Monthly Archives: September 2020

Sep 7 2020

Avengers Endgame: Thanos Sixth-Scale Figure by Hot Toys

Since I’m between waves of Marvel Legends, I’m going to divert my attention elsewhere on this Marvel Monday, and shift the spotlight to Hot Toys! Wow, it’s been a while since I reviewed a Hot Toys Marvel figure. I still have a few more Marvel Hot Toys to review, a few on pre-order, but my confidence in the future of the MCU has been waning, and I have a feeling that my days of collecting Hot Toys Marvel may be drawing to a close. It makes me a little sad, but my wallet very happy. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at The Mad Titan himself, who recently snapped his fingers and made half my toy budget for the month disappear! I passed on Hot Toys Thanos twice before. The Guardians of the Galaxy version with the throne looked great, but it was also a little small and I didn’t have the scratch for it back then. It was a shame because it’s the only Hot Toys release from that film that I didn’t buy. Next came the Infinity War version, and that was an easy pass because his costume was just so boring that I couldn’t justify the price tag. This armored up Endgame one was obviously the one I was waiting for!

Big Boi’s come in Big Boxes! If you’ve been with me for some previous Hot Toys reviews, you may know that I don’t think much of their packaging. They usually have pretty artwork, but the cardboard is super flimsy and they’re little more than window boxes with sleeves around them. I just think the price I’m paying warrants something a little more impressive. Hell, I don’t even keep most of these boxes anymore, because they take up too much space for what they are. That’s pretty much true for Thanos here, but I will admit the size itself is impressive! Thankfully, Thanos comes out of the box with most of his armor on and pretty much ready to go!

And here he is looking absolutely superb! Thanos not only towers above my other Hot Toys (well, except for The Hulk), but he’s also a hefty mo-fo with a lot of girth. Everything about this guy feels substantial. The figure depicts past Thanos who followed The Avengers back to future Earth in full battle gear. Yes, this could also pass for Thanos in the very beginning of Infinity War, and I’ll come back to that idea eventually. Hot Toys did a beautiful job on his armor, which is comprised of golden plastic plates over more flexible and textured black plastic. I was happy to see that it’s not sculpted as part of the figure itself, but an actual suit. I’m not sure if they did this to reuse the previous Thanos body, or just to be awesome, but it adds so much to the figure’s complexity. He even has cloth pants under his leg armor. The gold plate pieces are exquisitely painted, giving off a look that is so convincing, it’s almost surprising to touch it and feel that it’s just lightweight plastic. These pieces feature some panel lines, as well as a number of nicks and scrapes acquired in past battles, giving the suit a very lived in look. There are also some tarnished spots in the paint to make it look well weathered. Hot Toys didn’t go too nuts with these effects, as they sure wanted to sell a proper battle damaged version of this figure too, but what’s here is just enough to make it look like the armor has been well used. I also really dig the copper colored pieces on his chest, just to mix things up a bit.

Despite being worn, the bulk of the armor is permanently attached to the figure, but the right arm bracer can come off. The left can’t, but more on that later. The bicep pieces are held on by the straps and friction and they stay in place quite well. There’s a decent amount of clearance in the shoulders, so the arms can be posed without me being too worried about scraping or breaking these pieces. But as with most Hot Toys, you just don’t want to try to get the arms raised much higher than the shoulders. The arms are covered with a rubbery skin, quite similar to what we saw on The Hulk. It looks great, but I’m not terribly keen on how the skin folds at the elbows when the arms are flexed. It just looks a bit too much like what it is, rubber covering an articualted arm. I think I might have preferred that they went with regular exposed elbow joints here. Then again, if he’s in a pose with his arms fairly straight, it does look much better with the seamless joints. It’s a compromise. And while on the subject of articulation, I’ll give credit to the ratcheting joints they designed for him. This is a hefty figure, but he has no troubles standing on his own and his joints tend to stay where you put them. You can use Thanos’ joints to tweak some cool poses, but nothing too extreme. Of course, that’s usually the case for most Hot Toys.

