Monthly Archives: November 2012

Nov 9 2012

GI JOE 30th Anniversary Collection: Sky Striker by Hasbro

So, remember that one item that I found at Marshall’s last Friday that was worth standing in line for? Yeah, this was it. I’ll have you all know that this purchase represents a personal defeat for me. I often run checks on my collecting habit versus my sanity just to make sure that I haven’t gone overboard. One of those checks is having the rationality to determine whether I have somewhere to go with a particular piece and I’m not turning into one of those hoarding freaks you see on TV. I have very specific boundaries set up over where my toys live and where the rest of my home begins and with the exception of a couple of items I have displayed in my library, those boundaries have held fast. The reason I never bought the Sky Striker when it was originally out on shelves was because I knew I had nowhere to go with it, and I suspected that once it was built, it wasn’t going to go back in the box for easy storage.

Nonetheless, when I saw it sitting there alone on the shelf at Marshalls on clearance, I couldn’t resist taking it home. That may seem odd, since I’m certainly not a very big GI JOE collector these days, and before today, I haven’t picked up any of the 30th Anniversary stuff, except for a lone Destro figure. I attribute my lapse of reason to the fact that when I was a kid, I fell in love with the Sky Striker from the old Sunbow cartoon and I absolutely adored the original toy. So, yeah, I guess I’m blaming nostalgia on this one. It’s hard to believe I don’t do that more often.

The Sky Striker comes in a sizeable box with some wonderful artwork and a little window cut out to show off the Ace figure. I love this kind of packaging over window boxes, mainly because it’s durable and so long as the toy inside doesn’t require a lot of assembly, you can use these boxes to store the toy when you aren’t displaying it.


Hmm… so much for not requiring a lot of assembly. As sizeable as the box is, it’s pretty easy to tell when holding it that it isn’t as big as the Sky Striker. Open it up and you can quickly see that the wings, rear fins, engines, and the entire cockpit and nose portion of the aircraft aren’t attached. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing? Holy shit, that’s a lot of stickers! I love stickers. Part of me was content to leave this thing boxed until sometime in the future where I might be in a bigger place and have more room to display stuff. But how could I resist all those stickers? There are over 30 “No Step” stickers alone! Mmm… stickers. Either way, I haven’t even seen one of these babies since I last had my original some 20 years ago. I was super anxious to get it together and check it out. As suspected, this jet is not designed to come apart once it’s together, so sadly I’ll wind up trashing the box.

All slapped together, I spent the better part of my Sunday morning with a pot of coffee and stickers while FigureFeline made a nest out of the box. We were both in heaven! There are a bunch of optional swap-out stickers so if you want to buy more than one of these, you can customize them quite a bit, including different color striping and different art for the tail fins. Ok, that’s the last time I talk about stickers… promise!

So, how different is it from the vintage toy? The body is molded in grey plastic rather than white, which is a big plus in my book. Besides looking more realistic to me, I don’t have to worry about it yellowing. The rear fins are black, and the canopy is no longer tinted, but it does have a nice painted frame. The inside of the cockpit has been retooled to fit the newer size figures. The rear seat has been taken out completely, the cockpit is more detailed, and let’s face it, Short Round said it best, “Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones! No. More. Parachutes!” I can’t say I’d quarrel with any of these changes. They’re either improvements or understandable sacrifices.

The one change that I wish Hasbro had taken out remains true to the original toy. Yep, I’m talking about the fact that the wings are tied to the same mechanism as the landing gear. New Sky Striker has the same slider lever on top that converts the wings to the swept back position and also retracts the landing gear. It never really bugged me as a kid, but it kind of bugs me now.

Naturally, the Sky Striker comes with Ace and unfortunately I’m not real crazy about him. I appreciate the insane amount of work Hasbro put into the layers and complexities of his flight suit, but in the end he just looks like a kit-bashed mess to me. The flight helmet is particularly awful and I hate the yellow plastic they used for the visor. The 25th Anniversary Ace was no prize either, but I’ll likely wind up swapping him out into the pilot’s seat when I finally find some way to display this thing, just because that’s more akin to the Ace I knew and loved.

While the new Sky Striker has its share of tweaks and bobs, it is at heart still the same old toy and It’s remarkable how well it holds up today. This toy is an iconic thing of beauty and it looks quite majestic standing on the edge of my desk waiting to take off into battle. It really brings back the memories of my buddies and I flying our Sky Strikers around the backyard doing airstrikes on Cobra fools. Even at the original MSRP of around $35, I thought this thing was reasonably priced, but Marshall’s had it for ten bucks less so all the better. I’m sure as hell not sorry I bought it, even if it did take over an hour of reorganizing to make room for it on the shelf next to my BMF Falcon, AT-AT and Slave-1.

Nov 8 2012

With Apologies to Big Chief…

So, I know what some people are thinking. “Hey, FigureFan, where’s the review for Big Chief’s 11th Doctor figure? What, you got monies for the Milla Jovoviches but no scratch for the good Doctor? WTF?”

Yes, it’s true; I’ve had two hundred bucks squirreled away for almost three months waiting for the launch of Big Chief’s first figure: Matt Smith as the 11th Doc. The early proto shots of the figure looked great, but I still had quite a bit of trepidation over dropping two hundred dollars on the purchase. Big Chief is an untried company and no one actually had any hands-on time with a finished version of the figure. So, a pre-order was out, but I planned on buying it once pictures of the final product surfaced. It eventually became available from a few sources and I was all ready to do it, when a poster threw up a slew of pictures on one of the Who collecting forums that I frequent. Alas, those pictures were just enough to knock me off the fence in favor of not buying him.

