Oct 26 2013

Index of Reviews is Live!

And now witness the power of this fully armed and operational Index!

Yes, if you take a gander up top, you’ll see a new Tab indicating that I finally got around to adding an Index of Reviews for the site. I’ve been working on this on and off for a while, often procrastinating because I thought the use of Tags was good enough and that an Index would be somewhat redundant. I also assumed that I would have more time to work on it in the inevitable slow times that I’ve had in previous years, but truth be told this year has been going full guns from the start and I don’t see any slowing down.

In the end, I pushed through with this pet project mainly because it helps me get a better idea of what parts of my collection I’ve already looked at and some stuff that I can still feature. For example, I was really surprised how much DC and Marvel is here and how little Star Wars and Ghostbusters is represented. Granted, I know my Star Wars collection is only a fraction of what it once was, there’s still lots of goodies sitting in totes that have yet to see the light of day. As for Transformers… I knew there would be a crap load of Transformers, but it showed me that there’s still a lot more to get to.

I’ll likely be tweaking the categories a bit as I go on. In the meantime, feel free to dig in and enjoy.

Oct 26 2013

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 2

And I’m back to wrap up my look at Sideshow Toy’s amazing Major Bludd one-sixth scale figure. Yesterday we checked out the figure itself and today we’re going to take a look at some of his wonderful accessories. This guy comes with a lot of really cool stuff! To kick things off, you get a standard figure stand with a round disc base and the Cobra emblem.

This is the exact same stand that came with the Crimson Guard and I really dig it. It looks nice and doesn’t take up a lot of space. A name plate would have been cool, but then again, I know who this guy is so it’s not really necessary. Sideshow is now selling new Cobra stands with a larger raised base that allows you to store accessories, which is a neat idea, but I prefer to stick with these.

The backpack is a wonderfully detailed piece and as soon as I got it out of the tray I started trying to figure out how it attached. Was I missing straps? Did I have to take the armor off? What the hell, Sideshow? I tried to size it up next to the figure’s back when invisible forces suddenly grabbed it and the backpack attached itself. Magnets! Cool! It’s guided into place by four pegs and holds on securely. It has a realistic weathered finish and there are four clips on it to hold the extra rockets for his launcher.

You get seven rockets in total and each one is a little celebration of destructive hardware. They are fully painted and the tiny fins are each hinged so that they can deploy. They are all interchangeable between the backpack slots and the launcher itself.

The launcher is a two-handed dealer of death. There isn’t a lot of heft to it, but it looks great and you can load the remaining three rockets into the front slots. Bludd comes with a special hand for holding the primary grip with a finger that extends over the trigger and his artificial hand works well with the secondary grip. You can also switch it around if you want.

Next up is the sub-machine gun. This beauty has a weathered green finish, a removable magazine, a secondary grip and a folding stock! The sculpted detail makes it a very convincing piece, even though I don’t recognize the design. You also get three additional magazines that fit into the pouches on Bludd’s left hip. Naturally, the exposed bullet in each magazine is painted. While Bludd can easily wield the sub-machine gun in his artificial hand, he also comes with a special left hand for gripping this weapon as well as his pistol.

Yup, you get pistol too! When Bludd runs out of rockets and magazines, he ain’t done murdering you yet. Nope, he still has his trusty revolver at his right hip. This is a huge pistol with a silver finish. Yes, the cylinder can actually be flipped out, but it’s a really delicate action and the pin that secures it is prone to falling out. It can easily be put back together, so long as you don’t lose the pin. I’ll likely be keeping mine closed. The holster for the pistol actually comes separate in the tray and fits into the straps on his hip. I’m not sure why they didn’t just sew the holster right to the belt rig, as I think that would have looked a little better. Nonetheless, it works well enough and doesn’t come loose when you draw the pistol.

What’s that? Bludd has used up all his rockets and bullets and he’s even thrown all his guns at you? Well, he still has his trusty boot knife to fall back on. This little hooked knife fits snugly into a little sheath sculpted into the side of his left boot. It’s amazing that Sideshow included this. It’s not a trademark item for Bludd and nobody would have missed it if it wasn’t in there. And yet, here it is.

Is there nothing I can say bad about this figure? Ok, one thing. There’s no real homage to the gun that came with the original vintage action figure. Major Bludd had a pretty distinctive weapon and I would have liked to see it in this package. Having it absent is like getting Cobra Commander without his familiar hair-dryer pistol or the Crimson Guard without his bayonetted assault rifle. It just seems like a curious omission and as such it is indeed the one gripe I can level against this release.

