Tag Archives: super7

Sep 30 2024

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Stalker by Super7

It’s a race against time for me to polish off my look at GI JOE Ultimates Wave 4 before Wave 5 ships. To be fair, I have no idea when Wave 5 will be coming, but the sense of urgency will do me good. A little while back, I checked out Gung-Ho from this assortment, so let’s knock out the other JOE before digging into the Cobras. And that means it’s Stalker’s turn! Of course, Stalker is one of the OG, first series releases, from the Real American Hero line. He’s so old, he remembers what it was like to fight when he couldn’t even swivel his arm around!

Here he is in the packaging and looking great despite the gradual cutbacks to the presentation. It’s a window box without the sleeve from the first waves, and the once glossy metallic finish of the box is now matte. There’s some character art and a blurb about Stalker on the back of the box. As a figure, this Infantry Specialist was a favorite of mine for a long while. He showed up in my collection early and he went on EVERY mission, often providing cover when the pretend shit hit the pretend fan. I feel like Stalker got short changed in the episodes of the cartoon, but he did get to shine in the original intro every week.

Super7 has been doing a great job capturing that Sunbow cartoon look in these figures and Stalker here is certainly no exception. He’s a very simple sculpt, with the bulk of his uniform achieved through the paint and colored plastic camo deco. You get a few rumples here and there, a sculpted collar, cuffs, and boots, and a pouch on his right thigh and right bicep. But truth be told, this is all the figure needed. His simple, clean look really lends to the toon style. The belt and Y-back equipment rig is cast in brown plastic and worn by the figure and the canteen on the back of the belt is actually a removable accessory, which is pretty neat.

There are three head sculpts and I dig every one of them. The first is a neutral look. His eyebrows and distinguished mustache are both sculpted as well as painted. The eye paint is very simple, lending the cartoon look to the portrait. The beret is sculpted as part of the head, so it’s permanent, and I really love what they did with the sharp contours of his nose. The second portrait is serious and determined expression that suits the character beautifully. The hint of a smile is gone and his downturned brow shows he’s not one to be trifled with. The final head is a shouty battle cry type expression and it’s pretty epic. His brow is even more severe and his open mouth shows off a row of pearly white teeth and a sculpted tongue!

Articulation holds no surprises. Like it or hate it, it’s what we’ve been seeing all along. The rotating hinges in the knees and elbows don’t give the range of movement I would like, but it’s serviceable. My figure did have a problem with his left hip joint not being able to kick outward and when I checked it out I could see some light stress marks on the dog bone hinge up there. I’m thinking some heat will help to unlock that movement, but I haven’t tried it yet. Stalker comes with three sets of hands, which include fists, gun hands, and a pair of wider grip accessory holding hands. So, let’s move on to accessories!

Stalker comes well armed with no less than three rifles and a pistol, and I we’ve seen almost all of these before. The largest of the rifles is the M16 we’ve seen at least a few times, most recently with Gung-Ho and Scarlett. It’s a very nice sculpt and I think it suits Stalker quite well. Next is the M-32 “Pulverizer” submachine gun, which references the weapon the original RAH figure came with. This same weapon was cast in green plastic and released with Duke. And the final rifle is the standard Sunbow-style laser rifle, that I love so much. This one has been included with most of the Ultimate JOEs, and I’m always happy to see it.

The final weapon is the pistol. I don’t recall seeing this one before and I believe it’s based on the one Stalker uses to shoot the bomb in the original cartoon intro. This is a very sci-fi design with a simple and toony sculpt cast in a blue-grey plastic.

Additional gear includes a walkie talkie and binoculars. We’ve had a few different radio designs in JOE Ultimates, and I’m not sure if we’ve seen this one before or not, but I suspect we have. It’s nice and boxy with a detailed screen, some buttons and an antenna. And we also get the absolutely shitty binoculars, which we have unfortunately seen a few times. This is easily the worst accessory of the line as it just looks like two Pringles cans welded together. The first time I saw it, I wasn’t even sure what it was supposed to be. I would have been embarrassed to release an accessory this bad with one figure, let alone multiple times.

And lastly, you get the jetpack and bomb that we see from the original cartoon intro. The jetpack is the same one we saw with Snake Eyes and I still dig it a lot. The pack is worn by the figure with actual shoulder straps, rather than pegging into the back. It has a bright purple finish with some yellow paint hits. It would have been cool to get some thrust effect pieces included, but alas we did not. I believe the bomb is a brand new accessory, or at least I don’t remember seeing it before. It’s a great classic cartoon design featuring a bunch of sticks of dynamite attached to a detonator.

Stalker looks great and he’s only held back by the hip joint issue that my figure had. It’s not terribly restrictive, and it remains to be seen whether some heat will fix it, but we shouldn’t be having issues like this with $55 collector figures. I’d also argue that with so many recycled accessories, he could have used at least one major new one. I realize that there weren’t a lot of episode specific accessories from the cartoon you could give him, but maybe that would have been a good excuse to make some thrust effects for the recycled jet pack. Still, the portraits are fantastic, and it’ll be tough to choose which one to go with for everyday display. And that gets me completely caught up on all the JOEs released in this line! When I swing back to this JOE Ultimates again, we’ll see the return of The Baroness!

Sep 20 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: WilyKat by Super7

I’m finally up to the most recently released wave of ThunderCats Ultimates. Yeah, there are some older ones I haven’t looked at yet and I’ll swing back to them, but right now I’m just excited to be caught up to a current wave! This is also the first wave released in a while where I did not buy all four of the figures. I’m not doing the LJN color versions, so that got me off the hook for Jaga and Grune. But since I didn’t review the original Grune yet, maybe I’ll toss him in after I’m done with the two Wave 9 figures I did buy. And those were WilyKat and the Lunatak, Chilla. I just reviewed a Lunatak last time, and WilyKit is anxious to be reunited with her brother, so let’s go with him!

The packaging still looks great, even with the outer sleeve no longer being included. You get a great look at the figure and accessories through the front window and the back panel has some character art and a little bio about the older ThunderKitten sibling. Everything is collector friendly, but since I don’t feel like renting a storage unit for empty figure boxes, these packages are being recycled. As I mentioned last time with WilyKit, these are brand new versions of the figures that were released as part of Mattel’s ThunderCats line as an SDCC Exclusive! I was very pleased with most of the changes Super7 made to WilyKit, so I have high hopes for her brother.

