Tag Archives: hasbro

Oct 13 2012

Star Wars: A Sarlacc-ariffic Weekend!

Some of you, who have been reading FigureFan a while, may know that I liquidated the bulk of my massive Star Wars collection four or five years back. That’s why I publish so few Star Wars features here. It was a money-sucking monkey that I worked long and hard to get off my back. Sure, I kept some prominent pieces, but I tried to let as much go as possible, which amounted to hundreds of figures and dozens of vehicles and playsets. Fast forward to now and I’ve been making weekly sojourns to my remote storage and going through totes only to find that I still have a ridiculous amount of Star Wars odds and ends. Going through this stuff was a big mistake because it’s really bringing me back into the glory days of my Star Wars toys as a kid and my collection as an adult. I can’t say as I regret selling off all that stuff. At the time I needed space and money and my Star Wars collection was getting so unwieldy and sprawling that I had figures based on characters that I didn’t even know.

Anywho… one of the things I found, in particular, was my Jabba’s Skiff Guards Cinema Scene 3-pack and it got me thinking about one of my long time toy grails. Every collector has their grails. They’re the figure or toy that they always wanted, but never got. Most people’s grails are insanely hard to find and expensive. That’s why they don’t own them and that’s what makes them grails. I’ve got a few things like that on my list, but one of my grails isn’t expensive or hard to get, it’s just something I never owned and always wanted to. It’s the Tattooine Skiff from Return of the Jedi.

Why the Skiff? Well, for starters it’s my favorite scene in that movie and one of my favorites in all the Star Wars films. It was such a great Flash Gordon-y concept to make a bunch of space adventurers walk the plank of a ship hovering in the middle of a desert. It was a great action scene too, with people being tossed over the sides left and right and falling to their doom, and we even get to see the legendary captain of cool himself, Boba Fett, in action for a few short moments before he screams like a girl and falls to his death. (or what might have been his death if you have the good taste to discount the events of a certain very shitty Marvel comic). I also just love the look of the Skiffs. They’re vaguely nautical looking, vaguely steam punk, and they look like they’d be fun to skim across the desert in. Not to forget the fact that they were manned by aliens that looked like pirates and toted around vibro-axes. Fantastic!

For a lot of Star Wars collectors, I’m sure the Tattooine Skiff is a grail piece, specifically the original release, issued as part of the first Power of the Force line in 1985. That was the year that failed to keep the Star Wars license afloat and as such the original release of the Skiff has become both rare and pricey. Fortunately, all I wanted was the toy, and the Skiff has been re-released to offer more affordable options. It was first re-issued as part of the Power of the Force 2 collection (the one we’re looking at this weekend) and again sometime around 2008 as part of an Ultimate Battle Pack, complete with a plastic Sarlacc.

So, needless to say, I finally hunted one down and bought it, and we’ll look at it tomorrow in all its glory. But first, I’ll be back later today to open up and take a look at my Skiff Guards so I have some figures to display on it.

Oct 1 2012

Marvel Legends: Mystique by Hasbro

I still haven’t found any more of Wave 3 of the Marvel Legends re-launch, but we looked at Iron Man a little while ago, so let’s knock out the other one that I do have… It’s Mystique! This release represents her more modern comic appearances, which is cool because I actually still have my old Toy Biz Marvel Legends Mystique kicking around.

Again, awesome packaging! Hasbro is up to their old tricks with using one card and one release slot to produce multiple characters. I’m fine with that, so long as I can keep finding the variants. In this case, Mystique is packaged under the moniker, “X-Mutants” and you get character art of both her and Moonstone up top and on the back panel of the card. These releases have to be one of the few examples of an action figure being released with the character’s name appearing nowhere on the package! That, my friends, is some ballsy marketing. Anyway, the figure looks great on the card and the huge bubble is filled out by her stand and crazy arsenal of weaponry.

Ok, so let’s deal with the elephant in the room first. Wave 2’s Madam Hydra did not feature one of Hasbro’s better head sculpts in this line, and yet they chose to recycle it for this Mystique figure. I’ll freely admit that I was quick to call Hasbro a bunch of crack smokers. Sure, the early promo pictures looked good, but I was worried that there was some fakery going on. Now that I have Mystique in hand, my worries are no more. I’m not sure if they did some tweaking or fixed the pinched look of the original mold, but I really dig the way it turned out for Mystique. The only place where the reuse is readily noticeable to me is the hair, and it still looks fine on this figure.

