Apr 11 2016

Marvel Legends (Red Onslaught Wave): Mockingbird by Hasbro

Good grief, it’s Monday again and around these parts that means it’s time to look at some Marvel toys. Today I’m continuing my trek through the Red Onslaught/Skull Wave of Marvel Legends figures with Mockingbird. I can’t even begin to articulate my disappointment that TV’s Agents of SHIELD got dibs on Bobbi Morse. It’s not that I don’t think Adrianne Palicki isn’t great for the role, but she isn’t enough incentive for me to endure the rest of the show just for her. I would have rather seen her fleshed out at some point in the actual movies and with a costume a little closer to the comic look we’re about to see here today.

It’s the exact same package we saw last time when I looked at Sharon Carter, the other half of these two “Agents of SHIELD.” The tray is pretty crowded in there thanks to the BAF torso and shoulders being included. Oh yeah, note that I’m just calling these Marvel Legends in my titles and not Infinite Series or whatever they are now. I can’t be bothered to keep up with the name changes and re-brandings, Hasbro. Besides, now you call the 4-inch figures Legends too. Speaking of which, it’s worth noting that Mockingbird got a release in that smaller scale via the West Coast Avengers box set a couple of years ago.

I’m pretty sure this is what Mockingbird is wearing in the comics these days, but I’m pretty far behind in a lot of my Marvel Now trades. I do dig this look a lot. What we lose are the exposed legs and buccaneer boots and what we gain is a more tactical modern look that still pays respects to the classic costume. The boots now have reinforced armor on the shins with sculpted straps and some rather hardcore looking knee pads. Her top still has that button-down tunic look to it and she has a rather bland sculpted belt.

The costume is the typical monochromatic look for Mockingbird, but I like it. The only thing that breaks up the black and white are the silver wrist bracers. The white flanked by black on the top mimics a jacket, which maintains a cool and stylish look and ditches a garment, which would be really impractical for those martial arts fights. The paint lines are reasonably sharp, but man am I getting sick of seeing those production numbers painted on these figures in such an obvious way, in this case right on the inside of Bobbi’s left thigh. Oh yeah, she has a nice bum.

The portrait here is pretty good. I was actually rather surprised that the glasses were removable. That’s not easy to do at this scale and they still look good on the figure. Bobbi’s eyes seem a little far apart, which is the same quibble I had with Agent Carter last week. The sculpted detail in the hair here is a little soft, which is ironic because the hair itself is so damn rigid it renders the neck articulation nearly useless.

Speaking of articulation, while this appears to be an all new body, it feature the usual amount of articulation for most of the Legends female bucks. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have swivel cuts in the thighs and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint just under the chest and both a ball joint and hinge in the neck.

Mockingbird includes the fighting staff that splits into two batons, which we’ve seen before with Hellcat and Daredevil. I don’t mind these. They’re kind of fun and they certainly suit the character.

When this wave was first revealed, Mockingbird was one of the figures I was most looking forward to and now that I have her in hand, she doesn’t disappoint. Yes, I do wish the hair was either softer plastic or sculpted in a way that would allow to pose the head. I really did enjoy playing around with her, but the difficult in getting the head to turn even a bit was the one irritant that kept pulling me out of fun. And while I think Sharon Carter was a solid figure, Mockingbird here easily lands as my favorite of this pair of Agents of SHIELD.

Apr 9 2016

Creator X Creator (One Piece): Nami “Sea Nymph” Figure by Banpresto

For a long while, One Piece was my go-to show for when I came back from The Pub at 2am drunk out of my mind. I don’t think I’ve actually seen an episode sober and I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a piece of One Piece merchandise while sober either. Actually, scratch that… there was the dreaded Bootleg Nami Statue Incident, but that was an exception to the rule and it still hurts so I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, I recently grabbed a couple of Nami statues off of Amazon while simmering in a Jameson-induced state and I thought I’d open one of these up and take a look today…

This “Sea Nymph” inspired Nami is part of Banpresto’s Creator X Creator line and dubbed a “Deluxe” (DX) figure, which I presume is to separate it from the lower end prize figures. Although this piece is pretty low end itself, so I guess I should say to separate it from the lower-lower end prize figures. I’m honestly out of my element here, so that’s a lot of presuming on my end. What I can say for sure is that the statue comes in an entirely enclosed box, which is conspicuous because I’m used to seeing window boxes, even on the cheaper statues like this one and it made me all the more worried about what I was going to find inside. Well, inside is the most utilitarian packing for any import statue I’ve picked up. It’s just pieces of cardboard and plastic bags.

