Apr 5 2013

Dragon’s Lair Figures! by Anjon Toys, Part 1

What started out as a simple cleaning run through my main Toy Closet a few weeks ago turned into a complete re-vamp. I threw up some pictures on my Facebook page, and I’ll try to get some up here soon as well. During the course of this endeavor, I’ve decided I really need to work at least one “Toy Closet Finds” feature into each week if I’m ever going to get through all the stuff I’ve unearthed in there. Plus, I’m almost caught up on my new receivings, so today we’re checking out some Dragon’s Lair figures. But first… get your blanky and your milky baba, because… it’s story time!

Dragon’s Lair hit the arcades in 1983, when I was 11 years old. Holy shit, I’m old! For you young’uns out there, arcades were dark and smoky places where you could go and pay money to play games. Why would you want to do that? Because these games were technologically advanced beyond anything you could play at home. They were also designed to kill you in about 60 seconds or less so as to better suck down all your quarters. Lethal to epileptics, arcades were also places to buy drugs and cigarettes, get the shit kicked out of you by roving gangs, and possibly get lured into panel vans by predators with promises of free tokens. Ah, memories!

I can remember the first time I walked into one and saw the Dragon’s Lair cabinet. There was a mob around it, all eagerly watching this guy play. At the tender age of 11, I knew nothing about how graphics worked or the fact that the game was just pre-recorded video, I just knew that the game looked like a f’cking cartoon and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t comprehend how this dude was making all that cool stuff happen on the screen with just a joystick and a button, but I wanted to learn. It was quite a while later until I actually had a go on one of the Dragon’s Lair machine, because it was always engaged by people bigger than me with stacks of tokens on the deck. But I was often content with biding my time and watching the “gameplay” in a state of awe. When I finally did get to play, I was a little disappointed at how simple it was, but I was still drawn to play it so I could see all there was to see.

Fast forward to now and Laser Disc games are seen as something of a joke. Turns out they were really just the video version of a choose-your-own-adventure novel and a dark period in gaming history that would lead to the dreaded FMV era of PC gaming. But that’s never soured me on the likes of Dragon’s Lair. It was the simple and endearing tale of bungling knight, Dirk the Daring, setting out to rescue his main squeeze, Princess Daphne from the clutches of the evil dragon, Singe. The gorgeous and expressive artwork by Don Bluth, the fabulous music, that iconic narrator’s voice, and the character of Dirk the Daring all live on in my memory as a pillar of 80’s nostalgia. In the end it might have been a shitty game, and yet it was so much more. I’ve owned many home versions, I still play the revamped 3D Xbox game from time to time, and I even have vague memories of watching the cartoon. When action figures were announced as a tie in to the Dragon’s Lair 3D game, I jumped at the chance to pick them up.

The initial (and only) assortment consisted of carded versions of Dirk, Daphne, and Mordroc the Wizard. There was also a Deluxe figure of Singe, which came in a window box. Singe is the only figure in the lot I never got around to buying. They didn’t have him on the shelf when I bought the others, and since his scale was way off, I was never too gung ho about hunting him down and now he sells for a lot of money. These figures were made by a company called Anjon, which seems to have already vanished into the dustbin of history. Let’s get Mordroc out of the way first, and then tomorrow we’ll come back around and check out Dirk and Daphne. I don’t have a packaged shot of Mordroc, so enjoy the above stock image that I cribbed off of Ebay.

While all of these figures are tied in to Dragon’s Lair 3D for the Xbox and PlayStation2, Mordroc was originally featured in Dragon’s Lair II, so if you aren’t a fan of the revamp at least these figures offer a little something from each of the two vintage Laser Disc games. I honestly don’t think I’ve played Dragon’s Lair 2 more than once, so this character doesn’t have a whole lot of gravitas for me. He is, nevertheless, a cool figure and a nice example of the Don Bluth character design in 3D form.

Mordroc always looked more like a witch to me, probably because of his warts, and his long protruding nose and chin and the long grey hair that hangs down each side of his head. There’s definitely something asexual about him, maybe a goatee would have helped assure me of his manhood. The sculpted skin texture is all very good and I like the pale green paint they used for his flesh. The face is very expressive with one eye squinting and he’s got a really creepy smile and piercing yellow eyes. His robes are all sculpted in soft plastic and separate from the figure’s body and his long hair is also cast in very rubbery plastic. This guy couldn’t have been an easy design to work with for an action figure, but I’ll hand it to Anjon because they did a mighty fine job of it, right down to his hump.

You get some basic articulation here. The neck and shoulders are all ball jointed, the wrists have swivel cuts, the legs feature a T-crotch, and his ankles have swivel cuts. It’s pretty obvious Mordroc was meant for one specific pose, holding his staff in both hands across his body as if he’s about to unleash some bad mojo on you, but you can get a little bit of variation out of him.

In addition to his staff, Mordroc originally came with a pair of “Ding Bats,” which were just little rubber bats. ~~I can’t find them for the life of me. If I ever turn them up, I’ll be sure to do an update, but you can see them well enough in the packaged shot.~~ Found them! They were at the very bottom of the drawer and I had to pull out about a thousand McFarlane figures to find them. They’re just little squishy guys that remind me of Trash Packs or Squinkies only much better sculpted and painted. They’ve got a lot of personality, but they’re not easy to display and I never really knew what to do with them.

