Tag Archives: guardians of the galaxy

Jul 7 2023

Marvel Legends (GotG v3): Kraglin, Adam Warlock and Cosmo BAF by Hasbro

Well, hello folks! I’ve been a bad host this week, but I’m happy I was able to show up before the end with at least one piece of content. I had my head buried in work with some big projects, which I swore up and down I would no longer be doing, but it is what it is. Anyway, I got some cool toys in this week and hope to have a full slate of reviews for next week. As for now, let’s wrap up the Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Wave with the last two packaged figures and the Build-A-Figure!

If you need to get caught up, the previous figures were Deluxe Groot, Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax, Nebula, and Rocket. Groot was not technically part of this wave, and Star-Lord did not have any BAF parts, but collecting the rest allow you to build the Russian Space Pooch, and we’ll check her out at the end. Let’s start with Adam Warlock…

Warlock was fine in the movie, but I wasn’t expecting too much out of him. He certainly wasn’t worth the tease that we got at the end of Guardians 2. As for the figure, this was probably the one I was least looking forward to in this entire assortment. But that doesn’t mean he’s a bad figure. The costume sculpt is actually quite impressive. There’s a nice layering effect from the super fine chain mail texture to the plates and contour lines which all add a very cool complexity to the base figure. This may be some of the best sculpting in any Legends MCU costume to date. But the MCU suit aesthetic is getting a bit threadbare and there’s just getting to be a general sameness about them to me. I feel like there are some similar design beats between this suit and Vision’s when they should be completely different. With that having been said, the coloring is very nice with a mix of glossy red and pale gold, and the printed pattern on the cape is sharp and snappy.

The head sculpt is pretty good. I was not familiar with the actor who played him, but the likeness here seems pretty good. I’m not thrilled with the gold plastic they used for his face and hair. It doesn’t really convey the same effect as the onscreen makeup, but it’s not bad either.

And that’s really all I have to say about this guy. The articulation is exactly what you would expect and the pinless joints are nice. I just can’t say I had a lot of fun posing him or playing around with him. If he didn’t come with a BAF part, I probably would have passed on him or waited until clearance. I also wish we had gotten a Ravager version of Gamora in his slot instead. But at the same time, I’m happy to add him to the shelf. Let’s move on to Kraglin…

Apparently even being the Director’s brother doesn’t guarantee you an action figure, at least not until you’ve been in all three movies. But here we are finally getting Kraglin in Marvel Legends. Granted, he’s had the biggest role in this last one, taking over the mantle (and fin) from his deceased Captain. I was pretty excited to get him and this figure does not disappoint. The attention to detail in the costume is very well done, with various textures and bits of padding in the sculpt. You also get some reinforced panels and a shoulder rig that includes a scabbard behind his shoulder and a sling for his arrow. There’s some extra fine sculpting in the zipper and I love the way his collar sits all folded up around his neck. But what the heck, Hasbro… we’re back to pins in the joints?

The head sculpt here is a pretty good likeness to Sean Gunn, although I don’t think they got his eyes quite right and the facial hair needed to be a touch more pronounced. Still, I like it a lot and it looks exceptionally good in profile. The fin is recreated beautifully with some nice panel lines and details. It’s also pretty gross how it sprouts out of his head like that.

The sheath behind the shoulder holds a tiny little knife, which his right hand can hold pretty well.

Kraglin’s other accessory is the arrow, which includes an energy trail to show it zipping through the air. The effect is very well done with a clear red plastic trail, but I really wish they had included a second arrow without the trail as well. It would have been a cheap and easy accessory that would have went a long way. Still, I like some of the poses you can do with the effect part arrow, so that’s cool. And that brings us to…

Cosmo the Space Dog! Usually I like my Build-A-Figures to be big figures that wouldn’t fit in a normal Legends sized box, but I can’t deny I’m happy to have Cosmo. There are actually nine separate pieces here which include the four legs, the tail, the body, the head, and two pieces for the space helmet, which does open and close. There’s something about animal legs that don’t always translate well to rotating ball joints, but these work OK. The suit looks great with some sculpted rumples and various bits of vintage space gear.

I had a lot of trouble getting the clear dome on the helmet to work, but eventually I got there. That may have just been me being an idiot. The head sculpt here is really quite fantastic for the first doggo in Marvel Legends. The sculpted fur looks really good as does the little flash of teeth in the corner of her jowls. The eyes are also excellent. Cosmo is a good dog!

And that’s the first complete wave of Marvel Legends for me this year! See how that works? I enjoyed Guardians 3 and that made me want this wave. Meanwhile there are absolutely no other MCU projects, film or otherwise that are even getting any of my interest. And with Hasbro dipping into stuff like Amadeus Cho Hulk for a Build-A-Figure, there’s little chance I’m going to be picking up any other current Legends waves. I still have some unopened older figures, and I may get to some of those this year, but with this Guardians 3 wave behind me, Legends is likely going to fall off the radar for a while now.

Jun 26 2023

Marvel Legends (GotG v3): Nebula and Rocket by Hasbro

It’s another Marvel Monday this week as I am working my way through the somewhat recently released Build-A-Russian-Space-Pooch Wave of Marvel Legends. So far I’ve checked out Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis from the BAF assortment, as well as the Deluxe Groot, which is admittedly a peripheral release but still part of the gang. Today I’m finishing up the Guardians proper with Nebula and Rocket, and that will just leave two more figures to go, plus the BAF.

I’ve said my piece about this packaging. I like it well enough but I’ll also be happy to see the end to these windowless boxes. It also baffles me as to why Hasbro didn’t list the figures in this wave on the back like they used to do, but I bought the wave all in one shot, so I guess it didn’t matter. As for the characters, let’s be honest, it Guardians 3 was Rocket’s movie, and perhaps even his trilogy all along, if a certain line of otter dialogue is to be believed. As for Nebula, I’ve really enjoyed her a lot more ever since Endgame and it was interesting to see her get a bigger role in this one, even over her sister Gamora, who is conspicuously absent from this wave of figures. Anyway… let’s start with Nebula!

