Tag Archives: super7 ultimates!

April 27, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Tyrannosaurus Dinozord

By Joe
Roar.

Today we are wrapping up our look at Wave 1 of Super7’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimates! action figures with the lone zord of the wave: the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord. The T-Rex zord was the vehicle of the Red Power Ranger and main body of the Megazord. It was basically the only one of the original five zords that could function on its own in a meaningful way. The other four rarely did anything, but on occasion, the T-Rex went into battle and took on some monsters in its dino form. As such, it made sense for Super7 to do a figure of this particular zord since it can standalone as an action figure while something like the mastodon or pterodactyl really would not. And it’s also because Super7 either isn’t allowed to produce, or has no desire to produce, zords that can combine into other zords like the famous Megazord.

Packaged for maximum width.

For me, a very casual Power Rangers fan, the appeal of this line is that Super7 can produce zords that are more accurate to the show. Whenever a company makes a combining one, they have to work within that framework. The zords in the show existed as both models, or puppets, and as actors in a suit. When the Megazord was formed, it then transitioned to a costume which could basically cheat the proportions. As a result, any figure that does the same isn’t going to resemble the one on TV. It does in a general way, but usually the proportions are off (especially the head) and any articulation the figure has needs to be able to be integrated without causing an issue for one of the individual components. When I look at my vintage Bandai Megazord, it almost feels like they prioritized the individual zords over the Megazord. Or, they simply determined that was the best way to go. The head is tiny, but since it needs to fit inside the head of the T-Rex that was something that couldn’t really be avoided. The shoulders are huge as well and the body is quite thick. There’s also the issue of the T-Rex tail which kind of just disappears. It’s still a tremendously fun toy, especially for 1993, but for collectors that want a screen accurate Megazord it’s not really going to cut it.

This is amusing to me.

For the T-Rex, the same is basically true as it needed to be more narrow to accommodate the transformation. The head also needs to fit in the chest and something has to be done with that tail. Ignoring that allows Super7 to just look at the character onscreen and let that dictate where the figure goes. It obviously can’t scale with the Power Rangers in the line so that part is essentially made up, but Super7 is a company that tends to feel bigger is better and that’s certainly the case with the T-Rex. The box alone is massive. I was pretty amused when I got my figures in the mail as I ordered just the Green Ranger, Goldar, and the T-Rex and each box was different in size. I knew this one would likely be the biggest, but I still wasn’t quite prepared. And that’s mostly due to Super7 packaging the figure from the side and leaving the tail fixed. They could have sent it out disassembled, but what’s the fun in that?

He can stand upright.
Or he can stand “Jurassic Park” style.

The Tyrannosaurus stands at roughly 8″ in height. I say roughly because this is a character that’s always going to have its knees bent to some degree so I’m basically selecting what I feel is a neutral position. Lengthwise, he’s going to need about 10.5″ of shelf space for that tail and that’s with a gentle curve in it. Not only is the figure pretty big, but it has some heft too. It’s solid which helps give it more of a premium feel over the other figures in the line and really over just about every other Super7 figure I own. And in terms of show accuracy, I’d say it’s pretty damn close. There’s a lot of paint on this figure and the metallic portions have a nice shine to them. There’s some black linework on the shins and around the silver portions of the tail. There’s lots of places that are just blocks of color consistent with the look of the show and most of the paint is cleanly applied. There’s a little slop on the linework on the left shin of mine and the right eye could have been better. It’s also missing linework on the top of the head which is disappointing (the paint is present on the promo images) as the head is one of the few places where there’s a plastic look to the figure. Basically everywhere on the body, Super7 decided to paint this guy, except for the head which is mostly red plastic. Normally, you would see the opposite as we did with The Simpsons since the eyes are naturally drawn to the head. I wish they had painted it, but it is what it is. The proportions also strike me as a touch imperfect when comparing it to the suit on the show. The head should probably be a little bigger and the hands boxier. The knees also should indent on the sides, but here they’re basically flush, and the red areas around the shoulders should be more rounded off. These are nitpicks, for the most part, and the only thing I really miss when comparing it to the screen is just more of that black linework., but I think most people will be happy with how this figure looks.

This one is probably not going to scale with any Power Rangers in your collection.
He’s sized well for battling Goldar.

There may be some temptation to display this guy with past iterations of the Dinozords. I only have one such era of releases, the 1993 and 94 stuff from Bandai. I did also get the Hasbro Megazord for my son, but that thing is pretty small and neither vintage nor collector grade. As for the old Bandai stuff, this figure isn’t that much bigger than the Tyrannosaurus released back then. He’s just a little taller, but way more bulky. The vintage one does have the proper linework on the head though so at least it has that going for it. The Dragonzord is another one some may want to place with this figure and, size wise, it more or less works. That Dragonzord is pretty damn chunky and not exactly screen accurate, but it’s a fun companion. If you want to go battle mode with your Dragonzord, then it suddenly dwarfs the T-Rex. That’s to be expected since the Megazord does the same to the Dragonzord. There was apparently just no way to get those forms right as a combining toy, and since it was for kids, it’s not like Bandai was that concerned about accuracy. This figure will presumably scale much better with future Super7 zords.

Meeting some old friends.
He’s big.

Naturally, a big, robot, dinosaur isn’t going to articulate particularly well. Super7 basically got most of the joints one would expect into this figure, it’s just not particularly functional. The head is on what feels like a double ball peg and can look up and down pretty well. The large panels on the side of the head prevent natural rotation in that the head will always want to turn to the side when trying to rotate, but it has a lot of room for nuance posing. The base of the neck is where you get your rotation and it’s on a ball hinge so you can get a little extra “up” range as well. For the arms, it’s the silver parts that move. The “shoulders” are on ball hinges and can move up and down and you get about 90 degrees of movement. Their range out to the side is very minimal. There are elbows that get you something less than 90 with a swivel as well and the wrists swivel and hinge and those are fine. There’s a basic twist in the waist area which begins where the silver portion of the chest ends. The hips are big ball hinges that go out the side a small amount and rotate a minimal amount. The knees are hinged joints that barely move and are rather useless and the joint is mostly going to be used for a swivel as the lower leg can rotate there a decent amount. The ankles are on hinges that don’t go back very far, but do go forward a decent amount. There is an ankle rocker but the range is pretty limited, but it’s enough to accommodate the range at the hips. The tail is on a series of ball joints. The first segment doesn’t move, but each one after that does so you get full rotation at each segment and a little up and down movement that allows the tail to be curled. If you have a heavy duty stand, you can even get this guy into his kicking attack pose where he stood on his tail in the show. Lastly, there’s also a hinged jaw and that works fine.

There’s 30 years of toy advancements staring right at you.
I’m actually surprised at how comparable they are in size.

The Tyrannosaurus isn’t going to do a whole lot on your shelf aside from stand there and look cool. I like the range at the head as it imparts some personality, even though I think the suit in the show didn’t allow for that. The hips are limited, but allow the stance to be widened which looks nice, or you can go for a more straight up and down pose. There’s also enough range going forward at the hips that the figure can be posed like one would pose an actual T-Rex which is more horizontal. It’s a pretty cool look, though not something you would have ever seen on television out of this character. It’s also easy to stand and there’s not much rub at the joints that will impact the paint as they mostly go as far as they’ll go and then stop. In the end, I think it’s fine as this isn’t supposed to do a whole lot and it’s technically more articulated than it is in the show.

Here’s some tiny Jasons for your dinosaur to play with.
If you like novelty coins, you get this too.

The accessories for this figure are also another area of limitation. What really can this thing even come with? Super7 decided we needed some hand options so we get a set of fists, open hands, and more neutral hands. I’m a little surprised they didn’t just make the hands articulate, but this is honestly probably better for us. There’s also a pair of mini, in-scale, Red Ranger figures. One is posed with the hands on the hips and the other is in a summoning pose. They’re very minimally painted as they’re just red, slug, figures with the white of the gloves, boots, and belts applied. I certainly wouldn’t expect a fully painted figure at this size, but I feel like those tiny, novelty, figures are better painted than this. Adding a white diamond to the chest would have helped to break it up a bit and some black for the visor. Without it, these look too cheap to really do much with. Lastly, we get a replica Power Coin that features the snarling T-Rex on one side and the zord symbol (I think that’s what it is) on the reverse. It’s a really heavy, chunk, of metal and it features some shading which looks nice. It’s neat, but not exactly practical and I have no idea what I’ll end up doing with it. I wasn’t expecting much, but I do think we could have used an effect piece for the mouth cannons. I honestly don’t know if it ever used them in the show, but who cares if it didn’t? Some little blast effects or something like a breath attack would have been pretty damn cool.

Making friends with the other dinosaurs. This guy will probably pair nicely with the upcoming Grimlock Ultimates! from the Transformers line.
“I gotta get me one of these!”

Ultimately, which is how I pretty much have to end a review of a Super7 Ultimates! release, I think this figure gets the job done. It’s supposed to be a more screen-accurate depiction of the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord from the TV show and it succeeds in that department probably better than any other release I’ve seen. There have been some really cool, and really expensive, Megazords over the years, but usually the T-Rex has to be compromised in some way to facilitate the transformation. Here, we don’t have to worry about that. Aside from some missing paint on the head, I’m really happy with how this figure turned out. It’s a chunky, hunk of plastic that moves about as well as can be expected and will look great in any Power Rangers collection. He doesn’t scale at all with the Rangers, which is to be expected, but will look fine battling someone like Goldar and I assume the monsters to come will follow suit. For me, this line is all about the zords and monsters so I’m generally pleased with what I’ve seen. I decided to pass on the Yellow Ranger and Putty, so this will be my final review of the first wave. I do plan on picking up the Dragonzord when it comes out and eventually I’ll have the Megazord as well. And like Goldar, this is a Super7 release that actually meets its asking price of $55. I’m actually surprised they didn’t try to get more for it as they will with the Megazord so I guess be happy for that. This is an easy recommend for me though.

Looking for more Power Rangers toy coverage? Well, look no further:

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

We continue to finally offload some long standing preorders this year and up next is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Super7. It was June 2021 when these figures were announced to the surprise of many. Why? Because Power Rangers are now owned by Hasbro, probably the biggest toy producer in the world who has its…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Goldar

Last week, when we took a look at the first Power Ranger in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers I expressed some surprise that Hasbro would license out this brand since it competes with their own Lighting Collection. I do feel like the actual Rangers are pretty safe. People…

Keep reading
by Joe

Bandai Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Megazord

It was now a couple of weeks ago I posted about some toys I always wanted as a kid, but never got. Shortly after, I rectified some of those decades old injustices by purchasing the Dragonzord with Green Ranger from Bandai’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line of action figures from 1993. The Dragonzord was my…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 20, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Goldar

By Joe
He’s coming for your Power Rangers!

Last week, when we took a look at the first Power Ranger in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers I expressed some surprise that Hasbro would license out this brand since it competes with their own Lighting Collection. I do feel like the actual Rangers are pretty safe. People who are into MMPR will buy a set of Rangers from both companies and be happy. When it comes to the monsters though then I think Hasbro could have an issue. In truth, the monsters have been a relatively small part of the Lightning Collection. The few that have been released have been of the deluxe variety with an increased cost relative to the Rangers. They’ve also been kind of terrible from what I’ve seen. A few look like they’re sculpted well enough, but Hasbro really cheaped out on the paint apps for most of them and they just look awful as a result. It’s surprising because MMPR is an in-house brand for Hasbro now. I may not like it, but I understand when a Marvel Legends figure or a Star Wars release has less money put into it because those have the additional burden of a licensing fee, but that’s not the cast with Power Rangers.

Goldar has some size on Tommy, and I’m happy to see he doesn’t completely dwarf a Lightning Collection release.

Since Hasbro has declined to make any monsters worth my money, I naturally saw Super7’s line as a potential replacement. I like having villains, especially monster types, that are bigger than the heroes so the larger scale of Super7’s figures didn’t seem like an obstacle to me, but really a potential benefit. Though so far I’ve only committed to buying one such figure, but if it’s any good I may change my mind. And that figure is Goldar. I don’t need or want a big MMPR collection, but Goldar always felt like a character worth having. He’s Rita Repulsa’s general and basically her right hand man…monster. Despite his inability to actually defeat the Power Rangers, he was kept in that position when Lord Zedd usurped Rita’s throne and attempted to take matters into his own hands. As an enemy, I think Goldar was the first monster the Rangers battled in their Megazord, though I also haven’t gone back to watch the show in years so I could be misremembering. I always liked him as a design. He’s some sort of armored wolf, and as the name implies, he seems to like gold. He looks scary, and even though he wasn’t exactly batting a thousand, I always felt like he was a threat to the Power Rangers and not the show’s version of a Bebop or Rocksteady.

It’s probably not screen accurate, but this works for me.

Super7 apparently felt like Goldar was rather important and he was chosen to be the main villain in the first wave of Ultimates! Like Tommy, he comes in the same Ultimates! styled box with a green slipcover over a window box inside. He does get his own “power coin” logo on the slipcover and there’s a bio and still from the show on the back of the inner box. Once removed, Goldar stands a mighty 8″ or so to the top of his head, a touch taller if you count the horns of his helm. He looks rather resplendent in his golden armor which appears to be fully painted. Like the Green Ranger, it looks like Super7 committed to giving us a nice finish by casting the figure in the appropriate color, but then painting over it with the same. It gives the figure a much more “premium” appearance which is a good thing considering he’s priced at $55. The inner parts of his suit are painted red in accordance with the character design and there are a few gems or something painted as well. The face looks really nice as it’s blue with shading around the eyes. The teeth are cleanly painted and the furry…things…that drape over his shoulders look fine too. The crown of his helm is done in a translucent, yellow, plastic that almost looks like stained glass. It’s an unexpected, but welcomed, embellishment. If I am to nitpick the paint I’d first go to the black strap on the calf area which do nothing to convey the illusion of an actual strap. They’re flatly painted and unconvincing. Some of the red could have also been applied cleaner. It’s pretty hazy around the kneepads and some of the hands are a bit messy. In Super7’s defense, the hands are hard to paint as there are gold plates over the digits with red underneath. Hasbro declined to attempt such a thing and I’ll say for the most part they look good enough. I also feel like the feet could have used some shading as they’re the only part that looks “plasticy” to me.

Goldar is also sized well to compete with zords. I’m curious how he’ll stack up against the upcoming Megazord.
I figured we should sneak in a comparison to another Super7 figure featuring some gold accents that a lot of people seemed to have issues with. And we might as well put him up against another big boy in Apocalypse.

As for the sculpt, well there’s really little to complain about. Super7 absolutely nailed the portrait with Goldar which is something I wasn’t sold on with the Lightning Collection release. This looks like the character to me and I feel like if he started talking on my shelf I wouldn’t even be surprised. Most of the body has a nice texture to it as the gold is dented like a golf ball in several parts. I am not an expert on the show, but it looks accurate enough to me. All of the details I associate with the character are present like the giant codpiece and the bundled up tail on his rear. Super7 has received numerous criticisms from me over the years, but rarely is sculpting an issue and this guy is no different. He might really be one of their best which is not faint praise.

This ornately designed chest looks pretty damn nice.
These things are less interesting, but you get five of them!

