Mechtorians Series 1
Mr. Head
3 Inch Scale
By: Mindstyle (Doktor A)
$14.99
Today we're taking another look at some designer vinyl. The world of designer vinyl is an interesting side market of toy collecting. These toys tend to be high end (very expensive) and yet are often relatively cheap as well (via blind bags, etc) and there are many different tiers for collectors. Perhaps the most interesting part about designer vinyl toy collectors is that they're often not "traditional" toy collectors, although some certainly are.

The moral of this story is that the market for designer vinyl is different than the traditional toy market. What makes a good vinyl toy good is not the same as what makes a regular toy good. It's tough to discern for some folks and it was something I struggled with for a while. Doktor A's Mechtorians line immediately spoke to me though, as the designs were very cool and I just had to have a couple.

Mr. Head

Philosopher and thinker extraordinare. Responsible for the big ideas in Retropolis. Advisor to royalty, big business and the lay-mech alike. His thoughts are wonderful, colourful and huge in scope. Though he is a tad forgetful and so makes endless reams of unintelligible notes on napkins and envelopes. Not a great dinner guest as he tends to mutter to himself constantly.

Let's learn more about Mr. Head and the amazing retrobotic world of the Mechtorians!

Thundercats Classics
Lion-O
6 Inch Scale
By: Bandai
$14.99
I am not the biggest Thundercats fan. It's a property that I liked, but didn't love. It ranks below things like Inhumanoids and Centurions for me. When Bandai announced it was doing a classic Thundercats revamp, I was so-so on the project. If the figures looked cool, I might pick a couple up. That was my philosphy. To date I've watched absolutely zero episodes of the new cartoon. When the first exclusives hit, I liked them, but not enough to pay the prices. Plus the figures were in an odd 8 inch scale, which didn't bother me much, but didn't entice me either.


A few months later, Bandai decided that 8 inch wasn't the way to go and changed the scale to 6 inch. They also gave Lion-O a new head. I still wasn't too interested, even though the figures looked pretty good. But low and behold, I keep seeing these figures in Target. Eventually, they beat down my resistance and I picked up a couple. There's just something inherently great about seeing old school toy properties reinvented in the toy aisle.


As a kid, I liked Thundercats well enough, I had a few figures and I watched the show... But there wasn't enough nostalgia to make me order these things online. Seeing them in store for a decent price is another matter entirely and that's why you're getting this review today.

Figma
Robocop
5 Inch Scale
By: Max Factory
$49.99 (price varies)
Part Man. Part Machine. ALL Cop. Paul Verhoeven's 1987 Robocop film transformed the concept of a cyborg. Robocop was a movie that had a lot of social commentary, gratuitous violence and one of the coolest looking "robots" in film history. It also instantly became a hit with kids, which is pretty amazing because the movie is actually Rated R. That didn't stop toys from being made, cartoons from being launched and Robocop becoming everything that perhaps the movie was against.


None of that matters though, because Robocop is a badass. I love Robocop, even the bad sequels and the underrated TV show. I owned a ton of the Kenner figures and I bought quite a few of the Toy Island figures, even Commander Cash! Despite a ton of attempts from McFarlane, NECA and even Hot Toys, I'm not certain we've ever had a perfect Robocop figure.


Ultimately, this figure isn't "perfect" either, but it's damn close. I'm sure Hot Toy's second attempt at Robcop will be perfect... But it will also run you $300 or so. For $60 or less, you won't find a better Robocop figure than the Figma. This guy is incredible, both in detail and design, but most importantly in articulation. This is the most poseable Robcop to date and he's an amazing figure because of it.

GI Joe: Rise of Cobra Action Battlers
Cobra Viper
6.5 Inch Scale
By: Hasbro
$12.99 (price varies on secondary market)
More crap from the vault, this time a figure that very few people seemed to want. The Action Battlers were a strange concept from Hasbro introduced during the roll-out of Rise of Cobra movie toys. While many have labeled these the bastard sons of Sigma Six, the figures honestly seem more like giant versions of something like Imaginext. Had these actually been in scale and used the Sigma Six molds, I suspect they'd been revered as great figures. Instead, I think few if anybody picked them up.


That's where I come in at. I loved this figure from the moment I saw it. The design was similar to the smaller 3 3/4 ROC Vipers, but it had a little bit of something extra to it. The stylistic chunky design, just looked awesome to me. Despite that, I, like most, balked at the price, especially considering I knew these figures were limited in articulation.

However, when the opportunity came to army build this guy for cheap, I was all over it like white on rice. One crappy figure is just that, crappy, but a small army of them? Awesome! The real question is... Is this figure crappy at all, or is it just misunderstood?

