Just bored and screwing around…
Monthly Archives: November 2013
Transformers: Masterpiece Streak (MP-18) by Takara
Speeding along, hot on the trail of his Autobot brother Prowl, comes the second in Takara’s line of Masterpiece Datsuns: Bluestreak… or just Streak if you prefer. It took me a lot of hemming and hawing before deciding to buy Prowl, mainly because of Takara’s less than stellar Quality Control on these toys, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t also the case with Bluestreak here. Nonetheless, I rolled the dice, hoping that since my Prowl had some issues, maybe it was my chance to get lucky here and the gamble paid off! Normally, I do special releases like this in two parts, but since Bluestreak is a straight repaint of Prowl with a new head, I think we can do him justice in one day, particularly if I can just assume that you’ve come equipped and have already read the feature on Prowl.
As expected, we get the same style of enclosed box as Prowl. The layout and deco are all identical. Streak comes packaged in his auto mode with his gun beside him. The package isn’t flashy, but I do enjoy the collector friendly simplicity of it. It’s durable and should serve collectors well for storage. Inside you also get a pouch with a folded instruction sheet and a profile card. If you opted to pay a little extra, you might even have a collector coin!
So, first thing’s first. My Streak arrived without any of the QC issues that I feared. In fact, I’d dare say that the paint on this guy is just about perfect. This is the kind of quality that I like to see on a Masterpiece figure. Well done, Takara. Next up, the deco is just dead sexy. The combination of metallic silver and high gloss black really does it for me in spades. Just calling it metallic silver doesn’t do it justice. It’s some kind of grey-silver mix that looks just outstanding in person. As for the rest of the paint, well the lines are crisp and clean, right down to the Autobot emblem stamped on the hood and, speaking of the hood, I do love that tiny little Nissan emblem on the front of the bonnet. Gone is the police light bar on the roof and in its place we get the stylish T-Roof with some nice silver striping. Other than that, the sculpt here is identical to Prowl right down to the side view mirrors on the front fenders. Marvelous!
As gorgeous as Streak’s auto mode is, I still think it’s in robot mode that this guy really shines. You still get all that great silver and glossy black paint with some red plastic thrown in to make the figure pop. I really dig the way the bright red shows through his chest, particularly at the shoulders and around the neck. It’s somehow both a dark and vibrant mix that would probably be more suited for a Decepticon, but here it just makes Streak look like a bit of a badass. Of course, the sculpt is just as breathtaking here as it is on Prowl. The proportions on the figure are wonderful and the way the door wings can be positioned straight out to mimic the original toy or angled up for that little bit of animated/comic style, well that’s just a lovely touch. Yup, the legs are still hollow from the back, but if you can look at this figure and still nitpick something like that, then I feel sorry for you, because you obviously have no joy in your black little heart.
The new head sculpt gives Streak plenty of personality and serves to set him a little apart from Prowl. He has a wider crest on the top of his head and a chin plate. I’d say it’s a slightly more youthful or playful looking visage. I also think Streak’s shoulder cannons look a lot better than Prowl’s. Sure they’re the same sculpt, but the grey plastic makes all the difference over the white. It’s a good thing too, because displaying Prowl without his cannons and Streak with his deployed makes for that nice extra touch of variety when they’re standing together on the shelf.
Of course Streak comes ready for action with his rifle, the same rifle that came with Prowl, and with weapon in hand he is loads of fun to play with and pose. The joints on my Streak are nice and tight, even more so than on Prowl and the articulation is just as excellent. I particularly dig the rockers in the feet, which allow Streak to hold a wide stance and still keep his feet flat on the floor. It still amazes me that Takara’s engineers were able to get a design that looks this good and is still so delightfuly articulated.
My inner dialogue argued with me over whether I was really going to spend $80 on a straight repaint of Prowl. I’ll concede that for a while I was considering skipping Streak until Smokescreen came along. Bluestreak was always the odd bot out of this trio and I never really had any love for the character, at least not like I do for Prowl and Smokescreen. Then the OCD part of my brain barged in on the conversation and pointed out that we have no choice. We simply cannot just have two of the three on the shelf. That would be clearly unacceptable. In the end, Mr. OCD was right. These guys look spectacular together, and with a deco so drastically different, I didn’t get a single ounce of repaint fatigue when opening up Streak and checking him out. What’s more, with the beautiful paintwork on Streak, I’ll be going into the Smokescreen release with a lot more confidence than I had going into the purchase of Prowl. Bring him on, Takara!
Masters of the Universe Classics: Mantenna by Mattel
Mantenna is a great example of my relationship with the MOTU Classics line. I have no love for this character and he was as annoying as hell in the cartoon, but he’s such a creative and bizarre design and the figure is so wonderfully executed, that I absolutely had to have him on my shelf. Mantenna was released the same month as the Horde Troopers, which meant that there was a lot of new tooling invested in the October product. Normally, I would say they should have split it up better and spread all this goodness out over a couple of months, but then I was lucky enough to be home on that day to get them, so I’ll just keep my mouth shut.
The packaging is the usual Greyskull-inspired card and bubble. I thought Mantenna might warrant something bigger because of his odd configuration, but Mattel was able to get him into the standard package quite comfortably. He’s carded with his regular eyes in place and his extra set of peepers are concealed at the bottom behind the insert. There’s a Horde sticker on the bubble. There’s not a lot else to say about the presentation here, except that it’s as awesome as ever and I am now going to destroy it.
