The latest series of 12" figures from Toy Biz include Bilbo, Eowyn, Legolas (all reviewed here) and Ringwraith (reviewed at my other site). The current case pack is two Ringwraith, two Legolas, one Eowyn and one Bilbo. Retail is around $20-$25 each.

If you have any questions, comments or figures you'd like to suggest for reviews, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"THE TWO TOWERS Legolas, Eowyn and Bilbo"

Packaging - ***
The 12" LORD OF THE RINGS figures come packed in a window box with a fifth-panel flap. The packaging is attractive, with decent photos from the film. They are also very sturdy, able to stand up to plenty of shelf wear, and even a bit collector friendly. It takes a little effort, but if you really wanted to return these to the packages later you could.

Sculpting - Bilbo, Legolas ***1/2; Eowyn ***
The sculpting on Bilbo and Legolas is extremely good, but that's because, like Gimli in the last series, these are two-ups of the six inch figures. You'll recognize the head sculpts from the smaller figures, but using these is a good thing, since the sculpting was so much better on the smaller figures than on the first series of 12" figures.

Eowyn isn't quite as nice, since she's more doll like, similar to Arwen and Galadriel before her. She's doesn't quite have a Barbie face, but it's a fairly soft sculpt, with little detail. A reader mentioned that she looks an awful lot like Glenn Close, and I have to agree.

Paint - Eowyn ***; Bilbo, Legolas **
While the sculpting was good, the paint is where both Bilbo and Legolas take a major hit. It's not the detail work that's bad, and there's no slop - all the paint ops are clean and neatly done. Eyes are straight, skin tones consistent, and lines are clean. So what's the problem? Toy Biz decided to give the two boys in this menage a toi the most God awful shiny top coat you can imagine.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a way to shoot a picture of these guys without some glare off the faces. The shine is worse than Vin Diesel's head on a sunny day, and it really hurts the otherwise great looking sculpts. Eowyn is much better, with no sign of the top coat.

Articulation - ***
The new 12" bodies from Toy Biz are pretty good, better than most but not quite up to the level of Dragon, Sideshow or bbi. There's plenty of articulation - neck, ball jointed shoulders and hips, cut biceps and thighs, double jointed elbows and knees, wrists, ankles, chest and waist - but I had the same problem with these that I had with the Ringwraith, loose joints. I had a tough time getting Legolas or Eowyn to hold a pose for very long, and even Bilbo, using the old Famous Covers body with less articulation, had trouble standing for long.

That's important to note - the super articulation I'm refering to is only present on Legolas. He would have gotten another half-star easily if his joints had been tighter. Eowyn uses the slightly less articulated Toybiz sixth scale female body, and Bilbo uses the well known Famous Covers style body.

Accessories - Eowyn Bupkis; Bilbo and Legolas ***1/2
This is the most disappointing if not particularly surprising category for Eowyn. She comes with zero accessories. On the other, other hand, there's Legolas and Bilbo, both who come well outfitted.

Legolas has a bow, three arrows, quiver which also holds two short blades, sword and sheath. He's definitely loaded down with the weapons, but unfortunately the bow isn't going to be slinging any arrows. He can hold it though, and there are some great posing possibilities.

Bilbo comes loaded with traveling gear, including a nicely sculpted, solid backpack, bed roll, journal, and short sword with sheath. The sheath has a clip for a belt, just like all the others, but since Bilbo has no belt he can only carry it through the strap on the backpack. Actually, all his accessories can be carried that way, and he had no trouble balancing the weight. His knees had issues with the weight, but there wasn't a balance problem.

Outfit - Eowyn ***1/2, Bilbo ***, Legolas ****
The quality of all three outfits is quite good, with nice material, and good stitching. Some other aspects varied by figure though.

Eowyn has a beautiful dress, with tons of detail and great gold netting material stitched into the scoops of the sleeves. It's my favorite of the three female outfits so far, but it lacks in one area - tailoring. It doesn't fit the female body as well as the previous two did.

Bilbo's outfit fits better than Frodo's, probably due to fewer layers. The coat looks good, and the pants/shirt combo works well. Overall, it's not a terrible outfit, but when compared to the detail in some of the others it falls just a little short.

Legolas' outfit is a work of art. Every piece shows tremendous attention to detail, and the quality and variety of materials is amazing. I don't have a single quibble on this set of clothes, and they even solved some of the problem of the soft boots. They went away from sculpted boots with the second wave, since they tend to be bulky and fake looking. But the soft boots they replaced them with on Aragorn were a little too much like slippers, and didn't do much to help them stand. To solve that problem they've added a hard sole to the boots, giving them more support but keeping the soft uppers. While it isn't perfect - being able to see the differently colored 'soles' of the boots detracts a bit - they are showing continuous improvement.

Value - ***
As you'd expect, this depends on where you pick them up. I paid $23 each at Toys R Us, but you can find them for $20 at Target, and down around $19 at Wal-mart. At that price, these are a very good sixth scale value.

Overall - ***
Each wave of the 12" Lord of the Rings toys has improved over the previous. Had these not had the shiny paint jobs, they would have gotten a higher score, and I'm hoping that by the next wave that's corrected as well. It's great to see a company realize that improvements can be made, and actually strive to produce a better product as they move forward.

Where to Buy -
I found my set at Toys R Us, although I've heard of folks finding them at Target as well. Bricks and mortar retailers have the best prices right now, down around $22. On-line:

- Amazon has them listed individually for $23 plus shipping. Search for them by name.

I'm always looking for leads on new retailers on-line, so if you have suggestions please let me know!