Sep 23 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 20: Collect & Connect Nekron by Mattel

We can argue all day whether or not the new DC All Stars line is really just a re-branded DCUC only without the re-branding, but there’s no arguing that Wave 20 saw the last DCUC Collect & Connect figure. Obviously, Nekron wasn’t everybody’s first choice to fill the last C&C slot, nor was he mine, but I wasn’t terribly upset about it either. Besides, it’s not like Mattel was going to make everyone happy with any choice anyway. While there are plenty of other characters I wanted more, Nekron certainly had potential to be a very cool looking figure, so I was perfectly fine with it.

And cool looking he is! This poor guy has literally been lying on my shelf for ages, hoping that I would get off my ass and buy the last two figures needed to get him his legs. Unfortunately, a bunch of other purchases had priority and so he was going to have to wait. I was almost ready to take up a collection, complete with Matty Collector style thermometer and everything. “Our goal is just $30 to get poor Nekron his legs.” If only he had a long staff-like accessory to lean on. Ah, but more on that in a moment.

Where was I? Oh yeah, he is a great looking figure. The head sculpt is worthy of praise just because there’s so much depth and texturing in it. The skin has a great cross-thatch pattern, the Black Lantern emblem is sculpted, rather than just painted, and every one of the teeth in his rictus grin is lovingly crafted. The deep set eyes are piercing and thanks to a particularly great bit of paintwork, they practically look like they’re glowing, and in a way that is better than most light piping effects can produce. The neck features a heavy collar with real chains dangling off the front and back. Simply awesome.

The body is clad in a soft, rubbery black trench-coat type affair that’s tattered towards the bottom. It’s parted at the chest to allow a good view of the broken rib cage, complete with strands of sinew and flesh clinging on, and the sculpted heart that lies within. Man, it would have been cool if the entire torso cavity was actually hollow to improve this effect, but the way they did it still works well. Nekron has another heavy manacle on his left wrist with another real chain hanging off of it.

If you’re looking for exciting coloring, look elsewhere. Nekron is as drab as death and appropriately so. In a series full of brightly colored costumed heroes and villains, it’s kind of refreshing to see someone dark and dusty and actually looking like they just crawled out of a tomb. The only real contrast from his grey, dead skin is the glossy black pants and the silver on his belt and boots. The coat is matte black, and there’s a great layer of dust painted all around the bottom of the back of the coat.

Mattel went all out on the articulation for this guy. You get a ball jointed neck, and even with the collar, you can still get good motion out of the head. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and double hinges in the elbows. The legs feature the usual DCUC universal hip joints, swivels in the thighs, hinges in the ankles, and double hinged knees. There is no ab crunch, due to the unique properties of the chest sculpt, but it’s nice to see that Mattel tossed in the extra double-hinges in the elbows and knees to make up for that. Nekron isn’t exactly a figure that I need to be busting out action poses, but more articulation is almost always better than less, so I’m not complaining.

Equally cool is Nekron’s trademark scythe. Hey, wait a minute… there’s no scythe! No, there isn’t. While shown off in promo pictures of the figure, the scythe was taken out at the last minute as a cost cutting move. It was a really unfortunate decision as it soured a lot of collectors on the very last C&C figure. What’s worse is that Nekron’s hands are obviously sculpted to hold the missing accessory and they mock me every time I look at them. Seems like Mattel could have thrown us collectors a bone for keeping the line afloat for 20 waves, but then I’ll confess, the scythe is no small accessory and I have no idea how much it would have added to the overall cost of the wave. Not to mention it’s probably not great business sense to go over budget on the final wave of a dead line.

And there ya have it. I can’t help but think that it might have been a little inside joke to have Nekron, the lord of death himself, as the last C&C figure, towering over the final wave of DCUC as it passes into oblivion gets slightly revamped into DC All Stars and continues on its merry way. This format was the way to do him right. The DC Direct version was a great sculpt, but the scale doesn’t work for me. I wanted my Nekron towering over my other figures, and I certainly got that in the end. Scythe notwithstanding, I’m pretty happy with him. He looks great, and the character certainly has gravitas, even beyond the Blackest Night story arc.

Sep 22 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 20: Reverse Flash by Mattel

It’s raining Flash foes, as I’ve managed to add both Mirror Master and now Reverse Flash to my DCUC collection over the past month. Ok, maybe not raining, but there’s certainly a little trickle to keep Captain Cold company on the shelf. With Flashpoint still fresh in people’s memories, including this figure as part of Wave 20, made a lot more sense to me than yesterday’s White Lantern Flash, as it’s both topical and also remedies a niche that many collectors were likely happy to see filled. Much like yesterday, this is going to be a quickie. But unlike yesterday, it’s not because I’m bored with the figure. Quite the contrary. No, in this case, no matter how happy I am to get the character in my collection, there’s still only so much you can say about a repaint.

