Hasbro’s Classified GI JOE line continues to fire on all cylinders and churn out some absolutely fantastic figures. Sure, Cobra seems to be getting the most attention, but when the figures are this great, I’m not going to complain. Today, I’m checking out the Crimson Guard Commanders: Tomax and Xamot!
It’s incomprehensible to me why Hasbro didn’t release these guys in a two-pack. I would have been really pissed if I was able to get one and had to hunt for the other. But, as luck would have it, the online distribution for the Twins was plentiful and I was able to get the pair without any troubles. Although, I found it a little vexing that Xamot did arrive a few days before Tomax. I think it would have been cool if they mirrored the boxes to match the figures, but I can understand why they wouldn’t want to redesign the box for just one release. Anyway, it’s hard for me to put my finger on why I was so infatuated with The Crimson Twins back in the day. Maybe it was because I was introduced to them in the Sunbow cartoon before I actually got the figures, but I remember endlessly bugging my parents about them, and when I finally got them, they were the main actors involved in every single Cobra mission for a long while. I just dig everything about them!
And boy did Hasbro hit a homerun with these Classified versions! I’ve commented many times about how Hasbro has maneuvered Classified to be more and more in line with the original character designs, and in this case, they unswervingly followed the vintage Real American Hero figure aesthetics when crafting these modern 6-inch versions. Naturally, the figures are mirror images of each other, with Tomax having the shoulder and neck guard on his right side, and the red sash on his right shoulder. For his brother, these are switched up to the left shoulder… and so on. The symmetrical parts of the figure are mostly identical, but you do get sheathed daggers on each figure’s opposite hip and leg. The uniforms are deep blue, which looks great with the crimson sash and accents on the legs and belt. A lot of the silver is cast in silver plastic, and while this is pretty light plastic, it looks fine and matches the silver on the boots and thigh guards quite well. The bodies contain the usual Classified points of articulation, and the shoulder armor is flexible so as not to inhibit the range of motion in those shoulders.
I expected Hasbro to just mirror the head sculpts as well, but there are some subtle differences, which make for a very nice surprise. Indeed, most of the mirrored effect is found in the way they part their hair. The key difference is the jagged scar sculpted onto Xamot’s left cheek. I haven’t gone back to look, but I am clearly misremembering that it was Tomax that had the scar on his right cheek. Whatever the case, the portraits here are excellent, and I really dig their evil smirks.
Each Twin comes with a pair of matched Kris (serpentine bladed) Daggers, with one sheathed on the hip and the other on the leg. These have black hilts with painted silver blades and round pommels. The twins have dual gun hands, but they can hold the daggers fairly well, especially if you tuck the guard between two of the fingers. Generally speaking, the cutlery doesn’t impress me all that much in the Classified line. Knives and daggers are pretty small at this scale, and there’s only so much you can do with them. That having been said, I love these!
Instead of the oversized blaster pistols included with the vintage figures, each Classified Twin also comes with a sub-machine gun, which is the biggest departure from the originals. These are cast in black plastic, and have removable magazines and silencers. I’d argue that Hasbro should have given us both options, but even though they didn’t, I’m still happy with these more realisitc weapons. They look great wielding them! Alas, we didn’t get the Skyhook included with the original figures, and that does seem like a rather big omission.
Classified has been blowing me away with each and every release lately, and the Crimson Guard Commanders are yet another example of that. These figures are exactly what I’m looking for in this line: 6-inch scale versions of the RAH designs, and boy do they deliver on that! The articulation gives them pretty much everything they need to show off their circus-style acrobatics, and while I would have liked to see the RAH weapons included as a bonus, I’m not going to complain about their omission. It would have been a shame to have these guys and not have some Crimson Guard for them to command, but thankfully Hasbro made sure their troops shipped at the same time as they did, and I’ll be checking them out next week!
Today is sort of Friday for me, as I have the next three days off. I plan on sleeping, boozing, and playing some video games, but for now I’m stopping in to check out a new Star Wars Black Series figure from The Mandalorian! It’s the New Republic Security Droid! And the title already told you that! So, let’s go!!!
These fellas were first seen in the season one episode, The Prisoner… Have we seen them since? I honestly can’t remember, but I do hope we see these Droids again in some sort of prominent capacity. Indeed, the entire episode’s character roster has been woefully underserved by the Black Series, or even the Vintage Collection for that matter. All we got so far is Zero, and I still have to get around to reviewing him. Anyway, I don’t have a lot to say about the packaging, except to note how much space there is for stuff I would have liked to see included. But let’s put a pin in that for a moment.
I really dig this design a lot! It’s distinctive, and yet has a flavor that certainly fits the Star Wars Universe. The design is trim enough to look like they would be fairly agile in combat, and yet the design still looks sturdy enough to endure a fight. The reinforced chest armor perhaps shields his CPU and important bits, while he also has a fairly beefy groinular region, perhaps to protect his other important bits. The limbs are thin, but not quite spindly, and the joints are slightly evocative of the familiar Imperial Security Droid design, with the same type of jointing and fairly similar feet and hands. The sculpting here is pretty sharp and a nice mix of angular and rounded features. Most of the Droid’s chassis is left as bare matte plastic, while you get some nice silver-gray paint in the compartment around the neck. He has two New Republic insignia, one on left side of his chest, and the other toward the bottom of his recessed backpack, and some additional matching orange panels. There’s a stray spot of silver dry brush on his chest, which I assume is a flub, but it actually looks like a bit of weathering and I would have liked to see more of that.
