So, where am I with GI JOEUltimates? Well, I’ve checked out all of Waves 1 and 2 here, and dipped into Wave 3 with Scarlett. I was going to finish Wave 3, but let’s go nuts, jump ahead to Wave 4, and check out everyone’s favorite gumbo-slurping jarhead, Gung-Ho! I was only 11yo when the original RAH version of Gung-Ho came out. I’m pretty sure I got him for Christmas along with the Dragonfly, because I remember constantly having him hanging off the landing skids as Wild Bill flew him into battle. I really liked his figure a lot, and constantly had him casting off his grenade launcher and punching out Cobra’s left and right. I was also a big fan of him in the Sunbow cartoon because he was tough but kind of a goof. Needless to say, I was glad to see him land in Wave 4 and I’m excited to check him out!
Super7’s packaging for this line has been suffering a death by a thousand cost-cuts. Originally, they came in brown cardboard mailers and with illustrated camo sleeves over the window box, but now both of those have been nixed. Also, the boxes themselves are now matte and no longer have that plastic sheen. It’s kind of a shame, but then these running changes convinced me to dump the packages for this line, so at least I have more space as a result. In fairness, the presentation still looks solid, you still get some nice character art and a bio blurb on the back panel, and the window shows off the figure and all the extras really well.
And here he is out of the box and looking like he jumped off a Sunbow animation cell. From the waist down, he’s got his trademark blue and green camo trousers with high laced boots, and a pouch sculpted to his right thigh. From the waist up, he’s bare armed, bare chested and wearing only a blue vest to match his trousers. The vest is cast in soft plastic and actually worn by the figure, which looks great. It looks like it would be not a big problem to get it off, but I’m content to not try. And of course, we get his chest tattoo printed onto his already intimidating physique.
You get three heads to choose from, including a neutral expression and a smiling expression, both with his green Marine cap as part of the sculpt. The first really nails his look in the cartoon wonderfully. The second head is pretty cheesy, but in a charming sort of way. We’re back to the fully painted skin tone and the facial features are sharp.
The third head features a shouting expression and comes without his hat and with a headband in its place, and I can’t for the life of me remember what episode of the cartoon or issue of the comic this look is based on. Hopefully someone will help me out on that. I do tend to watch an episode of the GI JOE cartoon almost every week, but there are a handful of episodes I will watch over and over and obviously, the episode this head appeared in isn’t one of them. Either way, it’s a great sculpt, but I would have rather had the shouty head with his regular hat on.
There are no surprises in the articulation, as it sticks close to what we’ve been seeing for most of the guys, for better and for worse. As usual, all the points are there, but you don’t get those double-hinges in the knees and ankles like you do with Classified. I was curious to see how the ab crunch hinge would look on his bare upper body, and with the vest concealing most of it, it looks just fine. I had no issues with any of the joints on my figure, with nothing stuck or too loose. Naturally, you get a bunch of hands, which include fists, relaxed hands, a right gun-holding hand, and a pair of green gloved hands. Sadly, he does not come with a hand to thumb his nose at Cobra Commander, but even if he did, I’m not sure the articulation would have allowed it.
Moving on to his gear, Gung-Ho comes with a large backpack, modeled after the one that came with his original figure and it’s even colored in a blue-green finish to match the original accessory, rather than match the more cartoon accurate fatigues. The securing straps and configuration of the side pockets match the original accessory and the folding entrenching tool is present on the lower, back pouch but here it’s actually painted in silver and brown. Like all the previous backpacks we’ve seen in this line, this one is actually worn by the figure with shoulder straps, and I dig that so much more than it just pegging into a hole in the back.
Also referencing the original figure is his grenade launcher, and it is a pretty faithful update to that weapon. It’s cast all in black plastic, has a soft plastic carry strap, and a ribbed fore grip. I don’t recall him ever really having this in the cartoon, but it certainly was his trademark weapon when it came to the figures, and my Gung-Ho blew the piss out of a lot of Cobra troopers with it!
If you want to arm him with something more traditional, he also comes with the M16 style rifle, and yes we’ve seen this same accessory packed in with Scarlett. It’s a great looking weapon, despite being a little warpy in the barrel. At the same time, it feels a little out of place with the cartoon aesthetic, and I would have rather had another one of the laser rifles instead, or in addition to.
Finally, you get a pair of episode specific accessories from the cartoon. The first comes from the original Miniseries, and it’s the little toy Wolverine tank, which Gung Ho picked up and started playing with while the JOEs were trying to fool cobra into thinking they were surrendering by filming a miniature scale diorama. I’m really glad they included this, because that’s just such a fantastic scene! The cartoon definitely had a tendency to go too goofy, but this was a case where I think it was just the perfect level of goofiness.
Next is a big crystal, which I’m thinking is supposed to be one of Cobra’s explosive crystals from Captives of Cobra, where Cobra brainwashed a bunch of the JOEs families and Gung-Ho had to drive the explosive crystals to a safe place without them blowing up. I’m also thinking that the gloved hands were made for handling the crystal, as they seem to be sculpted to cradle it.
And that’s our lovable jarhead from the bayou. I think this figure came out great and he looks amazing displayed with the rest of the Super7 JOEs. My only real nitpick is that I wish the shouting head had his regular hat sculpted on it, because I don’t have much use for the one with the headband. And yeah, I would have liked the standard issue JOE laser rifle, even though the M16 is pretty cool. Honestly, Gung-Ho’s load out felt like it could have used a third weapon anyway. I think this wave was part of Super7’s attempt to push collectors to go all in on the wave in order to get a bonus accessory pack, so maybe that’s part of it. Still, I’m really happy to add Gung-Ho to the Ultimates shelf! And since I jumped ahead to Wave 4 for today’s review, I’ll have to backtrack to Wave 3 next week!
I am doubling down my commitment to get current on Super7 GI JOEUltimates, because I am seriously behind! And yes, doubling down means I’ll be doubling up on some of these figures to get caught up a little faster. Today I’ll be trekking back to the second wave, and since I’ve already looked at Flint and Lady Jaye, let’s have a look at the other half: Destro and The Baroness! Buckle up and try to pace yourself, this will be a long ride with over 70 pictures!
We’ve seen the packaging before and know exactly what to expect. The figures come in window boxes with sleeves over the top and these look fantastic. There’s a high gloss blue camo deco with a bold crimson Cobra emblem emblazoned on the fronts and everything is finished off with a deco that looks like the metal with paint that has been scraped off in areas down to the bare metal. Lift off the top and you get a good look at the figure and accessories through the window, and there are bio blurbs on the back panel with some character art from the Sunbow cartoon! Everything is collector friendly, but as good as these boxes look, I don’t have the space to keep them, so they are getting recycled. Let’s start with The Baroness!
This figure is designed to work based on the Marvel comic book or Sunbow cartoon. Obviously, The Baroness has had different costumes over the years, but in this case the blue and yellow suit references the original Sunbow Miniseries or her early comic appearances. Now, it’s probably been ten years since I read any of those comics, but I will say I liked this look for her in the cartoon even though it was short lived. The coloring here is really gorgeous with the blue and bright yellow playing off each other beautifully, plus the black of the boots and gauntlets and the pale blue stripes running down the legs. Other than a seam running down the center of the body suit and some rumples on the boots and gloves, the only other real sculpted detail is the quilting on the belt, collar, and shoulder straps. Yes, it’s a very simple look but it’s faithful to the toon appearance. The holster was worn by Baroness in the comic and it can be removed for more of a Sunbow look, but doing so leaves a hole in the leg. Fortunately, I dig the holster, so I’ll be leaving it on.