But once I got her free of the packing and all set up, this is what I’m dealing with… The intrepid navigator of the Straw Hat Pirates, Nami is posed swimming beneath the waves in a very skimpy bikini and looking not bad at all. She’s about 5 1/2-inches tall on her base, which makes her smaller than the 1/7 or 1/8 scale of most of my anime-inspired statue collection, but she’s certainly not tiny. The pose has her arching her back, showing off two of her finest assets, and with her legs kicking up behind her making the statue best viewed from slightly above level.

Nami features some smooth and even skin tones, which is nice because there certainly is a lot of skin showing here. Her blue tattoo is neatly printed on her left bicep and her bracelets are present on the same arm. The bikini, what there is of it, is a shimmery white with sculpted strings tied on either of her hips and on on her back. The portrait is pretty simple and a little upstaged by her rather striking fiery red hair, which fans out a bit behind her head.

Her base is a sculpted pedestal of aquatic coral that firmly cradles her legs so the figure can be picked up and replaced with ease.

Lastly, you get a pair of optional flippers that slide right onto her feet and really complete the look.

When it comes to the often bitter fruits of Drunk Amazon Browsing, I’d say this purchase was a success. Sure, I didn’t neeeed this statue, but considering it cost just under $13 shipped(!), it’s hard to complain. Quite frankly, I was expecting a piece of crap, and what I got is actually a quite decent figure. The quality of the plastic is good and while the paint on the bikini is rather thin and susceptible to scratching, the overall quality of the paintwork is excellent. If I had an aquarium this would be a pretty cool decoration to sink to the bottom of it. Dammit, now I want an aquarium. Anyway, as I mentioned coming in, I picked up this one with another Nami figure, which I’ll try to get around to looking at next weekend.

Apr 8 2016

DC Super Hero Girls: Wonder Woman by Mattel

After many weeks of statues, it’s time for me to get back to action figures on DC Friday, at least for a while. And while I’m setting my sites on Wave 2 of the DC Icons Series, I’m going to make a stop on the way this week to take a look at Mattel’s newest line of action figures… for girls!

There’s been a lot of stir over the last year or so about toys and gender roles: From Target re-branding its toy aisles with gender neutral colors to Kickstarters like IAmElemental introducing empowering action figures aimed at girls. And now Mattel enters the fray with their DC Super Hero Girls. Now, a good part of this line consists of traditional dolls that seem to capitalize on Mattel’s stupendously popular Monster High formula only with DC super heroes instead of freaky girl-monsters. But it’s the 6-inch action figures that got me to sit up and take notice. These figures are exclusive to Target right now, but due to see a wider release later this Summer. Let’s check out Wonder Woman…

The packaging here is colorful and stands out, even in an aisle full of other toy packages. The figure comes on a custom card with character art in the upper left corner and a large bubble that shows off the entire figure quite nicely. I don’t really plan on consuming any of the media surrounding this line, but the blurb on the back suggest that these versions of our favorite DC ladies are adolescents going to Super Hero High. Hmm… based on that, I’m not so sure this is quite the empowering, gender-busting concept that I thought it was going to be, but…

Wonder Woman sports a fresh take on her iconic costume and I really dig what they did with it. Here she’s got a red top with a gold belt and a cool “WW” collar that extends out to form flared shoulders. The costume is rounded out with blue pants, complete with stars running up the sides, red boots with white wings, white short sleeves, and her trusty bullet deflecting bracelets. In this case, maybe they only deflect spitballs.

The coloring on the figure is bright and satisfying, but the plastic quality isn’t the best. It’s a little on the mushy side, and her ankles are a little warped from being in the tray. That last bit is rather ironic since the back of the package actually says, “Action figures stand on their own” and that’s a bit of a stretch with this one. The combination of soft plastic and tiny feet make standing Wonder Woman to be a chore half the time.

The head sculpt features a youthful, wide-eyed, hyper cute take on the character. The tampos used for the eyes are nice and clean and she has her iconic tiara. The purple hair is a little odd, but it’s so dark that it almost looks black. The whole thing had a definite Disney Princess vibe going on and indeed, I’d be surprised if Disney doesn’t jump on this train with young, cute Disney-fied versions of their Marvel gals. I can see it now… super cute, teenage Black Widow sporting her twin Glocks… hmm, maybe not.

Articulation is not bad. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and hips. The knees are hinged and you get swivels in the wrists and boots. There’s no torso articulation, but the neck is ball jointed.

