I hope you have plenty of rats, because these Mousers brought their appetite.
It’s been a little while since we had a Turtle Tuesday around here. NECA was keeping me quite busy in March with release after release and really putting a hurting on my wallet. Not only were sets hitting stores, but items were going up on NECA’s website for preorder, all of which require payment upfront. It almost became exhausting especially since the capper on all of that was a Turtle Van in April, and as you can probably guess, that thing ain’t cheap!
One of the surprise solicitations of 2021 was for a set of Mousers. The Mousers are from the comic and made the jump to animation pretty early in the show’s life. They have since appeared in nearly every iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to follow. In most versions, if not all, the Mousers are an invention of Baxter Stockman and are intended to solve New York City’s rat problem, but they often hide a more nefarious purpose. Being that the turtles are lead by a mutated rat, it’s pretty easy to see how the Mousers can work their way into a story for the series. And most of the toy-lines have sought to introduce them as well to varying degrees. The original Playmates line featured an oversized Mouser as part of the wacky action line of figures, while the 2003 line made them a pack-in accessory and portrayed them at the appropriate size. Pretty much ever since this line took-off, collectors have wanted to see NECA introduce the Mousers. They previously did some for the Mirage line as a convention exclusive and their April figure came with a pair, and NECA has finally come through.
A familiar box, but much smaller.
The Mousers from NECA come in a small, toon-style box, that reminds me a bit of the boxes the bunny Bebop and Rocksteady came in for Loot Crate. It’s just a lot smaller in comparison with the NECA two-packs since Mousers aren’t exactly big. This set was retailed for $40 and is a NECA website exclusive, but individual Mousers are likely to be worked into the retail line as accessories (this year’s San Diego Comic Con set includes Baxter Stockman and a Mouser). It’s great to see NECA just come right out with a pack like this as if they had released a Baxter with a Mouser or two people would be trying to army build Mousers while getting stuck with multiple Baxters. Even Super7 has made collectors wait a couple of years after including their, lone, Mouser in the first wave of Super7 Ultimates! as they have a Mouser pack due to arrive at some point this year.
Look at all the tiny robots!
With this set, NECA is providing each buyer an assortment of Mousers. There’s enough here that many collectors will probably be satisfied with just one, but others can likely easily talk themselves into multiples since the variety is done well. So what’s in the box? Well, each box comes with four, complete, unblemished, Mousers. Their design matches the toon as they have a slight curve to their head as opposed to the more rounded look of the comic version. They’re painted white and gray, with the gray acting as the “toon” shading and the proportions look spot-on. They’re over 2″ tall, but they’re construction affords a range of posing in which they can be more upright or hunched over. They’re quite bird-like in their design with thin legs, clawed feet, and “knees” that can bend forward or back. There’s a single stripe of red for the glowing “eye” on the head, and the interior of the mouth is sculpted and painted a slate gray. There’s black on the joints too and gray on the “neck” of the robots. The sculpt is basically perfect. It’s not a demanding design, but credit where credit is due. The paint job is also nice and free from slop. There’s a little excess black on the hip of one of mine, but otherwise the set is pristine.
The battle damaged ones are pretty damn fun.
Now, four Mousers is nice, but not 10 bucks a piece nice, so it’s good that there’s more! There’s an additional, complete, Mouser with a bashed-up head. It’s lovingly dented and scratched and the red light has been extinguished on this one because it has a hole going through the top of the head that can accommodate Raph’s sai. Both pieces of the head are re-sculpted for this and the mouth hinge still works while the body is the same as the others. The sixth Mouser is more destroyed as it has a bashed head that’s a different sculpt from the other bashed Mouser. The neck is extended to imply the cable has been forced out and there’s a new body as well. It’s nicely dented and even features an adorable mouse popping out of a hole in it along with some wiring. There’s an added, non-removable, cap on the bottom which does look a little odd since it’s not on the others, but maybe it’s there for a reason I forgot. One leg is the same, while the other is a new piece that has a frozen knee joint and the foot is broken off. Lastly, we have a completely smashed Mouser that’s in three pieces: head, neck, and the rest. There’s sculpted wiring in the husk of the body with more sticking out of the neck of the headpiece. Between the battle damaged and the non, this is quite a little collection of Mousers and certainly strikes me as enough for a display.
Poor Splinter. He used to be displayed enjoying a nice book, now he has to deal with these things.
I touched on it a little already, but I should take some time to rundown how much articulation is in these little guys. Each Mouser has an articulated jaw, even the busted ones, which opens quite far. They’ll have no problem gobbling up rats or latching onto a turtle limb. The head is on a ball joint, and the neck too is connected to the torso via a ball joint basically making it a double-ball-peg joint. They can look up and down and get some nice nuance in the tilt. The only thing they can’t do well is look to the side. They can a little, but probably not as much as the robots in the show. The hips are just simple swivel points. It would have been nice to get some rotation out of there, but it’s suitable for what these need to do. The knee is a hinge that goes in both directions and there’s an ankle hinge as well. An ankle rocker would have been cool, but I can see why NECA went with the hinge as it’s much closer to the design in the show. Plus, without a ball joint at the hip there’s little need for an ankle pivot. It’s a neat and tidy assortment of articulation which definitely prioritizes the aesthetics of the sculpt, but also doesn’t really feel like any sacrifices were made so overall a good job.
Mousers need rats, and rats demand cheese and pizza. Not sure who requested the VHS tape, but it’s delightfully nostalgic!
To sweeten the package, NECA did toss in a bunch of extras. These are mostly limited to the various rats we’ve seen bundled with figures like the Rat King previously as well as the sitting rat that came with Splinter. There are 6 rats in total, three are reissues of the ones that came with Rat King but painted in a light gray with a brown tail. The sitting rat from the Splinter/Baxter set also has lighter fur and a re-colored tail and NECA painted the feet gray instead of brown. There are two, new, rats in this set: one on all fours and one that’s on its hind legs with the forelegs against its chest. That one is the cutest one yet and while it’s good to have rats with Mousers, I may take the Rat King re-issues and add them to him since they have the coiled tails. Also included is a wedge of cheese the sitting rat can hold, the VHS tape that came with Ace Duck previously (only now with a little blue paint on the label area), a slice of pizza that we’ve seen before, and a little drone robot that looks like a fly. It’s another Baxter invention and something to hide in a display. I’m curious if the controller for it has been released or will be in the future to pair with the Baxter figure.
With the Super7 version. That one is a little bigger and is colored to be in-line with the Playmates figure, but it has way less articulation..
The accessories are fine, and even though I don’t know that I need so many rats, I can’t deny the wisdom of including them here. Plus there’s not a lot that can be released alongside Mousers. Another controller maybe? A new panel for the street diorama with a hole munched through it? That would obviously be more ambitious than what is here, but I can’t say we’re truly missing anything.
And Rat King gets some new rats out of this set, what’s not to love?
NECA’s Mousers set is a solid addition for those who want Mousers in their TMNT display. For 40 bucks, it’s not hard to see the value here as the small army of damaged and undamaged Mousers is sure to eat up some shelf space and there’s some extra rats to keep them busy too. And most importantly, the actual figures turned out very well and I think fans will be quite pleased. Unfortunately, this was offered only through NECA’s webstore and isn’t coming to retail. Several have made it onto AliExpress for basically MSRP so check there if you missed out or if you just want more. The mere fact that they’re available there means these weren’t made-to-order so it’s possible that NECA ordered extra and might make them available again at a later date. And as mentioned earlier, we’re likely to see these guys pop-up here and there as an accessory in other releases. If you want this specific set though I’d suggest you act fast as this is one likely to rise in value on the after-market since collectors love army builders.
Few brands are as immensely popular as Disney, which is why it’s a bit surprising that the company’s presence in the world of action figures has always felt a little lacking. It’s thought (and maybe even confirmed by the company) that Disney’s interest in properties like Marvel and Star Wars stemmed from them being unable to internally develop IPs that better aligned with what boys enjoy. Disney has never had trouble selling princess dolls to little girls, but action figures? It’s always been a tougher sell. They’ve tried and managed to craft a wonderful IP in Gargoyles, but apparently it didn’t have the sort of commercial success that Disney was looking for. Even so, it’s a shame their classic characters haven’t always been well-represented in plastic. Maybe they just think kids don’t want a Mickey figure? With the collector market amongst adults really exploding over the last decade or so I suppose it’s no surprise that we’re finally seeing some change in this area.
Donald comes in a heavy cardstock box that reminds me of a board game. The left is the outer lid, and the right is the inner box with the insert over it.
It was a little over a year ago that I took a look at the Hero Cross HMF Donald Duck. At the time, that figure was one of the few collector grade figures of Donald Duck out there. Since then, we’ve seen other companies show interest in Disney figures like Super7, McFarlane, and now Beast Kingdom. Beast Kingdom has actually been at it for a little while doing some collectible statues and also dipping its toe into the action figure game with it’s line Dynamic 8ction Heroes. The first figure I saw from Beast Kingdom and had interest in was a Jack Skellington. Since there isn’t a review of that figure on this blog I obviously didn’t buy it, but I sure was tempted. Beast Kingdom has since released a Mickey, Darkwing Duck, and Scrooge McDuck, but it was Donald Duck that I decided would be my entry point into the world of Beast Kingdom. And today, on Donald Duck’s 88th birthday, I’m going to tell you all about it!
And there’s our boy and all of his “parts.”
Donald Duck has long been one of, if not my absolute, favorite cartoon characters so when a new product featuring him comes along I immediately take notice. I liked the figure from Hero Cross last year, but the cost of that line left me content to just make Donald my one and only. Beast Kingdom has a similar issue in that these figures are not cheap. And like everything the past year, the price seems to only be going up. I paid just over 70 bucks for this guy at Big Bad Toy Store and that’s certainly a lot for an action figure. It’s a hard price to live up to, but if I was going to have any interest in adding to my collection beyond Donald, I needed this figure to win me over.
Such a nice looking, well-mannered duck.
Donald Duck arrives in a pretty hefty package. It’s a square box and the top slides off like the box to a board game would. There’s an insert featuring Donald’s shirt pattern over a plastic tray which contains the actual figure. There’s a transparent plastic overlay on that tray, but otherwise everything is loose with no tie-downs or anything. It’s also worth pointing out that this seems designed for internet sales because you can’t see the figure at all without opening the box which is taped closed. There are some product renders on the rear of the box, none of which showcase the entire figure’s body. It’s a bit odd, but again, this isn’t the type of product destined to sit on a shelf at a brick and mortar location.
I’ll just give you the comparison you want right out of the gate.
Donald stands at approximately 6.3″ per Beast Kingdom’s product solicitation. He’s quite big and might catch some folks off-guard as a result. He’s bigger than even the Hero Cross Donald and if there’s a scale to this line I’m not sure what it is. Donald obviously doesn’t exist in the real world, but when animated into live-action he looks like he could be around 3.5′ tall which would make this something close to 1/6th scale. Either way, he’s likely not going to scale with anything else out there except for other Beast Kingdom figures from this line. And by “line” I mean the Disney ducks, and maybe Mickey, because the Jack figure from Beast Kingdom is 8″ tall. As I said before though, I don’t have any other figures from this line to compare him to, but I’m assuming he shares some parts with the likes of Scrooge and Darkwing and they’re probably all comparable in size.
We should probably compare duck butts too. One thing Hero Cross has over this one is no seem for the faceplates on the head.
Donald is presented in his licensing art attire. That means he has a light blue hat and shirt with yellow trim on the shirt and a red bowtie. It’s not my preferred Donald, but it’s not unexpected. Since Beast Kingdom lists him as “Classic” Donald maybe they intend to do other versions later. Out of the box, Donald has a fairly neutral expression with gripping hands. The white areas of his body are appropriately white and the only other color really is the orange of his bill and legs. There’s very little paint on this guy, especially because his eyes are a separate piece of very light blue plastic. The only paint you’ll find on him really are the black pupils of his eyes, which are printed I’m guessing, and his inner mouth on the alternate portrait. The white plastic has a nice matte appearance, while the orange is a bit more glossy and “plasticy” in nature. It stands in contrast to the more saturated and richer presentation of the Hero Cross figure and I wish they had painted those parts. This is a figure meant to represent a classic cartoon character and that saturated look would serve it better in replicating the ink and paint origins. The bill looks okay, but the feet have a cheap look to them as a result that I wish wasn’t present in a $70 figure.
Behold the horror that is faceless Donald! The tab for the eyes slides into that open slow and you can see the magnet at the top of the head which doesn’t appear prone to falling out.
And those eye plates will allow the figure to do things like look up…
…and put some movies on Daisy, if there ever is a Daisy.
