Tag Archives: mattel

Dec 19 2012

The Sandman: Death Statue by Mattel

Today we’re going to take a break from all the MOTUC stuff and check out one of the non-He-Man related things I picked up at Matty’s Sale: The sassy Death statue from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. I was first exposed to The Sandman comics back when I owned a used & out of print bookstore. I never knew what was going to come through the front door and one day it happened to be a guy with a panel van filled with 4,500 comics to unload. They were all bagged and boarded and ran the gamut from the 70’s to current stuff. I didn’t sell comics, but I couldn’t resist and we came to an arrangement. Eventually, I culled through the collection, keeping what I wanted and setting up the rest in the back corner of the store on card tables. Some of the ones I pulled were Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

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I make no bones about being a Neil Gaiman fan. Besides really enjoying his original comic work, many of his efforts have spilled over into so many other mediums and franchises that I hold dear. When Mattel revealed their Death statue for the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, I was certainly interested, but with so many other things vying for my collecting dollars, I ultimately had to pass. Most of the time, when you pass on SDCC exclusives, the ship sails and second chances are expensive (Screw you, Sky Striker Starscream!!!). But every once and a while, the items are readily available afterwards at the same price. In this case, I was able to do even better, as Matty Collector had a ton of these still available for their Cyber Monday Sale.

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While nowhere on the box does this statue claim to be an SDCC Exclusive, the gorgeous and elaborate packaging certainly betrays it as being some kind of special item. As with most Matty Collector items, Death comes in a mailer box, but rather than being a boring white carton, this one is all black with Death’s ankh printed on one side and a really nice minimalist portrait of her on the other.

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Inside the tasteful mailer box, things only get better. The statue comes in a three-quarter window box with an elaborately illustrated frame and insert, placing Death in an animated graveyard environment. The back of the box has a portrait and a little blurb about the character.  She’s secured on a transparent tray and hovering slightly above her skull base, and the various windows let you enjoy the statue from every angle except the back. If ever there was an argument against opening a collectible, this presentation would be a pretty convincing one. I mean, I open everything, and even I was really tempted to leave Death mint in sealed box. However, after some really careful clipping, I was able to get Death out of her box without destroying the packaging.

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So, the first thing to realize about this statue is that it’s molded out of regular old plastic. If you’re a collector of statues, you’re probably used to PVC, polystone, cold-cast porcelain, or pretty much anything other than this mass market grade plastic. Besides making the statue remarkably light (seriously, there’s no heft to this thing at all!), this kind of plastic shows seam lines and just can’t hold a sculpt as well as the more premium grade materials. Now, all that having been said, the sculpt is a solid enough effort, and this is by no means a bad looking piece.

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Death is posed standing, with her right hand bent at the elbow and resting on her hip, and her other hand resting suspiciously close to her “hoo-hoo.” Actually, I think the designers were going for having her left thumb hooked into her belt and you can kind of see that. There are swivel cuts in her shoulders and torso, but Death is obviously sculpted to be in a very specific pose and I haven’t had any luck using the articulation to her benefit. Otherwise, there’s some good detail work in the sculpt. The laces on her boots and the buckles on her belt are all pronounced, and you get the little wrinkles on her tank top. She also has her ankh pendant hanging around from her neck on a string… OMG, that’s mixed media folks!!! Still, there’s nothing here you wouldn’t see done in a similar fashion on a well executed 6-inch action figure.

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Death’s head is looking slightly downward and this is really the only thing that irks me about the pose because it kind of hides her face. The neck is ball jointed, but there’s no room for her to look up, only side to side. The ability to swivel the head is certainly more useful than the rest of the articulation, but I really would have preferred an option to have her looking forward and not perpetually downward. My guess is the designers wanted to make her look coy, and if you turn her head all the way to one side, it kind of works ok. The sculpting on the head is easily the best part of the statue, as it captures the character quite well and I particularly like that the hair is sculpted as a separate piece.

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The paintwork has its ups and downs. The paint on the face is excellent. Her eyes and lips are perfect, and the grey wash on her hair is used sparingly and to good effect. The quality of the paint breaks down a bit between her tank top and her armpits. There’s definitely some slop going on there. There are also a few stray marks along the back of her pants. The lace holes on her boots are all painted silver, as are the studs and buckles on her belts.

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Death comes separate from her base, with peg holes in her feet to secure her to it. Her feet aren’t sculpted to make her boots flush with the base, so I don’t really get the feeling that she’s naturally standing on it. Nevertheless, the skull base is a really great looking piece. There’s not a lot of paintwork, but the sculpt speaks for itself, and it does have a cool aged patina. Unfortunately, it’s hollow, so it adds to the lightweight feel of the statue.

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If you collect statues, I’d caution you that Death probably isn’t going to meet your expectations. The lack of heft alone is likely to disappoint. On the other hand, if you just happen to be a Sandman fan and you’re looking for a good representation of Death to display on your shelf, this statue certainly gets the job done. It’s a competent piece, although it still feels like it started life as an action figure. As far as value goes, this statue originally retailed for $30 (closer to $40 if you ordered it off Matty and had it shipped). Now, normally that’s pretty cheap for a collectible statue, but for a plastic statue made by a mass market retailer like Mattel?  Eh, maybe not so much. In hand, however, the elaborate presentation of the packaging helps bolster the value quite a bit, and I can honestly tell you that I’ve seen far more expensive statues turn out a lot worse than this one. Ultimately, I’m glad I picked her up. She’ll look nice on my Bishoujo shelf, although more than likely she’ll wind up going back in her box for now, as I definitely want to keep the whole presentation intact.

