024 Action Figure Sat-TOY-Day News, 14th May 2016

Issue 24 : Saturday 14th May, 2016

? s d i o r D e l t t a B i a d n

Ba

c i n o S W E N Dr Who’s !

Y K C O R !

KY! ROCKY

ROC

w e i v e R y o b l l e H o r t Re ) s s u a r K n (Johan

These images from the Shizuoka Hobby Show reveal that Bandai will be releasing Battle Droids in their 1/12 Model Figure range.

This will include a STAP and what looks to be a 2 pack from Attack of the Clones with 3PO head on Battle Droid body and vice versa.

You can also see the new Clone Trooper with Phase 2 helmet in the image, and at his feet the phase 1 helmet which will be included in the box - and what looks like a helmet scope similar to Cody's which means the kit may include more interchangeable parts to build a number of Clone Trooper variants

We revealed the new 6 inch Marvel Legends 3-pack based on Civil War last week in Issue 23. The initial images were taken from the Video Unboxing on the Captain America Facebook page - but thankfully Hasbro have now provided us with the promotional images for the three figures The set contains a Civil War Captain America who is an identical sculpt to the current wave release, but does have some battle damage deco. He also comes with unmasked Steve Rogers head.

There is then a damaged Mark 46 Iron-man, the damage looking to be exclusive to this set and a swap-out Tony Stark head is included. Also included to go with the Iron-Man are some repulsor blast effects.

The final pack-in is Spider-man, but sadly not quite the new suit. it is however what looks like a new sculpt, and potentially may well be based on early designs for Spidey's Civil War suit. Spider-man does come holding Cap's shield - which is also weathered and damaged.

Tamashii Nations have confirmed, via their Facebook feed, that their upcoming 1/12 scale Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will include diecast metal parts.

The unpainted image below accompanied the post and shows Leonardo’s shins and feet as metal - perhaps to allow for more dynamic posing by adding weight to the base of the figure?

The set is due for general release on the 1st August 2016 but there "may be opportunities to get this earlier". One potential opportunity may be that this set could be on early sale at SDCC 2016 - but we will have to wait and see. Hasbro Toy store will stock this in the US. So far for UK customers, Entertainment Earth has the item up for pre-order at $62.99 but shipping to UK is a whopping $50, that's ÂŁ79 in total + custom charges.

Twelfth Doctor’s Second Sonic Screwdriver Blasts into Character Options’ Collection

This second Sonic for the Twelfth Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, was ‘gifted' to him by the TARDIS itself after his previous version was lost. Although we are yet to discover all of the new Sonic’s abilities, like the Doctor himself, it has become ever more complex and mysterious. This multipurpose tool features numerous settings and can open most locks, detect all manner of deadly rays, read biosigns and generate Sonic waves of great power.

After months of speculation it is now official, the Twelfth Doctor’s Second Sonic Screwdriver is to be part of the Character Options’ toy collection.

The first images have been released with confirmation that the eagerly awaited Sonic will be on sale within weeks! This new toy version is a faithful recreation of the current Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver which debuted in the Series 9 Episode ‘Hell Bent’. This is the first Sonic to have 4 light modes and four sound FX. The model has been designed as a replica from the Series 9 Prop. As all fans would know, the Doctor has carried many Sonic Screwdrivers of various designs throughout his lifetimes, ranging from a simple silver coloured tube to more complex illuminated and articulated versions.

Alasdair Dewar, Head of Product Development at Character Options commented: “Since this Twelfth Doctor’s Second Sonic Screwdriver appeared at the end of series 9, we have been inundated by fan requests to produce a toy replica as part of our toy range. We are therefore very proud to finally be able to reveal it.

The Sonic Screwdriver has historically been one of the most sought after toys for fans and collectors alike and we hope they will be as delighted with it as we are.”

The Character Options’ Twelfth Doctor’s Second Sonic Screwdriver costs just SRP £14.99 and is available from for pre-sale orders from Doctor Who merchandise retailers from today.

