Back at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, one of my favorite new series from DC Direct was the set of statues called Cover Girls of the DCU. At the time, they were showing off Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Catwoman, Power Girl and Zatanna, and all looked exceptional in the approximately 9″ tall scale. I knew it was a series I’d be picking up.

And then a strange thing happened. Some how I lost track of them all together, and it wasn’t until late in 2009 when Black Canary was released that I realized I was already two statues behind. Both Wonder Woman and Zatanna had already come and gone, and I had to catch up.

Thankfully, both Wonder Woman and Zatanna were going to see a second shipment from DC Direct at the end of 2009 or early 2010. I received Wonder Woman a couple weeks ago (with Catwoman), and now Zatanna has hit my porch, making me feel all warm and fuzzy once again.

These collectibles are the combined efforts of the talented artist Adam Hughes, who designs the statues, and Jack Mathews who brings them to life in all their three dimensional glory. Each is a ‘limited’ edition, although with numbers like 5000 (the edition size on Zatanna) I think they’re pushing the concept of limited a tad.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwctoys@mwctoys.com, or head over to my site at Michael’s Review of the Week, Captain Toy for tons more collectibles reviews.

Cover Girls of the DCU – Zatanna statue

DC Direct is already in for several more statues, with some other strong rumors as well. Power Girl is up next and shipping very soon, and Harley right on her high heels. We’ve seen artwork for Poison Ivy, and both Batgirl and Supergirl are pretty much a given. After that, there’s still somewhere in the neighborhood of 352 more excellent choices for female DC characters, and while the line originally used actual covers for the designs, they’ve now said that Adam will be doing some of his own designs for the series as well, opening up the potential list even further. Bring on the ladies!

Packagiing – ***
These come in boxes, just big enough to keep the precious cargo safe and sound. Inside, the statue is packed in a solid styrofoam insert, and DC Direct has included a large Certificate of Authenticity. As I said, the run is 5000 on this particular statue, although I’m not quite sure how that worked with the two shipments. Did they always have a run size of 5000, and they just didn’t ship the second half right away? I suspect that’s the case, but I haven’t confirmed.

Sculpt – ***1/2
DCD has hit on a winning team with Hughes and Mathews. Jack has the talent to translate Adam’s designs properly, with perfect proportions, scale and style.

While these statues are generally smooth surfaced, with little texture or fine detail, there is enough to give them some level of realism and take them just a notch about a straight comic book style interpretation.

My only complaint with Zatanna is a complaint I’m likely to have with the entire series, since it’s clearly an aesthetic decision and not one of skill or quality – the hair lacks a lot of fine definition and detail. It’s less of an issue here on Zatanna than Wonder Woman, where the hair was done up in dynamic action pose, but it’s still annoying to me. I suspect I’ll end up favoring characters like Harley and Catwoman overall, where the hair is covered by a cowl, largely because of this issue.

Paint – ****
DC Direct has brought it when it comes to the paint quality on this series. I did have one statue – Black Canary – with some sloppy work on the eyes and lips, but that appears to be the exception, not the rule. The other three, Zatanna included, have had exceptional paint ops for this price range and this scale.

Cut lines are generally sharp and clean, skin tones are smooth and consistent, and small details are well done. They’ve added some variety by employing different finishes, and the overall final effect is one of a high quality statue.

Design – ****
Each of these, whether it’s based on a comic cover or it is one of the future Hughes designs, is intended to be quite dynamic. They’re shooting for a lot of personality here, which is always a big risk. It can pay off huge when done well, but crash and burn if the execution is poor.

So far the only design that’s questionable for me is Black Canary. For other folks, Wonder Woman was iffy. But I think Zatanna has universal appeal, with a very sexy, sleek dancer’s stance and coy expression. Like Catwoman, every aspect of the pose, from the tilt of the head to the angle of the hips, brings out her best qualities. There are times when Hughes’ ladies are a bit, uh, disproportionate, and yes, a bit sexist in their portrayal. But there’s simply no denying that they are always a) actual women, not little girls and b) hotter than asphalt in Texas on the Fourth of July.

Value – ***
Yep, even at around $80, I’m giving these ladies an above average value score. Considering that the much smaller (around 30% smaller) Batman Black and White statues are already pushing $70, and considering the level of production quality on most of the releases so far especially with regard to the paint ops, the price tag is more than reasonable.

Things to Watch Out For – Nada. As long as you refrain from juggling her over a concrete floor, you should be fine.

Overall – ****
I still like the Catwoman the best of the four releases so far, but that might be due to my affinity towards Batman villains, especially those wearing uber tight all black costumes. Zatanna is certainly right up there with her though, and these two are unlikely to be unseated by Power Girl, at least for me. Harley on the other hand…

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***
Sculpt – ***1/2
Paint – ****
Design – ****
Value – **1/2
Overall – ****

Where to Buy –
You have a number of online options if your LCS doesn’t carry these:

– Alter Ego Comics has Zatanna in stock for $85, with pre-orders for the next two at the same price.

– Urban Collector is out of Zatanna, but has the next two on pre-order for around $75 each.

– Big Bad Toy Store has all the ladies listed as pre-order for $85.

– Mike’s Comics N Stuff has most of the ladies for around $90.

– or you can hunt ebay for a deal!

Related Links –
I’m now finally caught up with the series, and have reviewed Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and Black Canary.

The Batman: Black and White series of statues remains one of DC Direct’s most popular series. It says something about the lasting power of the character as well as the overall beauty of grayscale, when done properly.

The latest release in the series is based on the art work of Ed McGuinness. He’s been popular lately, with the Public Enemies cartoon drawing heavily from his unique style as well. His characters tend to be bulky with exaggerated musculature, and a shorter, stockier appearance. DC Direct had great success with several waves of action figures based on the style, and have now translated it into their popular line of statues.

If you have any comments, drop me a line at mwctoys@mwctoys.com, or visit my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. On to the review!

Batman: Black and White – Ed McGuinness

While the art style is all McGuinness, the sculpting work was handled by James Shoop this time around. As always, it’s a ‘limited’ edition, although with 4000 statues produced, it’s treating the definition of limited like a fat woman treats lycra – stretching the Hell out of it.

Packaging – ***
It comes in a box, like most statues of this type. Bats himself is not permanently attached to the base, so there are two pieces inside the styrofoam insert. There’s no window to see the quality of the paint on the shelf, which is always a negative, but at least the box is easy to store for MIBers, keeps the contents very safe, and can be reused when necessary.

And in case you were wondering, there’s no Certificate of Authenticity, although the edition size and number are both on the bottom of the box and on the base of the statue.

Sculpting – ***
If you’re a huge fan of McGuinness’ original Public Enemies style Batman, then you’re probably going to like this quite a bit. It stays true to that style, and my only issues are really with the style combined with this pose.

There’s plenty of sharp detail in the sculpt, perhaps too much at least for me. From the waist up, I love the look – the extended claw-like hands in back, the short cape flowing between, and the cat-like landing pose all look terrific. My only real issue is that the very large, highly detailed, extremely muscled thighs are exaggerated even further in this particular pose. Maybe it was just that blind date back in college with the West German female Olympic weight lifter that went places I’d rather forget, but the large thighs throw off the overall look for me.

The scale is creeping up on some of these statues too. Originally they were all very much in a six inch scale, but this statue (along with a couple of the other recent releases) is getting much closer to a 7″ scale. DC Direct has always had issues keeping scale clean within a series…Hell, within a single wave.

Paint – ***1/2
While there’s nothing exceptional about the paint ops here, the quaility is solid and in line with your expectations considering the price point. Cut lines are clean and neat, there’s a good use of high gloss finish on several of the black areas, and the large bat symbol is centered and even.

Design – ***1/2
As I mentioned in the sculpting section, I really do like the basic concept of the design, with Batman landing on the ball of one foot. The back stretched arms and talon-like fingers really add to the dynamic nature of the pose, and it’s unique enough in a sea of black and white Batman statues to add some pop to the display.

I deducted more for the thunder thighs in the Sculpt section, but because I think the basic design concept is solid, I gave the higher marks here. Don’t get me wrong – I realize that the large thighs are very much a part of the McGuinness style. It’s just that in this particular pose, they are a bit too obvious and eye catching for my tastes. Your mileage may vary.

Things to Watch Out For –
Don’t forget that this guy isn’t attached to the base (like I did) and pick him up willy-nilly. You’ll be mighty sad if the base falls free (like mine *almost* did) and you end up with pieces on the floor.

Value – **1/2
The reality – and a bit of a sad one it is – is that statues in this 6 – 7″ scale are running $50 – $70 now. In fact, plastic statues of simlar style are running just as much, like the new Marvel Bishojo series by Kotobukiya. Here you’re getting the heavier poly resin, and extra weight always adds an impression of value, whether it’s right or wrong.

Overall – ***
This is another solid entry in the overall series, fitting in the middle of the pack. Fans of the McGuinness art style will enjoy it quite a bit, and my only real quibbles are how the thighs are front and center, and the slight increase in scale.

Where to Buy –
Online options include:

– Urban Collector has him at just $60.

– Alter Ego Comics has him for $68.

– Big Bad Toy Store has it for $70.

– or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links –
Other Batman Black and White reviews include:

– Dave Mazzucchelli, the Penguin, Gotham Knight 2 version, the Bruce Timm version, the Ethan Van Sciver version, the Aparo, the Neal Adams and George Perez versions, the Gotham Knight, Bob
Kane, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Matt Wagner, Mike Mignola, and Kelley Jones.

Gentle Giant has been producing mini-busts based on the Star Wars universe since Palpatine was a baby. It’s Gentle Giant’s most succesful license and the busts have been the flagship of the line, and of the company.

The latest editions to the series include Garindan and the AT-AT Driver. Both of these were must haves for me, although as a somewhat completist on the busts I tend to get most of them anyway. You could originally pick these two up for around $50 – $60 depending on the retailer, but that’s changing fast.

Garindan is part of the classic New Hope creature feature, and as such his mini-bust is long overdue. He’s not on screen more than a few seconds, but multiple generations of kids recognize him on sight. I think Star Wars holds the record for turning nobodies into celebrities.

The AT-AT Driver is popular for several reasons. First, there’s the whole Hoth thing. Everything about Hoth was cool, from the Taun Tauns to the Snowtrooper outfits. Then you add in that the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) was one of the coolest vehicles ever created. The fact it’s also one of the most ridiculous from a real world perspective is totally irrelevant.

Put those two factors together, and if you put Jar Jar behind the wheel, he would have been cool. Almost. But they did far better than than, creating a great looking and fairly complex suit for the AT-AT Driver. This is a bust that’s been a long time coming, and I suspect that a lot of collectors are going to scramble to pick him up.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or head over to my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy for more reviews just like this one. Onward to the review!

Garindan, AT-AT Driver mini-busts

Both of these busts are ‘limited editions’, as you’d expect from Gentle Giant. The Driver is limited to 2500 pieces, while Garindan is 1500. There’s something about this AT-AT Driver though, as he is selling out fast all over the place. Garindan isn’t a slouch either, selling much better than other recent releases. If you want either one and you see them for retail, I’d grab them now.

Packaging – ***1/2
The box is the usual, no surprises there. It gets extra points for the display window, a big plus in my book. Without it, you have no way of knowning exactly what you’re getting inside the package, and a lot of dealers are refusing to open boxes in advance now. But with the window, you’ll at least be able to get a rough idea of the paint quality, especially on the critical portrait.

There’s also the nifty baseball card style Certificate of Authenticity, and clear winner and one of the better examples of a truly ‘collectible’ COA.

Sculpting – ***1/2
Both of these busts sport very detailed sculpts, and very accurate screen reproductions of the characters.

Garindan has the weirdly shaped elephant nose and goggles, complete with little holes and stitches. God only knows what terrible mug he’s hiding behind the mask, but it has to be pretty bad for him to think this ugly visage is an improvement. Then again, he could look like Brad Pitt, and the weird mask is all part of the ‘spy’ persona…

The cape suffers from a lack of texturing, an common problem for Gentle Giant busts, but the rest of the detailing is quite sharp and well defined.

The AT-AT Driver steps up the detailing even further, and they’ve done a wonderful job front and back on the more intricate pieces of his uniform. He also has one of the more interesting helmets in the Republic, and they’ve captured much finer detail here than we’ve seen in other recent releases. It really is an outstanding job, and may be on my short list of best busts of the year.

Paint – AT-AT Driver ***1/2; Garindan ***
None of the paint work can be called ‘sloppy’, but there are a few issues here and there, some of them merely aesthetic.

Garindan looks great for the most part, with clean cut lines and great colors. Of the two, his technical paint quality holds up better under close scrutiny, and yet he ended up with a slightly lower score. That’s because of the glossy finish on the ‘nose’, which seems out of place. It looks almost wet in fact, a feature that hurts the overall appearance for me.

Unlike Garindan, the AT-AT Driver has some slightly fuzzy cut lines, and a vew areas that needed a steadier hand. The saving grace is that you will only notice these under very close, careful examination, and in person you’re likely to not notice them at all. Add to that the cool white and gray colors accented by the small detail work, and you end up with a visual, if not technical, winner.

Design – ***
Neither of these are a particularly dynamic pose or style. That’s not too surprising, considering that neither character was all that dynamic in the films. Garindan does get to have his one arm out, holding the commlink in his right hand.

The AT-AT Driver looks…uncomfortable. You know how you’re at a party all by yourself, just standing around, and you don’t know what the Hell you should do with your hands? That’s what he looks like. I’m not saying they could have done much else – hanging at his sides or behind his back wouldn’t look any better, and across his chest would hide some of the cool sculpt details – but it does look a bit awkward.

Value – ***
I’m assuming you can find the AT-AT Driver at around $55 or so, same as Garindan. Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case any more, as demand for this bust has outstripped supply, something that hasn’t happened with a regular release Star Wars mini-bust in a long time.

However, you can still snag Garindan for a reasonable price, and considering the current cost of most statues and mini-busts, GG’s pricing on these has remained very competitive.

Things to Watch Out For –
Short of dropping them on a concrete floor, you’ll be fine. There’s nothing to assemble, and there’s nothing small and easy to break that’s out of the ordinary.

Overall – AT-AT Driver ***1/2; Garindan ***
While I’m a little surprised that the AT-AT Driver is pulling down more than $100 already on ebay, I suppose I shouldn’t be. As a key trooper from the best film in the series in one of the best battle sequences, his popularity shouldn’t catch you off guard. Still, it’s been ages since a regular release has garnered any real after market popularity, and most folks assumed that this line was dying out. These two prove that with the right character selection, the line still has some legs. Ironic, isn’t it?

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***1/2
Sculpting – ***1/2
Paint – AT-AT Driver ***1/2; Garindan ***
Design – ***
Value – ***
Overall – AT-AT Driver ***1/2; Garindan ***

Where to Buy –
These two seem to be the hot items right now. Finding the AT-AT Driver is pretty tough short of going to ebay, and there prices are over $100. Even Garindan is selling out fast, gone from stores like Big Bad Toy Store or Entertainment Earth. Online sponsors that are carrying these include:

– Urban Collector has Garindan for $55, but don’t have the driver.

– in the UK, you can pick up Garindan for 44 GBP at Forbidden Planet, but still no sign of the driver.

– of course, there’s always ebay where you may find a deal.

Note: These busts were purchased by the reviewer for this review. Photos and Text by Michael Crawford, copyright 2009.

Fans of the Four Horsemen look forward to each summer when they release their wave of figures from the Seventh Kingdom, a magical world created in house. The characters in this universe tend toward the anthropomorphic – we’ve seen cows and elephants and warthogs and rhinos, just to name a few. This year they got in touch with their feminie side, producing a wave of 11 female figures.

The background is fairly simple. Queen Alluxandra is the human on the side of good, while Isadorra is the evil chick opposing her. The other nine figures are part of the “queen’s council”, warriors that fight for one side or the other. I’ve already reviewed Allux and Izzy, as well as the six matching cat girls. The leaves just three ladies, all a bit on the mutated side.

As is usual for a Four Horsemen Seventh Kingdom release, the figures are spread out over various retailers, each getting a different exclusive. I’ve got a complete list of the 11 and the corresponding retailer in the Where To Buy section at the end of the review. You can expect to pay around $20 – $25 for each one, but it depends heavily on the retailer.

If you have any questions, you can drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out my other reviews at my main site, Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, or even follow me on Twitter to keep up with the latest updates.

