Category: Uncategorized

The people rejoice. What did I miss???

*looks around*

Not much apparently.

What did you miss. Well I quit my old job, got a new job, and moved. And during the adjustment period let this slide a lot.

Rho_Bot got a new job and is still deciding if he’ll be able to contribute on an on going basis. But dropped off a bunch of graphical assets for Malwrath before leaving.

Optimus Composite got a new job and discovered he had no time for writing. He might occasionally join us in the future but will not be a regular contributor.

I’ve been on a bit of a symbiote kick lately here on the blog, but I’m finally moving on from Venom. The first Spider-Man action figures I ever got were a three pack of Spider-Man, Venom, and Carnage, branded with the Maximum Carnage video game graphics. I didn’t even know who Carnage was back when I got that figure, but over the years, I’ve learned more about the second symbiote and while he’s honestly not that great of a character, he’s still very popular and it’s no surprise that Carnage showed up in the Marvel Legends line.

Carnage was released in the Marvel Legends Amazing Spider-Man 2 line. Considering how few movie characters get released in “movie waves” anymore it’s not surprising to see him show up here. I do, however, have to roll my eyes at all the fans who thought that meant Carnage would be getting the movie treatment at some point. While I think he looks cool, Carnage is honestly a pretty crap character. He’s a serial killer obsessed with chaos who can kill people super effectively now that he’s got a symbiote. It’s not exactly the most movie-friendly character out there since he doesn’t really have a plan beyond killing everyone he can. If Marvel ever wanted to make an R-rated Spider-Man movie, he’d be great, but since they’re logically focused on PG-13 movies, Carnage isn’t going to show up any time soon, and that’s fine. The Marvel Legends Carnage uses the base body they’ve used a lot over the years, and that’s unfortunately a problem for me. Under the symbiote, Cletus Kasady was a pretty thin guy. Yeah, the Carnage symbiote bulked him up, but this is way too big a body for Carnage. I wish the wirier new Spider-Man body had been around at this point because that would be the perfect base for Carnage as well. Since this is the first time I’ve reviewed a figure based around this body, I’ll discuss the articulation a little more in depth. Carnage has hinged ankles, swivels at the mid-shin and just below the hip, the standard ball-and-socket hip joint, a waist swivel, an ab crunch, ball joints at the shoulders, bicep swivels, double-hinged elbows, hinges and swivels at the wrists, and a hinge and ball joint in his neck. This makes Carnage quite poseable and everything moves quite well. Despite being built around the standard Marvel Legends body, Carnage gets a surprisingly large number of new pieces. Both this lower legs and lower arms are new pieces because there are ports that allow Hasbro to plug tendrils into. No other figure before Carnage had something like this, so I think they originated with Carnage. Carnage also gets new hands with large, knife-like fingers. This fits Carnage quite well because that’s how he spends most of his time. Unlike Venom, Carnage is always ready to kill and his symbiote reflects that. Up top, Carnage also has a new head and this is a great piece. Carnage’s mouth has always been a bit weird. Originally, when Carnage transformed in the comics, the pink of the symbiote’s mouth actually covered Cletus’ face. Over the years, that’s evolved more into an actual mouth with pink inside. The Marvel Legends version opts for the second design and as such, Carnage’s head sculpt is actually two pieces. The lower jaw is a separate piece, but it’s not poseable. However, doing it this way adds some depth to the sculpt and makes Carnage look like he’s got an evil smile. Considering how much he loves killing, I think that’s a great call. The head sculpt is also where most of the actual sculpting is done. His eyes are slightly recessed and that’s literally the only sculpted detailing on the body. Carnage may be a simple figure, but the simplicity serves it well and makes for a great version of the symbiotic serial killer.

