Jun 18 2014

Masters of the Universe Classics: Battle Lion by Mattel

This week was another Matty Sale Day and that made me realize that I’m still about a month behind on one of the items that I got from the May Subscription. It’s Battle Lion, and the fact that I haven’t opened him until now should give some indication that this figure was not high on my list of wants. In fact, Battle Lion is the first offering of the 2014 Sub that I would rather not have been committed to buy. That’s not too bad, considering we’re already halfway done with the year. Now, in fairness, my disinterest in this figure probably has to do with the fact that I don’t have the King Greyskull figure to accompany him. Anyway, let’s check him out and see if he surprises me.

Battle Lion comes in a package similar to the ones used for Battle Cat and Panthor. It’s a sort of trapezoidal window box with the familiar green stone Greyskull theme. My particular figure has one of his paw armor parts rattling around inside the box. The back taunts you with pictures of figures you can no longer buy from Matty and there’s the usual bio. As always, I love the presentation here. I was even tempted to keep the package to put him back in until I get him a proper rider. But thrift of space won the day and I pitched it. Let’s get this kitty out of the package…

So, if you haven’t guessed already, this figure reuses the body from Battle Cat and Panthor. I thought the body sharing between those two figures was pretty successful, even though I still don’t own a Classics Panthor. At least they were different colors and that alone helped set them apart as being rather unique. Here, Battle Lion is still green, albeit missing Battle Cat’s stripes, and so the reuse is a lot more obvious and thereby makes the figure a lot less interesting to me. On the surface it felt more like a a quick cash grab than most of the parts recycled figures that this line turns out. Again, that probably won’t be an issue for someone keen to get this character, assuming such people exist. I’m a fan of the MYP series, but I still don’t remember the episode with Greyskull and Battle Lion, so at some point I should pull out my DVD set and re-educate myself on the matter. Anyway, my own personal well of interest in MOTU lore is about as deep as a puddle, so clearly this figure wasn’t aimed t me. Still, that’s never stopped me from enjoying figures based off of unknown characters before.

The new bits include the head and tail. The tail is tufted at the end and on a ball and hinge joint for a little poseability. It certainly looks quite lion-y. The head sculpt is absolutely magnificent. The area around the eyes still seems to share a lot with Battle Cat, almost to the point where I’m wondering if this is a resculpt rather than a complete remold. The mane, however, is so majestic and the jaw, while very limited in its articulation looks great as well. Those giant saber-tooth fangs are just awesome and the paintwork on the teeth and mouth is actually better than on my Classics Battle Cat. If you’re going to repurpose a figure, this is how to do it. There’s nothing at all half-assed about this head sculpt. Quite the contrary, from a technical and artistic standpoint, I find it to be of a higher quality than the one used for Battle Cat. So, bravo to T4H for not phoning this one in as a quick-and-dirty project.

The armor is every bit as distinctive as the new head. It consists of four pieces: The saddle, which straps comfortably around his belly, the face plate, and two pieces for his front paws. Despite having fallen off in the package, I’m impressed at how well the paw pieces stay in place when clipped on. The face plate also stays on quite well and it doesn’t cause his head to droop like the weighty mask included with Battle Cat. In fact, I’d dare say that all this armor fits better. The saddle is very roomy and even has all sorts of controls and stuff sculpted into it and the mix of matte and gloss paint on all the armor pieces is certainly appreciated. Lastly, the two shields on the front of the armor are actually removable.

As expected from a total body recycle, Battle Lion features the same articulation as Battle Cat. It’s been a while since I featured Cat, so let’s run down the points. The hind legs rotate at the hips, are hinged at the knees and again at that second knee (for lack of a better term), and they are ball jointed at the ankles. The front legs rotate at the shoulders and have ball joints at the knees and ankles. The head can raise and lower and twist side to side and there’s a swivel in the body, just behind the shoulders. As already mentioned, the tail is on a ball joint. The joints are all nice and tight and Battle Lion is quite fun to play with and pose.

Don’t let my ignorance-slash-apathy for Battle Lion as a character fool you, he’s a magnificent toy. He looks amazing and in the end, I’ll certainly admit he makes for a good use of a recycled body. He even has me lamenting the fact that I don’t have the King Greyskull to ride him and seeing as how he’s going to be in my display anyway, I might as well try to pick up Greyskull for him. Well, played Matty, you will get even more money from me. Actually, you won’t as I’ll have to get him on the second-hand market, so… Haha… I win this round afterall! Granted, had Battle Lion been an optional purchase, I would not have bought him, but I can’t say as I’m pissed off for having to add him to my collection. If someone is going to force toys on me, they might as well be awesome ones like this kitty. My original intentions were to flip him on Ebay without even opening him, but very few MOTUC toys have disappointed me, and Battle Lion continues to press that trend!

Jun 17 2014

LEGO Movie: Bad Cop’s Pursuit (#70802) by LEGO

The LEGO movie gets its home release today and it seemed like as good a time as any to start looking at some of the sets from the movie that are piling up in the corner. If you didn’t catch the movie while it was in the cinemas, I highly recommend checking it out. I actually wound up going to see it only because some friends were going and I was blown away by how well it was done. We’ve had lots of movies based of toys lately, from Transformers to G.I. JOE to Battleship, and none of those treated the source property with as much clever reverence as this movie did. And it’s about building blocks. Think about that for a moment. In this case, the movie is not only entertaining, but it dealt with some great aspects of LEGO philosophy. Do we build the sets as they were meant to be built or let our creative freak flags fly and do our own thing? Here’s a tip, if I had government secrets that enemy agents wanted, all they would have to do is tie me to a chair and start mixing my Lego sets into a big box in front of me. I would be reduced to a jibbering mess in a few seconds. The film also applied the analogy to real life and people who follow the rules vs people who tend to rebel and how the two play out in a society based on control. Yep, that’s all in there… in a LEGO movie. Meanwhile, the Transformers movies had toilet humor. Anyway, I’m starting out with Bad Cop’s Pursuit, because I have a thing for flying cars and I really liked Bad Cop’s ride.

