Apr 10 2013

Masters of the Universe Classics: Frosta by Mattel

It’s go out drinking night, which is only different from every other night because on this night I actually go out to do it. I’m told it’s good for me, or at least better than doing it home alone. As a result, today I’m going to try to exercise a little more brevity than usual.

I’m pretty sure I told ya that Ram Man wouldn’t be the last time we saw MOTUC around these parts. I’m actually thinking about picking up a few of the Early Access offerings for April, but today’s figure was actually a trade. A friend of mine bought two Frostas, because he was planning on fixing the reversed biceps and he wanted an extra in case he screwed it up. His operation was a success leaving him with an extra figure. I offered to trade, he looked at list of my dupes and to my surprise and delight, he took a white-costumed Mary Batson and Steppenwolf, both from the DCUC, in trade. Let’s see what we’ve got…

After featuring more than 30 of the figures here, what more can I say about the MOTUC packaging? It’s awesome. I love it. The back features a bunch of figures based off the She-Ra side of the fence, including the three Star Sisters. I’ve turned down that set on clearance more times than I can count. One of these days I’m going to crumble, but $20 is my limit. Anyway, I don’t usually bother with the biographies on these figures, but there was something about Frosta’s bio that caught my eye. “With the exception of her magic powers, she is otherwise a normal human female.” WTF is that supposed to mean? That’s like saying apart from his giant f’cking mechanical elephant head, Snout Spout is just a regular dude. I’m starting to regret not reading more of these. I can’t imagine what other nuggets of wisdom I may have missed out on. Anyway, let’s rip this babe open and check her out.

Right off the bat, I need to applaud T4H on the head sculpt here. Frosta really sports that distinctive look that the Filmation chicks all seemed to have on She-Ra. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I think it has a lot to do with the eyes and the high cheekbones. Either way, this is a fantastic job on the portrait, assuming Filmation is your bag and not the comics or vintage toy. I am, however, a bit more divided over the use of semi-translucent blue plastic for her hair. That sort of thing works ok when Kotobukiya does it, but it’s a little iffy here. Fortunately, you really need to get her in the light to notice it, so I’m fine with it the way it is.

As with most of the MOTUC female figures, Frosta’s outfit consists of softer plastic layered over the female buck. There isn’t a huge amount of sculpted detail here, apart from her belt. I will applaud the fact that the skirt prevents her from suffering the indignity of the granny diapers seen on The Star Sisters. On the other hand, Frosta has garnered quite a bit of scorn from collectors because Mattel used grey plastic instead of white. I can see the issue, it looks rather dirty, and I think the figure would have looked spectacular with bright white plastic, but the grey doesn’t kill the figure for me. In fact, it kind of goes pretty well with the blue. The soft blue cape can pull easily away from Frosta’s body to prevent it from hindering her articulation.

And speaking of articulation, Frosta features everything you’d expect to find in an MOTUC female, with one extra surprise. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges int he elbows. The legs have hinges in the knees and ankles. What’s the surprise? Holy hell, she can actually swivel at the waist!

Frosta comes with two accessories. You get her pinwheel-style frost wand and her shield. The wand will spin and I rather like the clear ice-like plastic used for the spokes in the wheel. The shield is also an especially nice piece, which uses a great combination of metallic blue and silver paint along with some clear plastic to give it an appropriately frosty look.

Frosta’s a cool enough figure, in fact I like her a lot. She sold out before I could get to her on Matty, but that’s fine because it just means I didn’t have to plunk down the $30 for her with shipping from. Sure I had to wait a while to get her, but it was worth the wait to get her in exchange for a couple of duplicates that were taking up space in a storage tote. Truth is, I have a strange desire to pick up a lot of the Princess of Power figure, mainly because they’re part of the He-Man lore and it was simply unacceptable for me to buy the originals because, well you know, they were dolls for girls because they came with combs and stuff. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my Hot Toys Black Widow’s hair got a bit mussed and I have to fix it.

Apr 9 2013

Star Wars Unleashed: Boba Fett (Target Exclusive) by Hasbro

I’m mostly up to date on my new receivings and that means I can start digging into some Toy Closet Finds for the next couple of weeks. It’s something I should have been doing all along, but sometimes I do get caught up trying to be topical by featuring new releases. Anyway, today we’re going to check out one of Hasbro’s Star Wars Unleashed series. I loved the idea of bringing affordable collectible statues to mass market retail, and so naturally I was a big fan of this line, at least I was before it became all about miniatures. I owned quite a few of these statues at one point, but most of them were sold off in my Great Star Wars Purge of 2008. We’ll start out with the man himself, Boba Fett.

This is the Target Exclusive version of the statue, which was offered around Christmas of 2006. Originally, these statues came carded and required some assembly, but Walmart and Target secured the rights to reissue four of the statues fully assembled and in these super cool plastic drums. If memory serves, Walmart got Jedi Luke and Darth Vader from their showdown in Return of the Jedi, whereas Target got Boba here and General Grievous. Shortly after they came out, Target had an entire endcap of these guys and they were clearance down to about $6.98. How could I resist?

