Tag Archives: disney

October 10, 2024

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Homer and Bart

By Joe
Another company is taking a whack at The Simpsons.

I think it was early this year that we found out Super7’s line of ReAction and Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons was ending after just a couple of years. That meant Super7 was done after four waves of Ultimates! and four waves of ReAction figures. We had seen figures for a possible fifth wave and listings for another wave of ReAction figures, but they will never see the light of day. If you’re curious about my thoughts on that whole mess, check out my review of King Size Homer linked at the bottom of this entry. Safe to say, I was let down and really not surprised that Disney pulled the plug. Super7 took too long to bring figures to market and frustrated the fanbase with its character selection. And once the backlog was unleashed earlier this year, the quality took a nosedive as well which would have only further irritated Disney.

It is entirely my assumption that Disney ended the deal with Super7 largely over money in that they probably wanted more. They also apparently had another partner ready and willing to dive into The Simpsons in Jakks Pacific. Unlike Super7, Jakks is a company that specializes in low cost action figures and toys released at mass market retail. You have probably seen their figures based on various Super Mario Bros. licenses and Sonic the Hedgehog. The Simpsons is apparently their next mountain to climb and it’s possible that Jakks either wouldn’t do the deal with Disney or wasn’t willing to pay as much as Disney wanted without some kind of exclusivity over the license. For fans of the property, it basically just means we’ve swapped out one company for another. The approach of the two is very different and it remains to be seen what the finished product will look like for Jakks when it comes to selection, but for now we have a few figures we can look at and assess.

I don’t have any of the figures from Playmates, but I can show you how they scale with Super7 Ultimates!

The Jakks approach for The Simpsons is a lot like their video game figures in that there are basically two lines: a 2.5″ line and a 5″ line. I don’t actually know what the measurements of the smaller line are because I have yet to buy any. They are small though and minimally articulated. It looks like this line will be how Jakks gets play sets into market as there’s already a Homer and living room set. The 5″ line is the one I’m more interested in as it’s a more fully articulated line of figures. The 5″ scale also has the added benefit of fitting in with the old World of Springfield toy line from Playmates that existed in the early part of the century. There’s also a third tier, a deluxe line, that’s starting to come out. These figures will feature more paint and come with dioramas and special features. I’m not sure about that line at this time as the price is around $25 for those and I’m not seeing the value, but maybe I’ll change my mind. There’s also a talking Krusty doll (I have it, it’s great for what it is) and a roleplay item in the form of Moe’s telephone. I might have to get that too, but it’s very much a “toy” and something I don’t need (not like that ever stopped me).

And I can also show you how they scale with the Super7 ReAction line.

Wave One of the 5″ line contains four figures: Homer, Bart, Willie, and Otto. I have so far only managed to find the two Simpson boys, but I do hope to run into Willie and Otto at some point. The figures are sold in window boxes with the same licensing art across all of them. It’s fine and sturdy and if you’re an in-box collector the window is generous and provides for a good look at the figure inside. Each figure will retail for about $13 and it looks like the aim is to do a figure with at least one accessory. As a first wave, this seems like a solid approach to get two family members and two fairly prominent side characters. Otto was definitely more of a factor early in the show’s life, which I do kind of appreciate since it’s those long-time fans that are mostly likely to buy these. After Super7 failed to release any women in their main line though, I’m a little remiss that Jakks did the same. It looks like we won’t have to wait long though for such characters to arrive as Wave Two is set to include Lisa along with Krusty, Moe, and another Homer. I guess Marge will have to wait until the third wave.

The scale here is not great.

Homer and Bart follow a pretty similar approach. Homer is around 5″ tall while Bart is a tick under 4″. You will likely notice right away that the scale is pretty far off for the pair. Bart is way too big, but it’s basically the same scale as what Playmates did. Toy companies have a tendency to make the smallest characters in a property bigger than they should be while the largest characters tend to be smaller than they should be. In the case of Homer, I think his size is perfect. His proportions look pretty good and I really have no complaints there. Bart, in addition to being too big, also doesn’t look proportional to me. His head is huge relative to his body and his arms and legs are too long. The arms and legs I can excuse since it’s probably to help facilitate articulation, but he’s not a great looking figure. I pretty much bought him because he’s, well, Bart!

Homer actually scales pretty well with little Hugo here. I think I prefer the kids be just a little too small than too big.

Both figures feature minimal paint applications. There’s really almost none to speak of. On Homer, it’s possible the only paint is the black hair that zig zags around his head and the pupils of his eyes. His mouth and the white part of his eyes look like they may be separate pieces of colored plastic glued into place. It’s certainly the case with the eyes, while I’m less certain about the mouth. For Bart, his pupils are painted along with some of the parts of his shoes. And with the shoes, the only paint might actually be the white circles on the inside of his sneakers (something Super7 failed to paint) as the soles of his shoes are all white and there’s a little excess plastic around his socks which makes me think that too is a molded piece. It’s possible the blue is painted on and then the white circles over that.

Similarly, this new Bart doesn’t look too bad beside an Ultimates! Homer.

The lack of paint basically means these figures have a very glossy appearance. From a collector’s standpoint, it’s the thing that bothers me the most. Yes, I know, we’re talking about a very low price point here, but if just the heads were at least painted it would give these figures a much nicer aesthetic. The other issue that stands out for me are the portraits. Both characters have a hint of a smile that’s really only visible from the side or a 3/4 angle. From the front, there isn’t much personality to convey. The Simpsons are a pretty animated bunch and I would have liked some more personality. Something else that kind of bums me out is that the heads don’t feel like they’ll be easy to remove. If Jakks had planned it better, perhaps we could swap portraits with future Bart and Homer variants to create more expressive poses.

My favorite detail about Homer’s behavior at work is how he always just takes the box of donuts from the break room and heads into the bathroom.

This line is a fully articulated one and Homer and Bart probably have as much articulation as one would expect of a Simpsons line. It’s also the same setup for both. There’s a swivel head, ball-hinged shoulders, biceps swivel, single-jointed elbow, wrist swivel and hinge, ball-jointed waist, ball-socket hips, single-hinged knees, and ankle swivels. Bart’s thighs can also swivel where they meet his shorts, though it’s tight enough that I wonder if it’s intentional. I was also able to get his lower leg to rotate at the knee which I only did because his lower leg was inserted backwards out of the box. Again, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to do that, but it did. Homer’s elbow range is a little less than 90 degrees, while Bart’s is a little more. The waist joint is mostly a rotation point, but there’s a tiny bit of tilt all around on the ball joint there. It’s decent and probably enough for this brand. The arms are a little ugly since both characters are bare armed, but what are you going to do? I suppose a more collector focused line would do swappable arm parts instead of joints, but that clearly isn’t what Jakks is going for. The only joint that’s really worth criticizing is the lack of an ankle rocker. I suppose a simple ball joint for the head would also be superior to what we have.

Eating and skateboarding, that’s pretty much what both characters like to do most. Aside from maybe watch TV.

Both figures do feature a primary accessory. I suppose for Homer we technically have two. For Bart, it’s his skateboard which features a single peg at the rear of the board and purple wheels that really spin. The board itself is red plastic with stickers applied for the other colors. I always thought of Bart’s board as more orange than red, but it’s fine. Even though Bart’s right hand is a gripping hand, he doesn’t come with a slingshot or anything. For Homer, he has a pink box of donuts with an articulated lid. Inside the box, are eleven donuts which are non removable. There’s one missing because it’s separate and Homer can hold it. It has a big bite missing and it’s Homer’s favorite donut with the raspberry glaze. It too appears to be two pieces of different colored plastic glued together. That approach must be way cheaper than paint for Jakks to go through all of this trouble assembling tiny donuts.

Homer’s box of donuts turned out pretty well.

Overall, I would say these figures of Homer and Bart are pretty much as expected. They look cheap and they feel cheap because they are cheap. Now, they don’t feel fragile or anything and they have a nice weight to them, but they definitely don’t feel like a true “collectible.” I’m far more pleased with Homer than I am Bart and it has everything to do with the scale and proportions on Bart. I’m tempted to buy the 2.5″ Bart to see if I like how he fits with Homer and maybe making that my way of collecting the Springfield kids. I like how Homer looks with the ReAction Hugo so it gives me optimism that He’ll look good with the smaller Bart.

They might not be the figures we want, but maybe they’re what we deserve?

If you’re looking to start another collection of The Simpsons action figures, these are currently showing up at both Target and Walmart and have been for quite a few weeks now. It actually took me awhile to find a Bart that didn’t have misaligned pupils which is what took me so long to get to them. Amazon is also selling the first wave and they can be found at other online retailers. The figures should retail for about $13 so it’s definitely an affordable line, but you also get what you pay for. I’m largely interested in this line and I do plan to buy more, but I’m not excited about it. It’s mostly a feeling of acceptance that is driving me to buy these as more than anything they just remind me of what I want from the brand. And that’s 5″ scale figures with more paint and more accessories. Not so much accessories in the form of “stuff,” but just in extra expressions via portraits and hands. I can pose Homer with his donuts, but his mouth isn’t open to bite into one nor can he just drool over them. These figures are very sterile, but The Simpsons should be anything but.

If these figures from Jakks Pacific aren’t really doing it for you, maybe you’ll like the stuff Super7 did:

Super 7 The Simpsons Ultimates! King-Size Homer

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the last figure in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons. Did we save the best for last? No, not really, but I am happy to say today’s figure is definitely not the worst. And this fourth and final wave has featured multiple contenders for worst…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

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).…

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by Joe

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July 17, 2024

Star Wars – The Acolyte

By Joe
The Acolyte (2024, Disney)

It’s fine.

Looking to read some more Star Wars reviews?

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

I’ve been collecting action figures in some capacity for my whole life, and it occurred to me now that I’ve never owned the Fett man. That’s Boba Fett, who is one of the most iconic characters from Star Wars and also pretty noteworthy in the world of action figures. I am not the place for…

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by Joe

Star Wars The Black Series Mandalorian Warrior (Holiday Edition)

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

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by Joe

Star Wars: The Vintage Collection Dark Trooper

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

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by Joe

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

June 13, 2024

Super 7 The Simpsons Ultimates! King-Size Homer

By Joe
Homer is large and, more or less, in charge.

