May 1 2012

Voltron: Hunk (Yellow Lion Pilot) by Mattel

April marked the second release in the year-long journey that we Voltron fans will need to traverse in order to finally complete our colossal Voltron figure. Last time, I checked out both the figure and the lion on the same day. This time, I’m going to be a prick and spread them out over two. Hey, April was a long long month packed with content, so I’m not making any apologies. Today we’re going to look at the Hunk figure and then tomorrow we’ll check out the Yellow Lion itself.

As with Lance and the Red Lion, both the figure and the lion come in the same white shipper box, but inside they are each packaged separately. You may remember there were some hiccups with the Red Lion concerning shipping notifications and whatnot. This time things went a little smoother. I got billing notifaction a few days before the sale and I think I got my shipping notification the Saturday before the sale. Sure, I didn’t actually receive anything until the last day of the month, but hey… baby steps, Matty… baby steps.

Once again, the figure comes in a very cool, attractive, and collector friendly box, rather than a card that you have to rip open. When I got the first figure, Lance, I presumed all the figure boxes would be red, but as you can see with Hunk, Matty is matching the figure’s boxes with the color of their lions. Very cool! The front of the package has a nice piece of character artwork with a window cut out to show the figure, the spare head with helmet, and part of the key stand. The back panel shows a full photo of the figure, the key operating as a figure stand, the figure being put into the Yellow Lion cockpit, and the various parts of the Blazing Sword. You also get a little blurb about the Yellow Lion. This packaging is just about perfect, as far as I’m concerned. The only thing I would change would be to add the Voltron logo and the figure’s name on the side of the box, so you can store them in a bookshelf. Then again, I guess the color coding allows you to recognize which figure is which.

Open the box and slide out the tray and you can see everything you’re getting, including the handguard for the Blazing Sword. I’ve got no gripes about the figure packaging. It looks fantastic, and most importantly, collectors can remove and replace the figures and accessories, without mussing anything up. When I can finally build Voltron, I’ll likely keep the figures boxed, so I’m a happy camper.

If you checked out my look at the Lance figure, then you pretty much know what to expect with Hunk here. The figure features the same simple, animated style of sculpt, that works very well. I really like Hunk’s head sculpt as it captures the look of the animated character, right down to the little upturned nose and his tustled hair. Appropriately, Hunk is also a slightly more heavy build than Lance. I think Mattel might even have helped Hunk to shed a few pounds, but the figure still looks pretty accurate. The paintwork is quite clean and the tiny tampo emblem on his chest looks great. Hunk’s laser pistol and holster are both sculpted in one piece, and by the time we’re done looking at all the Voltron figures, you’ll likely grow tired of me pointing out that at this price point, we should have got a removable gun and a functional holster. And yes, I’m going to say it every single time!

The spare head can be swapped out to display Hunk with his helmet on. The helmet and visor look great, but the rest of the face is a softer sculpt than the one that comes on the figure. His mouth isn’t nearly as clearly defined, and its certainly disappointing when compared to the extra head that came with Lance.

You get the same points of articulation here as with the Lance figure. There are ball joints in the neck, shoulders, elbows, and knees. The hip joints have something similar to the DCUC joint, giving the legs universal movement at the hips. At fifteen bucks, some ankle and wrist articulations should have been in order, but I guess Hunk is right in line with the cribbed articulation we’re going to be seeing from a lot of 3 3/4″ action figures this summer. Yep, I’m calling you out, Hasbro.

As for the other accessories, I don’t have much to say about the handguard for the Blazing Sword. Its certainly a nice looking piece, and like Lance’s handgrip, it gives you an idea of just how big this sword is going to be. But until the sword is complete, its tough to say anything else about it. The key is a welcome piece to use as a stand, and it is also used to unlock the cockpit of the Yellow Lion. As with Lance’s key, I don’t think its asking too much to have a sticker on each side, because the other side is just left blank. Once again, Matty, if you’re selling 3 3/4″ figures at this price point, you need to step it up just a notch.

