Superarticulated - Collectible Action Figures News, Reviews & Photos

Battlestar Galactica Series 1

In my opinion, Battlestar Galactica is pretty much the greatest TV drama of all time. So, when I saw that Diamond Select Toys was putting out highly-articulated, highly-detailed action figures from the show, there’s no way I could have resisted! The first series features seven figures in all, but three of those are exclusives (you can see my review of those here). The four main figures from the first series are Lee “Apollo” Adama in flight gear, Brendan “Hot Dog” Costanza, Caprica Six, and regular “only in Baltar’s head” Six. Expand the post to see my pics and reviews.

LEE “APOLLO” ADAMA

DST has really impressed me with these figures. I normally don’t get into specialty market figs, but these are too good to pass up. I reviewed the exclusives first, so if you’ve already read that post then some of this may be redundant! And, oh yeah, these are 7″ scale; I forgot to mention that elsewhere.

First things first - articulation! Apollo features what is the “standard” articulation for this line. Think DCUC style artic. He gets ball shoulders, wrists, ankles, and neck. His waist swivels, he has single hinge knees and elbows, and he gets bicep cuts and thigh cuts. Overall he has 20 points of articulation, and that seems to be a pretty nice amount. The only thing he really lacks is decent forward/backward ankle articulation. The ankle is actually a small true ball joint, so there is some lateral movement in all directions, but it’s very limited.

Next up - sculpt! Wow… Specialty market toys have no competition from the mass market in terms of sculpt. These figures are gorgeous! Lee’s flight suit looks it just walked right off the screen. Every pip, button, fold, crease, zipper, and patch is exquisitely detailed. This figure is a work of frakkin’ art! The only criticism is his face sculpt. It isn’t bad. The likeness is actually pretty good, but it could be better. Still, he has plenty of detail and character in his face.

How about paint? Another “wow” category. There is a lot of paint detail going on here. Apollo is trimmed out with dry brushing to bring out his uniform’s texture, and plenty of tight little gold accents on the buttons and pins. The flight suit has a lot of different pieces, including a vest and belt, that required a lot of precise detail work. There is no paint bleed or slop anywhere. This figure is painted absolutely perfectly! Except (there’s always an exception!) for the face. They tried to give him a stubbly five o’clock shadow and it just came out messy. Aside from that, the paint is flawless.

Now let’s talk about accessories! There’s no shortage here. Apollo is decked out. He has a cool gun that fits in his holster on his belt. He comes with an extra pair of swappable “gloved” hands, and he gets his neato space/flight helmet. The helmet is engineered cleverly - it’s two pieces so you sort of put the helmet on then snap the face shield in place. It works really well. Apollo also came with some little tiny gold tidbit thing that I really have no idea what it’s supposed to be. Hopefully someone can clue me in on that. Overall, I really can’t say enough good things about this figure.

CAPRICA SIX

Caprica Six is one of two versions of the same character in this series. Like Apollo, she has the “standard” articulation from this line. Plenty of poseability here. Unlike Apollo, though, she’s a little bland. Her sculpt detail is great, and her paint is sharp - for what there is of it. She’s basically just a woman in a pair of pants and a sleeveless top, so there really wasn’t much else DST could have done with her, though, so I’m not holding her simple design against them. The bummer is that she comes with no pack-ins at all, which is a bit disappointing. DST could have at least hooked her up with the arrow of Apollo or something. Ah well, she still poses nicely and at least somewhat resembles Tricia Helfer, so I’m happy to have her on the shelf.

SIX

The second version of Cylon Number Six is the “figment of Dr. Baltar’s imagination” version. She’s clad in her classic red dress and really looks a good deal like her TV counterpart. Because of her outfit, though, her articulation is limited. She does have hinged knees and “V” hip joints under there, but they’re pretty much useless because of the restrictions of the dress. Her upper body, however, has the same artic as all the other figs, so there is still some functional poseability to her. Her paint and sculpt detail are both quite nice, but like the other version of Six, she has no accessories or pack-ins. Plus, she’s very difficult to stand on her own. All of these figures have peg holes in their feet, so especially for the Sixes since they have no accessories, some kind of a display base would have been nice.

BRENDAN “HOT DOG” COSTANZA

Hot Dog is a random, minor character to make into the first series. But the reasons why are pretty apparent - he’s the only other pilot on the show who is roughly the same size as Lee. Yep, he uses the exact same body as Apollo from neck to toe. His only unique piece is his head. All of that is okay, though. Because the Apollo figure is outstanding and there’s no real reason not to reuse it as a generic base for all the “short” male pilots. And speaking of Hot Dog’s head sculpt - it’s probably the best of this bunch. It actually looks a good deal like the character (who also looks a great deal like a young Donnie Walhberg…)

Hot Dog comes with all the same accessories as Apollo, so even though he may not be a terribly sought after character, you definitely won’t feel buyer’s remorse for adding him to the collection. He’s a really nicely done figure.