I’m not sure if the regular portrait is recycled from the Infinity War figure, but whatever the case, it’s everything I would expect from Hot Toys these days. Seeing as how they have all but perfected capturing actor likenesses with remarkable realism, a CG version of Josh Brolin is probably no great shakes for them. Still, I don’t want to take away from how amazing it turned out. The purple skin tone looks great and matches the arms perfectly. If you get in really close you can make out all sorts of little creases and natural looking textures in the skin. His well-defined facial features are recreated flawlessly here as is his giant ball sack of a chin. The deep set eyes also have that wonderful spark of life that only the best paint in the industry can convey. Of course, you do get the visible jointing between the head and neck, but it’s mostly apparent when the portrait is viewed from the back or side, and it’s to be expected. The head is attached via a balljoint, and it is easily popped off to swap it out with the second portrait.

Here we have angry and defiant Thanos, and it is a powerful portrait indeed. Thanos bears his titanic teeth in a grimace of rage. I often imagine that it’s far more difficult to convey emotion in these portraits, but you wouldn’t know it from how well this turned out. The sculpting and paint on his teeth is truly amazing. It’s going to be a tough call to decide which portrait to display on the figure regularly. Chances are it will be the first, but only because I plan on displaying him in a fairly neutral position. Nevertheless, I’ll likely be changing it up fairly often. Hot Toys really needs to follow in the path of NECA Toys and release some kind of display method for extra heads. I usually just wind up resting them on the display stands.

Thanos also comes with his helmet, which fits easily onto either portrait. I was very afraid that this was going to be a tight fit and would risk damaging the paint every time I wanted to put it on or remove it, but I’m happy to say that’s not the case. It looks like a form-fitting piece, but it doesn’t feel like it’s rubbing much when it goes on. Heck, it fits so well that I could be convinced it was part of the head sculpt if I didn’t know better. Once again, the gold paint here is exquisite and the weathering is especially well done, with lots of little scrapes and some pitting. The helmet presents another dilemma on whether to display with it on or not. Right now, I have the figure holding the helmet in his left hand. And that brings me to hands!

You can’t buy a Hot Toys figure and not expect to get a bunch of hands. Thanos comes with no less than four sets. You get fists, relaxed hands, graspy hands, and accessory holding hands. These attach via some pretty chunky ball joints, and they are a real breeze to get on and off. I have my share of Hot Toys figures that don’t get their hands changed out often because they are difficult to get off, or I’m afraid I’m going to snap the wrist pegs, but the benefit of having a big figure like this is the hands are a lot easier to work with. The fists work really well with the more expressive portrait.

Thanos’ big accessory is his double-bladed sword, and it is indeed an intimidating weapon! When held vertically it’s taller than the figure and Hot Toys did a great job with this design. The blades have deeply etched designs on the flats of the blade and if you look really closely you can not only see a faint damascus pattern in the blade, but also the marks on the edges where it has been sharpened. That level of detail really blows me away.

As amazing as the sword looks, it’s rather deceptive when picked up, mainly because it’s so incredibly light. I really feel like they should have done something to beef this up a big, particularly with how tight the grip is. Maybe they could have made the the framing pieces on the backs of the blades die-cast. Unlike everything else about this figure, I felt like I needed to be super cautious when putting the sword into his hand. Indeed, I’ll likely leave the hand attached to the sword from now on. It feels like a good idea would have been to have the sword split apart in the middle of the grip, so you could pass one end through the top of his hand and the other through the bottom and peg them together.

The last accessory included in the box is the Infinity Gauntlet, which is something of an anachronism, since this version of Thanos never had it. Nonetheless, Hot Toys had it made for the Infinity War Thanos, and it’s cool that they threw it into the box here, as it can transform this version of Thanos into the one from the beginning of Infinity War, so long as you’re willing to overlook the fact that all the Infinity Stones are present. Accurate or not, I will be displaying him with the Gauntlet, just because it looks so damn cool. This piece is attached by pulling the left arm off at the joint where the bracer starts and plugging in the Gauntlet. Like everything with this figure, it goes on easy-peasy. There is a light up feature included, but it’s disappointingly dim. Maybe the batteries I got aren’t at full strength, but it really wasn’t worth the effort of showing it off. In addition to rotating at the arm, the gauntlet has a ball joint at the wrist, which also allows you to pull off the fist and replace it with an articulated Gauntlet.