With three of Sideshow’s Cobra figures on pre-order and only one in my collection prior to Bludd, I was still a little skittish about whether or not I wanted to dive into this pool. I’m already collecting enough so adding a new line always gives me pause. Major Bludd, however, certainly justifies the journey I’ve embarked on with these figures. He’s a fantastic effort on Sideshow’s part and clearly shows that they are continuing to push the envelope, improve, and at least try to approach Hot Toys in terms of quality and craftsmanship. On that point, it’s worth noting that the prices on these figures have shot up quite a bit. Crimson Guard was $140, Zartan was $160, and the new crop of figures are pushing $180. That’s only $10 less than my Hot Toys Thor or Black Widow at the time of release. It’s also worth noting that Sideshow has the limitation on this guy set to 1,000, which seems ridiculously low to me when Zartan was at 6,000. I’m still not sure if that’s the total number of figures produced or the limitation on the Exclusive. Nonetheless, if Baroness, Destro, and Cobra Commander turn out as good as this guy, I’m perfectly fine paying the price of admission.

Oct 25 2013

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 1

I’ve more or less been out of the GI JOE scene for a while now. I still pick up a Hasbro figure now and again, but that’s about it… until Sideshow started doing Cobra figures, and that opened up a whole can of ~~snakes~~ worms. It all started with pre-ordering Cobra Commander, then picking up a Crimson Guard to hold me over, then pre-ordering Baroness and Destro, and now adding Major Sebastian Bludd to my collection. I was originally going to go for Zartan first, but he’s still available at a lot of e-tailers and Bludd’s limitation seems to be a lot stricter. I didn’t want to risk missing out on him, so I used my “Emergency Toy Fund,” an extra $200 that I keep squirreled away in case something comes along that I hadn’t planned on. Clearly, this release was one of those occasions. Plus, I had some Reward Points itching to be spent. Today we’ll check out the packaging and the figure itself and I’ll swing back tomorrow to look at the accessories and the Exclusive goodies.

The packaging is in the same retro Real American Hero style that we saw when I featured The Crimson Guard, and that’s a very good thing because I love the presentation here. Besides tugging at my nostalgia strings by mimicking art from the vintage figure cards, the overall wow factor of the box design is a lot better than what I got out of my last couple of Hot Toys figures. The artwork is great and you even get a vintage style file card on the back. You also get a tiny glimpse of two other figures in the line, including Zartan (who will be next for me!) and that terrible, terrible Snake Eyes figure. I seriously think they must have farmed that sweater-wearing mofo out to another company… there can be no other explanation.

The front flap is secured with a magnet and opens up, and here’s where there’s a little step back from the Crimson Guard’s package. That figure had two opening flaps, one which held the tray with all the weapons and accessories and another with the figure. You don’t get that with Major Bludd. You don’t even get an instruction sheet or anything. You do however get some additional bitchin artwork in the interior tray. The trays contain two layers of goodies. The top has the figure along with his helmet, extra hands, and his exclusive extra head. The next tray has the figure stand and everything else. Let’s get him out of his plastic prison and check him out…

I was expecting the Major to require some advanced assembly, but he actually comes with his armor and belt rigs on and ready to go. The most involved thing you need to do is hang his five dog tags around his neck. Holy crap… he comes with his dog tag trophies! Each one is on a little chain and has tiny printing on it and some of them are spattered with blood. That’s some dark shit, Sideshow, I love it! You can actually just put them right over his head, but it’s easier if you pop off his mellon and put them directly on the neck post.

Bludd’s helmet includes some optional padded stickers for the inside to make it fit better, but I don’t think they’re necessary. It fits great, although it is prone to falling off when I’m posing him. It’s absolutely fine for display purposes, although I may just use a tiny spot of blue tack to hold it in place. So long as we’re talking about his head, let’s check out his noggins.

The stock head is a thing of beauty, and by that I mean it’s hideous and grizzled and a great likeness for the character’s traditional portrait. It’s missing that bizarre spark of life that Hot Toys somehow imbues into their head sculpts, but then again, this figure isn’t patterned off a real person anyway. And the last thing I want to do is disparage the work they’ve done here because it really is a fine sculpt. The creases in his face betray his battle hardened experience and the sculpted mustache is pretty convincing. The buzz cut hair doesn’t quite match the realism of the face, but I doubt I’ll ever display him without his helmet on, so that’s not a big issue for me. It’s worth noting that while the eye patch is permanently affixed to the head, the strap is an actual string. It does have a habit of sliding down over his good eye if you touch it and it’s certainly something to be weary of when handling the figure.

The Sideshow Exclusive head features the Major sans patch and in all his ocular deformed glory. It’s a nasty mess under there with realistic looking scarring that makes the whole part of his head look a little puckered. The paintwork also makes it look just a little bit juicy around the wound. Gross! but it gives him a chance to use his targeting device, which I’m guessing somehow restores his sight in the bad eye? The device just clips on to the rim of his helmet. It looks good, but truth be told, I will probably never display him with this head. It’s always nice to have options, but I prefer Bludd in all his iconic eye-patched glory.

Bludd’s outfit is especially well done. He’s got brown fatigues and some sturdy looking chest armor that fits over his torso in several pieces. It’s a tad bulky and I was worried it would give him too much of a turtle look, but happily that’s not the case. There’s also enough room to tuck the dog tags under the chest armor if you prefer it that way. The armor has a nice gun metal grey finish that matches the Major’s artificial arm. The tarnished Cobra beltbuckle really ties the whole ensemble together. A very nice touch!