NECA have revealed details of their Quarter Scale 20 inch City Hunter Predator, including some "not final" shots of the figure itself. It is due to ship in August. UK fans would expect to be paying circa £100 on release - expect pre-orders to go up shortly.

"Based on the 1990 film Predator 2, this massive action figure marks the triumphant return of the#CityHunter to our 1/4 scale line!

The action-packed sequel to the original movie moved the hunt to Los Angeles, where even on the streets, the #Predator stalks his prey with deadly precision. Long out of production, the City Hunter 1/4 scale has been updated to include #LED lights in the mask’s targeting system and a new left forearm gauntlet that flips open. The figure stands an impressive 20″ tall and is entirely accurate to the movie design, with over 25 points of articulation and mesh body suit netting.

NECA revealed their next SDCC 2016 exclusive today, and as it was #Prednesday it could have been nothing other than a new Predator figure.

"SDCC Exclusive revealed for Cloaked Scar w Temple

#prednesday Hologram!"

The cloaked Scar predator from AvP uses the existing sculpt, but is cast in a clear plastic to represent him cloaked. He comes with a temple hologram, it being also cast in clear plastic - this time red.

The figure will carry an SDCC 2016 exclusive sticker as opposed to "convention" exclusive which have been used in the past UK fans should not be disheartened as a follow up Tweet from NECA New Product Director Randy Falk confirmed that "there will be a way, working on something" for overseas fans.

Comes with interchangeable hands, throwing disc and collapsed spear accessories. Uses button cell batteries, included. Starts shipping out to retailers in August 2016!"

Not final prototype shown

NECA are releasing a Thermal Vision Xenomorph with a "glow in the dark" feature. The Xeno will use the recent AvP mould.

Announcements broke today thanks to "one of our international partners jumped the gun" and released the image early. NECA soon confirmed the figure via their Twitter feed.

In the US it will be a Toys R Us exclusive, whilst the rest of the world will be open to whomever picked it up when it was offered for retail and we would expect pre-orders to go up soon.

In other Alien news from NECA, albeit on a MUCH larger scale, they announced this week that they would be releasing a full scale 1:1 Alien Facehugger in their foam replica range.

“It's truly #facehuggerfriday as we announce the lifesize FH w bendable tail will be available later this summer!”

The Facehugger will come with articulated tail and will hit retail in the Summer.

NECA's Twitter feed was working overtime this week, and after all the Predator and Alien news it still had time to reveal the following 4 images of the boxed series 1 figures in their 40th Anniversary Rocky range.

NECA have revealed the following three images on Twitter, confirming that these three ships will make up series 2 of their new Cinemachines line.

The Narcissus lifeboat from Alien carries on the Alien theme from Series 1, but NECA have decide to hold back the other Alien vehicles so fans don't start to feel this is an Alien only range.

These other Alien vehicles - Nostromo, Sulaco and the Special Edition Aliens Tractor - will be included in later waves.

Series 1 will be based on Rocky 3, with two versions of Clubber Lang and two versions of Rocky - including the black shorts Rocky with Championship belt. The Rocky figures are due to ship in Summer and the UK RRP will be around ÂŁ23.99 You can pre-order from our affiliate partner Forbidden Planet now for ÂŁ20.87 per figure CLICK HERE

The other two ships in series 2 are based on the Predator movies, with the ship from the original Predator movie and the Lost Tribe ship from Predator 2. A lot of creative licence has been applied to the Lost Tribe ship which is only partially shown in the movie.

"Had to fill in a fair amount of blanks. Not much material to pull from" Fans of Terminator may wonder what has happened to the two Hunter Killer vehicles we have seen teased over the past few months.

NECA have said these will be held back to coincide with the 3D release of Terminator 2 later this year, pre-orders are likely to go up around September "T2 vehicles need to be released around the 3D theatrical so that removed them from inclusion.