The head is a no-nonsense, functional design. You get a slab of gray with a yellow visual sensor across the top. These guys clearly aren’t designed with personality in mind, but simply to substitute for organics in battle. I find it interesting that the Imperial Security Droid’s portrait has a lot more expressive personality over this New Republic fighter, but that’s probably because we were first introduced to the K2 Droid in Rogue One as a character we were supposed to like and relate to, whereas these fellas were technically the bad guys of the episode. He has one stubby antenna protruding from the top of his head.
The articulation here is excellent, with all the usual points you would expect to see in a human character. There isn’t quite as much lateral movement in the shoulders as I would like and his elbows can only do about a 90-degrees bend, but all in all I’m very pleased with what we got. The joints are strong and not at all gummy, and he’s surprisingly fun to pose!
You get one accessory here, and that’s the DH-17 style Blaster. The weapon is cast in black plastic and has a silver painted muzzle. The sculpt is a little soft, but there’s still plenty of detail to be seen. The right hand is designed to hold the gun, and includes a trigger finger, while the left hand is designed to cradle or steady the weapon. And herein comes my main complaint with this figure… I think there should have been more in the box, namely a battle damaged head and chest plate.
I was very happy to see this figure released, but at about $25, the price seemed really steep. A little patience turned them up at $15 a pop at an online retailer, and that made me grab three. It’s very cool to finally get some army-builder soldiers for the good guys, and the fact that they’re Droids sweetens the pot! These guys are surprisingly fun to play around with and pose, and they are sturdy and well balanced. With some battle damaged parts, I would have jumped at the retail price, but thankfully the deal allowed me to build a little squad of these New Republic Clankers. If they turn up again at that price, I may grab a couple more, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a Vintage Collection release to add to my carded 3 3/4-inch Mandalorian collection.
It took some doing, but I was able to set something up where I could adequately photograph something as big as HasLab’s latest Big Boi and so, having checked out the three Heralds that came with him last week, I’m going to try to tackle Galactus himself. And yes, I realize that I’ve now dedicated three different posts to this guy, so if you’re getting Galactus fatigue, I can promise you this should be the last time. But, hey… It was a long wait to get this guy in hand, and he was stupid expensive, so just humor me this one last time! If you aren’t familiar with the concept of HasLab, it’s basically Hasbro’s own version of Kickstarter. They propose a toy that could not comfortably be sold at retail due to size and price, and if they get enough backers, the project goes through. I have only supported three of these so far. The Mandalorian Razor Crest was the first, and I received that a little while ago. Galactus was the second, and the third is the GI JOE Classified HISS Tank, which will hopefully arrive sometime next year. As a method of selling toys, HasLab has been somewhat polarizing among collectors, with some embracing the idea and others crying that it will invoke the end of reasonably priced toys. As for me? Well, I back what I like and let everyone else enjoy what I don’t. The process has been pretty hit-and-miss for Hasbro, with a number of their projects not reaching their respective goals. Anyway… I’ve shown the box a couple times already, so let’s just jump in and look at the figure!
Measuring in at nearly three feet tall, Galactus comes out of the box mostly assembled. All you have to do is attach the two spires onto his head. These pieces do not appear to be designed to come off again, and I’m not willing to risk trying it, so if I want to put him back in his box, I would have to deep-six the styrofoam tray insert. Also, if you want to enjoy the light show, you’ll need to have a screwdriver handy and install four AAA batteries: Two into a compartment hidden under the top of his helmet, and two more into the compartment hidden at the base of his neck. Yup, even with a $400 price tag, Hasbro couldn’t toss in four generic AAA batteries. I’m of the opinion that they should have not only included the batteries, but probably a screwdriver as well. My first impression of the figure was that it felt very much like an upscaled version of Hasbro’s Masterwork Galactus from the Marvel Universe line… that is until I put the two together and realized just how much more detailed and complex this new version is. Everything about this guy is taken to the next level, and I am mighty pleased with what we got! The sculpt is suitably detailed with some of Galactus’ costume cast in softer plastic and layered onto the figure. Much of the coloring is achieved through colored plastic, but we do get some nice light blue paint hits, which sort of resemble illuminated points that match the actual lights.
I did not back HasLab’s Sentinel figure, but from what I’ve seen it had some issues with the articulation holding up the figure’s bulk. I’m very happy to see that Hasbro addressed those issues with Galactus, as he has some crazy strong ratchets in his knees and hips to keep him upright, and even his ankles are impressively up to the task. I’ve had him standing on display in various poses for over a week now and haven’t had any issues with him toppling over or flopping. I can’t say I’m happy that Sentinel backers had to take the bullet on this issue, but I’m still glad to see the lesson was learned by Hasbro and improvements were made. Remarkably, most of Galactus’ articulation mirrors that of a regular Marvel Legends BAF, and that includes double-hinges in the elbows and knees, full rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, and up in the thighs, and hinges in the ankles. It’s hard to see what’s going on up there in the torso, but I’m going to guess he has a ball joint in the waist and an ab crunch further up, but whatever the case, the torso articulation seems mostly for adjusting his balance, rather than dynamic posing. The separation of the electronics between the head and torso, means that his neck is articulated, but mostly to turn left and right. I was pretty sure his skirt would inhibit the range of motion in his hips, but it really doesn’t, and the fact that his harness is soft plastic, it doesn’t hurt his torso articulation too badly either. You also get fully articulated fingers, as well as rotating hinges in the wrists. I was sure he didn’t have lateral rockers in the ankles, but eventually I discovered them while playing around with him. The chest and shoulder piece does inhibit his shoulder range a bit, but it’s nothing that really irked me while playing with him.
