Jun 10 2020

One Piece “Treasure Cruise World Journey, Vol. 1:” Luffy, Nami, and Roronoa Zoro by Banpresto

I’ve come to face the sad fact that I’m going to have to give up buying prize figures. Yeah, it sucks, but space continues to grow tight and I refuse to rent a storage to throw toys into. Eventually something has to give and I’ve ultimately decided to make one of those cuts here. Now that doesn’t mean these will be the last prize figures I review here, because I still have a bunch left to open. It also doesn’t mean I won’t make the occasional exception and buy something that I can’t live without, but the casual buying stops here. No, really. I mean it!!! I know that’s a bummer way to start a review, but let’s press on and check out three fantastic figures from my favorite of guilty pleasures, One Piece!

Mosey on aboard, Pilgrim, and bring along, all your hopes and dreams, Pardner! It’s One Piece meets Wild West? Yes, please! That’s what World Journey Vol. 1 is all about. Banpresto has been delivering on some wonderful fresh takes on the One Piece crew and this one is just right up my ally. As usual, these figures are roughly 9-inch scale and come in fully enclosed boxes, which are very colorful and are confident enough to let pictures of the figures themselves do the talking. These are imports, but there’s enough English copy on the boxes to help you know what you’re getting. Each figure requires a little bit of simple assembly to get them ready for display. Let’s start with Luffy!

Our favorite rubber pirate comes donning his Old West duds and looking damn great! Luffy stands with confidence with his left hand resting on his gun belt and his right hand reaching for the brim of his hat. The figure gets his rather lanky proportions down quite well and the details in his outfit are exceptional for a figure in this price range. His cowboy boots feature scrollwork patterns, and I really dig how they’re sculpted so the jeans disappear into the tops of the boots. That really gives the figure some fabulous depth. The jeans show sculpted rumples and wrinkles, he’s got a red billowy sash tied to the back of his belt and a leather-like vest on top of his pale green shirt. The vest has sculpted buttons set in a zigzag pattern and frills hanging off the pockets. His shirt sleeves are cuffed just above his wrists and he’s wearing a pair of work gloves.

Luffy’s primary belt has a big gold belt buckle and his secondary gun belt hangs low on his hips with a holster attached to a sculpted thigh strap and a row of cartridges. The holster has two buckles and you can see his shootin’ iron protruding from the top and ready for a quick draw. I’d love to see this gun out of the holster, because with the way the grip is configured it almost looks like some kind of hybrid between a six-shooter and an old fashioned pirate pistol.

No matter what he’s wearing, it’s easy to recognize Luffy in this head sculpt. His saucer-like eyes and his broad slit of a mouth give it away. His neck is wrapped in a red scarf and his black hair  spills down out of his brown cowboy hat. I think they did a fantastic job transforming one of my favorite pirates into a cowpoke and Luffy looks like he was made for the role. I should note here that all three of the figures came with bases that attach to the feet, but the one I got with Luffy was sadly cracked. Fortunately, he doesn’t need it to stand. Next up… Roronoa Zoro!

The infamous swordsman sets aside his three katanas in exchange for a trusty lever-action rifle. He stands proudly with his right hand on his hip and his left hand cradling his rifle on his shoulder. Like Luffy, there’s some amazing detail work on this figure’s costume. The boots have sculpted brass-painted tips, his blue jeans are accompanied by a pair of black chaps, and just a little bit of his vest can be seen underneath the billowing duster. The flaps of the duster have individually painted gold clasps, while the sleeves feature reinforced elbow pads and the sleeves disappear into a pair of brown gauntlets. And the top half of his outfit is obscured by a red poncho-like garment.

Roanoa’s portrait is excellent. He’s expression exudes confidence as he peers out from his good eye. His green hair can be seen disappearing into his cowboy hat and he looks like he’s just itching for a fight. I know if I saw him enter the Saloon, I’d clear out the back lickity-split!

I love the detail they put into his rifle. The stock has a brass band sculpted around it along with a couple of plates stamped with X’s. There’s a sculpted saddle ring and sights. The stock and foregrip are painted in a deep brown finish and the rest of the weapon is in gun metal gray. And now that we’ve looked at The Good and The Bad, let’s check out The Beautiful…

Nami rounds out this trio of Straw Hat Plains Drifters looking as dead sexy as ever! She was actually the figure in this series that caught my eye first, which I’m sure is a surprise to no one. She may be dressed as a cowgirl, but she’s leaning forward, advertising her pirate booty, both aft and stern, while bringing her six-shooter up to the ready (practicing poor trigger discipline, I might add!) and offering an alluring wink. Down below, her outfit consists of high brown boots with scrollwork patterns, etched on the sides, and a pleated blue skirt, which leaves little to the imagination, Up above she’s got a glossy black top holding up her cowpokes and a sculpted red blouse open at the top and tied at the bottom. She has a full glove sculpted onto her shootin’ hand and a finger-less glove on her left.

Banpresto has become experts at sculpting the portraits of pretty much the entire Straw Hat crew, but I think they probably know Nami best of all. They always manage to capture her whimsy and spunk, no matter what outfit she happens to be in. I really dig the wild sculpt to her orange hair and the way her cowboy hat is perched almost on the back of her head.

I was already trying to swear off Prize Figures when this trio went up for pre-order, and even a whole wagon full of willpower wouldn’t have been able to stop me from buying these once I saw them. I’m a sucker for everything Old West, from history to fiction. I love shooting my old-timey single-actions revolvers and lever guns, and I scarcely let a weekend go by without having a Western playing on the TV. So naturally when you mash that up with One Piece, one of my biggest guilty pleasures, it’s money already spent. But thankfully not a whole lot, because these beauties set me back only $22 each and for the amount of detail and care that went into their design and execution, I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. My only sadness is they didn’t work Usopp into this line.

Jun 8 2020

Spider-Man Homecoming: Quarter-Scale Spider-Man by NECA

I decided to spend one more Marvel Monday on something else before returning to my Marvel Legends backlog, and today we’re going BIG! I love NECA’s Quarter-Scale figures, but they don’t love me back. Or more accurately, they don’t respect my available space. These figures are often amazing, but they need so much room to display, and that’s something that’s in constant short supply in the toy warehouse that I call a home. And so I swore off collecting this line a while back, and I probably swore it off again two or three more times since. I was good for a while, but then I found an amazing deal on the Quarter-Scale Homecoming Spider-Man and all bets were off. “Space be damned!” I shouted! “Get into my shopping cart, you magnificent wall-crawler!” And that brings us to today’s review!

These figures come in huge window boxes with lots of colorful artwork on the panels. They show off the figure very well, so if you’re buying one at a brick-and-mortar store you can really scrutinize the paint on the one your selecting. The packaging also does a great job of concealing the extras, which are trapped under a bubble inside the side panels of the inner tray. These are also the only aspect of the box that’s not collector friendly, but if you tear up the sides to get at them, it really doesn’t show and the figure will still display just fine in the box with the extra pieces rattling around on the bottom. And just to put the size of these Quarter-Scale figures into proper perspective, here’s a quick shot of this figure beside Hasbro’s 6-inch Marvel Legends Homecoming Spider-Man figure.

