Guardians Assemble!!!

At long last the Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Legends have arrived!  Of the 6 GotG figures, I'm only planning on buying 3 (okay, maybe 4) of them.  I found StarLord and Racket Racoon at my local comic shop (shoutout Bedrock City!).  Let's check 'em out!

Let's start out with the man himself, Peter Quill, a.k.a...StarLord.  Who?  StarLord man....legendary outlaw??? .... Forget it.

Mr. Quill comes with an alternate, unmasked head, one of Groot's build-a-figure arms, his blasters,  removable backpack, his headphones, walkman, and the shiny orb he steals in the trailer.  This is a LOT of accessories in today's toy market.

And here's his little buddy, Rocket!

Rocket comes with the head & torso of Groot, his rifle, and a big chest harness laser canon thing for StarLord.  I couldn't get StarLord to hold it very well, so you're not getting any pictures of that.

Rocket stands about 3" high.  They could have done a better job on his articulation, especially with his head/neck, but the sculpt is good.

Just for fun, I thought we should see Rocket team up with Green Lantern B'dg against that evil Red Lantern cat thing (that I meant to sell on ebay).  I think that cat is in trouble.

My Review:

These figures have great sculpts and I'm super excited to have them on the shelf...that being said, I think Hasbro is WAY overpricing these toys.  I paid $25 each of these figures.  You can find them as cheap as $19.99 at Walmart or Target.  While the sculpt and accessories are great, the plastic quality feels very cheap.  When I bend StarLord's arm, I feel like it could just fall apart.  The plastic feels more like rubber and is not hard or sturdy (that's what she said).  The old ToyBiz Legends were very sturdy and looked great AND cost 1/3 as much.  I know plastic prices have gone up, but I don't understand the downgrade in plastic.  StarLord's jacket is supposed to be softer, so maybe his arms feel like that to match his jacket.  Whatever.  It feels cheap.

Overpriced though they are, I'm planning on getting Nova as soon as I can find him and probably space armor IronMan as well.  I already have a Legends Drax that I prefer (see top graphic) and Gamora just looks awful, so I'm planning on buying those Groot pieces on ebay.  I'll post pics of him as soon as I have him complete!

Lastly, I like to let Space Ghost end every post...take it away SG!

Sassy, Space Ghost, verrry sassy.  You better lighten up or I'll have to replace you with a Jimmy Fallon figure.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Marvel Legends Movie Figure Review

As I was walking around my local comic book store (Bedrock City Comics in Houston, TX  #shamelessplug) this week I was excited to see the latest Marvel Legends series from Hasbro.  Marvel Legends has gone through a few marketing directions since Hasbro took over the line from Toybiz (R.I.P.) and now I hear that the Legends will be used soley as movie tie-ins.  Being that Marvel movies rock my face off, I don't find this disturbing news in the least.  What IS a bit distrurbing is the $25 PRICE TAG! What the what?!?  When Legends started (around 2003, i think), they were only $7 a piece and you got a reprinted comic to go with it!  You MAY be able to find them cheaper in the big box stores as compared to a specialty comic shop, but usually Bedrock City has comparable prices.  Luckily I had a $25 gift card burning a hole in my wallet from Christmas. Even without the gift card, THIS figure is worth it.  I can't speak for the others in the set though.

Spider-man is my favorite comic book hero, and thus I have owned many Spidey figures in my lifetime.  In college I sported an "all Spidey" collection, but as the movies took off it became clear that I would never be able to keep up and I sold all but my favorites.  Lately, the high quality of my Marvel Collection has gotten so high that I didn't have any Spider-man figures that I felt were good enough to display with the rest of them.  They either were too skinny, had questionable paint jobs, had a weird sculpt, or just fell over too much.  I had one really good Spidey, but he's wearing his new b&w costume and I wanted a classic costume figure for my Avengers shelf.  I am happy to announce that I have found the Spidey that the hole in my collection was waiting for!

The Marvel Legends Amazing Spider-Man 2 action figure stand 6" tall, right in line with previous Legends.  Sometimes some characters (cough, Ironman, cough cough) come out looking under-sized.  Not so with Spidey.  Mr. Parker fits right in beside Cap and Hawkeye in my Avengers lineup.  Since my Hulk, IronMan, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and Spidey are all based on movie likenesses, this is the closest I'll get to seeing Spidey in the movie crew until Sony's rights finally revert back to Disney/Marvel...and I'll probably be long dead from old age by then...but I digress.

