Jul 21 2014

Star Wars Black: Vizam (3 ¾” Scale) by Hasbro

I love Skiff Guards. If you haven’t read my chronicles of love for these delightful alien desert pirates then I will direct you to HERE and HERE and even HERE. These characters got some great attention in the Vintage Collection line and it’s nice to see that they’re still getting some love in the Star Wars Black series. Today we’re looking at Vizam who I presume is the guy firing the gun from Jabba’s Sail Barge and I’m pretty sure this is the first time he’s being released as a figure. While I have a number of figures in the 3 ¾” scale Black series, most of them I picked up on the cheap. Vizam here is the first one that I actually sought out to purchase simply because I cannot resist the Skiff Guards.

There’s the packaging. Last Friday I said my piece about the abysmal art design on Hasbro’s current packages and I don’t want to dwell on it any more. I suppose the bland, black cardbacks are more appropriate for Star Wars than they are Marvel. Even the copy about the character on the back is so bland and sterile that it feels like Hasbro just doesn’t care about presentation anymore. They might as well just print, “this is some dude from Star Wars. Buy it.” Either way, the package here is nothing more than a purely utilitarian vehicle to get the figure to the collector. The only real redeeming feature here is that the unobscured bubble does indeed give you a great look at the figure you’re buying.

Vizam is a Nikto, which I always used to think was a name and not a race mainly because the more familiar Skiff Guard figure that appeared first in the Kenner line was called Nikto and still was right up to his Vintage Collection release from a year or so ago. As a result, Vizam uses a repaint of the same head used on Vintage Collection Nikto. It’s a great head sculpt and the fresh paint makes it work as a different character, so I’ve got no gripes about the recycled noggin. The headgear is brand new and it’s still removable too!

The rest of the figure represents the usual ragtag style of outfit that is all the fashion amongst the Skiff Guards these days. I kind of get the feeling that on their day off, these dudes walk around the Sarlacc Pit to scavenge for clothes that the beast has coughed up. Vizam has a little bit more color than most of his cohorts thanks to his blue sleeves, which contrast rather sharply with his brown tunic and his quilted tan chest armor. There are some nicely detailed pouches on his belt and he has a functional holster for his little holdout blaster. Both the sculpt and paintwork are excellent here. Sure, the hinges in the shoulders and knees aren’t painted, but other than that the figure looks so good that I’m inclined to believe Vizam started life as a Vintage Collection release before getting bumped to be repackaged into the Black Series.

Articulation here is right in line with what we got on the Vintage Collection guards. There are ball joints in the neck, shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. There is a swivel in the waist and again at the wrists. The only real disappointment here is the antiquated T-crotch, which prevents any kind of wide stances.

In addition to his pistol and headgear, Vizam comes with the cannon that he mounted to the rail of Jabba’s Sail Barge to take pot shots at our heroes. It’s a really nice sculpt, but it’s cast in some very unfortunately soft plastic. Also, the mounting arm connects to the gun with a ball joint that wants to pop out every time you work the articulation. The arm does have a clip, which is compatible with the railings on the Vintage/POTF2 Skiff vehicle, which is an incredible nice touch.

It’s a little big, but then the Skiff is a tad undersized for the figures anyway. I still think it works well enough.

And so, the 3 ¾” Black Series continues to be all over the map in terms of quality. I’ve been disappointed by more than my share of these figures, but just when I’m about to quit on the line altogether I get a figure like Padme Amidala or Vizam here, which gives me renewed hope and makes me hang on a little longer. Granted, I’m totally biased in favor of this guy because I do love me my Skiff Guards so damn much, but I still think Vizam is a fantastic all around figure and a great addition to my the crew of my Tattooine Skiff.

Jul 18 2014

Marvel Universe Infinite: Cyclops (Astonishing X-Men) by Hasbro

I do still have some unfinished business with the now defunct Marvel Universe line, but in the interest of being topical I’m going to press on and start looking at some of the Marvel Infinite Series. Yes, it’s the same thing only rebranded. It’s so much the same thing that a significant portion of the Infinite lineup has been repackaged figures or in today’s case figures from MU that were cancelled altogether. This Astonishing X-Men version of Cyclops was from a planned three-pack. It’s possibly worth noting that this is my first figure of Scott Summers since the one included in the Secret Wars Comic Pack a long time ago.

There’s the brand new packaging and it, along with the Star Wars Black and Age of Extinction packages, provides further evidence to me that Hasbro has sacked its entire art design department. I mean, really Hasbro, what the hell is up with this? It’s so bland and boring. You’re supposed to be marketing comic book figures for chrissake. Look at the old packaging. It was colorful and exciting and it had great character art. Hell, I still have some of those carded figures hanging on my wall because they look so good. This is so sterile and… blah! Had I not known better I would guess that this package was designed for repacking older Marvel Universe figures and selling them at The Dollar General for five bucks a pop. On the plus side, I don’t have to feel bad about opening the figures any more. So, let’s shred this crappy card to bits and get Cyclops out of his dingy digs.

