Oct 11 2012

DC Identity Crisis: Elongated Man by DC Direct

Poor Ralph Dibny. Between Identity Crisis and 52 he’s had a rough time of it. I haven’t seen him in the New 52 yet, but then I’m woefully behind on my funnybooks, and still working out which books to keep and which ones to drop, so it’s entirely possible that I missed his debut. As for his DC Direct figure, I was torn on whether or not to open this one, since he is finally coming out next year in DCUC format via the Signature Collection. But then, I didn’t want to wait, and given his abilities, there are plenty of different ways to do him in figure form, so having two versions of him on my shelf wouldn’t be the worst thing. In the end, I decided to go ahead and rip him open.

Elongated Man is part of Identity Crisis, Series 2, which warrants another look at the package. The front presentation hasn’t changed, but the back of the card is new to show the figures from the second series and offer some little blurbs about the characters. The figure is carded with his two interchangeable arms flanking him on both sides and the large figure stand partially concealed behind his legs. It’s a great looking presentation, and I’d happily hang it on my wall if I weren’t about to rip it open.

The boys at DC Direct really nailed this figure. The head sculpt is great, particularly the prominent jaw line and sunken cheeks, which is very evocative of the character art. The hair sculpt is equally impressive, and the paintwork on the face is precise and clean. The body is a pretty simple, muscled buck, but the superb coloring really makes it stand out. The bulk of his costume is a dulled gloss red with bright yellow bands for his belt, and the edges of his gloves and boots. The torso stripe is matte black and the gloves and boots are both high gloss black. No doubt, this is what the coloring on a comic book figure is supposed to look like. Bravo!

Elongated Man shares most of the points of articulation as the other figures in this series. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs feature cuts in the hips and hinged knees. The head is not ball jointed, but rather only turns, and we’ll see why in a minute. The figure does, however, have two extra points in the biceps, thanks to his removable arms, hurray for bicep swivels! Elongated Man is definitely the best articulated figure in this series.

Action features on a DC Direct figure? Well sort of. As we saw from the in-package shot, Dibny comes with two stretchy arms that can be swapped out for his normal arms. It’s a nice way to feature his powers in action figure form, although they are real space-killers when you try to display him. I prefer to compromise by displaying him with one stretchy arm and one normal. The figure also has an extending neck feature, which is very well done. Kudos to you, DC Direct, for these cool little extras. Oh yeah, he also comes with the ginormous Identity Crisis figure stand.

Much like Dr. Light, Elongated Man, is a great stand-in for my DCUC display. I really adore this figure, and even if you aren’t collecting this line and don’t want to mess with Club Infinite Earths, you should do yourself a favor and pick him up. No DC figure collection should be complete without a Ralph Dibny, and this is just a great version of the character. I’m really interested to see if the Signature Collection version will be good enough to replace this one in my display, but either way, having an Elongated Man on my shelf will make the wait a lot easier.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up the Identity Crisis with Black Canary. And in this case, I did not save the best for last.

Oct 10 2012

DC Identity Crisis: Zatanna by DC Direct

Identity Crisis is steeped with delicious controvers and there’s few characters more steeped in it then Zatanna. Sure, everyone agreed to let her use her mumbo jumbo for unethical mind wipes, but seeing as she was the one with the ability and went along with it, I tend to place more of the weight of the decision on her slender shoulders. Zatanna has always been a favorite of mine, well ever since about the time I hit puberty (wink, wink), and I’ll concede that as much as I love this comic, it made me look at her uncomfortably for quite a while.  But I’ll save the weighty ethical debates for the comic forums, because I’m here to look at toys goddammit.

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The package is identical to what we saw with Dr. Light, so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Once again, it’s a great presentation and if I didn’t want a loose Zatanna in this costume, I might be tempted to leave her packaged and hang her on my wall. The card is just so damn colorful and pretty, depicting our heroes displaying their collective shame and the huge bubble leaves little to the imagination.

iczat1Zatanna appears for much of the book in her more familiar (at least to me) coat tails and fishnets, but this particularly version comes from the flashbacks to when she mind-wiped Dr. Light. It’s definitely not my preferred look for the character, but as a fan of the character, I like to have as many versions of her as possible, so this particular figure was a nice pick up. i also can’t deny that the early 80’s vibe she’s got going on here has a certain charm. You get a blue, white and black one-piece with long sleeves, a white cape, and blue and white thigh high boots. A good piece of the costume relies mostly on paintwork for the details, which is fine, although there’s a little bit of slop here and there.

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The sculpting on the sleeves is quite nice as they feature hanging cuffs, which give her a certain wizardly look. The cape, collar and neck broach are all sculpted in soft, rubbery plastic and hang off the back rather nicely without throwing off the balance of the figure. I imagine the cape would be removable via popping off the head, but it’s not something I’m willing to try. The boots have a nice glossy blue sheen to them and the high heels strike a nice balance between looking good and actually allowing the figure to stand. They certainly look a lot nicer than the chunky grandma clogs that Mattel’s DCUC version of the character is wearing.

