Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0099: Kang

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

KANG

SECRET WARS (MATTEL)

Welcome to another Friday here at the Figure in Question!  I’m just doing my best to keep a positive vibe alive here, and, well, maybe the focus of today’s Flashback Friday Figure Addendum isn’t the *best* way for doing that, but I’m gonna take another look at him anyway, so let’s have a return look at Kang!

Yesterday, I said that Doctor Doom was the greatest comicbook villain of all time. But, what about the second greatest comicbook villain? If I’m honest, I’d probably go with the focus of today’s review, Kang the Conqueror. Now, I’m sure at least some of my readers aren’t super familiar with Kang. Kang’s an old-school Avengers villain. He’s a guy from the future, who went all the way back to ancient Egypt, then decided to come to the present, and then eventually went back to the future, so that he could then come back to the present. It’s a little complicated. In his past he was both Rama Tut and Iron Lad, and in the future he becomes Immortus (another Avengers villain). The point is, he’s a lot of fun. He’s managed to get a surprising number of action figures over the years, but today I’ll be looking at his very first.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kang is another figure from the first series of Mattel’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars line. He’s kind of an odd choice, truth be told. He’s not one of Marvel’s better known villains, and plays a very minor role in the tie-in comics. Still,I’m hardly going to complain about getting a Kang figure! He stands 4 ½ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. Kang was built on the basic body for the line, with the arms from Iron Man (and Doctor Doom) and a unique head. The head is goofy, but not a terrible translation of his design from the comics. It’s not quite as good as some of the later Kang figures, but it doesn’t totally suck. It’s a little flat. The Iron Man arms are actually a pretty good fit, though Kang is usually depicted in a loose-fitting shirt in the comics. Kang also has an add-on piece for his belt/suspender thing, which works pretty decently for what it’s supposed to be. Kang’s paintwork isn’t super exciting. I mean, it’s accurate to his design, more or less, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to make it very exciting. The purple and green are both very dark and sort of run together. Also, the face is just straight light blue, with no variation, which looks kind of lazy. Kang included a blaster and yet another goofy lenticular shield.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Kang at the same time as Doom (and, by extension, Bane), from a dealer at Balticon. My Dad actually bought a Kang about 15 years ago at a flea market, and I’ve sort of wanted my own ever since, though not enough to do any serious searching. But, for $2, he was definitely worth picking up. There have been better Kangs since this one, but this one’s still not bad!

In 2016, when I wrote this review, I didn’t honestly expect that Kang would become a major point of the Marvel movies, and then also be completely removed without a trace, all within a decade.  That’s honestly kind of crazy.  Well, now that he’s back to being a virtual nobody again, let’s talk about Kang some more.  I think my main review is pretty much spot-on here.  He’s one of the better assembled figures from the line, maintaining a good accuracy to the comics without too much compromise.  He’s a little dark color wise, but otherwise fine.  My figure was initially missing his accessories, but, behold, I have found his shield and blaster.  How about that?  They’re goofy, but I can appreciate them for what they are.

#4159: ARF Trooper – Jungle Camo

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

ARF TROOPER — JUNGLE CAMO

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Advanced Recon Force (ARF) clone troopers conduct reconnaissance missions. They are trained in stealth techniques to gather information without being detected by the enemy. Wearing jungle camouflage armor, they are deployed to the planet Teth to scout the location where Jabba the Hutt’s son Rotta is being held captive.”

