Jun 5 2015

GI JOE 25th Anniversary Comic Pack: Tomax and Xamot by Hasbro

As promised, I’m going to be spreading some GI JOE love around FFZ this Summer, so look for this kind of thing popping up every Friday until I run out of stuff in my closet or just lose interest and move on. The main thrust of GI JOE Friday is going to be Sigma 6, but I plan on peppering it with some 25th and 50th Anniversary stuff just to mix things up. Also, because I realize a lot of people hate Sigma 6. Anywho, today I decided to go with the 25th Anniversary Collection’s release of Tomax and Xamot!

Ah, The 25th Anniversary Comic Pack! How I adored you! Unlike the vintage-style JOE Comic 3-Packs from Hasbro, these 25th releases came with only two figures, but that made it a perfect venue to get The Crimson Twins out in this new format. Doubly so when you consider they were originally released as a 2-pack way back when. I can still remember when this deadly duo was released in 1985. I was first introduced to them as part of the Sunbow mini-series, Pyramids of Darkness, which was definitely the weakest of these mini-series for me, but made up for it by introducing Extensive Enterprises. These guys were like nothing in GI JOE before and who didn’t fall instantly in love with their elite troopers, The Crimson Guard? I can still remember finding the twins 2-pack at the mall and successfully begging my father to get them for me. There was a time when Tomax, Xamot, and hooded Cobra Commander were the upper echelons of my Cobra Command leading an army of (well, actually I only had two) Crimson Guards, leaving Destro and Baroness to take their boring old Cobra Troops and fend for themselves. I freaking loved these guys!!

Oh, and f’ck me for not getting on board and ordering that Doc. What the hell was I thinking?

I think a big part of the appeal for me here is the uniforms. Yeah, I thought it was cool how they mirrored each other, but more importantly they were just neat designs. The Twins were kind of like superhero villains the way they would appear all chill in their business suits in one scene and then be charging into battle in their costumes in the next. The sculpts on these guys are quite well done. The cobra-style knee and thigh armor is superb and I like how the shoulder armor is hinged and removable. It stays on pretty well too. And naturally they have to have make each other wear the silver codpieces, because if one gets kicked in the balls the other one feels it! You also get a nicely detailed combat knife and pistol, each sculpted onto the belt. To top it all off, you get some beautifully vibrant colors. The Cobra blue with the silver armor and red sash and accents makes for a fantastic deco. God, I love these uniforms!

The portraits follow the same mirrored pattern as their costumes. It’s the same basic sculpt only with the facial scars on opposite cheeks. They also have the same strands of hair dropping down over the forehead, only on opposite sides. That always gives me a chuckle. Do they actually style it that way? Also, my loose Tomax has some weird black speckling around his mouth. My carded set doesn’t, but that’s not for opening, it’s for hanging on the wall and looking at.

Articulation on these guys is pretty standard from what we got in the 25th Anniversary figures. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows. and swivels in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinged knees, and rotating hinges in the ankles. You get a ball joint in the torso and another in the neck. It’s a far cry from the more modern JOES that have come out since, but it’s certainly serviceable. And fortunately, these guys don’t share the problem of arms popping out like some of the figures in this line do.

Tomax and Xamot come with their signature weapons, which is something like a laser sub-machine gun. Obviously, they’re the same weapon because… twins! These feel a little oversized to me, but I still dig them well enough. They can comfortably grip them in either hand and witha litttle work you can get them to hold the weapon in both hands. You also get the standard 25th Anniversary Cobra figure stands, with the sculpted Cobra emblems and the personalized name plates. The only thing missing here is the zip line, which I recall coming with the original vintage two-pack.

Yes, opening up this pack instantly transported me back to the glory days of 1985 when it was such an amazing time to be a JOE collector. We had brand new teams appear, like The Crimson Twins and The Dreadnoks, and the line was going into such creative and interesting new territory. The 25th Anniversary versions of these guys really scratched an itch and the fact that I found the 25th Crimson Guard figures to be relatively plentiful meant that I could finally have a little squad of these guys to go with my Tomax and Xamot. Ah, good times! Now, I really want to pick up a pair of Cobra Ferrets for these guys to drive around on.

Jun 4 2015

Transformers Generations: Nightbeat (IDW Comic Pack) by Hasbro

Greetings, fans of Convertorobots! I’m still waiting for some of my new Combiner Wars figures to arrive, so I’m taking this time to look through the last holdouts of my Generations figures. On the last Transformers Thursday we looked at Jetfire, this time we’ll check out Nightbeat. I’ve already featured this mold twice before (as Bumblebee and Goldbug) and I was kind of lukewarm on it to begin with. So, why the hell did I buy it again? Well, primarily because I’m a toy-crazy idiot who doesn’t understand the value of money, but also because I don’t happen to have any version of Nightbeat in my collection.

There’s the ingenious packaging, which uses a comic book reprint as the character art. Hasbro has had a lot of success at tweaking molds to make them work as different characters, but Nightbeat is not one of those instances. Just looking at the huge disconnect between the IDW character art and the Bumblebee mold leads me down a path toward bewilderment. Wasn’t the original plan to repaint Reveal The Shield Jazz as Nightbeat? What the hell happened there? Well, I knew what I was getting going in, so I have nobody to blame but myself. Let’s rip this guy open and start out with his alt mode.