There’s nothing too special about the box. It’s landscaped in orientation and does a good job of showing you what you’re going to get. Inside you get three bags of bricks containing a total of 314 pieces, a small sticker sheet, and the instruction booklet. When all is done you get to build the police vehicle, a piece of the railway bridge, two police alligators, and two minifigs. As always, let’s start with the minifigs!

This is a good starter set because you get the hero, Emmett, and the villain, Bad Cop, right off the bat. Ok, actually Bad Cop is the villain’s henchman, but he had a strong presence in the movie. Both figures are well done. Emmett features the Kregle piece on his back, although it seems to only attach upside down. It recall the hollow end pointing up in the movie. No biggie. He also has two printed faces, one happy and one scared. Bad Cop also looks great. He has a gun and his police helmet. Naturally, his double printed face features both Bad Cop and Good Cop. I love it!

I suppose you can count the Police Alligators as minifigs. You get two of them and together they do take up 14 pieces in the set’s total count. Not too bad. I still don’t get where the Police Gators came from. They were just sort of there, but the randomness alone made the scene hilarious. Plus, you can always pull the police lights off them and repurpose them for other sets.

Speaking of repurposing, the first bag of pieces builds the part of the railway bridge and I’m kind of “meh” over this part of the set. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well done and all, but it just kind of stands there as this disjointed piece of a bigger scene. The bridge has a play gimmick where if you stand a minifig on the end and pull the lever on the back, the front part of the tracks will collapse and drop the figure. There’s also a tiny LEGO frog sitting on one of the rocks under the bridge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a LEGO frog before. Cool. Most likely I’ll repurpose this to one of my Lone Ranger sets. Oh, shit… I still have some Lone Ranger sets I haven’t built yet. Better get on that someday.

The second and third bags build the police vehicle. It’s a great looking build, although I do have one complaint: The hood portion could have used some more support. It’s only being held on by one row of studs and it has a habit of drooping down if you press on the front. That minor structural problem aside I think this is a really cool looking ship that takes me back to the glory days of the Space Police sets. It also makes good use of stickers from the side panels to the “Bad Cop 01” on the roof.

The roof is hinged and opens up to reveal the cockpit. There’s room for one minifig inside and there are also two compartments to stow Bad Cop’s weapon.

The sides panels are hinged and open upward to reveal two fold out sets of guns. I think the way these are designed to fold away is particularly clever.

I enjoyed building this set a lot. It gave me two important characters from the movie and the police vehicle that I wanted. All that having been said, I probably would have designed it differently. Instead of the bridge part, I might have used extra pieces to allow the police vehicle to be built as either a car or the flying car as it was changed in the movie. Still, kids will probably appreciate having the ability to recreate the scene from the movie so I’m sure LEGO knows what they’re doing. At $25 the set seems pretty reasonably priced and it’s certainly got me excited to build more from the movie!

Jun 16 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Black Widow and SHIELD Mandroid by Hasbro

So, in my excitement to get to Star-Lord last Monday I failed to do the right thing and wrap up the Winter Soldier wave of Legends first. And since I didn’t want to load this week down with three Legends figures, I decided I’d look at Widow today and then get back to the next Guardians Legends figure on Friday. Sound good? Black Widow was an absolute bitch to find and I eventually wound up buying her online for $35 shipped. It’s a lot for a figure that theoretically should be available in stores for $20 or less, but I never saw her on the pegs. Anyway, Widow also gave me the last piece I needed for the SHIELD Mandroid Build-A-Figure, so we’re going to look at both of them today.

Hasbro packed a lot of stuff into this box. In addition to the figure, you get an extra pair of hands, extra head, the huge Mandroid torso and his shoulder cannon. Like I said, it’s a lot of stuff, and yet it still seems like something is missing. We’ll come back to that.

Widow comes clad in her updated SHIELD bodysuit and looks fantastic. I’m not sure they did justice to her caboose, but as for the rest of her, Hasbro obviously put a lot of effort into detailing this sculpt. You get all sorts of stitching and piping on the suit itself, along with the zipper, the Widow insignia, and her bracelets for delivering her shocking Black Widow Sting! The coloring is also quite exceptional on this figure. What could have been just a simple black outfit features a wonderful mix of matte and gloss blacks to give the costume a lot of depth. The use of fine silver paintwork also picks out the buckles and zipper quite nicely. You also get the SHIELD emblem tampo on her shoulders and her individual fingers are painted to show off her fingerless gloves. The holsters are also nicely recreated, complete with the guns sculpted into place.

Wait, what? The guns are sculpted into her holsters? Well, where’s she going to put her real guns? Not a problem, because she doesn’t come with any guns. This omission has got to be one of the greatest WTF moments in recent Hasbro history and that’s really saying something. I cannot in any way imagine where that decision came from. Could it have been a cost cutting move? It seems unlikely, since there is any number of pistols that Hasbro could have repacked with this figure. Nonetheless, that’s the only reason I can possibly come up with. Sure, I have a lot of weapons in this scale I can loan her, but that’s hardly the point. Why even give her the extra pair of gun holding hands if you aren’t including any guns? It’s madness, I say… MADNESS!

As mentioned, you get two swappable heads so that you can make Avengers Widow or Winter Soldier Widow. Yeah, it’s not the same costume she wore in Avengers, but I still give Hasbro points for letting us do this since it’s as close to an Avengers Widow as we’re going to get. Both portraits are pretty good, although I would have preferred painted faces as the plastic looks a bit too waxy for my tastes. Despite shooting most of this feature with the Winter Soldier Head, I think the Avenger’s head is a slightly better likeness. But, I’m still happy with either one.