The presentation here is crazy awesome. It’s not the most storage friendly package, as it’s really easy to get dings or creases in the plastic. I attribute mine surviving to the fact that it’s sat up on a shelf and has been virtually untouched since the day I bought it. The drum is graced with a very vintage style deco and it offers a nice look at the statue inside. The package deco is only marred by the giant “Only at Target” emblem, which is unfortunately not something that can be removed. The back of the drum has a blurb about The Fett and the inside has a really nice piece of artwork designed as a backdrop for the statue. Hasbro went out of their way to make this statue fully displayable in the package, but you really can’t get all the nuances of this great piece without removing him. The drum is collector friendly and you can lift the statue out and clip away the heavy twisty ties, which secure him to the plastic tray.

By God, this statue is awesome! Granted, it’s a far cry from being true to Boba’s final moments, screaming like a girl as a blind man pushed him into the maw of a giant sand-vagina-monster, but then Unleashed was always about putting Star Wars characters into outlandishly stupendous poses. What we have here is more like a statue of Fett’s demise as commissioned by his Fan Club. He’s depicted going down fighting in a blaze of glory, jetpack firing on full power and rifle blasting away into the Sarlaac with defiance. It is, nonetheless, a majestic display and the pose perfectly conveys a ridiculous amount of energy and excitement for a static piece.

The detail on Fett himself is striking. There’s subtle texture work over every part of his jumpsuit, right down to the stitching, and even some distressed areas. The armor is recreated with all the familiar dings and dents, and there are even a few extra nicks and scratches on his chest plate that aren’t familiar to me. Even his sash, while blown a bit out of proportion for dramatic effect, is fully textured and features fraying at the edges and some holes. Hasbro obviously designed this piece to stand up under close scrutiny and it does that well.

As great as the sculpt is, the paintwork also rises to the occasion. Besides recreating all the familiar green and ochre of Fett’s armor, it’s the distressing that impresses me the most. The rubbed steel is present on the jetpack and the various gashes and dings on his armor are all painted in silver. Yes, some of the silver paint is a little heavy handed, but I don’t it’s enough to detractfrom the overall aesthetic.

About the only place this statue falters is in the base. The Sarlaac tentacles are excellent, and positioned very well with one wrapped around his leg and the other two snaking up for a better grasp. Even, the clear orange plastic used for the blast from the jetpack works wonderfully to hold Fett aloft. No, the problem I have with the base is the Sarlaac itself. Sure, it’s undersized but that doesn’t bother me. What does is the way the orange plastic from the blast fills it up and makes it look like some kind of gelatin desert… with teeth.

While this piece has a nice heft to it, you statue collectors out there may find the plastic a bit wanting in some areas. There’s still some unfortunate bendy quality going on in a few places. Many Unleashed statues were notorious for this and at least a couple of mine didn’t survive storage because of warping plastic. Indeed, the rocket on Fett’s jetpack seems to warp a bit to the side and only a little bit, but otherwise, this is a nice solid hunk of plastic.

A lot of Star Wars Unleashed statues have come and gone out of my collection, but this one has always been one of my favorites. Once again, I really applaud Hasbro’s development of the entire Unleashed line, and looking at this piece it’s hard to believe that it was sold off the shelf of a big box toy retailer and for around twenty bucks. Sure, we aren’t talking about Gentle Giant of Sideshow here, but this statue is an excellent piece of work and for the price, it just couldn’t be beat. At some point next week, I’ll swing around and check out the Unleashed version of General Grievous and see how he stacks up.

Apr 8 2013

Iron Man 2: Whiplash (Ivan Vanko) by Hasbro

No Marvel Universe today, but it is still Marvel Monday and with my anticipation growing for Iron Man 3, I thought we’d mix it up a bit. Hasbro is crapping out on the toys for Tony’s third box office outing, and so I’m forced to look elsewhere to express my excitement for the film in plastic form. Today we’re turning the clock back to 2010. It was a time when Hasbro was supporting the Marvel Movieverse by producing some excellent 3 ¾” Iron Man figures. In fact, the only problem with the Iron Man 2 line was that the pegs were clogged with dubious variations of Stark’s armor, making it hard to find some of the figures I really wanted. Case in point: I never saw Whiplash on the pegs. That is until a few days ago when he was hiding at Target behind some Avengers figures. Let’s check him out…

Holy hell, it’s the Iron Man 2 packaging! The last time we saw this on FigureFan Zero was over a year ago, but hey if Walmart can fill their pegs with Rise of Cobra figures, why can’t Target sneak a little Iron Man 2 behind their Avengers? I usually buy my figures when I’m going grocery shopping so it isn’t as apparent, but on this day the young lady running the register was faced with a 40 year old dude buying nothing but a single Iron Man figure. She looked at the figure and said, “Wow he’s an ugly guy!” I simply replied, “That is Mickey Rourke, my dear!” then I took my purchase and walked off whistling a jaunty tune. I’d like to think it was a transaction she would long remember. Anyway, seeing these cards again is a real blast from the past. I love the presentation here and Hasbro really packed these bubbles with goodness.

This version of Whiplash is from the scene in the film where Ivan tried to get all up in Tony’s shit at the race. He’s wearing his own version of the arc reactor rig and wielding two energy whips. The rig is one seriously complex design and I was dubious as to whether it could be pulled off effectively in a 3 ¾” scale figure. I’ve got to say, Hasbro did a pretty good job with it. The metal framework is sculpted right onto the figure and carefully painted silver. Hasbro even did their best to replicate all of Ivan’s crazy tats. Most of these are just drizzles of black paint, but it’s a nice attempt all the same.