Wonder Woman comes with one accessory and that’s her golden lasso. It looked like string in the package, but it’s actually soft molded plastic. The coiled end has a tab to attach it to her belt. It makes for a decent looking display piece for a limited number of poses, but I’m a little bummed that it isn’t more versatile. I think string might have been better. At the very least they should have included a fully coiled one that she can wear all the time.

While the quality and articulation isn’t up to most action figures in the boys aisles, it’s worth remembering that this is a 6-inch figure priced at $9.99. That in itself is a bit of a miracle in this day and age. Granted, I’m a bit let down by the fact that these figures are wrapped in the same sort of pedantic school drama as Monster High or Ever After High or Whatever-the-hell-other-High. Then again, having not sipped from the cup of DC Super Hero Girls fiction, it could emphasize the adventure and crime fighting just as much, and I hope that’s the case. Without getting tied up in semantics, it’s safe to say that this is still a legit action figure aimed at girls and I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw something like this in the toy aisle. In the end, she’s a fun little figure, and I’ll definitely be picking up some more of these.

Apr 7 2016

Transformers Combiner Wars: Legends Class Shockwave by Hasbro

While I’m not ready to bring Transformers Thursdays back full-time, I did get lucky this week when picking up my Force Awakens Blu-Ray and found Legends Class Shockwave hanging on the pegs. I’ve been hunting this guy for a while now, since he’s going for scalper prices on most online sites, so you can imagine my excitement when I spied him there among all the other common peg fodder. It also worked out well because I am craaaaazy busy this week and I really needed something that I could do quick-and-dirty today and this little guy should do nicely!

The Combiner Wars packaging has grown on me a bit. We get some nice character art on the top of the card and a big bubble to see the figure, which is packaged in robot mode. The back of the card identifies Shockwave as specifically interacting with the Onslaught figure by attaching to his alt mode, and also points out that in this aspect of the Transformers fiction, it was Shockwave and not Starscream that created the Combaticons. I’m going against convention today and starting with his robot mode.

Yup, that’s Shockwave! Generally speaking, I’ve been pretty impressed with the recent crop of Legends Class figures and Shockwave does nothing to buck that trend. Yeah, I have a few minor quibbles, like I wish he had less molded kibble on his forearms, and I wish his gun hand was a little more pronounced, but on the whole, this little guy is pretty great. There’s a crazy amount of sculpted detail on him for such a small figure, the purple and translucent purple plastics look great together and the extra little silver paint hits go a long way to jazz things up. The tiny little cyclops head is also right on point!

From the back, we’ve got some hollow leg syndrome, which is perfectly acceptable to me in this smaller scale figure. The T-shaped backpack isn’t the prettiest thing around, but as far as kibbly backpacks go, it isn’t terribly intrusive either.

You get a lovely range of articulation for such a small figure. This includes ball joints in the shoulders, which are also on hinged posts, ball joints in the elbows, ball joints in the hips, hinges in the knees, and swivels in the thighs.

Transforming Shockwave is pretty simple and the result is a cannon or perhaps some kind of space cruiser a little reminiscent of the Fall of Cybertron Delxue Shockwave. On it’s own it isn’t much to look at and since I don’t have Onslaught (still waiting for the Takara version) let’s see how he works out with a couple of other figures…

Probably the most disappointing thing is that he really isn’t designed to be held by Combiner Wars Megatron and that’s because there’s a square peg right in front of the regular circular peg that would otherwise fit into the hand. I can get it to work, but it’s hard for me to comprehend why they wouldn’t have designed the figure to work better with the Leader Class Combiner Wars figures.

Ironically, it does work perfectly in many Third Party figures with the hinged knuckle. Above is Warbotron’s Not-Onslaught wielding Shockwave quite comfortably and I think this is where the little dude is going to stay for the time being.

See? I told you today was going to be quick-and-dirty! Legends Class Shockwave is an excellent little figure, but I’m glad I didn’t break down and overpay for him. He’s going for $20 now on Amazon and that’s just plain cray-cray. But at just under ten bucks, I’ll pick up the Legends Class all day long. They’re fun, they’re posable and while I wish the hand grip on his gun mode was a little more forgiving, the fact that he can work as a weapon for larger figures makes him all the more enjoyable.

Apr 6 2016

Vitruvian HACKS: Amazon Elite Warrior (Kokomo Toys Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

I thought I was going to have to wait until Boss Fight Studios finally got around to shipping out more figures before I could delve into the lovely Vitruvian HACKS line again, but thanks to an Exclusive through Kokomo Toys, I’ve got a new figure in my dirty paws and ready to go. The Amazon Elite Warrior is exclusive to independent toy retailer, Kokomo Toys out of Kokomo, Indiana. I only know Kokomo Toys from their adverts on the What’s on Joe Mind? podcast, but I’ve seen lots of pictures of their store and it looks like The Promised Land might be in Indiana. I’m kind of glad they’re half a country away from me, because I could probably go bankrupt in that place.

