Category Archives: Film

September 3, 2026

Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

By Joe

Certain characters are thought of as film royalty: Charles Foster Kane, Vito Corleone, George Bailey, Wile E. Coyote. Yes, Wile E. Coyote belongs among the stars as do Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and an assortment of colorful, animated, characters that have delighted generations on screens big and small. Animated characters never die, their voice may change a bit here and there, but they endure unlike those fragile humans. And it’s because of my belief in the importance of these characters that I demand that they be respected like any other venerable film franchise. They should be celebrated, but for too long in the case of the Looney Tunes has Warner Bros. done the brand a disservice. They allowed these characters to fade away and become less important. There’s likely a generation of kids in the world right now who might not be able to identify these characters by sight and that’s a shame. Lately, there has been a small renaissance. MeTV and its offshoot MeTV Toons is a broadcast channel that makes classic cartoons part of its regular programming. The Day the Earth Blew Up had a modestly successful run in theaters this past year, and Warner even tried its hand at the Space Jam game again. And here to help further that revival is Coyote vs. Acme.

Or, it nearly didn’t. If you’re reading this then by now you’re likely familiar with the story of Coyote vs. Acme. Based on a 1990 article in The New Yorker by Ian Frazier, the film was pitched to Warner by producer/director James Gunn in 2015 and officially went into development in 2018. Dave Green was hired to direct and Will Forte and John Cena were cast as opposing lawyers for the film, one representing Wile E. Coyote and the other Acme. The film was shot, edited, and set for release on July 21, 2023, but a late change meant the film gave up its slot to Barbie and a rescheduled date was not forthcoming. Then in November of that same year word came out that Warner Bros. Discovery was planning on shelving the film choosing instead to take a tax write-off estimated to “save” the company around $30 million. Movies and television shows get cancelled all of the time for various reasons, but in the case of Coyote vs. Acme the film was done. It was complete. Warner had spent around $70 million on the project, but felt a write-off was worth more to them than whatever profit the movie was likely to make. It was especially painful for those who worked on the film because it screened well with test audiences, anyone outside of the production who saw it had nothing but good things to say, and there was really no reason not to give a movie like this a fair shot. It was pure corporate greed and an insult to the Looney Tunes and Hollywood (as well as the general public) took notice.

It only took a couple of days for Warner to go back on its word and instead opted to pursue selling the film instead. When February rolled around and Warner had rejected all offers, it made people question if they were serious or not or if this was all charade to make them look better before eventually hitting the delete button on a finished film. Finally, in March of 2025 it was reported that Ketchup Entertainment had secured the rights to the film for roughly $50 million. Ketchup, as you may recall, is the company that rescued The Day the Earth Blew Up which could have met a similar fate. Ketchup was apparently happy with that investment and was willing to spend money on a Wile E. Coyote movie. I don’t know how that is going to work out for them when it comes to the dollars and cents, but from an artistic standpoint the move has been an explosive hit.

If you have seen even one Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon then you know this isn’t going to work out well for the coyote.

Coyote vs. Acme is the story of one coyote and his quest to eat a bird, and not just any bird, but the Road Runner. However, standing in his way has been the tools provided by the Acme Corporation which seem to always blow up in, on, or around his face. Wile E. Coyote makes his way into Albuquerque, New Mexico to enlist the aid of a small claims lawyer by the name of Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he of the law firm Avery, Jones, & Maltese (brilliant). Avery is the kind of lawyer who looks to eke out a living suing massive corporations like Acme for extremely small sums. He sees Wile E. as a similar candidate and thinks he can get him a couple hundred bucks, but Wile E. circumvents him and the pair end up suing Acme for several millions. Buddy Crane (John Cena) is the hot-shot lawyer for Acme who went to law school with Avery and knows he’s a failure. Confident he can get a settlement agreed to, Avery is more than willing to go along with such, but his client refuses forcing the issue to trial. It’s David vs. Goliath with the fate of Avery’s firm on the line so the stakes are fairly large. And lurking in the backgroun is a secret operation at Acme, Project Sisyphus, uncovering the origins of which may put Avery and his niece clerk Paige (Lana Condor) in legitimate danger.

The big guy vs. little guy plot is probably strong enough to carry the film, but the sordid details, mysteries, swerves, and an escalation of the trial itself really helps to fuel the plot and keep it engaging all the way through. There are some solid dynamics with Kevin and Paige who as a recent law school grad has an idealized version of what a lawyer can and should be while her uncle embodies all of the bad stereotypes. What also helps push things along is the character development between Kevin and Wile E. Coyote. Given one is played by a human actor and the other is a mute cartoon, that’s a bit surprising, but the two play off each other really well. There are some legitimate heartfelt moments between the two and if you’re the sort of person who never felt sympathy for the coyote then you will here. I was never one of those people. I always rooted for the coyote. Cena’s buffoonish turn as Buddy Crane is the perfect foil for Avery and also along as the head of Acme is Foghorn Leghorn (Eric Bauza) who makes for a natural villain as well. He’s played a bit like his role in The Looney Tunes Show where he was a mayor there. A loud-mouthed schnook like him is perfect as a C.E.O. or politician.

I was pleasantly surprised by the visual effects, but if one character looks a bit “off” it’s Foghorn Leghorn.

The film is a live-action animation hybrid and as such is going to invite criticisms to past Looney Tunes movies like Space Jam as well as much better movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The movie is less interested in cameos than both of those, but there are still plenty as this is a world where humans and cartoons interact with regularity as part of day-to-day life. DNEG and Duncan Studios provided the animation to bring these characters to life. Most have a 2D appearance, but they’re clearly 3D models and some are more obvious about it than others. The rather bulbous Foghorn Leghorn moves like a big, CG, ball and has a bit of a video game quality to him. As far as films go, it reminded me of the Rescue Rangers movie in terms of quality. For a character like Wile E. Coyote, the effect was less noticeable. Fairly early in my viewing I stopped paying attention to the visual effects where the coyote was concerned and instead was viewing him as another character. He works wells with the human actors and doesn’t look out of place in most shots. There are, of course, plenty of special effects shots designed to play with the hybrid nature of the film and pretty much all of them work very well. There’s a big action set piece towards the climax of the film that probably accounted for a sizable chunk of that $70 million budget and it’s pretty spectacular. This film isn’t going to rival some of the hybrids that came before it, but the visuals were a modest surprise for me and it didn’t come across as some lesser version intended for streaming or something.

The sound design for the film is also very well done with all of the bangs, explosions, and musical stings one would expect of a Looney Tunes movie. Eric Bauza is on-hand to voice many of the characters he’s inherited over the years and there are also a couple of surprises I won’t spoil. Steven Price composed the film’s score and he understood the assignment. Archival sounds for Road Runner’s classic “Meep Meep” were utilized rather than redone and if you listen closely you will hear from Mel Blanc in this one. The non Wile E. Coyote characters are also utilized well. Porky Pig is kind of a schmuck who has been a client of Avery’s multiple times. Gossamer is the one who delivers subpoenas and the always eager to help Charlie Dog is an employee of the firm. Not every classic character makes an appearance, but chances are you will see your favorite with only a couple of notable exceptions. I also have to give a special shout out to Candi Milo who continues to kill it as a modern day June Foray.

He may not have enlisted the best, but this legal team is probably as good as it’s going to get for Wile E. (L to R): Martha Kelly, Lana Condor, Wile E. Coyote, Will Forte, Tone Bell

It’s rather interesting that a film like Coyote vs. Acme in which an aggrieved party tries to get justice by going toe-to-toe with an all powerful corporate entity was the film nearly destroyed by a similar entity in the real world. The parallels are uncanny and if the executives at Warner Bros. Discovery had any sense they would have seen that right away and opted not to pursue such an avenue with such an obvious film. Acme may be the bad guys of the film, but it reads like a stand-in for the parent company itself. It’s also quite clear that none of them watched the movie before coming to such a decision, and if they did then they not only lack any sense of taste, but also have no appreciation for the characters that built this legendary studio they all grow fabulously wealthy via. Warner Bros. is currently for sale and may very well get sold in the next calendar year as the media landscape in the United States further consolidates into a small handful of conservative voices. Who knows what our entertainment will look like following such, but at least Coyote vs. Acme managed to escape before all of that happens. The movie is legitimately funny and especially so for those who grew up loving the Looney Tunes. It is so much better than Space Jam or Looney Tunes: Back in Action and it feels like the squad finally has that live-action, animation hybrid it deserves. If you have a chance to see this one in theaters I highly recommend it. I was pretty sure I was going to have a solid time with it when I bought my ticket, but it exceeded my expectations in every way. My entire family walked out of the movie, including my daughter who clung to her ratty, old, Bugs Bunny plush throughout the whole thing, feeling that we had just watched the best Looney Tunes movie ever. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

For more from the Looney Tunes, check these out:

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

For all of the success the cast of Looney Tunes have had on the silver screen, it’s rather surprising that they have never been given the chance to helm a feature in their native medium. Sure, we had Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, but both were live-action/animation hybrid films with one of…

Keep reading
by Joe

Lego 71030 Looney Tunes Minifigures

When it comes to classic cartoons, few would argue against the merits of Warner Bros Studios’ Looney Tunes. Pretty much all of the major studios were invested in cartoon shorts in the 1930s into the 1960s and Warner was a gold mine for hilarious content. The Leon Schlesinger produced Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes churned…

Keep reading
by Joe

Dec. 23 – Bugs Bunny’s 24-Carrot Holiday Special

Let’s try this one more time for 2023 – can we find a good Looney Tunes Christmas special? And more importantly, a good Bugs Bunny one? We’ve looked at two already that were merely okay. Nothing terrible, but hardly holiday classics. For our final go at this, I’m feeling a little more optimistic and that’s…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Film

June 3, 2026

INART The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman

By Joe
“The cat came back the very next day…”

Queen Studios is back with another installment of its INART The Dark Knight Rises action figures and this time we’re talking about Catwoman. Portrayed on the screen by actress Anne Hathaway, Catwoman was something of an anti-hero in the film. In a post Occupy Wall Street world, her anger and frustration with the ruling class was meant to humanize her and make her sympathetic, but when she set her sights on one Bruce Wayne she did unknowingly risk her reputation with the unseen audience watching all. Still, this was an action film based on a comic book so Catwoman did get a chance to demonstrate her ability to kick ass and rock a skin tight suit and while she didn’t have the kind of tech Batman possessed, she did have some toys of her own. The portrayal was fine, but perhaps a bit too conventional for movies. It certainly lacked the camp of Julie Newmar and proved less memorable than the Michelle Pfeiffer portrayal which makes this Catwoman feel a bit like a lesser Catwoman. The character didn’t stay with me once the credits rolled and not helping things is that The Dark Knight Rises was the weakest film in the Christopher Nolan trilogy. Not a bad film, just not as good as what came before. As a result, I’ve never felt the pull to add Catwoman to my action figure collection, but then along came INART with its take on Batman last year and now this Catwoman. The look of the figure blew me away in promotional shots and the early reviews that showed up last summer were able to sway me. Now, the figure is in-hand and I have to figure out if this was really something I needed, or if my impulse control got the better of me.

