Monthly Archives: October 2015

Oct 6 2015

Masters of the Universe Classics: King Chooblah

I’ve said it many times. I collect Masters of the Universe Classics more because they’re excellent figures than because of any bonds I have with the characters. Sure, I have nostalgia for the core characters, but when a figure like King Chooblah come along I can enjoy him just as much despite the fact that I have no idea who he is. Chooblah is the latest release in Matty’s Club 200X subscription, which draws from the MYP He-Man Reboot and further proves the point that I need to bust out those DVDs for a re-watch because apparently I remember very little of it.

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Yeah, there’s a look at the packaging. Nothing new to say here, other than Choobs really fills out that bubble quite nicely because he’s an absolute beast of a figure. That’s it. I got nothing else. The bio on the back assures me that despite being a shaggy, lumbering snow beast, he’s one of the good guys and even his tagline touts him as the “Heroic King of the Kulataks,” which I presume are other shaggy, lumbering snow beasts.

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I know I’ve said it before, but for a line that is winding down, I’m really impressed at how Matty has been going balls out on the new sculpts this year, with Buzzsaw Hordak being the glaring exception. While Choobs here still uses the standard MOTUC torso, and probably a couple of other parts, he’s about as far from the normally proportioned Eternian as you can get. The miraculous makeover is carried out mostly by his animal-like lower legs, his shaggy Popeye forearms, and an extra piece of plastic that’s fitted over his shoulders to give him extra bulk up there. The result is wonderfully unique looking figure that feels totally fresh and new.

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Chooblah appears to be sculpted in a blueish-gray plastic and painted over with white wash. The effect gives all that painstakingly sculpted fur a lot of depth, creating a veritable feast for the eyes. There’s so much detail invested into this figure’s shaggy coat that I can’t help but be impressed. Some blue paint for his hands and feet and some gray for his claws complete the beastly details.

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The head sculpt is magnificent and oozes personality. Thanks to the big shoulders, Chooblah’s head has the illusion of jutting out of the middle of his chest and giving him a hunched appearance, when in reality the head is just plugged into the neck like any other MOTUC figure. The face features more of that great sculpted fur and blue skin with some darker blue used to accent his nose. He’s got some jagged yellow fangs and beady yellow eyes framed by a set of bushy eyebrows. The portrait is topped off by tribal necklace sculpted onto his chest. Damn, this guy looks great!

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Because of his rather unusual body, Chooblah’s articulation mixes things up a bit. He isn’t missing much from the usual MOTUC articulation, but rather adds a couple of points. The arms feature the usual rotating hinges in the shoulders and he has them in the wrists too. The elbows are hinged and he has swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees, and then hinged again where the ankles start. He has a swivel in the waist, an ab-crunch hinge, and his neck is ball jointed.

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Chooblah comes with one accessory and that’s his gnarled green staff with a hooked top. There’s wood grain sculpted into it and the hook at the end makes it look rather like a shepherd’s staff to me. He can hold it comfortably in either of his massive claws.

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The 200X Subscription has been a real treat. Each and every release has been superb and while it’s short run, and relatively small commitment, certainly favored heavily in me subbing to it, I now find myself wishing that it was running longer. That’s especially the case when I look at a figure like King Chooblah and see how much love Matty is willing to invest in the line. The sculpting and paint on this figure are beautiful and it genuinely looks like Matty spared no expense, even when bringing us a relatively niche character. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bust out those MYP DVDs and get myself back up to speed.

Oct 5 2015

Marvel Legends (Hobgoblin Wave): Anti-Venom by Hasbro

Well, it took me a couple of weeks of diversions, but I’m finally back to looking at the Hobgoblin Wave of Marvel Legends. I’m just now approaching the halfway mark and as I reach over and pull one off the stack, it just so happens to be Anti-Venom! Ah, but if you read the title, you already knew that…

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Not a lot new to say about the packaging, other than it has Spider-Man at the top, signifying the theme of this wave and the character’s name at the bottom. Anti-Venom is a big boy, so he fills out the bubble quite well and there’s just barely enough room to squeeze in that puny little Hobgoblin BAF part off to the side. I’ll admit, since I still haven’t found Toxin or Carnage from the last Spider-Man wave, Anti-Venom feels a bit like a consolation prize. But, hey, a prize is still a prize.

