Dave's Marvel Crossovers Rant: Standard Wave 2 Human Torch (Fighter Jet) Wolverine (Rally Truck) Hulk (Tank) Spider-Man (Motorcycle) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Marvel/Standard2 Hulk is the gray Hulk and Spider-Man is "black costume", both are redecos of the wave 1 versions, reviews of them can be found at: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Marvel/Standard1 (Hulk's packaging accent color is blue, Spider-Man's is dark teal. Both have the same Data File and call-outs as the originals.) I did not buy and will not review the recolors. CAPSULES Human Torch: A bit tricky to get transformed, but cool in both modes and makes good use of clear plastic while also having an interesting variation on the standrd Veritech transformation scheme. Recommended. $14.99 at Target. Wolverine: Good in both modes, interesting use of panel folding in transformation. Some standing stability problems, but otherwise pretty solid. Recommended. $14.99 at Target. Hulk: Recommended original mold, and looks a bit better in these colors, but not enough better to buy both. $14.99 at Target. Spider-Man: Mildly recommended original mold, boring black redeco. Pass on it. $14.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same as wave 1. Co-sells are the three other figures in the wave. Terminology note: An "N point" ratchet means that if the joint could go all the way around in a circle, it would take N clicks. So an 8 point ratchet goes 45 degrees per click, a 12 point ratchet goes 30 degrees at a time, etc. HERO: HUMAN TORCH Altmode: Fighter Jet Accent Color: Orange-red Call-out: "Two launching projectiles!" Data File: Unlike the other battle suits built by IRON MAN, the one belonging to the HUMAN TORCH doesn't require its own power source. Instead, it is powered by Johnny Storm's flame powers. His nova flame is channeled through its engines to give it thrust, and through its weapons to allow it to fire powerful, superheated flame missiles. Packaging: Jet just held between the blister layers. The two missiles are stuck through holes in the blister, underneath the jet. Vehicle Mode: A fantasy jet of sorts. It has some F-22 elements, but the front end is stretched out significantly and appears to be made from flame. The tail section and various other parts are also reminiscent of Energon Skyblast. Unlike almost any other jet altmode, the thrust flames are molded as part of the vehicle (and not the result of missiles sticking out the back). Ignoring them, the jet is 7" (18cm) long. With them included, the toy is 8.75" (22cm) long. The wingspan is a stubby 5" (13cm). There's no landing gear, although the secondary winglets on the undercarriage junk give the toy a sort of tripod support. The main colors are orange-red and silver. The missiles, nosecone, the rear segments of the wings (which trail flame) and the thrust flames are made of clear yellow plastic. The missile launchers under the wings and the feet hidden by the thruster flames are made of gunmetal gray plastic. The rest of the toy is an orange-red plastic. There's actually two types of orange-red plastic, a slightly softer/slipperier version is used on some of the joints and hinges. Neither orange-red plastic has a strong UV glow. The clear yellow has a moderate glow. Most of the clear plastic has some amount of orange-red paint (which has a strong UV glow, but otherwise matches the orange-red plastic okay). The flames trailing off the wings are unpainted, but the thruster flames have airbrushed orange-red paint fading from solid at the base to absent at the tip. There's extensive silver paint trim on the wings and root of the cockpit area, plus the intake vents. The cockpit windows themselves are painted black rather than left clear, but the clear plastic is kinda hazy anyway. Odd little molded details abound. The underside of the nose section is molded to look like it's made of flame, or at least on fire. There's four canards, a top pair and a lower pair set back a little. As mentioned above, there's flames trailing off the back edge of the wings. And there's a big cylindrical button molded with a 4 in a circle on top of the fuselage behind the cockpit that doesn't seem to do anything (it's used in transformation, BTW). The thrust flames can be folded up and down on the mech's ankle joints, for a little vectored thrust. The missile launchers under each wing fire weakly, but will also hold the missiles fairly well in a "not ready to fire" position so the springs don't get weaker. Everything is held together reasonably well. The wings are a bit over- jointed, but the looseness isn't fatal. Transformation: In very broad strokes, it's the standard Veritech transformation. But in the details it's rather different. The nosecone splits and becomes part of the backpack (which holds together surprisingly well, thanks to some sliding joints on the other bits). The wings stay on the arms, splitting into two pieces and folding back against the arm parts. The head automorphs by pressing that "4" button, which also makes parts of the