Monthly Archives: October 2022

Oct 31 2022

Marvel Legends (HasLab): Heralds of Galactus by Hasbro

It’s Halloween afternoon, and I had hoped to have some special spooky content for today, but that figure in question did not arrive in time, and so we’ll have to raincheck him until later in the week. Instead, we’ll press on with Marvel Monday but still look at something special by tackling the three Heralds of Galactus that came with the HasLab Galactus release! I mean, this set was scary expensive, so that’s sort of in the Halloween spirit. I showed a brief look at Silver Surfer, Frankie Raye, and Morg when I did the unboxing and first impressions last week, and I’ve since had a little time to play around with them. I suppose you can consider this Part I of the overall Galactus Review, because I’m shooting on getting a better look at the Big Guy for next week’s Marvel Monday!

In case you missed it last time, here’s a look at the box, and how the regular sized figures come inside it. They are each resting on a very large clear plastic tray with their accessories and extra bits beside them. Given the cost of this set, a big part of me wishes Hasbro had actually given them individual boxes, but that would have probably made the box even bigger, so I’ll let that slide. Let’s just start from the top and work our way down!

The Silver Surfer was previously released in Marvel Legends as a Walgreens Exclusive. It was a figure that I never did find in the stores, and one that goes for all the monies now. Since I don’t own it, I can’t make a direct comparison, but based on pictures, this one appears to use the same body but has a new head sculpt. And yeah, that kind of makes this bundled figure feel a little less special. Granted, how could they not include him in the box? Even Masterworks Galactus came with a 3 3/4-inch Silver Surfer! Obviously there’s not a whole lot to talk about here, as he’s a generic buck painted all in silver. Ah, but what a beautiful coat of silver he is! The paint on this guy really feels premium and looks great. I also appreciate that they used the extra-articulated body with the lateral crunches in the shoulders.

The new head sculpt looks good, but I do not think it looks as good as the pictures I’ve seen of the Walgreens release. The expression here looks a little more dour, and whether that’s good or not is down to just personal preference, but I think the definition in the face is a lot softer on this version. I would have really liked to get that other head in the box as well.

You get the exact same three sets of hands with this figure as came with the Walgreens release. That includes fists, flat karate chop hands, and splayed fingers that look good for flinging the cosmic powers, or just balancing on his board. Honestly, I don’t think the flat, closed finger hands are necessary. I do, however, really like the effect part he comes with. The purple plastic looks really nice. Of course, it’s something else that we’ve seen before. Many, many times before.

The board is simple and effective. It has a single peg, which holds the figure fairly well. You also get an effect part that doubles as a stand. This piece grips the board snugly and can be stood on its own, or attached to Galactus’ left hand, which we’ll see next week. I like this figure a lot, but it’ll still just be a consolation prize for me not getting the Walgreens release. Maybe someone who has both can tell me otherwise, but I think this is the inferior of the two, albeit still being a decent figure. Moving on to Frankie Raye…

The Human Torch! Nova! Frankie is a most welcome addition to the Marvel Legends line up… so much so that it might have been a bit unfair of Hasbro to lock her away behind this paywall. Like Silver Surfer, Raye gets by with a single colored buck, this time a brilliant gold and it looks marvelous! The body doesn’t feature the same level of muscular detail as Surfer, but it still looks great, and I was very happy to see the double-hinges in the elbows and swivels in the biceps, as opposed to just putting rotating hinges in the elbows.

I absolutely love the head sculpt here, especially the amazing flaming coif, which spreads out behind her. The translucent mix of orange and red plastic really catches the light well, and makes for quite the spectacle.

You get three sets of hands with Frankie, and these include splayed finger hands, fists, and accessory holding hands. And, yes, the accessory holding hands feel unnecessary, since she doesn’t come with anything to hold.

Like surfer, Raye comes with an effect-stand, which is designed to fit into Galactus’ hand, but it also serves as a pretty good base all on its own. There’s a sculpted footprint and peg inside this geyser of plastic flame, to keep her attached with the flames snaking around one of her legs. I love it! OK… Let’s wrap this up with Morg!

Morg The Executioner has the most original sculpting of the three and as such it’s probably no coincidence that he comes with the least extras, and that means no effect parts and no extra hands. You can easily see the give and take with each figure when it comes to cost to produce. The sculpting here, however, is superb. I love the way they sculpted his craggy red flesh, and the spikes protruding from his shoulders and the biceps. His armor is also awesome, with the sleek and organic curves of his wrist bracers and knee guards, which flare out beautifully. The segmented, spiked leg armor looks pretty bitchin too! This is an epic looking figure!

The portrait is excellent! Just look at that fiendish, toothy grin and beady read eyes! But easily my favorite thing here is the way they sculpted his long, flowing white hair.

It’s somewhat ironic that Morg doesn’t come with any extra hands, because Hasbro couldn’t even get the two he does come with right. MY MORG HAS TWO RIGHT HANDS!!! Yeah, you’d think for how much this little package costs, the highly paid toyologists at Hasbro Labs could get a simple left and right hand correct. Hell, I have over 300 Marvel Legends in my collection and not one of them came with two of the same hand. Very disappointing!

Morg does, however, come with his trusty ax, and it’s OK, but nothing special. I do try to keep him away from Nova when he’s holding it. And I suppose since he does have two right hands, that makes him ambidextrous.

And that’s the three Heralds of Galactus. They’re all fine figures, even double-righty Morg is still plenty cool. I stand by what I said about Silver Surfer probably being the lesser of the two when it comes to the Walgreen’s Exclusive release. But seeing as I don’t have that one, I’m happy to have this one in the collection. In the end, I’m going to give Frankie the nod as my favorite of the three. I’m going to do my darndest to get a proper review of Galactus together for the next Marvel Monday and we can look at all these figures together!

Oct 28 2022

Toy Tour #2

As promised last week, I’m doing the second part of my look at some of my collection. Last time we checked out the main Toy Room, this time we’re looking at some of the other displays, closets, and places where I’ve managed to tuck toys around the house. Some of today’s tour will venture more into the realm of collectibles, but it’s still stuff that I review here fairly regularly. Apologies in advance for some of the pictures, but in some cases I had to really wing it and some of these shots came out really shitty. Let’s start with some closets! I have a couple of walk in closets that serve as mini Toy Rooms. Right now these are part storage and part display. They’re sizeable, but it’s tough to really get a wide shot because there’s only so much room to back up. So here’s the first one…

To the right in this closet is where all of my Titan Class Transformers live, and I’m kind of glad I don’t have any interest in the Cybertron Metroplex, because I’m out of room for Titans. There are also some Combiners and other miscellaneous Bots. I’d like to have these in the Toy Room, but to be honest, I’m just grateful to have a shelf anywhere that’s big enough for them all. There are a few of these I still haven’t reviewed on the site, and that’s because it’s a real pain in the ass to cobble together a backdrop and lighting to deal with their size. Maybe one day I will get the time.

