Dec 25 2012

Merry Christmas!

Yes, a hearty Merry Christmas to all!

I’m off celebrating with my family, then it’s home to enjoy some excellent brandy and watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and then early to bed, because I’ve got to be into work at a very uncivilized hour tomorrow.

Needless to say, I’m not doing a new feature today. Nonetheless, to keep the Marvel Legends Wave 3 week moving along, I’ll invite you to check out my features on the first two figures in the wave: Iron Man and Mystique, assuming of course you haven’t done so already.

I hope everyone has a great holiday, and be sure to take the time to enjoy the company of friends, family, or hopefully both.

I’ll be back tomorrow to take a look at U.S. Agent!

Dec 24 2012

Marvel Legends Week!

Lest you thought I forgot about Marvel Legends Wave 3 I present you a week’s worth of Marvel Legends Wave 3 goodness! While only two figures from Wave 3 have appeared on the pegs in my area, I was able to snag the remaining figures when Amazon had them on special for around $13 each. Toss in my free Prime shipping and it was quite an amazing deal. Now, keep in mind, when I say “remaining figures” in truth I now only have a set of one of each of the wave, and none of the variants, so I’ve still got some hunting to do. I’m hoping they turn up in abundance later on like the Wave 2 variants did. I should also point out here that Hasbro opted out of including a Build-A-Figure in the Wave 3 assortment, although word is the BAF will eventually be coming back to the line in some form.

Of course, it’s also Christmas Eve, and that’s another reason why I chose to do this week now. I’ve already looked at two figures from Wave 3, so I can do re-runs of those figures tomorrow on Christmas Day. Ain’t I a sneaky bastard? I’ll be officially back from holidays on Wednesday when we check out U.S. Agent!

Dec 22 2012

Star Wars: Republic Striker Class Starfighter (#9497) by Lego

Oh, Christ, it’s another Star Wars Lego set. But wait… let me explain. This one here is from the Old Republic. I fell in love with the ship designs from the Old Republic back when I was playing KOTOR and KOTOR II like crack. I would have gladly sliced off both my ears and mailed them to Hasbro if they would in return have made toys out of the Old Republic ships. I don’t want to tell you what I would cut off in exchange for an Ebon Hawk. Instead, all we got was a grab bag of hard to find figures. I had no idea Lego even made Old Republic sets until I was in the aisle looking for another Star Wars set to buy just passing quickly through the aisle, not looking for any new Star Wars sets to buy, and happened to spot this one. It was also ten dollars off and in truth… I’M WEAK… OH, GOD, I’M SUCH A SAD, WEAK, AND PATHETIC MAN!! Thankfully, Lego is my only real vice… well, Lego and any other kinds of toys… and alcohol, but that goes without saying because I’m kind of a functional alcoholic… and cigars, I really enjoy a good cigar… oh, and pizza and cheeseburgers… and cake, pretty much any kind of cake… let’s get on with the feature…


Damn, this box is awesome. It’s got a cool, darker motif than the other Star Wars sets and it brandishes the “Old Republic” logo right on the front. Alas, it still has Darth Maul’s friggin mug on the box as his agent is clearly working overtime to make him relevant. The box shows off photos of this seriously awesome looking ship along with some minifigs of characters I’ve never seen or heard of before. Inside, you get a meaty instruction book and three numbered baggies containing a total of 376 pieces, which build the three all new minifigs and the starfighter itself. Time to brew up a pot of coffee and get building!


The minifigs are Satele Shan, a Republic Trooper, and an Astromech Droid called T7-01. I had to consult the Wookipedia to see who the hell Satele Shan was, and it turns out she’s a descendent of Bastila Shan furthering the idea that everyone of any notoriety in the Star Wars universe is related to each other and possibly Kevin Bacon. I’m not a big fan of the way her ponytails are printed on her torso, but you have to look pretty closely to even see them. Nonetheless, she’s a pretty cool little figure and includes two printed faces and a double bladed lightsaber.


I really dig the Republic Trooper as well. His body features a colorful and highly detailed printed outfit, and he’s got a scruffy face and he’s all scarred up. The Republic Trooper also comes with one of the most complex and badass guns I’ve ever seen in a Lego set.


And lastly, there’s T7, who is no slouch either. I really love the primitive Astromech Droid designs from the Old Republic period and this minifig is a great recreation of it in Lego form. He’s also a far more complex build than I suspected. For a group of characters that mean nothing to me, this lot of minifigs is still a win.


The Striker is a wonderful and original Starfighter design. The dual position wings make it feel like the melding of an A-Wing with a Z-95 Headhunter. With the wings closed, the ship has a vaguely triangular configuration with two engines protruding off the back and the single-pilot cockpit right in the center of the ship. This mode is so well designed that it’s almost impossible to tell there’s a second configuration. It just looks like a forerunner to the A-Wing and it would have been a perfectly serviceable model even if this were the only mode it had.

