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Wait ‘til they experience the secondary-characterness that is the Wasp!

The toy companies don’t love us; they only love our money. Let us admit that to ourselves right now. And the time of “earning money just by making quality product” is now in the fuscia-tinted past. Men of Action is not here to sugarcoat. Even the noblest of toy companies must sucker its customer base, must come up with means of making us purchase plastic items that we really don’t want. These methods are numerous, and transparent – figures almost identical to old ones, released on the cheap but still valuable to hardcore collectors; multi-figure packs with one exciting new figure and a bunch of ones you already own; and so forth. And you see what they’re doing, but are powerless to resist. Take the Wasp, here: Your reviewer really doesn’t care about the Wasp, but bought her figure anyway, because he needed the MODOK piece with which she is packaged. MODOK is awesome, you see, for reasons that will be described in his individual entry.

A joke about Tinkerbell! I never would have imagined!

Articulation: A bit weak, again, for a Marvel Legend. There’s not much to the arms, for example; the forearms don’t twist. The forearms don’t twist! The existence of a benevolent, interventionist deity is thus disproved! Ahem. Also, the wings don’t flap, but your reviewer finds himself not actually caring about that. They do move up and down, though; that’s nice. And anyway, overall, there’s still more articulation here than is the industry norm.

Sculpt: Oh, just fine, thanks. But what does the look on her face signify? And I thought the Wasp only grew wings when she got smaller, whereas this Wasp is scaled to the other figures? Ehhh, probably her powers changed or something. That kind of thing happens a lot in the Marvel Universe.

The sassy tilt to her hips – subconscious creepiness on the photographer’s part, or the only way she’ll stand up?

Paint: Actually quite good, with very clear lines and striking colors. Your reviewer is still docking a point, though, because he’s not terribly interested in the Wasp, and here’s as good a place as any to express that. (Many fine people are fans of the Wasp, mind; we here at “Men of Action” are simply not among them, is all.)

Durability: Pretty good, especially considering the needle-thin limbs of a female Marvel Legends figure. Indeed, it is probably this thinness that prompted the figure’s makers to withhold extra joints in the arms. Thus, articulation is sacrificed for durability – an action that is regrettably not illegal at this time.

The Wasp doesn’t have a hole in her back in the comics! This is bullshit!

How Well the Figure Stands: Not too well, frankly. Granted, it’s a miracle that a figure wearing heels and with huge wings can stand at all; but no credit for increased difficulty! Anyway, properly, one ought to display the Wasp on one of them plastic Legends flyin’-or-jumpin’ stands, inserted into the hole in the back. But does the Wasp come with such a stand? No she does not!

Accessories: No stand, as mentioned. Piece of MODOK, as mentioned, which was worth the eight bucks to your reviewer. Reprint of “Avengers” # 195, from 1980, taking us ona trip back to a rather strained and uninspired period in Marvel Comics’ history; the Wasp, here, is rescued with the power of ants, and the Avengers in general earn the title of Earth’s Chattiest Heroes. And finally, a cardboard backdrop with a plastic stand. It depicts a lab. Is the Wasp a scientist? No; she is a fashion designer. Maybe it’s a fashion lab.

Overall:

Not Alpha Ray Mitch! Not Epsilon Ray Pablo! BETA RAY BILL!

And now it is time to move on to the recently-released fifteenth wave of Marvel Legends, the so-called “MODOK wave.” (More on what that’s supposed to mean soon.) It seems like just yesterday we were discussing the recently-released fourteenth wave. But then, it’s always been feast or famine with Marvel Legends; they’ll release a line a month for a coupla months, then nothing for half a year. Weird. Anyway, we’ll start this orgy of violence with my favorite character from this wave: Beta Ray Bill. Beta Ray Bill, for those of you with girlfriends, is a space alien to whom Odin granted the power of Thor. Which is awesome. Your reviewer does not know why it is so awesome. But he assures you, he promises you, it is.

Beta Ray Bill totally flips out!

