Jabba's Palace

Jabba's Palace Adventure Set

Hasbro Walmart Exclusive

So Hasbro throws a bone to those of us that didn't fall for their Sail Barge hostage gambit.  It is a great consolation prize.  A new playset that isn't made of cardboard?! (Hasbro, you're all over the map here.)  Awesome!

For $50 you get three sculpted walls of Jabba's Palace.  This is great for all the 3 3/4'' fans who have amassed a slew of palace denizens over decades of collecting.  The paint looks appropriately weathered and sandy (it gets everywhere).  The back side of the main wall leaves a bit to be desired as far as detail, but the smaller walls, though hollowed, do have some fake tech and other bits sculpted into them.

The main wall has some nice "metal" grates and two taxidermy animal heads on display.  The Tauntaun head is spot on.  Not sure if this is a completely new sculpt, or if they chopped the head off an old one and called it a day. (The newest tauntaun I have is from the "Power of the Force 2" days.)

  

The Jerba head is an all-new sculpt, because we've never had a fully rendered jerba figure before.  Wait...it's called a "jerba?"  I actually had to look that up.  Well, I'll be!  It's in a background shot of "A New Hope!"  Not very grand of Jabba to display one of Tatooine's several common equivalents of a camel.  I mean, the tauntaun being from a foreign, icy clime is pretty exotic for a desert world, and the Rancor is definitely out of it's element.  Maybe there's a story behind it, like it belonged to a rival crime lord that was one of Jabba's first hits.  Perhaps it was used in a manner like the horse head scene in Godfather Part II?

The wall is also home to Jabba's favorite display piece, Han Solo in Carbonite.  Yes, included in the price is a vintage-carded Han with arm shackles and a separate carbonite slab.  The sculpts are decent, but only one side of the slab has paint detail and freed Han has a sloppy hairline.  And like most Han and Indiana Jones figures, maybe not the best Harrison Ford likeness we've seen.  The slab has a magnet inside so you can activate the playset's only action feature.  It sticks in place and can be raised or lowered an inch by way of a switch on the back of the wall.  Far from exciting, but it is a small detail that's nice to have.  Gotta give Leia a break there...she's so short, after all.

But wait, there's more!  You get a vintage carded Ree-Yees figure.    I really didn't need a more articulated Ree-Yees (having the 5-points of articulation POTF2 Ree AND his Star Tours repack), but he is quite nice.  Thanks to a bad Toyfare magazine gag (comic-paneled shots of toys that were a precursor to Robot Chicken), I cannot hear the name Ree-Yees without it being followed by the band Heart breaking into the chorus of "These Dreams."  "Ree-Yeeeeees goes on when I close my eye-ey-ey-ey-eyes!"

So there you have it.  $50 for a nice display piece/play set with two carded figures inside.  Not too shabby.  The outer packaging is all nice and vintage too, but what a dilemma for mint-on-card collectors...how are you gonna know what condition the figures inside are in, let alone that they are actually in there without cracking it open?  How much do you trust Hasbro?  Anyway, I picked this one up via preorder on Walmart.com but it has come and gone.  Good luck in finding this at your local Walmarts!  Ugh...isn't being an aging 3 3/4" Star Wars collector fun?

Batman Forever

Batman Forever

DC Multiverse - Mattel

So, DC Multiverse has a sub-line with random selections from DC's past live-action endeavors.  I assume the picking and choosing has to do with which actor's rights come the cheapest.  So you get a Linda Carter, but no Christopher Reeve.  Heath Ledger, but no Jack Nicholson.  Danny DeVito, but no Michael Keaton.  It's frustrating, and now even more pointless to jump into these with Mattel closing shop on DC.  I picked up this Val Kilmer Batman on clearance from Gamestop...why not?

You barely get enough Kilmer here in the mouth area, so I hope they didn't spend a bundle for him.  Or maybe they just bungled the execution...sculpt lines are very soft.  The real problem here is that the head articulation ruins the movie look.  It's more of a separate headpiece like the Christian Bale, Dark Knight suit than the movement-limiting cylinders from the Burton productions.  It also makes the head look a bit small to me.  At least the rest of the suit looks good...wait a minute...

WHERE ARE THE BAT-NIPPLES?!  Ugh, the one detail in this suit that was subject to controversy and ridicule so many years ago is missing?!  Everyone remembers the horribly gratuitous suiting up shots from the Schumacher films...how can you screw that up?  Why even do this figure?!  Mattel is notoriously inconsistent in the male nipple department.  Masters of the Universe Classics get nipples, but not superheroes...or even WWE wrestlers?  They're real people!  That's messed up!

