Tag Archives: beast kingdom

February 17, 2023

Beast Kingdom DAH-048 Space Jam: A New Legacy Bugs Bunny

By Joe
He may be the greatest cartoon star of all time, but Bugs Bunny is surprisingly underrepresented when it comes to the world of action figures.

When I became a dad for the first time it made me get reacquainted with children’s television. I’m guessing all new parents go through this where they watch shows with their little one and find a great many of them intolerable. Perhaps that’s too strong a word, but it did cause me to reflect on what I was watching at a young age. And some of that was the same, namely Sesame Street which is like a rite of passage in the US. I watched a lot of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood which basically has a sequel series in the form of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood which my kids watched a little of. There was also a lot of new stuff which didn’t click with me, because why would it? I’m not the intended audience, but it did have the affect of making me want to share the stuff I liked with my own children.

That temptation is essentially a form of nostalgia and it’s also big business. Go to any kid’s clothing retailer and you’ll find clothing with 80s and 90s properties that children today are not exposed to unless it’s through their parents. That stuff is for the parents to clad their children in. And it’s fine, having kids is pretty fun and that’s part of it. You also only get so many years to dress your kids as you want before they develop their own tastes. For me, I wanted to show my kids the old cartoons I grew up with. This may come as a shock, but I wasn’t in a rush to show them Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Why? Because that cartoon sucks. I may have loved it as a kid, but it’s very much a relic of it’s time and not meant to cross the generational divide. Cartoon shorts from animation’s golden age? That stuff had already stood the test of time and it was those cartoons that I made sure to seek out. I already had a pretty large collection of Disney shorts via the Walt Disney Treasures line, but a gap in my collection was definitely the stuff from Warner Bros. Part of that was they just didn’t release their shorts in a manner that appealed to me. I love what Disney did by releasing character specific collections arranged in chronological order. Instead, Warner did the Golden Collection as well as a handful of spotlight releases that were either character specific or themed in some way. There were a lot of repeat cartoons across releases and it was all quite cumbersome. I wanted those shorts though, so I went out and got all 6 volumes of the Golden Collection and introduced them to my kids when they had the capacity to follow along with them.

Beast Kingdom is really good at boxes. I’m not sure if I’d consider them particularly good at action figures.

Looney Tunes, the show that aired on Nickelodeon, was an early favorite of mine. It was usually the last kid’s programming of the night on Nickelodeon and it was often the show I watched after getting ready for bed. I loved those cartoons and I’m happy to say my kids share that affection. My daughter, in particular, became a pretty big fan of Bugs Bunny and she even carried around a stuffed Bugs for a solid year and a half or so with her when we went most places. When we went to Disney World in 2021, it wasn’t a Mickey or a Minnie head poking out of her carry-on but good ‘ole Bugs. Showing these cartoons to my kids was a way for me to get reacquainted with them too as most of these I had not watched in over twenty years and it was great. I always intended to review the Golden Collection for this blog, but found it just too cumbersome to do. There’s just so much content, some of it great, and some of it not so great. It also suffers in that these shorts were meant to preempt a movie and be consumed in small doses, but when you arrange an entire disc of Road Runner cartoons it gets really repetitive. The characters are still great though, and it’s a shame that Warner Bros has allowed their profile to slip (and more recently, have removed the post 1950 shorts from HBO Max). The Looney Tunes, as they’re commonly referred to now, were still pretty huge in the 90s which is why we got a film like Space Jam.

This Bugs Bunny is obviously from the new Space Jam movie and the quality of the soft goods is probably its best feature.

Warner seemed interested in reviving these characters, or maybe it was more that Lebron James wanted to match Michael Jordon in yet another way. Regardless, it lead to Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021 that just paired James with the same characters Jordan starred with back in 1994 only now it was less interesting. I saw the movie and was so entertained that I fell asleep. The original Space Jam is hardly what I would consider high art. Jordan is as wooden as a basketball court and the plot is pretty stupid, but the character animation holds up pretty well and it has its moments. It’s entertaining, and my kids love it. I don’t think they ever asked to watch the new one again. It tries too hard to find more of a heart at its center and falls on its face as a result. It’s also too long and the characters in 3D CG just lack the same charm that they possess in 2D. The only good thing I can say about it is it lead to new toys. The Looney Tunes are severely underrepresented in the world of toys and collectibles. The best ones might be the McDonald’s super hero toys featuring Bugs, Daffy, Petunia, and Taz with snap-on DC super hero costumes. DC Direct also had a line of more diorama styled toys a few years ago that were pretty neat for what they were. The toys that showed up at big box retailers for the new film though weren’t of any interest to me, but I was hoping we might get something flashier in the collector realm.

