Monthly Archives: March 2024

Mar 29 2024

Mythic Legions (Poxxus): Aracagorr Figure by The Four Horsemen

Yes, I have quite a backlog of Mythic Legions figures (mostly from the Illythia Wave) to check out, and yes I’m still bumping the newly arrived Poxxus Wave to the front of the line. I’m not trying to slight those other figures. Their time will come, but in an effort to be slightly current, I thought I’d jump ahead. The Poxxus Wave marks the third assortment of figures based on the return of a Big Bad to the Realm of Mythoss. First there was Arthyer, then came Illythia, and now we have Poxxus. I’ve only begun opening these, but I started with one of the big boys and he made quite the impression, so let’s go with him! As always, these were part of a limited pre-order through Store Horsemen, and while other retailers have been getting them, they tend to be sold for high mark ups.

Aracagorr is a member of a Demi-Dragon race called the Dragosyr. And while he looks like a pretty tough customer, he’s actually described in the lore as a noble warrior who has pledged to fight against the coming of Poxxus and his diseased forces. As we’ve seen in the past waves, the larger figures (Trolls and Ogres) come in window boxes with a generic, but attractive deco and a little blurb about the character on the side panel. Everything is collector friendly and you do have to attach Aracagorr’s tail to get him all ready for display.

And wow! I experienced a bit of sensory overload when I first got this guy out of the box. He’s big, he’s hefty, he towers over standard-sized figures, and both the sculpt and paint are absolutely stunning. This Dragon-Man uses some of the same parts as Kraggnar from the Cosmic Legions line, and while there is some of new sculpting here, the body has the same basic physique, with the elongated torso and legs that are slightly shorter than one might expect. The body is covered with meticulously sculpted scales, bumps, and ridges that had me turning the figure around in my hands just to take it all in. The tail has a ring with a slot, making a sort of C-connection that fits around the post connecting the upper body to the pelvis, allowing you to attach it without taking the figure apart. I thought it was going to be a chore, but it went on pretty easily. The downside to this design is the tail looks rather thin as it approaches the body, but that’s only really noticeable from certain angles. And as amazing as the sculpted detail on this figure is, the colors really steal the show. The electric blue paint is gorgeous as it slowly transitions to lighter aqua green to darker purple at various parts of his body. I can’t remember the last time I saw a paint job on a figure anywhere near this striking.

Aracagorr’s armor includes grieves, forearm bracers, and shoulder pieces. These are all done in a fairly classic knightly design with a flat gray finish and an understated aqua green wash to give it a hint of mystical energy. He has a chest harness that connects at the front with a studded disk, a wide belt with hip armor hanging off the sides, and a gray furry diaper to protect the modesty of his majestic dragon dongle. The belt has a large stylized dragon head motif carved into the front with horns protruding up and outward. As usual, all the little sculpted belts and straps on the armor are textured to look like leather and the rivets and buckles are all painted in metallic silver.

The portrait shares all the striking detail and coloring of the body. It’s covered in sculpted scales and has a snout with a small horn jutting up from his nose, counterbalanced by a pointed chin. The jagged jaw displays an array of sharp teeth jutting up and down from the jawline, and he has two horns sweeping back from the top of his head. The eyes are nestled under prominent brow ridges and there’s some electric purple painted scales under them. The jaw is even articulated with a fully sculpted tongue allowing for some different expressive display options. This is a breathtaking head sculpt and it makes me wonder if we will ever get a full-on dragon in this line and if so, just how epically magnificent (and expensive) it would be.

The articulation here is identical to what we saw with Kraggnar. Kraggnar had a little issue with the hips holding up his bulk in certain poses, but Aracagorr’s tail helps to skirt that problem by giving him some extra support. The tail also has a swivel cut about halfway to the end. You get three sets of hands with the figure: Fists, graspy hands, and tight grip hands. I’m happy to say I didn’t have any QC issues with the joints and he didn’t require any heat or force to get any of them working.

Besides all the hands, Aracagorr comes with two other accessories: A big sword and a magic effect piece for the blade. The sword is suitably sized for this bruiser with a distinctively contoured blade and a winged dragon motif making up the crossguard. The extended grip allows for two-handed wielding and the pommel looks like it was designed to crack some skulls. The blade has some sculpted nicks to the blade suggesting it has seen a lot of use and the fuller-like cut-out has some aqua paint to give it a mystical look.

The effect piece fits right onto the edge of the blade and is cast in a clear reddish-purple plastic. I think I would have preferred something in blue to match the figure as the coloring on this effect piece gives it a kind of grape jelly motif.

For whatever reason, I don’t even remember this Aracagorr being on my radar when I dropped my Poxxus Pre-Order, but he was the first out of the shipping box to really catch my eye. The colors and sculpt on this figure are superb and even among a collection of figures as diverse and beautiful as Mythic Legions, he commands a presence on the shelf that cannot be denied. What’s more, he’s big enough to go toe to toe with just about any villain in Mythoss and I can see him drop kicking my Goblins with glee. Heck, I’d even give him fair odds against any of the Trolls. I’m sure we will inevitably get a repaint, maybe with a new head and some variant armor, and I can’t wait to see what TFH come up with.

Mar 27 2024

Masters of the Universe Origins (Cartoon Series) Teela and Trap-Jaw by Mattel

If you aren’t up on your MOTU Origins news, the regular line has gone exclusive to Mattel Creations and that’s where that line and I parted ways. Hovering over pre-order buttons and hoping to get lucky is a young man’s game. I’ve done my time in the trenches of Matty Collector and I’m more than willing to give it up to collectors with more time and patience than myself. But, for the rest of the retailers, Mattel has re-launched Origins with figures based on the Filmation cartoon. So we get to do it all again! How far am I willing to go? I honestly don’t know, but I’m definitely in for all the main characters that were regulars on the cartoon. These figures are shipping in assortments of only two characters per wave with one hero and one villain. So far we’ve had He-Man and Beast Man, Skeletor and Man-At-Arms, and now Teela and Trap-Jaw. Let’s go…

Oh sweet lord, do I love these cards! They’re so colorful and pretty and the figures look simply amazing on them. Each figure includes a mini-comic and an episode-specific accessory from the cartoon, as well as their regular weapon. I hate to mangle such beauty, but I have to rip into these so we can take a look at the figures. Let’s start with Trap-Jaw.

Easily one of my favorites of Skeletor’s minions, Trap-Jaw’s gimmick of exchangeable arm attachments is just such a great play gimmick. Sure he was a blundering idiot like most of the villains of Snake Mountain, but he looked good doing it and he kind of talked like a pirate. This cartoon version is a total rework of the Origins vintage style figure and it looks glorious! The torso and left arm are standard reuse colored in bright blue plastic, but you get the black cap covering where his right arm would be and acting as a connecting piece for the artificial arm. His thigh armor is much larger than the vintage style with lime green segmented pads and his lower legs have red armor with some black cut outs. The lime green belt is smoothed over and omits the skull and crossbones from the vintage style and has a slot to store his spare arm attachment. This is a glorious transformation to the cartoon style and such a colorful figure!

The head sculpt is also fantastic, making the vintage style head look like a lumpy mess by comparison. The cartoon likeness is spot on and you get an articulated jaw. The creepy soulless eyes from the previous release have also been reworked to the more normal Filmation style. The zipline ring at the top of the helmet is a bit more pronounced than I remember it being in the cartoon, but I’m guessing Mattel had to enlarge it to keep that play gimmick viable and that’s cool!