The head sculpt is dominated by Galactus’ rather elaborate helmet and I am extremely pleased with the way it came out. There’s a lot going on and it looks absolutely smashing! You get three different face plates, which are cast in a soft, rubbery plastic and can be swapped out pretty easily, by just grabbing the nose and giving it a wiggle. The softer plastic works well to give it more of a fleshy appearance, especially when contrasted with the hard plastic of his helmet. I really dig the way the eyes are done, as they are recessed and behind clear plastic lenses. This was probably done to facilitate the lights, but even when not lit, it makes the eyes look so mysterious and more realistic. The default face is a wonderful sculpt, featuring a dour expression, with some excellent detail paid to the lines in the face and texturing of the lips.
The second face is definitely more expressive, and it may be my favorite of the three plates. The sculpting on the exposed teeth is just beyond fantastic, and the snarl really suits him. I’m debating whether or not this one will be the one I primarily display on the figure. This one is definitely the creepier of the two regular faces, but the first one feels more in character to me, and there’s something about the calmer face that makes Galactus seem all the more sinister. Luckily, they are easy to swap out, so I can do it as the mood strikes me!
The final face plate is the half-skull look, which is probably the most impressive sculpt of the three, and it looks like pure nightmare fuel when attached. Still, not really the look I want to go for most of the time, so this one will not be utilized a lot. Yeah, that’s a shame because of the beautiful work that went into it, but it’s not like I’m going to buy an extra Big Boi Galactus just to show off another face. I may be crazy when it comes to toys, but not that crazy! Before checking out the final portrait option, let’s check out the electronics…
Straightaway, it is disappointing to report that Galactus has lights but no sound. Sure, I knew this going in, but I think that somewhere along the way I had forgotten it. I honestly don’t see why they couldn’t have just taken the sound clips from Masterworks Galactus and put them in the big guy, because those are excellent. But at least it gives me reason to keep Galactus Jr. in the collection. Even some kind of start up sound would have been cool. But, with that being said, at least I can report that the lights are beautiful! You get a blue light up effect in the center of his chest, center of his back, the eyes, the helmet, and the two ear pieces and they are all bright enough to show up even in a bright studio environment. They will even pulse from time to time. As someone who is seldom impressed by lights in toys, I have to say that this really looks great. It’s a shame Hasbro couldn’t have included a motion sensor, but that’s no big deal, because activating them is as simple as pressing the circle on his chest. But, not having a mode where the lights will stay on is a strange omission. Indeed, you can’t even seem to turn them off manually, but rather have to wait for the timer to run out.
Oh yeah… Remember that time Doctor Doom transferred his mind into Galactus? Well, you get a Doctor Doom head to sort of recreate that! For me, this really teeters between being unbelievably cool and something I could have done without. I guess I’d need to know what the alternative pack-in could have been if we didn’t get the Doom Head. The sculpt on the mask is pretty good, but the exposed skin inside the eyeholes isn’t terribly convincing. I also don’t like the gaps between the neck and the hood. There are no light features with this head, but the chest and back lights can still be activated with Doom Head attached. All in all, it’s fine, but I can’t see myself ever displaying it on the figure. I’ll likely try to find something that will work as a stand and display it somewhere nearby.
I already checked out the Heralds last week, but here are some shots of them interacting with their Master. As mentioned last time, both Silver Surfer and Nova have effect bases that fit into Galactus’ hands and they work really well at keeping them put for long-term display. Surfer’s connecting part is pretty self-explanatory, whereas Nova’s was a little tougher to figure out and even now I’m not sure I’m using it correctly. Morg doesn’t have anything like that, but I’ll probably just put him at Galactus’ feet along with Cosmic Ghost Rider, Terrax, and Herald Thor.
And before wrapping things up, here are a few comparison shots of Masterwork Galactus with Haslab Galactus. I still like the Masterwork figure a lot, but I can’t deny it looks a little rough and dated compared to the new HasLab Hotness.
Was Haslab Galactus worth the wait and money? For me, the answer is an unequivocal YES! Sure, there are a few things to nitpick here, but not a single one of them has hindered my enjoyment of this toy. This is a gorgeous figure that looks amazing on display and he appears to be extremely well made. I’m not going to lie, at $400, I think his price tag probably should have clocked in at around $50-75 less. It is a direct-to-consumer deal, and while Hasbro still had to throw some money at Disney for licensing, they didn’t have to give retailers a cut, and since these were made to order, there was less risk involved with sell-through. I don’t pretend to know all the economics behind this operation, but I do know when it comes to a giant Galactus figure, my financial judgement cannot be trusted. Hasbro named a price, and I said said, “Let’s do it!” I’m actually looking forward to displaying Mezco’s One:12 Fantastic Four when they finally ship.
It’s Halloween afternoon, and I had hoped to have some special spooky content for today, but that figure in question did not arrive in time, and so we’ll have to raincheck him until later in the week. Instead, we’ll press on with Marvel Monday but still look at something special by tackling the three Heralds of Galactus that came with the HasLab Galactus release! I mean, this set was scary expensive, so that’s sort of in the Halloween spirit. I showed a brief look at Silver Surfer, Frankie Raye, and Morg when I did the unboxing and first impressions last week, and I’ve since had a little time to play around with them. I suppose you can consider this Part I of the overall Galactus Review, because I’m shooting on getting a better look at the Big Guy for next week’s Marvel Monday!
In case you missed it last time, here’s a look at the box, and how the regular sized figures come inside it. They are each resting on a very large clear plastic tray with their accessories and extra bits beside them. Given the cost of this set, a big part of me wishes Hasbro had actually given them individual boxes, but that would have probably made the box even bigger, so I’ll let that slide. Let’s just start from the top and work our way down!
