May 15 2014

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: Swerve by Hasbro

It’s Week #4 of Transformers Thursday held hostage and that means I’m serving up yet another Bayformer. This time my random grab into the bin of robots from the live action movies pulled up a Revenge of the Fallen figure. It’s Swerve! Swerve was not actually in the film. He’s one of those Expanded Universe characters and he is in fact a repaint of RotF Sideswipe with a new head. For those of you Bayformer fans that fear all of these features are just going to be a lot of hate mixed with lukewarm acceptance, today should be a treat because I actually love this figure. Let’s start with the alt mode…

Swerve is a red Corvette Stingray and he is absolutely gorgeous. Sure, it helps a lot when your basing your toy off of a dead sexy car like this one, but Hasbro also did a fine job creating this alt mode. Swerve is a bit of a shellformer, but I don’t find the seaming on this car all that unsightly. There are not a lot of paint apps to speak of but this car doesn’t look like it’s missing anything. The exhaust and front grill are painted black and there’s a little touch of gold on the hood ornament. It works fine and looks great. The windows are tinted black so as not to let you all the ugly robot parts crunched up inside. The tires and wheels are fantastic sculpts and the headlights are clear plastic. The final touch is a neat little Autobot emblem printed on the rear license plate. Fabulous!

Swerve can be a bit of a bitch to get cracked open, but once I got him going, I was pretty good at transforming him, even after not having seen him for a couple of years. I will note that I like to mis-transform Swerve by making a back plate out of his hood, instead of him wearing it up on the back of his shoulders. It helps differentiate him from his brother, Sideswipe and I think it looks pretty good. As far as Bayformer aesthetics go, I’ll just come out and say that I think Swerve is a gorgeous design. He’s rather unique in that he wears the back of the car as his chest, rather than the front. There’s also just enough mix of car plates and complex inner robot parts that makes him feel like he’s straddling the design elements of regular Transformers and the movies. And the coloring here is superb. In addition to the red and black plastic, you get some sharp metallic silver paint operations and a little bit of gold too.

I’m on record as not being a big fan of the Bayformer heads, but I dig Swerve’s. He’s still as ugly as all hell, but I can’t help but appreciate the staggering amount of detail and beautiful paintwork that went into his tiny noggin. Look at those teeny tiny intakes on the sides of his mouth. That’s brilliant!

There are also some particularly cool things worth pointing out here. First off, I love the pistons in his hips. These are made of soft plastic and articulate with his legs. Second, the configuration of his feet allow for them to convert to wheels so he can roller skate into battle. Yes, it does make standing him up more than a bit troublesome, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. His exhaust pipes wind up angled upward behind his head and naturally I like to think of these as mortar launchers, because who wouldn’t want to be able to launch mortars from their back? And lastly, the pointed armor on his forearms swing down to form battle spikes. I absolutely adore the way this works. It’s a wonderful added weapon gimmick that adds a lot of personality to the figure.

So there you have it. I may have been a little guarded in my appreciation for figures like Bonecrusher and Longarm, but I’m coming out in full support of Swerve. He’s a beautiful figure that proves to me that the movie aesthetics can work quite well. He also represents some very clever engineering for a Deluxe and he manages to pull off looking great in both car and robot modes. I was going to toss in some pictures of Sideswipe too, but that would be cheating on the whole random nature of this little Bayformer exercise. Who will it be next week? We’ll just have to wait and see!

May 12 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Black Cat by Hasbro

So, a couple of weeks back that new Spider-Man movie came out. I am wholly unmoved by the Garfield reboot so l figured I’d catch it on Blu-Ray at some point. Then some friends were going to see it and I allowed myself to be dragged along. I thought it was pretty terrible, but that’s a discussion for another time and place. I was similarly unmoved by the wave of Marvel Legends figures that preceeded the movie, however, I did pick up the Superior Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man and liked them a lot. But wait, wasn’t there one more figure that I wanted out of that wave? Oh yeah, it was the impossible to find Black Cat. I broke down and paid a bit of a premium for her last month and she’s been sitting on my stack of unopened figures ever since. Time to remedy that, eh?

