Monthly Archives: September 2023

Sep 6 2023

DC Designer Series: Catwoman (Stanley Artgerm) Sixth-Scale Statue by DC Collectibles

It’s hard to believe that it’s been about five years since I last featured a DC Designer Series statue here on FFZ. I used to fall for this line hard, especially where characters like Catwoman and Wonder Woman were concerned. But I only have room for so many statues so I’ve been trying to be a lot more picky. And yet every once and a while a sale turns up and today’s piece was just an offer that I couldn’t refuse. So let’s have a look at the DC Designer Catwoman by Stanley Artgerm.

Selina comes in a fully enclosed box and if you’ve picked up any of the DC Collectible statues in the past, you should know what to expect here. It’s a sizeable box, but despite being sixth-scale, Catwoman is crouched, so it may not be as big a box as you might expect. Styrofoam protects the resin statue and it comes in three pieces: The figure, the kitty cat, and the base. Assembly is easy peasy, with metal rods connecting the figure and kitty to the base, but a word of caution, the connection is a bit loose, so be careful when transporting the statue by the base as things can get a little wobbly. I am a huge fan of Stanley Lau’s work and I probably have a near complete run of his time doing the DC Cover Girls statues, many of which have been featured here in the past.

And here she is set up and ready for display and I really dig this piece a lot. This is a very animated-style Catwoman and I’ll admit I was a little hesitant because of the design choice to go with some cell-shading type paintwork, and I’ll come back to that in a tick. First off, I love the pose. Selina is down on one knee as if she just landed from a high leap. She wields her whip in one hand and her stolen prize, a pricey necklace in the other. Her catsuit leaves little to the imagination when it comes to the curves of her body. And despite all that, what almost steals the show for me is the way the kitty cat is fixated on the tail of her coiled whip, as if tracking it’s movement. The composition here is just killer with the staged pose and suggested kinetic energy giving up the best of both worlds.

And oh what a smirk! I love the crooked smile she gives as she holds up her treasure. There’s definitely some Bruce Timm influences in there, especially in the shape of the mask and design of the hood. Her almond eyes are perfectly painted as she no doubt taunts Batman with her latest illicit score. Selina has always been a dreamy kitty for me and this statue is no exception!

I mentioned the paint style and cell shading in figures and statues is not usually my cup of tea. Indeed, I recently backed out of pre-ordering McFarlane’s new animated Batman figures because of it. Thankfully, it’s not overdone here and I actually quite like most of it. There’s some gray washed onto the boot to suggest a glean, and some darker shadows on the gray to give it that comic panel look. I think the shading on the belt’s discs is especially well done. I’m not entirely sold on the gray swatch on her mask, but everything about the paint has been growing on me. Aside from all that, the paint quality and precision is very well executed.

The detail in the whip is very nice with a sculpted braid and an arrowhead style point. It’s almost poetic in the way it curves around her body, suspended in mid air. And once again, I have to just say how much in love I am with that cat’s expression. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen that look in my own cat’s eyes as something catches their interest. The base itself is a simple black disc with a cat face cut deeply into it with an orange outline and green eyes. It’s all stylish and understated and I dig that a lot. Production on this one was limited to 5000 pieces, if you can call that a limitation. Each one is hand numbered under the base. Mine is #2730 which figures because I waited so long to get her.

This piece originally retailed for around $170 and while I was smitten with it at the time of the original pre-orders, my willpower held. Of course, that willpower gave way when it was later offered for around $75 and I caved in. Honestly, I’m surprised it took that long since I’m an easy mark when it comes to Catwoman. This one is still available at several retailers at deep discount and I’m very glad I finally picked her up. She looks great with some of the other recent Catwoman pieces in my collection. And while I do love this one a lot, she doesn’t quite bump the Joelle Jones Cover Girls statue, pictured above on the right, as my current favorite.

Sep 4 2023

G. I. JOE Classified: Cobra Valkyries by Hasbro

Even an evil organization like Cobra isn’t beyond the reach of having to take on a Diversity Compliance Specialist and as a result we get The Valkyries! That’s right, these Cobra reinforcements arrived over the weekend and I was very excited to take a look at them, so they got bumped to the head of the line. This is a two-pack of Cobra femme fatale troopers with lots of gear and effect parts. In the past, I went pretty nuts buying Cobra Troopers and Officers in this line, but I was able to limit myself to two of these sets for now and will pepper them throughout my Cobra forces. Let’s cue up some Wagner and take a look!

The Valks come in a fully enclosed box with some great renders on the front and a shot of all the accessories included. Inside, you get the figures on a cardboard tray as well as a cardboard footlocker containing paper baggies with all those pieces. There are a lot of tiny pieces in there, so be sure to check those bags thoroughly before pitching them!