Widow’s articulation holds no surprises. The arms are ball jointed in the shoulders and at the elbows and wrists. Sadly, there are no bicep swivels, but I’m coming to expect that omission in Hasbro’s female figures these days. The ball joints in the elbows make up for that a little. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double-hinged at the knees, and feature swivels in the thighs. The ankles have both hinges and rockers. There is no waist swivel, but you do get a ball joint in the torso and again for the neck.

The SHIELD Mandroid is a formidable looking figure that recycles the legs from the Iron Monger BAF. I love both the design and execution of the sculpting on this guy. He has all sorts of panel lines and bolts and he brandishes a nice big SHIELD emblem right on the middle of his chest. His right arm features twin gatling guns and his left arm a bladed weapon and both have cables connecting them to the figure’s biceps. There’s also a shoulder mounted weapon that is easily removable. I also dig the plastic used here. It’s not that swirly shit they’ve used in the past. It looks and feels good.

Aesthetically, I give the Mandroid high marks, but when we get down to articulation, he fails miserably. The legs are fine, but the arms are severely limited. The points are there, but the sculpting interferes to inhibit any decent range of motion. I also found that once the head was attached, it was impossible to turn it, despite it being connected on a ball joint. He’ll make a fine display piece on the back shelf, but while I remember having loads of fun playing around with the BAF Iron Monger, I was quick to retire the Mandroid from my desk.

Black Widow continues to be a scalper’s dream and I’m not just talking about Ebay. She still hovers at between $45 and $50 on Amazon because, yes Amazon has long ago joined in on the scalper trade by inflating the prices of those harder to find figures. I’d cry bullshit, but then if they didn’t they’d probably just be sold out all the time, so at least it gives collectors a chance to buy her if they want to spend all that money. Word is that she is still due to get shipped in greater numbers this summer, so anyone hunting may still want to hold out for her resurgence on the pegs.

Jun 14 2014

Transformers: Masterpiece Grimlock (MP-03) TRU Exclusive (Reissue) by Hasbro, Part 2

And I’m back to wrap up my look at the thing of beauty that is MP-03 Grimlock. Yesterday we checked out his packaging and robot mode. Today we’ll look at his accessories and his Dino Mode! I know at least one of the Takara releases came with some pretty fun stuff including an apron and serving tray, a flame effect, and even the brain transfer helmet from the Sunbow cartoon. Since this is the second Hasbro release it seemed only natural that all those goodies would be packed into this box. Well they’re not. All you get are Grimmy’s weapons and a crown.

First we have the gun. It’s a simple black double barreled affair with clear extenders on the ends of the barrels. It’s designed to work with an LED in Grimlock’s right hand to light up. I like the gun well enough, but the lighting effect is pretty underwhelming. It fits snugly into the peg hole that is figure’s right hand, but there’s also an extra fixture for securing it into the more articulated left hand. Normally I tend to prefer my giant robots to have guns rather than swords, but in this case, it’s Grimlock… He seems better suited for a sword.

Hey, look at that… a sword! Grimmy’s edged weapon features a clear blade to again make use of that LED in the right hand. It works slightly better than the gun, but I would still have opted they left the electronics out of the figure and given us a chromed out blade instead of a transparent one. The sword still looks good in his hand, although I would argue that it should have been bigger. Unlike the gun, Grimlock can actually wield the sword with his wrist claw’s down, but if you want to angle it to the right or left, you’ll have to flip it back up.

Lastly, and of no particular interest to me is the crown. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice piece with a beautiful vac-metal gold finish and it fits on Grimlock’s noggin quite securely. Is it a fun little extra? Sure! Am I ever going to display the figure with it? Nope!

The accessories really don’t have a place on dino-mode Grimlock, so let’s put them aside and get with the transforming. Transforming this figure retains the same basic ideas of the original G1 figure. Some readers may remember that one of my common complaints about modern Grimlock figures has been the designers’ insistence on over complicating things. Here, the dino head still folds up from the back, the robot chest shifts down, the wings still close together to form the neck, and the feet flip around to become the tail. Sure, it’s more complex than that, especially when unfolding the tail from the feet, but at its heart, this is the same old transformation and it works great. There’s just enough complexity here to make it feel like a “masterpiece” level figure while still keeping things fun.

I loved Grimlock’s robot mode, but holy shit do I really love his dino mode. Grimlock is one of those few Transformers that is likely to find himself displayed as much in his alt mode as in his robot mode. I dare say, there are some collectors who may display him exclusively in his dinosaur form. As a result it was doubly important that Takara/Hasbro get this mode right, and they certainly did. Grimlock’s dino mode is as majestic and iconic as ever. The toy is packed with tiny details, like the jets on his back and that beautiful translucent neck that reveals all the gold vac-metal goodness within. This is one gorgeous robot dino!

There are also some really nice improvements, most notably the longer arms with ball joints at the shoulders, hinges at the elbows, and individually articulated fingers. Thanks to these new arms, dino-mode Grimlock can be a lot more expressive. I also love the balance on this figure. He can be easily displayed standing straight up or leaning forward as if running or ready to pounce.

Grimlock’s dino mode features a gimmick where if you flip the tail the head will tilt. It’s rubbish and much like the LED gimmick in the arm, I wish they had just left it out. It’s the kind of gimmick that you might find in a $20 Voyager Class toy, and I don’t think it belongs in a pricier Masterpiece figure. Thankfully, it doesn’t intrude on the toy too badly.