We’ve seen the new Legends Infinite packaging around these parts plenty of times so I won’t bother going on about it. I like it a lot, and because Black Cat comes with the Ultimate Goblin’s torso, there’s certainly a lot of plastic crammed onto that tray. Black Cat comes a little pre-posed with her whip flourishing over her head, but not to worry, it didn’t seem to warp any joints or anything. You may also notice that Black Cat’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the package. Instead, it reads Skyline Sirens as she shares this slot with Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman. I’ve waited a while to get this figure, so let’s free her from her package prison and check her out…

Yowsa! Dat ass! Black Cat reuses parts from the modern female buck that we saw in the SDCC Thunderbolts boxed set, and she does it well. Besides being a nice and shapely body, there’s enough resculpting here to make it work for me. The boots and gloves have the additional sculpted fur fringe and the upper torso is completely new with the fur fringe on her plunging neckline and enough cleavage to embarrass parents walking through the toy aisle with their kids. Her hands are sculpted so as the right can hold her accessory and the left is showing her claws. My only complaint here is that the high heeled boots are so tiny, she is one difficult figure to stand. I’d make the comment that it’s because she’s top heavy, but in fairness her derriere helps to balance things out.

The portrait here is quite good. Obviously, Hasbro has been upping their game on the female head sculpts as of late. Felicia is certainly a pretty lady and the paintwork on her lips, eyes, and mask are all quite immaculate. That’s not something I’m used to seeing in a lot of mass release figures these days. The sculpted hair looks great, but as suspected it does impede the neck articulation quite a bit.

Speaking of articulation, Black Cat has some serviceable points. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and elbows and swivel at the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double-hinged knees, swivels in the thighs, and swivels and hinges in the ankles. There’s a ball joint in the torso and again at the neck. The bicep swivels that have been seen in this body before have been removed, and that’s rather disappointing. I also would have liked the elbows to have a wider range of motion. Still, what’s here is pretty good.

Felicia comes with her whip-slash-climbing claw. It’s a simple, but welcome accessory that she can hold pretty well in her right hand. It’s rather pre-posed but it’s soft pliable plastic so you can do a few different things with it.

The last Black Cat figure I owned was the less than stellar 90’s Toy Biz effort from their Spider-Man line. Suffice it to say that it’s nice to get a nicer version of the character in scale with my Legends collection. Of course, the problem is that Black Cat, like Black Widow in the Captain America wave, is short packed and damn hard to find at the retail price. I finally broke down and got her for $35 shipped, which is quite a premium, but considering I spend that each month on Masters of the Universe Classics figures, I decided it was worthwhile to get her and be done with it. Ultimately, I’m glad I did. She’s a great looking figure and she also adds the torso to my Ultimate Goblin BAF parts. I doubt I’ll ever get the other figures to finish it, but maybe if they turn up cheap enough I’ll bite.

May 9 2014

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

Today, I’m going back to before Christmas when Amazon was selling 3 ¾” Star Wars Black figures for about three bucks a pop. I picked up a bunch and I’ve still got some sitting unopened in my closet. Man, I kind of wish I hadn’t bought these. With the exception of that “Attack of the Clones” Padme, these figures have been pretty damn shitty. Nonetheless, I’m anxious to open the rest of them so I can toss them into my Star Wars figure bin and I’m starting today the Clone Sergeant from “Attack of the Clones.” I can’t show you a packaged shot because the bubbles fell off of the cards inside the shipping box and they were all just rattling around in there. Doesn’t matter. We’ve seen the SWB 3 ¾” packaging here before and I still think its rubbish. Those of you who visit here often may remember that I was not impressed with the Stormtrooper or the Biker Scout from this line, so let’s see if this guy can do any better.

The figure seems to reuse the body for the Clone Trooper from a couple years back. That’s a good thing, because I have a bunch of those and I think it’s an excellent figure. The key difference here is just a matter of the green painted stripes to denote his rank. The armor on this one looks just as good and you get the same level of super articulation. With the exception of the shoulder armor inhibiting the arm movement a little bit, the Sergeant here can do pretty much everything I want him to do including crouched firing poses. And thank god those shoulder pieces are there, because if they weren’t we’d probably have the same unpainted hinge problem that we saw on the Stormtrooper and Scout Trooper. On the downside, the plastic feels super rubbery and cheap like it’s a knock-off figure.

As with the previous Clone Trooper, this figure’s helmet is removable to reveal the stock clone head that Hasbro has been using on these guys for a while now. I know some collectors don’t fancy this feature, but I kind of dig it. I don’t think it compromises the look of the helmet too badly and I like being able to pose them with their helmet in the crook of their arm. Oh yeah, I’ll also take this opportunity to once again express my undying love for the “bucket head” style of clone helmet. I dig it so much I’m still considering picking up the Sideshow figure.