You get a whopping four heads to choose from. The first two have the green tinted glasses, with one being a neutral expression and the other with furled eyebrows and a smirk. I really like both of these and it’s a toss up as to which one I’ll go with the most. I think the neutral face looks slightly better, but the smirk gives her more personality. Yeah, this figure makes use of the flesh toned plastic as opposed to painted face. Personally, I think it looks fine on its own, but there’s definitely a disparity when displayed next to Duke from the first wave. The hair sculpt is good, but sadly it renders the neck articulation all but null and void.
The third head is a comic based portrait and I don’t like it as much as either of the previous two. It’s the glasses that are a mixed bag. The lenses just look too big. Not terrible, but not the look I’d be going for with display. The hair here has the same hindering effect on the neck articulation, but it does add some blue highlights, perhaps to evoke the comic book coloring. Either way, this one is not for me.
And finally, we get the gasmask head, which Super 7 states is a comic book reference, but damn it looks like it would fit right in with the Sunbow aesthetic too. This creepy pale gray mask has a pair of blue painted eye lenses, a filter off to one side, and a tube that runs down to an O2 tank that she can wear on the back, secured by a shoulder strap. It’s all sculpted as one piece and it looks awesome!
I’ve looked at enough Ultimates figures so I won’t run through all the articulation. As usual, what we get follows the formula of emphasizing clean cartoon aesthetics at the expense of posability. At this point you either accept it or move on. I’ve gone on record saying I mostly don’t mind what we get here, although I would have liked more range in the elbows. The joints on my figure all feel smooth and solid, and I’m surprised at how reasonably balanced she is despite having those high heels. The ab crunch hinge we get on most of the men is replaced here with a ball joint under her chest. Of course, you get a ton of hands, which include fists and plenty to work with the accessories. With that having been said, I would have liked a pair of relaxed hands or karate chop hands, but neither are included.
As with most GI JOE Ultimates, you get a lot of accessories, and it’s a pretty varied mix of extras inspired by the cartoon, comic book, and original toy. Starting off with the weapons, you get a dagger and a pistol. The pistol can be stored in the holster as well as wielded in either left or right hand. It’s a simple cartoony looking sculpt cast in dark gray plastic. The dagger is a stout straight blade and a grooved grip all painted in silver.
Next up is a laser rifle, which is supposedly inspired by the weapon released with the original RAH version of The Baroness. There are some similarities, but it’s not a great likeness. It does have the skeletal stock and a magazine, but the top just has a rail and is missing the scope from the RAH weapon. I’m not saying this is a bad looking rifle, I like it a lot, but it’s a pretty loose take on the original. It may have been better if S7 had not noted it’s inspiration in the solicitation info. There is a soft rubber carry strap included, which pegs in at the stock and base of the foregrip, but I can’t get it to peg in to the front properly so I just cast it aside.
The final weapon is based on the cartoon and I love this one. It has that lovely laser sub-machine gun design that was all over the Sunbow aesthetic. It’s cast in the same dark gray plastic as the pistol, has a very simple toony sculpt, and this one does have a scope mounted on top.
The final two accessories are comic based, so offhand I’m not really familiar with their context. The first is called a cameragun and I dig this one a lot. It looks like something that could have easily shown up in the cartoon. What does it do? Don’t know! But I’ll concoct some crazy Cobra scheme for it in my head. The other accessory is a tiny white syringe and I can’t show it to you since it’s disappeared… because, well it’s tiny. Crazy enough one of the hands is specifically made to hold the syringe, so I’m not sure why they didn’t just sculpt it as part of the hand. But I’ll claim responsibility for losing it and we’ll move on.
I really like how Super7 cast a wide net over this one to appeal to cartoon and comics fans, especially since this look was short-lived in the cartoon so there weren’t nearly enough cartoon-inspired extras that could be included. I’m sure a lot of collectors would have rather S7 went straight to the more iconic black-suited Baroness, but I’m really happy that we got this one as well. I watched the hell out of that first Miniseries, so for a long time this was my Baroness and I remember desperately wanting a figure of this design. OK, let’s move on to Destro!
Unlike The Baroness, Destro has had the same iconic look through the cartoon’s run and he didn’t look that much different from the RAH figure, either. And boy does he have a unique fashion sense! He has his black jumpsuit with ostentatious, red lapel-collar thing that plunges all the way down to his belt buckle, leaving his manly muffiny McCullen chest exposed. The amulet is sculpted as part of the body so it does stay put. His boots and belt are matte gray and he has a rather stylized M on the buckle. His gauntlets and arm bracers are painted in a beautifully premium metallic silver finish, as is his masked head. Two red straps encircle his right thigh, presumably to attach a non-existent holster. I gotta say all the sculpted muscles on his back are well done as well. This is a great looking Sunbow-styled figure!
Destro does come with weapons options for both of his gauntlets. You can go with rockets on both, or follow the RAH figure and place rockets on his right arm and a brace of grenades on his left. These are cast on soft plastic frames that clip onto the arm bracers. I don’t recall him having these all that often in the cartoon, so it’s nice to have the option to go without. But, I do remember him firing them off in the episode Skeletons in the Closet. We’ll see a few accessories from that episode, which explored Destro’s family heritage and was also remarkable for having Lady Jaye running around in a torn nightgown for at least half of it. Oh, and also nearly getting sacrificed to a Lovecraftian Eldar God. YO JOE!!!
There are no less than four heads to choose from, but only three are really practical. You get neutral expression, angry expression, and laughing expression. All of these are great, and if you’re wondering how a metal mask can make all these expressions, just remember that it’s a cartoon with a lot more inexplicable stuff going on in it than Destro’s mask. I really dig the black eyes with green pupils, which was so distinctive in the cartoon and like the gauntlets, the silver paint used on these heads is beautiful. I’ll likely go with either of the first two for regular display.
The fourth head is from covered in molten lava, recreating a scene from the second episode of The Pyramids of Darkness Miniseries. It’s more of a joke reference than a useful extra, because who is going to display the figure with this? And while we’re touching on this reference, they also included the hand sander that he used to get rid of the lava in the same scene. Yeah, I kind of get what they were going for here, but I feel like it’s just tossing in accessories as a reference, rather than something most collectors are ever going to display. It’s fun to have a laugh and say, “I remember that!” as you take it out of the tray, try it out and then forget about it forever. I would much rather have had a black briefcase as a reference to the RAH figure than this head and sander.
Destro’s articulation is smooth and works well with the usual points in the arms and legs. While most of the guys in this line get ab crunch hinges, Destro gets just a ball joint in the waist so as not to break up the sculpting on his chest, and I believe that was a good idea. He’s extremely well balanced, thanks to his big chonky boots, and of course you get a lot of hands to work with his accessories, as well as a pair of fists.
Destro is a weapons dealer so he definitely needs to come with some weapons! Let’s start with a couple of pistols. The first is a fairly realistic looking automatic pistol, which is absolutely huge, almost to a point of looking silly. I don’t know where S7 pulled this design from, but it’s too oversized and generic to be much use to me. The second has more of a sci-fi element to it. It’s very simple and while I don’t recognize it, it looks like it could be based on a Sunbow design. Both are cast in dark gray plastic and neither of these are all that impressive.
He comes with a third pistol, which is taken directly from the previously mentioned episode, Skeletons in the Closet. He uses this to fire at Lady Jaye and Flint while they’re escaping. I dig the design on this one, it’s very much in line with the cartoon aesthetic, and this is the one I will likely display him with.
Moving on to the heavier artillery, you get a missile launcher and missile. The launcher is just a big black tube, which looks like it’s designed to telescope for easier carry. There’s a fin on the top and a handle and trigger on the bottom. The missile is dark purple with a black warhead and it will slide all the way inside the launcher tube, but I like to have it peeking out the front a bit so you know it’s there.
The final weapon is the Molecular Reducer and Enlarger, which isn’t really a weapon, it’s just a gun that fires a beam that, well… does exactly what the name says. Cobra used it to shrink down its forces and sneak them into GI JOE HQ inside toys that were meant to be Christmas presents for a Toys For Tots program and yes, that’s all something that really happened in the episode Cobra CLAWS Are Coming To Town.