Yeah, he’s big! And with great size comes great heft. A lot of the so called “Big Figs” I have seen put out by other companies tend to be mostly hollow, but NECA’s are mostly solid chunks of plastic. As a result, this figure weighs a lot and feels so satisfyingly solid in hand. You could use it as a club and seriously hurt some. So please don’t do that!

It’s safe to say that I was a big fan of Homecoming, but even more so I absolutely loved the design of this suit. It manages to look fresh and new while still evoking a sense of the classic Spider-Man I know and love. Every bit of the figure’s surface is covered with a basketball-like texture, you get some raised panel lines in the blue sections, and the red sections have the sculpted and painted web pattern running throughout.  The black bands on the tops of the boots and the shoulders are sculpted, as are the black frames on his forearms that support his web shooters. I also absolutely love the detail in the black strips on his waist where he stores his extra cartridges of web fluid. The tiny sculpted spidey logo on his chest is the only thing I’m cool on when it comes to this design. I wish that was a bit bigger, but that’s not the figure’s fault. Happily, he does have a much bigger emblem on his back, which looks great in red against the blue background..

You get two head sculpts with the figure, one masked and one partially unmasked. I will mostly be displaying him with the masked head, but it’s nice to have options. The The masked head features regular wide open eyes and the unmasked has narrower eyes, but these are interchangeable between the two. You just plug them out of the head and peg them into the other. It’s not a huge difference, but I like that NECA incorporated that ability to swap them out.

While other companies are content to do their “Big Figs” with five points of articulation, and sometimes less, NECA really loads these things up. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, double-hinges in the elbows, hinged pegs in the wrists, and swivels in the biceps. The legs have heavy ratchet joints in the hips to help Spidey stand in even wide stances, the knees have rotating hinges on top and an extra hinge below. There are no thigh swivels, but the upper knee joint and hip joints take care of that. The ankles have rotating hinges and the feet are hinged. There’s a well concealed swivel in the waist, a not-so-well concealed ab crunch hinge, and the neck has ball joints on the bottom where it meets the body and the top where it meets the head. In short, this guy may be big, but he’s loads of fun to play around with.

Spidey comes with a bunch of extra hands. Actually, these sets of hands pretty much account for nearly all his accessories. You get some relaxed hands, some hands with splayed fingers, some fists, some THWIP hands, and web-holding hands, which are basically fists with a hole running through the fingers. NECA did a beautiful job recreating the web-shooters on each of these hands.

The other accessories consist of two strands of webbing and these are the only disappointing thing about the figure. These thin wire-like strands are stiff with a frayed end. These are supposed to stick into the hole in the web shooter, but they don’t stay put very well at all. And even when they do there’s not a lot to do with them, so I only bothered to include one picture to show how it works. I think a better way to go here would have been have a pair of hands with a plastic web permanently attached. It’s not like this hefty boi was going to be swinging on webs anyway.

NECA’s Quarter-Scale figures tend to run from around $80 all the way up to $125, depending on where you look and how much in demand they are. I wound up getting Spider-Man for $75 and I even had a Gift Card, so he was basically free. These figures can be a real bitch to collect unless you have tons of space, but they’re a fantastic way to express your undying love for that one character you want showcased in your collection. I’ve had this fella sitting on the corner of my desk and he gets plenty of attention when visitors come round. The main reason I picked this one up was because I missed out on the Hot Toys version of this Spider-Man, so this big guy is kind of like a consolation prize for me. And not a bad one at that! He may not reach the levels of craftsmanship of a Hot Toys figure, but he sure makes a statement and he’s a lot more fun to play with. And as much as I love him, I am now once again swearing off buying any more of these. For reals this time. NO MORE!

Jun 5 2020

Ghostbusters: Plasma Series (Part 2) by Hasbro

A couple of days ago I checked out the Ghostbusters from Hasbro’s new 6-inch Plasma Series figures, and as promised I’m back today to open up the last two figures, Gozer and Dana, and then put together the Terror Dog Build-A-Figure.

We saw the packaging last time, but here it is again. It’s strangely stylish and artsy, it’s collector friendly, and there’s a sentence about the character on the back panel along with some multi-lingual gibberish. I thought it kind of odd that Dana/Zuul’s box just has Barrett on the front for her name. Why not Zuul? Why not Dana? I don’t think her last name was played up all that much in the movie. Oh well. Each figure comes with one of six pieces needed to assemble The Terror Dog, or I should say A Terror Dog. Let’s go ahead and start with Gozer.

Surprisingly, we never got Gozer as part of Mattel’s line, but Diamond Select did one for theirs, although she was a bit chunky. NECA did release a really nice looking Gozer a while back, but she had very limited articulation and no actual Ghostbusters to go with her. I think Hasbro did a solid job on this one, especially since her costume isn’t the most interesting thing to work with. Her body is cast in a pink pearlescent plastic, which looks cool and seems pretty accurate to the screen grabs I’ve consulted. I like that they gave it some texture too. The only other sculpted detail are the weird clusters of bubbles scattered about here and there.

The head sculpt is passable, but I don’t think it’s great. It doesn’t feel like they were going for an actual likeness here, but more of a general similarity. I don’t dislike it, but the Ghostbusters’ portraits set a pretty high bar. Still, the hair sculpt looks fine, and the printed details on her face are good.

Her articulation is similar in many ways to Marvel Legends gals. The legs have ball joints at the hips, double-hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. Her arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, and the wrists are on hinged pegs. Oddly, she has both a traditional ab-crunch hinge and a ball joint under the chest. The neck is ball jointed and hinged.

Gozer comes with two extra hands, each with effect parts attached to make it look like she’s shooting lightning out of her fingertips. The lightning is cast in a translucent purple plastic. It’s pretty standard stuff, but I dig it a lot. All in all a decent figure, but nothing terribly special. Let’s move on to Dana…

Well, technically, there is no Dana only Zuul. This is clearly possessed Dana and she’s looking pretty good. Both Mattel and Diamond Select gave us this version of Dana, although Mattel went a very different route with this figure, giving her swap out legs (and very little articulation) so she could stand or be posed on an included pedestal. I never picked up Mattel’s figure, I think it was an SDCC Exclusive, but I thought everything about it looked great, except for the likeness. Like Diamond, Hasbro went for a more traditional action figure with standard articulation in the arms and legs. On the downside, the sculpted dress kind of inhibits a lot of what you can do with her legs.

With that having been said, this figure’s early solicitation pictures did not impress me, but in hand I think she turned out fine. The dress has a billowy effect to it, although admittedly the sleeves are sculpted with the intend of the arms being down at her sides. The coloring here is pretty basic, but well executed.

The likeness isn’t at all bad either. NECA isn’t in any danger of losing their cred at sculpting Sigourney Weaver, but Hasbro’s is no slouch either. I know who this is supposed to be and it leans more toward realism than caricature. The printed facial features look great, I love the demonic red glare in her eyes, and the hair sculpt is particularly well done.

Dana doesn’t come with any accessories, which is a bummer since even though she isn’t missing anything I can think of, this would have been a prime opportunity to at least pack in one (or three!!!) more proton streams. So yeah, once again it’s the accessories (and lack thereof) that remains my biggest gripe with this series. But they did each come with a BAF part, and that leads me to our final stop on this assortment of figures is the Terror Dog BAF!

