Mar 11 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Orange Lantern Lex Luthor by Mattel

I’ve made no bones about how underwhelmed I was by this assortment of figures, but there was one that stood out as particularly offensive. Yes, its Orange Lantern Lex Luthor and as much as I loved the idea of Lex Luthor taking up the Orange Lantern of Greed, I really had to plug my nose as I bought this figure soley to get at one of the Anti-Monitor’s C&C pieces. Ugh, let’s check him out. I’ll be as brief as possible.

The same old DC Universe Classics packaging and Lex stands beneath the bubble in all his orange ice pop horror. He’s posed clutching the Lantern in one arm, because remember kids, the Lantern of Greed has no handle, and waving his other fist in the air in all his orangey triumph. Ugh.

Out of the package and what have we got. Its the same Power Armor Lex Luthor that has been released before only all the armor is molded in translucent orange plastic. Everything except his head, which is the regular head stuck atop this orange icee abomination. Now, in fairness, Mattel has invested some new sculpting into this guy. His chest armor and belt are new to incorporate the Orange Lantern emblem and the configuration of his collar is a bit different. I’m pretty fond of the original sculpt, and this one is pretty impressive too. But this figure is still a piece of shit.

I know from personal acquaintances that there are collectors out there who have a fetish for translucent plastic figures. I don’t get it, but I don’t begrudge it either. If you’re one of those people than this figure will be right up your alley. I honestly a cannot stand this thing and it’ll be the first figure to get pitched into a random junk tote when I run out of space on my Green Lantern shelf. I could see releasing this as part of a niche multipack, but to make me buy it to complete an Anti-Monitor figure is just pure cruelty. I got this one for about seven bucks and even then I was considering buying the C&C part alone for the same price just out of principal. Few of the figures in this wave really stand out for me, but Orangey Lex is without a doubt the worst this wave has to offer.

Tomorrow… Blue Lantern Flash!

Mar 10 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: White Lantern Hal Jordan by Mattel

[Normally I wait until Mondays to start themed weeks, but I’m just about caught up with all my new stuff and honestly I’ve been putting these figures off for ages so I might as well knock them out, eh? -FF]

With Wave 19 of DCUC knocked out a few weeks back, I’m jumping two waves back to finish up #17 before picking up the current and last assortment of the line, #20. I looked at my first figure from Wave 17 a couple of months back with Wonder Woman Star Saphire and I’m sure I probably mentioned how underwhelmed I was with this assortment and the idea that these figures would have been better left to DC Direct or perhaps as a Wave in the Green Lantern Classics branch of DCUC. Of the six figures and one variant that make up this assortment, there are really only three figures that I would have added to my collection without Mattel’s deviously clever Collect & Connect incentive, and today’s figure is not one of them. With that ringing endorsement, let’s look at White Lantern Hal Jordan.

Standard DCUC packaging, and as I mentioned above, I think these figures would have presented better on the green cardbacks of Green Lantern Classics subline. The variant figure for this wave is the Black Lantern/White Lantern Hal, which is mostly a repaint of the same figure, albeit with different head sculpts and a resculpted ring hand. Either one would have supplied me with the Anti-Monitor pieces I needed, but I opted to go for the White Lantern Hal just because DC dragged poor Hal through the dirt for a long time and I thought it would be nice to own a figure that personifies his redemption. In any event, the cardback is unique to each variant, which is a great little detail on Mattel’s part. Concealed beneath the bottom bubble insert are the Anti-Monitor’s head and groin piece.

Out of the package, White Lantern Hal offers few surprises. We’ve seen the body before on past Hals, and probably a few other Lanterns for that matter. I do really dig the clean grey and silver paintjob, particularly with the black piping along the borders, and the crisp White Lantern emblem tampo on his chest. The head sculpt is new and Hal looks like he’s seriously pissed at getting his halo tarnished by DC’s writers and now he’s back with a vengeance. It’s a good sculpt, especially considering Mattel could have just slapped an old repainted Hal head onto the body and called it a day.

Articulation? Like I said, Hal offers few surprises. You get a ball jointed neck. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs have universal joints in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. Hal swivels at the waist and has an ab crunch hinge.

