Captain America (Super Combat)

July 4, 2011 | By More


Captain America might be the movie I’m most excited to see this year. I just hope we get some action figure goodness out of it. Yeah, I know Thor and Green Lantern are out. And I know Transformers is out. I just happen to like World War II stuff. And World War II stuff with a superhero just sounds like fun to me.

This particular figure is the “Super Combat” version. Essentially, this appears to be the “Hero” movie version of Cap.

Appearnce:

This is always a little tough when the film hasn’t come out yet. I’ve combed through some of the images and video online to come up with some idea of what he looks like in the film. Don’t hate me if I get it wrong.

In the package, this figure looked good enough. Out of the package, I immediately started noticing things. Mainly, I noticed poor paint everywhere. There’s a bleed through in a number of places. The blue bleeds through his star a bit. There’s really bad bleed through on the gloves. That brown just doesn’t want to cover the white. The lines on the gloves aren’t very crisp, either. On top of that, the white unpainted wrist peg really shows up in contrast to the brown gloves.

One area where the paint and sculpt seem to be at odds with one another is the red portion of the web gear. The red stripes look like they are on top of a sculpt that looks like it could have looked a lot better. I don’t think any of the little silver buckles for the web gear are painted completely.

With all the minor paint issues, the head looks pretty good. The painted wings and “A” are crisp. The eyes are there. Really don’t have any issues with the head for a change.

The outfit is close. It’s not 100% screen accurate to what I was able to find, though.  The shoulders in the film are more of a large quilted pattern than the small knurl type pattern here. The straps on the inside of the biceps are should be brown.

There also seems to be a bag strapped to across his chest in the film not present on the figure.

The boots I’m not sure about. The cuff / shin portion just looks like a wrapping of some sort. I think I know what sort of boot they were going for, I just don’t thinks this figure pulls it off. I’m going to reserve final judgement on them until after the film comes out.

Fun:

You know what is missing here? Some kind of action shooting springy doodad nobody really wants. Also missing is a a figure stand. I don’t normally use figure stands, but I like to know I could If I wanted to. Compared to a GI Joe or even an Iron Man II figure, this blister seems awfully empty. If they had knocked a buck or two off the price, I’d have been okay with that. But, they didn’t which even cheapens this figure further.

Cap here faces what a number of aging folks suffer from. Bad knees. It’s not that they don’t work right. They feel like they are going to tear off when I flex them. The knee piece if a really bendy piece of rubber. The wrists also suffer from feeling like they will fall off.

The troubles don’t stop there. The ankles appear to have a hinge joint in them. Due to the cuff pieces on the shin, it is effectively rendered useless which makes standing him up a bit difficult.

Why is standing him up difficult? His right leg is longer than the left. Not much, but it doesn’t take much.

Cap comes with three accessories: a gun, a helmet, and his trademark round shield. I suspect at some point there will be a movie version with the triangular shield, but it’s not this one.

The gun is a pretty typical automatic for this size. Molded in a silvery grey, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t a GI Joe reuse. It even looks a tiny bit small for him. The gun fits well into it’s holster, however the strap needs to be a tiny bit longer to cover it. I also thought from pictures he had a holster with a flap over the top with U.S. on it. But I’m not sure that is this outfit.

Another thing I’m not sure at this point is if the helmet belongs with this outfit. From what I’ve seen online, he has the helmet when is in more of an Airborne type uniform. When he switches to this outfit, the pictures don’t really show him with the helmet. It’s what you would expect for a Blue WWII helmet. There are some brown straps on the side that do a good job holding it to his head.

Last up we have his shield. In the package, it looked great. The lines on the front looked clean. I was even impressed by the sculpted pieces for the star with little rivets at the end. THen I saw the back. From that side, the shield is wavy and the red looks more bled over than masked. I wonder if the waviness is a molding/material issues since the piece looks well sculpted on the back. Oh, and because the shield has two straps on it, there’s no way to attach it to his back.

Overall:

This is a figure that I almost wish I hadn’t taken out of the blister. The packaging hid a number of flaws that really do add up. Sadly, this is the only version currently out there for the movie style Cap. Less than perfect articulation and paint really set back what could have been an awesome figure.

I my best advice is that if you want to get this one, rally look the paint over. If like me, it’s the only one you’ve seen, there isn’t much choice. But if you have a choice look it over.  Here’s hoping the next wave makes up for this ones diappointments.

Engineernerd Score: 75/100

Engineernerd Note: In all fairness, I may have been a little tough on this guy. Did I just happen to get a lemon?  For a counterpoint, check out this review by RAC at FigureReviews.com.:

http://figurereviews.com/39.330.0.0.1.0.phtml

 

Be Sociable, Share!

Tags: , , , ,

Category: Featured, Marvel, Toy Reviews

About the Author ()

Comments (6)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Errex says:

    I like this outfit, and the hip construction looks solid, unlike the WWII Cap A, I got a few days ago. It had a really loose hip post and although I found a way to fix it, then I realized that my figure also has one leg longer than the other.

    Paint on mine was tolerable, but it seems there are issues on almost all of the first lots of figures.

  2. Iok says:

    I haven’t seen this particular version of Cap for myself but I have to say that the Battlefield one has similarly weak knee joints. US Agent isn’t much better, either.

  3. Engineernerd says:

    I have to say I like the costume as well. Always the scariest part of waiting for a superhero movie.

    I’m not a huge fan of the Marvel Legends style hips. They’re just a bit fussy to move around.

  4. Engineernerd says:

    I was glad I realized the Battlefield one was a movie version. I’d have been disappointed.

    I’m hoping they make a Battlefield version from the film with the triangular shield. I glimpsed it for a brief second in a trailer.

  5. Newt says:

    I think Hasbro must use a different factory to rush out product for movie lines or something. Reminds me of how the first wave or two of Indy had a lot of QC issues, yet the later ones were perfect.

    They probably should have took their time with Cap.

  6. Engineernerd says:

    I actually said the exact same thing yesterday to somebody. You would’ve thought they would have learned from that.