{"id":15814,"date":"2014-06-15T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T04:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=15814"},"modified":"2025-09-06T21:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T01:07:54","slug":"minimate-mini-review-170-marvel-minimates-tru-series-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2014\/06\/minimate-mini-review-170-marvel-minimates-tru-series-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimate Mini-Review #170 - Marvel Minimates TRU Series 14"},"content":{"rendered":"

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#170 - Havok\/Storm<\/h3>\n

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Alex Summers, younger brother of the X-Men team leader Cyclops<\/a>, is a mutant who can absorb cosmic radiation and shape it into a beam of energy. While he lives in the shadow of his older brother, he is also a leader in his own right, having headed up X-Factor in two different realities.<\/i><\/p>\n

It's mildly annoying that this Minimate is wearing the same costume as the last one<\/a>, but it's done so much better that it's hard to complain about. Rather than a plain black body, he has grey musculature, and the detail on his chest-circles is much more crisp. His mask is removable (leaving him with civilian hair<\/a>), so the three white bars that make up his headdress are not just glued onto a normal head. I've gotta say, the old head was better. Good thing the Minimate construction means you can swap parts easily!<\/p>\n

When Ororo Munroe first met Charles Xavier<\/a>, she was a pickpocket on the streets of Cairo; when next they met, she was a weather-controlling goddess on the plains of Africa. Recognizing the potential of her mutant abilities, Xavier asked her to join his mutant strike force, the X-Men.<\/i><\/p>\n

Remember in the review for '90s Storm<\/a> when we said there was a debate about what color that costume was meant to be<\/a>? It was because she was wearing this<\/b> costume immediately prior. They're cut nearly identically, and this one was drawn as black with white highlights, while that one was drawn as white with black shadows, making for a minimal change at best (and it didn't help that the old ToyBiz X-Men<\/i> line used the same mold for both costumes, just painting them differently).<\/p>\n

This Minimate is gloss black, with gray details, gold trim on the cape, and a big gold lightning bolt on her chest (which, as a new comicbook reader back then, I always got confused with Ms. Marvel's<\/a> costume). She has big new hair, painted earrings, a swooshing fight stand, two lightning effects for her arms, and also a new miniature whirlwind piece that can fit over her hand. That's neat!<\/p>\n

This is an interesting set. Like many of the TRU exclusives, it's meant to complement another release (in this case, Marvel Minimates<\/i> Series 47), but in some areas it actually came out about a week before<\/b> those figures. How odd!<\/div>\n
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#171 - Box\/Vindicator<\/h3>\n

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Madison Jeffries is a mutant who can shape metal, glass and plastic with his mind. He helped upgrade the Box battle suit for Canadian super-team Alpha Flight, and took control of Box when the original pilot went rogue. He can now phase in and out of the armor as well as alter its shape and size.<\/i><\/p>\n

Wow, it's a guy in bulky red and silver armor - haven't seen that before<\/a>! Actually, we haven't seen most of him before. I'm certain those boots have been used somewhere before, but the rest of the add-ons - the waist piece, the chest cap, the gloves and the helmet - are new. His arms and legs are painted to look banded, white the upper chest and the back of the neck have the same designs sculpted on. To show his shape-changing abilities, you can replace one of the hands with a square, blocky blaster hand.<\/p>\n

If you remove the helmet, there's a translucent yellow head with some shadows painted on to suggest a face. The only thing we can figure out is that it's supposed to represent the way he phased in and out of the armor (rather than traditionally \"wearing\" it). Eh, it's not the worst choice in the world. The set also includes a trans yellow Nova<\/a> stand, which never looks right when they try to give it to anyone but Nova.<\/p>\n

Heather Hudson's husband James was the pilot of the Guardian battle suit, stolen from a weapons supplier and used to start up Alpha Flight. When James was believed dead, Heather modified his battle suit and underwent training with Wolverine<\/a> to became the Canadian team's new leader.<\/i><\/p>\n

If there was any doubt that a woman will look better than a man wearing the same thing<\/a>, here's Vindicator wearing her husband's old costume. On him it was just a really nice piece of graphic design; on her, it looks like a costume. You have your choice of three headpieces: fully exposed hair, or one of two masks with a visor on the front and a ponytail on the back.<\/p>\n

Why two? Well, she actually wore a red visor in the comics, but was colored with a blue one often enough that Art Asylum opted to include both, so fans could pick which look they like better. They're molded from translucent colored plastic, then painted. The white paint isn't quite thick enough, so one's tinted pink, and the other's... why is there no single word for \"light blue\" that's analogous to pink's relationship to red? She also gets a swooshy flight stand.<\/p>\n

This Toys \"Я\" Us exclusive is clearly meant as a companion to the two Alpha<\/a> Flight<\/a> box sets, and if I'd had even a modicum of sense, I would have just set up that first review with room to expand it as the others were released. But I didn't, because I'm dumb. We still don't have every<\/b> notable Alpha Flighter, but this is still a pretty impressive team you can assemble.<\/p>\n