I can’t say the Astonishing X-Men version is my favorite incarnation of Scott’s costume. Nostalgia dictates that I will probably always be a fan of the 90’s look. Nonetheless, I’m always going to applaud Hasbro for trying to get the look from the current books out on the shelves and pegs. Something in me has to believe that there are still kids out there reading the comics and wanting to go to the store and buy the corresponding figures so they can make adventures of their own. Anyway, aside from the head, there’s really no original sculpting on this figure. Cyclops represents the fairly easy “paint a costume on a standard buck” variety of release.

Cyclops is cast in dark blue plastic with gold paint apps for the arm bracers, lower legs and piping of his costume. He also has the “X” emblem painted on the left of his chest, which I really don’t recall him having in the comics. The paintwork here is all pretty clean with just one break in the gold piping on my figure.

The head sculpt is pretty good, but nothing extraordinary. The lower part of the face assumes a rather stern expression and his visor is quite well defined. Cyclops also features a left hand that is sculpted so that it interacts with his visor to help create some good action poses. There is something odd going on with the paint on his face. It looks like he had an explosive sneeze. It’s not noticeable under normal circumstances, but it’s sure turns up when you get in close with a camera lens.

As far as articulation goes, Cyclops makes use of the most articulated buck we’ve seen in the Marvel Universe line. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have hinges in the elbows and swivels in both the elbows and wrists. The legs have double hinged knees and swivels in both the thighs and lower legs. The ankles feature both hinges and some generous lateral rockers. The torso swivels at the waist, has a ball joint just below the chest and there’s an extra hinge in the neck. It’s worth noting that the waist swivel on my figure was totally stuck and I had to boil the figure in order to reclaim the joint.

If it hasn’t come across in this feature, I’ll just come out and say it now: Cyclops was the one release in the Infinite line so far that I was the least interested in. In fact, I intentionally picked him to go first so I could spend some time talking about the rebranded packaging because I just don’t have a lot else to say about this figure. There’s nothing wrong with him and if anything he has reassured me that despite the crappy new packaging and the needless name change, once you get the figure loose, this is still the same old Marvel Universe that I’ve collected and loved since the beginning. If you were jonesing for Scott Summers in this costume then you’ll probably be glad to have him.

Jul 17 2014

Transformers Generations: Legends Class Starscream by Hasbro

In case you hadn’t noticed, Transformers Thursday has a Legends Class thang going on right now. I consider it a soothing balm to counteract the irritating diaper rash of that Bayformer marathon that I did. I’m also using these guys as a cleansing enema to wash out all the memory of Age of Extinction that remains like the red meat rotting away in my colon. Hey, this intro has gone to a scary and disgusting place, let’s check out Starscream and Waspinator!

Packaging! Seen it already! Starscream comes carded in his robot mode and Waspinator in his little buggy mode. Love the character art. This is how to design packaging, Hasbro! Notice it doesn’t look like that minimalist crap you’ve got on the shelves now! Let’s start with Starscream’s alt mode

I’m not sure if Hasbro was going for a specific model of jet here. It kind of looks like a cross between his original F-15 Eagle and more recent F-22 Raptor modes. Either way, it works for me. The sculpt isn’t overly encumbered with detail, but it gets by particularly thanks to the snappy red and white deco and the Decepticon insignia printed on his wings. The hole in his back is kind of ugly, but it’s obviously there so that Waspinator can ride on his back either in bug or blaster mode. I dig the way Starscream’s null ray cannons mount under his wings and he actually has a folding landing gear under his nose. Nice!

Transforming Starscream is very quick and easy but it still manages to pull off some impressive things. For starters, the wings position nicely on his back so that the Decepticon emblems are facing out and it’s pretty cool how his arm cannons don’t have to be detached for the transformation. I also like how nothing on his robot mode is faked out.

Overall, I think the robot mode here is fantastic. Yes, the shoulder intakes are rather underdeveloped and he’s a tad chunky in the middle, but I’m really nitpicking on what is an otherwise great looking figure. The tiny head sculpts in this line have been surprisingly detailed and Starscream’s may be the best I’ve seen yet. How did they pack that much personality and detail into such a teeny tiny noggin? The articulation is a tad more limited than the other Legends I’ve looked at, but he’s still got plenty of playability. You get ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, and hips, and hinges in the knees. Not bad for such a little guy. He can also wield his arm cannons as guns.

