The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer

Disney Classics

Diamond Select Toys

I love that someone at Diamond Select has a soft spot for cult, live-action Disney movies.  Tron, while delivering the goods with the core characters, stumbled with the last minute, cost saving measure of deleting the Recognizer ship pieces.  Luckily, the Rockteer is here with a $#%*-ton of accessories to save the day!

Since Funko produced a Rocketeer figure a handful of years back, I had to ask myself if I really needed this one.  Is it worth the upgrade?  Well, yes, and then some...especially if you start with Funko’s terrible quality control in using clear, brittle plastic to secure joints.  While their figure looked great, mine needed a Gorilla Glue leg to hip fusion shortly after being removed from the box.  Also, while it did come with an unmasked head, Diamond Select said “Hold my beer.”

With DST, you get the Billy Campbell head, bare hands, several sets of gloved hands (that you can actually see the pack triggering mechanisms better on), removable jet flames, a flying jet flame display base, card stock pack blueprints...and the pack is removable!  Yes, succeeding where they could not with their Ghostbusters figures, they made the pack removable with a porting uniform chest piece and pegs accessible on the rear left side of the figure.  

The new figure also looks great, and the articulation is comparable to the Funko release.  It beats the latter with double elbows, but sacrificed the double knees.  Not a big deal, as I figure bending his knees in unnatural poses would just lead to getting his calves melted off in the pack flames.  One bend and the ability to point his feet downward was all they needed to succeed.

Funko only wins in one area...and it’s a pretty big one to me.  NO GUN.  You get a gloved hand with a grip-and-trigger finger, but NO GUN.  Is it because Diamond is more of a family line?  Even if DSTs hands were tied on this, I’m glad someone felt my pain and slipped in that trigger finger.  So, thanks, broken Funko figure...yoink!  Thanks for the piece, idiot!

Apparently this figure is part of a line called Disney Classics, which sounds awesome, but is a bit of a head scratcher.  I mean, after Tron and Black Hole (coming up soon!), what else can we expect?  Does this extend to the Touchstone banner?  I would love to see a Dick Tracy line...or better yet, Roger Rabbit!  Keep em coming Diamond, puh puh puh puh please!

Go get 'em, kid!

More "Disney Classics" reviews:
Flynn - TRON
Kingdom Hearts TRON