Also contributing to the figure’s appearance is the use of soft goods for the shirt. It’s a design choice by Beast Kingdom probably to differentiate their product from others out there, and as far as I can tell, all of the figures in this line come with soft goods attire. The quality of the shirt seems okay. It has the thickness of a Barbie shirt and the printing of the yellow parts looks nice. I like how the rear “flap” is sewn into the collar and the bowtie is also handled well. The issues I have it with though are that mine is fairly wrinkled out of the box and I’m not sure there’s much I can do about that. I wouldn’t dare iron it, and if I wanted to I’d have to figure out how to get it off to do so which would likely require me to remove the figure’s arms. I suppose I could hit it with some wrinkle release spray and see if that helps. I also find the fit of the shirt just looks a little off. It sits very high on Donald’s shoulders and basically erases his neck. I find myself tugging on it a lot to try to bring it as low as possible, even though it isn’t accomplishing much. I think there’s just not enough weight to the material which is often the issue of soft goods and why some people hate them. I don’t think it looks terrible by any means, but it’s easy to see why Hero Cross went with a vinyl body instead of soft goods.
Posing won’t be this figure’s strongest point, but at least he can guard Optimus in a game of one-on-one.
Beast Kingdom includes a stand if you want to attempt more dramatic poses, but I have found the figure just works best in simple ones.
Beast Kingdom does refer to this line as its Dynamic 8tion line. Why they use an “8” I don’t know, but nitpick aside you would expect some dynamic posing out of a line with such a name. That’s going to be a challenge for a duck, but Beast Kingdom does list 12 points of articulation for this figure. Donald’s head sits on a double ball-peg with another ball-peg at the base of the neck. This means he has no trouble looking in basically all directions. The shoulders are on standard ball-hinges and he gets good rotation there even with the soft goods shirt. At the elbow is a single hinge with a swivel and the sleeve of the shirt slides up past the elbow pretty effortlessly to facilitate movement of the joint. The wrists are on ball-hinges so he gets a full range of motion at that point as well. In the torso, we have what feels like a ball joint of some kind. It mostly allows Donald to rotate as trying to use it as an ab crunch causes the figure to just snap back into place when released. The legs are where things are most limited as he has a ball and socket joint at the hips and ball joints at the ankle. There’s no knee joint which is odd so Donald’s knees are permanently bent. His shape being what it is, there isn’t a lot one can do with the legs and the plastic for them is too light to handle one-legged poses and some walking positions, but I suppose that’s why there is a stand included. He moves about as well as I expected and the only knock I’d give the figure are the lack of knee joints and it’s worth pointing out that Beast Kingdom’s Darkwing has knee joints, while Scrooge does not. Most of the articulation is well-hidden at least which is a nice bonus.
They really made sure he could look in just about any direction.
In terms of accessories, Donald has a lot and a little. All of his accessories are just optional display parts so there’s no props or anything. Given he’s a generic Donald Duck, there isn’t exactly a prop that jumps to mind so I suppose it’s not a big deal, it’s just odd to have gripping hands on a figure that has nothing to grip. Donald also has a set of relaxed, open, hands and a set of waving hands. No fists is a bummer so you can’t even really try to replicate his classic hopping mad pose. Donald also comes with a second head, but I think it’s just included either as an extra or to help pack the other faceplate because it’s not needed. Donald’s face system works in that there’s a plate that comes off and behind that you have a plate for the eyes which are removable. The back of his head works with both faceplates, which is good because when I tried popping the head off the neck came with it and I could not get that off. And thankfully I don’t need to because I can just swap the faceplates. Donald’s other expression is an open mouth with frowning eyes which required a different shape for the eyes. You get four sets of eyes for each faceplate: straight-ahead, looking up, left, and right. Swapping them is fairly painless, and swapping the hands out is also easy, which is great considering I had issues with my Hero Cross Donald. Lastly, the hat is removable and attaches via a magnet. Beast Kingdom also includes a stand which is made of translucent, blue, plastic and features a black arm that is designed to grab the figure around the neck. It’s a bit unusual, but it works and it looks okay since it has Donald’s name printed on the front. I just wish it wasn’t hollow and had more weight to it so I felt like it was really anchoring the figure down, but he doesn’t have issues standing so I likely won’t even utilize the stand.
For those who don’t have an expensive import Donald, here’s some comparisons to the short-lived DuckTales 2017 toy line and a NECA TMNT figure.
Perhaps more useful, a comparison to a Marvel Legends Spider-Man and a Figuarts Goku.
Beast Kingdom’s take on Donald Duck arrived largely as expected. The product shots online paint an accurate picture of what you’re getting, so if you’re a Donald fan and you’re okay with the price, then you should be satisfied. I have some nitpicks with the soft goods, but they look as advertised so it’s not like Beast Kingdom delivered a product that was misleading. My only real issue is with those legs as a digital render isn’t going to reveal just how cheap they look in person. If I’m paying a premium for a collectible, cheap is the last thing I want to enter my mind when I look at it. And the lack of fist hands too kind of sucks as I find the options I have in posing the figure aren’t “wowing” me. It would have also have been nice if the beaks were removable. I like the angry expression quite a bit, but the neutral one is almost too plain. It looks like Donald, but when am I ever going to choose to display Donald with an expressionless face? This is a character that’s usually displaying some pretty extreme emotions be they happy, mad, frustrated, scared, etc. I definitely don’t picture Donald Duck in my head with a blank expression on his face.
Looks like they’re getting along just fine!
Ultimately, your perception of value is going to define how you feel about this figure. It mostly looks the part, the articulation is acceptable, and there’s some options available for display purposes. It just all comes at a pretty steep cost and I don’t know if it truly earns it. There’s no feeling of “extra” with this guy: no reference items or just fun add-ons like you might see from other companies or even from Beast Kingdom as they included Scrooge’s number one dime in his set (among other things, and to be fair, he’s being sold for $85). I’m fine with this figure though and I’m happy to add it to my Donald display, but it didn’t leave me wanting more figures from the line. I feel pretty comfortable now in passing on Scrooge and the nephews. Maybe Beast Kingdom can convince me to buy another Donald down the road if an update comes along based on a favorite short or something, but for now, I’m content to let this be it and I enjoy it for what it is. And on a personal note, I’m also happy to devote this blog’s 900th entry to a Donald Duck toy! Now I have 99 entries to think of an appropriate 1000th one. Will it be Donald? Will it be a toy? Check back, I suppose, in a year and half or so.
These days not a lot of merchandise comes out from Danzig. It sure seems like we’ve reached or are nearing the end when it comes to music releases as the man, Glenn Danzig, has turned his attention towards movie-making. And that’s his right, since Glenn Danzig has been making and releasing music for over 40 years at this point and if he wants to do something else then more power to him. It just means for someone like me who has collected Danzig stuff for years that I really don’t have much to seek out anymore. Unless I want to buy every reissue of a past Danzig album on vinyl (you can now easily get a copy of Danzig 6:66 Satan’s Child for the first time in over 20 years), and I don’t, I get to keep my money and throw it at other things so when something as innocuous as a “Gamblers Box” came around I basically said “Why not?” since I hadn’t bought anything “Danzig” in awhile.
Each set comes hand-numbered on the back.
Psycho Unlimited is a company that handles lots of merch for various music acts, most (if not all) of which fall under the heavy metal umbrella. Psycho also has its own annual festival, Psycho Las Vegas, which it promotes and last year one of the headliners was Danzig so it’s no surprise to see that Psycho partnered with Danzig to do a unique item. And that item is the Gamblers Box. I don’t know why the word “Gambler” is pluralized and not a possessive, but that’s how it’s listed so we’re going with it. It was solicited last fall and it’s mostly what it sounds like. When it was put up for preorder, it was priced at $99 and for some reason it seemed like a thing to throw my money at. It’s limited to 666 copies, naturally, and there are still some available at the time of this writing only Psycho has upped the price to $139. Marking it up to $139 instead of $138 seems like a real missed opportunity.
How much is too much for what is essentially a cool box?
The Danzig Gamblers Box appealed to me most because it comes in a rather neat package. It was over 20 years ago when Glenn Danzig first started floating the idea of a box set of unreleased material which he envisioned being packaged in a box in the shape of an inverted cross. To my teenage mind, that sounded way too damn cool and I wanted it instantly. It would be several years later that collection of unreleased material would finally be released as The Lost Tracks of Danzig, and while the packaging was pretty awesome, it was no inverted cross box. The Gamblers Box has taken its place, and while the contents are far less interesting than a collection of unreleased music, the box itself is bad ass. The box measures 11″x8.5″x2.25″. It’s a matte black and quite thick and sturdy. The classic Michael Golden Danzig skull is in the center set on a crimson depiction of the Danzig skull/cross logo from the Lucifuge era with the only addition being the Danzig logo appearing at the top of the cross.
There’s not a whole lot in this thing.
Unfortunately, the box is far and away the most interesting part of this release. Not that it’s anyone’s fault, but the contents are what they are. This is a novelty Texas Hold’em set, basically, except it doesn’t come with chips. For some reason I thought it did, but it actually never advertised poker chips, I just lost track of what was advertised over the months between order and release. The interior of the box is as nice as the outside. It’s done in a red felt material, but it’s nice and thick. It’s basically a foam material that’s quite firm and it’s thick enough that an imprint of the “Psycho” logo appears at the top. It’s not that cheap “felt over plastic” tray that the Misfits Box Set featured which usually cracks over time. Aside from the insert, the contents of the box boils down to the following: a deck of cards, a dealer coin, and 3 dice.
I’m a little surprised Danzig has never authorized novelty D&D dice before.
The dice set is done in a slate gray color with each number carved into a side and painted black. When you open the box, each die will be set to display the number 6 so that you get a 666 staring back at you as they surround the cards. In place of the number 1, each die has the Danzig skull partially printed on it. Rather than try to squeeze the whole image onto a panel, it’s cut-off similar to the cover of the first Danzig record. I’m not much of a gambler, and when I do I usually don’t bother with dice games, but these feel a little on the light side to me. They’re fine though and they’re probably the most usable part of the set as they’re not likely to get worn much when actually played with.
The reverse side of the coin is pretty damn cool.
The coin is placed at the top of the cross and is quite heavy. The side facing out features a raised Danzig skull with the number 777 above it. The base color of the metal is basically a brushed nickel gray and the area around the skull is painted black, as are some of the details on the skull itself. I suspect it wouldn’t be hard to scratch this thing up so do be a little cautious. The skull itself is slightly off-center on my set and I’m not sure if that’s true of all. I’ve already seen some sets where the numbers on the dice weren’t facing the same direction so there could be some production variances to be mindful of. The rear of the coin features the Angel and Demon Yin Yang featured in the Danzig IV booklet. The art was done by artist Michael Kaluta and has long been one of my favorite pieces of art associated with Danzig. The demon half is painted black while the angel side is natural steel, but it’s been polished so it’s a little different from the color of the rest of the coin. It’s a neat little novelty item and I suppose you could utilize it as a dealer token in a game of cards if you wanted to, but I’d hate to see this thing sliding across a table unless you were playing on a felt-top table.
Cards are obviously needed to complete the set, even if they’ll never be played with.
The deck of cards is the last item we need to talk about. I suppose it’s the item most could find a use for, but cards ware out fast and I personally haven’t played a game with a novelty set of cards since I got X-Men ones as a kid. The box is a dark gray with black detailing. There’s a cross-hatching texture and what appears to be thorns. On the front and rear we have the same logo printed that appears on the box itself only now the red is done with a shiny, foil, finish rather than the muted shade on the box. On the long side is the words Psycho Unlimited printed in the same red and on the top and bottom we have, in gray, the phrase “Devil’s plaything in my hands” printed in the Danzig font. A reference to my personal favorite song from the band.
I applaud the choice of artwork for the high cards, very old school.
The box is a bit tricky to get open without ripping the lid. I had to go super careful and I did slightly crease the center of the top flap in doing so, but better than a rip. The numerical cards are pretty standard stuff while the rear of all cards resembles the card box itself only with a purple filter on the background. The face cards and the ace cards are where some opportunities present themself to incorporate some Danzig art. The jack features the classic “Demon strangling Jesus” image from the “God Don’t Like It” t-shirt sold during the band’s early years. The queen features the cover image of Thrall-Demonsweat Live while the king uses an illustration of the cover image from the first Danzig home video of Glenn with a goat mask tied to a cross. The ace reuses the Kaluta Yin Yang. All four have that purple filter applied from the rear of the card and look pretty cool. I do wish there was a different color filter for each suit. All of the suit images on the card faces are in black except for the symbols right under the numeral. Clubs and spades are black across the board while diamonds are purple and hearts red. Some sets also include four 1 cards. These can be brought to Psycho Las Vegas and exchanged for something. What that something is, Psycho hasn’t revealed. And I don’t know if they’ll let you keep the cards. Psycho sent an email indicating these are only in some sets, but so far I have yet to see a fan not find the cards. Each deck comes wrapped in cellophane and arranged by suit so it seems like the type of thing that would be more trouble than it’s worth to filter out, but who knows? If you’re going to Psycho Las Vegas it wouldn’t hurt to bring a set and if you have no interest in this box there’s probably some cards out there that people don’t want.
