Tag Archives: hasbro

Feb 24 2011

Star Wars Vintage Collection: Zam Wesell by Hasbro

I haven’t looked at a lot of Hasbro’s Vintage Collection Star Wars figures here, mainly because I can’t find any of the ones I want on the pegs and I’m not prepared to buy a whole case of them online. The pegs around my parts are clogged with the Prequel figures and while I was happy to get General Grievous carded this way as a curiosity, I don’t have a lot of interest in many of the other Prequel figures. Nonetheless, a good friend of mine knowing I was fond of the Zam Wesell character (or at least what she looked like), sent me along the loose figure, so I thought I’d check her out here.

It’s true I really liked the design of this character, although I like to forget that she was some kind of shapeshifting lizard. Besides the fact that she was one of the few chick bounty hunters in Star Wars, I liked the way she looked a bit like she was plucked out of a Sergio Leone film. The long duster and the rifle definitely have that Old West vibe going on. I’ve owned two of the previous incarnations (Preview and Saga), both of which were really well sculpted, but both suffered from some annoying pre-posing and poor articulation. I’m happy to say that this Vintage Collection version makes up for all the past sins and offers up what is likely to be the definitive figure of this character, at least as far as I’m concerned. Like I said, I don’t have the packaging, but chances are you won’t have a problem seeing what her card looks like if the Prequel figures are selling as poorly in your area as they are in mine. Just go down to Target or Walmart and check it out!

Zam’s outfit is very nicely detailed, especially whatever the hell those tubes are on the front of her chest. The belt is sculpted from soft plastic and includes a working holster for her pistol. Her duster is soft plastic, and while it doesn’t really get in the way of her articulation, she can’t really sit down with it. The human head sculpt won’t win any awards for its resemblance to the actress in Attack of the Clones, but at least it ain’t a f’ugly sculpt, as Hasbro is known to turn out some bad looking lady figures in this scale. Zam isn’t one of them, that is unless you slap on her lizard head. I guess the sculpting is ok, but it looks really stupid on top of her flesh tone neck. One other cool thing about Zam, both of her hands are sculpted to hold her weapons.

Zam’s articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles and regular rotating hip joints. She also has that universal joint in her torso. Yeah, we’ve seen better articulation in this scale, but only by a few points so Zam has nothing to be ashamed of in this department and you can certainly get some great poses out of her.

Zam comes with a nice little selection of weapons and accessories. Her weapons include a blaster pistol that fits into her holster and her sniper rifle. The paintwork on the rifle is particularly impressive for such a thin and fragile accessory. Her helmet is removable and works with the other three accessories. You get the visor thingy, the face mask that goes across her face and another sculpted version of it that just hangs off of one side. All of these pieces just peg right into the holes on either side of her helmet and stay in place pretty well.

I think Zam is a fair enough argument for putting some Prequel figures out in the Vintage Collection. The fake retconned packaging doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but in this case the figure inside is fantastic, so who am I to argue with the packaging. You can take it or leave it, and at $7.99, it’s not like we’re really paying extra for the packaging anyway. Plus, I don’t feel compelled to buy two of her and keep one carded like I’ve been doing with most of the Original Trilogy figures in this line.

Feb 18 2011

Marvel Universe: Moon Knight and Black Panther by Hasbro

I’m slowly going through the case of Marvel Universe figures that I got in a couple of weeks ago. This time I’m going to look at two characters that I admittedly don’t care a whole lot about, but I wanted to pick them up for one reason or another. Moon Knight has always intrigued me, but I’ve never read anything that he’s ever been in, apart from a cameo in issue of Deadpool. I’ve got some of Moon Knight’s stuff on my To Read list, but at my age I think my reading list is a lot longer than the time I’ve got left on this old world of ours. I’m a lot more familiar with Black Panther, but he is by far my least favorite of all the Avengers. Apart from the issues of his comics that coincided with theDark Reign saga, I’ve never read any of his books, so most of my exposure to him is from the second animated Avengers movie and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. 

