Monthly Archives: February 2011

Feb 7 2011

Vintage Vault: Robocop 4-inch Figure with Battle Damaged Armor by Toy Island

A couple of weeks ago on Vintage Vault, I looked at one of Toy Island’s 8-inch electronic Robocop figures, but the bulk of their Robocop action figure collection was done in the 4-inch scale. Actually, it was the same damn Robocop figure over and over again with a different soundchip and different accessories. I’ll get to some of those eventually, but today we’re going to look at one of the more unique 4-inchers in the assortment: Robocop with Battle Damaged Armor.

I don’t have an in-package shot of the figure, but it came on a simple card with a still from one of the films, showing Robocop against an exploding background. The figure was mounted under a fairly sizeable bubble with his face exposed and everything that he came with laid out beside him. The goodies include two swappable chest plates, two swappable helmets, and his trademark Auto-9 sidearm.

As already mentioned, there was no shortage of different versions of Robocop, but this was one of the few that wasn’t just the same figure with a different soundchip. The sculpt is quite good, and while the face isn’t necessarily a dead ringer for Peter Weller [or maybe it’s supposed to be Robert Burke from Robocop 3, or Richard Eden from Robocop: The Series? -FF], I think it’s close enough for an early 90’s toyline in this scale. The uncovered chest is sculpted with all sorts of hoses and circuitry and painted silver, red, green and black. The rest of the figure shares much of the same sculpt with the other 4-inch Robocops, which is to say it’s a quite decent looking figure and looks pretty close to the big screen counterpart. I do have a slight issue of leg warpage on mine, but that might not be common to all the figures.

The swappable armor gimmick is simple enough as the chest plates just snap on to his torso and the helmet, which is made of soft plastic just fits right on over the head. With the regular non-damaged armor in place, it’s tough to tell this figure apart from the regular ones. The biggest giveaway is the visor on the helmet, which is painted on, instead of clear red plastic to support the light up feature. The damaged armor looks really good, especially the visor, which has a hole that lines up with Murphy’s eye like in the movie. Unfortunately, the damaged chest plate doesn’t fit all that well and tries to pop off at the left shoulder.

The other big difference with this particular version of Robocop was the additional articulation. While the electronic 4-inchers only had four points of articulation, which consisted of arms that rotated at the shoulders and legs that rotated at the hips, this Murphy introduces hinged joints to the elbows and knees. Unfortunately, there’s still no neck articulation, which was understandable for the electronic figures, but kind of inexcusable for this one.

Overall, I think the paint job is a little better on some of my legion of electronic 4-inch Robocop figures. They’ve got a touch more blue and better gloss, making them a smidgen more movie accurate. But aside from that, this version of Murphy is my favorite in the 4-inch scale. Between the armor gimmick and the added articulation, you just have more display options and far more play value. And for that reason, if you’re going to hunt down just one of these 4-inch Robocops, I’d recommend going with this one.

Feb 6 2011

DC Green Lantern Classics: Mongul and Arkillo by Mattel

It took me a while, but I’m finally down to looking at the last two figures from Wave 1 of Green Lantern Classics. Actually, Mongul is the last of the carded figures and Arkillo is the tasty Collect & Connect reward you get just for having bought all the amazing figures that made up this wave.

I’ve said all I can say about this packaging while looking at the other figures in the wave. It does a fine job of straddling the fence between the familiar DCUC style and still distinguishing itself as a fresh and new subline. I’ve had my fair share of problems with the dynamic poses some of the figure’s are packaged in, but thankfully that wasn’t the case with Mongul.

First up is Mongul and if you’re getting a sense of Deja Vous, you’d be right on the money because we’ve seen this sculpt before. That doesn’t bother me, as I don’t already own it, so it’s still new to me. Still, if you’re keeping track, this Mongul sculpt was most recently released in a two-pack with Cyborg Superman and earlier than that he was part of the DC Super Heroes line back in 2005. It’s easy to see why Mattel would want to get some mileage out of this sculpt, because it’s fan-friggin-tastic. In fact, it’s easily one of my favorite sculpts released in the DCUClineup to date. Every tiny detail of Mongul’s outfit has been beautifully recreated with all the studs, belts, and wires, right down to his massive boots and of course his Sinestro Corps ring. Mongul is certainly not one of those DCUC figures that relies on paint apps over sculpted details. I think he’s decently sized, although some might argue he could have been bigger, I don’t think so.

Mongul’s paint job on the other hand may give people pause, mainly because it’s really out there. His combination of mauve and mettalic blue may seem somewhat unconventional, but I think it’s pretty striking. I guess when you’re the head hancho of War World, you can wear whatever color you want. Each of the studs on his outfit are individually painted, and while there’s a little bit of rubbing here and there on the studs and wires, overall it’s a beautifully executed paintjob.

