What Did I Get Now? - Mar 2020

Aug 24, 2020

And on to March of this year. But first, a pretty damn good picture (by an amateur such as myself) of Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring, from our trip in 2019.

You know, maybe if I didn't hate going outside so much, especially once the temperature gets over 70 F, I could take many more rather impressive pictures. Oh well.

We ended Feb's entry with the very fun, very large, Shao Kahn, so it seems fitting to start March off with the other large scale figure from Storm Collectibles Mortal Kombat line, Goro! He makes Shao Kahn almost look like a normal size figure. And surprisingly, he doesn't have too problematic of balance issues. At least for the poses I was trying.

Continuing my trend of trying to buy all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe figures from Bandai's SH Figuarts line and not displaying them, Endgame Thor! And War Machine Mk 6! I may not have yet (as of Aug) opened War Machine, but at least now I have all of them.

More SHF MCU figures, but at least I opened these. Infinity War Hulkbuster (also belongs to the things-I-should-not-have-bought group) and Iron Man Python Armor.

More MCU figures, this time from another super favorite line of mine, Mezco's One 12 Collective: I got the Advanced Suit from Spider-Man Far From Home, and had a lot of fun with it. It's got a great web-face accessory that fits on the head of so many other figures, Mezco and non-Mezco alike.

So much fun, that when I put it with Mezco's Homemade suit from Spider-Man Homecoming, I realized I needed to get the Tech Suit from Homecoming. So, after 2 or 3 weeks I picked one up.

Let's see, I got a couple of Earthrise Transformers, Cliffjumper, Wheeljack, and Optimus Prime. Prime is definitely the winner of the group, being a fantastic figure, but the other two aren't terrible, just no where near as impressive as Prime is. I also received the DNA Upgrade Kit for Seige Ultra Magnus, the weapons are nice, the leg upgrades look good, but are a bit more flimsy feeling than I'd like, and they don't peg into the armor bits as well as I hoped.

Seige Ultra Magnus with the new legs, in tall mode, and the new weapons.

In the third party world, I got a gap filler kit for Seige Ultra Magnus, which does polish the look off a little bit, but honestly probably isn't worth what it cost, but I've got it now, so there's no going back. I also picked up the Planet X Apollo, being a large Voyager scale version of the video game War For Cybertron Ultra Magnus. Ehhh....it's...alright? I'm not really as impressed with it as I felt I should be, even considering the steeply discounted price I got it at, and the glowing reviews the original Prime version of this figure received. I'm rather considering selling it. I have been thinking that despite my love for UM designs, I probably don't need an UM focused display, need to keep myself to a Masterpiece scaled collection.

In more exciting third party I got the third figure in the Ocular Max Assaultus combiner, the leader Incursus (aka Onslaught) and the upgrade set. Let's start with Incursus, because he's pretty great. He's a long military-esque flatbed truck, with tiny amounts of black camo pattern on the dark blue you can't see very often and giant dual cannons on his back. He can carry Impetus, and presumably Volatus (who isn't out yet), and the vehicle modes all look fun together.

Since I'm a little bit crazy/obsessive, I'm collecting both third party versions of Bruticus, Zeta's Armageddon and MMC's Assaultus, so it's natural to do some comparing, even though they're completely different price-points, and are approaching the figure from different angles. In vehicle mode, they're both pretty solid, impressive toys, though Incurses is a bit more detailed in paint and feels a little more polished. Looks like I never put them both in bot mode for direct comparisons, but Incursus again wins, being better proportioned, more poseable, more paint, and just better overall. But hey, he was also 50% more expensive, so about like I figured. My expectation is that the Zeta set will be displayed in vehicle mode with MMC in bot mode, or combined. Although, from pics I've seen, the Zeta set is hugely impressive in combined mode, so if I can find the space I might go that way with the display.

Incursus in vehicle mode pairs off nicely against the leader of the Aerialbots (FT Maverick), and the set is nice and imposing as a team of robots. Particularly against a much smaller scaled figure, or small Masterpiece figures. XD.

One of the gimmicks that originally wasn't a selling feature of this set for me, but has turned out to be a rather impressive side of it, is that it is an all-in-one combiner. Meaning, you shouldn't need any other pieces to combine them together. Usually combiners have separate hand and foot pieces, a head, and sometimes other bits that facilitate combining them, or finishing off the look. With this set, MMC has integrated all the combined mode parts into the individual robots. So, Impetus (the helicopter) has a hand hidden in side him, that remains hidden within the legs in bot mode, only comine out for combined mode. Fraudo has parts that fold out to be foot-like. And, possibly most impressively, is the way Assaultus' head and chest shield are hidden inside Incursus' chest.

That's neat and all, but not everybody was going to like the look of the somewhat small feet, and of course with many G1 characters there's noticeable difference between the animation model and actual toy looks, and some people prefer one look over the other. Enter the Upgrade Set, which adds two larger...let's call them shoes?...an large gun, an alternate head and chest shield for Assaultus, and an alternate chest for Incurus. I think the new Incrusus chest is toy-accurate, while the Assaultus shield is animation-like. No idea about the head. Except for the Incursus chest piece, all of the new pieces are a gorgeous shiny silver. Oh, and the Assaultus eyes might light up?

The shoes can fold up into large crates that can peg onto the back of vehicle-mode Incursus, or as the middle section of a wider trailer section, which looks goofy despite the ramp feature of it, but lets Impetus park less precariously. These are rarely going to be in vehicle mode, but I appreciate the effort to integrate the new pieces into the alt modes. I don't think there's a place for the rifle, and of course there's only room inside Incursus for one head, so you basically have to choose which one you like more.

Mattel is occassionally still releasing figures that I can't pass up, this month it was their newish Amber Collection of 6" figures from the Jurassic Park/Jurassice World films: Owen Grady and Blue. I haven't opened Owen yet (as of Aug), but if he's anything like Malcom was from wave 1, he's fine if nothing particularly special, but Blue is great fun. She appears earlier in this post with Spider-Man.

And finally, one last Mezco One 12 figure, the Previews Exclusive version of Hal Jordan Green Lantern. It comes in a giant tin box as expected, includes a bunch of fun accessories as expected (straight up repaints of the ones that came with John Stewart a couple of months ago), and he looks great, particularly with John Stewart, again, as expected. My only complaint with the One 12 line is they make too many figures I want, and I can't quite afford them all. There are 4 out right now (in Aug) that I really want to get, with a WW, KGBeast, and...another one i can't think of right now, in the near future that I really want. Oh, Mr Freeze!

And that's it for March. It was a busier month than Feb, and a few more impulse/unplanned buys than just getting in preorders from months back. I promise one of these entries will have fewer figures than usual.
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