Tag Archives: brian flynn

April 4, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

By Joe
Bartman! The figure you want?

When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022). I don’t know what the deal was, but for whatever reason The Simpsons got really backed up at Super7. Some of it was probably due to the licensor in Disney which we know forced the company to remove a cigarette smoking head from the Krusty figure. My understanding is the head was approved by The Simpsons team at 20th Century Television, but once it got to Disney it had to go. They have a strict no smoking policy when it comes to merchandise and while it was disappointing, I get it. Did that one alteration cause this line to get so severely delayed? Maybe, because waves 3 and 4 shipped right behind it. Unfortunately, there were more issues.

He’s a little guy.

Super7’s co-founder Brian Flynn announced in an interview on the Robo Don’t Know YouTube channel earlier this year that Simpsons (and their relationship with Disney) was dead. He didn’t elaborate except to say that the two companies didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Disney didn’t “get it” when it came to the Super7 business model. And maybe that’s because no one can figure that out? I thought about making a post about that interview here and the line’s cancellation, but realized it would just be a rant and I don’t really do rants. Super7’s approach to The Simpsons has been asinine. I’ve been a defender of the episode-specific approach of the company’s figures, but I’m also not dense. I can see all over social media and on YouTube the response to the line which has been “Where’s the regular family?” In that very same interview the line was announced as cancelled, Flynn talks about the importance of heavy hitters and recognizable characters to a wave of action figures. The reference is to ThunderCats, but for whatever reason that logic wasn’t applied to The Simpsons. Super7 figured that out way too late because they revealed a fifth wave which was going to include Marge (with Maggie), Lisa, and Groundskeeper Wily all in their normal, everyday, attire. Too little, too late, because the line is ending with the fourth wave.

Bartman is in some respects an action figure I really like. It’s pretty well made and looks like the character it’s supposed to. It’s also a terrific encapsulation for why this line is a failure. Before we get into that, let’s just talk about Bartman the action figure. It comes in the standard Ultimates! box with cloud-covered slipcover with an image of Bartman on the back and a note on which episode he first appeared in. Removing the slipcover reveals the figure inside behind a window box. These slipcovers are supposed to be going away soon, but at least it’s uniform for now with the first wave of The Simpsons.

Does he scale with Poochie? I have no idea, but this is what the two look like together.

Out of the box, Bartman stands at approximately four and a half inches. This puts the top of his spiky hair right at about chest level when compared with wave one’s Deep Space Homer. Bartman is probably a little too big for perfect scale, but it seems okay enough. As this is Bartman, it’s Bart Simpson with a cape and cowl mimicking Batman. This was mostly a licensing thing back in the early 90s, but Bartman did appear in the Season Three episode “Three Men and a Comic Book” which is where most of the inspiration for this figure comes from. The cowl is part of the sculpt and painted a dark purple. The shirt is Bart’s traditional orange which is in keeping with the episode, though most Bartman depictions outside of the show featured a light blue shirt. That would have made for an obvious variant, but I’m guessing that’s not going to happen now. Bartman has his blue shorts and blue sneakers and most of the figure appears to be colored plastic, but with a matte finish to reduce that shiny, plastic, look. The yellow parts of the limbs lack that finish, unfortunately, but it stands out less with a small figure.

From what I’ve been able to ascertain, this smiling head is not supposed to feature a side-eyed glance.

The paint on the head is pretty crisp. There will likely be minor imperfections around the eyes of most figures, but nothing egregious. Unfortunately, the pupils on mine are not aligned properly giving him a side-eye portrait. This appears to be uncommon based on images I’ve seen online. The cowl helps lessen the need for more of an outline on those eyes, something I felt Homer and Moe from wave one would have benefitted from. His default portrait features a toothy smile and it looks fine. There’s no black linework on his teeth, but that might have been overkill if present. Bartman does feature a cape, but for some reason it’s blue. His cape and cowl should match, and I don’t know if the shade of the cowl is even the right purple, but it’s close enough to the show. It also has a bow on it for some reason, which also doesn’t match the show. The bow matches the licensing art, but the shirt doesn’t – pick a lane, Super7! Bartman features a utility belt and I think it came from a video game. For a second, I thought it might be from “The Homer They Fall,” but that episode features a completely different belt. It’s thankfully easily removable and just slides right off the figure. The factory also missed (or whoever approved the paint sample missed it) the white circles on the inner half of Bart’s shoes. The circle is sculpted on his feet, but they were left blue like the rest of the foot.

This portrait is an odd choice.
Bart definitely needs his trusty slingshot.

Bartman comes with a whole bunch of accessories from that episode I mentioned earlier. He has four sets of hands: fists, relaxed, style posed, gripping. He also has a ninth hand clutching a wad of money. For head portraits, we get two extra: stoic and worried. The stoic head is bizarre in that his mouth is in a smile position, but his eyelids are partially closed. I don’t know what Super7 was going for, he just looks high. The worried look is fine and it pairs well with another accessory, or if paired with the money hand it can make him look desperate to purchase Radioactive Man number 1, but why no angry portrait? Most Bartman images feature an angry, or determined, expression and that’s even true of a lot of the episode. Hell, just look at the reference art on the damn box. It’s an odd omission.

Bartman can’t fly, so he kind of needs a skateboard to get around.
I’m so glad he comes with his trusty…bird’s nest?

For the rest of the stuff, we get Bart’s green skateboard. It features working wheels and has the familiar orange stripe down the center and a single peg for one of Bart’s feet. There’s the issue of Radioactive Man number 1 and the printing of the cover looks okay. It’s not a perfect recreation, and the back is blank, but it’s okay. There’s a bird’s nest which features a lone, white, bird and the remnants of the comic inside it. It’s an impressive paint job, but what the hell am I going to do with this? Bartman also has his trusty slingshot. He doesn’t have a back pocket to store it in, but it’s sculpted like it’s being drawn and the figure can do an okay job of simulating such a pose. Lastly, we get Santa’s Little Helper with Radioactive Man number 1 in his maw. The front legs and head swivel so it’s not a slug figure and overall he looks good. I wish he had an action pose head simulating him shaking it back and forth like how we see swirling effects for characters that have weapons they swing (think Thor’s hammer accessory from Hasbro, or Michelangelo’s whirling nunchaku effect) in circular motions. Or just a regular Santa’s Little Helper head to swap, but that would make too much sense.

At least Santa’s Little Helper is a nice inclusion.

The articulation for Bartman is nothing we haven’t seen before. A double ball-pegged head lets him look around reasonably well with little room to look up and down. Ball-hinged shoulders let his arms rotate and go out to the side while the single jointed elbows swivel and bend about ninety degrees. Wrists rotate and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal in nature. There’s a ball joint at the waist for swivel and some tilt, though the t-shirt restricts a lot of that. The legs won’t go out to the side for full splits or kick forward all the way, but the range is probably enough for Bartman. The knees bend less than ninety degrees and the ankles feature hinges with limited range and acceptable ankle rockers. The cape is wired, so it has some pose-ability as well. It’s not big enough to do anything crazy, but it will work to simulate motion if you put Bartman on his skateboard or in a flight stand.

“Umm, Krusty? Your robe is open…”

Objectively speaking, this is a solid action figure. It moves well enough and it looks pretty good, though some of the flaws feel inexcusable at this price range. As a Simpsons fan though, I am so annoyed by this release. The cape is the wrong color and has a stupid bow on it that shouldn’t be there. The belt is useless and not from the episode this figure is drawing inspiration from and it along with the bird’s nest could have been scrapped for something better. How about, oh I don’t know, a plain Bart Simpson head?! Would that have been so hard? And if you’re thinking of painting one of the existing heads, the cowl is part of the sculpt and it will look awful if you were to do that. We don’t even get the most suitable Bartman portrait nor do we get a normal Santa’s Little Helper. Super7 went out of their way to deny us a regular Bart figure with a bunch of useless junk in the box and then they go on YouTube and act surprised that sales weren’t as good as they expected and can’t understand why Disney won’t just let them do what they want. I don’t normally do this, but whoever was in charge of this line at Super7 should be demoted or outright fired. It is the most asinine, stubborn, absurd approach to marketing a toy line that I have ever seen. At some point during these years of development Super7 could have added a Bart head to the package. “We hear you, we screwed up, here’s the thing you’re asking for,” but instead they dug in their heals, didn’t even bother putting a Simpson in Wave 3, stuck another Homer variant in Wave 4, then threw their hands in the air when it all went to shit.

“Finally, Radioactive Man #1 is mine.”

If you want a Bartman figure, this is fine. If the imperfections are going to ruin it for you, then by all means give it a pass. And if you’re on the fence, considering that the line is dead you will probably save yourself some money if you wait. I preordered all of Wave Two from Super7 directly as a show of good faith and to tell them I want more Simpsons. How did that work out for me?

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Deep Space Homer

Slowly but surely I am clearing out all of the action figure preorders I placed in the year 2021. Of the ones that had been remaining, the line I was most looking forward to experiencing was the line of Super7 Ultimates! based on The Simpsons. It was August of 2021 when these suckers went up…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Moe

Our first two looks at the inaugural wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons have been two very episode specific takes. One was Deep Space Homer from the episode of the same name where Homer went to space and the figure presents the character in his space suit. The second figure was Poochie,…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Robot Itchy & Scratchy

We’re back with the fourth, and final, review of the inaugural wave of Super7 Ultimates! from The Simpsons. And today, you’re getting a two for one as we’re looking at two figures: Robot Itchy and Robot Scratchy. This pair hails from the Season 6 episode “Itchy & Scratchy Land” which was one part Westworld and…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 28, 2022

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Prince John

By Joe
“Too late to be known as John the first, he’s sure to be known as John the worst!”

Our third and final figure of the inaugural wave of Disney Ultimates! from Super7 is the most surprising of the bunch: Prince John, the phony King of England! Super7 often surprises with its deep cuts, and Prince John certainly fits the bill. While it’s hard to argue much from Disney could be considered a true deep cut, it’s certainly surprising to see the villain of Robin Hood in the first wave of the line without the film’s protagonist. This supposedly caused some confusion in the Disney fanbase which had little familiarity with Super7 prompting founder Brian Flynn to take to the internet to assure the fans that Robin Hood himself was coming, he’s just not in Wave One. Prince John is apparently Flynn’s pick and it’s a character he has a lot of affection for and when you run your own toy company you get to do stuff like put Prince John into the first wave of Disney figures. As someone who grew up watching the film over and over, I can’t say I’m disappointed to see the prince so early.

He certainly fills out more of the window than Mickey and Pinocchio.

Prince John stands a full seven inches making him, by far, the largest figure in the first wave. He absolutely dwarfs Mickey and towers over Pinocchio. I suppose that’s appropriate considering he’s a lion and all, but it will be interesting to see how he scales with the upcoming Robin Hood. Prince John, or PJ, is not particularly big in the film. Robin is pretty close in size while Little Jon and the Sheriff look down on him. That’s an issue for another day, for now, he looks great at this scale and his big, soft goods, robe is particularly lovely. What’s not, and stop me if you’ve heard this criticism before, is the lack of paint. The body of PJ is cast in a yellowish plastic and with no shading or embellishments I can’t help but feel that it looks an awful lot like those Lion King toys from the 90s. Those things were probably five bucks at Toys R’ Us, but this is a $45 collectible and it just needs something more. Beyond that feeling, the head looks nice and his crown is painted well with gold paint and gems, but he’s missing his whiskers on all three heads. His hands feature the gemmed rings and his default expression is rather neutral. Beneath the robe is his soft, blue, gown (I guess that’s the proper term?) that’s all sculpted. Unfortunately, there’s already some color transfer from the robe to the gown and I don’t know if that’s likely to get worse or if it was mostly an issue of being confined to a box. Since the robe hides it, it’s not that great an issue, but hardly encouraging.

It’s a bit hard to photograph, but you can see some red on the under garment of John from the robe.

Excepting the feeling of a lack of paint, PJ really looks the part. That robe goes a long way in adding to that which is soft and just the right shade of red. The trim is more dense as the white is clean and the black dots within look nice. As was the case with Mickey, it’s also plenty big to allow the figure to move underneath it. Unlike Mickey, the robe doesn’t close with a belt, but it’s heavy enough that it basically closes on its own. Most importantly, it behaves as it does in the film and since it’s comically large on PJ it’s practically a character all on its own.

It is a bit odd how much of this character is just non-articulated torso. The hips begin way down at the bottom of the robe.
Where would John be without Sir Hiss?

And speaking of characters all their own, we have Sir Hiss! And not just one Sir Hiss, but two! The first features a smiling Hiss partially coiled up that can sit on a surface. He has a ball-hinge at the base of his neck so he can swivel and look up and down, but is otherwise non-articulated. He’s very well painted, and the likeness is quite possibly the best of any character in this first wave. The same can be said for the second Sir Hiss which is elongated and features a strangulation expression. This is for John to grip and it’s pretty damn funny and also a little surprising that Disney let them do this, but since it’s from the film and the violence is bad guy on bad guy I guess that made it okay. As much as I love these additions, I feel like we need a Sir Hiss accessory pack! Or more versions with other characters from the film. Flying Sir Hiss, drunk Hiss, scared Hiss – the possibilities are nearly endless!

He’s rather fond of admiring himself.
Hiss can also hold the mirror for his lord.

Aside from Hiss, PJ doesn’t come with much else. He does have his mother’s mirror, which has a slightly reflective, foil-like, sticker for the mirrored surface and the back of the mirror is well painted and sculpted. PJ can hold it with his lone, right, gripping hand or you can finagle it into the coils of Hiss. PJ has open hands in the package, but can swap to two different sets of fists: one with the gems in his rings, and one without from when Little Jon steals them. As for heads, we have two extra: angry John and a perplexed John where the crown is tipped forward covering his eyes. His neutral head has a removable crown which pegs into his ears, but the other two feature a permanently affixed crown. I do like the comedic one, but I feel like the angry one could have been embellished more. He gets really mad in the film where as this expression is more menacing than angry, and maybe that’s what they were going for? What’s missing though is plainly obvious: no thumb-sucking hand or expression! Considering how much Flynn seems to love the character, I am shocked that Super7 didn’t give us the pieces to recreate those scenes from the film. This line is called Ultimates because it’s supposed to represent the ultimate expression of the character, and how can you do Prince John without that?! Did they honestly prefer these portraits to that, or did they just find it too hard to get him to suck his thumb and tug his ear? Not only should we have gotten a proper thumb-sucking hand, but we should have got a second one with mud on it! It’s just baffling.

Don’t make him mad!
It feels like we won’t get many strangulation accessories in this line, so cherish this one.

The last thing we need to talk about with Prince John is also the least impressive: articulation. Same as it was with the other two figures in this line, PJ doesn’t move all that well. He has the same, bland, ball and socket for the head that lets him move in all directions, but without tremendous range. He can look up a bit as well as down, but there’s no reason for him not to have a double ball peg given the presence of the robe. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he can almost raise his arms out to the side, but more importantly, he can rotate just fine even with the robe. The elbows are tight and single-hinged with swivels and they’re somewhat buried in the sleeve of his undershirt or gown. They’re fine, and his hands rotate and hinge in-and-out. The torso features nothing, and bizarrely, Prince John is like a tube of plastic. His hips are way down there and I guess it makes sense considering he’s a lion. Though if he were to go on all fours his rear legs would be comically short. He can rotate at the waist at least with ball-hinge hips, single-hinged knees that swivel, and ankles that hinge and rock side-to-side. His knees are basically sculpted to always be bent so the range isn’t great and the ankles are definitely more loose than I’d like. He’s able to stand okay, though my kids running into the room where his shelf resides was enough to cause him to fall over so his ability to stand could be better. He also has a ball joint for his tail, but it doesn’t do much aside from just letting you control which side it trails off towards. It’s basically the same story though where there’s not a lot of articulation and some of what is there is just too loose. I really wish Super7 could at least figure out the loose issue as so many figures suffer from it.

This might be the most elaborate posing he can achieve.
This goofy head might be my favorite.

Overall, I do think Prince John turned out well enough when judged on what is actually there. The sculpt is solid, I like the robe, I just wish there was more paint and tighter joints. I don’t need him to do ninja kicks, but I do need him to stand. The color transfer issue is also concerning. Mostly, I can’t help but look at this guy and feel like Super7 really missed an opportunity to deliver a truly ultimate version of Prince John. Who else is going to make a Prince John figure? The lack of a thumb-sucking pose is a real bummer. Maybe they’ll come back to him when the cast of the film is a bit more fleshed out. They could do a throne that comes with the needed parts or maybe do a pajama version of the character or blue-robed variant. Do I want a variant of PJ? No, not really, but maybe I could do the throne. Considering they’ve already solicited thrones for other lines and they’re around $45 though, I’m a little less enthused about that prospect. Super7 tends to make things right when they get something so fundamentally wrong, and so I do feel like this may be one of those things. The fact that PJ is a favorite of Brian Flynn gives me a little more optimism. As released, Prince John is fine, but he could have been so much more.

Overall, PJ turned out pretty well, but he should have been better than that,

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