Aug 23 2012

Marvel Super Heroes: Loki’s Cosmic Cube Escape (#6867) by Lego

[Yep, it’s another bonus update. I’m still working may through the backlog of plastic tat. I should be close to caught up by the end of this week, but I’m still expecting a few things to turn up in the mail any day now. –FF]

Aw, yeah… time for another venture into Lego’s world of Marvel Super Heroes. This time we’re checking out another one of the sets branded after The Avengers movie. This set is loosely based on the beginning sequence where Loki is escaping with the Cosmic Cube with Maria Hill leading Shield in the pursuit. I say loosely based because Maria Hill isn’t one of the minifigs in the set. Instead it is Iron Man doing the pursuit. On the other hand, it does come with a possessed Hawkeye and Loki and a SHIELD truck.

And there’s the box showing you what you get. Rip it open and you find two unnumbered baggies containing a total of 181 pieces. You also get an instruction booklet and a comic. To the minifigs!

As mentioned, the set includes Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Loki and they’re all pretty solid figures. Iron Man is comprised of simple, printed body, but his helmet is separate from his little Tony Stark head and the visor actually lifts open, which goes above and beyond. The mix of red and cold coloring is really nice too. The Hawkeye is also a pretty simple figure with a printed outfit, hair piece, two printed faces, one with shades and one without. He also comes with his bow. The quiver is printed on, which I thought was a bit of a cop out since Lego has plenty of quiver pieces that they could have repurposed for this set. Loki has a printed outfit, a single printed face, a cloth cape, his trademark horned helmet, and his Chitauri staff. You also get a Cosmic Cube piece. Iron Man is easily my favorite of the bunch, but they are all pretty solid efforts. No complaints here.

The rest of the pieces in the set all go to building the Shield 4×4 truck. I wouldn’t say it’s terribly movie accurate, but it is very nicely detailed and includes a light bar on the top of the cab, a ramming bar in the front, a removable fire extinguisher on the driver side, a clip for Hawkeye’s bow on the passenger side, two flick fire missiles on the sides, and a catapult gimmick in the bed of the truck that can launch a figure in the air. It’s a relatively small vehicle, with only one seat in the cab, but it looks great, particularly with the well-designed stickers all applied. Honestly, I don’t have a lot more to say about it.

The set took me about an hour to build, on and off and I had lots of fun doing it. If I were to have any gripes it would just be that there’s nothing really iconic about a SHIELD truck to me, although it does have the emblems and the SHIELD name on it, which helps. If you’re into Lego vehicles, this set should make you pretty happy, if you’re more into it for the Marvel stuff, then the minifigs may be the major draw of this set. At $20, it’s certainly a decent value for a Lego product, and a satisfying build.

Aug 22 2012

Kre-O Transformers: Autobot Ratchet by Hasbro

Among some of the stuff piling up this last month are some of Hasbro’s “Not-Lego” Kre-O sets. I had this last weekend off, so I took the time to build a couple more and today we’re going to check out one of those… it’s everybody’s favorite Autobot Medic, Ratchet.

As always, the set comes in a nifty cardboard briefcase that you can use for convenient storage. I really like the concept, especially since the Kre-O sets usually have extra pieces left over, depending on whether or not you’re building the robot or the alt form. I can usually fit the built robot into the box by only taking a few pieces off, and I can store the sets in their original boxes on one of my book shelves. Inside the box you get an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, two individually bagged Kreons, and three un-numbered bags of parts. The set includes a total of 187 pieces; making this one the smallest Kre-O set I’ve built. Let’s go ahead and look at the Kreons first.

Ok, so I’m not terribly impressed with these guys. You get an ambulance driver and you get Ratchet. The ambulance driver is ok for what he is, and gives you someone to sit in Ratchet while he’s in ambulance mode. He also comes with a stretcher that fits in the back of Ratchet. Ratchet, on the other hand, is pretty flawed, since his helmet and the printed face on his head don’t line up very well. If you put the helmet on so that you can see his face, it pops off really easy. If you put the helmet on all the way, it covers his eyes. Ratchet also comes with a tiny gun.