The ship makes use of some printed detail on the hull, rather than stickers. There are also a bunch of bricks used to reinforce the plates of the wings, giving the model a lot of depth and complexity to the design. I consider these Lego’s answer to sculpted panel lines, and they go a long way to make the ship look more detailed and convincing, while actually serving to strengthen the model for playability. Yes, this is one solid build, which holds up really well under handling. There are two small articulated stabilizer pieces on the nose of the ship and a pair of clips concealed between the engines to store Satele’s lightsaber pieces. In this mode, the Striker’s armaments consist of two forward laser cannon positioned under the wings.


To put the Striker into its attack mode, you unclip the wings on either side of the Starfighter’s main body, just in front of the cockpit. The wings swing back on hinges and lock firmly into place near the engines. Then all you have to do is swing the laser cannon forward and now you have a completely different looking ship with similarities to the Z-95 design. This mode also gives the Striker a little more firepower by revealing a bank of two proton torpedoes under each wing. Holy crap, I can’t say enough about how much I love this ship!

While I would still prefer Hasbro to do some of these ships for the 3 ¾” figures, I’ll happily take the Lego versions instead. The Striker offers a fun and satisfying build and the end result is a really well-engineered model and definitely one of the coolest designed Star Wars ships I’ve seen since the V-Wing. The only odd thing about the set is that since the ship is a one-seater and it isn’t slotted for an Astromech droid, the extra minifigs feel out of place. Still, that’s the way the ship was designed and it isn’t Lego’s fault. Besides, I’m not about to complain about having extra minifigs in a set. As far as value goes, I’ve seen this set sell for as much as $55, which is really pushing it. My local Target offers it for the more reasonable $45, and I was able to pick it up on a Price Cut at $35. Not bad at all!

I’m taking tomorrow off so I can get some last minute stuff done after work and before Christmas, but I’ll be back on Monday to kick off the last week of 2012… Marvel style

Dec 21 2012

DC Universe Classics: Wonder Twins (2009 SDCC Exclusive) 2-Pack by Mattel

Ok, I’m cheating a little, as today’s feature was not part of Matty Collector’s Cyber Monday Sale. It was, however, a Matty “warehouse find” that I picked up by way of the fine folks at Big Bad Toy Store a couple of weeks back. And since I had this one last day hanging out there, I decided to include this set to round out the week. I tried like hell to pick this set up when it was first offered back in ’09, but I got shut out, and I wasn’t even after the super exclusive Gleek accessory. The Twins are cool, but I hate that goddamn jabbering space monkey.

The packaging! Oh, the packaging!! For a guy that takes numerous trips to the dumpster each week with shredded action figure packages, you’d think I wouldn’t care, but I do. I especially care when a company goes to extremes like this one. I’ll confess the presentation of this set is a huge reason why I just wouldn’t let it go and kept hoping to pick it up one day. Now that I have it in hand, I have to say that the presentation doesn’t disappoint.


The Twins come in a standard white Matty mailer box. Inside, there’s a beautiful package with a semi-transparent wrap-around sleeve (Note: The sleeve comes with an opaque film to protect it, which I’ve opted not to peel off at this time!). The sleeve has the DC Universe logos and each of the Twins’ emblems superimposed over the figures.  When you take off the sleeve, you have access to both figures in their trays. But before you take them out, you get to try out the package’s electronic gimmick. Nay, gimmick is too cheap a word for the glorious electronic engineering of this package. Fold the package together so that the Twins connect their knuckles and then sit back and watch the show. LEDs light up around each of the figures and you hear that familiar Hanna-Barbera sound effect followed by:

“Wonder Twin powers activate!”

Zan: “Form of water!”

Jayna: “Shape of an Eagle!”

Zan: “Let’s go save those kids!”

Jayna: “I’m with you Wonder Brother!”

Glorious! With the box opened in this fashion, the back of it displays a great montage of the Twins. Unfortunately, it was photo-bombed by Gleek. Get out of my beautiful piece of Wonder Twins art, you fucking monkey!!!

With a little careful clipping of those pesky invisible rubber bands, each figure can be removed from their tray and then returned to the package, which is a great thing, because I plan on keeping them in the box and in the mailer. Maybe someday when I get more space for my vast DCUC collection, I’ll actually display the Twins with the rest of my figures, but for now, they’ll be staying nestled in their glorious package. But enough about the box, I suppose we should check out the figures themselves.

