AA/ DST Figure Spotlight- "Genesis" Khan

Figure Name: "Genesis" Khan
Manufacturer: Diamond Select Toys



"Genesis" Khan was released as a bagged figure as part of the 2007 San Diego Comic Con exclusive set of Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan figures.



The Rundown: This one's gonna be kinda short and sweet since I'll save the more in depth rundown for the regular release Khan figure. The only things that make this one different are a new arm and head sculpt, and a new bloody paint job. This figure was only available if you bought all the figures from the 2007 San Diego Con exclusive TWOK set. Buy them all, and you got "Genesis" Khan as a freebie.



The figure itself is pretty sweet. Just like the standard TWOK Khan, the body is well sculpted with plenty of articulation. The new bits on this one are incredibly well done. The head does a great job of capturing the injured Khan, and the crippled left arm is positioned very much like he held it in the movie. Really well done figure and a great little bonus for us Khan fans...

As a little side note, I just want to say that this is the kind of exclusive I love. It's not a character that's only available at a show, it's a different version of a character that you can simply ignore if you wish. You can still have the regular Khan from stores and you can either take or leave this one without missing much in your collection.

Oh, and he didn't come with any accessories, so no accessory shot on this one...

-James

Playmates Figure Spotlight- Dr. McCoy (9" Figure From "Mirror, Mirror")

Figure Name: Dr. McCoy (9" figure as seen in "Mirror, Mirror")
Manufacturer: Playmates Toys



Mirror McCoy was released as a KB exclsuive in the Warp Factor Series style box. (Sorry, don't have a carded pic on this one)



The Rundown: Playmates did alot of different versions of the main crew as exclusives. It's a cheap way of getting the most out of head sculpt. The Mirror Universe crew is a great example of this; take the classic crew figures, throw some new uniforms on them...Bam, mirror crew! KB got the set, which includes the good doctor here-



The head sculpt is pretty good for the 9" line. It's recognizable as McCoy, but not perfect. The 9" line head sculpts are limited by the material used on the heads. The clothes are also in the good, but not great category. The outfit is well done and fits well, but there's a couple of nitpicks. First, they just painted the symbols onto the shirt instead of doing them as little prints (like the delta shields on the classic crew uniforms). They look sloppy and are almost unrecognizable as to what they are supposed to represent.

Second? The boots-



The Mirror Universe boots are thigh-high. The only way Playmates could get around that was by making the upper part of the boots out of a black vinyl-like material and making them part of the pants. It doesn't look that great, but at least they didn't just ignore the thigh-high boots and just make them standard boots. I can kinda forgive that since there aren't alot of ways to make the boots work.



Accessories: Mirror McCoy comes with an agonizer, a dagger, and a phaser. The phaser is a bit too big, but the other accessories look nice.



Maybe I'm being a bit harsh since I love "Mirror, Mirror" so much. This is the 9" line so you have to judge each figure against the standards the line set for itself. So if you dig the 9 inchers, you'll probably like this one despite it's flaws. I wouldn't recommend him as your first venture into the 9" line though...

And in case you want to read the short snippet from his box-

AA/ DST Figure Spotlight- Captain Kirk With Electronic Command Chair

Figure Name: Captain Kirk (with Electronic Command Chair)
Manufacturer: Diamond Select Toys



Diamond Select Toys went back to the well again and released this Kirk with Command chair as a boxed single release.



The Rundown: Diamond Select loves Kirk and his chair. This represents the 3rd incarnation of Kirk and chair (and the 4th time the chair has been released in some form). And we still have at least 2 more coming- the amazon.com Tribbles version, and the Mirror Universe Version! That's alotta chairs! Can we please get some other bridge parts!??! Is it too much to ask for a Spock with science station, a Sulu with helm, an Uhura with communications console! Ahem...excuse me...on with the rundown. Let's start with Kirk-



The Kirk is your current standard Diamond Select version. Pretty similar to the recent single carded rerelease, and I'm sure we'll see the same in the upcoming 2 pack. The highlight of this figure is the pants and boots. The paint choices DST made are perfect. The boots are a shiny contrast to the flat color of the pants. In my opinion, a much nicer job than the original AA release.



The upper body is where things falter a bit. DST has used the AA McCoy shirt mold on all of it's gold shirt Kirk reissues. The shirt mold doen't fit the Kirk chest very well and makes the figure look a little strange, almost like Kirk's shirt shrunk in the wash. I wish they'd find the original AA Kirk shirt mold beacuse it's far superior. The color that DST used for the shirt on thei release is nicer than the AA though, so at least that's a plus. It's too bad the paint job is somewhat sloppy on alot of the ones I've seen...



