Monthly Archives: December 2018

Dec 31 2018

Marvel Legends (Cull Obsidian Wave): Cull Obsidian Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

Here we go! It’s the very last Marvel Monday review of 2018 and I am still ridiculously far behind on my Marvel Legends, but I’m so very glad to be ending the year with a figure from Infinity War. As far as movies go, that one was one of the highest points of the year for me. So much so, that I’m going to be ending the year watching it on Blu-Ray tonight for the the umpteenth time. So let’s get right down to business so I can watch my movie and you all can go about your New Years Eve business!

For all intent and purposes, Cull Obsidian is the Black Dwarf of the MCU’s Black Order and only the second of Thanos’ minions (so far!) to get a figure in the Legends line. He’s comprised of seven parts, if you include his weapon, spread out over all six figures in this wave, with the weapon being doubled up with one of the arms. Before slapping him together, it’s worth mentioning that this figure deviates a bit from his look in the film. The body and head sculpt both look pretty much on point, but he wore a lot more armor in the film. Is this one of those cases of Hasbro being given early concept art to work with? Probably. Does it hurt the figure? Not necessarily.

Sure, if you’re looking for a perfect representation of Cull Obsidian on the big screen, you’re going to be disappointed, but with that having been said, I think this guy turned out fantastic. This fellow is a good head and shoulders taller than his boss Thanos, and that makes him pretty imposing when compared to the regular-sized figures. He’s a big reptilian brute covered in scaly skin, with ridges on his shoulders, powerful hands, and three-toed feet. He kind of looks like something you’d find Duke Nukem fighting, and that ain’t a bad thing. As mentioned, the armor is quite different than what he wore in the film. Here he has grieves on his lower legs, a metallic armored belt with sculpted plastic cloth hanging down in tatters, a segmented piece of armor on his right forearm, and a massive piece of armor on his right shoulder, which is actually a separate piece and can be removed if you want to.

From the back, you can see armored plates running up his spine and a single armor plate stuck to his lower left leg. The coloring is mostly brown with some black wash to bring out the details, and some yellow-brown added to his chest. I would have loved to see a little wash on the armor, as it looks rather flat when compared to the rest of the body. The body features solid articulation for such a big guy, indeed it’s basically the same as what we get in the regular releases. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, the elbows are double-hinged, and there are swivels in the biceps. The legs have ball joints in the hips, swivels in the thighs, double-hinged knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint under the chest and the neck is ball jointed. As expected, this guy is as solid as they come, and he’s loads of fun to play with.

The head sculpt is a thing of beauty, and by that I mean it’s ugly as sin. Like the body, the portrait looks pretty close to the character seen in the film. I love the tiny piercing gold eyes, and the things on his chin and lower jaw that look like tusks. There’s some wonderful detail in the lines of his face, the ridges on his head, and all the other little scales and bumps.

If this figure disappoints at all, it’s definitely because of his weapon. In the movie he carried a cool axe that could shoot the head out on a chain. It looked like it was made out of space junk, but really cool looking space junk. Here we get this hammer thing that looks like a lame Minecraft weapon. It kind of has an MCU Kree technology flavor to it, but I just don’t dig it. He can only hold it in his left hand and while I’m sure he could do some major damage with it, I’d much rather we got something closer to the weapon in the movie.

Lame weapon notwithstanding, I absolutely love this figure. It really doesn’t bother me that he strays from the actual on-screen look, especially since the difference is mainly in his costume. He’s big and nasty-looking and he’s definitely going to spend some time fighting The Hulk on my shelf. Pretty soon I’ll be opening up Proxima Midnight and I’m really looking forward to the release of Ebony Maw and Corvus Glaive. I think they’re going to make for one hell of a display!

And that’s a wrap for 2018. I’m not doing any kind of End of Year list this year, mainly because I’ve got a busy couple of weeks with work and also because I don’t want to fall any farther behind in my backlog. At some point in the next month or so, I’ll probably be doing a Marvel Legends week, just to try to get me a little boost, although at this point I would need to do a whole Marvel Legends month just to try to get sort of caught up. Anyway… thanks to everyone who stuck with me for another year and I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year! 

Dec 31 2018

Marvel Legends (Cull Obsidian Wave): Malekith by Hasbro

It’s the last Marvel Monday of 2018 and I vowed to get through one more wave of Marvel Legends before we flip the calendar to 2019, so I’m going to be doubling up today. This morning I’m opening my final boxed figure in the Cull Obsidian Wave, Malekith, and I’ll be back later to build Cull Obsidian, himself… Let’s go!

Malekith is the third figure from the 2017 SDCC (Now Not-So) Exclusive Ragnarok (the others being Jane Foster Thor and Thor Odinson) to get a subsequent retail wide release. Sure these were all repainted, making those versions still technically exclusive, but that leaves just Ulik and Bor as the only figures in that set not to get a brick-and-mortar treatment. You could argue that those two are the best in the set, but I still haven’t opened mine yet, so off-hand I couldn’t tell ya. It also means I won’t be doing any side-by-side pictures of this Malekith and the SDCC version, but I will be doing some verbal comparisons.

The retail release is so very nearly a straight repaint of the SDCC version, but there is one change and that’s the left hand. The exclusive version had an open hand, this one has a closed accessory holding-hand. Why the change? Maybe it was just so they could point to something other than the paint to distinguish the two figures. I dig it, because now he’s ambidextrous! Although the grip on mine is actually closed, so you’ll need to make do a quick slice with a razor if you want him to hold the sword in the other hand. Malekith makes use of a lot of paintwork to characterize his costume, but there’s some new sculpting attached here as well. The shoulders and collar are cast in one piece of soft plastic, although it looks like three separate pieces from the front. Happily, the flexibility in the shoulder armor means that it won’t inhibit the arm articulation. He also has two belts, One with the skirt attached to it, which feels like it might be glued into place. The other hangs loose on his hips and features some sculpted pouches on his left side. Finally, the forearms are sculpted with his wrist bracers.

As for the deco, well that’s going to be an issue of personal preference. This retail release is definitely brighter and cheerier, but I’m going to go with the Exclusive version as having the more appealing deco. The darker red and the black in place of maroon just makes for a more sinister and striking figure to me. That’s not to say this one is bad, they’re both fine. I dig the gold paint on the bracers and necklace, although I would have liked some additional paint hits to the belts.