It’s Hasbro, so I was expecting Nebula to share a body with Mantis, and that is certainly the case. Still, considering the amount of new sculpting in this wave, I can’t say as I really blame them. I loved this uniformed body on Mantis, and I love it here just the same. There’s some excellent sculpted detail in the costume and the blue and red just pop so beautifully. The belt is a separate sculps from the body and it’s nice and snug around the waist.

Of course, you do get a newly sculpted arm with some really cool detail that looks like some kind of synthetic muscular weave. Like the regular arm, it’s pinless in the elbow and has a really tight bend which I love.

The head sculpt is excellent and reflects the differences from the last time we saw her in the Legends line as part of the Mantis BAF wave. The sculpt here is a little soft but it works fine. Still, I’m not sure I like it more than the metallic paint and Borg-like eye business going on with the previous release. Still, that’s apples and oranges, because we’re dealing with two different versions fo the character. I’ll just say what we got here is fine and leave it at that.

Nebula makes out really well in the accessories department, as she comes with no less than three weapons. The first is this little pistol, which is a cool design, but probably the least interesting of the weapons. Also, it’s so small I almost wound up throwing it out with the tissue paper it was wrapped in.

Next up is a sword attachment for her cybernetic arm. This one just pegs in by replacing the hand for and gives off some awesome Terminator 2 vibes. The sculpt carries on the cyber-sinew pattern of the arm and has some orange paint on the edges. The sword really makes me wish they had given her a right gun hand so that she could wield both gun and sword, but it’s still pretty cool.

And finally, you get a nice big rifle. It’s cast in gray plastic and I love it. She can hold it really well too. I wish they had painted the hole in the barrel black, but I might go ahead and remedy that with a sharpie. Ok, let’s move on to Rocket Racoon!

YES! He finally uses is full name in the movie, and embraces his inner Racooness, which was fun to hear. And yes, this is easily the best Legends Rocket I’ve seen yet. Plus, he looks so damn adorable in his little uniform! Just about all the details survived being shrunk down to racoon size, including the Guardians emblem on his chest and the belt. The colors still look great here although the red is a little more muted. The uniform even has a hole in the butt where his floofy tail juts out.

The articulation here is pretty impressive for such a tiny body. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. The hips are ball jointed, there are swivels in the thighs, and ball joints under the chest and in the neck. He can be a little tough to balance on his tiny feet, but you can always use the tail for support in a pinch.

The head sculpt is by far the best we’ve seen for Rocket in this scale. I’m blown away by the amount of detail in his exposed teeth.

Rocket comes with one accessory and that’s his the huge blaster that he’s been carrying since the first movie. This is such a cool and complex design. It’s also made to work well with Rocket’s tiny hands and has a loop in the stock that goes around and under his shoulder.

With the core team of Guardians assembled, I have to say this has been a fantastic wave. I was a little hesitant to pre-order these as opposed to waiting for clearance, but I’m glad I pulled the trigger, because these are going to get a prime display spot on one of my shelves. But we still have two more figures in the wave to check out and the BAF, so we’ll swing back for one more Marvel Monday next week to have a look at those!

Jun 19 2023

Marvel Legends (GotG v3): Drax and Mantis by Hasbro

Hey, it’s another Marvel Monday, how about that! A couple of weeks ago I started my look at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 figures with Star-Lord and Deluxe Groot, and today I’m pushing things along with Drax and Mantis!

This wave comes in the fully enclosed boxes, which Hasbro promises will be going away soon in favor of a return to the window boxes. I actually really like the look of these boxes. You get some nice character art on the side panel and the photos have been matching the figures pretty well. My only real complaint here is that it doesn’t show all the figures in the wave on the back like the window packages did. I’m not sure why they dropped that here, but it can be confusing if you aren’t sure which figures you’re looking for to build the Space Doggo. It just seems like weird omission. Let’s start with Drax!

It’s still kind of weird to see Drax wearing a shirt. I was half expecting him to yell, “Your flimsy cloth materials cannot contain me!” and rip it off at some point in the movie. But as I said last time, I absolutely adore these uniforms and they look great on the figures. Drax is as chonky as ever and the body uses an interesting mix of pinned joints for the knees but pinless joints for the elbows. The detail in the uniform is quite nice with just about every detail included in the sculpt rather than just being painted on. I particularly love the raised bronze Guardians insignia in the center of the chest. And the colors here are to die for. The vibrant blue and red mixed with the black just looks so damn snappy! All the usual articulation is here and all the joints feel great.

This is undoubtedly Hasbro’s best Drax head sculpt, but that should be no surprise since it’s been six years since we got the last MCU version of Drax in the Legends line. The likeness to Batista in the make up is spot on and his facial markings are part of the sculpt as well as painted in. The expression is pretty neutral, but everything about this portrait works for me.

Drax comes with his fighting knives, which have been included with each of the two prior releases of the character. I’m not sure if these are the exact same sculpts, but they look very similar. They are cast in pale gray plastic and have details sculpted into the grips as well as some markings on the blades. And despite the new uniform, I was happy to see that he still has the scabbards in the boots to stow them when he’s not in full-on stabby-stabby mode.

Drax is just another fantastic figure in this wave, and I have absolutely zero complaints. Sure, it’s a departure from his iconic look, but what can I say? I just love the uniforms! With the price hike forever in the back of my mind, this is one figure I did not mind paying the full $25 to get. The sculpt and paint are both top notch and pretty much everything you get here is brand new. Moving on to Mantis…

Here we get our first look at the ladies version of the uniform and once again it looks great! The finish on Mantis’ outfit is more matte than Drax’s which has a bit of a sheen to it. I’d also say that her red striping is a little less vibrant too. Neither issue is enough to bother me when they’re standing side by side, but worth pointing out nonetheless. Mantis sports pinless joints in both her knees and elbows, and I’m happy to see both double hinges in the elbows and swivels in the biceps. She also has a ball joint under the chest instead of the ab crunch hinge we see on Drax and Star-Lord.

