Every time I get an old DC Direct figure into my photo tent I am blown away by the sculpt and attention to detail. I was very excitedly buying lots of toys back then. I loved all the Silver Age and Legion of Super-Heroes figures in particular. But in general, I was really taking this early-aughts toy renaissance for granted. I should have been buying ever single toy put out there. I think Starfire is a tricky character to get right. Especially when trying to replicate the early-80s George Pérez design. Honestly I've only seen it done right twice in toy form: the 2018 Funko mini figure, and this DC Direct figure from 2000. I desperately tried to find who sculpted this, but the information seems lost to time. My best guess is Tim Bruckner. But it could easily be Sam Greenwell as well. Both were very active with DC Direct at the time, but the sculptor names being featured on the packaging was inconsistent in those early years. Whoever the artist is knocked it out of the park though. Let's check out Starfire below!
UNITING ALL WOMEN OF PLASTIC
Showing posts with label Translucent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Translucent. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
New Teen Titans - STARFIRE!
Monday, June 1, 2026
Armorsaurs - PRISCA!
I'm a little sad that this is last Armorsaurs figure I will be reviewing for the foreseeable future. This line hit the market fast last month and has significant shelf space in both Target and Walmart in the US. MGA was smart to fill the void left by the absence of modern Power Rangers shows. The last Power Rangers show was Cosmic Fury in 2023, and that show wasn't merchandized. Hasbro seemingly bought the franchise and then scuttled it. 2024 was the first year in 30 years without new Ranger content/product. And coincidentally, that final unmerchandised Cosmic Fury season featured a female Orange Ranger (Fern) that I was really looking forward to adding to my collection. So this Aquatech Prisca figure from Armorsaurs is especially satisfying since she looks like spiritual successor to the neglected Cosmic Fury Orange. I know there is supposedly some big Rangers reboot coming, but dare I say that the biological dinosaur element in Armorsaurs adds a dimension that is more exciting than Power Rangers.
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Armorsaurs - PALOMA!
When 3.75" action figures have translucent parts, my mind instantly goes to MicroMan toys - specifically the resurgence of products in the early oughts. For the first time since the original prolific toyline began in the 1970s, there was an abundance of female characters. They all had translucent bodies and an abundance of metallic armors and weapons. I was rather obsessed with them and managed to collect nearly 20 ladies. But they were very expensive and tricky to display, so I made to sad decision to sell them all. Now twenty years later, these Aquatech variants of the main five Armorsaurs pilots take me right back to that early fascination with the small lollipop-colored toys. I know these toys have only been on the shelves for a few weeks, but I'm already very excited to see what the future of this line holds. I hope they keep a steady stream of new figure variants coming, and maybe even new characters is the show introduces them. I could easily get hooked. Let's check out the Aquatech Paloma below!
Saturday, March 29, 2025
The Sarah Jane Adventures - STAR POET!
In 2007, there was a Doctor Who Spinoff series featuring the fan-favorite companion character, Sarah Jane Smith (who appeared in Doctor Who from 1973-1976). The show was called The Sarah Janes Adventures, starred the same actress (Elisabeth Sladen), and ran for five seasons. I have personally never watched any Doctor Who, nor the Sarah Jane series, but the toys (mainly from Character Options) have been intriguing me for twenty years now. With import expenses from Europe, most are cost prohibitive for me. But this Star Poet figure intrigued me enough to splurge. The character is a lost Arcateenian who seeks out Sarah Jane to help her find her way home. Visually, she reminds me of the classic creatures that fascinated me as a child in movies like Cocoon and Abyss (and even in more modern movies like Bubble from Valerian). Something about translucent, often ethereal, creatures triggers something primal in my imagination. This figure is the only think like it in my collection, and I think she's great.
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Justice League International - FIRE!
I'm glad that McFarlane Toys is taking the opportunities provided by their exclusive Gold Label and Platinum products to include relatively obscure and under-merchandised characters in the DC Multiverse line. The recent Blackfire and upcoming Huntress (and variant) are great examples. Fire is a character with a huge fanbase. She first appeared in the 1979 issue of Super Friends #25 as the Green Fury (who shot green flames out of her nostrils.. no joke). I don't know long it took for her backstory to be fleshed out. But now the commonly-told origin is that Beatriz da Costa was a Brazilian model (and secret government agent) who was accidentally exposed to a mysterious substance called Pyroplasm which gave her the green flame powers (pre-Crisis her powers were mystical in nature). She has been a member of many teams over the years and gone by many names: Green Flame, Green Fury, and her most common, Fire. She is a dynamic character who is long overdue in the toy aisles.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Legends of Dragonore - YONDARA!
