Warlock Dragon (Green)
Blackstar (Galoob) - Accessories
Rated 4.00 stars by Karl T. Face
Well, this was a lucky find. $3 at a thrift shop? Yes please. I never got into Blackstar as a kid, but I can certainly appreciate the aesthetics, and Warlock here is a solid example. The hollow, unarticulated body (as was the custom) captures the oddly smooth, almost equine build and featureless tail. Even the head isn't quite your typical dragon: toothy, short horns, yes, but the mouth is cartoonishly large, and very square. The wings are the only points of movement here, on somewhat flimsy swivel/hinges. Now, there are two versions available: this all-green one, and one with yellow wings. Only the yellow-winged version came with a saddle, though frankly, I can't imagine how that would have worked, given that Blackstar can barely straddle the thing as is. No matter which version you...[See More]

Crutch
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 7
Rated 3.00 stars by Karl T. Face
I'm a slight sucker for post-apocalyptic toys from the 90s. Road Wars, Fist of the North Star, it all had a slight but delightful cartoonish nature. It's therefore a little surprising I never bought this guy to mix in there. But that's what secondhand stores are for, so let's see how this nutjob stacks up. Sculpt and paint are the usual fare for this point in the line: grungy and muted with splashes of brighter color. The cutoff Hawaiian shirt is a nice touch, and his tattoos are cleanly applied. There's quite a varied selection of junk all over him, and it all looks like an edgy Borderlands OC. Not so fun are the articulation and action feature. Swivels at the Big Five, right wrist and elbow, and pin right knee aren't nearly enough to get him out of his "leaning heavily on a weed...[See More]

Mask of Phanteana
Resurrection of Monstress (Yellow Submarine) - Basic Series
Rated 4.00 stars by Karl T. Face
Phantom of The Paradise is a cult classic of the highest order. Fans may be surprised to know it's pretty big in Japan for whatever reason, and nowhere is that more evident than any given anime shop. This is actually the fifth character I'm aware of to be directly inspired by good old Winslow, and I haven't been looking very hard. Mr. Nirasawa, unsurprisingly, threw his hat in the ring with Phanteana here, a gender-swapped version with far less in the way of clothing, but considerably more flair. Posed in a pretty dramatic flourish, she can play the keyboard with one hand only, but still makes it look good. Every bit is well sculpted and painted, as usual. Accessories are the main draw yet again, this time comprising a keyboard, speaker, control panel (mixing board? I don't know this...[See More]

Horrid
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 11 - Dark Ages Spawn
Rated 4.50 stars by Karl T. Face
Ah, the Horrid. Every fantasy story needs a reptilian beastie of some sort, and this one is nicely understated for MacFarlane at the time. Don't get me wrong, the detailing is great. I love all the scaly textures, the overlapping plates, that wicked smile. What I mean is, there are no accoutrements. No GWAR-esque armor, no arrows sticking out of it, no accessories. Just a big ol' dragon, built like a wyvern with arms. I can't honestly say which color scheme looks better; the brown one just feels more "natural", but I do love the grey and red here. Got a nice feel to it, almost like a gargoyle. Paint is the usual kind, muddy in all the right places but still plenty tight around key areas like the face. And while I can come up with a few more joints that could've knocked this out of the...[See More]

Ogre
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 11 - Dark Ages Spawn
Rated 3.50 stars by Karl T. Face
Well, I've once again dipped into the Mcwell of yesteryear. The figure itself is pretty nice by the standards of the time: well sculpted and competently painted. Articulation is okay, swivel/hinge shoulders and pegs at the wrists, hips, waist, and neck (sideways twist). Said neck is permanently turned slightly sideways, as is the rest of him. The platform fits on his back via two fat square pegs, and Phisto pegs onto it- with some difficulty, it must be said. You'll have to press from underneath. A length of twine runs between the bit in Ogre's mouth, long enough to wrap behind Phisto and help keep him on, which is genius. The armor doesn't impede the shoulders at all, but that doesn't help his accessories much. You see, while the prototype has a club and flail, the production model had...[See More]