A much cooler and more useful gimmick is the ability to change the color of Grimlock’s eyes. Just open up the head and make the change from toy accurate to Sunbow accurate. The choice is yours! I’ll aslo take this opportunity to point out how awesome Grimlock’s metalized teeth are and that if you open his mouth you can see the flamethrower in his gullet. Bravo! On the downside, what the hell is up with those plugs on the right side of his face? Are those to cover up screw holes? Seems like they could have done that better.

But all gimmicks aside, I’ve found Grimlock to be a remarkably fun figure to play around with. I honestly thought that I would get more out of his robot mode, but I’m having just as much fun fiddling about with his dino mode. Choosing which mode to display him in is going to be tough!

I can’t deny I take a few issues with this figure. Some of the gimmicks don’t belong here, and some of the tabbing issues and the loose hips have the engineering on the figure starting to show their age. I don’t think he’s anywhere near as elegantly designed as the MP figures that Takara is putting out now, but that’s fair enough. The packaging may be new, but the figure may just be starting to show his wrinkles. That’s not to say I don’t love him because I sure as hell do. He looks fantastic on the shelf whether standing beside the MP Datsuns, chilling out with Krank and Stax, or squaring off against MMC’s Feralcons. I even think he doesn’t scale too badly with Classics Prime, if you like your Dinobots to be on the larger side. It’s difficult to say whether I would be as impressed had I dropped the $165 to $200 that the Takara version goes for, but at eighty bucks? ME GRIMLOCK TAKE THAT DEAL ANY DAY!

Jun 13 2014

Transformers: Masterpiece Grimlock (MP-03) TRU Exclusive (Reissue) by Hasbro, Part 1

Yeah, yeah… yesterday was Transformers Thursday, but since I had to skip last week, let’s keep the spotlight on the Transformers as we head into the weekend. Today I’m looking at a figure that needs no introduction. He’s Masterpiece Grimlock and he’s a figure that’s been around the block more times than I can keep track of. Suffice it to say, he’s had at least two Takara releases and this will be his second Hasbro release. I passed on him the first couple of times because I wasn’t collecting the MP stuff back then, but after acquiring a whole shelf full of the MP figures, I was recently poised to blow a lot of money on the Takara version. Something else came up that I wanted more and so I put it off only to have this second US release come out of nowhere. Now, normally the Hasbro MP releases don’t do me any good. They’re always Toys R Us Exclusives, there are no TRUs around here, and I could never get them online. Until now. The awesome guys over at The Allspark posted a heads up early one morning that Grimlock was up for order on TRU’s website, and I just happened to be online to get in on that hot robot dinosaur action. A few days later, MP Grimlock was finally mine. Today we’ll check out the packaging and the robot mode, and tomorrow we’ll look at the dino mode.

Grimlock comes in a box that is branded in a fashion similar to the Age of Extinction packages, and that’s a shame because I don’t like these at all. The plain white and red boxes are dull, with “Transformers” running down the side in what looks like a placeholder font. In fact, the whole box design feels like a placeholder. It’s like something the art department whipped up overnight just to see what the configuration of the box would look like with the intent of adding the actual artwork later on. I know times are tough at Hasbro. Maybe they had to fire their art design department. This kind of minimalist stuff works OK for the 6-inch Star Wars Black line, but here it just looks like garbage. Hell, the Third-Party Transformers I buy come in way better looking packages than these, and those aren’t even designed to sit on a store shelf and attract buyers. Nothing about Grimlock’s package screams premium Masterpiece Transformer to me.

Anyway, there’s a massive Autobot emblem on the front that wraps around to the side. There’s also an illustrated strip that wraps around the box with pictures of the toy. It still denotes Grimlock as MP-03, despite the fact that that numbering is getting more and more confusing. The box opens from the side and there’s a clear plastic tray, very similar to the Takara releases, holding the figure in robot mode and his accessories. So, I do really like the fact that this package is collector friendly. It’s also durable enough for storage and I prefer an actual box like this one to the window box used for the first Hasbro MP-03 release. It’s just the art design that puts me off. Let’s get the figure out and put the packaging behind us.

Holy hell! Out of the box, Grimlock is one impressive and formidable robot. He stands right about in line with my MP Soundwave and while he should be taller, the height is fine with me. The Masterpiece line has evolved quite a bit since the early figures, but I think Grimlock’s aesthetics fit right in with the more recent releases on my shelf. He strikes me as more of an update to the original toy than any attempt at a comic or animated inspired homage, and that’s Ok because he looks so damn good. The design is slavishly faithful to the G1 toy and everything on this guy is right where it should be only outfitted with better proportions. Yes, the proportions are fantastic, from the large feet to the powerful raised shoulders. Grimlock is an absolute beast of a robot.

Grimlock’s deco makes use of a lot of bare grey and black plastic. Of course, he wouldn’t be a true G1 Grimlock without the bling and MP-03 features plenty of that. The entire chest is metallic gold along with the claws on his wrists, and it contrasts beautifully with his dull utilitarian grey armor. But my favorite thing is the translucent plate on his chest that exposes all the intricate detailing behind it. Fantastic! The accents on the front of his legs are a mix of paint and tinted translucent plates and the glossy red paint on his pelvic area ties the whole figure together beautifully. Even on a shelf full of Masterpiece Transformers, Grimlock stands out from the crowd!

The portrait is also a slam dunk. Grimlock’s expressionless slab of a face is beautifully recreated. It’s amazing how much personality you can pack into nothing but a mouth plate and a visor. Out of the box the visor is red, to pay homage to the G1 toy, but you can activate a lever on the back to make it Sunbow blue. I think the red visor is more striking, but I may wind up going with the blue. Isn’t it nice to have options!