Standard Marvel Universe packaging, only these figures were released before the HAMMER theme took over from SHIELD. The character art on these cards is a little weak, but that might be more because both characters have fairly simple designs rather than any lack of effort on Hasbro’s part. The bubbles show off the figures nicely.

Moon Knight is a really cool looking figure. In fact to find as nice a looking figure with virtually no paint apps, you’d have to look to Mattel’s Gentlemen Ghost from the DCUC line. He relies on a fair amount of new sculpt, a bulkier muscular build and and a really nice hood, cowl and cape piece that still allows for some articulation in the neck. His face is basically just a Jawa, but it really serves the original character design very well. He comes with his staff weapon and a moon dart, which looks exactly like a clipped toenail. Mine flew out of the package when I opened it and was never seen again. It’s a fair bet my cat ate it.

And speaking of figures with virtually no paint apps, next up is Black Panther. [See, there’s a reason I chose to look at these two figures together! -FF]  Of course, Panther hits the other end of the spectrum and is all black. I’ve tried many times to embrace this character, but I simply can’t do it. That’s not to say I didn’t want this figure, albeit solely because of his membership in the Avengers. I’m tempted to say there’s a lot of original sculpt on Panther’s body, because his torso looks to have fewer muscular lines than most other figures, but I’m not prepared to say one way or the other. I do think Hasbro did a fine job on the head sculpt. Panther comes with his Poleaxe.

While Moon Knight features all the standard articulation we’re used to seeing in the MU male figures, Black Panther has two exceptions: His knees. He doesn’t have the double hinged knees that Moon Knight and most other MU figures have. However, Both figures include their packet of secret SHIELD documents with file cards. On the other hand, these guys were released before Hasbro decided to start including the personalized stands. Boo!

And there you have it, another couple of solid offerings from the Marvel Universe line. I imagine that Black Panther will be a pretty well sought after figure just because of his Avengers affiliation, although it seems pretty questionable as to whether he’ll be brought into the picture when the Avengers assemble on the big screen in a year or so. I’m not so sure about Moon Knight. Granted, no matter how obscure a character, there will always be fans happy to get the figure, but I read a fair amount of Marvel comics and my exposure to him has been nil, so I have to wonder just how he’ll be received among the masses.

Feb 16 2011

Marvel Universe: Ghost Rider by Hasbro

It’s an amazing thing, but even that shitty movie with Nicholas Cage couldn’t manage to kill my fondness for Ghost Rider. Granted, I haven’t been as big a fan as I once was, but I still love the character and was really excited to be getting him in the Marvel Universe 3 3/4″ scale. And while I think this figure should have warranted some kind of boxed set that included his bike, I’ll take what I can get for now and hope for an exclusive or something later on down the line.

Standard Marvel Universe packaging. The character art is mighty fine and the bubble shows off the figure really nicely. Ghost Rider’s package is still part of the Dark Reign of Norman Osborne, so you get the HAMMER motif instead of SHIELD. Not much else to say here.

Let’s start with the head sculpt, because it is fan-friggin-tastic. Granted, Hasbro had a lot to work with here, what with it being a flaming skull and all, but this could have just as easily been a trainwreck. The skull itself is immaculately sculpted and the translucent orange flame makes for a cool effect. The slight orange tint to the skull helps carry the flaming effect along. His body sculpt isn’t terribly spectacular, but it certainly gets the job done and at least it relies as much on sculpt as it does paintwork. I like the high collar and the the black paint wash over the dark blue works well. I tend to think some sculpted chains on the figure itself, or possibly some sculpted in softer plastic to wrap around him would have gone a long way to make him even better, but that might be something reserved for a larger scale figure. Either way, there’s no question, Hasbro nailed the likeness here.

Marvel Universe’s articulation continues to impress me, at least for the male characters. Ghost Rider features ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips. He’s got swivels in the biceps, wrists and thighs and hinged elbows and double hinged knees. He swivels at the hip and has universal movemen tin his upper torso. If there are more points of articulation to be found in a 3 3/4″ figure, I can’t imagine what they might be.

