Tag Archives: super7

Oct 11 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Buzz-Saw by Super7

It’s taken me a bit of time, but I’m closing in on spotlighting the final two Silverhawks figures by Super7! I’ve vowed to finish up this line before moving on to more ThunderCats and GI JOE Ultimates, and here we are at the penultimate review from the second wave (originally intended to be the first). Gosh, that’s still so confusing. Anyway, so far this wave has given us Powered Up Mon-Star and Steelheart, and today I’m checking out the second of Mon-Star’s evil henchmen… Buzz-Saw!

Once again, Super7 is killing it with the packaging. All the evil Limbo Mob come in crimson foil window boxes with a slip cover that lifts off the top. You get a little blurb about the character on the back and the window shows off all the goods. Buzz-Saw is a big boi and his oversized box reflects that! There’s not a lot to say about this guy’s backstory other than he’s a hulking robot with buzzsaws and claws for weapons and not really the huggable type. As a kid, I freaking loved him in the cartoon and was a tad disappointed when one of my friends got his action figure and it looked so different.

As you can probably imagine, this fella a hefty hunk of plastic! Buzz-Saw’s animated design is just so damn cool with his hulking proportions and his mix of hard angles and smooth surfaces. Super7 nails the animated style so well, and I think the figure even gives him a slightly more imposing build. Besides the obvious color difference, going from green to yellow, this cartoon look puts his shoulder-based saw blades coming out of his shoulder armor at a stylish angle, whereas the Kenner toy had them positioned between his torso and the arm connection, and to me this just looks so much better. The coloring looks great, all the joints worked well right out of the box, and I’m happy to report that I had no QC issues on this figure at all. It really seems like The Limbo Mob made out so much better than the Silverhawks when it comes to joint issues in this line.

The buzz saws positioned on his shoulders and arms all spin and it’s fun to give them a flick. His joints all feel great and the legs do a fine job holding up his upper bulk, although if you put those giant buzzsaws out in front of him too far, he’ll want to topple over. The elbows are limited and can’t do 90-degrees, but that’s not a big deal to me here as he is a hulking robot and it’s understandable if his agility probably isn’t that great.

You get three heads, although I think only two were necessary. The only difference between the first two is the sawblade in the head is sculpted to look like it’s spinning on one of them. I think this same effect could have been pulled off just by swapping the sawblade piece. Either way, I prefer the jagged blade look so I doubt I’ll be using that second option at all. Both of these heads look OK, but the facial details could have been a lot sharper. It’s just a really soft sculpt.

The third head is the undoubtedly the winner as it has both the jagged sawblade and an open mouth. The expression is either a battle shout or his mouth is agape with glee over the prospect of sawing up some Silverhawks. You can decide! Sure, the eye sculpt is still pretty soft here, but this is the head that I’ll be displaying on the figure pretty much all the time.

Buzz-Saw has some cool accessories and options. For starters, he has elongated versions of the two pull levers in his chest. These are swapped out to make it look like he’s yanked them to activate his berserker buzzsaw attack. Nah, I won’t be using these much, but it’s nice to have the option I guess.

Just in case having five buzzsaws embedded in your body isn’t enough attack power, Buzz-Saw also comes with a pair of guns. The first is a traditional rifle, which he can hold by swapping out his lobster claws for the set with a slightly larger gap in them. I’ll confess that I don’t remember him using this in the cartoon, but I love still this thing. It looks like a chibi Gatling Gun and has such a lovely toony design to it. I’m also pretty impressed at how well he can hold it with those swap-out claws.

His other load-out option is a blaster cannon that replaces one of his claws, as if he is able to extend it from his arm. It looks cool and he still gets to keep his saw blade on the arm that he’s using it with. The blaster connects with a hinged peg, and I’m not sure why because there’s really no room for articulation in there, but whatever.

Buzz-Saw comes with his own special bird buddy, who happens to have the greatest name ever… Shredator.  He’s absolutely adorable and like his Papa he has a tiny spinning sawblade in his head and a yellow deco to match. This guy has hinged wings and can rotate at the head and tail, giving him a bit more articulation than some of the Super7 bird buddies. He’s definitely up there as one of my favorites.

Buzz-Saw is just such an awesome figure. He’s big and imposing and yet so bright and beautiful. He really captures everything that is great about the cartoon’s aesthetic and he’s loads of fun to play with as well. And while I’ve sworn off double-dipping on most of the toy-based repaints Super7 is doing, I’m really tempted to get green Buzz-Saw. He’s cool enough to warrant buying again and I’d be happy to throw him into the display and just pretend he’s another character. And that, friends, leaves me with just one more figure to check out and I’ll be all caught with Silverhawks. So, stay tuned for Quicksilver and Tallyhaaaawk!

Sep 20 2023

Dungeons & Dragons ReAction Figures by Super7

Monday’s review went super long, so today I’m taking it easy with a quick look at some ReAction figures! While Hasbro and NECA have both been releasing the higher profile toys based on the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Super7 also entered the campaign this year with the release of a handful of their 3 3/4-inch ReAction figures. Hasbro’s toys have been pulling from the 80’s Saturday Morning cartoon and the recent movie, NECA has been doing modern updates of the vintage LJN figures, leaving Super7 to focus on… vintage cover art? Oh yes, and it’s quite glorious! Let’s take a look at Super7’s three general releases and the boxed SDCC Exclusive. But before we embark on this journey, adventurers, take note! We’ll only be looking at packaged toys today, as this is one of those rare occasions where I won’t be opening any of these!

Because as cool as these figures are, it’s really the mating of the figure and the super nostalgic original art on the cardback that makes these releases so special to me. First up is an Efreeti as featured on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Masters Guide with art by the David C. Sutherland III from 1979. Yeah, these figures aren’t to scale, as the Efreeti was an absolute beast on that cover holding an unfortunate blonde maiden in his left hand and about to smite an entire party of adventurers with one swing of the scimitar in his right hand. The head sculpt is absolutely superb on this figure and the bright yellow and red coloring makes this Fire Plane dweller quite eye-catching. He also has a slender modesty sash to cover his genie junk. Really nice sculpted muscles too! He comes with his scimitar with a yellow hilt and silver blade.

The back of the three general release figures’ cards are all the same, featuring a reimagined piece of art that we’ll be seeing again in a bit. You also get artist renderings of the three figures released in this series, which reminds me of some of the comic and newspaper advertisements for Star Wars figures back in the day where they used illustrations instead of actual photos. Very nice!