There we go. I’d say this is the last time we’ll see actual DCUC packaging, but then I have plenty of holes in my collection to fill, and even a couple of figures still in my acquisitions pile yet to be opened. So, the line may be technically dead, but it’ll continue to crop up from time to time around these parts. The back panel of the card has a nice little bio blurb and shows off the other figures in the wave that you will need to complete your Collect & Connect Nekron figure.

Yep, Mattel has certainly gotten their money’s worth out of repainting this figure body. I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s totally appropriate here and the end result looks good. I was a little worried about how the unpainted yellow plastic would look, but it turned out just fine. The chest emblem and lightning on the figure are all crisp and the red boots and wings on the mask really top off the figure nicely. Mattel did spring for a new head sculpt, and I must say they did a bang up job on it too. The expression is awesome! Oh yeah, there is one other change to the sculpt: The left hand. Instead of leaving the normal fist on the figure, Mattel re-sculpted it so he can hold his baton accessory. I would have been perfectly happy to have kept the fist, but I’m not going to quibble about an extra accessory, and much to my surprise, I did wind up displaying him with it.

Articulation includes everything we saw yesterday with the look at White Lantern Flash. But hey, let’s go through it again anyway: Ball joint in the neck, ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, swivels in the biceps and wrists, patented universal DCUC hip joints, hinges in the knees and ankles, swivels in the thighs, swivel in the waist, and ab crunch hinge in the torso. But chances are you knew all that already.

Truth be told, not every “must have” figure needs to be some amazing new sculpt, and that’s particularly true in the DCUC line. I’m always thrilled to add to my DC rogue gallery and considering some of the questionable slots used up in the last couple waves, Reverse Flash is a welcome treat. It’s like Mattel wanted to get just one more sought out character across the finish line before the race was over. Because he’s Reverse Flash… and it’s a race analogy… ahem. But equally important, my Nekron now has legs. And we’ll check him out in all his standing glory tomorrow as we round out this DCUC weekend.

Sep 21 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 20: White Lantern Flash by Mattel

We’re going back in time a bit today, and actually all weekend, as I take care of some unfinished business with Wave 20 of DC Universe Classics. You may remember that I covered this entire wave a little while back, except for two figures. Well, my poor Collect & Connect Nekron figure has been lying on the shelf without any legs for too long, so I decided to hunt down the last two figures and finally have some closure in that Wave. Those last two figures were the Flash variants: Eobard Thwane, aka Reverse Flash, and Barry Allen Flash as part of the White Lantern Corps. We’ll start out today with White Lantern Flash.

I’d say it’s good to see this packaging again after DCUC got canned and all that, but then we just saw this packaging, more or less, when we looked at the new DC All Stars figures. Considering nothing much has changed, let’s just get on with the figure. I’ll confess right now that I would have easily passed on this one if it weren’t for my Nekron needing legs. I love me my Darkest Night/Brightest Day, but enough was enough, Mattel. A figure like this had no business being in the last wave of DCUC.

I wasn’t nearly as upset with getting the Blue Lantern Flash, mainly because I think that’s a really great looking figure. The black and blue paintwork on it makes it really pop on the shelf, so I could easily forgive having to buy it to finish my C&C Anti-Monitor. White Flash, on the other hand, is just boring. It’s the same old head sculpt, and while the White Lantern emblem looks nice and sharp, his color scheme isn’t even  as good looking as the White Lantern Hal Jordan.

In fairness, Mattel didn’t go the straight repaint here. Oh, it’s close, but they did add a little flare in the way of lighting energy. Unfortunately, in this case going the extra mile kind of ruins the figure for me. I appreciate that you can just take off the arm lighting, but the lightning that comes up off his shoulders is permanently embedded in his back. And even if you were to get ambitious and pry it out, you’d wind up with either a big hole, or a lump of plastic there. I’m just not digging it.

Articulation is exactly what you would expect should you happen to own any of the other Barry Allen Flash figures, or any DCUC figure for that matter. You get a ball jointed neck, the arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs feature universal movement at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. The torso swivels at the waist and has the usual ab crunch hinge.

And there you go, quick and easy. The brief tone of today’s feature should convey how badly I want to finish up and get to The Pub much I care about this figure and how badly I wanted it, which is not at all. And considering what a big Flash fan I am, that’s pretty sad. Look, if you were jonesing for a White Lantern Flash, this figure should scratch your itch. It isn’t inherently bad. The lightning effects aren’t for me, but everything else about him pretty much fits the bill. I think part of the problem is that looking back at Wave 20 is reminding me how badly I wanted Mattel to keep figures like this one in their parallel Green Lantern Classics line and keep the proper DCUC slots for the vast number of characters I still want to see in this format. Anyway, now that I get him out of the way, I’ll be back tomorrow to check out the one in this pair I was actually excited to get… Reverse Flash!