The paint applications aren’t exactly pristine and Beast Kingdom seemed to have a hard time matching the paint on the face to the paint used on the rear. Remember, this is an 80 dollar figure.

Enter Beast Kingdom, holders of many licenses and makers of interesting toys. I’ve looked at one Beast Kingdom figure in the past, a Donald Duck figure from their Dynamic Action Hero line, and found it to be…okay? It presents pretty well, but the quality did not really justify the cost. Beast Kingdom is very good at the presentation of collectibles, but at the expense of the actual figure inside the fancy box. I question if they price their figures at a certain level to add prestige because it doesn’t look like the construction of the figure inside justifies it. At any rate, the experience was positive enough that I was willing to give them another look when they unveiled a Bugs Bunny from Space Jam: A New Legacy. Now, I personally just want a Bugs Bunny figure as seen in the classic shorts. I’d love a line of the character with various artists’ interpretations, but I was willing to settle for this one because the basketball uniform was done with soft goods that could be removed. The sculpt is still Space Jam, but I think the model is also pretty stock for Bugs. I just wasn’t in love with the price which was $80, so I waited. Once I could get it for almost half off did I finally roll the dice and now I can tell you all about the experience.

The neck on my figure won’t stay together leading to a very floppy head and shoulders situation when it comes to posing.

Bugs Bunny arrived in his fancy box, as expected. It’s very glossy and a pain to photograph, but it’s very much themed to match the film the character is taken from. On the front, we get a shot of the figure that’s probably a digital render and on the side is some artwork. It’s a fairly thick cardstock that lifts off of the box like a board game box. Inside is another image of Bugs on a slip cover that just lifts off to reveal a tray underneath that contains the figure and all of its accessories. Behind the tray is where they hid the figure stand. The tray is black with a clear cover that’s taped down. Once you get that off you can finally get at the figure. Immediately upon lifting Bugs out of his plastic coffin his left leg fell off so we weren’t off to a great start. His tail and feet are wrapped in plastic and it’s kind of a pain to get off. I assumed they were worried about plastic transfer or something, but once I got the plastic off I realized they were bagged because those parts are flocked – interesting.

The flocked tail and feet are certainly a choice.

Once out and de-plasticked, Bugs stands at approximately 6.25″ to the top of his head and nearly 8.75″ to the top of his tallest ears. He’s in his own scale, and even though it’s not the same license, I thought he would scale a bit with the Donald Duck I have, but it’s not even close. No matter, since I envision him being displayed solo, but that might bother some folks. Bugs is mostly colored plastic. The gray on his head, the pink of his nose, and the black for his pupils and inner mouth make up the bulk of the paint on the figure. Even though it’s not much, it’s not especially clean. The gray around the eyes doesn’t quite reach the edge of the white portions and it’s off enough that it’s visible from afar. It’s also noticeably darker than the gray paint on the back of his head which is awfully distracting. The pink inside the ears has the same issue and one can see why Beast Kingdom avoids painting its figures since it kind of sucks at doing it. I’m also not a fan of just painting the inner mouth black. There should at least be a tongue, and most images of Bugs would paint the inner mouth a dark red. The white portions are also begging for some paint too since the buck teeth get lost in the white fur. At least a black outline, or a black line down the center, would solve that. He has dimples for his whiskers, but since they’re not outlined you’d never know they’re there. Oh and speaking of, he’s also missing his whiskers! Maybe they weren’t in the movie? They’re on the artwork so that’s a bit bizarre. The flocked feet strike me as an attempt to make the figure better resemble the 3D model in the film. It works, but it’s really odd that they only did it on the feet. It’s just as odd with the tail, but since it’s on the back of the figure I don’t care as much, but the feet look silly.