Once again, we didn’t get Terror Dogs from Mattel, but both NECA and Diamond Select tackled this doggo as packaged figures. Hasbro’s comes in six pieces (four legs, a body, and a head) and it all snaps together easily. It’s a decently sized figure and I think going the Build-A-Figure route on this guy was the right choice. Hasbro did a nice job with the sculpting here, as there’s detail over the entire body, giving him a rough, elephant-like look to his skin. The body still has a shiny finish and there’s some silver paintwork on his back, with each of the claws individually painted.

I think they did a fine job on the head sculpt, particularly inside the mouth where you can see his forked tongue and terrific rows of teeth. The jaw is hinged so you can display him with the mouth open or closed, but after Hasbro put all that work into his maw, it seems a shame to close it. I also have to say how much I dig the red metallic paint they used for his eyes. It looks great.

This guy has plenty of rotating hinges to offer up decent articulation. I think the only thing worth nit-picking is the upper joints in his back legs are just sculpted and not actually jointed, but I didn’t find that it mattered much when I was playing around with him. The only real downside to this beast is that if you want two for your display you have to buy the whole wave again, and I don’t know too many collectors who will be willing to do that. My guess is that Ebay will be full of this wave sans BAF parts. I know Hasbro has packaged some of their Marvel Legends BAFs as single figures as of late, and I’m hoping they will do it with this Terror Dog. I really do want another.

I think Gozer and Dana were fine picks to round out this wave, even if I don’t know that I enjoyed them as much as the actual Ghostbusters. Still, I’m happy Hasbro did these and I’m certainly glad to have them in my collection. They also make me very curious to see what the future plans are for the Plasma Series. Will we get another wave? Will we get ghosts? Are they going to go the Mattel route and give us a ton of variant Ghostbusters? Will this series eventually just tie into the new movie? Mysteries abound! But I know I’ll be waiting to see what comes next.

Jun 3 2020

Ghostbusters: Plasma Series (Part 1) by Hasbro

It seems like everyone’s had a run at making Ghostbusters figures. Mattel had a pretty successful line on Matty Collector with their roughly 5-inch Movie Masters line and some 12-inch figures. Mezco’s done some, Diamond Select has done a bunch, Blitzway has done some higher end ones. Even LEGO and Playmobil had their turns at the ecto trough. Well, with a new movie on the way, Hasbro has snapped up the rights, but before the new film hits, we’ve got a wave of six 6-inch figures from the original film and with a Build-A-Figure too! Now, because the Ghostbusters themselves are rather similar, I’m going to tackle all four of them in today’s review, and then I’ll be back on Friday to have a look at Gozer, Dana, and the Terror Dog Build-A-Figure!

The packaging is fairly reminiscent of Hasbro’s Star Wars Black Series in that there’s a cardboard box with a clear plastic tray and a cover that forms the bubble. The deco is rather creative, and the collector friendly box shows off the figure inside quite well. The back has a single line about the character inside and lots of multi-lingual stuff. It also shows the six figures in the wave and that each one comes with a part to build the Terror Dog, Vince. There’s even a bit of stylish art on the spines that’s strangely quirky and feels totally out of place. I’m going to use Peter Venkman to look at the basics on these figures, and then I’ll check out the different particulars of the other three Ghostbusters.

Peter comes donning the familiar pale gray Ghostbusters jumpsuit, showing off all sorts of sculpted wrinkles and rumples. The various pockets and zippers are there too, but the jumpsuit sculpt strikes me as being rather soft. And as we’ll soon see, Peter also happens to be the only Ghostbuster with his pants not tucked into his boots, which I thought was a pretty nice detail. The boots and gloves are painted with a black high gloss finish, and I can just make out a bit of his black t-shirt peaking up under the jumpsuit’s collar. Peter’s suit features the Ghostbusters logo on his right shoulder and a sculpted name badge on his chest to the right. His utility belt features a non-removable walkie-talkie, some other bits and bobs, and he’s got that weird yellow tube that comes out the back of the belt and into the front of his left pants leg. I subscribe to the running gag that these are in some way related to catching urine if the Ghostbusters piss themselves with fear. From the back we can see that he has sculpted elbow pads, and a hole in the back to help secure the Proton Pack. Yup, Hasbro heeded one of Mattel’s early mistakes and decided to make the packs removable, which I am extremely happy about.

I really dig the articulation on these guys, which happens to be very similar to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double-hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double-hinges in the elbows (Woo-Hoo!!!), and swivels in the biceps. There’s a ball joint in the waist and the necks are ball jointed and hinged. The jointing on these figures feel great, and they are tons of fun to play around with! Everything I said about Peter applies to the other three guys, except for the pants legs being tucked into the boots.

The head sculpts here are all very well done and they’re each instilled with some personality. Peter’s is an excellent Bill Murray likeness right down to his goofy smirk. The hair sculpt is particularly well done, and this figure uses Hasbro’s relatively new method of printing the facial details on instead of painting them. There’s a little mold flashing on my figure’s face, which I’ll need to shave off, but otherwise I couldn’t be happier with how this portrait turned out.

Next up is Winston and here we have another solid likeness, in this case to Ernie Hudson. The facial features are all very well defined, the printing looks good, especially his mustache, and his hairline is sharp. And as I understand it, if there’s a steady paycheck involved he’ll believe anything you want.

The heart of the Ghostbusters, Ray Stantz is a dead ringer for young Dan Ackroyd. You know, from before he lost his mind and started hawking skull vodka and gassing on about aliens and nine-eleven. I don’t think Ackroyd’s likeness is particularly easy to get down, so I have to give Hasbro some major props here for succeeding at it so well. Plus he has a great, almost blank expression as if he’s complimenting the third mortgage he just took out on his parent’s house. This is just great work for this scale.

And finally we have Egon, modeling the likeness of the late, great Harold Ramis. I think if I were to rank these likenesses from strongest on down, Egon might be at the bottom. But that’s not to say I think it’s a bad portrait at all. Hand me this head and I’ll know exactly who it’s supposed to be. I just think that Hasbro managed to capture the other three just a tiny bit better. To be fair, though, I don’t think there’s a bad noggin in the bunch. Sculpting the glasses as part of the head was definitely the way to go here, and I love how they sculpted his poufy hair.

With the jumpsuit bodies so similar to each other, Hasbro had to really nail the portraits on these guys and I’m so happy to say that they did it. The figures look great together and I’m excited to have a look at their equipment. As I mentioned earlier, I’m very pleased Hasbro decided to make the Proton Packs as separate accessories. If you collected Mattel’s line then you no doubt remember that the first releases had the packs permanently attached and only later did they release new versions of the team with detachable packs. Permanent packs became a problem when Mattel started eyeing up an Ecto-1 release for the figures to sit in. Could it be that Hasbro is planning something like that? I do hope so!

While the peg holes in the back could have been used as a cheap and lazy way to attach the packs, I’m happy to say that the pegs are just to secure the packs on the figure. They do each have shoulder straps and a waist strap all cast in soft green plastic. The straps can be unhooked on the lower left side to help get them onto the figure and pressing it into the back makes certain that it isn’t going anywhere. As a result, the packs fit so well it actually looks like they might be permanently attached. The sculpts for each pack appear to be identical to me, with all the crazy tubes and wires coming off of it. There’s some solid paintwork on these as well, there’s even a bit of variation on the red lights on the lower part of the pack. The only gripe I have is they didn’t get the warning stickers on them, but at this scale I guess that would be tough. Surprisingly, the packs don’t make the figures all that back-heavy and I was able to stand them just fine without having to lean them forward hardly at all.

The wands tab into the sides of the packs very securely and the hoses seem to be pretty durable. They can be pulled out of the bottom of the pack and pegged back in again, which is a nice alternative to having them tear out if stressed too much. The wands look good, but it’s worth noting that they lack a little detail that Mattel had on there’s, most notably the red wire loop on the end. The figure’s hands are pretty well designed to grab the wand in the back with the right hand and cradle it in the left and they look damn good with the wands at the ready. In addition to the Proton Packs, each figure came with one accessory, and here’s where Hasbro lost me just a little bit. But I’d better not get ahead of myself.

Venkman comes with a Ghost Trap and overall I think it’s a nice piece. There’s plenty of detail and the paint is very well done. On the downside, it doesn’t come with the foot pedal and cord like Mattel’s did. Also, Mattel’s was a solid chunk of plastic and Hasbro’s is hollow. Granted, that’s not a big deal, but still worth mentioning. Luckily with the scale being similar, I can swap out Mattel’s in place of Hasbro’s.

Ray comes with his Ecto Goggles, which can be worn up on his forehead or down over his eyes. This is a pretty simple accessory but it fits well and looks good on the figure. There’s a hook on Ray’s belt where you can hang these, but they don’t stay put very well.

Egon comes with his PKE Meter and I think Mattel did a much better job with this accessory than we got here. It had more detail and you even got a few different ones with the arms at different positions. I do, however, like that it can be pegged onto Egon’s belt when he’s not using it, even if it’s always on and detecting ghosts. Still, this is another case where I may swap in Mattel’s accessory for this one. And since it’s so damn small, I think Egon should have been bundled with as econd Ghost Trap. Hell, maybe all of them should have been.

And finally, we have the biggest slap to the face Hasbro could have done. Winston comes with a proton stream. And he’s the only one that comes with a proton stream. So you get four Ghostbusters and only one freaking stream. What the hell, Hasbro? How could you possibly have made such a terrible and disappointing decision? I realize Mattel didn’t include any with there’s in the beginning but they did eventually. It’s a real shame because the stream attaches to the wand perfectly and it looks great! My God… What a pisser! OK, let’s move on to some comparison shots with the old Mattel figures…

I think the sculpted details in the Mattel bodies hold up fairly well. Some of the details are even crisper, and I like some of the differences, like the folded gloves tucked into the belt. But boy those head sculpts have not aged well at all. I mean, they weren’t all that great to begin with, more like caricatures than actual likenesses. The Mattel Proton Packs have some sharp details, but they look skinny and demure compared to Hasbro’s big and beefy Packs.

I’m sure we will eventually get Slimer in the new line, and possibly even some of the more iconic ghosts, but until then the Mattel ghosts work great with the new figures. I pulled all of mine out of storage and I’ll be displaying them with Hasbro’s figures for sure.

And if you bought Mattel’s Walter Peck then you have a Containment Unit that displays great with these guys. It even works with the new Hasbro traps.

And finally, here are the boys with Diamond Select’s Mr. Stay-Puft bank.

And so, in the end we have some absolutely terrific figures, with some very good and some other ho-hum accessories. With the exception of the Proton Packs, nearly every accessory included with these guys feels in some way like a step down from the ones that came with Mattel’s line. And when I come down to it, it just makes Hasbro look kind of cheap. Could you really not afford to give each figure a proton stream? Could you not have tossed in an extra PKE Meter with the arms down? Maybe give us one opened trap with the closed one? Are you planning on selling an accessory set later on down the road? Or maybe there’s a plan to pack a proton stream in with ghosts? I can just imagine how many Winston figures I’m going to see on the pegs with the proton stream missing. ARGGGGHHH!!! But with all that having been said, I don’t want to end this review on a sour note. I really do dig these figures, and while I’ll concede that my older Mattel figures are now obsolete, I can at least repurpose some of their gear and their ghosts. Join me back here on Friday and I’ll have a look at Gozer, Dana, and the Build-A-Figure!

Jun 1 2020

Captain Marvel (Deluxe) Sixth-Scale Figure by Hot Toys

I’m really trying to commit to getting some of these Marvel Hot Toys figures reviewed on Marvel Mondays, but these take a lot more time than Legends reviews. Nonetheless, I was off this past weekend and a new Hot Toy arrived, so I thought I’d sneak this review into the mix for today. It was waaaaay back in February of 2019 that Hot Toys opened pre-orders for their Captain Marvel figure. I hit that pre-order button the day she went up and she just hit my doorstep this past Friday. Fifteen months later! Now, Hot Toys collecting has never been a game for those who lack patience, but that turn-around time was pretty ridiculous! Today I’ll be checking out the Deluxe version, which means there are a couple of extra accessories over the regular release.

The box art is very attractive, complete with a lenticular type front panel on the sleeve and shimmery letters. But it’s still just a flimsy window box with an equally flimsy sleeve. I’m sorry, but these figures are expensive and I don’t think the presentation is all it can be. And with rare exceptions, like Doctor Strange, it hasn’t been for a long while. Nonetheless, the figure comes in a plastic tray with a ton of extra bits and effect parts scattered around it. I should note that the February pre-order date meant that I bought this figure about a month before the Captain Marvel movie came out. And while I certainly didn’t hate the movie, I did think it was fairly disappointing. On a few occasions in the past, I’ve come out of Marvel movies buying the accompanying Hot Toys figures on my phone while walking to the car. Here, it kind of put a damper on this purchase. Still, in the end I absolutely loved the look of the costume, so I wasn’t about to cancel it. Besides, I wasn’t all that smitten with the Doctor Strange movie, and that remains one of my favorite Marvel Hot Toys figures in my collection. And in the end, when this figure showed up, I was still every bit as excited to check her out as I always am.

Carol comes out of the box with some plastic protectors her costume, but once that’s all removed she’s all ready to go! And damn, she does indeed look marvelous! The costume designers did such a beautiful job faithfully recreating her comic costume for the film, and likewise the wizards at Hot Toys did an equally impressive job creating it for this figure. The underlying suit is comprised of a super thin rubbery material, similar to what’s on my original Avengers Black Widow figure. But it’s also reinforced with plastic armor on the torso, shoulders, forearms, knees, and boots. What’s particularly impressive is how seamlessly they coexist, particularly the torso piece. It’s genuinely tough to tell where the armor ends and the flexible suit begins.

I just can’t say enough good things about how well the coloring on the costume turned out. It’s just pure eye candy. The blue and red have a sumptuously satin finish that pairs so well with the gold piping and trim. And I particularly love how the starburst on her chest turned out. Likewise, the stitching is immaculate and the suit is tailored so well that it looks like it’s practically painted onto the figure. And yes, that means it does hinder the articulation big time! I can get a decent range of motion out of her shoulders and elbows, but below the waist is limited because of how tight things are in the groin area. Even wide stances make me worried that I’m going to pop those stitches. When I get a figure like this, I tend to refer back to the official photos to see what the possibilities are and even those photos don’t go too far when it comes to dynamic leg movement.

While I’d be willing to say the costume is perfect, I can’t be quite that generous when it comes to the portrait. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful portrait and I can see a lot of Brie Larson in there, but I don’t think it’s one of their strongest likenesses. At some angles it’s great, but at others it’s a bit harder to see. I wasn’t all that satisfied with Ms. Larson in the role (although she grew on me a bit in Endgame), so this is one figure where I’m willing to be more forgiving on the likeness, maybe because it’s not as important to me. With all that having been said, the paintwork is as good as ever and the level of realism in the skin tone and the eyes is superb. As for the decision to go with sculpted hair, I think maybe they should have gone with rooted hair here. It’s kind of weird to stand her beside my other Marvel Hot Toys ladies, all of which have rooted hair, and see her plastic coif. Then again, I’ll likely be displaying her quite often with her masked head, which we’ll get to in a bit.

As a Hot Toys figure, you just know Carol comes with a lot of hands! Here you get fists, relaxed hands, a left STOP hand, and some gesturing hands. These are switched out in the usual manner by popping them off the ball joint, but since there’s a light up feature in her arms, the posts are fixed into the forearms. As a result, I find myself being extra careful swapping the hands. If the posts snap here, you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Each of the hands feature sculpted and painted red finger-less gloves with gold piping to match her forearm bracers.

And as mentioned earlier, in addition to the extra hands, you get an extra head. Using this one involves also swapping out the neck post from the bare neck to the covered one that goes with the mask. Her sculpted cowl covers all but the lower part of her face. There are all sorts of cut panel lines in the cowl as well as more of that pretty red and blue to match the rest of the uniform. Her mohawk sprouts from the top and is beautifully sculpted. And now it’s time to turn down the lights a little bit so we can enjoy some of the light up features, this figure has to offer.

The head features a swap-out mohawk, which is molded in translucent yellow plastic, and an electronic box inside the head, powered with three cell batteries. One of Hot Toys’ biggest stumbling blocks over the years has been making the electronic features of their figures more accessible. Here, it’s not too bad. Buy lifting off the head you get access to the on/off switch on the back of the box. A remote control would have been better, but I like that it can be done without even picking up the figure or taking her off her stand. The light up effect in the mohawk is very bright and it looks great, but it’s the eyes that really sell it here for me.

Carol also features a light up feature in her arms, which works in conjunction with a number of effect parts and a pair of arm bracers cast in brighter plastic to make them look like they’re channeling energy. Again, accessing the feature here isn’t too bad, and since you’ve got to swap out the fists anyway you’ll have access to the on/off buttons. First off, she has a pair of translucent fists, which light up brilliantly.

These can also be used with translucent blue energy effects that fit over the bracers. I’m not terribly impressed by these. The sculpts actually make them look more like foliage than energy. They kind of remind me of bigger versions of the effect parts you might find with a Marvel Legends figure. I doubt I will get much use out of these.

A much nicer effect are these energy fireballs, which snap on in place of the fists. I love the swirling sculpt on these and they’re cast in a mix of clear and yellow plastic, and if you look closely you can see that they sculpted the translucent blue fists in the center of them.  These are easily my favorite effect parts that come with the figure, and I think they look cool enough even without the lights, that I would consider sometimes displaying her with these on.

Finally, she comes with two huge mega-beams, which also attach in place of fists. I only attached one for the photos because the two of them make her top heavy and I’m not too keen on these either. The light up feature on these works well, but they’re kind of ridiculous. They’re basically hollow tubes of blasting energy. I don’t recall these being listed in the solicitation pictures so they were a total surprise to me. They definitely add value to the box, because they use a hell of a lot of plastic, but I just don’t think the effect works all that well. OK, let’s turn the lights back up and check out the accessories that are exclusive to the Deluxe version.

The first of the two Deluxe accessories is her leather bomber jacket, which fits right over her costume and is surprisingly easy to put on. The only thing to watch out for here is her sculpted hair, as the ends can be a little sharp and I can imagine it damaging the jacket if you aren’t careful, especially when turning her head. I also remove her arm bracers when she’s wearing the jacket, as it just makes it easier to put on. The jacket is a beautiful little garment and tailored to fit perfectly. It’s got soft elastic material around the lower edge and the wrist cuffs, a large patch on the back, a name patch on the front left of her chest, and an American flag patch on the left shoulder. I think this looks fabulous on the figure, and I’ll likely be displaying her with it when I’m using the unmasked head.

The other Deluxe accessory is Goose the Flerken! To know me is to know that I’m a cat lover and I’m very happy that Goose got a figure of his own. It’s an adorable little static figure that features some great attention to detail, like the collar and name tag, and some good coloring, but Hot Toys had better not quit their day job of sculpting human likenesses. The painted details on the face here look almost cartoonish and I get no sense of realism from any aspect of this little guy. I’m still happy to display him with the figure, but if you’re considering getting the Deluxe for Goose, I’d take this into consideration before spending a lot.

And our last stop on this review is the figure stand. The base remains the same seven-sided platform that Hot Toys has been using for Marvel for a little while now. The surface has a colorful illustration of the movie logo along with the starburst from Carol’s chest piece. I’m usually fine with them leaving the base plain black, but I’ll confess I do like the colors here a lot. The name plate also stands out, and they go with the name Carol Danvers instead of as Spider-Man would say, her made-up name. Instead of the usual plastic post and crotch-cradle, the stand here is a thick flexible tube with a clamp that grabs the figure’s waist. It can be adjusted up or down so that she can be displayed standing or hovering.

While I’ve had some nitpicks along the way, I have to say I’m extremely pleased with how this figure turned out. And despite not being a huge fan of the movie, I’m still just as excited as ever to put Captain Marvel on my shelf. This is just one of those figures that pops out at me even among all the other colorful Marvel characters in my Hot Toys display. And at about $260, this figure feels like one of the better values I’ve had in a Hot Toys lately. Besides the amazing work they did on the costume, you get a second portrait, light up effects in the head and arms, four sets of effect parts, the bomber jacket, and a Flerken. And yeah, Goose didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped, but if I remember correctly, they the Jones figure that got bundled with Aliens Ripley didn’t turn out so hot either. Maybe Hot Toys just has problems with cats.

May 29 2020

Mythic Legions (Siege of Bjorngar): Bolthor The Tower by The Four Horsemen

I couldn’t tell you exactly how long it’s been since my last Mythic Legions review, but I do know it’s been too long. That new wave (with the horsies!!!!) will be shipping before I know it, and I’m not getting any closer to being caught up. As memory serves I was still working my way through the Ogres introduced in the Siege of Bjorngar, so I’ll pick up where I left off by opening up the mighty Bolthor!

