Tag Archives: ultimates

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.

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 22 2023

Dungeons & Dragons: Ultimate Grimsword by NECA

Just to show how behind I am on unfinished business, it’s been over TWO MONTHS since I checked out Warduke, from NECA’s first wave of Ultimate Dungeons & Dragons figures. Poor Grimsword has been waiting all this time to get the spotlight and he’s probably starting to take the snub personally. And seeing as how this is a guy I probably don’t want to piss off, let’s give him his due today…

Like Warduke, Grimsword comes in what appears to be a fully enclosed box, but it’s actually got a front flap that opens to reveal a window to show off the goods. It’s the same thing NECA has been using for their Ultimate figures since the beginning. The artwork on the front is nothing terribly gripping, but it gets the job done. You get a diagonal band at the top left corner pointing out that he is yet another EVIL action figure, so thankfully we’re going to get at least one hero in the next wave.

And here is Grimsword freed from his cardboard tomb and ready to prowl the dungeon looking for Do-Gooders to slay! Grimsword is a brute of figure, being overall bigger and bulkier than even the mighty Warduke. He also looks like some kind of evil golem clad in armor cursed with a snake fetish, and ready to do his evil master’s bidding. But, according to his bio, he’s just another evil warrior looking for trouble. What I love the most about this figure is how NECA managed to take what was a pretty silly looking design and make it both imposing and scary without actually changing any of the design elements of the original LJN figure. And there is indeed so much great stuff here, I don’t know where to begin.

Perhaps the coolest thing here is the weathered finish on the black plate armor. It has a rich and almost chalky look to it that practically radiates evil. Worked into all that black is some silver wear at the edges and overall scuffing that reveals the bare steel underneath it all. The gauntlets have sculpted brown straps with silver painted fixtures, along with rivets and detailed segments in each of the fingers. Similar straps are sculpted onto the greaves. The elbow and knee guards are painted red with silver bolts and his left knee has a green snake’s head. Another green snake motif coils itself around Grimsword’s abdomen, with it’s head reaching up and flicking a red tongue, which becomes a stripe for the flared right shoulder guard. The lower left shoulder is battered with markings from previous battles. The sculpted texture on the snake’s body is simply superb and really transforms what was kind of goofy on the LJN figure into something pretty badass. The armor is finished off with textured silver chainmail exposed on his upper thighs, his shoulders, and more peeking out around his elbow guards.

The head has also been amped up for a more realistic and sinister visage. Grimsword’s head is encased entirely in the same deep dark armor to match his body. There are sculpted bolts and some nasty gashes. The top of the helmet is crested with a mohawk-like comb of tan bristles and red barbed spikes protrude from the sides of the helmet. These can be angled in different ways, but I prefer them pointing forward and slightly down. From inside the deep set eyeholes of the helmet’s mask, you can make out two glowing red eyes.

Grimsword packs the same articulation as Warduke, so I won’t run through it all again here. I will say that as a chonky boi, he’s fun to play with, but the range of motion in his elbows is somewhat hindered by all that armor. He comes with a bevy of hand options, including fists, pointing finger hands, relaxed hands, and several designed to work with his accessories.

As for weapons, Grimsword comes with a scimitar, which can be worn on the golden hook on his left hip, which is a direct callback to the vintage figure. There’s no scabbard for the sword, so it just slides in there, but it stays put pretty well. The grip is simple, with a gold pommel and red crossguards. The silver blade has a sweeping curve, swells a bit toward the point and looks like it would be pretty fierce for slashing at foes. NECA really took some liberties with the simple LJN accessory, and I like it a lot, even if it feels a little too elegant and stylish for this brute.

His other weapon option is definitely a lot better suited to him. His spiked flail continues the running snake theme with the shaft being a hooded cobra and the handle a golden rattle. Yes, he’s mixing his snake metaphors, but I’m not going to be the one to tell him. Like the snake coiling itself around Grimsword’s armor, this flail is a beautifully sculpted piece with the nasty spiked ball hanging from an actual chain. I love it!