On the downside, you only get two attachments for the artificial arm: The hook and the laser gun. The arm attachments are straight recolors of the ones from the vintage style figure, so it kind of sucks that Mattel couldn’t include the claw as well. I guess, you can still use the vintage-style attachment, if you don’t mind the colors not matching. Each can be attached to the end of the articulated arm, or you can plug the laser directly into the shoulder like he did on the cartoon.

The cartoon-based accessory is a piece of Eternium Rock from the episode Double Edged Sword, where Trap-Jaw chomped down a piece of Eternium to get super strong and take on He-Man. But it just kinda wore off and he got his ass beaten for his troubles. Oh, Trap-Jaw, when will you learn? It’s not the most exciting accessory in the world, but it does go well with the character. Let’s move on to Teela!

Teela gets one of the biggest transformations from vintage-style to cartoon, which can be good or bad depending on your preferences. Don’t get me wrong, this is a pitch-perfect homage to the Filmation look, but it results from smoothing out and omitting a lot of the excellent sculpted detail on the vintage-style figure. Teela’s golden armor covers her chest and shoulders and features the familiar ram’s horn motif, a high collar, and a bit that hangs down toward her nether regions. This whole piece is cast in gold plastic and looks really nice. Her white one-piece can be seen under it, and she has sculpted bicep rings, each painted gold, and white bracers on her forearms. Her red boots have some sculpted crisscross patterns and have sculpted white furry fringe at the top edges.

As for the portrait, well holy hell, Mattel did a fantastic job on this one! I think this is hands down the best Filmation style Teela head we’ve seen so far. The hair and tiara are both great, but it’s the facial features that absolutely nail this look. The eyes and eyebrows are just beautifully done, as is the perfectly sculpted nose and and lips. She is gorgeous!

Teela comes with her sword and shield, both of which are solid accessories. I like this no-nonsense sword design with the needle-like point to the blade. It’s cast all in a silver-gray palstic. The round shield is cast in a reddish-brown plastic to match her boots and it is super-shiny! There’s a simple grab bar on the inside for her to hold it.

Her cartoon-based accessory is a sparring droid, which I think turned up in a few different episodes. It’s cast in gray plastic and has some basic articulation where the arms connect to the body. As much as I dig the idea behind this accessory, it’s kind of useless wtihout some kind of stand. I wish Mattel had at least given it a peg hole in the bottom so I could make use of some of the stands I have around here.

Damn, this Cartoon Series is really hitting hard, and this duo is another strong addition. I think this is the best cartoon version of a Teela figure we’ve seen yet, and Trap-Jaw is no slouch either. The Classics toon versions of these characters were great, but it’s cool to get them in these more affordable option that lean in more toward being toys rather than collectibles. If I had one nitpick it would be that I wish Teela were a little taller, but it’s just a personal preference. The prices on the Cartoon Series seem to be $19.99 each across the board. Sure, it’s higher than when Origins started, but I still think that makes them a pretty decent value on the pegs these days. This catches me up on the Origins Cartoon releases, but we’ve already seen a bunch of new figures teased, including Evil-Lyn, Prince Adam and Cringer… bring them on!

Mar 25 2024

G. I. JOE Classified: VAMP and Clutch by Hasbro

You may remember that I ended last year going hot and heavy with G.I. JOE Classified and so I tried to go easy at the beginning of this year. Well, that turned into an unintentional three month Classified hiatus, so it’s long overdue that I start hitting the Classified content again. And what better way to get back into it than with a glorious new vehicle! For a while I was really convinced that the only vehicles we were going to get out of Classified was motorcycles and the Trouble Bubble. But then HasLab got going with the glorious HISS Tank and the forthcoming Dragonfly Helicopter and the horizons expanded. What I did not expect was to see any mid to larger sized vehicles outside of HasLab projects. And then The VAMP hit Pulse and I was gobsmacked! Naturally I mashed that pre-order button and here we are!

The vehicle comes in a nearly fully enclosed box with just a small window to show off the Clutch figure. Honestly, the size of the box didn’t blow me away, but then there is some minor assembly required as you have to pop on the four wheels and mount the rear machine gun. There’s also some accessories to attach and we’ll get to those each in turn. I really loved the fact that Hasbro packaged the machine gun in it’s own tray to keep the barrels from warping, and you get the ubiquitous cardboard footlocker with tissue wrapped extras. On the other hand, I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any blast effect parts included, especially for an expensive item like this. Still, if you collect this line, you probably have quite a few already. Let’s start with the pack-in figure, Clutch…

Lance Steinberg, aka Clutch will always have a special place in my heart because we were both born in NJ and only about 30 miles from each other: Him in Asbury Park and me in Metuchen. He’s also one of those clean and classic looking JOEs from the early days that reminded me a lot of the 12-inch hand-me-down JOEs that I got from my uncle. In addition to the VAMP driver, Clutch was my JOE’s chief mechanic, a role he shared with Cover Girl, and it’s possible that my head canon had the two of them getting up to more than just oil changes when they were alone in the garage. Anyway… Classified Clutch does a beautiful job of taking the design beats from the original figure and really flushing them out and extrapolating lots of detail. Classified’s other vehicle-bundled JOE, Breaker, kind of came out a little generic, but that isn’t the case with Clutch here at all. You get an intricately detailed tactical vest over a short sleeve t-shirt, olive green trousers with brown knee guards and high boots with brown around the sculpted laces. I dig the lighter green used for the t-shirt against the olive green and brown for the vest.

The head sculpt reflects that classic JOE flavor I’m talking about with the black beard and mustache. The update has the mustache not connecting with the beard, which was an interesting choice, but I can dig it. Hasbro went with sculpting the hair as part of the head here, and while I prefer the hair sculpt to be a different piece, I’m guessing they wanted the sideburns to seamlessly connect to the beard, so they went this route. It looks good, although the paint doesn’t always quite match the hair sculpt around the edges. Still you have to punch in pretty close to notice it. Everything else here looks great!

The helmet fits over the head and features loose chin straps hanging on either side. You also get a sculpted optics mount on the front, which I thought was a wonderful detail. It would have been really cool to have a night vision scope to attach to it. Maybe some third-party will oblige or Hasbro will revisit the concept later.

You also get a fully enclosed helmet, reminiscent of the Steel Brigade style, but this is an actual helmet rather than a second head option. On the one hand, I think this design is really bad ass and I dig the teeth painted on the sides. On the other hand, it seems like overkill for a jeep driver and more akin to something a pilot would wear. This helmet is definitely getting gifted to another JOE, I just don’t know who yet.

Clutch sports some sharp tatts printed on each arm. You get some racing flags, dice, and burning rubber on the left forearm and some crossed pistons and a pin-up girl on his right. I love both of these designs and they really add a lot of personality to the figure.

Clutch has an equipment rig on his right thigh, which includes a removable wrench. This is the same wrench sculpt that came with Cover Girl, but the additional red and gray paint really make it stand out and picks out the detail.

As for weapons, you get an automatic pistol and a shotgun. The pistol is sizeable with some great attention to detail. I especially like the stars sculpted on the painted brown grips. The pistol can be carried in the holster attached to his chest.

The shotgun is a repaint of the one that came with Cover Girl, this time with a brown stock and foregrip, instead of green. Hey, it never hurts to have a boomstick tucked behind the seat! Now let’s get the VAMP out of the garage and ready to bust some snakes!