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the last figure in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons. Did we save the best for last? No, not really, but I am happy to say today’s figure is definitely not the worst. And this fourth and final wave has featured multiple contenders for worst in the line. I don’t wish to beat a dead horse, but for whatever reason this fourth wave was pretty terrible. Even the figures that look fine, like last week’s Drederick Tatum, suffer from inexcusable levels of quality control. How hard is it to make sure an arm or a leg fits properly? I don’t know. A lot of toy companies seem to have no issues with such things, but Super7 has certainly made it look challenging with this line.

A much wider Homer than we’re used to.

King-Size Homer comes from the episode of the same name from the show’s seventh season. It is our second Homer Simpson in this short-lived line of action figures which normally wouldn’t seem like something that stood out, but here it does considering we never got a Marge or a Lisa in the line. The company that made it a point to include a female character in each wave of its Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line didn’t seem to find any value in doing the Simpson women before double-dipping on Homer. Cool. At least this Homer is a little more of a popular variant than wave one’s Deep Space Homer. Not that Homer going to space wasn’t a memorable episode, it’s just that there are a lot of Homer variants I would have gone with over that one. I still would have chosen several over this version as well, but I concede that of all the various Homer Simpson looks he’s had in the show, this is among the most memorable. And it’s way better than Dancing Homer or Homer the Vigilante, though it’s no Mr. Plow.

Oh look, he’s monologuing again.

King-Size Homer comes in the standard box with no slipcover, as has been true of every figure in this wave. If you’re unfamiliar with the episode, this gargantuan Homer is the result of him trying to gain a bunch of weight to be declared medically obese and thus eligible to work from home. As evidenced by his appearance here, Homer was pretty successful in packing on the pounds (thank you Play-Doh doughnut) and achieved his dream. Homer stands at right around the 7″ mark which is more or less in-line with the wave one figure, only now he possesses far more girth. He’s in his floral moo-moo and comes packaged with his “fat guy hat” and has an optional soft goods cape. Since this Homer is far bigger than the last, everything here is new sculpt and it looks pretty good. Homer has his much girthier neck and even his hands have been enlarged to match the show.

This sort of thing drives me nuts.

As for the paint, well it’s again another mixed bag. Unlike that first wave Homer, this one is done in yellow plastic and not painted over. There is a matte coat to cut down on the shininess of the plastic, but he has a cheaper look than that first Homer as a result, but it also puts him in-line with Devil Flanders, Burns, and Ralph. The strands of hair atop his head are done with soft plastic and with Homer it works far better than it does with Ralph. Unfortunately, he’s packaged wearing his hat and the default head on my figure has some warped hair as a result. It also has a blob of white paint on the back of the head too. The garment he’s wearing looks okay and the flowers are painted cleanly, but they did a thing that really annoys me. Since Homer has a cut for articulation in the torso, some of the floral pattern gets broken up and if you line-up one flower it doesn’t line up all of them. The cape looks nice at least and it’s well-tailored. It might be a tad on the small side, but it’s not as if it gets lost when he’s wearing it. It just slips over the head and it completes the look. The paint on the shoes and eyes is hit or miss. Some portraits look good, while others have a sloppy edge to the eyes. My Homer’s right shoe has a chunk of white missing around the sole.

Reaching broom included.

For accessories, Homer comes with various items from the episode that should look pretty familiar. For heads, we get one with a slight smile, a side-eyed angry expression, and one where he’s making his “Ooo” mouth. It’s basically the same expression that Deep Space Homer came with, which is one I like, but it feels a little redundant. For hands, Homer has fists and that’s really the only “set” he has as the rest are specialized hands. He has a gripping left hand which seems intended to work with his ice cream cone (Ooo, raspberry). The cone looks fine and comes close to matching Ralph’s alternate head which I suppose is nice for symmetry. There’s a different-shaped gripping right hand and that’s intended to work with Homer’s “reaching broom.” In the episode, Homer sits on the couch watching TV and utilizes the broom to just whack the keyboard of his work computer so it seems like he’s doing something. The broom-head has sculpted indentations for his fingers and thumb to slot into and he gets a pretty good grip on it. Sadly, his articulation is lacking so he can’t really use it as intended, but we’ll get to that. There’s also an open left hand and that one works well with the famous drinking bird. This is the bird Homer got from his brother Herb in the season three episode “Brother Can You Spare Two Dimes” and it’s a novelty toy. It returns as Homer’s assistant in the episode. The bird is articulated so you can simulate the pendulum effect it’s supposed to have. The sculpt and paint are fine, and this is an accessory Homer had to come with. Lastly, Homer has a pointing right hand and his medal which he is awarded at the end of the episode for using his ass to prevent the release of deadly, poison, gas.

At least they got this guy in.

It’s a solid spread of accessories and I think Super7 keyed in on the right objects from the episode to give Homer. They could have given him a computer, but as we saw with Ralph, without something to put the PC on it serves little purpose. I would have preferred an expression that could work with the ice cream cone, but I suspect that didn’t happen because he can’t reach his face. There is absolutely one thing missing though and it’s Homer’s sign from the episode that reads “Give Me Ride or Everybody Dies.” Really, that scene should have been priority for Super7. Cut the pointing hand and replace it with a hitchhiker’s thumb. Cut either alternate portrait and give us exasperated Homer with his hair limp. When you’re going to do these episode specific action figures you really need to hit on the episode’s best jokes and Super7 certainly whiffed on that one.

They’ve been staring at this bird for hours.

As for the articulation I’ve been teasing, what is there really to say? It’s terrible. Just look at this guy. It was going to be bad and it is as expected. He is basically a statue with arms that swivel. The head is the only aspect of the figure that has moderate range, because the rest does not. The elbows are poor, the diaphragm twist adds little, and the garment renders the leg articulation absolutely useless. They could have done absolutely nothing with his legs and the figure probably would not have suffered for it. I’m not going to kill Super7 for the articulation here because there isn’t much that can be done with a comically obese Homer Simpson. Maybe if they had done all of the clothes with soft goods it would have allowed for the legs to have some utility, but to do what, really? I guess it would be cool if he could sit down, but the line didn’t last long enough for Super7 to deliver a couch. The only thing that sucks is the lack of a vertical wrist hinge so he could properly wield his reaching broom. The cape at least has a wire, so you can add some dramatic flair to your Homer, but this is a figure that is just going to stand there.

You’re probably not getting that cone much closer to his face.

King-Size Homer isn’t exactly a homerun Homer, but he’s a cromulent one. The look, aside from my nitpick with the floral pattern, is on-model and while I bemoan the lack of yellow paint at least the finish is a matte one. The accessories are also pretty solid and the figure looks good with or without the costume accessories in the form of the hat and cape. I’d be a lot higher on the figure if Super7 had nailed the “Give Me Ride or Everybody Dies” scene and if this figure carried the standard MSRP of $55. It does not and instead will set you back $65. I guess because there is a minor uptick in plastic versus some of the other figures? Hell if I know why it’s more money since one would assume Homer is going to sell the best out of all of the figures in the wave. I can kind of see charging more for an obscure character like Drederick Tatum, but a popular version of Homer? The pricing is absurd, but is functionally moot since this line is dead. This figure is all but guaranteed to hit the clearance rack before long so you need only wait it out if you want a better deal.

The only award this line will ever receive.

And that’s a wrap on Super7’s journey with The Simpsons. It got off to an odd start given the confusing character selection and long wait for wave one. Plus the thing with Moe’s apron wasn’t great, but remedied in a fairly painless fashion. I felt the quality of the first two waves was pretty damn good though and the figures were about as good as I think could be expected of Super7. The issues with those figures were just the choice of characters and I suppose disagreements over accessories. Starting with the third wave though, the quality took a hit in particular with Burns and Ralph and this fourth wave was practically a disaster. King-Size Homer is the only figure in the wave without blatantly obvious quality control issues. I suppose the only good thing for Super7 is that waves 2, 3, and 4 basically all arrived at the same time so the line didn’t experience a gradual decline, it just went off a cliff.

“Way to lower the quality of the line, Flanders!”

It leaves me wondering what will be the legacy of Super7’s take on The Simpsons? I’m guessing it will be viewed as a failure considering a great many fans were unhappy about the character selection and we know the intent was to pivot away from this approach with the canceled fifth wave. It should have a “missed opportunity” vibe, but did we really miss out on much? If the fourth wave is any indication then no, because it can be assumed the fifth would have sucked just as hard. The majority of this line was just flat-out not worth the money and yet the price kept going up while the figures were getting worse. That’s a pretty bad combination. The figures also lack an attention to detail that would have made it feel like truly hardcore Simpsons fans were in charge at Super7. Lacking that charm, there’s no pull. I don’t see these figures appreciating in value and becoming something fans who missed out on chase down ten years from now. Maybe they will the ReAction figures which were actually pretty well done. Perhaps I should make a post on them because they were certainly more deserving of your money than the Ultimates! line and they actually form a cohesive display, premature death and all. In the end, The Simpsons and Super7 is just a thing that happened. If the line has any sort of lasting ramifications it may be something we look back on as the beginning of the end for Super7’s Ultimates! because the company’s reputation certainly didn’t get better by producing this line.

Here it is, for better or worse, the entire assortment of Simpsons Ultimates! by Super7.

Missed any of our Simpsons Ultimates! coverage?

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Drederick Tatum

We have looked at 15 figures from Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons and we’re about to look at the 16th. What I’m wondering at this stage is do I need to keep talking about the baffling character selection? Yes, yes I do. Drederick Tatum is today’s figure, the show’s Mike…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Radioactive Man

Last week, we started on our journey through the fourth and final wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. It did not start well. Devil Flanders represented a new low point for the line and maybe for Super7 as a whole. I know I certainly do not own a worse Super7 figure than…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Devil Flanders

Last week, we concluded our look at the third wave of Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons and now we embark on the fourth and final wave. That’s right, Disney pulled the rug out from under Super7 and handed The Simpsons license over to Jakks. Their products will start rolling out this fall.…

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by Joe

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

June 10, 2024

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Rogue – Limited Edition

By Joe
Rogue is here to add a little drama to your shelf.

The conclusion of X-Men ’97‘s first season has left behind a void. For 9 consecutive Wednesdays, we had something awesome to get up for. Now the long wait for a second season has begun, but here to help fill the void while we wait is Mondo. Mondo has been dishing out some very impressive sixth scale action figures based on X-Men, the ’92 version. I’ve been waiting since that show debuted for action figures dedicated to that show that match the quality and accuracy that I want from a figure line. I probably wouldn’t have selected this scale for such a line, but basically everything else has been great. And now here to bolster the ranks of the X-Men is the best female member of the team: Rogue.

