THAILOG

It hasnt been too long since NECA landed on Gargoyles territory with Goliath, a MASIVE and spectacular looking figure that leave me drooling for Demona next, but to my surprise, NECA had different plans and just released a totally different character in short advance: Thailog, the evil clone of Goliath developed by Dr. Anton Sevarious on Doubel Jeopardy, chapter 17 in season 2 (chater 30).

I am really glad NECA is also developing Villians aside of Demona, but honestly i wasnt specially excited for Thailog, as fun as he is on the serries, in reality he is mostly a repaint of Goliath, tough i see why NECA released him soo soon, since this guy was actually much more cheaper and easy to find than Goliath.

His box tough have a really pretty illustration, but side of that, Thailog is the same height as Goliath and have the same articulations: head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, abs, waist, legs, knes, ankles and half foot as well as tail and both wings, all ball joints with a great range of motion except on the shoulders, since they are very stiff but this is mostly due to his pecs and neck muscles being molded on hard plastic.

The tail is really bendy and is totally neecesary to make Thailong stand since his digitigrade legs wont lep him stand proerlly, specially with the wings. Those wings....they are HUGE and have a pretty strong articulation that clicks pretty loud when moved but they get on the way of his hair. His head, despite having a ball joint, dosnt move too much thanks to his hair, i really wish NECA had did the hair a separate piece with articulation.

The strong musculature and super detailed flesh texture on the wings are the same as Goliath soo they are pretty much perfect, the only difference between the two is the face expression, since Thailog is smiling, showing his fangs. I like a lot his expression, it gives him a lot of personality and along side the red eyes it looks incrediblly demonic and evil.

The other big difference is the color since this is mostly a repaint, He is dark blue almost black with some soft tones and brushes on the muscles to give it deep and shadows to that body and face features. His hair is silverish with some grey on the back but the best part is his bloody red eyes. The dark color palette with the red eyes and whire fangs and hair gives him a pretty cool and devilish look.

The other difference are his accesoryes. He have an extra pair of closed fist and an extra hand to hold his weapon. All works really good and can be exchanged pretty easy. Like i said he have a gun, a flare gun actually that fits perfectly on his extra hand. The gun looks pretty futurstic on a kind of retro style, like a weapon from the originalStar Treck.

His other accesory is a blast effect for the weapon. Remove the canister on the tip and put it on the blast effect, then attach the effect to the canon mouth and you have Thailog shooting the flare. The effect is GIGANTIC!!! Larger than Thailog with a fantastuc sculpt too!! With an explosion coming out from the mouth as well as smoke and a tail following the canister as well as another explosion on the back of the piece. The sculpt is really nice done, tough the paint is white with some orange and soft blue tones, the effect looks kinda cartoonish....is not realistic looking but deffinetly very stylish.

The other accesory is a black briefcase. The sculpt and black and silver paint on it is really clean and perfect, but once open, it reveals a lot of money and the keys of the chains Thailog use to trap Goliath, Xanatos, Elisa and Sevarius on the oil rig. Each pack of moeny is sculpted independently and the paint is perfecly clean, the attenton to details and quality of this accesory is astonishing.

NECA took the clone thing concept and stick with it perfectly since this figure share the same high notes and low notes Goliath have: He looks terrific on any display since no other company produce figures like this, he looks soo unique and beautifull.

And still, his wings are soo impractical, since they took a HUGE amount of space on the shelf and even pose him is a strugle with such big appendage on his back. The blocking on the head articulation and shoulders is not fun too and the shoting effect of the flare gun is soo heavy, Thailog have a lot of problems supporting it.

To be honest i wasnt very excited for this guy, he is really twisted and a sociopath and while NECA translated that very well to this figure, in the end is still a Goliath variant and i didnt expect him to be out soo early on the series it almost feel like Kenner releasing Goliath variants over and over again tough this is a nice snack while waiting for Demona.

AXEL STONE

I love Streets of Rage and the last one that came out a year and a half ago is one of my favorite games in the last years, one of the very few examples of a game that actually delivers its full potential while keeping faithfull to its origins. And i love Storm Collectible figures, each one of them i bougth has been perfect soo when they release Axel Stone a year ago and i wasnt able to get him i was really dissapointed. 