Moving away from the weapons, Destro comes with a pair of binoculars, which are pretty lame. It’s just a blue box with lighter blue paint on the front and back lenses. Totally forgettable. On the plus side, he also has the joystick controller he used to make the gladiators fight in The Arena of Sport, seen in the very first Miniseries. I love this thing! It’s clearly designed to look like an Atari 2600 joystick and it has some nice paint apps on the red button and top ball of the stick, as well as some paint to reflect the glowing panels on the sides. The hands provided work really well with it.
The final accessory is again drawn from Skeletons in the Closet and it’s the iron mask that they made Destro’s ancestor wear after he was found guilty of witchcraft. It’s a really nice recreation of the cartoon version, and while he never actually wore it in the cartoon, you can put it on the figure. I think this would look great mounted on the wall of a diorama of Destro’s office or even just sitting on a desk.
As a figure, I think Destro turned out great. As for the selection of accessories? Well, there’s a few real bangers in here, but then some of it feels rather useless. The joystick is fun, the mask is great, and I love how they did his arm weapons. I dig the one Sunbow gun and the Molecular Reducer too. But stuff like the lava head and hand sander are just joke references that don’t really add much value to the package. Also, two of the pistols and the binoculars are just kind of lame and forgettable. I feel like his briefcase and maybe a rifle would have been better. Or how about three canisters of rare elements for The MASS Device or a component from The Weather Dominator?
It’s a pretty good gauge of how much I liked figures when I can’t stop taking pictures of them, and that was certainly the case here. These are tons of fun to play with, and finally getting Sunbow stylized GI JOE figures like these is like a dream come true. And while this review definitely went long, I think it was worth it, because now that I’m completely through Waves 1 and 2, I can work on knocking out the rest of Wave 3, and get myself current to 4, all hopefully before Wave 5 comes out. Obviously, Destro and Baroness were heavy hitters to add to this collection, although Baroness has since been updated to her black outfit in the most recent wave. And while I had issues with some of the accessory choices included with Destro, I think both of these figures turned out great! As for moving forward, I may tackle some of the next figures solo, or double up some from different waves. But, I also need to keep chipping away at GI JOE Classified. So many great GI JOE toys to enjoy and so little time! Either way, I expect to get back to this line at some point next week!
I’ve got a pile of Super7’s GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates to get to, but I decided I’d at least wrap up the latest wave of ThunderCats Ultimates before moving on. And I’ll probably be doubling up on a few of those JOEs in order to get caught up. If you’re just joining me for Wave 7, this assortment has included Snarf, Willa, and Mongor, and now lastly the Evil Mutant Ratar-O. Let’s check him out!
Our latest Mutant figure arrives in the same style packaging as we’ve been seeing all along, so I won’t dwell on it, but in the cartoon he arrived in his signature ship, The Ratstar! Ratar-O was a latecomer to the series, not arriving to join the fight until almost thirty episodes in, and his appearance really smacked of a need for LJN to help market and expand the action figure line. Not that he wasn’t a cool new character, but it was weird to see this fat rat show up to supplant Ssslithe and start dominating the more familiar Mutants. But, with monkeys, vultures, jackals and lizards already spoken for, I think a rat was a good choice.
And this rat is a force to be reckoned with! While the previous Evil Mutants all have a primitive and savage appearance about them, Ratar-O is clearly a rodent with some class and sophistication. He dons a full set of clothes that strike me as being somewhere between an emperor’s robes and a spaceship captain’s uniform. The blue tunic has gold edging, a large decoration on the front, and wide shoulders giving way to long red sleeves. He has blue and gold bracers on his wrists and grieves on his lower legs. Both his clawed hands and ratty feet are left bare and his tail snakes out from the bottom of the back of the tunic. It’s a colorful costume that makes him stand out and I really dig what Super7 did with it. The paint is sharp, the colors pop, and there are slits in the skirt part of the tunic to allow for better movement in the hips.
You get two head sculpts to choose from, which are pretty much the same but with one having a closed mouth and the other open. Both of these look great and convey all the personality of the animated design. He has two rodent teeth jutting down from under his nose, as well as a pair of reverse fangs reaching up out of the sides of his mouth. I also love the long tendril-like mustache that snakes down each side of his snout. The pointed ears jut upward from his almost samurai-like helmet and there’s a gold crest with a red gem in the center of his forehead. My one complaint with both heads is that there are a few molding seams running along the sides of the snout. These are not terribly apparent with the figure in hand, but kind of ugly when you punch in close with the camera.
The open mouth head displays Ratar-O’s full set of teeth and you get some nice variance in his eyes, where the left one is narrowed and the right is popping a bit. It mimics a recurring style in the Mutant’s animation models and gives the character a lot more personality. This may be the head that I display on the figure the most.
Despite having a rather rotund body, Ratar-O’s articulation works mostly the same as other figures in the line. He is missing the ab crunch that the skinnier Mutants have, but maintains a waist swivel. The range of motion in the arms are great thanks to rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows. The legs have a decent range in the hips thanks to the slits in the sides of the tunic, plus you get rotating hinges in the knees and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The neck is ball jointed and you get pegged hinges in the wrists to allow for hand swapping. There are two sets of hands, which include a right relaxed hand, a left pointing finger, and one pair for his daggers.
The daggers, were known as The Rat’s Eye, which always kind of intrigued me that the pair of daggers had a single name, and yet each dagger kind of had their own rat’s eye. These beautiful twin accessories have a sort of Egyptian theme to their ornate gold hilts, with the eyes painted white with green pupils. The blades have a serpentine kris-style to them and lovely satin silver finishes to the paint.
You get two sets of effect parts to work with the daggers, all of which are cast in translucent, pale blue plastic. One set are to energize the blades and the other are projectile blasts that plug into the sockets in the eyes. Both designs work really well and they look great!
Finally, the Evil Mutants are complete and Ratar-O is a great figure to end them on. He was the last of them to join the show and there was just something different about him that made him stand out. And the Ultimates line definitely did him justice with this figure. Sure, you could argue that he comes with a lot less stuff than say Vultureman, but his added bulk kind of makes up for it. Also, there’s really not much else I could think of tossing in there, except maybe an episode-specific accessory or two. And while Ratar-O gets us the last of the Evil Mutants in the line, I’d still like to circle back and check out Monkian and Vultureman at some point, because both of those figures are yet to have their time in the spotlight here.
With new waves of both GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates arriving at my door last week, the Super7 figures continue to pile up here, so it’s likely you’ll be seeing them turn up a little more often in my review rotation. Add to that the fact that I’m currently working my way through the most recently shipped wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates, and well… there’s a lot of plastic to cover! I already checked out Willa and Snarf and now it’s time to let the baddies of the assortment have their turn. So let’s have a look at Mongor, a one-off, demonic goat villain from the first season of the cartoon!
I have nothing new to say about the packaging. It’s the same window box with a foil black sleeve over the top. There’s some character art on the back panel of the box, along with a little bio. Oh, and mine came with a nasty rip in the front of the sleeve. I guess those brown mailer boxes we don’t get anymore were good for something. Anyway, Mongor is just one of those hazards you have to accept when living on Third Earth. You’re a Thunder Kitten and one day you go out to explore and screw around and the next thing you know, you’ve unleashed a hell-spawned goat creature from his tomb. Mongor was pretty terrifying as far as cartoon villains go, probably second only to Mumm-Ra himself. Surprisingly, he also actually got his own figure back in the LJN line, which was odd since he only appeared in one episode and there more than a few regulars that didn’t get figures.
