Feb 16 2013

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Bruticus by Hasbro

It’s Saturday and I actually have the weekend off! I’ve got a lot of doing nothing ahead of me and I want to get started, so today’s entry will be a quickie. With all five Combaticons in my possession, I’m finally able to merge them into Bruticus. I should forewarn that based on Hasbro’s own photos of the gestalt mode, I was in no hurry to complete him. I bought the Combaticons strictly for their individual modes and to beef up my Decepticon forces. In short, I wasn’t expecting much at all. The end result was a bit of a pleasant surprise for my low expectations.

I’ll start out by saying that Bruticus is a solid figure that holds together fairly well. He runs into some issues if you try to pose him a lot, but his limbs form a strong lock and his torso is able to carry the weight and stand tall doing it. A gestalt that crumbles when you look at it funny is no fun at all, and Bruticus definitely avoids that issue. Another big plus is that he’s one of the most self-contained combiners that Hasbro has ever produced. If you disregard his gun, he doesn’t require any extra parts to make him work. Each robot transforms into his own component and they lock together. And his gun is rubbish anyway, and I just use that piece to fill out his hollow back. It may seem like a minor thing, but I really respect the engineering required to make him work without a pile of add-on parts. Sure, the Power Core Combiners did it, but their limbs didn’t turn into robots, so they don’t really count.

The shame of Bruticus is that he’s a three out of five. Onslaught, Brawl, and Swindle all hold up their end of the bargain and look great doing it. Onslaught is beautifully proportioned as the torso and the legs are satisfyingly chunky and solid. The problem is with Blast Off and Vortex. Blast Off is more of a solid arm, but he’s too long and too hollow in the forearm. Vortex, on the other hand (har har), well he’s just a mess. And the two of them are terribly mismatched. Blast Off’s arm mode is longer than Vortex and the hands look like they belong on two different robots.

The color scheme isn’t as terrible as I envisioned it. Yes, I would have liked it if Brawl was more military green than neon green, but I can live with it. I think Swindle would have been better if he were more mustard colored rather than bright yellow. The theme here, Hasbro, is just tune down the colors because it isn’t 1993 anymore. Onslaught and Blast Off’s colors are just fine. It’s Vortex that wrecks it for me. Vortex wrecks everything… except for the game… he kicked ass in that. The mix of that red and purple are just as bad in his limb mode as they are in his other modes. Screw you, Vortex! You suck!!!

Let’s face it, Hasbro has not been batting a thousand with their combiners. The Energon line’s attempts were well intentioned but ultimately a mess, saved only by Fanproject’s expensive additional figures and add-on parts. The Power Core Combiners were an interesting experiment, but their use of drones for limbs was a little beyond what we TF fans look for in a true combiner, and most of them were not all that good anyway. With all that being said, Bruticus is definitely one of their better attempts. I’d go so far as to say the torso and legs are quite good, and that ultimately the figure is marred by its unfortunately awkward and mismatched arms. With a little better engineering in Vortex and Blast Off, I think this figure could have been excellent. As it stands, I think it’s just a decent attempt and possibly an instance of lessons learned and a springboard for a better attempt later on down the road.

And that will finish me for the week. I have a lot more Transformers to look at, but in the interest of preventing the tragic condition known as Transformer Fatigue, I’m going to place a one week moratorium on TF features and just to make sure I stick to it, I’m going to make next week a theme and an unconventional one at that. I’ve already promised Monday to another Farscape feature, but after that it’ll be Jabba’s Palace week. That’s right, only Star Wars figures, and only ones connected to Jabba’s Palace. Not only will it keep me off the Transformers features for a week, but it’ll force me to finally open some of the figures I’ve been assembling for my new Jabba display. Catch ya all on Monday.

Feb 15 2013

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Brawl by Hasbro

Yeah, I bought Vortex last, but I didn’t want to end my look at the Combaticons with such a downer, so I saved Brawl here for the final feature. Not that Brawl is one of the better figures of the team, but he isn’t as terrible as Vortex. He’s solidly average. I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s dive in.

Transformers. Generations. Fall of Cybertron. Packaging. Seen it. Love it. BUILD GIANT ROBOT!!! Brawl is packaged in robot mode, but as usual we’ll start with his alt mode.

Ah, the Cybertronian tank. Make a box and put a turret on the top. It doesn’t even need real treads! It hovers!!! It’s the wet dream of any lazy Transformer designer. Back in the day Cybertronian tanks looked a lot more interesting and bad ass. Just look at Beast Machines Tankor. He’s got style. Brawl, on the other hand, just gets by as being a lime green gun platform. It’s a design so average that it makes War for Cybertron Megatron’s tank mode look like a freaking masterpiece. But at least his alt mode isn’t a ROFLCOPTER like poor Vortex. Brawl’s turret turns and the guns can elevate, which is cool. He also stores his handgun in his turret as a little extra firepower. I’m being hard on Brawl, but truth is his alt mode is Ok for what it is. I guess we’ll cut him some slack because he’s technically a triple changer. Not you, Vortex… you get no slack.