The rest of the sculpt is certainly up to par, albeit a bit minimalist on the limbs. Her pants and gloves are simply painted on, leaving the only really original sculpting on the figure at her torso with an unzipped top and clearly a lot of long hours spent lovingly sculpting her bosom. Hasbro, you dirty birdies… I loves ya. The also did some nice, subtle work on her taut little tummy. The only other thing on the body is her belt, which hangs loose around her waist.
God, I love the coloring on this figure! The shade of blue used for Mystique’s flesh tone is gorgeous and vibrant. Her pants and top are simple black, but there’s a lot of nice silver paintwork for the details. The zipper on her top is particularly well painted as are some of the little clasps and buttons on her belt. The paintwork on the face is precisely applied, including razor sharp lipstick, eyebrows, outlines to her eyes and her yellow pupil-less eyes. The face is capped off by a painted skull just under her widow’s peak. Gorgeous!

Mystique’s articulation is in line with what we’ve been seeing on the other Marvel Legends ladies. That means that unfortunately it ain’t up to par with the fellas. You get a ball jointed head, that is slightly marred by the hair sculpt. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed with swivels at the hips, double hinged knees and hinges at the ankles. You get a ball joint in the torso that allows a little swivel. The articulation on the chicks is starting to upset me, especially since all of them so far have come with rifles and without at least a bicep swivel; it’s hard to get them to hold the weapons in a convincing firing position.

As you already saw from the in-package shot, Mystique comes loaded for bear with no less than four weapons. You get a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, a sub machine gun, and a pistol. The pistol is recycled from Madam Masque/Hydra, but this seems to be the first time I’ve had any of these other weapons in my collection. The figure stand is the same on that came with Iron Man, and prior to that it was used for the Walmart Exclusive 6-inch Avengers movie figures.

I was a little lukewarm on Iron Man, but I am totally in love with this version of Mystique. Hasbro knew exactly where to lay in the new sculpting and where they could get away with keeping it simple. News of reusing the Hydra head sculpt had me punching my desk in rage, but all for naught as it looks outstanding on the final figure. But best of all, the colors on this figure, as limited as they are, just blow me away. Toss in a little arsenal of weapons and I’m somewhat able to overlook the lack of a couple important points of articulation. You’re still nailing this line, Hasbro, and I’m looking forward to scarfing up the rest of this wave as soon as I find them.

Sep 28 2012

Transformers Prime: Cliffjumper by Hasbro

Ok, I’ve decided to wrap up Transformers Prime Week today, rather than go through the weekend, because I’ve got other stuff I want to move on to. I’ll be sure to randomly pepper the rest of the figures throughout the weeks ahead. But with only one slot left and so many figures, which one to do? Which one to do? Well, the answer was pretty obvious. It had to be Cliffjumper. Why? Because he’s a Transformer that was voiced by The Rock, goddammit! And because he is definitely one of my favorite figures in the line.

We’re back to the Deluxe packaging and I’m still digging it. You get a nice big card with cool character art and a big bubble that shows off the figure in its vehicle mode, with the weapon beside it. One point of contention here is that the character art shows Cliffjumper firing his arm cannon, but the arm cannon is only featured in the First Edition mold and not this one. The back of the card has a bio blurb, which fails to mention the fact that Cliffjumper has been trashed, zombified, ripped in two, thrown down a chasm, and finally blown up. That’s cool, because I prefer my Cliffjumper very much alive. Hasbro has since put out an Exclusive zombie version of Cliffjumper, but that’s another story for another day. Let’s tear him open and see what’s what…

 

Cliffjumper’s vehicle mode is a 70’s muscle car and that makes me all kinds of happy. We get precious few older cars throughout the history of the Transformers. The last time a 70’s style car was done was back in the Cybertron series with Downshift. As is par for the course, you get very few paint apps showing on the car mode; instead it’s just molded in a pleasing shade of red plastic, with a little silver and black here and there. As always, I dig the clear windows, and the soft steer horns on the hood are a cool little touch. The car mode does have a bit of seaming and some of these are tough to close all the way when transforming him. He’s also got a little kibble, as his feet are protruding down from his undercarriage just in front of his back wheels.

Transforming Cliffjumper isn’t too difficult, and he does use some auto-morphing, which works quite well. His proportions are a little wonky, as he has pretty long arms and short, stubby legs. I didn’t remember him being like that in the show,  but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the episode with him in it, so I’m sure it’s perfectly fine. Cliffjumper does use a lot of fakery in his robot mode. The blacked out windows on his chest are obviously not the real windows from the car mode, and the horns on his head are not from the actual hood ornament. Normally this kind of fakery irks me, but it’s kind of hard to argue with the results. Cliffjumper’s robot mode looks way too complex to be a Deluxe figure, and that’s kind of cool.

One thing I don’t get about Cliffjumper’s robot mode is the faked out, molded tires that appear behind his thighs. They’re unpainted, so they don’t really stand out, but I’m not sure why they’re there at all, since all four of his real tires are clearly visible on his legs and shoulders. Weird!

Cliffjumper comes with a Battle Hammer, which can peg into two different holes on his car mode. There’s one on the roof and one where the gas cap would be. He can also hold it in either hand in his robot mode. I prefer to have him hold it a different way, at which point it becomes a really big gun, rather than a hammer, because really big guns are better than hammers.

