Oct 13 2018

Transformers “Power of the Primes” Abominus Combined!

Well, it took me a month, but I finally got through my look at Hasbro’s modern updates to the Terrorcons. These four Deluxe and their Voyager Class leader were all great figures on their own, but the real treat of getting them all together is combining them into Abominus and that’s what I’m going to do today! Hasbro’s modern Combiners have been pretty hit-or-miss with me. I loved Superion, Defensor, and Bruticus, and I thought Computron was solid, but I wasn’t a big fan of Menasor. Here’s hoping that Abominus turns out to be another win!

Of course, the Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes combiners are inspired by the old Scramble City design, which means that the limbs can be combined any way you like. Arm? Leg? Doesn’t matter. When it comes to the combiners that I’m familiar with (like Superion, Menasor, or Computron), I’m a real stickler on which figure becomes what based on the Sunbow cartoon series. But as I’ve noted a few times during my Terrorcon reviews that I never owned the original Terrorcon toys, nor are the characters all that meaningful to me. I was a teenager and getting out of Transformers by the time these guys were released, so I’m just doing my own thing here. And after some experimenting, I’ve found a combination that I dig the most and I’m going with that one. So I’ll apologize in advance if this isn’t the configuration most people are looking for.

Whatever configuration you choose, I have to say he’s quite spectacular. Not only do I think he’s pretty well proportioned (apart from those tiny feet!), but he holds together beautifully and can stand without toppling over like Menasor loved to do. I went with Blot and Sinnertwin as the legs because they strike me as the bulkiest and I think their leg modes compliment each other pretty well.  Meanwhile, I like the way Cutthroat’s wings look coming off the shoulder as well as Rippersnapper’s guns angled up off the other. I also used their respective Prime Armor as the hands, just to match the deco of the arms.

Hun-Gurrr makes for a fantastic torso. His pinkish slab of chest has some great detail on it, including the circular vents in the abdomen and the paint paint hits, which include silver, red, blue, and yellow all look great. I especially love the little twin Decepticon insignia that appear on the outsides of the chest, as well as the larger one on his right hip and the rub sign on his left. The contoured shoulders are quite distinctive and the foil stickers are a great touch. For a combiner made of up five really solid figures with really solid alt modes, I’m surprised Abominus turned out so well. It feels like very little (if anything) was sacrificed here to make it all work.

The head is a nice homage to the original toy, especially the helmet, which features the long side vents and extended antenna. The face is rather organic looking with a very pronounced chin and a yellow visor in place of eyes. The antenna are made of rubbery plastic and mine are a tad warped, but nothing too bad.

Alas, the stability of this guy really takes a hit when I started to pose him, which is why I really couldn’t do a lot with him for the pictures. The ratchets in his hips aren’t very subtle or strong, so the moment I put him in a wider stance, they give out and he either does a split or topples over. As a result, he’s not the most interesting toy to pose and photograph, but I’m still not too bummed out about it. He stands fine in neutral poses and that will work for when I choose to display him in combined mode. Another real plus is ho well he stays together. Even after playing around with him for quite a while, I never had any of his limbs detach or his shoulders come apart. That’s a lot more than I can say for most of the Combiner Wars Gestalts, and that goes a long way to make for a fun toy!

Abominus was a wonderful surprise, as I thought Hasbro would have been more or less done with combiners at the end of the Combiner Wars. Of all Hasrbo’s modern Combiners, I’d rank Abominus pretty high. Superion still holds the top spot for me, but I’d probably put this Terrorcon Gestalt on par with Bruticus as a close second. He looks fantastic and he holds together well enough that he’s actually fun to play around with. Sure, I’d love more stability in action poses, but when everything else is so good, I’m willing to accept compromise. I rarely display any of my combiner teams in their Gestalt modes, but here’s one where I’d be tempted to do it. And with that said, I’m going to be taking a little break from Transformers for the rest of the month as I try to get through some other things. I still have some unfinished business with Power of the Primes. Reviews of Leader Class Optimus Prime and Rodimus, as well as Predaking are all coming, but probably not until November.

Oct 12 2018

Transformers “Power of the Primes” Hun-Gurrr by Hasbro

It’s Friday again, Toyhounds, and I’m more than ready for the weekend. I’ve clawed my way through another hellacious work week and now it’s time to reward myself by opening up a brand new Robochangeformer. I’ve spent the last five weeks or so checking out the four Deluxe Terrorcons and that just leaves their leader, the mighty Hun-Gurrr. Let’s see if I can make it through the whole review without messing up the number of r’s at the end of his name, eh?

As the leader of the Terrorcon Combiner team, Hun-Gurrr is a Voyager Class and comes in a pretty standard Voyager Class window box.  He’s packaged in his robot mode, and you get some fantastic artwork of his double-headed beast mode on the front with epic sparks behind him and green flame shooting out of one of his mouths. It’s all very metal. The package is collector friendly, but be sure to have some snippers handy to cut all those plastic ties that are holding him into the tray. Let’s jump right in and check out his robot mode…

Hun-Gurrr’s robot mode takes the basic elements of the G1 toy and adds plenty of polish to make for a more stylized and all around better looking bot. The shoulders are a bit less pronounced and the legs are less blocky and a lot more interesting too. But the biggest improvement for me is the chest. The beast mode’s tail forms the middle of the torso, and I think it’s very reminiscent of the way some Decepticon jets wear their cockpit on their chests. Very cool! And while I do indeed like this robot mode well enough, I can’t help admit that the proportions are off. His arms and upper body look incredibly bulky when compared to his rather diminutive legs. It looks like a lot of weight for those chopsticks to handle, and his feet seem even smaller still! Now, it’s not a deal-breaker for me by any means, but I think the disconnect between his upper and lower half keeps him from being a top-shelf design.