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The head sculpt is a little hit and miss with me. From a technical standpoint I suppose it’s pretty good. The paint is clean, the sculpted bangs have a ragged and uneven look, and there’s some nice use of red metallic paint for her hair clip. The problem here is that I don’t think it really matches the line art all that well. She looks extremely animated, which would work OK for me as an original take on the character, but not so much as she appeared in the pages of this particular comic book.

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Zatanna’s articulation is similar to Dr. Light’s, with just a couple of changes. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders, along with hinges in the elbows. Alas, the shoulder hinges are pretty tenuous and I can feel the left elbow already starting to wobble a bit. The legs feature a T-crotch at the hips and have hinged knees. Where Dr. Light had swivels in the boots, Zatanna has swivels in her wrists. Obviously, most of the posing on this piece is going to be from the waist up. I can do a little adjusting with her legs, but they’re always going to look rather stiff, and unless she’s more or less standing straight, I find a stand is needed to keep her up.

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Speaking of stands, Zatanna comes with the same huge, oval “Identity Crisis” stand as Dr. Light. It works fine for holding the figure up, but it’s a real space hog, which is something that most action figure collectors will find as a big drawback.

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Besides being based on a comic that I absolutely love, this Zatanna presents my collection with a distinctive look for the character, and for those reasons I’m happy to have her on my shelf. The portrait is certainly rather odd, but there’s enough here to like, particularly the nice coloring in the costume, that makes her worth while to me. After all, I don’t think it’s possible for me to have too many Zatanna figures. I haven’t decided whether or not to display her with my DCUC Collection or carve out a new shelf for this series, but either way, I’ll definitely find a place for her.

*This Feature was re-worked and re-shot on 8/18/15. It originally appeared in a series of articles on DC Direct’s Identity Crisis line.

Oct 9 2012

DC Identity Crisis: Dr. Light by DC Direct

We’re already one day down for the week, thanks to Xena and friends, so I’m not bothering with an introduction for this week’s theme. I picked up a bunch of DC Direct’s Identity Crisis figures, while scouting comic shops a few weeks back, and so we’ll round out the rest of the week looking at some of those. I figured we’d do two from Series 1 and two from Series 2.  I do already have a couple of these characters in my DCUC collection, but they are pretty unique takes on them so this is a case where I don’t mind double-dipping. By the way… if you haven’t read Identity Crisis yet, there are probably spoilers ahead, but then it’s sufficiently old enough that I’m not worried about ruining it for anyone.

Anyway, I thoroughly adore Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis. Besides being one of the first complete series that I read on my tablet via that new-fangled digital media witchcraft, I found it to be everything a landmark comic event should be and yet seldom is. It had plenty of “oh shit!” moments, an ending that left me surprised and satisfied, but most of all, it really took some favorite old characters in new direction. Plus, Batman gets screwed over by his peers, and he’s a dick, so that’s ok by me. I’ll be the first to concede that some of the motivations in the series didn’t make any sense, and the whole rape reveal seemed to glom on a bit to similar themes in The Watchmen, but I don’t let any of that ruin my enjoyment of the experience. Today’s figure, Dr. Light, was one of the key players of the piece. Holy, hell, what a shitbag! Identity Crisis not only raised (or is that lowered?) Light’s status as a villain to that of serial rapist scum, but managed to retcon a justification for his past portrayals as a bumbler. It seems only fair we start with him.

The last time we looked at DC Direct packaging, it was from the Crisis on Infinite Earths series, and that packaging was downright bland and boring. That’s certainly not the case here. The card features some excellent character art of the Justice League, all looking rather shamed and guilty, with a shattered glass motif that carries on to the bubble and tray. Very nice! This package eschews DC Direct’s clever and occasional use of the figure stand to make up the series title for the package. This time the stand is partially hidden behind the legs of the figure. In fact, truth be told, Identity Crisis only appears in a small logo in the upper left corner. The back of the card is generic for all of Series 1, with photos of all five figures and little blurbs about their role in the series. I don’t often have qualms about tearing open DC Direct figures, but the presentation here is nice enough that it gave me pause. Nonetheless, I want a loose Dr. Light for my DCUC shelves, so tear it open, I shall!

Wow, the boys at DC Direct really did a great job sculpting Dr. Light! First off, look at the face! To quote the Young Ones, “Oi, he is a bastard!” From the patented arch-villain-arching-eyebrows to the demonic pointy goatee, this guy has “lethal injection candidate” written all over his face. The whole, “I’m gonna rape you” sneer isn’t helping things either. Just one look and you can’t help but hate him.

The rest of the figure is just as much a slam dunk, derived from a perfect mix of serviceable sculpt and excellent paintwork. Light sports a fairly neutral stance with his rubbery cape favoring one shoulder and his hands permanently clutching in fiendishly diabolical spasms. The deco that makes up his chest emblem and belt are sculpted as well as painted, and likewise, his hood features a sculpted and painted band and a fin protruding from the top. I just love Light’s retro character design, as he looks like he would be right at home menacing Flash Gordon. My experience with DC Direct paintwork has been hit or miss in the past, but the paint on this figure is a neigh perfect application of matte black, bright and clean white, and grey.

