G.I. Joe: Retaliation Snake Eyes and 25th Anniversary Scarlett

I have a weird on-off history with G.I. Joe. I've looked into it before, picked up some cartoons, have a few comics-as it's Transformers' sister series, it's kind of hard not to pick up some of the basic details here and there. But I'd never picked up any of the toys. Well, after watching G.I. Joe Retaliation-and right after that, jumping back into G.I. Joe Renegades-I decided that needed fixing. To Ebay!

End result: G.I. Joe Retaliation Snake Eyes with Timber, and a 25th anniversary edition of Scarlett. While I'd definitely seen Joes on the peg before, their tiny size didn't quite sink in until I actually had them in-hand. Scarlett came to me in a little bubble mailer, and I was worried for a minute before I opened it-it's so flat, is the toy safe? is it broken? Turns out, she was just fine; they're just really small. So anyone buying off Ebay and receiving mailers: fear not, they're okay in there.

While they're smaller than my usual figure size of choice (the Spartans are in that average 5-6" range that the majority of figures seem to lean towards), they're neat. The tiny 3 1/4" bodies pack in almost as much articulation as a Marvel Legend, and honestly I find their actual ability to pose to be much better. Poor Kaine might forever be two-thirds of the way to doing a split, but Snake Eyes and Scarlett can sit nicely, stand normally, and hold a variety of poses. And I do mean a variety. Scarlett is less stable than Snake Eyes due to her boot heels, but they're both quite good at taking a position and staying up right, which is more than I can say for a lot of super articulated toys. (See: the Queen's need for a stand, the Spartans' delicate ballerina ankles.) I had a ton of fun just fiddling around with them on my desk, seeing what kind of poses I could do. This also led to me pretty much spamming everybody on IM with new toy photos.

They do come with stands (two versions; a dog tag and a more rectangular stand branded with 'A Real American Hero' and Scarlett's names) each with a single peg to help posing. I honestly only needed it once, and that was to hold one of my favorite shots, because the peg was the only concession I needed to make them to hold the pose. There's no clear ties on anything else besides to stand to get them posed like this; they're just really, really flexible and stable if they have a good foothold.

The sculpts on both are nice; Snake Eyes is based on the movie take (because movie line) and Scarlett is based on her appearance in the cartoon. Unlike some earlier movie toys I looked at, they don't seem to suffer from having heads that look too small, and Scarlett in particular has plenty of nice paint apps. Snake Eyes had-and needs-less paint, but he's got nice detailed sculpting, especially taking the size into account again.

The accessories are where things fall a bit flat. Scarlett had her belt (good) and her crossbow (which is evil). The crossbow would be a neat accessory but for one thing-the actual bow-y part (forgive me, we covered archery for like two days in gym class) detaches from the lower grip piece, and it has a bear of a time actually staying put. You can click it down, it seems solid...and then it springs apart once you try to make her hold it. Snake Eyes comes with other, more cooperative accessories that seem to be call backs to his classic 80s figure-he gets a sword, an Uzi, a pistol, a rifle of some sort, two knives, and Timber. All these pieces are nicely sculpted, but like Scarlett's weapon, all the weapons are in flat black. Also, they're very small and easily lost; I recommend having a plastic bag on hand to gather them up in as soon as the packing is opened.

Timber is almost a third figure here; while he lacks any leg or tail articulation, his head is articulated. His head is very, very articulated, allowing for what I can only call Timber's demonic possession action feature (old priest and young priest figures not included). The articulation is nice, because while he's sculpted with his teeth bared, the movement of the head gives him a bit more body language. Unfortunately, his paint apps are very limited-a dot for the nose, a dot for the eyes, and some odd patches of cream over the white. I'm seriously considering doing a repaint so he can have his proper grey color again.

Overall thoughts? While they're small, the Joes are fun. I found myself wanting to go outside and take more photos of them messing around with other toys, because their articulation allows for a lot of neat shots and they're much more cooperative in actually holding poses than much of my collection. They're interesting to look at and fun to fiddle with; their main flaws are in the accessories, and the lack of paint there could be solved by a free afternoon and a couple of bottles of P3. (The only solution for their tendency to be lost, alas, is luck and sandwich baggies.) However, they're tricky to find in stores now from the discussions I've seen, so your best bet-for both new and old figures-is probably to hit Ebay or online shops. After only picking up Joe media for years, I'm glad I finally got some toys. Are they in-scale to my Transformers? Nope. But are they fun to set them up with on the shelf? Oh yes.

Revoltech Alien Queen

When I first started out doing comics and toy reviews, I decided I'd make things fairly work-safe. Keep any swearing low-key and to a minimum.

That has gone out the window for this review, for Kaiyodo has broken me.