“Oi, Major Bludd, you look ‘armless!” Yes, Bludd sports his trademark artificial arm, which is sculpted beautifully and colored to match the same finish as his armor. Sideshow took a bit of a liberty here by making the arm a bit slighter than I remember it on the vintage action figure. I happen to love it because it accentuates the fact that it’s an artificial arm and not just armor. The arm features the same shoulder and elbow articulation as Bludd’s real arm but has the added bonus of individually articulated fingers! Each finger features FOUR hinges and the thumb is ball jointed and has a single hinge. Holy shit that’s amazing!

Besides the crazy articulation on Bludd’s right hand, the figure spots a great amount of poseability. I’m not familiar enough with the core body used here to catalog them all, but there aren’t a lot of poses that I can’t get the Major to do. His joints are easy to work with and unlike a lot of my Hot Toys figures, there the outfit doesn’t restrict his movement at all. If I had one gripe it would be that some of his joints feel a little too loose, but then seeing as how he’s going to spend most of his time on a figure stand, that’s not a big deal. I guess I’d rather have his joints a little loose than too tight and restricted to work with. The truth is, he’s a fun figure to play around with and I can do so without damaging him.

Alrighty, I’ve gone pretty long already, so I’m going to break here for the day. Tomorrow I’ll be back to look at all the wonderful toys that the Major has in his arsenal.

Oct 24 2013

Transformers Energon: Tow-Line by Hasbro

The last bunch of Transformer Thursday features have targeted specific figures that I wanted to look at. Today I’m trying to get back to a little more of the randomness that I originally envisioned for Thursdays. And so, this morning I reached my dirty robot-grabbing mitts into a drawer and pulled out the Deluxe Autobot Tow-Line from the Energon series. As usual, there’s no packaging to talk about, so let’s dig right in to his alt mode.

Tow-Line is a cool and compact little van. The sculpt is fairly basic, especially compared to some of the Deluxes that came in the subsequent Cyberton line and beyond. He does have ladders sculpted into the sides, weapon ports on the sides and top, and there’s not a whole lot else going on with him. Still, the van mode holds together quite well and rolls along on his wheels rather nicely.The deco is two-tone blue with red and gold striping on the sides and a white front with a nice crisp Autobot emblem stamped above the grill. The windows are translucent red plastic. Paint apps weren’t usually used sparingly back in the Energon days, but Tow-Line looks like he could have used a few more, particularly the back windows and tail lights.

I seem to recall Tow-Line’s alt mode being referred to as an electronic surveillance van and the red Energon piece that snaps onto his roof would certainly support that. It has two ball jointed pieces, one is a radar dish and the other is a screen. If you see a van that looks like this patrolling your neighborhood, chances are good that Big Brother is listening.

Transforming Tow-Line is pretty unorthodox and doing so reveals a surprising homage to a certain other pair of Autobot vans from the G1 days. You fold down the sides of the van and remove only the top portion. That’s going to be your robot, whereas the bottom part becomes a weapons platform. It’s a very similar concept to the oddball G1 toys of Ratchet and Ironhide. Unlike G1 Ratchet and Ironhide, however, Tow-Line’s robot mode doesn’t totally suck.

Nope, he’s actually a pretty clean and well proportioned little bot. Because Tow-Line’s robot mode is comprised of only half his vehicle’s bulk, he turns out to be a bit smaller and simpler than your average Deluxe. In traditional Autobot fashion, the front of the van makes up his chest and I really dig the way his doors fold up to make shoulder armor. I also love this little guy’s head sculpt. It’s pretty grim, but it looks great.

The surveillance kit from the roof of the van can transform into a pretty impressive looking rifle, which Tow-Line can wield in either hand. I absolutely love this gun. It looks like something out of early Star Trek and it’s big enough that Voyager figures can equip it rather comfortably. It’s a little big for Tow-Line, but that’s OK, because you can also save it for his mobile weapons platform.

That’s right! The weapons platform is made by pulling out a set of treads for the front and raising the wheels in the back. We’re getting a little into M.A.S.K. territory here and the results aren’t exactly inspiring. There are some sculpted guns on the inside of the shell, which would be a lot more impressive if they could pop up. You can, however, attach the energon weapon to it and now Tow-Line has something to ride into battle or a remote drone that can do his fighting for him while he sits back and has a cool, frosty mug of energon. Work smart, not hard! That’s Tow-Line’s motto! And if you’re wondering, yes Tow-Line can combine with other Energon Deluxe Autobots, and no I’m not going to dig any out to show you because I hate the whole gimmick. I will, however, point out that he can combine with his own weapons platform to become a horrible, twisted, rolling tank-bot.

The craziest thing about Tow-Line is that, as far as I’m aware, he was never repainted into Ironhide or Ratchet. It’s a puzzling oversight, considering Hasbro’s love of repaints and the fact that the mold seems like it was practically created for this very purpose. I’ve seen some pretty good custom jobs and they look fantastic. I think a two-pack would have been a great idea and certainly better than the Ironhide and Ratchet that we got in the Classics line, albeit a little undersized. Other than that, this is a cool, but not exceptional, little figure that mainly deserves notoriety because Hasbro tried something different with him. It might have been an interesting idea for a sub-group of Transformers, but whatever the case, Tow-Line’s curious design seemed to be a one-shot experiment.