The lower half of the figure features Ivan’s rumpled jumpsuit with the top half of it draped down around his waist and behind his legs. There is some wonderful sculpted detail at work here as well, with all the wrinkles and tearing. Unfortunately, Hasbro went off the reservation on the coloring. They used brown for the jumpsuit when it should have been orange.

As for the portrait, well, he’s got long hair and a mustache so you can kind of see who it’s supposed to be. Truthfully, the face gives off some kind of creepy baby vibe for me. I think it’s the large forehead. There are some paint apps for scars and wrinkles in his forehead. It’s certainly not one of Hasbro’s better likenesses, but getting all the “character” of Mickey Rourke’s face into this scale would have been all but impossible. I’m going to give Hasbro a pass on this one.

Whiplash has just about all the articulation you could want in this scale. There are ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. The arms feature swivels in the biceps, hinged elbows, and swivels at the wrists. The legs feature swivels at the thighs, and double-hinged knees. He also has a ball joint in the torso. The only issue with articulation on my figure is the top hinges in the knees don’t want to work and with the hinges being soft plastic, I don’t want to try to force them. At least I can still bend his knees using the bottom hinges.

Naturally, Whiplash comes with his whips. These are cast in sculpted bendy plastic and can be posed in a variety of ways. They are rather heavy and don’t fit rather loosely in Whiplash’s hands. If you have an extra pair of those tiny clear rubber bands kicking around, this would be a good opportunity to make some use of them.

One thing I miss about the Iron Man 2 figures were these awesome stands and illustrated card overlays. I think these were a great idea and really do a lot to add to the presentation of the figure. Here, Hasbro wasn’t just giving us a stand, but a cool little display backdrop as well. I can’t recall anyone else doing anything like this in this scale and it only serves to remind me how much we’ve lost in only two years. Blame the cost of plastic or profit-mongering, but we just don’t expect to see this kind of thing these days.

I dig Whiplash a lot and I’m really glad I stumbled upon him hanging on the pegs, especially since I doubt I ever would have gone out of my way to hunt him down online. He couldn’t have been an easy figure to tackle, but Hasbro brought their “A-game” and rose to the occasion. Best of all, I can finally close the lid on my Iron Man 2 collection, as this guy was the only figure I was missing, apart from some of the more wild and undesirable versions of Tony’s armor.

Apr 6 2013

Dragon’s Lair Figures! by Anjon Toys, Part 2

Ok, yesterday we took a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about Dragon’s Lair and checked out the first of Anjon’s figures, the evil wizard, Mordroc. Today we’ll take a look at the true stars of this little collection of Dragon’s Lair figures. It’s the fearless hero, Dirk the Daring and the Princess Daphne. Let’s go ahead and start with Daphne.

Daphne is the stereotypical damsel in distress and without a doubt one of the most sexualized cartoon women ever drawn for pop culture consumption. As a kid seeing her for the first time in the game, I’m pretty sure I glanced down toward my nether regions and thought, “Oh, so that’s what that’s for!” To anyone out there that suggesting it’s not normal to find a cartoon chick attractive, I would present Princess Daphne as Exhibit A for the contrary.

As for her figure’s likeness, Anjon mingles with success. It’s good but not great. I don’t think they quite got the portrait right and while the body is certainly curvy in all the right places, I think they underestimated a couple of her biggest assets. The sculpting of the hair is also not quite right to me, although I do find it amusing that if you look at her from behind, her ridiculous mane of hair makes it look like she’s sans clothing. Not that she’s wearing much to begin with. I think in the end, it’s the stiff pose that is most at odds with this figure. The paintwork isn’t too bad. Her painted flesh has a few stray scratches and scuffs that were like that out of the package, and there’s a little slop around the edges of her outfit, but otherwise it’s pretty good.

Daphne features five basic points of articulation. Her arms rotate at the shoulders, her legs rotate at the hips, and her head turns. Unfortunately, the quality on my figure left something to be desired. The first time I tried to turn her head, it came right off in my hand. The post didn’t want to give and so it just twisted and broke. Fortunately, with the sculpted hair, there’s not a lot of movement to be had there, so gluing it back into place didn’t really ruin anything. Besides, this Daphne is intended to stand there on her pile of gold, look pretty and not do much of anything else. There was an amulet included, but I have no idea what happened to it.

Daphne also comes with the Fire Drake companion figure. I love this guy. He looks like a little angry baby dragon. The sculpt is impressive and really drives home the Don Bluth art style and he even has five basic points of articulation and two little detachable wings. This guy actually finds himself on my Masters of the Universe Classics display an awful lot. He just seems to fit in well with the Eternian crowd.

Which, brings us to the man himself… Dirk the Daring, and my, oh my, did Anjon nail this guy. I can’t tell you how much I loved this Dirk when I was younger. He was my idea of the quintessential knightly adventurer and I used to doodle him all over my book covers in school. Man, I would have loved to have had this figure when I was kid. Don’t get me wrong, this figure isn’t perfect, but his sculpt is absolutely fantastic. The proportions are spot on, from his super slender waist to his huge feet. The simple animated style of the outfit matches his on screen counterpart perfectly, and his determined and angry expression looks as if he’s seriously pissed off because you keep getting the timing wrong on your reactions and getting him killed in the game.

