Jun 5 2017

Marvel Legends: The Invisible Woman & HERBIE by Hasbro

What’s this? Where’s the rest of the Titus Wave? Yeah, I’m interrupting this Marvel Monday’s regularly scheduled content because Sue Storm arrived from Walgreens.com the other day and I thought I’d try to be timely and relevant for a change and check her out. Fear not, I’ll be back to the Titus Wave next week. In the meantime, continuing the weird pairing of Marvel Legends Exclusives with Walgreens, comes the first of what I hope will be a complete set of The Fantastic Four! I was lucky enough to have a Twitter buddy tip me off to her going up on the website, only to find three more of her sitting on the shelf a couple days later. Go figure!

Now, besides being exclusive to a place that I usually only associate with buying frozen pizzas and cold medicine at 9:30 at night, this is an unusual release because of Marvel’s politics of business. Disney has been punishing The Fantastic Four for being owned by another film company, so their comic book was burned to the ground and the toys have been non-existent. They were doing the same with the X-Men for a while, but they caved on that pretty quickly. As a reader of The Fantastic Four comic since I was a wee lad, it pains me to admit that the X-Men carry a lot more weight and I could understand that black listing them wasn’t as feasible as doing it for Marvel’s First Family. Anywho, the Sue comes in a typical Legends window box, beautifully branded for the comic with a “4” emblem on the backer tray and their name printed across the front!

And here she is, a very simple but lovely figure. Sue Storm features a standard female Legends buck with the entirety of her costume painted on. That is to say she’s blue with painted black boots, gloves, belt, collar, and her “4” emblem tampo’ed on her chest. The shade of blue is a fair sight paler than what Hasbro used for their Marvel Universe 3 3/4-inch Fantastic Four boxed set from a while back, but I still like it a lot.

The only gripe I have here is the unsightly hole in her back, but I guess I can live with it. Seems like it wouldn’t be a big deal for Hasbro to fashion a bunch of plugs for these and just stamp them out in an appropriate color. But hey, I have a Sue Storm Legends figure, so I should probably stop complaining and shut the hell up now.

The portrait here is fantastic. She’s pretty, the paint for her blue eyes is straight, the red for her lips is razor sharp, and her blonde hair is sculpted in a way so it doesn’t impede her neck articulation too badly. My figure does have a couple scratches in her forehead, presumably from the molding process. I can probably live with it, but it’s nice to know there are three more of these sitting on a shelf around the block from me if I decide to go for another one.

The articulation includes all the usual points we see in most Legends female bucks. The legs are ball jointed at the hip, have double hinges in the knees, and swivel cuts in the thighs. The ankles have hinges and some generous lateral rockers. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The torso has a ball joint under the chest and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. I still get a bit irked that Hasbro can’t include bicep swivels in the female Legends bucks. Maybe someday.

Hasbro did go a little extra on this figure by giving her a translucent right arm and an extra translucent left hand. The arm features a little color tinting, blue for the uniform and black for the glove, making it look like she’s phasing into invisibility, which makes for a pretty cool effect.

HERBIE is definitely a cool bonus. He feels like an up-scaled version of the figure that came in the Universe set, but I’m going to guess that he’s a brand new mold. The plastic feels really good and the blue and green paint apps on the body look sharp. The only articulation here is the ball joint on his neck, but he does come with a transparent stand to make him look like he’s hovering.

Sue Storm is about as simple a figure as you can get, but that doesn’t make her any less welcome. And while I’ve never been a huge fan of HERBIE, getting him bundled in this package is still a treat. We’ve already seen pictures of Johnny Storm, also coming as a Walgreens Exclusive, and I’m hoping that Hasbro is going to deliver Reed and The Thing at some point down the line. I have the Marvel Universe Fantastic Four boxed set and I love it, now I really want the family in the Legends 6-inch scale.

Apr 20 2017

Star Wars Black: R5-D4 (Gamestop Exclusive) by Hasbro

Once again, I must disappoint all you Convertorobot fans, as it is Thursday and I have no new Transformers to look at. Maybe next week. We’ll see. In the meantime, let’s check out a robot that does not turn into anything!

I was mighty peeved to find out that the infamous droid with the bad motivator was coming to the 6-inch Black Series as a Gamestop Exclusive. There’s only one of these stores in my area and going in that place subjects me to a vortex of screaming kids, punks trying to sell games for drug money, and pushy salespeople trying to get me to opt in to some membership card or magazine. I hate the place. Besides, they’re closing stores left and right, so maybe giving them an Exclusive isn’t the best idea, Hasbro. Next you’ll be giving exclusives to other sinking retail ships like K-mart… oh, riiiight. Well, it turns out my anger was all for naught, because I was able to pre-order this guy on their website pretty easily and he showed up on my doorstep yesterday.

Hasbro is doing over-sized vintage cardbacks for the 40th Anniversary. A lot of these have been re-issues of “The Original Twelve” and I think these look terrific and I really dig how they will stand for easy display. So far, I’ve managed to keep myself from buying a set to keep carded, but that resolve may buckle if retailers start doing sales on these.. R5, however, is currently only available in this packaging, so I had no choice this time. Oh yeah… and thanks Gamestop for putting your obnoxious sticker on the card. It probably comes off, but it’s a shitty thing to do to an item that is being sold in collectible packaging. Good thing I bought this droid to open.