Keep in mind, the poster was very happy with the figure, and I still think the likeness and the quality of the figure itself were solid enough. But in the end, it was the tailoring on the outfit that swayed me. The shirt collar looked all puffy and would not stay down, the bowtie was a mess, and that’s not cool! Messy bowties are not cool. The jacket didn’t seem to fit the figure very well and there were loose threads everywhere. I’ve since seen photos of the outfit looking much better, but the owner of those photos confessed to spending a lot of time fussing in order to get the outfit looking acceptable.

I wanted to buy this thing. I really did. If it were $150 I probably would have. But if I’m blowing two hundred bones on a figure, I have to be totally happy with it right out of the box. I want to applaud what Big Chief is doing with the license and I really wanted to support them in their endeavors, but the final version of this figure just wasn’t where it needed to be for me to justify the purchase. So, there you have it. A number of retailers that I frequent still have plenty on hand, so there is a possibility he’ll become available at a sale price and possibly that will make me bite. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be happy with him, but I just can’t take the gamble at that price. I’m still probably willing to go for him in the $150 neighborhood, but until then don’t expect to see him featured here anytime soon.

Nov 8 2012

Resident Evil Afterlife: Alice Movie Masterpiece 1:6 Scale Figure by Hot Toys, Part 2

And, I’m back and it’s time to check out all the cool shit that comes with Hot Toys’ Alice figure. You get a baton, a katana sword, two kukri knives, two revolvers, two double-barreled sawed-off shotguns, and two HK machine guns. Damn, woman! In the words of Captain Mal, “How many weapons you planning on bringing? You’ve only got the two arms!” Alice’s weapons rig can accommodate her katana sword, both shotguns and both revolvers, although you can get creative and put her kukris in the shotgun slots. Still, between her hands and her rig, Alice can carry almost everything she comes with. Let’s start with the melee weapons and work our way up to the big guns, eh?


First off and least impressive is her telescoping baton. I’m not one to argue with extra accessories. An extra pack in never hurt no one. But, I really have no use for this thing. It doesn’t telescope, and there’s really nowhere for her to store it when she isn’t holding it. And when you consider all the other choices, I doubt she’l ever be holding it. Having not seen the movie, I have no idea what context it was used in, but if it was me, I wouldn’t whip this thing out until I spent every last bullet, threw both my kukris and broke my katana in half.

Next up are the kukris. Made infamous by the Gurkha warriors of Nepal, these babies are vicious, hooked chopping weapons. I’ve owned a number of the real ones in my blade trading days, and I’m sure I still have one sitting around here somewhere. I’ve always had an affinity for their distinctive form. The sculpts and paintwork on this pair make them look like real weathered metal and wood, when in fact they’re just plastic. Very nice!


The last of Alice’s “up close and personal” weapons is her katana sword. The sword’s blade is die cast metal and the hilt is beautifully detailed. As far as katanas go, this one is a bit more functional than decorative. It comes with a plain black plastic scabbard that is a little bit of a tight fit. I prefer to leave the blade peeking out a bit so it isn’t so tough to draw. The scabbard fits through the three straps on the back of Alice’s rig so that it is worn straight up and down. It’s kind of an awkward position as it bumps the back of her head and it bumps the figure stand, but it can be made to work. It probably should have been angled over the shoulder, but with all the other hardware she’s carrying, I can understand why it wasn’t.


Alice’s Smith & Wesson chrome finish revolvers are absolutely gorgeous. The detail is superb right down to the flip out chambers and I’ll be damned if you can’t pull back the hammers. Inside the chambers you can see each individual sculpted cartridge.

The sawed-off shotguns are possibly my favorite of this bunch. They are hinged to break at the breech for loading and, yes the tiny little cartridges are removable. Insane! The cartridges are tough to get out unless, you don’t want to, and then they slide out when you’re not looking.


And finally she has a pair of Heckler & Koch machine guns. They have a matte black finish, removable magazines with a painted cartridge showing inside the magazine. The detail on these weapons is pretty insane, right down to the tiny safety switch. These are the weapons my Alice will most likely be holding while on display, since there’s no room on her rig to store them.

With an original MSRP of around $169, Alice is not cheap, but she’s also not one of the pricier figures in the Hot Toys catalog. Nonetheless, she’s a really solid figure that comes with a bewildering number of weapons and accessories. The excellent likeness, along with the quality of the figure and outfit certainly justifies the price, but when you toss in so much extra stuff, I really feel like the cost is justified, particularly since I only paid a little more than two-thirds the original price. I was a little concerned about buyer’s remorse with this figure, since it is only my second Hot Toys purchase and I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the film property, but in the end I’ve got no regrets. And she looks great standing on my shelf beside Captain America.