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I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is a reuse of the Toxin body, which is certainly appropriate. Anti-Venom consists of a simple white buck with the black spider emblem painted on. The body has a bit of a chalky look in some areas, but overall it’s solid and the paint is sharp and clean with just one chip on the stripe running down the right side of his abs. Some might consider the deco bland, but I have a thing for monochromatic figures and Legends has brought us more than a couple.

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There’s a hunk of symbiot thorns coming out of his back, which pegs into the hole there. It’s a tad loose, and I may just go ahead and glue it into place.

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The head sculpt is also a solid effort with a high gloss black paint used for the face and yellow for the eyes and inside the mouth. The seams on the jawline had me hoping for an articulated jaw, but no such luck. Yeah, I know, I was reaching.

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The articulation here is everything I could ask for from a modern Legends. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels at both the thighs and lower legs. The ankles are hinged and have some satisfyingly deep lateral rockers.

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Anti-Venom was no doubt an easy release for Hasbro, consisting of just a new paint job and a tweaked head. There are no surprises to be had here. That doesn’t make him any less welcome, though. He’s a great looking figure and another significant name to cross off my Legends list. He also seems to be the dud of this wave as he’s readily available at deep discounts from various online retailers. Ah, but if this figure is considered a dud, Legends is doing all right by me!

Oct 3 2015

Star Wars “The Force Awakens:” (Snow Mission) Rey and Stormtrooper by Hasbro

It’s time to open up some more 3 3/4″ Star Wars figures and this time I’m going with the “Snow Mission” series, which oddly enough consists of Rey and a First Order Stormtrooper. I say it’s odd because neither of these figures seem to fit their “mission” series. Rey is specified as “Starkiller Base” Rey, which we know is on an arctic planet, but she’s still wearing her Jakku robes and we already know that The First Order has specialty Snowtroopers for those arctic climates. Ah, but I’m probably trying to read way too much into a movie that I haven’t even seen yet, so let’s just press on…

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No question about it, Hasbro absolutely nailed the packaging for this line. Sure, they’re not at all collector friendly, but the cards are just gorgeous and it’s such a treat to see individual character art on the cards again. For the longest time I was convinced that Hasbro had sacked their entire art design department, but it looks like they may have hired a few back for these snazzy packages. Let’s rip these open and kick things off with Rey.

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Yeeeah… Well, as already mentioned, Rey is wearing the same clothes she has on during all those Jakku scenes we see in the trailers, which makes it the same outfit as her 6-inch Black counterpart. I suppose it’s possible she doesn’t change clothes, but that would mean less variant figures to sell and I think Disney and Hasbro are smarter than that. Also, she looks like she’d get really cold in that outfit while traipsing through the snow. Anywho, this is a fairly detailed sculpt for the scale, complete with all the little wrinkles and wrappings of Rey’s garb. The head sculpt isn’t good, but I’d say it’s not all that much worse than the 6-inch version. That’s not really so much a compliment for this figure but a jab at the other. The paint is serviceable for the scale, but not great. It looks fine with the naked eye, but when the camera gets in close I can see all sorts of slop.

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Rey comes with her staff or gun or whatever the hell this thing is. She also comes with a pretty cool backpack with snaps on the shoulder straps. It looks great on the figure and it’s adjustable so you could put it on pretty much any figure in the series. That was a nice surprise!

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I don’t have a lot to say about the he Stormtrooper, as it is more or less the exact same figure that came with the Assault Walker only minus the pauldron and with a slightly less plastic sheen to him. It’s a great looking figure and includes the same blaster, which can be tabbed into his leg for storage. I commented early about it being odd that a Snowtrooper wasn’t included in the “snow” mission assortment, but I imagine these regular troopers will be on patrol inside Starkiller Base. Either way, I’m probably in for a least couple more of these, assuming I can ever find any.