The articulation here includes double hings in the fingers and a rotation in the thumb. It’s not quite good enough to get his fingers into a snapping position, but I like the added articulation a lot. In the case of both Gauntlets, the gold finish is quite luxurious and it’s given a deeper and richer finish than the armor, making it look newer. The sculpted details look great, as do the individual Stones. And since the electronics are in the lower portion of the Gauntlet, the articulated hand shares the same light up feature as the fist.

Finally, Thanos comes with a figure stand, which is similar to the regular Hot Toys bases, only a lot bigger. And yet it feels like it’s not quite big enough. In a moderate stance, Thanos’ feet hang over the edges of the stand. But it still works just fine. The base has a colorful image of the Avengers logo disappearing into dust and the logo proper closer to the front. The base has a nameplate on the front as well. I like the way it looks a lot, but I’m a little surprised they didn’t go for some kind of diorama base like they did for The Hulk.

Sometimes patience pays off and that was certainly the case here. I really wanted a Hot Toys Thanos in my collection, but the Infinity War outfit just didn’t do anything for me, especially not at such a titanic price. This guy, however checks all the boxes. He’s huge and imposing and he comes all decked out in his battle gear. Plus, the inclusion of the Infinity Gauntlet was a wonderful bonus. He’s a commanding presence on my shelf, and I had to rework a whole bunch of my Hot Toys collection to find room for him. Still, he was worth the effort, as well as the $415 price tag! With the exception of the Marvel Hot Toys that I have on pre-order, this could very well be the last MCU figure I purchase, so it was pretty cool that it was such a great figure!

Sep 4 2020

GI JOE Classified: Gung Ho by Hasbro

Distribution and exclusives issues aside, Hasbro’s new GI JOE line has been delivering tons of goodies and we’re still in the initial months of its launch. I honestly did not expect this many figures to be hittinig the pegs so soon. Yeah, I’m still hunting for a Baroness, Beach Head and a couple more Cobra Troopers, but that’s cool. They will be mine eventually!!! And so without wasting any time, let’s dive in and check out the newest addition to the JOE team, everybody’s favorite gumbo-slurping Jarhead… Gung Ho!

The packaging looks just as good as ever. It’s colorful, it has some wonderful character art, that cool iconography-based skill list on the side panel, and it’s all collector friendly if you want to save these. And much like Hasbro’s Star Wars Black Series, the figures are numbered, which means you absolutely have to buy them all. YOU HAVE TO!!! I was excited to see Gung Ho was teased so early in the line, as he was a favorite figure of mine in the Real American Hero series.

And I’m equally excited to see that Hasbro hasn’t messed around with his iconic look too much. This Marine from the Bayou still dons his camo pants and wears a tactical vest with no shirt, allowing him to show off his guns and his chest tattoo. The vest features some great sculpted detail, which includes pockets, reinforced plates, a brace of grenades on the left shoulder, and some cool texturing. He also has that silver and blue gizmo on his right shoulder that a lot of the JOEs have had. When I first saw this on Roadblock, I thought it was some kind of tool for adjusting his machine gun, but apparently it’s some sort of ID? Maybe?

In addition to the vest, Gung Ho has a few other separately sculpted pieces worn on him, including a trio of canister grenades strapped ot his left thigh, a silver arm bracer on his right forearm, and an elbow pad on his left arm. He also has some armor pieces on his lower legs, but these are sculpted as part of the figure. Overall, I like the deco on this guy. The camo pants and darker green jacket give him that appropriate military look while the metallic silver paint add some pop.

Gung Ho’s head sculpt is fantastic! It takes the portrait on the old figure that I know and love and gives it a dose of realism. He’s sporting a stern expression, and the sculpt and paint on that handlebar mustache is on point. The hat is removable, and to be honest, I had to apply a little blue-tack to get it to stay on. I was surprised when it came off to see Gung Ho sporting a little mohawk patch up there, which is also perfectly sculpted and painted. This guy just looks like he was born to piss in Cobra’s cornflakes. I’m glad he’s one of the good guys, because I would not want to mess with him.