And a lot of what I said about WilyKit will hold true here. Even without a direct comparison yet, this WilyKat figure looks cleaner and crisper to me. The colors are less drab and more toony, with the orange a lot brighter and the brown closer to the orange in tone. Even the sculpt is smoothed out to give him more of an animated look. Matty’s figure had more gloss to the paint and the matte finish here is also more in line with the cartoon vibe. The boots here have less color to them, so the detail like the sculpted wraps pop less, but again, more screen accurate. Finally, the skin tones on both of Mattel’s kittens were a lot darker than they should have been, and that’s resolved here too. The one big downer for me with Super7’s figure is the clip on lasso, which is essentially the same as his sister’s. The tab is super soft and it does not want to stay pegged in. I also liked the sculpt better on Matty’s version of this accessory as well. Otherwise, I think everything else here is a huge improvement.

You get two head sculpts, and both are excellent. The first is a neutral expression and the second offers a open mouthed grin, which is very charming and I think suits the character perfectly. The facial features are super clean and the eye printing is perfect. I had a some issues with the paint on my Matty WilyKat, and while there’s still a bit of minor gaffs here and there in the hair, this is a big improvement. S7’s portrait looks more youthful and toon accurate, whereas Matty’s had sharper detail in the hair sculpt.

And here’s a quick shot of the Matty and Super7 figures together! Matty’s is taller and a tad beefier. I think the proportions and size on the new one are perfect.

WilyKat’s articulation is identical to Kit’s, which in turn is pretty close to what we saw on Matty’s figures. The elbows can at least do a 90-degree bend and the waist is a ball joint, as opposed to Matty’s which just had a swivel. There are slits up the sides of his tunic’s skirt that allow for a little more range in the hips, but the knees don’t have as much range as I would like. The quality of the joints all feel great, although there’s some paint chipping inside the hinge of my figure’s right shoulder, which needs to be cleaned up. WilyKat comes with four pairs of hands and surprisingly no fists. But you do get pairs of relaxed, splayed finger, accessory holding, smoke bomb throwing, and an extra right hand about to throw one of his little mischief pills. I really dig the effects on the bomb throwing hands.

I already pointed out the coiled version of the lasso that doesn’t like to stay pegged into his belt. You also get the unfurled version and this is just a recolor of the one we saw with his sister. It looks good, but his accessory holding hands are not tight enough to hold it unless you thread it between the fingers. It works and looks fine, but probably not how it was intended. The accessory is cast in a soft and pliable plastic, but unfortunately it isn’t posable. I would have preferred an actual wire.

And finally, you get the Hover Board, which is a recolor of the one that came with WilyKit. This one is fatter and an overall better sculpt than the one included with the Matty figure. My Matty board also had some terrible paint scuffs, whereas this one is super crisp and clean. There’s one foot peg up near the front and while I was worried it was too shallow, it does seem to hold the figure pretty well. The stand is transparent with a sculpted smoke base. It pegs into the bottom of the board and has a ball joint to allow for some tilting of the board. The stand’s sculpt is identical to Wilykit’s but hers looks more yellow while this one is closer to white.

Matty’s WilyKat was by no means a bad figure. I liked it a lot then and I still do, but i do greatly prefer Super7’s offering. I think the choice here will come down to personal preference. If you were more a fan of the LJN toys, maybe Matty’s will be more to your liking. If you lean toward the cartoon, I think Super7’s is the clear winner. Naturally, I had the Matty kittens standing in my Super7 display up until now, but I’ll be retiring them back to their packaging. I may wind up selling them off, but the packaging is quite nice, so maybe I’ll hang on to them so I can have one packaged example of that line in my collection. And with WilyKat in the mix, My core Ultimates ThunderCats team is now complete! Next time, we’ll cool things off and have a look at the second Lunatak in the line, Chilla!

Sep 13 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Alluro by Super7

It’s been a couple of months since I checked in with Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates. Where does the time go? If you’re keeping score, I’ve been looking at Wave 8 and so far I’ve covered WilyKit, Captain Shiner, and Hachiman. So let’s wrap up the wave today with the first of the Lunataks, Alluro! The Lunataks showed up in Season Two, to give the ThunderCats all kinds of grief and they were pretty prominent characters going forward. Nonetheless, LJN never cashed in on them by putting any Lunatak action figures in stores. It’s a pretty crazy omission, but to be fair the line only lasted three years. As a result, I was really excited to see that Super7 was digging into this particular team next. Sure, if given the choice I may have gone with the Berserkers, but this was still a major win.

I don’t have much new to say about the packaging. It looks great despite Super7 nixing the slipcovers. The window shows off the goods and you get some character art and a brief character blurb on the back panel. Everything is collector friendly, but I’ve begun purging these boxes because I have to make space for a giant Cat’s Lair before the end of the year. Alluro was the Lunatak’s super creepy master of psy-ops. He could control people’s minds, making him a pretty powerful force to be reckoned with. And, I have to just say how much I loved Doug Preis’ voice work for the character. The voice work in ThunderCats often annoys me because there are so few actors voicing so many characters, and to be brutally honest, a lot of them don’t do a great job distinguishing between the multiple characters they do. I believe Alluro was the only character voiced by Preis in the series, which made him stand out. He did a great job giving Alluro a smug and creepy affect with a bit of Peter Lorre thrown in. Superb!

Alluro manages to stand out, even among a group of freaks like the Lunataks. He’s tall, with a broad and muscular chest, and arms that seem a bit too long for his frame. He goes topless, exposing his lavender skin. There’s a wide belt with a sculpted eye motif in the middle, and a loin cloth hanging below it. This rig is held up by a pair of brown suspenders and a couple of thin crossed belts underneath. Despite the modesty skirt, he actually has a pair of sculpted brown slacks, which give way to orange boots with some sculpted decorations and a pinched toe at the tips. For a pretty simple outfit, the layering here works well. The colors look great and this guy looks like he just stepped off of one of Rankin-Bass’ animation cells!

You get two heads to choose from: One is offering an evil smile and the other an even more evil-er laugh. I don’t know where the inspiration came from for Alluro’s features, but it’s really imaginative. He’s got a bald pate with a crescent moon symbol on his forehead. There’s a gray, mask-like coloring around his eyes and brow ridge. He’s got prominent cheek bones, a set of balls for a chin and big pointed ears. Meanwhile a mop of gray straggly hair cascades down his front and back. The whole portrait is rounded out by his yellow eyes with some mesmerizing rings for pupils. Both heads suit the character beautifully, and while I usually go for the more neutral expression for every day display, I may go for the laughing one here, because it just looks amazing.