The packaging is different this time around. Instead of a card and bubble, the figure comes on a tray in a form-fitting monochrome box. I know, usually exclusives come in better packaging than the trade releases, but that’s not the case here. And while it’s not as flashy as the presentation on the regular figures, it’s fine for what it is. You get an illustration on the front and a little blurb about the character on the back.

And here she is in all her glory. This is the first time I’m able to play around with a full-on female figure from this line. That is to say a lady that doesn’t have snake parts where her legs should be. And speaking of legs, I don’t find any of the wonkiness here that I experienced with my Spartan figures. These are some solid gams. She features a dark complexion with some tattoos painted on. She also features armor pieces similar to the Spartans and consisting of wrist bracers, full torso armor, front and back, and leg grieves. As before, the armor is all removable.

The paint here is excellent, with a bright, metallic silver used for the armor that makes for a nice change up from the bronze colored pieces on the Spartan and Coral Gorgon. Her “skirt” is black with silver studs. Overall, this armor ensemble feels a little more utilitarian than the Spartan, but I really dig it a lot and the bright silver contrasts nicely with her dark skin.

One cool feature on this figure’s armor is the loop on the back of the belt that allows you to store one of her weapons.

The portrait features a nicely detailed sculpt for a 4-inch scale lady. She has short hair and more tattoos painted on her face. Very nice!

The Amazon Elite comes with a wide variety of accessories, some I’ve seen before among the other figures and some are brand new to me. For starters you get not one, but two helmets. One is very similar to what we saw with the Spartan. It includes the high red comb and is painted silver to match the armor.

The other helmet is more of a utilitarian Barbute. There’s no comb or crest and it features the same brilliant silver paint. Both helmets fit the figure very well.

The shields in this line are quickly becoming my favorite accessories, and here’s another reason why. It’s the same basic sculpt as the one included with the Spartan Warrior, which means it includes that lovely hammered surface and the fully detailed interior with grab bar and sleeve. I actually found it much easier to get the female figure’s hand to hold the bar on this one. The front surface is painted with a traditional Greek warrior motif similar to what you might find on pottery of the period. It’s simply gorgeous.

Of course, no elite warrior would be complete without weapons and this gal comes with a nice assortment. First off, you get these cool light axes, which are brand new accessories to me. They have sculpted shafts with silver painted heads.

Next you get a beautiful long sword with a black grip and a stout blade. This one is also a brand new accessory to me.

Finally, you get the spear, which is a repaint of the one included with the Spartan Warrior and Cursed Stone Spartan. It features a leaf-shaped head and a spiked butt. Also included in the box is a pair of replacement hands with the hinges cut along the other axis, and the standard figure stand that has come with each of the figures so far.

This Exclusive is available for purchase through Kokomo Toys’ Ebay shop at the cost of $30. Yup, she’s ten bucks more than your average Vitruvian HACKS figure. It is a bit steep, and I’ll admit I hesitated a bit, but in the end, I’m glad I pulled the trigger. You get more stuff than with any of the four Wave One figures. And as it turns out, this is easily my favorite among my three humans in the line so far and give me a nice idea of what’s to come, as I have a few more of the female figures on order and waiting to be shipped to me.

Apr 5 2016

Star Wars Black (The Force Awakens): Han Solo by Hasbro

You’d have to be living under a bantha not to know that today is the day The Force Awakens releases on Blu-Ray and DVD, giving us the home version of the first Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi in 1983. I’m just gonna let that lie there. I picked up my copy as well as going digital too so I could watch it over the weekend. I still adore this movie. The action sequences are awesome without being too over the top, well except for the tentacle monsters I could have done without, and the new characters are so endearing and instantly relate-able to me. But even after multiple viewings, I’m still surprised to find that Han Solo was one of my favorite things about the film. Ford broke out of his shell and gave us a fun and enjoyable performance. It seemed only right to check out his Black Series figure today.

The packaging… It’s black! It’s red! It’s figure #18!!! I do like the blurb on the back, which begins with, “The exploits of Han Solo are legendary…” Goddamn right, they are. From Scoundrel to Captain to General, when we were kids, this was the guy we all wanted to be when we grew up. And now he’s all grown up. And by that, I mean old. But don’t let that fool you, like Han in the film, this figure is pretty damn good!

