Finally Found New Marvel Character Cars (Action Feature, Spider-Gwen, & Gambit)

I was beginning to think I’d have to break down and order these, but a trip up to the edge of Morrisville proved fruitful. This little wave of Marvel Character Cars rounded out the Marvel “Action Feature” series and gave us one of the few honest to god glimpses into the X-Men, Gambit. By now we all know that these Action Feature do-hickies have wildly descriptive names, and these are no different: Spider-Man with Slinging Web Shooter and Spider-Gwen with Pop-Open Canopy.

Let’s take a quick gander at this new Spidey first. Basically we have the usual Spider-Man, but he’s got a little web-shield thing hinged at the front of the car. It flips up and over to…I don’t know…smother the opponent…? It’s all manual though – no springs or tension releases or anything like that. Just kinda like a second hood on a car.

So far this Action Feature (god I hate saying/typing that) has spread itself across all 3 main Character Car lines but today we have a first: the Action Feature version is the actual debut of the Character Car as well! Meet Spider-Gwen I really like the pink / black / white color combo, and if you look closely, you’ll see that the rear wheels are a soft shade of blue. The car doesn’t look very…”spider-y”…but the top represents Gwen’s hood well enough and, again, the color scheme is on point. As for its “Action,” she boasts a pop-open canopy! Like Spider-Man, it’s 100% manual. The canopy can either rest atop the car, or it can be rotated to ~60°. Now I don’t quite get the functionality here other than the fact that it would create some immense drag force. Honestly it’s kinda of strange feature and it’s making me wish for a “regular” Spider-Gwen sooner rather than later.

Finally we’ve got Gambit, which is pretty cool because he’s really the first purely X-Men character who’s made it into the pantheon. Sure we can point to Wolverine but it’s fair to say that his story weaves in and out of the X-Men and at times he’s been fairly far removed from the group. (You’ve also go Cable but he’s more X-Men-adjacent (X-Force) and he was probably only turned into a Character Car because of his appearance in Deadpool 2.) Why they chose Gambit and not someone a little more visible like Cyclops, or Storm, or Beast, or Iceman, etc. is kinda weird. Us 90’s kids remember Gambit well as the even-tempered, smooth-talking Cajun (Creole…?) who had an ongoing passion for the untouchable Rogue. This was largely due to his prominent role in the animated TV series.

His powers may not have been immediately obvious to younger viewers, or if they were, they were difficult to articulate at best. Like most other mutants I’m sure he had some peripheral powers that came in handy from time to time, but his main claim to fame was his ability to charge objects with kinetic energy. This is why he was always throwing explosive cards at stuff – he didn’t have paper-thin explosives in the guise of playing cards, he had normal playing cards that he charged up as per his mutant power. He also seemed to be adept at hand-to-hand combat, often using a staff in conjunction with his card-throwing talents.

So how the hell do you turn Gambit into a car…? I don’t really know, but hell, they tried. I don’t know what shape they were shooting for, but the colors roughly match up with his head gear and chestplate and then the long brown trenchcoat. A couple of cards are showing, the A♥ (Ace of Hearts) and A♠ (Ace of Spades). His lengthy bō can be seen resting above the tires on the passenger side.

This is a bit of strange wave to hit us with…but I reckon I’ll take it. A few other re-releases are out there was well, including Cable if you missed him the first time around. It would be nice if this paved the way for even more X-Men, so long as we get an appreciable number of villains, and the X-Men have some good ones: Apocalypse, Sabertooth, Omega Red, Magneto, Mr. Sinister, Mojo, Juggernaut, Sauron, even the Sentinels.

I seem to remember some X-Men Character Cars teased at a toyfair a while back…anyone got any idea what these were? I can’t seem to locate the picture at the moment.

Oh and by the way, there might just be a problem with the Gambit car…ok not a problem, but an interesting discrepancy. Stick around for a couple of hours and I’ll get it typed up.

Marvel ACTION FEATURE Character Cars (1 – 3)

Right alongside the Far From Home Character Cars we get our first look at the “Action Feature” side of Marvel. We’ve seen it with Star Wars and DC, so Marvel couldn’t have been too far behind. And like the other lines, we only get the first 3 out of an eventual 5 cars.

• 1 / 5 – Thor with Swinging Mjolnir
• 2 / 5 – Captain America with Flip Up Shield
• 3 / 5 – Wolverine with Extending Adamantium Claws
• 4 / 5 – Spider-Man with Slinging Web Shooter
• 5 / 5 – Spider-Gwen with Pop-Open Web Canopy

Besides the gimmick, these cars are pretty much identical to their “non-action” counterparts though they do tend to be a little more vibrant and colorful.