Oct 23 2013

Marvel Legends: Red She-Hulk by Hasbro

I am currently not reading any Hulk books, let alone the current Red She-Hulk book, so the doings of Red She-Hulk is rather lost on me at the moment. That’s not to say I won’t pick some up in a collection when I get through my current stacks. I bring it up only because I tend to prefer my She-Hulks to be green and named Jen, not Betty or Lyra. Nonetheless, those are the two characters holding this slot in the Hit Monkey wave. But familiarity with the character or not, besides having the monkey parts I need, this looks like a great figure, so let’s check her out.

Yup, this package is all about variants that never happen. Betty shares a card with a hypothetical Lyra “Savage” She-Hulk release. At least this one makes a little more sense than the Protector/Iron Fist card, but it doesn’t make me any happier about it. And “Marvel’s Hulkettes?” Ugh, really, Hasbro? Please, don’t. She-Hulk comes packaged next to the torso and legs of Hit Monkey as well as her Savage Sword. This package is pissing me off, so let’s get rid of it.

Yeah, like I said, I don’t have to be reading her book to see that this is one great looking figure. In addition to some new sculpting, She-Hulk makes use of the newer female Legends body and that’s a wonderful thing. The plastic feels great, with no soft or mushy hinges. The joints are tight and the figure has a nice balance, which makes her fun to fiddle around with and pose. Her costume is simple enough and comprised of a black and purple one piece with a plunging neckline to show off her hulkettes. Ugh, you see, Hasbro? You’ve got me doing it now! I really like the red plastic used for her skin, and believe me when I say it’s far more vibrant in person than in my poorly lit photos.

While the boots are just painted on, our girl does have some original sculpts for her fingerless gloves. One is fisted and one is sculpted to hold her accessory. I’ll argue that both should have been sculpted to hold her sword, but then again, what’s a hulk figure without a fist for smashing?

The portrait here is excellent in that she’s quite beautiful, and I really dig her huge sculpted mane of hair. On the flip side, it seems like maybe the expression could have been angrier? I don’t know, having not read the book I could be off base there, but from what little I know, this head sculpt looks like it might have suited Jen Walters better than Red She-Hulk. Either way, it is a damn fine sculpt.

Red She-Hulk sports some excellent articulation. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, swivel at the biceps, have hinged elbows, and swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, swivel at the thighs, have double hinged knees, and hinges in the ankles. Her head is ball jointed and she has a ball joint just under her chest. The only problem with articulation here is that her hair limits her neck ball joint to the point where you can’t really get her to look up.

As already mentioned, Betty comes with her Savage Sword. I don’t know much about it except that it was designed by Tony Stark and blessed by Odin, so it must be pretty bad ass. It’s a very nice accessory and includes some metallic red paint to match her skin, because even She-Hulks have to accessorize.

One of the great treats of lines like Marvel Legends and DC Universe Classics is when a great figure motivates me to seek out the character in their fiction. I really love the way this figure turned out and it very well may get me to seek out some Savage She-Hulk books. Sometimes you need to suck it up and buy a figure you don’t want for those BAF parts, but this clearly is not one of those cases. And yes, it would be cool if the Lyra variant actually sees the light of day, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Even if it does, Hasbro is likely to do something crazy with it and make it part of a Previews Exclusive like they did with that wave of Wolverine Legends.

Oct 22 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Metalhead (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

TURTLES! Did you think I forgot about the Turtles? Well, I kind of did. I was planning to stop buying these figures after the initial wave of core characters, because I don’t really watch the new series and I’m really looking to cut back on the different lines I’m collecting. Nonetheless, when I go into the toy aisle and there’s nothing else in there and I want me a cheap fix, it’s hard to turn down Playmates’ TMNT line. The Wally World here looks like they’ve all but given up on selling action figures that aren’t Iron Man 3 or Star Wars, but they do still have a well-represented section of TMNT with a lot of the new figures. I decided on Metalhead, who isn’t a new figure, but one that hasn’t been showing up on the pegs around here. In fact, this is possibly the first time I’ve seen him in the wild.

It’s hard to walk past the Turtles section in the aisle without getting drawn into it and a lot of that has to do with the great packaging. It’s exciting, colorful, goofy, and just seeing it makes me want to start rummaging through the pegs even though I told myself I wasn’t going to buy anymore. It’s nice to see Playmates get it right again with this line. I was afraid the influx of variant gimmicky Turtles would choke the pegs, but all of this stuff seems to be selling and there’s almost always something new to see here. It’s also one of the few action figure lines that the local Walmart seems dedicated to support. Maybe there’s a connection there?

The back of the card features the usual clip-out bio card and other figure available from the initial couple of waves. Looks like I’ve got them all except for Kraang. I’m not digging that new design for the android body, but if he’s the only figure standing between being complete up to this point then chances are I’ll pick him up eventually.