So, yeah, I bought this figure to complete my Anti-Monitor, plain and simple. That’s not to say he is in any way a bad figure. In fact, he looks really sharp and I really love the color scheme, even if it is more grey than white. I just wouldn’t have had the desire to sink seventeen bucks into another Hal Jordan figure unless I needed his C&C parts. Luckily most of the other figures in Wave 17 can be had for deep discounts. And that’s a good thing because there’s one figure in this wave that I really resent having to buy for the C&C part. And we might as well get him out of the way tomorrow…

Mar 10 2012

Iron Man 2: (Comic Series) Iron Man Mark I and War Machine Figures by Hasbro

Marvel and Hasbro continue to blitz the toy aisles with their Iron Man 2 toys. I was really impressed with the first two figures I picked up, so I was eager to grab a few more while out shopping this week. Walmart had these things stuffed all over one of their action figure aisles and it took me an eternity to sort through the same three figures over and over again before I found the ones I was looking for, War Machine (#23) and the original Iron Man (#22). These are both from the Comic Series, although I would have been happy finding either these or the Movie Series versions. They also had Iron Monger, which looked nice, but I passed on him because he’s not in scale with the other figures.

Yep, once again, I love the packaging on these figures.

Let’s start with the original Iron Man. Hasbro really nailed the retro, primitive look of the original armor that Tony Stark cobbled together from spare parts. The sculpt obviously isn’t as detailed as the other figures in the line, but that just adds to this figure’s backwards charm as well as the fact that this design is from the comics and not the film. A lot of his rivets are sculpted into the mold, but apart from that and a few panel lines, most of the detail from this figure comes from the excellent paint apps. The figure is molded in matte gray and its scattered with silver and rust colored scratches giving the armor a nice worn and weathered look.

Despite the intentionally clunky sculpt, Hasbro worked most of the normal articulation into this figure. He has a ball jointed neck, as well as ball joints in his shoulders, elbows, upper legs, ankles and upper torso. He also has double hinged knees and his wrists swivel.

This version of Iron Man comes with a sculpted clear orange repulsor beam effect that fits over his closed fist. I’m not a big fan of these simulated fire accessories, but so long as it can be tossed aside, they don’t really bother me. He also comes with the three armor cards and a stand with a peg for the figure and a slot for the three armor cards.

Next up is War Machine, and this is definitely my favorite figure in the line so far. The sculpt is absolutely fantastic. This figure is part of the Comic Series, so the figure is a lot less angular than the film version of the suit with the upper arms and legs retaining a more muscular organic look. Besides a ton of detail in the sculpt, this figure has some nifty features like flip up shoulder plates to free up his arm articulation and two shoulder mounted weapons (a gatling gun and a rocket launcher) that swing up from his back into firing positions. He also has a pair of guns molded into his right forearm. The coloring on this figure is also pretty sweet. He’s a mix of matte silver and dark gray with some blue wash that gives his heavily plated parts a gunmetal blued finish.

War Machine’s articulation is the same as the other figurs in the line, featuring a ball jointed neck, as well as ball joints in his shoulders, elbows, upper legs, ankles and upper torso. He also has double hinged knees and his wrists swivel. While his flip up shoulders give him greater arm movement, some of his other sculpting inhibits articulation a bit, but not enough to spoil the figure.

War Machine comes with the three armor cards and the same exact stand as Iron Man. He also comes with two clip on pieces for his shoulder weapons to make them look like they are firing. I’ve already mentioned that I’m not a big fan of these, but I have to admit the one with the tiny rockets molded into it looks pretty cool.

Unfortunately, my fears over the assortments on this line is playing out, but I probably shouldn’t complain since I was able to find the exact two figures I set out to get. I just don’t know how many less determined people are going to flip through dozens of the same couple of figures before finding what they want. And even then, there is going to be a derth of the same figures hanging on the pegs once the less common stuff has been mined out. That having been said, this overall line continues to impress me.

Mar 9 2012

Doctor Who: “Destiny of the Daleks” Collector Set by Character Options

It’s more Who today. Yay for more Who! Today we’re looking at another one of the four Daleks-and-Davros-themed sets that came out not all that long ago. These consisted of 4-packs based on the episodes, “Genesis of the Daleks,” “Revelation of the Daleks,” Destiny of the Daleks,” and “Resurrection of the Daleks.” The one I previously looked at was the 6th Doctor “Revelation” set, this time we’re checking out the 4th Doctor’s “Destiny” set.