Spidey has a crisp paint job, comic-accurate colors, great sculpt, amazing poseability, light texture on the blue parts of his costume, and best of all (if I had to pick one thing) big, shiny eyes!  I obviously love this figure, based on the amount of words I've typed, so let's move on to the pictures, eh?

The new Marvel Legends boxes are a cool, new clamshell type package with slick graphics and nice matte background/glossy detail print effect.

 

Spidey comes with a set of fists and a set of webbing-ready hands you can interchange as well as the right arm of an Ultimate Green Goblin Build-A-Figure.

As with all classy Spidey figures these days, his webs are etched into the sculpt with a light black inset.  This beats the pants of painting the lines onto a flat figure.  

Now I'm going to show off his amazing posing abilities, mostly while interacting with a bunch of my other figures, because Spidey's cool like that.

One of my few complaints is the red pegs in his elbow joints (see the pics above and below).  I know they wanted the red to show up on the outside of his arm, but could they not create pegs that were red on one side and blue on the other?  Or find a paint that wouldn't peel off with wear?  Oh well, that's a small problem on an otherwise excellent figure.

And he wouldn't be Spidey without some whitty banter.  Banter away, Spidey!

Here's a couple more shots of Spidey taking his place on my Avengers (& friends) shelf.

And last, but not least, the Space Ghost interview...

The First Ever Strong-Arm/Strong-Or Figure

Strong-Or (called Strong-Arm in the cartoon) is a figure I never expected Mattel to make.  Strong-Arm (I prefer that name...so let's just use that one) only ever appeared in one episode of Masters of the Universe, but it happened to be one of the ones that, for whatever reason, cemented itself into my brain when I was 5.  He appeared in the episode "The She-Demon of Phantos" where he teamed up with Skeletor to enslave the planet Phantos and take the strongest metal ore in the universe for himself.  As a former miner, Strong-Arm had the necessary skills to create a new face and arm from Photanium after he was wounded in a mining accident.  He used his new arm to join forces with Skeletor in a grab for power.  In his only appearance, Strong-Arm shows off his ability to stretch his metal arm and uses it's immense strength to capture He-Man inside a photanium cell.

Strong-Arm has a truly bizarre appearance, featuring a metal head and arm, pointy ears, a blue spike mowhawk, and orange skin.  While he sort of looks like a mixup of random parts, I thought his mask was a really cool design and his bright blues and oranges add another vibrant addition to my already extremely colorful MotU Classics collection.  

 

Strong-Arm comes with a regular length arm, extended length arm, and Skeletor's shrinking ray.  The arms snap on and off easily, but are a good fit and are not loose once attached.

Here's a shot of Strong-Arm as I have him in my Castle Grayskull display where he's facing off against fellow glove enthusiast, Fisto. That spiked mace came with the castle, and I thought it fit his character more than the shrinking ray.

And now...your moment of zen.

Stan the He-Man?!?

Yes, that is Marvel Comics legend, Stan Lee in the photo above.  In a bizarre twist, Mattel just released a Masters of the Universe Classics figure of Stan the Man!  As far as I know, Stan had nothing to do with the original creation of the He-Man universe nor has he ever written a He-Man story, and yet...here he is.  While I find the whole situation confusing, I couldn't pass up the chance to own a Stan Lee action figure that would fit in seemlessly with one of my collections.

Dubbing him the "Cosmic Creator of Power", his bio states that Standor was one of deities who formed the Eternian Universe.  Without further delay, I give you...Standor.

Stan comes with "cosmic" armor, a removable helmet, and removable "solar glasses".

If you know anything about Stan, you know that he loves doing interviews.  Let's see how it goes when Space Ghost gets his turn to interview "the Man"!

SKRULLS!!!!

This is an old figure pic I came across tonight and it happens to be one of my favorites of all time, so I thought it was worth a post.  I took this picture on a whim at work (yes, I had toys at work...lots of them) with my cell phone and it just turned out to be a great picture.  The dramatic lighting, the focus, the amazing texture on the skrull's skin...it all added up to create an intimidating image of an unhappy group of skrulls.