Tag Archives: Mistakes were made

#1213: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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

THE FIGURE ITSELF

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

#1203: Vixen

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

VIXEN

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (DC DIRECT)

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Following the winding down of the well-regarded Satellite Era of the Justice League, DC tried to inject some new life into their flagship super team.  Marvel was having a great deal of success with the Avengers, who had, for about 15 years at that point, been made up predominately of a number of B and C list heroes who didn’t have books of their own (i.e. Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, Captain Marvel, etc).  Enter Justice League Detroit, a smaller scale team.  The only mainstays from the prior era were Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and Elongated Man, all notably lower tier.  They were joined by a brand new cast of heroes: Steel (no, not the one from Superman), Vibe (no, not the one on The Flash), Gypsy, and Vixen.  The team was…less than successful, and after a short run, they killed two members and rebranded again.  Personally?  I kinda enjoyed the run.  Sure, it had its flaws (Vibe was little more than a walking stereotype), but there was a lot to like.  Perhaps the only new member to make it out of that run unscathed was Vixen, who happened to have one of the more interesting power sets.  She sort of hung around in the background for a while, before being brought in for a recurring role in Justice League Unlimited and subsequently being brought back onto the team in the comics for Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes’ post-Infinite Crisis relaunch of Justice League of America, which just so happened to get her a figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

vixen2Vixen was released in 2007 as part of the first series of DC Direct’s Justice League of America line.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  That articulation’s pretty much good for having her stand there, and that’s about it.  Vixen is sporting her costume from the mid ‘00s which is really just a slight variation of the same basic design she’s been sporting since her first appearance.  I can’t say it’s my favorite design of hers, as it leans pretty heavily on the ‘00s obsession with putting every female character in a catsuit that was three sizes too small.  She, like all of the figures in the line is based on Ed Benes’ artwork.  At this point in their run, DC Direct was pretty much exclusively doing artist-based figures, which was rather a mixed bag, since not every artist’s work translates into three dimensions all that well.  Vixen is kind of weird and lanky for the most part, excepting of course for her breasts, which give an impression not unlike a pair of watermelons strapped to a tree.  It’s an odd look to say the least.  And, as far as posing goes, she looks like she just took a really deep breath and is trying not to let it out, resulting in her chest jutting forward and her shoulders being strangely raised.  She also seems to have had her hips removed at some point, which has had the effect of causing both of her legs to point off to the left in the way that no normal human legs ever would.  Her left foot also appears to have slipped out of place in her boot, since that’s about the only way it could end up that particular shape.  Her arms are probably the best parts of the figure, aside from their intended pose being a little vague; they’re actually shaped like arms, so that’s a plus.  The hands are actually a halfway decent sculpt, but end up being slightly on the large side (and the fingers are also prone to bending out of shape).  The head sculpt is…well, it’s something.  Not sure that something is *good* but it’s something.  The hair’s nice, I guess?  Just try not to look too closely at the face.  Vixen made use of some metal for her bracelets and the pull tag on her zipper.  It’s a nice touch, but the free-floating bracelets can get rather annoying when posing the figure.  Vixen’s paintwork is mostly pretty clean.  The jumpsuit seems a little on the drab side, but it’s not awful.  Once again, try not to look too closely at the face, especially not the lips or eyes.  And that’s not even addressing that super whacky hairline she’s sporting.  Vixen’s only accessory was a display stand with “Justice League of America” painted on it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually bought this figure from Cosmic Comix when it was brand new.  I was even excited for it.  At the time, I was really into Brad Meltzer’s run on Justice League of America, and I also really loved Vixen’s recurring role on JLU.  Time has been kinder to the latter of those things, but less so the former.  Also, I believe this was also about the time that I sat down and read the Detroit run, so that probably had something to do with it.  In hindsight, like Meltzer’s run on JLA, time has not been kind to this figure.  She’s rather indicative of this period at DC Direct, which wasn’t a very good one.  It was right about the time I stopped collecting their figures and moved over to DC Universe Classics.  I actually sold off a lot of the other figures from this period, but there hasn’t really been a better Vixen figure, so this one’s stuck around.

