Tag Archives: hasbro

Jun 19 2017

Marvel Legends: Boomerang, Ultimate Beetle, and Electro by Hasbro

It’s Marvel Monday, folks, and I’m turning back the clock and digging up three figures from 2014’s Marvel Legends Ultimate Green Goblin Wave, which have been buried at the bottom of my Toy Closet for a while. And no, I won’t be looking at the Build-A-Figure yet, because I’m still missing one figure from this wave. Got a Green Goblin head? I have a new waffle maker! Mail me the Gobby Head and I’ll mail you a waffle!

These fellas were all part of a wave that was tied to Amazing Spider-Man 2, a film which I’d be more than happy to never be reminded about again. Much like the recent Guardians of the Galaxy waves, this one was a mix of comic and movie-based figures. As I stressed last Monday, I’m not a big fan of tossing a bunch of Legends figures into one review, but I’ve got waves of these goddamn things piling up, so I can’t afford to go back and do this trio individually. Let’s start with Boomerang!

There’s so much I want to like about this figure and yet so much that I don’t like about this figure. Boomerang is built on a black buck with white plastic used for the buccaneer boots and and the gauntlets, but the rest of the white details of his costume are painted on and they look pretty shabby. The black bleeds through, particularly on the stripe across his chest. It’s a real shame, because the contrast between the white and black plastic otherwise looks great, and even the paint used for his belt isn’t too bad.

I really dig the piece Hasbro provided for his back. It holds the four boomerangs that he comes with, one large pair and one smaller pair. Yeah, it looks kind of ridiculous, like he’s wearing an old TV antenna on his back, but it suits him. It’s also removable if you decide you don’t want it. Boomerang’s left hand is perfectly suited to holding either the large or small boomerangs. Unfortunately his right is not. At first, I thought they tried to make it different so that it could hold the bigger ones better, but upon closer inspection, it’s clearly a gun hand. The smaller boomerangs won’t stay in there at all and even the bigger ones have issues falling out. It’s hard for me to believe Hasbro didn’t have a better right hand lying around to use with this figure.

Grrrr…. Boomerang is wearing the exact expression I had when I first saw this head up close. I hardly ever say this about a Marvel Legends figure, but the portrait on this figure is a mess. It looks like it was fashioned out of sculpting putty and the paintwork is an atrocity. Seriously, it’s like someone’s first attempt at a custom job. Hell, it’s like I attempted a custom job… and I’ve got no skills whatsoever. This line has had some truly spectacular head sculpts and Hasbro usually injects a lot of effort and personality into the villains especially. I don’t know what happened here, but it looks like they just didn’t care.

Boomerang’s articulation is standard stuff. The arms have rotating hinges in the wrists and shoulders, the elbows are double hinged, and there are swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, and there are swivels in the thighs and at the tops of the boots. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch, and the neck has both a hinge and ball joint. The joints all feel good and he’d be fun to pose if he weren’t so f’ugly.

In the end, Boomerang is a huge disappointment. I was looking forward to finally getting him onto my shelf of Web Head’s enemies, but this figure is such a train-wreck, I’m not even willing to cross him off my list. With all the Spider-Man themed waves coming out each year, it may not be to out of line to hope for a do-over on this one. The joke is, since he shares a slot with Ultimate Beetle, I didn’t even need him for a BAF part. What a shame… let’s move on to Beetle…

Beetle! BEETLE! Hasbro seems obsessed with Beetle! It was just last year that we got Janice Lincoln as Beetle, and the classic version of Beetle will be part of the Spider-Man Homecoming wave that’s beginning to hit stores now. Well, this here is Earth-1610’s “Ultimate” Beetle. Unlike Boomerang, I have absolutely zero history with this version of the character. Also unlike Boomerang, this figure is pretty damn good! I take it this is supposed to be a fairly powerful suit, and Hasbro did a wonderful job with this sculpt. It has a ribbed underlying body suit fashioned in red plastic, with sculpted armor bits that are painted over with a particularly nice shade of silver. The combination looks great, although this is unfortunately that same somewhat dubious feeling plastic that Hasbro has used for some of the Iron Men armors.

The wing assembly simply pegs into the back and you get some more of that lovely silver paint connecting them and some pretty trippy metallic green paint on the front insides of the wings. It all makes for a very distinctive looking figure.

The head sculpt furthers the cyber-bug motif with some huge compound eyes, a silver painted face plate, and a pair of blade-like antenna. The paint around the eyes slops over onto the silver quite a bit, which I didn’t really notice until I got in pretty close. It does give it a little bit of a glowing effect, but I don’t think that was intentional on Hasbro’s part. Honestly, I don’t think it hurts the look of the figure much at all.

Beetle’s suit includes what I presume to be blasters of some kind sculpted into the forearms. Again, I have next to no involvement with this character. The Ultimate books just aren’t my bag. The blasters do, however, look cool and feature some nice yellow paint hits. The nit-picky among you may notice that Hasbro didn’t shell out for the dollop of silver paint needed for those knee pegs. Annoying, but I can live with it.

Beetle’s articulation makes him a nimble bug and lots of fun to play with, although this type of plastic doesn’t have the strongest of joints. They’re a little gummy, but nowhere near the worst that I’ve seen from Hasbro 6-inch figures. Certainly not enough to spoil my fun. The legs feature ball jointed hips, double hinges in the knees, and swivels in the thighs. The ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders and wrists, the elbows are double hinged, and there are swivels in the biceps. The torso has an ab crunch, there’s a swivel in the waist, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged.

As much as Boomerang was a disappointment, Beetle was a wonderful surprise. No, this is not my Beetle, and I’ll go so far as to say that I think the design works beautifully as an action figure, but maybe not so much on a comic panel. The figure has a few issues, but overall I’m calling it a win. And while I’m not about to run out and start buying up Ultimates comics, I have had tons of fun fiddling around with this guy on my desk during my downtime the past few days. He’s a very cool design and he will most definitely find a place on my Spider-Man Legends shelves. And that brings me to… ugh… Electro from Amazing Spider-Man 2.