Do you like browsergames? Of course you do, it seems as though everyone does these days. There are so many great broswer games out there available right now, but it's often hard to figure out where to get the best games and it's even harder to find them in German language. That's where www.browsergame-world.de comes in. They offer tons of top quality, super fun browser games for download in German language! Es ist wunderbar!

While I wait for Mattel to send me the monthly Q&A answers, which they've already sent out to some sites, but apprently not us... It's time for some general toy news. This is a new column, where I'll give you updates on various things.

• Speaking of Mattel, today was the first on sale date for the 2012 MOTUC subscription. Do to a ton of logistics hiccups, the first figures shipping are the Star Sisters 3 pack. According to our in the field reporters, this was the first MOTUC sale in history to have no WSOD. Likewise, enthusiasm seems at an all-time low for this set of figures, especially as it arrives on the wave of various other customer service issues with Mattel. Will the Star Sisters become the worst selling MOTUC item to date? Mo-Larr sure hopes so.



• Mezco Toyz have confirmed that their Earthworm Jim figure will launch in July of 2012. You may recall that Mezco originally announced this figure way back at SDCC 2011. No word on why the figure has taken nearly a year to get to market, but Mezco promises that the 6 inch scale Earthworm Jim will feature 8 points of articulation and not only with his plasma blaster, but with an alternate “bendy” unsuited worm body as well. Several websites have erroneously posted up news that Mezco is making a 3 inch Earthworm Jim. That appears to be nothing more than an error on the part of those sites.



• The limited edition Knight Avenger Commander X which launched on Christmas Eve, is still for sale at the Capt'n Eli website. Remember that the figure normally retails for $19.95 but is on sale for $15 until the 15th of February. The sale is also good for all previous Commander X figures, such as 1950's Commander X. Be sure to tell them Infinite Hollywood sent you if you pick up one of these spiffy throwback figures.



• 3A's Ashley Wood has confirmed that the upcoming F-Legion Cyborg figure does NOT have a moustache, despite the preview pictures seemingly containing one. This will no doubt disappoint a lot of 3A fans who believed that the figure did, but likewise may please others. The moustache was the subject of much discussion and artwork during the recent 3AA membership drive (which has expired now) but the figure's full visage has yet to be seen. This exclusive is scheduled to ship in April.



• Glyos has a big sale coming up this Friday where they will unleash the new Gendrone Revolution: Shock Force figures, as well as man others. These guys tend to sell out fast, so be ready to get them on Friday or else you'll be without. Full details on all the figures being released on this mission drop can be found here.



• The Crystar inspired Backyard Legends: Action Figures of Yore are reportedly in the final stages of QC testing and are on target for a 2012 release. Those who originally invested in the project via Kickstarter will be the first to get their figures, with online retail variants to come. We first covered the legends back in December of 2010, so these figures are definitely long anticipated.

S.H. Figuarts: Tiger and Bunny
Barnaby Brooks, Jr.
5-inch-ish scale
By: Bandai
$45+ Online

All is lost. I’m stuck halfway between tokusatsu and anime and the toys. My God, the toys.

It seems the Figuarts goal is to be as accurate to the source material as possible while maintaining a high amount of articulation. When you look at the characters from Tiger and Bunny, an anime about a superhero reality show in which heroes are granted points based on heroic acts, you can see that some of the designs might pose a problem in this arena. Barnaby is one-half of the superhero duo the show focuses on, so it’s essential that they nail the figure if they plan to release all 8 heroes and other characters.

Will Bandai rise to the occasion and make a highly poseable action figure with well-hidden articulation or fall prey to its own celebrity?

Let’s find out. Bonjour, heroes.

GI Joe RAH 25th Anniversary 12 Inch
Snow Job
12 Inch Scale
By: Hasbro
$15 (price varies on secondary market)
Sometimes I forget how long I hold on to stuff before I review it. This figure came out in early to mid 2009 and was technically part of the 25th Anniversary figures that Hasbro was doing for Joe at the time. In addition to the 3 3/4 inch figures, they began doing larger 12 inch figures of familiar RAH characters. It certainly wasn't the first time they tried to bridge the gap between 12 inch and 3 3/4 inch fans, but it was probably the best effort.


