Monthly Archives: December 2021

Dec 8 2021

Masters of the Universe Origins: Roboto and Fisto by Mattel

It’s more than a few weeks since I last checked in with Mattel’s MOTU Origins line. I’ve got tons of figures waiting to be opened, but today’s is something special for me, as this is the first time owning figures of either of these characters. Yup, both Roboto and Fisto are two of the very few figures missing from my MOTU Classics collection. With Roboto, his initial run had misassembled arms, so I waited, hoping for a fixed reissue later on down the road. Well, nope. And the rest is disappointment. As for Fisto, I think he was just released on one of those days when I couldn’t get to Matty Collector fast enough to place the order in time, and he quickly sold out.

Here are our Eternian heroes looking great on the retro-styled cards. It’s crazy how fast and furious this line has been right out of the gate. The figures have been coming with a steady pace, and I’d argue it’s one of the best distributed action figure lines, at least in my area. I still get a lot of these online for convenience sake, but I have also seen just about every single figure at least once while taking a shortcut through the toy aisles at my local Target. Good on you, Mattel! Let’s start with Roboto!

In the world of Eternia, where everyone is a colorful freak, it can be tough to stand out. So, the fact that Roboto does just that really means something! And a lot of that has to do with Roboto’s super cool transparent chest. It’s cast in clear plastic and shows his three primary gears inside. These will rotate when you swivel the figure at the waist in unison with his mouth opening and closing. I’ve never been a big fan of action gimmicks in my figures, but this is one that I can get behind! In addition to those visible internal gears, Roboto has some technological tidbits sculpted into his arms. I dig the coloring here, as it’s very vibrant and eye-catching. The blue and orange contrast beautifully, and the silver paint looks outstanding.

Roboto shares the legs of Trap Jaw, which is appropriate since I’ve always considered Roboto his heroic counterpart. Like Trap Jaw, Roboto has multiple attachments for his left arm, which can be quickly swapped out to adapt to any situation at hand. These attachments include a claw that’s so tiny, it would make Clamp Champ giggle; A double-barreled blaster; And finally, a pretty sweet double-bladed ax. Alas, unlike Trap Jaw, Roboto has nowhere to store the extra bits. Maybe they’re just supposed to retract into him when he swaps them out.

His head reminds me a bit of RoboCop, as it has that silver helmet with the visor running across it. Unlike RoboCop, the bottom half of his face is just a giant, hinged orange mouth. There isn’t a lot of personality in this portrait, and I have to imagine that Roboto feels a little inferior, considering how realistic Skeletor was able to make Faker’s head. That alone, would make me consider changing sides. But even with a mug like a VCR, I still love this guy a lot!

Moving on to Fisto, and compared to Roboto, we’ve got a dude that looks pretty normal, at least according to the Eternia Scale of Normalcy. Fisto borrows a lot from the standard He-Man buck, complete with purple boots and belt, and the ubiquitous furry barbarian diaper. His torso is wrapped in a purple and silver vest, which makes him look a bit bulkier than most of these figures, but it works! He’s got a silver wrist bracer on his left arm and his right arm is equipped with the reason for the season… A GIANT METALIC FIST!!!

Despite being his gimmick, Fisto’s fist isn’t anything too exciting… at least providing you aren’t on the receiving end of it. Once again, Mattel used some beautiful silver paint here, and it looks great alongside the deep purple. I’m going to claim ignorance and ask, is that a fully functional hand or just a fist? I honestly don’t know. But if he can open it like a hand, shouldn’t he be called Hando?

I wasn’t over enamored with the head sculpt when I first saw it, but I’ll admit that it’s grown on me. Fisto’s head is a little lumpy, and his eyes and eyebrows look kind of weird. It’s like they don’t really belong on his face and they’re just visiting. I do love the hair sculpt though. The beard is solid and the mustache is superb.

Fisto comes with one accessory, and that’s his long purple sword. It accessorizes quite well with his outfit, and it’s got a detailed hilt with a knucklebow, and a guard designed to trap opponents blades. I wouldn’t want to fight Fisto, as the combo of using his fist as a parrying punchy shield combined with the long reach of that blade would make him a formidable opponent.

Egads, I love this line. The figures are always so much fun, and it’s currently the most affordable line I collect by a long shot. Roboto and Fisto are just two more reminders of why I enjoy this line, and it’s great to finally have figures of these characters in my collection! It’s tough to spread the love with only three reviews a week, but I’ve got to make a concerted effort to come back to Origins more frequently than I have been, because I still have plenty of figures to check out!

Dec 6 2021

Mythic Legions (Arethyr): Red Shield Soldier by The Four Horsemen

It’s a new week, and that means a new Mythoss Monday! Today I’m back to the recent Arethyr Wave, but instead of another Demon, it’s a long overdue return to the Knights… and a very classic looking Knight at that! Let’s check out The Red Shield Soldier!