The only surprise with the packaging is that they didn’t use the storyboard from the Apocalypse episode. You know the image I’m thinking of.

X-Men was my formal introduction to the character Rogue. I had seen her on the cover of comics, but always in her 80s look. When the cartoon debuted I only knew the two characters were the same because of her unique hair color. Rogue, despite looking like a super model, is the muscle of the team. She can knock a Sentinel’s head clear off with a punch and look good while doing it, but like all good characters her powers come with a price. And for her, it’s that she can’t touch another living person without sucking the life from them. This allows her to steal other powers from her fellow mutants which is pretty cool, but not being able to physically touch or kiss another human is a trade-off she often wrestles with. Her inability to touch makes her one of the most empathetic members of the team and someone that’s easy to sympathize with. Despite that personal torment, she is often able to maintain an upbeat personality, can dish out puns with the best of them, and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty when the situation calls for such.

There’s a lot to like about this figure, but I don’t think they quite nailed it with this default portrait.

Rogue from Mondo is a lot like the other figures released so far. She’s designed and sculpted by Alex Brewer and comes in a box featuring original artwork by storyboard artist for the show Dan Veesenmeyer. Tom Rozejowski handled the paint master and the rest of the packaging is adorned with recreations of original storyboards from the show from the episode “Till Death Do Us Part.” Original series showrunner and writers Eric Lewald and Julia Lewald provide the character bio which is situated on the inner flap of the box. Behind that is a window box showcasing Rogue and her array of accessories. This version of the figure is the limited variant which sold out much faster than any other limited edition to come before it in this line. Is that the popularity of Rogue or did she get an X-Men ’97 aided boost since anticipation was building to a fever pitch when she went up for sale?

That’s more like it!

Per Mondo, Rogue stands at approximately 11.75″ and I’m willing to take them at their word. She’s taller than Wolverine and Jubilee, but shorter than Gambit, Magneto, and the rest. That seems suitable and she seems much closer to true sixth scale than some of the other characters. She is wearing her show accurate yellow and green bodysuit with olive drab coat. She sports a variation on thigh-high boots in the show and Mondo’s approach for that was to make the green straps at the top of the boot as well as the yellow cuff separate, floating, pieces. Perhaps going this route made the figure easier to paint? Or maybe it was to allow these legs to be repurposed for a Storm down the road? Either way, the moving parts on a figure with so much paint are a little worrisome, but they can be seated in such a way that they’ll seldom move. Just do be careful when positioning them to not create a paint rub situation.

And if you want to get cheeky.

The head on the figure has received some criticism and it’s not unwarranted. The default portrait is basically a neutral expression. Rogue’s face has always been tough to duplicate in plastic for some reason. I think it’s because the female characters tend to not have hard facial features so there’s not a lot to key-in on. For the figure, Rogue features a very glammed-up look. Her eyes are narrow with long lashes and her lips are full and pouty. The paint is applied well as are the eyes (Mondo sent out a warning before the figure shipped that some heads featured poor eye placement. If your figure looks off just email their customer service and they’ll replace it), but it doesn’t really resemble Rogue. More like an artist’s interpretation of what a more sultry Rogue might look like. Or Rogue if she were in a Barbie line.

It might not be show accurate, but this power absorption hand is pretty neat.
Sorry Logan, not this time.

Thankfully, we have other, better, heads to choose from and the limited edition has far more than the standard. The alternate head for the standard edition is an angry expression and this works just fine. The right eye on mine features a dot of skin tone, but otherwise looks great. I think a lot of people will go with this for their display, whether they bought the limited edition or standard. If you did grab the limited version then you have some harder decisions to make. First up is the winking smile. The smile is very wide so this head doesn’t quite resemble the character from the show, but damn if it isn’t cute. I really like this one, though it does make me wish we had a non-winking smile portrait as well. Or perhaps a more subtle smile.

This is just fantastic.

Our next portrait is pulled directly from the show. In the episode “Deadly Reunions,” Cyclops gets knocked unconscious and stops breathing momentarily. Rogue, in an effort to save him, gives him mouth-to-mouth (C.P.R. back then called for this) and it works, but it also causes Rogue to absorb his powers. Rogue’s eyes start blasting red energy until Cyclops is able to instruct her to just shut her eyes. The included portrait is a screaming Rogue with those lasers streaking from her eyes. They’re done with translucent, red, plastic and it looks awesome. In some ways, I think this head most looks like Rogue from the show, probably because we can’t see her eyes and she looks kind of angry. The last head in the box is a bit of a gimmick one as it’s Rogue from X-Men: Evolution. Like the fairy Jubilee or unmasked Sabretooth, this head doesn’t work with the body since that Rogue had a very different look. It’s more of a fun inclusion. It looks fine, but I do think they should have added a touch of shading to the brim of her nose since that was something always present in the show.

I guess this one is for the younger fans.

That’s a whole bunch of looks for Rogue and one, if not more, are sure to please those who pick this one up. Also included are a whole bunch of hands. Rogue comes packaged with open hands, but she also has a set of fists, a right trigger hand, a left gripping hand, a more casual gripping right hand, and a bare left hand. When the left hand is removed, the yellow cuff is a separate piece which slides off to sell the look of her going ungloved. There’s also a removed glove accessory which slips into the casual gripping hand quite well. I do wish we got two bare hands since she did grab enemies with both hands at times, but one is better than none. If you want her to look like she is actually draining someone’s energy, she has yet another open left hand, but this one is encircled in translucent blue plastic. I don’t think her power absorption abilities were ever depicted like this in the show, her hand usually just glowed white and the light sometimes traveled up her arm, but I can’t deny that this hand looks pretty cool. Another included effect part of sorts is a gripping right hand that’s crushing a small gun. I don’t recall this gun or scene, I remember her crushing Bishop’s armband, but it’s an effective accessory at showing her strength.

This thing is all kinds of rad.
And the base works pretty damn well as a stand too.

The last major accessory included in the limited edition version is a base. Rogue is the first figure to get a base and Mondo stated they felt it was important to include something that hinted at her power. To do that, Mondo decided a decimated Sentinel head made the most sense. It’s well sculpted and really well painted and resembles a Sentinel from the show. There are two foot indentations, one towards the front and one towards the back, that the figure slides into rather effortlessly. It does a pretty good job of holding Rogue up too, though she has tumbled to the side on me once already. It’s not super heavy, so the figure took the base with it in falling over. I’ve resituated the figure on the base amongst my other figures in the line and hopefully she holds true. She also comes with a standard Mondo stand and I could potentially use that in conjunction with the base for added stability. One of the stands from a past release (Magneto?) that I have also has worked well to hold her off the ground just a little bit. That particular one has a very strong, telescoping, arm to it and can support the figure’s weight while some of the others feel too loose. I’m sure there will be folks in search of a proper flight stand for this figure and if I come across any that work I’ll be sure to update this.

Magneto has something to show you, Rogue.
A little X-Men ’97 preview, I suppose.

The visual aesthetics are what this line goes for, but this is an action figure so it does articulate. Rogue moves about as well as the rest of the line, and in some respects, perhaps a bit better. The head, shoulders, elbows, and wrists are all standard for the line. We’re talking a double ball peg at the head, single-hinges and swivels at the elbow, ball-jointed wrists, and ball-hinged shoulders. The head is limited by her big hair, but they did a decent job of sculpting out some room so the head can turn a bit and tilt. The shoulders and elbows are the most limiting. She can’t bring her arms across her chest or her hands to her face and it’s just something you’ll have to work around. Rogue does not have a waist twist, but does have a ball-jointed diaphragm. Mondo used a curved cut for it and I’m a tad surprised they didn’t try to conceal the cut under her bust or perhaps along the rib cage. It at least works well enough as a rotation point and it allows for a little forward and back. The hips are big ‘ole ball sockets and have probably the best range of any joint on the figure. They’re almost loose and I’m curious if they’ll get to the point where I do consider them loose, but for now they hold their pose fine. The knees are double-jointed and work okay while the ankles feature a hinge and an ankle rocker.

“Hey Remy, you got any plans tonight?!”
“I didn’t know you could read minds, ‘cherie.”

Since Rogue does wear high heels, she is a bit of a challenge to stand. It’s not as bad as I was expecting though. If you’re just looking to place her in a vanilla pose, she’ll stand okay. It might take a bit of adjusting, but it’s do-able. If you want her to do anything more dynamic then you’re better off with a stand. Even lunging positions are a challenge because she’s so top heavy, and I’m not talking about her chest. That hair adds a lot of weight, but since she doesn’t feature a trench coat or a cape, the Mondo stands actually can help out with this figure when normally I consider it useless. And if you have the limited version then you also have the base to rely on.

Cyclops and Jean kind of dominate the conversation, but this was the couple I was always rooting for.

Rogue is perhaps not a perfect, 1:1, encapsulation of the character model from the show, but she’s still a damn fine addition to the Mondo roster. The paint on this release is incredible. Not in the sense that it’s perfect and free from blemishes, but in that it just pops and really nails the cel-shading from the show. Yeah, you will likely find a dab of paint here and there where it shouldn’t be or even a slight smudge, but that’s the nature of hand-painted items. On the whole, the figure looks terrific and I’m very happy with the limited edition. With the Sabretooth figure, I wasn’t sure if the limited version was really worth it, but I feel completely different about this one. I love the base and the extra heads are probably the best heads in the box. The articulation may not be on par with figures in the 1:12 scale, but I haven’t had any real challenges in finding a display pose and I doubt many will.

We’re about halfway through the main roster and Cyclops is soon to be on deck.

Unfortunately, if you do want this version of the figure with extra stuff then you’ll have to score it secondhand. As I mentioned earlier, it sold out surprisingly fast leaving just the standard version as an option. Mondo sold out of the standard version as well, but has another preorder open right now on their website for $210. Other retailers may have open preorders as well that could be fulfilled sooner than Mondo’s estimate of September 2024. Even if I could only get the standard version, I’d consider it well worth it. She has the angry portrait and comes with all of the same hands as the limited edition version so you’re just missing out on the three extra heads and base. Rogue is an essential character for any X-Men display and she will certainly look good in your collection.

Now, nobody fall!