And here she is all ready to roll out! I think Hasbro did a wonderful job taking the classic VAMP design and enhancing it with some extra detail and modernization without going overboard. There are no stickers to apply, so all the lettering is tampo’d or preapplied decals, and there’s a lot of it. From tiny warning signs to insignia and registration markings, it was fun to discover it all when I first got the VAMP out of the box. I really like the olive green plastic they used for the body and the addition of some extra black for the roll cage looks great. In addition to installing the wheels and rear machine guns, there are a number of smaller accessories and fixtures that need to be attached. These include three sets of light rails. One goes on the front ramming bar and the other two on the top of the windshield frame. The frames are black with translucent blue lenses for the lights, giving them a bit of a glow effect, even though they don’t actually light up. It’s also nice that these are optional in case you want to go with a cleaner more classic look. Grab bars also snap onto the frame above the door hatches.

The profile is perfectly iconic and I dig how high it sits on the wheels. I’ve seen some people complaining that it’s too small, but I don’t agree. Yeah, it does look pretty silly if you load it up with a ton of figures, but this isn’t a troop transport, it’s a jeep. It’s a fast attack vehicle with a top speed of 140mph and a maximum range of 550 miles. I think it’s perfectly sized for the Classified line. But sure, you can have some JOEs hitch a ride on the running board and hanging off the grab bars and I think it still looks fine. One gripe I have is that I wish the running boards were a little larger and maybe had some pegs too.

The front bumper includes a working winch as well as two yellow toe hooks. I do wish the winch rope was black and it was a bit longer, but I may remedy that myself if I feel ambitious some day.

The hood includes a clip to attach the included entrenching tool, you also get a bundle. presumably full of tools or equipment, that attaches to the hood. It’s brown with individually painted black tie-down straps and a nice added bit of kit that wasn’t on the original VAMP. Finally there’s an environmental sensor that pegs in next to the equipment package. I always thought this thing was a laser gun or something, but I don’t think it was ever actually called out on the original blueprints. I really like the addition of an actual windshield, as well as the fact that it can hinge down. And if you want to see what she’s got under the hood, just lift it up to reveal the fully sculpted engine inside.

The backside includes a cage to hold two gas cans and there’s a rack on the outside of the cage to hold the included axe. Oh, and there’s a tow hitch on the back for the obligatory MMS that’ll be coming any month now. But, I’d really like to see the Twin Battle Gun released as well, because that’s what my childhood VAMP was always towing.

The interior is pretty spiffy with biscuit colored seats and a really detailed dashboard. A number of the controls are painted, you get printed graphics for all the display screens and instruments and the shifter on the center console actually slides forward and backward. And check out the sideview mirrors, which are actual mirrors… cool! The steering wheel turns, but it isn’t actually connected to the front wheels. There’s also a clip at the back of the driver’s cabin to hold an included fire extinguisher! The figures slide into the seats easily and there’s plenty of room for the figures in both seats. Alas, no seatbelts!

The pom-pom guns from the original toy have been replaced with a pair of turret mounted machineguns, and these can actually be broken down into two separate machine guns. The assembly can rotate 360-degrees and raise and lower to offer a wide radius of coverage. Each gun is belt fed from a pair of ammo cases that sit on the platform in front of the turret. These don’t actually secure into the plate, so I used a bit of poster putty to get them to stick and it seems to work really well. While the original VAMP was billed as having a crew of only one, it always had a passenger seat, and I imagine it helps to have someone on hand to control the machine gun, unless it had some kind of crazy sophisticated auto tracking system. I would have liked it if the dashboard design actually had a joystick or something to facilitate control of the guns, but I’ll just have to use my imagination on that front.

It’s crazy to think we got a VAMP before an AWE Striker, and yet here we are! The VAMP had a sticker price of $99 and was a Hasbro Pulse exclusive. I’ve seen some griping about the price, but if you figure Clutch as $25, as per the going price of the figures these days, I don’t think $75 is a big ask for what you’re getting here. And even as a pack-in figure, Clutch feels every bit as good as a single boxed release. As for the VAMP itself, I think the design perfectly straddles that line between classic vs modern update, and everything about it feels well thought out. The build quality is solid and this is a rugged toy capable of getting into all kinds of scrapes with Cobra. No, it’s not going to win any battles against the HasLab HISS, but then it wasn’t designed to, so as of now, Cobra is still going to dominate on the battlefield until there are Dragonflys filling the skies overhead.

Mar 22 2024

Star Wars “Return of the Jedi” 40th Anniversary C-3PO Sixth-Scale Figure by Hot Toys

I do have more than a few Hot Toys figures waiting to get their time in the spotlight here, but with Mr. Goldenrod arriving at my door last week, I just had to bump him up to the head of the line. I’ve had the Sideshow 3PO as the default version on display in my collection for around three years now, and while I came close to sticking with him, in the end I buckled and pre-ordered this new Hot Toys release of the prissy protocol droid. At the end, I’ll do some comparisons, but for now I’ll just say that this Hot Toys figure is excellent, and an improvement over Sideshow’s on many fronts, but it falls short of being a clean sweep.

The box features a vintage-style window box with a sleeve over it. It’s a cool fake out, because the sleeve makes it look like the usual boring style that Hot Toys uses for its Star Wars figures, but the heavy duty box under it just looks fantastic and very similar to the 40th Anniversary Boba Fett they did from The Empire Strikes Back. What’s not so fantastic is that they plastered a huge warning sticker on top of the outer sleeve. I’m guessing this directive came from the legal department, but it seems so destructive for a company like Sideshow that sells high end collectibles to discriminating collectors. And before we free 3PO from his packaging, here’s a word of warning! This is a heavy figure with lots of diecast. The upper torso connects to the lower body with a simple ball-and-socket joint. The lower half of the figure has most of the diecast (legs and pelvis, while the upper half has diecast in the back and upper arms), so if you lift the figure out by the top half, there’s a good chance the bottom will drop out and that could be disastrous. This almost happened to me, and again later when I was holding it from the waist, the top half almost fell off. The situation was remedied by pushing the connection in tighter and it’s been fine ever since. I’m all for building a figure with joints that detach rather than break, but boy did this give me a couple of scares. Maybe they should have plastered that warning label on the sleeve!

3PO comes out of the box all ready to go, and once again so delightfully heavy! Considering how pleased I have been with Sideshow’s I was curious what my reaction to this fella would be, and boy was I immediately smitten. The proportions are excellent and based on some comparisons I’ve been doing the sculpt seems to be extremely accurate to the costume used in RotJ. I’m particularly impressed with the gold finish, which is very rich and sumptuous and has just the right amount of shine. And of course, you get the lower right leg done in silver. I think the biggest controversy over this figure was the weathering, which is achieved with a spray. I think it looks perfectly fine when viewed by the naked eye, but as you punch in close it can look a bit heavy handed. I tend to associate weathered 3PO mostly from A New Hope and looking rather clean in comparison in Jedi. But, considering he gets completely buried in the sands of Tatooine and later traipses through a filthy jungle moon, I guess it makes sense that he got dirty. Granted, I am not someone who sifts through every minute detail for accuracy, but everything about this one looks great to me.