And here he is, freed from his cardboard and plastic tomb and ready to haunt your dreams. I don’t know what it is about goat creatures, but they give me the willies, and this guy is no exception. To make things even creepier, Mongor comes at you with nothing but his sculpted lavender fur-pants for modesty. And what a great job they did on the fur sculpting! The detail is sharp and it has a really nice shaggy depth to it. He does have bald spots on the backs of his calves and the lavender shag also runs up his back. Otherwise you just get bare grey skin with some subtle texturing to it and a pretty impressive six-pack of abs. He has sharp claw-like fingernails and big brown talons on his clodhoppers. As far as the body is concerned, this is a fairly minimalist design made extra memorable by the sculpt and paint. As much as I love the lavender, it would be interesting to see him repainted with those parts in black and gray.
You get two heads to choose from, and both are pretty unsettling. The lavender face is framed by more of that shaggy hair in a darker shade. It forms a beard that cascades down over his chest and a mane that spills over his shoulders. Slightly curved goaty ears protrude from the sides of his head and he has a pair of majestic horns sprouting up and outward, each doing a little curl. The yellow eyes are practically reptilian with their vertical slits for irises and he has an open mouth advertising a wall of teeth. I’ll confess, the work on the teeth is a tad sloppy and does let this otherwise majestic portrait down just a tad. On the other hand Mongor’s piercing yellow gaze is totally on point. I’ll also note here that swapping the heads on this figure is a painful experience. There is no place to grab either head so as not to have sharp plastic points digging into your flesh. And the more force you have to apply, the deeper those points dig. It really, really hurts.
The alternate head might as well be that of a sleep paralysis demon. The pupils are gone from the eyes and the mouth is fully open revealing a much better detailed set of choppers. You also get some electric effect parts for his horns, which work on either head, but they look best with this one. The yellowish tint on the effect parts made me think they might be Glow In The Dark, but sadly they don’t seem to be. They still look pretty rad though!
Mongor’s articulation falls right in with the standards we’ve seen in this line. That is to say you get a lot of useful points, but maybe not the range you were hoping for, particularly in the elbows, where Mongor can’t quite do a 90-degree bend. I won’t run through all the points, since we’ve seen it before, but everything else is pretty damn good and his big feet make for a stable platform for what is a pretty well balanced figure. Also, I didn’t have any issues with stuck or loose joints. Naturally, you get a good sized helping of hands. These include a pair of relaxed hands, fists, pointy fingers, and accessory holding hands.
Mongor comes with one weapon and that’s the big, terrifying scythe he wielded in the cartoon. There’s a slight S-curve to the shaft and it has a simple wood grain texture sculpted in. The blade is black with a jagged line that transitions to a silver edge.
And if a giant goat demon with a scythe isn’t intimidating enough, there’s a flame effect that you can attach onto the blade. Normally, flame effects aren’t terribly impressive to me, but this one is quite a banger. The sculpt looks great, especially the way the individual flames lick around the blade and shaft. The transition from the inner yellow to the outer orange plastic looks especially nice too. I guess it’s nice to have the option to go with or without the flame piece, but I can’t imagine ever displaying the figure without it. It just looks too good!
In a wave that delivered on Snarf, Willa, and another Evil Mutant, Mongor was probably considered to be the black sheep (or in this case lavender goat) of this wave by many. Maybe doubly so, since he only had the one appearance in the cartoon. But, it’s a credit to how well this figure is executed that he stands tall among the assortment of heavier hitters. It’s still crazy to think that LJN produced a figure of Mongor over a regular like Willa, but then I’m guessing the thought process was that kids were probably more likely to want the purple goat monster than an icky girl. Either way, I’m thrilled to add this one to my ThunderCats shelf and that leaves just one more figure in the wave to go. And I smell a big rat on the horizon!
With new waves of both GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates arriving, Super7 has been shipping a lot of figures this year and I’m going to have to put in some extra time just to keep my head above water. But since I’ve already started digging into the most recent wave of ThunderCats with Snarf, let’s press on through and try to put this one to bed with a look at Willa, Queen of the Warrior Maidens!
Willa was one of those recurring characters in the cartoon that sadly never got the figure treatment from LJN, so naturally I was really looking forward to her release. These treetop-dwelling battle-vixens were pretty strong allies for the ThunderCats to have in their fight for survival on their new home plasnet. Besides, if I found myself crash landing on Third Earth and my closest neighbors are auto-tuning robot bears or hot warrior maidens, I know where I’d be hanging out the most! Willa comes in the standard style Ultimates packaging with a sleeve over a window box. You get some character art and a little blurb about Willa on the back, and everything is collector friendly!
And Willa does indeed look like she dropped right out of the cartoon and into my hands! She dons her ragged cut dress made out of what I always presumed to be some kind of exotic orange animal skins, a double belt, which suspends a dagger in a scabbard on her waist, and some gold bangles sculpted onto her left wrist and both her ankles. The costume is pretty simple, but that’s in keeping with the character’s appearance on screen and I think Super7 did a beautiful job translating it to figure form. I was happy to see the bangles were sculpted and not worn by the figure, as this way they stay put as intended and the ones on her wrist don’t fall out when I swap hands. What I don’t care for is that the use of skin tone colored bare plastic used for the arms and legs doesn’t quite match the flesh tone that’s painted in the exposed area around her neck and chest. Maybe she just got extra tan up there? Yeah, it’s not ideal, but I can live with it.
You get two head sculpts to choose from: One serious and one smiling. I think both are excellent, but I’m going to go with the first one for regular display. I think it suits the character more, as she is a warrior maiden after all. Also, I get a bit more of a Disney Princess vibe off the second head. Both portraits feature the large flower she wears under her right ear and the ponytail down her left shoulder.
Naturally, you get a lot of hands to choose from, each fitted with hinged pegs. These include fists, grasping hands, accessory holding hands, flat hands, and a right hand for drawing her bow string. The articulation is what I’ve come to expect from this line, which means rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. You get ball joint in the neck and under the chest, as well as ball joints in the hips with some extra lateral movement and slits in the sides of the skirt to allow for greater range of motion there. She also has lateral rockers in the ankles to keep her feet planted flat on the floor in wide stances.
Her curved dagger is removable and can be wielded in her right or left hand. It’s pretty small, but has some silver paint for the blade, guard and pommel and a black and red pattern on the grip.
Of course, Willa’s weapon of choice is the bow, and hers comes with a black string. And thank God for that, because I absolutely hate it when figures in this scale have plastic strings on their bows. The bow is red with sculpted yellow wrapping around the middle and both ends. She also sports a quiver with a number of arrows permanently sculpted inside it. The quiver has a soft plastic strap to allow her to wear it on her shoulder. Yeah, in the cartoon it was often worn around her waist but I prefer it off the shoulder.
There are two loose arrows included: One regular and one which looks like a bomb or unlit fire arrow. I was surprised that even with the limited range in the elbows, I could still get her to draw the bow and knock the arrow pretty well.
And the final accessory is Willa’s pet spider, Bushy, who can serve as a sort of living grappling hook. Bushy is just a static piece with no articulation, but they did a great job on the sculpt and paint for such a little bugger.
If I actually had any ThunderCats toys as a kid, I could say that I’ve been waiting 40 years for a figure like this, but I can say that I still remember going over my friend’s house to play with his ridiculously large collection of Thunder Kitties and realizing there was no Willa or Nayda and that always made me sad. Either way, Super7 is really doing an admirable job of knocking these cartoon styled figures off my wishlist. And boy do I hope to see Nayda turn up in a future wave! Heck, I’ll go one step further… let’s see a wave of Warrior Maidens similar to how they did the Mutant Reptile troop builders, because I would be all over that!