Next up is the Githyanki based on the Emmanuel cover art from the 1st Edition AD&D Fiend Folio. It’s another banger of a piece with some absolutely amazing detail in the figure itself. From the sculpted wrappings on the arms and legs to the colorful strips of jeweled shingles that hang down his chest. The head sculpt is also extremely well done with everything conspiring to bring all the imagination of the artwork into a fully realized 3D figure. And once again, the colors really make this figure pop beautifully. He comes with a golden sword as depicted in the artwork. Yes, sadly my card is creased, which believe me is tempting me to try for another so I can open this one.

And the final stop on this trifecta, and what is easily for me the most iconic piece of art of the three, is The Sorceress as depicted on the front of the D&D Basic Set 1st Edition Second Box by artist Erol Otus. A more truncated version of this art also appeared on the cover of the D&D Basic Set 2nd Edition Rulebook. This is the piece of art that I will always most associate with my D&D days and it still fires my imagination today. As for the figure itself, while I think it’s good, it’s easily the least successful of these three in the translation from the art. She loses that heavily stylized look, not to mention having a little less in the chest and more in the waist, making her a little less alluring than her 2D counterpart. Still, I do love the colors and the sculpted detail is nice. She comes with a really nice version of the magic torch she holds aloft in the artwork.

And with the three general releases done and dusted, the final figure we’re looking at today is the SDCC exclusive, which was later available through online retailers, which makes its exclusivity claim rather dubious. Based on the D&D Basic Set 3rd Edition, this figure comes in the familiar Red Box with the absolutely epic artwork by Larry Elmore showing the Formidable Fighter taking on a red dragon. Lift off the top and you get the carded figure inside.

Super7 had to take a bit more liberties with this one as the character is only depicted from the back, but I think they did a nice job with the design. You get a brilliant metallic blue sheen on his scale mail armor, a sculpted furry loin cloth with studded belt and blue boots. The head sculpt is bearded and fierce and his horned helmet looks fantastic. He comes with a circular shield and a gold hilted sword with glow in the dark blade.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not generally a mint-on-card collector, but Super7 has issued more than a few ReAction figures that I have purchased to display carded. I just think that the mating of original art with the inspired figure is what makes these releases so special and it would be a shame to separate the two. If these were cheaper, I would definitely buy seconds as openers, but at $20 a pop for the regulars and $25 for the SDCC Exclusive, I’ll be content with hanging them on my wall. My only complaint with any of these is that I wish Super7 had credited the artists and where each piece of art came from on the backs of the cards. And it seems like Super7 isn’t done with these yet, as possible pre-orders for a second wave have been whispered!

Sep 8 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Mon-Star (Powered Up) by Super7

I’m down to just three more Super7 Silverhawks Ultimates figures to check out here before I’m caught up: Two of the Limbo Gang and the leader of the Silverhawks himself. And by the title of this review, you already know that today I’m going for the one and only, big daddy crime boss of Limbo Galaxy, Mon-Star in his powered up form. Say it with me, guys… Moon Star of Limbo, give me the might, the muscle, the menace of Mon-Star!

Yes, this is the second version of Mon-Star to be released, with the first being his regular form, which in all honesty is pretty terrifying enough. But that’s nothing compared to what we get here. The box is absolutely huge and follows the same design beats as what we’ve been seeing all along in this line. There’s a snappy crimson foil sleeve that covers the window box and the presentation here is just retina-meltingly gorgeous. It takes a lot to get me to save my action figure packaging, but I’m keeping the boxes for all of these! But… No prison or box can contain the might of Mon-Star, so let’s get him out and take a look!

Mon-Star measures in at just over 11-inches, and that is beyond impressive for a 7-inch scale figure line. Just look at him next to his normal form. With the energies of the Moon Star’s light, Mon-Star goes from a pretty buff beast dude to this walking armored monstrosity. I love how clean this design is, with lots of smooth angled surfaces, but then you get the more organic sinewy looking stuff in his midriff and the chiseled chest and flared shoulders. The bulk of the suit is cast in different shades of crimson plastic, with black rotating hinges for the shoulders, elbows, knees and hips, and some orange points on the elbows and knees and the little spikes on his boots. All the joints feel great and he’s just an all around walking tank of terror!

You get two heads and they’re both all kinds of pissed off. His face is a severe mash up of hard angles with a more rounded brow. His grill is a permanent grimace of sharp orange teeth and the array of spikes protruding from all sides of his head is warning sign to keep away.

The alternate head is pretty much the same but it has a slot in place of his left eye so you can peg in the Moon Star effect part. It’s cast in semi-translucent orange plastic and looks pretty good.

Despite his bulk, Mon-Star has some decent rotating hinges to keep him upright while posing. The range of motion in most of those joints is a bit limited, as we’ve come to expect in this line, but it doesn’t feel as limiting with Mon-Star because he’s just such a slab of armor that probably wouldn’t have much agility in real life either. You get a copious number of hand options with this guy, including pointing hands, accessory holding hands, fists, graspy hands, relaxed hands, adding up to five pairs total!

Mon-Star comes with two sets of effect parts for his elbows, which can double as thrusters or cannons. These simply peg into the sockets that jut out from the backs of his elbow joints. The thruster effects look really good!

I’m not as impressed with the blast effect pieces, but they’re OK. I honestly can’t remember him doing this in a single episode and I just re-watched the whole thing last year, so I think the Jameson is really starting to addle my brain.

You also get Mon-Star’s Laser Lance, which is a really great looking accessory. It captures the animated aesthetic of the show’s tech perfectly and you get quite a bit of paint on it as well. He can hold it with his trigger/pointing hands but it’s so damn long it’s hard for him to wield it comfortably, especially with limited range in those elbows.

And finally there is Sky Shadow! We saw the regular version of this guy with the previous Mon-Star release and now we get him in all his Cybernetic glory. I dig this fella a lot, even if he does look like a robot bat with lobster claws! There’s some limited articulation in the wings where they meet the body and he the turrets under his wings rotate.

Holy hell what a cool figure! Monstar is huge, heavy, and overall imposing and another great addition to the Super7 Silverhawks line up. And he can even fit in the throne although it’s not quite as roomy as when he’s in his normal form. At $85 he’s the most expensive figure in the line and it’s easy to see where the money went because there is a lot of plastic here. I’ll try to swing back to revisit this line sooner rather than later. And with only two figures left… who will be next?

Jul 31 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Steelheart and Rayzor by Super7

If there’s one thing SDCC did this year (besides making me want to spend a lot of money), it’s give me a jumpstart to get through some of my backlog. Although Super7’s reveals for their Ultimates Silverhawks left me a bit cold. There were no new characters, just metalized reissues and repaints. But, it did remind me to get cracking on going through the second wave of figures here, and that brings us to today’s pick… Steelheart and her bird buddy Rayzor!

