Feb 22 2011

5 Things My Wallet Loved About Toy Fair This Year

The inevitable follow up to yesterday’s entry. Tomorrow we’ll start looking at some toys again.

5. Mattel’s Young Justice Figures.
I really dig this cartoon, and I was worried that I was going to have to jump on board when I saw the figures revealed, but now that I have, I know I don’t need them. Should Mattel ever decide to release a wave of these in the DCUC line, I’d be fine with that, but otherwise these are an easy pass.

4. Ghostbusters.
While there’s a slight chance I may pick up the 12″ Winston with the Slime Thrower, and possibly one more 6″ figure, my previous belief that I’m more or less done with this line has been justified, not to mention I’m relieved I didn’t go ahead and subscribe to it. If Mattel was serious about keeping this line alive, they need to pony up with the ghosts or Vigo or anything but more variants of the same four characters. I know, they did Walter Peck and Luis Tulley, great. I don’t depart this line bitter, I have my set of 6″ figures and the original three Ghostbusters in 12″ and I’m fine with that.

3. Marvel Universe.
I’ve bought a lot of these figures over the last month or so, but I think I’m going to start slowing down and doing a lot more cherry picking. There were some good figures shown off at Toy Fair, but only a few of them are what I would consider must owns and The Sentinal looked kind of disappointing. There’s no doubt that the MU line will still got it’s fair share of my monies, but maybe not as much as I originally thought. Afterall, that Thundercat fund has to come from somewhere, right?

2. Masterpiece Rodimus Prime.
To be fair, I already decided against buying this figure before seeing the shots from Toy Fair. The figure looks nice in photos, but too many early reports say it’s as fragile as all hell and not at all impressive in person. Throw in the fact that I’ve never been a big fan of Hot Rod or Rodimus Prime, and that makes this an easy way to save about a hundred bucks.

1. GI Joe.
There’s no doubt Hasbro went for quality over quantity last year with the GI Joe license and it looks like this year will be more of the same. With the exception of the Sky Striker, there’s nothing on the table that I’m even remotely interested in buying. Last year, I decided I wouldn’t be buying any new versions of characters already done in the 25th Anniversary line, and while I still plan on picking up the Pursuit of Cobra HISS and VAMP, and the aforementinoed Sky Striker, it’s safe to say that I can free up any monies that I had earmarked for GI Joe to be spent elsewhere in 2012.

Feb 21 2011

5 Things My Wallet Hated About Toy Fair This Year

Toy Fair was pretty exciting this year, and I’m only now finally done sifting through all the photos and press releases and all that good stuff. There are going to be a shit-ton of toys coming out later this year, but oddly I didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed as I have in the past. Nonetheless, here are five of the things revealed at Toy Fair this year that are likely going to cost me the most.

5. Transformers Cyberverse.
One of the aspects of Transformers toys I have managed to stay away from has been the Legends Class figures. I love me some Minicons and Spymasters and Micromasters, but I don’t dig the idea of spending five bucks to get a smaller, crappier version of a toy I already own. All was well and good until Hasbro decided to recreate this line by giving them little transforming playsets. At the very least I’m going to have to dip my toe into the Cyberverse waters and see what happens, but there’s a good chance I’ll be buying this line.

4. DC Universe Classics.
It was unlikely that I was going to shake this monkey off my back in 2011 and having not yet picked up the Bane wave, I’m already starting the year off behind. But the real kick in the balls here is the Crime Syndicate 5-pack. It’s a Walmart Exclusive, which means I’ll be paying through the nose for it on Ebay, unless it winds up like that Green Lantern 5-pack and is actually available to buy on Walmart’s website.

3. Transformers Prime.
After watching six episodes, I have finally come to the conclusion that the new Transformers Prime series is a good thing. It’s not my first choice for how a TF series should be done, and I can’t say I’m chomping at the bit to see the next episode each week, but when I do sit down and watch it, I generally enjoy myself. Hasbro had us believing there wouldn’t be toys any time soon, but they showed them off at Toy Fair, and most of them looked pretty fine, so I’m on board with these.

