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If Mattel can get enough support for a MOTUC Castle Grayskull they will start the production cycle for an awesome new version of one of the greatest playsets of all time.

Voltron - Black Lion & Keith

Wow, the Black Lion has finally arrived! The Black Lion was always my favorite as a kid. Its the biggest, has wings, and forms Voltron's head. This lion is massive and very cool. Like all the other lions in this set his awesomeness is slightly hindered by his spring-loaded features that limit the ability to pose the figure.

 

Unlike the other lions, Black's mouth is spring-loaded so it snaps shut. This is because of the auto-transformation feature.  So I couldn't take pictures of the lion with its mouth open. The lion's tail has several articulation joints.

 

 The sculpt and paint details on the Black Lion's head are very nice. The head is black while the muzzle is light gray. There are some nicely painted red and yellow details included as well.

Like all the other lions, Black Lion comes with its pilot Keith. Sharing the same body as Lance, Keith is exactly as one would expect. Nicely paints and featuring just okay articulation. I'm still a little disappointed with these figures. Their knees and elbows just don't have the range of motion I want. He comes with both a helmeted head and his classic anime mullet head. Like all the pilots Keith comes with a key / figure stand and a piece to the Blazing Sword. Also pictures is the mouth blade that is included with the Black Lion

Once again, the key can open the cockpit in the back of the Lion. Keith fits nicely inside the lion. Make sure you carefully move the wings out of the way when you open the cockpit.

After I opened  up the lion and checked out his articulation a little bit I had to form Voltron. There are a dozen or so joints that must be manually manipulated and then one touch button performs the head transformation. As I was making all the adjustments to shoulders, knees, and paws I discovered there is something wrong with my Black Lion.

His one front leg, which folds up and rests on his back as Voltron will not lock into place. Many of the spring-loaded lion legs pop out of place easily, but this leg just never locks in place.

So I started compairing the two different legs and at the base of the gray leg where it connects to the black shoulder, the leg that will not lock has a strange piece of black plastic. I can't tell if it's broken or miss formed, but the feature doesn't work correctly. From the front of Voltron it is hard to tell that it isn't folded up right, but it does get in the way of his wings a little.

For a $65 toy it should work correctly.. Mattel Customer Service told me they were emailing me a return label. I haven't received the email yet. Pictures of the full Voltron coming soon. I'm a little nervous that I mail this lion back and somehow never get a corrected one.

Scientific Inquiry

I recently posted my "Thinking Like a Scientist" video which I made for my 6th grade Science class at work. Two kids in the class worked together to write a script for a second video. The used the text book and some ideas I gave them. They wanted to add a female character, so the Robot Chicken Mad Scientist introduces his friend at the beginning. When it was all done it needed a little tweaking. This section of the book just didn't work as well to have little entertaining cut-aways like the other video. I had them change one little part to work in a funny bit in the middle with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


They worked really hard on the script and it came out pretty well. I had a hard time finding a good place at school for the girl to record her lines, so it has more white noise than the lines I recorded at home. The kids had fun and the two authors had the highest scores in the class on the section quiz... so I know they learned something.

Army Ants

Okay, I've got a lot of video stuff I'm working on, so I need a  quick update. Mini-Figs to the rescue. This guy is a figure from the Army Ants line from the 80's. These were cool little figures, similar to classic plastic Army Men,  look like ants. There was a blue team and an orange team and all featured limited paint apps. I only own a couple of these figures total and this guy is missing his gut "rubbery ant butt". My buddy Derek had every single one when we were kids and we had tons of fun playing with them together..

Rattlor - MOTU

In honor of the release of the MOTUC Rattlor figure, I decided to post about the vintage figure. I will start off by saying I am not a huge fan of the Snake Men faction in the Masters of the Universe world. If all the Snake Men were like Rattlor I'd love them. He has all the key features of a snake, including the eyes, mouth and tail. Rattlor also features nice scaly details. Many of the other Snake Men are missing tails or have more humanoid faces.

Rattlor's action feature is his extending neck / striking action. This is activated by a button on his back hidden under his tail. He also has some small pieces inside him that gives him a rattle sound. His only weapon is a Snake Men staff. His tail is made from a flexible but not really possible plastic

Rattlor has nice paint decos.  He has tan and blue stripes on his arms and legs as well as tan scales on his tail and chest. There are both tan (yellow) neck and red (brown) neck variations of Rattlor. This particular example is a red neck (ha ha). I never had Rattlor as a kid, but he is pretty cool. I also think he looks a lot better as a toys than he did in the Filmation She-Ra cartoon where he appeared as a member of the Evil Horde.

Revenge of the Action Figures

I photographed a lot of Star Wars Prequels figures over the weekend. They will start showing up on Action Figure Adventures along with all the other toys I post about. I first wanted to re-post this article I wrote for another site ( www.obscenenewg.com ) back when the third prequel movie came out. It's crazy that I wrote this right after I graduated from college, and now I've been teaching for eight years. (although the job mentioned was a summer job, while interviewing.)

