Monthly Archives: March 2026

#4013: Metallo

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

METALLO

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (KENNER)

Early in the production of Batman: The Animated Series, the producers realized that, if they intended for the show to have a long run, they’d need to rely on a deeper stable of foes than just the heavy hitters from Batman’s rogues gallery.  To help with this, they put effort into rebuilding some of the more obscure characters into antagonists of depth equal to their more popular counterparts (with their revamp of Mr. Freeze serving as perhaps the most successful case of this).  When the same team moved onto Superman: The Animated Series, they took a similar approach to Superman’s rogues.  One of the beneficiaries was Metallo, who was granted a new design and a revamped and more streamlined origin story, resulting in a fan-favorite, who also got an action figure along the way.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Metallo was released in Series 4 of Kenner’s Superman: The Animated Series line.  As with the rest of the assortment, his domestic release was handled by Diamond Distributors, as US retailers had bailed on the line after Series 2.  He was re-released with a slight paint tweak as part of a four-pack, which also included Supergirl and Bizarro from the same assortment.  The figure seen here is the original single release.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  He’s got the standard movement for the line, which is the usual Kenner 5 POA, plus a waist swivel.  Metallo’s sculpt was all-new to him, and would remain unique, apart from the previously mentioned boxed set version.  It’s generally a pretty good one.  The STAS figures were all a slight departure from the show designs, but Metallo sticks closer than most.  His legs are maybe a little bulky, but that’s really it.  Otherwise, he recreates the show’s updated design for the character nicely.  The strongest parts are the exposed portions of his robotic skeleton, which sticks very close to the animation model.  The human portion of the head is a little more detailed than the animation model, but feels consistent with the character, enough that it’s pretty clearly the same guy.  The rest of the sculpt is clean and basic, which is what it needs to be.  His chest features the cavity that holds his Kryptonite heart; the cover is on a hinge, and pushing the button on his back pushes the heart forward, making it “beat” and opening the cover to reveal it.  It’s not quite the way it works on the show, but it’s a cool enough gimmick to feel worth it.  Metallo’s paint work is generally on point.  The general color work is basic, but matches his coloring from the show well.  The robotic side gets some really nice accenting, with the only small slip-up being that they didn’t paint the remnant of his shirt cuff the correct tan color.  Otherwise, it looks really cool.  Metallo was packed with a somewhat goofy hover bike thing, which also doubles as a really big shoulder cannon thing.  Either way, it’s got a missile that it can launch, which is silly, but fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I remember how hard this assortment was to get, Metallo especially.  A friend of my parents had a display in his house with all of his DCAU figures, and Metallo was one of them, and one that I was always particularly fascinated by.  At some point, my dad took note of this fascination, and tracked one down on eBay, and thus I had my own Metallo.  This guy got a lot of play time when I was a kid, and remained one of my favorites.  Revisiting him, I still very much like him.  There were a lot of compromises made on these figures, but Metallo has very few of them, and it results in a fairly accurate figure, which is also just quite a bit of fun.

#4012: Brimstone Love

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

BRIMSTONE LOVE

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“The proprietor of the Theater of Pain, Brimstone Love is in the business of suffering! This shape-shifter takes personal interest in the souls he seeks to exploit, making sure to document and record every torturous moment, and ensuring a healthy profit on the blackest of markets. He has currently taken an interest in the lives of the X-Men, dispatching his seekers to hunt the mutants down and bring them into Brimstone Love’s web of calculated cruelty.”

In the ‘90s, Marvel launched a whole line of comics that was set in the future of the Marvel universe, in the year 2099, at that time over a hundred years removed from the main continuity.  Mostly, these days, it exists as the background of the creation of Miquel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099, who was far and away the most conventionally popular of the bunch, but they had equivalents for most of the major Marvel titles at the time, which of course included X-Men.  While X-Men 2099 and its cast have largely faded into obscurity, they did at the very least get their own dedicated toyline, covering not just the team, but also some of their antagonists.  Once such antagonist was Brimstone Love, a guy whose name is Brimstone Love…and, yeah, I don’t actually have another thing to say about him.  Name’s cool, though.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Brimstone Love was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line.  He’s the only non-team member in the first series, but still a notable character from the early run of the book, fitting with the rest of the figures.  The figure stands 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  He lacks a neck joint, and also elbows, but does get a waist swivel, albeit one that’s somewhat spring-loaded for an “attack” feature.  Brimstone’s sculpt was all new to him, and remained unique to him for all of Toy Biz’s run.  I guess that makes sense, since it’s rather a unique design, and there’s little call for such a sculpt to be repurposed for other characters.  It’s generally not a bad recreation of Ron Frenz’s illustrations of the character.  He’s got a distinctive set of proportions, matching Brimstone’s admittedly very ‘90s build from the comics, and the angular nature of the musculature is certainly distinctive.  His cape is a separate piece, which can be removed, though it’s not really designed with that in mind.  It’s not actually affixed, mind you, but sits around the neck, sort of free-floating.  His color work is decent enough, again matching the comics look.  The bulk of him is this a pretty neat metallic blue, and he’s got a splash of red going on, which keeps things from getting too monotonous.  Brimstone is packed with a flame effect attachment, as well as what I have to assume is maybe a set of brass knuckles?  I don’t know, and the packaging didn’t say.  The flame is flat and opaque, but generally fine.  The knuckles are the same color, and fit well over the figure’s hand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I think I’ve maybe read one issue of X-Men 2099 over the years, so I can’t say I know much of the characters beyond what I’ve loosely gleaned from the tie-in toys.  Brimstone is one of those characters that I really don’t know, but I snagged him as part of a lot that had pretty much all of the other X-Men 2099 figures, back a few years ago.  Most of them were incomplete, but Brimstone notably had all of his parts, as well as his cardback.  He’s an interesting figure.  Kind of limited in what he can do, but he certainly casts an imposing silhouette.