The articulation here is every bit as good as I’ve come to expect in this line. Gung Ho’s arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, double-hinges in the elbows, and he also has the added shoulder crunches, which I was not expecting as these are concealed by the jacket. His legs have those double ball-joints in the hips, swivels in the thighs, double-hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. He has a ball joint in the waist, an ab-crunch hinge under the chest, and his neck is both hinged and ball jointed. Gung Ho is a lot of fun to play around with, and with his vest off, he looks like he’s ready to go a few rounds with Cobra’s toughest customer in a cage match to the death.

Gung Ho comes with a pretty big backpack, which is capable of holding all of his weapons. Well, technically it is. The side clips work well, but the clip on the bottom, not so much. But that’s OK, because he can hold that weapon and still manage to carry everything he comes with. As has been the case with previous figures, Gung Ho’s weaponry have a decidedly science-fiction flavor to them. In some cases, I don’t mind this so much, as long as there’s still a real world element to them. Let’s see how these guns turned out!

First off, he has what I presume is supposed to be a grenade launcher. I think this was a great choice, as I seem to recall his 25th Anniversary figure coming with an M-79 grenade launcher. This one has a revolver-type cylinder and a top carry bar. Like all the weapons here, it’s molded in a sort of gray plastic, which seems to hold the sculpted detail pretty well. This baby fits my criteria as looking fairly convincing in its overall design and I dig it a lot.

Next up, we’ve got what I’m calling a shotgun. Yeah, it has some kind of vertically orientated beam emitter on the muzzle, but the foregrip looks like it’s meant to pump. Maybe you pump to charge it and it blasts out a spread of energy? Maybe I’m over-thinking it. Either way, it looks like it has what is supposed to be a telescoping stock and there’s a rail on the top to fit a scope or light or whatever else he wants to throw on top of it. So, this one isn’t quite as convincing as the grenade launcher, but I don’t mind it.

Finally, Gung Ho comes with a carbine, with a rear mounted magazine. This has some similarities to the shotgun, as the muzzle is basically the same and it also has a rail on top for customization. This looks like it would be a pretty good gun for when you’re boogying through the jungle and need to blast any Cobra that happens to pop up out of the trees.

And so, Hasbro delivers another great figure in this new Classified line up. Gung Ho keeps the trend going of taking a familiar design and tweaking it just enough to make it feel fresh and new, while still being faithful to the original character design. I’m sure there are plenty of purists out there who will scoff at the armor pieces and the sci-fi weapons, but I’m finding that I really dig these new looks. As I’ve said before, it wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I can’t deny that these are great looking figures and above all loads of fun!

Sep 2 2020

Female Mercenary Heart King Sixth-Scale Figure by Very Cool Toys

With all the Hot Toys and TBLeague figures waiting for their turn at the review table, I probably shouldn’t be going off on tangents like this one. But, I picked up a couple of figures from Very Cool Toys to see what they were all about and as long as I had them accessible, I thought I’d take a look at one before finding a space for her up on the shelf. Very Cool seems to specialize in pseudo-military-style figures, usually ladies, many of which appear to be based on characters or skins in Wefire, a shooter from the Chinese megacorporation, Tancent Games.

Suffice it to say I know absolutely nothing about these games, but a retailer I deal with was having a sale and the figures looked pretty cool, or maybe they looked… VERY cool! . I didn’t know what to expect, but when they arrived I was fairly impressed by the packaging. It appears to be an enclosed box, but it’s actually more like a box in a slipcase with a little strip of ribbon to help pull it out. The slipcase is illustrated on all sides, has a picture of the figure on the front, and a lot of Chinese writing on the back. The spine simply identifies the figure as NO.VC-TJ-04 which sure is catchy. Indeed, the only reason I know that she’s called Female Mercenary Heart King is because that was the name of the listing on the site where I purchased her.