For starters, I liked Han’s costume in TFA and this figure pulls it off nicely. It reminds me of a more grizzled version of his Bespin ensemble. The leather jacket is intricately detailed with stitch lines, rumples, pockets, and those silver tubes in his breast pocket. What are those? Seriously, if you have one of those books, tell me what those are!

The brown wash on the jacket is very effective in giving it a worn look. Hasbro seldom does a nice job with this type of weathering, but here it’s a home run. Even the high boots have a convincing leather texture and a sharp, high gloss finish. It kind of reminds me of a leather jacket that another character who looks like this used to wear. Hmmm. The whole ensemble is tied together by his trusty smuggler’s belt with the low slung holster on his right hip.

As for the portrait, it may be sad to say it, but I think this is Hasbro’s best 6-inch scale Harrison Ford yet. How crazy is that? They can’t quite get it right on the regular version, but this one is damn good. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks a little misshapen and wonky, but it’s easily identifiable to me and I think it looks a lot more like Ford does now than the original Black Series Han looked like Ford back then. I think this is one of those cases where they had a good sculpt and something in the factory went amiss. The only other thing really off here is the color of his hair. It looked a lot more gray on screen, where as this coif is brown with some gray highlights.

Naturally, Han comes with his trusty blaster and it too is a really nice piece of work. His right hand is clearly designed to hold it, as it has the trigger finger positioned correctly, but he can hold it in the off hand as well. The blaster also fits snugly into his hip holster.

The articulation is exactly what I’ve come to expect from this line. That equates to arms with rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Legs that are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels at the hips. The ankles are hinged and have some generous lateral rockers. There’s a ball joint in the torso and a hinge and ball joint in the neck.

I remember when I bought this case and thought, “WHERE THE F’CK IS MY AHSOKA TANO FIGURE? WHY DID YOU GIVE ME TWO LUKES??? NOW I KNOW WHY THE WORD “BAD” IS INCLUDED IN THE NAME OF YOUR STORE!!!” Wait, that’s not where I was going with that. Afterwards, I thought,“Oh, great. Old Han Solo is in this case. I’m sure that’ll be a great figure.” You see that was misplaced sarcasm, because it is a really great figure… at least by Black Series standards. Never would have I expected to enjoy this figure as much as I did. Simply put, it feels like a fitting final tribute to the lovable rogue. Because, I’m sure we won’t be getting any more Han Solo figures in the Black Series, right?

Apr 4 2016

Marvel Legends (Red Onslaught Wave): Sharon Carter by Hasbro

It’s yet another Marvel Monday here at FFZ and I am in the midst of running through the Red Onslaught Wave of Marvel Legends. I’ve already featured the Whirlwind and Cottonmouth as the “Forces of Evil” and today I’m going to look at the first of the two ladies that make up the “Agents of SHIELD.” It’s Sharon Carter!

Same deal as last time, the packaging is branded with a Captain America theme that includes a shield on the top flap and his name on the front. As this is one of those “variant slots” and shares it with Mockingbird, Agent Carter’s name doesn’t appear on the front, just the “Agents of SHIELD” moniker. Not to be confused with that TV Show that I just could not get into no matter how hard I tried. Seriously, for all you people who tell me I have a Marvel bias because I can’t stomach the DC Zack Snyder movies, I’m still willing to call the Marvel Cinematic Universe out when it deserves it. Marvel, that show sucks! Just stick with the movies… and the Netflix stuff. What? This has nothing to do with today’s Feature? Well, FINE, I better get back on track, hadn’t I? So, my point is that there isn’t much else new to be said about the package, so let’s jump right on in and look at the figure…

Heeeey, we’ve seen this body before! Yes, as most everyone (including my cat) suspected, Sharon is built off the same female SHIELD agent buck that has been floating around for a couple of years now. And while Hasbro has been doing some little tweaks and kit-bashing on this figure in the past, from the neck down this one is just a straight repaint of Maria Hill from the Agents of SHIELD 3-pack. The biggest change up here is the white suit, which I’ll concede does bring out some elements in the sculpt that weren’t as evident on the darker versions. It’s a good sculpt, with plenty of detail like texturing and piping, but this time around some of the details seem a little softer. Paint mostly consists of the black straps with some silver used on the fixtures, the holstered guns, and the zipper. The SHIELD emblem tampos on her shoulders look particularly nice.

The portrait isn’t bad, but it’s nothing outrageously special either. It looks familiar, almost like some of the Legends female head sculpts are blending together. I think the eyes are set a little far apart, but otherwise there’s not much to complain about here, other than the waxy plastic that doesn’t look like skin. The paint on the facial features is fairly solid and I do dig her sculpted ponytail.