The style of packaging is the same for all four sets. You get a long window box with the older style blue background and 2005-era logo. There are lots of photo stills from the episode and the back of the package has a nice blurb about the story. The interior of the box features a tray with a printed backdrop from the episode, which you can save and use for display. “Destiny” was one of my favorite episodes growing up. It had Daleks and Davros, Tom Baker was really on his game, and the lovely Lalla Ward was wearing that adorable pink version of The Doctor’s scarf and coat. CO, when you finally get around to doing a figure based on Romana II, this is the version I want! Anyway, these sets all follow the same formula: You get a Doctor figure, a Davros figure, and two Daleks. These were a good idea for CO as they allowed for an economy of repaints, resculpts and repacks across four sets. And yet while these may seem like a quick cash grab, CO did right by fans and paid a remarkable amount of detail to the subtle differences between the sets.

Let’s start with The Doctor. Oh, look! I’ve got another 4th Doctor figure for my collection. Ten years ago I would have killed for a Tom Baker figure, now I’ve got a half dozen. You’d think I’d be griping about this, but nope. This version is a nice variant with new sculpting and his grey jacket. I’ve got plenty of him in his brown jacket, one in his burgundy jacket and even one in shirtsleeves. He uses the same serious expression 4th Doctor hatless head that we’ve had before and I think it still holds up well. His scarf is the same sculpt with new paintwork. It doesn’t quite seem episode accurate, but I’ll take it anyhow. This time he isn’t wearing his tie and his shirt collar is open. As with previous figures, his head is easy to pop off if you want to mix and match heads from your other Tom Bakers. I was hoping against hope this one would have the new ball jointed shoulders, but no dice, as you get the same level of articulation on the past 4th Doctors. Still, not bad. The Doctor also comes with his Sonic Screwdriver.

Davros is a great figure. I originally thought the four different Davros figures were just repaints of each other, but there is a remarkable amount of new tooling on this figure. The head sculpt is original to represent David Gooderson, as opposed to the Terry Molloy Davros from the“Revelation of the Daleks” set, including new wires and whatnot. Davros’ dashboard is also completely different from the previous set we looked at. The skirt is grey instead of black, but otherwise its pretty much the same, right down to the pop open service hatch added for the benefit of the “Resurrection” set. Davros comes with his computer sphere, which is appropriately the same piece used on the Source Manipulator from the “Keeper of Traken” set as the sphere was used in both props.

And then there’s the Daleks. You get two standard Daleks from the episode, although one seems to be a higher rank than the other as he has a black stripe painted along his midsection and extra black paint around his bumper. Apart from that they’re identical. From my experience, CO traditionally has QC issues with the paintwork on their Daleks, but these two are just about perfect. Its ironic since the Daleks used in the episode were in terrible condition and practically falling apart. These guys look too new! The shade of grey does look a bit too light on them, but it might just be the lighting used on the episode. The ball joints on the gun and sucker arms were painted over, so I had to pop out the arms and carefully “crack” the joint by using a pen in the socket. Once done, the articulation is fine. These are definitely a couple of great additions to my Dalek armies.

I picked up this set for about $45 with shipping. It’s certainly not a bad deal for four figures. Chances are you long time collectors are getting tired of adding Tom Bakers to your collections, but even still I think the Davros and Daleks are still worth the price of admission. If you’re new to collecting Doctor Who figures, this one is a great starter set. The attention to detail in making Davros episode specific is impressive and if you’re in the market for some nice generic Daleks, these two certainly do the job nicely.

Mar 8 2012

Doctor Who: Cyberman Pandorica Guard by Character Options

It seems like an eternity since I’ve featured any Doctor Who figures based on the modern series, and that’s mostly because there haven’t been that many. Nonetheless I’ve been hankering for some NuWho figures and so I’ve started tracking down the “Series 5” inspired“Build The Pandorica” Wave. For the uninitiated, this was an assortment of Series 5 figures that originally came bundled with a Doctor Who audio CD adventure. The CD and case also doubled as a piece to the Pandorica. Honestly, I thought the CD was a pretty hokey idea, but when CO released the wave again, slightly cheaper and with non-CD Pandorica pieces that were sculpted and looked better, I new I’d get around to picking these up sooner or later. Did I mention they’re compatible with the Pandorica chair that was released last year? Well, they are!

Its going to take me a while to hunt down all of these figures, so I started off with the one I wanted the most. He’s the creepy, delapidated Cyberman that the Pandorica Alliance left behind to guard the Pandorica. The packaging is the same as we’ve been getting with all the Series 5 and 6 figures. You get a simple, generic cardback with the figure in a bubble. The Pandorica piece is behind the figure and the cardback shows one big Pandorica rather than other figures in the wave. You’ll also note the big sticker that points out the lack of a CD in the package. That’s pretty important because the back of the cards says there’s still a CD in there!

