Apr 22 2015

Marvel Legends (Thanos Wave): Batroc the Leaper by Hasbro

With the last wave of Marvel Legends behind me, it’s time to jump right into the most recent assortment… The Thanos Wave! This one is split between three straight up comic characters and three figures form the Age of Ultron movie. I’m probably going to get into the Avengers 2 figures next week, what with the movie coming out, so I thought I’d start with something from the comic side of the fence and you can’t get more comic than Batroc. Yes, folks, you know it’s a miraculous time to be a comic book fan and toy collector when you can walk into a Target or Walmart and buy a Batroc the Leaper right off the peg. Holy shit, whoever thought this would be possible!

There’s not much new to be said about the packaing. You get the now standard window box with the Marvel logo up top and Batroc’s name down the bottom. The back of the package has a single sentence about Batroc, which is fine because I would imagine that if you don’t happen to already know who he is the only reason you’d buy this figure is to get the Thanos pieces. Included are Thanos’ torso and shoulder armor and between those and Batroc there isn’t much space left in this box. Batroc, of course, made a drastically altered appearance in The Winter Soldier as one of the French mercenaries who hijacked the SHIELD vessel and took hostages leading to a pretty bad ass fight between Cap and The Leaper. Besides the name, however, the only thing that really survived the transition to big screen was some purple on his clothing and a pencheon for French kickboxing.

Of course, you’d have to be a kickboxer, veteran of the French Foreign Legion, and all over badass to walk around looking like this! With his purple and gold outfit, Batroc is clearly not afraid of having his fashion sense challenged. Batroc’s costume is achieved exclusively through paintwork on a generic figure buck, but it works perfectly fine. There’s a little bit of gold spray on the purple of his left arm, but otherwise the paint lines are nice and clean. The colors are absolutely gorgeous too. This figure really pops on the shelf, even when surrounded by a legion of equally brightly colored costumed heroes and villains.

Ah, but Batroc is all about that face and Hasbro did a wonderful job with it. They pulled no punches with his goatee, classic stereotypical villain mustache and that cheesy grin. Even the nose is so superbly defined. I think this may go down as one of my favorite head sculpts in the modern Legends era, and there have been some great ones, so that’s really saying something!

The articulation here provides plenty of poseability. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and there are swivels in his thighs and the tops of his boots. The ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. Finally, you get a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the torso, and both a ball joint and hinge in the neck. The lateral shoulder crunches that we saw in Iron Fist a few days ago would have been welcome here, but I’m still happy with what we got.

Batroc is a great example of why I’m so excited about what Hasbro has been doing with the Legends line. Here we are on the cusp of Avengers 2’s release and rather than simply stack the deck with movie figures to cash in on that huge media cow, they are still managing to blow a kiss to those of us that read comic books. You have to figure that tossing in an Age of Ultron Hawkeye or an Ultron Drone would have had to sell better than Batroc, and that’s why I consider releases like this to be such a welcome love letter. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still love to see those other figures, along with a MovieVerse Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, but I’m more happy to see a balance struck between movie and comic book characters on the pegs.

Apr 21 2015

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

Ah, the Build-A-Figure! On the one hand it gives you an extra reward for being a good little collector and completing a Marvel Legends wave. On the other hand, sometimes you’re beholden to buying figures you don’t want just so you can get an arm or a leg. In the case of The Allfather Wave, I was perfectly happy buying all the figures in the assortment so that I could could build me an Odin. And yes, I said Odin as opposed to King Thor. You do get two different choices on how you want to go with this figure. The “Maidens of Might” variants gave you different heads, capes, and weapons and the “Avenging Allies” variants gave you the two different sets of arms. The obvious choice is, why can’t I have both? Well, if you’re welling to do a little boiling and popping, you could probably have your Asgardian cake and eat it too, but without applying some heat, it’s pretty tough to get those arms out once they’re in. I’m mainly only interested in Odin here so that’s the route I’m going. Of course, there’s no packaged shot, but let’s take a look at the pieces instead.

If you’ve completed the wave then you have all eight pieces needed for the build. That’s a head, a torso, two arms, two legs, a cape, and a staff. Everything locks together beautifully and the resulting figure is as solid as any of the individually boxed releases. Most of the time I tend to associate BAFs with larger figures that wouldn’t have been cost effective as a single release, but in this case Odin would have had no problems fitting into a Marvel Legends box. Then again with past precedents like Rocket Raccoon and Hit Monkey, Hasbro has certainly been redefining what it is to be a BAF and these days it isn’t just all about size anymore.

This is possibly my favorite look for The Allfather to date. It’s a nice cross between comic book style with some groundings in gritty historical garb. The plate armor that makes up the torso, shoulders and lower legs is just gorgeous. Not only is it sculpted with all sorts of different plates and rivets, but also with scrapes and weathering. The paintwork here is also quite amazing and creates a convincing patina that makes it look like genuinely well used armor. It’s hard to believe that this is the same company behind some of the shoddy or non-existant paintwork we’ve been seeing in the Transformers line, although I concede that it’s been getting better. In addition to the armor plate, you get a soft plastic “leather” skirt with a detailed belt, wraps for the wrists and a blue cape that pegs into the back. The shoulder pieces peg in pretty securely while still offering the luxury of detaching rather than breaking if you put too much stress on them.