2. Sky-Scream-Striker.
It’s bad enough for my wallet that Hasbro is bringing back the GI Joe Sky Striker, but in an effort to be particularly cruel, they are also repainting it like G1 Starscream and bundling a Cobra Commander figure into it with a little Megatron gun to boot. Oh yeah, and it’s going to be an SDCC Exclusive! There’s a slight chance I’ll be able to pick this up on HasbroToyShop, as some of Hasbro’s exclusives have been easy to buy online even weeks after the Con, but somehow I don’t think this is going to be one of them. Either way, I’m likely going to pay out the ass for this one.

1. Thundercats.
I’ve got enough shit to buy without adding another entirely new toy line to the mix, much less one with vehicles, playsets and multiple scales of figures. I’ve already pre-ordered every Thundercats item shown at Toy Fair, including the roleplay items which I hardly ever buy, so August is going to be a tough month. To make matters worse even Mezco is getting into the game with that massive and awesome Lion-O figure. It’s going to be a to fit into the budget this year, so I probably should start saving now. The only good side of this is I can finally kick the lingering temptation to buy vintage Thundercat figures, and at least those overpriced Stactions aren’t tempting me.

Feb 19 2011

Lego Space Police: Hyperspeed Pursuit (#5973)

Ahh, I’m rapidly running out of Space Police sets to buy and it’s starting to bum me out. While I’m sure I will eventually pick up the bigger sets and the pair of mid-size sets that I’m missing, Hyperspeed Pursuit was the last one that I was really chomping at the bit to buy and build. At 456 pieces, this is the largest Space Police set I own as it surpasses the Lunar Limo set by over 50 bricks and gives you the best of both worlds with both a police ship and a criminal ship. Let’s take a look!

The set comes in a really long box and contains two instruction books, one sticker sheet, two rubbery hoses, and four numbered bags of bricks, although oddly enough two of them are numbered “3.” The 456 pieces consist of two decent sized ships, a safe with gold bars, a prisoner pod, and three minifigs. As I mentioned above, this set was a really satisfying build and took me more than a couple of hours to complete. While there were some duplicated parts on the ships, the fact that I was building two unique ships made it more engaging.

The minifigs consist of one Space Police officer and two criminals. The cop seems pretty standard and features a helmet with moving visor, a set of oxygen tanks and a double printed face. The criminals are the Skull Twins, which also feature double printed faces and identical skull helmets that fit over their heads. Yeah, making twins is kind of a cheat to drop doubles of a minifig in the box, but I like them well enough. Each ship only holds one pilot, and the other one of the Skull Twins goes into the prisoner pod on the police ship.

I’ve made it no secret that I’m really in this line for the cool designs of the criminal ships. [One of these days I’ll look at the Gold Heist set, which pretty much sums up everything I dislike about the police ships -FF] The Space Truck and the Lunar Limo were both awesome, whereas the police ships have been ok, but not great. The police ship in this set, however, is defintely a step up. I love the design of it and some of the little details are really cool and well thought out. The hoses that run from under the wings into the forward laser cannons, for example, are a beautiful touch, and the complex build of the rear thrusters alone are comprised of about 20 pieces each and articulated to boot. There are weapon pods under the wings and articulated antenna arrays on each of the engines. The ship doesn’t rely all that heavily on stickers either, although the Police stickers on the sides are nice touches.

The police ship is designed to hold the Prisoner Pod, which in turn can hold a minifig. If you have the Galactic Enforcer, you’ll already be familiar with this construct. It can easily detach from the ship and it has a target gimmick that blows the pod open when you hit the disc with a projectile or just tap it with your finger.