Something I’ve brought up on this site numerous times before is my particular appreciation of for the ARF style of helmet for the Clone Troopers.  It effectively serves as the Clone Wars counterpart to the Biker Scout design from Return of the Jedi, and I’m already a fan of them, so it didn’t take too much to get me on board with the ARF.  Once Hasbro had the ARF mold for the toyline, as with all the other clone molds, they really got some mileage out of them, so there were plenty of variants for me to horde.  Here’s one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jungle Camo ARF Trooper was added to Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars tie-in line in 2010, as figure CW24, released under the blue packaging style from that year.  This was, I believe the first re-deco of the ARF mold, and the only one to be single-packed.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 26 points of articulation.  The ARF mold remains one of my favorites from this line, as it not only has the really cool ARF helmet, but it also tweaked the hip joints to be universal joints, rather than just the t-hips of the standard clone, making for a better range of motion on this guy.  Where this figure changes things up, of course, is on the paint.  The original release was an all-clean shiny, but this release, as noted by the name, gives him jungle camo.  Provided that jungle is primarily white and grey, that is.  It’s a pretty impressive, and very in depth application of the camo patterns, which, along with shifting all of the accenting to dark grey, makes him rather different looking than the standard version.  The Jungle Camo ARF was packed with a DC-15S blaster, a D-6 Rotary blaster, a missile for the rotary blaster, a display stand, and a “chance cube” for the “Galactic Battle” game that ran with the blue package figures.  Wow, a repaint that came with more stuff than the original figure.  How novel!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I loved the original ARF Trooper, so this one was one I was on-board for at the very start.  I recall finding a bunch of the blue card figures while home from college, most likely for Thanksgiving break my freshman year, and this guy was in that batch.  While he may not be much in the way of new or unique, another shot at a really good mold is never a bad thing, and he had a fun new deco, so I’ve got no complaints.  I’m always down for another ARF.

#4158: Cyclops

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

CYCLOPS

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“The leader of the X-Men, Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, gears up to defend Mutantkind from extinction against a Multiversal threat”

There are certainly some missteps in the original X-Men movies, but one of the most notable is their handling of poor Cyclops, as portrayed by James Marsden.  Marsden himself was quite well cast in the role and gave it his all, but the material never quite met him, ending with his rather quick departure early into Last Stand.  He made a brief return at the end of Days of Future Past, but we haven’t gotten to see Marsden’s Cyclops in action since X2, 24 years ago.  Even Deadpool & Wolverine’s love-fest for the Fox movies was notably without Marsden, whom I’d really been hoping to see don a more comics accurate costume, akin to Hugh Jackman’s tiger stripe design.  Marsden is finally making his return as Cyclops, however, not in an X-Men film, but rather Avengers: Doomsday, where he’s return alongside a bunch of other former X-Men actors (though, sadly, not Famke Janssen as Jean Grey), and he’s even wearing an actual Cyclops costume.  He’s been rather central to a lot of the merchandise, including a Marvel Legend, which I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops is part of the first series of Avengers: Doomsday tie-in figures from Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line, which started hitting at the beginning of October.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 33 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is pretty much the standard set-up we’ve been getting with more recent movie figures.  It works well enough and doesn’t need to break up the sculpt too badly to maintain its range, so it works.  Cyclops’s sculpt is all-new to this figure, based on his design from the movie.  Unlike his earlier appearances where he was sporting black leather, this time around Marsden’s Cyclops is wearing something akin to Scott’s Jim Lee designed costume.  Tye Sheridan had something along these lines at the end of Apocalypse, but this one I think threads the needle a bit better on accuracy versus practicality, and I like the general set-up a bit better here.  The sculpt does a nice job of translating it all to figure form.  The head has a solid Marsden likeness, certainly better than pretty much any of the prior offerings (barring *maybe* the 2009 figure), and the proportions of the sculpt are quite nicely balanced.  The costume details seem to line up well with what we’ve seen so far of the movie design, and the texturing and small detail work is quite sharply handled.  The assembly of the figure allows a great deal of his color work to be handled via molded colors, but there’s a decent amount of paint as well.  An issue I noted with my figure is that the black outline on his visor seems to easily chip away.  It seems like the slick plastic and flat paint aren’t a great combo, and on my figure, light pressure from my thumb wiped it off.  I wasn’t a *huge* fan of the outline, and think it looks better without, but it’s an oddity of the figure to be sure.  Cyclops is packed with an alternate visor with a spot to slot a blast effect through, a blast effect, and two pairs of hands (fists and open).  The optic blast is the same one used on the Vintage, House of X, and X-Men ’97 versions, and notably doesn’t fit properly against the head like it did for those two, which looks rather odd, but I guess it’s better than no blast at all.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been all-in on the Marsden Cyclops figures since the first movie tie ins, 26 years ago.  I was genuinely hoping to see an update show up amongst the 20th Anniversary figures back in 2020, but alas, none materialized.  I knew I wanted this one before it was even officially confirmed.  He’s generally a pretty by the numbers figure for a modern Legends release, but that’s hardly a bad thing.  There are some slight quirks to the figure, and I can foresee the visor paint being an issue, but I’m honestly just happy to have him at all.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this figure for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#4157: Red Tornado

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

RED TORNADO

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“Red Tornado was constructed by Thomas Oscar Morrow to counteract the Super Heroes who interfered in his schemes. However, the android’s frame was possessed by a wandering wind elemental, and achieved unanticipated power and sentience.”