Besides looking amazing, Grimlock is lots of fun to play and features a wide range of articulation. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, they have swivels in the biceps, double-hinged elbows, and swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, swivels at the top of the thighs, and powerful ratcheting hinges in the knees. There’s a little bit of rocker action in the ankles, but it seems to favor moving the foot outward rather than inward, so it doesn’t help a lot on those wide stances. Then again, my figure can’t do those without collapsing anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter. Lastly, Grimlock features a generous ball joint in his neck, giving his head a very pleasing wide range of motion.

Alas, there are some blemishes on this beauty, so let’s talk about those. First off, the hip joints are all kinds of loosy goosy. Grimlock can stand just fine, but if I try to get him into a wide stance action pose, he’s going to wind up doing the splits. I understand there’s a fix for this that involves taking him apart and cleaning the joints. Maybe I’ll try that someday. In the meantime, an $80 collectible probably shouldn’t be having this kind of problem. I’ll also note that while playing around with him, Grimlock’s torso has come untabbed a few times. It isn’t a critical design flaw, but it can get irritating from time to time.

The other issues are more minor. First, Grimlock has a gimmick that makes an Autobot symbol appear in the window in his chest when he transforms. It sort of works, but the insignia always looks like it’s not quite all the way in place. It’s very close, but not quite. Second, the dino head is supposed to tab into his back but when you look at how shallow the slot is, it’s easy to see that it was never going to hold. As a result, the dino head has a habit of flopping around when I’m posing him. Again, all of these things are a little bothersome, but even when taken together they don’t add up to enough to really spoil my enjoyment of the figure.

Ok, I’ve gone long enough. Tomorrow I’ll take a look at his accessories and then we’ll get him transformed into his dino mode!

Jun 12 2014

Transformers (2007 Movie): Dropkick by Hasbro

Last Thursday I was in the middle of a whole G.I. Joe thang and Transformers Thursday got pre-empted. I had hoped I could come back to it this week and look at some Energon figures or maybe something from Armada, but no, the Bayformer Hostage Crisis continues. I think this is Week #7 but I may have passed out and lost count somewhere along the way. Either way, I’m looking at another movie toy. And so, I dug my mitts into the Bayformer Tote and pulled out… this guy.

I have no idea who this is. I’m guessing he’s another one of those Expanded Universe figures from the 2007 Movie. Hang on, while I hit the googles… OK, it’s… Dropkick? Really?? Part of the reason I’m starting to thin out my Transformers collection is because of figures like Dropkick here. I’m being totally honest when I say that I had no idea who he was when I pulled him from the tote, and yet at some point I walked into a store, pulled him off the peg and bought him. If I can’t even remember his name and I have no meaningful connection to the character, than I have to ask myself, why do I own him? Maybe he’s just a really bitchin’ toy? If he was, I’d probably know his name, but let’s press on and find out.

As we’ve already seen Dropkick is a pick-up truck. The sculpt isn’t bad, but maybe a little plain. He does have a really suspicious sliding knob on the cap in his truck bed. What’s that all about? Well, as you can see above, it’s a giant pincer claw that comes out of the tailgate. That doesn’t seem terribly practical. Don’t tailgate Dropkick or he’ll deploy his pincer and scratch your front quarter panels! Still, if you don’t like it you can take the whole thing out, giving Dropkick just a regular empty bed. Let me also point out here that Dropkick’s truck mode does not stay together well. I think a lot of it has to do with his spring loaded head and hood parts. He wants to pop apart at the slightest inclination and it’s almost impossible for me to get the roof or the passenger side door to stay tabbed into place all the way.

The deco here is kind of ugly. First off, he has a giant Decepticon insignia that takes up the entire hood and roof of the vehicle. Hey, Dropkick, ever hear the expression, “robots in disguise?” Why don’t you just paint a giant target on yourself? Optimus Prime ain’t no touchy-feely robot of peace in these movies. When he finds you, he’s probably going to rip off your face and blow a hole in the back of your head. But it isn’t the garish faction symbol that I find so ugly here, it’s the bare grey plastic that looks like all the paint has been stripped off and we’re look at a truck’s primer. It makes the toy look unfinished. The front bumper also looks like it’s screaming for some additional paint apps. Blah. Let’s transform him and see if the robot mode is any better.

Dropkick has some cool stuff going for him. I like the way his windows angle to form his chest. It’s a lot like the movie Optimus Prime design only executed better than it was on the 2007 Prime figure. There’s also a ton of intricate sculpting to seen behind those shields. I also dig the dual blasters that fold out under each hand. And while it took me a while to warm up to them, I’ve grown to like the “chicken-leg” aesthetic that came out of the movie designs.

On the downside, look at all that truck kibble up around the shoulders. It might not be so bad if those giant chunks of truck with the front wheels didn’t flop all over. Also, those doors are inexplicably spring-loaded so they automatically stick out like that. The ability to tuck those back would have cleaned up Dropkick’s profile a lot, but they just spring right back into position. I’ll also note here that Dropkick is yet another Transformer who’s shoulders will not stay pegged in for love or money. Before every single shot, I had to repeg those suckers back into place. Lastly, the torso mode could have used some more paint apps. All that sculpted detail looks so bland in that bare grey plastic. Hasbro put some wonderful paintwork into the Revenge of the Fallen toys, but they sure skimped a lot on these 2007 Movie figures.

I do like the head sculpt on Dropkick. It’s very simple and very un-movie-like. Instead of looking like some kind of rabid space bug, he just looks more like a proper 80’s Transformer with a mouth plate and a visor. The antenna on the sides of his head are cool and I like those droopy ear things on his “helmet” it makes him look like a sad Decepticon. Awww… It’ll be Ok, Dropkick! Here, have an energon cookie.

