Apr 14 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Baron Zemo by Hasbro

I’ve seen Winter Soldier twice now, and I really hope to get in one more time. And as the Captain America marketing juggernaut continues to roll over the land and thanks to Hasbro’s current wave of Captain America Legends, the comic books aren’t being left out. I already reviewed the excellent Marvel NOW! version of Cap and that got me good and excited to take a look at one of his arch enemies from the comics. Today we’re checking out Baron Zemo! But you won’t find his name on the front of the package! Zemo shares his slot in the wave with the elusive AIM Soldier. It’s amazing to me that Hasbro can not only slip a comic character onto the pegs under the guise of a movie line, but not even put the character’s name on the package. On the other hand, it warms my nerd heart to think that there are enough people walking through the toy aisle that will recognize Baron Zemo when they see him. The day I am in the action figure aisle and I see a little kid point up and say, “Mommy, I want Baron Zemo!” I will weep tears of joy. Will that ever happen? I don’t know, but I can dream. Anyway, Zemo comes on the tray with his weapons mounted beside him and the rather large arm for the Mandroid BAF. And yes, the new Infinite packaging is totally collector friendly.

Hot damn… I love this figure! It’s a more modern treatment than the Universe version that we got last year and that’s fine by me. He still retains the iconic purple hood and pupil-less eyes that make him so sinister. Hasbro did a fine job sculpting the contours of his face under that mask. It really gives him a lot of character. I do, however, miss the regal fur trim that the older Zemo had as part of his outfit. Instead you get a shoulder harness holding two (sculpted and non-removable) automatic pistols. If you’re going to trade in your regal fur trim always do it for extra guns! At first I thought it was a little out of character, actually I still do, but it’s growing on me.

Zemo makes nice use of a standard buck with some extra bits to make him unique. In addition to the gun harness, you get a belt and sash and sculpted yellow boots and gauntlets. If I were to complain about anything it might just be that the figure is a little too dark. I slightly darker purple for the body would have worked a little better for me. But that’s just me trying to find something to complain about because Zemo is otherwise awesome.

Articulation is very similar to what we saw with the NOW! Cap. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, double-hinged at the elbows, have swivels in the biceps, and hinges and swivels in the wrists. The legs feature ball joints in the hips, double-hinged knees, swivels in the thighs and tops of the boots, and hinges in the ankles. Zemo has an ab-crunch hinge in the torso and the head is hinged and ball jointed. The joints are a tad softer than the NOW! Cap, but it’s nothing so bad that it spoils the figure for me.

Zemo comes with both a pistol and a sword. The pistol is a nicely detailed piece and even includes a pattern on the grips that’s evocative of Zemo’s old fur trim. I know, I miss the fur trim and I’m obsessing over it. That’s the last time I’ll mention it. He can hold the gun in either hand, but the right is specifically sculpted with a trigger finger. You also get his broadsword, which is delightfully chunky and melodramatic. It also fits into a loop on his belt and I totally dig that!

While my goal is still to find the AIM Soldier, Zemo makes for a mighty fine consolation prize. This is not my favorite version of the character’s costume, but I still dig it quite a bit and he is undoubtedly a great figure. I already have one team of Thunderbolts in the Legends scale and now I’m hoping that Hasbro might find their way to delivering another roster with Zemo as the first step. Probably not, but I can still hope. Either way it’s just great to see Hasbro sneaking these comic based figures out among the movie marketing. It sure beats getting a dozen different versions of Cap with goofy weapons and made up specialized climate gear. Next week I’ll come back to this wave and check out Red Skull!

Apr 5 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Captain America (Marvel NOW) by Hasbro

Hey look! A Bonus Saturday Feature! I saw Winter Soldier yesterday and loved the hell out of it. I’d gush on and on about it here, but since we’re here to talk about Comic Book cap and not Movie Cap it seems like it wouldn’t be appropriate. Nonetheless, I still wanted to express my Captain America love in some way so I decided to dig into the Marvel Legends Infinite bag again. I’ve already featured two of the three movie based figures from the Legends line, but since I’ve yet to find Black Widow, that’s why we’re moving on to the comic based figures. Let’s start with Cap…

The packaging is pretty much the same as what we’ve already seen in this wave. Since there’s not much new to talk about here, I’ll take this opportunity to say how much I love Hasbro for mixing the comic figures in with the movies. It’s a clever way to sneak the more collector orientated comic figures onto the pegs of retailers who always seem willing to lay out cash for movie toys that almost always tank horribly. On the flipside, you all know I’ve been a huge supporter of Legends since its return, but the Targets around here still have pegs crammed with Klaw and Hope Summers from the first wave. I could understand why they would be leery about seeing more comic figures coming in the door. So when Mr. Walmart Buyer sees Marvel NOW Cap or Baron Zemo he doesn’t see a comic book figure, all he sees is a figure with a multi-million dollar movie marketing campaign behind it. Is that how it really happens? I have no idea, but I’d like to think so.

