Boys can Bust it out too!

After the lengthy and successful Women of the DC Universe Mini-Bust series, it’s nice to see DC Direct giving the guys some attention as well, through the new Heroes of the DC Universe Mini-Bust Series. We already know that Superman, Batman, Darkseid, Aquaman and Green Arrow are on the way, but the first cab off the rank is Green Lantern, and I was lucky enough to pick him up last week.

This mini-bust is based on Carlos Pacheo artwork and is a striking pose. This is a spotlessly done piece that to me looks more expensive than it really is – always a plus! The only criticism I would make is that the outstretched arm makes posing him a little  limiting, but that’s a small thing. It’s nice to see something dynamic as opposed to just static.

As you can see from the Hal / Jade comparison shot, the GL bust is in scale with the Women of the DCU Busts, which makes sense but was not something I was going to assume when it comes to DCD’s track record in the scale area. Another plus for what looks to be a promising line.

While my main men Aquaman and Green Arrow were obvious locks, I was on the fence about collecting this line, but decided to give Hal a chance, and on the basis of this excellent mini-bust I am now on board, although I probably skip Darkseid. I’m just hopeful that this line will explore the same depth that the Women of the DCU line has and go past the obvious to the B-list and hopefully beyond. Imagine Metamorpho or Elongated Man in this line – that would be happiness in a manly mini-bust kind of way!!

You can see the full picture set at Facebook or discuss this at the AFB Forum.

Until next time!

Arise, Colossal Boy!

It’s well documented here that Jackknight has been doing an amazing job of helping me complete my Silver Age Legion, and when I saw that he’d made himself a SA Colossal Boy in “upsized” form, I knew I had to have one too!

Isn’t he amazing? I doubt you’d ever guess that the base is a Marvel Icons Human Torch!

We have a few Subs and assorted baddies to go before the collection will be complete in my mind, but having Gim there towering over the team makes it feel like The Legion is really in my toy room!

And here they are: the Andy Legion collection as they currently stand. I need some levels to make  everyone visible, but I hope you’ll agree they are an impressive collection, and I have Jack to thank for most of them.

You can can search “Legion” or “Jackknight” for more of Jack’s great work on AFB.

Until next time!

DC Infinite Heroes in Oz!

The true tragedy of having such a drought of retail based superhero toys here in Oz is that when you see something, the chance to experience “the find” can cause you to buy stuff that you normally wouldn’t. Kind of like a dog licking up the crumbs under the table when their dinner dish doesn’t get filled.

And so it was, as I was racing the aisle of my local Toys R Us trying to tick items off the birthday list of the youngest AFB-ette, that I did a double, well triple-take as I spied some DC Infinite Heroes on the pegs. I’ve seen these imported in comic shops, but not at retail.

And so it is, that after buying a few of these and swearing them off due to distribution, eBay costs and lack of articulation, I now own four more: Black Lightning, Spectre, Dr Fate and Green Arrow. I also now have a hankering for more. Curse you, Oz toy drought , creator of the hunger of the chase!!!

It’s very hard not to evaluate these tiny chappies against Marvel Universe, and in many respects they don’t come off well. These four I picked up are still the older articulation I believe, and they are very static - much more is needed to make them as dynamic looking as the MU figures. Having said that, in some cases the amount of articulation on such light plastic in MU can make the figures a bit unwieldy, whereas the DCIH Heroes are certainly firm on their feet.

Other complaints: accessories are basically non -existent with this line, although Green Arrow does come with his bow. Paint wise these pale to the MU figures – my Dr Fate is particularly sloppy.Also, this line is certainly all about the Modern Age, and it’s a bit of shame to get MA Dr Fate, Atom and Spectre (not to mention ANOTHER MA Black Lightning!!) without their more classic counterparts – perhaps these will come eventually, but there have been some odd choices in the start-up of this line.

Regardless, I now have a big enough batch that I feel compelled to add to the gang, and particularly check out some female figures to see how they fare against the Marvel Universe Ms Marvel when I get my hands on her (in the collector’s sense, of course…)

I’m certainly not in with this line boots-and-all in the same manner as Marvel Universe, but this unexpected find has resurrected my interest somewhat, so I’d say you’ll be reading about some more DCIH purchases in the near future.