wing root spread apart into more of a proper chestplate. And then there's the dance of folding panels required to get the torso plugged into the waist, wow. Getting that waist snapped together properly takes a bit of doing, and is probably the only serious weakness of the transformation. The instructions are a little unclear on the positioning of the wing bits on the arms, but I prefer to have the upper arm bits folded back in a way like this: _|- That way they stick out as winglets for robot mode flight, but don't look like they're just stuck to the upper arms either. It goes well with the jetpack impression given by the folded up nose halves, too. The forearm sections can be folded up against the back of the arm, with the missile launcher slipping over them (only when pointed forward, though...if you try to rotate the launchers back while the winglets are up, the launchers will just pop off). Mech Mode: 6.5" (17cm) tall and very reminiscent of G1 Hot Rod, especially the shape of the shoulders. The flame deco helps, of course. :) A mix of orange-red, silver, gunmetal and flames, with the head top on fire more like Firestorm than Human Torch. The hips are a bit too narrow for the overall proportions. The head, torso core, heel spurs, and a few flaps here and there are clear yellow plastic. Fists, launchers, toes and thighs are gunmetal plastic. The knee joint area and inside of the shins are light gray plastic. Everything else is orange-red plastics. There's more silver accents on various parts of the arms and legs, with the "4" button becoming the chest symbol. The face is silver with unpainted eyes, and the forehead is painted translucent orange. There's no paint on any of the gunmetal pieces, it might be "unpaintable plastic", or maybe they just decided it looked fine plain. The head and waist both turn (the neck smoothly, the waist on an 8 point soft ratchet), although you have to have the waist snapped together just right or it comes apart when you try to turn it. Also, there's a bit of paintlock on the joint that you may need to force past the first time. Shoulders are 8 point ratcheting swivels, and they can shrug up a click on ratcheting transformation joints. Smooth upper arm swivels, very stiff (and maybe weakly ratcheting) hinge elbows that go almost to 90 degrees. The wrists are swivels, plus can swing in on transformation hinges. The hips are universal joints that are smooth on the swivels but soft-ratcheting on the "push out to the sides" joints. Smooth swivels just above each knee, smooth hinges that can only bend about 45 degrees. The ankles have a side to side hinge, plus the toes can hinge down. The stability is a bit iffy, between the topheavy torso and some looseness in the hip swivels. I do have to wonder how the heck they'll get a recolor out of this one, as they seem to be dead set on recoloring all the molds. Maybe putting him only partly on fire, with FF blue and white costume colors showing with flames, rather than all orange-red. Overall: While the waist connection and stance stability issues bug me some, I otherwise very much like this toy, especially once I figured out ways around some of the more fiddly bits. The missile launchers are really weak, but that sort of thing really doesn't bother me. HERO: WOLVERINE Altmode: Rally Truck Accent Color: yellow Call-out: "Pop out claws!" Data File: Built to match the toughness and ferocity of WOLVERINE himself, this battle suit is fast, scrappy, and able to take a pounding that would turn other mechs into scrap. Advanced repair systems fix most damage done almost instantly. In addition, the mech mode pops out claws sharp enough to rip through almost any armor. And yes, this is Mega Overhaul/Brushguard. :) Packaging: Truck mode held in between blister sections. The spare tires chunk is held into the blister separately, as leaving it on would make the vehicle mode too tall to fit inside the standard blister. The front wheels are compressed in and up, as per robot mode, and need to be pulled down and out for proper vehicle mode. The package photo doesn't quite have the robot mode transformed correctly, it left out the step where the rear wheels fold back onto the calves. It also looks like they left the front wheels pushed up for the vehicle mode pic. Vehicle Mode: An off-road rally truck, with a brushguard on front, a rack of two spare tires (molded as a single piece), mesh over the driver's side window, roof lights and a roof-top air scoop. It's in Wolverine's classic University of Michigan colors (maize and cornflower). 