Star Trek: Enterprise Deluxe Sets
As evidenced by my DVD, movie, and toys reviews, I am a Trekkie. I’ve heard hard-core Trekkies say that it’s a “Trekker”, but that just sounds stupid. I’m a Trekkie. I love it. I watched the shows religously when they were on local TV (this was before DVD became prevalent) and hated missing out on the last episodes whenever a new incarnation was prematurely cancelled. I never got past season 5 or 6 of The Next Generation, and Deep Space 9 was taken off the air here right when it was getting good. Forget Voyager. I only got to watch that by buying VHS tapes (yes, I’m that old) from ex-pats whose relatives had taped episodes for them while they were stationed here in the Philippines.
When Enterprise rolled around, I was overjoyed. “Thank, God!” I said. “The franchise isn’t dead”. This of course was before Scott Bakula and the crew of the Enterprise pretty much nailed the coffin shut. Ratings for the show went down consistently over the 4 season run. Coupled with the low performance of the Next Generation movies, the Federation was pretty much dead.
Luckily, before that happened, Art Asylum got the license to produce these beauties.
I’d heard of Art Asylum before, but had never seen any of their toys until I ran into these at my local Toy Kingdom. 2Rats, our friendly neighborhood distributor of NECA, Mezco and other high end action figures got their hands on some bargain bin stock and imported the Deluxe Boxsets with both Captain John Archer and Armory Officer Malcolm Reed. The big surprise was that they were only php500.00 (about $10.00). SCORE!
I loved the Enterprise series. It was slow to start, and focused a lot on the whole time travel business, but it got pretty exciting toward the end. I saw these and started drooling. Unfortunately, I passed on it the first time, thinking that no one would be buying them (Science Fiction isn’t big in the Philippines) and that I could come back later. Eventually, the inevitable (at least here in our country) happened and they were further discounted to php300.00. Archers flew off the shelves so fast I didn’t even have a chance to get on the jeep to Megamall and pick up a pair. By the time the dust settled, only Reed was left.
Since It felt wrong to have one without the other, I put it off. Luckily I found a pair for php300.00 at the recent Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale. Woohoo! This time I didn’t hesitate and threw them in the cart.
The reason most people were picking these up wasn’t because they watched the show or liked the figures. It was really the bases that came with it that were the target. Though they were made for 7″ figures, 6″ Marvel Legends weren’t too far from the scale so looked pretty good in the Captain’s Chair or behind the weapons console. For php300.00 you had a great little stage for your Iron Man or SHEILD agents.
The scuplt of both the chair and the console is great, with fun knobs and dials and little gigglywhatsits and thingamagibbets. They look sufficiently high tech to look like part of any sci fi back drop. Personally, I like to use them for my Deep Space Isaacs.
The Malcolm Reed one is the best if you want to use it for another line. The weapons console is pretty detailed, with all the aforementioned gadgetry all done up nice with color and various on screen displays. There’s even a speaker and some slider dials. The thing is perfectly scaled for the 7″ figures, so there’s no problem getting them to line up. The chair is able to slide out on a rail in the floor in case you’re not particularly coordinated.
There is some assembly required, something I miss from those wacky 80’s. it comes with the railings and the chair separated from the floor and console. Don’t worry. It’s very simple to figure out how it goes and you don’t need the included instructions.
The figure is pretty amazing. One of the things that made me pause the first time I saw this was the fact that they look like they’ve got no articulation below the waist. The fact is, that Art Asylum really went all out and took an innovative approach to figure design. From the Waist down, the figure is covered with a sheet of soft rubber. the hip and thigh joints are hidden beneath that covering. This makes for an excellent and realistic sculpt that really looks like cloth.
It’s not without it’s drawbacks of course. The spring of the rubber means that the figures can be hard to pose in extreme positions since the joints are forced back to their resting position. Also, if my old toys from childhood are any indication, rubber doesn’t really withstand the test of time very well. There is going to be a point when this stuff melts or gets brittle in the future, and you’re going to be stuck with a couple of Starfleet Officers without their skivvies.
Captain Archer comes with his command chair of course. It’s a fit for him, though a little less than perfect. Because of the limited articulation. He can really only slouch in the chair. It’s not too bad, but I kind of wish I could have him leaning forward as if about to order someone to launch a torpedo or something.