Goldar has a rather expensive look to him so I was expecting Super7 to skimp on the accessories, but he’s actually pretty robust. For heads, we have two options which are essentially mouth closed and mouth open. Both look great, though I think I like the open one just a little bit more. For hands, we get a whole bunch: fists, gripping with horizontal hinges, gripping with vertical hinges, and open hands. For those gripping hands he has his rather large sword which is painted very nicely with hits of silver and gold and the red gem in the center. He also has his little wing nubbins on the back which can be removed and replaced with open, black, wings that also look quite nice. They’re entirely sculpted in plastic and the feathers are nicely textured and the paint is clean. In addition to all of that, we get some episode specific stuff. There’s an elaborate chest that contains the power coins after they stole them or something. The chest has a hinged lid so it can open and close and the paint job is pretty damn spectacular. Goldar also has the five Badges of Darkness which I think he gave out to the Putties to create evil, clone, Power Rangers. They’re identical and they just resemble grey stones with a light blue gem in the center of a star carving. Nothing special, but those more interested in episode-specific trinkets will get more mileage out of them than I. His extra stuff at least feels more purposeful than most of the stuff the Green Ranger came with.

The alternate head is definitely a keeper.
“I will destroy those teenagers with attitude!”

Goldar is not a character that looks like he’ll move very well, but again, Super7 kind of surprised me here. For starters, his head is on a hinged-ball peg. I do not like that, but at least he looks up and down okay and can turn his head. He just doesn’t really get much in the way of more nuanced poses. His head sits high on the ball, so he gets more than the Green Ranger, but Super7, please just go back to using double ball pegs. The shoulders are the hinged ball joints that peg into the arm and he can lift his arms out to the side past horizontal. This really surprised me as he’s got some rather large shoulder pads, but they do a solid job of getting out of the way. Rotating the arms all around isn’t going to happen, but you get enough. He has a biceps swivel and a single-hinged elbow that can’t quite hit 90. You also get a rotation point at the elbow as well. The wrists rotate and he has the proper hinge for the gripping hands, so that’s a plus. They are a tad loose though and his heavy sword can be a touch finicky to pose, but it seems to hold in position well enough. In the diaphragm, we get what’s probably a ball joint of some kind that lets the figure rotate, but also tilt to the sides. He arches back a little, and crunches forward a little as well. In both cases, it’s more range than I expected. He does have a waist twist below that and some hinged ball joints at the hips. Goldar can just about hit a split before the armor at his hips gets in the way and he can kick forward to almost horizontal, though he can’t really kick back at all. You get some rotation at the thigh and the single-hinged knee can go about 90 degrees. It also rotates a little at the joint. The ankles feature the usual hinge and rocker, though the shape of the plating of the armor does restrict things a bit. The hinge goes back well enough, but you don’t get much forward. The rocker is also limited, but I think you’re going to get enough out of it to keep his feet flat even in some rather wide stances.

He’s not some super-articulated ninja figure, but he can look tough and swing a sword so that works for me.

I would say Goldar articulates pretty well for such a design. I admit, some of that opinion is colored by my low expectations going in which were influenced by both the look of the figure and my own experience with Super7. I think they did a good job though and I don’t really feel like other companies would do much better. Yeah, you could slip in some double joints at the elbows and knees and maybe get a little better than 90, but is that really going to up one’s enjoyment of the figure? I think the easiest point for criticism is the head as Super7 should ditch the hinged ball peg. I suppose a hinged joint in the diaphragm could get more ab crunch? That’s probably a little more expensive to implement though and presents gapping issues usually. He basically reminds me of a NECA figure and his range is pretty comparable to Warduke. And since he has a less restricting his torso, he probably moves better than that figure. That figure is probably a little visually more impressive, but it’s definitely more subjective than usual. At least Super7 is comparing well to something that’s much cheaper since usually they present worse and cost more, a true double whammy.

A lot of people have had a lot of issues with these parts so do be careful.
I think the wings are worth the hassle as they do look rather nice once applied.

One thing I do need to talk about though is the quality control issues people have been having with this figure in particular. I have seen and heard from lots of folks who had issues with the head and wings. I didn’t actually mention the wings in the articulation portion, but they do connect via a ball and socket joint on the figure’s back and they have a hinge as well. The left wing seems fine, but the right is a bit iffy. The socket feels like it’s off just a tiny amount, probably not enough to notice with the naked eye, but it’s noticeably tight. People have been snapping the peg when trying to rotate or use the hinge. I noticed before even inserting that wing that the hinge also stressed the plastic when pushed all the way. I guess naturally that means don’t push it all the way, but it still should not be. With the head, I’ve seen folks have a hard time getting the alternate head on and snapping the post as a result. One person I talked to snapped it just rotating the head after getting it on. I mentioned in the review that the heads seem to sit high on the ball and I think that’s by design to help clear the stuff around his neck. If so, it’s a bad design because every toy collector is going to think they need to seat that head all the way down and if that’s breaking things then Super7 deserves to have to eat some costs replacing them. Just elongate the post, or find another solution, this one feels half-assed. Out of an abundance of caution, I heated the little wing nubs on my figure before removing them and also heated the wings before inserting them. Once in, I’m just leaving them alone as I posed them via the hinge before inserting them. For the head, the default one came off without any issues and I heated the open mouth one before putting it on. It seems fine, but it doesn’t really want to rotate so I won’t force it. I prefer the look of the open wings with the open mouth so I would have been bummed if they had broke in some way. I technically didn’t have any issues with my figure, but I feel like a lot of others had to suffer broken Goldars in order for me to have such an experience. I guess tread lightly and make sure you purchase from a place with a good return policy if it comes to that.

“Buy my toy!”

Quality concerns aside, I think this is one of the best Super7 figures I own. It’s rare that they hit in all three phases for me: sculpt, paint, articulation. Usually they try to close the gap by tossing a bunch of junk into the box with their figures, but with Goldar that’s not needed. And better yet, most of his “junk” actually feels purposeful. While I liked the Green Ranger as a figure, I couldn’t help but feel like it was overpriced. With Goldar, I don’t really get that feeling. I think he’s actually pretty damn good and for $55 he’s the rare Super7 figure I can say is worth it. I have a lot of Super7 figures that I’m happy with, but objectively feel are overpriced. Goldar gets to be both objectively and subjectively a good figure. If you’re one of the folks who had a different experience with the head or wings then you might feel differently, but I’m reviewing both the figure and my experience with the figure and for me this is exactly what I wanted out of this character. He looks good with the other releases in the line, and extra menacing with the Lightning Collection Rangers. He can face off with Super7’s Green Ranger, and look good battling the T-Rex zord and he’s probably the star of this inaugural wave. If King Sphinx or Lord Zedd turns out this good then I may need to add some more bad guys to my collection in the future.

Interested in more Power Rangers action figures review? Gives these a shot:

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

We continue to finally offload some long standing preorders this year and up next is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Super7. It was June 2021 when these figures were announced to the surprise of many. Why? Because Power Rangers are now owned by Hasbro, probably the biggest toy producer in the world who has its…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 13, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

By Joe
There’s a new Green Ranger in town.

We continue to finally offload some long standing preorders this year and up next is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Super7. It was June 2021 when these figures were announced to the surprise of many. Why? Because Power Rangers are now owned by Hasbro, probably the biggest toy producer in the world who has its own line of action figures to sell. This has become somewhat the norm though as Hasbro has licensed out both Transformers and G.I. Joe for action figure lines, both to Super7. Is Super7 just paying a tidy sum that Hasbro is happy to take? Or is it that Hasbro just doesn’t view anything that Super7 could produce as actual competition to what they’re doing? That’s probably likely as Super7 deals in a different MSRP from what Hasbro does and is going for a different aesthetic. Well, sort of. With Transformers, Super7 is doing figures based on the cartoon that don’t transform. Hasbro probably knows that Transformers fans aren’t going to stop buying Transformers that actually transform, so have at it, Super7! With G.I. Joe, Hasbro has the Classified line which is somewhat of a reimaging for the franchise. It’s also in the 20-25 dollar range and sold everywhere. Super7’s G.I. Joe figures are based on the cartoon, in a different scale, and cost roughly twice what Hasbro is putting out so it seems easy to see where the confidence is coming from. With Power Rangers though, that’s a bit more confusing. Super7 is, so far, just doing the Mighty Morphin era of the show, by far the most popular. The figures are 7″ scale and, like the comparison with G.I. Joe, basically double the price of Hasbro’s figures. Conceptually though, they’re not much different since both companies want to mimic the show. The larger scale, more paint, and more accessories also have a chance to make Super7’s offering look a lot better than what Hasbro is doing. About the only restriction it would seem placed on the Super7 version is there’s no combing zords. Or Super7 doesn’t have interest in doing those. Either way, out of all of the Hasbro properties Super7 has started making action figures for, this is the one that seems most likely to negatively impact Hasbro’s sales of its own line. As long as it’s good.

The Super7 packaging we all know…and love?

It took awhile, but Super7’s first wave of MMPR figures is here. When the line was first unveiled, I wasn’t sure where my money would go. During the great lockdown that was 2020, I started buying a lot more action figures. One line I dabbled in was the Lightning Collection. At first, I just wanted the Green Ranger as that was the character I liked the most. Toys for MMPR were insanely hard to track down in 93-94 and that toyline from Bandai is one of the black holes of my youth. Also not helping matters was the odd space the show occupied. As a 4th grader when it premiered, I wasn’t sure if I was too old for it. It debuted at the tail end of summer vacation where I lived, so kids like me got to decide if we liked it largely free of peer pressure before school started back up. At that point, it became clear the consensus was that MMPR was a baby show, you would be ridiculed for admitting you liked it, even though it was the highest rated children’s show on Fox so likely everyone was watching it and just lying about it. At any rate, the only figure I would ever own of a Power Ranger as a kid was the auto-morphing Green Ranger and I only got it because we happened upon a fresh case at the store. I was with my grandmother, who was usually good for a toy or something on an outing, but even she was excited by this as she had tried in vain to score Power Ranger toys for my sister and I with little success so she eagerly shoveled out the cash for a pair of figures for the two of us. Had one of my friends been there though when that happened, I may have had to pass out of peer pressure. It was such a conundrum and I hated the pressure to outgrow toys.

It is time for morphing.

I’m only sharing those details to enforce that I have a special attraction to the Green Ranger as a toy because of the scarcity and pressure to not even like the show as a kid. During 2020, I also finally acquired a vintage Bandai Green Ranger and Dragonzord and that was the gateway to get into Lightning Collection. I eventually added the entire MMPR team, but since then, I’ve been able to avoid adding more (not counting the TMNT crossover figures). The first wave from Super7 would contain the Green Ranger, Yellow Ranger, Goldar, Putty, and Tyranosaurus Zord. Goldar had some appeal as I didn’t care for the Hasbro offering, and the T-Rex looked cool, but did I need another set of Rangers? No, but I obviously gave in for my boy Tommy. There was some temptation to just wait it out as Super7 figures have mostly hit clearance at some point, but my will wasn’t strong enough to wait.

Nice knife.

The Green Ranger comes in the standard Ultimates! packaging. There’s a green slipcover, which is consistent across the line and not a Green Ranger thing, and once removed you get a nice window box and a bio on the back. The Green Ranger stands at 6.5″ and it’s likely all of the male Rangers to follow will be featured on this same mold. The body is of a lean man which is consistent with the in-suit performer of the show. The shade of green in use for the costume is a more olive green than the brighter color Hasbro used for its figure. There’s really no sculpted folds in the green and the presentation comes across as very clean, and maybe a touch minimalist. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I suppose Super7 could have attempted to add that sheen the spandex suits seemed to possess, or even dirty up the boots and gloves, but simple was apparently the approach. The dragon shield is the Japanese version that the character was most often shown in as opposed to the frumpy, shiny, one used for the scenes shot in the US. The gold is a somewhat matte, yet metallic, finish and it’s a good approximation for how it looked on TV. There’s some black paint around the diamond and it’s cleanly applied. The helmet has a glossy appearance which also matches up with the show. The paint of the red diamond in the center and the teeth around the visor looks good.

Cool sword, but what is with that massive handle?

Other areas where the paint looks nice is the black trim of the belt and the morpher in the center. The words “Power Rangers” are even legible on the morpher which is impressive. Areas where the paint isn’t so great is the gold trim on the gloves and some of the green triangles on the gloves and boots as well. The right forearm on mine has one triangle that stopped short so there’s a gap of white between it and the gold band. On the left forearm, some of them just weren’t applied with enough opacity, or a residue of some kind got onto it after the fact. I left it in place for the images here, but after completing them I actually swapped the forearm on my left arm with the alternate left arm that comes in the box (we’ll get to that in the accessories). I’m tempted to do the same for the right arm, but my alternate right forearm doesn’t have great paint either. Aside from those issues, I do think he looks rather sharp. This shade of green just does something for me and it was the main driver of why I decided to get this figure. He does have his show accurate, black, holster for the Dragon Dagger on his left hip and all of the details of the gloves and boots are in place. There is one line missing from the helmet that should come out from the diamond and I’m torn on if I wish there was some black linework added there. Would it be too much, or would it add more pop to the presentation? It also looks like the red diamond should be outlined in gold and not the silver Super7 went with. One thing this figure does have over the Hasbro one though is that the white diamonds on the costume are painted on as opposed to ignored. Overall, I think I like the presentation of this figure vs the Lightning Collection offering, but concede it may fall short for those who want a more “stepped out of the TV” version of the character.

This sword is less impressive.

Because this is a Super7 Ultmates! release, we get a whole bunch of accessories. Tommy has a set of fist hands, gripping hands with a vertical hinge, gripping hands with a horizontal hinge, open/clenchy hands, a flute playing right hand, and a two-finger gesture left hand that I think is also intended for the flute. The Green Ranger’s signature weapon is his Dragon Dagger and Super7 included a damn fine representation of that weapon. The sculpt looks great and the paint is super impressive. I like that the center button on the handle is depressed so it slots into his special right hand very well. You could also have him wield it with his standard gripping hands too, but that’s not as fun. If you think the Green Ranger needs something more impressive to wield, he does come with the Sword of Darkness. It’s well-sculpted though the paint isn’t as crisp as it is on the dagger. I don’t like the very chunky handle which I’m assuming is show accurate, but maybe a little creative license could have helped here. It does have a real tassel tied to the end which is a nice touch and at least it isn’t warped and bent like the Hasbro version. If you don’t like it though, there’s also the Sword of Power. I don’t remember this thing, but it’s a big, black and gold sword that honestly I think looks stupid, but maybe I’m in the minority. He also has a gun which the internet tells me is the Mega Heater. I don’t remember it at all. It looks rather goofy, a very DIY type of thing made-up for the show, but if you like it you have it.

The figure comes with 3 different heads, but when two of them are this bad do they even count?

If you prefer your Rangers un-morphed and therefore unmighty, there’s a pair of unmasked heads. These are supposed to resemble the late Jason David Frank, but the likeness is terrible. Not helping things is that the paint is also poor. It’s not that it’s sloppy, it’s just unimaginative. The face is a solid color with no shading and the sculpt is too soft to create natural shading so it looks like a blob of nothing. One head features Tommy with a ponytail and the other he has the headband and a more tortured expression as it’s supposed to be Tommy from when he was under the control of Rite Repulsa. If you do happen to like these heads though, swapping them is pretty painless. You also get an activated morpher he can hold which is just as well-painted as the one on the belt. Sure, it makes no sense for him to be already in costume while in the process of morphing, but Super7 apparently felt like it had to include a morpher with each figure. The handle on it can slot onto either the gripping hands or even the clenching hands. It is pretty tiny though, so good luck in not losing it.