There’s no doubt that Eternia and Etheria are full of a bunch of freaks, but most of them have some basis in logic. Oh, look that guy’s a “beast man!” That chick looks like a scorpion. There’s a fellow with three eyes! Mantenna, however, takes the Etherian Handbook of Freaks and tosses it straight out the window. His design is pure imagination and it works splendidly. He’s also a delightful blend of goofiness and sheer horror. He may be a bumbling goon, but if you woke up and this thing was standing at the foot of your bed, you’d have some sheets to launder because you will have shat in them. But it’s not just this guy’s creative anatomy that makes him special… everything on this guy is just fantastic. Even the armor is gorgeous with the Horde emblem brilliantly sculpted into his chest and again on each of his four grieves.
But it’s not just the design that makes me love Mantenna, it’s the absolutely brilliant way Matty crafted him into action figure form. The Classics version is a satisfying mix of vintage toy and 200x design. The head sculpt is a nightmare circus of bulging jaundiced eyes, a toothy vagina for a mouth and vestigial tusks. Toss in some deformed Mogwai ears and you’ve got yourself an undeniably gorgeous piece of work. He’s in a class all by himself and his portrait alone will make him stand his own against even the strangest figures in most collections.
Naturally, the other thing that makes Mantenna distinctive is his two sets of legs. Both pairs are scaled just like regular MOTUC legs and attached to a specially sculpted double-pelvis so as not to mess with articulation. It looks great and wonderfully wrong at the same time, rather like staring at the Geometry of the Old Gods. I’d love to see someone do a stop-motion video of this guy skittering along, because it would probably freak me the hell out. With four legs, now is as good a time to talk articulation as any. From the waist up, things are what you would expect from a MOTUC figure, but the legs are a little different. You get ball joints and swivels at the hips and at the knees. The ankles have hinges and rocker joints as well. It’s great to see that Matty didn’t cheap out and Mantenna is every bit as poseable as he should be while keeping him at a regular monthly figure price point.
Beyond the bizarre design and excellent sculpt, I’ve got to say that Mantenna represents a beautiful selection of colors. The bright red, yellow, and orange contrast wondrfully with the darker blues and blacks. The use of a high gloss metallic blue for his boots and knee armor is a nice surprise and it makes those pieces stand out from his blue skin.
Of course, Mantenna can also stick out his peepers to ridiculous lengths and Matty reproduced this gimmick in the figure by providing a pair of swappable extended eyes. Making the switch is easy, as all you need to do is pull off the mouth and then pop out the one set of eyes and peg in the others. If you didn’t think this guy was unsettling enough, try looking into the soulless abyss of his face without his mouth or eyes attached. And the result of pegging in his popping eyes makes an already freaky figure even more bizarre and disturbing. The eye stalks are disgusting and veiny and take what was an innocent, goofy toy gimmick and elevate it to an artful form of anatomical gore. It’s simply splendid. The figure wouldn’t be Mantenna without this feature, but I doubt I’ll ever display him with the eyes popping out. My MOTUC collection is currently residing on some shelves in my bedroom and quite frankly, I like to sleep at night, thank you very much.
In addition to the extra set of eyes, Mantenna comes with the ubiquitous Horde crossbow. Obviously everyone got one of these at orientation. Mantenna’s has an awesome sculpt and a nice metallic silver painted finish. He can hold it in either hand.
October was a crazy-awesome month for Club Eternia and Mantenna is a big part of the reason why. I had very high expectations for him and he managed to exceed them with all his freaky charm. I love everything about this figure: It’s design, sculpt, coloring, articulation… it’s all fantastic. He’s one of those cases where I don’t even think about how expensive these things are getting with shipping because the end justifies the means. Had I missed him on Sale Day, I would have had no choice but scramble to get him on the secondary market, and I shudder to think how high I would have gone. All this, mind you, for a character I don’t even care much about. To me, that’s how good Matty is making some of these figures. This Summer, after a great deal of hand wringing, I eventually caved and subbed Club Eternia for next year. I’ve reassessed that decision many times since, but October’s releases make me so very glad I did. With Two-Bad and Modulok following in Mantenna’s wake, I think it was the right decision!
Transformers Cybertron: Menasor by Hasbro
Today I’m getting back to business as usual for Transformers Thursday with a genuinely random figure. I just walked into the Toy Closet, opened a drawer, and the first figure I put my hand on was Menasor from the Cybertron line. I seem to recall he was one of those instances where the name appeared in some retailers’ inventory system before the toy was actually announced or shown. I’m not sure if the character had been on the show at that point or not, since I never got far watching it. As a result, I was hoping for a combiner or some kind of proper homage to the Stunticons. Of course, what we got was something very different. As usual, there’s no packaging to talk about, so let’s jump straight to Menasor’s alt mode.