I’m a big fan of Cap’s current look in the comics and this figure brings it home. Granted, Cap’s costume isn’t a huge departure from past traditional versions. You do get the grey padding under his arms and the grey kneepads. It’s not really a traditional part of the costume’s color palate, but I don’t think it detracts from his iconic look. If anything, these parts add a certain amount of tactical design to the outfit that makes it as real as a guy running around in a red, white, and blue costume could without losing that comic flare. I especially dig the sculpted honeycomb pattern on the top part of his costume. It just adds character to the suit. The portrait on this figure isn’t anything special, but it gets the job done. Of course, the coloring here really backs up the sculpt beautifully. The vibrant red and blue and the striking white is a celebration of bright comic book brilliance. I love it!

Articulation here is mostly great. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, have double hinges in the elbows, swivels in the biceps and both swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs and boots, and double hinges in the knees. The ankles have both hinges and rockers. He has a ball joint and hinge in the neck and an ab-crunch in the torso. I’ll note that the muscled arms tend to restrict the elbow hinges and the shoulders don’t quite go as high as I would like without rotating the whole joint 90 degrees. Also, the absence of a waist swivel is rather baffling. Still, the joints are very solid. There aren’t any of those soft rubbery hinges. He’s a damn fun figure to play around with.

Naturally, Cap comes with his trusty shield, and this time it’s a return to the clip and peg style that we got with earlier Legends Cap figures. In fact, without grabbing one of my old figures to compare, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this same shield plenty of times already. I tend to like this one because it can store on his back, although it does ride rather high over his shoulders, it’s still nice to have the option to put it there. I also like having the peg as Cap can grab it and adopt a throwing posture. And of course the clip works perfectly.

Everything about this figure delights me. I realize some collectors may be getting Captain America fatigue by now, but then those collectors are likely just filthy anti-patriotic communists who secretly want to murder Americans in their sleep. Sure, we’ve had a crazy number of Caps since Marvel Legends returned, but you’ll hear no complaints from me. Cap ranks among my favorite Marvel characters and I’m always happy to get a figure that is accurate to how the character appears in the current run of books. It also doesn’t hurt that I love this modern look and the figure pulls it off brilliantly. This Cap figure has secured a place in the front ranks of my Marvel Legends shelves.

Apr 3 2014

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: Skids and Mudflap by Hasbro

Hey TransFans, it’s Transformers Thursday again and as I ~~threatened~~ promised last week, TFT is getting hijacked by Bayformers! You know what that means…

100% MORE EXPLOSIONS! No, actually it just means that I’ll be looking at figures from the three Michael Bay movies as we approach the impending release of Age of Extinction where Optimus Prime will ride Grimlock into battle while bellowing, “I came in like a wrecking ball.” I’m 41. I’m both ashamed and dismayed that I am hip enough to make that reference. Anyway, just to pour salt in everyone’s eyes let’s kick things off with everyone’s favorite racist robot twins… Skids and Mudflap… as an ice cream truck.

Obviously the packaging is long gone, but I can still remember how hard this figure… er, these figures… were to find. At the time they were going for a fair amount of money online and I finally found one in a CVS or a Walgreens of all places when I ran in to get some cough drops and flu medicine. At the time I wasn’t really committed to buying a lot of Revenge of the Fallen figures, but this was a freaking transforming ice cream truck. How could I not buy that? I don’t care if freaking Uwe Boll made the movie, I can’t not buy a Transformers ice cream truck. Satan himself could have come up with this idea and I still would have applauded and supported it.

Besides being an ice cream truck, I also love the fact that it’s a vintage one. There’s something about Transformers with vintage alt modes that does it for me and Revenge of the Fallen actually gave us a few of them. It seems like the Go-Bots were a lot more willing to do stuff like that. Anyway, this is a great looking alt mode, complete with soft serve swirl on the top and a loudspeaker to blast the music. The two-tone white and pink colors work well for what it is and the ice cream cone tampos and lettering show that Hasbro went that extra mile for this truck. I’ll confess to be a little put out that it doesn’t have “Decepticons, suck my popsicle” anywhere, but I’m guessing that was deemed a little inappropriate for a kids toy. The deco is bright and cheery as opposed to the rusted out vehicle used in the movie, but if you look closely enough you can actually see where Hasbro included rusted spots as part of the sculpt. I should add that this is a really solid and sturdy alt mode when you consider that it pulls apart to become two robots. Let’s look at the front half first. I’m proud to say I had no idea which robot was which, but a little research tells me that the front is Skids.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Ok, I’m going to try to be a little generous here. For a figure that’s engineered from half a Deluxe alt mode, it’s hard to come down really hard on Skids. I don’t like his arms, I think they could have been done better. I don’t get why his right arm has a real hand and the left one is just sculpted in and left unpainted. I think the whole gimp hand was part of his character design and I don’t really get it. I think only Michael Bay gets it. I dig that he wears the truck’s grill as his chest and I dig the way the old-timey fenders become his shoulders. If Hasbro ever did a proper vintage Transformer, I’d like it to use a similar design element. Everything else is pretty bad. His tiny legs can barely support his upper half and as for the head sculpt… I had forgotten how terrible the Bayformer portraits were. Let’s see if Mudflap fares any better…

Nopenopenopenope… No! Without any recognizeable parts of the vehicle to base his robot mode on, Mudflap just looks like a goblin made out of shifting plates and linkages. He’s a perfect example of the jumbled mess that passed for a lot of Bayformer designs. Ok, so there’s something undeniably appealing to me that his shoulder slats read “Creamy Ice Cream” and he has ice cream cones tattooed on his forearms, but he’s still a freaking mess.