Tomorrow I’ll turn my gaze back to the last MOTUC figure that I picked up from Matty’s sale… It’s Vikor!

Dec 18 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Grizzlor by Mattel

Things got a little-long winded yesterday, so today I’m checking out one of the figures that I’m not likely to gas on about nearly so much. He’s Grizzlor, and I’ll be honest, the only reason I bought him was because I was already placing an order, he was cheap, and I wanted at least one more figure for my Horde shelf that wasn’t Leech. I can’t stand Leech. Seriously, don’t get me started on Leech. My fondness for Grizzlor doesn’t stretch much further back than his appearances on Robot Chicken, but hey, another Horde guy for $15… how could I go wrong?

It’s the MOTUC packaging we’ve seen a bunch of times here on FigureFan. I didn’t comment much on the deco yesterday, so let me just point out how awesome it still looks. I’m glad Matty hasn’t monkeyed with the design over the last couple of years, because they came up with a winner right out of the gate. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Granted, my MOTUC packages wind up shredded and in the garbage, but if ever there was a line of figures that I wouldn’t mind hanging on my wall mint-on-card, this would certainly be one of them.


Of course, Grizzlor’s gimmick is that he’s a hairy bastard and Mattel went all out with giving him real hair, just like the vintage toy. It was a bold move in an Adult Collector line, but if you ask me it was the only way they could go. How’d it turn out? Well… let’s take a look.

My first impression when looking at Grizzlor is… Norfin Troll. Sorry, Mattel, but I can’t get that image out of my mind. It’s like I should be rubbing his head for luck or something. His fur is just all over the place and at first it looks kind of awkward and funny, but then something tells me Grizzlor isn’t the kind of dude who would be combing himself out every day. His hair should be all over the place like a bad case of perpetual bed head. I think the weirdest thing about the figure is the blending of real hair and the sculpted hair on his arms and legs. The two don’t necessarily mesh all that well, but I’m trying not to be too critical here, because in the end, I think Grizzlor’s real hair works pretty well.

The face sculpt is classic. It’s probably not one of this line’s better sculpts, but the combination of fangs, red and yellow eyes, and his little smooshed ape nose all conspire to give Grizzlor a ton of personality. It’s kind of hard to figure out whether Grizzlor’s face is scary or cute, but I can’t deny that it is distinctive.

Grizzlor comes wearing his Horde harness with the huge sculpted Horde crest on the front and a backpack that can hold his impressive arsenal of weaponry, but we’ll get to that in a bit. He also comes with a sculpted primitive looking loin cloth, which I believe is intended to be closer to his 200x version. I don’t think I’ve ever seen 200x Grizzlor, so I’m taking a friend’s word on that. I think these accessories are intended to be worn in an “either-or” configuration, but I don’t think he looks at all bad when wearing both. And there’s no way I’m going to display him without that great backpack to hold all his killing gear. In the end, though, I think I’ll leave the loincloth piece off.


As far as articulation goes, Grizzlor doesn’t sacrifice any poseability in favor of his furry coat. You still get ball joints in the neck and shoulders; the arms are hinged at the elbows and have swivels in the biceps and wrists. His legs are ball jointed and have swivels at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and rockers in the ankles. I can’t be certain, but it feels like he’s still got the ab crunch going on in there too, and he can still swivel at the waist as well.

One wouldn’t think that a giant, hairy beast would need a lot of weapons to go rampaging; nevertheless, Grizzlor packs himself out like he’s going to war. He comes with a long sword and a smaller chopping sword, both with matching hilts. He also comes with a battle axe and a Horde crossbow. And as mentioned above, all of it fits onto his backpack. God, I love that!

As it turns out, I dig Grizzlor a lot, although I think he’s one of those figures that you kind of have to want to like him going in. At the original $28-30 with shipping, I’m not sure I would have been quite so happy, but at the $18-20 I got him for, he’s a lot more appetizing. Heck, even a good chunk of his cost can be defrayed by his awesome collection of weapons. Look, Grizzlor is a total goof and he’s hard to take seriously with all that hair all over the place, but I’m glad Mattel went the way they did with him, because he does pay homage to the original vintage figure quite nicely. To make Grizzlor with no hair would have been akin to making Moss-Man without the flocking. It just wouldn’t have worked at all. I basically bought him to add another Horde member to my ranks, and he’ll certainly look nice displayed beside my Hordak.

Dec 17 2012

Masters of the Universe Classics: Draego-Man by Mattel

2012 was the year I weaned myself off Masters of the Universe Classics. I picked up the Wind Raider and Sorceress, and I kept it in mind that if Ram-Man were obtainable for a reasonable price, I would buy him too. But for all intents and purposes, I have retired my collecting of this line. It was a great line, but I was always only in it for the main characters. Along the way, I picked up a few back-benchers just because they turned out exceptionally well, but I got out of it what I wanted to, it was time to stop, and I did really well in making good on that commitment to myself. Then Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale happened and I got a second chance at some figures that piqued my interest. I still resisted. Then Matty started slashing prices on the figures and shipping and I decided, “Oh what the hell, a couple more for old time sake!”

