one, at that).  I’m guessing Siren got the short end of the stick on bios, since any actual bio for her would have to mention Catman, and we wouldn’t want to remind everyone we left him out.  Of course, this bio mentions Ray, who was also never released, so zero points there.  Second round of venting done.  Okay, so Black Siren was based on Black Canary, who would eventually be properly brought into the show when the roster was expanded.  Her partnership with Catman is patterned on Black Canary’s frequent partnering with Wildcat (another thing that would be properly brought into the show later down the line).  Ultimately, Black Siren is kind of the shallowest character introduced in “Legends,” with her main purpose being to showcase the casual sexism of a bygone era.  Anyway, her figure is built on the standard female body, which wasn’t really one of the stronger bases they had at their disposal.  The legs are oddly spaced, causing the arms to bash into them, and pretty much all of the articulation is useless.  For her part, Black Siren got a unique head sculpt, which is a reasonable enough piece, I suppose.  The jawline seems a bit solid for Siren, but it’s not the worst.  Now, she really should also have a unique set of legs to properly replicate the boots, since those bands should be three-dimensional, but she just get’s the normal legs.  It seems odd that everyone else got all the pieces they needed and she didn’t.  The paintwork on Siren is pretty good overall.  The application is pretty solid and crisp.  Most of the colors match, but the lavender sections should be a more straight grey to be totally show accurate.  Siren is the only figure in the set to get an accessory: a display stand.  It’s good, because she can’t stand without it.  Of course, this is really the sort of thing that should have been standard for all of the figures.

GREEN GUARDSMAN

justiceguild3“Powerless against anything aluminum, the Green Guardsman used his power ring to protect Seaboard City as a member of the Justice Guild.  A young John Stewart, who would grow up to become Green Lantern, read comic books of his adventures!” That’s a better bio, I suppose, but the bit about John seems really tacked on.  John doesn’t really interact with Green Guardsman at all.  So, in case it wasn’t obvious, Green Guardsman takes the place of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern.  Like the other male figures in the set, Guardsman is built on the medium male body, with a unique head and an add-on piece for the cape.  The head’s okay, but probably the weakest of those included in the set.  It’s looks a little smooshed at the front.  The cape would actually go on to be shared with Alan Scott himself later on the line.  It’s a decent enough piece, but it makes him really difficult to keep standing.  The paintwork on Green Guardsman is about on par with the rest of the set.  It’s bright and bold, and the lifework is all pretty clean.  The only real nit is that the ring gets kind of lost on the hand.  Maybe an outline or something would have made it stand out?  Guardsman includes no accessories.  While that’s somewhat more forgivable with the others, this guy would have really benefited from some constructs or something.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When this set hit Matty Collector, I had pretty much completely checked out of the JLU line, and Matty Collector too.  Turns out, a pretty large portion of the collector-base had done the same thing, which meant this, and a lot of the other sets from the same time period ended up being marked down on Matty Collector and later closed out and made available at a number of other retailers.  I ended up finding these four at Power Comics on small business Saturday, for a rather good price.  I’m still not happy about Catman being left out, especially since he’s never, ever going to get a figure at this point.  That being said, the rest if the figures are pretty cool, and I guess some are better then none.