I make it no secret that I did not like the Amazing Spider-Man movie, but there were at least moments in it that I enjoyed. The sequel, on the other hand, well I hated every frame of that one and I’m so happy that incarnation of the film franchise is dead and buried where it belongs. As a result, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this figure, because it’s not really fair. It’s not aimed at me, and the only reason I have it is because he was part of a BOGO deal and he had a BAF part. The bottom line is that I think Electro was terrible in the movie, to no fault of Jamie Foxx who I’m sure did the best with what he was given. With that having been said, this figure is not without some redeeming qualities.

The design that I hated on screen actually sort of works for this figure and Hasbro certainly put some work into it. You get all new sculpting for the body with a lot of nice detail and texturing that adds some interesting qualities to what is a nearly all black buck. Electro does have some blue paint spray on the shoulders, chest, and forearms, but I don’t know that it really comes across as it should. If I was totally unfamiliar with this character and somebody handed me the figure, I’d be more prone to say he’s supposed to have some kind of ice powers as opposed to electricity. The articulation is similar to what we got with Beetle, but the legs on this figure don’t like to cooperate. I blame the sculpted cuffs on the ankles, which really curtail the range of motion there. Every time I try to get him in a wide stance, he just looks awkward.

Electro comes with two head sculpts, and I can say the same about those looking as much like ice as it does electricity. That having been said, I think the first head looks good, but the second one with the effects on the eyes, not so much.

Now, Electro does come with the electricity shooting hands, and with these in place, I think they add the needed context to make the rest of the figure fall in line. I know that’s not a ringing endorsement, but to be honest I think Hasbro tried with this figure, a lot more than they did with poor Boomerang. The sculpt is solid, and the effects hands and extra head give some welcome display options. I expected to hate this figure, but I really don’t. On the other hand, he really doesn’t have any place in my collection either. Yeah, I could put him beside my Amazing Spider-Man 2 Spidey, but while I wasn’t a fan of a fan of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, at least I really loved the look of the costume, here not so much.

And that trio of reviews takes care of some long overdue business. It feels like it’s been a long time since I had this much negativity toward anything Marvel Legends related, but one out of three ain’t a great record. It’s pretty bad when the one figure I can endorse here isn’t even the version of the character that I know or care about. As for the Build-A-Figure, Ultimate Green Goblin isn’t a figure that I really need to have on my shelf, but right now he’s just missing a head. If I ever find either of the “Spawn of Symbiotes” figures at anything close to retail cost, I’ll happily pick one up to complete the wave, but I’m just as content to let it go. While there were some really solid figures in this wave, particularly Black Cat and Superior Spider-Man, the truth is that this is the first wave of Marvel Legends since it’s return that I did not feel overly compelled to complete. Next Monday, I’m going to detour to take a look at one of the many Marvel statues that I have piling up and then I’ll be jumping back into Marvel Legends with the second wave from Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2.

Jun 13 2017

Star Wars Black (Rogue One): Sergeant Jyn Erso (Eadu) by Hasbro

Most of my backlog of stuff right now is Marvel related, which means I’m finally getting caught up on the other lines I collect. That also means I’m hitting the bottom of the piles and finding the stuff that I’ve been pushing off to the side for a number of weeks. Today, I decided to finally open up the Exclusive version of Jyn Erso in her Eadu outfit.

This figure is part of a series of Deluxe Exclusives from Kmart and as such it comes in a larger box to accommodate the base, but otherwise it’s the same branded Black Series packaging. There’s some terrible monochrome character art on the front that doesn’t look much like Felicity Jones to me, but I’m convinced that Hasbro is doing that so the figure’s portraits look better by comparison. Anyway, this presentation is very similar to the Exclusive Kylo Ren and Rey that Kmart had for The Force Awakens, hell it may even just be a repainted base. I don’t know, as I passed on those. In fact, the only reason I picked this one up was because it was so damn cheap, but I’ll come back to that at the end.

Eadu Jyn uses a lot of Jedha Jyn, but there’s also a fair bit of brand new sculpting here too. From the waist down, she’s the same, and I’m going to assume the torso is the same too, but it’s buried under her new rain parka, so it doesn’t matter. The arms have newly sculpted sleeves to match the parka and she has a breather mask that hangs around her neck and connects to a tank behind her left hip. The new sculpting for the outfit looks great, and seeing as how we got this version of Jyn in the 3 3/4-inch line, it’s cool to finally have it in the 6-inch line as well.

There’s some pretty good paint wash on the parka to give it a grungy, well-worn look and even a few holes here and there. We also get some silver paint on some of her gear. The sculpt and paint on the bodies are generally pretty solid on these figures and this version of Jyn is no different.

The head sculpt is very similar to the Jedha Jyn, but it’s definitely new, or at least reworked. Here she has her ears exposed through her hair. The quality of the sculpt is about the same, with very soft features and I think the likeness is only there if you know what you’re looking at, and even then that might be a reach. As usual, the paint is extremely basic giving Jyn that wonderful dead-inside look to her eyes and uneven paint on her lips. Hasbro has obviously shrugged off any credibility for making this a true “Collector’s” line when it comes to the paintwork on the heads.

She does come with a removable helmet, which is definitely a welcome feature. It fits really well and looks good on the figure. The paint on the helmet is a little rougher than the rest of the figure, but it kind of works because it makes it look worn and chipped. Jyn can also wear her breather mask, with the head strap designed to fit around the helmet. I sometimes question whether these 6-inch figures really use the scale to their advantage, and here’s probably one of the few good examples of that. The breather mask just looks and works a lot better here than it did on the 3 3/4-inch figure. Then again, that was a 5-POA figure and not something premium like the Vintage Collection. Maybe it’s not a fair comparison here.

As for other accessories, Jyn includes the same pistol that came with the Jedha version and she still has a functional holster to store it in. She also comes with an E-11 Blaster. You can never have too many of those! And finally, she has a little cylindrical device and I have absolutely no idea what the hell it’s supposed to be. It’s almost bizarre how prominently featured this thing is in the box. If I were to make a guess, it looks like it’s supposed to be a rope coiled tightly around something. I seem to recall there was a zip-line scene that was cut from the film. Maybe this has to do with it.

I saved articulation for last, because it happens to be the thing that comes damn close to breaking this figure for me. The points are all identical to Jedha Jyn, so that’s not the issue, but the legs are so loose and gummy on this figure, it makes her really hard to pose and stand up. I don’t know if it’s shoddy plastic, or because she was packaged in an action pose on the base, but this is the worst I’ve seen in a 6-inch Hasbro figure in a long time. It literally feels like the kind of cheap Chinese knock-off you might get loose off of Ebay for a couple of dollars.