The quality of Paintwork has been a big issue with these figures and I’m sorry to say that’s still the case here. That’s pretty shameful when you consider that the figure required so little paint and they couldn’t even get that right. From the neck down everything looks good, even the little rank dots on his left breast. There are virtually no problems with the black and the green Sergeant striping all looks great too. Unfortunately, the green paintwork on the helmet is botched terribly on the right hand side.

The Sergeant comes with two weapons. You get the standard E-11 style Blaster and you get a rifle. Both of these guns are pretty standard fare, but they’re welcome nonetheless.

All in all, this Clone Sergeant is much better than the SWB Stormtrooper and Biker Scout, but the figure still feels like a rushed job. The rubbery plastic and piss-poor paintwork on the helmet tells me that Hasbro doesn’t give a crap about this line and they’re just using it to fill pegs. It also begs the question; why not just repack the older superior figures? Somehow I can’t imagine that they don’t have truckloads of those figures lying around somewhere. Still, considering I just spent a couple of dollars on this one, I think he was well worth it. In fact, had he just been a straight Clone Trooper, I probably would have picked up more and been happy. I also have the Clone Pilot in this assortment and I’ll try to swing back around to him next week.

May 8 2014

Transformers (2007 Movie): Longarm by Hasbro

It’s Day #3 of Transformers Thursday held hostage where I am forced to write about Bayformers or else Michael Bay will have Bumblebee come round and piss oil on my face. I don’t need that… No sir! Today’s random dip into the Bayformer tote produced yet another figure from the first live action movie. I honestly had no idea I had so many figures from the first flick. I thought this was going to be mostly Revenge of the Fallen figures. Anyway, Longarm wasn’t really in the movie, he’s just based on the tow truck that Mikaela used to drag Bumblebee around after his legs got blown off. Let’s face it, there weren’t a lot of Transformers in the movie, so Hasbro had to make up some new ones to sell more toys. I’ve got no in-package shot, so let’s jump right to the alt mode…

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As far as tow trucks go, Longarm’s alt mode isn’t bad, but maybe a little bland. It’s a rough approximation of the truck seen in the movie, with a similar white and blue deco, but I think the lettering on the sides is different. In this case, it says, “Orson’s Towing” and there are tiny Autobot emblems on the sides too. There are a lot of seams on him and if you don’t have him transformed just right the panels tend to separate or pop out. I think the coolest detail on this guy is the way Hasbro reproduced that crosshatch metal texture in the bed liner. You also get an articulated hitch so that Longarm can actually tow your disabled Autobots back from the frontlines. Gotta love that!

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I’m usually fan of clear windshields, as opposed to having them painted on, but in this case Longarm’s windshield prominently displays the total lack of a cab interior. I know, it’s only a Deluxe figure and I’m probably expecting too much. I suppose if that’s the biggest thing I can nitpick, than this alt mode is pretty solid.

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Moving on to the robot mode, Longarm has some really cool stuff going for him. For starters, that textured metal bed liner that I love so much from the alt mode makes up his chest and arms in his robot mode and it looks really sweet. The proportions on the figure are pretty wonky, what with the really short torso, stout legs and big feet, but I think it’s a good compromise between regular TFs and the Bayformer aesthetic. Because Longarm is an original robot design and not based off one in the film, he doesn’t suffer as much from the horrible malady of Bayformeritis.

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I really dig the head sculpt on this guy too. It’s not at all like the insectoid messes that pass for Bayformer heads. Instead, we get a cool helmet that integrates the mouth plate beautifully. There’s also an excellent orange light piping effect in the eyes. The tiny Autobot emblem on his forehead is a nice touch, although after thinking about it, it might give the Decepticons something to aim for. Maybe it’s a bad idea.

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And then there’s that big ass gun. The idea of having a robot transform with a gun already in his hand sounds really cool. Hasbro did it later with a great deal of success when they designed Revenge of the Fallen Brawn. But when it’s a rifle this unwieldy and it’s permanently attached, the idea breaks down in execution. Don’t get me wrong, the way the rifle converts from the towing assembly is very clever, but it really messes with my ability to pose Longarm, mainly because the stock of the gun juts right up into his armpit. If the rifle weren’t screwed into his hand, and there’s no reason for it to be, this figure would have turned out so much better. I was really struggling to come up with more than a few poses for this guy. He can actually hold it away from him to the side as if taking a shot, but the ball joint in his shoulder isn’t strong enough to hold up all that weight. I should also note, that the rifle fires an orange missile, which I could not find to save my life.

