Feb 20 2012

Resident Evil 5: Sheva Alomar by NECA

Collecting Video Game based figures isn’t really my thing. I pick up a few from time to time, but I don’t make an effort to hunt them all down. Nonetheless, having finally gotten around to playing Capcom’s Resident Evil 5, I decided I needed me some figures and NECA stepped up to the plate. I don’t have a lot of experience with NECA’s video game figures. I’ve been scared away in the past because a lot of them are basically just statues with some added articulation and I find NECA and McFarlane are just two of the biggest offenders in this category. After reading some reviews of the RE5 figures, the concensus seemed to be that these were bonafide action figures and not mere statues, so I decided to pull the trigger and give them a try. I really teetered between just getting the complete set of three (Sheva with Chris Redfield and an Executioner), but I found a really good deal on Sheva alone, and thought I’d test the waters first.

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One thing NECA has always been good at is their sculpts and Sheva here is no exception. Her face and figure are just as attractive as her in-game counterpart. Giggity! Her top half is fairly simple, as she’s just wearing a two-tone purple tank top and so a great deal of the sculpting has gone into her from the waist down, where here gear is kept. That sounded wrong, so let’s move on. Her belt features decorative tooling, ammo pouches and a fanny pack. Her right thigh has additional magazine pouches strapped to it and her left has a holster for her pistol. Her pants feature stitching and wrinkles and her boots are cowboy/biker style with stirrup-style straps and buckles. She’s also got a sculpted necklace, a communication rig on her right ear and some kind of armband device. Yessir, a lot of nice work went into this sculpt making it one impressive piece of work for this scale.

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NECA has been known to slip up with their paint apps from time to time, especially on their smaller scaled figures, but they’ve definitely been getting better and Sheva’s a prime example of that. The paint on my figure is overall quite good, with only a few notable blemishes. She does have a bit of inconsistancy between her right and left eyes, but it isn’t too bad. The tattoo on her left shoulder is crisp and very nicely printed and there’s really no slop to be found. The painted weathering and texturing on her gear is also quite impressive.

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Sheva has an admirable amount of articulation. Her neck and shoulders are ball jointed. She has swivels in the biceps and wrists. Her elbows are not hinged, but rather diagonal cut swivels that can imitate a hinged joint in some ways, but ultimately I would have much preferred a simple hinge. Her upper legs move up and down and feature lateral movement, her knees are hinged, and she has swivel cuts at the top of her boots. She can also swivel slightly at the waist. This is what I call an action figure! She’s loads of fun to pose!

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Sheva comes with three accessories: A Sniper rifle, an automatic pistol, and a knife. The pistol fits into the molded holster on her belt and features a snap down retaining flap. Egads, I love functional holsters! She can comfortably wield the pistol in either hand. The knife fits into the scabbard on her belt and she can hold it surprisingly well in her right hand, even though it’s clearly designed for the gun.  The sniper rifle is nicely sculpted, and despite having an ultra thin barrel, mine shows no evidence of warping.

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Sheva set me back a mere ten bucks plus shipping, which is certainly decent for a figure like this. I expected a solid effort, but what I got was a downright exceptional figure. The sculpt and paint here are absolutely superb and while there are a few funky designs to be found in the joints, I can have a blast putting her in all kinds of poses with her different weapons. I’m going to go ahead and say that this is one of the better figures I’ve picked up in a long while and certainly and I’ll recommend her to anyone who’s been a fan of the game and looking to represent it on their action figure shelf.

Feb 19 2012

Batman Legacy: Harley Quinn by Mattel

Ugh, I’m recovering from a bit of a bender last night, so I’ll give this a go and hope its coherent… Its time for my second [And last, as I’m not picking up original Batman or Nightwing -FF.] foray into Mattel’s third wave of Batman Legacy figures. This time around its Harley Quinn as she appeared in the recent release of Arkham City. [A game that I am ashamed to say has been sitting on my media shelf since it came out and I have still not made the time to play it. -FF] I’ve had the DC Direct versions of Arkham Asylum or Arkham City Harley on my“To Buy” list for a while now, and I’m glad I waited because I’m much happier to have this better articulated release that fits better into my DCUC collection, even if she doesn’t fit in all that perfectly.