One thing I’m not as much a fan of here is the way the wires in his midriff all run straight, rather than overlap. Granted, it’s not a flaw in the figure design, but rather how the suit looked in RotJ, as opposed to the earlier films. I like the messier look for the wires, but that having been said, Hot Toys did a nice job with each individual sculpted wire and cable here. Like the Sideshow version, each of 3PO’s arms have the working pistons on the inside and outside of the elbows, and they allow for smooth movement in the joint.

The head sculpt looks fantastic, although I think they slimmed down the neck a bit to help with articulation. The light up feature requires three button batteries, which are inserted by removing the front face plate. This is also how you access the On/Off switch. The face plate secures with a pair of pegs and it is fairly easy to get on and off. But, placing the switch inside the head is a HUGE stepdown from the elegant Sideshow engineering where all you needed to do was lightly tap the back of the head to turn the eye lights on and off. It may seem like a little thing, but 3PO is one of those figures that you want to display with the lit eyes whenever you’re admiring him on the shelf and it’s a pain to take the face off every time you want to do it. I’ve included a few pictures with the eyes off to show the difference.

As for articulation, 3PO sort of feels like one of those Power Pose figures Hot Toys used to do, in that he’s rather limited from the waist down. There’s virtually no articulation in the hips, I can only get each hip joint to bump forward or back the tiniest amount. His knees will kick back a bit, but with no hip articulation, what’s the point? All I was able to get out of his ankles was a slight angle to his feet so they aren’t both pointing straight ahead. The torso has the aforementioned ball joint, which allows for a bit of swivel and a bit of forward and back movement. Thankfully the arms give me everything I expect, as they rotate at the shoulders and bend a bit at the elbows. The lack of leg articulation isn’t a huge problem with getting him to stand without a base, especially since I plan on having him rest one hand on R2’s dome.

The hands are secured on hinged pegs and you get three sets of hands to choose from. And thankfully, no more pinky thumbs like the Sideshow figure had. Yes, having articulated fingers on that figure was cool, but I think I’m happier with these sculpted hands. You get the regular flat hands, pointy finger hands, and the odd inclusion of accessory holding hands for the non-existent accessories he has to hold.

3PO does come with three more extras: Salacious B. Crumb, a pillow for him to sit on, and an alternate faceplate with his right eye pecked out. I suppose you could call Crumb a figure, as he does have articulation at his hips, shoulders, and neck. It’s a nice sculpt with some excellent paintwork. I think people who were excited to have him as a pack-in will be happy with the way he turned out, but getting him wasn’t a huge big deal to me.

The face plate with the damaged eye attaches just like the regular one, and since the light source for the eyes is in the head, it lights up the one good eye on this face as well. And because Crumb has some articulation, you can get him to sit on 3PO’s shoulder like he just plucked the eye out. I can’t deny that this is a cool bonus, but like the damaged arm on the Sideshow 3PO, I can’t see myself ever really displaying the figure like this. At best, I may just display Crumb on his pillow holding the face plate.

And of course, we can’t wrap things up without looking at the base and boy do I have mixed feelings about this one. You get a raised platform with a cover that looks like the grating in Jabba’s Palace, or perhaps the deck plating for his Sail Barge. There’s a post with a crotch cradle, and you really have to squeeze the wires in tight to get it between the droid’s legs because there’s no give in the hips at all. The base definitely gives the figure display some gravitas and it’s cool that Hot Toys put some extra effort into it, but it feels weird having 3PO raised up above all the other Hot Toys on my shelf. Also, it makes it impossible to display him beside R2 with his hand on his head, and that’s always how I’m going to want to display my droids. So, yeah… this base is going back in the box.

And, as promised, here are a few shots of 3PO with his Sideshow predecessor. Hot Toys wins out on the overall proportions and accuracy of sculpt. Plus, the diecast gives the figure such a satisfying heft and everything about him feels more premium. But it’s not the total slam dunk I thought it would be. Sideshow’s droid is still a lot more fun to pose and play around with and I still think he looks damn good. We’ll just let R2 decide!

At $320, 3PO comes in with a steep price tag. I doubt Luke and Uncle Owen paid the Jawas that much for him. But, It’s also worth noting that this is the same figure as the recent Attack of the Clones release, just with the traditional gold finish. Hot Toys definitely did a beautiful job on this droid and let’s face it, all that diecast doesn’t come cheap. He’s a very impressive figure, but I think I was surprised at the fact that it didn’t totally blow away my Sideshow release. Granted, they are very different figures based on two variants of the character. If I could take two things away from the Sideshow figure and give it to this guy it would be the touch-activated eye lights and swivels in the hips. With all that having been said, Hot Toys 3PO will replace my Sideshow in my R2 and 3PO display, but I have no intentions to unload the Sideshow figure any time soon. As this review posts, he’s still available at Sideshow.

Mar 20 2024

Mega Man by Jada Toys

A short while back, Jada Toys started trying their hand at the 6-inch scale action figure market with a selection of Universal Monsters. These were really quite good, especially for a company’s early effort and I think the only thing that really hurt them was the fact that veteran NECA Toys was doing the same figures at the same time, and infinitely better. But, Jada persevered and wound up giving us what I thought were some of the best figures of 2024 with their Ultra Street Fighter II line. And it looks like they’re continuing to cozy up with Capcom, because now they’re tackling The Blue Bomber himself, Mega Man!

It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of Mega Man as a game franchise. It perfected run-and-gun side-scrolling action and managed to create an intensely difficult challenge, while rarely feeling cheap and unfair. That didn’t stop me from wanting to snap a few controllers in half while playing, but more often than not, when I die playing I’m willing to concede that it’s entirely my fault. The first assortment of three figures includes Mega Man, and the bosses Ice Man and Fire Man. I decided to give Mega Man his own slot today, but both Ice Man and Fire Man are on their way to me, so I’ll likely check them out together in the near future. The figure comes in some snazzy packaging with a big window to show off the figure and accessories. You get some beautiful character art and Mega Man’s power meter fully powered up, which I thought was a great touch. It’s all collector friendly, so let’s cut some tape and bust him out!

And dang, doesn’t he look great! Mega Man stands shorter than the Street Fighter figures, but I’d still consider him to be about 6-inch scale. There’s actually not a lot to say about Mega Man when it comes to his sculpt. His body is smooth and lacks any sculpted details, letting the wonderful proportions do all the work. And that’s not a complaint, as it’s right in line with the cartoony character design. There’s an excellent use of pale matte blue for the torso, upper legs and biceps and high gloss blue for the lower legs, lower arms, feet and hands. I love his triangular body design that goes from his narrow shoulders down to his giant feet, and he’s got a little swell to his forearms. My figure does have an unfortunate blue mark on his chest, which I’m hoping will come out with a little rubbing.

You get two different heads: One whimsical and grinning, and one with his battle face on. Both of these are quite good with the same two-tone blue deco for the helmet. He’s got his headphone-like ear pieces and the raised mohawk-like crest running up the center of his helmet. All the facial features are sculpted as well as painted in. Punching in close reveals that the sculpt and paint are a bit at odds with each other, but it’s not something I notice with the naked eye.

The articulation here is pretty damn great for a short and stocky character. He’s got rotating hinges in his shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. There’s a ball joint in his chest and another in his neck. The feet have a pretty wide ranging lateral hinge to keep his feet flat in most stances. The hands are on hinged pegs to allow you to swap them out between the set of fists and open hands. I honestly did not expect this little guy to be so much fun to pose and play with, but he sure is!