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So, in the end I’m a little torn on this guy. I dig the alt mode well enough and it helps that I have a thing for Autobot tow trucks. The robot mode looks just fine standing on the shelf at attention and holding his gun. Indeed, he makes for a fine and rugged looking Autobot warrior. But the moment I try to play about with him, I get frustrated really fast. Overall, I think there’s more good here than bad, and ultimately the figure just stumbles on a good idea gone wrong. I should also note that Longarm was repainted at some point as Hoist. I can’t remember what line that figure was released in, but one of these days I’m going to track it down.

May 5 2014

Marvel Universe: Nova by Hasbro

I’m making a concerted effort to open the last of my Marvel Universe figures so that I can move on to the new Infinite branded line. As a result, today I’m checking out Richard Rider, aka Nova! It’s been a long working weekend, my back is killing me, and I’m anxious to have some drinks and collapse onto the sofa, so let’s get right to it…

Ah, it’s nice to see the MU packaging again. It may be defunct now, but we’ll be seeing it a bunch more times as I still have a lot of figures in the line to cover. You get some nice character art and the figure looks great in the bubble, but there’s not a lot going on in there. Nope, no stand or accessories. I’ve been hunting Nova for a long time and I finally found him hanging on a peg in Target, which surprised the hell out of me. I was clearly so delighted that I had to explain it to my Marvel-challenged buddy who I was with by labeling him as the Green Lantern of the Marvel Universe. Despite the ignorance of my friend, I think Nova’s probably pretty popular right now because of his role in the Spider-Man cartoon. I’m guessing he’s going to be a popular figure in the coming days since the Nova Corps will be featured in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. Man, I can’t wait… August can’t come soon enough.

Nova makes clever use of a standard, modern MU buck with extra bits attached to make up his Corps uniform. The added gold parts go a long way to add depth and complexity to the outfit, but the pieces on his legs and arms do tend to flop around about. As a result, you need to adjust them almost every time you repose the figure. It’s annoying, but at least it makes sure that they don’t impede the articulation. Still, a strategically placed spot of glue on each might remedy the situation. The buck is uniform dark blue, and the added matte gold parts really make the figure pop on the shelf.

The portrait here is certainly very comic inspired. Hasbro really nailed the bucket-style helmet with the red starburst on the forehead. The exposed part of the face seems rather stylized, though. It might just be because of the shape of the helmet’s cut-out, but the jaw and the lips seem super pronounced. It still works for me just fine.

Because Nova is built on the most modern of MU bucks, he sports some crazy articulation. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, hinged at the ankles, and feature swivels in the thighs and again below the knees. The torso swivels at the waist and features a ball joint just under the chest and the neck is ball jointed for a generous amount of movement. As is often the tradeoff with these newer bucks, Nova can be a bit tough to stand without assistance and some of the hinges feel a little soft.

With no accessories, that’s pretty much all I have to say about Nova. He’s as solid a figure as they come and he’s definitely a welcome addition to my army of MU figures and a pretty timely release on Hasbro’s part. Considering that the pegs here are just full of Caps and Iron Mans, I was beside myself when I found him out in the wild. I didn’t even have to dig through the pegs for him as he was just hanging there in plain sight waiting for me to grab him. Yes, this is what figure hunting in my neck of the woods is like, folks. It’s brutal and most often non- productive. Anyway, Nova’s been sitting on one of my online wish lists for a while now at a couple bucks above retail and I’ve just been waiting to pull the trigger. Good thing I waited!

May 1 2014

Transformers (2007 Movie): Bonecrusher by Hasbro

Ok, as promised a bunch of weeks ago, Michael Bay will be holding Transformers Thursday hostage for a little while and I’ll be taking the next month or so to feature figures from the movies that haven’t been given the spotlight on FFZ before. After sitting down and thinking about what figures I wanted to look at in particular, I ended up going with pure randomness. And so today I reached into the tote that holds my movieverse Deluxe figures and pulled out Bonecrusher. It’s been a while since I watched the ’07 movie, but if memory serves Bonecrusher had a pretty cool chase scene on the highway before having his face ripped in half by the peace-loving Autobot leader, Optimus Prime. Apparently, face ripping is the right of all sentient beings. Anyway, I’ve got no in-package shot, so let’s jump right to the alt mode. I have tried to cleanse my mind of Bayformer bias, so I can take a fresh look at this guy.