Back in April of 2025, I broke from my string of McFarlane Super Powers reviews in order to look at a stray Kenner Super Powers figure I hadn’t yet reviewed, and that figure was Red Tornado.  Oh how the turntables.  Despite his presence in the original line and relative obscurity compared to others who got an update in the newer line, Red Tornado made his way into the McFarlane line’s last dash of figures, and he’s the figure I’m taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Tornado is the second figure in Series 15 of McFarlane’s Super Powers continuation.  He’s figure 74 in the line-up, and marks Red Tornado’s second time in the style, following the original Kenner release.  The original figure used his classic attire, at this one sticks to the same set-up.  It makes a degree of sense, but there’s a part of me that sort of wishes we might have gotten his first appearance look, given McFarlane’s overall focus on the JSA in the last few assortments.  The figure stands about 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Reddy is built on the original Nightwing base body, which means he’s a bit oversized compared to both the original run and most of the later run McFarlane stuff.  Given there are a lot of other body types available to choose from at this point, it does seem like an odd choice, especially given its lack of flared gloves and cuffed boots that are usually signature to the character’s design, but are overlooked here.  He gets a new head sculpt, and it’s fine.  I like the smile.  It feels nice for the character.  It’s maybe a little soft, and the whole sculpt feels like a bit of a let-down compared to the dedicated sculpt of the original Kenner figure, but taken on its own, it’s not too bad.  He gets a separate cloth cape, which is actually made up of multiple different colors of fabric stitched together, making for a nicer overall appearance than the original cape, and it certainly holds up to wear a bit better.  Red Tornado’s color work is rather on the bright and colorful side, which is proper.  It makes the most of not having the sculpted lines to follow, and I think the stripes might be a bit too thin, but in general, the application is clean, and he does look rather striking.  This figure has no accessories, and since he’s on the Nightwing body, this release doesn’t have the ability to spin like his vintage counterpart.  You’ll just have to pretend.  With your imagination.  Crazy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I can’t say this was a figure that really enthused me upon announcement.  When Kenner ended their run, we were four members away from a Satellite era JLA line-up, so I’ve been waiting for McFarlane to add literally any of them to the line-up since the start.  The finally added their first Satellite era figure and it was Red Tornado, one of the ones we already got, which I can’t help but feel was a bit of a wasted slot.  Obviously, my heart is behind Elongated Man, but I’d have been happy to see Canary, Zatanna, or Hawkgirl, too.  Tornado’s…I mean he’s fine, but he’s at best a pale imitation of the Kenner figure.  Early in the line, I think he’s a figure I could have gotten behind, but this late in the game, I just find him more than a bit frustrating.  I can’t hate him, because I can’t bring myself to hate a semi decent Red Tornado figure, but…frustrating.  He’s just frustrating.

#4156: Wolverine 4th Edition — Weapon X

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

WOLVERINE 4TH EDITION — WEAPON X

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“A top-secret government project transformed the Mutant named Logan into the unbeatable warrior Weapon X. He was given unbreakable adamantium claws and a battle simulation helmet which created imaginary battle scenes that looked virtually real. Using these unique training weapons, Weapon X sharpened his combat skills to perfection. The ultimate secret agent, Weapon X later used his high-tech training to become the heroic X-Man Wolverine!”