The package design is the same as we saw yesterday with Catwoman, but the deco is completely different. The logo and artwork here features the more gritty look of the games and quite frankly it makes it really feel out of place. Mattel seemed to be releasing the movie stuff in two-packs and the more comic book related stuff in these single packs, which makes me wonder why the game figures weren’t done in two-packs as well. I’m not complaining, mind you, I’m just glad to have Harley with the better articulation.
Its not just the packaging, however, that makes Harley stand out in the Legacy line. The sculpt is dripping with detail and the paintwork is phenomenal. Stand this gal next to any DCUC figure and the difference is like night and day. Yes, I realize that as comic characters the DCUC figures are supposed to look simpler, but it doesn’t change the fact that Mattel poured a lot more effort into the detail and paintwork of this figure and yet still worked it into the same assortment and price point. Harley really looks like a DC Direct sculpt only with DCUC levels of articulation, and that’s just awesome. Her outfit is packed with sculpted buckles and straps and buttons, her head sculpt is damn near perfect, and she even has remarkably intricate tattoo tampos on her right bicep and left hip.
Unfortunately, while Harley looks fantastic, her scale is a bit off to the DCUC figures. She’s about the same height as my DCUC Batman figures, and she’s actually taller than my Joker. Even with the platform stripper shoes, Harley should have been shorter and slighter of build, and so she looks pretty out of place standing on my DCUC Batman shelf.
As already mentioned, Harley has the DCUC level of articulation, minus one point. Her head is ball jointed; Her shoulders are ball jointed, she has swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. Harley’s legs feature universal movement in the hips, swivels at the tops of her hips, and hinged ankles and knees. She swivels at the waist, but does not have the usual ab crunch hinge.
Harley comes with the same style of personalized stand as Catwoman, but she also comes with an additional accessory. Its a rubbery, bendy baseball bat with a candy cane deco. I thought it odd that even with all the extra work that went into Harley, Mattel was still able to cost out a baseball bat for her, while they couldn’t repack a simple whip into Catwoman, who reuses parts. Oh well.
I paid the same $20 for Harley as I did for Catwoman, and while I balked a bit at Catwoman’s price, I’m perfectly happy with spending the same amount on Harley. Not only is the sculpting and paintwork above and beyond any of the Legacy figures I own, she obviously doesn’t reuse any parts, and she allows me to take the DC Direct versions off my want list. She’s an amazing looking figure and I’ll grant her the highest honor I can grant a new purchase. She’ll be living on my desk for a while before retiring her to my DCUC display shelves.
Feb 18 2012

Batman Legacy: Catwoman by Mattel

It’s been a week, and that means my self-imposed ban on Marvel and DC figures is done. And that’s a good thing because I’ve got some new figures to look at from both comic juggernauts. [Not to mention Wave 1 of Hasbro’s new Marvel Legends trundling their way to me via UPS! -FF] Today we’re going to start with a one-two punch of Batman femme fatales from Mattel’s Batman Legacy line with Catwoman today and Harley Quinn tomorrow. Catwoman has been getting a lot of attention lately, what with her latest appearance slated for The Dark Knight Rises. No doubt we’ll get plenty of Dark Knight Catwoman figures, but I’m happy to say that Mattel also decided to go back to her roots with a figure based on one of her earlier appearances.

I’m pretty sure I gushed over the Batman Legacy packaging when I looked at the last wave, but let’s do it all over again because this packaging is simply gorgeous. Its technically just a big glorified bubble on a cardback, but the way its designed makes it look more like an intricate window box. You get the colorful Batman logo across the top with an illustrated cityscape and a very fetching piece of artwork on the side panel featuring a comic-panel style illustration of the gal herself. The back panel has more great artwork and a little blurb about Catwoman. I think I may have shed a tear or two while I was shredding this thing to get at the figure inside.
If you aren’t familiar with this little sub-line of figures, Batman Legacy are figures that fit right in with your DC Universe Collection, which makes this one a great pick-up if you happen to collect DCUC. Catwoman has been released in the main DCUC line before, but only in her more modern catsuit. Here we see her in her more vintage dress and cape, which I’ve always enjoyed and I think it holds up pretty well today in terms of looking both retro and drop-dead sexy. The head sculpt is particularly well done and accentuates her almond eyes and pouty lips, complete with mask and adorable little cat ears. Her hair is focused a bit more down the back rather than poofed out as often seen in the comic artwork, but I think this look works well for the figure.
The outfit features a green rubbery cape that is sculpted in a separate piece and hangs around her neck. From the waist up, her costume is all paintwork, with a pretty pronounced plunging neckline, which while technically accurate, shows off considerably more than the vintage comic art ever did. Thems some serious mammories! The bottom half of the figure reuses parts from DCUC’s Raven figure, which was pretty obvious to me as soon as I saw it, but the boots are new, giving Catwoman a pair of proper high heels, as opposed to Raven’s rather disappointing grandma shoes. Overall the paintwork on the figure is excellent, with no real slop or bleeding to complain about and even her fingernails are individually painted.
Catwoman features pretty standard DCUC female articulation. Her neck is ball jointed, although the hair does inhibit the head’s movement a bit. Her arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists and biceps. Her legs feature universal movement at the hips, again somewhat restricted by the sculpted dress, hinges in the ankles and knees, and swivels in the thighs. I had some bad luck with my first Raven figure snapping at the thigh swivels, and I’m happy to report that Catwoman didn’t have any similar issues.