Oh yeah, and how could I forget the base. It’s a decent sculpt and it has peg holes for her to stand on. This sort of thing isn’t a big draw for me, but I can imagine that some collectors will enjoy it and she does look pretty good posed on it.

There are no Kmarts in my area any longer, and even when there were, I rarely ventured into them as they tended to be like the Beirut version of Walmart. No offense to Beirut. The only reason I wound up with this figure was because Amazon was blowing them out at $11 a pop and I said, “well shit… why not?” If it weren’t for the wobbly legs, Jyn would be a decent figure, but I think she’s also an easy pass. Meanwhile, the Black Series continues to be such a roller coaster for me. There are still figures that I pick up that delight me and justify why I collect this line, and then there’s figures like this one, which are just so damn average that they make me wonder why do I still bother.

Jun 12 2017

Marvel Legends (Titus Wave): Nova, Vance Astro, and Titus by Hasbro

Since I detoured last week and I’m now officially three waves of Marvel Legends behind, I’ve decided to pack the next three weeks worth of Legends reviews into one sitting and knock out the rest of the Titus Wave today. I’ve got two packaged figures left and the Build-A-Figure, so in the interest of brevity I’m just going to throw out a few thoughts on each figure and otherwise let the pictures do the talking.

I really hate throwing multiple figures into one review, because it craps all over my tired and repetitious formula nuanced flow. Anyway, the packaging is all more or less the same, so I’m only showing off Nova in the box in order to keep today’s triathlon as brief as possible. Do you think they branded Nova big enough? Anybody going to miss that? No? Didn’t think so. Keep in mind, that this is Sam Alexander, as opposed to Richard Rider, who we got a few years back in the first Guardians of the Galaxy wave! Sam’s was a fun and pretty well received book, so I think this figure was probably high on a lot of people’s lists.

Nova is appropriately built on a smaller, teen buck and it makes all the difference in creating a distinctive new member of the Nova Corps for my display. There’s also a surprising amount of new sculpting on this figure. The gold boots are simply painted on, but you get new sculpting in the gauntlets and torso. The dark blue and gold deco of the Nova Corps is always a favorite of mine and I’m in love with the gold paint they used here. It’s very shiny and consistent. I also really dig the head sculpt, although the plastic used for that famous helmet looks a little rough in a few areas.

Nova’s articulation is pretty damn good, especially for a little guy. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and hips, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs have ball jointed hips, double hinges in the knees, and swivels at the tops of the boots and again up in the thighs. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. The torso includes a waist swivel and an ab crunch, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged. This is a great looking figure and does the character proud.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that Nova comes with a tiny Phlish figure. I really have to give Hasbro props for adding something like this, but seriously, what am I supposed to do with it? It just lies there waiting to be lost. Sorry, Phlish, but I’d much rather Nova just came with The Nullifier instead. Next up… Vance Astro!

I last encountered Major Victory in Fight for the Future, part of the double-sized Guardians 45th Anniversary issue. Wow, has it been three years already? Vance and his team of Guardians rescued Geena Drake from a slave camp. He made quite the entrance, with Cap’s coveted shield preceding him by at least a couple of panels. But ultimately it felt like a glorified a cameo. Why are we getting this figure now? Who cares, he’s a character with a far reaching pedigree and he’s pretty cool too!

Yes, he’s definitely the “budget saver” of this wave, as there’s zero original sculpting from the neck down. That said, his deco looks sharp, particularly that snazzy metallic blue. The paint lines are pretty clean and he has his little crest tampo’ed on the left of his chest. The head sculpt looks damn cool with that shiny blue finish. Articulation is your standard Legends fare, which I just recounted with Nova, so in interest of brevity I’m not going to run through it all again.

Appropriately enough, Vance comes with Cap’s shield, which is recycled from one of the countless versions of Legends Captain America that we’ve seen over the past few years alone. It has a red back and features the familiar wrist clip with a peg to store the shield on his back. My guess is that Vance isn’t going to be high on a lot of collectors’ lists, but I’m happy to have him. And that brings us to the BAF of the wave… Titus!

Like Vance, Titus may not have been high on a lot of people’s lists either, but unlike Vance, Titus is a pretty new character, and a short lived one at that. Or wait… didn’t he come back shortly after? Either way, none of that makes him any less welcome to me. No sir. Why? Because he’s a giant space tiger with a cyborg eye and a gun arm for Chrissakes! If you haven’t been keeping track, Titus is built with six parts scattered throughout this wave (Don’t forget, Star-Lord didn’t come with one!), making him a pretty standard BAF. As a former Special Ops of the Nova Corps, his buck features the very attractive dark blue and gold deco, but lacking the Nova symbol on his chest. He’s got a sculpted robot right arm, which looks very Colossus-y and leads into a massive four barrel instrument of death. His other arm is punctuated by a grasping tiger claw.

This head sculpt! I have to tell you, this is a thing of beauty. Besides all the great sculpted fur and that partially agape jaw, and those teeth, I think it’s the angry wrinkling in his nose that impresses me the most here. The cyborg eye is pretty cool too. When you set out to sculpt the portrait for an alien tiger cyborg, it’s pretty much guaranteed to have some personality, but Hasbro really went above and beyond here. I love it.

And articulation is what we’ve come to expect from most of the BAF figures. It’s actually quite similar to what we saw with Nova and Major Victory. The only real differences are single hinges in the elbows and Titus doesn’t have the extra swivel in the lower legs. Still, not bad at all for a big guy!

And that’s a wrap for the Titus Wave, another very solid assortment of figures and I really dig that Hasbro broke the Guardians Vol 2 wave into two so we could get more comic based characters. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll be jumping into the Mantis or Warlock Waves next, but before I go with either of those, next Marvel Monday will be another Trifecta of Legends reviews (I promise, this isn’t going to be a regular thing) as I address some unfinished business with a fairly old wave of figures.