Articulation: Well, your reviewer has prattled on in the past about how utterly wonderful the articulation on Marvel Legends is. And he’s meant it. The theme stumbles just a touch here, though; the legs and torso are great, but the arms are a bit lacking – just a single joint at the elbow, for instance, rather than the usual two (allowing the forearm to rest against the upper arm). This single joint is common in the beefier Legends; however, what is not so common is the impossibility of resting the character’s arms at his sides. Bill here must always have his upper arms roughly parallel to the ground. And that sucks. It is in some part made up for, however, by the fact that his lower jaw can move. Your reviewer loves that sort of thing.

Sculpt: Excellent, excellent; the detailing on the legs and shoulder-pads is particularly nice, and the amount of expression squeezed out of that bizarre head is impressive. One beef: Like all of the recent Legends figures, he has a hole in his back, so that he may be mounted on one of them translucent jumping-in-the-air stands with which some of these figures come. Fine, fine; but to aid in this, there’s also a hole in his cape. Sucko.

The market can only bear one hammer-guy with wings on his hat!

Paint: Generally excellent, especially the bronze legs. A bit of smudging on the helmet. Teeth could be better. Also, it sucks that they cancelled “Firefly.” Though that last one arguably has little to do with Beta Ray Bill’s paint job.

Durability: Though he has the eerie crappy-plastic smell to him, this is presumably due to the flexible material for the cape. The almighty Benefit of the Doubt shall therefore be extended.

Okay, yeah, the Vulture’s a villain, but still!

Standupacity: Extremely excellent. Blindingly excellent. Hell, you couldn’t knock him over if you tried.

Accessories: Beta Ray here comes with the same stuff every Marvel Legend comes with these days: A comic book, a cardboard backdrop with a plastic stand, and a piece of the “build-a-figure” for whatever wave the figure is in. The comic book is the old issue of “The Mighty Thor” in which Beta Ray Bill first appears; it’s from the Walt Simonson run, and as such is quality material. The backdrop is of the bridge of Bill’s ship, but who cares? And the build-a-figure is MODOK, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. Your reviewer has, in fact, built MODOK, and as such he will be reviewed soon. Finally, Beta Ray Bill comes with Stormbreaker, his hammer. And that’s supercool.

Overall:

In mysteriously dark conditions, Lobo brings a chain to a gunfight!

And now, we give you: Toy Month. From the Rev. Kessen half of things, anyway. It’s Christmas! Christmas means toys!

So: unlike Marvel, DC puts out its action figures all by itself, through a label called “DC Direct.” Your reviewer doesn’t have a lot of these. They’re not as good as Marvel Legends, having much, much less articulation. More to the point, your reviewer, try as he might, is just totally unable to understand the DC universe. Crisis on how many earths? Hawkman is a human archaeologist and/or an alien? There is one character in DC who is quite easy to understand, though: Lobo, a space-alien bounty hunter, and the Lemmy Kilmister of the DC universe.

…And wins anyway, through the power of Awesome!

Articulation: There are thirteen points of articulation to be found here, which is, shall we say, fair. Particularly because several of them are useless – the head-joint especially is purely academic, since the hair disallows any head-turning. The legs are just this side of pointless as well. Arms are okay, though. I guess.

Sculpt: Now this, this is excellent, and is the reason this figure caught my eye in the first place. The leer and the awesome heavy-metal boots are particularly good. Does Lobo usually have one sleeve ripped off, though? Dunno. But why not? In summary: ROCK.

Then, he passes out in his own vomit.

Paint: Simple – mostly black, white, and some blues – but that’s okay. There’s no bleed or any of that. Mmmyep. Listen, you try writing something interesting about the paint job on Lobo…

Durability: Seems good and solid. Actually, seems really good and solid. Almost too much so. Unseemly.

I lost my phone number; can I have yours? (Apologies to Keith Giffen.)

Standupaciousness: Fair to middlin’; you’ve got to pose his legs just so. But then, he comes with a stand. It’s a lame-ass stand – transparent blue, with the stylized word “reactivated” written upon it, whatever the hell that means – but even a lame-ass stand is much, much better than no stand at all. Still, think of how badass a Lobo stand coulda been! It coulda had a picture of a skull on it, maybe! A fanged skull! With batwings!

