Tag Archives: Mego

#1121: Interstellar Figures

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

COOPER & BRAND

INTERSTELLAR (NECA)

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You know those movies where you go in with absolutely no expectations, and they still totally disappoint you?  Yeah, I had a couple of those this year.  On a rare few occasions, I’ll go into a movie with no expectations and come out of it thinking that was one of the best movies I’ve seen in some time.  Such was the case with Interstellar.  I, like just about everyone else, mostly know Nolan from his work on the Dark Knight trilogy, which I enjoyed, but was never particularly enamored by.  I did really like his work on Inception, but I still didn’t really expect a whole lot going into Interstellar (Matthew McConaughey in the lead role didn’t really boost my confidence either).  I didn’t get around to seeing it until this summer, but I was very much impressed.  It’s the sort of movie you don’t see much of these days, a send up to the hard science fiction movies of the ‘70s, and in many ways a spiritual successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was a lot of fun.  And, even better, it had toys!  In the words of Matthew McConaughey: “Alright, alright, alright!”

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

In 2014, NECA released Cooper and Brand as a two-pack within their 8-inch retro cloth line.  The figures are kind of like slightly higher end Megos, so it’s an appropriate style for a movie that was a love letter to movies of that same time period.

COOPER

interstellar3Joseph “Coop” Cooper is Interstellar’s central figure, not only as the story’s lead and focus character, but also as the heart of the emotional core that makes the movie as gripping as it is.  Though this may be a grand space epic, at it’s core, Interstellar is the story of a father-daughter bond.  Coop’s entire motivation for taking on his mission is to give his daughter Murphy a chance to live, which is a pretty compelling reason to root for the guy.  His figure stands about 8 1/2 inches tall and he has 24 points of articulation (I think.  It’s hard to tell, because the space suit isn’t removable).

interstellar5Coop includes two heads: with and without his helmet.  The helmeted head isn’t what he’s wearing in the package, but it’s kind of the default and really the only one I can see most people displaying.  The actual head is a separate piece from the helmet (but glued in place), which presents a fairly decent McConaughey likeness.  The paint’s a little messy in some spots, but is generally pretty good looking.  The actual helmet is very nicely sculpted, and looks quite accurate to the source material.  It even has a hinged visor, which is pretty spiffy!  The unhelmeted head is a bit of a step down.  The likeness feels rather off here (despite the two heads sharing the same face).  His head just seems like it’s too deep.  Also, the paint’s pretty rough, with the five o’clock shadow being much heavier, the lips standing out much more, and the eyes being just completely misaligned.  Seriously, it’s hard to take the head seriously with those eyes.

interstellar4I’m pretty sure Coop uses the same basic body as all of NECA’s male retro cloth figures.  This is the first time I’ve encountered it, but it seems pretty solid, especially when compared to the old Mego bodies (which were, admittedly, rather flimsy).  Coop’s space suit is made up of a cloth shirt and pants, as well as sculpted pieces for the gloves, boots, breastplate/backpack, neck guard, elbow boosters, and the straps around his ankles.  In terms of accuracy, the overall appearance definitely evokes the designs seen on screen, but there are a few minor differences here and there.  That being said, they do appear to be conscious deviations, put in place to fit the “retro” feel just a bit better.  That I can certainly get behind.  The tailoring on the cloth parts is a bit rudimentary, but certainly not bad (and once again, fitting the whole retro thing).  The sculpted parts are actually very strong pieces, and really match up well.  The only issue I have is the neck guard, which is just the slightest bit too tall, thereby making it rather difficult to get the helmeted head placed properly.  The paint on the sculpted bits is decent.  It’s not amazing, but there are some nice touches, especially on the NASA logo.

BRAND

interstellar2Amelia Brand sort of ends up taking a backseat to Coop and Murph, but she’s far from an unimportant character.  In fact, her relationship with her own father, left on earth with Murphy, plays out as an interesting reflection of Coop and Murph, offering an interesting sort of “what if”scenario of how things could have played out differently.  Her figure stands about a half an inch shorter than Coop, and has 22 points of articulation (having lost the bicep swivels present on Coop).

interstellar6Like Coop, Brand has two head sculpts, one helmeted, one not.  The helmeted sculpt is very similar to Coop’s, with the actual helmet being the same piece.  The face is new, and is a pretty decent Anne Hathaway.  She doesn’t have the most distinctive features, so it’s a little generic, but still pretty good.  The paint is a lot cleaner here than on Coop, which is certainly nice.  Her unhelmeted head is, on a whole, better than the one included with Coop, offering a much closer likeness, and a bit less weirdness with the proportions.  However, the paint brings this one down too.  The eyes in particular feel rather lifeless and a little creepy.  Also, for some reason her nostrils have been painted, despite this detail not being present on the helmeted head.  It’s not a good change, I can tell you that.