Nov 7 2012

Resident Evil Afterlife: Alice Movie Masterpiece 1:6 Scale Figure by Hot Toys, Part 1

I’ve only featured one Hot Toys figure here on FigureFan, that was Captain America and it was quite a while ago. It’s not that I don’t want to look at more of their exquisite pieces, but I juggle a lot of toy collections, and to tie up $150 or more in a single piece takes a lot of willpower that I rarely possess. I honestly thought that the next Hot Toys figure I’d be looking at would be the new Black Widow, which I have on pre-order and is due to come out in December, but an acquaintance of mine has decided to unload a good portion of his Hot Toys collection to free up room and funds for the upcoming Avengers. He was willing to let Alice go at a price I couldn’t refuse. We’re still negotiating over his Baby Doll figure.

Allow me to preface this feature by saying, I haven’t seen Resident Evil: Afterlife, but I’m guessing that’s probably a good thing. I only saw the first two Resident Evil movies. I remember thinking the first one was enjoyable enough, but I can’t remember anything about the second. Most of my Resident Evil love comes from the games, and I’ll freely admit that I’d much rather be looking at one of the game related ladies of the RE world like Jill Valentine or even Sheva. But Alice is the hand I’ve been dealt, and that’s ok, because I’m rather fond of Milla Jovovich, so having her in my collection isn’t a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. I should note that last week Hot Toys revealed their Ada Wong figure and I promptly dropped in a pre-order so I’ll finally have one from the actual games.

Hot Toys likes to go all out on their packaging and I love that about them. Alice comes in a cardboard shipper. Inside is a very distinctive landscape oriented box with a great image of Milla in action, brandishing her revolvers. The front of the box has an embossed feel to the artwork, which makes it all the more satisfying. The box has a wrap-around flap, which is ever so gently secured with a magnet. Open it up and you get to see the figure alongside her jacket and gear. And holy shit does she come with a lot of gear. The box is cut around the window to resemble shattered glass, which makes for a pretty cool effect. The flap that holds her jacket also has the list of people who worked on the figure. It’s a typical Hot Toys thing to do and you always know you’ve got a classy figure when it has its own credits! Today we’re just focusing on the packaging, the figure and her outfits, and we’ll look at her well stocked arsenal tomorrow.

One thing I’ve learned about Hot Toys is that the unboxing can be a bit stressful. Besides having to unwrap tightly wound plastic from various parts of the figure, I take the time to learn just how fragile some of the outfit can be. Captain America had some very thin straps and between Alice’s weapon rig and arm wraps, it’s especially true here. I’m also really paranoid about damaging the package, because it’s part of the presentation and thus part of the whole ensemble. Generally speaking I’m not a package keeper, but obviously with Hot Toys, it’s different.

The head sculpt! Oh, the head sculpt. These guys are usually right on the money with their likenesses and I still think Alice is one of their better ones. Not only is it a great likeness to Milla, but the paintwork is absolutely incredible. The skin tone is perfect, the eyes are very lifelike, and there’s just the right amount of gloss on her lips. Even the way her lips are slightly parted to show a little of her teeth gives the head sculpt a convincing depth. She has a fairly neutral, maybe slightly determined, expression that succeeds without being vacant.


Hot Toys went with sculpted hair on this figure, and it was probably a good call because her hair is very short. She does, however, have two hair pieces that can easily be swapped out and are held securely on her head with a magnet. There’s not a lot of difference between the two styles. The one that comes packaged on the figure has her hair framing her face; the other has it swept back a bit. Like I said, it’s a subtle difference, but enough to make me prefer the swept back look just a little bit more.

The body is nicely proportioned to fit the actress. She’s shapely, and I’m glad that Hot Toys resisted the temptation to give her a boob job. Milla’s a great looking woman without being terribly well-endowed up top and the figure respects that. It’s classified as a True Type body and has a little better than 30-points of articulation. I’ve said before that I’m not a big 1:6 scale collector so I’m not what you would consider a connoisseur of articulation and body types in this scale. I will say that Alice has a satisfying level of poseability and unlike my Hot Toys Captain America, her outfit doesn’t inhibit her movement.

Ironically, the outfit is the only reason I hesitated buying this figure when it first came out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a spot-on reproduction of the outfit she wore in the film, but I didn’t find it all that great a design, iconic or sexy. It also looked very bulky on the figure in the pictures that I saw. In hand, it’s actually not bulky at all. You get black skin tight leggings and a short sleeve t-shirt, a web-gear style military vest, which actually looks more like some kind of hardcore corset. She has a pair of very delicate arm wraps, heavy knee-high socks, and tall boots. The figure is capped off with a brown leather weapon rig that can store just about every piece in her ample arsenal.


Alice also comes with a Russian military-style jacket. It’s a gorgeous piece of work with excellent stitching, a working belt and snaps, and a furry collar. It’s a bit of work to get it on her. I had to pop off her hands, carefully remove her arm wraps and then slip it on and do some fidgeting. I was glad to see that it fits quite well over her empty weapons rig, as I wasn’t prepared to risk taking that off the figure to put on the jacket. I doubt I’ll display her with it on, but it sure is a very nice extra.

In addition to the outfit and extra hair piece, Alice comes with three sets of hands. The ones packaged on the figure are relaxed, and I’ll probably never use them. The other two sets are designed for holding her guns or her bladed weapons. She also comes with a set of extra hand posts, and you get the usual figure stand with the “Resident Evil: Afterlife” logo.

So far, pretty awesome. I’m going to break here, but tomorrow I’ll be back to see the copious kind of killing tools that Alice brings to the party.