Transforming Brawl into robot mode is easy. If you pick him up and turn him over you can see everything that’s going on. Transforming him into his tank mode looks easy on paper, but in reality it’s kind of a pain in the ass. It’s all about adjusting his arms so that the tabs lock in just right. Like most Transformers, it gets easier the more you do it, but the first couple of times frustrated me, mainly because the payoff isn’t that great.

Brawl’s robot mode redeems him a bit. Again, he’s not spectacular, but he’s a solid enough looking robot. He has a fairly clean, well-proportioned form and some pretty some cool sculpted detail, like the pistons under his chest. He also has a really cool head sculpt, complete with a faceplate. On the downside, his combiner hinge and the back of the tank just hang down past his legs and are a bit of an eyesore. He’s extremely back heavy and his legs are all loosey goosey so he’s tough to stand up. The situation is made worse because his feet don’t lock into place, so there’s no support there either and they’re prone to just folding back up. Try to stand him and he usually just folds like a house of cards. His coloring comes mostly from his green and black plastic with a little grey here and there. I honestly don’t mind his green as much as I thought I would and at least Hasbro remembered to stamp his Decepticon emblem on his chest, unlike Vortex.

Brawl certainly has some issues, but I just find him to be a fun figure to play around with. He has good poseability, and I like to think that in robot mode, he can just hunch forward and lob artillery shells from the cannons on his back. You’ve got to like anyone who can do that! He’s still not a lot of toy for $15 as his engineering is overly simple and he has hardly any heft to him at all. I get it. Oil is expensive, plastic is expensive. But I can’t help but wonder why our Deluxes are getting smaller and simpler at the same time Hasbro is bringing Star Wars to 6-inch scale and introducing a new 2-foot tall Titan Class of Transformer.

Well, that wraps up my look at all of the individual Combaticons. Tomorrow we’ll put this week to bed with a look at Bruticus and see if the toy can be as delightfully badass as the character in the game.

Feb 14 2013

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Vortex by Hasbro

There were a lot of enjoyable levels in Fall of Cybertron, but surprisingly, Vortex’s were among my favorites. The big open area and the ability to strafe Autobots, transform into robot, beat the hell out of them, and then transform back into helicopter and fly off was really damn cool. I replayed his parts more than any others and all the time I had a big smile on my face while thinking, “Damn, it’s good to be a Decepticon!” It’s pretty sad and ironic that such a fun character in the game wound up with the worst of all the Combaticon figures. There’s no way to sugar coat this, so let me take a couple of belts of Jameson and then we’ll dive right in.

There’s the Generations packaging. Amazingly, it still looks good while holding such a shitty figure. Vortex is probably the best use of the BUILD GIANT ROBOT sticker, because when I saw him hanging on the peg, I wanted to leave him there, but then I realized that if I didn’t buy him, I couldn’t BUILD GIANT ROBOT! I’ve come this far, what’s another fifteen bucks to see what Bruticus is all about, right? Combiners are the C&Cs and BAFs of the Transformers Universe. It makes you buy figures you don’t really want. I don’t have a lot more to say about the package, other than it looks like Hasbro tried to tone down his awful colors for the character art, but that’s like toning down an exploding sun and it doesn’t help when the actual figure can be seen right below it. Let’s start with his helicopter mode.

Vortex is a helicopter in the most abstract of senses. He’s a big angular mess with rotor blades on top and some landing skids. He kind of looks like a crude polygon model of a helicopter from an early PlayStation game. If helicopters had mothers, this helicopter’s mom would have drowned it in the tub. It’s possible that the concept of a Cybertronian helicopter just doesn’t work that well, but it doesn’t change how awful this mode is in execution. And then there are the colors. What the hell were you thinking here, Hasbro? Vortex looks like he’s made to represent the worst, most obnoxious deco that Generation 2 had to offer. Which is crazy, because there is an actual Generation 2 version of this figure and it looks subdued and rational by comparison. The horrible combination of that purple and red coupled with the piercing yellow on his swords makes my eyes bleed hot tears of burning agony. Maybe Vortex’s robot mode can save this figure…

Ah, nope. While not nearly the atrocity that his alt mode is, Vortex’s robot mode is decidedly average. The proportions are ok but his arm articulation is awkward and I don’t like the way his head just hovers a bit above his chest. He also feels unbelievable cheap and hollow and nothing like a $15 toy should feel. Seriously, there’s just something about his complete lack of heft that sets him apart from the other Combaticons and makes him feel like a knock off. It probably doesn’t help that he’s missing his Decepticon emblem on his chest. There’s a space in the mold where it was supposed to go and it’s pictured on photos of the toy on the cardback, but either my Vortex missed out or Hasbro decided it wasn’t cost effective to stamp a tiny emblem on a $15 toy that feels cheap and small to begin with. Sheesh! The colors in robot mode are a tiny bit more palatable, but only because he shows more purple and a little less of that terrible and obnoxious red.

Vortex comes with a pair of swords that are every bit as obnoxiously colored as he is. Someone at Hasbro clearly said, “the colors… not obnoxious enough… make the swords blinding, neon yellow!” The swords can clip onto Vortex’s skids in his helicopter mode or he can wield them in his hands.