No doubt, Cliffjumper is a cool figure. He gets extra points for being a boffo 70’s muscle car and for having a great looking robot mode. I should take issue with how faked out his robot mode is, but the toy is fun and it’s just hard to hate on him. He’s one of the few Deluxes that I’ve picked up that I wouldn’t have actually minded paying the full $15 that he’s selling for on the pegs, and that’s saying a lot considering he’s on the smallish side and seriously lacking paint apps. I’m pretty torn on whether I like him better than the First Edition Cliffjumper, a figure I do not and probably will never own. On the plus side the FE version has his arm cannon and doesn’t use the window fakery for his chest. On the other hand, The RID version’s chest looks less boxy and more refined. In the end, it’s kind of a toss-up.

And that wraps up Transformers Prime Week. I’ll try to get to what I have left over the next couple of weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m committed to this line now, as I’ve really enjoyed all the figures I’ve looked at so far. Tomorrow we’ll check out this month’s DC Club Infinite Earths figure from Matty Collector. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to take Sunday off, but we’ll see how things play out.

Sep 27 2012

Transformers Prime: Megatron by Hasbro

Just like with Optimus Prime, it’s hard to have a good Transformers series without a good Megatron. And if anything, Megsy can be the bigger risk, since there really isn’t any standard rule for what the Megster should turn into. We’ve seen everything from gun to tank to truck to misshapen Cybertronian crab thing. A good Megatron is important to me, so I was really happy to see that the Transformers Prime figure really nailed him… at least most of him.

There’s Megsy in package. I don’t have a lot more to say about the Voyager window boxes. They look good, they are collector friendly, and there’s a butt load of little strings tying the figure into his tray. Megatron actually has two extra weapons mounted beside him in his tray. One is his Mech Tech Fusion Cannon and the other is some kind of battle spike thing. We’ll get to those in a little bit, but first let’s get him out of the package and look at his alt mode.

I’ve been converting Transformers ever since I got Thundercracker and Prowl back in 1984. I’m pretty good at it. I don’t usually need to look at instructions, and a big part of the fun for me is trying to figure them out on my own. That having been said transforming Megatron was a real pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that his alt mode is a completely abstract Cybertron vehicle and even with the picture in front of me, it was hard to figure out where everything was supposed to wind up. The other problem is that there are some real fidgety maneuvers that need to be just right, particularly with the arms and shoulders. Is it all worth it? Let’s look at his alt mode.

So, it’s some kind of Cybertronian space cruiser. It looks ok. At least it doesn’t look like the unholy offspring of a horseshoe crab and an erector set like Revenge of the Fallen Megatron did. Point is, I’ve seen worse. And hey, a big part of the alt mode makes good use of Megatron’s Mech Tech-style Fusion Cannon weapon, which is more than I could say for Prime and Starscream. You actually combine his two weapons and plug it onto the top of the vehicle. They’re more part of the vehicles actual design than something just stuck onto it, and I appreciate that. If you transform him properly, this mode holds together pretty well. The bottom line, though is that I didn’t find it fun to transform him, and the space cruiser still feels like a token alt mode, so I doubt I’ll be doing it a lot.

Megatron’s robot mode, on the other hand, is pure love. He’s the spitting image of his on screen model and I absolutely adore him. Like Optimus, there’s a little bit of Bayformer mixed in with is design, particularly the head sculpt, but I think the end result is a really cool compromise. There’s not a lot of paintwork on this figure, but the grey and purple deco looks perfect. While I could take or leave the translucent plastic used on Prime, I think it really works well on Megatron. The way the way his armor wraps around it makes it appear more like part of his inner workings rather than Hasbro just using translucent plastic for the sake of it. The curvy designs in his torso look great, and his flared up shoulders look appropriately menacing. The plastic used for his chest even has a slight texturing to simulate that brushed steel look of the TV show model. The proportions on this figure are also really good. His forearms are bulky, but not too much, and his lower legs really give me an animated G1 Megatron kind of vibe.

There’s one thing I cannot compromise on where Megatron is concerned, and that’s his Fusion Cannon. Alas, while Megatron’s Fusion Cannon works well on his alt mode, it doesn’t fare so well when used with his robot mode. Part of the problem is the Mech Tech feature, which converts it into a battle blade. It feels completely unnecessary and the light up gimmick doesn’t really work. But worst of all, in order to accommodate the conversion, the Fusion Cannon only pegs in at one spot and not very well. The result is it’s always falling off. I’ve crammed a little blue tack into the hole, which seems to have helped, but I resent having to do that. As for the cannon itself, it just doesn’t look all that good. I’m thankful that it’s there, but here’s one instance where if a third-party were to make a better looking replacement, I would jump on it.