Sometimes, I still get the oddest nostalgic twinge for some of my “Day of” bulk reviews, and I think about revisiting the idea for a fourth go, but then I remember how viscously exhausting they are, and decide to leave well enough alone and just remember the joy of thinking back on it as a done thing.  One of my favorite “Day of” sets to revisit is “The Day of the Wolverines,” where I bought, and then reviewed, a huge chunk of the Toy Biz 5-Inch Wolverines.  I do occasionally pick up new Wolverines, not in that set, including some of the variants of figures from that batch.  The first entry of that day took a look at Weapon X Wolverine in his standard colors, but today I’m looking at his first color variant!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wolverine 4th Edition — Weapon X was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line in 1992.  The initial release was with brown shorts and green cables, as reviewed on The Day of the Wolverines, but as with other releases around the time, KB Toys got its own paint variant, unique from the standard release.  The figure is just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  The mold is identical between releases.  It’s a nice one, and kind of a step above the other Wolverines in the same assortment (and honestly the Spy Wolverine from Series 4, as well).  It’s a very technically impressive sculpt, with decent balance on the proportions, and sharp detailing and smaller detail work. The change-up in the paint work that makes up this figure’s selling point is, admittedly, rather minor.  In place of the brown shorts and green cables, he instead grey shorts and red cables.  The exact coloring of such things varied in the comics, so this is really no more valid than the standard.  Like the standard figure, Weapon X includes his helmet, cables, and harness.  Like the core figure, the colors are altered a bit.  The helmet’s visor is purple instead of blue, the cables are red instead of green, and the harness is a medium brown with light green gizmos instead of tan with yellow gizmos.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I had the standard Weapon X sans accessories, and when I got a complete one, it was another standard.  I wasn’t sure about needing all the colors, but this one was mixed into a much larger batch of loose figures I picked up online a little while back.  Much like the Olive variant Spy Wolverine, I do find myself oddly fascinated by this KB Toys-exclusive color scheme.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for KB? Probably.  I do really think this guy’s neat, though.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0098: Doctor Doom

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

DOCTOR DOOM

SECRET WARS (MATTEL)

Hey ho and welcome to Friday everybody!  And isn’t it a great Friday?  I like to think so.  It’s the end of the week, and I like to wrap them up the way I always do, with a little bit of flashing back.  Today, I’m jumping back into Mattel’s Secret Wars with a return look at Doctor Doom!

If you asked me who I though the greatest super hero in comics was, I probably wouldn’t be able to give you a single answer. Maybe I could give like a list of five or so, but that’s the best I can do. The best super VILLAIN in comics, though? That’s easy. It’s Doctor Doom. No question. He’s as good as it gets, mostly because he doesn’t shy away from being an absurd comicbook caricature. He’s ridiculous, his plans are over the top and needlessly complicated, and he likes to speak in the third person a lot. He’s just a very fun character. Of course, movie makers decided that they could “improve” on that, resulting in two rather terrible live-action takes on the character, but I digress. Despite being the number one foe of the Fantastic Four, who were all represented in Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line, Victor Von Doom wouldn’t get his first action figure for another decade. I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Doctor Doom was released in the first series of Mattel’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars line. Doctor Doom has an interesting place in the line. He had a rather prominent role in the tie-in comic series produced by Marvel, but it’s worth noting that three of the four members of the Fantastic Four were also prominent in the series, yet Doom is the only FF-related character that the line released. Slightly odd if you ask me, but given how much of this line relied on using the same basic pieces for every figure, I guess Mattel just didn’t want to justify the costs of new molds for the likes of Sue or Ben.  Anyway, this figure stands 4 ½ inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation. Rather than going with the classic Doctor Doom design (because, hey, it had only been around for 20 years. Nobody was attached to it or anything), this figure gets a Mattel original design. It keeps a lot of the same basic cues as the usual Doom look, but gives him a more generic battle armor sort of look. To be fair, the design did appear in the comic tie-in towards the end, but I feel that was more to tie-in with the toy than working the other way around. Despite the line being mostly built on the same basic body, Doom actually uses none of the standard parts. That’s not to say he’s totally unique; he shares his arms and legs with Iron Man. Though Doom’s armor is usually not as sleek as Iron Man’s, but they’re close enough that it works alright. The right leg has been slightly tweaked to add a leg strap (apparently Doom was ahead of the ‘90s pouch craze), which works well enough. Doom has a unique head and torso, which are…decent? They don’t suck. There are even some fun little details, such as the jetpack on the back of the torso and the little rivets on the faceplate. Individually, they really aren’t bad, but they don’t work very together. The weirdest thing is the head, which has Doom’s signature hood, which ends rather abruptly. It’s almost as if it was sculpted to rest on top of some sort of cape piece, but no such piece was included. At one time, Doctor Doom had a rather complicated paint scheme on the torso, but Secret Wars figures are notorious for their paint wear, and this figure was no exception. As it stands, my figure’s only paint is on the head, for the eyes and mask, which are basic, but pretty well handled. Doctor Doom originally included two blasters and one of the wonky lenticular shields that all of the line’s figures had.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Doctor Doom last weekend at Balticon. I got him from the same vendor’s table where I got Bane, so he was another $2 figure. Secret Wars really isn’t a line I saw myself getting very invested in, but I keep finding them for pretty good deals. Doom is probably the weakest figure I’ve looked at so far. He really shows off a lot of the line’s flaws, especially with the toy-original design. Still, he’s not the worst figure I’ve ever owned, and I like having him for the novelty.

