Tag Archives: 90s

#4120: Spider-Man – Web-Shooter

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

SPIDER-MAN — WEB-SHOOTER

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Not all of Spider-Man’s amazing powers came from the bite of a radioactive spider – some were created by Peter Parker himself. Case in point, his astonishing web shooters! Using his scientific know-how, Parker crated a device which, when filled with a secret formula of his own design, could duplicate the super-strong web of a spider!”

When Toy Biz started out with the Marvel license, they divided the characters into two sets, with one line dedicated to X-Men (which would also quickly spin-off into an X-Force dedicated line) and one covering…the rest.  Spider-Man was undoubtedly a major focus of Marvel Super Heroes, with multiple variants per series.  So, it wasn’t a shock that he was the first property outside of X-Men to get his own line, launched to coincide with his own animated series.  There were two Spidey variants in the line’s inaugural series, both dealing with his web-slinging powers, and today I’m taking a look at the Web-Shooter variant!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Man — Web-Shooter was released in the first series of the Spider-Man: The Animated Series line in 1994.  In contrast to the X-Men line, which was (mostly) a comics based line that happened to coincide with the show, the Spider-Man was a specifically cartoon-based line, with all of the official branding from the show, and Spider-Man figures clearly patterned on his show design.  Web-Shooter was pretty much the closest the first series got to just a standard Spidey.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Apart from lacking a right elbow joint due to the action feature, he’s got the basic set-up for the Toy Biz 5-inchers, plus a waist joint.  Not a bad set-up.  The figure’s sculpt is something I’ve actually sort of looked at before, because its two-up prototype served as the basis for the standard 10-inch Spidey.  It’s a good, solid, basic sculpt, which does most of what it needs to.  It’s perhaps a touch stiff for a Spidey, and the right arm is very limiting, especially given than the “web missile” is attached to a string and therefore cannot be removed.  There’s a reason so many of these show up loose with the string cut.  The color work on this figure is pretty standard for Spideys of the time, being an almost exact match for the Web Racer from the same series.  The early figures all utilized painted webs, and, honestly, I’ve come to prefer that over the years.  Otherwise, it’s bright and colorful, and just a good looking Spidey.  Since his “missile” was attached to him, Spidey’s only accessory was one of those plastic clips that mostly served as a way of padding the figures out for the appearance of value.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have either of the Series 1 Spider-Men as a kid, and both are much later, “hey it’s in front of me” sort of purchases, rather than actually actively wanting him…which is probably why this is one of those Toy Biz figures that I accidentally bought twice without even realizing it.  Whoops!  Well, I have him, and that’s the point.  He’s basic and a little limited by his action feature, but he’s certainly not bad.  Since we’d had so many Spider-Men from Toy Biz already at this point, experimenting a bit on these first two always felt like an okay choice.

#4116: Silver Fox

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

SILVER FOX

MAVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“Bursting onto the scene are the most powerful heroes and villains. Leading the pack against evil is the gamma-powered savage She-Hulk and the she-devil of the Savage Land — Shanna! Keeping to the shadows is the enigmatic ninja, Elektra, while Silver Fox relies on her training as a top secret government operative. But it is the Viper, who uses her powers and abilities for personal gain, no matter what she must destroy to get it.”