One of my favorite things about the Energon and Cybertron lines were some of the imaginative and purely fictional vehicle designs and Menasor certainly fits that category. What is he supposed to be? I have no idea. I think the original package called him an Assault Dozer, which certainly fits the design. He looks like a cross between a construction vehicle and a battle tank. If this thing is rolling towards you, you can probably assume that shit is about to go down. He’s very alien looking, rolls along on four sets of tank treads and sports two forward pylons with an energon drill on one and a claw on the other. For an Ultra Class figure, this guy is a very simple toy. Roll him forward and his drill spins, and that’s about all he has to offer. He does have electronics, but the batteries in mine are long since dead and I can’t remember what they did. You need only look at him to figure out that he’s basically a robot lying down with his arms held out over his head and his legs folded up. This will no doubt irk many collectors, but it doesn’t bother me.
But simple or no, Menasor’s alt mode is a beast of a war machine. As with most of this era of Transformers, he’s just loaded with sculpted detail. You get panel lines, textured vents, hatches, and little mechanical doo-dads all over the place. The paintwork also compliments the sculpt quite nicely. I’m particularly fond of the painted scratched metal on the areas near his drill and claw. It seems like a minor thing, but I love that Hasbro bothered to add such a detail and it remains some of the best paint work I’ve seen on a Hasbro Transformer. Autobots can charge this guy in waves and Menasor would probably just shrug them off and keep lumbering forward.
If you buy your Transformers for their clever engineering and puzzle-like configurations, Menasor will disappoint. As his alt mode suggests, transforming him is a simple as stretching out his legs, connecting his pelvis together, positioning his arms, and folding down the plates that hide his head. Remember Cybertron Metroplex? We looked at him a month or so ago and the engineering here is fairly close. In fact, you can even see some similarities in the way the two toys’ alt modes are set up. Quite frankly, there are Cyberverse figures with transformations that are far more complex than this guy. Does that mean he’s got a bad robot mode? Nope, but he’s definitely not your average looking Transformer.
Yes, I love this guy’s robot mode, but there’s something about it that just doesn’t feel like a Transformers figure. I lot of it has to do with his face, which sports a very, very Japanese aesthetic. Yeah, I know all these guys are designed in Japan, but I just look at his mug and I think it belongs more on a Megazord or something. Or maybe not. Truth be told, I wouldn’t know a Megazord if it stepped on me. Moving on…
Menasor’s body is an amazing sculpt packed with all the little details that were present on his Assault Dozer mode. What’s even better is he’s loaded with paint apps. There’s more paint applications on this guy than we usually get in a whole wave of current Deluxes. The little vents are painted gold, there’s blue piping on his arms, and red points scattered around to really make him pop. Toss in the crisp Decepticon insignia on his chest and the flashy translucent blue energon parts and it’s hard to argue that this guy is both distinctive and beautiful.
What he isn’t is well-proportioned, but that’s Ok. Menasor’s arms are made up of the front pylons of his Assault Dozer mode, which means he’s got a really long reach and no hands. Instead he’s got a giant claw and a drill. He’s not made for mingling at Decepticon social functions, he’s made for f’cking up Autobots. He’s also got a pair of guns on his chest that can pivot forward into firing position. If you’re an Autobot attacking this guy chances are you’re either going to get pulverized by his energon drill or snapped in half by his calw. Either way, you can probably kiss your Spark goodbye.
Menasor came with a Mini-Con called Heavy Load. I tend to keep the Mini-Cons that were originally bundled with a figure stuck on that figure so I don’t lose them, but Heavy Load wasn’t attached to Menasor. I emptied the whole drawer where Menasor was living, but I couldn’t find him. I went through all the bagged Mini-Con teams that were sold separately and he wasn’t in any of those. I was pretty bummed that I lost him because he’s actually an original sculpt and not just a repaint packed in. Then I suddenly remembered… he’s living in Menasor’s chest!
Yeah, just another reason that Menasor is an odd figure. His chest opens and Heavy Load can chill out in there while in his robot mode!
Heavy Load is a tiny Bulldozer-slash-Dump Truck. He’s a pretty simple little guy and he shares the same basic plastic coloring as Menasor. His transformation is pretty clever for such a little figure, but his robot mode looks good. He’s got pretty long arms like his daddy and his articulation is as good as you can expect from a Mini-Con pipsqueak. Menasor has a Mini-Con port on his claw arm and if you attach Heavy Load to it and slide him forward, the spike inside the claw extends outward. It’s not the most exciting Mini-Con gimmick around, but that’s why he spends most of the time living in Menasor’s torso.
