Monthly Archives: January 2013

Jan 9 2013

World of Warcraft: Barrens Chase by Mega Bloks

And it’s time for more World of Warcraft from our good friends at Mega Bloks. I manage to finally kick my habit of playing the game (for the third time) and now I keep getting dragged back to WoW via the building sets. Like the last set, this one was a Christmas present and also like the last set, I was very happy to get it because while I had decided to stop investing money in them, I apparently have no problem with getting them for free.

There’s the box, and I have to say I still really dig seeing the WoW logo and motif in the toy aisle. I wish someone would give the franchise a proper line of action figures like Halo gets, but at least it’s cool to see WoW represented in the toy aisle in any fashion. Once again, I take issue with the fact that Mega Bloks uses CG models rather than actual photos of the toys, but as we’ll see in the case of this set there aren’t any real discrepancies to complain about.

Dump out the contents of the box and you get a large instruction booklet, a bunch of unnumbered baggies of pieces, the mystery loot baggie, and a trial card for the game that lets you play up to level 20 for free. Oh yes, friends, like any good dealer knows, the first taste is always free. Altogether, you get 128 pieces, which is only 22 pieces less than the more expensive set we looked at last time. The difference is this set is made up of mostly tiny pieces and that’s not a bad thing, because building this one felt more like a Lego build and less like I was just assembling some toys. The 128 pieces comprise two minifigures, a couple of battle standards, a Horde X-53 rocket and an Alliance mount. As usual, let’s start with the minifigs.


The minifigures come completely assembled. All you need to do is plug the weapon clip into their backs. This set comes with Tanavar, a Night Elf Warrior (Alliance) and Dragath, an Orc Warlock (Horde). I’ve made no bones about the fact that the minifgures are my favorite thing about this line and that continues to be the case here. The Tanavar and Dragath figures perfectly capture their races and character classes from the game and I’m always happy to add a couple more players to my display shelf instance. Tanavar comes with a translucent purple sword and Dragath comes with a large and very cool staff. As always each figure’s armor is interchangeable with any other figures in the collection. I still haven’t gotten around to playing around with this feature, but it sure is cool.


The Nightsaber mount is a very simple build. All you do is attach the legs, the head, the tail, the reins and the saddle. The finished beast is very cool looking and features some very impressive sculpting, particularly on the head. The angular nature of the sculpt replicates the polygon stylings of the game really well and the coloring on the figure is spectacular. The saddle fits the figures very well and they can actually grip the reins too. Each of the legs is ball jointed at the body, which gives a decent amount of articulation for such a little guy. He’s certainly won me over for Mega Bloks’ mounts and I’m rather anxious to get some of the flying mounts now. Well, played Mr. Bloks… Well played.


The X-53 rocket represents the bulk of this set’s build, and as mentioned already it feels more like an actual Lego build than any of the previous Mega Bloks sets I’ve put together. The bricks are without any of the annoying color issues that I’ve seen in previous sets, and the build is very well designed and the finished rocket holds together solid. The nose art is cool, there are some adjustable exhaust pipes, and the back engine of the rocket can spin with the flick of a finger. Admittedly, the figures look a little awkward sitting on this thing, the windshield is undersized, and there are no controls to speak of, but I still dig it a lot. Maybe the thought of an Orc flying something that looks like it was cobbled together by Wile E. Coyote just tickles me.

In the end, I love everything about this set. The figures are awesome, the mount and rocket are both very cool, and while the Nightsaber mount was a very simple assembly, the overall set was still a genuinely fun and satisfying build. I’m always a sucker for sets that give you everything you need for a self-contained battle and that’s exactly what you get here: A couple of foes and their rides to chase each other around The Barrens or Thousand Needles or wherever. It seems like the set goes for around $24.99 at most retailers and that seems like a fine deal to me. In fact, this set is so good, it’s restored my confidence in the line. I’m going to grab a few more of the smaller sets and if I like what I get, I just may convince myself to pick up that Horde Zeppelin that I want so badly.