The back of the card is pretty damn cool too. It shows the twelve figures that are getting this carded treatment. All are re-issues, with the exception of the Sand Person, Jawa, Death Squad Commander, and I suppose Darth Vader, since he’s supposed to at least have a new head sculpt. There’s also a shot of the Early Bird-inspired display set that Vader comes with. Yup, I pre-ordered that thing. I have no willpower. And speaking of no willpower, as you can probably guess, these carded figures are not collector friendly and as good as it looks, I’m about to tear this one open.

Here he is, and as expected from the neck down he’s a straight repaint of R2-D2, and that’s not a bad thing, because this is a pretty damn good Astromech body. All of the familiar panel lines are sculpted in, and I really dig the hoses on his feet. Besides the red accents, R5’s deco also includes some light weathering, whereas I had to do my own on R2 with a mechanical pencil. I think they distressed him just the right amount. It doesn’t look heavy handed at all.

The head is also a very good sculpt and escapes the big fault of the R2 figure by not having those eyesore seams running up the sides. R5’s head still has seams, but they’re very well hidden. The antenna is made of bendy plastic, but it doesn’t seem like it will be prone to warping. You get a little bit of weathering on the head, but maybe here it could have used a smidgen more. The paint on the eyes is sharp and clean and the hologram sticker strip that runs around his neck looks nice, although I already had to stick the end of it back on, so I’m not sure how long that sticker is going to last.

As with R2, the third leg still retracts by turning the head. I wasn’t a big fan of this feature when I first saw it, but I’ve cooled on it a bit. It just seemed rather gimmicky for a collector line, but then the Black Series’ collector line credentials have been pretty shaky. I should also note that R5 doesn’t share any of the opening panels in his head that R2 had. It seems like they could have given us a swap-out panel with a bad motivator, but nope!

The two vertical side panels, on his front, however, do still open and he does have his little arms that swing out. It probably would have been easy for Hasbro to just glue these shut and not worry about them, so I’m pretty happy to see they survived.

In every way, R5-D4 is a great little figure. in fact, the only issues here for me are price and availability. At $22, you’re paying an awful lot for very little. R2 came with a bunch of extras and R5 comes with squat. It makes me wonder if he was made an exclusive release just to justify the price tag. Why not R5 and a couple of Jawas in a window box for $50? That would have been a nice deal. Plus, making him exclusive to Gamestop is just bewildering to me. I’ve never even seen Star Wars figures in a Gamestop outside of maybe Funko Pop! Vinyls. Luckily, I didn’t have to actually go in a Gamestop to get him. I pre-ordered mine when it first went up on the website and it became “Unavailable” not long after that. Disappointing collectors by making a deal with a dying game retailer? Not cool, Hasbro. The better way to go would have been to put him in a window box for wide distribution and let the vintage carded packaging be your exclusive. Ah, but what do I know?

Apr 11 2017

Vitruvian HACKS: Atelis Warrior (Kokomo Toys Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

A couple of weeks back Indiana toy store, Kokomo Toys revealed their second Exclusive release from Boss Fight Studios’ Vitruvian HACKS series and I was quick to drop in a pre-order. It also reminded me how I’ve let this line has fall by the wayside when it comes to my reviews. I still have quite a few figures from Series 1, and I promise I’ll be getting back to looking at them regularly. But for now, I’m going to go ahead and push this figure to the head of the line, because I’m really excited to open her up and check her out.

BFS have done a few exclusives in this line and they’ve all come in these simple, illustrated boxes. They’re certainly not as flashy as the full-color carded packaging used on the regular releases, but these are still collector friendly and the little boxes give you a place to keep all the extra bits. And there are a ton of extra bits! I probably could have bought three or four of these figures and kitted each one out to make them look unique. So, let’s start out with the basic figure and then check out all the extra goodies.

The Atelis Warrior (I’m just going to call her Atelis) is the result of a misguided attempt to turn human warriors back after they’ve been cursed as Gorgons. The result is this half-stage mutation warrior, who in the end still remained loyal to Medusa and the Gorgons. That’s a pretty rad backstory for what is a great looking figure. We’ve seen just about all of these parts before in previous HACKS figures that I reviewed here. You get the basic female buck, painted green. The chest armor, shoulder armor, and arm pieces all come from Medusa, while the greaves are from the Spartan Warrior. Pretty much all the armor and accessories here are repainted with a gorgeous gold and they all look fantastic.

The sculpting on the shoulder piece is superbly done, especially for a 4-inch scale figure. I also really appreciate the individually painted rivets on the skirt and straps. The sandal straps are individually painted, and even the body has some nice dark green markings to drive home the whole snake motif. As always, all the armor pieces are removable and they are compatible with the other female HACKS figures. For that matter, even the figure itself can be disassembled and rebuilt fairly easily.

Atelis comes with two head sculpts, which was an unexpected, but most welcome, surprise. The standard head looks to be a repaint of the Coral Snake Gorgon head, which was part of the original wave of four figures. This portrait features some very nice sculpted scaling, and the eyes look incredible. The head attaches via a double ball-jointed post, which allows for easy swapping as well as a little extra movement in the neck.

The second head is an even more incredible sculpt. You get the full open mouth with some beautiful work on the interior. I can practically see the venom glands in there ready to spew! This head has a little more of a sheen to it and both the sculpted scales and the painted markings are different for this head, so if you happen to be picking up a couple of these, you can diversify your display quite nicely. As long as we’re talking heads, let’s take a look at the head gear included with the figure.

