Marvel Legends: White Rabbit

With so many things to collect these days I had to figure out a way to scale back my own collecting goals and for Marvel Legends that meant just sticking to Spider-Man characters and related villains. What I didn't expect however was for the supervillainess, White Rabbit to show up in a Spider-Man themed series.

White Rabbit (Dr. Lorina Dodson) made her first appearance in Marvel Comics' Marvel Team-Up #131 (1983). She has popped up over the years as a B level villain in the New York crime syndicate. Personally I was thrilled she received a figure, even though I had already planned on buying since she also came packaged with Demogoblin's glider piece.

While I don't keep the packaging for these Marvel Legends figures, I do adore the beautiful renditions of the characters on the side of the packaging. The back of the box has a small bio for each character, bonus multi-language!

I love the overlook of this figure as I think the designers have captured her comic likeness. The body appears to be reused from the Typhoid Mary figure that was a part of the Monster Venom BAF wave. I don't know if the wooly looking boots or trench coat are reused pieces or new sculpts.

The paint apps on the figure are nicely done, especially on the  face. The sculpt of the rabbit ears and flowing dirty blonde hair are perfect. Her pink bowtie is a separate piece and can be moved and I imagine if you were to pop off her head the bow could be removed.

While I'm not the best at posing modern action figures, White Rabbit does come loaded with articulation that we've come to expect with Marvel Legends. I don't know if it's my specimen, but the legs seem to be slighted bowed right out of the package. You can tell if you spread out her legs/feet in a dynamic pose, but if you pull them together to make her stand straight up I think it's noticeable.

She comes with two accessories, a umbrella and a blast effect. Much like the Penguin in the Batman's world, White Rabbit's umbrella also doubles as a gun. The small, semi-translucent yellow blast effect fits nicely on the tip of the umbrella. 

Being that White Rabbit is part of the Demogoblin Build-A-Figure wave, she is packaged with this awesome glider for the classic Spider-Man villain. I love that it also comes with a clear stand. Where was this piece when the earlier Green Goblin figure was released?!

Overall this is a great figure of a rather obscure villain. I know not everyone will care for her as she isn't a top tier character, but that's what so great about the Marvel Legends series is that they are starting to give lesser known characters the figure treatment.

Masters of the Universe: Eternia Minis (Wave 1)

 Another 80's toy staple is making it way back to retail toy shelves in 2020, but these are of a smaller scale. Masters of the Universe Eternia Minis are small, super stylized versions of classic MOTU characters. Each figure measures just over two inches tall. Wave 1 come blind packaged in these awesome Castle Grayskull boxes, while wave 2 will come in Snake Mountain blind packaging.

Retailing for approximately $5 each and exclusive to Walmart stores, wave 1 contains 8 characters for you to chase. However if you only want a certain character(s) you are in luck as there are letters printed on the bottom of each package. Look for the letter that corresponds to each character and you're ready to go.

A = He-Man  B = Skeletor  C = Man-At-Arms  D = Trap Jaw  E = Ram Man  F = Jitsu  G = Buzz-Off  H = Horde Zombie He-Man (chase figure)

For blind packaging I have to hand it to Mattel as the level of detail on Castle Grayskull is amazing. I really don't need 8 of these, but they are so cool that it's making it hard for me to toss them!

The two halves of the packaging attach via hinges on each side. This also allows multiples to be attached to one another.

Crack open the packaging and you have the figure on one side and a mini catalog with the figure's accessory/weapon on the other side.

The included catalog features the entire wave 1 line with some great artwork. These are the same across all the figures.

All of the figures feature a similar body build. There are 5 points of articulation - head, arms and legs. I wish He-Man came with his shield (or battle axe), but I assume the figure will receive a redeco in a future wave so maybe the additional accessory is coming.

Man-At-Arms looks great, his orange armor featuring all the detail that it should. His face sculpt is a little odd and I miss the mustache.

I never was a big fan of Buzz-Off and unfortunately this figure doesn't help. I don't care for the head sculpt, even though it's pretty accurate to the original toy. At least his wings are cast in a nice yellow translucent plastic that shows off the sculpted detail.

Ram Man is perhaps my favorite of Eternia's heroes. Always like the character and this new stylized design looks great.

Skeletor looks fantastic, but I kinda wish his mouth was sculpted open more like the classic figure.

Trap Jaw looks very menacing. His claw can be removed from his right arm. Here's hope we get different accessories in future waves. I would say he's my favorite character from Skeletor's side.

I'll be honest - I don't know a lot about the character Jitsu. I know his arch nemesis is Fisto, but that's about all I know. He's well sculpted and the included orange sword makes him look like someone I wouldn't want to cross paths with.

Horde Zombie He-Man is the chase figure of the wave and I believe falls roughly one per retail display box. I just happened to luck out to find the entire wave the first time I found them locally.

At $5 each and with a way of determining which character you are buying, these are an easy purchase for even the casual MOTU fan. I'm very please with the first wave and anxiously await the Snake Mountain wave.

Transformers: Adventure - Psychobat TMC-06

Hasbro and Takara Tomy decided to do a little something with Mini-Cons in their Robot in Disguise (2015) / Adventure series. Instead of just being smaller robots that could aid other Transformers they transformed into various projectile like objects. Think cassettes with Blaster and Soundwave from the original G1 era, the Mini-Con toys interacted with larger Deployer toys such as Fracture. These new Mini-Cons came in various shapes, such as discs, round spheres or torpedos. Psychobat falls in the latter category.

Mini-Cons in the Adventure series came packaged in small window like boxes. Takara Tomy always did package their TFs in cooler packaging than what we received in the West courtesy of Hasbro...at least in my opinion. This packaging allows you to see the actual toy along with the Energon armor bits in the rear.

On the rear of the packaging you get some simple transformation instructions, along with a view of the Energon armor bits and how you can attach them to the figure itself. I believe there is a bio/tech spec of sorts in the blue box, but since I can't read the language this is just an educated guess.

Windra is based on the Robots in Disguise toy Ratbat. Outside of the obvious color change, a clear 5mm port was added. This port allows Psychobat to be attached to other toys or even to be wielded by another Transformer.

In traditional Takara fashion there are more paint applications to the toy than the US version. Psychobat's colors resemble Ratbat's G1 self more so than the toy named Ratbat. Personally I like the light purple more than the maroon that was used on the US release.

Psychobat's alternate mode is a torpedo shape. These type Mini-Cons I feel are the idea versions for the deployer version of Fracture. Not only do these Mini-Cons look great when inserted into the spring loaded launcher, they also seem to launch better.

Like other Mini-Cons, the torpedo shape has an auto-transformation basically. Pull out on each side and you're done. Overall this design does a good job at concealing the robot bits.

The Energon armor bits come attached to a faction shaped symbol. The parts are attached via small plastic sprues. For the older Transformer collectors this harkens back to the days of the original TF toys where accessories had to be removed from little plastic "trees".

In addition to the new deco Psychobat received overseas, so did the color of his Energon weapons.

Some of the Micron/Mini-Con Energon armor bits look good when attached to the toy, but in my opinion this isn't one of those. The armor looks constricting on the toy and doesn't do much in the way of offense like some of the others. I don't care for the armor pieces for any of these Mini-Cons, but if you disagree with me that's alright too.

When the Transformer Adventure Mini-Cons were originally released in Japan they were affordable to import. On the secondary market (at the time of this post) the prices seem to be all over the board, even from Japanese sellers. I used to be a super collector of Mini-Con/Micron toys and that mentality re-surfaced when I learned that the Japanese version of the RID toys would feature different decos. These are fun little toys and I love the new characters and I enjoy them, but your mileage may vary.

Hot Wheels: American Steel - '72 Ford Gran Torino Sport

I believe this new series of Walmart exclusives debuted at the beginning of 2020, but with the current quarantine all sense of time has seemed to disappear! Called American Steel, this collection of 10 vehicles features classic muscle cards from the 60's and 70's. Today we'll take a look at this beautiful 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport which is #06/10 in the collection.

The primary color used here is a metallic blue with yellow racing stripes down the side and hood/roof area. The wheels are a shiny bronze chrome. The interior plastic is cast in shiny plastic. Both the windshield and rear window are clear. The doors do not have windows. The mold has a copyright year of 2010 "T9672".

Personally I'm more of a Chevy guy, but I've got to admit that this car is beautiful, even more in hand. This series has some really nice cars, shame I didn't pick up more of them while they were still on the pegs.