This expression, including the posing of the ears, is pretty much lifted directly from the movie.

For a largely unpainted figure, I will say that the plastic doesn’t have an overtly shiny appearance. The hands feel like a soft vinyl so they don’t reflect the light as much as the white on the face. The eyes and the mouth are the only real shiny areas which will vary from face to face and we’ll talk about in the accessory section. Where Beast Kingdom seems to spend the most money is on the soft goods. The basketball jersey is textured like an actual jersey and the printing is very clean. It’s not a decal and the stitching is really well done. I mentioned I have no plans to display the figure with the jersey on, but it’s done so well that it did make me reconsider. If it was the Space Jam jersey of my youth, I may have given in, but I just have no affection for this one. It’s not as loose-fitting as the jersey appears to be in the film and I’m actually surprised it’s not very stretchy. Getting it off will require removing the figure’s arms, which shouldn’t be hard since the right arm fell off shortly after the left leg when I initially picked the figure up, and I’ll likely have to remove the head. Getting the trunks over the tail will likely be the hardest part of the process. His belly is painted white underneath, about as well as the face and ears, and there’s no other sculpting. He can definitely be displayed naked, and I’m surprised that Beast Kingdom didn’t make it easier to get the jersey off without cutting it.

This is about as close to a “What’s up, doc?” face as you’re going to get from this one.

The look of the figure is certainly a mixed bag. The paint is poor and the flocked feet bizarre, and then there’s also the face. It’s definitely based on the film, but it’s like a low detail version. I can’t fault a figure based on the new Space Jam movie for looking like its source, but it could be better at actually looking like the source. Mostly though, the figure just feels cheap. Really cheap. The shoulders are very loose and floppy and it seems part of the problem is the torso isn’t held together very well. It keeps splitting at the neck, which makes the head extremely floppy. I have to keep pinching it to get the head to stay in place, but manipulating the figure causes the joints to get loose once more. The only fix would be to try to glue the piece together, but I’d be afraid of the glue seeping out or getting into a joint and screwing it up there. This is absolutely not a premium collectible despite its price.

Naked, as nature intended.

We may as well go right into the articulation since it plays into the looseness. The head is on a single ball peg and he can rotate, look up, look down, and gets some nice nuance posing. Manipulating it will loosen the neck and create a bobble head, but pinching the neck back together solves that to a point, but the gap never stays closed so it’s going to get loose again real quick. The shoulders are on a hinged ball peg so they can raise out to the side a touch past horizontal and get a little forward and back movement at the ball. The bicep pegs into another ball hinge at the elbow which in turn pegs into the forearm. This gives the figure a swivel point above and below the ball-joint plus a bend at the elbow that goes past 90 degrees. It functions well, and it’s at least nice and tight, but ball elbows are the type of joint that look a bit unsightly to me when the arm is out straight. When the elbow is bent it looks fine. The wrists are on another ball-hinge so they rotate and move up and down on that hinge and they work fine. There’s no articulation in the torso at all or at the waist. Our next point is at the hips which uses another ball and socket joint like the shoulder. Bugs can kick forward almost to horizontal and he kicks back a little. Bugs can’t do splits, but his legs go out to the side past 45 degrees. The knees are just like the elbows, so we get rotation above and below and a bend that goes past 90. The ankles are the same setup as the wrists but with a forward-facing pin for an ankle rocker. The hinge goes forward pretty far, but they cut the shin at an angle so the range back isn’t as far as it should be. The rocker works fine. The tail is the last spot and it just swivels.

He sort of looks like classic Bugs. Right?

