#4003: Luke Skywalker with T-16 Skyhopper Model

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

LUKE SKYWALKER with T-16 SKYHOPPER MODEL

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (HASBRO)

“While tinkering with his model T-16 skyhopper and tending to his uncle’s new droids, Luke unwittingly short circuits R2-D2’s recording system, triggering the holographic appearance of a young Princess Leia. The image implores the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but vanishes soon thereafter.”

Luke Skywalker has four notable looks over the course of the original Star Wars film, but by far the most definitive is his “farm boy” look, which, understandably, was the first to get a toy back in 1978.  It was also the first to get an update for the relaunched line in 1995, albeit with a notable pectoral upgrade.  It was never truly absent from Power of the Force, but I suppose there was a slight downtick in its frequency.  Then, in the space of about a year and a half, there were *so* many of them.  Farm boy Lukes as far as the eye could see!  And they all had their own minute difference.  Well, here’s the one that wrapped it all up.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Skywalker with T-16 Skyhopper was part of the 1999 run of Star Wars: Power of the Force, following the shift to Hasbro’s name being on the packaging.  Like last week’s Leia, he was part of an assortment featuring the CommTech gimmick from the Episode I line, and was meant to run alongside that one.  He was the seventh and final figure in the line based on Luke’s main A New Hope look, and fifth variation on the “new” mold version of it.  Each of those Lukes was based on a specific snippet of the movie, and this one is specifically Luke right after the purchase of the droids, when he discovers the message from Leia while cleaning them up.  Yay, another non-action scene!  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  While it’s the same count as the Flashback Photo Luke, it’s a different configuration.  This one lacks the wrist movement, and only gets swivels on the elbows instead of hinges, but gets proper knee movement, which was very rare in this line.  It’s good for getting him kneeling down, like he does in the scene this figure’s meant to be referencing.  His sculpt is using the “updated” Luke head, with a body that’s all new parts, albeit ones that all look very similar to the other four Lukes from this period of time.  The paint is on par with the other offerings, a little cleaner and a little more involved than some of the other variations on the look, rivaling the Flashback figure.  Once again, I do like the accenting on the boots, and it otherwise does what it needs to.  Luke is packed with the T-16 Skyhopper model mentioned in his name, as well as a small hand tool, and his CommTech stands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like I said in my Leia review, the CommTech figures aren’t as common as other figures in the line.  And, with all the similar looking Lukes, this one has a tendency to fly under the radar.  I saw this one once or twice in the early days of jumping into the line, and just never got around to getting him.  Ultimately, he’s one of those figures I just happened to find mixed in with a larger lot of PotF figures that got traded into work.  He’s…fine?  Like, he does some new, but also feels very same-y.  After the Flashback figure, which was kind of the best of these variations, he feels like he’s sort of treading water, which, I guess, in a way, he kind of was.

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.

#4002: Elongated Man

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

ELONGATED MAN

DC MULTIVERSE (McFARLANE TOYS)