Menasor is quirky and weird and in no way is he a good example of clever Transformers engineering. And yet every time I take him out of his drawer I fall in love with him all over again. He has an imaginative design and there’s a whole lot of love invested in his sculpting and paint that make him stand out as something special, even when I stand him next to the current figures on my shelf. But best of all he’s just a fun and great looking toy. He’s not going to be every TransFans cup of tea, but he’s a cool and, dare I say, menacing Decepticon to have tearing his way through a squad of Autobot Deluxes. Or better yet, pit him against a bunch of Legion Class Cyberverse figures. In fact, I may go do that right now…
Doctor Who: “Seeds of Doom” Collectors’ Set by Character Options
We’re just a few weeks away from the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Sadly, Character Options hasn’t surprised us with the Classic Console Room Playset that I was secretly hoping for, but that’s Ok because I’m making my own fun by picking up some figures and sets that I passed on the first time around. Which brings us to today’s “Seeds of Doom” set. “Seeds of Doom” is a fantastic story that I don’t watch nearly as much as I should. Seriously, if I go through Tom Baker’s catalog of stories, I tend to pop this one in fairly infrequently, and I couldn’t tell you why because it’s an absolutely cracking adventure. From the beginning scene set at a remote arctic base, reminiscent of Carpenter’s “The Thing,” to a giant plant monster wreaking havoc in the English Countryside, it’s a regular rollercoaster ride of James Bond villains, horrific people-to-plant transformations, and general thuggery. It’s brilliant! When Character Options came out with their two-pack dedicated to this episode, I dismissed it as a mere repaint set and put it pretty far down on my “To Buy” list. Now that I have it, I can see that the assessment was only partially correct. Let’s check it out…
The set comes in a compact little window box that displays the figures nicely against an illustrated backdrop of the Arctic Base seen in the episode. I love these inserts because you can use them as a little display diorama for the figures. Granted, some are better than others, and his one isn’t all that exciting, but points to CO for carrying on this practice anyway. The box deco follows what we saw in the last couple releases using a “Doctor Who” logo that is somewhat reminiscent of the Jon Pertwee years and some of the diamond motifs usually associated with Tom Baker’s title logo.
The back of the package shows some stills from the episodes and a little blurb about the story. We also get to see a little of the late, great Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah-Jane Smith. While we got some figures of her from her own show, “The Sarah-Jane Adventures,” I think i’s a shame we never got a figure of her from her days as a companion, especially when CO has done so many sets based on stories hat she starred in. You obviously secured her likeness, CO… What’s the deal? Why no “Pyramids of Mars” Sarah? Why no “Seeds of Doom” Sarah? And most importantly why no Sarah-Jane and Eldrad three-pack with both male and female versions of Eldrad and a little tupperware container with Eldrad’s hand? WHY??? Ok, moving on… let’s start with the Krynoid.
Hey, that looks familiar! Well it should, because it is a repaint and slight re-sculpt of the Axon figure that was released with The Master over three years ago. Three years??? Holy crap how time flies! Anyway, before you cry foul about the repaint, it’s worth noting that the Krynoid seen in “The Seeds of Doom” was in fact a repainted Axon costume from “The Claws of Axos,” so it’s hard to gripe about CO reusing the mold for the figure when they reused the costume in the show. I seem to recall reading that The Axon figure was originally planned as a Build-A-Figure for a wave that was never released. I believe it because he’s a pretty substantial figure comprising a heck of a lot of plastic.
I loved this sculpt back then and I love it even more now. There is so much detail baked into this mold that I dare say it looks a lot better than the actual costume, which was more akin to a green bin liner with vines glued to it. While I think the sculpt itself looks more like vegetation than whatever the Axon was supposed to be, the superb paint jobs really set these two figures apart. I’m also particularly fond of the head sculpt on this thing, which is just vaguely humanoid enough to make it creepy. There is supposed to be a human at the core of that shambling mess (people turning into plants freaks me the hell out. It did in Creepshow and Swamp Thing and it does here too). It’s also worth noting that CO also equipped the figure with some new tendrils, so it isn’t the straight repaint that it could have been. That’s class, CO. Plus, for a giant, overstuffed bag of salad, the Krynoid has a fair amount of articulation. The shoulders and hips are ball jointed, and there are swivels in the wrists and ankles. The Krynoid can also swivel his head and again at the waist. Not bad.
And then there’s The Doctor as portrayed by Tom Baker. One of the reasons I was slow to pick up this set was because I already have almost a half-dozen 4th Doctor figures in my collection (and god help me, I have another in the mail to me as we speak). Yes, I wish I could send this feature back in time to my ten-year old self so he can hear me complain about having too many 4th Doctor figures. His little head would explode with jealousy and rage. Nonetheless, this figure does feature Baker in one of his more distinctive ensembles, so in the end, I was willing to break down and add him to my collection. Little did I realize that this one would be one of my favorites. That’s an odd notion for me to wrap my head around because for me the iconic 4th Doctor will always be him in his brownish-burgundy coat, not this light grey one. And yet, this figure is so wonderfully executed, it’s impossible not to set it up there among my top Tom Bakers.
Sure, there’s some parts recycling here, and to be honest, with six of these guys on my shelf now, I have no idea which one came out when or how or with what. I am pretty sure this is the same hatted head that was released as an extra with the first single carded release of Baker as The Doctor way back when. As such, it’s easily popped off, so if you want to make a version of this Doctor without his hat, it’s just a quick head-swap away. The portrait isn’t superb, but it’s Ok and to be honest it’s one that always looks slightly better in person mainly because of the eyes. Baker’s distinctive likeness must be hard to sculpt. CO has had some absolute spot-on likeness in this line, but Baker has never quite been one of them. The scarf is also a repaint of the same scarf that’s been recycled a bunch of times and the legs appear to be the same too. But here’s where we get into new territory.
The sculpted tie is new to me and the cross-thatch texture on the coat is remarkably striking. It could have been a quick and dirty repaint, but instead it really makes the figure look fresh and stand out among the other versions of this incarnation. And speaking of repaints, nothing on this figure is quick and dirty, well… except maybe the sloppy hat band. The shoes are beautifully painted, as is the plaid on his vest. Even the elbow patches and individual buttons on the coat show some superb work.