The Mega Buster can be swapped out for the right forearm by unpegging the arm and pegging the Buster in. And yeah, this will likely be the way he’s displayed on my shelf most of the time. The cannon has the same high gloss finish as the arm piece it replaces and you get a sculpted power meter painted yellow as well as some red paint inside the barrel.

The final accessory in the box is the Mega Buster Blast effect part and a stand to display it on. The effect part uses the same style stand as we saw with the Street Fighter figures, with a clear post divided up with two hinges. One end plugs into the base and the other into the blast piece. It’s kind of elaborate for what it does, but it works fine.

The last Mega Man figure I owned was probably the one Jazzwares put out around 2004. I remember finding him at a KayBee Toys Outlet and taking him home. It was a lot bigger and it was a decent enough figure for its time, but Jada’s release really approaches a level of perfection. I think he’s the perfect size as he’s chunky enough to have all the articulation he needs and be fun to play with, but small enough to scale well for posing with the Ultra Street Fighter line. Or you can even bring him in to beat the hell out of some Marvel Legends, Marvel Vs. Capcom style. Either way, Jada really seems to be killing it with their current crop of figures and I’m excited to see if their partnership with Capcom branches out even further. In the meantime, I’ll likely be on board this Mega Man train for as far as it goes!

Mar 18 2024

Marvel Legends (No Way Home): Deluxe Doc Ock and Green Goblin by Hasbro

Hey, how about a Marvel Monday for old time’s sake! I’ve been picking up a lot of Legends lately on deep discount and I may do a couple speed reviews of some of those waves, but before even considering any of that I wanted to swing back and check out a couple of Deluxe releases that came out late last year. I have to imagine that it was a general malaise over the recent MCU films that caused Hasbro to drop their bucket back into the Spider-Man: No Way Home well and produce some new figures based on what was probably the last MCU flick that really hit home with the fans. No pun intended. We got a wave of retro-carded figures and these two Deluxes, which had me excited for MCU figures for the first time in a long while.

Both figures come in fully enclosed boxes with some nice artwork and shots of the figures. I don’t mind the enclosed boxes for these Deluxes, but I am getting tired of tiny accessories wrapped in tissue paper just begging to be accidently thrown away. Interestingly enough, Doc Ock is billed as being from Spider-Man 2 (the second Raimi film), while Gobbie is billed as being from No Way Home. Obviously the Goblin figure design is very specific to that movie, but Octavius could really work for either film. I’m guessing it was maybe a licensing issue, similar to the one that put the Andrew Garfield Spidey figure on an Amazing Spider-Man 2 card. Anyway… let’s start with Doctor Otto Octavius.

I’m starting with Ock, because I don’t have quite as much to say about this figure, but that’s not to say it isn’t fantastic. He comes out of the box with his articulator arms permanently attached. The body features a textured black top, black trousers, and brown shoes. He’s got some double trench coat action going with a brown one layered under the green. The brown coat has a set of gold zipper tracks while the outer coat has buttons and lapels with some tiny sculpted stitching. Wrapped around his waist is the silver harness to secure the arms to him. It’s a fairly basic costume design, but the figure handles it well with the different muted colors and some very subtle textures.

The head sculpt is pretty solid likeness to Alfred Molina. I really love the hair sculpt and the way the glasses turned out. Lord knows it ain’t easy to do decent looking specs in this scale, but Hasbro certainly pulled it off here. It killed me to turn down the Hot Toys figure, but that head sculpt just wasn’t working for me in terms of likeness or expression. Certainly not on a $300+ figure! So, at least Hasbro came through on the $40 version. I also dig the dour expression.

The articulator arms are cast in a very dense, but pliable plastic and they do a fairly good job of holding the shape you bend them into. They have a sharp, segmented sculpt and you get six sets of claws to work with: Two flat ones to act as feet, two grasping claws, and two articulated claws. Octavius himself even comes with two sets of hands: Fists and grasping hands.

And I have to say, posing the arms is lots of fun, especially when mixing up the different claws. There was certainly an issue of compromise here between durability and playability, and I think Hasbro made the right call by allowing just enough from each column. It was nice to really give the arms a workout without worrying about breaking or tearing them, even if that meant they weren’t always going to stay put exactly where I wanted them.

The arms are robust enough to act as legs and support the figure, but that stance does start to widen as the arms slowly attempt to pull back to their original configuration. I will likely use a clear rubber band to hold them closer together so I can display Ock with them supporting him. Although, I suppose a display stand supporting the figure would also do the trick.

Octavius turned out great! He’s one of those figures that takes up residence on my desk for a while after I opened him because he’s just so much fun to mess around with. I’ve wanted a figure like this ever since I first saw Spider-Man 2, and now that I have him, it’s nice to see he doesn’t disappoint. Let’s move on to Green Goblin!

So, unlike Octavius, who can work for either film, Norman Osborne is decidedly based on his appearance in No Way Home, where his armor is all kinds of messed up and modified. It’s an interesting look, which brings the design a bit closer to some of the comic book beats and away from the Power Rangery flavor of the original Raimi film design. Personally, I never had an issue with the older design, but this one certainly makes for a more interesting action figure. And boy is there a lot going on with this sculpt! Parts of the suit’s covering have been ripped away to reveal the internal supports and framework, painted in both gold and silver. He’s added a belt with shoulder strap and satchel as homage to the comic look, and you get the remnants of his purple hoody, cast in plastic and sitting on his shoulders. The green paint for the suit has a nice metallic sheen to it. He’s also has sculpted rockets on his both forearms and extended blades on his left. This is undoubtedly one of the most complex sculpts I’ve seen on a Marvel Legends figure and it looks fantastic!

Osborne does come with the Goblin mask head, even though it gets smashed fairly early on, but I’m happy to have the option to display it and it certainly maintains the quality found in the rest of the figure. The deep set eye globes are painted gold and if you look into the mouth you can see the mesh screen that covered Norman’s mouth on the costume. There’s a bit of swirl in the plastic here and there, but it doesn’t bother me. The only thing here that’s kind of off-putting is the lack of a neck piece for when he’s wearing the mask, so you just see his exposed skin. That looks kind of weird, but I don’t think this figure is really intended to be regularly displayed with the masked head. It’s probably more of a bonus.

Because you also get the unmasked head with goggles and hood, which is represents Gobbie’s new look for No Way Home, and Hasbro did a really nice job on this head sculpt! Willem Defoe certainly has a unique look about him, so I’m thinking that may have given the sculptors more hooks to hang their sculpt on. Either way, it turned out to be an excellent likeness, right down to his maniacal, toothy grin. And once again, the hair sculpt here is just pitch perfect! The goggles fit over the head pretty snug and the head goes into the hood and is secured around the neck hole. As much as I love the Goblin head, I’ll likely be displaying the figure unmasked and with the Goblin head somewhere on the shelf in front of him.

Of course, you also get the glider, which is a pretty fine piece of kit all on its own. The sculpt is pretty complex with panel lines, hydraulics and various mechanical bits and bobs all over the place. The bulk of the glider is painted in a metallic gray while the panels on the wings are textured and painted purple. The glider connects to a transparent stand via a ball socket, and this is the same type of stand that Hasbro uses for their Star Wars Black Series speeder bikes. The wings also articulate independently of one another. The only thing to watch out for here is the blades on the front of the glider, which are made of slightly bendy plastic. If you plan on storing this in a tote, I could see them getting bent or warped pretty easily.

