Mekaneck - Vintage MOTU

Mekaneck was the heroic spy for the Masters of the Universe. Now this doesn't mean he's a suave British guy with cool gadgets, he's kind of a dork with a periscope for a head. By twisting Mekaneck's waist his neck automatically extends. This allows him to look over tall objects to spy on the bad guys. He is one of the few characters (like Man-at-Arms) who seems to be wearing a body suit. Most of the Masters are bare-skinned under their removable armor. Mekaneck has red and silver armor over his blue body suit. His angular helmet and goggles match his armor nicely. One of the oddest paint choices on this figure in my opinion is his silver barbarian boots. I would have had them match his fuzzy underpants.

Mekaneck shares his armor sculpt with Stinkor. Other than his head, Mekaneck has a very standard hero body. Mekaneck came with an enormous yellow club which is a unique accessory to him. Mek was one of my favorite heroes as a kid. I played with him all the time. I always wished the neck on the figure could extend a little farther. Mattel really came through on that with the MOTU Classics version of the figure.

Vampire Batman

Since this figure was announced last year at Comic Con, I've been dying to get my hands on him. Monday I stopped at my two favorite comic book stores, and there he was sitting on the shelf at the closer of the two to my house. I paid a little bit of a premium price for him at the comic shop vs Target, but it wasn't outrageous. I debated about saving him for an October post since he is horror themed, but I was too exited. My best friend's (since first grade) father is comic book writer Doug Moench. Over the years I have enjoyed reading many comics by him, but the two most exciting "releases" for me was The Knight Fall story arc of the monthly Batman book and the second Batman Vampire graphic novel, Bloodstorm. If you read my recent post "Toys that Go Bump in the Night" you probably saw my bright red Bloodstorm poster that I have hanging in my toy room. It hung next to my bed at my parents house from the time the book was published until the day I moved out of their house.

 

Vampire Batman is part of Mattel's Batman Unlimited toyline. This series has been releasing various unusual versions of Batman, often from specific stories or graphic novels. This Batman is based on the art work by Kelley Jones in the Batman Vampire books Red Rain and Bloodstorm. The figure has wings that must be attached after he is removed from the package. He has red eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. In true Kelley Jones styles his cowl features extra long ears.

 

Vampire Batman comes with one accessory, it's his vampire hunting stake featuring a nice bat-motif. I wish he could hold it a little better. His hands have a nice sculpt for making him look kind of creepy and scary, but they don't grab the stake real well.

 

Vampire Batman features a very skinny body sculpt. Helping to give him that creepy undead vibe. You can see him here next to the ultra-bulky Frank Miller style Batman from The Dark Knight Returns as well as a standard Batman. All three of these figures are from the Batman Unlimited line.

 

 

I think the figure turned out pretty well. If I had the ability to change his design, the two things I would change are his wings and cape. I think both could use to be bigger. The wings aren't to far out of scale but a little more would look nice. His cape doesn't do Kelley Jones' style justice at all. That man sometimes makes Batman's cape seem like it's a mile long. Below you can see this new figure along side the Vampire Batman statue from a few years ago. The statue got the wings and the cape right.

Weequay - Vintage Star Wars

Weequay is one of the many interesting alien characters we get a glimpse of in Jabba's Palace or on his Desert Skiffs in Return of the Jedi. This wrinkly faced desert dweller with a long dreadlock like ponytail has the honor of forcing Luke Skywalker to walk the plank. Weequay was one of the first Star Wars figures that I ever had a duplicate of as kid. I never owned a single vintage Star Wars figure straight out of the package. They were all bought at yard sales and comic shops.

By the time of Return of the Jedi, Kenner was getting a little more bold with the stances they sculpted figures in. They no longer were they all standing at attention. Weequay here, has cool posing of his arms to let him hold his vibro-axe (thingy) with two hands.  I used to equip my second Weequay with the tan whip that came with the GI Joe Croc Master. Weequay has some really nice sculpted detail. His armor is very nice, and there is tons of texture in his hair.

Legacy Megazord - Power Rangers

In celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Bandai has released a new Megazord toy. This particular toy reused molds from a previous release (mid 2000's not the 90's version). The Megazord features many die-cast parts that add a lot of weight to the figure. In true Megazord fashion, this toy is made up of 5 smaller transformable figures. The MMPR Megazord is made up of 5 Dinozords. Mastodon, Triceratops, Sabertooth Tiger, Pterodactyl, and Tyrannosaur all look good but feature very little articulation.

Check out my animated review for more details on the Dinozords and Megazord toy.

Rock 'N Roll Michaelangelo - TMNT

Rock 'N Roll Michaelangelo was released in 1989 as part of the "Wacky Action" line of Turtles that contained wind-up action features. Mikey's action feature was that his right arm would spin 360 degrees below the wrist allowing him to spin his weapons around. He came with three bright green weapons. He came with nunchukus (not pictured), which was a good thing since my original release Mikey's chucks had already broken by this point. He also came with two weirder weapons, Sewer Snakes and a Swiss-Army Sewer Cover. On the figure's side there is a little knob, disguised as a pocket on his belt, that is used to wind-up Michaelangelo's wrist.

As a kid I really loved this figure. The head sculpt featuring Mikey's tongue sticking out from between his smiling lips, which really captured his personality. I also always felt that this figure captured his likeness from the cartoon better than his original release. (Which was more based on the comics, sort of...) I eventually parted with my original RnR Michaelangelo when I sold off just about all my Turtles in Middle School. There were actually two figures photographed for this post. One came into my collection when my Mom picked up a collection of Turtles for me at a yard sale quite some time ago. The other one has a similar story, but I don't remember. I passed one of these figures onto a fellow blogger last summer.

Cowabunga Dudes!