Yes, we get the same auto mode as the previous two releases of this mold. The car is now comprised of blue plastic and the windows are tinted blue, but there aren’t any changes to the mold. That’s not a complaint, mind you, as I really dig the overall look of this car with the swollen hood and split spoiler. The design is probably about as close as Hasbro could get to a modern Camaro without having to pony up money to Chevrolet for the license. No movie, no license… I guess that’s how that works. The Bumblebee version used a rather shoddy looking yellow plastic, I liked the gold plastic for Goldbug a little more, but this is a case where the third time is the charm, as I think the car looks great in blue. The yellow striping and flame decals on the doors also make Nightbeat the most visually appealing version of this car and one that suits the character fairly well.

Nightbeat comes with the same pair of weapons as the prevoius two releases of the mold, this time with a yellow and blue paintjob to match the deco of the car. You can still peg these pieces into the sides of the car to give him some firepower while cruising the roads.

The robot mode here holds few surprises to nutjobs like me who bought it twice before. Again, I like the blue plastic used here better than either of the other releases and the yellow accents and flame decos on the door go a long way to make the figure work for me as the character, even if the body doesn’t look anything like the character art. Still, my biggest gripe about this figure is the way the shoulders are constructed. The front quarter panels look great and I like the conventional Autobot door-wings, but the shoulders don’t lock into place. There is some independent arm movement, but for the most part, moving the arms means moving the whole shoulder assembly, which makes a lot of the poses look awkward and throws off the symmetry of the design.

There is a brand new head sculpt and it’s easily my favorite thing about this new release. The yellow face and red visor are fantastic and the whole noggin ties the character together beautifully. Yes, this can be my Nightbeat, it’s just not the IDW version.

Once again, the weapons are designed to be wielded separately or you can combine them together into one large cannon. I think they work pretty well in either configuration.

In the end, Nightbeat is probably the best looking use of this mold, albeit wildly inaccurate to the source material. I could have easily done without owning him, but it was one of those instances where I stumbled upon him for about eight bucks and decided that I wanted a Nightbeat in my collection no matter what the mold looked like. While I have a hard time parting with any Transformers, if I were forced to make some cuts, Nightbeat would definitely be the one figure in this trio that I kept, so at least he’s got that going for him! On the other hand, i still can’t help but wish that Hasbro had delivered on the Reveal The Shield Jazzbeat! I’ve seen customs and digibashes of that potential figure and I really liked what I saw.

Jun 1 2015

Marvel Legends (Thanos Wave): Thanos Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

Here we are, finally at the end of the most recent Wave of Marvel Legends and I’m all ready to piece together my very own Mad Titan. I’m sure I’ve already commented about how Hasbro has been killing it with the character selection on these Waves lately and I couldn’t think of a better BAF to hit right around now than Thanos himself. There’s no package to look at, so let’s just go ahead and cobble this baby together.

Here’s all the parts you need to build Thanos scattered across five of the six figures from this Wave. If you bought both Hellcat and Spider-Woman then you’ll find yourself with an extra head and left arm. The doubled up head feels like a missed opportunity to provide us with a second portrait, like they did in The Allfather Wave. Also, the lack of an Infinity Gauntlet kind of sucks. I remember way back when Mattel did the DCUC Collect & Connect Darkseid they were able to get us his an extra hand with a swap out Killing Glove. I’m sure Hasbro is just planning on selling us a new Thanos when Infinity War hits the theaters a few years from now.

This is a fairly modern take on the character, without venturing into the actual MovieVerse territory. He isn’t massive, but he’s certainly big enough. Average size characters, like Hawkeye, only come up to about his shoulders. Thanos is a fairly simple figure, cast primarily in nice, glossy dark blue plastic. I like the silver segmented bits showing through on his legs. The armor bits, consisting of his shoulders, wrist bracers, belt, and the tops of his boots are all separate pieces, which is cool, but the matte gold plastic they used is kind of bland. Some nice metallic paint on these would have really gone a long way. Also, while the shoulder piece does peg into the top of his shoulders, it still has a habit of detaching and riding up when I manipulate his shoulders.

The portrait, on the other hand, is spot on awesome. I love the toothy grin and the texturing and purple paintwork on the skin looks great. The head could have been a little bigger, but then Thanos always was a bit of a pinhead.

Articulation is pretty much in line with the regular Legends figures. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders and wrists, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have swivels at the thighs, and the ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. Thanos can swivel at the waist, there’s an ab crunch hinge in his torso, and the neck is ball jointed.

I can’t tell you the number of times I came close to picking up the Marvel Select version of Thanos just to have the character represented on my Legends shelf. I was hoping that this BAF would justify holding off on that purchase and in the end it sort of does, but in fairness the two figures are very different treatments of the character. I may wind up still picking up that Marvel Select release. I like this figure well enough, but it feels rather “phoned in” to me, especially after how much work clearly went into the Odin BAF. Indeed, I think Hasbro did a much better job on the Marvel Universe Thanos. Even for a little 3 3/4″ figure, that one had some really sharp looking gold painted armor and chunkier boots and gauntlets. If they could have just up-scaled that beauty, I think I would have been happier.