Shiny shields and one-color accessories, if that’s how you want to roll.

Lastly, we get some vintage toy inspired accessories. The Green Ranger comes with a shiny, vac-metal, dragon shield that can replace the show-accurate one he comes wearing. This shinier shield is a callback to the 8″ Bandai figure as well as the auto-morphing one and it snaps together in pretty much the same manner. To complete the look we also get a set of spare arms that lack the gold bands around the bicep. The old toys didn’t bother with that detail. They also didn’t have the gold trim on the boots and gloves or the green triangles instead of diamonds, but Super7 can only give you so much. Plus, the extra arms allow you to display your Green Ranger “naked” without the shield as he did pass it off to the Red Ranger on at least one occasion in the show (though I think the gold bands stayed on his arms when he did, but I could be wrong). I doubt many will want to display their figure in that way, but at least Super7 gives you the option. More likely is that some fans will want to buy doubles of the Red and Black Rangers to display with and without the shield. If Super7 had wanted to juice sales of this guy, they would have made the shield specific to him, but it looks like that’s not the case. Lastly, this figure also comes with two vintage style weapons in the form of a gray dragon dagger and a white blade blaster in gun mode. The dragon dagger is a replica of the one that came with the auto-morphing figure while the blade blaster came with the larger scale figure. It’s possible it came with the auto-morphing one too and I’m forgetting it. I don’t have that figure anymore though so I can’t comment on how well they nailed that weapon’s likeness, but the blade blaster is pretty spot-on to the one I have. I don’t know why anyone would ever use it, but it’s here.

I guess the gun is okay, but do we really need it?

The last thing we need to talk about with this figure is articulation. Being that this is a character from a martial arts-based show, he needs to move pretty well. Unfortunately, that has never been Super7’s strong suit. They openly dislike things like double-joints and seem loathe to break-up their sculpts in other ways. They did try something new with this figure, but in general, articulation is the one area where Hasbro’s Lightning Collection is always going to win out. One joint that it does have in common with that line though is the ball-hinged neck. I don’t know why Super7 went in this direction and away from double-ball pegs, but it is what it is. This figure looks up and down pretty well and you get full rotation, but there’s no nuance posing afforded by this design. The helmeted head doesn’t want to slide around on that ball at all. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinge design and they get full rotation while also being able to raise out to the side. The hinge feels tight, maybe due to how the arms had to be designed to be removable easily, while the rotation is pretty loose, but not so loose that he can’t hold a pose. Both style of arms feature a biceps swivel which looks better on the arms without the gold bands, but there’s not much Super7 could do there. The elbows are single-hinged and they do rotate at the joint as well while the wrists swivel and hinge and get plenty of range.

Maybe Super7 includes stuff like this to remind us of how far things have come?

In the torso, we get a joint I absolutely hate. Super7 felt the need to add an ab crunch to these figures and I think that’s fine. With the women Rangers, it’s a diaphragm joint that’s on a ball or double ball peg, but the males get this hinged ab crunch that looks awful. It’s basically an inverted design compared to what most companies will do where the hinge in the middle of the abdomen is the thin portion. Most companies will thicken that part to make it less noticeable and they also often have some chiseled abs to work around that this design wasn’t going to benefit from. Still, what Hasbro did looks much nicer while this looks awful. I continue to be shocked that a company that thinks a double-jointed elbow is too ugly to feature on one of their toys would okay this thing. Just do ball-pegs like the women! To add insult to injury, the joint doesn’t even work that well. The figure bends back a decent amount, but going forward is just so-so. Plus, this figure has the shield to contend with most of the time (though that also helps to hide the joint too) so the joint is largely just an eyesore and they would have been better off skipping it entirely. Below that is a waist twist, which is just a basic waist twist, so it’s fine.

“Oh man, I feel so naked!”

For the hips, Super7 is using a hinged-ball peg that goes into the crotch. Going out to the side, the figure can basically hit a split, or at least it would if the scabbard wasn’t in the way of the left leg. There is a thigh twist there, but it doesn’t have much range and might only get you about 45 degrees rotation going out away from the center of the figure. Kicking forward, the figure can basically do 90 degrees and it can kick back maybe half that, more if you want to really flex the diaper piece that is over the crotch. The knees are single-hinged and can bend back about 90 degrees. There’s a little shimmy to them, but I don’t think it’s truly intentional as the knees are cut in such a way as to prevent rotation. It’s not needed anyway as there’s a boot cut below that and the ankles are the traditional hinged and ankle rocker setup. They work fine as they go back pretty far and the rocker has generous range to help keep the figure’s feet flat on whatever surface you place it on.

You can sort of fake a playing pose with the dagger, but it’s a lie and you’ll always know it’s a lie.

In terms of posing, the figure is okay. He’s best suited to stand in a ready position with a weapon in-hand. He’s not going to be very good at kicking poses or sword-swinging ones either. The lack of butterfly joints also means he can’t do a proper morphing pose with the Power Morpher, but considering he’s not un-costumed I don’t think that’s a terrible loss. What is borderline unforgivable is that this guy can’t play the Dragon Dagger. With some forced perspective type shots, you could fake it for a photo, but that won’t do you much good for the shelf. Id you don’t need him actually squeezing the buttons then you can get the mouthpiece to the mask, but in order to do so I had to make the figure grip the very end of the dagger and it looks pretty silly. Limitations aside, the joints at least feel solid. The only loose ones are the shoulders, but they’re not giving me problems. The hinge in the head is also very loose, but again, it’s keeping the head where I want it so it’s not an issue at the moment. The figure does possess somewhat of a cheap feel to it, though it’s not awful. It’s mostly with the arms which again I think is a symptom of the removable design. The floppy hinge joint in the neck looks awful, but that’s only apparent when the figure has no head.

“Ha ha! Foolish Ranger! I am so much more ‘premium’ than you!”

The big question with this release, and it’s often the case with Super7, is the figure worth the $55 asking price? It’s a bit of a hard sell at that price and some of the other figures in the line aren’t really helping the cause. It’s a 6.5″ figure with okay paint for the most part, a decent sculpt, mediocre articulation, and a bunch of accessories. This is one of those Super7 figures that feels like it started with a price of $55 and then someone had to get the final product up from a much smaller cost to justify the price. And that’s apparent in the abundance of accessories that no one is really asking for. The vintage inspired stuff is cute, but how many people are actually going to use that stuff? The heat gun, the Sword of Power – these are all things I can do without and would actually prefer to not have around if it meant the price could come down. Super7 seems to have this thing where every figure in the line has to be $55, but other figures can certainly top that, but that $55 is a hard floor and in some cases it does the product no favors. More people would buy this if it were $40 and it wouldn’t look silly beside the likes of Goldar and the T-Rex zord. From Super7’s perspective, it makes people who buy the more impressive looking items feel better about that price, but I don’t know if it works that way. And it could be, and quite likely is, that Super7 would argue those other figures should be priced higher than what they are and maybe that’s true. All I know is, I’d like this figure a lot more at a cheaper price. I still willingly paid $55 for it and I don’t hate myself for it, but the pragmatist in me would advise others to wait for a sale. It’s the Green Ranger, he’s popular and not going out of stock anytime soon so there’s no harm in waiting. Where the price really hurts is that I’m only willing to get my favorite Power Ranger at $55 and he’s likely to be lonely on my shelf as a result. He’s just going to have to make due with being placed beside his Bandai and Hasbro counterparts.

Is Tommy Oliver your favorite Power Ranger too? Maybe you would like to check these out too:

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Green Ranger

In the early days of the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic I found myself filling the social hole in my heart with toys. That has continued, but in the earliest days I went backwards. I grabbed some toys that I had wanted as a kid, but never got, and I talked about them here. One such toy…

Keep reading
by Joe

Bandai Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Dragonzord

So a week ago I did a post that I titled The Toys that Got Away. It was about toys that I had pined for as a child, but for one reason or another, was unable to ever acquire. It wasn’t intended to be a sympathy piece or anything, because I had an awesome childhood…

Keep reading
by Joe

Hasbro Power Rangers x TMNT – Tommy and Raphael

When Mighty Morphin Power Rangers arrived on Fox Kids in 1993 it quickly became a ratings juggernaut. It was the hottest property around aimed at kids and seemingly everything got knocked down a peg as a result. By contrast, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was embarking on its downturn. The third film wasn’t nearly as successful…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

February 15, 2023

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Moe

By Joe
“It’s a Flaming Moe! I’m Moe, I’m the one who invented it!”

Our first two looks at the inaugural wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons have been two very episode specific takes. One was Deep Space Homer from the episode of the same name where Homer went to space and the figure presents the character in his space suit. The second figure was Poochie, a more-or-less one-off character (yes, I know he’s made cameos since) from a very memorable episode of the show’s last, great, season. Today, we’re getting what one might call a generic release, or an evergreen interpretation of a popular character from the show and that’s the bartender Moe Szyslak. Super7 basically laid it out when the first lineup was announced that they’re not that interested in doing the generic versions of the characters like Homer in his white shirt and blue pants, Marge in her green dress, and so on. At the time, it struck me as a bold decision, but as the line has been announced and the first wave has arrived it’s really started to make sense to me why an episode-specific approach is the way to go. The Simpsons is a show that will hit 800 episodes at the end of it’s current production order. If you’re sitting down to do a character that has appeared in even 100 episodes, let alone 800, it’s really hard to narrow down on how to present that character. However, when you distill that character down to a single episode appearance, well then it becomes more manageable. And ultimately, we remember and identify with the show through it’s most iconic lines, references, and yes, episodes. If I have Homer just standing there on my shelf then cool, it’s Homer. If I have Homer in a space suit, well then I’m thinking of jokes about carbon rods and alien, ant, overlords. It’s more rewarding for me. It’s not without its risks. What if they pick an episode I don’t care about? And even if it’s an episode I do like, there’s still a good chance that there’s an episode I like better. “Homer at the Bat,” “Mr. Plow,” basically any Treehouse appearance – all probably options I’d take over Deep Space Homer.

It’s rare to see Moe look so happy.
Now that’s more like it. Moe like it?

It’s not my toy line though. I’m not making them, and I respect Super7 for laying out their approach early and making what they want. As consumers, we either agree or disagree and vote with our wallets, so let’s talk about Moe, shall we? On the back of the box for each of the first two releases in the wave I noted we got the episode info from which the figure came from. With Moe, it’s episode number 1 “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” because that was his first appearance. However, this figure is not from that episode as early versions of Moe looked a little different from the character he’d become. He had black hair and a pink apron, where as the show ended up settling on a gray-haired look and a blue…well, we’ll get to the apron in a minute. It was probably a good move to adopt this version of Moe for the figure, and it would have just been confusing to not list out his first appearance in this look, but this figure is a solid reminder that Moe has been with us since the beginning.

“Hey! Hey! I may be ugly and hate-filled but, I’ve, umm, what was the third thing you said?”

Moe stands at approximately 6.625″ to the top of his head and just a tick under 7″ to the top of his hair. His default portrait is his neutral expression, which is almost a scowl. I love Moe’s design because it’s very Season One. Following that season, they really didn’t design characters that look like Moe with his sloping forehead and excessive overbite. Like Homer, his head looks to be sculpted in yellow plastic, but also painted over to give it a matte finish. The gray of his hair looks to be a separately molded piece that’s also painted over to preserve that finish. Unlike Homer, his eyes are cleanly painted which is a surprise because they look like they’d be harder to paint than Homer’s, but it’s nice to see there’s no slop and bleeding edges. The neck is part of the head sculpt and it’s secured inside the shirt so there’s a nice seamless approach to whole situation up there. It’s exactly the approach I wanted from Super7, but wasn’t sure they’d actually take, so I’m very pleased here.

I don’t like how they did the shoulders which actually doesn’t look as bad under the harsh lighting here as it does in hand.

At the torso, we switch to the more traditional colored plastic with little to no paint approach we’re used to with Super7. Moe’s light blue shirt is all molded plastic with no paint hits. The only paint is the navy blue bowtie. The sleeves are where things threaten to go off the rails a bit. The entire arm, including the sleeve, is molded in yellow and the sleeves are painted blue. Super7 did a good job of matching the shade of blue to the torso, but what they didn’t do well is actually cover-up all of the yellow. For some reason, and it seems to be fairly consistent with other Moe figures, the right shoulder has some yellow peeking through at the hinge. And it even mixes a bit with the blue to leave a greenish hue there and it’s unsightly. Why didn’t they just do the sleeve and the arm in two pieces? We’ll get to it in the articulation, but they could have just plugged the bicep into the sleeve and it would have allowed them to mold the sleeve in blue. I can’t imagine they couldn’t have fit such a small piece onto the same mold as the torso so it’s really puzzling why this approach was taken. It’s less of an issue with the left shoulder, for some reason, though that one has a scuff on it. It feels like an unforced error and it’s one of those oversights that makes you wonder what the approach is when they’re planning these out? The rest of the aesthetics are mostly fine. The paints are molded in a slate gray with a clear coat applied to take the shine off, though there’s portions where the stuff didn’t quite take so he has some shiny spots. The feet are a darker gray with a strip of white paint for the socks. It’s not super clean, but it’s in a tight spot and not plainly visible. The bare portions of the arms are just molded plastic without any sort of a coating and they, unfortunately, are rather shiny. It’s a bit frustrating when most of the figure is matte, save for one obvious place.

So he has this crate that can kind of fake being a bar, but his look is definitely missing something that should be pretty obvious to fans of the show.

Despite some of these shortcomings, overall Moe looks like, well, Moe! He’s very onmodel and I think they nailed the likeness. The only thing missing is the apron. Where’s Moe’s apron?! He rarely is shown in this attire without it. I guess this is Moe reading to the homeless, or it would be if he had his copy of Little Women. The figure was solicited with a soft goods apron, and according to Super7, it was a screw up on their end. They didn’t go into specifics so we don’t know exactly what happened. I’m guessing soft goods are handled by a separate facility and shipped to the factory for packaging. Either they got there and were overlooked by the factory, or maybe they were late and Super7 decided to ship them anyway. The line was already quite behind schedule so I can see not wanting to hold things up for an apron, but it is pretty essential to the character’s look. Apparently there’s nothing to fear though as Super7 has said the aprons are on the way to their warehouse, and once in hand, they’ll ship them to everyone who ordered a Moe through them. For those who ordered the figure elsewhere, you’re encouraged to reach out with proof of purchase to get added to a list. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened with a Super7 release so I’m not concerned about them not upholding their end of the bargain. We just have to wait, and once in-hand, I’ll update this review accordingly.

Also missing is the bug from the pickled eggs jar, but I think we can forgive them for that one. Or should Super7 mail everyone a tiny spider?

