Tag Archives: Winter Soldier

#0224: Winter Soldier

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

WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL LEGENDS INFINITY SERIES

WinterSoldier1

Let’s see, so far in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel Legends Infinite Series reviews, I’ve discussed the quality of the film, the quality of the toys, the stupid decisions regarding the pack outs, oh yes, and Nazis, of course. This review ends up getting the short end of the stick, I’m afraid. Well, it’s a review of the film’s title bad guy. If you didn’t know by this point, he’s… SPOILERS

 

…actually Captain America’s best friend, Bucky Barnes, saved from near death and brain washed to become the ultimate assassin. Fun times.  So, let’s take a look at his figure, shall we?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Winter Soldier is part of the second series of Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel Legends Infinite Series. The figure is a little over 6 inches tall and he features 30 points of articulation. He is, of course, based on the character’s appearance in TWS, but is specifically from the middle-ish area of the movie, after he loses the coat he sports in early scenes and before he loses the mask and eye-liner. The figure gets a brand new sculpt, and it’s an impressive one at that. I thought the 3 ¾ inch version’s sculpt was pretty good, and this one just adds even more detail, and a fair bit of extra articulation. The wrist, ankle and abdominal articulation really gives the figure a whole new dimension. If I had one complaint, it would be that the robot arm doesn’t look quite as good with the smaller one, due to the double jointed elbow. However, the added movement is important, so I’m willing to let it slide. The paint work on WS is probably the cleanest I’ve seen on the line so far, which is a comforting thing to see. However, once again, I don’t like the robo-arm quite as much. They’ve given it a dark wash that makes it look rather scummy. It does bring out the details, but the Soldier’s arm was consistently clean and shiny in the movie, so it looks off. Not terrible, mind you, just slightly off. The downfall of this figure, is the accessories. They’re all fine in theory, just not really in execution. First off, there’s the Mandroid leg. That’s pretty straight forward, with no issues. I’ll be looking at that in two days, along with the rest of the Mandroid. Then, there’s the alternate head. Here’s where the trouble begins. Sculpturally, it’s not a bad depiction of Bucky, sans mask. The paint is what messes it up. First, the eye shadow goes waaay to far down his face. It pretty much covers the entirety of his face, for Pete’s sake! Then, they gave him these really thin, drawn on eyebrows, which are set way to high up. He looks very surprised, I must say. With a proper paint job, this head would actually be pretty good. I’ve included a quick photoshop job to demonstrate this. As it is, it’s just…eughhh. Lastly, and leastly, there’s the gun. Well, I say gun. It’s more of a strange red fish thing that happens to have a handle. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it’s certainly not anything he carried in the movie. Is there a reason he can’t have a real gun? Zemo and Red Skull have real guns. Why must Bucky be stuck with this monstrosity? He can’t even hold it like a real gun! I suppose it’s not as bad as Widow’s total lack of guns, but I don’t think it’s much better.

WinterSoldier2(unmasked) WinterSoldier5 WinterSoldier4(accessory) WinterSoldier2(unmaskedCompare)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bucky is the last piece of my series two set I received from Big Bad Toystore. I knew even before I saw the movie I was going to want this guy, so I’m happy to finally have him. The wonky gun thing is a bit of a bummer, but I swapped in the larger rifle from one of my Star Wars: The Black Series Stormtroopers, and that seems to work a bit better. Sure, it’s still not right, but at least it’s based on a real gun, and it’s not a bright color. The alt head is also a bit of a disappointment, but I always intended to display the masked one anyway, so I’m not really bugged by that. Truth be told, Winter Soldier is probably my favorite figure from this line up. He’s a heck of a lot of fun!

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#0184: Precision Strike Winter Soldier

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

PRECISION STRIKE WINTER SOLDIER

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

In case my last two reviews didn’t clue you in, I quite thoroughly enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I think The Avengers still holds up as my favorite of the Marvel Studios films, just for the sheer accomplishment, but CA:TWS is a very close second.

Hasbro’s doing two separate lines of tie-in toys: one in 6 inch scale and one in 3 ¾ inch scale. Thanks to the way the characters have been laid out between the two lines, it appears I’ll be picking up both lines. Today, I’m looking at the 3 ¾ inch version of the (sub) title character, the Winter Soldier, or as he’s billed on the package “Precision Strike Winter Soldier.” Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF
Winter Soldier was part of the first assortment of Captain America: The Winter Soldier figures. He’s based on Winter Soldier’s look for roughly the first half of the film, before he ditches the mask and goggles. I imagine this choice was made to hide the character’s true identity until most of the movie going public has a chance to have it revealed to them. It’s also just a cooler look. The figure stands about 3 ¾ inches tall and has 19 points of articulation. As I mentioned in my review of Cap, the figure is hurt by the lack of wrist, ankle, and waist articulation. Articulation issues aside, the sculpt on this figure is amazing. There’s lots of tiny detail work and textures, and the proportions are much better than they are on many 3 ¾ inch figures. Everything looks spot on to the character’s appearance in the film. The paint manages to live up to the sculpt, which is a rarity amongst Hasbro figures. There’s no slop or bleed over, and they even gave the torso and right arm a nice wash to bring out the details. The accessory selection ends up being the figure’s only real downside. Hasbro has given him a big dumb rocket launcher, and absolutely no guns at all (even though he’s labelled “precision strike”), and his hands are both molded to hold said non-existent guns. Guess he’ll forever be Marvel’s resident Fonzie stand-in…

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had intended to only get the 6 inch scale Winter Soldier, but after finding Falcon at my local Target, I broke down and picked up the 3 ¾ version as well. I’m glad I did. Winter Soldier is easily the best of the three I picked up. Yeah, the lack of wrist joints sucks, as does the stupid rocket launcher, but the sculpt and paint on this guy are really phenomenal. Arm him with a spare GI Joe gun and he’ll be even better. If only someone at Hasbro had thought of that…

#0149: Winter Soldier – Agent of SHIELD & Hydra Elite

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

WINTER SOLDIER –AGENT OF SHIELD & HYDRA ELITE

MARVEL MINIMATES

Okay, so I may have lied about “new Minimates” reviews being done for a while.  Yeah, I was kinda at Toys R Us, and found the one set of figures from TRU wave 18 that I hadn’t found yet.  So, I’m reviewing those today.  It should be a quick review, as I already reviewed one, and the other is only a slight tweak on a figure I already looked at.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Winter Soldier and the Hydra Elite were released as part of the 18th Toys R Us exclusive wave of Marvel Minimates.

WINTER SOLDIER

So, after being turned into a Russian-Assassin, Bucky got better, and became an Agent of SHIELD.  So, he got a haircut and stuck a new bumper sticker on his robot arm.  Now he’s a hero!  Yay!  He’s pretty much the same figure as the last Winter Soldier I looked at.  The difference is that he’s got a different hairpiece, his uniform is a brighter blue, and instead of having a red star on the robot arm, he’s got a white star in a blue circle.  Everything, including the accessories and the detail lines is the same.  I can’t blame Diamond for taking advantage of the near identical looks.  They’re close enough to share parts, but just different enough to require separate figures, and there was demand for both versions.  I still prefer the other version a bit more, though I may swap the robot arms.

HYRDA ELITE

This figure is exactly the same as the Wave 54 Hydra Elite.  Exactly the same.  No minor differences or anything.  However, it is an army builder, so I doubt anyone will complain about it being more plentiful.  I certainly was glad to get another one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, this isn’t the most thrilling set if you’ve already got wave 54, but it’s a decent accent.  Plus, I got it for $3.98, so I’m pretty much just buying it to get another Hydra Elite.  Now I have 4!

#0132: Falcon & The Winter Soldier

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

FALCON & WINTER SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

Today is part 2 of 3 of my review of the latest wave of Marvel Minimates.  The wave is themed around Captain America, and I’ll be looking at two of his compatriots, both of whom are set to get pivotal roles in the upcoming Captain America Sequel.  It’s the Falcon and Winter Soldier!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were released as part of the 54th wave of the Marvel Minimates line.

FALCON

First, my favorite part of the set, Sam Wilson aka the Falcon.  Oh, sorry “Marvel’s Falcon.”  ….TM….  The Falcon is depicted here in his more modern outfit, specifically the one he wore during Brubaker run on Captain America.  I would have preferred his classic outfit, but after 54 waves with no Falcon at all, I’ll take what I can get.  Falcon is built on the standard Minimate body, so he stands about 2 ½ inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Falcon features 5 sculpted add-ons:  2 2-piece wings, and a hairpiece.  The hair looks to be new to this figure and the wings were originally sculpted for the Vulture  in the Spider-Man Friends and Foes boxed set.  I would have liked for the mask to be separate piece, so I could swap out the face for one without a goatee, but it looks okay.  The paint isn’t perfect, but it’s serviceable.  The work on the face is sharp, but the body doesn’t quite match up, with some fuzzy lines and a little bit of slop.  Falcon includes his sidekick Redwing, a flight stand, and a clear display stand.

WINTER SOLDIER

Next, it’s Cap’s former sidekick-turned-Russian-Assassin (umm…Spoilers?), Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier.  There used to be a joke that nobody stayed dead in comics except for Uncle Ben, Bucky and Jason Todd.  I am eagerly awaiting the big summer event that brings back Uncle Ben.  Winter Soldier is depicted in his look he sported during the initial Winter Soldier arc.  The key difference between this look and more recent ones is the longer hair and the red star on his robot arm. Winter Soldier is built on the standard body, so he’s got the regular stats.  He features 4 sculpted add-ons: Hair, shoulder holster, belt, and leg holster.  The hair was originally used on Warpath and the shoulder holster originated on the wave 42 SHIELD Agent.  The belt and leg holster look familiar to me, but I can’t figure out for sure where I’ve seen them before.  The leg holster doesn’t quite keep the gun in place, which can get a bit annoying.  The paint is well done on this figure, with no noticeable slop.  The facial expression looks pretty dead-on for the character, with a dead-set determination.  Winter Soldier includes 2 different handguns, a sniper rifle, and a clear display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was part of a larger order I placed with my favorite Minimates retailer, Luke’s Toy Store.  This was one of the sets I was most looking forward to in the wave, as both of these characters are long overdue.  I still hope to get a more classic Falcon down the line, but this one should do all right in its place.  And Winter Soldier is certainly no slouch either.