Aug 19 2024

G. I. JOE Classified: Night-Creeper and Jinx by Hasbro

It feels like new Classified figures are arriving every other week, burying my large backlog little by little. Indeed, I think I could devote this entire blog to this line and still not be caught up for a long while. But, these are nice problems to have, and it’s rare these days to get an action figure line producing this kind of quality and quantity on a regular basis. I pushed these two recent additions to the front of the line, Night-Creeper and Jinx, but not necessarily because I was super excited to get them, but more because I don’t think I ever owned either of the original figures, so I’m entering unexplored territory!

Classified is back to using the window boxes and they got something of a redesign. They are a lot less colorful than the older boxes, but I like them a lot. There’s a sense of classy uniformity here and I frankly, I think the best marketing this line can do is just show off how good the figures look. I’ve gone on record many times here with how I’m not a big fan of ninjas taking over my GI JOE vs Cobra narrative, but sprinkling them sparingly into the mix ain’t necessarily a bad thing. In this case, my only familiarity with Jinx has been from the original movie and I have very little familiarity with the Night-Creeper at all, so let’s start with him.

Night-Creeper was first released in the Real American Hero line in 1990 and I was well out of GI JOE by then. I was just starting college, what little disposable income I had was spent on video games, and it would be about a decade until I would start collecting toys as an adult. With that having been said, this guy looks like a pretty solid update to that original figure. The maroon, gray, and purple deco is certainly distinctive without being quite as outrageous as the feast of neon decos that was yet to come. The sculpt gets by with some rumples to the suit, prominent shoulder cuffs and a plate armor vest. Finally, there’s a belt worn by the figure that has sheathes for his twin hooked blades to live. The original outfit design is enhanced here by some segmented armor shin guards and tabi.

You get two heads to choose from. The first pays respects to the original figure, and I think this is an awesome update. The face is covered with a featureless mask and the eyes shielded by a silver visor. All that is wrapped up in a hood and topped off with a silver skull cap. The hood is attached to the head so it works well with the neck articulation.

The second head references the next version of Night-Creeper, which was put out about three years later. This one is a fully enclosed helmet and features what I think is a much stronger sci-fi vibe. There’s an interesting mix of organic curves with some harsh angles in the cheeks. The visor strip is painted in red, while the rest of the helmet and mask match the maroon and purple of the suit. I will likely stick with the first helmet for display, but this one is really creepy and I dig it a lot.

The backpack is designed to hold all the rest of his gear and it has its ups and downs. There are clips on the sides for his two swords. There are some sculpted crossbow bolts across the back along with one free slot to store a loose bolt, and there are two triangular tabs to secure his crossbow. In theory it’s great, but I find that the sword clips are the only thing that really work very well. The loose bolt will stay notched as long as you don’t put the crossbow over it, meanwhile, the tabs to hold the crossbow are warped and don’t align properly. As a result, the crossbow pops out very easily as does the bolt. This rig also makes the figure very back-heavy. Normally, I love when figures can carry all their stuff, but in this case, it’s kind of a disaster.

Night-Creeper comes with two sets of hands. The first pair are both gun-hands with trigger fingers, but these work fine as all-purpose accessory holding hands. The other set includes a right chopping hand and a left hand with a black shuriken sculpted into it. I’m a big fan of the sculpted shuriken, rather than trying to have to get him to hold a tiny loose one. A left chopping hand or fist would have been nice, but I’m still happy with the variety here.

The hooked knives are cast in all black and at least these secure quite well in the sheaths and work fine with the gun-hands. These knives also have rings in the pommels so you can attach a chain or a piece of string.

The swords are very cool updates to the ones included with the original figure, with each having a unique and wicked looking blades. One has a wavy kris-style blade in silver and the other has barbed hooks and is finished in a metallic green. Both weapons have black hilts with excellent sculpted detail.

And finally, Night-Creeper comes with his crossbow and a single loose bolt. I dig the crossbow a lot, even if it is rather bulky. It’s rifle configuration has a stock and a foregrip and it’s sculpted with reserve hours stored underneath. You can load the loose arrow into the weapon and it stays put there a lot better than it does in the backpack. A few design issues aside, Night-Creeper is a very cool looking figure with a great array of accessories. Let’s move on to Jinx!

As I mentioned at the beginning, my only exposure to Jinx was from the original animated movie. I may have still been picked up a few JOEs when Jinx’s figure released in 1987, but she wasn’t one of them. Couple that with my relative indifference toward mixing ninjas in my GI JOEs, and this Classified release wasn’t super high on my list, but in hand I’m pretty pleased with her. She comes in a sculpted red ninja suit with a black sash tied around her waist and a black dragon emblem printed over her left breast. The suit has some purple accents on the sides, her arms are exposed and there’s a tattoo printed down the length of her right arm. The costume is rounded out by black wrappings over her forearms, wrists and palms and red and black slippers. Jinx’s certainly isn’t one of the more elaborate body sculpts we’ve had in Classified, but it does a fine job paying respect to the source material. I think she strikes a nice balance between the RAH and Sunbow designs.

You get two heads to choose from: One masked and one unmasked. Both of these are excellent, but I think Hasbro did a particularly nice job on the unmasked face. It’s a very pretty sculpt with extremely clean printing for the lips and eyes and the hair looks great. There’s a removable choker neckless, and she has a black headband, which can be lowered to work as a blindfold, referencing her uncanny abilities at fighting blind as demonstrated in the film. The masked head doesn’t allow for as much flare in the sculpt, but you do still get to see her pretty eyes. It’s nice to have these options, but I’ll likely be displaying her unmasked most of the time.

Jinx comes with two sets of hands, which include an accessory holding pair and a pair of fists. I know asking for three pairs of hands in a regular Classified release may sound greedy, but the lack of chopping hands feels like a really big omission. Indeed, I would have rather had chopping hands than fists. I’ll also toss out here that I could have done without the arm tattoo. The Classified design team seems to have a real tattoo fetish. In a lot of cases I think it enhances the figure, but not here. It’s especially annoying since they probably redesigned her without the long sleeves just to tatt her up.

The original RAH figure came with two swords and a backpack to hold them, whereas this Classified version comes with one sword and a scabbard that pegs into her back. I’m fine with this, as I think the scabbard looks better than the backpack The sword is a simple sculpt with some detailed wrappings on the grip but nothing on the tsuba. Alas, the blade and tsuba are left bare gray plastic, and these would have looked much better painted silver.

Jinx also comes with a double-bladed pole weapon based on the one included with the RAH figure. The blades have ornate designs and are painted silver, while the pole is black and there’s some maroon paint on the sculpted wraps near each blade.