Dirk features a functional backpack, with a peg that clasps it shut. You all know how much I love functional holsters on my figures, so imagine how I feel about A FUNCTIONAL BACKPACK!!! The backpack is designed to hold some of his smaller accessories… all of which I’ve lost! He came with a potion and some keys. It’s hard to get the clasp to stay closed unless you have something inside of it. He also has a sword and a working scabbard. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a functional backpack AND scabbard!!! The scabbard comes glued onto the figure via a peg and socket, but mine has become detachable after some years of handling and storage.

Most of the issues I have with this figure involve the quality of the paint. The colors all look great, but there’s just something about the plastic that doesn’t seem to take the paint all that well. It’s rubbed and nicked a lot, particularly around the shoulders, and it looks a little grungy in some spots on the arms and legs. It’s the little things like that, which make me want to pick up another one someday and leave him carded.

Dirk fares pretty well as far as articulation goes. He has a rotating head, and his arms feature ball jointed shoulders and swivels in the biceps and wrists. His legs feature a T-crotch at the hips and swivels at the tops of his boots. He can also swivel at the waist. The lower part of his tunic is soft rubbery plastic so as not to interfere with his leg articulation too much.

Like Daphne, Dirk comes with a companion figure, which is a bendy version of the purple tentacle creature he fights on the drawbridge in the very first screen of the game. Ok, it’s not much of a figure, but I really like this thing a lot. The tentacles will even stay in position, more or less, giving it a decent amount of poseability.

Anjon’s Dragon’s Lair figures have their share of issues, most of which come down to the fact that the quality could have been better. That having been said, I’m pretty sure that these are the company’s first (and only) attempts at action figures, so I’m willing to cut them some slack. As an overall collection, they’re pretty good and I would go so far as to say Dirk himself is rather excellent. He’s definitely a figure that I would have loved to own as a kid, and I guess in the end he was worth the wait. The real pity of it is that Series Two never came to fruition. There was a lot of untapped potential here and I would have gladly picked up figures based on the Giddy Goons, Snake King, and Black Knight had Anjon been able to deliver them.

Apr 5 2013

Dragon’s Lair Figures! by Anjon Toys, Part 1

What started out as a simple cleaning run through my main Toy Closet a few weeks ago turned into a complete re-vamp. I threw up some pictures on my Facebook page, and I’ll try to get some up here soon as well. During the course of this endeavor, I’ve decided I really need to work at least one “Toy Closet Finds” feature into each week if I’m ever going to get through all the stuff I’ve unearthed in there. Plus, I’m almost caught up on my new receivings, so today we’re checking out some Dragon’s Lair figures. But first… get your blanky and your milky baba, because… it’s story time!

Dragon’s Lair hit the arcades in 1983, when I was 11 years old. Holy shit, I’m old! For you young’uns out there, arcades were dark and smoky places where you could go and pay money to play games. Why would you want to do that? Because these games were technologically advanced beyond anything you could play at home. They were also designed to kill you in about 60 seconds or less so as to better suck down all your quarters. Lethal to epileptics, arcades were also places to buy drugs and cigarettes, get the shit kicked out of you by roving gangs, and possibly get lured into panel vans by predators with promises of free tokens. Ah, memories!

I can remember the first time I walked into one and saw the Dragon’s Lair cabinet. There was a mob around it, all eagerly watching this guy play. At the tender age of 11, I knew nothing about how graphics worked or the fact that the game was just pre-recorded video, I just knew that the game looked like a f’cking cartoon and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t comprehend how this dude was making all that cool stuff happen on the screen with just a joystick and a button, but I wanted to learn. It was quite a while later until I actually had a go on one of the Dragon’s Lair machine, because it was always engaged by people bigger than me with stacks of tokens on the deck. But I was often content with biding my time and watching the “gameplay” in a state of awe. When I finally did get to play, I was a little disappointed at how simple it was, but I was still drawn to play it so I could see all there was to see.

Fast forward to now and Laser Disc games are seen as something of a joke. Turns out they were really just the video version of a choose-your-own-adventure novel and a dark period in gaming history that would lead to the dreaded FMV era of PC gaming. But that’s never soured me on the likes of Dragon’s Lair. It was the simple and endearing tale of bungling knight, Dirk the Daring, setting out to rescue his main squeeze, Princess Daphne from the clutches of the evil dragon, Singe. The gorgeous and expressive artwork by Don Bluth, the fabulous music, that iconic narrator’s voice, and the character of Dirk the Daring all live on in my memory as a pillar of 80’s nostalgia. In the end it might have been a shitty game, and yet it was so much more. I’ve owned many home versions, I still play the revamped 3D Xbox game from time to time, and I even have vague memories of watching the cartoon. When action figures were announced as a tie in to the Dragon’s Lair 3D game, I jumped at the chance to pick them up.

