Monthly Archives: November 2023

Nov 29 2023

G. I. JOE Classified: Buzzer by Hasbro

One thing I was very thankful for this past Thanksgiving week was the arrival of some choccy donut chomping, grape soda slurping ruffians in the form of some Classified Dreadnoks. Well, at least Buzzer and Ripper. And as the great philsopher Meat Loaf once said, two outta three ain’t bad. Even as I was starting to drift away from GI JOE around 85 and 86, Zartan and the Dreadnoks captured my imagination, mostly thanks to their wonderful debut in the Revenge of Cobra miniseries. Boy was I excited for these guys in Classified!

Buzzer comes in the now standard plastic-free fully enclosed box. Word is that Hasbro is going back to window boxes, but so far I’ve only seen evidence of that with the upcoming release of the Deluxe Mutt and Junkyard set. I’ve said before I like this packaging and I’d be happy if they stuck with it, but chances are I’ll only be keeping the cardboard footlockers and eventually ditching the boxes. Buzzer was my favorite of the original three Dreadnoks, but I couldn’t write you an argument as to why I favored him as a kid. I just did, and still do.

And just as I hoped and expected, Classified Buzzer hits all the familiar beats of the original RAH figure with enough added detail to bring him up to date with modernity. The khaki button down has ragged cuts where the sleeves were and a plunging neckline to show his manly hooligan chesticles. You get a right side shoulder strap with some sculpted grenades, one pineapple and one cannister, and these look almost good enough to fool me into thinking they’re removable. He has a badge and some dog tags on the left side of his chest, brown gloves, a wristwatch, and just check out that bitchin’ silver skull and crossbones belt buckle. So cool! The trousers are blue, he has thigh armor with integral holster and sheath, knee guards, and some kicking brown boots. The sculpt here is great and while the colors are a bit more muted than the RAH figure, the deco still works as a faithful homage.

The wrist watch is on a wide band and it’s removable. I also dig the tattoo on his left bicep. The tat is a beautiful update to the simple stamp on the RAH figure and it’s been relocated from the front of the bicep to the side, which feels more appropriate.

The head sculpt is also excellent even if I feel it strays quite a bit from the vintage influences. There’s a wee bit more Sunbow in here and a good bit of James Marsters as Spike from the Buffy TV series, and I sure ain’t hating it. He’s got some chiseled lines in his sunken cheeks, a cleft chin, and a prominent brow. His blonde hair is sculpted in a tight fashion, pulled into a ponytail in the back. This portrait works more as a dangerous villain than the clowning hooligan from the cartoon and I dig it a lot. And then there are the glasses…

For a company that gave us some absolutely incredibly 6-inch scale specs in the Indiana Jones line, these are kind of rough and disappointing. And it’s not that they look bad, but they just don’t fit the figure well, nor do they stay on. And that’s because there’s no design mechanism to keep them in place. They’re sort of supposed to tuck behind the ears, but they really don’t. The best I could get was for the left arm be flush with the head and the right arm popping off to the side. I may wind up gluing these to the figure and if I do that I’ll hope to pick up a second Buzzer on clearance down the road. Either way, this should have been done better. With that said, let’s check out his weaponry… And we’ll start big and work our way down…

They don’t call him Buzzer for nothing! This malicious miscreant comes with his trademark chainsaw. It’s a menacing looking bit of hardware with a black casing and silver blade. The casing and motor has some really nice sculpted detail, as does the chain on the blade. The final piece is missing some of the silver paint hits shown on the package rendering, but it does add some flat gray plastic parts, which I think makes up for it. Buzzer’s left hand isn’t quite positioned perfectly to make use of the grab bar, but he can make it work. The only thing disappointing here is that he doesn’t come with the Alice-Frame mounted gas can that the vintage figure had. I’m not sure how Hasbro missed that, but it’s another bit of disappointment to add to Buzzer. Also, since they didn’t include the gas can backpack, I would have loved to see a peg on the chainsaw so he could wear it on his back.

Buzzer also comes with an update to the RAH figure’s weird chain axe weapon. I consider this to be pretty iconic for him too, and Hasbro did a decent job with it. The chain is just sculpted plastic, but you get some sculpted wrappings around the handle. A real chain would have been preferred, but I still like this weapon a lot.

Another interesting piece for his custom arsenal is this baseball bat with two serrated axe blades mounted to it. I’m not sure if this is a weapon included with a later version of the figure or just something Hasbro made up for Classified, but I heartedly approve. I love the idea that the Dreadnoks spend their downtime in a garage bolting together various bits to come up with crazy new murder implements. The bat is black, the blades are painted silver and you get some silver paint on the handle wrappings. It’s pretty bad-ass!

And lastly we come to the two more conventional weapons: A fighting knife and an automatic pistol. The pistol is a compact little piece cast in black plastic. I guess when you carry around blades on chains and baseball bat axes, you don’t need to make a statement with your sidearm. It has good sculpted detail and even some painted wraps around the grip, which is a surprisingly nice little touch.

The knife is simple, but looks good. Hasbro ponied up for some silver paint on the blade, which is always a welcome treat. Both the knife and pistol are the only accessories that he can store on his person.

Buzzer is a really good figure with a few missed opportunities. I love everything about the figure itself, but it’s hard to imagine how Hasbro thought the glasses were supposed to work. As I said earlier, I may just wind up gluing them on, but I’m going to wait to see if I can find a second Buzzer on clearance down the road. The missing gas can is also a shame, but an easy fix for that would be to include it as an accessory with a Dreadnok motorcycle release later on. I don’t really think that will happen, but it would be an easy re-sculpt using parts from some of bikes released in the Marvel Legends line and I’m pretty sure it would sell. A set of three Dreadnok bikes and accessories as a HasLab? Yeah, that might work.

