Author Archives: Joe

September 7, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Son Gohan Beast

By Joe
Unleash your inner beast.

Last summer, fans of Dragon Ball were treated to a new movie: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The intended purpose of the movie seemed to be to take two somewhat forgotten characters in Piccolo and Gohan and give them a makeover. The manga and anime Dragon Ball Super has basically been a story about Goku and Vegeta gaining power and fighting off the bad guys of the universe. Every other prior hero has essentially been knocked down not just a peg, but several. That’s not exactly a surprise as Dragon Ball has pretty much always operated like that with Goku gaining a rival and then leaving said rival in the dust. Really, only Vegeta has managed to hang around and even he’s usually clearly the second best, but after the events of Super Hero there just may be a new strongest in the universe: Gohan.

Looks like Bandai has discovered overlay pieces for their action figures.

Ever since his debut, Gohan has always been the character with the potential to be the strongest fighter in the universe. It’s just his main character trait, and the one that distinguishes him most from his father, is that he doesn’t desire to be the strongest. He doesn’t even like fighting. For him, it’s a means to an end. Originally, Dragon Ball Z was to end with Gohan stepping up and essentially taking over for his dad as the savior of Earth. Economics being what they are, series creator Akira Toriyama was convinced to continue on with his manga and Goku was reestablished as the best of the best. Some fans have always hated what became of Gohan following the Cell saga, but for me, that was always Gohan’s logical progression. With no danger present to force him to keep up, he was going to slip back into his lifestyle and pursue his passion of being a scholar. Ever since the series came back as Dragon Ball Super, Gohan has had to go back and forth between his pursuits as a scholar (and now husband and father) and the universe needing him. After getting smoked by a resurrected Frieza, he’s convinced he needs to at least keep up with his training to some degree and it pays off in the final chapter of the anime, but we don’t really know what he’s up to in the manga as that has (predictably) focused on Goku and Vegeta.

The Kaioken aura seems like the only one that could kind of work with this version of Gohan.

Not to spoil a year old movie, but Goku and Vegeta aren’t around in Super Hero forcing Piccolo and Gohan to defend the Earth against a new threat. And that threat is one that’s possibly even more powerful than our favorite Saiyan duo. We’ll talk about Piccolo’s journey in a month or so, but for Gohan his power-up is what is now called Gohan Beast. In a scene that’s nearly a 1:1 recreation of Gohan’s Super Saiyan 2 transformation, Gohan is able to tap into a new level of power that basically mimics that of Super Saiyan 2, only his hair is even longer, silver, and his cracking energy is red instead of blue. His eyes go red as well making this a more primal take on the Super Saiyan look. It remains to be seen how Toriyama explains this in the manga (if he even does, though I consider that unlikely), but my interpretation is this is the new form Gohan vowed to achieve in Super. A form of his own creation, and perhaps it’s something born from him being mixed race. Either way, it’s more than enough to win the day and Gohan’s new form just may mean he’s the new strongest in the universe.

There’s definitely some shared parts with the Ultimate Gohan figure, but that torso is quite different.

Gohan Beast was going to be a major want from fans of Bandai’s action figure line, so it was hardly a surprise to see him go up for sale via the Premium Bandai website. Actually, I suppose I’m a little surprised this wasn’t a general release, but Bandai could always revisit it after the manga debut. Maybe without battle damage or something. The figure itself is very similar to the Ultimate Gohan Super Hero released a year ago, but also more different than I expected. It comes in the standard window box packaging with gold backdrop and was manufactured in China.

“So where’s your ultimate form, Piccolo?!” “Shut up – it’s coming.”

Gohan Beast stands at around 5.5″ to the top of his face making him basically the same as the previous Gohan figure. He’s still in his purple gi with boxy, brown, shoes only now there’s battle damage throughout in the form of hash lines sculpted in and some torn parts in the pants and top. The arms, crotch, and feet are pretty much the only parts repurposed from the older figure as the battle damage necessitated some new sculpting. The main difference is with the torso where Bandai opted to replace the sculpted-on gi with a rubbery overlay. This is true of the torso overlay and the sleeves which appear to peg-in somewhere inside the body. I’ll have more to say about it in the articulation, but from a presentation standpoint it’s an improvement as it allows the chest to be sculpted plastic and removes the challenge of painting it to match the sculpted color of the neck. The faces all look fantastic in keeping with what Bandai has been doing for the past year or so with its face printing and the hair is really well sculpted. It’s super spiky and a bit unpleasant to handle as a result. There isn’t really any shading on it though which is a bummer, especially for a “premium” release. The only thing I don’t care for when it comes to the presentation are the sideburns which are separate from the hair. They’re just a touch darker than the hair and the seam line is a bit annoying. There’s not much that could be done about it though unless they could have made them part of the hair, but maybe that would have looked worse or proven too delicate.

Once again, Lightning Collection effect parts come in handy for Dragon Ball figures.

As for paint, it’s mostly kept to the face. The wristbands are painted and the flesh in the torn pieces on Gohan’s pants had to be painted as well. The color used for those bits is probably just a touch darker than the sculpted flesh tone, but it’s not particularly noticeable since there’s plenty of clothing separating them. The red sash around the waist appears to have a paint wash applied to it and the front of the pants look like they’ve been hit with a matte clear coat. It’s especially noticeable near the cuffs of the pants as the factory didn’t quite hit the whole area leaving the sides of the pants shiny by comparison. The matte finish at least matches the top of the gi and I would say that, overall, this version of Gohan presents rather well. Especially if you like the look of this form.

The way the sleeves are connected to the body really limits the shoulder articulation.

Where things get iffy with this figure is with the articulation. The addition of an overlay for the top is going to cause some issues, and for some, the presentation trade-off Bandai made might not be for everyone. The head is on a double ball peg allowing for rotation and tilt. The hair prevents the figure from looking up, and the head gets some range looking down. There’s a ball joint in the base of the neck which, when used in conjunction with the joint at the head, allows Gohan to look down quite a bit, and you get a little range looking up, but not enough for a straight-ahead flying pose. The shoulders are on a hinged ball peg which is connected via another ball peg inside the shoulder affixed to a butterfly joint. This lets the shoulder move up and down and forward and back, but the range forward and back is quite limited. The hinge in its default, high, position won’t allow Gohan to raise his arms out to the side in a full, horizontal, position, but if you slide the shoulder down first then you should be able to achieve that. The issue preventing a lot of range is the cuff of the gi which is done in a rubbery material and is connected to the body basically in between the shoulder and butterfly joint. At any rate, it’s not a floating piece like it was with Super Hero Gohan. I suppose one could separate it by carefully slicing it with a blade, but it’s unfortunate collectors need to cut up their figure to get the range of motion they’re accustomed to. And I don’t know if this piece would float properly if one were to do that, it might just slide down the arm and require further modification.

Gohan can manage a Kamehameha pose all right…

After the shoulder, there’s the usual biceps swivel and double-jointed elbow. The hands are connected via ball pegs and work fine. In the torso, there may be a ball joint of some kind in the diaphragm, but again, the overly is going to get in the way. If it’s there then it’s basically useless, and I only even suspect it’s there because Bandai basically always includes such a joint and I think I can see one when pulling back on the shirt. There’s a ball joint at the waist and that’s where you’ll get your rotation and tilt, but there’s little in the way of forward or rear “crunch” in the abdominal area. The legs are the exact same as Super Hero Gohan, so the range there is as expected and the only limitations are with the ankles as a result of the more boxy shoe design.

…but the Masenko presents problems.

It’s a bummer to see the shoulders and abdomen so restricted here with Gohan. The prior Gohan released had a fully sculpted gi so there’s an ab joint that works fine. The only eyesore associated with that is the cut across the gi and the fact that Bandai had to match paint to plastic when it painted the bare portion of the figure’s chest. The overlay approach is unquestionably the more aesthetically pleasing way to do it, but is that upgrade enough to warrant a reduction in articulation? In my opinion, the answer is an emphatic “No.” I expect this to be a highly articulated line and I want that extra range. I don’t care about the visual joint, because at the end of the day this is an action figure and action figures have joints on them. It’s fine. I suspect though this was done as much as a cost saving than an improvement. Doing things this way, Bandai doesn’t have to worry about the color of the inner joints for the butterfly mechanism as we so often saw. It may also be easier to assemble and reduce labor costs and it certainly reduces the need for paint hits on characters with this, basic, look. At this stage in the line, I’d like to see the figures getting better at a standard Kamehameha pose, not worse.

Because apparently every figure needs to come with more Ultimate Gohan parts, we get a new face plate with this release.

The articulation may not be up to par, but Bandai is probably hoping that fans will be happy with the accessory load-out, and for the most part, I think they will be. For faces, we get a pretty standard allotment: stoic, smirk, teeth-gritting, yelling. There is a bonus fifth face plate for Gohan Super Hero that features an angry expression with red-rimmed pupils which I assume is intended to be a pre-transformation expression. It’s done well, but I can’t see many actually displaying that figure with it, it’s almost strictly for those who like to photograph their figures. For hands, we also get a pretty standard allotment: fists, open, clenching, martial arts posed, and a two-finger right hand. That’s basically all Gohan calls for as you have hands for the Masenko, Kamehameha, and the two finger posed hand can be used for the Special Beam Canon he apparently taught himself.

Yeah, I can’t make use of this. Even the Ultimate Gohan figure’s arms won’t come apart to give it a shot.

To go with that usual assortment, we get one extra display piece and an effect part. Gohan Beast gets a crossed-arms piece which I suppose could be used with Super Hero Gohan as well. I don’t know how well it works with Gohan Beast though as I can’t get his arms to come apart at the bicep where it’s supposed to. I think this is a byproduct of these arms not really being intended to be utilized in such a manner originally as every other figure I’ve had with one of these pieces has come apart easily. When I try to tug on the arm, the whole butterfly joint tends to slide and I’m afraid the arm will come detached from within the torso before it comes apart at the bicep. The pieces are small, but even when I manage to get a good grip on a shoulder and start working the bicep it shows no sign of loosening. I wasn’t planning on displaying the figure with that piece on so I’m not going to force it, but it sucks when a figure can’t really use an accessory like this.

It’s pretty crazy that Gohan got a part like this before Piccolo.

The last accessory is a Special Beam Canon blast effect. It’s likely an acrylic piece done in translucent blue plastic. There’s a touch of white paint at the tip and it looks pretty good, but there may be some cloudy portions in the sculpt (I have one right in the middle). The spiral effect is a separate piece and it’s glued into the “missile” portion of the blast and back by the fingers. There’s a two finger posed hand sculpted onto it as well which had to be painted to match the figure. It’s not perfect, as painting acrylic to match is certainly not easy, but it’s not so off that it’s likely to discourage folks from using it. There is also a stand included that pegs into the end of the blast because otherwise this would be too heavy for the figure to properly wield. The bigger question with it concerns that hand piece as I’m not convinced they needed to sculpt the hand onto it. It creates problems because acrylic is not as forgiving as PVC so getting the hand on and off the figure is harder than it needs to be. The first time I tried to remove the part, it wouldn’t come off and the peg going into the figure’s forearm came loose before the peg in the hand. It’s also a delicate piece and my spiral part has already separated from the main blast back by the hand. It doesn’t really change the look of the piece, but I can also see people accidentally cracking this thing or snapping it trying to get it on and off. The shoulder range being so limited also prevents the figure from being able to grasp a bicep or forearm with the left hand, as Gohan might do when firing this blast. Even the post on the front of the box is proving really hard to duplicate.

I like this thing, but finding room to display it is going to be a challenge.

For collectors of this line looking for a good representation of Gohan’s new power-up from the movie this figure gets the job done. It just doesn’t earn an A. It’s more like a B- as the frustrations I ran into swapping some of the parts and the limited articulation were real bummers. They give the figure a bit of a “janky” quality which is not a way I would describe most S.H.Figuarts releases. I’m used to smooth articulation, good range of motion, and a painless integration process when it comes to the extra stuff. A lot of the issues I experienced with this figure were self-inflicted as the overlay harmed the function and the extra parts could have been done in a different manner as to minimize any issues. Why not have the blast effect just slot into a hand piece rather than make the hand part of it? Or have the fingers slide into the blast? It doesn’t need to be a tight fit, it just needs some stability at that end.

Do The Mario!

If you are interested in acquiring this version of Gohan then you’re unfortunately going to have to seek it out on the secondary market. This was a Premium Bandai release which is like a made-to-order item and orders closed awhile ago. The figure retailed for $65 and I would guess the aftermarket price is likely close to double that right now. Gohan is a popular character so it’s possible another version sees release at some point, especially as the manga moves into this part of the story. I wouldn’t bank on a re-release though if it’s something you really want.

Did you like Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and want to check out more figures from the movie?

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super Son Goku Super Hero

Back in the early 2000s I was a collector of Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line of action figures. When I started collecting that line, I just focused on my favorite characters which were primarily Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo. Gradually, the collector impulse took over and I started buying entire waves as they came out…

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by Joe

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September 5, 2023

NECA Misfits Ultimate Fiend Action Figure

By Joe
The Fiend is back in Ultimate form.

When Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only reached a settlement over who owned the rights to The Misfits in the mid 90s (resolution: they both did), it set off a wave of new merchandise plus a new version of the band. What had once been a logo found mostly at punk and metal shows, the visage of the Crimson Ghost began showing up at malls all across the country. And not just on t-shirts, but shoelaces, lunchboxes, and even light switch covers. Within the anti-establishment culture of punk rock, this type of merchandizing could be seen as selling out. “Sell out” was the dirty name artists didn’t want to hear coming from its fanbase, but it almost always followed when a small act jumped from an indie label to a major one and started putting its name on everything and anything. Old fans mocked and looked down on the new ones, but usually the money would keep on rolling in so it’s hard to say if any of this licensing actually hurt a band’s reputation.