Jun 5 2017

Marvel Legends: The Invisible Woman & HERBIE by Hasbro

What’s this? Where’s the rest of the Titus Wave? Yeah, I’m interrupting this Marvel Monday’s regularly scheduled content because Sue Storm arrived from Walgreens.com the other day and I thought I’d try to be timely and relevant for a change and check her out. Fear not, I’ll be back to the Titus Wave next week. In the meantime, continuing the weird pairing of Marvel Legends Exclusives with Walgreens, comes the first of what I hope will be a complete set of The Fantastic Four! I was lucky enough to have a Twitter buddy tip me off to her going up on the website, only to find three more of her sitting on the shelf a couple days later. Go figure!

Now, besides being exclusive to a place that I usually only associate with buying frozen pizzas and cold medicine at 9:30 at night, this is an unusual release because of Marvel’s politics of business. Disney has been punishing The Fantastic Four for being owned by another film company, so their comic book was burned to the ground and the toys have been non-existent. They were doing the same with the X-Men for a while, but they caved on that pretty quickly. As a reader of The Fantastic Four comic since I was a wee lad, it pains me to admit that the X-Men carry a lot more weight and I could understand that black listing them wasn’t as feasible as doing it for Marvel’s First Family. Anywho, the Sue comes in a typical Legends window box, beautifully branded for the comic with a “4” emblem on the backer tray and their name printed across the front!

And here she is, a very simple but lovely figure. Sue Storm features a standard female Legends buck with the entirety of her costume painted on. That is to say she’s blue with painted black boots, gloves, belt, collar, and her “4” emblem tampo’ed on her chest. The shade of blue is a fair sight paler than what Hasbro used for their Marvel Universe 3 3/4-inch Fantastic Four boxed set from a while back, but I still like it a lot.

The only gripe I have here is the unsightly hole in her back, but I guess I can live with it. Seems like it wouldn’t be a big deal for Hasbro to fashion a bunch of plugs for these and just stamp them out in an appropriate color. But hey, I have a Sue Storm Legends figure, so I should probably stop complaining and shut the hell up now.

The portrait here is fantastic. She’s pretty, the paint for her blue eyes is straight, the red for her lips is razor sharp, and her blonde hair is sculpted in a way so it doesn’t impede her neck articulation too badly. My figure does have a couple scratches in her forehead, presumably from the molding process. I can probably live with it, but it’s nice to know there are three more of these sitting on a shelf around the block from me if I decide to go for another one.

The articulation includes all the usual points we see in most Legends female bucks. The legs are ball jointed at the hip, have double hinges in the knees, and swivel cuts in the thighs. The ankles have hinges and some generous lateral rockers. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The torso has a ball joint under the chest and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. I still get a bit irked that Hasbro can’t include bicep swivels in the female Legends bucks. Maybe someday.

Hasbro did go a little extra on this figure by giving her a translucent right arm and an extra translucent left hand. The arm features a little color tinting, blue for the uniform and black for the glove, making it look like she’s phasing into invisibility, which makes for a pretty cool effect.

HERBIE is definitely a cool bonus. He feels like an up-scaled version of the figure that came in the Universe set, but I’m going to guess that he’s a brand new mold. The plastic feels really good and the blue and green paint apps on the body look sharp. The only articulation here is the ball joint on his neck, but he does come with a transparent stand to make him look like he’s hovering.

Sue Storm is about as simple a figure as you can get, but that doesn’t make her any less welcome. And while I’ve never been a huge fan of HERBIE, getting him bundled in this package is still a treat. We’ve already seen pictures of Johnny Storm, also coming as a Walgreens Exclusive, and I’m hoping that Hasbro is going to deliver Reed and The Thing at some point down the line. I have the Marvel Universe Fantastic Four boxed set and I love it, now I really want the family in the Legends 6-inch scale.

Jun 1 2017

Transformers Titans Return: Twin Cast and Blaster by Hasbro

After a long drought through most of May, once again I’ve been putting the Transformers back in Transformers Thursday. Today I’m checking out a figure that I originally was not going to pick up, but after a while of going back and fourth on him, I decided to give him a try. He’s Blaster, and while I still kinda dig the Generations version as a Cybertronian mode, it was ultimately the old school “ghetto blaster” mode that finally won me over on this new Titans Return version.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Blaster’s G1 toy. On the one hand, it looked great in both modes, had decent articulation for G1 standards, and his robot mode looked fairly close to his Sunbow animated counterpart. You could load his cassettes into him and he was a really fun toy. On other hand, he was so damn big! You couldn’t have proper fights between him and Soundwave, because Blaster was like a giant by comparison. Well, once again, Hasbro went a little overboard with Blaster’s height, as this is a Leader Class toy, but I’ll address that later. For now, let’s check out Blaster’s alt mode.

Glory be to the 80’s! Well, almost. Blaster’s alt mode is indeed a fairly authentic looking portable sound system. It reminds me a little bit of the Emerson that I had sitting on a bookshelf in my bedroom when I was a teenager. I used to use that sucker to record all my favorite hits off the radio. Duran Duran, Bowie, Tears for Fears… oh, the memories! And all in all, this is a pretty good looking alt mode. Yeah, you can see through parts of it and none of the controls are terribly convincing, but hey, you have to leave some room for improvement for when Takara gets around to Masterpiece Blaster. Granted, the back is pretty f’ugly, but then the back sides of real tape decks weren’t usually all that great looking anyway.

Blaster includes a carry handle and there’s a button that causes his cassette door to spring open… only it isn’t really for cassettes. Instead, it holds what are supposed to be some kind of data slugs. Does anyone else find it ironic that Hasbro couldn’t bring themselves to make Blaster an actual cassette player, and yet they’re selling a Role Play Walkman for Guardians of the Galaxy in the very next aisle at Target? Anywho… Blaster comes with a piece that fits in there, but it’s not even made up to look like a data slug. It’s really just a piece for his base mode, so let’s lay that aside for now and grab Rewind.

Rewind fits in there perfectly. I guess this set up could be akin to one of those charging dock/speaker systems for your digital music player/phone. The fact that Hasbro made the dumb decision to make Rewind a data slug and yet still put a cassette sticker on him makes me feel like I’m putting a micro cassette player into a larger cassette player. But, whatever. Rewind can go inside him, and eject out, and I guess it’s still better than those horrible chunky discs that they designed for Generations Blaster. Let’s move on to his second alt mode… the ambitiously titled “city mode!”