This figure was my first proper review of a Doctor Doom after moving to my more finalized review structure, which meant it was the first time I got to talk about how much I enjoy Doctor Doom as a character, and how much I dislike his movie incarnations.  And this year, we’re getting another go at the movie Doom…and I’m apprehensive, but that’s not the point of this entry, now is it?

The figure review here I think is pretty solid.  I didn’t love this figure then, and I still don’t.  He’s definitely awkward (as is most of the line).  Of course, my original review featured a figure that was badly worn, and had no accessories.  What if I had one with pristine paint and all of his parts?  Well, I got my hands on one, and I couldn’t help but do an update.  I’ll admit, all the extra stuff does make him a bit more fun.  The paint is more intricate, and I love how the guns can be stored on his body.  It’s just kind of neat.  Not the greatest figure, but neat, nonetheless.

#4155: Matchstick

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

MATCHSTICK

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Matchstick is a clone pilot in Shadow Squadron who goes on a fatal mission to destroy a Separatist ship. He flies a Y-Wing fighter/bomber to attack the Malevolence, a huge vessel armed with a deadly ion cannon. His Y-Wing is damaged while passing through a large nebula, a mishap that results in dire consequences for the trooper.”

Would you believe it if I told you that for the third week in a row, my dive into Hasbro’s Clone Wars tie-in line was going to be a look at a clone?  I mean, you probably would, right?  There were a lot of clones in that show.  Kind of the point, I guess.  The show had all manner of different clones, many of them with names, even when they might be relatively throw away characters.  But, that gave the toyline something to put on the box, and a great way to keep rotating through molds.  And that’s how you get figures like today’s focus, Matchstick!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Matchstick was released in the second year of Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars line, numbered CW34 in the line-up.  He’s based on the character’s appearance in “Shadow of Malevolence”, his only appearance, where he’s a rather standard Phase I Clone Pilot, albeit with a somewhat unique helmet decoration.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 26 points of articulation.  As with many of the Clones in the line, Matchstick exists through a lot of parts re-use.  He’s using most of the first standard Clone mold, but swaps out for Captain Rex’s head and upper torso, so that he can get a removable helmet.  It’s a good selection of parts, as it always is, and it makes for a nice match for the show, which is also quite fun to mess with.  He gets a new helmet piece, detailing his pilot style helmet.  It works really well, and ends up being one of the more screen accurate helmets we got from the line.  It’s surprising how well it scales, honestly, without much loss in terms of detailing or fit.  His paint work is mostly just basic stuff; he was mostly just a shiny.  That said, he gets some really fun toothy grin graffiti on his helmet, which makes him nice and unique looking.  Matchstick was packed with  a heavy gun missile launcher (like was included with the ARF Trooper) and a standard DC-15 blaster rifle.  He’s just a pilot in the show, but it’s nice to get the extras, and I’m always a fan of the heavy chain gun mold.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember Matchstick being released, but I never had the luck of finding one at retail.  Given the sheer number of clones I *did* pick up during the original run at retail, I wasn’t too concerned about it at the time, but I did always kind of want one.  During one of the larger batches of figures traded into All Time while I was working there, this guy came in sans accessories, and was kind of cheap at the time, so that’s when I snagged him, ultimately replacing his accessories along the way.  He’s not one of the more prominent clones or anything, but there weren’t a ton of pilots in the line, and he’s a unique one, so that makes him worthwhile.