There’s a shortlist of characters that I own every version of in action figure form, and one of the earliest additions to that list is one of my very favorite comic characters (and probably my favorite super hero in general), Ralph Dibney, aka the Elongated Man.  Ralph’s in that interesting spot, where he does have a decent number of figures, but it’s not so many that you can’t keep up with it.  It’s also usually a bit of a stretch (heh) of time between them, so you have this nice little breather period to catch up.  The last break was over a decade long, but we’ve finally gotten to the other side, with not one, but two new Elongated Man figures!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Elongated Man is figure 50 in the Collector Edition sub-line of McFarlane’s DC Multiverse.  He’s part of the six-figure drop that hit in January, which looks to be the last big push for these guys from McFarlane, although we’re still not totally certain.  All of the Collector Edition figures get a standard release and a one-per-case Platinum Edition, and Ralph is no exception.  His classic black and red suit serves as the standard, while his ‘80s lavender and white number is the Platinum.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  Ralph’s starting point is the Blue Beetle/Booster Gold base body, which isn’t a huge shock.  It continues to be a solid base body, with a nice balanced set of proportions, which works well for a variety of characters.  For Ralph in particular, it feels like a good match for his usual build in the comics, and the only sculpted element, the boot cuffs, works fine with his costume design.  Ralph gets a new head sculpt, which is leaning more into the Infantino solo feature appearances than other figures have done, with perhaps a touch of the Alex Ross take, and I’m honestly here for it.  I didn’t know how I felt about it in the prototype shots, but in person, I like the quirkiness behind it, and I think it feels pretty in keeping with Ralph’s usual characterization in the comics.  It’s a sculpt that is definitely more intended for the classic costume than the ‘80s one, but it’s not a terrible fit either way.  Ralph also gets a pair of cuff pieces for his wrists which, in contrast to the head, are very much meant for the Platinum, not the standard.  Thankfully, they’re easily removed from the standard, so there’s no issues there.  The difference between the two figures is one of paint, so let’s talk about that now.  The standard’s got that red and black, accented by gold, in place of the yellow he usually gets.  It works well, and it’s pretty slick looking.  All of the black sections get some blue drybrushing, which gives him a nice illustrative quality. The variant keeps the same general set-up on the gloves and boots, but then gets the adjusted lavender and white.  The paint feels a little fuzzier on this one, but the shades on the colors are a good match for the comics coloring.  Both versions of Elongated Man are packed with six different hands (right fist, left grip, right pointing, left relaxed, and right and left open gesture), Plastic Man’s stretched arms repainted to match the respective figures, a display stand, and a collector card.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got in on collecting Elongated Man figures pretty much on the ground floor, and it’s just been a game of keeping up with the latest release since then.  Obviously, as soon as we knew these guys were coming, I knew I was getting them.  Of course, that meant having to make sure I got both versions, and most reliable way of doing that was really just buying a whole case, which is, in fact, what I went and did.  I’m crazy like that.  But really, is buying six Elongated Men all that crazy?  Yes.  Yes it is.  But it was worth it.  I do really, really like both of these.  At the outset of McFarlane’s run with the license, I would have never expected to get an Elongated Man figure from him at all, much less two of them that I really liked, so I’m honestly very happy about this particular turn of events.

#4001: Superboy

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

SUPERBOY

JLA (HASBRO)

“Created to replace Superman, Superboy was genetically engineered by scientists at Project Cadmus to have a close approximation of Kryptonian DNA. His power of tactile-telekenesis gives him super-strength, flight, and grants him a number of unique abilities, such as disassembling an object through touch alone.”

One of the tenets of the change-over from the Superman of the Golden Age to the Superman of the Silver Age was the creation of Superboy, who was Earth-1 Clark Kent’s alter-ego as a teenager.  After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman’s origin was once more re-established, and he was no longer a superhero as a teenager, eliminating Superboy from the timeline.  But, if you don’t want to lose your trademark to such a fancy name, you have to use it, so in the ‘90s they brought the name back, now attached to a separate character, Kon-El, a clone of Superman.  He operated solo for a while, before eventually joining “Young Justice,” a sort of re-imagining of the Teen Titans.  It was during the period that he got his second action figure, which I’m looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Superboy was added to Hasbro’s JLA line in its third series in 1999.  He was also available in the line’s fourth boxed set, alongside Impulse and Robin from the third series, and a pair of exclusive “Hologram” figures of Aquaman and Martian Manhunter.  Like his earlier Man of Steel figure, he’s based on Conner’s original look, though this time around he’s without his usual leather jacket.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Since JLA was all about getting as much mileage as possible out of re-used parts, Superboy is a lot of re-use.  His torso is the modified Superman torso that a lot of the line used as a starting point, and he’s got the legs from Black Lighting (albeit with some serious mold degradation, which removes a lot of the sharpness of the details) and the arms from the Legends of Batman Riddler.  It was rare to see them reach outside of the Total Justice molds, but it happened.  The Riddler arms are designed with a narrower gait to the legs in mind, though, so his hands can’t clear his legs when posing.  He gets a new head sculpt, which is decent enough, though it’s a bit on the large side, in order to off-set the sizing on the body.  The face is a little bit goony, but it fits the later ‘90s take on the character alright.  His paint work carries a lot of the work on selling the character design.  Mostly, it’s not bad, but it’s a little odd to see the straps and belts all just as painted elements, rather than with any sort of dimension to them.  The hair is also quite odd; in the comics, he had the back and sides buzzed, which the original figure more or less just ignored.  This one didn’t sculpt them in, but then they were painted black, and then painted back over with a sort of a grey shade, and then there’s sort of stubble effect.  It’s weird looking.  Superboy was packed with a JLA display stand, in bright red.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had the Man of Steel Superboy, which I really loved, but I was always bummed that you couldn’t take off his jacket, since he did that so often in the comics.  I remember this guy getting shown off, and I remember really wanting him, to the point of printing out a prototype shot and turning it into a paper figure.  I don’t recall exactly when I got him.  More than likely it was from the KB Toys near where my family vacationed, but it was also probably during one of our fall trips, rather than summer.  I remember being excited to find him, but perhaps not quite as enthralled by the final product once I’d opened it.  Superboy without the jacket certainly has novelty, but this figure’s more on the goofy side of things for this line, and the Man of Steel figure’s definitely the stronger offering.