I actually have one more Christmas present to look at, but I’m going to come back to it on Saturday so that tomorrow I can get to TFC’s first Project Uranos figure, F-4 Phantom, before the second Project Uranos figure arrives at my door next week.

Jan 8 2013

DC Universe Signature Collection: Lead by Mattel

Alrighty, let’s deal with the giant lead elephant in the room. Mattel has done it again and bestowed giant status on a figure that doesn’t warrant it. First we got the inexplicably huge Rocket Red and now Lead gets the giant treatment. Lead is built off of the C&C Darkseid buck, meaning he towers over the other Metal Men. While definitely the bruiser of the team, Lead was usually drawn the same size as the other Responsometer robots. I should be furious that Mattel took us all the way up to the last member of the team and then did something crazy like this. But I’m not. In fact, I’m willing to give this one a pass, because the Metal Men could change their size and shape at will, and quite frankly, I think he looks pretty good this big.


As a quarterly figure, Lead comes in a bigger version of the same style window box we saw yesterday. In this case, the character art is solid, but not as exceptional as it usually is. You get a little bio blurb about the character and, as expected, the package is completely collector friendly.

Starting off with Lead’s head sculpt, I definitely dig the portrait, which features Lead smiling broadly. He’s got a lot of personality and his nature of the big loveable lug really comes across in the sculpt. Mattel didn’t have to do a lot of new tooling for this figure, but what they did, they did well.


Moving on to the rest of the body… well, besides his obvious growth spurt, Lead’s use of the Darkseid buck also means that he retains the stony sculpted lines on the arms and legs. Mattel, these are the METAL Men not Rock Lords. Lead and stone are two different things and seeing the stone patterns on this figure is both wrong and distracting. Luckily the dark coloring of the figure makes them a little less obvious, but the fact that these are there bother me a lot more than Lead being an oversized figure. One I can explain away, the other I cannot.

Once I get past Lead’s stony limbs, the rest of the figure falls into place pretty well. The rubbery smock that makes up his skirt and chest plate looks good. He’s got heavy rivets sculpted into his triangular front plate, and again around his gauntlets and boots. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of original sculpting on the body, but I’ve come to expect that from this team, and in truth it isn’t necessary.

Lead is painted over in a satisfyingly dark grey wash with some faint swirly patterns that crop up here and there. It’s a good finish for him that’s pretty characteristic of the artwork. The only other paint apps on the figure are the black for his eyes and eyebrows, the “L” symbols on his chest and forehead, and the white for his teeth. I’m a little iffy on the white teeth. I’m thinking black would have worked better, but it’s not really a sticking point for me.

Even as a former C&C buck, Lead retains most of the articulation we come to expect from the DCUC line. His arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows, and have swivels in the biceps and wrists. His legs have the usual universal hip movement and feature hinges in the knees and ankles. There are, however, no swivels in the thighs. Lead’s neck is ball jointed, he can swivel at the waist, and he retains his ab crunch hinge, which is still fairly serviceable under his soft rubbery chest plate. The only other thing worth mentioning is that my Lead figure has really loose legs. He can stand ok, but they really flop around.

Mattel can be geniuses when it comes to reusing parts in this line. A quick look back to Uncle Sam certainly proves that to be true. Unfortunately, Lead is not one of those times. They had two good reasons not to reuse the C&C Darkseid buck for this figure: Size being one and the stony pattern in the sculpt being the other. I can get around the size on this one, in fact I even kind of like it, but the problem with the sculpt is tougher for me to get past. I like the figure well enough. I’m very glad to have a complete Metal Men team, but a lot about this figure stinks of laziness, and when you consider that it’s a more expensive quarterly figure, I find that hard to accept. With the first year of Club Infinite Earths in the bag, I’ve been overall extremely satisfied with this line. If Lead here is the biggest disappointment, than that’s not too bad. Still, it’s a shame the line had to end the year on a low.