As much as I still prefer my boxy, animated G1 Megsy, there is a certain appeal to this version’s rounded edges and perfect proportions. There’s a ton of different influences at work in this figure, but they’re all collected from Megatron designs through the ages and so the end result really works incredibly well. I’ve actually gone so far as to move him onto my desk, just so I can glance over at him while I’m working and smile admiringly at his sheer awesomeness. I could complain about the messy transformation and the ho-hum alt mode, but alas, I’ve come to expect very little out of my Megatron alt modes. Honestly, I’d rather just have a great looking robot mode, and that is exactly what we got here. He’s a near perfect looking figure, only marred by his unfortunate Fusion Cannon.

Sep 26 2012

Transformers Prime: Optimus Prime by Hasbro

There were two figures in the TF: Prime line that made me hesitant to start collecting it, we already looked at Bumblebee. The other one was Optimus Prime. The official promo pics that Hasbro and other online sites used to sell it looked terrible. He looked too simple, lacked too much detail, he was too boxy, and too unlike the on screen model. And hey, you can’t have a good Transformers line without a good Optimus Prime figure, right? (SHUT UP, I LIKED ENERGON OPTIMUS PRIME!!!) So, I was really hoping that like Bumblebee, this would be one of those figures that would win me over once I got him in hand. And at risk of killing the suspense… yes he did. I still have more than a few issues with him, but ultimately, I think the good far outweighs the bad with this figure. Let’s take a look…

Optimus comes in the same style box we saw with Starscream. Again, I love the box’s deco and the window shows off the figure nicely. Prime is packaged in his robot mode with his weapons beside him. Once again, you get a “Try Me” hole cut out in the window so you can see just how shitty the weapon is before dropping twenty bucks on the toy. I lie; you really can’t appreciate how shitty it is until you get it in hand, but more on that later. The back of the package shows photos of Prime’s robot and truck modes and these are the pictures that Hasbro should have been releasing early on, because armed with these pictures, I wouldn’t have been so hesitant to buy him. Let’s get him out of the package and start with his vehicle mode.

 

Right off the bat, I’ve got to say Prime’s truck mode looks so much better in person. There’s more sculpted detail on it, particularly the sides, where there are sculpted rivets and some panel lines. The windshield area looked blocky and featureless, whereas the actual toy has plenty of nice detail. I really like the sculpted circuitry like panels behind the clear windshields. Prime actually has full length smoke stacks, although they are a bit bendy. What doesn’t look so hot is the back of the cab, where the recessed legs are exposed.

I was pleasantly surprised by how fresh and clever Prime’s transformation works. You’ve got to hand it to Hasbro. After almost 30 years of designing Optimus Primes that turn into truck cabs, they can still come up with new ways to do it. This version gets a little fidgety where the arms and shoulders are concerned, but I was still able to do it without consulting the instructions, and once I knew what I was doing, getting him back and forth is pretty easy.

In robot mode, Prime looks pretty close to the on screen model. The biggest difference is in the chest area, where the show model’s windshields angle out of his chest and the ones on the toy are just a solid slab. The toy version actually looks more durable and practical, as the TV show model makes me wonder how Prime can get through a normal day without smashing those things to pieces. The body itself is nicely sculpted to look like the on screen model, but the kibble backpack works against it to give the figure a boxier look then it should have. In fairness, the backpack isn’t at all bulky or troublesome, but it does make the figure look more squared off, despite his sleek and sculpted torso. Originally, I didn’t think I’d be a fan of the clear plastic parts used on the forearms, but I’m warming up to them. It’s a shame that the design has the exposed screws on the front of Prime’s shoulders, rather than the back, but now I’m nit-picking. The head sculpt is great, but it feels a little too small, like it was designed for a Deluxe figure, rather than a Voyager.

Prime comes with two weapons: You get his awful Mech Tech blaster and a sword. Both weapons can be fitted to the cab hitch for storage when he’s in truck mode. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the Blaster. Everything I said about Starscream’s Null-Ray Blaster applies here. Whether held in hand or mounted on the cab hitch, it looks like crap. The only problem here is that while I could happily toss Starscream’s weapon and not miss it, an Optimus Prime figure without a decent blaster feels like it is missing something. And yet, I’d rather have no blaster at all then display him with this horrible weapon. At least he comes with a sword, which looks good in his hand, but unless they’re Dinobots, I’m not a big fan of my Transformers wielding swords.

In the end, this figure features a lot of give and take. The robot mode is not the homerun that Starscream’s robot mode is, but then he is a better compromise between robot and vehicle mode. He’s also a nice solid figure that displays well and is surprisingly a lot of fun to play around with. In the end, he really won me over. Sure, the First Edition figure looks a lot more like the TV show’s model, but I find myself perfectly content with this guy representing Prime in this line of Transformers.

Tomorrow, we’ll keep the Voyager ball rolling with a look at Megatron.

