Hands down the best sculpt of the character I’ve ever seen. It’s a little on the pricey size, but it is a very large statue, standing at over 17” in height. Still, I’m not sure I’ll be getting on at retail price. Big as it is, it’s still not big enough to be Wendigo at 1/4 scale as he should be bigger than Hulk at the same scale—that is, around 24” or so.
Gotta admit I’m reading way fewer comics than I should these days. No, it’s not that I’m going older; perhaps it’s because I’ve been a little busy recently? Nah, that’s bull… it certainly hasn’t stopped me in the past. I think the real problem here might be that I haven’t really gotten into any of the recent events.
Thor’s on-going storyline with Mephisto and the Aesir is interesting enough; but that’s a single storyline—hardly enough to satisfy me seeing that it’s a monthly release. What I need is an interesting event; one that arcs into multiple other stories and comic books.
Doomwar was ace but was over too quickly—and I’ve gotta say I wasn’t a huge fan of the art style; Reign of Kings wasn’t quite the epic I thought it would be (War of Kings, on the other hand, remains one of my best Marvel events in recent years); Dark Reign was a blast for the first nine months or so but it slowly lost pace and could have ended better. On the DC side, the Death of Bruce Wayne and War of Light are events I’m yet to explore, even though I intend to… and back to the Marvel Camp and the on-going Infinity War—eh, haven’t we seen that before? So, and this is where I began, Shadowland seems to offer something different: intrigue; there is something morbidly fascinating about the anti-hero that eventually totters over the brink and into the dark side. DareDevil seems to have done just that in this arc, and with even the Avengers unsure as to whether to interfere with the Hands presence in Hell Kitchen, there is so much room for this to become the true event of the year…
I’m just on issue #1, and haven’t read the rest of the released arcs, but already I like what I see.
Not so early as these has been posted by Yoshinori Ono on his blog for around a week or so. There’s also links to them on SRK
Still waiting to see what’s in store for Sagat and Adon; I saw a very brief preview on a YouTube video the other day but no pics as yet.
I’ve wanted this piece for such a long time.
These days, thankfully, I can count on my fingers the pieces I really, really want but still don’t have. I won’t say this Bat Family statue is right at the top of that “must have” list, but it nonetheless features somewhere on it.
Which is why I can’t justify not getting it now that it’s on half-price sale.
Perhaps a valid question should be why the thing is on sale when majority of my collection command higher prices (sometime, much higher) than they were initially bought for. Either this is a lot worse in person than it looks in the pictures, or it simply skimmed below the radar of most of us collectors.
Either way I’m very tempted… will decided by tonight me thinks. Thankfully the rest of the diorama doesn’t quite interest me and as I’m sure I won’t be getting the other two pieces, this will be a standalone statue.
And while RichBamf at statue forums makes a good point about the scene not being based off the Hush Gatefold cover, the truth is that premium DC Comics sculpts are rather rare—I could more or less count the few that interest me on one hand; DC Collectors can’t be as picky as Marvel ones I guess…
Please note the review is for the Legendary Edition bundle; not the game itself. I’ll put up a review of the campaign once I’m done with it.
INTRO: So what’s all this fuss about Halo?
For what I suspect would be a good number of Halo Reach day one adopters, the journey with the Halo universe began about 9 years ago when the original game was launched. Halo, arguably, defined console shooters and served notice that the PC platform wasn’t the only place to be if you were a serious FPS fan. Of course there was Time splitters and a number of other memorable first person shooters before Halo, but with Xbox Live—Microsoft’s trump card for its then nascent console offering—millions of users could, for the first time on a console, get immersed in the juggernaut that is now online multiplayer; a privilege only once enjoyed by PC gamers.
Once you finished the original Halo campaign, chances are you spent so much time in online multiplayer, that developers Bungie had all but guaranteed themselves a footprint in your memory; one which meant that every Halo game sequel, and—for the more hardcore—every piece of merchandise and media material, would pique your interest. I happen to fall into the “hardcore” category of Halo fan. I bought all three of the games; ditto ODST, even though I hardly class that as a “real” Halo IP; did I fall for the sucka punch of the Halo 3 legendary edition? yes, sadly. However, while the Halo 3 legendary edition and its “limitedness” is now something of a joke in gaming circles, I suspect that the Halo Reach Legendary Edition will remain a gem on many a gamer’s shelf for years to come. The reason for my suspicion is simple: the awesomeness of the Team Noble Diorama included in the bundle.
The purpose of this post, is to explore that diorama in detail.
PART 1: Unboxing the beast.
I got mine a day early and even though the package says not to deliver till 14th September (tomorrow), I’ll move swiftly on as I’m sure tens of thousands of gamers like me also got theirs early. This is just the way the industry works I guess; depending on which retailer you purchased from, you might get the bundle cheaper (£89.99) and early (by 24 hours) like I did; or you might get it for more (£149.99 on the evil bay; ouch!) and on launch day or perhaps even later.