Wow, two “bleh” figures in a row.  I swear, I’ll try to review something better tomorrow!

#1202: Cheetara

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

CHEETARA

THUNDERCATS (2011)

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You thought I was done with the Thundercats reviews, didn’t you?  Well, so did I.  But, I really don’t know how to quit buying action figures, and the more figures I have from any given line, the more reason I have to say “one more couldn’t hurt.”  Back in April of last year, I looked at Lion-O, Tygra, and the Tower of Omens from the 2011 re-launch of Thundercats.  Today, I look at yet another member of the team, Cheetara.  No points for guessing what cat she was.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

cheetara2Like Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara was released as part of the first series of basic small-scale Thundercats figures from Bandai.  The figure is about 4 inches tall and she has 17 points of articulation.  After some genuinely impressive work with the articulation on Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara is a real step down.  She gains bicep swivels lacked by the other two, but at the cost of wrist and ankle movement, and on top of that, the bicep joints are really ugly.  Also, instead of the nice hinged hips from the prior figures, Cheetara gets v-hips.  Oh goody.  My faaaaaavorite.  They seem to have attempted to make up for the v-hips by adding a pair of swivel joints to each thigh.  The first set of swivels are sort of the reverse ange of the v-hips, and the second is a more straight lateral cut.  In theory, they’re supposed to mimic the movement of a normal t-joint, I guess, but in practice, they’re just sort of a big mess of twisting meat.  And, they’re pretty hideous to boot.  But hey, I’m glad they didn’t ruin the figure by giving her those no good hinged hips from the other two figures; that would have been the worst.  Okay, I’ve ragged on the articulation, but what about the sculpt.  Well, for one thing, it’s pretty much torn apart by all that ugly articulation.  Even on its own merits, though, it seems like a step down.  The head is okay, I guess, and the torso sort of tries to capture her cartoon design, but the arms and legs are just a total mess.  They lack any real organic shape and seem to be out of scale with the head and torso.    Her hands are the same size as her head for pete’s sake!  It’s a sad state of affairs when a figure’s paint being “acceptable” is the high point of the figure, but here we are.  There’s nothing really spectacular about the work, but it’s mostly pretty clean, and the colors match up well enough with the cartoon.  There’s some slop in a few areas, but given the rest of this figure, it could be worse.  Cheetara includes one accessory: her staff.  It’s made out of soft plastic, which makes it look more like a brown spaghetti noodle than anything else.  Also, since she lacks any wrist joints, she can’t really hold it very well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I picked up Lion-O and Tygra two summers ago, I had also wanted to get a Cheetara, but Yesterday’s Fun didn’t have her.  In the year following, they must have picked her up along the way because I got her from them last summer.  She’s disappointing to say the least.  I mean, I’m glad to have her, I suppose, but after being pleasantly surprised by Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara was a sad return to form for Bandai America.

#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.

#1143: Wonder Man

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

WONDER MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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In a world where death is already meaningless, Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, is the type of guy who’s still noted for not staying dead.  He’s the male equivalent of Jean Grey in that respect, I suppose.  The guy died at the end of his very first appearance (way back in the *first* Avengers #9) and thanks to a friendly warning from Marvel’s Distinguished Competition on the potential problems with infringing upon established brands, he stayed that way for a while.  But then the Competition didn’t actually follow their own warnings, and Marvel felt comfortable enough bringing Wonder Man back a few years later, ultimately making him full-fledged member of the Avengers for several years.  He’s died at least two more times since then (currently he’s sharing a body with Rogue, which is awkward to say the least, what with her killing him and all), but never been gone for all that long.  Simon’s never been an A-list character, but he’s managed to get his fair share of figures over the years, including three Marvel Legends figures, two of which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