These will apparently get you something at Psycho Las Vegas if you’re going. I am not.
The Danzig Gamblers Box is a true novelty item. It is what it is and whether you’re into card and dice games or not it’s unlikely something you’ll get much use out of because who wants to ruin a $100 deck of cards? This is really a display piece and something for people to go “What’s that?” when they’re looking at one’s collection of Danzig memorabilia. And as a display piece, I do think it’s pretty cool. You could even display it closed or open since the interior displays well too. It’s just not the type of thing that’s for everyone and I can easily see a lot of fans passing. At $100, it felt a little pricey, but it seems few limited collectibles are rarely under $100 these days. At $139, it’s too much. The development cycle for this item ended up being longer than Psycho predicted so I wonder if they’re trying to recoup some additional costs they previously didn’t budget for. At 666 units, it will probably sell out eventually, but maybe not at that price. If they still have stock after the event in August then I could see it getting discounted so it may be worth it to wait if you’re on the fence. For most though, I think they already bought it if they thought it looked cool. I’m reasonably satisfied. I don’t know that it was worth $100 (plus shipping), but I paid for it over 6 months ago so it’s easy to separate the cost from the item. It’ll look cool on a shelf, and that’s pretty much all I wanted it for.
The toyline of my dreams was announced last October. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the television series X-Men, Hasbro is doing a dedicated line of Marvel Legends with figures based on the look of the show. The show was obviously inspired by the designs of Jim Lee, but there are differences in the look of a character made for print and one made for television and it was something I always wanted for my favorite, childhood, TV show. Batman got his own line based on his show, the Ninja Turtles are receiving the same from NECA, now it’s time for the X-Men. And who is leading things off for Hasbro? None other than Wolverine, so lets make this a Wolverine Wednesday!
This should be a time of joy. The toyline I’ve wanted for years now finally happening? Of course, nothing is guaranteed. Since the announcement of the line, Hasbro has really underwhelmed when it comes to figure reveals. It even started off right away. While I think most were pleased with how Wolverine was shaping up, Jubilee was announced the same day and looked decidedly unlike her animated counterpart. Mr. Sinister would follow not long after, and while he looks solid, he comes with zero accessories. No extra hands, no extra head, no show-specific gizmo, nothing. I don’t need to go into it further, since I already did, but 2022 has really sucked some of the life out of this line before the first figure arrived in the hands of collectors. That’s a discussion for another day though, as today I get to talk about Wolverine.
I love that box!
Wolverine was already a popular character to comic fans, but it also feels appropriate to call him the break-out star of the cartoon. Voiced by Cal Dodd, this iteration of the character is still the first that comes to mind when I hear the name Wolverine. Wolverine arrives in the new, plastic-free, VHS-inspired, box created for this line. Artwork of Wolverine adorns the box which was done by artist Dan Veesenmeyer who was a storyboard artist for the show and was responsible for the artwork featured on the actual VHS releases of the show back in the 90s. I love this approach by Hasbro as it’s creative, nostalgic, and just plain fun. Did they get the idea from NECA with their VHS-styled packaging for TMNT? I don’t know, but Hasbro still deserves praise for at least nailing this aspect of the line.
I appreciate the commitment to preserving the VHS aesthetic all around the box.
The figure itself comes in a little baggie and the accessories are packaged in a separate bag. Collectors have rightly pointed out that this style of packaging prevents potential buyers from actually seeing the figure they’re buying, but that is mitigated by the fact that this line is presently sold only online. Once removed from his little baggie, Wolverine will stand approximately 5.75″ on whatever shelf you deem worthy of his feet. Much of this figure is reused from past Wolverines, but that was to be expected. And the base figure works well enough for what this is. If I have any nitpicks about the appropriateness of this body for Wolverine it’s really just in that his arms are probably too big and too detailed, but that’s minor. Helping me to look past that is the fact that Hasbro gave Wolvie a brand, new, head. It looks terrific with the ears of the mask accurately representing what we would see in the show. The quality of the animation wasn’t fantastic so Wolverine’s head shape had a tendency to be all over the place, but this is how I feel he was supposed to look in every frame and Hasbro did a good job.
How do we feel about cel-shading? I personally like it, though I admit it’s been done better with other figures.
The most talked about aspect of this line though seems to be the paint job. Hasbro, wanting to properly emulate the look of the show, has opted for a cel-shaded approach. I, for one, like that decision. If you’re going to make an action figure from a cartoon, why not try to make that figure look like it came out of that cartoon? The argument against that is always “these figures exist in the real world, let natural lighting provide shading” but that misses the point. What shading in cartoons (or comics, for that matter) resembles real-world shading? The shading with this figure looks good. I like how it’s applied as it was done in a consistent manner. My only issue with it is the choice of color for the shaded yellow portions. Hasbro went with a mustard color, which is not at all in-line with the show. For an example of a better, more appropriate, shade of yellow one need only look at the only other X-Men animated action figure out there: Mondo’s Wolverine. That Wolverine is obviously much bigger and much more expensive, but that doesn’t excuse Hasbro just plain whiffing on the choice of colored paint. The other thing I don’t like is that Hasbro didn’t use this as an opportunity to engineer some pin-less joints for Wolverine. Wolverine is a character who will see numerous re-releases over the years so the cost to do so seems immaterial as Hasbro will make it back. The pin-less approach is just far more appropriate for a figure with this style of paint job as the yellow pegs poking through the shaded portion of the knee looks stupid. It’s the same problem Hasbro has been running into for years with its Spider-Man figures.
The claws look pretty good.
Joining Wolverine in his box are a handful of accessories. Wolverine comes with his clawed hands deployed, but he can also swap to a set of non-clawed gripping hands. Unfortunately, these are some generic hands Hasbro must be recycling from another figure because they’re missing the channels on the back of Wolverine’s gloves. I’m surprised Hasbro didn’t have proper Wolverine gloved gripping hands available for this figure to utilize, but apparently not. The hands are noticeably undersized and look a bit ridiculous on the figure. There’s even sculpted finger nails on them to drive home that these are repurposed from somewhere else. There’s also a second head which features Wolverine with teeth-gritting and it looks good. My only critique here is that they probably shouldn’t have bothered sculpting the teeth since they’re rarely drawn-in for the show. Lastly, we have a show specific accessory in the form of the picture frame containing an image of Scott and Jean. It’s a great idea for an accessory, and the image is removable, though it’s a shame Mondo beat them to it. Since I have that figure, part of me wishes they went for another meme-worthy accessory like a big slab of salami, but I can’t deny that this is a fun thing to include for an animated Wolverine. Plus, they can always do a civilian Wolverine later that comes with salami.
The non-clawed hands, unfortunately, look like they’re meant for a different figure. And that’s because they probably are.
The articulation for Wolverine should be pretty familiar to anyone who has purchased a Marvel Legends figure over the past few years. It’s certainly a familiar sight if you have one of the prior Wolverines using this sculpt, but in case you don’t (like me), let me run down everything for you. Wolverine’s head is on a big ball hinge. He looks up, down, and all around with a little wiggle too. The shoulders are ball-hinged and work okay, but they have to work around the shoulder pads which peg into the meat of the shoulder. It’s a bit of a pain, but it does at least let the arms go all the way around. There’s a butterfly joint, but the shoulder pads get in the way when bringing the arms forward, but work okay going back. There’s a biceps swivel and the elbows are double-jointed though Wolverine’s beefiness limits his range to about 90 degrees. The wrists peg in and are hinged horizontally. There’s an ab crunch in the torso that works well enough, and the waist swivels. The legs connect via ball pegs and they don’t go out to the side very far or kick back, but they do kick forward. There’s a thigh cut past that, double-jointed knee, boot cut, and ankle hinge that pivots side-to-side. It’s a suitable batch of articulation, pretty standard for a Legends release, and my only complaint really is one of the pegs on the left knee doesn’t go all the way through and it’s exposing the hinge there more than it should. I don’t love what Hasbro did with the shoulder pads, but I don’t know that there’s a better solution.
Don’t do it, Wolverine!
It’s amusing to me that two different companies decided this accessory was essential for an animated Wolverine.
This Wolverine presents a solid template for how this line of figures should be handled. We get some re-tooled parts to match with some reused ones plus a unique paint job, which isn’t something Hasbro is known for. Yes, I have some issues with it. I think the color choice for the shading is off, and I think some added black linework would have really made this guy pop. And those extra hands are garbage, but how likely am I to display Wolverine without his claws? Not very, but he does come with an episode specific item to hold so the non-claw hands shouldn’t have been the afterthought they clearly were. A final nitpick is a similar one I had with the Mondo figure and that’s the claws should have been painted. They were usually white in the show with a little blue added, but both figures just went with a flat gray. At least they arrived in good shape and only my figure’s right hand may take a trip to the faucet and that’s a first for me with a Wolverine Marvel Legends figure. Granted, the last one I bought was probably made by Toy Biz.
“Hello, son.”
The bigger, more expensive, one obviously looks better, but I think it would be a lot closer if Hasbro matched the colors Mondo used and added some linework to their figure.
If this Wolverine was a perfect representation of what to expect from this line then I think most everyone would be happy. And maybe it is. I don’t have any other figures yet, but with Jubilee set to arrive tomorrow I’ll have a better idea soon. This figure is largely what I would expect of Hasbro and it’s plenty good. It’s fun to have a new 6″ Wolverine after so many years and it’s especially fun to see my favorite TV show from my youth get celebrated. It already seems clear to me that if you only get one figure from this line make it this one. Now lets hope that Hasbro spends the money to do a proper animated Sabretooth to pair him up with.
I suppose I should include a comparison between this figure and the only other, dedicated, animated version of a character Hasbro has done (not including the Spider-Verse figures).
Wolverine is presently available to order at Hasbro Pulse (www.hasbropulse.com) and the other figures in the line are up for preorder there as well with Jubilee being the only other one in-stock. It’s expected that all of these figures will also be sold at http://www.shopdisney.com at some point (Jubilee is already there). Each figure retails for $28 and a Pulse membership is required to get free shipping. They’re not exactly cheap compared to other Marvel Legends releases, but for now, Hasbro is really the only company doing a dedicated line based on the animated series. Maybe that will change one day, but for now I’m all-in and I hope we get the full team and select villains. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a fun display.
My Dragon Ball collecting was once simply focused on the original series, Dragon Ball, but has been expanding over the years. I’ve definitely leaned more towards Dragon Ball Super of late, but one of my Dragon Ball Z purchases last year was the event exclusive Nappa. I don’t know why I like Nappa so much. Maybe it’s because I, and many others, watched the Saiyan Saga of DBZ over and over because, for a long time, it was all we had. Well, we had the Namek Saga too, but that was far less interesting. When I got Nappa it became apparent right away that I had little to pair him with. I would add Piccolo, but presently I have him displayed with his arm missing as it was in the Raditz fight (I suppose I should get Raditz, but that’s not happening given his price on the secondary market). Then along came Krillin. Who better than Krillin to position facing off against Nappa? If I had liked the Kid Gohan that Bandai did I might have grabbed that, but Krillin seems appropriate and he’s a likable character too.
That whole “Earth’s Strongest Man” title would be more impressive if the Earth wasn’t full of Saiyans, Namekians, Androids, etc.
Now, when you get really into figure collecting, other, perhaps strange, things influence your purchases. I didn’t just want Krillin to pair with Nappa, I also found myself both curious and a little excited about some of the changes Bandai made with the figure. This is Krillin 2.0 essentially replacing an earlier figure released in the line. I never liked the aesthetic of that figure, but this one looked good based on the solicitation images. What also jumped out at me were the sleeves and abdomen. Yes, sleeves can influence my purchasing decision. Rather than have those little, blue, cuffs pegged into his shoulders, this figure appeared to have free-standing sleeves like an actual shirt. Is it dumb that I paid over 50 bucks for a toy based on how the sleeves looked? Maybe, but that’s toy collecting!
Things are a little strange looking under Krillin’s head, but this actually works pretty great.