Nov 6 2012

Star Trek: Starfleet Officer’s Collector Set by Playmates

As the 90’s pressed on and Playmates realized what a goldmine they had with their Star Trek license, they started cranking out some boxed sets. One of the more ambitious of those releases was this Starfleet Officer’s Collector Set. It spans three generations of Star Trek, with Classic, Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine all in one package. The set is dated ’94, so I’m thinking that we just missed out on getting some Voyager love in there too. The idea here is you get the Commanding Officer and First Officer from each of the Trek series all in one big happy box. The set includes six figures, four of which are exclusive to this set, a gaggle of accessories, and a big display base that was unique to this release.

The packaging here is quite nice. You get a big window box, with the figures all trapped under bubbles inside and hovering over the display base. The box proclaims, “Three Legendary Commanders and Their First Officers Available for the First Time Ever!” It’s not exactly true since Sisko and Kira are the exact same figures that were already released in single carded form, albeit with some different accessories. Maybe they meant to say, “For the First Time Together!” The box is totally collector friendly as you can remove all the figures, plug them into the stand and then slide the stand right back into the box. I know I’m kidding myself by trying to keep the figures displayed in the box. As much as I love it, I don’t have the room, and the figures will eventually wind up baggied and in with the rest of my Trek figures and the stand will be slid somewhere for safe keeping. Let’s check out the figures in chronological order, starting with good old Kirk and Spock.

This is the first time we’ve seen Playmates figures of Kirk and Spock in their dress uniforms. Granted, they aren’t all that different from their regular duty tunics. There’s a gold fringe running around the neck and straight down the middle and instead of their regular insignia, they have medals displayed on the left of their chests. The head sculpts seem to be the same as the regular versions of the figures that came in the Bridge Crew set. They’re pretty good, particularly Kirks as he has the little cowlick hanging down over his forehead. I also like getting a figure of Spock without one hand trapped in a Vulcan salute, although in retrospect, I think it would have been better to have the salute hand on this figure and the regular one one the regular figure. If I were any good at customizing, I’m sure I could make that happen. All in all, Playmates did a nice job with this pair.

Both Kirk and Spock come with the same two accessories: A phaser and a communicator. They’re the same accessories that came with the figures in the original Bridge Crew set.

Moving on to Picard and Riker, I’ll say that these two are my least favorites in the set, mainly because I could never stand the Next Generation dress uniforms, which looked way too much like dresses. I think they were going for something similar to the amazing uniform designs that premiered in Star Trek II but it doesn’t work. If they were shorter and had a belt, I think they’d be a lot better. It’s also worth noting that these figures share the exact same torso and legs, with just an extra rank pip added for Picard and the head sculpts are recycled from the original releases. Oh yeah, Picard has some serious monkey arms going on here. Overall, they’re ok, but they look a little dated and awkward compared to the others.

The Next Gen boys come with a computer terminal, a tricorder, a palm phaser and a regular phaser. They’re not bad as far as Playmates accessories go, but they are all straight repacks of stuff we’ve seen before. Once I get around to snipping the beams off the phasers, they’ll be good to go.

Last up are Sisko and Kira and they are the only straight repack figures in the set, which is kind of disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, I love these figures. I think they’re actually among two of Playmates’ best. On the other hand, the theme of this set has been dress uniforms, so it would have been nice to get some variants from Deep Space Nine. I’m sure Sisko has appeared in dress uniform before and for Kira they could have just given us the version of her with the longer hair from the premier episode. Hell, I would have even welcomed a Sisko figure with his regular Command tunic from the Saratoga.

 

Kira comes with a Bajoran phaser and tricorder. I’m pretty sure these are two of the same accessories that came with the original figure. Color notwithstanding I really like the phaser. Sisko comes with a computer terminal and a phaser rifle. Again, the phaser rifle is excellent, I just wish it were accurately painted.

All the figures in this set have nearly the same articulation. Kirk, Spock, Sisko and Kira are identical. The arms rotate at the shoulders, have hinged elbows, and swivel cuts at the biceps. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinged knees. The head rotates and the figures can swivel at the waist. Picard and Riker have the same minus the waist swivel, and it should also be noted that their elongated tunics hamper their hip articulation as well.

The three tiered display base is a really nice piece. Each platform is textured with a sort of metal grate pattern and each one has pegs to hold the two figures. The plates are actually big enough to comfortably fit three figures if you want to pad out your display a little more. The front has each of the series titles in raised gilded lettering. It’s a sturdy and durable piece, but it is hollow so you can even store the accessories underneath it. It’s a cool enough item that I will try to find room to display it, although most likely I will swap out the Next Gen Picard and Riker for the Generations versions and the regular Bridge versions of Kirk and Spock.

My set still has the $29.99 price tag on it from Toys R Us. At $5 a figure that seems a little steep for a set with two repacks in it. I never even saw this set back when it was first out, although by ’94 I was probably weaning myself off collecting for a while. I got mine for ten bucks from a dealer at the Toy Show and I’m pretty satisfied. The four exclusive figures are probably not essential, but definitely nice extras to have in any serious Playmates Trek collection.

Nov 5 2012

Doctor Who: “Pyramids of Mars” Collectors Set by Character Options

There’s something comforting about having a new classic Doctor Who action figure set after the news that the modern figures are changing to 3 ¾” scale. Even though this set was planned long before the demise of the 5-inch modern figures was announced, I still find it something of a reassurance that this line will go on. While I’ve still got a couple of past Classic Who sets to pick up, I had to buy this one right away simply because “Pyramids of Mars” is one of my all-time favorites. Not only is it Tom Baker and Liz Sladen at their best, but it has a great story, superb acting, and it even looks fantastic. Even in the dark days when most of my Who collection consisted of scratchy recordings off of PBS, I always had an official release of this one on VHS or DVD.