As a teenager, I would fall into those traps and look down on the “Newfits” fans with their American Psycho t-shirts and Jerry Only dolls. Not that it bothered me to buy a Misfits shirt with Glenn Danzig’s evilive logo in the fine print or a skull-printed wallet. I was applying a double standard at the time, one I can freely admit to now because as one gets older they tend to care less and less about that stuff. A guy’s gotta eat, and if your fanbase wants shoelaces and light switch covers with your band on it then why not give it to them? For a price, of course. And today, The Original Misfits is now a cash a cow for Danzig and Only. They can sell out a few large venues each year, play for a couple of hours, and laugh all the way to the bank until they’re ready to do it again. By not doing full tours, they even get to avoid waring out their welcome. I get the impression that once (if?) the well starts to run dry and these Misfits shows can’t support a large venue anymore then they’ll stop and I don’t begrudge them that at all.

The retro cloth is in a different scale, so while some parts look similar, they at least had to be re-tooled to make them smaller.

Because of my one-time avoidance and outright disdain for anything Misfits-related released by Jerry Only’s Cyclopian Music, I never acquired much in the way of toys and such baring the likeness of the band’s mascot: the Crimson Ghost. Or is it The Fiend? Or, as Danzig referred to it, simply the Misfits Ghost? Only goes with The Fiend, and I guess neither uses the character’s original name of The Crimson Ghost for legal reasons, even though there’s likely little chance of a lawsuit at this point. The character is from an old film serial shot in black and white, hence why it’s often shown as a black-robed skeleton, though in reality the robe was crimson and the face was more of a blue. I’m not sure if it was blue for stylistic reasons, or just to get it to show better on film. Regardless, most fans of the band were introduced to the character via the Horror Business 7″ which featured that smiling, skull, face with arms folded across its chest. From there, its appeared on other records and inserts and has been a major part of the band’s marketing and presentation.

Sometimes he get a little “stabby.”

NECA has done multiple versions of the character as an action figure, but up until now, they’ve been in the company’s retro cloth line. The retro cloth, as the name implies, is basically a throwback brand similar to Mego figures sporting soft goods clothing. Two standard versions of The Fiend (we’re going to go with that name for the rest of this post since that’s what is on the box) were released: one in black and one in red. I passed on both as the retro cloth line isn’t really my thing, but I could not resist the third version which was a Christmas variant with Santa hat and sack. It’s a fun display piece, though the quality of the figure did nothing to sell me on the retro cloth line. After only a year of owning the figure, displaying it Christmas time then putting it back into its box for the rest of the year, the ball joint in the neck basically deteriorated and crumbled like Play-Doh left out in the sun. It was bizarre, and the head just fell off when I put the figure out last Christmas. I glued it back on, but it was a bummer and now I’m afraid to touch it.

Other times he just needs the knife to feel safe when the power goes out.

NECA apparently decided that another retro cloth release would no longer suit the property, so it gave the figure an upgrade. NECA’s Ultimate line of action figures is basically their flagship format. A five-panel window box, upgraded articulation, and lots of accessories and optional parts. That was the format chosen for this new take on The Fiend and I figured I’d give it a whirl. It comes in a simple, but attractive, black box with the skull face dominating the front. The band’s logo plus The Fiend from the Horror Business cover are on both spines with product shots on the back and inner flap. The figure is viewable through the window as well as the accessories included. Did fans of the character need yet another version in plastic? Time to find out.

The head sits real low and it’s due to the jaw being far below the opening for the ball joint.

The Fiend stands a tick over 7″ and sports a soft goods hood and robe. The robe is sleeveless as the arms of the figure feature sculpted sleeves. The legs are sculpted to feature work pants and shoes while the torso is completely blank since its always hidden by the robe. The hood clasps under the figure’s chin and it’s a bit of a pain to undo, so I wouldn’t bother. By keeping the hood separate from the robe, it’s easy enough to pop the head off and remove it from the hood if desired. The hood and the material extended off of it that drapes over the shoulders is wired and poseable as is the hem of the robe. It feels like good quality soft goods, but is a bit frumpy. I don’t think anything is reused from the retro cloth figure, so it’s not an issue of NECA shoe-horning old soft goods to suit this figure, but the robes are so frumpy that the figure basically loses its neck. He looks like a shriveled up old guy, and maybe that’s what NECA was going for since it is a skeleton, but I wish the head appeared to sit higher.

The shaded portrait is basically the same as the retro cloth one, only smaller.

As for the face, NECA opted to exercise some of its creative license. They basically did it a full skull and retained the eyes recessed deep in the sockets. It’s scratched up and dingy looking and sculpted in a bone white covered in gray paint with a black wash. It’s certainly not bad looking, and the teeth and “smile” basically match the source material, but this is very much a “what would this character look like if it was real?” It juxtaposes with the hands, which still look like black gloves with bones painted on them, and I don’t know that this is the approach I wanted. As an alternate head – sure, but for a standard head I’d have preferred the retro cloth approach which is a black head with the face painted on in white. And if they were going for this more realistic approach, why not include boney hands? And it may only be me, but for some reason, when I look at this face I see Rudy Giuliani. I think it’s the eyes, I don’t know, but if you see it now then I apologize because what has been seen cannot be unseen.

There are additional heads and accessories to play off of them. The second head, is basically the same as the first, but with the eyes shifted to the right. It’s fine, but I’ll never use it. The third head is closer to what I wanted, but has some weird shading on it that ruins it for me. It’s very similar to the retro cloth head that came with the Christmas figure I have, just smaller to suit the scale of this release. It’s all black and the face is painted on with white, but it has gray and crimson shading over the left eye and in the teeth. I’d use it if it wasn’t for the shading which does nothing for me. The whole appeal of the character, for me, is how the white face appears to be floating in darkness in the hood and obscuring the face with shading destroys it. If you like it though, then it’s here.

“You’re getting a little too close to my likeness with that face paint, Papa!”

For hands, we get two sets: relaxed and gripping. The gripping hands have the superior vertical hinge which comes in handy for the two daggers included. The daggers are identical, except that one has some blood painted onto the tip. The blood is basically just there, it doesn’t stand out on a shelf, and I’m left wishing they had included a dripping effect piece instead. There’s also a lit candlelabra which looks fine, but it strikes me as a nod to American Psycho and I could not care less. Mine is also slightly warped, though I bet I could straighten it out with some hot water. The flames are painted on and I think it would have looked better if done with translucent plastic. We also get a tombstone with the Fiend’s face on it and the band’s logo plus their born year and Lodi, NJ. No death year yet. It’s fine, though it looks and feels like a 3D print so it feels a bit cheap in hand.

Who could have anticipated some cardboard inclusions would steal the show?

By far, the best accessories included with this figure are the LPs. NECA included three, cardstock, LPs that I guess The Fiend can just hold and admire. They are based on actual releases by the band and include Horror Business, Earth A.D./Wolfsblood, and Die Die My Darling. As a longtime fan of the band, I do feel it is my duty to point out that the Horror Business here is inaccurate. That was never released in a 12″ format, but I’m going to give NECA a pass because doing an in-scale 7″ jacket would be a lot harder. And what they did here turned out way better than I could have expected. The track-listing is even readable on the rear of the release and the little details pass the eye test. The only thing missing are the actual records which would have really put them over the top. Even without that, I still dig these and they render the other accessories irrelevant for me because there is no way my figure isn’t going to be holding one, or all, of these in my display.

By moving The Fiend to the Ultimate format, we should see a benefit to the articulation and that’s mostly true here. The head is on a double ball peg, and even with the hood, there’s little in the way of restrictions there. You won’t get a ton of range up and down, but there’s probably enough. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs and since the robe lacks sleeves they’re not hindered by the soft goods. The elbows are NECA’s special, unusual, double hinged peg that swivels above and below the elbow. They bend past 90, but the figure does lack the range in the arms to do a proper arms-crossed pose. I feel like that pose is so iconic and important to the character that NECA should have found a way to make that happen, maybe with a separate arms piece like the cross-arms pose we get from Bandai all of the time.

This is the shot you came here for.

The torso of the figure features a diaphragm joint that basically just allows for some rotation. Strangely, there’s no waist joint of any kind. The hips are ball and socket joints and since there is no need for a diaper piece the range is terrific and your Fiend can kick forward, back, and do splits. There’s a thigh twist as well and at the knees we get a single hinged joint that can swivel a bit. I have no idea why they decided not to use a double-joint. Is it something we’ll need? Probably not, but why not have it anyway? The ankles hinge and there is a rocker so standing this guy is easy enough. And we do have the aforementioned wired robe which does work well.

I don’t know if this figure is worthy of the term “ultimate,” but it sure isn’t bad.

Is NECA’s Ultimate take on The Fiend a much needed upgrade over the retro cloth release? Yes and no. I prefer this action figure to the Christmas one I have in almost every way, but I have to concede, if you just want a Fiend that looks like the character depicted on the box art then you may be better off with the retro cloth version. That’s entirely due to the approach taken with the figure’s head. It’s a shame NECA didn’t account for this. We get three heads, but not one of them is just a simple black and white? That aspect of the figure annoys me, but doesn’t entirely ruin it. It’s possible this is just capitalism at work and NECA plans on including such a visage with the next version of the figure that is almost guaranteed to come. It will probably have a red robe and maybe it will come with different record jackets. I don’t really want a red-robed version, but would I get one if it came with the accessory I want? That remains to be seen. For now, we have this one and it’s okay. To my surprise, I find myself liking the Super7 Ultimates! release of Papa Emeritus a little more so now I’m wondering if Super7 will give The Fiend the same treatment. At least this one is cheaper at around $36-$38 so even if Super7 does give it a shot, I don’t feel confident they’ll get $55 out of me.

Interested in more NECA or rock n’ roll stuff?

Misfits Holiday Fiend Figure from NECA

2020 will be remembered for a lot of things, many of them not good. One non-negative aspect of 2020 that will be memorable for me was that it was the year I really got back into toy collecting. Most of that was courtesy of NECA toys and their various Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines. Those…

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by Joe

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost – Papa Emeritus I

I feel like I have a pretty interesting relationship with the band Ghost. They came to my attention in 2010 with their album Opus Eponymous and came at the recommendation of one of my friends. It wasn’t so much a recommendation based on quality, but more of a “You have to hear this,” because it…

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by Joe

The Misfits – Ultimate Song Ranking

Happy Halloween! I don’t know about you, but for me Halloween is synonymous with The Misfits – the horror punk band out of New Jersey fronted by Glenn Danzig from approximately 1977-1983. It has been that way ever since I discovered the band when I was in middle school thanks to a revival in the…

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by Joe

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August 31, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Dragonzord

By Joe
The mighty Dragonzord is here!

After a long delay, wave one of Super7’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line arrived earlier this year. And after a delay of basically just as long, wave two is now upon us. For the first wave, we took a look at three figures: Green Ranger, Goldar, and the Tyrannosaurus zord. For wave two, it’s just one: the Dragonzord. I’m not all-in on this line, clearly, because I’m a pretty casual fan of MMPR. I’m basically a Green Ranger guy, but where I see room to supplement the small collection I have, I’ll pounce. And being a Green Ranger guy, I had to get the Dragonzord.

You’re going to need a deep shelf for this guy as this is as far as the tail will bend.
He’s got fists, but no reach.

Super7’s take on the Dragonzord should feel pretty familiar to those who purchased the Tyrannosaurus zord. This is a line where the zords are non-combining so it’s strictly an action figure. Super7 seems to see this as an opportunity to make their figures look more like the actual suit costumes in the show. It’s a freeing approach and it allows Super7 to make these things big and chunky. No need for hollow plastic to hide parts or anything like that. The figure comes in a massive version of the Super7 Ultimates! box that’s probably close to the same size as the T-Rex zord’s box. I’d tell you how it compares, but I didn’t keep that box and I don’t plan on keeping this one either. Unlike that figure though, this one was made in China as opposed to Vietnam. I’m not opposed to figures being produced in Vietnam, but we’ve seen a lower quality product out of that factory compared with the stuff out of China.

I wish the head/neck better matched this image from the box.

The Dragonzord stands at approximately 9″ in height. It’s a little fungible as this is one of those characters intended to stand with its legs bent, but 9″ is close enough. The tail is around the same length as the heigh of the figure so this guy takes up a lot of real estate on a shelf. In terms of likeness to the show, there’s good and bad here. There’s quite a bit of paint and the parts that should be shiny are, and the ones that should be more matte are as well. There are spots here and there where it could be better. The red lights on the chest are slightly off and there’s some scuff marks in various spots on my figure. They’re things only apparent when handling the figure and not the type of thing that will show on a shelf. The painted patterns on the figure match the show as opposed to the vintage Bandai figure which basically did its own thing when it came to decals. I like the big, chunky, feet on this guy and the segmented tail with drill tip. There aren’t any missing paint apps that I can see, which wasn’t the case with the Tyrannosaurus zord.

The new one is actually a little smaller than the vintage release.

The big thing people are likely to note with this figure is the head. It’s just not accurate to the show. It’s much too wide and stocky with the black frame around the face too thick. The head should taper in towards the top, but here it’s more like a square. The brow also extends further down than it should basically touching the snout. And if you’re not sure how off it is, Super7 included a handy-dandy image of the actual Dragonzord on the back of the box for you to compare it to. Probably not the best idea. From the side, it looks fine, but it’s bizarre to see it look so obviously off when viewing the figure from the front. With this line, I sometimes get the feeling that Super7 is trying to match the show while also being an homage to the old toyline. If that’s the case, they still missed the mark as the original Bandai Dragonzord has a completely different head shape than this. Am I nitpicking? Perhaps, but it’s a pretty important detail and this isn’t a $25 figure, after all. Whether or not it matters to you is more subjective.