Tough better later than ever, i was able to correct that and got Axel just before his price started to get too high and i am damn glad i got him. He is really stuning! Aside of the pretty box Storm Collectibles figures always have, this guy is on the same scale as the rest, being as tall as Terry and can stand on his own. He is articulated on the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrist, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles and half feet, every single articulation is a double joint or a ball joint, soo the movement range is absolute.

Also, since the shirt around his waist is made with soft plastic, it dosnt get on the way of his movement, tough the only issue i got is on his feet; the ankle ball joint is inserted on his shoe, soo while it can be moved backward a lot, it stops at the front of the feet pretty stronglly, soo Axel suffers the same issue Kazuya have: sometimes he fall backwards. Moving his legs can fix it and let him stand tall, but this is a small issue that gets in the way sometimes.

Soo, given Axel simplistic design, his range of movement is complete and perfect, he can take any pose you want and given he is a martial artist, he actually have a lot of pose options. I take way too many pictures of him and i had to delete a lot because they were too much for an antry on this blog. Really, the playability is endless on this guy.

The sculpt is brillant. Since he have such an anime look on the game, Storm decided to keep that look and mix it a little bit of realism as well, giving him a kind of statuesque look, his face feature are soo chiseled, and sharp, almost like a marble sculpture tough his eyes are soo full of life, soo big, shiny and livelly, this is deffinetly one of the most handsome figures i ever got.

His body struncture is really nice too, not as wide as he looks on the game (almost like a Capcom character) but he looks pretty athletic and spectacular on the chest area. Both his blue shirt and the one on his waist are made with soft plastic soo they have a pretty nice texture and i love the look on his snickers very detailed and very 90s looking.

The paint is as elegant as the sculpt, his skin tone is correct (unlike Haohmaru and Kazuya) and the paint on the beard dosnt mix with the skin at all, an impresive feat given the sculpt division is soo small. Like i said, his eyes are amazing, deep blue and looks weit and realistic. The rest of the figure keep the paint at minimum since all sections are cast in the dominant color, giving him a pretty vibrant and almost cell shading look that fits perfect on him. 

Tough something odd, his shirt paint is peeling off since the material is soft plastic, the paint cracks and peels off pretty easy. I dont understand why Storm painted the shirt tough, maybe the plastic color wasnt rigth?? The peeling off is mostly on the neck area for now, soo it gives him the look of an old shirt, but i am afraid it invades wider areas. The shirt on his waist dosnt suffer this issue tough.

Now the accespryes, this figure is trully heavy loaded, i think this is the Storm Collectibles figure with the most accesorys i ever seen, more than even Terry. He have four extra pair of hands aside of the closed fist: a pair to hold accesorys, an open palm pair, a two fingers pair and a claw shapped pair. All hands can be exchanged pretty easy and while they help a lot of give him personality, the most used pair will always be the closed fist.

He have two extra heads: one on a snarling expression and another one screaming, both can be exchanged with no issue. The sculpt and paint on this extra heads is as brillant as the basic head, with the wrinkles on top of his nose and each teeth sculpted and painted independently and a pin tongue in the screaming head, the level of detail is soo perfect.

He also have an extra hair piece. Yhea, i know is weird, just like Lobo. The hair section can be removed on all heads actually and this extra hair is a replica of all other hairs tough in a closer looks, its actually a little different....its moving to a side, like if Axel is jumping or throwing a punch, the hair moves with the motion. Its a little difficult to see the difference but is there and helps a lot for poses with heavy movement.

He have, not only one, but three different battle effects!! Lobo didnt had any effect and this guy have three different options! All of them flames cast in transparent plastic with orange, yellow and red tones. Two of them are a huge flame that moves on a half circle pattern, one smaller than the other one. The bigger one have some wild sculpt and spikes on the front tough this one is for the starting of Axel special move, while the smallest one is the end section of the special move animation.

Then the third flame have two tails that twist around Axel arm for an upper cut punch. All of them fits nicelly into Axels closed fist tough the twisting flame have some issues fitting on his arm. Despite of this, all of them are spectacular looking.