The Silver Surfer was previously released in Marvel Legends as a Walgreens Exclusive. It was a figure that I never did find in the stores, and one that goes for all the monies now. Since I don’t own it, I can’t make a direct comparison, but based on pictures, this one appears to use the same body but has a new head sculpt. And yeah, that kind of makes this bundled figure feel a little less special. Granted, how could they not include him in the box? Even Masterworks Galactus came with a 3 3/4-inch Silver Surfer! Obviously there’s not a whole lot to talk about here, as he’s a generic buck painted all in silver. Ah, but what a beautiful coat of silver he is! The paint on this guy really feels premium and looks great. I also appreciate that they used the extra-articulated body with the lateral crunches in the shoulders.
The new head sculpt looks good, but I do not think it looks as good as the pictures I’ve seen of the Walgreens release. The expression here looks a little more dour, and whether that’s good or not is down to just personal preference, but I think the definition in the face is a lot softer on this version. I would have really liked to get that other head in the box as well.
You get the exact same three sets of hands with this figure as came with the Walgreens release. That includes fists, flat karate chop hands, and splayed fingers that look good for flinging the cosmic powers, or just balancing on his board. Honestly, I don’t think the flat, closed finger hands are necessary. I do, however, really like the effect part he comes with. The purple plastic looks really nice. Of course, it’s something else that we’ve seen before. Many, many times before.
The board is simple and effective. It has a single peg, which holds the figure fairly well. You also get an effect part that doubles as a stand. This piece grips the board snugly and can be stood on its own, or attached to Galactus’ left hand, which we’ll see next week. I like this figure a lot, but it’ll still just be a consolation prize for me not getting the Walgreens release. Maybe someone who has both can tell me otherwise, but I think this is the inferior of the two, albeit still being a decent figure. Moving on to Frankie Raye…
The Human Torch! Nova! Frankie is a most welcome addition to the Marvel Legends line up… so much so that it might have been a bit unfair of Hasbro to lock her away behind this paywall. Like Silver Surfer, Raye gets by with a single colored buck, this time a brilliant gold and it looks marvelous! The body doesn’t feature the same level of muscular detail as Surfer, but it still looks great, and I was very happy to see the double-hinges in the elbows and swivels in the biceps, as opposed to just putting rotating hinges in the elbows.
I absolutely love the head sculpt here, especially the amazing flaming coif, which spreads out behind her. The translucent mix of orange and red plastic really catches the light well, and makes for quite the spectacle.
You get three sets of hands with Frankie, and these include splayed finger hands, fists, and accessory holding hands. And, yes, the accessory holding hands feel unnecessary, since she doesn’t come with anything to hold.
Like surfer, Raye comes with an effect-stand, which is designed to fit into Galactus’ hand, but it also serves as a pretty good base all on its own. There’s a sculpted footprint and peg inside this geyser of plastic flame, to keep her attached with the flames snaking around one of her legs. I love it! OK… Let’s wrap this up with Morg!
Morg The Executioner has the most original sculpting of the three and as such it’s probably no coincidence that he comes with the least extras, and that means no effect parts and no extra hands. You can easily see the give and take with each figure when it comes to cost to produce. The sculpting here, however, is superb. I love the way they sculpted his craggy red flesh, and the spikes protruding from his shoulders and the biceps. His armor is also awesome, with the sleek and organic curves of his wrist bracers and knee guards, which flare out beautifully. The segmented, spiked leg armor looks pretty bitchin too! This is an epic looking figure!
The portrait is excellent! Just look at that fiendish, toothy grin and beady read eyes! But easily my favorite thing here is the way they sculpted his long, flowing white hair.
It’s somewhat ironic that Morg doesn’t come with any extra hands, because Hasbro couldn’t even get the two he does come with right. MY MORG HAS TWO RIGHT HANDS!!! Yeah, you’d think for how much this little package costs, the highly paid toyologists at Hasbro Labs could get a simple left and right hand correct. Hell, I have over 300 Marvel Legends in my collection and not one of them came with two of the same hand. Very disappointing!
Morg does, however, come with his trusty ax, and it’s OK, but nothing special. I do try to keep him away from Nova when he’s holding it. And I suppose since he does have two right hands, that makes him ambidextrous.
And that’s the three Heralds of Galactus. They’re all fine figures, even double-righty Morg is still plenty cool. I stand by what I said about Silver Surfer probably being the lesser of the two when it comes to the Walgreen’s Exclusive release. But seeing as I don’t have that one, I’m happy to have this one in the collection. In the end, I’m going to give Frankie the nod as my favorite of the three. I’m going to do my darndest to get a proper review of Galactus together for the next Marvel Monday and we can look at all these figures together!
If you follow me on Twitter, than you may be aware of what a harrowing three days it was to get HasLab Galactus home. He was supposed to be delivered last Saturday and since there was a signature required, I hung out all morning and all afternoon waiting, only to find that Fed Ex didn’t bother knocking or ringing the bell, but rather just stuck a Sorry We MissedYou note on the door some time around 2pm. Now, that driver must have been a goddam ninja, because I was walking past the front door in anticipation probably five times an hour, and my front door is mostly glass. And there’s no way he could have pulled that off dragging the huge ass Galactus box to the door, so I suspect he just left it on the truck. I grant you 100 points for stealth, Fed Ex Man, and take back 1,000 points for DO YOUR JOB YOU LAZY F*CK!!! Since I wasn’t going to be home the next day to sign, I diverted it to a local hold location where it was supposed to be delivered by end of day. Two days later, I was able to pick it up. And thankfully it just about fit in my backseat. Anyway, here’s the giant box!
The HasLab Campaign ended in August of 2021, so it’s been a little over a year of waiting, which all things considered wasn’t too bad at all. I’m shooting today’s content in my office, guerilla style, because I have no proper staging area that will fit this behemoth and no way to properly light it either. Eventually I hope to fix up a work around for that, but until then, this isn’t really a proper review, but more of an unboxing and first impressions. I do really like how the box turned out. The artwork is both colorful and beautiful. I especially like the mural on the back panel. The front panel not only shows Galactus but also Silver Surfer, Morg, and Frankie Raye. It really feels like we’ve been building toward this, given that the very first wave of modern Marvel Legends featured Terrax as a Build-A-Figure!