Jan 7 2013

DC Universe Signature Collection: Platinum and Tin by Mattel

When Iron came out, way back in DC Universe Classics Wave 12, I had little exposure to The Metal Men, other than their cameos in other comics, like 52. But the thing I always loved most about DCUC was the way it could send me scrambling to buy books I never would have otherwise read if it weren’t for a certain figure I liked. Shortly after buying Mercury, I happened upon a stack of the original 1960’s Metal Men comics at a used bookshop downtown. They were in terrible shape, but I got them for cheap, took them home and devoured all of them that night. A bit later, we got word that Mattel would be completing the team through Club Infinite Earths and so I tracked down the Walmart Exclusive Gold. Soon I was hotly anticipating completing a team that I barely knew a couple of years ago. And that brings us to December’s CIE monthly figure(s): Platinum and Tin.

It’s interesting that Mattel waited so long to do Platinum (aka Tina), because at the start of the original comic she was the most prominent of all of Dr. Magnus’ Responsometer creations. Issue #1 (“Rain of the Missile Men”) managed to endear her to me straight away. The issue starts out with Magnus donated her as a museum display for being too emotionally attached to him. Of course, she was promptly kicked out of the museum because she wouldn’t stop crying and the patrons concluded she was a fake because robots don’t cry. In addition to some fun bickering between her and the chauvinistic, dickhead (“I hate women – especially robot ones”) Mercury, Tina eventually becomes the object of lecherous desire from an alien robot who proceeds to attack Earth to get her as his queen. Fun! As for Tin… well, I found him to be a pretty annoying character even at the best of times, but I’m still happy to get him as a pack-in just to round out the team.

On to the packaging… As usual, the character art is fantastic and the window box is completely collector friendly. Sadly, I’ve amassed quite a few of these over the year, and most of the figures have been incorporated into my DCUC display shelves. I’m starting to feel the pinch for space and I’m resisting the sensible urge to ditch the packages. In the end, I may be forced to keep only the quarterly figure boxes. Anyway, I don’t have much new to say about the package, so let’s move on!


Tina’s design hasn’t changed all that much since she was introduced and the figure reflects that fact. The portrait is pretty good, although Tina looks a lot more confident and mature than the doe-eyed naïve and innocent metal woman from the early funnybooks. Either way, she’s quite pretty and certainly invokes the spirit of the modern appearances of the character. Tina has her little cap with her symbol and the sculptors did a fine job recreating her 60’s hairstyle. The rest of the figure is appropriately lacking in sculpted detail. Really, all you have are the rivets around the edges of her triangular front plate and some more around the tops of her boots. Both of her hands are sculpted into tiny fists, which are fine, but I really would have liked a set of attachable coil hands. All the other Metal Men up to this point got extra pieces that allowed their hands to morph. Tina’s trademark move was turning her arms to springs. I guess that extra plastic went into Tin.

Also keeping with the theme of the characters, Tina is washed over with a pleasing coat of shimmery silver paint. The only other paint apps on the figure are the black making up her eyes and eyebrows and the symbol on her cap. My only quibble about the paint would be the unpainted joints, but the base plastic is close enough that it isn’t jarring to the eye.

Platinum’s articulation includes everything you’d expect from a DCUC style figure. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. Her legs have universal hinges at the hips, hinges at the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. She has a ball jointed neck, can swivel at the waist, and has the usual ab crunch hinge in her torso. The articulation looks good on paper, but her sculpted skirt really puts a damper on her upper leg movement. At least the torso design allows for her ab crunch to work.


And then there’s Tin. Remember that 3-pack of critters Mattel put out in Green Lantern Classics? Well, he’s not as bad as them, but the idea is about the same. He’s a cool little sculpt, which captures the goofy and awkward nature of the character. He’s mostly pre-posed, in an odd hunched over posture with knees bent. I’m not sure what they were going for with the pose, or what he’s supposed to be doing with his pointed fingers, but as a pack-in to finish off the team, I’m fairly happy with him. With rotating shoulders and head, he does have three points of articulation and he stands surprisingly well on his own.