#4000: Captain America – Captain America: The First Avenger

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA — CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER 

MOVIE MASTERPIECE SERIES (HOT TOYS)

Today marks my 4000th review here on the site, if you can believe it.  I can, because, you know, I’m the one that wrote them all, but also it does feel like rather a strange concept.  When I first launched the site, I decided I wanted to mark my “monumental” reviews with looks at some of the higher end figures in my collection, meaning predominantly my Hot Toys figures.  It was initially every 50 (which was only every month and a half, so really not significant), before moving to every hundred after 300, then every 250 after 1500, then every 500 after 2000, and then every 1000 after 3000 (though that one was more because I forgot to write a monumental review at 3500 and just decided to roll with it).  The thousands are especially notable, since it means that the first numeral on the reviews changes, which is rather significant.  The largest sub-set of my Hot Toys figures is my Captain America collection.  I’ve actually reviewed *most* of them here, but the only one I haven’t is actually the very first one.  So, I’m taking this here 4000th review to amend that!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America is figure MMS 156 in Hot Toys’ Movie Masterpiece Series.  Numerically, he’s wedged between the updated Batman Begins Batman and Baby Doll from Sucker Punch, which is one eclectic sort of batch of figures, huh?  He’s based on his primary appearance in The First Avenger, and was released domestically in December of 2011, just making it out in the same year as the movie’s release, which was notable for a Hot Toys release at the time.  The figure stands just over 12 inches tall and he has over 30 points of articulation.

At this point, it’s pretty much a lock that every Hot Toys Captain America comes with multiple heads, but that wasn’t the case for his debut here, which just gives him the one helmeted look.  It was a respectable offering for the time, but not without some caveats.  The construction, using multiple pieces for the actual head and his helmet, helps add some depth to it, like he’s actually wearing a helmet, which looks very nice.  The underlying head is a rather lifelike offering, with plenty of realistic detailing.  That said, it’s not really a spot-on Chris Evans, especially not when compared to later sculpts they did for him.  I’ve always gotten more of a Tom Cruise vibe, myself.  It’s not so far off that it doesn’t work at all, but it’s definitely not as strong as it could be.  The paint work is *mostly* up to Hot Toys’ usual standard of incredibly detailed and life-like, with one notable issue: the “A” on the helmet isn’t properly centered.  On mine, this is exceedingly minor and pretty much not noticeable in person, but there was a lot of variation across the production, and there are some that were quite a bit worse.

Cap’s outfit is rather involved.  Like in the movie, there’s a lot of small little pieces layering on top of each other to create the final appearance.  For the figure, pretty much the entire upper half is functionally one piece, and it’s all fixed to the figure’s torso using the star at the center of the chest.  Compared to later offerings, the stitching here feels a little bit heavy-handed, but it wasn’t awful for the time.  The biggest issue with it is that it ends up looking a little sloppy around the edges of the shoulders.  We get some issues with QC again here, this time having to do with the material used for his belt and holster.  It’s a simulated leather, and it’s really soft, making parts of it prone to tearing, especially on the clasp for the holster.  Additionally, the glue used to hold the holster straps in place didn’t adhere well to the material, so they pull off with relatively minor posing, and you either have to strategically tuck them, or try to glue them back.  The glue likewise didn’t hold well on the belt, leading to it releasing from both sides of the buckle on mine.  The cuffs of the pants are folded inward, and a little bit too high up, so when you pose his legs, the shins are sometimes visible above the boots, which looks a little silly.  There are a number of sculpted elements present, which do look a bit better, and are far less prone to issues.

The underlying body is hard to get a total read on, since the costume’s rather attached.  The upper portion isn’t incredibly posable, especially when it comes to the arms, so you have to sort of work carefully to do much with it.  The lower half is at least a bit better, though it’s worth noting that they determined his legs were too short later in production, and addressed this by swapping in a longer set of ankle pegs to off-set it (the original length pegs were also included for those who wanted the option), which helps in some ways, but ends up odd in others, and also ties into the issue with the exposed shins mentioned in the costume section.  Overall, though, the build of the body looks pretty close to Evans in the movie, and stands well on the shelf.