In addition to The Doctor’s ubiquitous sonic screwdriver, this set also comes with some accessories. You get a seed pod, which looks like a brussel sprout, as well as a hatching one with the vine coming out of it. You also get what the set refers to as a cutlass. I know my swords and I’m pretty sure a cutlass has to have a curved blade. Nonetheless, who doesn’t want a sword to go with their figures? I bought one of CO’s terrible Robin Hood figures just to get some of the weapons, and now I have two swords so The Doctor and The Master can dual.
And that, folks, is “The Seeds of Doom” set. This is a set that we all knew would be coming sooner or later when we first saw The Axon figure, but I’m sure I wasn’t alone in hoping that it would be packaged with a Sarah-Jane and not another 4th Doctor. That having been said, I think this turned out to be one of the best versions of him I have, and as you can see, I have plenty. I was able to nab these figures for $25, and I’m mighty happy about it. Other, less insane Doctor Who fans would be happy to add their sixth Tom Baker figure to the shelf and call it a day, but not me. Next week, we’ll revisit CO’s Classic Doctor Who line with yet another set containing yet another version of The 4th Doctor! Please have your jelly babies ready.
Marvel Legends: Hyperion and Hit Monkey by Hasbro
Today I’m finally getting around to wrapping up the triumvirate of Marvel Legends figures needed to build Hit Monkey. We’ve looked at Protector and Red She-Hulk, so now it’s time to give Hyperion his due. As a character, Hyperion has existed in many versions across the multiverse, and as much as I’m enjoying the current run of Hickman’s Avengers, I’m both perplexed and happy that Hasbro chose to do his more classic look over his current appearance. A buddy of mine told me this is close to his appearance on the current Avengers Assemble cartoon, but I wouldn’t know, as I’m still boycotting that show over the outrageous cancellation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Yeah… take that Disney! Feel the wrath of my lone boycott in your pocketbook! I’ll be waiting patiently for an apology and a return of my beloved show when your damn mouse is begging on the street with a tin cup.
Oh, look, it’s another variant figure package in which we will likely never see the variant figure. Hyperion shares the same card with Sentry, or at least he does so hypothetically, since I’ll only believe that figure will be produced when I see it on the pegs. It seems like Sentry wasn’t done all that long ago in the Legends line, but I don’t have him on my shelf, so I’d welcome another release should it ever happen. Either way, Hyperion looks great on the card and he shares the tray with a couple of monkey arms and a pair of automatic pistols. Let’s get him out of the package…
Have I mentioned how glad I am that Hasbro went with this version of the character? I don’t mind his darker Marvel Now look, but this right here is far more appealing to me in action figure form. It has that colorful Golden Age style goodness baked right in. It’s a nice powerful buck that suits him quite well, although it looks familiar as I’m pretty sure my Wrecking Crew are comprised from some of these parts. There’s not a lot of unique sculpting on this guy as he gets by with a painted costume. The red is vibrant and beautiful, the gold, I would have liked to match the yellow in his boots, and there are a few minor flubs, but overall it looks Ok.
I’ve gone on record many times about how much I dig many of the head sculpts Hasbro is turning out for this line and Hyperion is no different. He’s a bit pissed and severe, but it’s a portrait that is absolutely brimming with personality. I’d set it up there with some of the best work we’ve seen out of this line this year.
The only thing that really mars this figure for me is the execution of the cape. It’s sculpted in two parts and pegs into two places. The bulk of the cape looks fine, it’s the top piece that just kind of hovers over his right shoulder. It seems like they should have just glued the cape into place, particularly the shoulder clasp. I might even go ahead and do it myself.
Hyperion sports some great articulation. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, double hinged at the elbows, swivel at the biceps, and have swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, hinged at the ankles with additional rockers, and swivel at the thighs and boots. His neck is ball jointed, he can swivel at the waist, and he has a nice ratcheting joint for an ab-crunch. He’s a solid figure and loads of fun to pose.
Hyperion is a very cool figure and definitely another win for Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line. When I think back to the dark days when they first acquired the line from Toy Biz, it continues to astound me just how much they turned this bus around. But wait, we’re not done yet. We still have to talk about a certain monkey. Hit Monkey was a pretty obscure character until some foul-mouthed little girl named Chloe played him in a movie and now nerds everywhere seem to love him. Wait… what? Let me double check my facts on that and get back to you. Most people seem to attribute Hit Monkey’s debut to the pages of Deadpool, but I’m pretty sure Hit Monkey got his own one-shot book before gracing the pages of The ‘Pool. Either way, he’s the creation of Daniel Way, so the two are practically brothers.
Whether you know the character or not, it’s hard to deny the charm of this little guy. He’s a monkey… in a suit… wearing sunglasses… and dual wielding a pair of pistols. He’s hilarious and cool and I would imagine that if I never picked up a Marvel comic in my life, let alone one with Hit Monkey in it, I’d still want this guy on my shelf. The paint and sculpt for the head are very well done and the jacket is a soft plastic vest-like piece with the arms sculpted to look like sleeves. His guns are great and he can hold them in both his hands quite well, which is more than I could say for Protector or Fantomex.
Hit Monkey has great articulation for a little guy. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles. His elbows and knees are hinged. His legs have swivels in the thighs and he has another swivel in the waist. My only gripe here is that it’s really tough to get the ball joints in the shoulders to peg in securely. Mine still pop out from time to time when I’m playing with him.