Above the Titans shelf is a mix of Hasbro and Takara boxes. The Unite Warriors boxes have the Takara Aerialbots and Combaticons in them. Rey’s Speeder and the Snowspeeder are both in their boxes, and so is Masterpiece Grimlock. The two Star Wars helmet boxes are empty, we’ll see those on display later. Under the Titans is a little Voltron action, including the Classic Playmates release, Super7’s Ultimate(ly disappointing) Voltron, and Toynami’s excellent Plastipiece Voltron Gift SEt. The boxes have some Marvel Universe, Funko Pops, the first waves of Vitruvian Hacks, and parts for a DIY Dungeon Display that I’ve been working on for Mythic Legions. Get used to seeing these Banker Boxes, as we’ll be seeing a lot more!

On the left side of the Closet is some ordered chaos. I tried to keep the Transformers theme going a bit with my boxed Masterpiece figures along with some third party sets (Feral Rex and Warbotron). The corner has some more boxed Combiners, some Titans Return Leader Class figures, a boxed GI JOE ROCC, and some Fwoosh Ninjas.

Lots of randomness in the lower shelves! Some NECA, some newer Vitruvian HACKS, some RED Transformers, and some TBLeague 1:12 Scale figures. Also some RoboCop from NECA and HIYA and about six Banker Boxes of containing my Masters of the Universe Classics. There’s a lot of fine tuning I’d like to do in here when I get a chance, but I still like coming in here every now and then, as it gives off a half display room, half toy store vibe. Let’s check out the second Toy Closet.

The left side of this Closet is dominated by my Doctor Who collection. It’s mostly Classic Who with my NuWho figures in the Banker Boxes in the corner. I’d like to get it all out on display, but just what’s here takes up so much space. Overall I’m pretty happy with it. I have a lot of boxed sets to open, and I’d like to start reviewing some of them. I might make a push for that next month.

More Doctor Who up top. Some boxed Big Chief Sixth-Scale figures, the 11th Doctor’s Console Room Playset and a few of those Time Zone playsets for the 3 3/4-inch figures. My boxed Sideshow Sixth-Scale GI JOE figures are up in the corner as are the empty boxes for Hot Toys Thanos and the Tarken/Vader set.

The middle back wall has a lot of my boxed Eaglemoss ships, as well as a bunch of carded ReAction figures. I can see Alien, Robotech, and Evil Dead in there. Also, the Zica Toys Sectaurs.

To the right is MOTUC Castle Grayskull with Green Granamyr and the Talon Fighter. Eventually, I’d like to extend this shelf outward to the back of the closet and display more MOTU Classics stuff here.

Under Grayskull is what I lovingly refer to as The Tombs. These are Sixth-Scale figures which no longer have original boxes. I keep them in these plastic cases with bubblewrap. These are mostly Sideshow and Hot Toys, but there’s also some TBLeague and other stuff mixed in. I have some display space open and I need to go through and decide which ones to put out. Above Grayskull are Sixth-Scale boxes, some contain figures, others are empty and the figures are on display. Well, those are the Toy Closets, let’s have a look at the Vintage Display Case.

This is repurposed china cabinet which houses some of the toys I had as a kid. A small portion of these collections are my originals, while the rest is what I’ve managed to build back up over the years. The right side is all Kenner MASK and I’m only missing Gator to have all the first series vehicles. I’m going to try to hunt a nice one down before the end of the year.

The center is all Kenner Star Wars, with a few modern pieces, like the TIE Fighter and the Jabba the Hutt wall. A majority of the figures are complete, but a few are missing some weapons. I only need a handful of figures to complete my pre Power of the Force collection. I haven’t bought any in a while, and I really need to just wrap this collection up.

The left side of the case has my LJN Advanced Dungeons & Dragons collection with most of the original figures, but none of the later and scarcer ones. I have loved these figures since I was a kid and I’m looking forward to the McFarlane versions. Below that is my very modest collection of four Wheeled Warriors. This is another line I’d like to complete someday but they are getting pricey! The bottom has some TRON figures and vehicles. The original movie figures are NECA’s reissues. I lost my originals a while back. The Light Cycles are all Spinmaster’s TRON LEGACY releases. Let’s head on over to what I call the Comic Office…

Because it’s mostly Comic Book themed! This office is something of a dream come true for me. It’s something I always wanted to set up and I’m very pleased with how it came out. This is where I pay bills, read emails, and catalog and back and board my comic books. The Zenescope short boxes under the desk are the bulk of my Zenescope floppies. I’ve been a fan for a while and I’d say I am pretty damn close to a complete collection of books, though obviously not variants because that would be ridiculous!

To the right of the desk I have my J. Scott Campbell Fairytale Fantasy statues that Sideshow released along with some of the corresponding prints. Red Riding Hood and Tink are both Exclusives and came with the metal art cards and Alice is actually signed on the mushroom by Mr. Campbell. The Little Mermaid is the second issue recolor, because I hadn’t decided to collect these yet when the original came out and now that one is way too pricey for me. The Red Riding Hood print is also signed by Campbell.

To the right of those is a little Zenescope corner. I have the three bishoujo-style figures that Zenescope released as Kickstarters, as well as three of the Sixth-Scale figures (Robyn Hood, Liesel Van Helsing, and Mercy Dante) they licensed out to Phicen. Sadly, I’m missing Keres, which was the fourth and final release. Below these are a bunch of the limited metal character lunchboxes. I have six, but haven’t kept up with the last few releases.

Behind the desk are some trades and boarded floppies. Most of the ones displayed on top are signed of limited. Yeah, I have a lot of signed J. Scott Campbell variants!

To the left of that is my little Marvel/DC action figure corner, which was shown in the pictures for the Haslab Galactus unboxing on Wednesday. Some people might be surprised that this is all that I have on display of Marvel Legends, but there are just too many to put out, so I settle for a little smattering of X-Men and Fantastic Four. I have to pull the Terrax BAF out to put on the table with the other Heralds.

The bookcases to the left of that are dominated by some Premium Format statues. The Batman Returns Catwoman was my first and I actually one that in one of Sideshow’s giveaways. Beside her is Domino on her Days of Future Cash slot machine. There’s a Covergirls of the DC Universe Catwoman between them. Eventually I will hang that graded Catwoman #1 up top and between them. Below them are some crowdfunded comics, including my Kamen America books, some Lady Death and Hellwitch books, and some art books. To the left is the Abby Chase Premium Format along with a signed Danger Girl print behind her. She is the Exclusive with the metal art card. And beside that is the Spider-Man and Mary Jane maquette based on J. Scott Campbell’s cover. Below those are some Danger Girl and Campbell art books and a random Power Girl Bishoujo from Kotobukiya.

Above these are Kotobukiya’s ArtFX Justice League and Avengers. And all the way up top I have some Marvel Legends boxed sets and a bunch of Diamond Select Gallery Statues. I had a lot more of these at one point, but I let some go before I last moved.

The little closet here contains all my loose Marvel Legends figures as well as my DC Universe Classics collection. Yup, more Banker Boxes! I really love these for holding bagged figures, as they’re big enough to hold a lot, but not so big that they get too heavy to move. I just wouldn’t recommend them for storing figures in a garage or attic. These boxes are fairly well organized so when I need a figure for a comparison shot in a review I can usually put my hands on it in a reasonable amount of time.