Queen’s Council – the Mutant Ladies

I have just three figures left to check out in this huge wave – Ccora (an exclusive with Corner Store Comics), Kromus (exclusive through Fwoosh), and Siliskk (exclusive from the Horsemen themselves). For reference, Kromus is the silver chrome looking figure in the photo right below, Silissk is the reptilian looking one, and Ccora is the darker, more alien bronze female.

Packaging – ***1/2
Unfortunately, the packages lack any sort of personalization, and there’s no markings to indicate who they are exclusive with, either. That’s really the only negative though, and they have one very, very major positive – they are collector friendly, even though they are cardback/bubble style packages.

The bubble simply wraps around the cardback, but is not attached in anyway. You can just slip it right off, and remove the interior tray. There’s a couple twisties, but nothing too major to impede the removal, and you can always pop the figure and accessories right back in, with no real damage to the package. The packages are also easy to store for the MOCer, thanks to the simple rectangular design.

Sculpting – ***1/2
I wasn’t a huge fan of the six cat variants, mostly because I’m just not that much of a cat person. But the body sculpts were great there, and these are exactly the same figure between the neck and the ankles, sans tail. They’re exactly the same as somebody else in the line anyway – for example, the arms on Ccorra are also used on Allux. Of course, if you hate reuse than this is going to be an issue for you, but if a company is going to re-use a lot of parts (as FH did here) they at least better be great parts.

The detail work on the armor and body is excellent, with lots of attention being paid to the patterns and textures. These have the feet like Allux and Izzy, not the paws of the cats, and other minor changes exist – they don’t have the large necklaces that adorned the cats, for example – but the amount of re-use is substantial.

The head sculpts is where all the uniqueness comes in, much more so than with the set of felines. There, one head sculpt was merely repainted, but here all three portraits are unique.

My personal favorite is Kromus. The long protrusions on the head remind me of molten steel or lead, and the large earrings offset the tall head perfectly.

Ccora is a great sculpt as well, however, and has a bit of the Phantom thing going on with the metal mask covering her face. One is left to wonder just what is under there…

Finally, there’s Silissk, the most mutated of the mutants. She has a very reptilian thing going on, and actually reminds me quite a bit of the Grindylow from Harry Potter without the flowing hair. I could easily see Match.com fixing her up with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

These figures stand just about 6″ tall, and I think they fit in much better with other 6″ scale figures, like DC Universe Classics or Marvel Legends than the larger 7″ scale lines like Masters of the Universe Classics, but your mileage may vary.

The hands are all identical sculpts, and are designed to hold the accessories. The figures stand fine on their own, although the hips are a bit too restricted by the skirt. More on that when we get to the Articulation section.

Paint – Ccora ***1/2; Silissk ***; Kromus **1/2
The paint work on this series hasn’t quite been up to the quality I expect on a small run specialty line, but it can vary pretty heavily from figure to figure.

Kromus gets the worst of it here, with too many marks and muffs on the silver. Silver is a tough color to do, as any model builder will tell you, but there’s simply too much slop for this price point here. Ccora has the best work of these three, with lots of small detail ops on the armor, and very clean lines on the mask and face. Silissk falls in between someplace, and something about the color choices is a bit off for me.

Articulation – ***
All of these figures are more articlated than you’ed expect, if you simply gave them a cursory in the package glance.

They all have ball jointed necks, and because of the design of the heads, the range of movement is a bit better here than it was with the cat women. There’s also ball jointed hips and shoulders with the traditional swivel joint at the respective limb, and these have an excellent range of movement. Unfortunately, the skirt tends to inhibit much of this range in the hips, but you’ll be able to get some reasonably good stances.

The waist is a cut joint, and the pin ab joint allows the torso to tilt forward and back. Double pin elbows and knees allow for tight constriction of the limbs at those joints, and cut wrists round out the arm articulation.

The ankles have both pin and swivel joints, allowing the foot to not just move forward and back but side to side. This is a great addition, since it allows the foot to remain flat on the floor in deeper stances.

All the joints were tight this time around, but the restriction imposed by the skirt pulls this score down a bit.

Accessories – **
When I first heard the “snap, crackle and pop”, I thought I was having my favorite breakfast cereal. Alas, it was the sound of the accessories that come with these figures.

Each figure comes with a sword and a spear, done up in various colors to differentiate them. They both fit nicely in their hands, and there’s a small slot on their back for each weapon to be carried. These slots fit the swords better than the spears, but you can get them to work for both with a little effort.

Unfortunately for FH, every one of their releases has had some sort of factory issue. This time, it’s breakage. Both weapons have more than a tendancy to break, and getting one to stay intact as you put it in their hands, take it out of the package, look at it for an extended period of time, or even glance in its general direction, is quite the trick. I had better luck with these three, as only one of the spears snapped on me. Another one is hanging by a thread though, so I’m not sure if it’s fair to not count it. The swords remained in one piece, but I had issues with them when I first reviewed the human figures. And let’s not even talk about the cats – 5 of the 6 spears broke, making it seem reasonable to have the superglue out and ready when I opened up these three.

Fun Factor – ***1/2
Do you know any kids looking for strong, cool mutant female warriors for their toybox militia? Then these will fit the bill perfectly. Just expect that the weapons will need re-gluing more than once.

Value – **1/2
I’m cutting them slack on the price a bit, since $20 is still a Hell of a big bill for a single figure, even in the current economy. If you factor in the size of the wave – 11 figures! – you’ll need to save up more than $220 just to compete it! The issue that keeps this score from getting docked another half star is the low production run. Each varient is only being produced in the 250 or so range, which is quite limited even with the amount of re-use.

Things To Watch Out For –
I had far less trouble with weak joints on these three, but you’ll want to keep an eye on it. Which figure has a problem and which don’t tends to be pretty variable.

And don’t forget that the weapons, especially the spears, break from a harsh thought. I fact, I just heard one snap from across the room.

Overall – Kromus ***1/2; CCora, Silissk ***
I really love the two humans in this series, Alluxandra and Isadorra, but the various pussy cats left me unenthused. You have to have at least one of course, since you don’t want your horny rhino chasing anything else around the house, and my favorite feline is the blue version, Akkuli.

These three mutants are much more appealing to me, which probably says far more about me than it does about the figures. My Kromus has paint issues, but in the end her sculpting and design were just too strong not to end up on top.

Where to Buy –
The eleven figures are spread out over a group of vendors. SDCC was the first place to pick up Alluxandra and Isadorra, but you can get either one at the Store Horsemen right now. They also have the exclusive mutant Silissk. If you think you’d like the full set of 11 figures, you can purchase them in one shot direct from the Four Horsemen as well, and
save some money on shipping.

The other 8 figures are available individually from various websites:

1 – Baddatthiir – available at Big Bad Toy Store

2 – Raavia – available at Raving Toy Maniac

3 – Ccora – available at Corner Store Comics

4 – Oktobria – available at October Toys

5 – D’Zwirra – available through Wizard Universe

6 – Akkuli – available through Action Figure Express

7 – Biggara – also available through Big Bad Toy Store

8 – Kromus – available through Fwoosh

Related Links –
Other related reviews include:

– I’ve covered the six cat chicks from this wave, as well as the two humans.

– I’ve covered previous FANtastic exclusives and variants, including the Timekeepers, Ssejjhhorr, Xetheus, and Vaskhh.

– And if you’d like more background info on the first two series of FANtastic Exclusives, check out the toy wiki page.

Pixar simply can do no wrong, at least not yet. Even when one of their films is less than Academy Award material (Cars), it still ends up producing one of the best selling toy lines for Mattel.

Most animated movies don’t produce successful toy lines though, especially not action figures. For action figures to be truly fun, there needs to be confilct, and the type of conflict normally seen in animated movies is situational, less evil bad guy.

This can make it tough for adult fans of such movies who are looking for collectibles or 3 dimensional representations of their favorite characters. Gentle Giant is now working with Pixar to produce a series of maquettes based on their films, and the first to be released – Wall-E – has hit the porch. These maquettes are the usual poly-resin type material, and run around $100 – $125, depending on where you pick them up. The production run numbers are pretty small considering, and they only produced 1000 of Wall-E. As a companion piece, you can also pick up Eve, and they are producing both Remy and Linguini from Ratatouille. No word yet on others in the series.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you’re looking for more reviews like this, check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy.

Wall-E Maquette by Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant has been hit or miss the last couple years, and they’ve never been able to capture the magic that their Star Wars series of mini-busts had. Even that line has lost almost all it’s lustre, and you can still pick up their concept McQuarrie Boba Fett bust, an exclusive to the San Diego Comic Con, at their web store. But so far, things are looking good for these Pixar maquettes, and it’s a license that could pay dividends for quite some time.

Packaging – ***
Wall-E comes in a box, without any window to allow you to see the actual maquette. A window wouldn’t do you much good anyway, since he comes in two pieces – his head and his body – which you attach. The head attaches to the body by way of a metal post.

There’s also the usual cool baseball card style Certificate of Authenticity, a collectible these days in it’s own right.

Sculpting – ***1/2
Although this is an animated character, he doesn’t have the usual level of simplistic detail. Pixar made Wall-E a very real looking robot, and that means this maquette needs plenty of small detail. GG has done a nice job reproducing the beloved ‘bot, right down to the rivets. With a combination of sculpted textures (sometimes smooth) and paint, they’ve captured the look of metal in resin.

He’s in a rough period here, with lots of dings, dents and scuffs, many of them sculpted into the basic square body. While we saw him in varioius stages of damaged to clean throughout the movie, I think this is the most iconic look for him. The proportions are good, and at about 6 1/2″ without the base, he looks pretty good with other sixth scale figures.

Paint – ***1/2
The paint work almost gained that extra half star, but for one issue.

I love the damage and dirt, which has been applied liberally and realistically. The paint work has also added quite a bit of realism to the metallic look, improving the sculpt as any great paint job should. There’s lots of detail work, and while the dirt tends to blend some of the color pallette, there’s enough variation here to remain interesting.

The issue? Ah, that’s easy – the stickers. Wall-E’s name on the front of his body is a sticker, as is the energy gauge on his chest. At this price point, I was expecting a high quality tampo sort of print job, not an obvious sticker.

Design – ***
As I mentioned earlier, it’s somewhat unique that the statue of Wall-E does not attach to the included base. Of course, with those wide treads, there’s no chance he’d ever topple over. Even so, it’s generally accepted that a statue should attach to the base, so it was a bit of a revelation. It’s also a nice feature, in case you’d rather display him without the white disc.

And white disc is really all the base is. That and a nameplate. The nameplate isn’t of the character but the movie, but since they are one in the same in this case, it’s a moot point. I’m very disappointed with their design choice with the base. It’s supposed to look like the inside of the ship of course, but I would have much prefered something from Earth. Considering all the cool potential with the vast junk yard Wall-E spent most of his life in, this plain white base is quite a let down. Had they gone with an Earth design, we could have also gotten the cricket hiding in there!

The design of Wall-E himself is much better. They’ve gone with his pensive appearance, with his hands clasped in front and a wide expectant look in his eyes. It reminds me of when he was hoping to hold Eve’s hand, or early on when he was watching My Fair Lady, as is surely GG’s intention. The pose fits the character, reminds me of perhaps the best part of the film, and is dynamic enough to give him some visual pop.

Value – **
At a retail of $125, you’re paying a pretty hefty price for a 6″ statue. Because Wall-E is about as wide as he is tall, he is bigger than the usual 6″ statue, but breaking that $100 mark is still quite a stretch. The production run is so low, however, that it’s going to be tough to impossible to find a real deal.

Things to Watch out For –
The metal post that holds the head in place can easily damage the resin body, so take care inserting it or removing it. It’s a tight fit too, so you might want to turn it slightly as you work it in or out. But be careful!

Overall – ***1/2
The price point is high at some places, but if you’d ordered back before he shipped, you could find stores selling him for $100. Unfortunately, demand was greater than supply this time around, and finding one now is going to take some patience and dedication. In fact, the Remy maquette from Ratatouille is selling out fast as well, while the Linguine and Eve seem easy enough to get. Gentle Giant could easily have a winner on their hands here, as collectors who love the Pixar movies have had very few high end choices. If they can produce a Sully, Mike, Buzz, and Woody this nicely, they’d all move extremely well.

Where to Buy –
Options are a bit limited already, as these are selling quite well:

– Urban Collector is sold out of Wall-E, but they still have Eve for $100.

– Things From Another World is also sold out of Wall-E, but likewise have Eve still available for $100.

– Entertainment Earth is also out of Wall-E (are you seeing a pattern here?) but have Eve for $113.

– The UK collectors can pick up Eve (no Wall-E) for 80 GBP at Forbidden Planet.

– and there’s always ebay.

Related Links –
Wall-E has actually had a fair share of product produced so far:

– there’s the nifty iDance and Interactive Wall-E’s, as well as the U-Command Wall-E.

– in the action figure area, there’s the smaller figures, as well as the larger deluxe figures.

A few years back when small blocky figures were all the rage (think Mini-mates), Mezco Toyz had their own version called the Mez-itz. They did lots of licensed characters, as well as some in house versions like Pirates. I was a big fan, largely because they had sculpted heads, giving them more detail than the usual small block figure.

These days, small block figures are no longer the ‘in’ thing. It’s all about the larger designer vinyl figures, usually in a 6 – 8″ size range and often done with the same basic body with paint details. This has been such a popular format that even Hasbro jumped on the bandwagon with their Mighty Muggs.

Not to be outdone, Mezco has upped the scale of their Mez-itz, and switched to less sculpting, more paint, fitting right in with the current trend. They’re still called Mez-itz, but they are larger, smooth, and stylized in a designer vinyl way.

They have a regular series based on Hellboy II hitting stores, but they did a special ‘comic’ version of Hellboy for SDCC this year. I’m looking at both tonight, but there is also an Abe Sapien that’s hitting stores that I won’t be discussing. They also have a Johann planned, as well as several more Hellboy variants.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my website at Michael’s Reveiw of the Week – Captain Toy.

Hellboy Mez-itz – Hellboy II and comic Hellboy

In the photo below, you’ll notice the regular release Hellboy, wearing the painted on coat, to the right, while the SDCC comic based version is to the left.

Packaging – movie version ***1/2; comic version ***
Both boxes are relatively collector friendly, requiring you to ditch just a couple twisties. In the photo below, I have the SDCC version to the left again, and the regular movie version to the right. The big difference here is that the movie version is visible in the package, allowing you to see what you’re buying before you buy it – I’m a big fan of that feature.

Sculpting – ***1/2
These all have the same basic sculpt, and in many ways they are very much like the aforementioned Mighty Muggs. This is particularly true from the neck down, where they have similarly shaped arms, legs, hands and torsos. It’s not an exact match, but it’s similar enough that you can put them on the shelf together and they’ll look quite good. These guys are just a hair over 6″ tall, which should make them fit in pretty well scale wise with the Muggs too.

The hands are sculpted with a wide gap to allow for the use of accessories. While Hellboy does have his two nubs on his forehead, these are not given any sculpted texture. The Mez-itz stand great on their own, and the basic body design will work for lots and lots of figures. Don’t believe me? Check out this cool display of custom figures they had at SDCC. The photos are about half way down the page, labeled “Mez-itz Art Show”.

Paint – Movie Version ***1/2; Comic version ****
Both of these figures have excellent paint jobs, with quality work all around. How much you like each one is not going to be an issue of quality, but rather aesthetics.

I personally like the comic version a bit better. They’ve done a nice job capturing the unique look of Mignola’s shading, although not quite as good as the older Batman: Black and White statue did.

I’m just a hair less impressed with the movie version, and it’s due to the coat. Something about the way it wraps around the body and legs just looks off to me, and looks less like a coat and more like some sort of awkward pants. It’s always tricky to try to do multple layers with a single layer of paint, as it flattens out the appearance of the figure so much, but you may fine it slightly less odd looking than I.

Articulation – ***
One thing that figures done in this style are NOT known for is articulation. While Mez-itz do improve on the situation, they could still used a couple more points.

They improve over many other figures by adding a ball jointed neck. This is THE most important joint to add to any basic configuration, since it gives you the ability to add so much more personality and realism to poses. Just check the last photo to see how much this can improve a basic stance.

You get the usual from the neck down – cut shoulders, cut hips. The Right Hand of Doom has a cut wrist, which is another nice add, but I really do wish that both wrists were cut, especially on the comic version. Without the cut wrists, he tends to hold the gun at an odd angle, and there’s really nothing you can do about it.