Nov 27 2023

Cosmic Legions (Gravenight): Mbyra Jmgyra by The Four Horsemen

Welcome back, Toyhounds! I’m back from my little Thanksgiving break and have completed the first lap of my personal marathon of crippling holiday depression! I hope you all had a peaceful and pleasant time, and I’m ready to get back to some toy talk. Last week I started looking at the new wave of Cosmic Legions with the random pick of Noveunn Leen. It was a strong start to the assortment and a fantastic figure! This time I’m selecting a specific figure, Mbyra Jmgyra, because in the Cosmic Legions narrative, she’s a fellow member of The Bleeder’s Guild and sometime partner of Noveunn.

I still haven’t decided whether or not to keep these boxes, but chances are they will eventually get downsized to the trash for lack of space. I like them better than the card and bubbles of Mythic Legions, but I’m still not crazy about the extras kept on the inside of the tray. It’s stylish and all, but it makes them difficult to get to. As for Mbyra, well thankfully I do written reviews and not videos so I don’t have to worry about pronouncing her name correctly, but I’m going with Embiera Jimgiera. She is classified as a member of the Scorrox race, which as we’ll see have some interesting characteristics. We’ll also see that I found much of this figure to be cool ideas in theory, but kind of problematic for the figure.

Mbyra is certainly a distinctive looking lady and I do love the overall design. She likes to show a lot of skin with her metallic green armor consisting of two shoulders pieces, an upper chest, forearm bracers, lower grieves, and some hanging plates around her brown belt. The armor is very cool and has an almost floral motif to its sculpting and pattern. It also has what look like jump jets located behind the knees, something we’ve seen on some of the wave one figures. Also pretty noteworthy is the long scorpion-like tail that hangs down from the back of Mbyra’s head and ends in a rather nasty looking sting. There sure are some imaginative beats on this body, but I can’t say I’m impressed with everything.

One of her more interesting features is her semi-transparent skin. Yeah, The Four Horsemen went with a heavily orange tinted, semi-transparent plastic for her arms, legs, hands, feet, and mid-riff. It was a surprise to me when I got the figure, as I didn’t really notice it in the solicitation photos. And to be honest, I’m not really sold on it. It makes for a nice, vibrant glow under the right light, but it comes off to me as cheap looking in the hand. I was worried about it creating problems with the joints, but to it’s credit that wasn’t the case. It does however make for some mangled fingers on the extra hands, which are super soft and bent. I did have problems with the shoulder pieces, they were ridiculously tough to get pegged in and yet the right one pops out at the slightest manipulation of the arm. Finally, the scorpion head-tail is a cool idea, but it’s a stagnant piece that relies on an added bump in the back to keep it in check and it severely curtails the articulation of the neck. It’s a shame this piece couldn’t have been jointed.

You get two head sculpts, with the tail and cheek piece being shared between them and it can be tough to get that whole shebang to slot around the head securely. Still, when it is done right, it’s neat how it isn’t readily noticeable as being a separate piece. The portrait has some nice things going for it, with the top of the head resembling a scorpion carapace and the side pieces influenced by their claws. It’s all cast in the same type of plastic as the body and the face is painted in an off-white with bright green eyes and red lips. It’s not as impressive a head sculpt to me as what we’ve seen in the past, but it’s different and certainly not bad. I will say that seeing the orange of the head framed by the green of the armor makes for quite a strikingly beautiful color combination.

The alternate head has an angry expression with her mouth showing off some pointy teeth and just an overall scowl on her face. It’s a very expressive alternative good for fierce battle poses. The open mouth isn’t as convincing as we’ve seen with some of the other figures in terms of depth, but it still looks good. This may be the one I go with the most for display. So, how about weapons? Are we going to see some new ones?

Sort of. Like Noveunn, the only new piece we get is a plug-in for the gauntlet and in this case it’s a curved blade. It’s actually a very cool addition and it looks right at home on the figure. I actually like it a lot more than Noveunn’s rocket. Pity we didn’t get two of them.

As for the rest, Mbyra favors the weapons issued with the Sphexxians from the first wave, so for starters you get the big alien blaster rifle. I absolutely love the sculpting and design of this piece and it fits the character really well, but I’m just convinced that it’s too big and ungainly to really work with the articulation style of these figures. It’s hard to get her to hold it all that convincingly. Also, what I think was supposed to be the trigger-finger right hand was mangled so badly because of the super soft plastic, I have to resort to her regular gripping hand to hold the rifle. At least she’s practicing proper trigger discipline. The deco for the weapon gives it a nice coppery sheen and really brings out all the detail in the sculpt. The power nodules are painted metallic purple.

The other weapon is the Electrostaff. I like this one a lot too, and once again I think it suits the character really well. The staff is painted to match the rifle and you get silver paint on the blades. Maybe it would have helped if TFH had included an energy effect part or something in this wave to help add a little something to a weapon we’ve already seen quite a few times. It’s worth mentioning that going All-In on this wave included a bonus accessory pack and I also got an extra bag of parts, both of which I may check out when I get through all the figures, but it’s a shame they couldn’t bundle some of those new pieces with the figures.

Obviously, I have a few issues with this figure, but that doesn’t mean I hate or even dislike Mbyra. She’s pretty cool and very distinctive, but I think she may be the weakest figure in the line so far. At least for me. The translucent plastic really does look decent under the right lighting, but in hand and on the shelf, it just doesn’t look that great to me, and I would have rather it just have been regular painted plastic for the skin. Working out even some basic articulation in the tail would have also gone a long way to make her more fun to play around with. The armor looks great, but having the shoulder piece falling out can be irritating. All in all, I’m still glad to have her. Next week, I’ll open another one in this wave and I’ll make it a random selection.