The head sculpt is quite spectacular. I love his broad, evil grin, and the black and blue paint on the face looks great, even though they splashed some blue onto his teeth. The hair is sculpted as a separate piece to give the portrait some depth. Early pictures made me think that the hair was going to be more of an orange-yellow tone, but in person it’s very pale and I’m happy with that. Although, I think I still prefer the whiter hair on the exclusive over what we got here.

The articulation here is pretty standard stuff. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs have ball joints in the hips, double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The torso features a waist swivel, an ab crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

Malekith comes with his sword, which is an absolutely bitchin’ design. The hilt is fairly simple with a ribbed grip, no cross-guard, and a gold finish, but the blade is so distinctive! It narrows at the hilt, then swells out, and ends in an upswept clipped point. It also features a nasty looking serrated back. It’s one vicious looking piece of cutlery!

I’m thrilled to finally have the comic version of Malekith represented on my Legends shelf. Hell, he’ll even be represented twice if I ever get around to opening the SDCC set! He may have been a bewilderingly odd choice to include in this wave, but generally speaking, I don’t care how the assortments play out, as long as we get the figures. It’s just a shame that the character was handled so poorly in the MCU, but then the villains have rarely been the MCU’s strong point. Anyway… give me a little time to recoup and I’ll be back later on tonight to check out Cull Obsidian!

Dec 28 2018

Transformers Siege: Skytread by Hasbro

Hasbro’s new line of Transformers continues to hit retail and I’ve just about completed picking up the first wave of Deluxe Class figures. Today I’m opening my second of the bunch and while he’s called Skytread on the package, I’ll happily re-name him Flywheels, because he’s a modern update to my favorite Duocon.

The new Siege packaging abandons the traditional card and bubble for a collector friendly box with some bitchin’ artwork. Of course, the Duocons were a new breed of Transformers gimmick that Hasbro introduced in 1987. These Decepticons could split in half, with each half transforming into its own independent vehicle. It was hardly a sub-group, as we only ever got two of these guys. The other was Battletrap, and Hasbro gave him an update as part of Power of the Primes, but he’s not really a proper Duocon. It’s too much to get into here, but maybe now I’ll get around to opening and reviewing those figures. But I digress… Skytread’s alt modes consist of a jet and a tank, so not entirely unlike Big Daddy Overlord, but these vehicles are pretty small and very simple. They’re also very similar to the original G1 toys, and some collectors will love that, others maybe not so much. Let’s first look at his jet mode…

Awww, who’s a cute little Decepticon attack jet? You ARE! Flywheels’ jet mode was an adorable super-deformed attack craft and this modern update really stuck to its guns on that account. It’s actually a pretty nice mold, with plenty of panel lines, sculpted rivets, flaps, and vents, but it still looks a bit like a chibi Harrier Jump Jet to me, even though the proportions probably aren’t that off. The coloring is mostly confined to the maroon plastic with painted blue cockpit and some gold painted trim, while there’s some brown showing on the obvious robot arms that make up his undercarriage. I would have liked to see a little in the way of paint detail, but as it stands, it sure beats the one color of plastic that passed for Flywheels’ jet deco. All in all, this is a frightfully simple little toy jet, but it begrudgingly gets my seal of approval because it serves up some major nostalgia for a toy that I really loved. Moving on to the tank mode…

This is the half that even nostalgia cannot save. It’s not too dissimilar from Flywheel’s tank mode, but even so, there’s just nothing at all appealing to me about this little piece of rolling armor. The brown body features some sculpted panel lines, decently sculpted treads, some gold paint hits and some silver weathering along the sides. The two guns are maroon plastic with some gold paint. The design isn’t very exciting at all, the back is hollow and ugly, the main gun barely stays put, and the top pieces are very difficult to keep tabbed in, despite this being a frightfully simple transformation. You can mount the smaller gun on either side of the main cannon or even on the sides, and while options are nice, it just isn’t enough to save this tank for me. The last time I was this disappointed with a Transformers tank mode had to be the Titans Return Cassette Tanks, and those were pretty damn bad. I will, however, allow this one to squeak by because he’s part of a bigger picture.

And because that’s one heck of a cool looking robot mode. As with Flywheels, Skytread’s tank mode forms the lower half of the robot with the jet forming the upper half. OK, it’s not exactly like the Duocon that inspired him, but it’s pretty close. And what deviation there is just serves to modernize the figure beautifully. There’s nothing terribly exciting or inventive about the engineering here, but it’s hard to argue with the end result. All those panel lines on the vehicle modes add some wonderful detail to the robot mode, and the two-tone brown and maroon deco works well for a Decepticon soldier. Besides, the blue cockpit and hits of gold paint do their parts to make him pop a little. The proportions are great and it holy hell, he actually has functional legs, which is a boast that the old toy couldn’t make.

From the back Skytread looks fairly clean and tidy. He wears the back half of the jet plane on his back, complete with an adorable little tail and you can even use the peg on his back to store one of his guns, or both if you want to combine them. My only real complaint here is that his torso is hollow, but unless you’re scrutinizing him from the sides, it isn’t really a big deal. And no, I’m not going to gripe about his big feet, because that’s just another loving nod to G1 Flywheels.

I can rarely find much fault in Hasbro’s bot-noggins, and that’s not going to change here. Skytread’s head sculpt is fantastic and a perfect homage to his predecessor.

Obviously, Skytread’s two tank guns also serve as weapons for his robot mode, and while the designs are pretty generic, he looks good holding them. The smaller gun is my favorite of the two, just because it’s compact.

 

The longer gun is fine, but it’s design is even more generic than the smaller one. Fortunately, you can peg them together…

To make one big rifle. I really dig this feature as well as the fact that there are two pegs for him to grab.

Skytread is so much fun in robot mode, that I’m not willing to let the crappy tank and mediocre jet modes tear him down. But then I’m a real sucker for modern updates and as far as I know, this is the first time Hasbro’s revisited this character. There’s just something so cool about taking that old design and doing it over with proper proportions and useful articulation. And yeah, there’s also a good deal of nostalgia at work here. As it happens, Flywheels was one of the last Transformers figures I ever bought before I got away from toys, and that was pushing it because I was 14 when he originally came out. He lacks a bit of the polish and premium feel that oozed out of Hound, but in the end I’m still smitten with how this modern Duocon turned out.