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#172 - Iron Man\/Rhino<\/h3>\n

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After building a high-tech suit of armor to help him escape captivity, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark improved on his designs and became a costumed hero. Teaming up with like-mided heroes to form the Avengers, Stark must find time for his role as a CEO; he is also the team's main financial backer.<\/i><\/p>\n

Wow, this Iron Man. He's got a new helmet, new chest cap, new gloves, new waist, new thighs, and new feet, and yet he still feels like a total retread. His face and abdomen even get new paint apps, and yet I can't being myself to care. It's another<\/a> crack at the Extremis armor, and it's stll not very good. This torso on the old legs might be nice, but the colors are different, so forget it. The new thighs are poorly designed: they get so thin at the top that the balljoint socket ends up incredibly shallow, meaning they fall right off at the slightest provocation.<\/p>\n

Aleksei Sytsevich was a low-level Russian thug when he was offered the near-​indestructible Rhino armor. Although he was easily defeated by Spider-Man, he has upgraded his suit over the years, and repeatedly boosted his strength with gamma radiation. He possesses superhuman strength and speed.<\/i><\/p>\n

Hard to believe the only other Rhino Minimate we've gotten was in 2003, as a hidden bonus figure in a TRU exclusive<\/a>. And now this one is an exclusive, too (even if the packaging doesn't point it out)! This one is a more appropriate size, thanks to the add-on boots, thighs, waist, gloves, biceps, and chest cap. He has studded bands around his wrists and ankles - a costume feature from the '80s - and lots of painted details on his torso. They could have gotten away with reusing the existing head cap, but designed a new one instead.<\/p>\n

Rhino's a nice update, but man<\/b> does this Iron Man blow! What a shame.<\/div>\n
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#173 - Ultimate Spider-Man\/Ultimate Captain America<\/h3>\n

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Gaining his powers from a radioactive spider, Miles Morales possesses all of the original Spider-Man's<\/a> powers - strength, speed, stickiness - plus two bonus-powers: invisibility and a paralyzing touch. When his world's Peter Parker<\/a> was killed, Miles decided to fill his shoes as the new Spider-Man.<\/i><\/p>\n

The new Spider-Man costume was designed by Sara Pichelli, and looks really sharp! The suit is mostly black (though given grey detailing here to create anatomical details) with red webbing over the shoulders and head. The webs don't go over the top of the mask, but that's just an effect of the Minimate, not an actual feature of the design. It's not like the webs stop just above his eyes in the book, you know?<\/p>\n

The figure's mask is removable, revealing the face of Miles Morales beneath it. When Marvel announced their plans to off Peter Parker and replace him, the reaction of sane people everywhere was \"sure, that could be interesting\" or \"someone who's not Peter Parker in the suit? That's not right,\" while the reaction of people who are scared of losing their privilege was \"this is just political correctness run rampant!\" The skintone is pale brown, and there are some surprisingly complex paint apps to create his hair.<\/p>\n

Injected with a super-soldier formula that made him America's secret weapon in World War II, Steve Rogers was frozen in the ice near the end of the war. Thawed out years later, Cap found himself in a world that has passed him by, and learned that his old enemies, the Chitauri, were still a threat to Earth.<\/i><\/p>\n

This is the second<\/a> Earth-1610 Cap (modern era, at least: there was also a WWII variant). The colors are more vibrant, and he has rings around his arms and legs to form the cuffs on his boots and gloves. The utility belt is smaller, but there is the addition of a strap around his left leg.<\/p>\n

The shield is the movie version, and he has the same left hand as Frontline Captain America<\/a> for the shield to plug onto without bulking the arm up too much. Also, the hair is the same mold that Frontline had, just in a brighter, comicbooky yellow. On the last Ultimate Cap, we said his face was boring - this time, that is definitely not the case! He's verging on homely.<\/p>\n

The TRU Minimates<\/i> series have always featured exclusive figures, and that's fine - there were stickers on the package to let you know which ones you couldn't get in the mass market releases, and building a full collection was easy. But ever since Series 9<\/a>, they've been releasing some figures that are not available outside of Toys \"Я\" Us and also not marked as exclusives, and that's frustrating. None of the figures in this series are available anywhere else, but only the X-Men and Alpha Flight pairs get identified as such.<\/p>\n

So the only way to make sure you get the toys you need is to A) closely follow every bit of Minimates<\/i> news so you know what's available where, or 2) just buy everything when it hits shelves and sort it out later. No question which one Art Asylum and TRU would prefer, but for us, it's an annoyance. Come on, companies: if it's only available at TRU, put the sticker on it. Why would you not<\/b> want to advertise something so special?<\/div>\n
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