The coolest thing about this Cyberman is obviously the detatched open head. Its sculpted in the open position with the mummified skull inside. It comes detatched from the figure and you get a set of wire tentacles to plug into the neck hole if you want to display it off the Cyberman. The sculpt is pretty amazing, although I think it would have been cool if the skull was colored differently from the rest of the helmet. As it is its just all covered in the same rusty petina. Damn, this is a creepy sculpt. I like the missing right handle too. Naturally, you can unplug the wires and plug the head onto the Cyberman body.

The body itself is pretty well done too. Character Options could have gone for a cheap repaint here, but they actually introduced a lot of new tooling to the sculpt to show the damage. His chest armor is cracked, his arms are pitted.I guess my only complaint here is that it should be missing its left arm to be show accurate. But laying that aside, CO really went all out on this one.

The Pandorica wall plugs into the base of the Pandorica chair. If you don’t have the chair, you can get all six pieces to form the complete cube. I actually prefer the walls without the CD because they feature new sculpting and while you can tell they were designed to be CD cases, they still look more like the Pandorica walls and less like some dopey gimmick.

I picked up this figure for $13 shipped, which was a mighty fine deal. This Cybie was probably the most sought after figure of the wave. I suppose Kiss-o-gram Amy would be a close second, but she was previously available in the Christmas Adventure Set, so chances are a lot of the more dedicated collectors already had her. Some of the other figures in this assortment are going to be pretty hard to pony up for just to get the Pandorica piece, but I’ll get them all eventually.

Tomorrow, I’ll deliver the second in a one-two Doctor Who punch with a look at the “Destiny of the Daleks” set.

Mar 7 2012

Resident Evil 5: Executioner Majini by NECA

A little while ago I took a look at NECA’s Sheva Alomar figure from their Resident Evil 5 series and was pleasantly surprised. I got her as a stand alone figure because I liked the game and I wanted to see how far NECA’s stuff had come since the last time I bought one of their products. Well, I thought she looked kind of lonely on the shelf, and so when I stumbled across this brute from the same series, I thought I’d give her something to spar with. I actually picked up this figure quite a few weeks ago, but I’m only now getting a chance to open him up and see what he’s all about.

As a rule, NECA’s sculpts are genuinely excellent and this big guy is no exception. Considering he’s just a deranged giant in ratty clothes with a potato sack over his head NECA had quite the challenge to make him into a visually appealing figure and I think they hit the nail right on the head. Heh, see what I did there? He has nails in his head. Ahem… moving on. This sculpt shows off an amazing array of textures from the coarse material of his head sack and the frayed fabric of his smock to the unbelievably realistic woodgrain of is axe-hammer. Even his Big & Tall Wranglers, which are mostly covered by his smock, are really nicely detailed. The nails hammered throughout his head are soft plastic, and unfortunately bendy, but overall they do look really nice, as do the two massive nails criss-crossing his back. He’s also stitched up all over the place.

The paint apps on this figure are pretty drab, but thankfully he’s spattered with enough blood to add some color. The figure actually photographs a lot brighter than he really is. I think my favorite thing about this figures paint is his gloves. They look red, but upon closer inspection, you can see that they’re actually black and are just caked over with a ton of blood.

My biggest issue with NECA has been their inconsistent articulation. Sheva overcame that problem and for the most part the Executioner does too. I’ll point out right away that he is completely static from the waist down, which doesn’t really concern me much with this figure. His legs are sculpted to provide a stance that gives him the best possibile chance of remaining upright while hefting his huge axe. Sure, leg articulation would have allowed for a bit more dynamic posing, but I don’t know that the joints would have held up under the weight of his weapon. From the waist up his articulaton is quite good. He can rotate at the torso, he has ball joints for shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps, hinged elbows and swivel wrists. His arm articulation allows him to hold the pole of his weapon with both hands, which makes me happy.

The Executioner’s primary accessory is his big honkin axe-hammer thing, which is an amazing sculpt all on its own. Its actually taller than the figure and comes packaged in two pieces. The weapon has a huge blood spattered axe on one side and a giant meat-tenderizer on the other with sculpted chains wrapped around the whole thing. Its extremely top heavy, but you can still get the figure to hold it in a number of different poses. He also comes with three bloody meat hooks that are stored through the belt loops on the back of his pants. These are really cool extras, but unfortunately he can’t hold them because they’re too thin for his grasp.