Even as a tepid I am on ninjas in my GI JOE, I like these figures quite a bit. Night-Creeper could have used some quality control on his backpack’s crossbow tabs, but overall, he’s a really cool figure that comes with a lot of neat stuff. My only real issue with Jinx is she seems light on accessories when compared with Night-Creeper, so that extra pair of chopping hands doesn’t seem like that big an ask. And these will probably do it for me and Classified ninjas for a while. I skipped Kamakura because I just had no interest in him, but I do still have a few Cobra ninjas in my collection to check out, but I’ll likely save those for if I ever get caught up.

Aug 16 2024

Dungeons & Dragons Ultimates: Sheila the Thief (Cloak of Invisibility) by Super7

Yes, folks, I’m buried in Super7 GI JOE, ThunderCats, and Silverhawks Ultimates, so why not start collecting a new Ultimates line? Even better, why not collect a line of figures that I already bought when Hasbro did them? Sounds like a good plan to me! The truth is I was very happy with Hasbro’s D&D cartoon figures, but because I’ve been waiting for someone to do these for so long, I’m willing to double dip. Plus, it looks like Super7 is going deeper than Hasbro did with more of the minor characters, and yes a giant Tiamat, which God help me I did pre-order. The first wave includes two members of the adventuring party, Hank and Sheila plus Dekkion the Skeleton Warrior, and a pair of Shadow Demons. These are supposed to ship sometime in October, but we got a bit of a sneak peek with the release of the SDCC Exclusive invisible Sheila. This figure was available for purchase online after the convention and since she was easy to get, I decided to pick her up.

Oh wow, I really dig this packaging! The box is an homage to the entrance to the Dungeons & Dragons ride. There’s no slip cover, which I kind of figured since they’ve been deleting them from their longer running lines. The window shows off the goods nicely, which is impressive because she’s supposed to be invisible. The back of the packages have an actual character sheet for each character, and as an avid D&D player back in High School, I got a real kick out of this. Seriously, I had a big stupid grin on my face as I perused Sheila’s stats. Of course, this figure variant is based on Sheila’s special ability, using her magic cloak to render her invisible. A pretty useful skill for a thief, even if she didn’t do much thieving in the cartoon. I’m not gonna lie, this was a tough figure to photograph, so I’m not going to go too long today.

Sometimes when a cartoon depicts an invisible character, they just draw them as line art in white, but if I recall correctly when Sheila used her cloak in the cartoon, you couldn’t see her at all. So, S7 had to take some artistic liberties here. And what we get is the same figure we will be getting in October, only cast in translucent plastic and with a white cape. Does it work? Sorta? Kinda? The cape is made of a nice material, but the fact that it isn’t sheer really ruins the invisibility effect. Sure, you can take the cloak off, but that would break the rules, as she’s only supposed to be invisible with the cape on and the hood up. Also, the body does have a bit of a yellow tint to it, which I’m not sure was intentional, but I suppose it will save me the anxiety of waiting for it to turn yellow over time. One thing that I think is really cool here is how they even used thin translucent plastic for her skirt. I don’t recall ever seeing that sort of thing before.

You get all three heads that will be included with the regular release: A smiling expression, a surprised expression, and a mischievous expression. I do like that they painted the facial features in white to help pick them out a little more, but as you can probably see, it’s still kind of tough to discern what’s going on with the sculpts. I do, however, think these are going to look great when they’re all painted up.

The articulation is still in line with what we’ve been seeing in the other Ultimates lines, and that means lots of rotating hinges with limited range. One of the big issues with this sort of transparent figure is that you can see how the sausage is made, meaning all the joints and even the wrist pegs are clearly visible. It gives the figure a very mechanical look. The joints on the figure all feel good, but translucent plastic can sometimes have a habit of becoming brittle, so I probably won’t spend a lot of time playing around with her. With that having been said, I didn’t have any issues swapping out the heads or hands.

You get three sets of hands: Fists, a set intended to grip her hood for when she’s pulling it up or taking it off, a right hand with splayed fingers and a left gripping hand. But aside from the cloak there are no other accessories, which means they omitted the net accessory that will come with the regular release. That’s disappointing, especially since they didn’t replace it with some new accessory, maybe referencing a specific episode of the cartoon.

I don’t want to come down too hard on this figure, as it’s pretty tough to make the whole translucent thing work. You’re always going to see all the joints and inner workings of the figure and that kind of ruins the illusion. This kind of thing would most definitely work better as a statue. I’d love to see someone on Etsy with some sewing skillz make a sheer cloak for her that would make the illusion work better. With that being said, it’s a pretty good concept for an SDCC Exclusive, as I wouldn’t consider it essential to complete the collection and I would have been OK if I got shut out on it. As I write this, it’s still available on Super7’s website at $55, which is the going rate for all their regular-sized Ultimates. Still, I would only really recommend it if you’re going to be a completist. I’m not sorry I bought her, but I probably would have been better off putting that $55 towards the $300 price tag on Tiamat.

Aug 14 2024

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Doc by Super7

As I continue to chip away at Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates line, I’m here today to finally put Wave 3 in the bag! I’ve already looked at three of the four figures in this assortment: Scarlett, Storm Shadow, and The Cobra Trooper so it’s well past time to give the JOE’s Combat Medic, Doc, his turn! Dr. Carl Greer showed up early in the original Real American Hero line as part of the second series in 1983. I remember getting him along with a handful of other new figures for Christmas, and he tagged along on just about every mission after that. For some reason I also always had him drive the APC, but I don’t know what that was all about. Also a fun piece of trivia: Two of my favorite fictional medical doctors, Greer and Gregory House, both graduated from Johns Hopkins!

I won’t spend a lot of time on the packaging, since we’ve seen it so many times now. This third wave was the last to include the slipcover over the window box, but it also downgraded the glossy finish on the cardboard to a matte version of the green camo. The presentation still looks good, but Super7 progressively cost-cutting the packaging has convinced me to let these boxes go, except for the few exclusives I have. But enough about the package, there’s wounded JOE’s out there and Doc’s gotta get into the action!

The Sunbow cartoon design for Doc didn’t stray too far from the original RAH figure, and that’s reflected here. The fatigues are a darker, almost orange, khaki giving the deco some shelf presence. The sculpted details in the uniform are soft and fleeting, but that’s been the case with these toon-style figures. I don’t think they got the chest pockets quite right, as the cartoon uniform had what looked like vertical double pockets. There’s a slight hint of that here, but it’s not very well defined. I also don’t remember him ever having a holster in the cartoon, but I’m not going to complain about S7 adding a place to stow his pistol. The red crosses on his left chest and shoulders are actually sculpted as well as painted, and he has the red wrist cuffs and red belt seen in the cartoon, along with his white undershirt peeking out from inside his collar. I can nitpick some accuracy stuff here, but the figure still looks outstanding.