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Well, now that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a couple of months old, I figured I better get around to writing my article about the movie and its toys before they aren’t on the shelves anymore. I actually took all these pictures just a week or so after the movie came out and all these figures still had that new toy smell. Then I got a job and became a productive member of society instead of a productive pop culture internet reviewer.

Blue Lightsabers

 I am starting the review with Anakin and Obi-wan because they are the first two figures I bought from the movie. I got these figures the first day they were out, although I did not partake in Star Wars Toy Midnight Madness because I was student teaching at the time and staying up that late was out of the question. The figures look pretty good although the hair color is not really correct on either figure. Anakin’s should be darker and Obi-wan’s should be lighter. 

Anakin’s lightsaber is permanently attached to his hand, but the hand is removable and can be interchanged with an open hand or a hand holding a red lightsaber. Since he never uses a red saber in the movie I’m not so sure about that accessory. I think they went with the interchangeable hand over a normal hand and saber because a Mace Windo figure from Episode II had a similar “Light Saber Slashing” action feature that usually resulted in the weapon flying across the room never to be found again.

Obi-wan has a more traditional lightsaber/hand setup and a “Jedi Kick” action feature. I don’t think I saw him do a flip kick in the movie anywhere but the feature is kind of neat expect for it only works if you stand him on the figure stand he came with.

Neither figure is amazing; as usual both figures articulation suffers at the hand of their action feature. Since they are main characters they are hard to pass up.

Features no action

The Senate, home of many heated galactic debates, has been represented in several exciting pieces of plastic. Unlike their Jedi counterparts, none of these figures have action features. I guess it is easier to make punching and kicking features than gavel pounding and finger pointing. (Left to Right) Bail Oragan is a huge figure (is Jimmy really that tall?) compared to Palpatine and Padme (although you can’t tell from the picture). Bail and Paplatine’s plastic robes make it so they can’t sit down. I guess it is not the end of the world, but both of them have major scenes where they sit. Now that would be a great action feature, “Sits on his galactic politician ass”. It looks like Hasbro is going to follow by their long standing rule that boys will not buy toys of girl characters. They are only giving us one Padme despite her dozen or so costumes. The real reason why no one is going to buy this figure is because it is Fugly! The sculptor of this toy should be smacked. How can you make such an ugly toy of such a hot actress?

Badass

 On to some more interesting figures. General Grievous and his body guards were pretty cool in the movie, and turned into pretty good toys as well. Hasbro had me worried about the General. They put out two basic figures of him and a deluxe figure. I don’t really like to buy several figures of the same character unless they are dramatically different or are an army builder figure. I opted to get two of the three Grievous figures. They made a basic figure that had a cape and only showing off two arms. This figures torso explodes to recreate his death scene. There was also a basic figure with four light saber slashing action (pictured above) that did not have a cape. The deluxe version which is in the title picture for this review has a crappy feature that makes his two arms split into four. The deluxe figure’s coloring is a little dark based on how he looks in the movie, but has better articulation (elbow joints are a plus) and a removable cape so based on what I know now the deluxe version would have been the only one I would have purchased.

 The body guards are nothing special. They have an action feature that makes them attack with their pikes, but their plastic capes make the feature not work real well. They also have very strange hands that make it hard to remove the staffs from their hands, but at the same time do not grip the staffs hard enough to pose them well.

It might be alas something or other.

Luckily Christopher Lee’s scenes were not cut out of the final Star Wars movie like they were the last Lord of the Rings movie, but he did not do a whole lot. For having only one scene in the movie he go one of the best action figures. The articulation is great and his hands are positioned nicely so one can hold his lightsaber while the other one works well for using the force or holding a skull to recreate the famous scene from Hamlet.

Brian gave me this Palpatine who features interchangeable hands and head as well as a lightsaber slashing action. The interchangeable parts make him go from the handsome lightsaber wielding Chancellor Palpatine to the disfigured force lightning throwing Emperor Palpatine. If you give him his disfigured hands and position his arms right his action feature makes him clap nicely.

There's a moon out tonight

Here is a bunch of figures I bought in an effort to own most of the main characters. Little did I know they would barely be in the movie. I knew they would die, but I thought Vader would hunt them down and kill them resulting in some cool fights and perhaps a chance to get to know the characters a little more. Instead they get shot in the back, and most of them don’t even have a single line in the movie. As a side not Ki-Adi-Munda the Jedi with the penis shaped head is nicely articulated and probably the figure most worthwhile as far as purchases go.

Wookie rage vs Battle droid

  It’s almost a wonder that they needed Yoda’s help to win that fight in the movie. This massive wookie figure, that has the thickest limbs I’ve ever seen on a small action figure, came packaged as a bonus with a clone speeder bike. In an attempt to keep my Droid army growing I picked up a Battle Droid, Destroyer Droid (Not Pictured) and a Super Battle Droid. The basic battle droid is the same mold as the Episode II version of the character. It’s a good sculpt, but because of how thin his legs are they tend to warp and bend easily making it impossible to stand him up. The Destroyer droid is less articulated than the awesome episode I incarnation, but features missiles that fire from his guns (if you are into the forced play feature Hasbro likes to include with figures “cause the kids like ‘em”). The Super Battle Droid had an interchangeable regular arm and giant spring loaded missile firing canon.

