Motorboat

Now that the DC licence is changing hands back to Mattel following a good few years in Todd's hands, it's a good time to reflect on the near-total supremacy of the excellent DC vehicles McFarlane Toys was able to put out, under both the Multiverse and Super Powers lines. Both represented a method of acquiring large, highly-detailed, highly-accurate (and/or stylized, in terms of the Super Powers vehicles) vehicles for your collection at a very reasonable price. As yo himself put it, any issues with scale are moot when it comes to being able to get excellent Batmobiles from across the movies and comics that look great alongside any roughly 1:12 scale action figure. And thus we come to today's review, from the pop culture leviathan Fortnite. Appearing at the start of Chapter 2, the motorboat became a staple of quick travel around the different iterations of Fortnite's island, both via the rivers running throughout and the large ocean surrounding. Fairly easy to find and very fast moving, motorboats also boast the ability to fire a pretty powerful missile, that does a good amount of damage both to players and structures, and also feature a pretty funny jet boost that allows the water-only automobile to zoom around clumsily on land. As a testament to the kind of stupid fun Fortnite continues to offer, what might be a fairly boring watercraft becomes something really enjoyable to use, both for shenanigans and genuine strategy. (Flipping one of these bad boys over a truck with all four of your squad seated - while firing a missile!!! - never gets old.) And as with nigh everything in Fortnite, you can customize the look of a motorboat by being the first person to jump into it, with collectible skins able to emblazon the sides of the watercraft. While this toy doesn't offer quite that level of customization, it is a screen-perfect representation of the default motorboat, and at a glorious full size. At 19½" long, you can fit four (or more!) of your fav action figures in here and get up to all kinds of hilarious mischief!! As with the aforementioned McFarlane Batmobiles, the size here is what truly impresses. Available at quite a reasonable price - US$76.99 SRP, and less on sale - Hasbro made a very large, very versatile vehicle that you an use not only for your Fortnite figures, but anything in your collection. This is a sturdy-but-hollow toy, which means you can have multiple figures zooming around with it, and have Godzilla hit Kong in the face with it in a wrestling ring. It's a great accessory to any collection, with terrific paint and details. The body is mostly a dark blue, with bright orange (copper?) pipes on the sides and spots of painted battle damage or rust on the corners. Even the control dials on the dashboard are done up right! Although there's no real "articulation" - because it's a boat - the chair and steering wheel can turn, and it does feature pop out booster engines on the back, just like in the game: press Shift on your keyboard (or some random button on a console controller, I don't know) and the engines would extend from the sides and the boat would zoom forward at an increased rate of speed for a few seconds. These just pull out manually, though they do have springs to help keep them lifted into place. If not for the little bits of protective cardboard Hasbro tucked in between the boosters and the hull, it would have taken me a lot longer to realize these were an option! Unfortunately, we're going to blame these for the fact the boat can't float; the space where they sit lets water in, and eventually will flood the compartment and drag it down. We do get some solid accessories. First up, there's a great plastic translucent water base for the motorboat to fit on, which means you can display this as if it's jetting along the coast looking for action. This is a great option for both play and display, and the fact that it's easily separable from the boat itself means you're never restricted to just aquatic action, much like Fortnite itself. Secondly, the motorboat features an excellent little detailed missile that looks, again, accurate to the game, fitting into the launcher on the front left of the port bow. That this is removable gives you something fun for your toys to hold and throw around, as well as giving the boat more display options in terms of being a generic, non-combative watercraft for use in your collection. A little assembly is required when you open the box - the pilot's seat and the jet propulsion system underneath both need to be attached, and don't go expecting to take them off again - but it's easy to manage even without any included instructions. I really can't say enough good things about this. Hasbro knocked it out of the park, with a decently reasonable initial asking price, that further got cheaper and cheaper as these things moved to sales. I'm surprised they didn't sell so quickly - who doesn't want a fun twelfth-scale boat for their collection? It works with anything, as well as being a stellar Fortnite toy, and is a great add to any display. -- 03/14/25 Where we droppin'? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.