(If this was the 90s, this would be a comic mini. Just saying.)

Some background on this purchase. I've found myself wanting a model of the queen from Aliens ever since 1994. I had already decided that xenomorphs had a great design, especially the queen, and were easily my favorite movie monsters ever based on the bits of viewing I had managed to sneak here and there, and when I saw the commercials for Kenner's Alien Queen Hive Playset? It looked awesome. A pretty alien queen and slime? Freakin' awesome.

Of course, I never asked for her, as Aliens was not a movie I was supposed to be watching (despite doing my damnedest when it was on TV; I don't even remember how old I was when I finally saw it properly) and so, I never picked her up. Xenomorph toys came and went. I collected other things in the meanwhile. I did hear of Revoltech, and that they'd done some nice scifi figures, including a model of the xenomorph queen. And on a whim this past weekend, I decided to start poking around for pricing and availability of the figure, and found that not only was she easy to find, she was also pretty reasonable, for a largish, imported toy.

So on Wednesday, I bought her. On Friday, she arrived. And that's when it began.

The packaging is, honestly, great. No tape, minimal twist ties, and some plastic sleeves, with three layers of the plastic to hold everything together inside the box. It's a big, colorful, book-style package that shows off the figure beautifully and highlights how the Revoltech joints move. I have no clue what any of the text says, but hoo boy there's a lot of it.

I especially like the cover piece, with its big block lettering and the moodily-lit picture of the queen. It's very reminiscent of some shots from the film and it's a nice preview before you open things up. And things are very easy to open-again, no tape, just slide it out, wrap, and pop things out, then slide everything back in. It's extremely collector-friendly, and this is one piece of packaging I intend to keep, because 1. it's nice looking and 2. it'll help protect the figure if I need to transport her.

Unfortunately, she comes with her left arm and leg detached, and they have to be plugged in. This is much harder than it sounds.

Much, much harder.

The problem is two-fold: Revoltech is made with ratcheting joints that, once pressure is applied, start to move in various directions. They can move like crazy, and this makes for great posing, but this also means that when you think you're finally making headway, you hear a 'click!'. And the joint slips. And you're back at square one.

The other problem is that the holes themselves just don't want to seem to work. I actually ended up lightly scraping the edge of one of my xacto knives along the inside of the arm, leg, and chest holes, just to see if there was any flash that was interfering with the joint. Nope. They're just really fucking hard to get in.

And this is where the swearing begins. This was the most miserable figure assembly of my life. The most miserable, fucking frustrating assembly of my whole goddamn life. It made me angry, because there was no good reason for the pieces to not pop in. It took an incredible amount of pressure to force these things in, and it was nerve-wracking, because I've heard Revoltech can also be fairly delicate, and I really didn't want to snap anything.

But they're in. The end result is that I'm not sure that the chest-supporting bit is ever coming out, and as of three in the afternoon today, my right thumb and forefinger still have limited feeling at the ends. Absolutely miserable, to the point where chucking her across the room in sheer frustration was tempting.

Speaking of Revoltech being delicate, I did have one sad surprise: it seems her one back spine came pre-broken, as I couldn't find any sign of it in the box or on my floor. It doesn't ruin things for me-it ever comes up in the comic, it's from a fight she won-but it's disappointing to get a toy pre-broken. But it could be worse; it could be a limb. I honestly don't know if it's possible to contact Kaiyodo about broken parts, because apparently trying to find Revoltech information is like trying to find unicorns. Little, poseable Japanese unicorns. Just looking for help on getting the limbs together proved to be impossible.

So, after all that pain, frustration, and anguish, how is the actual toy herself? Honestly, she's beautiful. And big. From snout to tail blade, she's about a foot long; foot to highest point on her crest is roughly seven and a half inches. She's not big enough to properly loom over a six inch figure like she ought to, but she's a good size anyway. She might loom properly over 3 1/4 figures, but I don't have any to try that scale out with.
Her sculpting is dead-on to the film; all those spines, spikes, and biomechanical details are there, including a tiny set of inner jaws that can be pushed or retracted, depending on the posing you'd like to do. The color is accurate as well; she's been cast in a sort of smoky translucent brown plastic that has a dark metallic blue overlaid on certain parts of her. The crest shows this off the best, and it's really pretty in good lighting, looking a lot like the shine you'd see on an actual insect. The other paint apps are pretty minimal, going off the fact that xenomorphs aren't known for being very elaborately colored. Her claws are silver and the protrusions on the back of her crest are painted a bone-white color, while the inner jaws are a mix of silver, light blue, and the bone-white.