And then you go and put the fine print all over the Bat-Butt?!  Where's the definition?!

Well, at least the belt and Bat-Codpiece looks to be accurate...

Silly nitpicks aside, this figure does have a lot of poseability.  The cloth cape helps, but still looks cheap to me, as most cloth accessories on action figures do.  He comes with a couple of interchangeable hands, a batarang, bat-grapnel, and a multi-functional stand.  There is a removable cardboard backdrop of what the figure is supposed to look like, a removable "flight" stand, removable foot peg options, and the bottom opens up for storage of his accessories.

It's an alright figure for nostalgia's sake, I guess.  But I would not have paid the $25 retail price for him.  If you can get him for under $15, go for it.  At the least, you've got another suit for the bat-vault that Bruce can look at and go, "what was I thinking?"

Apocalypse and Archangel

Apocalypse and Archangel

Marvel Legends - Hasbro

Save for Gladiator (the lone oddity), I covered the Apocalypse wave a little while back.  It was a great set all around, but made even better with this long-awaited update for the world's original mutant.  

The Toy Biz ML series 7 Apocalypse was great.  I didn't mind the wider, stockier take.  He looked pretty close to his first appearances in the X-books.  But when they released the giant-sized Apoc build a figure, it was like "Oh, that's how he should look," followed by "when do we get a shrunken-down version of that sculpt?"  This new figure was a long time coming... 

And he matches up with the big figure pretty well aside from shades of blue!  He's proportionally tall and wide, lines and paint are clean,  he's got all the movement he needs, and his cables are flexible and removable.  He looks great, and I'm glad to say my old Apoc found a good home courtesy of Ebay. 

Some accessories would have been nice.  Something to illustrate his shape-shifting ability.  Oh, hey there, Archangel!  What's that?  You've got the boss man covered?  Poseable claw hand!  Awesome!

And, hey, Archangel gets a fair amount of accessories himself.  As a "deluxe" offering, he comes with three alternate heads (regular unmasked, crazy unmasked, Horseman Death)  and, of course, his big-ass wings.  The wing articulation allows for some great poses and his body is capable of supporting the extra weight, unlike my old X-Men Classics version.

Get these while you can, X-fans...it will be a longer time before these come around again, I imagine.  Here's hoping that the original X-Factor lineup is headed our way!

Godzilla vs. Kong

Godzilla vs. Kong

Jakks Pacific - Lanard

Jakks has updated and rereleased their 24" Godzilla from his previous crappy movie to coincide with his newest crappy movie.  Seriously? 40% on Rotten Tomatoes?!  How could it be worse tham that bait and switch job they pulled with Bryan Cranston?!  Godzilla is now an 0-3 loser in America...Kong should have no problem whipping his scaly butt.  Oh wait...Kong is an 0-2 loser in modern cinema...just stop already!  Anyway...at least we got some cool, big figures out of this garbage.

I was so angry with that Aaron Taylor-Johnson nonsense to want anything to do with the merch last time, so I have no idea what all has changed with this big figure rerelease.  He has some speaker holes in his chest, but no sound feature, leading me to believe this time around was more cost effective.  He's not bad for $60.  His jaw opens, his head turns, his arms and legs move a bit, and his tail is super long and articulated.  The only drawbacks are the screw holes that show on both sides of his back and I wish he had included some sort of energy beam effect.  He's a big, lumbering lizard and this presentation fits that just fine.  So big that you may want to brace yourself in attempting any Jet Jaguar kicks with this thing.

Kong: Skull Island was "meh", but the birth of awesome, cheap-o toys from Lanard.  See my "Rampage" and "Primal Clash" reviews...they knock several scales of beasties out of the park!  I was lucky to pick this 18" Kong up on clearance for $9.  That's a steal, even with his limited articulation.  His legs may not move, but he can still gorilla pound Godzilla to death.

I added some challengers to demonstrate the size of these figures.  You've seen my 24" Stay Puft Marshmallow Man bank before, but not the 18" Transformers Generations Predaking!  Sorry, but Transformers take so much time to review, what with their dual forms and all.  Even worse when you have to review a big bot that splits into six smaller bots, all with their own alt. modes!  Predaking is great.  A faithful representation of the artwork/cartoon.  His size makes him a bit difficult to manipulate for play, but you can get him into some decent static poses.

Just look at that tail!  And only $60!  If you have the space for him, this Godzilla is quite the display piece.

The Real Ghostbusters

The Real Ghostbusters

Diamond Select Toys

Diamond Select wraps several years of Ghostbusters figures with a couple of waves consisting of the toon Ghostbusters and the completion of another huge diorama.  

The Real Ghostbusters is a great cartoon adaptation that still holds up today (minus the dumbed-down Slimer shows at the end of the run.)  They did a great job of capturing the heart of the characters and exploring a variety of folktales, urban legends, and greater ghost mythologies.  And Diamond did a great job nailing these adaptations in expressive head sculpts and accessories.

They do get to reuse their movie figure bodies, which isn't terrible, but may not fit some of the more exaggerated characteristics. (Ray might be a bit stockier, chubby for example.)  The packs, traps, PKE meters, belts, and uniform colors are all spot-on.  The traps do port to the side of the pack, and the clip that connects the wand is less fragile and more manageable than the movie figures.  They come with the standard "streams", but they have been recolored as a nod to the original Kenner RGB figures.  The only thing missing here is that they didn't revamp any ghost pack-ins.  Man, was there any better gimmick?  Getting a hero and a villain in one pack!

The ghosts you do get in this wave are kind of disappointing.  Slimer in his animated form may be a given, but they tried to get away with only animating his interchangeable faces.  The globs and pustules on the movie figure just don't fit the aesthetic.  I might be more forgiving had they given him some more accessories.  Heck, Slimer wielded a proton pack a couple of times in the series!

Stay Puft is actually a great little figure, but the key word here is "little." Sure, it's a throwback to the Kenner Puft with some added joint articulation but, if you're like me, you've already bought several, bigger Puft banks from Diamond as stand-ins.  I have the 11-inch bank that works with Minimates and Titans vinyls, and the 24-inch bank is as big as you could hope for to stand in with your standard action figures.  Having the big bank, I wish the slot in this wave had been used on something more unique to Real Ghostbusters like Bogeyman, Sandman, or Samhain.

No ghosts with the guys is a bummer, but you do get another piece of the Firehouse HQ exterior with each figure.  Adding to the ones from the previous Ghostbusters 2 waves, you have a big section of sidewalk, doors that open in multiple fashions, and a roughly two-story exterior.  You also have interchangeable "no-ghost" or "peace-sign" hanging signs and the option to add or remove the "hook and ladder 8" wording that is not present in the first movie.

It was a bit of a struggle to get some of the pieces together.  I sustained a nice, bloody plastic gash while working on it.  The doors on might are a little tight and take some effort to get them all closed, but other than that, it looks great.  It's not quite as impressive as the Gozer Temple diorama from the first waves, but I would regret not having it.  I wish they had included a backdrop with the firehouse interior, like they did with the temple.  If they aren't going to make an Ecto-1, they could have at least given us a flat, scale picture of it to park behind these doors.

Like I said, this set is the culmination of many waves of figures over a couple of years time.  I am sad that it's over, as Diamond did a much better job than Mattel in bringing a robust lineup and a little extra bang for the buck with the displays.  On the heels of the announcement of a true Ghosbusters 3, Diamond has announced that more ghostbusting is on it's way.  I would like to see more RBG ghosts, but am also curious to see what the new movie delivers, both on the screen and in the toy aisle.

Bucket (R1-J5)

Bucket (R1-J5)

Star Wars Resistance - Hasbro

"Resistance" isn't that difficult for me when it comes to new Star Wars media nowadays. (Thanks, Rian Johnson!)  But who doesn't love a new astromech droid every now and then?  Especially one with a very different aesthetic.  Finally, Episode 1 Threepio has a buddy for the droid nudist colony on Malastare!

I have no idea what Bucket's story is, nor do I care to know.  He looks cool and has an interesting range of motion for a small figure.  His middle "leg"  can be extended and contracted (watch out, droid nudist colony), tilting "feet", his "neck" is on a ball joint that can tilt and swivel, and he has ball-jointed "shoulders."   Shoulders on an astromech?  I guess the outer casing is movement prohibiting for fully fleshed-out droids.  It definitely gives him more expression for an animated series character.

The pilot helmet is not removable, but the guy he came packed with is.  Into the junk drawer, loser!  If you like the Resistance show (why?) or collect droids, Bucket alone is worth picking up.  He's the new co-pilot for my Star Tours Speeder!