They'll be offered sep" Get your Cinemachines from our affiliate partner, Forbidden Planet CLICK HERE

Re-assuring us that the Cinemachines Terminator vehicles are pressing ahead as planned, these images of ongoing development were released by NECA These behind the scenes shots show planning for the moving parts of the ground based Hunter Killer, as well as plans for the caterpillar track movement NECA also confirmed this week that an Apollo Creed will be part of Rocky Series 2, and will be based on his Rocky 4 appearance. "there is a new Apollo in Series 2 which is all Rocky IV based, you will see more on that soon" The Rocky 4 Apollo has been released in the old NECA range, but the tweet above references this is a New Apollo. Could this be the "showman" Apollo? We will find out more soon...

Review : Johann Krauss Hellboy II (Mezco) Wave/Series : Series 1 Released : 2008 Price : N/A Any of you who have followed our site for a while will know the love I have for the Mezco range of Hellboy figures from 20042008, and will know of my personal quest to track down an affordable set of figures to represent the two movies.

Out of the box and Johann is a particularly heavy and chunky figure, a feature in most of the Mezco figures in this range. He stands 7 1/4 inches from diving boots up to the clear dome.

This is one of a very small amount of figures where I won't talk about head sculpt as of course there isn't one. The head is made up of a neck piece and onto this sits a clear dome, which can be unclipped and swapped out with a cracked version (missing on ours).

My latest addition is Johann Krauss who is from the first series of figures released in 2008 for the sequel, Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army.

My figure was picked up loose so is missing a couple of bits, and therefore any packaging shots we use in the review are stock images.

Johann arrives in a full blister pack with red card-back depicting Red's face. The front of the blister uses a stick on insert with the HB2 logo and the character name. The card-back continues the red theme with the top sector dedicated to a plot overview for the film, and the rest of the card a pictorial set of images depicting the other figures in the series. If you are buying carded then watch out for the front insert falling off as it is glued on the outside of the packaging. The blisters can also suffer from yellowing and the card back piece is quite often rippled and creased.

The body is a very impressive sculpt considering it is 8 years old. It is essentially a diving suit and there are various panels, piping and valves making up the chest area and round into the back. The belt, with its BRPD logo, is a separate piece round the waist and the figure then moves down to a thick set of legs, metal cast knees - complete with rivets - and diving boots.

The figure is coloured in a contrasting beige and dark brown colour scheme which alternates panel. Either of these are not left as a flat colour, and have both a wash and then some drybrushing to bring out the cloth folds and also act to weather/dirty the suit up. The mechanical parts are bronze and metallic in colour, and again dry-brushed for detail.

The two gloves clip off at the wrist and can be swapped out for "ectoplasmic mist" versions where the smoke effect of Johann leaving his armour are sculpted coming out of his fingers.

These type of effects rarely work, but Mezco seem to have done a particularly good job on this one and the smoke is both realistic in terms of how it is rolling out of his fingers - and also done in an opaque plastic that means light can pass through it.

Overall, Johann is a good sculpt and a decent paint job. He certainly isn't as striking as say Prince Nuada, but is a solid looking support figure rather than a head turner.

Articulation is really good, considering this is a bulky figure in a diving suit and is 8 years old. The whole head is on a giant ball joint that means you can rotate the thing fully round and also look up and down. Shoulders are ball jointed and whilst they can't move to a full 90 degrees, they do get most of the way.

The elbows are simple joint, with no swivel. The hands by the nature of being plug in and out do rotate a full 360 degrees.

There is no torso or waist movement, so the lower half starts with ball jointed hips - which are a tad loose and may be a problem going forward. They do allow for Johann to sit down and do the splits if you really want him to. Like the elbows, the knees are simple one direction joint and the same joint is repeated on the ankles to allow you to pose Johann as though he is striding forward.

Johann Kraus is certainly not the star of the Hellboy range, even eclipsed by some of the original figures which are 4 years older than he is. But even at 8 years old, he looks the part vs any similar figures today. The articulation is enough, and is where the figure is clearly dated - but how much articulation do you want for a ghost in a Divers Suit. Johann is not the easiest figure to find at a reasonable price, and if you are buying loose checkout what is included and if there are any issues with the hips being loose. Comparing Johann to the other Mezco figures we have reviewed to date, and considering his age, I am going to award a strong 3 out of 5