Your Latest Non-TF Toy Acquisitions

[Warcry]

So Amazon went and screwed up my order for Cable and Domino. They were listed as in stock when I ordered them and for several hours after that, but clearly they oversold them because they don't have any to send me and I have to wait until they get more cases in. Which would be cool if they'd listed them as a preorder, but when I checked out the site told me I'd have them by Monday (i.e. three days ago). So that sucks. Boo Amazon!

But I do have Mr. Fantastic, and he is...well, not quite as fantastic as I'd hoped.

They tooled up a new torso for him, which was a great idea because Reed is usually slim but not musclebound. The new parts do a good job of reflecting that. Unfortunately, the torso is the only new part. He reuses Pizza Spidey's legs and I think his arms too, so he winds up with an normal physique on his upper body but rippling muscles in his thighs. It's not super noticeable unless you're looking for it, but it's disappointing that they'd go to the effort of making a "normal guy" torso and give him "super athlete" limbs. He's got the swappable "stretch" arms as well, which look nice. They're not jointed, but they're made from a pliable plastic so you can get some bend in them if you want. They're not quite as bendy as I'd hoped, but I suppose heating them up would help with that. Reed's powers are up there with Kitty Pryde's on the "difficulty to make an action figure of" scale, but I'd say that this does a pretty good job of embodying them in plastic form.

He comes with a tiny little doodad that I'm told is an Ultimate Nullifier, which I suppose would mean more to me if I'd read any actual F4 comics and not just gotten to know them via '80s X-Men crossovers. I really wish he came with a pipe to smoke, but in this day and age that was never a real possibility, and he's probably not allowed to smoke his Dad Pipe in the comics anymore anyway.

The head sculpt is great too, one of the nicest unmasked faces I've seen on a Hasbro figure. Looks a bit like George Clooney in his younger days.

Overall, it's a nice addition to the team but I wish they'd invested just a bit more into making some slimmer limbs. Not just for Reed, but for all the other characters down the line who'd look a lot better using a mold that wasn't as ripped as a WWE wrestler at the height of the steroid era.

I just assumed it was, as it looks very bird-like.

It would be a perfect fit for a Phoenix figure, for sure. It's just a shame that they did both well-known Phoenix schemes right before Songbird here came out, else I'm sure they'd have reused this part for one of them.

I'm guessing it's because Blaze is back in action in Doctor Strange at the moment, and he's the definitive version for a lot of people. Not me though. One thing I really like about this figure is how they've coloured him to look like that dark blue they used to use in comics to represent black. The bike is really nice, although I don't know if I like it more than the Skull Cycle Toy Biz did. No pegs for the figure's feet to peg onto, for one thing. Overall though, it's pretty cool looking and looks awesome on display. Still would love a Ketch version with his bike, which I always thought looked amazing

I think it was a money-saving move more than anything else. Ghost Rider's bike looks way bigger and more intricate than the one they shipped with Black Widow, so they probably had to make the figure a straight repaint to keep the budget in line.

I'm not super in love with the blue colouring here, but I do like that they did something different so that the figure will stand out from the previous Ghost Rider. Hopefully that'll keep those folks who already own the last one but buy this for the bike from feeling ripped off.

I'm pretty sure that every GR story I've ever read has starred Ketch, while the only fiction I've seen with Blaze has been the godawful Nic Cage movies, so I'm with you on that front. I'm honestly not sure the costume is different enough that I'd want both. I think the pants were grey and he had 90s "badass" metal studs everywhere? But I'd be mighty tempted if it was the costume and the bike.

My Blaze GR beat up my Black Series Biker Scout and stole his speeder, but it's not quite the same.

[Skyquake87]

The Ultimate Nullifier was the device the Watcher sent Johnny Storm to retrieve to defeat Galactus in the classic FF#48-50 (volume 1) by Lee/ Kirby. So now you know!

With GR, a lot of the style of Ketch's GR has been merged with Blaze now, so in comics at the moment, Blaze is riding around looking like Ketch's GR (black leathers, beefy, Spikes) on a slim-looking stunt cycle. I'm such a GR pedant that this bugs me. I get why Marvel used Ketch's look for Blaze, but it's not right for his character. Blaze was all '70s leather jumpsuits and Evel Kenievel and both he and Zarathos were quite althletic and slim, built for stunts and fast manouvering.