Platinum was one of my most anticipated figures of this year’s CIE offerings, partly because I’ve grown to really love the characters and their books, and partly because my OCD really flares up when I have incomplete teams. In the end she didn’t disappoint. Granted, she wasn’t the hardest figure in the world to do, but at least Mattel didn’t do something crazy like make her into an inappropriately oversized figure like Rocket Red or… oh… well, we’ll talk about Lead tomorrow.

Jan 5 2013

World of Warcraft: Sindragosa and The Lich King by Mega Bloks

I have returned from my Odin Sleep, it’s back to business as usual here on FigureFan and I’ve got some Christmas presents to look at this week! The last time I featured one of Mega Bloks’ WoW sets, I wasn’t terribly impressed and I decided that I was going to back away from these for a little while. Nonetheless, I got a couple for Christmas and I was surprised at how excited I was when I saw this one: The Sindragosa and Lich King set. Obviously this set has some serious gravitas in WoW lore so I thought it would be cool to have these big baddies in my collection. How’d they turn out? Can this set wash out the bad taste of the last one? Well, let’s see!

The box is pretty glorious and it’s absolutely huge. A Lego set in a box this big would run you around $150 and have a zillion pieces. This one only has 150 pieces, but as we’ll see in a bit, some of them are pretty damn big. The artwork on the front of the box is gorgeous with really nice colors. The box alone has tempted me to pick it up in the store and gawk at it more than a few times. The artwork is also slightly embossed on the front, which is a cool little touch but one which hardly anyone is likely to care about. The back of the box shows you the completed set, but instead of showing you actual photos, you get CG models. That’s hokey, Mega Bloks. It feels like you’re trying to hide something. Why won’t you show the actual product? Well, hang on kiddies, we’ll see why they don’t do that before this feature is over.

Open the box, spill out the contents, and you get a large, but thin, instruction booklet, a small mystery bag containing your random piece of loot, six un-numbered baggies, and a lone, loose brick that looks like it was either thrown in there by mistake, or Mega Bloks suddenly realized they left it out and tossed it in before the box was sealed. I guess we’ll find out which! (Hint: It was thrown in there by mistake!) All told, the 150 pieces make up the dragon Sindragosa and The Lich King and his Frozen Throne. Cool! Let’s start with The Lich King.


The Lich King comes fully assembled with his sword in his own bag. I can understand why Mega Bloks has the individual minifigures pre-assembled, because they wanted to go with a window box package, but I think including the figure assembled in a set like this is a mistake. I buy these things because I like to build them and when you take away from the build time, I tend to feel a little cheated. Nonetheless, Lich King is a great figure with tons of sculpted detail on his gorgeous armor. It really is stunning how much work went into this little guy. He has a removable cape, so you can plug in the weapon clip and have him store his sword, Frostmourne, on his back. The sword is an exceptionally cool piece. It’s so detailed it even has the runes sculpted and painted on the blade. I’ve been blown away by every WoW minifigure that I have, and The Lich King continues to hold that standard if not raise the bar a little higher.

The Frozen Throne makes up a big part of this set’s assembly. It consists of a large white base with translucent blue bricks used to make the ice throne and some of the other ice formations. The build itself is well designed and it even includes a piece to hold Frostmourne while The Lich King is on his throne. The problem here, however, links in to the reason why Mega Bloks won’t show the actual set on the box. Some of the ice bricks are painted with white and blue paint to give them a frosted look, but in truth it just looks like crap. The paint is slathered on some, drizzled on others, while some bricks have none at all. I suppose if you carefully sorted them all out you could get something that looked fairly consistent throughout the build, but it would be pointless since the actual brushwork just looks like someone tried out a shitty custom paint job. It was a terrible idea, as I think the set would have looked just fine without the paintwork at all. In fact, it would have looked a lot like the CG image on the back of the package!