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Last time, I didn’t even bother to talk about the build-a-weapon pieces, but I will this time because these two sort of interest me. Rey’s piece looks like it could make a decent jet pack if the figures had peg holes in the backs, but neither of these do. The Stormtrooper’s weapon is a giant gun, which can be used as a weapon all on its own, even if it is ridiculously huge. Combine these two with the piece that comes with Darth Vader and you can build a pretty decent looking gun turret. Alas, I have no interest in picking up the Vader so it’s not going to happen.

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Obviously, these are very basic figures and still only feature that basic 5-POA style of articulation, slightly enhanced with ball jointed necks. Some fans are never going to get past that, and I can understand the hang up. Nothing about these figures is especially great or noteworthy and while I don’t hate them, the thought is constantly nagging at me that a brand new Star Wars movie deserves so much better than this. I probably would have been a lot more resentful of these if the articulated 6-inch line didn’t exist, but since it does, I suppose I can accept these for what they are, throwbacks to a long gone age. Whether I continue to collect these past the initial wave that I have remains to be seen. Next week, I’ll revisit the line with a look at the “Desert Mission” Finn and Flametrooper.

Oct 2 2015

DC Comics Super-Villains: “New 52” Poison Ivy by DC Collectibles

In case you haven’t been checking in on FFZ Fridays lately, I’m doing this whole DC Comics thing, at least until I can get through my backlog of figures and statues, which at this rate will probably take a couple of months. Today I’m looking at another recent release in DC Collectibles’ Super-Villains line, that vixen of vegetation, Poison Ivy.

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The packaging consists of the same old window box with the extended back and J-hook so you can swing it on a peg or stand it on the shelf. The villains series features a black box, as opposed to the usual white boxes and the swipe across the front and band on the back are both green, presumably to satiate Ivy’s thirst for chlorophyll. You do get a shot of the figure on the side panel in case you want to line up these packages on a bookshelf, which is always a plus for me, but with space limitations being what they are, I just throw these boxes out.

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Call me sacrilegious, but I’ve been mostly OK with the “New 52” character designs, although that’s not the case with Poison Ivy. I find her black leotard covered with greenery to raise too many questions. Does she put on the bodysuit first and then grow the plants on top of it? Are the plants just artificial and part of the costume? And why black? How does that in any way fit the whole plant motif? It’s just a weird design and I’m not sure where the designers were going with it. Why go with this when you can go with something like this. With that having been said, this figure comes as close as possible to selling it to me and that’s thanks to some really solid sculpting and paintwork.

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The figure features Ivy’s shapely bod cast in black plastic and with sculpted vines and leaves scattered about in patches. Because she’s wearing a leotard, the placement of the leaves doesn’t have to be as strategic as past versions of the character, but even still I don’t get why they left one breast uncovered. I love how all the greenery is actually part of the sculpt and the paint on the vines and some of the individual leaves is fairly neatly applied. DCC could have easily done a lot of the vines with just paint, so I applaud them going the extra mile.

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DCC has delivered on some rather attractive female portraits in this line and that continues to be the case with Ivy here. She’s not only beautiful, but she’s easily recognizable from the panel art, and that’s something that’s not always easy to do when going from 2D art to a fully realized 3D figure. The paint on her eyes and lips is rather tight, as is are the black vines on her cheeks. Wait, black suit with green vines, but black vines on… nah, nevermind. The sculpted hair is equally impressive. It’s a light brown with an effective wash and bits of leaves scattered throughout.

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Ivy has a fair number of articulation points. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders and hinges in the elbows, swivels in the biceps, but sadly no swivels in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and ankles, and have swivels in the thighs. There’s no torso articulation, but her neck is ball jointed. But even with all these strategic points, Ivy isn’t a terribly limber figure. The range of movement in the shoulders and hips is pretty limited and the hair renders the neck joint almost useless. No matter how hard I try, I can’t really get any decent poses out of her and while I haven’t had any problems with her joints, I’m not about to risk stressing them.