Dec 26 2018

Mythic Legions (Advent of Decay): Boarrior by The Four Horsemen

Happy day after Christmas, folks! I hope the holidays treated you well and I once again apologize for not delivering my usual Christmas Day content. It was a day spent getting badly needed rest and with my family. But now I’m recharged and ready to have at Mythic Legions Wednesday and with the taste of the holiday ham still lingering in my memory, today I’m going for one of the oddball figures in the Advent of Decay series… The Boarrior!

He’s not an Elf or Skeleton, nor is he a Human or Vampire. The Boarrior are dwarf-pig hybrids employed as shock troops by The Legion of Arethyr, and known to be rather nasty little beasties. These little bundles of porcine awesomeness are comprised of a wonderful mix of parts, many of which hearken back to the original run of Mythic Legions. Like the Dwarves, the Boarrior use the regular sized trunk, arms and waist pieces, while kitted out with shorter legs, and in this case hooves for feet. The full plate armor is taken directly from this line’s beginnings and looks as great as ever. It’s colored with a dingy and well-worn iron finish with silver paint highlighting the edges and rivets, and some red paint used for some of the trim. The waist piece consists of plate armor for the hips and the sculpted leather scale hanging down to protect his piggy jumblies and if you turn him around you can see his adorable little pig tail hanging out the back of the armor. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, T4H’s ability to sculpt and paint plastic to look like real weathered metal never ceases to amaze me!

As always, the figure comes with pauldrons that peg into the back and beef up his armor. In this case, they’re recycled from the jagged and crude looking Orc armor that seems totally appropriate for this savage little fellow. Indeed, without them I think his armor looks a tad too sophisticated for such a creature. But toss them on and it makes him look more brutish. The Boarrior also comes with a standard brown sword belt, and while he doesn’t have any swords or daggers in his arsenal, I think it works well for his mace.

The head sculpt is completely unique and it’s a beauty! The snout and jowls protrude outward pretty far and feature sculpted fur as well as two powerful tusks protruding from his mouth. The head is protected by a crude looking helmet, which is cast as part of the head sculpt and painted in a copper finish to match the shoulder pauldrons. You also get some silver around the edges and on the large rivets. Some cracks and wear back up the bit in the bio that says these guys sometimes like to toss their weapons and just ram things. And speaking of tossing weapons, let’s check out the gear he comes with!

We’ve already seen the mace tucked into his belt. This baby has a head that looks like it could bash in just about any plate armor and make pretty quick work of skulls too. It’s painted silver with a wash to give it a worn look. I’ve had maces included with a couple of figures up to this point, but this one is a completely different sculpt than what I’ve had before. It’s nice to have a new and novel weapon after opening so many figures with basically the same swords.

Next up is this primitive looking axe. Like the mace, this one has turned up before, but very infrequently. The handle is sculpted to look like a piece of bone and the blade is painted as well worn metal. I think this weapon is particularly well suited to The Boarrior because it reminds me of the axe included with Kenner’s old Gamorrean Guard from Return of the Jedi.

And finally, we have the giant hammer, and this completes a trifecta of weapons that I’ve seen before, but just not very often. This is a favorite of mine, not only because it looks so powerful, but the sculpt is just gorgeous. It also conveys just how strong these tiny oinkers must be to be able to wield such an obviously heavy weapon, which is almost as tall as he is! The hammer is finished off with a silver paint and some black wash, similar to the mace.

As much as I love this guy, The Boarrior almost didn’t make the final cut of my Advent of Decay purchase list. As I was crunching my budget he came off a few times, only to get included back in. In the end, I’m very glad I opted to get him. Not only is he a great looking figure, but he adds that little extra bit of variety to a line that is made up predominantly of larger factions. And the more diverse Mythic Legions gets, the better I like it!  I’d love to see T4H produce a Boarrior Legion Builder somewhere down the road, because as a regular figure he’s a bit pricey to troop build, but at the same time, I feel like I need at least a trio of these little piggies. Considering the head sculpt is completely unique, I’d imagine they’re looking for a way to reuse it and get a little more money out of it, and I’m quite excited to see what that will entail!

Dec 24 2018

Marvel Legends (Cull Obsidian Wave): Black Knight by Hasbro

After a few diversions, I’m back to spending Marvel Monday digging into my pile of unopened Marvel Legends. Although, today’s figure isn’t random, I actually picked it because I want to complete one more wave before the end of the year, and with two figures left to open in the Cull Obsidian Wave, that’s the one I’m going with. I also thought it would be fun to go with Black Knight, because I’ve been devoting one slot a day to opening Mythic Legions. So what do we call today’s figure? Marvel Legions? Mythic Legends? Whatever, the point is it’s Marvel’s Black Knight!

Here he is in the box, and with only Malekith left to open, Black Knight is the penultimate figure in this wave for me. He’s also one of those characters that I only recall encountering a few times in my 35 years or so of Marvel comic reading. I know he’s been around in one form or another since forever and it’s been about that long since I remember seeing him in my funnybooks. If anyone knows a good run for us to get introduced, please feel free to lay it on me.

And for a character I simply don’t know all that well, I have to say that I dig the look of this figure a lot. Hasbro took the torso, arms and legs right off of Green Goblin and Hobgoblin, which makes perfect sense because of the excellent chain-mail sculpt on the limbs. I was surprised to see that they didn’t recycle the gauntlets or buccaneer boots. I mean, I wasn’t expecting them to use the curled toe boots, but it seems like they could have cheaped out and recycled a lot more if they wanted to. Whatever the case, it all works well for the medieval knight motif. It kind of gives him that vintage Prince Valiant flavor that hints at just how far back the character goes. The tabard is achieved with a painted torso and a separate sculpted belt piece that hangs down below the waist and is pretty convincing as all being part one garment. The belt is 100% comic, though, with a monstrously large belt buckle and enough sculpted pouches to make Deadpool jelly.

The coloring here is fairly dark, but nicely done. I really dig the silver and gun-metal blue they used for the chain-mail. The gauntlets and boots are both matte black and there’s some red striping around the edges of the gauntlets, as well as the arm holes in the tabard. He also features a red flying eagle emblem on his chest. The belt is brown with some dull bronze paint for the buckle, but unfortunately there’s no paint on the pouch snaps.

The cape attaches via a peg in the back and hangs off the shoulders, so it doesn’t impede articulation much, but you can easily take it off for the more action-packed poses.