Yes, the Ogres were a brand new class of figure, somewhere between the regular-sized figures and the mammoth Trolls. They come in beautifully illustrated and collector friendly window boxes, which I probably won’t be keeping because I barely have space for all these figures let alone their packaging. And technically Bolthor isn’t really an Ogre, he’s a Giant! Well, actually he’s a Half-Giant! Wait, how are Half-Giant’s made? Do actual Giants (who are presumably much larger than Half-Giants) have sex with regular people? HOW THE HELL DOES THAT WORK??? Actually, I probably don’t want to know. From his little bio, Bolthor is said to be agreeable company as well as a powerful fighter, and he has aligned himself with the forces of none other than Attlus the Conqueror! Oh yeah, did I mention his nickname is The Tower?

One of the key factors of Mythic Legions’ staggering success has been T4H’s ability to repaint and recombine parts into brand new figures, and Bolthor here is a perfect example of that, only heavy on the repainting and not so much the parts swapping. Both his body and outfit are directly borrowed from both the Ogre Legion Builder and Kkurzog. The only change-up is that he’s wearing the optional simpler wrist bands that came with the Legion Builder and the disc in his belt is the design of the Legion Builder as well, as opposed to the skull insignia worn by Kkurzog. But basically, if you have those two figures, than you’ve seen everything The Tower has to offer, at least from the neck down.

And so, I won’t go into too much detail with the sculpt, because I’ve covered it twice already, but I will say that it looks as amazing as ever with this new deco. The skin tone has been changed from Ogre green to a tanned human flesh, which still brings out all the muscles, sinew and veins that are in the sculpt. Bolthor’s outfit has a bit more of a bronze motif, and I’m still impressed by detail work in his harness. The plates on have individually sculpted and painted rivets, the straps have realistic leather texturing, and that elaborate belt remains a masterpiece. Each “leather” strap has a detailed bronze medallion, the bones look great, and the whole ensemble is worn above a furry barbarian diaper. Bolthor’s lower leg armor is colored the same as Kkurzog’s and still consists of the crude and jagged Orc-style armor with some kind of horns or teeth embedded in them. Unlike Kkurzog, who went barefoot, Bolthor has the heavy boots worn by the Ogre Legion Builder.

The head sculpt is brand new, with Bolthar wearing a helmet that only exposes the lower half of his face. His human-like visage has a pronounced chin and chiseled features. His down-turned mouth makes him look like he’s determined to hit something with a tree. The helmet is painted and textured to resemble iron, with plenty of pitting and cracks incorporated into the sculpt, and he has black ram horns protruding from each side.

Unlike the big Trolls, which were roto-scoped, mostly hollow, and had more limited articulation, the Ogre body is built with the same articulation as the regular figures, in other words lots of rotating hinges. That makes these fellows highly poseable and pretty damn hefty too. T4H have been including warnings with these figures about the joints possibly being brittle and snapping unless they are carefully worked out. I haven’t really had any difficulties in that area with any of mine.

The weapon is a repaint of the poleaxe that came with Ogre Legion Builder, and here’s my only real gripe about this set. Seeing as how the three Ogres from Bjorngar recycled so many parts between them, it would have been cool to get unique weapons with each one. Plus, the shaft on the axe looks a little dainty for such a big guy. With that having been said, the axe is still a gorgeous sculpt with some nice copper paint accents. I also dig the ability to change up the pole and make it shorter or longer.

 

I’ve been impressed with this new class of figures ever since I opened the first, and that sentiment has yet to wear off. Bolthor is probably even a little more exciting because the two Ogres were a lot more similar to each other and Bolthar at least feels like something new. And it’s cool to add such a heavy hitter to Attlus the Conqueror’s Wasteland Army. And I’m still not quite done with these big guys. Not yet. Next time I revisit Mythic Legions, I’ll check out the last of these fellas with Argemedes, an Ogre sized Cyclops from the Wasteland assortment. And then maybe I can get back to opening some of the regular sized figures again!

May 27 2020

Star Trek “Starships Collection:” USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A (XL) by Eaglemoss

It’s safe to say that I’m not a fan of what passes for Star Trek these days. For me the only good thing to come out of Discovery and Picard was that they reignited in me a desire to go back and watch the real stuff. Hell, even the worst of Voyager seems like a masterpiece now! I’ve also been building me a fleet of Eaglemoss ships and it’s long past time I open some of these up! And where else to start but with my favorite ship design in all of science fiction history… the singularly majestic Refit Enterprise!

My preference would have been to go with the original 1701, but I happened to find the 1701-A at a really good price and decided to compromise. This is the XL version, which makes it more than twice as big as Eaglemoss’ standard ships (in this case about 10 1/2-inches long), but it still features die-cast metal and plastic construction. It comes in a fully enclosed box with some pictures, including the fail of using a reversed image on the front, rendering the registry on the hull backwards. Ooops! Inside the box, The Enterprise is sandwiched between two styrofoam bricks, and the only assembly required is putting the stand together. Oh, and I’m shooting the ship without the stand for most of the review, for reasons I’ll get to at the end.

Oh what a beauty! I could pour myself a glass of Jameson and gaze lovingly at this ship for hours. When I call this my favorite ship design in sci-fi history, that’s not hyperbole. Them’s the facts. I just love to get lost in its iconic profile and the noble human drive for discovery that it represents. And boy is this a great model! The top half of the saucer is die-cast, giving this ship a hefty, albeit very front-heavy, feel. And if you’ve had some experience collecting Enterprise models, you may know one of the biggest fails tends to be the warp nacelles not aligning properly. Here, they are perfectly straight and parallel, giving the model a gorgeous three-quarter view.

The grills (thermal regulator system) laid into the nacelles looked black to me at first glance, which is how they are usually depicted on most models of this ship that I’ve owned. But much to my surprise, they’re actually cast in transparent blue plastic, which makes for a cool effect when held up to the light. The deflector dish is also cast in transparent blue plastic, which reflects light quite nicely. It doesn’t really resemble a glowing effect, but it does make it stand out. Meanwhile, the hull of the ship is a beautiful off-white, which is smooth and even throughout.

One of the things that really shows the model maker is committed to detail is the aztec pattern in the hull. Here it’s exquisitely executed and manages to be both easy to see and yet equally subtle. Additional paint applications are applied sparingly, but all the most notable points of interest are here. Particular stand outs include the bright yellow Antimatter Fill Port Hatch and the bright blue dual rows of observation windows. The dome on the impulse engine is painted blue, and they even printed the red outline for the cargo hatch under the shuttlebay. Other details include the gray paint on the emergency landing pads on the bottom of the saucer section, and the individual phaser turrets.

The sides of the secondary hull also include the delta emblems pointing toward the deflector dish, as well as the red racing stripes with some damn tiny printing between them. Here you can also see the two circular docking ports, circled by red rings in four segments. There are also some black painted windows scattered around the secondary hull.

The printed lettering on the saucer is sharp and crisp. Each character of both the registry and the name are outlined in red. A close up of the bridge module shows some more blue and red trim, some more tiny windows. The VIP lounge windows can be seen on the back of the bridge module, as well as the tiny bridge docking port. You also get more tiny printing along the edges of the saucer section.