Catwoman comes with a gold, personalized stand similar to the ones that came with the last wave of Batman Legacy figures. Her lack of anything else is pretty disappointing, however. Her right hand is obviously sculpted to hold something, which makes the absence of a simple whip all the more conspicuous. Oh yes, she also comes with a rolled up comic cover poster.
I’m not collecting all the Batman Legacy figures, but I am jumping pretty quickly on the ones that I want so as not to miss out. The distribution on these in my area is pretty crappy and apart from the movie-based two-packs and Mr. Freeze, I haven’t seen any of these hanging around the pegs in the local toy aisles. I grabbed Catwoman through an online e-tailer and she ran about $20 with shipping. Its steep for a figure like this, particularly with no accessories, but I didn’t see a lot of other options, and unlike the last wave, I wasn’t interested in buying this entire assortment. And with the figure finally in hand, I’m not regretting the purchase, as she turned out really great.
Feb 17 2012

Kre-O Transformers: Megatron by Hasbro, Part 2

Last time, after a brief interlude to gush over Ninja Turtles, we checked out the Megatron Kre-O set in his vehicle mode. It turned out to be a pretty amazing set, so surely Megsy’s robot mode can’t be any good, can it? Well, I’m here to tell you it ain’t too shabby. Let’s have a looksy…

Once again, keep in mind that these sets do not transform. You basically build either the vehicle or the robot and then tear it all apart and build the other. Some may take issue with this approach, but I rather like it a lot. Hasbro’s last experiments with transforming building sets (see Built to Rule… on second thought, don’t) were pretty shitty. Besides, who hasn’t finished building a Lego set and lamented that it was all done? With Kre-O’s it really is like getting two sets in one, and I found building Megatron’s robot mode, just as fun and challenging as building his truck cab mode. The only downside was ripping apart the cab. I’ve built my fair share of Lego sets, but apart from taking a few parts off of the finished toys for storage, I’ve never broken one down completely until I had to do so with this Kre-O set. It was handy to have a razorblade handy to separate some of the more stubborn bricks. It was also handy to have the briefcase style box so that when pieces went flying, they usually wound up trapped in the box and not somewhere under the desk.
And there’s Megatron’s robot mode. First off, he’s huge, measuring in at about ten inches tall. Secondly, I really like the way the designers made him look like he could transform, even though he doesn’t. His obvious truck parts are positioned in a pretty logical manner. I will point out that some of his car parts weren’t included in the building instructions, so rather than leave them off, which felt like a cheat, I incorporated as many of them as I could into the robot, and I think it worked out rather well. There are, however, a few rather conspicuous pieces that I couldn’t find a good place for, like the windshields.
From a design standpoint, Megatron is a somewhat fresh take on the character. He definitely sports some of Dark of the Moon’s characteristics, but at the same time, he has a more G1 feel to me as well. I really like the head sculpt, the way the gas tanks sit on top of his backpack. and the way the front bumper sits on his chest. He also wears the prison from his cab mode as a backpack so he can still carry around prisoners. Megatron features a shoulder mounted missile launcher, with clips on his back to hold the spare missile. The missiles are the pieces used for the exhaust pipes in the truck mode and they flick-fire just like in Lego sets. The only thing I’m really missing here is the lack of some kind of arm cannon. To me, Megs just isn’t Megs without a giant fusion cannon on his right arm. I like to compensate by taking the missile launcher off his shoulder and attaching it to his right arm. I don’t tend to stray far from the instructions when building my Lego sets, but I’ve had a lot of fun tinkering with customizing this Kre-O set.
As an action figure, Megatron is fairly solid, although fiddle about with him enough and bits are bound to fall off. He has excellent articulation, with ball joints in the neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. He also swivels at the wrists and each of his eight fingers are articulated at the base. He stands very well and can hold a lot of poses, although if you give him too wide a stance, his hip joints tend to buckle under the weight and he’ll wind up doing the splits. Still, all in all he’s fun to play around with and he works really well if you want to have him fighting the Earth Defense Forces from Lego’s Alien Conquest series or attacking one of the many buildings from Lego City. I’m actually tempted to start collecting a lot more Lego City sets just to give my Kre-O Transformers a place to fight with collateral damage.
So, let’s talk value. The Megatron set comes with four Kreon minifigs, 310 pieces, and I got him at regular retail price at Walmart for $29.99. To compare, the last Lego set I featured here, UFO Abduction from the Alien Conquest series, was also $29.99 but only had 225 pieces. That makes Megatron a pretty good value considering you’re getting almost 100 more bricks and one extra minifig. And that’s not even considering the fact that this set gives you two toys to build. The quality is just as good as Lego and whle the instructions may frustrate every now and then, it makes for a good challenge. I’m so sold on these Kre-O’s I’ve already ordered two more sets, so expect to see more featured here in the next week or so.
Feb 16 2012