Despite being the main baddie in the second game, Mordroc certainly doesn’t have the street cred of Singe. I still dig this figure a lot. The quality and paintwork are both good and it captures the style of Don Bluth’s animation perfectly. If nothing else he’s a nice companion piece for the two real stars of this collection. Tomorrow, I’ll check out Dirk and Daphne.

Dragon’s Lair cabinet images and artwork courtesy of International Arcade Museum.

Apr 4 2013

Transformers Prime: Wheeljack by Hasbro

A few weeks back I hit the mother lode of Transformers: Prime figures at Ross and I’m still making my way through them. I think Wheeljack here is the second to the last that I have yet to feature. I did pick up an extra Vehicon, which I couldn’t resist for $5.99, but I already looked at the Vehicon quite a while ago so there’s no need to revisit him. Tonight, I have ~~to go out with friends and get shitfaced~~ a social obligation, so let’s get right to the good stuff…

It’s quite possible that this will be the last time we look at the Transformers: Prime Deluxe packaging here on FigureFan Zero. I liked it a lot. While I never would have guessed that a white card could have conveyed the Transformers brand all that well, Hasbro knew what they were doing here because they’re very attractive cards. Every time I walked into the toy aisle and saw the pegs full of this packaging, my eyes would be drawn to them… and then I would wish they weren’t all goddamn Bumblebees. Wheeljack’s character art is ok, but nothing exceptional. The back of the card shows some shots of the toy and has Wheeljack’s little bio blurb. As with all the Deluxes that I picked up at Ross, this figure comes with an episode of the series on DVD and they have all been the same one: “Loose Cannons.” Still, the DVD can easily be re-purposed into something useful.

I will admit, that it’s an appropriate episode to include with this figure since it was the one which introduced Wheeljack to the show. I didn’t care much for his character in Prime. I would rather they wrote Wheeljack as some kind of eccentric science nerd hanging out with Ratchet than be a former Wrecker ass-kicker. Nevertheless, there’s enough of a G1 homage in the design to make me want the figure. Anyway, Wheeljack comes carded in his vehicle mode, and that is where we will start!

Hells yeah! That’s an awesome car mode. Wheeljack’s alt form is a dead sexy sports car with curves in all the right places. He locks together well and rolls along great. My only complaint here is it almost looks as if Wheeljack is missing his front bumper. The reason is so that you can attach his twin swords to the front of the car, which I’ll admit is a cool gimmick. You can also attach his swords to the peg holes on the back sides of the car. They don’t seem like they would be very effective weapons when pegged back there, but they do look cool there. I’m also happy to report that the plastic here feels so much better than some of the other TF: Prime Deluxes in my collection.

Wheeljack’s deco shows just how far these TF:Prime Deluxes have come since Bumblebee. The bare white plastic looks great as do the crisp red and green paint apps. He’s also got a clear blue tinted windshield. Even his tail lights are painted, which may sound like a simple thing, but it’s practically a high-end perk when it comes to these TF: Prime Deluxes. Everything about this car mode really evokes the G1 character to me.

Transforming Wheeljack is pretty straight forward, although there are a few clever things going on with his arms and legs. It actually took me a few moments to figure out how to do his lower legs and once I realized what was going on I had one of those great “gee whiz” moments when you discover how the engineering works for the first time.

In robot mode, the G1 Wheeljack homage continues along quite well. The head sculpt is the Wheeljack I know and love only with a little bit of a stylized twist. In the cartoon he has a regular mouth and a face plate for battle and I’m very glad that Hasbro sculpted the figure with the face plate deployed. The curvy car panels look great on his arms and legs and I’m digging the addition of the two panels that rise up from behind his head. Yeah, his proportions are a little off, he’s got a case of the monkey arms, and the windshield kibble hanging off his arms is a little awkward, but the figure still looks great. Wheeljack can hold his swords in both hands.

Wheeljack is some kind of bad-ass Wrecker, so you’d expect him to have decent articulation and his figure delivers. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. The arms have hinges just below the shoulder and again at the elbows. The wrists have both swivels and hinges. The knees have ratcheting hinges.

The deco in robot mode is more or less the same as his car mode. Again, the base white plastic looks great, as does the red and green paint apps. I was a little upset that he didn’t come with a faction symbol. I know that Hasbro has left them out of some other recent figures while they’re present on the package figure shots. In this case, however, he doesn’t have any on the package pics and I’m thinking there’s some reason in the series that he doesn’t have one? Either way, I dipped into my file of repro labels and gave him an Autobot insignia anyway.

Wheeljack is a great figure and everything about him shows how far the TF: Prime line has come since the beginning. There’s nothing about this toy that feels it was a victim of Hasbro’s cost-cutting cutbacks. The plastic looks and feels great, the paint apps are good, and the engineering is clever and delivers a satisfying transformation. He feels like the quality of figure we used to get a few years back before all this “holy shit, plastic is expensive” nonsense. If you’re a fan of the show or just love G1 Wheeljack, I think there’s something to love about this figure for everyone. The joke is for every five visits I make to Ross, I probably only find something worthwhile a couple of times. But, if Wheeljack hadn’t turned up there I probably never would have owned him and that makes me want to keep checking. At least there’s a Five Guys Hamburgers next door, so it’s never a wasted trip.