My first impression of Metalhead out of the package is that he’s less refined than the other figures. The plastic feels rougher, there’s mold flashing, and the paint is rather sloppy. On any other figure it would be a letdown, but seeing as he is a robot cobbled together from salvaged scrap, it actually works in the figure’s favor. I’d like to think Playmates did this on purpose, but other than the paint, I’m sure that’s not the case.

I do really dig the Nick re-design of this guy. He’s very Turtle-esque, but with some boxy and angular bits and a wire mid-riff that would make C-3PO proud. The sculpted nuts and bolts on his joints are a nice touch, and I absolutely love the fact that his turtle shell is a manhole cover. Brilliant!

We all know by now that if you aren’t one of the Turtles, your articulation in this line is going to suffer for it. That’s the case with Metalhead too, although this guy fares a little better than many of the other non-turtle figures. The neck is ball jointed and the arms rotate at the shoulders and swivel just under the elbows. That’s all there is from the waist up. The legs make out better with hinged ball joints in the hips, hinges in the knees, and swivels just under the knees. In the end he has just enough useful points so I can have some fun playing around with him.

Metalhead doesn’t come with any accessories, per say, but you do get an energy blast style missile that fits into the hole in his right hand. There’s no firing mechanism, but if you flick the back of it just right you can get some distance on it. I’m not usually a fan of the missiles, but I do believe I may display him with the blast coming out of his hand. It just looks cool.

I picked up this guy for eight bucks and change and I’m really happy with that. In fact, I’m rather amazed that the price on these figures hasn’t gone up all that much. When they were first released they were between seven and eight bucks each. Nowadays they seem to have leveled out closer to eight and nine, but that still makes them some of the better deals in the action figure aisle. This line continues to provide simple and honestly fun figures at a great price, which is something that few of the other companies can seem to do these days.

Oct 21 2013

Transformers Generations: Blaster by Hasbro

In case you haven’t noticed, I never featured Fall of Cybertron Soundwave here. The truth is that I just wasn’t tempted to buy the figure. He’s basically a larger version of the Deluxe War for Cybertron design, which puts him out of scale with my WFC/FOC collection. If Hasbro had managed to nail the disc gimmick, I would have certainly picked him up as a stand-alone figure, but I just didn’t think that was the case. Now, Blaster on the other hand… I had to get him! There hasn’t been a Blaster figure since the repaint/remold of that terrible, terrible Cybertron Soundwave figure we looked at a couple of Transformers Thursdays ago, so it seemed like the Generations release was worth my time. Let’s see if I was right…

Blaster comes packaged in his robot mode in the same style of Generations window box that we got with the Triple-Changers. I still dig this presentation a lot, but not enough to try to kid myself about having enough space to keep it and store it. So, yeah… it’s about to get shredded and tossed. I’m starting with Blaster’s robot mode. The back points out that he is from The Fall of Cybertron. Funny, I don’t remember him in the game, but it’s been a while since I played it. I think I’m overdue to bust it out and play it again. Anyway, let’s kick it off with his alt mode.

According to the box, the official name for Blaster’s alt mode is a “Communication Truck.” Well, we ll knew he wasn’t going to be a boom box and even if this mode is a bit of a stretch, at least they tried to keep it within his function. Yes, it’s obviously the same alt mode as Generations Soundwave, but hey… if this is what a Cybertronian Communication Truck looks like, it stands to reason that each side would have one. It’s also a bigger and slightly tweaked version of the War For Cybertron Soundwave’s alt mode. I know, I already established that, but just in case you forgot.

It’s Ok for what it is, which is basically a big box rolling along on wheels. Hasbro did their best to add what style they could to it. The Autobot emblems sculpted into the wheels is a nice extra touch to separate him from Soundwave and I like the way the gun plugs into the top and there’s a little chair behind it for a gunner’s station. Why have that on a Cybertron vehicle mode? I don’t know, I already spend way too much time over analyzing this shit. A little something like an dish or antenna would have helped establish this as a “Communications” vehicle, because as it is it just looks like a chunky APC.

The deco is kind of thoughtless, or rather made to work with the robot mode as upposed to the vehicle mode. You just get red plastic in the front, black on the sides, grey in the back and some yellow and blue accents. As far as color schemes go, it’s rather haphazard. Probably what bothers me the most about Blaster’s alt mode is how obvious it is that the front piece is his chest and doesn’t look anything like the front of a truck. It looks like there should be some kind of cab piece on top of that. I think Soundwave’s door worked a lot better as a windshield, but, hey, I didn’t buy this guy for the alt mode. Let’s transform him and check out his bot mode.

Oh yeah… that’s where it’s at! I love it!!! The arms and legs may be totally unorthodox for Blaster, but the “tape door” on the chest and the G1 head sculpt still make this figure work as a beautiful homage to the Blaster I know and love. While the torso is quite boxy, I rather think it’s supposed to be, and the rest of the figure’s proportions work rather well. I especially like the way the bumper mimics the buttons on the front of the old G1 boombox mode. Well played, Hasbro. Blaster’s gun is also a nice homage to the G1 figure’s weapon. It’s shorter and looks more like a carbine than a sniper rifle, but it fits the update beautifully.