NECA has really won me over with these Resident Evil figures, so much so that I’m sure I’ll be picking up Chris Redfield before long. The sculpting and paintwork on display here is absolutely top notch and this dude makes one impressive display piece on my shelf. I’m also really hoping to see a second series which includes everyone’s favorite mutant bastard, Wesker. Either way, this is a great figure whether you are a fan of the game, or even if you just collect horror-themed figures.

Mar 6 2012

Kre-O Transformers: Sideswipe by Hasbro

Oh look, its more Kre-O!! I can’t get enough of these sets. This time around its Sideswipe, another Autobot and another Sportscar to boot. I was really curious to see whether this one is designed differently than Bumbebee and I was happy to see that Sideswipe’s car and robot mode are significantly unique from his Autobot brother. Unlike Megatron and Bumblebee, I’m going to do my best to get through this set in just one part…

Kre-O boxes equals awesome. The set comes in the same style of box-slash-carry case we saw with the last two sets. Inside you get an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, a bunch of unnumbered baggies of bricks, and two bagged Kreon figures. The set includes 220 pieces, which makes it the smallest of all the Kre-O sets I’ve looked at so far, but it still pretty sizeable.

The Kreons include a generic human Driver and Sideswipe. The Driver is a repaint of the one that came with Bumblebee and is basically just someone to sit in the car. Kreon Red Alert is just as adorable as the other Transformer Kreons we’ve seen. He comes with a big gun.

Sideswipe’s sportscar mode is a satisfying build and while in prinicipal its similar to Bumblebee’s there are more than enough differences to make it fun and unique. Its a little smaller than Bumblebee, but not as much as you might think considering this set has about a hundred less pieces. Overall I think this car mode looks better than Bumblebees, but the boxy slab of a roof is still a sticking point for me. Once again, you can leave the roof off and Sideswipe looks much better as a convertible. In retrospect, I should have left the door stickers off, as I think they look like crap, but I can always peel them off if they bother me too much. For some reason, Sideswipe only has a drivers seat, which is odd since there is plenty of room for a passenger seat, it just isn’t part of the build. The only thing I’m not too keen on with the car mode is the grey wheel well pieces. I really wish these parts were painted red.

And then there’s the robot mode and it is pretty sweet. He’s cetainly very distinct from Bumblebee and surprisingly enough the build for his arms and legs are particularly complex. I wasn’t sure about the zig-zag configuration on his legs, but they work really well in person and I really dig the hinged armor on his forearms. About my only complaint here is that his head should have been black instead of red. As it is, its giving me more of a Red Alert vibe than Sideswipe. He stands just a bit shorter than Bumblebee, but for a 220 piece set he’s plenty big. Once again there were a number of pieces left off of his robot mode so I tried to find some places to stick them. I like the way his windshield pieces look behind his head. I was a little disappointed that Hasbro didn’t throw in a missile for his gun, it doesn’t seem like it would have broken the bank and it would have helped the gun look more convincing.

As an action figure, Sideswipe is really solid and features a great level of articulation. You get ball joints in the head, shoulders, elbows, and hips. The knees are hinged, and the wrists swivel. As always with these sets, you get some bits falling off as you play around with him, but he’s still fun to pose.

I believe the suggested retail on Sideswipe is about $20. I got my set for sixteen and change. Once again, I’ll point out that you couldn’t touch a Lego set with this number of pieces at the same price, once again proving these Kre-O’s are an awesome value. Seriously, 220 pieces, two toys to build and two minifigs all for under $20. You can’t beat that, folks! In the end, I like Sideswipe’s car mode better than Bumblebees, and while his robot mode is still excellent, Bumblebee is still my favorite.

[Just a heads up, I’ll be taking tomorrow off. Its been a crazy couple of weeks at work and trying to juggle that and keeping up with Figurefan and my excessive drinking other lifestyle commitments has really tuckered me out. I’ll be back on Thursday with some more goodies. -FF]

Mar 5 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Sorceress by Mattel

This is it! I have here before me what I consider to be the last “must have” figure in my MOTUC collection. Check, please! I’m punching out. Now, I’m not saying this will necessarily be the last MOTUC figure you see featured here. It won’t be. There are plenty of deals out there on the second hand market, and there are figures that I would be willing to pick up by means other than Matty Collector if the price is right. It is also very possible when Ram Man is finally released I’ll go for him if he’s done right. But all that having been said, if I never do buy another MOTUC figure, I’ll happily stand with what I currently have.

There’s that great MOTUC packaging. It hasn’t changed much, but then it doesn’t have to because it still looks great. The reverse of the card actually has a 30th Anniversary logo on it, so there’s something a little different. Apart from that, you pretty much know what to expect here, bio and all.

I really like how Sorceress’ head sculpt turned out. She’s pretty and the paintwork on her face is sharp and clean. Her iconic headdress is executed really well too. The fringe is soft plastic so as not to inhibit the head movement too badly. This is definitely the Filmation style head that I was looking for on this figure.

As for the body… there’s not a lot to say here. As with previous female figures, Sorceress’ outfit is separately sculpted and permanently attached to the figure body. The skirt portion has some sculpted feathers as does the fringe around the tops of her boots. The outfit is painted in the familiar white and blue deco.

Ok, let’s talk wings. So, Mattel went with a design that allows her wings to fold with her arms. Put her arms up and the wings fan out to show off her… um, plumage. It looks rather good from the front, apart from the gap between the backpiece and the rest of the wings, but all in all its ok. Turn her around, though, and its a different story. You get these two giant hinges on shoulders, which are downright f’ugly. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s a better design they could have done so I’m not going to complain too much here.

The articulation is about what we’ve come to expect from the females of the MOTUC line. Sorceress has ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs feature hinges in the knees and ankles and swivels just above the boots. She swivels at the waist.

Sorceress comes with her staff, which is cast in a really purdy pearl finish. She also comes with her falcon form. Yep, we’ve seen this bird before. Its a cool little sculpt with hinged wings. This is my favorite paint job of them all, with a rainbow finish on the wings to match those of the Sorceress. You also get the amazing little battle harness, which outfits the bird with bombs, a big gun, and rear spoilers. I can’t decide whether its ridiculous or awesome, but if you don’t like it you can just pop it off. You also get the perch, which you can clip her feet onto.

And there you have it. Its been a rough ride at times, it’s nice to go out with a bang, and I think Mattel did a fine job with Sorceress. But then the quality of the MOTUC figures have never been anything less than excellent. While I know there have been more than a few cases of QC issues, I can honestly say I’ve never experienced them with any of the MOTUC figures I purchased. I’d like to say I’m bailing on the line out of principal due to some of the shady things the Matty-Digital River union has pulled over the years, but the truth is I’ve really got everything was looking to get, and the characters being offered this year just don’t impress me.

Ah, but make no mistake, I’m sure you’ll see some MOTUC figures here on FigureFan again.

Mar 4 2012

Marvel Legends: Build-A-Figure: Terrax

Sometimes I have to swallow some pretty bad figures in order to build a Collect & Connect, Build-A-Figure, or whatever you want to call these things. Hell, just look at the unspeakable depravities I had to purchase to complete my Hall of Justice. [Oh yes! Its finally complete. But more on that next week! -FF] But I’m happy to say that I didn’t make out too badly on the road to completing Terrax. His parts were spread out over six figures in Marvel Legends first wave of seven figures. As we’ve seen not all of them gems, but the great definitely outweighed the mediocre. So let’s see what we got…

If you’ve ever assembled a C&C figure from DC Universe Classics, you’ll be right at home snapping together Terrax. The head and pelvis plug into the torso and the arms and legs plug into that. The only thing that’s a little more complex here is attaching the soft rubber pieces of his garment together, which plugs in by the front belt buckle. His socket joints are nice and solid and he holds together great. In terms of size, he’s not one of the biggest BAFs/C&Cs we’ve seen, but he’s not small either. He easily stands shoulder to shoulder with C&C Darkseid from DCUC.

The sculpt here is pretty solid, with a lot of original sculpting and extra bits. The soft plastic chest armor and skirt are worn on top of Terrax’s body, which gives the figure some cool extra depth and complexity. His gauntlets and boots feature unique sculpting and the buck has good sculpted muscles.

Of course, the head sculpt is where a lot of the figure’s character lies. If there’s one common theme to the new Marvel Legends figures, it would be the excellent head sculpts, and Terrax is no exception. Its wonderfully detailed and he looks royally pissed.

Terrax’s articulation is pretty consistant with what I’ve come to expect from the line. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips. The arms feature swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows, and the wrists have hinges and swivels. The legs feature double-hinged knees and the ankles have hinges and swivels. The torso swivels at the waist and features an ab crunch hinge. Thanks to the softer separate armor, he can still work his chest articulation pretty well.

Terrax also comes with Morg’s axe, which is as tall as most of the packaged figures in the line and actually comes in two pieces by itself. He can hold it in his right hand.

I can’t say as Terrax was top of my list for possible Build-A-Figures, nonetheless, when I heard it was going to be him, my reaction was, “ok, that’s cool.” When I actually saw him I was more excited, and now that I have him in hand, I’m pretty damn satisfied with him. He’s a great looking figure that really captures the spirit of the character and makes for a mighty nice treat for completing my collection of this assortment.

Marvel Legends: Epilogue:

And that wraps up the first wave of the new Marvel Legends. If Marvel figures aren’t your thing, than I appreciate your patience and indulgence. Its been a fun ride, and there’s no doubt that Hasbro put up a good showing with this initial assortment.

In the end, there were only two figures here that I wouldn’t outright recommend and those were Iron Man and Klaw. Besides his scale issues, Iron Man just paled in comparison to the other figures in this line and frankly should have had more attention paid to sculpt and paintwork. Klaw just looked too inconsistant with his cartoony paintjob. Neither of those figures are terrible, but considering the price tag, they just aren’t worth the money.

But let’s not go out on a negative bent because all the other figures were at the worst very solid and worthwhile efforts, and at the best superb. Wave 2 is already starting to turn up at retail and I’ve already got it pre-ordered, because I’m really excited to build my Arnim Zola figure.

Mar 4 2012

Marvel Legends: Thor by Hasbro

I’ve got a double feature today, so I’d best get cracking. I’m starting off today with the last packaged figure in the initial wave of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends lineup. Its Thor! Thor has had no shortage of figures produced off him this past year so does this one stack up? Does it stand out? Are we all Thor’ed out? Let’s see…

Package shot… oh, hell, after a week of the same packages over and over, I’m spent. I’ve said all I’m going to say about it. The character art is ok, but everything else looks great. Thor also fills the bubble nicely even without the BAF piece. In fact…

Holy hell, this is one big, meaty hunk of plastic! Thor is not only big, he’s big enough to have been a BAF figure all by himself. In terms of pure bulk, he’s probably a smidge bigger than Terrax himself. And the sculpt? Oh, the sculpt! Those of you who saw or even picked up this figure when it was first offered at SDCC last year will not be surprised, but I was completely taken aback at just what an amazing looking figure this is. There’s a ton of detailwork in Thor’s armor, particularly all the checkering in his arms and legs. The sculpt is really well done, too, as it doesn’t hang down far enough to destablize him or to inhibit his articulation. It just blows a bit off to the side so that it looks good, but doesn’t interfere with the figure.

Once again, I have to give kudos to the team doing the head sculpts, because Thor’s noggin looks fantastic. I love the iconic winged helmet, the hair, and the stern but noble visage on his face. Beautiful!

Thor features solid articulation. You get a ball jointed neck, although the sculpted hair does inhibit his head movement, leaving it mostly just turning side to side. That extra hinge that Steve Rogers had would have been really great here. His arms feature ball joints at the shoulders and elbows, swivels in the biceps, and the wrists have swivels and hinges. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, feature double-hinges in the knees, and his ankles have swivels and hinges. Lastly, you get a ball joint in the torso.

Thor comes with just one accessory. Can you guess what it is? Sure, its Mjolnir. This is one of the better scaled versions of the mighty hammer at least in proportion to the figure. Its a good sculpt too right down to the weathering on the head and the leather wrapping on the handle.

No doubt about it, Thor ranks in as one of my favorite figures in this assortment. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say he’s tied with Steve Rogers as being my favorite. This is just a fine example of an action figure perfectly embodying everything about a character and its about as iconic as they come. I have no qualms with Hasbro releasing figures based on the movie version of Thor, lord knows I have a bunch of them, but its awesome to see them releasing so perfect a comic version on the eve of Avengers movie madness. If you’re going to buy only one of the figures in this wave… well, you’re going to miss out on a some great figures… but if so, I’d make it this Thor. He’s amazing.

I’ll be back later today to take a look at Terrax!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Monthly Archives: March 2012

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Marvel Legends: Thor by Hasbro

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