Yearly Archives: 2012

Oct 6 2012

Xena: Xena “Sins of the Past” by Toy Biz

And, I’m back with more Xena goodness. In fact, with more of Xena herself. We’re checking out the other version of Xena in this initial assortment of Toy Biz’s 6-inch figures based on the campy, yet long-running TV series. Surely, this one is just a repaint? Oh no, folks, this here is an entirely new figure. I liked the last one quite a bit, so let’s see if this one fares as well.

I had some packaged shots of this figure, but they seem to have vanished from my hard drive, but if you read yesterday’s feature, you get the idea. It’s the same packaging that we saw yesterday. The only difference on the front is the sticker which declares that this is “Sins of the Past”Xena with “Sword Drawing Action.” The back of the card has a blurb about the episode, which sounds like it was the first one because Xena and Gabrielle hook up in it. And by “hook up” I mean they start traveling together. What did you think I meant? There’s another shitty illustration of the action gimmick at work and the same photos of the other figures in the 6-inch and 12-inch lines.

Ok, so let’s start with the sculpt. This figure has Xena smiling a big toothy grin and I don’t like it as much as the last Xena’s more somber and neutral expression. That having been said, the likeness is still a pretty good Lucy Lawless. The rest of the figure follows the same formula of having her outfit sculpted in separate rubbery plastic and layered on over the figure. Allow me to once again say how much I love this technique, as it adds to the depth of the figure. The armor is completely different from the last figure. It’s black instead of brown and the scrollwork and general style is all different as well. I’m kind of torn between which armor I like better. The last figure looks great, but the combination of the black with the painted silver rivets on this figure really pops. Yeah, I’m leaning toward this armor.

This version of Xena has two functional scabbards for her weapons. One is on her left hip that fits her dagger. The other runs straight down over her right shoulder and split up the middle for her “sword drawing action.” But more on that in a bit. Alas, she also has a big gimmick lever coming out of her back.

Sounds pretty good so far, right? Uh oh. We got some pre-posing going on here. Yes, this version of Xena has the terrible one-two punch to the groin of being both pre-posed and having less articulation. She’s posed to stand with her legs apart, her right arm bent up at the elbow and her left arm held almost all the way straight out with just a slight bend at the elbow. The head still turns side to side, but the shoulders are now only cut and not ball jointed and this hurts the figure a whole lot, especially with the one arm held perpetually out. The legs are still cut at the hips and hinged at the knees and ankles, but they’re clearly pre-posed to remain in a fighting stance, so there isn’t a lot of practical use you can get out of those hinges and still have the figure standing.

Before we get to the action gimmick, let’s talk about her accessories, because this figure comes with a lot of goodies. You get a sword, which is a bit different than the one that came with yesterday’s Xena. You get a very nice looking dagger. You get a whip(?), and low and behold, you actually get Xena’s chakram. Yes, I too find it ironic that “Sword Drawing” Xena comes with her chakram and the other figure doesn’t. The sword has a magnet in the hilt that is designed to go with the action gimmick, so let’s see how well that works.

Not so well!  The “Sword Drawing” action feature involves pressing a button to bring Xena’s right arm back, line up with the sword in her sheath where a magnet in the hilt connects with a magnet in the palm of her hand. Release the button and she draws her sword. In theory, this is a really cool and ambitious idea for a 6-inch figure. In practice, all that happens is her hand gets stuck on the sword because the scabbard is too tight fitting to release the sword. If you only tuck part of the sword in there, that will allow Xena to draw it, but it just winds up spinning in her palm and pointing to the ground. Not only does the gimmick not work, but the paint covering the magnet on the sword’s hilt comes off on Xena’s hand. So, yeah, it’s all pretty worthless. On the upside all you sick puppies can put the whip in Xena’s right hand, press the button and experience Xena whipping action!

Why was I so surprised by how good yesterday’s Xena figure was? It’s because it wasn’t replete with all the issues that today’s figure has. Yes, this is exactly the kind of figure that I was expecting from 90’s Toy Biz. Sub-par articulation, pre-posed, and a shitty action gimmick that actually detracts from the figure. God, I wish I could do some mixing and matching between the two figures. I’d basically take the snazzy armor from this figure and put it on the better articulated and less pre-posed body of yesterday’s Xena. Make no mistake this one is not a bad looking display piece, but she’s little better than a statue. In the end, I’m just going to wind up robbing the chakram off of this one and giving it to yesterday’s figure to make her complete.

Tomorrow… we move on to Gabrielle!

