Archterrus - Realm of the Underworld

It has been a while since I posted about wave two of Realm of the Underworld. Archterrus the Artifact Stealer is by far my favorite figure figure from the wave.


He uses the Skeleton Warrior body we have seen before, molded in glow-in-the-dark plastic. He comes with a staff, cloth robes, a chain and key. I think my favorite thing about this figure is the way they painted his eyes. They are haunting.


Archterrus has a special ability to track magical items. He is on a quest to find the Sword of Heroes, which is the weapon of choice for the hero, Hercules.
 

Catwoman - Batman Returns

Batman Returns was the sequel to 1989's smash hit Batman. This was the movie that started the trend of comic book movies containing two main villains. Today's post focuses on the sexier of the two villains from Batman Returns. Catwoman is dressed in her stitched up black leather outfit and features 5 points of articulation. For an early 90's action figures she's pretty attractive. Often times 80's and 90's female figures just looked off.

I picked this figure up at a yard sale as a kid, but she originally came with a whip and a spring-loaded "taser" missile launcher. The whip is a great accessory, but the taser launcher is pretty ridiculous Catwoman's boots have sculpted  high heels. The heels combined with her action stance makes her fall over pretty easily..

Airborne v1 - GI Joe '83

Airborne was the GI Joe Helicopter Assault Trooper, which never made a lot of sense to me. What is a Helicopter Assault Trooper? His name is Airborne, which implies he is a paratrooper. His card art shows him hanging from a rope. One could assume this is the winch on the Dragonfly Helicopter. Airborne was the first Native American member of the GI Joe team, even though he's not the most remembered.

Airborne is armed with a green helmet with goggles sculpted on, a gun with a bayonet, and tan backpack with a shovel and bedroll sculpted. These pictures show his wearing Ripcord's green parachute and black gas mask. I had several extra parachutes, and since I think of him as paratrooper I equip him differently. I'm not sure why I didn't snap a picture of him without it on.
 

MOTUC Caslte Grayskull (pics and post coming soon)

Pics and Post to follow this weekend... but it's pretty cool... and huge!

Sorry I've been light on content this week. I've been busy with work and cleaning up to host a huge work Christmas party tomorrow afternoon.

Splinter - Vintage TMNT

Master Splinter was part of the original wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was the man mutated into a rat that taught the turtles to be ninja teens. He's also a radical rat. He is a large brown rat figure with some  sculpted on cloth wrappings on his tail and feet. He came with a soft goods maroon outfit and plastic black bet. He was armed with a bow & arrow (not pictured) and a cane that contained a hidden blade.

I always though Splinter was a really nicely done figure. I liked the fact that his arms were not as bulky as most of the other characters from the line. He also didn't have the squatting stance that the other figures had. His sculpt is very different from his cartoon appearance. His face was different  in the eye and ears and his outfit was more of a robe.

Sea Hawk - MOTUC

As part of the Filmation mini subscription offered by Matty Collector this year we finally have an action figure of Sea Hawk. This pirate turned Great Rebellion sympathizer was one of the coolest reoccurring male guest characters in the She-Ra show. Sea Hawk has his own flying ship and a crew of pirates that helped him smuggle goods and later fight the Evil Horde.

I can't help but think of the GI Joe Dreadnok Zandar whenever I see this guy.  His hair and ascot reminds me of Zandar's hair and scarf. He's dressed in a brown outfit with bright blue highlights.

 Sea Hawk is armed with a laser sword and shield. They are both made out of translucent plastic and were weapons he used in an episode of the cartoon that told Sea Hawk's back story.

Sea Hawk is very friendly with Adora, while he enjoys fighting alongside She-Ra. He's romantic relationship is the reverse of Bow who is friends with Adora and in love with She-Ra. As a kid I would have loved a Sea Hawk for the vintage He-Man line.

Plastic Army Men Helicopter -Revisited

A couple weeks ago I posted about a toy helicopter that came in a set of Green Army Men. I also mentioned that it happens to be the type of helicopter used by the company my Dad works for. I took this photo of that Helicopter along side two other toys in my collection of the same style helicopter.  I some how missed posting it, and just came across it. So, I'm putting it up today. Each year I try to find my Dad some sort of Sikorsky S-61 toy. I'm not always successful, but when I am I buy one for him and one for me.

The toy in the back is the largest and most detailed. It's decorated in a Navy paint scheme. In fact, this particular helicopter's deco is from the Navy Base in Jacksonville Florida, where my Dad started his career in aviation as a civilian contractor. It's a little hard to see, but JAX is visible on the tail under the word Navy. That toy company also made that same model in a dark blue Air Force paint scheme. (We both have that one as well) The Green Helicopter in the middle is also available in tan and is made by Tim Mee. I'll try to get a picture of the tan version when my dad open's it on Christmas. The smallest helicopter is a die cast toy painted up as the Presidential Helicopter, Marine One.

Random Robin Figures - Batman

Today's post features two different Robin action figures that I have picked up at yard sales over the years missing their accessories. The first one is Robin from the Batman Returns toy line. In early drafts of the film Robin was going to be included, but with all the characters all ready packed into the film it seems the idea was dropped. They made a Robin figure anyway, because just like the first film they planned to merchandise the hell out of the picture. This Robin figure looks a lot like the 90's comic book Robin.  He has a red tunic with short green sleeves but long green pants. The outfit's torso looks slightly armored. This figure came with a nice cloth cape that was black on the outside and yellow on the inside. He also came with a ridiculously large grappling hook firing backpack.

The second Robin is called Crime Fighter Robin and comes from the later portion of the animated series toy line, once it was revamped as the New Batman Adventures. This Robin is the younger Tim Drake from the New Adventures of Batman & Robin show and is styled like that cartoon show. He wears a mostly red outfit with black gloves, shorts, and boots. This Robin originally included a short plastic cape that was yellow and black. He also came with a bulky red mini jet vehicle.

Toys for Tots

I love toys, can't you tell? I also love to give other people toys. Every year for the past 9 years I have challenged students in my woodworking class to make toys for needy kids in our area. We make wooden cars, trucks, tic-tac-toe boards, and new this year jig saw puzzles. Our goal is to make 50 toys and we did it once again. We also makes some little animals with wheels on their feet, and a doll cradle.The toys are delivered to a local agency, the Ivin's Outreach Center, who distributes to toys to families who otherwise might not have a Christmas. Below is a photo of a few of the toys the kids made. Some of the cars and trucks are around the sides and in the center you can see some of the puzzles put together and other packaged up in baggies at the bottom.

Along with all the toys the kids and I make, I also always buy a bunch of toys to donate. The Ivin's Outreach Center is actually a distribution point for Toys for Tots, so I skip dropping the toys into a barrel and take them straight to were the Marines take the toys. I bought a complete set of Thundercats toys that have been on clearance at Big Lots and Ollie's. I asked to ladies if they could find a family with a couple of brothers to give these toys to. I figured a bunch of brothers have a blast playing with this set. (I know there is two Tygras in the photo and no Panthro, but I did fix that issue)

Here are some books, coloring books, and comic books that I donated to be handed out with the toys. Reading is a good thing, and if you buy the right books can be fun also. There is also an Iron Man paper arts and craft set.

The bottom picture here show some other toys I picked up for them to hand out. A lot of these were on clearance at Toy R Us right before they reset for Christmas. There is some Thundercats, Men in Black 3, Green Lantern, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Redakai figure. Some of the other odds and ends came from Nerd Block, a monthly grab bag subscription I receive each month.

'89 Batmobile - Ertl

I recently re-watched the '89 Tim Burton Batman film and so I decided to post about this die-cast toy. I've always thought this Batmobile was bad ass. I had various toys based on this design as a kid in different scales. Ertl put out this die-cast car, but it always seemed just a little to big to mix in with my Hot Wheels  and Matchbox cars. So it was kind of hard to find other cars to use with it. I also always thought it was a little odd that they had to add the non-movie accurate bat-symbol on the roof. This Batmobile is a super .low-rider. I'm kind of amazed it didn't scrape bottom going over the hills to the Batcave.