Then there is his weapons, because onlike Ryu, Jin, Demitri and other fighting game characters, Axel use pretty much any kind of junk he finds liying on the floor (actually, he is not even a fight game character at all!!) soo unlike the other Storm figures, he comes with A LOT of weapons.

He have a silver bomerang with a pretty cool looking design that only appeare at the beggining of the China Town stage. Also from that stage is the three spikes Sai, a weapon pretty natural for the ninjas, this item coud actually fit on any TMNT figure.

Then there two knifes, the normal basic knife and the butcher knife. Both have a very different handle, even painted in different color and while both looks brutal, the butcher knife reminds me a lot 80s toys, tough in the game it only appeare, again, at the China Town stage.

Then theres two bottles, one complete and another broken. Both are cast on dark green transluscent plastic and the complete one actually have bubbles inside, some kind of liquid. The broken one is the actually weapon and is perfect for any bar fight.

Then theres a sword, a katana with a beautifull blue handle. I dont remember exactly where this particular weapons appeare tough i am pretty sure is, again, in the China Town stage, on Shiva´s temple. Tough i have to say, this katana dosnt fit Axel at all, it feels too ligth and small for him.

The weapon that fits him perfectly is the baseball bat. Is huge and heavy and the orange paint on it is soo nice it actually looks like wood. Tough is a little bend, despite being cast on hard plastic. I dont know if this was an issue of this particular figure or if Storm made it intentional to give it the motion of movement.

And finall, he have a HUGE Naginata. This thing is actually divided into two and requieres assembly. Is the most brutal looking weapon, specially with the deep crimson tone of the staff tough i got the feeling is a little too big for Axel. Thsi is deffinetly the weapon i like less from his arsenal and, again, this belongs to China Town.

And while Lobo had absolutelly no background, Axel dosnt have one printed background BUTH TWO!!! This is the first time i see Storm printing two different illustrations in a single background and was such a nice surprise!! One shows the dark alley from the begining of the game, with the tattoo neon sign while the other shows a section a block later with a sex shop (???) and a much more colorfull palette. Both looks like they came from an animated cartoon from the 90s.

This figure was actually expensive, i give it a lot of tough getting him, but considering this is the only merchadise out there for Streets of Rage 4 convinced me, but also given how many weapons he have, the fantastic articulation system and how handsome and sexy looking Axel is, the quality is much more higher than the price.

Pretty much every single figure i got from Strom Collectibles touch perfection or gets pretty damn close, every single one of them impress me more than the last one. The only thing that could make this guy much better and fun is having a partner, i really hope Storm make a Blaze someday or any other character actually, Streets of Rage 4 deservs as many figures as Mortal Kombat. Too bad Storm dosnt belive it.

STRENGHT

 Each time Sega logo appeare on screen is easy to think on Sonic, but in fact Sega had an awfull lot of iconic games and characters even before the blue hedgehog was born. One of theyr most iconic serires was born along side Resident Evil, but in arcades instead of consoles: The House of the Dead. 

Palisades Marketing was born just when The House of the Dead 2 was released on the Dreamcast soo they decided to start with an action figures serires completelly based on the zombie creatures of the game. The first serires consisted in two "standar" enemies; Johnny and Ken along side a couple of smaller monsters, and a couple of big bosses monsters; Hierophant, boss of stage 2 and Strenght, boss of stage 4.

Hierophant cost a fortune by now soo i only got Strenght who is actually taller than Johnny just by a little bit, but is deffinetly much much wider and heavyer and can stand on his own perfectly thanks to his huge feet. He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, wrists, waist and legs, all cut joints with one direction movement except the shoulders that are ball joint, soo his arms have the best movility while the rest of the body is very static but thats mostly thanks to his huge frame.

The sculpt is....well, Plaisades - or better SOTA sculpture and design - took some artistic libertys with this creature. In the game he is muscly but mostly lean and athletic, but here he is like Hulk muscly, he is HUGE, his hands are gigantic as well as his feet and back, tough thanks to this he stands out nicelly. If they used the original style of the game he would looks kinda...generic, but in here they manage to highligth the masive musculature the character was supposed to have.

