Monthly Archives: September 2011

Sep 5 2011

GI JOE Pursuit of Cobra: Arctic Destro by Hasbro

[Howdy, Figure Fans, I’m tossing in a quickie for today’s update. It’s a departure from what I had planned, but I managed to really mess up my back this weekend and sitting at my computer desk for any length of time is absolute torture. Considering I wrote a fair portion of today’s feature in agony, I may have been a little bit hard on poor Destro here. Nonetheless, I’m hoping it’ll either start mending or I can get my hands on some decent painkillers before I’m back in the saddle tomorrow. -FF]

I’ve featured some of the Pursuit of Cobra vehicles on FigureFan in the past, but no doubt some people are wondering why I haven’t been looking at any of the carded figures. Well, I’ll grant you they look like amazing figures, but as far as I’m concerned the 25th Anni. Collection are the definitive versions of these characters and I decided that I was not going to collect a whole new line of the same guys and gals. I have to draw the line somewhere. Nonetheless, I’ve been meaning to pick up Destro here for a little while, mainly just to put him in my Arctic HISS. So, last week, I was ordering some figures from Amazon and I came in just a couple of bucks under the minimum for free shipping, so I threw Destro on to tilt the scale in my favor. I know, not exactly a ringing endorsement for why I bought him, but let’s check him out anyway…

The gorgeous retro cards for the 25th Anni. line are a hard act to follow, but Pursuit of Cobra has made a valiant effort. The cards are more dark and gritty, but they still look absolutely fantastic and display the figure beautifully. The back panel shows off an amazing photo diorama of the figures and toys in action. There’s also a filecard that you can clip and save, but it lacks the meaty content of the vintage filecards. The filecard also lists a piece of “mission specific equipment” that the figure doesn’t even come with. I usually have no qualms about tearing open my figures, but Destro here actually gave me pause. Hmm… maybe I should start collecting these just to hang them on my wall.
Opening up the bubble you see that the pack includes Destro, a figure stand, a tightly wadded up catalog-slash-poster, and a shitload of accessories. I’m going to break convention and start with the accessories, because there’s a lot of them and I don’t know what half of them really are. You get a pair of what looks like ice climbing spikes; You get a freeze gun with a hose and backpack; A couple of pieces of ice, which I assume are to attach to the figure Destro is shooting with the ice gun; A pair of goggles; An ice drill; Something that looks like a Star Wars Scout Trooper gun; And a standard Cobra figure stand with “Destro” printed on it. I don’t have a lot to say about a lot of this stuff, except the backpack for the ice gun doesn’t peg into his back very well, and I don’t like the way the hose comes out of the top. I don’t usually complain about accessories, but I just feel like Hasbro went for quantity over quality here.
Destro himself is wearing arctic gear with a soft plastic jacket and hood. The body looks nice and the snowy wash looks really good for a figure in this scale and price range. I’m not all that crazy about the head and I can’t really put my finger on what it is that turns me off. The eyes might be too big. It does have a pretty cool snowy finish on the top half as if his mask is freezing over. The goggles fit really well either up on his forehead or down over his eyes. I don’t have a lot else to say about this guy. The realism of the sculpt is very good, but there’s just nothing about him that stands out.
Articulation is what we’ve come to expect from the modern 3 3/4″ Hasbro figures. You get universal movement in the shoulders and hips; A ball jointed neck; Hinges in the elbows and double hinges in the knees; swivel cuts in the wrists; Swivels and hinges in the ankles; and the universal joint in the torso.
I got Destro for my Arctic HISS, and he’ll be fine for that, but I’m actually surprised at how little this figure impresses me. There’s nothing specific that I can really beef about, but he’s just a bland figure with an overkill of underwhelming accessories. I still think he looks incredible on the card and I wouldn’t be opposed to picking up more of these figures to keep carded, but only if I got them on the cheap. I’m sure Destro isn’t the best of this line, but he certainly doesn’t make me want to run out and buy more. Maybe I’ll start jumping back on board with the 30th Anniversary stuff.
Sep 4 2011

Thundercats: 4-inch Panthro by Ban Dai

It took me a little longer than I thought, but I’ve finally completed my collection of the 4-inch Basic Thundercats figures. Now I can finally stop recriminating myself for cancelling my case pre-order just to get some of the figures a week earlier. Sure I paid more than I should have for Cheetara, but Panthro here was pretty easy to get at retail and now I’m all set. It seems only fitting that the last one to complete my collection should be Panthro, since he just turned up in the series recently.