Starscream’s Targetmaster buddy is Waspinator and he is hands down my favorite of these little guys so far. The bug mode is excellent and Hasbro crammed a ridiculous amount of detail into this tiny sculpt. I particularly love the cybernetic elements on the wings. I think his robot mode is a little better than what I’ve seen with Roller and Blazemaster, mainly because the wasp head actually folds down to form his chest and his arms are quite well defined. And again, look at that tiny head… that’s certainly a good likeness to the Beast Wars character packed into something smaller than the head of a nail.

Waspinator’s blaster mode is OK. It’s basically a wasp with his back morphed into a gun barrel. It’s probably on par with Blazemaster’s gun mode but it’s quite large for the Legends Class figures. Starscream can wield it OK, but I think it works better if you give it to a Deluxe or Voyager Class figure.

Hot damn, I’m still loving this Legends line! Everything about these guys feels like they’re made with extra love. Starscream is an excellent little figure and I’m certainly going to go all in when Hasbro finally gets the Thundercracker and Skywarp repaints onto the pegs. I’m so glad I came to these little figures so late in the game because right now they’re giving me a port in the storm while the shelves are full of AoE toys that I don’t want to get involved in. Next Thursday… Megatron!

Jul 14 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Nova by Hasbro

Well, it took me long enough, but I’m finally getting to the last figure in the Marvel Legends GotG Wave: Nova. Wait, didn’t I already look at this figure? Oh, right that was the Marvel Universe version. Yes, I continue to find it odd just how many characters Hasbro is releasing in both the 6-inch and 3 ¾-inch formats and how close together these releases are. It’s possible to wander down a toy aisle right now and find a Marvel Universe Red She-Hulk hanging next to a Legends She-Hulk on Clearance. At the same time, you could probably find a Marvel Universe Nova on clearance beside this Legends version. It’s been going on ever since Marvel Legends came back and I think it’s a bit weird, but that doesn’t stop me from buying the same character in both formats. As I start moving into featuring the Marvel Infinite figures we’ll see a lot more of this curious phenomenon.

Here’s the packaging and we’ve seen it enough times now to give it a quick look and move on. With no accessories apart from one of Groot’s spindly limbs, the package looks a little light inside, but we’ll try not to hold it against him. Nova’s been getting a lot of attention lately and I think that’s a good thing. Will Richard Rider actually appear in the GotG movie? Well the rumor that Nathon Fillion is playing him has been quashed, so the answer to that question remains to be seen. At this point it’s probably safe to chalk this figure up as a comic tie-in much like the Iron Man figure we looked at last time, although it’s not the current Marvel NOW! look of the character and it’s also not what the Nova Corps will be wearing in the movie.

Laying aside the context of the outfit, I think this Nova is a really great looking figure. The design of the suit is identical to the one featured in the Marvel Universe version, however, Hasbro makes use of every advantage of the larger scale. The biggest improvement is in the gold armor bits. The spires on his legs and arms aren’t all floppy like on the smaller figure and that’s a huge plus. Hasbro also went all out and put the shoulder armor on hinged arms so that it doesn’t interfere with the arm articulation. It’s the same concept they tried with the GotG Iron Man figure, only it works much better here and they don’t pop off when posing him.

The sculpt here is pretty involved and features all sorts of panel lining on the suit itself, particularly in the torso. Everything that’s painted is also part of the actual sculpt and that always goes a long way to add to the figure’s credibility. The head features a very pronounced starburst stuck on to the front, which looks good, and I can’t help but get a strong Judge Dredd vibe from the exposed portion of Rider’s face.

The coloring on this figure is quite striking. The combination of sparkly blue plastic used for the bulk of the costume and the metallic gold on the armor is extremely effective. I’m not quite as keen on the bare gold plastic used for the belt and the helmet. I think they should have been painted to match the rest of the armor, but I can live with the difference.

Nova sports most of the articulation that I’ve come to expect and love in this line. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, double hinged at the elbows, hinged at the wrists, and there are swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. The torso can swivel at the waist and has a ratcheting ab-crunch, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged. All the joints on this figure feel good and he’s lots of fun to pose.

Nova is a very welcome addition to my Legends shelf. The only really bad thing about him is that he exposes all the problems with his smaller Universe version. But unlike the Iron Man figure, I would have still happily picked up Nova even if he didn’t come with a part that I needed to build Groot. Overall, I’d say this was my favorite wave of Legends in a while, but I think that has more to do with how excited I am for the movie. Like the Winter Soldier wave, it still had its ups and downs, and I’m still hoping in vain that we might get a second wave with Nebula and Ronin and a movie version Nova Corps. I’m tempted to say they could have given us those characters with swap out variants, but then I’m still hunting for an AIM and Hydra soldier at a good price. That whole variant concept has done more harm than good and I’d like to see the end of it. Anyway, now that I’m pretty much caught up on my Legends, I’m going to start digging into the new Marvel Universe Infinite line, and I’ll start doing that at the end of the week!

