Robocop 6" action figures from Jada Toys....

I've actually bought these action figures way before I watched the new Robo movie a couple of days ago. Guess I purposedly waited to watch the movie first before I decided to review the action figures! Jada Toys gave us two scales i.e. the 3.75" and 6" scales. The 3.75 inchers weren't that bad too but in light of my recent decision to stick to the 6" scale it was pretty much decided for me between the two. Unfortunately, Jada Toys only produced the two versions of Robocop i.e. 1.0 and 3.0 out of the movies. I wished that they could've given us some bad guys to go along with these two but there might be some flicker of hope that we'd get them in wave/series 2 perhaps (???). It'd be sweet if we could at least just get the 'new' ED-209!

Anyway, let's just cross our fingers till then and move on onto the subject of today's discussion.

Ok, let's start off things by looking at their packaging. The front part of the packaging has a nice picture of Robocop himself (who else?). They're pretty generic as both has the 3.0 version on them. You are also able to test out the 'Light Action' feature on both figures. They basically light up his visors (more on that later). I had a good selection of Robo to go through before I arrive at these two as when my son first discovered these at a nearby retail store, the movie was a couple of weeks away...so plenty of stocks everywhere for us to go over. Currently, stocks are depleting fast for both the 3.75" and 6" action figures (those electronic 12" ones and the motorbike versions are still there though) ever since the movie came out over here in Malaysia.

The packaging is so generic that both figures even share the same card back info. Here you can see that apart from the 'role-playing' items i.e. Robocop's helmet and chest armor, that is basically everything you'd get from Jada Toys for now. I'm not even sure whether they'd come around for wave/series 2?

You’d also get to try the ‘light-up visor’ action feature on both 1.0 and 3.0 Robocop through a small opening right in front of their chests i.e. where you have to press a button to light up his visor.  A bit of a letdown really. I was hoping that the visor could light up by itself via a single touch of the button without us keeping our finger on the button to do so. I’d get to his light-up feature later.

Ok, let's take 'em out of their packaging. Let's take a look at Robocop 1.0 first....

Let’s start by looking at the accessories each Robocop gets. Basically both versions come with the same types of weapon i.e. his hand gun/sub-machine ‘pistol’ and an even bigger machine gun for his left arm. In case you haven’t watched the movie yet and wondering if Robocop does indeed uses two (2) weapons at the same time, the answer is yes, well at least during his training sequence. I would’ve definitely preferred it if we could get an alternate head to show a ‘visor-less’ Alex J Murphy head sculpt to give us a different display option.

Basically Robocop 1.0 is a head-on throwback to the original Robocop '87 suit. It's silver with some black on it. It screams 'Peter Weller Robocop' through and through albeit a more sleeker design.

Technically, both 1.0 & 3.0 Robocop have the same amount of articulation. He's got  swivel head, ball-jointed shoulders and hips, and molded elbows and knees.  I'm not saying that it's pretty darn limited, but wrist or ankle joints would have been very helpful too considering that this new Robocop actually moves very fluidly on-screen.  Simililarly, the limited neck movement and lack of torso articulation is a bit of a letdown. Having said all that, the action figures can’t really be posed in extreme poses as the armour gets in the way and restricts his arms and legs. I for one, feel that the figures could have benefited more if Jada Toys had given them waist, wrist and hips articulation. Still, you’d be able to pose him in a fair amount of ‘action’ poses and he is still technically better than the Saga Legends action figures Hasbro had graciously put on the shelves for us in recent times.

I can’t believe that I initially only wanted to purchase the 3.0 version and totally wanted to ignore the 1.0 (“Nehh, it looks way too much like the classic one anyway!”). I was adamant with my decision to do so right until my better half pointed out that both figures are in fact, having two different armour sculpt. So thanks to my wife’s good eye on such differences, I changed my mind and grabbed both. I know I’ll regret it much later when the 1.0 completely disappears from the shelves. At the time of writing this, we’ve noticed that the 6” Robocop figures were fast disappearing from shelves everywhere, especially version 1.0.

It’s a nice touch by Jada Toys to ensure that both versions have different armour sculpt on them. It kinda makes you feel that you’re getting your money’s worth here. They are not just straight re-use of the same mould. 

On the bright side, both Robocops have flawless paint applied on them. You can hardly see any paint bleed or any paint anomaly throughout the figure except on the mouth area. You see, I think the paint department over at Jada Toys must’ve ‘over-applied’ the flesh coloured paint onto his mouth area and practically covered his mouth slit. It’s particularly worse off on my 3.0 where you can barely make out where his mouth is. I took the liberty to manually slit over the part where I think his mouth is (i.e. over the slight ‘bump’) with a blade.

While it is very unlikely that Jada Toys will give us matching (in-scale) ED-209s to go with their Robo figures to battle out, you could also get NECA’s classic ED-209 figure to go head-to-head with your Robocops. It’ll be nice too if we could get some villains in future wave/series (is there even a wave/series 2??) perhaps?

These Robocop figures, although marketed as 6” action figures, are a bit on the smaller size if compared to the many 6” figures out there e.g. Marvel Legends and such. NECA’s Robocop, at the 7” scale, towers over Jada Toys’ Robocops by almost an inch.

"Your move.....creep!"

When you talk about his ‘light-up visor’ feature, one must surely notice that the red visor lights were anywhere but ‘bright’ enough for our liking. They look ok if you light ‘em up under low lightings but in broad daylight they are barely visible. Like I said before, I get further irritated to learn that I’d have to keep my finger on the chest button to keep the visor lighted up. These figures could’ve given us much  much more had the visors had the capabilities to stay ‘lighted’ with a single press of the chest button.

THE REBEL’S VERDICT: Despite the many flaws and shortcomings, I still think that these new 6” Robocop figures are essential to your display shelves. If you’re a fan of the original movie, you might have some reservations on the new armour designs and such but believe me they look good enough to rival the original Robocop design. Now that the movie is officially out in cinemas, the action figures are flying off retail shelves too. As expected, collectors go for the 6” figures first rather than the 3.75" figures and given that Robocop 1.0 is short-packed (so I’ve heard), you might wanna grab him first if you see him anytime soon. So run over to your nearest retail outlet and pick one (or two) today. Your move.....creep!