You get three heads to choose from: One smiling, one serious, and one shouting. All of these are great, but there isn’t a hugely noticeable difference to me between the first two, especially with the helmet on and obscuring the more severe eyebrows on the serious head. Each head shares the same helmet and I definitely recommend care when removing it, because those glasses look crazy fragile! Even popping the heads out of the tray made me nervous about breaking them. Now, with that said, I think the glasses look great. Yes, up close there’s a some white spray on the edges of the lenses, but it’s not that noticeable with the naked eye. The green tinting on the lenses looks great too. Should the frames be white? Nope! Not unless they’re referencing something I’m not familiar with. I don’t recall them ever being white in the cartoon. I’ve had some difficulty with tight heads on some S7 figures, but Doc’s noggins pop on and off really easy, which is comforting because again… those glasses can be worrisome! He must go through a lot of pairs on the battlefield.

The shouty head is well done and very expressive. They even sculpted some detail on his tongue inside his mouth. I don’t know that I’ll use this one that much, but I do really like it. It kind of looks like he’s shouting “MEDIC!” before realizing, “Oh, wait that’s me.”

You get the usual assortment of hands, including fists and some accessory-holding hands. You also get a set of white-gloved surgeon hands, which work well with the red arm bands to complete the glove effect.

Doc comes with both a medical case and shoulder bag. The bag is designed to hang on his right shoulder and has a printed caduceus on the flap. There’s also some paint on the buckle that is intended to hold the flap down. The medical case is white with a red cross printed on the outside. It opens up to reveal a bunch of supplies like scissors and bandages. I originally expected this to be just a sticker, but the contents are all sculpted and picked out with some paint. I like that the case has actual hinges, rather than just bendy plastic which stresses over time.

Greer also comes with two ways to launch signal flares. The first is based on the flare launcher that came with the original RAH figure. As a kid, I always assumed this was a mortar and when playing, Doc used to use it to lay cover fire while he was waiting for support to evac his wounded. You also get a projectile that loads into the launch tube and… yeah, this looks like some kind of rocket-propelled weapon as opposed to a flare, so I don’t know. The launcher has a shoulder strap, but no bipod to support it, and because of limitations in those rotating knee hinges, Doc can’t really get down on the ground well enough to use it convincingly. I’m not a huge critic of the more limited range of articulation on these figures, but here’s a case where it’s definitely not ideal.

A lot more practical is the flare pistol he keeps holstered on his right hip. It’s a decent, albeit simple sculpt and the frame is painted silver and the grips are left as gray plastic. The holster design, however, does tend to drop the pistol out of the back.

Doc’s filecard listed him as a pacifist, but I don’t remember them playing that up with him in the cartoon, not like they did with Lifeline, who was a constant whiney bitch about it. Thankfully, S7 included the standard Sunbow rifle with him. And hey, if you want your Doc to be a pacifist, just give it to someone else! Personally, I can never have enough of these rifles!

For the last piece of equipment, there’s a walkie, which looks to be a recolor of the one included with Flint. Oddly enough it’s lavender! I’m not sure if that’s a cartoon reference or just a color they decided to go with for some variety.

And the last accessory is a comic book, which references the episode Countdown to Zartan, where Doc was relaxing on the base and reading a comic. I thought that was a nice little character moment for him.

There are a few minor inaccuracies here, but I still think Doc turned out great, and I’m thrilled to finally have this one in my toon-style collection. While he got short-changed as the cartoon went on, Doc had some great moments in the first two miniseries, not to mention There’s No Place Like Springfield, and to be honest, those are all my favorite episodes from the entire cartoon series. Not to mention, he was also portrayed as quite the scientist beyond just medicine. He was the one that came up with the energy absorbing mirrors in Revenge of Cobra, which lead to my favorite Doc line, “Don’t worry, I’m wearing my asbestos underwear.” While there’s some question now over what the future is going to look like for this line, I’m damn glad Doc made it out when he did. And that brings me to Wave 4 and three more figures to get me all caught up… But Wave 5’s shipping is imminent, so I’ll try to hurry!

Aug 12 2024

Mythic Legions: Skeleton Legion Builder 2 by The Four Horsemen

I was doing pretty well keeping up on my Mythic Legions backlog, but the wheels fell off the wagon in July. And while I really should be getting back to the figures from The Poxxus Wave, I was able to grab a couple of the new Skeleton Legion Builders from The Four Horsemen’s in-stock sale, and I’m going to have to bump them to the head of the line. The first boney builders were released as part of the original assortment back in 2016 and were armored, whereas these new ones come buck nekkid, with bones and all showing. Let’s dig right in!

It’s been nearly a decade, but the standard Mythic Legions packaging hasn’t changed much. The figures still come on a card and bubble, which is totally collector friendly as the bubble extends to cover the entirety of the card. The cardback art is generic to each assortment, but otherwise pretty forgettable, but you do get a bubble insert that has a little blurb about the character on the side. I tend to clip and save these and toss the packages.

These new skellies are about as generic as you can get, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. They are basic articulated skeletons, but executed brilliantly, and since they have no armored body parts like the originals, you can use these for a wide variety of play and display genres from fantasy to horror. They are a bit on the chonky side, which fits with the overall Mythic Legions aesthetic, but no so much that they won’t work with a variety of other 6-inch scale lines. The sculpt work here is excellent and there is a ton of detail in these frightening fellows. I dig that there are actual gaps in the lower legs between the tibia and fibula. There’s also some crazy sharp detail in the feet and hands as well as the coccyx and spine. There’s some filler behind the ribcage to give him heft and durability, but you can still stick something between those ribs! There are two big holes in the back of the shoulders, which you find in pretty much all Mythic Legions figures, and I’ll get back to these near the end. I do wish we got some filler pieces for these, as they are rather unsightly when not in use.

We’ve known for a long time now that T4H are really good at sculpting skulls, so as expected, the head looks great. They did a nice job painting in those eye holes and making them look like vacuous, soulless pits of despair. The teeth are especially well done, as are the fissures running around the sides of the head. The jaw is also hinged to give him some added emotive abilities.

Articulation here holds no surprises, as these ghoulish guys make use of the standard Mythic Legions system of modular rotating hinges. The joints on my skellies are excellent, being just tight enough to support poses and they don’t seem like they would be getting loose over time. You do get a bunch of extra hands, including fists, two types of accessory holding hands, and some pointing finger hands for when they have a bone to pick with someone.

The skeleton comes with a spear, a sword and shield, and a sword belt. The belt is much nicer than the ones we used to get back in the day. It’s actually textured and has a sculpted buckle, and swells out at one point in the loop. It hangs pretty loose off the hips, so I think it works best here as a shoulder strap, allowing him to carry the sword through the loop on his back. The sword dates back to the original Kickstarter and I still love this classic, no nonsense design. I was happy to see that it’s painted, as Legion Builder weapons sometimes don’t get that treatment. Here the blade is silver and the hilt is gold. The round shield has been used before a bunch, but it’s also a welcome addition. This one is also painted a mix of copper and bronze and uses the grab bar on the back for him to hold it.