wondermanml4Wonder Man was part of the eleventh series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, officially dubbed the “Legendary Riders Series.” There were two different versions of Wonder Man available: the regular flesh-and-blood Wonder Man, and the variant Ionic Wonder Man.  Regardless of version, the figure stands 6 inches tall and has 35 points of articulation. Wonder Man has more than a few parts in common with the recently reviewed Captain Britain, being constructed from that same Black Panther body.  As I noted in my Captain Britain review, while the Panther body was certainly fine on it’s own, it was a slightly odd choice for pretty much every other character they used it for.  While it’s not quite as blatantly out of scale for Simon as it was for the good Captain, it’s still rather on the small side.  Also, for whatever reason, while the body looks decent enough on Panther and Captain Britain, it ends up looking kind of misshapen when used for poor Simon.  Not sure what the difference is.  One of the defining  traits of the Panther body was the unique texturing, which showed that it was a full-body costume.  Since Wonder Man’s design shows a fair bit of skin, his arms are all-new, and his torso has been slightly retooled to smooth out his neck a bit.  The weird thing is that they only removed the actual texturing, not all traces of those pieces being clothed, which means that Wonder Man ends up with these strange folds and wrinkles on his arms and neck.  Wonder Man also featured new pieces for his head, forearms, hands, shins, and feet, as well as an add-on piece for his belt.  Independently, all of the new pieces are decent enough.  The face seems a little low on the head, but not terribly so, and the boots, wrist bands, and belt all feature some cool detailing.  Why did I specify “independently?”   Because the pieces aren’t actually in scale with each other.  The head is too wondermanml1small, and the hands and feet are definitely too big.  The end result is a really odd looking guy.  The standard Wonder Man was painted to be sporting Simon’s fourth costume, which is probably his best known.  It’s not my personal favorite, but the odds of the Safari Jacket look ever getting a proper Legends release are probably slim.  The paint work is decent enough.  There’s some room for improvement, especially on the “W” logo, which isn’t quite shaped the right way and could have probably used a second coat.  That being said, the overall quality of the paint is pretty solid.  The variant Wonder Man represents his powered up Ionic look from when Busiek and Perez brought him back in the 90s.  Pretty much, he’s just molded in translucent indigo plastic, with some red for his eyes, logo, and belt.  Like the Hasbro version of this look, the inclusion of the belt on the Ionic form really isn’t accurate, and it’s made even weirder by the decision to paint the belt red.  Why would the belt remain red, but the wristbands and boots turn blue?  That makes no sense!  Ah well.  Each figure in the Legendary Riders Series included a vehicle of some sort.  Wonder Man’s is some weird W-shaped moped-thingy, which seems to exist for the sole purpose of reminding us all that Toy Biz didn’t have the foresight to realize just how few Marvel characters really fit the “Legendary Riders” theme.  He also included a little Yellowjacket figure, which could be plugged into his back, as well as a copy of Avengers #51 (an odd choice to include with this guy, since it doesn’t really explain the character very well, isn’t really anyone’s favorite Wonder Man story, and the look he’s sporting in the story is not the look he’s sporting on either figure).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m a pretty big Wonder Man fan, so I was pretty anxiously awaiting his addition to the line for most of Toy Biz’s run on Marvel Legends.  Then the prototype was shown, and I was more than a little disappointed.  Then the final product showed up and I was slightly less disappointed.  I ended up getting the regular version as a Christmas present from my parents the year he was released, and I later picked up the variant loose from All Time Toys a few years later.  Ultimately, neither figure is really perfect, and I was always pretty aware of that, but I was happy to have them nonetheless.

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#1141: Captain Britain

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

CAPTAIN BRITAIN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Can you believe that Toy Biz handed over the reigns to Marvel Legends (and all the other Marvel toys) almost 10 years ago?  That’s pretty darn crazy.  It also means that it’s been long enough since every single one of those Legends figures was released that updates are pretty much a given.  This year in particular, Hasbro seems to have put some serious effort into redoing some of Toy Biz’s efforts.  While the Juggernaut series was perhaps the most evident case of this, it’s seeped into some of the other line-ups as well, including the recent Abomination Series.  Like I did with the X-Men figures, I’m going to be looking at the originals and the updates in tandem with each other, and I’ll be kicking things off with Toy Biz’s take on Captain Britain!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