Bugs moves well enough for the source material. He’s easy to stand since his feet are so large and most of the joints are plenty tight. It’s the shoulders and head that are loose and a pain to pose as a result. I’m a little surprised at the lack of posing for the ears, but since Beast Kingdom loves the ball-hinge joint I’m glad we don’t have ears on ball-hinges. Bugs works best going for basketball poses like running, jumping, and shooting. He struggles with more traditional Bugs Bunny poses as he can’t really get his hands onto his hips, and trying to do so means fighting with the loose shoulders. I would have loved to get him to lay down as he appears on top of the Warner logo in many a cartoon, but he really can’t do that either. He can basically stand and his big feet mean you can pose him on one foot with the other more relaxed, but he could be better. The lack of any articulation in the torso is a killer there. It’s surprising to me that they didn’t try something there since he’s intended to wear clothes, but at least the solid torso means he has a cleaner appearance when not in the costume.

It looks like Beast Kingdom may have initially planned on the eyes being swappable, but these things don’t budge and the feature isn’t advertised or mentioned in the instructions. Bummer.

For accessories, Bugs has a spread of hands and faceplates to go with a couple of props. For faces, Bugs gets three portraits: smile, worried, and carrot chomping. Interestingly, it looks like the eyes were going to be removable as they just slide over some pegs, but they’re totally fused. My guess is it wasn’t working in the testing phase so they just cut that feature. There’s zero looseness so I don’t think they could be removed now, but it would have been nice as he has wide open eyes, upward looking eyes, and partially closed eyes. The gray on the faces are all painted poorly, but at least the eyelids look fine. Every face has the same issue with the gray on the face being slightly darker than the gray painted onto the head of the figure which is distracting when viewing the figure from the side or when his head is positioned at an angle. Both are white pieces painted gray so I don’t know how they messed that up. The worried face has a little extra pink paint for the gumline and that is surprisingly sharply painted. The bare teeth though really draw attention to the lack of detail paint there. He needs some shading or something because the teeth are practically lost in the white fur. For hands, Bugs comes with a set of fists, open hands, and a set of hands that are open and slightly curved for palming a basketball. There’s also an additional left, gripping, hand with the pinky finger raised for holding a carrot. For ears, we get two relatively straight-up ears that have a gentle curve to them as well as a right ear bent past 90s degrees and a left ear with a less severe bend to it. The hands slide off and on the wrist pegs fairly easily and the ears key-in to the head in designated spots making it virtually impossible to mix-up the right and left ears. The faceplates are also easy enough to swap and they stay on just fine as well.

Even Jordan can’t fly like this.

As for props, Bugs comes with his signature carrot. The tip has been bitten off and it has a long, green, leaf coming out of the back of it. It slides into the gripping hand easily and is the accessory likely to get the most use from me. I just wish the side-mouth carrot chomping head featured a puffed out cheek to simulate a mouthful of carrot. His signature accessory from the film is the silver basketball. It has a very shiny, silver, paint job and the lines on the ball are sculpted in and painted black. It’s done surprisingly well and it also has a magnet in one spot. The magnet goes with his palming hands which also feature magnets in them so he can effortlessly hold the ball. The last item included is a display stand. It is quite interesting. The base is translucent, blue, plastic with “Tune Squad” printed on the top and “Bugs Bunny” on the front. The actual arm that pegs in is black and it’s articulated like a wire. It’s coated in black plastic so it feels like an old payphone cord (how’s that for a dated reference?) only it holds its shape. It’s about 7.25″ tall and it holds whatever shape you want to put it into. It’s very different, but also quite useful. The hinged claw at the end can grasp the figure just fine and you can even try to get the clothing over it to better hide it. It’s plenty strong enough to support the figure, though the base is light so if you try to go too far forward it will tip. It’s primary function is probably to pose Bugs as if he’s going for a dunk and it works just fine for that. Too bad he lacks a hoop to really convey that action.

We need to get some shots for scale in here before we end this one since he’s such an oddball scale. On the left is Homer from Super7 and on the right we have a toon Shredder from NECA.

The accessory loadout is plenty good for a Bugs Bunny from Space Jam. He’s got a ball and a carrot plus some different expressions. As a more evergreen Bugs Bunny, it still works okay, though I think that version of Bugs would maybe have some gag effects and probably different expressions. A basketball hoop, even if it was just the backboard that could be stuck to a surface, is about the only thing missing. And if they insists on doing the flocked feet, I think they should have included a set of unflocked feet for those that didn’t care for the look. The feet don’t even look flocked in the promo images and it wasn’t a listed feature so I’m right to be surprised by the inclusion.