From the back, Hun-Gurrr looks pretty good. He does have a boxy, but manageable, backpack, which is made up from the collapsed chest piece of his torso mode. He’s got some hollow leg syndrome going on, but I love how the lower jaws of the beast mode heads form heel spurs to keep him stable. And so while those feet are kind of puny, they do a fine job of keeping this bot upright. One more thing that I’m not all that fond of here is the way the beast feet hang off the backs of his forearms without really locking into place. It’s not uncommon for these to be flapping in the breeze while I’m posing this guy. A couple of clips would have worked wonders there. As for the deco, well it’s mostly faithful to the original toy with a muted combination of off-white and dark gray with some pinkish accents. We also get some metallic blue paint hits on the shoulders and foil stickers on the sides of his lower legs, that really make things pop. Finally, Hun-Gurrr features a foil Decepticon insignia sticker on each shoulder, with the left one being a rub sign.

Hun-Gurrr’s head sculpt is a decent nod back to the original toy’s portrait. The only thing painted here is his silver visor, the rest is left as bare pink plastic. The face has sunken cheeks and is rather angular with a pronounced chin and nose. The facial features are a little soft, and it’s not one of my favorite head sculpts in this assortment, but I still like it well enough.

Sadly, Hun-Gurrr doesn’t come with a rifle, but he does come with two Prime Armor pieces (also serving as Abominus’ feet), which can attach to his arms to form double blasters. I do like these pieces, but they add to his already bulky upper body. They also have a slot to plug in the Terrorcon Enigma and one other Prime Master, if you’re into that kind of thing. All in all, these work well as weapons, but I would have preferred a rifle. Let’s move on to the beast mode!

Hun-Gurrr’s alt mode is a four-legged wingless dragon thing and… hey… we’ve seen this before. Yup, this is extremely similar to Sinnertwin’s alt mode and I always thought it was weird having two such similar cyber-beasties on the same team. Still, between the larger size, vastly different deco, and skewed proportions, I think the two are distinctive enough from each other to make it work. Sinnertwin kept a fair balance between body and heads, whereas Hun-Gurrr’s necks and heads really dominate.

That’s not to say I’m totally in love with this alt mode. When you know what you’re looking at, it should be pretty obvious that it’s more or less the robot mode standing on his hands with his legs up in the air. The biggest issue I have is that the design doesn’t do anything to hide the robot mode’s pelvic area. Plus, the tiny, atrophied front legs just look weird to me. Still, the beast heads are a lot more fun on this mode than what we got on Sinnertwin and knowing that this design is in effect a triple changer with a torso mode, I’m willing to forgive a lot.

Hun-Gurrr rounds out the Terrorcon package pretty nicely. To me, he isn’t the high point of this team, but considering how much I’ve loved these figures, that’s not something to be ashamed of. He’s still a very good figure and a whole lot of fun. And that seems to be a running theme with Hasbro these days. The Deluxe Class figures have been mostly excellent while the Voyager Class figures have ranged from solid to underwhelming. Of course, I still have one more thing left to look at before I’m finished with the Terrorcons, so come on back sometime tomorrow and I’ll combine them to form… ABOMINUS!!!

Oct 10 2018

Masters of the Universe Classics: Dylamug by Super7

As promised, I’m back with another figure from Wave 2 of Super7’s MOTUC Collectors’ Choice series. If you’re just joining me, this is basically a continuation of Matty Collector’s Masters Classics line, with all new characters. Last week I opened up Wrap-Trap from The Evil Horde and I’m going to keep that sweet Horde lovin’ going this week with a look at what may be one of the wackiest MOTUC figures yet, Dylamug!

The packaging is mostly the same as what we’ve been getting all along. You do get Super7’s logo as well as a Tenth Anniversary tag, but otherwise this card design will fit right in with the one Matty used. The back of the card features some nice character art, a “Collect Them All” spread of the other figures available, and a bio of the character, which is all well and good, but all I need to know about Dylamug is that he likes forcing peasants to dance on tables and throwing pies at innkeepers. Yeah, he knows how to wield power! If you’re a mint on card collector, you may find that your Dylamug’s face isn’t completely dialed in right. Mine shifted a bit in transit, but that doesn’t bother me because I’m about to rip this bitch open!

Dylamug is kind of like MODOK meets Arnim Zola meets a Horde Trooper. He’s effectively a giant face in a can with spindly arms and legs. Other than the giant Horde symbol on his forehead, Dylamug’s body itself doesn’t sport a lot of detail, which lends itself well to the animated look of the cartoon, but might make him look a bit unfinished to some. There’s even a recessed square on his back that looks like it should have had some kind of sculpted detail, like circuitry or something. Indeed, some may say that Dylamug belongs more with one of the Filmation-based waves, but these are not hard and fast rules and I’m happy to let him coexist with my regular-flavored MOTUC Horde figures. Dylamug does have some black hoses running off his arms, legs, and shoulders, as well as a series of transparent tubes sprouting from the top of his head with various instruments inside them. I like these, they look like old radio tubes and give him a cool retro-tech kind of look.

Dylamug gets his name from the fact that the eyes and mouth on his face can be rotated to form different expressive combinations. It’s kind of like a different take on the Man-E-Faces or Tri-Klops gimmick. I don’t remember the gimmick being worked into his appearances in the cartoon, but it’s a pretty cool play feature. With three different sets of eyes and three different mouths you can come up with some neat expressions. I was a little worried about how this would work, considering Super7’s Filmation Tri-Klops came with his head stuck, but Dylamug has no issues with his facial swaps.