The Skull Twins’ ship has a lot of the same stylings as the cab of the Space Truck and the Lunar Limo, which means it’s pure, concentrated awesome. The top of the cabin lifts off so you can place the minifig. The truck compartment can hold the boosted safe and the two front torpedo launchers fire so you can try to hit the Prison Pod and free the prisoner. The amount of detail on this ship is impressive and the stickers really tie the whole thing together. The safe is simple enough and opens from either side, allowing access to the gold bricks inside. It’s not as cool as the one that comes with the Gold Heist set, but it’s a nice bonus all the same.

Based on build and playability Hyperspeed Pursuit has become my favorite of the Space Police sets thus far, and that’s saying quite a bit because I’ve been thoroughly satisfied with all of the sets that I own in this line so far. The ship designs are great and fun to build and there’s a lot of decent play features and stuff to muck about with. It doesn’t hurt that I got this set off of Wally World’s website for only $35 either. If you’re into the Space Police, I’d say this is a must buy, and if you only want one Space Police set to get a flavor of the series, than this is probably the best one to get.

Feb 18 2011

Marvel Universe: Moon Knight and Black Panther by Hasbro

I’m slowly going through the case of Marvel Universe figures that I got in a couple of weeks ago. This time I’m going to look at two characters that I admittedly don’t care a whole lot about, but I wanted to pick them up for one reason or another. Moon Knight has always intrigued me, but I’ve never read anything that he’s ever been in, apart from a cameo in issue of Deadpool. I’ve got some of Moon Knight’s stuff on my To Read list, but at my age I think my reading list is a lot longer than the time I’ve got left on this old world of ours. I’m a lot more familiar with Black Panther, but he is by far my least favorite of all the Avengers. Apart from the issues of his comics that coincided with theDark Reign saga, I’ve never read any of his books, so most of my exposure to him is from the second animated Avengers movie and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. 

Standard Marvel Universe packaging, only these figures were released before the HAMMER theme took over from SHIELD. The character art on these cards is a little weak, but that might be more because both characters have fairly simple designs rather than any lack of effort on Hasbro’s part. The bubbles show off the figures nicely.

Moon Knight is a really cool looking figure. In fact to find as nice a looking figure with virtually no paint apps, you’d have to look to Mattel’s Gentlemen Ghost from the DCUC line. He relies on a fair amount of new sculpt, a bulkier muscular build and and a really nice hood, cowl and cape piece that still allows for some articulation in the neck. His face is basically just a Jawa, but it really serves the original character design very well. He comes with his staff weapon and a moon dart, which looks exactly like a clipped toenail. Mine flew out of the package when I opened it and was never seen again. It’s a fair bet my cat ate it.

And speaking of figures with virtually no paint apps, next up is Black Panther. [See, there’s a reason I chose to look at these two figures together! -FF]  Of course, Panther hits the other end of the spectrum and is all black. I’ve tried many times to embrace this character, but I simply can’t do it. That’s not to say I didn’t want this figure, albeit solely because of his membership in the Avengers. I’m tempted to say there’s a lot of original sculpt on Panther’s body, because his torso looks to have fewer muscular lines than most other figures, but I’m not prepared to say one way or the other. I do think Hasbro did a fine job on the head sculpt. Panther comes with his Poleaxe.

While Moon Knight features all the standard articulation we’re used to seeing in the MU male figures, Black Panther has two exceptions: His knees. He doesn’t have the double hinged knees that Moon Knight and most other MU figures have. However, Both figures include their packet of secret SHIELD documents with file cards. On the other hand, these guys were released before Hasbro decided to start including the personalized stands. Boo!

And there you have it, another couple of solid offerings from the Marvel Universe line. I imagine that Black Panther will be a pretty well sought after figure just because of his Avengers affiliation, although it seems pretty questionable as to whether he’ll be brought into the picture when the Avengers assemble on the big screen in a year or so. I’m not so sure about Moon Knight. Granted, no matter how obscure a character, there will always be fans happy to get the figure, but I read a fair amount of Marvel comics and my exposure to him has been nil, so I have to wonder just how he’ll be received among the masses.