So, all in all, not too many surprises with Hunk. The packaging is awesome and the figure itself is perfectly fine. Even my quibble about the soft sculpt on the alternate head isn’t a huge sticking point for me. On the one hand, I think Matty could have delivered a better figure for the money, but then these are rather limited collectibles and what we got isn’t bad at all. I guess when you come down to it, my issues aren’t with what we got, but rather what we should have gotten, such as slightly better articulation and a removable gun.

I’ll be back tomorrow to check out the Yellow Lion!

Mar 29 2012

You have failed me again, Starscream… I mean… Matty Collector.

After flubbing up the Voltron Club Lion Force subscription by a) Not charging us when we were supposed to be charging, and b) Not letting us know whether or not our subs would even be processed until the day of the sale, and c) Not following through on their commitment to ship subber’s toys before everyone else’s, one might have wondered what was going to go wrong with the Club Infinite Earths subscription. Well, wait no more, because here it is…

DC Universe Fans [suckers],

It’s been a long time coming [Yes, it has been a long time. Long enough for us to get this right and yet we still couldn’t!] and DC Universe Club Infinite Earths is now on the horizon! Golden Age Flash will be the first figure released and we’ve just confirmed we’ll receive our shipment in mid-May. [Yes it was supposed to be April. Sorry, we didn’t whip our Chinese children slave labor force hard enough and they fell behind on their quotas.] That means the club will launch in May instead of April. For subscribers, we’ll begin processing orders when the shipment is received (ETA is currently 5/12) and sending them out about 10 business days later. [So, not only are we delaying the launch a month, we won’t even make good on our commitment to ship subbers’ figures before day of sale purchases. Ha Ha!] Although the club is starting in May rather than April, you’ll still get the nine figures you signed up for in 2012; we’ll just double up on figures for one month in the fall [We sincerely hope this fucks up your budgeting!} (you’ll have plenty of notice before it happens).

One thing of note: your club order will not be eligible for combined shipping until June, which is the first “renewal” month. [We could have changed this as a courtesy for your inconvenience, but that would deny us an opportunity to fuck you over on our ridiculously slow and expensive shipping!] You may recall that the first month a subscription order ships, it has to ship separately, then beginning with the second month it will be combined with your other subscriptions. [Ha Ha, fuck you!]

Okay, enough business — on to the good stuff! At press time, here is the release schedule (as always, subject to change) [LOL! That’s our way of saying all the information in this email is worthless!]

May: Golden Age The Flash

June: Atrocitus (monthly figure) & Metron (club-exclusive)

July: Starman (monthly figure) & Rocket Red (club quarterly figure)

August: Mirror Master

September: Black Mask

Even though he won’t arrive until May, our Golden Age The Flash figure will certainly be worth waiting for! The original scarlet speedster, Jay Garrick, will come with his vac-metalized signature helmet and, like all figures in the line, will feature great details and full articulation. [Does anyone else find it ironic that The Flash will arrive a month late? We do!]

We’ll post updates at MattyCollector.com as we get closer and have more information. [Be sure to stop by, so we can stick the pre-order offer for that ridiculous, shitty and overpriced Back to the Future hoverboard in your face!] For now, you can look forward to an amazing year packed with long-awaited true collector characters! Thank you for being a loyal customer – we appreciate your business. [Because who else buy you would let us fuck you over and over again and keep coming back?]

– Matty

Apparently that was edited for content in a very childish and possibly slightly drunk manner. So, the long and short of it is the whole subscription will be delayed for a month, and subbers will get hit twice in one month for at least two monthly figures. Once again, Mattel seems incapable of following through on any of their commitments to subscribers. It seems to me like they could have at least shipped the Exclusive figure, which we already paid for, in April in lieu of the actual monthly figure, but nope.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal for me. Waiting another month isn’t going to kill me, nor is having to buy two figures in one month. But, I feel sorry for collectors who actually have all three subs because between this and all the other shannagans that Matty pulls with the release schedules, its really difficult to budget for these figures and being able to budget for them should be one of the advantages of the whole sub service.