And like Drax, we get a brand new head sculpt for Mantis. It’s still crazy to think that she was a Build-A-Figure when last released. This new noggin is a huge improvement over the last one, which wasn’t bad. You get a softer and more natural face with a far more realistic skin tone. The eyes are also phenomenal this time around and I like the sculpting on her pronounced eyelashes. The hair looks good and has some green highlights, and her antenna have a slight lilt to them. This is all around great work!

Mantis does stumble a bit because of her complete lack of extras. Yup, apart from the Cosmo BAF part, she has no accessories whatsoever. Now, I can’t off hand think of any accessories that she should have come with, but maybe at least give her an extra pair of hands. The hands she comes with are very specific with the right hand gesturing with two fingers, as if she’s focusing her telepathy, and the left hand just relaxed. She’s a beautiful figure, but at the $25 price point, she just needed something extra to justify the cost.

With four figures down, I still have four more to go before we can put together the Russian Space Pooch, but I have to say that I am really digging these figures a lot so far. Sure, I was a little lukewarm on Groot, but maybe he’s growing on me. HA! These figures are definitely helping me to come out of the general malaise I’ve felt about Marvel Legends for most of last year, and I’m genuinely excited to open up the next pair so let’s shoot for another Marvel Monday next week and check out Rocket and Nebula!

Jun 5 2023

Marvel Legends (GotG v3) Groot and Star-Lord by Hasbro

How about we do a nice Marvel Monday like the good old days, eh? At the beginning of the year I said I was pulling back on the Marvel Legends figures, and I’ve mostly been sticking to that. The Guardians Vol 3 Wave is the first complete wave I’ve picked up this year, and this is the first time I’m actually doing a Marvel Legends review since January! I am going to be covering this entire assortment and the Build-A-Figure Cosmo over the next month or so, and today I’m starting with the Deluxe Groot and Star-Lord himself. So lets fly away together into the forever and beautiful sky!

The figures come in Hasbro’s plastic free packaging, which means no windows, and yes word is we’re going back to window boxes at some point soon. Groot is not technically part of the Guardians 3 Wave and while Star-Lord is, he doesn’t come with a piece to build Cosmo. How did I like the movie? I liked it quite a bit, but I could have done with less of the animal misery porn peppered throughout. I appreciate that they were trying to give weight and tragedy to Rocket’s backstory, but it really messed with the tone of the movie. I particularly found the cybernetically grafted animals to be pretty ghoulish and upsetting and I wish they had confined it to the beginning of the movie so it could be easily skipped. As it is, I doubt I’ll re-watch it a lot. Let’s start with Groot!

OK, so this is without a doubt my least favorite version of Groot from a design standpoint. If I’m ranking the Groots they pretty much start at the top with the original and decline in my favorability until we get to this one. In a movie that was absolutely dazzling in its overall visual creativity, this Groot just looked like a guy in a rubber suit. He also didn’t sport a lot of personality either, but whatever. Hasbro’s take on this version is OK, considering what they had to work with, and they certainly invested some effort into the sculpt, but I don’t know. He kind of looks more like a chocolate sculpture than he does a tree-person. There’s plenty of detail to be had, and I appreciate the odd springs that jut out here and there and the patches of moss and greenery. They did a pretty cool job blending muscle and bark to make it look genuinely organic, but like the on screen version, this looks more to me like an animated Groot then one from an MCU film.

The portrait is a pretty good approximation of the movie, but there’s something about this design that I really don’t like. That having been said, they did a really nice job on the eyes. They’re well printed and actually look like they have a spark of life to them.

The articulation here is quite good, and despite his odd anatomy, he sports most of what we’re used to seeing in a standard Legends figure. The shoulder bark doesn’t inhibit the movement there too badly, and I was pretty pleased at the range of motion in those elbows. Most of the joints are fairly well mixed with the sculpt, although the ball-shaped hips stand out a bit. Groot comes with two sets of hands: Fists and relaxed.

Groot comes with a pair of wings, which we saw him flex in the third act of the film while escaping The Great Evolutionary. The wings come in two pieces, which plug together and then go into the hole in his back. There’s no articulation, and while the sculpt is decent, it follows the very cartoony aesthetic theme of this figure. They look decent, but I think most people would have wanted the extra arms with guns.

And finally, Groot comes with a baby version of Rocket, which is a cute accessory, but it also looks like it’s made of chocolate, and doesn’t look anything like baby Rocket in the movie.

Groot isn’t really a bad figure, but he ain’t great either. I think a lot of the blame goes to the movie design for just not being very interesting. As mentioned, I would have preferred extra arms to make his full-on berserker mode, especially since they made this a Deluxe release. Hell, it was originally listed at $50 before it settled down to $40, and either way that’s just too much. Let’s move on to Star-Lord.

Straightaway, it’s awesome to get a figure of Star-Lord in uniform, but as this movie giveth, it also taketh away. And as Quill finally dons an iconic Guardians uniform he also loses his helmet. It’s the MCU’s equivalent of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown at the last minute. Now, with that having been said, I really dig this figure a lot. The sculpt features a bit of the panel lining we’ve come to expect from the MCU costumes, but the blue and red combo is simply gorgeous. His hands look a little chunky, but everything else is just top notch. The belt is actually a separate sculpt worn by the figure and the insignia on his chest is sculpted as well as painted gold.

The portrait is quite good, and I think it’s safe to say this is the best Chris Pratt likeness that Hasbro has given us. It’s crazy to think how far they’ve come since the figure from the original movie. The printing on the beard does break down a bit as you zoom in close, but it looks fine with the figure in hand.

And with standard male Legends articulation, Star-Lord is lots of fun to play around with. I probably would have preferred a ball joint under the chest to the ab-crunch hinge, but that’s just me coming off a bunch of DC Multiverse figures and going back to Marvel Legends. It’s fine. One thing that I felt was odd was how deep set the pins are in the knees. They’re set so deep it almost looks like they’re black.