Ghost Rider comes with his little cache of secret documents including his file card. He also comes with a personalized figure stand and his chain/whip, which is partially made of the same translucent orange plastic that makes up his skull flames.

Hasbro produced a pretty distinctive and excellent looking figure here with Ghost Rider, but then again he’s not just another costumed super hero. He’s definitely among my favorite figures in the line so far, and that’s saying quite a bit. Owning him has motivated me to dig out some of my back issues and trades and give some of them a re-read. If nothing else it might help me in my quest to try to forget the Ghost Rider movie ever existed.

Feb 11 2011

Transformers Energon: Terrorcons Divebomb and Insecticon by Hasbro

Welcome back for more terrific Terrorcons. Last time we looked at Battle Ravage and Cruellock, now it’s time for the last two: Divebomb and Insecticon. Like their Terrorcon bretheren, these guys are Scout Class figures with alt modes based on cybernetic style beasts. Divebomb is a falcon or an eagle or some kind of bird of prey while Insecticon looks like some sort of dung beetle. Let’s take a look…

I have absolutely no idea what kind of cyber-birdy Hasbro was going for with Divebomb’s alt mode, but I do know I love it. I’m particularly fond of all the mechanical details in the sculpt, like the air intakes and the fans on the wings. His wings are ball jointed where they meet the body and are hinged about halfway across, giving him a good deal of poseability in his beast mode. His legs are also ball jointed and hinged at the talons. I can’t believe we’ve gone this long without seeing a Laserbeak style repaint of Divebomb, but I can only hope that one day it may still happen. Maybe when I’m ambitious enough I’ll take one of the five or six of these guys I own and give it a try myself, but my past luck customizing Transformers has been less than stellar.

 

With such a great beast mode, you might expect Divebomb’s robot mode to be really crappy, but it turns out to be my favorite of all the Terrorcons. In fact, it gives off a major Gundam vibe to me, at least in the legs. He’s definitely not what I would consider a conventional looking Transformer. He’s got great poseability and he has an awesome pair of energon blades that attach to his arms. I also like that his robot head has a slight bird motif to it, just to carry the theme along. Divebomb is an amazingly fun figure and very well rounded for being a Scout Class.

 

And last up is Insecticon. I haven’t heard a lot of opinions about this figure, but the few I have heard seem to suggest a real love him or hate him attitude. I’m definitely of the love him version, despite the fact that he’s such a squat little guy in his robot form and definitely lacks the dynamic articulation of his peers, but I’m getting ahead of myself. His cyber-beetle mode is great. I love the sculpting in his legs, complete with hydraulics and the teeth in his mechanical pincer. His legs are all on ball joints and his pincer can move up and down. His energon drill attaches to his head and nearly doubles him in size, although it’s pretty ungainly and I tend to prefer to display him in bug mode without it.

Like I said, he’s pretty squat in his robot mode and a lot of that is due to his interesting transformation. He’s got a crazy looking face sculpt and not much use in his stubby arms, although he can hold that huge drill as a weapon, and it still looks just as ungainly. But in the end, I honestly think that this is a fantastic homage, not so much to the original G1 Insecticons, but rather the three less popular G1 Deluxe Insecticons.

And that finishes off the Energon Terrorcons. These guys are still fairly easy to find on Ebay and shouldn’t set you back a lot of scratch. If you buy them loose, just make sure you get all the Energon goodies with them, because they make up a huge part of these figures’ overall fun factor. I used to have a bad habit of picking up extra Terrorcons when I was out on toy hunts and couldn’t find anything else to buy, but like I said yesterday, there aren’t many army builders to take advantage of in the Transformers universe, so it was always hard for me to resist.