We’ve seen the packaging many times, so I won’t go into it again, other than to say it’s beautiful and collector friendly. If you need to get caught up, the first wave included Steelwill, Bluegrass, Mon-Star, and Windhammer. And yes, technically that was supposed to be the second wave and the one I’m starting today was supposed to be first. But let’s not get into that again. Steelheart is the sole female of the Silverhawks team and she’s also the twin sister of Steelwill. LET’S WING IT!!!

Steelheart follows this line’s very animated stylings, which means the paint is designed to approximate the look of their cartoon counterparts, rather than the vintage toys. I’ve gone on record supporting this direction, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that at the end with regard to the SDCC reveals. The blue finish has a bit of a sheen to it and you get some metallic blue bands around her left bicep and above the left knee. Steelheart also has her real flesh right arm exposed from below the elbow down. You do get some paint crunched in the shoulder joints, but after a bit of articulation it works itself out. The sculpt is simple enough with a few panel lines here and there, as well as talons on the backs of her heels. But overall the figure gets by mostly with smooth curves. I really love the way she looks.

As with her brother, you get a choice of three different head sculpts. The one on the figure in the package is fairly neutral with the hint of a smile The second looks like they were going for something a little more serious, but I think the differences are very slight. And finally, you get her masked head. The paint is simple but clean and I think it does a decent job of conveying the cartoon character’s likeness. I just think there should have been a bigger difference between the expressions for the first two heads to justify including both.

The articulation here is identical to what we’ve seen with the other Silverhawks. Super articulated these are not, but you do get a bunch of rotating hinges that get the job done. In the case of Steelheart, I do wish there was more movement in the ball joint under the chest, as it mainly just twists and offers almost no up and down movement. I also wish the head was capable of looking up a bit more for those flight poses. QC has been a little spotty on this line, especially with Steelheart’s brother, but I’m happy to say I didn’t have any scary stuck joints or breakage on Steelheart. Everything moved the way it was supposed to right out of the box. Naturally you get a nice assortment of hands with the figure. These include fists, relaxed hands, accessory holding hands, and karate-chop-flight hands.

As with Steelwill, Steelheart comes with an extra pair of arms with the wings attached. These can be swapped out for winged flight poses and these arms are not articulated at the elbows. You can also still swap out the shoulders to have the open gun ports available for both the winged and non-winged arms, but I think that option is more trouble than its worth. I do have a question as to whether or not the wing arms came out as intended. If you look closely, the wings overlap the arms just a little bit, and it really feels like that should be on the back of the arms, but here it’s on the fronts. Why can’t you just swap them? Because Steelheart’s right forearm and hands are bare and because the wings would be concave in the wrong direction. This isn’t a huge deal, I’m not even 100% sure it’s an error, and I think the wings still look great, but it is another example of what may have been a factory issues with this line, and those do seem to be adding up.

Oddly enough, Steelheart does not come with a lot of accessories. Her brother came with a couple of guns, Bluegrass came with his guitar, but apart from her bird buddy, Steelheart only comes with the blue laser beam effect parts that we saw with the other Silverhawks. These can be plugged into the gun ports on the shoulders, and I think they look cool.

Steelheart’s bird is Rayzor and you get two versions of him: One perched and one in flight. Both versions have articulation in the legs and neck and they look pretty cool! The bird buddies were more of a thing in the toyline, and I don’t recall them even being introduced in the cartoon until pretty far into its run, so I think it’s great that we’re getting animated versions of them here.

Steelheart is a solid addition to the Silverhawks team. I was happy to have no paint flubs, frozen joints, or breakage, but then again that’s stuff that I shouldn’t even have to worry about when dealing with a $55 collector figure. But it does bring me to the issue of the SDCC reveals and why I’m probably going to opt out of the metallic reissues. Super7 just seems to be having a rough time with this line, and while I love the figures I have, and I’m looking forward to the next wave of new characters, I’m not really prepared to risk issues with repaints. Those paint jobs are going to have to be really pristine to look good and I’m not sure I want to take that gamble. If initial reviews look good, and they’re available, maybe I will bite. But right now I’m just happy with what we’ve got. And no… I’m not interested in Tiger Sharks. Next time I revisit this line, we’ll check out the powered up version of Mon-Star!

Jun 30 2023

G. I. JOE Ultimates: Battle Android Trooper by Super7

Happy Friday, everyone! Well, I’m working through the weekend so that sucks, but at least I can still enjoy spending a bit of my Friday talking about toys. The second wave of Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates has arrived, and I’m eager to start digging into it, but before I do I have one last figure from the first wave to look at. So let’s check out Cobra’s Battle Android Trooper, better known as BAT to his close friends.

Here’s the awesome packaging, which is pretty much the same as what we saw for Cobra Commander, complete with a cover sleeve and blue camo pattern. The window shows off all the goodies and you get a little blurb about the BAT on the back panel. It’s no secret that I loved the BATs when they were introduced to the Sunbow cartoon. After having to suffer through dozens of episodes of Cobra troopers ducking enemy fire, the cartoon finally had an enemy that could be shot, blown to bits, impaled, crushed, and violently dispatched in every other way imaginable because they are only robots. But the real reason I love them is because they just look so damn cool.

And here’s the BAT fresh off the assembly line and ready for action! The black matte jumpsuit coupled with the blinding canary yellow for the boots, belt, and epaulets is such a bizarre combination for a combat trooper, and yet it looks so sharp and iconic. The Ultimates BAT also features some crisp metallic silver paint for the tops of the boots, the gauntlets, and just some general pop all around the figure, and I can’t overstate how great this paint looks. There’s a brown pistol holster on his left hip, a pair of sculpted grenades hanging from his shoulder strap, and does anyone know what that silver thing strapped to his right leg is supposed to be? Because I sure don’t.

The BAT carries a rather large backpack, which serves to carry his interchangeable arm attachments, and we sure will come back to those in a bit. The backpack clips into square peg holes on the figure’s epaulets, and it works fairly well, but if you pick up the figure with your fingers touching the backpack, it will likely pop off. It’s not that big a deal when posing and displaying the figure, but this is a case where maybe a peg in the back might have been preferable. Especially since, I really never display my BATs without the backpack on.

The helmet is pretty spot on for the Sunbow animated BAT design. Yo get a smooth and rounded noggin with a rather prominent T-shaped red face shield. And that emotionless blank slate of a face is a big part of what makes these things so scary to me.

One of the more iconic design beats of the Cobra BAT is the clear shield over the exposed bank of circuits on display in the chest, and it is very well done here. You get a wall of sculpted gray mechanisms with some green, yellow, red, and blue wires and devices embedded in there. The clear plate can also be removed and we’ll get to the purpose of that peg hole in a bit when we look at the damage display options.