If you’ve been on board with any of Super7’s Ultimates lines, you should know what to expect from the articulation here. The rotating hinges in the elbows and knees aren’t going to win any awards for extreme posability, but I’m OK with it. I will say that Alluro’s elbows feel like they have slightly less range than some of the other figures, as he can’t quite even do a 90-degree bend. Otherwise, the joints all feel great and he’s still plenty of fun to play with. You get four sets of hands: Fists, two sets of accessory holding hands, one pointing right hand, and one wide open right hand.

Alluro’s primary accessory is his Psych Club, which he uses to bend the minds of his adversaries. The club has a hooked end, which can be used to hang off his belt and the head is shaped like a crescent moon. There are two crystal orbs that can be plugged into the top, either blue or yellow, and these are ridiculously hard to install. There’s no give in the moon emblem and the sockets on the orbs feel like they are a little too far apart. I was able to get each one in after a lot of cursing and frustration, and now I’ll be leaving the blue one in there for all of time. Some heat would have probably helped. The rest of the included accessories are all from the Season Two episode Psych-Out.

First up is this scroll that Mumm-Ra gave Alluro to find the Egora Talisman, an artifact that gives whomever possesses it so much confidence that it makes them nearly invincible. Personally, I always thought over confidence was a weakness to be exploited, but whatever. The scroll is just a piece of plastic with a map printed on it. Which is odd, because in the episode, the scroll just seemed to have hints written in rhyme that directed him where to find it. As luck would have it, it was in a cave near Cat’s Lair, which alerted Lion-O and the team that something was up.

And then you get the Egora Talisman itself, which includes the cool little chest it was stored in. The chest has a skull motif sculpted into it, along with gold painted reinforced bands and corners. It opens and the Talisman can be stored inside. For such a tiny accessory, the Talisman is nicely sculpted and painted. In the episode, Snarf was the only one not crippled by Alluro’s mind control so he stole the chest out of the glovebox in Alluro’s ride and used the Talisman’s power to defeat him. Of course, we later learn that the Talisman inside was smashed and powerless and that Old Snarf beat him all on his own. Never underestimate a Snarf! Here endeth the lesson!

Alluro is another fantastic addition to the ThunderCats villains line up and I really love the accessories included from Psych-Out. It’s so exciting to see the Lunataks show up in Ultimates and embark on assembling a team that have never had figures before. Especially when we’re talking about characters that became regulars in the second season of the cartoon. I’ll admit I had my doubts as to whether we would see these guys in Ultimates, because are they really going to ever do Luna and Amok? But we got the answer to that right quick, as they are already in production. Of course, Chilla turned up in the next wave, but before I get to her, I’m going to round out the Thunderkittens with Wilykat… hopefully next week!

Aug 16 2024

Dungeons & Dragons Ultimates: Sheila the Thief (Cloak of Invisibility) by Super7

Yes, folks, I’m buried in Super7 GI JOE, ThunderCats, and Silverhawks Ultimates, so why not start collecting a new Ultimates line? Even better, why not collect a line of figures that I already bought when Hasbro did them? Sounds like a good plan to me! The truth is I was very happy with Hasbro’s D&D cartoon figures, but because I’ve been waiting for someone to do these for so long, I’m willing to double dip. Plus, it looks like Super7 is going deeper than Hasbro did with more of the minor characters, and yes a giant Tiamat, which God help me I did pre-order. The first wave includes two members of the adventuring party, Hank and Sheila plus Dekkion the Skeleton Warrior, and a pair of Shadow Demons. These are supposed to ship sometime in October, but we got a bit of a sneak peek with the release of the SDCC Exclusive invisible Sheila. This figure was available for purchase online after the convention and since she was easy to get, I decided to pick her up.

Oh wow, I really dig this packaging! The box is an homage to the entrance to the Dungeons & Dragons ride. There’s no slip cover, which I kind of figured since they’ve been deleting them from their longer running lines. The window shows off the goods nicely, which is impressive because she’s supposed to be invisible. The back of the packages have an actual character sheet for each character, and as an avid D&D player back in High School, I got a real kick out of this. Seriously, I had a big stupid grin on my face as I perused Sheila’s stats. Of course, this figure variant is based on Sheila’s special ability, using her magic cloak to render her invisible. A pretty useful skill for a thief, even if she didn’t do much thieving in the cartoon. I’m not gonna lie, this was a tough figure to photograph, so I’m not going to go too long today.

Sometimes when a cartoon depicts an invisible character, they just draw them as line art in white, but if I recall correctly when Sheila used her cloak in the cartoon, you couldn’t see her at all. So, S7 had to take some artistic liberties here. And what we get is the same figure we will be getting in October, only cast in translucent plastic and with a white cape. Does it work? Sorta? Kinda? The cape is made of a nice material, but the fact that it isn’t sheer really ruins the invisibility effect. Sure, you can take the cloak off, but that would break the rules, as she’s only supposed to be invisible with the cape on and the hood up. Also, the body does have a bit of a yellow tint to it, which I’m not sure was intentional, but I suppose it will save me the anxiety of waiting for it to turn yellow over time. One thing that I think is really cool here is how they even used thin translucent plastic for her skirt. I don’t recall ever seeing that sort of thing before.

You get all three heads that will be included with the regular release: A smiling expression, a surprised expression, and a mischievous expression. I do like that they painted the facial features in white to help pick them out a little more, but as you can probably see, it’s still kind of tough to discern what’s going on with the sculpts. I do, however, think these are going to look great when they’re all painted up.

The articulation is still in line with what we’ve been seeing in the other Ultimates lines, and that means lots of rotating hinges with limited range. One of the big issues with this sort of transparent figure is that you can see how the sausage is made, meaning all the joints and even the wrist pegs are clearly visible. It gives the figure a very mechanical look. The joints on the figure all feel good, but translucent plastic can sometimes have a habit of becoming brittle, so I probably won’t spend a lot of time playing around with her. With that having been said, I didn’t have any issues swapping out the heads or hands.

You get three sets of hands: Fists, a set intended to grip her hood for when she’s pulling it up or taking it off, a right hand with splayed fingers and a left gripping hand. But aside from the cloak there are no other accessories, which means they omitted the net accessory that will come with the regular release. That’s disappointing, especially since they didn’t replace it with some new accessory, maybe referencing a specific episode of the cartoon.

I don’t want to come down too hard on this figure, as it’s pretty tough to make the whole translucent thing work. You’re always going to see all the joints and inner workings of the figure and that kind of ruins the illusion. This kind of thing would most definitely work better as a statue. I’d love to see someone on Etsy with some sewing skillz make a sheer cloak for her that would make the illusion work better. With that being said, it’s a pretty good concept for an SDCC Exclusive, as I wouldn’t consider it essential to complete the collection and I would have been OK if I got shut out on it. As I write this, it’s still available on Super7’s website at $55, which is the going rate for all their regular-sized Ultimates. Still, I would only really recommend it if you’re going to be a completist. I’m not sorry I bought her, but I probably would have been better off putting that $55 towards the $300 price tag on Tiamat.

