Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Action Figure Adventures Recap Videos

I've been creating Action Figure Adventures Recap videos out of old photos from this blog. One of my favorite things about blogging about my toy collection is that I can always look back on stuff and enjoy photos I taken of my collection. I have a lot of stuff on display, but not everything. I started compiling videos of some of my favorite photos of toys. They are just randomly selected, but purposely spread out so you don't see to many characters from the same line in a row. There are even some bonus images in here that were part of stop motion videos or taken way before this blog started. If you like random images of toys check them out. More to come in the future.


Sunday, March 29, 2015

Gikogiler - Ultraman Monster

Gikogiler is a gray monster from the Ultraman TV series. He looks like a combination of cobblestone and a bat. He has a rounded bumpy texture on his torso and legs.  Gikogiler also features yellow eyes. The figure is a hollow toy like many of these imported Bandai figures. He has articulation at his shoulders, hips, and neck.


As a kid I loved all the kaiju monsters... when American's just called them monsters. My best friend growing up got me into them and actually a majority of the kaiju monsters in my toy collection where presents from him. Every summer when he'd go on vacation I'm watch his pet frogs (Sandy & Lilly). They were little frogs that live in water. Grow-A-Frog if anyone remembers the brand. Anyway to thank me for feeding and changing the water while he was gone he'd usually bring me back a Monster.


Thursday, March 26, 2015

World's Finest - Huntress & Power Girl

I recently picked up the World's Finest 2-Pack featuring Huntress & Power Girl. As usual the are highly detailed figures with nice paint jobs. Unfortunately many of these sets features quality control issues involving breakage at the joints. I know to make sexy and skinny female sculpts in causes joints to be very small on female figures, but other toy manufacturers seem to make it work. Check out the pictures below for a nice view and then watch the video for my review.


         Huntress in Black & Purple       Power Girl in White and Red


 The Huntress comes armed with her crossbow... vigilante or zombie hunter?


 Power Girl doesn't need weapons... she's got it where it counts  ;)




Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Yak Face - Vintage Star Wars

Yak Face is often considered to be the rarest vintage Star Wars action figure. This is because he's the only vintage figure to not be released in the USA. One of the many crazy aliens created for Jabba's Palace, Yak Face only gets a few seconds of screen time in Return of the Jedi. He's an extremely tall figure for a 3 3/4" line. Yak Face has a tan head with a furry brown collar over a pale yellow shirt. He sports blue pants and sleeves. His outfit is finished off with some furry boots.


 Yak Face was the last figure I acquired to complete my Vintage Collection. Around the same time I bought one my Sister bought be a Yak Face as a thank you present for all the work I had done on her and my brother-in-law's house. So I finished my collection and then got a second Yak Face as a gift. He's such a weird and cool figure I've just hung on to both.


Monday, March 23, 2015

Prickle: A Real American Hedgehog

This is a quick photoshop I did a while back. I was at my friend Paul's house and we were sorting through a collection of GIJoe toys he had bought at a yard sale. He had his hedgehog Prickle on the table and we snapped a picture of him climbing over the Polar Battle Bear.


Saturday, March 21, 2015

Snakebite - Super Naturals

Super Naturals was one of the cool 80's toy lines to us holograms as a gimick. The only figure I had as a kid from this line was Snakebite. I don't remember what I traded for him, but I got him off a friend as a kid. He's a tall humanoid knight character decked out in snake armor. He came with a removable helmet, chest plate, shield, and a glow-in-the-dark staff (not pictured). You can see the awesome snake hologram inside his shield.


You can remove his extra armor to show off his torso hologram which looks like a snake-man chest and face. Kind of like when they mutate Cobra Commander in the GI Joe movie. As a kid I used him as a bad-ass warrior for King Hsss with my He-Man toys or as a giant "monster" that Serpentor would awaken to attack the GI Joe team.


I had a hard time getting a good shot of his chest hologram. You can see some of his scales here. Snakebite has four points of articulation, but really nice sculpted details over his entire body.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Action Wing Batman (Az-Bat)

I don't know if any of my faithful readers have checked out the Batman Unlimited line, but I love Action Wing Batman. He's basically the suit of armor worn by Jean Paul Valley when he game up being the hero Azrael to take up the mantle of Batman. Often refereed to as Az-Bat. This suit was worn during the Knight Fall/Knight Quest story line.