Accessories – Comic Version ***; Regular Version Bupkis
The regular version comes with nothing, but the comic version comes with his Samaritan. Much like the figures themselves, the Samaritan is fairly smooth, with most details painted on. It fits in his hand well enough, but as I mentioned in the earlier section, it tends to sit at an odd angle to his body.

Fun Factor – ***
While these aren’t super articulated, they are actually quite a bit of fun, even for smaller kids. While the under 10 crowd is probably less acquianted with Hellboy than Star Wars, those that do know Big Red and his buddies will enjoy these.

Value – comic version **1/2; regular version ***
The comic version will cost you more than the regular of course, largely because it was originally an SDCC exclusive. At $20, that’s a pretty average con exclusive price.

The regular Hellboy (and Abe) are Toys R Us exclusives, where they will run $10 – $11, pretty much in line with the Muggs pricing. Considering how expensive designer vinyl figures can be, this is a very good deal.

Things to Watch Out For –
Not a thing!

Overall – ***1/2
With the only other reasonably priced figures in this style – Mighty Muggs – going away, Mezco might have a chance to expand these Mez-itz in a number of direction. I’m happy with the basic body, and I can envision plenty of potential, especially after seeing some of the cool customs that were at SDCC. They already have quite a few horror versions planned, including some classics like Dracula and Frankenstein, some newer characters like Freddy and Jason, and some in house stuff like zombies. I’ll be down for most of those, and I hope we see them branch these out into a few other licensed characters.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – movie version ***1/2; comic version ***
Sculpting – ***1/2
Paint – Movie Version ***1/2; Comic version ****
Articulation – ***
Accessories – Comic Version ***; Regular Version Bupkis
Fun Factor – ***
Value – comic version **1/2; regular version ***
Overall – ***1/2

Where to Buy –
You have a number of options, even for the SDCC exclusive:

– Entertainment Earth has the SDCC exclusive for $20.

– Forbidden PLanet has the regular Hellboy (and Abe Sapien) for 11 GBP each.

– or you can snag the exclusive right from Mezco themselves.

Related Links –
I’ve covered so much Hellboy stuff, I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose you could start with my last Hellboy collectible review, the 18″ Abe which is also from Mezco and is also a SDCC excclusive.

As every geek on the planet knows, last week was the San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest hootinerdy in pop culture and geekdom of the year. I’ve been going every year for more than a decade now, and this was their 40th anniversary. As always, it was exhausting, it was frustrating, and it was a blast.

If you head over to my site, you can find my complete photo coverage of the show, including the displays of Hasbro, Sideshow, Mattel and many others. Today I’ll briefly cover my Top Ten Best and Worst of the Con starting with my ‘bests’, but in no particular order:

1 – okay, I lied. This is my number one, no doubt about it. Regular readers know I’m a huge Batman fan, and Toynami was showing off their large scale Batwing and Batmobile. They looked about 1/8th or 1/9th scale, and they were gorgeous. They are only making 500 though, and I’m betting you could buy a 1:1 scale used car for what they’ll cost. But one can always dream!

2 – Let’s stick with Toynami for a moment, and their newly showcased Cinemaquette of Superman, as played by Christopher Reeves. Is it expensive? Oh, yes my dear, very expensive. We’re talking better than a grand, but less than two. Once the sticker shock wears off though, you can begin to appreciate the beauty of this quarter scale marvel. While the one at the con had a pretty plain base, Toynami tells me that they’ll be adding some ‘ice crystals’ jutting upward, ala the Fortress of Solitude.

3 – Jumping over to Sideshow, they had on display their new 1:1 scale Darth Vader. Damn, he looked good. Oh, I thought the helmet looked a little off, but the realism in the alternate scarred head was just outstanding.

4 – I’m going to stick with Sideshow for another one – the Premium Format Abomination. Here’s a character I don’t care about personally, but the size, mass and beauty of this PF will take anyone’s breath away. “Whoa” is always going to be the first thing out of someone’s mouth when they see this bad boy, and your kids will have nightmares about him coming to life in the middle of the night. What more could you ask for?

5 – The movie Trick R Treat, by Michael Dougherty, has been almost in theaters or on DVD for over three years now. For those of us that love great horror, it’s been a painful wait, all the more so because we’ve been teased with not one but TWO action figures based on the main character, Sam! Well, it finally comes to DVD in October (let’s keep our fingers crossed) and there was a special screening at Comic-Con. Yes, it’s a very funny, gory, original horror flick that I really enjoyed, enough so that I’ll pick up the DVD to add it to the collection. And Anna Paquin, pre True Blood, gets chased by a vampire. How prophetic is that?

6 – I didn’t make it to many panels this year, and I’ll be bitching about that a bit more in the Ten Worsts, but one panel I did make was for Lost. I’ve hit their panel every year since before the show first aired, and they’ve always done a terrific job of giving the fans a funny, enjoyable hour or so. Yea, they never give away too much, but they make up for it with some nifty presentations and funny back and forth dialog. This year was their last panel, so it was a bit sad, but I’m sure this creative team will bring us more great shows in the future. Until then, I’m going to be glued to the final season of Lost!

7 – One of my favorite Con exclusives is the Weta guns, based on the designs of Greg Broadmore. I could never afford one of the full size guns, which run in price from several hundred to several thousand, so the smaller and less expensive con exclusives were my only alternative. Ah, but Greg has heard our cries of pain! Weta will be producing full sized plastic version of their guns that will retail for less than $100 each, and they had one on display at the show. It was quite impressive, and I expect great things from this line. Finally, I’ll be able to own a Grordbort’s Raygun and not end up in divorce court because of it!

8 – While many other companies held back and were working from limited budgets, Kotobukiya really stepped up their presence. With a larger booth, more product, and a number of interactive activities (including an on site live sculpting demonstration), Kotobukiya went from a quiet, subdued exhibitor to noisy, active participant in one swoop.

9 – Before Comic-con started, I ran a poll as to what company people were most looking forward to hearing new stuff from. The clear winner, with 38% of the vote, was Sideshow (and Hot Toys, since Hot Toys displays at Sideshow’s booth). The second place company was Mattel, way back at 18%.

Before the con started, I closed the poll. Once it was complete, I started a new poll to see what most folks were NOW looking forward to. Sideshow has managed to remain in first place…so far. But Mattel has made a commanding rush toward first, now just a few percent behind the front runner. How did they do it? With an extremely good showing at the con. They had a ton of DC product on all fronts, they showed some terrific MOTUC figures, their Ghostbusters line is looking good, and they have the new much talked about Avatar license. They went from a distinct second to the potential of first by showing off great new product – simple as that. Being a big DC fan, I was extremely happy to see all the support for the license across multiple sizes and styles of figures.

10 – Another company that re-emerged for me was DC Direct. I haven’t picked up much product from them in the last couple years outside of Batman Black and White statues, but they had an excellent showing of product, including their 13″ deluxe figures. They also showed off a large Batman vs Killer Croc statue that is going to be a must have for me.

So that’s what I loved this year. Ah, but there was some suckitude as well, and here’s my ten worsts, again in no particular order:

1 – the fine folks from Elite Security continue to work their hardest to redefine the meaning of the word. Just about everyone who goes to the Con comes back with a bad, annoying or just plain ridiculous story about the security folks at the show. While some of it has to do with the individuals involved, I think most of it is simply a mis-managed company that provides little to no training, guidance or procedure to its employees. There has to be an alternative in San Diego, and the con promoters need to find it.

2 – Usually, I hit several panels every day of the con. Not this year – the lines were simply insane. As much as I wanted to attend the panel for Big Bang Theory, Avatar or True Blood (and believe me, I really, really wanted to be there), I wasn’t going to spend two or more hours waiting to get in, only to be turned away. This is the ONE thing that will kill SDCC – attendees not being able to see the panels once they’ve made the trip.

By next year, they need to get this under control, or the sheer size of the show will cause it to collapse. Friends and I discussed this all weekend, and I’m sure it was a topic with just about every other attendee. I see two possible alternatives:

I – set up the opportunity to sign up for panels when you register. This is a process employed by other large conventions, like Oracle Open World. Your badge is coded with the panels you’ve signed up for, and there’s a card reader at the door. This one will cost them money and time, but give you the opportunity to have a guaranteed seat if you sign up early enough.

II – broadcast the key panels into other rooms, much like how they do the Masquerade on Saturday night. They could even explore broadcasting it into larger rooms in the nearby Hilton and Marriot, where they have started holding sessions already.

I know some folks would like to see them clear the rooms between each panel, but I don’t think it’s logistically possible. They used to do that when the show was half this size, and the amount of time it required was already delaying their daily schedule. I know there are more (and probably better) options than the two I came up with, but the Con folks must get on this problem for 2010 and get on it now, as it’s easily the largest risk they face.

3 – Many of the things I’ll be mentioning in the worsts all roll up to the overall effect the economy is having on the industry. It was apparent everywhere, from limited budgets to do show marketing, to some missing major players (remember Sci-Fi aka SyFy’s big booth from years past? Nope, not this year…) to rehashed product, the overall effects of the economic downturn was one of the big downers.

4 – Several companies that are normally always there were missing this year, and the one I thought was the most telling was McFarlane Toys. Todd was still there, and he did a signing or two, but the company had no real presence. Just another sad sign that the company that once set the bar in action figures that all others tried to meet is quickly becoming a non-issue.

5 – Another outcome of the bad economy was the ton of recycled or slightly less than new announcements. Products like the quarter scale Harry Potter and Voldemort from Gentle Giant have been seeing the cons for a couple years now, so while it was nice to see Voldemort join them, it didn’t mean a whole lot. Let’s see you actually get the first two out before we worry about the next one, ‘kay? It wasn’t just Gentle Giant, as lots of companies were showing the same product as last year that still hasn’t been released.

6 – As I mentioned with the panels, there were plenty of crowds all around. Wednesday night was easily the worst, with everyone packed on the floor for Preview Night, and not much in the way of panels to draw them off. The lines for exclusives were, at times, nuts, and I have another of my handy dandy suggestions.

The companies know how many exhibitors there will be, and they should be able to produce about the right number of exclusives (given a limit) for that group. Instead of putting off the exhibitors, welcome them early, selling the exclusives to them BEFORE the show opens. Don’t let them buy DURING. Set a limit, keep them to that limit, and let them make their purchases separate from the rest of us. That will shorten the lines for the regular patrons, and yet take nothing away from them, since the companies should still be able to accurately gauge (perhaps even better) how many they need to produce. As it is now, exhibitors flock to the lines right at opening, clogging up the system for the rest of the day for everyone else.

7 – Another company disappointment was Enterbay. They had a few of their current figures displayed through one of their distributors, but there was only things we’ve already seen, like Bruce Lee, Kato and Godfather. There were zero new announcements, and I think they really missed the ball on this one. I know that there’s a huge toy show over in Tokyo during this same period and that takes away a lot of the Asian company concentration, but considering the size of the American market (and potential market), I think Enterbay needs to show it a bit more attention.

8 – For me, the con exclusives were far less appealing than in past years. Of course, this is a disappointment that varies from individual to individual, but for me there was clearly less that interested me. And considering how much there is out there that does interest me (it’s not like I only collect one type of toy or figure), that probably says a lot about the overall situation.

There were still a few companies that managed to snag my dollars, like Sideshow and Mattel, but in past years I would ship home four large boxes of ‘must haves’ back home. This year, there were only two. While this made my wallet and wife happy, it made my heart sad.

9 – the missing voice actors from Futurama. They normally are there each year, and part of the funniest panel…instead, because of the dispute over their contracts for the new Futurama episodes, they were a no show. The studio has put out casting calls to replace them, but I’m hoping this is merely a negotiation ploy to try to scare them. I mean, they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to think they could recast the voices of the main characters, and the show wouldn’t fail? Right? Right? RIGHT?

10 – the con prices. I don’t mean the price of the Con itself, but the prices of everything around it, driven by the high attendance. Three dollars for a bottle of water? Seriously? Two dollars for a cookie? Really? And don’t even get me started on the inflation rate on all the hotel rooms for this one week of the year. I already mentioned that the top issue that could kill the con was being able to get into the panels, but pricing out the average person is a damn close second.

So that’s my top 10 bests and worsts for this year – what’s yours?

If you’re looking for coverage of the goodies shown this year, be sure to head over to my site and check it out!

I’ll be honest – once Sideshow started producing their sixth scale armored Star Wars figures, I drifted away from Medicom. I have a bunch of their troopers, but with the Sideshow figures being in scale with most of my 12″ collection, and with the cheaper prices for similar quality, it was a no brainer for me.

But Medicom is also producing some things that it’s unlikely we’ll see from anyone else. The latest figure in that category is their ‘vinyl collectible doll’ or VCD version of the Jawa. While these are marketed under their VCD line, at about 6″ tall they fit right in with the sixth scale figures. Well, at least Medicom’s sixth scale figures.

I picked this guy up a few weeks ago for about $80. Last year, Medicom released an Ewok in the same style, which I reviewed earlier right here. If you have any questions or comments, you can drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or visit my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy for lots more reviews just like this one.

By the way, I’ll be at San Diego Comic Con this week, so I might be a little slower than usual at replying to emails. And if you’ll be at the con, let me know!

Medicom VCD Jawa

The Jawas are like the ugly, rude cousins of the Ewoks. Oh, they’re both short and the color brown is their predominate look, but that’s abotu where the similarity ends. Where the Ewoks are cute, the Jawas are deformed. Where the Ewoks are sweet, the Jawas are nasty. I suspect this has a lot to do with why I like Jawas so much more than Ewoks.

Packaging – **1/2
The boxes remain as dull as they have been for several years now. This isn’t entirely Medicom’s fault, as this color scheme and basic design is largely driven by Lucas Film, but I think Medicom could have tried to push the envelope a bit, since other licensors have done it.

However, the box does fulfill the prime directive – the interior trays keep the figure safe and cozy, and it’s completely collector friendly, requiring you to damage not a thing in removing the figure.

Sculpting – ***
One of my big gripes with the Ewok they produced was his small statue, coming in at only 5″. The Jawa is an improvement, standing almost 6″ tall, and fitting in much better with other 12″ figures, even those from Sideshow. I’ve got him pictured with Vader, and he seems extra small there, but that’s because Vader is a whopping 14″ tall, and actually too large for sixth scale by about a half inch. I thought it made for an amusing photo, but take my word for it that he does fit in better – although not perfectly – with the regular Medicom and Sideshow Star Wars figures.

So yes, I’m happier with the height. He can still seem a bit dimunative due to the lack of volume that he takes up, but he’s still more in scale than his previous cousin, Wicket. He also stands great on his own, always a plus.

The sculpting of the feet, hands and head is decent, solid work, but nothing outstanding. It reminds me of Hasbro work when they shoot for the collector’s, rather than kid’s, market, and the level of detail and realism isn’t too far above most current mass market work. Last time I checked, the head was supposed to look wrapped, but here the sculpting makes it appear to be a carved hunk of stone, lacking the kind of detail you’d really like to see.

The eyes are applied to the head as separate, reflective pieces. They are glued in place fairly straight, at about the right distance apart, but the smooth craft store style lack much personality. They do the job, but they aren’t the sort of high quality eyes you’d expect, and let’s be honest – at this price point they really should light up, rather than merely be reflective.

Paint – ***
Again, decent enough for the character, but not a category that’s going to win them any awards. The head is pretty much a solid gray, without any drybrushing or wash. It’s not like a Jawa has much detail work on his face that you can highlight with paint, but there’s nothing here that’s surprising or unique.

The saving grace in this category is the reflective nature of the eyes. While the back coating is a little inconsistent, it reflects the light much better than I had anticipated, giving him a more of a ‘light up’ look. Hey, I’m still not happy that they don’t light up, but for some folks the reflective quality will be sufficient.

Articulation – ***
This was kind of the surprise here, since most of the VCD figures aren’t very articulated. However, Medciom gave this guy a terrific ball jointed neck, as well as cut shoulders and pin/post wrists. There’s no leg articulation, but the sculpted action pose works well enough that the arm and neck articulation is sufficient.

It’s too bad that the head is generally covered up by the hood, since you can get a lot of personality out of the neck joint. The arms work well with the included accessories, and you can work with the basic sculpted pose and make it your own.

Outfit – **1/2
The outfit is made up of several pieces. There’s the removable hood, the attached cloak, and a pair of belts slung across his shoulders.

The belts and cloak are glued in place, making it pretty much impossible to adjust them without damage. Adding in some wires to allow you to pose the cloak close to the body would have been a much better solution. Do you remember when you used to decoupage cloth to an elementary school project? That’s what this cloak reminds me of.

The hood fits over the head, but is fairly thick and bulky. At least here you can play around with it a bit, and I’m thinking that a hit from the iron wouldn’t be a bad idea. The hood isn’t too deep, so you’ll be able to see the Jawa’s eyes in most poses, but a wire in the edge would have made posing it a bit easier.

The best part of the outfit is the paint and sculpt work done on the various pouches on the belts. While the belts themselves are basic pleather, the pouches have a nice detailed sculpt, and a worn, aged paint job that sets them apart.

Accessories – ***
Another surprise, since the single accessory included with their Wicket was fairly dull.

Here we get not one but two extras – a blaster that fits perfectly in his sculpted right hand, and a droid caller that fits perfectly in his left. The sculpt and paint are solid on both, and they compliment the action pose nicely.

Fun Factor – ***
Oddly enough, this is more toy than collectible. It might not seem that way from the price tag, but as I said, this really reminds me of Hasbro on steroids.

Value – *1/2
If you’re looking to complain about prices, then you need to look at this kind of collectible. At $80, you’re getting a very small figure, with a couple accessories and nothing particularly high quality or unique. At this price point, we really needed to see the eyes light up to feel like we were getting something comparable to even Sideshow. No doubt that prices have risen in the last couple years (which is why I’m not docking him quite as much as I did the Ewok, even though the Ewok was cheaper), but this is still far too much for what is a fairly basic action figure.

Things to Watch Out For –
Not much. I wouldn’t go rearranging the cloak with too much energy, since it’s glued in place to give it the jus so look.

Overall – **1/2
This figure is clearly an improvement over the Ewok they did, at least in terms of scale and extras. He’s still pretty much B grade work, but if you can get him at a reasonable price (say, $40 – $50) he’s adequate.

The big problem is the extreme price. At $80, he’ll run you as much as many high end sixth scale figures, without the complexity, articulation, size or accessories. Even the Ewok, which came out about a year ago, was a full twenty bucks less than this guy, and he’s still available at the Sideshow site. On sale, no less.

This is a guy that’s begging for a sale price, and I recommend that’s how you track him down. Pick him up in that under $50 category, and you can add another half star to this overall.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – **1/2
Sculpting – ***
Paint – ***
Articulation – ***
Outfit – ***
Accessories – ***
Fun Factor – ***
Value – *1/2
Overall – **1/2

Where to Buy –
Sideshow has them in stock at $80, and I suspect they will be for awhile. Perhaps this would be a good Gift Card item?

– Alter Ego Comics has him for $72.

– CornerStoreComics also has him for $72.

– UK collectors can pick him up at Forbidden Planet for 50 GBP.

Related Links –
Other Medicom Star Wars reviews include:

– the Clone Trooper Captain, Wicket, Darth Maul, the 501st Clone Trooper, Jango Fett, the Sandtrooper, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, the regular Stormtrooper, and Clonetrooper and Blackhole Trooper.

Normally I review toys and collectibles, but occasionally something sort of like that, but not quite like that, comes along that demands attention. Or something. I’m not sure what these little guys are demanding, but it’s something. Also, I usually do reviews, but think of this one as more of a feature. Sort of a ‘these are mighty amusing and your kids might like them’ sort of thing.

They’re call Spread Heads. The concept is simple enough – can you think of anything funnier than when your buddy laughed so hard that milk spewed out of his nose? Or what about cousin Jimmy who used to bring something extra to every event by puking mustard? Family reunions haven’t been the same sent they sent Jimmy away.

That’s where the Spread Heads come in. Currently there are two – Ketchep Charlie (the yellow guy) and Mustard Marvin (the green guy). Pop these guys on the ketchup and mustard bottle at the next picnic, and watch as their particular condiment comes oozing out an orifice!

Both have high quality plastic screw tops behind the masks, that allow them to be attached to the top of your condiment bottle. As you can see, I attached them to a couple regular, right out of the store bottles, but they also work great with those picnic style dispensers. Once Ketchup Charlie is in place, you just squeeze the bottle and your red sugary tomato paste comes oozing out his nostrils. Then there’s Marvin, who seemingly spews mustard right out of his mouth, his green face adding to the overall effect.

The faces themselves are made from a soft rubber, and are dishwasher safe. While the majority of the face is cast in plastic the color you see, the eyes are painted. I noticed a couple smudges on Marvin’s eye, which I’d mention if this was a real review, but it’s not, so I won’t.

These goofy bottle toppers have shown up on the Tonight Show (B.C. – Before Conan), Rachel Ray, the Today Show, and several others. Of course, the potential of other characters, other condiments, and other fluids is pretty much endless. They already have a cat and dog (Pete and Oscar) due out this month that will spit out toothpaste, with plenty more in the works.

These are a pretty cheap form of entertainment too, running only about $4.50 each. Your inner child, as well as the one across the picnic table from you, is going to get plenty of amusement from these guys. Just don’t tell your wife you think it’s funny, unlless you like the eye roll treatment.

You can check them out at the Spread Heads website or follow them on Twitter (and follow me while your at it!).

If you’re a Hellboy fan, it’s been a very good year for you and collectibles based on the license. Even without a new movie, plenty of terrific product is being released. And it’s not just expensive stuff, but everything from kid themed B.P.R.D. Buddies to high end Hot Toys figures.

Gentle Giant picked up the license for Hellboy II for a series of mini-busts, but the results so far have been less than exciting. The first release included Red of course, as well as Prince Nuada. This version of Hellboy was one of the worst sculpts I’ve seen in quite some time, looking nothing like the movie character.

Now the third bust is out, and it’s the big bad Wink. Johann is the fourth, but nothing else has been announced, and I’d be surprised if there is. The edition size on Wink is only 500, down even further from the low edition size of 700 for Nuada.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or swing by my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, where you’ll find thousands of reviews of pop culture collectibles like this.

Hellboy II Wink Mini-bust by Gentle Giant

Technically, it’s Mr. Wink, but I have a hard time envisioning a cave troll like this being called ‘mister’. Then again, if he wants to be called ‘mister’, you call him ‘mister’.

Packaging – ***
It’s the usual box you’ve come to know and love from Gentle Giant. Wink has those little spikes on his back, and they are VERY fragile, so designing an interior tray that would keep him safe was critical. Judging from mine, they did a great job, as he arrived safe and sound without any trouble. Be careful taking him out though – while the spikes might make it to you in one piece, it will take great care to keep them that way.

There’s also the usual Certificate of Authenticity as well, a feature that I’ve always liked about Gentle Giant busts.

Sculpting – ***
Gentle Giant hasn’t wowed me with a mini-bust sculpt in quite some time, but this one is at least an improvement on the Hellboy bust they did earlier this year. What impresses you most right out of the box is its size, as it stands a whopping 8 inches tall. It has plenty of heft and volume to go with that height, making it a bust that will certainly stand out for this if no other reason. These are designed to be sixth scale, so the usual bust is around 6″ tall, making this guy tower over them.

The sculpt detailing is decent, but it’s still a bit softer than what we’ve come to expect these days. The best work is on the face and eyes, where the wrinkles and scars add all that troll personality. The details aren’t perfectly movie accurate, and if you check out the stunt mask in comparison you’ll notice issues (such as the shape of the nose, or the details around the area where the tusks attach to the face), but it’s in the ball park.

Of course, the lack of textures that has always been an issue for Gentle Giant and their busts remains so, becoming even more glaring as other companies step up to create sculpts that are as realistic as possible.

Paint – **
Unfortunately, it’s once again the paint that lets the overall bust down. There’s a flat, cheap look to the work on these busts, which doesn’t help the lack of fine texturing. The brush strokes are fairly broad and sweeping too, with no real attempt to give us smaller detailing or any realism.

There’s also a fair amount of basic slop, like poor cut lines along the body armor, and errant marks and bubbles. The darker shadowing is done in a very heavy handed way, too toyish and cheap looking for something in this price range. Great paint jobs are the key to making truly fantastic looking collectibles, but for some reason, Gentle Giant’s paint work has been going in the wrong direction in recent months.

Design/Quality – ***1/2
I do really like the design, however. The smaller, hair-like spikes on his back were definitely tricky to design and execute, but they did so extremely well. The pose, with the box over one shoulder and a snarl on his face, works great both in context of the movie and this particularly character. And the sheer mass of this guy gives him some added punch on the shelf.

Value – **
These guys have steadily risen to a $60 – $70 price point, depending on the retailer, and that’s too much for what you’re getting. Wink makes up for it a bit with both his large size and his low edition number, but he’s still a bit below average in this category.

Things to Watch Out For –
Those spikes on his back! They might make it to you safely due to the intelligent design of the interior foam trays, but once you get them out, it’s awfully easy to hold the bust wrong, or pick it up wrong, or just breathe on it wrong and break one. They’d be mighty tough to glue back on straight too, so take care and avoid the issue all together.

Overall – ***
Much like Nuada, Wink has a reasonably good sculpt, but weak paint work. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a truly outstanding bust come out of Gentle Giant, but I’m hopeful that this summer’s SDCC Dumbledore will turn things around.

Score Recap –
Packaging – ***
Sculpting – ***
Paint – **
Design/Quality – ***1/2
Value – **
Overall – ***

Where to Buy –
Check out these online options:

– Urban Collector has him at $60.

– Entertainment Earth his him in stock at $66.67.

Related Links –
There’s been a ton of Hellboy merchandise over the past few years, and I’ve covered an awful lot of it:

– Most recent was the B.P.R.D Buddies, little figures done in the Galactic Heroes style.

– Hot Toys recently released both Hellboy and Abe Sapien in sixth scale, with their usual level of quality.

– Before that was the other two Gentle Giant Hellboy busts, which I’m not too keen on.

- if you’re looking for another expensive collectible, check out the 1:1 replica Samaritan.

– there’s the 3 3/4″ line of action
figures from Mezco, the SDCC exclusive Hellboy that is also in that scale, as well as their 18″ HB II igure, and the smaller scale Angel of Death.

– Mezco released series 1 of their movie figures, which are covered in two guest reviews, one here and one here.

– I ran two ‘retro reviews of the old Hellboy movie line – one for Hellboy, and one for Sammael.

– Gentle Giant did some animated versions, including one included in the most recent release of the movies, and there was also a guest review by Poe Ghostal of the first DVD release of Hellboy. I looked at the regular release animated figures as well.

– I also have guest reviews of some of the comic based figures, including Kreigaffe #10, Lobster Johnson, and the old Graphitti Designs version.

– I have my own reviews of the comic based battle damaged Hellboy and 18″ version, the stylized Extreme Hellboy, the movie 8″ line (including the Nazi Kroenen in the second series), the 18″ version, and even some Mez-itz.

– also movie based, Sideshow has done several 12″ figures, including Abe Sapien, Nazi Kroenen, regular Kroenen, and regular Hellboy.

– for those into mini-busts, there’s also this version that came with the release of the DVD.

It’s been almost four weeks since Terminator: Salvation was released to theaters, and fans and critics have not been kind. With a disappointing 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not even as well liked as the God awful Rise of the Machines.

Ah, but Hot Toys is producing a series of sixth scale figures based on the film, and let’s face it – if it’s Hot Toys, it has to be good. They have both John Connor and Marcus Wright coming soon, as well as a very cool T-600, but the first release is the T-700.

Hot Toys isn’t new to the Terminator license, and one of their best figures is the T-800 Endoskeleton based on Terminator 2, which they released a couple years ago. This figure came with several weapons, and set a new standard at the time for well designed articulation.

While the T-700 is a predecessor to the T-800 we all know and love, it’s still a very similar beast, particularly under the skin. Perhaps Hot Toys realized that, because they went with a different route for this figure, stripping him of his accessories and offering him at a considerably lower price point. While you can expect to pay around $150 for most Hot Toys figures, this guy comes in at closer to $110 at most retailers.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. Now, on to the review!

Hot Toys T-700 sixth scale action figure

Packaging – ****
While much of this figure has a been there, done that feel due to the earlier Hot Toys T-800 release, the one area that really took me by surprise was the package. This thing is way cool! It comes in a dark gray (almost black) hard foam (very hard) package, with just a top and bottom held together by a much smaller than usual outer sleeve. The foam is intricately carved, giving it a machined appearance. It’s very striking, and one of Hot Toys most innovative box designs in quite awhile.

Inside, you get the figure carefully packed and no twisties or other annoying encumbrances. The package is very collector friendly, with no need to damage or destroy anything in the removal of the figure.

Sculpting – ****
I haven’t reviewed a lot of Hot Toys figures here at QSE, but I cover quite a few at my site. And believe me, they are the finest sixth scale figures on the market today. This Endoskeleton is a thing of beauty, with sharply defined sculpting, excellent small detail work, and an amazing level of movie accuracy.

However, Hot Toys isn’t the first company to produce an amazing looking Endoskeleton, T-700 or otherwise. But they go beyond just the sculpt, engineering the figure to combine this amazing realism with stupendous articulation. It’s figures like this one that prove you don’t have to forfeit articulation for great looks.

The mechanical nature of this monster requires a sharp edge to the sculpt. Pieces need to look like machined metal, not soft plastic, and here again Hot Toys manages to give us the closest thing to the real deal possible. The surface of the figure is also scored and pocked, much like wrought iron, adding to the metallic effect. You really have to see this guy in person to appreciate the work.

I do wish he was a smidge bigger. Yea, I know. He’s the interior skeleton of a slightly larger than normal human male. So he’s not going to be quite as big as a figure with skin and muscle on him, but I would have personally preferred a little more height.

Paint – ****
The paint work here isn’t complex, but the potential to over do it is there, and other companies have certainly had less restraint. The temptation to try to do too much is hard to resist, but that wouldn’t make this figure better.

I’ve said before that the paint can improve any sculpt, and here it adds to the appearance of the metal body. Had they gone with something too shiny, that iron works style texturing wouldn’t have looked right. Instead, they’ve matched the color with the style of sculpt perfectly.

Articulation – ****
Other companies that produce robots or figures in armor usually throw in the towel when it comes to articulation. The pistons, gears, and other small mechanical devices makes it impossible to have useful joints, or so most people think.

Hot Toys doesn’t believe it though, and they continue to prove that it’s possible to engineer joints that work with even the most complicated robotic sculpts. Here, the pistons move smoothly at each of the joints, especially the jaw, ball jointed neck, shoulders, wrists, elbows, waist, knees and ankles. While it might appear that there is no way these joints could have much range of movement due to the complicated nature of the mechanics, they actually do. It’s really quite impressive!

Even the toes are articulated, and the fingers have multiple joints. There’s a joint at each knuckle, and a joint at the base of the finger that allows them to spread wider or come together close! Getting the fingers in just the right position can be a bit frustrating, and they can be a little loose at times, but you have to be impressed with the overall workmanship.

They also seem much more stable and sturdy than the similar joints on their earlier endoskeleton. Hot Toys is improving, even when it seems like they’ve already hit perfection.

Actually, they do still have one joint on these figures that could use a little improvement – the hips. They do move in and out from the plane of the body slightly, but not as much as I’d really like. But deducting for that after seeing all the other exceptional joints just doesn’t seem appropriate.

Accessories – *1/2
While the other Terminator related figures from Hot Toys have been loaded with accessories, this guy only comes with his T-700 base, made to look like a factory platform. It’s a nice looking base, and includes a spot to connect the wire arm that could attach around his waist. I’ll be skipping the arm however, and just standing him on the base, since he has no trouble staying upright on his own. The hole for the arm is hidden well enough to make this possible.

Light up Feature – ***
Like the later model that came out first, he has light up eyes. These are activated with a small, well hidden button on his back. The two small, red LED eyes are bright and clean when lit, and the wiring for this feature doesn’t get in the way of the articulation or appearance. The batteries are relatively easy to swap, and he comes with a set already installed.

However, one of the eyes is slightly brighter than the other, and I noticed that the batteries seem to be dying pretty fast. They are minor quibbles, but enough to pull this down a bit. I haven’t had that issue with my Iron Man figures from Hot Toys, or the first T-800, and I didn’t expect to have it here.

Fun Factor ***
Even with the small fingers and tiny joints, this guy is remarkably sturdy. He feels much less likely to break when you’re posing and handling than the earlier T-800 endoskeleton does. Hard to believe it, but somehow Hot Toys continues to improve.

That being said, breaking the smaller joints and even some of the pistons would be pretty easy if you don’t take some basic care. He’s sturdy enough that an older kid who loves the license could get some great poses out of him, but the under ten crowd would be like Sarah Connor to this guy.

Value – **1/2
I commend Hot Toys on finding a way to drop the price on this figure, especially since he’s similar to their earlier release. A bennie ain’t cheap no matter what though, and by dropping the accessories to drop the price, the value ends up washing out at average.

Things to Watch Out For –
While these joints are sturdier than I expected, you still have to take care when posing him. The fingers are especially tricky, but that’s part of the price you pay for this type of realism.

Overall – ***1/2
With three key four star categories, this guy was bucking for a four star overall. I held off slightly though, because I do really, really miss any accessories, even at the lower price point. I can’t argue with the sculpt, paint or articulation, but we’ve seen this figure – almost – already once before, and I really wish we’d gotten something a little extra this time around. Hot Toys did that with their Iron Man line, where they knew that the MKII figure needed something extra, since he was so close to the MKIII (in terms of the sculpt). This time around, they cut back on the price rather than give us anything extra, and I can appreciate the sentiment…but the lack of accessories still hurts this guy for me.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ****
Sculpting -****
Paint – ****
Articulation – ****
Accessories – *1/2
Light Up Feature – ***
Fun Factor – ***
Value – **1/2
Overall – ***1/2

Where to Buy –
You have a number of great online options:

– Urban Collector has a great price at $106.

– Alter Ego Comics has him at $108.

– Corner Store Comics also has it at $108.

– Show Piece Collectibles doesn’t have the T-700, but they have a great price on the T-660 at just $168. Most other sites are pre-selling this guy for around $200!

Related Reviews:
Check out Hot Toys previous Endoskeleton, the T-800.

In any great film franchise, there are iconic moments, scenes that will remain fresh in a young movie goers mind for the rest of his life. For me and Star Wars, one of those key moments was when Han is lowered into the Carbonite Freezing Chamber, and Leia tells him she loves him. His response was perfect – “I know”. Talk about cool.

The whole concept of freezing him in such a way was perfect for the character, and not just because it gave Lucas a way to easily resurrect him. George was smart enough not to put a blaster shot in the head of his cash cow. More importantly though, having him frozen in a big black block allowed Jabba to not just beat him, but to put him on display as a trophy. Han Solo was such a galactic bad ass that Jabba didn’t just want him dead, he wanted him mounted on the wall. And yes, I know, Jabba didn’t specifically ask for him in the carbonite, but once he had him that way, he clearly thought it was a pretty damn good idea.

Over the years, we’ve been treated to Han in his carbonite prison in various collectibles, from small action figures to full size replicas. Sideshow has already produced a terrific sixth scale Jabba with throne, along with several figures to go with it. Now they’ve released their version of Han in Carbonite as a diorama addition to the Jabba Throne.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out lots more reviews just like this one at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. Now let’s see how Han looks…

Han Solo in Carbonite – Sixth Scale Diorama

As I said, this guy is really designed to go along with Jabba’s Throne, although it does work as a stand alone piece. It runs about $200, depending on the retailer, and as always, I have some suggestions at the end of the review. Han is limited to 2000 pieces worldwide.

Packaging – ***
The box is quite large, considering Han and his block are only in sixth scale (12″). Ah, but he comes with a hefty chunk of the wall and floor too, making the box quite a bit bigger than you’d first anticipate.

It does its job of course, keeping everything safe and sound. Han is packed on the side of the large Styrofoam insert, so if you put him back in the box later, remember that…pulling him out a second time with the tape already cut could result in a nasty fall to the floor if you were to forget his precarious location.

Sideshow doesn’t do Certificate of Authenticities, so there’s no surprise that there isn’t one this time.

Sculpting – ***1/2
This diorama has a similar level of quality and detail in the sculpt to the Jabba’s Throne. If you already have that, then this one is going to fit right in.

The block itself is seems a little small at first, and I had a hard time seeing a full sized sixth scale figure fitting inside there. I compared it against other sixth scale figures though, and yes, it is about the right size. The block itself meaures 13 inches tall by 5 1/2 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The detailing on the surface is good, with an excellent Han likeness coming through, but if you do an extremely close comparison to actual stills of the prop you will notice a few minor issues. I’m good with it, but the purists might take exception.

The small details on the block, like the side control panels, look good, at least in terms of the sculpt. It’s possible for the block to stand on its own on one end too, although I’d be very nervous if I displayed it that way.

The bigger issue for most folks will be the overall size of the display diorama, but for me it’s also fine. Sideshow took some liberties with the size of the wall that the block was attached to in the film, reducing it in size both in height and width. If you’re looking for it to be exactly screen accurate, this is going to be a problem for you, but it appears that Sideshow did this to allow it to fit in better with Jabba’s throne. It’s about the same width, side to side, as the throne is deep, giving you some excellent diorama potential. Had they gone with a screen accurate size, it would have dwarfed the throne. As it is, it stands 18 1/2″ tall, 10″ deep, and 10″ wide.

Important sculpting details are here, such as the control box to the right and several air grates. As I said, the sculpting of the lighter stone matches the work on the earlier throne, so that these two work extremely well together.

Paint – ***
The majority of the smaller details are on the control panels. Unfortunately, these are a tad sloppier than I expected, especially at this price point. They put the details on with a heavy hand, and much of the paint is thin and inconsistent. They went with a rough appearance, which I can whole heartedly agree with, but I think the detail work on the panels should have been a bit sharper, even in a pit like Jabba’s place.

The shading and shadowing done on the diorama are the highlight for this category, and it adds to the realistic stone appearance and fits in perfectly with the throne.

In photos, it might appear that the block is too dark of a gray, but in person it seems about right. How dark it looks will also depend on the amount of light and the other colors around it – throw some very bright light at it in a white room, and you’ll get a much lighter gray look.

Design/Quality – ***
There are a number of nice design features, and the overall quality is apparent in the construction.

The back of both the diorama and the block is covered in a soft velvet material, to avoid damaging other pieces or your display.

To simulate the ‘floating’ appearance of the block against the indented wall, the diorama has a long metal post at the top that is inserted into the back of the block. This is a very tight fit, but it does hold the block extremely secure. It appears that there’s a magnet here as well, adding in one more level of assurance. On mine, the block hangs unevenly though, and I think it’s the fault of the magnet. I ended up shoving a folded piece of paper in back to force the block to hang even. At this price point, that’s something I don’t think I should have to do.

You will want to be careful putting the block on and taking it off however. The metal post shouldn’t be forced against the softer polyresin of the block or the base, and applying force at any sort of angle is highly discouraged.

What’s missing here is a light up feature. You’ll have to supply your own moody LED light when you display this guy, and considering the price point, that’s probably going to be a deal breaker for some folks.

Value – **
Even at $180, this is a pretty expensive display item. The Jabba’s Throne set was about this same price range, with more size, sculpt detail and paint ops. Yea, things haven’t gotten cheaper in the last two years, but this piece still seems like it should be no more than $150, considering the current market. Now, if they had included the light up feature everyone was hoping for, the extra cost would have been easily justified.

Things to Watch Out For –
Putting the block on and taking it off of the display base is a tricky business and I really recommend that you don’t do it too many times. Get it the way you want it, and leave it be…wise advice with just about everything in life.

Overall – ***
One of the best things about sixth scale collectibles is how great they look together, preferably set up in dioramas on the shelf. Sideshow has given us an excellent reproduction of a key scene from the film that fits in nicely with a number of other figures AND another diorama piece. If you don’t own the earlier Jabba’s Throne Environment, I can see where this rather expensive statue is a pretty easy pass. But if you’ve got the rest of the environment, this bad boy does a nice job of expanding on it.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***
Sculpting – ***1/2
Paint – ***
Design/Quality – ***
Value – **
Overall – ***

Where to Buy –
You have a couple of options for picking this guy up –

– Sideshow originally had it, but have since sold out at $200.

– Alter Ego Comics has it at $180, and it’s in stock.

– Corner Store Comics has it listed at $180, but they appear sold out already.

– or you can always search the old ‘bay.

Related Links –
As I mentioned, I reviewed both Jabba and his Throne back when they were released a couple years ago. To add to the display, you can include Bib Fortuna, or Jedi Luke.

Before Batman, before Superman, there was The Ghost That Walks…The Phantom. Created by Lee Falk in 1936, the Phantom is one of the best known and most successful newspaper strip characters, spawning radio shows, comics, movies, and television shows over the years.

In the 1970’s, a litte company called Mego hit it big with their 8″ clothed action figures based on properties like Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and Superheros. They didn’t make it through the turbulent early 80’s, but this series of action figures has become one of the most beloved for toy collectors today.

Now meet Cast-A-Way Toys, who have brought Mego’s back in their own way. They are producing a range of characters in the same format, done in a similar simplistic style, to complement your Mego collection. They’ve added a new character to your Mego shelf with the release of the Phantom, and his arch enemy Achmed.

But this review isn’t about the Phantom or Achmed (although you can see a review of the Gray Ghost variant of the Phantom at my other site), but rather a diorama they’ve produced as a complimentary piece to the figure: the Skull Throne, which he sat on out in the Skull Cave.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or visit my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy.

The Skull Throne for the Phantom

As I mentioned, the Phantom figures are in an 8″ scale, and the throne is designed to work best with that scale. I’ve included some photos with other figures as well, so you can get an idea of how it might work, but I’m using the Cast-A-Way Toys Phantom figure (both purple and gray) in most of the photos.

This throne was originally available at the FX Show in Florida, but it’s still available through their collector’s club. More on that in the Where to Buy section.

Packaging – Bupkis
I actually got two of the thrones, one for the purple suit Phantom, and one for the gray suit Phantom, so they could be on display at the same time. Both of them came wrapped in bubble wrap inside a larger box, but with no packaging of their own. Not sure if that was the case at the FX Show, but I will say that it resulted in both of them having some minor damage to the resin part of the base. A couple of the small ‘coals’ were chipped on one of them, and the other had a crack along the edge. Both of these problems were fixed with some simple Crazy Glue, but something a bit more sturdy for shipping would have been nice. That’s particularly true considering how crazy cool the packages are for the 8″ figures themselves.

Sculpting – ***1/2
You won’t be able to tell at first from the photos (or in person), but the throne itself and the base with urns (or ‘braziers’) are made from two very different materials.

The ground base with the two braziers is made from a poly resin, much like the usual mini-bust or statue. You’ll want to handle it with care, since damage is possible. The underside of this base is coated with a thin felt material to help avoid damage to it, or to whatever surface it may sit upon.

This material holds a very sharp, detailed sculpt. The rocky cave ground looks great, and the roughly hewn braziers with their skulls around the base are extremely realistic. The coals and embers on the top of the braziers look good too, even with a haphazard paint job. In fact, it’s that rather haphazard work that gives the overall piece it’s feeling of realism, as if it were truly carved by native tools right out of the cave floor.

The throne itself is made from a soft polyurethane, that you can throw against the wall and it will bounce right off! Unless you let your dog chew on it, it’s pretty much impossible to damage easily, and that means you won’t have to worry about paint rubs, or chipping the seat when you’re moving the figure around on it.

The seat can also be removed from the rock floor and used on it’s own, which might be a viable option if you’re looking to use it with a larger figure, say 12″ tall. I’ve included a couple shots with other characters to show the scale. First up is the Masters of the Universe Classics Skeletor:

And here’s a 12″ Sideshow figure for comparison:

The detail work on the overall diorama is quite amazing, especially considering the different materials. I’m quite impressed by how rock-like the throne is, and how much detail the soft, squishy foam can hold.

The throne clearly belongs to the Phantom, since at his right side is the skull symbol (the same as the skull symbol on his right ring), and at his left side are the four sabers (also the same as his left ring). The symbols can work with other characters too, as long as nobody is paying too much attention.

Paint – ***1/2
The key feature of the paint work is to make the stone sculpt all the more stone like, and in this it succeeds quite well. The trick is the heavy wash, which highlights the details, adds shadowing and depth, and gives it an overall dirty appearance.

The coals are painted as well, but with a very rough, slapdash style, which gives them a chaotic look. Again, you might think this would look sloppy, but instead adds to the realistic appearance. Fire and coal are not neatly colored but ever changing, and the sloppy look works great in conveying the feel of glowing embers.

Design/Quality – ***1/2
Considering the size of the company, I’m very impressed with the quality of this diorama. I really wasn’t expecting the soft foam for the chair, and yet I think it was an excellent idea. It certainly looks as good as actual polystone or polyresin, yet is practically imprevious to damage and a whole lot lighter weight. I’d love to see this used for other diorama pieces from other companies in the future, particularly in sixth scale.

Value – **1/2
This diorama ran $75 at the show, or through the Cast-A-Way Club. It’s fairly large, and with the more limited exclusivity, the price/value is about average.

Things to Watch Out For –
Be careful handling the embers and coals. I noticed that breaking them off is fairly easy to do if you’re not careful. Other than that, you should be good to go!

Overall – ***1/2
While this throne/base is designed specifically for the Phantom, it does have other potential uses. I think that it fits in pretty well with the MOTUC line (although they don’t sit quite as well as the Phantom does due to their slightly more limited hips), and certain Medicom lines might be able to use it as well. Hmmm…maybe even the Mezco Hellboy line…I’ll have to give that a try too.

If you have picked up one of the Cast-A-Way Phantom figures, or even are a regular collector of other Mego lines, this throne will fit in perfectly. Dioramas this nice don’t come along very often, but when they do, it’s always appreciated!

Score Recap:
Packaging – Bupkis
Sculpt – ***1/2
Paint – ***1/2
Design Quality – ***1/2
Value – **1/2
Overall – ***1/2

Where to Buy –
This was an exclusive at the FX show where it was $75, but you can also purchase one by becoming a member of the Cast-A-Way Club. The $25 fee will get you access to all their exclusives during the year.

You can always hit ebay too, looking for a deal.

Related Links –
I reviewed the Captain Action and Dr. Evil, as well as the Phantom (gray ghost exclusive version) pictured with the throne in this review.

My son popped in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the other day, and I thought I’d give it a second try. Perhaps on second viewing I’d be able to let go of my extreme dislike…sadly, this was not the case.

But it did remind me how much I love the original films, especially Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just a couple days later, my new Ark of the Covenant business card holder showed up from Gentle Giant, making me warm and fuzzy all over.

Business card holder? Yep, Gentle Giant has produced not one but three different desk accessories based on the relics of the films: this business card holder, a pen/pencil holder shaped like the Fertility Idol, and a paper clip holder that doubles as the Holy Grail.

I only ordered the card holder, as it was the only one I could see myself using (do I even own any paper clips?), so I’ll be covering that one all by its little lonesome. If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. You can also follow me on Twitter, the only legal form of stalking. Actually, I’m having a giveaway right now to one person following me on Twitter – a completely free MOTUC Mer-Man! So sign up and follow me, and you might be the lucky winner…

Ark of the Covenant Business Card Holder

The business card holder is designed to hold regular sized cards, either in a horizontal or vertical fashion. If you’re a closet nerd afraid to let your geek flag fly full mast, this card holder (and the paper clip Grail or pencil Idol) allow you to test the work waters. If no one points and laughs, you can tell them about your Iron Man bed sheets! Or maybe not.

Packaging – ***
The big plus here is the Certificate of Authenticity, which is nicely done in a trading card size just like a Gentle Giant bust or statue. However, it lacks any sort of edition number or size.

The box itself carries on the rather dull graphics forced on all the licensors by Lucas, but deals with them about as best as can be expected. The interior foam is very sturdy, and protects the Ark almost as well as a big wooden crate. And yes, how cool of a package would that have been?

Sculpting – ***
For the scale (remember, this is only about 3″ tall without the birds), the sculpt is fairly detailed and clean. The etchings on the side are a little soft, but some of the more intricate detail work on the edges and cornice are nicely done.

The birds are sculpted as a separate piece, on a long base that fits across the interior top. This gives you plenty of display options, with it in or out, and with the cards in front or back.

As I mentioned, it’s only about 3″ tall without the birds, just a hair over 4″ with them. It’s too small to work as a display item with the sixth scale figures, and too big to go with any 4″ figures, but if you have the 7″ Indy from the Disney parks, it would fit in pretty well. The final photo shows a 6″ He-man with the Ark to give you some idea.

Paint – ***
There’s not a lot of paint detail here – it’s all that brass/bronze color that you’d expect, with no real wash or highlighting. It’s clean though, with a nice consistent, even coverage, and no obvious marks, bubbles, or imperfections.

Design – ***1/2
Obviously they had to skip the lid, as I mentioned in the Sculpt section. That’s no real issue, considering the end purpose, and my favorite aspect of the design is that they took into consideration not just the most common card orientation – horizontal – but also the less common vertically printed cards. The interior of the Ark is sculpted to hold either properly, which is a big plus.

The holder also manages a good number of cards at once. I didn’t try fully filling it up, but I’d bet you could get 50 to maybe even 75 cards in there, with the birds in place. And since the birds are movable (and removable), you can put the cards in front or in back of them as you wish.

Value – **
This guy is only about 3″ tall, not counting the birds on top. That’s a pretty small ‘statue’ for almost $40, and something around $25 – $30 would have been more appropriate considering the desk accessory market. And yes, there is one.

Things to Watch Out For –
Don’t drop it. While it feels more poly than resin, it’s still breakable.

Overall – ***
It’s not exactly a must have, but if you’re looking for something that shows off your fondness for Indiana Jones at the office, without being too geeky, then this card holder might just be perfect. It can also work as an accessory to the 7″ Indy, but it’s pretty expensive as an extra to an already mediocre figure.

Something that would really have made this stand out – and made the price all that much more palatable without adding a lot of cost – would have been the inclusion of the Professor Jones business card that we see in the promo photos. It’s a pity that Gentle Giant didn’t realize the potential for something like that to increase interest and sales.

Where to Buy –
You have several great online options:

– Alter Ego Comics has it listed at $36.

– Urban Collector also has it at $36.

– Entertainment Earth has it at $37.

Related Links –
For many years, there was a drought when it came to Indy merchandise, but they’ve made up for that plus some over the last couple years. Some other collectible reviews include:

– Sideshow has the Fertility Idol Environment, as well as their Indy and Belloq figures so far.

– Diamond Select recently released a cool Fertility Idol bank, that works great as a cheap prop replica.

– the best of it all is the Sideshow Premium Format Indiana Jones.

– in a similar scale is the Ultimate Quarter Scale from DST.

– there was the recent Medicom Professor Jones Sr.

– one of my favorite new Indy collectibles is the Mighty Muggs from Hasbro, and I’ve reviewed waves 1, and 2. Of course, they’ve already been canceled.

– for the sixth scale collectors, I checked out the Hasbro mail away Ark.

– on the cute side, check out the Adventure Heroes.

– then there’s the Kotobukiya Indy and Professor Jones Sr, the Blockbuster exclusive DVD case, the 12″ German and Cairo Swordsman, as well as both 12″Hasbro Indy’s.

– in the smaller scale, I looked at some of the deluxe two packs and several of the single pack figures, with a few more over at QSE.

– There’s a number of cool Lego sets, including this one.

– Gentle Giant did a 7″ version for the Disney parks.

– Disney has done a few other Indy figures, including this wave of small ones.

– and if you’re looking for something a bit more custom, check out the very cool sixth scale Grail diary, or this sixth scale figure.

You’d have to be living under a rock, and it would have to be a pretty big rock at that, to not realize that May is the movie month for 2009. There’s some potentially great films coming out later this summer, including G.I. Joe, Harry Potter and Transformers 2, but May has four big ones hitting us that are all required viewing.

One of the four is Terminator: Salvation, the fourth film in the story of Skynet and the destruction of the human race. Opening on the 21st (a Thursday), this film takes us back…uh, forward…in time to the early days of the war, before the T-800 was developed, when the first T-600 and T-700 Terminators were terrorizing the Resistance.

The current brouhaha over the movie has to do with the MPAA rating. Most assumed it would be R, just like the first three films in the franchise. The trailer certainly appears to have R-like tendencies. But recent rumors have it at a PG-13, and this has caused quite the stir. Some have said that the Terminator:Salvation toy line is part of the reasoning for Warner Brothers to push for the lighter rating, in an attempt to get at least some kids indoctrinated in the film franchise. But plenty of R rated movies have had toy lines in the past, and if you swing by your local Toys R Us right now you can find Watchmen action figures, clearly a movie not intended for kids. The mere existence of a toy line does not indicate the rating, but it does tend to indicate the amount of whining some parents may do.

Playmates Toys, probably best known for there long running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek and World of Springfield action figure lines, picked up the license for the Terminator: Salvation toys. They are producing action figures in three scales – 3 3/4″, 6″ and 10″. I’ve already covered several of the 6″ figures over at my site, and I’ll be hitting up at least one of the 10″ versions as well. This week here at QSE I’m looking at four of the 3 3/4″ figures, including the T-600, T-700, T-R.I.P. and Marcus.

If you have any questions of comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com or visit my site, Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy.

Terminator: Salvation – 1/18th action figures

Just to keep things straight in the review, the T-600 is the huge endo with the skin and clothes, Marcus is the much smaller endo with skin and clothes, the T-700 is the dark endo, and the T-R.I.P. is the brighter silver endo pictured below. Although I can’t be sure, I’m assuming the T-R.I.P. is a T-800 prototype of some sort.

These figures are about 1/18th scale, also often called 3 3/4″ although most figures in this scale (like Star Wars or Indiana Jones) are generally closer to 4″ tall.

Packaging – ***
The packaging matches the larger scale 6″ line, with good golor and bright graphics, but it comes across a tad cartoonish. I like the inclusion of a little personalization on the front bubble (there’s a very small bio of each character), and showing the whole series on the cardback is good. The big downside is the ridiculous number of twist ties for this scale figure, with arms, legs and even torsos often strapped in place.

Sculpting – T-700, T-R.I.P. ***; T-600, Marcus **1/2
I was pretty hard on the non Endoskeleton 6″ figures in this series, and with good reason. Even the Endos were pretty mediocre, but in this smaller scale, I’m liking the whole bunch a lot better.

One of my major grips with the 6″ T-600 was the extremely cartoon-like styling of the skin covered head. Some folks ragged me, saying of course it was cartoonish, because it was supposed to look fake. The 3 3/4″ figure makes my point for me though – it DOES look fake here, just like it should, but doesn’t look like it could double as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bad guy. Both this version and the 10″ version have the proper look to the skin, while the 6″ fails completely. Considering how much smaller this figure is, that’s no small feat.

However, he still has one issue in common with his larger brother – he’s huge. He stands just over 5″ tall, making him about 8 feet tall in true 1/18th scale. Both Marcus and the Endos are almost 4″ tall though, so it isn’t *quite* that bad, but he’s still gargantuan compared to them. I don’t think the fake skin, no matter how realistic, would fool anyone into thinking a T-600 was a person.

The work on the clothing is better than on the larger scale figure too, another plus in his favor. He has less clothing (the pants are ripped up a bit more) which helps quite a bit. There’s a few weird, unrealistic rips (did someone take a bit out of the hood?), but it’s still an improvement.

The T-700 and T-R.I.P. look to have the same sculpt as the larger versions, but as you might expect, when you shrink down a sculpt the detailing improves. There’s still soft areas, particularly with the T-700. Because the paint is so dark, and because there’s no wash to bring out the detail, much of it is lost visually.

Both of the Endos are about 4″ tall, making them fit in much better with other modern lines in this scale (like Star Wars) than the other Playmates 1/18th line on the shelf right now, Star Trek. That’s good news, since one of the biggest attractions to this smaller scale is putting figures from different licenses together. They’re still a smidge shrimpy, but it’s not a major issue.

My biggest issue with both Endos in this category is the forearms. They are long to begin with, and because of the lack of a wrist joint, the hand and forearm become one piece visually, making them appear even longer. It throws off the proportions somewhat on an otherwise solid job.

It’s worth pointing out that both are sculpted with open mouths, a complaint I know lots of folks have had with the Endos in all the scales. I don’t mind, but you might not be as forgiving.

Of the various scale Marcus figures I’ve seen so far, this one is my favorite. That doesn’t mean he’s great, but he’s an improvement over the other versions out there.

The likeness isn’t great, but half the face is damaged, showing off the underlying endo parts. The detailing on these robotic sections is quite good, although they look nothing like a T-700, which is what I assume (perhaps incorrectly) he is.

I did have a couple sculpt issues, however. The biggest one is a weird warp to the lower half of the left leg. I don’t think it’s just from the insert tray (although it could be due to a bad package design), because there’s no gapping at the joint on either side. The leg looks like it is actually designed to bend slightly off to the side, and it makes it tough to get him to stand properly.

They cheaped out a bit on his hands too. The left and right hand are both sculpted as though they are exposed endoskeleton, but the right hand is painted flesh colored with a painted glove. It stands out, even at this scale.

Finally, the boots are a bit wonky. The idea is that one has the pant leg tucked in, while the other has the pant leg hanging down over half the boot. Unfortunately, the sculpt doesn’t really translate. Because of the way the edge between the pant leg and boot is sculpted on both sides, they both look like the leg is tucked in, making it look like he’s wearing two different boots.

Paint – Marcus **1/2; the others ***
Again, keep in mind the scale here. The detailing is quite good, especially for a mass market line.

The T-R.I.P. is the basic silver, but has a nice wash to bring out the sculpting. He also has very cool eyes, painted with some sort of reflective paint. Notice how on both he and the T-700, the eyes look lit up in the photos, but they aren’t. Unlike the larger versions, there’s no plastic tubes to bring light down to the eyes, but the bright paint appears to glow even in normal room light.

As I mentioned in the Sculpt section, much of the detail work on the T-700 is lost since the paint is so dark. However, that dark contrast makes his glowing eyes stand out even more.

The paint work on the T-600 is a little less cartoonish than the larger scale figure, and there’s a wash used on the pants to make them a little less goofy looking. Thankfully, the pelvis is actually painted the right color too! The same wash on the endo parts brings out the finer details there, making this version a huge improvement over the 6″ figure.

Marcus also has a solid paint job, although he has fewer details. The overall figure (both clothing and endo sections) lacks any wash, making him look a bit cheaper than the other three. The cut lines and general quality of the paint work is decent, but he lacks some of the visual pop of the others. He’s reasonable considering the price point, but nothing special.

Articulation – T-700, T-R.I.P., T-600 ***; Marcus **1/2
These are fairly well articulated for this scale, with just a few issues holding them back.

Marcus had the most potential, but the wonky legs end up hurting him. He is the only one to have a ball jointed neck, and it works quite well. He also has ball jointed shoulders (pin/post style), pin/post elbows, and cut wrists, making his arms quite poseable. He adds in a cut waist, single pin knees, and T hips.

With just the T hips and single pin knees, there’s not much you can do with the legs, and because of the warping of the right one, he has trouble standing. This ends up pulling him down slightly over the other three.

The T-600 has a cut neck, which is fine since he’d be a pretty stiff guy in person. He has the same style shoulders as Marcus, with single pin elbows and cut wrists. That means his forearms can’t move inward and outward from the body, making his arms a little less poseable. He finishes off with the same cut waist, single pin knees, and T hips. He really needs some sort of cut joint on the legs to improve his overall posability, but he stands great on his own in basic stances.

The T-700 and T-R.I.P. have identical articulation. Neither has any neck joint, but like their skin covered cousins, they have pin/post swivel shoulders. They also have pin/post elbows, which allow for the arms to move inward, very useful with these figures. Unfortunately, they lack cut wrists, making it tough for them to hold the large gun properly.

They have simple pin hips, much like the T hips on the other figures, and single pin knees. Perhaps it’s surprising because of the tiny feet, but they stand great on their own in a number of poses.

Accessories – ***
Most figures in this scale come with one accessory, maybe two if you’re really lucky. Three of the four here have two plastic accessories, plus one paper accessory.

The T-700 comes with a large scale rifle, which can be held in either hand, although straddling it across is hands is the best way to keep him standing. Unfortunately, due to the lack of wrist articulation mentioned earlier, he can’t really hold it properly in both hands, but he can approximate the look.

He also has a beat up and bent steel girder that he can use to pound on various resistance fighters, or Stormtroopers, your choice. Like the gun, this can fit in either or both hands. It’s a pretty small girder, but it’s a nice change of pace from the steel pipe that was in the 6″ series.

The T-R.I.P. comes with two guns, but both are pistols, one much smaller than the other. While I’m betting we see these actual guns at some point in the film, I really would have rather gotten a larger cannon style weapon. He can hold both guns at once for some rip roarin’, shootin’ tootin’ poses.

The T-600 has the same large Gatling style cannon that his 6″ cousin carries. The ammo back pack is removable, as is the ammo clip. The gun fits tightly to his arm, and looks great in most poses.

Also like the 6″ scale, each comes with a Topps movie trading card. They are high quality, high gloss cards, but they are identical to the ones you get with the same characters in the larger scale. On top of that, you know my general disdain for paper extras. This kind of stuff almost always ends up in a junk box.

Fun Factor – Marcus ***; the rest ***1/2
Figures in this scale are always one thing if nothing else – fun. Because these are more in line in both style and size with other current 1/18th lines, these can easily be added to any display or play scenario with the likes of Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Narnia. Kid’s would probably end up frustrated with Marcus’ weird legs, but the other three would make for terrific bad guys, and are sturdy enough to stand up to normal sandbox play.

Value – ***
These guys will run you around $7 at most stores, about a buck cheaper than many other well known licenses in this scale. On top of that, you’re getting a reasonably good set of accessories, adding to the value. Slightly better articulation, and these would have gotten another half star here.

Things to Watch Out For –
Not much. You’ll want to check those paint ops carefully when picking them off the peg of course, but once you have them in hand, you should be issue free.

Overall – T-700, T-R.I.P. ***; T-600, Marcus **1/2
These are quite a bit better than the 3 3/4″ Star Trek line from Playmates, also on pegs right now, and they’re a bit better than I’ve seen most folks giving them credit for. They aren’t amazing by any means, and the work from someone like Mezco in this scale (who did the Hellboy in the photo) blows them away, but the two clean Endoskeletons will fit in pretty well with most other modern 1/18th lines. Marcus doesn’t do much for me, especially with the wonky legs, and the huge, towering T-600 looks like he belongs in another line. But if you’re looking for a basic Endo to go with your Star Wars figures, you should grab the T-R.I.P. or the T-700.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***
Sculpting – T-700, T-R.I.P. ***; T-600, Marcus **1/2
Paint – Marcus **1/2; the others ***
Articulation – T-600, T-700, T-R.I.P. ***; Marcus **1/2
Accessories – ***
Fun Factor – Marcus ***; the rest ***1/2
Value – ***
Overall – T-700, T-R.I.P. ***; T-600, Marcus **1/2

Where to Buy –
Plenty of local retailers should have these, including Toys R Us and Target. Expect to pay around $7 each. online options include:

– Entertainment Earth has them by the case of 12 for $91, or about $7.60 each.

– For the UK folks, Forbidden Planet has them individually for about 6 GBP each.

Normally, I review toys. Technically, most of what I review aren’t true ‘toys’ (if you can find a way to play with a Professor McGonagall mini-bust that doesn’t involve your own weird sexual aberrations, please let me know), but that’s generally how folks think of it nonetheless. So today I thought I’d go for something a bit different, and look at the newly released Kindle 2 e-book reader from Amazon. Hey, it’s more of a ‘toy’ than a Premium Format statue of Slave Leia…and yes, I know exactly how you’re ‘playing’ with her, you sick bastard.

If you’re jonesing for the more traditional collectibles review, don’t forget to check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, or follow me on Twitter for regular review updates.

As a card carrying geek in good standing with the association, I’m a huge fan of technology. I’m an engineer by education, and I was working with computers when they still took up entire rooms. I tend to be what the marketing types like to call an early adopter, especially when it comes to technology related to entertainment.

E-books and e-book readers were touted as the next great thing that would change the face of the world more than a decade ago. And as you might have noticed, books haven’t disappeared. I was one of those people who thought that e-books didn’t stand a chance, not because the technology sucked, but because of thousands of years of inherited instinct. We’ve been reading books an awfully long time, and there’s a special bond between a reader and the tome he reads. Early proponents of e-books seemed to dismiss that human instinct and desire for the printed page, right up to their failure in the market.

So years went by, and I didn’t own an e-book reader. Various models popped up and disappeared, as well as various technologies to make reading e-books easier on computers and portable devices. And I avoided them all. Until the Kindle.

My sweet, adorable, loving wife bought me a Kindle 2 for my recent birthday. However, it was not a total surprise, as I’d been requesting such a gift since last summer. Maybe it was the cool look. Maybe it was the ability to get new reading material instantly, any where, any time. Maybe those marketing types had finally just wore me down. In any event, I was ready to give it a personal shot.

I’ve had my Kindle 2 for a couple weeks now, and have already bought 5 books for it. I even bought one newspaper, largely to see how it handled such a beast. I’ve read it in various lighting situations, and in various places, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Let’s start with the design and ergonomics. The overall reader is about 8″ tall and just over 5″ wide, making it book-sized. However, it’s only about a third of an inch thick, making it Christian Bale in the Machinist skinny. To add to the impression of thinness, they’ve beveled and rounded the sides, tapering them down at the very edge. The Kindle weighs in at about 10 ounces, which is more heft than you’d think. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not heavy, but having the 10 ounces in such a thin device does give you the impression that you’re holding something sturdy and substantial, not something cheap and easily broken.

The screen is 6 inches on the diagonal, and is certainly large enough. As a fast reader, I find myself flipping pages quickly, but said flipping happens with great speed, so there’s no delay or interruption in the flow of the book.

There aren’t a lot of buttons on the front of the Kindle 2. There’s two large buttons on the left and right edges, both designed to move to the Next Page. Why two instead of just one on the right? Well, first you’re forgetting the lefties out there, and second, having the main button on both edges means you can hold the book in only one hand and still flip pages, and that hand can shift back and forth as you change physical positions. Hey, I shift around when I’m reading, and I found the two buttons very useful. Above the Next Page button on the left is a smaller Previous Page button (which does the obvious), and above the Next Page button on the right is a Home button.

The Home button takes you to your home page, where there’s a listing of all the books, papers, magazines and blogs that you have on the reader, and allows you to archive content or delete it. Jumping away from a book at any time to the Home page or another book does not lose your place, by the way.

Also on the right, near the bottom, are two more buttons and a control ‘stick’. The top button is your method for accessing the Menu, where you can shop the Kindle store wirelessly, along with a ton of features like annotating, bookmarking, copying text, etc. These features vary based on where you are, and I’ll cover these additional features more in a minute. The bottom button is a simple Back function, and it functions anywhere just like you’d expect.

The Kindle 2 does not have a touch screen. I’m good with that – I really don’t need to smudge up the screen constantly, especially when I’m trying to read with it. But some of the menu functions I mentioned require a cursor to be on the text, so that you can highlight passages or add notes. The control stick can be used to move said cursor, or to move any cursor (for example, the cursor in a Search box in the Kindle Store) to the left, right, up and down. Likewise it can move you through various menus, and by pushing it, you can select particular options.

Across the bottom of the Kindle is a keypad with the usual alphabetic characters as well as a couple of the most used symbol characters. There’s actually a ‘sym’ button mixed in there for the less used symbols, a delete key, a space bar…the usual suspects. This keyboard is useful for searches, notes, annotations, etc.

There’s one little key mixed in with the keyboard that’s very important, particularly if you’re an old fart who refuses to use bifocals, like me. It’s labeled “Aa”, and pressing it brings up a screen that you can use to alter the size of the typeface. The default font is right in the center, and you can up the size (as I did), or shrink it down, for you punk ass kids with your eagle eyes and complicated shoes.

The use of these various buttons, menus and functions is extremely clear and straight forward. In the first two weeks, I haven’t referred to the user manual for any thing – the interface is that intuitive. The manual is available right on the Kindle of course, but most folks won’t need it to get started.

Getting started means buying your first book, newspaper, or magazine, and to do that you have a couple options. There are two key features that I think separate the Kindle from all previous e-books, and the first and foremost of those is the ability to get content any time, any where, over a 3G wireless network. This network access is free, at least in the sense of no monthly bills or additional charges once you’ve bought your Kindle. If you are wondering about the network coverage, Amazon has a coverage map right here. Can you read me now?

I can attest to the speedy nature of the downloads. I bought Dan Simmons’ new book, Drood, and it’s a long book…and I had it within 30 seconds. The beauty is that you can order the books from the Kindle itself, or on your computer and they get downloaded instantly. When you ‘register’ your Kindle, you tell it what your Amazon account name is. This links your Kindle directly to your Amazon account, using the CC you have on file for the purchases. It’s one click buying on your computer too, and is a fast, simple process.

Being able to get content this way is a key feature that sets this e-book reader apart. Now I can be sitting at a restaurant for lunch, and grab today’s copy of USA Today to keep myself occupied. An unexpected delay at the airport, doctor’s office, or any other situation can be turned into a chance to start a new book, without having to have the forethought to have bought it in advance. How great is that? No longer will us bookworms be forced into uncomforable conversations with the strangers around us.

There’s plenty of content to choose from too, and much of it is absolutely free. Amazon has over 260,000 books available right now, and like I said, I had no trouble finding Dan Simmons’ new book…or Michael J. Fox’s new book…or his old one, for that matter. New books are usually $9.99, up to 50% cheaper than what you’d pay for the hardcover. Older books are even less expensive, often just two or three dollars, and I picked up Wind in the Willows to read to my kids for just eighty cents. Many classics are absolutely free! And don’t worry about accidently deleting a book off your Kindle. Amazon keeps a backed up record of all the books you’ve downloaded, so you can always download them again for free.

The Kindle 2 can store up to 1500 books. That translates to a lifetime of reading, or about 1 book every two weeks for 70 years. You could read e-books your entire life, and never delete the old content. Of course, you know that’s not going to happen, which is part of the issue with an e-book reader. When you buy an actual paper book, you have something you can keep your whole life (short of fire, flood or your dog chewing it up). But as time has passed, I’ve figured out that there aren’t many books I actually WANT to keep. Oh, I’m a packrat, so I end up with more than I really need, stored in boxes in an attic, garage or basement, and finally ending up in a garage sale. It’s taken me awhile to get to this point, but I’m fine with the concept of electronic media being my only copy of a new bestseller.

However, most folks aren’t going to want to ditch their electronic copies of their books every few years when the next great reader comes out. Amazon has that covered, by providing the back up service I mentioned above. Since they’ll always let you re-download a book you’ve purchased, I can see them using that as a method of getting you to upgrade to the next Kindle. Buy the latest and greatest reader from them, and all your old Kindle content can be downloaded to it again!

Another big drawback is that you can’t share your copy with your friends. There’s no way to simply hook up a USB stick and drop the book on for your friends to read, and you know what…I can live with that too. If you’re in the habit of loaning out your books, you might not agree. But as far as I’m concerned, buy your own damn copy. And get the hell off my lawn, while you’re at it.

One area where I think e-book readers like the Kindle have real potential is college text books. The Kindle 2 allows you to highlight and annotate passages, cut sections of text out, make notes, and do all that sort of stuff the average poor college student is forced to do. But instead of being forced to pay $40 for some crappy used copy of a text book that was owned previously by some anal moron that highlighted every other paragraph and doodled love poems to their latest drunken conquest in the margins, they could have their own copy for just ten bucks, nice and clean and ready for their own virtual yellow highlighter. And the authors and publishers of college text books would be happy too, since they’d be getting a piece of ALL text book sales, instead of losing a huge hunk of the income to the used book market.

This ability to annotate, book mark and notate is something that only an e-copy allows. Another feature that can only exist in the electronic world is searching. Kindle’s search function will allow you to find a phrase, character, or word across your entire library of downloaded books. Lets say you’re a fan of Stephen King, and have all his books on your Kindle. You are reading his Kindle only novella, UR, and you know he’s used the term ‘low men’ before in describing the same type of characters…but in what other books? The search function will find them all for you instantly.

Amazon also has a free feature to convert your own documents to the Kindle. Let’s say Bob in Accounting has just sent you a huge Word document you need to read this weekend, but you don’t want to lug your laptop to your kid’s baseball game. You email the doc to a specific Amazon email address, and they convert it to a Kindle usable file. For a small fee (ten cents) they’ll also transfer it directly to your Kindle over the wireless network, or if you’re really a cheap bastard like me, for free they’ll send it to your regular email address, and you can hook up your Kindle through it’s USB port and download it yourself.

Another new feature with the Kindle 2 is the ability to read a book to you. You can choose between a male or female voice, and alter the speed a bit as well. However, don’t go thinking this feature will put any book-on-tape actors out work any time soon. While it’s not as robotic as WOPR, but it does have some trouble with inflection with longer words, and lacks any sort of emotion. The speakers are clear and well placed however, and their inclusion means that you can download audio books from Audible.com, and listen to them through your Kindle, either with the speakers or with headphones.

I mentioned early in the review that there were two features that make this e-book reader stand out. One is clearly the wireless connection. What’s the other? Why, the single most important feature of any e-book reader – the display.

Most readers feature a backlit display. Yep, you can read a book on your iPhone with an iApp, and you get iStrain. One of the main reasons is the backlighting. Staring at a bright screen with black text is hard on the eyes, especially when you’re reading for long periods. A computer monitor can be tough enough on your eyes, but when you’re browsing web pages and playing games, your eyes are bouncing around, getting updated images quickly. When you’re reading, you’re simply staring at text – do that for an hour, and you’ll quickly start to feel that tell tale headache behind your forehead.

The Kindle 2 is NOT backlit. Of course, that means you can’t read it in the dark without a light, just like a regular book (and yes, I’ve heard some people complain about this), but it also means that the page not only looks much more like an actual piece of paper with black type on it, but it treats your poor eyes the same way too. I read for 3 1/2 hours last Sunday at my daughter’s gymnastics meet, and didn’t have any trouble. Because there is no backlighting, and holding the ink on the screen requires no real power, the only real power use is when you’re flipping pages or using various functions. That means the battery lasts an extremely long time, and the Kindle doesn’t heat up no matter how long you’re using it. The screen itself allows no glare, so you can read in any sort of direct light including sunlight without any of the usual problems. While all the other features of an electronic book are fantastic – downloads, searching, bookmarking, etc. etc. etc. – they wouldn’t have any appeal if they hadn’t solved the simple issue of making the screen simulate an actual page. I think that Amazon’s ‘electronic ink’ technology has solved that basic issue, allowing all the other features to become the focus.

There’s lots of other features here, including an experimental web browser, a pre-loaded dictionary that can instantly tell you the meaning of words in the text, wireless access to Wikipedia, the ability to zoom in and out on images (yes, it can handle images, although they are rendered in 16 shades of gray), the ability to sync with your iPhone, and much, much more. But the key purpose here is to read books, and that’s what you’ll be doing for hours with this reader.

So am I happy with it? Yea, if that isn’t obvious. Rememer, I’m one of those bookworms who never believed I’d be able to give up the feel of a novel in my hands. And now it’s going to be the mighty rare book that I buy that isn’t on my Kindle 2.

Because Amazon has solved the riddle of eye strain with their new electronic ink technology, you can get past that issue and focus on the pros and cons of electronic media versus print. With print, you can share the book, have it on your shelf, and throw it at the cat. You can treat it as poorly as you’d like, and not feel too bad about it. You can’t do those things with an electronic copy (at the price of a Kindle, I wouldn’t recommend throwing your own at anything or anyone…but if it’s you’re boyfriends, and you just caught him cheating with that tramp at the coffee shop, then chucking his Kindle at him will be far more satisfying than any paper book) but you can do oh so much more. So are e-books and readers like the Kindle going to change the face of the print world? Yes, yes they are. Oh, they won’t do it overnight, but I suspect that it’s going to seem that way once we hit the tipping point.

You can get your Kindle 2 from Amazon for $359. Yep, I said it wasn’t cheap, but considering the price of hardcover books these days, it’s not going to take too many downloads before the reader pays for itself. And besides…there’s a price to be paid for being an early adopter

I think that sometimes franchises like Stargate don’t get all the credit they deserve. The big boys like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Terminator end up grabbing all the glory, while work horses like Stargate just keep plugging along, making money and giving fans what they’re looking for.

Hey, they must be doing something right. The 1994 film has spawned the very successful television shows Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, the animated show Stargate Infinity, several direct to DVD films, a comic book series, several novels, and a whole gaggle of video games. The franchise isn’t at an end yet, with another announced new series (called Stargate Universe) in the planning stages, and another potential direct to DVD movie in the works.

Of course, with all those movies, shows and games out there, collectibles are a no brainer. There have been a fair number produced, including a great line of action figures by Diamond Select Toys. The latest collectible based on the franchise has just been released by Quantum Mechanix. They’ve produced a scale model of the F-302 Fighter, first seen in the season 6 episode Redemption. This ship is key in the later seasons of the show, and Qmx has re-produced it in small scale to exacting detail.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my regular collectibles review site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. Let’s check out the fighter!

Stargate SG-1: The F-302 Strategic Fighter/Interceptor

You can get more info on this ship at the QMX website, where you can also pick up some of their other cool products and prop replicas. This F-302 is a limited edition, and only 2500 were produced. It runs $120 direct from Qmx.

Packaging – ***
The packaging is fairly straight forward. It’s a box, and you know I like boxes. They store easily, and there’s really no wasted space or material here. The interior foam tray holds the ship and base safely, so the package does job one quite well.

The box lacks a window to see the ship you’re buying, but your purchase is likely to be online. What sets this apart for me is not the box itself, but the included Certificate of Authenticity, which is very attractive, and contains background info on the ship and the release.

Sculpting – ***1/2
It’s important to note that this is a tiny ship. The photos aren’t going to tell you that, with the exception of the final shot that shows the ship with two 3 3/4″ action figures, but it’s important to remember, because close up photos will always show some issues. You need to remember that the entire ship is only 8″ across, so the small paint and sculpt details you are seeing are quite tiny.

Considering the scale, the level of detail is quite impressive. Areas where mechanical sections exist have the appropriate tubing, ribs, sharp lines, and technical details that you’d expect on the actual ship. Some of these details are sculpted as part of the larger piece, but many are individual pieces attached to the main body, adding to the realism.

The ship comes with a base designed to look like a section of the flight deck. The ship can attach to this base with a clear plastic rod, or it can be removed from the base so you can fly it around the room. Just make sure to make appropriate whooshing sounds, even if that wouldn’t be scientifically correct.

My one complaint with the sculpt is that the plastic landing gear can be a bit warped. My front gear is tilted slightly off to the left, and not lined up perfectly straight. I’m going to try using some hot water to soften it and reposition it (wish me luck!), but that’s not something I expect to have to do (or risk) at this price point.
[ad#contestbox]
Paint – ***1/2
They’ve complimented the sculpt with a great hand painted finish, including many other minor details on the ship. Some of these are tampos of course, but the work is very clean and neat, and includes warning placards and various regulation markings, just like the real dea.

They’ve also used the paint to simulate a metallic appearance, as well as wear and age in some places. This works particularly well on the underside, where the torpedos and guns are present.

Design – ***1/2
This ship has the ability to hover, and they’ve used that to their advantage with the design. The ship is lifting off from the flight deck, with the landing gear just starting to raise into the ship. It’s an interesting concept, and certainly one that hasn’t been done too many times in the past.

Value – *1/2
At $120, this is not a model for the weak of heart (or light of wallet). They’re targeting the serious (or crazy…is there really any difference with any fan of any property?) Stargate SG-1 fan here, and folks in that mindset probably won’t bat an eye at the sticker. However, comparing it to other items on the market of similar quality, size and materials, it’s still a pretty hefty price tag.

Things to Watch Out For –
Not much. The little landing gear can be a bit brittle, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to display it resting solely on them for any extended period. I’m betting they end up wilting if you do, so stick with the included display stand.

Overall – ***
I really like the attention to detail, and the fine sculpt and paint work here. Fans of the show will appreciate the finer points, and take pleasure in pointing them out to their friends and captives.

For me, the high price tag pulls the overall down a bit, but if money isn’t an issue for you when it comes to Stargate SG-1, then the overall quality will boost your score higher.

Quantum Mechanix is producing some nice product right now, and I look forward to their next release. They had solicited a prop replica of the petrified hand from the Creature from the Black Lagoon at one point, but had to cancel it. As a huge Creature fan, I certainly mourn the loss.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***1/2
Sculpting – ***1/2
Paint – ***1/2
Design/Quality – ***1/2
Value – *1/2
Overall – ***

Where to Buy –
Your best bet is direct from QMX at their website.

Related Links –
When it comes to Qmx, I covered their Firefly replica stunt pistol awhile back. If you’re more of a Stargate fan, check out my reviews of the Atlantis figures from DST, as well as series 1, series 2 and series 3 of DST’s SG-1 figures.

DC Direct has been extremely successful with their line of 6 – 7″ scaled statues based on Batman, done up in moody black and white paint schemes. The Batman Black and White series has given us Bats based on the artwork of artists old and new, classic and contemporary, and DCD knows they’ve got a good thing here. But how do you try to make it better? Why not move into Bat villains!

His Rogue’s Gallery is large and famous, but I doubt they had much trouble deciding who would get the monochromatic treatment first. It’s his arch nemesis of course, The Joker. More will come, including the Penguin, but the clown prince makes perfect sense as the first non-Batman statue in the series.

For the artist, they selected Jim Lee’s rendition from the Hush story line. Sculpted by James Shoop, the statue will run you around $60 or so at most online dealers. Your LCS experience could differ greatly, since the SRP is $75.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or head over to my site at Michael’s Review of the Week for lots more collectibles reviews.

Batman: Black and White – The Joker

Packaging – **1/2
Hey, it’s a box. Unfortunately, the box has no window, so you won’t be able to see your specific statue till you get it home. That means any issues with paint are a crap shoot. That’s not new for this series, as all the statues have been boxed this way, but it’s still disappointing for me.

There’s no Certificate of Authenticity, but they did print the edition number and size on the bottom. The Joker is limited to 5500, which is not much of a limit.

Sculpting – ***1/2
This statue is based on the classic look from the Hush series, with the wild eyed and clearly insane Joker posed with his ‘bang’ gun. This is one of the more detailed sculpts we’ve gotten in the series, because the face and hair of the Joker allow for much sharper and extreme work than the rather staid Batman.

Comparing this to the previous DCD action figure based on the same art, I’d say they’ve done a better job here capturing the comic representation. It’s a little extreme, but I think that’s something the overall Batman Black and White series needs.

He stands just shy of 6 inches tall with the base, and fits in nicely with the rest of the series. There has already been a Jim Lee Batman, and this statue goes fairly well with him.

Paint – ***
While the sculpting is strong, the paint is a bit on the sloppy side. Fortunately, the eyes are done quite well, and I like the choices of blacks, whites and grays that they used to translate this character into this color (or lack thereof) format. They’ve also mixed the finishes again, with some high gloss black on the lapels, but a matte finish most everywhere else.

But they did get a bit wild with the paints here, and you can see pretty obvious slop on the teeth (the big discolored round spot dead center on his lower teeth is really annoying), and the white of the face is dirtier and grayer than I’d like. I’d prefer a brighter, more consistent white on the face and hands, more like the package photo.

Design/Quality – ***
The first thing worth noting about the design is that the figure is permanently attached to the base, something that is usually not the case with this series. I suspect that this was done to avoid damaging the feet or the thin ‘bang’ flag.

My only complaint about the design is one that could have also been put in the sculpting section, but since I’ve lumped ‘quality’ in here, I’m including it in this category.

The positioning of the gun and flag makes it appear as though the barrel is bent, warped toward the front. In fact, it is slightly bent, but it’s really the design that exaggerates this bend.

Value – **
The price on these went up a year or so ago to an SRP of $75, which translates to $60 – $65 at most retailers. I’m not sure they’ve done any that really rate that kind of price, especially considering that Gentle Giant is still able to produce their mini-busts at around $45.

Shop around, and you might be able to get this closer to $50 (or perhaps on ebay), and at that price you can add another half star.

Things to Watch Out For –
Nothing you wouldn’t expect. Obviously, he’s breakable – he’s a resin statue, duh – but there’s nothing particularly weak or fragile here.

Overall – ***
This is a decent first villain entry in the series, but it could have been even better with a bit more care on the paint. Had the paint ops been as solid as the sculpt, I would have been more inclined to ignore the high price and awarded this crazed clown another half star overall.

If you have the Jim Lee Batman in this series, I highly recommend picking this one up, paint issues aside. They make a great set together, and pay a nice tribute to Lee’s ability.

Where to Buy –
Online retailers include:

– Alter Ego Comics has him for $63.75.

– Urban Collector has a great price at just $56.

– Things From Another World has him priced at $60.

– Entertainment Earth has him at $63.

– for the UK collectors, Forbidden Planet has it in stock for 50 GBP.

– CornerStoreComics has him at $60 as well.

– or you can always search ebay.

Related Links –
I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Batman Black and White statue:

– most recent was the Ethan Van Sciver version.

– before that was the Aparo, which I wasn’t all that keen on.

– prior to that, there was the Neal Adams and George Perez versions, the Gotham Knight, Bob Kane, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Matt Wagner, Mike Mignola, and Kelley Jones.

– and it’s worth nothing that DCD also did an action figure several years ago based on this appearance.

Who’s watching the Watchmen? If you’re Warner Brothers, you’re hoping just about everyone. The film has gone through it’s share of complex issues, but it’s finally hitting the big screen on March 6th. I don’t know about you, but I’ll have my butt in the IMAX theater Friday night.

Since this is a DC property, it should be no surprise that the product coming out in conjunction is from DC Direct. They’re producing action figures in a psuedo 7 inch scale and a psuedo sixth scale, as well as busts and prop replicas. I’m checking out two of the first four action figures tonight – Rorschach and Nite Owl. The other two in this wave are the modern Silk Spectre and Ozymandias, reviewed over at Michael’s Review of the Week.

You can pick these guys (and girls) up for around $17 or so, depending on the retailer of course. That’s a pretty hefty chunk of change, but I have some suggestions in the Where to Buy section that have the full set of four at just fifty bucks, or just $12.50 each. If you have any questions or comments, drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my website at Captain Toy – Michael’s Review of the Week.

Watchmen series 1 – Nite Owl and Rorschach

Series 1 has been out for a week or two, and series 2 (with the Comedian, original Silk Spectre, original Nite Owl, and Dr Manhattan) has been hitting as well. There are also three variants that will be showing up at your LCS: a translucent Dr. Manhattan, old school Comedian, and unmasked Rorschach.

Packaging – Rorschach ***1/2, Nite Owl ***
Hey, they’re boxes. And the best part is they not only look great, and store easily for the MiBers, but they are also collector friendly. You can pull the figures out and just have to deal with a couple twisties – no need to actually damage the box or inserts in any way. That’s not true for the Ozy or Nite Owl figures, where the stand is blister sealed to the interior cardboard tray, but it is true for Rorschach and Silk Spectre. I don’t quite understand why they designed two this way and two the other way, but it may have something to do with the capes getting in the way.

Sculpting – Nite Owl ***1/2; Rorschach ***
This entire line exhibits great sculpts, with lots of good detail, and what appears to be a good match to the on screen counterparts. Of course, that’s tough to tell based on just poster photos and a few movie stills, but they’ve certainly captured the look of the costumes. The detail work on the Nite Owl outfit is excellent, but he does suffer from a slightly soft sculpt on his facial features. He’s the largest figure in this wave, standing about 6 3/4″ tall.

Rorschach is the smallest of the set, as he was in the comic. He stands about 6 1/4″ tall, a full half inch shorter than Nite Owl (and Ozymandias). He’s also the least articulated, so his sculpted pose is the most critical. That’s where he loses a half star for me.

The other figures in the line have a ball jointed neck to allow them to tilt, turn, and swivel. These joints work great on all the others, but for some reason DCD decided NOT to give Rorschach the same neck. Now, there might be a ball buried down there, but the neck works pretty much as a straight cut joint, allowing it to turn from side to side. Clearly, DCD knew that this was a shortcoming, since Rorschach tends to tilt his head…to compensate for it, they sculpted his head tilted. Yep, it’s sculpted in that tilted pose. Which means it looks good in only that one pose. Why did they do this? I have no idea.

Add to this the odd walking pose they went with on the legs, and I’m not feeling it. The sculpted details are still good, and I like the look of the masked face, but the figure is basically a statue, and the selected pose really ain’t doing it for me.

Paint – ***
The paint work is fairly clean, although at this price point it certainly should be. There’s some minor issues here and there, particularly with some gloppiness on Nite Owl’s face and a few fuzzy cut lines here and there, but it’s certainly B work.

The one aspect of the paint job that really does stand out though is the rorschach ‘stain’ on Rorschach’s mask. It’s extremely well done, nicely centered, and looks terrific.

Articulation – Nite Owl **1/2; Rorschach *1/2
None of these figures is super articulated, but Nite Owl is much like Ozymandias and Silk Spectre, with better articulation than you might expect from DCD. He has a great ball jointed neck, as well as ball jointed shoulders that have a reasonably good range of movement. There’s single pin elbows and knees, T hips, and cut wrists. No, no cut waist…but then this is DC Direct we’re talking about.

Rorschach doesn’t fair as well as the rest of the series. As I mentioned in the sculpting section, he only has a cut neck joint. With the head sculpted in a tilt, it looks a bit weird in all but one pose. He lacks the ball jointed shoulders too, instead having simple cut joints. There’s single pin elbows and cut wrists, but there is no knee joint, and the legs are simply cut at the thigh were they meet the coat.

Accessories – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
None of the figures have a ton of stuff, but at least these two add one extra to the mix.

Each figure in the series comes with a small base. These bases have three holes in them, placed evenly across the surface. Two small pegs can be inserted from the bottom to allow the figures to stand on them, but the figures only have a hole in one foot each. Unfortunately, since the holes are evenly spaced, a character like Rorschach ends up standing in an off center way on the base no matter which hole is used.

Each figure also comes with a little bracket that appears to be designed to attach the bases to each other. At least that what it looks like to me – the packaging doesn’t bother to explain.

That’s all that Ozy and Silk Spectre have, but Rorschach includes his cool gun and an extra right hand to hold it, while Nite Owl has his version of the batarang that can attach to his belt. Is it an owlarang? Unfortunately, he can’t hold it particularly well in his hand, and it tends to fall off his belt, but as long as you can keep it in place, it looks fine.

I had some issues swapping hands on Rorschach, and ended up needing some hot water to do the job. The posts are very weak plastic, so twisting them or pulling them if they are stuck could result in tearing the hand off.

His gun looks great, but I did have some trouble getting it to stay in his hand. It’s not impossible, but it will take a little effort, and it tends to fall out once in place.

Fun Factor – **
These aren’t really designed for kids, even if Toys R Us is carrying them. It’s an R rated movie, starring characters that kids will have no background on. If one or two were gruesome and hideous, kids might enjoy them just for the monster effect, but these will just look like generic superheroes to them.

Value – *1/2
These figures will run you at least $17 if you buy the singles. At that price, you arent’ getting much – a 7″ plastic statue (albeit a good looking one) without much in the way of accessories. If you want the whole wave though, I have some suggetsions in the Where to Buy section that get the price down to about $12.50 each, which would get these up another star or so in the rating.

Things to Watch Out For –
I had issues with Rorschach’s right hand – the one that’s supposed to swap. Even twisting it was questionable, and the pegs on these are made from a fairly soft plastic. Rather than risk tearing one, just use hot water (which is what I did this time), or the old ‘freezer trick’ to free them up.

Overall – Nite Owl ***; Rorschach **1/2
Nite Owl turned out good, if a tad too statuesque for my tastes. Considering the high price point on these figures, they need something extra, either in accessories or articulation. Without it, I really can’t give Nite Owl better than three stars overall.

Rorschach doesn’t fair quite as well for me. He’s not awful, and I think the painted mask and head sculpt look great. But once again, at this price point I’m expecting that they step up their game, and I really dislike the sculpted tilt to the neck. If you’re cool with the concept that he’s pretty much a statue, and if you like the sculpted pose, then you’ll be much happier than I.

Score Recap:
Packaging – ***
Sculpting – Nite Owl ***1/2; Rorschach ***
Paint – ***
Articulation – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
Accessories – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
Fun Factor – **
Value – *1/2
Overall – Nite Owl ***; Rorschach **1/2

Where to buy –
These are hitting some retailers, like Toys R Us (shocking!), but they aren’t cheap there. Even with shipping, your best bet might be some of the online retailers:

– Urban Collector has the singles for $17 each, but you can get teh case of 4 for just $50.

– Alter Ego Comics has series 1 or series 2 available for $55 for the set of four.

– Corner Store Comics has the singles for $15 – $18, depending on the figure, or the set of four for $55.

– Things From Another World has all the singles, including variants, for about $20 each.

– Clark Toys has the sets of four for $62.

– or you can search ebay using sponsor MyAuctionLinks.

Related Links –
I have a review of the other two figures in this first series, the modern Silk Spectre and Ozymandias, over at my site.

When it comes to unique and unusual collectibles, you can’t beat the uber-cool rayguns from Weta. You know Weta, the guys that did the props and designs for the Lord of the Rings films, as well as King Kong. George Lucas has Lucasfilms, Peter Jackson has Weta.

One of their very cool lines is the Dr. Grordbort’s Rayguns. Based on the general concept of the old time science fiction guns of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, these are all original designs that use proper materials to make as realistic of a gun as possible, short of being able to disintegrate your enemies. All that realism costs though, and the usual full size raygun will run you any where from $700 for the Manmelter pistol, to $4500 for the Blunderbuss.

For those of us barely avoiding being committed by our families, buying one of these would be one step too far. But Weta has come up with an alternateive, ‘mini-rayguns’ that are identical in design to the big boys, but only 1/4 the size (and not nearly as complex). There have been two released at past SDCC events: the mini Manmelter from 2007, and the Goliathan at SDCC 2008. The Manmelter is long sold out, but you can still pick up the Goliathan from their site, as well as the newest in the series, the F.M.O.M. Wave Disrupter Gun.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I’ll post info on new stuff, as well as links to new reviews.

F.M.O.M. Wave Disrupter Gun

If you’re a fan of the quarter scale Star Wars weapons that Gentle Giant produced, then these little buggers will be right up your alley. Weta doesn’t make a ton of these, and this version is limited to just 900.

Packaging – ***1/2
These come in excellent boxes, with great graphics done in a cool retro style. The gun itself is wrapped and packed tight to help avoid damage, but you’ll want to unpack it VERY carefully. You could end up damaging it just by removing the several twisty ties.

Sculpting – ****
These sculpts are all quite intricate, with fine wires, tubes, and doohickeys everywhere. Many of these small pieces are quite fragile, made from soft metal. The entire gun is made from metal, actually, with quite a bit of heft and weight to it. The scale works well with varioius quarter scale figures too, although it’s heavy enough to make it tough for them to hold it upright. The gun is about 3″ long, small enough to fit entirely in the palm of your hand.

Paint – ***1/2
I’m not sure if ‘paint’ is the right word, since the gun has a unique finish that makes it appear old and worn. There’s even some fake rust in a few spots, as though it’s owner hasn’t been keeping it clean between uses.

There are additional paint details too, on various wires and tubes. There’s even a small white dial, although on very close inspection you can see that the detail is a bit weak. Still, to the nekkid eye, it looks pretty damn good.

Design/Quality – ****
All metal? How can you go wrong! As I said, the gun designs themselves are all extremely unique, and yet they capture that 30’s sci-fi serials feel perfectly. I think I might like the Goliathan just a little better than the F.M.O.M., but that’s more a matter of artistic taste than basic quality or design.

There’s also a metal stand included which holds the gun up in a perfect position for display on your shelf. The style and color of the stand matches with the gun, and it includes the name of the weapon on the base.

Value – **
Yes, these are really cool, no doubt about it. But they aren’t cheap, even the little guys. Sixty bucks might not seem like a lot, but let’s keep in mind that these are only 3″ long – not exactly a huge hunk of metal. The first mini-raygun was $30, which was a much more appropriate price. I can even see $40, but $60? That’s a slight stretch.

Things to Watch Out For –
As I mentioned earlier, the gun has lots of soft metal tiny pieces that can easily be bent or broken off. Be especially careful when taking the gun out of the box for the first time. All the packing material keeps it safe in shipping, but if you’re too impatient it can also cause its own brand of damage.

Overall – ***1/2
Hey, I’ll admit it – I love these little guys. I’d love to have one of the full scale versions, but I already sold a kidney to afford my Hot Toys habit. I’m smart enough to know that a herion addict shouldn’t take up crack as a second hobby, so I’ll be sticking with the little versions.

Where to Buy –
Your best bet is the Weta site, where it can be had for about $60 US.

Related Links:
I looked at the Goliathan last year.