Revoltechs are known for their poseability, and the queen is indeed a flexible beast-mostly. Her head and neck are flexible (including a bit that pops up as you flex her beck), and her two sets of arms all have jointing at the base socket, the elbow, and the wrist. Her jaws pop open, and the actual head piece can be moved into different positions beneath the crest. The three pairs of spines along the back are also flexible, weirdly enough, and can be fanned or or raised up together. (Given how I got one pre-broken, I suggest being super-careful here.) Her tail has a wire core that allows it to flex, and it's really nice for making her poses more dynamic-looking.

The problem area, articulation-wise, is her legs. Besides the issue of getting that left leg on, I find the articulation here to be extremely iffy. The hip joint flexes, as does the knee, but I'm still not sure what's going on with the calf. As you can see in the picture, the calf appears to be connected using a hinge joint, rather than a Revoltech joint. I've poked at it a bit, and those joints seem solid. I'm not sure if they're frozen or if they're not intended to move at all. The fact that they're not jointed like anything else makes me really question it, and frankly I'm a little too nervous about doing damage to try and heat and force the joint. If anyone can confirm the joint is made to move and tell me how to flex it safely, I would love to hear it. Otherwise, the only one leg joint is on the feet, and while it's good for posing, I'd prefer both calf and foot articulation.

The last articulation point...really isn't. The queen doesn't come with many accessories-a little box to hold things with, a nameplate, and then her stand. And trust me, she needs her stand. While you can do some laying down/kneeling poses with her without it, the fact of the matter is that her feet are too small and she's too top-heavy to allow her to actually stand on her own, in my experience. So the stand is necessary if you don't want a permanently-keeled over queen. It's a clear plastic rod with a Revoltech joint; the joint goes into the chest while the peg of the rod goes into a bit of deck flooring. I had the same problem with the stand joint that I had with all the others: it did not want to go in. And now that it's finally been forced in, I'm not sure that it'll ever come out-it's tight. In a karmic twist, the queen now has a chestburster of her own. One complaint about the stand-while it does support her well, and allows for a number of poses, I may need to try and find one with a joint in the middle to allow for positioning where her body is lower to the ground.

In summary: the queen is a gorgeous, nicely-sized, mostly well-articulated figure with a decent price point...and an absolutely horrible experience when you first get her. Now that I have her together (and my fingers are trying to regain sensation) I can admire how pretty and screen-accurate she is, and how neat she'll be to use for photocomics. But the experience was pretty well marred by how awful it was trying to get her in one piece, and the fact that one of her bits came pre-busted. It hasn't turned me off Revoltech entirely; there's some really neat figures there I'd like to check out. But the frustration in assembly and the utter lack of help anywhere for assembly issues has made me wonder if trying to buy a non-MIB one wouldn't be the way to go next time.

I do recommend the queen for Aliens fans and anyone looking to add a really impressive-looking critter to their collection...just with the warning that you're probably going to want some hard liquor at some point, and that you will be yelling "FUCK!" a lot.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes Spider-Man: Spider-Cycle Chase

Damn you, Lego Movie!

(Is it Lego or LEGO? I can never remember. I’m going with ‘Lego’, because I’m too lazy to type caps all through this review.)

Anyway, again: damn you, Lego Movie! Ever since I saw the first trailer, I’ve had a vague itch to play with some bricks. With the movie coming out in less than a week, it intensified. So I finally broke down and got a set: Spider-Man Spider-Cycle Chase.

Everyone knows me is likely not surprised that I went for the set with Venom in it.

These are the first Lego I’ve played with in about twenty years. While I had some Lego sets (mostly the Castle; I liked anything with horses), I was a Playmobil kid. But oh man, breaking into a box full of brand new bricks? Fun. As you can see from the lighting, I picked up this set during the evening and couldn’t wait until daylight to start screwing around with it.

Packaging is nice. Bright, colorful, good-sized box that shows everything in it and a nice action scene. Opening it up gives you bags, more bags in bag, instructions, and a mini-comic. It’s wordless, but it’s cute to see the minifigures continuing their little adventures. I may take some shots of the pages for the Venom site.

The bags are clearly labeled with 1, 2, and 3, so you can easily sort out which you’re working on. They tear open nicely, and the clear, colored, and simple instructions are a godsend. After years of dealing with Transformers instructions, anything that’s easy to see is wonderful. ...Of course, I still managed to assemble some things wrong on my first go, because even bright, simple instructions meant for six year-olds are too much for me, apparently.