No, it just goes back to what I said when Matty screwed up the Voltron sub. Its been almost a year since they did open enrollment for subscriptions. That’s how much time lead time they had to get this right, and they still couldn’t do it. And yet this is the same company that blathers on in their emails about contracts and obligations regarding their subscriptions, which to Matty is apparently a one-way street. Its a joke. But this is nothing new. For a while I was glad to see DC Universe Classics go the route of subscription because it meant I didn’t have to hunt the figures down anymore and I didn’t have to pony up to buy a whole case at one time. But having to deal with Matty and Digital River on any level really sticks in my craw as a matter of principal.

If I weren’t so busy this week, I’d be tempted to cancel the rest of this week’s DC Universe Classics features in protest, but I wouldn’t have time to brew up anything else, so I guess I’ll press on.

Feb 26 2012

Voltron: Red Lion by Mattel

As promised, I’m back this evening with a looksy at the very first Lion in Matty Collector’s new Voltron line. As mentioned last time, the Red Lion comes bundled in a white mailer box with the 3 3/4″ Lance figure, but the two toys are packaged separately. Let’s take a look at the packaging…

Red Lion’s packaging consists of a cardboard base and back with the rest in clear plastic. It reminds me of the packaging Hasbro used for their GI JOE 25th Anniversary vehicles. The overall presentation looks mighty good and it certainly shows off the toy extremely well, but I would have much preferred a more traditional window box, or even a straight box with artwork like Matty did with the MOTUC Wind Raider. Technically the box is collector friendly, you can return the lion to the package if you’re careful, but the clear plastic is fairly fragile and rubs and scratches easy. I had planned on displaying these in the package until I get the complete set, but I may have to rethink that now because I don’t think this packaging is going to survive in the long term.

Out of the package, first thoughts? Holy crap, this thing is huge. When combined, Red Lion will form one of Voltron’s arms and as such he is one of the smallest Lions in the set. And wow, he is still huge. I don’t think I fully comprehended how big this Voltron is going to be until holding the Red Lion in my hand. I think Mattel really nailed the sculpt. Anyone who knows Voltron knows that there’s some animation magic involved in the transformation between Lion and limb, so when designing the toys they had to make some compromises so that the toy will pass as both. The Toynami version opted to make the Red and Green Lions smaller and more rounded, whereas Matty went with a more boxy version, which should make the Lions look more uniform when displayed together. I think it was a good call, and if nothing else it gives me a little variety between this set and my Toynami Voltron.

Striving for the animated look, the Lion is not brimming with detail. You get some sculpted detail on the joints and feet, a few panel lines here and there, but not much else. There isn’t a lot of paintwork, as most of the toy is molded in the appropriate colors. Some collectors will no doubt take umbrage over the use of pale gray for the metallic/chrome of the legs and tail. It actually works ok for me and I’m just glad they didn’t go white to match the Lion face. All in all, I’m really thrilled with the way this toy looks displayed on the shelf, particularly with Lance standing beside him.

What I’m less thrilled about are the choices made over articulation. Matty opted to give the Lions a spring-loaded feature, so when you detach the Lions from their Voltron form, you can push buttons to automatically deploy the legs back to Lion mode. I actually like this gimmick, but I don’t like what we had to sacrifice to get it. The upper leg joints are fine and built on heavy ratcheting joints that give you a satisfying click when you move them and locks them into place wherever you want to position them. The middle joints, on the other hand, will only rotate in one direction. The front legs go forward, the back legs go back. While that may not sound like a big deal, it really does inhibit a lot of the poses you can get him in. When I started playing around with Red Lion, I immediately tried to put him in some of the poses I like doing with my Toynami Lions and quickly found out that it just isn’t possible. The hinge in the middle of the Lion is very hard to work and there’s no swivel there, which doesn’t bother me so much on the Lion, but will severely inhibit Voltron’s poseability. Lastly, the head has no up or down movement, only rotates side to side. Again, this really inhibits the poses you can get out of the Lion. The mouth does open and close, though, and you can get him to hold his blade pretty nicely.