Sep 20 2012

Marvel Legends: Iron Man (Neo-Classic Armor) by Hasbro

Holy hell, the new Marvel Legends figures are beginning to trickle out both in retail and across the Cyberwebs. I honestly didn’t think we were going to start seeing these until November. I knocked out the first two waves by buying them by the case, but when I saw two lone Wave 3 figures, Iron Man and Mystique, hanging on the pegs, I couldn’t resist getting them individually. We’ll check out the first one this week, then I’ve got to take care of some unfinished DCUC business over the weekend, and I’ve got a themed week planned for next week, so who the hell knows when I’ll get to Mystique.

Yes, it’s Iron Man in his second Legends appearance in only three waves. Ok, it’s technically the third if you count that blue repaint in Wave 1. And there’s the glorious, eye-catching Marvel Legends packaging. God, I love it! You get comic book style and action figure goodness married together in a perfect package. The only way this could be better is if ML figures actually had a reprint comic book as the backing for the figure. Oh wait, they did until Hasbro got hold of the line!

The first thing you may notice is that there’s no Build-A-Figure part, instead you get a big figure stand, recycled from the 6-inch Avengers movie figures. The stand is sculpted to look like a number of hexagonal tiles strung together. There are several pegs so you can position the figure in different stances, and the stand will hook together with other similar stands in various ways so you can create a big display. I like these a lot, and if Hasbro would sell them in packs at their web store, I would probably buy a bunch. Since the previous two waves were named after their BAF, Hasbro has just called this wave “Epic Heroes.” Fair enough!

When I heard Iron Man was going to be in another wave of Legends, I wasn’t thrilled. Sure, it makes sense, as he’s a huge personality in the Marvel Universe right now and with Iron Man 3 soon to be released, the character will continue to make bucket loads of money for Disney and Hasbro for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, I was a lot happier when I saw the choice for the armor. The Neo-Classic armor is a nice break from the modern stuff we’ve been getting so much of lately.

First off, I want to thank Hasbro for finally bulking up Iron Man a bit. My main complaint with the Extremis Armor release was that he was so small compared to the other 6-inch Avengers on my shelf. Stand him next to Steve Rogers from the same wave and, well, there’s clearly a problem. The added bulk to this figure comes closer to looking like he’s scaled about right for a guy wearing armor. He is, however, notably shorter than the Extremis Armor Iron Man from the first wave, so in some way Hasbro took a slight step forward and a slight step back. Proportionally, he looks good with two exceptions… his hands. Those hands look awfully tiny to me. I do, however, dig those clunky Mega Man style boots.

Since this is the older style of armor, the figure is built off a standard muscled buck with separate sculpted armor pieces on the chest, shoulders, arms and legs. I’m really keen on the head sculpt, which offers a bit of depth around the eyes and mouth slots, although not as much as the production photos suggested. After being exposed to so much of the sleek new armor suits both in the comics and on the big screen, looking at this style is like looking at a vintage automobile. It has a retro charm and sexiness all of its own.

The figure’s sculpting is solid, but I think it’s the color that really makes this figure stand out. Hasbro used just the right shade of gilded gold paint for the body and a beautiful deep, metallic red for the armor plating. They may be the only two colors on the entire figure, but man do they look great together.

Iron Man’s articulation includes a ball joint in the neck, arms with ball jointed shoulders, double hinged elbows, hinged wrists, and swivels in the biceps, forearms, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs and lower legs. It looks like there are hinges in the ankles, but they are useless because of the way the boots are sculpted. The torso features a swivel at the waist and an ab crunge hinge in the chest. It certainly isn’t the best articulation we’ve seen in the line, but some of the restrictions come from the style of the sculpt and I think Hasbro did their best to work around this where they could. One notable point is the hinged shoulder flaps to allow for greater arm movement. I really would have liked an extra neck hinge so he could look up if I pose him on a flight stand. It’s also worth noting that the peg holes in Iron Man’s feet don’t go deep enough to work with the figure stand! Come on, Hasbro!

I’ll confess Iron Man was the one figure in Wave 3 that I was looking forward to the least. He certainly isn’t one of the shining beacons of the line, but he’s certainly not terrible either. A number of little issues cause him to land right in the middle of the average range on my patented Marvel Legends figure Cool-O-Meter. Still, it’s nice to see this armor in this scale and I’m definitely content to put him up on my shelf where he looks damn good. That all having been said, I’m still pretty sure he’ll wind up the peg-warmer of this wave, although with how well these figures have been selling in my area, there may not be any peg-warmers at all.

Sep 19 2012

Thundercats: 6-inch Series: Tygra by Ban Dai

Looking back at the Thundercats re-launch makes me a sad kitty. I thought the new series was excellent, although I drifted away from it because of the gaps in the release of new episodes. I loved the toys, and I know I was largely a minority on that point, but I thought the 6-inch figures were great, even if they did have unpainted joints, and I thought the 4-inch figures were loads of fun. I did everything I could to support the line at retail, but it seemed like it was doomed to slip away from the very beginning. Of course, the problem with a re-launch is when it fizzles out, like Thundercats did, it’ll likely be a while before anyone else touches it. And considering how long it took for Thundercats to get its second chance at bat, it may be a very long time indeed.