Oct 5 2012

Xena: Warrior Xena “A Day in the Life” by Toy Biz

Ok, here we go. Toy Biz snagged the license to do figures for both the Hercules and the Xena TV shows, with Xena’s first action figure appearance in the Hercules line. I don’t actually own any Hercules figures, but they look pretty bad, and from what I’ve seen Toy Biz made a real effort to step things up for the Xena figures. The problem with Toy Biz is you never quite know what you’re going to get. Go back to the mid 90’s and you get the Marvel and X-Men figures, which have plenty of kitschy charm, but aren’t necessarily great figures. Fast forward to their Lord of the Rings stuff, and you have a crazy mix of passable sculpts with horrible action gimmicks to some downright excellent figures. Let’s see where Xena falls into the mix.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the packaging.  The figure comes on a huge card with a cardboard tray on the bottom that cradles the bubble. The front of the cards are all the same with a shot of Xena on the upper right corner and Xena and Gabrielle getting up close and personal with each other on the upper left. The bottom has a bold logo for the series and there’s a sticker on the bubble that personalizes the package with the figure’s name. All of the figures in this line were tied to a specific episode, so this one is Warrior Xena from “A Day in the Life.” The sticker also indicates whatever action feature the figure had. In this case it’s “Jumping Attack Action.” The large bubble displays the figure and accessories quite nicely.

The back of the card has a shot of the character, a blurb about the episode in question, and a terrible illustration showing the action feature in motion. There are also pictures of figures available in the 6-inch and 12-inch series. The back of the card looks pretty cheesy, especially when compared to how great the front looks.

Out of the package and I’m actually very impressed with Xena’s sculpt. Sure, I’m grading on a curve. This is a 1990’s Toy Biz figure, but even still it’s got nothing to apologize for. First off, that’s not a bad Lucy Lawless likeness. The eyes could have been painted a little better, but the hair, the mouth and the cheekbones are all pretty good. Even better, most of Xena’s outfit is molded in soft plastic and layered onto the figure’s body. There’s plenty of detail in the armor, including sculpted scrollwork and laces. The result looks fantastic and gives the figure a lot of depth. I’m also happy that the figure is not pre-posed, although one leg is notably shorter than the other, so to get her to stand you do need to do some pre-posing of your own. I’m not sure if this was intentional or just a QC issue, but thanks to her joints you can get her to stand naturally.

And how about those joints? Xena’s articulation both surprises and frustrates. The surprise is there are more than the standard 5-points that I would expect. The head turns side to side, the arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and the hands swivel at the wrists. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinges in the knees and ankles. And that’s what frustrates. There’s just enough articulation here to make me wish for a little more.

There isn’t a whole lot of paintwork on this figure, but the coloring is overall great. Most of the figure is molded in flesh tone with the armor molded in brown. There are some nice silver rivets painted onto her boots, and again on her wrists and the little cape she has on her back.

Remember that “Jumping Attack” action gimmick? Well fortunately the gimmick isn’t part of the figure, but rather part of the giant base she comes with. The base is a raised pedestal with some cool carvings sculpted into it, along with a stirrup and a retractable spring loaded arm. You stand the figure with one foot tucked into the stirrup and the other on top of the spring-loaded arm (there’s a divot in the bottom of Xena’s foot so that it fits over the arm, and I’m guessing this might be why one leg is shorter than the other). Press the button in the back and Xena does in fact get launched into the air. As an action gimmick, it’s pretty lame, (unless like me, your cat attacks the figure every time she gets launched!) but the base makes for a fantastic figure display stand and just might get repurposed for one of my Indiana Jones figures.

In addition to the base, Xena comes with some weapons. You get a cool looking sword and a crossbow that fires some kind of bolo arrow, which I presume is for tripping up people’s legs. The sword is a great sculpt, right down to the wrapped grip and chipped blade. The crossbow isn’t all that bad either, at least not for what is essentially a missile launcher. Unfortunately, Xena’s hands aren’t sculpted to hold her weapons. Instead, there’s a peghole on her left hand and pegs on the sword hilt and the crossbow. You can’t get anything to stay in her right hand at all. Hey, what’s missing? Yep, easily the most disappointing thing about this figure is the absence of Xena’s iconic chakram, the bladed disc weapon she usually wields. Leaving that out is like Hasbro releasing a Luke Skywalker figure without a lightsaber. Nonetheless, if you want her chakram you need to buy a different Xena figure. Sorry Mario Xena, your chakram is in another castle! Moving on…

In case you can’t tell, I really dig this figure. Look, it’s 90’s Toy Biz and I had low expectations. But fair is fair, and Toy Biz did a great job with the likeness, the outfit, overall quality, and even the articulation and weapons aren’t bad. The action gimmick may be crap, but it redeems itself by giving you a beautiful base to display the figure on. A few more swivel cuts and toss in a chakram and this figure could have been a total homerun, instead of being just surprisingly great. I was going to move on to Gabrielle tomorrow, but hell, let’s take a look at the other Xena figure in the line and see if she holds up as well as this one.

Oct 5 2012

Xena Weekend Begins!!!