Aug 14 2024

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Doc by Super7

As I continue to chip away at Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates line, I’m here today to finally put Wave 3 in the bag! I’ve already looked at three of the four figures in this assortment: Scarlett, Storm Shadow, and The Cobra Trooper so it’s well past time to give the JOE’s Combat Medic, Doc, his turn! Dr. Carl Greer showed up early in the original Real American Hero line as part of the second series in 1983. I remember getting him along with a handful of other new figures for Christmas, and he tagged along on just about every mission after that. For some reason I also always had him drive the APC, but I don’t know what that was all about. Also a fun piece of trivia: Two of my favorite fictional medical doctors, Greer and Gregory House, both graduated from Johns Hopkins!

I won’t spend a lot of time on the packaging, since we’ve seen it so many times now. This third wave was the last to include the slipcover over the window box, but it also downgraded the glossy finish on the cardboard to a matte version of the green camo. The presentation still looks good, but Super7 progressively cost-cutting the packaging has convinced me to let these boxes go, except for the few exclusives I have. But enough about the package, there’s wounded JOE’s out there and Doc’s gotta get into the action!

The Sunbow cartoon design for Doc didn’t stray too far from the original RAH figure, and that’s reflected here. The fatigues are a darker, almost orange, khaki giving the deco some shelf presence. The sculpted details in the uniform are soft and fleeting, but that’s been the case with these toon-style figures. I don’t think they got the chest pockets quite right, as the cartoon uniform had what looked like vertical double pockets. There’s a slight hint of that here, but it’s not very well defined. I also don’t remember him ever having a holster in the cartoon, but I’m not going to complain about S7 adding a place to stow his pistol. The red crosses on his left chest and shoulders are actually sculpted as well as painted, and he has the red wrist cuffs and red belt seen in the cartoon, along with his white undershirt peeking out from inside his collar. I can nitpick some accuracy stuff here, but the figure still looks outstanding.

You get three heads to choose from: One smiling, one serious, and one shouting. All of these are great, but there isn’t a hugely noticeable difference to me between the first two, especially with the helmet on and obscuring the more severe eyebrows on the serious head. Each head shares the same helmet and I definitely recommend care when removing it, because those glasses look crazy fragile! Even popping the heads out of the tray made me nervous about breaking them. Now, with that said, I think the glasses look great. Yes, up close there’s a some white spray on the edges of the lenses, but it’s not that noticeable with the naked eye. The green tinting on the lenses looks great too. Should the frames be white? Nope! Not unless they’re referencing something I’m not familiar with. I don’t recall them ever being white in the cartoon. I’ve had some difficulty with tight heads on some S7 figures, but Doc’s noggins pop on and off really easy, which is comforting because again… those glasses can be worrisome! He must go through a lot of pairs on the battlefield.

The shouty head is well done and very expressive. They even sculpted some detail on his tongue inside his mouth. I don’t know that I’ll use this one that much, but I do really like it. It kind of looks like he’s shouting “MEDIC!” before realizing, “Oh, wait that’s me.”

You get the usual assortment of hands, including fists and some accessory-holding hands. You also get a set of white-gloved surgeon hands, which work well with the red arm bands to complete the glove effect.

Doc comes with both a medical case and shoulder bag. The bag is designed to hang on his right shoulder and has a printed caduceus on the flap. There’s also some paint on the buckle that is intended to hold the flap down. The medical case is white with a red cross printed on the outside. It opens up to reveal a bunch of supplies like scissors and bandages. I originally expected this to be just a sticker, but the contents are all sculpted and picked out with some paint. I like that the case has actual hinges, rather than just bendy plastic which stresses over time.

Greer also comes with two ways to launch signal flares. The first is based on the flare launcher that came with the original RAH figure. As a kid, I always assumed this was a mortar and when playing, Doc used to use it to lay cover fire while he was waiting for support to evac his wounded. You also get a projectile that loads into the launch tube and… yeah, this looks like some kind of rocket-propelled weapon as opposed to a flare, so I don’t know. The launcher has a shoulder strap, but no bipod to support it, and because of limitations in those rotating knee hinges, Doc can’t really get down on the ground well enough to use it convincingly. I’m not a huge critic of the more limited range of articulation on these figures, but here’s a case where it’s definitely not ideal.

A lot more practical is the flare pistol he keeps holstered on his right hip. It’s a decent, albeit simple sculpt and the frame is painted silver and the grips are left as gray plastic. The holster design, however, does tend to drop the pistol out of the back.

Doc’s filecard listed him as a pacifist, but I don’t remember them playing that up with him in the cartoon, not like they did with Lifeline, who was a constant whiney bitch about it. Thankfully, S7 included the standard Sunbow rifle with him. And hey, if you want your Doc to be a pacifist, just give it to someone else! Personally, I can never have enough of these rifles!

For the last piece of equipment, there’s a walkie, which looks to be a recolor of the one included with Flint. Oddly enough it’s lavender! I’m not sure if that’s a cartoon reference or just a color they decided to go with for some variety.

And the last accessory is a comic book, which references the episode Countdown to Zartan, where Doc was relaxing on the base and reading a comic. I thought that was a nice little character moment for him.

There are a few minor inaccuracies here, but I still think Doc turned out great, and I’m thrilled to finally have this one in my toon-style collection. While he got short-changed as the cartoon went on, Doc had some great moments in the first two miniseries, not to mention There’s No Place Like Springfield, and to be honest, those are all my favorite episodes from the entire cartoon series. Not to mention, he was also portrayed as quite the scientist beyond just medicine. He was the one that came up with the energy absorbing mirrors in Revenge of Cobra, which lead to my favorite Doc line, “Don’t worry, I’m wearing my asbestos underwear.” While there’s some question now over what the future is going to look like for this line, I’m damn glad Doc made it out when he did. And that brings me to Wave 4 and three more figures to get me all caught up… But Wave 5’s shipping is imminent, so I’ll try to hurry!

Jul 15 2024

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Cobra Troopers by Super7

Super7’s various Ultimates line are becoming a weekly fixture around these parts, and that’s because I collect three of these lines and S7 has been pumping them out pretty hot and heavy. Right now ThunderCats and GI JOE are battling for slots every week so I can get current and get back to Silverhawks. Today I’m headed back into Wave 3 of the GI JOE Ultimates to have a look at the Cobra Troopers. And if you want to get caught up, I’ve already checked out both Scarlett and Storm Shadow from this assortment!