The rest is accurate to the game: the bandages, the ripped shorts, the corset. The bandages have a pretty nice texture as well as his skin, given how big his muscles are the skin sculpt got a lot of attention and looks really good with the open cuts too. Like with Johnny, this is not the original version but an alternate one with the sack that cover his face torn, revealing his face underneath traped in an iron cage, something that happens on the game halfway the battle against him.

The paint is simple, just a light blue for the skin but the color looks pretty nice alongside the venomus green of the wounds and blood and Palisades actually used a brush this time to splater the green blood around those muscles. The face is a little hard to disscern tough thanks to the metal cage and the pants and bandages are lacking some darker tones to make them looks old. They have just a solid color and thats makes them looks pretty unnatural. Even with this, the color is much better than Johnny´s.

Thanks to his masive size, he dosnt comes with a smaller companion creature but only his main weapon, a masive chainsaw. The sculpt of the chainsaw is really good and the paint as well since yellow color of the base is full of dirt and blood, this tiem actually looking like an old and used artifact. The blade reads "BLAME" and is made with soft plastic and that makes the weapon really light soo Strenght can hold it without loosing balance. He can even hold it above his head like Leatherface.

Put the chainsaw on his hands is a little tricky tough thanks to the lack of articulation on his elbows but aside of that, his other accesory is his base, with the logo of the game on a red brick piece with ivys and skulls. This base is extremelly good looking tough really small for Strenght and totally useless.

Just like Johnny, the paint is the weakest part of the figure but still is a much better looking figure since his color palette is much more easyer to the eye and much more cleaner giving a better chance to see the great details on the sculpt. I also like a lot the half shown face and the sculpt is terrific, this zombie is really wicked looking, i dare to say he is actually quiet sexy.

Sadly, this figures didnt sell well back then soo Palisades canceled a pretty good looking second serires with figures already painted soo in the end, this are the only figures in existance of The House of the Dead, making them treasures at least for me and i hope i can get the other two i am missing before i die.

JOHNNY & BOUERE FROGS

 Starting new year with something from 22 years ago, back then was an interesting moment for action figures since, thanks to McFarlane Toys, figures were starting to be geared towards mature collectors and videogames started to get a big popularity and they became the subject of lots of new born companys. One of them was Palisades Marketing that produced some astonishing Resident Evil figures, the Pink Panther, the Muppets, and many other, but it started with all with the Sega Dreamcast, producing figures of one of his most iconic serires: The House of the Dead.

It wa deffinetly really popular back then and Palisades had the brillant idea of ignore the main characters (who everyone stoped remembering them minutes after turning off the game) and focus completelly on the zombies that used to be soo well known back then, starting with Johnny and the Bouere Frogs, somethign really common back then, add smaller characters with the standar characters for a two pack feature.

Sculpted by SOTA scupute and design, Johnny is one of the most well known faces of the serires, he is the axe throwing zombie and have some issues standing byt how own, given to his small feet and the sculpted pre-pose on his legs (walking) he needs to find the exact point to be able to stand. The frogs tough, while the four leg one have no problem, the one in two legs cant stand at all soo he is destined to be liying around forever.

Johnny is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, half arm, waist, legs and knes tough the legs articulations are useless because, while they have a descent range of movement, if you want him to stand you better leave his legs completelly alone. Also the shoulders are the only ball joints, soo the rest are cut joints and only move to one direction. This is specially tricky with the elbows since with a rotation they change from stretched to bent. I really hate how tricky and limited is this movement system, i am glad figures dont use it anymore.

The sculpt is good, he is lanky and his mouth full of pointy fangs looks really good and the sculpt on the frogs is also pretty good, with theyr huge human teeth and fingers and wart covered back, tough they lack any kind of articulation. Johnny tough is a variant, something very common back then, they produce a lot of color and sculpture valiant exclusive to specific stores. This Johnny have half of his head blown soo he is missing and eye and have a huge weird hole that makes his head appeare miuch more ligther. I love it, i love how gory this is and is deffinetly very "house of the dead".