Bonecrusher is a military truck designed to clear mines from the battlefield, and honestly, it’s hard for me to quarrel with this vehicle mode. It’s a great idea for a Decepticon alt mode, not only because it’s a military vehicle, but because it has a huge claw arm on the front, which looks like it would be good for more nefarious purposes. There are not a lot of paint apps, but it truth it doesn’t need any because it is a military vehicle. Besides, I’ve certainly got used to the less paint on Transformers in the past couple of years. The plastic, on the other hand, is nice and solid and the sculpting is quite detailed. Cool little touches include the rivets along the windows, the steps on the side and the ladder on the back.

The claw arm is articulated so that it can be deployed in front of the vehicle. It also has a spring-mechanism that can work the claw by moving a lever. It’s a nice action gimmick because it adds a little play value without compromising the look and design of the toy.

One of the hardest things to get used to about the Bay movies for me was the alien robot designs. I know, they’re alien robots. It makes sense that they should look weird, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow. Bonecrusher is a fine example of that. Yes, he’s humanoid in that he has two arms, two legs, and a head in the right place, but he’s a pretty misshapen humanoid. That having been said, I can find some things to like here. The detail and complexity of the robot mode certainly conveys the chaotic, hyper-detailed movie design, at least as well as it can in a $10 Deluxe figure. Indeed, Bonecrusher sports a creepy and almost insect-like appearance that fits the whole evil alien robot thing quite well. The way two of his wheels land on the back of his shoulders is pretty cool, and I also dig that the claw on his back can still be positioned over his head and serves a function while he’s in robot mode. That could come in use in a fight! The feet are also designed to use the wheels for his roller-skating antics, something which seems like it should be really goofy, but looked rather bitchin on screen.

On the downside, the arm panel kibble is ungainly and annoying, but plenty of other Transformers designs in other lines have done it before. It feels like these panels should lock in somewhere, but they don’t. I should also note that I don’t like the head sculpt at all. Laying aside my personal preferences of what a Transformers head should look like, I just think the head on this figure is a little too chunky and simple to match the rest of the figure, let alone the movie character.

Bonecrusher features an extending arm gimmick that doesn’t work for me either. It amounts to just an extra set of hinges so that the arms can be unfolded and give him a ludicrous amount of reach. I can’t recall whether he did this in the film or if it’s just something extra they tossed into the figure design as a play feature. I find it’s best ignored.

I found it interesting to go back to a first movie figure, as I haven’t had any of these out and on display in many years. For what he is, I don’t think Bonecrusher is a bad figure at all. He certainly has a few missteps, but in terms of modeling the character from the movie into a Deluxe Class toy, I think Hasbro did a pretty fine job here. Not to forget, also that he’s a seven year old toy. Bonecrusher is certainly complex and hyper detailed and the overall lack of paint operations don’t hurt the figure because of his drab desert military motif. Had the designers been able to better engineer the arm kibble, this guy could have been quite exceptional. As he is, he’s a solid effort… for a movie toy.

Apr 25 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Red Skull by Hasbro

Well, it took me a while to do it, but today I’m going to wrap up my look at the Captain America wave of Marvel Legends Infinite. I know, I know. I haven’t featured Black Widow yet. She’s supposed to be getting a second release at some point, so I’m still trying to resist dropping forty bucks to get her unless I absolutely have to. Let’s check out Red Skull. Hail Hydra!

There’s the packaging. I’ve got nothing new to add other than to reiterate how much I love the combination of peg hanging card and collector friendly box design. Red Skull comes with one of the arms of the BAF Mandroid and his accessories arranged around him on the tray. Keep in mind, this figure shares the slot with the Hydra Soldier so the name Red Skull doesn’t actually appear on the package. Instead, it just says Agents of Hydra.

A lot of collectors have been referring to this figure as the “Nick Fury Red Skull,” but I think it would be more topical to call him “Punisher Red Skull” because this figure is like 95% Punisher. I’m not averse to the recycling of parts when it makes good sense and yeah, it kind of makes sense here. The trench coat, which we saw used as far back as Fantomex, is sort of appropriate, but it’s a very distinctive piece and it’s hard to look at it from a fresh perspective, particularly when I have two other examples of it standing on the same shelf. The rest of the figure also screams Punisher to me too much to make me look past the recycling. I think maybe it’s the fact that the coloring is so similar between them. At least the Hydra insignia on his shoulders are nice. Also on the plus side, I do really dig the comic inspired portrait. It’s a great head sculpt with some mighty nice paint to back it up.