As far as third mode bases go, this one isn’t terrible, although calling it a city is unfortunate. At best it’s a battle station. You do get some positions on top for Titan Masters to operate, a gun platform in the middle, and a couple of platforms with ramps to be used as landing pads or perhaps maintenance bays for vehicles. There are also a few ports to mount other weapons. Truth be told, I’m actually surprised at how much I dig this mode. I don’t think it compromises the robot or stereo mode at all and it’s kind of a fun little playset for the little Titan Masters. And as long as we’re on the subject of the little guys…

Blaster’s Titan Master, Twin Cast, is possibly one of my favorite of these little guys. The red and black plastic just looks great on him and he actually has some paint on his tiny little face, which is nice even if they did get a little sloppy with the blue. The fact that he’s just a tiny version of Blaster is adorable. Obviously, Twin Cast transforms into Blaster’s head, so let’s move on to the robot mode.

I was in love with this robot mode the moment I had it out of the box. I mean, damn is he great looking! The proportions are excellent and he’s just a big bundle of G1-boxy goodness. I’m not a huge fan of the gray plastic they used, but that’s about the only thing I can complain about here. And I don’t mind it so much when it’s tossed in with that beautiful red plastic body and that bright yellow chest. Hasbro also sprang for some wonderful paint apps on the shoulders and lower legs to mimic the stickers on the original toy. Even those lower legs, which I thought were going to be too big and chunky, actually look and feel fine on him.

Like his stereo mode, Blaster’s robot mode ain’t too pretty from the back, but it isn’t all that bad either. The way the speakers wrap around his legs is really clever and looks cool. And thank Primus that handle folds down behind his back, because when I first saw pictures of this guy in the box, I thought that had to stay above his head.

Twin Cast forms what at first looks like a rather un-Blaster-like head. It actually strikes me as more of a Perceptor portrait than Blaster. It’s also way too small. Thankfully, he has one of those flip up helmet gimmicks and…

Voila! You get a Blaster noggin that makes for a very nice nod back to the original toy. I really hated the flip-up helmet gimmick on Galvatron, I was OK with it on Powermaster Prime, but here it works beautifully. It fits well, it looks great, and the engineering allows it to keep full rotation in the neck. Not bad at all!

In addition to the data slug/base part, Blaster comes with a rifle that’s a pretty good homage to the G1 toy’s weapon. It’s been scaled back a little and made more compact, but the key similarities in the design are certainly there.

So, I can honestly say that I’m so happy to have picked up Blaster, but size is still kind of a sticking point for me with this figure. He towers over so many of the Titans Return figures, which is certainly in keeping with the wonky scale of the 80’s toy-line, but it feels out of place here. And yet, ironically, he’s still actually a little bit shorter than the original G1 Blaster. It’s something that I can get over because he’s such a great toy, but that leads me to another problem with him. Now that I have him, I’m going to have to pick up Titans Return Soundwave, which I hadn’t planned on doing. Unfortunately, the appeal of finally having a Soundwave and Blaster that can go head to head with each other is just too irresistible. It also means that I’m probably going to pick up more of the data slugs, even though I know their crap. Damn you, Blaster, you were just a trap to get me to spend more money!

May 25 2017

Transformers Titans Return: Blunderbuss and Broadside by Hasbro

What’s this? For the third consecutive week I actually have a new convertorobot for Transformers Thursday? Yup, and I’ve been stockpiling, so it looks like I should be covered well into June. Today I’m checking out the Voyager Class Triplechanger, Broadside. I have not heard many kind things about this figure, so I’m a little apprehensive about this bot, especially since I’ve got no nostalgia for this character going in.

As a kid, I barely knew that Broadside existed. I don’t recall ever seeing him in the Sunbow cartoon, and with his original G1 toy released in 1986, that would have put him on the shelves a little bit after 14yo me was starting to drift away from Transformers. In this case, that was probably a good thing, because looking back, the G1 toy looks rather cringe-worthy, even by G1 Triplechanger standards. Let’s see if a new and updated Broadside can win me over. I’m going to break tradition today and start out with his robot mode.

Oh, boy, I really dig this robot mode a lot. Broadside is a bruiser, with powerful squared off slabs as shoulders, a stout chest with a cockpit canopy in the center. The sheer boxiness of this bot is a thing of beauty and the amount of detail in the sculpt is impressive. There’s just so much going on here, from the retracted landing gear in his chest to the folded conning tower on left shoulder and what I’d like to assume is a rocket six-pack on his right shoulder. No matter where I look, there’s something interesting to see on this guy. I also love that he has those wedges for shins. Those probably come in handy if he loses his weapon and has a tough scrape with a Decepticon.

Even from the back, there’s nothing to complain about. He wears the nose and canopy of his jet mode as a backpack and he has wings behind his arms, which can be angled out or folded in, depending on your display preferences. Although, it is worth noting that the wings have to be angled all the way out to take advantage of his shoulder rotation. Broadside is a bit back heavy, but the double hinged ankles let you float the foot forward or backward, to counterbalance whatever stance you want to go with. As for the coloring, the two-tone gray is all business, but the red with hints of yellow and translucent blue looks damn snappy on him.

Blunderbuss makes for a head that really fits the body. This noggin looks like it’s designed to take a pounding. There’s also a button below Broadside’s chest that can deploy a pair of pylons to further protect the head. I don’t know what Hasbro’s fascination with this gimmick is, but they’ve been including it with most of the Titans Return Voyagers. The difference is that this is the first time I actually like it.

And in robot mode, Blunderbuss’ mix of gray and red plastic makes him look good even though there aren’t any paint apps on the little guy. The usual Titan Master articulation applies: ball jointed shoulders and neck, and hinges in the hips and knees of the fused legs.

Broadside comes with a translucent blue gun, which he can hold in either hand and it does have a seat that fits a Titan Master. All of this is great stuff, and as a robot, I have nothing but love for Broadside. So let’s see how the first of his alt modes fares…

Broadside’s first alt mode is an aircraft carrier, which is admittedly not that easy to pull off, since it’s essentially just a slab with a flight deck. Nonetheless, I think he pulls it off pretty well. I do, however, have a few gripes. I’m not thrilled about the use of stickers for the runway, but I used a stylus to smooth it out and sharpen the edges and in the end I think it looks OK. Nonetheless, since it’s set over hinges, there’s bound to be wear and tear after multiple transformations. Finally, the prow section of the ship does not peg together, which can be annoying. If everything is tabbed together just right, it usually stays in place, but it has a habit of separating with handling.