And then you have this wonderful head sculpt. Odin oozes personality with the tip of his grey beard gathered into a… what is that, a beard pony tail? Honestly, I have no idea about the proper terminology here, but it looks great. The winged helmet is cast in a somewhat dull goldish plastic with two mighty ram horns coming off the sides. Odin sports a fierce expression with one eye patched and the other narrowed on his foe. Brilliant!

Despite being a BAF, the articulation here is more or less in line with what I’ve come to expect from the current Legends line. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, as well as swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, and double hinged at the knees. There are swivels in the thighs and the ankles feature hinges and lateral rockers. The is a ball joint in the torso and another in the neck. I expected the costume to impede articulation a lot more than it does. The slits in the “skirt” actually allow for a decent amount of leg movement and if you cast off the cape, you can get more in the shoulders.

Of course, Odin wouldn’t be complete without his kingly staff and one included certainly fits the bill. It’s a great sculpt, although I can’t deny I would have liked some more paint apps on it. Maybe they blew the budget on that beautiful armor.

If you decide to go for King Thor Odinson, you get all the great work that went into the body with just a few changes. The Thor head is excellent, albeit not as elaborate as Odin’s. You also get the artificial left arm with the right one being identical to the one used for Odin. Finally, the cape is the same sculpt only red in keeping with Thor’s traditional color of garb, and instead of the staff you get his Axe. The Axe is probably the only thing I would consider disappointing here. It looks too scrawny to me. It’s definitely going into the Masters of the Universe armory.

There’s no better way to wrap up a fantastic wave of figures then by following it with a fantastic BAF and Odin is certainly that. He was a great choice of character and I think they did an absolutely… dare I say it? Marvelous job on him. He also means a little something special to me as I still kick myself every once and a while for not picking up the Hot Toys Odin when he was first released, but at the time Hot Toys were just something I admired from afar. Obviously, that version of Odin is a whole nother beast entirely, but it’s still nice to fill that Odin shaped hole in my collection, even if it is in a different scale.

Apr 20 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Iron Fist by Hasbro

Happy Monday and it is indeed a happy one because it kicks off a glorious week of vacation for me where all I will have to do is lounge around the house, read comics, play video games, and obsess over toys. I’m also kicking off a Marvel Week, which marks one of the first themed weeks I’ve done in a long time, although I’ll still be breaking it up on Thursday for Transformers. Anyway, today we’re here to look at the final boxed figure from the Marvel Legends Allfather Series and it is indeed Iron Fist. I’ve been looking forward to getting this guy onto my Legends shelf for a long time, so let’s jump (kick) right in!

The packaging should hold no surprises by now. It’s the simple window box that we’ve been seeing all along. It displays the figure nicely whether standing on a shelf or hanging on a peg, and while the deco isn’t as wonderfully obnoxious as the packaging from the first couple waves of Legends’ return, I still dig it. I truly hope that Iron Fist is going to work his way into Disney’s Marvel plans at some point in time, ideally as a supporting character on the up and coming Luke Cage Netflix series. I’ve been so damn impressed by the Daredevil show that I’d love to see Fist go down this route as well and it seems like the perfect format for the character.

Iron Fist comes in his white and gold outfit, which is probably less iconic to many out there, but I really dig it. The white plastic hasbro used here is great and while the gold does have some of that swirly effect that I’m not crazy about, I’m still very pleased with the way the deco on this guy turned out. The dragon emblem on his chest is a crisp tampo and aside from the head sculpt and the waist sash, there’s not a lot of unique sculpting on this figure.

The portrait here is serviceable, although it doesn’t blow me away. He has a nice firm jawline and the mask looks good, complete with the two tails running off the back where it’s tied on. The black paint around the eyes is clean and sharply applied.

This body strikes me as being from one of the crossovers from Hasbro’s first attempt at Marvel Legends and the articulation is identical to the Yellowjacket figure from that initial wave. That’s mostly a good thing because while it does involve those rather annoying rotating hinges in the hips, you can still get some great movement out of this guy thanks in part to those extra lateral hinges in the shoulders. And let’s face it, Iron Fist is all about being limber! The rest of the articulation includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinges in the knees and ankles, hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles, hinges and swivels in the wrists, swivels in the biceps and thighs, a waist swivel, an ab crunch in the torso, and both a ball joint and hinge in the neck. Nice!

Little by little, Hasbro has been including extra hands in with select Marvel Legends release, but Iron Fist is the first time that I can recall them going full Figuarts on our asses. Iron Fist comes with no less than four pairs of hands and all of them are great. You get a pair of fists, clutching hands, palm strike hands, and karate-chop hands. All of them are easily swapped out with a post and peg method. I’m not usually one to go crazy over extra hands, but in this case they’re definitely adding a lot to my play value.

Iron Fist will definitely be hanging out on my desk for a while because he’s so much fun to pick up and play with and the extra hands really go a long way to make a solid figure even better. He also rounds out what was an absolutely stellar wave of figures. Not only was the character selection great but every figure in this wave was well executed. In fact, I’d dare say I can’t remember a wave of Legends that has delivered this consistantly and that’s coming from someone who is more often then not quite satisfied with this line. But we’re not done yet! Tomorrow I’ll be back to pick all the loose BAF pieces out of my tote and assemble The Allfather himself!

