Transformers Combiner Wars Pipes

Among the Titans, one must keep watch for the small guys who bust their aft thrusters to keep the big boys going, and that is exactly what Autobot Pipes does.

Unlike his first cousin, Huffer, Pipes got a precious few seconds of air time in the original G1 cartoon, so we never really had a chance to know him.  According to the very small bio on the card back, he is a collector of junk, which must make him popular with Wreck-Gar.  But make no mistake; he can emit a corrosive acid from his exhaust portal that will melt a Decepticon down in ten minutes, and he can haul 60 tons.  Pretty impressive for a small guy.

Combiner Wars Pipes transforms into a fairly generic tractor trailer with cab, which was basically the same with his G1 counterpart as well, however, he was also a slight retool of Huffer back in the day, but now, he is exactly the same model with a different color scheme.

Pipes in the fourth redeco of the same basic mold that was used for the Generations Legends scale Optimus Prime, Nemesis Prime, and Huffer (Hasbro does like to squeeze every penny they can out of any mold for sure).  The cool thing, though, is that all four likenesses are deserving of this mold, since that is what they were originally back in the 80's.  Who knows?  Motormaster might make a Legends Size appearance as well.  At least they aren't turning someone like Scourge into a truck, because that would be pretty silly.

G1reissue, Combiner Wars, and iGear 3rd party Pipes

Star Wars The Black Series Captain Phasma

After four months of searching just about every retail store in my area on a regular basis and failing to find her, I finally ordered The Black Series Captain Phasma from Amazon (paid a 50% mark-up, but at this point, I was willing to do it).  She was the most wanted figure in my collection for The Black Series, as I just loved her overall aesthetic and presence.  As Falldownthemountain noted, she turned out to be a bit of a disappointment in The Force Awakens; barely having any lines or action sequences, but there is always the next film.

Unlike S.H. Figuarts or other high end articulated productions, this Phasma barely moves.  Sure, she has several joints and swivels, but she is hampered by a rubber/plastic cape that restricts movement of any kind, except for her right arm holding the blaster.  I haven't tried it, but I suspect if one popped off her head, the cape could be removed, and limb/joint movement would be a bit better, but not by much.  In short, she is a very blocky figure, lacking the looseness to pose her in any kind of action sequence.

What Hasbro *did* get right, however, was the accuracy of Phasma's likeness.  The sculpt is spot-on, the proportions of Gwendoline Christie's body are perfect.  Ms. Christie is a tall, beautiful woman, and capturing that in scale to the other Black Series figures is the key to a successful toy.  When eyeballing the figures on my shelf, I saw she was even a bit taller than Darth Vader, so here is a comparison pic of Kylo Ren, Phasma, and Vader for scale:

In proportion to the First Order Stormtroopers, she towers above them like a true Captain should, both in physicality and presence.  Something tells me that if Disney really lets her loose, she would be a true force to be reckoned with, provided she survived the trash compactor.

Marvel Legends Spider-Man (Ultimate Green Goblin series)

The Marvel Legends line started in 2002 with Toy Biz, bringing collectors 1/12 scale figures of their favorite Marvel characters. Highly poseable (generally) and detailed these figures looked like they'd jumped right off the page. In 2006 Hasbro took over but continued to make good quality Marvel heroes and villains at an affordable price. Affordable if you find them at retail, at least.

Over the 14 years Marvel Legends have been made there have been many versions of Spider-Man. This is true for all of Marvels biggest names. And it makes sense why. A kid who's just discovered Marvel should be able to go down to their local toy store and buy their favorite hero. For collectors it means we often end up with shelves dedicated to a single character. As a massive Spider-Man fan (I even enjoyed the Clone Saga!) I don't have an issue with this.

The subject of today's review is the Spider-Man figure from the 2014 Ultimate Green Goblin series. This version of Spider-Man is featured in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro which was in cinemas at the same time this figure was released. 

Sculpt:

The sculpting on this figure is very nice. All of the web detailing on Spidey's costume is present. The blue sections are also textured like the movie costume. These could easily have been left flat so I appreciate the effort. The masks eyes and the spider emblems on the front and back of the costume are also molded cleanly.

Paint:

This has got to be one of the best painted Marvel Legends figures in my collection. All of the paint applications are really clean. This was not the case with every figure in the set (I had to go through quite a few Spider-Girls that either had messy faces or messy costume detailing).

A wash has been applied to the red areas to bring out all of the webbing details. This has left a couple of dirty spots. But they look like dirt not great globs of sloppy paint and as such don't hurt the figures look. Easy enough to pass of as the result of going toe-to-toe with Electro.

The eyes on mine don't quite line up with the sculpting. On a shelf it's fine. It's only if you go looking at them up close that you can notice it. The other main paint applications are his front and back spider emblems which I'm happy to say are both spot on.

Articulation:

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can." When you buy a Spider-Man toy you want it to be able to recreate all of your favorite dynamic moments from the comics/films/cartoons/lunch-boxes/etc. And this Spider-Man certainly can. 26 points of articulation, mostly in the arms and legs, make Spidey very poseable. You might even say super poseable.

... Yeah, ok, that was terrible. Sorry.

Whether you want him to be swinging through New York, climbing up the side of a building, or punching bad guys Spidey can do it all. The way the shoulders are jointed go a long way into helping with this. They are able to swivel inward and outward on joints dedicated to just this movement. It's not something I've seen on many toys outside of your Figuarts/Figmas/etc. Certainly not on Hasbro figures. Everything else is pretty standard but all works together well to keep pretty much any pose you'd want to put Spidey in looking natural.

Accessories:

As most of Spidey's only gadgets are his webshooters which are built into his costume he doesn't really need a whole lot of accessories. He does come with two sets of hands - fists and web shooting. These are enough to get you by but a set of open hands (like the Hobgoblin series Spider-Man got) would've been nice to make the wall crawling look a bit more convincing.

Final Thoughts:

This is a great, affordable option if you're looking for a Spider-Man for your collection. While based on the movie version of the costume it's close enough to the comic design that he won't have trouble fitting in with comic-based figures. The Hobgloblin series Spider-Man (affectionately known as Pizza Spidey) does everything this guy can a little better. But if this is the only Spider-Man figure you can find I don't think you'll be disappointed.