Review of Ray Stantz - Ghostbusters
One:12 Collective

Introduction

Who you gonna call? Mezco! Their latest release in the terrific One:12 Collective is the whole Ghostbusters team - Venkman, Stantz, Zeddemore, and Spengler. While you can only pick these up as a set (for around $300, depending on the retailer), I thought they deserved each of their own reviews.

Last week I started with Venkman, and tonight I'm following up with Ray Stantz. I'll hit up Zeddemore and Spengler soon as well.

Packaging - ****
All four come packed together in this giant tin with an embossed cover. It's really sweet, one of the coolest packages so far this year for any line, and something worthy of display alongside the figures.

My one complaint - they could have included better instructions. What's here merely tells you what to do with the batteries, but getting some info on how to attach the proton blasts (I still haven't figured it out - help?) would have been really nice.

Sculpting - ***
I wasn't loving the Peter portrait, and I'm quite not loving Ray...but he's still a better rendition.

I can clearly see the younger Akroyd here in both the regular and 'scared' portraits. The hair style always goes a long way of course, but it's also the nose, eyes, and facial shape. Both of these are more caricaturish than we normally see in the One:!2 series, but this one is at least recognizable.

It's also fairly realistic in terms of skin texture, hair detail, and smaller areas like the lip texture and eyebrows. Remember, these figures are 1/12 scale, and Ray is only about 6 1/2" tall.

The regular portrait has a good catch-all expression, and the scared version is more shocked or surprised than scared. With the open mouth and questioning eyes, it would be a great look for his first view of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Paint - ***
While the paint work is solid, it's not quite eye popping. And we know Mezco can do eye popping in this series.

The skin tone is still a little washed out, although not quite as much as Venkman. The lips are an improvement, with a more natural appearance, less of a lipstick look. And the eyes are sharp and clean.

The hairline has a little slop, and like I said, I'm not loving the washed out skin tone, but the overall quality is solid B work.

Articulation - ***1/2
This is the same underlying body you'll see with all four figures - and with a large number of other One:12 releases as well. The heads swap easily, and have decent lean and tilt movement. The shoulders, elbows, and wrists allow for two handed wand poses, but I do wish the arms could bend further across the body. The elbows don't have quite as much range as I'd like.

The hips, knees, and ankles work great, and he can hold most shallow to deep stances. The rocker ankles work well, and I had less trouble with them here than I did with Peter. The two piece design is an excellent choice, looking great and allowing for ankle mobility.

The torso can turn and crunch a bit too, but once you load him up with the pack and extras, it's a bit more encumbered. Still, you can get plenty of natural poses, and in the final review I'll add some team photos to show off their group pizzazz.

Accessories - ****
I'm throwing in two of the special accessories with Ray, because I think that's the intention of Mezco.

He comes with the additional four hands, designed to work with the accessories, particularly the wand. They swap pretty easily, and remained in place while I was working with them.

There's the same radio we saw before, and it fits neatly in the holster on the belt. There's also the same pack and wand of course, with the same terrific detail work.  The wires, doo-dads, and minutiae are all here, and while they aren't as detailed as the sixth scale versions from Blitzway, it's still pretty damn impressive work in this smaller scale.

The pack is pretty easy to get on his back, and the belt around his waist is easy to work with. The 'hose' from the pack to the wand is actually a heavy duty wire, which allows for easy posing. The wand attaches tightly to the side of the pack as well.

There's another of the proton blasts that are supposed to attach to the end of the wand, but I'm still too stupid to figure out how that works.

His two unique accessories are the ghost trap with pedal, and his ecto-goggles. Both have a ton of detail and good paint operations. You can fit the goggles over his eyes, or simply rest them on his head, and they look great either way, especially with the open mouth scared face.

The ghost trap has a holster on the belt as well. The pedal is attached to the trap with another sturdy wire.  While the detail work is fantastic on this thing, the pedal does get in the way a bit when the trap is on the belt. I'm not sure exactly what to do with it, so I sorta tucked it out of the way along the side of the pack.

Finally, he has the same display stand as the other three. The base has the Ghostbusters logo, and you can attach him to it with a simple foot peg or the larger, clear plastic support rod.

Light Feature - ***1/2
There's a small battery compartment on the side of the pack facing his back. Unscrew it, pop in three batteries (supplied), re-attach the cover, and you're good to go. Pressing the large silver whatchamacallit on the pack lights up the four red circles, as well as the white to blue strip. These don't blink - a minor nit - but they are quite bright, and easy to operate.

Outfit - ***
The outfit includes the black t-shirt, boots, belt, elbow pads, and brown jumpsuit. The t-shirt is fine, nothing special but no issues either. The boots, as I mentioned earlier, sport a terrific two piece design with an excellent sculpt and paint job.  And the belt? It's the highlight of the outfit, with all the cool extras right from the movie.

The 'pee tube' on his left leg is actually a wire, so you can easily pose it out of the way, and give it a more natural hang than if it were a soft material.

The jumpsuit is well tailored, but the oversized zipper is really starting to bug me. I mentioned it with Venkman, but it's getting on my nerves even more as I review each figure. Your mileage may vary.

However, the patches look terrific, and the overall quality of the material and stitching is excellent. The elbow pads are a separate piece, so you can adjust them for any pose.

Fun Factor - ****
By himself he's not all that in this category, but add him to the other three - which you pretty much had to do - and he's a ton of fun. These guys will look great fighting the large Mattel or DST Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and you can augment them with some of the 6 - 7" scale NECA and DST figures and accessories. You'll notice I used the rooftop diorama from DST for the background in these photos, and it works great.

Value - ***
Three hundred bucks is a lot of cash. But if you divide that by four figures, you're paying $75 a figure, about $5 less for each one than the current retail price of an average One:12 release. Sure, there's a lot of re-use across this set, but considering the characters that's to be expected. You are getting one or two unique extras with each figure, making the set of four a decent value.

Things to Watch Out For -
Not much. When you're putting in the batteries or positioning the pack on his back, take care not to squeeze any of the smaller details too hard. Be mindful of where your fingers are - always good advice.

Overall - ***
Venkman was somewhere between a **1/2 and a ***, but Ray is an improvement, coming in somewhere between a *** and a ***1/2. The likeness, while still a bit too cartoonish, is more recognizable, and the extra accessories boost him as well.  That damn zipper is going to piss me off with all four of them though, so don't be surprised if I complain about it again two more times.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ****
Sculpting - ***
Paint - ***
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - ***1/2
Light Feature - ***1/2
Outfit - ***
Fun Factor - ****
Value - ***
Overall - ***

Where to Buy 
I picked up mine at the Mezco Direct online store for $300. Online options include these site sponsors:

- Entertainment Earth has them for $300 as well.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
I just covered the One:12 Venkman last week. Other 1/12 Ghostbusters include those done by Diamond Select Toys, as well as those released by Mattel.  Mattel also did some cheaper sixth scale figures, and Blitzway did some terrific but costly versions as well.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

Discussion:
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