We should all know by now not to expect much articulation from DC Direct, but Dr. Light is far from a semi-poseable statue. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders, with hinges in the elbows. The legs rotate at the hips, have hinged knees, and swivels at the boots. There is no articulation in the torso at all. Again, not a lot, but what’s here is perfectly serviceable.

The only accessory that comes with Light is his ginormous figure stand. It’s a simple oval with “Identity Crisis” printed onto it. I’m usually a big fan of the DC Direct figure stands, but I don’t use them for the figures I display with my DCUC collection, and Light can actually stand just fine on his own.

So, I’m happy to say that DC Direct delivered in spades with Dr. Light. Not only is he a great looking figure in his own right, but his proportions and scale make him a perfect complement to my DCUC shelf. The articulation may not be all there, but he’s a good enough match, that I’m perfectly fine with crossing him off my DCUC Want List.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out Zatanna.

Oct 8 2012

Xena: Callisto “Callisto” by Toy Biz

I know, it’s Monday, I should be starting something new, but I wanted to knock out just one more Xena figure so we could put the entirety of this initial four figure assortment to bed. Today we’re venturing into foreign territory with a character I know nothing about. Granted, having not watched much of the show, I don’t know a lot about any of the characters, but at least I knew who Xena and Gabrielle were. All I know about Callisto is that she’s a blonde bombshell and one of the villains of the piece. After looking at three figures in this series, I’ll do my best to get through this one with a bit more brevity.

The packaging! We know what to expect by now and carded Callisto holds no surprises. The insert on the bubble tells us she comes from the self-titled episode, “Callisto” and that she comes sporting some kind of “Spinning Attack” action. The back panel shows a crappy illustration of the action gimmick at work and gives us a little synopsis of her episode. Since this is likely the last time we’ll see this packaging for a while, I’ll say once again that it’s practical and looks good, at least from the front.

Right off the bat, Callisto takes me back to the first Xena figure we looked at, and that’s a very good thing. She’s not really pre-posed, although you do need to put one leg behind the other, slightly bent at the knee, in order for her to stand on her own. The body sculpt is absolutely fantastic. Her black armor is painted with silver details and a lot of the outfit is sculpted separately and layered over the figure, which is mostly molded in flesh tone. This design makes for a great looking and very detailed figure. Callisto’s armor includes a functional sword scabbard on her back and a functional dagger sheath on her hip.

I keep waffling back and forth over Callisto’s head sculpt. On the one hand, it’s a fairly good likeness of the actress who portrays her on the show. On the other hand, she has this really goofy smile. In the end, I’m going to say I like it more than I dislike it, and perhaps even find it strangely attractive.

Also like the first Xena figure, Callisto’s action gimmick is not part of the figure, so there’s nothing to mar the figure’s adequate articulation. Her head turns side to side, her arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, her legs have cuts at the hips and her knees and ankles are hinged.

 

Callisto comes with a butt load of gear. You get a sword and dagger that fit into the functional scabbard and sheath. You also get a pole dancing fighting staff, and some kind of nunchuck style weapon that has three batons instead of two. The sword is the same one that came with the first Xena figure, and it’s a nice enough piece that I don’t mind the recycling. The dagger, on the other hand, is different from the one that came with the second Xena figure we looked at, so that’s nice. Another cool thing about Callisto is that her hands are actually sculpted to hold her weapons, so you don’t have to rely on pegging them into the figure’s hands.

You also get the base, which holds the figure’s action gimmick. It looks a lot like the base that came with the first Xena figure, which is very cool. The big difference is this one just has a couple of foot pegs on it and you wind it up, press the button and it spins the figure around. It’s a goofy gimmick, but I don’t mind since it doesn’t compromise the figure and can be used as a fantastic display stand.

Callisto offers plenty to love. She’s a great looking figure, she’s got serviceable articulation, she comes with a load of great weapons, and a killer display stand. Not every figure in this assortment was a winner, but Callisto and the first Xena can certainly hang together on my display shelf any day. They’re almost too good to be early 90’s Toy Biz product, and they certainly make me wish that Toy Biz had been able to deliver the same consistency throughout this entire line. I do have some of the second assortment in the 6-inch Collector line, but there’s only one in there that I have ever been tempted to open, so I’m not sure I’ll be looking at those any time soon. As I hinted at in the Gabrielle feature, I do have a number of the 12-inch Collector dolls action figures, and I’ll be sure to roll them out the next time things get slow around here.
Tomorrow, we’ll move on to the subject at hand for the remainder of the week. And that subject is DC Direct and Identity Crisis!

