What can I say, I’m in a review groove! Doing all of those G.I. Joe: Classified reviews has gotten me revved up to do a few more.
Perfect timing, too, as the fantastic Bruiser figure from the Boss Fight Studio Bucky O’Hare line just hit my mailbox and was ready and waiting.
Check out the review right here, and it’s also linked in my Bucky O’Hare Review Page.
Available for Pre-Order at BossFightShop.com
Wow. This is a hefty chunk of plastic.
I was pretty excited when Boss Fight Studio got the license for Bucky O’Hare figures, not necessarily because I’m a huge Bucky fan (though I have become one over the past year or so), but because I knew it meant just the first step in global domination for Boss Fight Studios. Now, as we prepare for an onslaught of Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Phantom, Lucha Libre figures, and many others, turns out my assumption was correct!
In the meantime, we’ve also managed to get some absolutely incredible action figures for a fun 90’s property that doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
As the brain child of Larry Hama and Neal Adams’ Continuity Studios, Bucky O’Hare was poised to do some amazing things back in the 90’s with a comic series, action figure line and animated series all exploding onto the scene. Unfortunately it never really took off, which meant several core cast members were never realized as action figures.
While the vintage line did give us a Bruiser, the figure was pretty close to the same size as many of the other figures in the line, where this updated Boss Fight Studio version is an absolute monster.
The first deluxe figure release in the line, Bruiser looms over the rest of the Bucky O’Hare crew, and as with the other figures in this line, he is absolutely dripping with character.
The combination of animated-accurate design and incredible articulation blows me away as other figures in this line also have, providing figures that look as though they stepped straight from the screen, yet can pose and move in nearly any position you can imagine.
As mentioned already, Bruiser is huge and heavy, feeling like a quality chunk of plastic, but with some revolutionary joints he can either stand (mostly) upright or hunch over like the gorilla he is, enabling a wealth of fun display options.
Bruiser comes with two heads, one relatively calm head, another head that is decidedly un-calm, perfect for “croaking some toads”. He comes with swappable hands as well as a banana and a laser rifle. He’s equipped for almost anything.
His straps also have the same sort of universal peg system that other figures have which can hold his (or other) weapons.
The colors are terrific as usual as well, remaining very accurate to the source material, with an especially vibrant shade of silver for his armor. Boss Fight designers are truly artists when it comes to their color pallet, always finding the perfect pantone and combination of colors to really accentuate the figure.
As time has gone on, Boss Fight has had the opportunity to consider deeper and deeper dives into the core cast of Bucky O’Hare figures. I really hope people are jumping on these pre-orders to give us the opportunity to round out this cast and keep digging through the vast possibilities of the Bucky O’Hare universe.
This figure is available for pre-order now from BossFightShop.com and should be shipping shortly!
Summary
Bruiser is a behemoth of an action figure, standing tall and wide above the rest of the Bucky O’Hare cast, and is crammed full of character and color. As a deluxe figure it’s a hefty hunk of quality plastic with some great accessories and awesome playability. Articulation like crazy and a critical component of the crew of Righteous Indignation.
Pros
Cons
Order this figure now from BossFightShop.com! And you’re gonna need some Storm Toads for her to fight!
Once again, Boss Fight Studio reuses tooling from the first release of a figure to add some new life into an updated version of that character. Jenny, a cat creature known as an Artificer Witch of Aldeberan has always been Bucky’s First Mate, and is also from a race of creatures with supernatural mystical abilities. This race of creatures can fire psionic blasts, and also has the ability to project themselves into the astral plane. According to Larry Hama (who wrote a spectacular new filecard for this figure) Jenny used her astral projection form to infiltrate KOMPLEX.
This version of Jenny is reminiscent of version 1, only as an astral projection, is produced in semi-translucent plastic, a somewhat smokey clear color that looks impressive enough, only made more impressive by the addition of pearlescent plastic at the hair and tail, giving the character and the figure a fantastic spectral appearance.
The paint applications are similar to the original Jenny, but side-by-side you can really tell just how different they are. Blue trim on the pearl hair and blue jewels instead of purple, she’s a vibrant color variation of the original release, which also serves a clear purpose in the story as well. An amazing looking new version of an already great base figure.
Along with the new colors, the figure maintains the flawless sculpting of the original, with an elaborately sculpted, dynamic hairdo that doesn’t impact posing thanks to the excellent counterbalance of the sculpted tail. Like Bucky himself, she looks animated and full of character, yet is fully poseable. She has incredibly narrow limbs, which are still nicely movable.
Toy collectors (and certainly kids) can often miss the connection between action figures and art, but the fact is, for nearly every toy out there, there are strong influences of artistic ability and intrinsic talent woven within the design work of the figure. Yes, sometimes budget and money gets in the way of a designer doing what they want, but Boss Fight Studio seems very able to cram as much unique artistic ability into each figure they produce.
Jenny is certainly no exception. The combination of the fantastic translucent color pallet and the pearl shine on the trim is spectacular, and makes this figure a truly remarkable addition to an already impressive line up of cartoon animals.