Heart King requires a fair amount of work to get her all kitted out and ready for action. Basically she comes out of the box wearing her basic clothing, and all her gear is placed around her in the foam trays. It took some doing to get everything on her, but I don’t mind. It gives me some quality time with the figure before she’s ready for display. First off, let’s talk about the body, which is a hybred of the seamless stuff we usually see from Phicen/TBLeague and a regular jointed figure. OK, actually nothing on the figure is seamless, but she does make use of a silicone covered torso, which mean’s the exposed skin is squishy and has more of a life-like look and texture. The limbs are all jointed and the costume does its best to cover these joints. So, the swivels in her biceps usually line up with her sleeves, and the jointing in her elbows are covered by sleeves and elbow pads. Similarly, the joints in her knees, which tend to show through the super tight pleather pants, are concealed by soft cloth sleeves and armor pads. In the end, the arm joints do tend to show from time to time, but it’s not too unsightly.

Her uniform consists of the yellow-orange pants, a white sports-bra kind of thing, and a crop-top jacket that matches her pants. I like the color they went with here, as it really does look like something a character in a video game might be wearing. There’s a shoulder patch on each of her jacket sleeves to give it a little bit of a military vibe. Her brown pleather boots sip up the sides and have pretty high heels, which demonstrate the figure’s balance quite well. I never had to rely on a stand for her when shooting the pictures, which is impressive. The tailoring on the clothing is all very well done. The stitching is neat and and everything fits the figure perfectly. The only downside is that the super tight pants inhibit her hip movment a lot. It’s hard to get anything resembling a wide stance out of her without fear of popping that stitching, so I”m not even going to try! The sleeves have a cool honeycomb pattern on them, she has a pair of matching WeFire bracelets, and her fingerless gloves are sculpted and painted onto her hands.

The attention to detail on her gear is also quite nice. She has a trio of magazine pouches strapped ot her left thigh, which holds in place by friction and doesn’t show any sign of slipping. Her right thigh has a hard plastic holster, which pegs into the plate that’s strapped to her leg. Again, this holds in place perfectly. There’s even a retaining strap for her pistol. Her backpack attachces to her shoulder rig, and can be removed while leaving the shoulder rig in place. There are straps with working buckles holding the top flap down and non functional pouches on the sides. And finally, she has a studded belt, which is worn loose on her hips and does it’s best to conceal the straps of her G-string peeking out of her pants.

I really dig the head sculpt here. It’s a great compromise between realism and stylized game character. The skin texture is good, albeit far from Hot Toys or Sideshow quality. The paint used on the eyes and lips, however isn’t too far off. The sculpted red hair features some fine detail and it’s sculpted from a separate piece of plastic to allow it to hang over the head and give it some depth while framing her face. The head is ball jointed, but it is an absolute chore to get it off and back on again. Fortunately the only time I had to do that was to put on her dog tag and choker.

As a Mercenary, this lady comes with some essential Tools of the Trade. First off, she has her trusty automatic pistol, and this is a fantastic piece. The detail is absolutely exquisite, from the brown checkered grips to the silver painted trigger. Even more impressive is that the slide actually works and the magazine is removable. They even painted the bullets that can be seen in the top of the magazine. This scaled pistol is every bit as good as any that I got with my Hot Toys or Sideshow figures, and that’s no small boast! The figure comes with two sets of hands, one relaxed set and one for working with the accessories.

Next up we get a couple of canister grenades. These are fun with a cartoony skull-and-crossbones printed on the side of each. They have clips to attach to her belt and actual rings to pull before she throws them!

And finally, our Mercenary comes with an AK-47, which is another beautiful piece of work. The stock and foregrip are painted brown and the rest has a blued finish. The action on this thing actually works thanks to a rather tight spring inside the receiver. The sites can be flipped up and the magazine is removable. Actually, she comes with two magazines for the rifle. The detail is impecable, right down to the paddle to eject the magazine and the fire selector.

I have to say that I’m fairly impressed with the way this figure turned out, especially for a figure that is priced at around $140-150. Very Cool didn’t skimp on anything. The costume tailoring is great, the attention to detail in the gear is solid, and the weapons are absolutely fantastic. And this is all coming from someone who has absolutely no connection to the character or game that the figure is pulled from. I’m not sure that she’ll spend a whole lot of time displayed on my shelf right now, but if I can clear off a corner somewhere, I may actually wind up putting her in with my Resident Evil Sith-Scale figures. I think she would fit in perfectly. I’ve got another one of these ladies to check out, and I hope to get back to her in a week or so.

