Midnight Air Raid Captain America

As I stated in my Dark Threat review, comic movie toy lines tend to go overboard with mission specific suits and wacky accessories. To make a few extra bucks, companies turn out figures like Arctic Armor Batman, Anti-Kryptonite Superman and Hydro-Disc Spider-Man. With characters like Batman and Iron Man, it makes sense to a degree, as the vast fortunes of their alter egos would allow them to waste millions on Neon Jungle Tracker Armor they would only use once. Captain America however is not one of those characters.

This figure depicts the thrilling scene in the movie where Cap flies a jet pack into Hydra headquarters and shoots up a ton of henchmen with giant machine guns. If you don't remember that scene, it's because it never happened. Midnight Air Raid Captain America is from the same Deluxe Mission sub line as Dark Threat, but because Cap isn't really known for costume variants, this one has a giant jet pack and rifles not present in the movie.



The Cap figure himself is pretty simple; As a pack-in, he loses a few points of articulation like ankles and waist, but can still get into a few poses. Articulation he does have includes hinge knees and elbows, swivel wrists, swivel thigh cuts, ball and hinge shoulders, elbows and hips and a head that might be on a ball joint but is placed so low you can't tell. Colors are red, white and blue as Cap insists on dressing like an American flag and sculpt detail isn't too bad, his armor especially has some nice scale-mail pattern to it.



Unfortunately, like Dark Threat, Cap has some paint issues. As you can see here, the paint on his arms is a bit sloppy, leading to the white paint of his sleeves not quite extending to the edges of the gloves like they should. Additionally, both the center stripe on his chest and the center stripe on his back have too much red slopped on, giving those stripes a thicker, darker appearance that stands out.



The jet pack, while silly in concept, is nicely detailed with large turbines and red and white striped missiles attached to the undersides of the wings. The backs of the wings also have peg holes to hold the twin rifles Cap also comes with. The "shield" on the jet pack is actually a launching disc that flies a decent distance when you push the tab below it.



Cap pegs into the jet pack via a hole in his back, the harness section slipping over his chest and snapping into the main piece via two clips on the shoulder straps. Midnight Raid Cap also comes with the two giant gray rifles seen here. These seem a bit out of character for Steve Rogers, even if he does use a pistol briefly in the movie. I kind of wish they had released him with his iconic shield instead.



At twelve to fourteen bucks when new, I could not really suggest this guy. Sloppy paint and limited articulation are two strikes against him and a cool (if silly) accessory doesn't really help in my opinion. Really, I bought this guy mainly because I wanted a more articulated Cap to pilot the Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor and because I thought the second firing disc shown in the package was a shield accessory. I was to be disappointed on both accounts. Though basically free since when I bought him and Dark Threat, the cashier failed to ring one of them up, I'm still not sure if he was worth it at that price. This exact same figure with the exact same accessories and a slightly different paint job was released as Air Assault Glider Captain America in the Deluxe Missions line if you prefer slightly darker, dirtier colors on your Cap.

Marvel's Hydra Soldier Dark Threat

First off, if you haven't seen Captain America: The First Avenger yet, I recommend it. It's a really well done comic book movie and doesn't take itself so seriously that it looks goofy instead like some movies with the Marvel name on them (looking at you, X-Men.)

When the movie tie in merchandise from Hasbro first started hitting shelves, I scoffed at a Hydra soldier with giant arm guns in the Deluxe Mission Pack line and thought it a clear example of over the top toy designs that would never actually be in the movie itself (for examples, see any Batman movie toyline from Returns on.) Call me embarrassed when not only was that soldier in the movie, he was pretty bad-ass before being soundly beaten. Twelve bucks was a bit more than I wanted to pay for him when he was new at retail, but that's where patience and T.J. Maxx pay off...

