Tag Archives: mattel

Oct 1 2011

Young Justice: 4-inch Series, Wave 2: Vandal Savage and Black Canary

Time to round out the second wave of Mattel’s 4-inch Young Justice figures. This time around we finally get one very cool baddie in figure form and another single-carded adult hero to add to our collection. It’s Vandal Savage and Black Canary. And since these are the last two figures from the assortment, we’ll check in and see how the Hall of Justice C&C set is coming along.

Cool packaging? …check. I’ve said all I have to say about the Young Justice carded figures. I’m still really digging on the packages. Once again the back panel of the card contains the character portrait and bio blurb as well as an illustration of what parts your getting for the Collect & Connect Hall of Justice.
Let’s kick it off with Vandal Savage. Savage has been committed to figure form before by DC Direct, but surprisingly he has yet to appear in the DC Universe Classics line. Either way, this is the first time I’ve owned the character as an action figure and I really like what Mattel did with him. The figure features all new tooling, which is a nice change from the reuse of parts and the similar styles we’ve seen in a lot of the figures through the first two waves. He retains more of his cromagnin features than some of his past character designs, and certainly a lot more than his DC Direct figure. His overcoat is cast in soft, rubbery plastic ands certainly makes him look distinctive in this line of otherwise bland bucks. The head sculpt is pretty good, and I like the red coloring on the eyes, as well as the glossy finish on his boots and gloves.
Vandal features the basic five points of articulation that is standard for this line. He has a rotating head, his arms rotate at the shoulders and his legs rotate at the hips. He also comes with a chunk of meteor that has granted him his immortal status. It just looks like a yellow-grey blob and it’s really tough to get him to hold it, but then accessories have been more or less throwaways for this line so far.
On the flipside is Black Canary, who has been released as a figure a whole bunch of times and in a whole bunch of scales. In addition to this one, I already have the character in the Infinite Heroes line and in DC Universe Classics, and I’ve come pretty close to picking her up in 1:6 scale a couple of times. Like Vandal, Canary is a completely new sculpt, but that’s to be expected since she’s the first 4-inch female figure in this Young Justice line. She’s still pretty simple, but I really like the headsculpt and the paint apps on the face are nice and clean. I was never that crazy about the Infinite Heroes version, so I’m particularly happy to have this one in my collection.
Yep, you get the same five points of articulation here, and it’s praticularly irksome with Black Canary, since you can’t get any decent action poses out of her. They might as well have just sculpted her standing in mid scream. She does comes with her battle staff.
And there it is, the Hall of Justice as it stands with all the pieces from Wave 1 and 2. I’m a little peeved that Wave 2 leaves us with parts that can’t be connected. The first batch of figures was good about allowing you to connect what you’ve got, but here I’m left with two extra parts until I can get the next assortment of figures. Just to recap, there are 12 figures bundled with HoJ parts spread out through three waves, so that means I’ve still got four figures to go before getting this baby complete.
And there’s Wave 2. The third Wave of Young Justice 4-inchers is slated for the Fall, so I’m hoping they hit the shelves soon. Considering two of them are repaints, it shouldn’t be too much work to get them out. I can’t say as I’m jonesing for the Wave 3 figures so much, but dang I am really excited to finally get my Hall of Justice completed. As for the figures themselves, yes I still regard these figures as woefully overpriced, so if you haven’t picked up any of these yet, proceed with caution.
Sep 28 2011

Young Justice: 4-inch Series, Wave 2: Superboy and Captain Atom by Mattel

Mattel seems to be rushing out the 4-inch Young Justice figure with great haste. I just recently found all of Wave 1 at TRU, when Wave 2 started popping up all over online. I was able to pick up the first three figures of Wave 2, and I’m still hunting for the third. Today we’re going to take a look at Superboy and the first adult superhero in the line, Captain Atom.