Jul 10 2014

Transformers Generations: Legends Class Bumblebee by Hasbro

It’s Transformers Thursday again and today I’m looking at my second Legends Class figure from the Generations line. Prime and Bumblebee were my first two forays into these little guys and it’s safe to say that I am now I’m hooked.

The packaging is similar to what we saw last Thursday. Again, I’ll say that I love the G1-style grid pattern and the great character artwork. This kind of deco grabs my attention when passing through the toy aisles every single time, even if I know I’m all caught up on the figures that are out. It just kindles that warm and fuzzy feeling down in my nethers. Bumblebee comes packaged in his robot mode and his Targetmaster buddy, Blazemaster comes in his tiny helicopter mode. Let’s start with Bumblebee in his alt mode.

Bee’s vehicle mode is a compact yellow sports car, which I think is supposed to be his IDW mode before he became the generic Camero knock-off. Or is that after? In case you can’t tell, I tend to read the Transformers comics that don’t prominently feature Bumblebee. Either way this is a perfectly fine “we don’t have the VW Beetle license or the Chevy Camero license for this toy so let’s just make him a generic car” alt mode. It’s still totally in character with how I think of Bumblebee and maybe even a little reminiscent of the Classics alt mode.

I’m usually not a fan of this yellow swirly plastic, but when used in small quantities like this, I don’t have a big problem with it. The black painted windows look good and there are even some red stripes on the hood and silver paint hits for the bumper and lights. It’s crazy, but this tiny car mode actually has more varied paint apps than Deluxe Bumblebee from the TF: Prime line. Why does it seem like Hasbro gives these little guys so much more love?

Bumblebee’s transformation is pretty fascinating for such a little figure and even manages to pull off a head reveal that works better than half that MechTech shit Hasbro used to use on the bigger figures. I’m particularly impressed by the way the sides of the car pack into his forearms and auto-morph his hands. The head sculpt is fantastic, right down to his iconic little horns, and the face is very neatly painted. I also dig the way his spoiler lands behind his head.

The end result is a remarkably well proportioned and great little homage to the War for Cybertron Bumblebee. Seriously, just look at this little guy! He’s definitely one of my favorite Bumblebee figures to come out in a long time. Even the articulation on this guy is great. You get ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, and hips and hinges in the knees. The only thing missing is head articulation, but his noggin is so tiny, I can easily forgive that.

Bumblebee’s Targetmaster unfortunately bears the name of one of the worst Deluxe Transformers I’ve ever had the displeasure of owning: Blazemaster. He’s a little blue helicopter and not a great one at that. In this case it feels as if Hasbro sacrificed the alt mode for a better gun mode, which makes him the opposite of Optimus Prime’s Roller. His robot mode is pretty piss-poor too, but maybe I’m expecting just a little too much from these tiny guys. Either way, I think it would have been so much cooler if they went for the Armada Hot Rod reference and painted this guy red and called him Jolt.

Blazemaster’s gun mode actually works pretty well with Bumblebee. It’s still pretty big, but it looks like he can actually wield it, unlike Prime with Roller. I dig the way you can detach the blades and put them on Bee’s other arm or even mount them on his back.

Legends Bumblebee is the kind of toy that I want to stuff in my pocket and take with me to play with on my downtime throughout the day. If I owned this as a kid, it would have been taken away from me at school. Hell, I’ll probably end up bringing it to work and it’ll get taken away from me at a Financials Meeting because I won’t stop playing with it. I never would have guessed that I’d be so impressed with these little Legends toys, but so far Optimus and Bumblebee have really scratched my itch. Next week, we’ll keep the Legends ball rolling and maybe check out a Decepticon!

Jul 8 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Iron Man (Space Armor) by Hasbro

I’ve already completed my look at the core Guardians team and that leaves just two figures left in this wave. Today we’re looking at what I expect to be the stinker of the wave: It’s Iron Man in his space armor. Maybe it’s just a case of Iron Man fatigue, but if it weren’t for the fact that I needed the BAF part for Groot, I probably would have skipped this one entirely. But wait, I bought a case, and that meant that I wound up with two of these. Grrrr!

The front of the package doesn’t actually tie in with the Guardians of the Galaxy at all and only the BAF Groot part serves to anchor this figure to the wave. If you flip the package over you do get the tie-in stated in the short blurb. If you haven’t guessed, this is a comic-based figure as Tony Stark appears wearing this Deep Space suit in the current run of Guardians of the Galaxy. I wouldn’t say it’s to the detriment of the story, but he definitely feels like a third wheel. Or in this case, I guess a sixth wheel. Unless Marvel-Disney has some huge surprise waiting for us, I doubt we’ll see Iron Man make an appearance in the movie, and that’s fine with me. The Guardians deserve their own debut without everyone else glomming on to it.