You get two types of head gear, the first being a standard Spartan-style helmet. We’ve certainly seen this before, and it looks great in the gold paint with a dark green comb on the top. These helmets were obviously designed for the human heads, so the cheek guards splay out a bit on the snake heads, but I still think it looks fine.

The other piece is a gold repaint of the snake skull headpiece we’ve seen with some of the Gorgons. I loved the design of this thing when I first got it with the Coral Snake Gorgon, and I have to say it looks incredible in gold.

BFS have really been packing these exclusive releases with a ton of weapons and Atelis here is no different. She comes with two sets of hands and each set has the hinges placed differently. As for the weapons, first off you get two of those skeletal whips that have been included with some of the Gorgons in the past.

Next up, you get a pair of matched swords. These are the Etruscan style swords with leaf-shaped blades, all decked out in gold.

You also get this sweet little skeletal dagger, which compliments the whips quite nicely. Get ’em caught in the whip and then make with the stabby-stabby! It’s a delightfully brutal combination.

And finally, Aetlis comes with a gorgeous golden shield with Medusa’s face sculpted into it. This features the usual combination of sleeve and grab bar that allows the figure to hold it pretty securely. It can be a little bit of a chore to get her hand to grasp the bar, but to be honest, the sleeve is more than enough to keep the shield on her arm.

With BFS hard at work on Vitruvian HACKS Series 2 (this time, a medieval-fantasy themed series), I was all but certain that Series 1 was finished. Nonetheless, this lovely lady came across my Twitter feed back in March for pre-order and I jumped on it right away. At $30, she ran about ten bucks more than the regular figures, but in fairness, you do get some more goodies in the box than with a regular release and since that included shipping, the price here doesn’t seem outrageous, especially for an exclusive release. The Atelis Warrior is still available through Kokomo Toys’ Ebay Store.

Jul 18 2016

Marvel Legends: Namor (Walgreens Exclusive) by Hasbro

YES! It’s a Marvel Monday Double Feature, because I’m buried in a Legends backlog so big it would give Thanos a hernia. And as long as I’m between waves, I thought I’d go ahead and take a look at this lone Walgreens Exclusive release of everyone’s favorite fishy-gigolo. Lock up your wife, Reed Richards… here comes Namor!

Namor comes in a standard style Legends window box. There’s no indication about its exclusivity, but it uniquely branded with his name on the front and again on the top panel. When you think of how many characters get released in shared slots and don’t have their name even appear on the front, but here comes Namor all flash and branded out! It practically looks like it’s branded off of some non-existent Namor movie. Well, give it time… Maybe Phase 8? Anyway… you get some really nice character art on the side panels and the back panel advertises the Civil War Wave, but without any mention of the Giant Man BAF.

Out of the package, Namor is one mighty fine looking figure. A good deal of his costume is painted onto the buck, but what a lovely paint job it is! You get a partially black suit with some brilliant metallic blue scales to spice things up. He even has the trashy, low plunging neck line that points all the way down to his trouser trout. Sculpted bits include his gold belt and bracers, the white wings on his ankles, and a high collar that surely drives all the mermaids wild.

The head sculpt here is pretty fantastic. Just yesterday, I was bitching about Hasbro and their waxy plastic and soft head sculpts in their Star Wars Black line. Well, clearly they know how to do it right, because because this is how to do a 6-inch scale portrait proud. The plastic holds the sculpted detail very well, skin tone looks great and the paint on the eyes, hair, and eyebrows is crisp and clean. I’m thrilled that they can do it for Marvel, but why not Star Wars too?

As a swimmer, Namor needs to be agile and the articulation on this body suits him quite well. You get double hinges in both the elbows and knees, rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, thighs, and lower legs. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, the waist has a swivel, there’s an ab crunch in the chest, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged.

Accessories include two pairs of hands and a rather large trident. The figure comes out of the box with the trident holding hands and the extras are flat with the fingers together for swimming. The trident is cast in a less than stellar gold plastic, but spruced up a bit with some white and metallic blue paint accents.

While the idea of Walgreens Exclusive Marvel Legends figures still sounds really odd to me, I cannot deny that they’ve been landing some pretty big fish. HA! Seriously, though, with hits like Agent Venom, Black Ant, and now Namor, these are going above and beyond the sort of lazy repaints that I would have expected. Now, whether a character like Namor should be an Exclusive is another matter entirely, but it seems as if this one has not been difficult to find in stores. And even people like me, who live in a black pit of despair when it comes to toy distribution, have the option of ordering him through Walgreen’s website. Sure, at $27 because shipping, he’s a little pricier, but for a figure this great, I’ll pay that all day long. Now if only we can get a new Legends Sue Storm to keep him warm at night.