Kre-O Transformers: Megatron by Hasbro, Part 1

I’ve been putting this off for a while. Dipping my toe into the pool of Transformers Kre-O. I’ve been waffling back and forth, but I knew that sooner or later I was going to buy one of these sets and see what they’re all about. Well, yesterday was that day, as I finally picked up the Kre-O version of Megatron. As it turns out building this set was a lot more involved than I had expected, and it is technically two, two, TWO sets in one, so I’ve opted to break down this feature into two parts. Today we’ll check out the packaging and the Kreons and Megatron’s alt mode and tomorrow we’ll see how he looks in robot form. I had some high hopes for these Kre-O toys, for a number of reasons, so let’s see how my first Kre-O adventure turned out…

Oh god, I love this package. It’s a standard looking box, but it has a pop up handle and its simply taped on the sides, so you can open it up like a cardboard briefcase and put everything back inside when you’re done. Cool and functional! Take a look at these boxes, Lego, because its so much nicer to open one of these rather than having to chew through the side of one of your boxes. Inside you get a meaty instruction book, a sheet of stickers, and a bunch of baggies that contain the 310 bricks. Each of the Kreons are individual baggied too. As we do with Lego, let’s start with the minifigs… er, um… Kreons!
So, the Kreons are indeed basically minifigs and they come in two types. You get some humans that can intereact with the Transformers Kre-O toys and you get some that are made to look like little super-deformed versions of G1 Transformers themselves. The Megatron set comes with two of the humans: A specialist and a cop; And two Transformers: Megatron and Shockwave. I absolutely love the Transformer Kreons, especially Megatron as he comes with a huge fusion cannon and an evil smirk. These little guys are just fun and highly collectible. I’m tempted to say Hasbro should be blind-bagging them, but right now I think the strategy is to use them as an incentive to buy the sets. The humans are ok, although I’m not sure what the Specialist is supposed to be all about. Nonetheless it is really cool to have little figures in scale with the Transformers.
Laying aside the Kreons, let’s move on to the pile of bits that will eventually become Megatron. I found building this set to be a lot more challenging than any Lego set I’ve done so far. I think part of the reason is that the instructions aren’t quite as clear as the ones in the Lego sets. There were a few times where I couldn’t quite figure out where the selected bricks were supposed to go until a little bit of time spent studying the picture. Another reason may have been the fact that the majority of this set is comprised of just three different color bricks: Black, grey and light grey, and there’s a fair number of the same bricks in different colors. It also doesn’t help that none of the baggies are numbered as with Lego sets, which means you basically have to dump all 310 pieces together and hunt for each piece in a much larger pile. Good thing you can use the box as a dump for all the pieces. I’m not complaining, mind you, I actually enjoyed the challenge and the fact that it took me so long to complete.                                    
The instructions first show the build to truck mode and then, starting from scratch again, show the build to robot mode. Yes, unlike those shitty Built To Rule sets Hasbro put out back in the Armada days, these Kre-O sets don’t transform, rather you build each version. It’s a cool idea that gives a lot more build value out of the sets, but it is kind of a bittersweet moment when you finish the first mode and realize its time to tear it apart to build the second.
Megatron’s alt mode is a truck cab similar to the one seen in Dark of the Moon. Typically with Lego sets, I tend to find the final result a lot smaller than I was expecting. That’s certainly not the case with Megatron here. The cab is huge and can seat two minifigs. It rolls along on its six wheels rather well and looks fantastic. Both doors open, the sideview mirrors are hinged, as are the claws on the front of the bumper. Megatron even has a little prison cell in the back of his cab. There are actually a number of left over pieces that are used for the robot and not the cab mode, but I managed to work everything onto my finished cab by getting a little creative, or just putting them on underneath where they won’t show. I think my only complaint here is that Lego vehicles are usually designed so the top can easily come off to seat minifigs inside. Metagron’s cab is so intricate that you really can’t do that and you’re left tucking them in from the side, or just building the cab around whichever Kreon you want in there.