Ketch was a slightly more stocky guy, and so was his GR and his cycle was a big muscular thing like a Harley and whole combo gave you this impression of a powerful, heavy bruiser and the mix of the two aesthetics we get these days just doesn't look right to me. Jason Aaron and Roland Borschi understood this when they worked on GR, doing only minor tweaks, like giving Ketch a duster coat (which looked awesome) and a mean looking meat-hook chain thing. Ditto the dude who's name I forget (which annoys me, because I loved his work and enthusiastic design notes) who did some redesigns for the Ghost Riders Battleworld mini-series.

At least in toy form, they've managed too keep the visual identity of each GR 'right', so that's something at least. Man, I should get out more. It's just comics...!

[HeavyArms]

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 76104 The Hulkbuster Smash-Up.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 76103 Corvus Glaive Thresher Attack.

Lego Architecture 21032 Architecture Sydney.

[Skyquake87]

Marvel Legends Jack O'Lantern
Horrible skinny fella with a massive flaming pumpkin for a head, riding around on a flaming broomstick with a mean looking sycthe and a pumpkin bomb. Looks fantastic, the detailing and paintwork is excellent and he has some cracking articulation. There's something about the joints and construction that makes this feel like an old Toy Biz figure, though. It all works in a similar way to their old Hobgoblin figure.

Marvel Legends Hellcat
I was amazed to find Marvel had done a figure of Patsy. And snapped one up when I found that she seems to be one of those less popular characters so was only £13 with shipping. Compared to what Marvel are doing now with their female characters, she doesn't stand up so well (and this figure is only 3 years old!). Mainly I think because of how she's clearly a composite of other parts - she has very athletic thighs coupled with a very lithe upper body and arms, so looks a bit odd. Paintwork is generally great, with some nice shading. Head sculpt is great and I like the flowing hair.

[HeavyArms]

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 76101 Outrider Dropship Attack.

[Warcry]

Amazon finally bothered to send me my Marvel Legends Domino, only a month after I ordered it. Still no sign of Cable.

Dom really does look great! The costume is a ton simpler than what I'm used to from the 90s comics, but the simple black and steel grey look really contrasts with her chalk-white skin. I like the purple sci-fi guns because silly stuff like that reminds me of the era of comics that the character was created in, but I totally get why others might not.

The face sculpt is every bit as pretty as Skyquake said. Hasbro's sculptors have really upped their game when it comes to unmasked heads over the last year or so, and it even shows when you line Domino up with figures like Rogue or Scarlett Witch that aren't even bad. Domino just looks so much more lifelike, somehow. I'm not sure how to describe it well.

Does she always look this young in the series this outfit comes from? Considering the character's history and how she's portrayed in X-Force she should be in her late 30s at least. But as sculpted she looks young enough to get carded wherever she goes.

[Tantrum]

Warcry - Is your Domino figure from the new Deadpool movie? I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know if it implies her age, but the actress is 26.

[Warcry]

Nah, she's a comic design. The Domino from the movie is just some random girl with her natural skin tone other than some makeup around her eye, and a 'fro straight out of a 70s blaxploitation pic. The figure looks like this:



She looks really sharp alongside the modern Cable that came out two years ago (how has it been that long?) in the Juggernaut wave, but probably won't blend in with the more 90s-themed X-Force figures (including the Cable that Amazon FINALLY actually shipped out). And after doing some Googling, apparently she does look that young in the comics now. I'm just going to go ahead and pretend that they shot her with that anti-aging magic that they break out for Magneto every couple decades when the writers realize just how old someone who'd been in Auschwitz as a twelve year old would be in modern times.

[Tetsuro]

I bought some old Star Wars toys.

POTF2 Luke Skywalker with floppy hat
POTF2 C-3PO
POTF2 Commtech R2-D2 with holographic Leia
POTF2 Commtech Han Solo
POTF2 Commtech Leia Organa
POTF2 Chewbacca
POTF2 Blast Shield Luke Skywalker
POTF2 Freeze Frame Darth Vader
POTF2 Freeze Frame Stormtrooper
POTF2 Freeze Frame Obi-Wan Kenobi
POTF2 Luke Skywalker in Ceremonial Outfit
Episode I Tatooine Accessory Set
Episode I Commtech Reader

That's quite a lot for an impulse buy, but that's the great thing about these POTF2 figures, most of them are dirt cheap.