With that out of the way, let’s get to the low point of the review: articulation. Homer was pretty limited, and Poochie rather poor in this department, so I’m not expecting much out of Moe. In his favor, Moe has a pretty simple design so getting basic articulation shouldn’t be an issue, but it seems this is always an adventure with Super7. Moe’s head is on a double-ball peg which connects at the base of the neck. He can rotate, but his stooped posture means it’s not really a side-to-side rotation. He can’t look to the side without also looking up. He can look down okay, but he can’t look up from a straight-ahead position. He does get some nice nuance posing, and the rotation feels nice and smooth. At the shoulders, things get a bit weird. He can raise his arms out to the side just past horizontal, so that’s good. His arms though are pinned in at an angle, so he can’t rotate all the way around freely. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve never had a modern figure fight me at the shoulder like this one does. You can force the issue, but it feels like I’m doing something the figure doesn’t want me to do. At the bicep, we have nothing. I mentioned it in the aesthetics, but it’s odd they didn’t just peg the arm into the sleeve to get a swivel there. At the elbow, we do have a swivel and it works okay. The single hinge can hit 90 degrees and it can even bend back a little, which is weird and probably not useful, but I figured I’d mention it. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally and they’re fine.

For those not into the hate-filled and suicidal side of Moe, we have this headsculpt!

In the torso, we get the diaphragm joint that Super7 has been trying to implement for a few waves now. And here, it’s like most of their attempts in that it’s not particularly functional. Moe can rotate, but there’s no forward and back and no side-to-side either. There’s a waist twist below that which feels redundant. If they can’t do anything with the diaphragm joint, then why have it? It just breaks up the sculpt. I’m more than willing to sacrifice a small amount of sculpt to get articulation there, but if Super7 can’t figure it out then don’t bother because Moe is not a character that needs rotation there when he has rotation at the waist. With the apron, this will matter less. At the hips, we have ball and socket joints that let Moe damn near hit a split, so that’s great. He can’t kick forward all the way, but probably enough for Moe. There’s no range going back, and there’s really no thigh swivel. We get a tiny bit at the joint, but not enough to be considered a true point of articulation. The single-hinged knees can almost hit a 90 degree bend. There is a swivel there, but as we saw with Poochie, Super7 is using a rounded cut to try to hide the articulation a bit more and it basically kills the range on the swivel rendering it useless. It’s not really needed anyway since he has a swivel at the ankle and a hinge. The hinge goes back a bit, but has no range forward. And like Homer, there’s no ankle rocker. Why?! Why get rid of that?

And for everyone else, we have this beautiful face!

So the articulation isn’t great. Is it better than Homer and Poochie? I guess? His design is so simple that it makes the range on most of the joints work better and Super7 largely avoided any unsightly joints. It could still be better though and I have no idea why they did the shoulders the way they did. I’m guessing there just wasn’t room because of how low his head sits in the body so they angled the pins, but it sucks. The diaphragm joint is useless and the ankles are terrible. He can only handle the most basic and vanilla of poses. As was the case with the others, you will need the accessories to sell the scene if you’re trying to recreate something because the figure just isn’t capable of a whole lot.

“As usual, a knife-wielding maniac has shown us the way.”

And with Moe, the accessories are going to be an issue. Not really that any are bad, but that there’s just so much he could have come with that it’s almost impossible for Super7 to please everybody. Even if you’re happy with what he does have, there’s probably something you miss or would have swapped in favor of something else, but let’s get into it and discuss that after. For hands, Moe is pretty well stocked as he has a set of fists hands, gripping hands, pointing hands, and relaxed hands. As was the case with the other two, the fists might be the most useless while the others are plenty useful. It would have been nice to get at least one trigger-finger hand since Moe is fond of robbing people. He doesn’t come with any guns, but other figures do. For heads, we have the stoic head he comes bundled with plus his smiling head from the Duff calendar shoot. It’s well painted, especially the eyes, and well sculpted, but not something I’ll ever display. The other head is his ugly, raging, screaming, head and it too is well sculpted and well painted.They even captured his missing tooth which I think Matt Groening hates, if I’m not mistaken, and is something the show phased out over the years. This is Moe at his most ugly and hate-filled and a true contender for shelf material.

“You jerks haven’t paid your tab! Out!”
“And you freaks can beat it too!”

To go along with the raging head we get Moe’s phone. Everyone remembers Bart’s crank calls from the early years of the show that always sent Moe into a rage. The phone is sculpted all in red plastic with a white number pad that oddly only features 9 digits (that could very well be true to the show). The cord is flexible and the receiver slots in nice and tight on the base. I have a few phone accessories from other companies, and this one is every bit as good as those. Moe can hold the receiver with either the relaxed hand or for a tighter grasp, the gripping hand. Moe also has his trusty wash rag which he can either grip or have dangle off the ends of the fingers on his relaxed hands. It’s not soft goods and looks fine. Moe also comes with a mug of his signature drink: The Flaming Moe. Or is it the Flaming Homer? Since it comes with Moe, I guess he won. It’s done in translucent plastic with a purple insert to represent the beverage and then streaming from the top is translucent orange plastic for the flaming effect the drink is known for. What’s missing is “Moe’s” from the mug which is often featured on the mugs from his bar but the neat thing is the insert is removable so it can be an empty. It’s cool though and it’s an accessory I’ve been displaying with Homer more than Moe. We also get a jar of pickled eggs, because you need these onhand just in case Aerosmith is in your bar or you need to draw eggs to determine a designated driver. No black egg is visible, but the jar looks good using translucent, green, plastic with molded eggs inside. I wish they had filled it with something to better make it look like the eggs are actually in a liquid, but it’s fine. It’s also missing the bug which was in the solicitation, but I guess it either wasn’t worth the price/effort or the factory missed it. Everyone is demanding to know where’s Moe’s apron, well I want to know where is the bug?!

“Aww crap, they’re onto us! Out! Out!”

The last accessory is the most “out there” and it’s the panda from the episode “Cape Feare.” Lisa accuses Moe of sending Bart threatening letters, but she doesn’t actually say what she’s accusing him of, and Moe thinks she’s threatening to blow open his exotic animal smuggling ring. This prompts Moe to release a bunch of pandas from his bar and we get a panda and crate to mark that episode. The crate is pretty damn big, roughly 3 x 5 x 2.875″ and it’s made out of sculpted, brown, plastic, with a silver plastic front that latches. Dangling from that is a padlock which doesn’t do anything, but looks nice. On the side is an “up” arrow and some Chinese characters from the show which allegedly say something to the effect of “This side up.” I say allegedly only because I can’t verify that for myself on account of the fact that I can’t read these. And for inside the crate we have a panda. It’s a simply articulated figure that has a ball-jointed head and swivels at each leg. The head can look up and swivel, but gets very little side-to-side and no range looking down. The leg swivels are pretty useless and this figure is more of a slug figure than anything, but it didn’t need to be anything special. The little paint in use is applied cleanly and the panda looks cute.

“Aww, don’t get on the box!”

That’s a substantial spread of accessories for Moe, and the crate and panda contain a lot of plastic on their own. Still, hard not to think about what could have been? I like the panda, but I look at that crate and think maybe we should have just got what Moe is most associated with – his bar! A little bar display to put the figure behind would have been awesome. Or maybe instead of the panda and crate we could have got the love tester? I’d have made that change, but it’s not my company. And we’re also missing the most obvious – beer! No bottles of duff or even Red Tick Beer? Some extra mugs or spilled beer effects would have been cool, though probably would have needed a bar to be on. We are getting a Duffman in Wave Two so I guess we’ll get some beer then, though it remains to be seen if any of the cans on his belt are removable. I still think a chunk of the bar made way more sense than the panda and his crate and it would setup to get a Barney who could have come with a barstool. Or a tap. It just feels like there’s no forward thinking with Super7, especially with this line. I want to see logical pairs in the character selection, but we get Moe Wave One with no Barney (I guess Duffman is a Moe-adjacent character) in sight. Krusty is in Wave Two, but no Mel or Sideshow Bob has been announced. Burns is in Wave Three, but no Smithers in the just announced Wave Four which also is the fourth wave to not feature a female character. That’s legitimately shocking as Super7 has said in the past they prioritize diversity where they can specifically sighting wanting to have a female in every wave of their Power Rangers line. To have four announced waves from The Simpsons without even one of the female leads getting a figure (Homer is getting his second figure in Wave Four) seems to fly in the face of that. Not to mention there are a bunch of other contenders for figures that happen to be female that they’ve chosen to overlook thus far.

I suppose that’s a topic for another day, for now, we have Moe. Moe has the distinction of being the first of the generic, all-purpose, releases in the line and I think he excels where we would expect and comes up short where we would expect. The missing apron is a bummer as I think it will complete the look of the character, but in terms of sculpt, Moe is great. I have some nitpicks with the paint, and we could debate the accessory selection forever. The same is even true for the alternate portraits. I love the screaming head, but not the smile. Would I want something else? Of course, but I can’t deny the smile is done well and maybe someone else will get more use out of it than me. For me, Moe is likely to scream into his phone for all eternity, but I may occasionally swap to the stoic head when it suits me. And that brings us to the final part of the review – the price. Moe retails for $55 and if you think that’s too much well I can’t really disagree. It’s a lot for a figure like this, but I do feel like Moe comes the closest to justifying the price based on how he turned out and how much stuff he comes with. Others are free to disagree and it’s hard to give a full-throated endorsement when so many retailers have been heavily discounting Super7 Ultimates!, but for me, a big Simpsons fan, I’m happy with this figure and happy to have him. Now just give me Duffman so he has some beer to serve.

More from Super7 and the world of Springfield:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Poochie

We’re back with another look at a figure from Super7’s latest wave of Ultimates! based on The Simpsons. And for this one, we’re taking things TO THE EXTREME! That’s right, it’s Poochie, everyone’s favorite rockin’ dog. He’s got attitude to spare and he’s not afraid to show it off. Where would cartoon history be without…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Deep Space Homer

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 is Heading to Springfield!

Wednesday, August 18th, ended up being quite an eventful little day in the world of toy collecting. There were some reveals from major toy companies, leaks, and even those long neglected Street Sharks fans got something to get excited about late in the day. Personally, it was a good day for me too as I…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

February 13, 2023

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Poochie

By Joe
The dog no one loved.

We’re back with another look at a figure from Super7’s latest wave of Ultimates! based on The Simpsons. And for this one, we’re taking things TO THE EXTREME! That’s right, it’s Poochie, everyone’s favorite rockin’ dog. He’s got attitude to spare and he’s not afraid to show it off. Where would cartoon history be without Poochie? That’s actually a serious question. The joke of the episode “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show” is that Poochie is the type of character shows introduce when things are getting stale, the audience is getting bored, and some network executive has a master plan to re-engage the audience. It’s happened in the real world, and The Simpsons poked fun at it with Poochie and via Roy, the joke character added to the family in the same episode. It arrived during Season 8 which was show-run by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. Oakley has explained via the podcast Talking Simpsons that basically everyone on the show around that time thought it was going to end very soon. Animated sitcoms, or animated shows in general, don’t typically go past 100 episodes which The Simpsons had done by then. To basically have fun while the thing flamed out, Oakley and Weinstein set out to “break” the show in some respects by doing these ludicrous episodes. It created some wonderful television via the episode Poochie is from or the frequently memed “22 Short Films About Springfield” episode. It was less successful with “The Principal and the Pauper,” but we don’t need to get into that one.

He’s so in my face!

Because of the episode’s popularity, Poochie is a pretty well known character and the character’s name is basically short-form to explain the concept of a late addition character to a failing show, even though the phenomenon predates Poochie by decades. For casual fans of The Simpsons, maybe it’s a surprise to see Poochie in wave one of a new action figure line, but for a Simpsons diehard like myself it makes perfect sense. Especially considering Super7’s approach to its licensed properties which is often just “We’re going to make our favorite characters because it’s our company and our decision.” That approach can sometimes bite them in the butt, and maybe it will with The Simpsons since they’ve decided not to do standard versions of the family for now, but in this case I’m totally fine with getting a Poochie figure in wave one. He’s as good as a fireworks factory, as far as I’m concerned.

Just try not to get smashed in the face with attitude – you can’t!

Poochie comes in the standard Super7 Ultimates! styled box and, like Deep Space Homer, we get the episode info on the rear of the inner box. Poochie himself is depicted as he was in the show-within-a-show The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show. This means he has a leather jacket, magenta hat, and blue shorts. This differs from his concept art in the episode and some of the marketing images of the character from the episode (and box art for this figure) where he wore jeans and a flannel. It’s funny how that image of Poochie is the one that first comes to mind for me, even though he was depicted very differently when the family was properly introduced to the character via the cartoon. I think I personally like the flannel look to the character as it’s more 90’s to me. The jacketed look screams “The Fonz” and is slightly out of place, though Poochie’s facial hair and hat tie it together. Despite that, I am good with Super7’s decision to go with this version of Poochie as all of his accessories are going to come from his debut cartoon and would be slightly out place with the other design. It’s just too bad the designs were so different that Super7 couldn’t get both looks into a single figure, but that would basically require an entire second figure.

Hey! I hear you guys like boxes!
There is a part of me that wishes we got flannel Poochie. And a set of crossed arms.

Out of the box, Poochie stands at around 5.5″ to the top of his head. This makes him the shortest figure in this first wave and it remains to be seen if the upcoming Bartman will be shorter or not. It’s an odd character to figure for scale since he isn’t a living person in Springfield. About the only scale we have is from the Treehouse of Horror IX segment “The Terror of Tiny Toon” where Bart and Lisa enter an episode of the show. At the end, Itchy and Scratchy emerge from the TV and they’re basically the size of an actual mouse and cat compared with the Simpson family. I suppose Poochie could have been sized as a dog, but it’s not like those Treehouse segments are canon so Super7 just made an executive decision and sized him as he is and I’m fine with it. He only needs to scale with Itchy and Scratchy, assuming Super7 ever makes them.

The scale seems fine with Poochie. He doesn’t technically exist in the same world as the regular occupants of Springfield.

Now, as far as sculpt goes, Poochie looks pretty on-model. He’s a little rounder than he probably should be, but the round dimensions fit the Simpsons overall aesthetic. I do think he should have been slimmer, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me. The portrait is what’s important and his default smile looks nice. Like Homer, his head is sculpted in the appropriate color for his fur, orange, but also painted over to give it a matte appearance. It does contrast a bit with the hands which are bare plastic, but I can understand not wanting to paint hands. The other portions of the head are very clean and I think it’s because we’re dealing with a lot of separate pieces glued together. The paint on the sunglasses is clean as is the nose and goatee. If there’s any paint on the hat, ears, or hair it’s also cleanly applied, though I think we may be dealing with just colored plastic for the black portions. The torso looks to be molded in gray with a clear coat applied to give it a matte appearance. The zippers and white shirt underneath the jacket are painted and done well. The teal fannypack is a separate piece and is a floating belt held on just by pressure, which I do have some concerns about loosening over time. For now, it looks good and stays in place. The lower half is molded in blue and the exposed ankles are painted. It’s really the only part of the figure where the paint gets a bit sloppy, but it’s only noticeable when looking at the figure from below and the orange overrun can be seen on the cuffs of the pants. The sneakers are done rather neatly and overall I’d say he’s a pretty sharp looking figure. If the proportions were just a little more screen-accurate I’d call him damn near perfect. As is, he’s more “very good” as opposed to “excellent.”

He’s quite a bit shorter and chunkier than an average sized Marvel Legends figure and a great deal bigger overall than a smaller scaled line like Plunderlings.