The articulation here isn’t bad for what he is. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders and hinges in the elbows while the legs rotate at the hips and have hinges in the knees. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, and there’s a swivel where his legs meet his head-body. I would have loved some swivels in the wrists, but I’m not disappointed with what we got. I’m also quite surprised that those leg joints can hold the bulk of the figure. Hopefully that will still be the case over time.

In terms of accessories, Dylamug’s extras are pretty hit and miss with me and all of them revolve around the Horde emblem on his forehead. You get one that’s designed after the Filmation look and one that’s designed after the vintage toy look. Swapping them out is easy as they just plug into a hole in his forehead and they stay put when handling him.

The third emblem is supposed to be an effect part to display him firing his laser beam, but the effect is pretty damn lousy. Most of the failure of this piece is in the paint job. If they had cast it in translucent red plastic it might have worked better, but as it is it just looks like he has a big dart sticking out of his head. To be honest, I would have so much preferred they designed some kind of crossbow attachment for his arm. Getting a Horde member without a personalized crossbow seems all kinds of wrong.

Since his reveal, Dylamug has garnered an unusual amount of scorn around some of the fan forums that I lurk at. Honestly, I’m not sure why. He’s a unique character and in a line full of crazy designs, he still manages to stand out in the crowd. Personally, I was super happy to see him get included in this wave and I’m extremely pleased with how he turned out. Sure, the effect part is a hopeless flub, but I’ll just toss it into The Bin of Forgotten Accessories. It’s not like it ruins the figure itself. Indeed, so far this wave is scoring a two out of two. Next Wednesday we’ll see if it can keep that record rolling as I open the third figure in the assortment. I just haven’t decided which one that will be yet!

Oct 8 2018

Marvel Legends: The Thing by Hasbro

Once again, I have to put the random Marvel Legends reviews on hold as I push a figure to the head of the line. And it should come as no surprise that I’m doing that for Ben Grimm. To know me is to know how much I adore the Fantastic Four. It’s that one comic that most captured my heart as a child and kept me coming back for more, right up until it was shit-canned over copyright-politics. Hopefully that’s getting hammered out now with the recent shifts in the big corporate landscape. But either way, I’ve dreamed about a Marvel Legends re-do of Marvel’s First Family ever since the line came back and now thanks to some exclusive releases through Walgreens, of all places, Ben Grimm marks the last release of the Marvel Legends Fantastic Four!

And oh man, I couldn’t be happier to be holding this. For the most part, finding the Walgreens exclusives hasn’t been too difficult for me. I was able to pick up most of them at the store around the corner from my home and a couple I grabbed off their website. Ben was a little tougher, but after hitting a Walgreens about ten minutes away, I believe I found a new untapped source because they had piles of Legends and quite a few of their past exclusives. I think a big reason finding this set me at ease is because I was afraid of how much I would have been willing to pay for it on the secondary market if it came to that. The packaging is the same as we’ve been getting all along, and Ben is quite possibly the largest figure I’ve seen crammed into one of these window boxes. Not to mention the extra parts really push that tray to its limits. There’s a Walgreens Exclusive sticker on the window and not much else to say, other than bye-bye to this packaging, because it’s clobbering time!

Here’s Ben out of the box and looking damned near perfect. When it comes to the sculpt here, there’s nothing at all for me to pick at. His costume consists only of his blue shorts with a black waistband and the rest of the figure is covered in glorious orange rock. The craggy skin is chock full of detail with an intricate network of crevices running between the rocky scales all picked out by a dark paint wash. The orange used for the skin is brilliant and combines with the blue shorts to make for a very colorful figure that looks like he just jumped out of a Marvel comic panel.

The Thing comes with two heads, both of which capture the character perfectly, complete with prominent craggy brow and baby blue eyes. The first head features a slightly neutral expression, although he still looks mildly pissed off. The second head is full on Clobbering Time with teeth exposed and a gaze that says he’s looking to do some damage. Honestly, I probably would have been perfectly happy with either head, and it’s a real treat that with all the original sculpting that went into this big boy, Hasbro still managed to sneak the extra portrait in there.

The same could be said for the extra set of hands. Ben comes with a set of fists and a set of open, clutching hands. Had they just mixed and matched these, I would have been fine with that, but the ability to swap out either or both is just a wonderful bonus. These also work well with the articulation for coming up with all sorts of clobbering poses. And if I had one thing about the figure that I absolutely had to nitpick, I would say that the rotating hinges in the elbows don’t offer the range of motion that double-hinges would have. Although, I will concede that the existing elbow points don’t interrupt the sculpt as much as the other option would have. Either way, it’s a compromise that I’ll happily accept.

Besides the elbows, the articulation here is right on par with most of Marvel Legends‘ big boys. The shoulders have rotating hinges, the wrists have hinged pegs. There are no bicep swivels, but that’s where the rotating hinge elbows come in. The torso features a swivel at the waist and a ball joint under the chest. The neck has both a hinge and a ball joint. Finally, the legs feature double hinges in the knees, swivels at the bottoms of the shorts, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles to help keep his big feets flat on the ground.

I try not to throw around the word “perfect” a lot when I talk about my toys, as it tends to cheapen the word, but I’m going to go ahead and roll it out for this review. I thing Hasbro did a fabulous job with The Thing. I’d like to think that’s not just my love of the comic and the character creating bias, but rather just recognition of a job well done. The sculpt and coloring are spot on and including the extra head and hands with what is already a big figure with so much new sculpting, well that just goes above and beyond!

Oct 5 2018

Transformers “Power of the Primes” Sinnertwin by Hasbro

Happy Friday, Toyhounds! It’s been a bitch of a week, but I’m cooling down with a couple of adult beverages, easing into the weekend, and rewarding myself for a job well done by opening up the last of the Power of the Primes Deluxe Terrorcons! If you’ve been around for my looks at Blot, Rippersnapper, and Cutthroat, then you know that I am absolutely smitten with these foul and evil little cyber-beasties. And so without further delay, let’s check out Sinnertwin!