You can chat about this fabulous find at the DCIH thread at the AFB Forum.

Until next time!

DCUC Reveal at AFI – Power Girl

Mattel is continuing to advance the standard of the 6” retail female figure – Wave 4 Wonder Woman was a huge step forward, Wave 8 Hawkgirl looks to be amazing, and the already announced Black Canary from Wave 9 looks incredible.

To make it even better, Mattel has given the folks at Action Figure Insider an exclusive look at the DCUC Power Girl figure from an as yet unannounced wave. She looks amazing, and while she has her trademark peek-a-boo hole she isn’t overly busty which I am pleased to see. It means Mrs AFB will let me display her!

Have a gander at the AFI announcement for the full story and more pics. 

Wild About The Boy

As you know, due to my total lack of fine motor skills, as much as I would like to customise figures myself, I am stuck with commissioning the works of others. Thankfully I know some really talented people!

A while ago I made mention of a custom Bronze Age Wildfire that was was being made for me by the very kind Dr Terrific. I’m pleased to report that our favourite Legionnaire in a containment suit arrived in Oz this week, and I couldn’t be more excited or amazed with the results.

The base is the Crisis Earth Two Superman, not that you’d ever guess unless you saw them side by side. The effort, time and craftsmanship the Doc has put in to this one is unbelievable, right down to his little but very detailed Legion Flight Ring, which is on the correct finger and everything.

In the same way that the amazing Jackknight has been working on finishing off my Silver Age Legion, Doc is going to be working on the Bronze Age. Next up is Dawnstar, and the WIP can be seen here at the AFB Forum. 

Enjoy!

Seventh Heaven

After an extended wait for my DCUC Wave 7 figures due to Cornerstore Comics’ delays due to their credit card hack dramas (which I thankfully avoided) and other supply dramas, (Poor things, I really feel for them as they have always done the right thing by me, especially in terms of international shipping costs etc.) I finally got shipping notice that my case was on the way, and was very pleased to find a parcel card in my box today. I really couldn’t wait to get home to rip the box open and get these pictures underway!

First off, Atom Smasher is amazing. This is the first time I can recall opening up boxes and putting the BAF together before taking out and examining the individual figures. I had just had to get Al assembled and then stood in belief that I actually had an Atom Smasher BAF standing in front of me. He’s well articulated and there’s lots of room for fun posing when I get the chance. From the sounds if it Giganta is going to be  even taller, so all I can say is she’s going to be amazing if she’s going to be taller than this marvel!

In the same way that I think DCUC has produced the best Aquaman and arguably the best Batman 6” figure, I think the Flash from this wave could well be in the same category. None of DCD’s Flash efforts have been close to perfection – this one is almost it. He works well in standing and running pose, and comes with a stand to assist.

As much as I personally would have liked Big Barda to have a bit more of the “Big” in her, there’s no doubt that in many ways she’s the figure of the wave. Her costume is beautifully detailed. I may come back and do some comparisons of size etc later on, but for now the figure deserves to be allowed to stand as a very, very nice piece.

Booster Gold is great fun – looks very good in a flight stand! The structure with Skeets zooming out from behind him is a nice touch. Excellent paint job, and nice job on his goggles. After some earlier confusion about whether or not the Booster and Barda variants were going to be produced for these lines, I ended up getting both. Their futures are uncertain – being slightly underwhelmed by Barda’s size had me set on selling her, but if these do go on eBay it will be minus the BAF pieces, because I’d love another Atom Smasher to go with my MA JSA as well as my DCUC collection! Nice touch: the poses of the variants are different from the originals (you can see this is in the expanded photo set on Facebook (link below).

Captain Cold is very well done. Very nice detailing on his outfit, and groovy juxtaposition to Flash and Kid Flash in this wave. He has a holster for his ice ray gun which looks like it should close, but I can’t make it so. As for Kid Flash, while his size isn’t as big an issue as I’d anticipated, he’s still the pumped-up runt of the litter of this wave. While he’s overly muscled, he makes a fine SA Kid Flash, but I’m still not happy with this teen body type.

