Dec 12 2013

Transformers Universe 2.0: Hardhead by Hasbro

It’s Thursday again and that means it’s time to rummage through the bins and find something from the days of Transformers past. Today’s feature, however, isn’t a random pick. We’re looking at Universe 2.0 Hardhead because in a week or so (or whenever I get caught up with the stack of unopened toys in the corner) I’m going to be featuring Toyworld’s homage to the Hardhead character and I thought it would be neat to dig out Hasbro’s last tribute to him. To be fair, the homage here is quite a reach. He isn’t a Headmaster, and the similarities amount to little more than the same name and a vaguely similar deco. But then Hardhead hasn’t gotten a lot of love from Hasbro and this is a very cool figure, so let’s look at him anyway.

The packaging for mine is long gone, but I spend enough money on Amazon that I don’t feel bad about cribbing their photo, so long as I’m giving them a plug here as well. Hardhead hails from the Universe 2.0 series, which was an extension of Classics before Hasbro settled for the more sensible Generations moniker. He was released in the 25^th Anniversary year and he was a Walmart exclusive. I have no recollection of where I got mine, but I know damn well it wasn’t at Walmart because the Walmarts here never get any Hasbro or Mattel exclusives. Yes, they are so exclusive that even their own stores don’t carry them! It’s also worth pointing out that he is a repaint of Onslaught, a figure I never did see on the shelves and do not have in my collection. At the time I was going through my “only by one of each mold” phase. Hardhead is an Ultra Class, which means he’s slightly bigger than a Voyager and has some electronic bells and whistles, however, the batteries in mine are dead, so the electronics are a mystery. I seem to recall some kind of siren. Anyway, let’s kick things off with his alt mode.

I think this is supposed to be some kind of SWAT style six-wheeled APC. It’s the sort of vehicle that crashes through the walls of Meth Labs and the like. The big difference is that this one has a turret with two cannons on top giving it a more military vibe. G1 Hardhead was, of course, a Cybertronian tank so this alt mode is a bit of a stretch but I guess it sort of works in that they’re both armored vehicles. Despite the dubious link to the original figure, this is a big, chunky and fun vehicle and I’m rather fond of it. The sculpt isn’t as detailed as some of the better Transformers molds, but you do get some little hatches and rivets here and there. The front features a wicked looking set of ramming claws and the turret does turn. Alas, the gun barrels have a habit of falling out if you look at them funny, but they do plug right back in.

The thing that most collectors tend to either love or hate is the giant shield that clips onto the top of the vehicle and looks like exactly that: A giant shield on top of the vehicle, complete with cheesy artwork that we’ll get to in a little bit. You can leave it off if you think it looks goofy, but I think it’s fun and sometimes I don’t mind a little goofy in my toys when there’s a reason for it. I will, however, concede that it looks better on the Onslaught toy, probably because it’s more uniform with the deco.

In robot mode, Hardhead is all business. It’s pretty obvious to me this guy started life as a Decepticon and between the head sculpt and the gun barrels rising up behind his back, the Onslaught homage is strong one. The clawed shoulder armor and powerful legs give him a formidable appearance, and yet he still manages to pull off a clean and well-proportioned robot form. I dig how all six of his wheels wind up down on his legs and the windshield from the APC is worn across his chest. The individual rivets sculpted into his legs are a nice touch!

However, Hardhead is not without a few design flaws. I’m not a fan of the exposed compartments in his forearms. Also, it really irks me when Hasbro designs a figure so that the exposed screws wind up on the front, rather than concealed in the back. I’ve seen it on several figures and oddly enough it’s usually on the shoulders. Lastly, the knees on this figure have always befuddled me. They’re supposed to angle out, but the one on the right always seems to want to angle out more. You can lock them flush with the leg by tucking the corner behind the plate, but this probably isn’t very good for the plastic. I wish the design was a little more deliberate on what was supposed to happen here. Of course, none of these gripes are enough to ruin what is still a really fantastic looking figure. And he definitely reminds me of something… what is it?

Oh yeah, I’m getting a major Gundam vibe off this guy, particularly when you attach his shield. The shield pegs in to his left arm, but it does so rather awkwardly on the back side of his forearm. As a result he can only wield it with his arm spun around and facing straight down. It looks good, but doesn’t give you a lot of options vis-à-vis articulation. It’s clearly designed to look like a SWAT riot shield and again, I think it plays better on the Onslaught toy than it does here. There is, however, one thing that saves it and that’s where the cheesy art comes into play. There’s a Decepticon logo printed on it with a crudely painted line through it and Hardhead’s seven kills are scored below it. I love this concept a lot, which is why I’m willing to forgive the awkward placement of the shield in vehicle and robot mode.

Hardhead doesn’t have a hand gun, but he does have a gun that folds out of his right arm. I think it would have been cool if his back cannons could have been angled forward to his shoulders, but they are fixed on his back.

Hardhead is one of those figures that has jumped quite a bit on the secondary market. It’s not uncommon to see him hit the $75 mark, but if you’re willing to go $50 you might have some luck. He’s definitely a stand out figure for me and while the mold was certainly constructed with an Onslaught homage in mind, I still like this repaint a lot. You can’t have all the bad-ass armored death wagons aligned with the Decepticons, right? The Autobots need some heavy hitters to even the odds. And in that regard, I think the name was a good choice, even if the homage to Hardhead really isn’t there. Either way, I almost always have this guy out on display, and when you consider how many TFs I have in drawers waiting for their turn for some shelf time, that’s a pretty high honor. Right now he’s hanging out on one of my Generations shelves with Sandstorm and Springer and they look like they are about to tear some shit up!

