Leatherneck is one of those characters I know pretty much only from the cartoon. I honestly cannot recall a Hama story with him, though I’m sure he must have one. My main impression of him is his adversarial relationship with Wet-Suit which I found funny and endeared both characters to me. Let’s take a look at Leatherneck!
The nice thing about the Classified version of this newer standardized box is that you can tell who it is on the pegs from the side because there is identifying info on both sides. That’s nice for ease of searching on a toy hunt. I like the grimace Leatherneck sports on the side art and feel like it fits his character well.
Leatherneck comes with alternate fists, removeable hat and glasses, pistol, knife, pack, and rifle with removeable magazine.
The pack looks like re-use from Recondo, but matches the look of the V1 pack pretty closely, actually a bit more closely than it matches the original Recondo pack. It’s got a different color for the bed roll, which is nice, but I do wish they had used a tad more paint on it for some straps or the canteen. It stays on his back pretty well for a Classified figure, though it would be cool if it could hold his extra hands.
The knife and pistol have a pretty standard look to them and don’t jump out to me as a particular re-use. I do like the silver paint on the knife blade and it fits tightly into the sheathe on the chest and doesn’t fall out.
The fists swap out easily and are a really nice option for a guy like Leatherneck. Any Joe featured in that cartoon probably did more punching than shooting, so I appreciate the inclusion. Just be careful when you do swap because both the bracelet and the watch are removeable and could easily be lost in that procedure.
The rifle looks similar to what he had in the original figure and has a very familiar feel to it with the grenade launcher. The only thing I wish he had was a sling for it.
The hat and glasses are removeable and both stay on pretty well and allow for a little variety in the looks. The hat has the Marines logo they gave Gung Ho since they cannot, for some reason, use the actual Marines logo. I feel like the portrait has a bit of a 1,000 yard stare, so the glasses help change that expression a bit.
Sculpting overall is fantastic with a very classic and standard soldier feel to him with lots of equipment, but not so bulky as to render articulation useless. I like what they’ve done with the little cord hanging off the left side of the belt and the walkie in the leg holster.
Articulation is Classified standard, but the knees and elbows were so tight that I decided to heat them up to get them going. The neck range of motion isn’t great, but it is a little better than what we got on recent releases like the Iron Grenadiers so he can look up a bit. The ab crunch is limited by the vest overlay, but you can still arc him back almost all the way and crunch a click forward. There are butterfly joints, but they don’t really allow the arms to cross the body as much as I’d like.
The paint is good with some nice decals on the shoulders and a lovely face print. I especially like the 5 o’clock shadow that extends down to his neck and the tiny little watch face decal.
Overall Leatherneck is a solid figure that gets the job done. Not too flashy, but really good military figure.
Source: Fwoosh