And in this one, we have a Marvel Legends Cyclops and a fellow rabbity thing in Max from Boss Fight Studio’s Sam and Max line.

Let’s cut to the chase: as an 80 dollar collectible figure this release from Beast Kingdom stinks. There’s no way the quality is there to support that price. Even at nearly half off, I still think the quality is suspect. This feels more like a $30 figure with issues that can be overlooked because it was only 30 bucks. At the $45 I paid, those problems can’t be dismissed as minor. And if I’m reviewing it at the $80 it was released at it’s junk. The looseness is aggravating and even ignoring that the figure just feels cheap. Even so, when you get him posed and on a shelf, the figure looks okay. For its source material, it looks good enough. I still think the flocked feet are dumb and just distract more than anything, but the soft goods are really well done and he’s plenty expressive. Especially if you want him in a basketball pose as the stand works well and the ball turned out great. As a more traditional Bugs, it’s fine, but represents a compromise. To most people who look at it, they’ll just recognize the character for what he is. For people who are bigger fans of Bugs Bunny and the classic shorts, they’ll probably be able to tell that this is a Space Jam release trying to get by as a Golden Age Bugs. If you’re okay with that and think the figure looks good enough for your display then I can tepidly recommend this figure for purchase provided it’s found at a deep discount. I’d say $40 is the absolute most one should consider, but even less is preferable especially if you’re like me and have no interest in the Space Jam branding. Otherwise, it’s just not worth it.

“And that’s the end!”

If you liked this post then maybe you will want to check out these ones as well:

Beast Kingdom Disney Dynamic 8ction Heroes Classic Donald Duck

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Lego 71030 Looney Tunes Minifigures

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

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Dec. 15 – Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales

Once upon a time, Bugs Bunny was a big enough star to land numerous television specials. He’s still a recognizable character across the world, but I sometimes feel as if Bugs isn’t as loved as he should be. I can’t recall the last time I saw him standing next to a Warner Bros. logo in…

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June 9, 2022

Beast Kingdom Disney Dynamic 8ction Heroes Classic Donald Duck

By Joe
Here’s Donnie!

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.

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February 26, 2021

Hero Cross HMF Donald Duck #006R

By Joe
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

I have coveted the Donald Duck figure from Hero Cross for a few years now. If you’re not familiar with the company, Hero Cross is a toy manufacturer based in Hong Kong that specializes in hybrid figures that utilize both plastic and metal. Their main line is called the Hybrid Metal Figuration series, or HMF for short. They have managed to accumulate a few different licenses for this line of figure, and one of those licenses happens to be Disney. For Disney, Hero Cross has mostly stuck with classic characters, but has also branched out to include Pixar. My main interest though lies in the ducks, and in particular, Donald.

Donald Duck, for as prolific a cartoon character as he is, doesn’t have a ton of action figures to turn to. The best ones are based on his appearance in Kingdom Hearts, but that’s not a franchise I have a ton of affection for. It’s fine, but my Donald is not a wizard. Phat Mojo did a Donald in its line of DuckTales action figures based on the relaunch of that series, but it was a short-lived line of figures and the company never got a chance to improve upon its initial offering. There is one in that Disney Infinity relic of a toyline that the Disney Store sells, but it’s not great. There was also a Donald action figures based on his appearance in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, but that was quite a long time ago now and that thing is lone gone. If you want a collector grade Donald Duck action figure right now, it’s basically Hero Cross or bust.

The size of the box relative to the size of the figure makes the toy seem huge!