Draego-Man is one of those “fake” MOTU figures, created specifically for the 30th Anniversary. Yes, Mattel’s way of celebrating the 30thAnniversary of He-Man was to have a bunch of people create figures of characters that never existed before as a misguided nod back to the 1986 contest that let kids design their own character. The winner of the ’86 contest was supposed to get their character made into a figure, but it never happened until now when Matty finally made Fearless Photog as part of this celebration. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that finally creating that figure as part of the 30th Anniversary was a pretty cool move on Mattel’s part, as this release was tied to a piece of the franchise’s history. However, when Mattel moved beyond that gesture, that’s where I think they missed the entire point.

You see, obviously, Mattel can’t tell the difference between kids entering a contest and having industry insiders sculpt bullshit figures and retcon them into the MOTU legacy. Not only is this one of the worst ideas on how to celebrate a milestone anniversary of the franchise, but it was the ultimate display of vanity and hubris, and a blatant excuse to let the brand manager get his own figure produced. Looking beyond the questionable motives, these “30th Anniversary Figures” ranged from the laughably bad (Mighty Spector and Sir Laserlot) to today’s excellent Draego-Man. But then, Draego-Man was designed by The Four Horseman, so there’s no surprise he turned out great.  Ok, enough editorializing, let’s look at the figure.


There’s the MOTUC packaging that we all know and love. The last time I featured it was way back in March when I looked at the Sorceress. It hasn’t changed much, although this one has a little explosion on the bottom insert pointing out that this figure was “Created by The Four Horsemen.” Neat! Draego-Man is a beast of a figure (quite literally!) and they were just barely able to stuff him into a standard sized bubble. Seriously, look inside that package and you’ll see that even with his tail and wings detached and his head turned to the side, there’s barely any room for anything else inside that cramped bubble compartment. The back of the card features some shots of other figures. Holy crap, I actually have all of them except Webstor! You also get a biography retconning Draego-Man into the MOTU continuity and pointing out that he is most decidedly evil, although he seems to waffle on who’s side he’s really on. Let’s bust this guy open and check him out!


Out of the package, the first thing you need to do is attach Draego-Man’s wings and his tail and then he’s all set to go. Damn, that is a beauty of a figure. He’s teaming with brand new sculpting, which meshes perfectly with the recycled MOTUC parts. The traditional MOTU loincloth is pretty obvious, the tail should look familiar, and I think the head sculpt has a hint of Filmation look to it, but otherwise, Draego-Man is definitely all his own figure, and he’s a majestic one at that.

Getting back to the head sculpt, it’s easily one of my favorite things about the figure. He’s got an elegant triangular noggin that starts at the back of his ebony horns and runs down to a point at the tip of his snout. Every little scale is sculpted on, along with little dragon bumps on his nose and chin. His staggered teeth protrude haphazardly from his closed mouth, reminiscent of an alligator. He has a really cool duality to his expression. Point his nose down and the shadows fall over his eyes and he looks like a vicious bastard. Point his nose up and he has more of a noble visage. Either way, T4H did a marvelous job with Draego’s head.

The body of the figure is equally impressive, with heavy segmented rings on his arms and legs and some really cool sculpted armor. The crest on his chestplate is a dragon’s face set atop the crossbones that are reminiscent of Skeletor’s insignia. His leg armor even has little sculpted fasteners for where they would strap around his legs. But the wings are my favorite thing about Draego’s body. They’re quintessential dragon wings, sculpted with a rough, leathery pattern and culminating in two little ebony claws at the tops. The wings are partially unfurled so you can get a pretty good idea of how menacing they are, without him taking up too much space on your display shelf.

 

The coloring on Draego-Man is brilliant. The deep red of his skin is coupled with a bright orange used for his undercarriage and the insides of his wings. On the body itself, you can really only see the orange  under his neck and under his tail, but I presume it’s meant to run down his chest in typical dragon fashion. The red contrasts nicely with the dark blue and purple of his armor and I’m particularly fond of the metallic paint used for the collar of his breastplate and his bracers. Beautiful!

Possibly Draego-Man’s only drawback is that he’s light in the accessories department. Matty had to omit his whip in order to keep the cost down and so all he comes with is his flaming sword. Now the sword is certainly a beautiful piece all on its own. I’m not usually a big fan of plastic sculpted flame motifs, as they don’t often look terribly convincing, but this one pulls it off really well. As for only coming with one accessory, with the additional wings and the amount of unique sculpting here, I can certainly forgive him that.

If you’re familiar with the MOTUC line, than you should know what to expect from Draego’s articulation. He has a ball jointed neck; his arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. His legs are ball jointed and swivel at the hips, feature hinges in the knees and ankles, and he has rocker joints in the ankles. The only thing really new here are his wings, which rotate and feature hinges.