And that’s going to wrap up Marvel Monday for a little while, or at least until I can get my hands on the Hobgoblin Wave of Spider-Man Legends. But, much like Hydra, if you cut off one weekly Feature, two more shall take its place. In this case, I’ll be starting weekly Star Trek and GI JOE features starting this week on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout most of the Summer as I try to get through the boxes of figures sitting over in the corner.

May 28 2015

Transformers Generations: Jetfire by Hasbro

Call me late to the party, but I finally got around to picking up the big daddy of Hasbro’s Thrilling Thirty: Leader Class Jetfire. I held off on buying this guy because I was planning on getting the Takara version, but with my toy expenses running as high as they have been lately that just never happened. Plus, I did a lot of rationalizing about how much I still dig the Classics Jetfire and maybe I didn’t really need another. Then all it took was for me to see Hasbro’s version on clearance for me to say, “Aw, slag it!” and buy him. Coincidently it just happens to be Transformers Thursday, so let’s take a look!

Ah, the Generations packaging, how I miss you! With that deliciously vintage grid pattern and familiar Transformers logo, I think this has been the pinnacle of Hasbro’s changeable robot packaging and I mourn the fact that they dumped it for the current crop. But hey, I don’t save these boxes anyway so what do I care? Jetfire comes boxed in his robot mode and all geared up with his guns and armor. The red chrome! It’s already burning my eyes!!!

It’s the back of the box that makes me cry foul on you, Hasbro. You’ll note the non-chromed armor and guns and the extra black paint apps on these pieces too. I know that all of these boxes point out that the actual product may vary from what’s pictured, but this is a pretty big leap between what’s pictured and what we got. It’s also what made me hold out for so long in favor of the more expensive Takara version until that pesky notion of fiscal responsibility got the better of me. Anyway, let’s start off with his alt mode, and to be more specific, his stripped down jet mode.

God, this is a great looking toy and a gorgeous recreation of the original G1 Jetfire’s jet mode. Little changes include a much pointier (and sexier) nose cone, and the addition of the tail wings. The cockpit is tinted blue and you get double stripes on the wings, where if I recall correctly the original only had the single stripes. Ah, but some things never change and the huge Autobot emblem is still crisply printed right on the nose cone in front of the cockpit. The primary wings can be angled back and there are three sets of landing gear for the jet to rest on. Of course, as with the original toy, you can load the jet mode up with the extra pieces to make a super armored mode…

Aaaand, here’s where Jetfire starts to stumble a little. The extra pieces consist of the booster assembly, which snaps onto the back of the aircraft, and two pairs of guns: One, which attaches under the wings, and the others that go over the rear landing gear. You can also attach his rifle under the nose cone, but I think that just looks silly. The pieces are all a lot simpler than what we got with the original toy, but I think they work really well, or at least they would if they weren’t all blinged out. Much has been made about Hasbro’s decision to use red chrome on these parts and I’m not going to beat a dead horse any further, other then to say I really don’t approve and I’m not sure why. Usually it’s just this kind of thing that makes the Takara version more desirable, but here it’s the other way around. I just don’t think it was appropriate and it makes an otherwise amazing looking jet mode look rather cheap.

Transforming Jetfire into his robot mode also results in both a stripped down robot and the armored up version. I have to say that I absolutely adore the basic robot mode. I honestly didn’t think this guy was going to replace my Classics Jetfire (other than for scale purposes) but I fell in love with this figure the first time I got him out of the box. He’s a really nice compromise between IDW and Sunbow versions of the character and he scales beautifully with most of my Classics and Generations figures. There are a few minor gripes, which I’ll get to in a second, but even so, this is the Jetfire figure that I’ve been waiting decades for.

From behind, it’s evident that there’s a lot of cheating going on with the transformation. I get it that it bugs a lot of people, but in this case I think the ends justify the means. I don’t think the cockpit hanging down the back looks bad at all. It’s a perfectly valid and stylish place to store that jet kibble and it’s quite unobtrusive. On the other hand just by being there and so visible, it advertises the way the engineering cheats. Again, if that’s what I need to sacrifice in order to get a more Sunbow accurate chest, I’m cool with that and I love the way they took the opportunity to put in all those sculpted components and an Autobot symbol inside the cockpit. I can’t see how they could have pulled that off with a legit transformation. This isn’t a case of Hasbro being lazy with the engineering, but rather just wanting to deliver an animated or comic style robot mode that never had to bend a knee to the harsh mistress of toy design.

The head sculpt is also fantastic. I dig the way the helmet frames his face and his noble expression just nails the character for me. Of course, you also get the option to put on the battle mask, which is included as a nod to the Macross head on the original toy. I’m not usually a fan of this sort of thing. I don’t think I ever displayed my Classics Jetfire with his battle mask, but I have to admit that this mask looks totally badass. It simply clips right over the face and it gives him a mouthplate, vibrant blue visor and even the antenna from the original toy.