Well, we’re revisiting this dead line today because I finally picked up the last of the 6-inch releases. [I just realized I never did look at the 6-inch Mumm-Ra either, but we’ll come back to him some other week. –FF] As is often the case when a line dies, the last releases are hard to find, and for a while Tygra was going for insane monies on the secondary market. I finally found him for a fairly reasonable price on Amazon, so let’s check out the last of the Thundercats team in this scale.

Once again we see that if you are a mint-on-card collector, you don’t want to buy from Amazon because they don’t give a shit when their packing your toys. This time, the figure was jammed into a box that was too small, so the card flap was bent all the way over. I know, I don’t really care, I tear these things open most of the time, so if I’m getting free second day shipping, I’m willing to deal with a mangled package in most cases. As with the other 6-inch figures, Tygra comes in a huge bubble on a fitted card. I always thought this was attractive and serviceable packaging, although I was never fond of the tri-lingual stuff. The bubble uses a personalized insert with Tygra’s character art and a sticker that boasts 18-points of articulation. The back of the card shows a photo of the figure along with some of the other figures that are available.

I was not a big fan of the character Tygra in the new series, but after only a few moments in my hand, I was sure that his is one of my favorite figures in the 6-inch line. For starters, the head sculpt is excellent. It doesn’t have any of the soft sculpt problems that Lion-O or Cheetara has. Tygra’s face is very well defined and the paintwork is outstanding.  The body and armor are also very well sculpted. There are parts of the armor that look like they could be detached, even though they’re actually sculpted as part of the figure. The armor is all cast in a nice deep matte green plastic, while the painted tiger stripes on Tygra’s exposed fur skin are expertly applied. I would have liked a bit more gloss on the Thundercats emblem, but at least it looks nice and crisp. The silver belt is a separate piece and detachable, but it is fitted so well to the figure that it looks and feels like it’s a part of him. The silver belt includes a functional holster and some sculpted canisters running across the front.

The joints are still unpainted. It seems less unsightly with Tygra because of his armor, but this was never a big sticking point with me. The exposed screws on the back are rather conspicuous, but again, it doesn’t do anything to ruin the figure for me.

As the package suggests, Tygra has 18 points of articulation. You get a ball jointed neck. The arms have ball joints and swivels in the shoulders, double hinged elbows, and ball joints in the wrists. The legs ball jointed at the hips, double hinged in the knees, and hinged at the ankles. He is also ball jointed at the waist, and it feels like he’s got another joint going on under that chest armor. Hmm… I count 20 points, but more is better so I’m not complaining.

Tygra comes with two accessories. You get his whip and the laser pistol he took off one of the mutants. The whip is just a long piece of bendy blue rubbery plastic with two tails at the end. It certainly serves its purpose and you can work it into different cool poses, as it has just the right amount of flexibility. The gun is a cast in silver plastic, nicely sculptd and fits great in the figure’s right hand so that the trigger finger can go through the trigger guard.

Tygra turned up on Amazon for $24.99 and I jumped at him. Yeah, that’s about $8-10 more than he would have been at retail, but I’m not going to gripe about it. He’s a really cool figure and definitely one of the best, if not the best, figures in this short lived modern 6-inch line. It really makes me sad to know that we won’t be getting the Thunderkittens in this scale, nor Jaga or Grune or any of the mutants. I think Bandai did an alright job with these figures (much better than I originally anticipated) and quite frankly I think collectors were just too hard on them. As mentioned earlier, I still have the 6-inch scale Mumm-Ra sitting around here somewhere, so at some point in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be revisiting this line just one more time to check him out.

Sep 18 2012

World of Warcraft: Human Paladin Colton (Faction Pack) by Mega Bloks

I haven’t looked at any of the toys or statues based on Blizzards ridiculously successful MMORPG game, World of Warcraft. And while I have looked at my share of Lego and even some Not-Lego (Character Building and Kre-O), I have only really looked at a few of Mega Bloks’ blind bagged minifigures, and not any of the actual sets. Well, for the last two or three weeks, I’ve been falling back into the dark, evil addiction of WoW, as I try to learn all the ins and outs of the new Patch before the new Expansion drops in on the 25th. It seemed like a good time to start checking out some of what Mega Bloks has done with the WoW license.