Draego-Man was the only figure of the bullshit 30th Anniversary releases that tempted me when he was first offered. He’s not only beautifully designed and sculpted, but he’s so good he practically transcends the line and works as his own stand-alone figure. It’s crazy to think that while Matty was piecing out original tooling to see what real MOTU characters they can afford to make, T4H were allowed to go fucking nuts on this guy. Nevertheless, I’m glad they did, because in terms of sculpt, design, and coloring, I honestly think Draego-Man is easily the most impressive figure to come out of the line. That’s saying an awful lot when you consider that a) I have no nostalgic connection to this character, and b) most figures in the line are excellent, so he has some stiff competition. Nonetheless, I adore everything about this guy and I’m so very happy I was able to double back and pick him up. The fact that he was on sale was just icing on the cake.

Nov 30 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: John Constantine by Mattel

It’s the last day of November, which means today’s my last chance to get the feature for the second November Club Infinite Earths figure in just under the wire. Ah, John Constantine. I adore this character so much. He’s one of those comic book personas that I can honestly say transcends his books, and that I read them for my love of who and what the character is and not so much the actual stories. And even beyond the panels of the funnybooks, there was so much potential to bring this character to live action and it was all squandered on that terrible movie. Anyway, it was the reveal of figures like Constantine that made me all the happier that I subbed Club Infinite Earths, and that’s saying a lot since this series has yet to really disappoint in character selection or execution.


We just saw the DCUSC packaging earlier in the week with Uncle Sam, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it here. I will say that this box is so far the sole instance where I’m not thrilled with the character art. It’s fine enough on its own, but it doesn’t match the figure’s portrait at all, and quite frankly I like the figure’s head sculpt a lot better, which is ironic because at first I wasn’t sure about it. As always, the figure looks great in the package and the collector friendly nature of the box means mint-in-box collectors can have their cake and eat it too.

Let’s start with Constantine’s portrait. It’s very stylized, especially compared to the character art on the box. I wasn’t sold on it when I first saw it in the promo pics and I still wasn’t when I first got the figure in hand. It has started to grow on me a lot, however. For a character that was originally designed to look like pop singer Sting, this figure does not, and in the end that’s probably for the better because nobody’s ever accused me of being a fan of Sting, at least not since he left The Police. I like the hair sculpt a lot and the prominent brow gives him a stern look, which is nicely counterbalanced by the slight smirk in his mouth. The scar is well implemented too. He does seem to have an extra helping of ears, but all in all, this is a really remarkable head sculpt that oozes personality. At this rate, if it keeps growing on me, it may turn into one of my favorites.


Obviously, Constantine is a dude in a trench coat, so I don’t think there was any doubt where Mattel was going to look to get parts for this figure… yup it was The Question! The Question was a great figure to begin with, so Constantine was in good hands. The trench coat, arms and legs are all straight grabs and they work very well. Constantine’s coat feels like it’s cast in a slightly more pliable plastic, which is a good thing, and it looks really good in the new tan color. Constantine stands a bit taller than The Question, making up the extra height in the torso.

The rest of the figure features some nice unique work, including a rumpled shirt and a necktie, separately sculpted so that it’s hanging down from the collar. It was sticking out quite a bit in the package, but fear not. If you don’t want your Constantine looking like Lou Costello dressed him, it will lay flat if you tuck it into the coat for a little while, or you can just use a tiny dab of blue tack. I’m not a big fan of Constantine’s hands. They look like they might be the same ones used for Uncle Sam, which means he looks like he’s meant to hold accessories that he doesn’t come with. A pack of smokes would have been cool, but I suppose I can understand why Mattel didn’t include something like that, even if this is an “Adult Collector” line. Ok, no I don’t. Mattel, you should have included a pack of smokes.

Constantine’s articulation is identical to what we saw on The Question and is pretty typical for all DCUC style figures. The neck and shoulders are ball jointed. The arms feature hinged elbows and swivels in the biceps and wrists. His legs feature the usual DCUC style hip joints, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. John can also swivel at the waist and still retains the ab crunch hinge under the trench coat.

John Constantine is a fantastic addition to the Club Infinite Earth roster and I’m kind of surprised he didn’t sell out. Even ten days after the sale, he’s still available. I can understand Uncle Sam not flying off the shelf, as he’s far more of a niche character, but even he is listed as “Almost Gone” now while there appears to be plenty Constantines left. Granted to the uninitiated, he’s just a cool looking guy in a trench coat, but I thought John here had more street cred than that, and it saddens me to see him lingering on Matty’s virtual pegs.

Nov 27 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Uncle Sam with Doll Man by Mattel

I really love it when Mattel digs deep for their DC Universe figures. With so many of the final waves of DCUC populated by topical characters from recent comic events, it’s easy to forget that this line was always intended to draw from the vast corners and deep history of the DC Universe. That should be doubly the case now that the line doesn’t need to rely on casual retail shoppers and can be fueled strictly by the interests of niche collectors willing to seek out and subscribe to the figures online. And that’s why I love the fact that they’re releasing figures like Uncle Sam. He’s not only a pretty obscure piece of DCU history, but a masterful; some might say diabolical, kitbash of a figure. Let’s check him out!


Sam comes in a typical Signature Collection window box. As always, the character art featured on the back and side panel is excellent. Close your eyes and imagine what a character named Uncle Sam would look like, and you’re probably right on the money. Acquired by DC from the buyout of another imprint in the 1950s, Sam is not so much a character but the spiritual embodiment of American patriotism able to possess different corporeal hosts when needed. Wow, that’s awesome. The box is completely collector friendly, which is always a plus in my book.