You get three different heads to choose from, each designed to offer a different one of his looks. The stock head features a helmet that covers the nose and leaves the lower half of the face exposed. It’s got some nice gold paint and the way it’s sculpted makes it almost look like it could be removed, even though it can’t. I dig the wings on the sides as well. This is easily the character’s look that is most familiar to me.

The next head features a classic Great Helm with a similar black and gold coloring. This one isn’t as convincing as a real helmet, since the eye holes are shallow and just painted over in black. I do like the eagle crest on the top, though. It’s cast in a soft plastic and looks great.

Finally, you get a noggin that looks like it’s probably meant to be for villain version of Black Knight. I’m not as big a fan of this one. The head sculpt is actually quite good, but the helmet itself reminds me of a Nova Corps helmet (as well as Captain Britain’s!) a bit too much. Still, not bad at all.

Black Knight comes with his trusty sword, The Ebony Blade. It would have been damn cool to get his photonic blade sword as well. I suppose I could always steal the one off of Taskmaster. Anyway, the sword is a nice sculpt with an elongated two-hand grip, and there’s a slot on the belt for him to wear it. The hand sculpts they went with for him aren’t perfectly suited to holding the sword. The left hand works best, and while he can hold it in the right hand, the grip is somewhat loose. He can also wield the sword with both hands.

The articulation here has all the right points, and rather than go through them all, I’ll just refer you back to either the Green Goblin or Hobgoblin reviews. The problem here is that he’s got some seriously gummy hinges in those elbows, which can be a bit of a drag when playing around with him.

Ultimately, I dig this figure a lot. He looks great standing on the shelf and there’s just something about his design that takes me back to films like the 1953 classic Knights of the Round Table. The extra heads go above and beyond for fans of the character who want to go with one particular look, and if this guy ever starts showing up for as cheap as some Legends figures have, I could easily see myself picking up a couple more. And that’s almost a wrap for this wave. Next Monday I’ll be back to check out Malekith as well as the Cull Obsidian Build-A-Figure.

And I can’t depart without wishing everyone a happy and safe Christmas Eve today and a Merry Christmas tomorrow. I also need to face up to the fact that I’m probably not going to be able to do a big review on Christmas, like I’ve been doing the last few years. Usually I can get a jump on that well before Christmas Eve, but this year my work schedule, family obligations, and other stuff going on in my life just hasn’t afforded me the time. I’ll still check in tomorrow, and maybe throw something together for Christmas Day, but I can’t promise anything. Perhaps, I’ll try for something special on New Year’s Day instead. 

Dec 21 2018

Transformers: Masterpiece Ratchet (MP-30) by Takara

Folks, I’ve been a bad MP Transformers collector. After a long run of scarfing up each of the releases, I hit a wall. My last MP purchase was Ironhide, and I reviewed him over two years ago! I love this line, so I could only attribute me falling off by the rising prices. I thought Ironhide was well worth the extra bucks, but $90 for a repaint? That’s considerably more than each of the three Datsuns set me back. And I didn’t want to skip Ratchet and go for Inferno, because that would be cheating. Ultimately, it was a renewed sense of urgency that got me back on track. Ratchet was selling out at a few places, and I worried that if I didn’t buy him now, I’d regret it later. Even better, I sold off a couple of Third-Party Go-Bots that I didn’t need in my collection and that more than paid for him. And so here we go!

It’s been a long time, but the packaging hasn’t changed. Ratchet comes the same kind of collector friendly enclosed box as Ironhide did, which is bigger than the previous MP Autobot cars. You get plenty of pictures of the toy in its various modes, but you don’t get a lot of English copy. All in all, I dig these boxes a lot. They aren’t flashy, but they are classy, and they’re made of heavy stock, so they store well. I actually keep my MP Collection boxed for the time being and they look great all lined up on the shelf.

Inside, the figure and goodies come on clear plastic trays, and it’s easy to see where the extra money went. Not only is Ratchet a big boy, but he comes with a whole bunch of accessories. You also get folded instructions, a character card and a set of stickers with two optional layouts. Yup, stickers! I went with the Autobot crosses because I just think it looked neat, but I’ll come back to the stickers in a bit. Ratchet comes packaged in his alt mode, so let’s start there!

It’s common knowledge that the early 80’s was the pinnacle of Japanese van design and nothing illustrates that better than the Nissan Cherry Vanette. And I’m not ashamed to say that after 35 years, it was only recently that the MP Collection taught me the make and model Ratchet and Ironhide’s alt modes. And yes, in van mode, Ratchet is just a straight recolor of Ironhide with a lightbar added to the top. He’s nearly entirely white, with a red stripe running along each side, blue windows, chromed out bumpers and matte silver wheels. All in all, it’s not a bad looking van, but there are a hell of a lot of seams breaking up the sides.

I’m not a huge fan of the exposed robot face behind the windshield. OK, it’s a cute nod back to the original toy, but probably not one that needed to be so in my face every time I look at it. Also, it serves no purpose at all, which makes me even more sorry that they added it. Does it ruin the van mode? Nah, not really, but it’s worth picking at all the same. You do get a nice Autobot emblem right on the front of the van, and while there are stickers for the auto mode, I’ve chosen to leave them off for now.

Initially, I thought the lightbar would prevent Ratchet from catching a ride in MP Optimus Prime’s trailer, but it’s spring-loaded and you can push it down to roll him inside. It does sometimes get caught when trying to get him out and a few times, I’ve had to pop open the trailer, rather than risk scratching it.

Finally, like Ironhide, there’s a flip up socket on the top of Ratchet’s van mode, which can be used to insert any of the weapons that are designed to be held in his hands. And who doesn’t love a weaponized ambulance, eh?

As expected, the transformation is identical to Ironhide and if you want to share my wonder at experiencing it for the first time then dip back into my Ironhide review. Sadly, the magic is old hat now, but I can still appreciate what Takara’s teams of convertorobot engineers have pulled off here. This shouldn’t work. You shouldn’t be able to get that much robot into that little van. Hell, they couldn’t even come close with the original toy. And yet here it is. Ratchet’s resulting robot mode is almost identical to Ironhide. Takara changed up their pelvic plates, but from the neck down the only other difference is the coloring. And that’s a good thing, because I absolutely loved this robot mode on Ironhide and it looks just as fabulous here on the Autobots’ Chief Medic. From the front, everything looks so impossibly clean and boxy and every other ideal that a G1-designed Transformer should strive to be. The legs are nearly devoid of any van evidence at all and I dig the little armor plates that land on his hips. The front windshield of the van is worn perfectly as the chest, and it impresses me to no end that there aren’t even any wheels visible from the front.