And then there’s the disc gimmick and here’s where things fall apart. The idea is simple enough, instead of tapes we get these chunky discs. I’m cool with updating the tapes to discs. The discs fit into Blaster’s chest compartment (in either robot or vehicle mode). When you eject them, they are supposed to hit the ground and auto transform. The problems start with the disc door. There’s one button to spring it open, but then you need to push a rod in his back to push the disc out and my disc usually gets stuck on the edges leading me to apply a lot of force to finally shoot him out. Other times I just need to pry him out. You can hold several discs in Blaster’s chest, but then the rod in the back has to be pulled further and further out and it looks rather silly. Ah, but if that were the only issue.

Blaster comes with Steeljaw, which I understand to be the weakest of the disc designs, and perhaps you can see why. He’s pretty f’ugly and nothing really locks into anything. Hey, for a figure that auto-transforms from a disc into some kind of big cat, I’m trying to be a little forgiving. The original Steeljaw was a lion, but Hasbro streamlined him to use the same mold as Ravage. It’s not a big deal and I’ll concede that this couldn’t have been an easy figure to design and engineer. The thing is he really doesn’t auto transform, I still have to tweak the back legs and fold out the tail, so why bother with the auto feature at all? I’m sure this figure could have looked better without it. Plus, if I have to tweak him into his alt mode anyway, at least make it so I can peg his back into place or something. He’s the only disc I have, and while I’m not terribly impressed by him, I will still likely pick up some of the others.

Questionable disc gimmick aside, I really do love Blaster. Hasbro did a great job tweaking him from the Soundwave mold, and he’s easily the best homage to the G1 character we’ve had since… well, since G1. So, yeah, the update is long overdue. While the size issue is still there, Blaster always was rather tall, so I can get away with displaying him with my WfC/FoC Autobots or even my Classics. Heck, he even scales pretty well against G1 Soundwave, which certainly wasn’t the case with G1 Blaster. The truth is I like this figure enough that I may wind up picking up the Soundwave too, just to have as a stand-alone figure, or to display alongside Blaster.

Oct 19 2013

Marvel Legends: Protector by Hasbro

Yes, it’s time for more Marvel Legends! So as some of you noted, I skipped over most of the Hit Monkey wave to get to the Rocket Raccoon Wave. It’s partly because I didn’t see any good deals on a full set like I did with the more recent one. It’s also partly because I wasn’t as keen on the character selection for this wave. In fact, I found the variants to be more interesting than the stock figures, and we all know that Hasbro has been dropping the ball on these running change variants to the point where I honestly don’t even know why they bother. I know the red Deadpool and a couple others have begun turning up in European and Australian markets, but Hasbro has all but admitted that many of the other variants have yet to be even produced. I can’t tell you how much this pisses me off, but I’ll save that rage to fuel my binge drinking this weekend. Anyway, I looked at Ultimates Cap from this wave a while back, but I only now managed to pick up the three figures in this wave that have the parts to build Hit Monkey. Today we’re looking at Protector. This should go pretty quick.

There’s the packaging. Oh, look, it’s one of those variant cards. Protector shares his with Iron Fist, which means there is absolutely no mention of who this guy is on the package… anywhere. Warriors of the Mind? Oooook! Hasbro, you can probably get away with that with some characters, but I’m not sure that Protector is one of them. It’s also becoming increasingly annoying when you seem to have so little interest in actually producing and distributing these variants and when the common one is usually the lesser desired of the two. And look, it’s Iron Fist that’s on the back of the card, not Protector. JESUS, HASBRO!! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO US??? Oh wait, I already did that rant a few seconds ago. Suffice it to say, I would have rather had Iron Fist. Moving on…

The new Marvel Legends hasn’t been afraid to deliver on the black & white character costumes. First we had Future Foundation Spidey, next we had Fantomex, and now Protector. No matter how I spread these guys out on the shelf, they look like they’re supposed to be some kind of color-deficient Team Up. But color (or lack thereof) is not the only thing these guys have in common. Hasbro, if you’re going to do three figures with a deco this close, you may want to avoid reusing parts between them because it really makes it obvious. Protector uses Fantomex’s belt and holster rig as well as his pistols. He also uses Spidey’s legs and upper arms, and what appears to be a resculpt of his torso. Hell, Protector also share’s Fantomex’s hands, including the unfortunate left hand that can’t hold his gun for shit.

The portrait is pretty good, although not one of the better ones the new Legends line has turned out. True, there’s only so much you can do with half a face. For a moment, I thought it might be a re-sculpt of Legends Yellow Jacket, but when I compared the two figures that hunch didn’t pan out.

That’s not to say the figure is necessarily bad. I do actually dig him and since he shares so much with the Spider-Man figure, he does sport the same excellent articulation, right down to the shoulder crunches. That makes Protector a very fun figure to fiddle with and pose. Had Hasbro given him a better set of pistols and a better left hand, he’s actually rate a lot higher with me.