Here’s a quick look at him in his package, and once again I’ll say that I’m not a fan of this overall design, but I do love the character art on these cards. I’m anxious to see the packaging for the new line and hope we get something a little more inspired and exciting. Anywho… The Terrorcons are all packaged in their robot modes, but you get a picture of the beast mode on the bubble insert to give you a good idea of what else you’re getting. Give me a second to get him free and we’ll start with his robot mode!

And what a nice, clean robot mode it is! Sure you get his beast legs on the side of his robot legs and his beast heads hanging down his back, but what’s here is pretty tidy and there really isn’t a lot of kibble to complain about. I like Sinnertwin’s big boxy chest, and while his arms do look a little diminutive compared to the rest of his body, I’d like to have the shoulders bulked up a bit, it’s nothing so bad that it ruins the figure for me. His combiner connector is pretty obvious and there’s a curiously large hole in his chest to accommodate the Prime Armor piece.

The coloring makes a strong statement with mostly yellow and blue, spruced up with some red and silver paint hits. There’s even a little purple on the panels of his chest. He’s rather bright and cheerfully colored for a Decepticon, which is probably why there’s a Decepticon insignia on both his chest and his left shoulder. The extra paint on his legs really goes a long way toward a more premium feel, and they even painted some silver in on the outsides of his upper arms and shoulders. All in all, I find his deco pretty pleasing and more than a little reminiscent of Titans Return Wolfwire. And I guess that’s not a bad thing.

Sinnertwin features a rather robust head with a well-defined blue “helmet” and a rather stern looking face. The silver paint on the face looks great, but on close inspection the yellow paint on my figure’s eyes could have been a lot cleaner. I didn’t even really notice it until I got in close, but it’s the first time I’ve seen anything close to sloppy face paint on one of my Transformers in a long while.

In addition to his Prime Armor piece, Sinnertwin comes with a pretty simple gun, which he can hold in either hand or can be mounted on his shoulders if you want to really mix things up.

Sinnertwin’s transformation won’t win any awards for ingenuity, so feel free to just toss out the instructions. You simply tuck away the robot head, fold out the beast heads, fold the legs back into the body and deploy the beast legs. With just a few more tweaks, you’re all done. In keeping with the Terrocon pedigree, Sinner’s alt mode is a weird two-headed wingless dragon kind of thing. And here’s where this figure starts to fall a little flat for me. There’s nothing overtly wrong with his alt mode, but it doesn’t really impress or excite me either. I mean, he’s OK and all, but he’s no Twinferno. The dragon colors remain true to the robot mode and it’s nice to see that all that paint on the robot mode’s legs is still on display in this mode. I will say that I dig his adorable little split tail!

The beast heads can move independently of each other and the jaws can open and close, but I’m not a big fan of the hollow necks, especially when I position one of the heads up high and it’s really obvious. I do like that they added some silver paint to the top row of teeth. It’s a shame that paint for the bottom choppers wasn’t in the budget. At least the purple horns and red eyes are a nice touch.

Sinnertwin also has a port on his back so you can plug in his gun, because everyone knows that two-headed dragons are even more bad ass when you strap a laser gun to their back. You can also plug it into the holes at the top of either of his front legs. And here’s a real surprise… I think the Prime Armor piece works beautifully on this guy in his beast mode. It bulks him out nicely and adds some spikes. You can also still put his cannon up there, so long as you’re happy with it over one of his shoulders.

The last thing I wanted to do was end this run of Deluxes on a down note, but there you have it. Sinnertwin is a perfectly fine figure, but he lacks that certain something special that I found in each of his three Terrorcon brothers. To me he’s the French Cruller in my mix of donuts. Not bad, but still my least favorite in the batch. I guess somebody has to, and you’re it, Sinnertwin. But to be fair, this was an exceptionally great assortment of figures, so really Sinnertwin doesn’t have too much to be ashamed about. And with all four Deluxe Terrorcons open, I just have their leader Hun Gurrr left! Will it be next Friday? Maybe. It just depends if I want to bump him for some more Halloween-y content or not.

Oct 3 2018

Masters of the Universe Classics: Wrap-Trap by Super7

Even with Matty Collector long dead and buried, Super7 is keeping the Masters of the Universe Classics ship afloat by continuing to release the figures! It’s not the same quantity as when Club Greyskull was going full guns, but so far it’s just been a couple waves of four each year. I’ve had the willpower to resist going in on the Filmation style figures because I just can’t fall down that rabbit hole of buying a second version of every damn character. I am, however, picking up the Collectors’ Choice figures, which are basically just all new characters.

And that second wave of four Collectors’ Choice figures just arrived at my door in this shipper box. There’s nothing in the way of packing, so if you’re collecting these to be Mint On Card, your mileage may vary. My shipper box was a little bit beaten up, but the figures arrived just fine. Inside, each figure even comes comes in an individual mailer, just like Matty used to do. This wave includes two Horde members, one movie-based character, and a comet chick. I’m going to start with the Horde Mummy Wrap-Trap, partly because it’s the beginning of Halloween Season and partly because he’s the figure I was most looking forward to!

Super7 didn’t mess around with the packaging much. It’s still the familiar green stone Greyskull design and apart from a few modifications, it could easily be taken for the original Matty packages. In addition to their logo, they did add the Tenth Anniversary icon to the package. They also brought back the bios on the cardbacks, something that Matty did away with in the waning days of their releases. And thank god for that, because otherwise, I wouldn’t know anything about any of these characters. And check out that bitchin’ character art on the back of the card! These figures look great carded, and if I had the money and space I’d love to have a wall full of them. But I don’t and they’re not collector friendly, so I have no choice but to tear these open.