Nov 20 2023

Masters of the Universe Origins: Sssqueeze by Mattel

Last week I got into some MOTU Origins Snake Men with a look at Rattlor and Kobra Khan, and as promised I’m back this week with another one of these slithery villains. Yeah, I’m really set on wrapping up loose ends when it comes to Origins, so hopefully I’ll get it into the regular rotation a little more often as we approach the end of the year. Today’s figure is that loveable, huggable Sssqueeze, and it’ll be a miracle if I can get through this whole review spelling his name with the right number of S’s.

As we saw last time, the packaging has been updated to feature the Snake Men deco encroaching on the top of the card and a Snake Men sticker slapped on the front of the bubble. Sssqueeze himself comes bundled pretty tightly in that snug bubble, and like Rattlor, I’m a little surprised that Mattel didn’t just spread him out onto a larger Deluxe card and charge more for him. I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas, but there is a lot more plastic here than with the regular releases.

Freed of his cramped quarters, this Evil Long-Armed Viper’s arms unfold to ridiculous proportions, so let’s just talk about them first! These scaly grabbers are cast in a soft bendy plastic, which do a pretty good job of holding whatever shape you choose to bend them into. The color of the plastic is also a close match for the sculpt and color of the rest of the figure, despite being made of entirely different material. On the downside, there are no rotating hinges in the shoulders, they just plug straight in so they will rotate 360-degrees, but the rest of the poseability is in the bending. And, in fairness, that’s more than the vintage figure had. The hands do attach with pegged hinges, but I can’t get a lot of movement out of them and the connection is pretty frail so I’m not willing to force it.

As for the rest of the figure, well he’s just plain awesome! The neon lime green coloring on his skin mixes with the orange on his undies and boots with the metallic purple chest armor to make for quite the retina-searing deco. The color ensemble is only brought down a bit by the matte gray on the boots and leg armor, and I’m convinced that those pieces exist to create some kind of neutrality in the color spectrum that prevents anyone looking at the figure for too long from going blind. Oh, and can we talk about those abs! Holy shit this guy is ripped! Kind of surprising since pretty much every day for him is probably arm day at the gym.

I really love the head sculpt, as it’s one of the more grounded looking Snake Men heads. It’s not overly goofy and actually quite dinosaur like. He’s also got teeth for days! If he grabs you, he’s probably going to make you into a snack.

Sssqueeze does come with a weapon and it’s a pretty wild design. It’s basically a purple snake with a gun coming out of its robotic mouth. He can hold it pretty well in either hand and the gun-snake’s body is designed to coil around Sssqueeze’s long arm to further hold it in place. I don’t know, it’s OK. But to be honest, I’ll likely display this figure without it.

Sssqueeze is a great looking figure and in incredibly fun toy to play around with. Mattel knew how to inject some really fun gimmicks into this line and giving a snake person long bendy arms was just the ticket to get kids’ attention. The rubbery plastic they used is great and hopefully it will stand the test of time without tearing. Otherwise, this is a just a fabulous update to the original figure and a great addition to my Snake Men team!

I will be taking a few days off for the Holiday so there will be no regular update for Wednesday or Friday, but I will be back next Monday…

Until then have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 17 2023

Transformers (Studio Series 86): Brawn by Hasbro

Looking back, I’ve only showcased a handful of Transformers here on FFZ this year, which is pretty indicative of how little attention I’ve been paying the line these days. There are still one or two figures that I’d like to review before the end of the year, but for the most part Hasbro and I have parted ways on their magnificent line of convertorobots. Even the reveals of their new line this past week has left me cold. And that’s fine. It’s an amicable breakup and I’ve got a ton of great figures on my shelf. But I would be remiss if I let the year expire without giving Studio Series Brawn his due!

Brawn has got to be one of the standout OG Autobots that has gotten the least amount of love from Hasbro over the years. We got a live action movie version of him based on his cameo in the Bumblebee flick, but the closest thing to a mainstream release was the Legends Class figure from Titans Return. I liked that figure well enough, but even back then I was still jonesing for a proper Deluxe Class update, and here we go. It’s kind of ironic that when we finally do get this figure, it’s based on his appearance in the 1986 movie that he is only in long enough to get unceremoniously murdered by Starscream using Megatron as a gun. Eh, I’m OK with that. The cartoon version of Brawn always struck me as a bully and a jerk, so I didn’t shed any tears when he got sent to The Great Scrapheap in the Sky. Let’s start with his vehicle mode…

Brawn’s auto mode is a 4×4 off-road jeepy kind of thing. It’s kind of ugly, but that sort of lends itself well to the rugged and utilitarian design. It’s definitely a decent looking update for the original toy and cartoon versions. The bulk of the vehicle is cast in olive green plastic with painted aqua blue windows, which give it a bit of an animated vibe. I like the satin silver finish on the grill, headlamps, and the bit of orange down near the bumper. There’s an Autobot insignia on the hood, a spare tire up on the roof and lots and lots of exposed seams and hinges all over the place. I’ll confess I had a bit of trouble getting everything to close up in this mode and found that whenever I got everything packed up on one side, something would pop out on the other. Still, all in all, this alt mode works for me.

You do get the option to weaponize Brawn’s jeep mode by plugging his hand gun into the spare tire. Plugging weapons into the car modes doesn’t always work so well, but here’s a case where I think it looks pretty good. I could even imagine the gun popping out of the top like this in the cartoon, although I don’t think it ever actually did.