Feb 10 2011

Transformers Energon: Terrorcons Battle Ravage and Cruellock by Hasbro

[Ugh, it’s been a dicey week for me, what with some long hours at work and a lot of hardcore drinking to fuel me through it. It’s taken its toll on Figurefan in the past few days, but I’m coming out of it and I’m ready to crawl into bed for about twelve hours and emerge refreshed and ready to go. In the meantime, it’s been way too long since I’ve looked at any Transformers, so today I’m going to do the first of a two part look at the four of the Energon series Terrorcons. -FF]

I really loved the Transformers: Energon toys, but don’t ask me to tell you a lot about the Energon cartoon. I’ve tried to watch it many times, but I usually wind up wandering away to do something more meaningful and interesting like scrub out the bottom of my refridgerator or organize my sock drawer. One of the cool things, however, that was introduced in the series was the Terrorcons, a sub-line of drones that were dispatched to hunt down energon and swarm around like a plague of locusts. The Terrorcons were basically the Decepticons answer to the Autobot Omnibots. The toys consisted of four different molds, and a fair number of repaints, and today we’re going to start out by looking at Battle Ravage and Cruellock.

I remember being ridiculously excited about getting Battle Ravage back when he was first released. Besides looking like a really cool figure, he was the first time that the G1 Ravage design had been revisited with any success. Getting a Ravage figure that transformed into an actual robot was a pretty cool idea too and I still like to display him with some of my other lines of Transformers. His beast mode features a really good level of articulation and the design is a great balance between beast and robot. The head sculpt is particularly awesome and I love the spiked ball that forms his tail. Ravage has an energon star that mounts on his back and two energon weapons that mount on his shoulders, one fires a purple missile and the other is a pretty darn good replica of G1 Megatron’s fusion cannon, albeit cast in translucent yellow.

Transforming Battle Ravage is pretty simple, and probably entails exactly what you might expect from a small beastformer. His back legs become is robot legs and his front legs become his arms. It’s not terribly imaginative, but it works and the little flip that the torso does to reveal the head is kind of cool. Ravage can hold his tail as a weapon and his energon weapons can be mounted on his shoulder or held in his hands. Battle Ravage is a really fun little figure and really demonstrates a lot of what I loved about the Energon toys.

Next up is the ridiculously named Cruellock. While you can draw the obvious thread back to Grimlock, Cruellock isn’t quite the clear cut homage that Battle Ravage tries to be. Granted, he is a robot dinosaur that transforms into a robot, so the connection is definitely there. I like Cruellock well enough, but not nearly as much as Battle Ravage. In dinosaur mode, ok let’s call him a raptor, he’s nicely sculpted and I really like the way the energon parts look on him. But his pelvis is loose and wobbly and his head is pretty obviously visible right under the dinosaur’s mouth, even if it is turned around. He’s still a fun figure, but not terribly stable.

Transforming him involves a lot of the pretty basic stuff as Battle Ravage. His raptor feet become his robot feet and his raptor arms his robot arms. The clever part just involves pushing his pelvis together, which pushes his raptor head back and reveals his head. Meanwhile his tail splits apart and the energon piece becomes his sword. I’ll grant that there’s some impressive little mechanics at work here for what is essentially a Scout Class figure, and while his robot mode does look good, it’s pretty obvious that there isn’t much to the transformation, especially with his raptor head and tail hanging off the back.

It’s easy to quibble over little things about both of these figures, but the truth is that I still can’t help but love them both. They’re relatively simple, but loads of fun and look really good in both their cyber-beast and robot modes. They’re energon weapons also give you a little leeway to mess around with trying different combinations. These guys are also fun to army build, something you don’t get to do a whole heck of a lot in Transformers collecting. I found a lot to love in Energon, but if I could bring one element of it back to get more toys, it would definitely be more Terrorcons. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the other two figures in this sub-line: Divebomb and Insecticon.

Feb 9 2011

Marvel Universe: Wolverine and Jean Grey by Hasbro

So, I picked up a case of Marvel Universe figures the other day. Actually, I pre-ordered them last year and they finally came in. I just got tired of hunting for some of these figures and even though it netted me doubles of Classic Cap and Modern Thor, I think it was still worthwhile. It also netted me that shitty looking, and yet oh so desireable Phasing Vision, which I promptly put up on Ebay so I could get the proper one. Today, we’re going to kick off looking at some of the figures in this case with two of the assortment’s X-Men, Wolverine and Jean Grey.