Accessories
Like the Stealth Mission Bucky, this Jenny update comes with all of the same accessories, just in different colors. The hands are semi-clear, the faces are all that great pearl color, and the energy projections are a vibrant clear blue instead of the pinkish/purple. Beyond those aesthetic changes, they’re all just as fun and great as the originals and capable of enhancing the basic figure to great levels.
I still love how the energy beams and magical projections form together to look like she’s launching magic energy bolts at those nasty Storm Toads, and the facial expressions are unique and fun as always.
As I continue to mention, the package art is really great. Gorgeous artwork, and an always enjoyable file card update by Larry Hama himself.
What a neat update. Striking, beautiful new paint scheme laid over an already impressive figure, gives us a great second version of Jenny. Two waves into this new Bucky O’Hare line and already two more Jenny figures than the previous line could boast. That’s progress! 😀
Summary
Jenny unleashes her mystical psionic powers in a great way with this action figure update featuring gorgeous semi-translucent plastic and a unique pearlescent paint sheen. A truly remarkable looking figure that looks as great as it poses and plays. Another winner in the Bucky O’Hare line.
Order this figure now from BossFightShop.com! And you’re gonna need some Storm Toads for him to fight!
When Boss Fight Studio first announced the Bucky O’Hare license, there was an almost immediate enthusiasm from the fandom and collector base, many of them inquiring as to when Boss Fight might tackle Deadeye Duck, the iconic four-armed, cigarette smoking Chief Gunner’s Mate of the Righteous Indignation. Many folks were wondering just how well the figure could be translated at this scale.
The answer should be obvious – they absolutely killed it. The first thing that strikes home about Deadeye Duck is the engineering, and somehow, someway, the folks at Boss Fight managed to engineer the torso to not be a whole lot larger or longer, yet still flawlessly maintain a four-armed buck that is aesthetically pleasing and 100% functional.
Mind = blown.
Each arm is individually pegged and positioned with their ball joint shoulders so they all move independently of each other, allowing for some amazingly flexible poses with the various pistols that Deadeye is packaged with. Each arm moves freely with full articulation, or they can be positioned together in various action-packed poses, either concentrating all of his fire on a central location or systematically blasting away at four separate targets.
It’s pretty amazing.
Colored in his trademark shades of orange and yellow, he looks like he stepped right out of the pages of the comic book or toy package, with an exceptionally emotive facial sculpt (with swappable beaks!) and like the Bucky figures, universal pegs that can hold the pistols in various ways. I love the sculpting his head with the trademark eye patch and cap, as well as the tooth-filled smirking bill.
Like Bucky and Jenny, the joints move freely, but are tight and rigid, allowing for posing and holding those poses very well. The oversized feet give a great sense of balance and aesthetics, making the figure easy to stand in any number of poses. Add to that, the character-driven alternate hands and bills, and you’ve got a ton of play value crammed into a very small, cost-effective package. One heck of a great figure and the best Bucky figure to date, based purely on engineering.
Accessories
As mentioned in the review itself, Deadeye comes with several alternate hands (including one holding his trademark piece of chalk cigarette... (apparently I need to bone up on my Bucky -ed) and different expressive bills. Also, he comes with four pistols, with three different sculpts. It would have been easy to just put four of the same pistol in there, but they looked at the various weapon designs and actually gave him different, more accurate pistols. Excellent work on the accessories, and they’re all easily swappable with existing parts.
Do I have to keep talking about the packaging? Well, when it’s as awesome as it continues to be here, yeah. Larry continues to do great work on the filecards, and Brian Hickey nails the layouts.
Wave 2 brought us two repaints (both of which were still pretty amazing) and then absolutely blasted this figure out of the park. Not just the best Bucky figure to date, but one of the greatest examples of engineering, accessories, and execution I’ve seen on a figure in this scale or any other. What a terrific pleasure this one was!
Summary
Perfection in plastic. Fantastic engineering, terrific sculpting, picture perfect paint applications, and a wonderful character all wrapped up into a single spectacular package. An awesome addition to the Bucky O’Hare figure assortment, filling a key character role and executing it to perfection. Don’t wait – get this one!
This spring’s New Jersey Collectors’ Con has come and gone, and there were a ton of great reveals from the folks at Boss Fight Studio. While we’ve already seen some sporadic images from the show floor itself, over on ToyArk they’ve posted some insane galleries featuring all of the new figures that were shown. I’ve mirrored a small selection of their images below, but you can hit up ToyArk directly to see over 100 images of these great looking items!
This includes figures tentatively scheduled for Series 02, Waves 04 and 05:
Along with this, several great images of Bucky O’Hare figures were shown as well, including the previously unknown Stealth Deadeye Duck and Aniverse Bucky O’Hare releases!
Some more details were shown about the upcoming Mighty Steed Kickstarter, scheduled to hit this month, including the apparent inclusion of Aspen’s Elk!
Finally, we got a nice look at the Hellhounds, an upcoming product release from Dream Concept Studios, the folks who brought us the Zombie Lab Kickstarter not so long ago.
Man, I’m really digging the looks of those Hellhounds!
Lots of cool stuff revealed at the show, and if this is what the independent toy scene is looking like these days, I’m cool with G.I. Joe being off retail shelves for a little while. Check out ToyArk.com for even more images than what I’ve shared above.