I’m starting off small, with some of their so-called “Faction Packs.” These are little boxed sets that contain a minifigure and a couple of dozen bricks that let you build a little display base. It’s a really cool idea that gives you something a bit more substantial than the blind bagged minifig format. I really dig the packaging, which consists of a little window box that shows the figure. The back panel shows the figure and base in detail along with some of the other available Faction Packs. Inside the box, the figure (which comes completely assembled), his weapon, and his faction symbol are all nested in a tray and the baggie of pieces for the base is concealed above. You also get an instruction sheet. The whole thing is wonderfully collector friendly, providing you don’t mind taking the base apart to store it.

 

The minifig in this set is Colton and he’s a Human Paladin, which makes him one of the hated Alliance *ptoowey* I spit on the Alliance, as in the game I only roll Horde. That having been said, Colton here is a pretty cool little guy with a design that really matches the game pretty well. His face is pretty generic, but the armor is very nicely sculpted for such a small figure and the shoulders and torso armor can all be removed and swapped out with other sets to customize. His five points of articulation consist of ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips, which is not at all bad for a minifig. He comes with a double-bladed axe.

The base consists of a fairly large platform and a number of bricks that look like… well, stone bricks. These make up a little corner of castle wall. You also get two long torches, and the aforementioned faction symbol. It only takes a couple of minutes to put this thing together, but it makes for a very nice way to display the figure. On the downside, it doesn’t hold together as well as Lego, so moving it requires a bit of care.

Of course, the other cool thing here is that Mega Bloks is compatible with Lego sets and that means I can slap the faction symbol on one of my Kingdoms sets for Colton to hang out in.

The whole set includes 28 pieces, which compares pretty closely to Lego’s impulse sized sets. I picked up this set at Walmart for about $6.88. It seemed a tad high at the time for just a minifigure, but when I saw how big the base was, I was a little happier. It seems like Mega Bloks only has four of these Faction Packs out right  now, and I’ve already grabbed two more, so we’ll be checking them out in the near future.

Sep 17 2012

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Shockwave by Hasbro

I rarely buy games when they first come out, but I was happy to fork over the sixty bucks for Fall of Cybertron on Day One. Unfortunately the next day my Xbox decided to give up the ghost and die on me, so I’m still only three levels into it. The irony is that I actually had the PS3 version in my hands and then put it back and went for the 360 version because all of my gaming friends only play on Xbox’s Network. So, until I can get motivated enough to swap out the DVD drive on my 360, I’ll have to enjoy this game through the toys, which have just been hitting the pegs in my area this past week or so. I’ve been waffling a bit on Optimus and Jazz, but when I saw Shockwave, I grabbed him right away.

It’s so good to see Generations back on the shelves after the tsunami of Dark of the Moon has come and gone. With the return of the line comes newly rebranded packaging and I’m really digging the new look. The G1-style grid on the card tugs at my nostalgia strings, as does the very G1-inspired portrait of Shockwave. The back panel has photos of the toy and a pretty cool bio blurb about how he’ll murder you with his logic. And holy shit, check it out… they brought back the tech specs! Shockwave is packaged in his robot form and held on to the tray with a ridiculous number of string twisties. Overall, this package design gets my stamp of approval and I do hope they continue to use it forGenerations beyond Fall of Cybertron.

With Shockwave out of the package I find myself blown away by this figure. Yes, I am biased with my love for Shockwave, but it really is an absolutely amazing update to the character we all know and love. But more than that, the design is so clean and solid, the proportions are so right, that it feels more like an action figure and less like a Transformer. The head sculpt is a perfect homage and the light piping for his eye works exceptionally well. The arm cannon is also a great design, as Shockwave can simply fold back one of his hands and the cannon mounts onto either arm. It’s bigger than G1 Shockwave’s arm cannon, but not as ridiculously big as say, Energon Shockblast’s arm cannon. The sculpt features a lot of panel lines and great little details, like all the cables molded around his neck.

The one thing that I’ve been the most disappointed over with this year’s Transformers has been the lack of paint apps. Shockwave is no different, but his color scheme works without it. He’s mostly sculpted in traditional Decepticon purple, with some great translucent purple plastic and some silver paintwork on his trim. The ensemble is perfect and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. His Decepticon logo is kind of small, but I don’t know where else you could put it to make it larger.

Shockwave sports solid articulation. The head turns, but is not ball jointed. The arms rotate at the shoulders and have hinged lateral movement and ball joints in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and have both swivels and hinges at the knees. A waist swivel would have been welcome, but I don’t think its absence really hurts the figure a lot.

I was a little concerned about Shockwave’s size, especially since the TF Prime figures have been getting smaller and smaller. He does look small in the package but once I got him out and stood him next to my War for Cybertron Megatron, my fears were vanquished. He’s perfectly sized to stand beside his leader. Some might have preferred him as a Voyager, but I’m really happy with Hasbro streamlining the figures into mostly Deluxes. It may create some scale issues in alt mode, and sure, some Transformers should be bigger than others, but Shockwave here is scaled perfectly in robot mode for the other Classics and Generations figures.

I actually had to look at the instructions to get Shockwave into his alt mode, and that’s something I almost never have to do. The reason here is not because he’s a complex Transformer, but rather his alt mode, unlike a car or jet or tank, is somewhat abstract, so it’s tough to figure out where everything is supposed to go. He’s billed as “Cybertron Mobile Artillery” which is basically like a big hovering cannon. I like to think of him more as a spaceship, but either way it is a very nice nod back to his original G1 gun mode. The alt mode locks together very nicely and looks damn good too. I’m impressed with the number of panel lines in the sculpt and while there aren’t a lot of paint apps, (he basically has the exact same color scheme as his robot mode), the coloring on the figure doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything. Well, maybe a Decepticon logo would have been nice.

How about the price? Dang, these things are getting expensive. True, I haven’t been buying a lot of Transformers since Dark of the Mooncame out, but I still remember only paying around $10-11 apiece for those Deluxes. Shockwave was $15!!! It’s kind of outrageous considering the size of the figure, but I can justify it by passing this off as a collector line. Plus, I love this figure so much that I probably would have paid even more for him if I had to. But then, even the TF: Prime Deluxes have shot up to the $15 price point at the local Walmart. I’ve been a Transformers fan from Day One, but even I think Hasbro is starting to overestimate the demand for these guys.

Shockwave has had some decent re-imaginings in lines like Energon and Animated, but this release is a bona fide stab at bringing the character into the Classics continuity. Sure, it’s his Fall of Cybertron version, but since the character never got an Earth alt mode, it fits right in, much the same way that I prefer to use my War for Cybertron Megatron and Soundwave as my default Classics versions. Shockwave is definitely a solid and well-engineered figure, and while I don’t like to use the word perfect a lot, I think this guy comes closer to being a perfect Transformer than any I’ve seen in a while. I just love him to pieces and he’s sure to be a popular release with the fans.

Sep 16 2012

Chaos! Comics: Lady Demon by Moore Action Collectibles

While we’ve spent the last two entries hobnobbing with obscurity, that’s certainly not the case today with the team up of Brian Pulido and Clayburn Moore. Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s hard to argue with Pulido’s prolific bibliography that ranges from the kind of indie stuff we’re looking at this weekend to his efforts with more mainstream pop culture horror franchises. Not to mention his works have graced the pages of Marvel and Dark Horse comics. He may not be the heaviest of hitters in the comic market, but he’s been pretty darn successful at something I, and lots of other comic book nerds, would love to do.

Today’s figure ushers from the pages of Chaos! Comics, an indie press with a sad little history that carried it for a mere six years before going belly up over legal and financial problems. I’ve thumbed through a few issues of Lady Death, one of the characters that survived the demise of Chaos!, but can’t confess to ever having been a big fan of anything other than the artwork. I am, however, a pretty big fan of Clayburn Moore of Moore Action Collectibles and CS Moore Studios fame, and his efforts at sculpting various action figures, statues and other icons of nerdom. And that brings us to the last, and my favorite, of this weekend’s indie comic figure trifecta… Lady Demon.

Lady Demon’s package doesn’t have the “in your face” comic art that the last two figures had. In fact, it’s the same kind of downplayed and serviceable cardback that we saw the last time we looked at a Moore figure. It may not be as exciting, but then there’s something to be said for letting the figure speak for itself, and Lady Death here certainly does that. She’s displayed very nicely under the bubble with here figure stand and accessories beside her. The Chaos! Emblem, engulfed in tendrils of lightning, is printed on the card to serve as a backdrop for the figure and bubble. The back of the package features a nice piece of character art, a little bio blurb on Lady Demon, and photos of some of the other figures available in the line. Again, the package here isn’t as flash as what we’ve seen this weekend, but it feels more polished and professional.

Lady Demon stands about 6-inches tall and she’s in perfect scale with Moore’s other figures, including the Ariel Darkchylde figure that I have standing on one of my shelves. She stands in a pretty neutral pose and she looks fantastic. Her outfit is a mix of sculpting and paintwork, which really accentuates her killer body. The giant demon skull that sits atop her tiny loin cloth is pretty outrageous and her skin tone has a very cool brownish, slightly ethereal tone. Her skin has a glossy plastic finish, and while some may prefer a more flesh painted finish, this look works fine for me.

If you can draw your eyes away from her other assets, Lady Demon’s head sculpt is worth scrutinizing, because it really is excellent. The full, smirking lips, the large pupil-less eyes are great and the unexpected giant devil horns that protrude from her forehead really make for a distinctive looking figure. The whole ensemble is capped off with a cascade of sculpted white hair and two large detailed earrings, because even hellspawn chicks need to accessorize. When you compare her to the other indie comic figures we looked at this weekend, Lady Demon’s head sculpt really separates her from the passable efforts of the Rendition figure and the downright hack performance of the sculptors at Skybolt, and that’s all thanks to the talents of Moore.

