Tag Archives: Micronauts

#4074: Emperor & Time Travelers

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

EMPEROR & TIME TRAVELERS

MICRONAUTS REACTION+ FIGURES (SUPER 7)

Well, it was a six month break between reviews last time, but this time around, you only have to wait two weeks for more Micronauts.  Did you want more Micronauts?  I hope so, because I have more Micronauts.  So, there’s gonna be more.  That’s just how it is.  Anyway, let’s just jump right into these guys, and see how they turned out!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Emperor, Time Traveler (Blue), and Time Traveler (Yellow) make up the third series of Super 7’s Micronauts ReAction+ Figures line.  While prior assortments only had two figures, this one is three, as we’ve doubled up on the Time Traveler.  The next assortment is back to two, so I can’t say I quite understand the change, but I shan’t complain.

EMPEROR

“Despite his imposing appearance, Emperor rules over the heroic Micronauts in their battle against Baron Karza and his Acroyear.  His true nature and goals for the Microverse after defeating Karza are known only to himself.  Many speculate whether his aims are for good or evil.”

While the figures in the line up to this point have all been the early bulk of the original line, real flagship figures, this one marks a change up, based instead on the 1980/1981 Magno Emperor, a rather rare piece from the original run, post-Mego, with a much wider release in Italy than in the US.  Palisades also included him in their ill-fated line, but that one may well be rarer than the original.  His bio up there suggests he’s not a villain, something not really pulled from any source I’m aware of, and also seemingly at odds with the back of the package, which gives him the same red background as Karza, rather than the blue used by all the others.  Also, I guess “Emperor” is his name, rather than a title, given the lack of a “the” in front of it?  Guy named Emperor becoming a ruler feels a bit on the nose, but maybe it’s a common name in the Microverse, like Jeff.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  Much like his original release, this figure is the same as Karza and Force Commander from the neck down.  It remains a good sculpt, and I can’t really raise any complaints.  He does get a new head sculpt, which seems like a pretty good rendition of his original look, scaled well to the existing body mold.  He also gets a vinyl cape, which isn’t quite as impressive as the sculpted piece from his original, but still does the job pretty well, especially for the scale.  His color work features vac metallization on the torso and pelvis, which adds a pretty cool bit of pop, and separates him a bit more from Karza’s design.  He’s packed with the same backpack as Karza and Force Commander, as well as a sword.  The sword is neat, but I do miss the distinctive hand guard from the vintage figure.

TIME TRAVELERS

“The Time Travelers can move forward and backward in time.  They see possible futures, and when they detect a threat to the Microverse, they take steps counter that threat.  In their Temple of Time, they sift through clues and formulate strategies.”

The Time Traveler is kind of the signature figure of the original run, so it’s admittedly a little bit surprising that it’s taken until wave 3 to get him, but at the same time, given *everyone* has him, usually in multiples, I suppose it’s okay to hold out a bit.  Super 7 did at least come out swinging, though, with two color variants at once.  He’s also the first of the proper 3 3/4 inch figures from the original run to be transferred over here.  His construction is more like the o-ring Joes that followed the vintage line, than the original.  He lacks the interchangeable hands and feet and associated articulation, but does gain the bicep swivels that have become standard for the style.  He’s also a little bulkier than the original, making him feel generally sturdier, and his head sculpt sports a sharper selection of details.  Like the original release, the Time Traveler has a removable torso plate, with two options available, updates of the “windows” and “log cabin” looks.  They’re not compatible with the originals, but work on the same basic design philosophy.  In terms of coloring, he’s operating on the original translucent and chrome set-up, with both blue and yellow offered here.  I’m partial to the blue, but I dig them both in their own way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

After kind of sleeping on the first two rounds of these, this was the assortment that really got me motivated to jump in right away.  I’ve always wanted an Emperor in some form and I’m a sucker for the Time Traveler.  So, I snagged them from Entertainment Earth as soon as they dropped.  I really like them.  Honestly, I’ve been liking the line ore and more as its moved along, and each further release makes me like the prior ones even more.  While I’ll admit the next wave doesn’t quite excite me as much, I’m still very much excited by the prospect of more.  With a figure like Emperor, I have hope we might see King Atlas or the Green Baron to keep the mold going, and the Time Traveler makes me want to see how a Space Glider might turn out.  All in all, I do really love this set.