This looks pretty good to me.

Catwoman comes in a plain shipper box with a nicer black box lurking within in a style very similar to what Batman came in. The packaging is accessible without destroying it and the trays inside contain the figure and all of the accessories free from any sort of aggravating tie-downs. It’s a nice setup, though I do find it odd that Queen Studios literally puts a request (more like a demand) that you record your own unboxing in case there are any defects or damages to be found. I guess if you don’t have proof that you didn’t cause the damage or lose the part then they’re less likely to help you in the event something went wrong between the factory and your hands. I guess this would have made for an opportune time for me to pivot to video, but a bunch of toy reviewers got this thing last year so what would be the point? INART has an interesting production schedule where they send reviewers final copies of the figure just as preorders are going up for the rest of us scum. It seems weird to produce just a handful of figures upfront for the purpose of reviewing, but I guess it works for them. And if it’s costing them a lot it’s not reflected in the price compared with other premium collectibles as Catwoman is somewhere in the $65 – $75 range. She is only available overseas for folks living in North America so there will likely be a not insignificant shipping charge attached to that, but even after all is said and done I think I’m in the hole about $80 and given what Medicom and Bandai are charging these days that ain’t bad.

Goggles down.
You’ll have to trust me when I say this portrait looks better in person.

Out of the box, Catwoman stands at just a tick under 6″ in height. INART is a 1:12 scale brand and since Anne Hathaway is a real person that sent me to the Internet to see if I could get a height on her. And if said Internet can be trusted then Miss Hathaway stands at 5’8″ or 68″ tall. At 1:12 scale that would place her at about 5.67″ – but wait! Cawoman sports some rather large heels. It’s a little tricky to measure them, but I have them at about 5/16ths of an inch. Convert that to 1:12 scale and add it to the figure and we come out to 5.98″ which is almost right on the money. Impressive. She is a figure comprised mostly of black plastic, but it’s plastic with different textures and finishes like Batman. The long boots and gloves have a sheen to them like leather, while the body suit is more matte and textured like Kevlar. There is some shiny black piping along the inner shoulder and the zipper down the front with a little hit of silver on the zipper grasp itself. The end of which is coated black which is an impressive attention to detail. There are also some faint hits of silver along the pouches of her belt with some of them looking quite faded. Is this to simulate use or an imperfect paint app? In looking at stills from the movie, I don’t think these are meant to be silver, but instead supposed to just give it some gloss. The same is true of the mask over her eyes. It’s a gray or silver paint, but it seems to exist to just provide some gloss and break-up the otherwise all black look. The other paint hits are reserved for the red of her lips and the brown of her hair which leads me to the faces in the box.

Back off, rich boy!

Just like we saw with Christian Bale, the likeness here is almost so good that it’s eerie. The likeness is really all in the shape of the face as Hathaway isn’t someone with obvious creases or hallmarks on her face. It’s the size of her eyes, the shape of her lips, and the angle of the jaw and cheekbones and whoever sculpted these portraits did a fantastic job. There are two portraits in the box: one with the mask sculpted on and one without. The one with the mask has two ports on the temples for the included goggles, of which you get two. One is designed for when she doesn’t have them in use and they sit atop her head like cat ears. The other piece is for when she actually needs to wear them. They have translucent red lenses and are well sculpted. The expression for both portraits is a fairly neutral one. There may be a tiny hint of a smile, or maybe that’s my imagination. If there’s one failing with both portraits it’s that the hair is a bit flat and unconvincing. It’s obviously plastic and I don’t typically dock points from an action figure for not being able to create the illusion that it’s actually a tiny person, but so much of this figure does accomplish that for me so it sticks out a touch. It’s especially true with the unmasked portrait as her hair is just as taut as it is on the masked version, and as a result, I’ll probably never use it. Hair is tough to make look real so it’s easily forgiven. Some probably wish she had more expressions though and I do agree. Something a bit more cheeky or angry would have added some nice variety.

“What?! You’re not my Selena!”

Even though she doesn’t have a host of expressions to choose from, Catwoman is hardly lacking in the accessory department. For hands, we get six sets: relaxed, fists, a wide grip, trigger finger, pinching, and a two finger gesture. I assume these are pulled from the movie. The two finger gesture looks like a good adjusting goggles kind of hand while the wide gripping hand is probably for putting her hands on her hips (INART actually lists their intended use in the instructions which is pretty cool). The trigger finger hands are for use with her included gun which is a very small handgun cast in black plastic. The more pinching gesture is for her to hold the included smashed Batman mask. The relaxed hands can also hold it just fine and the trigger finger hands could too, but the instructions in the box specifically call out these hands as being intended for that. The wide grip can be used to cradle it as well. Also included is a swappable hair piece that has a swoosh effect to it if you want to add a dynamic element to your display. There’s also the same stand with an articulated arm that came with Batman only this one is labeled Catwoman on the underside so you don’t get them mixed up. It’s a nice stand as the base has some heft and the armature is nice and tight. The film’s logo is stamped on the front in a shiny plastic that’s cool, but also hard to read.

Catwoman’s articulation is fairly robust. There are joints at the head, hair, neck, shoulders, bicep, elbows, wrists, diaphragm, waist, hips, thighs, knees, ankles and toes. The head is a little limited in looking up because of the hair, though swapping to the swoosh hair alleviates some of this. That joint is mostly a pivot point and exists mainly to facilitate swapping the parts, but it has some utility when posing the head. The shoulders feel like they’re just on ball pegs to get a little butterfly action forward and back. There are no cuts into the torso for a full-on butterfly joint which I think was the right call for this sculpt. Since she’s fairly slight, the range is solid for such a joint. The bicep swivel is a little lower than usual as they put it at the part above her elbow where her glove meets the arm – a logical spot given the design of the suit. The same is true for the thigh swivel as that’s where her thigh-high boots meet her leg. Knees and elbows bend way past 90 degrees as both spots are double-jointed. The wrists utilize ball joints so they’ll move in any direction you need them to. The diaphragm joint has solid range forward, but is a little more limited going back. It will rotate and tilt and the waist does the same as it feels like a ball joint. The hips are these nice, big, hinges which allow Catwoman to hit splits and kick forward quite far. There is a diaper piece at the hips, but it’s quite small so it doesn’t hinder articulation much. If anything, it’s so small that you’ll risk grinding it up as the hip joint slips over it so do be mindful if you’re attempting something more extreme. The ankles do feature a hinge and rocker, though her stiletto type boots limit the ankle rocker’s range. They swivel as well. Despite the rather extreme heels, this figure is fully capable of standing without the aid of a stand. You may not get her into the most dynamic of poses without utilizing her stand, but you also don’t need it if you would rather not display her with it.

She poses well, but it’s the more casual poses that seem to work best.

The abundance of joints combined with Catwoman’s lithe frame makes her relatively easy to pose. There’s a lot of room for nuance adjustments which is great for a subject sourced from a live-action film. Splashy comic book poses are great for figures based on actual comic book characters, but are less useful for a character like Catwoman. Though given how robust the articulation is, if you wanted to do such with her then have at it. The combination of accuracy, accessories, and articulation (the three A’s of figure making) really makes this Catwoman from INART a true home run. I’m lukewarm on the character, but this figure blew me away in promotional shots and it blew me away in person. It’s almost too perfect – where do we go from here? I expect this level of detail from everyone going forward even though I’m sure to be letdown. I’m also not sure how Queen Studios is able to keep the cost on these figures down as much as they do – is that simply because they’re not paying for a North American distribution license? Maybe, though there’s still little reuse potential in a figure like this and yet that didn’t stop them from going all out. I had some nitpicks in here, but they’re just that – nitpicks. I really couldn’t be any happier with this one and she looks awesome beside my Batman. Does this mean I’m going to get Bane too? I don’t know. He’s less interesting, but they did show a Joker prototype last year (or very early this year) and that could certainly get me. If you’re interested in this one, but reside in the United States, your options are limited as far as where you can purchase this. INART can’t sell directly to folks in North America, but other non-US retailers certainly can. I got mine from Bombusbee (no affiliation or anything, just sharing where I got it) and I was content with both the price and customer service. This one may have gone up since, and I assume she will in general just like Batman did, so it’s probably best not to wait. You may not feel you need a Catwoman from The Dark Knight Rises, but you’ll probably be happy to have her should you change your mind.

For more Batman releases including the previous INART release, check these out:

INART The Dark Knight Rises Batman – Deluxe Version

Is this a review I really need to do? Probably not, but I’m doing it anyway. Queen Studios wasn’t a shop that was on my radar going into 2025. I’m guessing that’s true for a lot of folks and that’s probably why they had a media blitz when it came time to promote their brand…

Keep reading
by Joe

The Dark Knight Rises

I mentioned in my look at Batman’s best films that I had gone into total lockdown mode for The Dark Knight Rises.  I got off of social media, stayed away from review sites, and just basically blocked the world out where Batman was concerned.  I wanted to walk into this film with an unformed opinion.…

Keep reading
by Joe

Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (1989)

When it comes to the world of more high end action figure collectibles, I’ve been able to get my hands on a few. Some rather prominent companies have yet to cross my path though, and it’s not really for any reason other than they either don’t make what I like or I don’t really like…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 8, 2026

Iron Maiden – Burning Ambition

By Joe

For 50 years, Iron Maiden has been bringing its own brand of heavy metal to fans the world over. It’s a unique story for as popular as Maiden has become, it did so without the music industry machine ever getting fully behind it. Rarely, if ever, did I encounter Iron Maiden on the radio growing up in the 80s and 90s when listening to rock stations in the northeast USA. Instead, I had to seek the band out and often it was the band’s mascot, Eddie, that would catch my eye first. My very first Iron Maiden record was Killers and I have been hooked ever since. I don’t think I’ve seen a band more times live than I have Maiden and it’s been a joy seeing how much they’ve been embraced in the past few decades, especially.