The spear is also from the original Kickstarter design and some day I really need to count up how many of these things I own, because it’s certainly a lot! This weapon is also painted with a gray tip and black shaft.

As for the back holes, these are traditionally used as slots for shoulder armor, and here’s the Skeleton LB2 wearing one of Skeleton LB1’s armor pieces. It looks kind of big on him, but I guess that’s to be expected. I don’t think I’ll really use any armor on these guys for regular display.

The holes can also be used for some of the wing accessories T4H have put out over the years. Here he is with a set of bone wings and I really dig the way this looks. The color isn’t a perfect match, as these new skellies are whiter than previous releases, so you get a little more rotten tan color to the wings, but I think it works.

And here’s a comparison of Skeleton Legion Builder 1 and 2. I think I like the skull on the first one a little better, but then the new one gives you that articulation in the jaw, so it’s kind of a toss up. These guys look great mixed together for a skeleton army and T4H have given us quite a few Skeletal villains to lead them into battle.

More comparisons? Well, as you can see that this guy is a lot chonkier than Storm Collectibles’ Golden Axe skeletons, although I was surprised that he’s shorter as well. Storm’s skeleton is lankier and a bit more stylized, so displaying them together is a bit of a reach for me. As for NECA’s AD&D figures, I think they work really well together. They are a little shorter than Warduke and Strongheart, but not jarringly so, especially if you just count the heroes and villains being really tall. They’re also going to scale really well with Super7’s upcoming Dungeons & Dragons cartoon line.

I’ve been trying to cut back on my Mythic Legions purchases, just because I have so many of these figures in my backlog. Indeed, it was a total stroke of luck that I was at home and on my computer when I was reminded that these were dropping as an in-stock sale. Had they been anything else, I probably would have resisted, but these fellas are just so versatile that I had to pick up a couple. There was a limit of four, so at least I did manage to show some self-control. At $26 a pop, I think these are some of the best value the Mythic Legions line has produced, especially with the painted weapons. They sold out pretty quickly, and I’ll be interested to see if any of the usual e-tailers get them in and what the pricing will be like.

Aug 9 2024

Defenders of the Earth: Mandrake the Magician and Lothar by NECA

A few weeks back, I started checking out NECA’s Defenders of the Earth action figure line with Flash Gordon and The Phantom. I promised I’d be back for more in a couple weeks, and well… better late than never! Today I’m going to finish up the team of heroes with the mysterious Mandrake the Magician and the mighty Lothar! Of course, The Defenders of the Earth was an 80’s cartoon that assembled four of King Comics biggest heroes into a super-team to fight the forces of Ming the Merciless and protect the Earth!

As we saw last time, the figures come in beautiful and colorful window boxes designed to pay homage to the cardbacks that Galoob used for the original toyline. NECA even redesigned their logo to match the one Galoob was using at the time, and I really dig that! The boxes show off the figures very well and feature some bitchin character art cut around the window. The boxes are collector friendly, but alas, I’m being really strict on myself about keeping action figure boxes, so they gotta go! Let’s start with Lothar!

His strength is a legend, his skills conquer all. Armed with his power, we never will fall! Lothar has received the biggest update for the cartoon out of all these characters. The Strongest Man on Earth and Prince of the Seven Nations started out in the comics as a bit of a goofy sidekick to Mandrake, but eventually became his partner in crime fighting. This modern update recreates Lothar as a fierce fighter, who’s trademark weapon is a grappling hook. And Oh boy did NECA go all out on this one! While Phantom and Flash shared a lot of the same sculpt, Lothar is packed with the hot newness and his adventuring gear has so many wonderful little details. The base body consists of black trousers and a black short sleeve t-shirt, and I absolutely love that the chest symbol is sculpted instead of just printed on. The grey vest is cast in soft plastic and worn by the figure, with the backpack as part of the sculpt. He’s got pouches everywhere, each one showing sculpted stitching, straps, or just painted snaps. His rope is sculpted in a coil around his left shoulder, he’s got a holster strapped to his right leg, and even his big chonky boots show amazing detail. The balance of colors here is superb with the base black and grey contrasting with the olive green, bright green, and yellow for a lovely pop. It feels like NECA’s designers said, “Well we got away without needing much for Flash and Phantom, so let’s just pour the love into Lothar!” And pour the love they did!

The head sculpt is bold and fierce! Like Flash, NECA went for a realistic take on the cartoon character, which may work for some people and not others. I dig it. The portrait exudes strength and general bad-assery. He looks like he’s ready to put Ming’s head through a wall. With that having been said, I wouldn’t have minded something a bit less severe, especially if these figures were coming with second heads. Lothar also comes with two sets of hands, including one pair of fists, and a pair designed to grip his accessories. Articulation is in line with what we’ve seen so far, including a decent range of motion in those double-hinged elbows and knees.

Of course, Lothar comes with his trademark grapple hook. This handy tool has three hinged prongs and it can extend or telescope down. There’s a yellow string tied to it with the other end left loose for him to grip. I tied it into a slip knot. There’s no apparent way for him to store it, but I found that wrapping the string around the backpack and letting it dangle off the side works pretty well. One of Lothar’s right hands is designed to work with the grapple hook, but he can also hold it in the left gripping hand as well.

You also get a couple of weapons, including a small knife that stores in the sheath on his vest and a pistol that he can carry in the holster. The pistol is the same one that we got with both Flash and Phantom and it comes with the same two blast effect pieces, a muzzle flash and a full laser beam, both cast in translucent blue plastic. And with Lothar covered, that’s the might, now let’s check out the magic!

Master of magic, spells and illusion, Enemies crumble in fear and confusion! Mandrake was top of my list for this team because he could often use his mystical arts to thwart enemies without breaking a sweat. I mean, the intro song says it all. Plus, he shows up for a fight in a top hat, cape and tails. His shoes aren’t even sensible! Mandrake gives no shits as he makes you piss yourself and run away. Like Lothar, this Master of Magic gets a lot more original sculpting than Flash or Phantom, with his black tuxedo, red vest and white collard shirt. There’s a slight texture and a bit of sparkles on the black parts of his outfit, which looks cool. He’s got a white handkerchief poking out of his chest pocket, white shirt cuffs peeking out from the jacket sleeves, and some white trim on those beautifully detailed shoes. And best of all, he has a softgoods cape with a red interior liner and a wire running around the edges to allow it to be posed in all sorts of sweeping and majestic ways.

The head sculpt is closer to what we got for Flash, in that I think it’s a good compromise between cartoon likeness and realism. The perfectly trimmed mustache and one ever-so-slightly cocked eyebrow give him the classic mysterious magician look, while the vibrant blue eyes give him a bit of an ethereal presence. The top hat is permanently attached and has a similar texture and sparkly finish as the coat. I love how this portrait turned out! Like Lothar, Mandrake comes with two sets of hands, which include a pair of fists, a wand holding right hand and an abracadabra left hand with fingers splayed.