Wrap-Trap is a mummy warrior with allegiances to The Horde and man does he look great! The sculpted mummy wrappings are quite detailed and painted in an off-white to make them look slightly aged. They’re also pretty ragged with uncovered spaces allowing W-T’s sinewy green muscles to show through. Each of these exposed areas include a piece of wrapping that’s hanging off to signify that they either got loose, tore, or just fell off. Wrappy also features a sculpted harness holding a large Horde symbol on his chest, and he has smaller Horde symbols on his lower left leg and left bicep. Finally, he has a simple waist belt with a large green oval belt buckle.

The paint on this figure is pretty solid, although there are a few lines between the green muscle and white wrapping that could have been a little sharper. That’s mostly just the case on my figure’s right bicep and the straps on his back. It’s not something that I noticed right away, but rather on closer inspection. It’s worth mentioning, but certainly not something that’s going to ruin my enjoyment of the figure. Everything else is excellent and I love the bright green they used for his exposed body. It really makes the figure pop next to the drab, white bandages. They also used a bit of black wash for the the Horde symbol on his chest, which adds some nice depth to the sculpt.

Wrap-Trap’s fantastic portrait ties this figure together beautifully. The head is covered in more mummy wraps, but has an exposed window to show off his eyes and the bridge of where his nose would be if it hadn’t rotted off his nasty face. The coloring is the real showcase here, as you have more of that great bright green with some yellow brushing and a pair of glossy red eyes set below his prominent and creased brow. He looks like a guy I wouldn’t want to mess with. He also looks like he probably smells a bit.

The articulation here is everything I’ve come to expect from my MOTUC figures with the addition of the hinges in the wrists. With over 100 reviews of these bucks, I’m not going to run through it again. I will say, however, that the joints feel really good. Nothing is stuck out of the package, none of them are too tight or too loose. I mention it because Super7’s previous wave had some of those issues, but here it’s all good!

Wrap-Trap comes with two accessories: A scimitar and a crossbow. The sword is a really unique looking piece with a curved hooded cobra making up the gold hilt. The blade has a sweeping curve and a forked point, which may or may not be meant to invoke a serpent’s tongue. He can hold the sword in either hand and it really suits him. I just love the imagination that went into this weapon’s design!

And speaking of imaginative designs, one of the reasons I dig The Horde figures so much is that they each come with their own personalized crossbow and some of these are damn cool. In this case you get a very Egyptian-themed weapon with a scarab and wing motif. The scrab is painted blue while the rest of the weapon is painted in some sumptuous gold with a satin finish. The scarab holds a green orb in his pincers, which I presume is where the energy bolt shoots out of. There are also some basic sculpted details at the back of the weapon suggesting some kind of controls. Considering how slow they usually are, it’s nice someone finally gave a Mummy a projectile weapon.

Of all the figures in this wave, I was excited for Wrap-Trap the most, and now that he’s in hand I can happily say he does not disappoint. I could make a few minor nitpicks about the paint, but otherwise this figure shows a marked improvement in the little QC niggles that showed up in the original Super7 wave. The sculpt is great, the colors are beautiful, and the figure is loads of fun to pose and play with. Not to mention I’m always thrilled to get more soldiers for my Evil Horde. And just an administrative note: For the next three weeks, Wednesdays here at FFZ are going to be occupied with these new Masters figures. My hope is that by the time I’m done getting through these Collectors’ Choice figures, I can turn Wednesdays over to the massive inrush of figures from Mythic Legions’ Advent of Decay, which are due to start shipping out in the next couple of weeks!

Oct 1 2018

Marvel Legends (Cull Obsidian Wave): Black Widow by Hasbro

It’s time to reach back into that big box of unopened Marvel Legends and pull out another random figure. And as you can tell by the title of today’s review, my grubby paw drew back with Black Widow from the Cull Obsidian Wave. So, let’s jump right in and check out the newest version of the MCU Avenger’s femme fatale from Infinity War.

I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed by Black Widow in Infinity War. It’s not because she wasn’t in it all that much, I can forgive that when the movie is trying to juggle 30-some characters for screen time. No, the problem was that I wasn’t thrilled with her costume change and I definitely do not prefer ScarJo as a blonde, which I guess proves that I’m no gentlemen. Yeah, I get it, she’s on the run with Cap and running incognito, but I still like to see my super heroes kicking ass in their iconic costumes. Beyond that, I thought she was fine in the scenes she was in, but I’m more than ready to see her get her own movie, or more preferably a Black Widow & Hawkeye film. So long as they get her back to being a redhead again. OK, I’ve digressed enough, let’s have a look at the figure…

And here she is in her new duds and, hot damn, this is a great looking figure. Natasha is basically wearing a variation of her usual black body suit with the addition of a green tactical vest. The suit itself features some texturing and the various sculpted straps, holsters, and belt are painted in a dark gray. The boots stand out a bit with a glossy black finish, and her wrist bracers are a little bit under-stated compared to some of her previous costumes. The most notable thing about the new suit is the green vest and the way it’s sculpted from soft plastic and laid onto the figure. It adds a lot of nice depth to the sculpt, particularly with the zipper partly down and the way the collar flap hangs loose. The vest also features some sharp silver paint hits for the zipper and fixtures. My only complaint here is that they didn’t include a way to attach her batons to her back.

