041 Action Figure Sat-TOY-Day News, 12th November 2016

Issue 41 : Saturday 12th November 2016

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Funko's Re:Action series is expanding to yet another iconic 80's movie in the 3.75" scale. The ET three pack will be released in February 2017 and will be limited to 5000 pieces. You can also get a glowing finger and chest ET which is an Entertainment Earth exclusive.

Independent design company Boss Fight Studios announced last week that their next project will be a range of 4” figures based on the iconic Bucky O’Hare. Bucky first appeared in 1984 in Comic Book form and made his TV debut in 1991 in his animated series. By the looks of the promotional art the figures will be TV show based. I used to love Bucky O'Hare. I look forward to seeing how this line develops.

E.T. phone home! Elliot, Gertie, and E.T. come together in a fun-filled retro 3-pack. The trio are 3 3/4-inch scale articulated figures and include character specific accessories. The E.T. ReAction Action Figure 3Pack is limited to 5000 pieces and comes packaged in a stickered window display box. Don't forget to complete your set with the Entertainment Earth Exclusive E.T. Glow-in-the-Dark ReAction Figure, sold separately.

Boss Fight Studio will be producing highly-articulated 4"+ scale, collectible toys of Bucky O'Hare, his S.P.A.C.E. allies and Toad enemies! Created by Larry Hama and Michael Golden, Bucky O'Hare tells the story of a brave band of mammal freedom fighters combating the all-conquering Toad Empire!

As Doctor Strange continues to dominate in the Cinema, it seems Marvel Select collectors won't have to wait as long as normal to get their hands on the movie figure.

Due to production timescales we have often had to wait a good 6 months past the movie to get hold of the figure - but it seems this time round the timeline has been accelerated and Diamond have confirmed the good Doctor should be in the house by the end of December.

And along with this confirmation of release comes the following fantastic promotional images.

McFarlane's return to the 7" scale of Action Figures has already reached the Green series of their Color Top figures.

The Green Wave has been video game and Anime heavy so far, and the next figure is no exception as we will be getting Scott Ryder from the Bioware Mass Effect series. The McFarlane website has Ryder as #21 but the press announcement via Game Insider has the figure as #23 Articulation on Ryder will be limited, with the figure more statue than action figure. The promo pictures do however make the figure look particularly impressive on its display stand.

The price will be around £20 / $20 when this figure ships in Spring 2017

The Play Arts Kai range from Square Enix is an acquired taste in that their 10-11" figures are a very stylised vision of the character they are portraying. Marvel collectors have already been treated to figures such as Iron-Man, Spider-Man and Captain America. They are soon to be joined by the biggest and baddest anti-hero in the Marvel Universe..... Deadpool Deadpool will be released in March 2017 and has an RRP in Japan of 14,800 yen this is about £110 or $138. Once import prices etc have been added UK and US customers will probably be paying around £150 / $200.

UK retailer Home Bargains are currently stocking wave 1 of the phase 3 Force Awakens 6" Black Series figures. The price is a staggering £5.99 each.

The catch here is the quality of the five figures which are being reported as being brittle, coming out of the box broken or with very poor paint jobs.

Although unlikely to be bootlegs, these are potentially seconds or rejects from last year and being cleared out via Home Bargains at a very low cost price.

The five figures are Rey with BB8, Kylo Ren, Finn, Chewbacca and the First Order Stormtrooper. I took a look at a local Home Bargains and can confirm that there are issues with these figures, particularly the Stormtrooper where the heads were all warped and quite poorly painted. There are good examples out there, so worth hunting, and for customs these are a considerable saving than purchasing these new.

Like most PAK figures, Deadpool will be packed with a display stand as well as a wealth of interchangeable hand options.

Weaponry will include his signature swords, a pretty impressive futuristic gun and some knives. There will also be three head options, each offering a different expression

NECA have shown the card-back for their upcoming Alien vs Predator Elder Predator that will be hitting stores as part of Predators Series 17, hitting early next year (2017)

The hints and teases from NECA have slowed down lately, as have a lot of Toy news as retailers concentrate on the Xmas period.

One hint that has been released is this image which most fans believe is from Ash vs Evil Dead and is from a Deadite. Whether this is Cheryl or Evil Ash is unclear, but it is clear that the Evil Dead figures are continuing into 2017. We look forward to finding out more.