There are three folding feet on the bottom for it to stand on and you can attach the gun to the side to give it some extra firepower. There are also tons of pegs on the flat top to stand Titan Masters, but they also serve a second purpose. Hasbro included a set of tiny Aerialbots to peg into the deck. They’re very simple pieces, all white, and they come on a sprue, and I absolutely love that these little jets. They really give this carrier a ridiculous sense of scale that takes the concept of mass shifting to the extreme.

I also dig that this mode works as a flying carrier too. Oh, it’s nothing special. I just fold out the wings on the sides and plug the gun into the bottom. It’s a subtle, but nifty little fan mode that makes the toy just all that much more fun. So, how about that third mode?

Yeah, it’s a bizarre hump-backed jet. Much has already been said about Broadside’s unfortunate attempt at a jet mode. To pile on it even more seems unnecessary. I’m used to seeing half-assed third modes in Triplechangers, but this one seems especially egregious. The funny thing is, I could almost accept this as a space fighter mode, but even with all that is wrong with it, what really pisses me off about this alt mode is that Hasbro was too lazy to make the tail fins point in the right direction. I’m not even kidding. If these pieces weren’t backwards, I could almost get behind this sad aircraft. There’s just something about the back half of this jet that just screams the design team just gave up.

Now, the red fins just pop out and can be reversed. The gray fins can probably be taken out by knocking out the pin and reversed as well. I don’t think it would make a huge difference for the other two modes, so it is a possible option for improvement, but I don’t think it’s worth the effort. At least not for me. I also find it really odd that the carrier mode has landing gear, but the jet mode doesn’t. You can, however, flip out the fists to help support the back of the jet.

Of course, the cockpit opens and Blunderbuss can fit inside, which is cool. You can also plug Broadside’s rifle into the top to fill it out a bit more and add a gunning station to the top. Does it help? Not really. But I have to wonder if a kid with an imagination wouldn’t love this ugly jet anyway. I’m thinking they probably would.

With a great robot mode and one solid alt mode, Broadside still gets my stamp of approval. He’s a fun toy and it’s a hell of a lot better than the Broadside that was out when I was a kid. Granted, I didn’t have very high expectations going in, and I already knew that the jet mode was going to be hot garbage. It feels like that mode is just a few tweaks away from being acceptable, and that’s what’s probably going to bug people the most about it. That having been said, I’m certainly not sorry I picked him up.

May 22 2017

Marvel Legends (Titus Wave): Darkhawk by Hasbro

Ah, the 90’s. It was in that decade that I reached adulthood and I often look back on it as that asshole of a decade that was unworthy to follow the blinding greatness that was the 80’s. Still, if you asked me to give you one good thing about the 90’s, I’d undoubtedly reply with two words: “comic books!” The comics of the 90’s were wondrous, ridiculous, and full of excesses. To borrow a phrase, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Obviously, I mention the 90’s because our figure today is based on a character was created at the early end of that decade, and he had a pretty good run for four years and about 50 issues. Let’s check out Darkhawk!

Darkhawk shares a slot with Vance Astro as one of the Masters of the Mind. It’s a stretch, but I think they were going for Christopher Powell’s ability to use his mind to control the Darkhawk body. A little less tenuous is his link to The Guardians of the Galaxy. They hob-nobbed in the pages of War of Kings, and he’s certainly part of Cosmic Marvel. Hell, the dude even got the stamp of dis-approval from the Shi’ar and branded the “Galaxy’s Most Wanted.” With all that having been said, I largely forgot Darkhawk even existed until I encountered him in my Marvel readings a little while back. I’d like to tell you that he was a favorite of mine, but that just wasn’t the case. Amazingly, this is not Darkhawk’s first outing for Hasbro, as he got a 3 3/4-inch figure in the Marvel Universe line a little while ago. I never did find that figure on the pegs, so the Legends 6-inch will be the first version of the character in my collection.

I’m so totally in love with Darkhawk’s design and I think this figure pulls it off beautifully. The body is a generic buck with a gorgeous glossy, dark blue finish that goes perfectly with the lovely shade of silver. This is a perfect example of less being more. The two colors just compliment each other perfectly and with the exception of a little red for the chest piece and the visor, that’s all that’s needed here. Original sculpted parts include his belt, his wrist bracers, shoulders, collar, and of course his wings.

The wings consist of four separate pieces, which connect to the backs of his biceps and forearms. You could argue by designing them as separate pieces they aren’t as faithful to the comic art as they could be, but what it lacks in authenticity it makes up for by not impeding the articulation. In the end, I’m perfectly fine with the decision they went and I can’t get over how great this figure looks. The simplicity of the suit and the grace of the wings makes Darkhawk look like an art deco sculpture.

The head sculpt is as simple as the rest of the costume. There’s a reinforced mask with a crescent shaped red visor that gives him the wonderful feel of a futuristic knight. My one complaint here is that I wish the reinforced area of the mask got the same beautiful silver paint as the collar. Instead, it’s bare plastic. It still looks OK, but it could have looked even better.

As already mentioned, the articulation is  not compromised by the wings, so what we get is standard Legends pose-ability. Darkhawk’s arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and double hinged knees. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, and finally, the torso features a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge, and the neck has both a hinge and ball joint. I can’t even tell you the fun I had playing around with this guy and discovering new poses.

Other than the Titus BAF part, Darkhawk doesn’t come with any accessories. With how much I love this figure, I feel bad nit-picking, but I can’t help but think it would have been cool to do something more with his grapple hook. As it is, it’s just three bendy claw-like tendrils coming out of his arm bracer. That’s fine, but it would have been cool to enhance it a bit.

Initially, I’d say my anticipation for this figure was fairly tepid. I really enjoy getting the more obscure characters for my Legends shelf, and I always liked the look of the character, but I didn’t think he was going to be all that special or impressive when I got him in hand. Besides, it’s not like I really had any nostalgia for the character. Little did I know that once I picked him up, he’d be so hard to put down. I probably ended up shooting three times the pictures I needed for this review, just because I was having such a blast playing around with him, and I’ll be honest, when I get past all the technical stuff about sculpt and paint and all that jazz, a great figure for me is the one that I can’t stop playing with. And its there that Darkhawk succeeds triumphantly.