Turn him around and things aren’t quite as polished. There are a lot of exposed screw holes and for the money involved, it would have been cool if Takara had plugged these, or at least offered plugs for us to do it ourselves, like TFC did with their set of Not-Aerialbot figures. You do get a smidgen of van kibble from the back, notably the chrome bumpers on his heels, the windows on the backs of his forearms and his wheel butt… WHEEL BUTT!!! I’ve been in forums where fans complained about this stuff and I was amazed. Hey, complain about whatever you like, that’s your right, but I think this figure is a great achievement of design. He’s also a hefty, solid bot and so much fun to play with!

Obviously we got a brand new head sculpt, and it captures all the character of Ratchet from the Sunbow cartoon. I love the rounded “helmet” and the giant wings over his eyes. The eyes themselves are a bright and beautiful shade of blue, and the rest of the face is finished off in a pleasing matte gray. And if you want to add a little variety to your display options…

He also comes with a second face plate, this time offering a delightful smile. And as long as we’re focusing in on the head and shoulders, I’ll toss out there now that I’m not a big fan of the stickers for the shoulders. To be fair, they look pretty good, and I understand why Takara had to do it. Apparently there were trademark issues concerning the use of the Red Cross. Personally, I would have been fine if they just printed the ones I used on there and been done with it, but I guess some collectors were looking for something more traditional. I just hope they stay on well and don’t yellow over time. But, enough about that… let’s look at some accessories!

Ratchet comes with a boat load of accessories. Or in this case, a sled load. Like Ironhide, Rachet includes a plastic base, which is an homage to the sled that was made up of the bottom part of the original toy’s van mode. This isn’t a direct copy, there’s no treads on the bottom and it isn’t involved at all in the transformation. It is, however, a place to store all those accessories in a way that nods back to the original. For a medic, Ratchet comes with a lot of guns, so let’s start with those first!

A number of the accessories are recycled from Ironhide, the first of which are the twin laser guns. I love these things! They have a nice satin gray finish and fit perfectly into Ratchet’s hands with a tab to secure them into the palms. Getting them out can be a little tricky, but he looks great wielding them.

Next up is what I think is called a Static Laser. It’s instantly recognizable as the gun that was positioned on the front of the original toy’s sled, and I used it to demonstrate the way Ratchet’s mode can be weaponized. It’s got a chrome finish and a white handle. It’s a very distinctive design, but probably not one that I’m going to display him with a whole lot.

Next up is the last recycled accessory from Ironhide ant that’s the missile launcher that plugs into his back. I can remember Ironhide shooting this thing off while flying in the Sunbow cartoon, but I don’t recall Ratchet ever using it. Still, it’s a logical accessory to recycle seeing as a similar piece was included with the G1 vans and I dig it quite a bit. The launcher has a satin gray finish and the missile is chromed out. It can come out of the launcher, but it doesn’t actually fire. Moving on to the new stuff…

Ratchet has one new gun and it’s this little pistol. It’s a cool design, but I really don’t have much else to say about it.

Like Ironhide, Ratchet could retract his hand and deploy various tools. In this case he comes with what is either an arc welder or a cutting torch… or why not both? To attach it you just flip his hand back into his arm and tab it into the spot where the hand used to be. It’s a useful tool for when he needs to do a weld on one of his wounded cameras or cut human survivors out of fallen debris. I don’t know why, but I always loved when the Transformers made use of these types of gizmos.

Ratchet can also produce a repair beam from his forearm. This just plugs right into the peg hole on either of his arms. There’s also an effect part that pegs into the end of the emitter and you get an illustrated cardboard insert that can be slipped in behind the windshield on his chest to produce vital signs. I’ll likely be displaying him with this all the time!

And finally, Ratchet comes with some wrenches, two regular and one magna-wrench.

I collect a lot of toys and other shit, so naturally my budget has its limitations. So throwing $90 at what is mostly a repaint of Ironhide certainly gave me pause. It was my love of Ratchet that finally got me to knuckle down and take the plunge, and I think the fact that it took so long for me to do it worked to my advantage. Two years after getting Ironhide made picking up Ratchet a lot more of a fresh experience and it made me fall in love with this mold all over again. I’m still in awe of how they made this toy work, and it’s a tribute to its intuitive engineering that even after a long while away from this mold, I was able to transform Ratchet without using the instructions. And it makes me happy to finally have the two Autobot vans together at last. If anything, I came away from this review with a renewed passion for the MP line.

Dec 19 2018

Mythic Legions (Advent of Decay): Elf Ranger by The Four Horsemen

This week, I’m turning my attention back to the Elves, one of the major additions introduced to the Mythic Legions line in Advent of Decay. The Elf Ranger may not have a proper name or a bio, but he’s not one of the budget Legion Builders either. Nope, this guy is a regular release with all the paint apps and extra bits and bobs to prove it! He’s also one of the figures in this series that I was extra excited to get my hands on.

What do you think? A little Legolas influence going on here? Maybe, and if so it sure ain’t a bad thing. This body reuses the torso from the Elf Legion Builder I reviewed several weeks back, as well as the belt, and scaled hip and groin armor. But thanks to some new paint, it takes what looked like plate armor and makes it look like a hard leather cuirass. The fully armored arms and legs are replaced with a mix of segmented plates and chain mail on the upper arms, plate elbow guards, and what I presume are supposed to be leather bracers and boots, along with a set of copper colored knee guards. It’s a wonderful design, offering a combination of strong armored protection, toned down enough so that it looks like this Ranger would be able to track his way through the forests without getting slowed down by his outfit.

The paint here is absolutely spectacular, both the choice of colors, as well as the applications. The green cuirass is given a wash to bring out the embossed scrollwork and give it a leathery look with silver painted studs, as well as individually painted securing straps meant to be holding it all in place. Indeed, the sculpted black straps with silver buckles can be seen securing his lower leg armor and even the back of his cuirass. It’s that kind of little attention to detail that I really appreciate. The segmented plates on the upper arms and the shoulder armor all have a wash that gives the armor a worn patina of rust. And while the flourishes of silver and copper are nice, the dominant mix of green and brown gives him an earthy look, and it probably would work pretty well as pseudo-camouflage in those densely wooded Elven forests. I never get tired of saying it, but these figures are absolute works of art.