Transforming Brawn into robot mode is fairly easy and there are some cool things going on with the engineering. And it’s hard to argue with the resulting robot mode, because it looks really good and pretty damn faithful to the cartoon look. Just like his G1 design, the figure wears the bulk of the jeep on his back, with a wall extending up past the back of his head. He’s got an appropriately bold and boxy chest and an overall pretty clean look. The way the sides of the jeep fold into his lower legs is pretty neat, and I dig the way the two sets of wheels wind up together on each of the backs of his legs. You also get some really nice coloring on this figure with the olive green of the jeep landing mostly on his limbs and back and the bright orange on his chest, pelvis and behind the head. The silver paint on the arms looks sharp, and you get a bold Autobot insignia on his chest.

The head sculpt is a direct hit and a dead ringer for the Sunbow animated portrait, which gave him a lot more personality than the generic robotic face on the original toy. The dome-shaped helmet is painted in gray and the face is painted in a metallic silver with the eyes in blue. Very nice!

Brawn comes with a black handgun, which we already saw stuck into his auto mode. The figure can hold it in either hand… yes HANDS! Another gift Sunbow gave poor G1 Brawn was actual hands and not just robotic hooks like the toy had. The gun looks great and Brawn sports some excellent articulation making him just a joy to pose and play around with.

Brawn was one of the last G1 updates on my want list, so I’m especially glad to get him now that Hasbro seems to be turning its attention away from Generation One and onto other things. I wouldn’t say no to an Outback repaint, but I’m not really hoping for it either. Indeed, the only one of the Class of 84 Autobots I’d still like to see updated is Hound. We got a decent version of him about six years back in Siege but I’d still like a Studio Series style version of him with his Earth alt mode, because he remains one of my all-time favorite Autobots. In the meantime, I still have Dinobot Snarl to look at and a smattering of other change-o-bots that I picked up a while back and never featured here, like Sky Lynx and Skyfire, so even if I drift away from collecting these wonderful toys, the Spark shall live on with more future reviews on the way!

Nov 15 2023

Cosmic Legions (Gravenight): Noveunn Leen by The Four Horsemen

I was hoping to get to some long overdue Mythic Legions figures before the end of the year, but then the second wave of Cosmic Legions landed on my doorstep and I decided I might as well hit these while they’re fresh and new. Considering I have a Mythic Legions pre-order in there from almost a year ago waiting to be fulfilled, this new assortment of Cosmic Legions was a pretty quick turnaround for The Four Horsemen. Gravenight is billed as Hvalkatar Book Two, continuing the prison story laid out in that initial wave. And while the space prison thing isn’t gripping me all that much, I’ve always been with TFH’s Legions lines more for the figures and less for the fiction, so that’s fine.

We’re kicking things off with Noveunn Leen, part of an organization known as The Bleeder’s Guild, which seems to be a league of bounty hunters who’s specialty is locating and extracting information rather than bringing in bounties. He’s a real piece of nasty business and his race is known as Carzynians. Sounds good! I’m on board so far… 

Noveunn feels like a pretty fresh figure to kick off this wave with. He comes out of the box needing his shoulders attached, which peg into the back just like the Mythic Legions figures. He still has a collar piece that looks like it’s designed for a space suit with the matching shoulders adding to that bulk. The collar piece even has some cool tanks sculpted into the back with some snazzy silver paint. But the rest of the figure lacks the armored space suit look we got with a lot of the first wave, offering a nice bit of variety. The bulk of the body is a sculpted blue jumpsuit with a weave-like texture and some wrinkles and rumples. There’s a segmented matte gray armor piece running down his front and ending in a codpiece.

His belt is a collection of brown pouches with neatly painted silver buttons and clasps and two pieces of gray hip armor with orange accents to match the collar and shoulders. His right arm has an armored bracer on the forearm while the left is a simple medieval-style brown gauntlet, again with some lovely little touches of silver paint on the rivets and buckles. The brown boots are reinforced with matte gray bands and heavy soles. I kind of get a little Boba Fett vibe off this guy, what with the blue jumpsuit and matte gray armor, but it’s not enough to make it feel like a direct homage. I also love the overall color scheme here. The blue, gray, and brown bits look great together and the orange and silver adds just the right amount of pop to the deco. There’s also a generally cool mix of sci-fi and medieval design here, which is a neat aesthetic for a guild of ruthless and savage info hunters.

TFH have been on fire with the head sculpts in this line and Noveunn is no exception. His chiseled reptilian face is chock full of detail and I had a blast just turning these heads around in my hand and inspecting every last inch of them. The color goes from green on top to a sandy yellow in the middle and a tan on the jowls and chin. You get some cybernetic gear grafted into the sides of the head and some horns protruding from each side of the chin with lots more jutting out the back of the head. The beady yellow eyes are sunken under a prominent brow ridge. Noveunn is just a fantastic alien design that feels wholly original and terrifically fierce.

And you get a second head with an open mouth, which is extremely well done. I dig the cavernous maw and the high gloss used on the deep red tongue. Both of these portraits are gorgeous and it’ll be a tough decision on which one to go with for regular display.

And before we dig into the accessories, here is a look at Noveunn with his collar and shoulders removed. There’s some nice detail hidden under those pieces, including the buckles holding the chest plate to the shoulder straps and some painted silver bolts in the chest piece itself. I’m not really big on the modular nature of deconstructing these figures, but I think this looks really good as an alternate display option. It also opens up the option for rifle storage on his back by using one of those holes that the shoulder pieces peg into.