Let’s start with the head sculpts. Both Zan and Jayna have obviously sipped from the same Kool-Aid as DCUC’s Mary Batson and Stargirl, because they have the same creepy, vacant, cheesy, wax museum smiles. Personally, I think it works fine for these characters. Maybe Mattel could have toned it down a bit, but I prefer having cheesy smiles on the Twins over some kind of serious or neutral expressions, it just suits the characters better. Besides the smiles, I think the likenesses on both figures make them look a lot older than they should. What I’m seeing may be a result of going from very simple 70’s Hanna-Barbera art to 3D “realistic” figures, but a lot of their youth was lost in the transition and you can see it based on the character art from the packaging.


I think Zan’s likeness holds the best out of the two, although It’s worth noting that my Zan figure has an annoying nick in the plastic to his right cheek, which makes me wonder if these “warehouse finds” were actually customer service returns. As for Jayna, well there’s no nice way of saying it, Mattel really screwed the pooch on her likeness. Her face is flat and nowhere near the shape of the character art and her hair style looks like she styled it to mimic a Smurf hat. I don’t mind admitting that I grew up having quite the crush on Jayna. It’s still easy to see why when looking at the original art, but the face on her figure just ain’t cutting it. It’s hard to believe this is a Four Horsemen effort, but I guess everyone has their bad days.

Both Zan and Jayna are pretty standard DCUC figures built on the regular male and female bucks. As a result, both figures are too big, but Zan is way too big. Granted, scale has always been an issue with DCUC, so it’s not a problem unique to this set, but one that’s still worth noting. Their boots, gauntlets, belts, and collars are sculpted but the rest of their costumes are all paintwork. The bodies are cast in purple plastic, which looks fine on Jayna, but curiously cheap and rough on Zan. The tampos on their chests are nice and crisp, and the rest of the paintwork is up to par for the line.

Both figures feature the same points of articulation, all standard to the DCUC line. You get ball joints in the necks and shoulders; the arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs have the usual universal joints at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. They each also have the ubiquitous DCUC ab crunch hinge.


Each figure comes with an example of them in one of their alternate forms. Jayna comes with a really cool eagle, complete with articulated wings. Zan comes with a bucket of water with his face sculpted into the water. It was a cool selection because eagle Jayna can actually grip the handle on bucket of water Zan.

If it seems like I spent as much, if not more, time on the packaging as the figures, that’s certainly intentional. This set is a lot about the presentation and when you get down to it, the figures themselves are just flawed DCUC treatments of a pair of characters that most collectors are either going to love or hate (Hey, at least they didn’t do a Wendy and Marvin set, but then if they did I’d probably buy that too). I can’t say the set is disappointing, because I knew a lot about the issues going into it, but I can say I’m disappointed that Mattel didn’t put more effort into the likenesses, and maybe selected a more appropriate body for Zan.

As far as value goes, I got the set for $55 shipped and I’m perfectly fine with that, particularly since I had no interest in ponying up the money for a bagged Gleek that doesn’t even fit in the packaging. Considering that some of the DCUC two-packs that aren’t exclusives go for more than that these days, the price of this set was certainly reasonable and I’m happy to finally have it in my collection.

Dec 20 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Vikor by Mattel

Ok, we’re up to the last of the MOTUC figures that I picked up from Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale. It’s Vikor, and I have absolutely no interest in this figure as an MOTUC character. But that’s fair enough, since he’s a figure that’s based on concept art with a subsequent bio retconned into the universe. Yes, like a lot of collectors, I bought him strictly because I dig Conan, and Vikor is now an unofficial Conan stand-in on my action figure shelves.

There’s the awesome MOTUC packaging. When will we see it again around these parts? Who can tell. Possibly not for a long time. The insert on mine has the explosion that says “The Original” which, in “Matty Speak,” means the exact opposite. This figure is not the original, it’s the re-issue. Anyway, I’m not even bothering with the bio on the back of the card, because Vikor here is just my generic Conan-like barbarian figure, and I’m not concerned with his tie-in to the Masters universe. There’s was something else I wanted to say here… now what was it? Oh yeah… VIKOR IS AN ABSOLUTE BITCH TO GET OFF THE TRAY!!! I don’t know what kind of tortured method the factories used to get this guy onto his tray, but his cape was passed through a narrow little slot and his sword also passes in front of and behind the plastic. Ultimately I had to get a pair of scissors and start hacking away until I could get the figure free. The fact that he’s wearing chains is somehow appropriate.


Out of the package, and it’s easy to see why Vikor is a perfect Conan stand in. Not the “Ahh’nold” Conan, or even the “Guy-From-Game-Of-Thrones-Who’s-Name-I-Can’t-Be-Bothered-To-Look-Up” Conan. Nope, he’s more like the awesome Frank Frazetta Conan. He’s a remarkably simple figure using the basic MOTUC male buck with just the right amount of original bits here and there to make him work so well as a barbarian warlord. He’s so chock full of barbarian goodness that he makes He-Man look like a girly-haired pussy by comparison.