Jun 14 2016

Masters of the Universe Classics: PowerCon Exclusive Granamyr by Mattel

Sometimes collecting MOTUC Exclusives can be a real ball buster. In the case of this year’s PowerCon Exclusives, you didn’t have to go to the Con, you just had to be willing to pony up big money on a pre-order at one of those well known online scalpers, oops… I mean toy retailers. One of those was a re-release of the large dragon, Granamyr in his green Mini-Comic colors. The price? $140 for a repaint of a toy that was originally $85 back in 2012. Hey, don’t judge me… it’s already selling for a lot more than that on Ebay and it’s still cheaper than what the original red Granamyr is going for these days. Besides, my idea of self-control was not buying the other two PowerCon Exclusives. So hey, let’s take a look at this big-ass dragon…

The box looks very similar to the one used for the original release with his color being appropriately changed from red to green. I absolutely adore the artwork here. It’s very reminiscent of the stuff we used to get back in the vintage days. His tag line on the front reads, “Great Dragon Lord of Darksmoke” and it points out that as big as this box is, he does indeed come unassembled. The box is collector friendly, but it has that weird shape that Matty loves to do on these things, meaning that there’s actually multiple flaps on the side panels, the tape on each of which need to be carefully cut in order to preserve the box while opening him.

The back features a picture of the toy and a full bio. You also get a little headshot from the Mini-Comic, which inspired this new deco for the character. I was really on the fence over picking up the original release of this guy, but I had a lot of other irons in the fire and my resolve actually held out for once. When I saw how great this re-deco looked in green, I just couldn’t resist. Time to open him up!

Dragon parts!!! Inside the box you get two trays of parts, plus the torso wrapped in a plastic bag, and a simple, folded instruction sheet. There are a total of ten parts used to build him: Two legs, two arms, torso, neck, head, two wings, and a tail. If you’ve ever put together a Hasbro Build-A-Figure or a Mattel Collect-And-Connect, than putting this beast together should feel familiar, only on a much larger scale. I was surprised that it looks like he’s capable of being disassembled and returned to the box, which isn’t always the case with these kinds of assembly jobs. I can’t imagine any time when I won’t want this guy on display, but it’s always nice to have options to return a toy to the box, especially when it’s an exclusive release like this one.

Dear God, this thing is gorgeous! GORGEOUS!!! If you already have the original release, most of what I’ve got to say will be common knowledge, but this is my first experience with the figure, so please forgive me, because I’m going to have to do a lot of gushing. Granamyr measures about 14-inches tall in his seated position, and make no mistake, this is a figure that is designed to be sitting. His spindly little dragon legs can indeed be stretched out for him to stand on, making him monstrously tall, but he really looks goofy when standing. He does, however, look right at home seated with his knees drawn up on either side of his chest. Regardless, he’s still fully articulated in his arms and legs, with rotating hips and shoulders and rotating hinges in the elbows, knees, wrists, and ankles. He has additional swivels at his chest and the base of his tail, there are rotating hinges in his wings, and his neck is ball jointed.

The sculpt here is quite extravagant. The body is indeed rotocast, and that sometimes results in softer and mushier sculpts, but that’s certainly not the case here. Every part of his body is covered with sculpted scales, which feature some beautiful definition, making him look ancient. You also get crosscuts in his chest and the bottom ridges of his tail, some nice barbs coming off of his forearms, and a row of beefy spikes running down his spine. You can even make out the muscle definition in his upper legs and the tendons running from his fingers to the backs of his hands. The detail on display here feels worthy of a higher end statue, and it’s really something special to see it on an action figure, albeit a rather pricey one.

Like a great piece of art, the quality and composure of the paint compliments this sculpt brilliantly. That’s not to say the original red version wasn’t stunning, this one is just… different. The multiple shades of green are applied to get the most out of picking out the detail in the scales and muscles and other bits of dragon anatomy, with a lighter lime green used for his belly and some glossy gray paint for his claws.

And then there’s the head sculpt, which is a total knock-out. Sure it helps that they had a great design to begin with, but the quality of this sculpt just elevates it through the roof. The wrinkles, the jagged teeth, those lizard-like creases around the corners of his mouth. The cavernous nostrils and the prominent, imposing brow framing those mystical pupil-less white eyes. Everything here is just so masterfully done giving Granamyr a ton of personality and an ancient and wizened look.

The paintwork on the face is also stellar and arguably even better than the body. It emphasizes every little crease and crevice. The teeth are painted to match his claws, the eyes are now white, instead of the yellow used for the first release, and his helmet is finished to look like worn, cold steel. The horns on the helmet have a realistic ivory finish.

I already walked through the articulation here, and pointed out that this figure is designed with a very singular display option, however, that doesn’t mean the articulation is wasted. Not at all. You can still get some wonderfully expressive poses out of him and he’s still a lot of fun to play with.

I pre-ordered this beauty the day it went up, and I’ll be real honest and admit that when the pre-order finally dropped, I found myself hit with a pang of regret. My list of want-to-buy toys right now is pretty long and I’m already making some painful compromises to accommodate my budget. I needed a $140 dragon hitting my checkbook like I needed a hole in the head. Checking completed listings on Ebay, I had every intention of putting him on the block when he arrived and making a little extra cash on the deal too. But then I opened him and put him together and sat this majestic creature on my desk beside me. It was then I instantly knew that I had made the right decision buying him and that there was no way I could give him up. This is quite simply a work of art and I absolutely love him. What’s more, he’s such a versatile figure, and I can see using him in a whole bunch of different displays besides MOTUC, from Mythic Legions to my LJN Advanced Dungeons & Dragons figures. He’s going to be welcome among many different lines.