Across from the closet I have one last bookcase with some more statues and a couple of Hasbro’s Marvel helmets up top. The top shelf has my only Bowen Statue, 1970’s Ms. Marvel with a signed variant cover by J. Scott Campbell. Next to that is a Sheena statue by Dynamite Comics, based on the Campbell cover, which is signed and graded. The Dynamite Comic statues are not very good, and I’ll probably put this one away eventually. If Sideshow did Sheena as a Premium Format, I’d be all over that! The next shelf down are three DC Statues. Adam Hughes DC Designer Wonder Woman, Frank Cho Wonder Woman, and Bombshells Harley Quinn. Next down is a DST Spider-Man which I haven’t put up top yet, the Mezco One:12 Christopher Reeve Superman, and below that are the boxes for the three Zenescope Bishoujos.

Phew! And before leaving, here’s the Premium Format Dejah Thoris, who sits on the corner of my desk and distracts me from doing any work. We’re going to finish up in the TV Room, but we’ll make a detour on the way to…

Another closet and more Banker Boxes! This is mostly NECA with a little Star Wars and Transformers thrown in. Again, all the figures are bagged with their accessories and pretty well organized. The only storage I’m not showing are the seven or eight totes in the garage, which have a smattering of LEGO sets, Transformers, Star Wars and Star Trek stuff.

The back of the TV Room houses most of the Sixth-Scale figures that I have on display and this is in the middle of being reworked on the bottom two shelves. Mostly Hot Toys/Sideshow Star Wars here with a little Marvel and some Hasbro helmets up top. I’m hoping to do a little work on this area this weekend. I’d like to fill those empty shelves and get out the Hot Toys Bruce Banner to put in front of The Hulk.

And that wraps up this trip into my own personal madness. I do still have the Game Room, which contains some toys, and I may eventually do a look at that in a couple of weeks. As for now, I’ll be back to regular reviews next week, starting with a look at the three Heralds of HasLab Galactus on Marvel Monday!

Oct 26 2022

Opening HasLab Galactus!

If you follow me on Twitter, than you may be aware of what a harrowing three days it was to get HasLab Galactus home. He was supposed to be delivered last Saturday and since there was a signature required, I hung out all morning and all afternoon waiting, only to find that Fed Ex didn’t bother knocking or ringing the bell, but rather just stuck a Sorry We Missed You note on the door some time around 2pm. Now, that driver must have been a goddam ninja, because I was walking past the front door in anticipation probably five times an hour, and my front door is mostly glass. And there’s no way he could have pulled that off dragging the huge ass Galactus box to the door, so I suspect he just left it on the truck. I grant you 100 points for stealth, Fed Ex Man, and take back 1,000 points for DO YOUR JOB YOU LAZY F*CK!!! Since I wasn’t going to be home the next day to sign, I diverted it to a local hold location where it was supposed to be delivered by end of day. Two days later, I was able to pick it up. And thankfully it just about fit in my backseat. Anyway, here’s the giant box!

The HasLab Campaign ended in August of 2021, so it’s been a little over a year of waiting, which all things considered wasn’t too bad at all. I’m shooting today’s content in my office, guerilla style, because I have no proper staging area that will fit this behemoth and no way to properly light it either. Eventually I hope to fix up a work around for that, but until then, this isn’t really a proper review, but more of an unboxing and first impressions. I do really like how the box turned out. The artwork is both colorful and beautiful. I especially like the mural on the back panel. The front panel not only shows Galactus but also Silver Surfer, Morg, and Frankie Raye. It really feels like we’ve been building toward this, given that the very first wave of modern Marvel Legends featured Terrax as a Build-A-Figure!

Open the box and out comes a giant slab of styrofoam! The big guy slumbers under tissue paper covers, which are wrapped at the bottom to make two adorable booties! Also visible on this side are his two alternate face plates and the full-on Doctor Doom alternate head. The blades of his headpiece are positioned to the right, as are the three Heralds, each with some accessories. The only assembly required is to attach the blades on his head, and sadly it feels like they aren’t meant to come out again, so while the package is collector friendly, Galactus probably isn’t going back into his styrofoam bed again.

You get one slip of instructions, and that’s just to show you how to install the batteries. Yup, $400 and batteries aren’t included. Sons of bitches! I don’t have a fresh set, so I’ll have to pick some up to test out the electronics.

And here he is perched on his very own table! Aesthetically, the body strikes me as being very similar to the Masterworks Galactus and I’ll do some comparison shots when I do a proper review. I’m very pleased with the overall detail and heft of this beast. I also appreciate how heavy his feet are, giving him a nice low center of gravity and making him feel sturdy and balanced. I did not opt in for the Haslab Sentinel, but as I understand it, that figure had some loose legs, which seems to have been corrected here with some decent ratchets.

The head sculpt is phenomenal, with the stock face plate being appropriately dour. He definitely looks hangry. The face plate is soft and rubbery, so you can easily swap it out without having to dismantle any part of the head.

The other two plates include skull face and exposed teeth. These are both pretty terrifying. I’ll likely swap these out for display every couple of weeks or so, but right now I’m leaning with the snarling teeth as my default. I neglected to snap the Doom head, but I’ll leave that for the proper review.

The fingers are all fully articulated, so Galactus is capable of balling up his hands in fists as well as making all sorts of unsavory gestures. I’ve only just started to explore the rest of the articulation and he’s got some great range of motion in the arms. I’m interested to see whether he’ll be able to hold any kind of action poses from the waist down.

Silver Surfer has an effect part which allows him to perch on Galactus’ hand and this is incredibly well designed. The board slides into the top and the bottom is contoured to snugly fit around the open hand. I’ll confess, I am considering displaying him with my 3 3/4-inch Marvel Universe Silver Surfer to give the big guy an even more impressive scale by comparison, but this works so well, I may have to go with this for the regular display.

Frankie also has an effect part that works with Galactus’ hand, this time the right. This piece is a little less intuitive than the other, so I’ll need to experiment with it some more.

And Morg doesn’t get any effect part, but he does get his axe.

By all respects it looks like Hasbro really knocked it out of the park with Galactus. Even the wait didn’t seem that long. This is only my second experience with HasLab, the first being the Razor Crest, but I’m very pleased with the whole experience. Well, not the Fed Ex part, but that’s not Hasbro’s fault. I’ll have to pick up some batteries to power him up and check out the electronics. As of now, I’m planning to check out the three Heralds this coming Monday, and maybe by the following Monday I can get something rigged up to do some better pictures of the Big Boi and give him his due.

Oct 24 2022

Marvel Legends (Armadillo Wave): Miles Morales and Armadillo Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

It’s another Marvel Monday and I am at the tail end of opening the Spider-Man themed Armadillo Wave! So, let’s put this wave to bed today with a look at the last packaged figure, Miles Morales, and then we’ll cobble together the Armadillo BAF and check him out!