It’s the same old MU packaging we’ve been seeing for a while. This pair are still part of the Norman Osborne reign with the HAMMER insignia, as opposed to the SHIELD insignia on the older and now the current packages. The character artwork on the cards is as awesome as ever and the figures are really displayed well in the bubbles.


Wolverine is a decent looking figure, and pretty much exactly what I expected. His classic costume is well executed, mostly via paint apps and with a sculpted belt buckle and separate straps for his legs. There’s a wee bit of slop here and there around the blue and yellow borders, but I’ve definitely seen worse. Wolverine’s claws are produced in soft plastic, so as not to break easily. The real shining point of this figure, though, is the head sculpt, which Hasbro really nailed. I doubt we’re going to see a better one in this scale any time soon. The only thing I’m not crazy about here is the really weird sculpt of his neck and shoulders. It’s always been a bit weird on Hasbro’s modern GI Joes, but it’s really off putting here when you view the figure from the side.


And then there’s Jean Grey. From the neck down, I’m pretty happy with how she turned out. She uses the basic female body for the line with some sculpted detail to make up her shoulder pads, belt buckle, and arm bracers. The yellow and blue look good and overall the paint apps aren’t at all bad. From the neck up is a little bit of a different story. It’s hard for me to put a finger on exactly what’s wrong with her head sculpt. On the one hand it looks too small and the face is a tad wild eyed and generic. I also think they should have gone a different route with her hair sculpt. Between the hair and the shoulder pads it looks like she’s hunching really awkwardly. I’ve seen a lot of hatred for this figure among collectors circles, and while I can certainly see where it all comes from, I can’t say that I really hate her. Did the character deserve better? Yeah, most definitely. What we wound up with is just kind of average and awkward.

Both figures come with the Top Secret packet containing her file card and and secret document. They also both include figure stands, which is always a welcome treat. Wolverine doesn’t come with any other accessories, but Jean Grey comes with a little ball of energy that can fit over her hand.

All in all this is a decent pair of figures, but neither one really blew me away, which is disappointing because I’m usually a pretty easy sell on X-Men figures. Wolverine edges out Jean as my favorite of the pair, but I can’t summon up the hatred that some people seem to have over Jean Grey. I’m certainly not sorry I added them to my collection.

Feb 5 2011

Iron Man 2: “Fury of Combat” Boxed Set by Hasbro

The Iron Man 2 action figure line must have an Arc Reactor of its own keeping it alive. It’s not the first time I’ve pointed out that while other movie figure lines shoot their load and get whisked away to the clearance bins before the DVD release, Iron Man 2 keeps on chugging along and I keep buying the figures. Granted most of the single carded ones I pick up these days are impulse buys, but today’s boxed set of four figures is one that I actually hunted down. The set includes the Mark VI Iron Man armor, two Ground Assault Drones and Nick Fury himself.

The set comes in a long window box, somewhat similar to some of Hasbro’s Star Wars boxed sets. It’s set up so that Iron Man and the two Drones are in the main window and Nick Fury gets his own little window on the side as if he’s a bonus figure. The box has a similar deco to the single carded figures and has a really nice illustrated backdrop that you can use as a diorama to display the figures if you’re so inclined. You’ll also note by the sticker that this set is a Toys R Us exclusive. The box is pretty collector friendly, as the tray just slides right out, but the figures are positioned pretty awkwardly in the box with Iron Man looking like something akin to a ragdoll.

The Iron Man figure has plenty of good and bad going for it. I was actually surprised to realize that I didn’t own the Mark VI armor yet, so this was a decent pick up for me, although it will probably be replaced on my shelf with the carded version that has the power up glow whenever I get around to buying it. The sculpting is as excellent as ever, and while the quality of the paint is fantastic with a thick, rich glossy lacquer, I’m not a big fan of the added gold on the thighs. On the downside, he does have some issues with articulation, particularly in the oddball joints used for his hips, and his head wants to perpetually hunch down, which makes for some awkward poses unless you have him looking off to the side. I doubt I would have been entirely happy with him as a single carded release, but he’s ok for box set fodder.