So, high marks for a great alt mode, but it’s hard to find anything to love in these robots. I have to give some credit for trying something different and I can’t deny that the scale had a part in crippling the outcome. Had this set been a Voyager sized vehicle, I think it could have been a lot better. But it still would have been limited by what are two of the worst Bayformer designs. Maybe I should just relax and try to see these guys as goofy and fun and be happy that something this bizarre exists. Does the charm of a Transformer ice cream truck cancel out the horror of Devastator’s wrecking ball testacles? I don’t know. No one does. There’s no quantifiable scale to make the comparison. But I can safely say that this was at least one interesting idea that came out of an otherwise horrid movie.

Apr 2 2014

Star Wars Black: Imperial Stormtrooper by Hasbro

Let me lay my cards on the table right now. I have nothing bad to say about this figure. Discounting Han, who is the infamous repeat from the last wave, this Stormtrooper is certainly the best of what Wave 3 has to offer. So let me use this space to just bitch about Hasbro’s case Wave 3 case assortment. So far the 6-inch Black figures have been one per case. That is to say, each wave makes up its own little case of four figures. I thought that was a great idea up until now when Hasbro decides to fill a vacant slot with a repeat. Having only three new figures for Wave 3 was the perfect opportunity to pack two Stormtroopers into the case and make every fan happy. Hasbro, by your own admission this is a collector’s line. Collectors army build. How are you not seeing this? Everybody wants multiples of this guy. That’s why he’s selling for $45 on Amazon right now. Why am I pitching this fit here? Because I love this figure and I’d really like to get a couple more of them, that’s why. Ok, the rant’s over, let’s look at the figure…

There’s the Stormtrooper in his package and much like the Sasquatch or the Jersey Devil, this is not something you’re likely to see in the wild. I dare say your average Imperial Stormtrooper has a better chance of hitting something he’s aiming at than me finding this figure in the toy aisles. In fact, if you’ve ever seen this hanging on a peg count yourself among the blessed. It’s like an angel kissed your cheek. Sadly, it’ll never happen to me. The Walmarts here don’t even carry the line. The Targets are choked with X-Wing Luke’s and R2’s and the nearest TRU is an hour away and even if they weren’t I’d bet they’re charging Ebay prices. No, I got my lone Stormy in a case I ordered online. I had to choke down a mediocre Prequel Obi-Wan and a second Han Solo. And it was still a better deal than buying a single Stormtrooper online. I know, I said the rant was over, but I’ve got nothing new to say about the packaging, so I meandered.

Ah, gorgeous! Hasbro did a wonderful job on the Sandtrooper and they did it again here. A lot of knee-jerk reactions to this figure suggested it was just a straight repaint of the previous grimy trooper. I hate scrutinizing subtle differences between figures, but you don’t have to have a sharp eye to see some of the differences in the armor. The two most obvious changes are the resculpted left knee and lower abdomen. Minor changes? Maybe, but let’s give credit where it’s due. I also happen to love that Hasbro kept the peg hole in the back so you could have him wear the backpack from the Sandtrooper for the rarely seen pre-deployment Tatooine Trooper. You can have him sitting in the dropship chatting with his squad mates. “I hear it’s hot down there… you think it’s hot down there?” “Maybe. As long as there isn’t any sand. I hate sand. It gets everywhere.”

Articulation is exactly what we saw on the Sandtrooper, which isn’t a bad thing at all. The neck, shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles are all ball jointed. The arms have swivels in the biceps and double-hinges in the elbows. The legs have swivels at the hips and double hinges in the knees. The torso also features a ball joint with a solid range of movement. Yes, the sculpted armor still restricts some of the range of movement, but I have to imagine that would be the case with the actual dudes in armor.

The Stormtrooper comes with two weapons. First you get his E-11 Blaster, which is the same piece that came with the Sandy. This figure, however, does have a functional holster on his belt to store the weapon, which is awesome. The other weapon is a rifle, which is different from the longer, thinner one we got with the Sandtrooper. He can hold both of them really well.