 Action Wing Batman comes with two different accessories that can actually connect to each other. He has a giant ax as well as a giant handcuff. They can combine to form one weapon or separate.


These figures have the classic 5 points of articulation plus knees and elbows, giving him 9 PoA. I really don't have any use for these ridiculous accessories but I love this figure.


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Legacy White Tigerzord - Power Rangers

The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers White Tigerzord was an awesome robotic battle machine from the second season. The Toys R Us exclusive Legacy line has once again produced an awesome toy representation. The zord can transform from Tiger to Warrior mode. The zord can also be combined with other "zord builder" robots.


(White Ranger not included)

Monday, March 16, 2015

Standor - MOTUC

Standor may be the Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) figure that makes the least sense. Here the creator of the majority of the Marvel Universe is turned into a "God" in the Masters Universe. Why? Well Mattel was partnering with Stan Lee for something and so some extra budget got put out to make an exclusive figure for Stan Lee's own convention. It didn't make a lot of sense then and it still doesn't now. I mainly got him because I have 98% of the MOTUC line.


 So they tooled up a new head, glasses, a mask, and some armor. Mattel has told us before that to get an entire figure out of just tooling a head, armor, and accessories was pretty do-able. That was sort of the guidelines for the 30th Anniversary Create-A-Figure Contest.


I assume the Four Horsemen sculpted ol' Stan's head, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Either way it looks great... but it's powder blue. I do think it's funny that his armor looks similar to the Marvel character Galactus.


 Standor's Armor and Mask is made of a cool smoked clear plastic with glitter flakes in it.
 Very cosmic.


Sunday, March 15, 2015

Blind Bags from SEO Toy Review on Pixel Dan

A few weeks ago I sent my buddy Pixel Dan a package of Blind Bags for his show Blind Bag Mini-Figure Madness. He opens my package at 13:16 into the video.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Thanos - Marvel Universe

When I saw the Marvel Universe Thanos figure I had to pick him up. One of my favorite things about this line is the fact that there is some scale and different body styles to the line. I love that they make short characters, wide characters, bulky characters, and petite characters as well.


Not to mention the fact that Thanos is wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. This blue and yellow suited god-like super villain was heavily influenced by DC Comic's Darkseid. He's very nicely detailed and decoed. Thanos started as a villain in Iron-Man, but has sort of taken on the entire Marvel Universe.



Thursday, March 12, 2015

Swerve & Flanker - Transformers Generations

I recently got to take a look at the Transformers Generations Swerve & Flanker figures. One of the guys in charge of SEO Toy Review, where I work, is a big fan of Transformers. Usually the toys they ask me to review are the kiddie Rescue Bots figures, but the last time I was there Ryan had a Transformer figure that he bought for himself and hadn't opened him up yet. So I got to be the first one to play with his new toy.


Swerve is a red and white Robot that can turn into a truck. He's a fairly small figure, but his articulation is pretty good. His little buddy Flanker is a very tiny robot that can turn into a jet or a blaster gun.



Wednesday, March 11, 2015

GI Joe Collector Club Sub 3.0 Muskrat, Slice, Spearhead, Vypra

Hey it's Wednesday, that means we get an Action Figure Adventure video review. This Wednesday we get two GI Joe videos or a total of four figures from the GI Joe Collector Club. We are checking out Muskrat, Slice, Spearhead & Max, and Vypra.


Muskrat is the GI Joe swamp fighter and Slice is one of many Cobra Ninjas. Muskrat wears dark green fatigues and comes with a boogie board. Slice wears read and comes with a crazy amount of bladed weapons. Both figures turned out really well I feel.




Spearhead and his bobcat Max served as a point-man for GI Joe. He wears tan and orange camo fatigues. Vypra is a Cobra Courier and wears a dark blue ninja uniform. Both of these figures left me a little underwhelmed.