Loading Jetfire up with his armor consists of mounting the booster package to his back, the smaller guns to his wrists and the larger ones to the sides of his legs. In theory it all looks good, and serves to cover up those unfinished looking areas on the outsides of his legs and arms. if only it weren’t for all that blasted red chrome. Honestly, I’ve usually preferred my Jetfire toys to be displayed without the extra bits, and that’s how I’ll be displaying this guy. Although, I have to admit, I do really like those arm guns.

The articulation here is pretty solid and thanks to some nice ratchets, he can hold his own weight, which admittedly isn’t all that much, and a lot of great poses. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels at the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, and hinges in both the knees and the ankles. I think the Third Party stuff is really starting to spoil me because I really miss having ball joints or lateral rockers in the ankles, especially on a guy this big. There’s no torso articulation, but the neck is ball jointed.

In addition to all those extra bits, Jetfire also comes with a rifle and this is one of the bigger sticking points with me and this figure. I’ve always considered the gun that came with the original toy to be something iconic to the character and what we got here is just a fairly generic looking missile launcher, which also happens to be cast in the same awful red chrome. Blah!

Shitty red chrome or no, I absolutely love this figure, and I’m genuinely surprised at how I immediately accepted it as a replacement for my beloved Classics Jetfire. Plus, as a Leader Class figure, he really fits nicely into my Classics shelves. Well, he doesn’t actually fit on any of those shelves, but I mean he scales well with the likes of Classics Prime and all those Deluxes. That’s a claim that Classics Jetfire couldn’t really boast. To think that I almost passed this guy up is absolutely insane to me, although I can’t fault the outcome because I did manage to get him at the very appealing price of $35. I’d still easily recommend the Takara version over this one in a heartbeat, and if Transformers were all I collected, I probably would have gone for that one myself. It would have been a worthy investment, because everything else about this figure is so beautifully done. I’ll also be happily revisiting a remold of this figure next month when I look at Leader Class Thundercracker, a figure that I am very excited to get as he will likely wind up being my Masterpiece Scale version of that character.

May 26 2015

Star Wars Rebels: Kanan Jarrus and The Inquisitor by Hasbro

If you’ve been reading FFZ for a little while, or just tried collecting the Rebels 3 3/4″ figures then you probably know that Hasbro has made it quite a chore. I’ve managed to slowly piece together the bulk of The Ghost’s crew and a couple of Stormies and recently I was able to grab two more: Kanan and The Inquisitor. These guys turned up on one of my favorite e-tailers for pre-order so I dropped it in. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had to pre-order 3 3/4″ Star Wars figures to make sure I got them, but hey, we gotta do what we gotta do.

There’s the packaging and I like it well enough. The Stormtrooper helmet as a card is pretty eye catching, but all in all the packages are pretty disposable, and not at all collector friendly. I thought it was only appropriate that I was able to pick these two characters up as a pair since they happened to engage in what was to me easily the best lightsaber fight since The Original Trilogy.

I love this little spot on the back of the packaging and it gives me a laugh every time. The multi-lingual bit where it says “Also Look For” actually sounds like the names of Star Wars characters. Who can forget the adventures of Aussi Offerts? And Busca Tambien sounds like an alien from Jabba’s Palace. Anyway, let’s start off with Kanan Jarrus

I didn’t think I was going to like this character at all, and I’ll concede that he’s still not one of my favorites in the show, but he’s not so bad. This figure, on the other hand, is one of the better ones of the series so far. The detail is good enough to stride the line between animated-retro and modern. I’m particularly impressed with the gun sculpted in the holster and how great the portrait came out. There’s a little paint slop on mine here and there and some of the paint on his butt is scratched off, but he’s a guy that gets into a lot of adventures, so I can just write it all off as wear and tear on his outfit. Kanan comes with his lightsaber, which also sports a very nicely detailed hilt and can be held in either hand.

And then we have The Inquisitor. I can still remember rolling my eyes when they first showed off this guy as the baddie of the show, but I’ll give them credit, he turned out to be a pretty rad villain. And just like Kanan, Inquisitor’s figure is really great. The sculpt captures the animated look of the character design, but still manages to look unusually sharp. The silver Imperial logos on his shoulder armor look great and the portrait is fantastic. Even the painted markings on his face are nice and sharp. The Inquisitor includes his rather distinctive double-bladed lightsaber, which feels a tad oversized for the scale.

Of course, the retro style five points of articulation are the order of the day here. The arms rotate at the shoulders, the legs move forward and backward at the hips, and the heads rotate… sort of. Both of these characters have high collars, which tends to impede the neck articulation. Kanan makes out a little better than The Inquisitor. Up until now, I’ve been pretty happy with the the 5 POA on these highly stylized figures, but this pair is the first that look so good they feel like they need modern articulation, especially since they’re both accomplished lightsaber duelists and without better articulation, you can’t pose them fighting each other with any degree of credibility.

Yes, it feels good to have assembled all the humanoids of The Ghost crew, but there are still those pangs of anger when I see Chopper getting scalped for $35. Maybe if I liked the character I would pony it up to complete the set, but I don’t and so I won’t. There are still a couple more figures in this line that I may grab if the opportunity comes up but right now I feel like I at least sort of got what I wanted out of it. I’ll be interested to see if Hasbro continues this line in this style when the second season of the show hits. Part of me would really like to see them take the opportunity to make amends with fans and get the figures distributed better, but the realist in me believes that Rebels merch is going to be eclipsed by the Episode 7 Marketing Juggernaut.

