Tag Archives: 00s

#0258: Batgirl & Bane

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BATGIRL & BANE

DC MINIMATES

Bane&Batgirl

One of the great tragedies for many Minimates collectors was the cancellation of DC Direct’s DC Minimates after only eight series. Not only did the line present us with definitive versions of many of DC’s top characters, it also gave us some wacky side characters like Ambush Bug and Ma Hunkel, and it was the first Minimate line to push the envelope in terms of sculpting. However, the line was met with its fair share of difficulties, most notably hitting shelves when Minimates were at a low point and being gone just before they hit it big. Still, we got a decent 64 figure run, and that’s certainly better than nothing. Today I’ll be looking at two figures from the Batman side of things, Batgirl and Bane.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Batgirl and Bane were released as part of the fourth series of DC Minimates. They’re an odd pair, seing as the two have never actually met. Heck, they didn’t even exist at the same time! Anyway, they’re both Batman characters, I guess.

BATGIRL

Batgirl is built on the basic Minimate body, so she stands about 2 ½ inches tall and features 14 points of articulation. She’s based on the Barbra Gordon version of the character, in her second costume. She features a sculpted mask, cape, belt and gloves. The cape and gloves were previously used on both the series one and series three Batmen, as well as being used before that in the DC C3 line. The mask and belt are new, so as to properly depict her exposed hair and more elaborate belt design. The paint work is pretty clean on Batgirl, with no real slop, and some very sharp line work on all the transitions. This set was released during the period of time when Minimates were using full slip over masks for everyone, even characters that only had half masks, so Batgirl got a full face mask. Some figures took advantage of this and gave the figure a different facial expression on the unmasked head. Sadly, Batgirl didn’t do this, which is a shame, as it would have the unmasked face be Barbra in full librarian mode. Batgirl includes a pair of bat-cuffs and a spare hair piece to display her unmasked.

BANE

Bane demonstrates one of the unique traits of the DC Minimates line: use of the larger Minimate body. The body features the same articulation and relative proportions, but is about a half an inch taller than the basic body. So, DC used it for larger characters such as Bane here. Bane features three sculpted parts: mask, belt, and wrist gauntlet with tube that plugs into the mask. All of these pieces are new to Bane, mostly due to his use of the larger body. All of the pieces accurately capture Bane’s look from the comics, so kudos to them on that. The paint work is pretty good overall, though there a few issues. The shirt features black detailing with gray highlights, but on the edges of the torso, the gray highlights have been missed, leaving their spots flesh-toned. Also, the sides of the shirt don’t quite line up with the front. Finally, the mask, while well detailed, seems to sit a bit too low, which gives him an abnormally large head. Under the mask, there’s a fully detailed face with hair, which Is a nice touch I suppose, though I hardly see anyone displaying him this way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with the rest of the DC Minimates line, I purchased these two as soon as they were released. While I think they’re both well done figures, I remember being disappointed in general by the lineup for Series Four, as well as baffled by the choice to pack these two together. It’s a cool set, but it’s hard to tell what audience they were aiming for, as the two figures present appeal to two different sensibilities.

#0232: Johann Kraus

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JOHANN KRAUS

HELLBOY

I came in somewhat late to the Hellboy scene. My first interaction with the characters and story was the release of the first Hellboy movie in 2004. I saw the movie with a group of friends and had no expectations at all. I actually thought that Abe Sapien was supposed to be the villain! Anyway, the movie was really good, and I was hooked on all things Hellboy. Mezco Toys had the license for the movie, and I picked up a few figures from that line, and then Mezco decided to move onto a line of figures based on the comicbooks. Today, I’ll be looking at that line’s version of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s resident expert on ectoplasmic stuff, Johann Kraus.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Johann was released as part of the second series of comicbook-inspired Hellboy line from Mezco Toys. He stands a little over 7 inches tall and features 15 points of articulation. He’s based on Johann as Mike Mignola drew him. Seeing as Mignola originated the design, that’s a good call. The sculpt does a pretty good job of translating Mignola’s 2D drawings to 3D, which was no easy feat, I’m sure. They’ve incorporated some great texture work all around, which captures the gritty look of the series very nicely. The paint is serviceable, with some pretty decent dry brushing all around. They’ve used a semi-translucent paint on his head, which works nicely to capture his ectoplasmic look. Sadly, my figure has a scratch on his face, which brings the work down a bit, but I’d be exceptionally happy were that not the case. Johann included a spare set of hands to simulate his ectoplasmic powers at work.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Johann from my local comic store (Cosmic Comix) when series two was first released. Shortly after the release of the first Hellboy movie, I picked up an issue of Hellboy Weird Tales, which among other things, contained a story that focused on Johann. It was my first interaction with the character, and I enjoyed him immensely. So, when the figure came out I knew I definitely wanted one. I never got any of the other comicbook Hellboy figures, but Johann is still very entertaining, and a great representation of the character.

#0229: Green Goblin

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GREEN GOBLIN

SPIDER-MAN: THE MOVIE (TOYBIZ)

 

The first Spider-Man movie may have been surpassed by other superhero movies in recent years, but when it was released it was my favorite superhero movie, and remained in that spot until it was dislodged by its sequel. The movie was also one of the earliest comicbook based movies to get a decent tie-in toyline, on par with, and perhaps even better than the comic stuff at the time. I’m certain it surprises no one that I owned a few of the figures from that toyline, and today I’ll be looking at one of the figures of the film’s big bad, the Green Goblin.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Goblin was part of the first series of Spider-Man movie figures. The figure stands 6 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation. He has an all new sculpt based on Willem Dafoe’s performance as the character in the film. It’s a pretty good sculpt and, whether you like the suit or not, it’s a good representation of the suit’s design. Under the figure’s removable mask is an unmasked Norman Osborn head, which bares more than a passing resemblance to Dafoe. The resemblance might be a bit closer were it not for the slick back hair style, but it was necessary in order to facilitate the removable mask feature. The mask is a well done piece and is essentially a scaled down version of the real thing, though it is missing the backing it had in the movie. This is once again to aid the removability. The paintwork is cleanly applied, with no real issues with slop or bleed over. His skin tone is a tad too yellow for my tastes, but only a tad. The figure came packaged with his goblin glider and a flight stand, but both of mine have been lost. Sorry! (EDIT: Okay, not quite…)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Green Goblin from the KB Toys in my local mall shortly after the first series was released. That would have been a few months before the release of the movie. For some reason, I wanted Green Goblin, but none of the other figures in the series. So, I only had the Goblin for a while. He’s a quality figure for sure, but that goblin costume looks worse every time I see it.

#0213: Quicksilver

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QUICKSILVER

MARVEL LEGENDS

Quicksilver

ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends was seen by many fans as the definitive Marvel toyline (not by me, but that’s a whole other thing). So, many were dismayed to find out that at the end of 2006, the Marvel license would be moving to Hasbro. Hasbro quickly assured that they intended to continue production of Marvel Legends, in the same scale and style. People were definitely worried. Those first few waves were certainly rough, with a very mixed selection of figures. But, eventually, Hasbro started to get it, and has recently turned Marvel Legends into one of the greatest toylines on the market. Today, I’ll be looking at one of their earliest releases, Quicksilver. If you’d like more info on the character, check out his entry in the Backstories section. On to the figure…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Quicksilver was released as part of the second series of Marvel Legends under Hasbro. He is supposedly one of the prototypes already completed by ToyBiz before the property transferred over. He’s based on Quicksilver’s second costume, which seems to be the one most people associate with the character, given it prevalence in his action figure releases. There was also a variant of this figure in his original green costume, but I never got that one. The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and features 40 points of articulation. He’s built on a body that originated on ToyBiz’s version of Bullseye from an earlier wave, with hands and feet that were previously used on the line’s version of Havok. Quicksilver gets a brand new head, which looks great. It’s really perfect for the character, and they even managed to make his hair not look silly, which is quite a feat, let me tell you. The paint is rather bland, I must say. He features minimal detailing. It’s cleanly applied and all, but it doesn’t do much to make the figure’s sculpt pop. I feel this sculpt could look downright amazing with a good paint job. Quicksilver included a piece of the series’ Build-A-Figure, the Blob.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Quicksilver was a gift from my always supportive Mom! I had wanted to finish up my Blob figure, and she very kindly went out and bought me the remaining figures I needed. I have to say, most of them weren’t very good (but I still appreciated them. A gift’s a gift, and they were an incredibly thoughtful one.), but Quicksilver was definitely an exception. Bland paint apps aside, he’s a really great figure. How is it that Quicksilver keeps getting good figures but most of Scarlet Witch’s figures end up looking like pond scum? That ain’t right…

#0206: Iceman

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ICEMAN

MARVEL LEGENDS

IceMan

It’s not a line I have fond memories of in hindsight, but when it was brand new, I was all about ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends. It was THE line to collect in the early 2000s, and it offered “hyper-detailed” versions of classic characters. Looking back, there are a few gems from those early lines, but most of the figures just end up looking like an oddly shaped mess. A very well-articulated oddly shaped mess, but a mess nonetheless. Today’s figure comes from the latter group.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Iceman was released in the 8th series of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends. He’s a little over 6 inches tall and features 44 points of articulation, which is a lot. However, like many of the ToyBiz era ML figures, a lot of this articulation cancels itself out. I think this was when ToyBiz was more interested in jamming in articulation just because they could. Iceman has a new head on a body re-used from the Black Costume version of Spider-Man in Toybiz’s Spider-Man line around the same time. The body worked okay for Spider-Man, but it just seems really strange looking for Iceman. The proportions are very strange, especially around the shoulders, where he has 6 joints on each side. It just doesn’t look right. The head sculpt is pretty good, but it seems weird seeing it on that odd body. The paint work is a bit uneven. They’ve gone with a blue airbrush technique, but it looks different from piece to piece. This gets rather distracting when the figure is completely assembled. Iceman came packaged with a display stand that looked like a damaged sentinel hand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Believe it or not, I was actually pretty excited for Iceman at the time of his release. I was working on an X-Men set-up at the time, so I guess I was excited to get such a key player. If I remember correctly, Iceman was a gift from my parents, I think for Valentine’s Day. Yeah, my parents used to buy me toys for Valentine’s Day. There really was no escaping the collection, was there?

#0203: Anakin Skywalker – Hanger Duel

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ANAKIN SKYWALKER – HANGER DUEL

STAR WARS SAGA

Anakin

So, I kind of missed May the 4th, or Star Wars day as its come to be known. Yeah, I was busy over the weekend, and totally didn’t think of the date. Which meant my May 4th review was the T-1000, not something Star Wars related. For those of you that were offended by that, I am eternally sorry. I’ll try not to let it happen next year!

Today’s figure is Star Wars themed. I’d say that it was an apology, but it’s Anakin, so…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Anakin was released as part of one of the later assortments of Star Wars Saga, which was the line released around the time of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. This particular figure is the “hanger duel” version of the character, which is Anakin from his battle with Count Dooku at the end of the movie. He’s in his basic Jedi garb from the movie. The figure stands about 3 ¾ inches tall and has 9 points of articulation. The hips are rendered practically motionless by the skirt piece, plus his shoulders are on a weird diagonal, and the elbow joints are just straight cut joints, which means they do nothing. Essentially, his articulation is mostly pointless. The sculpt isn’t terrible, though he has some monkey arms, and he doesn’t look much like Hayden Christiansen. But the texture work is pretty nice. The paint is fairly basic, but is cleanly applied, with no slop or bleed over. The figure features two action features. The first is a wheel on his back that spins his left hand. The second is a removable right arm, attached via magnets (because Hasbro was obsessed with them at the time), which replicates Anakin’s injury from the duel. The figure included two lightsabers: one green, one blue.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Anakin from a trip to my local Toys R Us with my Dad. I was obsessed with Star Wars toys at the time, and I thought Attack of the Clones was a lot better than it actually was. It was truly a blissful time. Anyway, I has been looking all over the place for this figure, after seeing it online. It’s not the greatest figure, but I do actually feel a bit of sentimental attachment to it.

#0152: Wild Bill

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WILD BILL

GI JOE VS COBRA

Today, I’ll be taking another look at the original Action Figure, G.I. Joe!  Once again, this is a figure from the successful A Real American Hero incarnation of the line.  This is another look at the re-launch of the line in the early 2000s, under the “G.I. Joe vs. Cobra” branding.  After the first few waves, Hasbro started offering figures featuring “sound attack” weapons, which generally meant that the figures’ weapons had these large tabs and could be inserted into a slot on a specially marked “sound attack” vehicle to get that weapon’s specific sound.  It was an interesting concept, I suppose, but wasn’t the most reliable thing.  Anyway, I’m actually looking at one of the figures from the sound attack line without a sound attack weapon.  Hang on to your hats, it’s Wild Bill, G.I. Joe pilot!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wild Bill was released as part of the 2002 assortment of G.I. Joe vs Cobra.  He originally came packed in a two-pack with a repaint of the Neo-Viper, one of Cobra’s troops, but my research shows me that he also was released single carded later on, which I believe is how I got mine.  The figure is 3 ¾ inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  Like so many of the figures in the G.I. Joe vs Cobra line, the sculpt on Wild Bill is a little bit dated looking now.  He doesn’t quite have the “v” shaped torso that we saw on the Night Creeper, but he still has the long lanky arms, which look a bit odd.  The detail work still looks great, though, so there was obviously a fair bit of effort put in to the figure.  The paint work is pretty good.  Not hyper-detailed, but done well enough, with no slop or bleed-over.  Wild Bill had a decent accessory compliment, with two revolvers, a rifle and his trusty hat.  The hat is definitely my favorite piece, as it sits very nicely on his head.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m pretty sure I picked up Wild Bill single carded from KB Toys on a trip to the mall with my Grandmother.  I’ve never been the biggest fan of the character, but this was a pretty cool figure that I thoroughly enjoyed when I was younger.  He actually stands the test of time a lot better than most of his compatriots from the same line.

#0136: Young Avengers

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PATRIOT, IRON LAD, ASGARDIAN, & HULKLING

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOYBIZ)

Today, I’m once again venturing into the land of Toybiz’s Marvel Legends.  I’ve actually stated to dread these reviews a little because I was quite fond of these figures when they were released, but looking back at them takes away all the nostalgia.  It doesn’t help that most of them are also accompanied by a story of how difficult they were to acquire.  Some of the figures still hold up, though, and occasionally some of them even lack the frustration inducing stories.  The Young Avengers set is actually one of those.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These guys were released as a boxed set during the final year of ToyBiz’s possession of the Marvel license.  They’re based on their appearance in the first issue of the original Young Avengers, which was also included with the set.

PATRIOT

First up, the effective leader of the team, Patriot.  Patriot was Eli Bradley, the grandson of Isaiah Bradley who was the “Black Captain America.”  He acquired the Super Soldier serum thanks to a blood transfusion from his grandfather.  He’s shown here in his original costume, which was patterned after Bucky’s costume.  It’s not the costume he spent the majority of his appearances in, but it’s actually my favorite of his two costumes.  Patriot stands about 6 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation.  Amazingly for a Marvel Legends sculpt, everything is actually well proportioned.  My only complaint would be that his feet are probably at tad too big, but the rest looks good.  The detail on the uniform is great, with lots of great little wrinkles and folds.  The head is also spot-on to Jim Cheung’s art on the series.  The paint work is all nicely done, with no real issues.  I do wish they had used differently colored pins for the lower knee articulation because the black actually ended up bleeding into the white plastic around it.  Patriot included the original Captain America shield and a display stand with his picture on it.  Small issues aside, Patriot’s my favorite figure in the set, in spite of being my least favorite of the characters.

IRON LAD

Ah, yes Iron Lad.  Remember how Patriot was my favorite figure and least favorite character?  Iron Lad is the exact opposite.  I loved the character, but the figure’s just eh…  Anyway, Iron Lad is actually a young Kang the Conqueror.  For those of you not in the know, Kang is one of the Avengers’ greatest adversaries.  Iron Lad found out who he was destined to become and rebelled.  The first arc of the series largely deals with the ramifications of this.  Iron Lad stands about 6 inches tall and features 30 points of articulation.  He doesn’t put his articulation to very good use, as some key points are missing, leaving him stuck in some awkward positions.  Iron Lad’s armor did have a tendency to change around a little bit, so I guess he was a bit hard to capture.  The head is great.  It looks just like the character.  Sadly, the body’s a mess.  The proportions are a mess, and the articulation is incredibly obvious.  The paint is also quite sloppy, which doesn’t do the sculpt any favors.  Iron Lad included a display stand with his picture on it.  I don’t hate this figure, but I wish it had turned out a little better.

ASGARDIAN

Next up is Asgardian, or as he’s been known in every appearance following the first arc, Wiccan.  He’s Billy Caplan, and he’s the reincarnated spirit of one of the Scarlet Witch and Vision’s deceased children.  It makes more sense in context.  Billy stands about 6 inches tall and features 35 points of articulation.  The sculpt looks pretty good, and his body sculpt is probably the best in the set.  All the proportions look about right, which is cool.  His head sculpt isn’t quite as nice as the other two, but it’s not terrible by any stretch.  The paint isn’t the best in the set, but it’s passable.  There’s a few spots with some noticeable slop, and the paint on the arms is super thick, but it doesn’t look too bad.  Asgardian included a staff and a display stand with his picture on it.

HULKING

Lastly, it’s Billy’s boyfriend Hulkling.  Hulkling is also the offspring of Kree Captain Mar-Vell and the Skrull Princess, so there’s that.  Hulkling stands closer to 7 inches and features 34 points of articulation.  The sculpt is pretty good, and super textured.  Like, there are no smooth areas on this guy.  Even his arms have a pretty cool skin texture.  The head is spot on to Jim Cheung’s drawings of the character, and all the proportions look appropriate to the character.  My only real complaint is that the hands look oddly flat, which looks a bit weird from certain angles.  Hulkling’s paint is all very well applied, with no noticeable slop, and some rather nice dry-brushing.  Hulkling includes a stand with his picture on it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was very excited for this set when it was released.  I had been following the comic and was very happy to see them on display at Toy Fair that year.  I received this set form my parents for Christmas and have greatly enjoyed it since.  When I packed up my Marvel Legends a few years ago, it was amongst the very last of the items put away.  My greatest complaint about this set is that we never got the remaining members of the team.

#0127: Jean Grey

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JEAN GREY

X-MEN MOVIE SERIES (TOYBIZ)

 

In the 90s, the 5 inch scaled ruled to toy aisle, due in no small part to ToyBiz’s gargantuan line of Marvel toys, specifically those based on the 90s mega-giant X-Men.  It looked like that was where we’d be staying for a while.  But then, the X-Men movie was released in 2000, and they were released in… 6 inch scale?  It wasn’t the first time we’d seen such a scale, but it certainly wasn’t prevalent.  Coupled with ToyBiz’s continued release of other 5 inch product, it looked like this might just be a blip on the radar.

If you’ve followed the action figure industry in recent years, you would know that the 6 inch scale was far from a blip on the radar.  It went on to become the ruling scale on the market for over ten years, which was impressive.  And a lot of its owed to the X-Men Movie line making a bold jump.  Today’s review is a two-fer, looking at both versions of Jean Grey from the line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jean was released as part of the first series of the X-Men Movie Series.  She stands about 6 inches tall and has 10 points of articulation.  I feel it necessary to point out that only about 6 of those points are really useful, and even then it’s iffy, thanks to the odd cut joints and strange pose of the figure.   Anyway, the sculpt is a bit of a mixed bag.  Sculpturally, the only difference between the two figures is the hair style.  The original release had it down, the second had it up in a ponytail.   They both look fine, though the ponytail look is more accurate to the character’s appearance in the movie.  The facial sculpt is actually a pretty decent approximation of Famke Janssen.  The body’s where things start to fall apart.  It has some really nice details on the suit, with some great work on the zippers and folds and such, but the proportions of the underlying body are just weird.  The arms are too long, the waist is too thin, and her legs are in this odd sideways crouch sort of thing.  All in all, just very strange.  The paint on these two is pretty good for the time.  I think I like the work on the first release a bit more, as it looks a bit cleaner.  There is one notable change between the two on the paint front.  The second release has a black t-shirt painted on under the uniform.  Apparently, this was the main reason for the second release, as there were some complaints from a few concerned parents about the pulled down zippers and total lack of any kind of covering on the two female characters in uniform.  Honestly, it’s a perfectly reasonable point to make, and it’s actually a bit odd that they had their uniforms zipped so far down, given that Jean has hers zipped up just like her male compatriots in the film proper.  Both Jeans included an incredibly creepy mutated Senator Kelly as there only accessory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The first version of Jean was my second figure from the movie line.  She, along with Professor X were purchased for me by my Nana as an end of school gift.  Yeah, I had the option to get anyone in the line, and I bought a girl and a guy in a wheelchair.  I was a strange kid.  Anyway, I held onto that one for a while, and remember the controversy and subsequent rerelease of Jean, now with t-shirt and appropriate hair style.  I was happy with my first release version, and thanks to the reissue thing, it was actually quite rare.

Then, I came home one day to find that my dog had gotten into my room and pretty much destroyed my Jean figure.  The first release was fairly difficult to find at that point, so I had to settle for the reissue.  Fortunately, a few months ago, my comic book store got in a large selection of older figures loose, and the first release Jean was amongst them, allowing me to once again have the figure!

#0124: Gambit

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GAMBIT

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOYBIZ)

So, Happy President’s Day, I guess.  Um, I don’t really have that much in the way of presidential action figures, so I’m just gonna go ahead as if it’s any other day.  But I thought I’d point it out anyway.  Just to mess with you.

Looking back at my past reviews, I’m actually a bit shocked by how few reviews I’ve done of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends.  For a while back there they were, like, the only line I really collected, and I’ve done quite a few reviews of DC Direct figures, which I collected about the same time, so it seems odd I haven’t really looked at any of them.  I think part of this might be that I have some bad memories of trying to track certain figures down, and part of it might be that the figures just haven’t aged all that well.  Or, I’m going by a totally randomized list, and not as many of them have popped up.  Who knows? (Well, me but that kinda ruins my intro).

So, in an effort to attempt to correct some slight oversight, I’ll be reviewing the Marvel Legends version of the X-Men’s own resident scum bag, Gambit!  Gambit isn’t as big a deal as he once was, but he was pretty big in the 90s, and even into the early 2000s, hence his place in the line.  So, let’s take a look at the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Gambit was released as part of the 4th wave of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends line.  He stands about 6 inches tall, and he has 40 points of articulation.  The figure depicts Gambit in him classic pink/blue/black leotard and brown trench coat look that everyone thought was oh so rad in the 90s.  It’s a truly hideous design, but I can’t help but be so damned nostalgic about it, because being born in the 90s ruined me as a person.  The sculpt was pretty good at the time, but now feels like one of the more outdated sculpts in the line, with huge hands, some pretty serious monkey arms, and an overall emaciated look to him.  I think the head still holds up, with that perfect floppy Gambit hair, and the totally in character smirk.  The coat isn’t the best tailored thing ever, but it isn’t too bad, and it does somewhat mask the odd proportions of the figure.  The figure’s paint is pretty good, though it can be sloppy in some places, particularly the face, which I’ve seen have some variance from figure to figure.  I do appreciate that this is one of the only Gambit figures to give him the appropriate black sleeves with those weird pink squares, instead of just leaving them pink.  The figure had a really nice assortment of accessories that I wish I still had, including: his staff, an energy explosion with a set of cards to simulate his powers, and a base sculpted to look like a fallen Sentinel hand.  These pieces were all pretty cool, and I think I still have the stand in a box with some others, but the other two pieces are long gone.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Believe it or not, Gambit was one of my favorite ToyBiz Legends.  I’m not really sure why, as I’m not that big a fan of the character, and the figure isn’t that amazing, but I really liked him.  I suppose coming early  in the line, he got a lot more play time than some of the later figures, and he was one of the figures in the line who you didn’t have to devote all your free time to tracking down.

He hasn’t aged amazingly well, but he’s still held up better than some of the figures, which does give a leg up.  And given Gambit’s rather quick decline in popularity, the character has yet to see any kind of rerelease in the more recent incarnations of the line, which I suppose makes this guy a bit more valuable.