X-MAN

MARVEL’S MOST WANTED (TOY BIZ)

“Nate Grey is a stranger in a strange world. He’s a survivor of the Age of Apocalypse – a world like ours, but one where the evil mutant Apocalypse ruled supreme. Now, after that world’s ruin, Nate finds himself on our Earth, struggling to save it from a similar destiny. Genetically engineered to be the most powerful psi-talent ever, Nate’s discovered that the psychic strain may be too much for his body to handle. Nate has also found that he bears a striking resemblance to the future warrior known as X-Man Cable…”

By-and-large, the sweeping changes made by the “Age of Apocalypse” crossover were swept back to other way when the even ended, reverting the main cast of characters back to their mainstream counterparts without much fuss.  But, what of the characters who didn’t have a counterpart?  Well, a small handful of them actually got to stick around, at least for a little bit.  Nate Grey, aka X-Man, was *technically* the equal number to Cable, but with a different backstory and direct lineage, as well as a quite different ultimate outcome in terms of character, he got kept around for a bit past the event’s wrap-up.  That wound up being extra fortunate, because it *also* gave him extra time to get some toy coverage!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

X-Man is the third and final figure in Toy Biz’s 1998 Marvel’s Most Wanted line.  Its an odd line-up for the name it was given.  At the time, Nate was the closest you’d get to a “heavy hitter” since he was headlining his own book (Blink would later headline Exiles, elevating her personal status a bit, at the same time that Nate was on the downswing; Spat pretty much never got time in the spotlight).  In his solo book, Nate was constantly changing out his attire, generally keeping just a general feel of look, so to go with something more directly marketable, this figure goes back to his original AoA look, which, to be fair, he also sported for a bit in the main 616.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  He was honestly pretty solid on the movement front, but contains an interesting design oddity.  His shoulder joints consist of a mix of swivel and ball-joint assembly, with the ball joint pegging into a swivel joint on the main torso.  Said swivel is ultimately redundant, since the ball joint can turn just fine on its own.  Why is it like that?  I don’t know.  The sculpt here is one of the more stylized of the Toy Biz run, though that was kind of true in general for this particular set.  He’s a bit pre-posed, with an odd sort of twist to the body, and he ultimately looks quite a bit elongated, especially the head.  It does end up feeling pretty true to the character, though, so I can’t really knock it.  X-Man’s paint work is generally basic; the suit consists of molded blue and painted yellow.  Application’s all pretty clean, so no issues there.  He’s packed with a rather involved display stand, presumably meant to replicate his psychic powers.  It was one Toy Biz liked a lot; it wound up re-used for Astral Doctor Strange and the Marvel Legends Human Torch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

X-Man is the only one of this set I had as a kid.  I was at Toys “R” Us with my dad, and it was either him or Red Skull.  I only *sort of* knew him from a team-up I’d read with Spider-Man, but I’ve always been more a heroes guy than a villains guy, so X-Man it was.  In retrospect, choosing him over the Nazi does feel like the obvious choice, right?  X-Man actually got a bit of service as some non-X-Man characters, serving as the Rick Jones to my Avengers for a while, and also as a stand-in for Kid Action/Action Boy alongside my Toy Biz M. Bison, who was my go-to for Captain Action.  Look, sometimes my figure options didn’t always match up with the stories my mind needed to tell, okay? Ultimately, he’s still my favorite of the three figures, though it’s certainly nice to have him alongside the other two after all of these years.