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.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

 Jada Toys, after years of models and toy cars decide to makes its debut on the action figures field with the Universal Monsters, just like Sideshow did it 20 years ago with awesome results. Wath make this figures stand out is the small scale and the low price. This are the smallest Monster i have and the low budget wasnt good news at all. Dracula dosnt looked too good for me and Frankenstein either, tough once in hand, he wasnt that bad.

And actually, i got Frankenstein just because i got the Bride, it was imposible for me to miss her. She comes in small scale of the 90s action figures, but Jada take in consideration Elsa Lanchester´s small frame and size, soo this Bride is much more smaller and delicate than her Monster mate. Despite of that she can stand on her own, tough her balance is not that good sometimes.

he is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, legs, middle legs, knes and ankles. All articulations works fantastic except the shoulders, they are kinda stiff. Also the unions on her biceps are kinda lose and make her arms looks broken. I guess the small budget leave its marks here.

And thats pretty much the only part where the small budget is visible, since the rest of the figure is astonishing. The sculpt is really perfect, while the Monster sculpt was kinda blurry, this woman is most deffinetly Elsa Lanchester: her big eyes, the small nose and pouty lips, its evident even on a profile view, the linkes is exceptional and the hair sculpt is really amazing and have the perfect size and shape.

Her body is also amazing, with a very femenine shape, the bandages texture is really welldone from neck to toes. Her dress tailoring is a little simple tough since it dosnt have the shoulder pads or the long tail in the back, but still, the fabric is pretty thin and delicate, almost like silk, it have a nice flow and is elastic enough to let her move her body.

With a small velcro in the back, the dress can be removed easy to show her bandaged body on all her glory.

The paint job is excelent as well. The white strikes on her hair are perfect as well as her pale almost green skin tone, the soft pink on her checks, big eye lashes and blood red lips, it looks really amazing for such a small scale. The bandages on the body also have a pretty natural and well done yelow wash that matches the texture. I wish her mate´s jacket had this paint quality.

She comes with a pair of hands on a weird gesture as well as a screaming extra head, all of them can be exchanged pretty easy and, again, the screaming head is impresive. The expression on her eyes is really fierce and you can see her small and tiny tongue and teeth, i think i will leave this head on her permanently.

Her other accesoryes are a pair of weird metal rods coming from the ground with a black ball on top, as well as bandages and chains hanging from them. The bandages are made with ribbon and the chains are real metalic chains tough i dont know wath are this or how the Bride can interact with them aside of tangle the chains around her arms. This strange items also came with Diamond Select´s Bride (i dont have her) soo i guess they must mean something.

While the tailoring of the dress could be a little more detailed and the detail on her biceps is anoying, this figure quality is just trully amazing, the distance between her and her mate is huge. Just made her in sufter material and put the Figma brand on the box and this could be easy a 100$ figures. Until NECA release theyr Ultimate Bride, i think this is pretty much the best quality Bride action figure to date.

FRANKENSTEIN

 Last years i was discussig with a friend how no one care or even know the Universal Monsters, how they started to fade in obscurity. Now in 2021 we got NECA releasing Ultimate action figures for them as well as Mezco and now out of obscurity, Jada Toys is also making an action figure serires. I never before hear of Jada but it seems its a toy company that works on toy cars and models, but they decided to make theyr debut on action figures terrain with the Monsters.

This are the cheapest figures i ever bough in years. Dracula looked....not very good to be honest soo did Frankenstein Monster, but i ended getting him anyways to see if this was a recipe for disaster. Aside of coming on a really pretty looking box, this guy comes in a really small scale, same size Figma or vintage action figures soo he is the smallest Frankenstein Monster i ever have (not counting the Funko Pop) and he can stand on his own perfectly.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, middle leg, knes and ankles and thats A LOT for such a cheap figure. All articulations works perfect and have a huge range of movement except the shoulders, for some reason they are pretty stiff and the chest articulation dosnt move at all. Also the jacket gets in the way of the legs a little bit.

The plastic used for him is really cheap, tough the sculpt is not bad at all. The texture on his pants and jackets are really good as well as his size and build. The face sculpt is pretty clean and it levitates in a weird limbo between "Boris Karloff" and "This is not Boris Karloff". The face features are the same as the actor and is easy to recognize the character, soo this is not an entirelly "generic monster" tough is still not spot on...in some sides he looks like Karloff but in other like someone dressed like him.