The Ground Assault Drones are practically worth the price of admission alone, so long as you don’t mind getting two of them. Seeing as how tough it’s been to find the other Hammeroids carded, it’s cool to get a pair of this variety. The sculpts are really off the charts for the 3 3/4″ scale and these guys are armed up the wazoo. They have built in grenade launchers with drum magazines on their right arms, belt fed machine guns on their left arms and the giant cannon that mounts onto their back and makes them look like walking Abrams tanks. They also have the drop down stabalizer plates on their feet to keep them from getting blown back on their asses when they fire those things. The paint is a realistic looking grundgy flat military tan and these guys have some excellent little painted details, including the tiny American flags on their chests.

And then there’s Nick Fury, which for a lot of people, myself included, is the real draw of this set, and I have to say Hasbro did a marvelous job with him. The body sculpt is very GI Joe-ish, but it still fits the character and the added softgoods trenchcoat really ties the whole figure together. The headsculpt is really one of the best I’ve seen in a while in this scale. He comes with a little grey automatic pistol, which sadly does not fit into a holster anywhere.

My only gripe with this set is that it doesn’t come with stands and armor cards. I don’t care so much about Iron Man missing them, since I will undoubtedly get one when I buy the power up glow carded version to display in my collection. And obviously Nick Fury didn’t need one, but I’m bummed that I can’t display these Drones with a stand and armor cards along side my other two Hammeroids. I’m not saying I really expected them to be included, especially considering the cost of the set, but not having them still messes up the feng shui of my Iron Man 2 display. Dig it?

This set was $24.99 on TRU’s website, which isn’t much more than the cost of three carded Iron Man 2 figures, so it really is like you’re getting Nick Fury as a bonus. Either way it’s a good price, even though chances are many collectors won’t be terribly excited and/or happy about the Iron Man figure that’s included. Whether it’s better than Target’s similar exclusive boxed sets, I can’t really say, since I’ve only glanced at those on the shelf a few times.

Jan 26 2011

GI JOE The Rise of Cobra: Sand Serpent with Star-Viper by Hasbro

My last trip to the Ross Toy Graveyard netted me a cool little surprise, and by surprise I mean it was something that I didn’t even know existed: A repaint of the Rise of Cobra Night Raven. The ROC Night Raven was, of course, an homage to the original Real American Hero toy as well as the jet that was seen at the end of that horrible, horrible Rise of Cobra movie. The toy didn’t seem to be very well received by fans, but in fairness, the original Night Raven was a work of art that still inspires awe in me to this day. The new version… eh, not so much. It also didn’t help that at $40 it was way over priced, just like most of the ROC vehicles. What’s weird is that at stores in my area, the ROC Night Raven seemed to show up, go on clearance, show up again, and it was just all over the place.

Anyway, as you can see from the box, this is not the Night Raven, but rather the Sand Serpent. I like the name, although I was rather dubious as to whether slopping a desert camo deco on the toy was going to make it sell any better. So why did I buy it? Well, just look at that price tag. $15? How the hell am I not going to buy it? Getting back to the box, it’s the same basic packaging as the Night Raven and it has a little window to show off the lamely named Star-Viper figure that comes with it. The front shows some artwork of the vehicle in action and the back panel shows off photos of the toy itself. Technically, the package is pretty collector friendly, but the jet comes in two halves and once you lock them together, you’re going to be hard pressed to get it back into the box. It also comes with a bag of missiles, an instruction sheet and a butt load of stickers. What doesn’t it come with? Batteries.


Once I had this thing snapped together and had all the wings in place, it’s easy to see that the design doesn’t really hold a candle to the vintage Night Raven. I was, however, surprised by how decent the camo deco looked. I kind of expected it to be horrible and obnoxious, and while it certainly isn’t as good as the original black, I still found it to be perfectly tolerable. The design of the aircraft is very angular, and a bit bizarre, but it’s definitely a nice sized toy with a number of play features, some good and some bad.