Right now, someone is probably reading this and shouting to themselves, “This is the wrong Krillin!” And yes, I know, and I knew that when I bought it. This Krillin is based on his look during the Cell Saga where he has a blue undershirt and boots like Goku’s. The musculature is also more defined and less rounded, though I don’t know that Tamashii Nations would do that any different if this were a proper Saiyan Saga version of the character. I’m fine with the slight inaccuracy when it comes to my display and if a Saiyan Saga Krillin were to follow without the shirt and in the martial arts slippers I likely would not seek to “upgrade.” This is fine.
He’s small, but fierce!
Krillin, being one of the shortest characters from Dragon Ball Z, stands just a little over 4.5″ when you get him out of the standard window box. This figure comes out of the Vietnam factory which is still relatively new to action figure production for this line. Krillin certainly looks like a Figuarts release. There’s a lot of colored plastic and little that required painting. This edition of Krillin is also meant to be anime accurate so there’s no white on his eyes. There’s a lot of little, painted, details on his face that look nice. Aside from that, the paint is limited to his wrist bands, chest, belt and boots where a solid job of matching plastic to paint is on display. Where things look less great is on the legs. It looks like some shading was applied to the front of the pants, and that’s good, but it was only done on the lower pieces. The upper thigh is not shaded so it looks like mis-colored plastic and the shirt isn’t either. This has become a trend with the line and it’s a bit baffling. Why shade from the mid-thigh down, but no where else? It just makes it look like his gi is two different shades of orange and it’s unbecoming. Shade it all, please! The kneecap piece also appears to be shaded, but for some reason it came out glossier than the rest of the leg. It could be a different type of plastic was used there. It’s especially noticeable with the right knee on my figure.
What is going on here?!
Even with the iffy shading, the figure looks like Krillin and it’s shortcomings won’t be picked up by most when it’s on a shelf. And how good it looks on that shelf will depend on how well the figure is articulated and able to hold a pose. This is where the Vietnam factory has show its inexperience as sometimes the joints don’t feel quite up to par for this line. And with this figure, we have some new stuff to talk about. Krillin’s head is unique in that it basically sits on a drum, or barrel, instead of a ball-peg. There’s a double ball-peg within that, but it’s certainly odd to see. I can only assume this was done to close some of that emtpy space that would exist without it. Since Krillin is bald, Bandai doesn’t go with faceplates since those are usually hidden by a character’s hair. The drum approach looks a bit odd when the figure is head-less, but it works just fine. It’s just very squeeky when rotating the head, but the range of motion is there. The only thing Krillin can’t do well is look up unless you’re using the ab crunch too. It looks like the base of the neck should be able to move, but mine won’t budge so perhaps I’m mistaken.
He does make that face a lot.
In the abdomen, that new style of ab crunch works fine as he can bend back a little and forward a lot. There’s a ball joint in the waist that also adds to the range of motion and provides rotation and tilt and I like how it looks. These shoulders though, they’re pretty interesting. So what we have is a ball-hinge that pegs into a socket in the chest, which pegs into another below it. The orange and blue pieces you see are just floating bits and the actual joint is cast in blue. The upper shoulder is also just a piece that fits inside the blue shirt cuff and over the blue joint in there which the arm pegs into at the biceps. All of your up, down, and in and out movement at the shoulder comes from that ball and socket joint inside the figure. It works okay, but you have to fight with that orange piece at times which will pop off it’s peg and create some ugly gaps. The left shoulder on my figure is also especially stubborn and I had the whole thing come apart at one point. I should have stopped and taken a picture for this review, but I was afraid I would forget how the whole thing went together. The setup for this joint makes it surprisingly difficult to just raise and lower the arm on the shoulder hinge as it’s tough to get the needed leverage. My arm came apart because the biceps joint was taking on too much of that so the peg popped out. Bandai uses shallow pegs, likely to prevent snapping of the joint, so it doesn’t take much to cause it to pop out. The butterfly joint also doesn’t function too well. I found if I forced the orange cuff to rotate back I could get Krillin’s arm across his chest, but I don’t think it’s designed to do that and it created unsightly gaps. The butterfly joint is rarely a strong suit of these figures so I don’t consider it a great loss, but it’s something that has to be mentioned. At least the shirt cuff looks better though! The rest of the arm is a standard double-hinged elbow and ball-hinged wrists which work fine.
“Goku! Senzu bean!”
The shoulders are a bit sloppy, but below the waist things are just fine. Krillin can do full splits and he has his double-jointed knees. He does have sculpted buns so he can’t kick back all of the way, but can kick forward. There’s a thigh twist and the ankles are on ball-hinges. The way the boots are sculpted though limits the range, especially out on the ankle rocker. He also gets almost no range going up on the foot, but he can go back a decent amount. There’s also a toe hinge which works fine, but doesn’t really add anything of value. Lastly, the knot in his belt is articulated so if you want the ends to appear like they’re blowing in the wind you can do so.
Not the best Kamehameha pose, but it’s not like the Goku figures are that much better.
Krillin moves okay, I think the shoulders need some more work, but I like that they’re exploring other solutions for that joint that isn’t just pegging a chunk of blue plastic into the figure’s shoulder. And when it comes to accessories, Bandai took care of the little cue-ball. Krillin comes with four portraits: stoic, yelling, teeth-gritting (with a side-eye), and scared. I like getting four, but we are definitely missing a smiling portrait. Oddly, such a head isn’t being included in the Battle Armor Krillin that was recently up for order (not that I would have bought a second figure just to make this one smile). What’s here is done well though, and as I mentioned before, the subtle paint work on the expressions is all clean and applied well. In addition to the heads, we get six sets of hands: fists, open, martial arts pose, Kamehameha hands, two-finger pose hands, and open palms with peg holes. There’s also a bonus 13th hand that’s grasping a bag of senzu beans. The peg holes on the open hands are for Krillin’s blast effect: the Destructo Disc! It’s cast in translucent, frosted, yellow, plastic and has a buzzsaw design. The peg is pretty short, but it fits in the hand and looks okay. Because it pegs into Krillin’s hand, it can’t be used with the stands that peg into a blast effect so it can only be positioned above Krillin’s hand. There might be stands I’m not aware of that could work with this to depict the Destructo Disc in flight, but you won’t be able to do that out of the box.
I love all of the headsculpts, and the bean bag hand is fun, but who is really going to display him doing something other than this?!
The one additional drawback with this figure is becoming a common one out of the Vietnam factory and that’s in the joint tolerance. And it’s at those shoulders again. The right shoulder on my Krillin is pretty loose, so it’s easy to move and position, but the weight of the Destructo Disc makes it want to sag. The left shoulder has the opposite problem as it’s quite tight and getting his arm straight up for the proper pose was trickier than it should be. Plus, Krillin rarely uses his left arm for the Destructo Disc so I’d prefer to pose him with the left. Hopefully as the factory releases more figures these details get cleaned up, but for now, it feels like a roll of the dice when a figure shows up with the “Made in Vietnam” language on the front.
Nappa! Don’t touch it!
Krillin 2.0 is a solid entry in the S.H.Figuarts line of Dragon Ball Z action figures. Yes, I was a bit hard on some aspects of the figure, but that’s because this is a $55 release and we should have high standards for a figure at that price point. If this were a $30 Target release then some of these would be easier to overlook. Even with the warts, the figure displays well enough as long as you don’t get one with a shoulder so loose that it can’t use the energy effect. Mine is a touch finicky, but it’s holding up so far and at least I can swap the effect to the left arm if I absolutely have to. I like that they’re trying new things, and giving us updates to the older figures that are dated at this point. I just think maybe they over-engineered these shoulders and they could accomplished the same look, with something simpler. This figure is definitely worth getting if you like Krillin, want to upgrade from the old one, or are rounding out your DBZ display. And as a general release item, there should be plenty in stock at MSRP if you still need one.
Super7’s take on the classic 80’s toyline has finally arrived, but is it any good?
I think we’re over discussing the merits of non-transforming Transformers, right? It’s been done for a long time, but was really pushed to the forefront with the Hasbro RED series in 2020 and while there will always be a section of the fanbase that wants nothing to do with such a concept, it’s still an easy thing to justify. When the Transformers arrived on television sets in the early 1980s, they were giant robots that generally went from some kind of automobile to a humanoid robot. And those transformations were pretty unrealistic when compared with the toy. The character models needed to be kept neat and tidy for animation’s sake and if something looked a bit janky on the toy the cartoon could remedy that. As long as a kid could at least tell the character and the toy were one-in-the-same it was fine. And now there are collectors who want their Transformers to look, and move, like the characters from the show and what’s wrong with that? There will always be transforming toys to please the masses and these sublines can go off and do their own thing.
This should be a familiar sight for anyone used to Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures.
When Super7 announced it had grabbed the Transformers license many people were shocked. Transformers is basically an in-house property for Hasbro, so what benefit is there to Hasbro licensing it out to a company that is just going to make something it can already supply? Well, money, for one. Hasbro clearly doesn’t view Super7’s offerings as direct competition with their own stuff. And Hasbro, being much bigger, was able to pump out the RED series before Super7 was able to announce they’d be doing something similar (and apparently the RED series kind of caught Super7 off-guard). And they are different, to a degree. While both seek to replicate the Generation 1 look for its characters, they operate in a completely different scale and at a completely different price. Time will tell if Transformers collectors need both, but for now both seem to be doing all right.
Optimus certainly knows how to fill out a window box.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not big on Transformers. I basically missed it by about a year or two, so my first love when it came to a toyline was The Real Ghostbusters, while my cousin who was two years older loved Transformers and G.I. Joe. I had a toy here and there, but nothing I can even cleanly remember (I think it was a yellow car, but memories can be funny). I did get into the Generation 2 re-releases briefly. I thought Grimlock looked cool in blue, and I saved up some money to get Optimus Prime. I’d also add the tank version of Megatron, but I kind of stopped there since Transformers were way more expensive than an X-Men figure. It was basically a 3:1 ratio with basic Transformers, while that Optimus cost me 30 bucks in 1992 money! All that is to say that Super7’s line of Transformers really shouldn’t be my thing, but I have a nephew that really likes the brand and when he got setup in a new bedroom I decided to make him a clock in the shape of Optimus Prime because my grandfather had done the same for me and my sister (his mother) when we were kids. My clock was Leonardo and my grandfather modeled it after my giant sized action figure of the same. I wanted to do something similar with my nephew’s clock and the reference that worked best was Super7’s art for their figure. Now, he’s too young for this type of toyline, but I still thought it would be cool if I also got him the toy. And since I was buying one for my nephew, well, uncle needs one too! I don’t know when I’ll give him his figure, or if he’ll even care about Transformers come then, but these are the specific circumstances that lead me to owning this figure so I’m going to tell you all about it.
The figure certainly looks similar to past incarnations of Optimus Prime, but it has a decidedly different flavor.
Optimus Prime is one of four figures in the inaugural wave of Super7 Transformers and he’s the only Autobot in the lineup. Super7 appears to want to go a bit deep, or obscure, with its choices while also recognizing it needed to include the Autobot leader in the first wave. This line is a 7″ scale line that seeks to emulate the look from the original cartoon. There’s going to be a lot of solid colors, less detail, and a bunch of stuff included as accessories pulled from the show. It’s a good approach as even the RED line from Hasbro deviates from the look of the show with its figures as both Soundwave and Optimus featured clear “glass” on their body when the toon would use a solid color. I believe this wave is also the first one released under the new pricing model of $55 a figure. Previously, Ultimates were $45, but then COVID happened. These went up for order in March of 2021, so a turn-around of 14 months actually isn’t that bad given the state of things.
Sick of working for Michael Bay, Optimus is looking to audition for Quentin Tarrantino.
Optimus comes in the familiar Super7 Ultimates! packaging. The box is a bit beefier than some of the other figures I’ve purchased from them, but it’s still the same slip-cover over window box. The outer slip-cover is rather nice as it has a reflective outline of the character and the window box has the familiar red and black grid pattern with an old school character power level grid on the back. Optimus takes up quite a bit of real estate in the box and the inner cardboard is mirrored, but the figure (and accessories) are so big that it doesn’t really add anything. I didn’t even notice it until I pulled him out.
This is pretty much as best he can do when it comes to a gun grip. Why not just straighten out the handle so he can actually grip it properly? The first in many questionably decisions to come.