With Sharon being the fourth version of this buck in my collection, the articulation holds no surprises. As a matter of fact… if Hasbro can keep reusing this buck, then two can play at that game. Let me just jump back to an earlier review and cut and paste and here we go… The arms are ball jointed in the shoulders and at the elbows and wrists. Sadly, there are no bicep swivels, but I’m coming to expect that omission in Hasbro’s female figures these days. The ball joints in the elbows make up for that a little. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double-hinged at the knees, and feature swivels in the thighs. The ankles have both hinges and rockers. There is no waist swivel, but you do get a ball joint in the torso and again for the neck.

Agent Carter comes with her twin pistols, which really aren’t accessories at all because THEY ARE STILL PERMANENTLY SCULPTED INTO HER HOLSTERS. Gah! Hasbro, why do you keep subjecting us to this outrage? I’m guessing that you knew how many times you were going to recycle this figure, the least you could have done was give her some working holsters.

Instead she comes with this really weird looking gun. I really don’t like this gun. It’s weird. It’s also super soft and comes warped right out of the package. Hasbro has plenty of regular automatic pistols in their Legends scale. I would have preferred one of those.

As critical as I’ve been about her, Sharon Carter really isn’t a bad figure, but she definitely feels phoned in to me. I do find it strange, however, that Hasbro can take one of their standard generic bucks and repaint a different costume on it over and over and few people (myself included) think twice about it, but when they do it with a body as distinctive as this one, it’s obvious and becomes tiresome. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite. With that having been said, it is nice to have Agent Carter join my SHIELD shelf and I’ve got no regrets about buying her. I’m aware that there are collectors out there who are none to fond of this particular buck, but it works fine for me and the recycling here was totally logical and expected. I’m always up for more SHIELD agents, not to mention I needed that leg for Red Skull. Next Monday… Mockingbird!

Apr 2 2016

Star Trek: Acrylic Display Stands (Classic Series Phaser and Star Trek III Phaser) by Flux Dimensions LLC

For the longest time, I tossed and turned at night because of a serious and nagging problem in my life. The root of the problem? My collection of Starfleet weapons. I had no place to display them. They sat in a plastic tote waiting for me to take them out and play with them. I would feel them in my hand for a while, aim them, make some pew pew noises, and then they back into the tote they went. I longed for the day someone would come up with a solution so that I could go back to living a normal life free of worry. And now that time is here, thanks to a company on Ebay called Flux Dimensions. They make acrylic display stands for a number of collectibles, including the Star Trek ships and weapons made by Diamond Select Toys. I bought a pair of these stands: One for my Classic Original Series phaser and one for my Star Trek III phaser and I’m going to take a quick look at them today.

The stands are advertised as custom made to order and some assembly is required. These factors worried me a little, because I envisioned slow shipping and potential assembly issues. Especially the later, when the item description advises that if the fit isn’t right you might need to glue it to achieve a tight fit. As it turns out neither were issues. The items arrived in a few days, each stand comprised of three simple pieces wrapped in plastic and with protective adhesive film, and the fit of the pieces was absolutely perfect.

Both stands are fashioned from immaculate pieces of clear acrylic with custom etched bases and supports designed to cradle each specific weapon. The Star Trek III phaser stand includes the title of the movie in the familiar font along with “Type II Phaser” all flanked by two Starfleet insignia. The lettering shows some pixelation around the edges, but only when viewed up close. The tabs for the supports are the identical, so you can have the phaser face left or right and still keep the orientation of the base facing forward. This is kind of a big deal, since the DST phaser looks best when viewed with it facing right, as the screw plugs are on the obverse side.

The stand for the Classic phaser is a little different. For starters it has “Star Trek” printed in the classic series font. But more importantly, instead of two supports suspending the weapon just above the base, this one cradles the butt of the hand grip. It works just as well, save for one little annoyance: You can’t reverse the orientation on this one, so the phaser is always going to be pointing to the left if you want the lettering on the base facing forward. In this case, that means the one screw hole near the beam emitter and the faint copyright information towards the back are both going to be visible. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker for me, but the option to display this one both ways too would have been welcome.

With that little quibble aside, I have to say I’m totally delighted with these stands and very glad I purchased them. They are very attractive and great quality pieces. Granted, at $20 each (plus shipping) they are a little costly, not so much for what they are, but in relation to the collectible they’re displaying. These phasers only ran me about $35 each, which makes twenty bucks a relatively big investment to display them. That having been said, these really do class up these pieces so much that they’re well worth the price to me. Also, since the DST props are sized fairly accurately, these stands should work fine with the more expensive resin props sold at conventions. Either way, I highly recommend them.

