Reviews by VariablePenguin
Venom (Stealth)Amazing Spider-Man (Toy Biz) - Series 3
Rated
3.00 stars by
VariablePenguinThis has to be the strangest thing I've ever seen. It is just the symbiote blast Venom made from clear smokey plastic and given some highlights in black paint. It is the exact same figure with the exact same problems and features of the previous one. Well, they did paint the parts on his wrists, but black instead of white to go with the black symbol on his chest. I don't particularly remember ever seeing a clear Venom in the comics, but whatever.
It reminds me of all of the variant Metal Gear Solid figures that came out of everyone in stealth camouflage.
Basically, ToyBiz just poured some clear plastic into their molds, slapped on some black paint in spots and repackaged the thing....[
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Apocalypse [Build-A-Figure]Marvel Legends (Toy Biz) - Series 12 - Apocalypse Series
Rated
4.00 stars by
VariablePenguinAs I slowly amassed the parts for this figure, it dawned on me: This is a really freaking cool looking figure. Towering over the other Marvel Legend's figures, Apocalpse is a gigantic menace. There were a few flaws in him from the manufacturing stand point: short packed arms that came with figures without cords, suddenly changing his arm and leg colors in a second wave making it harder to put together a uniform figure, joints that don't want to move. Some of these are easy to gorgive in say a Wolverine figure where you spent $5 and can just pull his right leg apart to fix the glued shut joint, but with Apocalypse, each body part cost $5 or 6 or 7 or 12 and that means a lot when it's an arm or leg you have to fix. His arms and legs are designed so that you CAN NOT accidentally put...[
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Apocalypse [Build-A-Figure]Marvel Legends (Toy Biz) - Series 12 - Apocalypse Series
Rated
2.50 stars by
VariablePenguinMarvel Legends BAF Apocalypse Lower Torso
This may seem odd to review a part of a figure, but it came as it's own thing so that's how I'm reviewing it. First, it fits into the upper torso well and the hoses attach to it from the arms well. The legs fit into the ball joints well also. Here's the real problem though, those ball joint REALLY do not want to move. I broke one of them off just trying to get his legs up. I've had to crack it apart (which is a real pain because I had to remove it from the upper body first) and rebuild the pivot point. I really wish toy companies would give their figures a few good joint moves in the factory to losen up any heat expansion problems and paint build up. This part of Apocalypse would be very cool if it weren't screwing me over and making me...[
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Wolverine (Stealth)X-Men - 2006 Series (Toy Biz) - Series 1
Rated
2.50 stars by
VariablePenguinThis figure suffered the same initial problem as Storm: The box was folding in half almost. Looking at the figure, it looked pretty cool. It was Wolverine with some wicked looking claws AND a gun AND nightvision goggles. Pretty neat.
Got him open and I was confused. Why are his gloves different lengths? and different colors? Thinking about it, doesn't he have a little too much light blue and bright yellow to be stealthly? Another think amiss was his gun belt: he doesn't have one holding the holster up. The holster straps go up to his waist and just hang there with nothing to attach to. Also about that holster, it sucks. Why didn't they make the holster bigger or get rid of the scope on the gun so they wouldn't have to cut a slit the entire length?
He is very poseable so I'll...[
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StormX-Men - 2006 Series (Toy Biz) - Series 1
Rated
3.50 stars by
VariablePenguinMy first impressions of this figure were not good. The package it was in was almost torn in half to start with. When I looked at the figure I saw another victim of over-washing. She may have had a white costume at one time, but the only part that was white on her anymore was her ridiculously huge hair. This figure was made to be repainted.
All that aside, I really like the sculpt. The line of the fabric of her costume and on her boots are well done. It could have more hand poseablity, but what're you gonna do.
Overall, bad paintjob makes for a figure you can't display right out of the box....[
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