Moving on to Sindragosa… I should forewarn that I am not usually a fan of beasts in the Lego and Mega Bloks lines because they turn out looking too mechanical. It’s just the nature of the build and I try not to hold it against the designers. In the case of Sindragosa, the design of the finished build looks pretty good and makes for a solid, well-articulated, and overall fun toy. He has ball joints in his legs, neck, tail and the base of his wings, so you can get good poses out of him, and he’s big enough to pick up a minifgure in his hinged jaw. The bulk of the bricks used for this build are brown and blue, which is all well and good, but it still makes use of some of the badly painted ice bricks, which is very unfortunate. Again, you can try to pick some of the better looking ones for his back, but I just resent having to do that.


I think my biggest problem with Sindragosa is that too many of his pieces are complete right out of the box. If this were a Lego set, his wings would have probably been made out of 50 pieces each. Here they just come right out of the baggie as two large molded pieces. On the other hand, a lot of the pieces that go into the dragon are just stacked bricks used to make up his belly. You can barely see these, and they’re completely unnecessary for the build. Seriously, you can completely leave them out and it will barely even be noticeable!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot my loot. It’s a pair of shoulders. I like this idea of mystery loot, but there’s nothing special about these pieces and I can’t imagine ever swapping these out onto any of my figures. I guess I’ll just have to put them up on the Auction House when I get back to port back to Ogrimmar.

This set was a gift, so value isn’t really a concern for me. Nonetheless, it looks like the set sells for around $35 at Walmart. That’s a pretty good deal for the number of pieces and the complexity of the build. In the end, I think the Lich King figure is absolutely fantastic and Sindragosa is certainly cool enough, but I’m really soured on the whole crappy paint job on the ice bricks. It’s completely unnecessary and only serves to ruin a major part of the set for me.

I’m taking Sunday off… I know, I just had a week off, but I’m going to be taking Sundays off for good from now on. I’ll be back on Monday and Tuesday to check out last month’s Club Infinite Earth offerings and then I’ll swing back and take a look at the other Mega Bloks set that I got for Christmas. Then Thursday and Friday I start my treacherous journey down the dark path of third-party Transformers.

Jan 4 2013

FigureFan’s Disappointments of 2012, Part 2

Thought yesterday was depressing? Oh no. Don’t pass out on me. Not yet… Here’s the last five.

Thundercats: 6-inch Classic Lion-O by Ban Dai… Make no mistake, I don’t think this is a bad figure. It certainly has issues, like unpainted joints and an unfortunate head sculpt, but it’s still a solid figure. So why does it appear here? Because it was completely unnecessary. The 8-inch Lion-O was probably my favorite figure of 2011, and there was no reason for Ban Dai to backpedal on it. Nonetheless, Ban Dai got hammered by fans for making the figure in the oddball 8-inch scale and then when they relented and re-released the figure in a more standard 6-inch scale, collectors railed against them for starting over. I’m not saying Ban Dai didn’t mishandle a few things with the Thundercats license (that Tower of Omens was a piece of shit!) but overall I like what they delivered and I was sorry to see the line not work out. This Lion-O figure represented the beginning of the end for the revival of Classic Thundercats and while I still bought it to support the line, just looking at it makes me sad.

Transformers Generations: Fall of Cybertron Jazz by Hasbro… Poor Jazz represents everything that is wrong with Transformers these days. He’s too small, too simple, has too few paint apps, and he’s too expensive. Compare him with the Deluxe toys from War for Cybertron and he just comes up wanting in every possible way. While some figures in the line have escaped these cutbacks, Jazz personifies the struggle that Hasbro and other toy companies are having producing quality product against the rising costs of plastic and production.

Mass Effect 3: Miranda by Big Fish… I know what you’re thinking… Thane was way worse than Miranda. True, but I wasn’t looking forward to Thane, hence he wasn’t really a disappointment. Miranda, on the other hand was a major disappointment. Plus, her left arm fell off. As shitty a figure as Thane was, at least he didn’t break while being removed from the package. This line certainly had its ups and downs, and it’s a shame that Miranda had to be one of the downs.

