Mar 17 2012

Doctor Who: Professor Bracewell by Character Options

“Victory of the Daleks” is probably one of the most maligned episodes to come out of Series 5. Personally, I don’t mind it much at all. Sure, the story was crap, but it had its moments and one of them was Bill Paterson’s performance as Professor Bracewell, the tragic Dalek android who was programmed to believe he was human. The Daleks have snuffed out plenty of lives as they’ve rampaged across the small screen over the last 50 years. They’re evil, I get that. But I don’t think the scope of their cruelty was ever driven home as well as when they blew off Bracewell’s hand just to illustrate that he was a mere mechanical pawn in their plot against The Doctor and that his entire existence was just one big work of fiction. Oh, and by the way… he was a bomb too. Yep, the Daleks aren’t just evil, they’re also dicks. He was a great character, and I finally got starved enough for NuWho figures that I decided to pick him up.

Bracewell comes in the standard style cardback that has been used for the Series 5 and 6 figures. Its serviceable and displays the figure quite well. There’s not much else here to say. You get a couple of extra goodies with Bracewell that are mounted beside him inside the bubble. The figure is available in two variants. One with a flesh-toned left hand as he was seen in “Victory of the Daleks” and another with a gloved hand as he was seen briefly in “The Pandorica Opens.” I got the glove-handed version.
Bracewell comes equipped with a couple of different display options, so let’s start with regular Bracewell first. Ok, so he’s basically a guy in a suit wearing a labcoat. Not terribly exciting, but my hats off to Character Options for doing a great job with the detail and paintwork. The headsculpt is an excellent likeness of Paterson and while eyeglasses are usually tough to do in this scale, I think CO pulled it off quite well, as they are actually sculpted separately from his head. The tie and collar are nicely sculpted, as is the chain on his fob watch. The labcoat features sculpted pockets and buttons and lots of little wrinkles. Paintwork includes the tiny stripes on his shirt and tie and the sharp, clean detailing on his watch chain. There’s a little paint slop along his hairline, but nothing too bad.
The first alternate display option involves pulling off Bracewell’s left arm at the swivel joint and replacing it with the one with the blown off hand. There’s some paintwash around the coat sleeve to make it look damaged from the blast and the stump is an exposed clump of wires and servos. Cool!
The other display option involves pulling off the front of the figure’s torso and swapping it with the alternate one. Its actually sculpted in a separate piece and plugs into three sockets on the figure’s body. The alternate torso reveals his robotic body and the countdown dial for his internal bomb. The effect is very well done.
Bracewell has decent enough articulation, especially for a lab guy. You get a swivel neck, swivel shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. His legs feature universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinged knees.
I’ve heard some folk refer to Professor Bracewell as the Dr Constantine figure of this wave. I can’t say as I agree, as a character Bracewell had a much bigger impact on “Victory” than Constantine did on “Empty Child/Doctor Dances.” They’re both dudes in lab coats, though, I get it. I’ll concede this isn’t a “must have” figure by any standards, but I think CO put some really nice work into him. In all honesty, I waited until I could snag him for five bucks, but either way I would have been perfectly happy with him.
Mar 16 2012

Tekken: Christie Monteiro Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

Yep, here’s one from out of left field. Once upon a time I was a real fighting game whore, and while SNK and Capcom were my mainstays, I used to really enjoy me some Tekken. I spent a ridiculous amount of time with Tekken 3, but the seminole moment for me was being totally blown away by the introduction of Christie Monteiro in Tekken 4. By the time Tekken 4 came out, I was more of a casual gamer and didn’t have the time or motivation to dig deep into the move sets and that’s where Christie came in. Not only was she animated perfectly, but she brought a fierce and furious style to my gameplay that felt really comfortable, accessible and looked outrageously cool on the screen. I got my first Bishoujo statue a while back [See my feature on Ghostbuster Lucy] and have been meaning to pick up another for a while. When Koto showed off Christie here, I pre-ordered her right away.