The Elf Ranger also comes with a green cloth cape, which compliments the color of the the armor quite nicely. As always, these garments use the pegs on the shoulder armor to attach to the figure and you can even thread the holes on the cape through the actual shoulder pegs in the arms to make it more like a cloak.

I really dig the head sculpt, which features the elongated elven ears bold lips, strong eyebrows, and a pair of pupil-less green eyes. The long sandy colored hair is swept back to form a widow’s peak on his forehead and from behind it forms two braids, which meet together and are wrapped to become one.

The Elf Ranger is no doubt an accomplished swordsman, and as such he comes equipped with the very standard single-handed broadsword with the cruciform hilt and a stout-bladed dagger. The sword has its blade, guard, and pommel painted silver with a dull bronze colored grip. The dagger has a brown painted grip and the blade, guard, and pommel are all left with a gray finish. Naturally, you also get the standard brown belt with a loop for the sword. There’s no special accommodations for the dagger, but if you thrust it through the inside of the belt it stays put nicely. And since versatility is the name of the game with a lot of these figures, the Elf Ranger can also be kitted out as an archer…

He comes with a separate hooded head, which is just different enough so that you could pass it off as a different portrait if you wanted a couple of these guys. At the same time, it looks close enough to be the same guy, assuming he’s concealing all that hair with some kind of elf magic. The hood is painted to match the green in the armor, and has gold trim around the edges. Here we also get the same bow and quiver that came with the Elf Legion Builder. Well, if you’re lucky it did. One of my Elf Legion Builders was missing his quiver. Anyway… this time the quiver is painted green with copper accents and the bow itself is painted copper with a brown string.

The arrows in the quiver are part of the sculpt, but you do get a single loose arrow that matches the green and copper coloring of those faux arrows. The quiver has a clip to attach it to the belt, and while I do tend to prefer having the quiver worn on the back with the fletchings peeking out over the right shoulder, that doesn’t work with the cape, and I can’t bring myself to display this guy without his cape. I mean, he may cast it off while fencing, but when he’s tracking his quarry through the forest, he’s got to have his cape, goddamnit!  As before, there are two tiny pegs on either side of the bow that form a notch to help knock the arrow. The range of articulation here isn’t exactly perfect for this sort of thing, but just like the Elf Legion Builder, I can get the Ranger to draw the bow and knock the arrow fairly well. I will confess, however, a little piece of blue-tack inside the hand helps that arrow stay in place, because he can’t really hold it otherwise.

Good god, I love this figure! The mix of parts makes for a great looking outfit and the coloring is just perfect. I’m pretty sure when I first got him out of the package, I just sat there looking at him with a big smile on my face. Then again, that’s almost a regular occurrence for me and this line. He’s not only a fantastic addition to the Elves of Mythic Legions, but he’s exactly the kind of character I would want taking part in one of my Saturday night AD&D expeditions. I want to sit down and think him up a name and a backstory, and pair him up with Sir Owain and Thord Ironjaw and have them go adventuring into some dark dungeon or maybe fight one of the Trolls.

Dec 17 2018

Marvel Legends: Luke Cage and Claire Temple by Hasbro

It’s another Marvel Monday, and I was all ready to get back into randomly pulling figures from my unopened Legends Pile of Shame, but then this set arrived at my door and I decided to move it along to the head of the line. It seemed only fitting, what with the rash of Marvel-Netflix cancellations. Luke Cage and Iron Fist were the earliest on the chopping block, but with their flagship series, Daredevil getting the axe, it seems like a no-brainer that The Punisher and Jessica Jones will meet the same fate after their latest seasons are released. And with that depressing intro, let’s have a look at Luke Cage and Claire Temple!

The figures come in your typical Marvel Legends 2-pack window box with the Luke Cage logo on the front and the figures names on each side. This set is a Walmart Exclusive and there’s a sticker on the front window proclaiming the fact. And because the Walmart in my neighborhood rarely ever stocks their own exclusives, I had to go online for this one. Luckily, they were having a pretty good Rollback on it as well as free shipping. Anywho, the packaging is totally collector friendly, but if I kept all my Legends boxes, I’d have to rent out a storage unit just to have a place to put them, so this package is getting shredded and tossed in the trash. Let’s start with Luke Cage !

Can I get a Sweet Christmas? We’ve had two comic versions of Luke Cage in the modern Legends line. One was released as part of the SDCC Exclusive Thunderbolts set back in 2013 and the other was part of an Amazon Exclusive Defenders set, which I think came out last year. Netflix Luke Cage also got a release as part of the Defenders SDCC Exclusive Rail Authority box set. I opted out of dropping the $125 on that one just to get Colleen Wing and Iron Fist and a bunch of variants of the rest. This retail version features a beefy body, that’s toned down from the enormous comic versions, but still makes him look like a powerhouse. Luke is donning his familiar yellow T-shirt, grayish-blue jeans, and boots. And… um… there’s not much else to say about this figure from the neck down. The shirt is nice and bright, his hands are appropriately clenched into fists, and they even sculpted a watch on his right hand, but sadly there’s no detail work on the face so it looks a bit awkward. I’m tempted to say they should have sculpted him in his hoodie, but then I think the plain yellow top is the best way to convey his iconic comic look.

I dig the head sculpt a lot. It’s possibly not the best of the Marvel Netflix likenesses, but it’s no slouch either. The printing for the eyes is clean and the paintwork on his beard is very sharp.

And the articulation here should hold no surprises. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, with swivels in the biceps, and double hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels at the thighs, double hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers at the ankles. The torso has a waist swivel and an ab crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. Luke doesn’t come with any accessories, so let’s move on over and check out Claire!

Like Luke, Claire is a very simple figure from the neck down, making use of minimal sculpting and not a lot of color either. She’s got some light wrinkles sculpted in to signify her shirt, as well as a sculpted collar, but that’s pretty much it. Her top and shoes are black, her pants are gray, and they painted a little skin showing around her ankles. Claire never really had what I would consider an established look in the various series, and while this particular one isn’t all that exciting, I guess it lends itself pretty well to recreating her action scenes. Articulation is similar to Luke, but with rotating hinges in the elbows instead of the double hinges, no bicep swivels, and no waist swivel. Instead of the ab crunch hinge, Claire is rocking a ball joint under her chest.

