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This review comes late because I received these figures late. For whatever reason, the Club did not ship these February sets in February. Instead, they waited until March, meaning we missed a month and had to get two sets this month. So much for the promised monthly shipments...

I digress.



Topside:

Topside is a repaint of the 25th 5-pack Shipwreck body, with a new head, and comic pack Cutter’s life vest. He also comes with a MP5 submachine gun, .44 mag revolver, helmet, figure stand, baton, and a grappling hook. While it’s exciting to see a new head, the entire presentation is dimmed by a common problem with the 25th tooling library---most of it is antiquated and ugly compared now to the more refined and infinitely better figures we’ve gotten since the 25th ended and we evolved into the PoC and beyond.










Aesthetically Topside is passable, but rather plain---and not a wholly successful translation from old to new. His head while cool, it is slightly on the small side, and his uniform is very bare-boned and forgettable. He does not have the bloused trousers and boots the original had, instead, they have him with untucked pants over boots. They try to compensate for the lack of correct lower legs by adding a splash of darker gray at his pant cuffs, but it’s not really effective. He's also missing his very cool trademark missile launcher backpack the original came with. Boo! Unarmed and with the life vest removed, he looks more like a parking ramp attendant going to Olive Garden for lunch, rather than combat naval security person. The PoC patch on his shoulder helps to add some detail, but his over-the-waist-high “grandpa” pants and huge belt buckle unceremoniously situated very high on his body in front of his stomach makes him look painfully dated and “uncool”. This problem is noticeably lessened by the addition of some better tactical webgear instead of the life vest, but you may also need to add a belt to offset the one sculpted on, and give him a better helmet that fits better and looks more modern.








Topside was one of the few Navy characters that wasn’t a diver or a SEAL, but despite this, he was a fairly forgettable third or fourth tier character far from most peoples' top ten list, and he was better used for a humble crewman on those lucky enough to have had the U.S.S. Flagg. In his modern updated capacity, he still falls in this trap.

Like most of the FSS figures, I personally feel a more concerted effort to update these characters to a modern look while still retaining their classical elements would have been a better way to go, rather than going back in time and trying to duplicate the originals who are obviously outdated decades later.
Normally this figure would be rated a C, but the addition of a new head; and since he’s a character we would have probably never gotten any other way, he gets a few extra points to be bumped up to a B.


Big Boa:




Big Boa is a repaint of Resolute Roadblock’s body, with a new head and new spiked “webgear” (that’s a bit too loose on the body). He also comes with a barbell, pugil sick, helmet, boxing gloves, figure stand, a spare padded boxing helmet for a trainee, and a sledge hammer from the 25th VAMP. (The boxing gloves are alternative hands, not gloves per se, so you have to be careful when popping off the various hands as not to break off the peg.)







Originally made as a counter-part to Rocky Balboa; who was planned, but cancelled at the last minute, Big Boa sort’a lost his calling and was shoe-horned into a new role as Cobra’s trainer. I guess it works, but it also relegated him to a non-combatant role of being stuck back at the base behind-the-scenes. “Well yay, here is my Dio with Big Boa training Cobra troops. How exciting...”

Big Boa is actually fairly cool, and a decent translation from the original. Unlike Topside above, Big Boa’s original look can easily translate to the modern era. He was never about frontline combat, so his colorful outfit and design didn’t really matter. It simply maintained a somewhat timeless “sport-o” look. The Resolute Roadblock body is both tall and well built, indicating he’s a powerful individual. My only gripe about it, is the non-removable waist piece. Instead of simply painting the sculpted belt, the Club decided to paint over it, so it looks a little sloppy. I also wish they would have used the legs from the wrestling version SDCC Sgt. Slaughter. Slaughters’ tights would have been a more accurate representation of the original, and those boots would have been less bulky and less intrusive on the character’s body line. Furthermore, it would further enhanced the “gym-look”. However, the Roadblock legs may have been the only decent option for that body, so I understand why they were used.



Like Topside, Big Boa has a brand new heads sculpt, and it’s actually quite excellent considering. The size and shape is correct to indicate a well-proportioned helmet on a human head, and the attention to detail is great! Add in the fact we likely would have never seen this figure from Hasbro proper, adds to the desirability of this figure. And unlike Topside, Big Boa didn’t need modernizing because he was never outdated to begin with, as the gym look has never gone away. This is a character I’ll never use for anything---unless someone comes up with a cool alternate combat outfit, but his likeness is well captured, and despite the minor inconsistencies, he’s a very faithful tribute to the original. A.