Onto the chair... The chair is pretty much the same sculpt-wise as the previous releases. It's a really nice, screen-accurate version of the chair. This release, however, has the added bonus of electronics!



Press the blue panel on Kirk's right, and you'll get speech clips and the panels will light up! Press the panel again and again to hear classic Shatner lines!



Press the switches panel on Kirk's left and you'll get sound effects and lights!

Now, to hear all the sound effects, you can't just keep pressing the switches panel liek you do the 'voice' panel. You'll have to press the blue voice panel first, then the switches panel in sequence to hear the effects. Here's what you'll get-

Voice clip- "Position Report Spock"
Effects clip- Computer sounds

Voice clip- "Prepare to attack, all hands battle stations."
Effects clip- Phasers firing

Voice clip- "Chekov arm photon torpedoes"
Effects clip- Photon torpedoes firing

Voice clip- "Resume course to our next detination Mr. Sulu"
Effects clip- Ship's engines

Voice clip- "This is Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise"
Effects clip- Computer sounds

Voice clip- "Lt. Uhura open a channel to all decks"
Effects clip- Communications whistle

Voice clip- "Security alert to all decks, Kirk out."
Effects clip- Alert siren

Voice clip- "Kirk to engineering; Mr. Scott- report."
Effects clip- Ship getting hit



So, yeah there's alot of sounds on this thing. The panels light up pretty well too, but the paint on them is a bit sloppy. Still, if you're only going to buy one standard chair, this is the one to get. The Kirk is pretty good, an the chair is awesome.

-James

Playmates Figure Spotlight- General Chang

Figure Name: General Chang
Manufacturer: Playmates Toys



General Chang was released carded as part of Playmates' Classic Star Trek Movie Series.



The Rundown: Straight out of Star Trek VI comes everybody's favorite Shakespear-quoting Klingon, General Chang! The vilest of the vile, General Chang is one of those baddies you just love to hate. Since he's only ever had one figure, how does this puppy stack up?...



Let's start with the head. Unfortunatley, it's a little weak. It's got all the elements of Chang (the eye patch, the subdued head ridges, the facial hair) but it doesn't really look like Christopher Plummer. It looks more like Plummer's stunt double or something. Plus the skin tone is really light. I know Chang was fair-skinned by Klingon standards, but this figure is pale by human standards even!



Things get a little better on the body. The sculpting on teh uniform is pretty intricate, and the paint detailing is some of the nicest in the entire playmates line. The figure does a really nice job of matching the costuming from the movie.



One of my major gripes with the body is the arms. They seem a bit small. Oh, and the hands are pretty much useless. I had a heck of a time getting Chang to hold anything long enough to shoot a picture of. There's no way he'd hold them for long in a display without some kind of adhesive aid. That's a shame.



Accessories: Chang comes with a Klingon Communicator, a glass of Romulan Ale, a Klingon Disruptor, and a Klingon Staff. They all look great sitting in a pile at his feet. ;)

So, we get one Chang figure and it's just kinda ok. C'mon Diamond Select! Give us a Chang! And a Gorkon too while you're at it!

Oh, and here's his bio-



-James

AA/ DST Figure Spotlight- Captain Kirk (As seen in the episode "Amok Time")

Figure Name: Captain Kirk (as seen in "Amok Time")
Manufacturer: Diamond Select Toys



Kirk was released by Diamond Select in the "Amok Time" 2 pack with Commander Spock.



The Rundown: Yesterday we looked at Spock, which makes today Kirk's turn! Again, we see some reuse from the original Art Asylum sculpt, but with a newer sculpted torso. Since both figures needed changes made to their torsos (Spock needed his sash, Kirk needed his battle wound), Diamond took the opportunity to get rid of the rubber shirt and do a solid hard sculpt chest. I personally love it and wish they'd do more like this.



The figure is still well-articulated, despite the loss of the torso articulation, and you can still get some great poses out of him.



Whereas with Spock I felt that the new paint job on the head was a bit of step back, the Kirk is actually an improvement. The skin tone seems allot closer to me and makes him look a bit more like Shatner. Still, the head sculpt has never been all that great...but the new paint does make it work, at least until the new Wave 5 head comes along and I can switch it out. ;)



The paint detailing on the body is really, really sharp. The over wash they gave the uniform gives it a really nice dirty look. The symbol on the chest is placed correctly and is really sharp too.



Accessories: Kirk gets a lirpa of his own to fight with! There's a couple of other things in the pack as well, but I considered those Spock's stuff, not Kirk's.