To mark the occasion of 50 years, Iron Maiden released a new documentary upon the world. Titled Burning Ambition, the Malcolm Venville directed documentary spans roughly an hour and forty five minutes and has been released to select theaters this weekend (just in time for Mother’s Day in the US) and presents an overview of the band’s history. Starting in England in the 1970s, the documentary follows the band through lineup changes, world tours, and endings as it attempts to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time. The band, having already released more in-depth documentaries in the past, is content to let the fans tell the story while interjecting their own notes and memories along the way via voice over. It’s an interesting approach as we never see current footage of any of the band members but we see plenty of the fans they brought in to record interviews. Some are just regular folks while others are record executives, lawyers, or educators. There’s a few celebrity fans thrown in including actor Javier Bardem as well as fellow musicians Tom Morello, Lars Ulrich, Chuck D, Scott Ian, and Gene Simmons. One almost gets the feeling that this is the fan perspective of the band’s rise as opposed to their own voice.

Some familiar faces, like Tom Morello as seen above, are on hand to provide commentary along with many unfamiliar faces.

Given that perspective, the documentary is light on the usual rock documentary salaciousness. There’s few stories of sex and debauchery to be found and instead the story focuses mostly on some key moments in the band’s journey. The first major one concerns original singer Paul Di’Anno and the circumstances leading to his ouster from the back and the hiring of vocalist Bruce Dickinson. Much of the doc pivots to focus on the relentless tour schedule the band endured in the 1980s and its impact on the departures of both Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith. A few moments are spent on the Blaze Bayley era of Maiden where the fans in the documentary do their best to be respectful with one even going so far as to proclaim his two albums as brilliant (bless his heart) before Bruce and Adrian are both welcomed back into the band for Maiden’s big second act. Things wrap with a brief overview of the current era including Bruce’s diagnosis with throat cancer and drummer Nicko McBrain’s stroke and subsequent retirement from touring. One leaves the theater with essentially a slice of the Maiden pie, a decent understanding of the band’s legacy, but with little knowledge about the actual music composed during the band’s lifetime.

That’s the one – the album that hooked me.

The documentary is competently shot and edited with a liberal use of archival footage of the band from throughout its career. There’s quite a bit of time devoted to the band’s trip behind the iron curtain in ’84 when it played Poland and if you are a longtime fan it’s stuff you’ve likely seen before. Harris, Dickinson, and McBrain seem to do the lion’s share of the work from the band’s side as far as commentary goes with very little to be heard from the likes of Murray, Gers, and Smith. There are voice overs from both Di’Anno and Bayley as well about their time spent in the band. Very little is said about original drummer Clive Burr unfortunately and I don’t think anyone even mentions the name of Dennis Stratton, who played guitar on the first record. If you want to hear more about them or the actual music produced by the band you pretty much have to turn to their other documentaries beginning with The Early Years. Thankfully, all three parts (and Death on the Road) are available to stream for free on the band’s YouTube channel and seemingly without ads. As there is a lot of concert footage utilized, there isn’t necessarily a shortage of Maiden music to be found in Burning Ambition, it’s just heard in snippets. Your mileage may vary, but I personally found the way the songs are chopped up and edited to be more annoying than enjoyable as they cut out lines and verses to fit a specific chunk of time that seems unnatural. We’re all here for a good time and we’re not in a hurry – just let the song play.

Burning Ambition is a celebratory film for the boys in the band as well as for the fans watching in the theater or at home.

As a result, Burning Ambition comes across like a documentary meant for the casual fans. It provides a broad overview of the band while leaving plenty of room for those who take to it to go off and find out more. It’s not the long awaited History of Iron Maiden Part Four some may have hoped it would be. I would have loved to hear more from the band in regards to its current form. We got the usual stuff about Bruce flying the plane and all that, but not about how they have grown as song writers. What it’s like to perform this kind of music at an age when most men are retiring. How it feels to play in front of over 100 thousand people after playing the clubs. If you’re looking to settle in with Iron Maiden for a bit this weekend or later when the documentary is surely available for rent or purchase, you could certainly do worse. It’s not the sort of film that is likely to invite repeat viewings, but I suppose not many documentaries do. If nothing else though you’ll likely walk away from it wishing you had tickets to see Maiden the next day. For me, it’s going to be a long four months until the boys roll into town this September.

For more of my thoughts on Iron Maiden and music in general, take a look at these:

Back to the Beginning

Since I was a young lad, I’ve always been drawn to “heavy” music. My dad was an oldies guy, which during my childhood was primarily music from the 50s and 60s. My mom was into modern rock and while her sensibilities weren’t exactly heavy, they definitely were compared to what my dad listened to (which…

Keep reading
by Joe

Best of the Beast: The Iron Maiden Albums Ranked

Happy Iron Maiden Day, everyone! It’s Friday, September 4th, the street date for Iron Maiden’s 16th studio album: The Book of Souls. To commemorate this event I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the Maiden catalog and rank the studio efforts put out by the band. Obviously, for a band…

Keep reading
by Joe

Danzig – MGM Music Hall at Fenway Boston, MA 9/11/2023

It’s 2023 and I’ve lost track of how many last Danzig shows I’ve seen. I want to say it was around 2005 following the release of Circle of Snakes where Glenn Danzig first started talking about hanging it up when it came to touring. It wasn’t hard to see why someone who had been in…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, Music

May 7, 2026

Demoniacal Fit – The Coming One: Top Gun

By Joe
It’s famous anime hero Top Gun!

One of the aspects of the toy collecting community I tend to avoid is the relm of third party figures. It wasn’t too long ago that I posted a review of the Manipple Studios arms accessory for the S.H.Figuarts Wolverine. Technically a third party product, it wasn’t something that I had any real conflict with when it comes to ethics. It was an unlicensed add-on for a pre-existing figure. I don’t know where those arms were sourced as far as the molds went, but in order for it to be of any use to anyone they would have had to have purchased an official product already. When it comes to a full, third party release, my ethical side gives me pause. These releases are, at worst, unlicensed figured of properties owned by someone else. There are plenty of people out there who will rationalize it as the owner doesn’t need more money, but that doesn’t make it right. And it’s usually easy for me to just ignore such releases. I bare no ill will towards folks who do like and review them, but they’re usually not for me. Obviously, we’re only talking about this because I’m stepping out of my comfort zone with this one – the Demoniacal Fit The Coming One – Top Gun, which to anyone with a little bit of knowledge on the subject would recognize as Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.

Most of this figure appears to be ripped off from the S.H.Figuarts Trunks – The Boy From the Future.

Demoniacal Fit has been around for a little while and seems to have a pretty good reputation in the toy world when it comes to quality. Third party, or bootleg, figures have a reputation for being poor, but that isn’t always the case these days. For me, there are two distinct types of third part offerings. The true third party, unlicensed, action figures are creations by an actual third party of a licensed character sold without a license. A bootleg, to me, is different as that’s a copy of another company’s licensed offering. Through either reverse engineering or outright theft of tools, bootlegs are just copies of varying quality of something being sold (or was once sold) through official channels. Some of the more popular bootlegs have been the many incarnations of NECA’s Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2008. Rumor has it that those molds were stolen and since NECA lost the license for a time they were bootlegged to Hell and back. A more recent example is CT Toys which has been bootlegging MAFEX figures for incredibly low prices. Many have claimed that Medicom is so preoccupied with CT Toys that it’s the reason for why the company has seemingly prioritized reissues over new figures.

I don’t know why the sword was done this way, but I guess it’s interesting?

This Demoniacal Fit offering of Future Trunks is basically a hybrid of the two approaches. There are definitely parts here wholly ripped-off from the Bandai S.H.Figuarts release Future Trunks – The Boy From the Future. It is, however, a depiction of the character that Bandai has never done and there are some new parts utilized to make this figure somewhat unique. It’s a figure I had seen when it first was announced and I did think it looked pretty neat. It’s Future Trunks as he appeared in the movie Bojack Unbound which just put the character in a cut-off version of his blue Capsule Corp jacket while also giving him the long hair he sported towards the end of the Cell Saga. It’s a look I’ve always liked for Trunks as I find that the long-haired Super Saiyan look resembles a morning star and it just works. I never got the figure, but recently I was at a toy convention where someone had a sealed copy for sale. Ironically, I was all set to buy an official Dragon Ball Super Future Trunks, but the person running the table was off somewhere else and after hanging around for 10 minutes or so I went back to the guy with the bootleg. I confess that I was curious to see what the quality was like compared with an official release – it certainly looked good in the box. And it was a look I didn’t have in my collection nor do I know if it’s one on Bandai’s radar. Obviously, I took the plunge and while I don’t want this to come across as an endorsement for bootleg action figures, I’m guessing there are other people like me out there curious how this does compare to an official product.

This look is what got me to buy this one.

This figure appears to be comprised largely of parts from the official release of Future Trunks by Bandai and Tamashii Nations. The items that appear identical to me are the face plates, the torso, belt, hands, crotch, feet, and portions of the legs. Demoniacal Fit re-sculpted the right thigh and left shin to add some torn fabric. I checked other official releases I have with similar distress marks and couldn’t find any matches, but I don’t have every release out there. The arms are bare and I was curious if I could find a source for them, but my collection turned up nothing. I thought maybe Super Hero Gohan or even the old Trunks or Vegeta arms just cast in flesh instead of blue, but that does not appear to be the case. That doesn’t mean they’re not from some other release, I just don’t have it. The jacket turned vest looks almost identical, but they did have to re-sculpt it because the edges are torn where the sleeves used to be. It’s split in the back just like the jacket on the official release and the paint is pretty much the same. The painted part of the exposed chest is actually slightly cleaner on the bootleg while the boots look softer in sculpt to me (which makes sense if they reproduced a mold from the official release). Like the official release, because the figures are designed to wear a jacket of some kind there’s basically nothing to the sculpt in the shoulder area. If you pulled the vest off of this one it would look ridiculous so it’s staying on. The same is true of the official release, but since it didn’t have bare arms there was no need to ever take the coat off. The only other negative about the bootleg vs the official is the top of the left thigh swivel on mine is slightly chewed up. It looks like it didn’t come out of the mold clean and I may attempt to lightly sand it down, or just live with it.

This effect part is also taken from the Bandai/Tamashii Nations line. I know it from the Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta release.