Here are the ladies out of the box and geared up. These feature the same body sculpt with most of the blue fatigues being smooth with some rumples, and some sculpted panels on their hips. There’s textured reinforcement on the biceps and up around the shoulders and upper chest, along with a sculpted Cobra emblem. Each figure has high boots, as well as sculpted armor plates for their knees and forearms. One Valk has these pieces painted all black, while the other has some tan paint for the straps on her boots and forearms. They each also have a good bit of separately sculpted pieces, which include the right hip holster, the belt with left cross-draw holster, left bicep strap, and shoulder rigs with a a right side sheath. Thanks to pegs on the backpacks, each Valkyrie can store all their gear, which is always a big plus in my book.

The backpacks have some excellent sculpted detail, but I wish they stayed on a bit better. Also, I’ll concede that I was not a big fan of the tan coloring on the one figure when these were introduced, and I’m still not all that crazy about it. I kind of appreciate Hasbro wanting to offer a little color variety between the two figures, but maybe grey would have been a better way to go. Honestly, I would have been happier if they were both the same black. No, it’s not a dealbreaker for me, but I just like the look of the entirely black and blue uniform better. Apart from that, I think these figures look great and I’ll throw in some pictures at the end to show how well they mix with the other Classified Cobra Troopers.

The set includes a total of three heads and three removable helmets. The two regular heads have face masks and tight fitting hoods similar to the Classified Cobra Troopers. The only other difference here is the sculpt around the exposed eyes. These are not only unique sculpts but one has dark skin and one has light skin.

You also get a gasmask style head with a red visor, which looks pretty damn rad. I do wish we got some completely unmasked heads like Hasbro is doing with their female SHIELD pack in Marvel Legends. You can swap heads with those Marvel Legends figures, but these ball joints are smaller so a bit of putty will be needed to make the replacement noggins a tight fit.

I mentioned three helmets, and the third has a silver badge on the front. V for Valkyrie? I guess this one one works for if you want to make one of the ladies an officer. The three helmets stay on the figures pretty well, but I found that they could get lopsided pretty often and I’m sure that came across in a few of my pictures here.

For weapons, each figure comes with the same arsenal with one set cast in black and the other in tan plastic. Again, still not a big fan of the tan, but I’ll live with it. In total you get two knives, four pistols, two sub-machine guns, and two machine guns. We’ll start small and work our way up. First up is the cutlery and these are pretty standard fighting knives with the blades painted silver and the hilts either black or tan. They’re fine, but not as impressive as some of the other blades we’ve seen recently. The right hand seems to hold them better than the left, even though both hands are designed for the guns.

The automatic pistols are a matched pair for each figure and these are pretty nice. They’re not too chunky and not too small. You get some nice detail in the sculpt and they fit well in either the hands or the holsters. In theory I really like the inclusion of the cross-draw holster, but in practice t doesn’t make much sense since the right hand would obviously just draw the weapon from the right holster.

I like the machine guns a lot. You get a pretty simple grease-gun style sub-machine gun with a removable stick magazine. This one has a flared muzzle and a scope. The scope seems like an odd choice for this kind of weapon, but it’s still a great design that reminds me a bit of the weapon design the Cobra troops often carried in the Sunbow cartoon. The alternative is an automatic rifle with an under the barrel grenade launcher. This is another excellent sculpt and you get a removable magazine as well. And yes, I I still think the scope should have been sculpted on this one.

Finally, the set includes a whole bunch of effect parts for the weapons. I think we’ve seen all of these before, and they tend to vary in how they look. Not that I’m complaining. I’ll take as many of these as I can get. All of the weapons have holes in their barrels and these parts just peg in. Some are designed to peg together for different combinations, and I particularly love the smoking barrel pieces. My only complaint here is that I couldn’t really make one work with the grenade launcher.

After the great Cobra Eel debackle, it’s nice to see that Hasbro is still capable of making good decisions with troop builders. Selling these in two-packs and making them easy to get is a great idea and it’s going to be tough to stick to just two. Not that I have much of a choice, as these did sell out. Hopefully Hasbro will do a restock, especially if they like money. Sure, Hasbro Pulse isn’t my first choice for online shopping, and I tend to stick to them only for exclusives like this, but I’ll admit that they’ve been pretty good about getting figures out and delivered in a timely manner. The price was $55, and that feels about right considering how many extras are included.

Sep 1 2023

Cosmic Legions (Hvalkatar Book One): Highwarden Slogg by The Four Horsemen

Happy Friday all! You may have noticed that there was no content on Wednesday as i was hunkered down for the hurricane, but it passed us by leaving just a nasty taste of tropical storm force winds and lots of rain. But, I am back today and I’m continuing my look at the initial wave of Cosmic Legions figures! If you need to get caught up you can take a look at the two versions of Oleg Thygar, the four-armed brute, Kraggnar, and the femme fatales, Vorgga and Zeerian Spyre. Today I’m turning my attention to the big daddy of the wave: Highwarden Slogg. He is the biggest figure by far and he looks like one nasty piece of business.

