Jul 20 2010

Checking In…

I’d love to be doing it more often than I have been, but life keeps having other plans. Nonetheless, with the SDCC around the corner, and lots of really cool toys hitting the various markets, I’m hoping to have more cause to stop by with updates. Its not like I have a bunch of new toys piling up, I’ve just been busy with other things.

That having been said, I couldn’t resist posting a little teaser of what I found on my doorstep this morning…


Yeah!

I’ve spent the last hour or so opening her up and putting her together and seeing just how many Imperial forces I can cram in there. Needless to say I’m having a load of fun. I’ll be back in a day or so with a proper look, once I figure out if there’s anyway I can photograph it without just standing it on my coffee table. Because it really is that big!

 

Jul 11 2010

DC Universe Classics: Kryptonite Chaos Lex Luthor and Supergirl by Mattel

I rarely pre-order figures or toys. Its only when I absolutely have to have something and I think my chances of finding it on the pegs are nil. And that was certainly the case with this two-pack from Matty’s DC Universe Classics line. I pre-ordered this thing late last year, and I didn’t expect to ever get it. It had been cancelled and then revived, and then there were rumblings about whether it hadn’t really been revived. It seemed like noone knew whether it was still going to be released. Even the e-tailer that I dealt with on it offered the disclaimer that this set may or may not be coming. A month or two ago, I had pretty much given up hope, and then last week I got notice that it had actually shipped! Yeah, its just Lex Luthor and Supergirl, but I really wanted these figures in my collection.

If you’ve picked up any of the past DC Universe Classics 2-packs, you’ll be instantly familiar with the packaging here. Its an fishtank style package with the same artwork used on the single carded figures since time began. The back panel shows photos of the figures and has their bios and stats. The package is collector friendly, so feel free to play around with the figures and return them to the package for display if you’re so inclined.

I’ve wanted this Lex Luthor figure since I first started collecting this line. Or maybe it goes further back to Kenner’s Superpowers collection, because I never got that figure as a kid. Either way he has certainly lived up to my long anticipation. As far as I’m concerned, this figure is perfection. I love the detail and coloring in his armor. The wires on the front are a nice touch, as are the sculpted doodads on his back. The face sculpt is spot on and he even comes with a small collection of tiny Kryptonite chunks. Finally, I’ve got a Luthor to duke it out with my Superman!

Articulation on this figure is fairly standard for the DCUC line, although there are some limitations due to his armor sculpt. His head just turns side to side and his arms at the shoulders are a bit restricted. Otherwise, you get ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, knees and ankles, swivel cuts in the biceps, wrists and waist, and universal joints in the hips.

The other half of this set is Supergirl, a really nice figure with just a few little things I’m not entirely crazy about. I’m usually not a fan of the pre-posed sculpting (ie windblown hair and capes). I prefer something a little more generic that will work better with various poses. In the case of Supergirl, here, however, I’m just digging the way her hair is sculpted. It looks awesome and it doesn’t effect her neck articulation at all. The cape isn’t quite as exaggerated as its just swaying a tad to the left. I love her face sculpt. DC’s female figure’s heads are sometimes hit or miss, but Kara’s is definitely a homerun.

Supergirl’s outfit is pretty much spot on. I do like the fact that her crest is actually sculpted in and not just painted on. Her skirt is suitably short and soft enough to not horribly hinder her leg articulation, and the sculpted ruffles are well executed. Both of Kara’s hands are sculpted into fists, which are perfect for putting her into a flying pose or for punching out fools. My only gripes here are with the coloring. Her skintone seems a bit off, its got almost a grayish or olive tint to it. It should have been more of a traditional fleshtone. The blues and reds of her costume aren’t as bright and vibrant as my Superman, which doesn’t really bother me until I have her standing next to Supes and it seems more obvious in the comparison.

Supergirl’s articulation is what you would expect from the DCUC line. She has a ball jointed neck and shoulders. She has hinged elbows, knees and ankles. She has swivel cuts in her biceps, wrists and waist, and universal joints in her hips. Like most of my female DCUC figures, Supergirl has some seriously week leg joints. That coupled with the fact that she’s a bit top heavy makes standing her a chore. Next to Black Canary, she seems to be the hardest figure in my collection to keep on the shelf.

So, in the end, I never expected to actually get this set, and needless to say receiving it last week was a real treat. These are two figures that I absolutley had to have in my collection, and I didn’t want to go hunting them down on Ebay and paying through the nose for them.