Gobbie attaches to the glider by slipping his toes into the stirrups and pegging his heels into the pedals. The pedals are pegged into the glider, so they can swivel to accommodate different positions. It also helps to make securing him easier, as I preferred to pull out the pedals, attach them to his feet and then peg them back into the glider. A little balance is required when getting the ball socket on the stand to support his weight, but I was able to make most poses work out. I think a little nail polish might help make the socket connection more firm and supportive.

Green Goblin’s final accessory is a tiny grenade, or what passed for a pumpkin bomb in the films. It’s just a tiny orange ball with a green light painted on it, but it fits perfectly in the right grippy hand.

Goblin feels like the more substantial offering of these two figures with a crazy complex sculpt, extra head, and the glider, but considering how awesome Ock’s articulator arms are, I think everything balances out in the end. As for the quality of the figures, there’s not much to complain about here, as I think Hasbro knocked each of these right out of the park. I can distinctly remember the moment I saw that these guys were coming back for No Way Home and thinking about the opportunity for new Marvel Legends figures, and sure enough here they are. And at $39.99 each, I think the pricing is actually right on point, as they both feel like premium releases. I don’t really have any interest in a No Way Home Lizard or Electro, so displaying these guys with the Sandman from the retro wave gives me all the MCU Spidey villains I wanted!

Mar 15 2024

Cover Girls of the DC Universe (J. Scott Campbell) Catwoman by McFarlane/DC Direct

It’s safe to say that I’ve been a long time collector of the DC Cover Girls line of statues. I’ve reviewed over 20 of them here on FFZ over the past ten years or so and while some have since left my collection, I still have quite a few and always have a shelf with a dozen or so of these lovely ladies on rotation. And naturally, Selina Kyle has turned up as a DC Cover Girl more than once! Indeed, this line has been around long enough to be rebranded from DC Direct to DC Collectibles, and now back to DC Direct and licensed to McFarlane Toys. Likewise, the series has showcased different artists over the years from Joelle Jones to Stanley Lau and while I have loved each and every one of those, it’s about time my main man, J. Scott Campbell got his turn, with Catwoman here in the lead and both Wonder Woman and Zatanna coming up next.

One thing that hasn’t changed much over the years is the packaging. Catwoman comes in a fully enclosed box with a clean white and black deco and some pictures of the statue front and back. This line hasn’t always been the best about showcasing the artist front and center, but here we get Mr. Campbell’s name right on the front. The statue measures about 10-inches tall, cast in resin, and comes encased between two styrofoam bricks. And I gotta say I have never had this much trouble getting the styrofoam out of the box before. I literally had to open it from both ends and push it through and even then it was crazy tight. So weird! Anyway, Catwoman comes out of the box with her whip in her hands. All you have to do is plug her foot post into the base and there’s a peg to help anchor the whip as well. So let’s let this cat out of the bag…

Selina presents herself somewhere between a museum pose and a little cheesecake tease. One leg is drawn up at the knee, resting the toe of her left boot on the ground. Her arms bent at the elbows and holding up her whip across her at neck level, as if inviting you to play. She dons a very classic blueish-purple bodysuit that is oh, so very tight and I’m going to say straightaway the curves on display here are this statue’s greatest win. The contours of Selina’s body are so lovingly sculpted here that the sheer simplicity of her suit works in the figure’s favor. The only real detail is on the zipper that tracks all the way down from her neck and stops just above her kitty’s lair with a large silver pull resting at the top. Otherwise, you do get some very subtle and sparing wrinkles, and just a hint of her underlying muscle definition. I dig this sculpt and composition a lot, especially the way it lets her curves do all the talking.

The paint would be simple if not for the pearlescent finish to the suit and the slight wash. In bright light it looks warm and even, almost like a second skin, but give her a turn and you can see some of the underlying sparkles come to life. You also get some high gloss black for her short gloves and low cut boots and a hint of bright purple for the boot linings. A lick of silver rounds things out below the neck.

The portrait is… well, it isn’t what we were promised in the solicitation photos. Not even close. And yes, that’s disappointing. That’s not to say I don’t like it, but there were clearly some major revisions done between pre-order and arrival, and that’s surprising considering how fast the turnaround on this statue was. The biggest change is the mouth, which was better sculpted and painted in the initial images. What we got shows too much teeth, and by that I mean just white paint with no real detail. Close up, it lets the statue down, but isn’t so bad when viewed with the statue on the shelf. The rest of the portrait’s paint turned out more basic, but I think it works for a comic or animated look. The lines are sharp there’s some nice gradient work in the skin tone, and I like the gloss finish used for the mask. It’s not the best rendering of J. Scott Campbell’s style in my collection, but it’s far from the worst.

The whip is cast in a soft, pliable black plastic with a glossy sheen. I like the way it coils up on the base, spilling over the side a bit. The peg that anchors it to the base doesn’t fit very tightly so it’s likely to pop out when handling the statue, but it works well enough when on display. You get a little texture to the grip at the end of the whip and there’s a sculpted loop hanging off of it.

The base is a clean and classy raised black disk with a Catwoman logo in purple and gold, and a purple ring striping the side of the platform. The underside of the base has the hand numbered limitation. The statue is limited to a production run of 920 with mine being 484. That’s a huge reduction from the old line, where these pieces were usually given 5000 to 5200 runs. Although, I’m not sure what the significance of the rather specific 920 is.

Finally, you also get a collector card with the statue and this is basically the same sort of thing Todd throws in with his DC Multiverse figures. Note, the stand is not included. I borrowed that from one of the figures for display here. Although, if they can throw that in with a $30 figure, it makes me wonder why they can’t do it with a $130 limited edition statue. Either way, the card is a forgettable bonus, and I would have much rather they included a numbered limitation card like Diamond does with their Premier Edition Statues and Busts, which fall in at about the same price range.

I really like this piece a lot, but I don’t remember there being this much disparity between the solicitation photos and the actual product back when DC Direct/Collectibles were their own thing. So, I’m definitely going to call out McFarlane on that point. I understand that final products rarely make for perfect matches to what is initially shown, but in this case the mouth got a complete redesign, and that’s a sticking point for me. Truth be told, I would have still happily purchased this piece if McFarlane had just shown what we were actually getting. And with how quick the turn around here was, I have to believe the statue was already well into production when it was solicited. Either way, I’m thrilled to have a J Scott Campbell Catwoman in my Cover Girls collection and I’m looking forward to seeing Wonder Woman next!

Mar 13 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Snarf by Super7

I’m finally getting to break into the most recent wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates and while I was hotly anticipating several of the figures in this assortment, there’s no question about who I had to start with. Snarf has been a long time coming! He’s the heart and soul of the ThunderCats. And while many 80’s cartoons shit the bed with annoying cutesy animal sidekicks, I always loved Snarf. He was fun and goofy, but his role of doting nursemaid to the suddenly giant Lion-O was so endearing. Plus, the neurotic little fluffball certainly saved the day on more than one occasion. Of course, Rankin-Bass couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to toss Snarfer in there, but we’ll get to deal with that a couple waves from now.

Uncle Osbert comes in the same style package we’ve been seeing since the beginning. There’s a high-gloss sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box within. The red foil Eye of Thundera graces the front of the sleeve and you get some character art and a blurb about Snarf on the back of the box. These packages are collector friendly and I have a huge box of them stored in my garage because I can’t bring myself to toss them out. Yup, when you have boxes full of empty boxes, you know you have a problem.