The chair itself is nice. Some of the parts are actually soft, as if a real cushion was there. There are also some nice little details on the arm rests as well. The whole thing turns around as well, so if you have another console, he can face either the weapons station or the science one, or looking forward to where Mayweather and the viewscreen should be.
I say SHOULD be since there’s no way you can get a Mayweather and the helm station. Apparently, ratings were so bad, that production of these toys stopped. You can still find the single card action figures listed on the back of the box, but the Deluxe Box Set T’Pol was only produced in limited quantities and the Deluxe Travis Mayweather set never saw the light of day. I figure I can just get another weapons station to act as the science station (they’re interchangeable) and see if I can have a set of the single cards with T’Pol shipped to my cousins in the US or something. It’ll probably be the same as if tried to have one of the box sets shipped here.
I really recommend these toy sets if you can find them. If 2Rats was able to bring them into the country, then I’d assume they are in the bargain bins elsewhere too. They really are perfect for the bigger scale figures, especially any that have to do with future histories.
Just don’t get them if all you collect are 1/18th scale figures. They just don’t go.
Dead or Alive Trading Figures
If you’ve collected 1/18th toys for awhile, they you know what a sausage fest it is. Both Star Wars (which pioneered the scale) and GI Joe are boys lines and the consensus among toy manufacturers is that boys don’t want to play with girls. You would have thought 250,000 years of evidence to the contrary would have been enough to convince them otherwise.
Realistically, this may have been true when the lines were conceptualized; back in the days of the USA vs. whatever-bad-guy’s-currently-available, boys were concious of not looking like pansies. But today, when more and more kids would rather play video games than role play with action figures, the toy companies need to realize there’s been a paradigm shift. More than ever, the collector’s market is becoming more prominent.
If you dig deep enough in any collector’s closet, you’ll find that closely guarded “hot girl collection”. Sure if a collector is married or in a long-term relationship, that collection may have fallen victim to some “compromising”, but at one point or another, it was there. Us collectors WANT female figures in our lines. We want to see that Baroness standing next to Destro, or Teela next to He-Man. We want our Princess Leia in the Gold Bikini.
Sadly, we don’t see this happen a lot. We’re lucky if we get 1 female figure in a line. Often times, even if a character is a big figure in the series, she still doesn’t make the draft. Look at Scarlett in the Sigma 6 line. Big in the cartoon series but we had to wait through something like 10 waves of repaints and retools before we heard news that she was coming out. We got all excited, and then they cancelled the line.
Say it with me. “Fuck You, Hasbro”.
So, back to my point. The 1/18 scale is woefully lacking in the female characters. Which is one of the reasons that I’ve been looking for this particular set for over 2 years now. I finally found a “pre-owned” one from another collector who was streamlining (Thanks, man!) for p700. One of the figures was slightly damaged, hence the relatively cheap price, but it’s nothing a little glue won’t fix.
The Dead Or Alive set consists of 6 articulated figures; Kasumi (Blue), Kasumi (White), Ayane (Purple), Ayane (White), Hitomi, and Lei Fang. They’re about 4″ tall, so they’re perfectly in scale with Joes or Star Wars figures. This of course means girl ninjas to kick Snake Eye’s butt.
The girls are sculpted in the typical japanalicious way. Colored hair, heart shaped faces, huge eyes, tiny noses and mouths, big breasts, slim waists, round hips and butts, and long legs. If you’ve played the video game that these are based on, then you know one of the draws is that these are typical extensions of various male fantasies. They look very pretty and great next to other toys. They’ve even got transluscent hair so that they photograph better.
One of the big features of the earlier installments of the game was that you could turn the “gainaxing” (look it up) of the female characters on or off, depending on how pervy you were willing to admit you were. I’m a particulary pervy person so I always had it on. This year’s Ninja Gaiden went one further and gave us the ability to control the movement using the game pad. How’s that for progress?
Articulation is really nice on these, especially considering they are trading figures. You’ve got movement at the nape of the neck, where the neck meets the chest, the shoulder, an arm swivel, a diagonal swivel for an elbow, a wrist swivel, a slanted swivel waist, V-cut hips, thigh cuts, hinge knees, and rocker ankles. All told, that’s 19 points of articulation. The two Ayanes have 22 since they’ve got 3 more joints for they’re huge yellow bows. When you compare that to the 13 or 14 that today’s joes have, that’s amazing.