Sep 25 2012

Transformers Prime: Starscream by Hasbro

Yesterday I looked at an Autobot Deluxe, so let’s switch over to a Decepticon Voyager, and who better than to start with Starscream. I may not watch the show a lot, but I absolutely adore Starscream in it. I love his creepy personality, I love his lanky design. They did a beautiful job crafting the same old scheming Starscream in a fresh new way, and it’s awesome. Even if I hadn’t committed to collecting this line, I would have still bought Starscream the moment I saw him. In fact, he’s the only figure I’m looking at this week that I did not get on clearance. Nope, I laid down a full Andy Jackson on him. Let’s see if he disappoints.

Hey, it’s the first look at the Voyager figure packaging here on FigureFan. Starscream comes in a nice window box with the figure packaged in robot form. I really dig the box’s deco. It’s cool, it’s flashy, it shows off the figure well, and above all it makes me want to buy the toy. There’s a “Try Me” hole cut out in the window so you can reach in and activate the Mech Tech Weapon, which transforms and lights up. I think it’s great that they actually call it a Null-Ray Blaster, but as we’ll see in a bit, it’s a worthless piece of crap. The back of the box has a photo of the figure in both modes, and the side panel has his biography and his tech specs. Technically, the box is collector friendly, but I had to cut so many strings to get Starscream out, I thoroughly mangled it in the process.

 

Even though, Starscream is packaged in his robot form, I’m starting with his jet mode. Why? Because I don’t like to break up routine, and also because I want to get the bad stuff out of the way first. Ok, bad may be a little harsh. The jet mode is certainly passable, but because of a lot of hinges and seams on the top and some robot kibble on the bottom it isn’t terribly attractive. It’s also a little chunky. Bottom line, this jet is not the sleek and stylish jet we see on the show. The inspiration is certainly there, but compromises had to be made. Now, I’m willing to give the jet mode a lot of slack because Starscream’s robot mode is so amazing that it’s hard to believe that Hasbro could engineer it to change into a jet at all. The missiles are detachable, which is cool, and while there aren’t any flip down landing gear, there are tiny molded wheels that allow the jet to stand evenly and display well. I should also point out here that getting Starscream into his jet mode can be a bit fidgety, but once you know what you’re doing it’s actually pretty easy.

With that out of the way, we can move onto Starscream’s robot mode and everything is rainbows and cupcakes from this point on, because the robot mode is downright awesome. I seriously adore this figure. Hasbro did a great job capturing all the personality of his on screen design and the proportions are excellent. He’s got the same lanky arms and legs and you can pose him in that hunched over, groveling stance that he loves to so much whenever he’s in  Megatron’s presence.  The way the wings angle up on his back and they are hinged so you can swing them in and out a bit to help with posing. All the other jet kibble is strategically placed. Even the tail fins on his ankles serve to stabilize his ability to stand. You can also remove the missiles from the wings and clip them onto his arms as additional weapons. So cool! And the head! Oh, the head! The head sculpt is absolutely perfect and nicely painted too.

The paintwork is solid enough, but could stand a few simple improvements. I would have really liked to see the same silver paint used for his thighs to be used on the two pieces that make up his chest. I also would have preferred the Decepticon emblem on his shoulder to be right side up instead of sideways. But these are tiny little gripes.

And then you have the Null-Ray Blaster. What a steaming pile of crap! It’s a stab at continuing the Mech Tech weapon gimmick that was started back in the Dark of the Moon line. Now, I have no problem with this idea, and I can remember really digging some of those DotM Mech Techs, but Starscream’s weapon looks like a jumbled mess. Besides just looking like hot garbage, it suffers from the same problem as the DotM gimmicks, where you have to keep holding it to keep the weapon converted. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have it lock into place? Doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have saved this thing anyway. What’s worse is that Hasbro spent the money to put a light up gimmick in this thing. It can be plugged into Starscream’s jet mode or clipped onto his arm and either way it destroys the aesthetics of the toy. The best thing about it? You throw it in the garbage and forget about it.

So to sum up, Great Primus, this is an awesome figure! Apart from the few suggested improvements to the paint, I love every inch of him. I doubt he’ll spend much time in jet mode, but then most of my Transformers are displayed in robot modes and only converted when I want to play around with them or when it’s time to put them into storage to make room for some others. And speaking of storage, I have a feeling that when my Prime figures are finally rotated out into storage, Starscream will be the one figure that remains on display all the time. And that’s just about the best compliment that I can pay any figure in my collection.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out the big guy himself, Optimus Prime.

Sep 24 2012

Transformers Prime: Bumblebee by Hasbro

So, yeah… I just got a heap of Transformers: Prime figures in the mail, thanks to a certain someone who decided to clearance a bunch of them out. I’ve been pretty tentative about buying these toys, but the three I already have were all pretty good, and hey… clearance! So, let’s kick off this Transformers Prime week with a look at everyone’s favorite, spunky little scout… Bumblebee!

