Tag Archives: super7 ultimates!

May 9, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Ralph Wiggum

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

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

He wants to be loved, but not touched.

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

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

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

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

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

At least it covers up the awful hair.

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

The only accessory you need?

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

“Go banana!”

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

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

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

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

We’ve got more from Super7 and The Simpsons:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

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

Keep reading
by Joe

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May 2, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

By Joe
They do not come in peace.

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

Robot Scratchy has been overthrown.

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

“We find your lack of mass amusing.”

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

Everything about this pair is big.

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

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

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

They basically pose just enough to use their accessories.

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

There are quite a few food-based accessories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022).…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

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

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 25, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Krusty the Clown

By Joe
Hey! Hey!

If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been botched by Super7 which just calls into question what kind of fans did they have working on this line? At least with the fourth and final figure we don’t need to have a debate about worthiness. Krusty the Clown is a character that goes all the way back to the original shorts and has been a mainstay ever since. He may not share the name Simpson, but he’s certainly an A-lister worthy of a slot in the line’s second wave.

Super7 wasn’t allowed to provide Krusty with smokes, but if you have a Gremlins figure you should have a ready supply of toy cigarettes.

Still, Krusty is not without some level of controversy. Originally, Super7 solicited a figure that would have a smoking portrait, a cigarette holding hand, and even a smoking monkey in Mr. Teeny. The Simpsons licensing department was okay with all of this, and probably even found it appropriate, but the Disney team disagreed. Smoking is a big no-no with The House of Mouse. The company even discourages characters from smoking in their films and television shows. Apparently, The Simpsons is grandfathered in as characters like Patti and Selma still light-up Sunday nights on Fox, they just can’t do so as action figures. Super7 was forced to course correct, dropping the smoking portrait for a grumpy one. Mr. Teeny is still present, just without a cigarette in his hand, and in place of the extra hand we get a jagged, metal, Krusty-O.

Krusty is another figure that’s basically right in the standard height range.
He wouldn’t be much of a clown if he didn’t come with a pie.

It is what it is, and you’ll see in my pictures that I was able to make do. Krusty isn’t going to live or die on his ability to smoke anyway and this figure is another good sculpt with a pretty good paint job. Krusty stands at around 7.125″ to the top of his head, nearly 7.5″ to the top of the tuft of hair on top. He’s depicted in his traditional attire of a pink shirt, green pants, oversized clown shoes, with a blue bowtie to top it off. His default portrait is a big, open mouth, “Hey-hey!” expression which looks okay. It’s an expression that works well in 2D, but in 3D it looks a bit odd that we can’t see any of his bottom teeth. Something else is off with it though and it took me awhile to narrow it down, but his pupils are too small. They’re tiny. Just compare my images of this figure to the licensing art over his shoulder. The other figures in the line have larger pupils as well. It may sound like a small thing, but it really throws off the look of the character. Like the other figures in the wave, he has a very matte finish, though I’m finding a few hot spots on the portraits here and there. The exposed portions of his arms unfortunately aren’t painted yellow like Duffman’s. Like a lot of Super7 figures, it’s a mix of good and not so good.

They don’t put nobodies on cereal boxes.
This is the wave of little buddy characters.

For accessories, Krusty gets a bunch of white-gloved hands. He has a set of open gripping hands, a set of closed gripping hands where the index figure connects to the thumb, a set of open hands, and a right hand with a glass of something permanently affixed to it. The contents of the glass is a translucent, off-white, substance. I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I guess it could be lemonade? My grandfather used to like rum and lemonade, so I guess we can go with that. The promotional shots had a green substance instead which also isn’t an obvious cocktail, but it’s better than this which looks like coconut oil. Would Disney not allow a brown liquid? That would have made the most sense. Both sets of gripping hands can handle the large, silver, microphone that he comes with which I suppose is needed for hosting an awards show or something. He also has a box of Krusty O’s which advertises the jagged, metal, Krusty-O right on the front. And back, as the image is the same, but it looks pretty good. There’s also a cream pie which is best held with an open hand. As for the “bonus” jagged, metal, Krusty-O, it’s…here. It doesn’t do anything and is just a little piece of silver plastic. Pretty uninspired as a make-up item.

“Don’t you even think about stealing my smokes.”
“Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!”

For optional portraits we have a screaming Krusty (“We want to go to Mount Splashmore!”) and a grumpy Krusty. The screaming head is just that, a screaming head where his mouth is wide open and eyes shut. Krusty can often be found wailing so I’m fine with it. The grumpy head probably has the most personality to it. He looks pissed, or impatient, and even his hair is sagging with displeasure. The narrow eyes work better with the tiny pupils than the standard head. It’s highly likely I use this one for my display. We also get Mr. Teeny, another slug figure to place on the shelf. He’s on roller skates, but they don’t move or anything. His hand is still up like he’s supposed to have a smoke so it’s a bit of an off position. His head can swivel and he has a side-eyed expression that’s a bit mischievous. There were promo images of him holding the cereal box under his right arm, but it doesn’t work in practice. Lastly, Krusty may not be able to smoke, but he still gets to sport a smoking jacket. Or maybe it’s just a bathrobe? Either way, it’s pink with purple trim and there’s a nice K stitched onto it. It looks fine and I’ve been using it for my display, but I might return it to the box.

WARNING: Do not ingest the jagged, metal, Krusty-O.
The jagged, metal, Krusty-O may work better as a Bartman accessory.

Krusty’s articulation is like the rest – pretty basic, but the cuts you would expect to be present are there. We have a double-ball peg at the head, hinged ball pegs at the shoulders, single-jointed elbows, wrists that swivel and hinge horizontally, a ball-joint at the waist, ball-socket hips, single-jointed knees, and ankles that hinge and rock side-to-side. The range is pretty much the same as the other figures. The hinge joints can’t quite hit 90 degrees and the legs don’t kick out very far. The knees are pretty tight while the left ankle on mine is a little loose. Not so loose that he’s falling over, but looser than I’d like. He’s mostly good for pretty basic poses – he won’t be riding a tiny bicycle on your shelf or do backflips. Instead he can stand there with his glass of whatever or scream into a microphone.

“Ugh, what’s this gonna cost me?”

Krusty is, perhaps without much surprise, my favorite of the line’s second wave. I think he’s my favorite overall for The Simpsons Ultimates! as he looks the part, the accessories are fine, and the finish is solid. My only real gripes are that I wish the glass of something had some color to it and his eyes weren’t distracting bad on the smiling portrait. I also would have probably preferred a more neutral, default, portrait to the opened mouth one, but it’s fine. The jagged, metal, Krusty-O is pretty lame, but there isn’t anything truly missing. I would have preferred a tiny bicycle instead, but it’s not like he’d be able to ride it anyway. If you’re all-in on this line, then this figure is an obvious must have and if you’re a cherry-picker then I think this is the one to get from wave two. You can probably still play the waiting game if you don’t want to fork over $55 for the privilege of owning it, but I don’t think you’ll regret much if you do decide to pay full price.

And now it’s time for the updated group shot.

Want to see more from The Simpsons Ultimates! or where I sourced that cigarette from?

NECA Ultimate Flasher Gremlin

I’ve had NECA’s Ultimate Flasher Gremlin on my “want” list for awhile now. I grabbed the Ultimate Gizmo last summer, and while he’s fairly limited as an action figure, he is fun to have on display in my home. He has occupied a little section of my knick-knack shelf in the living room area of…

by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

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

by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Duffman

In writing up my review of Bartman from Super7’s line of Ultimates! based on The Simpsons, I got a little hot. That figure had some errors in its presentation that annoyed me, but what annoyed me more was the refusal to just let the figure exist as Bart Simpson and Bartman. It was clearly designed…

by Joe

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April 18, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Hank Scorpio

By Joe
“If you want to kill someone on your way out it would really help me a lot!”