The wand is pretty big so maybe he’s compensating for something. Or maybe it’s just because it’s full of a lot of magics. The black shaft narrows at the bottom, has a silver band around the top along with a gold ring and a translucent crystal. His right hand is designed to hold it perfectly.

Mandrake also comes with the pistol that we saw packed with every figure so far. I’m not going to quibble about getting an extra pistol accessory, but I don’t really associate it with the character and I doubt I’ll ever display him with it. At least the gun hand is his left, so you could pose him with both gun and wand, the fighting equivalent of surf-and-turf. Actually, I don’t know what that means. Sorry. Yes, you also get the same blast effect parts that we just saw with Lothar. I would have much rather he came with some magic effect parts for the wand.

And with that, the Defenders of the Earth are complete! Will we ever get the kids? Not likely. There hasn’t been any movement on this front since the third assortment came out and I get the feeling they’re done with it and have moved on to the feature film Flash Gordon. I don’t think the kids would have sold all that well anyway, although I definitely would have picked them up. While I was excited to get these, I think I had even more fun with them than I expected and they look amazing all lined up on the shelf. But, we aren’t done yet because we still have a couple of baddies to look at with Ming and Garax! And I’ll try to swing back to look at those in the next week or so.

Aug 7 2024

Marvel Legends (Void Wave) Namorita by Hasbro

Yeah, I’ve been letting Marvel Legends start trickling back into the regular rotation around these parts. Obviously, I haven’t stopped collecting entirely, but I’m buying very few figures at full retail anymore, and skipping waves where I’m just not that interested. I’m also trying to win out over my OCD by embracing reviewing figures here and there as it strikes my fancy, and not necessarily caring whether it’s in any order or wave. With that having been said, Namorita from The Void Wave has been kicking around my desk for a long while, I thought I’d throw her some love.

I’ll concede that this Void Wave is a pretty strong assortment and I wouldn’t mind completing the BAF, but I’m not really interested in all of these figures. I already checked out Crystar from this wave, and I was able to track down Power Princess, which wasn’t easy. Justice and Vision look good, but I don’t really need another Black Panther or Namor. Either way, Namorita comes with The Void’s torso, which makes sense as she’s easily the smallest figure in this wave. Maybe someday I’ll make use of it, or maybe I won’t.

Obviously, Namorita has had a lot of changes to her appearance throughout the decades, mostly written off as biological changes from her cloning process… or emotional stress… or maybe both. I tend to lean toward the more classic look for this character, but I can see why Hasbro chose this one. It’s kind of an important version of her… something to do with a bus and a lot of dead kids and a little thing called Marvel’s Civil War. The body uses very little original sculpting and gets by with paint to convey her costume. You do get the sculpted wings on her ankles, some sculpting for her gloves, and I believe the female bare feet are new. Her skin uses a pale matte blue plastic, which looks very nice, especially alongside the high gloss red and white used for her one-piece swimsuit. The gloves are also painted red and she has some sharp white tattoo-like patterns printed on her arms and legs. She’s a colorful and pretty figure, no doubt, but it would have been nice to get some sculpted lines for her suit.

The head sculpt is solid, but pretty dour. She’s got a petite, perfectly sculpted nose and her hair is swept to the side to expose one pointed ear. The eye brows are actually part of the sculpt and not just painted on, and the lips and eyes are both printed very nicely, as are the white markings. You even get a bit of color in her cheeks. The white hair is sculpted separately from the head, making a sharp hairline and it dynamically sweeps to the side, which both favors articulation to the right, but hinders it to the left. I would have liked a more neutral expression or, even better, a second head with more relaxed hair, but I suppose the existing hair does have an appropriate floaty-ness about it like she’s underwater.

Namorita features a fully pinless body, which has been creeping into the line for a while now. But, since I don’t review as many Legends these days, it’s still kind of new to me, especially when we’re still seeing figures turn up with pins. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of appreciating seeing the ladies get double-hinged elbows and bicep swivels in these new figures. It’s always a treat, even if Namorita didn’t get swivels in the lower legs. She does come with an extra set of fist hands, but Hasbro couldn’t even bother to make them match the fingerless gloves on her regular hands.

Namorita looks really good for a figure that makes very little use of original sculpting, and I like her a lot. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but she’s colorful and pretty fun to play around with. Plus, I can add her to my Night Thrasher, Speedball, and Firestar and assemble me some New Warriors, if I can track down which tote those other figures are in. If I get caught up on the other lines that I’m more actively collecting, I’ll try to work Power Princess into one of these weeks soon, and I’ll be keeping an eye on the rest of this wave to get discounted on Amazon.

Aug 5 2024

G. I. JOE Classified (Tiger Force): Wreckage and Tiger Paw ATV by Hasbro

A couple weeks back I checked out the Walmart Exclusive Night Force Night Pursuit Cycle, a repaint of the RAM Cycle, and Night Force Shockwave. I mentioned that I’m not really collecting the Night Force and Tiger Force variants, but in a moment of weakness I not only grabbed that one, but also preordered Target’s Tiger Force repaint of the Cobra Ferret ATV with Wreckage. I’m hoping that this will be a couple of isolated incidents, but only time will tell! In this case, I was mainly driven by the desire to give the JOEs their own ATV and to get a pretty cool homage to one of those Toys R Us Exclusive 5-packs from the early 00’s.

You get the same style box as we saw with the Cobra Ferret. It’s nearly fully enclosed, but does have a window to show off the figure, as well as the Tiger Force logo, and some fantastic renders of the toy in action. If you have the Cobra Ferret, you know exactly what to expect inside the box in terms of assembly requirements. It all goes together easy and the only thing to watch out for is lining those tread patterns up right. The extra parts and accessories come in tissue bags inside a cardboard footlocker, and it’s neat that we get to keep seeing these every now and then, despite the return to window boxes for the figures. Let’s start with Wreckage!

Dillon Moreno, aka. Wreckage is a demolitions and jungle warfare expert and was first introduced as part of a 2003 TRU Exclusive Tiger Force 5-pack. Back then he was a straight repaint of Firefly and here he looks to be a straight repaint of Classified’s Firefly 2.0. And holy shit is this guy cool looking! I’m not usually a big fan of the Tiger Force decos, but it sure looks awesome here, probably because the tiger stripes aren’t bright yellow and rather subdued. The fatigues are mostly black and the stripes are sort of a copper-brown. Like Firefly, this guy has a ton of gear strapped to him, including a chest harness, belt and two leg rigs, all of which are cast in a coppery-brown similar to the striping. The boots and gloves match the gear, and you get some orange paint applications for his turtleneck as well as some additional hits like the knife sheath on his right arm, pouches on his body rig, and explosive charges on his leg. His left shoulder has a crisp Tiger Force logo printed on it, and there’s some silver for the various zippers.