I'm guessing there was some sort of legal issue with just calling this figure "Hydra Heavy Trooper" or something along those lines, but man is that an unwieldy name. From now on, I'm just going to refer to him as Dark Threat. Overall, I'm pretty impressed; He's G.I. Joe sized but slightly bulkier (intentionally, he's bulkier than Cap from the same line) and would look right at home among your Cobra soldiers. Actually, with the fairly generic, semi-futuristic uniform and armor, I could see him fitting into a few different universes, you could just as easily have this guy running alongside your Clone Troopers.

Dark Threat's helmet is nicely detailed with layers that look like overlapping armor and padding and visored goggles that look like they're hinged to flip up. The mouth plate resembles a rebreather or compact gas mask and has a series of smaller plates and vents that link it to the helmet. On the sides of the helmet are tiny red circles with even tinier black Hydra emblems printed on them. Unfortunately, due to their size and the somewhat uneven application of paint, you can barely tell what the symbols are.

The body armor is made of soft, rubbery plastic and can be removed after unsnapping the waist belt and contorting Dark Threat a bit. The armor is composed of shoulder pads, a chest plate and a back plate with a small turbine and canisters attached to it held together with web gear-like straps. There are wide, silver belts that resemble ammo belts sculpted into the armor, appearing to run from the turbine up through the shoulder pads then continuing down the actual arms of the figure. I assume these are power cables or literal ammo belts from the Cosmic Cube powered backpack to the giant arm cannons. I'm forced to mention sloppy paint work again though, as the left shoulder pad's silver spray for the ammo belt section is a bit off and covers a portion of the armor instead, leaving a piece of the belt plain green.

The majority of his uniform beneath the armor is a slightly blueish green with a lot of black straps cinching sections tight or appearing to hold pieces of his clothing in place. Interestingly, he has another, smaller sculpted back pack beneath his armor which looks like it could be a standard kit or perhaps an oddly placed parachute.

Here he is using his giant guns and their first projectile type; flame thrower! The guns fit snugly over his hands and probably won't fall off unless you enjoy literally throwing your toys around the room. The missiles fly a good distance and the triggers are tight so you won't have to worry about accidentally blinding yourself just moving Dark Threat around a shelf. The flame effect missiles are very nicely done; cast in translucent yellow plastic and given an orange spray at the ends, they start as thin jets that widen into rough crescents and have a lot of twisting flame detail molded into them.

The second type of missiles are translucent blue plastic and are meant to represent the Cosmic Cube powered weaponry Hydra uses in the movie. These missiles don't look as cool as the flames partially because they are a lot longer but only have detail sculpted about halfway down their lengths and partially because he just looks like he's firing high pressure bursts of mouth wash at foes.

Articulation is fairly decent, though you'll be disappointed if you're expecting him to be on par with recent Star Wars and G.I. Joe. figures. He has eleven points of articulation including those joints that aren't really ball joints but allow the same range of motion in his shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. His head feels like it's on a ball joint, but the range of motion is so limited, it might as well just be a cut joint and his upper thighs have that weird swivel cut Hasbro has been using on Cap/Iron Man/Avengers figures recently. No waist, wrists or ankles, which is somewhat disappointing but I suppose they have to cut corners somewhere. Due to him not having a bicep swivel, you won't get him holding a rifle with two hands anytime soon, but since his weapons don't require that, I'm fine with it.

You would think with those giant guns and even bigger missiles, he would have balance issues but surprisingly, this is not the case. The oversized weapons and his pretty wide feet allow him to stand unassisted in quite a few menacing poses and his feet have peg holes which are compatible with the stands from the current Marvel Universe 3.5 inch figures if you should have problems with him still.

In the end, I'm quite pleased with Dark Threat. Due to the few sloppy paint sections and somewhat limited articulation, I wouldn't have dropped twelve dollars on him when he was new, but for seven bucks (and getting Midnight Raid Cap for free due to cashier error!), he's definitely worth it. I would highly recommend him if you can grab one for a decent price and are a fan of Captain America, Marvel or just armored troopers in general.