Review : C-3PO, Resistance Base (The Force Awakens) Star Wars Black Series (Hasbro) Wave/Series : Rogue One Wave 2 (Phase 3 Wave 8) Released : September 2016 Price : ÂŁ21.99 The 2nd batch of Rogue One 6" figures took a little longer to arrive than the equivalent 2nd wave of Force Awakens last year, but a little over 6-weeks since Rogue Friday the 3 brand new figures have arrived on UK shores. Here we will be looking at Director Krennic who is joined by the Scarif Stormtrooper Squad Leader and The Force Awakens C-3PO. The rest of the 6 figure wave is made up with re-releases of Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor and the Deathtrooper.

It feels like we have been waiting an eternity for a Black Series 6" scale C-3PO from Hasbro, in reality it has been about 3 and a bit years. And after that extended wait, during which time we have had multiple Luke's, the first C-3PO we get is actually from the 2015 Force Awakens movie and not the Original Trilogy or even the Prequels. To add a touch of insult to the wait an actual Original Trilogy C-3PO has arrived at the same time, exclusive to the US retailer Walgreens - making it unavailable outside the states in any quantity, and the ones that are coming through are overpriced by at least 30%.

This is not a great start for 3PO, but let's take a look a the standard release which rolls in as #29 in the phase 3 packaging.

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The box is standard fare, with a grayscale image to the front corner which again feels more detailed (or is at least bolder) with some artistic stylization of the lines in the image.

Round the back and the bio paragraph sits over a blown up version of this image. This bio talks about C-3PO in terms of being a "fastidious and worry-prone protocol droid" and doesn't really tie him to his appearance to the Force Awakens fully, only that he continues to serve Princess Leia. The character name is underscored by the bracketed "Resistance Base" placing him firmly into The Force Awakens, as does his red arm - which we will get to shortly.

C-3PO is one of the few Black Series figures to date to be packed with absolutely no accessories at all. This further insults the fans who will be paying upward of ÂŁ21 for this figure, particularly when you consider what could have been included, at least with an Original or Prequel Trilogy C-3PO. He stands a touch shorter than most 6" figures, putting him in scale with his peers like Luke and Han. It also makes him scale well when up alongside the Black Series R2-D2.

The actual design and sculpt of the droid is pretty nice at first glance. The lines are clean and the panels smooth and nicely proportioned. The head captures that quizzical look of 3PO, particularly when it is cocked to one side, but the eyes don't feel bright or illuminated and look the same gold tone as the rest of the head.

The elephant in the room, even before this figure hit store shelves, is the colour particularly as it was this gold finish that Hasbro quoted for many months on why a 3PO was delayed. The choice they have gone with is a metallic gold paint. This paint finish is neat enough and does hold a sheen, but it doesn't match the on screen finish for 3PO and feels dull and unpolished.

The ideal option would have been to weather or dirty 3PO up over the top of this colour and make him the Tatooine version, either New Hope or Jedi. The alternative is of course a form of vac metal, and Bandai did this on their 1/12 droid which you can see in the comparison images below. For me this version is just far too shiny and reflective and you kind of wish there was some kind of in-between finish that Hasbro could have achieved?

The red arm is also not great in regards to its paint finish. The red is not metallic and just a gloss finish, and it lacks any sort of weathering or wash that would have brought out the detail and matched what we saw in the movie. There are neat touches on the arm with the palm of the hands a matt black split with slivers of gold on the right and red on the left.

The tummy section is nicely detailed and is sculpted detail that is then painted, not just painted wiring. Each wire is neatly picked out with blue, red, yellow and green all across a flat black background. Down the arms are the hydraulic rods and bolts that aid in 3PO's movement, these are a bit soft and not as crisp as other parts of the droid - most probably as casting them in harder plastic would have left them open to snapping too easily.

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Articulation was never going to be great, it isn't on the real costume after all. We start with the head which sports the new pivot ball joint. Despite the neck rings this joint allows the head to tilt back and forward, and it also rotates a full 360 degrees. The arms are only jointed at the shoulder and then again at the wrist, the elbow is fixed. These shoulder joints sit in a shoulder collar which you initially think will stop the arm being moved too much.

However, this collar around the shoulder does actually move and can be rotated, and doing so the arm can then be raised and lowered more. The hands rotate at the wrist, and with a peg they also bend, almost to 90 degrees to the lower arm.

The torso is ball jointed just under the upper chest piece, this means the joint is hidden, but allows for a wide range of movement and this allows 3PO-esque poses to come more easily as he quite often pushed out his groin and leans his shoulders back when you look at him on screen - particularly when he is walking. The ball jointed hips won't move much as they are held back by some overhang on the top of the thigh.