As always, I built the alt mode first. Ratchet is a pretty decent looking ambulance for a Lego style construct of this size. The build is comprised mostly of red and white bricks and there are some well thought out stickers to help it along. It’s not terribly large, with room in the cab for only one Kreon. There’s no steering wheel or dashboard inside, and there are no doors on the sides either, so you need to take the roof off to get him in there. There are, however, working doors on the back of the ambulance, and there’s room inside for the stretcher. Ratchet also has clips on the sides and back to hold the bevy of tools that come in the set. If you compare this build to a Lego vehicle that you might get in a $20 set, it stacks up pretty well, and overall it was a fun little build. There are a bunch of parts left over for the robot build. I can usually find someplace to stick these, but in Ratchet’s case, I just tossed them all into the back of the ambulance.

While I do enjoy getting two builds out of each of these Kre-O sets, I really hate tearing them apart. It’s also a pain to keep track of the bricks with stickers on them, as you need to use them at specific points of the robot build to make him look right. This time, I had the foresight to set them aside, rather than have to root through all the pieces to find the one I need.

In robot mode, Ratchet is a cool enough looking guy. He’s kind of on the lanky side, which sets him apart from the G1 Ratchet design that I identify with the most. His windshield and front bumper are positioned on his chest, but it looks like he needs a little more oompf in his torso to make the proportions work. He’s mostly arms and legs and his head is a tad too small. On the other hand, he’s a nice clean looking design, I like the way his wheels are positioned on his legs and shoulders and the front wheel wells are on his feet. Once again, you wind up with some left over pieces, most of which I was able to attach to the figure and still make it look good.

Ratchet features good articulation, with ball joints for his head, shoulders, hips, and ankles, and hinges for his elbows and knees. He also feels a lot more stable than my Sideswipe, and he can hold his poses better without flopping over or doing the splits.

I have no idea how much this set went for when it was originally released. I seem to remember getting this one on special for around $12, which is quite a steal considering you get close to 200 pieces. I know that Kre-O gets a bad rap by Lego purists as being inferior and all that, but I don’t have a lot of issues with these sets, and I certainly build my share of Lego. The quality has been overall good, the designs are solid and the builds are plenty of fun. Ratchet is probably my least favorite of the sets I own, but he’s still not a bad set by any means. I just wish his Kreon was a little better.

Aug 21 2012

Young Justice: Martian Manhunter & Miss Martian by Mattel

[And it’s a bonus Tuesday update, because I’ve got crap action figures piling up everywhere… there will likely be another on Thursday too! –FF]

After collecting almost every last one of Mattel’s 4-inch Young Justice figures in order to build the Hall of Justice, I got thwarted by the inability to find Stealth Kid Flash and the last piece I needed. At that point, I swore off these goddamn figures. And that should just go to show you what a weak, weak person I am, because now I’m back like a kicked puppy, picking up a couple more 2-packs, so I can at least complete the team in this scale. Today’s feature takes a look at the “Alien Mindreaders.” It’s been a while since I’ve looked at any of the Young Justice 4-inch line, so I’ll toss out the usual disclaimer with these figures and point out that they are done in the most retro of manner. If you were on board with Mattel’s JLU figures, you can probably find a lot to love with these, everyone else may want to proceed with caution.

 

The package is a nice window box that shows off the figures pretty well. I like the fact that Mattel retained the DC Universe logo. The giant Amazo cut-out in the center of the window is kind of an eyesore, but that’s probably because I really don’t care about building that figure. Either way, the C&C pieces are concealed beneath the cardboard. The back panel has portraits of the animated characters as well as a little bio for them. The panel below that shows you what you need to build Amazo. Everything is pretty collector friendly, so you can return the figures to the package and store them that way if you so choose, although this is a lot of box for just two little 4-inch figures and no accessories.