With Homer, the main area of disappointment was the articulation. I think that’s going to be a weakness for the line just given the designs, but I’m hoping for a little better with Poochie who, despite being a dog, should be pretty informative for where the line is going. He has the usual double-ball for the head and he actually get to pair that with a ball-joint at the base of the neck. He rotates well, but the ears get in the way. To get him to look up, you basically have to turn his head to the side so the ears can clear the shoulders. He looks down well, but only gets a minimal amount of tilt when turning his head to the side. Super7 could have put the ears on hinges, or made them softer, but I don’t blame them for not wanting to sacrifice some of the look to get a little added range here. At the shoulders, Poochie can raise his arms out to the side just fine. His arms can’t be positioned perfectly straight though and the single-jointed elbow gives only mediocre range, less than 90 degrees when fully bent. They do swivel there, but lack a true biceps swivel and the shape of the cut makes them cumbersome to fuss with. The hands rotate and hinge in a horizontal fashion. He does feature a waist twist, but it’s more like a pivot as he can’t go very far unless you really want to force it. If this were a free sample I might try that, but since I paid $55 for him I’m not going to push it. The tail is on a ball and hinge and works better than most Super7 tails I’ve encountered. At the hips, we have more ball and socket joints, but the roundness of the lower half and the position of the pegs means he can’t come anywhere close to a split. I don’t know if he even quite hits 45 degrees there. The legs don’t kick forward much, or back, and at the knees we get the single hinge and swivel combo. The cut for the hinge is weird and rounded off so the swivel really doesn’t look good unless it’s in a neutral position. It’s basically the same issue at the elbows. The hinge at least gets close to 90 degrees with the bend, though there’s basically no thigh swivel at the ball joint. The ankles are hinged, but the sneakers prevent much in the way of functional articulation. His foot can go back a little, but not forward at all. There is an ankle rocker, but again, the shape of the sneaker prevents much movement.

The limited articulation and lack of peg holes on the board means he’ll struggle to “surf.”

This is a line I’m not expecting much out of when it comes to articulation, but is it enough with Poochie? In some ways, he’s actually worse than Homer which I didn’t anticipate. They kind of botched the lower half, and where I’m happy about the sacrifices they didn’t make at the head to get more range in, I feel the opposite about the legs. I think they could have done better at the knees and probably should have engineered the feet in a way that produces a better ankle rocker. This guy does come with skateboard and surfboard accessories so having solid range at the ankles is rather important, but they opted not to really try. And it’s weird for as round as he is that his waist twist isn’t better. Which brings me back to the question of “Is it enough?” It’s close, but considering Poochie has some pretty memorable poses from his brief appearances in the show that this figure can’t duplicate, I’m going to have to side with “No.” I don’t think it kills the figure, but it should be better.

At least the board looks nice.

The area the figures in this line are relying on to cover up those articulation shortcomings will be the accessory loadout. Poochie has quite a bit. Some of it is a bit ridiculous, but that’s Poochie. What’s he going to do with a surfboard – I don’t know, but he needs it! And he has one – a big, purple, surfboard. Interestingly enough, this is the third surfboard I have from Super7 and it’s the third unique sculpt. The boards that came with Optimus Prime and Michelangelo aren’t that different, so I’m a little surprised they didn’t reuse one, but credit to them. Or maybe they’re dumb for not doing so and saving a few bucks – I don’t know. Like those two boards though, this one doesn’t have a stand so the presence of the fin on the underside means it’s not very functional. And unlike Prime and Mikey’s boards, there are no pegs on this one so it’s the worst performing of the three. Poochie will do better holding it than he will riding it. And I suppose that’s what he does in the show because Poochie is a poseur – he’s probably never surfed in his life! He can be posed standing beside it with the board placed in a vertical position, but his limited articulation means he can’t carry it under an arm like he did in the show.

Super7 has had a lot of practice when it comes to surfboards.
“Hey Prime! Your board sucks! Ha! I’m so in your face!”

If the waves aren’t your style, there’s also a skateboard. It’s orange, and kind of stubby looking, but it does feature real wheels if that matters to you. It has a peg on it so he can stand on it relatively easy and even do some one-footed poses, so that’s nice. He also has his flying V guitar which is done in a teal that matches his shoes and is well-painted. He doesn’t hold it all that well, but it can be faked a bit. To interact with these various objects, Poochie has some extra hands. He comes with fists in the box, which admittedly aren’t very useful for a character like this, but they can be swapped out with a set of relaxed hands, gripping hands, and “Peace” sign hands. The relaxed hands have the thumb positioned under the hand and not out to the side, so they can function as a loose gripping hand and works well with the guitar. The standard gripping hands are more appreciated than the fists, but surprisingly not that useful. You don’t need them for the guitar, and they’re a little tight for the surfboard. They’re more useful if you want Poochie to hold something that doesn’t come in his box. Poochie also has two extra heads: a smile in which his teeth are visible, and an open mouth. The paint is clean across all three heads, though the open mouth head doesn’t feature any paint inside the mouth so he just has an orange lump where his tongue should be. It’s a different look too as the snout is very round on that head, but flatter on the other two. It’s okay, but far and away my favorite of the three is the smile baring teeth. It’s also a shame none of the heads do anything with his ears so there’s no windswept look to pair with either board which feels like a real miss. Swapping heads isn’t too bad, but swapping hands on this guy sucks. The hands are recessed quite far into his sleeves so getting those fists out was a pain. I had to heat the forearms to loosen them and it was still a challenge. The other hands are much easier to get out since there’s more to grip, but I don’t think I’ll ever put those fists back in after this review is concluded.

Note: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet.

Poochie is a solid release in this inaugural line of figures from The Simpsons and Super7. As an accurate depiction of the source material, I think Poochie isn’t quite as good as Deep Space Homer. His body is a touch off-model and his posing isn’t what it should be. Plus he has some shortcomings with the accessories that shouldn’t be. Does that make Poochie a bad release? No, because the likeness is good enough, the paint is good enough, and it has that fun factor that really only a Poochie figure could have. I can look at this thing standing on my shelf and have my head bombarded with lines from the show. In that, it’s a success. Is it a $55 success? That’s where Super7 is always going to find the sledding tough. We’re talking about a 5.5″ action figure with limited articulation and just an average amount of paint hits. It’s a tough sell no matter how you look at it. I do like the feel of Poochie a bit better than Homer who had a very light feel to him despite being rather chunky. This figure is solid with good heft and the matte applications and color combination of the design help it pop like a figure based on an animated show should. I’m a pretty big fan of the show and the episode Poochie hails from, so for me, I’m content with the purchase. Casual fans may need to approach with more caution.

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Deep Space Homer

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 is Heading to Springfield!

Wednesday, August 18th, ended up being quite an eventful little day in the world of toy collecting. There were some reveals from major toy companies, leaks, and even those long neglected Street Sharks fans got something to get excited about late in the day. Personally, it was a good day for me too as I…

Keep reading
by Joe

Lego Simpsons: The Kwik-E-Mart and Mini Figures Series 2

Last year, Lego released its first set and series of mini figures styled after The Simpsons, the animated institution that has anchored Fox’s Sunday Night lineup longer than Justin Bieber’s been alive. Debate the merits of the program’s more recent seasons all you want, but it couldn’t diminish my curiosity for a set of Legos…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

December 28, 2022

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Robin Hood

By Joe
Robin Hood is after you and he’s not in a joking mood!

When Super7 announced it was taking Disney into its world of Ultimates! line of action figures, they really seemed to confuse the Disney fans unfamiliar with their business model when the first wave consisted of Sorcerer Mickey, Pinocchio, and Prince John from Robin Hood. Where was Robin Hood?! Well, he was coming, just in Wave 2. The company was apparently going to slow burn the movies in Disney’s very famous film library, but persistent confusion and outcry (which Super7 felt was coming from the Disney collector, and not necessarily the Super7 collector) caused them to change lanes. Wave 4 of Disney Ultimates! was solicited a couple of months ago and all three figures are based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. That will apparently be the model going forward, but given that there’s a significant lag between solicitation and delivery, we’re still talking about Wave 2 which just dropped in the past month and included that much sought after Robin Hood.

Robin and PJ together at last!

Robin Hood is the lone figure from the film of the same name in Super7’s Wave Two. He comes in the standard window box with slipcover and I got mine direct from Super7 for the not so lovely price of $55. Back when the figure first went up, I really wanted to support Super7 in their journey into Disney so I placed my order direct with them. I also thought that meant I’d get it before other retailers, but Big Bad Toy Store has been shipping these for about a month now so that obviously didn’t work. And after being all-in on Wave One largely on principle, I just couldn’t do it for Wave Two which also featured Alice from Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter from the same, and Hyacinth Hippo from Fantasia. I just could not muster up any appetite for those three figures as I don’t really like either movie. The hippo looked the most impressive out of all four figures in the wave, but since I had Prince John I did want to pair him with someone. And Robin Hood was a film I liked a lot as a kid and it holds up pretty well today.

So what do we think? Accurate enough for you?

When the solicitation did go up, I wasn’t that impressed, but I also wasn’t for Wave One and those were refined along the way and turned out better than the render. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true of Wave Two. Robin Hood looks as solicited which is to say he’s a bit off-model. The head shape seems all wrong to me, the proportions are off, and there’s nothing in the paint or sculpt that attempts to capture that scratchy look of the lines from the film. It’s like they had someone sculpt the character from memory, or maybe there’s some modern, licensing, art out there designed to make the character look cuter? There could also be another factor contributing to the aesthetic that we’ll get to. First glance though is that he doesn’t look right. There’s clearly no commitment to make the character look like he just jumped out of the film which is the approach I want to see, but maybe that’s not what Super7 wants?

Who has two thumbs and an arrow through the head?

It doesn’t get much better with the figure in hand. Robin Hood is very plain looking. There’s almost no paint on this figure past the neck. It’s a very “plastic” looking release similar to Prince John. Unlike Prince John, there are no soft goods present on the base figure. And I should talk about this like it’s two figures. I’m fine with that though as a soft goods tunic would probably look terrible. Unfortunately, the figure just looks cheap and it feels just as cheap. The tail in particular looks too soft and feels worse because it’s hollow. I don’t disagree with making it hollow as a heavier tail affects balance (and he already balances poorly), but there’s nothing really on it. No attempt to make it appear furry. It’s just not good.

This pose is easy enough to pull off, once you heat the hand to fit the bow anyway.

Accessories can help liven up a dull experience, but with this figure, your mileage may vary. Robin Hood has gipping hands in the box and a second set of hands with a tighter grip and a thumb up. They appear to be intended for use with the bow and arrow. The bow looks fine and has a real string, but it doesn’t fit either hand well. The standard gripping hand is too loose and the secondary one is too tight. At least with the too tight option some heat can make it pliable to get the bow in there. The included arrow fits fine into the other tighter hand as it slides between the index and middle finger so he can string it. There’s also a quiver and to get that onto the figure you will want to remove the head because there’s almost no give in the strap. The quiver is also solid plastic and the arrows don’t come out which is a bit of a bummer, but not the end of the world as long as you don’t lose the one, lone, arrow. His other accessory is a second head which features a startled expression and an arrow through his hat. The arrow is warped and looks ridiculous and I doubt I ever would use this head anyway. There’s also an unsightly seem line on the lower jaw that takes away from the presentation. All of the other accessories are for the stork disguise, which we’ll discuss separately, which really makes the base offering feel light. The default gripping hands are essentially useless as they don’t work with the bow and arrow and he has nothing else to hold. No sword, really? And how about a legitimate second head that maybe has a cocky grin or a more determined face instead of this gag head? You basically can pose with the bow and arrow or with nothing which is pretty poor for options.

This is not, though it’s hardly convincing anyway. If I let this figure rest like this either the bow or the arrow would eventually give out and go flinging off somewhere. The arrow should be able to peg into the bow, or knock, for added stability.

Which brings us to articulation. Never the strong suit for Super7, I’m afraid it’s worse than usual here. Super7 went with a ball-hinge for the head, which is different from the usual big ball peg for this line and also different from the double-ball I see in the TMNT line. The only thing the hinge does is let the figure look down, but not really any more than the previous setup. There’s no up rotation and no nuance posing. He can rotate, but that’s basically it. The hinge just gets in the way when swapping heads making for a frustrating experience. The shoulders can raise out to the side and rotate all around while the elbows are single-hinged with a swivel. The biceps also swivel at the sleeve. The arms are very thin and gummy feeling, but at least the elbows bend past 90 degrees. The wrists also swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal hinges which is not optimal for the bow and arrow. There’s a diaphragm joint that does almost nothing. No forward, no back, just a little rotation. The waist also can rotate. At the hips, we just go forward and back. There’s no out to the side and the knees are a single hinge and swivel point. The swivel does more harm than good as it’s hard to figure out what the neutral position is supposed to be. The hinge does very little and I think his knees are supposed to always be pointing out from his body, but it’s frustrating to pose. Worse are the ankles which, like the knees, just swivel and hinge. There’s no ankle rocker. And what’s more annoying is trying to get the hinge pointed where you want it is a pain because it swivels above and below the hinge so if you grip the foot to rotate that piece it will just spin with the shoe. It’s maddening. Thankfully, he does have that ugly tail because it makes getting him to stand much easier than it would be without and that thing swivels and has a hinge. No ankle rocker is an awful choice. It’s usually the one joint Super7 does well and here they declined to try it for some reason (probably for the disguise). The only saving grace for this figure, articulation wise, is he can do a bow stringing pose, but that’s pretty much it.

Hey! It’s some stork guy!

And now that takes us to basically the other figure: Stork Robin Hood. During the film, Robin Hood disguises himself as a stork to enter an archery contest and Super7 decided to make that a focus for this release. I don’t know that I agree with the call, but it’s what they decided. Personally, I consider his beggar persona more iconic, but admit the stork has a fun look in the film. To do that, the figure separates at the waist and Super7 included a second lower half. It’s just the legs in a squat pose and the only articulation is found at the ankles which is the same hinge piece the other lower half possesses. Basically, we’re just cutting out the knee joints. For the that, there are new “feet” which are Robin’s feet on stilts that peg into the ankle joints. They feature no additional articulation, not even a swivel at the boot. I’m guessing this is why they abandoned the ankle rocker to make the connection point simpler, but why not just make the stilts peg into the standard feet? Were the knees that much of a problem? And if they were, just make the stilts already attached to the second torso – why separate them? The left leg also isn’t straight and I don’t know if that is by design or not. There are three sets of winged hands that peg into the arms where the hands go plus there’s a quiver, bow, and arrow to match the ones he used in the film plus the golden arrow trophy on a pillow. Lastly, we have a new head to complete the ensemble.

Robin is considerably taller in this getup. Note how I picked he wrong bow and failed to secure the quiver before putting on the head.

Assembling the figure isn’t what I would describe as a fun experience. The hands are tight, but they came off without damage and the winged ones go on fine. Before doing that though, you will want to slip the soft goods tunic over the torso. The head is a bit of a pain to get off and on, but doable. The torso pegs together easy enough as do the feet and once assembled Robin stands over 8″ tall. It’s once the whole thing is together that the frustration sets in. The hinges where the feet peg in are way too loose. It makes his legs want to go all over the place when trying to stand him. And since there’s no articulation at the boots on the stilts, you have few tools to work with when trying to balance the guy. I watched it fall over and over before finally getting him to stand still in a semi decent arrow-knocking pose. And once I did, I realized I forgot to put the quiver on. That thing has no give in the strap so getting it on is way harder than it should be. And then once it’s on, trying to get the head without disturbing it is even harder. My quiver now has purple paint on it from it riding up under the hat while trying to get the head on. Plus at some point he fell and one of the false arrows in the quiver snapped off. And if you need to do anything to this guy once posed, expect it to all fall apart. The waist isn’t held on by much, though I suppose it’s better that it separate easily than not. Having him actually draw the bow is pretty tough too as the arrow doesn’t have a notch in it. I hooked the string onto a finger and then just tried to balance the arrow in a convincing manner, but it doesn’t work too well.