Obviously old Snarf is a little guy, and we’ll get to the pricing on this fellow at the end. But, I’m happy to say that Super7 managed to give us a surprisingly good amount of articulation for such a short and stocky character. With rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles, hinged pegs in the wrists, ball jointed hips, another two ball joints in the neck, and two more in the tail, Snarf is a lot of fun to play with for a character that was merely a static piece in the original toy line. I really dig all the sculpted detail on his fur, which is painted reddish brown with some yellow patches on his arms and legs and a wide stripe running from the back of his head down to the tip of his tail. He’s got a bald, segmented, almost dragon-like tummy that has some nice shading on it and flesh-colored plastic for his hands and feet. For what it is, there’s not much I can complain about here, aside from the fact that Snarf can’t really go down on all fours, which is how he ran in the cartoon. I’m not sure that would have been possible with articulation alone, but with extra swap out limbs? Maybe.

Uncle Osbert comes with three different heads, each showcasing very different expressions, and each one really capturing the cartoon character design very well. The first head offers a somewhat neutral expression with a hint of Snarf’s default emotional setting: Worried. The second is an open mouth expression of pure delight. And finally we get rage monster Snarf. Oh yes… Make no mistake, you back Snarf into a corner and you’re going to get your ankles bit. The paint here is all pretty sharp to the naked eye and you have to punch in pretty close to see any real faults. They did a beautiful job on his eyes, as all the ‘Cats in the cartoon had such distinctive eyes. His pointy ears and adorable tuft of hair round out the package nicely on all of these portraits. I will say that I had some difficulty getting the angry head in for the first time. I had to apply a good amount of force and since the head has a lot of sharp points, it was a painful experience. After that it seemed to go on just fine.

Perhaps the coolest addition to this set is the standing tail base. Snarf had a habit of standing on his erect tail when he wanted to gain some height and this is achieved by swapping out the lower part of the tail for this tail piece that’s attached to a clear base. It’s a clever design for this display option, and I will likely utilize it most of the time because it looks so good and gives him a bit more shelf presence when displayed in front of the other ‘Cats. Let’s check out the accessories…

Snarf comes with a small assortment of extras along with three pairs of hands. The hands include tight grip hands, looser grip hands, and relaxed hands. There’s a gray satchel that he can wear on his shoulder. I remember him having this in the cartoon and I want to say he mostly used it to carry Candy Fruit, but he might of stored other stuff in it too. It’s a simple piece, it looks good on him, but I probably won’t display it with the figure much.

If you don’t remember Candy Fruit, it was harvested by the neighboring village of robot teddy bear Berbils and acted as a staple of the ThunderCats’ diet on Third Earth. God, this was a delightfully bizarre show! I don’t really remember the ‘Cats eating much of anything else. Early on, I think I imagined that the Berbils were just getting them hooked on the stuff so they could enthrall the ThunderCats to slay all their enemies, but nah… The Berbils were pretty chill. Here you get a single Candy Fruit, which seems kind of cheap. Couldn’t throw a few more in there without breaking the bank, guys? The wider grip hands are good for holding it.

Next you get new versions of Lion-O’s Claw Shield and a dormant Sword of Omens. Some might consider this an odd couple of accessories for Snarf, but there were plenty of times where Lion-O got separated from them and Snarf delivered them so he could save the day. Still, I doubt anyone was really clamoring for another version of these, especially since if you have some of the Lion-O variant releases, you have a few already. Still, they look great and the sword can store in the Claw Shield. The paint on both pieces is really nice.

Snarf can hold the Sword of Omens in his mouth, which I remember him doing several times in the cartoon. The problem here is that he was usually doing it so he could run on all fours to deliver it to Lion-O and as we already established, the figure can’t really do that. So again, some way to make that work would have been a nice option, either with swap out limbs or even an extra static body.

Snarf is a fantastic figure. I love the sculpting, the extra heads, and he’s got more useful articulation than I expected we’d get out of a little Snarf. And yes, at $55 he is egregiously over-priced. Indeed, when you consider all the extras that came with some of the other regular sized figures at this price point, Snarf here just feels like highway robbery. It’s not like this was some risky one-off Goat Man villain that some collectors would pass up. Nope. No doubt, Super7 gambled that everyone would want Snarf in their collection and would pay it. And well-played, because in my case they were right. Still, it’s not a great way to treat your customers. I think the best way to raise the value in this package would have been to include a static extra body to pose him running on all fours with the Sword in his mouth. Another way to go would be to make him a two-pack with RoBear Bill. And even with all that having been said, I love how he turned out and I’m happy to finally have a full set of the ThunderCats on display! Snarf, Snarf!

Mar 11 2024

Golden Axe: Bad Brothers (Green and Red Versions) by Storm Collectibles

Things have been a little quiet on the Storm Collectibles Golden Axe front lately. My last review for this line was back in late 2022 with Gilius Thunderhead. I’ve picked up a few figures since, but mostly variants that I haven’t placed on high priority to get reviewed. But late last year a couple brand new figures hit and I’m finally getting around to checking them out now! It’s the nefarious bosses known as The Bad Brothers and they’re here to double-team you, knock you down, and steal your precious quarters!

Of course, in the game, the Bad Brothers show up in pairs, but Storm Collectibles released three single versions. Green is the standard release with Red and Blue being Exclusives, but I’m not sure what each of those is exclusive to as they seem to have been available at a number of retailers. I definitely wanted a pair of these guys, and even though you fight them in same colored pairs, I decided to go with a Green and a Red. I probably would have picked up the Blue too, because I’m insane, but I didn’t even know it was an option until the pre-orders had sold out, and that’s probably for the best. The figures come in the exact same boxes, depicting the green version on the artwork, and these are identical sculpts with only the color of the armor setting them apart. As a result, I’m going to focus on the standard Green release and then we’ll bring in Red at the end for a quick look.

This big bruiser comes out of the box looking menacing as all hell and ready to squish some players and boy is he a hefty fella! A lot of that weight is girth, but he does stand a full head taller than Ax Battler, the biggest of the heroes. His massive rotund body is covered with a semi-squishy rubber-like skin, which includes seamless joints in the elbows. You get some nice muscle definition in his arms and legs and some sculpted veins running through both. The shoulder armor has kind of a scalloped design, coming to upswept points and are held on by straps under his shoulders and crisscrossing his chest, so the whole rig is actually worn by the figure. The belt has two soft plastic segmented hip guards, while his lower legs and feet are protected by boots that are split at the ankles. Finally, you get a pair of removable arm bracers with silver painted studs.

The Bad Brother comes with two different heads: One looking mildly displeased and the other expressing full on battle glee. They’re both excellent, but the second one is so unique and expressive. He doesn’t look angry, he just looks like he’s going to have so much fun beating the piss out of you. There’s some wonderfully subtle texture to the skin, he’s got his Fu Manchu-style mustache, and the more expressive head shows intricate detail in the teeth.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in under that body with articulation, but he’s pretty fun and poseable. It took me a little bit to find the knee joints, but the knees along with the elbows have really strong hinges, while the hips, shoulders, and ankles appear to have rotating hinges. You even get hinges in the feet! There’s a twist and a crunch hidden up inside that bulbous belly. The wrists are hinged pegs, allowing you to swap out the assortment of hands, which include fists, relaxed hands, graspy hands, and accessory holding hands. When it comes to articulation, the only thing that bugs me a little is the gap in the ankles where you can see his skin showing through where the boot is split, since it’s probably supposed to be all one boot. They probably should have just painted that green to keep the illusion going.