All of the 4-inch figures in this line have been pretty good representations of their animated counterparts, but I dare say Miss Martian is one of the better ones. The sculpt is excellent, particularly the head, which really captures her on screen appearance perfectly. The hair looks good and the paintwork on the eyes, lips and even the tiny freckles is all applied with precision. Her outfit consists of a blue cape, blue skirt, blue gloves, and blue heels, and she has a white t-shirt with an “X” deco. The paintwork on the rest of the figure is executed perfectly. It’s worth pointing out that the combination of her tiny legs and bulky cape make for a rather back-heavy figure, but it’s still possible to get her to stand on her own with a little patience.

Martian Manhunter is solid enough, but he isn’t the slam dunk of a figure that his niece is. For one thing, I think his head is a tad too small. Mattel may have been going for a stylized look here, but I don’t think his head was that small in the cartoon. There isn’t a lot of original sculpting on Jon either. He’s a standard painted buck with a cape and a new head. Can I also take this time to point out how much I hate that almost all the adult figures have the same exact hands?

Both figures have the same five points of articulation. The heads turn, the arms rotate at the shoulders, and the legs rotate at the hips. It ain’t much to work with, but I suppose it gives the figures something of a retro charm.
As already pointed out, Jon and his niece come with two limbs for the Collect & Connect Amazo figure. You  also get a figure stand. Wait… what? One figure stand? ONE FUCKING FIGURE STAND??? Are you serious Mattel? $20 for a pair of 4-inch figures with just five points of articulation each and you can’t pony up for two figure stands? It’s not like it’s a particularly elaborate stand. It’s just a clear piece of sculpted plastic. I’m sorry, but throwing just one stand into this set is worse than none at all. It’s Matty saying, “Hey remember how we made sure you had no chance of finishing the Hall of Justice? Well here, take one figure stand in your two-pack!” At that point they throw sand in my eyes and run out of the room laughing. I seriously turned this package inside and out because I simply couldn’t believe that the world’s largest toy company on the planet could be that fucking cheap. Looks like I was wrong.

All rage aside, this is a pretty good set. Sure, I still don’t have a 4-inch Artemis, but Miss Martian finishes off my collection fairly well and she is a very solid figure. And considering that Batman, Aquaman, and Flash were all bundled with repacks of the single carded figures, I also appreciate the fact that I didn’t have to buy a figure I already have in order to get Martian Manhunter. I picked up the set for about $20, which is about right considering the single carded figures were all $9.99 each. It’s not exactly a great deal for such simple figures, but I guess there’s just something about them that made me want to complete my collection. Stay tuned for a look at the other 2-packs in the weeks ahead.

Aug 20 2012

Avengers: Hawkeye by Hasbro

Yeah, I’m still busy assembling my 3 ¾” Avengers collection and Hawkeye is the second to the last of the core team I needed. I’m passing on that terrible Hulk figure and will be content with using one of my Marvel Universe Hulks as a stand in, although I may yet buy one of the Thors sans helmet and cape. Unlike Black Widow, Hawkeye was a take him or leave him figure for me. I wasn’t going to pay a premium, and if I didn’t get him I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it, but the action figure gods were good to me and I found him hanging on a peg during my last trip to Target. Good thing too, because this guy turned out to be a pretty cool figure…

Avengers packaging… is there anything else to be said? Wait a minute… “Three Launching Arrows?” Holy shit, they turned Hawkeye’s signature weapon into a big, obnoxious missile launcher? Ah, but fear not, panic is not warranted. There’s an extra bow in there allowing me to immediately toss the launching bow and arrows into the dreaded Junk Tote of Doom never to be seen again. The back of the card has the usual little bio blurb that points out that Hawkeye’s skill with a bow is unrivaled in all the world and that he can hang with the Avengers. Hawkeye, I love ya to death, but I don’t care how good you are with a bow and how many gimmicky arrows you have… you’re still a bug compared to Thor and Hulk.