And it’s a four-day weekend too! Running today through Monday, we’ll be venturing into some new territory.
First, a disclaimer! I did not watch Xena: Warrior Princess. No, seriously, I didn’t! I remember trying to watch an episode with Bruce Campbell in it, but even his delightful antics and the aggressively cute Renee O’Connor, could not get me to muscle through it. It’s not that I’m a TV snob. Hey, I’m not afraid to admit that I own the complete Buffy: The Vampire Slayer on DVD. So if ya’ll liked watching Xena, good for you, but it just wasn’t my bag. Of course, that didn’t stop me from picking up a bunch of the Xena figures that Toy Biz did back in the late 90’s. What? Resist buying hot warrior chick action figures on clearance? Not likely. I’m only human.

But yes, the scary fact is that I’ve got too many of these figures to do them all in one weekend, so I’m just going to cover four of the 6-inch Collector’s Series, all of which, I believe, are from the first series. The rest will have to wait until I’m drunk enough ready to do another Xena Weekend, or sometime when I can just sprinkle them in with the usual weekly retinue. As already mentioned, this means that this lesbian warrior madness will continue on through Monday. I’ll be back later on to kick things off with a look at the Warrior Princess herself.

Oct 4 2012

World of Warcraft: Blood Elf Priest (Valoren) & Orc Warrior (Ragerock) by Mega Bloks

Yes, it’s World of Warcraft season again. Time for a new expansion, time for me to dust off my level 85 character, time for me to say, “Oh shit, I need to get my mining up another 30 points before I embark for Pandaria.” In honor of the new expansion pack, I thought I’d finally get around to looking at the other two of Mega Bloks’ WoW Faction Packs, which I picked up a quite a few weeks back. Last time, we checked out one of the Alliance minifigs, and today we’re going to see how the Horde makes out with two of their Faction Packs. This should be good, because everyone knows the Horde is awesome and the Alliance is a bunch of pussies.

Here we’ve got the Blood Elf Priest, Valoren, and the Orc Warrior, Ragerock. I’ve never rolled an Orc, but I’m pretty partial to the Blood Elves, as three of my four high level characters are of that racial persuasion. Of course all of those are chicks. Why? Because if I’m going to stare at a character’s ass for a hundred hours while playing a game, you can bet your life it’s not going to be a dude. Let’s look at the toys…

Again, the packages are pretty cool, and I love seeing the WoW logo in the toy aisles. The sets come in little window boxes that are designed to hang on a peg or sit on a shelf. The window shows off the figure, his weapon, and his faction symbol, while the instructions and the baggie of parts to build the base are concealed within. The back shows the completed set and has some info on the character and class. These are some pretty intricate and attractive packages for a couple of little 29 piece sets. Plus, I’m happy not to have to deal with any of that blind bag bullshit that Mega Bloks did with Halo.

Let’s look at Ragerock first, since the Orc Warrior is pretty iconic for WoW. Mega Bloks nailed the head sculpt pretty well, and I like the overall build of the character, which is cartoony, but not too cartoony. He’s not as elaborate as the Paladin we looked at last time, but he does have some nice shoulder armor and a belt that crisscrosses his chest. I also dig the little sculpted chains that hold on his knee plates. There’s lots of love in the little details here. The coloring is all good too with the skin a pleasing green, two tone brown for his pants and gear, and a little red and silver for his shoulder armor to break up the rest of the colors. Ragerock comes with a big purple sword, which you can clip to his back. As always, you can swap out armor with the other figures to customize him as you so desire.

Ragerock’s stand is a simple little build, but very evocative of Ogrimmar. You get a brown base, some heavy masonry type blocks to build a little corner of wall, a spot to hold his Horde banner and some stubby horns, and a flag. Nicely done!

Moving on to Valoren, the Blood Elf Priest is looking very dapper in his majestic priestly robes. They’re mostly black with some very nicely sculpted ornate scrollwork. Actually, the scrollwork is really impressive for such a tiny figure. The trim and the scrollwork are painted yellow and you get some red trim to tie the whole ensemble together. Tres Chic! The headsculpt is pale with long white hair, and piercing green eyes. As with Ragerock, the overall look of this little figure wonderfully evokes the art design from the game. Valoren comes with a spear, which can also be clipped to his back.

Valoren’s stand is even simpler to build than Ragerock’s, as several of the pieces just go into building the little column. It’s still a nice display stand, though, and very reminiscent of the architecture of Silvermoon City. Maybe the stand could have been green, as I tend to think of a lot of grass in that area, but it still looks fine as it is.

Each of these sets contains 29 pieces, so they’re obviously pretty easy builds and the figures themselves are built and ready to go right out of the box. They ran me $6.88 each at Walmart, which is not at all bad considering that a lot more sculpting and paintwork goes into them as opposed to a Lego minifig and they display really well on their little stands. At some point I need to pick up the last of these Faction Packs, which appears to be some kind of Night Elf. But next time we revisit Mega Blok’s World of Warcraft series, we’ll be checking out one of the slightly more substantial building sets.