The Bad Brother comes with his massive hammer, and this is a beautiful accessory! The handle is sculpted with a woodgrain texture and painted a rich brown, while the head is cast to look like a solid piece of stone. He has hands to wield it on the left or right arm and while it’s a heavy accessory his shoulder and elbow joints are up to the challenge!

Everything I said about the Green Bad Brother applies to his Red counterpart, with the color swap from green to red all found in his costume pieces and in the head of his hammer. The red hammer head was a nice choice, especially since Green’s isn’t actually painted green, but it still adds a bit of variety to the accessory, rather than just making it a straight repack. I also love having the two head sculpts, as I can display a different one on each figure.

Wow, I still l can’t believe we have such amazing figures like this based on Golden Axe. Getting all the three player characters and the beasts and skeletons and Death Adder was all unbelievable enough, but the fact that Storm keeps going deeper makes me so damn happy. These are fun and fantastic figures that really add a lot to the Golden Axe collection display. The Green version is still available at most online retailers at $114, which sure ain’t bad considering how much bigger he is than a lot of Storm figures that retail at around that price point. The extra head, passel of hands and huge accessory certainly add to the value there. The variants, on the other hand, both sold out pretty quickly. I have to admit, if the green Bad Brother goes on sale, I may pick up another so I have a matched set. Meanwhile, the Heninger & Long Moan two-pack are due to ship soon, so it’ll be great to have some more baddies to add to the shelf and outnumber our stalwart heroes! Hopefully the Zuburoka Amazon Warriors aren’t far behind!  

Mar 8 2024

Star Trek (Enterprise) Captain Jonathan Archer Sixth-Scale Figure by EXO-6

It’s been a long road… Getting from pre-order to here! Actually, EXO-6’s Captain Archer has been in my collection for a short while now, but his review got side-stepped by Quark and dozens of other things, so it’s long overdue that I remedy that. But it really was a long wait, as I pre-ordered this guy on day one and it seemed to take forever for him to finally ship. I really liked Enterprise a lot when it first aired, but in recent years I’ve come to absolutely adore it and as far as I’m concerned, it is indeed the last Star Trek series. I was pretty surprised that EXO-6 started tackling these characters before getting much of a foothold in The Next Gen crew, but then again, how weird is it that the series that has garnered most of their attention has been Voyager!

EXO-6’s presentation is pretty close to what we see out of your average Hot Toys release. We get a window box with a sleeve and the figure comes nestled in a molded plastic tray with the accessories around them. The foil lettering is nice and overall it’s a pretty smart and snappy design. But, EXO-6 has to be some of the only people in the Sixth-Scale biz who like to use substandard pictures for their solicitation and packaged shots. This photo on the front of the box is terrible and is not at all representative of what you actually get in the box. We saw a great example of this with Quark as well. Many of EXO-6’s Trek figures tend to come as Standard and slightly more expensive Essential releases, which is their way of saying Regular and Deluxe, but Archer here appears to have only the one release.

Captain Archer comes out of the box all ready for display in his blue 22nd Century Starfleet issue jumpsuit. I loved this uniform design as it had a very practical and realistic NASA feel to it that fit the show’s tech style. EXO-6 did an excellent job tailoring the costume and even recreating the myriad of zippered compartments. Boy did early Starfleet design love those zippers! Some of these actually have working pulls, while others are just the tracks for show. The stitching is immaculate and the suit fits the figure well, while leaving a bit of slack for comfort and ease of movement. He has his gold Command piping around his shoulders, sculpted plastic rank pips, and his Enterprise patch on his left bicep. The blue is nice and vibrant and while there is some padding under it, this is probably the least restrictive costume I’ve had on any of my EXO-6 Trek figures.

The portrait is excellent, not only in terms of the likeness to Scott Bakula but also the general skin tone and subtle texturing in the skin. It’s a far cry from the waxy mannequin head on the front of the box. The detail in the sculpted hair is pretty sharp. EXO-6 has some ground to cover before catching up to Hot Toys, but I think they’re work is running pretty close to some of the other heavy hitters in the field, particularly Sideshow. Each new figure gets me more excited to see what they’re going to do with the next portrait. I think Bakula could be one of those likenesses that’s difficult to hit without wandering into caricature, but I really love what we got here. There’s an optimistic wonder to his expression, which could be me misread as smug if you weren’t familiar with the character. Great stuff!

As you might expect, you get a few sets of hands to work with. These include relaxed hands, fists for punching Suliban and Xindi bastards, a right hand for holding his phaser, and a left hand for holding the Tricorder and Communicator. I found some of the hands to be a tight fit the first couple of times, but the wrists posts are pretty robust and after a couple of swaps they seemed to go easier and easier.

As for Starfleet gear, all the basic equipment is included here. The phase pistol includes a molded black plastic holster, which clips onto flaps on the right hip of the jumpsuit. The phaser itself is a gorgeous little piece of kit with black grips, some great silver and gray paintwork, and lots of sculpted detail. It’s a static piece, with no articulation, so the only thing missing is it’s top-break action.

The Communicator has a hinged lid, which in universe doubled as the device’s antenna. There’s a glossy sticker on the screen, which shows signal bars and a battery charge icon. These are extremely similar to cell phone icons, and I thought this was an inside joke, but after researching the props, I was surprised to learn that they’re actually screen accurate to the show. The sleeve zippers open, so you could probably fit this in there, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

And finally: The Tricorder! This accessory has two inserts for the top, one to display it closed up and one for it’s extended and active configuration. I like that EXO-6 uses swap out parts for some of their accessories, rather than go with fragile articulation. I think this piece looks great, but I feel like it might be a little undersized. Granted, I’ve never held one like I have Tricorder props from the Original Series or Next Generation, so it could very well be accurately scaled.

And the final accessory included in the box is Porthos the Beagle! Porthos comes sculpted in an attentive sitting position and he looks really great. The paint is really well done and I especially love the glossy finish to his nose and eyes. I always loved seeing Porthos make an appearance in the show and the writers even managed to work him into the stories from time to time. I’m surprised this space doggo made it into a standard release and wasn’t held back for a Deluxe, but as I mentioned earlier, Archer just had a single price point release.

And as always, our last stop on these sixth-scale figure reviews includes the stand. This is the exact same stand we saw with Captain Sisko and Quark and I dig it. The post has a crotch-cradle to support the figure, while the hexagonal base has a clear plastic cover over the surface and a printed Transporter pad under it. You can also swap that out with a segment of a larger circle and connect multiple stands together for a larger display and secure it with an included connection piece.

I purchased my Captain Archer for $210, which I believe was the MRSP at the time of pre-order and from the tailoring on the jumpsuit to the portrait, I think he turned out great and I’m thrilled to have him on my shelf. With five of EXO-6’s Sixth-Scale Trek figures in my collection, I can definitely say I think the property is in safe hands. It makes me so happy to see Enterprise getting some lovin’ on the collectibles front and I do hope they’re planning on running out the entire Bridge Crew and Phlox. Oddly enough, the second Enterprise figure released was the Andorian Commander Shran, but I’m not complaining about it. Indeed, he’ll likely be the next figure I check out in EXO-6’s Trek series.