Miles is a GamerVerse figure, and we’ve seen this style of packaging deco before. It has a spiffy white top to set it apart from the regular comic and MCU releases. I believe Miles here is from the follow-up or pseudo-sequel or something to do with the PS4 Spider-Man game. God, I sound so freaking old when talking about video games now. That’s probably because I’ve been spending more time on my Atari consoles than my PS4. And I STILL have not played the PS4 Spider-Man game, but it’s over there on the shelf, waiting to be unwrapped, installed, update my system, update the game, than download the patch, and by then I realize my controller isn’t charged and I go back to playing Dreamcast or NES or anything else that’s more plug-and-play and doesn’t require a 30 hour investment in time. But hey… let’s look open Miles!

Well, this is without a doubt, the best Spidey suit we got in this wave. That may seem like a back-handed compliment, but I really do like this design a lot and Hasbro did a nice job giving it the figure treatment. There’s some very cool texturing on the suit, as well as some sculpted panel lining which makes it feel like it would be right at home as an MCU version. Even the detail on the gloves is excellent! The crimson deco on the chest, back, and shoulders really pops against the black suit and all of it is incorporated into the sculpt. The texturing is bound to mess with the paint application a bit, but here we didn’t do too badly.

You get two head sculpts here, one masked and one unmasked. The masked head is very good with some fairly sharp webbing. There’s a little slop around the white eye lenses of the mask, but you have to punch in pretty close to see it.

The unmasked head is also solid, with just a few things holding it back. I really dig the facial features and I’d say this could work just as well as a comic figure as a video game figure. On the downside, I could have done without the mold line running across the top of the hair. I definitely prefer when Hasbro casts the hair separately and attaches it to the head as opposed to the head and hair being all one piece. Also, the head sits really weird on the neck, like it’s jutting forward too much. It looks a lot better when viewed from dead on and neither of these things are enough to really ruin the figure for me.

The articulation is identical to the previous two Spider-Man figures in this wave, so I won’t go through it all. But, are we going to talk hands again? You betcha! If you’ve checked out my other reviews of this assortment, you know it’s all been about the hands. And Miles FINALLY gives us the crawling hands with the splayed fingers that should have been included with the Integrated Suit Spidey. He also comes with fists and thwippy hands, as well as one more set…

Translucent glowy electro hands! I’m guessing these are supposed to convey his Venom Strike ability in the game? Again, I haven’t played the it, but it sure looks like these are representing a bio-electrical discharge of some sort. I freaking love these! They look really cool on the figure and make for a nice contrast against the black suit.

I didn’t have a lot of interest in Miles going in to this review, but he’s definitely one of the better figures in this assortment. The suit looks great and he’s fun to mess around with. He also gives me the last BAF part I need, so let’s move on to Armadillo.

Armadillo is built from a total of six pieces, scattered across the wave. Technically seven, if you count his removable back piece, but that came attached to the back and not separately. With seven figures in the assortment, you could have skipped the Integrated Suit Spidey and still got all the pieces. Personally, I would have rather skipped Black & Gold Suit Spidey, but I imagine Hasbro was well aware of that. Putting him together is the standard formula of popping the arms, legs, and head into the torso and everything was a pretty easy fit.

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Armadillo is a character. His back story and motivations are about as cliche as you can get. BUT, I sure do love the way he looks and I absolutely love this figure! He really is a perfect candidate for BAF treatment, as he’s big and burly, and his armored shell pieces look fantastic. The way his armor plates are sculpted give the figure a lot of depth, and these are are textred very nicely. He’s also sporting some vicious looking claws on his fingers and toes. You get all the usual articulation with these beefy BAFs, and while he may not have a great range of motion in those elbows, everything else is pretty good. Speaking of elbows, the right elbow on my figure is seized, which means this big boi is going to have to take a boil bath in a big pot!

And how about that head sculpt! Clearly, this is not the kind of Armadillo that gets bounced off your front bumper at 2am. I love the way the armadillo plates form a helmet leaving only his face exposed. The expression is pure nightmare fuel, with those soulless white eyes and the wall of gritting teeth. Every line and crease in his anger-stricken face is chiseled to perfection. And herein is one of the things that makes Marvel Legends so much fun. Hasbro can take a character I’m not even really vested in and still make me excited to own that character as an action figure.

Ultimately, I’m a bit lukewarm on this wave. I didn’t like any of the two Spidey Suits from No Way Home, and while the Black & Gold figure is pure garbage, the Integrated Suit figure isn’t that bad. Morlun was kind of OK and MCU Doctor Strange is probably the best version of MCU Strange we’ve had yet. Shriek is a great figure, but not the version I wanted, and while I would have rather had younger J. Jonah from the Raimi Spider-Man films, I’ll happily take this one instead. And in the end, I will say that collecting this wave was well worth it to get the Armadillo BAF, because he’s great and I got most of these figures on deep discount anyway. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but there we are! On the next few Marvel Mondays I’m going to be checking out some boxed sets and stand alones, before jumping into another Wave.

Oct 21 2022

Toy Tour #1

Howdy, folks! Instead of a review today, I decided to kick off a little tour of some of my collection, starting with the Toy Room of the house. Next week I’ll follow it up by checking out the Toy Closets, some other display spots, and my Comic Book themed office. In an unusual burst of motivation and energy I spent a lot of time last week getting this Toy Room in good order, and I thought it would be a good idea to shoot some pictures before it got out of hand again. So let’s start with three main shots!

This is basically the view walking in and then turning around twice to the left. Jake Cat is in the picture because that’s one of his favorite windows to look out of and so he’s there a lot. He is very respectful of the toys in the room, which is great, but I do lose some prime display space in the area where he sits. He owns it, and it’s off limits to me and my toys. Oh well! This room is admittedly a pretty eclectic display, although it does focus on four of the toy lines that are most important to me and I am actively collecting: Transformers, Star Wars, G.I. JOE, and ThunderCats. It’s also already facing its share of growing pains and will likely get overhauled again in the future. Let’s just start to the right of the door and work our way around!

G.I. JOE! I absolutely love that Hasbro’s Real American Hero has made a return in such a big way. Classified started out pretty OK and has grown into being absolutely amazing! I’m also quite addicted to Super7’s ReAction line. G.I. JOE used to just be in the first book case, but between ReAction and Classified, JOE needed more room! I had Mythic Legions displayed beside it, but I was never happy with that display. It wasn’t enough space and there were a lot of avalanches. As a result, Mythic Legions has been sidelined until I can work out something else to do The Four Horsemen’s magnificent figures the justice they deserve. I have a halfway decent 25th Anniversary JOE collection and some vehicles, but they aren’t on display now. We may see some of those next week. When Super7’s Ultimate JOEs start shipping, I’ll have to figure something out. They may go on the shelves in front of the carded ReAction line. Ideally, the table top that the other cases are standing on will be for the HasLab HISS, but there’s a good chance Super7’s ThunderCats may take this space over and the Thunder Tank will go there. We’ll see! I’ve been using NECA stands for the Classified JOEs and they seem to work pretty well. I only see one Trooper that’s tipped back, but so far no avalanches! Some of the Troopers and BATs may need to get put away as I get more individual characters.