It seriously pains me to hate on any Transformer, but I can’t help it here. Vortex is poop. Just about every aspect of this figure offers me something to dislike. If you’re a fan of the trippy neon colors of the G2 era, than maybe you’ll find the deco to your liking, but even if that’s the case the rest of the figure is still garbage. And as much as I dislike the engineering and the deco, it’s the fact that this figure feels so cheap that I’d expect to find it hanging in a Family Dollar store on a generic card that said SUPER CHANGING ROBOT HELICOPTER or some other nonsense. The Fall of Cybertron toys have been fairly solid thus far, but when Hasbro releases crap like this figure and charges $15 for it, they are further sullying their reputation. At this point, Hasbro, you’re driving collectors into the arms of the Fansprojects, Perfect Effects, and TFC’s out there. I’d much rather spend $60 on a better looking, better quality, better engineered, deluxe sized figure from one of them, than $15 a piece of crap like this.

Feb 8 2013

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Sideswipe by Hasbro

It took me a while, but my Xbox is up and running again and I was finally able to play through Fall of Cybertron. And play through it again, and one more time. Needless to say I enjoyed the hell out of it, and it’s given me a new motivation to track down some of the remaining figures. Yeah, Jazz’s figure left me cold and he made my naughty list for 2012, but the three Combaticons I’ve featured so far more than made up for him. Let’s see if some remolding and fresh paint can make the Jazz mold better the second time around.

There’s the Generations packaging. I love it, but I think I’ve said all there is to say about it. Sideswipe comes packaged in his robot mode and his card sports some very nice character art. I also really dig his bio on the back of the card about him being a contender for racing champion before he joined the Autobots. He didn’t play a very large role in the game, but we won’t hold that against him. As always, let’s start in vehicle mode.

So, obviously Sideswipe is a remold and repaint of Jazz, but Hasbro did some nice reworking and recoloring of the mold to make him look like a new vehicle. The top of the alt mode is completely new, including the configuration of the hood, front bumper and spoiler. Gone are Jazz’s exhaust pipes and in their place is a more conventional looking car canopy. Sideswipe features less sculpted panel lines, but makes up for it with a more dynamic deco. The bulk of the body is red plastic with painted white racing stripes and silver and black accents. All in all, I had no problems with Jazz’s vehicle design and I dig Sideswipe’s too. It comes off as a much sleeker, speed machine, although some may take issue that he looks more like a concept Earth car than some of the other Cybertron alt modes in the game. Me? I’m fine with it.

Despite the changes to the mold, Sideswipe transforms exactly the same as his Autobuddy, Jazz. It’s a frightfully simple transformation on paper, but in practice, it’s oddly finicky. Going into alt mode requires a lot of tabs lining up just right, and going into robot mode requires a ridiculously annoying mechanic involving the torso, which can’t be adequately conveyed in the instructions. I found I just had to fiddle with it, becoming white with rage, until I finally remembered how it works.

In robot mode, the parts shared between the figures are a lot more obvious. The legs and arms are identical molds, but the paint differences distinguish them apart pretty well even when the figures are standing alongside each other. Sideswipe’s deco is really sharp and it shows just how far some nice coloring and good paintwork will make a mold. I’m still a little iffy on how the head just kind of floats inside the torso, but I do really like Sideswipe’s head sculpt. It really suits the character. Sideswipe also still has that extra set of wheels in robot mode, but as with Jazz one set is mostly concealed at the shoulders. Unfortunately, Sideswipe still has Jazz’s size problem. In robot mode he just feels a little too small, especially if he’s standing beside WFC Bumblebee or Cliffjumper.

Sideswipe comes with a huge ass gun with an extending barrel. I can’t decide whether it’s a cool BFG or just awkward and goofy. He can hold it in either hand or it can mount onto his vehicle mode, but it looks terrible mounted on his alt mode. The weapon is a decent enough design and sculpt, but it’s really way too big and I don’t tend to think of giant guns when I think of Sideswipe.

So, yeah, this guy is a cool little figure and I do find myself enjoying the mold a lot more than Jazz. Maybe it’s because Sideswipe’s red plastic and more accomplished paint apps look so much better than Jazz’s bare white plastic. Maybe it’s because I had a better idea of what to expect from the figure having already owned Jazz. Whatever the case, Sideswipe shows that Hasbro can be masters at tweaking a mold and making it work very well for different characters. He’s still not a lot of toy for $15, but maybe I’m getting desensitized to that as well. Sure there are things that irk me about Jazz’s design, which are still present here, but I’m not at all sorry I picked him up.

Jan 29 2013

GI Joe Sigma 6: Cobra HISS Tank by Hasbro

Many collectors would argue that Hasbro’s Sigma 6 figures are the red-headed stepchild of the GI Joe franchise. If that’s the case than the Sigma 6 2 ½” scale sub-line of vehicles and figures would be that red-headed stepchild’s red-headed stepchild. These things clogged the pegs and shelves of my local Target and Walmart, perplexing kids and collectors alike. What was the point? What was Hasbro going for here? If they wanted to do Sigma 6 with vehicles, why didn’t they just keep the line 3 ¾-scale? Was this Hasbro trying to have its cake and eat it too? Why am I asking so many questions? It’s because this line confounds and confuses me. It created some really cool vehicles (not to mention one truly amazing toy, the Dragonhawk, which I promise to feature someday), but its mix of cool vehicles and shitty little figures made it a difficult concept to get behind. Let’s get an idea of what this line was all about by looking at its treatment of one of GI Joe’s truly iconic vehicles: The Cobra HISS

I’ve got to say, I dig this packaging. It’s a mostly closed box with two windows on the front to show off the figures. This was a bold move, Hasbro, since the figures are easily the weakest part of these sets and you probably shouldn’t be displaying them with pride. On the other hand, at least the windows let potential buyers know what they were getting. I totally dig the illustrated metal frame deco that surrounds the box and the artwork on the front is excellent. This presentation is damned exciting! I remember when I first saw it on the shelf it made me want to buy the toy even though something inside my head was telling me to drop it and back away. The back panel has a great photo, showing you everything you get inside. Once again, Hasbro was really good about letting you know what you were getting yourself into.

That’s what I like to see! Bags of parts and a sticker sheet! Stuff to put together! I miss the days of having to assemble and sticker toys. It really added to the anticipation. Actually, the stickers here are a bit disappointing. Many of them have white outlines, which don’t look good on the toy so I left them off. At least the instrumentation and the hazards stripes look ok. But before we put together the HISS, let’s look at those figures.

Ok, you get Cobra Commander and a Cobra Trooper. Cobra Commander is a decent enough design and sculpt, but he represents a lot of what was wrong with these figures. Specifically, he’s perpetually standing there pointing and holding his bendy, warped scepter. He does have four points of articulation, which consist of swivels in his shoulders, his neck and his waist, but it’s all mostly useless. The Cobra Trooper fares a little better with the basic five points: Shoulders, hips and neck, but man his design and coloring is shit. Even with two Cobra emblems, he doesn’t look like a Cobra Trooper to me. Nope, he reminds me of some knock-off Hoth Trooper. Keep in mind, these are amongst the best figures this line had to offer, as many of them were even more pre-posed and static. I’m not going to blame the small scale. It was clearly a deliberate style choice on Hasbro’s part, because we’ve seen figures in this scale executed a lot better. Now where was that? Well, I’m sure it’ll come to me before the end.

Once assembled, this HISS should look familiar to most Joe collectors. It’s the same design as the one used for the Direct-To-Consumer HISS and that is not at all a bad thing because I really dig this design and all the features it has to offer. The overall configuration is the same as the original vintage HISS, but this model comes loaded for bear with dual missile launchers on either side of the cockpit and four missile launchers mounted up on the turret. Joes seeing this thing barreling toward them would surely have shit their pants. There are also two smaller swivel guns, one of which can be swapped out for a Cobra flag. The cockpit is designed to lower closer to the ground for easy boarding. The hull features some minimal panel lining and Cobra emblems, and the canopy has a cool painted frame, which is something I always thought the original HISS should have had. There’s no two ways about it, the profile for this vehicle is one hundred percent bad ass.

Just like the DTC HISS, the back compartment opens up on either side and there’s a hatch that drops down out of the back to unload troops. In fairness, with the turret in place there isn’t a lot of room back there for personnel. You can take the turret out to make room and that leaves a port for them to emerge and take pot shots at the Joes. This feature was one of my favorite things about the DTC HISS as it converts the fast attack tank into a vehicle that can charge across enemy lines, deliver the shock and awe of a missile barrage, safely insert a squad of Cobra Troops into a critical position, and all without sacrificing any of its original design. And honestly, if I were on Cobra’s payroll with Joes shooting at me, I’d much rather ride inside the thing then hang off the back.

The conversion gimmick involves taking off the top of the back compartment and unfolding it to turn it into an armed bunker. It’s not the most innovative gimmick around, but it does give you some play and display options. You can position the “bunker” into a straight wall fortification (my favorite) or you could angle it. The bunker can arm itself with two of the missile launchers as well as the smaller guns. The main turret of the HISS has fold down stabilizers to turn it into a missle battery emplacement. As much as it may seem like a tacked on extra, this bonus bunker mode actually makes sense to me. I can imagine HISS Tanks could be used to gain ground and then set up these fortifications to hold it while the remaining part of the HISS goes back to get outfitted again for another charge. All in all, it’s a pretty cool idea.

And yeah, about that other line of 2 ½” figures… Like all the vehicles in this line, the HISS’ scale meshes almost perfectly with Kenner’s old MASK line. This HISS blends especially well because of its converting ability. I really dig this cross-compatibility of these vehicles and it’s probably the core reason as to why I’m ultimately a fan of the line. Unfortunately, I can’t help but think of how much cooler it would have been to have had the Sigma 6 figures been in the same style as the MASK figures.

And that’s the Sigma 6 HISS. If you can accept the figures for being what they are, I call them lost opportunities, the vehicle itself is pretty damn cool. The design looks great and it’s a nice quality construction that can get banged around pretty good. If you give this thing a chance it’s definitely a well-designed toy, but then most of the other little Sigma 6 vehicles were too. I’ll eventually get around to looking at the rest of the line, but tomorrow we continue Toy Closet Finds week with another treasure from the abyss.

Jan 28 2013

Star Wars Vintage Collection: R2-D2 (“Jabba’s Sail Barge”) by Hasbro

Way back in October of 2010 I scored Hasbro’s awesome Jabba’s Throne set and ever since then I’ve been meaning to rebuild my once great collection of Jabba’s denizens. In the years since, I’ve been picking them up here and there, but mostly relegating them to storage totes until I could get motivated to start opening them and piecing the display back together again. Well, cleaning out the Toy Closet this weekend, I stumbled upon some of those figures and have been putting them aside so I can start opening them and looking at them here. And so, the first feature of this week’s Toy Closet Finds, might seem like an unlikely start, but I felt like opening me up an R2 figure and he just so happens to be the version from Jabba’s sail barge.

God, I love this packaging and it’s a crying shame that Hasbro is doing away with it this year. As superficial as it sounds, the vintage packaging is probably the only reason I even look at the Star Wars pegs anymore. Of course, I don’t buy a lot of them because it actually makes me sad to open them, and that’s coming from someone who usually doesn’t give a crap about tearing open his action figures. I’ve managed to shake a lot of the hold Star Wars figures have had on me since I was a kid, but even I can’t resist the appeal of the figures when they’re carded on pure nostalgia. When Vintage Collection came back I started to buy doubles, but space concerns being what they are, that strategy couldn’t last. And so, even now, I don’t want to open this figure, but like taking off a band aid, I’m just going to do it fast so it doesn’t hurt so much.

It has been AGES since I bought an R2 figure. In fact, the last one was probably the one from the Original Trilogy Vintage Collection, and I never opened it. It’s still stacked on a shelf with the other VOTC figures sealed in the clamshell. Having been out of the Star Wars scene for a while now, I couldn’t begin to follow all the repacks and slight modifications R2 figures have gone through over the years. Thankfully, I don’t have to, because this R2 is a completely new figure. That means this little droid should be a whole lot better than the last one I opened, right? I was pretty anxious to play around with him and see what Hasbro has done with him lately.

Make no mistake, this R2 is full of gimmickry, a lot of which intrudes on the articulation and aesthetics of the figure, so before we get into those, let’s start with the sculpt first. R2 has always been one of those figures that looks perfectly fine to me until the next release comes along and emphasizes everything that was wrong with the last one. That having been said, I think this one looks pretty solid. It seems like there’s still a little room for improvement on the dome, and I wish Hasbro could figure a way to not have seams running up the sides of it. But the body has all the appropriate sculpted panel lines, vents, ports, and doo-dads, front and back. For some reason the cables on R2’s feet have always been a sticking point with me and his figures, but they look good here. On the downside, he’s way too big for the Vintage Collection 3PO, but then I wasn’t a big fan of that figure anyway. That’s about as far as I can go without starting to talk about the gimmicks so let’s get to them.

Hasbro tried to make this a pretty versatile representation of R2 as seen in Return of the Jedi. In addition to the obvious drink tray and serving arm, he has a retractable servo arm, a sensor scope, and a lightsaber. About the only thing missing from the movie is the Ewok zapper and the buzzsaw. Easily the most unsightly of the gimmicks is the servo arm, which is poorly concealed behind the lower blue horizontal servo arm on his chest. In the movies, this blue piece is the actual arm that closes up flush with his body. In the figure, the whole panel opens one way and the servo arm swings out the other way. Considering the door doesn’t close properly and it isn’t screen accurate, I’d rather Hasbro left this one out and went with one of the vertical arm hatches instead.

The third leg gimmick is bewilderingly tied in to the sensor scope. To extend the leg, you have to put the sensor scope into the open panel on R2’s head and push it all the way down. The scope conceals nicely, but if you leave it in there you can’t turn R2’s dome. You can, however, use the scope to extend the leg and then pull it out to regain dome movement. Because the two gimmicks are connected, in order to display the sensor scope extended, R2’s dome has to be centered and the third leg has to be retracted. That having been said, the scope looks really good and since it just sits in the socket, you can rotate it. The lightsaber… wait isn’t that Obi-Wan’s lightsaber? Ahem… the lightsaber also just sits in the same socket as if R2 is preparing to launch it to Luke.

The drink tray is definitely the coolest piece of all the gimmicks, but then I guess it’s more of an accessory than a gimmick. It’s wonderfully sculpted and far surpasses the crappy one that Hasbro released previously. It sits snugly on R2’s shoulders and the drink serving arm plugs right into the socket on the top of his head. Amazingly enough, the drinking glasses are actually removable.

I won’t deny this is an ambitious and, in some ways, fun little figure. He will definitely look great dispensing drinks to Jabba’s minions, but I was also hoping this R2 would be a definitive version and clearly he’s not. I think Hasbro packed a few too many gimmicks into him and the figure struggles under the weight of its own over-engineering. But I think in the end, it’s the loose front servo arm hatch that bugs me the most about him. Ah, but a little super glue should soon fix that.