#4066: Force Commander & Microtron

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FORCE COMMANDER & MICROTRON

MICRONAUTS REACTION+ FIGRURES (SUPER 7)

Back in December of last year, I got to take my first look at Super 7’s revival of Micronauts, a brand with a history of really struggling, not just at retail, but also behind the scenes.  Despite all that, it seems like Super 7’s had at least a little more luck than others, and they’ve even managed to get through multiple rounds of follow-ups.  I’ve finally pulled myself together and jumped on board for those, so today, I’m taking a look at the second round of figures, Force Commander and Microtron!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Force Commander and Microtron are Series 2 of Super 7’s Micronauts ReAction+ Figures, which like the first series, is an o-ring construction based line.  And, much like the first series, both figures included were larger scale, non-o-ring figures in the vintage line, in a sort of reversal of things.

FORCE COMMANDER

“Force Commander, ruler of Homeworld, the Capitol of the Microverse under the rule of Baron Karza.  Captured and merged with his horse Oberon in the Body Banks, he temporarily became a centaur-like being.  As Force Commander, he was a leader of the rebellion against Baron Karza.”

Karza’s opposite number (at least in the toyline; the fiction never really treated him as such, more often treating him as somewhat misguided and out of touch), Force Commander’s original figure jointed the vintage line in its second year, alongside the Baron.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  Force Commander and Karza have classically shared most of their parts, and this release is no exception.  From the neck down, he’s identical to the Series 1 Karza, which is accurate, and also not a bad thing, since the Karza sculpt is really quite nice.  He has a new head sculpt.  There are two head variants on the original figure, and Super 7’s gone with Hong Kong-produced version with larger eyes and rebreather.  It’s the generally more “on-model” of the two, and looks a bit better, so it’s the right choice.  The sculpt is clean and sharp and fits well with the rest of the mold.  Force Commander’s color work is pretty much the same set-up as Karza, just swapping out white plastic for the black plastic.  I think it ends up rather striking.  Force Commander has a backpack piece, modeled on his original rocket pack, now as a simple plug-in back pack.

MICROTRON

“Microtron has been Princess Mari’s diminutive roboid attendant since her birth.  He is equipped with an interlingual translator.  He never abandons her while she joins the underground and the Micronauts fighting Baron Karza.”

As with Biotron from Series 1, the original Microtron was less a figure himself and more a vehicle/accessory to the main figures from the line. He was much larger in scale, and had features like a seat that flipped out of the top of his head.  Just like Biotron, the comics would shrink him down significantly to better interact with the other characters, which the toys never really replicated.  The figure stands 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  While the original figure had no real movement below the shoulders, this figure uses the o-ring construction to give him movement at the waist, and he’s also got swivels at the “hips” on the tops of the treads, so there’s some more room for tweaking his posing there.  The sculpt is a pretty respectable recreation of the original, just shrunk down and made more posable.  His color scheme is particularly eye-catching, and like Biotron, he gets to dabble in the signature Mircronauts chrome a bit, albeit not for the head, but rather his visor and arms.  It’s quite a fun look, and it gives him a lot of pop that might get lost if he were just relying on painted silver.  The original Microtron had a number of swappable parts, but this release just grants him his drill piece.  It’s chromed as well, and you can still place it in its original (somewhat unfortunate) spot on the front of the pelvis, or in any of the 5mm sockets on the front or back of the torso.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the first series, I kind of dragged my feet on getting these, and I don’t really know why exactly I did that, but I finally bought them, and now here they are.  Back in the Palisades days, I really wanted a Force Commander, but was never able to get one, so I’m happy to finally have the chance here.  Karza was neat, but I like Force Commander just a little bit better.  Microtron is just a cool little robot guy, and I can never really complain about getting one of those.  Despite the delay in getting them, I think this one’s a bit more exciting for me than the first.