6.25" (16cm) long, 3.25" (8cm) wide, 2.75" (7cm) tall. Once you get all the stuff pegged together right (the front end and the spare tires can be touchy) it's pretty stable. Most of the body shell is medium blue (no real UV glow). The brushguard, rear half-doors, spare tire holder and part of the hood are a sort of pale canary yellow plastic. The pickup bed cover and some of the visible undercarriage stuff are black plastic, and all six wheels (four rolling, two fused together on the back as spares) are taupe (that sort of slightly tan warm gray). The wheels are off-road style, with eight lugnut holes (the top spare has only seven of them all the way through, as the eighth is where it connects to the hinge). The wheel hubs are painted silver, the windows and roof scoop are painted black. The roof lights, headlights and brushguard lights are painted a very pale blue-gray (a color I think of as "Tau Blue" because it's the shade I mixed for my Warhammer 40K Tau skintone). A bright canary yellow is painted along the center of the hood and roof (bad match to the part of the hood that's yellow plastic), a wide stripe along each side, and the turn signals. The radiator grille cover is also mostly painted yellow, with black triangular bits left unpainted (it's meant to be his abdomen in mech mode). The taillights are painted red. Sadly, as often happens with a mix of yellow plastic and yellow paint on dark plastic, there's really bad matching and visible seams. It doesn't help that the paint masking on the steps below each door is inconsistent between segments (the top of the step is unpainted on most of the step, but painted on the front fraction which is aon a different piece of plastic). Oops. The toy rolls well on the four wheels, and actually has appropriate ground clearance for a rally truck (unlike Sentinel Prime, to give a counter- example). You can even take advantage of the transformation sliders to lower the front wheels for a more street-racer configuration. Transformation: Sort of a reverse Overhaul. The rear section becomes the legs, the front the chest, but the doors still conceal the arms. The head pops up out of the hood (and can do so in vehicle mode as a weird hood ornament). The front wheels snap in and up to get out of the way, avoiding G1 Hound syndrome. The front end does some folding around to snap back down in a way reminiscent of Leobreaker's chest, but with a few more panels. There's some clever bits with making some excess panelage fold flat on the shoulders, although they could have engineered the rear wheel folding a bit better. Mech Mode: 6.75" (17cm) tall. The general color scheme is the classic Giant Sized Uncanny X-Men #1 costume, although with plenty of concessions to the vehicle bits. There's sort of a Joe Maduiera face going on, though, especially the chin and grimace. The fender pieces with the headlights form shoulderpads, and the brushguard covers the torso like kendo armor or something. The head, brushguard, elbow region, fists, claws, hip roots and the top halves of the knee joints are pale yellow plastic (the claws are entirely painted, I had to scrape some away from a non-visible area to check). The thighs and the inside section of the shins are made of a more golden yellow plastic which should have been used in all the yellow parts. The torso core, pelvis, kneecaps, toes, heelspurs and boot fronts are black plastic. The taupe wheels end up on the torso sides, boot backs, and backpack. The blue plastic used on several joints glows brightly, as does the golden yellow plastic. Otherwise, no appreciable glow from other plastics or paints. The mask is painted black with silver eyes. The teeth are white. The X-Men belt buckle has red paint in the circle behind the X. The claws are painted silver. There's blue paint on the "loincloth" strip between the legs (but not on the belt part). All other paint applications are visible in vehicle mode. The head turns smoothly, but is somewhat blocked from turning too far (you can force it all the way around, though). The waist turns on a 12 point soft ratchet. The shoulders are ball joints out on struts, but the arms can't settle flush against the sides, and it seems to be the joint that stops it, not blockage from the wheels on the sides. There's an 8 point ratcheting swivel in the upper arm and a double-hinged elbow on each arm. No wrist articulation. Hips are universal joints, smooth swivel forward to back and 16 point hard ratcheting out to the sides. 8 point soft ratcheting swivel above each knee, the knees are 12 point ratchet hinges but can only click twice in bending. After one click, the rear wheels get in the way, but even if you fold those flaps out you only get one more click. The toes are smooth hinged, the heel spurs are ratcheted (8 point). The feet have a sort of L-shaped footprint, which makes for poor stability when the legs are spread apart (it falls backwards), although messing with the heel spurs can help counter it a little. Pressing a button on the top of each forearm causes the claws to snikt out by half an inch (13mm). That's it for the gimmicks, but at least you don't have to worry about losing the claws like you do a missile. :) Oh, and this one has a built-in redeco, just go with the brown and tan costume. Overall: Nice vehicle mode, pretty good transformation, good mech mode. Doesn't grab me in the same way Torch does, but also lacks most of his flaws (other than standing-up-straight issues). Dave Van Domelen, notes that the villains are getting seriously outnumbered here. Everyone versus Venom.