While BATs are essentially walking weapons themselves, they do come with two standard issue guns. The first is the pistol that can be stored in the aforementioned holster. It’s got that great pseudo sci-fi design that a lot of the Sunbow pistols had and he can hold it in either of his gun hands quite well.

And he also comes with this rifle, which also sports a decidedly sci-fi flavor to it. both of these weapons are cast all in black plastic and they have that minimalist approach to sculpted detail that lends itself so well to being a cartoon model.

And now we get to the swiss-army-knife nature of the BAT’s arm attachments. There are three extra attachments that store in the backpack, which include a pincer claw, a driller arm, which I think is actually meant to be a laser, and what I think is supposed to be a torch of some kind. These attachments can be swapped out to replace either hand and they pop off pretty easily. The BAT also comes with a bunch of different regular hands, which include relaxed, fists, and gun toting hands. If the BAT is using one of his special attachments, you can even store the displaced hand in the backpack.

And since the cartoon had so much fun blowing up and damaging the BATs, Super7 included a number of damage options. You get an blue electrical discharge effect part that can be plugged into the hole in the chest compartment. You also get a damaged head with more of the blue electro discharge effect. And for total cranial destruction, you get just a neck stump with electro discharge spitting out of the top. Just be prepared to have to work to get that neck stump out of the figure once you put it in, because there isn’t a lot to grab onto.

You also get a severed left arm, and I like to pop the chest effect part into the arm stump. Not too shabby! The colored wires coming out of the damaged arm are a nice touch.

I think it’s safe to say that I really love this figure, since I wound up buying three of them, and there may be a couple more in my future. I can display this trio with a variety of attachments or even have one blown up and another partially damaged. There are definitely a lots of cool options!

And that wraps up the first wave of Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates and I am absolutely smitten with this line. The initial character assortment was pretty good, and while I loved each of these four figures, I think the BAT may be the stand out for me. Sure, I’d argue we should have had a Cobra Trooper in the line first, but I dig these so much that I’m not going to complain. As I said earlier, I’m eager to dive in to the second wave, but I’m going to take care of some business over on the Silverhawks side of things before coming back to JOE Ultimates in a week or so.

Jun 16 2023

ReAction (G.I. JOE): Battle Android Trooper by Super7

I have reviewed a number of ReAction figures here on FFZ, but I have yet to give any of the ReAction JOEs the spotlight. It’s not an intentional slight, but nonetheless one that I will rectify today. And it works out perfectly, because I kind of ran out of time and needed something quick to look at!

Yup, I’ve been collecting this line pretty hard since the beginning, mainly to them display on card, but in the beginning I was buying some doubles for openers, and I still keep an eye out for sales to get more openers. If you’re unfamiliar with this line, they’re basically 5-POA figures based on the Sunbow cartoon character designs with some cool expanded universe kind of stuff in the way of troop builders. I think the figures themselves are quite good, but the real magic here for me is the figure on the card, which look absolutely spectacular. And while all of these have been great, the recent release of the Cobra BAT was so exceptional that it motivated me to go ahead and start reviewing some of these.

Here he is on the card, and yes I did pick up a pair of these so I could open the one we’re looking at today. The card oozes vintage goodness with the iconic GI JOE logo and the character art set against an explosive backdrop. The figure comes on a bubble with some of his accessories positioned beside him. I got one of these punched and the other unpunched, so let’s tear into that punched one and have a look!

Straightaway, I have to say that the sculpted detail and paintwork on this BAT are both exquisite, especially for this type of 3 3/4-inch retro-style figure. I have yet to review Super7’s Ultimates BAT (coming soon!) but in a lot of ways this simple little 5-POA figure captures all the detail of that larger and more complex figure quite well. The transparent chest piece is a real stand out with the fully sculpted and multi-color wires and mechanisms on full display inside. But there’s a lot of other cool details worthy of shout outs, including the tiny belt of grenades hanging off his shoulder strap, complete with teensy tiny painted buckle, and even the ribbed padding on the inside of his functional pistol holster. I mean… wow! This is great stuff!

The BATs colors have always been a great combo of matte black, metallic silver, and bright canary yellow and all of those colors are on full display here. The silver paint in particular looks sharp and shiny and the yellow just contrasts so well with the black. The Cobra emblem tampo on his shoulder patch looks awesome too. You really have to punch in close to notice any slop in the paint, but it is mostly noticeable around the silver collar.

The BAT retains the backpack from his other versions, which is still capable of holding his swappable hand attachments. Both hands are designed to come off, but the left hand on my figure feels a little tight and I don’t want to risk dislocating the peg, so I’m sticking to swapping out his right hand. The extra attachments include the usual pincer claw, laser gun, and drill arm, making it fun to display a whole squad of these guys, each kitted out a little differently.

You also get two conventional weapons, which include a pistol and a rifle. Either of his regular hands are capable of holding either weapon, and you can stow the pistol in his holster when it’s not in use.

I usually review ReAction figures in groups because there’s only so much you can say about these figures and only so many ways you can shoot pictures of a 5-POA figure. But I really felt that this guy needed his own spotlight. It feels like Super7 just poured the love into this figure and went above and beyond. I paid the full twenty bones for my first one, but was able to get a second on sale through Amazon at $15. It would be cool if Super7 released a three-pack of these at a little better price. I’d love to pick up a few more, but even I have to concede that these little beauties are pretty pricey for what they are.

May 29 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Steelwill and Stronghold by Super7

A new wave of Silverhawks Ultimates are on their way to me from the Limbo Galaxy, so I better get cracking on wrapping up my look at the first wave. And yes, technically this is the second wave, with the intended first wave being the one on the way. So far I have checked out Mon-Star and Bluegrass and today I’m having a look at the first of the Steelhart Twins… Steelwill! Strap in fellas, this one is going to be a rollercoaster of a ride!

Here’s Steelwill in his package. Just like Bluegrass, you get a silver foil sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box. The packaging looks outstanding and does a great job displaying the figure and all those goodies packed inside. And now is about as good a time as any to say this is the second time I’m opening this figure because the first one’s right bicep joint snapped. Keep in mind, I already knew this was an issue so I soaked the arm in hot water worked it a bit, rinsed and repeated, working it a bit more and it still eventually snapped anyway. I contacted the retailer and they sent me off another one. I repeated the ritual, but no matter what I did, I was pretty sure it was still going to snap again, so I didn’t risk it. Between the two figures, I’m able to make things work, but it’s still absolutely unacceptable and it makes me fearful of whether the same will be the case with Quicksilver and Steelheart. It wasn’t an issue with Bluegrass, because the bicep has to be swapped out for the wing mode, and Bluegrass doesn’t have wings. Anyway, I’m tossing this out at the beginning of the review, because I’m going to have some nice things to say about this figure, but none of it makes this kind of QC issue OK.