The old one may be taller, but it’s probably going to have some tail envy.

It’s important for this figure to nail the likeness because it’s not going to articulate well. I wasn’t expecting much out of it, because the suit from the show doesn’t offer a whole lot in that department, but even with those low expectations I was still let down a bit. The torso, which includes the head, neck, shoudlers, and diaphragm, is one solid piece. You get nothing except jaw articulation. The waist is on a ball peg so the figure can roll around on that part. You won’t get much forward and back, but you get plenty of rotation and tilt. The arms are essentially just forearms which attach to the torso via hinged ball pegs. They do next to nothing. You get maybe 45 degrees of up and down via that hinge, but rotation is basically nil. If you’ve seen the solicitation images for this figure, there’s one image where the Dragonzord’s arms are out to the side a bit firing missiles from its hands. This figure cannot do that which is a bummer because it should. At the hands, we get more hinged pegs. They rotate fine, but they’re recessed pretty far into the wrist area so the hinge is of little use. You can pull them out a bit though to get better range there.

Probably the comparison people are going to care about most. The two are about the same, though the Dragonzord should be taller.

Below the waist there isn’t a whole lot to speak of. The legs connect via big hinged ball pegs. They can kick out to the side a little bit, but there’s basically no forward and back range. The thigh twist there works okay though and below that is another hinged peg for the knee. The range on that hinge is maybe 25 degrees, it’s basically just enough to give the figure that crouched stance. You can rotate there, though it’s more like a pivot. The ankles work okay though as they hinge forward and back a reasonable amount and there is an ankle rocker. For the tail, we get a segmented approach just the like the Tyrannosaurus zord before it. I think it’s a bunch of hinged pegs so you get some play throughout. It’s not as robust as a bendy tail, but it at least looks good. It’s just not terribly functional. The drill tip at least rotates.

These two have a very similar feel, though I think the Dragonzord turned out just a tiny bit better as the black plastic just looks nicer than the red.

The figure is severely limited when it comes to articulation and that largely can be attributed to the design of the suit from the show. What’s more of a Super7 problem is the looseness. This is a heavy figure with heavy limbs and some of the joints just aren’t up to task. The waist and hips especially are pretty floppy. The heavy tail is constantly pulling back on the torso so it can be hard to get the figure in a forward hunch. The joint where the tail meets the body is also pretty loose further limiting how you can pose the tail. It’s a consistent problem with Super7, but the saving grace here is the big feet and that tail mean this figure is easy to stand. No shelf diving here unless you do something crazy, but it should be better.

Careful, it’s loaded!
The clear best accessory in the box. And obviously I’m talking about the tiny Green Ranger on its shoulder.

The Dragonzord isn’t a character that really cries out for accessories, but it does come with a few. Mainly, they’re alternate hands. The figure comes with open hands, but it also has a set of fists, flat hands with the missiles poking out of the fingers, and the missile firing effect hands. The open hands are the only ones with horizontal hinges while the rest have vertical ones, which is fine. I’m not sure the fists needed vertical hinges, but I don’t think it really matters. The red tips on the missile-ready hands could be better, but they’re fine. The effect hands are probably the ones most are likely to use because they are pretty damn fun. It looks like the smoke trails are done with translucent, yellow, plastic that’s been airbrushed. The only other accessories is a tiny, in-scale, Green Ranger playing his flute and an actual power coin with the Dragonzord logo on one side and the zord symbol on the reverse. The little Green Ranger is okay, the painted shield makes it looks better than the Red Ranger that came with the Tyrannosaurus zord, but it’s nothing special. The coin is what it is. As far as novelty coins go, it’s well done, but I don’t know that it’s really necessary. On the other hand, we’re not missing anything. Maybe some arms that could swap in that are angled so it can fake some better range there?

There’s also a coin, if that’s something you value.
A less important comparison, but why not?

Super7’s take on the Dragonzord is not without its flaws, but it’s also pretty much as expected. This is a what you see is what you get, as long as you’re not looking at that image where the arms are going out to the side. It’s a chunky, solid, beast of an action figure. It won’t do much on your shelf, but it’s default look isn’t really lacking in shelf presence as it is. The effect hands really help sell the figure as it allows for something a bit more dynamic. Is it a package that’s worth $55 though? If you can overlook the inaccuracies with the head, I think so. The market has come towards Super7 making the price tag not as egregious as it was when this figure went up for preorder more than 2 years ago. If it were solicited today, I bet Super7 would have charged $65 for it like they did with the gold and black variant recently sold at San Diego Comic Con. I’m not saying that makes this one a bargain, but it’s definitely a better value than a lot of Super7 releases. If you’re all-in on this line, then you likely already have this. If you’re picking and choosing I think this is a solid addition to your zord shelf provided you have room. I’m curious to see if Super7 comes back and does a Battle Mode or Fighting Mode Dragonzord in the next wave (the White Tigerzord failed to get enough orders to go into production – ouch!). That one isn’t as fun looking as the standard version, but it would probably move better. They’d also get to recycle the Megazord legs so why not do it?

Suck it, Goldar!

Interested in reading about more Super7 offerings from the world of Power Rangers?

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Goldar

Last week, when we took a look at the first Power Ranger in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers I expressed some surprise that Hasbro would license out this brand since it competes with their own Lighting Collection. I do feel like the actual Rangers are pretty safe. People…

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by Joe

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

We continue to finally offload some long standing preorders this year and up next is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Super7. It was June 2021 when these figures were announced to the surprise of many. Why? Because Power Rangers are now owned by Hasbro, probably the biggest toy producer in the world who has its…

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by Joe

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August 29, 2023

Saurozoic Warriors Range Brakhion

By Joe
A new toyline has entered the game!

These days, the buzz word in the entertainment industry is “content.” Everyone wants content, especially streamers. It all goes back to the value of intellectual property. It’s costly and difficult to turn a new product into a popular one. It’s far easier, and less risky, to just throw money at an existing brand and create new content off of that. It’s true even in the world of action figures where the big companies with the deepest pockets shell out money for the likes of Marvel, DC, and whatever movie is looking hot these days. It’s almost rare to browse an action figure aisle at a big box store and find figures of something that never existed before, even though several beloved toy properties today began life as such.

Boss Fight Studio is a small, independent, toy producer based in Massachusetts. It got started largely doing its own thing creating its own products, though they were steeped in mythology and not entirely unfamiliar to toy buyers. Boss Fight would branch out to licensed products, first with Bucky O’Hare and later adding the likes of Popeye, Strawberry Shortcake, and many others. Unfortunately, the company lost the Bucky O’Hare license when the licensor decided it didn’t want to remain in the toy business. I’m not sure if it’s related to the toy we’re looking at today, but that 90s throwback line’s exit did create a gap in the release calendar and perhaps that was the opening that allowed the Saurozoic Warriors to rise.

I’m not sure what the official scale is for this line, so here he is with a variety of stuff both old and new.

Saurozoic Warriors is Boss Fight’s own, internal, IP turned action figure. The series is based around anthropomorphic dinosaurs which naturally has invited comparisons to Dinosaucers, one of the few 80s properties to not get a second chance at life in this day and age. The aesthetic is a one part barbarian, but also one part cyberpunk as characters are armed with melee weapons, but also sport blasters and other interesting accessories. What really caught my eye though was the color palette in play. These guys look ripped from a late 80s/early 90s guidebook to what’s cool. Neon blues and greens, hot pink, leather jackets – there’s attitude to spare here and it comes across as both earnest and charming. This is just a line of cool designs for people who lived through that era and I was pretty smitten upon the reveal.

This guy has weapon storage for the knife and axe, but the axe is so heavy that it doesn’t work especially well. You can also finagle the rifle into this same slot if you just want a place to store it.

Wave 1 of Saurozoic Warriors has recently landed and I knew it was only a matter of time until I ended up with one, or all four, of my own. Toy collecting is expensive and I’ve been trying to figure out where these would fit in my collection which is why I didn’t jump on a preorder. I was also hoping to buy them from Boss Fight in person since I reside in the same state, but COVID forced them to convert their retail space into office space so that was no longer an option. I planned to order them from their website at some point, but recently I went into my local comic book store to grab some new issues and there they were on the shelf. Well, three of them, but the one I coveted most was among the three. I wanted to buy direct from Boss Fight because I assume they make more money off of direct sales, but buying it off of a local comic book shop has plenty of benefit too as that’s a business I want to support so I pivoted from my plan and grabbed a figure: Range Brakhion.

If you want to know more about the IP, Boss Fight does have a free digital comic on its website. I haven’t checked it out, because I mostly don’t care. This just looks cool and I am here for it. The figure comes in a large window box with original artwork by Robert Wilson IV. And when I say large window box, I mean the window itself is basically the entire front of the box. If you want packaging to give you a good look at the figure you’re buying then Boss Fight should please you. It’s almost too big as the figure looks pretty small in it, but it certainly showcases it well.

“So…you’re what Boss Fight Studio is up to these days.”

Range Brakhion is a bipedal brachiosaurus with a barbarian motif. He stands a shade under 6.5″ making him one of the tallest figures from Boss Fight I own. The neck is bent like an inverted “L” with his face forward while the rest of the body is basically that of a well-muscled dude who wouldn’t look out of place among the folks in Masters of the Universe. The sculpt is well done as the skin has a cracked texture to it with the occasional wart-like bump. He has flat teeth, befitting his species, and the head has a plated quality to it on the top which I like. The armor he sports is mostly done with separate pieces. He has this harness that criss-crosses his chest and back and includes the large shoulder pad over his left shoulder. The loincloth is a separate piece which floats and also doubles as a way to hide the crotch articulation without the need for a cumbersome “diaper” overlay. The wrist gauntlets look to be separate pieces that might be keyed in or even glued. The boots are sculpted pieces.

“I should have never played around with super-science!”

What makes Range Brakhion shine though, is with the choice of colors. There’s not a ton of paint, but there doesn’t need to be. The body is done in a bright blue, an electric blue, with a hit of purple airbrush that’s mostly concentrated on the front of the neck. The armor bits are done with hot pink and a fluorescent orangey-pink that play well off of each other. The rest of the paint is mostly reserved for the facial details, the pink rim on the top of the head, and the gauntlets. And those applications are just okay. He has a little skull on his left wrist and the straps holding it on are a little messy in places. There’s a stripe of pink on his snout that could be darker, the paint around the teeth could be sharper, and there’s some paint slop on the back of his belt. If this were a $60 figure, I might be harder on the paint, but at $30 from a small toy company I think it’s okay. The color combo is what’s going to make him pop on your shelf and the paint issues aren’t enough to dampen that.

“Hmm…I like the cut of your jib, long-neck.”

Range Brakhion also comes with a trio of weapons. He has what Boss Fight calls a rocket axe, which is just a giant axe that has some machinery fastened to the end of it. It’s bound to the blade with straps through a skull. The only paint is on the axe blade itself and the skull which is an off-white. The rest is sculpted in hot pink which matches his armor rather well. The detail on all of the machine bits is really well done so I’m a little disappointed that it’s not fully painted, but I also think Boss Fight is intentionally going for a bit of an old school aesthetic with the weapons. It’s a big, heavy, weapon though that’s best held with two hands when posing the figure. There is a slot on the back of his harness for it when it’s not in use, but the heft of the weapon can make it tricky to keep it in there.

Range Brakhion also has a blaster rifle which is also molded in hot pink and has a touch of silver on the muzzle. It’s another great sculpt as the rifle looks to be held together in places by tape. There’s etchings indicating the character’s kills (13, if you’re curious) and there’s a scope, bullet ribbon, and what looks to be a collapsible stand on the front which is non-functioning. The handle of the weapon is a bit thin so the figure doesn’t get as tight a grip on it as I’d like. It also has a loop at the back end that almost looks like it’s intended to go somewhere, but I don’t see anywhere to store it on the figure. You can kind of shove it into the same holster as the axe, or you could try to sneak it under the straps if you were willing to risk breaking them. Lastly, there’s his poison-tipped knife which is just a big ole knife with spiked handguard. It utilizes the same silver and hot pink combo and has a sheath to slide into when not in use that’s on the front of the chest harness and looks pretty cool. Those are the only accessories. If you were hoping for extra hands there are none to be found. I would have liked a trigger finger hand, but the gun doesn’t really have a trigger on it anyway so it’s not a huge loss.

“At long last, the Triceratons have a new leader!”

Articulation for a Boss Fight figure is usually on the basic side by modern toy standards and this figure seems to embody that. The head is on a double ball peg so it can rotate around, tilt, and look down. There’s no range up. You get an articulated jaw as well which can get a little a loose if you’re manipulating the head a lot, but that’s just because the head is working it’s way off of the ball peg so you just have to push it back to tighten it up. The base of the neck is on a ball joint so that rotates fine and allows the character to look down further, but it has no range going back. It might have been fun to get an interchangeable neck that was in a different shape, but this bend they went with is probably the best move absent that.

I thought he might look cool with two bladed weapons. Thankfully, Super7’s Slash has the same taste in colors as this fella.

The shoulders are on a hinged ball-peg and the figure can raise its arms out past horizontal and rotate around just fine. The elbows are single-hinged and will give you 90 degrees with swivel. The hands are hinged pegs and will mostly just rotate as the hinge is pretty well buried in the gauntlets. They are horizontal hinges, but you won’t get much movement out of them anyway. The waist is just a ball joint so the figure can rotate fine and gets some tilt in all directions. It’s not a tremendous amount of range, but it’s not nothing either. The hips are simple ball sockets and since the joint is all exposed under his loincloth you’ll get pretty good range out of them. He can do splits, kick forward, back, and gets a little swivel on the ball joint. The knees are single-hinged like the elbows, but they won’t give you a full 90 degree bend. They do swivel and at the ankle there’s a hinge and rocker which both work fine.

He certainly looks at home with Boss Fight’s Bucky O’Hare figures. He may just live here.

Range Brakhion has just enough articulation. Could it be better? Sure. I’d have loved usable wrist hinges and if he could get both hands on his rifle that would have been great too, but that would have required something more drastic. I understand Boss Fight not wanting to cut into the sculpt further for something like a butterfly joint. I like the chunky sculpt in the chest and wouldn’t want anything taken away from it. Since he is a character created to be a toy, maybe they could have designed the rifle to be held in two hands instead? Boss Fight definitely isn’t going for super-articulated here and I think they’ve done a good enough job.

That’s all of the objective things I can say about this release from Boss Fight Studio, so all that’s left is the subjective and I love this figure! He just looks so fun via the sculpt, design, and those wonderful colors. This is a fun IP from the folks at Boss Fight Studio and I plan on getting more. When? I’m not sure, but I don’t plan on being one and done with this line. I don’t know that I’ll be a completist, especially as I search for a place to put this guy, but I know that I like other figures in Wave 1 and some of the designs in Wave 2 look fantastic. Boss Fight is onto something here and I hope it pays off for them. If this looks like something you would be entertained by then I definitely encourage you to take the plunge and give this line a shot!

If you enjoyed this entry about a Boss Fight Studio project then maybe you will like one of these:

Boss Fight Studio Sam & Max

Sometimes a toy comes along that I just can’t ignore. There’s just something neat about it, or the aesthetic so on point, that I want to own it even if I have little or no attachment to the source material. Such is the case with the Boss Fight Studio release of Sam & Max. I…

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by Joe

Boss Fight Studio Corsair Canard Dead-Eye Duck

It’s been awhile since we’ve had some new Bucky O’Hare stuff to talk about from Boss Fight Studio, but the wait is over and BFS is setting us up for a nice exit to 2018. Up first, is the variant Corsair Canard Dead-Eye Duck. This action figure is a re-paint of the Series 2 Dead-Eye…

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by Joe

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August 24, 2023

Star Wars: The Vintage Collection Boba Fett (Vintage Comic Art)

By Joe
Make way for the Fett man!

I’ve been collecting action figures in some capacity for my whole life, and it occurred to me now that I’ve never owned the Fett man. That’s Boba Fett, who is one of the most iconic characters from Star Wars and also pretty noteworthy in the world of action figures. I am not the place for Star Wars history, but it’s my understanding that the original Boba Fett figure was hard to come by as safety standards prevented its release because of the missile firing action it possessed. Or it was released, then recalled, something like that. Needless to say, that original Boba Fett is a prized possession for vintage Star Wars collectors and the notoriety surrounding it has only added to the character’s popularity.

I didn’t collect the original Kenner line of Star Wars toys, but I did get into The Power of the Force which debuted in the 90s. My interest in it was somewhat of a passing one. I think I got a bunch of money for a birthday to do as I pleased and saw it as the right time to build up a Star Wars collection. Following that, it didn’t move much farther so I had plenty of gaps in my collection (the only Han Solo I had was the mail-away one in Storm Trooper armor you could get via Froot Loops), but the only one I was a little bothered by was my lack of Boba Fett. He just wasn’t in stock that day, and really, not a ton was as I ended up with quite a few figures from the Shadows of the Empire line. I would have opportunities to get Boba Fett later, and his spaceship, but when push came to shove I just didn’t want it enough.

I’m guessing a lot of folks leave these on card because it does display well.

As an adult, I don’t buy many Star Wars figures, but I do have a trio from The Vintage Collection. This is the Kenner homage line, but with more articulation and more paint. I liked the Mandalorian I picked up, but I really didn’t care for the Dark Trooper. I was so unimpressed with that figure that when I went to post my review I couldn’t be bothered to retake my photos which had come out rather blurry. I almost didn’t post it, but I took the time to write it so I let it slip through. I thought I was done with The Vintage Collection, but then I came across this Boba Fett the other day. I had previously considered getting the Kenner colors version of basically the same figure a few months back, but Hasbro wanted $26 for it so I wasn’t all that tempted. For some reason, $20 felt that much better when it came to this new one so let’s talk about it.

I just find the little guy charming and he does kind of fit in with the Christmas figures.

This Boba Fett is labeled as the Vintage Comic Art variant. As far as I know, the sculpt is 100% reuse from past Boba Fett figures and it’s part of a wave of Fett variants because the guy sells. This one is exclusive to Target which is where I found it. For some reason, it didn’t scan when I tried to buy it, but it wasn’t due to a register lock, so an associate just entered a price for me. I got it for $20, which is actually a buck cheaper than it’s supposed to be (thanks Target employee!) so I guess I have a tiny bit of surplus value in it. I’ve actually had that happen a couple of times at Target where I tell the associate the right price and they give it to me for less anyway. One older woman let me have a $4 Hot Wheel for a buck because I think she just felt that’s what it was worth which amused me.

Just look at that guy – such a bad ass!

Anyway, I don’t know where this look for Boba Fett comes from, but I’m going to assume it’s from a comic book adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back since that’s what’s listed on it. Again, other places could better inform you on the history of this thing, but what attracted me to it was the colors. This figure is cast mostly in a rich, dark, green with mostly red and white mixed in. Maybe it’s my love of Christmas influencing me a bit, but this color scheme works for me. It just pops, and I like where the red is utilized. What really works though is the helmet which has this blue shading on it between the black and white. And that little dot of white on the top of the helmet is just – chef’s kiss! It looks great! And I found myself taking it to the register against my better judgement. I think what also works in its favor is the size. As an homage line, we’re talking about a 3.75″ figure, give or take, where that colored plastic look comes off better. On the few Black Series figures I have, the red plastic in particular comes across as cheap, but it’s not as noticeable in a smaller scale.

I’m not in love with the soft goods or the appearance of the jetpack, but it’s not like they’re displayed prominently.

The presentation is rather lovely for this scale and the figure also comes with a couple of accessories. There’s a non-removable soft goods cape affixed to the back of the figure’s left shoulder. It has some holes in it so that it looks weathered, I suppose, though it does throw off the look of the figure a little bit. On the other hand, the plastic cape on the Din Djarin figure is a bit of a pain to deal with so I can’t say I mind too much. On the figure’s back is the jetpack with a non-removable missile, which is a little disappointing. The paint on it isn’t super detailed, but I’m guessing it wasn’t in the comic it’s based on too.

“Stick ’em up, unless you can tell me where I can stick this handgun then please help me!”

For weapons, Boba Fett gets a sidearm and a short rifle with a sling on it. The handgun is basically cast all in a light blue, while the rifle is solid purple. It’s an interesting look, for sure, and it works for me as a toy. There are no optional hands, but both hands are trigger-finger hands so he can hold a weapon in either hand. He can casually hold the rifle in two hands, the classic Boba Fett pose, though he can’t aim it with two hands. I like both, but I’m disappointed that he doesn’t have a holster for the sidearm. Now, he doesn’t have one on the card art, but maybe just give him one anyway? Or find a way to include one on his back or something. I feel like he has to be displayed holding the handgun or else it will get lost. The rifle at least has the sling so it can go over a shoulder, but the handgun has to be just shoved somewhere it’s not supposed to go if you want to store it.

Articulation is just okay. It’s a bit of a bummer that he can’t really do a two-handed, gun-firing, sort of pose.

The articulation on this guy is exactly the same as Din Djarin. I’m guessing some of the parts are the same, but there’s plenty that isn’t. This figure is going to pose much better than those old Kenner figures and really about as well as The Black Series. The limitations the Holiday Mandalorian I have possesses are pretty much the same here. It’s the torso that’s limiting since Fett wears armor so you don’t get anything in the diaphragm. The lack of butterfly joints at the shoulder prevent some of those gun holding poses you would like to have and the knees and elbows are single-hinged. The only joints I don’t like really are the hips, which are hinged ball pegs. Ball and socket joints would work better and I don’t see how they would cost anymore other than the expense of switching from one thing to another. The feet are a little on the small side so this guy might fall over here and there, but once you find a pose it seems to be fine.

The big thing with this series and figure is just the cost versus what you get. Should a 3.75″ figure cost over 20 bucks? I think in the minds of most the answer is “No.” I do wish we got a little more for our buck like maybe an effect part for the jetpack. This one doesn’t even have holes to accept the effect parts that came with the Dark Trooper which did bum me out a bit. A removable missile or a blasting missile effect would have been awesome too. I’d have taken that over the sidearm. My feeling with a lot of what Hasbro is doing (and it’s worse in the Marvel Legends line) with its prices is that they’re going up without the consumer feeling like they’re getting something extra. In fact, they seem to be cutting back on a lot of paint apps, accessories, etc. This one isn’t that bad as we at least get two guns and a fun paint job, but there’s no way to really downplay that the asking price is more than we’re used to.

At least he can handle this pose.

As someone who never owned a Boba Fett before, I’m happy with this being my first. I think he looks cool, he looks fun, and he adds something to my modest nook of Star Wars figures. It’s the appearance that sells this, so if you like it go out and grab one. If you’re not a completist though, maybe double-check and make sure you don’t prefer a different variant as there’s no shortage of Boba Fett these days. This figure is exclusive to Target in the US and my store at least got a whole bunch so I don’t think it will be super hard to find, but it might be the type of release where if you wait too long you could miss your chance.

If you would like to read more Star Wars toy reviews, I’ve got a few more you can check out:

Star Wars: The Vintage Collection Dark Trooper

I’m back with another Star Wars action figure review! Actually, I don’t do these very often. This is only the third such review out of me because I usually don’t collect Star Wars. Sure, I think the franchise is fine and I did collect figures as a kid, but it’s not something I’m drawn to…

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by Joe

Star Wars The Black Series Mandalorian Warrior (Holiday Edition)

We’re getting to Christmas coverage at The Nostalgia Spot one day early this year with this look at one of the latest in the Holiday Collection from Hasbro’s Star Wars line of action figures referred to as The Black Series. I have previously looked at a figure from the very popular streaming show The Mandalorian…

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by Joe

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August 22, 2023

Twisted Metal (2023)

By Joe

When I was a kid, Christmas was a big deal. Obviously, it’s a big deal for any kid that celebrates it, but it was an especially big deal for my grandmother on my mother’s side (Grandma). I wasn’t really aware of it, but she felt like she was in competition to get my sister and I the best stuff when it came to the holiday. It’s what she looked forward to the most. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but in the summer of 1995 my Nana, that’s my grandmother on my dad’s side, was already planning on giving me my own television for Christmas. Now, my mom has just one sibling, but my dad has eight. Nana had to figure out her own system for the holidays because she had nearly 20 grandkids to buy presents for. It kind of went when you’re little you get toys, and when you’re a teen, you get cash. It was that sweet spot in the middle where she tried to get you something nice, and in 1995, getting a TV was pretty damn nice even if it was a modest 13″ device. And because of the expense of the holiday, Nana had to plan that stuff out all year so she was in position to get the best deals she could.

To bring this on topic, me getting a TV meant Grandma had to really step up her game so the second the Sears Wish Book started showing up she had me seated at a table picking through it looking for the best possible item. I was pointing to little things here and there and I could tell she was getting uncharacteristically frustrated at my modest selections. She prodded me for something “big,” and in my memory, right after she said that I flipped the page and saw it staring right at me: the Sony PlayStation. At that point, PlayStation was brand new and retailed for $300. My mom immediately said “No,” but Grandma was quiet. I could tell the wheels were turning as she stared at that glossy print. Then came the bargaining. “Well,” she started, “between clothes and toys that’s probably pretty close to what I spend on each grandchild at Christmas.” Right then and there, I knew it was locked-in. Grandma had made up her mind and my mother was not going to talk her out of it. It would be the only thing I got that Christmas that came from a store. Grandma did knit me a blanket and I still have that blanket to this very day even though I haven’t had a grandma for over 10 years. And that PlayStation? Yeah, I still have that too.

Twisted Metal, the show, has settled on John Doe as its lead – a goofball smuggler who has somehow survived 20 years in this hellscape.

The funny thing about that PlayStation is, in my mind, it was an unattainable thing like a NeoGeo or a Sega CD. I never thought I’d have one prior to that day, so I didn’t even know what games were really on it. I asked “Santa,” even though I had long outgrown that, for Doom because I had played it a bit at a friend’s house on his PC and GamePro gave it a perfect score. Outside of that, I was clueless. When I did get that PlayStation, I was surprised to see it came with a demo disc. It had a few playable demos on it – I recall Jumping Flash having a level and you could try and three fighters from Battle Arena Toshinden could be tried out. In addition to those, there were video demos and one of those was Twisted Metal. It turns out, I’m not that into Doom, so I quickly spent whatever money I had collected between report cards and the holidays to get another game and Twisted Metal was the one I settled on. I loved it! And I loved the sequel even more when it came out. Twisted Metal Black is one of my all-time favorites, so yeah, you can consider me a fan of the series.

The uneasy relationship between John and Quiet is going to be relied upon as the pairing that anchors the show.

And since I’m such a fan, you would think I would have been excited when it was announced that the video game was being adapted for television. Truth be told, I could not have cared less. I assumed it would be hot garbage. How do you turn a glorified demolition derby into compelling television without it being just that – a glorified, now scripted, demolition derby? I’m no poet or anything, but at the height of my fandom in middle school I even tried turning the first game into a story and gave up. Even I, who enjoyed doing all kinds of fanfic and stuff like that, couldn’t make it work for an audience of one. There are definitely some colorful characters associated with the franchise and the story mode in Twisted Metal Black was fairly entertaining, but I just didn’t see how it could work.

Then it got some decent names attached to it. The game was adapted for television by the team of Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Michael Jonathan Smith. Reese and Wernick have worked together on films such as Zombieland, Deadpool, and their respective sequels. Reese even got started working with Disney writing films like Dinosaur and Monsters, Inc. That’s a pretty interesting resume, and Zombieland certainly feels like it might work with cars. Anthony Mackie was attached to star and the supporting cast was announced to include Stephanie Beatriz, Thomas Haden Church, Neve Campbell, and the duo of Joe Seanoa (better known to wrestling fans as Samoa Joe) and Will Arnett as Sweet Tooth with Arnett providing the voice for the character. I was forced to admit that I was intrigued, so when the show dropped on Peacock this summer I decided to take it for a spin.

Twisted Metal is set 20 years after the Apocalypse. The show doesn’t go into great detail about what happened, but essentially there was a massive failure in the power grid. I don’t know if it was a global catastrophe, or just related to the United States, but essentially everything went to Hell. Cities were sectioned off and the presumably wealthy and powerful remained inside the walled off municipalities while the rest of humanity was left to fight over the scraps. John Doe (Mackie) is a milk man. He basically does deliveries of various products between cities which makes him a target for vandals and such. It’s not an easy life, but it’s the only one he knows as he’s been doing it since he was a kid. He has no memory of his family or who he is, he just has a partially burnt picture to remind him of the life he once had.

Neve Campbell plays the mysterious Raven, who like a lot of characters in this show, seems to just be borrowing the name of someone from the games without being a true adaptation.

In the very first episode, John is given a special task by Raven (Neve Campbell), the head of the San Francisco city, to retrieve an item for her in New Chicago. The journey is essentially a suicide mission, but if John pulls it off in 10 days he’ll be invited inside to live out the rest of his days in relative peace. He gets a little taste of life on the inside as a show of sorts before accepting the job and we’re off and running. Along the way, he’ll meet Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz), a mute woman who was previously traveling with her brother until they ran afoul of Agent Stone (Thomas Haden Church). He’s the self-appointed lawman that’s going to bring the country back to law and order and his methods are brutal and fascist. He’s been able to amass a following though, which includes the duo of Mike (Tahj Vaughans) and Stu (Mike Mitchell). And then, of course, there’s Sweet Tooth who resides in Vegas and is someone no one wants to cross paths with.

Thomas Haden Church gives one of the best performances in the series as the uncompromising lawman Agent Stone.

Through circumstance, John and Quiet are going to end up an unlikely duo and that’s the foundation of the show. It’s basically an odd couple pairing that’s also a bit like a buddy cop road trip. Quiet and John are going to clash. John is a rather cheerful sort who wants everyone to like him, while Quiet is…quiet. She would rather not speak, though we’ll quickly learn that’s by choice. She’s had a tough go of things so it’s understandable that she would have a hard time relating to John, but she has her own priorities as well. And since our co-leads are male and female, there’s going to be some sexual tension to play up as well. It’s all very conventional, which is the show’s greatest failing. The dialogue is not nearly as inventive as we’ve seen in other projects by Reese and Wernick. Maybe that’s because the actors in those films did more ad-libbing? They want there to be a lot of jokes and witty remarks from our leads, but it all feels contrived. There’s not a natural chemistry between our leads, but it does at least get better. Oddly, the tipping point for me was the show’s eighth episode which is all about John’s car – go figure.

Come one, give us more of the clown!

What might frustrate viewers is the character of Sweet Tooth. He’s basically the star of the video game franchise and he’s introduced quickly in this show, but then disappears for long stretches. He’ll eventually get a pairing of his own (and I’m not talking about Harold, though he’s here too) that actually does work. I don’t want to spoil anything, but he finds himself riding with a character he plays off of well. Sweet Tooth is an aspiring performer and if people respond in an inauthentic way to his art he, well, kills them. He’s the type of character that others need to walk around on eggshells with even if he appears to be friendly with them. It’s pretty conventional stuff, but it works to create tension and at least with him I wasn’t always certain what was going to come next. The portrayal is great, there just isn’t enough of it.

As for the rest, there’s not a ton from the video games for viewers to latch onto. And that’s a good thing, as a direct adaptation would have failed spectacularly. There are plenty of references and even characters from the games, but they’re all changed-up quite a bit. They play more like homages, and in some cases the connection is little more than a name (wait till you see why they call him Mr. Slam). John Doe could be the same John Doe that’s in Twisted Metal Black, but his backstory is completely different. His car, which he named Evelyn, vaguely resembles some of the Roadkill vehicles from the series, but he’s basically a brand new character. As for Quiet, I’m not sure if she is modeled after anyone. If she is, it’s not obvious. Along the way, there are other vehicles that will certainly remind viewers of the same from the games. The show doesn’t just stick to the games most fans view favorably, meaning you will see some references to the 989 games so I suppose that’s good for those who grew up with Twisted Metal 3 and 4.

The presumed wealthy have been able to wall themselves off from the rest of the world and inside it’s basically like nothing happened.

The look of the show is very much in-line with other post-apocalyptic films and TV shows, though it’s merely window-dressing. This setting appears to have plenty of gas available and the characters have little issue finding food. They didn’t want it to be play like a survival genre show like The Last of Us, so I get it, but for some it may be irritating. It appears to have a solid budget as most episodes take place in a completely different location from the previous one. For a show based on a video game about car combat, there isn’t a ton of that throughout, but they did save some fireworks for the finale. And when it wants to, it can be a pretty cool exhibition of stunt driving and practical effects. Explosions, flipped cars, plenty of gruesome kills. You’re going to see a lot of people get killed in various and bloody ways. It’s all done with a pretty light tone which is what one would expect from Reese and Wernick. There’s a lot of jokes, many of which are of the obvious variety, but some genuine laughs can be found too. It’s probably not a great ratio though as I’d say 1 out of 4 one-liners land as intended. Some of the corny remarks are certainly intended to be just that, but plenty are not and will likely induce a groan or two.

Mike Mitchell’s Stu is perhaps the most sympathetic character of the first season and the one that’s easiest to root for. He was great.

Twisted Metal is definitely a show that’s probably better than it has any reason to be, but is it good? I waffled on that one as I watched each of the 10 episodes over the course of two weeks. Rarely when an episode ended did I feel compelled to jump into the next one, which is how I was able to spread it out. I can’t tell if the actors were just handed subpar material to work with, or if they’re just not getting it. I poked fun at the humor elements, but even the dramatic stuff can fall flat. It did at least get better and I was satisfied with where it ended up. Outside of the Sweet Tooth stuff, it just took until really that 8th episode before it became something I wanted to watch as opposed to something I was just killing time with. There’s one episode that’s essentially a bottle episode where John and Quiet are stuck inside a fast food joint for the entire duration of the episode. I felt like that was supposed to be the most important episode of the season, but it just didn’t land, and again, it’s because the leads just didn’t gel in a satisfying manner. There’s a way too on the nose metaphor about letting go in that episode that is supposed to land as a poignant moment, but for me it just looked like amateur hour. And even after 10 episodes, I’m still not sure if I’m sold on the John/Quiet pairing. And while I liked the performance of Beatriz probably more than any other actor in the show, I felt Quiet too often changed gears. She went from angry, tortured, woman who refused to speak to a quip-machine way too quickly and often for me. It’s like the show was only interested in the opposites attract aspect of their leads for a little while and then decided they should both essentially be the same and bounce one-liners off each other.

If there is a second season, it sounds like we’re for more of this and less ball pit shenanigans.

The first season ends with a setup for a second season. And if that second season comes to fruition, it looks like it could be more like the video games than this season. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing, but I suppose they’ve earned the right to try. Per Peacock, where this show is streaming, it supposedly had a strong debut and the critical reception seems to be at an acceptable level. The budget for the first season was around $45 million and unless Peacock locked-in the cost for a second season with the talent involved, it stands to reason a season two will cost a little more than that. Is it enough? I have no idea as I don’t think anyone can figure out what streaming shows merit additional seasons and what don’t. And presently there are some pretty big strikes taking place over that issue so who knows? If you want some light entertainment (with gory violence) or are just curious to see how Twisted Metal could work as a show it’s probably worth a look. With each episode being about a half hour, it doesn’t take long to get through it. It just sucks that it takes a while to get going so some may not see it through to the end. As for me, I don’t regret spending approximately five hours of my life in this world and there was some enjoyment in spotting the references. It’s probably about as good as an adaption of the game could be and I think it does a reasonable job of finding the game’s ton as something between the wackiness of Twisted Metal 2 and the dark and grim Black. I’m not really that curious on where the show goes from here, but it definitely left me wanting a new, and good, Twisted Metal video game. Make it happen, Sony!

If you’d like to read some dated thoughts on Twisted Metal, or maybe a Twisted Metal-adjacent toy review, then check these out:

Greatest Games: Twisted Metal Black

The vehicular combat genre of games has been around for almost as long as video games have.  They either take the form of a more traditional tank battle or a more outlandish game of chicken with machine guns and rocket launchers.  As such, tracing its origins proves quite difficult.  For me, the vehicular combat genre…

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by Joe

Twisted Metal (2012)

If you frequent this blog you may have noticed that I do not post many negative reviews.  That’s because, for the most part, I’d rather talk about things I like and enjoy and not things that irritate me or make me mad.  There have been some exceptions.  I set out to review all of the…

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Marvel Legends Deadpool 2 Two-Pack

Look through my various toy reviews and you’ll probably notice that I’m not much of a Marvel guy. That wasn’t always the case for me though as I was huge into Marvel Legends once upon a time. I basically stopped around the time Hasbro was awarded the Marvel license. I felt there was a dip…

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by Joe

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August 17, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Trunks – The Boy from the Future

By Joe
He didn’t exactly travel through time to get here, but he did have to cross an ocean.

The most captivating character in all of Dragon Ball Z for me back in the 90s was unquestionably Trunks. The offspring of Bulma and Vegeta who traveled back in time to warn the heroes of the day about impending doom on the horizon was unique for many reasons. For one, he actually looks like a normal person. Or rather, his hair does when compared with the likes of Goku and Vegeta. He wields a sword which is pretty different, and he sports some sort of half-jacket or 3/4 jacket that, while nothing I’d wear, he’s able to pull off. Mostly though, he was captivating to me because he was a character I knew was coming, but since the english dub of the show was stuck in Namek for so many years, he remained a mystery. And when FUNimation finally resumed dubbing DBZ when it became popular via Cartoon Network I finally got to see what all the fuss was about. It turns out Trunks is pretty okay. A tragic backstory, a determined will, and who is pure of heart – what’s not to like? Plus, he shows up and absolutely dominates Frieza, the enemy Goku spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 episodes fighting, dispatched in mere moments. Pretty bad ass stuff.

When it comes to Future Trunks, I definitely needed an upgrade. And Bandai, please, pretty please, re-issue the Dragon Ball Super Future Trunks!

Trunks, as one of the more involved character designs on the show, has always made for a rather desirable action figure. His figure in the old Bandai Super Battle Collection was, for me, one of the few worth getting. When Irwin Toys started making their own sculpts, a Trunks figure arrived before even Goku or Vegeta (actually, light praise since the same could be said of Yajirobe and King Kai) with a Super Saiyan version not far behind in their action feature subline. For a character with comparatively few episodes compared with the main cast, the show did get a lot of looks out of him which allows toy companies to do the same when it comes to figures.

We’re all in agreement, right? Trunks is cool because he has a sword.

When I got back into DBZ toy collecting, a Trunks figure was on my short list of figures I wanted. I almost picked up the battle armor version of Super Saiyan Trunks in the waning days of Toys R’ Us. A store near me had one with liquidation pricing, but it was still over 40 bucks and I just wasn’t that into the figure. It turns out, I was playing the long game as a better version of that figure is getting re-released later this year at the budget price of $35. I win again, universe! The real version of Trunks I wanted though was his first appearance. That’s the blue jacket, sword, short hair, look. Preferably, a Super Saiyan portrait, but it’s always nice to get both. My patience has paid off as recently released (okay, well, a few months ago because this sat in my Pile of Loot for a bit at Big Bad Toy Store) is a new version of Trunks from his debut episode. It is, as far as I know, an all new sculpt from an earlier version of the same which is why it doesn’t get the budget pricing (unlike Vegeta, who was released alongside him). That’s fine though as I don’t want a dated figure, just a good one. It’s a popular character we’re dealing with and did Bandai do Trunks justice?

Was this the last thing Frieza saw before he kicked the bucket?

Trunks arrives in the standard window box packaging for the S.H.Figuarts line. Out of the box, he stands approximately 5.25″ not counting the hair. As is often the case with this line, much of the figure is done with molded, colored, plastic with little in the way of paint hits. His jacket is a soft rubber with a very matte appearance while the sleeves are part of the arm’s sculpt. They’re a touch glossy when compared with the jacket so it’s not the most uniform look. The Capsule Corp. logo on the left bicep is more gray than white, but the opacity is at least appropriate. There’s a touch of paint at the ends of the sleeves where some gold buttons are featured, but that’s it for paint on the coat. The chest is painted flesh-color and it matches the neck, which is unpainted, better than some of the other figures I have. It’s not, however, especially clean as the left side is pretty rough looking where the flesh meets the shirt. There’s a little paint on the belt and boots and that is at least cleanly applied. The pants feature no shading that I can tell, and the plastic in his crotch region is more glossy than the pant legs which is a bit of a bummer.

Or maybe this was the last thing Frieza saw? He seems to be able to survive when in pieces.

What does look great though is the face. Bandai has really upped their game when it comes to their face-printing and Trunks is no exception. The linework around the eyes is sharp and clean and I like the little paint hits on the creases of his skin and at the ends of his eyebrows. The Super Saiyan hair is cast in a pale yellow, but with a kiss of light orange paint in the center. I honestly think they could have gone a touch heavier with the shading, but I’m glad to see it’s here. This is probably the approach to Super Saiyan hair I like the most. The translucent hair is a bit fun, but not really screen accurate, and the gold color they sometimes use is overkill. And then there’s the Super Saiyan Gohan head which is just pale yellow with no shading which was definitely lacking.

No energy effects, so I had to improvise.

In terms of the accessories, this is one of the most complete Bandai releases I can think of. Trunks comes with two heads and five faceplates. Four of the faceplates are for his Super Saiyan look. We get a neutral expression, yelling, teeth gritting, and a side eye. For that look, he also has two pieces for his bangs, one that’s basically neutral and another for when he’s powering up that’s pointed skyward. The second head is a base Trunks head with his very 90s haircut in molded, purple, plastic. He has one faceplate for this hair and it’s a neutral one. If you’re only going to have one, then it makes sense for it to be neutral. I’m a little disappointed that the upcoming Trunks in the battle armor doesn’t come with another base Trunks face as it would have been a clever way to expand both figures, but that’s not a shortcoming of this release. The base head is nice to have though, but it looks a bit off to me. The hair sits rather high, and while I’m happy the figure can be both super and non, I do wonder if I’ll ever really use this one. To go with the faces, Trunks has six sets of hands: fists, gripping, clenching, open, flat palm, and a more nuanced gripping hand. The extra gripping hands are kind of unnecessary, but I do like that his right hand and left can have a different grip which is kind of neat.

He looks pretty great with this aura effect. I’m going to have to make some room for it.

And Trunks needs those gripping hands because his signature accessory is his sword. The blade comes with its own scabbard which looks to be sculpted in a silver and then painted brown with light blue straps. I’m not sure if this brown is from the manga or something or just an error as it was more of a red-orange in the anime. The paint isn’t perfect on the straps, but it’s featured on the figure’s back so it’s not going to be displayed prominently in most cases. It slings over the figure’s shoulder via a strap done in a soft plastic. It’s painted well enough and seems to stay in place just fine. When posing the figure the strap might pop off and it is annoying, but it’s easy to work with, at least. The sword itself is sculpted in the same silver and the handle is painted brown. I like the shape of the blade and it comes to a nice point, something the old Irwin toy couldn’t do because of safety standards. The pommel of the sword is removable which is how you’re supposed to slide the handle into one of the gripping hands, which is a nice idea. The pommel does pop off rather easily though, so do be careful as it would be an easy thing to lose given its size.

Here comes the Burning Attack, or whatever he calls it.

Trunks comes with everything he needs (save for a blast effect), but does he have the articulation to wield it all properly? The head is on the usual double ball peg, though the hair covers the back of his neck enough to limit the figure’s ability to look up. Looking down isn’t a problem and the ball peg at the base of the neck enhances that range. Otherwise, you get rotation and plenty of nuance posing there. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs which fit into a socket attached to a butterfly joint. Trunks can raise his arms out to the side past a horizontal pose, rotate all around, and the butterfly has quite good range. It comes with a visual trade-off though in that Bandai did the rear of the jacket in segments. I don’t know that they needed to. On one hand, it’s on the rear of the figure and is also further obscured by the scabbard if that’s in place. On the other, it’s pretty ugly and visually unappealing. We also have a biceps swivel and the left one, for some reason, has a tendency to pop off. It’s easily popped back into place, but can be annoying. The double-jointed elbows bend well past 90 degrees and the wrists use the usual ball peg setup. They’re recessed quite deep in the cuffs of the jacket though so the range isn’t as robust as usual.

The figure also comes with a base head, if you want that.

In the torso, the usual ball-jointed diaphragm is present. There’s no hinge that I can see, and it mostly provides some lean to each side and rotation. The range back and forward is minimal, and if you turn too far you will expose some gaps on both the side of the torso or on the back and front. The waist is ball-jointed as well and it’s actually elevated more than usual. This is because the floating belt obscures the gap and it does let the figure bend forward and back quite a bit. Plus, it provides the customary swivel and a little tilt. The hips will allow the figure to do splits and also kick forward about 90 degrees. The range going back is minimal, and there’s a thigh swivel as well. The look of this joint is a little ugly though as they felt it necessary to have the paints continue up the side of the thigh all the way to the hip and I don’t know why. Or maybe they shouldn’t have the cut-out in the crotch, but it looks goofy. This is also the lone loose joint on my figure. It will hold a pose, but it’s a little floppy which is unusual for a S.H.Figuarts release. The knees are double-jointed and will go a bit past 90 degrees. There’s no boot swivel, and the ankle joint will bend back pretty far, but has almost zero range going forward. The ankle rocker is just okay and there’s a toe hinge, if you want it.

Trunks has great range in the shoulders, but it does come with this wonky setup with the jacket.

The articulation on Trunks is mostly good. I like the range in the shoulders and torso as he can hit a variety of sword poses. He can easily grip the sword with both hands or just one and he can also grip the handle while it’s sheathed, a favorite of mine. I don’t really like the hips though. The range there is great, but the looseness is unpleasant. This one was made in the Vietnam factory and it has that cheaper feel to it some of the figures out of that factory have possessed. Most of my nitpicks though are with the presentation. The jacket is over-engineered and the hips as well. I don’t like that there’s a sizable gap between the base of the neck and chest, but at least the strap on the scabbard can obscure that. The paint could also be better and the boots stick out to me as looking especially cheap. They need a wash or something to just class it up a bit. This is, after all, not one of the $35 efforts.

“Wait! Your dad’s Vegeta, and your mom is an inventor who knows me…?!”

Presentation nitpicks aside, where Trunks flourishes is with the display options. The faces all look so good that picking just one is a challenge. Maybe I would have traded the side-eye one for a smirk, but I also do like that one. The only accessories that could have made this release better is the usual blast effect, which most figures forego, or optional bare arms so he could have his end of arc look. That would have caused problems with the butterfly joint though which is done in blue. They would have had to include some caps or floating pieces to obscure that in addition to the arms, so I get why they didn’t pursue that further. Plus, I prefer the jacketed look more and I wouldn’t want that to be compromised at all to make way for such a thing.

These Super Saiyans practically grow on trees.

Trunks is one of the most popular characters in Dragon Ball Z and I think anyone who collects this line should probably grab this figure. It’s not perfect, but it looks nice on a shelf. I just hope we get more Trunks from Bandai down the road. We’re getting the battle armor reissue which features Trunks as a Super Saiyan with his hair tied back, but I’d really love a bulked-up Super Saiyan Trunks from when he challenges Cell. Yeah, it ended up being a bad form for fighting, but damn did it look cool!

Interested in more Dragon Ball action figure reviews? Here’s a few to check out:

SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta

He’s the Prince of all Saiyans. The last survivor to have laid eyes on Planet Vegeta, home world of the mighty warriors and birthplace of the legendary Goku. And he’s also a pretty fine toy. Vegeta, arguably the most popular character to emerge from Dragon Ball Z, has seen his likeness cast in numerous forms…

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by Joe

Bandai Dragon Stars Super Saiyan Trunks

Dragon Ball Super did to me what basically every cartoon/anime does:  it made me want toys based on it. It’s a compulsion I’ve never outgrown, apparently, and Bandai has made it fairly easy (but not cheap) to get what I want. Months ago I did an entry on the SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta. That…

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S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two…

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by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

August 15, 2023

NECA TMNT The Last Ronin Best Buy Exclusive Synja Patrol Bot

By Joe
He’s here to…patrol, and stuff.

I thought the string of Turtle Tuesday posts was going to end with last week’s item, but then I got a surprise email from Best Buy. The Synja Patrol Bot I had preordered months ago was actually getting moved up instead of bumped out, and to my surprise, it was going to be delivered in two days! I was pretty skeptical, but sure enough, two days later I had my action figure before I had even finished my morning coffee.

The Synja Patrol Bot is like the Foot ninja of The Last Ronin, the comic story about the very last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle from IDW Publishing. These are the guys the titular character has to deal with upon his return to New York and they seem a bit more formidable than its predecessors. I read those books over a year ago at this point so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think they’re cybernetically enhanced humans. Either way, they have an aesthetic that I really like of the techy ninja. Think the Cyborg Ninja character from Metal Gear Solid. I’ve always liked that look, and since these guys have a blue and gray color scheme to them it makes me like them all the more.

Army builders need heads, and this figure has you covered. Plus it has this weird, white, robot, thing.

This figure is essentially an army builder and it’s the first release for this mold. There is a second on the way that’s mostly black and white and I’m not sure what the plan on that is as far as release goes. This one is exclusive to Best Buy and it’s one of three that went up in the spring. The other being Michelangelo as “The Wanderer” and a three-pack of IDW re-colored Shredder clones. I have never bought an action figure from Best Buy prior to today and I would have to say the experience is a bit mixed. On one hand, the order was fulfilled and in a very timely fashion which is better than some big box retailers. And then on the other hand, the box came smashed to shit. It was one oversized, empty, cardboard box and the figure was inside that without anything else. I am not an in-box collector, but if I was I’d be pretty unhappy because the figure box was beat up pretty well. If you are an in-box collector, I guess buyer beware.

Ninjas don’t always stick with swords.

The patrol bot was sculpted by Paul Harding and comes in NECA’s Ultimates packaging with artwork from IDW’s Ben Bishop. The box is numbered “6” though this is the third figure based on The Last Ronin to see release thus far. Out of the box, the figure stands at approximately 6.375″ in height. The sculpt is largely a mixture of turquoise and black plastic with gray and silver paint as needed. There’s also a lot of black paint to fill some of the gaps in the character’s circuitry and linework customary of NECA’s comic-inspired offerings. It’s a very nice sculpt all around with lots of detail and great proportioning. The paint is applied fairly well, though there’s some spots here and there that are imperfect. The only one that bothers me is this tiny dot of silver almost dead center on the figure’s chest. There’s also a little scuff mark on the front flap which covers the crotch, but overall it feels acceptable for a mass-produced item.

“He killed my buddy!”

The accessory load-out with this figure makes it clear that NECA wants you to buy more than one. The default head features a metallic visor with a red grill over the mouth. I’m not certain on the hierarchy of the patrol bots, but there’s another head that features a large, red, visor and antennae. Both look pretty nice and the paint is quite sharp. I love the lens flash on the antennae head, though that head is really hard to get onto the ball joint and will require heat. There’s also a third head that’s a battle-damaged version of the default head. It has an exposed, left, eye and the look of shock implies this guy has taken his last breath. Part of the skull is also missing exposing some wiring and what appears to be a socket of some kind. It comes in the box affixed to a stump of a neck with wiring hanging out of the bottom of it. Getting the head off of such a small piece was a little bit of a challenge, but do-able. And since it came on a ball socket of its own, getting it onto the figure is a piece of cake. To further differentiate any additional patrol bots you may add to your collection, NECA also included a small sticker sheet. It has just two stickers and they both appear to be a badge or symbol signifying rank. They go on the left breast, if you want to use them. I’m not sure that I will.

I don’t know if I’ll use the stickers, but this is from the back of the box and shows you where they go. Photo by Stephen Mazurek.

In addition to the heads and stickers, the patrol bot also comes with three sets of hands and a pair of weapons. For hands, we get these open, clenching, hands by default plus a pair of fists and trigger/gripping hands. The clenching hands are a bit odd as they don’t really work with anything. He can hold one of the extra heads with it to a point, but they’re mostly of the style-posed variety. The trigger hands are intended to be used with the included handgun and sword. The handgun is painted with a gun metal finish and looks pretty nice and slots into the hands easily or can be stored on the right thigh. The sword comes with a scabbard that plugs into a peg hole on the left shoulder blade. The blade has a metallic finish and the handle is done in gray with a little black paint on the design. The black isn’t the cleanest, but it’s not terribly applied either. Lastly, we get this creepy looking head that looks like an evil version of the Fugitoid. I don’t really remember it, but the Baxter Stockman of this universe made more than just Mousers so I think it’s something like that. It’s all white with red eyes and some black linework. There is a peg hole on the underside so maybe it will have a use down the road. I don’t know what to do with it though, and I imagine it’s the one accessory army-builders won’t be excited about.

He can kick high, though his slender feet mean you’ll probably need a stand of some kind to keep him upright in such a pose.

For articulation, the Synja does some things different, and some things as expected. The head is on a double-ball peg so you get plenty of range there, especially because the neck is on a ball peg as well. The shoulders are the standard hinged-ball pegs and they rotate fine, but can’t quite hit a horizontal pose out to the side without some help. That’s because the shoulder pads get in the way, but you can pop the arms off relatively easily and re-insert the peg so that the shoulder pad is tucked into the shoulder joint to get that full “T” pose, if you desire. There’s a biceps swivel and single jointed elbows, which is a bummer. You will get a 90 degree bend out of the joint, plus a swivel, but I don’t know why NECA felt like it couldn’t do a double-joint here. The wrists swivel and hinge and, unfortunately, all of the wrist hinges are of the horizontal variety. The gripping hands, at least, should have vertical hinges. This is a freaking ninja robot that also has a sidearm, it’s begging for vertical hinges!

The diaphragm joint allows for some nice nuance.

In the diaphragm, we have a double-ball peg setup. It allows the figure to rotate there as well as bend forward and back and get some side-to-side tilt as well. The amount it bends forward isn’t terrific, but it’s better than we’re used to with NECA. It does get gappy though. At the waist is a standard swivel joint which is a little bit of a bummer. Another ball peg here would probably give us that forward and back crunch we’re really looking for, but oh well. The hips are the ball and socket joints NECA is known for and since NECA decided to forego a “diaper” piece over the crotch we get some nice, unobstructed, range here. Full splits and the ability to kick forward and back. The little flap in the front hanging off of the belt as well as the butt cheeks on the rear are both soft plastic that don’t offer much resistance at all, a very wise decision on NECA’s part. There’s a full thigh swivel on this guy where the ball pegs into the thigh and double-jointed knees below that. The knees are a tad gummy though and getting both hinges to work is more challenging than it should be, but get them both going and you will get better than a 90 degree bend. Be warned, it looks like the hinge is turquoise plastic painted black so it will probably flake eventually, though it’s holding better than usual on my figure. It’s also possible the turquoise I’m seeing is paint rub from the kneecap. At the ankles, we have a hinged ball peg which pegs into the shin. This lets you rotate at the joint as well as make use of the hinge which has good range going forward and back. There’s also a rocker which works great.

A vertical wrist hinge would help a whole lot even with the sidearm.
Even with some of the figure’s limitations, two-handed sword poses are still possible.

You’re not going to confuse the Synja Patrol Bot with an S.H.Figuarts release, but it does articulate better than most NECA releases. I really like how the diaphragm joint turned out, and even though I wish it had double elbows, it is possible to get the figure to grip the sword with both hands. The lower half is pretty fantastic with my only issue there being the overall gummy feel to the knees. If this figure had a ball-jointed waist it would really take it up a notch, and the missing vertical hinges at the wrists continue to be a sore spot for me when it comes to NECA’s TMNT releases.

Sorry pal, but you’re on your own.

The Synja Patrol Bot is a nice release from NECA. It’s definitely going for that army builder crowd with the extra heads and even the added stickers to differentiate the figures from each other in your display. The only slip-up there might be with the included white, Mouser, thing, head as another battle-damaged part would have been more useful for the army builder crowd. For those who want even more variety though, the white version will provide for that. As for me, I don’t intend to get more than one. I sort of forgot I had even pre-ordered this figure and since doing so I’ve come to the decision that I’m likely not going to continue with The Last Ronin. The figures are great and all, it’s just an issue of resources. And it’s not just the money needed to acquire the whole collection, it’s the space. I’m not the type who wants to just buy stuff and toss it in a closet. I want it out and in the open, but that’s just not possible with so much TMNT coming from not just NECA, but other places as well. The figure of the Last Ronin is a great stand-alone piece and now it has a friend too. I still intend to continue buying the toon, Mirage, and even the Archie stuff so rest assured there will be no shortage of TMNT on this blog.

Interested in more Last Ronin coverage? Look no further:

NECA The Last Ronin (Armored)

When it comes to multimedia based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we find ourselves in a rare dry spell when it comes to television and movies. The final episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aired in 2020 with no new television series announced since. The show did receive a long-delayed finale…

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by Joe

Playmates TMNT The Last Ronin PX Previews Exclusive (Chase)

A few years ago, Mattel launched a new subline of action figures based on their most famous IP: Masters of the Universe. The subline was titled Origins and it basically took the vintage toys of the 80s and updated them with more modern articulation while still preserving that vintage aesthetic. And ever since then, collectors…

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by Joe

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Last Ronin

I don’t read a lot of comics these days. Actually, I suppose I never truly read a lot of comics even when I was very much into X-Men and Spider-Man. Back in the 90s, I received most of my comic lore from trading cards. They were cheaper and fun to collect. When it came to…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

August 10, 2023

Lego Disney 100 Minifigures Wave

By Joe
More Disney 100 merch has arrived.

Disney and The Lego Company have found a partnership that is mutually beneficial so it was not a surprise to see Lego get in on the Disney 100 celebration. We already looked at one set that falls under that umbrella, and now I’m back to take a look at Lego’s third wave of minifigures based on Disney, this one focusing on the history of the company itself.

The first two waves of minifigures from Lego and Disney seemed to perform rather well. They would thankfully show up in large quantities at retailers, but didn’t linger too long. Collecting an entire set meant one needed to hit the store at the right moment to find either a fresh box or pegs filled with the little foil bags. These are shipped in bags and are intended to be blind buys. For the first two waves, I somewhat degraded myself by painstakingly feeling my way through them in-store until I had a complete set. Lego’s tendency to do custom head portraits for the characters makes finding them surprisingly easy when just feeling-up a bag. It still takes awhile, but my method worked as I was able to get full sets without doubles.

For this third wave, I ran into some troubles. No, not in picking through them, just in finding them! I don’t know if some of the stores around me just didn’t get them when they were supposed to, or if someone cleaned them out before I got there, but these things seemed to sell faster than usual. My wife managed to find four close to their release date, and thankfully it was four unique figures, but we didn’t come across any at a big box retailer for weeks after. Instead, we seemed to only have consistent success by hitting The Lego Store. They got regular shipments often twice per week and our store even did the feeling out for you! I don’t know if that’s a common practice, but it was certainly convenient. Even hitting that store routinely, we still had trouble filling out the ranks. Eventually we got it to where we were missing just one, but The Lego Store was also receiving smaller and smaller shipments indicating the wave may be nearing the end of its lifecycle. Thankfully, not long ago I happened to be walking through my local Target and came upon a fresh box on an endcap. It was highly unusual for my store which normally hangs the bags by the registers. I could have easily missed this, but got lucky. I secured the missing piece, and now I can tell you all about them.

This wave celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company is a celebration of the company’s animated films. There seems to be a concerted effort to hit on each decade of the company’s existence, though missing representation are the 1980s and present decade beginning in 2020. It’s not that much of a surprise to see the 80s excluded. That wasn’t a great decade for the company as it included the noted bomb The Black Cauldron. The Little Mermaid did make it out just before the 80s concluded, but we already received an Ariel and Ursula in a prior wave. Oliver & Company doesn’t work all that well for minifigures since it’s characters are mostly dogs and a cat, but why not hit on The Great Mouse Detective?

Excepting Lego’s mistreatment of the 1980s, the character selection this time around is pretty solid, so let’s take a look!

Of course we have a Mickey in the set.

We’ll go in 3s, and for this first group we have the original Disney star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, along with Mickey in perhaps his most iconic role and from the year 2002 another version of fan-favorite Stitch. Oswald is a standard Lego body with a unique portrait. It looks fine, but its very round and looks a bit off. For an accessory, he comes with a clapboard that is not articulated. All of the figures come with the standard Lego stand, but this time it has a “Disney 100” printed on it. For Mickey, he’s in his sorcerer’s apprentice costume and it’s printed with sparkles. The hat is non-removable and he has a bucket and broom to complete the look. They had to include a Mickey, and this version is a bit of a no-brainer. And then we have Stitch, the figure who I had to track down. His portrait is the same as the prior one, but his eyes are printed differently to make them more narrow. I would have liked a new mouth, but oh well. He’s in his Experiment 626 form so he has four arms which are done by adding them to the sculpt as opposed to inserting four standard arms into the torso. He also has a pair of laser guns. It’s a fun look, albeit a compromised one due to how they did the arms.

Clues for finding them in bags: Oswald’s ears, Mickey’s head, Stitch’s ears (these three are pretty easy)

Lego knows what many know: Disney collectors love villains.

Next up, we have a trio of villains. First is the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She has a soft goods cape and collar and her lower body is done with a brick like other dress-wearing characters before her. The crown is actually a full skull cap, which is nice, but it means she only has the one expression, not that she really needs another. She comes with her magic mirror and I like that the entity within it has been “Lego-fied” as well. She looks the part, and pairs nicely with the Old Hag version of the character released in the villains set. We also have the Queen of Hearts who has a soft goods collar and a bulbous lower half to simulate her large dress. She gets two heart-shaped wands and two expressions for her face: a grin and an angry scream. I like this one, and she slots into the villains set as well which featured her on a playing card, but it would have been fun to get the little king as a slug figure or something instead of two wands. Last, is Cruella who also features a soft collar. She comes with two purses, which is a little half-circle piece with printing, and one of the many dalmatians from the film: Patch. He’s just a little slug figure, but the printing is well done and he’s pretty adorable. Cruella also has two expressions: a smile and a yell. I wish the angry face had tried to better emulate the animation from just before she crashes her car. Excepting that, she looks fine, but is a bit on her own with no other figures from the movie.

Bag clues: The Queen’s mirror, the lower dress for the Queen of Hearts, and Patch

I love Pinocchio, but I’d be lying if I said either of these two were my favorite in this set.

Our next trio includes the puppet who wanted to be a boy, his conscience, and Pocahontas. Pinocchio uses the articulated kid legs and comes with Cleo, who is a transparent head piece with the character printed on one side, and her castle on the reverse. Pinocchio has a unique portrait so his nose could be captured, but this also means he only gets the one expression. Despite that shortcoming, he looks fine, but I wish they had printed some of the screws in his body onto the arms and legs. Jiminy is on the kid body, but the non-articulated version, which is a bit disappointing. He obviously does not scale at all with Pinocchio, but at least he looks nice. He has a soft goods collar, removable hat, and comes with a pink umbrella. Pocahontas is a traditional minifigure with a stylized hair piece that also hides the back of her head so she gets two expressions, but they’re both smiles. Her accessories include two compasses and some autumn leaves. They’re fine, but I think fans would have preferred a Meeko instead. She’s also on her own from the movie so I guess she just goes with the other princess characters.

Bag clues: Pinocchio’s head, Jiminy’s hat+umbrella, and Pocahontas’s hair

A modern princess and her foil plus a classic one. It’s a winning combination.

Our next group includes another villain and a pair of princesses. Dr. Facilier is another traditional minifigure, but he has a lively design that works for the form. His lack of a hairpiece means he, like Jiminy, gets only one expression and for him it’s a sinister grin. He also has a wand, removable hat, and a Tarot card. He’s not bad, but it feels like he’s just here to pair with Tiana. She is done in the typical princess fashion with a large brick piece for her dress. She’s in her green dress from early in the film, though she comes with a menu from her restaurant from the end of the film. She also gets a frog, the same frog that came with Cinderella’s Castle, because why not? Aurora rounds out this trio, and even though she’s the lone representative from her film in this wave, we have two versions of Maleficient to pair her up with. She has the same form as Tiana and comes with a tiara and owl. I’d have gone with a spinning wheel, personally, but at least the owl is different. She also has a fun second portrait which features her doing what she does best: sleeping.

Bag clues: Dr. Facilier’s hat+stick for his wand (to differentiate him from Jiminy), Tiana’s menu plus her dress, Aurora’s owl and hair

I love this Prince John, but I can’t help but feel Lego missed an opportunity to include a tiny Sir Hiss.

The next group is perhaps the most surprising entrants. From the film Robin Hood, we have Robin himself! He gets a unique headsculpt and the feather in his hat is removable. He also comes with a tail piece and a bow and arrow. He’s not going to be able to hold that bow and arrow in a convincing manner, but it’s hard to think of a better accessory for the famed archer. Joining him is that phony King of England, Prince John. He too has a unique portrait which features a scowl. I love that Lego got his ears right and have his crown sitting on top of them. He also has a sack of money and a coin, both appropriate for the character. The third figure in this grouping is Baymax from Big Hero 6. He’s a standard minifigure, but with new arms that better resemble his from the film. As an inflated, bulbous, character, the minifigure form doesn’t really suit him all that well as it’s basically the opposite of that aesthetic. He has his charging station as an accessory which he can stand in, though it doesn’t look particularly special.

Bag clues: for both Robin and John it’s the head with the bow and money sack providing extra assurance, for Baymax it’s his arms plus all of the little bits that will makeup his charging station

The characters from Coco pretty much steal the show.

Our last grouping features two characters from a Pixar film, Coco, and Mulan from the movie of the same name. Ernesto De la Cruz is our fifth villain, though he has two very happy expressions so you wouldn’t know he’s a bad guy without seeing the film. He has his sombrero and signature guitar which turned out really well. His body is printed with black and silver and he’s one of the stars of the wave. Not to be outdone, is the hero from the film Miguel. He has the most stuff of anyone as he gets two heads, a hairpiece, a hood, guitar, and a slug figure of Dante. If you were going to get multiples of any of the figures in this wave, it would likely be Miguel as he can be skeleton-faced Miguel or standard Miguel and both heads have two expressions! I am partial to the skeleton look with hood and he has the guitar he used when performing in the Land of the Dead. As for our last figure, Mulan, we get a pretty basic minifigure. Her hair means she gets two expressions and Lego actually allowed one of the “princess” characters to look angry. She also has her cricket friend and a pair of swords. She’s certainly a different flavor of princess from the rest.

Bag clues: Ernesto is quite possibly the easiest due to the sombrero and guitar. For Miguel, it’s the guitar plus Dante and with Mulan you want to feel for the swords.

And that does it! Disney Minifigure Wave 3 does a solid job of giving us some new characters and films while also filling out the prior waves and sets. Aurora, the Evil Queen, Queen of Hearts, and I suppose the new Stitch fit well with those. Acknowledging films like Fantasia and Pinocchio are also no-brainers, and if you’re celebrating 100 years of Disney then you basically have to include Oswald. Most of the rest are fun inclusions as well. I love seeing Robin Hood get some love as it was a favorite of mine as a child, and who could argue that Cruella is not worthy? The two figures from Coco might be my favorites from the entire wave and it feels right that Pixar should get some recognition as well. The only ones I’m kind of down on are Baymax and Pocahontas. Baymax just doesn’t make for a fun figure in this format and I don’t feel like Big Hero 6 needs representation in this wave, but I’m guessing they wanted one CG Disney film to showcase. I feel the same about Pocahontas as we already have Mulan to stand-in for the 90s and the figure is a bit uninspired. I’d easily drop one of the two for a Basil, and maybe both so we could double-up on The Great Mouse Detective, an underrated film in the Disney catalog.

If you’re a Disney fan and enjoy Lego, this wave is probably in your possession already or on your radar. It’s still being sold at retail and online, though ordering online means you’re making a truly blind purchase. If you have the time and patience, I suppose you could order an entire box and sell off the doubles. I’d guess you’d probably break even doing so as plenty of people are willing to pay a few bucks more on the secondary market to know what character they’re getting. Definitely hit a Lego Store if you have one nearby if you’re only missing a couple. My difficulty in finding Stitch suggest to me that he’s either quite popular, or some figures are short-packed. Feeling them out is relatively easy though. All of the unique portraits are distinguishable from each other, while many of the rest feature a signature item or accessory for you to home in on. Happy hunting!

Check out our coverage of other Disney and Lego collaborations:

Lego Mini Figures – Disney Series 2

I feel like I need to take credit for the existence of this wave of Disney Mini Figures. It wasn’t that long ago I wondered why the flood gates never opened following the 2016 release of Cinderella’s Castle from Walt Disney World and the wave of mini figures that preceded it. Just days after that…

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by Joe

Disney gets the Lego Treatment

Lego is one of the most popular toy manufacturers on the planet. They’ve become known for their building block style toys that come in various shapes, sizes, and colors and can be combined to form castles, pirate ships, space crafts, and other fantastic designs. They also have struck gold with their mini figures, simplistic action…

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by Joe

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August 8, 2023

NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III SDCC Four-Pack

By Joe
NECA did it. Those crazy, sons of bitches, actually did it.

2023 marked the 30th anniversary of the much maligned third entrant in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise and you just had to know that NECA Toys would mark the occasion. It was almost too obvious that I thought maybe the company would zig when everyone was expecting a zag, but they didn’t and for San Diego Comic Con we got yet another four-pack of action figures in an oversized, VHS, inspired package.

Not only did everyone expect this set, but we all expected it to arrive just like this too.

It’s amusing that we’re here, since back when NECA first dipped its toe into the TMNT film franchise the director of product development at NECA, Randy Falk, basically scoffed at the idea of doing figures based on the sequel films. I don’t say that to throw shade at him or anything, it was a totally defensible position as the only good movie of those three 90s films was the original. What Falk couldn’t have predicted was just how well TMNT would sell for NECA. The popularity made it too much to ignore and fans wanted figures based on the sequels so NECA delivered. Kudos to them for listening to their fans.

Just a turtle looking to migrate.

Now, the third movie is mostly shunned because it has little to do with the first two movies and New Line Cinema no longer employed the services of The Jim Henson Company. That meant lower quality suits that looked pretty terrible. Where I could believe that the turtles were real when I first saw the original film, come the third the illusion was shot. Their suits looked like rubber, the head flapped with little nuance, and the turtles had a far more uniform look now. What was really bad though were those eyes: giant, lifeless, sunken-in eyes. They looked off back in 1993, and now with HD you can really see how they had eyeholes right underneath the bandanas for the suit actors. All that said, I am on record as saying the third movie is actually a better watch than the second. The only thing the Secret of the Ooze has over the third film is Henson, everything else sucks. The third movie has some of that “So bad it’s good,” charm going for it. I still have no interest in revisiting either film these days, but if I had to pick one I’d pick the third. And I’d probably pre-game with a few beers before watching it.

“Man, you dudes are ugly!”
“Hah! You need to look in a mirror, dude!”

Because the third is so non-essential to me from a visual standpoint, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get the action figures when they were eventually announced. I would say that to anyone who asked, but in my heart I think I knew I’d cave the second they were made available. I have the first two therefore I need to complete the set. And since it’s another VHS box I basically had to do it – so I did. No, I did not attend San Diego Comic Con this year, instead, I bought this off of NECA’s website as they made the set available through there just as they have over the past several years. It wasn’t super hard to get, and their shipping was actually really cheap for a change, and they also sold more during the con both physically and online. I’m guessing they made a ton of these things so my guess is everyone who wanted one was able to get it. It was $150, basically the new standard for their four-packs, and it was also sold alongside a Keno from Secret of the Ooze. I passed on Keno, so apologies if you were looking for a review from me. NECA wanted $100 for Keno and his scooter and tossed in a bunch of “swag” to basically bring it up to that price. That’s too much for a Keno. If the set makes it to retail at a more manageable price I’ll reconsider it then.

I pretty much had to do this one.

Before we get to the toys, lets talk about that box. Just like the convention exclusives for the first two movies, this one comes in a box that looks almost exactly like the original home video release. That means we get the four turtles on the cover with their helmets from the film. There’s some shots on the back as well and even a flashy quote from the Yes, Have Some podcast group. Where this set is different though is that NECA had to “cheat” to do the cover. The figures on the front of the box are not the ones in it. That’s because the turtles were sans clothing on the VHS box, but these figures place them in their samurai costumes. NECA does have a disclaimer on the front of the box letting you know that you’re looking at the Secret of the Ooze figures with the movie three heads. Am I mad about that? No, but I felt it was warranted to point out in case anyone was hoping for maybe soft goods in the box that could strip-down for this look.

As usual, NECA’s sculpt and paint is exceptional. These figures were done by Brodie Perkins.

With that out of the way, lets get down to business. The turtles are all essentially the same figure with minor differences. They stand around 6.5″ in height which puts them pretty much on par with the past movie figures which exist in more of a 1:10 scale as opposed to 1:12. As mentioned previously, the clothing and armor is all part of the sculpt, and it’s pretty impressively done. There’s a ton of detail on the chest especially with a wash applied to the softer materials to bring out the sculpted folds. There’s some nice trim work on the shins and gloves, and if you spin the figure around you’ll see a bit of the shell poking through. Since they’re fully clothed, NECA didn’t actually sculpt and affix a shell to each figure which will pay off when we get to the articulation.

I’m less impressed by the soft goods. They’re just okay.

The heads on these guys are what will attract the most attention. They have that pretty dead-eye stare going with some deep recesses where those eyeholes would have been. There’s also a bit of green visible around their eyes and the expressions are fairly neutral. Donnie has a bit of an open mouth with a hint of a smile and Mikey’s mouth is a bit more relaxed as well. Leo and Raph look almost bored which is pretty on-model for the film. And if you don’t like these faces, they have their masks to cover them up. They slide on rather easily and fit snug enough. There’s some nice weathering applied via the paintjob and the sculpted mustache and beard is color-coded for each turtle. Leo and Don get blue and purple, respectively, while Mikey gets a light brown and Raph a darker one. I have no idea if they were like that in the movie, but this is NECA, so the answer is “probably.”

You can put the new heads on an older body if you want an unclothed look. On the left, is movie 1 Mikey and on the right is SotO Mikey’s body with the TMNT III head.

To complete the look, each turtle has a helmet and cloak. The helmets are all the same and they slot onto the bandana knot on the back of the figure’s head. They were pretty snug in the box and I haven’t been able to get them back on to that degree with the masks on, but they sit fine either way. The cloaks are soft goods with a wire running through the front. As far as soft goods go, they’re not NECA’s best. They feel thin and kind of cheap. If there was a bit more substance to them, and in turn more weight as a result, I would like them a lot more. Three of them are the same, while the fourth is for Leonardo and it has some slits cut into it to accommodate his sword holsters. It’s a little tricky getting his on as a result, and it looks kind of bunched up and messy once done. I’m left thinking just a pair of long slits would have worked better, but this is probably more film accurate. Regardless, it’s on the figure’s back so it’s not that big of an issue.

“Donnie, what are you doing?!” “What?! We need horses and Barbie is HUGE right now. We’d be stupid not to get in on this!”

Once you get everything on, the turtles do look pretty cool and like they stepped out of the film. All of the details I remember from the movie are present and I like the proportioning on these guys too. I agree that it was the right move to just sculpt all of the clothing because the samurai look is the one most associated with the movie. I know they did ditch the outfits fairly quickly, but if they had come with soft goods there’s no way I’d display them unclothed. Unless the soft goods turned out frumpy and bad, which is likely given they’re wearing armor over clothing. There is one subtle difference between the four and it’s the belt. Again, I’m not sure if it was different for each turtle in the movie or not, but it probably was and I’m glad NECA didn’t skimp on such a minor detail when they probably could have.

The accessories for this set are mostly as expected. In keeping with past four-packs, all four figures come equipped with gripping hands in the box and there are five additional sets of hands for the guys to share. This is actually better than the Mirage four-pack which only had four extra sets. And those extra sets are relaxed hands, wide open hands, pointing hands, fists, and a set of tighter gripping hands. The tighter hands work well with some of the thinner weapons in the set while the pointing hands also function well as specialty sai hands. The regular gripping hands can also manage to grip a sai with the center blade through them. All of the hands feature horizontal hinges which is a continued bummer for NECA and TMNT.

This thing had to be included.
“Ohh man, I’m never time-traveling again.”

To go with those hands, the turtles have their expected weapons. Raph has a pair of sai, Mikey his nunchaku, Donnie his bo staff, and Leo his set of katana. The sai, ‘chuks, and bo are the same as past versions of those weapons while Leo’s swords are new. I’m guessing they decided his swords were different enough onscreen to warrant a re-sculpt, but it may have also been to make them a bit more durable. The prior swords are thin and some have complained that they’re too brittle. I haven’t had an issue with them, but these new ones are fine too. The handle is pretty thick as well and they slot into the scabbards with ease. Mike and Raph can store their weapons by just fitting them between the belt and body. Donnie could too, but not really while wearing the cloak.

“Donnie, is this thing really going to work?” “Of course it is!”
Say what you want about the third movie, but at least it didn’t have Mikey running around with hot dogs for weapons.

We’ve got hands and the usual weapons so what else do we need from the movie? How about a time scepter? How about 3?! Yes, we get three versions of the magical, time-traveling, device: the standard version, the broken version, and the homemade version. All three look pretty damn great. There’s some nice, transparent, plastic used for glass and the sculpt and paint looks great, especially on the standard one. The busted one has sculpted breaks in the glass and a darker paint job as if it had a bunch of smoke just pour out. The homemade one is appropriately plain, but cool to have, I suppose. The little, hourglass shaped thing in the center doesn’t actually spin, but they look cool and obviously we had to get the scepter. I don’t know if we needed all three, but credit NECA for covering their bases. We also get a pair of sabers from the scene where Michelangelo finds them in a barn. I didn’t remember that they were actually two different swords in the movie, but of course NECA did. They look great as well and it’s a good pull from the film.

The extra heads are a nice idea, but they don’t really match the movie 1 bodies and bandana tails.
The blue on the new head is quite a bit different from the original with Leo.

Lastly, we get some interesting bonus parts in the form of four additional heads. These heads though are not for these figures, necessarily, but are actually based on the first movie. All four are basically angry, almost snarling, expressions and I think they’re from the scene where the turtles find Danny hiding in their old sewer lair. At least, the shape of Michelangelo’s mouth looks to be from that quick shot. It’s an interesting addition for this set though and tells me that maybe NECA was unsure of whether or not figures based on the third movie would sell so they sweetened the deal with these. And that’s fine, but the problem is that the paintjob doesn’t really match those figures. The color of the bandanas is a bit different and the shade of green of the skin is too. As a result, I can’t really see myself using any of these. There were some variations in those first four figures so maybe they’ll match other sets better than they do mine.

Raph and Donnie’s extra heads, if you’re interested.
Leo’s got some new swords.

That’s all that’s in the box, so how do these heroes on the half shell move? Well, not great. These figures are definitely going for aesthetic over function, but I do wish they could do a bit more. Especially considering we have some clothing to hide joints. The head is on a double ball peg and that’s fine. You will get plenty of range so long as the figure is without helmet. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs and they raise out to the side just fine and rotate easily. NECA also snuck a little butterfly joint into the shoulder which is uncharacteristic of them. I’m not sure why they did it, but that’s cool. It unfortunately doesn’t add a whole lot though, but it’s not useless. The elbows are hinged pegs as well so you get a swivel and a bend that goes about 90 degrees. I was surprised that NECA didn’t use their unique double-jointed elbow setup which I think would have worked fine here. The wrists swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal ones which sucks.

If there is a diaphragm joint, I can’t tell. It would be useless, if so. The waist is a ball joint so you get a little play forward, back, and to the side, but it’s quite minimal. No shell means you get full rotation, at least. The hips are ball-jointed and raise out to the side to almost a full split. They, unfortunately, don’t kick forward much at all due to the presence of a “diaper” piece. Given how the armor has these flaps that hang down, I wish NECA had not gone with the diaper over the hips or had cut away a bunch of it for more range. The thigh swivel is pretty non-existent as well. The knees are double-jointed with a pair of hinged pegs similar to some of the elbows NECA does. Unfortunately, the sculpt of the pants basically covers the top hinge and it can’t do anything. The bottom hinge and peg will let the figures bend about 90 degrees and also swivel. At the ankle, we have the usual hinge and rocker which work okay. Lastly, there’s the wire in the cloak. It’s more for positioning, but if you want your figure to look like it’s getting blasted in the face with a leaf blower it can do that too. The wire is only in the front though and doesn’t run through the entire hem.

The pizza from the Musical Mutagen Tour set was the closest thing I had to Mikey’s attempt at pizza in the film.

These figures aren’t going to bust out with the cool ninja moves, they’re intended to just look neat on your shelf with some minor degree of posing. I think they mostly look good enough to make up for that lack of articulation, but I also think NECA could have done a little better and sacrificed some of that aesthetic for better range, particularly in the hips and knees. It probably doesn’t matter that much though as if you have ever wanted figures based on the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie then you’re probably not passing on this set. I can see some folks out there wanting base turtles from that movie, maybe with different expressions, but for me this is perfect. It’s the turtles from the movie in their most recognizable look. The set isn’t the home run it could have been given how the extra heads turned out, but the figures look the part and that’s what is most important. And if you’re into the novelty packaging, then NECA has you covered there as well. Now, let’s all thank Moe for being such a good sport!

If you want to read about more turtle toys, I can’t imagine a more robust place on the internet than here:

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