I suppose it’s a good thing when all I can do is bitch about distribution. I was jonesing for this Stormtrooper the moment the 6-inch Black line was announced and now that I have him he’s proven to be all that I wanted him to be. The armor looks great, he’s loads of fun to play with, and the only bad thing about him is that he doesn’t have a couple of friends to hang out with. I reckon when 6-inch Vader does finally get released, I’ll be willing to pony up a premium to get just one more of these guys so that I can have them flanking him on the shelf. On the other hand, Hasbro answered the call about complaints over collectors not being able to find some of the recent Marvel Legends figures. That particular wave of figures will be re-released, so maybe they’ll get the message here as well.

Mar 31 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Winter Soldier by Hasbro

Last week I checked out Captain America in one of his new costumes from the upcoming Winter Soldier movie. OMG, I’M VERY EXCITED TO SEE THIS MOVIE AND IT’S ALMOST HERE!!! Ahem, today I thought we’d take a look at the Winter Soldier himself and then I can start digging into the comic-based figures in this wave. Despite getting billed in the very title of the movie, the trailers and marketing hasn’t exactly been saturated with this character. It seemed like only the first trailer really played him up. Maybe Disney is trying to keep it on the down low to spare any non-comic book readers a potential spoiler about who Winter Soldier actually is. Ah, but enough speculation… this figure is our first thorough look at the way the character will appear in the film, so let’s dig right in.

There’s the new Infinite packaging that Hasbro is using for both this film and the Amazing Spider-Man 2. Two movies from two different studios and both are getting the same branding in the toy aisle. How often does that happen? Anyway, this hybrid window box is happy either sitting on the shelf or hanging on a peg and is totally collector friendly giving us the best of both worlds. Oddly enough, the flaps on mine weren’t even taped and I bought it online.

And there’s Winter Soldier in all his blockbuster film glory, or at least that’s what Hasbro would have us believe. There’s something about this figure that doesn’t jibe all that well with what we’ve seen of the character in the trailers and I think it’s the coloring. The figure sports a lot of brown and the film costume looks mostly black to me. Also, the big screen version of the character has a much shinier artificial arm, whereas the figure’s arm is more of a dull matte metal finish. It’s rare that I start out talking about a figure’s coloring, but to me It’s this guy’s biggest stumbling block.

And that’s because the sculpt here is actually quite good. The tactical vest and pants are packed with little details all the way down to the stitching and texturing. He has tiny bullets sculpted into his right arm bracer, all painted copper, and his artificial arm features both sculpted and painted panel lining. The shoulder rig is removable and his belt is sculpted from a separate piece and hangs well on his hips. There are even a couple of non-removable combat knives sculpted into the belt.

As with the last Cap figure I looked at, Winter Soldier comes with two heads. The one that comes on the figure is masked, I find the inclusion of the goggles on this sculpt to be a bit letdown. I like the look of the character with the mask and his eyes showing, and that’s the way he’s been pictured in most of the clips. For whatever reason, the goggled look doesn’t do it for me. Removable goggles? That would have been a good way to go. Personal preferences aside, this head is still a quality sculpt.

The other portrait, however, doesn’t fare so well. It’s a really soft sculpt, particularly when compared to some of the excellent noggins we’ve been seeing in the Marvel Legends line. But more importantly, I have no idea what’s going on with the paint. Is it military style grease paint? Is it supposed to mimic his domino mask from the comics? Is he cosplaying Rocket Raccoon? I don’t know, but I’m not a fan. The few stills that I could find of the character with the paint on had it confined to his eyes like a mask, but here on the figure, it’s all over the place. Neither head really seems to nail the look of the character on screen and in the end choosing which portrait to display on this figure will be choosing the lesser of two evils.

The articulation here is identical to what we saw with Stealth Suit Cap. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, have double-hinged elbows, swivels in the biceps and hinges and swivels in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double-hinged in the knees, swivels in the thighs and tops of the boots, and hinges and rockers in the ankles. Winter Soldier, can swivel at the waist, has an ab-crunch hinge, and both a hinge and ball joint in the neck. The points of articulation here are all great but the hinges are a lot softer than I would have liked.

Let’s move on to accessories, because I bet Winter Soldier comes with some bad ass weapons and… OMG, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

Grrr… The figure comes with this ridiculous looking bright red and black sci-fi looking rifle… and that’s it. Despite the fact that the figures hands are sculpted for pistols, he doesn’t come with any. He also can’t hold this stupid rifle for shit. And why would he want to? Talk about a missed opportunity. Luckily I have the Marvel Legends Punisher. He can lend this guy some tasteful firepower.

I don’t hate this figure, it’s got some good stuff going for it, but it’s far from what I was hoping for. He looks good enough on the shelf, but a lot about him just feels off. The brown doesn’t look right, I’m not terribly happy with either head sculpt, and the weapon sucks. I’m not unhappy I bought it, but with Cap being such a great figure, this one just disappoints.

Mar 28 2014

Star Wars Black: Luke Skywalker (Bespin Fatigues) by Hasbro

Ok, time for another crack at Star Wars Black Wave 3. Han Solo is a repeat and Prequel Obi-Wan wasn’t really my bag. That cuts us down to just two more figures making this assortment a far cry from the line’s first two outings. Ah, but today we’re checking out one that I was actually looking forward to… It’s another Luke Skywalker, and that’s not a bad thing!