First off, check out that head sculpt. The face is chiseled and harsh with a broad nose, prominent brow and narrow eyes that seem intent on figuring out the most spectacular way to eviscerate you. There’s a wonderful fierce nobility that comes across just like it does in Frazetta’s artwork. The horned helmet and long hair are both sculpted together and the helmet is ever so slightly crooked, making it look so much more convincing than if it were just sculpted as part of the head. It’s also pitted and dinged, making it one of the best sculpted pieces of armor this line has produced. The head is perfectly framed by the necklace of bones that holds on his cape, but more on that cape later.

As already mentioned, the body is a basic He-Man torso and legs. The chest is completely bare and the typical MOTU-style furry diaper is replaced with a ragged brown loincloth, front and back, held on with a sculpted coin-style belt on each side. The back of the sash has a loop to store his sword. Apart from this new modesty garment, Vikor is wearing straps on his biceps and manacles on his wrists, each with the remnants of real chains hanging down from them.

The molded fur cape fans out behind him and while I would have preferred it to be painted matte, rather than the less appropriate glossy brown, it still features a gorgeous amount of texture work and the bone necklace that attaches it around Vikor’s neck has a cool, rotting yellow finish. The downside of the cape is that it’s molded in very rigid plastic and it does tend to get in the way. Fortunately, you can pop off Vikor’s head and remove it, for when he plans on going apeshit with his axe and needs a little more elbow room to maneuver.


Speaking of going apeshit with weapons, Vikor comes with a sword, a shield, and a battle axe. The sword and axe are paired with the same style grips. They are very nice pieces, but I would have preferred something more primitive looking, like sculpted leather grips, over these green metallic grips. The weapons look a little too modern for the figure, and while I realize that mixing medieval with future tech is one of the charms of the MOTU universe, they’re a tad out of place for my Conan figure here. The shield also has bit of a modern vibe to it, although it matches the other weapons really well and can clip onto either of Vikor’s arms.


Vikor is a spectacular figure, and one I’d wholeheartedly recommend even to folks who aren’t collecting the MOTUC line. In fact, if you want a good representation of what makes this line of figures so great, Vikor makes a fantastic stand-alone piece to display on your shelf. I’m really glad I had another opportunity to pick him up, and the discounted price and shipping makes it all the better. Of course, the other reason I got him was to display with my Battleground Teela. The two figures look like they were made for each other, as both really transcend the MOTUC line and display beautifully together.

I’m all out of stuff that I scored from Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale, so tomorrow I’m going to shoehorn in another Mattel item that I picked up on sale from a different e-tailer that same week.

Dec 19 2012

The Sandman: Death Statue by Mattel

Today we’re going to take a break from all the MOTUC stuff and check out one of the non-He-Man related things I picked up at Matty’s Sale: The sassy Death statue from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. I was first exposed to The Sandman comics back when I owned a used & out of print bookstore. I never knew what was going to come through the front door and one day it happened to be a guy with a panel van filled with 4,500 comics to unload. They were all bagged and boarded and ran the gamut from the 70’s to current stuff. I didn’t sell comics, but I couldn’t resist and we came to an arrangement. Eventually, I culled through the collection, keeping what I wanted and setting up the rest in the back corner of the store on card tables. Some of the ones I pulled were Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

smdeath1

I make no bones about being a Neil Gaiman fan. Besides really enjoying his original comic work, many of his efforts have spilled over into so many other mediums and franchises that I hold dear. When Mattel revealed their Death statue for the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, I was certainly interested, but with so many other things vying for my collecting dollars, I ultimately had to pass. Most of the time, when you pass on SDCC exclusives, the ship sails and second chances are expensive (Screw you, Sky Striker Starscream!!!). But every once and a while, the items are readily available afterwards at the same price. In this case, I was able to do even better, as Matty Collector had a ton of these still available for their Cyber Monday Sale.

smdeath2

smdeath3
While nowhere on the box does this statue claim to be an SDCC Exclusive, the gorgeous and elaborate packaging certainly betrays it as being some kind of special item. As with most Matty Collector items, Death comes in a mailer box, but rather than being a boring white carton, this one is all black with Death’s ankh printed on one side and a really nice minimalist portrait of her on the other.

smdeath5

smdeath4

smdeath6
Inside the tasteful mailer box, things only get better. The statue comes in a three-quarter window box with an elaborately illustrated frame and insert, placing Death in an animated graveyard environment. The back of the box has a portrait and a little blurb about the character.  She’s secured on a transparent tray and hovering slightly above her skull base, and the various windows let you enjoy the statue from every angle except the back. If ever there was an argument against opening a collectible, this presentation would be a pretty convincing one. I mean, I open everything, and even I was really tempted to leave Death mint in sealed box. However, after some really careful clipping, I was able to get Death out of her box without destroying the packaging.