He can at least handle the bow in a slightly more convincing fashion than the base figure.

Once standing it’s the type of figure that you don’t dare mess with. Or at least, I wouldn’t if I intended for him to stay this way. I will say, the stork head looks great. It’s easily the best sculpted part of the set and also the best painted. One of the legs features some chipped paint which stinks though. The whole costume really looks much better than the base figure, provided you can stand him. I just don’t know why so much of the budget was put into making this costume the way it is. He has a set of open hands, a set of gripping hands, and a set of bow and arrow hands. Why so many when the regular Robin Hood gets just two? What purpose do the regular gripping hands serve that the arrow hands can’t do? The direction and decision making on this one is just baffling and to top it off there are no peg holes in the feet. For a figure that struggles to stand, why not at least put some holes in there? He really should just come with a stand, or a second torso. Or the damn legs should just be static so he stays standing. It’s not like they can do anything. They could have included a second, unarticulated, torso then at least you would get a second display piece out of this. The money spent to tool more hands would have been better served on that. They wouldn’t even have to paint it or anything since it’s hidden by the soft goods. Instead, it feels like an inordinate amount of the budget went towards this disguise that most people will never use. I’m slightly tempted to display it by virtue of the fact that it looks better than the standard Robin Hood, but I have zero confidence in it staying upright on my shelf and I’m not sinking more money into this thing to add a stand. I think the proportions and articulation of the base figure were compromised to make this stork version look more on-model and that makes no sense. Someone just fell in love with the concept of making Robin Hood “transform” into this stork persona and never stopped to question if it was really a good idea to move forward with.

PJ seems to think he smells. He’s not wrong.

The final verdict is that Super7 delivered an off-model and compromised figure of Robin Hood that can pull off a convincing stork disguise in theory, though in practice the results are far more mixed. Is that what people wanted? I know I didn’t. To make matters worse, the figure looks and feels cheap, the articulation is poor, and the display options boil down to two, three if you’re in love with the arrow through the hat expression. And it costs 55 bucks! This thing is way overpriced relative to what you’re getting. At this price point, this thing needs to “wow.” It needs to feel like a premium collector item, but it looks like a toy from the 90s. The look of it really reminds me of the Lion King action figures from when that film came out. The plastic look of the figure makes me think of Happy Meal toys. That’s not a good thing for a $55 action figure. This is the worst Super7 figure I own and I’m out. No way am I paying upfront for any of the figures in this line again. Had I ordered this from another retailer I would have cancelled it. It’s that bad. If it were 25 bucks and didn’t feature the stork I still don’t think I’d buy it because it just doesn’t look that good. Why spend money on something that doesn’t look good whether its 10, 20, or 50 bucks? And I didn’t even mention the shipping so I’m actually in for closer to $70 on this thing. That’s pretty bad. I’m also really second guessing the preorder I have for Wave 3’s Big Bad Wolf. I want to see Super7 go into the classic shorts for this line so I preordered that partly as a show of support for that move, but after getting this and looking at the anatomy of the character in the solicitations I’m left feeling the experience will be similar. Unlike with Robin Hood, there’s still time for me to cancel that one and I’m thinking that’s probably a good idea.

We’ll end on a shelf shot, since that’s probably what matters most for many would-be buyers.

It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that I do not recommend this figure at all. If you love the stork version or are not bothered by how Robin Hood looks then maybe take a swing when it inevitably hits clearance. This thing will not stay at $55 and I bet it’s around $38 before long. Hold out even longer and you may do better. Seriously, Entertainment Earth has had some wild sales on Super7 stuff of late so at this time next year it wouldn’t shock me to see this sold for less than $30. I still wouldn’t buy it at that price, but it’s a lot better than $55.

Looking for more from Disney and Super7?

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Prince John

Our third and final figure of the inaugural wave of Disney Ultimates! from Super7 is the most surprising of the bunch: Prince John, the phony King of England! Super7 often surprises with its deep cuts, and Prince John certainly fits the bill. While it’s hard to argue much from Disney could be considered a true…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

The first figure from this line of Super7 action figures based on characters from Disney’s treasure trove of animated characters was Pinocchio. In that review, I mentioned how Disney wanted to outdo itself with Pinocchio and sunk a lot of money into that film’s production. Well, the only other film from that era that might…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Pinocchio

It seems I keep setting personal records this year for longest duration of a preorder and the new champion is Super7’s first wave of Disney Ultimates! These figures went up for preorder in August of 2020 likely closing sometime in September. At the time, the expected release was somewhere around June 2021, but a lot…

Keep reading
by Joe

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Film, toys

November 22, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Surfer Mike

By Joe
Surf’s up, dudes!

We are back with one more look at Wave 6 of Super7’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of Ultimates! action figures: Sewer Surfer Mike. This, like every figure in the line so far, is a recreation of a Playmates Toys figure from the vintage line of TMNT action figures, and in this case it’s of Mike the Sewer Surfer. That was the Michelangelo included in the inaugural disguise series which was basically the first of the “wacky” variants that Playmates would do. Many more followed, but for me, that first wave was the most memorable and Michelangelo as a surfer dude made plenty of sense. And it was a toy I really enjoyed as a kid. Something about that pink and blue wet suit was just a pleasing aesthetic for me. I loved the sculpted details like the octopus on one of Mikey’s legs or that metallic paint on his sunglasses. He also had a little, crab, buddy that affixed to his surfboard and it was just a fun, silly, figure. And because of that affection I had for it as a kid I had to get the Super7 version. There was at least one other compelling reason to get this, which we’ll get to, but it was largely a no-brainer. I really liked all of those disguised turtles, it’s one of the few waves I had every figure from, and the nostalgia is strong here.

He certainly looks the part.

Mikey comes in the standard Super7 Ultimates! box with slipcover on the outside and window box within. Mikey stands around 6″ and is basically in-line with the other turtles, as expected. Since he features a new outfit that’s all done as part of the sculpt, everything about this guy is new. The only parts Super7 could reuse were the hands and maybe the shins. He’s done in as much colored plastic as possible, which for Mikey is that deep, forest, green that distinguishes him from his brothers. The wet suit feature some painted details and it’s done in an acceptable fashion. There’s a lot of additional, fun, sculpted bits on this guy in the form of various sea creatures. Mikey looks like he was vomited up by a whale or something as he’s got crabs (the good kind), sharks, and seawood all over the place and it’s something I remember fondly of the original figure. I’m a little surprised some of these aren’t removable, but they weren’t on the old figure so I don’t hate it. I’d have kept them on, but I understand if some are disappointed just like how some out there wanted Scratch’s shackle to be removable. It is interesting that the default portrait for this figure has Mikey with his tongue hanging out. That is not how the original figure depicted him as he instead had a sly smile and shades. The shades, by the way, are removable this time. The second portrait is more in-line with the original. It doesn’t matter since both heads are in the box, but I found it a bit curious. He still features a big, yellow, belt and I am a bit disappointed there isn’t more paint here. I thought Super7 did a good job making Slash’s belt pop more, but with this one it’s like they didn’t even try. Despite that, I think he looks good and I’m as charmed with this version as I was the original when I was a kid.

He’s got some board wax and these oversized throwing stars, but the board is the main attraction.

What certainly adds to the fun factor here rests with the accessories. Mikey’s got a decent spread, and it starts with the optional hands. Mikey comes with two sets of gripping hands (vertical hinge and horizontal), fists, and style posed hands. For those gripping hands he has his trusty nunchaku. These are of the molded plastic variety and Super7 added some seaweed to them in keeping with the theme. The original figure did not come with these so I like that Super7 gave us some. The only issue is they’re very gummy to the point where I find the texture unpleasent. It’s a shame, because the sculpt and paint are nice, but they’re so soft that I couldn’t even get them into his gripping hands. He also has three cans of wax, I guess to maintain his board, and I initially wasn’t sure what they were. They’re painted okay, my blue and yellow one isn’t lined up properly, but don’t do much for me otherwise. He also has his starfish shurikens which is something that did come with the old toy, and most important he comes with his surfboard. It looks like the vintage one as it’s cast in orange plastic and has a decal on it. It’s disappointing to see a decal in place of paint or a printing, but that’s what we got. The little crab guy is included, but he no longer clips into the board and instead is intended to just be placed on it which doesn’t work as well since the board needs to lean forward. There’s also a foot strap for the board in case Mikey wipes out. It looks pretty cool, but it’s really crying out for a display stand of some kind. Similar to the Optimus Prime figure Super7 did, the fins on the underside of the board make it a challenge to actually pose Mikey in a surfing position. He’s a bit annoying to pose because while he can peg onto the board, nothing else does and his sunglasses just rest on his head unconvincingly so there’s a lot of balancing going on. Lastly, he has a weapon sprue which contains the shuriken, nunchaku, crab, and wax cans surrounded by a block and tackle. It would have been cool to get the block and tackle as an accessory, though admittedly I don’t know what I would have done with it. Just like I don’t know what to do with the sprue. These are being phased out from future waves and I consider that no great loss.

As is often the case, two heads are indeed better than one.

Of course, we also have that other head which is more vintage inspired. Put that on your figure with the shades and the look is mostly complete (the fit of the shades is rather poor) which frees up that other head for another figure. It’s no secret that a lot of folks weren’t crazy about Michelangelo’s alternate head from the Wave 3 release of Ultimates! I’ve been using that head, because I overall liked the alt heads more, but it is my least favorite of the four. It’s just an odd expression. They were going for a smile or a laugh, but it’s very blocky and he has huge gaps between his teeth. This one kind of carries that weakness forward, but overall both heads do a much better job of getting Mikey’s termperment across. And the good news is that Super7 was able to match the colored plastic very well between this release and that past one so, if you want to, you can swap out the old head with one of these. I’m definitely going to do that with my display, though I haven’t yet decided which head I want for which figure. And I suppose the inverse is true if you really want your Sewer Surfer Mike to have one of the old heads. The classic, vintage, head doesn’t look terrible, though I can’t see myself going in that direction, but it’s always nice to have options.

One clear and obvious negative with this figure are these gummy, awful, nunchuks. I love the seaweed and such, but he can’t even grip them easily because they’re so gummy.

Now, the big deal with this line of late has been articulation. Wave 5, which arrived at the same time as Wave 6, was pretty much a disaster as far as loose joints are concerned. The Wave 6 figures I’ve looked at have been much better. Slash was pretty great, and while Scratch had some odd engineering choices, he was at least plenty sturdy. Mikey, being a Wave 6 release as well, is more of the same which is a good thing. He articulates just like the other turtles so we have a double ball peg at the head that has subpar range because of how low it sits on the unarticulated neck. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he can just about get his arms out to the side. He has a biceps swivel and the elbows are single hinges with rotation and it’s fine. The wrists swivel and hinge and the hands swap fairly easily. In the torso, is a waist twist that does little and at the hips Mikey can almost do full splits (it’s the sculpted eel on his left thigh that keeps him from achieving a true split), kick forward, and can’t really kick back due to the shell. There is a thigh twist and the knees are single hinges with a swivel. At the ankle, we get hinges and rockers which continue to be the strong point of the line. The rest is just basic. The range is mediocre as he can’t quite hit a 90 degree bend at either the elbow or knee, but there are at least no surprises. We know what to expect and that the articulation is going to be a weak spot for this line, at least what is here seems fine as far as quality control is concerned. I’d love to see Super7 do better, but we’re at a point that we should expect this level of articulation and either accept ir or pass because it’s unlikely to change.

Whether you go with the tongue head or the closed mouth, I think it’s an improvement for the wave 3 Mikey.

This is a figure that is not likely to excite many, but it’s probably not going to let many down either. It feels like it should be regarded as a new baseline for the entire series. There’s a good amount of paint on the figure proper and it’s applied reasonably well. Yes, it’s not pristine upon close inspection, but it’s good enough. The articulation is not impressive, but is up to the line’s own standard and at 6 waves deep it’s mostly on the consumer at this point if they’re letdown in that department. And the figure also comes with enough, though I definitely would have appreciated some new hands like open palms for a more traditoonal surfing pose or maybe a “Hang 10” gesture. At least there is already plenty of new tooling with this guy so it doesn’t feel like Super7 cheaped out on us. My only true criticisms rest with the belt and nunchuks. The belt just needs more paint as it shouldn’t be all yellow like that. At least hit the cans with something. And that gummy plastic utilized for the chuks needs to take a hike. I get that they were looking for a flexible alternative for the weapons, but this isn’t the right solution. Mostly though, if you’re into this line and have been generally pleased then you’ll like this figure and if you liked the vintage one well then it’s a no brainer. The fact that his second head works well with the older Mikey might be reason enough for some to drop the $55 it costs to get this guy.

The new heads for Mikey are a bit “toony” compared with the other brothers, but it works well enough as far as I’m concerned.

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

November 1, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Scratch

By Joe
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a couple of fellas in striped pajamas minding their own business.

Ask a casual fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who Scratch is and it’s possible they’ll have no idea who you’re talking about. Ask a collector of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures who Scratch is and their eyes will shift to one of longing. Scratch the cat was a late entrant in the classic line of Playmates action figures. He was originally released in 1993 when the basic assortment of TMNT figures had shrunk to just 7. In their place were figures based on a new movie, the toon subline, cave turtles, mutating turtles, and a bunch of other gimmicks. Kids had basically grown bored with the franchise, so Playmates was throwing a bunch of different tricks at them to try to cling to a demographic that had been obsessed with their product for a few years at this point. And a few years for a children’s toyline can sometimes feel like an eternity.

So it was that Scratch, Halfcourt, Hot Spot, and the other figures from ’93 went somewhat ignored. They were also produced in fewer numbers compared with the basic assortment of the prior years, and the people who were buying them were kids which meant they’d get beat up, broken, donated, etc. As a result, they’re even harder to find today and if you have a mint, carded, Scratch or one of those other guys from ’93 then you have yourself a decent little payday in front of you, should you wish to sell. And for whatever reason, Scratch has become “the one” from that assortment and for collectors of the line he’s become a bit of a grail piece, despite the fact that there are other figures more rare in the line. Because of his infamy, it’s not surprising that Super7 would turn to the character that went unloved nearly 30 years ago, but so many are after today.

