More Brutal Playmos

The Playmobil blind packed Fi?ures line has given us some really fantastic toys. Two of my very favorites are the Grim Reaper and the Executioner.



The Grim Reaper is a kind of mish mash of all the best scary elements that Playmobil has to offer. As if they kitbashed a zombie with a ghoul, and then gave him a scythe. The big black hat and cape give him a doctor jekyll sort of feel, and I'm pretty sure he glows in the dark as well.



The red hooded Executioner figure is my absolute favorite Playmobil from the past year, and maybe one of my favorites of all time. This thing is awesome in all kinds of ways, from the sinister face paint, to the big nasty axe. It's actually pretty easy to feel the hood in the bag... if you're willing to stand there and fondle all of the packages to find this one in particular.

Brontosaurus

The hard plastic dinosaur has long been a mainstay in all of the finest toy boxes, and I'm more than happy to have a few of them cluttering up my desk. This one made by Dor Mei in the '80s is 17-inches long, and it does a fine job of holding its own against a swarm of little plastic cowboys or army men.

Joystick of the Month: Black Max

Produced by WICO at some point in the 1980s, the Black Max is yet another Atari 2600 type controller.

Batmobile - Hecho en Mexico

What's better than a cheap plastic Batmobile? Well, I suppose it would be an even cheaper bootleg version from Mexico.




I love this thing. The build quality is just as terrible as you'd expect it to be, but it has more than enough charm to make up for any shortcomings.

Master of the Mystic Arts

Marvel Universe is one of those toy lines that I desperately want to like very much, but I constantly find reasons to be disappointed with it. There are often terrible paint problems, and I frequently have doubts about the build quality, which is why I've taken a pass on the vast majority of the line.

Every so often I do find myself willing to take a gamble with something though, and this time around it was Doctor Strange.

I've been a fan of the character since I was a kid--as a matter of fact, he might actually be my favorite Marvel hero--so I had to pick this one up, and thankfully it's actually pretty cool.

In short: the sculpt is good, the paint is really decent, and the overall build quality is acceptable, so I'm very pleased with this figure.

The articulation is extremely nice with this version of Doctor Strange. Infact, I'd say this is one of the best uses of ball joints and cut joints that I've seen with a Marvel Universe figure, which gives this one a huge amount of play value.



It'll take a few more like this to totally win me over to this line, but more importantly, seeing that Hasbro can actually pull off a winner from time to time makes me a little more excited about their return to doing larger scale Marvel Legends figures.

Merry Christmas

This year I picked up a Santa blow mold by Poloron Procucts Inc., that dates from some time in the late '60s to early '70s. The weird gold beard was a deciding factor with this one.

Beast Wars Japan: D-32 Dead End

I'm wrapping up my little Japanese Beast Wars marathon with one of my favorites from the Beast Wars Neo line. Dead End is a cool and colorful version of an ancient ammonite.



I'd have to admit that it was mostly things like this, as well as the various insect Transformers, that drew me to these toy lines. For the most part I think that Takara handled the concept a little better than Hasbro did, with more variety, better packaging, and more interesting looking figures.

Beast Wars Japan: D-33 Hydra

Beast Wars Japan: D-34 Crazybolt

Beast Wars Japan: C-31 Stampy