And finally, Grimsword comes with his shield, and boy is this a real showpiece of an accessory! It’s a giant snake head in the center of more of that awesome blackened steel. I’d like to think that this is an actual giant snake head taken as a trophy in battle, but that could probably get pretty messy every time he deflects a blow with it. Nonetheless, the sculpting and paint on it are both gorgeous, and once again NECA managed to take a pretty goofy looking aspect of the LJN figure and make it stunningly cool! The reverse of the shield has two arm straps, which secures it well enough without the hand needing to grip anything.

I kind of feel sorry for Grimsword. He is an absolutely fantastic figure, but he had to share a wave with Warduke, and as great as he is, there’s no way he could compete with that Warduke figure. I doubt anyone could. Warduke just has a lot more potential for detail in his design, more accessories, and he remains quite possibly the best figure in this scale that I’ve seen this year from any license or manufacturer. On the other hand, with Grimsword NECA was able to take a design that looked like bad Renaissance Festival cosplay and make it into an absolutely fierce and formidable design. They were practically able to reinvent him without really changing any of his trademark details. Warduke made me feel like NECA presented the best this line could offer right out of the gate, but Grimsword makes me very eager to see what amazing things they can do with some of the other LJN character designs. We’ve got Strongheart and Zarak coming next, and boy do I hope this line keeps going well beyond that!

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.

Jan 20 2023

ThunderCats Ultimates: Electro-Charger by Super7

As promised, I’m back today to round out the week with a look at the very first vehicle released in Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates line. Besides being absolutely stoked to be getting Mandora the Evil Chaser’s flying police motorcycle, I was also curious to see how this toy would turn out as an indicator of future possibilities. And I’m not just talking about the ThunderTank, but more so the variety of one-person vehicles released in LJN’s original toyline. Not long ago, I bought a vintage LJN Skycutter, which scales fairly well with the Ultimates figures, but I’d love to see Super7 get to work on their own version of the Skycutter, Nosediver, and other fun little vehicles! Hopefully, you already checked out my look at Mandora from a few days ago. If not it should be right below this one, otherwise… let’s get to it!

The Electro-Charger comes in a window box, with the window wrapping around the front and top panels. The front has the classic ThunderCats logo and it identifies the Electro-Charger as “Mandora’s Interstellar Transport Vehicle!” The back panel of the box has some shots calling out some of the toy’s features, as well as a cool photo of Mandora with her sweet ride. The toy is 99% assembled (only the rear antenna needs to be attached), so it displays great in the box, and the packaging is totally collector friendly. Just pop off the antenna, and you can use the box as a garage!

Out of the box, this thing looks absolutely amazing. The design looks a lot like a police motorcycle model kitbashed with a spaceship model, and I mean that in the most loving way imaginable. The clean white plastic looks fantastic, and the toy is all about those sweeping curves and smooth rounded surfaces. The translucent red caps on the front of the wings are reminiscent of the bussard collectors on the USS Enterprise, while the yellow star, windshield, and transparent yellow headlamp and side panels drive home the police motorcycle motif.

There’s sides of the space bike are fitted blue panels and silver exhaust tubing, with some lovely burn marks painted around the edges. The blue paint contrasts beautifully with the white and the silver paint on the pipes has a gorgeous satin finish. The two seats are ribbed and painted black with an extended back on the rear seat. Below that you get the Interplanetary Control Force emblem printed in yellow, a tall antenna, and a single yellow rear tail light. Super7 did a beautiful job recreating the cartoon model of this bike in plastic, and it sure is an impressive toy to hold.