Apr 3 2013

Farscape Series 2: Rygel (“Dominar of Hyneria”) by Toy Vault

Since Marvel Universe has taken over Mondays for the time being, I thought I’d just stick my newest Farscape figure in here. It’s everyone’s favorite Hynerian curmudgeon, Rygel. Actually, for a lot of fans he’s probably that character you love to hate or maybe hate to love, but he’s definitely one of my favorite characters on the show. Besides the amazing animatronics that bring him to life, the writers really managed to layer some depth into him. Sure, he’s usually just a foul-mouthed, misogynistic opportunist who would slit his own grandmother’s throat for a space-dollar, but we also get to see his vulnerabilities and maybe even a glimmering of heroism from time to time. Given my druthers, he probably would have been the first Farscape figure I bought, but he tends to be tough to find and often rather pricey. To the packaging!

Ok, nothing new here. The card retains the same deco influenced by Moya’s architecture. Rygel is a tiny guy, but Toy Vault has managed to spread him out with his accessories so that the bubble is still filled out nicely. The back of the card shows character portraits of the three other figures in Series 2 and a rather poor group shot of the Series 1 figures. My Rygel’s card is in pretty rough shape and the insert in the bubble is all askew. Good thing I didn’t buy him to keep him carded… Let’s rip this yotz open…

Yup, that’s Rygel all right! The folks at Toy Vault did a mighty nice job sculpting the Dominar of Hyneria. He’s got the beady eyes, the expressive ears, and the perpetually downturned and disapproving mouth. Even all the little folds of skin under his chin are all lovingly recreated here. Rygel’s tiny body is covered with a glorious velvety soft goods robe and his communicator is attached to the collar. There isn’t a lot to the rest of the figure, just his little hands and feet, which give him his total of four points of articulation. The paintwork on the figure is excellent. The variations in his skin color match his on screen counterpart really well. I’m not all that keen on the little animation-style reflection dots on his eyes, but that’s more an issue of my personal preference than any complaint about the paint quality.

Rygel can stand perfectly fine on his own, but in the series he’s rarely seen without his little flying throne, so naturally Toy Vault provided their Rygel figure with a little scaled version. I’m a little torn on the throne. On the one hand, the sculpt really is wonderfully detailed. Almost every bit of it is pimped out with ornate scrollwork, and the detail on the cushion is extremely convincing. There’s even a ball jointed joystick for him to pilot it around. On the downside, it feels just a tad undersized. When you sit Rygel in it, you can barely see the chair at all. I’m thinking it may be more because of the poufy robes than the chair itself, but it’s such a gorgeous little piece, I wish you could see more of it with Rygel on it.

In addition to his throne, Rygel comes with a small assortment of other accessories from specific episodes. These are mostly tiny and useless. From “Durka Returns” you get the little tray of explosives and the bomb sphere he used to try to kill his former Peacekeeper captor, Durka. The crystal seems to be the one from “DNA Mad Scientist,” and unfortunately looks more like a dildo than anything else. As for the tiny useless dagger, well I’m pretty sure Rygel’s had that in a number of episodes. Nothing here is all that special and he can’t even really hold any of it, so the accessories don’t really add value to the figure. They’re mostly just tiny things that will likely get lost. If you’re hunting a Rygel, you’re much better off going for the variant. At least that one comes with a hookah pipe.

Unfortunately, like many of the Farscape figures, Rygel can be damned expensive on the secondary market. I lucked out and was able to pick up mine for $30. That’s still an awful lot of money for this figure, but considering he’s rarely seen on Ebay under $60-80, I guess I should just be satisfied to have him in my collection. And that will leave me with just John Crichton to hunt down. Truth be told, I’m not as eager to pick up the rest of this line as I once was. Partly because of the prices (Scorpius and Crais go for way too much money), and partly because I’m not really digging Season 3 all that much. Maybe as I press on through Season 4, my fondness for the show will be rekindled.

Apr 2 2013

The Dark Knight Rises: Movie Masters Bane and Catwoman by Mattel

The Dark Knight Rises came and went and you didn’t see any of the toys covered here. Some of you know I’m not a massive fan of the Batman fiction these days, but I’m even less a fan of the pretentious and depressing Nolan films as a whole. Not to overstate things, I happen to think The Dark Knight was excellent, but Batman Begins put me to sleep, and I thought The Dark Knight Rises was a drawn out snooze fest. Obviously, I’m in the minority opinion on this one, so try not to hate me for it. Nonetheless, I turned these figures up when I was at Ross the other day looking for more Transformers. There weren’t any more Transformers, probably because I already bought them all, so I decided I could find a place for this pair on my DC shelves.

The figures come on these generic cards with printed inserts with the specific character’s name. The packages are as grey and depressing as the films, so I suppose that’s a good marketing tie-in. The insert also advertises the fact that each figure comes with a piece of the Collect & Connect Bat Signal. I think that’s a pretty cool idea, although I’ll never buy all these figures so and I have too many spare parts rattling around my DC accessory drawer, so these went right into the trash. Let’s start with Bane.