Next up is Masters of the Universe Origins, and boy has this line taken off like crazy! I was originally going to use this space to display my MOTU Classics collection, but it wouldn’t have been enough room, and I kind of preferred having Origins there since it’s an ongoing collection that I can keep adding to. Origins is such a fantastic line, and since I never had the vintage toys as a kid, getting these is like experiencing the next best thing! I keep some empty vehicle boxes in the big Grayskull box and there’s some boxed Mythic Legions figures under the desk. I use the drawers for bags of accessories, figure stands, and the like. I promised myself I wouldn’t collect the Masterverse figures, but in the end I compromised and I’m allowing myself to collect the Princess of Power figures only. And speaking of which, I absolutely love the artwork on that Matty She-Ra figure box and one day I may even get around to giving that figure a proper review.

Sandwiched between the G.I. JOE and MOTU Origins is this case of Transformers and it is already bursting at the seams. Lately, I tend to sell off past Transformers that get better releases, so much of this case is populated with modern figures. There’s mostly mostly movie stuff on top, Decepticons below that, Autobots below that, and then it gets more random. Bad Cube’s Insecticons are in there, a vintage Transformers figure case full of various CHUG. Above it all are some carded Super7 ReAction, and I’ve already run out of room to hang the new additions. I think my Transformers purchases have finally started to slow down, but we’ll see some more of this collection next week in one of the Toy Closets!

Inside the closet is more toys! I use the center shelves for my Playmobil PlaymoSpace collection. I was introduced to these toys when I was living in France for a while and I fell in love with them. I can’t even express how much nostalgia I get from these! I also have some more modern pirate sets, as well as some knights and cowboys. When you collect Playmobil, you inevitably end up with bins and bins of parts, and there’s some of that in here too. There are just a few more items I need for the PlaymoSpace collection to be complete!

The rest of this closet is just a mix of all sorts of stuff. To the left I have a bunch of boxed Figmas, my collection of Sailor Moon Figuarts and a few Prize Figures. I don’t really collect any of these lines anymore, and I really should sell some of them off, but I can’t bring myself to do it just yet. These are excellent figures, but I just don’t watch a lot of Anime any more. Oh yeah, and there’s a few random carded Indiana Jones figures tucked in there too.

On the right side, I have some NECA Quarter-Scale figures. There’s 89 and 66 Batman, Iron Man and Cap from The Avengers, and Deadpool. Another line I don’t really collect anymore, but I can’t bring myself to part with these. I actually have Homecoming Spider-Man sharing Cap’s box too! Up top is Mattel’s 66 Batmobile with some of the figures, and one of my boxed MOTU Classics Wind Raiders.

Below that is more randomness! Warpo’s Big Cthulhu, the OTC Falcon, all the Lost Exo Realm Not-Dinobots are in here, some Rebels vehicles. I can see the main gun of the G.I.JOE Grizzly and the bow of the Hydrofoil peaking out too!

Top shelf is even more randomness! Some boxed Indiana Jones vehicles, a Boglin, and some Star Wars LEGO sets, which I built and returned to the box. I generally disassemble these and put them in baggies with the instructions and add them to one of the LEGO totes. Eventually I will build them again!

Moving on to the left is a case of Star Wars Black Series with some carded Rogue One Vintage Collection hanging above. I got out most of the figures from A New Hope up top and a lot of Empire Strikes Back. The re-issues of the Rogue One Black Series figures in boxes with the Rebels Black Series in front, and then some Endor figures, Luke and Landspeeder, Sandtrooper and Dewback, and some assorted boxed figures. There’s some more Star Wars randomness shoved in the corner. Other than the top two shelves, I’m not totally satisfied with this display, and I may try to work on it some more next week, but not sure what else to do with it.

Above the closet wall I have some boxed Vintage Collection toys. The first four ships, Poe’s X-Wing, Luke’s X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Slave-1, haven’t been opened yet. I know these aren’t meant to be disassembled and returned to the boxes, so I’ve been putting off doing that. The Haslab Razor Crest box is empty, and the last four. AT=ST Walker, Tatooine Skiff, Jabba Palace, and Rogue One Hover Tank, have been opened but the toys are back in the boxes for now.

Moving to the left of the Star Wars Black case, Hasbro’s giant AT-AT, and under Jake Cat’s perch is some more Star Wars Black, some carded Vintage Collection, and some boxed and carded Black Series. I have a little Jabba Palace set up going on, and boy do I wish someone would sell a custom throne for him. Also, it’s such a shame that Hasbro hasn’t given us more of Jabba’s crew in Black Series. Hidden behind some of the carded figures on the bottom shelf are Jada’s Back to the Future DeLoreans and KITT from Knight Rider. I have to find some place to display those. To the left of that are some boxed Transformers reissues, along with the SDCC Soundwave and Blaster, and Hasbro’s Masterpiece Prime.

That brings us to the Mandalorian Corner! I have nearly all the Vintage Collection Mando releases hung on the wall and the Haslab Razor Crest with some loose figures around it. Below that is just randomness. There’s the boxed Troop Transport, the Commemorative Series Powermaster Optimus Prime (Probably my FAVORITE Transformers item in my collection), and the TIE Striker from Rogue One, which is a pretty underrated Hasbro ship if you ask me! I still haven’t done a review of the Razor Crest and I’m not sure if I ever will. It’s just too difficult to photograph, but maybe someday.

Before moving on to the left, the table in the center of the room has some of the larger Star Wars ships including the BMF Falcon, the Target Exclusive Imperial Shuttle, a Snowspeeder, and I think that’s the Jango Fett Slave-1 from the Clone Wars Ultimate Battle Pack. Under the table are three boxes of loose Black Series and a box of modern 3 3/4-inch Star Wars.

The final case in the room is under a wall of carded Super7 ReAction TMNT and ThunderCats figures. These are the only Turtles in my collection, as I sold off all other TMNT toys a while ago because space was getting tight. I have a rule about re-buying things I sell off, but I still wanted some TMNT represented and the card art on these is so good I couldn’t resist. Below those I have Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates spread out, along with a vintage Sky Cutter for Jackalman to ride in. The Ultimate Cats are possibly my favorite toy line right now, and after so many false starts from Matty and Ban Dai, having these is like a dream come true. Obviously Wily Kit and Kat are from Matty’s line.

The right case is mostly more ThunderCats. I have some of the figures and the boxed Thunder Tank from Ban Dai’s 2011 line. I absolutely adore the 2011 cartoon reboot. The animation was gorgeous and while it took some bold departures, it still paid respects to the original and I wish it had gone a little longer. I would love to see Super7 do a wave of the 2011 figures, but I doubt that’s in the cards. Also on this shelf are Funko’s Savage World style ThunderCats and some of Ban Dai’s Classic Cat efforts. Eventually this shelf will be rotated out for something else. On the bottom is a complete set of Mezco’s Mega ThunderCats. Well, complete non-exclusive releases at least. And there are some Filmation-carded Flash Gordon figures from NECA because… why not?

The case to the left is a crazy mix of randomness. There’s the re-issue Real Ghostbusters with the Ecto-1. I have Slimer and Mr. Staypuft carded, as well as a set of the guys carded too, but they don’t fit there. Next is Jem and the Holograms. Probably the strangest thing to see in my collection, because… yeah they’re dolls! I happened upon a bunch of these at an Estate Sale and bought everything they had. It took me a while and some research to piece together the original Holograms and Misfits along with Jem and Jem as Jessica Benton. Or should that be the other way around. Most of these are complete, and I still have more stuff to go through. I’m trying to piece together Shana and I may eventually buy Clash and Video. I’ve also had my eye on the Rockin’ Roadster, but that’s a big step! Finally, the bottom shelf has a modern custom of Buck Rogers starfighter (to replace my old Mego one) and some Buck Rogers figures along with a couple boxed NECA Flash Gordon figures.

And that brings us to the end of the room! I’m not sure if I’ll get to everything else in Part 2, but I’ll see how that goes next Friday. There will be a lot of pictures of boxes, but also some goodies that I have displayed here and there! See ya back here on Monday when I will be wrapping up the Armadillo Wave of Marvel Legends!

Oct 19 2022

Golden Axe: Gilius Thunderhead and Chickenleg Mount by Storm Collectibles

I can still remember how blown away I was when I got Storm Collectibles’ Ax Battler and the Red Dragon Mount figures in my hands. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever get action figures based on one of my favorite SEGA games, let alone anything so nice. And I sure as hell didn’t dare hope that they would spin it into an entire line of figures that just keeps on going. Not long ago pre-orders dropped for the Bad Brothers, and today for Heninger and Long Moan. So, it’s long overdue that I wrap up my look at the three playable characters of Golden Axe with the mighty Dwarf Gilius and his Chickenleg Mount!

Gilius has been with me for a little while now, but it’s been a struggle to find enough time to sit down and do him proper justice. To be fair, I rarely ever play as Gilius in the game. Instead I tend to alternate between the brute force of Ax Battler or the nimble magic of Tyris Flare. But I was still super excited to get his figure in hand. The packaging is the same style window box we saw with the other two characters, but the quality of the cardboard doesn’t seem as flimsy as that initial Ax Battler release. The window allows you a good look at Gilius, with Chickenleg on a plastic tray behind him. I removed Chickenleg’s back tray for the packaged shot to better show the character select graphic printed behind the tray. Let’s drop in a quarter and get started!

Here’s Gilius out of the box and ready for action! He may be a Dwarf, but he is still a very substantial figure. He’s also wearing more clothes than either of his peers, and that’s probably a good thing. The green tunic is cast in soft plastic and features a coarse texture and ragged cut edges along the arm holes and the skirt. It’s cinched around his waist with a black sculpted belt and a gold belt buckle. And if I squint a little bit, I can imagine the belt buckle is a “G” for Gilius… but not really. The outfit is rounded out by a pair of brown boots and white wrist wrappings. And while Gilius doesn’t show as much skin as Ax Battler or Tyris, you still get plenty of burly muscles on display in his bare arms and legs. This guy looks like a powerhouse!

Once again, you get two head sculpts to choose from, although I hope you like your Dwarves pissed off , because that’s the expression you get with both of them! Both are excellent sculpts, with the first one conveying an “I’m determined to kick every ass in this game with just one credit” expression and boy is it bone chilling! This is by far the best portrait of the three warriors and it just oozes character and personality. The contours of the face are wonderfully realized and the detail in the sculpted beard is just phenomenal. Gilius’ horned skull cap features some nice silver dry brushing to give the green paint a weathered look, and the horns are given a metallic silver sheen.

The second portrait really is more of the same, only this time his teeth are bared a little, which I think makes this the head to go for when posing him in the heat of battle. There is, unfortunately, a little dribble of silver paint on this head’s helmet, just above his right eyebrow. It’s not cataclysmic, but I will try to remove it.

The articulation shares most of the same points as the other two heroes. You get a wonderful range of motion in those double-hinged knees and elbows, swivels in the biceps, and the hinges in his feet. I’m not sure what’s buried under the soft plastic of the tunic, but most of the articulation in his torso seems to come from a ball joint in the waist. Despite his stout stature, Gilius is just as much fun to play around with as the other figures. You get a total of three sets of hands with the figure: A pair of fists, a pair of clutching hands, and a pair of weapon-holding hands.

Gilius comes with one accessory, and that’s his trusty Battleax! It’s a no-nonsense chopper and yet it still makes for a beautiful double-bladed weapon with a satin-silver finish, and some scrapes and nicks to the blade. The holding-hands do a great job of clutching it tightly, so he can wield it one-handed or with both and cut a swath through the legions of Skeleton Warriors that I have been amassing! OK, now let’s have a look at Chickenleg!

Of course, only his friends call him that! Technically this weirdo is a pink-purplish Cockatrice, or Biblical chicken-dragon if you prefer, and if you know your way around SEGA coin-ops you may have first met him in Altered Beast. While I love the Dragon Mounts, Chickenleg is the one I tend to associate with the game the most. That’s probably because back when I was a noob, I got to ride him the most as he appears early on in the first level. I also quickly learned the fine art of tail-slap-spamming to juggle The Bad Brothers to defeat.

And Storm surely did Chickenleg proud with this figure! The sculpt is just beautiful from the poultry-like bumps of his skin to the feathered flame-like tip of his tail. His beautiful beaked maw is stuck in a permanent open position, flashing his tongue, but he has plenty of articulation in his legs, starting at the body and working down to the single talons he has for toes. His tail swivels so it can be made to drag on the floor, or rear up for a downward slap. It helps to balance him, although he is capable of standing up on his feet without the tail support.

Naturally, Chickenleg comes with a saddle for Gilius, or any of the other players, to ride him. Chickenleg doesn’t have stirrups or reins like the Dragons, but he does have horns coming off his saddle, which can be held by the hero riding him. I didn’t have any problems with him falling off, and he looks great in the saddle!

And here are some shots of Ax Battler and Tyris riding Chickenleg too!

And Gilius can also mount either of the Dragons perfectly fine, so long as you don’t want his legs to reach the stirrups!

It’s funny, but while Gilius is the character I select the least often in the game, I think his figure may be my favorite of this trio. Sure, it’s tough to choose as they are all great, but I had a hell of a lot of fun playing around with Gilius and I think Storm outdid themselves with this sculpt! And even now that I’ve given each the spotlight and put them on the shelf along with all the skeletons and Death Adder and Death Adder Jr, it’s still hard for me to believe that these are real. Even if Storm stops the line now, I’d be more than content with this marvelous plastic pixel bounty, but as long as they keep going, I’ll continue to be All In!

Oct 17 2022

Marvel Legends (Armadillo Wave): Black & Gold Suit Spider-Man by Hasbro

Today I’m checking out the penultimate figure in the Marvel Legends Armadillo Wave, and I very nearly skipped it. Since I’m pulling back on Marvel Legends, I have been asking myself, why bother reviewing an entire wave if you aren’t buying everything anymore anyway? But in the end, I decided that if I bought all the figures in a wave, I might as well check them all out here. And that brings us to Black & Gold Suit Spider-Man.

There was a lot of speculation about this suit when it was first revealed. It seemed to have mystical glyphs imprinted in the material and the gauntlets had a certain Strange-ness about them, if ya know what I mean. A lot of these details can be seen in Hot Toys’ Sixth-Scale version. But in the end it was all a big nothing, and it turned out to be just the regular suit turned inside out because Peter Parker got paint on it. Yeah. I kind of wish they had the balls to just put Inside Out Suit on the package. Black & Gold Suit just sounds like he’s trying to make a fashion statement.

Just to recap, all the way back to my review of the Integrated Suit, I really didn’t like that design, but the figure came close to selling it to me. You could say the same about this suit and the Hot Toys figure, but in the case of this Legends figure, well, it’s just a load of crap that makes a bad design look even worse. The black suit with gold webbing might have worked for me if the webbing was consistent throughout, and it didn’t have those red bits on the sleeves. Now, this comes down to a design inconsistency, where the Hot Toys figure shows some beautifully intricate gold on the forearms, which I presume is the exposed circuitry inside the suit when it’s worn normally. Here you just get the out of place red bits that look terrible. Why the difference? Who knows? Who cares!

The paint on the head is really bad. At least the gold webbing on the rest of the figure is fairly well done. It has a nice gold leaf finish and most of the lines are pretty sharp. The gold webbing on the head looks like it was done with a crayon before slapping the figure into the box. There’s also a lot of sloppy spray around the white eye lenses. Yuck!

You get all the usual articulation in the modern Spidey bucks, and that includes the lateral butterfly joints on the shoulders. It may be ugly, but it’s still a pretty fun figure to play around with.

Hey, let’s talk hands… because I have to gripe about hands in EVERY review throughout this wave. Nope, still no crawling hands, but you do get thwippy hands and fists. No wait… not fists. Accessory holding hands. WHAT?? WHY??? Is it so he can hold on to the webbing he doesn’t come with and swing? How is it possible they made the hand selection EVEN WORSE?!?

Wow, do I hate this figure. In all honesty, the inside out suit gag in No Way Home was kind of funny and a very Peter Parker thing to have to do. Almost as bad as having to throw on a Fantastic Four suit and run home barefoot with a bag on your head. But this figure is just trash. Hot Toys is proof positive that something could be done with the design to make an attractive figure, and yes, I do understand that we’re talking about a big difference in cost between that one and this one. But even for what it is, this figure just looks sloppy and half-assed. Next week, I’ll wrap up the boxed figures with Miles Morales, and we’ll check out the Armadillo Build-A-Figure!

Oct 14 2022

Masters of the Universe Origins: Mantenna by Mattel

Life is returning to normal here at hurricane ravaged FFZ Central! It’s nice to be able to round out a full week of reviews again, and hopefully I can keep that going. Today I’m checking out another figure from Mattel’s absolutely amazing MOTU Origins line, and it’s time to add another baddie to Hordak’s Evil Horde with Mantenna!

He’s the Evil Spy with the Pop-Out Eyes! As always, these figures look fantastic on the retro-style packaging, making me forever tempted to pick up doubles to keep sealed. But thankfully I’ve managed to just keep a couple doubles so I can always have an example of the overall presentation here. Despite his extra limbs, Mantenna is carded as a regular release instead of a Deluxe, and you get an Evil Horde sticker on the front of the bubble. At some point Mattel needs to start turning out some more Great Rebellion figures in the Origins line because right now it’s just She-Ra alone against The Evil Horde!

Mantenna is among my favorite Horde figures because he’s that perfect blend of creepy and goofy. The extra set of legs makes him stand out, even among an army populated entirely by freaks and weirdos. And while he does have a certain silliness to his design, if I saw this thing in real life I would shit my pants and run. Granted, I suppose that could be said for a lot of the Masters baddies. Obviously there’s a lot of special tooling for this figure, with the standard MOTU arms being about the only normal recycled parts.

He has a special new pelvic part designed to accommodate his extra set of legs, each of which is wonderfully detailed with sculpted Horde symbols on the front of the boots, ugly bumps on the thighs, and blade-like fins protruding from the upper and lower legs. And each one of these limbs features the same articulation as the legs found on regular Origins figures. The chest and back armor are sculpted as part of the torso, rather than something worn by the figure. I really dig the coloring here too. The body is very dark purple and it contrasts nicely with the bright yellow belt and the bright red chest piece, head, and Horde symbols. The fact that the red for the head is glossy and the chest piece is more matte is another great little touch.

The head sculpt conveys all the kooky and ugly weirdness that characterizes this character. I mean, holy shit just look at him! This guy is pure nightmare fuel! He’s got wide fins that make up his ears, and two tusks jut down from the disgusting maw he calls a mouth. The hole of a mouth is circled with tiny black appendages, and I can’t even imagine what it’s like sitting across from him at The Fright Zone Cafeteria and having to watch him eat.

And then there’s those giant, bloodshot globes he calls eyes. These bug out from his head even under normal conditions, but if you press the lever on the back of his head, they pop out even more. I still adore the MOTU Classics version with its interchangeable parts, but there’s something that’s just so fun and satisfying about being able to make his eyes pop in and out with this gimmick.

Mantenna comes with the usual Horde Crossbow, this time cast in a pale gray color. His right hand is equipped to hold it, while his left hand is just relaxed.

I absolutely love Origins Mantenna, and Mattel spared no expense introducing this delightfully bizarre character to the Origins line. He looks great, the extra legs are fun to pose, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of flipping his eyes in and out. Even with as prolific as Origins has been, I’m still in awe of how quickly Mattel has delivered a good chunk of Horde baddies, and Mantenna looks absolutely smashing along side his fellow villains. Now we just need to get some more of Etheria’s gals in the line to fight them!

Oct 12 2022

RoboCop 2: RoboCain (1:18 Scale Exquisite Mini) by Hiya Toys

I started collecting Hiya Toys’ RoboCop Exquisite Mini line when they first revealed that they were doing Cain from RoboCop 2. It’s a figure I’ve wanted for a long time, and with NECA surprisingly silent on the subject, I thought it would be worth picking up the rest of the toys in this line to go with him when he finally shipped. Well, now he’s here, and I have to say, I’m very glad that I went this route and can finally have Cain and RoboCop battle it out for supremacy on my desk!

The packaging here is the same as we saw for ED-209, only a bit smaller. You get a fully enclosed box with some artwork and shots of the toy, and everything is collector friendly. Inside Cain comes sandwiched between two plastic trays and all ready for action! I make it no secret that I consider the first RoboCop to be a near perfect film. I can’t say the same for RoboCop 2, but I do still love it to pieces, and it is criminally fun to watch. While the first film was a blood-soaked satire on municipal corporate takeover, the second film takes that concept and blends it with Frankenstein, and nothing reflects that more than the designs of each film’s Big Baddie.

And here he is out of the box and ready for his Nuke fix. If ED-209 was a sleek corporate product, RoboCain is more a misshapen robotic monstrosity. It’s a complex design and to be honest, I don’t think I fully grasped all its nuances until having this figure in hand. He comes out of the package with his legs retracted into his dormant mode, like he’s resting on his haunches, but we’ll stretch these out in a bit. His primary arms rotate at the shoulders and are hinged at the elbows, with a smaller secondary set of arms resting on the fronts. HIs right claw is hinged to open and close, and his left claw is shielded. It can extend outward to punch, but not as far as it did in the movie. The left arm is also equipped with a minigun, and he has a second gun mounted on his right shoulder. RoboCain can swivel at the waist and turn his head from side to side.

The sculpted detail on this figure is quite impressive and complex. There’s tons of little bits and bobs, hydraulic arms, cables and hoses. There are sculpted rivets in his joints, and toothy gears making up his shoulder swivels, with more hidden down in his hips. None of the hoses or cables do anything to restrict his articulation, and they seem pretty solid.

The head is probably the most stylish thing about the design, with it’s prominent brow and concave cheeks framing the complete lack of a face, which makes it look cold and creepy. Sadly, the head does not open, but I can’t say as I was expecting that for a figure in this scale. A swap-out head showing the video monitor with a lenticular sticker of Cain’s computer generated face would have been a really cool bonus. A close up view shows some really nice weathering, a bit of rust, and brushed steel look to the painted finish. It’s pretty damn convincing as plastic for metal, making the figure look like it should weigh more than it does. I especially like the dry brushing and nuke symbol on his chest’s cannister caps. The painted finish here is every bit as good as the sculpt, and that’s saying something!

The smaller, appendages roll up onto his shoulders and can flex outward. On the left he has the snapping claw that Angie said she could get used to. Or not. It’s also good for crushing remote control units. Come to think of it that would have made a cool accessory. The pincer itself, however, is not articulated. The right arm is equipped with the arc welder he used to mess up Robo’s helmet seen in that absolute banger of a poster!

As mentioned earlier, the legs extend quite a bit to give him a nice bit of height and they can hold his weight in any number of poses. The first thing I checked when I got him out of the box was to see if his toes were articulated, since that’s the first glimpse we get of him when he steps out of the truck. Alas, they are not.

I am thrilled to finally have a figure of RoboCain and considering the high expectations I had, I am delighted with the final product. He’s so much fun to pose and play with and he looks fantastic next to the Exquisite Mini RoboCop figure. Now, that having been said, this is a figure that is best regarded for what it is, and not for what it isn’t. There’s a lot of stuff missing that I would have liked to see, most notably the the aforementioned extra head, and an opening Nuke receptacle. I also would have liked to see some swivels in the arms. I suppose you could also gripe about the lack of electronics, since ED-209 had a sound chip. But RoboCain didn’t speak, so you’d just be getting gunfire sounds. Still, considering the scale here, I’m still very happy with what we got. RoboCain is also available in a battle damaged variant, and I believe there’s a set of that version with a battle damaged RoboCop, which is something I might just have to pick up before it gets scarce!

Oct 9 2022

Marvel Legends (Armadillo Wave): Morlun by Hasbro

Well, I’m back from Hurricane Hiatus and ready for action! My last week and a half has consisted of extremes. I’ve been cleaning up the Hurricane’s mess in the yard as well as getting some projects done around the house, all while working a few extra hours at my day job to help out. Conversely, whatever downtime I’ve had has just been spent loafing in front of the TV or a video game console and decompressing from all the stress these situations bring on. Add to that the fact that my Internet has gone out three more times since the Hurricane, and working on anything related to this blog just seemed like an exercise in futility. But, now that I’m back I am planning on a full slate of reviews for this week! So, let’s kick it off and take a look at a multiverse-hopping vampire, eh?

I know Morlun best from the Spider-Verse comic, which was probably one of the last Marvel full-story runs that I read to completion. By 2014, I was already getting disgruntled by a lot of the shit they were shoveling out, but I actually liked Spider-Verse quite a bit, especially as an extension of Superior Spider-Man. I’ve generally been a big fan of Dan Slott’s writing, but the more I learned about what a toxic asshole he has been to fans, the less I wanted to patronize his work. Anyway, let’s get Morlun out of the box, he looks hungry for some Spider-Totems!

It’s surprising to me that it took this long to get us one of the Inheritors in Legends, but I guess Hasbro has been busy feasting at the smorgasbord of seemingly infinite Spider-Man variants that Spider-Verse served up. The Multiverse has been like a license to print action figure money, and there are still a lot of holes to fill! Morlun’s upper body looks to borrow some tooling from the Gents of the Hellfire Club, with the lower half utilizing the business suit parts we’ve seen most recently with J. Jonah. There’s enough mixing and matching and reworking here to make it seem at least somewhat fresh, albeit an odd mix of vintage and modern wardrobe.

I like the sculpting on his cravate, especially with the broach set dead center, and the crimson stone in the broach mixed with the aqua blue of the cravate add some nice color to all the black of his suit. The silver vest is pretty snappy, but the paint application is a little uneven on my figure. It’s noting terrible, but if Hasbro is going to keep raising the prices of these figures, they’re going to need to up the QC along with it. And I’ll have more to say on that before I’m done.

You get two head sculpts with this figure, and both have their ups and downs. The big difference between the two is the first has a bit of a wicked smile, while the second he’s bearing his teeth in a rather malevolent grimace. I think the sculpts are fine on both, but they both suffer from some really unsightly mold lines, both across the hair and along the edges of the face. It almost looks like the face is attached like a mask. There’s also some absolutely horrendous mold flashing around the jawline and the seams I just mentioned. I don’t know what happened here, but it’s really unfortunate. The paintwork on the second head’s teeth is really pretty sloppy and basic. We’ve seen a lot better.

Articulation is standard stuff here, but the jointing in the legs is super mushy, which is always disappointing. You get only one set of hands, and since the subject of hands has been a running joke for me in this Wave, why stop it now? In this case, I really like Morlun’s huge hands, even if it meant Hasbro probably had to melt down the pair of crawling hands I wanted to get with Integrated Suit figure to get the plastic to make Morlun’s giant meat hooks. They look especially creepy with the large cuffs giving the figure’s arms some uncanny and unsettling disproportions. I also dig that Hasbro both sculpted and painted the little suckers in his hands.

Morlun has been a long time coming to the Legends toyline and now that he’s here, I’d say he’d be pretty good if it weren’t for a number of nagging issues. Hasbro has pretty much raised the price of their licensed 6-inch figures to $28 across the board, and in light of the timing here, the QC issues with this figure are not a good look. With some mushy joints, some spotty paint, terrible molding issues, and a lot of recycled parts, Morlun has enough problems to keep him from being a decent figure at $20, let alone almost $30. It’s odd, considering how much time and money I have invested in Marvel Legends at this point, that Hasbro is serving up the excuses to let this line go and focus my resources elsewhere.