capbritain2Captain Britain was released in the (first) Giant-Man Series of Marvel Legends, alongside Havok and Kitty Pryde.  The set was the first Walmart-exclusive series and would prove to be one of the last three series during the Toy Biz run.  Captain Britain is based on Brian’s second costume, which is the one he’s best known for, and is, quite frankly, his best look.  It’s worth noting that prototypes for this figure showed him in both this and his look from later in the Excalibur run pretty much interchangeably, so it was kind of down to the wire as to which particular look was getting released (in fact, the figure pictured on the box for this guy was painted in the other costume, prompting some to wonder if it would be some sort of running change).  The figure stands 6 inches tall and has 35 points of articulation.  The body that Brian is built on was initially sculpted for the Series 10 Black Panther figure, before being ever so slightly re-tolled for Series 11’s Wonder Man.  The good Captain gets most of the Panther pieces, with the slightly tweaked upper torso from Wonder Man, as well as Wonder Man’s hands.  He also gets a new head, forearms, and lower legs, which are mostly sculpted to match up with the pre-existing pieces.  The head is nice, and is probably one of the better head sculpts we got out of the TB Legends.  The helmet/mask even matches up with the rest of the body’s texturing, which shows that real effort was put into making the piece match up.  The forearms are fine; basic flared gloves.  The boots/feet are the real weak part of the new pieces; we were well into TB’s duck feet phase at his point, and it was something that they never really got past.  The lower legs are also completely un-textured, which feels rather weird compared to the rest of the body.  And, speaking of the body, that’s where we hit the next snag.  The Panther body was actually pretty cool for the time; it had a nice, sturdy build, and the added texturing to make it clear that he was wearing a costume, not just prancing around in body paint.  It hasn’t aged particularly well, but it was a reasonable piece for the time.  So, it’s not a bad base, generally speaking.  Except, of course, for the fact that Brian Braddock is canonically half a foot taller than T’Challa, which is a bit of an elephant in the room, if I’m honest.  The proportions of the new pieces have been kept internally consistent with the body, which means Captain Britain is, as a whole, in a scale that is completely his own.  There’s pretty much no other figure in the line you can put this guy with.  Captain Britain’s paintwork is decent, certainly on par with other offerings from the line.  The base work is mostly pretty clean.  The white piping on the red details is a little sloppy (because painting a textured base is a bit hard to do consistently), but not awful.  He’s also got some accent work, which feels like it goes a little overboard, especially on the white, or should I say light blue, areas of the costume.  TB never quite grasped how difficult it was to translate this sort of detailing from a custom-painted two-up to an actual production figure.  Captain Britain had no character specific accessories, but he did include the right leg (JUST the leg.  No foot.  That came with another figure…) of Giant-Man.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Giant-Man Series as a whole was rather difficult to acquire, thanks to Walmart’s trademark spotty distribution.  I eventually found this guy (and a few others from the series) while on a trip to visit some family in North Carolina.  Because the small mountain town definitely needed a large stock of this exclusive series of figures that most of the general public had never heard of.  This is a flawed figure.  There’s no denying that.  And, unlike so many Legends from this era, it’s not simply an age thing; he was always flawed.  The weird thing is, as hyper critical as I’ve been of this guy, and as many things that are wrong with him, I still have a soft spot for this figure.  And I’m not even that much of a Captain Britain fan!

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#1118: Rorschach

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

RORSCHACH

WATCHMEN (DC DIRECT)

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Hey, remember back when Zack Snyder wasn’t totally divisive, especially in regards to comic book fans?  Yeah, me neither.  It’s worth noting, though, that there was actually a time when I was on the opposite side of the divided fans (that is, those siding with Zack).  Back in 2009, when he directed the film adaptation of Watchmen, I was actually pretty happy.  I went through a phase of being super, super into Watchmen, and the movie hit sort of at the crux of all that.  In retrospect, I can still enjoy the movie, but I certainly see it’s flaws, as well as the early warning signs of what he’d end up doing with the rest of the DC movies he’s directed.  One of the definite plusses about the movie (and one of the few things everyone can agree was a positive) was that it meant we finally got Watchmen action figures, after having them cruelly snatched away from us just a few years before.  Today, I’ll be looking at perhaps the most popular character to be spawned by the franchise, the Question Rorschach!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