Oddly enough, I’m more of a Bane fan than a Batman fan these days. Most of my Bane love comes from having read Gail Simone’s awesome Secret Six and her wonderful portrayal of the character. It’s probably that very reason why I took so much issue to the Nolan redesign. Before seeing the movie, I hated Bane’s new look. It was more like a Mortal Kombat reject than the Bane I knew. After seeing the movie, I still wasn’t crazy about it, but Hardy did such a great job with the character, I was willing to be more accepting. His performance, along with Michael Caine’s, are the only reasons I made it all the way through that film. Nowadays, the film has so saturated the media, that for good or for ill, I find myself more accepting of the design.

Mattel’s version of Bane is a fantastic representation of the character from the film. It’s often hard enough to get a likeness right, but when all you have to work with are the eyes, well that makes this figure all the more impressive because I can definitely see Hardy in the eyes. The face harness is what it is. The rest of the figure features excellent sculpted detail for his various straps and rigging and his pants and boots. The jacket is a soft plastic sleeveless piece and figure’s arms are sculpted like the sleeves to the jacket. We’ve seen this method plenty of times from both Mattel and Hasbro. The effect works fine, and while you can take the jacket off, he looks silly with the sleeve arms still there. Both of Bane’s hands are just balled into fists, which I guess is appropriate enough. Even the paintwork on this guy is a homerun.

Bane’s articulation is fairly similar to the DCUC system, with just a couple of cutbacks. He features ball joints in the neck and shoulders. The arms have hinges at the elbows and swivels at the wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC hip joints as well as swivels in the thighs and hinges in the knees and ankles. Bane can swivel at the waist and he has the usual ab-crunch hinge. The only things conspicuously missing are the swivels in the biceps.

Next up is Catwoman. Catwoman is actually one of the few DC books I’m still reading on a regular basis. Sure, the Nolanverse is different from the New 52, but at least I can better relate to the character on some level. Anne Hathaway was certainly nice to look at in the suit, although the portrayal of the character really didn’t break any ground or do a lot for me. Mattel delivered a solid enough figure here, although she isn’t as impressive as Bane. The likeness is ok, but not spectacular. I will say I’m rather impressed with the detail on the mask and “ears” even if they are stuck in the upright position. A swappable head would have been nice, but I’m guessing Mattel shot their load with the Bat Signal.

Obviously, Catwoman doesn’t require as much sculpting or paintwork as Bane. She’s just wearing a textured black suit and a belt. The figure barely manages to capture some of Hathaway’s impossible curves, while still being appropriate to hang on the pegs in the toy aisles. There are some nice little touches, particularly the way the spiked heels came out and the texturing on the suit. Unfortunately, there’s a nasty flub of flesh paint on my figure’s torso, just under her chin. I may be able to clean this up, but considering how few paint apps Catwoman has, it’s disappointing that Mattel couldn’t get it right.

Catwoman features the same articulation as Bane, only she managed to get the bicep swivels that Bane missed out on. I guess it makes sense. After all, Catwoman should be more poseable than Bane. On the other hand, her sculpted hair severely inhibits her neck articulation.

Apart from a little limited articulation on Bane and the paint app flub on Catwoman, I think these figures turned out pretty damn well. I love the fact that they fit in nicely with the DCUC line I was really surprised Ross didn’t have Batman, seeing as the pegs of my Target and Walmart were always clogged with Batman and no one else. I hunted around, but just found a couple more Banes. If they did have Batman, I would have definitely picked him up too, as I do like the Nolan Batman design and the only figure version I have of it is the 5” figure from the second film. Either way, I like this pair enough that I will probably hunt down a DKR Batman to go with him. He shouldn’t be hard to find.

Apr 1 2013

Marvel Universe: Steve Rogers by Hasbro

It’s Marvel Monday and as usual I’m recovering from a weekend of bacchian debauchery mixed with working a lot. I’ve accordingly selected an MU figure that will not require a lot of my time so that I can crawl back under the covers and try to wish reality away to the cornfield. Today we’re looking at Steve Rogers. He’s one of those figures that have been given both the Universe and Legends treatment, and while I’m not usually one to double-dip between scales, it tickled me to have a Steve Rogers that can hang out with my GI Joes and show them how to take care of business. Besides, the Legends version of Steve Rogers was one of my favorite action figures of 2012, so I was curious to see how the 3 ¾” version turned out.

It’s the MU packaging! Steve here is actually from one of the older waves, before Hasbro replaced a useful, value-added figure stand with a stupid little piece of cardboard printed to look like a comic cover. Great idea! The package has the SHIELD emblem on the front and the back shows three other figures in the wave. I purchased none of these! I didn’t feel the need to own Sub-Mariner in a speedo, I already have the Ultron from the Secret Wars pack, and Darkhawk… seriously, Hasbro? Darkhawk??? Actually, the joke’s on me because if I had actually seen him on the pegs, I would probably have picked him up. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of the character art used here, but the figure sure looks great under the bubble with his stand behind him and a pair of guns. Even from just seeing him in the package, I knew this was a figure I had to buy. Still, it seems like there’s something missing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it… oh well… it’ll come to me.

