The first Storm Shadow of the 25th anniversary line was a bit of an interesting departure from the original 1984 figure design. I think that it really showcased this series’ attempt to take the highly recognizable character designs of the Real American Hero era into a new super-detailed direction. I don’t know what constitutes a historically accurate ninja garb, but
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I’m not normally one to cover carded figures, mostly because I’ve always been an “opener” type collector. I want to get these toys out of their packages and play with—I mean display—them. When the 25th Anniversary series came along, I picked up doubles of most of the line. There was one repaint wave that didn’t strike my fancy as much,
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By Past Nastification There are figures that Hasbro absolutely got right. This modern era Zap is one of them. The first year or so of the modern era figure had a few issues, such as arms with a limited range of motion at the elbows or peculiar sculpting. By the time Zap was released, Hasbro had these kinks ironed out
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By KansasBrawler Ace is kind of a tough figure for me. I agree with Rob that pilot figures are often the most difficult to use when they’re not with their signature ride. Since large vehicles weren’t initially on the docket for the 25th Anniversary line, that meant Ace came in a comic pack alongside Wild Weasel. Weirdly, I don’t think
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By KansasBrawler Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to Major Bludd. I vaguely remember him from the cartoon and KansasBrother had the Sonic Fighters version, but he really didn’t capture my attention until I started reading the original Marvel run in tradepaper reprints when I was in high school. That was my first real exposure to Major
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By KansasBrawler I’ve never been much of an army-builder. I’ve never really seen the point of assembling large quantities of identical looking figures. Intellectually, I understand the appeal…there have been some great shots in Joe dio-stories of massive groups of all the Cobra specialties being addressed by Cobra Commander before his big scheme takes off. Rob’s army-building post from a
Read moreIt’s a busy day here at JAD HQ, and we didn’t have time for a new article. Here’s a rerun for now. Oh, and it’s also a Nice Pants feature. Enjoy Enjoy! Ssgt. Rock ‘N Roll (2008)
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By KansasBrawler I know Hasbro always takes a lot of grief from fans (myself included) for so vehemently sticking behind their “girl figures don’t sell” line when we question their decisions to make sought-after female characters like Zarana and Jinx convention exclusives. Unfortunately, for me, Resolute Scarlett does kind of prove their point. I really wanted to like this figure.
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By KansasBrawler The Alley Viper has always been one of my favorite Cobra troopers. Even back in 1989, the design was powerful and intimidating. Alley Viper was probably the figure I was most looking forward to out of either of the Cobra Island seven packs, and that’s saying a lot because there were quite a few figures in those sets
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By KansasBrawler Like I talked about with my review of the 25th Anniversary Battle Damaged Snake Eyes, I’ve always been a little conflicted on my opinion of battle damaged figures. Damaged costumes are cool, but represent a very limited window for the character. However, as I discussed in the Kre-O review of it, the B.A.T. is a character that lends
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