Note that I said most of them are swivels, including their elbows. That’s because these toys are so tiny and delicate, that adding hinges wouldn’t be advisable.Though angled swivels don’t work so well in bigger scales, here they do their job nicely. paired with the various other swivels allows one to have the flexibility needed here. They are actually a very nice balance between sculpt and joint work, though the plastic they are made of can become brittle.
That really becomes a problem when you try and switch out the hands with the other sets, which each figure comes with. They are all a very tight fit and don’t come out very easily. You need to pull very hard to get them out and the post that connects them can snap just like that. This is a problem since you can not easily glue it back. The parts are too tiny, with too small a surface area to have any kind of strength once broken.
Other than the extra hands, each also comes with a few other things. Kasumi has her short sword, Ayane her bow. Hitomi also has this circular impact effect thing that is supposed to go around her foot I guess. Lei Fang gets nada. They all do come with a plain, rectangular black stand. Unfortunately, it only fits them. It comes with a post and a twist tie that act as away you can display them kicking in the air. Low-tech, but effective.
You’d be lucky to find these figures out there at the local specialty shops. Even if you did, they’re trading figures, so they come in a blind box. This means that the box is identical for all figures and there is no indication of what’s inside. This is a stupid way of doing things, especially since Japanese companies who do this usually pack in crappy figures with the good ones. Thankfully, there isn’t a bad one in the bunch here. Though I do favor Hitomi and Lei-Fang for their regular civilian clothes, each of th figures looks great.
At less than p1000 for the set, this was a great bargain. Current prices on sites like www.toywiz.com are about $30 USD, not including shipping or the insane customs fees we have here in the Philippines. I imagine it’s even more on eBay if you’re lucky enough to find a set.
Bootleg Transformers
Animated Activators
On one hand, it’s sad that there are so many bootlegs of toys on the market. The stand of the toy companies is that it takes money away from them by giving people an option that is cheaper than the original. Most of the time I’d say that’s bunk, since normally boot egs are sub-standard, badly made junk that isn’t really worth the trouble. Under normal circumstances, the people buying bootlegs are the people who can’t afford the original suggested retail price of the authentic product. Essentially, the toy makers would never had gotten that money anyway.
That argument doesn’t hold water when you’re staring at something like these though.
I found these two lovely little knockoffs in St. Francis Square, the mecca for us poor souls who are too lazy to drag our asses to Divisoria, the source of all this plastic goodness. I was surprised that they were only p80, which means they’re probably p30 or p40 in Divi since the store I bought it at is known to jack up prices that high. Sometimes I don’t mind since it costs me several hundred to get to and from Divi anyway.
What really struck me was that these toys are of a material that feels as sturdy as the one used in the Hasbro version. Unlike most bootlegs I’ve encountered, the limbs dont’ feel as if they’re about to fall off. They’re also cast in colors similar to the originals (they may be a bit brighter). The biggest difference really is their lack of the copyrighted Autobot insignia. From what I’ve read online, they also have Starscream and Grimlock, and each mold comes in 2 variations. I’m hoping to find some of the others as well.
Articulation is pretty impressive for this scale. Both of them have working knees and elbows, though Bee’s is sort of blocked by the car doors he has on the back of his arms. Oh well. In robot mode, these two are a nice step up from the Legends Class Versions.
The transformation sequence for both is pretty impressive for something this size. There are some gaps and things since the designers didn’t have a whole lot of room to work with here and they needed to fit in an action feature somewhere. The end result is a vehicle form that’s got some compromises, but looks pretty good from a distance.
Bumblebee’s arm and shoulder construction is supported by a black frame that you can see sticking out his backside as a car. It ruins his aerodynamics, but it’s not too in obtrusive. Prime has more of the obvious gaps in his chassis and you’ll see some of those black support pieces on the back of his cab as well.
I wouldn’t normally recommend bootlegs, but since the Activator Class has been so scarce on the shelves (I saw Bumblebee ONCE when the Transformers Line was launched and then *poof*), many of us don’t have much of a choice. Right now, the only way you can get Bumblebee is to buy the exclusive Leader/Activator Class 2-pack that is currently on mark down at p1000.00. Since this box was brought in late, and most of us bought the single LC Bulkhead on sale at the same price (insert facepalm here), it makes little sense to shell out again.
In addition to being hard to find, the single cards of these toys were originally p500 or so suggested retail price. That is only a p200 ($4) price difference from a Deluxe Class toy. Despite the “pop-up” gimmick, which barely works and doesn’t exactly thrill (and note that the bootlegs have the same feature), their size should have dictated a better price.