Hero Cross first released a Donald Duck action figure in either 2016 or 2017. Being that it’s a Hong Kong import, a licensed product, and it includes metal components, it wasn’t cheap. I kind of found out about it late when my options were sketchy eBay listings or ordering direct from Hero Cross, but shipping was going to make the figure cost well over $100 at the time. I reluctantly passed, and that didn’t help matters as the figure was eventually retired from production and it only grew more expensive. Then last summer I was sitting on my couch watching TV late at night when a Twitter post from the podcast DuckTalks alerted me to the fact that Hero Cross was taking pre-orders for a new version of its Donald figure. Dubbed a V2.0, this Donald Duck was going to largely be the same as the one previously released, only now it was going to come with three unique heads and rather than sculpt his hat onto them, the hat would be removable and attach via a magnet. I kind of didn’t care about the changes, I was just psyched to have another chance at this figure and I pounced on it. The cost was around $60 for the figure, plus around $30 to ship it from Hong Kong, so it wasn’t much cheaper than what I had passed on previously, but this time I had buyer’s remorse. I had to pay upfront, and then wait.

The somewhat generic licensing art gets the most attention, but check out the comic art in the background!
The product shot on the side panel reveals a pose I’ll likely never achieve with my figure. Read on to find out why…

My Donald finally arrived in January of this year. The production cycle was a long one, but the shipping ended up being lightning quick since it was via FedEx Air. It left Hong Kong on a Thursday and was at my house in Massachusetts on the following Monday which is pretty incredible. Donald comes packaged in a simple, but effective, window box. It’s a royal blue with a Donald Duck logo done in orange. On the side of the packaging are product shots, one of which showcases Donald’s fancy new hat, and some licensing artwork on the back. It’s a no frills, but striking, box though it’s so small relative to the figure’s size that I don’t know how well it would display for a mint-in-box collector, but like most packaging these days, it’s pretty easy to reseal.

Check out the duck butt!

Donald Duck stands a little over 5 1/2″ tall. I was pretty surprised by how big he is. I kind of new how tall he was, but I also had avoided reviews and such because this line was completely new to me and I wanted the whole experience to reflect that. Not only is he a bit taller than I thought, he’s also just more substantial. I expected weight due to the metal, but he’s a thick duck. The metal parts appear to consist of the arms and legs. The head, hands, body, and feet are vinyl. It mixes pretty well, though the legs are definitely a lot shinier than the plastic feet. And with the metal there’s always a concern that paint will scratch or flake off and there is a tiny scratch in the knee joint on my figure’s left leg, but largely the paint looks pretty nice. Donald has a very round, smooth, head which is the biggest different from his initial release which featured an angry head that had some ruffled feathers. I obviously don’t have that figure, but based on images I’ve seen, that angry head is probably better than the rest so I kind of wish I had it, but it’s fine. This Donald does have an angry head too, but it’s smooth like the other two heads.

New for this version of Donald is a removable hat!

I think this Donald looks pretty nice, all things considered. I’m a little surprised with the sculpt of his shirt as the flap on the back of it is molded to the main part of the shirt. I would have expected it to be an actual flap and I think it would have looked better. Instead, it kind of reminds me of a Donald bath toy my kids used to have which was solid vinyl. He is depicted in the current licensing art colors, which as an old school Donald fan, is not my preference. That means he’s got a blue shirt and hat with gold buttons and trim and a red bowtie. I would have preferred a black bowtie, as that is what he usually wore in the classic shorts. I also would not have minded him in his comic black shirt. It’s not a big deal as this is definitely Donald Duck. The metal legs also do not hide the joints at all, so it is something you just have to get used to. It’s hard to argue with the end result though which is that this figure has a really strong base and he is not going to fall off of your shelf. The metal also gives him a high quality feel, which is necessary for a figure that retails for $60.

He can move, but can’t quite nail his classic hopping mad pose.

Being that Donald is a collector grade action figure, he features several points of articulation. Hero Cross totals it at 20 points, and it’s pretty substantial for a character with a unique body shape. Donald’s head sits on a simple ball pegs and it can move around quite well. He can look up, down, tilt, you name it. At least the default head (we’ll get to that). There is a joint at the base of the neck that provides a little more tilt, but it’s negligible. The shoulders are ball-jointed. He can raise his arms out to the side and rotate all around, but be aware of rub with the vinyl body. There’s a biceps swivel and a single hinge at the elbow allowing him to bend his arm 90 degrees. The hands are on pegs affixed to ball joints. There’s a hinge in there and they can rotate all around and tilt a bit in every direction. There’s a waist joint that appears to be a ball joint. It’s under the shirt and pretty generous, but again, I worry a little about the blue shirt rubbing the white vinyl lower body and leaving some smudges behind if manipulated a lot. The legs are a bit odd, since he is a duck, as they’re affixed via ball-joints, but they basically just swivel and tilt a little where the legs meet the body. There are single hinges and the feet are on ball-pegs so they can roll around all over the place. The metal gives him such a strong base that he can easily stand on one foot or simulate a walking pose as long as one foot is flat on a surface. He’s not terribly dynamic in his posing options, but that is more a limitation of the character’s shape than what Hero Cross did.

Donald can be happy, kind of mad, or very mad.

Donald comes with extra parts, but no real accessories aside form his hat. He has three heads: an open mouthed happy expression (default), a frowning expression, and a slight frown with his eyes looking left expression. Of the three, I definitely like the angry one the most as I think of Donald as just a grumpy, angry, character. Sadly, that head is the one that is the hardest to work with as the other two pop on and off with no issue, but the angry is super tight. Once on, it doesn’t really want to move much, but for a figure destined for a shelf it’s not a big deal. As for hands, Donald comes with a relaxed, open, left hand and a stiff, open, right hand (basically a hand wave). In the box are a pair of fists, a relaxed, open, right hand, and a pointing right hand. Missing is any kind of gripping hand, but in order to get those you had to get the box set release of Donald’s nephews. It’s a decent assortment that leaves room for improvement. A company like Bandai has taken to making the eyes swappable on its figures and that would be pretty neat with Donald. A more modular approach that allows eyes, bills, and such to swap is intriguing, but at least he doesn’t have any unsightly seams in his head. And Hero Cross is definitely going for as seamless an aesthetic as possible. The swappable hands make for some decent variety in the available poses, but there is a problem there that detracts from the figure.

Fuck.

And that’s they’re a pain to remove. And they’re such a pain, that mine broke not long after I opened it. I tried to remove the waving right hand he comes packaged with in favor of one of the others and it felt pretty snug. The head was easy to remove, and being that this just sits on a peg, I really wasn’t too concerned with breaking it. I applied consistent force, and tried wiggling it a little and the peg just came right off behind the ball joint of the wrist. The actual peg is really small as it’s basically a half-circle instead of a full one. My guess is they do it this way to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the the ball-joint in the wrist, but it’s pretty odd. Mostly though, I was super bummed, frustrated, angry, you name it, to finally get this figure only to have it break within a half hour. It feels like such a high quality item that it lulls you into a feeling like it couldn’t possibly break with normal interaction. Falling off a shelf is one thing, but trying to take advantage of a basic function? That surprised me. I honestly felt a little sick when it happened because I know how far this had to travel to get to me and how expensive it was just to ship it here, so I wasn’t expecting any help to come from Hero Cross. And if any did, I expected it to come at a cost.

Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!

Upon breaking, I reached out to Hero Cross via email and via a form on their website. No where could I find any information on quality control issues or refunds, so I wasn’t feeling too great about it. I reached out on Twitter and DuckTalks, the same podcast that brought this release to my attention, suggested messaging them on Facebook as that appears to be a place where they interact with their customers the most. Hero Cross did not respond to my initial email, but it did to the form I filled out online. After sending photos the correspondent told me they would check with the factory about a replacement arm. I didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks and reached out again, and they basically said the same thing as before. Then a day later I got an email saying they had good news: there were spare parts available in the factory and they would send me a new arm! They confirmed which arm I needed, my address, and sent along instructions for swapping it out.

This was the only pose that felt appropriate for the past month.

About two weeks after that, my new arm arrived in the mail via USPS. The arm is connected to the figure at the shoulder and held in place by a screw. It’s an interesting setup, but an easy one to work with without fear of breaking anything. Upon removing the screw, the shoulder comes apart as it’s two pieces of molded, painted, plastic. Once apart, the bicep can pop out and I swapped in the new arm that Hero Cross provided, replaced the plastic piece, and screwed it back together. Hero Cross sent an extra upper arm piece, but it was for a left arm. Maybe they anticipate people scratching or ruining that bit of plastic during the removal process, but I had no issues reusing the same one. They did not send a new hand, so I had to take the old hand and get the peg removed somehow. I basically just grabbed the ball it sits on with some pliers and tugged away. It was in there pretty snug and it was a pain, but I got it off. It helped that I didn’t have to worry about damaging the ball any longer. With Donald reassembled, he basically looks as he’s supposed to. After the reattachment though I’m left with a pretty loose biceps swivel. The screw feels snug so I don’t want to risk stripping it, but it could just be a case of the factory getting that in better than I can. It kind of sucks, but better than a broken hand.