Cap is packed with 9 pairs of hands, his shield, a Thompson 1928a1, a Colt 1911, and a display stand.  The hands give him a variety of posing options, though like earlier HT offerings, they can be a bit tricky to swap.  The guns were packed pretty much standard across all of the TFA Caps, and they’re as good as any HT small-scale weapon.  They’ve got moving and removable parts, and certainly look cool.  The stand is a stand, but it does what it needs to.  The shield?  Well, let’s talk about the shield.  

HT opted for a vac-metalized finish on the shields to start, so they’d be shiny and chrome.  It’s an odd choice, since the shield’s not that at all in the movie, where it’s actually got more of a brushed steel finish, which would be much easier to replicate.  What’s more, because of the vac-metalizing, the red and blue paint on the front of the shield didn’t properly adhere to the surface, meaning that it eventually just started flaking off over time, leaving you with a kind of unpleasant mess of a shield, that just slowly degrades more and more over time.  I’ve included a photo I took in 2014 of this one, so you can see just how far it degraded just sitting on a shelf between then and when I packed it up in 2020, at which point it was packed away, and only pulled out for the photos that ran with this review.  The “clean” shield from the Avengers release was the same, but we already knew about the issues, so I left that one packed away, so it’s the one seen in the accessories shot here.  Even so, it’s surface is completely cracked, so handling it anywhere but the very edges will cause it to flake just like the original.  The Avengers release at least got a spare shield with a different finish.  This one’s not so lucky.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This was my seventh Hot Toys figure, I’m pretty sure?  I got him new, as a (ever so slightly late) Christmas present from my parents, back in 2011.  I really loved The First Avenger, and while I had some initial misgivings about the costume design, it grew on me, and I knew I needed to own the high-end version of this guy.  Little did I know at the time just *how many* high end versions of him I’d end up getting.  When he was new, he had some minor issues that I just sort of had to overlook.  As he’s gotten older, more issues have cropped up, and better Caps have come along, which has made him a rather unfortunate release.  But, I’m still happy I got him.  A year after his release, my brother got me a scale bike for him, and he looks pretty fantastic propped on that, with his shield on his back so you can’t see the flaking.  Ultimately, he’s a rough release for Hot Toys, but without him, we wouldn’t have all the others, and that’s pretty darn cool by me.

Incidentally, way back in 2014, I mapped out all of my “Monumental” reviews, and built Word documents for them, as was my way at the time.  While I’ve moved away from most of those old documents, Cap here was written in his, just for old time’s sake.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0062: Green Lantern

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

GREEN LANTERN

DC SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

It’s Friday!  We made it to Friday, you guys!  High five!  Good for us!  Let’s celebrate with another Flashback Friday Figure Addendum.  I know, it’s such a special occasion.  Sticking to the usual, it *is* a Toy Biz figure, but in a break from the norms, it’s not Marvel, but DC.  Let’s take another look at Green Lantern!

The now defunct toy company Toybiz is a name that is most commonly associated with making Marvel toys. This isn’t surprising, of course. They ended up bailing Marvel out of bankruptcy in the mid-90s, leading to them becoming a part of Marvel proper and thereby passing the name onto Marvel’s in-house toy making branch. However, their first major property was not Marvel. No, it was actually Marvel’s main competition, DC. See, when Super Powers ended, DC was looking to move the DC license elsewhere. They turned to a small upstart company by the name of Toybiz, who launched a line simply titled DC Superheroes. The line was pretty much the same scale as Kenner’s Super Powers, mostly because it was pretty much just a slightly lower budget version of Super Powers. The sculpts were just slightly tweaked and made out of inferior plastic. Needless to say, DC wasn’t thrilled by this offering, and after just two series, the rights reverted back to Kenner. Today, I’ll be taking a look at that line’s version of Green Lantern!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Lantern was released in the second series of Toy Biz’s DC Super Heroes line. The figure is just shy of 5 inches tall and he features 7 points of articulation. The second series is a little different from the first in that they actually featured new sculpts, rather than just retooled SP ones. So, for better or for worse, GL got a brand new sculpt, wholly unique from his SP counterpart. I suppose it’s not fair to compare the work of Kenner at their prime to that of Toybiz in their infancy, but the sculpt of the TB Green Lantern is not up to the quality of his predecessor. The sculpt is wide and oddly proportioned. He’s got these bent arms, which are honestly impressive, because I’m surprised he could bend arms that thick. The torso is huge and ill defined, and the legs lack any real detail. The head looks not unlike a papier-mâché head sculpted over a balloon, which is not a compliment. To top it all off, the joints are horrendously obvious, to the point where you have to question if they did that on purpose. I suppose if I were really trying to find something nice to say, I’d say he bears a passing resemblance to the Filmation version of the character, which isn’t a terrible thing. The paint is…well it’s there. It’s mostly cleanly applied, but other than that, there’s not much to be said of it. The figure is incredibly shiny, which really plays up the whole obvious toy angle. The figure came with an array to let him squirt water from his ring or something. I don’t know, I bought mine loose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure is another from the haul I picked up during the summer from the super cool Yesterday’s Fun. As an avid Green Lantern collector, it’s a figure I’d been looking to pick up for some time now, I’d just never gotten around to it. They had one for a reasonable price, so I went for it. Now I’m reminded of why I put off buying it. It’s not a terrible figure, it’s just overwhelmingly mediocre. It feels like one of those incredibly obvious toys they’d use on a TV show to more easily convey that it’s a toy. I just don’t quite know what they were thinking with this one, especially since it followed up figures that re-used the far superior Super Powers sculpts. 