May 25 2015

Marvel Legends (Thanos Wave): Spider-Woman by Hasbro

As The Bangles once sang, “It’s just another Marvel Monday and that’s my fun day!” Or something like that. Yes, today I am closing in on the end of my look at the Thanos Wave of Hasbro’s Mavel Legends line. Spider-Woman is the last packaged figure that I have to open before moving on next week to the Build-A-Figure, Thanos. Sure, these parts are actually doubles of what came with Hellcat, so I could have already built Thanos, but I always save the BAF for last.

Here’s the gratuitous packaged shot. Sorry it’s such a shitty shot, but I bumped the camera and spilled my Jameson. Doesn’t matter. It’s basically the same packaging we’ve seen dozens of times now. If you were here last Monday then you might remember that Spider-Woman shares a slot with Hellcat as the “Ferocious Fighters!” which means that neither characters’ names appear on the front of the package. And like I just said, it also means that if you already own Hellcat that you don’t really need to buy this figure in order to complete your Thanos BAF, and vice versa. There’s been a big “to do” lately about how Black Widow has been snubbed in the Age of Ultron merchandise and a lot of people are making the connection to it being a trend with female figures in general. I’m not saying that’s not an issue, but in fairness Marvel doesn’t seem to have a big problem with getting us other Marvel ladies. In the last couple of waves we’ve had Hellcat, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Girl, two versions of Spider-Woman, and Agent Hill in the SHIELD 3-pack. The Hulkbuster Wave will have Valkyrie and Thundra, and we’re even getting a Legends version of Misty Knight. Seems to me like it’s personal, Natasha.

Out of the package, Jessica is looking mighty damn nice. We get a very shapely female buck with the costume mostly painted on. I feel like the red used for the costume could have been a little more vibrant and crimson, but I’m not hating what we got either. The yellow used for the gloves, boots, and accents really help the figure to pop on the shelf and the black borders are pretty sharp. There are a few minor stray black marks on my figure’s boots and a little visible brush work on her tummy, but otherwise, the paint really sells the costume splendidly.

Hasbro included the plastic web “wings” for under her arms, which was evident from the package shot. What I wasn’t expecting was a pair of collapsed wings as well. That was a nice surprise. These pieces simply tab into the slots on the back of her biceps. The textured plastic pieces have almost a GiTD quality to them, which is very effective, although I kind of miss the heavy handed black webbing pattern, especially since these are rather hard to see against a white backdrop.

The portrait here is a homerun. The lower half of her face is certainly pretty and her lips are well defined and neatly painted. The mask looks great with the large blank white eyes and the hair sculpt is superb and well worth the hit to the neck articulation, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Articulation here is quite good, so long as you can get past those ball jointed hips that require you to work the joint all the way around to attain certain poses. Apart from that you get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists; Swivels in the biceps and thighs; The legs feature double hinged knees and hinged ankles with lateral rockers. The torso has a ball joint just below the chest and a ball jointed neck with no hinge. Sure, Spider-Woman is a pretty limber gal, and this figure isn’t going to be mimicking any maligned cover art we’ve seen recently, but for a Legends figure, it’s not at all bad.

Considering that I still own very few of my original Marvel Legends, I’m very pleased to be able to put Jussica Drew back on my 6-inch scale shelf. But even if I still had the old Toy Biz figure I think I’d still be quite happy for the upgrade. I don’t think the last version was quite as bad as some say, but then it’s been quite a while since I’ve had in hand and a lot of those figures haven’t aged gracefully. Next Monday I’ll put together The Mad Titan himself and have a look at this Wave’s Build-A-Figure… Thanos!

May 21 2015

Transformers Combiner Wars: Menasor by Hasbro

Over the course of the last month or so I’ve been checking out the Combiner Wars Stunticons and that has inevitably started me on the path to today’s Feature wherein I take five really good figures and combine them together a questionable gestalt. But before we get to that I want to point out how much I appreciate what Hasbro is trying with these. I’ll also point out that Superion is by most collectors’ opinions infinitely better and the only reason I haven’t looked at him yet is because I’m waiting for the Takara release later this Summer. And so with all that having been said…

“Stunticons…

Transform…

And Merge…

Into…

Menasor!!!”

And here he is in all his, um… glory. In true Scramble City fashion, there is a great deal of customization available here. Not only can you arrange the limbs in any manner you want, but you can throw other combiner limbs on there too. I’m going for the standard G1 configuration that puts Dragstrip and Dead End as the arms and Breakdown and ~~Wildrider~~ Offroad as the legs. I’ll also point out that I don’t have Blackjack yet to fill out his chest, I’ll revisit that option in a few weeks when I get around to looking at that figure. Yes, without him the chest is an unsightly empty cavity, but I’m not going to pick on that just because I’m missing that figure. It can be closed up, but I’m not sure it’s much an improvement. Also, keep in mind, I’m not overly concerned with which foot/hand part goes with which figure at this point, so pardon me if I’ve mixed them up.

