AA/ DST Figure Spotlight- Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott

Figure Name: Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott
Manufacturer: Art Asylum Toys



Scotty was released carded as part of Art Asylum's second wave of Classic Star Trek figures.



The Rundwon: Scotty didn't make the cut for the first assortment of Art Asylum's Classic Star Trek figures, but he's easily one of the best of the second wave.



Yep, that's Scotty. The hair is based off of his haircut from the first 2 seasons of the show, not the close-cropped third season haircut. It would have been nice to see the 3rd season sculpt as a seperate figure, but the choice of the first and second season haricut was the right way to go for this frist release.



The body sculpt is fantastic and pretty perfectly matches Doohan's build at the time. He's got a great amount of articulation that doesn't break up the sculpt too much.



As with the other classic crew figures, the shirt is molded out of a rubbery material that hides the mid-torso articulation. A neat idea, but it may not stand the test of time. Already, the paint on the delta shield on mine has begun to weaken, and the black collar is causing discoloration on the neck. That's a real shame since this figure is just about perfect other than that.



Accessories: Scotty comes with a communicator, a phaser, a tricorder, and an extra hand. It would have been kinda neat if Art Asylum would have sculpted an alternate right hand with only 4 fingers (since James Doohan was actually missing a finger on his right hand), but it probably would have been confusing to folks who didn't know about it...

-James

Ertl Figure Spotlight- Mr. Spock (Star Trek III The Search For Spock)

Figure Name: Mr. Spock
Manufacturer: Ertl Toys



Mr. Spock was released carded as part of Ertl's Star Trek III The Search For Spock line.



The Rundown: Man, Ertl made some weird choices for it's Star Trek III line. Sure, Kruge was a no-brainer. But Scotty instead of McCoy? And Kirk in his starfleet uniform that he barely wears in the movie? Or even worse...Spock in his uniform which he only wears in a flashback scene from Star Trek II! Still, it's cool to have them in these uniforms in this scale, so I'll take 'em any way I can get 'em.



The head is not bad. Easily recognizable as Spock. Really not bad for the scale and the time period. Mego may have done it a bit better on the 'Motion Picture' figures though....



The body sculpt is okay. Ertl chose to go with the O-Ring style articulation (like G.I.Joe and Dukes Of Hazard figures) which somewhat limits what you can do with the sculpt. This made them awesome for me when I was a kid though... They can do lots of cool poses and moves and were able to easily interact with my G.I.Joe figures ;)



Accessories: Spock comes with a phaser. It's a good sculpt, but it's WAY too big and he can't hold it well due to his hand sculpt. You're better off leaving it at his feet...

-James

Mego Figure Spotlight- Captain Kirk (12.5" 'The Motion Picture' Figure)

Figure Name: Captain Kirk
Manufacturer: Mego Toys Corp.



Kirk was released as part of Mego's boxed 12.5" figure line.



The Rundown: Another pretty solid entry in the Mego 12.5" line. The outfit is incredibly well made for it's time and price point. Mego knew what they were doing when it came to making clothes. The seam lines are nice and sharp, and the little details like the insignia and belt device look great. My only minor complaints are the little boots and the material used to make the gold ranking stripes (by the way, Mego erroneously labels this figure as "Captain" Kirk on the box...the figure depicts him as an Admiral), but again those are very minor nitpicks. There's not a lot else Mego could have done to make the boots and rank stripes work at the price point they sold this at. Very nice work on the uniform



The head is good. Not great, but good. Considering how tough it seems to be to nail a Shatner likeness coupled with the fact that they are working in vinyl though makes the head much more acceptable. Oh, and if your Kirk head is suffering from the "zombie graying", again heres a method to get the gray out.. I haven't personally tried it since my heads aren't too bad off yet, but I'll make sure to post if I do.



Accessories: Kirk comes with a TMP style phaser. It's a nice sculpt with a little detailed sticker on top.

And in case you want to know a little bit more about Mr. Kirk, here's his box bio-

Star Trek 'Potpourri' Spotlight- Custom Playmates Harry Mudd (From Mudd's Women)

Figure Name: Harry Mudd (As Seen in "Mudd's Women")
Made by customizer Matthew Hackley



The Rundown: Continuing the line of "What if Playmates had kept the Classic Star Trek license?" figures, here's Harry Mudd! (Don't know what I'm talking about? Click here for more info). Now, if you've been with my blog since it started last month, you may remember this post where I first told of my love of the character Harry Mudd. He's awesome. Well, as explained in that post, when Playmates did Harry Mudd, they based the figure off of his appearance from the episode "I, Mudd", but his accessories were based on his appearance from "Mudd's Women". I always wanted a figure to match those accessories, so when it came time to nail down the list of figures Matt would be working on, Harry Mudd from "Mudd's Women" was pretty high up there.