The head features a full mask with a cutout for the eyes. He’s got some dark shading around his peepers and some pretty creepy graphics to mimic a skull for the rest of his face. When I checked out Night Force Shockwave, I commented about how he looked like some kind of maniac, and that goes double for Wreckage here.

The VAMP/Night Pursuit Cycle helmet makes yet another appearance. It seems like Hasbro really wants to get their money’s worth out of it. Still, it fits in well with his set and the repaint looks cool. I love the sculpt, especially the mounted camera, and we get some nice touches of character here with the angry teeth art on the sides and the kill marks scored out above the visor.

The backpack is the same as Firefly 2.0’s and that includes the mines that peg into the sides and the detonator that plugs into the back. I thought I got short-changed the detonator, which is why it’s not pictured, but I did eventually find it in one of the bags. The backpack still has the tab on the bottom for Firefly’s RC car delivery system, but the car is not included here. I dig the design and sculpt of this backpack a lot, and it certainly makes sense to repurpose it here for Wreckage.

For weapons, you get a combat knife, an automatic pistol, and a sub-machine gun. The magazine can be removed from the SMG and there’s one suppressor to share between the SMG and pistol. There’s a peg on the backpack to stow the SMG, allowing Wreckage to carry all of his weapons and leave both hands free to drive the Tiger Paw… so let’s check out his ride!

As expected, the Tiger Paw is a straight re-deco of the Ferret with all the ostentatious flare of the Tiger Force design. The frame and seat are black, the back half of the body is yellow, gradually becomes orange in the middle, and ends up white at the front. There’s black tiger striping in the middle and a tiger face motif stenciled on the front. The wheels are now bright orange. Some of the lettering carries over, like the Caution on the exhaust pipes and Cobra is replaced with ATV on the wheels, and there’s a Tiger Force logo behind the seat.

The removable cannon has a red receiver and black barrel, the steering column and instrument panel are red with black handlebars, and the front turret is red. All of the red parts are brighter and flashier than what we saw on the Ferret. The side missiles appear to be identical to what we got with the Ferret and they’re still gummy and have a tendency to get knocked off. Still, all in all this is as great a toy as it was the first time. It’s fun to roll into battle and the independent suspension is impressive.

And Wreckage looks damn good driving it, especially with the helmet as it tends to match the ATV deco more than his fatigues does. Obviously there’s still room for two on the Tiger Paw, and conveniently I do own one other Tiger Force figure and that’s Recondo, so at least Wreckage won’t have to go on sorties alone.

If I had my choice, I would have preferred getting a more traditional military green recolor of the Ferret for the JOEs. I’m just not that big a fan of the Tiger Force decos and this ATV hasn’t changed my mind about it. I am, however, still glad I picked it up, particularly because Wreckage turned out so good. It’s awesome to get a Classified version of him and he brings back some nostalgic memories of hunting new GI JOE figures at Toys R Us every Friday after work. Who knows? Maybe if the Tiger Force RAM Cycle drops in price any more, I’ll pick that up to have a matched set.

Aug 2 2024

Cover Girls of the DC Universe (J. Scott Campbell) Wonder Woman by McFarlane/DC Direct

The DC Cover Girls line has been going on for quite a while. I reviewed my first statue from this series over ten years ago! The line was mostly produced by DC Collectibles, but when McFarlane took over the license they began releasing some here and there in partnership with DC Direct. I’m not going to pretend to know how the licensing works and who’s actually producing these now, but Both McFarlane’s and DC Direct’s names appear on the box. Recently, McFarlane announced a trio of these ladies inspired by the art of J. Scott Campbell, so you know I was instantly on board! They’ve already released Catwoman, Zatanna is coming soon, and today we’re checking out Wonder Woman.

The mostly white box is similar to what we saw last time, and has remained more or less the same throughout the series run. You get some shots of the statue, a notation of the artist, and the size is roughly the same as the Catwoman statue, with both ladies measuring about 10-inches tall. That puts these a bit taller than the older DC Collectibles offerings. Inside the box, the statue comes encased in two Styrofoam trays and you get a collector card. Assembly requires attaching her right arm at the bicep band via a magnet, and plugging her right foot into the base, which was an easy fit. Let’s get her out of the box and all set up!

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff! As we saw with Catwoman, the composition is a little bit of museum pose with a hint of action. Wonder Woman stands with a slight lean to her right hip and a turn to her left ankle. Her coiled golden lasso is held firm in her right hand, while her left arm is drawn up to effortlessly deflect a projectile headed right for her face. Her one-piece outfit has a very modern vibe from the golden belt up, and things get a little more traditional below, with some abbreviated skirt flaps hanging down front and back.

All the details of the outfit are incorporated as part of the sculpt, which helps make for some clean paint lines. The red part of her corset has panel lining and is painted with a rich, glossy red, while framed top and bottom with the same quality of gold paint. All this conspires to produce a beautiful new-car-style finish to this part of the costume. The high-heeled boots are painted in red matte with some dark shading, white stripes running up the center from toe to top, and gold bands around the top edges. You get two shades of blue around her pelvic region with a darker blue making up the panties and a paler shade for the skirt pieces. And, of course, both are speckled with white stars. Her arm bracers are painted in silver and gold, and her bicep ring is gold. These pieces have a duller metallic finish than the corset, but still look nice. Finally, the skin tone is very warm and even with some pink added to the knees and elbows. All in all, the sculpted detail and colors here are very well done, especially for a statue in this price range.

The portrait is quite lovely and does a solid job evoking the JSC style. Diana is sporting some dreamy, heavy eyelids, a narrow and sharp nose, and her lips are slightly parted, revealing a flash of white teeth. The painted facial features are clean, particularly the eye liner and pupils. The flowing hair has some blue shading to evoke that classic comic book panel coloring, and I really dig the way it bunches up to her right, swirling in a flurry of defensive action. The portrait is rounded out by her gold tiara with a central red star.

The coiled lasso also contorts a bit from her defensive maneuver, with one end curling up into the air. The paint on mystical rope looks good, but I would have liked to have seen a little bit of sculpted detail to the braid. What we got gives it a bit of a simple, animated look, which is fine, but a bit at odds with the detail in her corset. Still, not bad!

The bullet defecting on her wrist bracer is done with a bit of translucent plastic colored in red and orange. It’s not spectacular, but it gets the job done. It would have been cool to have an actual bullet sculpted in there, or perhaps being deflected away.

The base is a raised black disk with beveled edges and a gold stripe. The face has a Wonder Woman logo flanked by stars. I like the way this is stylized and it adds some nice flavor to the base, much in the same way they did with Catwoman’s. On the flipside you get the hand numbered limitation underneath. Mine is 590 out of 945. The limitation is a lot smaller on these than it was in the old days, when 5200 was the magic number.