Hasbro really did a bang up job on Hawkeye’s sculpt. The head does look a little bit meaty to me, or maybe the neck a bit too thin, but it’s not something that cripples the figure’s looks. I will concede that if I look at him just right, he kind of looks like an adult Fred Savage. (“I love the Infinity Gauntlet… It’s so bad!”) Seriously, though, I think the likeness is pretty solid for a figure in this scale, and I’m glad they went with the shades that add to his bad-assery. And I hope y’all bought tickets to the gun show, because Hasbro really packed in the detail to the sculpted muscles in his arms. The outfit has some very nice little details, particularly the little buckles, zippers, and the SHIELD emblems are well done and everything is painted really sharp. His quiver is a sculpted piece that is permanently attached to his back.

Hawkeye sports the limited articulation that most of the movie Avengers figures feature. You get a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, and ball jointed hips. The knees and elbows are hinged. There’s still some decent poseability to be had here, but it’s tough to get Hawkeye into a decent pose where he’s firing his bow.

Speaking of bows, Hawkeye comes with his ridiculous oversized missile firing bow and he also has the smaller bow that most collectors will keep for display. It’s a simple enough piece, but he can hold it pretty well.

Like I said at the beginning, I’m glad I was able to pick this guy up at a good price, because I wouldn’t have paid a premium for him, and then would have missed out on having a very solid figure in my collection. He looks great on display with his fellow 3 ¾” Avengers and like Black Widow he’s not a bad stand in for a GI JOE display. He seems to be hitting the stores with a little more regularity now, although I had to dig through quite a few Captain America and Iron Man 2 figures to get him. Yes, Iron Man 2 figures. Sheesh!

Aug 18 2012

Marvel Super Heroes: Captain America’s Avenging Cycle (#6865) by Lego

[Whoa! What happened to Star Trek Saturday?  I’m putting it to rest for a week or two and I’m going to use this slot to try to get caught up on all the stuff that’s piling up around here these last couple weeks. –FF]

Woe is me, I have contracted the Marvel Lego bug, and just when I was dedicating myself to completing the Lord of the Rings Lego collection. Frankly, I blame Deadpool, because I may never have started down this expensive path had Lego not included him in a set. Anyway, while I was stocking up on provisions the other day at Target I couldn’t help myself but pick up another set. This time it’s Captain America’s Avenging Cycle, and it’s considerably smaller than the first one I looked at.

There you go, it’s a pretty exciting little box. This set comes with an instruction book, a loose motorcycle frame, a small sticker sheet, and two un-numbered baggies, with a grand total of 72 pieces. Those pieces build three minifigs, a missile launcher emplacement, a Chitauri Air Chariot and Cap’s motorcycle. It didn’t take me long to throw this thing together, so let’s see what we’ve got. And as always, we’ll start with the minifigs.

First up, we have Captain America, and he is without a doubt the reason I bought this set. He’s a pretty simple minifig composed of just the head, legs, and torso, but the colors and printed details really mesh well to make him a cool little guy. Naturally, he comes with his trusty shield too.

The other two minifigs are Chitauri troops. I’m pretty ambivalent toward these guys. Like Cap, they’re pretty simple and each made up of just the three basic pieces. The printing is very detailed, but it kind of just looks like a jumbled mess of patterns. I blame the crazy Chitauri design, which was really the only thing I didn’t like about the Avengers movie. Either way, I’m sure Lego did their best with what they had to work with, but these guys just weren’t designed with the Lego treatment in mind. At least one of them does come with a pretty cool gun. And since they’re faces are just a jumbled mess, I’ve put one head on back-to-front just to mix them up a bit.

 

Cap’s motorcycle is absolutely killer for such a small and simple build. The colors match his own and it comes with stickers with his star emblem and a SHIELD sticker for the front. There’s a clip on the back so you can attach his shield to it. Part of me kind of wishes there was a clip on the front to attach it to the front of the bike in the more iconic way, but then the bike looks so good, I’d be hesitant to change anything. And most importantly, Cap looks awesome riding it. This will be a big win for my new Marvel Lego display.