So, I was not really a fan of this armor design in the comic and while I’d say it works a little better in action figure form, I’m still not crazy about it. Yeah, it could be that pesky Iron Man fatigue, but I can still admire the design of a lot of the suits from the Iron Man 3 “House Party Protocol” scene, and yet this one still just isn’t doing anything for me. The figure borrows heavily from the Heroic Age Iron Man released a few waves back, which is a figure I actually like a lot, but the changes here don’t do it any favors. The flared shoulders strike me as bizarre and the loss of a lot of the gold highlights doesn’t help either. On the plus side, because he borrows from the Heroic Age figure, he’s one of the chunkier Iron Man figures out there, and I like that because, this is a guy in armor… he should at least look a little bulky.

The helmet is a huge departure from traditional Iron Man suits and that’s off-putting because we all know that different is unsettling and wrong. There was something else about this helmet that struck me as odd even back when I was reading the comics. I couldn’t put my finger on it until just now… It bears a bizarre resemblance to Optimus Prime from Robots in Disguise. Wow!

The figure’s deco relies mostly on the red swirly plastic that it’s molded from. While I hated this type of plastic when it was grey and used for Ultron, I actually think the red looks pretty good. The rest of the deco consists of some sharp, glossy gold applications and a rather strange bit of paintwork for the Arc Reactor in his chest. It kind of looks like a sugar cookie.

Since this Iron Man borrows so heavily from the Heroic Age figure, the articulation is identical. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips and wrists. There are double-hinges in the elbows and knees. Swivels are included in the biceps, waist, and thighs. The ankles are hinged and have rockers and the neck features an additional hinge which is very welcome for putting him into flying poses. You also get a nice ratcheting ab-crunch hinge in the torso. The shoulder pieces clip on to the shoulders, which allow them to swivel and accommodate articulation. You can also take them off if you want, but it does leave the little holes in the shoulders exposed. All in all, this is a fun figure to pose and play with.

Obviously, I’m not enamored with this figure, but it isn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I guess the best thing I can say about it is that I’m not actually angry that I had to buy him to get the BAF part, but maybe just a little miffed I had to wind up with two. It’s cool that Hasbro released him, since he is in the comic, but let’s face it, this slot in the wave would have been much better spent on a character like Nebula or Ronan. There’s no indication that Hasbro is doing another GotG Wave of Legends so right now it seems unlikely that we will ever see figures of either, and that’s seriously pissing me off.

Jul 3 2014

Transformers Generations: Legends Class Optimus Prime by Hasbro

The Transformers Thursday Hostage Crisis is over and I’m finally free to look at figures that are not Bayformers. I was planning on the event culminating in some kind of review of Age of Extinction, but the fact that I walked out on it about two hours in should adequately express my feelings on the matter. Today I’m cleansing the pallet by going back to the refreshing goodness of the Generations line. I’m actually looking at my first Generations Legends figure. This is a sub-line that I had all but ignored until getting pulled in by reading some of the reviews over at My Life in Scale some time last year. The pictures alone made me pick some up and they’ve been kicking around and waiting to be opened for a long while. Let’s check out Optimus Prime and Roller!

I really dig the packaging on these little guys. It’s got that great Generations deco complete with the G1-style grid and some bitchin character art. The bubble displays Prime in his robot mode beside his little robot buddy. Are we actually calling these things Targetmasters, Hasbro? Well, screw it… I am! The back panel has Tech Specs and also a biography that just covers Roller. I guess at this point Hasbro assumes everyone knows all there is to know about who Optimus Prime is. Except Michael Bay. He thinks Optimus Prime is a murder-happy psychopath. Oh wait, I said I wouldn’t talk about Age of Extinction. My bad. Let’s start with Prime’s vehicle mode.

As expected, Prime is a semi-truck cab and a flat-nosed one at that! Despite the extensions on the back of the roof, this alt mode works well for me as a classic G1 version. There’s a surprising amount of detail in the sculpt for such a little toy. The front of the cab, in particular, looks fantastic, with a fully realized grill and even windshield wipers and the silver, yellow, and metallic blue paintwork against the red and blue plastic makes for a bright and vibrant figure. I’d dare say this little guy has better paint and overall coloring then a number of Deluxes and Voyagers that are in the aisles right now. There’s also a peg hole on the top so you can plug his rifle in there if you want. When you get down to it, he’s just a neat little truck.

Transforming Prime is very similar to his old G1 toy, which is a testament to how simple and effective some of that old school engineering used to be. It feels just right for a figure in this size, with maybe just enough complexity to surprise and impress me. I was going to start out by remarking how great this robot mode looks for a Legends figure, but in honesty, I think this Prime could be up-scaled and still look great as a Deluxe. As with his alt mode, Prime’s robot mode is packed with sculpted detail and the coloring is nothing but gorgeous classic Optimus Prime through and through. The figure allows for a few minor tweaks in robot mode. The shoulders are hinged so that they can be flared up, or if you prefer, you can just leave them in the vehicle mode position for a cleaner silhouette. Similarly, the two halves of the chest can be pushed together for a more classic look, or you can angle them back to show off the tiny Autobot insignia for the IDW comics inspired design.

As for articulation… Legends Prime features ball joints galore! You get them in the neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees and a swivel in the waist. The result is a very fun and poseable little figure.

Roller, Prime’s little Targetmaster chum, is a six-wheeled off-road vehicle with a giant gun on top. The gun detaches to become Prime’s Buster rifle and Roller can transform into his own robot mode. Now, I say “transform” but really all you’re doing is standing him on his end and pulling out his arms. It’s a design that is even simpler than the Minicons, but that doesn’t make it any less welcome. It’s just neat to have a Roller toy with a robot mode.

Roller also has his gun mode, which is a conversion slightly more involved than his robot mode. Everything shifts at once and the result is a pretty decent looking gun, but one that I feel is just ridiculously too big for the Legends Class figure. But fear not, the gun is pegged to fit the bigger figures. I tried it out with my Deluxe Orion Pax figure and I think it works quite well.

I’d say the old adage, “better late than never” certainly applies here. This figure is definitely an older release, and while it took me a while to give him a try, I have to say that this little guy impresses me on every conceivable level. He may be small, but he’s a lovingly crafted toy with great colors, a satisfyingly detailed sculpt, and articulation that makes him tough to put down. He’s going to be living on my desk for a long time. Next week, we’ll keep the Legends train rolling along with Bumblebee and Blazemaster.

Jul 1 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Rocket Raccoon and Groot by Hasbro

So, last time I mentioned that I usually like to save the Build-A-Figure for the end of the wave, but I’m breaking tradition here, mainly so that I can look at Rocket and Groot together and complete the core Guardians team. And maybe just because I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to open the rest of the figures and assemble Groot. So, without any further dilly-dally let’s take a look at this duo of “thugs” er, I mean, unlikely heroes.

There’s the packaging and despite Rocket’s demure size, Hasbro did their best to beef up the content of the box. In addition to Rocket you get the head and torso of BAF Groot, Rocket’s rifle, and a huge BFG weapon that can be passed off to Star-Lord. So, yeah Rocket is tiny, but as long as you’re buying the whole wave of figures (and why wouldn’t you?) I don’t think you’ll feel cheated based on what’s in the box. It’s funny to think that Rocket Raccoon made a lot of fans nervous when this movie was revealed. Would the casual masses accept him? He seemed to be one of the big unknown quantities of the Marvel Movie Universe. I think it’s safe to say that all the worry was for naught because he seems to be playing incredibly well to the crowds. It’s also crazy to think that this is the fourth time we’re getting a Rocket figure. He was originally released as part of the Marvel Universe Guardians boxed set, that figure will be re-released single carded in Marvel Infinite, and he was a Build-A-Figure a couple waves back in Marvel Legends. That’s a lot of space raccoons!

And there’s the little fella out of the box and ready for action. Rocket sports quite a superb sculpt and now that we’ve got to see plenty of him in the trailers, I think I can comfortably say Hasbro nailed his big screen likeness. The portrait, the proportions, and even his adorable orange space onesie all appears to be spot on. All of his fur is sculpted in too! The paintwork is fairly good. There are some rough spots on the face, but because it’s supposed to be patterns in his fur, it really shouldn’t look perfectly sharp anyway. Ultimately, it doesn’t feel as if Hasbro skimped just because he’s a little guy, and I appreciate that a lot.

I’m tempted to take issue with Rocket’s articulation. It is limited and apart from the tail he has absolutely no points of articulation below the waist. I’d argue that if Hasbro is capable of making super-articulated 3 ¾” figures than Rocket should have at least had some basic leg articulation. On the other hand, I don’t know that it would have made a huge difference with the figure, other than getting him to stand more comfortably on Groot’s shoulder. At least what is here is quite good. Rocket’s head is ball jointed, as are his shoulders and elbows. He has another ball joint in the waist and his tail is on a swivel. The tail swivel does concern me. I don’t know what’s holding it in there, but I have a nagging feeling that it might twist off if I play around with it too much. Then again it could just be that the joint is naturally loose and I’ve got nothing to worry about. I guess time will tell. The tail does make for a nice support to keep Rocket standing up.

