A Few Smaller Projects

Over the past few weeks my projects have been about setting up the digital side of my art corner. I did do a bit more of that this week but I also did a few smaller projects this week as well. Nothing really exciting but it’s still stuff that needed to be done, and with a book report coming next week I wanted something to discuss. That’s the secret tagline of this site. “I have an article to write, I need to clean something!”

So that’s what I did. Here’s a short list of this week’s projects.

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Toy Report: Leaping Hulk

My cleaning project this week was more comic organizing as I took three different stacks of comics and properly merged them together. So I think I’ll review a comic book character action figure. I haven’t done that in a while.

2003 was a good time for Hulk action figure collectors. In addition to the Marvel Legends comic line Ang Lee’s take on jade giant was hitting theaters and naturally toys followed. Frankly I didn’t like the face on the Legends Hulk. It was kind of scary, even for the Hulk. Instead I went with one of the movie Hulks, namely the Leaping Hulk action figure. Although as I’ll get into I kind of disabled the leaping feature.

click for larger picture

Toy Report: Legends Bumblebee and Blazemaster

Time for a new addition to the Bumblebee shelf. I found this one at Big Lots, a clearance store franchise I’ve mentioned before. You can find some cool stuff there. I’m told that this size class is “legends” but it’s frankly kind of small for the price. Bumblebee comes with “Blazemaster”, a helicopter that transforms into a robot and a gun for Bumblebee.

Now, I know that there are two figures in the set, but one is just a companion and frankly the two together do not equal one “scout” class that I can find at Big Lots for $5. Yes, the new figures are more expensive thanks to the current petroleum market (plastic comes from oil) but still, this is the price I expect in a “regular” store, not a clearance store. So I was curious to see if it was worth that much. Let’s find out.

Toy Report: Nickelodeon’s Donatello

OK, so I have another Ninja Turtle toy to talk about.

Recently Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom, bought the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Not the licensing rights, the entire franchise. This lead to a new cartoon and of course a new toyline. Rather than go with a new company, Nickelodeon stuck with long time Ninja Turtles toy makers Playmates. While I have no intention of getting the entire series or even all four Turtles, my curiosity as to whether they’ve improved since the previous toyline got the better of me (mostly because of my reviews) and I snagged me a Donatello.

Right in the package I can tell they toned down the “egghead” look the cartoon hasgiven him. (Yes, he’s a genius and “egghead” is the nickname, sometimes insulting, given to geniuses. We get it.) Otherwise, I don’t have a lot to say about the front of the package. A quick look at the back, and then it’s time to open this baby up.

Toy Report: Fugitoid “Mark 2”

I haven’t reviewed anything in a while, thanks to vacation and illness on top of the stuff I mentioned in my last post. Let’s fix that.

IDW has started a brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series. Recently the character of Fugitoid popped up in the comic, and in the reprints of classic TMNT comics they’ve gotten up to his story. (I need to check to see if they’ve reprinted the one-shot used to debut the character.) This inspired me to break out the Fugitoid action figure from the original toyline. Except I goofed and the figure actually is from the 2000’s remake series, which is closer to the original comic premise–mostly.

Long story short: An alien scientist named Honeycutt accidentally has his brain transferred into his helper robot, Sal. The bad guys know this and want to get his scientific secrets and until the Turtles arrive on his planet there are no good guys to turn towards as both sides of a galactic war are pretty much evil. This is the original concept, which was also used in the remade TV series. There’s more but that’s all you really need to know for this toy review.

Toy Report: Iron Man Mini-Figures

I totally want to reshoot the entire thing. Seriously, my camera isn’t very good for these close-ups I need for this site. Anyway, the last of the Iron Man specific toy reviews concludes here with these little guys. About half the size of the figures I reviewed last week, these little action figures share most of the posability of their larger counterparts. No ankles, folding wrists, or waist, but everything else is there; shoulders, neck, legs, hips, abs, spinning wrists, and knees are present on the figures. Released under the “Iron Man 2” banner, the two on the sides are from the “comic series” figures, while the center one is based on the armor from the second film.

As you can see, each comes with a stand and card set I’ll get into later. Hasbro has this for their other Marvel lines, Spider-Man and Universe, while DC has their own, and their perfect for the space-minded clutter cleaner.

Toy Report: Ronin Warrior Cye

Ronin Warriors was an American adaptation of the Japanese animated series (or “anime”) Samurai Troopers, with surprisingly little editing. It’s a great show in either translation, and my favorite character was Cye of the Torrent. (Granted, it’s mostly because he had a cool accent, wore blue–my favorite color–and I’m a bit of a water baby–for a guy who can’t swim. Also, his symbol (although I believe this was one that was mistranslated) was “trust”, which speaks to me personally, but you don’t need my baggage.) So I really wanted the figure when it came out. I do like me some armored heroes, and the whole series is about a group of guys who can summon magical battle armor to battle with. (Even the villains could summon armor.) The story behind the armor is different and makes for a great story and I highly recommend this show. This is why I wanted the action figure and Big Lots had a whole bunch that they were able to find and sell for clearance.

I can see now why they didn’t sell.

Toy Report: The Swan That Judges My Action Figures

As an adult with too big a toy collection, my criteria has changed from the days of my youth. When it comes to action figures, I collect to make a nice display or to even help me with my artistic skills. (I want to be a comic creator but knowing no artists and being tied to “my vision” I’m learning to draw on my own.) This results in having certain requirements when it comes to my action figures and even my Transformers, which I’ll be going through soon enough.

Before I begin burrowing through the rest of my “cubby hole” action figures, I thought you might want to see the standard by which I judge my action figures. Probably the coolest action figure in my collection, and anime fans will recognize the unintentional pun when I show you…

Cygnus Hyoga (the Swan)

Toy Report: Mega Man NT Warrior figures

The problem with using natural sunlight through broken blinds.

Mega Man: NT Warrior was an anime and manga series based off of the Nintendo game Mega Man Battle Network, created by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance and later the DS. Although it shares character names with the original Mega Man games, this is a completely new continuity. Instead of robot battles, you take on the role of Lan Hikari, a kid who likes to play virtual combat with his “Net Navi”, Megaman.exe. Mattel released an action figure line based on the animated series, which had been imported to the US to help promote the Battle Network game (although they gave it a different name from the games).

When I had asked for Mega Man action figures I had meant ones from the toyline where last week’s figure came from. However, I forgot that my parents didn’t keep up on all the latest info on the toys from when I was a kid, much less a bunch of figures that their “Peter Pan Syndrome”-burdened 20+ year-old son wanted. So I ended up with one figure from the “right” line, and the three figures pictured above. So where they any good, and will they stay in the collection like the last two figures?

Toy Report: Daffy Duck figure

Image via Wikipedia

Last week I went through the cubby hole and straightened up a few things. Now it’s time to start the “purge reviews”, as it were. If you noticed, there were so many action figures that I couldn’t fit them all in the box. Well, I grouped them into a series of reviews. Having nowhere else to put him, I was planning to put my Daffy Duck figure in a review set with my various Mega Man figures since he wouldn’t go into any of the other slots and this was the shortest set. However, pictures for the latter came out unusable so I can’t post any pictures of their review. (Remember, one article per week is my goal here, and time is almost up.) The Daffy shots were at least salvageable, so it looks like he’s getting his own review.

I think he’d want it that way.