rorshach2The Watchmen figures from DC Direct were divided into two series of four figures each.  Rorschach was released in the first series, alongside Nite Owl, Silk Spectre II, and Ozymandias.  The figures were all based on their movie designs, but fortunately in the case of Rorschach, his movie design was a pretty direct lift from the comics.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  At this point in their run, DCD was mostly producing plastic statues, so the articulation doesn’t really amount to much.  You can sort of move his arms up and down a little, his head can rotate maybe 45 degrees (and even then, it really only looks good in the one pose), and there are swivels at the tops of his legs to aid a bit in keeping him standing.  There’s really one pose for this figure, and that’s all you’re gonna get.  At the very least, it’s not an awful pose, so there’s that.  In addition, the sculpt on the body is actually pretty solid.  The coat in particular is really nice, and looks appropriately broken in.  Rorschach was available with three different heads: masked, unmasked, and unmasked prisoner.  Masked was the standard figure, available pretty much everywhere.  Specialty stores with qualifying orders of Series 1 got the unmasked figure, and the prisoner version was a TRU exclusive.  The masked head was clearly the best way to go.  It’s pretty straightforward.  The actually head lacks any real details, but that’s pretty accurate, and the hat definitely makes up for it.  Both exclusives had the same head rorshachunmasked2sculpt, with slight tweaks in paint (the prisoner version has taken a bit of a beating).  It’s a decent head, and captures Jackie Earl Haley’s likeness pretty well.  In a perfect world, the normal version probably would have just included the extras from the other two.  I myself skipped the basic unmasked version.  The paintwork on Rorschach is pretty decent.  The base work is clean, and he matches up with the source material.  The jacket makes out the best again with some nice weathering.  The masked head seems a bit too clean.  In the movie, the mask was never really pure black and white, but rather grey around the edges, since the black was always in motion.  Also, that one face was all we got.  He was originally solicited to include different face plates with different “expressions” but those never materialized.  The prisoner head is alright.  It’s clean, but really too clean when you get down to it.  He also looks a bit too friendly, if I’m honest.  He’s not awful, though, certainly on par with the rest of DCD’s output from the time.  All of the Rorschach figures included his grappling hook gun, a hand to hold it, and one of the interlocking display stands all of the figures had. The TRU version also included a plate with his name and prisoner ID, which hung from a chain around his neck, but the chain broke on mine, and I’ve since lost it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Believe it or not, I was ecstatic beyond belief to buy the basic Rorschach when he was released.  He was the very first Watchmen figure I got (picked up from Cosmic Comix, of course), on the very first day they were released.  I picked up the TRU version about a month later, and figured I didn’t really need the basic unmasked version (since he’s never actually seen unmasked in costume without the injuries in either the movie or the comics, and I’d already bought two figures).  As an action figure, Rorschach kinda sucks.  I mean, the sculpt’s great, and the paint’s not bad, but all he’s good for is just standing there.  He’s certainly not a bad investment, and I don’t regret getting him at all, but if you want something you can actually play with, there’s far better options out there.

#1078: Robin – Dark Knight Returns

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

ROBIN – DARK KNIGHT RETURNS

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

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One of DC’s longest lasting legacy characters is Robin.  It’s fitting, what with Robin being one of the earliest examples of a sidekick in comics.  As many times as legacy characters may be rolled back to prior  incarnations, Robin always seems to keep moving forward.  Since Dick Grayson vacated the role in 1984, there have been many others to take on the title.  The first is, of course, Jason Todd, but a fairly close second (albeit in an alternate future) was Carrie Kelley.  Carrie hails from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and is easily one of the most distinctive parts of the story.  So, it’s not a huge surprise that Carrie has just gotten an action figure in commemoration of the story’s 35th anniversary.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