As the name suggests, this fellow is an army builder, so if you want to give him a name and backstory, that’s all up to you. For brevity sake, I’ll just refer to him as The RSS! Originally formed to combat The Dark Riders, The Red Shield was an elite fighting force that was eventually absorbed into the Army of Leodysseus. But when the Demons came a knockin’ on Mythoss’ door, The Red Shield were called on again to beat back the Demon scum! These guys are some of the best of the best!

I’ve said it before, but I do love the Knights in this line. They remind me of the old Marx Knights that I had handed down to me as a kid. The RSS is a mix of new and recycled parts from previous figures. In fact, I think I’ve seen most everything before, with the exception of the torso, gorget, and helmet. The armor is painted with a deep, rich gray, which has a rich and satiny finish like well oiled iron. The only break in this color comes in the individually painted silver rivets, as well as the tiny brown straps with silver fixtures. He may not be the flashiest Knight in the realm, but I actually like that. He’s a no nonsense soldier out to do battle with evil.

And then there’s the helmet! I’m not ashamed to admit it, part of why I like reviewing these figures is I get to talk about swords and armor, which is another hobby of mine, and this new helmet is a real beauty. It’s a design that I most associate with Knights jousting in old films, and that’s appropriate since the Germans call it a Stechhelm, or Jousting Helmet. But it’s more familiarly known as the Frog Mouth Helmet, and for obvious reasons. The exaggerated front offers smooth surfaces bisected by a sharp angle, perfect for deflecting lances and other weapons. Once again, the rivets are painted silver, you also get some brown painted straps and bronze eyelets. And while this is the stand out helmet for me, you get two others to choose from!

There’s the Armet Helmet with visor that we first saw worn by Sir Owain in the initial Kickstarter Wave. Gosh, that was five years ago, already! I still love this sculpt, and it seems like TFH have used it sparingly over the years. Here it’s painted to match the armor, with silver paint for the rivets and a bright red plume, no doubt to signify The Order of the Red Shield!

The third helmet was seen on the Templar Legion Builder and it’s been kicking around a few times since. Sometimes known as a Crusader Great Helm, this is one of my favorite designs. It looks terribly intimidating and damn cool at the same time. The cruciform reinforcing strips are painted red with bright silver rivets and there’s a gold spike protruding from the top. All three of these helmets look great on the figure. You simply can’t go wrong with any one you choose!

Moving on to gear, The RSS comes packing a large two-handed sword, which is a straight repack of the one wielded by Gwendolyn Heavensbrand, but that’s cool because it hasn’t been repacked a lot. In fact, I think this might be the first time I’ve seen it since. I love the gold hilt with the red jewels, but I’d also like to see it repainted. I think a black or dark gray hilt would have looked cool for this particular Knight. It’s got a long blade, but it can still be worn decently on the waist, even if the parrying hooks keep it from sliding all the way through the loop.

Of course, there’s always the option to remove one of the shoulders and have him wear it on his back using the belt as a shoulder strap. I think this way looks better. And since he has a shield to protect that side, losing the shoulder isn’t so bad.

And speaking of the shield, we get the disk-type shield that we’ve seen a few times before. It uses the L-shaped grab bar, as opposed to the clip from the original Kickstarter Wave. I know, I say it all the time, but I still wish T4H would sell a bag of those clips. Yes, they ran the risk of stressing and snapping, but I think they worked better than these handles. I’ve yet to have one of those snap on me, but I did have one of these handles snap the peg off in one of the shields. Plus, if they sold the clips, I’d buy a couple bags so it wouldn’t be so bad if one did happen to snap. Anyway, I do like this shield, but I’m not as keen on the deco here. It’s got some black, silver, copper, and red. I gather the red is painted on as tradition, since the original Red Shield would paint their shields with the blood from the battlefield. There’s something that just feels kind of modern and out of place with the way it’s painted here. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it.

And finally, The Soldier comes with a beautiful halberd, that we last saw with the aforementioned Templar Legion Builder. This time it has a beautiful silver shaft and blade, with a red and gold band near the top. I love this weapon, and I hope we’ll be seeing more of it in the future.

The Red Shield Soldier is a fantastic army builder, with great and varied display possibilities if you happen to pick up three of them. Unfortunately, I do very little army building in Mythic Legions, mainly because the figures ain’t cheap, but also because they tend to drop a bunch at at time and just buying one of each wave is enough to melt my wallet. From time to time, if the figures are offered again, I have been known to double-dip, and if this guy happens to turn up in a future All-Stars Wave, I’d be keen on picking up one more. Now, if only he had a horse to ride. Hmm…. Maybe I can find one for him by next Monday!