The initial (and only) assortment consisted of carded versions of Dirk, Daphne, and Mordroc the Wizard. There was also a Deluxe figure of Singe, which came in a window box. Singe is the only figure in the lot I never got around to buying. They didn’t have him on the shelf when I bought the others, and since his scale was way off, I was never too gung ho about hunting him down and now he sells for a lot of money. These figures were made by a company called Anjon, which seems to have already vanished into the dustbin of history. Let’s get Mordroc out of the way first, and then tomorrow we’ll come back around and check out Dirk and Daphne. I don’t have a packaged shot of Mordroc, so enjoy the above stock image that I cribbed off of Ebay.

While all of these figures are tied in to Dragon’s Lair 3D for the Xbox and PlayStation2, Mordroc was originally featured in Dragon’s Lair II, so if you aren’t a fan of the revamp at least these figures offer a little something from each of the two vintage Laser Disc games. I honestly don’t think I’ve played Dragon’s Lair 2 more than once, so this character doesn’t have a whole lot of gravitas for me. He is, nevertheless, a cool figure and a nice example of the Don Bluth character design in 3D form.

Mordroc always looked more like a witch to me, probably because of his warts, and his long protruding nose and chin and the long grey hair that hangs down each side of his head. There’s definitely something asexual about him, maybe a goatee would have helped assure me of his manhood. The sculpted skin texture is all very good and I like the pale green paint they used for his flesh. The face is very expressive with one eye squinting and he’s got a really creepy smile and piercing yellow eyes. His robes are all sculpted in soft plastic and separate from the figure’s body and his long hair is also cast in very rubbery plastic. This guy couldn’t have been an easy design to work with for an action figure, but I’ll hand it to Anjon because they did a mighty fine job of it, right down to his hump.

You get some basic articulation here. The neck and shoulders are all ball jointed, the wrists have swivel cuts, the legs feature a T-crotch, and his ankles have swivel cuts. It’s pretty obvious Mordroc was meant for one specific pose, holding his staff in both hands across his body as if he’s about to unleash some bad mojo on you, but you can get a little bit of variation out of him.

In addition to his staff, Mordroc originally came with a pair of “Ding Bats,” which were just little rubber bats. ~~I can’t find them for the life of me. If I ever turn them up, I’ll be sure to do an update, but you can see them well enough in the packaged shot.~~ Found them! They were at the very bottom of the drawer and I had to pull out about a thousand McFarlane figures to find them. They’re just little squishy guys that remind me of Trash Packs or Squinkies only much better sculpted and painted. They’ve got a lot of personality, but they’re not easy to display and I never really knew what to do with them.

Despite being the main baddie in the second game, Mordroc certainly doesn’t have the street cred of Singe. I still dig this figure a lot. The quality and paintwork are both good and it captures the style of Don Bluth’s animation perfectly. If nothing else he’s a nice companion piece for the two real stars of this collection. Tomorrow, I’ll check out Dirk and Daphne.

Dragon’s Lair cabinet images and artwork courtesy of International Arcade Museum.

Apr 4 2013

Transformers Prime: Wheeljack by Hasbro

A few weeks back I hit the mother lode of Transformers: Prime figures at Ross and I’m still making my way through them. I think Wheeljack here is the second to the last that I have yet to feature. I did pick up an extra Vehicon, which I couldn’t resist for $5.99, but I already looked at the Vehicon quite a while ago so there’s no need to revisit him. Tonight, I have ~~to go out with friends and get shitfaced~~ a social obligation, so let’s get right to the good stuff…

It’s quite possible that this will be the last time we look at the Transformers: Prime Deluxe packaging here on FigureFan Zero. I liked it a lot. While I never would have guessed that a white card could have conveyed the Transformers brand all that well, Hasbro knew what they were doing here because they’re very attractive cards. Every time I walked into the toy aisle and saw the pegs full of this packaging, my eyes would be drawn to them… and then I would wish they weren’t all goddamn Bumblebees. Wheeljack’s character art is ok, but nothing exceptional. The back of the card shows some shots of the toy and has Wheeljack’s little bio blurb. As with all the Deluxes that I picked up at Ross, this figure comes with an episode of the series on DVD and they have all been the same one: “Loose Cannons.” Still, the DVD can easily be re-purposed into something useful.

I will admit, that it’s an appropriate episode to include with this figure since it was the one which introduced Wheeljack to the show. I didn’t care much for his character in Prime. I would rather they wrote Wheeljack as some kind of eccentric science nerd hanging out with Ratchet than be a former Wrecker ass-kicker. Nevertheless, there’s enough of a G1 homage in the design to make me want the figure. Anyway, Wheeljack comes carded in his vehicle mode, and that is where we will start!

Hells yeah! That’s an awesome car mode. Wheeljack’s alt form is a dead sexy sports car with curves in all the right places. He locks together well and rolls along great. My only complaint here is it almost looks as if Wheeljack is missing his front bumper. The reason is so that you can attach his twin swords to the front of the car, which I’ll admit is a cool gimmick. You can also attach his swords to the peg holes on the back sides of the car. They don’t seem like they would be very effective weapons when pegged back there, but they do look cool there. I’m also happy to report that the plastic here feels so much better than some of the other TF: Prime Deluxes in my collection.

Wheeljack’s deco shows just how far these TF:Prime Deluxes have come since Bumblebee. The bare white plastic looks great as do the crisp red and green paint apps. He’s also got a clear blue tinted windshield. Even his tail lights are painted, which may sound like a simple thing, but it’s practically a high-end perk when it comes to these TF: Prime Deluxes. Everything about this car mode really evokes the G1 character to me.