Jun 26 2010

Ghostbusters: Peter Venkman by Mattel

Its been a long time coming, but Matty Collector finally released the 6″ Peter Venkman figure this month. He went up for sale on the 15th and, unlike the previous figures in this line, Peter sold out quickly, although not as quickly as the MOTU Classics figures have. I’ll count myself among those disappointed that Matty decided to go with a slimed Peter rather than a clean one, especially since SDCC is right around the corner and they could have made the slimed one an exclusive. Nonetheless, I was pretty anxious to finish up my Ghostbusters team in this 6″ scale so I bit the bullet and ordered him anyway.

I don’t have a photo of the package, but if you’ve been collecting this line, you already know what it looks like. Its pretty big for figures of this size, but the presentation is top notch. Of course mine just gets shredded and tossed into the garbage can, but if your a MOC collector, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Before I get into the sculpt, let me just point out that the slime on Peter is about on par with the SDCC Egon, and for me, that’s a very good thing. Production photos made the figure look like someone squirted day-glo shampoo all over it. The truth is that the slime is pretty subdued, although it shows up on the photos well thanks to the scrutiny of the flash. In the end, its not overly distracting and as with Egon, its not so noticeable that I would feel compelled to fork over another $20 for a clean one that will undoubtedly be released later on.

Peter is the first of the Ghostbusters to receive new sculpting below the neck and overall Matty did a nice job with the changes. I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up. First off, his pants legs are not tucked into his boots. The ankle pegs look a little more noticeable on this sculpt than the other figures, but apart from that, I like it. Unlike the other figures, Peter is wearing his goves, so instead of having them molded onto his belt, he has his walkie talkie in that position. The torso appears to be the same sculpt as the other figures, as is the Proton Pack, which is as incredible looking as ever.

So far so good, right? Well, unfortunately, I have big problems with the head sculpt used. Its not that I don’t like the sculpt itself. It does look like Bill Murray and while it doesn’t look quite as realistic as the other figures’ heads, it gets the job done. My problem is that it looks completely out of place when standing with his teammates because its so damn big compared to the other figures, particularly Ray and Egon. Either that or it makes Ray and Egon’s heads looked squished and deformed in comparison. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping it will grow on me. His hair is matted down, presumeably from the slime, so I’m guessing if/when Mattel does a clean version they will resculpt the head. As he stands now, I would give Venkman pretty high marks on his own, but he just doesn’t look right standing with the other guys.

Articulation is almost identical to the other Ghostbusters figures. You get ball jointed head, shoulders and elbows. Swivel cuts in the wrists, waist, and thighs, universal joints in the hips, and hinged joints in the knees and ankles. The one thing missing is the swivel cuts on his lower legs.

Peter comes with the Slimer ghost. For those of you who didn’t get last year’s SDCC Egon, I’m sure this accessory is a welcome treat. He uses the same clear green plastic as the previous Slimer, but instead of just having a huge open mouth, he’s got his tongue sticking out. Its a nice pack-in, although I do like the SDCC version a bit more. Slimer also comes with the same clear stand we got with SDCC Slimer and the logo ghost that came with Ray.

Peter is not a bad figure. I do like him, I just wish the head looked more in line with the other figures (or vice versa). I’m particularly glad to finally get him and complete my Ghostbusters team so that I can get closure on this line. I’ll cetainly consider any other figures that come down the line, but I’m pretty sure I’m done with these. I’m not interested in variants of the guys in labcoats or anything like that, although if Matty made some decent ghosts, particularly Gozer or the demon dogs, I would probably be willing to pick those up.

Jun 16 2010

MOTU Classics: Optikk by Mattel

Well, its a month late, but seeing as how I got shut out of She-Ra and Keldor this month, I decided to get around to looking at last month’s figure, Optikk. I missed him on Matty as well (seems like I can never get to the computer at Zero Hour these days), but after waiting a few weeks, I was able to pick him up on Ebay for just a few dollars more than his Matty sale price.

I have very little interest or knowledge about the New Adventures series of He-Man toys. I’ve seen some of the figures and playsets online and at some toy shows, but I don’t know anything about the characters unique to this toyline. And seeing as how I’m not a completist when it comes to the MOTU Classics figures, it should go to show you how great a figure Optikk is to make me pick him up.