King of the Dead (Glow-in-the-Dark)
Lord of the Rings - Trilogy (Toy Biz) - Return of the King - Series 2
Rated 4.75 stars by Karl T. Face
Honestly? It's a shame we didn't get more of these. Toy Biz tried like hell to make at least one representative of every faction, and that obviously includes Spooks here, but a soldier would have been nice. I'll first say that he doesn't look like much in the package: the paint wash and airbrushing can't save him from looking quite corporeal. This is a trade-off; more on that later. Articulation is fairly standard for late-series LOTR, which is to say "excellent". The joints are plentiful and well hidden, with the exception of the double elbows: ugly but very functional. Any pose you could reasonably ask of a king's ghost is possible. Accessories are limited to the sword, cape and sash, though I hate to count the last two, since they're kind of integral to the look. Lastly, we come to the...[See More]

Trigore
Power Lords (Revell) - Basic Series
Rated 4.00 stars by Karl T. Face
Wayne Barlowe is fairly high on my list of artists. Having grown up reading his Guides again and again, I was thrilled to find out he'd designed a whole toyline, including this childhood favorite. This led me to jump pretty excitedly on a boxed specimen when it turned up, much to the joy of the seller, who was understandably worried nobody would recognize it, much less want it. Many fond memories, tempered by the physical presence of it, allow for a pretty thorough review without undoing the twist ties. Here we go! Firstly, the design. Grotesque and colorful, it resembles nothing so much as a horned chameleon eating a stag beetle. Except its organs are on the outside. And it's a tripod. With a single branching antler. Barlowe all the way, is my point. Even a fairly indifferent airbrushing...[See More]

Exo-Skeleton Spawn
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 4
Rated 3.50 stars by Karl T. Face
4 series in, Todd and company had settled into a couple of habits: one was including at least one oddball Spawn in every wave. This time around, they were She-Spawn and this weirdo. And two, lots of variants and running changes, hence the strange colors we see here. Of the four color schemes and three heads (!) available in this case, I chose this one in honor of my love for garishly colored skeletons, and it doesn't disappoint there. Lots of spines and a long bendy tail (with Thagomizer) make it look big and fancy, and the black accents really pop. The underlying body, rather than the strong red I was expecting, is a pretty washed-out shade in person, which I'm kind of iffy on. Then again, it might have been the only way to avoid too strong a contrast. That aside, said body is actually...[See More]

Klingon
Star Trek - Borg Assimilation (Diamond Select) - Basic Series
Rated 5.00 stars by Karl T. Face
Diamond Select made quite a few ST toys in the 7" scale, and they were all pretty impressive. Very show-accurate. But the kickoff series consisted of totally speculative designs, a trio of non-human Borg. The Cardassian and Hirogen are impressive, but today we have a look at the Klingon. Plying the skills picked up by their work on the rotocast Alien Combat series, our friends at Art Asylum cranked out some wonderful work. The sculpt is absolutely blanketed with wires and weathered armor. Tubes snake in and out here and there. The paint is without flaw, if pretty extreme compared to the on-screen black sweaters and computer components. The facial hair, starkly painted eye, and skin tone are startlingly reminiscent of AA's 18" Rob Zombie, for whatever reason. Articulation comes in at a...[See More]

Future Spawn (Deluxe Figure)
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 2
Rated 2.50 stars by Karl T. Face
It's weirder than it looks. Having bought this deluxe figure, some 26 years old now, from a revolutionary toyline,for ten bucks in package, I knew it wasn't exactly in the top 10 for the line. But anxious for a cheap dose of nostalgia, I couldn't resist. It's certainly unusual, I'll give it that. First, the good. It looks nice at a glance, if rather oddly proportioned. The usual assortment of spikes/hooked edges and a nice desaturated red tie it to Spawn without looking at all like we're used to. The thin left arm warrants a double take, but blends in fine if only half extended. Paint is tight for the most part. The way the targeting system ends up over the face as the armor is lifted is a stroke of genius. On the other end of the scale, there's the articulation. There's plenty there,...[See More]