In addition to the recycled pistols, now cast in black, Protector comes with Hit Monkey’s head and weapons. We’ll get to those when I open the last figure and I actually build him.

Of the three figures in this wave with the BAF parts, Protector is the one that interested me the most, mainly because he’s turned up in my reading the most. I dig the Kree and I dig Time Travel stories, and so Noh-Varr carries the day. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be my favorite figure in this assortment. Truth be told, I can’t say as I had a burning desire to have Protector on my Legends shelf, and the execution of the figure is decent enough, but marred by some obvious and in some cases unfortunate recycling of parts. Still, god knows, I had to buy a lot worse to get a build a figure part in the past. That having been said, if it weren’t for the included monkey bits, I’m not sure I would have bothered to hunt him down like I had to.

Oct 18 2013

DC Comics: Huntress Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

DC’s Huntress is getting a lot of attention this year. She’s got her own thing going with Power Girl in World’s Finest. She finally got a figure released in the DCUC style, DC Collectibles has shown off her forthcoming entry in the Cover Girls of the DC Universe line, and of course Koto immortalized her in PVC in their Bishoujo line. It’s that last one that we’re here to look at today. It’s been over a month since I last featured a statue here on FFZ, so let’s go…

If you know the Bishoujo statues, then the style of packaging here should come as no surprise. Huntress comes in a satisfyingly large white box with plenty of the original artwork by Shunya Yamashita. There’s a window on the front panel with smaller windows on the top and side panel to let some light in. Of course, the statue comes wrapped in plastic and nestled between two plastic trays, so you won’t get the full effect of this piece unless you open her up and unwrap her.

The back of the box has a little copy about Huntress herself and a photo of the actual statue from front and back. Oh, look, Harley is also available. That’s one that is still missing from my collection. I’ll have to fix that sooner or later. The statue comes already attached to her base, all you need to do is put her staff in her hands. You carefully pull it apart and feed it through her hands and re-attach. Now we’re ready to check her out.

Oh, myyyy. Huntress is one sexy statue and rather than beat around the bush, I’ll just go ahead and say I think she’s some of this line’s best work to date. The coloring, the sculpt, it’s all so amazing! I don’t know where to begin, so let’s just start with the pose. Huntress is doing her best imitation of The Captain Morgan Stance, with one foot propped up on her base. Her butt is thrust out to the back and she’s clutching the staff with both hands. Gulp! Her right hand crosses under her chest to help prop up her ample ta-ta’s and her head looks slightly down with a rather sly grin. And now, I’m going to take a moment to spritz a little cool water on my face. What can I say? Huntress does it for me.

While this is certainly not an action pose, Koto managed to convey a wonderful amount of kineticism in the cape and hair. Sure, a lot of Bishoujo statues have windblown hair, but here the garment and hair work together to create a great level of energy in this piece. Also the way she’s holding her staff makes her look like she’s either about to receive an attack, or perhaps she’s just bested some thugs and is pausing to admire her handiwork. Either way, the pose here is just an amazing blend of posturing an action.

I really dig the portrait here. Sure, it’s fairly typical bishoujo fare, but the hair is truly well done, particularly the way her bangs hang down over her mask. As always the paint apps on the face are perfect.

The detailing and coloring on her costume is also superb. The glossy black and metallic purple look fantastic against her pale matte skin tones and there’s just a little bit of white to make the figure pop. The costume includes sculpted pouches around her hips and thighs, belts and buckles on her boots, and knee armor. Even the treads on her boots are sculpted even though you can’t really see them other than from the side. I love when the sculptors put that kind of attention into those minor little details! If you want me to level one gripe against this piece, it’s that the absence of her trusty crossbow feels rather conspicuous, but the pose with the staff is so well balanced, there’s really no place for it, unless they sculpted it hanging on her hip.

Huntress’ base is a simple black disc with a nicely sculpted gargoyle. There’s not much more to say. The gargoyle offers a little bit of environmental context and I’m glad the base is not clear. It’s also designed to match well with Bishoujo Batgirl’s gargoyle base. My only complaint here is that Koto really seems to be making these stands a bit too large. Huntress really eats up a lot of shelf space for a 1:7 scale statue.

When Huntress was first released earlier this year, my local comic shop sold out of her before I could make the trip up. As a result, I had this statue in my Amazon Wish List for a couple of months before finally seeing that she dropped below $50 and pulling the trigger. In retrospect, the fact that I waited so long seems crazy, because she truly is so damn amazing. It was a little tough to muscle her in, as my statue shelves are getting a little congested, but I was happy to rearrange things a bit so she can stand beside Power Girl as companion pieces.