He wants a hug. I mean...Just wants a hug, he does.

  Next up is Yoda and R2D2. Yoda comes with a giant wookie crossbow that I never saw him shoot in the movie, a little lightsaber, and a plastic robe. Once you get the robe off it is easy to se how well articulated this figure is. I had him in some great Kung Fu poses, too bad I didn’t have a picture of that. As for R2, if you have just about any other versions of him don’t bother with this one. He comes with his little rocket boosters and a giant robot hand that can stick out of the top of his head, but I’m generally unimpressed with the toy.

Boss Hogg be sittin' pretty.

  I saved the best for last. The figures that make up the Grand Army of the Republic are some of my favorite toys. Starting on the left we have the clone pilot. He is a preview/throwback to the AT-AT Driver from the original trilogy. Not a bad figure, but I wish his eyes had been sculpted and he had a clear visor instead of painted plastic. Next comes the Clonetroopers with “Quick Draw” action. Awesome figures, in fact my favorite Episode III figures I own. I have picked up two more since I took this picture. Yeah, they have an action feature which I am usually against, but it’s not so bad and did not cause them to have any crappy visible buttons or horrible articulation. After the troopers comes the Clone Commander, another fine figure. I just recently picked up my second one. He has a cool visor that flips down, two pistols with working holsters and a large rifle. Unfortunately like most figures with capes, skirts, or robes his legs are about worthless. Finally we get to the Clone Speeder bike similar to the ones featured in Return of the Jedi.

As a whole the Episode III figures are better articulated than all previous Star Wars figures and the action features are activated by less noticeable trigger like squeezing their legs together rather than buttons on their backs. I’m sure I will be getting more figures, and hopefully some of the larger vehicles. So don’t be surprised if there is a follow up to this article, although I make no promises.

Batman Beyond

Today I'm taking a look at two different Batman Beyond figures. I'm not sure if the have specific descriptor names (like Lightning Strike or Laser Batman). One time several years ago, my mom picked up a plastic toy box someone put out for the trash that was full of 90's boy toys. There were several Power Ranger toys which I traded to a toy reseller for some Star Wars toys and a bunch of Batman Beyond stuff.

The first version of  Batman looks pretty much like he does in the cartoon show. He is molded in a dark smokey black plastic. This gives him and interesting look. It's most noticeable at the tips of his bat-ears and left hand. It almost looks like he's coming out of stealth mode.

The second Batman uses the same mold but is cast out of blue translucent plastic. I'm not sure what the reason for this figure was. Once again, toy companies make dozens of versions of the main character to fill out wave after wave of villains and supporting characters. I photographed him in my normal lighting and one in extreme lighting that shows off his blue plastic.

 Face-off between Faker and Batman (He-Man Reference)

Iceman - Marvel Universe

Iceman has always been my favorite X-Man. I like the "popular" X-Men like Wolverine and Gambit as much as everyone else, but Bobby Drake is my all time favorite. I had to wait through pretty much three entire X-Men movies to see him ice-up. As a kid I had the Toy Biz figure and loved him. When I found out they were making a Marvel Universe version I had to have him.

I had a hard time finding him, and sort of gave up hope. Then one day a couple friends of mine took me out toy hunting (still don't have my license back yet) and I happened to find him at Toys R Us. I was so exited!

He comes with the standard spiral blast effect in clear plastic that many Marvel Universe figures have. He is made mostly of clear/light blue plastic with some silver details on his  gloves, boots, and the 'X' on his torso. As usual this Marvel Universe figure is made up of mostly reused parts, but they work well.

My Pet Monster - Animation Cel

In the 80's there was a very grotesque stuffed animal for boys called My Pet Monster. Another great 80's creation from American Greetings, who made the Care Bears and Rainbow Brite. The monster doll came with cool plastic handcuffs with a link in the middle that could "break". Later on a cartoon was made based on this concept. A much cuter version of the monster doll was owned by a little boy and every time he unlocked the hang cuffs the Monster would come to life and they would have wacky adventures. The Monster even had a thing for the kid's older sister. My Pet Monster was also made into a low budget live action movie similar to the Garbage Pail Kids movie.

Below of two different original animation cels from the show,. One shows the doll version locked up and under the Max's arm. In the 2nd cel the monster is alive and telling us to be quiet.

Black Mask - DC Universe

I finally got my September day-of-sale items from Matty Collector.com. They got held up because one of the He-Man figures I ordered went out of stock or something strange. But anyway, here he is that dastardly Batman villain Black Mask!

 I don't own a whole lot of DCU figures, but most of the ones I have are Batman related. I ordered two of this guy so I could give one to my buddy, comic writer Doug Moench, who is the creator of Black Mask. He comes with a knife, a Batman cowl, and a double blades weapon.

The figure features the standard DCU suit body with a new head and accessories. The knife and mask included with the figure are in homage to a Batman comic cover that features the Black Mask with the bat-cowl nailed to the wall with a big knife. He's got a really creepy head sculpt.