Tag Archives: super7 ultimates!

June 6, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Drederick Tatum

By Joe
He’s here to make orphans of your children.

We have looked at 15 figures from Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons and we’re about to look at the 16th. What I’m wondering at this stage is do I need to keep talking about the baffling character selection? Yes, yes I do. Drederick Tatum is today’s figure, the show’s Mike Tyson parody, and he’s about as warranted as last week’s figure, Radioactive Man. I don’t know that any, named, character on The Simpsons who has spoken lines could be called a deep cut or anything, but there’s tons of minor characters in the show who show up for a joke here and there and then fade away. Sometimes for years at a time. Tatum isn’t unique in that sense, and yeah, those minor characters are certainly part of the charm of The Simpsons, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying that fans would prefer dozens of characters ahead of Drederick Tatum. Characters like Principal Skinner, Edna Krabapple, or how about freakin’ Marge Simpson?!

“I do not appreciate the way you are looking at me, Homer.”

We all know the case against Drederick Tatum, but what’s the argument for the character getting immortalized in plastic? I don’t think he had a figure in the Playmates line back in the day so that’s one. That line actually was super expansive and probably should have done a Tatum, but maybe they were afraid of a lawsuit? He is a minority character in a line that’s been all yellow dudes and the occasional alien, dog, or robot. And he has a pretty unique build in the show relative to the existing characters so it’s a different sort of figure.

“D’oh!”

The existence of this figure is probably pleasing to some. I know at least one person who is a Mike Tyson fan that is getting just this figure from the line. And that’s good for him since this figure won’t pair with anything else in the line. I don’t think it changes the fact that it’s still a bizarre choice in a line rife with them. Perhaps more concerning though would be is the figure any good? I have not had a very good time with the fourth wave of this line. It’s featured sloppy paint, a low accessory count, and limbs that just fall off. The bad news is those were the “cheap” figures of the wave at $55. The last two figures come with an inflated MSRP of $65 and that includes Mr. Tatum. What about this figure warranted the extra ten bucks? I have no idea. Maybe Super7 expected lower orders for this character and thus decided to tack on an extra Hamilton. Sure, he’s bigger than Flanders and Radioactive Man, but not to the degree one would think warranted more money. There’s not a ton of paint here and the accessory count is just okay. Basically every figure in this line has been all unique tooling and most have featured soft goods. What separates him from Krusty or Duffman? Again, I have no idea.

Duffman seems to be the figure most similar to Tatum.

This figure has to impress a bit more as a result of that price, and at least at first glance, it’s off to a solid start. Tatum stands around 7.5″ to the top of his head. This sets him a little taller than he probably should be if we’re going off of his appearance in “The Homer They Fall” as he was really no taller than Homer there. He’s a chunky figure with a good feel in-hand as there’s some heft to him, not the overly hollow, plastic, feel some of the other figures possess. He has a very neutral expression, but that’s suitable for the character. The paint on the face is okay. The top of the eyebrows aren’t painted and if you get in close the black lines around his stubble aren’t perfect. The eyes look nice and it’s amusing how this character has such small eyes compared with the usual Simpsons design.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Duffman.”

The body of the figure requires far less detail. He’s a boxer so he’s just a guy in trunks and boots. The body is molded in brown plastic and has a nice, matte, finish. The forearms appear to be molded in white plastic and painted brown, but they match the rest of the arms perfectly. Why? Because Super7 painted brown over brown! They had started to do that with the second wave in places, but abandoned the practice with the third wave. It looks so much better and it’s basically what NECA does with all of its toon figures. The trunks are just plastic though, as are the boots. They’re a really dark, almost black, navy and the exposed portions of the legs are painted brown and look fine.

This right shoulder just has no room to really move properly and leads to scuffing.