We’ve seen this packaging here on FigureFan a few times already. I like it well enough. The oversized card with the character art really draws the eye. I do have to deduct a few points for the bio on the back mentioning one of the annoying human kids from the series. Bumblebee is carded in his vehicle mode, with his two blasters on the tray beside him. Bumblebee is one of the figures in this line that sort of kept me from wanting to commit. I just haven’t seen many appealing pictures of him in robot mode, so here’s hoping that having the figure in hand can sway me. Let’s start with his sports car mode.

 

 

Ok, so not bad. The fact that the car is held together by rubber bands had me a little worried, but truth be told he’s a solid enough car. He’s a little camero-ish with a twist of anime style. The similarities are there without Hasbro having to pay the royalties. Win-Win. Bumblebee’s windows are all clear blue translucent plastic, and anyone who’s read a few of my Transformers features may know that’s a big plus in my book. There’s not a lot of paintwork going on here. You get the car molded in yellow plastic, with some black stripes. For the most part, this seems ok, but the total lack of paint apps on the back of the car really upsets me. The exposed engine in the hood is cool and that’s where you can plug in the guns if you want your Bumblebee rolling into battle. So far, so good…

Transforming Bumblebee is pretty easy, but not overly so. In fact, I think this guy has just the right balance of ease and complexity. In robot form, Bumblebee’s big problem is his shoulders, which make him way too widely proportioned at the top of his torso. Posing him with a wide stance helps a bit, but the way his shoulders jut out makes me think he’s mis-transformed, when he’s really not. He also suffers a bit from the hollow factor. When you view him from the side, there’s a lot of empty space in his torso, but the down sloping chest and the roof that covers his back helps to make the figure look solid from the front and back.

Everything else about the figure works ok for me. He isn’t the most original of designs, borrowing heavily from the Bayformer look and one thing I do like a lot is the way the final robot form looks like the transformation should be a lot more complex than it actually is. A lot of this illusion comes from the auto-morphing in the torso. I’m not usually a big fan of the auto-morph features, but in this case it works really well and the exposed gears give him a cool mechanical look. I really dig the dual laser cannons that clip onto his arms, and they can also be combined into one quad-barrel gun to be held in either hand or clipped onto the hood of the car when he’s in alt mode.

Articulation? His arms rotate and have lateral movement at the shoulders and swivels and hinges in the elbows, but no wrist articulation. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, with additional swivels just below those ball joints. He’s also hinged at the knees and ankles. There’s no torso articulation, but the head is ball jointed on the neck. All in all, you get fairly satisfactory articulation for a small Deluxe Transformer.

I do have to take some issue with Bumblebee’s coloring. The bulk of the figure is left in the bare yellow plastic, and there’s something about it that feels kind of cheap. But my real issue here is the paint apps that have been stricken from the final figure. They’re on the product image on the back of the card, but in final production, they apparently didn’t make the cut. What really irks me about it is the fact that the Hot Shot repaint (we’ll get to him soon) is brimming with great paintwork. Why, Hasbro, would you cut paint apps on the main character of the line and then go hog wild painting a repaint that only completists are really going to care about?

So, yeah, in hand, Bumblebee is not so bad. In fact, if the shoulders had only recessed a bit into the torso, or flipped around to lay flush with it, I think the figure could have looked down right amazing. As he is now, it just takes some acceptance, and with the right posing, he can look pretty good. That all having been said, he’s a solid enough figure, with a fairly clever transformation and he is tons of fun to fiddle about with. Of course, my satisfaction with the figure also comes from the fact that he was about $6 and at that price, I’m willing to be pretty forgiving. At $10 I think he would have been a satisfactory purchase. But right now he’s hanging on the pegs for $15, and I just don’t think he warrants that at all.

Sep 24 2012

Transformers Prime Week!

I held out as long as I could, having only picked up just a few of these figures here and there. I suppose it was only a matter of time, seeing as I am such a shameless Transformers whore. I found some really good deals on TF:Prime figures last week and I went hog wild and picked up a whole heap of them, hence the commencement of Transformers: Prime Week. I’ll cram as many as I can into the week ahead. I’m not sure if I’ll continue it on into the weekend or not. I definitely have enough figures to go the distance, but I’m guessing I’ll be ready to move on to something else come Saturday. I will try to mix it up with both Voyagers and Deluxes, or whatever the hell Hasbro is calling the size assortments these days.

And yes, everything I’m looking at this week will be the Robots in Disguise versions, not the First Editions. I only took this plunge because I like what I’ve picked up so far, and I really did get these for laughably cheap. I’m not going to be hunting down the First Editions and paying premiums for them.

I’ll also take this time to confess that I haven’t been following the TV series. I’ve probably seen a majority of the first season, and I’ve had pretty mixed opinions on it. There was some great, there was some awful, and a lot that I just didn’t care about. In fairness, it takes a lot of interest for me to track down a show and watch it every week, so unless I own a series on DVD or love it as much as say Doctor Who or Game of Thrones, chances are I’m not going to stick it out.