Oct 17 2013

Transformers Energon: Megatron by Hasbro

Last time on Transformers Thursday, I slagged Cybertron Soundwave something fierce. I don’t like picking on Transformers, so this week I thought I’d feature one that is among the favorites in my collection. Energon was a very hit-or-miss collection of figures and nothing shows that off better than the leaders of the Autobots and Decepticons themselves. Energon Prime was probably one of the most questionable toy versions of Prime to ever come out, while his rival, Megatron is 100% bad-ass wrapped in awesome. Now, I personally don’t hate Energon Prime as much as most people, but that’s a feature for another day. Today is Megsy’s turn.

Megatron’s alt mode is a glorious gunship that looks like it would be just as much at home cruising through space as it would be hovering over a Fleshling city and laying waste to it. This is arguably one of my favorite original alt mode designs to come out of Transformers in quite some time. Granted, I do believe that when he’s not a gun, Megs usually works best as a tank, but Hasbro decided to roll the dice on creativity here and I think they won big.

I get a bit of a Klingon Bird of Prey vibe off this ship, probably because of the crooked wings and the forward extended bridge, but it’s still a wonderfully original design. He’s got two massive engine pylons slung under the wings and guns all over the place. The base plastic is a mix of grey and pearlescent grey and I really dig the large sculpted and painted Decepticon insignia on the wings. The deco is rounded out with some black, blue and gold, and a lot of translucent teal plastic. The Gunship can rest proudly on three rather large sets of landing gear. I love the look of this toy so much, even if this thing wasn’t a transformer, I’d still want this beauty in my collection.

You also get an extra attack mode which is executed simply by lifting the top plates of the wings up. It’s an auto-transform that extends the wing guns out a little more and reveals additional front and aft guns on each wing.

Megatron also comes with a tank drone, which can attach to the back of the gunship mode. I like the idea, but the execution is only so-so. I think it would have been much cooler to have the tank attach to the bottom so he could deploy it like a drop ship, but I can’t deny that it ups the ante on Megatron’s wow factor when mounted on his back, not to mention adding a big ass cannon to his armaments.

The tank itself is designed to look like Armada Megatron’s alt mode and it’s a nicely sculpted piece. Neither the turret or the gun can move, but it does roll along on wheels, features a flip up targeting screen and can fire a missile from the cannon. And considering it’s about the size of a Deluxe Transformer, it’s a rather nice bonus.

Considering how great Megatron’s alt mode is, his transformation is extremely simple and when you’re done you get an equally impressive robot mode. This guy is like a love letter to the G1 days. He’s big and boxy and while he has a good amount of articulation on paper, in reality he’s at his best when he’s just standing there looking impressive. The two giant cannons that raise up from his shoulders can be angled forward to blast at his enemies, and you can do a lot of adjustments to the wings to make them to your liking. They can fold all the way back to give him a cleaner front profile, you can deploy the wing weapons if you want, heck you can even rotate the entire wing assembly 180 degrees if it suits your fancy. Some may argue that his lower legs are too bulky, but I think that’s just part of his retro charm for me.

The head sculpt on this guy is pure love, but if you’re thinking it looks like someone other than Megatron, you’d be right. From the portrait to the design of the chest and even the legs, this is clearly intended to be Galvatron and was subsequently repainted in purple and released as such. The coloring here is designed to match the G1 Galvatron toy, while the repaint matches the animated version of the character.

The biggest issue with Megatron’s articulation is that all of his joints are strong ratchets, so they will lock at certain intervals and don’t provide any subtlety in their movement. Nonetheless, his arms will still rotate at the shoulders and bend at the elbows. His legs have universal movement at the hips and his knees will also bend. There’s no torso articulation, but Megatron can turn his head.

Megatron’s tank drone can clip to his arm to form a sort of fusion cannon. It’s a nice idea, it definitely adds play value to the toy, but aesthetically, I don’t think it works too well at all. I should note that he also came with a sword that could attach to the drone, but it wasn’t in the drawer with my other Cybertron toys, so I’m not sure where it’s gotten to.

If you can spot any dust on this figure in the pictures, it’s because he is always on display. While the bulk of my Transformers collection have been cleaned and put away into my carefully sorted filing cabinets, you will always find this figure on one of my shelves, somewhere. Sometimes he’s in Gunship mode, sometimes he’s in robot mode, but he’ll never get put away because I do indeed love him that much. He’s also far too great looking a rival for Energon Prime, so I will usually pair him up with the powered up Cybertron version of Optimus Prime. One of my biggest regrets of my last Great Toy Purge was selling off the Galvatron repaint of this guy. While still awesome as Megatron, he was obviously designed with Galvatron in mind and he looks fantastic in the purple. I think at the time, I was keeping originals and selling off repaints, which would explain the lunacy of that decision. Either way, this toy is a must-have mold for any modern Transformers collector, or if space is a concern for you, he was also available in a smaller Deluxe Class 2-pack with a similarly scaled down Optimus Prime.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Index of Reviews is Live!

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 2

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 1

Transformers Energon: Tow-Line by Hasbro

Marvel Legends: Red She-Hulk by Hasbro

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Metalhead (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

Transformers Generations: Blaster by Hasbro

Marvel Legends: Protector by Hasbro

DC Comics: Huntress Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

Transformers Energon: Megatron by Hasbro

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