I've always been a sucker for a translucent figure, especially when it's not just a plain crystal clear plastic. In the case of this Legends of Dragonore Wave 1.5 Yondara redeco in her "Prophecy Vision" translucent plastic, her main skin area is indeed a boring clear color, perhaps with a tint of yellow or pink (she looks different in various lighting setups). But to offset that, she is accented with translucent blue hair and accessories and opaque painted clothing in pink and blue. The overall effect is quite stunning, although she suffers from the common translucent toy problem in that her joints become overly pronounced (especially the neck peg which you can now see behind her face). A subtle airbrushing in white or light blue in these areas would go a long way (similar to the MOTUC Goddess figure). This Wave 1.5 set features fun redecos of all the Wave 1 characters. The Build-a-Figure for 1.5 has been replaced by a minicomic finally providing some worldbuilding beyond the cardback bios. Let's check out Yondara below!
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
A Busy Year of DC Heroines from IMAGINEXT!
The DC Super Friends Imaginext line from Fisher-Price is still going strong eleven years after I bought my first figure (Catwoman). I don't often post about these figures when I acquire them, but trust me I am quite the completist. There are new sculpts released occasionally. But for the most part, the line subsists on clever (and sometimes not-so-clever) re-use of existing sculpts. For instance, there is a newly sculpted Man-Bat hitting stores right now, but 99% of the figures on the shelves (including all 10 in this post) are simple redecos. The big gimmick in 2022 was the use of transparent plastics (aka "Bat-Tech"). The figures utilize light wells, often with holes cut in their capes, and accessories or playsets with pinpointed light sources to illuminate your figures from behind. It's a fun upgrade that has given us a handful of color variants (which I gladly purchase). I'm personally most excited about an upcoming Stephanie Brown redeco of Batgirl, a character who is shamefully underrepresented in plastic.
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Super7 ReAction - SCARLETT!
In 1987, G.I.Joe: The Movie was released and the classic era of G.I.Joe came to a close. New cartoon production ceased, the comics petered out, and the new toys had no real context anymore. (Batman was all the rage). But then in 1989 there was a new faction in the Cobra toyline that snatched my attention back: Python Patrol. These toys seemed classic, but refreshed and exciting. I didn't even watch the cartoons explaining the redecos until this Summer. (The new cartoons resumed in 1989 produced by DiC). The toys are very nostalgic to me since they mark by last childhood fascination with the property. This Summer, Super7 revealed the SDCC Exclusive Glow Patrol faction in their G.I.Joe ReAction line. While these are fantastic original decos on their own merit, my gut reaction was "OMG it looks like a Python Patrol Scarlett!" Python Patrol was all male Cobra characters, so this thought was nonsensical. But it's still what I think every time I see her. Let's check out Glow Patrol Scarlett below!
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Transformers - SKYWARP!
Female Decepticons are severely lacking in my toy collection. So when Hasbro decides to do a gender swap and a generic redeco of a male toy to create another character, I disregard my scruples and jump on board. Skywarp is one of the classic Seekers from the original G1 cartoon. The character has always been represented as male until a recent Transformers: Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures episode. Although Skywarp now has a distinctive female appearance in the cartoon, she suffered the same fate as Slipstream and got a toy that is a simple repaint of Starscream. Unfortunately, this specific Starscream mold doesn't have a particularly gender-neutral face like Slipstream was blessed with. But I still put an eBay alert out for her, because as I said above, any female Decepticon gets a pass. She came in a colorful Target-exclusive Seekers: Sinister Strikeforce four-pack with Thundercracker, Starscream, and Thrust (all identical molds). Let's check out Cyberverse Skywarp below!
Monday, October 28, 2019
Masters of the Universe Vintage - FROZEN TEELA!
There's something about translucent plastic action figures that mesmerizes me. I remember having Blackstar toys as a kid and being obsessed with their translucent chests. Same with the Golden Pharaoh from Super Powers and all the Crystar heroes. My only caveat is that I like them to have a color tint, plain clear is not appealing for some reason. I didn't know the reasoning behind this Super 7 translucent blue vintage style Frozen Teela until after I bought it. There was a single episode in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Season 2 (titled "The Ice Age Cometh") where the new villain Icer touches Teela and she freezes. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but it sure translates into a cool variant of this fantastic sculpt. In the episode, when He-Man finds Teela frozen like a statue, he does the logical thing and punches her. In cartoon-trope-land, punching ice is apparently the same as thawing I guess. I've seen it a thousand times and it's always ridiculous. Let's check out Teela below!