This review came from way back in my first year, from right at the tail end of it, in fact.  While not the kindest review I’ve ever written, I can’t say I find it all that inaccurate.  I do think the Filmation angle’s grown more on me over the years, which has made my appreciation of the figure a bit greater.  In my original review, I was lacking all of the figure’s accessories, which I’ve subsequently replaced.  He has the apparatus for squirting water, as mentioned in the original review, as well as a power battery and a wearable prop ring.  The water squirting bit is very gimmicky, but fun, I suppose, and the other extras are actually pretty nice.

#3999: Princess Leia with Sporting Blaster

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

PRINCESS LEIA with SPORTING BLASTER

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“Her ship under attack from Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer, Princess Leia downloads the secret Death Star plans into R2-D2 for safe-keeping . After being stunned by a stormtrooper blast, Leia became a prisoner of Darth Vader. R2-D2 avoids capture by fleeing with the valuable data in an escape pod.”

When The Phantom Menace hit in 1999, its tie-in toyline took over the main focus of the toys, but, while Power of the Force was winding down, it didn’t go away right away, and in fact ran concurrently with the Episode I line the whole time.  It was, however, a far more scaled back approach, and almost a different line, revamping the heavy hitters from the Original Trilogy to fit better into the slightly updated style of the new movie line.  A New Hope was really the focus of this last run, so we got all of the major players in updated versions of those looks.  For the fourth time, Princess Leia showed back up in the all-white get-up with the hair-buns, albeit with a slightly different approach than earlier.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Princess Leia with Sporting Blaster was added to the Star Wars: Power of the Force II line in 1999, as part of the first portion of the CommTech offerings, concurrent with the early Episode I line.  This was the fourth white dress Leia in the line.  While the original and Princess Leia Collection figures were more all-encompassing, and the Freeze Frame figure was post Detention Block, this one is specifically based on her appearance at the start of the movie, which was a unique approach at the time.  The figure stands about 3 1/2 inches tall and she has 6 points of articulation.  She followed the trend of scaling Leia down a bit.  She was still a little too tall for proper accuracy, but was certainly better scaled than the rest of her figures in this line.  Movement wise, she’s okay, but you can’t really move the neck joint, due to how the sculpt is set-up.  Her sculpt was all-new to her, and remained unique to this release.  It’s not bad.  The hood is sculpted up, which is a nice change of pace, and means it meshes better with the torso sculpt.  The skirt is cloth, which doesn’t look as consistent, but it means that she has less limitations on her hip movement, meaning she has an easier time sitting than most Leias.  Her paint work is fine, with quite a bit going on with the head, since it’s all molded in white.  The application’s a bit thick, but overall pretty clean.  Leia is packed with a blaster pistol (accurate to the scene she’s based on), as well as a CommTech stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The CommTech figures in general aren’t as common as most of the earlier run of the line.  I only got one of them actually new, and the rest I’ve been slowly piecing together since.  This one was ultimately the last of the set that I tracked down; after finding Wuher on a dealer’s table, I dug through some of the other PotF figures there, and this one was there, letting me knock two figures off my list at once, which is always fun.  She’s more limited in her application than other versions of Leia, but she’s not a bad figure, and an interesting exploration of the direction the line was going before its end.

