I don’t have time to fully review everything I’ve been buying lately, but I do have a personal goal to photograph and write something about everything I get in the year. I’ve been trying to keep up monthly, but as you can see I’m just getting to March now, so you can see how that’s going. I am ahead of what I did last year, so I’m feeling good about that and I opened a good mix of fun stuff in March, so let’s take a quick look!
First up, I opened up a great group of Archie Comics Turtles with the Stump Wrestling four pack of Turtles, Cryin’ Houn’, Wrestling Leatherhead, and Mondo Gecko. First off, seeing them all together is just lovely because of all the wonderfully saturated colors and excellent sculpting that translate the 2D character designs into figure form. I particularly love the neon green plastic base on Mondo Gecko and the painted blue highlights on Raph’s black costume are perfectly cartoony. The Stump Turtles also move very nice, so I wouldn’t mind seeing non-wrestling versions of these Turtles eventually.
I also picked up a bunch of Legends, finally grabbing the female Electro on discount very close to the time I picked up Movie Electro. They share the same blast effect and they work well and add a lot too the figure’s shelf presence. I like the movie Electro figure okay, but I do wish there was a head without the electric effect. I also picked up another Mindless One at a local con and I’d love to get another one.
The Nemesis wave is solid. I was very excited for Cyclops, Marrow, and Fabian Cortez. I was a little less interested in X-Foce Nightcrawler, AoA Gambit and Husk, but they fit in with figures I already had, so I didn’t mind picking them up to make Nemesis. Nemesis is pretty cool, though I want to figure out a way to light up the flames in his head in a way that I can turn on and off easily. Cyke’s blast effect is a lot of fun and I’m glad that we are delving into this era of X-Factor more. What I really need now is a human Beast. Marrow might be my favorite of the bunch, but all the portraits are really nice. I think the one that gave me the most trouble was Nightcrawler. His limbs are pretty soft plastic and he didn’t like to hold more extreme poses for very long.
The two Black Series figures I picked up were winners for me with Kelnacca being a well-sculpted Wookiee Jedi with a solid, if slightly too dark paint job. Prince Xizor is a better figure than this mort has any right to be with some really great detail sculpting and expressive face and claw hand.
Some miscellaneous figures include Vampirella from Icon Collectibles, a hammond collection Triceratops, and a BST AXN Jennika from The Loyal Subjects. Vampirella features pretty fantastic sculpting that captures that Frazetta style woman perfectly just like their recent Teegra figure. The detailed base and head options are very good too. I do wish the knees got a little better range of motion, but otherwise she moves pretty well. The Hammond dino is a fun little figure, though the range of motion on the head ball joint is more limited than I like. I had the regular retail Jennika from TLS and I don’t care for that figure’s articulation or paint much. I did find this variant for a deep discount at Ross and the darker paint, especially on the bandanna helps the appearance of this figure quite a bit. I cannot recommend the figure at all, but if you are going to get one, I’d definitely try to get this darker repaint.
I also picked up a couple of cheap-y Jurassic Park pterodactyls with limited articulation from eBay to customize into Deathwings, one of ROM’s enemies from the comics. It’s just a simple repaint, but the first custom I’ve completed in a good long while.
Finally, my pre-order for the Ramen Toys REV- Recoil arrived in March. A six inch-scaled A-Team has been at the top of my wishlist for a long time, so I was looking forward to this one. I already have a B.A. Custom based on a Roadblock G.I. Joe Classified figure, but he’s a really tight fit in the van, so that’s slightly disappointing. I also wish the chairs were adjustable, especially the back seats since they actually turned in the show, but also just for ease of use. It would have been nice if you could take off the roof to more easily adjust the figures within. The spoiler, roof lights, and grill ramming bar are attached by magnets. These stay on, but are easily dislodged when you mess with the thing, so I wish the magnets were a tad stronger. That said, it’s really cool to have an A-Team Van. I just need to get on my customs of the rest of the team.