Feb 17 2011

Star Trek The Next Generation: Lt. Tasha Yar by Playmates

It’s been a really long time since I looked at any of Playmates’ Star Trek figures from the 90’s. It tends to be a line that I forget about for a long time and then pick up again when I stumble across some figure that I need, or I think I need. Afterall, it’s a pretty extensive line of figures and while my collection is fairly large, there’s still a number of figures that I’m missing. I couldn’t for the life of me remember whether or not I had Yar, so when I stumbled upon her in a local comic ship, I took a chance and picked her up anyway. I got home and discovered… nope, didn’t have her. So this was a nice pick up.

The awesome thing about these Next Gen figures is that they’re usually dirt cheap so despite the fact that they’re old, I can still buy them carded and not feel bad about tearing them open. I’ve always liked the Next Gen cards. The animated style goes well with the stylized sculpts of the figures and Playmates loved to post advertisments all over the damn cards. Whether it was for Space POGs or video games on the Genesis or SNES, or what have you, these cards always looked like Las Vegas billboards to me. Nonetheless, the bubble displays the figure nicely and makes use of the collectible trading card to personalize the package to the character. The back panel shows some other figures in the line and has a little bio blurb about Yar’s past, which conveniently neglects to use the phrase “rape squads” probably because this is a toy aimed at kids.

Yar’s sculpt betrays the odd proportions that Playmates loved to inflict on these characters. The big stylized head isn’t unlike the big heads once found on the old GI Joe figures, so there’s some nostalgic factor here. Still, this Yar figure was a fairly late release, and the proportions and sculpt on the figures were getting closer to being more realistic and less stylized. By the time you got to the Voyager figures, they were looking fairly normal. The figure actually looks fine until you compare her with some of the other ladies in the line. Compared to Troi or Crusher, she’s a tad too big.  Yar was definitely one tough chic, but she was definitely not a big woman. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Playmates got the Denise Crosby likeness down, but it’s still better then some. I think the thing I like best about this figure as that she isn’t pre-posed like some of the earlier figures were. The uniform is pretty Season One accurate as seen in the gold piping around the collar and the pants cuffs. Nice touch!

Yar’s articulation is standard for the Next Gen line. Her head rotates three-sixty, her arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivels in the biceps and hinged elbows. Her legs rotate at the hips and have hinged knees, and she can swivel at the waist.

It wouldn’t be a Playmates Star Trek figure without a scary and inappropriate collection of off-colored accessories. Actually, Yar’s accessories are downright normal compared to some. She comes with a phaser with that terrible beam attached (but not for long… where are my scissors?), a PADD, a tricorder and a flashlight, which is completely at odds with the palm beacons I remember them using in the series. Either way, Playmates played it cool with Yar’s accessories, by keeping them down to a minimum and giving her useful stuff, although most of it is still molded in dark red plastic. Um, yeah. She also comes with the standard comm-badge style figure stand and the aforementioned collector card.

Yar’s figure was released fairly late in the line, as Denise Crosby was already off the show by the time Playmates got The Next Generation license away from Galoob. Based on the biography on the back of the card, it was after she reprised her role as Yar in the episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” but before she returned to play her own half-Romulan daughter, Sela. Lest we forget that Ms. Crosby thought her acting chops were better than Star Trek deserved and then quickly found out that they really weren’t. She then became a born-again Star Trek actress alumni and started producing documentaries like Trekkies and Trekkies 2, while simultaneously haunting Star Trek conventions. I guess she learned her lesson, eh? All bashing aside, I picked this figure up for under five dollars, which was certainly not a lot of money to fill a vacant spot in my collection.

Feb 16 2011

Marvel Universe: Ghost Rider by Hasbro

It’s an amazing thing, but even that shitty movie with Nicholas Cage couldn’t manage to kill my fondness for Ghost Rider. Granted, I haven’t been as big a fan as I once was, but I still love the character and was really excited to be getting him in the Marvel Universe 3 3/4″ scale. And while I think this figure should have warranted some kind of boxed set that included his bike, I’ll take what I can get for now and hope for an exclusive or something later on down the line.