smdeath7

So, the first thing to realize about this statue is that it’s molded out of regular old plastic. If you’re a collector of statues, you’re probably used to PVC, polystone, cold-cast porcelain, or pretty much anything other than this mass market grade plastic. Besides making the statue remarkably light (seriously, there’s no heft to this thing at all!), this kind of plastic shows seam lines and just can’t hold a sculpt as well as the more premium grade materials. Now, all that having been said, the sculpt is a solid enough effort, and this is by no means a bad looking piece.

smdeath8

Death is posed standing, with her right hand bent at the elbow and resting on her hip, and her other hand resting suspiciously close to her “hoo-hoo.” Actually, I think the designers were going for having her left thumb hooked into her belt and you can kind of see that. There are swivel cuts in her shoulders and torso, but Death is obviously sculpted to be in a very specific pose and I haven’t had any luck using the articulation to her benefit. Otherwise, there’s some good detail work in the sculpt. The laces on her boots and the buckles on her belt are all pronounced, and you get the little wrinkles on her tank top. She also has her ankh pendant hanging around from her neck on a string… OMG, that’s mixed media folks!!! Still, there’s nothing here you wouldn’t see done in a similar fashion on a well executed 6-inch action figure.

smdeath9

Death’s head is looking slightly downward and this is really the only thing that irks me about the pose because it kind of hides her face. The neck is ball jointed, but there’s no room for her to look up, only side to side. The ability to swivel the head is certainly more useful than the rest of the articulation, but I really would have preferred an option to have her looking forward and not perpetually downward. My guess is the designers wanted to make her look coy, and if you turn her head all the way to one side, it kind of works ok. The sculpting on the head is easily the best part of the statue, as it captures the character quite well and I particularly like that the hair is sculpted as a separate piece.

smdeath10

The paintwork has its ups and downs. The paint on the face is excellent. Her eyes and lips are perfect, and the grey wash on her hair is used sparingly and to good effect. The quality of the paint breaks down a bit between her tank top and her armpits. There’s definitely some slop going on there. There are also a few stray marks along the back of her pants. The lace holes on her boots are all painted silver, as are the studs and buckles on her belts.

smdeath11

Death comes separate from her base, with peg holes in her feet to secure her to it. Her feet aren’t sculpted to make her boots flush with the base, so I don’t really get the feeling that she’s naturally standing on it. Nevertheless, the skull base is a really great looking piece. There’s not a lot of paintwork, but the sculpt speaks for itself, and it does have a cool aged patina. Unfortunately, it’s hollow, so it adds to the lightweight feel of the statue.

smdeath13

smdeath12

If you collect statues, I’d caution you that Death probably isn’t going to meet your expectations. The lack of heft alone is likely to disappoint. On the other hand, if you just happen to be a Sandman fan and you’re looking for a good representation of Death to display on your shelf, this statue certainly gets the job done. It’s a competent piece, although it still feels like it started life as an action figure. As far as value goes, this statue originally retailed for $30 (closer to $40 if you ordered it off Matty and had it shipped). Now, normally that’s pretty cheap for a collectible statue, but for a plastic statue made by a mass market retailer like Mattel?  Eh, maybe not so much. In hand, however, the elaborate presentation of the packaging helps bolster the value quite a bit, and I can honestly tell you that I’ve seen far more expensive statues turn out a lot worse than this one. Ultimately, I’m glad I picked her up. She’ll look nice on my Bishoujo shelf, although more than likely she’ll wind up going back in her box for now, as I definitely want to keep the whole presentation intact.

Tomorrow I’ll turn my gaze back to the last MOTUC figure that I picked up from Matty’s sale… It’s Vikor!

Dec 18 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Grizzlor by Mattel

Things got a little-long winded yesterday, so today I’m checking out one of the figures that I’m not likely to gas on about nearly so much. He’s Grizzlor, and I’ll be honest, the only reason I bought him was because I was already placing an order, he was cheap, and I wanted at least one more figure for my Horde shelf that wasn’t Leech. I can’t stand Leech. Seriously, don’t get me started on Leech. My fondness for Grizzlor doesn’t stretch much further back than his appearances on Robot Chicken, but hey, another Horde guy for $15… how could I go wrong?

It’s the MOTUC packaging we’ve seen a bunch of times here on FigureFan. I didn’t comment much on the deco yesterday, so let me just point out how awesome it still looks. I’m glad Matty hasn’t monkeyed with the design over the last couple of years, because they came up with a winner right out of the gate. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Granted, my MOTUC packages wind up shredded and in the garbage, but if ever there was a line of figures that I wouldn’t mind hanging on my wall mint-on-card, this would certainly be one of them.


Of course, Grizzlor’s gimmick is that he’s a hairy bastard and Mattel went all out with giving him real hair, just like the vintage toy. It was a bold move in an Adult Collector line, but if you ask me it was the only way they could go. How’d it turn out? Well… let’s take a look.