Young Justice 4-inch Series, Wave 3… Ok, let me clarify. Sportsmaster was in Wave 3 and he was a solid figure, so what I’m really talking about here are those three shitty stealth repaints that I had to buy to finish my Hall of Justice. I’ve honestly bitched about this sorry situation enough in the individual features, culminating in my need to go onto Ebay to get Stealth Kid Flash. Because it wasn’t bad enough Mattel made us buy these, they also made it impossible to find the last figure in the wave. This situation, my friends, is customer appreciation at its finest.

DC Universe Classics: Orange Lantern Lex Luthor… What is it with Mattel making me buy shitty figures to complete Collect & Connect constructs? They’re evil marketing geniuses that’s what. I hated this figure so much that I actually considered paying more to get just the C&C part off of Ebay so I wouldn’t have to admit to having purchased the figure. He’s pure garbage, and while he might appeal to collectors with a translucent plastic fetish, all he does for me is make me mad when I see him peeking out from the back of my Lantern shelf.

And there’s the light at the end of the tunnel and we have emerged into 2013. We’re done with canned recycled retrospective feature week and tomorrow I’ll be back with the first new feature of the year.

Jan 3 2013

FigureFan’s Disappointments of 2012, Part 1

Ok, we’ve seen my favorites, and now it’s time to check out the turds floating in last year’s punchbowl. Again, this was tough, because I try to avoid buying things that look like they will be crap. So maybe the word turd is a little harsh in some cases. Almost nothing on this list is total crap, but everything here definitely disappointed me in some way.

TMNT Classics: Donatello by Playmates… The Classic Turtles are great figures, but they got upstaged on my “Favorites List” by the smaller modern guys in a major way. Nonetheless, Donatello represents here for one reason and one reason only, because of his mad eyes. Ok, I suppose that’s two reasons. The point is that by giving him wonky eyes, Playmates not only ruined the figure, but seriously marred the entire set. How can anyone appreciate their team of turtles on the shelf when Donny is standing there in the back looking like he got kicked in the head one too many times. It’s a crazy example of how one brush stroke can mar an otherwise excellent toy.

DC Universe All Stars: Superboy Prime… Besides turning out as a terrible looking figure, Superboy Prime earns Mattel a Disappointment Award for doing the bait-and-switch. The final product saw major changes from the pre-release images, and while that is bound to happen from time to time, the changes here made a great looking promo figure turn into a terrible release. Even worse, with hardly any brick-and-mortar stores actually carrying the DCU All Stars, I had to buy the figure online, so my disappointment wasn’t realized until I got the thing in hand and it was too late. It’s not often that I can say I regret buying a DCUC figure, but I certainly regret picking up Superboy Prime.

Marvel Legends: Extremis Iron Man… Because I only allowed each toyline to appear once in each list, this slot was a tight race between Extremis Iron Man and Future Foundation Spider-Man. In fairness, on its own this Iron Man is a fairly competent figure, but as soon as you put him up against some of the other figures in Hasbro’s new Marvel Legends line he comes up wanting. He’s too small, not terribly well articulated, and overall underwhelming. I kind of get the feeling that he was just here to fill a slot in a quick and dirty manner (that’s what she said?). And to keep the comparisons rolling, his paint and sculpting don’t even live up to many of the older, smaller and cheaper 3 ¾” Iron Man 2 figures. At least Hasbro released him in two versions, so that the crappy Stealth variant would make the regular one look better.

Duke Nukem by NECA… You’ve got to hand it to NECA, in an effort to be as accurate to the game as possible; they obviously wanted to capture the disappointment of Duke Nukem Forever in action figure form. And they did! NECA’s Duke features a solid enough sculpt, but the articulation is downright weird and the paintwork, particularly on the flesh tones, leaves a lot to be desired. And then there are the accessories. Sure, kudos for the cigar, which I promptly lost, but how can Duke come with just a handgun? Where’s his arsenal? And, no, the fact that he has feet doesn’t count as a “Mighty Boot” accessory. Duke should have come with a cool assortment of weapons, instead all he came with was disappointment.