The articulation here is the same as we got with The Punisher, and why not? It’s practically the same figure. The head is ball jointed and includes the extra hinge to help him look up and down. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, double hinged at the elbows, have swivel cuts in the biceps, and the wrists have hinges and swivels. The legs are ball jointed with swivels at the hips, hinged at the knees, and the ankles have hinges and swivel. There’s also a ball joint in his torso. Some of the hinges are a little soft, but Red Skull is still fun to pose.

Red Skull comes with three accessories. You get a Tesseract, and yes it’s just a clear blue cube, but hey who doesn’t want a 6-inch scale Cosmic Cube for their collection? You get a pretty dopey little red automatic pistol, and you get some kind of funky looking pistol, which I presume is meant to be Hydra technology. Red Skull has two functional holsters, one on his right hip and one in a shoulder holster. Unfortunately, only the red gun fits comfortably into them.

I can’t deny it’s nice to add a Red Skull to my Marvel Legends shelf, but I would have liked something more unique than what we got. The recycling here isn’t a total reach, but it isn’t removed enough from The Punisher to make it work for me as anything other than a quick-and-dirty repaint and kitbash. I realize Red Skull wasn’t in the movie, but considering we didn’t get a 6-inch scale version from The First Avenger, now would have been a good time to do him justice.

Apr 24 2014

Transformers Generations: Armada Starscream (IDW Comic Pack) by Hasbro

Hopefully next week I’ll get back to looking at some Bayformers on Transformers Thursdays, but today we’re checking out another IDW Comic Pack that I picked up a couple of weeks back. Everyone should know by now how much I loved Armada, and thanks to IDW using the Armada Starscream design in their comic, Hasbro delivered a Deluxe Class homage to that comic character and, in a roundabout way, the Armada toy as well.

Yup, the Comic Pack may indeed be the highest evolution of action figure packaging. Starscream comes in his robot mode and in front of a reprint copy of the IDW comic spotlighting the character in his new body. Cool! The Armada Seekers were a big deal to me because it was the first time we had a proper set of Decepticon Seekers in a really long while. They may not have been the best toys, but I loved the design and I thought they looked great standing on the shelf together. Pity mine are gone now, but maybe someday I’ll pony up and replace them. Let’s start with Starscream’s jet mode.

Armada Starscream is a sleek Cybertronian jet and a pretty good approximation of the original toy. Hell, he even features Minicon ports on his back and sides to drive that homage home. I think this design works really well as a Cybertronian Seeker, and as soon as I saw it replaced the old Tetrajet design in my mind. In addition to the stylish finned nosecone, Starscream carries on his back two large engines that double as missile launchers. The launchers are of the flick-fire variety, where you can jam on the back and they will shoot. The use of clear yellow plastic is new, but I think it complements the deco fairly well. Speaking of the deco, it seems to me that this version is a little heavier on the red and lighter on the grey than the original Armada toy. Then again, we are dealing with a treatment of the IDW character design and not the Armada toy. You also get three sets of folding landing gear.

Transforming Starscream is extremely simple and quite reminiscent of the Armada figure. The end result is rather hollow, particularly when viewed from the back, but the robot mode works well as a scaled down version of the original. The proportions are cleaned up a bit with longer arms and while the articulation here isn’t exactly superb, it’s leaps and bounds better than the Armada toy. This is a figure that looks badass just standing on the shelf. And that headsculpt? Yeah, that’s pure Starscream!

The biggest change to the design is actually a huge improvement to the original toy that allows the shoulder launchers to be angled in the upward position. With the launchers pointed up, you get a nice nod back to the shoulder intakes of the G1 Seeker design. You can still flip the launchers forward so they rest on the shoulders, but doing so makes them stick out the back pretty far. I love this new feature and really wish it had been incorporated on the Armada Seeker toys.

Starscream comes with a pair of translucent yellow swords that fold up and store under his wings. The original Armada toy allowed you to remove part of his wing and turn it into a sword, so these swords are a pretty cool update to that idea. He looks great holding them, but because of the limited articulation, particularly the lack of swivels in the biceps or wrists, there’s only so much you can do with them vis-à-vis posing.