Uncle Sam is one of the finest examples of Mattel’s deviously clever ability to reuse parts from older figures and have it turn out perfectly. Sam is an unlikely hybrid of Gentlemen Ghost and The Joker. When I look at the figure, it’s so blatantly obvious that he’s a kitbash, and yet the final result looks amazing. He has a sculpted shirt and vest with a separately sculpted jacket layered over it. Toss in the necktie and this figure has a wonderful sense of depth and complexity to the sculpt. The pants are cuffed around his ankles and he’s got spats on his shoes. If spats were socially acceptable, I would wear them every day. The only thing that really mars this figure in any way is the plug used in his back to cover up what I presume is a cape socket. Not a big deal, but just a little unsightly.

The coloring on Uncle Sam’s outfit is deliciously patriotic. There are two shades of blue for his jacket and vest and the white and red striping of his pants really make the figure pop. Alas, there are some paint flubs on his red striping.

Of course, the whole figure is really tied together by the superb head sculpt. He has an iconic and noble looking face that still manages to convey the fact that if you mess with America, he’s going to kick your ass off the hemisphere. The hair and beard sculpting is awesome and his hat really crowns (literally!) the whole piece. Wonderful!


Uncle Sam has pretty typical DCUC style articulation His head is ball jointed, although the sculpted hair restricts the movement of the head to a turning motion. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows and feature swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have the usual universal joints in the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. While there’s no waist swivel, which is disappointing but understandable, Uncle Sam does still have an ab crunch hinge.

While his hands are sculpted to hold accessories, Uncle Sam sadly doesn’t come with any, that is, unless you count Doll Man. He’s similar to the shrunken down version of Rita Farr that we saw last month, only better sculpted and more substantial. He’s actually a pretty solid piece of plastic! I’m not a big fan of Doll Man so he’s kind of lost on me, but it was a nice way for Mattel to deliver a second member of the Freedom Force in this package.


Getting Uncle Sam in my DCUC collection is a real treat. He’s a wonderfully obscure character and while Mattel went the Frankenstein route in creating him, I certainly can’t quarrel with the results. Sam looks amazing and I am thrilled to have him represented on my DC shelf. Of course, November was a double figure month for Club Infinite Earths, and we’ll double back at the end of the week to check out John Constantine.

Oct 29 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 18: Toyman by Mattel

I was really hoping to snag some of the older DCUC figures at the Toy Show, as there are still quite a few missing from my collection. I figured at worst case, maybe I could get Etrigan or Orion, or best case snag Giganta. Unfortunately, the DCUC pickings were slim, and what was to be found was crazy expensive. Someone had $25 on an Eclipso! When I asked the dealer, “what up with that?” he merely informed me that Mattel don’t make DCUC no more. Yep, I got schooled! Anyway, I did manage to pull Toyman out a bin where he was chilling with some Biker Mice from Mars and vintage He-Mans, and miraculously enough he was still clutching on to both of his accessories by way of invisible rubber bands!

So, no packaged shot, although I should have taken a picture of the tote he was lying in. I’m not worried about missing the packaging or the C&C part. Despite growing up with Super Friends, I absolutely hated Wave 18 of DCUC and skipped it entirely when it was released. The only figures I was interested in were Captain Boomerang, Black Vulcan and Toyman, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to buy the rest just to build Apache Chief, so I always planned to pick up these three later on, loose, and cheap.

The Toyman character is certainly a distinctive enough looking fellow and from sculpt to coloring, this guy is a gorgeous figure and totally hits the mark. The torso and legs are pretty standard DCUC buck, but Mattel went with the longer, lankier, double-hinged arms, which are more in line with the character. The cowl is a separate piece, which flares up at the shoulders and mates very nicely with his crowned jester hood to look like it’s all one piece. Naturally, they went with the pupil-less eyes, and the exposed lower half of his face is just perfect.

Toyman’s coloring is as bright and gaudy as it should be. The unpainted yellow plastic on the torso and arms looks great. Sometimes, I have issues with the yellow plastic used by Hasbro and Mattel, but it looks fine here. His vest is painted with a matte black to match the hood and cowl. He’s got a red and yellow belt, and his pants are orange with blue boots. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Oh look, accessories! Toyman comes with a toy top grenade and a spinning yo-yo of death. The grenade is brightly colored and looks great. I also love how his left hand is sculpted so that he can hold it in a tossing position. The yo-yo is also excellent and includes a string attached to a plastic ring that can slip over Toyman’s hand. The figure would have been fine on his own, but these extra accessories are so well executed they really round out the package nicely.

Toyman features most of the standard DCUC style articulation, but as already mentioned he does have the atypical double-hinged elbows. As for the rest, his arms have ball joints at the shoulders, swivels at the biceps and swivels and hinges in the wrists. His legs have the usual DCUC universal joints in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. His head is ball jointed, and he has a swivel in the waist and an ab crunch in the torso.

The tub that I got Toyman from wasn’t priced, and I thought it odd that a modern figure would be in there with all the older 80’s and 90’s stuff. I asked the guy how much the figures in the bin were and then found out that it was one of these bullshit, show me what you want and I’ll tell you how much it is deals. In this case he glanced at the figure while in the middle of another transaction and just said ten bucks. Not exactly the deal of the century, but I was cool with that and Toyman was dropped into a plastic bag and added to my haul.