The head sculpt here is fair. I think this is one of those portraits that breaks down quite a bit as you get closer. Part of that has to do with the new printing technique looking blurry up close, but I think the sculpt itself looks lumpy under closer scrutiny. It’s certainly not terrible, but it’s a far cry from what we got for Jessica Jones, Frank Castle, or even Luke Cage.

While Luke got shorted out of any accessories, Claire got a few. First up is her purse, which is another outing for the Green Goblin/Hobgoblin/Mary-Jane satchel. It’s not an essential inclusion, but I’m not going to complain about it. Personally, I’d rather regard it as a medical bag than a purse.

Next up, we’ve got a pair of blue hands, which are supposed to be her latex gloves… because… you know… she’s a nurse! Honestly, I find these to pretty baffling. Why would Hasbro put the effort and money into including these? Was anyone going to miss them? Is anyone going to display her with them? It would have never even occurred to me if I didn’t see them in the package.

Finally, and easily her best accessories are her Shuko, or ninja claws! These are another pair of swap out hands with the claws sculpted onto them and they’re pretty damn cool.

Both Luke and Claire are solid figures, but I don’t feel like this set is entirely essential. Don’t get me wrong, Luke was damn essential to me, but I think he should have been part of the Man-Thing Wave with the rest of the Netflix Defenders. The Claire figure is fine, but I didn’t really need her on my shelf, especially since Hasbro has passed up far more important characters like Karen and Foggy from Daredevil. But hey, if this is the way I have to get Netflix Luke Cage in my collection, I’m perfectly fine with that. Toss in the fact that I got this set for under $30 on Walmart’s site and it’s hard to complain.

Dec 15 2018

One Piece: “Glitter & Glamours” Shiny Venus Boa Hancock by Banpresto

I had to sit out last Anime Saturday because real life got in the way. This weekend isn’t much better, but I did want to drop in for a quickie and so I decided to open up my second figure in Banpresto’s Glitter & Glamours series. Last time it was Nami, this time it’s Boa Hancock! And since I am crunched for time, let’s get right down to it…

I’m still not 100% sure what the running theme in this line is supposed to be. The first two figures I have happen to both be One Piece babes reclining in their skimpy bikinis, but looking ahead, the line seems to have a lot more variety to it. The Glitter and Shiny probably have to do with some shiny finishes applied to some parts of the figures’ clothing. But hey, I’m not here to over-analyze things. Like Nami, Boa comes in a fully enclosed box with lots of photos of the figure inside. The figure itself requires some simple assembly before she’s ready to spruce up your desk with some sex appeal. I’ll likely be referencing back to the G&G Nami during this review, so if you missed that one, you might want to check it out. I’ll wait. OK? Let’s go…

And indeed she is sexy. Boa reclines on a lump of sand, propped up with her right hand while her left hand fiddles with her hair, and her long legs are  stretched out for what seems like miles and miles. She’s wearing just a black bikini with a white cover-up, tied under her exceedingly ample bosom, and a thin gold anklet at the end of her right leg. I’ve got no problems with the pose here, it looks great, but unfortunately the figure doesn’t really lay flush with the surface she’s resting on. Part of that might have to do with the base, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but her feet hover a bit off the surface and that looks a little unnatural.

I’m also going to go ahead and say that the coloring here isn’t terribly exciting either. Boa’s skin is a lot paler than Nami’s and that’s accurate, but the rest of the figure also lacks any real punch when it comes to the deco. You’ve got the black bikini and her black hair. The white cover-up has a bit of that pearlescent sheen that we saw with Nami’s, but the effect isn’t nearly as strong here either. A little gold on the trim of her sleeves and her earrings, and the bright red nail polish on her fingers and toes helps a bit, but not really a lot. If you’re looking for a colorful figure, this ain’t it.

I do like the portrait a lot. The hair sculpting is excellent and I dig Boa’s little smirk as well as the perfectly printed eyes and lips. On the other hand, her face is pointed downward, so this is one of those figures that you absolutely have to display at eye level, or above, if you want to glean her pretty peepers. Likewise, this really isn’t a statue that has a lot of sweet spots, which is a big part of why I was able to do her justice fairly quickly. Sure, she looks nice from the back, but she’s best viewed dead-on from the front and that’s about it.

I’m really not enamored with the base here either. Nami was able to make due without one, as they just flattened her tushie a bit and that worked fine. Instead of doing the same thing here, they molded this little piece of sand, which is supposed to snap around her hand and cradle her right hip. It works fine keeping the figure upright, but then you’ve got that thing going on where her feet aren’t resting on the display surface and it looks a bit off. I am not a big fan of the way this went.

I don’t mean to beat up on poor Boa here too badly. This is a pretty good figure and she’s definitely a sexy addition to my One Piece shelf. But she lacks the color and pop that Nami had. At $20, I have no regrets over picking her up, the quality is there and the sculpt is great, but I feel like a few tweaks could have helped the figure along. Get rid of that base, design her to sit on her own, and maybe add a little more color and this pretty good figure could have been a great one!

Dec 13 2018

Star Wars Black: Bespin Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Lando Calrissian by Hasbro

I don’t usually like to combine reviews, it messes with my OCD, but I’ve got to start making some exceptions because I’m so far behind with opening figures. And since I happen to have three Bespin-themed figures from The Empire Strikes Back lying on my 6-inch Black Series Pile of Shame, I decided I’d just go ahead and check out all three today! So let’s take a trip to Cloud City and open up some Star Wars figures!

And here are some quick packaged shots, although I’m not sure why I bother anymore, because at this point these are pretty standard stuff. Black boxes with mediocre monochrome character art, red inserts, and some pretty bland multi-lingual bios on the back. These are collector friendly, but I’ve never felt bad about pitching these boxes into the trash once they’ve been opened. Han is in what is considered his traditional Bespin Outfit, whereas Leia is labeled as Bespin Escape so as not to confuse her with the regal red gown she wore for part of her stay in the City in the Clouds. If you’re keeping track of the numbers, Han is #70, Lando is #39, and Leia doesn’t get a number because she’s a Target Exclusive. Let’s start with Han!