So far, I’m really sold on Kre-O. This was a really fun and challenging build that creates a huge, fun toy, and I’ve only seen and done half of what this set has to offer. I love the fact that you can even put Lego minifigs in the cab, and if I compare it to the Lego City tractor trailer I own, it’s just massive by comparison. Tomorrow I’ll be back to take a look at Megatron’s robot mode. Until then… I’ve got some building to do!
Feb 15 2012

Transformers Reveal The Shield: Special Ops Jazz by Hasbro

It seems like forever since I last looked at any Transformers. That’s primarily due to the fact that the Dark of the Moon toys didn’t hold my interest and Hasbro’s got nothing else on the pegs or shelves that I want. [Except for those Kre-O sets, and we’ll likely be looking at one of those before the end of the week. -FF] Anyway, thanks to the Ross Toy Graveyard I was able to get almost all the Reveal The Shield figures I needed to complete my Classics/Generations/Universe collection. That is all except Jazz and finally one of the online retailers I deal with regularly was able to get me a pretty decent price on him and so here we are today…

Bidding a fond farewell to the Reveal The Shield packaging, as this should be the last time we ever see it here. Truth be told, I was never all that fond of it. Its basically the Generations cardback with a less Tranformer-like orange color to the card rather than the more traditional red. Jazz comes packaged in his vehicle mode with his gun mounted beside him. Note the name, “Special Ops Jazz.” This isn’t some kind of special repaint or variant, but rather just one of those cases where Hasbro lost the rights to use the name Jazz by itself so their lawyers told them they’d be safe if they tacked on “Special Ops” before the name. The bubble also sports the ubiquitous Hub network sticker to remind you that there’s a current Transformers series running, but doesn’t mention that Hasbro continues to make it next to impossible for you to buy any toys based on it, unless you fancy paying about forty bucks for a Deluxe on the Interwebs. End bitter rant now.
Out of the package, Jazz’s car mode is indeed quite nice and very reminiscent of his original G1 Porsche mode. He is cast in that white plastic that makes me afraid that it will yellow over time, but it’ll probably last longer than my liver, so who’s worried? His color scheme includes blue and red striping up the middle and sides and his racing number four on the hood and doors. The Rub Sign is on the roof of the car and mine doesn’t work worth a damn. God, how I hate these things.
Jazz is really easy to transform and in robot mode he looks outstanding. I’m not one of those collectors that hate on the Prowl/Bluestreak/Smokescreen mold from Classics, but even I have to admit that Jazz looks tons better and doesn’t suffer from problems like the door panels falling off nearly every time in mid conversion. Yeah, I realize that G1 Jazz used a different mold as the G1 versions of those three, but the robot modes are so similar, the comparison is still valid in my book. Either way, great job on this one, Hasbro!
Jazz does have one cool little gimmick and that’s the speakers that deploy from behind his car door “wings”. I love that Hasbro included this as it really gives the toy a lot of personality and its a nice fanwank back to the original Sunbow cartoon. They’re ball jointed so you can position them in all manner of ways.
And so Jazz rounds out my collection of updated G1 Autobots quite nicely. Sure there’s still Skids and Trailbreaker and Hoist and more Minibots to make, but based on what we heard at Toy Fair this year, it looks like we’ll have to wait until 2013 for those. I was able to get Jazz for $17 shipped, which is about what I would have paid if I would have ordered him off of Hasbro’s own Toyshop, assuming he was ever actually available. Sure, its a lot more pricey than the other Reveal The Shield figures, but then I was able to find all of those on clearance at Ross. You can’t win them all.
Feb 13 2012

Ghostbusters: “Ready To Believe You” Ray Stantz by Mattel

[Howdy, folks. I hope everyone is having as good a time following all the Toy Fair coverage as I am. I was actually going to take today off just to recoup and digest, but then I figured why break a perfect daily streak of updates for February. I will be getting around to posting a little roundup of my impressions of what we’re seeing at TF2012, but that will likely come around Wednesday or so. No major surprises so far, unless you count how badly Hasbro seems to be half-assing their GI JOE movie year toy push. Jesus. Anyway, until then, let’s see what figure is on tap for today, eh? – FF]