When I heard the doorbell ring this morning I didn’t expect to get the Halo Reach Legendary edition; but I got lucky, and there it was. One signature, a broken ruler (to cut the tape), and a few minutes later, Halo Reach Legendary Edition laid unboxed in all its glory:
The box itself is reasonably heavy; I’d say around 5Kgs. It’s also right around the same size as Sideshow’s Legendary Scale Busts (no pun intended). In fact its almost identical in size to the Black Cat LSB I received late last week; though it’s a fair bit heavier.
PART 2: Team Noble
In all other Halo games, you played mostly solo; even in Halo 2, where you played as the Arbiter, you played either as him, or Masterchief, without teamwork being in that equation. In Halo Reach however, you are an elite Spartan—a Spartan II model, I believe—however, the campaign isn’t about you; it’s about an entire team of elite Spartans, called Team Noble. Team Noble is, to Halo Reach, what Masterchief is to the other Halo games.
Each member of Team Noble has his or her own distinct personality, armour and accessories, and you really get that feel when you look at the diorama; your eyes likely won’t see Team Noble as a motley group of soldiers, instead they are presented as a team of unique individuals that each deserves to be inspected—separate from the rest. Personally, I kept walking around the diorama (or turning it around) because every one of the characters there was badass in their own right and had me reaching out and inspecting the different parts of their armour. The range of accessories, patterns, and weapons on each of members armour is just incredible. Not something you expect to see in a diorama that costs a fraction of the price of Sideshow’s own pieces. McFarlene toys outdid themselves here—the Team Noble diorama is simply fantastic!
The diorama itself is about a kilogram or so and is made of what seems like PVC. The hand-painting shows and adds an additional layer of attention and detail you simply didn’t get with the Halo 3 legendary edition offering. This thing doesn’t just look badass, it feels expensive.
On the back you see a smooth wall with “Noble” and a couple inscriptions etched in; the etched in features are presentable enough to be showcased and suggest that the diorama, if possible, should be displayed in a 360 degree format (like on a pedestal that can be rotated or walked around)
PART 3: Weapons ready
You also get the team’s weapons in a separate sealed bag, as well as instructions to install them onto the diorama, as statues themselves are semi-articulated (mostly the hands and fingers). The weapons included are a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a Gatling gun, and a DMR scoped assault gun.
I didn’t really get to install all the weapons as I want to do that once I’ve put the rest of my statue collection on display! This is one of the pieces that I’ll get a glass pedestal installed for.
PART 3: Final thoughts.
There is no doubt that the bigger studios would love to get their hands on the Halo license; if that happens, we might start seeing some very impressive (and very expensive) Halo statues. Weta did that with Halo 3; Sideshow has already caught on the bandwagon as some smaller studios now sell a number of smaller Halo Reach pieces under its stables. However, at the moment, there is not a single Halo piece out there (in my opinion) that comes close to the depiction of Team Noble in McFarlane’s diorama.
This piece is very well detailed, well posed, well constructed, well painted, and well packaged. As a huge Halo fan, and an ardent collector of the highest quality comic and video game statues in production, I honestly couldn’t ask more from the package; and its all for £89.99!
If you are a real Halo fan that was already sold on the Halo Reach game itself, but was wondering whether or not to shell out to buy the extras included in Legendary edition, my advice to you is buy it; and buy it fast. Because I don’t see too many people letting go of theirs once they have them. Those than wait for these to fall in price down the line may well be disappointed—this most certainly won’t be Halo 3’s “cat helmet” all over again. And forget all the questionable “dioramas” from Kotobukiya studios; this, people, is the shit.
My final grade for the Legendary Edition bundle: A+
Click the album below to view a slideshow of, or to download, the entire gallery.
I’ve had this for a number of weeks but never got around seeing it (very strange, as I’m usually an animated feature-film fiend!). I finally saw it a couple days ago and was impressed.
The creators captured the Red Hood comic arc near perfectly, from the epic showdown with Amazo, to the backstory of Jason Todd’s mysterious resurrection, down to the scene were Jason Todd (Spoiler!) cuts Batman’s cord around his ankle before it got taut. And I love the follow-on scene:
Bruce: How many knives do you know that can cord my cord?
Nightwing: Not many
Bruce: Not many.
I was thrilled that some gore and graphically violent depictions were also left in; The Red Hood was definitely a dark storyline and taking out those darker elements (the Joker beating Todd to near death with a crow bar, for instance) would only have spoiled the experience, I think.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this feature film; the batman feature films seldom disappoint and unlikely Wonder-Woman and Superman’s Doomsday feature-length film before it, BUTRH is a comic flick I can whole-heartedly recommend. If you picked up Green Lantern: First Flight, pick this up as well. You won’t be disappointed.