The paint is really good. The metal on his forehead, the red bloody scars, the decaying green with lots of shadows and brushes on the wrinkles to give volume to the face, for such a small scale he looks amazing and perfect, tough were the paint aplication fails is on his clothing. His pants looks kinda plain and his jacket is just green....with no shadows or shines for the details, soo it make him looks like just a cheap toy.

As accesoryes he have a pair of claw shaped hands and a fierce looking head. All 3 can be exchanged pretty easy and crash with the "cheap toy" concept. I mean, extra hands and heads are a luxury or McFarlane Toys. The second head have a perfect paint as well and the expression sometimes look like a smile but still its much more fun and menacing than his sad basic expression.

His other accesoryes is pretty much the same accesory he always have on every action figure to date: handcuffs with chain. Is not like you can give him lots of weapons or items to use anyway and instead of one he comes with two chains, one longer and one shorter. While the handcuffs are plastic and opens pretty easy, the chains are real metal. Again, very impresive for such a cheap figure. McFarlane would envy.

All my uninterest i had when i saw him on photos prooved to be wrong. Sure, his jacket need a paint job and the blurry Karloff portrait keep it away of perfection, but this figure is not too bad. He is pretty damn descent, fun to move around and pretty resistant. Pale compared to NECA´s Ultimate edition, but the quality is pretty high for the price.

GOLIATH

 I was questioning the existance of Beetlejuice a few weeks ago but he isnt the only big interrogant around, that medal goes to Gargoyles. Gargoyles has been completelly ignored for 24 years to the point Disney even refused to release it on Blueray or DVD or even recognize its existance at all. Now we got Funko Pops, board games, statues, plushies and action figures....i got the feeling something is gonna happen and i may not like it, but unti then i will submerge in the blisfullnes of this unexplained Gargoyles fever.

When NECA continued the work McFarlane Toys leave inconcluded with the horror movies figures, fans were pretty existed. When they feed Kenner´s by relaunching the old figures of the 90s with brand new sculpt and features, many people sayd NECA was doing the work of god. Now NECA is releasing Gargoyles action figures, an unfullfilled dream that has existed for 25 years, because, i LOVE Kenner, but honestly, when i was 10 and played with the Gargoyles action figures it was the very firs time i feelt like the toys didnt live up to the characters. They are pretty "90s", with all the ups and downs of that time period.

Unexpectedly, NECA is starting the action figures serires with now days standar quaity and they did something unbelivable. The first of the serires is of course Goliath and he is a little bit taller than your average NECA figures soo he is on a considerable size and quiet heavy as well thanks to his huge frame. Now take the wings in consideration and you got a HUGE and extremelly HEAVY action figure since his wing span is as long as 7 figures in a row!!!

Goliath can....and cannot stand on his own, is complicated. I mean, he ave huge feet and can stand perfectly tough the wings are soo heavy he needs the tail to help him balance. He is articulated on the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles, half feet, tail and both wings. All this articulation works great since they all ball joints and moves up and down but at the sides too with a few exceptions: while Goliaths skimpy clothing is made with pretty soft plastic and gives his legs totall freedoms, his chest area barelly moves. Also his shoulders are limited thanks to his big chest muscles being of hard plastic and his hair, while made with soft plastic, get sin the way of his wings as well.

His wings are a totally different beast tough, since they have this internal cogs system that deminds a lot of brute force to move them. This is because they articulations needs to be strong to keep with the weigth, but i fear they may be too delicate and the pegs could broke and they dosnt have too much range of movement at all.

The tail, the wonderfull tail is made in woft pastic and have a wire inside soo its totally bendy and a total blessing to keep Goliath standing since, thanks to the weight, his ankles articulations got very lose pretty quick keeping him falling over and over again. I fixed this with a little glue to strong the ball joint, but still this is a temporary measure, its better to give him a base soo the  legs dosnt sopport all his masive weigth.

Aside of articulations getting lose and risk of being delicate (maybe i am being over protective) the entire figure is brillant and perfect. Its not a cartoon Goliath tough but a NECA interpretation of how would he looks if he was real. I saw many of this "realistic"intepretations over the years and i hated all of them, i tough Goliath only worked in 2D but i am glad i was wrong since NECA manage to sculpt and totally realistc creature while keeping enough stylisation to make him easy to recognize.

The big eyes, shape of his jaw, the hair cut, the head size and body structure, even the huge claws on his legs, everything follows Disney¨s original design while adding instead toons of details, like the inside of his long hears or giving him a pretty realistic muscle structure. You can learn anatomy perfectly with this figure even with the monster sections since you can even see the veins on his arms. Unlike the cartoon, the wings are not plain blue but instead have a "scale" texture, like the wings of a dragon, even with veins as well.