Ah, the good old days, when these figures came with slipcovers! These were phased out in the following wave, and at this point S7 had already changed the snazzy glossy finish on the cardboard to dull matte. The presentation is still nice, with the blue camo, bold red Cobra emblem, dogtag style name plate and the weathering made to look like paint rubbed off of steel. But, these will continue to die a death of a thousand cost cuts until we get just the window box. As we’re about to see, the Cobra Trooper comes with parts to make two variants of the same figure, so naturally I picked up two.

There’s just something about the Sunbow cartoon Cobra Troops that I love so much. These guys were pretty buff and badass looking, even if they were a bunch of clowns who were prone to getting taken out by having their heads knocked together like a couple of coconuts. The uniforms take inspiration from the RAH designs, but they’ve been streamlined for a super clean toony look. The fatigues here are recreated as smooth and without much in the way of tailored detail, although they do each have a pouch on their right legs. The belts include shoulder straps and two more pouches on the hips. The shoulder rigs are executed in the Y-back style. There are black and white hexagonal knee pads, and the boots have some white buckles on the sides. Finally, a bold Cobra emblem is emblazoned on the front of the shirts. Like I said, these guys are clean and simple and perfectly evoke the animated look.

There are two different heads with each figure, and these are varied by fair skin and tan skin, so you can have a little bit of variety in your troops if you decide to army build. Unlike most of S7’s Ultimates, the head swap here is done at the base of the neck so that you get the skin color change all the way down to the uniform collar. The helmet and face mask designs are identical, but there is a little variety in the painted facial features. The lighter skinned trooper has blonde eyebrows, while the tan has black, but neither are showing any hair under the helmets. I really like how they handled this variation and I wouldn’t be opposed to picking up a couple more if they reissued the figure with yet another two head designs.

By now you should all know the deal with the articulation here. It’s serviceable, but some of the joints lack the range in motion that most collectors would have preferred. I will say that the rotating hinges in the elbows feel like they have a tiny bit more range than some other figures in the line, as they can easily do a 90-degree bend. It’s still not ideal, but I’ve learned to accept what we got here and still have fun with it. All of the joints on these guys worked great straight out of the box. You do get several pairs of hands, and each set is duplicated in both the light and tan skin to go with whichever head you choose. The hands include fists, trigger hands, and loose grip hands. I would have liked a pair of relaxed or karate chop hands, but in fairness, they were duplicating each set and that’s a lot of hands! Let’s move on to accessories, and we’ll start with the weapons!

First off, each Trooper comes with a laser pistol and I really dig this design. IT’s boxy in the receiver with a site at the end of the barrels. It looks serviceable and fairly realistic, as opposed to some of the more wackier pistols we’ve seen in this line. The detail is really sharp and I really like the blue-gray finish, which is repeated for all the guns included with these guys.

And here’s my all time favorite of Cobra’s arsenal: The laser submachine gun! These have no stocks and a scope mounted up top. There’s a magazine type attachment in front of the trigger guard, which in this case I assume is a battery pack, since they fired lasers in the cartoon. There’s just enough detail here to look good without compromising the simplicity of the toon aesthetic. These are the guns that I’ll be displaying with these guys all the time.

Finally for the guns, you get a large rifle, and these tend more toward realism than the usual cartoon weapons. These have skeletal stocks, a very detailed receiver, complex scopes, and even carry straps. These designs are based off the weapon included with the original Real American Hero Cobra soldier

And finally, you get the bitchin’ laser whip from the original Mini-Series. These have tube shaped, lightsaber-like hilts with some painted controls and the bright blue whips are cast in a soft rubbery plastic. I’m not sure if the whips are designed to be removed from the hilts or not. I gave it a little tug and it didn’t come out, so I’m not going to risk it.

In addition to all that firepower, you get a couple of pieces of equipment. First up, the Cobra Trooper comes with a walkie-talkie so he can talk to his chums. We have had a few walkies in this line so far, but I think this is a new sculpt. It’s got a circular screen mesh speaker and a frequency display on the top, along with an antenna. There’s a hand designed to hold it, and it can be a bit tricky to get it in there, but once I got it, it worked fine.

And the final accessory is a briefcase bomb! The blue briefcase has four tiny feet to rest on and a gray carry handle. Open it up and it reveals a very toony looking bomb inside with some different colored wires and a digital screen showing the timer.

Oh boy, do I dig these guys! While I loved each and every one of my RAH figures, I can remember wishing my Cobra Troops looked more like the cartoon, although in fairness I only ever had one Cobra and one Cobra Officer. Super7 did a great job nailing the animated look and the weapons and accessories are all great. I’m keeping a close eye on these to go on sale, but I haven’t decided what that magic number is that will make me go crazy and get a bunch more. It would be cool to see these reissued with two more variant heads and maybe an H-back for the shoulder straps. I’d also love to see S7 give us some female Cobra Troopers as well.

Jul 12 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Captain Shiner by Super7

Even as I push my way through my look at ThunderCats Ultimates Wave 8 and try to get current, Wave 9 has already arrived! Fortunately, I only picked up half of that assortment so it doesn’t set me back quite so far, but I’m still doing all I can to get caught up with ThunderCats, so I can get back into Silverhawks. If you’re just joining me, I’ve already had a look at WilyKit and Hachiman from this wave, and today I’m checking out the nefarious Captain Shiner!

As we saw last time, we are no longer getting the sleeves on these boxes, which is disappointing, but has also convinced me to not keep these packages any longer. That’s not me being petty, just looking for any excuse I can get to get rid of empty boxes and conserve space. Nonetheless, the window box shows off the figure quite nicely and you get some character art and a blurb about him on the back. We first encountered the spacefaring mercenary, Captain Shiner, in the episode Sword in a Hole where he acquires the Sword of Omens for Mumm-Ra and throws it into what appears to be a Black Hole. This was a stand out episode to me when I was a kid, because I can remember honestly wondering how the hell they were ever going to get the sword back.. and in about twenty minutes, no less! By the end of the episode it seems like Shiner going to be another one of those adversary-turned-ally situations, like Hachiman or Snowman of Hook Mountain, but nope when we see him again in the ThunderCats, Ho! mini-series, he’s still an asshole!