Matt really strived for screen accuracy with Harry. He matched the look from Harry's earring down to the little designs on Harcourt's 'belt flaps'. We also chatted about whether Harry should have his hat or not, since he goes without it for a large portion of the episode. In order to distinguish him more from the produced Harry Mudd figure, we ultimately decided the hat was the way to go...and I'm glad we did. The hat really helps set the figure apart. But my favorite part...



...is the intricate work Matt did on those sleeves! Harry wore sort of a puffy pirate shirt in "Mudd's Women" and I was a little worried that it might be tough to capture. I think Matt did it really well. They bunch up at the wrists, and then billow out with tons of little folds and wrinkles. Really nice work!

So here he is..."Mudd's Women" Harry Mudd, as if Playmates had done him...



-James

Playmates Figure Spotlight- Ensign Chekov(Classic Star Trek Collector Set)

Figure Name: Ensign Chekov
Manufacturer: Playmates Toys



Pavel was released as part of the insanely awesome Classic Star Trek Collectors Figure Set.



The Rundown: Let me start off by saying the Playmates Classic Crew Collector Set may be my favorite Star Trek toy ever produced. It's an awesome set and I highly recommend getting it if you dont have it already. The box is awesome and you get all 7 main crew members in one swoop. They all feature very good likenesses too, like our boy Chekov here-



That's a pretty good likeness for Playmates. To me, it's easily recognizable as Chekov. They really got the boyish, Davy Jones look that Pavel sported at the time. The body sculpt is solid too with a good, young build. This is the only classic series Chekov Playmates ever did (not including the Transporter series one that shared this same sculpt) so thankfully it's pretty much spot-on. If you're a fan of playmates style figures, this figure (not to mention the whole set) is a must-have.



Accessories: Like very other figure in this set, Pavel comes with a phaser and a communicator. Both are very well sculpted and painted. Each figure also comes with a delta shiled display stand matching their field- command, sciences, or engineering (not pictured).

And in case you want to read the bio from the back of the box-

Mego Figure Spotlight- Klingon

Figure Name: Klingon
Manufacturer: Mego Toys Corp.



The Klingon was released carded as part of Mego's first series 8" Star Trek figures.



The Rundown: Mego sometimes stretched the limits of imagination on it's 8" figures, but thankfully the Klingon is relatively spot on. Though the character is nameless, most people (myself included) think he is based on Koloth. I don't think it's based on the 'William Campbell' Koloth from "The Trouble With Tribbles" though. I think he's based directly off of the animated version from the episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles". See, here's the Mego-



...and here's a shot Koloth from the cartoon-



Yeah, that's pretty dead-on, down to the outfit.



The figure is one of the best aliens in the 8" line. The costuming is well made and the head is definitely recognizable as a Klingon (that's something alot of the other figures can't claim). Top notch work on this one Mego!



Accessories: The Klingon comes with a black belt, a red phaser, and a red communicator. He musta yanked them off a dead red-shirt. Sneaky Klingons...

-James

Playmates Figure Spotlight- Dr. McCoy(In Dress Uniform)

Figure Name: Dr. McCoy (In Dress Uniform)
Manufacturer: Playmates Toys



Bones was released on the Playmates Star Trek 'Unified' cardback.



The Rundown: Playmates released McCoy in his fancy clothes here to complete the classic trinity in their dress uniforms; Kirk and Spock came in the Starfleet Officers Collector's Set, McCoy came out as a single release. Unfortunately, McCoy was released as part of Playmates horrible '1701' promotion. There were only around 10,000 McCoy 'Dress' figures made. That seems like alot by today's standards, but back then it was a pretty limited release. I myself never saw him on shelves and it wasn't until the advent of eBay that I mamanged to pick him up.



The figure utilizes the standard classic McCoy head sculpt seen in the Classic Crew Set. It's a good head sculpt. Not great, but good. You can definitely tell it's De Kelley, but it is a little on the thick side.



The body is your standard Playmates issue. Well articulated and matches the show version fairly well. The medals are not just painted on, they are sculpted on the chest. Playmates could have cheaped out on that and just used a Kirk or Spock sculpt and not painted all the medals, but they didn't. It's little things like that which are sometimes missing on the newer figures, like the new DST 'Cage' Spock. That Spock utilizes the same shirt mold as the Pike figure. DST didn't even bother to change the delta shield from Command to Sciences. That's just plain lazy, and I'm glad Playmates didn't do something similar with Bones here.



Accessories: Bones comes with a display stand (not pictured), a tricorder, a hypospray, an anabolic protoplaser, and a communicator. The weapons are (thankfully) molded in black, and the tricorder and communicator have painted details. The communicator mold used on this figure is much thicker than the mold used for the classic set.

And his cardback bio-



-James