I’m finally getting to break into the most recent wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates and while I was hotly anticipating several of the figures in this assortment, there’s no question about who I had to start with. Snarf has been a long time coming! He’s the heart and soul of the ThunderCats. And while many 80’s cartoons shit the bed with annoying cutesy animal sidekicks, I always loved Snarf. He was fun and goofy, but his role of doting nursemaid to the suddenly giant Lion-O was so endearing. Plus, the neurotic little fluffball certainly saved the day on more than one occasion. Of course, Rankin-Bass couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to toss Snarfer in there, but we’ll get to deal with that a couple waves from now.
Uncle Osbert comes in the same style package we’ve been seeing since the beginning. There’s a high-gloss sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box within. The red foil Eye of Thundera graces the front of the sleeve and you get some character art and a blurb about Snarf on the back of the box. These packages are collector friendly and I have a huge box of them stored in my garage because I can’t bring myself to toss them out. Yup, when you have boxes full of empty boxes, you know you have a problem.
Obviously old Snarf is a little guy, and we’ll get to the pricing on this fellow at the end. But, I’m happy to say that Super7 managed to give us a surprisingly good amount of articulation for such a short and stocky character. With rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles, hinged pegs in the wrists, ball jointed hips, another two ball joints in the neck, and two more in the tail, Snarf is a lot of fun to play with for a character that was merely a static piece in the original toy line. I really dig all the sculpted detail on his fur, which is painted reddish brown with some yellow patches on his arms and legs and a wide stripe running from the back of his head down to the tip of his tail. He’s got a bald, segmented, almost dragon-like tummy that has some nice shading on it and flesh-colored plastic for his hands and feet. For what it is, there’s not much I can complain about here, aside from the fact that Snarf can’t really go down on all fours, which is how he ran in the cartoon. I’m not sure that would have been possible with articulation alone, but with extra swap out limbs? Maybe.
Uncle Osbert comes with three different heads, each showcasing very different expressions, and each one really capturing the cartoon character design very well. The first head offers a somewhat neutral expression with a hint of Snarf’s default emotional setting: Worried. The second is an open mouth expression of pure delight. And finally we get rage monster Snarf. Oh yes… Make no mistake, you back Snarf into a corner and you’re going to get your ankles bit. The paint here is all pretty sharp to the naked eye and you have to punch in pretty close to see any real faults. They did a beautiful job on his eyes, as all the ‘Cats in the cartoon had such distinctive eyes. His pointy ears and adorable tuft of hair round out the package nicely on all of these portraits. I will say that I had some difficulty getting the angry head in for the first time. I had to apply a good amount of force and since the head has a lot of sharp points, it was a painful experience. After that it seemed to go on just fine.
Perhaps the coolest addition to this set is the standing tail base. Snarf had a habit of standing on his erect tail when he wanted to gain some height and this is achieved by swapping out the lower part of the tail for this tail piece that’s attached to a clear base. It’s a clever design for this display option, and I will likely utilize it most of the time because it looks so good and gives him a bit more shelf presence when displayed in front of the other ‘Cats. Let’s check out the accessories…
Snarf comes with a small assortment of extras along with three pairs of hands. The hands include tight grip hands, looser grip hands, and relaxed hands. There’s a gray satchel that he can wear on his shoulder. I remember him having this in the cartoon and I want to say he mostly used it to carry Candy Fruit, but he might of stored other stuff in it too. It’s a simple piece, it looks good on him, but I probably won’t display it with the figure much.
If you don’t remember Candy Fruit, it was harvested by the neighboring village of robot teddy bear Berbils and acted as a staple of the ThunderCats’ diet on Third Earth. God, this was a delightfully bizarre show! I don’t really remember the ‘Cats eating much of anything else. Early on, I think I imagined that the Berbils were just getting them hooked on the stuff so they could enthrall the ThunderCats to slay all their enemies, but nah… The Berbils were pretty chill. Here you get a single Candy Fruit, which seems kind of cheap. Couldn’t throw a few more in there without breaking the bank, guys? The wider grip hands are good for holding it.
Next you get new versions of Lion-O’s Claw Shield and a dormant Sword of Omens. Some might consider this an odd couple of accessories for Snarf, but there were plenty of times where Lion-O got separated from them and Snarf delivered them so he could save the day. Still, I doubt anyone was really clamoring for another version of these, especially since if you have some of the Lion-O variant releases, you have a few already. Still, they look great and the sword can store in the Claw Shield. The paint on both pieces is really nice.
Snarf can hold the Sword of Omens in his mouth, which I remember him doing several times in the cartoon. The problem here is that he was usually doing it so he could run on all fours to deliver it to Lion-O and as we already established, the figure can’t really do that. So again, some way to make that work would have been a nice option, either with swap out limbs or even an extra static body.
Snarf is a fantastic figure. I love the sculpting, the extra heads, and he’s got more useful articulation than I expected we’d get out of a little Snarf. And yes, at $55 he is egregiously over-priced. Indeed, when you consider all the extras that came with some of the other regular sized figures at this price point, Snarf here just feels like highway robbery. It’s not like this was some risky one-off Goat Man villain that some collectors would pass up. Nope. No doubt, Super7 gambled that everyone would want Snarf in their collection and would pay it. And well-played, because in my case they were right. Still, it’s not a great way to treat your customers. I think the best way to raise the value in this package would have been to include a static extra body to pose him running on all fours with the Sword in his mouth. Another way to go would be to make him a two-pack with RoBear Bill. And even with all that having been said, I love how he turned out and I’m happy to finally have a full set of the ThunderCats on display! Snarf, Snarf!
What’s 2024 all about, folks? Unfinished business! And while I did jump ahead into Wave 3 of Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates with a look at Scarlett, as promised I’m now stepping back to Wave 2. And in the interest of getting caught up, I’m going to make it a double today. So let’s check out the JOE’s other power couple: Flint and Lady Jaye!
Wave 2 kept the same snazzy gloss finish to the box and sleeve as the first wave, but there’s not much new to say here about the packaging. The presentation looks great and the windows do a wonderful job displaying the figures. But we’ve got two figures to check out, so let’s hurry past the packaging and start with Flint!
Of course, these figures are done in the Sunbow cartoon style and I’d say they did a bang up job on Flint’s overall look. He’s got his green fatigues with popped collar, camo pattern on the trousers, high laced boots, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and his short brown gloves. The Y-back shoulder rig and gun belt both look like they’re pulled right from the animation cells, complete with yellow buckles, as does his shoulder patch. I do not remember him usually being drawn with a holster, but Super7 has been doing some compromises here and there and I’ll admit it’s nice to have a holster for his pistol even if it isn’t exactly screen accurate. The sculpted details like the pockets are pretty soft, but I think that’s in keeping with the cartoon look. And yes, articulation has remained unchanged from the first wave. What’s here is serviceable, but certainly not as fun or dynamic as Hasbro’s Classified series.
You get three heads to choose from: One with the beret sculpted as part of the head, one with a removable beret, and one with a communications headset. But before we get into those, let’s discuss the big thing here. The first wave gave the only unmasked figure, Duke, a painted face, but here we have faces and arms using a bare, flesh-colored plastic. I preferred the painted faces, but I don’t think I mind these as much as a lot of collectors. What I do mind is changing horses in mid stream, and then changing back again. It’s true that there’s less chance for paint issues here, but under certain lights the plastic can look waxy, giving the characters a sweaty look. With that having been said, I really like both the stock head with the permanent beret and the one where it’s removable. The first is a more serious expression, the second offers a bit of a smile, and boy they certainly nailed the look of his cleft chin! And honestly, the removable beret fits the head so well, they could have just sculpted both heads without it and I still would have been happy.
The headset head is problematic, as they went with a super thin piece of plastic for the mouth piece, which was all twisted and practically falling off in the box, so I just yanked it out. Luckily, this is my least favorite of the three, as I just don’t think the expression works. Still, I don’t understand why they were able to give Duke a nice and sturdy mouth piece and make this one so fragile. Either way, this head is going in the accessory bin and will probably never be used again.