They can go wider if you wish or out to the front for an almost sitting position. After dropping the elbow articulation, Hasbro have also gone single joint on the knees. Now this is nicely engineered to match the way the characters costume works, it does only allow for a slight bend and the hydraulic peg that connects top of the knee to the shin is fixed and just juts out when the knee is bent. The articulation ends with the standard ankle rockers, and these are easy to adjust and C-3PO stands pretty well.

All of this articulation does already feel loose and wobbly, and I would imagine C-3PO will start to flop and fall over in the very near future.

So if you haven't realised by now, this is a disappointing release.

The sculpt is soft in places, and as we are dealing with a robot these should all be crisp and sharp. The articulation is reduced and loose and there is nothing to compensate this lack of movement, not even a single accessory is thrown in. I can just about live with the gold as I understand the difficulty, vac metal would not have been ideal either but if Figuarts and Mafex can hit a decent looking gold at a price point only a tad over the Black Series then surely it wasn't beyond Hasbro.

The biggest kicker is the version of 3PO represented here. I have no problem with a Force Awakens release, particularly as it will appeal to collectors and children who entered the Star Wars Universe last year. The issue is the slap in the face that Hasbro have made a Original Trilogy version and made it exclusive. I have nothing against any exclusives, but to give Walgreens a big name original trilogy character is madness, surely they could have still gone with a 3PO but made him the "retaining bolt" version or with the damaged eye from Jabba's sail barge. The optimist in me would hope Hasbro have a longer term plan to give us, particularly overseas, the OT droid - either by tying up a UK or Worldwide deal to distribute the Walgreens version (although this didn't happen with Emperor's Wrath Vader) or by working around the exclusive deal. Maybe a 2-pack with a re-release of R2-D2, or a tweaked version - how great would a 3PO who could be disassembled and packed into a net bag be? ÂŁ21.99 for C-3PO doesn't feel the best value for money, and with the various niggles with the figure I feel I can only aware him a 2 out of 5

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Review : Imperial Hovertank Pilot Star Wars Black Series (Hasbro) Wave/Series : Toys R Us Exclusive Released : October 2016 Price : ÂŁ22.99 Rogue One is almost upon us, and this year there are even more 6" scale Black Series retailer exclusives than ever before. Most are US only, which is frustrating for us here in the UK as well as everyone else outside the US. One that has been made available worldwide is the Imperial Hovertank Pilot.

I am writing this review before the film release, so all we know about the character/trooper is the brief look we have had on the trailers. This review should therefore be spoiler free, but we will be looking at the card back bio which make give away very minor plot points.

Like all Rogue One figures to date in the Black Series, the Hovertank Pilot comes in the phase 3 boxed packaging. The front triangular art is particularly nice, capturing a partially side on profile of the new helmet design with the back half in shadow.

The character name sits in red text to the bottom left with the word Imperial repeated in 4 different languages. The figure is presented in the window box offset to the left as you look at it with the blaster slotted to the right at head height. Round the right hand side the spine is the bold gloss red. Being an exclusive this has no numbering, but instead has a hatched box with the character name in small font - like the wording round the front the word Imperial is repeated in four languages while the Hovertank Pilot is in English.

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On the back of the box the lineart is repeated but blown up to cover the majority of the box rear. Overlaid onto this is a short character description - which is also repeated in four languages.

It really gives very little away and talks purely about the tanks and vehicles these drivers operate and how their armour stacks up vs the other Stormtrooper variations. The rest of the box rear is made up of the various legal warnings - with the bottom third covered with 23 different words for Warning.

Interestingly there are two box variations already for this figure with one coming with the same glossy embossed foil circle on the front that was included on last years Toys R Us Snowtrooper exclusive. For me as a loose collector this is not a big issue, but were I a MIB collector then I would see the foil version as more sought after while completists will want both versions.

Out of the pack the Pilot is snuck into the usual plastic tray which then sits on top of the bright red background. The blaster is the sole accessory.

As soon as you get the Pilot in hand you know that this figure is a bit special. Not only is the design a great one - reminiscent of the original movie's - but the execution of the figure by Hasbro is absolutely superb.

Let's look at the sculpt and design first and this starts with the new helmet design. Essentially this takes certain elements of the Stormtrooper helmets and mixes them up a little with elements of the Return of the Jedi Scouts and also goes back to the Recon Saleucami troopers from Revenge of the Sith - grounding the Pilot and the evolution of the armour back into Star Wars history really well.