#3975: Baron Karza & Biotron

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BARON KARZA & BIOTRON

MICRONAUTS REACTION+ FIGURES (SUPER 7)

While I’ve discussed Microman relatively recently here on the site, it’s been since 2018 that I’ve properly talked about the line’s American cousin, Micronauts.  Micronauts is kind of the story of defeat in the face of defeat.  Though quite successful when brought to the US by Mego in the late ‘70s, it was ultimately ahead of its time, and got lost in the shuffle into Star Wars at the end of the decade. The line sort of disappeared domestically, with an attempted revival in the ‘90s by Takara, and an actual (but very ill-fated) revival by Palisades in the ‘00s, which wound up going so badly it killed the company.  SOTA proposed another revival that went nowhere, and then Hasbro bought the brand, did, like, two things with it, and then abandoned all their plans, including an entire, completed cartoon.  Hasbro started sub-licensing out some of their brands to Super 7, and Micronauts got mixed in, so we’re getting *something* at least.  So, far overdue, I’m taking a look at Super 7’s takes on Baron Karza and Biotron!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Baron Karza and Biotron make up the first series of Super 7’s Micronauts ReAction+ Figures.  Like the ReAction+ G.I. Joes, these ones are o-ring construction, rather than the standard 5-poa set-up of earlier ReAction offerings.  In the vintage line, both Karza and Biotron were larger, non-o-ring figures, but in the Marvel comics, both of them were the same general size as the other characters, so these figures allow them to interact with the more standard sized figures from the vintage line.

BARON KARZA

The original Karza was one of the line’s magnetic construction figures, much like the Red Falcon I reviewed.  He maintained the same general structure, but was larger, and had a tendency to fall apart a lot.  This one simply takes the design of that one, in its full, predating Darth Vader by a number of years, glory, and moves it to a more conventional construction.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  His sculpt is new (though most of it, much like his vintage counterpart, is shared with the second series’ Force Commander figure), and it’s a solid match for the original in terms of styling.  It’s got a good, classic, retro sci-fi appearance, which is incredibly distinctive.  The slightly more geometric shaping of the sculpt, while slightly odd on the Joes, is totally at home on a character like Karza.  He doesn’t come apart like the original, which is a blessing and a curse, since it means he loses a feature, but he’s also sturdier for it.  He’s got rather basic color work, but the essentials are covered, and he’s even got silver detailing where the original magnets would have been.  Karza was packed with a backpack, modeled on the rocket packs from the original, but now as one single piece.

BIOTRON

Biotron was notable in his original incarnation for being less of a figure proper, and more of a playset/vehicle for the standard figures.  In order to allow him to more easily with the main characters of the comic, he was shrunk down to a regular size (the later “Biotron II” was the size of the actual toy).  The revisits to the original line have never gathered enough success to get to anything larger than the magnetic figures, so he’s had no coverage since the vintage line.  This figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  While he doesn’t have the bicep swivels like Karza, he does have wrist swivels, which are fun.  His sculpt takes the elements of the vintage figure, and puts them onto a fully articulated frame, which is very fun.  While he’s obviously not large enough to house a full-sized figure like the original, the chest hatch is still removable, so you could *conceivably* put a micro figure of some sort in there.  The color work on Biotron is very bright and eye-catching.  He brings back the trademark Micronauts chrome, for the head and hands, which is always very fun.  He’s packed with a backpack, which looks like the original Biotron’s back wheels, and is also chromed.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wanted to jump on these right away, but admittedly, I’ve been burned before by Micronauts relaunches, so I was apprehensive, and then I got distracted, and then it was most of the year over, and I realized I just never bought them.  The weekend after Thanksgiving, Cards, Comics, and Collectibles always does a huge storewide sale, which I haven’t been able to make it to in well over a decade.  But, I finally had the time this year, and intermingled with a bunch of stuff for Matty, I snagged these two for a very good price.  They’re quite a neat pair, and I’m happy I finally got them.  Now I feel like I need to get the second set.  Also, I know it’s virtually impossible, but I would kill for a Bug and Marionette in this style.