#4154: Professor X

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

PROFESSOR X

X-MEN: THE MOVIE (TOY BIZ)

“Charles Francis Xavier possesses the most powerful mind on earth. The mutant telepath also known as Professor X can read the thoughts of others, impose his own will to take over other people’s minds or erase their memories. This visionary has dedicated his life to fighting for his dream of peaceful co-existence between man and mutantkind. To aid in this crusade, he founded a school for gifted youngsters to secretly train young mutants to control their amazing powers. Xavier now uses his special abilities to lead his clandestine team of “X-Men” into battle against Magneto and his brotherhood of evil mutants.”

It has been a week since the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart, and, honestly, I’m still kind of at a loss for words about it.  I never got the chance to meet him, but he had an immense impact on my life (along with many, many others), and there’s this sort of a hollow feeling about the whole thing still.  Sir Patrick took on many roles in his 86 years, but he devoted decades of his life to the roles of Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier, both part of rather merchandise driven franchises, so he did at least get his fair share of action figures along the way.  His final film performance will be in December’s Avengers: Doomsday, where he reprises the role of Charles Xavier for the ninth and final time.  I’m jumping back to the very beginning of this particular journey, with his figures from the very first X-Men movie.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Professor X was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s X-Men: The Movie tie-in line, released alongside the second series in the spring of 2000, to coincide with the release of the first movie.  There were two variants released, with different suit colors.  The standard release was the blue suit with the red tie, while the slightly rarer variant was the black suit with the silver tie.  The figure is just under 6 inches…long I guess would be the best way to describe him?  Tall is incorrect, because he doesn’t stand.  He has 12 points of movement, but I hesitate to call it all articulation.  Why all the roundaboutness?  Because the figure’s hip and knee joints are super loose, so they cannot hold a pose or even really sustain the figure’s weight.  That would make this perhaps the only Xavier mold to properly recreate his paralysis, so kudos to Toy Biz on that.  The mold was new to this line, and it’s a little bit awkward at times, especially compared to the more naturalistic sculpting of some of the line’s other figures.  He’s a bit stiff, and most of the articulation is rudimentary in its implementation.  There are some interesting quirks to the mold; there’s two peg holes in the back meant to connect him to his chair, as well as an additional sort of lever, which moves his arms upward, for some sort of magnetic feature that’s kind of odd and hard to understand the utility of.  The head sculpt is an interesting piece in that it’s kind of hard to address its quality without talking about the paint.  The original release, the blue suit, leaves the head’s skin tone unpainted, which leaves the sculpt with very little resemblance to Stewart.  The black suited variant, however, fully paints the head, resulting in a far better likeness.  It’s honestly astounding how much of a difference the paint application can make.  Both versions of the figure include the same chair, a rather involved piece of work, with a magnetic feature on the back and a pull-back motorized feature for the wheels.  It’s an accurate recreation of the signature chair used in the movies, and Toy Biz would also re-use the same mold for their Marvel Legends Professor X a few years later.  Professor X also included a Cerebro helmet accessory, which I’m unfortunately missing from both of my figures.  The second round of figures from the movie also included a third Professor X variant, this time sporting his non-metal chair from his visit to Magneto’s jail cell at the end of the movie.  The main Xavier figure uses the same mold, with a third paint scheme (and once again paints the skin on the head, for a far better likeness), while the chair has been modified to be a little closer to the one from the end of the movie.  It’s not a perfect recreation of the piece seen in the movie, since it just changes the wheels and arm rests, but it gets the idea across.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The release of the first X-Men movie is the first time I can really recall being hyped for a movie release.  I followed all the news and casting announcements closely, and I was very excited about Patrick Stewart’s presence, as he was honestly the only actor I knew beforehand.  When the figures hit, obviously, my first figure was Cyclops, but when my Nana took my cousin Rusty and I to Toys “R” Us to pick out some figures for a “hey you finished school” treat, I got to pick out two more X-Men and I chose Jean and Professor X.  There was some back and forth about the choice, and a definite push to get me to buy Magneto and Wolverine instead, but I couldn’t be swayed, so I got my Jean and Professor X.  That was the blue suited Xavier, with the spotty likeness.  I got the clear chair Xavier next, courtesy of a trip to KB Toys with my Grandmother (which also got me Civilian Cyclops), and I kind of figured that was it for my movie Xaviers.  But, when cleaning my room a while later, I found a Toys “R” Us gift card I didn’t know the value of, and my parents told me I could get whatever the value of the card would cover.  The card had somewhere in the area of $2 on it, so I was left digging through the clearance bin, which is how I found the variant Xavier, thus rounding out the set.  None of them are great figures, but there are limited options for Stewart Xavier figures, and to that end, I do quite like them.