Oct 3 2012

Final Fantasy: Vanille (Play Arts Kai) by Square-Enix

Yeah… and now for something different…

A friend of mine from one of my old Video Game forum haunts still keeps in touch regularly via the Facebooks. She’s not really a toy collector, but she is a video game and anime nut, and well, we all know how those things have a habit of intersecting with the wonderful world of action figures. Now, my days of JRPGs, OVA, and what-not have been behind me for a good ten years, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to entice me back with links and recommendations. I have her to blame thank for getting me to branch out into collecting some of Koto’s Bishoujo statues, a few of which I’ve featured here and I’ve got several more on pre-order.

Well, A few weeks ago she showed me a shot of her modest action figure collection and told me how much I would love them and that I should write about some of them. In addition to a lot of statues, I recognized some Figma, S.H. Figuarts and Play Arts Kai, and the only reason I recognized or knew anything about those was from listening to The Fwooshcast. I told her I’ve never owned any of those, I would put them on my list, but that I had a lot of stuff vying for my collecting dollar and I was trying to keep from branching out into new avenues. About a week later, a sizeable package containing what she called “the gateway drug” arrived at my stoop containing three figures. What a bitch! Anyway, one figure was from S.H. Figuarts, one from Play Arts Kai, and one which I think she thought was a Figma, but was actually a Revoltech). Today I’m going to look at the one that impressed me the most… Oebra Dia Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII. Again, I’ve never seen a Play Arts Kai figure in person before today, and I haven’t played a Final Fantasy game since the original PlayStation. This should be awkward fun!

Holy hell, look at the size of this thing! I always thought Play Arts Kai weighed in around the 6-inch scale, but she’s obviously a lot bigger and comes in a really nice window box, which does a splendid job of showing off the figure. The actual deco for the box is pretty understated, but it has some cool splash marks that run over the window. The back panel of the box shows the figure in some different poses and close-ups as well as two other figures available in this series. The copy on the back of the package is multi-lingual with some English and a lot of kanji. All in all, the box lets the figure do most of the talking, and that’s a wise move because the figure looks absolutely stunning in the package.

Open the top flap and the goods slide out pretty easily. There are no garish twisty-ties or clear rubber bands to deal with. The figure is perfectly encased in a clear plastic tray. Lift off the top and you have access to the figure, her extra pair of hands, and her two accessories. Lift out the figure and the next tray and you can take out the figure stand, which comes in two parts. Let’s start with the figure…

Oh my God, this figure is gorgeous… gorgeous and big… and um, gorgeous. I’m just not used to seeing a figure sculpted this beautifully in this satisfyingly large 9-inch scale. The proportions are excellent, the colors are breathtaking. Ok, rather than just gush all over the place, I’ll start with the head and work my way down.

The head sculpt is fantastic. Vanille is certainly an attractive lady and while she’s obviously got anime roots, she straddles the thin line between realism and overly stylized. Even though I haven’t played a Final Fantasy game in forever, it’s easy to recognize this character from the games’ art style. The paintwork on her lips, eyes, and eyebrows is all precisely applied. The hair is all sculpted separately from her head, which allows some strands to flow down into her face and come off the back in haphazard pigtails. The hair is a glossy pink, which I admit I prefer to the translucent coloring Koto uses on some of their statues.

Vanille’s outfit, what little there is of it, is crazy busy and that makes the sculpting and coloring on the figure all the more impressive. She’s got a loose necklace and pink top held on with spaghetti straps and a ton of colored beads crisscrossing her chest and midriff. She’s wearing a very short orange skirt accentuated by a pink scarf, a belt, a pouch, and a little waist cape that hangs off her backside and is sculpted to look like some kind of pelt. The back of her belt has loose straps that can hold one of her weapons. She also has a pair of bangles on her wrists. Getting down to her feet, she’s wearing a pair of low yellow boots with sculpted fur cuffs. Vanille’s outfit definitely got a tribal thing going on and it gave the sculptors a lot to work with and resulted in a great and complex looking figure. The fact that all the strands of beads are colored and sculpted in separate soft strings of plastic is really incredible.

Part of me was expecting more articulation out of this line, but that’s not to say what’s here is in any way bad or limited. Her neck is ball jointed, and the hair is soft enough so as not to inhibit her head movement. Her arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges and swivels in the elbows, and the wrists have plug-in ball joints so they can be swapped out with her other hands. Her legs have ball joints in the hips, double hinged knees, and swivels and hinges in the ankles. Besides the actual points of articulation, I’m really impressed with how sturdy the actual joints are. When I think about Japanese collector figures, I usually imagine either static PCV statues, or frail and delicate super-articulated pieces. Vanille definitely dispels my misconceptions by being a figure that I can have fun playing around with and not be worried about breaking her in the process. The construction of the knee joints is clever as it conceals the hinges a bit, and while the pins in the ankles aren’t painted, the flesh tone matches the yellow boots close enough so as not to be too distracting.