I’m not sure why we were so lucky as to get another Aquaman within 7 waves, and the infamous “camo” uniform at that, but it’s amazing to see him here and to a degree shows the lengths that Mattel is prepared to go with this line. Whatever you think of getting this figure (I am of course overjoyed), I’ll take Camo Aquaman over “Ultra Mega Armor Superman” any day.

The only QC quibbles I have here centre around the otherwise wonderful Blue Beetle figure. He has a small paint smudge on his chest, but more disappointingly some package rubbing has scratched his left goggle. Still, he stands tall amongst an excellent wave. One other small thing – Aquaman has a stiff neck – must be from trying to keep track of all those stripes.

With Wave 8 already hitting eBay, I’m hoping for less of a DCUC drought than I’ve been through while waiting for this wave, and with 8 being “the wave” for me in many ways, I really can’t wait!!

You can see an expanded photo set at Facebook, and check out the DCUC 7 talkback thread at the AFB Forum , which starts off with my initial ideas of how I might photograph this wave, Be warned, it wasn’t a pretty (to some) idea. Personally I think it could have worked…….

I gots little Wolverines….. teeny weeny ones…….

..and you know, they’re really not that bad.

Yep, I believe that with the advent of these tiny creatures we are witnessing the slow and painful death of the Marvel Legends 6” line. No, I do not like it. I’ll just get that out of the way first.

That being said, these little fellas are fun, because in some aspects they are quite good quality for their scale (and some not), and I get the sense that in a very short period of time I’m going to have a pretty awesome mini-Marvel Universe.

 Never thinking these would arrive in Oz, I ordered the two Wolverines, Gambit and Deadpool from overseas, and then when they did show up here I picked up Logan and Sabretooth as well.

Nice touches: all three Wolvies have different headsculpts – even the two costumed ones are more than just repaints. Deadpool has a lot of gear and it all fits somewhere. Sabretooth’s cape is really quite groovy.

Annoying points: Gambit is on one level the best figure of the lot in terms of detail and character accuracy, but mine at least will not stand on his own or hold his set of bodgy cards. All the Wolvies come with a sword which is so not Logan to me. Apart from Sabretooth’s tree stumps, all the accessories are from Flimsy City. Wobble Land. I know it’s the 3 3/4 scale, but these swords and stuff don’t need to be quite so cheapo, do they?

Also, unlike the Marvel Universe figures, not all of these have ankle articulation which makes them harder to pose. That earns an official AFB Frown.

Still, these are fun, and when put together with the Marvel Universe figures it gives a sense of where these lines could go and the scope of what we could have in a short time. If the 6” line really does get cut short, does it make up for it? No.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun!

As I feared…….

Oh, ick. 

Let’s just hope this pic from CBR means they bring him back at the end. At least he’s Arthur / Orin and not Tentacle Man.

And PLEASE no action figure of this, because my Aquaman OCD could cause me to have a conflict seizure…….

If it was anyone but Johns writing this I would be flapping my little Aqua-fins in a freak-out frenzy right now. :0)

Wonder Twins Powers Activate!

The announcement that Mattel would be making Wonder Twins Zan, Jayna and Gleek in the DCUC line was met with a mixture of joy and derision in the online collecting world. Superfriends fans were delighted, those that wanted DCUC to be comic characters only were not so happy. Superfriends was ultimately responsible for my love of comics, so while I won’t go so far as to say I was in the joy group, I’m definitely happy.

Mattel’s made it official today with the unveiling of their SDCC Exclusives, which include the Wonder Twins as the DCUC exclusive. It’s a great set, which also includes a pail of water with Zan’s face in it and Jayna in the form of an eagle, plus Gleek.

Go to Matty’s Facebook Photo Albums to see the rest, which include a JLU Green Lantern 3-pack including a civilian  Hal Jordan, Infinite Heroes Anti-Monitor and a MOTUC He-Ro!

Great news about the exclusives is that they are going to be available online after SDCC, except for Gleek. If you want the purple monkey, you have to get him in the SDCC pack, as the Wonder Twins set on mattycollector.com will be primate-less. I’m actually happier for buy a set without him, but if this fills you with a sense of outrage, just search “Gleek”at your favourite engine to find hysterical fanboys shrieking about this everywhere.

“Form of, a big baby!”

Can’t wait for my Zan and Jayna!

You can discuss this at the AFB Forum!