Dave's Toy Rant:

     Avengers United They Stand - Falcon

     Picked this up at Target today (12/26), they were already down to one
Tigra, one Kang and three Falcons.

CAPSULE

     Falcon: Nice articulation, decent sculpt, does tend to get in his own
way a bit.  Glue filaments and gobs mar the appearance.  Magnetic gimmicks
iffy, Redwing not so good.  Mildly recommended, $5.99 at Target.

RANT

     Okay, first I'm going to comment on Kang and Tigra, which I've had a
chance to see in person (not gonna issue any opinions just on package
pictures).  Kang looks less lame than in the cartoon, but he has a serious
lack of articulation due to the electronics running through his left arm.
The light-up capturesphere looks NOTHING like it does on the package...that
pic is pure photo-manipulation.  In fact, I could barely make out the Wasp.
Also, since all his stuff is internal, Kang looks kinda sad in the package,
like there's stuff missing.  Tigra's not too bad, and comes packaged with a
robot to beat up.  But she shares Jubilee's problem (from X-Men Robot
Fighters) of having toothpick-like arms that end up in huge balljoint
shoulders.  Ugly.  Also, her hips are swivel-style, making her less agile
than the character should be.  Decided to pass on both of these.

     Packaging: Essentially a blister card with an awning.  Looks nice, but
I'm betting the big reason for this was to increase the apparent size of the
package and thus compete more effectively for the roving eye of the buyer.
If you prefer to carefully cut open blister cards so that you can keep the
card, this package will make that difficult.  The package front proclaims
that magnetic action activates "missile firing Redwing bird," but that's
deceptive.  It activates a weak wing-flap feature, not the missile fire.

     Figure: Falcon stands 5.5" (14cm) tall and looks pretty close to his
armored show appearance.  The major concession to poseability is that the
wings are not a single unit, but are split into chunks attached to his
forearms and upper arms.  The wing pieces are floppy plastic to avoid putting
any kids' eyes out.
     The figure has 11 points of articulation.  Swivel neck, hinge elbows,
knees and ankles, ball/universal joint shoulders and hips.  The shoulders are
seriously cramped by the shoulderpads of the armor, however.  While made of a
flexible plastic, the shoulderpads have very little overall give, so it's
impossible to put Falcon's arms forward in a flying position.  The legs,
however, give great poseability.  While the ankles only move about 20
degrees, that's enough to support some good standing poses.
     Neither hand is sculpted for holding anything.  The right hand is in a
fist, the left hand is in the standard Toy Biz "open hand with ring and
little fingers curling in" grasping position.  He has a magnet on his right
wrist that is strong enough to support the figure, although you have to
fiddle around a lot to get the arm in a position where he won't just slide
down or lever off the surface.
     The appearance is a bit marred, at least on mine, by bits of glue here
and there.  There's a ring of surplus glue around the magnet, and a few
strings of glue where wings or armor attach to the base figure.  Probably a
result of trying to rush these out in time.

     Redwing: About 2.5" (6cm) tall and 3" (7cm) wide, this is one chunky
falcon.  It has a bit of paint on it for a harness and some red details, but
the lack of paint on the beak really hurts the appearance.  Paint job looks
very little like the prototype shown on the package art.  Redwing has two
motion gimmicks.  One is a backpack that fires a pair of missiles at once.
Despite barely going into the launcher before catching on the latch, the
missiles have an impressive range (about a meter straight up, so over two
meters maximum horizontal range).  The other gimmick is magnetically
activated.  The wings fold in a little bit (nowhere near as far as the
instructions indicate), and when a magnetic button on the chest is pulled out
by another magnet or a piece of metal, the wings pop back open very
undramatically.  
     There's also a smaller magnet inside the right claw.  The idea behind
this magnet is to secure the bird as it rests on Falcon's right wrist.
Unfortunately, the talons don't wrap well around this wrist, and the magnet
generally doesn't have any effect.  It's strong enough you can hang Redwing
upside down by a small piece of metal, or have it snatch up paperclips or
something.  

     Overall: A good base figure with a few minor flaws.  But the Redwing
accessory just doesn't work out.  Still, it's a pretty cheap toy, and the
main figure alone is worth the price.

     Dave Van Domelen, just discovered to his relief that the Beast Wars toy
Scourge is VERY hard to knock over, as it stopped a domino-effect started by
the rather unstable Robotman Ace....