In the end, I dig this figure a lot. He’s got some opportunities, mostly in the articulation department, but he’s a fun toy and he looks great on the shelf, even if I don’t really have a display where he fits in. It’s a shame that he’s doomed to be an oddball figure in my collection, particularly because of how unlikely it will be that Hasbro will deliver on Thundercracker and Skywarp repaints. Yes, I realize that such releases would make no sense against the IDW source material, but as an Armada fan, I’d really like to have a set of all three Seekers based off this mold.

Apr 21 2014

Marvel Universe: Cloak and Dagger by Hasbro

Surely everyone has heard by now that the Marvel Universe 3 ¾” line is dead, but in reality it’s just being rebranded as the Marvel Infinite line. While the MU line and I have had our ups and downs, I’ve been a loyal collector from the early waves and even though it’s just a name change I’m still sorry to see it go. I haven’t looked at anything from this line since back in November of last year, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been buying them. I actually have a sizeable stack of unopened MU figures that I’d like to get through before I start covering the Infinite figures. So, let me try to get back on track with that today with a look at Cloak and Dagger.

I was first introduced to this pair when I was about 15 when I bought the four-issue miniseries from 1983 in a used bookshop downtown. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but considering my age at the time, I’m thinking I picked it up for three reasons: Dagger’s tight white unitard on the cover and boobs. I never thought this pair would ever make it to Marvel Universe but I’m certainly glad they did. The last time I owned these characters in figure form it was that unfortunate boxed set from Toybiz. Here they come single carded on the usual MU packaging. The excellent character art features both characters and the insert identifies them only as “Marvel’s Knights.” Uh-oh. You know what that means! Yes, Hasbro offered this duo as two variants in one slot and it’s a terrible f’cking idea. Who is going to want just Cloak or Dagger? Why do you do this shit to your customers, Hasbro? Fortunately, I was able to snag a pair online for only eleven bucks a figure. Let’s start with Cloak.

Cloak was a really easy figure to make. He features a totally black buck with a newly sculpted head and cape. The cape is what you would probably expect. It’s sculpted to billow out and it fits right over the neck post. There’s some decent texturing, a grey clasp at the neck, and the back has dark blue striping, which represents some of the only paintwork on the figure. The sculpt of the cape doesn’t interfere too much with articulation, although the fact that it falls just short of the ground make Cloak a bit back heavy.

The head sculpt includes the hood all as one piece and it creates a nice illusion that it’s part of the cape. The head sculpt is excellent, with a suitably stern, almost blank expression. The face is painted brown and the eyes are white, which makes a nice effect of the eyes shining through from the hood.

The buck isn’t the most articulated of the modern 3 ¾” bodies, but it is close. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. There are single hinges in the elbows and doubles in the knees. You get swivels in the biceps and wrists, and a ball joint in the torso. The key thing missing here are the thigh swivels, which appear on what I consider to be the ultimate buck that Hasbro uses in this scale. It’s no biggie, although I do kind of miss the rockers in the ankles.

Moving on to Dagger, here we have another pretty easy figure for Hasbro to produce, as she makes use of the standard modern female buck with a new head popped on. The pearlescent white they used for her bodysuit looks fantastic and the dagger shaped cut out down her front is decently executed. My figure had some black spots on her white paint, which had me worried until I got the figure open and was able to scratch them off with my thumb nail. Not to take away from Dagger, but I can’t help but think with a little fresh paint and some tiny roller skates and Hasbro could easily turn this figure into a mighty nice Dazzler.

The head sculpt is good, but maybe a tad too intense. The paint is nice and clean and the hair looks fantastic, even if it does inhibit the neck articulation a bit. I think my biggest gripe here is the plastic used on the face is really waxy and can be a little distracting.

In terms of articulation, Dagger brings her A-game. You get ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, torso, hips, and ankles. Her elbows are hinged and her knees are double-hinged. You get swivels in the wrists, thighs and calves. The neck is both ball jointed and hinged, and you get rockers in the ankles. Nice! The hinges are a little soft on my figure, but that often comes with the territory on the skinny chicks.