Accessories: Well, there’s the stand. Also, there’s a chain with a boathook on the end! Lobo’s signature weapon! Wooooohoooooo! The chain is metal, too, which is good. It is, regrettably, difficult to have him hold the chain in both hands with it hanging down in the middle, as it should be; the chain is a bit too light. Still, it can be accomplished with care. And really ought to be. Imagine the satisfaction, when you’ve posed your Lobo with the chain hanging down in the middle. Pour yourself a drink!

Overall:

Anguirus: a colossal infant, or not very good suit design? You be the judge.

One of the strange things about this wave of American Godzilla figures – this is actually the third recent wave Bandai has put out of late – is that, in my town, it is only available at CVS Pharmacy for some damn reason. And then the second wave is only available at K-Mart. And the first, only at Toys R Us. What the hell? Anyway, we’ll close this out with a monster who is very popular among Godzilla fans, for reasons that, once again, elude me: Anguirus.

Okay, not very good suit design.

Articulation: Anguirus is a fine example of a principle often seen in modern action figures: plenty of points of articulation, all of them stupid. Anguirus’ head swivels, like a drill, and all four legs also rotate. He thus looks totally idiotic in any pose other than the default, rendering the articulation very nearly pointless.

Sculpt: On the other hand, he looks good, apart from that crawling-thing, which is again not the sculptor’s fault. The rows of spikes on his back are especially impressive.

To be fair, you might have trouble keeping your legs straight if you weighed a bazillion tons, too.

Paint: Simple, but perfectly okay. Perhaps a touch more shading would be nice, given his pastel-blue-and-yellowness, but this is a quibble. A quibble that nonetheless docks a star from the rating! Such is my power!

Durability: You’ve heard it all before (and if not, welcome!): These figures are so durable, they will survive even the destruction of the Earth itself. They will hurtle off into space, and new planets will form around them. And the people who will evolve on these planets will build their societies around the concept of giant rubbery monsters, without ever knowing why!

Much larger, and yet still totally outclassed!

Stand In The Place Where You Live: He’s on all fours; of course he can stand up. You silly person!

Accessories: Maybe some little tanks? Yeah! Little tanks to attack uselessly, and be stomped! And some of them could be the super-tech tanks that they have sometimes, with the giant energy rays and all! So, yeah, no accessories.

Overall:

Step one.

The funny thing about Bandai is, they actually make different figures for the American and Japanese markets. All of the particulars – scale, materials, characters – are more-or-less identical; and yet the U.S. figures have different sculpts and paint jobs from their Japanese counterparts. Why? Dunno. But with Rodan, here, we’ll get a chance to compare-and-contrast; I have both versions, ‘cause Rodan’s my favorite. (The review shall focus on the American version, by the way, since it’s the one that’s part of the line we’re focusing on.)

Step two.

Articulation: The head, it swivels. And the feet, they swivel too, enabling Rodan to do a sort of soft-shoe dance. And that’s it. That’s all. The feet can’t lift; the wings can’t flap. And in the Japanese version, you don’t even get the swiveling head! Sickening.

Sculpt: Well, at least he looks good, in that one decent pose into which you can put him. One could, perhaps, do without the billowing in his wings; maybe he’d look better with his wings held more straight. But for billowing, it’s well-crafted billowing.

Step three! Ladies and gentlemen: articulation!

Paint: Here we see the most significant difference between the two versions of the figure: The American version is beet-red, red like a fundamentalist caught reading a science textbook, whereas the Japanese version is more of a nut-brown. So which one is accurate? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Japanese. But there is some excellent shading in the paint job of the U.S. version. On the other hand, some of its pointy front-scales are painted yellow, and some are not, which loses it some points.

Durability: Sometimes, I order figures offa the Internet, and receive them at work. Usually, I leave them in the packages until I get home, but the Bandai ones I release, and them toss ‘em on the passenger seat for the drive home. They’re just that tough.

Gimme your lunch money!

Custer’s Last Stand: Stands up fine, even with the truly dizzying array of possible foot-positions, and the lack of a balancing tail. So good for it.

Accessories: None. What if he came with tiny airplanes that could shoot at him fruitlessly, and then spiral out of control in the wind of his mighty wingbeats? What then?

Overall: , though I do almost want to give it an extra point just for being Rodan.