The dashboard sports some excellent detail with a painted control console and a set of silver handlebars with black grips. You also get two console display options, thanks to swap out instrument boards which connect to the dashboard via magnets. The first option is a display screen, which I think is how the console appeared in Mandora’s debut episode. The second panel features a host of switches and buttons. This panel was showcased in the episode Cracker’s Revenge, where Captain Bragg’s avian companion Crownan had to operate the bike because Mandora was tied to it and it was speeding out of control.

Just like in the cartoon, the Electro-Charger has retractable tires to allow it to land and be driven just like a regular motorcycle. Depending on the episode, sometimes the wheels were deployed even when it was in flight. I’m guessing that was an animation error, rather than being intentional. There’s no mechanism to deploy the wheels, instead you first have to remove the two hatches, which are held on by clips. Once those are off, you can open the hatch on the back of the bike with the Interplanetary Control Force insignia to push down the back wheel, while the front wheel can just be grabbed and pulled out through the open hatch. There’s also a flip down kickstand in the middle, but I didn’t find it was really necessary, as the bike seems to sit fine without it.

The kickstand also houses the hole which the translucent flight stand can be pegged into. It’s a rock solid connection and it displays the bike in a slightly inclined manner. Mandora herself fits perfectly on the bike and you can use a few different pairs of hands to grip the handlebars, depending on how tight you want that grip to be. I found the looser grips work just as well and are easier to get her hands on and off the grips. And boy does she look fantastic on the bike!

The back seat is roomy enough for Lion-O or any of the other ThunderCats to catch a ride, showing just what a good sized vehicle this is!

And as I mentioned yesterday, the Electro-Charger comes with Mandora’s Enzyme Catalyzer, or Soap Gun if you prefer. There’s even a hatch just below the handlebars that has a compartment to store it, which is where she kept it in her debut episode.

The Enzyme Catalyzer consists of the gun portion and the soap tank with a rubber hose running between them. There’s a grab bar on the tank so she can hold it in one hand while wielding the nozzle like a gun. You also get a soap spray effect part to attach to the nozzle! I love it!

It’s hard to believe that so many decades later, we finally have Mandora and her Electro-Charger in toy form! This is a beautiful and impressive toy, but with a price tag that is not for the weak of wallet. At $150, this one really tests the ThunderCats fanboy chops, and I can certainly see sticker shock preventing some collectors from buying it. With that having been said, the bike showcases some top notch craftsmanship, and I have absolutely no issues with mine when it comes to the paint or the overall build. It’s quite simply immaculate, which really bolsters my confidence in the upcoming ThunderTank. I was maybe a wee bit concerned about the possibility of buyer’s remorse on this one, but that certainly has not been the case and sure am happy to be able to display this in my collection! While it was offered as a pre-order, a number of online retailers are showing it in stock as we speak.

Jan 18 2023

ThunderCats Ultimates: Mandora by Super7

From what I’ve been hearing, we’re about a month away from Super7’s behemoth ThunderTank shipping out, but this month, we got another vehicle in the ThunderCats line with Mandora and her Electro-Charger both arriving here last week. I know, I have a few older ThunderCats releases on my backlog, but I couldn’t resist pushing the Evil Chaser and her sweet ride to the front of the line. These were released separately, so I’m going to check out Mandora today, and then we’ll have a look at the Electro-Charger on Friday!

Super7’s Ultimates packaging looks slick as ever. You get a beautiful window box with a sleeve over it. Lift off the sleeve, which is adorned with a red foil Eye of Thundera, and you get treated to a great look at the figure and accessories inside the box. The back panel has some nice character art, along with a little bio blurb about the character. Working for Interplanetary Control Force, an organization of interstellar space cops, Mandora is known as an Evil Chaser, and appeared in around half a dozen episodes of the original cartoon, peppered across both seasons. In her debut, she travels to Third Earth to recapture a trio of evil fugitives, which Lion-O accidentally set free. And yes, Super7, I’d like figures of Plutar, Burnout, and most of all Quick Pick, please and thank you!