Tuesday, March 10, 2015

In the trenches at the Battle of Hoth

The snow here is finally melting. The only places I have any left is in the shade or where it was piled up. So to end the Winter season I decided to post of few more snow pictures. This is a combination of Sta Wars Hoth figures from several different generations of the toy line.


I'm used to Photoshop Elements at work. I need to learn how to make better laser blasts in GIMP at home.

This bottom one was me playing with a filter, it didn't work out but kind of looked cool so I saved a copy of it.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Space Ninja Deathbird - ToyBiz

Deathbird was part of the Shi'ar Empire from the Clarmont era of the X-Men. You know the aliens involved in the Dark Phoenix saga. Deathbird as her name sort of implies is a bad guy. I picked up this figure from the tail end of the ToyBiz line about a year ago still sealed on card at a sale at my local comic shop. They were selling off carded figures in beat up packages real cheap. She just kind of interested me because of her unique design with the wings an chrome armor.


All the armor is removable and only really looks good from the front. Like many ToyBiz figures from this time, Deathbird is not well articulated. She does come with one weapon. It's a staff that looks like something the guards from Jabba's palace might carry.


Deathbirds wings actually clip into her arms an so they move together. The back of her arms look really weird if not clipped into the wings.


Deathbird was part of the Ninja Force sub-line. Everybody had a Ninja Force from GI Joe to the X-Men. Anything to compete with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 He's a close up of the directions on the back of the package. The artist seemed to make her physique very pronounced.


Friday, March 6, 2015

Club 200x - MOTUC

Over at MattyCollector.com they are currently taking orders for the Club 200x mini-subscription for the Master of the Universe Classics line.

This is a six figure line up with an exclusive head pack. The Sub gives us six new characters from the Mike Young Productions cartoon series and six heads to update older figures from the Masters Classic line.

While  this sub might not be as exciting as the main line, I do think it's great to see some of these really cool characters finally see the light of day.




Thursday, March 5, 2015

Zeb and Stormtrooper - Star Wars Rebels

Star Wars Rebels is a 3-D animated show set between the prequel and original trilogy. The Rebels in the series are a band of freedom fighters trying to help the people in a Robin Hood like manner. Zeb is the mechanic and brute strength of the team. He fills the role of Chewbacca in the original film.


The Rebels action figures hearken back to the old Kenner figures with five points of articulation. I'm not dying to own every item they release under the Rebels brand, but I wouldn't mind having all the main heroes.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Saba the Talking Tiger Saber (Legacy) - MMPR

Saba was the White Ranger's talking sword in the 2nd season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Since Power Rangers is made by combining fight scenes from a Japanese show with footage of American teenagers they eventually ran out of footage of the Japanese robots beating up guys in rubber monster suits. It's not to hard to shoot extra fight scenes for the Rangers themselves, but the giant monster/robots battles are expensive to shoot. So eventually all the Zords (robots) had to be replaced with the next season's robots from the Japanese show. The most popular Ranger (Tommy the Green Ranger) had lost his powers due to the plot of the Japanese show.

So since they were changing robots and the new 6th (special) robot would be all new, Tommy could be brought back as a new 6th Ranger. The White Ranger was born... and it was a pretty good story line for a Power Rangers plot.

As part of the Toy R Us Power Rangers Legacy line we now have a fairly (minus the buttons) screen accurate Saba Sword. Now all the kids of the 90's can act out their fantasy of being the White Tiger Ranger Check out my video review below.









Monday, March 2, 2015

Terminator - ReAction

If you've been reading the site much, you may know that I love ReAction figures. I bought the entire Terminator line, and today we are checking out the Terminator figure. This is based on the outfit the Terminator seals from a street punk as soon as he arrives in our time.


 He has black boots, brown pants, and a gray jacket. The jacket has some really nice details on the back, showing off the metal studs. I think the head sculpt in the weakest link on this toy. I know the ReAction figures are based on the era of toys that did not match actor likeness, but I don't think this figure is instantly recognizable as the T-800. Other figures in this line scream Terminator.


The Terminator comes with two awesome guns. His Uzi and pistol with laser site. Both of these weapons are memorable from the film.