Straight away, this figure reminds me of a shrunken down version of the Legends figure, and that is very high praise. In fact, I have only two negative things to say about Rogers, so let me get them out of the way first. The quality of plastic doesn’t feel as good as the better single-carded figures. This feels like the gritty, softer stuff Hasbro liked to use in some of the older comic packs. It’s not bad enough to ruin the figure, by any means, but it does keep this figure from achieving a status of near perfection in my eyes. Fortunately, none of the joints on my figure are warped, which is usually the case with this softer plastic. The other negative point is that Rogers is missing a socket in his back. I can’t quite remember why that omission is important… oh well… I’m sure it’ll come to me.

So, first off Steve’s portrait is excellent. It doesn’t have all the personality that the Legends figure had, but I’m giving Hasbro a break for the smaller scale and because the head sculpt is just really clean and looks great. Even the hair is impressively done. The bulk of the figure uses a very nicely articulated, muscular buck with a mix of paintwork and added parts to customize the outfit. The shoulder harness and belt are new, separate pieces and fit the figure really well, as do the belted wraps on his lower legs. Even the hands on this guy are impressive, with uniquely sculpted fingerless gloves and wonderful paint.

In fact, all the paintwork on this figure is solid. Sure, there are a few stray marks here and there, but the white printed emblems on his shirt and shoulders looks bright and crisp, as do the stripes running down his trousers. Even the tiny silver buckles on his gear and gloves are lovingly dressed with a little metallic silver paint. I’m not always a fan of the paint wash Hasbro uses for the MU figures, but here I think it does more good then harm.

In addition to his personalized stand, Steve comes with a handgun and an assault rifle and… oh yeah, that’s what I was forgetting… WHERE IS HIS SHIELD??? Ok, so I agree that it isn’t a necessity for this appearance of the character, but since Hasbro included it with the Legends version, it seems conspicuous by its absence here. In fairness this guy has already won the Marvel Universe accessory jackpot since two weapons and a stand is better than the usual NOTHING AT ALL! Not a huge deal, as I have plenty of 3 ¾” scale shields lying around, but then the absence of a hole in his back to peg it is kind of annoying too. As for the guns, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this rifle a half dozen times already and the pistol… my cat batted it off a desk and into his litter box. I’m not going in after it. My cat is an asshole.

All quibbles aside, Steve Rogers is a fantastic figure. He’s got a solid sculpt, great paintwork, and lots of cool little attention to detail. Best of all, this is the version of Cap that I’ve always envisioned as being perfect for my most coveted of all fanboy-fueled Marvel-GI Joe crossovers. Watch out, Cobra!

Mar 30 2013

Causality: CA-10 T-Bone by Fansproject

Considering a portion of this week has already been taken up by another third-party Transformer, I was going to wait until next week to look at the next figure in Fansproject’s line of “Not-Stunticons.” But I was pretty excited to get this guy open and start checking him out, and my willpower sucks, and so here we are. T-Bone is FP’s homage to the Stunticon, Wildrider and he’s also something of a cousin to Car Crash as the two figures share the same core design, only with enough heavy remolding to make them stand as individuals. If you’ve already checked out my look at Car Crash a lot of this will be familiar to you.

I absolutely love Fansproject’s packaging. Once again, the grid-pattern is very reminiscent of the old G1 deco and the compact little window box delivers great presentation without needing to take up a lot of space on the shelf. Car Crash’s box was purple, whereas T-Bones is red, otherwise the two boxes share the same exact layout. The panels feature both character art and actual photos of the figure. The side panels are particularly cool with illustrations that make certain these boxes are going to look great lined up on a bookshelf. Well done!

T-Bone comes in robot mode, wrapped in plastic, and nestled between two plastic trays and with his gun off to the side. Everything is totally collector friendly. Behind the silver backer card, there’s a baggie with his color profile card and color instruction sheet. As usual, I’m going to start with the alt mode! Last time, I used Classics Sideswipe as a size comparison, this time I’m using the Prime Robots in Disguise Vehicon to show that these guys scale pretty nicely with Hasbro’s current crop of Deluxes.

The original G1 Wildrider was a Ferrari, while FP’s T-Bone is a Ferrari-ish concept car. The similarities to his G1 car mode aren’t as well-stated as Car Crash and Breakdown, but that’s ok because T-Bone’s alt mode is fantastic. Folks, this is what a Decepticon car should look like! He looks angry and dangerous! The angular plates manage to convey battle armor, and yet he still looks like a viable car design. Yes, T-Bone’s car parts are remolded from Car Crash, but it’s such a great and clever piece of work that, apart from maybe the rear engine area, succeeds in making the two cars look unique. The quality of the plastic is excellent, and everything locks together very well. The only issue I have here is that his weapon doesn’t store as exhaust pipes quite as well as Car Crash’s. One half pegs in fine, the other just doesn’t want to fit properly.