Chitauri pieces are a mixed bag. I like the Air Chariot. It was a little more complex of a build than I thought it would be, which is very cool. It has some great looking jagged blade pieces and some gorgeous stickers to give it extra detail. There’s also a flick-fire missile mounted under it. The side wings can move up and down and the front shield-slash-control column can pivot forward and back. A set of handlebars for the front column would have been cool, but I can probably rob one of those pieces from one of my Atlantis sets. Either way, it still looks fine without it.

The other Chitauri piece, the missile launcher feels like just something Lego threw in to beef up the brick count. It reminds me of the kind of thing they tossed into at least a couple of the Alien Invasion sets, only they made a little more sense in those. Still, I could probably cannibalize the parts for one of my Pharaoh’s Quest sets since the brick colors are totally Egyptian.

This set was $12.99 and it seems pretty fair. While I’m overall satisfied with the set, I would have really preferred Lego broke with the movie and included Skrulls in this set instead of the Chitauri. Skrulls would have worked better as minifigs and I would have had a lot more use for them in my collection. There’s nothing particularly bad in here, and I’m sure kids will appreciate being able to get a little battle in a box like this, but ultimately, I would have been happier just getting Cap and his motorcycle in a tiny impulse set for about five bucks cheaper.

Aug 17 2012

Vintage Vault: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Young Male Titan by LJN

We’ve come to the last of the AD&D figures in my collection, or at least those that I can put my hands on at the moment. I know there are some more in one of those scary, unsorted tubs in the back of one of my closets, but until I get the ambition to start digging through it, this may be the last time we see AD&D on VV for a little while. In fact Vintage Vault may be going on hiatus for a bit, but that’s a topic and a decision for next week. Today we’re looking at the last of the three Giants figures in LJN’s AD&D line: The Young Male Titan. I’ve got no in package shot of this guy, so let’s just dig right in.

There’s definitely a Grecco-Roman vibe going on with this guy. He’s wearing a yellow chestplate, yellow skirt, yellow grieves and arm bracers, and sandals. Yellow may seem like an odd choice, but I’m not going to pick on the coloring here, since this line was all about bright coloring and the fact that YMT is pretty color coordinated, I think it works ok. The paint work isn’t too bad either.

I’m not so crazy about the head sculpt on this guy, as it looks like he’s taken a few too many whacks in the head. It’s not so much that he’s ugly (although he kind of is), but it literally looks like part of his head is partially caved in. Let’s just say he looks odd and leave it at that. The sculpting on the figure’s body is passable. He has some well-defined muscles and a little shallow scrollwork sculpted into his armor.

The articulation is the same as the other giants in the line. He has ball jointed shoulders and hips and his head turns. Unfortunately, the hip joints on my figure have really seen better days. Unless he’s standing with his legs perfectly straight, his legs collapse under the weight of the figure and he winds up doing the splits… ouch!

YMT follows the same accessories formula as the other giants, Northlord Barbarian and Ogre King. He has a detachable belt with a loop for one of his weapons, he has a removable helmet, a shield, and two weapons, in this case a spear and a sword. I really dig the helmet’s Greek style complete with red bristle comb and it fits the figure pretty well. The silver on the face guard is a little chipped on mine, but it still looks good. The shield is really ornate with a raised yellow lion head above an eye circled by laurel branches. The sword is leaf bladed with a yellow painted hilt and the spear is pretty straightforward.

Digging out a lot of my AD&D figures was a whole heap of fun. It really caused the nostalgia to come at me in waves, but oddly enough I’m not feeling it so much with this guy. It’s strange because I really loved this figure as a kid, but looking at him now he’s just a little bland and a whole lot of ugly. I still dig all the gear he comes with, but he doesn’t hold up as well as the Northlord Barbarian did when I first got him out of storage. Not to rag on Young Male Titan too badly. He’s still a solid enough figure and a great addition to any AD&D line, but the magic just isn’t here anymore.

