Monthly Archives: February 2024

Feb 5 2024

Gatchaman: Ken the Eagle by Storm Collectibles

I probably spent my entire childhood not knowing what the hell Gatchaman was, but it’s hard to overestimate just how freaking cool the Battle of the Planets cartoon was to little 9yo me. Like Robotech, BotP was a reworked anime with lots of changes for the US market, partly to make it more kid friendly and partly to make it more appealing to Western sensibilities. From its cool spaceships to its blatant R2-D2 ripoff narrator, 7-Zark-7, this shit was practically custom made for me. Not to mention the first episode had our superhero-like team fighting a giant robot monster. It was great! Naturally, I really wanted toys from the show when I was a kid, but it wasn’t to be. The best I got was a lunchbox, and boy do I wish I still had that! In the 40 years or so since, we’ve had some figures of varying quality produced, mostly in the early 2000’s, and now Storm Collectibles is testing the waters with a release of Ken the Eagle. Of course, I knew him as Mark, the leader of G-Force!

Like Storm’s other figure series, Ken is 1:12 scale and comes in a big window box. Storm’s presentation tends to range from decent to utilitarian, but they really upped their game here. The colors are so vibrant and the character art is fantastic. The window shows off the contents very well and the back panel has some gorgeous shots of the figure in action. As imports, most of Storm’s figure boxes are bilingual, but this one emphasizes the Japanese over the English quite a bit.

You get a total of three wing-capes for the figure, and Ken comes out of the box wearing the closed configuration. Each of the Gatchaman Team wore a different bird-themed suit, hence his moniker, Ken the Eagle. Similar to many plastic capes in this scale, the wing-capes are cast in softer plastic and simply hang off the figure with a neck hole. The closed wing piece looks great for displaying the figure in a neutral stance, but it also renders the arm articulation useless and covers up a lot of the figure’s body. If they ever get around to doing the whole team, I could see myself displaying them like this in the interest of shelf-space economy, but with just Ken so far, I won’t be using this wing configuration all that much. Still, it’s pretty damn iconic looking and still manages to show off the beautiful colors of the costume. The whites are super white, and the added blue, red, and yellow make for an electrifying deco.

You get two heads, both of which are helmeted with removable visors. The visor reflects and distorts quite a bit, so it’s really hard for me to capture the detail of the face through it in most of these pictures. Removing the visor is easy as it just tabs in securely between the helmet and the head sculpt. Both head sculpts look great, but the differences are kind of negligible when the visor is on. The first has a somewhat determined expression, while the second has him gritting his teeth like he means business. The paintwork on the helmet is pretty crisp and the only thing to watch out for here would be the antenna jutting out the top of the back. It doesn’t seem that fragile, but I’m not sure it would survive a shelf dive.

The second cape has the wings spread and billowed out and here’s where you really get to see the underlying figure. I expected the body to be a generic buck, but you do get sculpted lines at the tops of the boots and the ends of the gauntlets. The belt is a separate piece with a holster for his boomerang on his right hip, a sculpted G-for-Gatchaman belt buckle, and a little pouch on his left hip. His left wrist is fitted with his communicator band, and he has the Gatchaman logo printed on his chest. I really can’t say enough about how great the coloring on this figure turned out. In all the memories I have of watching Battle of the Planets, I recall the show being pretty washed out, so this figure really pops for me like I’m seeing the character for the first time in high-definition.

The third wing configuration is full spread with the edges angling upward and I think this is the one best used for flight and gliding poses. I’m pretty impressed at how these heavier and wider capes hang on the figure with just the neck hole. They can even be angled pretty well for different display options.

Articulation here sticks closely to what Storm has been offering in this scale across their other lines. I’ve reviewed enough of Storm’s figures that I’m not going to run through all the articulation here, but I’ll say that I continue to really love their system of jointing as it makes for a great compromise between aesthetic and poseability. Now, with that having been said, I would have liked to see a little better range of motion in the elbows and knees, as the sculpt prevents them from bending as tight as I would like, but it’s certainly not a deal breaker for me.

You get a heaping helping of hands, six pairs in total. These include fists, relaxed, grasping, loose grasping, pointing, and a set for holding his boomerang.

The boomerang comes in two styles: One closed and one open. The closed one fits into the holster on his hip, and both can be held securely in the hands dedicated for it.

I have been super excited for this guy since the pre-order dropped and now that he’s in hand, I have to say he does not disappoint. The figure by itself is iconic enough to me as a stand alone piece, but I think Storm would be crazy not to do more of the team. They have showed off Jun the Swan (aka Princess) but no pre-order yet and it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything new on that front. Storm tends to be a little erratic when it comes to fleshing these lines out. For example Golden Axe has been going full guns, but we’ve been teased at more Streets of Rage for ages now. It seems like Joe the Condor could be an easy release with a lot of parts borrowed from Ken. I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, Ken is still available at most retailers that sell this sort of stuff and retailed for $119.