And since I mentioned the rifle, let’s start there with his accessories. Without cheating and looking ahead, my hope is that we’ll see some new gear in this assortment of figures as the first wave was pretty bad about recycling the same handful of weapons. But, if Noveunn is to be any indication, I don’t think my hopes will pay off. This rifle is the same one we’ve seen a few times in Book One, although I will say it’s my favorite use of the mold so far. The matte black paint does a great job in bringing out just how impressive the detail on this weapon really is. Couple that with the hits of silver paint all around and this is just a phenomenal looking space rifle.

And the twin pistols make a return appearance, and once again these are my favorite versions so far because of the matte black and silver accents. As before, the figure comes with clear pegs, which can be used to attach the pistols to the sockets on the hip armor and this works really well.

And there is one new accessory included and it’s a rocket to peg into the socket in his arm bracer. I guess this can either be a permanent attachment or something that’s meant to pop out of the bracer when needed. Either way, it’s a cool addition, but I would have liked a bit more in the way of new accessories for this second assortment.

Noveunn makes for a strong introduction to this wave, and that’s promising because I picked him out totally at random as the first figure to open and review. I dig the slightly less armored look to the suit and there’s some absolutely wonderful use of color for what is an overall pretty sedate deco. And those headsculpts! TFH never disappoint when it comes to the head sculpts! Seeing the same old weapons was a bit disappointing at first, but these are undoubtedly my favorite versions of these weapons to date, so that helps to cushion the blow. All in all, a really fun and great looking figure that makes me eager to tear into the next one!

By figurefanzero
0
Nov 13 2023

G. I. JOE Classified: Shipwreck by Hasbro

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do action figure companies. So, with my Star Wars Black Series and Marvel Legends collecting dropping off, GI JOE Classified has stepped up to fill those gaps and help Hasbro to keep sucking out all my monies. There have just been so many quality releases out of this line and they just keep coming! Today I’m checking out Classified Shipwreck, and some may be surprised to find that this is another character where I did not own the vintage RAH figure when I was a kid. Indeed, the first time I added a Shipwreck figure to my collection would have been as an adult collector with the 25th Anniversary release.

Shipwreck comes in the usual plastic free packaging, including a cardboard footlocker to stow his gear. I love these boxes and I’ve been keeping them for now, but I think eventually they will need to go. Maybe I’ll just flatten them all out and tuck them somewhere. Anyway, it’s hard for me to put a finger on why I never owned the vintage version of Shipwreck. He was a 1985 release, so he turned up on shelves just at the cusp of when I was starting to lose interest in toys, but he was so prominently featured in the Sunbow cartoon. Maybe it was because I was never a big fan of the character, and I think I used to just use Cutter as a stand in. Anyway, let’s scrape the barnacles off this box and see what we’ve got!

True to form, Shipwreck hits all the beats of the vintage figure with his blue trousers, lighter blue short sleeved shirt, and black gloves. The trousers here are textured to look more like jeans and less like a uniform, which I guess fits in line with his weird freelancer Sunbow backstory, but not so much with his official filecard. There’s some excellent detail sculpted into his tiny belt buckle, and some sharp naval tatts on his forearms, as well as the insignia on his shoulders. Like the RAH figure, you get a plunging neckline, as his shirt is unbuttoned at the top, but here you actually get to see his hairy chest which is printed on. He has a belt rig with a scabbard for his larger gun and a hook for his boarding hook. There’s also a functional holster strapped to his right leg, which was just a sculpted bit on the RAH figure.

The head sculpt looks great, giving Shipwreck the look of a rough-and-tumble seadog. The beard and mustache sport some nice detail and the paint is pretty well, with only a few bits where the brown paint comes up short of the beard sculpt. He has a strong nose and somewhat sunken cheeks and one eyebrow is raised to give him a little character. This feels more like an update to the RAH character as opposed to the Sunbow one, and I’m all for that! With Super7 doing the Sunbow stuff, I really love when Hasbro does their own thing with these guys. The hat is removable and the hair goes with it, but you get a second hair piece if you want to display him sans hat. The secondary hair looks great, but I’ll likely always display him with the hat on.

Naturally, Shipwreck comes with his parrot Polly, which has no articulation, but is a fantastic little sculpt with some vibrant green and yellow coloring and some sharp paint on his tiny face and beak. They also gave him a peg leg, which is I think is hilarious, in a kind of morbid way. It gives the little figure so much character and poses so many questions as to how and why. It also serves the practical function of allowing him to be pegged into the hole on Shipwreck’s arm. You also get a coil of rope that can be worn over Shipwreck’s shoulder and it has a peg hole if you’d prefer to perch Polly up there. This is some really clever and fun design beats on Hasbro’s part and I love it!

The holster on his leg rig stores an automatic pistol, which is nothing terribly special, but a decent little sculpt nonetheless. The RAH figure didn’t come with a sidearm like this, but there was one sculpted onto the leg, so it’s nice for the Classified version to be able to make use of it.

The anchor is a stand in for the original figure’s boarding hook, which is an interesting update and certainly adds to the naval theme. The ring that allows it to hang off the belt can also be used to attach a string if you want to complete the look. Personally, I’d like to think he just uses this thing as a melee weapon and beats the shit out of Cobras with it while whistling a jaunty maritime tune.

The other weapon lifted from the RAH figure’s inventory is the percussion pistol, which I always thought was meant to be a sawed-off shotgun. I blame the 25th Anniversary figure for that. It is indeed an old-timey design with a double barrel and a vintage style hammer mechanism. Probably not the most reliable and efficient weapon to bring into battle, but it sure is distinctive and adds more to the figure’s naval theme and I dig it a lot. There’s also a sculpted lanyard loop coming off the handle grip.