If you missed out on Activator Prime and Bumblebee, here’s your chance.
Playmates April O’Neil
Want to see something stupid?
I just bought 10 of the same figure.
That’s right, 10 of the same toy.
Now before you go crying, “Hoarders must die!”, these were all clearance items that have been on sale for several days now. No one wanted them when they were on sale at SRP, no one wanted them when they went on sale at discount, no one wanted them when they went to clearance. No one except for me, that is.
The reason I want them is that I had hoped to build an army of Mousers for my NECA Turtles who are woefully without bad guys since NECA has left us hanging with wave 2. Let’s face it though, the NECA Mousers even at p700 a set (p1000 if you’re wanting the April and Mousers with articulated jaws pack) is just too ridiculously expensive. The sets I’m reviewing here only cost p100 at their current sale price at the Toy Town in Eastwood. I bought about half their stock on the shelf.
Apparently, the incarnation that this turtles line spawned from is one where April O’Neil is a computer genius and not a jet set reporter. At least that’s what I get from her bio in the back.
Sadly, the sale only included these figures, a few Splinters and a Flash Forward Dark Michaelangelo. I supposed I might have missed out on the other figures, but I doubt it. No Casey Jones or Shredders in this batch. Nor were there any turtles besides the aforementioned Dark Mike. It was a clearance sale and the stuff that finds it’s way to the bargain bin is generally stuff people don’t see as valuable enough to spend money on.
Which is why this figure in particular is included. The April figure is quite honestly the worst figure I currently own. She doesn’t look particularly good, with quite possibly the most plain outfit I’ve ever seen on an action figure. She’s not even posed in an appealing way. Basically she’s just standing there, limbs splayed out. You can’t even pose her to actually use the laptop. Playmates’ articulation made sure of that. She’s got a 5-point layout, all swivels. They’re not even very useful swivels (the ones on the hips are a V-cut that does nothing for nobody). She doesn’t even make up for this suck with accessories. She has a PIPE and a LAPTOP. She can hold the pipe and the laptop, but in nothing approaching a stance that comes close to being even construed as threatening.
Only two things save this from being a total loss.
One: She’s got the mother of all camel toes (granted this could be a figment of my warped imagination which has been corrupted by the best).
Two: She comes with two articulated Mousers.
That’s right. Two. Articulated. Mousers. 1/10 the price of the SDCC NECA April O’Neil, you get pretty much the same thing. They’re even close to the same scale, so they fit nicely with the NECA Turtles. They’re still designed in a cartoony way, but they’re a little less round and cutesy looking. Their also missing all those lovely comic book-y lines that NECA added in. And their Articulated Jaw is spring loaded, which means that it doesn’t stay open so you can’t photography tnem with mouths agape.
But hey, for the price of 1 NECA set, I’ve got an army of 20 Mousers ready to chomp some Turtle meat.
Not to mention the April O’Neil harem. Turtles need love too, you know.
I’ve also got 10 plastic laptops (about 1/18 scale) and 10 pipe pieces. I’ve got no idea what to do with these things, really. I’m not big on customizing (’cause I’m lazy as all get out), so I’m trying to think of something that isn’t too labor intensive. I could probably use them for Marvel Legends, but I have neither a Microchip toy, nor any of the Morlocks…
Oh well. I suppose they’ll all be dropped in my bits box. Or I’ll give the Aprils to some of my cousins and start them on the long hard road of hot girl statue collecting. Sure it’s not that hot… but that only means they’ve got room to imporve their collection.
Astroboy Action Figures
A measure of how much I liked the Astro Boy Movie was that I immediately went to Toys R’ Us and got me some plastic goodies based on the film.
Apparently the toyline isn’t very popular, here or abroad. Though I’ve been waiting for other sites to put up reviews, I haven’t heard much about them really. The action figures are made by Jazwares, which I gather isn’t too respected in the toy geek world. They apparently put out a substandard Street Fighter line several years ago that was a throwback to the old classic Toybiz days and suffered from some bad quality control. Opinion on thier stuff isn’t really good on the forums.
I’ve got to say though, based on these figures, I’m of a mind to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The toy line has several sub-sets. A 3″ line that’s about the proper scale for GI Joes (if you want a really odd crossover), a middle line that’s about 6″ or 7″ that includes bigger Astros and some monster bots, a pair of 10″ (I think) Astros with lights and sounds, and 3 vinyl figures that are cuter than a lolcat.