Jan 12 2013

Avengers: Stark Tech Assault Armor by Hasbro

Yeah, we’re well into January, but I had other overdue business to get to last week and that left me with one last Christmas present to feature. Although technically, TFC F-4 Phantom and the forthcoming F-15 Eagle were both Christmas presents, as my parents have stopped trying to track what I have in my collection and have resorted to giving me monies to buy my own toys. Anyway, today’s item was given to me as part of one of these nefarious Secret Santa exchanges. I hate these things, mostly because I never know what to get the person and in return I have to act delighted while opening something from someone who had the exact same problem. In this case, I did pretty alright toward the forced focus of my compulsory Christmas spirit and in return I wound up with Iron Man’s giant ass mech suit. I have to give my Secret Santa credit not only for trying but for actually getting me something I didn’t already have. I’ll also grant her (yes, it didn’t remain secret for long) the good taste of not getting me the rather silly Captain America one.

The set comes in an attractive window box with the usual Avengers logo and artwork featuring all the Avengers, or at least the ones that got their own movies. Hawkeye and Black Widow clearly need to get new PR agents. The back panel of the box shows a close up of the armor and points out some of the play features. The idea here is that Stark built a bigger, more powerful mech-style armored suit that he can climb inside while wearing his regular suit. Fair enough, I can get behind that. The other Stark Tech toys are pictured on the bottom edge of the box. Let’s open her up and see what we’ve got…

There are no twisty-ties or anything holding the toys in the tray, which is why I was rather surprised when I took the armor out and it fell to pieces. How this thing stayed together in the package, I have no idea. But virtually all the weapon modules and the left leg fell off instantly. No worries, though, as almost everything on the armor is designed to come off and go right back on again.

Let’s start with the Iron Man Mark VI figure. I was expecting a crappy, limited articulation version like we got bundled with the Quinjet, but I was pleasantly surprised. What we have here is actually a good figure with solid articulation! Granted, the figure actually requires this level of articulation to work with the armor, but that doesn’t make it any less welcome. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders and elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs have ball jointed hips and hinged knees, the torso is ball jointed under the chest, and the head swivels. The lack of ankle articulation is a shame and the paintwork doesn’t have that glorious new-car glossy finish like the Iron Man 2 releases did, but those are the only gripes I can bring against this guy. For a bundled figure, he’s not bad at all. In fact, he’s better than most of the single-carded Avengers figures.

The Assault Armor itself is pure bad ass, as it looks like Hulkbuster Armor meets War Machine. The sculpt is packed with detail making it a lot for the eye to take in all at once and it retains the gold and red deco that Tony Stark loves so much. To load the figure inside, the hatch on the torso hinges up and the upper legs hinge down. Once inside, Iron Man uses the triangle cutout where the Arc Reactor would be to look outside. Ok, that’s the one glaring dumb thing about the design. The two translucent blue pods on either side are control ports for Iron Man’s arms. While I’m not usually a proponent of electronics in toys, this thing is screaming for some LEDs or sound. The price range is right, but sadly Hasbro seemed dedicated to cheaping out on a lot of the Avengers toys.

The armor is decently articulated. The arms feature ball joints at the shoulders and hinges at the elbows. The legs rotate at the hips and have ball joints in the ankles. The head can rotate from side to side. Moving the legs is a little tricky with the figure inside as the hatches want to pop open when manipulated. Thankfully, the design doesn’t have Iron Man’s arms going into the mech’s arms, so you can get a wide range of uninhibited arm movement.

Weapons? You want weapons??? Well, they don’t call this thing the Assault Armor for nothing. The legs each feature a missile pod holding three sculpted, non-firing missiles. The right shoulder has a larger missile pod with seven more points of explosive persuasion. The left shoulder has a giant firing missile launcher sculpted to look like a huge gatling gun. Lastly, there’s an arm-mounted firing missile launcher. That’s a lot of firepower for something that could probably just grab Loki by each arm and tear him apart.

What’s better than a lot of weapons? Interchangeable weapons ala MechWarrior, and that’s where the Assault Armor design stumbles. All the weapons are designed to detach and they all use the same sized socket. The potential here was for a fully customizable payload. I mean, hell, even the ankles have weapon ports! Unfortunately, each weapon is more or less designed to go where it is and nowhere else. For example, you can’t swap the right and left shoulder weapons, because they don’t fit right when changed. You could put the missile pods from the legs on the arms, or the gatling gun on the arm, but they don’t look that great. The only thing really designed to be moved is the arm-mounted missile launcher, and that is just designed to go on one arm or the other.

Purists may scoff at this thing and I’ll admit I initially wrote it off as another goofy cash grab like Hasbro trying to sell a Spider-Man helicopter. But, in the end, I have to say it totally won me over. While Hasbro may have gone overboard doing a Captain America version, which is essentially just a repaint and slight remold, this one sort of makes sense. It’s fun to play around with, but more importantly it looks absolutely fantastic displayed on my Avengers shelf.