Interested in seeing more from Mondo’s X-Men line of sixth scale action figures:

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Gambit

It is my belief that when it comes to X-Men, the animated series which debuted in 1992, the breakout star of the show was Gambit. Wolverine was the closest thing we had to a household name going into the show and was the de-facto pick for favorite character of many. And while the whole roster…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Logan

Mondo has been absolutely killing it with its sixth scale line of action figures based on the now classic animated series X-Men. The company also really ramped up production in 2023 on the line by soliciting five new figures during the year. At over 200 bucks a pop, it was quite the hit to the…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Magneto

If you showed a random individual this blog and asked them what my favorite cartoon was as a kid I’m guessing they would go with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And they wouldn’t be wrong as that was my favorite for a time, but come 1992 I was starting to drift away from that show. Batman:…

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by Joe

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May 16, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! C. Montgomery Burns

By Joe
It’s a bit odd seeing Burns just standing there all alone with no Smithers at his side.

We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that he’s arriving before the likes of Marge and Lisa. Burns is a Springfield regular as owner of the town’s nuclear power plant and boss to Homer Simpson. He starts off as just a mostly horrible boss type, but soon morphs into an almost cartoonishly evil character. He’s also a joke machine for old world references owing to the fact that he’s 109 years old. He’s a horrible man, but a powerful one, and all his power rests with his bank account. Take that away and he’s a pathetically weak old man who couldn’t even wrestle a lollipop from a baby.

He’s taller than a child, but not as tall as the show’s more classically trained super villain.

Burns has the usual Ultimates! packaging with slipcover which is soon to be the old style as you’ll see when we get to Wave 4. One thing I have not mentioned yet with this third wave is how terrible the plastic bubble that holds the figures in place has been. I don’t know what happened, but this is usually something Super7 does well and I should sing the praises of it more since they tend to package their figures in plastic bubbles with few tie-downs. I enjoy buying NECA figures, but I hate unboxing them because of those damn things. With this wave, some of the figures have been a real bastard to get out. It’s too tight, especially around the extra heads. I had to cut both Ralph and Burns’ heads out of the thing because I could not get them out. It sucks because I like to keep these boxes and store the accessories in them so I’d rather not mangle them, but oh well.

Look! He’s crowning!

Burns stands at approximately 6.75″ to the top of his head. He is famously of poor posture and if he was capable of standing fully upright he’d be a little taller. He’s sporting a dark green business suit with white undershirt and black tie. Right away, we have a problem. Modern Simpsons reference art places Burns in a green suit, but it’s very much a blue green while this figure has more of a forest green to his suit. Much of the classic era of the show would put Burns in a blue suit and I’m not sure how Super7 settled on this particular shade of green. The solicitation images have a more blue-green tone to the suit so I think this is just a case of the factory not producing the proper color. Did Super7 approve it? Probably.

At least they got the posture right.
“You there! How dare you make me look bad with that painted, yellow, head of yours!”

Continuing with the trend of the third wave, Burns does not feature much paint. He’s matte, but the head isn’t painted yellow like the figures that came before it. The body is pretty much all green and the white and black parts are painted over. The left side of my figure’s shirt is painted horribly with a ton of green showing through. The exposed portions of his white socks are also painted, but the ankle hinges are cast in a pale white. The paint will flake off when moving them, but that comes with the territory of painted hinges. What stinks is there’s a lot of transfer from the green plastic to these hinges and the paint that flakes off around the hinge will expose green plastic as well. For a $55 figure with what should be a simple paint application it doesn’t look great.

Burns has a right to be pissed given the shoddy nature of this paint job.

Aside from that, the overall sculpt is acceptable. His shoes have a funny shape to them, but it’s not necessarily wrong, just more noticeable in 3D. The portrait looks good which features the standard Burns look with exaggerated overbite, though I would have preferred a hint of an evil smile. The spots near his left temple are sculpted on, but not outlined so they look a bit weird. The nose appears to be a separate piece that had to be glued on which created an unnatural seam line. It’s not awful, but a little surprising that it was deemed necessary. The figure looks okay, but plain and the lack of paint on his head gives off a cheap appearance. He almost more resembles his character model from a PlayStation 2 era Simpsons game because of this lack of detail.

I guess it’s good he comes with this accessory since I do feel like he owes me money. Maybe not a trillion, but something.

The articulation on Mr. Burns is pretty limited and in some ways downright poor. He has good range at the neck, but that’s pretty much it. The shoulders are pretty standard and the elbows lack the ability to hit a 90 degree bend. This is more problematic with Burns as his default posture in the show features his elbows bent at 90 degrees and hands hanging like a T-Rex or something. He can’t quite do this, but does get probably close enough for most. His waist is ball jointed which is situated deep inside the torso because of his long coat. It’s basically just a pivot point as the coat is hard plastic. He can’t kick forward really at all, but it’s actually not because of the coat, the joint is just terrible as I pulled him apart to check it out. Knee range is terrible while the ankle hinges work fine. He has an ankle rocker, but it too is pretty limited.

Bobo is along for the ride, but should look way grosser.
There’s a lot of character packed into this evil laughing head, but I can’t see myself every displaying it.

This line is definitely not striving for articulation and instead prioritizing the sculpt and accessories to bring these characters to life. While Burns fares better than Ralph Wiggum from last week, he’s still not as well-thought out as he could be. Burns has his “hooked” hands by default, but he also has a set of relaxed hands, “Excellent” hands, and a set of gripping hands where his right hand is much wider than the left. He also has the more usual two alternate portraits: an evil laugh with side-eye, and an eyes closed contented face. The evil laugh, which also doubles as an angry yell, is pretty self-explanatory and capable of adding a dash dynamism to your display while the contented expression is pretty much only useful for when he’s holding his teddy bear Bobo. Bobo is displayed as he was post being frozen, though not with the same level of detail as he was in the show. This is rather perplexing since it’s far harder to capture detail in animation than it is on a 3D model, but it’s true of Bobo. He has one dangling eye and stuffing popping out, but there’s no texture. Bobo looks so gross and sponge-like in places in the show so this depiction feels very underwhelming. Burns can at least clutch him to his bosom fairly easily.

Good old Blinky.
Did anybody want this?

Burns also comes with a serving tray featuring Blinky, the famous three-eyed fish who debuted in Season Two and resurfaces on occasion. Like Bobo, there’s not much texture to the fish and the paint on his fins where the body meets the lettuce he’s being served on is not applied very well. It’s also a missed opportunity that the lid to the serving tray Kodos comes with doesn’t also fit over Blinky. Burns also has an issue of Burns Weekly. It’s a soft piece of red plastic with an image of Burns printed on it. It’s very flimsy and there’s no attempt at sculpting on the edges to make it resemble an actual magazine. Very lazy, and also not really welcomed. I’d much prefer a copy of Burns’ autobiography Will There Ever Be a Rainbow? Lastly, we also get Burns’ trillion dollar bill which is on another piece of soft plastic with printing on both side. It looks fine, but it’s unnaturally thick for a bill. I guess it’s fine though since it makes it easier for the figure to hold and more durable. He basically only has one hand that can hold it, the left “Excellent” hand has the thumb positioned under the palm so the bill (or magazine) can be slotted in between effectively enough.

Well, at least Mr. Burns got what he wanted.

Burns is only slightly better than Ralph and it comes on the strength of more accessories and overall a better sculpt, but in comparison to the first two waves of the line he’s pretty underwhelming. I’m assuming the paint on the front of mine is unique to my copy and not a reflection of every Burns figure Super7 puts out, but the paint apps have been spotty in general so who can say how uncommon it is? It definitely doesn’t look and feel like a premium collectible so it’s impossible to recommend at $55. Plus, without a Smithers to pair him with the figure feels almost incomplete, because what is Burns without his sycophantic righthand man? Only get this if you absolutely have to have a Mr. Burns figure in this scale, and even then you should probably wait for the eventual discounted price that is almost sure to come before the year is through. Next up is wave four of this line and if you thought wave 3 was a little disappointing, then you haven’t seen nothing yet.

Join me as I journey through Super7’s take on The Simpsons:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Ralph Wiggum

Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…

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by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…

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by Joe

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

May 15, 2024

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3”

By Joe
Written by Beau DeMayo and Anthony Sellitti.

Today, X-Men ’97 dropped the curtain on its first season and what a way to bring it to an end. Last week’s episode was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I couldn’t go into much detail of my review of “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2” without wading into spoiler territory, so allow me to indulge myself before we get to this week’s episode. When one thinks of childhood trauma baked into media, the death of Bambi’s mom is probably the most often cited. If you’re an 80’s kid it might be the death of Optimus Prime in the first Transformers movie or the death of Littlefoot’s mother in The Land Before Time. The 90s kid has Mufasa while the comic book readers like me have X-Men #25. No one truly died in that issue, but it’s the infamous issue where Magneto decides he’s had enough of Wolverine and uses his magnetic powers to rip the metal off of his bones and force it through his pores and open wounds. It’s all anyone wanted to talk about concerning X-Men when it happened and it changed the character of Wolverine in a big way. Like basically all things in comics, Wolverine eventually regained his awesome adamantium skeleton, but it took a surprising amount of years for that to happen.

They did it. I can’t believe they did it.

Despite being one of the most singular, powerful, moments in X-Men history, that confrontation with Magneto has really just been confined to the page. The original X-Men animated series had just kicked-off its second season when it happened, but never touched it during the rest of its run. I remember feeling anxious during the Asteroid M episodes, “Sanctuary,” out of fear it might happen, but Wolverine escaped that arc unscathed. I remember my friend jumping in his seat when we saw the first X-Men movie in theaters when Magneto lifts Wolverine up on the train and asks “Does that remarkable metal run all through your body?” He thought, and I too, that Magneto might give a tug in that moment and I certainly thought it could be him laying the groundwork for a future confrontation that never arrived. Other animated efforts and movies that followed never did go to that well, but in its ninth episode X-Men ’97 did.

For a brief moment I thought we may be jumping straight to the mind wipe Xavier inflicted upon Magneto in response to his attack on Wolverine.