Yes, Cloak and Dagger were easy figures for Hasbro, but that doesn’t make me appreciate them any less. This pair is a very welcome addition to my menagerie of Marvel Universe figures and I’m very happy I was able to score both at a reasonable price. In fact, the only criticism I have is that the way they were released seems to have been designed to torture and agitate fans and collectors. Hasbro simply should not have gone the variant route and it only serves to remind me of the fact that I’m still missing one of the Legends Wrecking Crew for the very same reason. WHERE’S MY BULLDOZER, HASBRO??? I know Hasbro doesn’t do Universe two-packs, but they do those three-packs, so they could have tossed in a Spectacular Spider-Man and made this an easy boxed set.

Apr 17 2014

Transformers Generations: Scoop (IDW Comic Pack) by Hasbro

I love the idea of Targetmasters. Who wouldn’t want a couple of friends that turn into guns? But I was already getting out of Transformers when this new breed of Transformers was arriving on the scene. I did, however, somehow manage to get Scoop and his two little buddies. I think he was my only one, but it’s possible I had Targetmaster Blurr as well. I don’t know if it was because I finally had an Autobot construction vehicle or because of the whole Targetmaster gimmick, but I really dug that G1 Scoop figure a lot and thanks to the character’s appearance in the IDW comic, this unlikely figure has gotten a long overdue update in the Generations line.

Yes, as unlikely as it is to see an update to Scoop, it’s even more incredible that he comes with a comic book spotlighting the character. But that’s what I always liked about the IDW comics, they draw their character roster from a deep well of Transformers lore. We’ve seen this packaging many times before, so I don’t have anything new to say about it, except it’s still among my favorite of all the Transformers packages. You get the figure in robot form with his two Targetmasters, Tracer and Holepunch, beside him and a bonus reprint comic book in the background. How can you go wrong? You can’t! Let’s start with Scoop in his alt mode.

Obviously, that alt mode is an orange payloader vehicle and in that sense it definitely pays respect to the original G1 toy. It’s a fairly simple sculpt with some articulation in the front scoop and it holds together and rolls along great. There are some notable details, like the molded ladders on the sides of the driver’s cabin, but that’s about it. There’s also not a lot of paintwork to speak of. You get a lot of orange plastic and black wheels. I’ve been known to jump all over Hasbro for how much they’ve scaled back on paint operations on recent toys, but in the case of Scoop’s alt mode, I don’t think it hurts the toy any. Construction vehicles aren’t meant to be flashy, and besides, Hasbro saved most of the color for Scoop’s robot mode, which I think was a rather good choice.

There are three sets of peg holes on Scoop’s alt mode that can fit the Targetmaster guns. The two above his rear wheels don’t work so well because the guns bump up against the fenders. The ports between the two wheels work Ok, but I prefer to stick them onto the two top holes.

Transforming Scoop doesn’t feel all that much different from the original toy. It’s extremely simple when going to robot mode. It was only when going back into vehicle mode that I had to ponder what exactly to do with the arms. Either way, the end result is a very clean and wonderfully proportioned robot. Scoop wears his scoop on his back and two of his wheels fall proudly on his shoulders. Some blue paint apps nicely recreate the chest stickers from the original toy and he’s got a crisp Autobot insignia stamped on his chest.

Scoop sports some simple but effective articulation, which compliments his clean robot mode. With ball joints and hinges in the shoulders, ball joints in the hips, and hinges in the elbows and knees, Scoop feels very action figure-y, making him a lot of fun to play with and pose. If I have one complaint about Scoop it would be that he feels very hollow. The legs are hollowed out, the arms are hollowed out, and he’s rather light even for a Deluxe. But, maybe that’s more of an observation than a complaint, because it really doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the figure at all.

The Targetmasters, Tracer and Holepunch, are simple, but oh so awesome. They represent some fantastic sculpting and paintwork for such little figures. These guys are a lot more stylized than the Nightstick figure that Hasbro released with Classics Cyclonus and I really dig that. Their articulation and transformation is simple, but that’s to be expected, and in the end you get a nice pair of little figures and a decent pair of guns. You can even combine the two into one ridiculous and unwieldy weapon just like you could with the original G1 figures.

With distribution on these IDW comic packs being so poor in my area and online prices getting crazy, I all but gave up on getting many more of these. Nonetheless, a little persistence netted me Scoop for just a couple of bucks over regular retail and I’m mighty glad to have found him. He may not have been high on everyone’s list of Transformers that needed an update, but it’s hard to argue with results like this. He’s a fairly simple figure, but he’s easily among the best modern redesigns of a classic figure that Hasbro has done. He’s a great looking figure and super fun to play with… and hey, two Targetmasters! What’s not to like?

FigureFan Zero

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