And the colors! I’ve always loved Wildrider’s deco. The dark grey body with red windows looked great on the original toy and it looks amazing here as well. The lighter metallic silver on the hood adds a little variety. Like the actual mold, the colors just convey evil. Nothing against Car Crash, but T-Bone’s car deco is just a lot cooler to me, particularly for a Decepticon.

Much like Car Crash, transforming T-Bone can be a real bitch. He transforms almost exactly the same as his cousin, with just a few minor differences. The leg panels can now hinge way up to give you a little more room to work, but there’s a treacherous peg on one of the plates that causes you to pull up on a another plate to get it to clear. I’ve been able to do it plenty of times without inducing any stress marks, but it’s still a little too tight for comfort. Also, T-Bone really demands that you get everything just right if he’s going to lock together in his car mode. But make no mistake, if you do everything correctly, he locks together just fine, possibly even a little better than Car Crash.

In robot mode, T-Bone is a thing of beauty. The angular and jagged car parts give him a more vicious look than Car Crash. The head sculpt is excellent, although I really wish FP had added his horizontal horns to the sides of his head to improve the homage to the G1 character. That right there is my only real complaint about the figure. Yes, there are some similarities between him and Car Crash. The pelvis and upper legs are the same pieces, and they each have their wheels on their shoulders, but even the tires are uniquely sculpted on each figure. On the other hand, the torso and head are completely new sculpts and those combined with the resculpted car parts really make T-Bone a unique figure.

T-Bone carries over most of his alt mode’s deco into his robot form. He’s mostly grey and dark grey with some red on his arms. The color scheme is everything I could want in a Decepticon and he makes for a really nice contrast when standing next to Car Crash.

T-Bone shares all of Car Crash’s excellent articulation, making him lots of fun to play with. He’s got ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips and ankles. He has swivels in the biceps, waist, and thighs. His elbows and knees are hinged. He’s just got a great action figure feel to him that begs me to fiddle about and pose him.

Once again, $68 is a lot to pay for a little guy like this, but I still feel he’s well worth it. The quality of the plastic is great and while he can be a bit scary to transform sometimes, he’s still a pretty well engineered toy. I definitely dig him more than Car Crash, and that’s saying a lot because I thought Car Crash was excellent. For T-Bone it just comes down to me preferring his sculpt and deco. I’m anxious to get the third figure in this series, but alas, it looks like there’s going to be a wait. While official photos of final versions of the next two cars have been shown, there are no official release dates or pre-orders available. What’s more, photos of FP’s “Not-Motormaster” are scant at best. We’ve seen him unpainted in combined mode and a rough sculpt of the vehicle, but nothing solid as to his robot mode. But that’s ok, Fansproject. I’m ok waiting. It gives me a chance to ~~buy a bunch of other stuff on my want list~~ recoup my monies.

Mar 30 2013

Walmart is Trolling GI Joe Retaliation…

Yeah they are! They set the pegs for the new Retaliation figures and then filled them with Rise of Cobra figures. I made sure to get the Iron Man 3 and Dark Knight Rises figures in the shot to prove this isn’t an old photo. These things should have been clearanced out a year ago, but they obviously held on to them for just this occasion. And they’re $10 each.

Maybe it’s a little hostility over getting tricked into buying all that Retaliation product last year only to have the movie get pushed back. Maybe they just wanted to take the opportunity to chip away at that pallet of ROC figures they still have in the backroom. Or, yes, maybe they’re just trolling Joe fans with this shit. I’ll go with the last one. I think this is a big middle finger to Hasbro.

Mar 29 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rippin Rider (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

Once again, it’s Turtle Time! And if there’s one thing the 90’s taught me, it’s that ninjas love to ride motorcycles, and that goes double for ninjas who happen to be turtles. I already checked out the Sewer Cruiser, and the Rippin Rider is another vehicle in the same size assortment, but instead of being a crazy cobbled together creation, this one is more of a legit motorcycle for when the Turtles want to cruise the streets and hunt down Foot Clan without getting tied up in traffic. Originally, I was going to take a pass on this thing, but I found it for really cheap through a third-party seller on Amazon and even the shipping was next to nothing, so I figured, what the hell, my Turtles need a bitching ride.

Of course, the problem with super cheap third-party listings and super cheap shipping is that you often get what you pay for. In this case, the seller literally just wrapped the toy in a plastic bag, put a shipping label on it, and kicked it into a post box. The box got pretty pulverized in transit, and while I would have preferred to have it for storage, it’s not a big deal. In this case, I think the low price was a worthy trade off for bad service. Anyway, the box is plenty colorful, with an exciting illustration on the front and a photo of the toy on the back calling out its features. To be honest, there’s not a whole lot to this toy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

Unlike the Sewer Cruiser, the Rippin Rider comes mostly assembled straight out of the box. Indeed, the bulk of the bike is just a big hollow piece, although it’s still plenty sturdy and it’s lack of heft doesn’t really make it feel cheap or flimsy to me. Quite the contrary, kids could probably beat the hell out of this thing and it would still be fine. In addition to the motorcycle, you get an instruction sheet and a very small bag of parts along with a very small sticker sheet. The parts include a pair of yellow headlamps, a pair of foot pedals, a missile launcher and two missiles. The sticker sheet has only one sticker on it, and it goes right in front of the shell between the front of the handlebars. The rest of the parts just peg right onto the bike.