Shiner always struck me as being based off an old 19th Century Austrian army officer, and I dig that! I mean, why not? We’ve had pirates and samurai and ninjas. Third Earth is just a melting pot for historical analogies. His uniform is not the most exciting thing around, as it’s mainly a gray suit with red striping on the trousers and an orange baldric across his chest. He does, however, have some really snazzy space boots and the purple and blue go a long way to make his coloring more interesting. What’s also interesting is Shiner comes out of the box with static arms that are sculpted crossed over his chest. I’m not usually a big fan of swapping out parts to make up for shortcomings in articulation, but I have to admit it looks good here, even if it is a dirty cheat.

Of course, you can pop the crossed arms piece off at the shoulders and give him his regular articulated arms and these work just as you might expect, with rotating hinges at the shoulders and elbows, swivels in the biceps and hinged pegs for the wrists. You get three pairs of hands, which include fists, accessory gripping hands, a relaxed right hand and a pointing left hand. The hands seem rather undersized to me, especially the tiny fists, which I found kind of weird and off-putting. The rest of the articulation is standard Super7 Ultimates stuff, although my figure’s right hip can be problematic. Sometimes it feels like it locks up and I have to fiddle with it to get it to move again. I’m not sure what’s goin on up there, but heat doesn’t seem to help and I just have to be patient and careful with it.

You get three different heads to choose from. These include a somewhat passive expression, an evil smile expression, and a maniacal laughter head. The later two are very expressive and all three are excellent likenesses for the character. The face is so lumpy and weird, and just full of personality. The monocle in his left eye is a permanent fixture, cast in a smoked translucent plastic so you can still see his painted eye behind it. The cord is attached to the monocle and plugs into the orange sash, so you have to unplug it every time you change the head. It’s not a big deal and it pegs in fairly easily, but if you turn the head too far, particularly to his left it will tend to pull out.

Shiner comes with three accessories, the first of which comes from his first appearance and it’s the captured Sword of Omens. This represents the sword in its dagger form with the Eye of Thundera wrapped up to contain its power. It’s actually the second time we got a Sword of Omens with the Eye wrapped up, the first one came with Pumm-Ra. And kudos to S7 for doing an entirely new sculpt for this accessory.

Next up, you get an energy pistol. I can’t remember if we saw these in his first episode, but I know his crew carried these in ThunderCats, Ho! As far as laser gun designs go, this one is pretty low effort and the accessory reflects that. There’s no real detail on it at all, just a painted orange screen for the energy emitter.

And finally, you get a set of shackles, which I presume are supposed to be one of the sets used to chain up the captive ThunderCats, in ThunderCats, Ho! This accessory is very well done with an actual chain and the cuffs can open and close. They are a bit big, even on the dudes, but fun nonetheless.

Captain Shiner is a solid enough figure, and yet this one leaves me a little underwhelmed. Maybe it’s because his outfit design is rather simple, but then I think the head sculpts make up for it. Maybe it’s because he feels rather light on the accessories, but that’s probably because of the crossed arms piece taking up a chunk of the extras budget. And sure, that looks good as a display option, but where do we draw the line between just substituting parts instead of making the articulation work better. The tiny hands do bother me quite a bit, and the wonky right hip joint is a nuisance. Part of me wonders if I should have waited for Shiner to turn up on discount, but then I didn’t want to risk not having him in my collection. Really good figures often get a week or so playtime on my desk for me to have fun messing around with before going up on display, but that won’t be the case for Shiner. Although he does look good on the shelf!

Jul 3 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Hachiman by Super7

Last week I embarked on a look at the eighth wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates with a look at Wilykit, and today I’m pushing forward with the Samurai from The Red Sun Planet! Hachiman first showed up well into the first season of the cartoon, when he was summoned by Mumm-Ra and tricked into fighting the ThunderCats, but he and Lion-O eventually became allies… until many episodes later Mumm-Ra summoned him again, put a spell on him, and made him fight the ThunderCats… again! One of the recurring themes in the cartoon was making friends out of potential adversaries, and I think that was a good message to send kids, but maybe the writers hit that well a few too many times at the expense of Hachiman’s gullibility. Either way, Hachiman would turn up in a total of maybe a half-dozen or so episodes, enough for LJN to give him a figure back in the day.

Here he is in the package, and just like last time, we no longer get an outer mailer box or a slipcover. I don’t mind the mailer going away, as I always pitched them, but the fact that we’re not getting the slipcovers anymore has just about convinced me to not keep these boxes. The presentation is still really nice, but at this point I’m just looking for excuses to get rid of action figure boxes in storage and recover some space. The back panel still has some character art and you get a little blurb about Hachiman as well.

Out of the box, Hachiman is looking pretty faithful to his animated counterpart. He has blue Samurai armor with a little black and red trim, worn over a sculpted brown bodysuit. The armor is confined to the front, which I’d like to think is because a brave warrior like Hachiman does not turn his back on the enemy. From the back you can see the sculpted red cords that hold his chest piece on and just more of his sculpted brown undersuit. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the plates on his hips and shoulders are not too restrictive of his articulation. His chest armor has a swap out panel, one with an emblem on it and one without. I don’t remember him ever having that emblem on his chest in the cartoon and the LJN figure didn’t have it either, so I’m not sure the source of that piece. I can’t say as I remember every episode he was in, so maybe it appeared in one of the later ones. Despite being more cartoon accurate without it, I have to say I kind of dig what it adds to the look of the armor.

You get two head sculpts, one with the helmet and one without. The helmeted head looks great with some pretty nice depth of sculpt between the mask and his underlying face and he’s depicted as gritting his teeth in the heat of battle. The gold leaf paint on the trim and crest looks good, but could have had some sharper paint lines. I like that they went with two heads, rather than a removable helmet, because I don’t think this design would have worked as well had it been an accessory.

The sculpting for the unmasked head also looks pretty good and offers a more stoic and determined expression. His brow is furled and his tightly drawn lips are slightly downturned. The hair sculpt is rather soft and the paint on the head band shows some slop. My figure also has a stray black mark on the left side of his face, which I will try to wipe off at some point. Overall, I think the paint could have been a lot better on this head, but I’ll concede that the flubs are amplified by the camera close ups and it’s not as egregious with the naked eye. On the other hand, it is a $55 collector figure so, it should have been better. Do better, Super7!

Hachiman has a scabbard for his mighty sword, Thunder-Cutter, which pegs into his belt sash with a key-type tab. If I peg it in and put the figure on the shelf, it’ll stay put, but as soon as I start fiddling with him, the scabbard pops off, so I find it’s best to just leave it off until I’m done posing him and then attach it. It’s rather annoying, but I can’t really think of a better way to do it and still have the scabbard be removable. The scabbard has a gold handle and some sculpted with wraps and it fits the sword blade pretty well. Hachiman has hands for holding both the sword and the scabbard, along with relaxed hands, fists, and a pointing finger hand.