Red Lion does open up to reveal a cockpit where you can put the Lance figure. The gimmick uses the Key that came with Lance to unlock the cockpit by using it to press a button on the yellow box on the Lion’s back. Originally, I thought this was going to be done with magnets, but all you are really doing is pushing the button, which you can do with a pen or your fingernail or anything else, it doesn’t have to be the Key. I like the way the the cockpit hatch swings open in two parts. The interior cockpit is detailed with sticker sheets on the sides and front and the Lance figure fits into it very nicely.

Overall, Red Lion is a great looking, sturdy toy that really oozes nostalgia. It really does feel like a vintage toy, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The ratcheting joints, the simple colors, and the way the figure fits into the body, it all takes me back to my youth when I was drooling over one of those huge Voltrons in the Sears Wishbook at Christmas time. Yes, the articulation is disappointing, but not so disappointing that I have anything resembling buyer’s remorse. The truth is, I already own a super-articulated Voltron set, so if I have to sacrifice some articulation to get a friggin huge Voltron with Lions that fit the pilot figures, I’m perfectly willing to do that. As for value… All together, with shipping, Red Lion and Lance was $60. That’s certainly a premium for what you’re getting here, but the payoff is going to be well worth it in the end.

Feb 26 2012

Voltron: Lance (Red Lion Pilot) by Mattel

[Disclaimer: This is my token rant against Matty Collector. If you don’t want to partake in my venting, just skip down a couple paragraphs where the feature actually begins. And, here we go…

One would think that selling a subscription more than six months before the release date of the first product would give a company as big as Mattel enough lead time to iron things out and get it right. Unless of course you’re one of the people who have been dealing with the delightful Matty Collector/Digital River partnership and then you would surely know better. Because February 2012, the start date for the new Voltron Subscription, came around and seemed to catch Matty completely with their pants down. They were supposed to bill subscribers on the 10th, ship out the product on the 13th and neither of those things happened. In fact, most subscribers, including myself, went to bed the night before the sale with no billing notification, no shipping notification, and generally having no idea whether or not their subs had been royally fucked up.

I was lucky enough to get a shipping notification waiting for me when I woke up on the 15th, but many people didn’t even get that, leaving them to wonder whether or not they should just try to buy a Red Lion off the website and run the risk of buying it and then having the Sub go through afterwards. It’s particularly vexing because Matty themselves have a sea of fine print about how subscribing is a contract and that you are obligated to follow through on the commitment and all that jazz, when Matty themselves clearly can’t hold up their end of the contract from step one. Now, I know if you were part of the Star Sisters debacle of last month where Matty just switched products on you and wound up billing you for a lot more than you thought, this Voltron snafu may seem like small potatoes, but this is the first time I’ve subscribed to anything on Matty and I just thought it interesting that they managed to screw it up from the get-go. Ok, that’s enough… on to the toys… -FF]

The first installment of Matty Collector’s Voltron set has finally arrived and holy shit am I excited! Matty shipped the figure and the Lion together in one white shipper box, but they are still packaged as two different products. I’m going to be looking at both the Lance figure and Red Lion today, but I’m still breaking it up into two parts. The second part covering the Red Lion should be up later on today. I don’t have a big preamble planned because… well, I really am that excited, so let’s just dive in and take a look at what we got.