Standard Marvel Universe packaging. The character art is mighty fine and the bubble shows off the figure really nicely. Ghost Rider’s package is still part of the Dark Reign of Norman Osborne, so you get the HAMMER motif instead of SHIELD. Not much else to say here.

Let’s start with the head sculpt, because it is fan-friggin-tastic. Granted, Hasbro had a lot to work with here, what with it being a flaming skull and all, but this could have just as easily been a trainwreck. The skull itself is immaculately sculpted and the translucent orange flame makes for a cool effect. The slight orange tint to the skull helps carry the flaming effect along. His body sculpt isn’t terribly spectacular, but it certainly gets the job done and at least it relies as much on sculpt as it does paintwork. I like the high collar and the the black paint wash over the dark blue works well. I tend to think some sculpted chains on the figure itself, or possibly some sculpted in softer plastic to wrap around him would have gone a long way to make him even better, but that might be something reserved for a larger scale figure. Either way, there’s no question, Hasbro nailed the likeness here.

Marvel Universe’s articulation continues to impress me, at least for the male characters. Ghost Rider features ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips. He’s got swivels in the biceps, wrists and thighs and hinged elbows and double hinged knees. He swivels at the hip and has universal movemen tin his upper torso. If there are more points of articulation to be found in a 3 3/4″ figure, I can’t imagine what they might be.

Ghost Rider comes with his little cache of secret documents including his file card. He also comes with a personalized figure stand and his chain/whip, which is partially made of the same translucent orange plastic that makes up his skull flames.

Hasbro produced a pretty distinctive and excellent looking figure here with Ghost Rider, but then again he’s not just another costumed super hero. He’s definitely among my favorite figures in the line so far, and that’s saying quite a bit. Owning him has motivated me to dig out some of my back issues and trades and give some of them a re-read. If nothing else it might help me in my quest to try to forget the Ghost Rider movie ever existed.

Feb 15 2011

Vintage Vault: Sectaurs Mantor and Raplor by Coleco

It’s time to take another look at that amazing and somewhat lost line of figures by Coleco: The Sectaurs. Last time we looked at Zak and Bitaur, this time it’s another one of the good guys: Mantor and Raplor. Mantor was something of an Obi-Wan type character for the line. He played the part of wise advisor, martial arts expert and the keeper of the secret order, Keepers of the Way. Honestly, I don’t remember much about any of that from the cartoon or comic and it’s not really reflected in his weapons, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

When compared to Zak, it’s easy to see that Coleco reused parts to keep the cost of the line down. It’s just another interesting comparison between this line and Mattel’s Masters of the Universe. Mantor’s legs and arms are the same as Zak’s only repainted. The white on my Mantor’s biceps and thighs is showing a slight hint of yellowing, but considering the age of the figure, it’s not bad at all. At first glance, it might seem like the torso is a reuse as well, since they are extremely similar, but on closer inspection the sculpted muscle lines are completely different. Mantor has that really distinctive looking head sculpt that is unmistakeable for this line. It’s fairly smaller than Zak’s and not as squishy and rubbery.

Mantor originally came with his removable belt and harness, a crossbow and pistol and the same shield as Zak. Unfortunately, mine only has the shield. Since my Zak has two weapons, I let Mantor borrow his pistol, but one day I’m going to have to hunt down his crossbow. The belt and harness is made of soft rubber and features a clip on the back to hold the crossbow and a sculpted quiver with bolts hanging off his belt.

Mantor’s articulation includes three-sixty rotation in the head, ball joints in the shoulders and hips and hinges in the knees.

Raplor is Mantor’s Insectoid companion. He’s got a cool sculpt and paint job and mine has held up really well over the years. His action feature is a grappling hook on a string that you can pull out and retract by winding it around the removable spindle on his back. When I got mine out of storage it took me about an hour to get the string all unknotted and detangled. Raplor’s natural enemy is the cat, as my cat attacks repeatedly attacks his grappling hook and string at every chance he gets.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about this pair. As with Zak and Bitaur, I think these figures hold up really well and depending on how nit-picky you want to get with being complete, you can pick up Mantor without losing much money. Next time we look at the Sectaur’s we’ll tackle one of the real draws of the line, the big beast riders.

Feb 14 2011

DC Return of Supergirl: Corrupted Supergirl by DC Direct

As a rule, I try to stay away from any of the DC Direct figures that overlap with Mattel’s DC Universe Classics line. It’s not that I don’t like them, but I really can’t afford the money or space to collect both, so if there’s any chance of a character or variant appearing in the DCUC line, that’s the figure I’ll buy. That having been said, I didn’t see much chance that Supergirl was going to turn up in DCUC as one of Darkseid’s Furies, so I felt perfectly safe buying this one figure out of the set of four. Now, to be fair, Superman and Batman comics fall pretty far down on my list of comics to read, and seeing as I’m usually behind on even the comics on the top of my reading list, I make no apologies at not having read this story arc in comic form. [More than anything, I blame that on trying to get through all of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books before the TV series starts, but that’s another story. -FF] I did, however, check out the movie adaptation: Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and I thought it was pretty good stuff.

The packaging here is pretty blah, but that’s what I’ve come to expect from a lot of DC Direct stuff. The card is generic and bland, with only a sticker on the bubble to distinguish this one from the other three figures in this line. The whole thing is also way too big for the figure, and while it definitely shows off what you’re getting, the figure seems small and unimpressive amidst all that air space. I do like the way they used the figure stand in lieu of actual art on the card. It’s a very clever idea, but it doesn’t save what is otherwise a really boring package.

Once out of the package, the figure speaks for itself. Kara’s design is defintely very stylized to reflect the distinctive comic art. She’s cast off her red and blue hero’s outfit for her new bad girl motif, complete with leather leggings, platform stripper heels and a skimpy bikini top. Oh yeah, she’s also got claws strapped to her arms and an iridescent cape made of really soft plastic. I’m particularly fond of the head sculpt here, which uses a cool windblown sculpt for her hair and some creepy gold reflective paint apps for her evil soulless eyes. The paint apps on my figure are pretty clean, as there’s no slop or bleeding to speak of.

Supergirl gets by with a passable, but not exceptional, nine points of articulation. She has a ball jointed neck, and ball joints in her shoulders, which might as well just be rotational joints, because they don’t give much lateral movement. Her legs rotate at the hips and she has hinges in her elbows and knees. She benefits from not really being pre-posed, so you can do a fair amount with the articulation she has. It’s par for the course with most DC Direct figures, so if you’re expecting anything close to DCUC poseability you’ll be disappointed here.

The only accessory included with the figure is the stand. It looks great, and it’s pretty essential since Supergirl has virtually no chance of standing on her own without it.

As a one-off, I’m pretty glad I picked up this figure, but then I got her for a fraction of the original retail. I’m mildly tempted to go after the regular Supergirl from this little assortment, just because the sculpt is distinctive enough to set her apart from my DCUC one. DC Direct certainly does a nice job with their sculpts and paintwork, but I’ll still take the added articulation of my DCUC figures over these any day.

Feb 13 2011

Doctor Who: “The Sontaran Experiment” Collector Set by Character Options

So, in the past six months or so we Doctor Who fans got a lot of figures we didn’t think we were ever going to get. We got the Delgado and Ainley Masters, we got a Special Weapons Dalek [well, some bastards did, anyway -FF], classic Davros, our first classic Companion, and even our first figure from the 1996 Fox TV movie. And yet even with all of that, CO can still manage to surprise me. Today, I am holding in my hands the toy version of the Sontaran Spaceship from the 1975 episode, “The Sontaran Experiment.” It’s basically a big rubbery silver golf ball and it alone proves to me that there is nothing… nothing… in the world of Doctor Who that is completely out of the question when it comes to CO and their toys. If we can get this, anything is possible.

The package is huge and glorious and its existence seems to defy all reason. If you’ve picked up any of the Classic themed boxed sets over the last year, you’ll be familiar with the overall design and artwork. The box uses the blue swirly timefield introduced for the Series 5 toys and the Doctor Who logo introduced at the start of the 2005 series. The cardboard insert has a backdrop still from the episode, which includes a classic Doctor Who quarry representing future Earth and the robot used by Sontaran Field-Major Styre to capture and experiment on the human colonists in the episode. As with all of these sets, a little careful snipping and you can save the insert to use as a diorama to display your figures. The window shows off the contents: The Sontaran Spaceship, the 4th Doctor and Field-Major Styre himself. The back and side panels show off stills from the episode and include a short synopsis of the story. I may never display it again, but the package is so cool, I opted to save it.

I’m guessing that most collectors did not buy this set for The Doctor figure, so I’m going to get him out of the way first. I’m sure I’ve said before that I’m not big on collecting variants of each Doctor, but it’s become inevitable that I wind up with them in my collection, as they are frequently packed into these sets. I already have CO’s first 4th Doctor release as well as “The Warrior’s Gate” release, I could have done just fine without yet another 4th Doctor figure in my collection. [Yes, folks, I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, as I’m complaining about owning too many Tom Baker Doctor Who figures. It’s not lost on me that 20 years ago I would have sacrificed kittens to the devil to have just one Doctor Who figure as awesome as this one. -FF] That having been said, I really like this one. This figure features a combination of reused parts, new paintwork and some new sculpting. The base figure is a repaint of CO’s first 4th Doctor figure, but the jacket is newly sculpted. The scarf is basically the same in both paint and sculpt, but unlike the original 4th Doc figure, which came with a serious hatless head and a grinning hatted head, this one has a serious face with a hat. It does, however, use the same peg, giving you some more mix and match options for your original 4th Doctor figure. He also comes with his Sonic Screwdriver. All in all, if I have to get stuck with a figure I didn’t want, this one is not too shabby.

Field-Major Styre is an amazing figure and CO managed to capture all the retro-awesomeness of the classic Sontarans in this guy. Don’t get me wrong, I like the modern series Sontarans enough to have purchased nearly a dozen of the figures, but I still have a special place in my heart for this original design. Collectors who are only familiar with New Who may be surprised to learn that the classic Sontarans weren’t so short, but their faces haven’t changed much at all. CO did a fine job reproducing the slight differences in the older version. I was actually about to cry foul on the figure’s fully formed fingers, but then I realized that there have been some changes to the Sontaran’s hands over the years and this figure’s digits are accurate to what was seen in the episode. The quilted leather armor is wonderfully recreated here as are all the little details like the silver belt with control box and even the tiny probic vent in the back of the neck armor. In addition to his removable helmet, Styre comes with a faithful reproduction of the infamous Sontaran ping-pong gun! Simply, awesome. If CO ever wants to release this figure on a single card, I would happily buy up a bunch of them.

And then there’s the Sontaran Spaceship. Outside of the various incarnations of the TARDIS, this is the first vehicle CO has delivered with the action figure line, although, in execution it’s more like a prop than an actual vehicle for the figures. The ship is sculpted in a dense rubbery plastic and it has some decent heft to it. The exterior is the spitting image of the design seen in the episode and if you pick it up there’s even sculpted engine thrusters inside the ring that it stands on. It’s mostly an even silver color, although there’s some paint spray along the bottom near the base to simulate mud splatter from its landing. The door opens, but there’s where things start to fall down a bit. Rather than make it a hollow like the TARDIS, there’s a slight indent with a poorly sculpted and completely non functional chair. CO really dropped the ball (har, har)on the interior of this ship. Not even a sticker with some controls or instruments or anything. I would have much rather the whole thing had just been hollow and unfinished, but I don’t want to come down on CO too hard. I’m still happy they made it, and it looks great on my shelf with Styre emerging from behind the door.

At about $60-65, this is indeed a “collectors’ set” as in you really need to be serious about your Who toy collecting to justify the price. It’s two figures and a big ball, and no matter how you break it down, it’s hard to see where the money went. It’s also worth noting that one of the two figures is one that most collectors don’t really need. I feel horrible complaining about the contents of a set that is this obscure and therefore so thoroughly awesome in its obscurity, but rather than give us another variant of the 4th Doctor, I would have much rather CO chose to pack a different figure into this set. Maybe that goes without saying, and I’ll confess to be totally surprised at how much I ended up loving this particular 4th Doctor figure, but there was so much more potential as a second pack-in figure for this set. Sarah-Jane, Harry Sullivan, a second Sontaran, even the robot, any of them would have made the price of this set a lot easier to swallow. But that’s ok, CO, I’m just really glad to have it.


Feb 12 2011

Lego Kingdoms: Outpost Attack (#7948)

It was a bitter-sweet morning at Wally World today as I made my weekly trip for groceries and picked up Outpost Attack the last Kingdoms Lego set that they stock and I still need. There’s still a couple Kingdoms sets I need to get, but I’m going to have to hunt them down online. This poor set had a tough act to follow as the last one I put together was the Prison Tower Rescue at more than twice the price point and about a 165 more bricks. Was Outpost Attack doomed to be a disappointment? Let’s find out.

The box proclaims Outpost Attack is comprised of 194 pieces, which include three minifigs a catapult and the outpost tower itself. The box contains an instruction booklet, a small sheet with two stickers, and two numbered baggies of bricks. This is the first time I got a set with only two bags and had them numbered. Baggie number one contained the parts for the minifigs and the catapult, while the second baggie had the parts for the tower. The build didn’t take me that long. It was well under an hour, but I still found it to be fairly satisfying and while the tower is undertandably short compared to the Prison Tower from the last set, it’s construction was a bit more complex than I was expecting.

As I said, you get three minifigs with this set and man, am I having fun collecting the Kingdoms minifigs. This time around you get two Lion Knights who are defending the Outpost and one lone Dragon Knight who is doing all the sieging by himself. Two of them are basically the same figure, only colored for each side. They both have pike helmets, the other Lion Knight is a crossbowman who also comes with a quiver of bolts he can wear on his back.

The catapult is a larger, more complex version of the one that came in the Knights Showdown set, which I looked at a few weeks ago. It’s basically the same idea, but it hurls a much bigger brick and thanks to a construction gimmick in the tower you can use it to blast a chunk out of the front of it, but more on that in a minute. You get the bricks to build two projectiles and the catapult holds two Dragon Knight shields.

The Outpost Tower is fairly simple, and it’s got a false back just like the Prison Tower so you can get in there with the minifigs and use it as a playset. It’s a nice looking structure, albeit very functional. There are clips two hold two included halberds on either side of the main gateway, there’s a socket to mount the crossbow at the very top and there is a flagpost with flags. It would have been cool to toss in a portcullis, but it probably would have required too many additional bricks.

The breakaway wall gimmick just involves the center wall with the window not being secured in anyway. If you aim your attack with the catapult just right you can blow it right out the back. It took me quite a few tries, but I nailed it twice and it worked really well. The wall holds in there pretty well too, so you don’t have to worry about it constantly falling out when you don’t want it to.

For a $20 set, I was really satisfied with this one. It was a fun build and it seemed more substantial than some of the other $20 Lego sets I own. I’m really tempted to get a second one of these sets so I can mount them back to back and make a bigger and more fleshed out structure. Considering it’s only a $20 set and I’d be happy to get the extra catapult and minifigs, the prospect is looking more and more appealing to me.

[As a nice little surprise, it was announced at Toy Fair today that Lego would be releasing four brand new Kingdoms sets in 2011! This made me a very happy camper! I only hope they’re fairly substantial and not just the impulse sets. -FF]