Proportionally speaking, Menasor is a mess. He’s got such a tiny torso and he’s all legs and arms, which is an issue of Hasbro repeating the same design mistake from Fall of Cybertron Bruticus. On the plus side, the bulkier arms and legs help out a lot and the more I look at him the more I’m willing to admit that he’s a big improvement over that horrid Bruticus figure. Sure, that’s a loaded compliment, but Menasor should take what he can get.

The head sculpt has grown on me quite a bit and I couldn’t tell you why. I’m still not a fan of the huge horns, but the face itself is pretty solid. I actually find his expression to be appropriate because he looks like he’s in agony and probably wants to be put down. Either that or he suddenly realized that he just pooped himself.

While I said I don’t want to get into a lot of the customization options, I will say that I prefer to build his legs in the old G1 fashion with the undercarriages of the cars showing to the front. This does, admittedly hamper the normal knee articulation by not allowing the lower legs to bend backwards, but I think it looks better if I’m just going to have him stand there. And that leads me to my next point.

While Menasor isn’t the prettiest thing around, it’s actually not his aesthetics that I find most irksome, but rather his stability and playability. Just looking at him, I would guess that Hasbro made a lot of sacrifices in order to build a solid toy and in fairness he does have a satisfying chunky look to him. Unfortunately, playing around with him, or just trying to pose him is an exercise in utter frustration, which all starts in the hip design. Ugh, those hips! Just getting the legs even is a pain in the ass, but unless I have the legs on mine straight up and down, the hips are going to give way and he’s going to do the splits. There’s also not a lot of subtelty to those ratchet joints, so tweaking his stance is all but futile and more often than not when he’s standing I find that his torso is lopsided.

The shoulders are another problem. Moving the arms forward and backward usually cause the shoulder assembly in the torso to give way and come apart. I find that the only way to pose the arms is to hold the figure by this area to keep it together. Again, playing with toys and posing them should be fun, but everything about handling this guy is a chore.

Menasor has one weapon in his arsenal (unless you count collapsing and falling on top of an Autobot) and that’s his sword. The sword is formed from Motormaster’s gun and sword and overall looks pretty good. Unfortunately, he can’t really hold it. Instead it pegs into a socket that’s closer to the wrist and looks rather awkward.

I feel bad picking on this figure. I like what Hasbro tried to do here and I really like the Stunticons as a team of individual figures. I will even go so far as to say that Menasor probably doesn’t look as bad in person as I thought he would based on the terrible “official” pics from Hasbro. But the apologists will tell you that this is a toy and if it doesn’t look as good as your $350 Fansproject Menasor that’s because it’s for kids and it’s meant to be played with. Well, I can’t imagine that playing with this guy could be any fun. Fortunately, it looks like Menasor will likely be the black sheep of the Combiner Wars gestalts, because I’m really anxious to get my hands on Unite Warriors Superion and Defensor is looking mighty damn nice too!

May 18 2015

Marvel Legends (Thanos Wave): Hellcat by Hasbro

It’s another Marvel Monday and that means it’s time to open up another Legends figure. Today I’m going to check out the first of the ladies of this wave, Hellcat. Patsy Walker is an interesting character, or at least she has an interesting print history. She started life in a non-superhero comic and existed that way for almost three decades before being established as the alter ego for superheroine Hellcat sometime in the early 70s. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her character, although I do really dig her costume, so much so that I came damn close to picking up her Bowen statue from a year or so back before the final production piece showed some unfortunate deviations from the excellent looking prototype. Fortunately, Hasbro stepped in and included her in the Legends line, thus allowing me to put her on my shelf for a lot less money.

Hellcat shares her slot in this Wave with another, in this case that other figure is Spider-Woman. These used to be running changes and it was often a bitch to find both of them on the pegs. Thankfully, Hasbro has since come to their senses and are now including both variants in the wave’s case assortment. Apart from making it far easier to complete the wave, all it means to the collector is that you’re going to have an extra set of BAF parts, in this case Thanos’ head. It also means that Hellcat’s name doesn’t appear on the front of the package. Instead all you get is “Fierce FIghters” and it’s not even in the usual place, but rather all the way down at the bottom in smaller multi-lingual print. This practice really fascinates me, especially when used with lesser known characters like Walker.

Hellcat is another one of those highly recycled figures and that’s more an observation than a criticism. At first I thought this was just the Ms. Marvel body, but that figure had bicep swivels and Hellcat doesn’t. Maybe they’re just different arms. Either way, this is a generic female buck with the costume painted on. And in this case, the paint is a bit problematic, because the bulk of the body is cast in yellow plastic, but the lower legs and feet are black with a little under the knee painted yellow. Unfortunately the paint doesn’t match. Also note the rather obvious use of the sash from Carol Danver’s Warbird costume.

At least the head is new and it’s a pretty good portrait. The mask is great and she has the pupil-less eyes just like I like them. I especially dig the way they did her hair. It spills out of the back of her mask and just kind of erupts down her back in a red fiery explosion. Nice!