It’s an odd construction as you can see the peg sits way up inside the hand. Worse though, only half the diameter of the peg is fused to the ball joint and that piece is expected to withstand the force of removing the hands many times over. The rear of the ball joint is fused to the peg in the arm in the same fashion. There’s no need for the hands to be so snug on a collectible intended for adults.

With the peg finally extricated from the hand I finally got a look at the thing. It’s long and sits way up inside the hand. It’s honestly a surprise to me that these breaking isn’t a common occurrence, but then again, I don’t know anyone who owns this particular figure so maybe it does break a lot? Even putting another hand on this new peg is a struggle, and you can probably tell in my post surgery photos of the figure that it’s not quite seated all the way. I’m basically afraid that once I get the hand on it won’t come off without breaking again.

Back together, so a reason to smile!

Given all of that, I have had no appetite to test the left hand. Hero Cross was kind enough to replace one defective piece, I don’t really want to test my luck with a second. And it is a credit to them that they stand by their product and are willing to send replacement parts across the Pacific at no cost to the consumer. I was heart-broken when my figure broke, so I’m happy to have that remedied. It doesn’t necessarily fix my confidence in the figure though. If a figure is designed to have a certain feature, that feature should function without a risk of breaking the figure. After my experience with the product out of the box and seeing how this hand joint is constructed, I can’t say I have any confidence in the feature working properly. I am at least happy that the swappable heads work all right, as that is more important to me than the hands. It also helps that this figure does not need to hold anything so the hands do not serve a function other than to change the pose. And while I definitely would like to have the freedom to do so, I can at least accept what I have here.

I can’t quite get that right hand to fully peg-on, but it will stay on, at least. And I don’t know that I want to seat it all the way as then I may never get it off again.
“Come here!”

What my experience with this figure did do for me is make me less likely to purchase more figures in the line. When I ordered this one, I was toying with the idea of adding the nephews and taking advantage of the gripping hand they come with, but now I’m less interested. And playing a role in that are new offerings on the way from other toy companies. Since placing an order for this figure, Super7 has launched a Disney Ultimates! line of figures. Only the first wave has been shown and it includes Mickey Mouse, Prince John, and Pinocchio. Their interest is in underserved characters (as far as collector grade action figures go) from the company’s animated films, so Donald Duck may not be a high priority for them right now, but he’s also insanely popular and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we get a Three Caballeros Donald or something. Beast Kingdom has also unveiled a Donald Duck figure in its Dynamic 8action Heroes line that looks rather promising. It features cloth goods instead of sculpted clothes and is something that is definitely on my radar. It doesn’t have a release date or a price, but the company is taking orders for a Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey and the MSRP is about $70, with a deluxe version at $100. Collecting Donald Duck figures isn’t going to get any cheaper any time soon, but it’s nice to have options.

“What are you smiling about?!”

Ultimately, I do not regret my purchase of the Hero Cross Donald Duck. The likeness is good and he certainly looks nice on a shelf. This figure probably won’t scale with any other lines, so that’s kind of a bummer, but also not a standard I think is fair to hold it to. I’m sure it scales fine with other Hero Cross HMF releases like Scrooge McDuck and the nephews. And there may come a day when I decide I do need to place him with some friends on a shelf, or maybe he’ll just be a featured piece in a more robust Donald Duck display (because, lets face it, I’m probably getting the Beast Kingdom figure and would definitely grab a Super7 one). This figure isn’t the ultimate Donald Duck figure that I wanted it to be, but it’s still worth having for a Donald Duck enthusiast like myself.

“I’ll get you, you little devil!”

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