I’m pretty much done saying anything constructive about the 6-inch Black packaging because it’s all been said already. I like it, but now that I know the packages will be changing, I’m not keeping them anymore. This stuff takes up space and space is something I don’t have in great abundance. I will point out my one gripe about the line and that’s Hasbro’s unwillingness to define anything more about the character beyond his or her name. Oh, great it’s Luke Skywalker. But didn’t we get Luke Skywalker? Well, that was X-Wing Luke and this is Bespin Luke. Well why don’t you put that on the goddamn package? Seriously, Hasbro, you’ve built this line on character variants and the fact that I have to insert my own clarifier up there in the title of this post is really aggravating me.

Straight away I think Hasbro did a nice job with this sculpt. A dude in tan fatigues isn’t exactly the most exciting concept to work from, but that didn’t stop these guys from giving it their all. In fact, there are two things in particular that stand out on this figure. The first is the sculpted detail in the fatigues. They’re rumpled in all the right places, there are seams for the pockets, and if you look closely enough you can even see the texturing of the fabric. Next up, the paint wash works quite well. I’ve gone on record so many times in the past about how Hasbro doing paint washes is sort of akin to turning a 6-year old loose in the kitchen to make a Chicken Kiev, it never works and someone is bound to get hurt. But in this case I think it enhances the figure. Maybe it’s a bit too dirty, but I still dig the way it looks.

Despite just getting Luke two waves ago, Hasbro delivered a brand new headsculpt for this figure and I appreciate that a lot. Gone is the younger and rounder face from A New Hope and in its place is the harsher and gaunter look that resulted from the Hamill’s terrible car accident. When the first pictures were released I jibed that the portrait looked more like Peter Dinklage than Hamill. I still think there’s a resemblance to little Lord Tyrion, but there’s definitely some Hamill in there too. I’m not quite as impressed with this likeness as I am with the X-Wing Luke, but it still works fine for me.

Running down the articulation, you get a swivel in the waist and a neck with both a hinge and a ball joint. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and elbows and the wrists have swivels and hinges. The wrist hinges, however, are really oddly positioned on this figure, placing them more on the side of the hand and it makes useful positioning of his hands rather difficult. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and double-hinged at the knees. There are swivels in the thighs and the ankles feature both hinges and rockers. The joints are nice and tight and he is definitely a fun figure to pose.

Luke’s weapons include his DL-44 blaster and his lightsaber. These are the same weapons that we saw with the X-Wing Luke, which is totally appropriate and both are excellent pieces. The blaster fits snugly into a holster that is very similar to the one used for the Han Solo figure, right down to the working retaining strap. The lightsaber has a removable blade and uses the same style hook and loop to attach to the belt as seen on the X-Wing Luke. I definitely prefer the method of pegging the hilt into the belt. This way makes it stick out too far and looks rather awkward.

While I would prefer Hasbro concentrate on getting out different characters as opposed to revisiting the same ones so soon, I can’t argue with the importance of adding a Bespin Luke to the collection early on. Some might argue that this one should have been in the first wave since there are no X-Wings for Pilot Luke to sit in, but truth be told I dig that Pilot Luke so much I’m happy we got him too. While Bespin Luke may not be a masterpiece, he is undoubtedly a good, solid figure and he’s a welcome treat compared to the rather lackluster Obi-Wan I looked at last time. That leaves just one figure left in this wave, and I saved the best for last. Next week, we’ll check out the Stormtrooper!

Mar 27 2014

Transformers Energon: Skyblast by Hasbro

Just a heads up, this will probably be the last Transformers Thursday before I turn TFT over to look at figures from the dreaded Bayformer Trilogy! My plan is to keep that going until Age of Extinction releases in June. Whether I can keep that going remains to be seen, but truth be told I have a lot of those figures that have escaped the FFZ spotlight and for good or for ill, they must be shown! Anywho, today’s feature is a genuine random grab from my Energon tote and I came out with… Skyblast! Very cool! Skyblast was one of the first Energon figures revealed by Hasbro before the line launched and for me it was love at first sight. I couldn’t wait to find him on the pegs and the midnight runs to Walmart were a common activity for me back then. I was also really intrigued over finding out about these new Omnicons. Turns out that they were a new type of Transformer allied with the Autobots with the skill to work with raw Energon. Let’s see what this little guy is all about…

When I think back to how excited I was to get this guy, it says a lot about how far Transformers have come since. I’m not knocking him, I still dig him a lot, but nowadays he’s probably not all that much to get excited about. I think a lot of the appeal comes from the fact that he’s obviously an homage to our old friend G1 Jetfire. He’s an adorable little Autobot jet with a just a slight Macross vibe to him. The red and white plastic features some gold and blue paint apps thrown in. And then thee’s the Autobot emblems sculpted right into the wings. I love that!