Tomorrow, not only is Star Wars back again, but vintage Kenner Star Wars… I knew this was going happen sooner or later…

Oct 26 2012

Matty Collector: Club Lion Force Voltron by Mattel

Mega thrusters are go, Bitches!

It was a long wait, folks, and a unique and epic experience: A subscription that sends you a series of stand-alone toys, which in the end will piece together to form one ginormous robot. Throughout the course of my 30-some odd years of toy collecting, there hasn’t been anything quite like Matty Collector’s Club Lion Force: A year long journey, in which every couple of months brought me one step closer to something really damn cool. It was an idea that took the Collect & Connect concept to the extreme, and one that was perfectly suited to the Voltron property. When I came home to find my Black Lion sitting on my stoop, I was so relieved excited to know that the journey was finally complete.

Before moving on, let me throw out a little disclaimer. I realize for some people this ride was not a smooth one.  If you’re a toy company doing something like this, you really need to be able to get your shit together, and that’s something that Matty can’t always claim to be good at. I realize that some people had QC issues with individual lions, others had typical Digital River snafus, and when you’re dealing with parts of a whole, any one of these issues could be enough to ruin the entire experience. I’ve seen the horror stories from the people for whom one problem along the way stopped them from completing their Voltron. If you’re one of those people, I really feel for you. It’s not like you can take these back to the store for an exchange, and the prices of these damn things on Ebay are getting outrageous.

No doubt, I was really lucky. I haven’t had a single QC issue with any of my Lions. Nonetheless, my heart was in my throat as I opened Black Lion in fear that something would be wrong with it, and my journey to form Voltron would crash and burn just inches from the finish line. In the end, he turned out fine. And now with Voltron standing in front of me, comes the inevitable question: Was he worth it? Was he worth the stress and the money? The answer in a word? Yes. The answer in a few more words? Hell fucking yeah, he was worth it! So let’s form Voltron!

Plugging the limbs into the Black Lion goes very smoothly and the connections hold very well. I was a little afraid of how difficult it would be to disconnect the limbs without forcing them, but they all separate again just fine. The arms pull out without any undue pressure and the legs eject just by pressing the buttons on the backs, very similar to the Toynami Voltron.  I’ll confess to not being a big fan of the spring-loaded transformation gimmicks, but I sure do love the way you press in the chest crest to make Voltron’s head snap open and into position. It’s awesome! Once assembled, Voltron’s proportions are excellent and he looks mighty goddamn majestic. I stood him on a table and went to get some work done on the computer, and I just found myself admiring him every couple of minutes. He’s certainly an attention getter.

I try to keep the majority of my toys in my display areas, so they don’t take over the whole house, but dammit if I don’t want to just stand him on an end table in my living room like a vase or something so that guests would say, “Hey FigureFan (because that’s what everyone always calls me), what’s that on your end table?” And I would just say, “That’s my goddamn huge Voltron, son.” And with that we would go back to sipping cognac and playing Scrabble. Let’s just drop in a shot of him standing behind my Toynami Voltron for the proper size perspective.

Obviously we’ve already seen a lot of Voltron’s sculpt when we looked at the individual lions, so I won’t go into a lot of detail there. I will say how much I adore the face. It’s beautifully sculpted and perfectly captures Voltron’s stoic portrait and the paintwork is excellent. The chest crest is really great looking too. I was a little worried about how it would come out since the individual lions were missing some of their finer details, but it has a nice, chunky animated look that makes me smile.

Easily the biggest complaint I’ve seen about Voltron is his inability to stand in action poses or with his weapons in hand. It’s not so much an inability as it is people deciding to come out of the gate bitching, rather than take the time to play around with him to see what he’s truly capable of. He is definitely top heavy, there’s no doubt about that, but in a way very similar to Toynami’s Masterpiece Voltron. Still, his ratcheting joints are strong and effective, and he balances perfectly fine when placed in a typical standing pose. When you put his sword and shield in his hands, you do need to work at it to get him to stand, but I’ve had tons of success posing him while brandishing his weapons. There’s plenty to tweak to get him to stand. Besides the fold down heel struts, you can also make some little adjustments to the Yellow and Blue Lions’ paws for a little added assistance. I generally find that he will stand in all sorts of great action poses on carpet, but he tends to slide real easy on tables or smooth surfaces.

Naturally, Voltron comes with his weapons. We’ve already looked at the Collect & Connect Blazing Sword, but I’ll admit I was surprised to see the extra Sword in with the Black Lion. I’m sure it was revealed during the course of the year, but I must have missed it because I genuinely thought the Collect & Connect sword that came with the figures was all we were getting. Both the sword and shield have huge pegs that go into the recessed sockets inside the Red and Green Lions’ mouths, holding them in place very well.