Open the box and out comes a giant slab of styrofoam! The big guy slumbers under tissue paper covers, which are wrapped at the bottom to make two adorable booties! Also visible on this side are his two alternate face plates and the full-on Doctor Doom alternate head. The blades of his headpiece are positioned to the right, as are the three Heralds, each with some accessories. The only assembly required is to attach the blades on his head, and sadly it feels like they aren’t meant to come out again, so while the package is collector friendly, Galactus probably isn’t going back into his styrofoam bed again.
You get one slip of instructions, and that’s just to show you how to install the batteries. Yup, $400 and batteries aren’t included. Sons of bitches! I don’t have a fresh set, so I’ll have to pick some up to test out the electronics.
And here he is perched on his very own table! Aesthetically, the body strikes me as being very similar to the Masterworks Galactus and I’ll do some comparison shots when I do a proper review. I’m very pleased with the overall detail and heft of this beast. I also appreciate how heavy his feet are, giving him a nice low center of gravity and making him feel sturdy and balanced. I did not opt in for the Haslab Sentinel, but as I understand it, that figure had some loose legs, which seems to have been corrected here with some decent ratchets.
The head sculpt is phenomenal, with the stock face plate being appropriately dour. He definitely looks hangry. The face plate is soft and rubbery, so you can easily swap it out without having to dismantle any part of the head.
The other two plates include skull face and exposed teeth. These are both pretty terrifying. I’ll likely swap these out for display every couple of weeks or so, but right now I’m leaning with the snarling teeth as my default. I neglected to snap the Doom head, but I’ll leave that for the proper review.
The fingers are all fully articulated, so Galactus is capable of balling up his hands in fists as well as making all sorts of unsavory gestures. I’ve only just started to explore the rest of the articulation and he’s got some great range of motion in the arms. I’m interested to see whether he’ll be able to hold any kind of action poses from the waist down.
Silver Surfer has an effect part which allows him to perch on Galactus’ hand and this is incredibly well designed. The board slides into the top and the bottom is contoured to snugly fit around the open hand. I’ll confess, I am considering displaying him with my 3 3/4-inch Marvel Universe Silver Surfer to give the big guy an even more impressive scale by comparison, but this works so well, I may have to go with this for the regular display.
Frankie also has an effect part that works with Galactus’ hand, this time the right. This piece is a little less intuitive than the other, so I’ll need to experiment with it some more.
And Morg doesn’t get any effect part, but he does get his axe.
By all respects it looks like Hasbro really knocked it out of the park with Galactus. Even the wait didn’t seem that long. This is only my second experience with HasLab, the first being the Razor Crest, but I’m very pleased with the whole experience. Well, not the Fed Ex part, but that’s not Hasbro’s fault. I’ll have to pick up some batteries to power him up and check out the electronics. As of now, I’m planning to check out the three Heralds this coming Monday, and maybe by the following Monday I can get something rigged up to do some better pictures of the Big Boi and give him his due.
It’s another Marvel Monday and I am at the tail end of opening the Spider-Man themed Armadillo Wave! So, let’s put this wave to bed today with a look at the last packaged figure, Miles Morales, and then we’ll cobble together the Armadillo BAF and check him out!
Miles is a GamerVerse figure, and we’ve seen this style of packaging deco before. It has a spiffy white top to set it apart from the regular comic and MCU releases. I believe Miles here is from the follow-up or pseudo-sequel or something to do with the PS4 Spider-Man game. God, I sound so freaking old when talking about video games now. That’s probably because I’ve been spending more time on my Atari consoles than my PS4. And I STILL have not played the PS4 Spider-Man game, but it’s over there on the shelf, waiting to be unwrapped, installed, update my system, update the game, than download the patch, and by then I realize my controller isn’t charged and I go back to playing Dreamcast or NES or anything else that’s more plug-and-play and doesn’t require a 30 hour investment in time. But hey… let’s look open Miles!
Well, this is without a doubt, the best Spidey suit we got in this wave. That may seem like a back-handed compliment, but I really do like this design a lot and Hasbro did a nice job giving it the figure treatment. There’s some very cool texturing on the suit, as well as some sculpted panel lining which makes it feel like it would be right at home as an MCU version. Even the detail on the gloves is excellent! The crimson deco on the chest, back, and shoulders really pops against the black suit and all of it is incorporated into the sculpt. The texturing is bound to mess with the paint application a bit, but here we didn’t do too badly.
You get two head sculpts here, one masked and one unmasked. The masked head is very good with some fairly sharp webbing. There’s a little slop around the white eye lenses of the mask, but you have to punch in pretty close to see it.
The unmasked head is also solid, with just a few things holding it back. I really dig the facial features and I’d say this could work just as well as a comic figure as a video game figure. On the downside, I could have done without the mold line running across the top of the hair. I definitely prefer when Hasbro casts the hair separately and attaches it to the head as opposed to the head and hair being all one piece. Also, the head sits really weird on the neck, like it’s jutting forward too much. It looks a lot better when viewed from dead on and neither of these things are enough to really ruin the figure for me.
The articulation is identical to the previous two Spider-Man figures in this wave, so I won’t go through it all. But, are we going to talk hands again? You betcha! If you’ve checked out my other reviews of this assortment, you know it’s all been about the hands. And Miles FINALLY gives us the crawling hands with the splayed fingers that should have been included with the Integrated Suit Spidey. He also comes with fists and thwippy hands, as well as one more set…
Translucent glowy electro hands! I’m guessing these are supposed to convey his Venom Strike ability in the game? Again, I haven’t played the it, but it sure looks like these are representing a bio-electrical discharge of some sort. I freaking love these! They look really cool on the figure and make for a nice contrast against the black suit.