Thor with Swinging Mjolnir utilizes a “special feature” that we see on regular Hot Wheels from time to tie. Small protrusions on the front wheels turn a little gear that wiggles the hammer on the front of Thor as he rolls. It’s a bit inconspicuous, but it works.

Captain America with Flip Up Shield comes in at number 2 and its “feature” makes good use of the car’s existing design. The shield on the hood hinges at the front and pops up to give the windshield and cabin extra protection. My only gripe is that there isn’t any sort of release switch or spring. You have to manually open and close it.

For now the subseries ends with Wolverine with Extending Adamantium Claws. I’m glad the paint job is lustrous and shiny this time around; it looks much better than the original matte finish on the original Wolverines. Like Cap, this vehicle also takes full advantage of existing design elements, specifically the claws on the hood. In this Action Feature edition a small lever on the roof extends and retracts the claws across the front wheelhouse to about a half to a quarter of an inch beyond the front bumper.

Now if the list didn’t already grab your attention, did you notice what’s next…? Yeah ok, an Action Feature Spider-Man, but in addition to that, we’re getting a brand spankin’ new character (odd that it would debut in AF form, but whatever…) – Spider-Gwen!

Are there other cars I’d rather see first? Definitely, but I am glad they worked another female into the mix, and Spider-Gwen does seem to have amassed a certain degree of popularity recently. It’ll also be interesting to see if it ever makes it into “non-AF” form.

And so another round of Action Feature cars are under the belt. I still find these extremely gimmicky but at least they’re made well enough not to break after a few uses. Some features seem more inspired than others but I think this latest batch did a fine job of working with elements of the car that were already present…the gimmick feels a little less forced than it did with the Star Wars and Marvel AF sets thus far. I’d almost call AF Wolverine a must-have, even if just for the extended claws – makes you wonder why they weren’t there in the first place.

DC Action Feature Character Cars (Part 2!)

Hot Wheels introduced this whole “Action Feature” gimmick with a few Star Wars cars, and they’ve extended it into their DC line as well. We saw the first batch, 1 – 3 (out of 5) a few weeks back, and now it seems they’ve rolled out the remaining 2 – Harley Quinn & Joker GT – alongside re-releases of older cars such as Flash and Mr. Freeze.

Just so things don’t feel too incomplete, here’s a quick recap of the sub-series:

• 1 / 5 – Superman – with blasting heat vision
• 2 / 5 – Batman – with lift & spin batarang
• 3 / 5 – Wonder Woman with sliding lasso of truth
• 4 / 5 – Harley Quinn – with smashing mallet
• 5 / 5 – The Joker GT – with chattering teeth

It’s no secret that these things are one big cash-grab gimmick, but I can at least appreciate the fact that Hot Wheels has attempted to add some variety to these “features” and the “actions” that govern them. Harley Quinn is probably the most confusing. She’s got this big metal mallet (props to the fact that that mallet is 100% metal) and it can either be positioned all the way forward, about 2/3 back, and then “all the way” back where it rests in the cavity of the vehicle. The confusing part is that there doesn’t seem to be any sort of “action trigger / release / whatever” to release the hammer. Once it’s all snug back the car, it’s good and tight; and that’s a good thing over all, I don’t want that heavy chunk of metal swinging too freely The issue is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to make the hammer “swing” automatically. You have to kinda pull it out.

I thought at first maybe the idea was to crash the car and inertia would carry the hammer forward, but no, it’s too snug. This idea kinda works with the mallet at the halfway point but obviously I’m not too keen on slamming these cars into each other so I did the best I could with the some cardboard. I could be missing something, so if you know more about this than I do please let me know!

All in all Action Feature Harley Quinn is a bit of an aberration, but again I do like that the entire mallet apparatus is metal. Perhaps that’s precisely why it’s not sprig loaded or something similar…maybe Hot Wheels realized that a sharp blow from this metal thing could unintentionally leave some permanent dents and dings on the receiving vehicle.

As for the Joker GT. well, he…has….a chattering teeth thing going on. It’s difficult to ascertain in the pictures, but basically the hood / front fender area is on a hinge (much like a regular hood). There’s a small arm on the inside of the front wheels, and when this catches a similar extension on the hood-piece, the hood-piece is lifted up. When you roll the car, the hood quickly bobs up and down as the front wheels rotate. Hot Wheels has pulled similar gags before, like with the Shark Bite. Hot Wheels might’ve dropped the ball just a little on this one; I feel like by simply giving the “inside” and “outside” of the “mouth” different colors, the rapid opening and closing (i.e. chattering) would be a lot more obvious. Instead it’s all just…white.

So yeah, maybe not the most exciting development, but at least we don’t have an incomplete subseries! Now DC-Hot Wheels, now that that’s out of your system, do the right thing and give us a Lex Luthor car!