May 18 2017

Transformers Titans Return: Legends Class Brawn by Hasbro

Well, be still my energon pumping heart, today makes two Transformers Thursdays in a row that I actually have some new bots to look at. In fact, I should be covered for a little while now so the drought is officially over! Today I’m checking out Legends Class Brawn, another figure that I had to grab off of Ebay because these never show up around here. And then when I feared the deal might not be sound, my buddy came through with one for me as well. Either way I was covered, and in the end I wound up with two. Now, the downside of having to go second-hand on these is that both were shipped to me loose, so I have no in-package shot for you, but we all know what it looks like by now, so let’s jump right in to Brawn’s alt mode…

True to his original G1 form, Brawn takes the form of a green off-road vehicle, and this is a pretty solid one at that. There isn’t a whole lot of sculpted detail here, but you do get a spare tire on the rear of the roof. More importantly, the coloring on this little 4×4 is especially nice for a Legends Class. The pretty metallic green is joined by some black painted windows, and yellow bits peeking out from the sides and the front, all of which keeps his deco very faithful to the original toy. You also get some lovely silver on the front bumper and a tiny Autobot insignia on the hood. And so in the end, this vehicle may be a little modernized, but there’s no denying who this is supposed to be.

I was never a big fan of Brawn as a character, he always struck me as a jerk and even a bit of a bully in the original cartoon, but I loved his G1 figure for all its quirkiness and everything about this alt mode does that figure proud!

Despite being a Legends Class, Brawn can actually open up and take on a Titan Master driver! Here’s where things can get weird, because Hasbro already released a Titan Master pack with head robot named Brawn that transformed into Brawn’s head. So, yes, you can actually have Brawn driving himself around. That’s some weird and crazy Inception shit right there. What really cooks my noodle is that both of these figures had to be in production at the same time, as they’re both clearly designed for Titans Return, so why did Hasbro even bother making the Titan Master Brawn if they knew they were also making a proper Legends Class version of him. It really makes no sense.

Anywho… Transforming Brawn is as simple as it gets and it’s basically the same thing as a lot of the old school Minibots. I find that to be really refreshing and I wish Hasbro would embrace this kind of simplicity for the smaller figures more often. All you do is pull the arms out of the sides and fold the legs out of the back. OK, so Brawn cheats a little bit because you have to take off the the piece of the vehicle with the spare tire, but it’s hard to argue with the results, because Brawn looks absolutely fantastic.

I mean, just look at this little guy! I adore the fact that the structure of his blocky yellow torso is practically pulled directly from the original toy! He’s got some great proportions and all around a very clean and tidy robot mode. The only real kibble on him are his wheels and they look great on his shoulders and lower legs. Hasbro also saw fit to take away those unwieldy chromed metal meat hooks that the original toy called arms and instead give him proper sculpted fists with silver paint. Even from the back this little dude looks pretty good.

The head sculpt is also excellent. He features his trademark domed “helmet” with a face that sports a superb likeness to the animated Sunbow design. His face is painted with more of that lovely silver paint and his blue eyes are crisp. Brawn can also turn his head, which is something that can’t always be taken for granted with these Legends figures. Hasbro stamped another Autobot emblem on his chest and even broke out the blue paint expressly for that one little panel below it. Classy!

You have a few options as to what to do with the tire piece. You can have him hold it like a gun, as it does have those three sculpted emitters on it. He also has peg holes in the sides of his forearms so he can wear it like a shield. Personally, I don’t think it works all that convincingly as a gun or shield. Then again, that could be because I’m a middle aged guy that lacks the imagination and wonder of the child this toy was aimed at. Thankfully, you do have a third option…

Yup, just peg it right on his back. It really doesn’t add a lot more bulk to his backpack and in all honesty it looks like it was meant to go there anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, Brawn is a perfect modern update to the old toy and definitely ranks in among my favorite Transformers this year. Yes, I’d actually like to see more of the Minibot characters get the Deluxe Class makeover, but when the figure is this good, I’ll take what I can get. And it’s great figures like this one that makes me wonder why Hasbro can’t just take a crack at updating all the Minibots together in a timely manner. They’ve had some real hits with this one and Powerglide and even Generations Cosmos is a figure that still holds up very well. Sure, the last Bumblebee wasn’t so great, but I guess they can’t all be gems.

May 16 2017

Star Wars Black (Rebels): Sabine Wren by Hasbro

For me, one of the high points of the Black Series 6-inch line has been the Rebels figures. Kanan Jarrus and Ahsoka Tano are among my favorite figures the line has produced so far. Needless to say I was excited when Sabine was announced. I’ve actually had this figure for quite a while now and the fact that it took this long for me to get around to reviewing her just shows that I wanted to make sure I had the time to give her the proper attention she deserves.

There’s not much new or noteworthy about the packaging, although this is one instance where I actually really like the monochrome character art. I think they did a lovely job with Sabine’s portrait. I should also take this time to admit that I’ve been a bad Rebels fan. I went into Season 3 with good intentions, but I quickly fell out of watching it. Rebels is a show I like to binge watch, so I’ll likely just hold off until it gets a release on Blu-Ray. I will say that it’s hard for me to come up with a show that has matured as well as Rebels has. It started out on shaky ground and gradually grew into its own. Sabine has been a great character and one that really demanded an action figure from the very beginning. I’ve already reviewed two versions of her in the 3 3/4-inch line, so let’s check her out in the 6-inch scale.

Putting a Mandalorian in the show could have gone horribly wrong, but Rebels makes the character work and that goes double for Sabine’s character design. Rather than just put her in Femme Fett armor, she has a distinctive look, made even more unique by her personal artistic touches to her armor. All of that is wonderfully recreated in this figure. The personalized paint on her chest and shoulder armor looks fantastic and served up with a pretty realistic looking weathering, which sets it apart from the more brightly colored markings on the 3 3/4-inch figure. I can’t say the same for the speckling on her boots and gauntlets, which looks really overdone here, but it’s not something that ruins the figure for me, so I can get over it. Suffice it to say, sometimes less is more.

Of course, this version of Sabine has also been given a realistic make over, shying away from the super stylized look of the series. So far, Hasbro has had great success with this conversion, both with Kanan and Ahsoka and they’ve pulled it off here once again. Added detail, like the stitching and slight rumpling in her clothes help add to the realism of the sculpt, and Sabine even sports two functional holsters, one on each hip.