I didn’t have a lot of interest in Miles going in to this review, but he’s definitely one of the better figures in this assortment. The suit looks great and he’s fun to mess around with. He also gives me the last BAF part I need, so let’s move on to Armadillo.
Armadillo is built from a total of six pieces, scattered across the wave. Technically seven, if you count his removable back piece, but that came attached to the back and not separately. With seven figures in the assortment, you could have skipped the Integrated Suit Spidey and still got all the pieces. Personally, I would have rather skipped Black & Gold Suit Spidey, but I imagine Hasbro was well aware of that. Putting him together is the standard formula of popping the arms, legs, and head into the torso and everything was a pretty easy fit.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Armadillo is a character. His back story and motivations are about as cliche as you can get. BUT, I sure do love the way he looks and I absolutely love this figure! He really is a perfect candidate for BAF treatment, as he’s big and burly, and his armored shell pieces look fantastic. The way his armor plates are sculpted give the figure a lot of depth, and these are are textred very nicely. He’s also sporting some vicious looking claws on his fingers and toes. You get all the usual articulation with these beefy BAFs, and while he may not have a great range of motion in those elbows, everything else is pretty good. Speaking of elbows, the right elbow on my figure is seized, which means this big boi is going to have to take a boil bath in a big pot!
And how about that head sculpt! Clearly, this is not the kind of Armadillo that gets bounced off your front bumper at 2am. I love the way the armadillo plates form a helmet leaving only his face exposed. The expression is pure nightmare fuel, with those soulless white eyes and the wall of gritting teeth. Every line and crease in his anger-stricken face is chiseled to perfection. And herein is one of the things that makes Marvel Legends so much fun. Hasbro can take a character I’m not even really vested in and still make me excited to own that character as an action figure.
Ultimately, I’m a bit lukewarm on this wave. I didn’t like any of the two Spidey Suits from No Way Home, and while the Black & Gold figure is pure garbage, the Integrated Suit figure isn’t that bad. Morlun was kind of OK and MCU Doctor Strange is probably the best version of MCU Strange we’ve had yet. Shriek is a great figure, but not the version I wanted, and while I would have rather had younger J. Jonah from the Raimi Spider-Man films, I’ll happily take this one instead. And in the end, I will say that collecting this wave was well worth it to get the Armadillo BAF, because he’s great and I got most of these figures on deep discount anyway. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but there we are! On the next few Marvel Mondays I’m going to be checking out some boxed sets and stand alones, before jumping into another Wave.
Today I’m checking out the penultimate figure in the Marvel Legends Armadillo Wave, and I very nearly skipped it. Since I’m pulling back on Marvel Legends, I have been asking myself, why bother reviewing an entire wave if you aren’t buying everything anymore anyway? But in the end, I decided that if I bought all the figures in a wave, I might as well check them all out here. And that brings us to Black & Gold Suit Spider-Man.
There was a lot of speculation about this suit when it was first revealed. It seemed to have mystical glyphs imprinted in the material and the gauntlets had a certain Strange-ness about them, if ya know what I mean. A lot of these details can be seen in Hot Toys’ Sixth-Scale version. But in the end it was all a big nothing, and it turned out to be just the regular suit turned inside out because Peter Parker got paint on it. Yeah. I kind of wish they had the balls to just put Inside Out Suit on the package. Black & Gold Suit just sounds like he’s trying to make a fashion statement.
Just to recap, all the way back to my review of the Integrated Suit, I really didn’t like that design, but the figure came close to selling it to me. You could say the same about this suit and the Hot Toys figure, but in the case of this Legends figure, well, it’s just a load of crap that makes a bad design look even worse. The black suit with gold webbing might have worked for me if the webbing was consistent throughout, and it didn’t have those red bits on the sleeves. Now, this comes down to a design inconsistency, where the Hot Toys figure shows some beautifully intricate gold on the forearms, which I presume is the exposed circuitry inside the suit when it’s worn normally. Here you just get the out of place red bits that look terrible. Why the difference? Who knows? Who cares!
The paint on the head is really bad. At least the gold webbing on the rest of the figure is fairly well done. It has a nice gold leaf finish and most of the lines are pretty sharp. The gold webbing on the head looks like it was done with a crayon before slapping the figure into the box. There’s also a lot of sloppy spray around the white eye lenses. Yuck!
You get all the usual articulation in the modern Spidey bucks, and that includes the lateral butterfly joints on the shoulders. It may be ugly, but it’s still a pretty fun figure to play around with.
Hey, let’s talk hands… because I have to gripe about hands in EVERY review throughout this wave. Nope, still no crawling hands, but you do get thwippy hands and fists. No wait… not fists. Accessory holding hands. WHAT?? WHY??? Is it so he can hold on to the webbing he doesn’t come with and swing? How is it possible they made the hand selection EVEN WORSE?!?
Wow, do I hate this figure. In all honesty, the inside out suit gag in No Way Home was kind of funny and a very Peter Parker thing to have to do. Almost as bad as having to throw on a Fantastic Four suit and run home barefoot with a bag on your head. But this figure is just trash. Hot Toys is proof positive that something could be done with the design to make an attractive figure, and yes, I do understand that we’re talking about a big difference in cost between that one and this one. But even for what it is, this figure just looks sloppy and half-assed. Next week, I’ll wrap up the boxed figures with Miles Morales, and we’ll check out the Armadillo Build-A-Figure!