Quill comes with his trusty pair of blasters, while they’re pretty simple they get the job done. Likewise, he only comes with one set of hands to hold the guns, and that’s fine because I’ll likely always display him with his weapons drawn.

Suffice it to say I dig Star-Lord a lot more than I do Groot. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have buyer’s remorse, because I still want to put him on display with the other figures, but I definitely should have waited for him to hit clearance. It’s possible he will grow on me… no pun intended! As for Star-Lord, he’s a great looking figure and I’ll have to dig out one of the other releases to see if I can swap the masked head on this body to create the look that the movie robbed from us. And speaking of robbing things, I gotta steal away Wednesday’s review, as I’ll be busy with other stuff for the next couple of days, but I will be back on Friday with something for sure.

May 26 2023

Marvel Avengers: Rocket Mech Armor (#76243) by LEGO

Happy Friday, folks! I’m kicking off a three-day weekend today, but I didn’t have a lot of time leading up to it, so today’s review is going to be a bit on the short and sweet side. But, I did have so much fun building and playing around with this tiny LEGO set, that I wanted to share it here, and today seemed like a perfect time!

Yes, this is a small set, weighing in at just under 100 pieces in two tiny bags. That builds the Rocket Mech Suit and includes the Rocket Raccoon Minifig. I normally don’t go after LEGO sets this small, because they’re just a big tease. By the time I start getting into it and enjoying the build, it’s all over. But, this one just caught my eye and I like to fiddle with stuff while I watch TV, so I cracked it open and wound up assembling it in about 15 or 20 minutes. Let’s start with the Minifig!

This Minifig certainly does Rocket proud… mostly. There is something missing and that’s his tail, but as we’ll see in a few seconds, the set makes up for that. The head sculpt is very nice with some excellent printing and his mischievous grin gives him a lot of personality. He’s got some gold printing on his orange jumpsuit showing the front and back of his vest. He also comes with a nice big gun, which is assembled from three different pieces. Very cool stuff!

And then there’s the Mech Suit, which I absolutely adore. The chest hinges down to reveal the cockpit for the Minifig to stand in. It would have been cool to put in some of those control sticks pieces, but you just have to use your imagination that he’s controlling it. The chest hinges closed leaving just Rocket’s head peeking out of the Suit.

The Mech is mostly orange and brown with some black and gray trim. There’s also a printed piece for the chest. And for a simple set, this Mech has some really fun articulation with ball joints at the shoulders, hips, and ankles, and four hinged fingers on the left hand. The suit can also pivot 360-degrees at the waist. The arms and legs are made out of the same solid, bent orange pieces, so there’s no articulation in the elbows or knees, but it still makes for a surprisingly fun figure to play with. And there’s there’s that big tail to compensate for the Minifig’s shortcomings! The tail is all spikey and full of bristles and it makes me grin like an idiot knowing that Rocket intentionally put a racoon tail on his Mech Suit because… why not? I also love the two thrusters on the back with the blue engines, and these can also articulate a bit.

Thanks to the ball joints in the ankles, the Mech has surprisingly good balance and the friction in the ball joints is sufficient to hold the limbs in place and not have it flop over.

Of course, the big attention getter here is the giant 6-stud cannon that he has in place of a right hand, because we all know how much Rocket loves his guns!

And that’s it! This set was an impulse buy at just under $15 and I am so very glad I decided to let it follow me home. Sure, the build wasn’t the most satisfying, as it was practically over before it started, but it was short-lived fun nonetheless. And in this case the finished model is where the fun really kicks in. I’ll likely have this Raging Raccoon Mech Suit on my desk for a long time to give me something to fiddle around with between projects. This one is highly recommended. It also won’t break the bank, which is pretty rare for a good LEGO set these days!

Jan 25 2021

Avengers Endgame: Nebula Sixth-Scale Figure by Hot Toys

I’m giving the unending parade of Marvel Legends a week off on this Marvel Monday so I can turn my attention to a new Hot Toys arrival! And on that subject, I believe I may be approaching the end of a long journey, as I started collecting Marvel Hot Toys nearly ten years ago, and now some 30 figures later, all of that feels like it’s coming to an end. I have a few on my shelf left to review, and a few more pre-orders waiting to ship, but I have a grim sense of foreboding that I am not going to enjoy the post-Endgame run of the MCU, and as such probably won’t be investing top dollar in the figures any more. I mean, it may end up being a decent movie, but am I going to want a shelf full of Hot Toys Eternals? Probably not. I bring it up now, because I’m acutely aware of it and that makes Nebula’s arrival feel less routine than some of the others have been.

Hot Toys have been all about delays these days, distancing their releases from the respective movies by quite a bit. I imagine part of that is Covid-related, but I actually had one of my Sideshow statues delayed because of some kind of nautical catastrophe. And while I’ve been cancelling some, I let Nebula ride it out. And while Nebula is billed as an Endgame figure, I see her as a way to finally complete my Guardians of the Galaxy collection. Sure, she was given a lot of screen time in Endgame, and ultimately a satisfying character arc, but I associate the character most with Guardians Vol. 2. Anyway, the package doesn’t really convey the price of the figure inside. It’s a fragile window box housing a vac-formed plastic tray with an illustrated sleeve around it. Although, I have to admit that the artwork on that sleeve is absolutely breathtaking, particularly the colors. I don’t save these boxes anymore, but I could be persuaded to flatten out this sleeve and tuck it away somewhere, because it’s just too pretty to pitch. But enough about the package, let’s get her open and see what we’ve got!

Plucked from Endgame, this is Nebula in her Ravager garb, and if she’s only getting one Hot Toys figure, I’d say this version was a pretty good choice. Although, I still would have liked one from either of the Guardians flicks, since we didn’t get Ronin and it would have been nice to get bad Nebula as a villain stand in. Still, the Ravager style outfit displays well with my original Guardians Star Lord and my Guardians Vol. 2 Yondu, so I’m a happy collector. The space-pirate outfit consists of a very tight-fitting maroon one-piece, which is stitched together in a bit of a patchwork fashion, and while this isn’t one of the flashiest costumes out there, Hot Toys did it proud by recreating all of its little idiosyncrasies. Every stitch of it has some form of texturing, plus there are multiple layers with different types of fabrics, reinforcements, piping, belts, and buckles. When I first got the figure out of the box, I had a great time just studying all of these little details and marveling at how with something like 50 Hot Toys figures on my shelf, the attention to details never ceases to impress me. I especially love how the sculpted bits that make up the boots and bracers and gloves pair so seamlessly with the actual fabric aspects of the suit.

Some particularly noteworthy highlights are the reinforced shoulder pads, the Ravager badge on her right bicep, and the gun belt, which has a holster for her sidearm and straps to hold her baton in the back. Although, I’m a little unclear as to why she only carries one back there when she fights with two. The holster actually needs to be attached to the belt via two small hooks, and I don’t mind telling you that it was a daunting task to finally get it on. I had to rely on tweezers and I think I got through almost the entire Podcast I was listening to before I actually got those hooked. On the downside, because the figure is literally stitched into the suit, the articulation is severely limited up in her groin. I really can’t get much of a wide stance at all without fear of popping those stitches. At the same time, the boots are all sculpted in one piece, so forget getting her feet flat all the time. As a result, from the waist down, this is not a very dynamic figure to play with or pose.

Of course, this version of Nebula has a completely exposed cybernetic left arm, which mostly consists of sculpted panel lines, but does have a few areas where the innards are exposed. These areas feature some finely detailed wires and servos, some of which are individually painted. The joints are sculpted into her fingers and the mesh on the hands look great. While we’re on the subject of hands, Nebula comes with three sets (fists, relaxed, baton holding) and a right gun hand. My only gripe about the cybernetic arm is the limited articulation. It’s got a rotating hinge in the shoulder and another at the elbow, but sadly no swivel in the bicep. Maybe they thought that would look bad, but what’s here still feels rather limiting.

That brings us to the portrait, and for this I only have praise. Nebula’s on screen make up is nothing short of amazing. After following Karen Gillan in Doctor Who for so many years, I can only catch glimmers of familiarity of the actress as Nebula, and that’s high praise to her acting abilities as well as the make up effects. And this portrait continues Hot Toys’ mostly unswerving ability to capture likenesses for their figures. The two shades of blue used for her skin are rich and the metallic sheen on the darker middle is particularly beautiful. I also love how they managed to still create that realistic speckled skin tone even through such unconventional colors. The eyes also feature that lifelike spark that Hot Toys always manages to capture in these portraits. The expression is fairly neutral, which was what Nebula often showed in the films. A second head sculpt with gritting teeth and rage would have been welcome, but Hot Toys seldom seems to do multiple portraits these days. Finally, the exposed cybernetic plate on her left side and around her eye looks fantastic.

Nebula does not come with a whole bunch of accessories and extras, but what we did get is pretty good. For starters, her pistol is a real thing of beauty. I love the gun designs in the Guardians flicks, and this one looks like it shares a little heritage with Star Lord’s Elemental Guns. At the very least they look like they come from a shared Universe. The grip has an intricate honeycomb pattern and the rest of the tiny details include a knob on the back, little screws, and there’s even some burn marks painted around the three vents near the muzzle. The top piece is ivory, the bulk of the body is painted with a brushed steel finish, and there’s a little metallic blue and gold on some of the fixtures. It’s quite a striking piece!

Her other weapons are her batons. We already saw that she has one collapsed one to store in the back of her belt, while the other two are sculpted in the extended position. There’s some great detail in the handle sculpts, but as great as they look, it’s hard for me to get too worked up over a couple of batons. They do work well with the hands that are designed to hold them.

You also get some blue electrified effect parts, which can be snaked around them. Sure, these are basically the same types of things Hasbro includes with some of their Star Wars figures to convey Force energy, but they still look mighty nice when fitted around them, and I may actually keep these on when I’m displaying her.

As always, our last stop on the Hot Toys review train is the figure stand, and here we get one branded for Endgame. It features a hexagonal base with a standard, adjustable crotch cradle post. Her name is printed kind of unceremoniously on the front, instead of using one of those metallic name plates. Also, the printing is ever so slightly askew. Ah well. You do get some really nice and colorful artwork on the base with the Avengers Endgame logo and the Ravager emblem. And yeah, I really wish they had given her the same style of stand the rest of the Guardians had, because this one looks really out of place in that display.

Nebula represents all the usual quality and craftsmanship that I’m used to seeing out of Hot Toys. They’ve been doing this a long time, and they are freaking great at it. This is simply a gorgeous figure that captures the character as best as anyone is ever likely to do in action figure form. With that having been said, the limitations of the suit on her articulation can be quite frustrating. Granted, I usually go with some pretty reserved poses for my figures, so it’s not going to hurt my overall, long-term enjoyment of the figure. But on the same note, I do like to play with them in front of the camera every now and then and have fun with them. Sadly, Nebula is one of those figures that will have to be content with standing on her stand and looking pretty. As for value, at $235, this one really needed an extra head or something to justify that extra $25-30. Even still, I can’t say as I’m feeling even a shred of buyer’s remorse. The Guardians of the Galaxy characters have been some of my favorite Marvel Hot Toys releases and I’m thrilled to finally put Nebula among them. At this point the one hole remaining in my Guardians display is Mantis, who was shown off back in 2019 and is still teased on Sideshow’s website, but I haven’t seen any new activity lately. If she is finally offered, I’ll be down for a pre-order. But until then, Nebula marks my final addition to this bunch of sixth-scale A-Holes. Although, I will admit that I’m a little tempted to double-dip on Gamora now.

Oct 7 2019

Marvel Legends: The Grandmaster and The Collector by Hasbro

In addition to the non-stop torrential rush of Marvel Legends waves, Hasbro has also been cranking up the multi-pack releases. And I’m just talking the normal retail stuff. To make matters even more challenging for the collectors’ wallets,  they’ve also included a lavishly packaged two-pack for SDCC this year. Pulled straight from the MCU flicks Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok comes The Collector and The Grandmaster!

The snazzy packaging looks like a drum with windows on each side to show the figures. It actually opens up too, so both figures can be displayed side-by-side in half-tubes. Flip it around and you get the poster art from each flick on the back panels. This is some really nice packaging, but mine was fairly worn even by the time it got to me, and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to store, so I’ll likely be getting rid of it, like I do most of my Legends packaging. Let’s start with The Grandmaster first!

Grandmaster is sort of the non-essential figure here, since he was issued at retail with a different head, and in a two-pack with Korg, a set that still sits unopened on my Pile of Shame. I will get around to it eventually, but this will be my first experience with the Grandmaster figure. Let me say straightaway, that while this is a great looking figure, it isn’t all that much fun to play around with. A lot of that has to do with his lavish golden robe, which is sculpted in soft plastic, is fairly form-fitting, and thereby limits the articulation in the legs and torso quite a bit. This might have been a really good time to try some soft-goods, especially since Hasbro recently cranked out a golden cloth robe for a certain guy over in the Star Wars Black Series department. Indeed, pretty soon I’ll be checking out a Black Series figure with some outstanding cloth robes! Now that I think of it, cloth robes would have been a great idea for this particular SDCC release, to further set it apart from the retail figure. Now, with all that having been said, the robe still looks nice, it’s sculpted with a faint texture, and it pegs together right where the sculpted red belt is meant to be tied. I also really dig how it bunches up on the floor behind him.

Under the plastic robe, he dons a pair of leisure pants, which have an otherworldly purple-platinum sheen and a long sleeve shirt, which is blue and red with a wide red cummerbund worn at the waist. His eccentric outfit is finished off with a pair of funky gold sandals. Grandmaster sports a sculpted ring on his right hand, and painted-blue nail polish on his fingers and toes.

The Jeff Goldblum likeness is pretty solid, especially from certain angles. As mentioned earlier, the head sculpt is the primary exclusive thing about this figure. Here he’s smiling, whereas the retail version has a more neutral expression. Your personal preferences may vary, but I really dig this portrait and I think it captures a lot of the madcap personality of the character. As usual the half-tone printing for the facial features does a fine job for the detail in the eyes and mouth.

The Grandmaster comes with a couple of cool accessories. The first is his infamous Melt Stick, which is cast in gold plastic and can be held in his right hand and cradled in the left. This is a simple, but fun accessory, providing you aren’t the one being melted by it.

The second accessory is the pile of melted goo. Is it supposed to be Carlo? That I’m not sure, but I kind of hope it is. Yeah, it’s just a lump of plastic bubbles, but fun nonetheless. Let’s move on to Grandmaster’s brother, The Collector!

Taneleer Tivan is the true exclusive figure of the set, as for now he has not been made available at regular retail. He’s also one of the MCU characters that has been most sorely missing from my collection. Benicio Del Toro’s weirdly eccentric performance fit Guardians of the Galaxy like a glove and made The Collector, even with his brief screen time, a truly memorable character. And Hasbro sure did a nice job with this figure. The outfit includes some great detail in the sculpt, particularly in the torso, where the texture and patchwork nature pays homage to a 19th Century waistcoat, complete with strings of sculpted beads reminiscent of the chains on a fob watch. His sculpted furry cape pegs into the back and is worn over the shoulders and plunges behind his neck. I think the sculpted sleeve on the left arm is supposed to be part of the cape, as the speckled pattern matches the interior of the cape. You can take off the cape, but it looks kind of funny since the sleeve remains.

As with his brother, The Collector’s portrait turned out great. It’s a fine likeness for Del Toro and I particularly love the high hair, which is again sculpted as a separate piece from the head. You also get a second head sculpt with The Collector wearing his special goggles.

One final accessory in the box is The Orb that housed The Infinity Stone of Power. It’s a simple little ball packed with a lot of tiny detail. The only downside here is The Collector’s hands really aren’t designed to hold it all that well. I can make it work, but it’s a careful balancing act. It might have been better to give him an extra hand with The Orb sculpted into it, or an extra hand with a peg in the palm and a peg-hole on The Orb.

It may irk some to have to buy a second Grandmaster just to get their hands on The Collector, but I get how the business works and sometimes Hasbro has to get some extra money out of a figure in order to make producing another one more cost effective. Truth be told, I would have much rather had The Collector in a box with some of his menagerie, similar to what Hasbro did in the 3 3/4-inch scale for another SDCC Exclusive. Maybe throw in Cosmo and Carina. I would have paid extra for that. But I’m still really pleased they finally got this figure out and that it was pretty easy to get off of Pulse. Maybe not essential for all Legends collectors, but to me that’s what Exclusives should be all about.

Aug 6 2018

Marvel Studios “First Ten Years” Ronan by Hasbro

In case you missed it, Hasbro is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by going back and releasing some figures of characters they missed the first time around. A few weeks back I checked out the Captain America and Crossbones set from Civil War and today I’m turning my attention to Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy. [Insert polarizing opinion about James Gunn controversy here].

The First Ten Years releases run the gamut from single packs to two-packs, and even some three packs. Whatever the case, they all come in window boxes, which have been re-branded to help them stand out from the regular Marvel Legends releases. The corners are all squared off and you get a new deco and Marvel Studios logo. Back when Hasbro was doing figures for the first Guardians film, I thought omitting Ronan figure was a huge oversight, and I’m extremely happy that Hasbro is rectifying that now. So let’s get this Kree accuser out of the box and check him out.