The head sculpt is a total slam dunk. It’s amazing to look back on past MCU Widows from this line and see what I thought was solid work look pretty poor compared to what we’re getting now. It’s like when I’m at the eye doctor looking through that machine and everything looks fine and then the doctor shifts the lenses and it looks just that much better. I think they really nailed her bone structure and lips beautifully. And yes, the new printing method starts to look blurry and rough when you get in close with the camera, but when viewed by the naked eye it looks sharp and clean. I still don’t prefer Widow as a blonde, but they did a nice job with the hair sculpt.

Ms Romanov’s articulation is standard fare for a Legends lady, and here’s another case where I wish they would give them the same types of points as the dudes, at least in the arms. What she’s got is rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and hinged pegs in the wrists. Give me some double hinged elbows and swivels in the biceps and I would have been happier. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels at the thighs, double hinges in the knees, and the ankles are both hinged and have lateral rockers. Alas, the hinges on my figure’s ankles are frozen. I’ve tried working them a bit, but with how hard this figure was to find at a decent price, I’m not willing to force the issue. Maybe she’ll get a steam bath later. It feels like there’s still a ball joint under the chest, and the vest doesn’t inhibit it too badly. Finally, she has a hinge and ball joint in her neck.

Widow comes with two sets of hands: Fists and accessory holding hands, and that brings me to her accessories. First, she has a pair of disk shooters, which fit in her holsters. These are small, but still feature some sculpted detail. I’ve seen Infinity War twice in the theaters and probably four or five times on Blu-Ray now and I still can’t remember her using these. But hey, that’s a great excuse for me to pop it in and watch it again.

You also get her electric batons, which feature detailed sculpting in the hilts and some silver paint on the shafts. These are a little bit bendy, because they’re made of fairly soft plastic, but mine haven’t warped too badly. These are also a lot more fun than the disk shooters.

The batons can also be combined together to make one long staff, which was a pleasant surprise.

Hasbro has done an absolutely beautiful job with this latest MCU Black Widow and she’s quickly becoming one of my favorite MCU figures in recent memory. That’s saying a lot, since I wasn’t all that excited to get her in hand. Of course, getting her was no easy feat. I’ve said before that the MCU Infinity War figures have been tough for me to find at a decent price. Black Widow here is regularly selling for around $30-35 online with her BAF part, which has caused me to duck into some brick-and-mortar stores again and actually do some toy hunting. A couple of weeks ago it paid off, as I found her swinging on the pegs for $18 and I couldn’t have been happier.

By figurefanzero
0
Sep 28 2018

Transformers “Power of the Primes” Blot by Hasbro

Last week I diverted away from the Power of the Primes Terrorcons to have a look at Punch-Counterpunch, so let’s swerve back on course this week by opening up my third of the Deluxe Terrorcons… and it’s Blot!

Man, Hasbro came up with some great names for the Terrorcons. Even in a team with characters named Cutthroat and Rippersnapper, Blot is still a stand out moniker. He comes packaged in his robot mode with some great character art at the top of his card in his beast mode. You get the Generations emblem in the upper right corner and the brand name running up the side which, even after a few lines of this package style, will never stop looking weird to me. I’ve been starting off all the Terrorcon reviews in their robot modes, so let’s get Blot out of that bubble and check him out…

Blot is built off of the same engineering as Rippersnapper, and just like Cutthroat and Sludge, he borrows some parts but the majority of the figure has been reworked to make Blot his own bot. With that having been said, I really dig Blot’s overall profile. He’s got a big, beefy chest, powerful forearms equipped with slashing blades, and some beast legs folded up on his lower legs that adds to his bulk without being too kibble-y. The back of the package refers to him as a foot-soldier and that’s exactly what his robot design conveys to me. To me, this is a no-nonsense Decepticon trooper through and through.

Even from the back he looks great. The beast kibble is worn as a backpack, and it adds to his upper body bulk without detracting from the aesthetic at all. His lower legs are filled out, and everything else back here is nice and clean. I’m such a fan of Hasbro taking those basic G1 scramble city limb robots and fleshing them out in Deluxe Class figures and Blot here is another fine example of why. I didn’t think they’d ever top the Aerialbot limbs’ Deluxe makeovers, but these Terrorcons are giving them a run for their money.

Blot’s deco is absolutely superb. The blue is so dark that it almost might as well be black. Add the purple and you’ve got the makings for perfect Decepticon colors. The additional silver, yellow, and metallic blue paintwork gives the figure a great premium finish that we’ve been seeing in a lot of these Deluxe Class figures recently. As much as I loved the Deluxe figures in Titans Return, the early releases suffered from a severe lack of paint apps, whereas Hasbro has been killing it with the paint on a lot of these Power of the Primes figures and it is much appreciated.

And that brings us to the head sculpt, and I’m happy to say that Blot is characteristically sporting a flat slab of head. The squared off “helmet” looks like it’s made to take a beating. The face is painted silver and he has a red visor across the top. Every bit of his face makes him look like an unpleasant fellow. I get the feeling that the phrase, “Oh crap, Blot showed up!” is a line often spoken at Decepticon gatherings.

In addition to his Prime Armor piece, Blot comes with his weapon. Back in the day, this was referred to as a slime gun and oh boy am I sticking with that! I’d like to think this thing just burps out nasty splotches of acidic, sticky slime onto his foes, which sends them staggering off and screaming, “OH PRIMUS, IT BURNS!!! GET IT OFF ME!!!!”

Oh yeah, you can also mount it on him on either the left or right side as a shoulder cannon. It’s nice to have options, plus this gives Blot the ability to use the gun for long range attacks while slashing up close enemies with his claws.