Dec 11 2013

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

As some of my more stalwart readers may remember, back during the First Great Toy Purge I sold off the bulk of my 3 ¾” Star Wars figures. A lot of them went, although I did spare my Imperial Forces and even if you don’t count those I still had over 200 figures left. After that I picked up a few here and there, but when the 6-inch Black line was revealed, I promised myself no more 3 ¾” Star Wars figures. I finally had an out. Then Amazon had a half-price sale on them and I buckled because I am a weak, weak man who cannot even keep a promise to himself. Among the figures I bought was this addition to my army of about 30 or so Stormtroopers. Most of mine are from the Vintage Collection and the Legacy Collection, so I was rather interested to see if these Black Stormies were better, worse, or just repacks of the same figures. Keep in mind I absolutely hate scrutinizing subtle differences between releases, as I find it tedious and boring. Plus, I’ve been out of Star Wars collecting long enough that I’m hardly an authority on it anyway. I will, however, use the Legacy version with the removable helmet as a stand in for comparison, since I have a lot of those in my army. I hated the removable helmet on that guy, but I still think they were pretty good figures. Nobody seemed to want them so I was able to find them on the pegs just about every time I went shopping at Target or Walmart.

This is my first look at the 3 ¾” Scale SWB packaging. It mimics the black, minimalist decos used on the larger scale boxes, only this time in the form of a more traditional card and bubble affair. I like the look of this on the 6-inch line, but here I’m not so sure. The artsy-fartsy style lends itself to promote the larger figures as a collector line, whereas it seems rather out of place on figures that look more or less the same as the stuff we’ve been getting for ~~years~~ decades now, especially since some of these figures are straight repacks or kitbashes. And not showing additional figures on the back of the card? That’s been a tradition since the first Star Wars figure rolled off the line way back when and it seems like sacrilege not to do it. I should also note here that a lot of collectors are reporting instances where the bubbles don’t stick to the card properly. As an opener, it doesn’t bother me, but I can see where the bubble on this one is beginning to separate from the card at the top. MOC collectors, beware!

Ok, so a little research tells me that this is a Vintage Collection Sandtrooper with a regular VC Stormtrooper’s belt. {YAWN!} See? I’m boring myself to tears already. The torso and arms seem pretty close to my Legacy trooper, but when we move below the waist the Black version has something that looks more like a T-crotch only it isn’t. The hips are still ball jointed but he has an awkward and permanent wide stance, which doesn’t look right. Some have complained about the giraffe neck, which comes from this being a Sandtrooper with no pauldron, but honestly I don’t see it as a big issue with my figure. Perhaps the fact that he’s perpetually bow-legged draws my attention away from the neck. There is, however, some notable black paint slop on some of the white armor and even white showing through on the black joints. Jeez, Hasbro, the figure is white plastic with black paint. How hard is that to get right? To slam the disappointment home, I had to shave some mold flashing off this guy, particularly around the joints. That’s the first time I ever had to do that with a 3 3/4″ Star Wars figure. I thought even the 3 ¾” version of Black is still supposed to be a collector line. You wouldn’t know it with this kind of QC.

But we haven’t even gotten to the real sticking point yet. The helmet is god awful. There’s more paint slop, particularly around the chin and the sculpting for the eyes make his helmet look puffy and wrong. Seriously, look at his eyes… it looks like he just woke up or is having an allergy attack. And why are they set so far apart? Keep in mind, I’m comparing this head sculpt to the removable helmet on my Legacy figure. By all rights the Legacy figure should look worse because it’s sculpted on soft rubbery plastic. But, no. It looks so much better. The Black figure looks like it’s supposed to be some kind of primitive variant helmet. Folks, I am by no means a stickler for total accuracy on these figures. Hasbro can get (and probably have) an awful lot of discrepencies past me without me even noticing, but they weren’t even in the ballpark with this one.

The articulation here is fine. This guy is loaded with ball joints so I can get him into all the usual shooting and dying poses that I require from my Stormies. Ironically, however, the weird configuration of the hips makes him look odd when just standing at attention in my ranks. It’s like this guy has spent way too much time in the saddle of a Dewback.

As far as accessories go, This Stormy comes with the same belt as my Legacy version, which is cool because it includes the functional holster. He comes with a rifle and a brand new E-11 Blaster, or at least it’s new to me! I find it ironic that Hasbro flubbed so much with the actual figure and then went all out on the Blaster, which now features a multi-piece folding stock. I’ve never seen this piece before and it is quite impressive for a weapon in this scale. But to further drive the irony home, you have to pull off all the extra parts if you want it to go into the holster and that gets the official Admiral Ackbar Facepalm Award.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m not impressed with this figure. I realize that the 6-inch Black figures are the real collectible line, but by putting out the crappy 5-point articulation 3 ¾” figures on the pegs alongside these, Hasbro is practically targeting these to collectors as well. This figure is a huge step back from a number of recent Stormtrooper releases and that’s just baffling to me, because they would have better served their customers by just repacking the VC or Legacy figures and making them available again. At $5 each through Amazon’s sale, I was tempted to buy five of these, and I am oh, so glad that I didn’t. Of course, the great thing about army building Stormtroopers is you can always put the sub-par ones in the back of a display to fill out the ranks and that’s where this guy is going to go.

Dec 5 2013

Transformers Armada: Demolisher with Blackout by Hasbro

Alrighty folks, Transformers Thursday is back in business. Sorry about last week, but taking Thanksgiving off was necessary for my sanity. Today I pulled a random figure from one of the many Transformers drawers and low and behold it is Demolisher from Transformers Armada. Ah, the Armada days. I took to this line like crack, and it was not uncommon for me to make midnight runs to three different Walmarts just to hunt down a pointless Powerlinx repaint of a figure that I already owned. I was in pretty deep. As a result, let’s check out both versions of Deluxe Class Demolisher. There’s no packaging to look at, so let’s just skip to the alt mode.

