SHADOW DANCER

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“Centuries ago, an alien spacecraft from a distant galaxy became trapped in a cave deep within the deserts of Oklahoma. Stranded, the craft’s lone survivor made the surrounding hills and mountains its home, undisturbed by the general populace. Despite its monstrous appearance, the Shadow Dancer is a being of peace, and uses its ability to blend into darkness to serve as silent guardian to those who pass through his desert.”

Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line might not have come even close to completing any line-up of the team from the book’s run, but at least they did include a bunch of non-team members, right?  Right.  Take for instance, the super crucial character, Shadow Dancer, who had all of three appearances.  Gotta get an action figure of that one, right?  Oh yeah.  So, let’s look at the Shadow Dancer, being of three appearances!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Shadow Dancer is the final figure in the Series 2 line-up of the X-Men 2099 tie-in line, wrapping up an assortment that was light on characters from the titular team.  The figure stands right at 5 inches tall (and almost as wide) and has 7 points of articulation.  The articulation scheme is sort of oddball here.  There’s joints at the shoulders, elbows, and hips, as well as a swivel on the tail.  The hips and shoulders are pretty standard, but the elbows only move outward and inward, not up and down like usual.  It makes it so the Shadow Dancer can, at best, do sort of a hugging thing, while not really offering much other variety on posing.  At least the figure’s imposing stature makes up for it.  There’s no denying this figure sure is a big hunk of plastic, but it kind of needs to be, to accurately depict what’s in the comics.  The sculpt is appropriately big and monstrous, with some decent texturing and smaller detail work.  The jaw is hinged, and when you turn the dial on the figure’s back, it chatters up and down.  It’s gimmicky, but neat.  The color work on the Shadow Dancer is predominately a sort of maroon, which is molded, with a fair amount of dark silver accenting via paint work.  It’s nothing crazy, but it does what it needs too.  Shadow Dancer didn’t include any accessories, but given the size, it’s understandable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with almost the entirety of this line, I got Shadow Dancer in a big bulk lot of loose figures, back in 2020.  While I had to augment a lot of them with parts from other figures later, the Shadow Dancer, with its lack of smaller easily lost parts, was included in its entirety, which is pretty nifty.  There’s not a ton going on with this figure, but at the same time, there doesn’t really need to be.  It’s a big, chunky monster thing, with a rather neat and understated action feature.  And, I can say from the amusement it brought my son Matty when he was digging through my figures a few years  back, it does seem to resonate pretty well with that kid mindset.