Optikk comes in a white mailer box and carded on the standard packaging for the Classics line. The only thing new here is the Space Mutants sticker on the front. As is sometimes the case, the logo at the top of the bubble obscures Optikk’s “head” a bit. I know this really bums out mint on card collectors, but it doesn’t phase me since I rip these babies open as soon as I get them. On the other hand, his spare eye is mounted so that it is perfectly visible in the bubble.

The most amazing thing about Optikk is how much of him is a new sculpt. In a line of figures that prides itself on reusing parts over and over again, Optikk looks both fresh and brand new. I absolutely love the detail in his armor, particularly the wires and all the tiny bolts, giving him a smidge of steampunk. I also love the way the top portion forms the cradle to hold his giant eyeball of a head. The armor sculpt even includes a mock thumb wheel on the back that was part of the original figure’s gimmick to turn the eye. In terms of color, Optikk is pretty subdued as the overwhelming bulk of his armor is gold with some black showing from beneath and a little purple. The wires are blue and red and the aforementioned bolts are neatly painted silver.

Since Optikk’s head is a giant eyeball, there isn’t a lot to the sculpt, but it still looks amazing. The translucent part is painted over with veins making for a nice effect. The two eyeballs are identical save for the color of the translucent part, which are either green or orange. I actually haven’t swapped the eyes out on my figure because its difficult to do, impossible to tell what’s going on at the neck, and I’m afraid I’m going to bust the post. Besides, I like the green one better anyway.

Optikk has the same basic articulation as past Classics figures. The main difference is that the ball joint in his “head” doesn’t give a lot of up down leeway, which is a bit disappointing, but it goes from side to side just fine. He has universal ball joints in his shoulders and hips, hinged joints in his elbows, knees and ankles, and swivels in his biceps and wrists. My only quibble here is that the ankle joints on mine are a bit on the loose side.

Optikk comes with two accessories (not counting the spare eye), a laser rifle and a shield. The shield is cool, but not much to talk about. It clips onto his wrists like all the other shields we’ve gotten in this line. The laser gun is a really cool design and sculpt, I just wish they hadn’t stamped CHINA on it in such an obvious place as it kind of detracts from the aesthetics.

So it just goes to show you that The Four Horsemen can take a character that I don’t know or care about and still make a figure that I had to have in my collection. Everything about Optikk is just so cool. He’s the most unqiue looking figure we’ve got in the line so far and yet he blends in just fine with Skeletor’s mob of baddies. Great stuff!

Jun 13 2010

Danger Girl: 1:6 Scale Sidney Savage by Dragon

Yeah, its been a while. Sorry. What can I say? In the last three weeks I’ve been horribly ill and dealing with a lot of shit at work. There’s been precious little time for me and toys. In fact, since my last entry I’ve only picked up two new figures and Sidney here is one of them. I’ll be back shortly with a look at MOTU Classics Optikk figure. The clouds are parting so hopefully I can get back on track.

Not long ago I took a look at Dragon’s 1:6 scale Abbey Chase figure, based on the J. Scott Campbell comic, Danger Girl. I mentioned then that Dragon also took a stab at making fellow Danger Girl, and Aussie whip-cracking hottie, Sidney Savage. I put off getting this figure for a long while because I was never quite happy with the photos of the figure. Nonetheless, at some point along the way I broke down and ordered one, if for no other reason just to complete my set. In the end, Sidney proved to be one of those figures that are just better in person, but she’s still not up to par with the Abbey Chase figure.The packaging here is very close to the one Dragon used for Abbey. You get a simple box with a velcro latching front flap that opens to reveal a window displaying the figure and all her gear. The colors are a little brighter and redder, but if features the same conceptual style sketches with full color artwork of Sidney on the front. If you have Abbey and have kept her in the package, you should be pretty happy keeping these two boxes on the shelf together. As with Abbey, Sidney rests in a clear plastic tray with her gear laid out to her right and a simple stand placed behind the tray.


Sidney’s head sculpt looks so much better in person than it does in the photos I’ve seen. I can’t explain why, but even in the official product images, she looks like a goblin. In hand, her head looks much closer to a 3D representation of her comic book self. Its pretty good, but ultimately I don’t think her design translates well to 3D. I still defend Dragon’s use of molded hair with these figures as I think it holds the intended style of an illustrated character better than rooted hair would. Unfortunately, Sidney’s long hair takes away a lot of useable neck articulation, which wasn’t the case with Abbey’s shorter hair.

The body type is supposed to be the same as Abbey’s, but Sidney’s arms seem longer and slightly out of proportion. Apart from that, I have no complaints. The articulation here is excellent, although as I’ve said before, I am not a diehard collector of figures in this scale, so I am probably a lot more forgiving of articulation than those of you who buy a lot of 1:6 scale figures. Still, its important to keep in mind the price point and age of the figure.

Sidney’s outfit is based off her Outback garb. She has brown “leather” pants with nice decorative stitching and a purple cloth blouse, brown boots and a belt. The blouse had a ton of stray threads coming off of it (some you’ll see in the photos), but were easily clipped off. The boots on my figure appear to be the same used on Abbey, which is a departure from the original product images that showed her with brown cowboy style boots. I don’t know if they changed this during production, or the dealer who sold me mine got up to some creative swapping. Either way, her pants cover most of her boots so it isn’t a big deal. Her belt, unfortunately doesn’t latch well to the buckle. Sidney also comes with a soft rubber cowboy hat that fits her really well.

Overall, the outfit is ok. It looks really good, but it is much simpler than Abbey’s. I sort of wish Dragon had gone with the black catsuit that McFarlane used for their smaller Sidney Savage figure, but then I think this one is considered more identifiable for the character and her background.

Sidney’s equipment and accessories are much better than the ones that came with Abbey, mainly because they’re pretty much all weapons and almost all useable. Abbey came with way too many pointless tiny trinkets that served no purpose. The only thing in Sidney’s gear that cannot really be used are her sunglasses. Sidney doesn’t use the same separate molded hair as Abbey, so there’s no way to get the arms of the glasses behind her ears and under her hair. The whip falls into the slightly unseable category too because its difficult to get her to hold it and the tiny little hook to hang it from her belt snapped apart the instant I touched it. If you have a 1:6 scale Indiana Jones, you may want to let Sidney borrow his whip instead.

The rest of Sidney’s gear, however, is excellent. She has a sniper rifle, a silenced automatic pistol and a magnum revolver. The two automatic weapons have removable clips and the magnum’s wheel actually flips out. The rifle has a folding front grip and the action is actually spring loaded, and the silencer The detailing on everything is great, too. Its a nice arsenal compared to Abbey’s paltry automatic pistol.

For a while Sidney Savage was harder to find than Abbey, probably because Dragon gave her a more limited distribution. Or perhaps dealers disappointed with the sales of Abbey Chase chose not to carry her. I grabbed mine off of Ebay for under $35 and while there are a lot of things that I would have done differently here, I’m not totally disappointed in her. She does make a nice companion figure for Abbey, so there’s no buyer’s remorse here.

May 26 2010

MOTU Classics: Mer-Man by Mattel

This one has been sitting on my harddrive for a while now and is long overdue. Its just been a really shitty couple of weeks, I’m begrudgingly considering a career change, and I just haven’t had much time for my diversions. But today I just decided to make some time, hoping that posting an entry would maybe cheer me up. And so, here we go…

Coming into collecting the Masters of the Universe Classics line at the beginning of this year, I had a lot of catching up to do. Some of the figures I was able to grab on Ebay without getting beaten up too badly, but there were a couple that were going for far more than I wanted to pay. Mer-Man was one of those pricey figures, so I was really happy to see Matty giving him a re-release. I was also really happy to see that he didn’t sell out right away, because on Sale Day, I didn’t get to my computer until a couple hours after Zero Hour. I sure as hell missed out on Optikk, but good old Mer-Man was still waiting for me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have batteries for my camera when this figure arrived. I went out the next morning to get some fresh ones, but by then it was too late and I already ripped him open. So, no in-package pics this time. Not that it really matters, because there’s no difference between this guy and the dozen or so other MOTU Classics figures I’ve looked at. You get the same awesome retro-styled cardback. The only interesting change here is that he didn’t arrive in one of those white mailer boxes. Some may get pissed off at this, but it really doesn’t matter to me, it all just winds up in the trash.

Virtually every bit of what makes Mer-Man a unique figure is found in his armor and head sculpts, as his base figure is pretty unremarkable and generic. It uses the standard He-man pelvis, with green belt and yellow furry diaper. The arms and legs are from Skeletor, with the grieves and bracers painted yellow. The rest of his body has a pretty cool blueish-green tint to his skin that gives off just a hint of metallic sheen and makes him look rather fishy.

Fortunately, Mer-Man’s chest armor covers a lot and goes a long way to make him look like a fresh figure. The chest armor is great, as its made to look like it was fashioned from fish bones and shell and it even has a clip on the back to store his sword. The head sculpts are both really well done. Yes, he comes with two heads, one to match his vintage style and one to look more like his 200x counterpart. I like them both. Right now I’m going with the vintage style, but chances are I’ll go with the newer sculpt once Stinkor gets a release, as he’ll most likely use a repaint of the Mer-Man head as with the vintage figures. I will note some disappointment that Mer-Man’s left hand is sculpted in an open position and is therefore quite useless. Its annoying that he can’t grasp his trident with both hands or hold his sword in the off hand.

Besides the extra head, Mer-Man comes with two other accessories: A trident staff and a sword. Both accessories are nicely sculpted with an underwater theme. Like his armor, they look like they’re fashioned from bone and shell. The sword is really awesome and its blade is even serrated like shark teeth.

Mer-Man has the standard MOTU Classics articulation, which includes a ball jointed neck and shoulders. His arms have hinged elbows and swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists. His hips have universal joints, his knees and ankles are hinged. He can swivel at the waist and he has a large hinged joint in his torso. Good stuff.

All in all, this is a really solid figure. Although, Mer-Man has never been one of my favorite of Skeletor’s minions, he was a core character and thus an important figure in my collection. Picking up Mer-Man pretty much brings me up to date on the “must have” figures in the MOTU Classics line. There are still a few I’m missing like He-Ro, Stratos and now Optikk, but as far as the core characters go, I’m finally content with what I have. Of course, the bad guys are starting to outnumber the good guys on my shelf, so hopefully Matty will start throwing some more of He-Man’s buddies our way soon.

May 23 2010

Doctor Who: The 7th Doctor with Electronic TARDIS by Character Options

Last week was busy for Doctor Who collectors, and for many it was also a disappointing one. In one day we were hit with the 7th Doctor & TARDIS set, the 4th Doctor & TARDIS set, and a brand new version of the 1st Doctor from the pilot episode, An Unearthly Child. Besides dealing with the cost, these toys were issued in pretty limited supplies Stateside and as such unless you were lucky enough to pre-order what you wanted, chances are you missed the tiny window in which these remained on e-tailers’ websites. In many ways it was a similar experience to what Masters of the Universe fans face on Matty Collector’s site just about every month, only we Who fans didn’t even have a specific time as to when these would be available for purchase.

I was lucky enough to get a pre-order in for this, the 7th Doctor set, the one I wanted the most, but I would have liked to have picked up theUnearthly Child figure as well and I’ll have to bite the bullet and hunt him down somewhere. The 4th Doctor & TARDIS set is pretty cool, but I just couldn’t justify dropping $100 on two TARDIS sets in one month, so I went with the 7th Doctor, mainly because he’s a new version (albeit just a repaint), whereas the 4th Doctor is the exact same figure I already own.

Let’s get the figure out of the way first.

The 7th Doctor’s early stories were pretty flippant and silly, but as time wore on, they took on a much darker style and his outfit evolved to portray that change. His jacket went from cream to dark brown, his paisely scarf got darker, even his tie got darker. This repainted figure reflects those changes really well and the quality of the paint job is excellent. Unfortunately, CO didn’t take the opportunity to give us a new head sculpt, and while a smiling Sylvester McCoy may have been appropriate in the outfit from his more whimsical days, its pretty out of place in this darker attire. This figure should have definitely been issued with a more serious and somber head sculpt. Apart from that everything is the same as the previous release. He has the same articulation and the same umbrella accessory. Its a great figure, and I think the repaint makes him well worth owning in addition to the previous release.

And now… the TARDIS.

Casual and newer fans of the show may be surprised to learn that the iconic Police Box, the one constant throughout the entire series, wasn’t so constant. Sure, the TARDIS remained a Police Box, but the prop saw a number of variations over the years. You can actually go mad studying the slight (and some not so slight) differences in the TARDIS props. The package says this is supposed to be the TARDIS from the episode The Curse of Fenric, but it actually better matches the one used for the 7th Doctor’s earlier stories, or even the later 6th Doctor stories. Either way, its significantly different than the one used in the 2005 series as its slightly shorter, considerably narrower, has much smaller windows, and the sign on the door is blue instead of white.

One thing you should know about this toy is that it is not just a redesigned version of CO’s previously released Flight Control TARDIS. Its a much simpler and somewhat lesser quality toy with fewer features. There are no interior lights, which actually makes sense, since the windows on the classic TARDISes didn’t have that interior glow like the ones in the current series do. It still has the take off and landing sounds, activated by picking it up or setting it down, and a flashing lamp on top, but there’s no more vortex sound or humming when its at rest. Consider this, a stripped down version of the Flight Control TARDIS.

The doors on this model are designed to work in a similar manner to the Flight Control TARDIS, but they don’t. There is still an opening cubby for the phone, but its bigger on this model, and so that door won’t open in very far at all. The other door is designed to lock in an open position and can be released by pushing a button on the floor. Unfortunately, the door usually won’t stay open at all, instead it just springs closed. I’ve gotten it to stick open a few times, but its not as solid as my other TARDIS.

Probably the most frustrating thing about this TARDIS is that Character Option chose to leave the interior completely unfinished. Open the door and look in and its just an empty box. It would have been easy for them to include an insert of the classic console room to brighten things up.

All things being equal, its a bit tough to justify the $50 price tag on this set. Unfortunately, it had a very limited production run and even fewer than those came Stateside, so if you missed out on the initial offering, you’ll probably have to pay a premium. Some may seriously regret dropping more than fifty bucks on this set once they get it in hand. Don’t get me wrong. There was a time when this set would have been like a dream come true and I probably would have paid double to own it. But since then, Character Options has given us a huge number of fantastic Doctor Who figures and toys and now I’ve come to expect better. It just goes to show how far we’ve come that we can be so discriminating about a set of Doctor Who toys.

May 20 2010

Danger Girl: 1:6 Scale Abbey Chase by Dragon

J. Scott Campbell’s Danger Girl is something one might call a flash in the pan. The franchise produced a fair number of books beyond its initial series, but you don’t see too many real devoted Danger Girl fans these days. To say it was derivitive would be quite an understatment, as the concept is basically James Bond meets Charlies Angels meets Indiana Jones meets a Russ Meyer film. You can call it fanservice, call it shallow, call it a shameless T&A show, but I fell in love with the original series the first time I read it and have been picking up whatever books or merchandising have come my way ever since. One of my favorite items released was this 1:6 scale Abbey Chase figure by Dragon. I don’t buy a lot of 12″ scale figures, so I am by no means a connoisseur of this format, but if I really like a character and he or she is offered in this format, chances are I’ll pick it up.

The packaging here is pretty awesome. It features a standard box with a velcro-latching front flap that opens to reveal a window that shows off Abbey and with all her gear and accessories neatly laid out beside her. The box is littered with conceptual sketches for the comic, along with a nice full-body portrait in color of Abbey herself. The box is also totally collector friendly. Just open the top flap and the tray slides right out.

Going from 2D comic artwork to 3D sculpts doesn’t always work well, but I really think Dragon did an exceptional job with Abbey’s likeness. Some may gripe about the fact that she doesn’t have rooted hair, but in this case, I’m glad they went with the sculpted, as it maintains the style of her character all the better, and I don’t know that it would have translated as well with a rooted hair system. That’s not to say the hair couldn’t have used a bit more detail in the texturing. The face is pretty good, especially the nose and lips. I do think McFarlane did a slightly better job capturing her appearance with their six-inch figure/statue, but what’s here is still pretty damn fine. The facial paint apps are overall good as well, but a little inconsistant around the eyes.


Abbey uses Dragon’s “Neo Body,” which may sound misleading, since this figure is quite old now and to be honest, I have no idea what that means anyway. I realize that avid collectors of the 1:6 scale figures get really picky about the finer points of articulation, but as I mentioned, I only dip my toes into this scale of figure every now and then and so a level of articulation that may seem to me to be perfectly fine, may be severely lacking to others. In the case of Abbey, I’m pretty happy with what she’s capable of doing. Her overall body shape manages to hold the ridiculous comic style proportions, although I think Dragon infused her with a little touch of realism. They certainly didn’t cheat her in the boob department, and her top shows off her molded high beams quite well. Abbey also has molded gloves on her hands. The hands are pretty soft, so she can grip her gun or her phone, but not much else. But more on that in a minute.

Abbey’s outfit consists of her iconic black and green leather/cloth pants with black boots, a tight fitting top that exposes her midriff, and a black and green leather/cloth jacket that matches her pants. The outfit fits her really well and the mix of faux leather and cloth is well done. She also comes with a belt and holster, which is technically part of her accessories, since it comes grouped with the rest of her gear, but since I never take it off of her, I decided to mention it here. The holster straps around her thigh and the belt has her trademark “DG” belt buckle.

Abbey does come with a fair amount of stuff, but only about half of it is really useful. The other half is just too tiny for her to hold. Included is an automatic pistol, extra clip, flashlight and holder, cell phone and holder, sunglasses three pieces of tech, and a satchel. Let’s start with the good stuff…

The automatic pistol is a really nice sculpt and painted very well, but the clip is not detachable, which makes the extra clip we get a bit useless. The cell phone is pretty cool, it has a flip down face, a belt pouch to store it in, and she can hold it very well. The sunglasses puzzled me when I first opened this figure. The arms don’t fold, so you can’t clip them to her top, and with her molded hair, she didn’t seem to be able to wear them. On closer inspection, though, you can see that her hair is molded separately from her head and she can actually wear the glasses quite well just by tucking the arm between her hair and face.

The rest of the stuff isn’t so great, mainly because she can’t use or hold most of it. The flashlight is too small for her to grip, although it does fit in its own holster that clips onto the belt. Likewise, the combat knife is too small for her to hold, and it doesn’t even come with a sheath, so unless you just tuck it into her belt or into her boot, there’s nothing you can do with it at all. I have no idea what the last three things are. I think one is a bomb, but all three are probably just supposed to be some high tech spy stuff. All of it fits neatly into her satchel, which is about all you can do with them. Considering how prevalent extra hands are with larger scale figures, it seems like Dragon could have thrown in an extra set so that she could interact with some of these pieces better. Or better yet, they could have scrapped most of this stuff and just given her another weapon.

The stand is a pretty humdrum affair, although it does serve its purpose. Its basically a metal rod with a clip on one end to go around the figure’s waist, and an opaque white little platform. A personalized stand with the Danger Girl logo would have been cool, but considering I’ve never gotten a stand with any of my other 1:6 scale figures, I’ll not do much complaining about this one.

I absolutely loved this figure when I got it way back when and I still do. She’s by no means perfect, and she may seem lacking compared to the twelve-inchers of today, but keep in mind, at about $39.99 new, she was not a high-end item at the time, and hence I think she was a pretty good value. Unfortunately, Danger Girl’s merchandising never went over that well leaving companies like McFarlane and Dragon holding the bag. McFarlane managed to get four figures out before calling it quits (we’ll take a look at them in the near future), but Dragon only released one more character in the 1:6 scale: Sidney Savage. At the time, I was pretty unhappy with some of the design choices they made with Sidney and her outfit, but we’ll take a look at her another time.

May 18 2010

GI JOE VS COBRA: TRU Exclusive Cobra Rattler

The original Cobra Rattler was one of my all time favorite vehicles as a kid. Of course, as a kid, I didn’t really know anything about the equally cool real world A-10 Warthog on which it was based. All I knew was the Rattler was prominantly featured in the GI JOE cartoon, it could take off and land vertically, carry two figures, and was great for the Cobra head hanchos to fight over while trying to escape capture my incoming Joe forces. My original Rattler is long since gone, and considering how many sandbox crash landings it made during its lifetime, there probably wouldn’t have been much left of it anyway. I really wanted to pick up the more faithful Target exclusive reissue from a few years back, but never found it. Looks like I’ll have to settle for this consolation prize that I picked up for five bucks at a garage sale last weekend.

This repaint of the original Rattler was released as a Toys R Us exclusive back in 2002. Besides the new deco, the gunner station no longer came with an enclosed canopy and the toy was retro fitted with the gimmicky soundbox that came with many of the GI JOE VS COBRA toys of the time. This one that I found still has the original box and instructions and incredibly enough all the parts. The box is a tad worn, and there are no inserts, but all in all, not bad. I really love the box art and the back panel shows the toy itself with all of its features. This one is missing the Wild Weasel figure, so I grabbed a couple of contemporary Cobras to serve as stand ins.

There’s a few things that need to be put together when you dump this thing out of the box. I really miss the good old days when you had to put toys together. Actually, mine came with a lot of stuff already done. I just needed to attach the wings, soundbox, landing gear and bombs and missiles.

I actually really like the new paint deco for this toy. The copper and black with red trim really pop. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the traditional Cobra blue of the original toy, but as far as re-decos go, this one isn’t too bad. You could almost use it for Serpentor’s private Rattler, since the gold sort of matches his Air Chariot. The stickers on mine were already applied and they all look nice and fresh.