The designers definitely had some fun with this figure, and for a character that I never warmed up to, I really love this one a lot. He walks that fine line between being a fairly credible military-style figure while infusing just enough distinctive character and not being too goofy. All the accessories gel so wonderfully and he’s tons of fun to pose and play around with. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this one is another direct hit for Classified and another reason why this is my favorite line to collect right now!

Nov 10 2023

Masters of the Universe Origins: Rattlor and Kobra Khan by Mattel

I’m beginning to wind down on my Masters Origins collecting, which some may say is a no-brainer since the line itself is beginning to wind down quite a bit. But in my case, I’m just not really following the releases too closely now that the the line is less of a general retailer thing and more like exclusives all over the place. I love this line to death, but I’m done with stressing over missing a release or going back and paying extra to get one that I did miss. Still, I’ve got more than a few figures left to look at, and I will be dipping my toe into the Filmation-style releases to see how deep I want to go there. Anyway, today I’m checking out two of the Snake Men… Rattlor and Kobra Khan!

The figures come in the usual glorious retro-style card and bubble, but now with the Snake Men branding encroaching on the top and Snake Men stickers on the bubbles. We first saw this new bit of packaging flair when I had a look at Dragon Blaster Skeletor, only the figures are actual Snake Men for reals this time. I have very little experience with this faction, since I never owned the toys as a kid and my only real exposure to MOTU was through the Filmation cartoon. I think the first time I knew anything about the Snake Men faction was watching the MYP 200x series and eventually first owned figures based on them from Mattel’s MOTU Classics line. Let’s start with Rattlor!

By now it’s a given that the figure is based closely on the original vintage release with some minor updates to include the added articulation and whatnot. With that being said, this is an absolutely gorgeous figure with a lot more unique sculpting than I’m used to seeing in this line. You get some crazy detail in his scaly chest and some softer scales sculpted elsewhere on his body, and more defined ridges running down his arms and legs. The tail piece is cast in softer plastic and pegs into his back making a nearly seamless extension of the body with more sharp detail. The undercarriage of the tail is still left hollow, which may disappoint some, but it is at least faithful to the original toy.

And in addition to all that lovely sculpting, it’s the coloring on this figure that helps to really makes it shine. Rattlor has sort of a ketchup and mustard motif going on with some vibrant yellow and red with some added electric blue to make the whole toy a feast for the eyes. I especially love the way the edge of the tail has that gradual shift from red to orange. A little additional green for the sculpted snake emblem on the belt is the icing on the top of this gorgeous snake cake.

Rattlor’s head features an open mouth with yellow eyes and stubby white fangs and more of those sculpted scales. The original toy had a gimmick where the neck would extend, and here that same effect is achieved by adding an extended neck piece, which connects to the ball joint in the neck hole and another in the head itself. It’s not as fun as the neck actually extending, but it’s still a decent way to portray one of Rattlor’s unique skills. His other is the rattle itself, which you get when you shake the body. It’s not exactly high end engineering, as there’s just a bit of plastic in there banging around, but it works.

Finally, Rattlor comes with a snake staff, which I think was common with several of the Snake Men. The red accessory features a snake winding its way around a central staff with its mouth agape and it’s rattlor erect. The weapon looks great, but it’s kind of a weird flex, like if humans walked around carrying staffs with little sculpted humans hugging them. OK… on to Kobra Khan!

Kobra Khan is a lot less flashy than his buddy Rattlor, and he doesn’t feature as much new sculpting, but he still makes for a faithful update to the vintage figure. The bulk of the new stuff here is in his torso, which has some rather softly detailed scales and two maroon stripes running like suspenders from his shoulders down to his belt, and three similar set of ridges running down his back. His recycled arms have tufts of fur on the forearms, which… um OK, and he has maroon scaled undies and boots. There’s a some variance between the flat olive green of his limbs and the glossier olive of his torso, which may not have been all that intentional, but it does make for a nice bit of variety in the deco.

Kobra Khan’s head is is a disgusting puckered maw, which slightly resembles a pitted olive with eyes. There’s some nice paint flairs found around the eyes and edges of the mouth, and the whole thing is extremely similar to the vintage figure’s head, which was designed to spit water.

Mattel nixed this gimmick here in favor of an effect part that plugs into his gob. The neon green loogie is cast in semi-transparent plastic and it looks really cool. I was a bit surprised that the water spray gimmick wasn’t included since we just saw something similar in the Dragon Blaster Skeletor, but the effect part looks so good, I think this was the right way to go!

Kobra Khan also comes with an orange pistol, which isn’t one of my favorite designs, but at least it gives him an extra way to attack when the spit dries up.

No doubt about it, the first Snake Men in my Origins collection get my seal of approval. Rattlor is certainly the winner here as he’s just flashy as all hell and so damn unique. I’m actually surprised Mattel didn’t release him as a Deluxe and just spread out the tail and neck on a larger card. But Kobra Khan is no slouch either and I think his spit effect is a great addition to this updated version of the figure. I’ll have some more Snake Men to look at when I next visit with this line, but I guess I already missed out on King Hiss and Snake Armor He-Man. I never saw either at retail and they sold out at most online places I shop. I did get the variant of Snake Armor He-Man in a recent multipack, and maybe I’ll pony up some extra dollars to get Hiss, but that’s a great example of why I’m about ready to put this line to bed.