So, enough preamble. I’ll be back later on today to start it all off with Bumblebee.

Sep 20 2012

Marvel Legends: Iron Man (Neo-Classic Armor) by Hasbro

Holy hell, the new Marvel Legends figures are beginning to trickle out both in retail and across the Cyberwebs. I honestly didn’t think we were going to start seeing these until November. I knocked out the first two waves by buying them by the case, but when I saw two lone Wave 3 figures, Iron Man and Mystique, hanging on the pegs, I couldn’t resist getting them individually. We’ll check out the first one this week, then I’ve got to take care of some unfinished DCUC business over the weekend, and I’ve got a themed week planned for next week, so who the hell knows when I’ll get to Mystique.

Yes, it’s Iron Man in his second Legends appearance in only three waves. Ok, it’s technically the third if you count that blue repaint in Wave 1. And there’s the glorious, eye-catching Marvel Legends packaging. God, I love it! You get comic book style and action figure goodness married together in a perfect package. The only way this could be better is if ML figures actually had a reprint comic book as the backing for the figure. Oh wait, they did until Hasbro got hold of the line!

The first thing you may notice is that there’s no Build-A-Figure part, instead you get a big figure stand, recycled from the 6-inch Avengers movie figures. The stand is sculpted to look like a number of hexagonal tiles strung together. There are several pegs so you can position the figure in different stances, and the stand will hook together with other similar stands in various ways so you can create a big display. I like these a lot, and if Hasbro would sell them in packs at their web store, I would probably buy a bunch. Since the previous two waves were named after their BAF, Hasbro has just called this wave “Epic Heroes.” Fair enough!

When I heard Iron Man was going to be in another wave of Legends, I wasn’t thrilled. Sure, it makes sense, as he’s a huge personality in the Marvel Universe right now and with Iron Man 3 soon to be released, the character will continue to make bucket loads of money for Disney and Hasbro for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, I was a lot happier when I saw the choice for the armor. The Neo-Classic armor is a nice break from the modern stuff we’ve been getting so much of lately.

First off, I want to thank Hasbro for finally bulking up Iron Man a bit. My main complaint with the Extremis Armor release was that he was so small compared to the other 6-inch Avengers on my shelf. Stand him next to Steve Rogers from the same wave and, well, there’s clearly a problem. The added bulk to this figure comes closer to looking like he’s scaled about right for a guy wearing armor. He is, however, notably shorter than the Extremis Armor Iron Man from the first wave, so in some way Hasbro took a slight step forward and a slight step back. Proportionally, he looks good with two exceptions… his hands. Those hands look awfully tiny to me. I do, however, dig those clunky Mega Man style boots.

Since this is the older style of armor, the figure is built off a standard muscled buck with separate sculpted armor pieces on the chest, shoulders, arms and legs. I’m really keen on the head sculpt, which offers a bit of depth around the eyes and mouth slots, although not as much as the production photos suggested. After being exposed to so much of the sleek new armor suits both in the comics and on the big screen, looking at this style is like looking at a vintage automobile. It has a retro charm and sexiness all of its own.

The figure’s sculpting is solid, but I think it’s the color that really makes this figure stand out. Hasbro used just the right shade of gilded gold paint for the body and a beautiful deep, metallic red for the armor plating. They may be the only two colors on the entire figure, but man do they look great together.

Iron Man’s articulation includes a ball joint in the neck, arms with ball jointed shoulders, double hinged elbows, hinged wrists, and swivels in the biceps, forearms, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs and lower legs. It looks like there are hinges in the ankles, but they are useless because of the way the boots are sculpted. The torso features a swivel at the waist and an ab crunge hinge in the chest. It certainly isn’t the best articulation we’ve seen in the line, but some of the restrictions come from the style of the sculpt and I think Hasbro did their best to work around this where they could. One notable point is the hinged shoulder flaps to allow for greater arm movement. I really would have liked an extra neck hinge so he could look up if I pose him on a flight stand. It’s also worth noting that the peg holes in Iron Man’s feet don’t go deep enough to work with the figure stand! Come on, Hasbro!

I’ll confess Iron Man was the one figure in Wave 3 that I was looking forward to the least. He certainly isn’t one of the shining beacons of the line, but he’s certainly not terrible either. A number of little issues cause him to land right in the middle of the average range on my patented Marvel Legends figure Cool-O-Meter. Still, it’s nice to see this armor in this scale and I’m definitely content to put him up on my shelf where he looks damn good. That all having been said, I’m still pretty sure he’ll wind up the peg-warmer of this wave, although with how well these figures have been selling in my area, there may not be any peg-warmers at all.