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The packaging for Koto’s Bishoujo line is attractive and serviceable. There’s a lot of great artwork on the box and the front and side windows tease a bit of what you get inside. Unfortunately for mint-in-box collectors, the statue is wrapped in varying layers of plastic wrap, so you really need to take the statue out to get a good look at everything, and believe me, you want to see everything. The packaging is, however, quite collector friendly, so you can always pop the statue back in the box for storage or display. The front corner of the box displays the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 logo and the back panel of the box has a nice, lengthy story about the character, artists, and development.
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The first thing I noticed, as I removed and unwrapped my statue is that Koto changed the base and stand from black to clear. I was really thrilled with this decision as the clear is less distracting. I could argue that I would have preferred a diorama base, but if all we’re getting is a straight base, this is the way to go!
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There’s a reason that Christie has turned up on so many lists of hot video game girls, and Koto’s statue captures just about all of them. Christie is posed magnificently, up on the tiptoes of her right leg, with her left leg drawn up and bent at the knee. She’s gracefully twisting at the waist with her right arm drawn up with palm out and her left arm trailing down behind her. Her hair is perfectly sculpted, trailing in midair to simulate the twisting movement of her stance and the loose cords on her belt are made of stiff wire, suspending them in the air to further simulate her graceful motion. Her facesculpt is really pretty, although you really need to pick up the statue to get a peek because she’s looking down and her sculpted bangs cover it a bit.
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Christie’s outfit, or what there is of it, consists of a unique take on her traditional costume. Her capoeira pants have been turned into flared thigh-high silver leggings as an excuse to put her in a thong. Her top consists of just a gold band across her breasts that ties off in a bow around her neck and is punctuated by a butterfly on the small of her back. She has emerald bands on her biceps and fingerless gloves. Again, the sculpting here is really nice, particularly the fishscale pattern on her pants and top.
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The coloring is pretty much perfect. Granted, a good amount of this statue is just fleshtone, but the gilt silver and gold of her costume looks gorgeous. The purple of her belt, painted ringe on her leggings, and emerald arm bands really punctuate the ensemble nicely. The paintwork on her face is emasculate, and even her toenail polish is painted in.
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Statues tend to be expensive, especially good ones, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t stray into this area of collecting all that often. Nonetheless, Koto’s Bishoujo statues are some of the best deals in this market. They’re durable, very attractive, and I think they’re perfectly sized. Christie set me back just under $65 with shipping and she really feels like a great value. The use of plastic may not give you the satisfying heft of a coldcast or polystone statue, but you can’t deny that this medium allows for intricate detail and beautiful colors. She’s another amazing piece and the best endorsement that I can give is that I’m even more stoked now to pick up more Bishoujo statues.
Mar 15 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Collect & Connect Anti-Monitor by Mattel

And today is the payoff. After collecting the six figures of Wave 17, I can finally build the amazing Anti-Monitor C&C figure. There were only three figures in this wave that I would have bought otherwise: Scarecrow, The Atom, and Wonder Woman. I didn’t mind so much having to pick up The Flash. But Lex and Hal were only for the pieces. Was it worth it? Oh yeah! Obviously, Anti-Monitor is a character most fans and collectors are going to want to have in their collection, and Mattel did a bang up job with him.

Holy shit, that’s a nice looking figure! Putting him together is a little trickier than most C&C figures, mainly because of his soft rubbery cowl. It’s also rather difficult to get his domed head to peg in just right. The head and shoulders on mine still tend to pop off every now and then when I’m trying to pose his arms too high.
The sculpt is mighty nice with plenty of detail. You get all the various panel lines on his armor, along with the tiny little bolts at the corners of the plating. I really like the segmenting on his arms and legs and the hoses connecting the segments of his armor look great and really add a lot of depth and complexity to the sculpt. His domed head features stickers for the eyes and mouth. I wasn’t really sure about how good this would turn out. It the end it looks a tad cheesy, but I don’t think paint apps would have worked and I suppose the stickers give contribute to his comic bookish look.
The only thing I’m not too keen on here is the softgoods cape. Its definitely too big to have been executed in plastic, but it doesn’t hang very well on the figure. The better way to go here would have been to make it a little bigger and put the bendy wire in the edges like Mattel did with the C&C Trigon.