Hellcat is a nimble little kitty and the figure does a nice job of conveying that through her articulation. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows and wrists. The hinges on the wrists, however are oddly positioned so she can tilt her hands side to side, rather than front and back. Weird! The legs are ball jointed at the hips, swivel at the thighs, double hinged at the knees, and the ankles have hinges and generous lateral rockers. The torso features a ball joint just under her chest and the neck has both a hinge and ball joint.

Lest you thought I was done with the subject of parts sharing, it appears as if Hellcat stole Daredevil’s batons and painted them black. These are the same two rods that can be pegged together to form a longer fighting stick. I don’t remember ever seeing Patsy use anything like this, but I’m certainly not an expert on the character. I guess they kind of fit her, so I’m willing to give it a pass. Gosh, I’m in a generous mood today!

Yes, it seems like the subject of parts recycling is coming up more and more, and I’ll keep standing by my mantra. There’s nothing wrong with it so long as its done thoughtfully and it’s used to get us a figure that we otherwise might not have seen. I think those criteria mostly fit Hellcat. She’s a solid, albeit not spectacular figure and honestly, I’m just so surprised and pleased that we got her that I’m willing to overlook issues like poor color matching. Does that make me part of the problem? Maybe, but holy crap, there’s a Hellcat figure hanging on the pegs. Isn’t that worth a little recycling? To me it sure is. Next Monday I’ll check out Spider-Woman, the last figure in the Wave I need to open before building Thanos!

May 17 2015

GI JOE: 50th Anniversary “Arctic Ambush” 2-Pack by Hasbro

As promised, I’m back today to once again start spreading a little Joe loving around these parts. In a perfect world the stores would have been crammed full of toys to honor the 50th Anniversary of one of the greatest action figure lines of all time. In this world, the line is all but dead and the 50th was quiety acknowledged by Hasbro and Toys R Us with some exclusive figure packs and a couple of vehicles. Seeing as how I don’t have a TRU within 50 miles of here, these passed largely unnoticed to me until browsing an online retailer and finding some of them up for sale. I grabbed two and the first of those is what we’re looking at today… Behold the Arctic Ambush!

The packaging here is pretty damn cool. You get a blister card with a large bubble showing off two figures and a shitload of weapons and gear, The top of the bubble is molded to look like part of a star and the insert on the front features the GI JOE logo, the 50th Star and the names of the figures: Snow Job and Arctic BAT. I absolutely had to get this when I saw it because Snow Job was my very first Joe figure when I was a kid. I can still remember going to get pool supplies with my dad in Newark, NJ. There was a huge pool-slash-toy store there and he got me Snow Job and the Poler Battle Bear. There was no coming back from that and ever since then Snow Job has had a special place in my collection. The back of the card has filecards for each character and a little saying about how GI JOE has filled our imaginations with exciting adventures for fifty years and it makes me want to cry. Before I get all weepy, I’m going to open this baby up and start with Snow Job.

Snow Job comes all bundled up for action in a set of toasty warm arctic combat fatigues, which include a parka with high collar that prevents his neck getting frostbite and his head falling off (Trust me, that joke is going to be a lot more tragic when we get to the end of this Feature). As a result, there isn’t a lot of variety to this figure’s outfit, but it sure looks great, right down to all the sculpted stitching and the painted camo patterns. The head sculpt includes a sculpted cap with a set of goggles permanently down over his eyes and about the only thing you can see that’s actually Harlan under all that is his glorious red beard. I do kind of wish the goggles were removable or maybe have an extra head in there, but it’s hard for me to criticize the lack of a spare head when I see how much stuff comes with this guy. Let me just run through it all…

Backpack with Sculpted Bedroll, Antenna, and Removable Equipment Rack.
Cloth Bedroll
Cookstove and Frying Pan.
Skis and Ski Poles
Gasoline Can
Ice Pick
Radio
Machine Gun with Bipod.

God, I love all this gear and I particularly love the fact that just about all of it attaches to his backpack in one way or another. The bedroll is about the only thing I can’t find a way to attach, but you can still tuck it in there somewhere. As a kid, I used to picture Snow Job as a survivalist and a loner who was always out there in the white wilderness maintaining some god-forsaken JOE base camp and waiting to be called on when some strategic piece of satellite happened to soft land up there and Cobra wanted it. This figure really gives me the feeling of the original 12-inch figures from the 70s, because they used to come with all this great stuff. It’s beyond cool that Hasbro is able to make it work with such a small scale action figure.

Snow Job also features far better articulation than anyone wearing this much cold weather gear should possibly have. His arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, and swivels in the wrists. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, and rotating hinges in the ankles. He can swivel at the waist and he has a ball jointed neck.

What possible match could Cobra have to go up against Snow Job’s cold weather combat skills? An Arctic BAT of course! Why go bundling up humans to brave the bitter cold climates when you can just send in machines? I always loved the Battle Android Troopers. They were an ingenious way to cash in on the robot craze of the 80s while also giving Cobra a disposable army that GI JOE could smash to bits on the cartoon without censors crying foul about violence. Frankly, Hasbro was missing out on a great opportunity by not repainting the hell out of these things into various different specialties like Desert BATs, Jungle BATs, Stealth BATs, etc. Well, I guess it’s never too late because here we have the Arctic BAT and he is freaking glorious.