Out of the box, Mandora is ready to hunt down fugitives no matter where they hide! Her costume is the spitting image of her animated counterpart, with a black bodysuit, sleeveless on the left side, red and pink boots and gauntlets, a gray belt with white and red belt buckle, some pink shoulder pads, and, what is that a half-jacket? Half a chest armor? I don’t know, but it looks great! While the shoulders are sculpted separately, sadly they are not designed to be removable, so you can’t recreate that bare shoulder look from her debut episode. Bummer! She also has a gray scabbard on her right leg to hold her boomerang!

You get no less than three different heads to choose from, all sporting her RoboCop-inspired visor with yellow ponytail sprouting from the back and back-swept headphones. The only difference between the first two heads is the way her ponytail is positioned. The first has it dropping straight down, while the other is a windblown look.

The third head has the ponytail blowing in the opposite direction and Mandora gritting her teeth. Her visor is also changed to a tracking display. The paint on my figure’s second head could be a little cleaner, especially when you punch in real close with the camera, but I don’t have any issues with the other two. I might as well take this opportunity to address the skin tone. Super7 went with bare, unpainted plastic for the skin which looked really waxy in the promo shots. In hand, I think it looks fine, and I’d even go so far as to say I think it turned out better than if they had painted it.

Mandora has pretty much the same articulation as the other two ladies of the line, which means it’s definitely serviceable, but far from the best. The legs have ball jointed hips, rotating hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The neck is ball jointed and there’s a ball joint under the chest. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, with hinged pegs for the hands to swap them out. And boy do you get a lot of hands! You get fists, relaxed hands, grasping hands, accessory holding hands, you even get a right pointing hand and a right thumbs-up hand. As for the articulation, the biggest issue remains the range of motion in the elbows and knees, which does feel limited. Thankfully, there are slits cut in the back of the shoulders to keep them from hindering the shoulder movement.

As for accessories, Mandora has an inventory of goodies that hits most of the beats. Her trademark boomerang is front and center, actually she has two of them: One standard, and one with a trailing motion effect. The boomerang is nice and colorful with a white base and blue and red accents. The motion effect has a semi-transparent red trail that looks great.

Next up, you get a set of handcuffs with real chain connecting them. The cuffs do not open, but you only need to pop off a figure’s hands to slip them on.

She has her ID badge with her picture printed on a sticker.. Depending on which episode you’re watching, Mandora sometimes flashed her badge with her picture upright and sometimes with the badge part at the top and her picture upside down. The sticker on my figure’s accessory is kind of rough, with some chipping on the edges, but it’s pretty small and hard to notice with the naked eye.

And lastly, you get her computerized ticket book and the tracking device she used to hunt fugitives. Both of these are pretty simple accessories, but cool additions nonetheless. Pity we didn’t get some tiny paper tickets to hand out to Snarfer. Assuming we actually get Snarfer. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ll get a Snarfer.

I was super excited when Mandora first got solicited and now that I’ve get her in hand, I’m thrilled to have her in my collection. It always surprised me that she didn’t get an LJN release in the original toyline, as she’s a damn cool looking character, and she sure came back for a good number of episodes. Now, naturally the big omission with Super7’s figure is her enzyme-catalyzer (aka. soap gun). Super7 didn’t forget it, but rather chose to bundle it with the Electro-Charger. I was always going to pick up her ride, so I don’t mind it getting put in with the bike, but I can see why some collectors might consider it a cheap move. Not everyone is going to buy both the figure and the bike. So yeah, I think they should have included it with the figure. Come on back Friday and we’ll have a look at the Electro-Charger!

Dec 10 2021

ThunderCats Ultimates: Captain Cracker by Super7

I’m trying to parse out my reviews of Super7’s third wave of ThunderCats Ultimates, since there are only three figures and who knows when more will ship. Last time I checked out Slithe and now I’m turning my attention to that cantankerous clockwork clunker and evil space pirate, Captain Cracker!

