Third party item, bootleg, knock off, or whatever else you want to call them, there is no mistaking Black Major's BATs with vintage Hasbro product.
First, let me get the bad right out of the way and it isn't even that bad. The arm swivel and thighs right above the knee weren't factory tight like you would expect from a Hasbro figure. The neck ball was also tough to move around but it does give after some working around. I am only mentioning it because people who like super tight figures might not be 100% pleased with them. However, whatever the issue was with the earliest Cobra troopers that caused their legs to spring outward has been fixed at this point. Otherwise the sculpt is dead on except for the back peg hole I'll touch on later.
Paint, the BM BATs come in a variety of colors Cobra blue, forest green, light tan, arctic white, hazzard orange, and standard black with just silver highlights instead of yellow. I specifically chose the Cobra blue based in their appearance in the comics. The silver on these is very shiney, almost like chrome spray paint shiney. The paint mask applications all look super clean. The Cobra symbol tampo on the left arm is the circuit Cobra symbol instead if the standard snake. I have to say that is a nice touch that makes them distinct while not sticking out in a group.
The chest sticker comes in two varieties. A larger Cobra circuitry symbol in red or silver on a black background or a version of the original BAT's lenticular pipes and gears. I say "version" because it isn't lenticular at all. They took a high resolution image of the chest decal and then covered it with thin piece of plastic. The overall effect works really well and again fits in nicely in a crowd of BATs.
Last we have the accessories. The first tging I noticed is that the back peg is larger than the original. I checked the peg hole and sure enough it is drilled bigger. It has a nuce snug fit on the back so nothing to complain about. The pegs in the backpack for the attachments come to a point unlike the original. All of the original attachments are present and fit snugly on the right arm and in the backpack. Consider that was the aspect of these I was the most worried about quality wise I think they did a fantastic job.
The price for these was $25 each. Because I picked it up after hours of a certain recent northern toy show, I was able to save on shipping. I've heard from the big army builder crowd that if you buy these in much bigger quantities, say like 50, you can get a much nicer price per figure. I'll have to take their word for it though.
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