Flint comes with a backpack, which is similar to Duke’s in that it is actually worn by the figure using straps and it’s a nod to the vintage Real American Hero figure and not the cartoon. At least I don’t remember Flint ever really wearing his backpack in any of the episodes. This is a really nice sculpt with some black grenades and a canteen, with a few paint hits of silver on the buckle and canteen cap. It looks great on the figure, and despite not being something I associate with the character in the cartoon, I will likely display him with it on. OK, let’s move on to weapons!
Oh yes, I do love me that XMLR-3A laser rifle. It’s based on an accessory included with the RAH Snowjob figure, but it was standard issue to most JOEs in the cartoon. I just always loved this design and I’m always happy to see it included with the Ultimates JOE figures. I should note here that Flint comes with a bunch of hands to help him hold his guns and accessories, as well as a pointy left hand for directing JOEs into action!
And Flint also comes with a combat shotgun similar to the one included with the original figure. This strikes a nice balance between realistic detail and cartoon simplicity. I like the raised texture on the pistol-style grip and that the ejection port is sculpted in. Mine has a bit of a curve to the barrel, which I’ll have to address with some heat. It’s a common problem with Super7’s JOE weapons, but I’ve found that it’s usually an easy fix. Still, not something I’m happy to have to do with a $55 figure.
The final weapon is his pistol, and I don’t remember this design from the cartoon, but it certainly has that Sunbow aesthetic to it. It might be more accurate to say, I don’t remember Flint ever brandishing a silver pistol. Either way, it’s a nice piece and it fits pretty well into the holster. I would, however, recommend a modicum of care when holstering it because the front site on the barrel looks like it could be fragile.
Moving on to his standard equipment, we get a walkie talkie and a set of binoculars. The walkie is fine, the binoculars just look terrible. There’s no difference between the fronts and backs and it honestly took me a moment to figure out what the hell they were supposed to be. They really just look like two Stanley cups bolted together. This accessory is best left in the box.
The classic old school military flashlight is pretty cool. Sure it’s a very cartoony sculpt, but it’s also kind of charming. My father brought one of these military flashlights back after serving in the infantry and my brother and I used to play with it all the time.
And lastly for the equipment, you get a shovel. This one puzzled me for a bit, but then I remembered a scene in one of the cartoon episodes where Lady Jaye was hunting with a metal detector and Flint was digging. It’s a bit of a reach for an accessory, particularly since I can’t even remember the episode or the context of the scene, but for a shovel it’s pretty well done. I dig the silver paint on the business end.
The final accessory is the newspaper from the episode, Worlds Without End, Part 1. This one has a group of JOEs stranded in an alternate reality where Cobra has defeated GI JOE and taken over the world. It’s a very memorable two-parter and I’d rank it pretty high on my list in terms of how well it’s written, so this is a really appreciated accessory. OK, time for a commercial break, while I refresh my coffee…
AND NOW BACK TO GI JOE… and Lady Jaye! Like Flint, Lady Jaye is a really nice representation of her cartoon counterpart. You get the light green low-cut blouse with blue shoulder patch and sleeves rolled up past her elbows, darker green short gloves, dark green trousers, and high brown boots. She has a pair of belts, each with silver painted buckles, a knife sheath suspended vertically on a left shoulder strap, and the canteen on the back of her belt is pegged in and can be removed. The outfit and body sculpt look absolutely fantastic! As for articulation, you get the same stuff as we saw with Flint, with the main difference being Lady Jaye having a ball joint under the chest rather than an ab crunch hinge.
As with Flint, you get three head sculpts, and all three use the same unpainted flesh tone plastic: Two with different expressions and one with a radio headset. The first two heads are different, but it’s really hard to differentiate the expressions they were going for. I think the second is mildly more severe, but they’re still pretty close. I think they’re both decent sculpts, but the paint around her hairline is pretty poor, with some of the sculpted hair edges left unpainted. This is a huge example of why hair should be sculpted separately from the rest of the head and it’s something that Hasbro does regularly with their much cheaper Classified JOEs. Sure, it’s a lot more noticeable when you punch in close with the camera, but still unacceptable with collector grade figures at this price range, when other companies are doing it better for less at mass retail.
The headset portrait features a mouth piece that’s about as frail as the one that came with Flint, and yet this one managed to arrive unscathed and looks fine. All three heads have some crazy hot pink lipstick, which is actually pretty accurate to the cartoon. I’d question how that’s regulation, but half the JOEs fight in sports jerseys and take their pets to work, so I won’t bother.
Whether we’re talking Real American Hero or the Sunbow cartoon, Lady Jaye had some weird weapons. In the cartoon she had a bunch of javelins with a myriad of different tips, sort of like Scarlett’s specialty tip crossbow bolts. Here, she comes with two javelins with permanent tips and one with swappable tips. You also get a quiver of tips that she wears slung over her shoulder and across her back. The quiver has a variety of tips peeking out, but these are not removable.
There’s a selection of nine different tips for the one specific javelin and I’m not even going to attempt to decipher what these are all supposed to do. They have various configurations of points and barbs and all are painted with a snappy silver finish. One is clearly a flaming tip with a translucent red flame effect on the end and there are two grapple or harpoon style tips with some string attached. I’d say this is a pretty solid representation of her trademark weapon in the cartoon.
She also comes with a nod to her vintage figure’s weapon, which was some kind of javelin missile launcher. This is cast in all gray plastic and has a removable projectile for the front. I’m just not sure why it also looks like it has a projectile coming out of the back. Like Flint’s shotgun, it’s not something I ever remember her carrying in the cartoon, but I think it’s cool that Super7 is tossing in some references to the toys as well as the cartoon. Still, I think that Hasbro had a better idea of giving Classified Lady Jaye a weapon that actually fired her javelins.
The last two entries to Lady Jaye’s arsenal are the laser rifle and the knife that can be removed from her sheath. I won’t spend any time on these, as we’ve seen the laser rifle already with Flint, and a few times before that, and while I love that the knife is removable, there just isn’t a lot for me to say about it. I’m just glad she has a rifle for when it’s time to stop clowning around with javelins and get her head in the game.
Surprisingly, Lady Jaye does not come with a walkie talkie like most of the other figures, but she does come with a camera on a shoulder strap. This is another nod to the original RAH figure and I don’t think she was ever shown with a camera in the cartoon. It’s nothing tremendously special, just cast in all black plastic and has a pistol grip. But again, it’s a nice bonus accessory that bridges the gap between cartoon and toyline and I’m happy to have it.
I really love both of these figures, but at the same time I feel as if these are the first additions to the line that aren’t complete homeruns. The decision to go with flesh tone plastic instead of paint isn’t a total deal breaker for me, but it will always make these two stand out as a bit different from the JOEs released before and after. And getting the warped and mangled headset on Flint was a major bummer, but not a big enough issue for me to do an exchange. On the upside, both figures are excellent recreations of their cartoon counterparts and there are some great accessories included with each of these releases. These originally retailed at $55 each, but can be readily found at a bunch of online retailers for half that and I would definitely recommend them at that price. With how many figures in this line are turning up at deep discounts, it’ll be interesting to see if more collectors wait for sales. Then again, I’d wager Super7 will be producing a lot less quantities of future waves, so I’ll likely keep pre-ordering. The next time I check out this line I’ll be jumping back to Wave 3 and taking a look at the Cobra Trooper!
By now we all know that Super7 has struck deals with Hasbro to make toys from their original properties. We’ve seen both Transformers and GI JOE released as Ultimates and ReAction figures. But Super7 has also crossed these franchises over to their rather unique, and kind of bizarre, Super Cyborg Series. According to Super7’s own write up, these “highly articulated” 12-inch figures are inspired by Takara’s Henshin Cyborg figures, which had transparent bodies to show off their inner workings. For the Transformers we got Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, as well as the Megatron I’m checking out today. Megsy here is supposed to be inspired by Takara’s re-release of the original toy as Good Bye Megatron, commemorating his death (and rebirth) in the movie. It all sounds pretty cool on paper, but a lot of these claims don’t really hold up in execution, and at least one is an outright fib, so let’s dig in and see what Super Cyborg Megatron is all about!