Probably my favorite thing about the toy is the way the cockpit drops down for access. It’s pretty innovative and it makes for a nice break from just popping open the canopy to get the pilot in and out. It works with a lever located behind the canopy that raises and lowers it remotely. The jet also has three sets of rather chunkly landing gear that are essential to allowing the cockpit to drop down. There are also missile clusters located on the wings that hold six missiles each. From here on in, though, the play features get a little dodgy.

There’s a handle that drops down that you can hold to fly the jet around. I like this idea well enough, as it’s similar to the one Kenner used on the old Star Wars Imperial Shuttle. By pulling the trigger on the handle, you fire the missiles that are queued up in each launcher while the lights around the missiles activate with the sounds of weapon fire. To fire the next missile you have to pump the jet like a shotgun. Yeah, it really is as goofy and weird as it sounds, but then again if I was a little kid, I would probably think it was awesome as I pelted my brother with an endless stream of projectiles.

The electronics require three AA batteries and include the aforementinoed lights in the wings and three different sound sequences. Each sequence is activated by either pressing one of the three buttons between the rear dorsal wings or by pulling the trigger on the handle. One clip is garbled pilot communications, another is a series of sensor beeps, and the last is an extended flyby sequence. All of the sound clips are nice and loud.

I don’t have a lot to say about the Star-Viper, apart from his goofy name. He’s an ok pack-in pilot figure, but nothing much beyond that. His helmet is pretty huge and he’s got some really ungainly breathing apparatus.

In the end, I’m pretty surprised at how much I like this toy. Sure the shotgun gimmick is stupid and it probably adversely effected the sculpt and design, but all in all, it’s a nice sized, well constructed, and cool looking jet and the electronics are none too shabby. At $15 the price is definitely right too. I’d still recommend picking up the Night Raven over this one, assuming you could have it for around $20 or less, but you could do a lot worse than grabbing the Sand Serpent here, should you stumble upon it at your local Toy Graveyard.

Jan 24 2011

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: Bludgeon by Hasbro

It’s been a while since I last looked at any Transformers, but that’s because the new ones still haven’t shown up in my area yet. Nonetheless, I’ve still got a few sitting on my shelves that I never did get around featuring here and one in particular goes all the way back to the Revenge of the Fallen line. I only just picked up Bludgeon a few months ago. He’s an homage to the old G1 Pretender character and while I’ve never been a fan of the Pretenders, I’m glad I finally got around to buying this guy because he’s a very interesting and in some ways innovative figure.

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Here’s a blast from the past… it’s the old ROTF style packaging. I never much cared for it, mainly because the Egyptian style hieroglyphics on the back don’t really scream Transformers to me. Yeah, it’s a tie-in to the dopey movie, but I’d much rather have my grid-pattern back. I do, however, enjoy the fact that the appropriate faction symbol is shown rising out of the Transformers logo. The package also shows off the NEST emblem, which means this figure was released at the tail end of the ROTF line, along with a number of releases of characters that were never actually in the movie. Bludgeon is one of those figures, although he really belongs as part of the Classics/Universe/Generations collection. I’m guessing he wound up here just because there was nowhere else to really put him.

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Bludgeon is packaged in his tank mode, so let’s start off with that. He’s an older and more realistically styled tank then we’ve gotten out of Transformers in a little while. I really love the sculpted detail on this toy, as there’s barely any part of it that doesn’t have some detailing. You get sculpted rivets, hatches, vents, and even tools. And holy crap, Bludgeon also has real rubber treads, which is pretty rare in Transformers tanks and always a big plus in my book. The turret rotates 360 degrees and features two non-firing missile pods and a machine gun by the top hatch that also rotates 360 degrees.

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The bulk of the tank is a comprised of a very appropriate olive green plastic with some white parts showing, mainly on the weapons. There are some unfortunate neon orange sections peeking out here and there, but not quite enough to ruin the overall military motif. Lastly, there’s a Decepticon emblem stamped toward the front of the apron.

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It’s worth noting that the box lists Bludgeon as having an “advanced” transformation, and he does at that. The first couple times transforming him was a real pain in the ass. He’s got some very innovative movements, particularly in his legs and pelvis. Once I figured out what was going on, I found getting him from tank to robot mode pretty easy, but getting him back into tank mode is still a fidgety affair for me. His transformation also involves revealing his two weapons: A katana sword and a tanto. The katana is stored in his main cannon and just pulls right out. You can do it either during or after transformation. As for the tanto… I’ll get to that in a few ticks.