Dec 3 2021

G.I. JOE Classified: Gabriel “Barbecue” Kelly by Hasbro

It’s hard to believe that it’s been months since I last checked in with Hasbro’s excellent GI JOE Classified line. Needless to say, I’ve got more than a few figures waiting for the spotlight. But since it’s Saturday and the weekend is upon us, how about a Barbecue!

Gabriel “Barbecue” Kelly released under the Cobra Island tag, which meant that it’s another one of those pesky Target Exclusives. This one, however, was super easy to get thanks to a pre-order window that stayed open for considerably more than a nano-second. And it’s a good thing too, because I’ve yet to see him on the pegs at my local Target. I got the original Barbecue for my 13th birthday, along with a bunch of the other amazing figures released that year. It’s a testament to what a great figure he was, that he stood out among releases like Flint, Lady Jaye, Dusty, Bazooka, and Alpine. Wow! What a great year! Needless to say, I’m pretty excited to check out this new Classified version! After all, what’s even more badass than a firefighter? Someone who’s trained to do it while getting shot at!

I’m happy to say that Hasbro stuck pretty close to the original figure’s design, and boy does he look great! Barbecue sports his bright orange fire retardant jumpsuit with black boots and gloves. He’s got some gear strapped to his waist, a rather complex looking breather apparatus on his chest, and a black protective gorget. It’s a superb update that hits all the beats of my childhood figure and just refines it to accommodate the larger scale with a bit more detail and realism. And while there isn’t a whole lot of diversity to the color palate here, the black and orange really look quite striking together!

There’s an unwritten rule for when you’re 12 years old and playing with action figures… helmets and masks are cool, and Barbecue’s kick-ass head gear oozes that cool appeal. Sure, he wears it as protective gear, but it certainly has a palpable intimidation factor to it. The blacked out visor and the silver face plate would have no problem striking fear into the hearts of Cobra firebugs. Sure, I would have loved to get an un-helmeted head as well, or a removable face plate, but such things seem to be few and far between in the Classified line, and I guess that’s understandable. I’ll just have to wait for Super7’s inevitable release of Ultimate Barbecue to be able to get a look at Gabriel’s handsome mug.

The centerpiece of Barbecue’s equipment is his foam-dispensing backpack, and it is no small piece of kit! It consists of three red tanks protruding from the top of the black frame. Unlike the original figure, this is all one piece, but the detail is fantastic. You get valves, vents, pipes, and even little caution “stickers” printed on the middle tank. A flexible hose runs out the left side of the tank and connects to the pistol-nozzle, which can be stored in a holster on his left thigh. The hose is flexible enough for the nozzle to work in either hand, but I like him as a lefty, as it frees his right hand up for the chopping implements!

Because Barbecue also comes with a pair of axes! Both of these can be stored on his person, and I can’t tell you enough how much I love figures that can carry all their accessories at once. The smaller ax is patterned after the one that came with the original figure. It’s short, and has a studded knuckle-guard, making it quick to wield, and useful in a fight. This one clips to the strap on his right thigh.

The second ax is longer and more like a traditional fireman’s ax. I dig the fierce looking head on this thing, and it’s got sculpted grips for two hands. This beauty would be perfect for chopping down locked doors in a rescue situation, or Cobra fortifications in an attack. And if a Cobra Trooper should happen to lose his head along the way… well, sometimes shit happens!

I often thought it was cool that Hasbro peppered the GI JOE team with so many practical specialists, and Barbecue is easily one of the coolest of the bunch. As a kid, when a damaged SkyStriker made its controlled crash on the deck of the USS Flagg (but really our coffee table), Barbecue would be first on the scene to douse the flames and get those JOEs out of the cockpit safely. But because he was so cool looking, I often had him accompany squads on dangerous missions. Naturally, these missions often ended with him having a showdown with Torch! And while I was surprised to see Barbecue hit Classified so soon, I ain’t about to complain about it. He’s an excellent figure and pretty much a perfect homage to the original.

Dec 1 2021

Star Wars Black Series (The Mandalorian): Remnant Stormtrooper and Artillery Stormtrooper by Hasbro

The Mandalorian may be in hiatus, but that’s not stopping us from getting some great figures from the series. I’ve checked out a few figures from Hot Toys offerings, but I’ve also got a small stack from Hasbro’s 6-inch Black Series and 3 3/4-inch Vintage Collection. And some of them are Stormtroopers! I LOVE STORMTROOPERS!!! I don’t open the Vintage Collection stuff, but I’ll get around to showing it off one day when I’m short on time, but the Black Series is all fair game to tear into!

At the beginning of the year, I took a look at Hasbro’s excellent new Black Series Imperial Stormtrooper from The Mandalorian. These new recruits are basically variants built off of that updated figure. The Remnant Stormtrooper has been out for a little while, but the Artillery Stormtrooper just arrived and as far as I know is an Amazon Exclusive! I’m going to start with the Remnant Trooper since I don’t have a whole lot to say about him.