#3998: Cyclops – Gamerverse

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

CYCLOPS — GAMERVERSE

SH FIGUARTS (BANDAI)

Two Marvel reviews?  In the same week?  Is that allowed?  Well, it’s my site, and I say yes, so that’s the definitive answer, I’m afraid.  Don’t worry, though, this one’s totally different….but also kind of the same.  While most of my Marvel reviews these days are ‘90s Toy Biz, I do occasionally break away for more unique releases.  And, while most of my Figuarts reviews are of Japanese properties, I do also break into their Marvel stuff from time to time, as well.  In the past year, Marvel’s been doing a push with “Gamerverse” a branding that encompasses all of their video game stuff.  It’s previously been more modern in focus, but last year Hasbro started getting into the ‘90s era fighting games, and now Bandai is following suit, kicking things off with objectively the best Marvel fighting game character, Cyclops!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops is the first figure in the “Gamerverse” sub-line of the Marvel portion of Bandai’s S.H. Figuarts line.  He started hitting overseas just before the end of last year, and shortly after the new year domestically.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and he has 39 points of articulation.  While the Spider-Verse figures went larger on the loose 1/12 scale set-up of Figuarts, Cyclops is back to more usual slightly smaller than Legends scaling, which is more practical for the purposes of intermingling with Bandai’s earlier versions of some of the Capcom characters.  His articulation scheme is generally the more straight-forward approach we’ve gotten in the more recent Figuarts releases, so he generally feels less fiddly.  The only part that’s still a little more involved is the moving “shorts” at the tops of his hips, which can sometimes get stuck up or down during posing.  His sculpt is all-new to this figure. This version of Cyclops is meant to encompass his sprite designs from the earlier MvC games, for a full ‘90s feel, and the sculpt does its best to replicate that.  It’s a really clean sculpt, which definitely feels like a classic ‘90s Cyclops.  I hadn’t noticed before this figure that the Capcom Cyclops’s back design mimics the strap layout of the second Toy Biz figure, rather than the single-strap set-up of the comics and cartoon appearances.  It’s a rather specific element, and I like to see it kept here.  As has become common with Cyclops figures these days, this one includes multiple heads, three specifically.  He’s got calm, gritted teeth, and screaming.  Taking it even further, there are also three different necks, in standard, tilted back, and leaning forward, giving you a lot of options on what exactly he’s doing with his head.  All three heads have one hair piece to swap between them; it’s a good rendition of his game hair, and it sits well on all of the heads, with out falling out of place too easily.  Cyclops’s color work is a good match for the game sprite, which trended a little oranger on the yellow than other versions.  A lot of the coloring his molded here, bit there’s some really good accenting on the blue sections of his suit, as well as some very clean base work.  Cyclops is packed with five pairs of hands (in fists, flat, two different types of open gesture, and two fingers extended), and four different visors (standard, with energy trail, with small optic blast, and with large optic blast).  The hands offer a nice variety for posing purposes, and are fun as usual with these sorts of releases.  The different visors are great for showcasing his power set, though the larger optic blasts both have a tendency to fall out on their own.  As with some of the other fighting game figures, Cyclops includes a pair of cardboard backdrops, specifically showing off his huge optic blast attack from the games, as his name, simulating a fighting stage.  They’re a bit touch to keep standing, but a cool enough set-up for a rather low-cost extra.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My knowledge of the existence of the Marvel fighting games owes a lot to my buying the old Toy Biz Cyclops vs M. Bison pack, because I just wanted a good ‘90s Cyclops figure.  I’m always game for a good figure of that look, and I’ve sure bought a lot of them over the years.  Did I need one more?  Well, maybe not need, but want for sure.  I knew I wanted this one as soon as he was shown off, so I jumped on the pre-order right away.  He’s got his minor issues, but boy is he just a really nice looking, very fun version of my favorite Cyclops look. 