Sir Patrick Stewart brought an immeasurable level of class and depth to every one of his very many roles (yes, even the Poop Emoji), and had a sincere presence that’s not easily found.  He was also, by all accounts, just a very good person, who stood up for those he felt needed it, and we could honestly use more people like him.  Losing him is huge, and his presence will very much be missed.

#4153: Batman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

BATMAN

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“As a child, Bruce Wayne watched as his parents were brutally killed in Gotham City’s Crime Alley. Traumatized by their deaths, he devoted his life to becoming the world’s greatest weapon against crime– the Batman.”

As prevalent as the character may be in toy form, I don’t actually review *a ton* of Batman figures around here, mostly because I think I’m just largely tapped out on buying new Batman figures these days?  McFarlane’s tenure with the DC license has had a lot of Batman figures, and their Super Powers line has Batman as its recurrent character.  Despite that, I’ve only thus far picked up and reviewed a single Super Powers Batman (I guess technically reviewed a Batman Beyond as well, but I feel like that’s different).  Well, they’re selling the figures in sets now, so I can’t avoid it if there’s a Batman variant, and if I’m gonna buy him, I guess I might as well review him.  So, here’s this Batman.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Batman is the first figure in Series 15 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, where he’s officially numbered 73 in the overall line-up.  He’s the 12th Batman released in the line.  The figure is just the tiniest bit over 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  This Batman marks the seventh use of the updated classic Batman mold, which was the only other Batman I’ve looked at from this line.  It’s clearly aiming to be a pretty close replica of the original Kenner mold, and it’s a good one at that.  I get why they keep using it.  What makes this release special?  The coloring.  The first release of the mold went for a pretty straight classic Batman blue and grey color palette, and subsequent uses have all tweaked it in some way.  We’ve gotten one subsequent take on that scheme through the crowd funded release, which was darker than the first version, and now we’ve got this one, which is…also darker?  Its aim is to be an early ‘90s Batman, per the naming, and I guess it does that fine, but it’s also not super different, aside from just being different.  It’s definitely a bit of different for different’s sake.  I know the Series 4 release was pretty hard to get, so I can’t say I fault McFarlane for wanting to put out another go at the mold with the blue and grey, but I also can’t say it’s terribly exciting.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was very excited by the reveals of 13 and 14 of this line, but 15 was the first one where I just felt largely underwhelmed, and this Batman is certainly a large piece of that.  Maybe I’d feel different if I hadn’t gotten the Series 4 figure? I don’t know.  I do know I only have this one because I wanted the set.  He’s…fine.  Like, not bad, but just not anything to really give any much thought to.

#4152: Galactus

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

GALACTUS

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

“Feared throughout the cosmos, the nearly omnipotent Galactus must consume the life energies of entire planets to satisfy his burning hunger! Only the herculean efforts of the Fantastic Four and Galactus’s former herald, the Silver Surfer, have prevented the world-devourer from making a meal of the Earth! But, should he return, the future of all mankind will once again be in doubt!”