Transforming Wheeljack is pretty straight forward, although there are a few clever things going on with his arms and legs. It actually took me a few moments to figure out how to do his lower legs and once I realized what was going on I had one of those great “gee whiz” moments when you discover how the engineering works for the first time.

In robot mode, the G1 Wheeljack homage continues along quite well. The head sculpt is the Wheeljack I know and love only with a little bit of a stylized twist. In the cartoon he has a regular mouth and a face plate for battle and I’m very glad that Hasbro sculpted the figure with the face plate deployed. The curvy car panels look great on his arms and legs and I’m digging the addition of the two panels that rise up from behind his head. Yeah, his proportions are a little off, he’s got a case of the monkey arms, and the windshield kibble hanging off his arms is a little awkward, but the figure still looks great. Wheeljack can hold his swords in both hands.

Wheeljack is some kind of bad-ass Wrecker, so you’d expect him to have decent articulation and his figure delivers. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. The arms have hinges just below the shoulder and again at the elbows. The wrists have both swivels and hinges. The knees have ratcheting hinges.

The deco in robot mode is more or less the same as his car mode. Again, the base white plastic looks great, as does the red and green paint apps. I was a little upset that he didn’t come with a faction symbol. I know that Hasbro has left them out of some other recent figures while they’re present on the package figure shots. In this case, however, he doesn’t have any on the package pics and I’m thinking there’s some reason in the series that he doesn’t have one? Either way, I dipped into my file of repro labels and gave him an Autobot insignia anyway.

Wheeljack is a great figure and everything about him shows how far the TF: Prime line has come since the beginning. There’s nothing about this toy that feels it was a victim of Hasbro’s cost-cutting cutbacks. The plastic looks and feels great, the paint apps are good, and the engineering is clever and delivers a satisfying transformation. He feels like the quality of figure we used to get a few years back before all this “holy shit, plastic is expensive” nonsense. If you’re a fan of the show or just love G1 Wheeljack, I think there’s something to love about this figure for everyone. The joke is for every five visits I make to Ross, I probably only find something worthwhile a couple of times. But, if Wheeljack hadn’t turned up there I probably never would have owned him and that makes me want to keep checking. At least there’s a Five Guys Hamburgers next door, so it’s never a wasted trip.

Apr 3 2013

Farscape Series 2: Rygel (“Dominar of Hyneria”) by Toy Vault

Since Marvel Universe has taken over Mondays for the time being, I thought I’d just stick my newest Farscape figure in here. It’s everyone’s favorite Hynerian curmudgeon, Rygel. Actually, for a lot of fans he’s probably that character you love to hate or maybe hate to love, but he’s definitely one of my favorite characters on the show. Besides the amazing animatronics that bring him to life, the writers really managed to layer some depth into him. Sure, he’s usually just a foul-mouthed, misogynistic opportunist who would slit his own grandmother’s throat for a space-dollar, but we also get to see his vulnerabilities and maybe even a glimmering of heroism from time to time. Given my druthers, he probably would have been the first Farscape figure I bought, but he tends to be tough to find and often rather pricey. To the packaging!

Ok, nothing new here. The card retains the same deco influenced by Moya’s architecture. Rygel is a tiny guy, but Toy Vault has managed to spread him out with his accessories so that the bubble is still filled out nicely. The back of the card shows character portraits of the three other figures in Series 2 and a rather poor group shot of the Series 1 figures. My Rygel’s card is in pretty rough shape and the insert in the bubble is all askew. Good thing I didn’t buy him to keep him carded… Let’s rip this yotz open…

Yup, that’s Rygel all right! The folks at Toy Vault did a mighty nice job sculpting the Dominar of Hyneria. He’s got the beady eyes, the expressive ears, and the perpetually downturned and disapproving mouth. Even all the little folds of skin under his chin are all lovingly recreated here. Rygel’s tiny body is covered with a glorious velvety soft goods robe and his communicator is attached to the collar. There isn’t a lot to the rest of the figure, just his little hands and feet, which give him his total of four points of articulation. The paintwork on the figure is excellent. The variations in his skin color match his on screen counterpart really well. I’m not all that keen on the little animation-style reflection dots on his eyes, but that’s more an issue of my personal preference than any complaint about the paint quality.

Rygel can stand perfectly fine on his own, but in the series he’s rarely seen without his little flying throne, so naturally Toy Vault provided their Rygel figure with a little scaled version. I’m a little torn on the throne. On the one hand, the sculpt really is wonderfully detailed. Almost every bit of it is pimped out with ornate scrollwork, and the detail on the cushion is extremely convincing. There’s even a ball jointed joystick for him to pilot it around. On the downside, it feels just a tad undersized. When you sit Rygel in it, you can barely see the chair at all. I’m thinking it may be more because of the poufy robes than the chair itself, but it’s such a gorgeous little piece, I wish you could see more of it with Rygel on it.