Value? Well, the Secret Santa exchange had a ten dollar limit. I’m pretty sure this thing sold for a lot more than ten dollars originally (subsequent research suggests the original MSRP was around $20), but as I can barely make out from the scratched out price sticker it probably came from Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, or Ross, so I’m guessing it was discounted to within the rules of the reindeer games. It’s also one of the few Avengers toys that aren’t still haunting the shelves of regular toy stores, so I don’t know where else she would have found it but at one of those Toy Graveyards. I generally define a “good gift” as something I wouldn’t have bought for myself, but still enjoy, and the Assault Armor certainly fits that bill. It’s a very cool surprise.

Jan 4 2013

FigureFan’s Disappointments of 2012, Part 2

Thought yesterday was depressing? Oh no. Don’t pass out on me. Not yet… Here’s the last five.

Thundercats: 6-inch Classic Lion-O by Ban Dai… Make no mistake, I don’t think this is a bad figure. It certainly has issues, like unpainted joints and an unfortunate head sculpt, but it’s still a solid figure. So why does it appear here? Because it was completely unnecessary. The 8-inch Lion-O was probably my favorite figure of 2011, and there was no reason for Ban Dai to backpedal on it. Nonetheless, Ban Dai got hammered by fans for making the figure in the oddball 8-inch scale and then when they relented and re-released the figure in a more standard 6-inch scale, collectors railed against them for starting over. I’m not saying Ban Dai didn’t mishandle a few things with the Thundercats license (that Tower of Omens was a piece of shit!) but overall I like what they delivered and I was sorry to see the line not work out. This Lion-O figure represented the beginning of the end for the revival of Classic Thundercats and while I still bought it to support the line, just looking at it makes me sad.

Transformers Generations: Fall of Cybertron Jazz by Hasbro… Poor Jazz represents everything that is wrong with Transformers these days. He’s too small, too simple, has too few paint apps, and he’s too expensive. Compare him with the Deluxe toys from War for Cybertron and he just comes up wanting in every possible way. While some figures in the line have escaped these cutbacks, Jazz personifies the struggle that Hasbro and other toy companies are having producing quality product against the rising costs of plastic and production.

Mass Effect 3: Miranda by Big Fish… I know what you’re thinking… Thane was way worse than Miranda. True, but I wasn’t looking forward to Thane, hence he wasn’t really a disappointment. Miranda, on the other hand was a major disappointment. Plus, her left arm fell off. As shitty a figure as Thane was, at least he didn’t break while being removed from the package. This line certainly had its ups and downs, and it’s a shame that Miranda had to be one of the downs.

Young Justice 4-inch Series, Wave 3… Ok, let me clarify. Sportsmaster was in Wave 3 and he was a solid figure, so what I’m really talking about here are those three shitty stealth repaints that I had to buy to finish my Hall of Justice. I’ve honestly bitched about this sorry situation enough in the individual features, culminating in my need to go onto Ebay to get Stealth Kid Flash. Because it wasn’t bad enough Mattel made us buy these, they also made it impossible to find the last figure in the wave. This situation, my friends, is customer appreciation at its finest.

DC Universe Classics: Orange Lantern Lex Luthor… What is it with Mattel making me buy shitty figures to complete Collect & Connect constructs? They’re evil marketing geniuses that’s what. I hated this figure so much that I actually considered paying more to get just the C&C part off of Ebay so I wouldn’t have to admit to having purchased the figure. He’s pure garbage, and while he might appeal to collectors with a translucent plastic fetish, all he does for me is make me mad when I see him peeking out from the back of my Lantern shelf.

And there’s the light at the end of the tunnel and we have emerged into 2013. We’re done with canned recycled retrospective feature week and tomorrow I’ll be back with the first new feature of the year.

Jan 3 2013

FigureFan’s Disappointments of 2012, Part 1

Ok, we’ve seen my favorites, and now it’s time to check out the turds floating in last year’s punchbowl. Again, this was tough, because I try to avoid buying things that look like they will be crap. So maybe the word turd is a little harsh in some cases. Almost nothing on this list is total crap, but everything here definitely disappointed me in some way.

TMNT Classics: Donatello by Playmates… The Classic Turtles are great figures, but they got upstaged on my “Favorites List” by the smaller modern guys in a major way. Nonetheless, Donatello represents here for one reason and one reason only, because of his mad eyes. Ok, I suppose that’s two reasons. The point is that by giving him wonky eyes, Playmates not only ruined the figure, but seriously marred the entire set. How can anyone appreciate their team of turtles on the shelf when Donny is standing there in the back looking like he got kicked in the head one too many times. It’s a crazy example of how one brush stroke can mar an otherwise excellent toy.

DC Universe All Stars: Superboy Prime… Besides turning out as a terrible looking figure, Superboy Prime earns Mattel a Disappointment Award for doing the bait-and-switch. The final product saw major changes from the pre-release images, and while that is bound to happen from time to time, the changes here made a great looking promo figure turn into a terrible release. Even worse, with hardly any brick-and-mortar stores actually carrying the DCU All Stars, I had to buy the figure online, so my disappointment wasn’t realized until I got the thing in hand and it was too late. It’s not often that I can say I regret buying a DCUC figure, but I certainly regret picking up Superboy Prime.

Marvel Legends: Extremis Iron Man… Because I only allowed each toyline to appear once in each list, this slot was a tight race between Extremis Iron Man and Future Foundation Spider-Man. In fairness, on its own this Iron Man is a fairly competent figure, but as soon as you put him up against some of the other figures in Hasbro’s new Marvel Legends line he comes up wanting. He’s too small, not terribly well articulated, and overall underwhelming. I kind of get the feeling that he was just here to fill a slot in a quick and dirty manner (that’s what she said?). And to keep the comparisons rolling, his paint and sculpting don’t even live up to many of the older, smaller and cheaper 3 ¾” Iron Man 2 figures. At least Hasbro released him in two versions, so that the crappy Stealth variant would make the regular one look better.

Duke Nukem by NECA… You’ve got to hand it to NECA, in an effort to be as accurate to the game as possible; they obviously wanted to capture the disappointment of Duke Nukem Forever in action figure form. And they did! NECA’s Duke features a solid enough sculpt, but the articulation is downright weird and the paintwork, particularly on the flesh tones, leaves a lot to be desired. And then there are the accessories. Sure, kudos for the cigar, which I promptly lost, but how can Duke come with just a handgun? Where’s his arsenal? And, no, the fact that he has feet doesn’t count as a “Mighty Boot” accessory. Duke should have come with a cool assortment of weapons, instead all he came with was disappointment.

Avengers: “Sword Spike” Thor… While most of Hasbro’s 3 ¾” Avengers figures were disappointments, this version of Thor earns a place on this list because he represented the ultimate in toy company hubris and laziness. Hasbro took what was essentially the exact same figure from the previous year, cut out most of its articulation, gave him a new shitty weapon and put him on an Avengers card. They even kept the same name, which in the new context made no sense because he now came with a halberd and not a sword. To add insult to injury, a lot of stores had this figure hanging just a few pegs away from the better articulated Thor-branded figure… on clearance! It’s the retail equivalent of Hasbro unzipping their pants, pulling out their Mjolnir and slapping us in the face with it.
Ok, that’s enough disappointment for one day. I’m going to take some Topamax and gin to level out my mood and I’ll be back tomorrow with the final five.

Jan 2 2013

FigureFan’s Favorites 2012, Part 2

Second verse, same as the first. And again in no particular order…

Thundercats: Mega-Scale Mumm-Ra by Mezco… I had such high hopes for the Thundercats in 2011. Some of it paid off. I got some decent figures and the 8-inch Classic Lion-O proved to be my favorite figure from that year. But 2012 saw the prospects of a continued line die a slow death. In the end, I had to live vicariously through Mezco and the hopes they might keep the Classic Thunderkitty goodness going with their Mega-Scale statues. In 2012 we got Mumm-Ra and Panthro. I still haven’t opened my Panthro yet, but Mumm-Ra proved to be another outstanding effort in this line. I love this big guy, and I think he was one of the best values of the year.

Marvel Universe: Cable by Hasbro… I’m sorry to say it, but overall Marvel Universe has been disappointing me lately. Maybe the Marvel Legends figures are just pushing their smaller cousins out of my field of interest. It’s also possible that I’m just evolving beyond the 3 3/4” scale. GI Joe and Star Wars were the only lines that really tied me to it, and I don’t collect a lot of those anymore. Maybe the new 3 ¾” Doctor Who figures will bring me back. Either way, the MU figures this year have been competent enough, but not spectacular. The exception to that, however, was Cable, a figure executed so well that he barely feels like an MU figure at all.

Green Lantern Classics: Collect & Connect Stel by Mattel… I came into 2012 with a lot of Green Lantern fatigue from that shitty movie and the carpet bombing of marketing that followed it. But that didn’t stop the franchise from producing one of my favorite figures this year. Sure, Stel is a C&C figure, but he’s amazing in every way. The sculpt, the coloring, the articulation… he’s got it all. I never had much affinity for the character, but he certainly made for some excellent action figure fodder and Mattel went above and beyond.

Marvel Legends: Punisher by Hasbro… It may be because Frank Castle has been absent from my collection for so long, but this figure really hit the spot for me. It captures all there is about the character, he comes with all sorts of great weapons, and I just can’t stop playing around with him. One of the greatest compliments I can pay an action figure is to keep it standing on my desk, rather than regulate it to the shelves in the other room, and Punisher has been on my desk ever since I opened him up. It seems like I can’t go more than an hour without reaching over and picking him up.

Hot Toys’ Captain America: The First Avenger… 2012 was the year I finally broke down and bought some Hot Toys figures and Cap was my first. I was really apprehensive about blowing the money as I am generally not a 1:6 scale collector and I was a little afraid that the figure would be lost on me. Nonetheless, from the moment I had the package in hand, I knew there were no regrets. Cap’s outfit in this movie is my favorite design and I just had to have it in this epic format. While I doubt I will ever go all out into collecting Hot Toys in a hardcore manner, I can certainly see myself grabbing two or three a year.

And that’s all the good stuff… tomorrow we’ll start the one-two punch to the gonads that make up my biggest disappointments of 2012… Hang tight, ya’ll are already halfway through this wonderful week of shitty filler articles!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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