Han’s outfit in A New Hope is what I consider his most iconic look, but this outfit from The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite. I don’t know if it’s because I played with the Kenner’s version of this Han so much as a kid (owing mostly to my dog chewing up my original Han Solo figure), or just because Han is so damn cool and better fleshed out as a character in Empire. Either way this is my preferred look for the lovable Space-faring Scoundrel. The outfit is simple enough: tall black boots, brown trousers with yellow piping up the sides, a white shirt with a flap-down collar, and a jacket. My figure has some odd glossy patches on the jacket, which I’m writing off to some kind of QC issue. It’s not the first time I’ve had that happen, and while it doesn’t bother me too much, if I can find him again for cheap, I’d probably try for a better one.

The sculpt features all the wrinkles and rumples I come to expect in my 6-inch plastic outfits, along with some sharp tailoring detail and stitch lines. The jacket features the usual soft plastic vest with the sleeves sculpted as part of the arms. All this is great, but the real showpiece for this figure’s outfit is the low-slung smuggler’s gun belt. Thanks to some nice paintwork, it has a great weathered leather look to it and the holster features a retaining strap that pegs into the holster to keep Han’s trusty blaster in place.

The Black Series portraits have been all over the place, but when it comes to the humans. They started strong with that original X-Wing Pilot Luke, but since then they’ve been mostly mediocre at best. Here’s a figure that starts to buck that trend. The likeness is pretty damn good, and I’d say it’s easily the best (Harrison Ford) Han this series has put out yet. Not only are his facial features spot-on, they even got the scar under his lower lip right. The figure also uses the new(ish) printing method for the eyes, eyebrows, and lips. The hair sculpt is great and I love how his bangs hang down over his forehead. The only downside here is the weird choice to use a gloss finish for his hair, which makes it look wet under bright lights.

And of course, Han comes with his trusty DL-44 Blaster. We’ve seen this accessory before, so there’s nothing new to say, other than his right hand is perfectly sculpted to hold it and you can thread his trigger finger into the guard. Let’s knock out articulation here too, because all three figures have the same basic poseability. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There are ball joints in the torsos, and the necks have both ball joints and hinges. Moving on to Lando…

Here he is in his classic Empire outfit and looking as dapper as ever! Lando’s outfit is even simpler than Han’s, as he’s just sporting a pair of blue trousers, a lighter blue tunic-like shirt with puffed out sleeves and a black collar, a wide belt, and shiny black shoes. Hasbro didn’t have to do anything amazing to make this outfit work, and they sure as hell didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, Lando looks fine, but I put off picking this one up because he didn’t look terribly exciting in the pictures and in hand, he really isn’t terribly exciting either.

I will take a moment to bitch about how ridiculous it is that they gave him a sculpted plastic cape, and I think that one issue is a big reason why I dragged my feet on buying him for so long. FOR F*CK’S SAKE ONE OF THE 3 3/4-INCH BLACK SERIES LANDO FIGURES HAS A F*CKING CLOTH CAPE!!! Hasbro, do you even realize how insane that is? It’s not just an aesthetics issue for me, but I’d like to be able to pose him without a plastic wrap-around cape hindering his articulation. There’s just no excuses for this. Hell, at the price point, they probably should have included both a cloth and a plastic cape. What an enormous fail!

The portrait here is fairly solid, although this is an older figure from before Hasbro started stepping it up with the portrait sculpts and using the new printing techniques. Reviewing Lando with two new figures is an interesting experiment as to just how jarring the new figures will look when displayed with the older ones. Honestly, while the difference is night and day, I don’t really have a big issue with the way the figures look together. The likeness to Billy Dee is definitely there, and while the paint is a lot more flat and cartoony, I don’t think that it looks particularly bad.

Lando comes with two accessories. The first is his little communication device, so he can tell his citizens to evacuate the City and take the ice cream makers to safety. This is a pretty cool little bonus item and his left hand is sculpted so that he can hold it well. It would have been nice if there was a way to attach it to him somehow, because I’ll probably not display him holding it and I’m afraid it’s going to end up getting lost.

While not really an accessory, I do like that they sculpted the control panel on his right wrist. I think this is what he used to secretly signal Lobot. It’s a nice little bit of attention to detail.

And finally, Lando comes with a DH-17 Blaster. We’ve seen this sculpt before, but who’s going to complain about getting another one of these cool weapons? Not me! I love this design and I dig the silver paint applications. Let’s round out this trio with Leia…

I saved Princess Leia for last, not because she’s the best and not because she’s a bad figure, but just because I have so little that I can possibly say about her. This is the outfit she gave up her gown to wear so she would have something a little more sporty to run around in. It’s essentially just a white jumpsuit with some sculpted padded areas and it has got to be one of the most boring outfits worn by any of the main characters in the film. That’s not to say it’s bad. Hasbro did what they could with it and it looks fine. I just think this costume was a really odd choice to go with before giving us a proper Bespin Leia in her red gown. It’s also kind of strange to have this one on the pegs so close to the release of the Hoth Leia, because at a casual glance the two figures could look somewhat similar. On the other hand, is it possible that this is the first time Leia has been released in this outfit? I know that I never owned this version of her in figure form before, so that would be something.

Bland and simple outfit aside, the real selling point of this figure is the portrait, which is absolutely fantastic. Not only is it a great likeness, but the printing used for the eyes and lips looks great. They even did a beautiful job with her rather unique hairstyle. As much as I love this head-sculpt, it makes me sad that they did the A New Hope Leia before they got their shit together like this. Because as much as I said Lando looked fine with the two newer figures, putting this Leia next to the previous ones really shits on the old portraits.

Leia comes with one accessory and that’s her E-11 Blaster. Again, we’ve seen it before, but I’m always up for adding another to my collection. Now I find myself wanting to pick up another one of those 3PO’s clogging up my Walgreens and chopping it up to put on Chewie’s back.

While I clearly had a few nits to pick with some of these releases, truth be told these are all solid figures. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that Han and Leia are both excellent. They show some great progress in the head sculpts, and while there isn’t anything here that couldn’t have been done as well in the 3 3/4-inch scale, over the years I’ve come to accept that most 6-inch Black Series aren’t being designed to take advantage of the larger scale. And while Lando’s plastic cape will forever be a blight on him in my eyes, he’s still a decent enough figure and I’m ultimately glad I got around to picking him up. Now I just need that proper Bespin Gown Leia… and Lobot and a Bespin Guard, and some Ugnauts, and a Cloud Car Pilot, and…