Released from its scabbard, Thunder-Cutter has a painted silver blade, black sculpted wrap on the handle, and the pommel and tsuba are both painted gold. It may not be as flashy as the Sword of Omens, but it’s still an attractive and elegant looking sword.

You also get a second version of Thunder-Cutter with a semi-translucent energy webbing effect piece wrapped around the blade. It’s actually the exact same sword and the effect piece is removable, so I’m not sure why they didn’t just include the effect piece, but hey… extra sword! The effect piece also has a hole for the pointing finger hand so you can recreate the scene where Hachiman asked Thunder-Cutter which way to go and it acted like a compass to point him in the right direction, while balancing on his finger.

I’m glad they finally worked Hachiman into one of these waves, because he was a great recurring character on the cartoon and he makes for a fun action figure. Yes, I would have appreciated a bit more care on the paintwork, especially the unhelmeted head, but what we got isn’t so bad that it ruins the figure for me. Getting him in hand does make me extra sad that we don’t yet have Nadya, the Warrior Maiden that he sort of bonded with and referred to as Little Sister in the cartoon, but the line does appear to still be going strong, so I have hope!

Jun 24 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: WilyKit by Super7

I’m trying to space out the Super7 stuff as much as possible, but with me trying to get caught up on GI JOE Ultimates and new waves of ThunderCats and Silverhawks, it’s just a lot of stuff to try to squeeze into each week and still offer some variety. Anyway, just to refresh everyone’s memory, Matty Collector started ThunderCats and Super7 took it over. And while Super7 technically finished the main ThunderCats team a while ago, the Thunder Kittens were released by Mattel as SDCC Exclusives and were not easy to get. Naturally fans who missed them have been waiting for Super7 to do them, and now they have! WilyKit arrived as part of Wave 8 and WilyKat has already shipped as part of Wave 9. Since I already reviewed Matty’s set, I’ll be focusing on comparisons for today’s look!

I’m usually not a fan of cartoons inserting the young characters for kids to relate to, but I really do love the Thunder Kittens. They’re fun, they’re not too annoying, and their mischief works well as the inciting incident for a lot of episodes. Matty’s Kittens came in some really cool packaging, but that’s to be expected for a special SDCC release. Here we get the standard S7 ThunderCats Ultimates packaging after all the cost cutting. So, no more outer mailer and no more slipcover. You do still get some nice character art on the back panel as well as a little blurb about the character. Even with the cut backs, the presentation here is still gorgeous and everything is collector friendly, but I’m leaning toward not keeping these boxes any longer.

Before I even did an in hand direct comparison, I could tell that this new version of Wilykit was a huge improvement over Mattel’s. She looks crisper and more colorful, and surprisingly more polished than the previous release. Her dress is more of a purple and pink combo, where Matty’s was more blue and lavender. The skin tone is a lot lighter and uses bare plastic rather than paint, making her look a lot cleaner. And yes, it is an entirely new sculpt! She’s only a bit shorter than the Matty figure, but her proportions are slighter and more alike to what we saw in the cartoon. The belt is now red instead of brown and still has her braces of pill bombs sculpted in. These along with the belt buckle are sculpted sharper and painted in bright silver, as is the sculpted cuff on her right bicep. Finally, her toes are more claw like and accurate to the cartoon, whereas Matty’s, looked more human.

You get two heads to choose from, where Matty’s only came with one. The neutral head has much paler skin than the Matty release and the difference between the white painted inner part of the face and the the surrounding area is more subtle. The eyes are printed much more sharply and are colored orange rather than red, as is the hair. The hair shape has been reworked so it’s less pointy on the top, which is where most of the difference in height comes from. Whether this is more or less screen accurate kind of depended on which episode I was watching. I think the brightness of the hair could have been taken down a notch, but I still dig it. Everything about this portrait just looks so much brighter and cleaner than Matty’s.

The additional head offers a wink and a smile and is a very welcome bonus. Wilykit is now showing off her pearly whites and has her right eye closed into a knowing wink. It’s playful and mischievous and really presents the character very well.

The articulation here is nearly identical to Matty’s, meaning you get lots of rotating hinges, and not as tight a bend in the elbow as most would probably like. With that having been said, the one big improvement here is that the waist is now ball jointed, where it was merely a swivel on the Matty figure. The skirt is a tad restrictive of the hips. You can still get her into a pretty wide stance, but I think Matty’s could do slightly better in that regards. The joints are a bit delicate due to the smaller nature of the figures’s limbs, but not so much that I was worried about breakage while playing with her.

WilyKit comes with a pair of relaxed hands attached and you get only three additional hands to swap out. These include one set of gripping hands for her lasso and one right hand sculpted with one of her pill bombs between her fingers. I love that they included the pill throwing hand and I’ll likely display her with it. But, it still feels like she came up pretty light in the extra hand department. Considering how small a figure she is, that feels a tad cheap.

Just like the previous release, WilyKit comes with two versions of her rope: One to store on her belt, and one all unfurled into a lasso. This is one aspect where the S7 figure takes a step back from Matty’s, as this one has a real problem staying put when you peg it into her belt. Matty’s wasn’t perfect, but it used a much chonkier tab to connect and it just worked better. On the other hand, S7’s is still more accurate to the episodes I’ve watched recently.

And of course, WilyKit comes with her Space Board, and this is also an entirely new sculpt. The board is about as long as WilyKit is tall and it’s a lot fatter and rounder than Matty’s. It’s also painted much, much better. There’s a single peg on the top to support the figure as well as a sculpted Eye of Thundera. Meanwhile the flipside has some sculpted thruster jets and a socket to plug in the flight stand.

The stand plugs into the bottom and has a ball joint so you can angle the board different ways. It’s a clear cone with a smoked effect on the bottom. All in all it looks good and does its job well. The foot peg makes a secure connection with Wilykit and she stays on a lot better than Matty’s figure does.

And here are some comparison pics with the Matty figure, where you can really see the differences to the hair sculpt from behind.

Apart from some spotty QC issues, I was pretty favorable toward the SDCC Thunder Kittens when I reviewed them back in the day. I would have been perfectly fine having them continue on in my ThunderCats display if S7 opted out of making them. But, with that having been said, I think this new WilyKit is an improvement on nearly all fronts. Of course, the previous WilyKit is nearly nine years old now, so I expected better, but even still, I prefer the color choices, the changes to the hair, and even the design of the Space Board. Yeah, she stumbles a bit with the lasso belt attachment, but it’s a minor thing on an otherwise great figure. Her brother is already on his way to me as we speak, and we’ll get these two Kittens together as soon as I am done looking at the rest of this wave.