#3997: Superman – Power Flight

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

SUPERMAN — POWER FLIGHT

MAN OF STEEL (TOY BIZ)

When is the standard version of a character not the standard version of a character?  When it’s the ‘90s!  Or at least that’s the case when it comes to Superman, who spent a decent chunk of the decade moving between rather off-brand designs.  Following his death and return, he kept the same general suit as before, but one of the apparent side effects of coming back from the dead was getting a sick mullet, so that’s what he had going on (at least until he went all electric blue for a bit).  DC made a big splash of keeping this updated look as his evergreen appearance for a while, so it served as his primary look for his first proper toyline under Kenner, Man of Steel.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Power Flight Superman was the second of the two Superman variants in Series 1 of Man of Steel.  He served as the line’s basic Superman, and was the heaviest packed figure in both standard assortments of the line.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Due to his action feature, his articulation is kind of wonky.  He doesn’t get any side-to-side movement on the neck, instead having the slightest, tiniest, almost imperceptible up and down motion.  The shoulders are also tied into the whole thing, so there’s a mechanism that moves them in tandem.  You can pose the separately, but it’s a little more work.  His sculpt was totally unique to him (he was, notably, one of the few Supermen in the line not to use the “standard” head sculpt introduced on Laser Superman), and it’s fine.  It feels very skinny, and very stiff.  The head doesn’t feel as true to the character as Laser Superman; there’s something about it that just feels kind of pinched.  Otherwise, things are pretty basic, and the details generally work well.  The cape is removable, and is a softer rubber piece, which plugs into the back.  His color work is generally very basic.  It does what you’d expect.  The torso is prone to some discoloring over time, but it’s not as bad as some figures I’ve encountered.  He’s packed with a weird sort of chain thing, which clips over his wrists.  It’s meant to be used to capture bad guys, but it’s awkward at best, and his very narrow stance makes it a struggle to get him to use it at all.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In 1995, while I was busy giving away and replacing Batman figures, and my dad was rediscovering Iron Man, my mom, not one to be left out, got her own action figure of Superman, a character who had been her favorite since the first Christopher Reeve Superman.  She’d never had a figure of him, and this was the only standard one available at the time, so he fit the bill.  And then *someone* borrowed said figure, and lost his cape, so a replacement was purchased for my mom, and the now capeless figure became mine (alongside the Laser Superman specifically purchased for me alongside the replacement).  Over the years, the cape turned back up, so, hey that worked out okay.  He’s not a great figure, but he’s what we had, and that was good for me.

#3996: G.W. Bridge

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

G.W. BRIDGE

X-FORCE (TOY BIZ)

“Wherever there’s a private war being fought, or an Evil Mutant that needs to be captured, you’re sure to find G.W. Bridge, the special agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., America’s top secret, high tech security agency. This battle-scarred veteran is a weapons-master extraordinaire and has tracking abilities that put a bloodhound to shame. Everyone agrees that once G.W. Bridge is on an Evil Mutant’s trail, one thing is certain-that evil Mutant is as good as caught.”

Okay, so remember when I was talking about Kane a couple of weeks ago, specifically in regards to not really knowing a lot about the guy?  Well, we get to go down that path again, today, with GW Bridge.  Like Kane, he’s from Cable’s past, and he’s like, tough, in that sort of generic ‘90s way that people were tough.  He was also in SHIELD, so I guess that’s an additional thing he’s got going for him?  And, he was set-up to be such a big deal.  So, you know, here’s Mr. Big Deal himself.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GW Bridge was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s X-Force line, and that was it.  He had no variations, no re-releases, and no follow-up figures, so he wasn’t even on Kane’s level in that regard.  He’s seen here in his “Six-Pack” era attire, which s certainly his most Liefeldian.  The figure stands just under 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  No elbow joints again, but he gets all the other standard movement.  He’s still pretty stiff, which was very common with these earlier figures.  His sculpt was new, and remained largely unique to him (though his head was re-used later for an unmasked Rhodey).  It’s pretty much the same quality as the other Series 1 X-Force figures, which is to say it’s rather soft in terms of details.  Also quite small given the ultimate direction of the line.  I think GW in particular seems sort of…uninspired?  He’s just kind of bland, and shallow, with his expression in particular seeming rather devoid of any sort of character.  Not even a Liefeld grimace.  His body sculpt is kind of awkward in terms of posing, and he’s also very difficult to keep standing. GW’s color work does its best to replicate his Christmas decorations-looking outfit, and generally does fine at that.  It’s prone to wear, as you can see from my copy, and there’s a fair bit of bleed over on the edges.  GW Bridge is packed with a “Rapid Fire Gun” accessory.  It’s an odd sort of rifle thing, which he can’t really hold very well.  There’s a switch on the side, which slides back and forth, in a sort of bolt-action motion, and there’s a clicking noise that accompanies.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I knew a little bit about GW Bridge as a kid, because I seem to recall him appearing as a SHIELD agent in something I read, and also the re-used head for that Rhodey figure.  I didn’t have a figure of him, though, because I can’t say he made much of a lasting impression.  He was pulled from the same bag of junk figures as Kane, and likewise given to me by Jason from All Time.  He didn’t have the gun, but that got re-used a few times, so I thankfully had a spare laying around.  Kane had some novelty, but GW rather lacks even that.  He’s just sort of unimpressive, and it’s kind of a shame he never got a better figure.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0061: Darth Vader