Feb 2 2024

Cosmic Legions (Gravenight): Slygor Ryz/T.U.5.C.C. Gravekeeper by The Four Horsemen

It took a little longer than I intended, but here we are finally at the last Cosmic Legions figure from the second wave! I last checked in on this line a week or so ago with the slightly disappointing Aius Cyppiteon, but I can all but guarantee you that we’re going out with a bang with today’s figure, Slygor Ryz!

As we’ve seen with the past TU5CC faction figures, Slygor can double as a specific character or as more of a troop builder. The Gravekeepers are the guards of Hvalkatar Prison’s Cell Block 5 and Slygor is their commander. But while most of the previous TU5CC figures got by with just different heads to distinguish them as separate figures, Slygor here has a lot more going on. Indeed, with so many different combinations to kit this figure out, it’s kind of hard to decide exactly how to tackle it, so let me just jump in and start with the base figure and go from there.

Slygor is built off of the same body we saw used with the TU5CC Sentry as well as the shoulder rig and belt, with added armor pieces for his hips and thighs. And while the sculpt was every bit as fabulous with that previous figure, it’s so nice to see it all lit up with some beautiful paint, as opposed to the flat grey used with the Sentry. Here we get a gorgeous metallic blue over most of the armor plates, with some black and gray hints and a few hits of silver on some of the bolts. It’s not the most complex paint scheme, but it is amazing the difference it makes in picking out all the little details in this suit. I especially love how the blue contrasts with the panels of mesh left in the bare gray plastic. It’s just lovely!

I’m going to say that Slygor’s head sculpt is probably one of the weaker efforts in this line, but that’s not to say it’s bad, but maybe just a tad generic. Honestly, I think that says more about how off the charts many of the other alien portraits have been, rather than anything negative about this one. The head is sculpted in brown plastic with some some darker brown stripes. The beady eyes are set far apart and sunken under the brow, his ears have points, and his nose is both broad and flat. No doubt, he looks like a pretty hard dude.

This shoulder rig can support the included space helmet with a large translucent purple dome. We’ve seen this helmet a few times in this series and while it looks great, I’m still not thrilled about the fit. It’s mostly held on by friction in the back and it leaves gaps down under the chin. I’m no spaceologist, but I’m pretty sure having gaps in your pressure suit is hazardous to your health. I just wish TFH had designed the way this attaches to the figure a lot more secure, especially since it’s a piece we have seen over and over again.

If you want to customize the figure as a Gravekeeper, you have two alternate heads to choose from, both of which we’ve seen included with the previous TU5CC figures. These are both really cool designs and are painted to match the rest of the suit and have removable translucent purple visors. I still get a bit of a Geth vibe off of these form Mass Effect, and that ain’t a bad thing.

You also get some larger pieces that can replace the visor: One painted to match the armor and the other cast in the same translucent plastic as the regular visor. Just on the heads alone, you could easily buy five of these figures and have different portraits for each one.

There’s an alternate shoulder rig available if you don’t want to use the one compatible with the domed space helmet. This one works with along with the two pieces of included shoulder armor and covers more of the chest. It really transforms the look of the upper body, giving it a lot more bulk, and you get a pair of hoses that can be plugged into the various ports on the figure to present a number of different display options. I tend to favor this shoulder rig for the two helmeted heads, while I like the previous one for the Slygor character, but the option is there to go whatever way you like.

As for accessories, we get some repacked stuff, but we also get some new stuff too, so that makes me happy. We get the standard rifle again, this time cast in black plastic with some gray paint hits. It feels like this weapon has been released with every other figure, but I don’t mind. it’s a great no-nonsense design, and exactly the sort of weapon I could see lined up in closet in the Prison Security Office. It definitely suits Slygor and the Gravekeepers perfectly.

You also get a Stun Club and a riot-style shield. The shield is something we just saw last time with Aius and while I wasn’t keen on it with that figure, it definitely suits the Gravekeepers a lot more. It’s got a new paint job with some alien script and symbols painted on the front. You can also swap out the front plate for a translucent purple piece and turn it into a partial energy shield.

The Stun Club is brand new and includes two different tops: One off and one with the electricity on, which is conveyed with a bit of translucent plastic lightning crackle inside it. The shaft has a bit of blue paint to match the armor and you get some black and gray pieces to further mix things up. I like this weapon a lot and it looks like it would be pretty formidable club even without the electro feature.

And finally you get a hologram insert for his gauntlet. This one is the solar system projection that we’ve seen before but recolored in translucent purple.

Wow, this figure is a huge step up from the bare bones malaise of Aius Cyppiteon. Sure, there are a lot of reused parts here, but they present us with a lot of new combinations to create what is not only a pretty fresh feeling figure, but one where you could buy a half dozen of this guy and still not be able to display him in all his various possibilities. I promised myself no army building when it comes to Cosmic Legions, but if this guy ever goes on sale through some of the online retailers that carry them, I sure would be tempted to break that promise. In the meantime, that catches me up on Cosmic Legions, so hopefully I can start chipping away at some of my Mythic Legions backlog because the latest wave is about to ship soon!