So here’s Steelwill out of the box and I think he looks great! I discussed the paint that Super7 went with when I reviewed Bluegrass, and I’m not going to go through all that again. Suffice it to say, Super7 went for something that looked close to the cartoon appearance as opposed to the super shiny toys, and I think they nailed it perfectly. The blue finish has just a bit of sheen to it and I think it matches the animated model quite well. Keep in mind, I watched the show as a kid, but never had the toys, so this is definitely the style I was looking for. You get plenty of musculature sculpted into the body leaving no question that Steelwill is a powerhouse of a jock. His left arm is still flesh and blood with a nice warm flesh tone painted on, and he’s got metallic blue bands painted on his right bicep and right thigh. I had a few minor blemishes on my Bluegrass figure, but both of the Steelwill figures I wound up with are pretty close to immaculate, save for some paint rubbing around the joints.

You get three different heads to choose from. The first being a fairly serious expression, the second is smiling, and the final is his football-helmet masked mode. The unmasked heads really capture the character and personality very well. The sculpts are solid and the paint is very sharp and crisp. Yes, Bluegrass came with three expressive portraits and you only get two here, but Bluegrass also didn’t have a mask in the cartoon, so here the third head is used for Steelwill’s masked mode.

The masked head is pretty fun, with the face guard bar running across the center of the plate, a thin visor and face plate itself mostly featureless. There’s a wide blue stripe running down the center of the helmet with white trim on either side. I always loved this helmet and Super7 did a nice job recreating it here.

The articulation here holds nothing new. You get all the same points found on Bluegrass. I will say that I dig that the Silverhawks use a ball joint under the chest as opposed to the ab-crunch hinge they went with for the GI JOE line. It doesn’t have as much range, but it looks much cleaner and blends very well with the armor. Apart from the aforementioned bicep snap, the rest of the joints work fine. Even the bicep on my second one will turn about 90-degrees in either direction before offering resistance and I won’t force it. On the downside, because of his pronounced muscles, Steelwill’s elbows can’t quite even manage 90-degrees, and that’s a bit disappointing. You get a total of five pairs of hands, including fists, relaxed, fingers tight together, and some accessory holding hands. OK, Steelwill… LET’S WING IT!!!

The wings come on completely different arms with no articulation in the elbows and the open gun ports on the shoulder piece. The only reason to swap out the shoulder pieces is if you want to give gun ports to the articulated arms with no wings. This gives you the option of having the gun ports open in either mode. It’s a pretty minor concession that caused a big problem, but at least I can appreciate what they were trying to do. Neither of my figures had an issue with sapping out the shoulder piece on the flesh arm, so I’m thinking the problem lies in the blue paint gumming up the works, but who knows? The wings look great and I think they look much better than if they had tried attaching them to the back of the figure. In the cartoon the characters would simply touch their arms to their sides and the wings would emerge as they brought them back up and this replicates that pretty well.

There are translucent blue laser beam effects that plug into the open gun ports on the shoulders and these stay in place very well and look cool. These are the same piece that came with Bluegrass to plug into his guitar. There’s some question over whether the starbursts are supposed to be positioned as the lasers leave the gunports, or if they’re supposed to be impacting on something. Official solicitation photos suggest the latter, but you can really make it work either way.

Steelwill comes with two additional weapons, a big cannon and a comical chattering teeth gun. I’ve been through my DVDs of the whole series again last year, and have been watching some episodes sporadically this year, and I still don’t remember either of these, but I’m sure they’re in the show somewhere. The regular gun is green with a big black barrel and some yellow indicator lights painted on the side. It also has a translucent blast effect that can be plugged into the barrel.

The chattering teeth gun has two sets of teeth: One open and one closed. This bizarre gun is super silly but it’s a really nicely sculpted and painted piece so I’ll allow it. I’ll also have to watch a shit ton of episodes again so I can find it. Maybe I’ll end up giving this one to one of my McFarlane Jokers.

Steelwill’s bird buddy is Stronghold and just like Sideman with Bluegreass, you get two versions of Stronghold: Wings closed and wings spread. These are static pieces, but both them are absolutely fantastic looking birds. I love the sculpt and paint on these, and Stronghold has some nice big talons to grip around Steelwill’s beefy arms.

Steelwill is an absolutely awesome figure held back by those pesky QC issues that are confined to the removable shoulder gimmick. If I had only one break, I would have noted it as unfortunate and moved on, but with the second ready to do the same, it’s clearly something that should have been looked at before sending the figure to production. Even if it meant sending out an extra set of arms so those pieces didn’t need to be swapped. At $55, this isn’t a cheap figure, and for that price I don’t expect these kinds of shenanigans. I’m still very happy with what we got, but I’ll confess to being a more than a little worried with running into similar problems with Steelheart and Quicksilver. Next week, I’ll finish up this wave with Windhammer, and by then the new figures should be here!

May 19 2023

G. I. JOE Ultimates Cobra Commander by Super7

So many figures and so little time! It’s been over a month since I checked out the first of Super7’s GI JOE Ultimates with Snake Eyes, so I’m long overdue to get back to this assortment. It would be nice to get through it all before the next wave ships. And since we did one of the JOEs last time, we’ll give Cobra turn with The Commander himself!

The packaging is similar in design to what we saw last time, but now the camo pattern is in blue instead of green and we get a big red Cobra emblem printed on the front. You still get a lot of distressed markings to make it look like paint worn off of a steel canister, which is pretty cool. Lift off the sleeve and you get a window box showing you the goods inside. Cobra Commander comes with a lot of goodies, some representing deep cuts into the cartoon. But before we get to those…

Here’s The Commander looking like he just stepped off the Sunbow cartoon series, or at least he’s pretty damn close. I love the color they used for his uniform and it looks great combined with the glossy black used for the boots and gauntlets. Some of the early pictures I saw made the uniform look too dark, but it looks spot-on perfect in hand. He’s got a teal colored shirt peeking out from behind his crossed lapels, a black belt under a gray one, some pouches, and a pair of straps on his left thigh, and some faked-out stirrups for his boots. The Cobra emblem on the left side of his chest should have been bigger to be truly accurate, but it still looks pretty good. Sculpted detail on the figure itself is a bit minimal, but that’s in keeping with the animated look. Some folks have nitpicked the accuracy of this figure to death, but I think he looks iconic as hell and I’m very pleased.