Aug 15 2012

Doctor Who: “Bump-N-Go” Cybermat by Character Options

Since the return of Doctor Who in 2005 we’ve seen plenty of the Cybermen, but it wasn’t until last season that we finally got to see a NuWho Cybermat courtesy of the story, “Closing Time.” That was a fun enough episode, but I thought it was a pretty piss poor use of the Cybermen. Nonetheless, I did enjoy seeing the return of the Cybermats and their newest version is pretty damn creepy. Character Options promptly presented us insane collectors with an opportunity to own one of these little beauties in plastic form. I’m a sucker for toys that double as cheap alternatives to prop replicas, so does the B&G Cybermat fit that bill? Let’s find out!

This little fella comes in an impenetrable blister pack similar to the kind used for the 3rd and 4th Doctor’s Sonic Screwdrivers. It’s a pretty straight forward package with an insert that uses the current series logo. There’s some verbiage that describes some of its features, and the back of the package points out that the toy requires two AA batteries which aren’t included. This is a pretty key call out since most of the battery powered Doctor Who toys I’ve purchased in the past came pre-equipped.

After hacking away at the package with a pair of scissors, I was finally able to get the Cybermat out. My first impressions are that he’s a very nicely detailed toy and pretty screen accurate, although he does feel a little undersized. That’s not too big a sticking point, because for all we know the new Cybermats come in different sizes too. The most disappointing thing is that the mouth doesn’t open to reveal its set of creepy organic monster teeth, but this is a toy and I think that would have been a bit much for the young’uns to deal with. It’s also worth noting that the lights on the sides aren’t real lights, just painted on. Let’s get some batteries into him and see what he does.

A small screwdriver (of the non sonic variety) opens the battery door. Pop in the batteries and turn the big switch to “on” and this guy is ready to go. The “bump-n-go” gimmick works pretty well. Luckily I have some hardwood floors and I was able to set him skittering about my entrance hall and kitchen area. He’s an energetic little guy, but it was difficult to watch him for very long, as my cat would not stop pouncing on him. Make a note, Doctor, Cybermats do have one natural predator and it’s a house cat.

The Cybermat ran me $22 including shipping. It’s tough to say whether it was entirely worth it or not. As a display piece, it’s ok, but I would have been willing to pay a little more to get something that looked and felt  more accurate, and perhaps with lights instead of the motorized gimmick. On the other hand, the toy is perfectly fine for what it’s intended to be, and I could certainly see kids having a lot of fun chasing it around. Character Options might have gone the extra mile and released it with a special Sonic Screwdriver so the kids could sonic it to get it to stop, but I probably wouldn’t have gone for something like that. I’m mainly interested in having this guy sit on my shelf, and overall I’m pretty happy with it. It’s not a “must have” item by any means, but cool nonetheless.

Aug 13 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 14: Gold by Mattel

Holy hell… we’re looking at some old skool DC Universe Classics today! Remember Wave 14 of DCUC? Yeah, it was that lovely Walmart Exclusive wave and I had better chance of seeing a Sasquatch commuting to work in the car next to me than actually seeing any of these figures at retail. I was able to pick up Kamandi and Zantanna through trades, and then I wrote the rest of this wave off. That  included Gold, because I never in a million years thought Mattel was ever going to complete The Metal Men and that my Mercury and Iron were destined to stand on the shelf alone. Fast forward a couple of years and now we have confirmation of Platinum, Tin, and Lead all coming this year in the DC Signature Collection, and that sent me scrambling to find me a Gold before every other collector that missed him tried to do the same.

It’s been a while since we saw this packaging. I still dig it, although not as much as the collector friendly boxes that Matty is using for the Signature line. Nonetheless, the big bubble and sturdy card show off the figure wonderfully. Gold comes with his two arm attachments on the figure and the Ultra Humanite BAF piece tucked under the insert. Ooooh, look there’s a collector button too. I remember those! Somewhere I have a cigar box full of those! The back panel shows the publication history of the character and a short bio. The bios have carried over to the Signature Collection, but I wish the publication stats had too.