In 1993, I was barely clinging to my TMNT fandom. I saw the third film and liked it enough and would get it on VHS later that year. I had Cave Turtle Leonardo from the prior year and was very smitten with that year’s Turtle Trolls. It was also the year I bought my final TMNT figure until 2003, a Ninja-flipping Raphael. Otherwise, I was really into X-Men and the offerings from ToyBiz. Plus, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers debuted that summer and set the toy world on fire as well. And I can remember encountering that basic assortment like Hot Spot, Mona Lisa, and yes, Scratch, and my take then was “Wow, these look stupid.” And they kind of were. Mona Lisa is fine, but Hot Spot? He’s a mutant dalmatian that is a fire fighter – how creative? Scratch is a mutant cat burglar who….wait for it…is a cat! They’re two of the laziest designs put out by Playmates and are totally unremarkable as characters and as action figures. If that’s the case, why did I bother with this updated version of a character that I think is kind of lame? The answer is: I don’t know! When the solicitation went up, I didn’t give it much thought. I guess I liked the idea of a figure with a ball and chain and I was intrigued by the presence of a diaphragm joint and what looked like a fairly ambitious paint job, by Super7 standards. I don’t know if that should have been enough to get me to drop $55 on the figure, but it did so here we are.

It’s starting to feel like a rarity to get a non-turtle in this line that isn’t massive.

Scratch is one of those figures that can best be described as “what you see, is what you get.” He stands about 6.5″ in height and comes in a standard sized box. He’s sporting an old timey jailbird outfit, so white jumpsuit with black stripes. He’s got a cat burglar mask and a little hat too. Like many, many, figures from Playmates, he has one foot sporting a boot and one that’s bare. The booted foot is also shackled and a bluish-grayish ball is attached to the shackle via an actual chain. Around his neck is a piece of black thread with a small nail file attached for busting out of jail. His clothing is mostly in tatters as he’s either gotten into some scrums in prison or his escape act left him a bit worse for ware. It was a pretty bland design in 1993, and it’s really no better in 2022. I suppose the thinking here is that the large scale of this line can improve the sculpt and the added paint can elevate it. And I suppose it does. Kind of. His face is very expressive and every piece of exposed flesh is nicely textured to simulate fur. There’s no texture to the clothing, but there are numerous rips and the folds of which are sculpted on. I like that his prison uniform was apparently custom made because it continues onto his tail, though it’s pretty torn. The end of his tail is wrapped as well, like many a cartoon cat. The shackle on the left ankle is a bit odd though. It’s part of the sculpt, which was true of the original toy, but it feels like this is something Super7 could have improved upon by making it removable. The area between the curved bar of the lock and the actual lock itself is also filled in with plastic so it doesn’t look as good as it could. The actual ball portion can be removed since it’s just affixed via a small, weak, chain, so if you wish you can simply bend the last link and slide it off, though each time you do you likely risk the link just breaking all together.

Looks like they messed up Scratch’s missing tooth. That white indent is probably supposed to be painted black.

Excepting the shackle, I think the sculpt looks pretty good from a technical standpoint. Whether or not you like the character design is certainly subjective. The paint though is a bit of a mixed bag. The fur is the standout. Scratch is basically a light brown with a red-brown overcoat. The hands, the feet, the face – all look good. The teeth and the mask are especially clean, though the factory screwed up Scratch’s missing tooth by basically painting the gap as if a tooth were there which just looks strange. It also looks like they missed the black outline for his right fang as it’s present on the left side. The jail suit is a little less impressive. Scratch appears to be mostly cast in white plastic so the black lines and the exposed fur are all painted effects. This is a sound strategy, but may have been a little too much for Super7 to handle. There are numerous places where the paint doesn’t go far enough to the edge of the clothing and doesn’t look great. It’s especially noticeable on the wrappings on his tail. The rip around his right shoulder also looks weird because the arm is cast in white, but it looks like the rip should result in an exposed armpit, but doesn’t. There’s also a scuff on one of the black lines on my figure’s left leg. Interestingly enough, some of the spots that look hard to paint turned out very well. There’s a thin rip at the base of his rib cage on his left side that’s nice and clean and the little slashes on his left thigh all look great. “Mixed bag” is probably the best way to describe this one when you’re talking paint.

My best attempt at tip-toes.

Scratch, being one of the more generic character designs in this line, should be one of the best articulated as a result. There’s no shell to work around, he’s not super chunky, or an alligator, he’s basically a humanoid character that just happens to be covered in fur and features a tail. Again, you would think that would bode well for Scratch, but eh, more mixed bag. It starts at the head where Scratch is surprisingly locked down. He basically can’t look up at all and only down a little because his head sits so low on the neck, which is unarticulated. He does get a little tilt to each side and can rotate, but the lack of up and down is disappointing. At the shoulder, he can just hit horizontal and rotates all the way, of course. There is no biceps swivel once again, and instead we get an elbow swivel that can at least go all the way around. The hinge there can’t hit a 90 degree bend which continues to be a disappointment. Yeah, there’s little different between 90 and almost 90, but the goal here is to be able to go past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge and Scratch does have a vertical hinge for his trigger hand, so that’s a plus. In the torso we have a new joint not featured on other figures in the line which is at the diaphragm. It feels like a ball joint, and it allows Scratch to rotate a little bit and he seems to have more range rotating to his right. He can’t really bend back far, but he does crunch forward a bit. You also get some nuance posing which I like. It’s not amazing, but being able to break-up the torso like this adds more than you think. At the waist we have a twist that is surprisingly tight. He can’t go all the way around, or at least he doesn’t want to and I’m not going to force it. The hips can go out to the side to almost a full split and he kicks forward well and there’s a bit of a thigh swivel. At the knee, we have the standard single hinge and swivel which rotates all the way around on the right leg, but does more of a pivot on the left. The right leg can hit a 90 degree bend, or close to one, while the left knee barely does anything because of it’s shape. It’s a poor design as there’s nothing unique about this guy preventing better range. The ankle hinges and can rock to the side, and just like the knee, the right foot is far more functional than the left though the ankle rocker is more like a swivel on the right foot than a true pivot. Lastly, the tail is on a ball peg and doesn’t do much of anything save for swivel around. Trying to pose it any other way is likely to just result in it popping off.

At least he has the right hinge for his trigger hand!

The articulation continues to be a weak spot for this line and Scratch is, in some ways, more disappointing than most. As I said before, there’s nothing about this character’s design that should make the articulation hard to implement, but it still comes up short. With the knees and elbows, they’re just not allowing for enough room to add in the necessary range. Don’t do double-hinges if you don’t like them, but single-hinged joints should work better than this. A double-ball peg approach to the waist would add a lot of nuance as well, and Super7 needs to allow for more clearance at the head. I should also add, the joints on the knees are painted so you’ll want to be careful there. The right calf is actually cast in clear plastic, so it’s not too unsightly if some of that paint rubs off of the hinge. The left calf is in white and part of the stripe by his knee is painted onto it. The knee barely moves as it is so most should be okay, but it’s something to be mindful of. As far as tolerance goes, Scratch is definitely more in-line with Slash than he is with the Wave 5 releases. Most of the figure moves fine, though that diaphragm joint is a bit loose. It will flop a bit if you shake the figure, but otherwise seems to hold its pose okay. The hips are fine and so are the wrist hinges and waist.

This is definitely intentional. Image on the left is from the excellent Rad Plastic.

So far I would categorize this review as merely okay, but Scratch has one last chance to impress and that’s with his accessories. Scratch is pretty well loaded with stuff and it starts with an assortment of hands. Scratch has a set of fists, gripping hands, style pose hands, and trigger finger hands. The gripping hands feature a different grip for each so one is tighter than other. His left trigger finger hand has a horizontal hinge, which is useless, but the right has a vertical hinge. I don’t know why they did it that way, but as long as we have one good trigger hand I’m content. Scratch also has an alternate portrait and this one features more of a closed mouth and side-eyed glance. I don’t normally like side-eye expressions, but something about this one works for me. It’s a little more toony in the eyes as there’s no exposed eyelid so I might settle on this one for my display. This expression also dates back to an uncovered clay sculpture for the original figure, which was done by Anaglyph, and was apparently considered for the final figure (image above is from the wonderful TMNT toy resource Rad Plastic). Getting the head and hands off is no problem, though seating the second head is a bit of a pain, but doable without heat.

I’ve seen Sylvester the cat have to settle for worse.

For those hands, Scratch has a few items he can wield. I already mentioned the small file dangling from a rope around his neck, but he also has a large one he can kind of hold in the tighter gripping hand. It’s cast in that same blue-gray as the smaller file and the steel ball and it looks fine. There’s a dead fish for Scratch to apparently snack on that’s also the same blue-gray color, which is weird, but has some yellow, painted-on, eyes. There’s a claw hammer for Scratch to smack stuff with and it’s fully painted and fits well on the other gripping hand. There’s a sack of money and it’s really well painted. It’s flat on the bottom so it’s designed to be placed on a surface and it’s sculpted to look like the gold coins inside are spilling out. You can put it in his hand if you want though, but it will look weird. My favorite accessory though is the cake gun. It’s a handgun with a slice of cake over it implying that Scratch snuck it into prison in an actual cake and pulled this sucker out. It’s goofy, but reflective of the vintage line. I’m left wishing Super7 gave us the rest of the cake. Lastly, Scratch comes with a buddy figure named Jailbird. Again, pretty weak design as he’s just a bird in a prison uniform, but who didn’t like getting a little buddy figure in the vintage line? Jailbird is well painted and in a casual pose where he looks like he’s flipping a coin. I think he’s supposed to be a hawk, though he’s purple. He doesn’t stand totally upright, which bugs me a little, and features zero articulation. At least he’s fully painted. There’s also a weapon sprue for Scratch and it’s cast in yellow like the vintage toy, though it appears to be a paler yellow. The ball and chain accessory makes up the outer part of the sprue, with the file, cake gun, fish, and hammer inside it. The shackle doesn’t open or anything so I don’t see how you could get it on the figure without removing a foot. It’s more for those who want Scratch to wield yellow weapons though, but still feels rather pointless. It’s no surprise then that these look like they’re going to be phased out in the next wave.

He’s going to need those tools if he wants to get that shackle off.

At the end of the day, Scratch was a fairly unremarkable figure in the vintage line, and he’s close to that in the Super7 line. He’s a little better than unremarkable and that’s mostly accomplished with the accessories. I love the cake gun and the money bag is one of the better painted items I’ve received from Super7. The hammer, file, and dead fish are done well, but aren’t particularly exciting. I do like the alternate head, and the ball and chain is basically an accessory too and one that’s pretty fun. The vintage figure did not have the actual ball and chain, but did have the shackle, so I guess it isn’t a terrible thing that the shackle isn’t removable. You can make this display like the vintage toy, though going the extra mile there would have been cool. The articulation is subpar though. He’s better than some of the other figures in the line in that regard, but those figures were poorly articulated so that makes Scratch just underwhelming by comparison. I think Super7 can do better and I’d like to see them try. The paint is at least more ambitious than some of the figures in the line, even if it isn’t exactly a homerun. He’ll look fine on a shelf, but closer scrutiny leaves something to be desired.

All right, who let the cat out?!

Your fondness for Scratch will likely come down to your subjective reaction to the character design, which I don’t hate, I just find boring. There’s enough here in the accessories and overall look to leave me content, but this figure will never enter my mind when I’m trying to pick my favorite from this line. That’s also true of the opposite though as he’s far from the worst and if anything collectors should feel okay about the quality of the product coming out of Wave 6 considering how shaky Wave 5 turned out. And even as I say all of this, I can’t deny that I had more fun than usual snapping pictures of this guy, utilizing my own cat’s carrier, and such. Scratch is a corny design that’s been elevated due to the scarcity of the original figure and for many longtime TMNT collectors this is as close as they’re going to get to that figure. If you have always desired Scratch the action figure, then this should “scratch” that itch. It’s unarguably a better, more enjoyable, figure than the vintage release and should look fine with the rest of your collection. On the other hand, if you see a figure of a literal cat burglar and it does nothing for you then you probably won’t miss this one. I give it a measured recommend for that reason.

“So…what are you in for?”

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

October 25, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Leatherhead

By Joe
Time to meet the good old boy, or gator, or whatever.

When we last looked at a wave 5 release in Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! it didn’t go that well. Sewer Samurai Leonardo wasn’t an abysmal failure, but it had some problems that really took some of the shine off of the release. It was the type of thing that really shouldn’t occur at this price point when it comes to action figures, so I approached my next Wave 5 release with some trepidation, but I’m happy to say that this one is a better, overall, experience. It’s not without it’s flaws, but they’re more acceptable than what we saw with Leonardo.

Leatherhead is another big boy, but not necessarily when it comes to height.

When Wave 5 went up for sale, I initially only pre-ordered Leonardo. Some time later I put in for Ray Fillet, but as time went on I fell out of love with that decision. The one I was on the fence about from day one though was Leatherhead. When it comes to this line, I’m finding the attraction for me is either a love of the original figure from Playmates, or I’m just blown away by the larger scale. With Leatherhead, I never had that old figure and it wasn’t some giant hole in my collection. I’m pretty sure I wanted it, as when I had a friend over that brought the figure with him I remember being happy he forgot it as he was getting ready to leave, only for his mom to remind him not to forget his toys. Damn! When the Super7 solicitation came out though it was clear Leatherhead was going to be the big boy of Wave 5, but I wanted to see the final product before putting in an order. When they started to trickle out, I decided to take the plunge, though I was a bit afraid I was going to get burned. It was a daily decision, do I keep my preorder or drop it? Then it came in stock and the decision was made, so lets check it out!

This box is stupid big. On the left is the slipcase and on the right is the actual box with a standard sized one in the middle.

Leatherhead comes in a massive version of Super7’s standard Ultimates! packaging. It has an extra 2″ of depth which really makes a difference. By height, it’s basically the same, but they must have found themselves in no man’s land when it came to the figure. I’m surprised they didn’t package him with a profile view instead, but the box is certainly an attention grabber as a result. The figure itself isn’t massive in the same way that Bebop or Muckman is. By height, he’s about 6.25″ to the top of his head and approaches 7″ when you factor in the hat. He doesn’t really stand fully upright, so his height is deceiving. Where the size comes in is from his depth. He’s a gator, so he has a massive snout plus a tail, though that comes disassembled form the figure in the box. In the same stance as I took the heigh measurement, his length is approximately 9.5″ which can actually be made longer if you crouch him down into a pose more resembling the vintage figure.

And this is why the box had to be made so deep. Granted, the tail isn’t on in the box.

Leatherhead is a uniquely sized beast for this line, but he’s still fundamentally a Super7 release. Most of the figure features sculpted plastic done in a base color that negates a need for paint. Or at least, that’s the thinking. The scaled texture of his green flesh looks nice and his belly is less scaled, though still green unlike a real alligator. There is a hint of a wash on his hands and maybe a touch on the neck, chest, and tail. What’s there is extremely subtle and I wish there was more of it since this guy came out of a swamp. He should be grimy and gross. His vest is sculpted in a marigold color and that has a wash applied to add some texture to it. Parts of the pants and boots are painted, but the right leg is a little off. He has a torn knee in his jeans on that side so they sculpted it in green and painted the blue onto it, but it doesn’t match the thigh. A wash to make those jeans look dirty might have helped to conceal that, but oh well. The painted parts of the boots also don’t match the colored portions, and it seems to stand out even more in pictures than it does in reality. On the face, his eyes are painted well and his blonde eyebrows look okay. The teeth are a bit of a mixed bag. They’re painted an off-white color and in some places that ended up covering the gums, namely right on the front of his muzzle, which sucks. The hat is rather well-painted as are the various bits and bobs on his belt. There’s a dagger sculpted onto the arm that is also well-painted, but I wish it had been made an accessory instead. Isn’t that part of the point of this line to make some of those sculpted bits more realistic and functional?