Avengers: “Sword Spike” Thor… While most of Hasbro’s 3 ¾” Avengers figures were disappointments, this version of Thor earns a place on this list because he represented the ultimate in toy company hubris and laziness. Hasbro took what was essentially the exact same figure from the previous year, cut out most of its articulation, gave him a new shitty weapon and put him on an Avengers card. They even kept the same name, which in the new context made no sense because he now came with a halberd and not a sword. To add insult to injury, a lot of stores had this figure hanging just a few pegs away from the better articulated Thor-branded figure… on clearance! It’s the retail equivalent of Hasbro unzipping their pants, pulling out their Mjolnir and slapping us in the face with it.
Ok, that’s enough disappointment for one day. I’m going to take some Topamax and gin to level out my mood and I’ll be back tomorrow with the final five.

Jan 2 2013

FigureFan’s Favorites 2012, Part 2

Second verse, same as the first. And again in no particular order…

Thundercats: Mega-Scale Mumm-Ra by Mezco… I had such high hopes for the Thundercats in 2011. Some of it paid off. I got some decent figures and the 8-inch Classic Lion-O proved to be my favorite figure from that year. But 2012 saw the prospects of a continued line die a slow death. In the end, I had to live vicariously through Mezco and the hopes they might keep the Classic Thunderkitty goodness going with their Mega-Scale statues. In 2012 we got Mumm-Ra and Panthro. I still haven’t opened my Panthro yet, but Mumm-Ra proved to be another outstanding effort in this line. I love this big guy, and I think he was one of the best values of the year.

Marvel Universe: Cable by Hasbro… I’m sorry to say it, but overall Marvel Universe has been disappointing me lately. Maybe the Marvel Legends figures are just pushing their smaller cousins out of my field of interest. It’s also possible that I’m just evolving beyond the 3 3/4” scale. GI Joe and Star Wars were the only lines that really tied me to it, and I don’t collect a lot of those anymore. Maybe the new 3 ¾” Doctor Who figures will bring me back. Either way, the MU figures this year have been competent enough, but not spectacular. The exception to that, however, was Cable, a figure executed so well that he barely feels like an MU figure at all.

Green Lantern Classics: Collect & Connect Stel by Mattel… I came into 2012 with a lot of Green Lantern fatigue from that shitty movie and the carpet bombing of marketing that followed it. But that didn’t stop the franchise from producing one of my favorite figures this year. Sure, Stel is a C&C figure, but he’s amazing in every way. The sculpt, the coloring, the articulation… he’s got it all. I never had much affinity for the character, but he certainly made for some excellent action figure fodder and Mattel went above and beyond.

Marvel Legends: Punisher by Hasbro… It may be because Frank Castle has been absent from my collection for so long, but this figure really hit the spot for me. It captures all there is about the character, he comes with all sorts of great weapons, and I just can’t stop playing around with him. One of the greatest compliments I can pay an action figure is to keep it standing on my desk, rather than regulate it to the shelves in the other room, and Punisher has been on my desk ever since I opened him up. It seems like I can’t go more than an hour without reaching over and picking him up.

Hot Toys’ Captain America: The First Avenger… 2012 was the year I finally broke down and bought some Hot Toys figures and Cap was my first. I was really apprehensive about blowing the money as I am generally not a 1:6 scale collector and I was a little afraid that the figure would be lost on me. Nonetheless, from the moment I had the package in hand, I knew there were no regrets. Cap’s outfit in this movie is my favorite design and I just had to have it in this epic format. While I doubt I will ever go all out into collecting Hot Toys in a hardcore manner, I can certainly see myself grabbing two or three a year.

And that’s all the good stuff… tomorrow we’ll start the one-two punch to the gonads that make up my biggest disappointments of 2012… Hang tight, ya’ll are already halfway through this wonderful week of shitty filler articles!