Pretty great 2-pack all-in-all. I highly recommend it.

-James

AA/ DST Figure Spotlight- Commander Spock (As seen in the episode "Amok Time")

Figure Name: Commander Spock (as seen in "Amok Time")
Manufacturer: Diamond Select Toys



Spock was released by Diamond Select Toys as part of an "Amok Time" 2-pack which also featured a 'battle-damaged' Kirk.



The Rundown: Continuing their scene-specific 2 packs, Diamond produced this great set based off of the original series episode "Amok Time". In the episode, Spock is caught in the grips of Pon Farr and must engage in a 'battle to the death' with Captain Kirk. This 2 pack is based on that epic fight scene...



The Spock figure reuses alot of parts from the first Art Asylum classic Spock figure. The only truly new portion is the chest, which is a welcome departure (for me at least) from the Art Asylum rubber shirts-



The chest/ shirt sculpt is all one solid piece instead of a rubber shirt with articulation hidden beneath it. While you lose torso articulation, you gain the longevity that this material will have over the rubber. Holding this figure in my hands makes me really wish Diamond would have taken the time to make all the crew reissues the same way instead of just doing the rubber shirts again.



The rest of the body is just reused parts. That's not a bad thing as the original sculpt was great. The right leg does seem a bit more bowed in than the original release though, so that's something you may want to watch out for if you haven't picked this pack up yet.



The paint apps on the figure are especially nice, with a nice 'dust' layering the paints and shirt. The only nitpick I have is on the face paint. The paint seems a little thicker than that used on the original figure and it gives the head an almost animated look. Plus, the went with a much more pink color as opposed to the original's somewhat olive color. It's just a bit too pink for Spock in my opinion. Still, not enough to say the figure is bad in any way. It's a great Spock from a great episode.



Accessories: The accessories on this set are really nice. Spock comes with his lirpa, a Vulcan gong that can split apart, and the small vulcan hammer to strike the gong. The vulcan gong and hammer were a real surprise to me since they weren't pictured in any of the publicity shots for the set.

-James

Playmates Figure Spotlight- The Mugatu (Ummm....Mugato)

Figure Name- The Mugatu (Mugato)
Manufacturer- Playmates Toys



The Mugato was released carded on the star Trek 'Unified' Cardback.



The Rundown: The poor Mugato. He's stuck with one of those names that folks just can't get right. He was originally called the Gumato in the script to "A Private Little War" (and that name still appears in the credits of the epsiode). Rumor has it that De Kelley couldn't pronounce "Gumato" correctly though, so that was changed to "Mugato". While filming the episode, both Shatner and Kelley kept pronouncing it "MugatU" instead of "MugatO". That mispronunciation lead alot folks to spell it that way, including the Star Trek Compendium and the film Zoolander. Playmates kept the confusion going by spelling it both ways on the packaging of this figure. The figure is labeled incorrectly as the "Mugatu" on the front of the card, the bio, and the collector's card.... but the "Collect Them All!" shot labels him correctly as the "Mugato". Confused yet? I am.



Well, they may have messed up the cardback, but they did a really great job on the figure! The headsculpt is one of Playmates finest. The head looks almost exactly like the rubber mask used in the episode. Its covered in wrinkles and crevices, and the grimace on the face is like a carbon copy.



While it's not articulated as well as the other playmates offerings, the figure is still incredibly well done. Playmates chose to skimp out on articulation in an effort to give the fur sculpt the attention it deserved. The result is seriously one of the best sculpts in the Playmates line. The fur detailing is great, but what really shines are the details in the hands and feet.



Another nice little touch from Playmates was doing the back spikes and tail as a seperate piece that you plug into the figure's back. This made it so that the figure could fit in a standard package without sacrificing the realism in the sculpt.

The Mugato has only been made in toy form a few times; we got the weird disco mego figure, the 12" plush-thing (also from Playmates), and this one here. So for now at least, this is the best Mugato out there.... it also happens to be one of the best figures Playmates did in the entire Trek line (at least in my opinion). Great, great figure.



Accessories: The Mugato really didn't use anything in the apisode other than his mitts and his cool head spike, so instead he comes with stuff to give to other figures! There's a flintlock for a Klingon to give to a villager, the crazy mako root for Nona to cure Kirk with, a hill people drum for Tyree to play, and a hand phaser for Nona to steal. The cardback incorrectly labels it as a "Type II Phaser", but it is obviously meant to be the smaller Type I hand phaser.

And in case you want to know more about Mugatos-



-James