Jun 9 2016

Masters of the Universe Classics: Goat Man by Mattel

Masters Classics continues to limp along as I cling to the glory days with my little Collector’s Choice subscription. But since that figure was delayed (again!), today I’m going to open up Goat Man, a figure I picked up during one of the Early Access sales. Goat Man was one of those infuriating exclusives that was available at multiple conventions and eventually put up for sale on Matty’s site with warnings about limited quantities. I don’t recall whether he sold out quickly, but whatever the case, Matty had some more lying around and we got a second chance at him a couple of months back. This was a good thing, because he’s a really obscure character, which must have been like a dream come true for a lot of hardcore fans. For me, seeing him just made me realize that my Eternian shelves lacked a Goat Man and I just couldn’t have it.

Despite being a Con Exclusive, there’s nothing on the package to indicate that. Flipping over the card reveals that he was the days of the line (last year) when Matty still printed bios on the back of the cards. While his tag line, “Horn-Headed Servant of Beast Man” more or less sums him up, reading the bio told me that he also got his ass kicked by Buzz-Off. Jeez. That’s quite the resume.

Goat Man feels like he settled on his name because Ram Man was already taken. There’s nothing terribly goat-ish about him. He doesn’t have hooves for feet. He doesn’t have those creepy horizontal irises, nor does he have a scraggly little chin beard. He does feature a pretty standard MOTUC buck with the usual furry diaper and belt, some blue boots with scalloped tops, and some thigh wraps, that I don’t remember ever seeing before. The torso is covered with a vest that makes him look really puffy, and some criss-crossing black straps sculpted on.

The paint here is mostly good. The combination of blue used for the boots and belt, and the red for the furry diaper, gloves, and vest makes for a colorful deco. There’s even a very subtle difference between the metallic red they used on the flared shoulders and the regular red used for the rest of the vest. I do find it peculiar that his skin is regular flesh tone, while his face is red. The paint on my figure has a few minor flubs, like some chipping on the black straps on the back of his vest, but overall the quality is OK.

The head sculpt here is decent, but nothing much to write home about. It’s actually a pretty scary portrait, with the mouth full of sharp teeth, the black and red eyes, and the curling ram… I mean goat horns. This guy looks like he would be right at home on the cover of an 80’s Heavy Metal album. Again, the fact that his face is red and the rest of the skin isn’t makes it look like he’s supposed to be wearing a mask. If that’s the case, than I have to bring his pedigree as a legitimate Goat Man into further question.

The articulation conforms to the usual standard MOTUC buck. If there’s going to be one positive thing about this line ending is that I won’t have to run down the articulation on these any longer. Right now, I can practically do it in my sleep. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels up near the hips. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the torso, and a ball joint in the neck.

Goat Man comes with two accessories, but only one is intended for him. His is the huge, bitchin’ hammer and I absolutely love this thing. It’s a simple sculpt, with a steel finish and a sculpted, brown wrapped grip. It looks totally appropriate for him and it’s probably one of my favorite MOTUC weapons in a long while.

The other accessory is the Staff of Avion taken from the Mini Comics. For a little while now, Matty has been trying to get extra accessories out to the fans by randomly bundling them with other figures, and this staff is yet another example of that. I can’t say that I was pining to get this into my collection, but I’ll never say no to another accessory. It’s mostly translucent green plastic with a little gold paint, and it actually looks quite striking. It’s ironic, but Stratos originally came with no accessories and now he has two Staffs of Avion (the other coming with Filmation Icer).

Goat Man doesn’t really impress me all that much, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like him. Hell, it’s hard for me to think of too many figures in this line that I don’t like. He’s certainly a solid figure and a welcome addition to the already colorful menagerie of characters in my MOTUC collection, but I’m glad I didn’t go nuts trying to get him when I missed out on him the first time. And believe me, I almost ended up going the Ebay route on this guy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look at the Collector’s Choice figure, Darius, within the next week or so as I just got shipping notification on him right here in front of me… TWELVE BUCKS FOR SHIPPING ONE FIGURE… Oh, YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL, MATTY, AND I HOPE GOAT MAN IS WAITING THERE FOR YOU WITH HIS GIANT BALL-BUSTING HAMMER!!! I do also have the PowerCon Exclusive Granamyr figure on its way, so it’ll be a race to see which one gets here first. I’m betting it’s Granamyr, because Matty’s twelve dollar shipping takes forever.

Jun 7 2016

Vitruvian HACKS: Ultimate Spartan Warrior (NJCC Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

It finally happened! My second and final box of joy from Boss Fight Studios arrived with my remaining Vitruvian HACKS figures. I’ll be looking at those soon, but before I get to them, I have one more Exclusive figure to check out. I already Featured the Kokomo Toys Amazon Elite and this time I’m looking at the New Jersey Collectors Con Ultimate Spartan Warrior. Damn, I lived in NJ for the first 21 years of my life and I don’t remember ever seeing any toy or collectors conventions until I moved 1200 miles away. Aw, that’s not fair!!! There’s nothing like that where I live now. NOTHING!!!

The figure comes in the same style box as the other Exclusive with the figure on a tray inside. It features some monochrome line art and blurbs about the character on the back. It’s certainly not as flashy as the regular release packaging, but it gets the job done, I like the artwork, and it’s damn surprising how many goodies this tiny box can hold.