Apr 16 2015

Transformers Combiner Wars: Air Raid by Hasbro

If it’s Thursday it must be Transformers time and today I’m ripping into a Hasbro’s second wave of Deluxes from their Combiner Wars line. Hasbro made the maddening decision to mix up the waves by including one Stunticon in the first case and one Aerialbot in the second and that means while I was mainly after the Stunticons here, the convenience of getting them all in one shot meant I had to pick up Air Raid. You may have expected me to jump right into the Stunticons, but I’m actually going to get Air Raid out of the way first. I’ve avoided buying any of the Hasbro Aerialbots in favor of Takara’s Unite Warriors version, but this will give me a little idea of whether that was the right choice or if I should just bite the bullet and pick up the Hasbro versions that are all available now.

What’s this? A comic pack??? I honestly had no idea that Hasbro was going to be incorporating the comics into the Combiner Wars Deluxes, but I’m beside myself with joy that they are doing this. Here all along I was thinking that this delightful duo of comic and toy was getting retired with the Generations line. Needless to say that while I’m still not overly smitten with the packaging deco of this series, tossing in the comic as character art makes up for a multitude of sins. You could wrap the figure in a paper back and as long as there was a comic included, I’d be happy. Air Raid comes packaged in his robot mode, but as usual I’m going to start with his jet mode.

Air Raid’s alt mode is what I believe to be an F-14 Tomcat and I sincerely hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong. With his black paint job, striped wings, and Autobot emblems on the wings, I think he looks pretty close to his G1 namesake, even if the model of aircraft may have changed. In fact, apart from his tail fins being a little too close together, I’ve got no complaints. Sure, he’s a jet with a brick of robot kibble hanging under him, but that is as much part of the homage as anything and I love it. Yes, I will concede a little disappointment that the entire story of this figure’s engineering can pretty much be summed up by flipping the jet over and seeing the robot with his arms and legs tucked in, but there’s enough here tugging at my nostalgia strings to make me very happy with this alt mode. Of course, newer fans who cut their teeth on the more complex Deluxe Transformers of recent years and expect more expertly crafted alt modes may find their mileage varies.

About the only thing disappointing to me about Air Raid’s jet mode is the lack of any fun modular weapons. He is pegged under the wings and on the sides to take weapons, and yes you can peg his double gun into any one of those, but the result is a rather lopsided looking jet. It sure would have been cool if the gun pulled apart to form two guns to mount under the wings or on the sides of the undercarriage. Ah, well. There is a peg on the top of the jet’s back where you can mount the gun and make it look a little balanced, but I’m not a fan of the giant cannon mounted on the back of my F-??. It just doesn’t work for me.

As peeking under the jet suggests, Air Raid’s transformation is as simple as pulling the arms out, unfolding the legs, flipping the jet up into a backpack, turning the head around. You can do it in just a few seconds, which definitely adds to the playability. As a kid, I always enjoyed being able to change my bots back and forth quickly.

In robot mode, Air Raid is superb update to the old G1 toy. And yes, once again that entails having a robot with a jet on his back. I wouldn’t have it any other way! The proportions on this guy are just perfect and the way the combiner port on his chest is hidden in plain sight works beautifully. For whatever reason, I wasn’t a big fan of it on Dragstrip, but I love it here. You even get the same intakes on his chest that the G1 toy had, only here a little more pronounced and stylized. Even the head sculpt here is pure G1 love. Like all of these Combiner Wars Deluxes, Air Raid is a pretty good sized figure. In fact, he’s not all that much smaller than TFC’s take on the character.

One of my early complaints about the official pictures of these guys was the lack of paint apps, but in hand I have absolutely no problems with Air Raid’s deco. The red and white deco is another great homage to the G1 character and the white plastic Hasbro is using here looks and feels great. The extra bits of red and gold are more than enough to carry the day. I only wish they had tampo’d the Autobot symbol on his chest instead of putting a tiny one on his shoulder.

Air Raid’s solid articulation makes for a very fun action figure. You get ball joints in the shoulders, hips, and neck. The elbows and knees are hinged, and he can rotate just below the waist. It’s not mind blowing poseability, but it gives me just what I need. He’s a solid and chunky figure too with great balance.

The accessories include the aforementioned double barreled gun and a combiner part. The gun works much better in robot mode as you can have him hold it in either hand or just mount it to one of his arms. Some paint apps would have been nice, but we all know how that goes these days, right? The combiner part isn’t so useful in robot mode, but we’ll see it again when I finally get some more of these figures and combine them into Superion.

While new fans may wonder what all the fuss is about, I think Air Raid is one of my favorite Deluxes to come around in a while. He’s the perfect update to the old G1 character and toy, taking everything that makes me nostalgic for that design and crafting it into a modern action figure. He’s fun to play with and transform and it’s nice to finally have some Aerialbots that are in scale with my other Deluxes. So did Air Raid win me over to the Hasbro route? Will I be cancelling my Takara Unite Warriors Superion? It’s still too early to tell. Air Raid has certainly impressed me enough that I want to get more and in the end it may just be my eagerness to get all the Aerialbots that leads me down the Hasbro path.