You get the same beautiful style packaging as we saw last time, but Cracker’s box is a lot smaller, as he doesn’t have nearly the chonk factor of Slithe. It seemed to cause some collectors a lot of distress to see Captain Cracker turn up in Wave 3 of Super7’s ThunderCats. No doubt, they were hoping for a more prominent character, but I was pleased to no end. As eager as I am to complete my ThunderCats and Evil Mutants, I’m fine with them peppering the waves with more peripheral characters. And it’s not like Cracker was a one and done villain. After he was introduced running afoul of Mandora the Evil Chaser, he returned for two more episodes, the third of which even got him top billing in Cracker’s Revenge!
ThunderCats character designs tend to cut two ways. You’ve got your bad-ass characters and your goofy characters. Guess which group Cracker belongs to! But goofy or not, he has the potential to make for a great action figure!

And on the whole, I think that fun potential is realized here. Despite being a robot, Cracker wears clothes! His plastic wardrobe consists of tan trousers with a brown shoe on his left foot and just a metallic peg protruding from his right knee. He’s got an orange shirt with sculpted black vest, ragged sleeves, fingerless white gloves, and a brown belt with a sheath for his dagger. The sculpt is pretty basic here, which fits for the animated aesthetic. I do think it was a little cheap sculpting the vest as part of the body, rather than making it a separate piece worn by the figure. The paint could have been a lot cleaner around those ragged sleeves. If this were a twenty dollar, off the rack figure, I could be more forgiving.

At least they didn’t cheap out on the heads, as you get two portraits to choose from. The standard features Cracker offering a malevolent mugging and evil grin, showing every one of his weird white robot teeth. Super7 did a nice job capturing Cracker’s personality with some very nice detail. The Captain has a sculpted dew-rag “tied” around the top of his head. He’s got a prominent, a pointed spike for a nose, and an eyepatch bolted to his face. His exposed right eye is drawn on his face and looks wonderfully cheesy. Cracker has what looks like whiskers for a mustache and right eyebrow. I seem to remember the mustache sparking when Cracker got mad in the cartoon.

The second head gives Cracker a surprised expression, with his jaw clamped shut and his one eye wide open. Who’s laughing now, Cracker?

The Captain comes with three sets of hands, including two fists, two relaxed hands, one right accessory holding hand and one left graspy hand. Considering he comes with two weapons, I’m kind of put out that we didn’t get a left hand for holding his other weapon. So, let’s take a look at the weapons.

The dagger is a nice piece, with a gold painted hilt and a silver blade. It fits snugly into the sheath on his belt, and he can hold it perfectly fine in that one accessory holding hand.

His other weapon is a cutlass, and this is all silver. Either they were going for something simple to emulate the animated look, or they were too cheap to paint the hilt. Honestly, I can’t remember what Cracker’s sword looked like in the cartoon, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s fine. There’s no scabbard for it, but you can thrust it through his belt when he’s not using it. It sure would have been nice to have him hold the sword in one hand and the dagger in the other, but nope!

Cracker also comes with a wrench, which I assume was included based on the scene in Mandora and the Pirates, where he threatens to take Quick Pick apart with the wrench if Mandora doesn’t give herself up. I suppose he could also use it to do maintenance on himself. Also… Can we get a Quick Pick figure, please?

And last but not least is Cracker’s bird, which I’m pretty sure was never given a name, but hopefully someone will correct me if I’m wrong. [Oh, wait. It’s Polly. It’s actually printed on the back of the box!] Actually, you get two versions of The Captain’s trusty sidekick, one with wings at his side and one with wings spread. Both of these are sculpted and painted very nicely, and both feature rotating heads. They also both feature a peg in the feet that plugs into the hole on Cracker’s left shoulder.

The peg works pretty well, but for it to work, Cracker’s arm needs to stay down. I would have loved another display option. Like maybe a way to clip the bird to his arm or a hand with a peg hole to hold him.