The sculpt and deco on this BAT is absolutely crazy. He’s got the same arctic camo pattern on his fatigues as Snow Job plus a transparent chest unit so you can see all the doo-dads and what-nots of his inner android workings. The BAT includes a total of five different Borg-like attachments for his arms and he can tote two of the extras around in his backpack. He also comes with an automatic pistol in a functional holster, a machine gun with a bipod and a HUGE capacity magazine, an assault rifle that’s all taped up, and a pair of ice picks, which aren’t painted as nice as Harlan’s.

The BATs articulation is pretty standard stuff for modern JOES. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows and a swivel in the forearm where the arm pieces detach. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have rotating hinges in the ankles. There are ball joints in the torso and neck. If all that gear wasn’t enough, each figure also comes with a personalized display stand. These are the same style of stand that was introduced back in the 25th Anniversary line only with the GI JOE and Cobra emblems painted, which makes them look mighty snazzy.

Oh, wait! Did I mention that the BAT also comes with a battle damaged head and chest plate? How cool is that? Did I mention that when I swapped the head the second time the entire neck post snapped off my figure? How cool is that??? Nope, that’s not cool at all Hasbro. Here I am making a point to talk up GI JOE and you stick me with poor quality control. This is seriously the first time I’ve ever had this happen, and I’ve been collecting action figures nearly all my life.Oh well, I guess it’s better the BAT broke rather then Snow Job. Crippling QC issues aside, everything about this set feels like it was aimed right at me. It has a great new version of one of my earliest JOE figures, an environmentally specific BAT, you get a ton of gear, and with one good guy and one bad guy, it has that battle pack mentality that I love so much. Just leave me alone with this 2-pack and I’ll be staging battles on my desk all afternoon long… at least until the head snaps off one of them and then the fun stops short. Next week, I’ll circle back and take a look at the other one of these sets I picked up. Hopefully noone will get decapitated.

May 16 2015

GI JOE WILL RETURN AFTER THESE MESSAGES…

Folks, I’ve had GI JOE on the brain lately and for a number of seemingly unrelated reasons. At first it was mostly feeling bad about never getting around to the Features that I planned for the 50th Anniversary, most notably looking at my other two 25th Anniversary 5-packs as well as my finally complete set of the 25th Anniversary Dreadnoks. Then the topic of this year’s JoeCon came up on the last episode of 2 Drunk Geeks and Ryan and I was pretty vocal about how sad and pathetic I thought the showing of product was. It was at the end of the show, and the Jameson had me in a proper state by then, but listening to it made me feel like I was being pretty harsh toward a loving fan base who were clearly just happy to be getting anything. Part of it was the booze talking, but part of it was just inner rage.

When almost every single toy line from the 80’s has had (or attempted) a comeback these days, it angers me to no end that the Targets and Walmarts can’t set aside 4ft of space for GI JOE and that Hasbro can’t make this happen. It’s all the more irritating considering how great the modern figures have become. Hell, even with two totally shitty movies to work with, Hasbro still managed to turn up some amazing figures. I doubt I’d ever sit through GI JOE: The Rise of Cobra more than once, but I sure have a lot of the figures, and most of them are excellent. Hell, I even ponied up for the massive PITT playset. OK, it was on clearance, but I still bought it and love it. It was the last truly huge vehicle the line would see and now fans have to be excited about yet another remold of the bloody AWE Striker. It’s a sad state of affairs for the property. And when I still see The Corps figures are still hanging on the pegs at my local Target, that just rubs salt in the wound.

And yeah, I’m sort of part of that fan base. Because I’m not willing to join fan clubs or hunt down many store exclusives, the brand has more or less died out for me. But GI JOE was such a huge thing to me growing up, both the original 12-inch figures that were handed down to me by my uncle and later the 3 3/4″ stuff that replaced Star Wars as the focus of my toy world. I still have a ton of GI JOE stuff and while the figures are all neatly bagged with their accessories and easily accessible in Toy Closet Alpha, and I proudly hang a Skystriker on my wall, the rest of the vehicles are relegated to half a dozen Rubbermaid Totes and stowed far out in Toy Closet Zulu. I don’t have the space to display them so it becomes an “out of sight, out of mind” situation.

But the other thing that brought GI JOE back to the forefront of my alcohol addled brain lately is that I’ve actually bought some Joes for the first time in a while. A few days back I picked up two of the Exclusive 50th Anniversary Two-Packs, one of which I’ll be looking at tomorrow. I’ve also recently replaced a handful of my Sigma 6 figures, which were lost to me in a flood several years back and which I’ll probably start featuring here sometime in a week or two. Yeah, I know most JOE fans see S6 as an abomination, but I loved these figures simply because they were such fun toys. So, as the title says, GI JOE will be returning to FFZ. It’s going to be one of my side projects over the Summer to get the brand represented here with some regularity again and help bolster those three dozen or so Joe Features that appear in my Index of Reviews.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back with a look at the 50th Anniversary Arctic Ambush set. Yeah, I know it’s the weekend, but I’m trying to make up for some of the downtime last week. YO JOE!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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