The paint work is excelent, with the figure cast in purple plastic of the same color used on the cartoon, but with plenty of dark purples washing to give vlume to hos body and face features in a pretty natural way. His hair is black but in the back side it have pretty silverish blue tones and his wings as well are not entirelly black, but they have luminiscent blue tones to makes them looks lamots like the wings of an insect.

The texture on his loincloth as well as the bwon color and golden on his belt are perfect. The only section with no detailec olor or texture is his tail, but i dont think it needed it at all.

Aside of the closed fist hands, he have an extra set of hands with his claws open as well as an extra left hand to pick items. The gesture of the hands is soo perfect is hard to belove, it reminds me Goliath too much and i love how the nails have a stronger purple color to make them stand out (same for the claws on his feet, they are soo cute) and they can be exchanged pretty easy.

His other accesory is an extra head with a roaring expression and white eyes and can be exchanged pretty easy (and carefully thanks to the wings). This is my favorite head sculpt, since his original calm expression fits him good, this fierce one is beyond perfect and quiet frighing. The scupt of his fangs is amazing as well as the sculpt and paint on the thongue inside and the big eye bags framing those white eyes is just striking!!!

His other accesory is a beautifully done book, and i say beautyfull because it is stuning. The leather texture on the cover, the yellow pages, even the writing on the pages, its soo  amazinglly done it can be sold as a separate item and fits Goliath contemplative character perfectly since he spend entire nigths at the library of the police station.

His last accesory is a pepper, a green and tiny pepper that fits on his hands as a joke in episode 32 "Protection"  when he suffers by eating a pepper. A cute little detail but pretty forgetable compared to the book and thats it, thats all the accesoryes he got since theres not a whole lot of stuff for hiem to use on the cartoon anyway, even Kenner had to take artistic lisence and give to his Gargoyles figures pretty silly accesorys like tridents, swords, rocket launchers....is obvious NECA would never do such a thing.

Honestly, this was my most expected figure of the entire years, i was eager to reach Christmas point just for this and was a torture wait an entire year for it, and even soo, getting him was quiet a feat since the place i pre-order it never got him and other places had him 3 or 4 times more expensive. I ended up paying twice the base price but even with that, this figure was really worth the price.

NECA somehows managed to erase the gap between prototype and mass produced product, since this guy looks exactly like he does on the photos and almost ALMOST reach perfection: a base would have been a wise movement and also the wings, while i love the wings, its odd to have wings open all the time, i wish they hive him closed wings as well, this is a vital detail for display and posing.

I am very happy with this. I am very hyped for Demona last year and the rest of the characters. I am loving NECA more than i never did before and next year i am going to be poorer thans to them as well. Its in moments like this that i am very happy for being a toy collector.

LOBO

 

Honestly Injustice is not mya favorite fight game, far from it, its full of the same issues Nether Realm rejoice reproduce over and over again: odd models, weird and choppy animations, stiff movement and tacky half combos as well as unbalancing enviroment gimmicks, and yet despite being soo "basic" it had a lot of mindless fun as well as a good athmosphere and an inviting idea; using the DC characters.

When Strom Collectibles took the lisence it was a susprise but not as much as when they released the figures: not only they didnt touch Batman, Superman or any other Justice League characters, but they focused entirelly on the villians! And not only that but they give a chance to a DLC, my favorite character from the game, Lobo.

It took me a long time to get Lobo, like i said, i dont like too much Injustice but Storm releasing my favorite character first was once in a million chances, also after seen the hiddeous version of McFarlane Toys it was pretty evident Strom´s Lobo is the best plastic version of the character soo i took the chance before his price sky rocket next year.

Lobo is huge, much more taller than the rest of figures of Strom and even a little bit taller than Dimitri and is also much more heavyer. He dosnt have issues standing tough his legs kind of "bounce" due to the heavy weigth, something i only say on the Play Arts Kai. And since he is not a Street Figther, he dosnt have the honor to have a base.

He is articulated on the head, shoulders, elbows, biceps, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles and half feet. The chest section (including his vest), as well as the hips piece and skulls on his knes are made with soft plastic soo they dont get in the way of the articulations, tough thanks to his masive frame, he have a kind of limited movement. Like an example he cant hold his weapon with both hands at front because his arms and chest are soo huge his hands cannot meet. ALos his ankles articulations move in front and back but somehow dosnt move to the sides.

His head is also restricted by his hair but thats to be expected, all the pose limitations are due to the character muscles and hair and not by the clothes or enginering issues.