I decided to start with 3 versions of Astro in the 3″ set; the regular one with the feet jets, the gladiator one, and the cannon arm one. This set also has a normal Peacekeeper, a Metro City soldier, and Trash Can and the Gun Droid. The local price is p500.00 or so, about $10.00, which is insanely pricey for something that’s smaller than a GI Joe, but like I said, I enjoyed the movie.
First some general observations.
They are built solidly and don’t look like they’ll easily break. The material is not too soft and not too brittle so they’re perfect for their target market (kids). Paint applications are pretty bad all around, with color not lining up properly and not matching with the casted plastic. Articulation isn’t stellar, but adequate. Accessories are pretty minimal. They’re EXPENSIVE.
Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to say… BUY THEM.
Or at least one of them. The toys are a great balance between sculpt and articulation (swivels for head, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, ankles), ornament and action figure. I keep them at work so that I can use them as a sort of stress ball. You can’t really judge these figures until you have them in your hand and play around with them. They don’t look too impressive by themselves on the pegs, but get them home and along side some other toys and you’re golden.
So. 3 Astro Boys. There isn’t much of a difference really, and that difference is pretty well explained by the name on the box. Arm Cannon Astro Boy has arm cannons. Battle Arena Astro Boy has the gladiator outfit and some hastily done paint smears that are supposed to be mud. And the regular Astro Boy has the pedolicious nakedness and the jets.
Which one to get depends on what you want. I prefer the gladiator one because it’s just bad ass. It comes with a little fireball accessory that fits on his fist. You’ll need to watch out for the mud streaks. They are varied and you need to find one to your liking. I got the one with a lot of streaks.
The Arm Cannon one is the one I like least. His shirt is half cast in color, half painted on his torso because of the placement of the swivel waist. It’s pretty ugly since they used a thin paint that doesn’t cover well. you can see his black pants right throught the paint. He also doesn’t have any arms. If you remove his guns he’s got nothing but stumps. Kids’ll have nightmares.
Plus he’s got 2 guns and 1 plasma blast. WTF.
The regular Astro Boy looks to be the most popular. He was the one that had disappeared from the pegs the fastest. I like him for the feet, which are swappable with the others, unlike the arm cannons.
The other toys I picked up were the 2 monsters in the next scale up; the Peacekeeper and the Buzz Saw Samurai.
Both are pretty plentiful, even at the time of this writing. They cost more of course, around p700.00, and I’m not sure their entirely worth it. Neither has much in the way of articulation, and much of that is non-functional. They are big though, and though not to scale, they’re pretty impressive next to the smaller figures.
Both of the big toys have lights; the Samurai has eyes and the Peacekeeper has the chest cracks. Jazwares screwed the pooch when they were designing these things. They forgot to include a way to lock the lights in the ON position so there’s no way to display them with the lights on. To make matters worse, they put the button to activate the Peacekeepers lights on the front of the toy. Those nice photographs you wanted are gonna come up a null set.
You’ll also notice that their articulation is ridiculously non-functional. Peacekeeper’s sculpt keeps him from having much of a range of motion in his arms, He’s got hip and knee joints, but there isn’t much they can do considering the upper body bulk. If you move the feet too much out of position, he will keel over.
The Samurai’s design means he’s pretty much immobile from the shoulders down. There are hinge joints at his “knees” but since they’re less than an inch apart and don’t look good in any other position, Jazwares could have saved themselves the trouble and lost it. His arms would benefit from another joint or two each, to help him reach around himself.
The great thing about these, and the real reason to get one is that they look excellent with the 3″ Astro Boys. Especially if you have some camera know how and a wide lens to mess with the perspective. Like the Marvel Universe Gigantic Battles, the size difference between the two lines really adds to the fun factor and makes the purchase worthwile.
Are these a must have? No probably not. They aren’t of a particularly high quality, though they are sturdier than almost any toy I own. They aren’t of a particulary sought after line, but that means that they’re an easy score. They’re aren’t particularly affordable, but then what toy is these days?
I’ll still give them a thumbs up because they’re just such a joy to play with. I’d suggest limiting it to one of the Astro Boys, a Trashcan and a Samurai, though. The rest are only for the hardcore idiots like me.
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
Enjoy your stay and leave a comment.
Slangards
I may give you a half-way serious answer.