So, yeah… Hit Monkey is an entertaining enough character, and I’m glad he got a figure, even if I’m not sure this was necessarily the best way to do it. I still prefer Hasbro save the BAF slots for figures that are too big or complex to fit in the single release price point. You could argue Hit Monkey falls in the opposite end of that spectrum, but they could just as easily slapped him in a box set… maybe with that red and black Deadpool variant that we still haven’t seen released around these parts. Just saying.
And yeah, technically I’m still not done with this wave, as I’ve yet to pick up the X-Force Wolverine. I haven’t found him on the pegs yet and I haven’t been going out of my way to hunt him down. But I’d be willing to bet you’ll see him turn up here eventually. If nothing else I need him to keep my X-Force Deadpool company.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Horde Troopers by Mattel
Every now and again the stars align themselves in my favor and the universe blows me a kiss. Such was the case on Tuesday the 15th of October when I just happened to be off on the day the Horde Troopers and Mantenna went up for sale on Matty Collector. Next to Ram Man, these were easily the most anticipated figures for me this year and the very releases that made me go, “Oh shit, now I kind of wish I had subbed” because I knew how hard they were going to be to get. To make matters worse, that week I had Q4 planning meetings virtually every single afternoon. But, as it turned out, Tuesday the 15th was the only day that entire week that I didn’t need to be at work. It was the one day I could be sitting comfortably in my sweatpants at my computer at 11:59a EST. And despite having a few scares on the order page, I was able to purchase my figures with little fuss. It was a good thing too, because these babies sold out in under 10 minutes.
If you’ve picked up any of the MOTUC two-packs in the past, then you should know what to expect from the packaging here. This was actually my first two-pack in the line, so I was in unfamiliar territory. It’s a window box with the familiar green Greyskull stonework motif and artsy-fartsy angled sides. You get the usual Horde sticker on the window and an explosion of dialogue on the front inviting you to “Collect an army of Horde Trooper robots!” Many collectors did just that, buying eight or ten packs of these things, and the result was a quick sell-out that left others to scramble to Ebay and pay scalper prices. Oh, Matty, you seem to always know just the right spot to poke that sharp stick where it will hurt your customers the most. The troopers are laid out on a tray beside each other with all of their gear on display. It’s a nice presentation that doesn’t waste much space. If you’re careful enough, and patient with the invisible rubber bands, you can get these guys out without destroying the box.
The back of the package has the usual biography and features some other Horde figures, as well as the very elusive Spirit of Hordak figure… there’s that poking stick again! Matty be trolling you!
Out of the package, the Horde Troopers are very cool figures. Keep in mind, the two figures aren’t exactly the same. One has some minor battle scarring, which has received mixed reactions from collectors. I don’t mind it, especially since it only amounts to just three painted black blemishes, although I suppose if you are army building these, it’ll look funny to have the same blast marks in the same spots on so many of your troops. It’s not a concern for me, as I was content with a single set, so I approve of Matty’s little effort to distinguish these guys apart. Still, your mileage may vary.
Obviously, there’s a crap load of brand new tooling on these figures and it’s almost uniformly excellent. The proportions are great as these guys really do look like bulked out armored robots and the torso armor is even easily removable to reveal some new robotic sculpting on the torso of the buck underneath. It’s something that I will never do, but the extra effort is still appreciated and I think it helps make the armor more convincing. These trooper designs have always had a special place in my heart and a big part of the reason that I always liked The Horde better than Skeletor’s motley crew. Compare these guys to Skeletor’s goofy floating robots and there’s just no contest as to who had the cooler disposable army.
The one issue I take with the sculpting on this figure is in the way the heads turned out, and we’re really talking about a deliberate design choice rather than a failing in the sculpt. I so wish Matty had gone with the animated look for these guys over the vintage toy. The glowing red eyes looked so much better to me than the yellow boomerang-style band, and they didn’t even really get the look of the vintage toy visor down quite right either. The yellow part looks too large and chunky to me. It’s not a deal-breaker, the rest of the figures look way too good for something like this to ruin them. You can position the head so as to conceal part of the visor and I think that does a lot to improve the look. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some Filmation accurate heads in a Weapons pack somewhere down the road. And while we’re on the subject of the heads, yes you can easily pop them off and pop on another figure’s noggin to make them look like they are wearing the Horde armor. I love it!
Gear! You get two complete sets of gear to kit out each of the troopers. I’m not up on my He-Mans enough to know where all of this stuff came from, but I’m imagining that the designs are borrowed from both Filmation and the vintage toys. Either way, it’s a great selection of goodies and if you do happen to be troop building these guys, there’s enough variety to arm your various troops in a lot of different ways. Mattel could have cheaped out here and gave a different set of weapons to each figure, but instead each one gets it all.
First off, you get a matching staff and shield, which are probably my favorite pieces in this little arsenal. The shield is sculpted to look like the Horde symbol, and while I personally would like my shield to offer a little more protection and less artistic flair, I can’t deny that it looks great in the troopers’ hands. It looks even better when paired with the nicely sculpted red staff. I would imagine that these are more ceremonial garb… the kind of shit that Hordak has these guys hold when their standing around the The Fright Zone and trying to look regal. Why else would you put a hole in the middle of a shield? Sure they’re just robots, but replacing them must get expensive.