I do really love this packaging! Megatron comes in a beautiful window box. You get a G1-inspired grid pattern with the classic Decepticon purple and black deco. There’s a nice piece of art of the original toy on the bottom right, alongside the Super Cyborg logo and The X-Ray Action Figure! exclamation. The window has Good Bye Megatron printed across it and displays the figure really well. The box is sort of collector friendly, in that you can open it and remove the toy without damaging anything, but once you cut the ties, there’s no real easy way to display the chest panel the way it is before it’s taken out. I’m OK, with that, as the figure displays in the box really nicely with the panel on, but it’s something to consider before opening it. Oh, and what’s that up in the top? “7 Points of Articulation!” Really, Super7? Is that what you would call “Highly Articulated?” Because that’s what you call it on your website. Yeah, that’s the blatant fib I was talking about, and I really don’t know why they would put that in the product listing when it simply isn’t true. At least they are honest about it on the box. Anyway, Megatron comes out of his package nearly ready for display, you just have to attach his fusion cannon to his arm, and we’ll slap on that chest plate to start out with.
The figure presents a really crisp and clean animated looking Megatron and I dig that a lot. There’s definitely a bit of stylized design going on here, as the head seems like it’s intentionally oversized. The painted finish on this figure is extremely nicely done with satin silver sheen mated with some matte blue for the insides of the legs and arms, and some red, yellow, and blue on his ab panel. The fusion cannon is left as bare plastic and has a glossy sheen to it, while the bare plastic fists are matte finished. The sculpted detail is confined to some panel lines and vents in keeping with the simple animated look, but there’s lots of cool stuff going on in the back. I don’t really get much of a Henshin Cyborg feel off this toy, if anything it gives me more of an understated Shogun Warriors vibe. But hey, either way this is a beautiful looking figure!
The head looks good, but again is a bit too big, which I’m pretty sure was an intentional style choice. The face is a tad soft in the sculpt, but I still think works well for the figure. You get a pair of bright red eyes and the “helmet” is bang-on for the animated look. The Decepticon logo on the chest is a perfect print.
The seven points of articulation include a turning head, arms that rotate at the shoulders, fists that swivel at the wrists, and the legs swivel at the knees. The swivels in the fists are really only useful to turn the right hand sideways when he raises his fusion cannon to fire. And yeah, it’s not quite correct, because Megatron usually swivels his arm so that the cannon is on top rather than on the side. It would have been cool to sculpt that arm straight and give it a bicep rotation. The knee rotation is nice to angle the legs away from each other a bit so that he doesn’t look quite as rigid in his stance. But yeah, Highly Articulated this figure is not, and that goes a long way to undermine the Takara Henshin Cyborg inspiration, because those figures actually were highly articulated.
The gimmick here is the removable chest, which reveals the gorgeous sculpted interior of Megatron’s inner workings. I love how they executed the look of this with the clearly defined gears that would move his arms and legs and all sorts of other bits and bobs that make Megatron function. There’s a lot of purple and blue here, along with more of that sumptuous satin silver and some red and black paint hits thrown in for good measure. The whole thing is a cool balance between high detail and stylized animation. But again, does this really invoke the Cyborg Henshin line for me? Nah. Apart from letting you see inside the figure, it’s a tenuous connection at best.
For me, Super Cyborg Megatron doesn’t really live up to what its designers intended, but that’s not to say I don’t like the figure. I actually do! It’s a really unique display piece, and I’m always down for adding an animated style G1 Megatron to my collection. But I don’t think the Cyborg Henshin homage works and I don’t appreciate them calling this highly articulated on their website. Another sticking point for me is the retail price of $85, which is kind of steep. Thankfully, I picked up mine during the holidays off of Amazon when it was already discounted, had an additional $20 off coupon, and I had some points to throw at it. In the end, I brought him home at about $40 and I’m glad I did. Since then I’ve also been able to get Bumblebee for the same price, so I’ll have a look at him here at some point in the near future.
In my effort to get through all of Super7’s Silverhawks, I purposely set their ThunderCats and GI JOE lines on the side burner. But now that I’m caught up with them, I’m going to spend a lot more time with the other Ultimates lines. I already started digging back into the JOE Ultimates and now it’s time for the ThunderCats! And while I’m anxious to get to the recently arrived wave of ThunderCats, before I do, I thought I’d double back and take a look at Super7’s trio of Evil Reptilian Mutant troop builders!
Yeah, how cool is it that Super7 took the took the Ssslithe body and created some army builders off of it! Of course, Ssslithe alone represented the Reptilian Mutants in the bulk of the cartoon, but the race as a whole made appearances in several episodes. Not to mention we got to see the ThunderCats demolishing a whole army of mutants in the intro before every episode. Super7 represents these nameless Reptilian from Plun-Darr as The Warrior, The Guard, and The Brute. These figures were released as their own wave and came in the same style packaging that we’ve been seeing all along, so basically window boxes with sleeves that lift off the top. There’s some original character art on the backs along with a little blurb about each one. Let’s unleash these raunchy reptiles onto Third Earth, and start with The Guard!
As already mentioned, each of these figures are repaints of the Ssslithe body, but accessorized with different outfits and heads. This body was great the first time around and it still holds up incredibly well. There’s sculpted scales over every inch of his skin and I just love his stocky build and hunched stature, as well as how the head just juts from the center of that hump. The crest of fins running from his head down his back is really cool too. The Guard features a dark olive colored skin with blueish white paint on his chest, palms, and the undercarriage of his tail. He wears a yellow tunic that’s actually made of softgoods and hangs off his left shoulder and is tied around his waist with a crude rope. It’s not the first time we’ve seen cloth in this line, as it was used on Jaga’s cape and on Pumm-Ra’s cloak, but it’s cool to see it again here, especially on a lowly army builder. He has mismatched cuffs on his ankles and a bracer on his left arm.
Super7 completely re-sculpted Ssslithe’s head three times to offer different expressions and these new noggins are spread out with two different heads included with each of these figures. Gone is their leader’s head piece and instead of the fin-like ears, we get simpler pointed ears. The Guard has one head with the mouth closed and the one with it opened up all the way and the eyes a little wider, and both look really nice. The head’s deco matches the two colors used for the body, and you get some bright yellow paint and sharp black irises for the eyes, and some bright red for the exposed tongue.
Each of these figures comes with one weapon and two sets of hands. The hands offer tight grips and looser grips, although the looser ones are kind of like grasping hands as well. The Guard comes with a gray club that looks like it’s meant to be fashioned out of bone, and it fits really well into the tighter gripping hands.
Next up is The Warrior and he’s been repainted in a sort of hunter green with a blue belly, palms and under-tail. He has a sculpted furry diaper with a gold belt and a shoulder strap holding a piece of armor on his left side This whole rig is sculpted as one piece and fitted onto the figure. He also has mis-matched cuffs on his wrists and ankles, all of which are different from what we saw on The Guard. The shoulder armor does have a habit of sliding down his arm, so I will likely pop a bit of blue tack under it to hold it in place a little better.
The Warrior has a repaint of the closed mouth head we saw with The Guard, but he also introduces a second head with the mouth only slightly open and wide eyes. He looks surprised, like he’s about to get a beatdown from one of the ThunderCats. Once again, you get the same deco on the head as on the body and this fellow’s eyes are painted a lighter shade of yellow.
The Warrior comes with a spiked flail with the ball connecting to the handle by a piece of bendable wire. Chain would have looked better, but the wire does allow for a bit more dynamic posing as it will support the weight of the ball at certain angles.