Demolisher’s vehicle mode is some kind of crazy mobile-missile-launcher-tank-thingy. As a rule, Armada tended to be fairly grounded in many of its alt modes, but Demolisher is an example of the designers letting their freak flags fly and I like it. I think a lot of my love for this toy has to do with it just being an unabashed war machine. Also, I won’t deny that the giant Decepticon emblem molded into the front tickles my fancy. While Robots in Disguise fiddled about with Predacons (and a few proper Decepticons), Armada brought the Decepticons back in full force and it was good to see this emblem on all the bad guys again. I really loved the way the Armada toys had the emblems included as part of the sculpt, rather than just paint apps or tampos. It may seem like an odd detail to fixate on, but then I’m a pretty odd guy. The mold here is crazy with sculpted detail, particularly on the tread covers. Hasbro did not skimp on the details here, nor were they frugal with the paint apps. I can’t even imagine a Deluxe Transformer nowadays having this much color. There’s even a paint wash over certain parts to further enhance the sculpting. This toy is just loaded with reasons why I still love Armada so much.

Of course, it’s hard to not love Armada when you get a little Transformer with each figure. In this case, Demolisher came with Blackout. He’s a little military truck with a simple and clean looking robot mode, but sadly not much of a face. He also has guns for hands, which if you’re a Decepticon, probably comes in handy. HA! I said it comes in HANDY! Obviously Blackout skipped the face line and got on the gun-arm line twice. Probably a good choice. Anyway, in terms of Minicon design, you can’t get much better than Blackout. He’s just a fun and solid little guy.

Before we get to Demolisher’s robot mode, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s some pretty good play value packed into this Demolisher’s alt mode. His turret swivels, he can fire off two of his four missiles via the Minicon port, he can angle his top guns into various positions including to cover his own back. There’s also two ways Blackout can interact with him. In his truck mode, Blackout will plug right into the front to give Demolisher some chin guns and there’s a button on the back to eject him. There’s also a fold out seat in the back, which Blackout can use in robot mode. I love this last part because having the little bot operate the bigger bot in vehicle mode is so very Headmastery in concept. Headmastery. It’s a word. Look it up. Actually, it isn’t… so don’t.

Demolisher’s transformation is pretty simple, but still features some clever engineering, and man do I love his robot mode. He looks like the love child of a Transformer and a MechWarrior robot. The missiles coming up off the top of his shoulders look suitably imposing and the five gun barrels from his alt mode make up each of his hands. Let me rephrase that… HOLY SHIT, DEMOLISHER HAS GUNS FOR FINGERS!!! If that’s not cool enough for you, you can mis-transform his arms so that he still has his guns and missile launchers while in robot mode. It really plays off on the whole Mechwarrior vibe and I love it. This is a Decepticon that I would want alongside me in a fight. He’s just a lumbering machine of death.

The only gripe I’ve ever had with Demolisher is his head sculpt. Armada had some really questionable head sculpts, and Demolisher’s gritting teeth, black face and giant green left eye have always left me a little wanting. I can’t deny he has a lot of personality, but the portrait lacks the detail of the rest of the toy. That having been said, it’s kind of grown on me over the years.

Of course, many of the Armada figures were repainted into Powerlinx versions. I’m usually fine with repaints when they are used to make a new character, but repainting a figure to replace an existing figure as the same character doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Of course, that didn’t stop me from buying all the Powerlinx figures. In this case, Powerlinx Demolisher is a rather unnecessary repaint because I don’t think the recolor does him much justice. It’s not better, just different. The gold plating on the front looks good, and I don’t mind the maroon plastic replacing the tan, but the white camo-motif is pretty weird. I just don’t get what they were going for here. A much better repaint was released later on in the G1 Constructicon colors. It’s a beautiful figure, but one that I sadly lost in a flood about five years back. I don’t mean it was swept away by flood tides. I mean the storage flooded and the boxes were saturated with mold and had to be destroyed. As much as I wanted to save the toys in them, I wasn’t willing to risk getting tuberculosis in the attempt. I’ll have to replace him eventually.

Demolisher is about as fun a Transformer figure as I can think of. He’s chunky and packed with sculpted detail and play features. The engineering may have gotten more sophisticated over the years, but if I were a kid I’d much rather play with this guy than most of the Deluxe figures we’ve had in the last couple of years. There are plenty of figures from the Armada days that haven’t aged all that well, but I certainly don’t think that Demolisher here is one of them. In fact, I was quite surprised how much enjoyment I got out of pulling him out for this feature and playing around with him again. It made me want to put all my Deluxe Armada figures out on display again, and I even started eyeing some shelves to see if a display rotation was in order. Then again, if I do put my Armada Deluxes out it means I’d have to see this guy again. Maybe it’s not worth it.

Nov 25 2013

Marvel Universe: Inhumans by Hasbro

I’ve recently been re-reading my Jonathan Hickman Fantastic Four; particularly the stretch leading up to The Future Foundation and it started bugging me that I still didn’t own Hasbro’s Inhumans set. Actually, “bugging” probably isn’t the right word as I was in a bit of a state, good and lubed up on Jameson, and in fact rather outraged that I didn’t have these figures. After a quick trip to Ebay and throwing down a little more money than I should have, the set was soon on its way to me. Drinking and Ebaying… shouldn’t there be an organization with an acronym devoted to stamping this out?

We’ve looked at a number of these Marvel Universe multi-packs here on FFZ and packaging presentation here poses no surprises. It’s a window box that shows off the three figures in slight action poses, which happily does not seem to warp any of their joints. The character art on the box is quite nice and you get a little blurb about the Inhumans on the back of the box. It is collector friendly and while I was saving these for a while, they’ve all been trashed in my effort to keep downsizing and so this one too will soon be on its way to the landfill. You get three figures in the box: Black Bolt, Medusa, and Karnak, so let’s just go ahead and take them in that order.