We all should know by now that Matty has pulled the plug on the Ghostbusters subscription. We will supposedly get some more figures here and there, but apart from that they’ve abandoned the pretense of trying to hold this mess together as a cohesive line of action figures. That also means that some etailers are starting to unload their stocks on the cheap, which is the only reason we’re talking about Ghostbusters today. At $30 a figure (Yes, I include Matty’s shitty, extortionary shipping in the price) I was only prepared to buy the four Ghostbusters, but anytime I can pick these figures up for around half price, I’m willing to give it a go.
Ghostbusters packaging. Haven’t seen this in a long while. I still think it looks great. You get the main figure and the ghost beautifully displayed in a huge bubble with the colorful GB emblem right up on the top. The back of the package is an illustrated image of a cluttered desk with all kinds of trivia about our hero, Ray Stantz. Actually, the back of the cards aren’t my favorite aspect of these packages. There’s some goofy stuff on there, but oh well.
Ray comes dressed in his lab coat as he appeared for about 30 seconds in that “We’re Ready To Believe You” commercial. He probably donned this outfit at some other point in the movie too, and I can’t deny that having a Ray figure in a labcoat is a cool idea since he was one of the chief tinkerers and actual scientists of the group. This figure was an obvious choice for Mattel since it once again allowed them to use the same body to release all the Ghostbusters. Ray’s wearing black trousers, a white button down shirt, a tie, and the rubbery labcoat complete with sculpted pocket protector. For what it is, the body is pretty good, but its still hard to get excited about a dude in a labcoat. What is cool is that this Ray figure features what is either an entirely new head sculpt or at least a drastic resculpt of the head used on the original release Ray Stantz. Gone is the pinched-head syndrome and what you get is something that looks a lot less silly and closer to Dan Ackroyd’s likeness. Too bad Mattel couldn’t have delivered this sculpt on the original figure.
You also one accessory and its the “ghost sniffer” that Peter used in Dana’s apartment in the first movie. Ray can wear it slung over his shoulder and he can hold the plunger in one hand and the wand in the other. Not bad.
And then there’s the ghost figure. I can’t place this one in the movie from memory, but I’m guessing its one of the ones from the montage where the containment system blew and ghosts were running wild all over the city. I really like this guy. He’s similar to Slimer in that he’s a blob with two arms. Ok, maybe not so much a blob, but more like one of those blind fish they haul up out of the deep trenches in the ocean. He’s cast in a really cool looking translucent blue plastic and his arms feature ball jointed shoulders and hinged elbows. He also comes with the same stand that all the ghosts in the line seem to come with. He’s definitely a cool addition to my little Ghostbusters collection.
In the end, this is not a bad figure, it just isn’t one that I absolutely needed in my collection until the price dropped. And even then. I am impressed that the head sculpt is so much better than the original, but than I get a little peeved that Matty couldn’t have delivered that head sculpt on the original release. The accessory is pretty good and I’m really happy with the ghost. At $13 shipped, basically an impulse buy, this figure was a nice little pick up.
Feb 12 2012

Thundercats: Classic 6-inch Mumm-Ra by Ban Dai

No offense to Tygra, but this is probably what the first pairing of figures should have looked like in the 8-inch line: The chief good guy and the chief baddie. In fact, as long as Ban Dai is commited to producing all the Thundercats in this scale, I think it would be cool if each wave included a Thundercat and a Mutant or some other bad guy. But then I’m getting ahead of myself. Hello, all, and welcome to today’s feature: 6-inch Mumm-Ra, The Ever Living!!!

Yuppers, the package is the same as Lion-O and basically a shrunk down version of the ones used for the 8-inch Classics. Mumm-Ra is displayed nicely in the package, although you don’t get the full effect since his bandages are all crumpled up at the top. The side panels feature some nice art with Mumm-Ra’s ugly mug and damn was he ugly. Jeesus. Once again, this packaging is very collector friendly, although I don’t suspect I could ever get his bandages back in just right without going insane.
And there he is. Ban Dai did a great job bringing Mumm-Ra’s 80’s animated goodness to action figure form, although in fairness he isn’t an overly complex character design. He’s mostly all greyish-blue skin and muscles. The head sculpt is quite good and they really managed to capture that hideous visage that really creeped me the fuck out back when I was a kid. No kidding, when he turned to Mumm-Ra and started screaming like a banshee on crack, I used to get pretty disturbed. His ceremonial helmet is nicely detailed and the streamers coming off the back are sculpted as if they’re blowing all over the place. If you never saw the classic Thundercats, Mumm-Ra always looked as if he had a high powered fan blowing straight at him from off screen. Apart from his headdress, he’s got a skirt and some lower leg armor, all nicely done.
And then there’s those bandages. Ban Dai got really creative here and included two sets of bendy bandages that plug into his back to simulate the look of them whipping all over the place when he makes his change. Whatever you do, don’t lose the instruction sheet in the package as it shows you how to fit them on just right. There’s a little bit of room for a custom look here, but honestly, these things were meant to go on a certain way and it isn’t all that easy to figure it out without seeing pictures. Oddly enough, there are no pictures of the figure wearing the bandages on the back of the package. Mumm-Ra also comes with an extra pair of hands, which are pretty unnecessary as far as I’m concerned.
As for articulation, Mumm-Ra has decent poseability, but he’s nowhere near as agile as his nemesis, the Lord of the Thundercats. His neck is ball jointed, but there’s limited movement apart from going side to side. His arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, swivels in the bicep and ball jointed wrists. His legs are also ball jointed in the hips, but his skirt limits a lot of the upper leg articulation. You also get hinges in the knees and ankles. Mumm-Ra is ball jointed at the waist, but he lacks the extra joint in the upper torso.
And that’s all I’ve got to say about Mumm-Ra. He retails for around fifteen bucks, which seems about right to me. Ban Dai seems to have really great distribution with this line, as I’ve seen these guys on the pegs all over the place. I really do wish we got Mumm-Ra in the 8-inch scale, only because I think the larger version would have displayed better next to the 6-inch Lion-O. While the LJN figures were roughly the same size, Mumm-Ra always seemed bigger in the cartoon. That having been said, I think Ban Dai did a great job with him. The more restrained level of articulation is likely to irk some, but we already saw a drop between 8-inch Lion-O and Tygra, so I don’t think its the fault of the smaller scale. He’s a great figure, but I can’t say I’m not disappointed he didn’t come with a little Ma-Mutt.
Feb 11 2012