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Special thanks to everyone who visited Action Figure Adventures from making August 2013 my best month ever for page visits. I've been trying hard to crank out quality content and I appreciate all the people that stop by. Feel free to leave a comment, it's fun to hear what people think of the various toys featured here on AFA. Let me know what toy lines you want to see more toys from. - BuzzChuck

Deep Six v1 - GI Joe '84

Deep Six was one of the most unique figures in the Real American Hero line of GI Joes. In many ways his uniqueness wasn't really a good thing. Deep Six was kind of a brick. His only articulation points are at his shoulders. He can't even hold a weapon with his blocky fists. Deep Six came packaged with his flying submarine, the S.H.A.R.C. which was a small one-man craft.

 

Deep Six came with a plastic billows that attaches to his back. The billows allows you to pump air in and out of his hollow body. This makes him dive and surface when played with in water. It's a neat gimmick for a deep sea diver, but to make it work his sculpt suffered. (Billows not pictures, but I do have them somewhere). At one point in time, I cracked open one of these figures to use his head for a custom figure of Deep Six out of his scuba suit. My buddy Paul gave me the figure below because his dome was broken off, so he couldn't resell him. I kind of like having him in my collection with and without his helmet.

 

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Well, I'm off to the farm. I have to do some painting to help get ready for the Haunted Hayride. We used to have a Chainsaw Massacre Drive-In scene as well as a Zombie Gas Station scene. This year, the Drive-In screen and projector are being moved next to the gas station, which I am helping to paint up to look like the snack stand for the theater. The Chainsaw's are going elsewhere on the hayride trail and the zombies are being moved into the corn maze. I haven't heard what movie is playing at the Drive-In this year. Since the chainsaws aren't there anymore I can't imagine we will still be playing Chainsaw Massacre. Oh, and the actors at the scene will be creepy clowns this year.

Gamaira - Bandai

I recently came across some paperwork that helped my identify more of my Ultraman Monsters. I feel bad posting about a toy if I don't at least know the toys name. This green and silver spiked monster is from one of the various Ultraman shows from over the years. Unfortunatly, I don't know I lot about the different series. As a kid I was into Godzilla and other giant monsters, but with most of the Bandai packaging  (usually a hang tag) being in Japanese it's hard to get information about the figures. This monster is from 1991 and there are a few variations in the paint scheme avaialable. The other paint options I've seen are darker and more true to the show image on his tag.

When I was a kid, each summer I would take care of my buddy's pet frogs while he was on vacation. Often times his family would visit relatives on their way back from whatever comic convention his Dad was appearing at. Every year they would bring me back an Ultra-Monster as a thank you for taking care of Lilly and Sandy the grow-a-frogs. My monster collection was always much smaller than my buddy Derek's, but Gamaira was always one of my favorites.

Alpha 5 - Power Rangers

Alpha 5 is a humanoid robot with a high strung personality from the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He worked with Zordon to find "Teenagers with attitude" to form the Rangers. He was often responsible for teleporting the teens to the Command Center, and then into battle after they morphed. This figure came packaged exclusively with the Power Dome (Command Center) play set. I was happy ti pick him up for a few bucks at NJCC. I'm a big fan of the original MMPR show, but never really had the toys. With this being the 20th Anniversary of that show, and the new series Megaforce being on tv, I've been have fun reminiscing about the original series and toys. The Power Dome play set that included this figure is based on the Command Center from the TV show, but was not very accurate.

 Alpha has a five points of articulation. I think it's worth noting that his hips are more like the vintage GI Joe figures than vintage Star Wars. As a kid I used to love playing Power Rangers with my younger cousins because they had tons of the toys. I remember taking a C3P-O toy to their house to use as Alpha and drawing a blue face on a toilet paper roll to represent Zordon.

Alpha is currently being displayed on my California Job Case. These trays that make great nick-knack shelves were originally used to store metal type for old fashioned printing presses. You can see lot of other Mini-figs display here including my Mordles, Glyos, DC Squats, Loyal Subjects GI Joes, Kre-o Joes and Transformers, Battle Beasts, and Mega Blocks Power Rangers.  I bought this tray at a yard  sale and hung it on the wall during the summer, and it's filling up quickly.

Jack Bennet - Bionic 6

I was happy to find a Jack Bennet from LJN's Bionic 6 toy line at NJCC this summer. He has some paint chipping on his chest, but that is common with these die-cast metal figures. Jack features a lot of clear plastic on his limbs. These are all his bionic body parts. Jack operated under the call sign, Bionic-1. Jack is a test pilot and field agent for a technology company and has secret bionic upgrades. After his family is trapped in an avalanche the rest of them are given bionic upgrades to save their lives and then form the team Bionic 6.

Jack and his wife Helen. I like that Jack's eyes are not the same color as his hair.

Jack comes with a black and red scuba mask and tank.

Pimp Daddy Destro - 25th Anniv. GI Joe

When I was at the New Jersey Collector's Convention (NJCC) a few weekends ago, I was lucky enough to win a cool action figure door prize. I won a Joe Con exclusive figure from 2007. This is a 25th Anniversary Destro painted up as a tribute to the rare Pimp Daddy Destro figure (as he was quickly named by fans). If you are not familiar with the original PDD, it goes back to when Hasbro was bringing GI Joe out of hiatus in 1997. They were releasing 3 packs of figures and a few vehicles as Toys R Us exclusives. Many of the figures had interesting paint schemes that used cool fades and other techniques not really seen on Joes before that time. Someone approved a paint scheme for Destro that featured gold, maroon, and leopard print. Shortly after production started, Hasbro decided it was a bad move and made a change in the figure. This resulted in very limited quantities of the original figures. Ten years later the GI Joe collectors club released this tribute figure.