Kata (? or ?, literally: "form") is a Japanese word describing detailed choreographed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in pairs"taken from wiki"
Running out of options before returning to the 3-packs, I submitted to doing a review of the wave 2 Roadblock going into it thinking I was going to be disappointed, boy was I surprised.
I'm going to go ahead and call this figure the Sleeper in Wave two as in you think it's no big deal until you open it up, kind of like Dad's old rusty 76 GMC pickup with the stroked 400 and hot ignition under the hood that he intimidates the local teenagers with.
You go to open this figure's card thinking,"ok, its another roadbock from wave two which has had limited articulation with some figures and i dont see a lot of pack-ins" Sure he looks a lot like Dwayne Johnson 41 year old actor from California and the card back images seem a bit confusing not showing him using anything that looks like a gun or a wonky zip line like the other figures.
for this next shot, you are probably wondering why I am zooming in on Plastic Dwayne when in fact, I am pointing out that its pretty near impossible to know what is behind this cardboard insert on the actual blister inside. this fact should be payed attention to in future retaliation releases.
upon popping the card open, imagine my surprise when I found this large and in charge tripod mounted machine gun on the blister. "this wasn't shown on the card back. Where in the heck did this come from?" It's kind of like opening up a box of cracker jacks and wondering what the toy-surprise will be.
the other thing that pops out when I pulled out the blister was a paper set of instructions folded up. Now usually, this shows you how to properly utilize the obligatory wonky zip-line pack-in and i was curious enough to open it up and got a detailed explanation of how the other little pack-in weapons worked to interchange with this set of handles that hold the different weapons. hand gun inserts, knife blades, spear blades, and a baton all interchange to work with these handles and have stowage points on his removable vest, his hip holsters, or one scabbard at his ankle. These inserts are small and detailed and actually pretty cool looking items and I can't help but think that unlike the soon to be ignored Clone Wars line, this figure and his pack-ins wasn't produced with young kids in mind but was geared for a more mature audience.
Here is a shot of the packed-in weapons. notice in the following shots how those interchanging weapon inserts seem to merge seamlessly with the handles, especially those gun inserts which look weird by themselves but look pretty cool with the handle attached.
And here is a couple more shots of that big bad machine gun. We could of used an ammo drum or belt of cartridges here but it's still a pretty cool piece.
I know what you are thinking, "this seems a lot more cool than I expected and we haven't even looked at the figure yet"
lets look at the figure
first off, the likeness is striking to Dwayne Johnson from the excellent head sculpt down the big man's trunk, to his vein popping fore arms. This guy is pumped and obviously a bruiser.
Paint apps are cool on the body but a bit sloppy on the removable vest.
Articulation:
Fully articulated to the max of what we have seen in the Joes thus far including double jointed CW style wrists, double jointed knees, and the always special double jointed "rocker style" ankles.
They hooked this figure up, folks, and if i were Dwayne Johnson, I would have one in every room of the house.
In summary, the figure that i thought was going to be a let down turned out to be a shining example of what is available in this line and other than Lady Jaye's glorious pack-ins,and 3-pack Firefly's really cool look, deserves best in show in the Retaliation figures that I have reviewed thus far with a great balanced mix of nice pack-ins with the big gun and cool interchanging weapon system, nice sculpting with attention to details, and the best articulation available.
If you were thinking of passing this one up, he is worth another look, to be sure.
I'll do 3-pack storm shadow next unless Joe Colton gets here first and then, it's on to the other new 3-pack.