 

Vanille comes with an extra pair of hands, two weapons, and a figure stand. I haven’t seen a big need to swap out the hands, as the ones she comes fitted with can hold her weapons and that’s how I would most likely display her. Her weapons include a wand or staff, and some sort of shorter melee weapon. I have no idea what they are, but they follow the same tribal design as her outfit and appear to be made of bones, antlers and that sort of thing. They are both very elaborate, colorful and cool looking. The figure stand is a fairly complex ratcheting stand that can be closed around her torso to assist her in action poses. It’s a little clunky and despite the fact that it’s almost clear, it can be a little distracting. It’s a nice extra, but Vanille can stand perfectly fine on her own, so it’s not necessary unless you’re looking for some really dynamic poses.

My apologies to everyone who already knew how great these figures are. I realize this is old news to a lot of collectors out there. Obviously, I just got the memo. I don’t usually find myself at a loss for words when describing my thoughts about   an action figure, but I’ll confess, I can’t do this lovely lady justice. True, in this case, I couldn’t fall back on my knowledge of the character, because I’ve never played Final Fantasy XIII. But then having no attachment or familiarity to the character should just go to show you how impressed I am with the figure itself. I am just so beside myself with the sculpt, coloring, and the overall quality of the figure. Gateway drug indeed. I’ve already started eyeing some more of these Final Fantasy figures and… oh my… are those Street Fighter figures? Yep, I’m screwed.

Oct 2 2012

Young Justice 4-inch Series: Stealth Kid Flash by Mattel… aka. “Holy shit, I finally finished my HoJ”

I thought this day would never come, but here it is. I finally picked up the Stealth Kid Flash figure from Mattel’s 4-inch Young Justice line. Generally speaking, I don’t go through a lot of trouble hunting down specific figures. Either I’m lucky enough to not collect lines that are difficult to get, I’m patient enough to play the long waiting game, or there’s just nothing out there that I’m going to lose sleep over not having in my collection. (Except for you, 2011 SDCC Starscream Skystriker… I haven’t forgotten about you yet!) That having been said, not having this release has been sticking in my craw for a long time now. It has nothing to do with the figure, I honestly couldn’t give two shits about this figure, but it happens to be packed with the last piece I needed to complete my C&C Hall of Justice.

It’s hard for me to recall the last time something has made me this outraged toward a particular toy company. (It’s like… let’s say Hasbro decided to do figures based off the Combaticons from the new Fall of Cyberton game, but then saved the game accurate colors for an expensive Con Exclusive and then released the figures at retail in hideous day-glo colors. Colors so bad, that even the G2 versions points and laughs at them!) But, yeah, Mattel really pissed me off with this whole scenario. It was bad enough when they made the final wave of figures nearly all repaints and rehashes. I was still willing to bite the bullet and pick them up just to finish my Hall of Justice. But no, they made one figure out of the entire lot next to impossible to find. Stealth Kid Flash became my White Whale. And yet against all reason, while I was browsing Ebay’s newly listed “Buy It Now” auctions, he turned up for the unthinkable price of just $13.98. Never did the ability to buy a figure I didn’t really want ever make me so happy.

There’s the packaging. I still like it a lot, even though this line ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth. It’s colorful, it’s pleasing, and the way the C&C piece is hidden behind a false back in the bubble is very clever. Honestly, they could have just packed the C&C parts under the bubble and hidden the figure and I would have been just as happy. Honestly, they could have just left the figure out entirely and… oh, you get the point.

 

There’s the figure. It’s a repaint. You can see a look at the original one HERE, because I’m not going to waste a lot of time on him again. This release has got some extra bits to attach to his wrists. I have no idea what they’re supposed to be. The figure has five points of articulation: Swivels in the head, shoulders and hips. I’ve got nothing more to say other than, “Goodbye, Stealth Kid Flash. I consign you to the bottomless tote where you will drown in a sea of shitty oversized missile launchers, spare Collect & Connect parts, and where you will forever smell like Moss Man’s spare head. May God have mercy on your little plastic soul.”

And there they are… the last two pieces of the Hall of Justice. I had to think hard to remember where I put the rest of it. Turns out it was disassembled and at the bottom of a box of baggied Infinite Heroes and JLU figures. I buried it there because just looking at it made me sick. Let’s cobble this baby together and see if it was worth all the bother.

Yes, yes it was. It’s beautiful! This thing was a really great idea on Mattel’s part, especially if the goal was to get people like me to buy a whole lot of figures they wouldn’t have otherwise bothered with. It’s big, it looks great and the best thing is that it’s really versatile and can be used as a backdrop to display everything from Young Justice figures to DCUC and DC Direct. Hell, put your DC Lego minifigs in front of it and it’s almost to scale! It’s fairly sturdy for what it is, and with a little care, you can easily break it down again for storage if you need to.

And so endeth an epic struggle in which a middle aged man overcame great strife to get a couple pieces of plastic to complete a larger piece of plastic. It doesn’t sound so epic in the retelling, but I can tell you this: I finally have satisfaction and can rest easy knowing that my Hall of Justice is finally complete. This may or may not be the last time the 4-inch Young Justice line appears here on FigureFan. If the 4-inch Artemis ever turns up at a decent price, I’d buy her. I may eventually pick up that last Amazo 2-pack. Honestly, it’s a cool little line of figures and they sure do look great lined up in front of that Hall of Justice.