Dropkick is by no means a terrible figure. He’s got some personality to his design that makes it impossible for me to totally hate on him. Unfortunately, he’s also got plenty of issues that hold him back from being anything better than average at best. And that’s even after I’ve bumped him up a few points for being a Decepticon truck, because I usually love Decepticon trucks. I had to consider this one carefully. Do I keep him or pack him into a box bound for my nephew in New Jersey? It was a tough call. Especially with him looking up at me with that sad face. But in the end, I decided I didn’t really need him in my collection anymore. Sorry, Dropkick, you’re headed to the Garden State. It’s been nice knowing ya!

Jun 11 2014

Doctor Who: The 7th Doctor and Renegade Dalek by Character Options

It’s long past time I revisit those Doctor and Dalek 2-packs that Character Options put out earlier this year. This time we’ll check out one inspired by the story “Remembrance of the Daleks.” A long time ago, CO put out another 2-pack from the same story with a different version of The 7^th Doctor and an Imperial Dalek. They gambled that we crazy collectors would pony up for a similar set and in my case they were correct!

There’s nothing new about the packaging so I won’t dwell on it very long. The figures come in a compact window box with a cool retro-style deco and a printed insert that shows a scene from the story and can double as a display backdrop. There’s no synopsis of the story, but we do get a little blurb about The 7^th Doctor and the Daleks. Let’s start with The Doctor.

This release is the third version of The 7^Th Doctor that I have in my collection and it is definitely my favorite one. The first version features The Doctor with a smiling portrait and wearing his hat. The second version is a direct repaint of that one depicting him in his darker coat. This version is identical to the first from the neck down. The only difference is the portrait has a more serious expression and is sans hat. The 7^th Doctor’s more memorable stories were when he adopted a sinister and plotting personality, so I think this figure suits him best. I also think the likeness to Sylvester McCoy is just a tad better than the alternatives.

Yes, from the neck down it is the same figure, but it’s worth mentioning what a great job CO did on the sculpt and particularly the paintwork. In addition to his paisley scarf and matching tie, he has his handkerchief hanging out of his pocket, again fully painted. The paintwork on his question mark jumper is absolutely immaculate as is the plaid deco on his trousers. They even bothered to sculpt and paint in the gold chain for his fob watch. On the downside, CO couldn’t be bothered to toss in his umbrella. Since this figure will be the Number Seven that I display in my Doctor lineup, I just borrowed the brolly from one of the other Sevens.

The Doctor may be a newer release, but he features the older standard style of articulation, and sadly that means no ball joints in the shoulders. Instead you get arms that rotate at the shoulders, have hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs and hinges in the knees. The head can rotate.

Moving on to the Dalek, the story “Remembrance of the Daleks” featured two warring factions of pepperpots. The Imperials were the white and gold and the renegades were the gun metal blues, which is the kind included in this set. My favorite of all the Daleks were the ones from “Genesis of the Daleks” and this guy is pretty close to that deco with a few minor cosmetic differences in the shoulder slats and eye stalks. He may not be the flashiest Dalek out there, but the drab coloring makes him akin to a piece of military machinery and I just think that’s cool.

I’ve looked at dozens of CO’s Daleks here on FFZ and there’s not a lot new to be said about this one. He has the same three wheels under his apron, the front of which can rotate 360 degrees. The gun and sucker arm are on ball joints, the dome can rotate 360 degrees and the eye stalk can raise and lower. There’s a tiny bit of slop on the silver mesh around the slats, but otherwise the quality of paint on this figure is quite good.

This set was an instance where I actually bought it more for The Doctor figure than the Dalek. Don’t get me wrong, I can never have enough Daleks, but it was the serious and hatless Doctor that made this set a “must have.” At just under forty bucks, it certainly wasn’t cheap, but I’ve never been frugal when it comes to my plastic addiction and that goes double when dealing with Doctor Who figures.

Jun 10 2014

DC Comics: Cyborg ArtFX+ Statue by Kotobukiya

Well, it took a while, but my OCD finally got the better of me and forced me to complete my collection of Justice League ArtFX+ statues. I make it no secret that I was against Cyborg as part of the Justice League back when The New 52 was launching. I wouldn’t say I’ve come to eat those words, but I will say that I have enjoyed what they did with him and I no longer feel that he diluted the greatness of the team as much as I thought he would. His ability to assimilate the power to create Boom Tubes was probably alone worthy of his addition to the roster. So why drag my feet on buying this statue? I’m just not crazy about his New 52 design and this statue seemed to accentuate a lot of what I didn’t like about it. Nonetheless, I crumbled and bought him anyway. Let’s see if it was a good idea.

It’s been a while, so let’s talk about the packaging. These clear plastic boxes were a neat concept, but ultimately I don’t like them. The plastic is flimsy, it scratches easily and they don’t store well. I like the idea of assembling all the art panels together behind the statues as a display option, but I don’t have that kind of display space available, so that leaves much of the appeal here lost on me. Ultimately, I save my statue boxes in case I move or I need to pack them away because they’re being rotated out of display for a while. These boxes don’t really fit the bill for that purpose and so I’ve gone and pitched them. Suffice it to say I’m happy that the Avengers statues will come in proper cardboard boxes with styrofoam trays.

Cyborg features a very museum-style pose. He’s standing at attention with his chest out and his arms are hanging at his sides. Appropriately, Cyborg has the most complex sculpt of all the ArtFX+ Justice League statues. He looks magnificent! His cybernetic armor is replete with panel lines, overlapping plates, and beautiful contours. He’s bulkier than the other statues and while I’m overall happy with the proportions, I do think the feet are a little big when compared to most of the comic art… they look rather Mega Man-ish to me. Now, I’ve got no problem with The Blue Bomber, but I don’t necessarily need those aesthetics in my Justice League statues. I’m writing it off to the anime-style of these pieces. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing that ruins the statue for me, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

One of the main attractions on this piece is his sonic arm cannon, which is delightfully complex. It’s got all sorts of bits coming off of it and great texturing. The red paintwork on the lights is a little uneven, but that might be intentional to create a light effect. The contoured backpack is another really nice feature of the statue. It has a retro-vibe to it that adds plenty of character to the design.