I haven't opened Blast Shield Luke, Leia or Ceremonial Luke yet, but here's what I got so far;

C-3PO is pretty bad. He's got a massive chip in his chrome on his crotch, his entire pelvis splits when you move the legs up while his arms are ridicilously tight.
Darth Vader and Chewbacca are both from the first wave when they had the kind of MOTU thing going on where everybody was crazy beefy, it works with Vader since he was played by a bodybuilder, and it works with Chewie too. Vader's lightsaber was pretty badly faded though, it was almost white under some lighting conditions so I took a red gundam marker to it, it's still translucent and a bit uneven but at least now it's as vivid as Obi-Wan's. Chewie's sculpting prevents him from holding his guns properly, just sort of vaguely pointing them at not quite the same direction he's looking at because he can't actully turn his head.
Floppy hat Luke has a pretty badly discoloured upper torso. I think. They could've just overdone the sand effect too because they did that with the Sandtrooper who looked similarly discoloured when it was in fact paint. He's also why I got the Episode I accessory set, it comes with Qui-Gon's poncho that is very similar to the one Luke wears in ANH and I could create the full deleted scene/moisture farmer look. I even got a landspeeder (which I've never had any figures for until now) from my childhood to pose him with.
R2-D2 has soft legs and was kind of deformed out of the packaging, but what's worse is that I almost immediately lost one of his stickers which after about 20 years are just barely clinging on, I managed to find it and glued it back on.
Stormtrooper is...okay. I really have no strong feelings about him one way or the other. His "mouth" is painted a little lopsided tho.
Han Solo is easily the most solid of the ones I've opened; great sculpt, working holster, got no real complaints except for the weird way his left arm is posed which makes it difficult for him to not look silly in a neutral pose. He also has some odd articulation with a swivel joint in his upper left thigh and left elbow but not on the right. It's probably so he can (sort of) recreate his iconic shooting pose, as well as hoist his leg up over his knee like in the cantina when he's accosted by Greedo.

Oh yeah and I did open the Commtech reader. After watching a few review videos of the thing, I am now convinced that it is using actual voice clips from the movies, but because they are so heavily compressed they all end up sounding like a speech synthesis on an 8-bit home computer.

[Skyquake87]

Marvel Legends Thanos BAF Taskmaster
Marvel Legends haven't really taken old in the UK. TRU carried them, but always one of the weaker movie tie in lines (basically anything with Thor on the package). Even the Legends Spidey waves haven't done well and ended up remaindered at Value Bastard. BUT! There's a big shiny Avengers film out the moment, and Asda have had a punt on the Thanos wave figures, which at £18.97, are about £5 cheaper than they are online. I've got Songbird, so picked up Taskmaster who's the only other one from the wave I'm slightly interested in. He's pretty nifty, but as with the Vision figure I got, the cape is awkward and slightly taller than the figure, so he stands awkwardly. I like his sword, shield and golden gun (that fits in a holster!!!) Paint apps are clean and tidy, and I like his very clean teeth

[Warcry]

I prefer the more modern Taskmaster than came in the Red Onslaught wave a couple years ago, but I don't really know the character and I'm going solely based on how cool he looks.

My Marvel Legends 90s Cable finally arrived, and...blah. I really shouldn't have gotten my hopes up for this. Hasbro does a lot of things right with their ML line, but when a character's costume is this layered, thing go awry. Cable's bulky gear was always going to cause some problems with joint mobility, but the overlay pieces that Hasbro use make that even worse than they need to be. The football pads restrict his shoulders a lot and the necklace gets in the way of his head, while the belt hampers the waist. And don't even think of using the ab crunch if you want anything to stay in place! A lot of this would have been avoided if they'd just tooled up new torso parts instead of covering a standard one with rubber bits. I would say that this is just how Hasbro rolls, but they didn't half-ass the Modern Cable figure like this, so I dunno.

It's a shame because he actually looks pretty good. The head sculpt in particular is nice -- it's awesome that they sculpted in his eye-flash instead of just painting it! -- and the guns are very 90s even though some of them are based on Nerf designs. It's all for naught when you can't even pose him without having to spend the next couple minutes readjusting all the floaty costume bits, though.

[HeavyArms]

Lego Jurassic World 75926 Pteranodon Chase &
Lego Jurassic World 75927 Stygimoloch Breakout.

Starting my run on Jurassic World sets with these.

[Skyquake87]

I prefer the more modern Taskmaster than came in the Red Onslaught wave a couple years ago, but I don't really know the character and I'm going solely based on how cool he looks.