Oct 7 2012

Xena: Gabrielle “Orphan of War” by Toy Biz

Oh, Renee O’Connor, aka Gabrielle. You are just as cute as a button and you were almost… almost… enough reason for me to actually watch this series. I was probably more anxious to see how your figure turned out then any of the others in this line. Could Toy Biz possibly capture that certain something in 6-inch action figure form? Mmmm… not really.

Once again, we have the Xena action figure packaging. I don’t have a lot more to say here. The front deco is pretty good and it shows off the figure and her massive amount of gear under a huge bubble nestled in a clever little cardboard tray. There’s a sticker with the episode she’s from and the fact that she features a “Spinning Staff Attack!” The back of the card has a synopsis of the episode, “Orphan of War” and one of those crappy illustrations of the figure’s action gimmick. The card does, however, make up for the crappy illustration by putting a nice picture of Gabrielle up in the corner.

I am going to try not to be too hard on this figure in terms of likeness. We aren’t dealing with the sculptors at Diamond Select or The Four Horsemen here. Its 90’s Toy Biz, for crying out loud. And Gabrielle’s likeness probably isn’t all that easy to capture in 6-inch form. I think there’s just something about her eyes that doesn’t really jive with this figure’s vacant, slightly medicated stare. That having been said, Toy Biz was able to successfully deliver a figure of a girl that very well could be Renee O’Connor’s stunt double. We’ll have to settle for that.

It should also be noted that Gabrielle isn’t the flashiest character to reproduce. She isn’t a tall, leggy amazon and she isn’t wearing any snazzy studded leather armor. Instead, she’s just got a peasant outfit that consists of a medieval sports bra, a skirt, and boots. There’s really nothing wrong with what’s here, there’s just not as much to work with as there is with Xena. That having been said, Toy Biz tossed in some fairly good detail including the lacing on her boots and top, the deco on her belt, and the cross-thatch texture on her skirt. Overall, I’m giving Gabrielle a passing score in terms of sculpt and coloring, but just barely.
Thankfully, Gabrielle isn’t terribly pre-posed, and her articulation isn’t too bad, but sadly, not as good as the first Xena we looked at. Her head turns, her arms rotate at the shoulders, and her legs rotate at the hips, and have hinged knees and ankles. She’s got some strange stuff going on with her right arm, but that’s because of her action gimmick, so let’s check out Gabrielle’s gear and then we’ll swing back to that gimmick.

Holy hell, Gabrielle sure comes loaded for bear. Am I missing something? Was she some kind of medieval terminator? She comes with a battle axe, a staff, a dagger, a bow, a functional quiver and three arrows. Maybe Toy Biz figured that since she’s smaller and less flashy than the other figures they should load her up with an arsenal of death. The accessories are all pretty good. I like the dagger best, as it’s such a nice little piece and it fits into the sheath on her belt. The axe is cool, although I’m not sure why it’s hinged at the head. The bow is a nice try. It’s sculpted to hold the arrows, and the idea is you pull back on the string and it shoots, but it really doesn’t. She also can’t hold it very convincingly, but I give Toy Biz points for trying.

So how about that “Spinning Staff Attack?” So, you put the staff in her right hand, raise it over her head and move the lever back and forth on her back. This causes her arm to spin at that swivel cut in the middle. I’ll concede that the gimmick works, certainly much better than Xena’s“Sword Drawing Action” but it’s not worth having to put a huge lever on her back.

If you’re going to get Xena, I guess you have to have her sidekick. Gabrielle here is a good companion piece to either of the Xena figures we looked at, but apart from her overabundance of gear, there’s nothing about her that really shines. She’s solidly average, and while I think Renee O’Connor deserved better then that, this is exactly the kind of figure I would expect from late 90’s Toy Biz. No better, no worse. There was another 6-inch Gabrielle figure in the second wave, but I don’t think I own it. I’m pretty sure it was more or less the same figure with a cloak over it. I will, however, check out one of Toy Biz’s 12-inch versions of the character at some point down the line.

Tomorrow, Xena Weekend will bleed its way into Monday as we wrap it all up with a look at Callisto.

Oct 6 2012

Xena: Xena “Sins of the Past” by Toy Biz

And, I’m back with more Xena goodness. In fact, with more of Xena herself. We’re checking out the other version of Xena in this initial assortment of Toy Biz’s 6-inch figures based on the campy, yet long-running TV series. Surely, this one is just a repaint? Oh no, folks, this here is an entirely new figure. I liked the last one quite a bit, so let’s see if this one fares as well.

I had some packaged shots of this figure, but they seem to have vanished from my hard drive, but if you read yesterday’s feature, you get the idea. It’s the same packaging that we saw yesterday. The only difference on the front is the sticker which declares that this is “Sins of the Past”Xena with “Sword Drawing Action.” The back of the card has a blurb about the episode, which sounds like it was the first one because Xena and Gabrielle hook up in it. And by “hook up” I mean they start traveling together. What did you think I meant? There’s another shitty illustration of the action gimmick at work and the same photos of the other figures in the 6-inch and 12-inch lines.