Sep 17 2012

Transformers Fall of Cybertron: Shockwave by Hasbro

I rarely buy games when they first come out, but I was happy to fork over the sixty bucks for Fall of Cybertron on Day One. Unfortunately the next day my Xbox decided to give up the ghost and die on me, so I’m still only three levels into it. The irony is that I actually had the PS3 version in my hands and then put it back and went for the 360 version because all of my gaming friends only play on Xbox’s Network. So, until I can get motivated enough to swap out the DVD drive on my 360, I’ll have to enjoy this game through the toys, which have just been hitting the pegs in my area this past week or so. I’ve been waffling a bit on Optimus and Jazz, but when I saw Shockwave, I grabbed him right away.

It’s so good to see Generations back on the shelves after the tsunami of Dark of the Moon has come and gone. With the return of the line comes newly rebranded packaging and I’m really digging the new look. The G1-style grid on the card tugs at my nostalgia strings, as does the very G1-inspired portrait of Shockwave. The back panel has photos of the toy and a pretty cool bio blurb about how he’ll murder you with his logic. And holy shit, check it out… they brought back the tech specs! Shockwave is packaged in his robot form and held on to the tray with a ridiculous number of string twisties. Overall, this package design gets my stamp of approval and I do hope they continue to use it forGenerations beyond Fall of Cybertron.

With Shockwave out of the package I find myself blown away by this figure. Yes, I am biased with my love for Shockwave, but it really is an absolutely amazing update to the character we all know and love. But more than that, the design is so clean and solid, the proportions are so right, that it feels more like an action figure and less like a Transformer. The head sculpt is a perfect homage and the light piping for his eye works exceptionally well. The arm cannon is also a great design, as Shockwave can simply fold back one of his hands and the cannon mounts onto either arm. It’s bigger than G1 Shockwave’s arm cannon, but not as ridiculously big as say, Energon Shockblast’s arm cannon. The sculpt features a lot of panel lines and great little details, like all the cables molded around his neck.

The one thing that I’ve been the most disappointed over with this year’s Transformers has been the lack of paint apps. Shockwave is no different, but his color scheme works without it. He’s mostly sculpted in traditional Decepticon purple, with some great translucent purple plastic and some silver paintwork on his trim. The ensemble is perfect and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. His Decepticon logo is kind of small, but I don’t know where else you could put it to make it larger.

Shockwave sports solid articulation. The head turns, but is not ball jointed. The arms rotate at the shoulders and have hinged lateral movement and ball joints in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and have both swivels and hinges at the knees. A waist swivel would have been welcome, but I don’t think its absence really hurts the figure a lot.

I was a little concerned about Shockwave’s size, especially since the TF Prime figures have been getting smaller and smaller. He does look small in the package but once I got him out and stood him next to my War for Cybertron Megatron, my fears were vanquished. He’s perfectly sized to stand beside his leader. Some might have preferred him as a Voyager, but I’m really happy with Hasbro streamlining the figures into mostly Deluxes. It may create some scale issues in alt mode, and sure, some Transformers should be bigger than others, but Shockwave here is scaled perfectly in robot mode for the other Classics and Generations figures.

I actually had to look at the instructions to get Shockwave into his alt mode, and that’s something I almost never have to do. The reason here is not because he’s a complex Transformer, but rather his alt mode, unlike a car or jet or tank, is somewhat abstract, so it’s tough to figure out where everything is supposed to go. He’s billed as “Cybertron Mobile Artillery” which is basically like a big hovering cannon. I like to think of him more as a spaceship, but either way it is a very nice nod back to his original G1 gun mode. The alt mode locks together very nicely and looks damn good too. I’m impressed with the number of panel lines in the sculpt and while there aren’t a lot of paint apps, (he basically has the exact same color scheme as his robot mode), the coloring on the figure doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything. Well, maybe a Decepticon logo would have been nice.

How about the price? Dang, these things are getting expensive. True, I haven’t been buying a lot of Transformers since Dark of the Mooncame out, but I still remember only paying around $10-11 apiece for those Deluxes. Shockwave was $15!!! It’s kind of outrageous considering the size of the figure, but I can justify it by passing this off as a collector line. Plus, I love this figure so much that I probably would have paid even more for him if I had to. But then, even the TF: Prime Deluxes have shot up to the $15 price point at the local Walmart. I’ve been a Transformers fan from Day One, but even I think Hasbro is starting to overestimate the demand for these guys.

Shockwave has had some decent re-imaginings in lines like Energon and Animated, but this release is a bona fide stab at bringing the character into the Classics continuity. Sure, it’s his Fall of Cybertron version, but since the character never got an Earth alt mode, it fits right in, much the same way that I prefer to use my War for Cybertron Megatron and Soundwave as my default Classics versions. Shockwave is definitely a solid and well-engineered figure, and while I don’t like to use the word perfect a lot, I think this guy comes closer to being a perfect Transformer than any I’ve seen in a while. I just love him to pieces and he’s sure to be a popular release with the fans.