When Magneto emerged from Bastion’s imprisonment in the eighth episode and used his magnetic powers to attack the whole planet’s electrical grid is when I first felt X-Men #25 was on the table. It was similar to his attack to open that issue on the planet’s satellite defense system which knocked out power all across the globe. Even though much of the events of last week’s episode were mirroring the events of New X-Men from 2001, there was always the possibility of multiple plotlines converging. As I said in my review of last week’s episode, that “Greatest Hits” approach the original series and this one is able to take is part of what makes it so successful. When it was Wolverine who was tabbed to deliver the opening, “Previously…on X-Men,” line I pretty much knew what we were in for. It became even more obvious when Rogue basically assumed the role of Colossus from the Fatal Attractions plotline X-Men #25 is a part of by joining Magneto (along with Roberto) midway through the episode. It made it hard to enjoy all of the fan-service leading up to the final act with the return of the old costumes, the Hulk cameo, or Cyclops’ return dig at the film costumes as I was expecting the worst for old Wolverine. And even during the episode, my X-Men animated Wolverine figure decided to take a shelf dive. I’d love to say it was during that scene, but I don’t remember because I was engrossed in the show and only after it was over did I check to see who fell. He knew.

Wolverine’s claws covered in blood – something we never could see in the original series.

The final scene of the episode was done exceptionally well, though it still left a glimmer of hope that Wolverine would not be subjected to his worst injury to date. When he removes Magneto’s helmet to allow Xavier a chance to attack him with his telepathic powers, the imagery was evocative of Xavier’s answer to Magneto’s brutal assault on Logan from X-Men #25. For a brief moment, I thought he might be spared. Then Cyclops blasted his mentor, not because he was turning on him or anything, but because Gold Team had not yet taken down Bastion and they couldn’t risk Xavier, through Magneto, re-activating the Prime Sentinels.

“Been in a lot of wars, bub – the brave always die first.” A great callback to Magneto’s line from the season finale of the original show’s first season, “The Final Decision.”

That’s when Wolverine struck. In actually more graphic fashion compared with the comic from which the story was taken, we get to see a flash of his claws and then the ends protrude through Magneto’s torso. At that moment, I could only watch with both dread and awe since there was no going back now. The attack was brief. We got just a quick shot of each character’s reaction, friend and foe alike, at Wolverine’s attack. It was like all of the participants in the melee up to that point were just made aware that violence has consequences, like a bunch of kids play-fighting in the yard until someone gets really hurt. The final image of Wolverine in mid-air with the adamantium oozing out of his body was a near 1:1 recreation of Andy Kubert’s artwork. It was chilling and a hell of a way to end an episode of television. I was riding an exercise bike on my first viewing and I wish I had thought to check my heartrate readings on my fitness app when it was all said and done. I was covered in sweat, more than usual after a workout, and that same pit in my stomach I felt as a 9 year old in 1993 had returned.

The plot with Wolverine made me completely forget that we may have witnessed the death of Jean. Again.

The moment was so captivating that it practically erased everything that came before it. I had to watch it again to be reminded of the fact that Morph and Beast had been defeated and were at the mercy of Bastion last we saw them. Sinister had taken control over Cable like he did his mother before him unleashing his telekinetic powers on Jean. She was able to make psychic contact with Cyclops, and through her, he saw what was going down just long enough for her to tell him she loved him before Cable’s blast engulfed her. And at Asteroid M, Magneto is likely mortally wounded or damn close to it while Xavier had Magneto’s helmet basically crushed around his skull neutralizing his psychic powers. This concept is new to the show as when the original aired the idea that Magneto’s helmet was designed to protect him from Xavier had not been invented yet. You can even see in the show’s fourth episode Xavier attack him with the helmet on, but I don’t mind it being a new wrinkle for this show as basically every version of the X-Men has done the same.

We open on a flashback we’ve heard about before.

As a kid, I don’t know how many times I read X-Men #25 and its follow-up, Wolverine #75, so I had a good idea what was going to happen in this season finale (in case you forgot, that’s what we’re here to talk about today) in space. I was less certain about the Bastion plot, but I had some ideas. Given the nature of how the last episode ended, there isn’t much I can say about the plot of this one that doesn’t spoil something, but I’m sure I can find something to talk about. The “Previously…” line is delivered by Magneto and our opening credits contain few surprises. More Dark Phoenix, more Apocalypse, but also a new scene of Magneto and Xavier unleashing their powers for the first time in front of each other on some terrorists from “Enter Magneto.”

Wolverine will not be doing much this episode.

And we’re shown that flashback because that is essentially where the episode begins. A young Xavier and Magneto having some drinks in a bar in a war torn country chatting about the potential for mutants. The war setting is even established by the opening chords of the famous song by The Byrds “Turn! Turn! Turn!” which I thought we all agreed we were done with? That and Credence Clearwater Revival. It’s at least brief which probably saved Disney a few bucks. Outside of the flashback, the episode is going to pick-up right where we left off with Wolverine in bad shape and the Earth heading for catastrophe. The only one who can heal the Earth’s magnetic field is Magneto and he needs some convincing.

Gold Team! This is no time for a nap!

At ground level, we last saw Bastion essentially victorious. And he will be ready for his victory lap that villains are so fond of, but as is often the case, the celebration is premature. Again, I’m not here to spoil anything, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the X-Men will need to deal with this guy. If last episode was more of the Magneto conflict, then this one is definitely more on Bastion. He is pretty set on eradicating mutants, and once that is done, he intends to rule over humanity since they can’t exactly be trusted either. And if he can’t do either, well, let’s just say that’s something he won’t respond to very well. And if that weren’t enough, the world super powers are left mulling what to do about the Magneto Protocols. Should the grid get restored, not only will the Prime Sentinels be reactivated, but President Kelly will have access to the missile defense system crafted especially for targeting Asteroid M.

Okay, perverts, happy now?!

The X-Men had split into Blue and Gold teams last episode, but it’s going to take all able-bodied X-Men to stop Bastion. A large portion of the episode is devoted to the battle that you knew was going to happen and, as has been the case with this show, it’s quite satisfying and spectacular. The action direction continues to be a strong point and the animation staff is up to task. Since we’re dealing with a finale here, there is an effort to give everyone some time to shine, provided they were able to stand at the conclusion of the last episode. The episode also pays more than lip-service to actual character growth and this is the episode that is able to cash in on the smaller moments (and some big ones) that we saw throughout this first season.

Sunspot has been allowed to cut loose these past few episodes which has been fun to see.

Where this episode did stumble a bit for me is that it’s basically a small portion of fallout from the previous episode, then a whole bunch of action, and then setup for next season. It’s become routine in the streaming age for shows to be serialized and include a lot of cliffhangers and X-Men ’97 is no different. I received some Game of Thrones vibes from the show when watching this one as the penultimate episode was where a lot of the spectacle was while this one felt a bit more like clean-up followed by setup. They left no room for the characters to really respond to what happened last week. It’s mentioned only in passing and we see Wolverine’s banged up body a few times, but we get almost nothing from the characters. How is Jubilee processing this? She and Wolverine were tight. Is anyone mad at him for pushing Magneto as far as he did by getting all stabby on him? Again, we don’t know and the way the episode ends makes it seem like it’s a thing we’re just not going to address at all and that feels like a real missed opportunity for a show that loves the soapy drama.

At least Morph seems to care.

Like last week, expect to be tickled by several cameos. Some are repeat cameos, but many are all new. Sure, it can feel like stunt-casting or something akin to it, but considering the plot in this episode has worldwide ramifications it makes sense to get a look around the globe. It’s certainly interesting and makes me wonder if X-Men ’97 will turn into a launching pad for an animated universe set in the 90s. Nostalgia for the period will likely never be hotter than it is now so it wouldn’t be Marvel and Disney’s worst idea. As long as my X-Men show doesn’t become overrun by non-mutant superheroes I’m all for it. Even if I personally have little interest in revisiting the other 90s Marvel cartoons.

I love everything about this shot.

I may seem a little down on this episode, but that’s only because the prior two were so strong. This is indeed a good episode, and it’s a long one at that, and DeMayo and Sellitti do some great stuff with their dialogue. There are certain characters they write so well and it’s on display in this episode. There’s also more callback lines to the original series and its woven in effectively and with purpose. There’s some heavy stuff intermingled with the action concerning Xavier and Magneto and this episode is one of the first pieces of X-Men media that really convinces the audience that Xavier and Magneto care deeply for each other. They’re not just paying lip-service to the “old friend” label they like to toss around so casually.

This episode concludes what has inarguably been a successful first season for X-Men ’97. The second season is in production so the wait should not be as long as it was from announcement to premiere. I suspect we will hear more at San Diego Comic Con this summer. Series creator and showrunner Beau DeMayo was heavily involved in the second season and it can be assumed much of his vision will make it to air. Following that, we’ll be heading into some unchartered waters with the show. Disney and DeMayo have remained tight-lipped on why he was let go from the series just before the premiere which is unfortunate because it would be nice to know if fans should be advocating for Disney to reverse that decision. If he was fired because of an OnlyFans account or creative differences, then that was probably a stupid decision given how well this show has turned out (and for the record, the OnlyFans thing would be stupid if the show sucked too). If he was fired over workplace misconduct or something (and full disclosure – I have no idea why he was let go and I’m just tossing out examples) then all right, that’s not someone I’d want to go to bat for. This stuff has a way of getting out so it’s more probable than not we’ll know in time, but for now, I’m extremely satisfied with how X-Men ’97 turned out. I’m also extremely bummed about not having a new episode to look forward to next week. This is going to be an intolerable wait.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2”

Magneto was right. That was the realization many characters seemed to share at the end of last week’s episode of X-Men ’97. As we roll into the penultimate episode of the show’s first season, a lot is on the line and the show is drawing inspiration from several different sources related to the X-Men over…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 1”

Ever since the episode list was released for X-Men ’97 I’ve been looking forward to what reads like an epic, three-part, season finale. In truth, given that X-Men ’97 is a serialized show you could basically call every episode “X-Men ’97 Season 1 Part 1” and so on, but the titles do add a dramatic…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Bright Eyes”

When we last saw our beloved X-Men, their world had just been destroyed. An idyllic place set to the soundtrack of the very on-the-nose choice of “Happy Nation” by Ace of Base in Genosha was laid to waste. Mutants of all backgrounds were slaughtered including our beloved Gambit and less beloved Magneto. In the aftermath…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 9, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Ralph Wiggum

By Joe
This is the story about a boy who just wanted to be loved.

Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was featured in the very first episode of The Simpsons, but as a character, he wasn’t really developed until Season Four’s “I Love Lisa.” Up until that point, he was just some kid who was a little heavy-set, but made little impression. “I Love Lisa” made Ralph the character he is today. He’s more than a little slow, but genuine, and very impressionable. Unfortunately, he gets bad advice from his dad, the chief of police, which basically sets him up to have his heart broken by Lisa, but it all turns out well in the end. It’s not my favorite episode of The Simpsons, but it is one I adore and there are few episodes I’ve watched more than that one.

He wants to be loved, but not touched.

As an action figure, Ralph is a bit of a hard sell. The character is certainly beloved and not particularly difficult to translate to 3D, but it’s not one that presents a lot of opportunity for articulation or flashy paints. And since Super7’s Ultimates! line carries a base price of $55, Ralph is especially tough to value as he’s the same price as Homer, Moe, Krusty, and up to this point basically everyone except the massive Kang and Kodos. Super7 is one of those companies that has no problems asking its consumers to pay more for bigger characters, but never do they charge less for the small. And with Ralph, it’s hard to argue that Super7 has done much of anything to alleviate that.

The height of Ralph seems fine when compared with Bartman, but the rest? Eh, no.

Ralph stands at approximately 4.25″, probably a tick under. He’s just a little shorter than Bartman, which is proper for true scale, though his larger proportions make him look odd beside Bart. Ralph’s height is fine, but the rest isn’t really in scale. Unfortunately for Super7, there’s an entire episode about Bart and Ralph being paired up so there’s no shortage of reference images. Ralph’s hands and feet are gargantuan in comparison to Bart’s and the two do not look good side-by-side. I think this is a case of Super7 just not wanting to go smaller on Ralph than they did because then the asking price would look even more foolish. A lot of action figure lines tend to add a little to the smallest characters, and take a little from the largest to try to find a happy medium and I do think that’s true here. How much it bothers collectors is likely to vary from person-to-person, it’s just a shame the line ended up being a brief one because there’s really no one to pair Ralph with on the shelf if not Bartman. I guess he always was a bit of a loner.

Even with the adults his proportions just seem too big. His feet are bigger than Moe’s.

Aside from the scale, the sculpt on Ralph is fine. He has his almost blank expression where he’s smiling and it’s captured. He has his blue shirt and brown pants and basically the only paint is reserved for the eyes, shirt, and belt. His head does not appear to be painted yellow and instead Super7 just went with a matte coat. It’s a step back from the paint jobs we saw in the second wave of the line and I’m curious if these final two waves (which shipped at the same time and only a few weeks after the second) were rushed or had cuts made to them since Disney was pulling the license. The paint on the blue shirt is applied all right, but there are some blemishes. It also chips and flakes around where the arms plug into the shoulders leaving behind ugly, yellow, spots. By far though, my least favorite thing about the presentation of the figure is how Super7 did Ralph’s hair. Ralph has this very thin, wispy, hair in the show and Super7 opted to sculpt it in soft, black, plastic and glue it to his head. The end result is it’s just far too thick and he almost looks like he has dreadlocks. I think the proper way to do the hair would have been to sculpt it into his head and just paint it. Or do it with with something thinner, like the bristles you might find on a brush. This choice doesn’t work very well. You can especially see it in the reference art on the box how the diameter of his hair should be smaller than his pupils, but with the figure it’s the opposite.

At least it covers up the awful hair.

There isn’t much to say about Ralph’s articulation. It’s terrible. He’s barely better than a ReAction figure. The head just rotates and so do the shoulders. His elbows have little range as do the hinges in his hands. He has a waist twist, and everything below that is essentially useless. I don’t know what they were trying to do with the ankles as there’s basically a brown post that goes into his feet. There is a hinge, but it does almost nothing. There’s a gap between the end of his pants and shoes as a result and it looks bad. Ralph was never going to have terrific range at these joints, but it’s like they didn’t even try.

The only accessory you need?

A little statue like Ralph is relying on accessories to create value. I often get the sense with Super7 that they start at the $55 price and then try to add enough stuff to hit their cost target. With Ralph, I don’t really get that sense and instead this figure feels like a cost-saving one. The most popular character in the line that will probably sell the best so let’s produce it cheaply and maximize profit! Ralph has no extra hands and one extra head. That head is exactly the same as the default one, except it has a melted ice cream cone glued to the forehead. That’s it. The heads are really hard to swap too and I can’t see myself ever wanting to use this reference from a later episode that’s also a dated joke that hasn’t aged well. Why no toothy grin? Or better yet, a grin with red crayon all over the teeth? This is just bad.

“Go banana!”

Ralph’s other accessories include a banana, jar of paste, Valentine, sign, and computer. The banana and jar of paste have hands sculpted to them which I guess is fine. The jar has a removable top with paste at the end of a brush inside it, but Ralph’s range of motion is so terrible he can’t hold it with the top on. The Valentine is what you would expect and features the “I Choo-Choo-Choose You” remark and there’s a picture of a train. It’s great for what it is and if it wasn’t included there would be riots. There is a “WARNING DO NOT HUG” sign that can be hung around Ralph’s neck which, again, is from a much later episode. I would have preferred his Idaho costume instead. The sign is all plastic so it doesn’t even hang properly and looks stupid. The computer is an old, boxy, design and Ralph is practicing spelling “CAT” on it and there’s a picture of a cat. It too is from a post golden age episode, but at least it’s the Super Nintendo Chalmers scene so I’ll allow it, but there isn’t really anything for Ralph to do with it. He can’t hold it and he doesn’t have a desk to put it on. It just sits there.

“Miss Hoover! I’m all out of ice cream!”

For such an iconic character, Ralph’s accessories are severely underwhelming. And considering how small he is and that he has just one alternate head, he should have more. Where is his key to the town? Where’s the leprechaun that tells him to start fires? He could have had soft goods and another head to recreate his George Washington costume. He could have had his TV dinner he needs someone to microwave for him or his box of Star Wars collectibles. What about the cat he likes talking about so much? A box of crayons with a missing red crayon? There’s just so much! Obviously, Super7 could not have given us everything, but it’s like they tried to impress us with deeper cuts from later in the show’s life when they would have been better served to just focus on “I Love Lisa” and deliver as much from that episode as possible like a facial expression from the exact moment his heart rips in two.

If you’re a fan of The Simpsons and collecting this line, should you get Ralph Wiggum? I mean, as a character, of course. He’s probably the most popular character in the wave. As an action figure that costs $55? Absolutely not. Super7 did not earn your money with this release. The paint is mediocre, the sculpt is too large, the articulation is practically non-existent and the accessories uninspired. This is a dud of a release. Yeah, mixed in on your shelf with the rest of the line (provided he’s not next to Bartman) Ralph will look okay, but no one is likely to see it and go “Oh wow! I love that Ralph!” If I wasn’t going all-in on this line as a show of support so it would go on for awhile (oops), I would have passed or at least cancelled my preorder when Super7 figures started routinely hitting the discount rack. I suggest anyone who does have an interest in Ralph to just wait for such an event.

We’ve got more from Super7 and The Simpsons:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

If you’re going to market action figures to a fanbase as venerable as The Simpsons, you should probably go after what they love most. Simpsons fans love to make references to their favorite episodes and characters and one of the top episodes from the show is “You Only Move Twice” from the show’s seventh season.…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 8, 2024

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2”

By Joe
Written by Anthony Sellitti.

Magneto was right.

That was the realization many characters seemed to share at the end of last week’s episode of X-Men ’97. As we roll into the penultimate episode of the show’s first season, a lot is on the line and the show is drawing inspiration from several different sources related to the X-Men over the course of decades. We’ve seen costume changes for both Storm and Jubilee, one to her original look harkening back to the ’70s while the other jumped forward to a slightly more modern interpretation. We’ve been seeing scenes of the Dark Phoenix Saga play out in the opening credits much of this season while Bastion, an enemy associated with the new millennium, has been the puppet master for much of the show, though only recently outed.

Have we witnessed the death of a dream and the realization of another?

And then we had the conclusion of last week’s episode. The still alive and well Charles Xavier was outed to the world by Bastion through the media while the world would be reintroduced to another thought dead individual – Magneto. Valerie Cooper, heralded as the show’s center by showrunner Beau DeMayo before the season began, made the choice to free Magneto from Bastion’s clutches. We don’t know what Bastion had planned for the Master of Magnetism or if some of those plans may have already begun, but we do know that once freed Magneto immediately turned to a familiar refrain – revenge. Traveling to one of the Earth’s poles, Magneto unleashed a massive EMP through his magnetic powers which were likely amplified by the Earth’s own magnetic field. This both saved the mutants and quite possibly doomed humanity as the power grid was effectively neutralized. Wolverine called it a declaration of war.

A “blink and you’ll miss it” moment from the opening title is the insertion of Prime Sentinels in the middle of the Xavier and Magneto confrontation.

And this is what made the original series and now this one so effective. It’s a melting pot of different eras of the team and their stories distilled into one. I’d call it a greatest hits, but some misses still managed to slip in (looking at you Cody and the Not Brood) and X-Men ’97 hasn’t been immune from that. It’s a great approach and whoever at Disney or Marvel is put in charge of bringing the X-Men back to cinema really should go back and watch the original series and this one. Not because they’re perfect, mind you, but because they had the right approach. And whomever does so can see what worked and what didn’t or what stories could have been expanded upon or resonated in a different way. Just maybe don’t do Phoenix. I know it’s a classic, but everybody does it. Or if you’re going to do it, make sure to bring something new to the table (or maybe don’t just jump right to the Dark Phoenix Saga).

Look who came back.

That’s another a discussion for another day, today is all about “Tolerance is Extinction – Part Two.” The opening “Previously…on X-Men” responsibilities are turned over to everyone’s favorite Canadian Wolverine and the credits feature the return of Storm in her classic threads. We’re still checking out the Dark Phoenix Saga, Asteroid M, and Cable facing down Apocalypse as clips from the old show as clues to what is to come. When the episode begins, we’re reintroduced to Charles Xavier, better known as Professor X, as he wakes up in what remains of his bedroom. The mansion has been destroyed (really, no one should be trying to sleep in it) for the second time this season and at least the third overall (not counting the time Rogue put a hole in every floor of the thing including the roof). Xavier has to deal with not just the fallout of what Magneto has done, but the fallout for leaving the school in his care. Elsewhere, Bastion is seen collecting his mother’s deactivated body as the EMP deactivated all of the Prime Sentinels. This allowed both Roberto and Jubilee to escape, and they’re quickly rescued by the duo of Storm and Forge from a gang of angry humans.

It’s quite a mess Charlie returned home to.

Reckoning needs to happen between Xavier and his pupils. There’s a nice conversation between he, Scott, and Jean over his decision to leave the school to Magneto where Xavier’s intentions are well illustrated. Still, this isn’t a happy reunion as Cyclops wasn’t the only one displeased with the professor’s decision and they’re certainly not happy he wasn’t there when the world went to hell. There isn’t much time for all of that though as Magneto returns and he brought his asteroid with him. There’s no more words to be shared between he and his old friend. Magneto has made his choice and he is only there to offer an invitation to any who wish to join him on Asteroid M. Some will leave, most will stay, and for the first time the show will separate the members into Blue and Gold teams, though the membership of each doesn’t really align with such from the books aside from the leaders being Cyclops and Storm.

Not the happy homecoming Charles may have been looking forward to.

And why do we need two teams? Because in order to save the world, or at least prevent a full blown war, the X-Men must take down Bastion and restore the damage done to the Earth’s magnetic field through Magneto. That means one team seeks out Bastion while the other heads into space to confront Magneto. The tricky part might not be defeating either one or convincing Magneto to undo what he has already done, it’s that both teams need to be successful, but at different times. If the Blue Team succeeds before the Gold Team neutralizes Bastion then they very well may restore all of the Prime Sentinels to a functional state which would probably doom the Gold Team. Unfortunately for the Gold Team, Bastion is revealed to be what the show refers to as a technopath, meaning he can communicate with machinery like his Sentinels. He is likely unaffected by what Magneto has wrought so both teams are in for a fight.

Magneto has an offer to make to his X-Men and it’s an offer he’s made before.

And fights are what we get! One aspect of X-Men ’97 that has not been as strong as that of the original series is how the original was able to spotlight basically every member of the team. The show didn’t do it in every episode, that would have been foolish, but found a way throughout and especially so in the show’s second season. What X-Men ’97 has done instead is give characters their own moments typically in action scenes. And this week it’s Jean’s turn to kick some ass while Morph gets to unleash another cameo. We also get to see Mr. Sinister in action (I hope you didn’t forget about him) which is a lot of fun for those who grew up with the ’92 series. Perhaps those watching didn’t even realize it at the time, but that show’s animation budget just wasn’t what it needed to be for a complicated character design like Sinister. As a result, he basically just stood in fairly neutral positions. He couldn’t turn or do anything dynamic, but in X-Men ’97 he is unburdened by such constraints and it’s pretty cool to see in action.

I don’t like to spoil the easter egg moments from this show, but this time I’m making an exception: Raise your hand if you had that Wolverine motorcycle as a kid!

Another major change for X-Men ’97 where the original is concerned is that it’s not afraid to change the status quo nor is it afraid to “go there.” The X-Men can’t expect to come out of every confrontation unscathed and this penultimate episode ends on a pretty major development. This is one of those episodes where I’m a tad jealous of the bingers who are just waiting patiently for the whole season to be available to them. Instead, we have to wait until next week to see how this all sorts itself out. That melting pot I referred to keeps us folks who know these stories from the comics slightly in the dark. We know how they all end, but the show is setting up for these stories to just smash in to each other. The results could be largely the same, or radically different. And that’s the beauty of it.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 1”

Ever since the episode list was released for X-Men ’97 I’ve been looking forward to what reads like an epic, three-part, season finale. In truth, given that X-Men ’97 is a serialized show you could basically call every episode “X-Men ’97 Season 1 Part 1” and so on, but the titles do add a dramatic…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Bright Eyes”

When we last saw our beloved X-Men, their world had just been destroyed. An idyllic place set to the soundtrack of the very on-the-nose choice of “Happy Nation” by Ace of Base in Genosha was laid to waste. Mutants of all backgrounds were slaughtered including our beloved Gambit and less beloved Magneto. In the aftermath…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Lifedeath – Part 2”

Last week’s episode of X-Men ’97 ended in spectacular and heartbreaking fashion. If you were hoping to experience the fallout of that one, you’re going to be disappointed by this week’s episode. Like the week before which saw an episode end with Forge and Storm in a precarious situation, this week’s episode is willing to…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 2, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

By Joe
They do not come in peace.

We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate releases, but since the figures are practically the same it makes sense to review the two at the same time. These aliens could be described as fan favorite characters and they owe much of that status to their close ties to the annual Halloween celebration that is Treehouse of Horror. For awhile, these two aliens could be counted on to make at least a cameo appearance, but the show seems to have mostly dropped that. They’ve probably appeared in more than they’ve missed, and their debut occurred in the very first installment of the Halloween tradition. Still, they take up two slots of a wave that includes four figures and not one of them is an actual member of the Simpson family (though one does make it into this wave as an accessory) which is more than a little bizarre. Why not save the pair for a Treehouse-themed wave? Devil Flanders is in the fourth wave, so they’re only one figure short. Oh well, Super7’s poor planning is not the fault of these figures so let’s just see if they can stand on their own merits.

Robot Scratchy has been overthrown.

The aliens of The Simpsons are green, octopus-like creatures with one eye and a massive maw that is constantly overflowing with saliva. The aliens apparently need a very specific type of mix to the air they breath so they are most often seen in a large glass helmet that covers their head, but still allows for their tentacles to be free. I had never paid much attention to how many tentacles each alien has, but if Super7 can be assumed to have done its homework then the answer is five. Kang and Kodos are siblings and in one episode Kang refers to Kodos as his sister, though I think they refer to the character as a “he” in later episodes. Since they are largely from the Treehouse of Horror anthology episodes, their appearances are basically non-canon anyway so their circumstances change to suit the jokes and situations each plot presents. They did have one non-Treehouse appearance, but it’s an episode most consider to be pretty terrible and I have no idea if it’s considered canon or not by the show’s writers. Regardless, as action figures these two present an obvious challenge since there isn’t a whole lot to articulate. They’re also massive and come at an inflated price of $75 each. That was too rich for me initially, though once the line was cancelled I felt better about extending myself to make sure I had a full collection. Plus, I took advantage of an influencer discount at Entertainment Earth (Preternia, if you’re curious, since that guy is always alerting me to great action figure deals) and free shipping was just enough to get me to bite now rather than hold out for a possible discount later. These two arrived in a massive box which was honestly pretty exciting.

“We find your lack of mass amusing.”

The packaging for Kang and Kodos is consistent with the first two waves so slipcovers are included. The cardstock in use for their oversized boxes is thicker than usual and both actually got a little beat up in transit. They’re too big to save anyways so I tossed them, but they’re definitely two of the bigger Ultimates! boxes I’ve encountered. I think both the Power Rangers T-Rex and Dragonzord were wider, but these were deeper and taller. They’re also held in place with lots of tie-downs and twist-ties which is annoying, but they did seem to keep everything in place.

Everything about this pair is big.

Kang and Kodos are exactly the same size. Their “heads” are a little over 7″ alone and once you put the dome on their bodies you’re talking about something that’s over 11″ tall. They are big and impressive to look at, but I stress the “look at” part. In-hand, they feel shockingly cheap. Shockingly because they don’t look how one would expect them to feel. The heads are hollow so they’re very light. Some parts of the heads appear to be painted and some appear to be colored plastic made to fit in place. The mouth area is all painted well, but the green spots on the tops of the heads can be iffy. Kodos, in particular, has some bad paint up there where some of the spots are unfinished. Worse though are these domes. They’re plastic and are manufactured in two halves and then glued together. I think, because they don’t want to separate. Both were pretty scuffed up right out of the box and since they were packaged well I’m assuming they went into the box in this condition. Once again, it’s Kodos that gets the worst of it as their dome has a pretty nice scrape on it near the top and also a random black dot. Unfortunately, both eyesores are on different sides so one is always visible and the seams around the whole thing do limit the display options. Oddly, Kang’s was packaged differently and included a soft, plastic, hose around the tip of the dome though the tip on Kodos’ dome arrived fine without it. Kang also had more plastic wrapped around his head for some reason. Kodos has what appears to be some tape stuck over the left side of the eye that I’m having a hard time getting off too.

It doesn’t photograph well, but the domes are scuffed up on mine. Hopefully it’s an isolated issue.

The domes and badly painted spots are my only gripes about the presentation with these two because they have the size to earn their spot on a shelf. If they can fit, that is. I’ve been displaying my collection on the Arcade 1-Up editions of The Simpsons arcade game and these two aren’t going to fit. If I was determined to pull it off I probably could, but I doubt I’d be able to add any others. Instead, they’re going on a stand beside the cabinet and I’ll probably stick Devil Flanders with them as well.

They basically pose just enough to use their accessories.

For articulation, there’s not a lot to speak of. The heads rotate on the base and the eye is articulated as well. It’s basically a marble that can be moved around which is a nice touch. The two front and one rear tentacle are connected with hinged pegs so they can move a bit, but the range for the hinge is pretty minimal. The two side tentacles function as the arms and are connected to the body in the same manner, but they’re skinnier so the range is better. They’re also segmented and each features an “elbow” and a “wrist” for additional posing. All of the joints are the same hinged peg and they don’t do a ton. I’m not sure if a ball joint would have been better. There would likely be better range, but the sculpt would likely be broken up even more. You’re basically just going to pick your favorite accessories and pose them accordingly.

There are quite a few food-based accessories.

And for accessories, we get a lot of stuff just pulled from the show. Kodos features two tentacle ends that come to a soft point which can be swapped with a tentacle holding a salt shaker, ray gun, serving tray, or the big book on how to cook for forty humans. The ray gun is a really fun design and well painted. The tentacle piece holding onto it is kind of like a “trigger” tentacle and it pegs into the handle of the gun and can be removed. Without the gun, it sort of looks like a thumb’s up gesture. The other items have the tentacle molded to them. The serving tray or dish is a domed one and the dome does come off, though Super7 didn’t provide anything to place in it. I guess they can serve potato chips or a cream pie if you have Homer and Krusty. The other portrait for Kodos is a laughing expression and it’s a nice complement to the more menacing, default, portrait. It’s a bit more visually engaging and I feel drawn to it over the standard look.

Ladies and gentlemen, the only Simpson of wave 3.
At least she scales reasonably well.

For Kang, he has a cheeky grin by default and his alternate portrait is the same as the one included with Kodos except his eye is closed. It’s kind of lame as a result because the moveable eye is the best piece of articulation the two have. If you want the two laughing on your shelf then I guess it’s fine. Kang also comes with his hitchhiking sign that says “Earth Capital.” His default right tentacle ends in a hook shape which can hold it in place if you wish, or it has a peg hole and can be affixed to the gun-holding tentacle end, which Kang also comes with. His other parts are tentacles holding a knife and fork so you can pair the two up for a dinner scene. Kang’s best accessory though is his daughter, Maggie, following the loss of her baby legs. Maggie looks pretty vicious as she has a wide grin with visible sharp tooth. Her pacifier is on one of her tentacles and her head can rotate. She’s painted well and is the only Simpson included in wave three. Since she is in variant form, I guess it makes sense given that was the case for Homer and Bart. If you want to place her with them, she does scale pretty well.

“Go ahead and eat me. At least I’ll be able to die saying I had dinner plans.”

These two look pretty damn good and the accessories included are fine. I would have preferred a better secondary portrait for Kang, perhaps an angry one that pairs with the angry one included with Kodos, but otherwise I’m pretty satisfied with what’s included. I just wish the domes turned out cleaner. They display all right, but look pretty bad up close and for seventy-five bucks it’s inexcusable. That’s the big hindrance with these two as that asking price is crazy. I don’t know what they cost to manufacturer and ship obviously, but when Super7 asks for a premium on these larger figures, but still charges $55 for Bartman and Ralph it definitely makes the consumer feel as if they’re not getting a great value. The cheap in-hand feel of this pair doesn’t help as they don’t feel like $75 figures. I’m left wondering if it would have been better to just do them as soft vinyl figures outside of the Ultimates! line. They would have sacrificed articulation, but that would have been no great loss and looked and felt a whole lot better. They also probably would have been $200 a piece considering Super7’s Super Size vinyl figures are $300 and in some cases are not much bigger. This is what we got though so if you want a Kang and Kodos in this scale better ready that wallet or hope for a clearance event down the road. These two may not have been ordered in the quantities other figures were so it’s hard to know if it will happen, but I’d say it’s more likely than not. Just watch out for a run on them as Halloween approaches.

We have plenty more from the world of Springfield and Super7:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

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).…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

If you’re going to market action figures to a fanbase as venerable as The Simpsons, you should probably go after what they love most. Simpsons fans love to make references to their favorite episodes and characters and one of the top episodes from the show is “You Only Move Twice” from the show’s seventh season.…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 1, 2024

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 1”

By Joe
Written by Beau DeMayo and Anthony Sellitti

Ever since the episode list was released for X-Men ’97 I’ve been looking forward to what reads like an epic, three-part, season finale. In truth, given that X-Men ’97 is a serialized show you could basically call every episode “X-Men ’97 Season 1 Part 1″ and so on, but the titles do add a dramatic element. Pretty much all of the episodes have been linked and the only two that feel even a little stand-alone were the two containing parts of the Lifedeath arc. Otherwise, X-Men ’97 has pretty much stuck to its central conflict of humanity and mutants and the violence that can lead to. Violence like what we saw in the fifth episode, “Remember It,” which has proven to be the catalyst for what’s to come.

Look who is back in the opening title.

The “Previously…” intro is delivered this week by Cyclops once again, so apparently Wolverine, Morph, and others had their turn skipped. Returning to the character lineup this week is Professor X. I guess knowing he’s alive and likely on his way back to Earth is reason enough to add him in. Nothing really new in the opening credits to speak of when it comes to the scenes. The inserted scenes are the recreated Danger Room scenes from the original show’s intro plus a quick look at Magneto orbiting Asteroid M from the “Sanctuary” arc and a return of Cable vs Apocalypse (he’s got to be coming at some point, right?). This also reminds me that showrunner Beau DeMayo shared a list of recommended episodes of the original series for viewers to brush up on before embarking on this three-part finale. Those episodes include: One Man’s Worth (Parts 1 and 2), Sanctuary (Parts 1 and 2), Descent, and Graduation Day. I’m pretty well-versed in all of those episodes, but I never need much of an excuse to go back and watch episodes of the original series, especially good ones like the ones above.

Cable and the X-Men must work together to find Bastion.

Last week’s episode ended with a lot of reveals, some more shocking than others. Rogue had been searching across the planet and trying to figure out what “OZT” referred to. Well, now we know and it’s Operation Zero Tolerance. And the one leading that is called Bastion (Theo James), a mutant-sentinel hybrid. It was actually revealed by DeMayo that Bastion has been lurking this whole season and has brief cameos in other episodes. The only one I saw on first viewing was in the fifth episode, but I do plan on going back to search for more (if it’s not spoiled for me ahead of time). At the end of “Bright Eyes,” it was revealed that Trask was converted into one of these hybrids and he packs a hell of a punch since he felled Rogue in one blow. Old pal Cable resurfaced to put him down and in the process Jean mind-zapped him to discover that he is Nathan Summers from the future (a detail she seemingly forgot after doing the same in the “Time Fugitives” arc from the original series – that’s probably why it wasn’t on the recommended viewing) and he’s tangled with these things before. We also learned another detail about the attack on Genosha and it’s the one reveal I mentioned I felt the show had given away and it’s that Magneto lives. We got to see the Master of Magnetism strapped in a barber’s chair and collared as Bastion shaved his face to the sounds of “Flying Purple People Eater.” He seemingly has plans for Magneto and he needs him to look his best.

Bastion takes smug to another level. Also, I’m sure there are some cameos bathed in pink on those monitors some of which are revealed later.

Another reveal for the characters, but not the viewer, was Bastion revealing to Sinister that Xavier lives. He was able to get footage of Xavier’s introduction as emperor to the Shi’ar people via a satellite or some nonsense. Either way, it’s a catalyst for stirring anti-mutant sentiment as Bastion has released that footage to the globe via the United Nations. The news paired with the assassination of Henry Gyrich (by Bastion in last week’s episode) is not well-received by humanity as the conclusion many seem to be drawing is that the X-Men faked Xavier’s death to gain sympathy for mutants. Never mind that the last the world heard from Xavier was a recording that he’s fine (which was Morph) so I have no idea how his death was faked. Did no one demand to examine his corpse? A man was presumably tried for murder over it or at least detained.

I’m loving the addition of Nightcrawler to the team as he serves as a moral anchor for the group.

Early in this episode, Cable explains what’s going on and all he knows about Bastion and his new Prime Sentinel creations. Perhaps the most important detail, and likely the question all would be asking if it wasn’t explained, is that Cable has tried in vain multiple times to stop the attack on Genosha, but every time he gets pulled out as we saw in “Remember It.” The poor guy has likely witnessed the murder of his mother more than once. He’s taking a new approach now as he gained some intel on where Bastion may have been operating from. He, Cyclops, and Jean are dispatched to check it out while the rest hang back.

Two people the world assumed were dead are very much alive.

Elsewhere, Bastion has Magneto chained to a wall on a giant “X” evoking memories of a famous Uncanny X-Men cover featuring Wolverine. And it’s here in his base we learn the fate of another – Valerie Cooper. It seems she survived and has some connection to Bastion. She is here to give Bastion a soundboard, someone to explain his plans to, and react in a manner similar to the audience. At the mansion, Beast is busy examining the remains of Bolivar Trask while Nightcrawler keeps vigil over an unconscious Rogue. Jubilee is also still hanging out with Roberto’s family and isn’t really enjoying herself since Roberto’s mother, Nina (Christine Uhebe), is far more concerned with making sure no one knows her son is a mutant rather than helping out in a meaningful way. As someone who has maintained a life of privilege, she sees no reason for involvement in human-mutant conflicts outside of sending some money Genosha’s way and doesn’t understand why the status quo should ever change.

In true X-Men ’97 fashion, all of this build-up is for an action-packed third act. The X-Men can’t go looking for a guy like Bastion without getting into some fights and viewers will be treated to some fun. There’s fan-service to be had in these battles and if you’re someone who has been waiting for Wolverine to do something ever since he and Gambit’s team-up move back in the first episode then you’ll be happy with what unfolds.

There has been some great action in this series, but this sequence from Wolverine’s perspective as he impales a robot and Nightcrawler teleports them is amazing.

This first part of the season’s finale is mostly as expected. It needs to lay the ground work for what’s to come and there’s plenty of exposition to be found in order to get there. We’re fed breadcrumbs when it comes to the X-Men’s adversary and we’re likely to learn even more over the coming episodes. The show has done a tremendous job of not losing sight of its central conflict and the racist undertones that conflict contains. Bastion is a great example of this as he highlights how portions of humanity has felt left behind. It echoes real world racist manifestos like The Great Replacement Theory only in this world there’s actually a touch of truth to it as Bastion explains how a mutant-powered human can do things a normal person can’t which could actually cut into job opportunities. Mostly, Bastion is like any other figurehead preying on ignorance and fear who sees racist tropes as a path to power. Racists typically do not function on logic and reason so having even a kernel of truth to his replacement theory makes it all the more powerful.

Storm a couple of episodes ago plus Jubilee here has me wondering if we’ll be phasing out the Jim Lee looks for the characters.

The episode does end with a “bang” moment that is sure to leave viewers eager for more. We’re adapting an era of the X-books I’m not as intimately familiar with as other eras and it’s nice not knowing where this is headed. It’s unlikely the adaptation will be direct anyway, but I’m doubtful this will all be wrapped up in a neat little package in two weeks since a second season is in production already. And that’s fine, give me all the X-Men ’97 you can, Disney!

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Bright Eyes”

When we last saw our beloved X-Men, their world had just been destroyed. An idyllic place set to the soundtrack of the very on-the-nose choice of “Happy Nation” by Ace of Base in Genosha was laid to waste. Mutants of all backgrounds were slaughtered including our beloved Gambit and less beloved Magneto. In the aftermath…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Lifedeath – Part 2”

Last week’s episode of X-Men ’97 ended in spectacular and heartbreaking fashion. If you were hoping to experience the fallout of that one, you’re going to be disappointed by this week’s episode. Like the week before which saw an episode end with Forge and Storm in a precarious situation, this week’s episode is willing to…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Remember It”

Last week’s episode of X-Men ’97 saw the show take a breather with a fairly low stakes plot involving Jubilee and Roberto getting sucked into a video game. The last 7 or 8 minutes of the episode concluded with a more serious tone as Storm and Forge found themselves at odds in the wildlands of…

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by Joe

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