Anti-Monitor has a wonderful metallic blue and silver deco with some gold fringe. Even among a lot of brightly colored superhero figures, he still really pops on the shelf, particularly if you’ve got some nice lighting directed at him.

And there we go. Anti-Monitor is definitely one of my favorite C&C’s the DCUC line has produced. He’s a crucial and iconic character and a natural choice for the C&C gimmick. Its unfortunate that Matty decided to include him in this uneven and often underwhelming wave.
Its possible that this has been FigureFan’s last DCUC week. I’ve only got Wave 20 left to pick up, and I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to get it all in one go or not. I do still have some assorted DCUC figures to grab from past waves, so either way you’ll certainly see plenty more from this line. And let’s not forget next month, when we’ll be looking at the very first figures from Matty Collectors’ Club Infinite Earth.
Mar 14 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Sinestro Corps Scarecrow by Mattel

And here we go… its the last packaged figure of Wave 17, and its probably no surprise that it happens to be my favorite. Scarecrow being deputized into the Sinestro Corps is still one of my favorite concepts of Blackest Night and while I still wound up liking a number of figures in Wave 17, Scarecrow is the only one of the packaged figures that I was actually excited to own.

Say goodbye to the Wave 17 packaging. Granted it hasn’t changed much and we’ll see it again when I get around to looking at Wave 20. Scarecrow is packaged in a pretty neutral stance so no worries about joint deformities.
Out of the package, Scarecrow makes for the perfect Sinestro Corps agent. His main weapon has always been fear and he’s grotesque enough to hang with the freaks and oddities that make up this Corps. He’s based on a nice, lanky body that suits the character well. His high collared trench coat is molded in a separate piece of soft rubber and permanently attached. Look closely enough and you can see the individual stitches running all along its borders. Even the Sinestro Corps emblem on his chest is sculpted, rather than just tampo’d on. Impressive!
The headsculpt is not only great looking, but very cleverly executed. The bottom of Scarecrow’s, um… head bag and rope necktie are sculpted onto the body and even though the head sits on a ball joint, it looks like its all one piece. The head itself is damn creepy, with sunken, piercing eyes and the individually sculpted strings sewn over his mouth. I’m particularly fond of the way his wide brimmed hat hangs over his head and casts most of it in shadow. To really appreciate the work that went into the head you need to pick up the figure and get in pretty close.
Regular visitors to FigureFan may have noticed that I’ve omitted discussing articulation during this Wave 17 week. That’s because I’m being a lazy shit this week many of the figures in this assortment are repaints and resculpts and I think we all know what to expect by now. Scarecrow, on the other hand is one of those few DC Universe Classics figures that presents a pleasant departure when it comes to articulation. You still get the usual ball joints in the neck and shoulders, you get the universal movement in the hips, the swivels in the biceps, thighs, and wrists, and the hinges in the ankles. But you get DOUBLE hinges in the elbows and knees! We don’t see this a lot in DCUC, but when we do its always a treat.
While I’ve surely said my piece about being underwhelmed by this Blackest Night wave, that doesn’t change the fact that I love getting new figures to add to my Sinestro Corps ranks and apart from Akillo, Scarecrow here was tops on my list. Like Indigo Lantern Atom, Mattel really poured the love into this guy. Sure he stands out in what was a largely forgettable wave of figures, but Scarecrow is so wonderfully executed, he really stands out among all the figures on my Green Lantern/Blackest Night shelf.

And that wraps it up for the six packaged figures in Wave 17. Tomorrow we’ll finish it off with a look at the very reason I own most of these figures. And that’s Wave 17’s Collect & Connect figure: The Anti-Monitor!
Mar 13 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Indigo Lantern Atom by Mattel

We’re over the Wave 17 hump, with only two packaged figures and the C&C left. Today we’re checking out one of my favorite figures in this assortment, The Atom as he appeared after being deputized into the Indigo Tribe. Cool!