Like Catwoman, Wonder Woman retails at $139 which, if you count for inflation, is probably pretty close to what the older Cover Girls sold for. I included a shot of her with the Stanley Artgerm Lau piece from 2016. I still enjoy to display that one and it’s fun to see how the series has evolved over nearly a decade. As for the new ones, well, I really like both of these JSC efforts, with Wonder Woman edging out Catwoman as the favorite of the two. From a design standpoint, I think there was just more to work with than this one, and the final release came a lot closer to what was solicited. They do look nice paired together, but I have Catwoman displayed with some other Catwoman pieces and Diana here will be going to my Wonder Woman display. Still, I’m excited to see how the trio will look when Zatanna joins up!

Jul 31 2024

Transformers Legacy United: Chop Shop, Barrage, and Malleus Minotaurus by Hasbro

If you hadn’t noticed, Hasbro Transformers reviews have been drying up here. This is only my second for this year, and there were only about half a dozen or so last year. I still love Transformers, I’m still waiting for Beachcomber and Swoop, but otherwise I’ve got most of what I wanted out of the official Hasbro stuff and I can’t think of much shown at SDCC that interested me. Still, every now and then something comes out that entices me, like this boxed set of updates to two of the four Deluxe Insecticons. These guys were originally rolled out in the 1985 catalog and I was both appalled and obsessed with them. On the one hand, they didn’t look anything like my beloved Insecticons, I think they were recycled Bandai toys, and they never appeared in the cartoon. On the other hand, they looked so unique that I couldn’t help but want them. Although, to be fair, I wanted every Transformers figure when I was a kid! Well, I don’t remember ever seeing them in any stores and so it was not meant to be.

The figures come in a fully enclosed box with a small Weapon Master type guy called Malleus Minotaurus… seriously, WTF Hasbro? I hate this box. The character art looks good, but it feels like the Transformers logo should be running down the opposite side. As it is, it makes the box look like it’s upside down when it’s not. Also, look at all the qualifiers… Transformers Legacy United Doom’N Destruction Collection. The Transformers branding has become a confusing mess to me and I honestly have no idea what line is what anymore. But enough of my old-man griping… Let’s start with Barrage and his bug mode first.

Like his G1 predecessor, Barrage’s alt mode is a rhino beetle. The figure is a repaint and remold of Legacy Bombshell, a figure that I have yet to find so I gave up and dropped a preorder. It’s a decent looking alt mode, but since most of the rework is done around the head, the Bombshell similarities stand out as pretty obvious. On the other hand, I do kind of like how this brings the character more into line with the original Insecticons, making them a little more cohesive when displayed together on the shelf. The head horn comes up from the bottom and I think it should be on top, but I’m no bugologist. And in fairness, I’m pretty sure the original toy did that too. I do like the coloring here. The green and yellow plastic looks great together, and there’s a bit of white and red thrown into for added pop. The sonic rifle can plug into either hole on his pack to give him some extra firepower in bug mode, and it’s a repaint of the weapon that came with Bombshell.

Transformation is very similar to what I’ve seen of Bombshell, but Barrage flips the chest to the back and uses the head horn to fill in the new chest, all while not jutting out as awkwardly far as the chest on the G1 Barrage. And all this sure goes a long way to make this robot mode look new and distinctive. The new bug legs can remain pegged into the arms, and I like to angle them back a bit to keep them out of the way. The coloring here remains pretty similar as the beetle, but now he’s showing more yellow. I dig the way the red bug eyes land just under his chest for an extra splash of color, and he has a Decepticon emblem square in the middle of his chest. The back fills out pretty well, but here’s where it’s really obvious that he’s a close cousin to Bombshell. Either way, this is an excellent homage to the original toy’s robot mode.

The head sculpt is pretty cool, borrowing the general beats of the G1 figure, but giving it a full makeover. The yellow face is angular with a dominant mouth plate, two big red eyes and a red panel on the forehead. That panel kind of looks like a third eye from a distance. He also has the green V-shaped antenna coming up from behind, but refined to be not as exaggerated as the original toy. I’d like to think that this is what the Sunbow design would have looked like if Barrage ever showed up in the cartoon.

As I noted earlier, the weapon is a recolor of Bombshell’s, but we’ll still go ahead and call it his sonic rifle. The side pieces can come off and you can customize it a little bit. It’s not really a good match for the G1 figure’s weapon, but I’m not upset over that. I do wish he had come with a sword, like the original did. Lets’ move on to Chop Shop!

Chop Shop’s bug mode is a stag beetle and while Barrage was a shake up of Legacy Bombshell, Chop Shop makes use of Shrapnel. And I gotta say, I think the homage works really well here. New additions include the extra pair of legs that plug into each side, newly sculpted pincers to match the original toy, and a new head, which can be seen in bug mode as two little antenna like appendages. Like Barrage, the reuse is really obvious here, but with the few changes and the brown and orange recolor, I think he looks great, even if he isn’t quite as striking as the original toy. Chop Shop comes with two guns, which is a recolor of one of the Shrapnel’s, and these can be plugged into his back for a super-bug assault mode!

While Barrage’s transformation changed a few things up over Bombshell, Chop Shop’s transformation is identical to Shrapnel and the resulting figure is a lot more similar too. There’s no clever swap of back for front on the torso, apart from the deco, the only changes here are the bug legs that are pegged into the arms, the pincers, and the head. Now, that’s not to say that this doesn’t look great, because I think it does, but the resulting robot looks a lot less like his G1 predecessor than Barrage does, and the Shrapnel chest is really obvious. The deco remains very close to the bug mode with a little more orange showing.

The new head is excellent, and a perfect update to the G1 toy. The rounded dome and angled red eyes give him a sinister visage. There’s some orange paint on his vocalizer box, as well as the twin antenna that sweep down to form open pipes on the sides of his cheeks.

In addition to the twin guns, which I already showed plugged into his bug mode, Chop Shop also comes with a recolor of Shrapnel’s gun. None of these are a great fit for the G1 toy’s weapon, but once again, I’m OK with that. He also doesn’t come with a sword. I would have been fine with Hasbro tossing in recolors of the same sword mold for either, especially compared to what I’m going to look at next.

It’s Malleus Minotaurus, and he feels like the design team was sitting around saying, “What else we got to throw in this box to get it to the right price point?” He’s a re-color of the Battle Master Smashdown, and that’s being generous because he’s just gray plastic with a little blue for his eyes and forehead emblem. As his name suggests, his robot mode is minotaur-themed with a bull-like head. He transforms into a hammer, hence the malleus part of his name. Hey, at least Hasbro is teaching kids The Latin! As a kid, I probably would have loved this concept, but as an adult collector, I don’t have much use for him and the idea of a robot transforming into something that robots hit other robots with is just a bit too goofy for me. He does come with two semi-translucent blue energy effect pieces to attach to the front and back of the hammer’s head.