This set comes in a nice window box with a printed backdrop inside. It uses the new classic-style box deco, although the “Doctor Who” logo looks different from the ones on the last classic sets I picked up. The window shows off the figures very well and the back panel of the box has a blurb about the story. Oddly enough, the set is called “’Pyramid of Mars,’ Mars Collectors Set.” At first, I thought it could be to distinguish it from some “Pyramid of Mars” figures that were released a while ago in the UK, but those were released in a “Fourth Doctor Adventure Set.” More likely, it’s part of the double-dipping shenanigans that I’ll touch on later. The set includes an unmasked Sutekh the Osiran and his two Guardian Mummies. Let’s bust them out and see what we’ve got!

Let’s start with Sutekh. If you aren’t familiar with the story, Sutekh is a very powerful and very evil alien being kept prisoner in a kind of stasis cell on Mars. He spends the bulk of the episode trapped in a throne with a mask on. It’s not until the end when he’s free that he reveals his “Jackal” face. [I should note here that he’s freed because a possessed Egyptologist and his force of robot mummies build an interplanetary missile and use it to destroy the power source of the prison on Mars. God, I love Doctor Who! –FF] Here’s where those shenanigans come in. It’s probably a safe bet that most collectors were hoping to get the more iconic version of this figure with the mask on. When the set was first revealed, the optimistic speculation was that he would have interchangeable heads. Alas, this is a case where CO is going to force us to double dip by undoubtedly releasing a masked Sutekh later on. And naturally they release the less desirable one first so collectors will buy it just in case it’s the only one released. If this were any other line of figures, this sort of thing would enrage me, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep the Classic Who line afloat. If that means I’m going to buy another masked version of Sutekh later on down the road, then so I shall!

As for Sutekh himself, he’s a relatively simple sculpt but he suits the character’s on screen appearance quite well. His sculpted robes are nearly all black with a little red piping and red gloves. His head looks a lot better than the prop that was used for the actual character in the show and the glowy paint used on his eyes is pretty effective. Seriously, when I first saw them I thought there was some light piping going on.

Sutekh looks like he has pretty good articulation in his legs, but it doesn’t really matter because his sculpted robes renders all articulation below the waist useless. The arms, on the other hand actually have ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels at the biceps and wrists. Sutekh can also swivel at the neck and waist. All in all, not bad. Sutekh doesn’t need to be able to do acrobatics.

And then you have the Guardian Mummy Robots! Hurray for Classic Who army builders, especially when you can get two in one box. The regular flavor Mummy Servo Robot was originally released as a single carded figure. The ones in this box are the special variety and identified as such by their snazzy gold wrappings. I was expecting these guys to be straight repaints of the original Mummy figures, but there’s actually some re-sculpting going on here. All of the gold bandages are newly sculpted onto the old body making them stand out pretty nicely, and they still have the control pyramids on their backs.

The Guardian Mummies feature the same articulation as the old one. The arms rotate at the shoulders; have hinged elbows, and swivels at the wrists. The legs rotate and have lateral movement at the hips, hinges at the knees, and swivels at the ankles and thighs. He can also swivel at the waist. For a lumbering mummy robot, the articulation is pretty good.

The “Pyramids of Mars” set retailed for $29.99 at WHONA, my favorite Doctor Who e-tailer. It’s not a bad price for three figures, but then this set may really divide collectors who are waiting for the masked Sutekh. More than anything else, I’m anxious to see what or who he will be released with, since CO rarely releases single carded Classic Who figures anymore. Personally, I’d be fine if they released him with two regular Servo Mummies, because having the Guardians outnumber the Servos in my collection, well that just seems wrong.

Nov 4 2012

It’s November… It’s 4th Quarter… Release the hounds!!!

Technically, it’s been 4th Quarter for a month now, but November is when things start to get ugly. Yes, my job tends to put me through the ringer this time of year and when you add that to the fact that the Holidays have a way of draining me both emotionally and financially, it can sometimes have a negative impact on the doings here at FigureFan.

Last November, the FigureFan bus not only went on hiatus, it actually hit a speed bump, lost control, swerved off the road into a pile of babies, blowing up that pile of babies, and then sank into a flaming tar pit. This place came to a dead stop for the entire month of November and most of December. It was because my life was the Perfect Storm of stress and complication. Work was running me ragged, there were relationship issues, and the Holidays were seriously stressing me out. When I wasn’t at work or fighting with my psychotic ex, I was planted on a barstool somewhere drinking myself into oblivion and watching cat shows on Animal Planet. Folks, you know you’re spending too much time at a bar when you can ask them to turn the channel from Football to Animal Planet and they’ll do it for you.

Patron to my left: “Hey! I was watching that! What’s with the cats?”

Bartender: “Are you going to drink an entire bottle of Glenlivet? No? Well this guy is, so shut the hell up and watch the cats!”