Out of the box, Optimus stands at about 8″ in height, maybe a tick over. He’s a very blocky, chunky, figure and at first blush I’d say that, yeah, he looks like the cartoon character. He does not, however, give off that “Just walked out of the television set,” vibe as there’s almost no paint on this guy. Most of what you’re looking at is molded plastic. It’s not super shiny, which is good, but definitely lacks pop. It’s most apparent on the windshield panels on his chest which are just a light, flat, blue. Pull-up almost any image from the cartoon of Optimus Prime and you’ll see some white accents on the glass part. Why not paint that on? Super7 used decals with that effect for their vinyl version of this character, but decided against it here. I wouldn’t expect cel-shading out of Super7, but a little flourish would have been nice. Aside from that, most of the paint is found on the crotch because they used a plastic overlay (affectionately referred to as a “diaper” in most collecting circles) that’s quite soft and requires paint. The gray band in the torso is also painted and there’s the Autobot logo painted, or printed, onto the left shoulder. I wish the logo was raised or stamped in, but it’s clean so I guess it’s fine. The smaller details on the face are well-painted too.
I’m not sure how obvious it is on camera, but the fist hands have this nice, matte, coating applied while the rest are just bare, glossy, plastic.
The low detail approach just makes Optimus a little plain looking. I think the figure would have benefitted from at least some panel lining which would be in-line with the cartoon’s presentation. Obviously, Super7 tends to think less is more, so I’m not shocked by their choices, but a little let-down. For $55 this could have been better. I also find it interesting they opted for an off-white or light gray shade for the crotch, thigh, smokestacks, and fuel tanks when the cartoon was pretty consistent about making those parts white. I associate the gray coloring more with the toys so it’s a bit of an odd choice. It just looks a bit dingey, so I would have preferred white, but it’s more of a nitpick than anything. Worth pointing out is that the right smokestack on mine came rather warped. It’s nothing I don’t think a little hot water or blast from a hairdryer can’t remedy, but I review these things as they come out of the box to give you the best idea of what to expect.
But hey! He comes with a surf board! Also, that’s as far as his elbows can bend. Yeah, not good.
Where the design is going to cause further problems is with the articulation. Now, I have the Voltron from Super7 so I had an idea of what to expect here. Plus I know from experience and just from what the company has told us that they prioritize the look over the articulation. Super7 believes articulation is fine, but that most collectors are going to put their toys on a shelf in a fairly basic, or neutral, pose. I don’t really agree as I think that’s what five-point figures and vinyl toys are for, but I’m not the one running the company. As far as I’m concerned, Super7 can take whatever approach it wants so long as it’s consistent which is why you won’t hear me complain about the lack of double-jointed knees and elbows. Super7 just doesn’t do them. This toy is, however, still an action figure so it should be judged as one and in doing so there’s some good stuff here, and some very not so good stuff.
If you don’t like the toony head you can switch to a toy-inspired one.
For starters, Optimus has a head that sits on a double ball-peg. This is a welcomed sight as the last Super7 figures I looked at featured a single ball-peg. Since he basically has no neck though, his range is going to be limited. He can look up and swivel with a little tilt, looking down is basically impossible. Once you introduce the ab crunch can the figure look down a bit. And that ab crunch is well-hidden and feels smooth. I’m not too worried about paint rub on the grill piece, though the figure doesn’t get any reverse crunch movement out of it. It strictly allows him to bend forward a bit. At the shoulders, we have an interesting setup. There’s a hinge inside the housing for the shoulder, with a pivot point just outside that, and a hinge just beyond that. This allows the bulky shoulders to swing out and come over the top of the torso allowing Prime to raise his arms out to the side past the usual 180 degrees. He can basically be the “Y” in a performance of “YMCA”. Unfortunately, Super7 apparently used up all of their creativity here because the elbow is a different story. There’s a biceps swivel above it, but the actual hinge bends maybe 45 degrees, if I’m being generous. The general accepted range on an elbow is 90 degrees, and that’s considered passable. My Hasbro RED Soundwave can do full curls and touch his shoulder with his hand to illustrate how big a difference this is. The comparably bulky Voltron could nearly get to 90, which I felt was satisfactory given the character. Not even getting close with Prime though is really unacceptable for a premium action figure, and at $55 a pop, that’s what this is. All Super7 had to do was cut out some relief on the forearm or elongate the piece where the elbow exists. It wouldn’t cost anymore to have done it right, nor is it going to ruin the look of the figure. It just feels like they hit a mild trouble point and decided not to address it at all thinking this amount of range was acceptable, but it’s not.
“Good thing you don’t have an eject button you need to be able to press!”
I think this is how I’m supposed to use this thing.
Moving past that unfortunate piece we have hands that peg into the arms and feature a single hinge which is fine. The waist has standard rotation so I’m assuming it’s a peg joint and not a ball. At the hips, we have the usual ball-pegs that Super7 likes and they’re fine. They’re pretty big so they don’t look as scary as some of the pegs on the TMNT figures and you get a swivel and range out to the front, back, and side. If you read my Voltron review, it was this spot that I deemed unacceptable on that figure as it just had pegs with no ball so that figure only kicks forward and back which is terrible. Optimus thankfully has normal leg function, though that diaper piece limits how far his legs can move. It will flex, but I wouldn’t want to leave the figure posed with too much stress on it. The knees are single-hinged and can achieve a 90 degree bend with no problem, it’s the ankles where we hit another roadblock. Optimus has rigid plastic alongside the lower legs so the ankles are effectively in splints. They hinge up and down and there is an ankle rocker, but it’s functionally useless because there’s just no room. Again, this could have been solved without cutting into the sculpt much. They could have brought the toe portion of the foot out a little further and it actually might have been more screen accurate. Doing so would have allowed them to just put a swivel point there. They also could have done what Hasbro did and do a drop-down ankle joint. That’s probably the better way to go, but there’s a number of things that could have been done, but Super7 opted for none. While Optimus can actually widen its stance, unlike Voltron, it can’t be widened much because eventually the figure can’t stand on its feet because there’s no rocker. It’s just a bummer.
He’s got a jet pack, if you think he needs one.
Check out my Matrix!
Super7 is certainly not known for articulation, but what it’s Ultimates! line is known for are accessories, and Optimus does okay in that regard. We get two heads with this figure, the toon accurate one that comes on the figure and a toy accurate one for those who prefer that look. I had that toy and loved it, but I really have no use for the alternate head. For what it is, it’s fine. Optimus comes with fist hands in the box and the figure can swap to a trigger right hand, pointing left, open right hand, and an open left hand with a peg on it. What’s missing are just normal gripping hands, which is a problem I’ll get to in a second. Interestingly, the fist hands have a matte coating on them and you can see where it ends near the peg. The other hands don’t have this and as a result are a bit glossy. It’s not something everyone is going to notice, but given the choice, I would have liked all of the hands to have this matte finish. For the trigger hand we have Optimus’ gun which matches the old toy and the show. The handle is at an angle though and I can’t get the trigger finger onto the actual trigger. If the angle wasn’t so steep it would be fine, but it looks kind of dumb as a result. The gun is also just molded, black, plastic with an ever so subtle graphite finish. For a more melee approach, Optimus has his orange, Energon, axe. It pegs into the forearm in place of a hand and it’s done in orange, translucent, plastic with a frosting on the shaft portion and it looks pretty damn cool. It’s just tough to find a natural axe-swinging pose given the figure’s articulation limits. There’s also this energy net thing (Energon binder, per the listing) that’s sparkly and made of soft plastic. I guess you can wrap it around a figure. It’s fine for what it is.
Spike isn’t really meant for close-up shots.
He’s probably not going to make it as a Globetrotter.
For the peg hand, there’s a basketball. The lines on it are sculpted in, but the black paint in those lines isn’t well done. I’ve seen images of people with pretty nice looking basketballs so mine might be worse than most (the second Prime I bought looks to have a better basketball). The ball fits nicely into the peg, and it’s this sort of goofy accessory that people may find charming about the figure. It would be nice if the peg hole was smaller though so it could better fit on the end of the pointing finger hand. It’s do-able, but the ball sits so low that it doesn’t convincingly create the illusion that Optimus is spinning the ball on his finger. There’s also the Matrix of Leadership thing that would normally go in Optimus Prime’s chest, but without gripping hands he can’t really hold it so it feels rather perfunctory since he doesn’t have a chest cavity to place it in. There’s a little, painted, Spike Witwicky that’s mostly in scale with Optimus which is kind of neat. There’s a big surfboard for Optimus as well which is pulled from an episode of the show. It’s rather plain looking as it’s just a gray-blue shade of plastic and it could really use a stand of some kind. There are peg holes on it and it’s pretty easy to get Optimus onto the thing, but I don’t know if I’ll ever use it. Lastly, we have a jetpack which is just a big old hunk of plastic that snaps into the rear of the figure. I like that Super7 was able to make it removable without a peg hole, but it’s rather boring looking. It’s at least really light so it doesn’t throw off the figure’s balance, but again, I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll ever use.
“I bet you wish you could ball like me!”
“I bet you wish you could hold a gun like me.” “Aww, that hurt”
In many ways, this figure is largely what I expected. I knew the blocky design would present issues with the articulation, as it had with Voltron, and I expected Super7 to keep it simple. With the shoulders and even the ab crunch, Super7 actually surprised me in a good way. They also surprised me in a bad way with the very limited elbows and ankles. I do strongly believe that for a figure to be considered articulated in this day and age we need elbows that hit 90 degrees (or near enough) and ankle joints that provide for better stances on the shelf. The ankle is hugely important for a figure because that’s the joint closest to the surface. Bad ankles limit posing or cause figures to fall over. Optimus Prime doesn’t have the falling problem, but that’s because he pretty much has to keep things vanilla. Which is a real bummer because I was hoping to be able to pose this more dynamically than my Masterpiece Optimus which is really too heavy to attempt much out of fear of it falling over. And if the figure isn’t going to move great, it needs to make up for that with the paint and this figure doesn’t really try to do that. I don’t think the included accessories make up for that either.
Some of the figure’s shortcomings when it comes to articulation could be more easily overlooked with a paint job as exciting as what Voltron received.
I’m not a huge Transformers fan so it’s hard to say if my reaction is more forgiving than the average fan or more harsh. If you’ve been on the fence about this one then there’s a good reason for that. At least the solicitation images paint a fairly accurate portrait of what you’re getting. If you want a more toon accurate Optimus in a much bigger scale than the Hasbro RED series, then this might do it for you. If you were expecting a dynamic posing figure that looked like it stepped right out of the TV then I don’t think this figure is for you. A subpar action figure in 2022 is also not without value. There is certainly a “fun” aspect to this figure just in the size and the some of the silly accessories, mostly the basketball. On a subjective level, I can be okay with this thing and not regret my purchasing decision. Objectively though, this is a real tough ask at $55 and it’s not something I can give a blanket recommendation for. If you know what you’re in for and like what you see, you may feel differently.
He’s here. He’s flawed, but you can probably still have some fun with him.
The Rescue Rangers are back, but maybe not as expected.
Nostalgia is an easy thing to market and sell, so when a piece of media comes around that’s really going hard after the nostalgia market I feel like it’s my duty to weigh-in. And when it comes to 90’s nostalgia, I am as qualified as anybody to talk about it and such is the case with the new Disney+ movie Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
If you’re reading this, I can probably go ahead and assume that you’re familiar with the television show of the same name which premiered in the late 80s and ran into the 90s. Just in case though, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers was one of the inaugural Disney Afternoon cartoons and it starred the characters Chip and Dale from Disney’s classic collection of shorts and paired them up with some newcomers in Gadget, Monterey Jack, and Zipper. As the theme song informed us, they basically solve the crimes and help those who are not being helped by the usual law enforcement operations out there. It didn’t really make much sense for the characters of Chip and Dale to star in such a program, but the same is easily said of the classic characters utilized in most Disney Afternoon shows. It was just a way for Disney to leverage its own intellectual property and sell shows that at least had some familiar faces in them. And it seemed to work rather well. While I will say the show Rescue Rangers doesn’t really hold-up when viewed as an adult in 2022, it’s at least quite gorgeous for a TV show and no one would question the production values. Plus that theme song is still a banger.
In this universe, Rescue Rangers was an actual show like it is in “the real world” and all of the characters were played by living, toon, actors.
It was announced some time ago that Disney wanted to bring the show to the big screen as a live-action/animation hybrid which is all the rage these days. It turned out, Disney was actually aiming a little smaller as the film was ticketed for its streaming platform Disney+ pretty early in the reveal. Unlike a lot of recent films, I do not believe this was kicked to the streaming service because of COVID. The film was written by the team of Dan McGregor and Doug Mand, two guys mostly known for their work in television. With Akiva Schaffer as director and Andy Samberg onboard as the voice of Dale, the title basically started being referred to as The Lonely Island Rescue Rangers. The third member of The Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone, is also here doing some small voice roles too. Given their presence, I found myself quite curious how this movie would turn out. It was obviously going to be a comedy, but the initial trailer also revealed it was going to set its characters in a world inhabited by toons and real people like a certain famous 80s film about a rabbit. Inviting such a comparison is almost a death sentence because how is a film in 2022 with a streaming budget going to measure up to the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It’s a fool’s game to try to match that film, Disney can only hope this one proves it’s worth existing.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is neither a reboot nor a sequel to the television show. It actually views the characters from the show as actors who played those roles. Early in the film we’re shown how a young Dale (Juliet Donenfield) met a young Chip (Mason Blomberg) at school and instantly became friends. From there, they became a comedy act that was eventually given its own show making these versions of the famous chipmunks quite different from the characters in the theatrical shorts. Much of the movie is set in the present and centers on Dale (Andy Samberg) as he tries to recapture his glory days after a falling out with Chip when the Rescue Rangers show came to an end.