Carnage is mostly red, and with a name like Carnage, that’s not surprising. Add in the fact that in the modern comics, the Carnage symbiote is now literally part of Cletus’ blood, and the red everywhere makes sense. Carnage is molded entirely out of red plastic, yet there’s enough depth in the design that he doesn’t look plastic-y. Black swirls are painted over the red. In the comics, they’re kind of used to show the chaotic nature of the character. In fact, in the original discussions about the character, Marvel’s editors wanted Carnage’s patterns to look entirely different in every panel of the comics he appeared in. Mercifully, cooler heads prevailed and while the black swirls aren’t always consistent, the black is usually in the same spots. The black is well done throughout the body, though the paint work on the head is a little weak. There’s a bit of black slop on the eyes and a bit of white undercoverage as well. While the eyes are a bit weak, I do like the pearlescent white used. It just looks a little more sinister than the pure white that’s often used for Carnage. There is a pretty noticeable paint flaw on my Carnage’s right eye. Normally, that would be a deal-breaker, but Carnage was such a popular figure that I only ever saw him once on the pegs, so I figured I’d better buy him.  Carnage was released labeled “Spawns of the Symbiote.” Marvel has started doing this thing where, to sell more figures, some characters are released under generic names so they can swap in a different figure later in the run. In this case, Carnage was released first but then down the road, Hasbro released a version of Carnage’s spawn, Toxin. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the cool, original version of Toxin but the crazier, Venom-like version. Carnage definitely moved a lot better than Toxin, so it was out of necessity that I bought a slightly-flawed version of the figure.

Carnage is another accessorized Marvel Legends figure, though it’s not much considering what they could have done. Carnage is known for forming wicked weapons like axes and huge blades with his symbiote that take the place of his hands. Marvel Legends has dabbled in swappable hands before, but unfortunately, they didn’t do that with Carnage. The bladed fingers are nice, don’t get me wrong, but I’d love to have seen an axe hand like my vintage Carnage figure had. He does, however, get a batch of tendrils that plug into has back. That works well for Carnage because he’s traditionally drawn with a lot of tendrils coming off his body. It’s another way to quickly differentiate Carnage’s silhouette from Venom’s when drawing him. The tendrils are made of soft plastic and plug securely into his back. They really do add a lot to the figure, but it still would have been nice to see some sort of symbiote weapon for Carnage.

Many people consider Carnage to be a character defined by 90s excess. Basically, he was created to be a more extreme version of Venom. However, just because the character’s origins and the character itself aren’t that great, that doesn’t mean it’s not a cool looking character. Sometimes Spider-Man doesn’t need to fight someone that has plans of world domination. Sometimes he just needs someone to flatten and Carnage fits the bill well. Yes, the symbiote makes him more formidable, but at his core, he’s just a souped-up punk with a hard-on for killing. I still disagree with many fans that the symbiotes need to show up in the Spider-Man movies eventually, but I can’t disagree that Carnage, when used properly, can be a fun character. I have strong ties to Carnage because of my first Spider-Man action figure purchase ever and being a comic child of the 90s, I definitely remember Maximum Carnage. At the end of the day, Carnage is a character that sells action figures, so it makes sense for Hasbro to make him and it’s a solid figure of a less-than-impressive Marvel character.

I’m a bit usual as an action figure collector. While most of my collection is focused on the G.I. Joe brand, I dabble in a lot of other properties when there’s something I think that looks cool. Not a lot of collectors do that, but I think a cool figure is a cool figure, so who cares if it doesn’t fit with the bulk of my collection. However, the one line I’ve avoided dabbling in was Art Asylum’s Minimates. It’s not because I don’t like them, but honestly, it’s because I fear they’ll be my next line I’ll get into whole hog and I don’t know if my budget can handle that. Unfortunately, Guardians of the Galaxy led me to break my Minimate embargo with a cool three pack of Drax, Groot, and Rocket Raccoon. Thankfully, this hasn’t led me towards too many more Minimate purchases, but now that I’ve broken the seal on Minimates, who knows where that will lead me.

The overall Minimate design is pretty simple, though there’s not an example of the standard Minimate in this particular set. The standard Minimate design is as follows: a cylindrical head, a square torso piece, arms (with ball joints at the shoulders, hinges at the elbows and swivels) with c-grip hands, a crotch piece, legs and small feet. Save a few special circumstances, all the Minimate’s details are provided by paint work. They’re a surprisingly fun format for characters and the characters from Guardians of the Galaxy translate well to this format.