Well, I’m back from Hurricane Hiatus and ready for action! My last week and a half has consisted of extremes. I’ve been cleaning up the Hurricane’s mess in the yard as well as getting some projects done around the house, all while working a few extra hours at my day job to help out. Conversely, whatever downtime I’ve had has just been spent loafing in front of the TV or a video game console and decompressing from all the stress these situations bring on. Add to that the fact that my Internet has gone out three more times since the Hurricane, and working on anything related to this blog just seemed like an exercise in futility. But, now that I’m back I am planning on a full slate of reviews for this week! So, let’s kick it off and take a look at a multiverse-hopping vampire, eh?
I know Morlun best from the Spider-Verse comic, which was probably one of the last Marvel full-story runs that I read to completion. By 2014, I was already getting disgruntled by a lot of the shit they were shoveling out, but I actually liked Spider-Verse quite a bit, especially as an extension of Superior Spider-Man. I’ve generally been a big fan of Dan Slott’s writing, but the more I learned about what a toxic asshole he has been to fans, the less I wanted to patronize his work. Anyway, let’s get Morlun out of the box, he looks hungry for some Spider-Totems!
It’s surprising to me that it took this long to get us one of the Inheritors in Legends, but I guess Hasbro has been busy feasting at the smorgasbord of seemingly infinite Spider-Man variants that Spider-Verse served up. The Multiverse has been like a license to print action figure money, and there are still a lot of holes to fill! Morlun’s upper body looks to borrow some tooling from the Gents of the Hellfire Club, with the lower half utilizing the business suit parts we’ve seen most recently with J. Jonah. There’s enough mixing and matching and reworking here to make it seem at least somewhat fresh, albeit an odd mix of vintage and modern wardrobe.
I like the sculpting on his cravate, especially with the broach set dead center, and the crimson stone in the broach mixed with the aqua blue of the cravate add some nice color to all the black of his suit. The silver vest is pretty snappy, but the paint application is a little uneven on my figure. It’s noting terrible, but if Hasbro is going to keep raising the prices of these figures, they’re going to need to up the QC along with it. And I’ll have more to say on that before I’m done.
You get two head sculpts with this figure, and both have their ups and downs. The big difference between the two is the first has a bit of a wicked smile, while the second he’s bearing his teeth in a rather malevolent grimace. I think the sculpts are fine on both, but they both suffer from some really unsightly mold lines, both across the hair and along the edges of the face. It almost looks like the face is attached like a mask. There’s also some absolutely horrendous mold flashing around the jawline and the seams I just mentioned. I don’t know what happened here, but it’s really unfortunate. The paintwork on the second head’s teeth is really pretty sloppy and basic. We’ve seen a lot better.
Articulation is standard stuff here, but the jointing in the legs is super mushy, which is always disappointing. You get only one set of hands, and since the subject of hands has been a running joke for me in this Wave, why stop it now? In this case, I really like Morlun’s huge hands, even if it meant Hasbro probably had to melt down the pair of crawling hands I wanted to get with Integrated Suit figure to get the plastic to make Morlun’s giant meat hooks. They look especially creepy with the large cuffs giving the figure’s arms some uncanny and unsettling disproportions. I also dig that Hasbro both sculpted and painted the little suckers in his hands.
Morlun has been a long time coming to the Legends toyline and now that he’s here, I’d say he’d be pretty good if it weren’t for a number of nagging issues. Hasbro has pretty much raised the price of their licensed 6-inch figures to $28 across the board, and in light of the timing here, the QC issues with this figure are not a good look. With some mushy joints, some spotty paint, terrible molding issues, and a lot of recycled parts, Morlun has enough problems to keep him from being a decent figure at $20, let alone almost $30. It’s odd, considering how much time and money I have invested in Marvel Legends at this point, that Hasbro is serving up the excuses to let this line go and focus my resources elsewhere.
Yup, last week was another truncated week for content, and with a hurricane bearing down on my general location later this week, I’m not going to make any promises. But, I’m here today and it’s another Marvel Monday, and I’m pressing on with the Armadillo Wave of Marvel Legends!
Oh, look! It’s another Doctor Strange! When I saw this figure turn up in this wave, I truly knew what action figure fatigue felt like. We had the What If? version of him in the very last assortment I reviewed and here’s yet another version. Even if you’re only counting the MCU versions of the character, we’ve seen a handful of Stranges in recent years. I even skipped the Multiverse of Madness wave completely. Indeed, I was all ready to just skip reviewing this figure out of sheer boredom, but then I had a look at him, and I had to begrudgingly admit he’s the best Legends Strange we’ve had yet. But I’m still not going to spend a lot of time on him.
As the package suggests, this is Strange as he appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and while his costume still hits most of the beats that it did since Strange was introduced in his own flick, it has been tweaked here and there to become what we’re looking at today, but it’s not so much all those nips and tucks to the costume that make this figure my favorite version so far, but rather the crisp and clean sculpt and coloring that makes it work so well. The blue plastic tunic is more refined, and I love the sculpted pleats that converge down the center of his chest. The network of belts are particularly well done here, with some excellent texturing and some sharp detail in the fixtures and the Sling Ring. Alas, the tunic has no slits in the sides and as such in severely inhibits his leg articulation, and thereby inhibits a lot of the fun of the figure.
The Cloak of Levitation looks great, but it’s pretty close to what we got in the First Ten Years Infinity War set. This one seems to be blowing a bit more to the left hand side, rather than being more centered. Still, it looks more like a new sculpt than a re-sculpt. It only has a lick of gold paint on the fixtures by the collar, and the sculpted tailoring on the back of the Cloak is a little soft, but I dig the texture work on the interior. The Cloak secures fairly well on the neck and shoulders and pegs into the figure’s back for a little extra stability. The red plastic of the cape really compliments the blue and brown of the rest of the costume. I will say, however, that it would have been nice to get just one Strange with a softgoods Cloak with a wire in it. The Cloak is practically its own character. It deserved softgoods at least once.
The portrait here is also the best we’ve seen, both in terms of Cumberbatch likeness and overall sculpt and execution. The figure from the original film was fine for the time, but looks a spot too generic to me now, and the First Ten Years box release is also good, but maybe a bit too much caricature in it, compared to his one. That’s it! This one is great, Hasbro… You can stop now! No more Cumberbatches… please!
You get a new Eye of Agamotto hanging around Strange’s neck. It looks nice, but I prefer the one that came with the last release. It was a little less chunky. Wait, didn’t this contain the Time Stone in the MCU? Did he still wear it in No Way Home? Was it just an empty shell? I can’t even remember. These movies are starting to blur together.
And now it’s time to bitch about hands again, because apparently I have a real hand fixation with this wave. Once again, we get a pretty useless set of accessory holding hands with Strange, and I’ll point out yet again that we didn’t get any splayed finger wall-crawling hands with Integrated Suit Spidey. Strange’s stock hands are OK for spellcasting, but if we’re getting a second pair, give him those two finger extended hands that he uses to trace his spells with, not hands for holding accessories he doesn’t come with. Alls I’m saying is Hasbro should have shifted that little bit of hand budget over Spider-Man’s way.
He does come with a set of hands that are permanently attached to some magic effect parts, and these are pretty cool. They’re a huge step up from the clumsy grab-bar we got on the magic discs bundled with the previous Stranges. I like the rough edges, and the sculpted inscriptions look really nice.
It’s a real tribute to how great this figure turned out, that I didn’t just post a couple of pictures and write: “Here’s another Marvel Legends MCU Doctor Strange. I can’t even. The End.” So, kudos for that, Hasbro. But I’m seriously done with buying Cumberbatch Stranges in the Marvel Legends line. It’s enough. You’ve given us the definitive version and I would appreciate not having any future BAF parts locked away behind any more Cumberbatch purchases. Thank You and Good Day!
So far, The Mandalorian has been the only Disney+ series that I think has been worthy of my time. Book of Boba Fett went nowhere fast, Obi-Wan was ludicrous and boring, and while I desperately want it to be good, I’m not holding out hope for Andor. So, it sure is nice to look back on that amazing ending to Mando Season 2 and know that if they try really hard, Disney is capable of producing some cool shit. Oh yeah… and we got to see some Dark Troopers!
Now, it’s only fair to say that I was not all that smitten with these guys on the screen. They looked a bit too much like rip-offs of the mechanical Cylons from the Battlestar Galactica reboot and the way they took to flight reminded me a little too much of either Iron Man or the Cybermen in Doctor Who‘s Series 8 finale. They just looked kind of cheesy flying around, and while that works for Doctor Who, it doesn’t so much in Star Wars. For some reason, I also LOL’d when they started punching the bulkhead repeatedly. Now, with all that having been said, these guys have grown on me a bit, and I suspected from the beginning that they were going to succeed for me a lot more as action figures, so let’s see if that’s true!
Well, I don’t know where to begin. First of all, the glossy black finish on this figure is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like a beautiful new car sheen, which probably doesn’t come across as well as it should in my pictures on account of how prone to fingerprints these are. And it’s good that the black finish is so impressive, because there isn’t a lot else here in terms of coloring. You get some silver paint on the joints and servos, and a subtle amount of dry-brushing on the feet to denote wear, but clearly these guys are meant to look fresh out of the factory and spoiling for a fight!
The next thing that I really love about this guy is the way the upper body armor is layered onto the figure. It makes for a more complex feel and appearance than if it were all just sculpted as one piece. The articulation here is every bit as good as your average Stormtrooper, so don’t let that bulky armor and those Protocol Droid-style disk-joints fool you into thinking this guy isn’t agile. It’s kind of a shame that the hydraulics in his abdomen don’t actually articulate with the figure, but they are in fact static, and the torso articulation is confined to a ball joint below the chest. Still, they look great! You get two sets of hands with this fella, one pair of fists, and a pair to interact with his gun. Oddly enough, his fists look really small and puny.
The helmet sculpt is great. It’s a nice homage to the original Dark Trooper design, but updated to work with the modern series. The red eye lenses are surprisingly vibrant amidst that sea of black, but man, it would have been cool if we could have had some light piping up in there!
The blaster design is OK, but the trusty old E-11 Blaster doesn’t have to worry about this design becoming my favorite. I like my Star Wars guns to have a firm and obvious design nod to real world vintage weapons, and this one just doesn’t do it. But it sure ain’t bad. There’s nowhere for the Trooper to store the weapon that I can see, but his gun-hands work well to carry it, with the left hand sculpted to cradle the weapon’s foregrip. It might have been interesting to see these Troopers designed with an integral blaster, like the Super Battle Droids, but maybe they can save that for an upgraded design.
In addition to the Blaster, you get a couple of jet effect parts to stick into his feet. These look fine, but I think I would have rather these guys had jetpacks, than just jet boots. Again, it’s a little too Iron Man-y on the screen, but it looks a lot more credible and fun as an action figure.
“Hey… you notice that the new guy doesn’t say much?”
At $32, The Dark Trooper is priced a bit higher than your average Black Series figure, but he is a bit more complex than what we usually get. I will say that I expected him to be a bit bigger, as he isn’t really any bigger than the Death Troopers, which I included in a comparison shot. Still, I’m not complaining, because he’s a damn fine addition to my Imperial forces. I originally pre-ordered a pair of them, but I may wind up hunting down one more.
FigureFan Zero 