Monthly Archives: August 2010

Aug 7 2010

Doctor Who: Dalek Ironside by Character Options

The episode, Victory of the Daleks was definitely not one of Season 5’s high points, but it did have its moments. Most of those moments was getting to see the Daleks acting as subserviant soldiers to Churchill and the British armed forces in World War II. Of course, this was all a ruse and one that was revealed pretty early on in the episode, but it was all worthwhile just to get a figure of this unusual variant WWII style Dalek known as an Ironside.

This is the first of the new series of figures I’m looking at, so we finally have all new packaging. The artwork is similar to the style used on the 11th Doctor Crash Set with the blue background and the new logo introduced in Series 5. The big difference here is that CO finally gave up the use of a full plastic clamshell and went back to mounting the figure in a bubble on a simple card. The package is wider and appears more squat than the previous designs, but overall I like it. It looks pleasing and its much easier to get into than the clamshells. Although, I imagine if you’re a mint on card collector this might be a setback, since these cards are more easily damaged. On the other hand, the logo insert in the bubble does obscure the bottom third of the figure.

A large portion of this figure is a reuse and repaint of the 2005-2010 Daleks we’ve been seeing all along. In fact, the only new sculpting here is the equipment belt that’s covering up the Dalek’s shoulder slats. The belt is very nicely sculpted and textured and includes several pouches, a canteen and an unkown silver container. The new paint job is a solid olive green with some silver accents to the belt and a tiny British flag painted right under the eyestalk.

The Ironside has the same articulation as previous Dalek figures. The sucker arm and gun are both on ball joints, and both arms can be removed from their sockets. The head rotates 360 degrees and the eye stalk can raise and also be removed from its socket.


On initial offering, these Series 5 figures have been far more expensive than previous releases. The Ironside set me back $20 and while its possible some e-tailers will price drop somewhere down the line, I didn’t want to risk missing out on him. He’s a striking looking figure and a very cool design concept, even if his role in the story turned out to be fairly short lived and forgettable. The only thing that would have really improved this figure would be if it had a voice chip that screamed, “WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA????” Who knows, maybe CO will grace us with a 12″ talking RC version. Yeah, pretty doubtful, but I’d be on board if they did.

 

 

Aug 6 2010

Trigun: Vash the Stampede by Kaiyodo

I’ve never been a huge follower of anime, but there have been a few series that I enjoyed enough to own, and one of these is Trigun. If you haven’t seen them yet, there are some new Revoltech figures coming out now based on the Trigun series, and while I haven’t picked any up yet, and possibly never will, its as good excuse as any to take a look at the one Trigun figure I already own.


I don’t remember exactly when and where I picked up this figure. It could have been Ebay, it could have been at a local comic shop. I just know it was back when the series was still coming out on DVD and I was still into it enough to want to buy a Vash figure. Honestly, the series started to wear thin for me toward the end when it gave up its fun and flippant nature for the usual tiresome anime melodrama. Either way, I don’t have an in-package shot of this guy, but I do remember that Vash came in a standard blister card, and the figure was titled, “The Planet Gunsmoke.” I also remember that I would have so bought the Insurance Ladies if they had been offered as figures as well, but sadly they were not.

Out of the package, Vash looks really nice. There’s decent detail in his long coat, which has a nice high gloss red finish. His head and hair are spot on, although an alternate head with those ridiculous hippie glasses would have been cool. Vash also drums up that age old debate: Figure or statue? There are points for each column, so I’m not going to get into it. I will say he has pretty good articulation in the arms, which includes universal joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivel cuts at the elbow and wrists. He also has a ball jointed head, and a swivel in his chest. From the waist down, bupkis!

As for accessories, Vash comes with a really nice display stand that includes a signpost complete with a sculpted wanted poster offering the infamous 60 billion double-dollar reward, a handcuff with a real chain connecting his left arm to the signpost, and his famous gun. He also came with the little black cat and a soup can, both of which I have rattling around in the bottom of a box somewhere. The display base itself is made to look like a wooden floor and its littered with empty shell casings.

I have no idea how much I paid for this thing back in the day, but he’s still easy enough to find brand new in the package for around $20 and sometimes even less. Granted, if you are a fan of Trigun and are looking for a Vash figure, you may want to investigate the new Revoltech figure first, as it is a true action figure with a ridulous amount of articulation. On the other hand, if you’re just looking for a cool looking Vash to stand up in the corner of your desk, you really can’t go wrong with this one.

 

Aug 5 2010

Transformers Titaniums: The War Within Optimus Prime by Hasbro

While I have yet to find him at retail, Hasbro’s new Generations Optimus Prime is finally starting to show up across the country and at various e-tailers. Obviously, I’m anxious to get my hands on this figure as its one of the few depictions of Optimus Prime in his Cybertron form. But until I do, I thought I’d give a look at one of those other pre-Earth versions of Prime. In this case, its the Titanium series War Within Optimus Prime.

For those of you who missed out on this short lived series, these Titaniums (not to be confused with the much smaller diecast statues) were roughly deluxe-sized transformable figures that were made of both diecast metal and plastic. They didn’t really follow any set series, as what few figures were released were inspired by every corner of the Transformers Universe. They were, however, a nice nod and wink back to the older fans who remember their Transformers having diecast parts, but the lack of continuity and some serious durability issues made this series a flash in the pan. The first assortment gave us figures inspired by the popular and canon-bending War Within comics, which gave us Megatron, Optimus Prime and Jetfire in their native Cybertronian forms.

In vehicle form, War Within prime is a vaguely familiar looking red, blue and silver truck. Its not a terrible looking vehicle, and I actually like certain elements of the design, but the simple transformation on thid figure makes it easy to recognize most of Prime’s robot kibble in his truck mode, particularly his arms, which are just hanging off the back of what would be the cab.

Prime’s robot mode is a nice recreation of the design from the comic, but the diecast used on this figure causes some cosmetic issues. The sculpting in the diecast looks somewhat primitive when compared to Prime’s plastic parts. The paint job on the diecast is also really questionable. You can see the swirls in his bodyworks and the paint will chip at the drop of a hat. There are places where this figure looks more like a custom fan project then a licensed, professionally made toy.

The biggest issue with these figures in general, and Prime specifically, is the weight displacement. The heavy diecast metal parts are at constant odds with the lighter and flimsier plastic. As a result, the figures don’t want to hold their forms very well and just trying to get Prime here into some different poses usually results in a half-transformed mess. His shoulders flop around and he’s way too top heavy for his own good.

WW Prime comes with two accessories: His blaster rifle and a personalized display stand. The same stand came with all of the Titanium figures, with a separate front piece that featured the robot’s faction symbol and name. It was a really nice extra and accentuated the fact that these figures probably should be considered more as collectibles than actual toys.

At one point I owned almost all of these Titanium figures, but my overall disatisfaction with this line led me to sell them off until I was down to just Prime, and the only reason I really kept him is because I try to collect most of the Optimus Prime toys released, even those that I’m not all that crazy about. These figures were an interesting experiment on Hasbro’s behalf, but ultimately an unsuccessful one, and the only one I really regret unloading was Soundwave, as it was easily the best G1 homage of the character Hasbro has done since. Otherwise, its hard for me to recommend these.

 

Aug 4 2010

GI JOE Rise of Cobra: Cobra Gunship by Hasbro

I’ve wanted this thing since the ROC toys first hit the shelves, but I’ve held off buying it on principle because of the high price. $24.99 for a Bravo class vehicle was way too steep when we were getting roughly comparably sized toys in the 25th Anni. line for around $15-20. I did cave and pick up the Cobra Steel Crusher, but that seemed like a better toy. Anyway, the toy aisles of the Walmart here are empty and awaiting transition, but at least some of the old stuff, like this Gunship, is left at decent clearance prices.

By the way, what the hell is Walmart thinking with their pricing strategy on their Rise of Cobra figures? For the longest time, they were selling them at $5 a piece. A few weeks ago, they were at an unprecidented $9.98 each. They didn’t even sell them for that much when they first came out! I even scanned one to see if it was a label mistake. Now, they’re on clearance for $7.00 a piece. I can’t figure out what the thought process is behind that. What’s even sadder is the Walmart here never put out more than a few cases of figures beyond the initial wave assortments. Anyway, I digress… back to the Gunship.

The packaging for this line is pretty cool. Its a simple box with some angular corners to make it stand out. There’s a window on the front to show off the included Firefly figure, along with an illustration of the toy in action. The back panel shows off an actual photo with some of the play features detailed. The box is actually significantly smaller than the actual toy, as the tail boom has to be locked on into place. Pretty much everything else comes already assembled. You just need to load up the bombs and pop in the missiles. There are also stickers to apply, which I love, and if you’d rather leave the Gunship more movie accurate, you could leave the Cobra emblems off.

I think the most obvious thing about this toy’s design is the fact that it was originally intended to be helicopter, because it is for all intense and purposes a helicopter without rotor blades. Is this what the vehicle looked like in the film? I can’t really remember, and I’m not curious enough to subject myself to watching it again just to see. What I’m getting at is either this toy started life as a helicopter, or the original design was intended to look like the Gunship was converted from a helicopter. Either way it explains why there’s an conspicuous bump on the top where a rotor blade assembly was originally intended to be placed.

With that curious design element aside, the toy is pretty cool, although it doesn’t do a whole hell of a lot. Weapons include a rotating chin gun, firing side mounted missiles, and there’s a hatch in the top where you can load up three small bombs and drop them out the back, just like Hasbro’s Tie Bomber from the Star Wars line. There are three short landing struts that fold down, two removable engine access panels and the main body opens up with a drop down hatch. For some reason, I love the fact that the cockpit opens up to the side and not straight up and down. Don’t ask me why. The cockpit holds one figure and the rear compartment has seats for two. There are also several handle grips on the bottom so figures can hang on while its in flight… another detail which supports the used to be a helicopter theory.

I think this toy’s greatest disappointment is its size. It really needed to be a little bigger to make the passenger compartment work. As it is, you can barely get one figure in there comfortably, let alone the two it seems to be designed to hold. If both sides had opening hatches, that might have helped too. It would have also been nice if the craft sat higher on the landing gear, as they hardly do anything to elevate it up when its grounded.


The Firefly figure is ok, but at the same time he’s nothing special. I also think he was a strange choice to be bundled with this vehicle. Firefly was a demolitions expert, so when did he change career paths to become a pilot? Nonetheless, he comes with a removable flight helmet and a flight vest with hoses that can plug into his helmet as well as two holes in the cockpit control panels. If you take off all his flight gear, he makes for a serviceable Firefly figure, but his chest area is pretty bland. He also doesn’t come with a stand or any weapons, despite having a molded pistol holster on his leg. He’s also a bit of a tight fit in the cockpit with his helmet and gear on. He’s not going to satisfy anyone looking for a definitive Firefly figure from this line. I think this vehicle would have been better served with a generic Cobra pilot figure instead. Personally, I like using the 25th Anni. AVAC figure.

I usually save the discussion of price and value for last, but in this case I lead in with it, so let me just reiterate that this is in no way what I would consider to be a $25 toy. Compare it to Hasbro’s Star Wars vehicles at the same price, and in those cases, Hasbro is carrying the cost of an expensive licensing fee, whereas they own the GI JOE brand themselves. Needless to say, despite being a nifty little vehicle, at full retail I would rate this toy pretty low. I got mine today at half off, and I’m pretty happy with it at that price. I probably would have picked it up a long time ago had it been $20. Its not like the extra five bucks was going to break me, but at some point I just feel I need to take a stand on the rising cost of toys.

Aug 2 2010

Back From The Weekend…

Yep, I worked this weekend. I had hoped to get one more post in before the end of July but it just wasn’t meant to be. Wednesday, I’m off, and I plan on hunting for some new Transformers, so either way I’ll be back with something, old or new. I’m probably going to start running through all the Transformers Classics and Universe 2.0 figures in anticipation of the release of the Generation figures.

As expected, I got shut out on Matty’s SDCC stuff. Well, I really only wanted two items. Orko went fast, as expected, while I was in a flippin’ staff meeting at work. The Retro Peter Venkman is still available, but I’m opting to get the whole set in one shot through another e-tailer.

I did manage to secure me a Blaster figure from Hasbro’s site, although it won’t be shipping until next week. But seeing as that was the one SDCC item I wanted the most, I’m cool with that.

Lastly, the new Doctor Who stuff is being released fast and furious. Today I ordered up a couple of the Series 5 figures, Amy Pond and the Ironside Dalek, as well as the SDCC Planet of Fire set with the 5th Doc and The Master. I would have probably ordered more of the Series 5 figures, but at nearly $20 a pop, that’s just too much for any figure that isn’t a must have and Amy and the Dalek are the only two figures in that assortment that I can’t live without. No doubt, the others will be deeply discounted eventually.

That’s all for now, I’m off to have a couple of Scotches and turn in early. Catch ya’ll in a couple of days.