There are two heads to choose from, and no, one of them is not a hood. They are both the same combo of silver face plate and helmet, with the big difference being the silver stripe on the top, which is seen in the cartoon. This is also the helmet I’ll be displaying him with all the time and in all of the pictures of this review. Seriously, the other head just feels like a waste of plastic to me. The silver paint for the face plate looks good, and while certainly not offering a mirror polish, it’s plenty shiny!

The articulation holds no surprises. It is what it is for the Ultimates line, which means a lot of rotating hinges in all the right places, but not as much range of motion in some of those as I would have liked. What we get makes for a cleaner look for the figure, but it sure would have been nice to get better than 90-degrees in those elbows and swivels in those thighs. I’m not a huge fan of the use of an ab-crunch instead of a ball joint, as it looks a bit unsightly on a simple animated design like this. It didn’t bother me so much on Snake Eyes, but it was partially obscured by his shoulder straps. As is the case with most Super7 Ultimates figures, Cobra Commander comes with a ton of hands. There are fists, relaxed hands, pointing hands, and a bunch of hands designed to work with the accessories. So let’s check out all those goodies!

First off, you get this softgoods cape and some regal ceremonial trappings. The cape is very nicely tailored and includes wire running through the bottom edge and around the neck and shoulders. The neck wire is the only thing that holds it on the figure, and it does a surprisingly good job at that. The color does look more pink than red to me, which is a little odd. Also, the one I remember him wearing the most had a black outside and a red liner, but he was depicted wearing one like this as well. Either way, it’s pretty cool, and I’ll likely switch off displaying him with and without it.

You get a golden cobra-headed scepter for The Commander to parade around with, as well as a globe with a snake surrounding it. This last piece is from one of the cartoon intros, I believe, and I suppose it’s kind of like Cobra’s version of the globus cruciger that used to be held by Kings or Popes in the old days. It’s very regal and imperial looking, while obviously representing Cobra’s desire to control the world. Sure, the globe is kind of silly, but I just adore all the work that Super7 put into it. The paint and sculpt are both excellent and even the continents on the globe are sculpted rather than just painted on. You get a right hand designed expressly for holding the scepter nice and tight and a left hand with a peg to attach the serpent and globe. Both of these pieces look really good with the cape.

Moving on to guns! Cobra Commander comes with two pistols and a rifle. The rifle is from the second cartoon intro where Cobra Commander is about to use it to take out Lady Jaye. Take out as in Bang Bang, not you wanna catch dinner and a movie. It’s a really cool nod to that sequence and the gun has a great, simple animated look to it.

Next is this simple pistol with a very sci-fi-ish design. Honestly, I’m not a fan of this one at all. The big bubble between the receiver and the barrel is weird and it’s kind of just too out there for me. I’m not sure if this was a design used in the cartoon or not, but I don’t remember it. It’s certainly not as distinctive as the hair-dryer gun that came with the original Real American Hero figure.

The second pistol offering is awesome. The design is more compact and credible and you get a raised Cobra insignia on it as well as a ribbed pistol grip that looks like a snake’s belly. The red paint hits look nice, and I will likely display The Commander wielding this gun most of the time. And that’s all the weapons… now for some assorted gadgets!

These spiffy, high tech binoculars sport a soft rubber neck strap and of course they’re branded with an embossed Cobra logo. I think this works well with the pointy finger hand, like he’s spotted the JOEs with the binoculars and now he’s barking orders at his troops to go get them. I’m sure these were featured in at least one episode of the cartoon, but I couldn’t tell you which one.

And now we start getting into the real deep cuts. The Neutralizer was a Synthoid Control Box, which is hilariously simple for what it does. It just has a single sliding level with an array of color coded settings. Actually, the only thing I remember this device doing was melting them into goo. This is peak Sunbow gizmo design and I love it!

The next device was called Hi-Freq and it comes from the episode Cobra’s Creatures and it allowed Cobra to take control of animals, including some of the JOE team’s pets. This is another wonderful piece of Sunbow tech which included a massive computer with an unintentionally comical keyboard of animal pictures, which was used to set the device to that particular animal. The accessory has some great detail like the tiny painted gauges and the cheesy dog silhouette on the target screen, which was shown when they used it to control Junkyard. So good!

Finally, you get this… detonator device? Yeah, that’s what I’m going with. I don’t remember which episode this is from, but it looks like it’s designed to blow something up. There’s some very nice detail here including some switches and a tiny Cobra emblem on the screen.

I think Super7 did a beautiful job on this figure! He shares all the usual limitations of the Ultimates articulation design, but it’s safe to say that I’ve been looking for a Sunbow accurate Cobra Commander figure like this ever since I was a kid and I’m just chuffed to finally own one. I’m also really pleased with the accessory selection and how many nods are made to specific episodes of the cartoon. No, most of these won’t be used for display that often, but it’s fun to have the options and to own little versions of some of Cobra’s wacky devices. I do wish they had offered a throne for him like they did with Mon-Star in the Silverhawks line, but who knows? Maybe something like that could be coming later on down the road. Will we get a hooded version? I think it’s unlikely. Hasbro still dictates the licensing terms and I don’t think they’re too keen on doing the hood, or allowing anyone else to either. Now a Battle Armor version? That might fall outside the Sunbow based scope of this line’s intentions, but you never know! Next time I visit with this line, we’ll take a look at Duke!

Apr 7 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Bluegrass and Sideman by Super7

Last week, I dipped into the first assortment of Silverhawks figures with a look at Mon-Star and his throne. Today, I’m checking out the first of the Silverhawks themselves. Wave two actually shipped out before wave one, so we got Bluegrass and Steelwill in this assortment. I decided to go with Bluegrass first, because he’s one of my favorites and he’s kind of unique among the Silverhawk team in that he didn’t have to get quite as much body horror surgery done to him to travel to the Limbo Galaxy. He also doesn’t have a face shield and he doesn’t have retractable wings like his comrades. He is, however, an ace pilot and he flies the Silverhawks‘ spaceship, The Miraj. So while the others launch into battle he usually stays behind and strums his guitar or gets into a Battle of the Bands with Melodia! Please, Super7… give us Melodia in the next wave!

By now we know what to expect from Super7’s Ultimates packaging. There’s a foil window box with a foil sleeve that lifts off the top. Mon-Star’s Mob has red foil packages while the Silverhawks have… well, you know. The window shows off the figure and alternate heads very nicely and there’s a second tray nested beneath the top one with even more goodies! I rarely save my action figure boxes, but I dig Super7’s presentation so much that I’ve saved them all. And in terms of storage space, they add up real fast!