Yes, that means I've been sitting on this guy for about 3 years. We just had a big snow, so I decided it was finally time to unearth this guy from his plastic tomb. I really liked the effort that Hasbro was putting into their 12 inch figures at the time, as it was one of the few occasions where I found myself compelled to pick some up. Unfortunately, Rise of Cobra happened and just as it neutered the 3 3/4 25th Anniversary line, it straight up killed the 12 inch incarnation. Shame too, because they were planning a Crimson Guard figure (which did see limited release as a con exclusive) that was easily the best 12 inch RAH figure EVER produced. But at least we got this pretty cool Snow Job out of the whole ordeal.


I have a unique history with Snow Job. Since he was one of the earliest Joes released (arriving in the second wave) I had him in my collection practically from the beginning. However, one snowy day of play saw Snow Job get lost and presumably to never return. In fact Snow Job was mysteriously absent in my backyard for several years, until one faithful day when we were doing some remodeling and tore down our old shed.

At the time we had a couple of sheds and the old shed was never used, full of scrap lumber and such. There inside was Snow Job, with all his gear, sitting there as he had been for literally years through the harsh weather environments. As it turned out, I had stuck Snow Job into the shed through a rusted out side portion which probably had made for a perfect snow cave during the original day of play. Needless to say, Snow Job was back into the fold, after being "on assignment" for several years.

It was fun at the time to get Snow Job back and he instantly moved up my ranks as an important character. Normally he would be the kind of guy who you didn't use much, but given his ordeal, he became quite important to me. The 12 inch 2009 version while different, is quite a bit in resemblance to the classic incarnation of the character, so when I saw him on the shelves, I just had to have him.

Wesitron drops another swank video review on you, this time with three times the fun. It's the 3A F'ed Up Jungle Battle 2 Pack. This is a hefty video review, so it's broken into three separate videos. The other two behind the cut!

Ah, Disney Movies, just saying that phrase conjures up a lot of memories for most of us. Who doesn't love them? I'm always torn on what's my favorite Disney movie, as Beauty and the Beast was always one of my favorites, but Lion King is right up there too. Of course that's not including all the Pixar films, which are in a league of their own. It's hard not to like Disney movies and although some of the older films have become "girls" movies in recent years, I always had a soft spot for those films as well. The Little Mermaid was for boys too, darn it!

Plus Disney is responsible for all kinds of classic older films that aren't just cartoons. You know like The AbsentMinded Professor, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and many others. What you might not know and is one of my personal movie night tips, is that for very little money you can get access to tons of Disney films via the Disney Movie Club!

Batman: Brave & The Bold Action League
Chemo vs Batman
2 Inch Scale
By: Mattel
$9.99
From the vault of crap I bought a year and a half ago but haven't reviewed yet, comes these Batman: Brave & The Bold Action League guys! I've reviewed a few Action Leaguers, but never this set. I think I got this on Christmas clearance a year ago, but don't quote me on that. Needless to say it's been collecting dust for months now and it's time I crack her open!


I love big translucent figures, so I originally wanted the DCUC Chemo. Of course, as per the norm for DCUC, I could never track down half the figures in the wave. So I settled for this little guy, who cost a fraction of the price and has that cool Scooby Doo vibe about him. Plus that Batman reminds me of one of the old Kenner Batman color variants, which I have a soft spot for.

It's Modern Cheetara! She was hanging out around Walmart, but now she's in my clutches!

There used to be a great time when we had secondary "major" toy companies like Remco. I love all the old Remco stuff, as some of it was really cool. Remco was the kind of company that would license AWA to make toys or in this case, give the Mighty Crusaders a bunch of figures. On the surface it doesn't make sense, but underneath was some pretty cool figures.

Certainly these weren't a hit and you can tell by this comic ad, which advertises they were only going to be at K-Mart as a likely part of the problem. Of course you have to remember that when these came out, appearing at K-Mart was a pretty big deal. Remco had a lot of great lines though, even if they were all short lived and while this classic ad isn't that exciting, it does explain all the figures in the series and give you a lot of information.

I miss toy ads like this in comics. I remember when I first discovered that there were X-Men figures, via a comic ad. I imagine someone was just as excited as I was, when they saw this Mighty Crusaders ad just a few years before. I don't think comics even run toy ads now, it's all deodorant and power drinks these days.

Here's a little project for the new year that I thought I should post about. In recent years I've fallen in love with the GI Joe Adventure Team. I'm not sure why, but something about it I love. I suspect it's all the beards and manliness! Anyway, about a year and a half ago I purchased my first Adventure Team vehicle, the infamous ATV.


I got a good deal on the thing, but it was in some rough shape. Hardly destroyed, but "well played". Having never owned one of these before, first I must say how taken back I was by the size of this thing when it arrived. These are not small vehicles. Immediately I began to clean it.