Ok, so let’s start with the sculpt. This figure has Xena smiling a big toothy grin and I don’t like it as much as the last Xena’s more somber and neutral expression. That having been said, the likeness is still a pretty good Lucy Lawless. The rest of the figure follows the same formula of having her outfit sculpted in separate rubbery plastic and layered on over the figure. Allow me to once again say how much I love this technique, as it adds to the depth of the figure. The armor is completely different from the last figure. It’s black instead of brown and the scrollwork and general style is all different as well. I’m kind of torn between which armor I like better. The last figure looks great, but the combination of the black with the painted silver rivets on this figure really pops. Yeah, I’m leaning toward this armor.

This version of Xena has two functional scabbards for her weapons. One is on her left hip that fits her dagger. The other runs straight down over her right shoulder and split up the middle for her “sword drawing action.” But more on that in a bit. Alas, she also has a big gimmick lever coming out of her back.

Sounds pretty good so far, right? Uh oh. We got some pre-posing going on here. Yes, this version of Xena has the terrible one-two punch to the groin of being both pre-posed and having less articulation. She’s posed to stand with her legs apart, her right arm bent up at the elbow and her left arm held almost all the way straight out with just a slight bend at the elbow. The head still turns side to side, but the shoulders are now only cut and not ball jointed and this hurts the figure a whole lot, especially with the one arm held perpetually out. The legs are still cut at the hips and hinged at the knees and ankles, but they’re clearly pre-posed to remain in a fighting stance, so there isn’t a lot of practical use you can get out of those hinges and still have the figure standing.

Before we get to the action gimmick, let’s talk about her accessories, because this figure comes with a lot of goodies. You get a sword, which is a bit different than the one that came with yesterday’s Xena. You get a very nice looking dagger. You get a whip(?), and low and behold, you actually get Xena’s chakram. Yes, I too find it ironic that “Sword Drawing” Xena comes with her chakram and the other figure doesn’t. The sword has a magnet in the hilt that is designed to go with the action gimmick, so let’s see how well that works.

Not so well!  The “Sword Drawing” action feature involves pressing a button to bring Xena’s right arm back, line up with the sword in her sheath where a magnet in the hilt connects with a magnet in the palm of her hand. Release the button and she draws her sword. In theory, this is a really cool and ambitious idea for a 6-inch figure. In practice, all that happens is her hand gets stuck on the sword because the scabbard is too tight fitting to release the sword. If you only tuck part of the sword in there, that will allow Xena to draw it, but it just winds up spinning in her palm and pointing to the ground. Not only does the gimmick not work, but the paint covering the magnet on the sword’s hilt comes off on Xena’s hand. So, yeah, it’s all pretty worthless. On the upside all you sick puppies can put the whip in Xena’s right hand, press the button and experience Xena whipping action!

Why was I so surprised by how good yesterday’s Xena figure was? It’s because it wasn’t replete with all the issues that today’s figure has. Yes, this is exactly the kind of figure that I was expecting from 90’s Toy Biz. Sub-par articulation, pre-posed, and a shitty action gimmick that actually detracts from the figure. God, I wish I could do some mixing and matching between the two figures. I’d basically take the snazzy armor from this figure and put it on the better articulated and less pre-posed body of yesterday’s Xena. Make no mistake this one is not a bad looking display piece, but she’s little better than a statue. In the end, I’m just going to wind up robbing the chakram off of this one and giving it to yesterday’s figure to make her complete.

Tomorrow… we move on to Gabrielle!

Oct 5 2012

Xena: Warrior Xena “A Day in the Life” by Toy Biz

Ok, here we go. Toy Biz snagged the license to do figures for both the Hercules and the Xena TV shows, with Xena’s first action figure appearance in the Hercules line. I don’t actually own any Hercules figures, but they look pretty bad, and from what I’ve seen Toy Biz made a real effort to step things up for the Xena figures. The problem with Toy Biz is you never quite know what you’re going to get. Go back to the mid 90’s and you get the Marvel and X-Men figures, which have plenty of kitschy charm, but aren’t necessarily great figures. Fast forward to their Lord of the Rings stuff, and you have a crazy mix of passable sculpts with horrible action gimmicks to some downright excellent figures. Let’s see where Xena falls into the mix.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the packaging.  The figure comes on a huge card with a cardboard tray on the bottom that cradles the bubble. The front of the cards are all the same with a shot of Xena on the upper right corner and Xena and Gabrielle getting up close and personal with each other on the upper left. The bottom has a bold logo for the series and there’s a sticker on the bubble that personalizes the package with the figure’s name. All of the figures in this line were tied to a specific episode, so this one is Warrior Xena from “A Day in the Life.” The sticker also indicates whatever action feature the figure had. In this case it’s “Jumping Attack Action.” The large bubble displays the figure and accessories quite nicely.

The back of the card has a shot of the character, a blurb about the episode in question, and a terrible illustration showing the action feature in motion. There are also pictures of figures available in the 6-inch and 12-inch series. The back of the card looks pretty cheesy, especially when compared to how great the front looks.