Jun 21 2024

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Storm Shadow by Super7

If you know me, you know that I wasn’t a fan of Ninjas taking over my GI JOE. But Ninjas were all the rage in the late 80s and into the 90s, and I was already getting out of GI JOE by the time of the invasion, so it wasn’t that big a deal to me. Of course, for a while Storm Shadow was the only token Ninja and I didn’t mind that. Indeed, I thought he was pretty damn cool in the cartoon and since I always regarded Snake Eyes as a Commando and not a Ninja (FIGHT ME!), Storm Shadow was a unique force to be reckoned with when playing with my figures. So let’s head back into Wave 3 of GI JOE Ultimates and check out Cobra’s specialty assassin!

In the third wave we were still getting the top slipcover as part of the packaging, but the box itself loses that metallic glossy finish from the earlier waves in exchange for a dull matte. The deco is done in a striking blue camo pattern with some weathering effect to simulate paint rubbing off steel and a bold crimson Cobra emblem front and center. The back panel has some shots of Storm Shadow from the cartoon and a little bio blurb. This is still a very nice presentation and it’s collector friendly too! But, the running changes here have convinced me to not keep the boxes for these figures. And my closets rejoiced!

Out of the box, Storm Shadow is a damn fine representation of what we got in the Sunbow cartoon. He’s dressed all in white, including white forearm bindings on his otherwise bare arms. He’s got a super crisp Cobra emblem stamped on the left side of his chest and black waist belt and black shoulder strap with an ornate silver buckle. The only thing about the costume here that I’ll nitpick is I think the tops of the sleeve cutouts should be flared out just a little more to hang over the tops of his shoulders. The shoulder strap secures the panoply of weapon storage on his back. This includes a quiver with three arrows, scabbards for his two swords, and his bow, which is secured around the quiver by the string. It doesn’t look like this gear is designed to come off, and I’m not going to risk trying, but it would have been nice to make it easily removable.

There are two silver shuriken sculpted into his belt and room to insert one of the three loose shuriken that come with the figure. I really love how they did this, as he was usually depicted with the shuriken tucked in there, but being able to have one removable is a nice little touch.

The head sculpt is about as simple as things get, and yet still a great recreation of his animated counterpart. The mask is all but featureless and cast in beautiful, pure white, just like the rest of the outfit. The cut out for the eyes shows some crisp printed facial features.

You also get an alternate head with a scuba mask. This was featured in the episode Excalibur in which Storm Shadow’s Rattler was shot down, forcing him to ditch it in a lake in Great Britain. He ejected underwater only to find the Lady of the Lake at the bottom and the legendary blade, Excalibur. Because that was just the sort of thing that could happen in any given episode of the GI JOE cartoon! Hell, it probably doesn’t even make the Top 20 of the Craziest Shit That Happened in GI JOE list. The head is a pretty cool option with a clear plastic shield over his face and a little breathing cylinder under the chin. Will I ever display the figure with it? Nope!

Articulation in this line has been a sticking point with many collectors, although I usually don’t mind the limitations. I did, however, expect to be really bothered about it with Storm Shadow, and in the end I both was and wasn’t. On the one hand, he’s a Ninja so the lack of superb agility is troublesome. On the other hand, I was pretty happy with some of the poses I was able to get him in. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have liked to see more range of motion in his arms at least, but I was still able to have a lot of fun with him. He comes with a lot of hands, including fists, chopping hands, a left hand for holding the bow and a right hand for knocking the arrow, gesturing hands, a left hand for holding a shuriken, and a pair of accessory gripping hands.

You also get a swap out right forearm, which has his wrappings partially removed to reveal his Arashikage tattoo. It’s a cool bonus, but I never really associated that tatt with his cartoon version. I’m also a little embarrassed to admit that I thought I got cheated out of his right accessory gripping hand, before realizing it was attached to this forearm! D’oh!

As an assassin, it’s only fair that Storm Shadow comes with a lot of weapons to do his job! Many of these are updates to the gear from the original Real American Hero figure, while others are added from the cartoon. Starting small, we already saw the shuriken, and those are followed up by a tanto knife. The shuriken specific left hand works really well to hold them, but if you want him to hold them in his right hand, the arrow knocking hand works well for that too by tucking it between the fingers. The tanto has a black hilt and silver painted blade. It looks great, but there’s nowhere for him to store it on his person when not wielding it.

The bow is cast in black plastic and has an actual string, which is a huge win in my book. I absolutely hate when these action figure bows get useless, chonky plastic “strings.” There are three pale gray arrows, which can all be stored in his quiver, and I was pleased that even with the limited range of motion in those elbows, I was still able to get him to knock the arrow and prepare to fire.

His twin swords match the tanto, with black hilts and silver painted blades. These fit very well in the scabbards on his back and he looks great wielding them!

And you can’t have Storm Shadow without a pair of nun-chucks. These are extremely cool in that they have an actual metal chain connecting them. Some loops on his belt to hold these would have been helpful, but if we’re going by cartoon accuracy, I think these pretty much just appeared out of thin air when he needed them.

Next up, you get a blue sniper rifle. I’m sure this was referenced in the cartoon or comic, but I can’t remember the specific instance. This is the one accessory where his articulation really lets me down, because he can’t really hold it like he’s going to fire it. I can’t say I was planning on displaying him with it anyway. The sculpt is pretty nice, but the bright blue is kind of weird.

And finally, Storm Shadow comes with Excalibur, from the previously mentioned titular episode. It’s a really nice recreation of the sword from the cartoon with a gold and bejeweled hilt and a sort of glowy pale blue blade. In the episode, Storm Shadow found that the sword cut through anything and even made a cool lightsaber sound when he swung it. Destro determined that the sword was invincible and wanted it for himself so badly, that he tried to kill Storm Shadow with a rocket launcher, but sneezed and missed. I’m not lying about any of this… watch the damn episode!

There’s no doubt that Classified Storm Shadow is the better Ninja figure when it comes to crazy poses, and it’s occurred to me that I still have to get around to showcasing that figure here. Maybe when I do, I’ll do a comparison. But, all in all, I was still really pleased with how much fun this guy turned out. His weapons are all well thought out, and he can carry several, albeit not all of them. But it’s the pitch-perfect cartoon aesthetic that really sells this figure to me, and I was happy with how well he could interact with most of his accessories, especially the bow. He’s a great addition to my Sunbow Cobra shelf! One Ninja is fine, but I’m prepared to leave it at that!