Now the sculpt, really it seems Storm wanted to mix the Injustice design with the original comic book version because there is a lot of alterations in here. First his huge frame, in the game he is much more lean but in this figure he is almost hulkish (and of course taller), also he is missing the gun on his left leg hostler and in the game he have only one glove, here he have two. The face is also different, since in the game he have a thicker beard and here he have a thin mustache and the "marks" on his eyes are also different.

This is like the comic book Lobo dressed on the outfit of the Injustice Lobo and i cant blame Storm for doing this since Injustice character models are very poor in quality (in Injustice 2 every female character have the same face lmao) soo by sticking to the comic book original design i think they defined the character much more and made him stand out from other figures of the same brand.

Once you forget the difference with the game (and is not hard) is easy to see how good the sculpt is. His anatomy looks very unique compared to the other Strom figures, his abs looks amazing and extremelly realistic as well as the veins on his biceps, the wrinkles on his forehead and around his mouth shows this is not a young guy but a mature man and i love that.

The leatherish texture on his vest is fantastic as well as the small details on it, like the skull pin and the "Bit me Fanboy" on the back . The softish spikes on his shoulders, the granedes on his legs, the skull buckle on his belt, i think is imposible to find a single thing that looks out of place in here.

The paint have the same quality, with a very dark blue and grey color palette, with only red on the stars of his shin guards and eyes, there is a lot of paint here unlike the other Storm figures, mostly because his body is not cast on skin color like the rest, but is fully painted, this gives to his skin a pretty unatural texture and theres risk of chipping away the paint with the movement of the articulation and theres even some chipping already on his skull, under the hair, but i guess that cant be helped given the odd color of his skin.

His accesorys are a bunch of extra hands: a pair to hold his gun, a pair to hold his chain and a pair to hold his cigar soo he can hold any item on either side and exchange them is pretty easy. He also have two extra head: one smiling, and another one smiling with the cigar between his teeth. His smile is extremelly big and demonic, very sexy really and bod heads have the same quality paint as the normal serious head.

He also have 3 extra wigs and that was a susprise. Is pretty evident Storm really wanted this figure to be taken as well as something from the comic book, since they give him two wish with the hair style of the comic, with the short hair in front. This two hair pieces are helpfull to move his head better and reveal his vest since the other two hair pieces have really thick dreads locks hanging on front. One of the dread locks wigs is sculpted looking at the side because move his head with the basic hair piece is pretty difficult.

All 4 wigs can be exchanged in between the 3 heads using a little lid that fits on a small cavity on his cranium. This hair change is pretty tricky and kind of confusing, really, but i guess is better to have more than less and you can chose his looks from the comic or the videogame.

His other accesory is a cigar that fits between his fingers and gives him lots of personality as well as his two weapons: a short shotgun and his hook. The shotgun is nicelly sculpted and reads "BOOM!" on the side tough for some reason it have no paint application, it have a metalic texture and is totally black, with some grey tones here and there but somehow they forget to add the brown and white details for the wood and bandages section. I am surprised Storm forget the paint considering how spectacular is the rest of the figure. The shotgun fits on the hostler on his back perfectly while not on his hands.

His other weapon is his hook, attached to a long chain that forms a bracalet that conects with his wrists. This chain can be detached by removing the hand and the hook can be separated from the chain as well with the use of a clasp. I was expecting the chain to be really anoying but is not, while really good looking, it wraps around his arms pretty nicelly and is easy to remove, totaly opposite to McFarlane Toys, tough while not in use there no place to "hold" the hook since on the game it hangs from the back side of his pants but thats impposible with this figure.

And thats it....there is no effect in here, this is the very first Strom figure i get with no effect and i dont know wath to think about it. I mean, Lobo dosnt shoot any eye ray like Superman or anything but i wish they gives him a shootign effect for his shotgun. Also, and even more worrysome for me, he is laking any background. Really, all Storm figures have a background made of cardboard with an image of a level of the games, but here thats missing. I cant belive Storm is missing one of the signatures details of his products. Sorry, not one sigantrue detail, but two since there is no effect either.

While i find the missing effect and background alarming, the rest of the figure is stelar: he looks really mean, menacing, scary and unique and the quaity is top notch, even the design libertys they took with him are really good and suits him well.

Lobo is in fact one of the sexyer male characters from the comic book industry and this action figure really do him justice as the best plastic representation of the character (not counting the Sideshow statues). There is not any other character from Injustice i want too soo he will be alone, until Storm release his bike....i am really REALLY tempted to get his bike now....