The first build is for the spider-cycle. Think Spidey’s ill-conceived Spider-buggy from the 70s having a fling with a hefty motorcycle. The build is quick and once assembled, the cycle is surprisingly fun to fiddle with. You can turn out the wheels to make it a hover cycle, or you can do what I did and keep the wheels in the rolling position and amuse yourself by rolling it back and forth across your desk. I also showed it to the cat, who seems to like it best when it’s on its side, as then it spins nicely when hit. While it’s meant for one rider, I found that technically, you can fit two on there. However, it’s the most uncomfortably close two person ride since the Mongoose.

Bags 2 and 3 contain the parts for the SHIELD car. Bag 2 contains the basic body, while bag 3 fleshes it out and makes it look like a proper car. One thing that surprised me-the multitude of colors used here. A whole mix of different colors are used in the initial assembly, but these are all covered up in the end, giving a much more coherent look to the finished product. I’m not sure why the basic building pieces are in so many colors. Did they just have a whole bunch of these colors at the factory and decide it would be covered up in the end? It makes for some very piebald creations when you decide to try and build something else, as seen below. (It’s supposed to be a plane. I decided to mess with the bricks a bit, and it’s painfully obvious I need practice coming up with designs.)

The car, like the motorcycle is very nice, but there’s one thing that drove me nuts on both: the stickers. I’m terrible at applying stickers to toys; my Toys ‘R Us reissue Prowl and my Command Wolf both prove this. In the end, all my stickers are a little askew. I did get one license plate on perfectly...only to realize it was on upside down. On the plus side, all the stickers seem to be adhered firmly even after several repositionings, and I expect them to hold up. Also: does anybody have any clue if ‘MB 19 89‘ has any sort of meaning? It’s not ringing any Marvel in-joke bells for me.

The car has some more bells and whistles than the cycle does, being bigger. Unlike the cycle, you can’t really fit two minifigs into the seat, but there is a flip-out platform you can balance a second figure on. Only problem with this: it’s smooth, so your rider calling the backseat is likely to go flying once you actually get the car rolling. The grating there looks nice, but I’d prefer something I could peg a foot to. Also on the back half: a little missile launcher. I’m used to Transformers missile launchers, so the lack of a trigger threw me off a little. However, giving the end a good push with my thumb ended up shooting the missile farther than I’d expected. If you mess with it, try not to play with that feature where there’s plenty of things for small objects to get stuck under. Like beds, desks, large drawers...why yes, I speak from personal experience.

The minifigs are extremely cute. They’re all simplified in the typical Lego way, but even so they’re more expressive than I’d thought they be. The fact that they do well at holding poses and can sit down nicely (a rarity in action figures, in my experience, where sitdown poses involve legs everywhere). Venom was the deciding factor for me in choosing this set; I love symbiotes and an itty-bitty Venom makes up for my current dearth of figures. He’s definitely set in the classic Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson teeth everywhere style, and comes with additional symbiote tentacles and globby...things. I prefer him minus the tentacle cape, and I’m really tempted to get a blank black head so I can make a proper Flash!Venom face for him. Spider-Man is definitely Peter Parker Spidey, with bright red and blue and big eyes. It makes for nice posing into flailing positions, which, if you’ve watched the little Lego Marvel shorts they did...pretty much fits. And then you have Nick Fury, who is armed and has had it with all these arachnid people on his flying car. He looks suitably cranky and I like having a tiny Nick Fury to pose yelling at everyone else. His gun is hilariously oversized; it’s as big as a minifig torso and I’m more tempted to refer to it as a handcannon. Unfortunately, Spidey's web accessories aren't quite as good; I can't really get them to stick to his hands well, which is annoying for photo-taking and play. But that's minor, really.

Overall thoughts? It’s cute, it’s not terribly expensive-a standard medium sized supers set, in between the little budget box or polybags and the larger sets that seem to go for $50 or $60+. The set is pleasant to build even for those of us who haven’t touched a Lego in years, and it makes me want more-I want more bricks, and more sets so I can try to build more things and so I have more minifigures to do silly little things with. As I said above, the minifigures are super-cute, and if you’re a fan of Venom or Nick Fury, this may be your only chance to nab them-while Spidey appears in a couple other sets, this appears to be their only one. I can see this set having a lot of play value for kids and for adult collectors who, like me, enjoy screwing around with their toys and could use very flexible pieces. if you’re considering getting it, though, I would hop on it soon. Based on what I’ve seen locally and online, this wave of sets is due to get replaced soon, and if you don’t want to pay secondary market prices for the full kit or just the minifigs you want, it’s better to buy now.

Now if only I hadn’t skipped over the Deadpool set when I saw it months ago, because now I want to have a tiny Thunderbolts team. But the one set I’m really eyeballing doesn’t come out for a few months yet-Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! A giant buildable spaceship piloted by an astronaut voiced by Charlie Day who has oxygen deprivation-induced brain damage and shoots missiles? YES PLEASE.

Bonus photos!