Black Bolt is a character that I felt was sorely missing in the MU lineup and easily the best justification for picking up this set. He’s a relatively easy figure to do, but I’m happy to say that Hasbro even went a little above and beyond on this one. Besides the painted costume buck, we also get the sculpted “wings” on his biceps similar to the way they did Spider-Woman’s webbing. The head sculpt is quite well done with the tiny “tuning fork” emblem is actually sculpted onto his mask. The silver paintwork on the costume stripes and wings is neatly applied and really makes this guy pop on the shelf. I think the “wings” will be the sticking point on this guy for a lot of collectors as they can look awkward in some poses. Still, I can’t think of a better way that Hasbro could have done it. Still, I think Black Bolt turned out to be a rather beautiful figure.

Speaking of beautiful… next up is Black Bolt’s wifey, Medusa. I have only one minor gripe with this figure and that’s the head sculpt seems a tad too thin, and even that may just be my own personal hang up, otherwise Hasbro really did a wonderful job here. Her costume, gloves and boots are all just painted on, but the metallic purple on the boots and gloves looks nice and the black lines on her one-piece are sharp and clean. I really get the feeling that Hasbro has gotten their act together on their MU paintwork. I remember back to the days of slop like I saw on my Warbird figure, and I’m happy to say I haven’t seen anything like that lately. Anyway, moving past the paint, it’s obvious to see where all the sculpting on this chick went. Dat hair! Medusa couldn’t have been the easiest figure to design and Hasbro just went with having her copious mane falling down her back and I dare say it works quite well. I think an attempt at having her hair in some kind of action pose would have been disastrous. Either way, there’s practically enough plastic in her hair alone to make another figure.

And then there’s Karnak. You could argue that there were better choices for this slot, but I’m fine with getting Karnak, particularly after seeing how well Hasbro executed this figure. He uses a slimmer buck than Black Bolt, which is appropriate and adds a nice bit of diversity to the set. His painted costume features some beautiful shades of green and is enhanced by the sculpted belt and sash. The head sculpt really drives the figure home with his pencil thin pervy mustache and jiffy pop head. Wonderful!

The fellas feature the excellent modern MU articulation, which consists of ball joints in the heads, shoulders, hips, and torsos. The elbows are hinged and the knees are double hinged. You also get swivels in the biceps, thighs, and wrists. Karnak’s ankles are ball joints, whereas Black Bolt has a hinge with lateral rockers. Lateral ankle rockers in a 3 ¾” figure… always a nice touch! Black Bolt features added swivels in the lower legs and an additional hinge in the neck. Medusa shares her hubby’s articulation, with just one exception: She doesn’t have the bicep swivels, a point of articulation that is sadly often omitted form the female bucks.

Hasbro has a track record of sometimes including a small PVC piece with these sets. With the Fantastic Four we got HERBIE, The X-Men set had baby Cyclops, and Guardians of the Galaxy came with Rocket Raccoon. So I think omitting Lockjaw from this set was a major misstep. I suppose you could argue that he would have to be bigger than the previously included PCV pieces, but I’d rather have been granted a slightly undersized Lockjaw than none at all. Afterall, I doubt there will ever be another opportunity to release that figure.

Apart from whining about Lockjaw and what could have been, I’ll happily admit that Hasbro did a wonderful job with this set. It’s been on my want list ever since I first saw the pre-production photos and now that I have it in hand, it certainly has lived up to my expectations. I ponied up $30 for it, which is more than I usually have to pay for these, but not a bad deal at all when it breaks down to just ten bucks a figure. And these are indeed excellent figures!

Nov 21 2013

Transformers Classics: Ultra Magnus by Hasbro

Last week I happened to mention the Ultra Magnus/Skywarp 2-pack when doing my feature of Generations Thundercracker. I know that about three years ago I looked at that Skywarp when doing a feature on the Classics-style Seekers, but looking back through my Index I realized that Ultra Magnus never got the spotlight on FFZ, so let’s amend that today because despite being a rather uninspired repaint, he’s a rather interesting release to talk about.

If there was any logic behind Hasbro pairing up Skywarp and Ultra Magnus in the Classics line, I have no idea what it was. I don’t recall ever reading about any great rivalry between the characters. Nonetheless, it sure did piss off a lot of fans. First off, it was a Target exclusive which meant that for some people it was difficult to get. Some people, but not for me. My Target had half an endcap full of these sets on clearance when I bought mine, and even at that point I don’t ever remember seeing them in the aisle for regular price. I tend to find Target exclusives a lot more often than Walmart releases, which I have no hope of finding at all. Nonetheless, the exclusivity of the release was a sticking point with fans who desperately wanted the next Decepticon Seeker Jet in the line. Of course, what also stuck in many a collectors’ craw was having to pay for a white repaint of Optimus Prime in order to get him. You see, a little something called Parallax City Commander didn’t even exist yet, and collectors couldn’t help but question why this wasn’t a Skywarp and Thundercracker 2-pack. And it’s still a good question. Even at a clearance price, I still felt like a sucker as I paid for the set for the sole purpose of getting Skywarp.

Obviously there’s history and tradition behind painting Optimus white and calling him Ultra Magnus, but that’s only because the original G1 toy used Prime’s cab as a basis to build a very different figure. Did anyone actually play with Ultra Magnus as a white cab alone? I sure didn’t. As a result just releasing a white repaint of Prime with no extra parts always seemed like the height of laziness, and yet that hasn’t stopped Hasbro and Takara from doing it. Before Fansproject came along and unlocked the true potential of this figure, I don’t know anybody that actually wanted it… let alone me! But then again, I have a love-hate relationship with this mold to begin with. I’m not going to rehash a lot of that here, so feel free to jump back to my original feature of Classics Optimus Prime if you want the full poop.