I know jack about Taskmaster, but always liked the look of him. He's one of those characters that just has such a great look, that I don't need to know much about him. His look just sells what he's all about. Although he's a bit bloody obvious and flamboyant looking for a mercenary. I liked that modern one, but he just looks a touch too Star Wars for me.

[Skyquake87]

Marvel Legends Sasquatch BAF Wave Deathlok
I've no idea who this Deathlok is. It looks like the one from the recent Remender run of X-Force, but I've no clue. Anyway, he looks bloody amazing and I like his silly big gun and the small one he can holster.

Marvel Legends Sasquatch BAF Wave X-23
Q: What's the cheapest way to build a Marvel Legends collection?
A: Buy all the female figures. No one seems to like them and they end up heavily discounted about a month after release.
Q: Why?
A: Dunno. Fanboy sexism...?

X-23 is ace. I remember owning the original purple outfit effort Toybiz parped out and it was horrible. This version, in the sexy X-Force duds is excellent. I kind of miss the foot blades, but not enough to really care. Love her look, the paint apps and the red eyes. Top stuff.

[Warcry]

I'm not a super big fan of the reduced articulation compared to the male characters. Or the limited selection of base bodies and parts compared to the guys. There's a huge variety of different male bodies to choose from (compare Venom to Sunfire to Speed Demon to Wolverine to Ultimate Spidey). But the female bodies in use all have basically the same anorexic proportions with slight variation in bust size or hips. So by comparison they're a bit boring and easier to pass up on, unless they've got a killer head sculpt or a great costume.

X-23 does look pretty good though. The sneering head sculpt gives the figure a lot of personality. I don't really want two figures of the character though, so I'm waiting until I see pictures of the Wolverine-costumed version that's coming in the Sauron wave before I decide whether or not I want this one. I'd bet there's more than a few other people with the same idea.

[Skyquake87]

I think the articulation is fine on the lady figures. I don't mind it being reduced slightly for the girls, as too much gives you horror shows like Toy Biz Spider-Woman or the gangly things that turn up in the Select line. I think if action figures were made at a larger scale, you'd be better able to get as similar amount of joints into the female figures as you do the blokes. The generally slender nature of female superheroes means putting the extra joints in would make them a bit too fragile. At least that's my take on it.

X-23 is brilliant. I really like her. Although she's the boring 'female version of...'; she's always had enough about her to be interesting in her own right. And this is such a cool toy of her.

[Warcry]

I get where you're coming from but I still think Hasbro could do better. I know the most common complaint is the lack of double elbows (and that's hard to fix unless they start sculpting their female figures with less-twiggy arms) but even putting that aside I think they could make some pretty easy improvements.

Even without changing the basic layout of the figures, they could definitely get more range of motion out of the torso ball joints. Some of the female Legends figures I own are pretty poseable but others can barely move at all. And I've seen a lot of non-Hasbro figures that put Legends to shame with a joint like that, so they could definitely make gains there. And even without adding double elbows, they could get better range of motion with slightly different engineering (they've apparently managed this on their Star Wars figures with the same joint).

But the biggest failing of female action figures in general might be their necks. Partly that's due to how the hair is sculpted for long-haired characters, but Hasbro don't do themselves any favours either by not giving most of their female figures the second point of neck articulation that all the male figures have.

[HeavyArms]

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes:
76096 Superman & Krypto Team-Up,
76097 Lex Luthor Mech Takedown,
76098 Speed Force Freeze Pursuit.

[HeavyArms]

All five deluxe Netflix Voltron lions.

Disney Infinity 2.0 - Falcon.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 76107 Thanos: Ultimate Battle.

[Warcry]

I got last year's Walmart exclusive Marvel Legends Ultimate Spider-Man and Vulture set. I held off originally because I didn't really want to pay for another Spidey, even though I liked the look of Vulture. But when the set hit 50% off clearance on Walmart Canada's website, I figured why not?

So naturally, once I had them in hand I decided that Vulture was just okay, while Spidey is probably my favourite Spider-Man figure out of the half dozen or so that I own. The colours just pop! I love the dark shade of blue they used. And the Teen Spidey body is really poseable.

Vulture has a ton of unique parts, though I think he's got Pizza Spidey's legs. But most of the upper body is new. Unfortunately the wings aren't articulated at all, and the ab crunch is restricted by some of the costume details, so he can't get as many cool flight poses as I'd like. He still looks really cool though, especially with the included helmet.

I've also got the entire Apocalypse wave preordered and I'm going to be nuts with anticipation until they arrive a month or so from now.