The setting established by this film is one in which humans live side-by-side with animated characters from various mediums (and owners beyond Disney) with seemingly little in the way of conflict between the two.
It’s when we catch-up with Dale and eventually Chip (John Mulaney) that we see how this world sort of works. This isn’t a lore-heavy film like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Toons exist alongside humans and over the years toons have changed. Dale at some point got surgery to make himself look like a CG generated character, while his co-stars did not so they’re presented in a more traditional manner. Cartoon stars are basically all real and much of the film relies on that. The general plot is that Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) has gone missing and Chip and Dale fear he’s been caught in a bootlegging ring. For a toon in this world, that means he’s going to be modified surgically so that he only resembles his old self and shipped off to somewhere in Asia to star in bootleg films against his will, which sounds pretty horrifying. The rodents will work with a human police officer in Ellie (Kiki Lang) to try and find their friend before he’s presumably sent out on a boat which is expected to take roughly 48 hours making this the Chip ‘n Dale version of The Frist 48.
An older, less cute, Peter Pan is one of the film’s villains. Some feel his portrayal is in poor taste given the real world tragedy that was Bobby Driscoll who voiced Pan in the Disney film. I personally don’t think any malice was intended and feel the character works as an imagined future Peter Pan that aged out of a role not unlike many child actors.
The plot is surprisingly high stakes if you place any sort of value on the life of Monterey Jack, but despite that the film is squarely a comedy. Chip and Dale play-off of each other with Chip being the straight ‘munk and Dale the more carefree. It’s admittedly odd to hear the two voiced by actors who aren’t being pitched way up to do the squeaky voice. That is canonically revealed to be an act from the old show and just a funny voice they did. Their interplay is fine and mostly amusing, but things slow way down whenever the plot has to involve Ellie. There it becomes a poor man’s cop show where little of value takes place. Working against is the performance of Lang as Ellie because she comes off as wooden and distant. Working with actors who aren’t physically present is a skill, and maybe that’s the reason for it. The script also isn’t very interested in making her into much of a character so that’s not helping matters. Aside from the pair, the movie relies quite heavily on references to generate laughs. This means the film is a case of diminishing returns from the start as most viewers will likely be charmed by the cameos at first, but come the second hour the novelty has largely worn off. The film is definitely intended for an adult audience that grew up on the Disney Afternoon, so if you loved Rescue Rangers there’s a bit of payoff towards the film’s climax, but this film is largely a riff on that show which might rub some the wrong way.
This is the type of film that wants you to pause it frequently to try and catch all of the easter eggs in the background.
The entertainment value derived from the humor and references can only take the film so far. Unfortunately, what doesn’t add a whole lot are the visual effects. The CG characters, like Dale, look fine. Dale’s model is not on par with Disney or Pixar feature films, but I suppose he looks no better or worse than the chipmunks from the Alvin and the Chipmunks films. The 2D characters, on the other hand, mostly look pretty unimpressive. There’s no attempt at shading them to make them plausible as 3D beings, but they’re also clearly not hand-drawn. For some characters, like Gadget oddly enough, the model is too obvious and the character ends up looking like a cel-shaded model from a PlayStation 2 game. I got some real Sly Cooper vibes from Gadget and I’m not sure why it is that her model suffered the most. Maybe it’s the hair? Either way, the 2D characters just don’t impress, but we are talking about a film with a streaming budget so it’s not surprising to see. I am left to wonder if the film would be appreciably better with more money attached to it. The other aspect of the film’s production that might rub some the wrong way is the inconsistent casting choices. Tress MacNeille was allowed to reprise her role as Gadget, but few others were granted the same opportunity. Jim Cummings is in this film voicing some cameos, but for some reason was recast as Monterey Jack. Zipper was also recast to Dennis Haysbert basically for a gag, but I can’t say that bothered me too much since it fit with the choice for Chip and Dale. And I suppose there are folks out there who would have preferred them to have their chipmunk voices and I don’t know if I’m one of them. I definitely would have been fine with that approach, but I didn’t hate Mulaney and Samberg in the roles and I actually adjusted to them much easier than I expected.
The film has its moments when it comes to the brand of humor it’s going for, but mostly I found myself wishing it had a bigger budget so that it would look better than it does.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the sort of vapid, of the moment, streaming movie designed to be digested, meme’d for a weekend, and then mostly forgotten. It doesn’t really do anything unexpected and is mostly smart to keep the running time under 2 hours and to lean heavily into nostalgia-laden jokes and cameos. How much you’re amused by the cameos and references will influence how entertained by the film you are. I would even go so far as to say, for adult viewers, you need to be familiar with the era the original Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers aired during to get much out of this. For kids, that’s probably not necessary if my own children are a reasonable barometer as they seemed to like the film quite a bit. As for me, the film was fine. It was no better or worse than I expected, though actually if I’m being fair it was better than I initially expected when I heard a Rescue Rangers movie was in development. I definitely do not want or need a sequel or reboot following this, nor do I really want to see other Disney Afternoon properties get the same treatment (unless it’s with a much bigger budget). If you go into it wanting a poor man’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that’s more interested in meme culture than celebrating classic era animation then you’ll likely not regret the hour and a half spent. If you’re expecting something more sincere or on the same technical level as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? then prepare to be disappointed.
Well, I sat on this one for awhile. Last summer saw the return of the Masters of the Universe to television in the form of Revelation. In somewhat typical Netflix fashion, the show arrived in “parts” rather than seasons though unlike many Netflix shows they’re at least not trying to trick us by calling either part a season. The first five episodes were not without some controversy and fans had to wait until the fall to find out what Kevin Smith had planned for the likes of He-Man, Teela, and Skeletor. Not personally being a massive fan of the franchise meant that I wasn’t waiting with bated breath for the second part to arrive despite mostly enjoying the first five episodes. I got to it though, eventually, and since I reviewed the first five episodes I felt I should probably do the same for the last five.
Part One of this inaugural season saw Skeletor (Mark Hamill) triumphant over He-Man (Chris Wood) for basically the first time and magic was removed from Eternia. After a period of time, the former Man-at-Arms for Eternia, Teela (Sarah Michelle Gellar), set out with a rag-tag gang of misfits to return magic to the world. And they basically succeed, but in doing so bring back Skeletor in the form of Skele-God as he now wields the power of Grayskull. And despite Teela and the sorceress Evil-Lyn (Lena Headey) seeming to bond throughout the events of the episodes, she quickly turns her back on the gang and rejoins her man, Skeletor. As for He-Man, he spent most of the five-parter dead only to abandon a Heaven of sorts to return to life only to get stabbed by the newly powered-up Skeletor.
Skeletor found himself in the unfamiliar role of victor at the end of Part One, is that a role he’s suited for? Probably not.
It was a downer of an ending, but knowing that a second batch of episodes was on the way certainly left room for optimism. Revelation Part Two is largely a contrast to Part One. It focuses the early bits on Prince Adam (spoiler, he didn’t die!) as his identity as He-Man has to be reconciled with those who never knew, while a lot of attention is put on the pairing of Evil-Lyn and Skeletor. In fact, I would say Evil-Lyn gets the most character development out of all the characters in the show. Her and Skeletor are presented very much like Joker and Harley Quinn (hardly a surprise with Kevin Smith at the helm) with the dominant personality of the pair being abusive and taking the submissive individual for granted. Skeletor’s absence for much of Part One means that Evil-Lyn has experienced life without her man and perhaps it is that which gives her the confidence to strike back. While audiences are probably rooting for her to knock Skeletor down and take up arms against him alongside the likes of He-Man, she actually doubles-down on the villainess aspect (she has the word “evil” in her name, after all) of her personality to pursue ultimate power. It’s a bit messy as the show wants to make her more sympathetic, but rather than make the audience frustrated with her out of a longing to see her reform, she mostly just stumbles around until we grow tired of her.
If Part One was the Teela show, then Part Two definitely feels like the Evil-Lyn show.
Pushed aside in all of this is Teela. She was the de-facto main character of the first chunk of episodes, but mostly hangs around on the sidelines for much of the second part only to resurface for a climactic battle in the end. Or it would be climactic if the show knew what to do with her during the other four episodes. She basically just plays audience surrogate as she learns secrets about her past and the nature of magic none of which is especially interesting. A lot of it feels like a shortcut to undo the audience’s perception of the magic in this world and basically ex machina some stuff for the end. It’s clumsy, and what should be a triumphant final battle ends up feeling unearned which is a shame because the first five episodes handled the character rather well.
Any project of Kevin Smith’s is going to feature some comedic moments.
What the show does still do well is humor. It’s pretty important than even a mature take on Masters of the Universe be allowed to have some fun because a lot of it is absurd. The show gets quite a bit out of Skeletor who is often amusing, and sometimes menacing. Mark Hamill’s performance continues to be a bright spot and if I return for another batch of episodes it will largely be due to his presence. There’s also some good moments with Cringer and some of the villains, some of which I’d rather not get into for fear of spoilers, but if the trailers have convinced you this is some grim story then worry not, or be disappointed if that’s what you wanted.
Regardless of what you think of the plot, know that you are getting something that’s pretty damn fun to look at.
Animation is provided by Powerhouse Animation Studios while the soundtrack was done by Bear McCreary. The production values are the most consistent thing about this show whether we’re talking the look, sound, or voice acting performance – it’s all well done. This second batch of episodes provides the chance for it to show off a bit more and the show mostly rises to the occasion. There’s a massive battle taking place at one point with a lot of characters onscreen which is rather impressive. The only drawback is the backgrounds in that space are rather sparse, but some of that goes back to what Filmation presented. I suppose the show could have elected to do more, but Filmation gave them an “out” and I don’t blame them for taking it.
Don’t worry, this guy still gets to do plenty of hero shit.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation mostly achieves what it set out to do. It takes a bunch of characters from a bad, old, cartoon and gives them a new coat of paint for the kids of the 80s who are the middle-aged adults of today. And it does more than just make the show look better, it finds direction, motivation, and just more depth for the characters even if most still retain their awful, on-the-nose, names. As for both parts of the first season, I definitely found more to enjoy with the first part. The character development was better and the moments looking for an emotional pay-off largely landed. Part Two is more action-focused, which isn’t always a bad thing, but it’s moments of character development and exposition fall flat more often than land. I like some of what the show does with the Evil-Lyn character, but am left feeling like there was more to do there that the show just didn’t find. There’s some fan-servicey bits in here that’s fun for what it is, and for those who wanted more of that in Part One, they may find this one more enjoyable. It’s mostly fine, a decent binge that doesn’t require more than that. When it was over though I was more than ready for it and I probably don’t need to see anymore out of this series.
It’s hard to think of a game developer that has seen its image in the industry falter as much as Blizzard has over the past 20 years. Blizzard was once the developer known for quality. The games would be announced with no release date, they’re done when they’re done, and once delivered they were met with almost universal praise. A buyout and a series of accusations about the company’s work environment dominate the news around the company now, but even before some of those allegations came to light, the company’s reputation regarding its actual software had already taken a hit. There was the muddled launch of the much-anticipated StarCraft II, poorly engineered remasters, and news of a mobile Diablo that caused gamers to question just what the company’s direction is these days.
That was certainly not the case twenty years ago. The year 2002 was a big one for Blizzard. The company had established itself as perhaps the premier developer of real-time strategy games thanks to Warcraft, Warcraft II, and StarCraft. The company had also successfully branched out to dungeon crawlers with Diablo and was even eyeing the role-playing genre and stealth gameplay on home consoles, despite Blizzard largely being known as a PC developer. And arriving during this height of popularity was Warcraft III.
Where it all began.
Warcraft was the game largely responsible for Blizzard’s success. It was the game that proved that Blizzard could make its own products in-house and make a living off of it. Heavily inspired by Westwood’s Dune II, Warcraft arrived in 1994 and was at the forefront of the RTS boom in the 90’s and the company found itself in a friendly rivalry with Westwood and its Command & Conquer series. A sequel arrived the following year and was even bigger, in more ways than one, than the original. Warcraft II was supported with an expansion by Blizzard as well as third party additions and was popular both for its story-driven campaign and for its player vs player appeal.