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While definitely not my preferred look for Poison Ivy, this is still a solidly crafted figure. The only real gripe I have here is with the articulation and again, it’s not because the points aren’t there, but rather few of them have any real range of motion, making Poison Ivy one of those figures that is best just standing on the shelf and looking nice. And of course, people who have been collecting DCC and DC Direct for a while won’t be bothered so much by limitations in the articulation. At the original $20, I’ve had this figure in my hand a couple of times and always put her back, but with so many DCC figures hitting the clearance bins these days, I took a second look and at $13, I found I couldn’t resist.

Oct 1 2015

Transformers Combiner Wars: Defensor by Hasbro

Ah, Combiners… they’re the Transformers that keep on giving. Even once you’ve played with the robot and alt mode, you still have a treat waiting for you when you collect that last bot on the team and can cobble them together. Hasbro’s track record on these in the modern age has been pretty spotty. Indeed, only with the recent releases of Superion and Devastator that I’ve been able to give them a passing grade and even there you have Menasor pissing in the punch bowl. Will Defensor be another for the plus column? I’m about to find out…

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Protectobots…

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Transform!

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And merge…

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Into…

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DEFENSOR!!!! Now, you’ll note I went with an even swap out between Rook and Groove to form the right leg. To be fair Rook, Streetwise, and First Aid are all rather chunky and to me make for better legs than arms, especially when counterbalanced against Blades’ more svelte form, but someone had to be the left arm, so I stuck with tradition and made it First Aid. I have the same issue with Streetwise, where I’m never happy with the position of the head and chest plate on the knee. I went with lifting it up and out of the way, but then it exposes the back of Streetwise’s head. It’s a compromise. I’m also waffling back and forth as to whether I like Blades’ rockets straight out and locked in or angled to match First Aid’s door panels.

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So, let me start with the good stuff and it’s mostly all good stuff! I love Defensor’s overall look. The engineering for Hot Spot as the torso kind of blows my mind. It’s simple, but really cool, especially the way the ladder wraps under his groin and up his back. Hot Spot just makes for such a cool and unique looking torso and it’s such a far cry from the mediocrity of poor Motormaster’s torso mode. The deco works beautifully, especially in this configuration with the red and white matching on the arms and the blue and white on the legs. It all goes well with the powder blue of Hot Spot’s legs and that gorgeous red and silver paint on Hot Spot’s thighs and chest plate really make the figure pop, especially against all that black. Stability is much better than Menasor too. Oh, Defensor still has some nagging issues, like the two chest flaps do not want to stay tabbed into place for long, but at his shoulders are so much more solid than Menasor’s making him a lot more fun to play with.

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The head sculpt is pure love and the silver and blue paint look great framed by the black “helmet.” The head does have a habit of popping out of the body from time to time and it feels like Hasbro could have come up with something a little better to do with those angled flaps, but there’s nothing here that ruins my fun with the figure. I should also mention that I’m opting out of picking up the Legends Groove. I honestly don’t think Defensor needs the extra chest ornament. I like him just the way he is.

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Defensor’s rifle is just Hot Spot’s two guns chained together. It’s OK, but nothing special. I do, however, like the way it looks when split and stored on his back. I think the two aerials just look neat and give him a little more personality.

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I really love the way Defensor turned out and that’s a huge bonus when you consider how great the individual figures are. I haven’t taken a lot of time to experiment with him “scramble city” style, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. If we’re ranking these guys by combined mode, Defensor certainly blows away the crappy Menasor on every level, but he doesn’t nudge out Superion, at least not in my book. That may have something to do with me just having much stronger nostalgic ties to Superion over Defensor, but overall I just feel Superion is a slightly more refined robot with overall better stability. All that’s left to say is that I really hope Hasbro eventually brings the Deluxe Groove Stateside. I don’t think I can afford to double dip by picking up the Takara set, but I’d still like to get that figure into the mix and see how he does.