We’ll talk more about what’s bootlegged when we get to the accessories, but the overall look of the figure is pretty nice. Even with the lack of paint, it’s not shiny. I like the sculpt of the arms and the portrait out of the box looks nice and it’s just one of three looks the figure possesses. For the non-Super Saiyan look we have a hair down sculpt and one where the ends of his hair is blowing in the wind slightly. As far as I know, both are unique creations as the only long-haired Trunks I’m aware of by Bandai has his hair in a ponytail. The connection in the neck is the same as The Boy From the Future so you can use these interchangeably with that release, if you wish. What also works in the bootleg’s favor is it has a nice in-hand feel. The original release of The Boy From the Future is somewhat notorious for the bad quality control on display. Reissues have reportedly been better, but I only have the first one to judge and it’s not great. The figure is floppy, the bicep loves to detach on the left arm, and the paint’s not great. Mine also had a reversed abdomen out of the box that I actually didn’t even notice until I got this bootleg release. That had me running to the internet for pictures to see which way it was supposed to be facing. By comparison, this release from Demoniacal Fit is much tighter, the articulation is smoother, and the overall look is pretty much spot-on. To an outsider, the official release would probably feel like the bootleg.

Bootleg or not, it does look pretty damn good.

The non-Super Saiyan portraits are nice, but what really attracted me to this figure was the Super Saiyan one. It has that big, spiky, appearance that I love about this look from the movie. The sculpt is great and the approach to the color is my preferred one with a pale yellow plastic and some darker yellow shading. For expressions there’s a yelling one, a stoic one, and a teeth gritting one. For the non Super Saiyan look, there’s stoic, yelling, and a slight smirk. The sculpt of the faceplates appears to be the same as the Bandai ones, though the eyes are slightly larger. For hands, we have fists, gripping, angled gripping, clenching, flat palms, open, and open with pegs. The pegs are utilized with the effect part – a little, yellow, translucent ball of energy that’s a copy of the same that came with Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta. The only difference (apart from the color) is this one has no paint on it. Where the bootleg nature of the figure does seem to come into play is with the hands. The gripping ones, in particular, are not easy to put on. The hole is at an odd spot (it was on the original) and doesn’t seem to be wide enough. One of the gripping hands is a bit soft in the sculpt too with extra material making it hard for him to hold anything with it. You’re probably going to need some hot water to get these on. And he has gripping hands because Trunks also has his sword which, again, is just ripped-off from the official release. The one difference is they cast the sword in translucent pink, but painted silver over most of the blade leaving just the tip this purple-pink shade. I don’t know what the purpose is here. Did he make the blade glow in the movie? I didn’t even remember him using it, but I did screen grab a pic from the movie back when I reviewed it of him with his sword strapped to his back. As for the strap, it’s just as fiddly and annoying to work with as the official release, but doable if you want him to wear it. Just don’t touch it once you get it in place.

You may need heat to get the sword in his hand, but it is doable.

Articulation for this Trunks is the exact same as that of the official release, it’s just smoother. Nothing was too loose or stuck on my release out of the package and the range at most of the joints is pretty good. This is one of those releases copying the Bandai look with the oddly shaped thigh swivels which I don’t like. The ball hinges in the wrist are a bit more exposed on this figure than is typical, but they also benefit with improved range as a result. It’s almost a shame I don’t think much of the sword because he can probably wield it better than the previous version. All of the hair pieces are pretty restrictive when it comes to allowing the figure to look up. The purple hair also can be a pain with looking down. The collared portion of the vest can also get in the way, and like many figures, the crotch area is all hard plastic limiting the range on splits in both directions. He’s still going to largely pose the way you want him to, but you do have to watch some of the edges of the joints. In particular the thigh swivels since they need to slide under the hips so they can suffer from rubbing. There’s some light scuffing on my figure’s right thigh and I honestly don’t know if he came out of the box like that or if I did that while handling the figure, but it may be something to watch out for.

Too slow.

I will say, Demoniacal Fit largely lived up to their reputation as a producer of Dragon Ball bootlegs that are on par, or sometimes better than, the official releases from Bandai. Does that mean I feel like this is an ethically sound release? No, not at all. There’s far too much copied from the official figures to make me feel great about owning this. I’m not going to lose sleep over it or anything, but I don’t foresee this being the start of something bigger for me. I should point out that there are two versions of this figure. If you look up The Coming One you may find the Trunks with shorter hair. That one is designed to have a removable coat making it like an end of Cell Saga, return to the future, version of the character. It looks solid, but isn’t unique enough of a look for me to need it in my collection as it’s basically regular Future Trunks just without his coat. If this is a look for Trunks that you have really wanted in your display then I suppose it’s a release made for you. Prices seem to vary on it, but expect to pay anywhere from $65-$95 depending on where it’s being shipped from. Judging it strictly on its merits as an action figure, it’s a pretty good release. The sculpt is great whether you’re talking about the new parts or the stolen ones and the quality is good as well. If this were a Bandai/Tamashii Nations release I’d be plenty happy with it apart from how annoying the hands are to swap. And hey, if they want to rip-off this Super Saiyan hair for an official release (maybe on a new, ascended Saiyan body) I’d say that’s a good way to strike back and something I’d buy. As always though, if this is something you want I leave that decision entirely up to you. I can only tell you what I think of it and how it makes me feel.

For some official Trunks figures as well as the source for this look check these out:

Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound

Japanese Title:  The Galaxy’s at the Brink!! The Super Incredible Guy Original Release Date:  July 10, 1993 English Release Date:  August 17, 2004 Directed by:  Yoshihiro Ueda Screenplay by:  Takao Koyama Running time:  51 minutes Dragon Ball Z:  Bojack Unbound is the rare DBZ movie that actually could be considered canon, should someone want to.…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

February 5, 2026

S.H.Figuarts Across the Spider-Verse Scarlet Spider

By Joe
Look at this beauty!

In the two reviews I did of Scarlet Spider action figures I shared the origins of my love for the character’s design. To make it short, I found the appearance of him on a cover of a Spider-Man comic intriguing, but more is as a young artist I much preferred to doodle him in my notebook than Spider-Man himself. And that’s due to the lack of those tedious web lines the traditional Spidey costume contains. And even so, there’s something about the simplified look of the red body suit with a ratty, blue, hoodie over it that works. The shape of the eyes worked for me and the exposed web shooters also looked kind of cool, but what really sold it are the artists (Tom Lyle is the one who is credited as designing the character) who drew and colored this look because that heavy, black, shading just made him seem so much more intense and mysterious.

I like all three of these figures, but this new one from Bandai does make the other two look quite dull by comparison.

When Scarlet Spider showed up in the movie Across the Spider-Verse I immediately wanted a figure of that look. The art designer (Kris Anka is credited as the character designer) for that film clearly knew what made the costume pop as he was depicted with heavy comic shading in every scene he appeared in. Hasbro, unfortunately, declined to include him in their companion action figure line, but they did release the character on a retro card later. Medicom did one and then even did a shaded one last year as a convention exclusive, but the shading was basically just a little black on his face. It wasn’t what we saw on film or in the comics, but here comes Bandai! Bandai has released a few figures in its S.H.Figuarts line based on the movie, but for some reason I never considered them a possibility for this look. They’re usually not really into painting their figures while Medicom has actually done comic shaded figures of Spider-Man in the past. When they showed this one off though I knew I had to have it. I even preordered it via Hobby-Genki, an import operation in Japan, rather than wait for one of the US stores to get the figure in. And, of course, because of those wonderful tariffs it ended up costing me about the same so while I didn’t save any real money, I did get the figure a little quicker.

I do like these wall crawling hands.

Ben Reilly comes in the standard SHF box. There’s some artwork on it that is vaguely similar to the style of the film and it’s adorned with photos of the figure in action. To my surprise, there is an included set of basic instructions for the figure as opposed to having them printed on the inner box flap like most of the recent Dragon Ball releases. Scarlet Spider (which has a hyphen in the name on the box which I’ve never seen before with this character) stands at about 6.5″ so he is right there with the Legends figure so if you think that one is appropriately sized for your Marvel collection then this one should be too. I like that figure, but placing it beside this new one really makes it look inferior. It’s just bare plastic while this figure from Bandai is covered with black shading and it looks fantastic. They didn’t hold back and there’s a liberal amount of the black on every part of the figure. The web shooters and cartridges on his belt have some nice linework on them as well and there’s even a little shading on those goofy ankle pouches. I really like how the mask turned out and it helps the white eyes to really pop. The blue of the hoodie is a touch darker than the Legends figure and the same is true for the red making it look a lot closer to an actual scarlet shade of red. There’s tons of shading on the rear of the figure as well so there was no skimping at any point.

Even the rear of the figure has as much as detail as the front.

This figure is stunning and I don’t think there’s a thing about the presentation here that I’d change. It’s going to run into some issues where the linework won’t stay in-line when you move limbs, but because there’s so much it’s not as noticeable as it could be. The hoodie is non-functioning, if that matters to you, so he can’t pull it up over his head. It’s also hard plastic so those who prefer soft goods might be turned off a little, but I don’t think you could do shading like this with soft goods. Bandai did load him up with some accessories, though not as many as the Medicom release. For hands, we get fists, gripping, gripping with a thumb out, wall-crawling, web-shooting, and open hands. The wall-crawling hands have a more pronounced arch to the fingers which I like when compared with other versions of the same. There are two web lines – one with a ring at the base to mimic a web-shooting pose and one long one for swinging. There’s an unmasked portrait which also has a neck piece as part of it and Ben looks like his douchey self from the film. It’s great, but I’ll never use it after taking some pictures. What’s missing is a flight stand. An expensive Spider-Man figure should always come with one, but Bandai almost never includes them with their offerings unless absolutely necessary.

Two accessories that turned out well that I’ll likely never use: the unmasked portrait and the time bracelet.

Where this figure does stumble is in the action department. Like any Tamashii Nations release, there’s a bunch of joints on this guy, but unfortunately they don’t seem to work very well. The rundown is pretty typical: head, neck, shoulders, butterfly, bicep, double elbows, wrist, diaphragm, waist, hips, thighs, double knees, ankles and toes. What works well is the head and neck which has plenty of range and personality and I have no issues with the arms or knees. The butterfly joint is restricted and doesn’t go forward or back all that much. It’s better than nothing, but the sleeve piece of the hoodie prevents the figure from reaching over its head in a swinging pose. The ankle rocker is pretty limited too and quite steep. What sucks though is the torso and, to a lesser extent, the hips. Scarlet Spider can do the forward to back splits, but out to the side is pretty limited. The torso though feels almost static. I can’t get the joint under the hoodie to do anything. It wiggles so I’m pretty sure it’s there, but it’s useless. The waist also just seems to pivot and rock a bit. What I can’t get it to do is actually rotate and that’s just bizarre. It might just be seized, or something with the shape of the cut is causing it to bind. It’s quite unfortunate.