The portrait here is quite good. The face is a tad soft, but I think that works well when contrasting with the cyborg part of the head. He has a determined expression and a distinctive broad nose. Cyborg’s likeness is definitely the least anime-stylized of all these statues. The paint lines around between the skin and metal are all sharp.

Speaking of paint, there’s not a lot paint operations on the statue, but that’s because Cyborg is mostly silver. I love the finish they used on this piece. Ironically, despite intended as metal, it seems slightly more matte than the other statues’ costumes, but it looks spectacular. The only other paint worth mentioning besides the head and the red lights on the arm cannon are the red discs on his chest, belt, and backpack.

As with all of these statues, you get a black square metal stand with the “Justice League” logo on it. Cyborg has the magnets in the feet to help him stand, although I was surprised that even with such big feet he’s a little wobbly.

In the end, I’m glad I picked up Cyborg. At about $36 he was one of the more expensive statues in this line, but that’s still a crazy low price for such a wonderfully crafted piece. I can’t say that my Justice League display felt all that incomplete without him, but he sure looks great on the shelf with the rest of the team. I’ve certainly grown to accept the character as part of the team in the comics so why not have him in my display as well? And that wraps up the Justice League ArtFX+ line. I still have a couple of the stand-alone DC Comics ArtFX+ pieces to pick up, but next time we visit these statues it will be to look at Black Widow from The Avengers!

Jun 9 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Star-Lord by Hasbro

To say I’m excited about the Guardians of the Galaxy movie would be a galactic understatement. After two amazing trailers and a lot of time spent re-reading the comics, I am seriously pumped for this movie. I was also really excited about the associated Marvel Legends wave, so much so that I picked up the case as soon as it went up for sale at Hasbrotoyshop. Sure, it meant getting a couple of doubles (the case has two Star-Lord and two Iron Man figures), but it worked out to only be about twenty bucks more than the single figure assortment at that other retailer. Either way, it also meant that I could instantly assemble the BAF Groot instead of worrying about hunting down one last figure like I had to do with the SHIELD Mandroid. I thought about covering this whole shebang in one week, but since I’m just coming off a theme week, I decided to parse them out to a couple figures a week. Let’s go right for the intended star of the movie… Peter Quill: Star-Lord!

The packaging here is right in line with the Legends Infinite Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Winter Soldier waves. The main difference is that this assortment pulls a lot more heavily from the movie whereas the others populated with comic characters at the expense of film-based figures. Seriously, Hasbro, no movie version of Falcon? Why would you do that? Anyway, I don’t have much new to say about the packaging other than I still dig the look of these window boxes and the fact that it’s totally collector friendly. I’ll also point out that Hasbro really packed a lot of shit into this package. Between the figure, extra head, accessories, and BAF part, there’s not a lot of free space left on that tray.

Star-Lord comes packaged with his masked head on, but I’m going to start out with the alternate unmasked head. But before we get to that, check this shit out…

Yeah, we have one of those rare examples where the actual figure is better than the package photos. In this case, the package photo shows a very different figure where the top of the trench coat is part of the torso sculpt and the bottom made up like a skirt on the bottom half of the figure, with an awkward waist swivel running right across the middle. It looks terrible. Thankfully, the final figure got the trench coat cast in soft plastic and attached to the buck with the arms sculpted to look like sleeves. Yeah, it’s the old sleeveless jacket trick, but it works great and is such a vast improvement over the crappy figure they photographed for the back of the box.

For what is basically a guy in a t-shirt, trousers and trench coat, Hasbro went all out on the details. Under the coat you can see all kinds of subtly sculpted pockets and texturing to the pants and he has the little jets, the ones we see used in the second trailer, sculpted and painted onto the outsides of his boots. The coat has a great weathered wash to it and again all sorts of little details. It’s also worth noting here that his loot satchel is a separate piece and easily removable.

The two portraits consist of Star-Lord masked and unmasked. The masked head is fantastic. I really dig the movie version of the mask and Hasbro did a beautiful job recreating it here for the figure. The detail is sharp and with the exception of some minor slop on the red goggle paint, the paintwork is immaculate.

The alternate unmasked head is quite good, but I don’t know that the likeness to Chris Pratt is all that great. The eyes are painted a little too intense and the paint for the beard, while certainly tidy enough, is a little too heavy handed. That having been said, it’s still a perfectly serviceable portrait and for what it’s worth the sculpting for the hair is particularly well done. All in all it works for me.

Star-Lord features the kind of articulation we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Legends line. 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, have swivels in the thighs, double-hinged knees, and both hinges and rockers in the ankles. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the torso and a ball joint in the neck. I will note that Star-Lord’s joints feel very soft and mushy. Those super soft joints are usually a huge pet peeve of mine, but here it just doesn’t seem to work against the figure at all.

Accessories! In addition to the extra head, loot satchel, and BAF part Star-Lord comes with some nice extras. First off, you get that orb that is so prominently featured in the trailers. What is it? Well, apart from probably being one of the Infinity Stones, I don’t know. Unfortunately, since Star-Lord’s hands are designed to hold his guns, it’s pretty tough to get him to hold the Orb. I’d argue that an extra hand would have been in order, but there’s so much stuff in this box already, I guess I’ll let it slide.

Next up, you get his Walkman and headphones and I think it’s a hoot that Hasbro included these. Sure, the headphones are way too big and no, there’s no cord connecting them to the Walkman, but I don’t care. I just love that I can have my Peter Quill figure chilling to some Blue Swede while standing on my shelf.