And that brings us to Wave 1’s Collect & Connect figure, Arkillo, and holy shit he is one big bucket of awesome sauce. Measuring at almost the exact same height as the C&C Kilowog figure, he really towers over the rest of the DCUC lineup just like a C&C figure should. The overall build of the body is also extremely similar to the Kilowog body, and also like Kilowog, Arkillo relies on the paint deco, in this case black and yellow, of his outfit more than a lot of unique scupting. He does have a pair of gold sculpted bracers and a silver sculpted belt. The paint apps are immaculate, particularly the Sinestro emblem on his chest and left arm.

But where Arkillo really shines is the head sculpt. The Sinestro Corps is all about fear and if this guy’s mug doesn’t trigger a release of your bowels, I don’t know what will. It’s the mouth that’s really cool. All the teeth are nicely sculpted and he’s got these disgusting strips of flesh connecting his jaws that are stretched out on either side of his gaping maw. Arkillo is pure nightmare fuel.

So, I know it took me longer than usual to get through all of Green Lantern Classics, Wave 1, but you shouldn’t think that’s because I don’t have a lot of love for these figures. Quite the contrary. This overall assortment is probably one of my favorites to come out since the Darkseid wave in terms of overall consistancy, execution and design. There really isn’t a figure in the bunch that isn’t excellent and the C&C Arkillo figure really ties the whole package together marvelously. I realize that a lot of long time collectors may already have the Mongul sculpt, but he’s definitely worth picking up again just to net you Arkillo.

Feb 5 2011

Iron Man 2: “Fury of Combat” Boxed Set by Hasbro

The Iron Man 2 action figure line must have an Arc Reactor of its own keeping it alive. It’s not the first time I’ve pointed out that while other movie figure lines shoot their load and get whisked away to the clearance bins before the DVD release, Iron Man 2 keeps on chugging along and I keep buying the figures. Granted most of the single carded ones I pick up these days are impulse buys, but today’s boxed set of four figures is one that I actually hunted down. The set includes the Mark VI Iron Man armor, two Ground Assault Drones and Nick Fury himself.

The set comes in a long window box, somewhat similar to some of Hasbro’s Star Wars boxed sets. It’s set up so that Iron Man and the two Drones are in the main window and Nick Fury gets his own little window on the side as if he’s a bonus figure. The box has a similar deco to the single carded figures and has a really nice illustrated backdrop that you can use as a diorama to display the figures if you’re so inclined. You’ll also note by the sticker that this set is a Toys R Us exclusive. The box is pretty collector friendly, as the tray just slides right out, but the figures are positioned pretty awkwardly in the box with Iron Man looking like something akin to a ragdoll.

The Iron Man figure has plenty of good and bad going for it. I was actually surprised to realize that I didn’t own the Mark VI armor yet, so this was a decent pick up for me, although it will probably be replaced on my shelf with the carded version that has the power up glow whenever I get around to buying it. The sculpting is as excellent as ever, and while the quality of the paint is fantastic with a thick, rich glossy lacquer, I’m not a big fan of the added gold on the thighs. On the downside, he does have some issues with articulation, particularly in the oddball joints used for his hips, and his head wants to perpetually hunch down, which makes for some awkward poses unless you have him looking off to the side. I doubt I would have been entirely happy with him as a single carded release, but he’s ok for box set fodder.


The Ground Assault Drones are practically worth the price of admission alone, so long as you don’t mind getting two of them. Seeing as how tough it’s been to find the other Hammeroids carded, it’s cool to get a pair of this variety. The sculpts are really off the charts for the 3 3/4″ scale and these guys are armed up the wazoo. They have built in grenade launchers with drum magazines on their right arms, belt fed machine guns on their left arms and the giant cannon that mounts onto their back and makes them look like walking Abrams tanks. They also have the drop down stabalizer plates on their feet to keep them from getting blown back on their asses when they fire those things. The paint is a realistic looking grundgy flat military tan and these guys have some excellent little painted details, including the tiny American flags on their chests.

And then there’s Nick Fury, which for a lot of people, myself included, is the real draw of this set, and I have to say Hasbro did a marvelous job with him. The body sculpt is very GI Joe-ish, but it still fits the character and the added softgoods trenchcoat really ties the whole figure together. The headsculpt is really one of the best I’ve seen in a while in this scale. He comes with a little grey automatic pistol, which sadly does not fit into a holster anywhere.

My only gripe with this set is that it doesn’t come with stands and armor cards. I don’t care so much about Iron Man missing them, since I will undoubtedly get one when I buy the power up glow carded version to display in my collection. And obviously Nick Fury didn’t need one, but I’m bummed that I can’t display these Drones with a stand and armor cards along side my other two Hammeroids. I’m not saying I really expected them to be included, especially considering the cost of the set, but not having them still messes up the feng shui of my Iron Man 2 display. Dig it?

This set was $24.99 on TRU’s website, which isn’t much more than the cost of three carded Iron Man 2 figures, so it really is like you’re getting Nick Fury as a bonus. Either way it’s a good price, even though chances are many collectors won’t be terribly excited and/or happy about the Iron Man figure that’s included. Whether it’s better than Target’s similar exclusive boxed sets, I can’t really say, since I’ve only glanced at those on the shelf a few times.

Feb 4 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Prison Tower Rescue (#7947)

So, like I said last time, I’m on a crusade to pick up whatever remaining Lego Kingdoms sets I can find in the stores so as not to get stuck paying extra for them online when they’ve disappeared from the shelves. That led me to pick up this incredibly awesome Prison Tower Rescue set yesterday morning at my local Wally World. This is the first playset-style Lego set I own, so I was pretty excited to get started on the build.


The set comes in a decent sized box with four numbered baggies of bricks and two instruction sheets. At 365 pieces, it’s a decent sized set and certainly one of the largest I own. In addition to the tower itself, the set includes no less than five minifigs, a horse, extra shields and torches that clip on around the tower, a treasure chest with jewels and a rat, and even gargoyles. It was a truly satisfying build, not only because it took me several hours, but because there was very little redundant building steps like in some of the Space Police ships or the last couple of Pharaoh’s Quest sets. I really had a great time getting this set together.


The minifigs are pretty awesome. You get two Lion Knights and their horse, a Princess to rescue, and two Dragon Knights to defend the Tower. The Knights are all what you’ve probably come to expect from the Kingdoms sets, but I really dig army building the Kingdoms minfigs, so you’ll get no complaints from me. You get one set of swords and shields for each side, as well as a spear and a crossbow. The Princess has a double printed face, and one of the Lion Knights comes with an armor piece that slips on over his torso, which is cool because it’s the first time I’ve seen that. The horse has a helmet with the horn that I was missing from the Prison Carriage Rescue set and an armor piece that fits over him.


As a playset, the Prison Tower has all sorts of cool play features. It’s designed like the great 80’s playsets of old, with no back so you can get inside and have access to the rooms. There’s a boiling cauldron of fire at the very top that can be spilled out over the side. The transulcent orange bricks that make up the fire are well done. There’s a catapult mounted on the side of the lower platform to launch bricks at those attacking goody-goodies. The porticullis raises and lowers via a working windless on that same platform, which works beautifully I might add. The top floor of the tower features a fold down gate so you can lock the Princess in there. There’s also three different flights of stairs and a little room on the bottom to keep the treasure chest in. There’s also a barrel that holds a couple of extra polearms.



Besides being a fun build, my favorite thing about this set is that it can incorporate all of the Kingdoms sets I have so far. The Prison Carriage Rescue set we looked at yesterday was practically made to compliment this Tower, the Knights Showdown set can be used by the Lion Knights to assist in the siege and I like to put my Wizard minifig set in the Tower too. Yeah, at $50 it’s a might pricey, but as much as I liked the equivalently priced Pharaoh’s Quest set, this one has a lot more play and display value to me, so I’m not all that put off by the price. Needless to say, I highly recommend this one, and it’s really whetted my appetite to hunt down either the bigger Castle in the series or some of the Prince of Persia playsets before they disappear too.

Feb 3 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Prison Carriage Rescue (#7949)

I had a few too many other commitments to lay out the scratch for the next Pharaoh’s Quest set on my list, (it is, afterall, the big $100 mama-jama) so I had to get my last Lego fix with something just a wee bit more affordable. I opted for picking up another one of the smaller Kingdoms sets. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I should be buying the Kingdoms line whenever I find them, because they seem to be slowly disappearing and pretty soon they’re going to be a lot more expensive. [Which is why I went back and picked up the Prison Tower set this morning! -FF] So, let’s take a look at Prison Carriage Rescue!

Like I said, this is a fairly small set, weighing in at only 50 pieces. The bricks come in two unnumbered baggies, plus one really conspicuous horse, and you get an instruction booklet. Keep in mind that about 20 of the 50 pieces in this set make up the minifigs and their horse and gear, which doesn’t leave a lot for the rest of the build. That’s not a complaint, mind you, I’m just pointing out that this set is mainly about the minifigs. And, hey, minifigs are never a bad thing.


So, the minifigs consist of two of the good guys, one is the prisoner and the other the rescuer, and one bad guy. The prisoner doesn’t have any weapons, but he does have a double printed face, so you can use him as a regular knight without having him look like he’s about to shit himself in fear. The other Lion Knight and the Dragon Knight each come with a sword and shield. The horse comes with a helmet, which is supposed to have a horn no it, but my set was either missing the horn or I lost it. I’ll give Lego the benefit of the doubt and say I lost it, since it was so damn tiny. The horse can be hooked up to the wagon or you can take the bricks out of his back and have one of the knights ride him. If you have any of the bigger Kingdom sets, these figures will be great to beef up your garrisons. The rescue knight is a really fantastic figure, and I love his helm.

The prison wagon is pretty simple and quite easy to build. It has a hinged gate on the back that raises and lowers and it has clips on the sides to hold a lance and a torch, both of which are nice accessories. There’s not a heck of a lot more to say about it. It’s not terribly big, but you could squeeze a couple of figures in there. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to modify it into some kind of other wagon if you have the right extra bricks lying around.

This set was about ten bucks, which I think is a pretty solid deal. The build really wasn’t all that satisfying, but what you get out of it in the end is well worth it. Even if you don’t have a lot of use for the prison carriage, Kingdoms is a great set to army build for and this set certainly lets you do that. Speaking of which, tomorrow I’m going to be looking at the Prison Tower Rescue set, which this set really compliments very nicely.

Feb 2 2011

Tron Legacy: Deluxe Sam Flynn by Spin Master

You’re going to see a lot of Tron Legacy toys covered here in the near future. I’ve been planning on collecting this line, and I’m starting to get a little skiddish about whether it’s going to be around long enough if I keep putting it off. The fact that Spin Master has done additional waves of figures and vehicles is encouraging, but I don’t want to turn around and find that I’ve missed the opportunity. I’ve got a bunch of the Deluxe figures coming in the mail next week, so I thought I’d start with the one that I do have on hand now: Sam Flynn.

Overall, I like the packaging for this line. Although, I’ll admit it is kind of bizarre with all the meaningless text on the back about warnings and care of the toy. I guess it has a lot to do with the electronics, but honestly, I’ve bought plenty of toys with electronics in the past and I didn’t feel like I was getting a 20-page legal brief printed on the package. Nonetheless, the card displays the Tron logo nicely and the bubble shows off the figure well. There’s a hole cut in the bubble so you can reach a finger in and hit the button under Sam’s left armpit and activate the lights and projection gimmick. That gimmick is a huge part of these figures, so the Try Me feature at least shows Spin Master’s confidence in its ability to sell the toys, and rightly so, I think.

All things considered, I think the sculpt here is well done. Granted, most of the characters in Tron Legacy are wearing fairly bland full body suits, so there isn’t a whole lot of sculpted detail to show off here. Nontheless, there’s some good texturing on the figure and the paint apps show off the light patterns on the extremities, whereas the two translucent strips on the torso are detailed with actual LEDs, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Sam is also a really sturdy figure, with the limbs being cast in heavy, hard rubbery plastic, giving the figure a fair amount of heft. Overall, I think this is a pretty nice looking display piece.

A lot of collectors have made hay over the limited articulation on these Deluxe figures, but I’m not going to be one of them. The most obvious missing points are in the neck and the torso, and we all know why they aren’t there, right? It’s because of the electronic gimmick. And let’s face it, most of the Tron Legacy character designs are basically just dudes in black bodysuits, so I’d much rather have the electronics and sacrifice a little articulation. What is here includes ball joints in the shoulders and hips, swivels in the biceps and wrists, hinges in elbows, and ball joints the knees and ankles. There’s still a good deal of poseability here.

So how’s about them electronics? Well, they consist of the two light up strips running up the figure’s torso and the image projected face. Press the button and the lights come on, Sam’s face flickers on, says something and then flickers off. What’s here works really well and the sound chip is loud and speaks clearly. There are six phrases total, which are:

  • My name is Sam Flynn
  • Some things are worth the risk
  • This is it, come on!
  • Where am I? Am I on the grid?
  • We gotta work together, it’s the only way!
  • I’m not a program!

I think my only complaint with the electronics is that the lights don’t stay on long at all, you have to keep pressing the button. I’m guessing this was done to conserve battery life, but I still would have liked an option like on the Lightcycle where the toy stayed lit a little longer. It’s also worth mentioning that the lights in the torso are about on par with the smaller figure. It looks nice, but I expected some enhancements for the larger, “deluxe” figure.

Sam comes with his Ident Disc, which unlike the 3 3/4″ figures can actually clip onto his back. He also comes with a Lightcycle baton that pegs onto his leg. I really think a figure stand would have been in order here. I mean, if you get a figure stand with the 3 3/4″ figures, doesn’t it seem like we should get one with the so-called “deluxe figures?” Ah, but no such luck.

Sam retails at $14.99, which I think is a pretty fair deal, considering right across the aisle (at TRU anyway), Mattel is hawking their Green Lantern Classics for $17.99. Granted, a lot more sculpting, paint apps, and articulation go into those Mattel figures, but then they don’t have LED’s, voice chips and batteries, so I don’t think there’s a lot of room to quibble on the price here. In the end, Spin Master tried something new and innovative with these figures and I think it worked and I’m anxious to take a look at how it played out on the other “deluxe” figures later on in the week.

Feb 2 2011

Marvel Famous Covers: Black Widow by Toy Biz

I was tearing through some of my storage totes this weekend, looking for some of the parts for some figures I wanted to feature for future Vintage Vaults when I stumbled upon this Famous Covers Series Black Widow figure. It was a cool find, because while I remember picking it up at an estate sale quite a few years back I never actually opened her up. While I do have a few more of this series floating around here, I never really got into it all that much, and I’ve never opened any of them, so this will be a pretty new experience for me. Let’s check her out!

I’m pretty mixed on the packaging here. The figure comes in a book-style box with a velcro piece to hold the front flap down. The front shows the issue of Marvel Fanfare that introduced Black Widow, along with some questionable original artwork of her for the box. Check out the back if you’re brave because it’s got a shot of the exclusive mail-away Aunt May figure, which looks far too creepy to keep in my house. Seriously, Toy Biz? Does anyone really want to be “the first to own an 8″ ultra poseable Aunt May” figure? Even with a limitation of 10,000 figures, I think you overestimated the demand on this one, guys. Anyway, the front flap of the box has a circle cut out to see the figure’s face. Open the front flap, and you can see Black Widow in all her 8″ Mego-fied glory resting in a gold foil tray. I guess I like the design of the box, and the fact that it’s so collector friendly, but the character artwork on the front is just really bad. Toy Biz should have just the cover of the comic for the front of the box.

This line is often described as being in the Mego-style. The figure is actually just slightly bigger than your average Mego-style figure, which is just enough to be annoying if you wanted your Black Widow intermingling with some of those DC retro-style figures you may have picked up recently. But apart from the slight scale issue, the comparison is certainly justified as she has decent articulation, rooted hair, and a cloth costume. The head sculpt is pretty good, and I tend to think one of the best this line has to offer. She has high-heel boot feet and black glove hands. Her articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows and swivels in the wrists. Her legs have universal movement in the hips and hinged elbows and ankles. She can swivel and bend at the waist.

Black Widow’s outfit is pretty spartan, but it does fit the comic art pretty well. She’s basically just wearing a black jumpsuit with a plastic yellow belt and arm bracers. The outfit fits her pretty well.

I have no idea how much I paid for this figure, but it had to be pretty cheap, because at the time I didn’t think I’d like it enough to even bother opening it. It’s really not a bad figure at all. The poseability is nice, the outfit is ok and the headsculpt and rooted hair look good. Whenever I get around to reviewing other figures in this line you’ll see I tend to think of it as a mixed bag. But all in all, I think Black Widow is one of the better figures that Famous Covers has to offer. Really, my only gripe here is that she should have come with some weapons.

Feb 1 2011

Out of Order… Come Back Tomorrow

Ok, so I was all ready with the goodies for today’s post, but a camera malfunction this afternoon prevented it from happening. I’ve been tinkering with the dang thing for almost an hour and I’m still not having any luck, so it’s time to call it quits for the night. And no, this isn’t some flimsy excuse to cover up being at a bar all day. Rest assured, if I can’t get it working again, I’ll dig my old one out of the closet until I can get it replaced, but either way, tomorrow the show will go on.
Not the best way to start out the new month, but it was out of my control.

I should at least take this time to mention that I did pre-order just about every single Thundercats toy and figure that was up for pre-order on one of my regular e-tailer sites today. That’s an entire case of the 4″ figures, one of each of the larger ones, the playset, the small vehicle assortment, and the Thundertank. I also laid down a pre-order for Mezco’s 14″ Classic style Lion-O figure. Too bad we’ve still got a cool six months to wait before any of it shows up. But Toy Fair is coming in just a few short weeks, and I’m anxious to see some better pictures.

Until tomorrow… peace out.