If you have a stand handy he can get into some decent web-swinging poses, but the lack of rotation in the torso is frustrating.

The end result is that this is a Spider-Man figure that’s not very good at doing Spider-Man type poses. He can do some, but basic wall-crawling is pretty much out. He can only do a basic crouch and he’ll need some kind of support to actually hold the pose on your shelf. It’s a bummer, and honestly quite surprising as most SHF releases I have articulate pretty well, even some of the odder designs. And this is, ultimately, a guy in a skin-tight suit with just a hoodie to get in the way. It should be very easy to articulate, but they completely dropped the ball.

At least the shading is so good that he doesn’t really have to do much to look cool.

Does that make this release a bad one? Yes and no. If you want and expect articulation better than your $25 Marvel Legends figure then this will let you down. This is a downgrade in articulation from the Legends figure and especially the MAFEX one. It’s honestly more on par with the Mondo sixth scale Spider-Man than those figures. Maybe even worse because of that waist. I’ll do some checking around and see if anyone else has the same issue with the waist as I do and if I can at least get that to rotate I think I’ll be a lot more satisfied, but it will still be lackluster. If you don’t need this figure to pose as well as a Legends figure, then you’ll likely be a lot happier. I do think this is one of the best looking figures in my collection. It’s a Mondo type of presentation on a 1:12 scale figure. It looks spectacular, and that’s what I wanted. It’s a damn good thing that it looks great in a standard, hero pose lessening the desire to do something more exotic. It still shouldn’t be that way, but presentation matters a lot too. And that’s what it comes down to. If you are as in love with the appearance of this one then you’ll probably be happy. If not, then you should probably pass because this figure isn’t cheap. It’s actual price tag from an import shop is around $80, but after shipping and duties it will end up around the $110 Big Bad Toy Store is charging. If you shop around you may find a better deal, but either way this is a pricey figure. If I wasn’t such a fan of this particular look I would likely chosen to admire it form afar, but even with the articulation limitations, it’s my favorite Scarlet Spider in my collection.

If you’re curious what I thought of those other Scarlet Spider figures and even that Mondo one I mentioned then look no further:

Marvel Legends Retro Card Scarlet Spider

It was in this space last year that I shared my fondness for the Scarlet Spider costume when I reviewed the Medicom MAFEX Scarlet Spider action figure. I don’t buy much from Medicom because their figures are really expensive for what they are, but I sometimes break my own rule when I think they’ve made…

Keep reading
by Joe

Medicom MAFEX Marvel No. 186 Scarlet Spider

When I was a kid, one of my favorite past times was drawing. Like most, I started really young with a box of crayons and coloring books. I’d eventually start keeping markers, colored pencils, and other instruments in a plastic McDonald’s case that came from a Happy Meal. It was blue and had a map…

Keep reading
by Joe

Mondo 1/6 Scale Spider-Man (Spider-Man ’94)

It took a long time for Mondo’s Spider-Man to get to me. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even buy it. I passed on the Mondo offering in 2024, debated the symbiote costume variant, but ultimately passed on that as well. The X-Men line from Mondo is my true love and…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

December 16, 2025

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Santa Jack

By Joe
What’s this?! A skeleton Santa?

Today’s review has been a long time coming. It was on December 26th, 2024 that I received in the mail a NECA Ultimate Santa Jack action figure based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Christmas had come and gone so it didn’t make much sense to post a review, so I waited. Nearly a year, in fact, but I’m finally going to take a look at this figure. When NECA returned to The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2024 it went the predictable route by doing two Jack figures and pairing him with Sally. They also did the Mayor, so I guess that part wasn’t typical, and based on how many of those figures I see hanging around store shelves I would assume most were content to just get Jack and Sally. For toy companies, doing two versions of Jack makes a lot of sense. He spends considerable time in the movie with both looks, but also they can conceivably use a lot of the same tools to create both figures. Only, NECA actually opted not to do that from what I can tell.

Santa Jack is actually a little bigger than standard Jack.

The sculpt for this one is credited to the trio of Kyle Windrix, Marty Henley, and Andrew Lawson which is the same trio that brought us the standard Jack. This one comes in the same style of packaging that’s just credited to Chris Longo. Usually NECA credits the artist who made the actual drawings that factor into the packaging, but since one isn’t present that either means Longo did it all or Disney supplied the artwork and declined to include the artist’s name. Regardless, it fits thematically with the other figures we already looked at and will make for a fine coffin for the figure eleven months out of the year.

The prior Jack came with a bunch of expressions while with this one we have to settle for three.

Santa Jack stands approximately 8 3/8″ to the top of his head which is actually a little taller than the standard Jack. Why is this? I’m not sure, but it would appear that most of this figure is new tooling. I was expecting a new upper torso that conforms to the Santa suit and maybe new forearms and shins, but I also thought NECA might add the trimmings of the suit in another fashion. The texture of the red, which is a nice, vibrant, shade, is a little bumpy and almost chalky. I wasn’t sure if this was achieved via paint or by sculpt, but considering the different size I’d guess it’s just all new. The only parts this figure appears to share with the regular Jack are the hands as even the included expressions are different. This one necessitates holes in the sides of each portrait for the beard as well as a port for the hat, but I thought they might be able to reuse the prior heads and just insert something into the mold to create the needed ports. What we end up with though is a very nice presentation of the character from the film in his Santa guise. The paint is clean and the red has a nice matte appearance while the black boots are appropriately shiny. The skull head is a touch off-white and has that cold appearance it has in the film. There are no soft goods present and I suppose some might have preferred actual faux fur trim or a soft goods beard, but I’m content with the all plastic approach.

As long as you can’t see the hole in the top of his head, hat-less displays are possible.

Perhaps because of all that new tooling we don’t get quite as much in the box this time around. That Ultimate Jack is perhaps the figure I own that best lives up to the billing as he came with a ton of different expressions. This Jack comes with just three: smile, wink, and a surprised look. The smile and surprised look are both slightly different from the same expressions found with the standard Jack. You can use the heads from that release with this one, but you won’t be able to make use of the hat or beard as both peg into the heads. The beard is on a double ball peg while the beard has a peg on each side. It’s a little bendy and forgiving, but also mushy. I could not get it into the alternate heads without first dunking them in a cup of hot water. Santa Jack also has an array of hands including sets of relaxed, clutching, pointing, and flat hands which are all repeated from the previous release. To complete the look, he has a plastic sack and three different, wrapped, presents to go along with a candy cane and his clipboard with a picture of himself in this Santa suit. The accessories are all quite fine and will help to build out a little scene on your shelf. He also has the same stand that came with the other figures and you will need it. In fact, I recommend borrowing a second one from another release if you have one. I put regular Jack and Sally away so I had another to make use of and it helps to keep him upright.

All of Jack’s accessories will contribute to your holiday display.

The articulation for Santa Jack is exactly the same as it was for the standard Jack (linked at the end of this post). The only difference is we now have the hat and beard. The beard, since it just pegs into each side of the face, can swivel forward and back which helps a little with adjustment posing. The hat is a double ball peg so it can rotate, but also slide around a bit to be posed at slightly different angles. It’s a nice touch and obviously the only downside here is it means the hat isn’t usable with the standard Jack heads. I do wish NECA had found a solution there. A magnet makes the most sense, but maybe they couldn’t get one into the heads without putting an ugly seam on the top. It also wouldn’t solve the beard issue. If the beard could have just pressure fit to the heads somehow that would have been great, but probably tough to get right. Even something like sunglasses on a figure or the faceguard on the movie Shredder still has tabs to click onto and there’s just no way to do such here without making them visible. Or we could have just got more heads like we did with the regular Jack. I’d have loved more expressions, but it wasn’t in the cards here.

Sally may have been returned to her box, but not Zero. He gets to stay.

Santa Jack is perhaps a little less “ultimate” compared with the standard Jack Skellington, but it’s still a nice figure. The likeness is terrific and the articulation is just enough to make him rather expressive, provided you can keep him standing. That’s my one lingering critique of this line as the disc stand we get just isn’t quite enough in this case. It’s a nice holiday decoration though and if you like the film and this version of Jack it’s an easy recommend. To my surprise, I have not seen a single copy of this figure at stores this year. I’m guessing NECA has been shipping them, but apparently not in tremendous numbers. He can be found online though with hopefully enough time to arrive before Christmas.

If you like The Nightmare Before Christmas or just Christmas toys in general then take a look at these other reviews:

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Jack Skellington

When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Sally

If you buy a Jack Skellington action figure, then you almost have to get him a Sally. That’s exactly what I did, though it proved mildly difficult to track down. I have seen NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington around throughout the year as I head into stores that carry NECA products, but Sally had proved elusive.…

Keep reading
by Joe

Jada Toys Frosty the Snowman

There are a number of Christmas specials out there that are basically known by all and I’ve written about most of them here. Some have been annual traditions especially when we had more of a monoculture in the US, but the slow death of cable television has made those annual traditions fade away. One holiday…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Film, toys

December 6, 2025

Dec. 6 – The Nostalgia Spot Christmas Special Countdown #168-158

By Joe

We’re back to the ranking posts, and following yesterday’s solo entry, it means our numbers are no longer nice and clean. This is also our first day with 11 entries and we’ll have a few more just as part of my organization. We’ll also never have fewer than 10 on these. It’s math, baby!

Today we slide a bit further into the “Hmm…okay,” category. There’s still stuff here that I am unlikely to ever return to, but there’s also some stuff in here that I watch just about every year. Now, I hesitate to call those particular specials good, but they obviously do something right or appeal to a certain part of me and flawed Christmas specials can be watchable. The first one on our list though is a bit murky.

168 – A Very Woody Christmas

Courtesy of the “new” Woody Woodpecker show comes “A Very Woody Christmas.” I could make this short and say this series had another Christmas episode, but I never watched it. I had my fill here. It’s not terrible, it just didn’t really make me laugh. It’s three segments: two Woody cartoons sandwiched around a Chilly Willy. I’d say the Chilly Willy one is the best of the three, but I always liked the little penguin. The third one is also in the discussion as Woody tries to get himself off the Naughty List by doing something nice for his neighbor, but everything just goes wrong. The show premiered in 1999 and it looks okay by those standards. Woody’s redesign is slight and not unsightly and I did like Billy West in the role, I just wish the cartoon was funnier.