I can’t deny that Magnus looks good in his truck mode. The white, silver and blue motif looks particularly nice on the toy and he really is just begging for a car carrier trailer on the back to drive the homage home. What’s more the white plastic that Hasbro used here is just fantastic. It holds a vibrant color and doesn’t feel at all cheap like some of the stuff they’ve been using lately. He comes with the same removable cap that converts into a large gun and the same set of exhaust pipes that convert into his rifle. The only thing really missing here is an Autobot symbol. I like my Autobots to show their insignia when in vehicle mode and like Optimus, Magnus here only sports a rub sign.

It’s the robot mode where this figure starts to bother me. It’s so damn close to being great, but I can never get past the huge plates hanging off his arms. Even the way the lower torso is faked out doesn’t bother me at all. But it’s a moot point here, because we’re still just talking about a white Optimus Prime and not Ultra Magnus. Once again, the coloring on the figure looks great, I like the Autobot insignia stamped on the shoulders, but it’s just not Ultra Magnus. Hasbro might as well have just called this Arctic Attack Optimus Prime. Or how about write a bio on the back about how after Prime died he came back as “Optimus the White.” Oh wait, that was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Screw it, it still would have been a better justification than just calling this Ultra Magnus.

Nope, Hasbro didn’t even pony up for a new head. I can’t help but wonder if I would have received this figure a little better with a G1 style Magnus head and maybe a little tweaking to the cap on the top of the cab. Just something to show that they made an effort at passing the figure off as Ultra Magnus. Anything would have helped.

Of course, the true irony is that this unwanted figure became the hottest commodity around once Fansproject released the Parallax kit that turned him into a proper Ultra Magnus. At that point a figure that you couldn’t give away started commanding crazy prices on The Ebays. I’m sure plenty of collectors took their Skywarps and dumped this guy only to regret it later.

I should point out that Magnus here is the only Classics figure that I do not display. He is by no means an unattractive figure, but as a character he just has no place in my display. He sits in a drawer waiting for the day that I may be impulsive enough to buy the upgrade kit for him. Alas, with the crazy prices of that kit, that’s not likely to happen unless Fansproject ever does another run of it. And now with Takara announcing a new Masterpiece Ultra Magnus, one that won’t be a mere repaint, I’m more interest in saving my pennies to see what that’s going to look like. In the end, this guy is probably going to find himself up on the chopping block. Right now the only thing that’s saving him is that he doesn’t take up much room.

Nov 20 2013

Avengers Assemble: “Inferno Cannon” Black Widow by Hasbro

What’s Hasbro doing with their 3 ¾” Marvel lines? Who the hell knows? I go to Target and they have four pegs that used to be Marvel Universe. Now you can find everything from MU to figures from the first Thor movie and even Iron Man 2 for God’s sake. You also have a bunch of shitty looking 5-points of articulation Avengers and Wolverine figures. And then there’s this Avenger’s Assemble line, the latest assortment of figures to be tossed into the confused mess. I assume these are being branded off the current Disney cartoon, which I still refuse to acknowledge because Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was cancelled. Oh yeah, baby, I hold grudges. Anyway, I would have ignored this line completely, but then I saw Black Widow on the card and I decided to open a small window in my boycott and make this one exception.

The packaging doesn’t seem to tie it into the cartoon all that much. The character artwork is quite good and looks more comic booky than the stylized portraits I’ve seen in adverts for Avengers Assemble. It’s a very nice card back and it was able to draw in my eye amidst the sea of confusion that makes up Hasbro’s Marvel pegs these days. Note the “SHIELD GEAR” and “Inferno Cannon?” You guessed it, we get some more goofy oversized weapons with these figures, but we’ll get to that later. First, let’s check out the figure!

Some of you may remember how impressed I was with Hasbro’s Black Widow from the Avengers movie line. Just kidding, that was over a year ago. If you remember that, you clearly have too much time on your hands. Anyway, this figure uses a tweaked version of that same body, which is obviously a good thing. The paintwork on the outfit’s piping is gone and this version has high gloss boots and full gloves. The SHIELD emblem is curiously gone from her shoulder and her bracers are painted gold. Last up, her gun belt is gone and in its place is a more comic accurate beaded gold belt with an hourglass emblem on the buckle. The result here is a very nice hybrid design that straddles the modern movie version and the traditional comic character and the black and gold really make this gal pop. I like it a lot!

It’s only in the head sculpt where I will take issue with this figure. Don’t get me wrong, the new head sculpt is pretty fantastic, especially for a figure in this scale. It’s a little more generic than the movie figure and definitely not trying to be Scar-Jo and that’s all fine. My issue here is just the windblown direction of the hair. Again, straddling the modern and the classic, this Widow has long hair, which is cool, but having it perpetually blowing off to the side works for me in statues, but not so much in an action figure. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s not an artistic choice that I would have made. Fortunately, you can swap the heads between movie Widow and this Widow and I do rather like the results.

It’s been over a year since I looked at the movie Black Widow, so let me recap the articulation here. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, hinged at the ankles, and have swivels in the thighs. There’s no articulation in the torso, but the head is ball jointed. A ball joint in the torso would have really slammed the articulation home, but what we have here is still plenty good.

So how about that “SHIELD gear?” Well, it’s just an excuse to give the figures some huge gimmicky weapon and in this case… hey, wait a second… I this inferno cannon looks familiar. Yup, it’s a repaint of the rocket launcher that was included with Red Skull from the Captain America movie. You may be fooling the kids with this Hasbro, but not me! Actually, I guess it makes sense since Nick Fury’s “Phase 2” was usurping a lot of Hydra’s weapon designs, so why not give Black Widow a repainted Hydra weapon? Ugh, I can’t believe I’m justifying this. It’s just another oversized missile launcher that is mandatory these days with every GI Joe and Marvel movie figure. I’d much rather just have a damn figure stand and a repacked assault rifle from the MU line. To the depths of my darkest accessory tote with you!