My first impression when looking at Grizzlor is… Norfin Troll. Sorry, Mattel, but I can’t get that image out of my mind. It’s like I should be rubbing his head for luck or something. His fur is just all over the place and at first it looks kind of awkward and funny, but then something tells me Grizzlor isn’t the kind of dude who would be combing himself out every day. His hair should be all over the place like a bad case of perpetual bed head. I think the weirdest thing about the figure is the blending of real hair and the sculpted hair on his arms and legs. The two don’t necessarily mesh all that well, but I’m trying not to be too critical here, because in the end, I think Grizzlor’s real hair works pretty well.

The face sculpt is classic. It’s probably not one of this line’s better sculpts, but the combination of fangs, red and yellow eyes, and his little smooshed ape nose all conspire to give Grizzlor a ton of personality. It’s kind of hard to figure out whether Grizzlor’s face is scary or cute, but I can’t deny that it is distinctive.

Grizzlor comes wearing his Horde harness with the huge sculpted Horde crest on the front and a backpack that can hold his impressive arsenal of weaponry, but we’ll get to that in a bit. He also comes with a sculpted primitive looking loin cloth, which I believe is intended to be closer to his 200x version. I don’t think I’ve ever seen 200x Grizzlor, so I’m taking a friend’s word on that. I think these accessories are intended to be worn in an “either-or” configuration, but I don’t think he looks at all bad when wearing both. And there’s no way I’m going to display him without that great backpack to hold all his killing gear. In the end, though, I think I’ll leave the loincloth piece off.


As far as articulation goes, Grizzlor doesn’t sacrifice any poseability in favor of his furry coat. You still get ball joints in the neck and shoulders; the arms are hinged at the elbows and have swivels in the biceps and wrists. His legs are ball jointed and have swivels at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and rockers in the ankles. I can’t be certain, but it feels like he’s still got the ab crunch going on in there too, and he can still swivel at the waist as well.

One wouldn’t think that a giant, hairy beast would need a lot of weapons to go rampaging; nevertheless, Grizzlor packs himself out like he’s going to war. He comes with a long sword and a smaller chopping sword, both with matching hilts. He also comes with a battle axe and a Horde crossbow. And as mentioned above, all of it fits onto his backpack. God, I love that!

As it turns out, I dig Grizzlor a lot, although I think he’s one of those figures that you kind of have to want to like him going in. At the original $28-30 with shipping, I’m not sure I would have been quite so happy, but at the $18-20 I got him for, he’s a lot more appetizing. Heck, even a good chunk of his cost can be defrayed by his awesome collection of weapons. Look, Grizzlor is a total goof and he’s hard to take seriously with all that hair all over the place, but I’m glad Mattel went the way they did with him, because he does pay homage to the original vintage figure quite nicely. To make Grizzlor with no hair would have been akin to making Moss-Man without the flocking. It just wouldn’t have worked at all. I basically bought him to add another Horde member to my ranks, and he’ll certainly look nice displayed beside my Hordak.

Dec 17 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Draego-Man by Mattel

2012 was the year I weaned myself off Masters of the Universe Classics. I picked up the Wind Raider and Sorceress, and I kept it in mind that if Ram-Man were obtainable for a reasonable price, I would buy him too. But for all intents and purposes, I have retired my collecting of this line. It was a great line, but I was always only in it for the main characters. Along the way, I picked up a few back-benchers just because they turned out exceptionally well, but I got out of it what I wanted to, it was time to stop, and I did really well in making good on that commitment to myself. Then Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale happened and I got a second chance at some figures that piqued my interest. I still resisted. Then Matty started slashing prices on the figures and shipping and I decided, “Oh what the hell, a couple more for old time sake!”

Draego-Man is one of those “fake” MOTU figures, created specifically for the 30th Anniversary. Yes, Mattel’s way of celebrating the 30thAnniversary of He-Man was to have a bunch of people create figures of characters that never existed before as a misguided nod back to the 1986 contest that let kids design their own character. The winner of the ’86 contest was supposed to get their character made into a figure, but it never happened until now when Matty finally made Fearless Photog as part of this celebration. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that finally creating that figure as part of the 30th Anniversary was a pretty cool move on Mattel’s part, as this release was tied to a piece of the franchise’s history. However, when Mattel moved beyond that gesture, that’s where I think they missed the entire point.

You see, obviously, Mattel can’t tell the difference between kids entering a contest and having industry insiders sculpt bullshit figures and retcon them into the MOTU legacy. Not only is this one of the worst ideas on how to celebrate a milestone anniversary of the franchise, but it was the ultimate display of vanity and hubris, and a blatant excuse to let the brand manager get his own figure produced. Looking beyond the questionable motives, these “30th Anniversary Figures” ranged from the laughably bad (Mighty Spector and Sir Laserlot) to today’s excellent Draego-Man. But then, Draego-Man was designed by The Four Horseman, so there’s no surprise he turned out great.  Ok, enough editorializing, let’s look at the figure.