Skyblast also comes with a bunch of translucent red “energon” parts that can be attached to the jet mode to beef him up. Two of the pieces snap onto the wing tips and the other two pieces connect together into a ridiculously long chin cannon. I’ve never been a big fan of using these parts on the alt mode, but that’s ok because they come in handy later.

Skyblast has a very simple yet clever transformation and the resulting robot mode carries the Jetfire homage over mostly in the Sunbow-style headsculpt. He’s got a pretty clean robot mode that I really enjoy, although there are just a couple of issues. The wings coming off the arms would have worked better if they folded down. I also prefer to flip them and unfortunately the Autobot emblems on the reverse side aren’t painted. Boo! The nose cone can be fold down a bit behind the head, but if you do that you can’t turn the head. Personally, I prefer losing neck articulation and having the nosecone not stick up so far.

As for those energon parts, you’ve got a couple of options here. First, you can make a nice rifle for Skyblast, which I think works much better than the chin cannon on the alt mode. Granted, the limited articulation here makes it tough to have him wield it convincingly, but I still dig it.

The other weapon combines all the parts into a bitchin’ energon spear. Again, there’s not a lot of cool poses this little guy can do with it, but he looks damn cool just standing there holding it.

I’m almost envious of the past me that was able to get so excited about such a simple little eight dollar Transformer. Of course it helps that at the time I was only back into collecting these things for a couple of years and Armada really got me hot and bothered and ready for more. Fast forward to today when I’m dropping hundreds of dollars on Masterpiece and third-party figures. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure if I showed my TFC Not-Aerialbots to that past me he would toss Skyblast into the garbage and start saving money, but then I would have missed out on some genuinely cool figures. Skyblast still holds a lot of appeal for me. As a kid, he’s exactly the kind of toy that I would have shoved in my pocket before going anywhere so that me and my tiny little almost-Jetfire could have adventures together.

Mar 24 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Captain America (Stealth Suit) by Hasbro

OH MY GOD, I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE WINTER SOLDIER MOVEI!!! I was already crazy excited for this flick but then Disney went and released that 4-minute clip and now I want it even more. It’s no surprise that I was going to be hunting the accompanying Marvel Legends figures and that’s been no easy feat. The pegs here are choked with WW2 Caps, a repack of a figure that I already own, and the prices online for the rest have been pretty crazy. But after a little bit of persistence and diligence, I did manage to pick up most of them at a decent price and now I only have to hunt the elusive Black Widow to finish my Mandroid BAF and then the AIM and Hydra soldiers. Seeing as how much I’m jonesing for the movie, I thought I might as well start with Cap in the Stealth Suit that he wears in the movie.

Behold the new packaging for Marvel Legends Infinite! Despite being tied in to the Winter Soldier movie, it’s the same style package we saw when I featured two of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 figures. It’s a big departure from the very comic bookish look of last year’s cardbacks, but I still really dig it a lot. It’s totally collector friendly and the conceptual art on the side panels looks great. And just look at how packed it is in there! You couldn’t fit anything else on that tray. Let’s rip him open and take a look!

Straight up, I have to say that I love the design of this costume. It may not be as colorful or exciting as the First Avenger or Avengers costumes, but it is a fitting tribute to the costume worn by Steve Rogers when he returned to comics and declined to recover the Captain America identity from Bucky Barnes. It also looks absolutely bitching on the big screen and not too shabby on this figure. There’s a very tactical feel to the outfit, both literally and figuratively. Every tiny bit of this guy is detailed or textured in some way, although you have to get in close to really appreciate it all. The belt is a separate sculpted piece and fits snugly around Cap’s waist. The paintwork compliments the sculpt quite nicely, particularly the silver used on the chest. There’s even a tiny American Flag and “Rogers” on his left shoulder and a SHIELD emblem on his right shoulder.

You get two portraits with this figure, one masked and one unmasked and swapping them is as easy as popping them on and off the ball joint. The masked head shares all the impressive detail of the figure’s body. There are a few minor paint issues, like a bit of blue slop on his right ear and a little rubbing to the silver A on his helmet, but nothing too bad. The alternate unmasked portrait is also an excellent sculpt, although the Evans likeness isn’t quite all the way there. Close, but not quite. Still, I’d say it works pretty damn fine for a comic inspired Steve Rogers.

The articulation here is about what I’ve come to expect from this line. The neck features both a ball joint and hinge, the torso has an ab-crunch hinge, and Cap can swivel at the waist. The arms have ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps, double-hinged elbows, and his wrists have swivels and hinges. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, double-hinges in the knees, swivels again at the tops of the boots, and the ankles have hinges and rockers. Not bad at all. Cap is a sturdy and well balanced figure and when you couple that with the great articulation, you get a figure that is lots of fun to play around with.

While Cap comes with two fists attached, you also get an extra pair of hands. The right hand has the fingers straight out as if he’s either saluting or about to karate chop an unsuspecting Hydra agent. The left hand has a pointing finger so he can direct the Howling Commandos on where to attack next. What’s missing? A hand capable of clutching his shield would have been nice, perhaps instead of the right fist.