I was really dismayed by how much negativity there was on the Matty forums about the finished Voltron. Surprised? No. Only dismayed. I’m not talking about the people with QC issues, I’ve already empathized with them, and they have every right in the world to be royally pissed. No, I’m talking about the bunch of whiny fuckers who are bitching just to bitch. Ever since getting my hands on the Red Lion, I had a pretty good idea what the finished product was going to be like, and everything fell right into line just as I imagined it. I wasn’t expecting a super-articulated ninja robot, and there was no reason for anyone to expect that. What I was counting on was a big, heavy beast of a toy that would have been perfectly at home in the 80s. I wanted a showpiece reminiscent of a time when toy companies weren’t shackled by safety regulations and they could produce a giant robot that would crush a kid to death if it fell on them.  No, if the final Voltron held any surprise for me, it was just how majestic he looks fully assembled and standing there on display. I know, I’ve probably thrown the word majestic around a few times in this feature, but it’s honestly the word that best describes him. I adore this thing, and might I remind you all that I’m the guy that cannot stand the Voltron cartoon.

Oh yeah, and while I know it would never happen, Matty if you ever do decide to do a second sub with a similar scaled vehicle Voltron, I’ll be there on day one with my money to suffer through it all again.

Oct 25 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Elasti-Girl by Mattel

This month Matty brought double the DC goodness to Club Infinite Earth subscribers with another oversized quarterly figure, and it is none other than Ms. Rita Farr aka. Elasti-Girl! Matty made a point of saying that they wanted to use CIE to finish up some teams, and they certainly are delivering. This year we’ll get the rest of The Metal Men and the figure we’re looking at today brings us one step closer to rounding out the Doom Patrol. Personally, I’ve yet to pick up Beast Boy or Robotman, so I only have Negative Man to keep her company. Either way, let’s take a look at the lovely lady and see how she turned out.

Signature Collection packaging! We just saw it on Monday with Poison Ivy, so I’m not going to spend a lot more time on it. It’s exactly the same as the regular monthly figure packaging, only bigger. The artists at Matty did another great job on the character art. I’m not so sure the sculptors had the same image in mind, but the art here is just gorgeous. I’m so glad these packages are collector friendly, because it gives me an excuse to keep all this stunning box art.

A lot of your personal mileage with Elasti-Girl is likely to vary based on how well you know or enjoy the character. Sure, that’s the case with a lot of DCUC figures, but in this case it’s even more so. If you’re not in the know, she is essentially just a really tall chick in a skirt, and unless she’s seen alongside other DCUC figures, she’s just a chick in a skirt. Nonetheless, fans of the character should find this figure to be a real treat, because it really does her justice. As already mentioned, the head sculpt isn’t quite in tune with the box art, but I still really like what we got. She’s pretty, I dig the slight upturn to her eyes and the face features some truly immaculate paintwork. The hair is sculpted with a band to hold it back, and the hair is short enough so as not to inhibit the head articulation too badly.

The rest of the figure’s body features sculpted gloves and boots, and a belt around her slender waist. The skirt is made of particularly flexible plastic, and it’s wide enough so that you can really get some good range of motion out of her hip joints. The top half of her outfit is painted, with some nice sharp lines between the red and white and the neckline. I would have preferred a paler shade of blue for the belt and boots, but now I’m really nitpicking. She’s also got some seriously nice muscle tone sculpted into her arms.

Elast-Girl’s articulation features that new torso joint that we first saw with Poison Ivy. I’m still on the fence over the new design. Is Matty only going to be using this with all the ladies? Time will tell. It doesn’t seem to have the same versatility as the waist swivel and ab crunch, but it is a lot better looking. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the knees, and swivels at the wrists and biceps. The legs have the regular universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. Naturally, the head has the usual ball joint. I’m not sure if it’s just because of her size, but I really would have loved to see double hinges in her elbows.

Elasti-Girl comes with a tiny version of herself, which is a very cool bonus. She’s very similar to the Antman that Hasbro put out with their Marvel Universe Yellowjacket, or even the tiny Wasp that came in the Secret Wars comic pack. Just be careful not to sneeze while you’re holding it, or you may lose it forever. The resident FigureFan feline has already been scoping it out for his larder of trophies behind the sofa.

I was pretty delighted when Matty revealed this figure, as I truly believe we would have had no chance of getting her anywhere else. A while ago, maybe I could have seen her as a C&C in DC Universe Classics, but with the direction the line went toward the end, I don’t think it ever would have happened. So what’s the downside of Elasti-Girl? Well, besides now being motivated to go back and pick up the rest of the Doom Patrol, I’m really hankering to pull the trigger on the insanely pricey Giganta, just so I can have another huge chick for her to fight. Then again, I’ve got do some rearranging on my DCUC top shelf in order to fit another oversized figure. At the moment, even poor Rocket Red is still chilling in his box and waiting for some shelf time.

Okdoky, tomorrow we will round out this Matty Haul Week with a look at the Big Guy himself… Voltron! It will, however, likely be posted pretty late, as I’m pulling the graveyard shift tonight and I’ll likely be sleeping most of the day tomorrow.

Oct 24 2012

Voltron: Black Lion by Mattel

Yes, it was the final month for Matty’s Club Lion Force, and that meant that not only did we subbers get Keith, but we got the last and biggest Lion of the pack: Black Lion. Ever since the beginning of the month, I’ve been on pins and needles, worried about getting this thing safely into my collection. Was Digital River going to screw up? Would Black Lion be stricken with some horrible QC issues, like having four back legs and missing a head? Or would Matty just send me one of the Avatar beasts in a Voltron package. I was seriously stressing out. But it was all for naught in the end. Blackie arrived on my stoop with the rest of my October haul and now he’s safely in my clutches.