And wow, what an amazing sculpt this is! Ronan’s Kree battle armor gave the sculptors at Hasbro a rich canvas to work on and they did not disappoint. Every tiny facet of the armor is realized in full detail. His coat is sculpted as part of the torso and extends down past the waist as a separate soft plastic piece, which hangs around the legs, and it’s all pretty convincing as one garment, save for the cut for the waist swivel. The coat features a grid of segmented armor pieces, almost like scales, which forms a strip running straight down to between his legs. In other areas, some of the armor plates have cool vein-like wrinkles sculpted into them, suggestive of some kind of weird alien forging process.

I really dig the super-fine texturing showing in the lower part of the coat, also seen on some of the leg panels. It looks like some kind of micro-chain armor. There’s also some very fine ribbing in the joints around his underarms. Two strips hang down his back with, like two thin capes, each with an intricate pattern, like a techno-snakeskin. While the coloring here is fairly drab, you do get a nice mix of dark gray metal with some silver, as well as swipes of red forming a pattern on his chest that looks like war paint. Obviously, the MCU figures give Hasbro a lot more to work with when it comes to detail, and I think Ronan here may be one of their most intricate sculpts yet. Pair that with the excellent coloring and this is quite simply an amazing looking figure.

The portrait is no slouch either. Not only is this a solid likeness, but the glossy paint they used for his eyes give him a slight spark of life that I don’t recall ever seeing in a figure in this scale before. He does have some blue veins painted in on his face, which I don’t remember seeing on him in the film, and also the black warpaint around his eyes and mouth. And just in case you thought this review was going to be nothing but me gushing, here’s where we get into some problems…

The soft plastic hood is permanently attached to the head and so is the shoulder armor. Yup, when you turn Ronan’s head, his shoulders turn with it, and this is a terrible design. It’s not too bad if you just tweak his neck articulation, but if you want any significant amount of head turn, it just looks so awkward. I get it, the design features the hood running under the shoulder plates, but here’s where I would have been OK with some creative license on Hasbro’s part. They should have attached the shoulders to the torso via soft plastic connectors and just shaved a little bit off the hood. As things stand, his neck articulation is useless unless you want his shoulder armor levitating in mid air. What a shame.

As long as we’re on the subject of articulation, let’s run down the points. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The torso features an ab-crunch hinge and a swivel in the waist, and lastly the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. It all sounds fine on paper, but in reality there are a few issues. . First off, the ab-crunch hinge on my figure is extremely loose. It will hold most positions, but it feels all floppy. Second, the lower half of his armor coat does inhibit the leg movement quite a bit. And finally, those shoulders don’t work well with his arms raised over his head. As great as this figure looks, I can’t say he’s all that much fun to play with. I was struggling just to come up with different poses for pictures.

Of course, Ronan comes with his hammer and it’s a decent enough accessory. It’s cast in gray plastic and there’s some nice swirly effects in the head. The shaft even has some sculpted detail. It even has the glowing purple Infinity Stone centered in its head. Ronan’s hands are sculpted so that he can hold it in either hand, or both.

I was terribly excited to get this figure in hand and even as I was checking him out in the box, I thought he couldn’t be anything else but a slam-dunk. And if I just planned on posing him on my shelf standing with his hammer by his side, then I suppose he turned out pretty great. But the moment I got him in hand and started fiddling about with him, the pangs of disappointment began to build. The design choices here definitely favor display over play, and I suppose that’s fine for a lot of collectors out there, but I like to get a little more out of these little plastic people, and so this release left me a little cold. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next week, as I keep the First Ten Years train rolling along with a review of another of these new Marvel Studios releases.

Jan 5 2018

FigureFan’s Disappointments 2017, Part 2

This is it, Toyhounds, the final day of my week of canned bullshit. It’s also the final five Biggest Disappointments of 2017. These are the things that I added to my collection and reviewed throughout the year that didn’t really live up to my hopes and dreams. These are in no particular order, so let’s get started…

Femme Fatales (Justice League Unlimited) Hawkgirl by Diamond Select: There was a lot of competition in this line for a spot on my Favorites list, but really only one that deserved to land among my Disappointments. I was really looking forward to getting the JLU version of Hawkgirl on my DC Gallery shelf, but when the statue showed up it was marred by some pretty poor paintwork, ugly seams in the arms, and just an overall lack of quality control. When I look at how amazing some of the Gallery statues have been this past year, it’s easy to forgive one bad one slipping by. But that doesn’t make me feel any better about laying out the cash for it.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Sixth-Scale Drax The Destroyer by Hot Toys: I have been called a Hot Toys sycophant. And yes, if sticking my tongue down their collective trousers would net me some extra Reward Points at Sideshow, I’d get right on that lickity split. So, it’s probably no surprise that never before has a Hot Toys figure appeared on my annual list of Disappointments, but I guess there really is a first time for everything. After a long series of delays, and the possibility that Hot Toys Drax might be a no-show, he finally showed up this year and he was a little wanting. The sculpt was solid enough, as was the likeness, but there’s just something about him that failed to impress. Toss in a faulty right arm on my figure that often pops out at the elbow joint and a price point that was too high for what came in the box (a common failing for Hot Toys in 2017), and I couldn’t help but dub him Drax The Disappointment. Oh, I’m still happy to have a complete Hot Toys Guardians team on my shelf, but Drax deserved more polish and a price tag around $20 lower.

DC Super-Villains: Johnny Quick and Atomica by DC Collectibles: For the most part, DC Collectible’s Super-Villains line has been pretty solid. Hell, I even liked their New 52 Captain Cold figure, and I kind of hate that character design. So when Johnny Quick showed up at my door with some terrible paint fading and an arm that pulled right out of the socket, it shouldn’t be any surprise to see him turn up here. And what a disappointment it was, because I really dig this design and I loved to hate him in the Forever Evil. But when you toss him in with a rather lackluster DeathStorm, it’s no wonder that I didn’t pursue the rest of the Crime Syndicate from this line.

Marvel Legends Warlock Build-A-Figure by Hasbro: What’s that, you say? You cry foul because I had a Marvel Legends figure on the list already? Well, you’re going to have to fight me, because here’s another one. I’m justifying this because 1) He’s a Build-A-Figure and 2) I really did review a shit ton of Marvel Legends in 2017, so you’re just going to have to let me have this one transgression. Warlock featured a decent sculpt and a pretty cool paint job, but he was not a character that I was interested in, and especially not as the BAF waiting as a reward for collecting an entire wave. Add that to the fact that the left arm of my Warlock simply will not stay in the socket, and you have a figure that I would have happily done without. Now that I think of it, this is the third figure on this list that had arm issues. Weird.

ThunderCats Classics Panthro by Mattel: Here’s the thing. I ran out of shit that disappointed me after nine, so I had to get cute with this last one. And that’s why after long deliberation, I decided to put a figure that I rated with excellent marks here on this list. Because no matter how great Panthro turned out (and he is a great figure),  he arrived to me heralded by a bitter chorus of disappointment. At the time I opened him, it seemed unlikely that ThunderCats Classics would continue. And shortly after we got word from Super7 that they were not able to secure the license and continue the series. And that was easily my number one biggest disappointment of 2017. It’s not Panthro’s fault, but he seemed like a good conduit to get this one on the list.

And that wraps up this week of so-called content. I’ll be back on Monday with the first Marvel Monday of the year and I hope to have Transformers Thursday and DC Friday on the books as well, along with whatever I wind up tucking into Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

Nov 14 2017

Marvel Premier Collection: Gamora by Diamond Select

It’s Day Two of Marvel Week and today I thought we’d give the action figures a rest and open up a statue from Diamond Select’s Marvel Premier Collection. These are roughly Sixth-Scale resin statues, mostly based on modern appearances of the characters. I only own one other piece from this line, the Clayburn Moore sculpt of Spider-Gwen, and I was pretty happy with her. Picking up Gamora here seemed like a no-brainer, especially since I was able to get a pretty decent deal on her. Let’s check out the most dangerous woman in the Universe!

Gamora comes in a fully enclosed box with photos of the statue on all four panels and features the “Guardians of the Galaxy” logo and calls out that it was sculpted by the wonderful and prolific Jean St. Jean. The presentation here is very serviceable, but not all that appealing from an artistic standpoint. It feels like the box layout was thrown together pretty quickly. That’s not really a sticking point for me, as I just keep my statue boxes for the possibility of future storage, moving, or god forbid… resale. Inside the box, you get a colorful card showing the limitation as well as the number of the statue in the box. Gamora is wrapped in plastic and encased between two styrofoam bricks, and she comes fully assembled and all ready for display.

Standing about 12-inches tall, Gamora is based on her more recent look in the pages of Marvel Comics and wearing her white space space armor. Some fans refer to this as her “Stormtrooper Armor” and I think the comparison is fairly valid. It’s quite a departure from her more revealing classic outfits, but it still shows off her shapely curves, and I’ll confess to being a fan of this new look the very first time I saw it. The pose here is pretty conservative. Gamora stands on an alien landscape with a rather intimidating rifle cradled in her arms (What? No Sword?), and her long hair blowing in the breeze. The heel of her left foot is raised giving the piece just a little hint of anticipated action. Overall, I like what we got here, but then I tend favor “museum-style” poses in favor of the more dynamic stuff. It’s not that I don’t like action poses, but they tend to have a better chance of going wrong.

Every last detail on this statue is incorporated into the actual sculpt, and this is particularly apparent in the cut panel lines that run throughout the armor. There’s a nice sense of depth between the armor plates and the underlying black suit, and you also get some ribbed sections along the top of her back and underarms. The panel lines are neatly painted in black and you get some pale gray panels, as well as some crimson accents. I have no complaints about the quality of the paint on this piece. The lines are reasonably sharp, and there are no apparent flubs. What’s more, the application is even and there are no visible brush strokes. The whole suit gives me a strong Mass Effect vibe, which isn’t a bad thing as I happen to dig the aesthetics of those games… well three of them, at least.

I love the way the portrait came out. Her face is flawless and beautiful and even the painted patches around her eyes are part of the sculpt. I just adore the shape of her nose and the ridge leading down to her lips. No, I don’t have some creepy nose thing, I just appreciate how good it looks. The pupil-less white eyes are rather mesmerizing and they used a nice, rich red paint for her lips. The hair sculpt is good, albeit a bit on the chunky side. It looks like it was sculpted from a separate piece, which gives her a clean hairline. The downside to the hair blowing off to the side is it limits the options for display angles. She looks great from the front or turned a bit to her right, but it means that the right side of the statue is closed for business. Hey, most statues have an intended “sweet spot” for display, and I’d say this one has at least a few.

Gamora’s  rifle features a rather boxy and utilitarian design that emphasizes function over form. I can dig that as it makes it appear more like a legitimate piece of military hardware. The black and gray deco gives it a convincingly realistic finish, and it’s equipped with what looks like a magazine, but maybe it’s a battery pack, and a scope. Gamora practices poor trigger discipline, but then I’d kind of expect that from her. It’s what makes her so dangerous!

The rocky alien landscape they did for the base looks great. They packed all kinds of little details in the rocks and terrain and the brownish-orange paint gives it a hint of Mars. If you look closely enough, you can see that they sculpted panel lines on the bottoms of her boots. The alien landscape is placed on a raised, circular platform.

The bottom of the base features the declaration of limitation. In this case, mine is 153 of 3,000. I think that’s one of the lowest numbers I’ve ever gotten on one of these things!

The Marvel Premier Statues tend to have an MSRP of around $130, but Gamora is available on Amazon at the time I’m writing this for well under $100. I’m always glad to save money, but I would have been perfectly happy with this piece had I picked it up at full price. The modern costume might not be for everyone, but I can appreciate her new look, and the artistry and craftsmanship on display here are both excellent. Tomorrow, I’ll keep this Marvel Week rolling along and turn my attention back to Hasbro’s Legends line!