Speaking of his shield, Cap comes with his stealth shield, which nixes the red and dulls the silver giving it a somewhat darker appearance. This is a repaint of the same shield issued with the old First Avenger 6-inch Cap, a figure which was also repacked into this wave. That’s good and bad. I do really like the realistic straps on the reverse side and the way they fit the figure’s arm, however, there’s no way that the figure can wear it on his back. Anytime a Cap figure can’t wear his shield on his back, it seems like a fundamental design oversight to me.

This new line of Legends has an MSRP of $20 in many stores and that’s not too bad considering the extra head and hands, not to mention the BAF Mandroid right leg. but the prices online have been fluctuating like crazy. I’ve seen this version of Cap going for as much as $25, but I was able to get him when he dipped down to $17.99. I’m certainly content with that. He really is an excellent figure and my guess is he’ll spend at least a couple of days on my desk so I can fiddle about with him before finally relegating him to one of my Marvel Legends shelves.

Mar 20 2014

Transformers Armada: Optimus Prime with Overrun by Hasbro

Last week on Transformers Thursday I looked at a Deluxe Prime toy that left me less than enthused. I hate ragging on Transformers, so I thought this week I’d dig out one of my favorite Deluxe treatments of the character. He hails from the Armada line and while he was a huge departure from the G1 Prime we knew, I fell in love with this toy the first time Hasbro leaked the official pictures. If you haven’t already heard me gas on about Armada, the line holds a lot of nostalgia for me. Sure, I got back into collecting Transformers with Robots in Disguise, but that line always felt like a cobbled together mess. When Armada rolled out it felt like a real cohesive toyline and I was all over it. While I do still have a bunch of Deluxe Armada figures Mint on Card, Prime isn’t one of them, so let’s jump right in and start with his alt mode.

As a red and blue semi-cab, Prime still honors his most iconic alt mode, but there’s enough of a futuristic bent to this new design that makes it totally distinctive. With the way the hood hunches up and the front fenders flare out, this truck looks like it would be at just as at home driving the metal freeways of Iacon City as it would the pavement of Earth. Back then we didn’t have an actual Cybertronian Prime, and this figure worked well as a stand in. The low and wide profile, chunky grill and ramming bar also makes it look like a powerful and rugged vehicle that’s ready for battle. The coloring here is firmly rooted in Prime’s past, using a very pleasing combination of red, blue, and grey plastic. With the exception of the silver painted windshield and some gold, the truck mode shows its paint apps rather sparingly, but it’s still a great looking deco. In terms of reinventions go, I just love this design.

Of course, like most Armada figures, Prime comes with a Minicon buddy and in this case, it’s Overrun, a little silver jet. The jet mode looks pretty good, and he even has a teeny tiny flip down front landing gear. He is, however, a little bland and I think some extra paint operations would have gone a long way to make him more striking. His robot mode is alright for a Minicon, but I can’t help but think it could have been a homerun if they had managed to fold the nose down flush with his chest instead of having it stick straight out. My last gripe with this guy is that his connection port is on top, which makes attaching him to Prime in vehicle mode a little awkward. How cool would have been if he could just sit on Prime’s hitch and launch off the back, especially since Prime isn’t using that hitch for anything else.

And then there’s the robot mode, and oh my, this is an interesting design. Like his alt mode, this looks like a Prime that is ready to charge into battle. Gone are the windshields on his chest and in their place is that beefy grill that he wears like a slab of armor. He’s got the shoulders of a linebacker, giant wheels studding his legs, and his exhaust pipes become dual arm-mounted guns. This is clearly a version of Prime that you don’t mess with. It’s a totally new look for the leader of the Autobots and it totally works for me. On the other hand, Prime purists should be very happy with the very familiar head sculpt, which is possibly one of my favorite portraits of the character in this size class. Whoever designed this guy gets my sincerest compliments.

That’s not to say this figure doesn’t have a few problems. First and foremost, those exhaust pipes pop off at the drop of a hat. The fact that I still have them is just pure luck, as I’ve recovered them from rattling around in the bottom of a tote plenty of times. At least they aren’t clear like the ones on the bigger version of this figure. Next up, his forearms do not like to stay in the right position and tend to slide out over his fists when playing around with him. And speaking of playing around with him, the articulation on this guy is a little rough. It’s not that the points aren’t there, but rather a lot of the sculpt is at odds with good poseability. It’s like a guy in a suit of armor trying to do gymnastics.

There’s nothing I love more than Targetmaster-style Minicons, and Overrun can indeed transform into a gun for Prime to wield in either hand. As for as tertiary gun modes go this Overrun’s isn’t too bad. That’s a good thing because the Minicon gimmick on this figure sucks. You plug Overrun into the post on Prime’s back and it creates this horribly lame punching gimmick. It really is dreadful and best forgotten.