Following Warcraft II was StarCraft in 1998. StarCraft, which took the basic gameplay of Warcraft and turned into a space opera, was seen as bigger and better than its predecessor by many. It also had the advantage of arriving after the launch of Blizzard’s own Battle.Net service which made it easy for players to find opponents over the internet, a fairly new concept for RTS gameplay. Warcraft II had been re-released with Battle.Net support, but the shine had worn off by then. Following StarCraft’s success, it was no longer a foregone conclusion that a Warcraft III was on the way. Blizzard had announced a sequel in the form of a point-and-click game called Warcraft Adventures. It was to tell the story of Thrall, a young orc seeking to unify his people and restore the orcs to their former glory following their defeat in Warcraft II. It wasn’t to be as the game was cancelled before launch. Warcraft III was officially announced in 1999, but it wasn’t going to be a real-time strategy game. Instead, Blizzard envisioned it as closer to a true RPG where players would control a hero character and a small, supporting, cast. Either due to problems with the gameplay or fan backlash, that version of Warcraft III would be scrapped, but the engine and assets created for it could be applied to what would eventually be called Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, which arrived on PC in July 2002.
The only downside to Warcraft III having four playable factions is we lost the head-to-head packaging of the first two games.
In my younger days, I didn’t play a lot of PC games, but I did play Warcraft and Warcraft II was one of my personal favorites. While I thought StarCraft was fine, it was the medieval fantasy setting of Warcraft that appealed to me more and I followed the development of Warcraft III as best I could. I was certainly wary when it looked like it was going to be a radical departure for the series initially, but when it finally arrived that summer I was more than a little impressed. The game was released in four versions with each of the game’s factions getting its own box art. I went with the undead, and eventually the orc cover would become the standard one. I feel the need to take a moment and reminisce on PC game packaging in the 90s and early 2000s. The games seemed to always come in oversized boxes with lavish instruction manuals. It was something I loved about Warcraft II. While Warcraft III arrived in a much smaller box (7.5″ x 5.125″ x 1.25″ approximately) which was fast becoming the standard, it still had a robust manual. This thing is basically a manga-sized trade paperback. Not only does it detail practical descriptions of every unit in the game, as well as game modes, it also has a second set of profiles for each unit from a lore perspective. There’s a detailed write-up on the history and events that lead to the present game from the perspective of each of the game’s four main factions which introduces many of the game’s characters. While one didn’t have to read it in order to enjoy the game’s story, doing so meant having a greater understanding of a character like Illidan Stormrage when he’s introduced beyond what’s shown.
Warcraft III seemed to be influenced greatly by not just the game’s in the series that came before it, but StarCraft as well. When StarCraft arrived, Blizzard upped the playable factions from two to three, so naturally Warcraft III makes it an even four. Returning are the Orcs and Humans and joining them is the Undead Scourge and the Night Elves. The game refers to them as playable “races,” though the term faction seems more appropriate because they’re made up of multiple species. The Humans include elves, dwarves, and gnomes while the Orcs have trolls and the minotaur-like Tauren amongst their ranks. There are actually no depictions of race as we would call it amongst the humans as all are white.
I went with the Undead packaging for my copy 20 years ago. Check out the well-worn book, and the handy cardstock flow chart that was included. You have to pay a hefty premium to get packaging anywhere close to this these days, but back then it was the norm.
In what was a first for Blizzard, Warcraft III is presented entirely with three-dimensional character models and scenery. The camera is positioned overhead at a slight angle which can be modified in-game to zoom in or out as the player prefers. Almost all cutscenes are depicted utilizing the game’s own engine, which resulted in a mixed presentation even back in 2002. The models just weren’t created with the intention of showing them up close, though some (such as Furion who was created solely for the campaign mode) are better than others. All of the dialogue is fully voiced and the acting is more than capable. The world of Warcraft III is presented with lush, Earthy, colors when appropriate, and murky and dark ones when needed. Textures are quite good, and the game does have a touch of style to it which gives some characters (like the lowly Peasant) a cartoony quality to their appearance and animation. It’s in contrast to the more Dungeons & Dragons art style of the past games and it gives Warcraft a style all its own.
The game includes multiple modes of play including one-off custom games, a level editor, and competitive play, but the meat and potatoes is found in the game’s campaign mode. It’s here that the game’s story is presented and it does so by having the player engage with each of the game’s four factions starting with the Humans, followed by the Undead, Orcs, and concluding with the Night Elves. The story for each will tie-in with the rest, but each faction also has its own tale to tell and lessons to learn. The Humans begin the game in a state of hubris oblivious to the rising threat posed by a plague sweeping the land and they all but laugh at a mystical prophet foretelling of doom (granted, most don’t take doom-sayers too seriously, though most also can’t morph into a raven). The Undead are basically the bad guys as the demonic Burning Legion has turned its attention to the scourge following its repeated failures via the Orcs. And speaking of the Orcs, they found themselves defeated and enslaved following the events of Warcraft II and the young War Chief Thrall (remember him?) hopes to restore honor to the horde. The Night Elves are the most mysterious of the new characters. They were the ancient victors over the Burning Legion once before and have largely lived an immortal life of peace since, but when war between the other three arrives on their shores they’re forced to intervene and overcome their own prejudices towards outlanders.
Some of the mechanics have changed, but the game is largely still about creating a base, training an army, and kicking some butt.
The campaign is quite dense and gives the player a taste of each of the playable factions. Of the four, the Humans are the most “vanilla” in that they’re largely as before. Their alliance with the elves has mostly ended which means swapping out the old Elven Archer unit for a Dwarven Rifleman, but the change is basically cosmetic. They really only gained the ability to convert the Peasants to a militia when needed. They’re still fundamentally weak, but I’ll admit that the militia function has saved my ass on more than one occasion. Otherwise, the basic mechanics of Warcraft remain unchanged. The player has a town hall where their base begins and the worker units are tasked with harvesting resources and building additional buildings which are then utilized to train an army. Warcraft III dropped the naval battles of its predecessor so the only resources to manage are gold, lumber, and food, which is supplied via the buildable farms up to a maximum of 90. The Peasants still harvest gold via a mine and chop down lumber for wood. When building a new building, the Peasant charged with the task is tied down to it until done, but others can join-in and help which speeds up the process.
Blizzard included a handful of CGi rendered cut scenes to advance the story. In 2002 these looked incredible, but show their age in 2022.
For their part, the Orcs received only minimal changes. The ability to have multiple workers speed-up production on a building is now exclusive to the Humans, so they can no longer do that. Instead, their farms are now burrows which the Peons, the workers of the Orcs, can now inhabit turning them into defensive structures as they toss spears from within. Their buildings can also be upgraded to spiked buildings which damage other melee units when struck and their watchtowers can no longer be upgraded to canon towers. On the unit front, the Orcs are no longer allied with goblins and ogres, but still retain a few troll units in the ranged attacking Headhunter and the Witch Doctor, who provides a way for the Orcs to heal their units, another thing previously available only to the Humans. They also no longer hold dominion over dragons, instead trading down for Wyverns. They’re fundamentally still a powerful faction as, one on one, the Orc Grunt is the most powerful base melee unit and the Tauren pack the most punch out of all ground-based melee fighters.
The Undead borrow heavily from Blizzard’s other RTS game, StarCraft, as they feel like a combination of that game’s Protoss and Zerg. All Undead buildings must be constructed on diseased land known as blight, except for their main town hall. Gold is harvested by haunting a gold mine where Acolytes simply chant the gold into their coffers via some magical means. The Acolytes are unique in that the only resource they can harvest is gold as lumber is chopped down by the Ghouls, which double as the Undead’s base melee unit. The Ghouls are weak on their own, but fast, and a swarm of them can wreak havoc on opponents. They also can feast on corpses to regain health, and the Undead’s siege weapon, the Meat Wagon, can even store unused corpses for later consumption or reanimation. Buildings for the Undead are also summoned into existence and the Undead’s “farm,” the Ziggurat, can be upgraded into a defensive structure. As for the units, the Undead is where necromancy came to roost as the Necromancer can reanimate corpses as skeletons while the Banshee can possess other units so if you want a mighty Tauren on your side you need only send a Banshee at one.
For the most part though, the game relies on its gameplay engine for cut scenes to advance the story. It’s an okay approach and some character models translate better than others.
The other new faction, the Night Elves, are perhaps the game’s most unique. From a durability perspective, they’re probably the weakest of the four as their strength lies in ranged attacking and their females can even turn invisible at night. They also share a power over nature which takes the form of their buildings being living trees. When a gold mine runs out, the Night Elves need only uproot their Tree of Life and send it onto the next mine. There it will entangle it allowing the Wisps, the workers of the Night Elves, to inhabit and harvest gold sending it back through the roots of the tree. Each Wisp can also harvest lumber without damaging a tree simply by attaching itself to one. The trade-off here is the Wisp can’t attack, and in order to build one of the living trees a Wisp must use itself as a seed thus turning itself into the building the player desires. The base unit for the Night Elves is the Archer requiring a more tactical approach. It’s champion melee unit is the Druid of the Claw, which doubles as a spell-caster. In Night Elf form, the Druid of the Claw can cast regeneration and roar, which is similar to the Orc’s bloodlust, but it’s not a particularly powerful fighter. In order to realize that potential, the druid must transform into a bear. It gains a potent melee attack in doing so, but also loses its ability to cast spells. This element of trade-off is also seen in the Night Elves’ air unit, the Hippogryph. By itself, a Hippogryph can only attack other airborne units, but if it picks up an Archer it gains the ability to attack ground-based units as well. The trade-off is they can’t be separated once combined.
The campaign mode presents its story quite well, but from a gameplay perspective it almost feels like an introduction. By virtue of being up first, the higher points of the tech tree for the Humans is barely scratched. And even though the Night Elves come last, the campaign doesn’t even introduce their most powerful air unit, the Chimaera, reserving that for custom games only. The campaign also tends to grant a lot of access to one Hero unit per faction, while relegating others to a much smaller role, or in the case of the Undead Dreadlord, no player control at all.
Hero units are super-powered units with special abilities, many of which allow heroes to summon other units like the Archmage and its Water Elemental. NPCs, like the ogres here, are a valuable source of experience which is used to power-up a hero.
And speaking of Hero Units, that’s the biggest change of all! The Hero is basically a holdover from Warcraft III’s original vision. The Hero is a powerful and durable unit capable of earning experience as it battles through enemies which allow it to level up. Some past units have essentially been turned into heroes, such as the Paladin and Death Knight, and even their abilities are familiar to seasoned players. Heroes can also carry up to six items which can apply buffs to the hero or take the form of consumables. Most of these items are found by defeating powerful non-player characters which now dot most maps. Some of these NPCs are also familiar, like the Ogres and Troll Berserkers, and their presence is often needed to give players easy access to experience points in one-off games. During the campaigns, the story is told via these heroes and they’ll have level caps for each scenario and some of their abilities won’t be available until certain story conditions are met. In a non-campaign setting, players are free to choose from any of each faction’s three available heroes and even add a second and third, if they wish, though there is often a finite amount of experience available making a multi-hero approach sometimes counterproductive. Heroes are also effectively immortal as if they fall in battle the player can resurrect them, for a price, at a building specific to hero creation.
It’s the addition of the Hero that does give Warcraft III it’s unique flavor. Rather than depend on amassing a giant army composed of heavy-hitters, the game would prefer the player surround their hero with a small band of attackers and support units. Numerous quality of life improvements were made as well to the game over its predecessor. When selecting a group now, the player can tab between the units within that grouping providing easy access to spells and abilities. Some are also able to be set to auto-cast, so if you want your Necromancers continually raising skeletons it can be done. Mostly though, there’s a lot of variety in the play styles afforded by the player options. Previously, it felt like Blizzard tried to keep the two competing sides essentially even. Aside from an ability here and there, there wasn’t much distinguishing the Orcs and Humans before. Now, there’s quite a bit. The Orcs and Humans still feel like the most straight-forward. You can basically just grab a bunch of either group’s units and send them at the opponent with decent results. For Night Elves, that often leads to death as more micro-managing is involved. Especially early in the campaign when only Archers are available, it’s important to make sure all units are targeting the same enemy. Some micro-managing is beneficial for the Undead as well, but given that they’re designed to be able to cheaply overwhelm opponents with numbers, it’s not as crucial. Their mid-tier attacker, the spider-like Crypt Fiend, even can auto-cast web which brings down air units which makes it really easy to just send them at anyone. The Orcs have a similar unit in the Raider which can cast a net on flying units, but can’t be set to auto-cast. If you’re not paying attention, one Gryphon or Gargoyle can wipe out a group of Grunts and Raiders.