I remember the movie Black Widow being a really tough figure to find. I eventually wound up paying a premium for her with another figure on Ebay. This figure fell right off the peg and set me back only ten bucks. Granted, it was the only one on the peg, but if I can find her with the horrible toy distribution in my neck of the woods, I’m guessing she’s got to be pretty common. She’s probably not a “must have” if you own the movie version, but I will say that after that simple head swap, I like this one the best out of the two because of the comic influences in her outfit. On the other hand, if you missed out on the movie version, you need to do yourself a favor and hunt this one down. She’s a solid addition to any 3 3/4″ Marvel collection.

Nov 16 2013

GI JOE Spytroops: Night Attack Chopper (Desert Camo Version) by Hasbro

It was inevitable that as I continued to go through the totes in the dreaded Toy Crawlspace I would eventually hit GI Joe, and yesterday I unearthed quite the cornucopia of Joe goodness. Several totes worth, in fact! Some of you who haven’t been around FFZ long might mistake the rarity of GI Joe content here as an indication that I don’t love the line, but that’s far from the case. The line just frustrates me because I don’t have a lot of room for vehicles and for me GI Joe has always been about the figures interacting with the vehicles. Today’s feature is a great example of that frustration. The Night Attack Chopper is a pretty big helicopter and this one has spent almost its entire life in a tote because I have nowhere to display it. Time and again I’ve dug it out with intent to sell it and make room, but every time I fall in love with this thing and instead of putting it up on Ebay it goes back in the tote, waiting for the day I win the lottery and buy a mansion to display all this shit I collect.

The NAC Chopper was released as part of the Spytroops line. I believe the original version was done in jungle camo and that this desert camo repaint came along the following year. I stumbled upon it back in my toy hunting days at a KB Toys Outlet (oh, those were the days!) and to be honest, I wasn’t enamored with it at first. I thought the crooked chopper blades made it look goofy, but I couldn’t deny it was a beefy and impressive toy. It was also on deep clearance so I couldn’t resist taking it home with me. The packaging is long gone, but it’s worth noting that Spytroops was a dark time when Hasbro packaged most of the vehicles in open air boxes, which meant kids could come along and stick boogers and gum onto the toy before you could even buy it. It wasn’t uncommon to have to go through several toys on the shelf before you found one that some kids didn’t already break or mess up.

The stylized chopper blades still irk me, but considering that the rest of the toy is this glorious, I’ve learned to look past them. This is a beast of a toy and absolutely loaded with electronics and play value. There’s a fold down pistol grip on the bottom, which makes it easy to fly through the house and there’s a trigger on the tail boom to make the blades spin. You also get a winch on the side to lower Joes into action. The tan deco is simple but effective and the chopper comes with the stickers pre-applied. I love the stickers on this thing. Besides the usual registry numbers and the GI Joe logo, you get all sorts of hazard stripes, weapon load indicators; bullet holes in the canopy and even Cobra kill marks near the cockpit. Brillaint!

Besides being big, the NAC comes loaded for bear. You got the Sound Attack system, which allowed you to plug weapons into different ports to get different attack sounds. You get two big guns designed to work with any of the four hard points, but you could also take Sound Attack guns from other vehicles and use them as well. The Sound Attack gimmick was a really clever modular weapon system, which I think could have been executed better. Nonetheless, I really dig the guns on this thing, particularly the chain gun under the chin with the removable ammo belt and laser targeting beam.

You also get two missile pods, each capable of raining a payload of five envoys of death down on Cobra’s head. The pylons collapse into the sides of the aircraft for regular flight and deploy outward into firing positions. Wind up the back of the pods and then squeeze the trigger on the flight grip and both pods will commence their glorious symphony of destruction. I think I’d have to look back to the auto-load and firing mechanism on the Grizzly Tank for any Joe vehicle gimmick that even comes close to this. Those Spytroops people knew how to design some cool shit.

As an indicator of this thing’s size, the NAC can seat three Joes in the cockpit: One at the pilot seat and two in the back. It also works beautifully with modern figures and the center seat is just right for my 25^th Anniversary Wild Bill. There’s room for more figures and gear in the back cargo area, which features sliding access doors on both sides. It’s a bit awkward to get to and you have to deploy the missile pods into firing position to have access. Still, I love vehicles that can take a lot of figures and this one certainly does the job.

I don’t often look back on Spytroops with a lot of fond memories, but I can’t deny that it delivered a handful of truly impressive vehicles. The Grizzly Tank was certainly one, and this helicopter is no slouch either. It’s an amazingly fun toy with a lot of clever gimmicks and it displays beautifully, provided you have the room for it. It’s also pretty rugged and hefty and surprisingly easy to find for cheap. And that’s probably another reason why I’ve hung on to it for so long. Even new in the box, you can usually pick this beauty up for under forty bucks, so apart from it taking up a lot of space, there’s not a lot of incentive for me to part with it, even if I wanted to. It’s also worth pointing out that this beast was resculpted and repainted into a Cobra helicopter too, and that one was in the same tote as this guy, so I’ll try to get around to looking at the Crimson Command Chopper sometime in the near future.

Nov 15 2013

Marvel Universe: Baron Zemo by Hasbro

It seems like a while since I had a new Marvel Universe figure to look at. There are quite a few out there now that I’m after, but they aren’t on the pegs and I’m trying to let patience prevail over paying premiums for these figures on the Internets. Baron Zemo, however, was a release that I wanted very badly. I was pissed beyond belief when Hasbro first released him in a 3-pack SDCC Exclusive, a set that is still almost impossible to find under $100. I could sort of understand Radioactive Man and Tiger Shark going the exclusive route, but Baron Zemo is too prominent a character to be bundled in a hard-to-get set like that. Fortunately, Hasbro came to their senses and Zemo has finally seen a regular carded retail release, making me a very happy camper.