Both Barrage and Chop Shop turned out great, although Barrage gets the nod for being the more reworked of the two. I love how they managed to flip the torso to give him a new chest, and it makes me wonder if that was planned from the start or just a really clever retrofit. And while Chop Shop doesn’t get any new engineering, I’m happy with how much they re-sculpted for this figure. In either case, I wouldn’t have guessed that the regular Insecticon molds could be tweaked to work this well as the Deluxes. Will we get a second set with Venom and Ransack? Well, I guess we did get a Kickback repaint as Ransack in one of those Buzzworthy sets, but I’d like to see Hasbro try again and give us Venom too. And wouldn’t you know it… My Bombshell arrived just in time to miss getting in the group picture, but I’ll probably get around to giving him a proper review in the near future and we’ll get them all together then!

Jul 29 2024

Batman (1966 Retro Series): Joker, Penguin & Riddler by McFarlane

Late last year I started digging into McFarlane’s Retro 66 Batman line by checking out Boxing Batman and Riddler, as well as The Dynamic Duo and The Batmobile. And since then, I’ve let this line fall to the wayside and it’s long past time I get back to looking at some of these figures again. I’ve waxed nostalgic in those previous reviews with my love for the TV series, so I won’t go through it again here. I would imagine that people who didn’t grow up with it don’t know quite what to make of it’s goofiness. You kind of just had to be there. Nonetheless, I’ve been sitting on a lot of these figures and vehicles for a while, so today I’m going to serve up a look at a triple trifecta of terrors in the form of Joker, The Penguin, and The Riddler!

As we saw last time, these figures come on colorful generic cardbacks with bubbles that showcase each figure quite nicely. Beside the figures are the accessories, which in this case all amount to just the fighting exposition balloons that you can clip onto their wrists. I don’t hate these, but I would have rather we got something else in terms of accessories. We certainly didn’t need them with every damn figure. Either way, take a good look because we’ve already seen what these are all about and I won’t be showcasing them much in the review. These packages are not collector friendly, so let’s get to tearing. I’ll start with Joker, move on to Penguin, and I’ll just touch on Riddler a little bit since I already checked out the Boxing version. Also, I’ll be staging these figures in McFarlane’s Villains Lair playset, which I may or may not come back to review in the future.

Cesar Romero will always be the first person that comes to mind when I think about The Joker, although I can happily acknowledge that we’ve certainly had some great versions and performances since. Here, Joker comes wearing his rather iconic pink suit. There’s some nice layering here to the sculpt with the jacket and waist coat worn over the sculpted green shirt and cravat. I also love how the coat tails hang down the back in the old-timey style. There’s some sculpted detail in the jacket, including lapels, a chest pocket, and buttons, but only the buttons on the waist coat are painted black. He’s got black shoes and the gloves are painted purple and feature some decent detail to the stitching.

The head sculpt is excellent and sports a solid likeness of Romero. My only nitpick is that they didn’t sculpt his mustache, which they used to just paint over with the clown makeup, but that’s a minor thing. The green hair is sculpted separately from the head, giving it an immaculate hairline. I love that they sculpted him in the middle of an open mouth laugh, and the printing for the makeup, eyes, and eyebrows is all sharp. McFarlane isn’t always known for great likenesses, but they definitely nailed it here.

The retro-style nature of these figures comes in the limited articulation, but that’s not to say it’s simple 5-POA. You actually get rotating hinges in the knees, shoulders, elbows, and wrists, a swivel in the waist and a ball joint in the neck. The most archaic and limiting thing here is the T-crotch, which offers no lateral movement, and the complete lack of articulation in the ankles. It’s also worth noting that Joker’s coat tails keep him from sitting down. There’s still fun to be had with here, but the limitations can be frustrating, especially if you’re used to McFarlane’s DC Multiverse offerings. And if you want to pose them in anything like an action pose, stands are recommended.

Need I say it? When I think about The Penguin, the image in my mind will always be Burgess Meredith. You have to understand that I was almost 20 years old by the time anyone else had portrayed these villainous roles as live action characters. And talk about perfect casting, Burgess was a master at his craft in being over the top sinister. Here he is sculpted in his tuxedo with an open coat and a white, untucked shirt. He’s got white spats sculpted onto his black shoes and white gloves. The outfit is rounded out by a pink bow tie. Because bow ties are cool… QUACK! The sculpted details on his white shirt are pretty soft, but it is textured, so that’s something. They got his portly dimensions down perfectly too.

As for the head sculpt, this isn’t the slam dunk that we got with The Joker, but it’s still very good. The paint and facial printing is decent and I like that the monocle is a separate piece of clear plastic attached over the eye. The smile looks good, and yes, it’s a shame we couldn’t get his cigarette holder poking out of there, but I’m guessing that was prohibited by Warner Bros. The purple top hat is sculpted separately from the head and permanently attached.

The articulation is the same as we saw with The Joker, but for some reason Penguin doesn’t have peg holes in his feet, so that’s annoying. And he’s another character with coat tails, so he can’t sit down. McFarlane really should have considered that when they put out a playset for these figures that centered around a table and chairs! Also, it’s pretty unforgivable that he didn’t come with his umbrella. How do you release The Penguin without his umbrella??? They did include one in the Villains Lair playset, and I’ve included that with the figure in the above shot. Neither of his hands are sculpted to hold it, but you can hook it around his wrist.

Finally, three’s Frank Gorshin as The Riddler, and yup… he’ll always be MY Riddler, but he hasn’t exactly had a lot of competition since. This is essentially the same figure we saw as a Boxing variant, only sans the sculpted trunks and boxing gloves. The rest of the costume is identical and looks good. I liked when Riddler wore the suit and bowler hat, but I think this tended to be the more iconic look for him in the show. The question marks are crisply printed against the green body suit, and I love that they sculpted his loafers. He does have peg holes in the feet and since there’s no coat tails, he can actually sit down… finally someone can!

This is definitely the weakest head sculpt of the three. It’s a passable likeness, but the sculpt is rather soft and it’s not a terribly iconic expression. The hair is sculpted as part of the head, but the mask is separate, so that adds some nice depth to the portrait there. Maybe part of the problem here is that Gorshin doesn’t have as many over the top characteristics to pin the sculpt to, but in the end I think it’s serviceable for the scope and price point of line.

These figures retailed for about $17.99 each, which isn’t bad for the scale and quality, and I think most of them have been reissued since the original releases. In my experience these could be tough to find in the wild, because the pegs were often clogged up with some of the less desirable variants. I really enjoy these figures and I respect the commitment that McFarlane has made to keeping this line going. It’s undoubtedly a niche market, being retro-style figures based off a show from the 1960’s and that makes it all the more impressive that the line has been so expansive. Obviously, these aren’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m thrilled to have these villains on my shelf and inhabiting their lair. But we’re not done with the villainy yet. Next week I’ll be back with four more baddies to join the cabal. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!