That’s not to say this model is perfect. There are some details omitted, particularly around the edge of the saucer, and there is an unfortunate seam along the bottom of the secondary hull just below the observation windows. And yeah, now I’m really nitpicking. Because all in all, for a ship in this scale, I think they hit all the right points.

Finally, there’s the stand. I both love it and hate it! I love it because it is pretty rock solid and holds the model firmly. There’s no chance of this toppling over. Also, the bottom of the base is covered in swanky felt. On the downside, even though the stand is transparent, I don’t like how it ruins the profile. That’s why I didn’t use it for most of the pictures in this review. Also, sliding it on and off the saucer section makes me worry about scratches. That’s a problem because I constantly want to pick this thing up!

And for all the gushing I’ve done over this model, it had better be damn good, because it set me back $75. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I only need refer you back to what is sadly one of my most viewed reviews, where I trashed the Diamond Select Starship Legends Wrath of Khan Enterprise, and how disappointed I was with it. It was probably the single most disappointing purchase I’ve made in all my toy collecting years. I got into these XL Eaglemoss ships to finally replace that piece of junk and I’m so very glad I did. Sure, this Enterprise is smaller and has no electronics, but it’s beautifully made, extremely durable, and most importantly it looks so good on display. Maybe too good, because I’ve been keeping it on my computer desk for a few weeks now, and I constantly find myself picking it up and wooshing it around. For a non-articulated hunk of metal and plastic, this thing is still loads of fun to me.

May 25 2020

Marvel Legends (Banner Hulk Wave): Beta Ray Bill by Hasbro

One of the great things about having such a deep backlog of Marvel Legends is when I dig my hand into my pile of shame, there’s no telling what will come out. Case in point, today we’re going back to the Banner Hulk Wave and opening up Beta Ray Bill. I knew Bill was in there somewhere, and I’ve been hoping to get him in a random pick for a while now!

This assortment remains one of only a few few Modern Legends waves that I didn’t hunt down too enthusiastically. I wasn’t all that excited about the Banner Hulk BAF and I wound up giving a lot of the parts to my nephew anyway, but I may borrow it someday to review here. Eh, probably not… I think I’ve got enough on my plate as it is! Anywho, I have to give Hasbro some major props for the branding on this package. The snappy logo used for Bill’s name could have easily convinced me that it’s a movie tie-in. Sadly, no such luck, but the future holds many possibilities. There’s not a lot that could get me to want to go see a Thor movie starring Natalie Portman, but slap Beta Ray Bill in it, and I’ll be there.

Behold! Beta Ray Bill out of the package and looking damn cool! I’ve always found his backstory to be a little wanting, but who needs a great backstory when you’re an epic space man-horse in Asgardian armor? Egads, I love comics! The armor in question is a lot simpler in design than what The God of Thunder is usually wearing, but it’s still easily recognizable as being cut from the same cloth. Or mythril. Or whatever Asgardians make armor out of. From below the chest down it’s just smooth and black and showing the details of Bill’s fine muscles. The chest armor is painted with a gun metal gray finish that has a bit of a hammered texture to it. You also get two sets of the silver discs, similar to the ones that appear on Thor’s armor. A set of burnished bronze shoulder armor and sculpted wrist wraps round out the ensemble nicely. Not to forget the cape, of course! From behind, Bill is basically just a wall of cape! But it’s a very nicely sculpted cape!

With a face any mother could love, the head sculpt was easily going to make or break this figure. Happily, Hasbro did not disappoint. His horse skull visage is so grim it’s adorable and they really nailed the way his pronounced brow frames those pupil-less eyes. His head is topped off with a silver Asgardian winged helmet and the best surprise is that he has a hinged jaw! The sculpted tongue was a nice touch as well. Superb!

Bill conforms to most of the usual points of articulation I’m used to seeing on my beefy horse-men. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, there are double-hinges in the knees, swivels in botht he thighs and the lower legs, and the ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers to keep his feet flat on those wide stances. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double-hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The neck is both hinged and ball jointed, and I’ve already mentioned the hinge in the jaw. The biggest change up here is that he has a ball joint under the chest instead of the usual ab-crunch hinge.

Naturally, Bill comes with his trusty weapon, Stormbreaker, which makes me wonder what weapon he’ll have if he shows up in the MCU. Maybe he’ll just wind up with the Stormbreaker with the Groot handle. Either way, this mighty weapon is cast in gold plastic, has a ribbed grip, and a soft plastic lanyard coming out of the butt cap. Mine also has some ugly paint splotches on it. Boo!

Beta Ray Bill is one of those super fun characters who desperately needed an action figure. He’s also one of the stand-out figures for me from this assortment, and that’s saying something because there are some genuinely solid figures in this wave. So much so, that I may just work on wrapping up the remaining figures before moving on to more randomness.

May 22 2020

The Rocketeer by Diamond Select

The folks at Diamond Select have been busy raiding old Disney movie licenses for action figure fodder. Not long ago I checked out their offerings from the 1979 sci-fi flop, The Black Hole, and I’ve yet to getting around to their Tron figures. Well, now I’m back to have a look at their figure from the 1991 film The Rocketeer! To my knowledge, I believe this figure was actually released as part of the same case assortment as the two Black Hole figures. At least I got them all in one assortment from an online retailer.

I’d say the packaging is overcompensating for the film’s poor Box Office take, but then Diamond uses this over-sized presentation for all their Select figures. It looks nice, but it’s not collector friendly and when I’m done opening these, it feels like there’s usually a lot more trash to throw out than toy to keep. And if you decide to keep it sealed, DST made the dubious decision to package him without his helmet on. More on that in a bit! Despite not garnering the reception Disney had hoped, The Rocketeer seems to have come into its own lately with fans rediscovering just what a fun and charming movie it is, and that’s cool because we’re seeing some of that expressed through the collectible market. Funko had a couple of tries with both a 3 3/4-inch ReAction figure and a 6-inch Legacy figure. The ReAction figure was OK, but I never bothered with the Legacy release. Let’s see how DST did!

As you can see from the packaged shot, he comes out of the package without the helmet on, but I’m starting with the helmeted head, because that’s the look that I was most excited about. To me, the design of Cliff Secord’s costume is so iconic that it practically transcends the comic and film it’s based on. The retro Flash Gordon look of leather tunic and Art Deco hood ornament helmet is such a thing of beauty. And I think DST did a pretty solid job recreating the costume here. The trousers flare at the thighs in military fashion and his high boots look fine even though there isn’t a lot of detail to them. The tunic has a glossy brown finish to give it a leathery look and the chest piece is surrounded by sculpted buttons. If I have one complaint here it’s mostly with the odd jointing that DST uses. So let’s touch on that before moving on.

The legs use rotating hinges in the knees and ankles, which is fine, but I’ll never understand why they go with these lateral hinges in the hips. They just look weird. I’m not sure if there’s any articulation in the torso, but mine doesn’t want to move and I’m not going to force the issue. So that means no waist swivel, ball joint, or ab crunch. That’s pretty disappointing. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, and double-hinged elbows, which is fine, but the arms look a bit pinched and weird. Finally, the wrists and neck are pegged ball joints. You get a few sets of hands to swap out, including one pair without gloves. Some of the hand choices are odd. For example, there’s one that clearly looks like it’s meant to hold a gun.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. The helmet looks great. The big bug-like eyes and the segmented mouth grill are painted in black, while the rest of the helmet is painted over with a weathered brass finish. Of course, the design looks best in profile to show off that lovely back-swept fin.

And he’s not called The Rocketeer for nothing! DST did a wonderful job recreating the rocket pack, in all it’s curvaceous and bulbous glory. It’s got grills and rivets, and I can even make out the fan under the circular grill in the middle. There are some exposed cables sculpted above the thruster modules, and yes they even sculpted and painted the piece of chewing gum used to plug the leak in the film. The silver finish has a nice metallic sheen to it and gives way to a more functional gray down below, while the tips of the two tanks are painted bronze to match the helmet. Sadly, the pack is not removable.

On a downside, the un-helmeted Secord head is kind of embarrassing, and I’m not even talking about the likeness. The sculpt is really soft, the expression is strangely derpy, and the paint is really amateur, giving it a mannequin-like appearance. When I first saw this head I was instantly reminded of the Vault Dweller figure that Funko did for their short lived Fallout line. And I can’t say enough about how much that isn’t a complement. This just looks wooden and not at all befitting of a $25 collector figure. On their worst day Hasbro is turning out much better portraits than this in either their Marvel or Star Wars figures.

In addition to the hands and the extra head, you also get a replacement chest flap where it’s partially unbuttoned and hanging off. It’s not a bad bonus, I guess but I’d rather that cost went into a better portrait. It’s also the most likely reason we didn’t get some articulation in the torso.

And the figure also comes with the blueprints for the rocket pack, which is beautifully printed on a stiff piece of thin cardboard. This is a pretty cool addition and it’s a lot more high quality than I expected it to be.

The figure also comes with some excellent effect parts. First, you get two thrust pieces that plug into the rocket pack’s thruster cones. They’re cast in semi-translucent plastic with a yellow-orange tint to them.

And saving the best for last, you get this blast off effect piece that doubles as a display stand. The sculpting here is excellent with all the swirls of the rocket thrust mingling with a chalky smoke at the bottom. It also does a great job of holding the figure.

If I had to recap this review in one sentence, I’d say that I like this figure, but I don’t love it. Now, while I confess that I do enjoy the movie, I was originally going to pass on this figure. The fact that it was bundled in with The Black Hole releases was what made me concede to just order the case. There’s some good stuff here, to be sure, but DST has been doing their Select line for a long time, they should be on top of their game by now, and some aspects of this figure just doesn’t reflect that. I think I wound up paying about $24 for this guy, and while you definitely get quite a bit in the package to add value, I’d rather some of that just went into fine-tuning the figure itself.

May 20 2020

Transformers Siege: Smokescreen and Bluestreak by Hasbro

While I’ve already started dipping into the Earthrise reviews, I’ve still got unfinished business with Siege. As a result, I’ll continue to pepper some of those older releases in with the Earthrise figures now and again until I get fully caught up. Last week I did this with a look at Siege Ratchet and today I’m finishing off the Siege Datsuns (Well, Cybertronian Datsuns) with Smokescreen and Bluestreak.

Unlike Prowl, who was a regular release in Siege, these guys are a bit more confusing. Smokescreen was one of the Selects figures, which meant he came in an plain ugly box and I think he was exclusive to the Hasbro Pulse Shop. Bluestreak was released as part of the 35th Anniversary Collection, which seemed to be mostly repaints. but in only slightly altered packaging. This would piss me off to no end if I kept these in their boxes, but I don’t so I care not! Let’s start out with Bluestreak!

I already did a review on this mold when it was first released as Prowl and later Barricade, so I’ll stick to pointing out the differences, and in auto mode we’re just talking about the new paint jobs. I’m a little mixed on how Bluestreak came out. His deco consists primarily of bare gray plastic with some glossy black. It’s an interesting combination, but I’m just not all that crazy about how the finish on the gray looks so much more dull. Maybe Hasbro realized that, because they did give him some spiffy silver painted wheels. The red Autobot emblem on the hood toss in a splash of color, as does the red trim that can be seen through the transparent canopy. I don’t dislike the coloring here, I just feel like it could have been better with an all around glossy finish.

Smokescreen, on the other hand, well this is what I’m talking about. Sure, he has the advantage of a snappy red, white, and blue deco, but the finish looks great. In addition to the coloring, he also has some panels with Cybertronian writing, where the 38 appears on his traditional auto mode. I also really dig the black skeletal frame on the canopy and the way it emphasizes the sculpted detail inside. There’s no doubt about it, Smokescreen is the more attractive of the two, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Where Prowl just came with a gun to mount on the hood, these guys come with that gun plus two others, which can mount where the side mirrors would go. This combo makes for a particularly dangerous looking attack mode. Moving on to the robot modes!

I liked this mode well enough when it was Prowl and I like it just as much with these guys. With the bumper chest and the door wings, this is Autobot design at in its purist form. And I dig the deco here a lot more in robot mode. The duller gray plastic looks better on a robot than it does a car and the black with the addition of the red in the upper arms, upper legs, and abs makes for a quite striking combination. Yeah, this mold still looks a bit unfinished from the back, but all in all, I think the mold looks great in these colors.

The portrait looks to me to be the same as Prowl’s and that includes the “helmet” and those pronounced wings or horns or whatever you want to call them protruding from the central ridge. The silver paint looks great and the blue eyes are sharp and prominent despite the lack of light-piping. And unlike Prowl, Bluestreak has his twin shoulder guns, which we saw mounted on his auto mode. I think these look great and it bothered me a bit that they omitted them from Prowl. I guess in the end it serves to make the figures a little more distinctive from each other.

Smokescreen gets to keep all that beautiful blue and red paint from his auto mode, but the robot mode also adds a lot of black, which presents a pretty significant break from the colorful alt mode. I’m not saying I don’t like it, only that I find it interesting that Bluestreak got a bolder color statement going to robot and Smokescreen got muted. It still makes for a fantastic deco for the mold. Naturally, I would have liked it if Hasbro could have re-sculpted the hood and gave it that squared off apron, but this will still do just fine.

Smokescreen also gets an all new head sculpt, which suits him beautifully. The blue “helmet” is more rounded out and feels more integrated with his face. His brow wings are yellow and have an interesting cracked pattern sculpted into them. The silver used for his face is bright and lovely and he’s got some additional detail sculpted into the edges where his face meets the “helmet.” And as with Bluestreak, the twin guns we saw in his auto mode form his shoulder cannons.

When I reviewed Ratchet I’m pretty sure I commented about how I’m trying to get away from buying a lot of repaints with my Transformers. I easily passed on Soundblaster and I’ve yet to pick up the cell-shaded Optimus and Megatron (although those are still tempting), and I’m going to sit out all of the Netflix repaints that have popped up at Walmart. But when we’re talking about repaints that made up original characters? Well, those are always going to be fair game. The Datsuns were a cornerstone of my Transformers memories and Prowl was among my first Autobot figures when I was a kid. So yeah, I’m pretty much going to pick these guys up whenever Hasbro does them justice like this.