The Brute has a dark green, almost grey skin with gray for his chest, palms, and undertail. He’s wearing a sculpted furry diaper similar to The Warrior’s, but with a shoulder strap going over the right shoulder and no shoulder armor. He’s got the same arm bracer as The Guard, but now on both forearms, and he has recolors of the mismatched ankle cuffs that we saw on The Warrior. I think I like the coloring on this one the best, but I also think his outfit is probably the least interesting of the three.
Here we get a closed mouth head and a one with the mouth slightly agape and the eyes just a smidge wider. I really love the slight spectrum of expressions on the three heads provided for this wave. They all have some wonderful personality for a bunch of nameless goons.
The Brute comes with a spiked club, which is fine and all, but I would have preferred an axe or something else since we already got a club with The Guard. I suppose I could always give him one of Ssslithe’s extra weapons if I want to.
These three reptiles were a nice surprise for me when they were revealed and for what they are I think Super7 did a really nice job with them. Sure, they’re really milking the sales out of that body for all it’s worth, but I like that we got new heads and outfits with them all, rather than just straight repaints with a few minor tweaks. The only downside of these guys is, like Ssslithe, they take up a lot of shelf space and my ThunderCats display is getting pretty congested as it is. I’m interested to see if they do something similar with Monkian and Jackalmen, but I guess that will depend on how well these guys sell. Either way, it’s great to bolster the Evil Mutant forces a bit, because I’ll need plenty of them to attack the giant Cat’s Lair when it eventually arrives!
It’s taken me a long time to get back to Super7’s Sunbow cartoon-inspired series of GI JOE Ultimates figures. So long, in fact, that a new wave has arrived before I even got to spotlight any of the second wave here. The right thing to do would be to go through all of Wave 2 before tackling the new wave, but man I was just too excited for that. So, I’m jumping ahead to check out Scarlett from Wave 3 and then I will double back and hit some figures from Wave 2, and alternate like that until I’m all caught up. Savvy? Good, then let’s check out Scarlett!
Here she is in the very stylish Super7 Ultimates packaging with some minor changes from the last two waves. The slipcase is now more of a flat, satiny finish as opposed to the glossy premium stock. This change carries over to the box itself, where Scarlett’s dog tag under the window also looks flat and less premium. It’s not a huge departure, but it’s definitely a tiny step down from what we were getting. You do still get some nice printed weathering on the sleeve and some character art on the back panel of the box. I should also note that these are no longer coming in brown cardboard mailers, but rather just plastic wrap. On the plus side, the window shows off the goods as great as ever, and oh boy am I thrilled to see a Sunbow-styled Scarlett in my collection. I remember that as a kid, cartoon Scarlett was the cause of some pretty funny feelings down in my government issued undies and somehow Hasbro’s figure, as cool as it was, never reached those heights for me. So, let’s get her out and see what we’ve got!
Sunbow Scarlett’s outfit came pretty close to the original figure’s design, with a tan one-piece, gloves and high heeled boots along with green sleeves and leggings. The figure sports a fairly minimalist look when it comes to detail, and that’s in keeping with the cartoon style. She has her familiar red recoil pad on her right shoulder, some silver shuriken and edging on her gauntlets, a wide silver belt, and some sculpted pouches on her boots. I would have liked a little more definition in her caboose, but all in all I really like what we got here when it comes to the body and outfit.
You get three different head sculpts, and while there isn’t a huge difference between them, I think the one that came on the figure is the best. She has a pretty determined look with downturned eyebrows and mouth. This is probably the face she pulls when she catches Duke making out with Selina or other random Cobra slavegirls that he rescues. The eyes are printed very nicely, and while her hot pink lipstick doesn’t quite fill out the mouth sculpt, I still think it looks pretty good. The fiery red hair and ponytail are both pitch perfect, But now is about as good a time as any to point out the ugly seam running up the sides of her neck. Yeah, that’s a shame.
The second head is a bit of a smile and some less severe, more rounded eyebrows. This one is OK, but I don’t think it has as much personality as her battle face. The third is pretty close to the first but with the addition of a headset and I do like this one. I’ve heard some people argue that it’s too specific, as the headset is meant to be used while she’s flying a Skystriker, but I think it works for just battlefield communication. Suffice it to say the first head is the one that will be displayed on my figure most of the time and it’s the one I used for the bulk of the pictures in this review.
Unless you’re new to this line, you should know by now what to expect when it comes to articulation. Love it, hate it, or just accept it. But if this is your first rodeo with Ultimates, don’t expect anything as good as the Classified line. Rotating hinges is the name of the game and you get them in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. There’s a swivel in the waist and a ball joint under the chest. The hips and neck are ball jointed, and you get some lateral rockers in the ankles. I don’t mind this articulation so much, but I do wish you got better range in the elbows. Scarlett also comes with three pairs of hands: fists, karate chopping, and gun/accessory holding. Swapping the hands requires a little more force than I would like, but other than that it works just fine.
As for accessories, well it wouldn’t be Scarlett without her trademark crossbow and you get two to choose from, along with an assortment of arrows and a quiver with a shoulder strap. The first crossbow is a short pistol-type and is similar to the one released with the vintage RAH figure. It’s an excellent sculpt and has a deep groove so that you can load it with an arrow using the fletching to anchor it in place. It works pretty well for display on the shelf, but they will fall out if you move it around a lot. Her ammo includes three normal arrows, one bomb arrow, one arrow with a really broad point, and a grapple arrow with a yellow string attached. You can comfortably fit the three regular arrows and the bomb arrow into the quiver all at one time, but the broad tipped arrow is too big and the grapple arrow takes up most of the room. Otherwise the quiver works pretty well, but I might put some blue tack inside to help hold the arrows in place.
The other crossbow is more of a rifle design with a skeletal stock and a scope. This one had some serious warping in the plastic strings, but much to my surprise a little heat straightened them out immediately. I seem to recall Sunbow Scarlett’s crossbow being a bit in between the pistol version and this, but I definitely like this one a lot. It’s not going to be an easy choice as to which one to go with most of the time.
And for when Scarlett needs a little more firepower, she comes with an M16, and I’m not sure why because I don’t remember this being a thing in the cartoon and it definitely wasn’t included with the RAH figure. It is a pretty nice toon-ified version of the iconic infantry weapon, although the barrel is very prone to bending and I had to heat it up as well to get it even close to straight. And yes, it is a little irksome that Hasbro can deliver most of the weapons in their slightly smaller scale Classified line at half the price and have them come out straight most of the time, not to mention also have detachable magazines and occasional blast effect parts. To be honest, I will likely never display Scarlett with this weapon, and I would have much rather just gotten another one of the XMLR-3A Laser Rifles that most of the JOEs used in the cartoon and that came with Snake Eyes, Duke, and Flint.
Scarlett’s final accessory is a walkie-talkie, which seems to be a popular pack-in for most of the Ultimate JOEs. Not that I’m complaining, it’s a good accessory for infantry to have. This one looks pretty cool and retro with it’s boxy design and it’s classic design speaker. The left hand that can cradle her weapons can also hold the walkie pretty well, but the elbows won’t let it get too close to her face.
Scarlett was one of my most hotly anticipated figures in the Ultimates line and she didn’t disappoint. Yes, I had a few nitpicks here and there, but certainly nothing to diminish my happiness with her. She really captures the look and spirit of the cartoon and that’s something I’ve wanted ever since I was a kid. I’m very curious to see how Hasbro’s Scarlett do-over for the Classified line turns out as that one will be a lot closer to this classic look than the figure that shipped way back in that first assortment, which had something of a Fortnite flavor to her. In the meantime, when I next visit with GI JOE Ultimates, I’ll be flipping back to Wave 2, before coming back to this third wave.
FigureFan Zero 