167 – Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales

You could take a lot of what I just said about Woody and apply it here. One would think a Christmas special centered around Bugs Bunny would be pretty funny, but this is not. Perhaps one of the most disappointing Christmas specials I’ve ever seen, this comes post Looney Tunes shorts when the made-for-television animation was obvious and the voices started sounding a little different. It doesn’t look particularly good and too much time is wasted on a tired A Christmas Carol parody that does nothing clever. My affection for these characters has helped to prop it up all the way to this spot and the fact that my kids love Bugs Bunny has kept this in semi-rotation over the years, but this is the worst Looney Tunes Christmas anything on this list.

166 – The Mask – Santa Mask

We go from the Looney Tunes Christmas special to the superhero who wants to be a Looney Tune. The Mask is not a show I’ve spent much time with outside of this episode and I’m not likely to. Even so, this wasn’t bad even though it’s another “Character takes over for Santa” plot. Rob Paulsen is a good Mask and there were at least a few spots that made me smile. It also has Tim Curry and he’s great. I did enjoy the look of this one as it’s much better than the other Jim Carrey movies turned cartoons in that respect. And with this one, I can watch it and think, “This isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not made for me.” And that’s because it’s made for kids and if I were a kid I’d probably think higher of this. And had I been a little kid when this was on, maybe my nostalgia for it would have pushed it higher? Or not as we’ll see in a few entries.

165 – Back to the Future – Dickens of a Christmas

I avoided this one for years because of that title. “Dickens” implies only one thing when paired with Christmas and my appetite to watch unfamiliar A Christmas Carol takes is nonexistent. This one isn’t really what I thought the title implied. Instead, the Brown family (and Marty) travel back in time to find that A Christmas Carol is essentially a true story. They don’t really come to that conclusion, but that’s basically what it is. The Brown kids get mixed up with an Oliver Twist like kid and a Scrooge-type gets it in the end. It’s all right. A cromulent Christmas episode from a cromulent cartoon. There’s so little Back to the Future things outside the movies that there was a temptation to rank this one higher, but if I’m being honest with myself I’ll never watch it again.

164 – The Berenstain Bears’ Christmas Tree

Speaking of surprises, this one definitely surprised me. I knew the Berenstain Bears as a series of children’s books. I read and enjoyed them as a kid. I also vaguely recall an animated series. The only specific of the animated version I could recall was the opening title. An actual plot from an episode is just not something my brain can recall. I assumed this would be a preschool styled show and when I went to watch it for the countdown that year I thought there was a really strong chance I was wasting my time as I avoid preschool shows for this blog. There just isn’t much to talk about with them. I was wrong as this was really a straight-forward comedic show aimed at kids. It didn’t exactly win me over, but I was charmed by elements of it and came to enjoy the dumb father character. I think if this were in the 11 minute range it would have been stronger as I just got sick of it. The plot didn’t have enough meat on the bone to sustain the full run time, but it wasn’t bad. If my kids had been raised on this franchise then I would have been fine introducing this to them. Since they weren’t, I don’t have to.

163 – Dumb and Dumber – Santa Klutz

The last of the Jim Carrey movies turned cartoons I covered was Dumb and Dumber. Coincidentally, it was also the last to be released and the same is true of the movie and cartoon. And it’s also the best of the three, which I’d say is also true of the movies which is quite the coincidence. As for series, that I can’t attest to as I haven’t seen enough of any of them, but for Christmas specials I’m taking “Santa Klutz” over the other two. Part of the reason for that is the run time – this one is short. I like short. It is ugly as sin and I don’t really like looking at it, but unlike the other two this one did have some genuine funny moments. It can be hard to write stupid characters, but this cartoon did a good job with that. There’s some misdirection to jokes and the plot setup is also a strength. Reflecting on it, I’m almost talking myself out of ranking it here and moving it up, but I’m not here to second guess myself.

162 – A Cosmic Christmas

A Cosmic Christmas is a special that’s more interesting than good. I say that as someone who didn’t grow up watching it so my nostalgia here is nil, but the main plot beats are pretty standard Christmas stuff. The animation is rough, but in an artistic and interesting way. Some characters have weird flow or large blocks of color. There’s lots of smoking which is unusual in this day and age and some odd effects with the aliens and their spacecraft. I was never bored watching it even if the story wasn’t exciting. I also enjoyed the Christmas message contained in this one which is largely to help the less fortunate – the sort of thing a lot of high profile church people lose sight of. RIP Nelvana.

161 – X-Men – Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas

Here’s the one I was mostly calling out in the intro paragraph as one I tend to watch every year. X-Men was my favorite show as a kid so nostalgia plays a big role. I was predisposed to liking any Christmas episode X-Men did. And this is a pretty bad Christmas episode, but it’s also intentionally bad. The writing staff was tasked with doing a Christmas episode so they tried to get every trope they could come up with into this one because, on the surface, Christmas with the X-Men is pretty absurd. It just wasn’t the type of show that was going to tackle the subject. The only problem here is the writers were almost too good at making a bad Christmas episode. There’s no sense of irony within the episode, you’re only in on the joke if you happened to read an interview concerning it.

160 – Teddy Ruxpin’s Winter Adventure

I don’t have a ton of nostalgia for the Teddy Ruxpin cartoon, but I did love my Teddy Ruxpin doll and the book this episode was based on. I feel like I can almost recite that story from memory because Teddy and Grubby told it to me so much. It’s not a true Christmas special as it’s one of those other world stories where they have their own customs that just so happen to resemble Christmas an awful lot. The only thing missing is Santa Claus. Teddy and his pals deliver gifts to their friends while the villain, Tweeg, tries to ruin their time, but he’s an idiot with idiot followers. It’s a little too syrupy sweet at times, but I was entertained.

159 – Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas

Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas was so good that they had to come back for another one. Too bad that along the way someone decided that this should be animated in 3D as opposed to 2D and the classic Disney characters just weren’t ready for that. This thing is Ugly. Mickey looks weird, Goofy more so, and it’s an all together downgrade across the board. The duck nephews who are tasked with carrying one of the longer segments of this one look almost monstrous. It’s also a weird setup where we’re going with what is essentially a 90 minute block of programming broken up into 5 segments of varying lengths. It does improve the pacing when compared with Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, but the stories aren’t the best. The saving grace is the final segment where Pluto accidentally winds up at the North Pole and Mickey thinks he ran away because he got mad at him. It’s cute watching Pluto frolic with the other reindeer and it has a really sweet ending. It also helps that Pluto made the jump to 3D better than most of the cast. If you’re interested in this one, I recommend just fast forwarding to that part. The rest is filler.

158 – One Ham’s Family

Tex Avery’s contribution to Christmas is this short that’s also a sequel to the classic story The Three Little Pigs. Well, sort of. It doesn’t really matter, but we have two married pigs and their bratty son and old Mr. Big Bad is going to try and sneak into this home on Christmas. It turns out to be a bad idea as the little kid is a true screwball cartoon character with all the powers of the screwball. We get to watch this kid brutalize the wolf and get some laughs in the process. It’s light on your usual Christmas tropes, but there’s something there. What holds it back is just that, at this point in Avery’s career, there wasn’t a whole lot more he could do. It’s a lot of the same gags you’ve seen before and the attempts at making them bigger just lack imagination. I also don’t like the protagonist. I dislike his voice and most of his mannerisms so it ends up being one of those cartoons where you almost want to root for the bad guy. Eat the damn kid – he sucks!

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 6 – The Cuphead Show! – “Holiday Tree-dition”

What’s next for a video game that looks like a cartoon? Why, a cartoon! Novel concept, huh? Cuphead is a 2017 video game created by Jared and Chad Moldenhauer heavily inspired by animation from the 1930s. It’s basically a hand drawn video game and a fully playable one, at that. It made waves when it…

Keep reading
by Joe

Dec. 6 – Silly Symphony – “Santa’s Workshop” (1932)

Back in 1929 Walt Disney launched the Silly Symphonies series of cartoon shorts. Unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts that were growing popular at the time, Silly Symphonies did not center on just one character or even a group of characters, but rather were fairly self-contained. Some shorts that became popular, like The Three Little Pigs,…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Film, Television

October 30, 2025

INART The Dark Knight Rises Batman – Deluxe Version

By Joe
You know his name.

Is this a review I really need to do? Probably not, but I’m doing it anyway. Queen Studios wasn’t a shop that was on my radar going into 2025. I’m guessing that’s true for a lot of folks and that’s probably why they had a media blitz when it came time to promote their brand INART and its new 1:12 scale Batman action figure from the movie The Dark Knight Rises. Now, when I say “media blitz” I mean that relatively speaking in the action figure collector universe. I kept seeing video reviews for this thing pop up everywhere a few months back and I definitely ended up watching my fair share as I had no idea who this company was. I’m not on YouTube nor is my blog big enough to get that sort of attention so if I wanted to review this figure I was going to have to buy it. And buy it I have so here’s another review of this thing many talked about months ago.

A trio of Batmen.

One of the most expensive action figure purchases I’ve made in my life was a Hot Toys Batman based on his look in The Dark Knight. I loved that movie when it came out and I really wanted to own a piece of it. There really wasn’t much in the 1:12 scale at the time, but Hot Toys had the film covered. The price was way more than I was used to spending, but looking back on it, I’d guess it was far less than what I’ve been shelling out of late for sixth scale Mondo figures. I loved that figure when I got it, but I was also terrified to touch it. If you’ve never owned a Hot Toys figure, it’s basically a big action figure with a rubber suit. The kind of thing that could split or warp and the figure itself was pretty stiff. I had a hard time with the optional parts and one of my cats even ate a Batarang on me (seriously, what the hell, Izzy?!). Still, I loved the actual look so I kept it on display for years, but when I moved into my current house I boxed it up and then never took it out. After a few years of the thing just sitting in my bedroom, I decided to part with it. I wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it so it no longer made sense to hang onto it.

“I’m Batman!” “I’m Batman!” “No, I’m Batman…”

When I parted with that Batman I never intended to replace it with a similar figure at any scale. Since getting that, the Nolan Batman trilogy concluded with The Dark Knight Rises, a movie that was just okay. My enthusiasm for the trilogy waned and at the end of the day I just love other versions of Batman a lot more than the Nolan take. I still think elements from those films are cool, but do I need to own them as toys? The reviews I watched for the INART Batman made me question that. And then when I heard the MSRP was only around $69 it really got my attention. Since it’s for the Asian market only, that $69 quickly became more like $100 for folks in the US, but considering what other figures in this scale cost these days, it still wasn’t a terrible value. I reluctantly passed, but then Mezco had to go and unveil their Joker from The Dark Knight. He looked awesome, way better than their The Dark Knight Batman who is more like a mini Hot Toys in construction. I wanted the Joker, but I’d need a Batman to pair him with which got me back to this INART Batman. To ebay I went, as that was the only place I could seem to find one I was confident wasn’t a bootleg, and more money was spent than what it would have cost me over the summer. Oh well.

Deluxe gets you a base an armature for posing. Cool?

The INART Batman comes in two versions: standard and deluxe. I got the deluxe which basically just includes a stand and an unmasked portrait. The difference in price seemed small, so why not? I love a good stand. This Batman is based on The Dark Knight Rises, but the costume is basically unchanged from The Dark Knight. Someone more obsessed with those pictures could probably point out some detail that was changed, but I’m not interested. It looks the part to me. The packaging is pretty robust as INART ships the main box in a shipper box which is also in a brown shipper itself. The actual product box is just black with the logo on it. There’s no window, but I guess that’s fine for something primarily sold online. Inside the box is a tiered tray system with some instructions and a cardboard envelope in between the trays which contains the soft goods cape. I will say, as far as instructions go these are the most robust I’ve seen with a modern toy. They tell you what each item is and what each hand is intended for. It even has diagrams for the articulation and informs you how much range each joint should have. I could probably save myself some time and just post a pic of that in place of the articulation rundown, but I’m not going to take such shortcuts.

Batman doesn’t use guns…that fire bullets. Just ones that fire an EMP and bombs. Bombs aren’t as bad as bullets, right?

The Batman figure comes without the cape applied. It stands just a tick over 6″, and considering that Christian Bale is listed as an even 6′ I’d say that’s some pretty damn good scaling if you figure the boots would have bumped him up an inch or two. What attracted me to this release is that the body construction is all plastic. It’s a mix of PVC and ABS and there’s no rubber overlays in use. It has a very light feel in hand, similar to a MAFEX figure, and the quality is very nice. The finish is matte and per the instructions it is painted, though I’m guessing this is all black plastic. There are different textures at play as there’s some parts that feel like Kevlar and some parts that are smooth. The torso is all segmented, but the pieces are fit together very well. The proportions look great and the copper colored belt looks pretty screen accurate to me.

The Cape looks great when it’s on, but it can be a pain in the ass getting it there.

The cape is in a cardboard envelope and the way it attaches is pretty interesting. The chest where the Batman logo is sculpted in is actually removable and what holds it in place are a pair of small magnets. The cape is connected to a pair of plastic tabs which slot into two gaps of the chest. The magnetic piece is then supposed to be reapplied and that will hold it in place. Getting the tabs to actually stay put is a little cumbersome. I had to try it a couple of times to really get the magnetic piece to sit properly on the figure. I wish they had made slots for the tabs to actually slide into, but it’s a minor inconvenience. The cape itself is not wired, but it is pleated and it hangs really nice. For the price though, it would have been cool to get a drape cape and a wired one especially considering we get a flight stand.

The three faces of INART Batman. I’ll let you decide what each one is going for.

Batman is outfitted with a bunch of accessories, most of which are good. What’s not good are the optional faceplates. There are three included and there is barely any difference between them. They’re fairly neutral, but I’ll post pictures and maybe you can spot the difference. For hands, we have sets of fists, open, sticky bomb gun holding hands, relaxed, EMP rile supporting left hand, EMP rifle trigger right hand, Batarang holding right hand, Grapple Gun holding right hand. As you could have probably guessed based on those descriptions, we also have a grapple gun, EMP rifle, sticky bomb gun, and four Batarangs: two large, two small. The guns all look pretty damn good. I think the sticky bomb gun was featured in The Dark Knight, and it may have reappeared in The Dark Knight Rises. There’s nice detail on all of the guns and the finish is really nice on the matte parts and the copper parts. The hands are as advertised and work very well for their intended purpose. The figure does have some difficulty in looking down the barrel of the guns, but it can be fudged. There’s also the unmasked portrait which features a neutral expression and a terrific likeness to Christian Bale. It connects at the lower neck peg and doesn’t feature any articulation where the neck meets the head, which is a little odd. It was a bit tricky getting the standard neck part off and I did resort to hot water to do it. The peg inside is pretty sturdy though so I probably could have bent back and pulled. The display stand is pretty hefty and has a shiny plate on the front featuring the film’s logo. The armature included is pretty standard and works well.

The Bale likeness is pretty damn good.

As this Batman is an import figure, it articulates like one would expect an import figure to. For the most part. We get the typical setup with a ball jointed head and joint at the base of the neck which works very well for whatever you need. The shoulders are ball peg joints with a shoulder pad over them on a double hinge. There’s no butterfly joint which may disappoint some, but it is a ball peg so you get some up, down, in, and out range. The shoulder pad should be moved out of the way when you articulate the shoulder and bicep swivel, but it feels pretty sturdy. The elbows are double-jointed and bend past 90 degrees and the wrists are ball pegs. The torso is somewhat complex as it’s segmented throughout the diaphragm with a ball joint at the waist. It works more for twisting and shifting side-to-side than bending forward and back. Range there is pretty basic, but there’s some nice nuance afforded by this setup. It does get gappy at the waist, but the belt is floating and can be manipulated to hide it. The hips can kick out 60 degrees, per INART, and kick forward a full 90. There is a thigh swivel and the knees bend past 90 degrees. The ankles are ball pegs that swivel, will kick forward and back and rock side-to-side. There’s a toe hinge as well which is nice and stiff.

He’s Batman, so of course he has Batarangs.

The articulation range isn’t super impressive, but what does work really well are the aesthetics of the joints. These are the best looking elbows and knees I’ve ever seen on a figure. INART sculpted the pieces all the way and there are no gaps or unfinished parts. The texture is so nice I thought it was silicon or something. The toe joint is also really well done and I love how effortless it is to line-up the seems of the costume with all of the articulation points such as the thigh swivels, biceps, and toes. I think Queen Studios did a really good job balancing articulation and aesthetics with this one. Yeah, they may have sacrificed a little on the articulation end, but not on the aesthetics. Considering this is based on a real world costume that also limited movement for the actor in it, I think it’s the way to go. The only shortcoming for me is the lack of a true butterfly joint. I do wish he could hold some of the weapons just a little better, but for the most part I’m pretty damn happy.

And he has a grapple gun – can’t forget that!

And that pretty much is also how I feel about this release in general – pretty damn happy. This Batman looks fantastic and the quality is apparent in the sculpt and construction. I’ve never interacted with a release from Queen Studios before, but I definitely wouldn’t mind handling a few more. They are apparently doing their own version of Heath Ledger’s Joker and I’m not ruling it out. I liked the Mezco one so I got my preorder in, but I didn’t have to pay a deposit. Given how the ’89 Batman from Mezco is not true 1:12 scale, I am a little nervous their Joker will be too big. If the one from INART comes around and looks better then I can easily pivot to it. I’m just curious how they’ll approach the character. It’s definitely on my radar and I look forward to paring this Batman up with a Joker, whoever ends up supplying it.

We’ve got more Batman figure reviews, and if you want to check out something from the early days of this blog, here’s a review of the film this figure hails from:

Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (1989)

When it comes to the world of more high end action figure collectibles, I’ve been able to get my hands on a few. Some rather prominent companies have yet to cross my path though, and it’s not really for any reason other than they either don’t make what I like or I don’t really like…

Keep reading
by Joe

The Dark Knight Rises

I mentioned in my look at Batman’s best films that I had gone into total lockdown mode for The Dark Knight Rises.  I got off of social media, stayed away from review sites, and just basically blocked the world out where Batman was concerned.  I wanted to walk into this film with an unformed opinion.…

Keep reading
by Joe

MAFEX No. 105 – Batman: Hush

You may have been wondering why I decided to devote an entry earlier this week to a nearly twenty year old action figure of mediocre quality, and if so, now you know why. I wanted to take a look at the DC Direct Batman based on his appearance in the Jeph Loeb written, Jim Lee…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

October 23, 2025

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Sally

By Joe
What’s a Jack without a Sally?

If you buy a Jack Skellington action figure, then you almost have to get him a Sally. That’s exactly what I did, though it proved mildly difficult to track down. I have seen NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington around throughout the year as I head into stores that carry NECA products, but Sally had proved elusive. I’m sure I could have ordered her at some point from somewhere, but I wanted to find it in store. And if I didn’t, then it wasn’t made to be. Coming in midway through the Halloween season is that NECA Ultimate Sally which I finally encountered at retail. I wasted little time in selecting my figure as they all looked pretty good and now she’s on my shelf with my Jack enjoying the fall decorations.

Sally comes in the same style of packaging as Jack. It’s an all black box with some artwork done in white. Chris Longo is credited with packaging, but I don’t know if he’s responsible for the illustration or not. Sculpt is credited to Kyle Windrix, Marty Henley, and Andrew Lawson with fabrication credited to Marty Henley. Jon Wardell and Geoff Trapp handled the paint duties.

They look good together.

Sally stands right at the 7″ mark making her noticeably shorter than Jack. The size disparity between the two looks appropriate to me. She only had one look in the film and that’s what she has here. Proportions look really nice as she has a long, slender, physique with tiny hands and feet. Her dress features sculpted stitchwork as does her flesh and a muted color palette. Her skin tone has a blueish tint to it that might be a touch too saturated for my taste. I always had the impression the lighting in the film was more responsible for the blue hue than her actual composition. Or perhaps I have it backwards and it’s the lighting that make her appear more pale in the film. Either way, it looks nice enough. The paint is clean and better than my Jack in that regard. The only thing about the appearance of the figure that is unfortunate is the tie in the packaging left behind a slight crease in her dress. I hate those god damn ties NECA uses and I would outlaw that practice if I could.

Sally is not as expressive as Jack, but still pretty damn expressive.

Sally’s articulation is pretty basic as well as pretty restricted given the character design. She’s composed entirely of plastic, no soft goods, so the dress is going to prevent her hips from doing anything. She does have a ball joint at the head and at the base of her neck so she gets decent range there. Her hair is a long sheet of plastic so it gets in the way a bit, but not enough to stop her from being able to look her beau in the eye…sockets. Shoulders feature ball-hinges, elbows are single hinged with a swivel, wrists rotate and hinge. There’s a diaphragm joint that offers a little tilt, but it mostly works for rotation. Knees are single-hinges and the ankles are hinged and do feature an ankle rocker, but her feet are so tiny it can be hard to use. Articulating her feet feels like wiggling a loose tooth.

I’m not sure if these accessories are essential, but I enjoy them.

Sally isn’t going to do much aside from stand there, but she doesn’t do much in the film nor does she come with a ton of accessories that require her to do anything. For portraits, she comes with five: neutral/smile, open mouth smile looking to the side, concerned looking ahead, concerned side eye, and an angry expression with her eyes narrowed. I like them all, though I wish she had an open-mouth smile without the side eye as well. Her expressions swap via face plates and it’s easy to utilize. She also has two sets of hands which are easy to swap: open palms and gripping. It’s a light assortment of hands, but I can’t think of any gesture she needs to be able to perform not covered by the options included.

NECA is doing a good job of making these NBX figures earn that “ultimate” label.

Sally’s other accessories are mostly tailored to her time in her tower and some other odds and ends. She comes with the basket she brought to Jack when she worried he wasn’t taking care of himself (does a skeleton really need to?). For contents, there are two white bottles one marked with an S and the other P which makes me think salt and pepper, but it would be odd to have those in bottles, no? There’s also a translucent green bottle which is from the movie. Sally also comes with her slotted spoon and the jar of deadly night shade. The jar has some really nice texture and paint work on it to the point where I expect it to feel like a true ceramic every time I pick it up. The black cat is also along for the ride and he has a little plate with fish bones on it. The cat is articulated at the head and no where else. Sally also has a jack-in-the-box with a black cat theme to it as well as a smiling jack-o-lantern. Lastly, she has a stand just like Jack’s which you will need since her feet are so tiny. She stands okay with it, but I did have her take a shelf dive the first night so do be careful.

She’s not sold on this whole Christmas thing.

Sally is a fine addition to NECA’s Nightmare Before Christmas collection. I don’t think she looks quite as good as Jack, but that’s not a slight against this figure as I think that Jack looks pretty damn amazing. This collection should be the final say on this film in plastic form. I can’t imagine ever needing to upgrade on either Jack or Sally. Some might prefer soft goods to the all-plastic approach NECA took, but I am not one of those people. I think this looks great, I don’t need her to come with anything else, and I don’t need her to articulate any better than she does here. I guess she can’t really kneel on the ground as she did in her omen scene, but maybe that’s also why NECA didn’t include a little Christmas tree or burned one. She’s on my shelf with Jack where I suspect she’ll be for many Halloweens to come and I may even let her hang around for Christmas. If you’re a fan of the film I think you’ll be pleased.

Simply meant to be.

If you like this Sally figure, then you may be interested in these ones as well:

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Santa Jack

Today’s review has been a long time coming. It was on December 26th, 2024 that I received in the mail a NECA Ultimate Santa Jack action figure based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Christmas had come and gone so it didn’t make much sense to post a review, so I waited. Nearly a year, in…

by Joe

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Jack Skellington

When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put…

by Joe

Jada Toys Frosty the Snowman

There are a number of Christmas specials out there that are basically known by all and I’ve written about most of them here. Some have been annual traditions especially when we had more of a monoculture in the US, but the slow death of cable television has made those annual traditions fade away. One holiday…

by Joe

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

October 21, 2025

NECA The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Jack Skellington

By Joe
All hail the Pumpkin King!

When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put it on the company’s Touchstone brand. In creating what is now a beloved film, Burton gifted Disney something it values more than art itself: merchandizing. In particular, a product that could be sold and tied into the two most commercialized holidays on the planet: Halloween and Christmas. It’s a film that stars Halloween characters creating their own Christmas special. Or, to perhaps put it simpler, it’s a Christmas movie with a Halloween aesthetic.

With the Halloween season upon us it felt like a good time to take a look at a figure that I’ve had in my possession for a little while now: NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington. NECA released action figures based on The Nightmare Before Christmas many years back, but in 2024 the company decided to return to the franchise with some all new sculpts. There isn’t much shortage for merch based on the film these days, but NECA felt like it had something to say where the characters are concerned. Those old toys were okay for their time, but could use an update. Super7, Diamond Select, Beast Kingdom, and more have all tried to put their stamp on the franchise as well in recent years to varying degrees of success and failure. NECA, always being more of a horror brand when not making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, must have felt like it could top them all and they may have done just that.

I feel like it only makes sense to compare him to a Halloween-type figure and a Christmas one.

Jack Skellington was one of four figures released by NECA at the end of 2024. Missing Halloween, but arriving in time for Christmas was Jack, Sally, the mayor, and a Santa variant of Jack. I had planned on reviewing at least some of those figures for Christmas last year, but I never had an opportunity to buy this particular figure during that window. And that’s fine, because as a standard Jack this is firmly in the Halloween part of the film and a better figure for this very moment.

There are so many expressions included.

Jack comes in the standard Ultimates style box with artwork on the front and photography on the sides and back. There’s no credit for the artwork so I assume it’s from Disney. It certainly looks nice if you’re an in-box collector, but I am not. Once Jack is removed from the box he’ll stand around 8.25″ to the top of his head. He’s composed entirely of plastic with no soft goods at all. The plastic is also fairly rigid including the tails on his coat and his bow tie. The proportions look spot-on to the source material with incredibly thin, long, limbs. The body looks like it’s all black plastic with white lines painted onto it for his tuxedo. There’s an intentional wiggle to those lines reflecting the look in the film and I almost wish I had two figures to compare each other to see if there’s a random element to the shape of the lines or if this is taken from the film. The application isn’t perfect. There’s some messy paint on the right thigh of my figure that I lament not noticing at the store when I picked this guy up as I had a few to choose from. The backside of the coat tails also aren’t painted, or if they are it’s a touch glossy and I wish it were matte. The white of the hands and the chest are clean as is the head.

And speaking of, that head is magnificent. They all are, actually. NECA really captured the look of Jack with each and every portrait in this box and it’s what sells the figure. By default, we have a smiling Jack portrait but there’s also a mischievous grin, an open mouthed smile, angry smile, a look of wonderment, an “Ooo” mouth, a scared portrait, and a howling one. That’s eight total portraits, if you weren’t counting, and you practically have enough to do your own stop-motion with this figure. There’s also four sets of hands to add to the expressive nature of the figure and they are relaxed, pointing, gripping, and I guess what I’d consider clawing. He doesn’t have a tight gripping hand, but aside from that I can’t think of anything that’s really missing. Some of the heads are better than others when it comes to paint, but mostly to how the head was extracted from the mold. My howling head has a blemish by the left eye and a couple of them have little divots in the top of the skull. They should hopefully be visible in the pictures.

He’s a good boy.
For ambience.
Something’s missing…

We have a few other accessories to talk about including the best, little, ghost dog around: Zero. He’s sculpted in this milky, translucent, plastic with a nicely painted jack-o-lantern nose. His head rotates, but that’s all for articulation. He does come with a transparent ball-socket stand that gets the top of his head about 3.5″ off the surface if you’re keeping him parallel with the ground. You can tilt and move him about on the stand and it’s a solid way to pull off Zero. I wish the plastic had more of a blueish hue to it instead of a yellowish one, but I’m happy we got a Zero with Jack. The other accessories include a pair of jack-o-lanterns, the jack-o-lantern jack-in-the-box (that’s a lot of hyphens), and the framed picture of Jack holding yet another jack-o-lantern (he is the Pumpkin King, after all). Lastly, there’s a clear, oval, stand for Jack that works only so well. It has two pegs on it, but I’ve found if I actually use both pegs that Jack will fall over eventually. The jack-o-lanterns help here because they have some weight to them so you can plop on the stand to help stabilize things. I think it works best to only use one foot peg on the stand and turn it so it’s pointing out from Jack for a little more coverage that way, though given the proportions and tiny feet in play here, this is a figure that’s never going to be 100% secure on your shelf. He really needs more of a doll stand to grab him at the waist. Just be mindful with where you leave this guy on a shelf.

Articulation for Jack is basic, but also pretty substantial given what’s here. He has a simple ball joint at the head and another at the base of the neck. Since there’s really nothing to get in the way, Jack can look up and down pretty well even with the neck joint having minimal range. From there, we get ball-hinge shoulders, hinged elbows, hinged wrists that swivel, ball-jointed diaphragm, ball-socket hips, hinged knees, hinged ankles, and ankle rockers. Even though the knees and elbows are single hinges, they bend well past 90 degrees because there’s just nothing to impede them. You can swivel at both points as well, but the pins are tiny and I can’t say I like the feel there. The diaphragm joint rotates pretty well, but doesn’t move forward and back much. The hips will let Jack do splits while the angle of the pelvis won’t let him kick out straight, but the leg will go off to the side and pretty high. He’ll pretty much do what you need him to do, but there’s no getting around that his limbs are all very thin and slender. There’s a fear element to working some of these joints out of the box. Bending the knees the first time was one of those moments where I just had to take a deep breath and see how it goes. Everything has been fine so I’m not saying there’s any issues with the durability or quality control, but the design of the character is going to lead to at least the perception that this is a fragile figure. And I don’t think there’s any getting around that, but from what I’ve experienced the figure is structurally sound.

This is a really satisfying figure to own.

If you have ever wanted an action figure of Jack Skellington then I think you’ll be very happy with this NECA figure. NECA captured the look and personality of the character to near perfection. If it can be helped, I just recommend finding him in store where you can cherry pick the best paint job available and mind those lines. I was caught up in making sure the heads looked as pristine as possible and didn’t even look at the legs, not that I should have to, but I wish I had. Otherwise, I love the look of this one and he looks like a puppet from the film. You could probably substitute this figure into a shot of the movie without anyone noticing. Getting Zero included is a great perk while the other accessories help for a festive, Halloween, display. And if you want to leave him up all the way through Christmas then you’re more than welcome to, though NECA also has a solution there as well.

If you liked reading about this Jack Skellington then here’s some more seasonal fare that may interest you:

12 Films of Christmas #8: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Is it a Christmas movie? Is it a Halloween movie? Can a film be both? That seems to be the big question surrounding Tim Burton’s multi-holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Released on Disney’s Touchstone label (because the company was too scared to be directly associated with the film at first) around Halloween 1993, The…

Keep reading
by Joe

Funko Pop! Halloween Huey, Dewey, and Louie

There’s a scourge taking over our local record stores, clothing outlets, and gaming boutiques. It comes in mass quantities dominating its chosen territory at the expense of other merch. It swears no allegiance to anyone and will even place mortal enemies side by side as it amasses an army of licensed property of yesterday and…

Keep reading
by Joe

Dec. 12 – Teen Titans Go! – “Halloween vs. Christmas”

  It’s a battle for the hearts of children around the world! What is the superior holiday:  Halloween or Christmas? Today’s entrant is founded on the premise that Halloween is the only holiday to rival Christmas as far as what children look forward to most. This feels more or less on point as a kid…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Film, toys