The paint is not perfect, but few figures can claim to have a perfect paint app. The brown paint doesn’t quite reach the white cuffs where the boxing gloves begin and there is some chipping around the elbow of the right arm of my figure which leaves behind white marks. What is more the fault of the figure and Super7 is how tight the shoulders are. Clearly, they’re not used to painting this much of their figures because the shoulders were close to stuck out of the box. The left arm was easier to free than the right and it’s fine, but the right arm is all chewed up on the underside of the shoulder joint. That sucks, and the elbows are also very hard to work with and I think it’s a combination of paint and how far recessed the hinge is in the arm. I basically have to take the hands off to work the elbows otherwise they’ll just pop off. They, and the heads, come off easily. Maybe too easily for the hands, but they’re not falling out so I’m not bothered by that. I am, once again, bothered by the hips though. Just like Radioactive Man, the right leg loves to come off when posing the figure. The left is a little better, but I even had that pop off on me when I was setting up for pictures.

Good luck getting him into any sort of “boxing” pose.

The rest of the articulation is pretty mediocre. The shoulders suck and so do the elbows. He has a diaphragm joint that pivots and can go back a bit, but not much forward. The waist twist doesn’t want to work on mine. It moves, but snaps right back into a neutral position so I think plastic is bending as opposed to rotating. The hips have good range, but the knees do not. Ankles are fine, but this is a design with stubby legs and small feet relative to the body so posing options are going to be pretty limited. He can’t really get into a “ready” position for a boxing match, but he can sort of deliver a punch at least. He, like most of the figures in this line, is best equipped to just stand on your shelf in a fairly neutral pose. And as a blunt, understated, sort of tough guy in the show, that’s at least a look that works better with Tatum than others.

Not enough is made of his nickname in the show.

Tatum does have some accessories to speak of, most notably the soft goods “Mr. Armageddon” robe. It’s very well done and looks nice. There’s no wire this time, but this isn’t the sort of garment calling for one. It looks so good though that I doubt many will display the figure with it off. For alternate heads we have a teeth gritting expression which is meaner than the normal one and an eyes closed one with a smile. They’re painted well enough, though I can’t see myself ever using the smiling portrait. Since Tatum wears boxing gloves, there isn’t much need for alternate hands, but we do get one extra set. They’re open hands with peg holes in them and they’re to be used with his championship belt. The belt is really thick and done on a rubbery plastic. It has pegs on the reverse side so he can hold the belt over his head. It does not fit around his waist nor does it look good draped over a shoulder because it’s just too thick to hang naturally. Completing the look is a white, preposed, towel to be draped over Tatum’s shoulders and it looks good whether he’s robed or not. The last accessory is his “butt-ugly shoe” which is from the episode “Large Marge.” Tatum was paid to endorse them, but wasn’t up to the task. Or just too honest for his own good.

“Please purchase this shoddy action figure butt-ugly shoe which I have been paid millions of dollars to endorse.”

Drederick Tatum is another somewhat subpar release for this line. He looks better than some of the other figures in the line, but the quality control isn’t up to par. Especially for the money Super7 is charging. It’s still hard to shake the feeling that the company blew off a lot of the review process in order to get these out faster (it was rumored that Super7’s slow release pace was a problem for Disney) because it’s very basic, tolerance, checks that these figures are failing at. The hips are still an issue and so are the shoulders. They both required more fine-tuning, which is indicative of a rush job since that fine-tuning may have been scrapped. Super7’s Brian Flynn acknowledged the issues with Devil Flanders, but said nothing of the rest of the wave other than to sell it as “So good,” like it’s a tragedy the line is ending. And to be clear, Devil Flanders is the lone figure I think was absolutely not fit for release in its present state. The rest are more flawed than outright disasters.

The champion of Wave 4?

Even with its problems, the Drederick Tatum figure is the best of The Simpsons Ultimates! Wave Four. That’s an admittedly low bar since one figure wasn’t fit for release while the other had plenty of issues on its own. The real question is does this figure do anything to warrant the price tag? No, not really. I mean, if you want a figure of Drederick Tatum this at least looks good. It’s going to satisfy that need, it’s just overpriced at $65. It’s possible not a ton of these figures were produced so waiting for a discount might come back to haunt the person who needs this figure to complete their collection, but I still have a hard time seeing this guy sell out at the current price. If you’re asking me it’s probably worth the gamble, but perhaps be ready to pounce if it drops below 40 bucks. Next week, we’ll see if this line’s final figure can redeem this awful wave or if the line is fated to end like Homer’s attempt at jumping the gorge.

Want to see more from Super7’s take on The Simpsons (you masochist):

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Radioactive Man

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Devil Flanders

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! C. Montgomery Burns

We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 30, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Radioactive Man

By Joe
He’s not just Springfield’s hero, he’s America’s hero.

Last week, we started on our journey through the fourth and final wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. It did not start well. Devil Flanders represented a new low point for the line and maybe for Super7 as a whole. I know I certainly do not own a worse Super7 figure than that one. This week, we’re going to rely on a man, a radioactive man, to right the ship.

Pardon some of the poor quality, but here we have the three Radioactive Men from left to right: comics, Richter, Wolfcastle. This figure seems to clearly be of Richter, though it’s not perfect. Note, the comic Radioactive Man usually has his nose uncovered unlike how he’s depicted here.

Radioactive Man is, and stop me if you’ve heard me say this already, a curious choice for a toy line’s fourth wave. He’s recognizable to fans of The Simpsons, but likely not high on anyone’s list of wants that would warrant inclusion at this stage. And it’s even more perplexing because, in the show, there are basically three versions of Radioactive Man. There’s the comic book hero whom we’re lightly introduced to in the show’s second episode. His proper introduction occurs in “Three Men and a Comic Book” which we talked about before since it’s the main inspiration for the Bartman figure from the second wave. Comic book Radioactive Man is a comic book superhero like any other. He’s big and musclebound and wears a cape and cowl. The second Radioactive Man is portrayed on TV by the late actor Dirk Richter. The show, in the world of The Simpsons, is a lot like the 60’s Batman show (even though that existed as well in the show’s canon). It’s campy, and Richter doesn’t exactly feature a body with “heroic” proportions. The final Radioactive Man is played by Springfield regular Rainier Wolfcastle for the Radioactive Man movie which was the subject of one episode. He is basically like the comic book version, but with a different profile.

“Is that supposed to be me?”

So which Radioactive Man did Super7 produce? I don’t know. This figure references the comic book hero on the box and the accessories seem to indicate that, but he doesn’t look like the heroic Radioactive Man from the show. He looks more like Richter’s Radioactive Man, at least his body, with a comic book head. I can definitely say this is not the Wolfcastle version, and even though that’s only from one episode, I would argue that version is the most memorable. This Radioactive Man is rather frumpy in appearance. There’s no muscle definition to the sculpt. The arms and legs are sculpted in such a way as to make the costume appear baggy. The hands and feet are fairly large like a hero might possess, but that’s it. It’s cosplay Radioactive Man.

It’s a guy in red and yellow pajamas – isn’t that what you wanted?

The approach is unfortunate because the figure just looks very bland. It’s mostly yellow and red plastic with just a touch of paint here and there. The paint applications are just okay to mediocre. There’s a little bleeding around the muzzle of my angry portrait while the eyes feature the same on the stern face. The atomic logo on the stern face is also off-center and there are little, red, blemishes on the yellow, plastic, gloves. The red is at least coated with a matte spray and looks pretty good. It’s probably on the yellow as well, but it doesn’t do much to take-away from the cheap look it has. The lower legs are sculpted to appear baggy, which I don’t care for and it makes for a bit of an ugly knee joint. The thing I dislike most though is how they did the cape. It features a big, cavernous, carve-out for the head and that’s because the cape needs to loop over the ball-joint inside. It takes away from the figure’s neck and makes the cape look like it’s just emerging from inside the chest? I wish they had done it the same way they did Duffman’s cape, which is how the licensing art on the box does it as well, because this just doesn’t look good.

Beware of stuck joints that strip away paint.

The look of the figure may be a bit more on the subjective end, but the quality is definitely more objective. Like Flanders, this is a figure that doesn’t have a premium look or feel to it despite the $55 asking price. The shoulders are really tight and the red paint on them chips and flakes off with relative ease. I have a large, yellow, blemish, behind the right shoulder on mine. I’m afraid to move him much as a result because I don’t want any more paint to chip-away. The head appears to be misshapen when it comes to the socket. It’s extremely wide at the base, and then deeper in the head where the ball should snap-in which is quite narrow. The end result is that the stern head just barely pops on while the angry one fits a little better. It takes minimal effort to knock it off and will likely drive anyone nuts who is trying to pose this thing. The hips, like Flanders, are also unnaturally loose. They’re not as bad as Devil Flanders as they will mostly stay where you position them, but while moving and posing the figure expect them to fall off unintentionally. In particular, the right leg on mine is prone to coming off.

Not the best logo placement on the right.
This is about as good a flying pose as the articulation will allow. Granted, I’m using a pretty bad flight stand here.

I suppose the head and hips are less of an issue with a figure that you either won’t want to pose or really just can’t pose well. Like many figures in this line, Radioactive Man does not prioritize articulation. He’s just going to stand on your shelf, desk, whatever in a pretty neutral pose. His head doesn’t look up well enough for a head-on flying pose as seen on the cover of Radioactive Man #1, and the range of the arms and such aren’t going to lend to anything dynamic. The shoulders are super tight and can’t reach a horizontal position anyway and elbows and knees won’t reach 90 degrees. The hip range is quite good at least while the waist twist is surprisingly limited. The cape is wired and I will say that while I may have not always liked the soft goods in this line, at least the capes have always been wired which is a good thing.

“Hey, ma! It happened again!” I don’t know why he’s talking like Cletus.

If you’re hoping for the accessories to help sell this one, well, you may be let down. This is a very light release as we get just the two portraits and a small assortment of hands: fists, a single gripping right hand, a pointing left hand, a relaxed right hand, and a thumb’s up left. It’s weird to have only one gripping hand. It’s also weird we get the one relaxed hand as two of them would make for okay flying hands, but since he can’t look forward anyway I suppose it’s not necessary. For his gripping hand, he has an American flag. It looks pretty good, it’s not accurate to an actual flag, but I’m guessing that’s on purpose. For the relaxed hand, he has a comic book that can slot between the thumb and index finger. It’s Radioactive Man introducing Neutrino. Not a particularly memorable sight gag from the show. It’s also very flimsy and warped out of the box, but the printing is nice and sharp.

He’s got a comic. Cool?
He’s just a big Hacksaw fan.

That is all though. It seems like a very uninspired set of accessories. Maybe they wanted to do a gag smoking head and hands accessory, but after the Krusty issue it had to be cut? If this is indeed Dirk Richter, why not include some punching effects to really drive that home? The flag is about as sterile as it gets. I get it that Radioactive Man is sort of like the show’s Superman in imagery, but it doesn’t really make for a fun, or funny, release. This is a comedy series, after all, but I’m left wondering where’s the comedy? If they had gone with Wolfcastle, we could have had a goggles portrait which is really the character’s most iconic moment from the show. And if it had been a more comic look for the body, a Wolfcastle alternate head would have worked just fine. Anything referencing the show within a show could have been funny, but instead I’ve got this frumpy looking Radioactive Man in a Hacksaw Jim Duggan pose. Neat?

I guess these guys go together?

When it comes to Radioactive Man I just don’t see what reason Super7 is putting forth for Simpsons fans to buy this. It really is a figure for the completists or for that one hardcore Radioactive Man fan out there, but then again, the odd approach might annoy that person more than me. I don’t know who this figure is for and I don’t see anything here that is making a strong argument for your money. What is becoming an all too common refrain with this line is the recommendation to not buy it, but wait it out. It’s unlikely to sell out and will probably be heavily discounted as soon as this summer. Perhaps next week we’ll look at a figure that can turn things around for Simpsons Wave Four, otherwise this line is going to go out with a whimper.

Here’s a look at more stuff from Super7’s take on the World of Springfield:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Devil Flanders

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! C. Montgomery Burns

We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Ralph Wiggum

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

Keep reading
by Joe

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

May 23, 2024

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Devil Flanders

By Joe
I guess being left-handed is the mark of the devil after all.

Last week, we concluded our look at the third wave of Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons and now we embark on the fourth and final wave. That’s right, Disney pulled the rug out from under Super7 and handed The Simpsons license over to Jakks. Their products will start rolling out this fall. Super7 had shown a potential fifth wave for this line that contained Marge, Lisa, and Groundskeeper Willie, but it shall never see the light of day. The character selection was already a hot topic with this line, but now that we know the end point it has put those decisions in an even brighter spotlight making subjects like today’s figure all the more perplexing and irksome.

Ned has come to offer you a deal.

Devil Flanders appeared in one segment of the annual Treehouse of Horror titled “The Devil and Homer Simpson.” It’s a classic sketch where Homer sells his soul to the devil for a doughnut, and that devil happens to be Ned Flanders (It’s always the ones you least expect). Treehouse of Horror is very popular with fans of The Simpsons so selecting characters from those episodes is hardly controversial. It’s just puzzling when we get a character like Devil Flanders before a regular Ned Flanders. It’s also here at the expense of a Marge or Lisa and doesn’t really pair with any of the previously released figures aside from the Treehouse of Horror connection it shares with Kang and Kodos. We don’t have a standard Homer to pair him with, for example, and it’s not like astronaut Homer is an appropriate fill-in. It’s also the only Treehouse figure in the wave. Wouldn’t it make more sense to do a whole Treehouse of Horror themed wave instead like what Super7 did with ReAction? Time it with Halloween and it practically sells itself.

I guess he can just go with the Treehouse of Horror stuff?

Criticisms aside, Devil Flanders is at least an interesting take on Flanders and one of the better one-off pulls from the Treehouse of Horror anthology series. The only real concern I had going in was what would the quality be like? Wave 2 seemed to increase the quality of the line when it came to paint and accessory count, but Wave 3 represented a step back. Kang and Kodos had their size to rely on which gives them a great deal of shelf presence (at a terrible price), but Ralph and Mr. Burns? They disappointed. Bad paint or no paint, odd choices for accessories, and even the sculpts and choice of expressions felt lacking. Given that the line was axed before those waves were completed, it did not bode well for the fourth wave and Devil Flanders is certainly proof of that.

Devil Flanders arrives in the usual box, but without the slipcover. Wave 4 is the cut-off for slipcovers apparently as Super7 has begun phasing them out across the board to save money, presumably. I can’t imagine it’s much per figure, but over 2,000 figures I suppose it adds up. I don’t really care since I’m not an in-box guy, though I had been saving these boxes and keeping the unused accessories within. I guess it’s a bummer they won’t be uniform.

Who needs a flaming pen?

Devil Flanders stands at approximately 6.875″ to the top of his head and about 7.325″ to the tip of his horns. He is a satyr-like creature with a human torso and goat legs. He also marks the return of soft goods to the line as he has a soft goods robe. The glasses have actual lenses in them and what little paint is here is fairly clean. That’s just the problem though, there’s barely any paint. Super7 went with yellow plastic for his human parts and plainly painted brown for the goat legs. The yellow at least has a matte coating on it while the goat legs do not appear to. They’re quite shiny and cheap looking. The robe also didn’t turn out very well. It’s wrinkly and frumpy and just seems unnecessary. Why not just do it in plastic? I think it would have looked better. The Super7 of old would have given us both options like they did with Splinter in the TMNT line, but that’s apparently no longer in the budget. His tail is also present, but preposed in a U-shape. It’s disappointing he can’t twirl it like he did in the episode. Instead it’s just there. The body is also hollow and has a real cheap feel to it. This does not feel like a high quality collectible nor does it resemble one in any other way.

I got so frustrated swapping the heads just once that I didn’t bother with this one.

The presentation may be lackluster, but it’s nothing compared to the quality control. First of all, Ned comes with three expressions and they are a pain to swap. Don’t even bother trying to get one of the alternate heads on without first heating them up. You’ll just stab yourself on his horns or break his glasses. That’s an annoyance, but one that can be dealt with (especially if you’re just a set it and forget it sort), but what’s beyond that are the legs. Something went very wrong at the factory because the slots on his legs where they join the ball joint in the hip is way too big. His legs are floppy and just fall off. Constantly. If you’re able to get him to stand consider yourself lucky. They’ll go back on, but they’re terrible and it’s ridiculous something like this could see release. Did Super7 just not care since the line was dead? Did someone actually approve this shoddy factory output? It definitely feels like a case of cut corners all around because we know we’re going to have to clearance the line anyway. This is garbage.

“I think I’ll just stick with the potato chips.” “You are not smarter than me!”

Maybe the accessories can rescue this one? If such a thing as legs that won’t stay on can be overcome, I have to say the accessories are just ho-hum. Flanders has three portraits: neutral, an open-mouth smile, and an angry yell. They’re fine and I’m okay with them. For hands, he has a set of gripping hands, relaxed, a pointing right hand, and a tighter gripping left with his thumb up. The pointing right hand has a claw on the end of the finger which is a nice touch as that’s something that really only appears in the episode when he does indeed gesture towards Homer. The tighter gripping hand seems to be for his flaming pen. It’s a little, gray, stick, with a translucent flame coming off of it. He can hold it okay and it pairs with the unsigned contract for one doughnut that Homer is to sign. That’s on a thin piece of plastic with a crease in it. The handwriting is well-printed and it looks good. Lastly, Ned has his pitchfork which is ugly and misshapen like it is in the episode. It’s oddly cast on very soft, flimsy, plastic and I have no idea why. It doesn’t make it any easier to get it into his hands and it means it’s likely to arrive warped. It’s an odd call.

I guess the scale is fine whether you like the cut of his jib or not.

The array of accessories is fine, but I’m guessing most people will be left wondering one thing: where’s the forbidden doughnut?! That’s a layup of an accessory and probably one that would have been easy to make and even reuse. Had Super7 planned this line out better, there could have been a standard Homer already available so that Ned could come with a Doughnut-headed Homer accessory. That’s easy! Were they just hoping to double-dip somewhere down the line by doing a regular Homer and then a Doughnut Homer? Possibly, or maybe they just didn’t put much thought into it. You certainly are allowed to think that given it doesn’t look like much thought or care went into this line at all.

Should we talk about the articulation? It hasn’t been the strongest point of this line and Devil Flanders is no exception there. The head is on a double-ball peg and it’s the only point of articulation that’s any good. The shoulders are hindered by the soft goods as are the elbows, which probably wouldn’t bend 90 degrees anyway. All of the wrists are horizontal hinged and the diaphragm joint does almost nothing. It can’t even twist as it just binds and wants to return to a neutral position. The hips we’ve been over and they’re useless. If you can get him to stand it’s only going to be in a neutral position. There are knee joints, but they do nothing because of the shape of the leg and the ankles basically do nothing as well since he has hooves. He might as well be a statue from the waist down. Actually, the figure would be better if he was a statue from the waist down since that would mean the legs wouldn’t fall off and he’d likely be easier to stand. The robe is also wired so you can pose it a bit, but it’s not really large enough to do a whole lot with. I’ll concede that it’s better than nothing.

“Help me! I command you to help me!”

Devil Flanders is what the kids on social media call hot garbage. This is a bad action figure that would be overpriced at $35, but is sold for $55. I know the license got yanked away and Super7, for some reason, admitted to that before this wave arrived which likely set sales expectations way back. I think they cheeped-out, but the problem with that is whether the line is dead or not, the box still says Super7 on it. When you put your company’s name on something, there should be an element of pride associated with it. There should be an expectation of a certain level of quality and this figure comes up way short. This is a reputation-damaging release by Super7. Brian Flynn did acknowledge the problems with this figure in an interview on the Robo Don’t Know YouTube channel where he instructed listeners to reach out to Super7 if you’re having problems with Flanders. Well, I did, and guess what – there’s nothing they can do. If I had bought it off of them directly, they would have given me a credit, but all of the figures they have in their possession have this issue. They told me to go to the retailer and so I did. BBTS stepped up and refunded me for this thing when Super7 would not. I hope that gets charged back to them (they also shared with me they have fielded lots of complaints on this line). This figure should not have been released in this state. Cut corners on packaging and paint apps if you want, but if the figure can’t even stay together then what the hell are you doing? Don’t buy this. Don’t buy it at $55 and don’t buy it at $35. I wouldn’t even recommend buying it at $25. If after reading this you still think you might want a Devil Flanders in 1:10 scale at least wait until it’s under 20 bucks. It will happen, because consumers aren’t dumb enough to pay $55 for this trash. Do better, Super7.

Here are several other Super7 Simpsons figures of varying quality, though all are better than Devil Flanders:

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! C. Montgomery Burns

We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Ralph Wiggum

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

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 The Simpsons Ultimates! Kang and Kodos

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

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by Joe

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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.…

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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.…

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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…

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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.…

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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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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 McDuff. 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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