Oct 1 2012

Marvel Legends: Mystique by Hasbro

I still haven’t found any more of Wave 3 of the Marvel Legends re-launch, but we looked at Iron Man a little while ago, so let’s knock out the other one that I do have… It’s Mystique! This release represents her more modern comic appearances, which is cool because I actually still have my old Toy Biz Marvel Legends Mystique kicking around.

Again, awesome packaging! Hasbro is up to their old tricks with using one card and one release slot to produce multiple characters. I’m fine with that, so long as I can keep finding the variants. In this case, Mystique is packaged under the moniker, “X-Mutants” and you get character art of both her and Moonstone up top and on the back panel of the card. These releases have to be one of the few examples of an action figure being released with the character’s name appearing nowhere on the package! That, my friends, is some ballsy marketing. Anyway, the figure looks great on the card and the huge bubble is filled out by her stand and crazy arsenal of weaponry.

Ok, so let’s deal with the elephant in the room first. Wave 2’s Madam Hydra did not feature one of Hasbro’s better head sculpts in this line, and yet they chose to recycle it for this Mystique figure. I’ll freely admit that I was quick to call Hasbro a bunch of crack smokers. Sure, the early promo pictures looked good, but I was worried that there was some fakery going on. Now that I have Mystique in hand, my worries are no more. I’m not sure if they did some tweaking or fixed the pinched look of the original mold, but I really dig the way it turned out for Mystique. The only place where the reuse is readily noticeable to me is the hair, and it still looks fine on this figure.

The rest of the sculpt is certainly up to par, albeit a bit minimalist on the limbs. Her pants and gloves are simply painted on, leaving the only really original sculpting on the figure at her torso with an unzipped top and clearly a lot of long hours spent lovingly sculpting her bosom. Hasbro, you dirty birdies… I loves ya. The also did some nice, subtle work on her taut little tummy. The only other thing on the body is her belt, which hangs loose around her waist.
God, I love the coloring on this figure! The shade of blue used for Mystique’s flesh tone is gorgeous and vibrant. Her pants and top are simple black, but there’s a lot of nice silver paintwork for the details. The zipper on her top is particularly well painted as are some of the little clasps and buttons on her belt. The paintwork on the face is precisely applied, including razor sharp lipstick, eyebrows, outlines to her eyes and her yellow pupil-less eyes. The face is capped off by a painted skull just under her widow’s peak. Gorgeous!

Mystique’s articulation is in line with what we’ve been seeing on the other Marvel Legends ladies. That means that unfortunately it ain’t up to par with the fellas. You get a ball jointed head, that is slightly marred by the hair sculpt. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed with swivels at the hips, double hinged knees and hinges at the ankles. You get a ball joint in the torso that allows a little swivel. The articulation on the chicks is starting to upset me, especially since all of them so far have come with rifles and without at least a bicep swivel; it’s hard to get them to hold the weapons in a convincing firing position.

As you already saw from the in-package shot, Mystique comes loaded for bear with no less than four weapons. You get a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, a sub machine gun, and a pistol. The pistol is recycled from Madam Masque/Hydra, but this seems to be the first time I’ve had any of these other weapons in my collection. The figure stand is the same on that came with Iron Man, and prior to that it was used for the Walmart Exclusive 6-inch Avengers movie figures.

I was a little lukewarm on Iron Man, but I am totally in love with this version of Mystique. Hasbro knew exactly where to lay in the new sculpting and where they could get away with keeping it simple. News of reusing the Hydra head sculpt had me punching my desk in rage, but all for naught as it looks outstanding on the final figure. But best of all, the colors on this figure, as limited as they are, just blow me away. Toss in a little arsenal of weapons and I’m somewhat able to overlook the lack of a couple important points of articulation. You’re still nailing this line, Hasbro, and I’m looking forward to scarfing up the rest of this wave as soon as I find them.

Sep 30 2012

DC Crisis on Infinite Earths: Harbinger by DC Direct

We might as well make it a DC weekend. One of the totes I recently grabbed from storage had a heap of DC Direct figures in it, and I pulled a bunch out to use for content in the weeks ahead. I don’t usually buy a lot of these, as I tend to prefer the DCUC stuff, but every now and again I come across them cheap and just can’t resist. With the DCUC style releases being a lot fewer than what they were, I’ve come to the realization that a lot of these characters aren’t going to be released in the DCUC style, and I’m more willing to turn to some of these DC Direct figures as stand ins for my display. Today we’re looking at a figure that really should have turned up in one of those 20 waves of DCUC… It’s Harbinger from a little something called Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Harbinger comes mounted on a rather bland card and basically lets the figure speak for itself. I do really dig the way DC Direct uses the stand as the series title for the package. It’s clever, but it doesn’t save the package from being bland and boring. There’s a little insert in the bottom of the bubble that identifies the figure. Other than that there’s really nothing here to write home about. The back panel of the card is only marginally better. It’s generic to the series, so it shows all the figures available and gives little blurbs about them. Bland packaging doesn’t really bother me, as I’m just going to rip it open anyway, but I’ve always expected better from a collector driven line like DC Direct. This is just cheap, quick and ugly.

I think the sculpting on the figure is ok. The face is good, and I like the way her hair flows out of the back of the helmet. The Monitor armor-inspired outfit is readily familiar and includes a few nice touches, like the sculpted muscles in her stomach. There isn’t a whole lot else to say here, other than overall, the sculpt just looks rather soft. It’s not up there among DC Direct’s best work, and I don’t think it’s any better than a DCUC version would have been, but it’s not particularly bad either. Maybe just a little dated?

At first glance, the paintwork looks pretty good, but it doesn’t really hold up to close inspection. I do like the glossy red used for the helmet and the metallic blue used for her outfit and it meshes well with the silver bits. The flesh tone paint is a bit spotty and there are some dirty spots on her skin that I’ll have to try to touch up with a magic eraser.  The face is a little better, as there’s no slop or bleeding there. The eyes are a little uneven, but nothing too bad. The paint used for her hair looks dirty and feels a little tacky. It’s not coming off, but it is noticeable to the touch. I may try giving it a go with a damp cloth to see if that helps. It may be from being stored in a humid environment for a while. Had I bought this figure on Ebay and not taken it out of the package myself, I would have doubted it was new.

Harbinger has the basic 9-points of articulation that I’ve come to expect from the DC Direct figures. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders. The arms have hinged elbows and the legs have hinged knees. The hips have angled cuts. Overall, the poseability is not bad, but not great. There’s not a lot of point to the leg articulation, but at least the arms give you some options for posing her.

Harbinger comes with her figure stand, which is pretty necessary for getting her to stand for any period of time.

In the end, Harbinger is solidly average. There’s nothing so wrong with her that cripples the figure, but nothing about her really shines either. My understanding has always been that if you want articulation and a fun toy, you go with DCUC, if you want a superior sculpt for a display piece, you go with DC Direct. But, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t think a DCUC version of Harbinger would look any worse. That having been said, she is scaled appropriately enough with the DCUC line that I have no problem using her to fill this empty slot in that collection, and since they weren’t in the tote I pulled her out of, I’ll probably hunt down The Monitor and Psycho-Pirate for the same purposes. In the meantime, I have a whole pile of figures from Identity Crisis, which I’ll need to get to next month.

Sep 29 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Black Mask by Mattel

It’s time for another Matty Collector release! My Voltron and Club Infinite Earth subs didn’t synch up this month, so I’ve just got the DC figure to look at. I was a little tempted by the He-Man offerings this month, but I kept my resolve and didn’t go for them. Anyway, this month’s CIE figure is Black Mask, and he is one of the very few figures getting released by the Club this year that I wasn’t really looking forward to. Batman’s funnybooks have always ranked pretty far down on my reading list. On the other hand, that hasn’t stopped me from picking up most of the other Batman related figures that Mattel has put out, so I wasn’t exactly sorry to be getting him either. Let’s see if Black Mask can win me over…

Ahh, I still love this packaging. As usual, the figure comes in a very cool and very collector friendly window box. The package displays the figure very nicely, with his accessories (Yes! Accessories!!!) mounted in the tray all around him. The back panel of the box has some excellent character art and the token short biography. A few of Black Mask’s accessories were a little loose in the package, but I care not for I am taking them all out.

Riddle me this, Batman, where have we seen this body before? Yuppers, it’s the Riddler from one of the early waves of DCUC. I want to say Wave 5 or 6. I have no issues with Mattel making use of the suited body again. It’s quite a good sculpt and as we’ll see in a little bit it retains a surprising amount of the core DCUC torso articulation. The suit jacket is layered on the figure, which gives the sculpt a lot of realistic depth, and you can even reach in and pull his stylish tie right out from inside his jacket. Black Mask is a pretty monochrome character, so there’s little coloring to get excited about here. The suit is matte black and the arms and legs match the jacket petty well. The high gloss paint on the shoes is a nice touch. All in all, I’m pleased with how the body turned out.

What about the head sculpt? Alas, I’m really not so happy about how it turned out. I’ve been overjoyed with all of the head sculpts in the Signature Collection thus far, and while Black Mask’s should have been a slam dunk, it just doesn’t work for me at all. The head looks funny on his big trunk of a neck and the details in the sculpt are really soft, particularly around the teeth. The paintwork on the teeth, which is ironically some of the only paint on the figure is kind of sloppy and uneven too. C’mon, Matty. It’s a skull mask! The Horsemen should have really had some fun with this one. Instead, it feels like they phoned it in.

Black Mask retains all the usual articulation found in the DCUC line. That means the head is ball jointed, the arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC hip joints, hinged knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. What I wasn’t expecting was to get a waist swivel and ab crunch built under the sculpted jacket. Very cool!

One usually doesn’t get a lot of accessories with a DCUC figure, but Black Mask comes with some goodies. You get a double-bladed fork weapon, a knife, and Batman’s cowl. That’s all well and good, but you know what would have been cool, Mattel? Giving us the gun that’s pictured in the character art on the package. I was actually surprised to find that I don’t have a decent black .45 automatic in this scale, so he’ll have to go without.

Black Mask gets a resounding Meh from me. He’s not terrible. I don’t mind standing him in the corner of my display that houses Batman’s rogue gallery. However, he’s the first figure of the Signature line that really disappoints me, and I wasn’t expecting much to begin with. Considering the recycled body and the figure’s meager need for paintwork, I think Mattel should have put in a better effort with the head. I’m fine with having him in my collection, but considering I didn’t get any other figures from Matty this month, Black Mask shipped alone, and that means he cost me about $25. That’s twenty-five bucks worth of Meh!

Sep 28 2012

Transformers Prime: Cliffjumper by Hasbro

Ok, I’ve decided to wrap up Transformers Prime Week today, rather than go through the weekend, because I’ve got other stuff I want to move on to. I’ll be sure to randomly pepper the rest of the figures throughout the weeks ahead. But with only one slot left and so many figures, which one to do? Which one to do? Well, the answer was pretty obvious. It had to be Cliffjumper. Why? Because he’s a Transformer that was voiced by The Rock, goddammit! And because he is definitely one of my favorite figures in the line.

We’re back to the Deluxe packaging and I’m still digging it. You get a nice big card with cool character art and a big bubble that shows off the figure in its vehicle mode, with the weapon beside it. One point of contention here is that the character art shows Cliffjumper firing his arm cannon, but the arm cannon is only featured in the First Edition mold and not this one. The back of the card has a bio blurb, which fails to mention the fact that Cliffjumper has been trashed, zombified, ripped in two, thrown down a chasm, and finally blown up. That’s cool, because I prefer my Cliffjumper very much alive. Hasbro has since put out an Exclusive zombie version of Cliffjumper, but that’s another story for another day. Let’s tear him open and see what’s what…

 

Cliffjumper’s vehicle mode is a 70’s muscle car and that makes me all kinds of happy. We get precious few older cars throughout the history of the Transformers. The last time a 70’s style car was done was back in the Cybertron series with Downshift. As is par for the course, you get very few paint apps showing on the car mode; instead it’s just molded in a pleasing shade of red plastic, with a little silver and black here and there. As always, I dig the clear windows, and the soft steer horns on the hood are a cool little touch. The car mode does have a bit of seaming and some of these are tough to close all the way when transforming him. He’s also got a little kibble, as his feet are protruding down from his undercarriage just in front of his back wheels.

Transforming Cliffjumper isn’t too difficult, and he does use some auto-morphing, which works quite well. His proportions are a little wonky, as he has pretty long arms and short, stubby legs. I didn’t remember him being like that in the show,  but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the episode with him in it, so I’m sure it’s perfectly fine. Cliffjumper does use a lot of fakery in his robot mode. The blacked out windows on his chest are obviously not the real windows from the car mode, and the horns on his head are not from the actual hood ornament. Normally this kind of fakery irks me, but it’s kind of hard to argue with the results. Cliffjumper’s robot mode looks way too complex to be a Deluxe figure, and that’s kind of cool.

One thing I don’t get about Cliffjumper’s robot mode is the faked out, molded tires that appear behind his thighs. They’re unpainted, so they don’t really stand out, but I’m not sure why they’re there at all, since all four of his real tires are clearly visible on his legs and shoulders. Weird!

Cliffjumper comes with a Battle Hammer, which can peg into two different holes on his car mode. There’s one on the roof and one where the gas cap would be. He can also hold it in either hand in his robot mode. I prefer to have him hold it a different way, at which point it becomes a really big gun, rather than a hammer, because really big guns are better than hammers.

No doubt, Cliffjumper is a cool figure. He gets extra points for being a boffo 70’s muscle car and for having a great looking robot mode. I should take issue with how faked out his robot mode is, but the toy is fun and it’s just hard to hate on him. He’s one of the few Deluxes that I’ve picked up that I wouldn’t have actually minded paying the full $15 that he’s selling for on the pegs, and that’s saying a lot considering he’s on the smallish side and seriously lacking paint apps. I’m pretty torn on whether I like him better than the First Edition Cliffjumper, a figure I do not and probably will never own. On the plus side the FE version has his arm cannon and doesn’t use the window fakery for his chest. On the other hand, The RID version’s chest looks less boxy and more refined. In the end, it’s kind of a toss-up.

And that wraps up Transformers Prime Week. I’ll try to get to what I have left over the next couple of weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m committed to this line now, as I’ve really enjoyed all the figures I’ve looked at so far. Tomorrow we’ll check out this month’s DC Club Infinite Earths figure from Matty Collector. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to take Sunday off, but we’ll see how things play out.