When it was first revealed, one of the big controversies about this line was the lack of reflective mental finish on the figures. The original toys by Kenner were vac-metalized and looked quite striking, but even as a kid I was a little bummed that they didn’t look like the cartoon. I think the paint that Super7 went with does a fine job of recreating the way they looked on show, and that’s what I was looking for with these figures. Still, clearly it’s not going to please everyone and think it comes down to a matter of personal taste. Maybe Super7 could do a ReAction line with vac-metal finishes.

In terms of sculpt and paint, Bluegrass reflects an extremely clean and simple design. The body is mostly smooth with some muscle showing, particularly on his back. You get some smooth contours and a few panel lines, but not much of anything else. I absolutely love the color blue they used, which has a subtle sheen to it but really does match the cartoon beautifully. His right arm is exposed from the bicep down, so you get some flesh tone there. The only flourish here is the red neckerchief that hangs around his neck. This is sculpted separately and while it does lay pretty well, it can get displaced when he’s posing. Articulation is precisely what we get with other Super7 Ultimates, which means rotating hinges where double-hinges would have been more welcome. Still, the joints feel good, and I didn’t have any issues with stuck parts. I did, however, get an unfortunate bit of paint rubbing on the right shoulder. It’s only really visible when the joint is extended, but it looks like something that should not have been let out of the factory, so that’s a bummer.

Bluegrass has three different portraits, which include a neutral expression, a smirk, and a smile and a wink. They’re all very nice, but I prefer the later two which do a perfect job of reflecting his personality. I think I’ll get the least use out of the first, and most out of the middle one. The paint on the face is pretty simple, but again, we’re going for a cartoon look and it conveys that pretty well. The paint lines around the contours of the face are particularly sharp. As I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t have a masked mode in the cartoon, but his yellow cowboy hat is removable, and I always loved Bluegrass’ metal mohawk. Unfortunately, poor QC strikes again as there’s some paint rubbing on the mohawk on one of my heads, but at least I’ll have it covered with the hat most of the time.

You get a ridiculous number of hands with this figure. I’m never going to complain about extras, but at some point I have to wonder how many people actually get a lot of use out of so many hands! The basics include fists, relaxed, thumbs up, gripping hands, and some designed to work with his guitar. All of these are really easy to swap out without any fear of snapped joints.

Bluegrass’ main accessory is his trusty guitar, and this is based off the one he used in the cartoon, as opposed to the one that came with the Kenner figure, but more on that later. It’s got some nice detailing on it, and the paint on the tiny strings is amazingly sharp and clean. There’s a soft plastic strap that can be attached so it can hang over his shoulder while he’s playing. The strumming and fret hands work really well with this piece. A always thought it was so wonderfully meta to have Bluegrass actually play the guitar portion of the theme song during the intro.

You get two effect parts that plug into the end of the guitar. The first has become one of my favorite effect parts in recent memory. It’s part blue and part clear plastic with musical notes sculpted into it and it looks exactly like the effect drawn in the cartoon. I love the way this looks so damn much!

The other effect part is just a blue laser, which is still cool, but it’s not laser-made-out-of-pure-music kinda cool. I actually think this is the same effect part we’ll see used as the shoulder lasers for the rest of the Silverhawks.

Bluegrass also comes with two lasso accessories, and unfortunately these aren’t impressive. One is coiled and the other is designed to loop around a figure to capture them. Both are cast in the same gray plastic as the guitar strap. I would have rather the lasso just been a piece of gray wire. These will mostly be staying in the box.

You get no less than three versions of Bluegrass’ avian sidekick, Sideman: Perched, in flight, and in guitar mode. Yes, in the Kenner toyline, each Silverhawk came with a simple bird-themed buddy with some kind of play gimmick. In the cartoon, Tallyhawk was the only bird buddy on the team for quite a while. Eventually, Mon-Star duplicated an army of Sky Shadow, and the Steelheart Twins developed birds for each of the Silverhawks to help combat the flood of Sky Shadows. Sideman’s original toy turned into his guitar and Super7 did a nice job conveying all of those modes separately, instead of trying to give us a toy that transformed.

In the two bird modes, his back is basically the body of a guitar, which kind of reminds me of when jet Transformers just wore the jet mode on their back. I absolutely love these two bird modes, because the original toy was extremely simple, with little to no paint. And while Sideman didn’t feature prominently in the cartoon, it’s still cool to get a fully painted and nicely sculpted version from the animation. These are both static pieces, but the talons are soft enough to cling to Bluegrass’ arm. I’m impressed that he can hold both with his arm out and still balance on his own.

And finally, you get Sideman in his guitar mode. This is a bit smaller than his cartoon accurate guitar, but has some excellent paint and has the bird features throughout, with the wings “folded” behind the guitar’s main body. You also get a shoulder strap for this guitar and the fret and strum hands work well with this guitar too. My only complaint here is that it is not compatible with the effect parts. Mostly likely, I’ll always be displaying Bluegrass with the cartoon guitar and the perched version of Sideman beside him.

While fans of the Kenner toyline may scoff, I really dig what Super7 is doing with this line. Bluegrass looks like he stepped right out of the cartoon, and that’s exactly what I was looking for. I also really appreciate how they are still paying homage to the bird companions, even though they didn’t get introduced until late in the TV series. I will toss out the one caveat that the QC could have used a bit more polish. There’s nothing here that egregious, but paint rubs on the shoulder and the mohawk really do hamper things a bit, and from what I hear some of the figures are shipping with a lot worse. I’ll have more to say about the QC when I check out Steelwill, but hopefully, Super7 can get that sort of stuff under control when the intended first wave finally ships.

Mar 27 2023

Silverhawks Ultimates: Mon-Star and Throne by Super7

I was positively giddy when Super7 announced they were doing Silverhawks figures! While admittedly nowhere near as solid as its younger toon cousin, ThunderCats, Silverhawks was one of the last cartoons I really got into before succumbing to the “I’m too cool for cartoons” teenage years. And it’s rare that I have an excuse to gas on about this cartoon, so pardon me if I get a little longwinded. The series featured the same amazing level of animation as ThunderCats, some even more colorful and bizarre characters, and a lot of the same voice actors. Larry Kenney, Lion-O himself, even narrates the opening of the pilot episode and introduces us to the characters. It follows a very similar formula to its catcentric cartoon cousin, and I’ve even read somewhere that it was intended to take place in the same universe. I’ll get more into the Silverhawks themselves when I have a look at Bluegrass next week, but today we’re looking at the reason the Silverhawks have jobs, and that’s the evil Limbo Mob Kingpin, Mon-Star!