Nov 8 2023

DC Super Powers: Whirlybat by McFarlane

McFarlane has been dishing out some great stuff with their 3 3/4-inch Super Powers line up. The retro-style figures are pretty cool, but I’ll admit it’s the addition of vehicles that really sold me on this line and made me commit. So far, I’ve checked out The Batwing, The Batmobile, and Wonder Woman’s Invisible Jet. Today I’m having a look at the latest addition to the Batcave’s garage… The Whirlybat!

Like the previous vehicles, The Whirlybat comes in a fully enclosed box with that oh-so-beautiful retro-style deco and the Super Powers logo coming at you in a burst of stars. The front of the box shows some simple artwork while the back shows the toy and some features. This one requires a fair bit of assembly as the skids, stabilizer tail, and rotor blades all have to be put together, but I was happy to see that the toy can easily come apart again if you want to store it in the box.

And here it is all assembled and looking pretty damn cool. I’m fairly certain that this is an original design by McFarlane. It’s sort of a What If the old Kenner line had a batcopter, and I think the end result is pretty convincing. It’s a single seater and a serviceable design that manages to be fun, but not as outlandish as some of the old Super Powers vehicles tended to be. Oh, I’ll get to that Supermobile eventually! The deco shares the same beautiful glossy blue plastic McFarlane used for the other Bat vehicles in the line and with the black trim and yellow-tinted windscreen, it looks right at home parked in the batcave between the Batwing and Batmobile. I love this deco so much and I’m glad they have been sticking with it! And while McFarlane showcases the Whirlybat with their 89-style Batman figure released in the most recent wave, I think the deco fits much better with the previous blue and gray style Batman.

The sculpting here is pretty basic, maintaining the simplistic retro feel. You get a little bit of detail in the engine and in the seat cushions. Otherwise, it’s just smooth and pretty plastic. On the other hand, there are some very nicely done stickers for the dashboard controls.

Batman fits in the pilot seat with or without his cape, but I prefer to take it off, because having a flapping cape nearby a helicopter rotor seems like a really bad life choice. There are wedges to represent foot pedals where his feet can rest and while his fists can’t actually grip the control yoke, it looks close enough. Pumping the black piece of the engine in the back will make the main rotor over batman’s head spin so you can whoosh it around the room on the hunt for The Joker.

My gosh, these are some pretty toys! It would have been cool to see the Batcopter from the Adam West Batman movie released in McFarlane’s 66 Retro line, but this Super Powers release makes for a decent consolation prize. With an MSRP of $20, it’s a very simple and yet surprisingly fun toy that fits perfectly in this reimagined line and I have to say I would have played with this like crazy if I had it back in 1984. And here we are 40 years later and I’ll still probably play with it like crazy! Now we really need a vehicle for the Joker to try to escape in!

Nov 6 2023

King of Fighters ’98: Mai Shiranui Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

I already talked about the cornucopia of King of Fighters merch that’s been hitting the shelves, back when I looked at Storm’s Blue Mary figure and a lot of that merch mostly seems to be centered around KOF 98, which works for me, because it’s definitely the game in the series I played the most when it was released as KOF Dream Match 99 on the SEGA Dreamcast. Of course, since then I’ve collected a ton of KOF releases for just about every platform imaginable and have access to the actual arcade games on my Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro so it’s a pretty great time to be a fan of the franchise. And even Kotobukiya is getting in on the action with 1:7 scale statues in their Bishoujo series.

Here she is in the box, which features some colorful artwork and some generously sized windows to let in plenty of light. Indeed, once you remove the plastic wrap, she displays really well in the package! The box also feels a lot more durable than the super thin cardboard they were using for a while. Some of you may know that I have a pretty sizeable collection of Koto’s Bishoujo statues, most of which have been reviewed here on FFZ, and I was fond of ending most of those reviews by stating that these statues were the best value to be had on the statue market. Well, those days are long gone as the retail price of most of Koto’s releases have doubled in the last ten years or so. I can remember getting most of mine back in the day for around $59-69.99 and nowadays most release at over $120. Yikes! The quality is still there, but because of the price hike, I’ve pulled back on collecting them and even let some of my Street Fighter Bishoujos go. Heck, the last Bishoujo I reviewed was Ibuki from Street Fighter and that was six years ago! But, here we are today and Mai turned up at a pretty deep discount a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t resist.

Sporting what I would consider her most iconic pose, I can practically see her going through the fluid motions of her idle animation and hear her exclaim.. NIPPON ICHI! Her pose places her left hand upon her jutting backside while her right hand clutches her butterfly fan. She sports her red and white kunoichi regalia, which is sculpted separately from the body to really give the figure some wonderful depth. She has has heavy braided cords that cross her back and loop under her arms, while the split running down the middle front of her top can barely contain her great assets. It’s belted in white around her slender waist and spills down between her legs, stopping at her knees in the front, but bisecting into two flowing forms out the back, each girded with a giant ball. The outfit is rounded out with a pair of red and black tabi on her feet. Koto did a wonderful job capturing the flow of the outfit as well as the sensual curves of her amazing body.

As is always the case with Koto’s work, the colors are gorgeous. The whites feature a clean matte finish while and the red pops with a vibrant glossy sheen. The plastic they use for the skin holds a beautiful warm tone with some added shading to bring it to life, with none of that waxy finish you get on lesser quality statues.

The portrait is spot-on with the Bishoujo style matching the KOF artwork quite nicely. Mai looks up and off to the side with a thin smile on her lips. Her hair features a top knot that cascades down in a ponytail while her bangs part to perfectly frame each side of her face on the front. So beautiful!

For the base, Koto went for more of a diorama style than usual. I’ve been used to seeing either stylized logo bases or just plain generic black or clear disks for a while. This one is just a section of a street with a manhole cover. It looks OK, but it’s nothing special.