Just before my winter hiatus last December, I wrapped up my reviews of the all the standard figures from Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four toyline.  I didn’t, however, quite look at *all* the figures, because they weren’t all exactly created equal.  If you’re doing really much of anything at all with the FF, you’re bound to run into their big, planet-eating foe, Galan of Taa, the Devourer of Worlds, best known as Galactus.  Galactus has a number of appearances on Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, and his herald Silver Surfer was present in the first series of the tie-in toyline, so it made quite a bit of sense for the big G to be included as well, and in fact he was, with a deluxe sized figure that I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Galactus was released in 1995, alongside the first series of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line.  He was his own stand alone release, a deluxe item offered up in a similar fashion to the dragons from the Iron Man line at the same time, and also somewhat like the Sentinel released in the X-Men line the year prior.  Galactus did differ from those other releases, however, in his use of electronic features.  The figure stands just under 14 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  In terms of scaling, Galactus is clearly not quite the towering giant he tends to be, relative to the others, he’s got a good 9 inches on the standard figures, making him larger enough visibly to sell the idea, while not being so large as to be an impractical size for play and display. Galactus’s articulation is very much a restricted thing, with motion at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and neck.  The neck is a very small degree of back and forth movement, and the arms, though certainly better in their range, still aren’t really doing much other than sitting at his sides or raising up a bit to hold his accessory.  Due to the electronic features, there is no movement at all in the waist or legs, so he’s a bit more statuesque in that regard.  He’s mostly just meant for standing there and looking rather menacing, which, to be fair, is kind of his main deal.  The mold was brand-new to Galactus at the time (tough the main bulk of it was later re-used for a second deluxe Galactus figure as part of the Silver Surfer tie-in line in 1998), patterned on his classic comics design, as well as aligning with his design as seen in the cartoon at the time (specifically his appearance in Season 1).  It’s more on the basic and stripped down side in terms of detailing, going for broader strokes, softer detailing, and some simpler line work.  The proportions are notably on the chunky side of things, and his head, already enlarged by the helmet, seems a bit too large for the body it’s sitting upon.  There are also some compromises made for the sake of the action features, with a mount on the torso for his accessory, as well as holes in the eyes where the pupils would be, in order to make way for the light up feature, and a spot for a speaker in his abdomen.  The most jarring of these is definitely the mount on the torso, but that’s easier to explain away as having a practical use on his armor, I suppose.  Though certainly leaning more into the toy side, the sculpt does still do a decent enough job of bringing his design into toy form, and it certainly fits well with the other figures stylistically.  The figure’s “horns” and skirt pieces are separate, removable parts on this release.  The horns can warp a bit (as seen on my figure), but do click into place securely.  The skirt pieces….don’t click into place securely, especially the back one, which will fall off at just about any given chance.  Galactus’s color work follows the usual hallmarks of his design, with a lot of purple and blue.  There’s some rather notable issues of matching between the different parts of his assembly, which is a little odd, but the design has enough segmentation to at least hide it a bit more.  Galactus was packed with a large “drill” accessory, which he can hold in front of him and which connects to the front of the figure.  There are actually two variants to the exact connection style of the drill, as seen in the photo, but the Galactus figure’s connection appears to remain the same.  There is a lights and sounds feature to the figure, and the drill interacts with this as well, but between the two copies of this figure I currently own, I wasn’t able to get either working to test it out.  For shame.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got my original Galactus, at least in part, because he was defective.  The local KB Toys had one whose electronic features didn’t work, so he was discounted, and my dad bought it so that he and my granddad could repair him and get him into working order, and, boom, working Galactus.  For a while, anyway.  This guy got carried around a lot to a lot of different things and certainly got a lot of play time before spending about a decade in the garage, without most of his parts.  In recent years, I’ve put some more serious effort into returning him to his original glory, and found all of his original parts, minus a single horn for his helmet.  Do you know how difficult it is to find just a single horn for a Toy Biz Galactus?  Really difficult, I’ll tell you.  The most practical way to go about it, it turns out, is just buying a second, complete, Galactus, which I in fact did (well, my Dad did, swooping in to buy the second one for me like he did the original) over the summer, when I found one for a good price at Yesterday’s Fun while vacationing with the family.  Perhaps this figure isn’t quite as impressive as the more recent HasLab release, but he certainly fills out the Toy Biz Fantastic Four line-up nicely, and I’m happy to have him back together again.  There: now I’m actually done with the Fantastic Four reviews.