Warcraft III certainly shows its age in places, but on the whole, I still think it’s quite pleasant to look at.
Twenty years after its release, Warcraft III remains an engaging play even today, albeit a harder to access one. Blizzard supported the original release for years through Battle.Net, but shut down those servers when a remastered version of the game was released in 2020. It was not well-received as many features that were promised ended up getting cut and the performance was suspect. The original game was released in the era of Windows XP, which is how I recently replayed through the entire campaign. I happen to have an old laptop with XP that still works and I’m glad I hung onto it. It does mean I can’t play through Battle.Net any longer, which is something I did a lot in the summer of ’02. I never got good enough to consider myself great at it, but I won more than I lost. It could be a challenge to find a good game though as the Hero unit, with its might available right from the start, seemed to popularize the “Rush” technique even more in comparison to StarCraft. Rushing meant selling out to build as many low level units as possible to pair with a hero and win quickly, which was never the way I liked to play. It was far more fun to find a group that allowed players to mix and match strengths and weaknesses across factions or just in Hero usage, but the best way to do that was just to find a group of friends rather than toss the dice with randos online.
If you happen to disagree with my assessment of the game’s visuals, there is Warcraft III: Reforged which is essentially the same game with a new coat of paint. The reception has been mixed, but I haven’t played it so I can only recommend that anyone interested do their research first.
Sadly, Warcraft III marked the end for the franchise as an RTS experience. Announced before Warcraft III was released was World of Warcraft which took the franchise to the world of RPGs as Blizzard had intended, only now via the Massively Multiplier Online variety. WoW was, and still is, a huge success for Blizzard and the RTS version of Warcraft has seemingly become a victim of WoW‘s success. Blizzard now appears to view the brand as an MMO with StarCraft as the RTS brand and Diablo the dungeon-crawler. That said, it’s been ten years since the release of StarCraft II so maybe the RTS is just no longer a major part of what Blizzard wants to do. Now under the ownership of Microsoft, maybe there will be a push from Blizzard’s new boss to go back to its roots. Or maybe not, who can say? For me, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is the pinnacle for both the franchise and for Blizzard. None of the developer’s games have appealed to me like Warcraft III has since. It’s incredible to think that 20 years has nearly gone by since the game’s original release and just how much has changed since then. It’s also incredible to see how well this game holds up. Maybe we never got a Warcraft IV because this one simply can’t be topped? Even if that were true, it would still please me to see someone try. I have to believe even a subpar Warcraft IV would be worth playing, but for now, I’m glad I hung onto my copy of Warcraft III and a PC that can still run it.
My isn’t that title a mouthful? This version of the classic character Goku comes to you from Bandai via New York Comic Con. If I were to simplify that title, I’d call it shiny Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-Ken Goku, which is still pretty wordy. I guess blame Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama for the obsession of stacking different power-ups in what I feel is an intentional bit of word play that he likely finds amusing. And I do too! At any rate, this is the last of the convention exclusives I ordered in 2021. All of the other ones, including other Dragon Ball related figures in Nappa, Goku, and Beerus, came from the world famous San Diego Comic Con. Well, that con didn’t actually happen in 2021 as it was virtual due to COVID once again. One of the few big cons to actually take place ended up being New York Comic Con, and while that one tends to be smaller than San Diego, some companies still like to issue event exclusives for it and that’s where this figure comes from. Bandai, in partnership with Bluefin Brands, made this version of Goku available at the event, but also made it available online for folks like me who weren’t going to journey to New York just to get a Goku. It meant a longer wait, but all things considered, this is one of the shorter waits I’ve have to endure in recent memory.
This box feels gigantic relative to other figures in the line, and with good reason.
This version of Goku hails from Dragon Ball Super and one of its first, major, arcs. The first two arcs of the show were adaptations of Dragon Ball Z movies, so this era is where Super really felt like its own thing to me. And it was just some tournament that was a bit of a friendly organized by two gods who happen to be brothers and share a rivalry. It introduced some new characters, most notably Hit, and it was during a fight with Hit that Goku dusted off his old Kaio-Ken technique. You remember that one, right? Kaio-Ken was all the rage for about five minutes when Goku took on Vegeta, but it was basically dropped after that. Yeah, technically, Goku used it against Frieza later on, but it was basically as a means to dismiss the technique which would essentially be replaced with the Super Saiyan transformation. It made Kaio-Ken one of those things fans had fun speculating on, “What would using Kaio-Ken as a Super Saiyan do for Goku?!” but the show was done with it.
Pissed off Goku.
If you need a primer on the form, it’s basically a technique that temporarily heightens Goku’s speed and power as a multiplier. He did it multiples of 2 and 3 against Vegeta, but would go up to 10 later. In Super, Goku turns to it after his Super Saiyan Blue transformation as the ultimate showing of his power at that moment in the series, though it’s not referenced much after. It does look cool though as Kaio-Ken by itself has a red aura, and combine that with the Blue transformation and you get a blue-purple look. It certainly made sense to explore the mode in figure form, and that’s what Bandai and Tamashii Nations did. And this being an event exclusive, they added some shine as well.
I love that shade of blue used for the eyebrows, so much so that I’d like to see other versions of Super Saiyan Blue Goku (and Vegeta) just go with that for all of the hair.
This version of Goku is obviously similar to other versions of Goku in the SHF line. He stands at about 5.5″ to the top of his forehead and roughly 6.75″ to the top of the hair when at his tallest. He’s basically in-line with my Super Saiyan Blue Goku, but this is actually mostly a differently sculpt. I don’t have it, but if I had to guess, this figure shares most of its parts with the Ultra Instinct Sign Goku which depicted Goku from his battle with Jiren. His gi is rather tattered so it needed its own sculpt to capture that. The only pieces this figure can share with the other blue Goku is the head, neck, and arms, though even some of that needed modification. I don’t have either version of Ultra Instinct Goku so this figure has more of a “new” feeling to me than it would others. It was honestly something I hadn’t thought much about until I had the figure in-hand.
The paint is rather lively on this guy and you can see the almost glitter quality in the shirt here.
What’s going to sell this guy beyond the sculpt is the paint job. The sculpt is fairly nice and I like the rips in the pants and shirt. The finish on the paint is of a pearl quality. The navy shirt takes on a metallic purple as a result and it’s pretty cool to handle and see how the light plays on it. The hair is a semi-translucent plastic with a touch of purple air-brushing, by the looks of it, which gives it a nice effect. The flesh is more saturated than we’re used to seeing due to trying to emulate the Kaio-Ken red effect. Bandai did have to do a lot more color-matching than usual though because of all of the rips in the clothing. The results are a tad mixed. The exposed portion of the chest could stand to be a touch more saturated as I feel like some of the navy color is showing through. The left knee is colored plastic, but the upper and lower portions of the leg surrounding it are painted and it’s not a perfect match. It probably won’t bother most on a shelf, but in-hand it’s pretty noticeable especially when the knee is bent all the way. This finish is also very glossy and gives the figure almost an enamel finish. It also has a different feel than most figures in the line. The plastic feels thicker and since almost everything has this finish applied it has a slippery feeling. That’s not a criticism, just an observation. Aside from the color-matching issues, my only real criticism for the paint is that I wish there was something applied to the torn parts such as a darkening to the interior parts of his pants. I just think it would help that part “pop” a bit more.
I can’t really complain because we get the aura effect with this figure, but we’ll never have enough Kamehameha effects.
The sculpt for this guy is overall pretty good. I already mentioned how the torn pieces of the gi look nice, and we get the usual musculature for Goku that other figures have. This one changes things up with some battle damage in the form of scuffs sculpted into portions of the arms, legs, and chest. I’m torn on if I think Bandai should have added some black linework to those scuffs to bring them out more as they’re not going to show from the shelf. This figure is going for a glowing aura look, so perhaps it would not have made as much sense, though I feel like in those moments Goku’s battle damage becomes even more noticeable in the anime. I could be wrong, I haven’t watched any of these episodes in years. One thing that did surprise me a little is there’s more evidence of mold release on this figure than usual. That’s those rough portions of the figure where it was removed from the actual tools used to create it. There’s basically a full tab on the underside of my figure’s right shoulder that makes it look like it was from a model kit no one bothered to snip. This figure also has those sleeves that peg into the shoulder which I really don’t like. Almost every Goku has that so it’s nothing new, but I’ll continue to complain until they find a better solution. Another common complaint is Goku also could be beefier. From the front, he looks okay. I’d probably widen the chest a little, but it’s mostly a nitpick. From the side though he looks thin. His chest doesn’t push out at all. It’s odd and almost comical. It’s also more pronounced because he doesn’t have the vest to add a little bulk, but this is something all of the figures in this line could stand to improve on. Goku, especially a powered-up Goku, should be thick and buff.
My lingering piece of criticism for this line is that nearly every character could stand to have some added girth. Goku should have a more pronounced chest when viewing him from the side.
There was a lot of new for me to take-in with the sculpt and paint of this figure, but articulation? That’s pretty much standard. His head is on a tiny, double-ball peg with another ball in the base of the neck. Despite that, he can’t really look up, but can look down. His head feels a little loose, but it seems to be holding a pose all right. The shoulders are on the peg and hinge system with a butterfly joint. The butterfly is really limited, but they at least colored it properly so it’s not ugly, just not particularly functional. There’s a biceps swivel and double-jointed elbow which bends past 90 degrees. The hands are on the usual ball pegs. In the diaphragm, we have the ball-hinge system so you can pull up on the figure if need be. It doesn’t really do a lot though as the figure can’t really crunch forward no matter what you do with the hinge, but he can bend back a little. Mostly, this joint just gives you some swivel and a little tilt, but you have to be mindful of paint rub. At the waist, you can swivel and the belt and rags is a floating piece. At the hips, Goku can almost do a split, kick forward, and kick backwards because he doesn’t have sculpted buns. There’s a little twist there too, and then your usual double-jointed knees below. The knee on the right has a bit more range backwards because it’s a standard, clothed, joint while the exposed left knee has reduced range, but still goes beyond 90 degrees. The ankles are on ball pegs and have the usual range for Goku’s boot design. It goes forward a little, back a fair amount, decent ankle rocker, and a lousy toe hinge. All of the joints are fairly smooth and required no break-in period, so that is always appreciated.
I can see people being against translucent plastic for Super Saiyan hair, but I do think this figure draws attention to how bland the approach to the hair was for the standard release. Granted, the figure on the left retails for only 30 bucks.
The other unique aspect to this release comes with the accessories and packaging. The optional hands and expressions are fairly standard. We get a stern look, scream, smirk, and a teeth-gritting expression. All of the faces are well painted and I love the shade of blue used for the eyebrows. I wish that was the standard shade of blue for this form of Goku. For hands, we get a set of fists, martial arts pose hands, Kamehameha hands, and wide open “Solar Flare” hands. For a box, he comes in this oversized standard box with the usual event exclusive coloring. It’s oversized because this Goku comes with an aura effect! That’s certainly unusual, and also why this guy cost $60 instead of $50, but it’s worth it. I love effect pieces and for this particular form it’s needed. It’s the standard aura piece, of which I have a yellow version already, and it comes in three pieces: a rear blast and two side pieces. It’s cast in translucent plastic with red at the edge and blue on the inside. The plastic is soft and and partially hollow. The only thing I don’t like is the translucent nature of the plastic means more of the seems are visible, especially towards the bottom of the center piece. It’ll get the job done though, and I hope it doesn’t get that sticky residue my other aura piece has acquired over the years.
If you like what you see then this figure is a worthy addition to the Super collection. If you’re someone who never cared about this version of Goku then you’ll probably be content to skip it.
This version of Goku is another good selection by Bandai when it comes to event exclusives. Not everyone needs a version of Goku so specific to one look from the show that doesn’t show up much, and the paint application is something that will appeal to some more than others. I thought this figure looked great in the promotional shots, so when Bandai made it available online I said “Why not?” The actual figure in hand pretty much lives up to my expectations. It’s eye-catching and fun and I love adding another aura, even if this one is really specific to this version of Goku. My guess is that most people who bought this are happy with it. I don’t think it’s good enough to win anybody over who didn’t see a spot for this in their collection, but those who want it should be content. Since it was an event exclusive, it’s currently sold out at MSRP so only secondary options are available. This strikes me as the type of release that might be high right now, but could come down in time as it is a bit niche. If you missed out and are having second thoughts, just keep an eye out. Who knows? Maybe a good deal will come around sooner or later.
The Nostalgia Spot 