With some shared engineering and parts, Blot’s transformation is a little like Rippersnapper’s, but there’s enough new here to make him feel unique and the end result is this wonderful little ball of WTF. It’s like a cross between a slobbering fantasy beast and something out of MechWarrior and I love it to pieces. I especially dig how folding in the robot hands rolls out the third claw for his beast hands. The boxy head is nestled between two silver and yellow armor plates and there are little nozels, which I presume are designed to deliver some kind of hot death to Autobot fools.

There’s a protrubance behind his head that allows you to plug in his slime gun. I just wish he came with two so I could double it up and get a little symmetry going. The deco here is pretty much the same as his robot mode, which is a good thing. One irritating thing… both Blot and Rippersnapper have rub signs in their beast mode, but they omitted it from Cutthroat’s. Go all in, or don’t do it at all, Hasbro!

Three Terrorcons down and three direct hits! I absolutely love what Hasbro is doing with these guys. I’ll admit, Power of the Primes has been pretty hit-and-miss with me, but so far the Terrorcons have been making up for a whole lot of stumbles. This is easily my favorite sub-group since the Titans Return Aerialbots. And with just one more Deluxe and one Voyager Class left, I’m getting pretty excited about finally combining them to form Abominus!

Sep 26 2018

Predator (Dark Horse Comics) by NECA

The Predator hit the theaters a couple of weeks back like a wet splat. I saw it on opening night and I really enjoyed it, but I could easily see why a lot of people didn’t. Even if the newest film in the franchise didn’t feel like it was edited in a blender, let’s face it, the original Predator is damn near a perfect film and I hold the second in very high regards, but everything after that has sucked hard. Maybe my expectations were low, but at least I had fun seeing this one. But forget about the movie, today I’m talking comics. Sure, I will be reviewing some Predator figures from the new movie, but in the meantime, I picked up today’s figure from a Twitter buddy and thought I’d have a look at him before the new ones start rolling in.

The box has seen better days, but it’s still a thing of beauty. Like a forerunner to NECA’s Ultimate Series, this Predator comes in a colorful and collector friendly box with the front panel recreating the brilliant cover art from The Concrete Jungle, Issue #1. On cold dark nights, I still have nightmares about the day I was moving out of state and I gave a huge box of comics to my brother’s girlfriend’s brother and this issue was in it. I spring awake and then scream because only then do I realize it really happened and wasn’t just a horrific dream. Oh well… live and learn. In addition to the cover art, the box also has some comic panels from the Dark Horse comic series.

NECA has created quite a little niche by creatively repainting their figures to reproduce their look in both comics and video games, and that’s exactly what we’re looking at here. I don’t own all of NECA’s Predators (far from it!), but I think I’d be safe in saying that the majority of the parts and sculpting on figure has been used before. The figure’s deco makes brilliant use of some blues and reds to simulate the coloring of the cover, along with some silver paint hits to further simulate the art. It not only works well as a recreation, but I think the colors look particularly striking on the figure alongside the Yautja’s yellow skin. Additional black paint is used to pick out some of the details in the leg and arm armor.

The back of the figure is bathed in a deep crimson shadow with black wash, save for that one blot of blue paint that landed on my figure’s left leg. The back is intended to soak up the shadows from the comic cover’s mostly red field, which makes this a figure that is best viewed from the front or a front-focused angle, in order to make the comic inspired paint effect really work.

That’s not to say that this figure is all about the paint job, because the sculpt is quite spectacular too. What can I say? NECA knows their away around Predators and their gear and here it really shows. The attention to detail on the arm bracers is particularly well done, although the left arm computer doesn’t actually open on this figure like it does on a lot of their regular Preds. The right arm bracer also has a bunch of sculpted detail and the blades will extend and retract. He has a sculpted leather belt, complete with detailed stitching and he also has a pair of bone trophies on strings that crisscross his chest. The plasma-caster on his shoulder is mounted on an articulated arm and the whole assembly is removable. Add to that the sculpted body net and the great texturing on his skin and you’ve got a figure that is clearly a labor of love.

Articulation here is standard NECA, which means a whole lot of of rotating hinges. With that being said, this particular Predator isn’t the most fun figure to pose. Most of the articulation points don’t offer a whole lot of range and he has tiny hoses in his shoulder and left arm that will pull out of their sockets at the hint of re-posing. Plus, as always, the plasma-caster is a tight fit on that shoulder and moving the head will frequently knock it off. Nonetheless, I was still able to get some cool poses out of him for the shelf.

Most of my Predators from NECA are of the Ultimate variety, so I’m used to getting a fair number of accessories with them. This Dark Horse Pred only comes with a couple. In addition to the plasma-caster, you get his staff, which is a grizzly piece of work. The top of the staff is capped off with a rotting skull and the attached spine snaking down around the shaft. There are some additional bones and finery attached as well. His left hand is capable of holding it, but the grip is a little loose.

In the past, I haven’t been an avid collector of NECA’s comic and video game repaints, but I mainly picked up this Predator because I have the Dutch and Linn two-pack from the Alien Vs Predator arcade game on pre-order and wanted a similarly painted Predator to go with them. With that having been said, I think I’m enough in love with this ugly motherf’er to motivate me to hunt down some more. And unlike a lot of NECA’s regular figures, the video game and comic releases don’t seem to get too pricey on the aftermarket. Hopefully, the next time a NECA Predator crosses my desk, it’ll be the fugitive from the new film.

Sep 24 2018

Marvel Studios “First Ten Years:” Iron Man Mk XXIII, Pepper Potts, and The Mandarin by Hasbro

Yup, the random Marvel Legends reviews are getting put on hold once again so that I can push one of these First Ten Years releases to the head of the line. This Amazon Exclusive boxed set of three figures from Iron Man 3 hit my porch this past weekend, and I was just too excited not to open it up right away. Let’s take a look!