Apr 13 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Sentry by Hasbro

It’s Marvel Monday again and I’m down to the last two figures from the Allfather Wave. Today I’m a little pressed for time, so I’m taking a look at Sentry, because honestly, I don’t have a deep running relationship with this character. He’s certainly got some interesting stuff going on in his backstory, but I just don’t often bump into him in the books that I choose to read. Sentry was originally scheduled to appear as a running variant way back in the 2013 Hit Monkey BAF Wave, sharing the slot with Hyperion. As was often the case back in those days, the running variants didn’t always happen (although there are plenty of pictures of carded samples of this figure in the old style packaging floating around the InterTubeWeb) and so Hyperion was the only one of the “Conquering Heroes” to hit the pegs. This time around, Sentry is once again sharing a slot, this time with Machine Man as one of the “Avenging Allies.” Thankfully, Hasbro is doing things differently now and the variants are now being included as part of the standard case assortments.

I’ve got nothing much new to say about the packaging. It has the “Marvel” logo on top rather than the “Avengers” one and as already mentioned, the front of the package is labeled “Avenging Allies,” with Sentry’s name only appearing on the back panel with Machine Man’s and a very generic blurb about the two characters. Sentry is a pretty big boy and when you toss in Odin’s BAF arms, this tray comes packed with a lot of plastic.

Sentry appears to share most of the body that was used for Hyperion, which works for me. The only real changes to the costume sculpt are found in the boots, Sentry doesn’t have the cuffed tops, the cape, and Sentry sports his gigantic self-promoting belt buckle. The hands are also reversed between the two figures. Hyperion had the fist on the right and the holding hand on the left, wheras here it’s the other way around. I probably would have preferred both fists for Sentry. I really don’t need him holding anything, just punching. Anyway, the coloring on this figure is quite good. I always liked the pop of Sentry’s yellow and blue costume and it is most definitely well reproduced here. Hasbro sometimes has a habit of using some pretty shitty yellow plastic, but that’s not the case with Sentry’s buck and the paint apps are all nice and clean.

I really dig what Hasbro did with portrait here. It’s very detailed and loaded with personality. The hair is quite well done too. This is far better than what we got with the 3 3/4″ release, and I’m not just saying that because of scale change and quality of sculpt, but also from an artistic standpoint.

If you have Hyperion then you should know what to expect from Sentry’s articulation, but let’s run through it anyway. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and fists, swivels in the biceps, and double hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels at the thighs and boots, double hinges in the knees, and hinges in the ankles. There’s an ab-crunch in the torso and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged.

Despite not being the biggest fan of Sentry around, my Marvel figure collecting addiction is all about universe building so I’m still very happy to get this guy in my collection. Sentry was also released a little while back in the Universe line as part of a New Avengers Comic 2-Pack, but that one passed me by so it’s nice to at least have him in the 6-inch scale. Sure it helps that I also get two more of the parts I need to build Odin, but I probably would have happily picked up this figure even if he wasn’t part of a BAF series.

Next week is going to be almost a straight Marvel Week. On Monday I’ll wrap up the individual figures in this wave with a look at Iron Fist. Tuesday, I’ll check out the BAF Odin, Wednesday I’ll look at the first figure from the Legends Thanos Wave, we’ll break for Transformers Thursday (Hey, Marvel used to do their comics, right?) and then Friday and Saturday I’ll feature the TRU Exclusive Agents of SHIELD 3-Pack.

Apr 9 2015

Transformers Combiner Wars: Megatron (Leader Class) by Hasbro

Yes, folks, the short hiatus for Transformers Thursday is over and I should be able to keep things going again for another month or so. Today we’re looking at a release that I have been super excited to get. Ah, Megatron! The original big bad of the Transformers Universe. He’s been reworked and redesigned a dozen times over since his G1 days, far more so than his nemesis Optimus Prime. But that’s what you get when you’re alt mode was a gun and is now taboo for the toy aisles. I think there have been some excellent versions of Megatron over the years, but all of them have left me all the more wanting for a solid Generation One version again. Even Takara’s so-called Masterpiece Megatron was a miserable disappointment. Now, after all these years, Hasbro has stepped up to give me what I want: A Megatron that is faithful to his G1 robot mode. Yes, folks, this is likely as close as we’re ever going to get to a G1 Megatron in a Hasbro package, so let’s see how they did.

And there he is in all his packaged glory. Despite not being an actual combiner (and thank Primus for that!), Megatron is still part of the Combiner Wars branding. “Transformers” runs up the right side of the front panel and a window box shows you the glorious figure inside. And man, does he look glorious. Even if I hadn’t gone down the whole toy collecting road some fifteen or so years ago, seeing this figure in the aisle at Target or Walmart would have stopped me dead in my tracks. The front of the box also features some great character art. The back of the package has pictures of the figure in both robot and alt modes and a little bio blurb that follows the IDW narrative. Megatron has been many things over the decades, but I don’t think there’s any mode that suits him more than the mode he first adopted as part of Generation 2: A battle tank! Yes, I think this form suits him even more than his original gun persona. It’s something that’s been difficult for me to reconcile since his animated G1 design is still my favorite of all of Megatron’s many robot forms, but making that work as a tank seemed rather unlikely. At least until now. I honestly cannot wait to get this guy out of the box, so give me a few moments with a box cutter and then we’re going to take a look at his alt mode.