Rocket comes with two accessories. First off, you get his rifle, which is beautifully sculpted and as tall as he is. It’s also designed so that there is a hook around the stock so you can loop it around his shoulder. Is this a custom raccoon rifle? I don’t know, but that idea is awesome, so I hope it gets addressed in the movie. I thought getting the little critter to hold it would be difficult, but I’ve had a lot of success with him wielding it in different poses.

The other accessory is a gigantic personal cannon that can be handed off to Star-Lord. I can’t remember whether we saw this in the trailers, which is odd because I’ve watched them a thousand times. Either way, I really dig this weapon. It’s a complex piece and beautifully sculpted. The base goes up against Star-Lord’s torso and he can hold the gun by two handles. It does make him rather front heavy, so it’s nice to have some stands from a few waves ago.

And that brings us to the BAF figure Groot. Unlike previous waves of Marvel Legends, you do need to buy all six figures in order to build Groot, and I think it’s well worth sucking down that superfluous Iron Man figure to complete something as awesome as this guy. Not only is he super tall but the sculpt is absolutely killer and again Hasbro totally nailed his look in what we’ve seen from the trailers. If I had one complaint about Groot it would be that he could have used a few more paint apps or possibly a tastefully done paint wash to bring out some of that great detail. As it is he relies mostly on his brown plastic for color with the occasional green spray. I’m really just quibbling here, I think he’s fantastic.

Ah, but Groot isn’t just there to stand tall and look imposing. He actually sports some very nice articulation. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, the elbows are double-hinged, the wrists are ball jointed, and there are swivels in the biceps. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, again at the knees, and his ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. Groot has a generous ball joint in the torso and again in the neck.

And that rounds out this team of Guardians of the Galaxy. While not all of these figures dropped my jaw as much as Star-Lord did, they’re a great tribute to a movie that I am absolutely dying to see. I currently don’t have many of my Marvel Legends on display, but I’m definitely going to be making room for these five figures in a prominent place. And I’m not done yet. I’ve still got two more figures in the wave. When I come back to it next week we’ll check out Iron Man in his space armor.

Jun 27 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends: Gamora by Hasbro

As promised, and in an attempt to get through the Wave before the damn movie gets here, I’m bookending this week with another GotG figure from Marvel Legends. This time we’re checking out that gorgeous green babe, Gamora, The deadliest woman in the whole galaxy! Can I take this time to mention how epic the Angela and Gamora brawl was in the Guardians comic? Holy shit, I was squeeing like a little kid during every panel! Oh, right… this figure is from the movie. Can I take this time to mention how epic every trailer of this movie looks? Holy shit, I was squeeing like a little kid during every second! So far this wave of figures has been nothing short of amazing… let’s see if Gamora can keep it going.

Hey, it’s the packaging! Hey, we’ve seen this before! With her rather slight build and only one accessory, Gamora doesn’t fill out her tray as well as Star-Lord or Drax did. The giant tree truck that constitutes the Groot BAF part, however, does help her along.

And here we have what is the first speed bump along the road. Gamora has a few notable flubs going for her right out of the package. For starters, there’s some high profile paint slop going on right inside her cleavage. Not that I was looking or anything, but yeah it’s rather noticeable. Normally I wouldn’t lead off with a single paint issue, but the other figures were so immaculate, I found it to be surprising. I’m happy to report the rest of the figure’s paintwork seems quite clean and precise, so maybe I just got bad luck in the chesticles department. As long as we’re leading off with paint, there are indeed some nice touches on this figure, including the metallic blue that mingles with the black of her outfit. I also like the transition of color in her hair and the green they used for her skin tone.

The next hiccup here is the portrait. It’s not a bad head sculpt in and of itself, but the likeness to Zoe Saldana just isn’t there for me. I think most of the issue lay in the eyes, which appear as if the sculptor was going for more of an Asian look. It doesn’t ruin the figure for me and normally, I would let it go, but again the first two figures that I opened in this wave set a really high standard.

The rest of Gamora strikes me as quite good, but just not exceptional. There’s a lot of detail in her outfit, particularly all the sculpted straps and buckles on her leggings, but none of them have any paint hits to really make them stand out. The texturing for the mesh of her shirt is well done and I do like the sculpting on her wrist and hand wraps. Gamora also has a separate belt that hangs loose on her hips.

As is sometimes the case with Marvel Legends women, the articulation on Gamora also takes a bit of a hit. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders and both hinges and swivels in the wrists, ball joints in the elbows, and no bicep swivels. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, but the sculpt prevents a lot of lateral movement. She has swivels in her thighs, double-hinges in the knees, and both hinges and swivels in the ankles. There’s a ball joint in her torso and again in her neck. Considering some of the crazy acrobatics I expect to see Gamora doing in the movie, the figure’s articulation could have used a few more points. I’ll also mention that the top hinge on my figue’s right leg is splayed out making the joint rather loose.