As I mentioned earlier, Flux Dimensions sells a bunch of different stands, including ones to replace the shitty ones that DST includes with their Starships. They also make some for lightsabers, Sonic Screwdrivers, and some of the 3 3/4-inch scale Star Wars ships by Hasbro and Kenner. I do believe my next pick up from these guys will be for my Klingon Disruptor.

Addendum: Tim Sloan from Flux Dimensions was kind enough to drop me a line with a few additional details about their products. For starters, they are capable of customizing the stands to order, allowing the phasers to face left or right, which nicely solves the issue of exposing the side of the phaser with the screw plugs. Also, their products are available for purchase direct from their website tshobbies.com often at reduced cost when compared to their Ebay store. I highly recommend checking them out and browsing their product!

Apr 1 2016

DC Comics: Black Canary Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

I think this is the fifth straight week of DC Fridays focusing on statues. I’ve looked at a Bishoujo, a couple of Femme Fatales, a couple of DC Cover Girls, and now I’m circling back around to Koto’s Bishoujo line for one last DC statue before moving back to some DC action figures next Friday. Black Canary is one of the newer releases in Koto’s DC Bishoujos and one I’ve been anxiously awaiting…

Canary comes in a standard window box, mostly white with some lovely artwork from Shunya Yamashita. As always the packaging is collector friendly and you can get a good peek at the statue inside to see what you’re getting. The back panel has a little blurb about Dinah and teases the Raven Bishoujo, which I already looked at quite a few weeks back. I keep all of these boxes, but thirty-some statues in, that’s getting to be difficult with space being what it is. I fear the day may be coming where I have to toss the inserts and flatten out the boxes for storage. Anyway, Black Canary comes out of the box fully assembled and ready for display…

…and looking mighty fine, I might say. I’ll concede that the composition here is a strange choice. Canary stands with legs apart, her left hip tossed to the left and she appears to be stretching while she glances off to the side. Maybe she’s limbering up for a particularly potent Canary Cry? This line has never been about action poses, so actually having her shouting might have been too off point, but at the same time, I don’t think this pose says anything relative about the character. It’s not a bad pose at all, but it kind of strikes me as the art director not quite knowing what to do with her.

Of course the figure itself is beautifully executed. Canary dons a black one piece with black leather half-jacket, black choker, a pair of high heeled buccaneer boots and short black gloves. And yes… fishnets! Koto has been on a real fishnet kick in this line lately with other recent releases like Zatanna and Anna Williams from the Tekken line donning these types of stockings. They look magnificent from the front or sides, and while they do have the usual seam running up the backs, but they are still relatively tidy. It’s pretty cool the way they seem to disappear into her boots. In terms of sculpting on the costume, you get your usual assortment of rumples and wrinkles and some nice stitching lines.

The portrait is standard Bishoujo fare, in other words great stuff. Canary has her head cocked downward and she’s gazing off to the side with one eye winking. She’s got a rather distinctive, wide closed-lip smile. Her long blonde hair flows off wildly to the left. I don’t think I’ve noted this for a while, but it seems like Koto is done with the transparency effect they used to use at the edges of the hair. Canary doesn’t have it and I don’t recall seeing it done in a while.

The coloring on this piece is as simple as it gets. Her entire outfit is black, save for the silver painted zipper on the jacket and the circular medal on her choker. There’s also no use of high gloss here, so you don’t get the usual impact of the soft skin tones contrasting with the pop of the outfit. That having been said, the paint is all spot on, particularly on the face, which is razor sharp. The hair is bright, but appropriately soft.

The base is a mystery to me. It looks like it’s supposed to be rippling water, blue in the center and gradually radiating out to clear at the edges. I’d argue that it might supposed to show the soundwaves radiating through water from her Canary Cry, but she isn’t doing it. It’s not an unattractive base, but it makes little sense in this context. I think I would have preferred a simple disk.

If it sounds like I’ve been pretty critical of this statue, that shouldn’t be taken as a sign that I don’t like it. Quite the contrary. I’ve yet to be disappointed by this series and that record still stands. Black Canary is a great piece, but she lacks that certain something that makes each and every release in this line so amazing. From a technical standpoint, the paint, the sculpt… everything is spot on perfect and the costume is wonderfully designed. I think the pose and the base are the only stutter steps here, and even those are perfectly serviceable. Ah, but the great thing about this line is when you aim so high, if you miss your mark, you’re still doing pretty great. It’ll be interesting to see which DC lady Koto goes to next. Personally, I’m hoping they decide to revisit Supergirl soon.