If you’re familiar with Moore Action Figures, you know not to expect a lot of articulation. Lady Demon features the old standard five points, with arms that rotate at the shoulders and legs that rotate at the hips. The head actually does have a ball joint, which surprised me a little and allows the joint to work better with the sculpted hair. There’s not a lot you can do with her articulation, and I’m fine with that because elbow and knee joints would have detracted from her sculpt. It is, however, a shame the figure doesn’t at least have wrist cuts.
Lady Demon comes with three accessories. You get a very nice figure stand with the Chaos! Emblem sculpted into it. You also get a sword and some kind of little skull scepter. I absolutely love the sword. Not only does it have a cool sculpt and actually look like the kind of sword that a hell-bitch might wield (unlike the swords of Sinthia or Ravyn), but I really dig the metallic red paint job. The scepter is a nice little sculpt, and while it isn’t as cool as the sword, the lack of articulation in the figure means that I’ll probably display her with the scepter. As good as the sword looks, she just can’t be posed so that she’s holding it that convincingly.

So, guilty pleasure or not, I love this figure and I’ll be anxious to pull some of the other Moore Action Figures out of the tote and check them out. Perhaps I’ll save some of those for when we get closer to Halloween. It’s good to end this weekend on a high note, but make no mistake, I’ve got a ton more of these figures and I plan on photographing a bunch of them before consigning this tote back to the dark reaches of storage, from whence it came. In the meantime, tomorrow starts a new week and I really need to start chiseling away at my pile of new arrivals.
Transformers… Thundercats… World of Warcraft… Marvel… DC… it’s going to be a crazy week!

Sep 15 2012

The Ravening: Ravyn by Rendition Figures

Are we ready to look at more obscure figures based even more obscurererer comic books? Of course we are, because these are figures of scantily clad chicks with big boobs, swords, and demon bits mixed in. I’m a bit liquored up and good to go, so let’s get to it. Today it’s a figure from the 1996 comic The Ravening (The Ravening?) from Avatar Press. We all remember and love that one, right? No? Little bit? Avatar actually collected some worthwhile licenses back in the day, most of which were horror themed. I have no doubt that I’ve picked up one of their books at one time or another, but I sure can’t remember the experience, and I don’t remember anything about this particular comic other than the fact that it centered around Vampires. Yep, you wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but our star figure today, Ravyn, is indeed a bloodthirsty creature of the night.

Much like Sinthia, Ravyn comes on a big card plastered with some nice looking comic art. I’ve never seen an issue of The Ravening, so I’m not sure if this is a recreation of one of the covers or not. Either way, you get a big picture of the main character, Ravyn, showing off a lot of skin. The figure is mounted under a big bubble alongside her bevy of accessories and animal friends. The back of the card shows off other figures produced by Rendition Figures, including another lovely vamp lady from The Ravening comic. Rendition shows off figure’s based on eight characters all together and I don’t know a single one of them, although most of them are probably sitting in this blasted tote.

After excising Ravyn from her package, I have to say I’m a lot more pleased with her over what I had to deal with yesterday. Ravyn is a bit bigger than Sinthia, measuring in at closer to 7-inches. She’s a fairly hefty figure too. Last time, I started with the head sculpt so let’s get that out of the way. Ravyn’s head sculpt is much better than Sinthia’s, although she looks nothing like her character art. In fact, it almost looks like this figure’s head was repurposed from a Vampirella or Bettie Page figure. It’s an ok sculpt for a 15 year old figure, that honestly looks better in person. The paint apps are ok and the hair is sculpted blowing off to the side to give the figure a dynamic look, although I would have preferred something a little more neutral.

Ravyn’s got a killer bod and she isn’t afraid to show it off. Her outfit, what there is of it, is actually almost the exact same color as Synthia’s, all red and yellow, but it’s a bit more revealing, and I dare say a lot better sculpted and arm guards and all sorts of thigh belts. She’s sculpted in a fairly neutral pose, but the bottoms of her feet are designed to be in a pretty specific position to let her stand, with one knee drawn up a bit. It’s a little tricky to get her to stay up, especially since she doesn’t come with a figure stand or have any peg holes in her feet.

Unlike yesterday’s selection, you actually get a lot of stuff with this figure. There’s a sword, a knife, and a little spikey weapon thing. The sword is has a pretty unique design to the hilt, and she can hold it in either hand. I’m not too big on the other two weapons, as they’re really tiny and don’t really match the figure as well as the sword does. You also get a bat, which is pegged to pose rather awkwardly on Ravyn’s right arm, and a static wolf figure, which is actually rather nicely sculpted and painted and looks good standing next to her.

Ravyn sports a decent amount of articulation. You get a swivel cut in the neck. The arms rotate at the shoulders, have hinged elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs rotate at the hips and have hinged knees. There’s a lot more points of articulation here than I would ever expect in this kind of figure. The wrist cuts are particularly welcome as they allow you to pose her with the sword held across her body.