Matty cooked up some pretty cool and unique packaging for the pilot figures. Instead of going with a standard card and bubble, you get nice red box with some cool artwork of the character set beside a window that shows off the figure. The back of the box has some photos of the figure interacting with the Red Lion and you get a picture of the completed Collect & Connect style Blazing Sword. The box is perfectly collector friendly. You can open it at the top or bottom and slide the tray out to reveal the contents. Inside you get the 3 3/4″ Lance figure, a swappable helmeted head, the Red Lion Key that doubles as a figure stand, and the hilt piece for the Blazing Sword. I love this packaging and I’ll likely use it to store the figure as I’m waiting to complete my Voltron set.

And there’s Lance. Matty went with a clean, simple sculpt that makes this figure pretty faithful to his animated counterpart. I’m very happy with how Lance’s head sculpt turned out, especially the hair, which gives him a lot of character. Most of the details in his uniform are sculpted rather than just painted on, including his shoulder armor, belt buckle, boots and gauntlets. His laser pistol is sculpted into his holster, which is easilly my biggest disappointment with this figure. At $15 for a 3 3/4″ figure, I really think Mattel should have pulled off a removable pistol and a working holster. Hasbro can do it with figures at half the price. At the very least Mattel should have included an extra pistol for him to hold.

The paintwork on Lance is pretty good, although the white parts of the uniform are a tad bit smudgy in a few areas. Its nothing critical, but worth mentioning. The blue and yellow accents on the uniform, however, are nice and bright and very clean. The paintwork on the head is also nicely executed, although I’m pretty sure Lance’s hair was black in the cartoon and here its brown. Its not a big deal for me, but I would imagine big fans of the character will be rather perturbed. How a mistake like that happens, I’m not sure.

The spare head depicts Lance wearing his helmet and visor. It looks fantastic, especially with the translucent blue visor. I would have preferred a removable helmet, particularly to display Lance holding his helmet in the crook of his arm, but with the sculpted hair, I can see why Mattel decided to go this route and I’m perfectly fine with it.

How about articulation? Well, Lance isn’t going to set any new records for a 3 3/4″ scale figure, but he still has some decent poseability. He features a ball jointed neck, which allows for the head to be easily popped off and swapped. The arms feature universal movement in the shoulders and ball joints in the elbows. The legs feature universal movement at the hips and have ball joints in the knees. There’s definite room for improvement here, but honestly for a figure designed to sit in a Lion that forms Voltron, I’m not complaining. The ball jointed elbows and knees go a long way to make up for the lack of swivels elsewhere. I will note that the hip joints feel a little fragile, but I don’t plan on rough housing with him.

Lance comes with two more accessories. First, you get the Red Lion Key, which is not only a life size replica of the keys used in the cartoon, but actually interacts with the Red Lion and has a peg in order to double as a figure stand. Its very cool, but honestly, Mattel, couldn’t you put the sticker on both sides of the key? Remember the price point is $15? Slap a second sticker on that key! Secondly, each of the five pilot figures will come with a piece of the Blazing Sword and Lance comes with the hilt. If you only had the figure and not the Red Lion, you really get a sense of Voltron’s size by the hilt piece. Its almost big enough to be the hilt of a life sized dagger!

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this figure. Lance looks cool and has decent articulation. For a figure that is designed to sit in a Lion that in turn forms Voltron, Lance is certainly impressive and even as a stand alone figure he’s a pretty solid effort. But if you noticed a recurring theme in this feature, its the price point. Yes, Lance is a collectible figure based on an old cartoon, but at $15, there were little points here and there where improvements could (and should) have been made. A working holster with a removable gun, stickers on both sides of the Key, and maybe an extra helmet for him to hold. All these simple little things would have justified the price point. Just saying, is all.

I’ll be back in a little bit with a look at Lance’s Red Lion.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: club lion force

Voltron: Hunk (Yellow Lion Pilot) by Mattel

You have failed me again, Starscream… I mean… Matty Collector.

Voltron: Red Lion by Mattel

Voltron: Lance (Red Lion Pilot) by Mattel

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