As with the previous figures, Slogg comes in a very attractive window box, but this one differs in that it is absolutely huge, even dwarfing Kraggnar’s box to some extent. As his title states, Slogg is in command of Hvalkatar Prison and his little bio tells us that he is encased in a suit that keeps him alive by moisturizing and treating his epidermis, which was severely burned when he was just a young blob. Let’s get him out of the box and have a look at him!

And yes indeed, he is one hefty hunk of plastic. Slogg’s impressive size is more girth than length, with most of it in his rather unique support suit. Slogg’s lower arms and legs are exposed showing his rough green skin, which is just covered with ridges and fissures. Meanwhile his bulbous head resides under a frosted dome that keeps him moist and flavorful. But how about the detail on that suit! You can just about make out the orange onesie that all the gear and equipment is grafted onto. Otherwise it’s a mess of tubes, hoses, pipes, fixtures, straps, buckles, gauges, and even a pair of what… nipple canisters? Sorry, I don’t know what else to call them. The dingy colors of the suit’s equipment looks great next to the bright green of the skin and the orange of the undersuit. You also get some bright red, blue, and yellow buttons down there in his groinular region. Gosh, there’s so much to see!

Indeed, when I first got Slogg out of the box I had a great time just turning the figure over and over in my hands and examining all the little bits and bobs. I really like the alien lettering stenciled here and there. Also, I’m pretty sure that’s a pee port located right in between his legs, possibly with an evacuation nozzle stored below it that has to be attached for him to relieve himself. I don’t know, folks, but I’m having fun making it up as I go. He also has a TU5CC badge on his shoulder, which stands for Trader’s Union of the Five Circles of Cosmerrium. Yeah, that’s a mouthful and we’ll learn more about it in the next Cosmic Legions review!

The murky dome can be a bit tricky to get off, but trust me it does come off! Removing it gives you a better look at Slogg’s disgusting melon. He kind of looks like The Gillman from The Black Lagoon hit up Five Guys a few too many times. There are so many gross folds in his skin that lead to that flappy mess of a mouth. His beady eyes peer out from beneath bloated brows, or at least one peers out. His left eye looks like it’s seen better days. There’s a scar running down the middle of it and the pupil is gone. Boy do I love the paintwork on Slogg’s noggin. It matches the rest of his skin, but also has some absolutely gorgeous gradient work where it wavers between darker green in some places and almost yellow in others. This portrait is a goddamn work of art.

And if you like your green blobby space wardens a little more angry, T4H have you covered with a second head sculpt. And oh damn is he angry! This portrait has his mouth open showing his spikey teeth and even a bit of the insides in his disgusting maw. It’s an absolute crime that one of these heads has to sit in the box, so I may just wind up displaying it beside the figure on a riser or something.

Because Slogg has plenty of chonks, his articulation is a tad more limited, but most of that comes from the range of motion in what are most of the usual joints. Rotating hinges are the order of the day, and they’re found in his shoulders, elbows, wrists, and lower legs. His hips are ball jointed, he can swivel at the waist, and his giant head can rotate left and right. But yeah, you do have to pop his dome every time you want to change the direction of his head. The arms are great, but the legs are mostly for positioning so he can stand. Although he really doesn’t have a problem in that department. Slogg also comes with two sets of hands: One set of accessory holding and one set of fists.

And that accessory is what T4H call a Data Screen. This device has a cable that plugs into one of the two holes on his butt, depending on which hand you want him to hold it in. Now, this looks to me like it’s a multipurpose device used to check on the status of his suit, as it looks like a suit schematic is displayed on the screen. It’s kind of a burdensome device to carry around for suit diagnostics, so I’d like to think it serves a double purpose.

A weapon, maybe? Yeah it appears there are possible beam emitters on the front that reminds me of the weapon design from Space 1999. Maybe the orange nob controls the beam intensity or maybe it just regulates how moist his suit makes him. And because Slogg is such a huge bastard and uses up so much plastic, that’s all you get for accessories. Still, for a figure this big extra hands, an extra head, and that big device ain’t too shabby.

There’s no doubt that from the very first solicitation pictures, Slogg struck me as a stand out figure in the wave and now that he’s in hand he does not disappoint. The sculpted detail and imagination that went into this figure makes it an absolute work of art. I’m extremely curious to see how the pieces to this guy will play out in future releases. In a modular line like Cosmic Legions, I have to imagine that T4H considers parts recycling when designing figure components, especially with big and costly figures like this. But, it’s hard to imagine a figure this distinctive will be easy to repurpose. I guess we’ll find out!