Honestly, when I set out to do this weekend’s three features, I planned on panning the hell out of two figures and then looking at one genuinely good one. I had no problems panning yesterday’s figure, but I actually wound up liking Ravyn a lot. Putting her in the context of 90’s indie comic figures, Rendition delivered a solid enough figure. If I was a fan of the comic, I doubt I would be happy with the likeness, but taken on her own, this figure works fine for me. It’s a competent sculpt with good articulation and decent paintwork. The coloring on her outfit wouldn’t have been my first choice, and unfortunately this figure is one of the few in the tote that doesn’t have an insane number of repainted variants. Ravyn was a pretty nice surprise. She might actually find her way onto one of my display shelves when the rest of the tote goes back to the FigureFan remote storage enclave.

Sep 14 2012

Sinthia: Princess of Hell by Skybolt Toyz

“WHO IS SINTHIA?”

It’s never reassuring when an action figure package needs to ask and answer a question about the identity of the main character. And yet, Skybolt Toyz was so confident you’d have no idea who the hell this character is that they ask the question for you right on the upper corner of the cardback. In fact, not only does the card explain that Sinthia is the 18 year old (hot and bratty) daughter of Lucifer himself, but tosses in a couple of pages from the 1997 premier issue, published by Indie Comic Press, Lighting. Yep, Lightning knew how to lure horny teens to the world of comics with panel after panel of a half-naked buxom blonde demon on a quest to find true love on Earth. How is it the CW hasn’t optioned this series yet?

I’ve only ever seen two issues of Sinthia. In fact, I’ve seen more variant covers then actual installment, and trying to research just how much staying power this comic had beyond Issue #2 suggests that Skybolt may have produced more action figures of Sinthia than Lightning produced actual comics. But enough preamble, let’s look at the package…

Sinthia comes on a massive, colorful card that recreates the standard cover of Issue #1. The front features full panel art of Sinthia and her self-proclaimed guardian demon, Mhor-Duke. I wholeheartedly approve of this idea of using cover art of the premier issue as the cardback for the figure. It’s cool. The figure itself comes on a tray with her sword and scabbard each mounted separately beside her. I do like the way the card art just serves as a backdrop for the figure inside the bubble. However, the bubble is unnecessarily large and only serves to make it look like she should have come with more accessories. The back panel of the card also shows some of the other figures available from other forgotten comics. Let’s go ahead and get Sinthia out of the package, because I think this is going to be a rough ride.

Woof! Ok, so props to the sculptor for delivering a figure that from the neck down personifies your average comic reading nerdling’s wet dream. But before we get to that let’s just check out the head. I can almost see what they were going for here before it all derailed. The eyes are kind of angled right, I suppose the hair is ok, but everything else went horribly wrong. I think it’s the nose and eyebrows… or maybe everything else.

Sinthia stands roughly 6-inches tall and her costume strikes me more as a heroine from Dungeons & Dragons than she does a Princess of Hell. She’s got a red and gold one piece that’s slit in the front all the way down to below her naval, where it terminates into an asstacular thong. She’s certainly not shy about showing off the goods, but then she is some kind of half-demon princess. She’s got shoulder armor, arm bracers with blades on her left arm, knee high boots, and a dagger sculpted to her left thigh. I really have no problems with the body sculpt and paintwork at all. For what she is they did a fairly good job.

Sinthia has a huge rubbery plastic belt that hangs around her waist and features a peg so you can attach her red and yellow checked scabbard. Unfortunately, the way the belt is sculpted it looks like the weight is drawing it down on the side without the scabbard attached. It hangs from the belt just fine, but it looks rather awkward. A little coaxing can get the belt off entirely, or you can try to reposition it so it fits a little better. In addition to the functional scabbard, you get her sword. I’m sorry, her Hell Sword! It’s a fairly simple piece with a silver blade and yellow hilt, which fits into her left hand. I have to throw in some kudos any time a figure in this scale has a functional scabbard.

Sinthia features all of five points of articulation. She has rotating cuts at her neck, shoulders and hips. The neck and shoulder cuts are fairly useful, but there’s not much point to the hip cuts. If you try to sit her down, her legs spread way apart (har har!) and they pretty much have to be in one specific position if she’s going to stand. Speaking of standing, Sinthia has pegs holes in the bottoms of her feet, but no stand.

Are there still fans of this comic? Were there enough fans of this comic to warrant not only one action figure, but tons of repainted variants? Who can tell? She’s more of a slightly poseable statue than an action figure, and if it weren’t for her unfortunate head sculpt, she wouldn’t be all bad. If nothing else, I can definitely see a lot of potential here for customizers and the landscape of Ebay is certainly littered with Sinthia in all her many versions, but that’s probably where she’s best off remaining. If you’re looking for a sexy vixen figure for your desktop, you can do