Thundercats: Classic 6-inch Lion-O by Ban Dai

So, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. After releasing only two Classic Thundercats figures in the 8-inch scale, Ban Dai decided to go back to the drawing board and start over with a 6-inch line. I don’t have any inside information as to why they would do this, particularly since the 8-inch Lion was easily my favorite figure released in 2011, but it might have had something to do with the fact that a lot of collectors were bitching that the 8-inch format was an oddball scale and you couldn’t swing a cyber-cat around most toy forums without hearing the lament that they didn’t fit into scale with the Masters of the Universe Classics line.

Honestly, I don’t care so much about the scale, or even having to buy Lion-O a second time. If starting over in 6-inch is what we need to do for Ban Dai to get us all the Classic Thundercats and hopefully the Mutants too, then I’m fine with that. If they go ahead and release some more in the 8-inch scale, I’m fine with that too. What I’m kind of pissed about is the idea that Ban Dai’s Thundercats figures need to conform to the scale of Mattel’s MOTUC line, as if the later has become some holy industry standard and must be obeyed. Look, I make no bones about the fact that I love the MOTUC line and I’ve certainly bought my share of the figures. But last time I checked, Thundercats was the line that’s actually being sold in stores and MOTUC is the one hiding out through a particularly crappy online-only retail service. My point is that Ban Dai doesn’t owe any homage to MOTUC when devising the scale of their Thundercats figures. But if bending to the will of a bunch of He-Man collector fanboys is what we need to do to get Classics Thundercats figures, then so be it. Just bring them on. Ok, rant over, let’s look at the figure…
It may be a whole new scale, but Ban Dai didn’t mess with the design of the packages. Lion-O comes in a sort of box-card hybrid that looks almost exactly like the one his 8-inch cousin came in. Its even almost exactly the same size too.  I’m fine with this packaging, particularly because it is so collector friendly, and it does a fine job of showing off the figure and accessories you’re getting. The figure comes nestled in a tray with a nice colorful cardboard backdrop that can easily be slid out the bottom and easily returned.
In a lot of ways 6-inch Lion-O is just a scaled down version of the 8-inch figure. He seemed rather small to me when I first got him out of the package, but that’s probably because despite being scaled down to the MOTUC size, he’s still not all bulked up and ‘roided out like the MOTUC figures are. As a result even after all the fuss, Lion-O here still isn’t going to look at home standing next to He-Man. So take that, bitches! But as far as the body is concerned, you’ll see very few differences between this guy and his slightly larger predecessor. Its still an amazingly cool, and delightfully toyish, looking sculpt with the same excellent paintwork, sans painted ankle joints. The only major difference is that this smaller Lion-O has some rather unsightly exposed screw heads on the back of the figure, which did not show on the larger one.
Plenty of cyber-ink has been spilled over Lion-O’s new head sculpt and the fact that he’s sculpted into a perpetual angry scream. I certainly don’t like it anywhere near as much as the 8-inch head sculpt, but honestly its grown on me to the point where I don’t dislike it. I’ve also heard some gripes about the windblown look to his hair, but I find it to be a nice homage to the way his hair looked on the vintage LJN figure.
6-inch Lion-O features almost the exact same articulation as the 8-inch version. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, swivels in the biceps, and ball jointed wrists. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, feature swivels in the thighs and just above the boots, have double-hinged knees, and hinged ankles. Lion-O also features a ball joint in his waist and another ab joint just below his chest. The only real difference that I see is smaller Lion-O seems to be missing that extra up-down hinge in the neck and simply features a ball joint there. Still, not too shabby in the poseability department.
Surprise! 6-inch Lion-O also comes with the same accessories as larger Lion-O. You get the same swappable hands, The Sword of Omens in large and small versions, the Claw Shield, and that awsomely clever little hook that can attach it to his waist. The swords are both very nicely sculpted, but this larger Sword of Omens is a lot more bendy than the 8-inch Lion’s sword. Once again, the smaller Sword of Omens can be stored in the Claw Shield.
So if you have 8-inch Lion-O do you need 6-inch? Well, that depends on whether you’re banking on getting a whole set. While Ban Dai claims they will continue to support the 8-inch line, I don’t see this happening. I’ll be happy to eat my words if I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it happening. This new 6-inch scale is the one that will likely see the release of the complete Thundercats and hopefully many more figures. Plus, Mumm-Ra is already available and that’s cooler than Tygra. Make no mistake, the 8-inch Lion-O is a superior figure in every way and still stands as my favorite figure released by anyone in 2011, but this smaller Lion-O is pretty sweet too. I’m not at all bitter at having to buy a second, as I’m willing to purchase every Classic Thundercats toy that Ban Dai puts out just to support the line and see it go as far as possible.
Tomorrow… Mumm-Ra!!!
Feb 10 2012

Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem by NECA

The last thing I want to do here is recount the tortured and well known history behind Duke Nukem Forever. Suffice it to say the game lingered in development limbo for nearly 20 years before finally shipping last year. The final product was not only disappointing but it was easily one of the worst games I’ve played in a long while. It was poorly designed, occasionally broken and just no fun. But worst of all the gimmicky gameplay seemed to entirely miss the point of what Duke Nukem was all about: Blasting the shit out of stuff. You could argue that the developers tried to reinvent the game for a new age, but the point is that Duke Nukem should do what he does best, shoot things and make quips. A old school style shooter in the mold of Serious Sam or something like that could have been a fun nostalgic romp, not the crap we wound up with.

Nonetheless, I love Duke Nukem. He’s an important part of my gaming youth. I even read his funny books. I was on board way back when the now defunct Resaurus was making Duke Nukem figures and so it was only natural that I would get around to buying NECA’s recent treatment. Let’s check him out.
If you’ve picked up any of NECA’s recent releases, then you know what to expect from the packaging. Duke comes in a compact clamshell with a printed insert. I like this packaging as you can easily razor along the back to get at the figure and then you can return him to the package without it looking like it was ever opened. They obviously had a lot of fun when writing the copy for the package and it shows. It even recommends you take him out with you for adventures like some kind of strange My Buddy doll. There’s no need to take Duke seriously and NECA certainly doesn’t.
The sculpt here is pretty good. Its a more realistic looking Duke than we’ve ever seen, which is a reflection of the better (and yet still dated) graphics from the recent game. The figure does have a bit of a hunched over look, but its nothing to get too upset about and in a sense I guess it stresses his whole ‘roided out gorilla look. The sunglasses are sculpted onto his face, but they’re done so well that they really do look like they could be removed. Speaking of his face, Duke sports a great little over confident smirk that suits the character really well. There’s not much to say about his outfit. He’s wearing a red wife-beater, fingerless gloves, blue jeans and boots. Its all nicely detailed right down to his iconic belt buckle. The ammo straps are sculpted as separate pieces and hang loose down near his belt to allow for his torso articulation. The flesh paint features a bit of a wash to give him a slightly dirty look, which I think looks rather good.
So let’s talk articulation. Duke has some seriously weird ass articulation. He’s quite poseable, but NECA devised some truly and inexplicably awkward designs for his joints. His neck is ball jointed, which is normal enough, although he has very little up and down movement. His shoulders are ball jointed, but might as well just be swivels because he has very little lateral movment. But then he’s got an additional pin joint just under the shoulder, which seems redundant. The figure would have been better served with a swivel cut here. The rest of the arms are pretty standard with hinged elbows and swivel wrists. His legs have normal movement at the hips with the addition of another oddly placed pin joint that gives his legs lateral movement. You then have double hinged knees and swivels in the ankles. Lastly, Duke can swivel at the waist and has an ab crunch in the torso.  I have no idea what happened here, particularly with the shoulders and the hips, but it seems like NECA went out of their way to needlessly reinvent some very conventional points of articulation. Like I said… weird.
I can’t say that NECA has ever been heavy handed in the accessories department, and Duke here is par for the course. You get an automatic pistol and a cigar. That’s it. It feels woefully light, considering Duke should be a one-man walking arsenal. Where are the trademark weapons from the game? Where’s the Devastator? The Shrink Ray is even mentioned in one of the quips on the package, but its nowhere to be found. How about a friggin Pipe Bomb or combat knife? You don’t even get his Boomstick. Resaurus’ figure came with a bunch of cool accessories, here you get bupkis and that’s almost as disappointing as the game. I’ll admit the cigar is a cool little accessory and he can even hold it quite well, but the lack of an alternate head with the ability to hold it in his mouth seems like a missed opportunity.
Duke originally retailed for around $15-17 and you can still grab him at most Toys R Us stores for around that price. I got him on clearance through an e-tailer for $10 shipped, so I’m going to cut him some slack. It really is generally a nice sculpt and the articulation is perfectly serviceable albeit oddly designed, but ultimately the lack of accessories hurts this figure a lot. If you’re really jonesing for a Duke figure I suppose this one ain’t bad, but you might be better off hunting down the old Resaurus version. It may be a much simpler sculpt, but its as a toy its a lot more fun.