interstellar7Brand is built on the female equivalent of the body Coop was built on.  If I’m recalling correctly, she was the first officially released figure to use this body (Broomhilda from Django Unchained would have used it, but only a scant few of her made it out before those figures were cancelled).  It’s okay, but it’s not quite as solidly constructed as the male body, and I miss the extra articulation.  Her suit is pretty much the same as Coop’s, just with the cloth bits tailored to fit the different body.  The sculpted parts are all the same, with the exception of the boots, which are a bit smaller on Brand.  The paint on Brand is actually a bit better on my figure, though I would imagine this varies from set to set.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I watched Interstellar with my Dad, who has long been a fan films such as 2001.  He was very enamored with the film, so we ended up picking up this set for him on Father’s Day this year.  I was quite impressed with the figures myself, and was keeping an eye on the set still in stock at the then-closing Movie Stop, waiting to get a good deal.  Sadly, I missed it.  Oh well.  I still ended up getting a pretty good deal, though, since I found it on clearance at a Suncoast (yes, there are apparently still some of those around.  I was shocked too).  I’m pretty happy to have these figures.  They both have some flaws, and the unmasked heads are kind of a waste, but I do really like these two.  I just wish I had a TARS to go with them.  And a CASE.  And Doyle and Romilly.  Heck, I’d even buy Topher Grace’s character.

#0729: Time Traveler

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

TIME TRAVELER

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

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Mego’s Micronauts line of the ‘70s was never a super huge hit, and it was definitely overshadowed by the many toys first toylines of the ‘80s, but it does still have something of a cult following. This cult following helped get the line a relaunch in the early 2000s, courtesy of fan-favorite toy company Palisades. Palisades put a lot of effort into bringing Micronauts back. Sadly, the line was cursed with several pretty awful factory issues, causing the final figures to suffer, hurting the sales of what was already a pretty niche line. This came back to bite Palisades pretty hard, leading to the end of their Micronauts line after just two full series, and their eventual bankruptcy. Kind of a bummer. So hey, how ‘bout those figures, though? Let’s have a look at what is perhaps the most iconic of all Micronauts figures, the Time Traveler!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

TimeTraveler2The Time Traveler was part of the first series of Palisades’ Micronauts line. The figure was available in four possible color schemes, two transparent and two opaque. This one is the clear translucent one, which is a pretty direct recreation of one of the original Time Travelers, with just a few minor differences. He’s 3 ¾ inches tall and he has 18 points of articulation, same as his 70s predecessor. Sculpturally, this figure is more or less identical to the original version, but there are a few differences to note. The real differences are on the head, which is a little thinner than the original and features a higher level of detail work. It’s certainly a higher quality sculpt than the original, though I’m not sure I prefer it to the original. It’s in that weird area of being a more modernized sculpt that still possesses many of the style tics of the vintage toy, but without the nostalgic charm. The Time Traveler possesses no actual paint, but his head and all of his chest plates are done in a nice vac-metalized gold. The golden head is actually another change from the vintage figures,
where all of the Time Travelers were silver. While the original Time Traveler figures each only included a single chest plate, chosen at random from the four possible designs, Palisades’ Time Traveler included all TimeTraveler3four of the original plates, as well as two new designs (though, I could only find four of the chest plates when I went to take the pictures!). My personal favorite is the “windows” piece, but they’re all pretty cool. The Time Traveler also included the L-port piece from the original figure, as well as a black display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Palisades’ Micronauts line, amongst other things, was not super easy to find, especially before the introduction of all the online toy buying options we now have. I did end up finding a Time Traveler at an out of the way toy store around the time of release, but it wasn’t this one. Unfortunately, the first series figures were incredibly fragile and he ended up breaking, which was a definite bummer. I ended up getting this guy many years later, courtesy of the Toy Robot Museum, near Allentown, PA. Even with all of the factory issues and the slight changes from the originals, this guy’s a lot of fun, and I’m definitely glad I managed to find one.

#0542: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL RETRO FIGURES (DIAMOND SELECT TOYS)

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So, today, you were probably expecting to read a review of that Marvel Legends Hobgoblin I’ve been building for the last week. Well, dear reader, you’re just going to have to test your patience on that one, because I’m going to be doing a bit of a theme for the next two weeks.  Aren’t I just the worst?

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, you might be unaware that a little movie called Avengers: Age of Ultron is set to be released (in the US, anyway) on May 1st. That means that there are 14 days until it’s released. So, I’ll be counting down by doing a review of a figure of each of the film’s main characters each day between now and then.  Let’s kick things off with “The First Avenger” Captain America.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

CapRetro10Captain America is the second figure in Diamond Select Toys’ Marvel Retro Figures line, which is DST’s new line of figures based on the old Mego figures from the 70s. Cap follows Spider-Man and will be followed by Wolverine and Thor later this year. The figure is built on the line’s standard body, which is a re-fit Mego Type II body, with a few improvements by Paul “Dr. Mego” Clarke. Said body (with the addition of a head) stands roughly 8 inches tall and has 16 points of articulation. As I noted in my review of the Spider-Man figure, this version of the body has a sturdier construction than the original Mego bodies, and is even a little sturdier than DST’s previous Star Trek and Planet of the Apes retro lines. Just like Spider-Man, Captain America is essentially three figures in one. There are three complete sets, each consisting of a head, a costume, and accessories, and one body for them all to share. For the purposes of this review, I have provided two spare bodies of my own, but the actual set only has the one.

CapRetro9First of the three looks is Cap’s “vintage” look, which is the one that comes pre-built on the included body. He’s a recreation of the original Captain America Mego. The vintage Cap is widely remembered for the changes to his costume and his overall goofy look. This figure remains true to that. He uses the same head sculpt as the original figure. Purely looking at the sculpt of the head, it’s actually not bad. It’s a teeny bit dated, but it’s generally a fairly generic hero head. What really makes the head goofy looking is the paint, which has also been recreated here. Overall, it’s a pretty good match for the original Cap head. Some of the line work, particularly on the “shadow” of the mask, is a little fuzzy at the edges. Also, the already goofy eyes are made a little goofier by the fact that the pupils are just a tiny bit misplaced. It looks a little bit like he’s glancing to his right. The figure’s body suit is tailored to match the original, and they’ve done a pretty great job of that. It sits very nicely, and the colors of the cloth are all well-matched. The star emblem presents a bit of a problem. The original figure had a decal, which, over time, fell off of just about every single figure. On this one, it’s been replaced by a piece of thick pleather-like material. It’s an understandable change, but rather than properly affix it to the costume, it’s held on in the center with a rather simple threading. The end result is a) a fairly noticeable dot in the center of the logo and b) a logo which sticks up at the sides and doesn’t stay straight. Surely there had to be a better solution than that to get the logo to stay in place. The other essential piece of the costume is the boots. The original was notable for not having the proper buccaneer-style boots of Cap’s comic look, and that’s replicated here. The original Mego Cap boots, like all Mego boots, were molded in a thin, stiff plastic. Here, they’re done in a rubberier material, making them both sturdier and easier to get on and off the figure. This version of the figure includes the same one accessory as his vintage counterpart: his shield. The actual piece is a pretty straight re-cast of the original shield, but the decal is noticeably not as smoothly applied as the vintage one, which is too bad.

CapRetro4Second up is the updated take on the classic Cap design. Like Spider-Man, this figure is meant to be what a Mego Cap might look like with modern toy making technology at its disposal. To start with, the figure gets a brand-new head sculpt. This one offers a more… idealized take on Cap’s head. Where Spidey’s head felt like an evolution of the original head, this one feels more like a start from scratch. Many of the same elements are there, but placement seems better. The eyes aren’t buggy, the jaw is a little more chiseled, and the facial feature in general are a little bit more evenly place on the head, so he doesn’t have such a huge forehead going on. He also has a lot more detailing, especially on the actual mask which sports some seams along the top and a more defined set of eyeholes. The head is a little bit on the large side, and this is emphasized by the fact that the neck is perhaps a touch too long. It’s not terrible, but it is noticeable in light of Spider-Man, who had a more accurately proportioned head and neck. The paintwork on the head is pretty great. The colors are well chosen and everything is bold and mostly clean. The tailoring on the figure’s costume is tighter than the vintage one, and is actually a little too tight in a few areas. CapRetro5Once the costume is fully in place, it looks pretty good, but it’s a real pain getting it to that point. The material chosen for the costume is quite nice; the blues match very well with the mask and I like the scaled pattern on his upper half quite a bit. Also, the option to have him with or without the shorts is nice, though, once again, those can be a bit difficult to get on. The star is the same as the one on vintage costume, which is disappointing, but at the very least it’s consistent. This version of Cap fixes the vintage one’s issue with the boots, supplying a pair of the proper cuffed boots, grabbed, I believe, from the Mego version of Will Scarlett. They’re pretty straight forward and pretty much perfect for the character, so they’re a great choice. Cap includes three sets of sculpted hands, each sculpted with the proper gloved look for the character, and cast in a red that matches the cloth potion of the gloves. There is a pair of fists, a pair for saluting, and a pair in an open pose for shield throwing and such. Speaking of shield throwing, Cap also includes a brand-new version of his mighty shield. The rings and star are sculpted and then painted, rather than just being a sticker, resulting in a very nice final product. The figure also includes Cap’s original, pointed shield, done in a similar fashion to the round one.

CapRetro3Last up is Cap’s “alter ego,” Private Steve Rogers, wearing his WW2 Army uniform. The figure features a head sculpt built from the same base sculpt as the updated Captain America head, meaning they match up appropriately. According to the included booklet, this head was sculpted first and then reverse engineered into a Cap head. Truth be told, I do think this might be the stronger of the two heads. The Cap head certainly isn’t bad, but this one really feels like it gets the Mego aesthetic down and it captures the “classic” Steve Rogers look pretty much perfectly. It helps that it’s topped off with the cleanest paintwork of the three included heads; there’s pretty much not a drop out of line on this one. Steve’s outfit is made up of a shirt, pants, belt, tie, boots, and boot covers (EDIT: As an astute reader reminded me, the outfit also includes an extra set of regular flesh tone hands.  They’re identical to the ones that come on the body, so I’m not certain what their purpose is, but they’re there). Getting Steve’s uniform properly assembled is certainly quite a task, and it took me a good 15 minutes to do so, but he stays together pretty well once CapRetro7assembled. The uniform is well-tailored and the shirt in particular has plenty of layers to it. One thing I did notice is that on my figure the boot covers had two different lengths of elastic at the bottom, which is minor, but slightly annoying. The boots are very nicely sculpted, with lots of nice little details, and they go on fairly easily. Steve’s only accessory (unless you opt to give him the pointed shield) is his helmet, which sits very nicely on his head.

Like the Spider-Man set, this set also includes a booklet with a few articles about Mego and the creation of the set. It’s a pretty fun read, so there’s certainly some value to it.

The packaging is similar to that of the first. However, there were a few changes for the better. First of all, the reproduction of the original box isn’t glued in place this time, which is much appreciated. Additionally, the extra costumes are place on mock bodies instead of being clipped in place, which avoids the small holes the Spider-Man costumes suffered. Unfortunately, the extra pieces are still blister packaged in place, so they can’t be removed without tearing up the backing.

CapRetro2

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Growing up playing with my dad’s old Mego figures, I had one particular figure who was my favorite above the rest. That figure was Captain America. Sure, he was goofy, and inaccurate, but he was just so much fun. I would sit there at my grandparents’ house, watching my VHS copies of the 60s cartoon, holding that figure the whole time. When this line was announced and Cap was shown, there was no doubt that I was buying this figure.

Most of the time, when I get a figure, my initial reaction to the figure is rather indicative of my final opinion of said figure. In the case of Captain America, my initial reaction, especially to the updated version of the figure, was one of disappointment. I love the old Cap figure, and this one seemed to fall short of what I wanted. But then, I played around with him a bit, and I took the pictures for the review. And somewhere between taking the pictures and writing this review, I fell in love with this figure. I don’t know quite how it happened, but it did.

The set isn’t without its drawbacks. For the price they’re asking, some work could still be done on making the packaging a little bit more collector friendly and on making sure the costumes fit the figures as best they can. All that said, an admirable job was done on this figure, and I’m extremely happy to have gotten him.

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*Incidentally, I had originally intended to review a completely different Cap figure today. However, this guy arrived, and I didn’t want to push him back to after the Age of Ultron prep stuff, so I bumped that one. The rest of the AoU-themed stuff will be older figures from my pre-existing collection.

#0500: Spider-Man

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

SPIDER-MAN

MARVEL RETRO FIGURES (DIAMOND SELECT TOYS)

SpiderManRetrob1

Holy crap, it’s been 500 whole reviews. I really wasn’t sure I’d get this far. I had originally planned to do another high-end figure review (Mech-Test Tony Stark, for those who are curious) but I decided to do something else for a couple of reasons. It’s an item that I realized deserved the deluxe treatment and in doing some background research for the review, I discovered that there were almost no reviews of this figure, which I felt wasn’t fair to the figure or the company that produced it.

While Mego may not have been the first company to produced licensed figures, they were definitely one of the most influential. They ruled the toy aisle for most of the 70s and they were not only the one of the first prominent example of Marvel Comics-based figures, but they were also responsible for bringing a fair number of people into the Marvel fanbase and revolutionizing the action figure industry as a whole.

There has been quite a resurgence of Mego style toys in the last few years, but one property has been noticeably absent. Due mostly to contract issues with Hasbro, Marvel was out of the running for the Mego style. However, Diamond, who had helped kick off the resurgence of the style with their Star Trek Retro Figures, found a way around that. By releasing the figures in larger deluxe sets at a higher price point, they can technically classify them as “collectibles” and not be in direct competition with Hasbro. So, each figure comes packed as a recreation of their original Mego figure, with two full sets of alternate pieces, allowing two full additional figures to be built by just supplying a basic Mego body. The first figure to be released is one of Marvel’s top characters, Spider-Man!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

SpiderManRetrob12Spider-Man is the first figure in Diamond’s new Marvel Retro Figures line. He will be followed by Captain America, due out later this month, as well as Wolverine and Thor later this year. The figure uses the standard Mego-style body (re-tooled with a few improvements by Paul “Dr. Mego” Clarke), meaning he’s about 8 inches tall and features 16 points of articulation. This is body is essentially the same as Mego’s Type II body, which was their go-to body for the vast majority of their basic male figures. The Mego body is really helped set the standard of what was expected from an action figure body, so it’s a very strong starting point for a figure. It’s also worth noting that this new version is a lot sturdier than the original Mego bodies, and even a little sturdier than the ones Diamond used for their Star Trek and Planet of the Apes Retro lines. It’s always nice to see a company actively working to improve these kinds of parts of a product.

SpidermanRetrob11This figure is a little different from the figures I often review for this site, in that there are three possible looks, which are effectively three separate figures. So, let’s start off with the basic, original Mego-style Spider-Man, which is how the figure is assembled in the packaging. As a recreation of the original, he makes use of the original Mego head. Mego’s Spider-Man sculpt was certainly one of their most distinctive pieces. By today’s standards, some of the details, especially the etched in weblines, are a little on the soft side, however, for the time, it’s truly a remarkable sculpt. It has a lot of character to it, and I do believe that it’s one of the few Spider-Man sculpts to actually note the presence of a nose under the mask, which is a very nice touch. The head has been painted to pretty much match the original. The edges of the black outline around the eyes are a little fuzzy in some spots, but the overall look is quite nice. This version features a one-piece costume, with all the proper details silkscreened on. The costume replicates the original “circle logo” Mego figure, which had a rather distinctive circle cut out of the webs around the spider emblem. Mego ultimately replaced this with a more comic-accurate version, but this one is often remembered for its more unique look. The costume has a bit of a shine to it, which isn’t quite accurate to the original, but actually looks rather sharp.

SpiderManRetrob4The next “figure” included is the updated version of the basic Spider-Man. Essentially, this one is what a Spider-Man Mego would look like given all the advancements in toy making technology. This one gets an all-new head sculpt, which offers a more conventional take on Spidey’s noggin. The eyes are wider, the weblines are finer, and the head has a more… head-like shape. It’s also a little smaller, to keep it more proportional with the body. This head really feels like a genuine evolution of the Mego head. It’s definitely different, but it has a lot of the same charm. Plus, that nose is still there, which really sells the whole thing for me. The paint also feels like the next step after the Mego version. The colors are the same, but this time around, a black wash has been applied to give the weblines their proper color. The black around the eyes also seems a little sharper on this head, which is great to see. The costume on this one is expectedly more elaborate than the previous one. The tailoring is just a bit tighter to the body, and the stitching has been brought more in line with the outlines of the costume. The reds and blues are more defiantly separate on this one. He also has the classic underarm web-wings, which are done with a very nice netted material and manage to SpidermanRetrob7actually look pretty respectable. That can’t really be said for most attempts at replicating them. The weblines on the red portions of the costume are finer, though they are oddly a little lighter, as well, which doesn’t seem to have been the intent. They end up being more of a brown than a true black. It’s a minor nit with an otherwise very nice costume. While the original Spidey had printed on boots, this one has a pair of sculpted boots, done in a manner that matches the head sculpt. They’re well sculpted, and certainly a little tighter fitting than most Mego boots. Admittedly, I still find myself partial to the printed boots, but that’s more of a personal preference. The sculpted boots still work quite well. This Spidey includes three sets of specially sculpted hands, each done with a web pattern that matches the head and boots. There are a pair in the classic web-shooting pose, a pair of fists, and a pair that are open in a pose perfect for wall-crawling. All of the hands are fantastically sculpted, and the web-shooting hands in particular are a great version of a piece long missing from the Mego Spider-Man. In addition to the hands, Spidey also includes a pair of web-shooters and a camera belt.  Neither are essential pieces, however, both make for some entertainment value.

SpiderManRetrob3The third, and final, “figure” is a version of Spider-Man’s alter ago Peter Parker. Right off the bat, there’s one minor issue with Peter, and it’s not really an issue with the Peter pieces, but rather the Spider-Man body. The body is molded in red plastic. This is clearly meant to make the two Spider-Man costumes more convincing, but it leaves Pete without a proper body. His clothes will mostly cover the body, but the few flashes of red are rather noticeable. For the purposes of the review, my Parker is assembled on a spare body I got from Dr. Mego a few years ago. The figure has what appears to be an all-new head sculpt. The original Peter just made use of the Shazam head, which obviously couldn’t be done here. This head does appear to have at least taken the facial features of the original as an influence, so the sculpt holds on to some of the original’s style. One of the things that really stands out about this sculpt is the hair, which features some really great fine detailing, often lacking from genuine Megos. This head has easily the most complex of the three paintjobs, and ends looking quite nice. All of the paint work is clean, with pretty much no bleed over. There’s a tiny bit of slop where some brow paint ended up on his ear, but other than that, things are pretty good. Peter’s outfit is also probably the most complex. It’s made up of five pieces in total: shirt, pants, vest, and shoes. The shirt and pants are decently tailored, and pretty much just look like Mego clothes (apart from the use of Velcro). The SpiderManRetrob8vest is also nicely tailored, however, it’s a real pain to get on over the shirt. While the separate pieces are nice, it seems like a shirt/vest combo might have been more practical here. The shoes are well sculpted and well painted. They go on with ease, which is always a plus. They do look a little large, but that’s just something that goes hand in hand with removable shoes. Peter also includes a pair of the standard Mego hands in the proper flesh-tone, as well as a pair of glasses, a camera, and a copy of the Daily Bugle. The glasses are good in theory, however, they don’t stay on very well, and they look super goofy to boot. The camera is definitely a nice piece, and really helps make the figure. It would be cool if it had a strap, but it’s still great as is. The Bugle is just a single sheet of paper; it’s more there for the appearance than anything else, but it’s a cool touch nonetheless.

In addition, the set also includes a booklet with a few articles from various Mego experts, which was an entertaining read.

SpiderManRetrob2Also, I don’t talk about packaging much, but there are a few things to note here. First of all, this is a really attractively packaged set. I’m not one for keeping things in the packaging, but if I were, I’d certainly be pleased with this. Sadly, the packaging really can’t be salvaged once the figure is opened. The extra pieces are blister packaged, so they have to be torn off the backing. Also, the replica Retro packaging is really cool. However, for some reason, some sort of adhesive was used to hold it in place. I managed to get mine out without damaging it too badly, but it was a lot of work. Given the obvious effort that went into it, I can’t imagine that the adhesive was intentional.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Most of my experience with Megos was playing with my dad’s old figures when I was younger. However, Spider-Man was actually one of the few that my dad bought for me, so that particular figure definitely has a soft spot for me. As such, I was eager to get this updated version.

This set was picked up from Luke’s Toy Store, who I generally deal with for my Minimates purchases. The store decided to give the Retro Figures a try with this one. Sadly, it sounds as if I may have been the only person to buy the set from him, which is a real shame. I think a lot of people are turned off by the price of these sets. Admittedly, they are on the expensive side. However, you’re essentially getting three figures, which brings the per figure cost down quite a bit. About the only thing I would say in regards to the price is that it would be nice if Diamond included at least one extra body, or if they provided an easy location to order extra bodies at a reasonable price. I had a few extras I’d gotten from Dr. Mego a while back, but the average consumer won’t know where to find such things.

All in all, this is actually a really fun set. It offers both the chance to re-buy an old favorite, and the chance to get a loving update on that figure. And for me personally, it provided me with the chance to take a Mego out of its box for the first time ever, which was a really cool experience. I intend to buy every figure this line offers, and I would urge anyone who was a fan of Megos to do the same.

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#0432: Time Traveler

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

TIME TRAVELER

MICRONAUTS (MEGO)

It might seem odd that I, someone born 15 years after the line’s release, would be such a big fan of Micronauts. Like with so many things, I blame my dad. I used to stay at my grandparents’ house a lot when I was younger, and he pulled out some of his old toys for me to play with while I was there. My interest in superheroes, Star Wars, and Star Trek can pretty much be directly tied to that. However, there was one figure in particular that intrigued me. Only his top remained, but he was translucent yellow and he had this really cool chrome head. He was a Time Traveler, generally considered the signature figure of the Micronauts line. And thus, a monster was born.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Time Traveler actually saw two separate releases in Mego’s Micronauts line. This is one of the ones released in the first series of figures. It’s easy to distinguish: the original releases were all translucent, while the later ones were opaque. The Time Traveler was initially released in four colors: Clear, Yellow, Orange, and Blue. This one is the blue one. The Time Traveler is roughly 3 ¾ inches in height and he features 18 points of articulation. Unlike his space-faring friend, the Time Traveler is all plastic. The Time Traveler was based on Microman’s Microman M10X, although he has shoes in place of the M10X’s bare feet. That’s just how we roll in America, I guess. Like the Space Glider, the sculpt shows its age, but it definitely has a certain charm about it. The Time Traveler is definitely the more simplistic of the two, but his sculpt is still pretty fun. His chrome chest plate is a removable piece, and there were four possible variations of it. This figure has what is commonly called the “radio dial” plate, due to its resemblance of an old-time radio. It’s not my favorite of the possible options, but it’s still pretty good. Plus, chrome, so…you know. The Time Traveler actually features no paint work. His head and chest plate are vac-metalized, and the rest of his parts are molded in the appropriate colors. The figure originally included an L-port which could hook into his back to allow him to be attached to vehicles, but mine doesn’t have this piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the Space Glider, the Time Traveler was purchased from the Antique Depot during Ellicott City’s annual Midnight Madness event. The Space Glider’s my favorite, but the Time Traveler is old faithful when it comes to Micronauts. The figure has a definite style about him and he’s instantly distinctive.

#0431: Space Glider

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

SPACE GLIDER

MICRONAUTS (MEGO)

So, yes, it’s the day after Christmas, and yes, I have tons of new toys to review.  However, I am away from my usual photo shooting set-up, so the Christmas stuff won’t actually be reviewed until the 31st.  Bear with me.  In the mean time, here’s our regularly scheduled programming!

One line that I am surprised I haven’t talked about more on this site is Micronauts. Before I was firmly on the Minimates train, there were few lines that filled me with as much joy as Micronauts. For those of you that don’t know, Micronauts began its life as a Japanese toyline called Henshin Cyborg, which were actually the Japanese equivalent of the original GI Joes. Toymaker Takara decided to make a line of smaller scale figures, called Microman. In 1976, US toymaker Mego decided to import the line under the title Micronauts. The figures are some of the earliest 3 ¾ inch figures, and they ended up having quite a few lasting contributions to toys in general, even if the Micronauts themselves may not be as widely remembered. Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of the line’s heroic characters, the Space Glider!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Space Glider was released in the first series of Mego’s Micronauts line. He was available in three different colors: Blue, Green, and Yellow. In case you couldn’t tell from the pictures, the one being reviewed is blue. The Space Glider is about 3 ¾ inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation. It’s also worth noting that, aside from the head and hands, the whole figure is made from die cast metal. It means the figure is pretty darn sturdy, and he has quite a bit of heft to him. Space Glider was an import of the Super Steel Microman M21X, from the Microman line. His sculpt is essentially the same. While the sculpt does show its age a bit, it’s certainly well done for the time. The torso and arms have lots of hard angles, which look really good. His head is a great, generic “70s space hero” look, although the vac-metalizing has made some of the details a little soft. This figure has some definite style to it, which really makes it stand out. The paint work on the Space Glider is fairly basic, but well done. All of the blue areas are done with a very nice metallic sheen, and the color is nice and evenly applied. Everything else is pretty much just molded in the proper color, but it looks good. The Space Glider included a helmet and a wingpack, both of which are sadly missing from mine.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got the Space Glider from the Antique Depot, an antique store not far from where I live. I saw him while walking through during Ellicott City’s annual Midnight Madness event. The Space Glider has long been my favorite of Micronauts figure, but I had never had one of the originals. With some light prodding from my friends Tim and Jill, I purchased the figure. The Space Glider really holds up. He’s a really strong figure, and he’s just a lot of fun!

#0247: Henshin Yellow

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

HENSHIN YELOW

HENSHIN X

HenshinYellow

Time for a small history lesson. Back in the 60s, when the original GI Joe was all the rage, Japanese toymakers Takara decided they wanted to make a similar line, but in Japan. However, they didn’t have the budget to actually clothe the figures, and not wanting to make a scene by selling them naked, they instead cast them is clear plastic and filled them with assorted mechanical pieces to make them look robotic. This new line was dubbed Henshin Cyborg, and it was eventually scaled down to 3 ¾ inch scale and dubbed Microman. In the late 70s, Microman was brought to the US by Mego, under the name Micronauts. The line wasn’t a huge hit, but it did moderately well and it spawned quite a loyal following of fans. Fans who also tended to be fans of Mego’s more successful 8 inch lines. So, Castaway Toys, a company known for Mego-styled figures, has decided to bridge the gap with Henshin X!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

This figure is part of the first release of Henshin X figures. He’s one of the heroic figures, and his look is inspired by the Micronauts Time Traveler. The figure stands 8 inches tall and features 24 points of articulation. He’s built on Castaway Toys’ now standard body, which is a reworking of the Type 2 Mego body. The body has been redesigned to give it extra articulation at the elbows, knees, and ankles, as well as eliminate the need for a rubber band to hold the arms and legs in. This is a great improvement, as it means the figure is more sturdy and less likely to spontaneously fall apart. In addition to the basic body, he has a new head sculpt inspired by the old Microman/Micronauts head. He also features a piece with various gears and vents inserted into his torso for added texture. The paintwork isn’t anything too complex, mostly just pieces being painted a solid color, but that does mean everything is clean. The figure’s back, arms, and legs have been painted with a translucent yellow paint, to give the appearance of being molded in said color, and the head has been painted silver to replicate the vac-metallized heads of the figures that inspired this one. The figure includes three pairs of hands: relaxed, trigger finger, and fists. The fists are my personal favorites, but all of them look great, and I’m happy to have the option.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I bought this guy at Mego Meet, a Mego themed convention that happens every year in Wheeling, West Virginia. Castaway Toys had a table set up, and this was their brand new item for this year. They had made up a small quantity of these “promo”-types to gage interest in the line, and see what people thought of them. Being a collector of cool action figures, as well as a pretty big fan of Micronauts, I was thrilled to see such a cool set of figures. I only had enough for one, but I hope that Castaway persues this as a full production line, as I’d love to get the rest of the figures that they had present at the event. This figure is a whole lot of fun, and that’s the best kind of action figure!

#0165: Egon Spengler

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

EGON SPENGLER

GHOSTBUSTERS RETRO ACTION HEROES

When there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? If you answer anything other than “The Ghostbusters” I might have to hit you. Yeah, you right there.