What I absolutely hate is the use of the neon red plastic used for the gunner station ring and the bombs and missiles. Not only does it look awful, but the plastic used on the missiles and bombs is so soft that they don’t want to stay plugged into their sockets. The result is you’ll get a lot of inadvertantly dropped bombs if you try to woosh this thing around the room. I’m also not thrilled about the lack of the canopy on the gunners station.

One nice touch is the inclusion of two battle damaged panels that can be snapped in to replace the normal ones.

I’ve never been a fan of the soundboxes used on this era of Joe toys, but the one on this Rattler isn’t too obtrusive. Its mounted onto the piece that holds the wings to the fusilsage and there’s a corded piece that plugs in under one of the engines and holds a nice big minigun. The whole rig stays together very well. The soundbox on mine isn’t working, and I’m just not motivated enough to open it up and replace the batteries.

The current Joe figures will fit into both seats of this Rattler, but its a pretty tight fit. So, overall this piece is a pretty mixed bag. The redeco is nice and the toy itself retains most of what was cool about the original mold. I could have done without the soundbox,but its tucked neatly under the jet, so it isn’t as big a deal as some of the other vintage molds that were retrofitted with this gimmick during the time. Overall, the plastic used for the weapons payload is the only really awful thing about this toy. I am by no means a customizer, but in this case, I plan on getting some black and silver paint to do over the obnoxious neon parts. It’ll go a long way to making this one sweet ride.

May 16 2010

Doctor Who: Cyberman Voice Changer Helmet by Character Options

Quite a few years ago, Hasbro cooked up an affordable toy replica of Darth Vader’s mask, threw some electronics into it and struck gold. Since then, we’ve seen the “voice changer helmet” appear in all sorts of toy lines from Star Wars to Street Racer to Iron Man 2 to Transformers and yes, even Character Options got into the mix with their Doctor Who line of toys. When these things are done right, they can appeal to kids, as well as collectors who don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a high quality studio style replica. And the Cyberman helmet is certainly done right.

Sadly, I don’t have an in-box photo of the Cyberman helmet, as I’ve had it for quite a while now and the packaging has long since been tossed. It came in an open style package, very similar to Hasbro’s helmets, complete with a try me mode that let you test out the electronics. If you’ve purchased any boxed toy from CO’s Doctor Who line, then you have a pretty good idea about the style of artwork.

The coolest thing about the Cyberman helmet is that the design hasn’t been altered to conform to any toy safety regulations. You know, like the way the visor strips on the Hasbro Clone Trooper helmets are ridiculously large or the eye holes on the Iron Man helmets are massive. As a result, you get a pretty good prop-style replica of the 2005 Series Cyberman and hey, if that means a few kids have to fall down flights of stairs because they can’t see while wearing it, I suppose that’s a fair enough trade off.

The electronics feature the ubiquitous voice changing gimmick as well as a number of pre-recorded phrases and sounds, which can be activated by pressing the somewhat discrete buttons on the left side of his chin. Pressing the buttons also cause the lights in his mouth to light up blue while the sound or voice is firing. The speech is pretty loud and sounds just like the Cybermen in the TV series, and there are quotes from the series as well as some original ones. Here’s what he says:

  • You must be upgraded. Upgrading is compulsory.
  • You wil be deleted. Delete! Delete! Delete!
  • You will be taken for analysis. You will be upgraded or deleted.
  • You will be taken for upgrading.
  • You will become identical. You will become like us.
  • You will become like us or you will be deleted.
  • I am unit five-oblique nine-eight. I am Cyberform. Once I was human.
  • Resistance is illogical. You will be upgraded or you will be deleted.

Of course, the toy is designed primarily as a roleplay item, to be worn as a mask. The helmet is a two-thirds style piece so that you really have to practically get behind it to see that it isn’t a fully enclosed helmet, which really improves the display value. It has an adjustable plastic strap inside so it will fit adults fine, but it looks awkwardly large when worn by kids. If you choose to display it, I highly recommend paying extra for this chrome metal Official Cyberman Helmet Display Stand.

Ok, actually that’s a paper towel holder from Target’s housewares department, but it really does work perfectly as a stand for the helmet and you can pick one up for about seven bucks.

The prices on this helmet vary anywhere between $30 and $50. Its been a while since I priced one so they may be getting harder to find, but for a while there it was often being sold online in the US at less than retail. There’s also a variant Cyber Leader style with black ear pipes, an exposed brain, and all new phrases. I haven’t tracked one of those down yet, mainly because I’m running out of room in my Doctor Who display case, but maybe one day.