Yeah… seriously. This guy is more like a weapons pack with a figure thrown in! You get four helmets, two shields, five swords (one with a scabbard), two axes, and an extra pair of fists with the hinge on a different axis. This is a huge chunk of a the entire Vitruvian HACKS arsenal all in one neat little box.

But that’s not to devalue the figure, because the Elite Spartan (shown on the left) is a mighty damn cool. From the neck down, this guy features the same sculpt and articulation as the regular Spartan Warrior, so I’ll refer you back to that original Feature for more details. The big difference here is that the Exclusive is all muddied up with some paint spray that overall looks pretty good. I think the stuff on the white strips around his “skirt” ventures into Hasbro’s unfortunate POTF2-era weathering territory, but the stuff on his skin and armor looks fine. The head sculpt is also new, as this guy has a bushier beard. The vanilla Spartan Warrior was a solid release minus some mushy knees, this one feels a little better in hand. Let’s talk helmets…

Four helmets is above and beyond, Boss Fight! We start off with a variant of the one that came with the Spartan Warrior. It’s not as shiny and it’s splattered with mud.

Next up we get a fully painted and non-petrified version of the helmet that came with the Cursed Stone Spartan. I’m really happy to have a regular version of this one as it has a little more flourish to the design than the regular.

Third is this one, which is my least favorite in terms of design, but easily the most impressive in terms of sculpt. This one is a new piece to me, as it was not included in any of the original assortment of four figures, but I’m pretty sure I have it coming in one of the figures I’ve yet to open.

And lastly, there’s the good old fashioned Barbute, for when you’re less worried about fancy plumage and just want to keep your noggin from getting bashed in or your ears and nose cut off. This looks like it’s the same mold used for the silver helmet that came with the Amazon Elite.

Moving on to the shields, we’ve seen these before. The first is the same one that came with the regular Spartan, whereas the other is the beautifully sculpted Medusa head shield that came with the Cursed Stone Spartan. Once again, this is another piece I’m really happy to have in a non-petrified version. It looks fantastic with the bronze finish. The shields use the same soft plastic sleeve with grab bar to attach to the figure’s arm. It can be tricky to get the grab bar to work, but it can be done. On the other hand, it’s not necessary, the shield can be warn perfectly fine with just the arm passed through the sleeve. It all depends on how accurate you want it to look from the other side.

Weapons! Some of these weapons were included with the regular Spartan Warrior, so we get the same spear. as well as the matched long and short swords. These are fantastic little accessories with some phenomenal paint.

You also get the scabbard and shoulder strap that we saw with the Spartan Warrior and a new sword to put into it. This one has more of an Etruscan type hilt. The scabbard fits the figure quite well an the red paint on the tassels and the silver paint on the buckles is all very sharp.

The fourth and fifth swords include a repaint of the broadsword that came with the Amazon Elite and a Falcata, which was not in any of my initial four figures, but it may very well be included in one of the figures I’ve yet to open. The Falcata has a bronze colored blade and a brown grip. No doubt about it, if you love swords, this box has plenty of blades to make you happy!

Let me axe you a question… do you like axes? Good, because you also get the pair of axes that came with the Amazon Elite. Phew! That’s a lot of accessories. Oh yeah, you also get the stock Boss Fight Studios figure stand that comes with all of the HACKS figures.

Like the Exclusive Amazon Elite, this figure was really easy for me to get on Ebay and at $30, I really don’t feel like I had to pay that much of a premium. They were sold directly by the NJCC, so there wasn’t any scalping padding the price. Considering the regular HACKS are about $20, I’m happy to pay the extra $10 to get what is basically a beefy accessory pack. I suspect that all of these weapons can be found scattered across the other HACKS releases, so technically what’s new in this Exclusive? It’s the dirtied up deco on the figure and some of the equipment. But HACKS is a line that gets better with sharing and the bigger the pile of arms and armor the more fun these get. The Ultimate Spartan looks distinct enough to stand beside the regular Spartan and bolster my ranks and I’m sure glad I got him.

Next week, I can start digging into the rest of the regular release figures!

May 17 2016

Aliens: Space Marine Lt. Ripley (Kenner Version) by NECA

Kenner’s line of Aliens figures defies all sense and logic by its very existence. It was originally inspired by the planned cartoon series Aliens Operation, Yes, a cartoon based on an R-rated film franchise. The cartoon was scrapped, but the figures survived and came out under the name Aliens thus becoming a line of figures directly based on an R-rated movie that was at that point some six years old. Craziness! Nonetheless it was a fun and wildly creative line that was sadly released at a time when I had zero interest in collecting toys. Nonetheless, when NECA decided to celebrate Alien Day on 4/26 and release a Kenner-inspired repaint of their Aliens Lt Ripley figure, I was definitely on board.

Ripley was exclusive to Toys R Us and GoHastings and sold out really fast online, but eventually came back into stock at TRU. The figure comes in NECA’s traditional sealed blister pack, and while the Aliens title up at the top is the same as what we saw with NECA’s Aliens line, the rest of the package art has been re-branded to reflect the Kenner animated look, complete with a brand new insert and a “cardback” that imitates the Kenner line. It’s a fun and colorful package and in this case I’m glad I wound up with two, because one of them is staying in the package and going right up on my wall.