I’m all tapped out on worthwhile comments on this packaging. As always, its a nice presentation with The Atom carded in a fairly neutral stance and with his staff held out to his side. Nice.
I really dig The Atom as a character, although he wasn’t one of my favorite things about Blackest Night. As a result my love for this figure is more about the way it turned out and all the work Mattel put into it, than any great interest for the The Atom in the guise of the Indigo Lantern. But that’s always been the great thing about some of DC Universe Classics’ more obscure figures: The appeal of the figures can often exceed the appeal of the character.
There’s tons of great original tooling on this figure and some excellent paintwork. The fringe work on his boots and the collar is nicely done. He has a silver neckless with a medallion showing off the Indigo emblem and his shoulder armor includes a strap running down across his chest. And check out that belt! It has a really cool hammered metal look and the finely tampo’d Atom symbol on the buckle. His tattoos are nice and crisp with no slop or bleeding. The whole red, blue and gold pattern works great, making this a beautiful figure!
In addition to the C&C piece, The Atom comes with his trusty Indigo staff.

Yep, this is one great looking figure. Mattel poured the love into this release and that more than makes up for the repaints and resculpts of Blue Flash, White Hal, and Orange Lex. Ok, maybe it doesn’t make up for Orange Lex, but Indigo Atom is just awesome and a proud addition to my Blackest Night/Green Lantern shelf.
Tomorrow we look at the final packaged figure and also my favorite… Its Sinestro Corps Scarecrow!
Mar 12 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Blue Lantern Flash by Mattel

Pressing on to Day Three of this look at DC Universe Classics Wave 17, let’s check out Blue Lantern Flash! I should be able to knock this one out pretty quickly, in a flash one might say, as he is basically just a repaint. Lets go!

Standard DCUC packaging! Barry looks great in the package, although I’m not sure what Mattel was going for with the pose. He doesn’t look like he’s running. Actually he just looks like he’s humping the air. He’s holding up the Blue Lantern of Hope. That’s all I’ve got, let’s get him out of the package and see what we’ve got…
Yep, it’s a repaint of The Flash figure that we’ve seen before in this line. Actually, this version looks a tad taller, but the only other real difference in the sculpt is he’s missing the plug of plastic on the back where some of the figures have their cape attached. This is one of the simpler body sculpts that rely on paintwork for the costume, but he does still have the sculpted wings on his boots. The headsculpt still looks great.
I absolutely adore the paintwork on this figure. The blue and black motif on the outfit looks great and I really love the Flash’s lightning emblem over the Blue Lantern Corps emblem. I’m not quite as keen on the lightning stripes around his arms and waist, but its not bad. The paintwork is pretty solid too, without much slop or bleeding.
That’s really all I’ve got to say about Blue Lantern Flash. I’m usually pretty pissy about having to buy repaints to get C&C pieces, but in this case I just don’t mind. I love Barry Allen and I just love the way the deco of this costume looks on him. He’s a great addition to my Blackest Night shelf.

Tomorrow, we’ll get to one of my favorite figures in this assortment… Indigo Lantern Atom!
Mar 11 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: Orange Lantern Lex Luthor by Mattel

I’ve made no bones about how underwhelmed I was by this assortment of figures, but there was one that stood out as particularly offensive. Yes, its Orange Lantern Lex Luthor and as much as I loved the idea of Lex Luthor taking up the Orange Lantern of Greed, I really had to plug my nose as I bought this figure soley to get at one of the Anti-Monitor’s C&C pieces. Ugh, let’s check him out. I’ll be as brief as possible.