I don’t think that’s likely to happen this year. I’ve made some positive adjustments in my life. I’m a lot higher up on the food chain at work and my ex has thankfully fled the state to locations unknown. Sure, I’m still bound to get preoccupied with work here and there, but I really plan on using this place as a safe harbor in the stress storm. I also plan on doing most of my medicinal drinking right here at FigureFan Central with FigureFeline so I can positively channel my drunken ramblings into content.

Ok, so with that behind me… let’s talk some toys…

November also means Marshalls and Ross set up their super clearance toy departments! Yes, these havens for budget clothing and home décor expand their usually pitiful offerings of clearance toys just in time for cheap well-intentioned grandparents to get their grandkids all of those toys that were on their Christmas lists… and by that I mean last year’s Christmas list. Last year, these stores were an absolute cornucopia of things that I needed to fill in my collection. Not only did I find almost every Reveal the Shield Transformer I needed, but I also got all the GI Joe 25th Anniversary vehicles and comic packs that I was missing. It was amazing!

Well, I dropped in to both stores on Friday and was pretty disappointed. Ross was just like Ross at any time of the year. It’s always hit or miss. The only thing they had of note was some of the 6-inch Thundercats. I blew out of there pretty quick hoping for better luck at Marshalls.

Last year, Marshalls was the better of the two. They had about six tables loaded with cast offs from the big box’s  action figure aisles and the usually sparse shelves of their Toy Graveyard were now bursting. This year? Not so much. In fact, it wasn’t much better than Ross on a really good day. They only had a few extra tables set up and those were all devoted to Barbies and other dolls. The action figures consisted of a metric shit ton of Iron Man 2 figures, a bunch of Dark of the Moon Voyagers and Deluxes, and more Ban Dai Thundercats.

I was going to pick through some of the Iron Man 2 figures and get a couple of DotM Voyagers, but for some reason the lines were ridiculously long, even at 10:30a on a weekday. I decided that I’d poke around a little more, but unless there was something better, like something I absolutely needed, I would just come back another time and see if they put more out.

Yeah, I did find that one item that made me stand in the line, but I’ll get to toward the end of the week. This week’s features will be back to a state of glorious randomness. Look for some Star Trek, Transformers, Hot Toys, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and even some GI Joe. For now, I’m going to go brood over the fact that my three-day weekend is more than half over.  

Nov 3 2012

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Jazz by Hasbro

With my Xbox still on the repair heap, I haven’t progressed past the first four levels of Fall of Cybertron. At this rate, I may just Red Box the PS3 version so I can do it. In the meantime, I continue to experience the game vicariously through the toys. Today, we’re checking out Jazz, who was a pretty cool character in the game… at least what I’ve been able to play of it.

Jazz is branded as part of the return of the Generations line. We last saw this packaging when we looked at Fall of Cybertron Shockwave, and I still love it to pieces. I fully approve anytime Hasbro uses the old G1-style grid pattern on their packages and the character art is pretty great. Jazz comes carded in his robot mode with his blaster pistol beside him. The back of the card has a little bit about his character and Tech Specs. Hurray for Tech Specs! Everything about this packaging is love, so much so, that it almost made me buy that shitty new dumbed down version of Cybertronian Optimus Prime. Almost. Instead, I just ran home and hugged my beautiful but overly complicated War for Cybertron Optimus.

 

Let’s start with Jazz’s alt mode. I really dig the various Autobot Cybertonian modes in these games. They walk the fine line of being sort of alien and yet still reminiscent of the Earth style alt modes that we associate with these characters. I’m not crazy about the way the unpainted white plastic looks, but I do appreciate all the sculpted panel lines in the mold. Jazz’s weapon plugs into the top of his vehicle mode, allowing him to dish out a symphony of hurt even when he’s not in bot form.

Transforming Jazz into robot mode is pretty simple in theory. Swiveling around his torso into the right configuration is kind of fidgety at first, but everything else is woefully simple for a Deluxe Class figure. I’m pretty sure I could come up with a handful of recent Scout/Basic Class toys that have more involved engineering. That could be good or bad, depending on how much you want your Transformers to challenge you.

In robot mode Jazz is… ok. I’m still not at all happy with the look and feel of the bare white plastic. It kind of feels cheap, although again the detailed panel lining in the mold helps a bit. The biggest flaw with the figure is the way Jazz’s head just kind of hangs there in midair. It just looks odd. Also, I really don’t get what Hasbro is doing with the extra fake wheels in the robot modes these days. I just saw this in TF Prime Cliffjumper and Bulkhead, and here it is again. The only difference is these are actually painted and more obvious. Why have three pairs of wheels showing on the robot when the vehicle only has two pairs? Why, Hasbro? WHY? Hang on, I need a sip of Jameson. Whiskey makes everything better… let’s move on.

Jazz features serviceable articulation, and a brand new style of ratcheting joints that I have not seen in Deluxe Transformers before, nor do I really see the point. They’re not as versatile as ball joints, and considering how small the figure is, I don’t see the need for the stronger ratchets.

I think what disappoints me the most about Jazz is his size. In the game, he’s paired up with Cliffjumper and he’s a bit too small when standing next to my War for Cybertron Cliffjumper. To be fair, the problem lies more with the WFC Bumblebee and Cliffjumper molds being too large when compared to the other Deluxes, like Optimus Prime and Megatron. So it’s not all Jazz’s fault and the two bots certainly look great hanging together on my shelf.