If you own NECA’s original release of Ripley from Aliens, then the sculpt should be instantly familiar to you. This is a straight repaint to the Kenner colors with the ammo strap reversed and an added neckerchief. Keep in mind, that’s not a criticism. For starters, the original release of this figure is both excellent and a tough item to get anywhere near the original price point. Secondly, it’s amazing how well this homage works with just a fresh coat of paint. When I look at it, I don’t see the repaint, just a fully realized Kenner-style figure.

The new coloring includes the bright yellow shit-kickers, darker blue pants, the maroon top and tan neckerchief. The ammo strap is black with orange cartridges. The paint is all very clean, right down to the black watch on her left wrist. For a 90’s line, the coloring here isn’t as obnoxious as one might expect. In fact, the only thing that’s really out of the ordinary are her bright yellow boots and I still think they look great.

The portrait on this figure was pretty solid to begin with and it not only still looks great, but I’m surprised how well it works on this homage. I particularly love what they did with the hair sculpt. On the downside, this figure uses flesh toned plastic, rather than paint, so you do get a bit of the waxy finish. Granted, it looks a lot more shiny under the studio lights than it does most of the time. Aw hell, she’s lugging a big gun around, running around hunting Xenomorphs, I’ve got to imagine Ripley’s going to be perspiring a bit.

Speaking of running around, Ripley features some solid articulation. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and knees. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers, there’s a ball joint just above the waist, and another in the neck. Not bad!

Ripley comes with one accessory and that’s her Smartgun. I don’t have a lot of the Colonial Marines figures, so this is my first encounter with this accessory and I like it a lot. It’s a beautifully intricate sculpt and while it looks like it would be unwieldy and difficult to work with, the truth is it’s got so many grab points that I was able to have a lot of fun with it.

The only downside of this figure is that the availability was spotty at release because of quick sell outs leading to a run on Ebay and doubling the price of the figure. But now all that has settled down, and at the time I’m posting this Feature, Ripley is available on TRU’s website for the original $24.99. Obviously, this figure is aimed at the 90’s kids who have nostalgia for the original toy line, but I’m proof positive that the figure’s appeal can transcend that. Seeing as I don’t own the original release of Aliens Ripley, I’m very happy to have this mold on my shelf and the coloring just makes her all the more special.

Apr 6 2016

Vitruvian HACKS: Amazon Elite Warrior (Kokomo Toys Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

I thought I was going to have to wait until Boss Fight Studios finally got around to shipping out more figures before I could delve into the lovely Vitruvian HACKS line again, but thanks to an Exclusive through Kokomo Toys, I’ve got a new figure in my dirty paws and ready to go. The Amazon Elite Warrior is exclusive to independent toy retailer, Kokomo Toys out of Kokomo, Indiana. I only know Kokomo Toys from their adverts on the What’s on Joe Mind? podcast, but I’ve seen lots of pictures of their store and it looks like The Promised Land might be in Indiana. I’m kind of glad they’re half a country away from me, because I could probably go bankrupt in that place.

The packaging is different this time around. Instead of a card and bubble, the figure comes on a tray in a form-fitting monochrome box. I know, usually exclusives come in better packaging than the trade releases, but that’s not the case here. And while it’s not as flashy as the presentation on the regular figures, it’s fine for what it is. You get an illustration on the front and a little blurb about the character on the back.

And here she is in all her glory. This is the first time I’m able to play around with a full-on female figure from this line. That is to say a lady that doesn’t have snake parts where her legs should be. And speaking of legs, I don’t find any of the wonkiness here that I experienced with my Spartan figures. These are some solid gams. She features a dark complexion with some tattoos painted on. She also features armor pieces similar to the Spartans and consisting of wrist bracers, full torso armor, front and back, and leg grieves. As before, the armor is all removable.

The paint here is excellent, with a bright, metallic silver used for the armor that makes for a nice change up from the bronze colored pieces on the Spartan and Coral Gorgon. Her “skirt” is black with silver studs. Overall, this armor ensemble feels a little more utilitarian than the Spartan, but I really dig it a lot and the bright silver contrasts nicely with her dark skin.

One cool feature on this figure’s armor is the loop on the back of the belt that allows you to store one of her weapons.

The portrait features a nicely detailed sculpt for a 4-inch scale lady. She has short hair and more tattoos painted on her face. Very nice!

The Amazon Elite comes with a wide variety of accessories, some I’ve seen before among the other figures and some are brand new to me. For starters you get not one, but two helmets. One is very similar to what we saw with the Spartan. It includes the high red comb and is painted silver to match the armor.

The other helmet is more of a utilitarian Barbute. There’s no comb or crest and it features the same brilliant silver paint. Both helmets fit the figure very well.

The shields in this line are quickly becoming my favorite accessories, and here’s another reason why. It’s the same basic sculpt as the one included with the Spartan Warrior, which means it includes that lovely hammered surface and the fully detailed interior with grab bar and sleeve. I actually found it much easier to get the female figure’s hand to hold the bar on this one. The front surface is painted with a traditional Greek warrior motif similar to what you might find on pottery of the period. It’s simply gorgeous.

Of course, no elite warrior would be complete without weapons and this gal comes with a nice assortment. First off, you get these cool light axes, which are brand new accessories to me. They have sculpted shafts with silver painted heads.

Next you get a beautiful long sword with a black grip and a stout blade. This one is also a brand new accessory to me.

Finally, you get the spear, which is a repaint of the one included with the Spartan Warrior and Cursed Stone Spartan. It features a leaf-shaped head and a spiked butt. Also included in the box is a pair of replacement hands with the hinges cut along the other axis, and the standard figure stand that has come with each of the figures so far.

This Exclusive is available for purchase through Kokomo Toys’ Ebay shop at the cost of $30. Yup, she’s ten bucks more than your average Vitruvian HACKS figure. It is a bit steep, and I’ll admit I hesitated a bit, but in the end, I’m glad I pulled the trigger. You get more stuff than with any of the four Wave One figures. And as it turns out, this is easily my favorite among my three humans in the line so far and give me a nice idea of what’s to come, as I have a few more of the female figures on order and waiting to be shipped to me.

Mar 18 2016

Femme Fatales “DC Animated Series:” Talia Al Ghul by Diamond Select

DST continues to work overtime churning out the statues from their new Femme Fatales and DC Animated Series partnership. I’ve been enjoying this line a lot, but I’ll confess it’s getting a bit exhausting to keep up with it since the line launched late last year. The modest little nook I set aside for the initial releases has now grown to a full shelf. Not only are they up to a half dozen regular releases, but there have already been a pair of Exclusives. The first was the 2015 SDCC Supergirl variant and now we have the first completely original Exclusive via e-tailer, Entertainment Earth… Talia Al Ghul!

The box features the lovely deco based off Batman: The Animated Series and with windows positioned front, top and both sides, you can really get a great look at the statue before even removing it from the box. The front window has an EE Exclusive sticker and the top flap is sealed with a strip of Exclusive foil tape denoting that this is #1369 of 2000. There is no statement of limitation on the statue itself. Looks like I’m going in through the bottom! Talia first appeared B:TAS in the S2 episode “Off Balance” and later in the S3, two-parter “The Demon’s Quest” and this statue is an amalgam of both appearances. These were solid episodes with the unexpected Helen Slater voicing Talia and the great David Warner (always a favorite of mine) voicing Ras. Ah, Ras. “Have sex with my daughter or I’ll kill you!” Those are the kinds of arch villains I want if I ever get to be a superhero.

Talia dons her “all business” black catsuit from “Off Balance” as opposed to her “all pleasure” temptress harem garb from “The Demon’s Quest.” While there was certainly something to be said for the later, I’m glad DST went with this look. Talia’s character started out strong only to get neutered somewhere between the two episodes and I think this version is a much better fit for the line. But, hey… if they want to do the other version somewhere down the road, I’d be on board. Since this is an animated style statue, the amount of sculpted detail is limited. I really like the way the edges of the gloves and boots are sculpted so as to look real and not only achieved with a shallow cut and paint lines. The portrait is well done, particularly the way her hair covers half of her face. The belt, holster, and thigh strap are all also part of the sculpt and look good. At about 9-inches tall, she scales perfectly with most of her fellow Femme Fatales.

With these simpler animated style statues, the paint is all the more important in order to carry the day and Talia here sports some of the best quality paint I’ve seen in this series so far. There is virtually no slop to speak of here and the gray and purple on her outfit are very clean. The paintwork on her face looks especially crisp, which is a nice change after having a little flub on the right eye of my Wonder Woman statue. If I had one complaint here it would be the paint on her pistol isn’t as sharp as it could be, but I can live with that.

Speaking of the pistol, it’s one of the two “accessories” that Talia is holding, the other being the Mask of Anubis. This is one of the points in which this statue straddles Talia’s first two appearances in the series, as the mask appeared in “The Demon’s Quest” and was worn as a disguise by her father.

The other nod to “The Demon’s Quest” is the base, which depicts Talia standing on rocky ground at the end of a Lazarus Pit. It’s a great choice for a base and it looks pretty good. The bubbles added to the life-restoring soup are a nice touch. This contextual liberty that draws aspects from both episodes doesn’t bother me at all, but it might irk some purists out there looking for a statue from a definitive episode.

Talia is another solid release in this line, and quite possibly one of my favorites so far. It’s great to be able to get all the animated styles of DC’s ladies together in one place and scale, especially for someone like me who hasn’t bought into DC Collectibles Animated figures… yet. Of course, the other big draw here is the price. With MSRP’s in the forty dollar range, these pieces really are some of the most affordable statues on the market and perfect for collectors who want to add some statues to their shelves, but not break the bank on higher end pieces. Talia is still available from EE at $45 plus shipping, but even as a limited store exclusive, this one can currently be had at a better deal elsewhere. I picked up mine from Amazon at $35 shipped, which is a solid deal for a regular edition, but even better for a limited piece like this one.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: exclusives

Marvel Legends: The Invisible Woman & HERBIE by Hasbro

Star Wars Black: R5-D4 (Gamestop Exclusive) by Hasbro

Vitruvian HACKS: Atelis Warrior (Kokomo Toys Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

Marvel Legends: Namor (Walgreens Exclusive) by Hasbro

Masters of the Universe Classics: PowerCon Exclusive Granamyr by Mattel

Masters of the Universe Classics: Goat Man by Mattel

Vitruvian HACKS: Ultimate Spartan Warrior (NJCC Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

Aliens: Space Marine Lt. Ripley (Kenner Version) by NECA

Vitruvian HACKS: Amazon Elite Warrior (Kokomo Toys Exclusive) by Boss Fight Studios

Femme Fatales “DC Animated Series:” Talia Al Ghul by Diamond Select

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: