About a week ago, Amazon had the Avengers helicarrier on sale for $34. I was ordering some other things anyway, so I decided to take the plunge, mainly to customize it (...yeah, in the same way I'm sure most Joe fans who've bought this are planning on...original I'm not). Before I started hacking into it, though, I thought I'd do a quick review.
If you don't want to read the whole thing, my overall impression of the helicarrier is "alright."
Packaging/assembling: 9/10 If it matters, it comes well packed and snaps together quickly (though make sure you have a good pair of scissors...the pieces are, as expected, tied to the box in numerous places, but are also tied to one another). Since I'm customizing it, I didn't add any of the stickers, but they seem like the same quality as most recent Joe vehicles.
Construction quality: 6/10The plastic used is surprisingly flimsy. Well, maybe flimsy isn't the right word, since I'm sure it could take a lot of abuse, but...rubbery. Not quite figure-rubbery, but not as solid as modern Joe vehicles. It snaps together alright, and does hold together pretty well, but be careful where you pick it up from, as pieces tend to pop off without too much effort. I imagine this would hurt play-factor if you were buying it for kids.
Sculpt: 7/10This is kind of a hard one, and probably the most frustrating part of the vehicle. The upper deck of the vehicle is very well sculpted. Lots of great detailing, though it could definitely have benefited from some paint apps (though I understand keeping costs down, blah blah blah). I'm not sure what the purpose of the trenches on the main deck are. I don't have a quinjet...does that have some way to attach to these? Either way, they're not too disruptive, and don't hurt the look of the vehicle. So the entire top of the vehicle is great. But then...
Yeah. The underside is terrible (though I do like that it has a Stark Industries stamp on it). The landing skids just sort of sit in there, so they're easily removable, though.
Play features: 6/10Honestly, the features aren't that bad, but for what this thing originally cost, it should do a lot more. I know as customizers we don't typically care about such things, but some lights and sounds would have gone a long way to justify the original $88 (at Walmart) price tag. As is, it has five firing missile launchers (which are all pretty decent, in that the missiles fit neatly inside of the launchers instead of sticking out and being ugly), opening storage compartments (kind of neat...reminds me of some older Joe vehicles), a 'figure launcher' (...okay...), a moving crane (only the hook moves, the arm doesn't raise or lower...kinda cheap), and weirdest of all, the bridge detaches to become a little pod vehicle of its own. This is definitely a last minute addition, as it doesn't appear in the 'play' section of the instructions, just on a blurb on the back of the box. And it doesn't really make sense, either...the bridge looks nothing like a vehicle on its own. It honestly seems like they were pressed to make this thing do more, panicked and noticed that the bridge detaches rather easily.
Scale: It depends/10Here's what most people are probably most interested in. How does it work with 3.75 figures? Well...it works alright or terribly, depending on how you want to view it. From the standpoint of what we can realistically expect from modern toys, it's great. Face it, the days of the USS Flagg are long gone. Saying that a modern vehicle sucks because it doesn't measure up to the standards of 80s toys is like saying a grocery store sucks because they charge more than a nickel for bread. For what we get these days, it's a great scale, especially if used as a background item. It's 3 feet long (...I know it says 'over' on the box, but that's added by the spires on the front, so I'm not counting it) and about 7" wide (I'm only measuring the surface on the top where you could place figures, not the fans or other things that hang off the sides). The problem comes when you introduce figures and vehicles to the mix.
....yeah. The Firebat doesn't look terrible, but that's about as large of a vehicle as you want to put near this without it looking ridiculous. Figures look pretty stupid on it (especially if you use the chair that is mounted on the bridge gun). If you can find the SDCC version, you get an extra foot of length, but no change in width, which is really the bigger problem (anything like a Rattler is going to hang off the sides pretty bad). Still, for small vehicles like the Firebat or Flight Pod, it works as 'toy scale' (remember, even the Terror Drome wasn't to scale based on the cartoon, where dozens of tiny firebats flew out of the main silo). But if you're a scale-purist, you'll probably be disappointed.
Captain America Figure: 0/10You know what, Hasbro? Screw you. I understand that including limited articulation figures in vehicles is a cost cutting measure, and it's only a minor annoyance when those vehicles are $15-$25, but this thing was
Eighty-eight damn dollars originally. For that much, and considering the limited features of the vehicle itself, you can throw in a Cap figure that at least has the articulation of the regular Avengers figures. Or at the very least, a shield, maybe? You know, Cap's trademark weapon? As is, we get an accessory-less POTF2-articulated figures with a terrible sculpt and sloppy paint.
Value: Depends/10Again, it really depends on what price you grabbed it for. If you got it, like I did, for $34, it's a pretty decent value. Even at the $40 that Walmart had it for during the holidays wouldn't be bad. But, unfortunately, right now Amazon has it for $60 and Walmart is back up to $88, and it's nowhere near worth either of those.
Overall: 7/10Again, my overall impression of this thing is "it's alright." I'm happy with my purchase, and I'll have fun customizing it, but I sure wouldn't have paid more for it, and I know that some people will definitely hate it due to its size.