Moving down to the body armour, this is sculpted so it looks like it is body armour over a human body, whereas the Death Trooper for example looks more robotic - the Hovertank Pilot can;t deny it is a trooper in armour. I had initial suspicions that the chest armour, with its over the shoulder straps and buckles, was a direct re-use from the Death Trooper. On inspection this isn't the case. Although the design is shared between both, the Hovertank version is wider and a different piece - no corner cutting here from Hasbro. Round the back the rear piece is also different, moving away from the original trilogy back section to a slimline backpack with two vented pieces. The arms start with shoulder panels, under which are tucked armoured upper arms. there is then a gap through which the black under-suit can be seen, and the armour returns with the forearms. The hands end with simple gloves over which is a further armoured panel on the rear of the hand.

Under the chest piece is a complex stomach panel which includes some crisp and intricate details such as a ridged panel with red indicator. This sits just above a utility belt. This is reminiscent again of the original Stormtrooper belt, but contains slimmer pouches. Round the back of this belt is the iconic cylindrical container seen on many Stormtrooper armour designs.

Well they can actually. Essentially the articulation is the standard black series 16 points of articulation. The difference is that it all works really well, with some thought behind the relationship between the sculpted armour and the articulation. The head sits on a ball joint, rotating round fully while looking up and down. The shoulders are ball jointed and despite the bulky looking shoulder armour, the movement is full to 90 degrees out to the side. This is achieved with a gap built into the chest piece so when the arms are raised the shoulder arm retracts under the straps on the chest piece. These shoulders also rotate so you can push the arms up above the head as well. The elbows bend 90 degrees and the gap between the upper and lower arm armour is sufficient so the full bend is achieved, and this means a two handed weapon pose is a breeze and is further supported by jointed wrists which both rotate and flex up and down to a align them to the weapon when the arms are bent.

The trousers are plain, reminding you this is a lightweight trooper who relies on speed and the equipment he operates to fight the Rebels. The leg armour starts at the knee with the all familiar 6 sided knee panel on the left knee and down into ridged boots.

All of the amour is presented in an off white shade, with some of the best weathering I have seen on a Black Series figures. There is a clear wash to dirty up the recessed parts and darken the edges, while there is then dry-brushing weathering and panels of dirt splash around the helmet. The under-suit is black at the top and the trousers are then a plain brown. All the other details such as the painted black visor and the rear vents on the back pack are done neatly and cleanly although on the version I received from Toys R Us there was a tiny splodge of cream paint on the black inner shoulder.

This is all brilliant so far.

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The torso has a joint hidden under the chest armour. Now this does not move massively, but moves enough to tweak the torso side to side to aid in action orientated poses. There is no waist joint, and frankly it is not needed. Down to the hips and the joint here can be swung out in front to a full sitting position, or out to the side - not quite to the splits, but enough for a wider firing stance. In lots of armoured figures the belt stops the hip joint - but on this one the two longer pouches on the belt have been designed to bend with the hips.

The only downside to this figure for me is the exclusivity. As a trooper it will be one that collectors may want to troop build, particularly if squads of them are seen in the film. That of course relies on Toys R Us stocking these in depth through Christmas and into the New Year. Should it follow suit to last years Snowtrooper Commander then this won't be a problem - although I believe this is a far superior figure and will be in much bigger demand being closer to an Original Trilogy figure.

The leg articulation includes a thigh split. This is not a joint I am a fan of as I think it can spoil the look of a figure. Here it isn't too visible thanks to the dark brown trousers and it does work in terms of swivelling the legs outward for wider leg stances. Both knees are double jointed, and beautifully hidden behind the top of the armoured boots. The knees allow the trooper to kneel on one or both knees, and get into some one kneed firing position. This is helped by the last joint on the ankle where the foot can be fully pointed downward so the trailing leg has a flat base when the figure is kneeling.

The single accessory is the blaster, a tweaked beefier version of the E11 blaster. This is cast in a grey plastic so lacks any paint application. It is however crisp in detail and a harder plastic than a number of the "bendy" guns we have had recently. The blaster fits cleanly into the right hand with the trigger fitting the outstretched finger on the right hand. The the left hand is formed to grip the barrel if you wish.

Having already scored the Rogue One Death Trooper a 5 out of 5, then the same score has to be applicable to the Hover Tank Pilot. It is arguably the best Black Series figure we have had in the phase 3 range, if not one of the best since launch in 2015.

Had it the paint been absolutely perfect and had there been some added extras like other weapons then this figure could have been pushing for our very exclusive and elusive 5* rating. If you love Star Wars troopers then get this figure now!

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