carriekelly1Carrie Kelley was released in the Doomsday series of Mattel’s DC Comics Multiverse line.  It’s the same series that features armored Batman and the Mutant Leader, all of which bear the 35th Anniversary insignia.  This is Carrie’s second figure, with the first coming several years ago courtesy of DC Direct.  The figure is 5 1/4 inches tall and has 24 points of articulation.  As with a lot of Mattel’s output, the articulation count may be high, but the figure’s mobility is just so-so.  The elbows and knees can’t even bend a full 90 degrees, which is really weak.  Surely this is all for the sake of the sculpt, though, right?  Well, sort of, but not really.  The head sculpt is easily the best part, as it’s a pretty spot-on recreation of several panels of Miller’s artwork.  There’s one major issue I have with the head, but I’ll touch on that when I get to paint.  The rest of the sculpt is passable at best and mediocre at worst.  The overall appearance is fine, and she looks decent when in a straight standing pose. That being said, if you move her out of a basic standing pose, the sculpt exhibits a carriekelly3large number of flaws, where the articulation just leaves these odd flat spots on the limbs.  Also, the freaking cape block makes it’s awful appearance once again here, and I think this is probably the worst example of it I’ve seen so far.  I’m really not sure why Mattel has no idea how to attach a cape other than a huge solid brick of plastic sticking out of the figure’s back.  It shouldn’t be this hard.  You should be able to have a caped character without giving them a freaking hunchback.  The paintwork on Carrie is alright, but there are a few pressing issues.  The colors are nice and bright, and match up nicely with the comic colors.  The biggest issue here is the lenses of the glasses.  In the comic, Carrie’s eyes are consistently visible through the lenses, but here, they’re opaque.  Matte’s done clear lenses in the past, so I’m not sure why they were left out here.  Carrie includes a sling shot (which she can’t hold very well, due to her right hand only having a hole drilled halfway through, for reasons beyond me), as well as the leg of the New-52 Doomsday.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I found Carrie at Toys R Us a little while ago, while looking for the X-Men Legends figures.  I had been looking forward to this figure to go with the other three figures I’ve got from this set.  I can’t lie, this figure is kinda a letdown.  She’s not a bad figure, but she’s just not up to par with the likes of Hasbro and NECA, or even Funko, all of which are in the same price range.  This figure should have been a home run, but instead she’s just another mediocre figure from Mattel.

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#1065: Luke Skywalker

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

LUKE SKYWALKER

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES

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Luke Skywalker is kind of the bread and butter of Star Wars: The Black Series.  He’s by far the most recurrent individual character in the line, and is thus far the only character with at least one look from each of the Original Trilogy films covered.  He’s already had two figures from A New Hope, in both his X-Wing pilot gear and his Stormtrooper disguise.  However, his main look from the film was still left unreleased.  Fortunately, Hasbro’s made sure that one of Luke’s most definitive looks didn’t get left out, and Tattooine Luke started hitting shelves over the summer.  I’ll be taking a look at him today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

lukefarmboy1Luke was released in the sixth series of the third iteration of Star Wars: The Black Series (i.e. the one launched with the Force Awakens product).  He’s #21 in the line (not that the numbers actually mean anything, of course, since Hasbro keeps restarting the counter), and he’s the first Original Trilogy figure to be released since the switch to Force Awakens product.  The figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall and has 29 points of articulation.  As you can probably tell from the pictures, Luke is constructed from a mix of sculpted elements and soft goods.  Pretty much, the underlying body forgoes the shirt, the shirt is cloth, and it’s held in place by a rubber belt.  The basic sculpt is decent enough, though not without its flaws.  The legs and boots are both very nicely detailed and textured, and there is a fully sculpted body under the cloth shirt.  However, the upper body feels somewhat under scaled compared to the legs.  The shoulders feel too narrow and the arms just a bit too short to be accurate.  Rather than re-use the X-Wing Luke head (as was done with the Stormtrooper Luke), this figure gets an all new sculpt.  It’s okay, but is noticeably smaller than the last sculpt, and does not possess as strong a likeness.  The cloth shirt is okay for what it is, but the problem really lies with “what it is.”  The choice to make the shirt a separate piece is somewhat odd.  While it’s not the first time Hasbro has done such a thing with this design, it’s never really worked before, and doesn’t really work here.  Where a sculpted piece could have captured the texture and specific shaping of Luke’s shirt in the movie, the cloth piece is too clean, too simple, and really just hangs there in a rather unconvincing fashion.  The worst thing is that, like Darth Vader before him, the cloth pieces just aren’t tailored correctly to the body, which results in his tunic continuing way too far down his legs, making it look more like a robe than it should.  It’s definitely disappointing.  Luke continues the trend of lessened paint apps on The Black Series figures, sporting only the most basic detailing.  It’s clean, well applied, and well matched to the source material, but it lacks some of the life of earlier figures.  Luke is packed with his lightsaber and a pair of binoculars, both of which can be hung on his belt.  It might have been nice to get a Stormtrooper belt and blaster, since the belt is already removable and it would allow him to match with the Series 2 Han Solo, but I guess Luke being an all-new sculpt made such extras cost prohibitive.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I found Luke here at the Walmart near where my family vacations.  Wasn’t really looking for him or anything, just killing time on my way there, but there he was.  I was actually pretty excited to find him, since I haven’t gotten a new Black Series figure in what seems like forever.  That being said, I can’t help but feel a little let down by this guy.  He’s not awful or anything, but he’s not the slam dunk he should have been.  Rather than being THE Luke to own, he’s just another figure in the pack.  X-Wing Luke will continue on as my go-to figure for display purposes.