The paint on the gumline could certainly be better. And you can also see a faint scuff, or some kind of residue, on the upper jaw if you look closely.

The paint is acceptable. It’s not exactly praise worthy, but I can forgive some of the sloppiness. There is an odd scuff on the right side of my figure’s face. I can’t tell if it’s just some glue-like residue from the factory or actual damage. I’ll probably hit it with something later, but I don’t know if it shows in pictures. From a presentation perspective, how much you like this figure will largely depend on the overall look and that’s a good thing. It has some of the oddities of that vintage figure like the big, buck, teeth on the front of it. I know a lot of people find that part of the sculpt off-putting and it’s something that stands out more at this scale, but it was on the old figure. There’s no alternate portrait, unfortunately, so if you don’t like the look there’s nothing in the box that’s going to remedy that.

Articulation wise, the joints are better here than they were with Samurai Leo, though functionally there isn’t much for Leatherhead to do since his legs basically need to be in this pose in order to keep him standing.

Let’s just jump right to the articulation since that was a major problem with Leonardo. Leatherhead is definitely better, though not perfect. He is going to suffer because of his form factor. Some of that couldn’t be helped, some of it could have been, but Super7 declined to address it. His head is on a big ball-peg and he can rotate all around and has some room for nuance posing. He can also look up, but he can’t really look down. The jaw is articulated and as long as you don’t have his head all the way down it can open reasonably far. The shoulders are simple ball-hinges and he can raise his arms out to the side past horizontal, so that’s nice. There’s no biceps swivel as he has that at the elbow instead. It’s not ideal, but it works okay. The wrists rotate and hinge and all hinges are of the horizontal variety including his trigger finger hands, which is unfortunate. The waist is a bit of a trouble spot. It just swivels, but it’s very loose. Just flicking him will make him turn. The hips are okay though so he stands up fine. The range at the legs isn’t very good though, and the knee is even worse. They’re practically useless for the hinge, though the swivel is okay. The ankles have a hinge and a rocker and they’re fine. He can be positioned forward into his vintage pose which was low to the ground like a normal alligator. The balance is tough though as he wants to tip forward. I never planned to display him like this so I’m not bothered, but anyone who prefers the vintage look you have been warned. Lastly, the tail is on a big ball peg, but it doesn’t do much since that’s the only joint on it. And do yourself a favor and just heat that sucker up before trying to put it on.

He does have some weapon storage, though I can’t imagine posing him without the shotgun in-hand.

Leatherhead is a figure of limited pose ability, but that was expected just by looking at him. The hips being fine are what makes him for me. If those had been terribly loose then it would have ruined him. Instead, it’s just the waist, which since it just twists, isn’t a huge posing issue. It still sucks that it’s as loose as it is and it really shouldn’t be, but he’s not falling over so I’m not angry about it. The hinges for the hands are a bit loose too, but his accessories are staying put so I guess it’s not a big deal. Swapping his hands is also much easier than it was with Leo. The plastic used for Leo feels a lot more rubbery and the ridges they put on the pegs seem more pronounced. I still don’t know why they put those on them when the hands have been fine up until now, but it is what it is.

He somehow manages to look intimidating and like a doofus all at the same time.

When it comes to accessories, Leatherhead has a mix of old and new. For hands, he comes with gripping hands attached in the box and he also has a set of trigger hands and fists. As mentioned previously, the trigger hands have the wrong hinge. I’d even liked the standard gripping hands to have a vertical hinge as they would work better with his other accessories. His main one is a shotgun and it’s cast in orange plastic with some brown wood grain added and a silver barrel. The pump action on it works, but mine was kind of warped and hard to manipulate out of the box. I heated it up to straighten it out some to get it moving, but be careful as the silver portion of the gun is all paint and it can rub off. It kind of sucks that the weapon came with the pump in the wrong place so most will want to move it at least once. Maybe they should have just cast it in a gun-metal gray like Rocksteady’s machine gun? There’s also almost no indentation at all in at the end of the barrel, or black paint to create the illusion it’s an actual barrel, which looks weird.

The red accessories on his belt are all removable. They look fine, but would have looked better with some paint.

Leatherhead’s other vintage accessories include a giant claw trap. It has a metallic finish, almost bronze, and it too works in that it hinges. It’s pretty menacing looking too. He also has his belt fixtures from the old toy: a crayfish, turtle, and flock of feathers. Unfortunately, they’re unpainted and just case in red plastic. The crayfish looks fine, but the turtle and feathers look pretty stupid all in red. All three key into his belt and they all do so in a different manner so they can’t be put in the wrong place. They stay on okay, but in order for these to work well the factory had to cast the belt in some fairly rigid plastic which doesn’t work as well for the shotgun holster. It has to really be squeezed in there and I worry about paint rub, which is why I’ll probably just keep it in his hand anyway.

Maybe we have this guy figured all wrong and he’s just a fisherman that wants to be left alone?

New for this release is a fly-fishing rod. Like the gun, it was a little warped out of the box so I tried to straighten it as best I could. It’s painted rather well, but the wheel on it doesn’t spin or anything which would have been cool. I like it though and I think it adds to this hillbilly persona the character has. Lastly, he has a weapon sprue which features the shotgun, claw trap, and rod which is used as the frame of the sprue. Apparently it snaps together, but I don’t know if that painted one is supposed to come apart. If you like that look though, it’s here, only they did it in brown and not the red of the vintage toy so it feels kind of pointless, more so than usual.

“Hahahahaha – dumb turtle stepped in the trap!”

Leatherhead is an overall better release than Sewer Samurai Leonardo. He is more in-line with the level of quality and functionality of past releases in this line and the shortcomings are more acceptable as a result. He’s still not perfect, and I feel like the Wave 6 Slash is a higher quality figure so I’m eager to look at some more of that wave. At $55, it’s the type of release that warrants consideration, but isn’t a slam dunk either. It’s expensive for what it is, and I don’t know that it compares too favorably with other figures in that price range. As has been the case with this line, the main selling point is the sculpt and inherent nostalgia involved in remaking a classic figure from a memorable toyline. And for many, Leatherhead was a pretty important release for that vintage line so I suspect this is a figure a lot of folks have been looking forward to. I think if you know what you’re in for, this one can be a winner. As always, value is subjective and it’s hard to overlook how a lot of retailers have gone all-in on this line which has lead to discounts down the road. If you’re unsure about $55, maybe wait for a sale. As for me, I’m content and I think this figure is a fine addition to the collection. I don’t plan on getting the other Wave 5 releases, but I have a couple of Wave 6 figures left to talk about so stick around for that and plan for a few more Turtle Tuesdays in the near future.

I figured I’d give you all a comparison to another big, green, guy from the line.

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

October 21, 2022

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost – Papa Emeritus I

By Joe
Lucifer! We are here!

I feel like I have a pretty interesting relationship with the band Ghost. They came to my attention in 2010 with their album Opus Eponymous and came at the recommendation of one of my friends. It wasn’t so much a recommendation based on quality, but more of a “You have to hear this,” because it was so out there. I grew up with heavy metal and it’s been my genre of choice since I was a pre-teen so Satanic metal was nothing new (have you seen the amount of Danzig shit I’ve posted?!), but it had been awhile since I heard something quite like Ghost. Ignoring the content of the material, Ghost sounded like a throwback to the 70s. The somewhat high-voiced vocals of Papa Emeritus I mingled with sludgy riffs and driving percussion. It wasn’t the blast beasts, grunts, screams, and such of black metal or death metal, the subgenre most associated with Satanism these days, and instead was more in-line with originators like Black Sabbath. Only there was little subtlety to what Ghost was singing about which added a different kind of entertainment value. Shock value? I suppose, but at the end of the day it’s all entertainment.

Super7 can be criticized for a lot of things, but presentation is rarely one of them.

Ghost was next on my radar due to the band’s placement on the Hunter/Heritage tour, a co-headlining affair between the then more established Mastodon and Opeth. That was a show I had to see, and if Ghost was on the undercard then yeah, I wanted to see them too. Only I ended up missing their performance that night. It would be years later when the band opened for Iron Maiden that I found myself with tickets once again to see Ghost. That time, I really wanted to make sure I saw them and so did my cousin who I was attending the show with, but the evening traffic of Massachusetts had other plans in mind. We got to the show just after Iron Maiden took the stage, so naturally, we missed Ghost. Again.

An action figure that comes with not one, but two, thuribles is something I never thought I’d see.

This year, I came out of my COVID cocoon to attend a live event in the form of Nightwish. It was after that show that my cousin told me Ghost was coming around later in the year and he really wanted to see them this time. I had kind of lost touch with the band, but my cousin swore by the new album so I followed his advice and grabbed Impera. I loved it. It’s more poppy than the first two albums, which were the only ones I owned before 2022, but the hooks were great and the band had definitely evolved more of an arena sound which has apparently suited it very well considering the venues they now headline. I grabbed the other albums I had overlooked and also enjoyed them. What I couldn’t have predicted was how much my kids would like the band. My daughter, especially, loves Ghost now. She has a Frozen karaoke machine she’d rather sing Ghost songs through. And my son’s favorite song is “Year Zero.” It amuses me to no end.

For those wondering what’s under the robe.

Given that, of course I had to go grab the Super7 figure of Papa Emeritus I! Papa Emeritus I is the frontman for Ghost’s first album before being replaced by the logically named Papa Emeritus II. He’s essentially a Satanic version of the pope as he’s clad in the long robes and features the tall, funny, hat (I’m told it’s called a mitre), but his clothing is adorned with inverted crosses and his face painted sort of like a skull. It’s a look, for sure, and it’s not a surprise to see it converted to plastic and soft goods. Super7 has a track record for working with punk and classic metal acts and some contemporary musicians. Ghost seems to almost check all of those boxes to some degree, the music may not be “punk,” but there’s a punk attitude in place. Super7 also employs Kyle Wlodyga to spearhead some of their brands and he LOVES Ghost so the company has partnered with the band to produce not just Ultimates!, but ReAction sets as well.

The second head is the same sculpt, but with a different deco. Mine has a little color bleed on the black which is unfortunate.

The Ultimates! Papa Emeritus I comes in the standard Super7 Ultimates! style packaging. It’s a slipcover over a window box and it’s tailored to the band’s aesthetic. We have a white slipcover with the band’s logo on the front embossed in a metallic material, a G mixed with an inverted cross, with the rear featuring the band’s name in their stylized font. The logos are both really cool as the metallic portion plays with light. Sometimes it looks like a traditional steel color and other times it looks almost gold. The inner window box presents the figure with arms outstretched in a “T” shape with the cardboard over the window evoking the image of a stained glass pattern, though absent any color. On the back is a bio for the first Papa Emeritus and speaks of him in the past tense, which makes sense given this came out last year.

He looks positively resplendent in white and gold!

Presentation is nice and all, but I want the figure! Papa Emeritus comes wearing his signature black pallium with crimson trim. There’s inverted crosses up and down both sides and the face is painted up to resemble the actual character. The mitre is non-removable, but true to the band’s presentation as it’s largely silver and black (is he a Raiders fan?) with the logo on the front. Twin tassels (I’m sure they have a proper name, but I don’t know it) come off the back of the mitre and are sculpted in a soft plastic and possess some flex. The actual pallium is all soft goods with black on the outside and red on the inside. It possesses Velcro on the inside so that it holds together and the only actual hole in the robe is one for the head. There are two sleeves inside to help keep it in place as well. The outer edge is wired so it can be posed to your liking. The hands are really the only parts of the figure visible aside from the head and they’re sculpted in black. It’s a striking look and I’m very impressed with the quality of the soft goods. The head looks pretty good, but does have some paint imperfections, though probably not so bad that they’re noticeable from a shelf.

“Ugh, dude, we mostly just sing about pizza.”

Under the robe, we have the figure itself which is cast entirely in black plastic. Papa is wearing a black, three-piece, suit underneath this thing. It’s mostly stiff plastic, save for the coat. I have no idea if this is accurate to the actual performer, but it makes sense for future releases in the line as far as reuse goes and it looks better than just a blank body, which is what I initially expected. I’m guessing no one will actually display the figure without a robe, but it’s nice to know the option exists. And the suit looks good, it’s just on the bland side since it’s entirely black. It is more matte than I would have expected with the only real shiny spot being the shoes, which are likely supposed to have a hit of gloss. I’m interested in seeing what Super7 does with the body down the road as I think it would look pretty good with some paint.

Oh shit, he’s made his way into the Dream House!

Papa Emeritus, when in his robes, probably doesn’t need to do a whole lot, but he does have some articulation we can talk about. The head is on a ball-peg and it rotates as far as the tassels on the rear of the head will let him. He looks down all right, but not much up because of those tassels. The shoulders are ball-hinged and raise out to the side just fine and rotate all around. The single-hinged elbows go a little past 90 degrees, which is good, and they swivel. The wrists rotate and hinge horizontally. Vertical hinges probably would have been better for the gripping hands, but oh well. The torso has an ab crunch and it works okay, plus it doesn’t look bad. The hips are on ball-pegs and Papa can do full splits and kick forward pretty far. The knees bend at 90 degrees with a swivel and the ankles hinge and rock side-to-side. It’s all pretty good, though some of it is hard to take advantage of with the robe on, but an unrobed Papa can certainly perform like a dynamic frontman should.

The corruption is even affecting princesses!

Papa Emeritus also has some accessories to speak of. He comes with open hands in the box, but also has two sets of gripping hands with one looser than the other and a set of fists in case he needs to punch someone. He also has a silver thurible, the incense holder priests swing around at funerals, that slips onto his open hands. It’s made of real chains with plastic pieces and is a really cool accessory. He also has a black microphone and a microphone stand, since he is a vocalist, after all. And if that’s not good enough, he has a complete second outfit. This one features a head with a white and gold mitre and a robe to match. He even has a second, gold, thurible to complete the look. I’m torn on which one I prefer. The second head has a slightly cleaner paintjob, but also has some color bleed under the nose and left eye. The pattern of the black is also slightly different with a smoother approach to the lips. Neither one actually matches the promotional shots of the figure and it looks like they opted for a less ambitious pattern. Right now, I’m displaying the original look, but maybe I’ll swap to the white in the near future. Maybe for Christmas?

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get him out of there at this point.

This is a pretty specialized figure, even more so than the usual Super7 products. If you like Ghost and you like action figures, then this is for you! It’s not cheap as it will set you back $55, but I feel better about this figure than some of the other Super7 products I’ve purchased. And obviously, I’m having quite a bit of fun with it if you’ve been paying attention to these pictures. And I feel good about this one mostly because I have no issues with the sculpt and articulation, it all functions well and looks good. The accessories accommodate it very well and are well done. The only thing I’m less impressed with is the paint job on the face. It’s not horrible, but it could be better and considering the head is basically the only part of the figure that’s painted I think it should be a lot better. Is it bad enough for me to consider passing on this figure’s eventual successor? No, probably not, though I have yet to order it because I don’t know that it’s different enough to warrant a purchase. There are other looks for the Ghost frontman that interest me more that I’ll definitely be interested in when and if Super7 gets there. For now, we only know that Papa Emeritus II is on the water for delivery to Super7’s warehouse and a Papa Emeritus III has yet to be shown. I suppose if I want more, I should get on that, but maybe I’ll leave the second one dangling out there in case my kids want to get me something evil for Christmas.

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

%d bloggers like this: