METALHEAD

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“Powerhouse member of the outlaw mutant group the X-Men, Metalhead uses his power to absorb the properties of any metal he touches in fierce battles as he and his teammates rebel against corporate control. Recently, Metalhead has morphed into a larger, more monstrous version of his original self, and is currently trapped in an alloyed state possessing at once different properties of the many metals he’s absorbed.”

So, there’s this guy, he’s a mutant, and he’s a member of the X-Men, but not the original X-Men, a later iteration of the team, and he turns into metal, and then at one point, he gets locked into his metal state, and he can’t turn back, and it causes him all sorts of angst.  But, I’m not talking about Colossus today!  No, I’m talking about the *other* guy with that backstory, Metalhead.  He’s totally different!  He lives in the year 2099!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Metalhead is part of the first series of Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line.  He’s well placed, as a main member of the team, who got quite a bit of focus in the book’s run.  This is his second, post monstrous transformation look, which is admittedly the slightly more distinctive of the two.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  He’s definitely more restricted on the movement, lacking elbows, knees, or even a neck joint.  He does at least get a swivel at the waist, so, you know, he can turn…sort of.  Metalhead’s sculpt was new to him, and remained unique through the Toy Biz run.  It’s big and its bulky, and it’s got some heft to it, so he stands out well from the rest of the line (apart from Brimstone, who’s also big and bulky, I suppose).  He’s rather cartoony and a bit silly, but again feels like he’s a respectable recreation of Ron Frenz’s artwork from the book.  There’s a rather obvious lever on his back, which moves his arms up and down, all crazy action feature like.  Metalhead’s color work is pretty solid.  The base colors match the comics, and the transition from gold to silver on his skin tone is quite nicely handled.  There’s a bit of slop on some of the other spots, especially those silver bands on his legs, but overall not too shabby.  Metalhead is packed with an absurdly large gun thing, which fits very tightly into his left hand.  It splits apart in the middle, for, umm, reasons?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I’ve brought up before, the only X-Men 2099 figure I had as a kid was Meanstreak.  I got pretty much everyone else from a big lot of loose Toy Biz figures that came into work five or so years ago.  While last week’s Brimstone Love was complete, Metalhead here was missing the front half of his gun.  That was it.  How embarrassing.  I had to buy a whole extra Metalhead just for the front of his gun.  Honestly, though, it’s not so bad.  While he’s not exceedingly posable, he’s certainly got a neat presence, and he’s fun to mess around with.