As far as tank modes go, this one is a thing of beauty! It’s a fairly realistic style modern day tank made only conspicuous by its unusual color. The bulk of the tank’s skin is a brilliant silver, which may be unrealistic, but makes up for it by being absolutely gorgeous and also serving the dual purpose of giving us a G1 colored Megatron in robot mode. I can’t believe how great the paint looks on this toy! Toss in some black for the guns and treads and a little exposed red here and there and this vehicle gives off a very familiar and pleasing deco even before he gets into robot mode. The bright purple Decepticon logo on the front is the perfect final touch!

The sculpted detail goes above and beyond what we’ve been seeing in Hasbro Transformers lately. From the panel lines to all the tiny plates of armor, compartments, and vents. There’s barely any part of the tank’s surface that isn’t adorned with some kind of little creative touch. And what’s that? Real rubber treads! Be still my heart! That was one of my favorite things about the Revenge of the Fallen Bludgeon figure and it’s nice to see Hasbro doing it again. The turret can rotate and the main cannon fires off a red missile. There are also two smaller guns that can peg in to the top of the turret separately, or they can be combined to form a bigger weapon. Oh yeah, he also sports some Mini-Con ports, which are no doubt tied to the other version of this toy, but are none the less welcome here as well. I love Mini-Con ports!!!

Transforming Megatron into his robot mode goes fairly quickly. The box claims it takes 15 steps, and while I didn’t count that sounds about right. Everything is quite intuitive and while some might argue the process is a little simple for a Leader Class toy, it’s hard for me to argue when the resulting robot looks like this…

Hot Freaking Damn! Is this G1 Megatron? Not quite, but it’s ooooh, so close and the way Hasbro managed to make this robot mode look this close to G1 from a tank alt mode impresses me to no end. And yes, I realize this figure is based on the IDW design, but it’s clear what that design was based on. I’d say that the head and the chest are the figure’s two best features in terms of Sunbow G1 goodness. In fact, I think that both are pretty much perfect. The portrait has all the personality that I’ve come to know and love from the Megsy of my youth. I can practically hear Frank Welker’s voice coming out of his mouth. There’s some excellent light piping in his eyes, although I found it tough to trigger because of the backpack. As for the chest, the only thing it’s really missing is the scrollwork designs from his gun mode. Fantastic!

The proportions on the figure are also excellent. Yes, I think the lower legs could have been a little bulkier, especially since Megatron is packing some serious guns, and I’m not talking about his guns. His arms are substantial and I like the way they’re designed to pull away from the torso at the shoulders to give him a better range of motion. The red on the inside of his arms is also a great nod back to the G1 Megatron toy. I also really dig how despite the treads on his lower legs, they still manage to maintain the overall shape of the pistol grip legs of the original Megatron toy. About the only other thing that makes this design stand out as not my traiditonal Megatron is the tank tread backpack, and even that is very neatly packed away. The fusion cannon is mounted on a hinge so that it can be positioned on the front of his arm for firing, or angled to the side to allow him full arm articulation.

My two biggest gripes with Combiner Wars Megatron don’t really involve the figure as it is, but rather what it could have been. I really wanted the fusion cannon on his arm to match the G1 design more closely. All it’s really missing is a more flared out front end, rather than the narrower tank cannon muzzle. Secondly, he’s so close to being in scale with Masterpiece Optimus Prime (MP-10) that it’s almost a crime that he doesn’t quite make it. If you really want to make it work, you probably can, but I can’t have my G1 Mesgy be even a smidge shorter than Optimus. It just doesn’t work. Again, both issues are personal gripes and happily, both issues should be fixed when I get my Upgrade Kit from DX-9. At least for the time being, he does scale quite well with Masterpiece Soundwave and Laserbeak!

I have nothing but accolades for Hasbro and the fantastic job they did on this figure. Megatron set me back just a bit under fifty bucks and he was worth every damn penny. Hell, even with the additional forty bucks I’m going to pay for the Third-Party Upgrade Kit, I still feel he’s totally worth the money. Then again I have become used to paying a lot of money for 3P Change-A-Bots, so that may have colored my sense of value. And speaking of 3P Transformers, I’d stack this toy up against most of the ones I’ve been getting from those other companies. This figure really feels like Hasbro has been paying attention and learning from their unofficial competition and I dare say this is one of my favorite releases of their’s in a very long time. In fact, here we are only in April and I feel as if this figure will be a strong contender for one of my favorites of the year. Am I picking up the Armada variant? Probably not. It actually looks like a great figure, but I think this version of the mold does it for me. Besides, I still have and love my Armada Megatron and I’m not looking to replace him. As for this guy… DX-9’s Kit is supposed to arrive sometime next month, so we’ll be revisiting Megsy here when I get it in.

Apr 6 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Machine Man by Hasbro

Yes, I’ve re-launched Marvel Mondays to help me get through the stacks and stacks of Marvel Legends figures that are piling up around here. By my reckoning I’m now a little more than halfway through the Allfather Wave and I’ve got the Thanos Wave headed to me as we speak. Today we’re looking at Dr. Abel Stack’s pride and joy… Machine Man, or if you prefer his given name… Z2P4… wait… Z42P… Ah, screw it. He’s Machine Man! This is one of those characters that I rarely ever encountered in my meanderings through the Marvel funnybooks. I know about him only from my love of Jack Kirby and that he originally appeared in Marvel’s 2001: A Space Odyssey comic, but it’s been decades since I’ve actually read anything he appeared in.

Just like with Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch, Machine Man shares his slot with another character, in this case Sentry. As a result, Machine Man’s name only appears on the back of the package. On the front this package simply proclaims “Avenging Allies.” I would take issue at the suggestion that Machine Man carries the same Avengers gravitas as Sentry, but then it’s just printing on a package that I’m going to throw away anyway, so what difference does it make? On the other hand, there’s absolutely no bio or blurb about the character, and I have to assume that this guy is going to be an unknown to most casual comic fans. MM is not a particularly large figure, but when you pack in his two interchangeable arms and the two BAF parts, the tray fills out quite nicely.

Straightaway, Machine Man feels a little cheap in hand. The elbow hinges are rather gummy and while his hip joints will support the figure with no problems, the torso will flop all over if you hold him by his legs and shake him. The costume is comprised of a generic buck with metallic purple and silver paint. The only original piece of sculpting from the waist down is the belt, which hangs loose around his waist. There are some rather pronounced seam lines on the figure too. I’m guessing the shaky feel of the figure has a lot to do with the plastic they had to use to get that nice glossy sheen. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t stand up to some of the other figures in the wave.

The portrait is quite well sculpted and the design screams Jack Kirby’s handiwork. The angular contours of the helmet around his “flesh” look great, as do the pronounced red eyes.

Articulation is everything I’ve come to expect from this line. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and feature swivels both in the thighs and at the tops of the boots. The ankles are hinged and feature lateral rockers. The torso swivels at the waist, has an ab-crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed.
In addition to the two BAF parts, Machine Man comes with two extended arms that can replace his fists. The extentensions are made out of bendible plastic that will more or less hold their shape, which makes for some fun play value.

While the quality feel of this figure is a little questionable, I can’t bring myself to hate on Machine Man. He looks great, just oozes that lovely Kirby charm, and the extended hands are a great addition to what is a super fun action figure. I also can’t deny how wonderful it is that Hasbro is willing to deliver characters like this to the mainstream pegs of the Big Box retailers, rather than just pack the shelves with the A-listers. Next Monday, we’ll check out the other one of the “Avenging Allies,” Sentry!

Apr 1 2015

Star Wars Rebels: Hera Syndulla and Sandtrooper Mission Pack by Hasbro

So, after lamenting the fact that I would probably never find this Mission Pack on the pegs (I’ve never seen ANY Rebels figures on the pegs), yesterday I find a suspicious bulging envelope in my mailbox and inside was this pair of figures dispatched from a friend of mine who knew I was looking for them. Oddly enough, he said it was the only Rebels pack hanging on the pegs and it was in the middle of the Marvel section! It works out great, because I’m a little pressed for time today and while I’m terribly excited to have these figures, the truth is, it won’t take me too long to cover them. There’s no in-package shot, because he mailed them to me loose to save on shipping. BASTARD! (No. No. No. Just kidding, buddy! If you happen to see Chopper send him my way too!) Anyway, let’s start off with the Sandtrooper.

Last time, I commented about how much I love the idea of getting a main character bundled with a troop builder. That’s sort of the case here, although I think this is the only way you can get the Rebels style Sandtrooper, so it’s not really helping with the whole army building thing. That’s OK, though, because I’ll just go ahead and make this guy the squad leader of my other Rebels Stormies because he has a pauldron and that’s all the qualifications he needs. It should probably come as no surprise that this is the exact same Stormtrooper that I’ve already featured twice and that the additional shoulder-wear is the only thing new. Of course, that’s not a bad thing because I absolutely love this mold. It’s shiny, well-painted and has just the right amount of stylized design. It’s not jarringly different than a regular Stormtrooper, but it still manages to be distinctive. As with his other comrades-in-arms, the Sandtrooper comes with his trusty E-11 blaster.

And that brings us to Hera. I love Hera on the show. She’s got lots of personality and the relationship between her and Kanan is endearing and well fleshed out, considering its only been the one season. Her figure is solid enough, but unfortunately my least favorite of the four Ghost crew members I have so far, and that’s all to do with the head sculpt. I think that Zeb and Ezra were spot-on likenesses, and it’s not really fair to judge Sabine, since you can’t see her face, but there’s something a little off about Hera. She just doesn’t look like the same Twi’lek. Her gaunt face and those circles under her eyes make her look sickly. I realize that I’m digging in a bit deep for what is a very basic 3 3/4″ figure, but I’m still going to call it like I see it.

That’s not to say the figure is bad. They did a nice job recreating her outfit with as much detail as they could allow while still keeping the stylized and animated look. She even has her tiny boot holster sculpted on, albeit it isn’t a functional holster. I’m not sure they could have made that work with the figure’s proportions. She’s got her flight goggles pushed up onto her forehead and the white patterns are printed neatly on her head tendrils. Hera also comes with her pistol, which she can hold in either hand. It’s so tiny, I’m truly amazed that I haven’t managed to lose it yet.

Of course, both figures come with the vintage-style five points of articulation. The arms rotate at the shoulders, the legs rotate at the hips, and the heads will turn. I’ve said before that I think this simple articulation works well with these stylized figures, even if it is just a cop out to save money. I think what makes these figures work so well with the limited articulation is that they aren’t pre-posed, but more neutral like the original Kenner figures were.

And so this Mission Pack brings my Rebles Stormtroopers count to three, and my Ghost crew count to four. Kanan is the last of the crew I need and he is still sitting in my POL at BBTS along with the Inquisitor. Yeah, I know… Chopper. He’s still hovering at around $30 on Amazon, so he can keep f’cking off until he decides to sell himself at a more reasonable price. Hasbro has recently issued some troubling statments about these Mission Pack style figures and how they will not be shipping any more of them, so I’m really starting to freak out about getting the ones I want. I may indeed just end up biting the bullet and paying extra so that I can at least get a complete set before they disappear altogether. Still, it’s hard to believe that the show will go through a second season without new action figures on the pegs. That would be a real shame.

Mar 30 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Captain Marvel by Hasbro

As promised on the last Marvel Monday, I’m back to check out the other half of the “Maidens of Might” slot in the Legends Allfather Wave. Of course, it is none other than Carol Danvers, aka. Captain Marvel. I’ve read the first two collected TPBs of her book last year and really loved what they were doing with it. Alas, Volume 3 was never forthcoming so it seemed like a lot of wasted potential. I also wish she’d taken more of a front seat in the Avengers: Infinity arc. But then Carol’s always been a favorite of mine even before she took on the mantle of Captain. To date she’s still the only Bowen Statue I own, I picked up the Target Exclusive 3-pack mainly to get her last Legends figure, and I have all three versions of her in the Universe 3 3/4″ Scale. Needless to say, I was super excited for this figure’s release.

I’m not going to dwell on the packaging because it’s virtually identical to what we saw last time. Again, the Captain Marvel name only appears on the back of the package, with the “Maidens of Might” moniker appearing on the front. Despite Carol being of fairly slight stature, that tray is packed to capacity with BAF parts, the extra masked Captain Marvel head, and an effect part. The BAF parts consist of the variant head, cape, and weapon needed should you desire to build King Thor instead of Odin. A variant Build-A-Figure? Could be you’ve gone too far this time, Hasbro, but I love it!

As one might expect, Captain Marvel’s costume is comprised almost entirely of paint work. In fact, other than the heads, the only piece of unique sculpting on this figure is her sash, which hangs loose on her hips. From the neck down, this figure is just a basic sculpted female buck, which works fine so long as the paint is nice and clean. Thankfully, that is most definitely the case with my figure. The bulk of the costume is a very dark navy blue with the boots and gloves painted red and yellow dots painted down the sides of them. Her yellow starburst and stripes are crisply printed and the red on the shoulders and upper chest is vibrant. The vertical yellow stripe bisecting her torso is a little off kilter, but nothing so bad that it takes away from what is an otherwise great paint job. The coloring here is just so shiny and vibrant it looks terrific.

Carol comes with her unmasked portrait on the figure and it is a fantastic piece of work. She’s pretty and bares a confident expression, which really personifies the character well. They did an especially nice job with her short hair as it’s sculpted to sweep upward in the back. The spikey look could have been a trainwreck if it wasn’t done right, but it looks fantastic, even from the back where she’s got a Sonic the Hedgehog thing going on.

The masked head is equally impressive. I’ll admit that it took me a little while to get used to Carol’s mohawk look, as it struck me more of a Shi’ar style than Kree. It’s probably just because I’m associating it with Gladiator. Nonetheless, it’s grown on me a lot in the comics and Hasbro did a fine job recreating it here. She has the same pursed lips as her unmasked head, completely white eyes, and the sculpting in her mohawk hair is fantastic. I especially like the profile of this head. The contours around the mouth and lips are just perfect.

Captain Marvel does a little bit better than Scarlet Witch in articulation, thanks to the swivels in her biceps, which Wanda lacked. Otherwise, we get the same points. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. You also get a ball joint just under the chest and another in the neck. The joints are firm and she is loads of fun to pose.

The effect part consists of a big glob of translucent purple plastic that fits over her fist to suggest an energy blast, or that Carol has been raiding the jar of grape jelly. I said it last time, I’m not usually a big fan of Hasbro’s effect parts, but this one looks OK. Two would have been nice, but considering how much else is packed into this box, I’m not going to complain about it.

Maybe I’m just super biased here because I’ve been anxiously awaiting the chance to get the modern version of Captain Marvel on my shelf, but either way I gotta say this is one fantastic figure. Carol’s current costume looks fantastic and Hasbro hit all the right points bringing her to their 6-inch scale line. Everything from the coloring on the costume to the two excellent portraits elevates this one to my favorite figure in this Wave thus far, and I’ll tell you even with three figures left to open, Carol is going to be a tough one to beat! She looks particularly good displayed beside the Marvel NOW! version of Captain America. Call me crazy, but I might actually track down a second one of these just so I can display her with both heads and get that second effect part too.

Mar 26 2015

Transformers Combiner Wars: Dragstrip by Hasbro

It’s that day of the week again where I tear open another one of these Hasbro Change-A-Bots and see what he’s all about. Last week I started down the dark path of Stunticons by checking out Motormaster and I came away almost instantly (and surprisingly) impressed. Will that be the case with the first one of the Stunticon Deluxes? Well, here’s a spoiler: No. No, it won’t. The truth is, it took a couple of days of playing around with Dragstrip to really start warming up to him. But I’m getting ahead of myself and protocols must be maintained. So, allow me to do the thing where I write about the figure for an average length of two Word Document pages and then snap some photos. Kay?

I don’t know, but I think the Combiner Wars packaging is growing on me. It still doesn’t really speak to me as a Transformers branded package, but this one does feature some pretty bitchin’ character art. I mean, holy shit, Dragstrip looks like he should be on the cover of a Meat Loaf album riding a guitar into the bowels of hell and laughing the whole time. The bubble also gives you a really great look at the figure you’re getting, which in this case might not be a good thing because looking at this bot in the package did absolutely nothing for me. I ordered this guy online, so that’s my excuse. Dragstrip comes with a weapon, some combiner parts, a character art card and some balled up instructions. Let’s start with his alt mode.

As any GeeWun fan worth his salt should have guessed, Dragstrip is a Formula-1 racer with a yellow and mauve deco. The homage is a decent one and the biggest thing that separates him from his 80’s namesake is one less pair of wheels, but I’m OK with that. The thing that strikes me first about this car mode is just how damn big it is. It seems like Deluxes have been shrinking for so long and now all of the sudden… BAM, we get a growth spurt like this! The car mode here is more in scale with the Masterpiece cars than recent Deluxes. In fact, Dragstrip is almost as long as the Classics Seeker mold in jet form. Nice!

Along with being big, Dragstrip’s alt mode hits all the right points. It’s a good looking car, albeit not exactly packed with detail. There’s some nice silver paint on the wheels as well as the front wheel connecting bars, and again near the back wheels. The driver’s compartment is painted black and you get a crisp Decepticon insignia stamped right in front of that compartment. The car locks together perfectly and rolls really well. It’s a perfectly fine alt mode, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, and yet I still feel a little underwhelmed. I can’t really explain it.

Transformation is about as simple as you can expect for a Deluxe Class figure. Pull the arms out from the sides and flip the fists out, pull the legs down from the back of the car and split them, rotate the legs at the waist and twist the top of the car and fold it back. It takes no time at all. Some may criticize a toy of this size and price having such a simple Transformation, but I would have loved playing with this as a kid for the quick and easy conversion, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.

I am so conflicted about this robot mode. On the plus side, Dragstrip is a big and satisfyingly chunky figure for a Deluxe. The proportions are decent, he stands well, and he’s pretty solid and poseable. Also, with the wheels on his shoulders and legs and the front of the car neatly pegged to his back, the car kibble is all well placed. On the other hand, he ain’t the prettiest thing to look at and I’m mostly blaming the torso for this because it looks so unfinished. Dragstrip has four exposed screws in the most visible area of the figure and that connection port making up his chest just isn’t doing it for me. Some more paint apps might have helped, because he just looks unfinished to me.

The portrait is another sticking point. I’m not sure what they were going for with this head sculpt, but it doesn’t strike me as a head that belongs in the Generations line. It’s not really bad, but maybe a little too stylized. I was hoping for something more akin to the Sunbow look, and maybe that’s my fault for coming in with the wrong expectations.

Nonetheless, the more I play with Dragstrip, the more I find myself liking him. As I said earlier, he’s a solid figure and lots of fun to play with. You get ball joints in the shoulders and hips, hinges in the elbows and knees, a ball jointed neck and a swivel just below the waist. What’s more all the joints are nice and tight and nothing pops out of this guy when I’m transforming him.

Dragstrip comes with a purple weapon that can be used as either a sword or a rifle with a bayonet. It’s a cool design and I like having the options with it. His combiner part, on the other hand, isn’t of much use when it isn’t being a combiner part. I’ve seen people stick it on the figure, but I find it’s best left in a tote until called upon for combined mode. Speaking of which, I’m not bothering to look at Dragstrip’s limb modes until I’ve got a full team and I can do a proper Feature on Menasor.

I rarely find myself this torn on a Transformer, or really any figure, but Dragstrip is one of those rare instances. I can’t point to anything about him as being particularly bad, and yet the figure as a whole doesn’t seem to come together for me as much as it should. In the end, it would be safe to say I like Dragstrip, I just don’t love him. But considering I had really low expectations of this figure when I opened him, he deserves some credit for bringing me around at least part of the way.

And now for a little administrative crap. I’m in the process of transferring all my stuff to a new PC, which is partly why today’s Feature went up so late. I was going to wait until the weekend, but I’d rather spend it enjoying the new computer rather than beating my head against it. So, there will be no new Feature on Friday, I’ll take the usual weekend off and I’ll be ready to get back in action on Monday.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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