I like robots. I like pirates. It stand to reason that I would love a robot pirate! With that being said, I think Captain Cracker turned out pretty good, but not quite great. It felt like I had a litany of nitpicks in this review, and they started to add up. Cracker is a great looking figure, and I’m happy to have him in my collection, but I think this was a figure that needed to really win fans over for being released so soon in the line, and I’m not sure he has what it takes to do that.

Oct 22 2021

Gremlins: Ultimate Gremlin and Gamer Gremlin by NECA

If you stopped by hoping for an action figure review of a Funnybook Character, GI Army Man, or Convertorobo Car, well… THOSE AREN’T SPOOKY! And spooky is what I’m all about right now as Halloween Horror Month grinds ever onward, crushing the bones of those who fall by the wayside into dust. Now, feel free to call foul as Gremlins is indeed a Christmas movie… nay, a Christmas Classic! Right up there with the likes of Die Hard. But it’s also a horror movie, and I’ve got a lot of Gremlins to look at, dammit, so I’m slipping them into this Action Figure Monster-Thon! Today I’m looking at both the regular vanilla Gremlin and the Gamer Gremlin!

You know the deal by now! NECA’s Ultimate figures come in boxes with front flaps that open to reveal a window to show off the figure inside. Regular Gremlin has a reproduction of the movie poster on the front, while Gamer Gremlin has the same, but with the obnoxious Gamer Gremlin bursting through and looking EXTREME!!! As indicated on the box, the Gamer Gremlin started out as a Gamestop Exclusive, but right now my Target has a few of them, so I guess he ain’t one no more! Man, it’s been too long since I last watched Gremlins. I should remedy that this month, but maybe I’ll wait until closer to Christmas. For now, I’ll just put on my Quarterflash LP and listen to Make it Shine.

It doesn’t matter which one I start with, because as near as I can tell they are both the same Gremlin figure, but with different accessories. Truth be told, I have a few of each and they’ve been mixed up so even I don’t know which is which anymore. The sculpt is excellent, with every inch of the figure covered in reptilian-like scales and texturing. The proportions look good, with the elongated arms and the stubby, canine-shaped back legs and dinosaur feet. I liked the homogeneous Gremlins design from the original film a lot more than the varied look featured in the second. I enjoy Gremlins 2 for what it is, but I don’t love it, and I’m not intending to collect any of The New Batch. The fact that they were just an army of identical beasties made them more like dealing with a swarm. It also lets me army build the hell out of them. The paintwork is solid enough, but I feel like they went a little heavy handed on the yellow stripes, but that’s just me nitpicking. The muted striping on the tail section looks rather cockroach like and delightfully icky.

The head is just about perfect, as far as I’m concerned. It captures all the personality of the original puppets, and I can’t even nitpick the paint here either. The eyes are incredibly lifelike, and I love the evil smile with the top row of teeth showing. The jaw is even hinged, and opening the mouth reveals the bottom row of choppers, as well as his tongue. One of my Gremlins’ jaws opens a little crooked, but it’s not a big deal.

The articulation is good on paper, but all of my Gremlins have at least one or two stuck joints. I haven’t given any of them a hot bubbly stove-top bath yet, but there are some joints here that I’m too nervous to give a workout until I can get around to that. I’ve owned enough NECA figures to know when a joint feels like it might rather snap than cooperate. He’s mostly loaded down with rotating hinges, and the ones in the arms work particularly well. I don’t have as much luck below the waist. The canine-like legs are difficult to work with by design, and these are where I’ve encountered most of my stuck joints. Still, they’re pretty easy to get standing in all sorts of poses, even if their feet aren’t always planted firmly on the ground. And heck, even the ears are articulated! OK, let’s check out some accessories!