#1058: Prince Talon

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

PRINCE TALON

FLASH GORDON (PLAYMATES)

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Each new iteration of Flash Gordon brings its own unique characters to the table.  The 90s cartoon was no exception.  In some cases, characters were created wholesale, and in others, they were amalgamations or approximations of previously existing characters.  Presumably, after the unforgettable performances of Brian Blessed and Timothy Dalton as Prince Vultan and Prince Barin, respectively, in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, the makers of the cartoon felt replacing them might be difficult, and instead gave us Prince Talon, who was one of the Hawkmen, just like Vultan, but also was far less antagonistic, and served as a foil to Flash, much like Barin (who would later appear in the cartoon, albeit in a much smaller role).  Today, I’ll be looking at Talon’s one and only action figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

princetalon2Talon was one of the basic assortment figures from Playmates’ Flash Gordon line.  The figure is about 5 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation, counting his wings. After reviewing Ming, Talon feels like quite a step down in terms of movement.  The one pose you see him in for the pictures?  That’s pretty much the only pose you’ll be getting out of him.  Talon is ostensibly based on his cartoon design (well, the second one, since he had a different look in the pilot), but he doesn’t really translate as well as the others in the line did.  On the show he was very angular, classically heroic in built, and had a very rigid stance.  On the figure, he’s round, a little pudgy, and permanently in a weird sort of mid-lunging pose.  Most of the cool details from his costume are just painted on, despite many of them having dimension on the original design, and the others in the set getting all the appropriate details on their sculpts.  And for some reason, they’ve given him a pair of sunglasses.  I guess all black guys in the ‘90s had to have cool shades?  They just end up looking rather hokey, though, since their shape doesn’t fit with anything else about the design.  It feels like the sculptor just got too lazy to actually sculpt his eyes, and did this as a time saver.  The wings can be removed if you so desire (because it was easier to fit him in the package with them off).  They’re rather basic and uninspiring, and once again seem to miss the coolness of his design from the show.  The paint on Talon is also some of the worst the line had to offer.  His colors are rather drab, and don’t really match up with his show design.  The pale green has been replaced by a warm yellow, which just looks even more dorky.  His details are all kind of fuzzy around the edges, and he’s painfully shiny in hue.  He just looks rather fake and cheap.  Talon included a weird bird-shaped blade-gun thing, which has an extending feature, as well as another AirSled, this time in light blue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Talon is one of the last figures I got from the line.  He came from the lot of 8 I picked up at a convention last summer.  He was actually one of my main reasons for picking up the set, because Talon was one of my favorite parts of the show.  Unfortunately, the Talon figure takes a look at the bar set by yesterday’s Ming figure and just sort of face plants just in front of it.  Somehow, they managed to take the coolest of the show’s designs and turn it into the lamest of the 8 figures released.  It’s a real shame.