Mar 31 2016

Masters of the Universe Classics: Serpentine King Hssss by Mattel

Controversy and Matty Collector seem to go together like PB&J. In this case, the hub-bub centered around word that Matty would be including a newly tooled snake torso for King Hssss in one of the Club Eternia figures for 2015. I try to tune out a lot of this stuff, but I think the plan was to pack it with Buzz Saw Hordak, which admittedly would have made that terrible figure a bit easier to swallow. Whether this was a promise or a loose comment, I don’t remember, but the bottom line was it didn’t happen because it would have been too expensive and despite Matty being fairly transparent on the matter and sending out a letter to the fans, subscribers still went berserk. Matty ultimately offered the piece for sale as its own figure with a bevy of extras at a pretty good price and it arrived at my door last week.

Yup, that’s the same old MOTUC packaging we’ve been seeing for years now. There’s even still a bio on the back, which is missing from the most current figure cards. You get a colorful “Snake Men” sticker on the bubble and Hssss’ tagline is “Evil Disguised Leader of the Snake Men.” To say that he fills out the bubble nicely is a bit of an understatement. It actually looks like Matty just took a pound of snakes and crammed them in there. In fact, it’s such a mess of snakes that I can barely make out most of the accessories.

There’s no doubt that the new torso is the star of this show. It takes the concept of the snake torso that we got with the original Classics King Hsss and cranks everything up. It’s beefier, better proportioned, and it ultimately it makes a pretty goofy idea and makes it look bad ass. Also, someone clearly said, “NEEDS MORE SNAKES!” I actually own two of the first Masters Classics King Hssss, which is convenient to display one human and one half snake. It’s also an odd thing to admit to, since I was never that fond of the original’s snake torso and would probably never display him with it. But this? This I like a lot. If the were coming after me, I would step on old ladies and babies to get away from this guy. Thanks to some bendy plastic and wires, six of the snakes are posable, so while the only two actual articulation points above the waist are the swivels in the waist and the main snake’s “neck” you can still have some fun with him.

The sculpting and paint on display here are both excellent. Hssss is covered in scales quite literally from head(s) to toe and there’s a lovely high gloss finish over the whole figure to give it that illusion of slime that all snakes are burdened with. The bulk of the figure is a sort of ochre color, that feels like a nod to the original snake torso, with green patterns. From the waist down, this seems to be a repaint from the Snake Men two-pack. At least that’s my impression. I never did get my hands on one of those packs. Either way it mates wonderfully with the new torso, although the legs on my figure are somewhat loose.

The main portrait features an open mouth, which offers a grizzly view right down the snake’s gob, and displays a pair of white fangs and a long cascading forked tongue. All the snake heads, right down to the tiniest have solid paintwork for their eyes and mouth and all around this is a great looking figure.

To sweeten the deal, Hssss comes with what is basically a mini-weapons-pack, which includes a shield, a mace, and a sword and spear, both with serpentine blades. These are actually some of my favorite weapons to come out of the line and they go a long way toward building value in this package. The weapons can be held in some of the smaller snakes’ mouths, but it’s tough to make it work and I honestly think these weapons will be better served getting doled out to my Snake Men or just being added to one of my Weapons Racks.

How about a bonus head? Yeah, Matty’s got us covered there too with a mid-transformation snake head for the humanoid King Hssss figure. Now, I presume this was intended for both the original and the 200x versions, but the socket is way too small for my original Classics Hssss. I’m sure I could get it to work if I tried hard enough, but for our purposes here, I’m showcasing it on the 200x figure from the two-pack. Again, it’s a great piece of work and looks fantastic on the figure.

Of course, while Serpent King Hssss is a complete figure onto its own, the torso is also compatible with the legs from either of the previous King Hsss figures, so you can mix-and-match all you want.

Naturally, I’m very glad Matty got this figure out and onto my shelf. It totally blows away the previous snake torso on every level and the fact that they gave him some legs and threw in so many accessories makes the pot all the sweeter. As for the controversy… it doesn’t really interest me. I can see collectors being frustrated when a company can’t follow through on an expectation, but while I am a toy collector, I’m not a child, and I realize these things happen in the grown up world of big business. I can see cause for rage if this individual piece motivated someone to buy in to the sub only to find it wasn’t included, but I can’t imagine that was the case for most. And in the end, the figure went up for sale to subscribers for $20, which quite frankly is a great deal for this densely packed bundle of goodies.

FigureFan Zero

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DC Comics: Black Canary Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

Masters of the Universe Classics: Serpentine King Hssss by Mattel

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