There’s no doubt about it, Kotobukiya still knows how to put out quality figures, and unfortunately they know it, so those prices keep going up. Mai retails for around $120, but I nabbed her for $80. It was still a bit more than I felt comfortable spending, but she went up right before I was going into a spending moratorium for a while, so I decided to splurge. Ultimately, I’m glad I picked her up as she looks gorgeous, but I really wish Max Factory would give us some KOF PopUp Parade figures so Koto’s wouldn’t tempt me so much. Koto also did a Bishoujo of Athena from KOF 98, but I’m not a big enough fan of hers to get her unless she went on a serious clearance sell-out price. And, of course they did a female version of Terry Bogard, and I swear the first release pre-dated the SNK Heroines game that gender-swapped Terry. I wasn’t interested in it back then, but now it’s actually branded under the game and I kind of want her, but it’s not a $130 kind of want.

Nov 3 2023

Dungeons & Dragons: Ultimate Strongheart by NECA

There’s been no shortage of Dungeons & Dragons love in the toy aisles lately! While Hasbro has been delivering toys based on the 80’s cartoon and the recent movie, NECA has been showing lots of love to the old LJN toy line by giving us modern updates to those characters. And while Hasbro seems to have wrapped up their run at D&D toys, but it feels like NECA is just getting started. They came out swinging with two amazing figures, Warduke and Grimsword, and now they’re finally adding a hero to the lineup with Strongheart!

If you collect NECA then you already know what to expect from the packaging. It’s a window box with a front flap fastened by velcro. The character art on the front of the box is… OK, but really nothing special. Thankfully, you can open the flap, peep into the window and let the figure sell itself. As a kid, Strongheart was the only hero I had in this line for a while so he was kind of just generic adventurer exploring dungeons and getting constantly set upon by Warduke and the rubber monsters like the Grell. Seriously, the poor dude had to fight that Grell a lot.

Like his rivals, Warduke and Grimsword, this new Strongheart figure takes the original LJN design and juices it with a dose of realism and boy is the end result glorious. NECA grabbed enough of the LJN design beats from the armor to make this unmistakable as the noble Strongheart. The silver and blue armor is absolutely gorgeous! The wide gorget has the two circular points and the shield crest in the middle, his ab muscles are sculpted into the armor, and the winged knee guards are all straight off the vintage figure. NECA extrapolated the blue striping on the original figure’s forearms into belted bracers with each tiny buckle sculpted and painted. They also added some beautiful chainmail sculpt to the upper arms and legs, as well as an armored skirt. The only major change here is going from black boots on the original to blue here, and I do indeed love it!

The bright blue and shimmery cape is tailored from a thick and premium feeling cloth and is anchored to the gorget near the neck. Pull it to the side and you can see all the little details that NECA put into Strongheart’s back, even though you’ll rarely ever see it. This includes sculpted chains connecting the gorget to the back of his belt.

Strongheart is the first figure so far to actually have a face, and I think NECA did a wonderful job depicting the character with this more realistic portrait. The epic mustache is present, along with some rather dominant eyebrows and a prominent, manly chin. The face just exudes nobility, courage and heroism!

With the figure in hand, I was surprised and delighted to see that the visor is articulated and can be closed. The wings on the helmet have been streamlined and swept back, whereas they jutted out to the sides on the original figure. I think this manages to keep the overall design while giving him a much cooler looking profile. The white plume is still present, here spouting from the top and cascading back like a feathery ponytail

The original figure lacked a scabbard, but here we get one that not only holds the sword but also has an integral sheath for a dagger. The scabbard hangs from the belt on a loop and while I was skeptical as to whether this would work, it actually works very well. Indeed, it’s a much better design than pegging the scabbard into the figure and less delicate than the chain that hung one of Warduke’s sheathes from his belt.

The sword is pretty much an original design, since there wasn’t a lot to go on with the old LJN figure’s very generic weapon. It has a serviceable yet still attractive design that suits the figure quite well. It features a simple crossguard and pommel and a black ribbed grip. The sword has a broad blade that tapers quickly to a point near the tip. The blade is painted silver hand has some nice weathering.

The dagger design matches the sword, making them en suite. It’s pretty small and it doesn’t look like it would be much of a threat to Grimsword’s armor, but a well placed thrust would probably ruin Warduke’s day. Again, I really love the way the dagger’s sheath is incorporated into the scabbard.

Strongheart also comes with a shield, and I’m pretty sure this is an entirely newly designed piece as well. My old LJN Strongheart didn’t come with a shield, but I’m not sure if he was re-released later as part of the Battlematic figures with shields that fired missiles. Either way, it’s a very simple and knightly heater-type shield with silver paint around the edges intended to be reinforced steel with sculpted bolts. The reverse side of the shield has two straps, which work well with either the grippy or relaxed left hand. I think this was a great addition to the accessories as the shield really suits him well.

The final accessory here is the magic golden hammer, which is a wonderful nod to Strongheart’s appearance in the D&D cartoon, as that was his weapon of choice. Off hand, I don’t remember what it looked like and it didn’t have a lot of screen time as I recall, but this is a great looking piece and even includes a wrist strap hanging off the pommel.

I continue to love what NECA is doing with this line and to be honest it worries me that we’ve only seen one more reveal in the form of Elkhorn the Dwarf. Obviously, I want to see this line go deep and there are at least a half dozen more characters I’d like to see get this modernized treatment. I know that the reception for these figures has been extremely positive, so it’s just a question of whether that is translating to sales and I guess we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I still have Zarak to check out and I’ll give him the spotlight in the next week or so.