Monthly Archives: May 2023

May 5 2023

DC Multiverse (Titans): Nightwing and Donna Troy by McFarlane

Last week I started my look at the DC Multiverse Titans themed wave with Arsenal and Raven, and since this week is all about wrapping up unfinished business, today I’m checking out the other half of this assortment with Nightwing and Donna Troy. All four of these figures contain parts for the Collect-To-Build brute of a Beast Boy figure, but I’m putting him off until next week so I can have a look at him alongside the Gold Label Beast Boy. Yes, I was actually able to get a Walmart Exclusive with little to no effort thus proving that miracles do happen!

Here are the figures in package and there’s nothing really new to talk about. Nightwing comes with the Beast Boy torso and Troy comes with the arms. As always, each figure comes with a standard disk-style display stand and a collector card. I went a while keeping my DC Multiverse figures in their boxes, but I have since did a massive de-trashing so all bets are off now! Let’s start with Nightwing.

I’d have to double check through a lot of boxes, but it’s very possible that this is the first Nightwing figure I’ve ever owned! I’ve gone on record many times as saying I’m not a huge Batman collector and that extends to the Bat Family too. Still, it’s cool to finally have this version of Dick Grayson on my shelf. I like this costume a lot, even if it is on the minimalist side when it comes to the deco. The body suit is nearly all matte black with some amazing electric blue on the chest, back, shoulders, striping down the sleeves to the fists, and some trim around the soles of his boots. The vibrant blue contrasts beautifully with the black and I just dig it a lot. I also appreciate that McFarlane paints the pins the proper color, which is something Hasbro rarely bothers to do on their Marvel Legends. Indeed, as we’re about to see, all of my problems with this figure center around what it lacks rather than what it is.

The head sculpt is pretty good. These are meant to be the Not-So-Teen-Anymore Titans, so Dick has an older and kind of strung-out look. He has a great little smirk and his eyes are sculpted and painted to give his right eye a bit of a Deadpool-style pop. There’s a tiny bit of slop to the paint around the domino mask, but you have to get in really close to see it. Some strands of sculpted hair hang down over his eyes, adding a nice extra dimension to his coif.

Naturally, you want your Nightwing to be acrobatic and agile, and this body takes care of business. You get standard DC Multiverse articulation here, and aw hell, let’s just run through it. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, double hinges in the elbows, and rotating hinges in the wrists. The legs have rotating hinges up in the hips, have double hinges in the knees, rotating hinges in the ankles, and hinges in the toes. There’s a ball joint under the chest and another in the neck. As usual, the only thing missing here are swivels in the thighs. Nonetheless, the lithe body works great with the articulation style and Nightwing is just tons of fun to play with.

So what’s the problem? No accessories and no extra hands to hold those non-existent accessories. Sure, when he comes with no accessories, it’s probably unfair to count no extra hands against him, but it’s such an egregious slight, It earns two demerits. How can you release a Nightwing figure without his escrima sticks? Is this version from a comic where he didn’t use them? Either way, I don’t care, he should have them. And since the figure only has a pair of balled up fists, you can’t even borrow them from another figure to give him. As I understand it, you can borrow stick-holding hands from one of McFarlane’s other Nightwing figures, but again… don’t care. It’s just two plastic sticks and he should have come with them and extra hands. It’s a shame, because otherwise I really love this figure. Moving on to Donna Troy…

Unlike Nightwing, I do have a few Donna Troy/Wonder Girl figures in my collection, but it’s been a long while, so I’m happy to grab a new one, but my how she’s changed! Well, let’s start with the outfit, because it is excellent. Sure, it’s very monochrome and I prefer either a little more color, or her trippy starfield suit, but clearly the context we’re going for is grimdark and I still can’t help but love all the detail and work McFarlane put into this costume. The suit itself is a black and gray combo with the gray bits being very nicely textured and the darker areas having some clean panel lines. The boots, bracers, belt, and shoulders are all cast in a somewhat pearlescent plastic, which looks a lot less flat than I expected. You also get some similarly colored stars on the outsides of her thighs, adding a little pop and cheer. If I wasn’t a huge fan of this costume at first, the sculpt sold it to me after just a short while.

The portrait, on the other hand, is a bit too grim, but like the body, the sculpt here is too good to not appreciate. I think the only thing that really bugs me here is the dark circles under her eyes. Granted, I don’t know the context of the comic this figure is sourced from, but I do know that I would have liked the portrait more with all that sinister shading gone. With that having been said, the nose is perfect, the printing for the eyes and eyebrows is superb, and I even like the little flash of teeth between her downturned lips.