Next up, you get these totally bitchin black Horde crossbows. These things are awesome, It’s a great looking sculpt made all the better by the slick glossy black paint job and they have a yellow paint app towards the tip to mimic the troopers’ visors and some red painted circuitry patterns on the back.
Oddly enough, the least interesting looking weapon in the bunch will probably please a lot of fans the most. It’s the wand that these guys carried in the Filmation cartoon. It’s not much to look at, but this is the weapon that I associate with these guys the most. For display, I’ll likely be sticking with the red staff and shield. If I ever get drunk and start playing with these guys, they’ll be equipped with these little energy wands. In the end, it doesn’t matter what weapons you give them. They’re always going to wind up getting their metal asses kicked in.
If you can’t tell from all my gushing, I think this is an amazing set of figures and I’m so very pleased that I was able to snag them. Had my display space allowed for it, I probably would have tried for at least one more, just so I could display troopers with all their different gear. Unfortunately, as it stands, I already had to nix a shelf of Star Trek figures because my Horde and Rebellion collection has now grown large enough to require a shelf of their own. With two figures and a lot of weapons, this set actually feels like a good value at $55 even with the shipping thrown in, and that’s something I can’t say about a lot of the MOTUC figures. They’re almost all great, but I still usually feel like I’m paying a premium for them, even if it is a justified one. This pair is going to be a hard act to follow, but crazy enough, I think Matty managed to upstage them in the very same month with the October monthly figure. That figure was Mantenna, and we’ll circle back to him at the end of the week to bask in his awesomeness.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Nepthu by Mattel
Overall, the Filmation Sub seems to have been quite positively received by collectors. That is until we got to Nepthu. At that point it was like Matty personally took a dump in every subscriber’s breakfast cereal. Everybody poured on the hate and I didn’t get it, because the figure looked plenty cool to me. I thought an Egyptian themed wizard would look great on my shelf of Eternian weirdos and thus he was yet another figure in this sub that I was excited to see land on my doorstep.
There’s the packaging and I have very little new to say about it. It’s as awesome as ever. There’s no sticker or anything to distinguish this as part of the Filmation Sub, so if you’re a MOC collector, it’ll fit right in with the rest of your packages. The insert in the bubble dubs Nepthu as the “Wicked Sun Sorcerer” although in the cartoon he’s referred to as a wizard. Please submit your dissertations outlining the differences between sorcerers and wizards. The winner will receive a genuine Tribble action figure made out of FigureFeline’s shedded cat hair. *Void where prohibited. Offer not valid on Earth. If you flip the package over you can see that the cruel bastards at Matty put Ram Man as one of the other figures you can collect, knowing full well that if you don’t have him in your collection already, buying him second hand will be like getting financially raped.
Ok, so up until this point I’ve had at least a vague recollection of all the Filmation Sub characters. Batros, Shokoti, Icer… I may not have remembered much about their episodes, but I did remember the characters. I can’t say that about Nepthu. Maybe that’s why I don’t have the same knee-jerk dislike for the figure as many have Masters fans have been spewing all over the forums where I lurk. A little research told me that he appeared in a little 25 minute ditty of animated torture called “Temple of the Sun” to which I am about to subject myself. I’m off to Hulu, be back in about a half an hour. In the meantime, here’s a look at the figure…
Ok, so the gist of it is that a shaggy, starving and dehydrated homeless guy crawls through the desert looking for the titular “Temple of the Sun.” He finds it, rummages through a bunch of relics and discovers his prize… a magical scarab that can grant him wishes. Instead of asking for a sandwich and a cold Fresca, he asks to be strong and that turns him into the mighty Nepthu, a young, chiseled asshole who wants to rule the Universe. Cut back to The Palace where we get a nice ass shot of Teela doing gymnastics while Duncan and Prince Adam watch. Even Cringer looked like he wanted to have a piece of that. It must be awkward for Adam and Cringer to be checking out Teela’s fine hinder while her adopted father is right next to them, but who knows? Maybe he’s sneaking a peek too. It’s not like he’s her real father. Aaaaaanyway, back in the desert, Nepthu shoots down the Sorceress and He-Man responds to save her. One of my favorite parts is when a giant Scorpion the size of a Winnebago attacks and Duncan says, “Watch out for the tail, it’s poisonous!” WTF, Duncan? Look at the size of that thing. If it stabs you with that tail, you’re going to f’cking die, poison or no. Ok, I’ve gone on about the episode long enough. The character’s backstory has been established. Let’s look at the figure.
Nepthu is an extremely simple figure, but that’s not meant as a slight on him at all. The Egyptian theme is very well executed. The buck is sculpted in regular flesh tone and he has a simple Egyptian skirt and sash-like belt. His boots, bracers, and bicep straps are blue and he has a matching blue collar. Like I said, there’s nothing at all flashy or elaborate about this guy, but that’s what makes him so cool to me. In a world like Eternia, populated by freaks, this guy looks positively normal. Plus, the coloring on this figure is quite nice.