Jan 1 2013

FigureFan’s Favorites 2012, Part 1

 

Happy New Year, folks! Let’s jump right in with the first five delectable items on my Favorites list. I’ll point out that these are not in any order because that would have taken more effort and the whole point of this song and dance was to get me a week off… let’s go!

 

Masters of the Universe Classics: The Wind Raider by Mattel… As much as I give Matty Collector a hard time, I can’t deny they produce some amazing toys and figures. But as I mentioned in a recent feature, I didn’t give a lot of attention to the MOTUC line in 2012. Nonetheless, I couldn’t resist grabbing the Wind Raider, and I’m certainly glad I did. Besides being the only vehicle released in the line so far, it is one big, beautiful, and very high-quality toy. At about $60 shipped, it certainly wasn’t cheap, and yet I was still totally impressed and satisfied with it when it came out of the box. The fact that Matty has managed to make it readily available for purchase throughout the year is even better. This piece really belongs in every MOTUC collection.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Nickelodeon’s Ninja Turtles by Playmates… Yep, I’m cheating on this one, because I’m using one slot for four figures. I make no apologies, because how could I choose just one of the Heroes in a Half Shell? Some may be surprised to find the smaller, modern versions of the Turtles on this list, rather than the larger Classic-inspired figures, but when you get down to it, these little guys are just more amazing. The new designs are fantastic, the sculpts and articulation are great, and they’re also some of the best values hanging on the action figure pegs today. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t like the show they’re based on! It’s no surprise that the TMNT sections were cleaned out at most retailers in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I often lament the kids growing up today without the kind of kick-ass toys I had as a kid, but these figures actually make me jealous of those damn kids.

Marvel Legends: Steve Rogers & Thor by Hasbro… I really tried to break this tie, but in the end, I just couldn’t do it. In 2012 Hasbro brought Marvel Legends back with a vengeance, and there were lots of solid efforts. This entry originally started as a three-way tie with Arnim Zola finally getting edged out. Steve Rogers and Thor are both prime examples of what I look for in a great action figure. I’d say that of the two, Rogers is more fun to pick up and play with, but Thor’s heft and sculpt capture everything there is to say about the character. If anything, these two figures showed me that Hasbro was trying to do things right with Legends this time around.


Doctor Who: “The Chase” Collector Set by Character Options… You can call this my token Doctor Who slot if you wish, but I’m putting it here anyway. Based on an episode that aired in 1965, the bulk of this set is comprised of a Mechanoid, a robot that looks like a giant Christmas tree ornament that we saw once and never again. The bottom line is that it’s almost impossible that this set exists and yet it does, and for that I love it to pieces. Doctor Who may have grown into a huge international success, but classic and obscure items like this one are geared toward a very niche market, and I congratulate Character Options for making them. The fact that it had a couple of extra classic Daleks was just icing on the cake!

Transformers Commemorative Series:  Powermaster Optimus Prime by Hasbro… Sneaking onto the list as a technicality is this amazing Toys R Us exclusive. Hasbro released Powermaster Prime way back in 2003, but I featured him this year and he isn’t old enough to be a “Vintage Vault” entry, so here he is! Easily one of my favorite Transformers releases of all time, this set is so hefty and so beautifully packaged, that it puts most of the Transformers SDCC Exclusives to shame. This toy features a plethora of modes and all kinds of little custom tweaks to give it even more playability. There’s so much cool interchangeable stuff here that it reminds me of the glorious old Micronaut sets that I grew up with. This “Commemorative Edition” was also the first time that the superior Takara version of the toy was released stateside. I paid $50 for this beauty back in the day, which was a good enough deal that I eventually picked up a second set to leave packaged. Even during times when I have the bulk of my Transformers collection put away, Powermaster Prime is always out on display. I just love him that much.

Swing by tomorrow, and I’ll wrap up my Favorites List with the last five entries…