One might argue this could be a conspiracy to sell collectors a new Cliffjumper figure, but I doubt he’ll be remade in the Fall of Cybertron line. I don’t think Hasbro could possibly make that design work with the cuts they’ve been making to the Deluxe figures these days. Even if they did, I wouldn’t pay more money for an inferior figure, and that’s why you won’t see me feature the Fall of Cybertron Optimus Prime here anytime soon. That figure is a joke compared to the War for Cybertron version. I know what you’re saying, you’ll buy him when he’s repainted as Ultra Magnus, won’t you? Shut up!

In fact, while we’re on the subject, it’s interesting to stand Jazz and Cliffjumper together and compare them to see just how many cuts Hasbro has had to make in the line as of late. Cliffjumper isn’t quite two years old (I bought him in December of 2010) and at the time he was about $13 at Walmart. He’s bigger, his plastic feels better, the paint apps are more intricate, he uses some translucent plastic parts, including two built in retractable energon blades, the engineering is far more complex, and he has far more articulation, and he came with a gun. Even if we write off the two dollar price difference to inflation, you were still getting a lot more toy back then for the same price.

It should also be considered that no one really expected War for Cybertron to be the runaway success that it was and Hasbro never really committed to backing the game with a lot of figures. It was something of an experimental side line and only produced a handful of Deluxes. The success of Fall of Cybertron was all but guaranteed and Hasbro expanded the line with a lot more figures. And yet still, the limited, experimental line of figures, from two years ago, is far superior.

Sorry, Jazz, I didn’t mean to use your spotlight to get on my soapbox, but I thought it was an interesting illustration of just how much toy companies, particularly Hasbro, have to cut back on what we’re getting. There’s a reason Hasbro is pushing the Cyberverse line so much, because the figures use less plastic and less engineering. Of course, we’ve also seen it in the articulation in lines like GI Joe Retaliation and Avengers, and it seems particularly obvious in lines like Transformers where you can’t reuse parts like you can with Marvel Legends, Marvel Universe, or DC Universe Classics. All that having been said, Jazz is a solid enough figure. I don’t hate him, but he certainly has his issues, probably the biggest of which is his price tag. At $15, he’s just not a terribly good value.

Nov 2 2012

Charmed Series 2: Paige by SOTA

And we’re back to check out another one of the lovely ladies from Charmed, a show that I have never seen and know next to nothing about. But, hey, if I could do this for Xena’s figures than why not for these gals? Series 2 sees the same three girls in some kind of skimpy pagan witch outfits, and who am I to argue with that? This time we’re checking out Paige, and she comes with a piece of the Series 2 display set.

SOTA has changed up the packaging a bit, but as we’ll see, there are a number of significant differences between this Series and the first one. This time, the figure comes in a sealed clamshell, which displays everything quite nicely. Originally, I was under the impression that these were some kind of convention exclusives, but the $14.95 price tag makes me think otherwise.

According to the great celluloid oracle known as IMDB, Paige is played by Rose McGowan and amazingly enough this isn’t the first time the actress has been given the action figure treatment. I guess SOTA’s figure looks a little bit like her. I’ll confess she looks rather stoned, but otherwise, she has a pretty good head sculpt with some precise paintwork. The hair is sculpted and left just above her shoulders so as not to interfere with the neck articulation.

The rest of the body sculpt looks like Paige is cosplaying Leela from Doctor Who. Her outfit consists of a necklace, a leather bikini top and a soft plastic skirt. She has wrist bracers and armor plates on her boots. There’s nothing outrageously noteworthy here, except for maybe the boots that really capture a kind of calfskin finish particularly well. The aesthetics of the body sculpt are definitely affected by the increased articulation. And speaking of articulation…

Yeah, the first thing I noticed about the figure is that SOTA didn’t half-ass the articulation in this second series. Paige is fully articulated, and I mean fully. You get ball joint in the neck and shoulders, and the arms now feature double hinged elbows, as well as swivels in the biceps and wrists. Below the waist you get ball jointed hips with swivels, and the legs feature double hinges in the knees, hinged ankles, and there are even hinges in her feet. The elbow and knee hinges are constructed with plates to try to lessen the unsightliness of the hinges, but because this figure shows a lot of skin, points of articulation really intrude.

The paintwork here is pretty iffy, mainly because I’m not at all happy with the flesh tone, which looks more ashen than natural. In fact, it makes her look sort of dead. The paint also flakes and rubs quite a bit near her joints. All of these issues conspire to make what could have been a very attractive figure rather awkward.

As with the Series 1 Phoebe figure, Series 2 Paige is almost overshadowed by her diorama pieces. You get a dungeon-like stone wall with a torch, a floor piece, a box, and a chair with a pillow. According to the pics on the back of the package, the three girls are supposed to sit on their chairs raised up on the box. I’m thinking the dungeon backdrop will make for some good Classic Who dioramas, which brings me back to the real reason I probably bought this figure.

These Charmed figures definitely illustrate the fact that you can’t always have it all. Phoebe was a better looking figure with severely limited articulation. Paige is a superbly articulated figure, but the aesthetics suffer for it. Honestly, though, if Paige had been given a proper flesh tone paintjob, rather than looking like she’s either made of stone or grey zombie flesh, I think she would have been greatly improved. As it stands, I’m just glad to have her display pieces. Now, whether or not I’ll ever pony up for the other figures to finish it, well that remains to be seen.