Once upon a time, I marveled at the size of the Yellow and Blue Lions. But damn, this guy is really big. He comes in the same style box, which has a cardboard base and back, and four clear plastic walls. The animated backdrop shows the Castle and all in all, this thing looks mighty impressive in the package. Matty probably should have mentioned somewhere on there that the Sword and Shield are concealed under the cardboard base, since none of the other lions have had any accessories packaged down there. I have to imagine someone, somewhere is going to pitch the packaging before realizing their horrible mistake.

As soon as I got Black Lion out of the box I gave him a good once over. It was like pulling someone out of combat and searching them for bullet wounds. There was a minor paint smudge on one of his red wings, but it came off with a little magic eraser treatment, and a tiny bit of black rubbing on one of his yellow shoulders. Other than that, this guy is fine.

 

As expected, Black Lion is the boxiest of the lions, but that goes with the territory of being the torso. On the other hand, he’s also the most complex looking of the bunch. The wings on his back stay folded up quite well, and you only need to lift them up to reveal the key slot for Black Lion’s cockpit. Push in the key, or any pointy object, and the hatch will release to reveal the cockpit compartment for your Keith figure. If you were wondering whether Black Lion’s huge size would give it a more roomy or complex cockpit, well, that isn’t the case. The inside of the cockpit is similar to the other lion interiors. There are some well-placed stickers to make up the instruments, and it’s just big enough to comfortably fit the figure.

In theory, Black Lion has about the same articulation as the others, but the fact that his shoulders form Voltron’s hips and shoulders actually give him a little more range of motion. I also really dig his tail a lot more than the other lions’ tails. He’s got three hinges in it, and it looks wavier, fluid and tail like, while the other lions’ tails look more like antenna.

In addition to the ubiquitous mouth blade weapon, Black Lion comes with the aforementioned Star Shield and Blazing Sword, but I’m actually going to cover those pieces when I look at Voltron on Friday.

I feel kind of bad for Black Lion. He’s easily the most impressive lion of the pack and yet he’s probably going to get overlooked by a lot of collectors who will be using him to form Voltron the moment he arrives and so he won’t spend nearly as much time in his Lion mode as the others. Still, he’s a great looking piece and makes for an awesome display when perched at the head of the group. In the end, I’m just so happy he arrived and in good condition so I can put an end to the rather trying, yet ultimately satisfying, ordeal of Club Lion Force .

Oct 23 2012

Voltron: Keith (Black Lion Pilot) by Mattel

It’s the final month for Club Lion Force and thank Christ for that! While I have been lucky enough to have a pretty good experience with Matty on this subscription, my stress over each release has been mounting, until finally reaching a fevered pitch with this final month. But we’ll get to that tomorrow when we discuss Black Lion. Today, we’re going to check out the final pilot figure, Keith, and I’ve looked at enough of these that I’m going to try to go through this one pretty quickly.

As expected, Keith comes in the exact same style window box that we’ve seen with all the figures, except Sven. The box is black to match his lion and features some decent character art on the front along with a little window that displays the figure, the alternate head, and the key stand. The back panel has a little blurb about Keith and his lion, photos of the completed Blazing Sword and a shot of the figure fitting into the Black Lion’s cockpit. As always, the box is totally collector friendly, which is awesome. On the downside, the Blazing Sword is designed to lock together, so once it’s assembled, it won’t be going back into the boxes.

Keith holds no surprises. He has a solid head sculpt, and appears to be built off of the same body as Lance and Sven. The paint on the figure is great, with no smudging or dirt on the white, and no bleeding around the red. The alternate helmeted head is overall pretty good, but there’s an annoying black spot of paint on his visor. This black spot is the first true defect I’ve had in any of my Club Lion Force toys, so in the Voltron Quality Control Lottery… A winner is me!

Articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders and elbows, universal movement in the hips, and ball joints in the knees. Once again, the fact that the pistol is sculpted into his holster and cannot be removed is a constant sticking point with me and these figures, but I take a small bit of solace in the fact that this is the last time I have to mention it. Speaking of repetitive criticisms, I still really wish the key stand had a sticker on each side.

In addition to the key stand, Keith comes with the tip of the Collect & Connect Blazing Sword and the last two pieces of the stand, so we can finally put this thing together. The sword consists of snapping together the hilt, guard, and three pieces of blade. The blade is painted with a faint swirly energy pattern and the edges are sculpted with translucent yellow plastic flames to make it appear to be pulsating with Ro-Beast killing power. In reality, it looks ok, but I tend to prefer the regular Blazing Sword that comes with the Black Lion. But more on that tomorrow!

So, let’s take a moment to ruminate on the pilot figures. Remember when the first Lion Force sub details came out and Matty was going to sell the pilots and lions separately? Well, I think grouping them together was one of the better decisions. Sure, it meant that collectors couldn’t order extras, but I would have been plenty peeved paying $15 plus shipping for these things had Mattel shipped them separately on non-Lion months. A few of my friends maintain that I’m discounting the cost of the Blazing Sword pieces, and yeah it was a nice bonus, but I would have been fine without it. I still like the pilot figures, Keith and his teammates are plenty cool, but there’s no doubt Mattel took shortcuts with them, making them in no way worth the price.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the grand daddy of all the Lions!