Sep 1 2020

Marvel Legends (Crimson Dynamo Wave): Crimson Dynamo Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

I’m extending Marvel Monday out one more day so I can wrap up this look at the Crimson Dynamo Wave Build-A-Figure today. That’s right! As if opening the last figure in a wave of Marvel Legends wasn’t reward enough, Hasbro lets us cobble together a brand new figure for our efforts. It’s like the cherry on top of a plastic sundae! This time, it’s the Crimson Dynamo from what is coincidently called the Crimson Dynamo Wave! Wow… funny how that worked out! This brute is composed of a whopping nine pieces scattered throughout all but one figure in this assortment. Pieces include the arms, legs, head, torso, two shoulder pieces, and a back plate.

Crimson Dynamo is of course the moniker given to the Soviet Union’s equivalent of the Iron Man armor. Like Stark’s armor, the USSR’s version has turned up in various styles, sizes, and configurations, but unlike Iron Man, the Crimson Dynamo has been manned by various Soviet agents. I think the last time I encountered this bruiser in plastic form was as part of Hasbro’s 3 3/4-inch Iron Man as Dmitri Bukharin. This time we’re getting the more imposing and more recent Gennady Gavrilov’s suit, and boy was this a great choice! It’s big and bulky and the design has that certain primitive but imposing retro design.

The suit is composed of a silver base, which looks like it’s been fitted with maroon armored pieces. The arms and torso have that segmented metal look that I love so much and instantly calls to mind Collosus from the X-Men. The chunkier maroon bits have some organic curves and some sparing panel lines. The result is a detailed suit that doesn’t look too busy. Still, some wonderful details included the ribbed ankles that look like they’re supposed to be made of a more flexible material, the reinforced fronts of the boots for kicking Western Capitalist ass, and those powerful hands that look like they could make short work of one of Stark’s armors if he were to get it in his clutches. Possibly my favorite thing here is the translucent green tubes in the wrists that look like they’re supposed to be some kind of cooling rods for the janky reactor that powers this behemoth. It’s all just so damn cool!

The helmet fits in with the more primitive look of the Soviet design. It’s got what looks like a giant boiler plate mounted ot the front of it with a grill for a mouth and a simple slit for a visor. The giant armored shoulders have bolts jutting out of the front and the surface is sculpted with cracks and fissures. There’s a dual exhaust protruding from the right shoulder, and the Soviet Star in the center of his chest is painted with an almost flourescent glow that matches the paint used for the visor. Spectacular!

As always, Hasbro doesn’t skimp on the articulation for these big figures, although the sheer bulk of this figure’s design does give some of those joints a little less range of motion. But that’s not to say this guy isn’t a heck of a lot of fun to play with. The legs have rotating hinges in the hips and ankles, double hinges in the knees, and swivels up in the thighs. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, and single hinges in the elbows. There’s a ball joint under the chest, and the neck is ball jointed. I like that they gave him one hand sculpted into a fist and the other grasping, as they work with a number of different poses.

While I would still love to see some of the other Crimson Dynamo armors get the Marvel Legends treatment, I’m very pleased that Hasbro chose to do this one as a Build-A-Figure. It’s such a damned cool design and it makes for an impressive display piece on the shelf next to the likes of Iron Monger and the SHIELD Mandroid. And boy would it be cool to one day see a version of this guy turn up in the MCU. Although, to be fair, I’ve been really tempering my expectations of what we’re going to be seeing out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Black Widow.

And that’s a wrap for this wave. It was an overall excellent assortment of figures. The Black Widow film was well represented, but we also got some great comic-based figures as well. I’m sure Crossbones was a welcome addition to anyone who missed out on the old Thunderbolts SDCC set and I think we were long overdue for a comic-based WInter Soldier. But seriously, Hasbro, we need a WWII-era Bucky Barnes now. I’d say that Spymaster is easily the odd-man out in this wave, and that’s not because he’s a bad figure, but aesthetically he really doesn’t fit with the rest of the crowd. For next week’s Marvel Monday, I’m going to detour out of Marvel Legends, but when I return for a new assortment, I’ll be checking out the Sugar Man Wave!