At a quick glance, the current crop of MU cards doesn’t seem all that different, but upon closer inspection it appears Hasbro has gone the dreaded multi-lingual route. If I were a MOC collector this sort of thing would really chaff my ya-ya’s, but fortunately I’m an opener and I’d be just as happy to get this figure wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Having foreign gibberish on my card doesn’t bother me at all, so it could even be a foreign edition of yesterday’s newspaper. Apologies to any foreign readers out there for the gibberish remark. Just know that I balk against your language because I’m not smart enough to read it, and so I always assume you’re writing bad things about me.

Anywho, you’ll also note that Hasbro has abandoned the ridiculous Collectible Comic Shot idea. As much as I found those to be insulting, now I’m even more insulted that Hasbro can’t even be bothered to pack in a tiny piece of printed cardboard as a bonus. Sheesh… and here I thought cutting out the figure stands was a low blow! This wave’s clever quip on the back of the card is brought to us by The Watcher, only it’s not really a clever quip at all. He just says “Collect them all!” WTF, The Watcher? Either you have no sense of humor or Hasbro just couldn’t fit anything clever into the bubble and still have room to reprint it in two more languages. Sorry if I sound extra bitchy today, but I’m on antibiotics and I have to tone down my drinking a couple of notches. It’s not going well.

So, Zemo is a good news and bad news scenario depending on your point of view. If you paid out the ass for the SDCC set, you’ll be happy to know that it’s not quite the same figure and that there is one notable change to the sculpt. If you really paid out the ass for the SDCC set, then you may not think the little change warranted laying out the extra bucks for a figure that eventually appeared on the pegs. On the other hand, at least you still got Tiger Shark and Radioactive Man for your troubles. So what’s that change? It’s the boots. The SDCC version has fur lined boot cuffs to match the ones on his shoulders. This retail release just has huge non-descript boot cuffs. I will concede that this difference makes the SDCC version the superior one, but not enough for me to regret not laying out that much extra cash.

Boots aside, what we have here is a fantastic looking figure that really captures the character for me. His buck uses a pleasing shade of purple and a crisp, shiny gold for the boots, gloves, and belt. The spotted fur fringe on his shoulders looks particularly good and the head sports an awful lot of personality for what is basically a guy in a hood. I’ll concede that the paintwash on the cowl and head are a little heavy handed, but it only starts to break down when you get in really close.

The buck feature all the articulation we’ve been getting out of the modern figures. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows, and ball joints in the wrists. The legs feature ball joints in the hips, swivels in the thighs and at the boots, double hinged knees, and the ankles have hinges and lateral tilts. Lateral tilts in a 3 ¾” figure… Hasbro sometimes I could just kiss you on the mouth! And by you, I mean that hot redhead you have working in accounting. You know who I mean. Zemo was rather pre-posed in the package so I was seriously worried about warped joints, but I’m happy to say that’s not the case. The joints are all solid and not at all bendy as has been the case on some of the more articulated MU figures.

Zemo comes with two weapons. You get a sword and a pistol that looks like a broom-handled Mauser and by extension an awful lot like Han Solo’s blaster, a point about which I have already had a little fun. You may notice that I used some blue-tack in the photos and that’s because Zemo can’t hold either weapon for shit… and that’s really the only gripe I have against this guy.

And so, Hasbro has fixed a very major grievance of mine with this retail release of Baron Zemo. I’m thrilled to finally have this guy on my shelf and now I can finally have him team up with Cobra Commander against the combined forces of Cap, Bucky, and GI Joe! After all, it’s much better to appreciate what is a pretty solid figure of a very desireable character than get all uppity about the exclusive still being the superior release. The truth is there’s plenty to love about this figure just the way it is. Sure, I stand behind my argument that a character like Zemo should never have been an exclusive, but this way at least the diehards who ponied up the money for the Masters of Evil set can still rest easy knowing that they got something special for their money.

Nov 14 2013

Transformers Robots in Disguise: Spychanger Optimus Prime by Hasbro

Tonight I’m going to over indulge in beer and wings and then hit the movies to go see Thor: The Dark World. The only thing that has to do with today’s feature is that I’m once again having to be rather brief because pesky social commitments are intruding on my life of scribbling madly about toys. Of course, it’s Transformers Thursday, so what better opportunity to pull out a wee Optimus Prime from the Spychanger line. The Spychangers deserve a feature all to their own and I will get to that someday, but for today, let’s just point out that they originated from the Generation 2 line where they were ironically called Gobots. Robots in Disguise was a frankensteined line that introduced new molds but also robbed a lot of older Transformers lines, and so the Spychangers were born. In addition to a baffling number of repainted G2 Gobots, we also got RiD Optimus Prime in Spychanger scale. He’s tiny, he’s portable and if you carry him around with you chicks will often ask, “Is that a fire truck in you pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Prime’s fire truck mode is a nice approximation of the large toy in this diminished scale. It’s a solid vehicle mode cast mostly in bright red plastic with some nice sculpted panel lines, painted windows, and tiny Autobot symbols stamped on the sides. The ladder rotates at the base and can angle up and down and this little guy rolls along great just like he was a slightly larger matchbox car. I always thought it was weird that they left two of the wheels black, but whatever. There’s really not much else to say about his alt mode.