I will concede that the portrait is where fans are correct in claiming that Matty dropped the ball here. In the episode, Nepthu is an evil bastard and he looked the part. Here, Nepthu looks like a nice guy. He’s the kind of guy who you’d happily ask to help you move a sofa or possibly lend you a few dollars for a Starbucks when you come up short. If you saw this figure without reading the bio or having seen the episode, i can guarantee you would assume he was some dude that helped He-Man fight evil. He has a kind and noble face that in no way fits the character from the cartoon. That doesn’t bother me so much, because I don’t give two shits about the character. I just like the idea of having someone from The Sands of Time on my MOTUC shelf. As far as I’m concerned, he can fight alongside He-Man with his Scarab of Justice. Why not, eh?
Articulation? I’m not going to do articulation. I’ve already run rather long and my rock glass of Jameson has run dry. Most of it was sucked down while having to watch the episode. Suffice it to say Nepthu sports the same articulation as the thirty or so other MOTUC figures I’ve featured here on FFZ in the past. If only there was an Index of Reviews on FFZ where you could look up some of those past MOTUC reviews and bone up on the line’s articulation. That’s called a shameless plug.
Nepthu comes with two accessories. First you get the scarab-ankh thingie that started the whole mess. It’s a cool piece and Nepthu’s left hand is sculpted so he can wield it like he did in the cartoon. It’s similar to the way The Faceless One had a hand tailored to hold his Ram Stone. He also comes with a crystal Zoar, because he turned The Sorceress into crystal when she tried to escape. The Zoar is a little disappointing, because I expected it to be a clear version of the articulated Zoar figure that we got a while back. Instead, it’s just a static piece of plastic. It still looks cool, but without a perch, there’s not a lot you can do with it except lay it on the floor and caution the other figures to try to step around it.
So, part of me understands why this figure was ill-received by fans of the show. Another part of me says, “Screw you, he’s an awesome figure!” Thus far, the Filmation Sub has done me no wrong. I’ve loved every figure in it, and I’m hoping that we’re going to get another Filmation Sub next year. When you wade through all the politics and bullshit of Matty and Digital River, the truth is that everytime I get a new MOTUC figure, I’m reminded of why I still love this line so much. Even as someone who is only marginally involved in the fiction, I’m thrilled to keep growing my collection, and I haven’t even started gushing about my Horde Troopers and Mantenna… stay tuned!
Transformers: Revoltech Megatron by Kaiyodo
Hello and welcome to Transformers Thursday on a Friday. Today we’re doing something a little different as it is neither a Hasbro product, nor is it an actual transforming robot. I have some social commitments tonight, which involves having a pastie and getting drunk at The Pub, so I was looking for something rather quick and dirty, thus I decided to pull Revoltech Megatron off the shelf. I don’t collect Revoltech figures, and I’m not terribly big on Transformers that don’t transform, but I got this guy as part of a Lot of figures and I’ll confess that I do dig him. He came to me without any packaging and missing all of his extra bits, so keep that in mind as we take a quick look at him today.
And there he is… Lord Megatron in Revoltech form. The Revoltech line centers around Kaiyodo’s proprietary system of articulation which is supposed to offer up a degree of super articulation. I actually featured a Revoltech figure about this time last year and while I liked the design and sculpt, I was not overly impressed with the articulation or quality. The jointing looked rather ugly and they had a habit of falling apart if I looked at them funny. That and this one are still the only Revoltech figures I own, but in my travels I’ve had the opportunity to play around with some others and I still find the line to be a mixed bag. Megatron, here, is actually a lot better about staying together than other figures I’ve fiddled about with.
From the neck down, the sculpt here is pretty good, although the ball joints do mar the character design a bit at the hips and shoulders. Megatron continues to be that one frustrating character in Transformers that is yet to get a suitable animated style update. Takara screwed the pooch with their Masterpiece version with some third-party attempts hitting closer to the mark. And while not perfect, this Revoltech figure may be the closest I’ve seen to a proper Sunbow style figure. Granted, it’s a lot easier to make him show accurate when he doesn’t have to transform.
In addition to the exposed ball joints, I think the figure’s head is severely undersized and the face sculpt is a big departure from show accuracy. Sadly, it’s enough to make the figure look severely off. On the other hand, they really nailed everything else quite well and I’m particularly happy with his fusion cannon. The metallic silver finish on this guy looks really nice, and while he could have used some red in his lower torso, the deco works very nicely for me right down to the Decepticon insignia stamped on his chest.
Probably the most frustrating thing about this figure is his size. At a little over 4-inches tall, he’s not much bigger than your average Star Wars or GI JOE figure. That means he won’t scale properly with any of my Deluxe Transformers. That means that unless you’re going to pick up the other Revoltech Transformers, he’s pretty much a stand-alone figure, and the Optimus Prime that goes with him is one ugly figure. That’s just my opinion, your mileage may vary. He does, however scale fairly well with Fansproject’s Causality figures. While you could argue that Megatron should be taller than the Stunticons, he still displays nicely with them at about the same height.
Prices on this guy tend to be all over the place. I’ve seen him sell from $20 up to $50. He’s a cool little figure, if you can pick him up at the lower end of that spectrum, but I don’t think he’s worth hunting down. I seem to recall him coming with extra hands and an extra head, none of which is essential, so he’s still worth buying loose at a deep discount. He’s just one of those odd-ball figures in my collection that doesn’t fit anywhere and yet I dig him just a little too much to let him go.
FigureFan Zero 