Drax is the closest to the standard Minimate we get in this set. He uses the basic body, but gets a chest cap to bulk him up and slightly larger feet to give him some extra height. The bulked up look works perfectly for Drax. Like all Minimates, the paint work does the heavy lifting and this is an impressive figure. Drax has incredibly detailed tattoos on his upper body in the movie and this figure has them as well. The tampo work is extremely crisp. They could be a little clearer, but you can still make out the three skulls on his back and that’s what’s important. Drax’s green skin is a bit darker than I’d prefer. I think it should be just a little more vibrant, but that’s just me. Drax’s pants are black, with added detail done in gray. The belt is designed to look like studded leather and the gray lines on the pants stand out well and add depth to the overall look of his pants. The boots do have laces molded into them, but that’s the extent of molded details on Drax. Art Asylum is pretty good about finding accessories for their Minimates, and Drax’s are a no brainer. Drax gets a pair of new knives that look like the curved blades he used extensively in the movie. The blades fit decently in his hands, though I do wish the grip were a tad tighter. They do tend to fall out pretty easily when bumped. The knives are molded out of black plastic and have silver paint applications for the blades. The detail work on the knives is quite impressive as you can still see the patterns in the blades with the silver paint over them. Not all lines can paint something that small and not mute the details in the process. Drax is a fairly simple design, but he was that way in the movie too, and simplicity isn’t always a bad thing. It also helps that Minimates themselves are a fairly simple medium, so that means Drax’s look transfers especially well to the Minimate line.

Going the other way, Groot is a rather complicated Minimate. Groot still has the basic Minimate torso and legs, but it looks like he has slightly longer arms, tree-like hands and feet, a taller crotch piece, and a unique head with tree bits coming off the top of a standard cylinder. This gives Groot a lot of extra height and that’s perfect since he spends so much of the movie taller than everyone else. Like Drax, Groot’s facial features translate well to the simplified Minimate aesthetic, though I don’t think it’s quite as good as Drax. The paint work is very simple compared to Drax. Groot is molded entirely from tan plastic with black lines placed over to give Groot some anatomy and tree bark. There are some green vines and flecks throughout, but the green is applied somewhat inconsistently. There are some spots on the torso piece that look like the green should continue down to the taller crotch piece, but they don’t. The feet are also a little strange because I have yet to find a way to position where both feet sit level on the ground. It doesn’t make Groot unstable, but it’s a little odd that they aren’t designed to sit flush with the ground. Unlike Drax, Groot doesn’t really come with an accessory, but it’s Groot. It’s not like he was known for having a crazy gun or something. I’ll admit, I would have loved to have seen a Minimate version of the potted Groot but it would have been pretty hard to make that in scale with other Minimates.

Since there’s an open slot because Groot has no accessories, the folks at Art Asylum wisely decided to make a version of Rocket Raccoon and include him here with his arboreal best friend. Rocket Raccoon is an unarticulated minifigure, but Art Asylum made sure he still looks like a Minimate and that was a great call. That means he fits in well with everyone else. In fact, when I first got this set, the arm joints looked so realistic, I wasn’t totally sure whether he was poseable until I got him out of the package. Rocket’s figure is designed to look like the prison gear he wore for a significant part of the movie, and I think that’s where the gun also came from. Despite his small size, he’s very well
detailed, with a furry texture on his exposed body. The tail is vital to balancing him so he can stand, though I have found you can sort of get Rocket to ride Groot like he did in the movie. I’m not sure if that was an intentional design choice or not, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Rocket is a necessary addition to the set and really makes it worth your money since you’re essentially getting three figures for the price of two.

Overall, my first experience with Minimates was a positive one and it was nice to finally be able to get some sort of Rocket and Groot merchandise. I barely saw anything in the scale I prefer to collect, so jumping over to Minimates was a no-brainer. It’s a fun little one-off addition to my collection and honestly, it’s got a lot of great appeal to someone my age. The smaller accessories might be a drawback for a young Marvel fan, but even then, there’s still a lot of fun to be had. The price is decent and Groot and Rocket look like they might integrate pretty well with the Guardians of the Galaxy Legos as well. Even if they don’t, though, they’re still fun pieces. While Rocket and Groot are kind of the stars to me, Drax is just as good and I’ve really grown to like Drax a lot since the movie came out so I’m kind of glad these three main characters were all packaged together.