#3947: Magne Arthur

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MAGNE ARTHUR

MICROMAN MAGNE POWER (TAKARA)

In the ‘90s, teams of colorful heroes imbued with weird fantasy powers were all the rage.  Well, Power Rangers was all the rage, and a lot of other people wanted that success for themselves, so other stuff became very Power Rangers-like.  Takara’s Microman, descendant of G.I. Joe and progenitor to Transformers, decided to give the whole thing a try, as well as throwing in a bit of a scale shift.  The result was Microman Magne Power, a brief run on the line at the tail end of the decade.  Today, I’m looking at the central member of this incarnation’s core team, Magne Arthur!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Magne Arthur was figure 001 in Takara’s Microman Magne Power series.  He was the first of the figures that debuted the line at the very end of 1998, and helped to establish the line’s new style.  The figure stands abut 3 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  As with the rest of the figures in this line, Arthur was scaled down from Microman’s usual 3 3/4-inch set-up, with the in-universe explanation being that these guys came from a  different Micro Earth than the original line’s figures, following up on the slightly smaller vintage Micro Hoodmen, who shrank themselves further to conserve resources.  His sculpt is largely the same as the other four core figures from the line, albeit with a unique head.  Arthur’s head was especially unique amongst the launch figures, as he didn’t have a helmet like the other four, instead just getting a set of funky headphones.  It’s ultimately a sculpt that’s a bit more in keeping with the earlier Microman figures in that regard.  From the neck down, he’s the same as the others, with the same kind of dated, bulky and boxy sort of body sculpt.  As the leader guy of a team of chromatically themed heroes in the ‘90s, Arthur was obviously predominantly red, which is done in a nice translucent plastic.  He’s also got white and dark grey accenting, and of course the usual chromed head.  As with all the basic figures, he had no accessories, but did have magnets in his torso, right arm, and feet, so you can stick him to all manner of metal surfaces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

After discovering this line’s existence from the Micronauts guy at Mego Meet in 2011, I jumped pretty quickly on finding what I could of the line domestically.  Thankfully, Big Bad Toy Store had a rather nice selection of figures for pretty cheap at the time, so I was able to get the whole core set without much trouble.  Arthur is the most standard of the set, and that makes him the easiest for taking in the whole of what the line meant to be.  It’s not quite the success that Takara was hoping for, but it’s still a fun little set to look back at, and Arthur is a nice central piece.

#3888: Magne Edison

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MAGNE EDISON

MICROMAN MAGNE POWER (TAKARA)

The success of GI Joe in the ‘60s in the US led, unsurprisingly, to an export of the line to other countries.  Nowadays, lines are largely produced by one company even internationally, but there was a lot more licensing out back in the day.  Palitoy had great success with Action Man, a line that stuck pretty close to the spirit of the original line.  In Japan, however, Takara had to get a little more inventive.  As materials were scarcer, the figures could not be easily clothed, so to avoid selling a naked figure, the molded them in clear plastic and filled the hollow sections with “machinery,” creating Henshin Cyborg. It was quite a success, leading to the creation of a smaller scale equivalent, Microman.  That line would itself be imported back to the US by Mego as Micronauts, which picked up a dedicated following.  There have been attempts at relaunching Micronauts over the years, always falling shy of success.  The first of these attempts was in the late ‘90s, by Takara themselves.  But, when a US market failed to materialize, the Micronauts angle was dropped, leaving just the Microman component.  Alas.  Well, at least there were cool toys!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Edison is figure 004 in Takara’s Microman Magne Power line, released in 1999.  He’s the second to last of the five-man team that made up the core focus of this new line.  The figure is about 3 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  The Magne Power line was unique in its scaling; they weren’t the traditional 3 3/4 inch figures, but a bit smaller.  All of the original five were identical sculpts from the neck down.  It’s a sculpt that’s certainly a product of its time, with some rather pronounced proportions, and the very awkward magnet arm attachment on the left arm that removes the elbow joint.  It’s an interesting offering, especially so close to the immensely revamped Microman base body Takara would transition to very shortly after.  It feels like the last hurrah of the older style.  Each of them got a unique head.  In Edison’s case, it’s a helmet, patterned on a sort of grasshopper style.  It’s a little goofy, but certainly fun.  Edison’s primary color is green, so there’s a lot of that.  He’s got a mix of translucent and opaque, as well as some yellow and gold accenting.  And, of course, he’s got the chrome head, which is always super cool.  The standard figures didn’t get any extras, but they do have magnets in their left hands and torsos, which are fun for sticking them to fridges or metal shelves and the like.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since the US distribution failed on these, they were kind of unknown on this side of the world.  I only learned about them in 2011, when the Micronauts guy at Mego Meet brought up the planned relaunch of the line in his presentation, and had Edison as his sample figure for what the line looked like.  I was intrigued, and also happy to find that they weren’t an especially expensive line of figures.  Edison’s got a neat vibe, similar to Bug from the Marvel tie-in comics, and I really like that.  He definitely appeals to what I loved about the original line.