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

DARTH VADER

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

Hey, it’s Friday, which means it’s time to Flashback, all FiQ-ily.  With an addendum.  And stuff.  It’s been a lot of Toy Biz Marvel for this particular feature, but today I’m going all radically different and doing a Star Wars thing.  Oh yeah!  Here’s a Darth Vader…again!

“Once known as Anakin Skywalker, expert pilot and hero, Vader studied the ways of the Force under young Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. His impatience with the Jedi training made him susceptible to the dark side, which corrupted him as he gave in to his anger and aggression. Vader was almost killed in a confrontation with Kenobi, and was forced to adopt his current life support systems and fearsome body armor.”

You know, it’s been two weeks since I reviewed a Star Wars figure. That’s a long time. I could go into withdrawal. Or worse yet, I could get a huge backlog of Star Wars figures to review! Oh…right…too late. Well, let’s take another stab at getting through that backlog, shall we? Let’s have a look at my man Vader here.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Darth Vader was part of the very first series of the Power of the Force II line. Believe it or not, this was only the second small-scale Vader ever released. That’s kind of crazy in this day and age where you can’t go anywhere without tripping over like 50 of this guy. This was long before the trend of 100% movie accuracy, so this figure ends up as a rather indeterminate version of Vader. I suppose he’s technically an Empire/Jedi Vader, since his robes go under his shoulder armor. Of course, even the original Vader, who was released to coincide with the first movie, had the robes under the armor, so I think it’s less an accuracy thing and more a “they just never really noticed” thing. The figure stands 4 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation. Vader’s not only taller than his compatriots, he’s also just generally larger. This is Vader if Star Wars had been made in the ‘90s and he’d been played by Jeep Swenson…the ‘90s were a strange time. Apart from the overall Swenson-ness, the sculpt isn’t terrible. The quilted pattern on his undersuit is nice, and most of the important details are there. The helmet’s a little off, but it was a marked improvement on the vintage version, and it’s not like anyone would ever confuse it for anything but Darth Vader’s helmet. The one notable omission on this guy is his lack of the bottom section of his robe. However, as with the handling of the shoulder armor, this is something consistent with the vintage release, so maybe Kenner/Hasbro just hadn’t learned yet. The figure’s topped off with a plastic cape, which makes the already bulky Vader even bulkier. It’s not a bad piece, but it definitely has a flair for the dramatic. Vader’s paint is fairly straightforward stuff. Mostly, he’s just molded in black, with a few little spots of detail work. Nothing spectacular, but it’s fair enough fore the time. Vader’s one accessory was his lightsaber, which, like all of the early figures, came in short and long variants. Mine no longer has his, but I’m fairly certain it was one of the short ones, given the basic time period of when I would have gotten this.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t know 100% how this guy came into my collection. I know how he *didn’t* come into my collection. Let me ‘splain: the first time I saw this figure, it was just after seeing The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the theatre. After the movie, my parents took me to the KB Toys in the same mall so I could get one figure. It came down to this guy or Phoebus from Hunchback. Having just seen the movie, it was Phoebus, and not Vader, who went home with me that day. I know that Vader was given to me by my parents shortly after. Now, if I had to guess, using my much more fully-formed and adult investigative skills, I’d say my parents more than likely bought me both of these figures that day and just gave me Vader a little later. I can’t know for certain, of course, but that’s certainly the type of thing they’re prone to do. 

This was a fall 2017 review, after I’d burned through a lot of my new purchases I’d gotten over that summer.  For Star Wars in particular, I’d gotten through all of the Force Friday products from The Last Jedi’s product drop, which was, like, two weeks of solid Star Wars.  But, I was still very hyped, so I wasn’t approaching any burnout, which I guess is nice.  I do laugh at my remark about the size of my Star Wars backlog, because I’m at a point now where there’s not so much of that.  I think my actual review of Vader’s not so bad.  He was, however, missing his lightsaber, and also I neglected to do turnarounds, so here I am, fixing both of those things!