Out of the package and I’m actually very impressed with Xena’s sculpt. Sure, I’m grading on a curve. This is a 1990’s Toy Biz figure, but even still it’s got nothing to apologize for. First off, that’s not a bad Lucy Lawless likeness. The eyes could have been painted a little better, but the hair, the mouth and the cheekbones are all pretty good. Even better, most of Xena’s outfit is molded in soft plastic and layered onto the figure’s body. There’s plenty of detail in the armor, including sculpted scrollwork and laces. The result looks fantastic and gives the figure a lot of depth. I’m also happy that the figure is not pre-posed, although one leg is notably shorter than the other, so to get her to stand you do need to do some pre-posing of your own. I’m not sure if this was intentional or just a QC issue, but thanks to her joints you can get her to stand naturally.

And how about those joints? Xena’s articulation both surprises and frustrates. The surprise is there are more than the standard 5-points that I would expect. The head turns side to side, the arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and the hands swivel at the wrists. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinges in the knees and ankles. And that’s what frustrates. There’s just enough articulation here to make me wish for a little more.

There isn’t a whole lot of paintwork on this figure, but the coloring is overall great. Most of the figure is molded in flesh tone with the armor molded in brown. There are some nice silver rivets painted onto her boots, and again on her wrists and the little cape she has on her back.

Remember that “Jumping Attack” action gimmick? Well fortunately the gimmick isn’t part of the figure, but rather part of the giant base she comes with. The base is a raised pedestal with some cool carvings sculpted into it, along with a stirrup and a retractable spring loaded arm. You stand the figure with one foot tucked into the stirrup and the other on top of the spring-loaded arm (there’s a divot in the bottom of Xena’s foot so that it fits over the arm, and I’m guessing this might be why one leg is shorter than the other). Press the button in the back and Xena does in fact get launched into the air. As an action gimmick, it’s pretty lame, (unless like me, your cat attacks the figure every time she gets launched!) but the base makes for a fantastic figure display stand and just might get repurposed for one of my Indiana Jones figures.

In addition to the base, Xena comes with some weapons. You get a cool looking sword and a crossbow that fires some kind of bolo arrow, which I presume is for tripping up people’s legs. The sword is a great sculpt, right down to the wrapped grip and chipped blade. The crossbow isn’t all that bad either, at least not for what is essentially a missile launcher. Unfortunately, Xena’s hands aren’t sculpted to hold her weapons. Instead, there’s a peghole on her left hand and pegs on the sword hilt and the crossbow. You can’t get anything to stay in her right hand at all. Hey, what’s missing? Yep, easily the most disappointing thing about this figure is the absence of Xena’s iconic chakram, the bladed disc weapon she usually wields. Leaving that out is like Hasbro releasing a Luke Skywalker figure without a lightsaber. Nonetheless, if you want her chakram you need to buy a different Xena figure. Sorry Mario Xena, your chakram is in another castle! Moving on…

In case you can’t tell, I really dig this figure. Look, it’s 90’s Toy Biz and I had low expectations. But fair is fair, and Toy Biz did a great job with the likeness, the outfit, overall quality, and even the articulation and weapons aren’t bad. The action gimmick may be crap, but it redeems itself by giving you a beautiful base to display the figure on. A few more swivel cuts and toss in a chakram and this figure could have been a total homerun, instead of being just surprisingly great. I was going to move on to Gabrielle tomorrow, but hell, let’s take a look at the other Xena figure in the line and see if she holds up as well as this one.

Oct 5 2012

Xena Weekend Begins!!!

And it’s a four-day weekend too! Running today through Monday, we’ll be venturing into some new territory.
First, a disclaimer! I did not watch Xena: Warrior Princess. No, seriously, I didn’t! I remember trying to watch an episode with Bruce Campbell in it, but even his delightful antics and the aggressively cute Renee O’Connor, could not get me to muscle through it. It’s not that I’m a TV snob. Hey, I’m not afraid to admit that I own the complete Buffy: The Vampire Slayer on DVD. So if ya’ll liked watching Xena, good for you, but it just wasn’t my bag. Of course, that didn’t stop me from picking up a bunch of the Xena figures that Toy Biz did back in the late 90’s. What? Resist buying hot warrior chick action figures on clearance? Not likely. I’m only human.

But yes, the scary fact is that I’ve got too many of these figures to do them all in one weekend, so I’m just going to cover four of the 6-inch Collector’s Series, all of which, I believe, are from the first series. The rest will have to wait until I’m drunk enough ready to do another Xena Weekend, or sometime when I can just sprinkle them in with the usual weekly retinue. As already mentioned, this means that this lesbian warrior madness will continue on through Monday. I’ll be back later on to kick things off with a look at the Warrior Princess herself.

Oct 4 2012

World of Warcraft: Blood Elf Priest (Valoren) & Orc Warrior (Ragerock) by Mega Bloks

Yes, it’s World of Warcraft season again. Time for a new expansion, time for me to dust off my level 85 character, time for me to say, “Oh shit, I need to get my mining up another 30 points before I embark for Pandaria.” In honor of the new expansion pack, I thought I’d finally get around to looking at the other two of Mega Bloks’ WoW Faction Packs, which I picked up a quite a few weeks back. Last time, we checked out one of the Alliance minifigs, and today we’re going to see how the Horde makes out with two of their Faction Packs. This should be good, because everyone knows the Horde is awesome and the Alliance is a bunch of pussies.

Here we’ve got the Blood Elf Priest, Valoren, and the Orc Warrior, Ragerock. I’ve never rolled an Orc, but I’m pretty partial to the Blood Elves, as three of my four high level characters are of that racial persuasion. Of course all of those are chicks. Why? Because if I’m going to stare at a character’s ass for a hundred hours while playing a game, you can bet your life it’s not going to be a dude. Let’s look at the toys…

Again, the packages are pretty cool, and I love seeing the WoW logo in the toy aisles. The sets come in little window boxes that are designed to hang on a peg or sit on a shelf. The window shows off the figure, his weapon, and his faction symbol, while the instructions and the baggie of parts to build the base are concealed within. The back shows the completed set and has some info on the character and class. These are some pretty intricate and attractive packages for a couple of little 29 piece sets. Plus, I’m happy not to have to deal with any of that blind bag bullshit that Mega Bloks did with Halo.

Let’s look at Ragerock first, since the Orc Warrior is pretty iconic for WoW. Mega Bloks nailed the head sculpt pretty well, and I like the overall build of the character, which is cartoony, but not too cartoony. He’s not as elaborate as the Paladin we looked at last time, but he does have some nice shoulder armor and a belt that crisscrosses his chest. I also dig the little sculpted chains that hold on his knee plates. There’s lots of love in the little details here. The coloring is all good too with the skin a pleasing green, two tone brown for his pants and gear, and a little red and silver for his shoulder armor to break up the rest of the colors. Ragerock comes with a big purple sword, which you can clip to his back. As always, you can swap out armor with the other figures to customize him as you so desire.

Ragerock’s stand is a simple little build, but very evocative of Ogrimmar. You get a brown base, some heavy masonry type blocks to build a little corner of wall, a spot to hold his Horde banner and some stubby horns, and a flag. Nicely done!

Moving on to Valoren, the Blood Elf Priest is looking very dapper in his majestic priestly robes. They’re mostly black with some very nicely sculpted ornate scrollwork. Actually, the scrollwork is really impressive for such a tiny figure. The trim and the scrollwork are painted yellow and you get some red trim to tie the whole ensemble together. Tres Chic! The headsculpt is pale with long white hair, and piercing green eyes. As with Ragerock, the overall look of this little figure wonderfully evokes the art design from the game. Valoren comes with a spear, which can also be clipped to his back.

Valoren’s stand is even simpler to build than Ragerock’s, as several of the pieces just go into building the little column. It’s still a nice display stand, though, and very reminiscent of the architecture of Silvermoon City. Maybe the stand could have been green, as I tend to think of a lot of grass in that area, but it still looks fine as it is.

Each of these sets contains 29 pieces, so they’re obviously pretty easy builds and the figures themselves are built and ready to go right out of the box. They ran me $6.88 each at Walmart, which is not at all bad considering that a lot more sculpting and paintwork goes into them as opposed to a Lego minifig and they display really well on their little stands. At some point I need to pick up the last of these Faction Packs, which appears to be some kind of Night Elf. But next time we revisit Mega Blok’s World of Warcraft series, we’ll be checking out one of the slightly more substantial building sets.

Oct 3 2012

Final Fantasy: Vanille (Play Arts Kai) by Square-Enix

Yeah… and now for something different…

A friend of mine from one of my old Video Game forum haunts still keeps in touch regularly via the Facebooks. She’s not really a toy collector, but she is a video game and anime nut, and well, we all know how those things have a habit of intersecting with the wonderful world of action figures. Now, my days of JRPGs, OVA, and what-not have been behind me for a good ten years, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to entice me back with links and recommendations. I have her to blame thank for getting me to branch out into collecting some of Koto’s Bishoujo statues, a few of which I’ve featured here and I’ve got several more on pre-order.

Well, A few weeks ago she showed me a shot of her modest action figure collection and told me how much I would love them and that I should write about some of them. In addition to a lot of statues, I recognized some Figma, S.H. Figuarts and Play Arts Kai, and the only reason I recognized or knew anything about those was from listening to The Fwooshcast. I told her I’ve never owned any of those, I would put them on my list, but that I had a lot of stuff vying for my collecting dollar and I was trying to keep from branching out into new avenues. About a week later, a sizeable package containing what she called “the gateway drug” arrived at my stoop containing three figures. What a bitch! Anyway, one figure was from S.H. Figuarts, one from Play Arts Kai, and one which I think she thought was a Figma, but was actually a Revoltech). Today I’m going to look at the one that impressed me the most… Oebra Dia Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII. Again, I’ve never seen a Play Arts Kai figure in person before today, and I haven’t played a Final Fantasy game since the original PlayStation. This should be awkward fun!

Holy hell, look at the size of this thing! I always thought Play Arts Kai weighed in around the 6-inch scale, but she’s obviously a lot bigger and comes in a really nice window box, which does a splendid job of showing off the figure. The actual deco for the box is pretty understated, but it has some cool splash marks that run over the window. The back panel of the box shows the figure in some different poses and close-ups as well as two other figures available in this series. The copy on the back of the package is multi-lingual with some English and a lot of kanji. All in all, the box lets the figure do most of the talking, and that’s a wise move because the figure looks absolutely stunning in the package.

Open the top flap and the goods slide out pretty easily. There are no garish twisty-ties or clear rubber bands to deal with. The figure is perfectly encased in a clear plastic tray. Lift off the top and you have access to the figure, her extra pair of hands, and her two accessories. Lift out the figure and the next tray and you can take out the figure stand, which comes in two parts. Let’s start with the figure…

Oh my God, this figure is gorgeous… gorgeous and big… and um, gorgeous. I’m just not used to seeing a figure sculpted this beautifully in this satisfyingly large 9-inch scale. The proportions are excellent, the colors are breathtaking. Ok, rather than just gush all over the place, I’ll start with the head and work my way down.

The head sculpt is fantastic. Vanille is certainly an attractive lady and while she’s obviously got anime roots, she straddles the thin line between realism and overly stylized. Even though I haven’t played a Final Fantasy game in forever, it’s easy to recognize this character from the games’ art style. The paintwork on her lips, eyes, and eyebrows is all precisely applied. The hair is all sculpted separately from her head, which allows some strands to flow down into her face and come off the back in haphazard pigtails. The hair is a glossy pink, which I admit I prefer to the translucent coloring Koto uses on some of their statues.

Vanille’s outfit, what little there is of it, is crazy busy and that makes the sculpting and coloring on the figure all the more impressive. She’s got a loose necklace and pink top held on with spaghetti straps and a ton of colored beads crisscrossing her chest and midriff. She’s wearing a very short orange skirt accentuated by a pink scarf, a belt, a pouch, and a little waist cape that hangs off her backside and is sculpted to look like some kind of pelt. The back of her belt has loose straps that can hold one of her weapons. She also has a pair of bangles on her wrists. Getting down to her feet, she’s wearing a pair of low yellow boots with sculpted fur cuffs. Vanille’s outfit definitely got a tribal thing going on and it gave the sculptors a lot to work with and resulted in a great and complex looking figure. The fact that all the strands of beads are colored and sculpted in separate soft strings of plastic is really incredible.

Part of me was expecting more articulation out of this line, but that’s not to say what’s here is in any way bad or limited. Her neck is ball jointed, and the hair is soft enough so as not to inhibit her head movement. Her arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges and swivels in the elbows, and the wrists have plug-in ball joints so they can be swapped out with her other hands. Her legs have ball joints in the hips, double hinged knees, and swivels and hinges in the ankles. Besides the actual points of articulation, I’m really impressed with how sturdy the actual joints are. When I think about Japanese collector figures, I usually imagine either static PCV statues, or frail and delicate super-articulated pieces. Vanille definitely dispels my misconceptions by being a figure that I can have fun playing around with and not be worried about breaking her in the process. The construction of the knee joints is clever as it conceals the hinges a bit, and while the pins in the ankles aren’t painted, the flesh tone matches the yellow boots close enough so as not to be too distracting.

 

Vanille comes with an extra pair of hands, two weapons, and a figure stand. I haven’t seen a big need to swap out the hands, as the ones she comes fitted with can hold her weapons and that’s how I would most likely display her. Her weapons include a wand or staff, and some sort of shorter melee weapon. I have no idea what they are, but they follow the same tribal design as her outfit and appear to be made of bones, antlers and that sort of thing. They are both very elaborate, colorful and cool looking. The figure stand is a fairly complex ratcheting stand that can be closed around her torso to assist her in action poses. It’s a little clunky and despite the fact that it’s almost clear, it can be a little distracting. It’s a nice extra, but Vanille can stand perfectly fine on her own, so it’s not necessary unless you’re looking for some really dynamic poses.

My apologies to everyone who already knew how great these figures are. I realize this is old news to a lot of collectors out there. Obviously, I just got the memo. I don’t usually find myself at a loss for words when describing my thoughts about   an action figure, but I’ll confess, I can’t do this lovely lady justice. True, in this case, I couldn’t fall back on my knowledge of the character, because I’ve never played Final Fantasy XIII. But then having no attachment or familiarity to the character should just go to show you how impressed I am with the figure itself. I am just so beside myself with the sculpt, coloring, and the overall quality of the figure. Gateway drug indeed. I’ve already started eyeing some more of these Final Fantasy figures and… oh my… are those Street Fighter figures? Yep, I’m screwed.