#1584: Red Falcon

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

RED FALCON

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

“The most fantastic and elaborate of the original Micronauts figure line, this winged warrior was dubbed “The Prince of the Micronauts” and – like Emperor – plays a mysterious role in the Microverse.  Red Falcon transforms as occasions or battles require, becoming an avenging angel or transforming into a stellar warbird with Hypersonic Missile Launchers.  The prize of the classic Magna-Powered Micronaut series, he returns to a new century with a new weapon and fantastic new colors.”

I’ve delved into the sad tale of Palisades’ Micronauts line twice before, with one figure from the first series and one from the first and a half series (just go with it).  Today, I jump forward one more series, looking into one of Palisades’ final offerings from the line, Red Falcon.  Red Falcon?  Wait, isn’t that the Marvel comics character?  No, wait, that’s just the Falcon, and he’s mostly red.  This guy’s blue.  Does that make him Blue Falcon?  No, because then Hannah Barbera’s gonna be all mad and poor Dyno-Mutt will be confused.  This is RED FALCON, the Micronauts character.  Who, inexplicably, doesn’t actually have much red going on.  Try not to think about it too much, okay?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Falcon was part of Series 2 of Palisades’ Micronauts, which, thanks to some rough circumstances surrounding the line, actually ended up as the third assortment of figures to hit retail.  Unlike his vintage counterpart, which only had one color scheme, this Red Falcon was available in three different color schemes: the classic primary colored scheme (seen in this review), a green and bronze scheme, and a translucent red/yellow scheme.  The classic scheme was the heaviest packed, followed by the green, and finally the red.  Yes, that’s right, the red Red Falcon was the chase.  Good times.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation (you could add two more points to that for the wings, but when plugged into his back, they don’t really move).  Red Falcon was one of the lager Magna-Powered Micronauts, in the same style established by the likes of Baron Karza and Force Commander.  In addition to his larger size, he also featured a magnetically attached head and limbs.  It’s an interesting gimmick, but has the unintended side-effect of causing him to fall apart a lot.  He also had rocket fists, which, while cool, also means his hands pop out a lot.  What I’m getting at here is that he falls apart a lot.  But, the important thing here is that he also goes back together, which was more than could be said about the Series 1 figures.  Palisades made tweaks to their Micronauts to distinguish them from their Mego counterparts, but Red Falcon was probably one of the least changed, I’m sure largely due to how rare the original figure was in the States.  Red Falcon’s sculpt is definitlet one of my favorites from the line.  Though he still keeps much of the Micronauts aesthetic, there’s no denying that Red Falcon showed a lot more Japanese influence than many of the line’s offerings.  His head in particular brings to mind a lot of classic anime, and even a little bit of a super sentai vibe.  This is a guy wouldn’t look out of place fighting the likes of Ultraman or the Power Rangers, or helping out Astro Boy.  As with all Micronauts, this sculpt is definitely a product of the time it came from, but there’s a definite charm to the clean, smooth, line work of this guy.  of course, there are still a lot of small details that are a lot of fun, especially the fully detailed mechanics under his clear torso.  Paint is at a minimum on this guy; he’s mostly just molded in the appropriate colors.  He’s definitely very vibrant, though, and the chrome on the torso does a great job of tying him back to the rest of the line.  In terms of extras, Red Falcon was pretty well-off.  He gets his big-ass sword (which is chrome and oh-so-cool), as well as the new cannon piece that matches it.  Also included are the pieces to turn him into his actual bird form.  Yes, Red Falcon was one of the earliest examples of a transformer.  Of course, it’s really rudimentary.  Essentially, you just pop off the head and limbs and put on the bird pieces in their place.  The only shared piece is the torso, and if you’re clever, you can even assemble the pieces without that, giving Red Falcon a cool companion.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Red Falcon was one of my earlier Micronauts.  I was fascinated with the original, but obviously he wasn’t available to me.  So, the re-release was at the top of my list, and he was my second purchase (after a Series 1 Time Traveler, and at the same time as Series 1.5’s Time Medic).  But here’s the thing: remember how I mentioned he fell apart really easily?  Well, I was twelve when I got him, and not quite so careful with my figures as I am now.  Needless to say, my original figure is no doubt scattered throughout various sections of my parents’ house.  During my collecting renaissance the summer after my first year of college, I decided I ordered a replacement, though I assumed I’d be getting the green variant.  Instead, this guy showed up, and I wasn’t even mad.  In fact, I was quite the opposite.  This figure remains one of my favorite Micronauts, challenged only by Battle Acroyear.