And yet I love this figure even with its blemishes, mainly because he just looks so bad ass on the shelf. When you have an iconic character like Optimus Prime, messing around with his look is a huge gamble, especially when you’re trying to re-launch the franchise. This new Prime was a bold move on Hasbro’s part and I think it paid off in spades. This is an Optimus Prime that looks like he’s built for combat and it’s a refreshing change. Of course, there was also a larger version of this figure that came with his trailer, but I still prefer this Deluxe version for reasons I’ll get into when I finally get around to covering the big guy.

Mar 18 2014

Star Wars Black: Obi-Wan Kenobi (Prequels) by Hasbro

The third wave of Hasbro’s 6-inch Star Wars Black figures has arrived on my doorstep without much breathing room between this one and the last wave. But then again, this isn’t a complete wave anyway. No, this case consisted of three new figures and the Han Solo from Wave 2. It’s annoying, because my best chance of getting these at a decent price has been to buy them by the case. While I might have a chance of picking up Obi-Wan and Luke at a good price a la carte, I’d have to shell out about $40 online to buy a single of the Stormtrooper. And that means having to suck it up and take the good with the bad. God forbid Hasbro pack two Stormtroopers into the case instead of the extra Han, right? Anyway, let’s kick things off with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

There’s the packaging. I still dig it a lot, but according to what we saw at Toy Fair, the boxes are going to be changing to a new deco in a couple of waves. That’s fine by me because having two types of boxes for the line will aggravate my OCD something fierce and that means I don’t have to save the packaging anymore. The box simply states this is Obi-Wan Kenobi, but as we can see it’s Obi-Wan from the Prequels. Someone better versed in The Star Wars might be able to tell you whether he’s from Episode 2 or Episode 3, but I’m fine just considering him Prequel Obi-Wan. Some may be surprised that I bought him, as I’ve sworn to be really picky with this line and mostly stick to Original Trilogy figures. Nonetheless, one of the few things I liked about the Prequels was the way they portrayed young Obi-Wan so I didn’t mind so much getting him with the case.

The sculpt here is not terrible, but it’s definitely got some issues. The plastic robes look way too bulky, particularly in the waist and shoulders, and the effect is exasperated by the head, which looks tiny by comparison. I get that the robes are supposed to be poofy and flowing, but instead it just makes Obi-Wan look like he needs to drop a few pounds. Interestingly enough, the figure uses some actual softgoods for the robes below the belt. On the one hand, it helps to not restrict the hip articulation, but it also begs the question, why not use this for all the robes? A slimmer buck with this kind of fabric over it might have worked better. Maybe? Well, maybe not, but I doubt it could have looked much worse. I mean, just look at the arms. It’s tough to sculpt arms with droopy sleeves and have them look right in multiple poses. These seem like problems that should have been left behind in the 3 3/4″ line.

The head sculpt taken on its own isn’t too bad. There’s definitely a likeness in the portrait and I would have no problem identifying who it’s supposed to be if someone just handed me the head. The fact that it looks disproportionate to the body is more a problem with the heft of the buck than the size of the head. I think the sculptors did a particularly nice job with the hair and the paint is certainly passable. I’ll concede we’ve seen better head sculpts in this line, but the likeness is the least of this figure’s problems.

The articulation is about right for what we’ve been seeing in this line. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders and elbows, while the wrists have swivels and hinges. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and rockers in the ankles. The neck is both ball jointed and hinged and the waist appears to be ball jointed, but really only works as a swivel. The only real issue I have with the articulation are the hips. They have a weird amount of play in them. It’s like their loose, but only to a certain degree. It doesn’t affect the figure’s ability to stand, but it you hold the figure by the torso and shake him they wobble all over the place.

Obi-Wan comes with only one accessory… his lightsaber. As we saw with X-Wing Luke, the blade can be detached and the hilt can be worn on the belt. This time, however, the hilt gets pegged into the hole on Obi-Wan’s belt and it fits quite nicely. I wish Hasbro had gone this route with Luke’s lightsabers, rather than using the hook, as this method holds the hilt more securely and looks better. But with just the one lightsaber, this figure feels really light in the accessories department. A softgoods cloak would have gone a long way to round out the package. Hell, we used to get those with the 3 ¾” Vintage Collection Jedi. Actually, screw that, we got a softgoods cloak for Jedi Luke… from Kenner… in the 80s! And if not a cloak, then how about some bits of Clone armor? Anything to help justify the $20 would have been nice.

For a line that has impressed me very nearly consistently from day one, Obi-Wan is certainly a disappointing release. The goal of the 6-inch Black series should be to give us superior sculpts and articulation, but I honestly think young Obi-Wan has been done better in the smaller scales. The real shame here is that I’m pretty sure we’ll see this buck again and again. I’m sure Hasbro is already fitting it for a Mace Windu head. It’s ironic, but in the end I feel worse about having to choke down this figure in this wave than I do picking up a second Han. At least the Han figure is excellent and I can display him with his different belt, hands, and weapon. The same can’t be said for Obi-Meh-Kenobi.

FigureFan Zero

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