The head sculpt is decent, but it isn’t quite the slam dunk we got with Kanan or Ahsoka. It’s very soft, which admittedly works for Sabine, but it’s also let down by the paint. Imagine that? A Black Series figure let down by paint! In this case, my Sabine has a bad case of the wonky lizard eyes. I’ve actually been hunting for a better one, and while I’ve come across a surprising number of Sabines on the pegs, I’ve yet to find one that’s much of an improvement and I’ve even seen at least one which was a lot worse. I think they could have also done a better job with the gradient colors in her hair, but then I remember that I’m really overestimating the efforts of Hasbro’s painters in this line.

Sabine also comes with a helmet, which fits over her head. It’s a snug fit, but I’m actually very pleased that they were able to pull this off without making the helmet look too big or the head look too small. I’d be a little concerned about rubbing paint off the face if I take it off and on too many times, but that’s part of the reason why I’d like to bag another Sabine one of these days. The range finder is articulated and it’s stout enough so as not to warp too badly.

The articulation here holds no surprises. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and hips. The legs have double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. The torso has a ball joint under the chest and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. I would have liked a swivel in the waist, but I’m guessing that might have been nixed because of the gun belt.

Sabine comes with her paint sprayer, which is a simple, but very welcome accessory. Ironically, there aren’t any paint apps on it, but it does have some sculpted detail, including the buttons and the nozzle.

And you also get her twin blasters, which fit into the holsters as well as both of her hands.  Like the paint sprayer, these are really simple accessories with no additional paint apps, but they get the job done.

While there is certainly room for improvement regarding the wonky eye paint, Sabine turned out to be another fantastic figure from the Rebels series. And that’s a good thing, because let’s face it, the only other options we have are the 5-POA 3 3/4-inch figures. They’re decent in their own way, but they’re nowhere near as fun as having a fully articulated figure like this one. Next up for this little sub-line should be Hera Syndulla, and I am most definitely looking forward to that release! My only fear is that they’ll abandon these releases before completing the crew, and that would be a shame because once assembled these are going to make for one hell of a great display.

May 15 2017

Marvel Legends (Titus Wave): Drax The Destroyer by Hasbro

If you follow me on Twitter, than you probably know that I loved Guardians Vol.2. You also probably know this if you’ve been anywhere in my general vicinity. God help you if you’re stuck in an elevator with me, because I’ll keep saying, “And remember that time when [insert character here] did/said that thing?” until you inevitably swallow your own tongue for sweet release. All the characters did their part to make this movie a sheer delight, but Drax continues to shine as one of the most pleasant surprises of this entire franchise. And as such, David Bautista deserves to have praise heaped onto him for the amazing job he has done breathing life into the character. Even doubly so when you consider his limited experience as an actor. And seeing as how my Hot Toys Drax figure has now been delayed a half dozen times, I now look to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends for more plastic Drax loving.

We’ve seen the packaging already. The three figures from the film are branded with the movie title and Drax here comes with a fair amount of goodies laid out in the tray, including a BAF part for Titus. I’d like to tell you that this review is going to be a balls-to-the-wall love fest, but unlike the character, this figure lets me down on a few levels. Let’s take a look…

So, from the neck down, what we have here is a total reuse of the 2014 Drax figure from the first film. The pants are now blue, the boot buckles are a little brighter, and his skin is an entirely different shade of green. Other than that it’s the exact same figure. Now, I don’t really have an issue with them reusing the body. It was a great sculpt than and nearly three years later, it’s still a great sculpt. There’s plenty of detail in the boots and trousers, and the way Hasbro sculpted his tattoos onto the buck really has to be commended because it looks fantastic. As for the skin recoloring, well it’s hard for me to make a call on which is screen accurate because Drax’s skin tends to vary depending on the lighting. I suspect this newer one is more accurate and the fact that the plastic has more of a matte finish is cool, but I actually tend to like the skin tone on the original figure more. That’s just personal preference.

The new sculpting here comes in the form of a brand new head and this is an angry and yelling Drax. It’s certainly a departure from the more neutral expression on the previous Drax figure and it’s a fairly decent likeness with some excellent detailing and solid paint work. Of course, I think if we were going for an accurate Guardians Vol.2 Drax they should have made him laughing, because he really does spend a lot of that movie laughing his ass off. Anyway, the biggest issue I have here is that given the change in skin tone, you can’t really swap heads between the two figures and make it work, and to me that’s a bummer. Hasbro could have rectified this by tossing in the old head with updated coloring, but that didn’t happen. I guess my issue here really isn’t with what we got, but with what could have been.

Obviously, the articulation here is identical to the previous release and that means it’s plenty damn good. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and the wrists. The elbows and knees have double hinges. There are swivels in the biceps and thighs. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. Lastly, you get a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the torso, and both a hinge and ball joint in the neck. The joints all feel great and there are no gummy hinges.

As you may have guessed, Drax comes with his pair of knives and they are indeed the same accessories that were included with the 2014 release. They’re nice sculpts, they could have used a little paint, but I’m not going to make a big deal about it. And yes, they still fit into the sheathes that are sculpted into the sides of his boots.

You do get a brand new accessory, which is his bazooka. It’s fairly detailed sculpt, but it’s all cast in black plastic and there are no additional paint apps. I’ve said it before, but if Hasbro is going to do big weapons for this scale, they really need to bust out the paint, otherwise it just looks damn cheap. I understand paint apps are often the first things cut when costing out a figure, but this is an almost entirely reused sculpt, so it’s hard to see where the money went. Anyway, the bazooka is a rather unique and fun design, and he can hold it pretty well in one hand with the back resting on his shoulder.

Am I too harsh on this figure? Possibly. I do like it a lot, but then I liked it a lot three years ago too. My guess is that the average collector’s mileage will vary depending on whether or not it’s they’re first MCU Drax. If you missed out on the last one, this is a fine substitute. I like the screaming head, but I would like it more if it was an optional portrait and not the only one. And like I said, you can’t swap it with the 2014 Drax head because of the color change. I didn’t feel at all bad about buying a new Star-Lord figure. It’s a new look and the heads are swappable between the new figure and the old one. Drax, on the other hand, feels a lot more like double-dipping.