There’s the MOTUC packaging that we all know and love. The last time I featured it was way back in March when I looked at the Sorceress. It hasn’t changed much, although this one has a little explosion on the bottom insert pointing out that this figure was “Created by The Four Horsemen.” Neat! Draego-Man is a beast of a figure (quite literally!) and they were just barely able to stuff him into a standard sized bubble. Seriously, look inside that package and you’ll see that even with his tail and wings detached and his head turned to the side, there’s barely any room for anything else inside that cramped bubble compartment. The back of the card features some shots of other figures. Holy crap, I actually have all of them except Webstor! You also get a biography retconning Draego-Man into the MOTU continuity and pointing out that he is most decidedly evil, although he seems to waffle on who’s side he’s really on. Let’s bust this guy open and check him out!


Out of the package, the first thing you need to do is attach Draego-Man’s wings and his tail and then he’s all set to go. Damn, that is a beauty of a figure. He’s teaming with brand new sculpting, which meshes perfectly with the recycled MOTUC parts. The traditional MOTU loincloth is pretty obvious, the tail should look familiar, and I think the head sculpt has a hint of Filmation look to it, but otherwise, Draego-Man is definitely all his own figure, and he’s a majestic one at that.

Getting back to the head sculpt, it’s easily one of my favorite things about the figure. He’s got an elegant triangular noggin that starts at the back of his ebony horns and runs down to a point at the tip of his snout. Every little scale is sculpted on, along with little dragon bumps on his nose and chin. His staggered teeth protrude haphazardly from his closed mouth, reminiscent of an alligator. He has a really cool duality to his expression. Point his nose down and the shadows fall over his eyes and he looks like a vicious bastard. Point his nose up and he has more of a noble visage. Either way, T4H did a marvelous job with Draego’s head.

The body of the figure is equally impressive, with heavy segmented rings on his arms and legs and some really cool sculpted armor. The crest on his chestplate is a dragon’s face set atop the crossbones that are reminiscent of Skeletor’s insignia. His leg armor even has little sculpted fasteners for where they would strap around his legs. But the wings are my favorite thing about Draego’s body. They’re quintessential dragon wings, sculpted with a rough, leathery pattern and culminating in two little ebony claws at the tops. The wings are partially unfurled so you can get a pretty good idea of how menacing they are, without him taking up too much space on your display shelf.

 

The coloring on Draego-Man is brilliant. The deep red of his skin is coupled with a bright orange used for his undercarriage and the insides of his wings. On the body itself, you can really only see the orange  under his neck and under his tail, but I presume it’s meant to run down his chest in typical dragon fashion. The red contrasts nicely with the dark blue and purple of his armor and I’m particularly fond of the metallic paint used for the collar of his breastplate and his bracers. Beautiful!

Possibly Draego-Man’s only drawback is that he’s light in the accessories department. Matty had to omit his whip in order to keep the cost down and so all he comes with is his flaming sword. Now the sword is certainly a beautiful piece all on its own. I’m not usually a big fan of plastic sculpted flame motifs, as they don’t often look terribly convincing, but this one pulls it off really well. As for only coming with one accessory, with the additional wings and the amount of unique sculpting here, I can certainly forgive him that.

If you’re familiar with the MOTUC line, than you should know what to expect from Draego’s articulation. He has a ball jointed neck; his arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. His legs are ball jointed and swivel at the hips, feature hinges in the knees and ankles, and he has rocker joints in the ankles. The only thing really new here are his wings, which rotate and feature hinges.

Draego-Man was the only figure of the bullshit 30th Anniversary releases that tempted me when he was first offered. He’s not only beautifully designed and sculpted, but he’s so good he practically transcends the line and works as his own stand-alone figure. It’s crazy to think that while Matty was piecing out original tooling to see what real MOTU characters they can afford to make, T4H were allowed to go fucking nuts on this guy. Nevertheless, I’m glad they did, because in terms of sculpt, design, and coloring, I honestly think Draego-Man is easily the most impressive figure to come out of the line. That’s saying an awful lot when you consider that a) I have no nostalgic connection to this character, and b) most figures in the line are excellent, so he has some stiff competition. Nonetheless, I adore everything about this guy and I’m so very happy I was able to double back and pick him up. The fact that he was on sale was just icing on the cake.