Gamora comes with one accessory, a very thin sword. It’s easily the weakest accessory of the wave so far, although there is some detail work in the design. She can hold it pretty well in either hand, and while I’m not sure it’s intentional, you can clip the sword onto her belt for storage.

This third outing for the Guardians of the Galaxy Legends wave is by no means a bad figure, but it doesn’t hold to the high pedigree of the first two releases that I looked at. Had I opened Gamora first, I might not have been as hard on her, but even with a few issues, I’m still glad to have her on my shelf to complete the team. And speaking of completing the team, usually I hold off looking at the Build-A-Figure until I’ve covered the entire wave, but next week I’m going to break tradition and look at both Rocket and Groot in the same feature. That way I can complete the core team and I’ll get to checking out Nova and Iron Man sometime in the following weeks.

Jun 26 2014

Transformers (2007 Movie) Barricade by Hasbro

Tomorrow is the day that Michael Bay drops another Transformers movie on the world and I will likely be in attendance, albeit not in any state even approaching sobriety. And with Age of Extinction hitting tomorrow that means that today is indeed the final week of Transformers Thursday held hostage by the Bayformer Menace. I was going to go back to a random grab this week, but then I thought about the trouncing that I gave Bumblebee last week and decided to go with something that had more potential for positivity. Barricade was one of my favorite Transformers in the first movie. Why? Because I love Decepticon cars and I love Mustangs. My first three cars were all Mustangs. Needless to say a Decepticon Mustang was practically an instant win in my eyes. It’s been a couple of years since I had this figure out, so let’s see if he still rocks as much as I thought he did.

Well, the vehicle mode sure does! You get all the sexy contours of the car right down to the spoiler and “SALEEN” sculpted into the back. You also get a translucent lightbar, translucent headlamps, and a ramming bar on the front. The toy is molded in black plastic and while it doesn’t quite have that new car sheen that I would have liked, it still looks great. Barricade features clear windows and a clear windshield, although the rear windows are all molded in plastic. Did you know that one of the original Barricade Mustangs was sold for only $36k at auction. Shit, I would have paid that!

Besides being a very nice mold of a custom 2005 Saleen Mustang, the deco on this baby has some lovely callbacks to the car used in the movie. In addition to the snappy painted doors, you get that wonderful Decepticon police logo just behind the front wheel wells and the tiny “to punish and enslave…” motto above the rear wheel wells. I absolutely loved that little touch in the movie and was really glad that it made it to the toy. Additional points to the deco include his car number on the roof and again on the front bumper and “POLICE” emblazoned across the rear spoiler.

Barricade features also features a minor gimmick. You can flip down the ramming bar and pull out a Frenzy figure that’s stored within. The figure isn’t much to crow about and it’s a little too large to be in proper scale, but it doesn’t hurt the vehicle mode at all, so I’m cool with it being there as a nice little bonus.

Transforming Barricade to robot mode is pretty simple and unfortunately his bot mode isn’t quite the slam dunk that the car mode is. Like most of the 2007 movie figures, he’s a much simpler representation of the “bag of knives” robot design seen in the movie, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I also like the traditional way in which the front of the car becomes his chest and while he does sport chicken legs, they aren’t as obvious as other figures in this line. On the downside Barricade’s proportions could be a little better. He really doesn’t have much of a torso, instead his hips kind of just connect to his chest.

And then there are those arms. Most official pics of him I’ve seen have the shoulders pointed straight up, although they are ball jointed, so you can position them in different ways. I tend to point them down and outward so the wheels are showing. The forearms feature a terrible spring-loaded gimmick that extends Barricade’s arms and the springs don’t hold well and they almost always activate while I’m posing him. It’s one of those examples of a gimmick that sadly harms the toy and would have been better left out.

I thought Barricade had one of the better portraits in the movie and I think this toy captures it quite well. There’s a lot of sculpted detail on his noggin and the addition of some gold paint and red light piping in the eyes really helps it along. Indeed, all the deco on Barricade’s robot mode looks good as it features a little bit of metallic silver and purple to make the black and white pop.

In the end, Barricade gets a thumbs up. I totally dig his car mode and even though there are things that could have been done better with his robot mode, he’s not a total loss. In fact playing around with him makes me wish that I had picked up the Human Alliance version when he was out on the shelves and not going for a bundle on the second-hand market. Either way, I think this was a good choice to end the Transformers Thursday Bayformer Hostage Crisis. I don’t think a lot of these toys have aged well, but there were definitely some worthwhile figures in this line and Hasbro did their best engineering toys based on some ridiculously complex and ugly character designs. So far I’m holding my own on my promise to myself to not pick up any Age of Extinction figures and that will be the first Transformers line that I take a complete pass on in… well, ever.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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