Technically, we’re starting with the second wave, because the planned first wave was delayed. Mon-Star comes in an elongated window box to house all his extras, but the package design is similar to what we saw for the ThunderCats Ultimates, with a slipcase that lifts off to reveal the goods. The slipcase and box have a beautiful crimson foil finish and the front of the slipcase has Mon-Star’s ugly mug in his powered-up form. Much like Mumm-Ra, Mon-Star had a regular form and a powered up form, which he attained by absorbing the power of the Moon Star and reciting the incantation… “Moon Star of Limbo, give me the might, the muscle, the menace of Mon-Star!” He’s also the leader of the Limbo Galaxy’s most notorious mob of gangsters. Today we’re looking at his regular form, which unlike Mumm-Ra is pretty damn impressive all by himself! Inside the box, you get the figure, two additional heads, no less than five pairs of hands, and two versions of his buddy Sky Shadow. Also included in this wave is his throne, which is packaged separately.

Here’s Mon-Star out of the box, and like I said, he’s pretty intimidating before he even gains that might and muscle of the Moon Star! This is also the very first time we’re getting an actual figure based on this form, as the original Kenner figure was based on his powered up form, with only a changeable face to show the transformation. Mon-Star is quite literally a beast of a figure, content with waring very little in the way of clothes. He has a furry diaper to protect his mon-star modesty, although, I suppose that could just be his natural hair, because has some similar fringe coming off his forearms. And if true, that’s kind of gross. He also has some armor on his upper chest, and two shoulder pieces with spikes angled outward. He’s a savage looking creature with some chiseled muscles, all brought out in what is a solid, albeit basic sculpt. He does, however, have some pretty good detail in them monster feets. His skin is mostly black with some maroon wash here and there, a maroon finish to his armor, and some flame red touches on his furry bits.

The portraits are huge, mainly because of his wild and copious coif of lion-like hair, and it is a glorious mane. The plastic pouf radiates outward from his face with alternating red and black strands. Mon-Star also has a long tuft of red hair protruding from his chin. He’s an ugly sonuvagun with a squished nose and jagged teeth protruding from his closed lips. One piercing eye gazes forward while his left eye is covered by a patch, and bares the Light Star, one of his fiercest weapons.

The second option gives us an even wilder hair sculpt and his mouth slightly parted. I never knew what was up with that middle tooth that looks like it’s growing up out of the top of his jaw, but it sure is faithful to the cartoon. There’s a sharper angle to his right brow on this head, showing that he is more than mildly displeased.

And finally you get his Oh, shit, he’s really pissed head. The hair is even wilder, and you get a little more black wash in the red areas. His mouth is further agape, his exposed eye is wide with range, and the Light Star on his patch is clearly active. In the cartoon, the Light Star was a beam weapon, which had the power to immobilize or even take control of his targets. All three of these heads are excellent, and with the bulk of the figure being a little plain, it’s nice to see Super7 poured the sculpted detail into these portraits. As for which one to display on the figure? That’s a tough one, but chances are I’ll mostly go with the second one.

The articulation here should hold no surprises if you’ve handled any of Super7’s Ultimates. It’s not exceptional, but it gets the job done. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows with the wrists on hinged pegs so you can swap out the hands. The legs are ball jointed up in the hips and have rotating hinges in the knees and ankles. There’s a ball joint under his chest and a ball joint in his neck. The joints all feel great and while it would have been nice to have a better range of motion in the elbows, I can still have plenty of fun with him.

The number of hands here is absolutely ridiculous! You get five sets: Fists, accessory holding hands, pointing finger hands, grasping hands, and somewhat relaxed hands. It’s pretty luxurious to get a full pair of pointing fingers, and I’m not entirely sure what the accessory holding hands are for, but it’s nice to cover all the bases. He also comes with a single right trigger hand. Again, he has no weapon, but I suppose he can borrow one from his cohorts, so that’s cool.

The only accessories here are the two versions of Sky Shadow. This companion beast was introduced in Episode 9, when Mon-Star asked one of his cronies, Hardware, to make himself a cyborg bird capable of thwarting the Silverhawks spy, Tallyhawk. In the toy line, and eventually the cartoon, each character had their own bird-buddy. Sky Shadow was a sort of space dragon that was captured by Hardware and converted into a cyborg, which is just a sample of the kind of body horror that this cartoon flippantly engages in. The first version depicts Sky Shadow before getting all borged up. He’s a little bit cuter here than he was in the cartoon and looks more like a baby dragon than a vicious bird creature. It’s a nice bonus, even though he was only seen in this form briefly before he had the horrific surgeries forced upon him.

The second version is Cyborg Sky Shadow, but he’s closed up in his perched mode. It’s not the Sky Shadow that everybody wants, but that one will be included with the powered up version of Mon-Star. Indeed, this isn’t much of an accessory, as it’s kind of just a jumble of cyborg bird parts all rolled up with two lobster claws showing through. And that brings us to the throne!

This throne comes in a window box without a slipcase cover. It’s called the Transformation Chamber Throne, but I don’t remember him having to be in it to change form. Indeed, I pulled out my DVD set and watched a bunch of episodes since these figues came in and I only recall seeing the throne a few times.

And it is indeed just a big chair, but a pretty nice one. The sculpt has some granite-like fissures throughout the surface with some cutouts running up the inside back and fronts of the armrests. The back has ribbed cable-like tubes coming off and ending on the floor, presumably connecting the chair to the Transformation Chamber. It’s a cool design with a very organic and almost HR Giger feel to it. The color has a nice stone and light blue swirly look to it.

Mon-Star fits in it pretty well, with his feet firmly planted on the ground and his hands stretched out to the arm rests looking like he’s ready to start berating Yes-Man or crying about how the cursed Silverhawks defeated him yet again. For some reason, I think he looks really good seated in it with his angry head and pointing hand. Is the chair worth it? Well, at $45, I’m kind of iffy about that. It’s not nearly as iconic to me as say Mumm-Ra’s tomb, and while it is a very solid piece and looks great, I’m not sure that there’s really $45 of value here. I mainly got mine because I just pre-ordered the whole wave, which I think knocked ten bucks off of it. I’m not sorry I got it, but I wouldn’t have hunted one down if it wasn’t included in the assortment.

And while the throne is simply OK, I couldn’t be happier with how Mon-Star turned out. I’m really thrilled to finally have a figure of this version of the character, since the cartoon features him like this a lot. Not having this Mon-Star seemed like a huge gap in the original figure line. This is a beautiful figure that comes close to rivaling powered up Mumm-Ra in size, which makes me extra excited to see how big his powered up version will be when the intended first wave actually ships in a month or so. So far this line is off to a great start! I’ll try to carve out a slot for next week to take a look at the first of the Silverhawks, starting with Bluegrass!