As expected, The Remnant is just a dirtied up repaint of the updated Stormtrooper, and that’s fine! I’ll refer you to that earlier review for all the improvements on articulation and tweaks to the sculpt that this Stormtrooper body introduced. Here, the once pristine white armor is now marred with chipping and some very light brownish-orange spray. Everything just looks delightfully flatter and grungier than the regular Stormy, and shows off what happens when you can’t hop on The Empire’s website and order fresh replacement armor for your goons. The chipping is heaviest on the helmet and left shoulder, as well as the upper thigh pieces. There’s also a smattering of it elsewhere. I think the chipping looks great, but I thought it odd how little there is on the back. Indeed, apart from the heavy chipping on the back of the left thigh piece, the back of the armor is almost totally clean. It kind of looks like Hasbro just forgot to do the back, except for that one piece.

The newer helmet sculpt still looks great, although I’ve spoken to a few people who preferred the older one. To be honest, I don’t really have a preference, and I’m fine intermingling my Black Series troopers with each other. The painted details are pretty sharp, and as for accuracy, I’m not enough of a Star Wars gearhead to notice a lot of the subtle differences. Not to mention, I would imagine there were lots of variations in the screen used props over the years.

Hasbro has been pretty good about making The Mandalorian Stormtroopers accessible. And I was able to pick up three of these guys without any difficulty. It’s not nearly as many of the regular Stormies I got when they released, but this was a rare case where my good senses told me to be happy with three. It would have been cool if they varied up the distress to the armor, but I can appreciate how that would be costly for a mass-produced action figure, and the fact that these three suits just happened to chip in all the exact same spots doesn’t really phase me. I still wish they had kept the holster for the E-11 Blasters from the original Black Series Stormies, but otherwise I love these guy a lot! OK, let’s move on to the star of the show… The Artillery Stormtrooper!

This guy made his appearance in Episode 14, The Tragedy, and as his name suggests, he’s basically a mortar specialist. Once again, we get the new Stormtrooper with improved articulation and the lack of an E-11 holster, and distinguished by both the yellow markings on his armor and the yellow officer’s pauldron on his right shoulder. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I am not a fan of carrying the specialized armor markings from The Clone Wars over to the Imperial Stormtroopers. It felt like a cheap excuse to sell toys back then, and it still does. It’s the kind of thing I expect to see in a video game so the player can tell what kind of enemy they’re dealing with. And it’s especially weird to see it just appearing now in The Mandalorian after never turning up in The Original Trilogy. I think the yellow pauldron would have been enough, and it’s the main reason I’m skipping the Hot Toys releases of this guy and the Incinerator Trooper. And yet with all that being said, I still dig this guy well enough.

There are no notable changes to the helmet, apart from the added yellow markings, which looks like he’s dipped his face in a bucket of mustard. I do really like the sculpt and coloring on the pauldron! The subtle creases where the strap is pulling at it is a really nice touch.

His specialist equipment consists of a backpack and the mortar. The pack holds four “mortar shells,” which I think are just supposed to be the thermal detonators that the regular Stormtroopers wear on the back of their belts. Three of these are sculpted into the pack, but the one on the far right can be removed and loaded into the mortar. The horizontal yellow cylinder looks like it could be some kind of specialty shell, but I’m not sure. The pack plugs into the “O I” on the backpack and it stays put pretty well. There are some fixtures on the sides, which look like brackets, but it doesn’t appear to be designed to hold the mortar, which is a shame.

The mortar is pretty big and features a ball joint at the base and a hinged bi-pod. It stands pretty well and I love the fact that you can load it. “Fire in the hole!!!” Normally, I would have preferred to be manning the WEB Blaster, but after seeing how that thing can be taken out with one well placed shot to the power source, I’m thinking these mortars might be the better way to go. Your far from the action, and accuracy doesn’t really count as much. You really just have to worry about one of those filthy space wizards using The Force to toss the shell back at you. But what are the odds of running into one of those these days, right?

In addition to all the mortar gear, this fellow also comes with a standard E-11 Blaster, which is the same one issued to the Stormtroopers, both Remnant and otherwise. But seriously, is there a petition somewhere to bring back the holsters?

For someone who ran out of space a long time ago, I sure love to troop build! It’s totally irrational, but I just can’t help myself. I think it stems from back when I was a kid and the biggest pie-in-the-sky dream I could have was to have a dozen Stormtroopers for my Rebels to fight. And here i am now with no one to stop me! I’m content with just the one Artillery Stormtrooper, but I can’t say I wouldn’t pick up a couple more Remnant Troopers if they cross my path. Either way, these are great figures and a fine addition to anyone’s Imperial Forces!