The sculpt is quite detailed and includes everything from the engine right down to the brackets holding on the quad exhaust system. The gas tank is designed to look like a turtle shell, but other than that the Rippin Rider is a pretty subdued and practical motorcycle design. It’s almost too subdued for the TMNT line. Even the colors aren’t too outlandish. The bulk of the bike is dark grey and black, with some bright green thrown in to make it pop. Still, it looks mighty nice standing there amongst my collection.

In terms of play value, the Rippin Rider is primarily designed to hold a figure (or two!) and roll along and it does that very well. You do have the missile launcher, but it doesn’t actually fire. You have to flick the missiles out with your finger. There is a folding kickstand, which is great for holding the bike up on your display shelf. Even with a figure, the stand holds the bike perfectly upright. On the downside, the handlebars don’t even turn, which is probably the only thing about this toy that disappointed me.

I got my Rippin Rider for $10 shipped and it feels like a pretty ok deal. Unfortunately, I think this thing is turning up at retail for around $15 and that would give me pause. I don’t think it’s a bad toy. On the contrary, it’s big and sturdy and I’m definitely going to use it to display one of my Turtles. It isn’t as fun or inventive as the Sewer Cruiser, but then I guess it isn’t meant to be. I’m not someone who requires a lot of play gimmicks with my toys, so the Rippin Rider’s simple nature doesn’t bother me at all. If you feel the same way, this vehicle probably won’t disappoint.

Mar 28 2013

Transformers Prime: Rumble by Hasbro

Yes, there’s still plenty of Transformers goodness to be had at Ross Stores around here. The ridiculous glut of Bumblebees and Cliffjumpers that choked the pegs may have thwarted me from picking this guy up in the regular toy aisles, but so far all the TF: Prime Deluxes that I missed out on have been making their appearances in the Ross Toy Graveyard. Finding Rumble made me particularly happy because I am such a big fan of Decepticon cars. Why? I don’t know, but I just can’t resist them.

Wow, packaged Rumble looks awesome. The combination of the character art, the card deco and the nice bright blue car sitting under the bubble, it all makes my TransFan mouth start watering. Plus, Ross was nice enough to put their obnoxious price sticker on the bottom of the bubble. It’s almost like the 90-year old lady with the pricing gun said, “Oh my, there’s no way I’m going to mess up such a beautiful Transformers card. I better stamp this one on the bottom!” Yeah, I’m sure that’s what happened! You’ll note from the packaging that this figure also includes an episode on a DVD. Alas, it’s still “Loose Cannons,” the same episode that came with my Sergeant Kup. I’m guessing they’re all the same? Anyway, let’s get Rumble out and check out his vehicle mode.

Rumble’s alt mode is a very cool little blue “tuner” car. I had no idea what a “tuner” car was on account of the fact that I’m very old and not very hip. I thought it meant a car with a stereo tuned so loud so that it pisses me off when it goes by. A little research proved that I was only half wrong. Anyway, I really dig Rumble’s alt mode, particularly the tinted red windows and the Decepticon emblem on the front grill and the trunk. He’s roughly the same size as Bumblebee or Kup in their vehicle modes, so he’s still kind of small for a Deluxe, but he fits right in with the other Prime figures.

There aren’t a lot of paint apps, but with a nice glossy blue plastic, the car really doesn’t need them. Sure, I would have liked painted tail lights and license plates, but I think the car mode is still attractive without them. There are pegs on the sides of the car to plug in Rumble’s weapons. They’re called pile drivers, but they look more like guns to me and I really like the way they look on the car as guns. I’m not sure when it happened, but I’ve become a really big fan of Transformers who’s weapons can be clipped on to their alt mode. When it’s done right, it’s just lots of fun.

Rumble’s transformation is pretty clever. He splits right down the middle, his hood folds into his legs and the rest of the car parts to the sides to form his arms and shoulders. Rumble’s head automatically springs up into place when you pull his chest forward. It seems like it should be rather involved, but he actually transforms very quickly when you know what you’re doing.

Given the name and the fact that he’s a blue car, I expected a solid G1 homage out of Rumble’s robot mode. Well, it’s not there, but unless you demand homages that’s not a bad thing at all. Actually there is an homage at work here, but it’s to Bludgeon not Rumble. Yes, the skull configuration of Rumble’s chest reminds me more of a Bludgeon homage than anything else. Yeah, it’s weird, but Rumble is definitely his own robot and he looks really good. I wasn’t sure how the car kibble on the shoulders would look once I had the figure in hand, but when they’re angled the right way they look just fine. Rumble’s head sculpt is particularly appropriate for a Decepticon and very nice.

The color scheme here is still mostly blue and black with a little yellow thrown in to make the figure really pop. It goes to show you, that you don’t need to go nuts with the paint apps to make a figure look good. Of course, the crazy amount of red translucent plastic helps too, and Rumble employs some very nice light piping effects.

Rumble can hold his weapons in each hand. Again, these are supposed to be pile drivers, but I think they work better as guns. There’s not enough homage here to bother with the pile-drivers reference anyway.