Transformation here is as simple as you would expect. Although if you’re a young’un that cut your teeth on the current crop of relatively complex Cyberverse figures than you might expect a lot more. The original RiD Prime had a regular and a super-charged robot mode, whereas this little guy just goes straight for the bigger bot form. His robot mode looks Ok from the front, but if you turn him around you can see that his ladder sticks out pretty far and forms an unacceptable amount of back kibble. On the plus side, that ladder is about the only thing keeping him upright. That’s right, ladies, Spychanger Optimus Prime is a veritable tripod! Wow, that’s two dick jokes. I’m on a roll! Still, the head sculpt is remarkable for such a tiny guy, there’s a good deal of sculpted detail here, and you do get a wee bit of articulation in the shoulders and the legs can do a wide stance. Also, he’s about twice as tall as a regular Spychanger, which I think makes him pretty appropriately scaled.

Prime here is obviously a lot stronger in his vehicle mode, but I’m not going to nitpick his robot mode too badly. Truth is I have a real soft spot for tiny Transformers that you can stuff into your pocket and take on adventures and this guy certainly fits that category. Besides, Hasbro took on quite a challenge taking a figure as large and complex as RiD Prime and shrinking him down to this scale and still making it work on some level, so I’m willing to give them a lot of credit here. I was originally going to look at Spychanger Ultra Magnus today too, but he wasn’t in the same drawer and I didn’t have time to go hunting for him, so we’ll save him and the rest of the Spychangers for another day!

Nov 11 2013

Transformers Generations: Thundercracker (IDW Comic Pack) by Hasbro

I don’t have a lot of patience for repaints these days, but when it comes to the Seeker Trinity, I will always open my wallet. That’s why it irks me when Hasbro releases a new Seeker mold and takes so long to release all three. We all remember what it was like when Classics/Universe 2.0 Skywarp was only released in a Target Exclusive 2-pack with Ultra Magnus, right? And even then it took forever to get Generations Thundercracker. Well, this time around Fall of Cybertron Thundercracker is following pretty closely on the original Starscream release. And thank Primus for that. He was my first Decepticon figure way back in 1984, so I’m always excited to get a new version of him.

I believe this is the sixth IDW Comic Pack that I’ve featured here so I’ll try to refrain myself from gushing over how much I love the presentation. You get Thundercracker carded in his robot mode in front of a reprint Spotlight comic and a G1-inspired grid-deco on the card. This is wonderful stuff, as always and opening it gives me a head rush from one of the greatest smells ever. Someone really needs to make cologne that blends the odors of new toy and comic book. And speaking of comics… the one included here is pretty good. It’s tied in with Autocracy, a book that I have still not read, so I’m coming at it as a one-shot. Thundercracker tries to hunt down Metroplex, but with his own secret agenda. Ironically, one of the coolest things about this comic for me was that it featured cameos by the old Deluxe Insecticons, like Venom and Chop Shop. Hasbro… Do these guys in IDW Comic Packs… Please!

Kicking things off with Thundercracker’s alt mode, it shares all the same highs and lows of the Starscream jet, but overall I find it to be a pretty cool design. Yeah, it’s a little chunky, but it does harken back a little bit to the old Cybertronian Tetra-Jet design. I think the biggest flaw is the fact that you can see through the top of it where the head folds in. On the other hand, everything locks together quite well, making it a fun and sturdy little toy.

I seem to recall my biggest issues with Starscream was the general lack of sculpted detail, particularly there aren’t too many panel lines, and the coloring was a little drab. Thundercracker doesn’t have any additional sculpting, but his deco goes a long way to help me to overlook that. The blue and grey plastic used here just pops a lot better than the drab grey used on Screamer. Cracker also has some more prominent paint apps, like the striping on his wings and the beautiful little purple apps on his vents. Even his Decepticon wing insignia are outlined in silver to make them stand out better than Starscream’s.

Thundercracker comes with repaints of the exact same chaingun style weapons as Starscream. Part of me thinks they could have tried something new, but then I also think these guys should have uniform weapons, so I’m Ok with it. However, the weapons are the only part of Cracker where the paint doesn’t outshine Starscream. Hasbro didn’t even bother to paint he barrels.

The transformation here is extremely simple, which isn’t always a bad thing. I would have really appreciated this transformation as a kid, because you could go from playing with him as a jet or robot pretty quickly. As a repaint, there are no surprises in the robot mode. I still dig this bot form quite a bit, although it has its issues. The feet are rather awkward and make it difficult for him to stand, especially in wide stances and the torso still has that hollow look to it if you aren’t viewing him from dead on. It’s also worth noting that we didn’t get a head re-sculpt, but considering Starscream didn’t have his trademark douchebag smirk, I kind of assumed Hasbro would be using the stock head for all three. Once again, I’m Ok with it, because it is a very nice head and the light piping is pretty spectacular when you hit it just right. Obviously, the deco on Thundercracker still shines in his robot mode, making him a lot more attractive and interesting to look at than Screamer.

You have a few different options on how Thundercracker can wield his weapons. Each one has two pegs and they can either be pegged into his forearms or he can hold them like guns. They’re large and sometimes awkward, but if I plug them into his forearms just right, I like having them slung under his arms so he can just sweep the room with firepower. Sweet!

In the end Thundercracker is one of those figures that shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s a straight repaint, but a very good one at that. The paintwork here really brings out the strengths of the mold and makes up for some of the lack of detail in the sculpt. I can liken it to the differences between the original Classics release of Starscream and the original Generations release of Thundercracker. It was an instance of the exact same mold taken to two extremes by different paint jobs. It’s not just an issue of the deco either. Cracker is just an example of better and more detailed coloring and for me that would make this the one to own if you only want to own this mold once. On the other hand, I can’t imagine just having one of the Seekers. Even now, I’m trying to resist paying top dollar for the Takara Skywarp, in hopes that he’ll be coming to the States via Hasbro at some point in time.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: hasbro