This time, I’m going to start with coloring, because there isn’t a lot of paintwork on this figure, and yet the coloring is just downright gorgeous. The gold is similar to the shade used for Golden Pharaoh and I absolutely adore the way it looks on this figure. It’s just the right mix of matte and sheen and I’m glad that Mattel didn’t decide to try to give it a wash or anything, as I think it would have really ruined the figure. Granted, the Gold’s finish doesn’t quite have the amazing look of the patina used on Iron, but it is a striking color just the same, and in all fairness it is an entirely different look they were going for.

Of course, the sculpting here is no slouch either. I’m really digging the somber, heroic look of the head sculpt, that really gives Gold some major personality. The muscle sculpting on the figure looks great, as do the strategically placed rivets. His triangle chest plate is cleverly designed so as not to intrude on the articulation. Both hands are sculpted into fists, which allows for the attachable accessories, which we’ll get to right after we talk…

Articulation! If you own any of the other Metal Men from the DCUC line, you’ll know what to expect here. You get a ball jointed neck, the arms have ball joints in the shoulders, there are swivels in the biceps and wrists, and the elbows are hinged. The legs have universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and there are hinges in the knees and ankles. The torso swivels at the waist and has the usual ab-crunch hinge.

As with the other Metal Men, Gold has the ability to morph his hands into weapons and implements and you get two arm attachments to reflect the skill. Gold comes with a spinning buzz saw and a pick axe, both of which attach in the same way as Iron’s. They have sculpted hollows shaped to fit the figure’s fists. They stay on pretty well, and I really do like this method a lot more than the swappable hands used on Mercury, mainly because I’m constantly worried I’m going to break Mercury’s posts and the fact that I don’t have to keep track of the tiny hands when I have the weapon attached.

So, I’ve done a lot of hemming and hawing over whether to track this figure down since it came out. He commonly sells for over $30 on the Ebays, even when he’s loose and without the Ultra Humanite piece. I was lucky to be able to pick one up off a fellow collector for only $20. Had Club Infinite Earths not promised to deliver on the rest of the Metal Man, I probably never would have picked this figure up. Needless to say, I’m glad everything is working out for the Metal Men, and I’m going to be really happy to have the collection complete (minus Dr. Magnus) by the end of the year.

Aug 11 2012

Vintage Vault: X-Men X-Force Cable (2nd Version) by Toy Biz

It’s been a long week and I am more than a little bit hungover, so I’m afraid today is going to be a quickie… Vintage Vault hasn’t been back to Toy Biz’s early 90’s Marvel figures in quite a while, so I thought we’d remedy that today and start throwing some more of these into the mix in the weeks ahead. Today we’ll check out the second version of Cable where he dons his deep space armor.

There’s the packaged shot of Cable… I mean Grizzly… no, I mean Cable. Yeah, what we’ve got here is an error card with Cable in Grizzly’s packaging. This guy came to me as part of a lot, in which I got double screwed because it was supposed to be the first version of Cable, not the second version on the wrong cardback. Ah, well. I was going to keep this figure carded as a curiosity and eventually said, screw it, I need that wall space to hang other carded figures, so I decided to tear him open and feature him. Error or not, I’m still in love with the early Toy Biz Marvel packaging. I think these are some of the best comic inspired figure cardbacks. They’re colorful, the character art is great, and they kind of look like comic covers.

Out of the package, and we can see that this indeed isn’t the more iconic version of Cable, but it is still pretty damn cool. He’s in his bulky deep space armor, complete with a removable clear dome helmet over his head. You just need to pinch it a bit to undo the clips and take it off. The armor has a lot of sculpted detail, particularly for this fairly simple line. You know he’s from the 90’s because even in space armor, he’s still covered in enough belts and pouches to make Rob Liefeld blush. The head sculpt is classic Cable with a grim, angry visage. All in all, well done.

As always, Toybiz did a great job with the colors on this figure. Cable is bright orange and blue with a great glossy finish that makes him work so well as a comic book character in toy form. Unfortunately, they could have done a better job with the actual execution of the paintwork. Most of it is good, but there are a few spots, particularly on his legs that look like they might have been painted by blind cats.

Cable features six points of articulation. His arms rotate at the shoulders, his legs rotate at the hips, and his knees are hinged. The head doesn’t turn, otherwise it’s about the same level of articulation I expect from these 90’s Toy Biz figures. There’s not a lot of dynamic posing possibilities here, but just enough so that you can still have a little fun with him.

Cable comes with a big gun, but what else would you expect? It’s a big silver rifle and it has some kind of rapid-fire gimmick that completely eludes me. Either mine is broken or it just never worked right. It’s a nice piece of killing hardware, but since he has no elbow articulation, he can just hold it awkwardly with one hand, striaght out.

I’m always a bit unsure of how the current collector community feels about these 90’s Marvel Toy Biz figures. Sure, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since these were hanging on the pegs, and you can’t deny that they’re thoroughly dated, but I still can’t help but love them, and they’re cheap as all hell, which makes them fun and painless to collect. If I had to do over, I might not have opened as many, because I love the packaging so much and they do look great hanging on the wall. At the same time, these figures have such a colorful, toyish charm that really meshes well with their comic book roots. It just makes me want to pick them up and play with them.

[Phew… and that’ll be a wrap for the week. Star Trek Saturday may or may not be back next week. We’ll see how things go. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of stuff backing up in the toy hopper, so I’ll see y’all Monday with something new. –FF]

Aug 10 2012

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classics: Michelangelo by Playmates

In case you missed it during the week, I’m bumping Vintage Vault to tomorrow because I interrupted the regular flow of Turtle Week with some jubilation over DCUC continuing for another year Matty Collector news. It worked out well too since I’m going to be out drinking heavily today to acknowledge the fact that, much to the joy of toy companies everywhere, today was the day I was spawned upon the universe. I say it worked out well because after looking at three of the four turtles already, Michelangelo won’t hold too many surprises, and I can wrap this up pretty quick. So let’s get to it. The last verse is the same as the first… more or less.

Packaging… It’s awesome. Nothing more to say here, except “holy shit, Amazon really bent the crap out of my card!” Seriously, Amazon is a great resource for buying hard-to-find individual figures, especially if you have the Prime free shipping options. They’re rapidly becoming one of my regular go-to sources. But I wouldn’t buy anything from them that I expected to keep in the package. All four turtles were just tossed into a box, slapped on the ass, and sent along their merry way.

Ok, so Mikey’s body is the same as Raph’s, including the lack of the baldric-shoulder strap thingy. He has slots on the back of his belt to hold his nunchuks and the usual personalized initial on the belt buckle that is both sculpted and painted. Naturally his eyemask, kneepads, elbowpads, and wrist wraps are all orange. Aside from those differences, this is the same body we’ve seen with the same excellent 34 points of articulation. For the details on articulation, check out the feature on Leonardo.

Mikey’s head is probably the least angry looking of the bunch, most likely because he isn’t showing any teeth. However, he still looks like he’s determined to put his head through a brick wall. And fear not, his eyes are just fine.

Mikey’s nunchuks are my favorite of all the Turtles’ weapons because Playmates went and used real chain links rather than just a length of bendy plastic. It really makes all the difference in the world and they look great as well as fit snugly into their holsters on the back of the figure’s belt. I suppose you can argue that it’s harder to pose them since they just droop in his hands, but I still prefer the actual chain links. And yep, you also get the manhole cover stand with Michelangelo’s name printed on it. Awesome!

 

And that wraps up Playmates Classic Turtles. Leo’s eyes notwithstanding, I am really so amazed and impressed with these guys. I’m amazed that they are actually being sold in some stores and not just as some kind of wonky collector based subscription deal (I’m looking at you, Matty!) and impressed that Playmates could pull themselves together and produce this sort of quality product. I love the fact that they brought back one of their best and brightest properties and gave it the love it deserved, and while I’m not holding my breath, it would be really great to see another case assortment of four Classic figures with April, Splinter, Shredder, and Casey Jones. I can dream. I’m going to take some time to catch up on other stuff over the next couple weeks and then we’ll be swinging back to take a look at some of the Turtles figures based on the new Nick toon!