Lastly, you get his guns and these are absolutely bitchin. I presume they are meant to be the Kree weapons he uses in the comics. There’s still no sign that his Element Gun will appear in the movie. Nonetheless, I love these things! The designs are great, the sculpt is great, and the little touches of gold paintwork? Great! He can hold them well and he looks like a total badass while doing it.

Hot damn, this figure is so much fun to play around with! The guns alone had me posing him on my desk long after I’ve put most figures down. This guy is going to be standing on my desk for a long time before going off to the display shelf.

With the new boxes, shiny new branding, and heftier price tag, Hasbro has been trying to pass off Marvel Legends Infinite as a premium line of action figures. I liked all of the figures from the Winter Soldier and Spider-Man waves, but most of them felt more like regular Legends figures than anything super special. Star-Lord here certainly ups the ante. I think this is one of the better 6-inch figures that I’ve opened in a while. It’s clear that Hasbro put a lot of love into this figure and I’m very interested to see whether the rest of the wave can sustain that level of excellence. Either way, I’m glad this one came two per case, because now I can display him with both heads and all his different gear.

Jun 7 2014

G.I. JOE: 25th Anniversary Battle Pack #1 by Hasbro, Part 6

Here we are at the Sixth and final part of my look at the first 25^th Anniversary Battle Pack for G.I. JOE. If G.I. JOE isn’t your bag, I appreciate you indulging me this week. On the other hand, if you’re just stopping back to see if I’m still doing G.I. JOE… go to hell and come back on Monday!!!! Ahem… so far we’ve looked at Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and Gung-Ho and that brings us to everybody’s favorite rhyming and machine gun-toting chef, Roadblock. The character has garnered a lot of attention since being played by The Rock in that questionable follow up to the equally questionable G.I. JOE live action movie. Let’s see how he fared in the 25^th Anniversary line.

Well, he looks pretty damn great! Ok, so his shoulders kind of look like Whoppers malted candies, but otherwise I’d say Hasbro presented us with a nice amalgam of Sunbow and vintage figure. There’s nothing too crazy here in the sculpt. You’ve got a nice camo wife-beater and brown trousers. He also sports a separate web gear piece with some pouches and a grenade. I should also note that the head sculpt looks exactly like somebody I work with, facial hair and all, and ever since I met the guy, I can never look at this figure the same way again. Anyway, Roadblock is a simple, understated but effective figure. Nice job here, Hasbro!

In addition to his removable helmet and personalized figure stand, Roadblock comes with his trademark machine gun. The gun is a nice sculpt and comes in two parts if you include the detachable tripod. Unfortunately the gun is cast in green plastic, which was an odd choice since all the other weapons in this set are appropriately cast in black. I should also note that the tripod is fairly useless. I can’t get Roadblock into a convincing prone position to have him firing it. The only time I’ve ever used the tripod for display was to have the gun standing next to him or to have it standing on the hood of the VAMP while he’s firing it.

Along with the machine gun, you get a belt of ammo and a magazine backpack. I love this idea, and connecting the ammo belt to the gun and the backpack looks fantastic, although you really have to work at it to get the backpack, the belt, the gun, and the figure all play along together. Which brings me to…

Playing around with Roadblock and his gear is a frustrating endeavor. First off, the peg holes in his feet are larger than the other figures, so the figure stands I use tend to fall right off of him. More importantly, his arms have Duke arm issues, where the hands are clearly sculpted to get him to hold the machine gun in both hands, but because his arms don’t bend at the elbows as much as they should, and because the wrists aren’t hinged, it’s tough to get him to hold his weapon with any conviction. Posing Roadblock brandishing his kick ass gun and mowing down Cobras by the dozens should be fun, but I can’t count the number of F-bombs I dropped trying to get him ready for a shot, only to have the gun pop out of his hands or the figure stand fall onto the floor. It’s amazing that even with all of these frustrations, I still love this figure.

And that puts this week long feature to bed. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and I kept putting it off because I didn’t think I’d get too into it. Turns out I loved pulling this set out and looking at it again. So much so, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the other two Battle Packs in the 25^th Anniversary line turn up here before too long. In fact, I may pencil in the Cobra set for a week in July.

I’ll freely admit that a lot of the 30^th Anniversary figures were nearly perfect from a technical standpoint. I don’t think I’ve seen better 3 ¾” figures in terms of articulation, sculpt, and gear. And yet I hardly bought any of them. Why? Because I still prefer the style and charm of these 25^th figures. These are the JOEs I grew up with and these are the ones that made me into an avid collector again. When they went away, I wandered away from the franchise. I’d like to say the reason why JOE isn’t a major player in the toy aisles anymore is because Hasbro abandoned this line, but I don’t think that’s the case. The 25^th figures were all over the clearance aisles and I was able to pick up more than a few for next to nothing at Marshall’s and Ross. For some reason kids just stopped loving JOE and that… well, that’s just a bummer. I don’t know why, but I’m open to hearing speculation.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Monthly Archives: June 2014

Masters of the Universe Classics: Battle Lion by Mattel

LEGO Movie: Bad Cop’s Pursuit (#70802) by LEGO

Marvel Legends Infinite: Black Widow and SHIELD Mandroid by Hasbro

Transformers: Masterpiece Grimlock (MP-03) TRU Exclusive (Reissue) by Hasbro, Part 2

Transformers: Masterpiece Grimlock (MP-03) TRU Exclusive (Reissue) by Hasbro, Part 1

Transformers (2007 Movie): Dropkick by Hasbro

Doctor Who: The 7th Doctor and Renegade Dalek by Character Options

DC Comics: Cyborg ArtFX+ Statue by Kotobukiya

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Star-Lord by Hasbro

G.I. JOE: 25th Anniversary Battle Pack #1 by Hasbro, Part 6

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