I’ll hand it to Hasbro, the Deluxes in this line have come a long way since that first Bumblebee figure and Rumble is a fine example of that. He isn’t quite on the same level as Kup, but he’s still a really dynamic design in robot mode and is packed with character. Sure, I’m usually willing to be rather biased in favor of Decepticons that turn into cars, but in this case Rumble doesn’t need the charity. He’s a fun and well-engineered little figure and a great addition to my Prime collection.

Mar 27 2013

Uranos: SR-71 Blackbird and X-47 Phantom Ray by TFC, Part 2

As promised, I’m back to finish up my look at the TFC’s latest release in their Project Uranos, “Not-Aerialbots” line of figures. We already checked out their alt modes, so let’s jump right into transformation and their bot modes.

You might think that since Blackbird is basically just an aircraft with a robot under him that his transformation would be pretty easy. Well, you’d be more or less right. The most difficult thing is digging the tabs out from either side of his head and figuring out the right way to fold up his legs, and that’s going from robot to jet. Going from jet to robot is easy-peasy and totally intuitive. It’s just a matter of folding up the plates on his backpack and positioning his arms and legs. Although it does bring us to the one thing that I really do not like about this figure… ARR MATEYS, THERE BE PARTSFORMING AHEAD!

I really don’t know why I went all pirate there… but yes, there is indeed some partsforming here. The very first step of transforming Blackbird involves pulling the entire front nose and cockpit section out and changing it into his gun. I knew about this going in, so it wasn’t a surprise or anything that gave me buyer’s remorse, but I consider this sort of thing a cheat, because it really is a fairly good sized piece of the jet. The resulting gun mode isn’t all that great either, because… well, it looks a lot like the cockpit section of a jet. It’s also way too big for Blackbird. If you don’t extend the barrel all the way, I guess it works ok, but turning a third of the aircraft into a gun is definitely not a selling point for me. The gun is also used for Uranos’ gestalt mode, but we’re not getting into any of that until I have a complete set.

As for Blackbird’s robot mode, I really dig it, although it definitely has some opportunities. Yes, he’s a robot wearing half of a jet as a backpack, but so were most of the original Aerialbot designs. It never bothered me then, and it doesn’t now. Besides, a lot of Blackbird’s backpack can fold up or be tweaked so that it really doesn’t get in the way. This is by no means the worst kibble I’ve seen. I do wish it pegged together better, and that’s one of those big opportunities I was talking about. The two engines don’t peg into anything and that leaves them to just flop around. It seems like a frighteningly obvious design flaw that could have been easily fixed with a couple of tabs and sockets. It’s not a critical flaw, but certainly one that should have been addressed on a $130 toy.

Another issue, I have are the stubby little wings that protrude off his chest and in front of his shoulders. I like them, as they are one of the more identifiable characteristics of Silverbolt’s design. Unfortunately they get in the way of his shoulder articulation. Yes, they’re hinged, they rotate, and that allows for full arm articulation, but having to fiddle with those when posing him is annoying. The last issue I have is his lack of heel spurs. A robot with a huge backpack needs heel spurs. It’s another one of those little design oversights, which could have been easily fixed by adding a couple of hinged plates.

With all that having been said, I still find a lot to love in this guy. The sculpt is wonderfully detailed and packed with panel lines. The configuration of the chest really evokes the G1 character design, and while I don’t think the head sculpt is a slam dunk, I am still pretty happy with it. Even the backpack looks like a serviceable design as a jetpack. The quality of the plastic is very satisfying and makes for a sturdy figure with tight joints.

The deco carries over from the jet mode with a lot of white, but the addition of the red and yellow help tie the homage together. I really dig the red plastic that TFC uses, it’s a great vibrant shade and the yellow is pretty good too. Unfortunately, the paint on this figure isn’t quite on par with the past two releases. There’s some sloppy silver brushwork on his left shoulder and some brush strokes on the yellow bar on his chest. It’s nothing terrible, but hey… $130 toy… it’s worth mentioning.

Moving on to Phantom Ray… Um… Yeah. I want to say people are either going to love this guy or hate him, but then I’m kind of ambivalent. I can’t hate on him, but he’s just nothing special. Imagine what kind of Minicon you might get with a $130 Transformer and this would be it. That’s really it, he feels like a Minicon on steroids to me. Is that a bad thing? I love Minicons, and yet strangely I don’t love Phantom Ray. But I don’t hate him, and I guess that’s a start.

I was on board for TFC using a separate robot drone for Uranos’ chest plate. I still think it’s a cool idea. Remember, I like when these guys bring some originality to the table. But I think if they were going to sell this idea, they needed to really deliver a great robot design for the drone, and Phantom Ray isn’t it.

Blackbird was $140 with shipping. The higher retail comes through in the impressive size of the figure and the fact that he comes with a little bot-buddy. What’s not reflected in the higher retail are the nagging little QC flubs. It’s ironic that the most expensive of the Project Uranos figures that I have so far is the one to have some paint issues, albeit minor ones, and required me to do a little plastic shaving to make him work right. I’m hoping that I just got a little unlucky with him, because the alternative is that TFC is allowing their QC to slip as the team progresses. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and I’m still overall pretty happy with the way this guy turned out.

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