There’s that Basic Thundercats card that I love so much and it still looks great. Panthro’s character art isn’t the best, but it’s ok. He’s a big guy, the biggest figure in this Basic assortment, and he certainly fills out the bubble very nicely.
Out of the package, Panthro looks great. The sculpt really matches his animated counterpart pretty well. His bulk seems fine, although I’ll concede he maybe should have been a bit taller. There’s plenty of cool detail work on him, including the studs on his suspenders and wrist armor, and a nasty looking scar on his chest. His face scar is present too, although Ban Dai opted not to discolor his wounded eye like it is in the cartoon. Even his sculpted mutton chops look great.
Once again, I love the coloring on these figures, particularly the glossy finish that really goes well with the animated designs. The paintwork on Panthro’s face is outstanding, particularly the sharpness of the eyes and the Thundercats emblem on his belt is crisp and gorgeous. As with all the figures in this line, the pins and hinges in Panthro’s joints aren’t painted. I know this continues to irk some collectors, but for whatever reason, it really doesn’t bother me at all.
Panthro comes with two accessories, or more accurately two versions of the same accessory: His nunchuks. You get one set with the chain stretched out and another with the nunchuks folded together, which can peg into a hole on the back of his waist. The open nunchuk is sculpted in one piece and is pretty bendy in the middle to let him hold it in both hands for various action poses. Unfortunately, the weapon is left completely gray, which is really disappointing considering it should be red and blue. The monochrome accessories were bad enough with the Grune figure, but in this case the colors of Panthro’s nunchuks are pretty iconic, so leaving it unpainted is unforgiveable. I do believe I’ll be taking some paint to these myself to remedy the oversight.

When it comes to articulation, Panthro thankfully follows the trend set by Lion-O and Tygra, rather than Cheetara or the Kittens. His head rotates side to side; He has ball joints in his shoulders and hips; There are hinges in his elbows, knees, and ankles; And he has swivels in his wrists. I certainly have no complaints here.
Oh, and to answer the burning question that has been in my mind since I got Panthro. Will a big guy like this fit in the cockpit of his trusty Thundertank? Oh yes. In fact, it looks like Ban Dai engineered the control panel specifically so it could fit Panthro’s huge, meaty paws. He fits and the canopy closes just fine.
With the last of the 4-inch Basics in my collection, I have to say once again that I think Ban Dai did a great job with these figures and Panthro is just another example of that. He looks great and features fun articulation. Sure there are little things that I would have improved upon, most notably painting his nunchuks and the joints, but then I remind myself that these 4-inchers are designed for kids to play with and not for middle aged kids to display on their shelf. Nonetheless, I think they serve both purposes pretty well. I’ll be back to look at more Thundercats soon, once I start snagging some of the larger size figures.
Sep 3 2011

DC Universe Classics: Crime Syndicate of America 5-Pack by Mattel, Part 2

As promised, here’s the second half of our look at Mattel’s Crime Syndicate of Amerika 5-Pack. Last time we checked out the packaging and the excellent Johnny Quick and Power Ring figures. This time we round out the evil team with Superwoman, Owlman, and Ultraman.

Like Power Ring and Johnny Quick, Ultraman is mostly comprised of a standard DCUC male body with simple coloring to make up his costume, and a few extra bits here and there. The head sculpt on this guy is superb. It’s very detailed with just a tad of malevolance, and comes a close second to Johnny Quick as my favorite head sculpt in this batch. The body is cast entirely in blue and the only other coloring detail is the Ultraman emblem tampo’d on his chest. He also has these silver egg-like pods around his waist and a red, soft plastic cape. All in all, he’s a simple, but great looking figure. I think the cape would have looked better with the Ultraman emblem on it as well, but now I’m just nit picking.
Superwoman is based on a pretty standard DCUC female body with a simple, black, one-piece outfit and gloves and sculpted black boots. She also features a sculpted choker necklace and a dainty little black and yellow cape that hangs around her shoulders and is permanently pegged into the body just under her neck with a sculpted chain and shoulder pads. The head sculpt is very good, somewhat close to the old Wonder Woman figure, but with a much more stern expression. The sculpting on the hair is particularly well done, although it does inhibit the neck articulation a bit. I expected Superwoman to be a straight repaint and resculpt of the old Wonder Woman figure, but she certainly isn’t. In fact, she’s noticeably shorter and slighter of build than Wonder Woman and much closer in proportions to the more recent Star Sapphire WW.
Last up is Owlman and I’m guessing he may be the figure in this set people are most excited about, as he utilizes the most new sculpting of the set. Again, we have a pretty standard DCUC male body cast entirely in gray. He has sculpted bracers on his wrists and ankles and a nicely detailed utility belt. His segmented, soft plastic cape hangs down over his shoulders and he comes with a, what… owlrang? The owlrang is rubberbanded into his hand, and I haven’t bothered detatching it, because if I do, I’m sure I’m going to lose it. The head sculpt here is really good, although very oddly shaped thanks to his distinctive headgear. It looks like its impossible to have a regular human proportioned head under that thing, but I still like the way it looks. It does, however, seem to be based more on the character’s animated counterpart than his comic panels.

All three figures share the same points of articulation. You get ball jointed necks; The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows; The legs feature universal movement in the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinged knees and ankles. The figures swivel at the waist and all feature the standard DCUC ab crunge hinge.
So, here’s the part about this set that a lot of collectors haven’t been too keen on. The last two of these 5-Packs (Gotham City and Green Lantern) sold for about $50-60. This one sells for about $75-80 and that price tag has been drawing it’s share of scorn. Personally, I’m not complaining. I wanted these figures for a long time now, and the set breaks down to $15 a figure, which is exactly what I wind up paying for most DCUC figures, unless I get a deal on a case. I do understand that collectors tend to associate these multi-packs with getting a bargain, but this one just isn’t one of those occasions. Either way I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Those cheaper sets were stuffed with a lot of straight re-packs, whereas this set very fresh. I couldn’t be happier with it.
Sep 2 2011

DC Universe Classics: Crime Syndicate of America 5-Pack by Mattel, Part 1

The moment I heard that Mattel was doing a set of Crime Syndicate figures in the DCUC line, I was beside myself with joy. Then the news soon followed that it would be one of those Walmart exclusive 5-packs and my heart sank into my feet. I’m sure I’ve cried plenty of times here about how the Walmarts in my area all stopped carrying DC figures a long time ago, so the chances of me finding this set at retail were impossible. My only hope was that Walmart would offer the set for sale on the website like they did with the less spectacular Green Lantern 5-pack. Thankfully that hope paid off. The set went for sale online, and thanks to a tip from a friend and fellow collector, I was able to buy it before it quickly went out of stock. I’m going to break this up into two parts. Today we’ll start with a look at the packaging and two of the figures: Johnny Quick and Power Ring.

This is the first time I’ve purchased one of these 5-packs from the DC Universe Classics line, so the packaging is pretty new to me. The set basically comes in a huge tray-like window box with the familar DCUC deco that we’ve seen so many times on the carded figures and the 2-packs. Obviously it’s a pretty big package to hold the five DCUC scaled figures in a staggered layout. You get Superwoman, Owlman, Ultraman, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring, who are of course the evil alternate versions of Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, The Flash, and Green Lantern, respectively. Some of these figures are packed in action poses, so here’s hoping the joints didn’t get too messed up. The back panel of the box has bios for each character, along with a photo of the figure and a shot of their comic counterpart. Overall, I like the presentation here. I’m somewhat tempted to hang on to the box as it is fairly collector friendly, but since these figures are going right up on my DCUC shelves, I opted to pitch it. Good thing too, since Walmart slapped some huge, f’ugly product label on the bottom of the package.
Johnny Quick features a standard DCUC male body and relies mostly on coloring and paint apps to distinguish him. The head sculpt, however, is new, really fantastic, and much better than I expected to find in a set like this. The bulk of the body is cast in a nice rich, red plastic, whereas the boots and gloves are in yellow plastic. I’m really not a fan of this quality of yellow plastic used. It just looks waxy and inconsistant compared to the rest of the body. I much prefer the yellow paint used on the Barry Allen figure’s boots. On the upside, the paintwork on the figure is really sharp, particularly the lighting bolt pattern that runs up and down his torso.
Just like Johnny, Power Ring features the same standard male body. He’s cast in green plastic with painted white gloves and lighter green paint for the boots. He’s also got light green stripes running up his arms. The emblem on his chest is clean and sharp and the paintwork applied to his sculpted power ring is very nicely executed. Power Ring features an excellent head sculpt and looks mighty pissed off. The mask is actually part of the sculpt and painted over. There’s a wee bit of bleeding between the flesh paint and his mask, but nothing too bad at all. I’m guessing this head might have been reused from one of the DCUC Green Lantern themed waves, but I don’t have all of those figures, so I’m not entirely sure one way or the other.

Both figures feature the same standard DCUC articulation. The head is ball jointed; The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows; The legs feature universal movement in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinged knees and elbows. The figures also swivel at the waist and have the hinged ab crunch in the torso.
So far, I’m extremely happy with the way this set turned out. While I didn’t hesitate at all to order it, I was a bit concerned about not being able to pick out a set with the best paintwork. Sometimes with sets like this you just need to pull the trigger and hope for the best, and based on the first two figures, everything seems fine. I’m still not all that keen on the yellow plastic used for Johnny Quick’s gloves and boots, but that’s really all I have to complain about here. Both of these guys were a little pre-posed in the package, but thankfully it didn’t do any harm to their joints. These are awesome looking figures.

Next time, I’ll wrap it up with a look at the last three figures in the set.
Sep 1 2011

Doctor Who: Junk TARDIS Playset by Character Options

The Doctor’s Wife was easily my favorite episode of Doctor Who from part one of Season Six, and certainly ranks up there as one of my all time favorites of the 11th Doctor’s adventures. It was a wonderfully sentimental nod back to the Doctor’s relationship with his oldest and longest travelling companion, The TARDIS itself. We also once again got to see the console room used by the 9th and 10th Doctors and for the first time since Doctor Who returned in 2005, we got to see some more of the TARDIS’ labrynthine interior. If that wasn’t enough, the episode was also cool as it had The Doctor cobbling together a working console room out of the scavenged remains of an untold number of crashed, derilect TARDISes. The resulting Junk TARDIS design was even based on the winner of a Blue Peter contest. What’s better than getting your TARDIS design used in an episode of Doctor Who? Getting a toy made out of it as well!

The playset comes in a regular box with the Series 5/6 blue deco and logo. It’s covered with images of the playset and points out the various features. Unlike most boxed Doctor Who toys, there’s no window or anything to see inside, and that’s because most of the box is filled with a bunch of parts of plastic and a baggie of cardboard walls. I suppose CO could have put a window in the box to show the console itself, which comes completely assembled, but the box is certainly attractive enough the way it is. Unfortunately, the set up is not at all collector friendly. The set is definitely not designed to be taken apart once its assembled, so it’s never going back into the box again. The box makes several points of stating that there are no action figures included, and that’s one of the biggest wasted opportunities with this set. But we’ll get to that later on.
Building the set is pretty straightforward, but you definitely want to read the instructions because there are some steps that need to be done in the right order and once you snap some of this stuff together, there’s no going back. If you put together the 11th Doctor’s Console Room Playset, then you’ll be familiar with what its like to put the printed cardboard walls into the plastic framework. It’s actually easier this time around because none of them are curved or as large. The plastic is pretty good quality, although it was really tough for me to get the console plugged into the floor and once I did, it was clear it wasn’t going to come out again. I was hoping it would be removable like the console on the regular TARDIS playset, but I’m not about to risk taking it out and breaking the tabs.
Once everything is together, the set looks great. I’m normally not a proponent of using cardboard in playsets, but it worked fine in the regular TARDIS playset and it works even better here. The cardboard walls cover both the interior and the back exterior of the playset, and are very well secured in the framework, making the whole playset is very sturdy. Granted, a lot of that has to do with the set’s compact size. It seems to be scaled pretty closely to the on screen version, but it’s still designed to only accomodate two figures.
The console itself is mostly sculpted in one piece, although the Time Rotor can be removed and one of the hexpanels can be removed as well. The combination of junk controls and the overall look of the console and Time Rotor really make this feel like a fusion between the 11th Doctor’s console and one of the Classic Consoles. Once again, I really wish the console could come out easily, since it’s tough to appreciate the segments of the console up against the back wall.
The Junkyard TARDIS set me back $36, which would be an outrageous amount if this were a domestic release. It looks great, and has a few nice gimmicks, but it still feels like it’s missing something and that’s where the missed opportunity comes in. Call me crazy, but I really think CO should have included the Idris figure with this set, either instead of, or in addition to the single carded release. In the end, though, I think the real appeal of this playset will be the fact that it really does have a lot of characteristics of a Classic Console Room, and right now it’s the closest thing we’ve got. Either way, it’s a really cool display piece.