Monday, August 21, 2017
Marvel Legends - SINGULARITY!
Hasbro is pretty good at surprising me, but I can honestly say I never expected to see a Singularity figure in my lifetime. One of my favorite comic book tropes out there is the "mysterious stranger." I always get obsessed with these characters. Especially when they are timid (but suspiciously powerful) females. In Alpha Flight, I got hooked on Marrina; in Generation X, I fell for Penance; and in Legion Lost, I was obsessed with Shikari. That's just naming a few off the top of my head (let me know if you have others!) Singularity is the mysterious stranger who first appeared in 2015's A-Force #1. She is initially distrusted (as is always the case in these stories), but she proves to be a powerful ally. Singularity is a living pocket dimension. She is able to teleport herself (and others), make things disappear into a void, and track people psionically (just like Shikari from above!). I'm really excited to catch up on my A-Force reading now - I'm so behind. Hope everyone had a great Eclipse day! Let's check out Singularity below!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
McDonald's Happy Meal - LAVAGIRL!
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most fast food toys are total wastes of plastic. I just know there are landfills teeming with random licensed knick-knacks permanently infused with the smell of french fries (and the environmentalist in me hates that). Occasionally though, there is real thought and design put into these toys and they become the standouts in the crowd. In 2005 there was a kids' adventure movie titled The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. This movie wasn't well-received for the most part (mostly due to the distracting 3-D effects), but the general plot and creativity of the movie appealed to a lot of kids. The movie received little to no toy merchandising outside of a few weeks as a McDonald's Happy Meal theme. The toys were great. The most exciting ones were straight-up action figures of the two titular characters (even the secondary toys were cool, like shark and lava water squirters). Kids who loved this film would love these toys. Let's check out Lavagirl below!
Monday, May 20, 2013
Ben 10 - GWEN ANODITE!
I'm a sucker for translucent action figures. As long as there are intentional design details like paint apps or a tint gradient, they'll find their way into my collection (ie..all the boring solid clear Susan Storms don't get invited to the party). I've never seen a single episode of Ben 10, but the awesome character designs have been getting my attention in the toy aisles for years. As fantastic as all the figures look though, I've always been disappointed by the lack of females. The American releases have been limited to a single character, Ben's cousin Gwen (who happens to be a human/anodyne hybrid). Bandai has released several Gwen figures, most in her mousy redhead human form. Her full Anodite form like we see in this action figure appeared in the second incarnation of the franchise, Ben 10: Alien Force. I was super excited to finally get a great looking girl from this series. She took forever to find, too. Let's check her out below!
Friday, January 25, 2013
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VIRAL!
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have gone through many transformations over the years. Then the animated series that aired from 2003-2007 really complicated things by having multiple sub-series' within the main title. The 2006 season of this show was titled Fast-Forward and featured the Turtles in the year 2105. The thing I liked most about this story arc was the interesting villains that were introduced. The standout for me was Viral, a living computer virus and totally wicked nemesis to the Turtles. She often took the form of different techno-organic beasts (giant insects, water serpents, etc) but they always looked like her.. ie reddish orange alien-like forms with a single blue eye. Viral was so powerful in this future NYC because of the incorporation of virtual reality environments into everyday life. The setting is also interested because the human population is also now intermingled with many different anthropomorphic species, so the turtles don't need to hide or don disguises. Cool :) Let's check her out!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Jewel Lords SOLITAIRE!
GO-BOTS Rock Lords Series 3: Rock Jewels - SOLITAIRE from Tonka 1987
The Go-Bots cartoon series was full of awesome female characters, unfortunately very few were made into decent toys. Of the few that were immortalized in plastic, the best of the bunch would be the Rock Jewel, Solitaire. The Rock Jewels (or Jewel Lords) were a subset of a subset: Go-Bots > Rock Lords > Rock Jewels. The Rock Jewels had the distinction of having clear gemstone rockforms. Solitaire was introduced in the 1986 theatrical release of Go-Bots: Battle of the Rock Lords where she was a heroic ally to the Go-Bots. She was voiced by Margot Kidder soon after her reprisal of Lois Lane in Superman III. The character seems an odd choice to be made into a toy, but she is definitely the best fembot representation from the 80s (in my humble opinion).
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