The paint s a different matter. His shirt have stripes and thats always troublesome with articulated figures but th main issue is the skin. I dont know wath kind of tools they had back then for painting, but instead of add brushes they pretty much added green stains and spots in different tones that looks very unnatural.I mean, even for a zombie, this dosnt looks like a rotting flesh.

His face is covered in green blood too and that kind of block the details, its looks pretty messy along side to the darker color of his hair and beard (it should be blonce) and the result is kinda difficult to see....i mean, from a distance looks like a mess and just in closer look, you cans ee the details on the face. I like the wet texture on the head hole tough.

Strangelly, the Bouere Frogs have a much better paint, with just different tones of green, huge yellow eyes and white teeth with just some bloody stains on theyr mouth, just enough to not cover the details of the sculpt.

Aside of the Frogs, Johnny comes with his trademark axes. Again, the sculpt of the axes is good tough the paint is really primitive and looks like they are painted by a child. Also, is kinda difficult to put the axes on the hands thanks to the hard material. The last accesory is a base with The House of the Dead logo carved on a rocky ground with some green vines and grey skulls around. The sculpt and paint in the base is FANTASTIC (how ironic) tough is purelly decorative, since theres no peg for Johnny feet soo the figure is just standing on his own force.

I dunno wath to say about this guy. The paint job is really poor and the articulations could be better, tough this was the standar for 22 years ago soo i guess i cant be too hard judging. The second figure was Ken with the Murrer Worms but sadlly i dont have him but i will look forward to find him someday.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

 It is rare when high quality and low price meet, specially on toys and figures, its much more rare and even more rare is when this sacred fusion comes from a name no one ever hear before: Jada Toys. Of course, no one who collects action figures, since Jada is well known on the modeling and toys car section. They decided to start in the action figures area and they did it with Universal Monsters. The result was warm (Dracula and Franskenstein) too pretty hot nuclear stuff (the Bride and the Creature from the Black Lagoon).

Of course, the rarest of the set is the Creature of the Black Lagoon and also the most expensive, like in every other Universal Monster line but he was my main interest point on the line from the begining. He is in small 90s action figures scale (like a Figma), a little smaller than Frankenstein but much taller than the Bride and he can stand on his own perfectly with thise huge slipers.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, abdomen, legs, middle legs, knes and ankles and every single articulation works fantastic and have a total freedom of movement, really this guy is soo easy to take an pose and since the material is sturdy, i think he resist any rough play.

The sculpt is amazing. Every single scale of his body, the different plates, even his slim build and the dorsal fin looks really good and his face looks just as good. The gills on the sides and all the wrinkles around his nice area and above his eyes, everything is perfect. His claws could be sharper tough but thats just a too small detail, specially considering how tiny he is.

The paint is just as good: brigth green, with a whole lot of darker and lighter tones around to give his face volume and expression. Yellow on the fins and gills and even some red tones on specific place to give him the rich color palette of a fish, there is many colors here but all ov them blend in a natural way. Also i am glad they didnt give him red lips and instead they make them pink, they looks lees obnoxious that way. And his expresionless eyes are really cute.

He have an extra hand to hold the spear gun and an extra open mouth head and bot can be exchanged easy. The hand....is soo weird....i dont know who in Jada tough it was a good idea to make the Creature hold the weapon that kills him but this is the very first figure that is able to hold it. The head dosnt have too much a different expression, tough the sculpt and paint of the inside of the mouth is really fantastic, the shape and side walls really make him looks like a fish.

His other accesorys are, like i said, the spear gun wish is only painted on the handle and looks really cheap. He also have the fosil hand, with a very basic sculpt and even more basic paint job but i guess is OK for the small scale. There is also a net to catch him, made with real fabric, in a yellow color.

He basically have the same acesorys the Sideshow version have but is nice the net is still made with real fabric, i mean that alone make this whole line some steps above the McFarlane Toys trashy figures since they are adding fabric and metalic chains for such a low price.

Again, i cant say this is the perfect Creature figure since Mondo already took that title, but deffinetly take the first prize as the most posable and in such a small and easy to handle price, is pretty hard miss him. Jada had proved how good they can be in this field and made me excited for they wave 2 of Monsters next year. Heck, i am even going to buy they Dracula just to have them all together.