In addition to his throne, Rygel comes with a small assortment of other accessories from specific episodes. These are mostly tiny and useless. From “Durka Returns” you get the little tray of explosives and the bomb sphere he used to try to kill his former Peacekeeper captor, Durka. The crystal seems to be the one from “DNA Mad Scientist,” and unfortunately looks more like a dildo than anything else. As for the tiny useless dagger, well I’m pretty sure Rygel’s had that in a number of episodes. Nothing here is all that special and he can’t even really hold any of it, so the accessories don’t really add value to the figure. They’re mostly just tiny things that will likely get lost. If you’re hunting a Rygel, you’re much better off going for the variant. At least that one comes with a hookah pipe.

Unfortunately, like many of the Farscape figures, Rygel can be damned expensive on the secondary market. I lucked out and was able to pick up mine for $30. That’s still an awful lot of money for this figure, but considering he’s rarely seen on Ebay under $60-80, I guess I should just be satisfied to have him in my collection. And that will leave me with just John Crichton to hunt down. Truth be told, I’m not as eager to pick up the rest of this line as I once was. Partly because of the prices (Scorpius and Crais go for way too much money), and partly because I’m not really digging Season 3 all that much. Maybe as I press on through Season 4, my fondness for the show will be rekindled.

Apr 2 2013

The Dark Knight Rises: Movie Masters Bane and Catwoman by Mattel

The Dark Knight Rises came and went and you didn’t see any of the toys covered here. Some of you know I’m not a massive fan of the Batman fiction these days, but I’m even less a fan of the pretentious and depressing Nolan films as a whole. Not to overstate things, I happen to think The Dark Knight was excellent, but Batman Begins put me to sleep, and I thought The Dark Knight Rises was a drawn out snooze fest. Obviously, I’m in the minority opinion on this one, so try not to hate me for it. Nonetheless, I turned these figures up when I was at Ross the other day looking for more Transformers. There weren’t any more Transformers, probably because I already bought them all, so I decided I could find a place for this pair on my DC shelves.

The figures come on these generic cards with printed inserts with the specific character’s name. The packages are as grey and depressing as the films, so I suppose that’s a good marketing tie-in. The insert also advertises the fact that each figure comes with a piece of the Collect & Connect Bat Signal. I think that’s a pretty cool idea, although I’ll never buy all these figures so and I have too many spare parts rattling around my DC accessory drawer, so these went right into the trash. Let’s start with Bane.

Oddly enough, I’m more of a Bane fan than a Batman fan these days. Most of my Bane love comes from having read Gail Simone’s awesome Secret Six and her wonderful portrayal of the character. It’s probably that very reason why I took so much issue to the Nolan redesign. Before seeing the movie, I hated Bane’s new look. It was more like a Mortal Kombat reject than the Bane I knew. After seeing the movie, I still wasn’t crazy about it, but Hardy did such a great job with the character, I was willing to be more accepting. His performance, along with Michael Caine’s, are the only reasons I made it all the way through that film. Nowadays, the film has so saturated the media, that for good or for ill, I find myself more accepting of the design.

Mattel’s version of Bane is a fantastic representation of the character from the film. It’s often hard enough to get a likeness right, but when all you have to work with are the eyes, well that makes this figure all the more impressive because I can definitely see Hardy in the eyes. The face harness is what it is. The rest of the figure features excellent sculpted detail for his various straps and rigging and his pants and boots. The jacket is a soft plastic sleeveless piece and figure’s arms are sculpted like the sleeves to the jacket. We’ve seen this method plenty of times from both Mattel and Hasbro. The effect works fine, and while you can take the jacket off, he looks silly with the sleeve arms still there. Both of Bane’s hands are just balled into fists, which I guess is appropriate enough. Even the paintwork on this guy is a homerun.

Bane’s articulation is fairly similar to the DCUC system, with just a couple of cutbacks. He features ball joints in the neck and shoulders. The arms have hinges at the elbows and swivels at the wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC hip joints as well as swivels in the thighs and hinges in the knees and ankles. Bane can swivel at the waist and he has the usual ab-crunch hinge. The only things conspicuously missing are the swivels in the biceps.

Next up is Catwoman. Catwoman is actually one of the few DC books I’m still reading on a regular basis. Sure, the Nolanverse is different from the New 52, but at least I can better relate to the character on some level. Anne Hathaway was certainly nice to look at in the suit, although the portrayal of the character really didn’t break any ground or do a lot for me. Mattel delivered a solid enough figure here, although she isn’t as impressive as Bane. The likeness is ok, but not spectacular. I will say I’m rather impressed with the detail on the mask and “ears” even if they are stuck in the upright position. A swappable head would have been nice, but I’m guessing Mattel shot their load with the Bat Signal.

Obviously, Catwoman doesn’t require as much sculpting or paintwork as Bane. She’s just wearing a textured black suit and a belt. The figure barely manages to capture some of Hathaway’s impossible curves, while still being appropriate to hang on the pegs in the toy aisles. There are some nice little touches, particularly the way the spiked heels came out and the texturing on the suit. Unfortunately, there’s a nasty flub of flesh paint on my figure’s torso, just under her chin. I may be able to clean this up, but considering how few paint apps Catwoman has, it’s disappointing that Mattel couldn’t get it right.

Catwoman features the same articulation as Bane, only she managed to get the bicep swivels that Bane missed out on. I guess it makes sense. After all, Catwoman should be more poseable than Bane. On the other hand, her sculpted hair severely inhibits her neck articulation.