The same old DC Universe Classics packaging and Lex stands beneath the bubble in all his orange ice pop horror. He’s posed clutching the Lantern in one arm, because remember kids, the Lantern of Greed has no handle, and waving his other fist in the air in all his orangey triumph. Ugh.
Out of the package and what have we got. Its the same Power Armor Lex Luthor that has been released before only all the armor is molded in translucent orange plastic. Everything except his head, which is the regular head stuck atop this orange icee abomination. Now, in fairness, Mattel has invested some new sculpting into this guy. His chest armor and belt are new to incorporate the Orange Lantern emblem and the configuration of his collar is a bit different. I’m pretty fond of the original sculpt, and this one is pretty impressive too. But this figure is still a piece of shit.
I know from personal acquaintances that there are collectors out there who have a fetish for translucent plastic figures. I don’t get it, but I don’t begrudge it either. If you’re one of those people than this figure will be right up your alley. I honestly a cannot stand this thing and it’ll be the first figure to get pitched into a random junk tote when I run out of space on my Green Lantern shelf. I could see releasing this as part of a niche multipack, but to make me buy it to complete an Anti-Monitor figure is just pure cruelty. I got this one for about seven bucks and even then I was considering buying the C&C part alone for the same price just out of principal. Few of the figures in this wave really stand out for me, but Orangey Lex is without a doubt the worst this wave has to offer.

Tomorrow… Blue Lantern Flash!
Mar 10 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 17: White Lantern Hal Jordan by Mattel

[Normally I wait until Mondays to start themed weeks, but I’m just about caught up with all my new stuff and honestly I’ve been putting these figures off for ages so I might as well knock them out, eh? -FF]

With Wave 19 of DCUC knocked out a few weeks back, I’m jumping two waves back to finish up #17 before picking up the current and last assortment of the line, #20. I looked at my first figure from Wave 17 a couple of months back with Wonder Woman Star Saphire and I’m sure I probably mentioned how underwhelmed I was with this assortment and the idea that these figures would have been better left to DC Direct or perhaps as a Wave in the Green Lantern Classics branch of DCUC. Of the six figures and one variant that make up this assortment, there are really only three figures that I would have added to my collection without Mattel’s deviously clever Collect & Connect incentive, and today’s figure is not one of them. With that ringing endorsement, let’s look at White Lantern Hal Jordan.
Standard DCUC packaging, and as I mentioned above, I think these figures would have presented better on the green cardbacks of Green Lantern Classics subline. The variant figure for this wave is the Black Lantern/White Lantern Hal, which is mostly a repaint of the same figure, albeit with different head sculpts and a resculpted ring hand. Either one would have supplied me with the Anti-Monitor pieces I needed, but I opted to go for the White Lantern Hal just because DC dragged poor Hal through the dirt for a long time and I thought it would be nice to own a figure that personifies his redemption. In any event, the cardback is unique to each variant, which is a great little detail on Mattel’s part. Concealed beneath the bottom bubble insert are the Anti-Monitor’s head and groin piece.
Out of the package, White Lantern Hal offers few surprises. We’ve seen the body before on past Hals, and probably a few other Lanterns for that matter. I do really dig the clean grey and silver paintjob, particularly with the black piping along the borders, and the crisp White Lantern emblem tampo on his chest. The head sculpt is new and Hal looks like he’s seriously pissed at getting his halo tarnished by DC’s writers and now he’s back with a vengeance. It’s a good sculpt, especially considering Mattel could have just slapped an old repainted Hal head onto the body and called it a day.
Articulation? Like I said, Hal offers few surprises. You get a ball jointed neck. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs have universal joints in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. Hal swivels at the waist and has an ab crunch hinge.
So, yeah, I bought this figure to complete my Anti-Monitor, plain and simple. That’s not to say he is in any way a bad figure. In fact, he looks really sharp and I really love the color scheme, even if it is more grey than white. I just wouldn’t have had the desire to sink seventeen bucks into another Hal Jordan figure unless I needed his C&C parts. Luckily most of the other figures in Wave 17 can be had for deep discounts. And that’s a good thing because there’s one figure in this wave that I really resent having to buy for the C&C part. And we might as well get him out of the way tomorrow…