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In robot mode, Bludgeon’s design will likely strike people as brilliant or garbage. The homage to the G1 character design is certainly obvious. He’s patterned after a samurai warrior with a skull mask, which is pretty creepy. The high points of the figure include the way the rubber treads disconnect and hang down off his hips and shoulders. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before in a Transformer and it’s pretty cool. I’ll also go on record and say that, unlike the tank mode, the neon orange in the deco works fine for me in the robot mode. Another strong point is the articulation. You get plenty of hinges and swivels to work with. On the downside, the tank plates on his hips really get in the way of decent poses, and those ankles really scream out for some lateral rockers.

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The tank turret lands on his back and you can position the barrel straight up, or tilt it diagonally to the side and treat it like a scabbard for his katana. The turret also opens up to reveal a small scabbard inside holding the tanto. While I really enjoy the engineering at work here, it seems like a lot of effort to go through just to store a little weapon. It’s also not really necessary since he has slots on his left hip armor to carry both edged weapons.

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Seeing as how I’m not a fan of the Pretenders and I don’t have a Samurai fetish, I’m definitely not the TransFan that Bludgeon is aimed at. That having been said, I dig him in a quirky way and it’s impossible for me not to respect the effort and imagination that went into this figure. He’s certainly one of the coolest and most distinctive releases to come out of this Expanded Universe RotF line, except for maybe Mindwipe, for whom I will have an eternal soft spot in my heart. Now, if you happen to be one of those weirdos that think the Pretenders was just awesome, then you’ll probably go absolutely nuts over this figure. It’s an unexpected homage and a love letter to fans of the waning days of Generation 1. Sure, he isn’t an actual Pretender, but the homage to the character is one hundred percent solid all the same.

Jan 22 2011

Marvel Universe: Spider-Woman by Hasbro

It’s pretty rare for me to be anywhere near a current wave of Marvel Universe figures, as I’m often too busy scrambling to pick up the figures from three waves back to even take much notice of the new releases. And yet, I’ve had some luck these last few days and managed to grab a couple of the current wave at reasonable prices from merchants on this new Interweb thingie. One of those figures was Spider-Woman, so let’s take a looksy.

Spider-Woman comes on a standard Marvel Universe card… oh, but wait! The dark reign of Osborne has apparently come to an end because the Hammer logo has returned to that of SHIELD. Don’t take it so hard, Norm, you had a good run. Apart from the return of the SHIELD logo, there isn’t a whole lot that’s new about the packaging here. It’s functional, it looks good, and the character artwork is solid. Now let’s shred it to pieces so we can get to the figure.

Honestly, just about every figure in this wave looks amazing, so to say that Spider-Woman was one of the ones that to me really stood out, well that’s just saying something. Even with a reuse of the basic MU female body, Jessica’s a fantastic looking figure. The head sculpt is great, although the sculpted hair, as usual, inhibits the neck articulation. But what really shines on this figure is the amazingly crisp paint apps. Paint hasn’t always been consistant on this line, you can just take a look back at my Ms. Marvel figure to see that, but it seems like Hasbro has started to address the issue in this wave.

Based on the product images, I couldn’t figure out how Hasbro was implementing the web wings, so getting to see that they were flexible plastic held on to her arms by straps was a pretty cool revelation. It was the best way to go to have her maintain her arm articulation while giving her this signature look.

Spider-Woman comes with a figure stand, but no matter how hard I shook the package, I couldn’t get the file envelope to drop out. Yeah, starting with this wave the file cards and classified documents are gone. I’m sort of bummed out by this. It’s not like I really displayed them or anything, but considering that the MU figures don’t usually come with any accessories and frequently reuse parts, I wouldn’t think Hasbro would really need to cut costs so badly as to remove a little printed card and slip of paper. I love these figures, but I still need all the help I can get to justify how much I usually have to spend to get them.