#1406: Spider-Man – Cosmic

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SPIDER-MAN – COSMIC

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“With incredible strength, stamina and cosmic senses, Spider-Man battles tirelessly on the side of universal justice.”

So, as you may have pieced together from my review of Moon Knight yesterday, I’ve finally tracked down the entirety of the latest Spider-Man Series of Marvel Legends.  This particular series is about half Spider-Men variants, so I’ll be alternating between Spider-Men and non-Spider-Men.  Today’s Spider-Variant actually has roots in another toyline: Micronauts.  Marvel’s tie-in comic for the line added a whole lot of original concepts, including the Uni-Power, an extra-dimensional force that imbues its host with the great cosmic power, thus transforming them into Captain Universe.  The Uni-Power’s been passed around a lot; that’s kind of part of its gimmick.  One of the hosts was Peter Parker, because that’s what happens when you sell the most comics. That’s where today’s figure comes into play.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Man (that’s what the packaging says; just “Spider-Man.”  How is the average consumer to know of is cosmic-ness?) was released in the Homecoming-tie-in series of Marvel Legends. In the main universe, Peter gave up the Uni-Power, but there have been a couple of alternate universe versions of him that didn’t.  This figure appears to take the most influence from the Peter Parker of Earth-13, who played a decent role in the “Spider-Verse” event.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  This guy marks the second use of the Spider-UK body.  It befits the more powerful and experienced nature of the Earth-13 Peter, and it’s still a favorite of mine.  I hope we see it used for more than just Spider-Men moving forward.  The standard masked head is pretty basic; I won’t be surprised to see it turn up on other masked characters.  It’s a decent enough piece, I guess.  I wish the chin were just a little more pronounced, but it’s a minor complaint.  There are two additional heads.  The first is an unmasked Parker, whose beard signifies that is definitely the Earth-13 version.  He’s not directly patterned on the art of Oliver Copiel (who drew most of Earth-13 Peter’s appearances), going instead for a more general look.  It’s a very nice sculpt, and one of Hasbro’s better human heads.  The second head isn’t a Spider-Man head at all; instead, it’s a more generic Captain Universe head, allowing for this figure to pass for a number of the Uni-Power’s other hosts.  So, if you so desire, this guy doesn’t have to be a Spider-Man variant at all, which is very nice of Hasbro.  The paintwork on this guy is generally pretty solid.  Some of the application could be a little cleaner, but I’m really digging both the metallic blue and the pearlescent white.  It looks really sharp.  In addition to the two extra head sculpts mentioned earlier, Cosmic Spidey is also packed with the outer wing of Vulture’s wing-pack, the mirror of the one included with Moon Knight.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Obviously, when this series was shown off, I was a little distracted by the Moon Knight figure, so I didn’t really pay Cosmic Spider-Man much mind.  I actually passed this guy up a few times while I was out on the hunt for the rest of this series, since he wasn’t a priority of mine.  But, after several unsuccessful runs, he was the only figure left at one of the Targets I checked, and I was desperate not to leave totally empty-handed.  I also had a gift card, so that helped.  He’s not a bad figure at all.  Cool concept, cool design, cool execution.  It all adds up to a pretty fun figure.

#1337: Battle Acroyear

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BATTLE ACROYEAR

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

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

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

THE FIGURE ITSELF

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

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

#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.

#0609: Jarknoid Zain

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

JARKNOID ZAIN

ASSEMBLE BORG (REVOLTECH)

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“What the hell is a Jarknoid?

 –Tim Marron

When Mego imported Microman as Micronauts, they started off with a selection of figures that were more or less the same as their Japanese counterparts. However, as the line moved forward, Mego decided to add a few of their own touches. The Japanese line had relied on the Acroyear as the foes of the heroic Micromen, and Micronauts had started much the same way. Mego decided that the ‘nauts needed a more diverse selection of foes, and created their own set of unique foes, under the heading “Aliens.” These Aliens became some of the more distinctive Micronauts, and are the primary point of separation of the two lines.

Assemble Borg, is no doubt inspired by Microman. In fact, one of Borg’s main designers originally worked on Microman. What’s interesting to me, though, is that Assemble Borg’s main set of villains, the Jarknoids, actually seem to have more in common with Mego’s line than they do the line it was based on. That kind of makes Assemble Borg the closest thing Micronauts has to a successor. And that’s actually pretty cool. So, let’s take a look at one of those freaky Jarknoids, shall we?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zain2Jarknoid Zain is entry 008 in the Assemble Borg line. Numerically, he was the last of the trio of Jarknoid villains, released as a direct follow-up to the original heroic Assemble Borg figures.  Each of the Jarknoid’s was given their own epithet, and Zain’s was “Astro-Killer,” which is simple, but rather effective in establishing the character, I guess. Like Panzer, Zain predates the line’s changeover to the more modular “Nexus” style, meaning he’s a more traditional style of action figure, but the customizability is still a present feature. The figure is about 6 inches in height and has 42 points of articulation.  Zain is built on what was the standard Assemble Borg body. We’ve seen some of this before, as Panzer made use of the same torso, pelvis, and thighs. The sculpt is definitely on the more basic side, but it offers a nice sleekness, which offers a nice contrast to the more intricate character specific pieces. Speaking of character Zain3specific pieces, holy crap is that head a really impressive piece of work. He’s got a mask that just looks like a giant skeletal hand is just grabbing his face, which is a truly disturbing design. The mask can be removed, revealing a smaller chrome head underneath, which is a fairly neat feature, though I can’t see anyone displaying this in favor of the mask. He’s also got a chrome chest piece, which is really pointy and fit’s with the mask pretty well. In addition to the basic body, each of the Jarknoids included a few character specific parts that could be swapped in place of the normal body parts. Zain gets a cool arm piece, which, depending on how you configure it can either be a big gun arm or a big claw thing. Both are pretty cool, and they have a nice bit of silver detailing to bring out the awesome details. In addition to those parts, the figure includes four sets of hands (fists, open palm, trigger finger, and Zain4pointing/splayed), a sword, an axe, a small gun, a slightly larger small gun, a medium gun, a huge gun, an adaptor to attach the weapons to any revolver connector, an assortment of revolver joints, and a coin worth 10 revolchip points.  I really love the weapons, because they all have some really fantastic spikey detailing that looks pretty awesome. Like the other Assemble Borg figures I’ve looked at, paint is relatively minor on Zain, but I do really love the color of the plastic he’s molded in.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I tried to ease into this whole Assemble Borg thing. I really did. I picked up Panzer because he was relatively inexpensive, and I thought he would hold me over. Then I got Nexus for free. I wanted Zain, but I was trying to hold off. Then Tim (who still remains at fault for all of this) showed me the Yeeg figure he’d bought (Yeeg’s another of the Jarknoids) and I found myself really wanting one of the villains. So, I ended up getting this guy off of eBay. Zain is a really, really cool figure, and he’s definitely my favorite of the Jarknoids. He’s properly imposing and just a lot of fun to mess with. Man I love this line.

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