The regular Gremlin comes with all sorts of bits and bobs from the film, and it all seems to be from the Bar Scene or the Theater Scene, and that makes sense, because these are where the Gremlins antics involved the most props. The frosty mug of beer looks great, and can be held quite convincingly in the left hand, and a little less so in the right. One of the cool things about it is you can take out the plastic beer and suds and have an empty glass. I know these are considered Adult Collectibles, but I’m still surprised, what with the way the world is today, that NECA was able to include an alcoholic beverage in with an action figure. But, it’s not like they’re promoting tobacco right?

Oh shit, he comes with a ciggy too! OK, I guess all bets are off! Beer and smokes for everyone! I heard that Amblin drew the line at including a gun, which may or may not be true. So that’s just the A and the T out of the ATF. Like Meatloaf sang, Two out of three ain’t bad. So, don’t be sad! Besides, I’ve got plenty of guns lying around to give them.

You also get a hand of playing cards, which are a bit more difficult to get them to hold, but with just a little patience and I was able to make it work. Moving on from the Bar, let’s check out the Theater stuff!

Everybody loves over-priced theater candy, right? The Gremlins sure do, because they didn’t pay for any of it. You get a packet of Brad Bites, which are basically off-brand Skittles, anda Doo-Dah Bar, which I think is an off-brand Baby Ruth Bar. Both are pretty cool, especially since I’m reviewing these figures at Halloween, so I can have them trick-or-treating for candy.

You also get an icy cold Cola to wash down the candy. I really dig that this is a cardboard cup. If you have a bunch like me, you even even crumple one of them to look like garbage.

Finally, you get a pair of paper popcorn bags to put on the Gremlins’ ears and a pair of old school 3D glasses. Yeah, these are pretty cheap accessories, but damn they look great and they are lots of fun. I wish other companies would get this creative with their action figure accessories every now and then. Let’s move on and see what Gamer Gremlin got!

Gamer Gremlin comes with the same paper cup of Cola, but he also comes with a big bucket of golden, buttery plastic popcorn! You can remove the popcorn piece to see that it has eye holes cut out so he can wear it as a creeper mask top hat. I don’t know why I love this so much, but I really do.

He also comes with a beanie hat and a pair of sunglasses. I dig the sunglasses, I’m not as keen on the hat. YES, I REALIZE HE SHOULD BE WEARING IT BACKWARDS!!! I put it on wrong, because I’m a stupid head and the Jameson told me to. It doesn’t matter which way it’s facing. I just don’t care for it. Fortunately, the rest of Gamer Gremlin’s stuff is pure gold.

As an Atari enthusiast, I was absolutely tickled to see him come with a little replica Atari controller as well as a copy of Gremlins in an homage to the game’s Atari 5200 box. I actually played this game most on my Commodore 64, but it’s a really fun and addictive game on any system. I don’t mind the Atari 2600 Gremlins game either, but that shit is crazy expensive and the fact that I no longer own that cartridge makes me sad. Anyway, the attention to detail on these two accessories is just wonderful.

And lastly, Gamer Gremlin comes with an homage to the old Coleco tabletop games. I’m pretty sure it was Coleco’s Donkey Kong in the movie, and I thought I remembered the Mogwai playing it, but like I said, it’s been forever since I watched it. Rather than face the full fury of Nintendo litigation, the game has been rebranded as The Fail Guy, but everything else about this little arcade machine is pretty damn spot on.

At one point I had seven of these little bastards, but I wound up trading a couple to a friend who couldn’t find them. Now, these guys are all over the place, and I’m constantly resisting the urge to pick up more when running into Target for something. I should probably just pour water on the ones I have! It doesn’t surprise me that I’m hooked on these, because when I was growing up I had that big Gremlin figure by LJN and I carried him around all over the place like a My Buddy doll. Needless to say, it’s great to have some Gremlins represented in my collection again. I still need to pick up Flasher Gremlin and the Caroling Gremlins eventually. When I come back after the weekend, we’ll check out one more Ultimate Gremlin… Stripe!