Yep, there’s the same packaging we saw for Wave 1. I still like it a lot. The deco is very colorful and comic book inspired and the big bubbles display the figures very nicely. If anything maybe the bubble is too roomy. I still think it’s really clever the way the package uses an illustrated false back under the bubble to conceal the Collect & Connect pieces for the Hall of Justice. If you want to display these guys carded, the presentation won’t be marred by chunks of a building. The back panel of the cards have the character profiles and portraits and an illustration of what C&C piece you’re getting with the figures.
Let’s look at Superboy first. He’s a really solid likeness that once again relies more heavily on paintwork than sculpting. The head sculpt, however, is extremely well done and fits the animated character perfectly. The rest of the body also falls in line with the overall likeness, with his simple S-shielded black T-shirt, blue jeans and black boots. Astute collectors will note that Superboy uses the same torso and arms as Aqualad. The figure still looks fine, even with the reuse of parts, but considering the price point here, it does bug me a bit. It’s most noticeable in the arms when the two figures are standing next to each other. Superboy comes with an odd accessory, which looks like he ripped the exhaust system out of somebody’s car. In reality, it’s probably just supposed to be a piece of metal he’s bending with his super strength.
Next up is Captain Atom. I was pretty happy to pick him up since I don’t have either the JLU or the DC Universe Classics versions, and so this is my first figure of this character in my collection. Although, in fairness, I would have rather had Mattel do Red Tornado in this wave instead, since he’s more prominent in the cartoon. Captain Atom is a completely new sculpt, making him bigger and a little bulkier than the kids. His paintwork is as simple as it gets. He’s all silver with red boots and gloves and his red emblem tampo’ed on his chest. Nonetheless, the paintwork is all pretty sharp. Despite being a new sculpt, Atom’s hands are in almost an identical position to all the kids, which is just sort of weird. Atom comes with a piece of energy that clips onto his hand. The effect on this isn’t so great, but Atom is still a sharp looking figure.

Yes, I’ve now got two more pieces of the Hall of Justice, but I’m not going to show the progress until I get to the next figures in Wave 3: Vandal Savage and Black Canary.
These figures continue to be a guilty pleasure for me. I still think they’re over-priced and under-articulated and now the reuse of parts isn’t making me much happier. And yet I still dig them on some level and will be continuing to buy the line. I wouldn’t go recommending them to anyone who isn’t already in love with Mattel’s Infinite Heroes or JLU lines, because I think they’re likely to disappoint everyone else. I was able to get this pair plus Vandal Savage off of Amazon at regular retail price and even netted some free shipping. The fourth figure in the Wave, Black Canary, is going to be a little bit more difficult to score at the retail price. Looks like she’s going ot be Cheetara all over again. [I was actually able to score her off of TRU’s website a few days ago, so I’ll have a look at Vandal and Black Canary in a few days! -FF]
Sep 15 2011

Matty Sale Day… Yawn!

Yes, folks, today was Matty Sale Day, albeit not a terribly interesting one. Ghostbusters was a no show, although I haven’t picked up any of the Ghostbusters figures in a long while anyway, so that’s fine with me. In the DC Universe, there were two new JLU 3-packs. I’ve collected JLU from time to time, but I think that ship has mostly sailed for me. I was slightly tempted to go for the Jay Garrick/ Alan Scott/ Carter Hall set, but my willpower held out. There was also a Retro Action style Green Lantern. Blah!

MOTU Classics debuted two new figures. One is Hurricane Hordak, which I am passing on. You can kind of equate this guy to Battle Armor He-Man and Skeletor. I’m not knocking him, but I’m pretty much done buying variants of the same character in this line and the original MOTUC Hordak release is just so perfect to me, I don’t need to sully my shelf with another. In keeping with the Evil Horde theme, the other new figure is Leech. I waffled quite a bit on this guy before finally deciding to pass him over. This one is just a little too goofy even for my MOTU Classics shelves… and man, that’s saying quite a lot. If I was buying something else to combine shipping, I might have picked him up, but that wasn’t the case. The reissue is Chief Carnivous, a figure that I picked up the first time around. Sorry, Matty Collector, no monies for you this month! Wow, it feels good to say that for a change.

Lastly, Matty has announced that they are extending their subscriptions again, starting Saturday and promise that this will be the last time. I already have my Voltron Club Lion Force sub purchased, and I haven’t changed my mind about passing on Club Eternia again. I am, however, going forward and buying the DC Universe sub. Now, I know, some will say I should have shown support and done this back when the sub was in danger of not going through. Some others will say it was never in danger of not going through. The point is, a) I wasn’t confident enough to give Digital River my money for something that might not happen and b) I wasn’t going to subscribe if I didn’t know who the exclusive figure was going to be. Now that I know the sub is a go and I know the Club Exclusive is Metron, I’m happy to sign up. Oops, I guess Matty Collector is getting some of my monies this month. Damn!

Meanwhile, on the home front, I picked up a bunch of Marvel movie figures, as mentioned in today’s feature. I also got a nice box on my stoop with a pair of Ban Dai’s Thundercats Classic figures and Koto’s new Ghostbusters statue. Plenty of fun stuff to look at going into the weekend!