Dec 16 2012

Matty Collector Cyber Monday Week:

I’ve got to hand it to Matty Collector. After tons of Black Friday Week come-ons from a lot of e-tailers, in the end there wasn’t much out there to really tempt me into reaching for my wallet this year. Sure, I grabbed some Blu-Rays from Amazon, but it wasn’t until Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale that I really found some decent deals. Granted, a lot of that has to do with Matty’s uncanny ability to “find” tons of products that they were supposedly sold out of. They paraded out a multitude of MOTUC figures, all the Voltron lions, and a smattering of other odds and ends. And to add insult to injury they put a lot of stuff up there at full price, allowing plenty of early adopters to buy, before slashing prices, offering deep shipping discounts and engaging in other shenanigans.

Anyway, they got me to bite on a few things, and so that’s what next week will be all about, starting tomorrow with Draego-Man.

By figurefanzero
0
Dec 15 2012

Star Wars: Luke’s Landspeeder (#8092) by Lego

 

I started this week with a Star Wars Lego set, so let’s end it with one too. Yesterday, I needed to pick up a pound of coffee and while the Lego aisle is on the exact opposite end of the store from the coffee aisle, I still found myself over there picking up today’s item. This set was the other one I was considering last weekend when I bought the Desert Skiff. I knew I’d be back for it sooner or later, and it turned out to be sooner.


The box calls this a ”special edition” and I’m not sure what that means. A number of different retailers sell it online, but Walmart is the only store I’ve ever actually seen it in.  I’m sure someone more enlightened in the way of Lego can clear this up for me. The box is satisfyingly large for the size assortment and features some very enticing photos of the finished products. Inside you get an instruction booklet, two curious bendy tubes, and three unnumbered baggies. All told, you get 163 pieces, which build the Landspeeder vehicle, four minifigs and a little sentry droid. To the Minifigs!

Starting off, you get Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Both are solid minifigs, but nothing extraordinary. The printing on their torsos does a good job reproducing their Tattooine clothing, although I think Obi-Wan could have used a cape. They each only have one printed face, and while Obi-Wan’s hair piece looks fine, Luke’s seems a little off to me. I know he had long hair, but this piece looks more like a chick’s hair. Both minifigs come with the same lightsaber and I’m cool with that. You can never have enough lightsabers.

Next up, you have the Sandtrooper and his sentry droid. The Sandtrooper is a regular Stormtrooper with extra bits to make up his backpack and pauldron. I understand some people have taken issue with him not being more unique, but I like the fact that you can turn him into a regular Stormtrooper if you want, so I’m very happy with him. The helmet sculpt is excellent, the printing on the torso is great, It could have used some printed detail on the legs, but he still looks good without it. There’s no Clone head under the helmet, just a blank, black head to hold it on. The sentry droid isn’t really a minifig, as he’s built with just regular pieces and he comes with some clear pieces to make a “levitating” stand. He’s ok, but nothing special.

Last up are the droids: R2-D2 and C-3PO. 3PO is ok, although the matte gold plastic they used for him looks kind of cheap. R2, on the other hand, well I’m really on the fence over him. The lack of printing on his back pisses me off quite a bit, and I don’t think it would have killed Lego to toss in a third leg. I also wish they had constructed him so that his dome would rotate. The droids are passable, but considering how many times Lego could repaint and reuse an Astromech and Protocol Droid, it seems like they could have put a little more effort into this pair.

The Landspeeder itself was a fun and somewhat surprising build. There’s a lot about it that didn’t go the way I thought it would, and that made it interesting. The color pallet on the vehicle seems a bit off, as I think the chassis should have been darker, but the end result still gives it a cool animated vibe. One of my favorite things about the build was the clever use of the tubes to make up the recessed bumper under the hood. I had no idea what those were going to be used for and when I got to that point in the build, I didn’t think it was going to work all that well, but it did and it looks very cool and unique.


I’m not terribly keen on the engines. While it’s cool that Lego designed one to look like it was ripped apart by the Sandpeople, the other two should have had proper tan or brown casings. As it is, they all look like they’ve been taken apart and exposed. Even the one that’s ripped apart has a couple of pieces on the front that doesn’t match the other two. They don’t totally kill the vehicle for me, but I think these parts could have been much better executed.


The build allows for the middle engine to be removed and it reveals a little storage compartment. If you disassemble the lightsabers you can store them both in there. It’ll also fit some guns, other accessories, or a sack lunch if you want to pack for your Tattooine day trips.

At $24.99, I’m pretty happy with this set. The minifigs are all solid, if not spectacular, efforts and certainly help give a new Star Wars Lego collector like me a number of core characters. The Landspeeder is nice, but I think Lego might have taken a few too many liberties with the design. It’s a good placeholder, but I can’t see this being a definitive Lego treatment of the iconic vehicle. Still, it’s a huge improvement over the last Lego Landspeeder, and I’ll be interested to see how much the design improves when they decide to revisit it again in the years ahead.

And that’s this week in the bag. I’m taking tomorrow off to get caught up on some stuff around the house because work and the holidays are taking turns kicking my ass. So, no feature tomorrow, but I will drop in to quickly set up next week.