Here’s another look at Mattel’s attempt at making the license work for them (here’s a hint: it didn’t).  This time around it’s Egon Spengler, hailing from Mattel’s Mego-Styled Retro Action Heroes line. Egon was of course played by Harold Ramis in the films (R.I.P.), and Maurice LaMarche in The Real Ghostbusters, the cartoon adaptation that these were based on. That’s right, Egon and the Brain were voiced by the same guy!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Egon is based on his design from the cartoon. Egon’s redesign was perhaps the most radical of the set, as they opted to make him a blonde, I suppose to make the characters a bit more diverse. Like the rest of the team, the cartoon also gave Egon’s uniform its own color scheme, blue and pink in this case. It was an odd combination, but, hey, it was certainly unique. Egon stands about 8 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation. He’s built on Mattel’s basic Retro Action body, which is an alright piece. Not the greatest, but it works pretty well. Egon features a newly sculpted head, a pair of black boots, a proton pack with neutrino-wand, and a cloth jumpsuit in the appropriate colors. The head is quite nicely sculpted, maintaining the proper Mego aesthetic and keeping in line with the character’s design on the cartoon. The boots and proton pack are the same ones used on Ray. My opinion of them hasn’t really changed. The boots are fine, and the proton pack is really cool. Egon’s paint is a rare occurrence, but what’s there is nice and cleanly done, with no noticeable slop. Aside from the proton pack, Egon also includes is faithful PKE meter.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m actually pretty fond of this line, and outside of Minimates, it remains my only full set of the Ghostbusters I own. Egon has on and off been my favorite Ghostbuster, so this figure is probably my favorite of this particular set. I picked each of the ‘Busters up as I found them at my local TRU. Egon was the second figure that I found, sitting there all by himself.

#0123: Ray Stanz

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

RAY STANZ

GHOSTBUSTERS RETRO ACTION HEROES

I am so resisting the urge to start this review off with “Who ya gonna call?”  I want to, but I feel it may be over played.

So, yeah, this is a Ghostbusters review.  My very first on the site.  Ghostbusters is another of those properties where I’m a pretty big fan of the movie, but the toys that have been made haven’t always been the best.  I like the minimates, because that’s my thing, but as far as actual figures, it’s been a bit lax.  Mattel picked up the license a few years ago, and there was a lot of excitement, but it was Mattel, so they ran it into the ground, surprising no one.

The best way to get stuff based on the characters is to check out some of the stuff based on The Real Ghostbusters, the cartoon made between the first and second movies.  There was a toyline released when the series was on the air, and when Ghostbusters got a bit of a resurgence a few years ago, there were a few more items released.

Mattel didn’t totally screw up their part of the cartoon stuff, and they released a nice set of figures to tie in to the hole Mego-styled retro figures craze.  I’ll be looking at that line’s version of Ray Stanz, who was played by Dan Akroyd in the movies and animation veteran Frank Welker in the cartoon.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As I mentioned in the intro, Ray is based on his appearance in the cartoon, after he received his more unique uniform along with the rest of the team.  The uniforms were mostly just a palate swap, and even then, Ray’s is probably the one that remained the closest to the uniforms from the first movie.  Ray stands about 8 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  If you’re familiar with the Mego style, then sculpting and such is pretty straight forward.  The figure is built on Mattel’s basic retro-style body, which was actually a little different from the more straight Mego riff that everyone else was using, because they’re the masters of “If it ain’t broke try and fix it anyway.”  It’s not bad, but I prefer the aesthetics of the body everyone else had.  Ray had a newly sculpted head, as well as a pair of black rubber boots, a proton pack with neutrino-wand, and, of course, a cloth jumpsuit.  The head is well done.  The style of the Mego type figure is very compatible with Ray’s cartoon design, so that works out well.  The boots are fairly generic boots, but that works pretty well.  The real star here is the proton pack, which has some very nice sculpted details, while still remaining faithful to the cartoon and Mego aesthetic.  The neutrino-wand is attached to the pack by a yellow tube, and can be clipped onto the side of the proton pack, or removed completely, depending on what you prefer.  Ray is sparse on the paint, but the work on the head and pack is all well done, with no real issues of slop or over bleed.  Ray’s one accessory is the spectral sniffer, which matches the proton pack in styling and fits nicely into Ray’s hand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The retro-styled figures aren’t for everyone, but I really like them.  When I was growing up, I stayed at my grandparents’ house often, and my dad pulled out his old Mego figures so I had some things I could play with while I was there.  I really liked those figures and I have lots of fond memories of them, so seeing them have a brief return was pretty cool.  The Retro versions of the ‘Busters are actually one of the few complete versions of the team I own, so that probably adds to my appreciation even more.

I picked these figures up one at a time as I found them, usually at my local TRU.  Ray was actually the last of the four figures I found, so I was excited when I found him because I had finally completed the team!