If you’re going to market action figures to a fanbase as venerable as The Simpsons, you should probably go after what they love most. Simpsons fans love to make references to their favorite episodes and characters and one of the top episodes from the show is “You Only Move Twice” from the show’s seventh season. In that episode, Homer takes a job in another town forcing the Simpsons to move (again, hence the episode’s title) to another community that just so happens to be run by a Bondsian supervillain known as Hank Scorpio. Played by Albert Brooks, Scorpio is one of the most memorable one-off characters in the long history of the show. It’s probably not a stretch to call him the most memorable one-off character. He should have been brought back for the movie, but instead the writers and producers of The Simpsons decided to create a new villain for Brooks to play.

He’s the world’s best boss – get used to it.

What makes Scorpio so great? In short: everything. He’s exceedingly nice and a quote machine. He’s an ideal boss, but also someone bent on world domination who won’t hesitate to murder in order to get what he wants. That aspect of the character is unveiled slowly, but effectively. If Super7 had polled Simpsons fans on characters they most wanted to see in this toy line I bet Scorpio would have fared well. Maybe not top ten, but certainly pretty high for a character that isn’t regularly seen or heard from. And since Super7’s approach with this line has been so episode-specific, he’s a natural fit, but can they stick the landing?

Hank is pretty average in height for this line.

Scorpio comes in the standard packaging for the line and stands at about 6.75″ to the top of his head. He’s nearly a full 7″ when you factor in the hair. He’s presented in his mint green turtleneck sweater with blue-gray slacks and brown loafers. Out of the box, he’ll be sporting a big canister on his back that is looped onto his arms. Like the other figures from this wave, Scorpio has a pretty matte finish to him. Unlike Duffman, I think it’s all derived from a clear coat applied to colored plastic. Either way, it works and he has a nice appearance, albeit a very simple one. This isn’t a sculpt that demands much and what little paint is needed is basically reserved for the head. There his orange-brown hair and beard are fine and the eyes clean. The turtleneck is part of the head sculpt which is a little unusual, but fine. I think the head is glued into the plastic so there’s no mismatched colors when comparing neck to chest. This figure won’t catch one’s eye when amongst a sea of other figures, but it looks the part.

Someone just stole his lunch.

Where things start to get a little iffy for me concerns the accessories. For hands, we get a set of fists and gripping hands of different sizes. We also get a pointing left hand and a right hand that has a “World’s Best Boss” coffee mug permanently affixed to it. The mug isn’t hollow, but the inside is left as bare, white, plastic. Why not just a little hit of brown paint for coffee? He looks like he’s drinking milk. Either way, it’s a skimpy assortment of hands. For portraits, we get a stoic one, an angry side-eye with teeth showing, and a maniacal yelling portrait. The stoic and side eye look fine, but the maniacal head could have had a better paint job on the visible teeth. There’s a gray swash on them, or maybe the white mixed with the black paint used for the back of the throat. I wish the maniacal one also had more of a smile to it. It’s subtle in the episode, and this head has a very specific use, but I don’t think Super7 quite captured it.

He has a grenade, but I’m guessing most people will display him with his other weapon.

And that head is intended for the flamethrower. He does have a grenade canister which is fine, but the main accessory is the flame thrower. For that, we get the gun, or wand, portion plus a tube that plugs into the back of it and the side of the tank on the figure’s back. The tube is cumbersome, but stays in place all right once you get it i place provided you don’t try and reposition anything. For that reason, insert it last. There’s also a flame effect for the end of the gun which is done in a translucent plastic that is orange at the base and yellow at the tip. It’s large and heavy and isn’t really the shape I think of when I think flamethrower. I’d have preferred something more narrow that streams out. Such a piece would have been lighter which would have been welcomed as this attachment will cause the barrel of the gun to sag.

There’s really no good way for him to hold this thing. Plus that hose will keep constantly popping out on you as you try to get the best position the figure will allow.

There is another issue with this accessory and it’s that the figure isn’t articulated well enough to wield it properly. The gun is intended to be held with both hands, one on the back and one at the front. The right, gripping, hand is sculpted to hold the rear handle while the left is shaped for the grenade, but can rest on the front handle. The hands can sort of get in place, but the figure has only basic articulation. That means a double-ball peg head and neck setup, hinged shoulders, single jointed elbows, wrists that swivel and hinge horizontally, a ball-jointed diaphragm, ball-jointed hips, single-jointed knees, and hinged ankles with ankle rockers. What he needs are butterfly joints at the shoulders so he can bring his left arm across his body to properly aim the flamethrower. As it stands, he basically has to hold the gun across his belly and point his left shoulder at the target. In the episode, he basically fires from the hip. You can kind of fake his shooting pose from the episode, but any further scrutiny reveals it to be pretty ridiculous. In fairness to Super7, the glamour shots did the same thing so this isn’t a bait and switch, but how about some creativity? If butterfly joints are a no-go, why not a swappable left arm that’s preposed the way it needs to be? This is just the half-assed solution and the too heavy flame effect doesn’t help.

This low angle shot of the flame in action illustrates how I think the expression is just off enough to bug me. He almost looks frightened, not deranged.

This brings me to my main critique of Hank Scorpio which is that this is not the “ultimate” expression of the character which is the mantra of the line. This figure sells out for this one scene of Hank Scorpio firing on the government operatives with his flamethrower. He basically can’t do much else aside from hold his coffee cup. Where’s the happy Hank we see all throughout the episode? No smiling portrait is a huge miss. And the back of the box depicts him with his coat on backwards, a memorable moment from the episode that he can’t achieve. Three of the figures in this wave came with soft goods, but Scorpio did not. He should have his coat, via soft goods or swappable arms and an overlay, but he doesn’t. If you’re going to call your product the ultimate expression of a character, then you better damn well do it. This isn’t it.

“Homer, I’m very disappointed you’ve chosen to take a job with the government.”

If you have been waiting decades to add a Hank Scorpio to your shelf then I suppose this figure will have to do. It’s not terrible, it just comes up way short as an expression of Hank Scorpio. I’m not demanding he be able to convert to workout gear so he can toss a shoe, but the lack of a sunny disposition is inexcusable. And since his flamethrower pose is executed poorly, I have a hard time recommending this figure. It’s a shame because this may very well be the only Hank Scorpio action figure we ever get. As has been the case with the first two figures (and most Super7 Ultimates! in general these days) you would be better served by waiting for a discount. The line is already dead so it’s not as if one’s inaction on the line at full MSRP is going to cause any long-lasting harm to it. If you also feel it’s just plain not good enough even at a discount then I wouldn’t really disagree.

Interested in reading more about Super7’s line of Simpsons Ultimates?:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022).…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Duffman

In writing up my review of Bartman from Super7’s line of Ultimates! based on The Simpsons, I got a little hot. That figure had some errors in its presentation that annoyed me, but what annoyed me more was the refusal to just let the figure exist as Bart Simpson and Bartman. It was clearly designed…

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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…

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by Joe

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

April 11, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Duffman

By Joe
Duffman! Is here! To liven up this party!

In writing up my review of Bartman from Super7’s line of Ultimates! based on The Simpsons, I got a little hot. That figure had some errors in its presentation that annoyed me, but what annoyed me more was the refusal to just let the figure exist as Bart Simpson and Bartman. It was clearly designed so the body could be reused to do so, but that will never happen because the line has been cancelled. How do I know the body was designed to be a regular Bart eventually? Because the cape was entirely removable. It just slipped over the ball joint for the neck. If they wanted that body to just be Bartman, it would have been embedded in the sculpt. That’s what would have matched the show, and that’s what they did with today’s figure of Duffman.

It’s a muscle dude in a cape wit a belt full of beer – what’s there to be mad about?

Duffman should be a nice cool down review for me because what’s there to get upset about when it comes to Duffman? Aside from him existing all together (and we’ll get to that), this is a goofy character that has reappeared a few times throughout the show’s run. For a franchise that usually just tries to sell to a hardcore fanbase that worships the show’s “Golden Era,” Duffman represents a pretty late addition having first appeared in Season Nine’s “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson.” Most fans of The Simpsons consider the eighth season to be the last of the supposed golden age and I tend to agree. Though it’s worth pointing out that this episode Duffman hails from is technically a production Season Eight episode.

Duffman seems to scale fine, but man, Simpsons head sizes are kind of crazy.

No matter, it’s Duffman, a silly parody of beer mascots from the real world the most obvious being Budman. These sorts of characters don’t really happen too often anymore because they’re kind of scummy. Who likes super heroes more than anyone? Children, and marketing alcohol to children is a shitty thing to do. It’s why we no longer have Budman, Spuds MacKenzie (more on him to follow), and Joe Camel. These are all things that I was exposed to as a kid and I think Budweiser is gross and don’t smoke, so maybe the hysteria over them was all for nothing? Duffman, as a parody of those types of characters, is fairly one note, but not without merit. He shows up with his own soundtrack (“Ohh yeah”) and is fond of thrusting towards things he wants to draw attention to. He’s usually accompanied by a bunch of party women and lots of Duff beer. Someone at Super7 must have felt he was too hilarious not to make a figure out of, or maybe they just liked his threads? It’s also possible one of the prime motivators for doing a Duffman this early in the line was because Playmates never did with their World of Springfield line. That one had to tiptoe around the alcohol associated with the show because they were sold at toy stores and Walmart. Super7 doesn’t have to do that and Disney has been surprisingly okay with alcohol in this line, though I do wonder if some restrictions were put in place.

Duffman may be tall, but Scratchy still has him beat.

Duffman comes in the standard Ultimates! style of packaging. Out of the box, he stands approximately 7.5″ making him among the tallest in the short-lived line. He strikes a more heroic figure than Bartman with broad shoulders, a puffed out chest, and slim waist. Seriously, Hasbro could stand to take some cues from this guy. Like Bartman, he has a nice, matte, finish whether we’re talking the yellow skin, red hat, or blue costume. Every surface has been coated with paint even when the underlying plastic is cast in the same color. This does mean you’ll get some paint flaking at the joints where the paint can’t adhere properly to the harder plastic, but it’s a small price to pay. The cape is done with soft goods and it’s embedded in the torso. This means it isn’t removable, but why would it need to be? The sunglasses are also part of the sculpt, but there are painted eyes behind them. The belt, which is lovingly adorned with cans of Duff beer, appears to clasp in the back, but it may be reenforced with glue which is fine by me. The cans, unfortunately, are not removable.

Duffman is number 1!

Duffman comes with a smattering of accessories. He has a whole bunch of hands, but surprisingly not a lot of pairs. For actual pairs of hands there’s a set of relaxed/narrow gripping hands and a set of style pose hands that I think are supposed to work with an accessory, but don’t. There’s a pointing right hand, a left fist, a right chop, a left “Devil Horns” gesture, and a right, wide, gripping hand. There’s also a “foam” finger hand since Duffman does make appearances at the stadium for the Springfield Isotopes. I believe the style pose hands are supposed to work with the included Duff beer 7-pack accessory, but the fingers won’t fit through the openings. They can grab the rings from the side, so maybe that was the intention? Perhaps with some heat and force the finger could sneak through the slots, but the accessory is fully painted and Duffman’s hands are white. Plus, the wide gripping hand can grab that 7th can just fine. The cans are painted just as well as the ones on his belt, but can’t come out of the rings. Did Disney allow the use of Duff cans so long as they couldn’t be removed from the belt or this ring setup? It would be kind of odd, but maybe they have a line in the sand when it comes to toy beer.

My open mouth head has an awful black mark on the teeth I may try to touch up.
If you’re a big fan of Santa’s Little Helper then Wave Two of Simpsons Ultimates! has probably made you happy.

Duffman also comes with a couple of alternate portraits. His default one is his big smile, the expression he wears more often than not in the show. He also has a yelling head for when he needs to get the party going. The last head is covered with an oversized Duff beer sticker from the episode “Pygmoelian.” It’s a bit of a stupid, gag, head that likely no one will use especially since it was slapped on his face in the episode by a post plastic surgery Moe. The sticker is removable as it just pegs into his mouth, but the expression without it isn’t of much use as a display piece. It’s not an egregious inclusion because what else is truly needed for Duffman? A keg would have been cool, I suppose, or some Duff beer in bottles. His final accessory is Santa’s Little Helper as Suds MacKenzie. Yes, another parody of a dead beer mascot and our second SLH of the wave. This one is less articulated than the first as he’s in a seated position. The head rotates, but that’s it. The figure is well-painted, but once again, fans may be left wishing it could be converted into a generic version of the family dog and not forced to live as this gimmick version.

The sticker face is an okay gag, but probably not something many are likely to make use of.
The sticker is removable if you want a…sucking face?

Articulation for Duffman is going to be pretty basic and typical of the line: double-ball-peg head, hinged shoulder pegs, single jointed elbows, hinged wrists that swivel, ball-jointed hips, single-jointed knees, and ankles that hinge and rock. What he lacks is torso articulation of any kind that I can tell. If there’s a waist twist here it doesn’t want to go and I don’t want to push it. The cape is also wired and can be posed reasonably well, but everything else is pretty limited. Elbows and knees can’t bend 90 degrees and the ankle hinge is pretty limited. The belt prevents him from kicking forward much and he can’t kick back at all. This is a set it and forget it kind of figure. The joints are also pretty tight, but the hips have some looseness to them. Not enough to make it a problem now, but something to keep an eye on.

At the end of the day, it’s Duffman. He’s fine.

Duffman is an easy figure to review as I could have simply said if you like what you see, then you’ll like this figure. It would have saved me a lot of time too. This figure isn’t going to pose very well, but it’s at least well-executed when it comes to the presentation. I wish the elbows were a little better and that he had a proper waist twist. I think he’s supposed to, but mine is tight or the belt is holding it in place. As for the rest, the accessories are fine. One of the heads is pretty useless and I would trade it for something else, but it’s not a huge problem for me. When it comes to any lingering feelings towards Duffman, it’s just a question of was it too soon for this character? Considering the second wave consisted of a Simpson, an A-list secondary character, a fan-favorite one-off, and Duffman I think it’s fine. Would I have picked him for this wave? No, but I’m not angered by his inclusion. Now, if I had known the line would only last four waves from the start well then, yeah, I’d be pretty irritated, but that’s not Duffman’s fault. I do think it’s bizarre that two waves into the line and no female characters are present, but not egregious. That’s more a critique for wave three. As was the case with Bartman, if you think $55 is a proper price for this figure and you want a Duffman then I say go for it. If you’d rather not spend that much then hold off because this figure has clearance written all over it given he’s not an in-demand character and the line is already cancelled.

We’ve got plenty more reviews of The Simpsons by Super7:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022).…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Moe

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

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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

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

April 4, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Bartman

By Joe
Bartman! The figure you want?

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

He’s a little guy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Umm, Krusty? Your robe is open…”

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

“Finally, Radioactive Man #1 is mine.”

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

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Deep Space Homer

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Moe

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Robot Itchy & Scratchy

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

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by Joe

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

December 29, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Megazord

By Joe
Behold! The mighty Megazord!

We continue to bang out action figure reviews here in 2023 just in case there’s one that needs to sneak onto a year-end best of 2023 list. Is today’s figure such a contender? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth talking about. Super7 has managed to crank out three waves of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimates! in 2023 after a lengthy delay to get the line off the ground. The reception has been so-so. There have been figures I thought turned out rather well, and others I wasn’t too thrilled with. Not all have been reviewed in this space, but basically I’ve been disappointed in the actual Power Rangers while the zords have pleased me quite a bit. That’s why my lone purchase from Wave 3 is the Megazord, or Dino Megazord if you want it narrowed down a bit more.

A lot has changed since 1993, though I still maintain this old Bandai Megazord is a damn fun toy.

When Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered in 1993, the Megazord was their ultimate weapon. At least for a little while. Then the Dragonzord came along which meant the Megazord could level-up to the Mega Dragonzord. Then they added Titanus and suddenly the Ultrazord was a thing. And on the toy front, the Megazord was every bit as cool in plastic as it was on the screen. The Bandai Megazord was such an awesome toy that I wanted it badly, only I never got it so I had to purchase it as an adult to make it up to the kid in me. The toy is a blast because it’s five in one. Five robot dinosaurs (okay, well, three robot dinosaurs and two mammals) which can combine into a massive robot. In order to pull that off, the final product had to sacrifice some of the aesthetics when compared with the character on television. This may come as a shock, but the costumed person punching and kicking as the Megazord was not, in fact, made-up of five robots and had the proportions of a normal human. The toy basically couldn’t duplicate that look while maintaining the play functionality, but I don’t recall anyone who had it caring at the time.

“Are you my dad?!”

When Super7 got the license from Hasbro to do Power Rangers it can be assumed it was like the Transformers license which meant no transforming and no combining. No problem. Doing just straight toys of something like the Tyrannosaurus zord or Megazord without having to incorporate that function means they can focus on screen accuracy. Now, if I were still a kid I’d think a Megazord that can’t break down into five robots sounds useless, but as an adult collector? I’m intrigued.

Since I have it, we might as well compare this one to the Hasbro combining Megazord. Super7’s clearly looks better, though the Hasbro one can at least brag about its elbow articulation.

Super7’s version of the Megazord comes in the usual Ultimates! packaging. We’ve moved on from the brown shipper, but we’re still getting the slipcover for now. The box may surprise since it’s not nearly as large as the T-Rex or Dragonzord, but that’s because the Megazord doesn’t feature a giant tail. Don’t be fooled though as this is still a big, chunky, action figure that has substantial weight for something in this scale. The window box display is as nice as ever, though Super7 must have been concerned about paint rub as the figure is basically surrounded (not wrapped) in plastic in the tray which does downgrade the presentation for in-box collectors. Not that Super7 should care. The packaging is meant to get the product to your hands in pristine condition. Anything else is just gravy.

The Megazord more or less seems to scale with the rest.

Out of the box, Megazord stands about 8.625″ to the tip of the “fin” on its head. This line is a 1:10 scale line, but that obviously does not apply to the zords. Instead, this figure is meant to just scale with the other zords and the monsters and pass the eyeball test in doing so. I will say, he looks mostly okay beside the Dragonzord. Maybe a little undersized, but certainly good enough. It looks ridiculous beside the T-Rex though which is too big. Considering it’s technically impossible for these two robots to appear side-by-side, it’s not a big deal, but if you remind yourself that the T-Rex is technically the torso of the Megazord then it becomes laughable. It looks pretty good opposite Goldar, better than the other zords if you ask me, and it’s probably more important for this particular figure to scale with the monsters than the others so I like that.

These two don’t always see eye-to-eye…

As for the figure itself, it looks pretty damn good. The head and shoulders are properly sized and the proportions look much better than the other combining figures out there. Even better though, is that seemingly every inch of this thing is painted. I believe the black portions are where the bare plastic is, but even they look like they at least have a matte coat on them. The silvers are nice and shiny and I think they nailed the shade of red this character possesses. The face, in particular, is really well done and pretty clean. Closer inspection of the figure in other places will uncover some blemishes and subpar linework. The nose of the sabertoothed tiger has a blemish and there’s a silver spec on the snout of the triceratops foot. The white on that same foot is a bit thin and I could say the same for some of the yellow. These blemishes are mostly invisible from the shelf and the only one that bothers me is the tiger foot. The hands are the same shade of silver as the other silver parts of the figure and I think they were darker on the show, but that could have been due to ware and tare on the suit itself. Otherwise, this somewhat garish mix of colors looks as good here as it did on TV and it’s nice to see this amount of paint on what is a fairly expensive collectible. The figure also has a nice weight and feels sturdy, just the like the zords that came before it.

The main accessory here.

It’s important that this figure nail the presentation because it doesn’t have much else to rely on. The accessories are very light with this one as we get just one extra set of hands: fists and gripping. They look fine, but I would have liked some style-posed hands as well. For those gripping hands we get the power sword and mastodon shield. The sword looks great. It’s painted silver and has some nice etching near the hilt that’s painted a soft gold. The handle is painted as well, though if I was going to criticize one aspect of the item it’s that it’s too big. Super7 has a tendency to go bigger with weapons (just check out their Conan) and that apparently happened here as the sword on TV wasn’t quite so large. The mastodon shield also looks great and the paint on it is very crisp. I wasn’t sure if I’d even display my figure with it since it showed up in the show rarely, but I love the finish on it so it’s likely going to make the cut. The trunk is short and curled in though so it can’t be pointed at an enemy like it’s about to unleash a cloud of freezing air, not that it would have an effect piece for such. That’s the easiest room for criticism as a laser effect for the sword would have been neat or some crackling lightning, but this is basically it.

At least the new ones have the white diamonds painted on. Really makes the Red Ranger look like shit. I don’t know why they can’t all have a hit of black for the visor like the Green Ranger.

There are a couple of other accessories in the box, but they’re not really for the Megazord to use. Call them indirect accessories, if you will. There are two, miniature, Power Rangers in a summoning pose: Pink and Yellow. They’re the exact same sculpt which means the Yellow Ranger has a skirt piece which is inaccurate to the show, but I don’t know if that’s something that will bother people or not. They look okay, and if you’re keeping track that means we have two Red Rangers, Green, Pink, and Yellow. What’s missing is Blue and Black. Since the Megazord is the combined robots of all five of the original Power Rangers, why not just include Black and Blue in this box and get it over with? I’m not sure what else would make sense for them to be packed in with. The Mega Dragonzord? I’m not sure how much enthusiasm is out there for that one. Lastly, we get a power coin. One one side is the Megazord logo which features the portraits of the five robots that make it and on the reverse is the Zyuranger logo, one of the few remnants in the show of its Japanese origin. It’s the same high quality coin as the prior two and it’s fine. If it’s here at the expense of more accessories for the Megazord itself then I’d consider it unwanted.

In a contest to see who can bend their elbows the farthest, we’re going to have to declare a draw.

You likely need only take one look at this thing to figure out it doesn’t articulate particularly well. This is a boxy design and it’s not like the actor on the show was capable of much when in costume and this figure is pretty much the same. The head is on a ball-joint, probably a single, so it rotates and gets some tilt. The figure can look up a little and down some as well, though when looking down it’s just staring at the top of its own torso. The shoulders are ball hinged and rotation is fine, but you probably get about 70 degrees worth of range going out to the side. If they had put the shoulder pads on pegs so they could move out of the way it would have minimized this. There is a single hinge at the elbow that pegs into the upper arm which is essentially your bicep swivel. The hinge on the elbow offers less range than that of the shoulder and we’re pretty much in Optimus Prime territory here. The design of the character presents a challenge, but they could have done this better to get at least 90 degrees of bend here. Even the Hasbro combining Megazord can do better. The wrists swivel and the fists have a horizontal hinge while the gripping hands have a vertical hinge. They’re recessed pretty far in the forearm so range is mediocre, but you can pull them out slightly to get better range.

“Foolish Power Rangers! You’ve come into a sword fight with only fists!”

There is a waist twist on this guy, but it’s damn near useless because of the shape of the crotch area. Even though Super7 did that crotch with a soft, rubbery, material, there really isn’t enough flex to turn the waist and you do have to be mindful of paint rub. The hips appear to be the standard hinged ball pegs, and something that may annoy some, is they can’t be straight up and down due to how bulky the shins are. This appeared to even be an issue with the actual suit so I can’t fault Super7 too much for not being able to do better. The oversized diaper piece severely restricts what these hips can do. Rotation is fine, but going out to the side is minimal and the figure doesn’t have much range kicking forward and back. I would say it actually has no range going back, and going forward is basically one “click.” There is a single hinged knee below that which pegs into the thigh so there is some pivot, but not much due to the shape. The hinge is super tight and my left leg doesn’t seem to want to move much while the right will bend just a little. It’s more or less useless as there isn’t much clearance. The ankles are likely supposed to hinge and rock, but they do next to nothing. They basically wiggle just enough to let you know there’s a joint there and if there is a hinge it’s totally blocked by the sculpt.

“Oh no! A sword!”

The Megazord was never going to be a figure that’s super-articulated, but even with low expectations it still manages to disappoint. From the waist down, it’s practically a statue. The thigh swivel is okay, but everything else is borderline useless, especially the ankles. Super7 really should have borrowed a page from Bandai and used plastic “scales” that peg into the figure instead of the diaper. That would allow for plenty of range at the hips and it would still look fine if done properly. At the knees, they really should have just added a centimeter or less for clearance for those knees. Instead, they seem far more concerned with hiding the knee joint, but this thing is an action figure. If people don’t want to see the joints, they can go for the vinyl version or something. The joints are at least fairly tight. There’s some wiggle at the calves, but that’s it. The left arm at the shoulder could be just a touch tighter as sometimes the arm will droop when holding the mastodon shield, but it usually stays put for me when I set it. I guess time will tell if it gets worse or not.

Let’s get one last comparison in before we put a bow on this one. Here’s the Megazord with Super7’s take on Voltron.

Super7’s take on the Megazord is about as good as the two previously released zord figures. To no one’s surprise, they went heavy into the aesthetic and trying to match this to the show as much as possible and the results are pretty damn good. There were some things to nitpick, but overall they delivered on that end. Where they could have done better is in the accessory department and definitely with the articulation. I’ve said it before, but I feel like when Super7’s designers run into an obstacle with the articulation they don’t put any effort into actually coming up with a solution and instead give us a joint that doesn’t work. It makes me wonder if they even want to be in this business or if they’d be much happier just doing ReAction and the vinyl stuff. The only other real negative here is that this figure comes in at the inflated sticker price of $65. At $55, I felt the T-Rex and Dragonzord were a good enough value given the size, weight, and paint apps. At $65 here, I’m really not seeing where that extra ten bucks went. I’m not unhappy with my purchase, but in general, at this price point I think I need to see a bit more value in the box or I should at least be getting something that earns the term “action” figure better than this one. This figure is also likely to end up on clearance at some point, as that has been the trend, making it a hard sell at its current price.

If you’ve been buying the zords up until now then I suspect you’ll get this one since it probably is the most popular of the three. And it certainly is the most popular of all of the Megazords that followed. It will be interesting to see if there is an appetite for more. Collectors and fans already rejected Super7’s attempt at the White Tigerzord which came in at $65 and was probably more sparse than this release since it didn’t feature a shield of any kind. Super7 had to cancel it due to lack of interest. Do fans want a Mega Dragonzord? Maybe they want the Thunder Megazord? Or Dragonzord Battle Mode? If Super7 can’t get them onboard with the zord of the most popular Power Ranger then it’s hard to say what they will buy. For me, I probably don’t need any other zords so this may very well be my final word on Super7’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line. And if it is, I would say it filled a niche for me and did a good enough job at it. Others may disagree.

If you’re interested in what I had to say about some of these other Super7 Power Rangers releases, then check these out:

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…

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by Joe

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Dragonzord

After a long delay, wave one of Super7’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line arrived earlier this year. And after a delay of basically just as long, wave two is now upon us. For the first wave, we took a look at three figures: Green Ranger, Goldar, and the Tyrannosaurus zord. For wave two, it’s just…

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by Joe

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December 28, 2023

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Stitch

By Joe
Stitch is bringing a little summer in December.

To my surprise, roughly an entire year passed between waves for Super7’s Disney Ultimates! line of action figures. That seemed to be a common occurrence in 2023 for the company as the same happened with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At any rate, this was a line I was really excited for when it was announced as there isn’t a lot out there for Disney collectors who primarily like action figures. Wave One ended up being a mixed bag. The sculpts of Mickey, Pinocchio, and Prince John were there, but the paint was lacking and the quality was iffy. Wave Two was worse, though the only figure I bought was Robin Hood and I was not happy with it. I was so dissatisfied that I dropped my preorder for the Big Bad Wolf, but I had to keep one: Stitch. In my house, Stitch is pretty popular. I don’t consider him a classic Disney character, even though he and Lilo are now old enough to drink, but he’s certainly beloved by many. Now that he’s here, I’m happy to say he’s much better than Robin Hood, but is he worth $55?

The scale on this line is a bit weird, but I think it only matters that characters scale with other characters from the same film, and with Stitch, we don’t have anyone else from the film to compare to.

Stitch comes in the same Ultimates! packaging as the rest of the line. It’s been tailored to his movie and it looks nice, though the outer, shipper, box has been dropped. The slipcovers are going to be dropped as well, but this wave still has them. Stitch stands at around 3.75″ to the top of his head. Given that Ultimates! are 1:10 scale, this seems about right for Stitch. He’s the lone representative for his film though so figuring out where to put him might make the scaling seem weird. He’s a lot bigger than Mickey, not because of his height, but the chunk. He’s got some weight to him and it’s mostly found in his head. He’s going on my Disney shelf regardless, so he’s just going to have to fit in no matter what.

How can you not love that?

As for the sculpt itself, Stitch looks like, well, Stitch! He’s mostly blue plastic, but the painted details that are present look fine. The head is really well done and captures that dog meets koala design that seemed to drive the character’s looks. This is Stitch’s standard form once on Earth, so he only has the four limbs and no antennae. The head looks so good from a sculpt and paint perspective that it makes the body of the figure look cheap by comparison. There, the blue plastic is dominant and there’s some frayed seems on the sides of the figure that could be trimmed with a fine blade. The paint on the chest is mostly fine, but it’s kind of driving me a little nuts that it’s impossible to line-up the sides of the light blue portion on the upper torso with the same on the lower half. The overall feel of the figure is a bit mixed. He has a nice weight, but the lightness of the body feels cheap. It’s been the same story with the rest of the line. It looks fine, but does it feel like a premium collectible? No, not really.

Yeah, sure, I guess we can do something with this?

Super7 hopes to make up for that with accessories and Stitch has a ton of those. He had a lot of looks in the film, and Super7 selected a few to focus on. The standard head features a smile and looks fine, but he also has a similar one with a plunger stuck to his noggin. It’s cute, but not one I’ll ever use. He also has a portrait with his ears curled back and his tongue stuck up his nose. It’s a great visual in the movie and it’s executed really well here. He also has an optional right hand that’s holding a snow cone, and if you don’t like the disgusting origins of this tongue head, you can make him look like he’s licking the snow cone instead.

Super7 was very committed to recreating this very brief scene.

Stitch’s other heads are intended for more of a costumed look. There’s one with a chef’s toque that’s on a neutral expression. It pairs with optional oven mitt hands and a massive cake which was shown in the film’s epilogue. The cake is just a brick of plastic even bigger than Stitch. It looks fine, but certainly feels a bit excessive. The other head features a polka-dotted bathing suit top over his ears and squinting eyes. It’s to be paired with a soft goods and fully wired cape to recreate Stitch’s “Batman” outfit from the end of the film. The cape just affixes via two tabs on the cape where the wire runs through. It’s not super secure, but it seems to work. This is probably my favorite look for the character and it’s a lot of fun to have in figure form.

Obviously, this is his best look.

Stitch also has a couple of additional toys to make use of. There’s a set of sunglasses which fit on the standard head just fine. You can put them on the other heads too, but they’re intended for the standard one. He also has his laser gun with the carrot jabbed into the end. It has a hand molded onto it so it’s technically an optional hand just like the snow cone. It’s pretty heavy though and getting Stich to stand while holding it is pretty tough. The carrot also isn’t removable which is an odd choice. Perhaps it was mandated by Disney? I kind of doubt it, but I’m not ruling it out.

I’m surprised I got him to stand with this gun hand.

That’s a healthy spread of accessories, but given what was there to work with in the movie I’m sure everyone and their mother will have something they wish was included instead. The plunger head and the whole baker look is definitely one I could have done without. I’d trade both for an Elvis outfit without question. His book or Lilo’s doll would have been nice, or something indicating his “Badness” level. I don’t think Super7 necessarily did wrong here (okay, maybe I personally think the big plastic cake is pretty stupid), it’s just the reality of being able to only fit so much into the box. If the figure does well, I could certainly see them doing more versions like an Experiment 626 with extra arms or a Halloween edition where he’s in his Dracula costume.

You probably won’t be able to do much with your posing on this one.

The Ultimates! line is rarely celebrated for its articulation, and with Stitch that is about as true as ever. This is a figure that can’t do a whole lot. The head is just on a big ball joint so you get range in all directions, but not a lot up or down. Getting the heads off is mostly easy, but some of the extra ones are tough to get on, though do-able without heat. At least the lack of a ball-hinged joint means this one should be plenty durable. Some of the heads (like the tongue one) feature articulated ears on ball hinges while others are pretty stationary. They’re all softer plastic which is nice for when you’re trying to get one seated. The shoulders are ball-hinged, and have good range going out to the side. Rotation is fine. The elbows are hinged pegs as well and they rotate, but the hinge barely moves. The left arm on mine is really stubborn too. The hands rotate and feature a horizontal hinge. In the torso, is a diaphragm joint, but it’s poorly implemented. It feels like it’s binding when rotating and I find I have to push down hard to get it to swivel properly. There’s virtually no forward and back. The hips go out to the side a touch and swivel forward and back, but are otherwise just there for him to stand. You won’t be posing these legs, and the ankles just swivel.

I will say, that is a damn fine looking snow cone.

Stitch is basically capable of just standing there and modeling his props. He can’t convincingly stand on all fours which is disappointing. He can sit like a human, but not like a dog which he does a lot in the movie. You’re likely to just pick a look for him and hope he stands on your shelf. He can be a challenge to do so because there just isn’t much to work with. I have him doing a Batman pose on my shelf right now, but I’m just waiting for a shelf dive. Thankfully, if one takes place he should land harmlessly on my couch.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Stitch basically turned out as expected. The solicitation images do a solid job of representing what’s in the box and there weren’t any dramatic changes to the figure like we saw with Wave One. It just comes back to the question of is this figure worth the $55 asking price? Objectively speaking, probably not. This line has a tendency to hit clearance (recently, some GI Joe Ultimates! were priced as low as 12 bucks) and until that changes it’s basically impossible to recommend paying full price. The only reason to do so is if you want it now, or you want to show your support for the line with your wallet so that it keeps going. And that’s a question that’s impossible to answer right now. The most recent Disney Ultimates! wave (based on The Rescuers) was cancelled due to lack of orders. Wave Four is The Nightmare Before Christmas and is tentatively scheduled to arrive in the spring. Presently, there is no other open preorder for the line and information about its future has been cloudy at best. It’s very possible it’s headed for the chopping block, and that only matters in the context of this review for people hoping to pair Stitch with more characters from the film. If you don’t want your Lilo & Stitch Ultimates! collection to be one and done with Stitch then this probably isn’t for you. If you don’t care about getting anyone else from the film, then your decision should be a lot easier. I’m largely happy with how this figure looks and the display options available and I would even go so far as to say it’s my favorite in the line so far. Do with that what you will.

Here’s some more Disney Ultimates! reviews you can check out:

Super7 Disney Ultimates! Robin Hood

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…

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by Joe

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…

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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…

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by Joe

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

November 14, 2023

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Robotic Rocksteady

By Joe
Looks like old Rocksteady got an upgrade.

Last week, it was Space Cadet Raphael’s turn to be put through the ringer by me. Super7 didn’t really impress with that offering, but I did tease at the end of that lukewarm review that a more positive one was on the horizon. This is that more positive review. Robotic Rocksteady is the latest villain from Super7’s line of TMNT Ultimates!. It’s another figure that’s essentially a scaled-up reproduction of a toy originally released by Playmates Toys, but given a new coat of paint, a bunch of accessories, and some beefed up articulation. And, spoiler warning, it may be the best in the line.

The robotic version is roughly the same size as its biological counterpart.

Robotic Rocksteady was originally released in 1993 which was year 6 for the vintage toyline. By the time this figure arrived, I had moved on. 1992 saw the release of X-Men on Fox and by 1993 it had totally sunk its teeth into me. I think I bought only one TMNT action figure that year, Ninja Action Raphael, which was the last figure I purchased in the toyline I once loved as much as life itself. I did also get the TMNT Turtle Trolls, but they felt like a whole other line to me. Robotic Rocksteady was one I missed, though I do recall seeing it on the pegs. I remembered the character from the cartoon, which I was still watching on Saturday mornings, and because of that there was a desire to pick him up. I never did though, but now Super7 is giving me another chance at the figure I let pass me by.

They very nearly see eye-to-eye.
Even from the back he looks pretty nice.

Rocksteady stands right at the 8″ mark to the top of his head. Being a robot, he’s predominantly a metallic silver with hits of black, red, and purple sprinkled throughout the sculpt. Just about every bit of this guy is textured to some degree. There’s wires and rivets to be found throughout and in true Playmates fashion there is some asymmetry at play. Surpsingly, not with the feet, but with the hands as the right hand has wires that arc over the back and onto the fingers while the left hand appears to have guns built into them. They look like the channels on Wolverine’s gloves and there’s even three of them. There’s definitely a heft to this guy that wasn’t present with Raph and he’s pretty similar to Bebop in that department. The top of the head and the eyes inside are handled with translucent, orange, plastic to give the figure a light piping feature similar to what we saw with Metalhead. The paint is handled well and pretty clean. It’s not some incredible, super-detailed, approach, but it feels appropriate for this subject matter.

The turtles, on the other hand, will be looking up to this guy.

Robotic Rocksteady is just a fun figure to look at. The size, sculpt, and colors really give it the shelf presence that I felt the Wave 3 Rocksteady lacked. That wasn’t really the fault of Super7 (though they could have taken some steps to mitigate that), but a reflection of what I always felt was a pretty bland character design. This figure is definitely not that and I really love how this guy turned out. When it comes to the actual sculpt and paint, the only thing I don’t like is the panel in the middle of his torso. It looks like it’s supposed to be a screen of some kind with a soundwave on it, but it’s entirely cast in silver like most of the body so it just looks kind of odd. It’s reminiscent of the many unpainted details that were found in the vintage line. It’s a minor quibble, but it is unfortunate that this one deficiency that I find with the figure is right, smack, dab, in the center where it can’t hide.

I do wish this canon could be rotated in a straight-away manner as opposed to off to the side.
NECA’s version of the character taken from the cartoon series can position its forearm canon the way I want this one to.

Super7 loaded Rocksteady up with a bunch of suitable accessories, most of which could be found with the vintage release. He has two, shoulder-mounted canons which are non-removable, but come with optional blast effects. They’re a cloudy, translucent, orange, plastic and they slide in and out easily and look pretty good. He also has his forearm canon intended for his left arm. It might not be clear to those who don’t recall the vintage figure because it doesn’t really snap on. It just fits over this coil piece that’s part of the sculpt. It’s not the most secure attachment, but it seems to stay on well enough. And since it doesn’t peg into anything really, the arm looks like it’s not missing anything if you opt not to display the figure with it. My one real grip with the accessory is that the fin on mine is warped. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be, I don’t think it is, but it looks off and I may try to straighten it out. The canon also can’t accept the blast effects that the shoulder canons make use of which feels like a missed opportunity. Or it could have just included its own – that would have been better.

Not all of the accessories are offensive in nature.

Rocksteady also has a pair of weapon attachments in place of hands and the usual assortment of extra hands as well. For said hands, we get fists, gripping, and open hands. They go on and off easy enough and look pretty good too. If you find traditional hands too boring, Rocksteady also has a chainsaw sword attachment. This is from the original figure (which I think held it) and it’s a rather nasty looking weapon. The main blade of the sword looks like a chainsaw and there are two circular saw blades on either side. They don’t spin, unfortunately, but it’s still fun looking. The other hand attachment is a fire, or beam sword which just pegs in (same with the chainsaw sword, neither has a hinge or anything) and is made of the same translucent orange plastic as the blast effects. It’s a cool thing to have, but I think I prefer it as an attachment to the forearm canon. It’s a tight fit which is why I don’t necessarily think it was intentional, but once inserted it makes that weapon look like a flamethrower. The final accessory is a defensive one and unique to Super7’s version. It’s a futuristic take on Rocksteady’s manhole cover shield. Like the wave 2 Rocksteady, the manhole cover has a reverse side that’s more like Bebop’s trashcan lid shield, but otherwise it’s a translucent, purple, device with some silver accents. He kind of grips it awkwardly since it has a full handle as opposed to being one he could strap to his forearm. It has a channel in the underside of the handle that you can fit his fingertips into which helps him to hold it in a more defensive position, though it also slides around. I find it’s easier to just use the open hands instead and slide them through the handle.

You’re in trouble now, toitle!

Articulation is never Super7’s strong suit and it’s probably not going to be for a chunky, robotic, rhinoceros. Even so, Rocksteady moves well enough. His head feels like it’s on a ball joint of some kind so there’s some tilt and rotation is fine. Like the original Rocksteady figure, his “neck” is positioned forward a bit so it limits the practical up and down range, but you get some. The hinged ball pegs for the shoulders work find and he can raise his arms out to the side and rotate. The biceps swivel isn’t great though due to how the arm is shaped. The bicep sits inside the outline of the shoulder so it butts against it and limits the range, which is unfortunate and avoidable. The elbows though bend a full 90 degrees, but the way the forearms are shaped limits the swivel there as well. It’s really only an issue because with the left arm he can’t position the canon as well as I’d like. It can never be perpendicular with the ground, it’s always at an angle due to the limitations of the swivels at the bicep and elbow. The wrists rotate fine and all of the hinges are horizontal. The shoulder canons also swivel.

Flame swords – ignite!

In the torso, we do have a waist twist. Because the black piece in the middle of the abdomen hangs over the waist, the range is limited. The crotch area is done with a softer overlay so there’s less worry about scratching the plastic when rotating at this joint. This hips are hinged ball pegs and this robot can essentially do a full split. He kicks forward better than 45 degrees. At that point, the sculpted wires start to hit the hips, but if you rotate at the thigh joint that’s there to clear it, he can raise his leg out a full 90 degrees. He kicks back a bit, and the knee joint is the typical Super7 single hinge with rotation. It bends just about 90 degrees, though like the biceps, the pointed kneecap limits the swivel. If you bend the knee first, you can swivel a bit more. At the ankle is a hinge which works pretty well forward and back and there is the usual ankle rocker. It’s a bit more limited than some, but you still get some usable range there.

I think I prefer the flame sword as a flame-thrower.

This action figure of Robotic Rocksteady is not exactly “super” articulated, but it works well enough for the character. I think it’s better than Space Cadet Raph in that department which is something I would not have guessed going in. It has limitations, but they’re limitations that can be worked around. If the left bicep could rotate far enough to better position the forearm canon, I’d be more than happy with what this figure can do. That’s really the only blemish for me when it comes to the articulation. The only way to get that canon as level and forward-facing as I’d like it to be is to basically pose him like he has a bird sitting on his forearm. That means the arm all the way out to the side and elbow bent 90 degrees. It’s not perfect, but at least he can indeed bend his elbows. None of the joints are loose and few were overly tight. No heat was needed to get every joint working.. The only other critique I have is I wish he had a hinged jaw. It’s sculpted like he has one, so why not go the extra mile? It would just make him a touch more expressive, which is my main critique of both Bebop and Rocksteady figures we’ve received thus far.

Your turtles will have their hands full with this foe.

Robotic Rocksteady might be my new favorite figure in this line. He looks awesome and he’s pretty damn fun to mess around with, something I can’t say for many figures in this line. All of his accessories have purpose and I like displaying him with everything. I even like how the hands look which makes it hard to decide if I want to use the chainsaw sword or something else. This is just a cool looking figure that I’m quite happy with and the only true negative is the $65 MSRP. Yeah, he’s even more expensive than usual which is a bummer. Robotic Bebop, who is part of Wave 7 which is somehow arriving after both Waves 8 and 9, was $55 and apparently that was an error or something they felt needed revision. At $55, this figure would be a no brainer for me and even at $65 it’s pretty close. Sixty-five bucks is just a lot for an action figure, even a good one. We’re basically at S.H.Figuarts prices here, but the quality of this figure is also pretty damn high. I think it’s the rare Super7 figure that earns it’s original price so I’m going to give it a recommend. The more savvy shoppers probably will benefit from being patient, but the early adopters will also get to enjoy a pretty cool figure while those ones wait it out.

There’s plenty more Super7 and Rocksteady content to be found on this blog if that’s your thing:

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Rocksteady

We saved the big boy for last! The lone villain of wave 3 of Super7’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! line is the mutant rhino, Rocksteady. He follows in the footsteps of the monstrous Bebop who was released in wave 2 and is the crown jewel of the young line for many collectors so far.…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Cartoon Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady

2021 introduced a lot of good things for collectors of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the classic cartoon. The toy maker still kept the line a Target exclusive when it came to brick and mortar, but it also started selling a lot of it online to coincide with each…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Metalhead

This post marks number 800 for this blog! Now, when I hit a nice, round, number like that I usually try to find a special topic of some kind, but also one representative of the content on this blog. Well, we certainly look at a lot of toys on this space, and there have definitely…

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by Joe

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November 7, 2023

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Space Cadet Raphael

By Joe
Looks like we’re sending a turtle into orbit.

It feels like it’s been awhile since we had a proper Turtle Tuesday around here, but today that streak ends. It also feels like a long time since we had a new wave TMNT Ultimates! from Super7 to talk about – and that’s because it has! Not including the glow-in-the-dark variant of Leonardo I looked at over the summer, the last figure in this line reviewed by me was posted on November 22, 2022. Who knows when I actually wrote that one, I’m guessing I had the figure in early November. At any rate, it’s now November 2023 so it’s been nearly a year. I don’t know why that is, or why we’re talking about a figure from Wave 8 while Wave 7 is scheduled to release in May of 2024, but it is what it is.

Looks like we’re just missing Donnie, but for some reason his disguise figure hasn’t even been solicited, but Punk Rock Don and Slam Dunkin’ Don have.

Space Cadet Raphael is the third Super7 reproduction of the 1990 Turtles in Disguise wave by Playmates Toys following in the footsteps of Sewer Samurai Leonardo and Michelangelo the Sewer Surfer. Raph is stepping out of the sewers and into the vastness of space as he’s apparently decided to become an astronaut. I’m not sure what about Raphael’s personality made him the most likely to do so (seems more like a Donatello thing), but I guess that’s not important. For me, the vintage version of this figure (which I sadly no longer possess) was one of my favorites. I don’t really know why, I just kind of liked how it was all put together. And I liked it even more after the release of Space Usagi because it meant Raph had a buddy to take with him on his expeditions. Because of my fondness for that figure, I was really looking forward to this update from Super7. Tempering my enthusiasm though was the fact that Wave 5 in this line was a mess. Wave 6 was better, but the repeated delays didn’t exactly add to my confidence – quite the opposite actually, so how did this one turn out? In many ways, I would say as expected, but that’s not exactly a good thing. Read on for more!

He’s in a bulky spacesuit, and yet he seems smaller than the other Raphs. That astronaut diet must be something.

Space Cadet Raphael stands at roughly 6″ in height. This puts him right in-line with the Wave 1 release of Raphael, which seems right, but then you factor in that this Raph is in a space suit and it makes less sense. Perhaps that’s a nitpick, but what’s not is that he has noticeably less mass than his naked counterpart. How does a bulky space suit make one smaller? It obviously doesn’t, but in the case of the figure I think it’s because most of what you see on the torso is an overlay. And underneath that overlay is just the basic “skeleton” of a Super7 figure, not a bulky turtle shell. Is it a big deal? I don’t know that it is. It’s likely something that will vary from person to person, but I personally liked how the previous Turtles in Disguise releases appeared slightly larger than the standard versions and I wish that were true of Raph.

I do like the almost quilted texture of the shell.

The sculpt on this figure is probably the thing people are likely to be most pleased with. The head is in-line with the vintage version, stylistically. The paint around the edges could be better, but it’s probably good enough. The suit has a lot of sculpted detail on it and most of those details are painted. The body is cast in a shade of white that has a slight blue tone to it. There’s blue air-brushing over it which I think helps to minimize that plastic look present on Deep Space Homer. There are yellow zippers along the side that are painted as well as a blue harness. The tanks on his back are a nice metallic silver with black straps painted on as well. The elbow and knee pads are red plastic and don’t quite match the finish of the painted parts so they stick out in a bad way. There’s also a couple of pouches sculpted on that aren’t painted either and they detract from the look of the figure. Super7 did add a wrist communicator though that’s a metallic silver and it flips open. Inside is a decal of Fugitoid so that’s pretty neat. The front of the torso is not a big sticker, but some kind of print. The flatness of it makes it look a little cheap, but it would look worse if it was a sticker.

“What’s up, Fugitoid?”
Raph’s got a new helmet this time around which some are referring to as a Storm Trooper helmet. I can see it, but I’m not convinced that was the intent.

Super7 usually goes big on accessories, and with this figure they went further than some. Raph comes with 4 sets of hands: open, fists, gripping, and trigger finger hands. They peg in pretty easily and come out almost too easily, but we’ll speak more on that when we go over the articulation. He has his standard head and the plastic dome to go over it. It’s a nice, clear, plastic or acrylic, but the way it was molded left this big, ugly, “nipple” in the middle of the top that sucks. Maybe the factory they used didn’t know how to do such a piece and do it right, but I have a Mr. Freeze figure with basically the same feature and his dome features no such imperfection. There’s also an alternate head and it’s basically Raph with a full astronaut helmet. It turned out pretty well. While I am loathe to go against the vintage original, I will say the new look is tempting.

Yuck. I don’t know what went wrong here.

For weapons, Raph has the same ones the vintage came with and then some. He has his laser pistol which is done in a metallic plastic and it includes a hose in the same color. It’s very flexible as there’s no wire inside and kind of feels like an old payphone chord. It plugs onto the handle of the gun and then connects to a port on the torso of the figure on the right side. The port on mine was barely open out of the box to the point where I couldn’t even tell it was a hole until I stuck something else in there. I had to widen it with a screw to get the hose to fit, but now it’s fine. Raph also has his “space sword” which has a design that appears to be close to the vintage figure’s, but also has a new, translucent, red, handle. It’s pretty cool, though I never think of Raph as a sword guy. Apparently Super7 doesn’t either as they also gave him a pair of sai. They’re sort of like the lightsaber equivalent of a sai as the bladed portion is in the same red, translucent, plastic that the sword’s handle features. Super7 must love this stuff because they also gave Raph some goggles made of the same plastic, though it also has a silver mouthpiece. Lastly, there’s a slice of pizza in a silver, vacuum, sealed pouch that looks pretty neat. The little green alien that was part of the vintage figure’s sculpt is also present, but now he’s a little buddy figure. He has an articulated head, but otherwise is just a slug figure, but a neat idea nonetheless.

I assume Raph never leaves home without his trusty sai, so it did seem odd that Playmates would send him into space without.

You won’t find me complaining about the accessories with Raph, but you will find me complaining about the articulation. Never the line’s strong suit, Raph is still disappointing even by those low standards. The head is on the usual double ball peg that’s really long. It works and works well as far as range of motion goes, but does leave a sizable gap where the neck meets that head. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs, but because Raph’s suit has these black cuffs at the shoulder, his arms only go out to the side about 45 degrees. They rotate fine, and the biceps swivel is acceptable as well, though a little tight. The elbows though are atrocious. I don’t think this figure even gets 45 degrees of bend there as the elbow pads are over the hinge. His elbows might be worse than Super7’s Optimus Prime – they’re that bad. It’s just a baffling design error. Why not just sculpt the elbow pad onto the figure? We know Super7 will never do a double joint for an elbow, even though they work best with characters like the turtles who have elbow pads, but doing it this way is unacceptable. It’s just dumb and it makes me question who approves this stuff over there. An action figure that can’t bend its elbows? It’s ludicrous. The wrists swivel and all of the hands have horizontal hinges, another mess-up that shouldn’t be as the trigger and gripping hands would be improved with vertical hinges. Super7 is usually good about that, but not here. The hands are also set too deep in the forearm so the hinge is almost useless. Try to bend the open hands into more of a cupping position (since you can’t get that our of the elbows) and they’ll just pop out. It almost feels like nothing is holding those hands in place and swapping weapons is a frustrating experience. Just take the hands out first and do it that way. Posing will also drive you crazy as if you go to bend the elbows or even rotate at the shoulder you’re liable to accidentally knock a hand out of place. This is not a well-thought out action figure.

This is as far as the elbows can bend.
Ranged or melee? He can do both.

In the torso is a waist twist, but because we’re dealing with a giant turtle here, it’s more like a pivot point. The legs connect via hinged ball pegs so Raph can just about do a full split as well as kick forward and back a decent amount. There’s rotation there as well so you get some thigh pivot, but it’s a bit tight. The knees, like the elbows, are single-hinged and feature kneepads to contend with. Raph can bend his knees better than he can his elbows, but still can’t do a full 90 degrees. The lower leg can also rotate on that joint. The feet have little range hinging forward and back. They basically behave like a ratcheted joint with only 3 positions. The ankle rocker works well though and is probably the most consistent joint from figure to figure in this line.

Can’t forget the pizza.

Like a lot of figures in this line, Space Cadet Raphael is a figure that looks reasonably good on a shelf, but isn’t that fun to handle. And it’s all a result of just bad design. It’s not cheap, it’s just incompetence. Why are things like the elbows getting worse as we go deeper into the line and not better? The original turtles can at least bend their elbows and the design is basically the same, but this one can’t. I also think the figure should be bulkier than it is since we are talking about a turtle in a spacesuit here. I didn’t mention it when going over the accessories, but a little more ingenuity with the sculpt to add some weapon storage also would have been appreciated. This figure comes with a lot, it’s the figure’s greatest strength, but he has no where to put any of it when he’s not holding onto it. A holster for the gun, some loops for the sai, anything would have been better than nothing. Again, this isn’t stuff that would have cost Super7 more money, it just requires more thought.

Raph, you’re gonna need a bigger gun.
“I can’t believe NASA put this guy on my crew.”

This figure is basically relying on nostalgia to sell you on it. And with me, it got me. I know preordering a Super7 figure is a risky proposition, but I did it anyway. I have more on preorder, but I’ve mostly stopped doing so until I can see the finished product. Had I known what I was getting going into with this one, would I have still bought it? Not at the MSRP of $55. This isn’t worth it. It’s not the trainwreck that Sewer Samurai Leonardo was and it looks better than April or Shredder, but it’s not exactly a strong addition to the line. I think on clearance this one has value, maybe at $35 or so, but it has too many problems to be a recommend at $55. I hope Super7 takes such criticism to heart as I certainly don’t want to dislike their products. I have liked many of them in the past and I will have some a review very soon at that. It’s just frustrating to see a company keep making stupid mistakes with a property that should be a homerun.

Want to see what I thought of the other Turtles in Disguise or maybe you’re curious about that Optimus Prime I mentioned:

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Samurai Leonardo

Well, after looking at the Wave 6 Slash a couple of weeks ago we can now finally turn our attention to a Wave 5 release from Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! series of figures: Sewer Samurai Leonardo. The thing with TMNT is, you have the four good guys, a few core allies,…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Surfer Mike

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…

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by Joe

Super7 Transformers Ultimates! Optimus Prime

I think we’re over discussing the merits of non-transforming Transformers, right? It’s been done for a long time, but was really pushed to the forefront with the Hasbro RED series in 2020 and while there will always be a section of the fanbase that wants nothing to do with such a concept, it’s still an…

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by Joe

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