The articulation here is exactly what we saw with Nightwing. The joints all feel great, and she has a nice balance to her.

Donna come with one accessory and that’s a pretty impressive sword. It’s cast in the same pearlescent plastic as her boots and such and the wedge shape of the cross guard matches the Amazonian buckle on her belt. Her right hand is sculpted to wield the sword while her left hand is balled into a fist to make with the punching!

Both of these figures would have been homeruns, if only we got some accessories with Nightwing. As a result, Donna comes out on top, even if it isn’t one of my favorite versions of her. And I guess that’s a common theme of most of this wave. I don’t really know these versions of the characters all that well, but that’s not going to stop me from enjoying the figures. Nitpicks and quibbles aside, this is a really solid wave and when you toss in the Beast Boy parts, well that’s just more to love. And next Friday, I’ll have a look at the Beast Boys!

By figurefanzero
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May 3 2023

Super Mario Bros Movie: Peach, Toad, and Bowser by Jakks Pacific

As I mentioned on Monday, this week is all about wrapping up loose ends, so today I’m having a look at the rest of Jakks’ Super Mario Bros Movie figures. And how about that movie, eh? It sure has been taking in a few bucks here and there. Last time, I had a look at those Super Mario Bros themselves, and today we’ll round out this assortment with Peach, Toad and Bowser!

The figures come in window boxes that let you see the figures themselves, which isn’t something to be taken for granted these days. The boxes are black and not terribly flashy, although you do get some nice color in the movie logo. These are all collector friendly, but I probably won’t be saving these boxes as I have a spot to display these figures in my Game Cave. Let’s start with Toad.

Toad is just as adorable as you might imagine and Jakks really did a nice job on this figure! He’s the smallest of the bunch with his mushroom capped noggin being just a smidge bigger than his entire body, but he still feels quite substantial. Toad sports his blue and orange vest, which is part of the body sculpt, and some big and puffy pants with a sculpted waist tie in the front and brown shoes peeking out at the bottom. His face is a simple design of two oblong black eyes and a rather softly sculpted smiley slit for a mouth. All that’s great, but the sculpt and paint really shine around back with his stocked backpack full of gear. It includes a coiled rope, drinking cup, and lantern. All of these are part of the sculpt and look great. There’s also a big slot in the middle for his frying pan. So, sad story here. When I went to bed last night the cats were playing floor hockey with his frying pan. I didn’t think anything of it, but today when I went to retrieve it, the damn thing had disappeared. It’s too big for them to eat, so it’s got to be somewhere, but if you want to see it, you’ll have to just look at the packaged shot. My guess is that the Universe could not bear me showing off two frying pan accessories in one week. If it turns up, I’ll add some pictures later on.

As small as Toad is, I’m amazed that Jakks actually gave him leg articulation. Not only do his feet swivel left and right, but he can actually sit down! Of course, that backpack makes him pretty back heavy, but I have been able to tweak him to stand with it, it’s just not easy. Toad also sports a ball joint in his neck, which allows for a little up and down movement. His arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders but just single hinges in the elbows. I just love how great this little guy came out. He’s so colorful and fun to play around with. Let’s move on to Peach!

I was expecting Peach to be a teepee of a figure and that’s sure what we got! From the waist down she’s just a plastic cone with tiny feet sculpted under it. But she does make for a really pretty sculpt. Her outfit is cast in two-tone pink with big ruffles on her shoulders, a blue and gold broach on her chest, and a red jeweled crown nested atop her head. The blonde hair is sculpted perfectly, and her face features those cool “realistic eyes” that we saw on the Mario Bros themselves, which feature clear plastic lenses over painted eyes.

With bubkis articulation in the legs, Peach does get a ball joint in the waist and neck, rotating hinges in her shoulders, and single hinges in her elbows. Unfortunately those balloon shoulders really inhibit much lateral movement to the point where they might as well just be rotating. All these hits to Peach’s articulation don’t really bother me too much, but in light of how agile she was in the movie, it’s fair to say this figure doesn’t really reflect that. I would have liked to see Jakks release her in her jumpsuit with better articulation, but I have a feeling this line will be one assortment and done. Oh yeah… Peach also comes with an umbrella accessory, which the cats were not at all interested in. Anyway, as limited as her play potential is, I still like her a lot.

And that brings us to the big brute, Bowser. Bowser really stole the movie for me. Sure, I was pretty liquored up, but a couple of his scenes almost had me pissing myself laughing. Anyway, this is a big and beautiful figure with some really nice texturing on most of the skin, and some cartoony bulbous aspects to the design that reflect both the movie and video games very well. He has a lot of useful articulation too, with rotating hinges all over the place, swivels in his ankles, and even two swivels in his stubby tail. Granted, he’s best displayed in his sumo-squat position, but there’s still a ton of play value here when it comes to poseability.

The coloring on this guy is also fantastic with the yellow and green blending together in certain places. The green is most pronounced on his shell, along with some brown rings around his spikes. The shock of red hair and eyebrows adds even more pop to the deco. The only thing here that grounds him are the black bands around his wrists and biceps, and even those have some silver studs to make them shine.

There’s no articulation in the mouth, but Jakks makes up for that with his electronic feature. His shell comes off to reveal a battery compartment. Pop in three AAA batteries, add a few drops of water to the concealed hole in the back of his head, and press the button hidden under one of his spikes and his mouth glows red and he blows smoke! It looks awesome, but you have to keep pressing the spike to keep the smoke flowing. Still, this is an amazing little feature and a nice surprise, as I had absolutely no idea about when I bought the figure.

Peach and Toad retail at $20, which is the same as Mario and Luigi. It’s a lot of pretty plastic, but with less articulation, it feels like these should have sold for about $15 each. Luckily, I picked them up when Target had them on sale for about that. They are both great looking figures, but they don’t have the same fun factor as the Mario Bros do. It’s even crazier when you consider that I got Bowser for only $30. He’s much bigger, has much more complicated articulation and has the electronic feature too, easily making him the best buy out of the bunch. But aside from quibbling over a few bucks, I think this assortment turned out fantastic, and I’m still hoping to get back to the theater to see this movie one more time! It would be great to see another wave out of the movie, with a different version of Peach and some of the Kongs, and with how well it’s doing, I suppose that’s possible.

May 1 2023

Indiana Jones Adventure Series: Sallah and Marion (Raiders of the Lost Ark) by Hasbro

This week is going to be all about wrapping up loose ends, as I finish off looking at some figure waves that I started, in some cases, weeks ago. I try to keep my promises, but sometimes it can take me a little while! So, let’s kick things off by checking out the last two figures in the first assortment of Hasbro’s 6-inch Indiana Jones Adventure Series and then build us an Ark of the Covenant! So far, I’ve been up and down on this wave with mixed opinions on Indy as well as Toht and Belloq, so let’s see what happens in the final lap.

Once again, we get completely enclosed boxes with pictures of the figures. We already know that Hasbro will be stepping away from these and going back to window boxes for most if not all of their 6-inch figure lines. With that having been said, I think the art design on these does a nice job of conveying the heart and soul of the film franchise. At the same time, these also illustrate why these types of packages border on false advertising. And when it comes to disparity between box pictures and actual figures, Sallah and Marion are two of the biggest offenders in this wave. It’s probably always best to let the figure speak for itself through a window, even if it does mean shaving a few hundred years off of the planet’s lifespan, right? OK… let’s start with Marion…

This is Marion in the outfit she wore in Cairo, and to be honest, I think I would have preferred the version we got in the old Kenner line in Belloq’s dress. Kenner did do a version of this Cairo Marion but only as a static piece to go inside a basket in their Cairo Playset. Hasbro later did a 3 3/4-inch version in their line that released alongside Crystal Skull, and that brings us to now. To cut to the chase, this figure is what I would call passable. It doesn’t excel in any particular area, but it’s not a total trainwreck. I think the colors on the outfit are nice, and there’s some sharp printed patterns on her blouse, but ridiculously puffy garments don’t usually translate well to plastic, and I’ll just say that Hasbro probably did as good as anyone could turning this type of outfit into an action figure.

The portrait looks better in hand than I expected. There’s definitely some Karen Allen in there, but I think the zombie-like expression sabotages whatever credit the likeness may have had. I like that they printed her freckles and the hair is sculpted pretty well too. Then again from some angles any semblance of the likeness disappears. For a company that has a long history of failing to capture a certain actress’ likenesses who played a character in a galaxy far, far away, I don’t think this is that bad, but it’s not particularly great either.

Articulation is solid enough for this type of outfit, but those rotating hinges in the sculpted billowy sleeves can barely do 90-degrees and the same goes for the knees. You also get rotating hinges in the shoulders, wrists, and ankles. The hips are ball jointed and you get swivel cuts in the thighs. There’s also a ball joint in the waist and ball joints at the top and bottom of the neck. The ankles joints are big and bulbous balls, which are fine for posing, but look pretty bad. Fortunately they’re somewhat obscured by the billowy cuffs.

Marion comes with a frying pan, which if you ask me is a pretty sexist accessory for a female action figure. Yeah, I kid. It was actually used as a weapon while she was being chased through the streets of Cairo. And overpowering a dude that has a knife using only a frying pan is pretty bad-ass. The frying pan looks as basic as you can get and it’s made out of super thin plastic that looks almost translucent if you shine a light through it. Hasbro put no effort into it at all.

More impressive is the little traitor monkey bastard with his teeny tiny vest. This is a pretty great sculpt for such a little accessory and the paint is decent too, but it looks no where near as good as the picture on the box. There’s articulation in the neck and the base of the tail, which surprised me. I think he could have been sculpted a little better to attach to Marion’s neck or shoulder, but eventually I was able to make it work. Overall, this figure is OK, but it’s pretty lacking for a premium 6-inch collector line. Let’s see if Sallah does any better.

The short answer is… Nope. Again, there’s some stuff here that is passable and I have to acknowledge that it’s a guy in beige robes and there’s only so much you can do with that. There aren’t any flashy colors to draw the eye or complex costume to sculpt. The lower half of the robes are cast in soft plastic with slits running up the sides to help give his legs a bit of space to move. The robes are textured and there’s some brown sandy weathering brushed on here and there. The tan belt looks nice and I like the vest with the black fringe down the sides. I did find this figure very difficult to keep standing, as he kept wanting to fall backwards and I’m not entirely sure why. In terms of the body, it gets the job done and that’s about it.

The portrait is at least recognizable as John Rhyes Davies, especially in the eyes and nose, but the beard looks bad. The paint is sloppy and uneven. And what is going on with this neck? They gave poor Sallah some kind of turkey neck that’s way too long and juts out unnaturally. It looks like some kind of NPC video game glitch. Mine is also covered with mold flashing that makes his skin look like it’s peeling off. What a mess!

To add insult to injury, Sallah comes with some pretty crappy accessories. The shovel is a good call, but it’s just a warped wreck. The handle is all bendy and the shovel itself is made of the same super thin plastic as Marion’s frying pan. Even in the relative low light of these pictures you can see the light bleeding through the plastic. The handle is also too thin for him to really grip it very well.

The other accessory is just a coiled rope, and oh boy is that a fun accessory! You can put it on his shoulder or have him hold it. I would have literally rather just got a coil of actual string. At least that would have added some play value. How about a torch? How is it we didn’t get a single torch in this entire wave? I just don’t have anything more to say about this figure, other than it would be acceptable as a 3 3/4-inch figure, but not in this scale and certainly not at this $25 price tag, and that’s mostly how I feel about Marion too, albeit she is definitely the better of the two. Let’s move on to the Ark!

The Ark is assembled from a total of twelve pieces scattered across the five figures of the wave. Half of the pieces make up the carry poles, leaving the top and bottom, side pieces, and end pieces. As I collected the pieces together I did not have high hopes for this thing. It seemed like it was going to be way under scaled and some of the plastic looked terribly thin and cheap.

But, to my surprise, once it was all together I was pretty happy with the final result. The poles are a bit bendy and soft, but I think the finished Ark looks pretty damn good. It feels like it’s scaled quite well for the 6-inch figures and the carry poles work really well. I think the gold finish looks pretty nice, with more of a satin finish as opposed to high gloss. At least there’s none of that awful looking swirly plastic gold Hasbro uses from time to time. The bulk of the sculpted detail is in the lid, and that is indeed the real showpiece here. The angels look beautiful and the intricate sculpting on the little fence around them is quite well done. You did good on this one, Hasbro!

So yeah, this wave has been a bit of a roller coaster. It’s still odd to say that I still think Belloq is the best figure in the assortment, with Sallah taking the dubious prize of being the worst. Toht and Marion fall somewhere in the middle. As for the star of the wave… I had a lot of nitpicking with Indy, and while I think the figure showcases a lot of inexcusable little fumbles, he’s grown on me a bit more since that review. Indeed, he’s been on my desk for weeks now and I really enjoy picking him up and fiddling with him on my downtime. And despite my lackluster reception to this wave, I have decided to press on and pick up a few of the future releases in this line, so we’ll see how things go from here.

Indiana Jones will return!