New DC Character Cars Part 2: “Action Feature”

God, I really hate that term, “Action Feature,” but it’s what Hot Wheels calls it, their “Action Feature Series.” It makes it sound like toys with moving parts are a new thing, like the industry just discovered springs and levers or some shit. Maybe even just “Action Series” would be ok…”Feature” is just too much of a euphemism for “gimmick” and I don’t particularly care for the inauthenticity of the term. Whatever, I know I’m getting bent over nothing, but after seeing how silly the Star Wars “Action Feature” cars were I just can’t help it. (Read about them here and here if you haven’t already. Also take a look at Part 1: Shazam! Character Cars if you haven’t already.)

Right now this looks like the front half of a 5-car subset:

• 1 / 5 – Superman (with Blasting Heat Vision)
• 2 / 5 – Batman (with Lift & Spin Batarang)
• 3 / 5 – Wonder Woman (with Sliding Lasso of Truth)

It looks like Joker and Harley will be rounding out the set at some point in the near future.

First of all I want to quickly address the look of the cars themselves. They’re all familiar designs but a couple of them look a little different than we’re used to. Superman remains more or less what we’re accustomed to…you may could argue for some brighter colors but that’s about it. Wonder Woman, while also quite similar, has never been quite this cartoon-y before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, I’m kinda glad the whole red-blue-gold gets a chance to stand out.

Batman is the most visually interesting of the lot. It’s his Character Car introduced back in the Justice League (film) era but passed off almost as a sort of Batmobile. Ever since 90’s (or near-90’s) staples of Batman lore like Burton’s 2 films, Batman: The Animated Series, and even going a little further back to Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986), Batman has been suited up in black black black and maybe some gray, dark gray, and more black. And really you’ll get no argument from most people; after all, bats are black, it fits with his whole theme of fear and the night and all that, etc. But for a while there, and even still persisting in some areas, a recognizable color scheme of blue, gray, and yellow has been adopted. Useful for everything from more kid-friendly material to comics that are less visually dark and dreary, most people are familiar with this scheme – hell, it’s the colors that Adam West sported throughout the 60’s TV series. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that as gimmicky as these fucking “Action Feature” mofos are, I actually really like the fact that we finally have real Character Car with the blue-gray-yellow scheme. Yes, we’ve seen Batmobiles like this, but not Character Cars (until now). And it all jives well with the shape of the car besides.

Alright alright, now let’s move on to these little sliding bits of sliding plastic.

Superman features blasting heat vision. Not a bad idea, and a nice identifiable power to go with…there’s a small lever on the passenger’s side that, when slid forward, pushes 2 red “beams” out of the front near the headlights. I mean there’s nothing really wrong with that…and it’s not as if it’s based on something wildly abstract..it just feels superfluous. I dunno. Call me a grump, I don’t care!

Wonder Woman’s sliding Lasso of Truth is slightly more interesting. For this one the lever extends through to the passenger and driver’s side for some reason. The end result is a closed loop extending from the front, and while this certainly isn’t enough to envelope another car, it could be a fun way to latch onto an extended piece of another vehicle.

Finally there’s Batman and his utterly worthless lift & spin batarang. What is this!!?? It’s a good thing the car itself is relatively unique because not only does this gimmick feel pointless, I’m also fairly sure it doesn’t function properly. See, the little bat-shaped spoiler lifts up off the body by like, 1/8th of a inch. And then…you can spin it in a circle! Umm, ok, but why? Is the car gonna take off like a helicopter…? I don’t understand this at all. To make matters even wore, even if here was some intrinsic value in having a spinning spoiler, the damn thing just slips back down into place when aligned properly. There’s no simple locking mechanism to keep it upright! Why!!?? I don’t even&emdash;

Dear Hot Wheels, if you really want to keep up with this “action feature” malarky I guess that’s ok, but take a cue from LEGO’s exhaustive catalog of minifigs and please quit leaving inexplicable holes like Orm (Aquaman), Steppenwolf (Justice League), the “Children of Thanos” / Black Thorn (Infinity War), and we can just keep on goin’ back into MCU territory (Whiplash, Malekith, Crossbones, Ronan, Abomination, Yellow Jacket, Ghost, Shocker, Hela, Ego…) where are these people?! You wanna bang out a few highly distinct versions of Batman? I got no problem with that. But why the endless variations when we don’t so much as have a Nightwing? Or hell, an Alfred? Take heed, Hot Wheels! Dream up some kind of subscription service. Mail one out every month. I’ll pay; you can even come up with some badass storage/display cases for them!

Alright I’m done with my quick rail against the “action feature” weirdos. Until next time! And if you haven’t already, be sure to go back and take a look at Part 1 where we look at new Shazam! cars!