Iron Man 3 feels like it was one of the most polarizing of all the MCU films. I still encounter people who have raging hatred toward it, and I really can’t see why. I can still remember when it hit home release on Blu-Ray and I must have watched it three times over the course of a couple of days, and my love for it didn’t even tarnish one bit. Hell, I’m long overdue for a re-watch now! Anyway, this is the first three-figure set I’ve picked up in this First Ten Years line, but the packaging is still the same. It looks good, it’s collector friendly, but I’m still not going to be keeping the box. With three figures to cover, let’s just dig right in and start with Pepper.

Never did I think I’d be so happy to own a Gwenyth Paltrow figure, but Pepper has been in a hell of a lot of MCU films and it’s long past time she got the Legends treatment. And It seems only logical to go with the movie where she actually got involved in the action. I mean, black sports bra or business suit? That’s not even up for debate. Unfortunately, this figure turned out decidedly average. In terms of sculpting and paint, this isn’t exactly a complex figure, nor did it need to be. The new sculpting for the top of the torso, as well as the bare feet, are new and appreciated, but the paint could have been a lot better, and that’s pretty sad considering it’s just a black top and black pants and virtually no intricate detailed paint hits to be had. The paint lines around her waist are downright sloppy and the bra straps could have been cleaner too. Hasbro has been doing some pretty nice paintwork in this line on even the little things like pouch buttons and belt buckles, so to see this kind of carelessness on a figure that required so little really hurts.

I do think the head sculpt is pretty solid for a 6-inch scale figure. It’s not a dead on likeness, but I can see some resemblance in there. I’d believe that Paltrow has one of those faces that could be tough to get right (I’d argue that even Hot Toys didn’t quite nail her perfectly), so I’m willing to be a little forgiving here. She also doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would approve an action figure likeness, so I’m pretty surprised we got this release at all. Either way, the printing on the face is pretty clean and the hair sculpt looks good. Maybe since now Hasbro has done the head sculpt we can look forward to getting another version of Pepper.

Articulation is everything I expect to find in an MCU Legends lady. That includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs have ball joints in the hips, swivels in the thighs, and double hinges in the knees. The ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. There’s a ball joint just under the chest, no waist swivel, and the neck is ball jointed and hinged. I will say that the ankle joints look really chunky and I think they blew up her feet a bit to make them work a bit better with those larger joints.

 

Pepper’s right arm can detach at the shoulder and be swapped out for the one wearing the Iron Man armor sleeve and gauntlet. There’s also a repulsor blast effect part that plugs into the palm. This extra arm is a great addition and I’ll likely display the figure with this look most of the time. On the downside, there’s no articulation in the wrist, which means getting the repulsor effect to fire in a convincing manner isn’t easy. She can’t hold her the arm straight out without the effect shooting at a downward angle. Moving on to The Mandarin…

Now here’s a figure I never thought we would ever get. I’m sure there are still people salty over how Iron Man 3 treated one of Iron Man’s iconic arch enemies. Me? I thought it was great fun and a pretty cool twist, but then I was never a big fan of The Mandarin in the comics or the cartoons. Either way, here he is Trevor Slattery all decked out in his theatrical garb and looking pretty damn great. He’s sporting a pair of camoflague pants, military style boots, and a tunic and waist wrap that has a little bit of a Middle Eastern flavor to it. The real draw here, however, is the coat, which features some really nice attention to detail in the sculpt and some beautiful gold leaf paint on the fixtures and sleeves. Even the coat itself has an embossed floral motif running through it. Oh yeah, they even sculpted all ten of his rings on his fingers.

This head sculpt is absolutely spot on as well. From his long beard to his man bun, I think they did a nice job recreating Sir Ben Kingsley in the makeup.

The articulation here is good, but a lot of it is really hindered by the soft plastic coat. It’s also lacking some of the points we’re used to seeing on the male characters in this line. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, and no bicep swivels. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinged knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. There’s … The neck has both a hinge and a ball joint. So, what’s here is good on paper, but apart from some gesticulations with his arms, I didn’t find him to be all that much fun to pose. And that brings us to the final figure in the set…

And also the quick and easy repaint: The Mark XXIII Hot Rod armor. I’m pretty sure this is a repaint of one of the War Machine figures (Hulkbuster Wave?), if not I’ll happily stand corrected. It’s also a figure that I have a bit of a disconnect with. I want to applaud the paintwork here because it really is excellent. The gun metal finish on the torso, upper arms, and head all looks great and the flame motif on the legs and metallic red paint on the lower arms also looks superb. So what’s the problem? I just don’t really like this deco all that much. It wasn’t a stand out armor for me in the film, and in as a figure I think it just looks unfinished and strange.

Because he’s a repaint of an earlier figure, he doesn’t come with any extra goodies. No extra hands, no repulsor effect parts, and that’s all pretty disappointing considering the price of this set, which I’ll get into presently. I don’t dislike this figure, but it feels like one of those lone Walmart Exclusives that I would pass up because it doesn’t feel essential to my collection and it doesn’t have a BAF part. Yup, just like all those Back in Black Deadpools that are clogging up the pegs at my local Target.

Wow, what a mixed bag this set turned out to be! I was excited for both Pepper and The Mandarin, but Pepper turned out to be a pretty mediocre figure and while The Mandarin is pretty solid, it doesn’t justify the $70 I paid for this set. Especially since I could have easily passed on the Hot Rod armor. Hell, $70 for a three-pack of normal sized figures without much in the way of accessories is pretty high even if they all turned out to be excellent must-have releases. Even more surprising to me is that the set appears to have sold out on Amazon, as currently only available from Marketplace scalpers at twice the price. If this were just Pepper and Mandarin at $40 I would have been a lot more satisfied with this purchase, as it is