And that wraps up my Toy Show Excursion Week. I didn’t get to everything, but I’m anxious to move on to some other things, so I’ll be parading out the rest of the stuff in the weeks ahead. I do have a few other themed weeks planned, but I’m holding off for a while because it’s been a while since I just spent some time randomly whittling away on my pile of new acquisitions.

Nov 1 2012

Charmed Series 1: Phoebe by SOTA

Toy Show Excursion Week continues and today it takes a weird left turn with a couple of the odder purchases I made. Yeah, two of the in-package figures I got were from SOTA’s Charmed series. I had no idea what they were at first, having never seen the show, but when I saw the SOTA Toys logo, I went crazy looking through this dealer’s stuff, hoping to find some SOTA Street Fighter in there. Everything on this guy’s table was marked at $5 or less. But, alas, no. The bulk of his wares were an odd mixture of some more McFarlane figures, a bunch of Power Rangers, and lots and lots of carded Phantom Menace figures. Nothing else held any interest for me, but I did wind up buying the Charmed figures. I’m not gonna lie, I was going to flog them on Ebay, because they aren’t terribly common and they usually go for about twenty bucks each.

Unfortunately, when I got them home I saw that they each come with parts for a playset/diorama and I got to thinking how cool it would be to have those for my Doctor Who figures, especially the Attic one, which when complete looks like it would be just big enough to put the TARDIS in, and maybe if it seemed cool enough I could find the other figures to finish it up. So, unfortunately, the figures each come from two different series, which build two different displays, which means that to complete them both, I’d be looking at getting six more figures. Sigh.

We’re going to start with the Series 1 figure, Phoebe. So, I gather this show is about three hot chicks who happen to be witches and fight evil? I probably should have done this yesterday on Halloween. Anyway, I’ve seen adverts for the show and it always struck me as being very Buffy-ish. I dig Buffy a lot, but I never tried watching this one, so I’m going to have to skip any commentary on the source material and get right to the figure.

The packaging isn’t bad, although it’s mostly functional and lets the product speak for itself. You get a massive bubble on a cardback. The bubble has to be huge to hold the base and accessories, which honestly uses a lot more plastic than the actual figure does. The back of the card shows the four figures in this series and the completed display. The figures shown on the back are earlier prototypes, missing most of the articulation in the final products, but they give you a good idea of what else was available in the series.

According to IMDB, Phoebe was played by Alyssa Milano. As a child of the 80’s I certainly know who she is, but is the likeness here a hit? Hmmm. Not really. The head sculpt is a bit too angular. If you showed me all three figures, I could probably have picked this one out as Milano, but I wouldn’t have bet on it. That having been said, it’s still a fairly attractive head sculpt with good paintwork. The hair seems like it might have been sculpted in a separate piece, but either way it works.

The figure’s body is a pretty solid effort. She’s wearing a denim half-jacket, a white boob tube, sandals, and what look to be leather pants. The jacket is sculpted as a separate piece, although it seems to be permanently attached to the figure. The little details here are good. She has some subtle muscles sculpted into her midriff, and you can see some stitching on her jacket and pants. Phoebe hands are sculpted so she could hold something, but she also comes with a second pair of swappable hands that are more open. I kind of prefer the second set. I don’t have many complaints, but in the end, Phoebe is just a figure of a girl in regular clothes. Not that exciting for someone who hasn’t seen the show.

The paintwork on my figure was tacky out of the package. Actually, to be more specific, the brown paint on her belt and on her sandals was tacky and even came off a bit on my hands. Apart from that, the paint on the figure is quite good. Painted flesh tones can often come away smudged and dirty, but hers is pretty clean. The only problem is that it does flake off a bit near her joints when you pose her. There’s a gloss black used for her pants, and even her individual fingernails and toenails are painted. All in all, this is a good looking figure.

All of Phoebe’s articulation is from the waist up. The neck is ball jointed, the arms have ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The figure can also swivel at the waist. From the waist down, she’s totally static, and since the bottoms of her feet aren’t even and there are no joints to tweak, it’s hard to get her to stand. It’s kind of a shame that SOTA went through all the trouble of crafting such a great looking figure, giving her solid articulation for her upper half and then skimping out on the legs. A couple of simple cuts in the hips and knee hinges would have gone a long way.

Phoebe includes one of four pieces needed to complete the Attic display base, although it’s designed so that it could be used to display the figure by itself. I’ve got to hand it to SOTA, this is one impressive extra. It comes in two pieces, so you just have to secure the wall to the floor. There are screws included, but they really aren’t necessary. The wall includes a stained glass window in semi-translucent plastic and a chest of drawers with a box on top of it. The floor has a partial rug painted onto it. Both the floor and the furniture are wonderfully sculpted with wood grain patterns. You can actually see all the floorboards. It’s really nice work! You also get a book stand and a spell book.

In the end, this figure is pretty good, but the extras are fantastic. It seems crazy to me that SOTA put so much work into this line. I know the show ran for a while, but to go all out like this for what they had to know would be niche collectibles even by action figure standards. I’d kill to get a piece-together display like this in one of the figure lines I collect. Hell, look at what I went through to finish the Hall of Justice! Unfortunately, I’m now faced with the decision on whether or not to hunt down the other three figures in this series. I can take or leave the figures, but for some reason, I really want to build this fricken Attic. In the end, though, I think the high prices of the figures will keep me in check.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out the Series 2 figure, Piper.