Apart from a little limited articulation on Bane and the paint app flub on Catwoman, I think these figures turned out pretty damn well. I love the fact that they fit in nicely with the DCUC line I was really surprised Ross didn’t have Batman, seeing as the pegs of my Target and Walmart were always clogged with Batman and no one else. I hunted around, but just found a couple more Banes. If they did have Batman, I would have definitely picked him up too, as I do like the Nolan Batman design and the only figure version I have of it is the 5” figure from the second film. Either way, I like this pair enough that I will probably hunt down a DKR Batman to go with him. He shouldn’t be hard to find.

Apr 1 2013

Marvel Universe: Steve Rogers by Hasbro

It’s Marvel Monday and as usual I’m recovering from a weekend of bacchian debauchery mixed with working a lot. I’ve accordingly selected an MU figure that will not require a lot of my time so that I can crawl back under the covers and try to wish reality away to the cornfield. Today we’re looking at Steve Rogers. He’s one of those figures that have been given both the Universe and Legends treatment, and while I’m not usually one to double-dip between scales, it tickled me to have a Steve Rogers that can hang out with my GI Joes and show them how to take care of business. Besides, the Legends version of Steve Rogers was one of my favorite action figures of 2012, so I was curious to see how the 3 ¾” version turned out.

It’s the MU packaging! Steve here is actually from one of the older waves, before Hasbro replaced a useful, value-added figure stand with a stupid little piece of cardboard printed to look like a comic cover. Great idea! The package has the SHIELD emblem on the front and the back shows three other figures in the wave. I purchased none of these! I didn’t feel the need to own Sub-Mariner in a speedo, I already have the Ultron from the Secret Wars pack, and Darkhawk… seriously, Hasbro? Darkhawk??? Actually, the joke’s on me because if I had actually seen him on the pegs, I would probably have picked him up. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of the character art used here, but the figure sure looks great under the bubble with his stand behind him and a pair of guns. Even from just seeing him in the package, I knew this was a figure I had to buy. Still, it seems like there’s something missing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it… oh well… it’ll come to me.

Straight away, this figure reminds me of a shrunken down version of the Legends figure, and that is very high praise. In fact, I have only two negative things to say about Rogers, so let me get them out of the way first. The quality of plastic doesn’t feel as good as the better single-carded figures. This feels like the gritty, softer stuff Hasbro liked to use in some of the older comic packs. It’s not bad enough to ruin the figure, by any means, but it does keep this figure from achieving a status of near perfection in my eyes. Fortunately, none of the joints on my figure are warped, which is usually the case with this softer plastic. The other negative point is that Rogers is missing a socket in his back. I can’t quite remember why that omission is important… oh well… I’m sure it’ll come to me.

So, first off Steve’s portrait is excellent. It doesn’t have all the personality that the Legends figure had, but I’m giving Hasbro a break for the smaller scale and because the head sculpt is just really clean and looks great. Even the hair is impressively done. The bulk of the figure uses a very nicely articulated, muscular buck with a mix of paintwork and added parts to customize the outfit. The shoulder harness and belt are new, separate pieces and fit the figure really well, as do the belted wraps on his lower legs. Even the hands on this guy are impressive, with uniquely sculpted fingerless gloves and wonderful paint.

In fact, all the paintwork on this figure is solid. Sure, there are a few stray marks here and there, but the white printed emblems on his shirt and shoulders looks bright and crisp, as do the stripes running down his trousers. Even the tiny silver buckles on his gear and gloves are lovingly dressed with a little metallic silver paint. I’m not always a fan of the paint wash Hasbro uses for the MU figures, but here I think it does more good then harm.

In addition to his personalized stand, Steve comes with a handgun and an assault rifle and… oh yeah, that’s what I was forgetting… WHERE IS HIS SHIELD??? Ok, so I agree that it isn’t a necessity for this appearance of the character, but since Hasbro included it with the Legends version, it seems conspicuous by its absence here. In fairness this guy has already won the Marvel Universe accessory jackpot since two weapons and a stand is better than the usual NOTHING AT ALL! Not a huge deal, as I have plenty of 3 ¾” scale shields lying around, but then the absence of a hole in his back to peg it is kind of annoying too. As for the guns, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this rifle a half dozen times already and the pistol… my cat batted it off a desk and into his litter box. I’m not going in after it. My cat is an asshole.

All quibbles aside, Steve Rogers is a fantastic figure. He’s got a solid sculpt, great paintwork, and lots of cool little attention to detail. Best of all, this is the version of Cap that I’ve always envisioned as being perfect for my most coveted of all fanboy-fueled Marvel-GI Joe crossovers. Watch out, Cobra!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Monthly Archives: April 2013

Masters of the Universe Classics: Frosta by Mattel

Star Wars Unleashed: Boba Fett (Target Exclusive) by Hasbro

Iron Man 2: Whiplash (Ivan Vanko) by Hasbro

Dragon’s Lair Figures! by Anjon Toys, Part 2

Dragon’s Lair Figures! by Anjon Toys, Part 1

Transformers Prime: Wheeljack by Hasbro

Farscape Series 2: Rygel (“Dominar of Hyneria”) by Toy Vault

The Dark Knight Rises: Movie Masters Bane and Catwoman by Mattel

Marvel Universe: Steve Rogers by Hasbro

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