Now to the part you’ve all been waiting for, the mashing! The main feature of these figures is that they’ve been designed to have removable heads and limbs. The figures are articulated at the head, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles with swivel/hinge ratchet joints. Aside from the shoulders and ankles, the joints were made to be pulled apart and swapped with other figures.
While the swapping process is super easy, I’m a bit concerned about the two-pronged peg that’s used. As the plastic ages and becomes more brittle, I can definitely see these pegs getting broken in half pretty easily. I’m also disappointed in the lack of articulation at the waist and wrists. These points aren’t necessary, but they’d help the figures look less stiff while posing.
Each figure comes with an accessory. Spidey gets a web line that can connect to any of his ports. For some reason it was molded in a translucent blue though, which makes it look kind of like he’s shooting water.
Doom’s accessory is his cape. It plugs into the two ports on his back, but also has ports in the same place. I’m glad they included this so the figure doesn’t have to choose between style and weaponry.
I do think these figures are good, but they’re definitely made for kids and not collectors. That’s not saying that collectors won’t love these also. They’re just not for me. I was a disappointed with the limits on the customizability. I was really hoping Hasbro was reviving a Xevoz-like property, but these new Mashers lack that unique stylistic feel and super articulation that made that line special.
-Vault
these look cool though, compared to the stylized, but not really stylized new DC line. shame about the durability though, that was what concerned me and held me back from trying a couple of these myself… wanted to read some reviews first. 😉 thanks vault, you took a bullet for me.
these guys could really use a bicep swivel
These are nice, but I don’t think they are for me. But Xevoz! I miss them terribly. Huge fan. Huge. I have a mess of sets stored from when Kay Bee and a few other places clearanced them off in mass.
I was interested in these at first because they sort of resembled G.I. Joe Sigma 6, a line I liked while many hated.
I also was interested after seeing the bigger sets (Iron Man and Wolverine) and the fact that they came with unmasked head options, but I still couldn’t bite. I’m still tempted even after this review, but I’m going to wait and see if this line even is going to go beyond what has been shown so far.
If they were to make females in this line it would make for some very interesting combinations.
I saw this pop up in Warshington Target, a case of each price point, then WM had 3-4 cases of the $10 series, and I think a case of the $15? no $20-24 Wolvies there, that I recall.
Then again, I spent every day since NY in a drugged/frozen fog, so my memory is sketchy. (still not sure how I drove 40m to take a shower, or when I stopped at WM for a pillow and throw? and I only recall stopping at a McD to rest up on way back!)
I did grab a Hawkeye to check them out as a “basic” figure, but haven’t opened it yet. That Doom does look a bit like the IM figures (basic, Patriot, and WM?), so there’s likely intentional cost-saving measures there. I didn’t even look over the Spidey, Cap, IMs, Hulk, and Doom figures, but did glance over the Wolvie set. LOTS of accessories and armor as you said. I don’t recall anything stating “electronic”?
for figures where the whole gimmick is changing parts they need a few more joints. Your pants joke would work a whole lot better if they separated at the waist.
Out here in northern California land, I found the 3 mid-range figures Hulk, Thor, Iron Patriot) at TRU right before xmas on a ‘buy two get one free’ sale. I begged off the Iron Man and Wolverine mainly because I didn’t want to drop $20 each on them, and that IM’s entire torso is molded in translucent plastic with a ‘light-up’ feature, which turns me off. If it was a solid painted torso with just the ARC reactor lighting up, I might have bit to have to ‘core’ avengers. Wolvie had some light-claw armor piece… meh.
Earlier this month, I saw the $10 figures at Target, and lo and behold they all had coupons attached to them to get $2 off one, $5 off two, and $8 off three. So I picked up Cap, Spidey, and Doom. I’d recommend if you are interested in these, find them on sale! They look neat lined up on my shelf, but I have to agree with the joint quality – the pegs on the swappable parts are extremely stiff and so much weight is put the peg – and the pose ability seems more limited that I had expected, even though I didn’t expect a lot. All my figures do the splits to some degree as if their bodies are a little too heavy for their leg joints. I had to struggle to get Mjolnir into Thor’s hand, and it does not fit at all if you want to have him holding it by the strap.
These seem to be in a weird spot for action figures. Aimed at kids with lots of pointless plug-in action features and hilarious launching missiles, the stylization and character selection seems slightly more aimed at collectors. Like why is Doom in there and not Loki or the Red Skull like we’ve seen in recent Marvel media? Iron Patriot I can see as “the latest hotness” but I’d rather have had Iron Man at that level of figure, with a War Machine at the deluxe level with tons of overblown attachments. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like there’s a couple subtle nods to the old Secret Wars line. Look at Doom without his cape or no web-lines Spidey.
Still, I like these figures, I just wish they were a little more quality and a better, more PVC like plastic. I don’t see myself swapping around their parts a lot simply for fear of breaking the pegs. A shame, because you can do some cool stuff like give someone “Hulk Hands” which I’ve always thought would be a hilarious actual hero concept or put Doom’s cape on IM like in that one Exiles storyline. I might pick up Hawkeye, maybe, especially if they come out with a Black Widow, and I wouldn’t turn it down if someone like gave me the Iron Man, but I don’t know if this Mashers line will go any farther. Big Bad Toy store lists as yet unseen figures, at least one with a vehicle. Hopefully we’ll see a couple more villains and a female character before this line fades into novelty.
ramble ramble, I have a cold, but that’s my nickel. Oh yeah, Xevoz! Big part of my picking these up, and Phil Reed at Battlegrip where I saw them first mentioned.
Okay so I checked and it’s Spiderman vs. Doc Ock and Hulk vs. Loki in upcoming two-packs and Cap with a vehicle plus Iron Man with a vehicle. I’m curious to see how they do Doc Ock’s tentacles, and if any of the figures will be significant variant costumes. Here’s hoping they make it to a Wave 2 if only to see some female characters.
I like ’em so far! Got the 20 dollar Iron Man first, and I’m impressed with all the accessories for the price (and the size of the figure). Once I found Dr. Doom I snapped him RIGHT up, cause a man’s gotta have his Doom fix. Can’t wait to get some more and get a little crazy.
I will agree that the connectors don’t feel…up to the task of time and use. We’ll see!