I'm back with another Morstorm x Eastern Model Iron Man kit. The Mk50 finally came in the mail from USA Gundam Store after a bogus boomerang shipping route. ...It went from Daytona FL to Ellenwood GA, and bypassed me on the way, stretching out a three day delivery window to six. The boxart depicts the Deluxe Edition of the kit with the metallic red coating, but it's the normal version of the kit with metallic injection plastic. The gold parts however are coated. I was going to build the Mk85 first, but since this is here now, I'll go in numerical order before E.Model releases what they've got planned next after the Mk46 (for now, I'm skipping this one). Doing an inspection of the parts, I see the colors of the primary colors are different for both the gold and red armor. Mk50 on the left, Mk85 on the right. The Mk50 looks closer to a traditional out of the bottle gold, while the 85 is brighter, and I already have a mix of paint ready for it from the Mk49 Rescue suit. The red plastic was a surprise though. Again, Mk50 on the left and Mk85 on the right. While I don't expect to be filling in any detail paint to match the red plastic, I've got some recipes to start with and a bottle of Pearl Red acrylic to use as a modifier. The metallic silver parts look to be the same between both kits. One more detail, but not pictured, is the light up feature for the eyes use a Magnetic switch instead of a toggle switch. The kit comes with an accessory that looks like a missile that controls this. The manual says "sweep across the head" to turn the LEDs on. I'll see that when I get there I suppose. There are a few recycled parts from the Mk85 for his handheld blade weapon and the amped up repulsor gauntlets.
I haven't gotten a Hot Toys in a while and I probably won't get this one, but that Captain Carter (and accompanying Steve Rodgers/Hydra Stomper) is a thing of beauty.
Decided to get the display base out of the way first. It took some sanding to make the clear lens plates fit properly with the beveled edge sides up. I had done it the wrong way on the Mk49 so I managed to flex the base to loosen the plates up and set hers down properly. Yeah, it also looks like those clear plates are a different color.. Funny how that works. Even though I need to finish the Death Blossom Funnels for Rescue, I'm working on the Repulsor Amps first. Oddity of the kit is their parts are molded in dark gray plastic while everything else is in metallic silver. I suppose in the Deluxe version these would be coated, but I'll paint them myself. EDIT: It turns out the silver in this kit is somewhat brighter than the Mk85, so I have to use another mix I have from my Figure-Rise Ultraman kits. It's 90% silver to 10% of a metallic steel gray. I will need to dust off the airbrush to do it.
been seeing the new 4" Retro Kenner style Marvels at Target stores the past week (stealth Iron man, storm, etc)...I really like the quasi-Byrne style artwork on the cards...
Diamond Select Apocalypse is looking pretty good so far in concept art form! Tempting to get one to go with the x-Men Marvel Legends Diamond Select Toys Marvel Select Apocalypse Figure First Look
I have ToyBiz Apocalypse, both ToyBiz BAF Apocalypse figures, and the Hasbro ML BAF Apocalypse, and I would still prolly buy this if it comes out looking solid 90s Apocalypse. He can be as big as he wants so the MS scale won't bother me.
I saw this interview with Matt Fraction: Fraction’s thoughts about Lucky in the comic are a bit more complicated. He’s referred to the dog as Clint’s “anima,” employing Carl Jung’s word for an external projection of one’s soul. Lucky’s origins are very personal to Fraction. “They didn’t know what to do for the first issue [of Hawkeye],” he says. “Then my dog died and I wrote it. So it’s this continuing communion with this anima, right? It keeps talking to me and I keep listening and now look: it’s going to be an action figure. My anima has an action figure. Beat that, Carl Jung!” So it looks like we have a Pizza dog figure coming. In some form. What the ‘Hawkeye’ Comic Tells Us About the Marvel Miniseries
There's still a few characters I'd like to hunt down, but here's my 90s Marvel Toybiz good guy collection. I'm in Australia, and the cost of postage from the US has become OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive in the past few years- so it's not easy for me to collect these figures (via ebay) because they're scarce here and all over in America...where even though the figure may be going for a pittance (and they often are) the postage makes it unpalatable.
Man, does that bring the memories flooding back. Not only do I remember those, I remember each one I eventually traded out for later Toy Biz releases. There was a big, ungainly Colossus later on, a maskless Archangel, and the Generation X line had a Banshee I could never find.
Wow, let's see, I used to have that Polaris, Archangel, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Cyclops, Gambit, Rogue, Beast, Human Torch, Ican, Shatterstar, and Cable. Oh, and the silver version of that Storm that came with some soft circle shaped plastic that I guess was meant to be her cape.
That's neat! I think I still have the Shadowcat Kitty mail-away figure from Wizard's toy magazine, and Phoenix Jean and maybe tiger stripe Wolverine? The rest I gave away. I forgot they even made Polaris.
technically that's just Rogue repainted to look like Polaris, but ToyBiz did that a heckuva lot to pad out their line...easy to just repaint details over an existing base figure...they did that on their 9 inch line of figures too, making Xena out of Rogue too if I recall...
For what I pay for, this ZD Toys LED Iron Man Mark III is one gorgeously-painted figure, and the articulation is still quite good despite the need of integrating the LED light-up gimmick.
Haven't seen the Thor legends in store yet, but I did go temporarily nuts & bought the basic 6" version at Target just now. On the plus side, there's more color separation here than I expected. The head is molded in light brown, the body molded in blue, the cape molded in red, and the hands (and Stormbreaker) molded in caucasian skin tone. The eyes are actually nicely done, and the painted skin on the face & neck are all recessed areas that won't be at risk of wearing off. He also has a kinda fun yet goofy "squeeze the legs to make him lift Stormbreaker" feature. Unfortunately, Stormbreaker is molded into a fixed position in his hand and along his forearm, so it can never be repositioned into more of a "bring the hammer down" action feature. The sculpt is also pretty good, with a surprising amount of texture detail. A paint wash & some touch-ups here & there will probably make this look really good. It's got the potential to be one of the best looking Happy Meal toys ever. The downside is that it's not even a 5 POA figure, it's got FOUR points (insert Picard meme here.) It's really more like only 3 points, since the right leg doesn't move at all and the left leg only moves in order to trigger the right arm's action feature. Maybe it's technically only 2 points since only the head & left arm can be freely positioned. Maybe only 1 point since the hair doesn't let the head move very much. Eh. The downERside is that the retail on this figure is $15.99! Yeah really! I paid $16 plus tax for this "we have Thor at home" figure. And it was in the new packaging where you can't see the actual figure. Granted, I did get a "good" figure with no paint issues other than the low number of applications, but it was right alongside the $10 basic MCU figures. I guess the action feature adds a LOT of "value" to the figure. Anyway, I'm decidedly ambivalent about this figure. I realize all the reasons why it costs more, and I'm ok with most of them. But I'm certainly not planning on getting others in the line at this price.