The nice thing about these old vehicles is that they were built to last. Hasbro deserves a lot of credit, because this thing had clearly seen some serious playtime and yet despite a few minor issues, it was by and large, still in great shape. It just needed some loving. If there's anything I'm good at, it's loving.


After a long soak and plenty of scrubbing, I found that this was not going to be easy. Some kid, perhaps 30 years ago, had taken this thing out in the rain and through the mud. There was lots of mud caked on the inside of the vehicle. If I was going to make the outside look nice, I might as well clean up the inside. I slowly took the ATV apart and again, cleaned it thoroughly.

2011 is officially in the books and it proved to be the most active year in reviews yet for Infinite Hollywood. Thanks no doubt in part to some staff growth (huh huh, he said staff growth) and a variety of great toys released this year, we managed to do a staggering 140 different toy reviews. I bet at least two or three of them were pretty good too!

Amazingly that doesn't include any Spotlight On segments which often highlighted opened toys or classic figures. Nor does it include stuff like Infinite Cuisine or Video Reviews. This is simply a list of basic reviews, for your pleasure.

This year saw a huge increase in Pro Wrestling, Video Game and MOTUC figure reviews on the site. In addition, we had a massive ton of Miscellaneous Toy reviews. Proving once again that Infinite Hollywood is the place to visit if you're looking for offbeat and interesting toys. Will 2012 prove to be the year of even more action figure reviews? We hope you join us to find out!

Pro Wrestling Figure Reviews:
TNA Micro Impact Christopher Daniels, Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed Figure Review
Deluxe Classic Ric Flair Figure Review
WWE Legends Hacksaw Jim Duggan Figure Review
WWE Legends "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff Figure Review
WCW Thunder Champions Figure Review
WWE Elite 5 Vladamir Kozlov Figure Review
WWE Defining Moments Ultimate Warrior Figure Review
WWE Defining Moments Randy Savage Figure Review
WWE Elite 6 CM Punk Figure Review
WWE Elite 6 Goldust Figure Review
TNA Deluxe Kevin Nash Figure Review
WWE Legends Kamala Figure Review
WWE Classic Superstars 2 Pack Bobby Heenan & Abe Knuckleball Schwartz Figure Review
WWE Legends Akeem Figure Review
WWE Legends Rick Martel Figure Review
WWE Entrance Greats Undertaker Figure Review
WWE Elite 9 Zack Ryder Figure Review
WWE Basic Vladamir Kozlov Figure Review
TNA Genesis AJ Styles Figure Review
WWE Basic Extreme Rules Sheamus Figure Review

Doctor Who Figure Reviews
Peri & Sil Figure Review
11th Doctor with Fez Figure Review
3rd Doctor and Giant Maggots Figure Review
7th Doctor and Imperial Dalek Figure Review
Kiss-O-Gram Amy Pond Figure Review
Time Lords Spinning Tardis Review
Amy Pond Figure Review
11th Doctor Character Building Micro Figure Review
Red Dalek & Cyberman Character Building Micro Figure Review
Series 5 River Song Figure Review
Pandorica Guard Cyberman Figure Review
Face of Evil Leela Figure Review
BifBangPow 4th Doctor Figure Review

Gamera Figure Reviews
Revoltech Gamera 1996 G2 Figure Review
Revoltech Legion Figure Review
Revoltech Gyaos 1967 Figure Review
Revoltech Gamera 1967 Figure Review
Revoltech Gamera 1995 Figure Review
Revoltech Gyaos 1995 Figure Review
Trendmasters Viras Figure Review
Trendmasters Guiron Figure Review

UFC Figure Reviews
UFC Legends Mark Coleman Figure Review
Pride Rampage Jackson Figure Review
UFC Legends Don Frye Figure Review

Video Game Figure Reviews
NECA Crysis 2 Alcatraz Figure Review
McFarlane Halo Reach Kat Figure Review
NECA Assassin's Creed 2 Ezio Figure Review
Custom Karnov Figure Review
NECA Dead Space 2 Isaac Clarke Figure Review
Castle Crashers Red Knight Figure Review
Onimusha 2 Yagyu Jubei Figure Review
NECA Duke Nukem Forever Figure Review
Minimates Halo Warthog Review
NECA Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver Raziel Figure Review

1/6 Scale Figure Reviews
Sideshow Star Wars Momaw Nadon Figure Review
Puppet Master Decapitron Figure Review
Walmart Repro Adventure Team Sea Adventurer Figure Review
Sideshow Frankenstein Figure Review
Hasbro/Kenner Universal Monsters Imhotep Mummy Figure Review