Wolverine’s had a lot of ex-girlfriends, most of them dead, what with his advanced healing and all.  Given the kind of stuff he gets into, there’s frequently some convoluted stories that go along with them, but it’s hard to get past Silver Fox in that regard.  Though she’s not really been relevant since the ‘90s, that hasn’t stopped her storyline from remaining really confusing.  She’s definitely dead, perhaps even twice over, and maybe she’s two different people?  She appeared in the Animated Series and also X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but in both cases she seems to be using the name and little more, further confusing things.  Even her segment in the back of the box text up there doesn’t quite know what to do with her, just going for a rather generic “top secret government operative” rather than getting into that she was actually a rather highly placed operative in Hydra, which would, you know, make her not so great a person.  Given her short run and confusing nature, her comics incarnation has, unsurprisingly, only gotten one figure, courtesy of the Toy Biz run.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Silver Fox was released in the seventh series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Hall of Fame line.  It was the final assortment of the line, and also the third in the “She-Force” sub-set.  If you’re doing Silver Fox, I think it’s fair to say you might be scraping the bottom of the barrel just a little bit.  But, you know, here we were.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation, though the neck joint is pretty well restricted, so you’re not gonna be doing much with it.  The bulk of the figure is using the second Invisible Woman mold, which is a rather basic body that works for a lot of characters.  Curiously, it’s got a peg hole on the inner forearm of the right arm, which wasn’t there before.  Both she and Shanna from the same series have it, but I don’t really know why.  It’s not very visible, though, so it’s really not a big deal.  Her head is from Ninja Psylocke, which isn’t a bad match for her usual depictions.  The glue’s not great on the hair, though, so it pops off pretty easily.  She’s got a soft-goods cape, which is sort of awkward on the clasp, but otherwise is a nice material and hangs well.  Silver Fox’s paint work does the heavy lifting here, since it’s all parts re-use.  The black hair changes up the head sculpt pretty well, and the metallic green is a good choice for the body suit.  Silver Fox is packed with a blaster rifle, repainted from Cyborg Cable, as well as an Iron Man trading card.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My knowledge of Silver Fox comes exclusively from the single episode of the cartoon where she appears, and is mostly paired off with Maverick.  I guess she’s okay in that one?  I can’t say she made a major impression, and drove me to actually track down the figure or anything.  But, when my wife and I took a trip to Factory Antique Mall last year, I did some Toy Biz hunting, and she was one of the figures I managed to snag.  She’s fine.  The hair thing’s kind of funny and silly, but she does the job alright, and, I mean, it’s literally the only option, so she’s got that going for her.  If you need a Silver Fox action figure, you just pretty much gotta, right?

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0089: Plastic Man

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

PLASTIC MAN

JLA (HASBRO)

Well, we’re here at the end of the week.  I mean, I hope we’re all here.  It’s been kind of a rough week for, you know, everyone getting through it.  You know what we need?  Levity!  So, for today’s Flashback Friday Figure Addendum, let’s have a look back at a silly stretchy sort of guy, with Plastic Man!

If there’s one super power that has a tendency to be underestimated, it’s shape-shifting, particularly of the stretching type. Mister Fantastic, arguably the most famous “stretchy” character out there often has that part of his talents down played to focus on his high-level intellect. I’ve always felt that was a shame. I love stretchy characters because I think they have a lot of potential for creativity on the part of the writer/artist. They’re just a whole lot of fun! In fact, one of my favorite characters of all time is the Elongated Man. He’s not the character I’m looking at today, but he almost would have been, had it not been for the fact that Julie Schwartz, one of the guys behind the creation of Elongated Man (and so many other Silver Age DC characters, but that’s more for a later time), didn’t remember that DC owned the name Plastic Man. Granted, EM would have still be the same character, just with Plastic Man’s name, similar to the Hal Jordan Green Lantern and the Barry Allen Flash. I’m getting a bit off topic, aren’t I?

For those of you who don’t know, Plastic Man is Eel O’Brien, a one-time crook who gets doused by a strange chemical and left behind by his gang during a heist. When he awakes, he discovers he has the ability to stretch his body into impossible shapes. He decides to use this power to bring his old partners to justice and creates the identity of Plastic Man. He was big in the 40s, but faded into obscurity until around the 80s, where he saw a bit of a resurgence in popularity, eventually leading to him joining the Justice League of America during Grant Morison’s run on the series in the 90s. But, what of the figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Plas was released in the 3rd series of Kenner’s JLA series. JLA was a line of figures exclusive to KB toys in the late 90s. They were made using retooled molds from Kenner’s Total Justice line from a few years previous. Plas’s inclusion in the line makes sense given his place on the titular team at the time. Plas has 5 points of articulation and stands about 7 inches tall with his neck fully extended. The line was in 5 inch scale, so he fits right in. The line used a few common pieces for certain figures, and Plas features the generic male torso, used by a few of the figures. The rest of the figure’s sculpt is unique. It all works together pretty well, though I can’t help but feel that the re-used torso looks a bit too stubby in comparison to the rest of the figure. The head and arms are cast in rubber with wires running through them, allowing you to pose the arms and neck in a variety of ways. The paint is passable. It’s fairly basic, but that fits with the rest of the line. The biggest issue with the paint is that it had some peeling issues on the rubber pieces, particularly the white on his goggles and teeth, which is almost gone on my figure. The hands have also suffered from some noticeable yellowing. Sadly, these are both issues of working with rubbery materials. I don’t know that anything could have been done to prevent them. Plas included a JLA logo stand, in red I believe.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Plas from the KB Toy outlet in the town where my family vacationed. I know I had seen the figure before, and had been interested in getting it, but I never did. My parents bought him and another JLA figure (I believe it was Impulse) for me, which was pretty cool. It’s actually not a bad figure, though it sadly did suffer from a few issues over time. I’d be curious if a Plas who had less playtime might have come out unscathed.

This review was published in the early spring of 2014, less than halfway through my first year working in the site.  It’s particularly wordy for the time, I feel, and also goes off topic a bit there.  Like, I talk for a very long time before getting to anything about Plastic Man.  I even get in an Elongated Man mention, eight whole years before reviewing any of my Elongated Man figures.  No clue why I waited so long, especially given I had two Plastic Man reviews in my first year.  I’m getting side-tracked again, and I’m not even actually reviewing this time!  Since the original review, I’ve found his red JLA-logo stand, and also done some work restoring some of the messed up paint, so he looks a lot closer to his original self.  With the paint fixed up, I do really like how that head sculpt works; it’s one of the nicer ones from this line.  Also, giving me David Byrne vibes?  In some alternate reality, maybe there’s an ‘80s Plastic Man movie starring Byrne in the role.  He’s certainly eccentric enough!

#4112: Jean Grey

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

JEAN GREY

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“It’s non-stop action when the Marvel Universe’s greatest heroines join forces against the power of the Black Queen! Locked in mortal combat with the notorious Queen, Jean Grey of the X-Men uses her telepathic powers to summon help. Jean is joined by fellow X-Man Storm, Avenger Ms. Marvel, and the mysterious Spider-Woman. Together, this team has all the power it needs to stop the Black Queen in her tracks!”

Hey, remember Marvel Hall of Fame, from way back in last month’s reviews?  Well, it’s back, in pog form!  Or, like, Jean Grey form, I guess.  Despite her rather prominent spot in the franchise and its various media adaptations, Toy Biz’s X-Men line was sparse on Jean Grey figures, especially her ‘90s outfit, was absent for most of the run.  It’s first real appearance in 5-inch form was not in the X-Men line at all, but rather Hall of Fame, where it cropped up as one of the line’s quick, slapdash repaints.  Let’s see how that turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jean Grey was released Series 2 of Marvel Hall of Fame, in 1996.  This was the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive line’s first “She-Force” assortment, before they really became a trend.  Jean was still in the Jim Lee get-up at the time, so this figure was more or less accurate to what was in the comics.  Sort of.  Let’s dig further into that.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  All of the Hall of Fame figures were repaints of some variety, and in Jean’s case she’s a complete re-use of the X-Force line’s Domino.  It’s…fine.  I do like that the figure gets proper hip joints, and not v-hips, but I don’t love the total lack of neck articulation or the odd swivels at the elbows.  In terms of actual costume design, while there are some similarities between the two costume designs if you squint, it’s not exactly a 1 for 1.  Generally, they do their best with the paint, which kind of tries to mimmic the layout of Jean’s costume.  The head gear is better than I’d expected, and the shoulders and wrists are pretty close, but it’s really the extraneous belts and pouches that ultimately throw it all off.  Also those crazy eyes.  Don’t love those crazy eyes.  Jean was packed with Domino’s guns and missiles, recolored to match better.  They make no sense at all for the character, but I do like the coloring at least.  Also included was a trading card, in my case Belladonna, Gambit’s ex.  I think she might be the most common card I’ve had turn up with these figures at this point.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember seeing the figure from time to time in the earlier days of my collecting, mostly in larger lots of figures online.  Something always felt rather off about her, though, and I’ve hesitated to track her down for many years because of that.  She’s actually the most recent addition to my Hall of Fame figures, in fact purchased as part of a larger Toy Biz lot, so I guess that’s just how she hits the market.  She’s odd, just from top to bottom.  I guess I can sort of see where they were trying to go with the costume similarities, but the thing is that Domino and Jean are very different characters with very different demeanors, and that translates to an odd match-up.  Ultimately, I don’t really love this one, but I admire what they were trying to do.

#4108: Shadow Dancer

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

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.

#4104: Junkpile

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

JUNKPILE

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“With a bad attitude and the brawn to back it up, Junkpile is one mean machine. Once aligned with the mutant outlaw X-men, he turned against his teammates and helped arrange the attempted assassination of their leader Xi’an. Now their sworn enemy, Junkpile uses his ability to “rebuild” himself with scrap metal and spare parts to make waste out of any piece of “meat” that gets in his way.”

You gotta respect X-Men 2099, they really did do their best to replicate the sheer volume of backstory of the main timeline books into a backstory for the 2099 equivalents.  There’s, like, lore, and all sorts of archetypes and concepts in place.  It’s astounding given how relatively small a run it is.  There are multiple former members of the team, one of the Junkpile, who was a recurring character who bounced around multiple roles, including at one point working for SHIELD.  He had a neat gimmick and a decent design, so that got him an action figure.  Let’s look at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Junkpile was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line, and then again during the Marvel Universe run later.  Why the re-release?  Who knows.  Toy Biz felt the need to make sure the people had ready access to Junkpile.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  His movement is pretty much the base standard for he scale and style, albeit somewhat restricted by the nature of his design, which is rather on the bulky side.  The sculpt was unique to Junkpile and it’s quite a nice one.  These figures in general really captured the art style of the books quite well, and Junkpile was no exception on that front.  He’s got a sort of unique flair about him, a lot of personality in that head sculpt, and a ton of small detail work.  Junkpile’s action feature, worked into the whole body, allows him to pop apart and be reassembled, using connection points, much like the ones used on Robot Wolverine.  Pushing down his head shoots out the arms and legs and the shoulders and hips.  They clip back in, albeit with some careful positioning.  He has a tendency to pop back apart without much pressure, but he’s a bit better than the Robot Wolverine was.  Junkpile also had four pieces of removable armor, on the shoulders and shins.  He looks best fully assembled, but the variety is fun, and it works well to illustrate his powers.  Junkpile’s color work is sort of monochromatic, but also rather colorful for what it is.  There’s little splashes of brighter color mixed in.  The application is all very cleanly handled, and there’s no major details missing.  The Universe re-release lost some of the smaller paint, but they’re otherwise the same.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Hey, remember the way that I got most of my other X-Men 2099 figures, where there was a big lot of them I bought loose through work back in 2020?  Well, here’s another one of those…mostly.  He was missing a couple of the armor pieces, so I had to find replacements, but he’s otherwise been with me that whole time.  He’s fun.  He’s very gimmicky, but it’s a fun gimmick, and it’s paired with a really neat sculpt that I think stands out nicely among the other 2099 figures.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0086: Spider-Man – Spider-Sense

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

SPIDER-MAN — SPIDER-SENSE

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

Hey, whoah, it’s Friday!  Welcome to Friday, here at the Figure in Question, where we like to celebrate the week with a little bit of flashing back, with some addendums to older reviews.  Today?  We’re taking a second look at a Spider-Man variant that really should have seen it coming!

“Perched on a ledge high above the city, Spider-Man’s ‘6th sense’ begins to tingle – providing a split second warning that imminent danger looms behind him. Back-flipping with a speed and precision well beyond an Olympic athlete, Spider-Man turns to see the ledge blasted into airborne shrapnel thanks to the Scorpion’s thrashing tail! For on the day Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, his life was changed forever. And although he gained super-human strength, amazing agility, and enhanced reflexes – it’s his uncanny spider-sense which alerts Spider-Man to the dangers of his adversaries – and benefits him the most!”

Early in its run, Toy Biz’s 5-inch Spider-Man line actually tried to have some valid variants of its main character.  They weren’t always perfect, and sometimes there were some definite reaches to justify a whole new figure, but they gave it their best shot.  In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, there was this animation gimmick they had every time his spider-sense went off, where he’d get this drastically different, rave-esque color scheme for a few moments.  It was different enough in Toy Biz’s eyes to milk a few figures out of it, the first of which is today’s offering.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Sense Spider-Man was released in Series 5 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line, which hit shelves very late in 1995.  He was one of three Spidey variants in the line-up, with the other two being battle-ravaged and six-armed.  The figure stands just under 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is kind of wonky, in that it doesn’t really match with any other figure Toy Biz produced, in this line or any other.  The arms move only at the shoulders, but the legs get all sorts of range at the hips and knees.  He seems to be built with a wall-crawling pose in mind, which makes sense with his built-in action feature, which sort of mimics this with his arms…or at least it did when mine still worked.  It was pretty easily worn out.  It’s a little odd that they didn’t put in a little motion on his neck, since its inability to move the head upwards kinda wrecks the credibility of most crawling poses, but there it is.  The sculpt follows the model of the earlier Spideys from this line, being quite sparse on the sculpted details, opting instead to paint most of them on.  In that respect, the paint’s pretty good.  It’s taken a bit of a beating on my figure, but it’s held up alright, and the color work matches the scheme seen on the cartoon pretty well.  It’s a somewhat unique look, and I can certainly get behind it.  This guy was packed with a web-line, web hook, and a collector’s pin, though none of them really did much for the figure.  But hey, extras are extras, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

For Easter when my cousin Rusty and I were four, our grand parents bought both of us one figure from this series.  If you’re thinking this is the one I got, you’re wrong.  My cousin got this guy, and I got Six-Armed Spidey.  I wasn’t happy with that decision as I recall (which seems a but silly to me now, because Six Arm is clearly the better option.  Silly child Ethan), and my parents ended up working out some sort of deal (I’m sure related to cleaning my room or something) in order to take me to the mall and get me this guy for myself.  He’s not bad, but I don’t know how exciting he is, honestly.  I really wanted him, though.

This was a May 2020 review, which was written during the shut down, about a month ahead of publication.  He would have most certainly been a “pulled from the back catalog to fill out the schedule” review, which was a lot of what I was doing at the time.  In general, it’s a good stretch of time for my writing, so I think the review itself holds up pretty well.  Missing at the time of the original writing, I was missing all of the figure’s accessories, but in the mean time, I did manage to find both of his web accessories.  They’re still not really all that relevant to the main figure, but there they are.

#4101: Robin

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

ROBIN

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (KENNER)

While I had a handful of reviews from Hasbro’s running on fumes continuation of the Batman Animated tie-in line in the last few months, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually reviewed any of the original Kenner run of Batman: The Animated Series figures.  For today’s review, I’m actually going way back to the very beginning of said tie-ins, for a look at the first animated variant of Batman’s trusty sidekick, Robin!  So, let’s take a look at this early release for the other half of the dynamic duo!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Robin was released in the first series of Kenner’s Batman: The Animated Series line in 1992.  He joined two Batman variants, Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face for the line’s debut at retail.  At this point, the line was actually sticking to rather faithful costume designs, rather than the wacky variants that followed, so Robin’s wearing Dick’s standard attire from the show.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Robin was pretty notably predominantly parts re-use, which was rare for this line early on.  From the neck down, he was the Batman Returns Robin, topped off with a new head sculpt.  I’ve looked at the whole combo before through one of its re-releases during Hasbro’s run.  It’s sort of a mixed bag, since the original use wasn’t meant to be an animated style figure, so he’s very heavy on details that really shouldn’t be there.  The head’s perfectly serviceable, and a decent match for the show model, especially when filtered through the same lens as the other early run figures from the line.  Like the later release, he gets a cloth cape, similarly two-toned.  The cloth’s a bit thinner on this one, though, so it hangs quite a bit better, making for a much better overall look.  What’s also much better overall is the figure’s coloring; the re-paint from Hasbro was very cold and neon, and that was quite off model, but this one’s colors are much closer to his on-screen colors.  While the core figures of the early Kenner run were fairly standard depictions, there were definitely some wonky accessories going on, and in Robin’s case, that’s a whole hang glider set-up, which also has, like, guns, or something?  That doesn’t seem very Batman-y, now does it?  Honestly, it’s not a terrible piece, though, and it’s unobtrusive, so it really doesn’t bug me.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like I said when I reviewed the Hasbro repaint, I kind of missed the main runs of these guys, so I didn’t have a chance to pick this guy up new.  What can I say, I was a newborn at the time, and my parents wouldn’t give me any spending money.  I got the Hasbro one, and I’ve honestly always kinda loved that one, so I didn’t *need* this one, but also I’m a sucker for a Dick Grayson figure I don’t own, so I did kind of want one for posterity’s sake.  He’s been on my list, but I wasn’t actively searching.  But, while I was on vacation with my family this summer, I swung by Yesterday’s Fun early in the trip and struck up a conversation with the woman who works the counter, and mentioned I’d probably be stopping in a few times while we were there.  On one of my return trips, she pulled a box of just priced Batman stuff that hadn’t gone out for me to look through, and this guy was there for a very reasonable price, so I really couldn’t refuse.  He’s neat.  I like the differences between the releases, and I won’t deny this one’s a bit better than the later one, even if I don’t have quite the same nostalgic tie to him.

#4100: La Lunatica

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

LA LUNATICA

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“Before joining the X-Men, the fierce La Lunatica was a prisoner of the sinister Brimstone Love. A psychic vampire, La Lunatica feeds on the traumatic memories of others — memories she brings screaming back to life with the slightest touch. Tough as nails and super strong, La Lunatica has broken free of Brimstone’s control and aims to bring the curtain crashing down on his sadistic Theater of Pain.”

Hey, remember back nearer the beginning of the year, when I was taking a decent look at the world of X-Men 2099?  Well, let’s do that again!  While a lot of the team members had sort of a “hey, we slapped two words together and made a character out of it,” today’s focus takes a different approach: what if we just used regular words, but in Spanish?  Behold, La Lunatica.  She’s crazy.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Name certainly does a lot of implying, though.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

La Lunatica was released in the second series of Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line.  She was originally shown as part of the Series 1 line-up, but was ultimately pushed back.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and she has 7 points of articulation.  While she was technically a new mold, La Lunatica was clearly reworked from Rogue, with whom she shares a general pose, articulation, and action feature set-up.  I don’t really feel like the uppercut feature really makes as much sense here, and it’s more awkward to use the right shoulder, what with her super large hair and all.  Her sculpt is kind of stiff and stilted, but I guess it looks pretty close to how she was depicted in the comics.  Certainly as close as the bulk of the rest of the line, so she fits right in.  There were two color set-ups for this figure, the first having a simple purple paint scheme for her outfit, and the second adding additional black sections to the costume, presumably to make the costume a little more modest for the purposes of a line ostensibly aimed at children?  Whatever the case, the variant with the black is generally less frequently appearing.  I do kind of like the additional contrast added by the extra black details, but as is so common with Toy Biz in this era, it just ignores the sculpt.  La Lunatica is packed with…like, I guess a sort of wrist mounted lacrosse stick thing, which she can use to “launch” her “energy ball” which looks more like a railway spike than a ball.  She’s also got an arm blade thing.  Cuz she’s crazy.  Maybe.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have a La Lunatica figure as a kid, but I remember her being *everywhere* in comic shops and the like.  It kind of made me want to avoid her, for whatever reason.  I don’t know, maybe I just got sick of seeing her.  I ended up grabbing the standard version alongside most of the rest of the line, back in 2020, when I had the chance to snag them all loose.  The variant I actually just got quite recently, and I even bought her sealed, just to open.  I know.  Crazy.  Maybe.  She’s…fine.  Aggressively middle of the road.  There’s definitely some things that hold her back, and I don’t think she’s as fun as the rest of the line, but she’s not bad either.  She’s certainly still got that charm of the line.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0085: Kraven the Hunter

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

KRAVEN THE HUNTER

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

I’ve been using this space here on Fridays to celebrate getting through the week a lot recently, and you know what, I’m really feeling that for this week in particular, because oh boy did it just keep going.  But I’m here at the end of it, and you guys are too, and that’s so very nice.  Good for us.  I’m using today’s Flashback Friday Figure Addendum to jump back into the Toy Biz Marvel well, because it brings me comfort and ease, and those are things I quite like having right now.  So, let’s jump in on return look at Kraven the Hunter!

Remember my review of Unmasked Spider-Man from just last week? Good, that means this intro can be a bit shorter. Like that figure, this one hails from ToyBiz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series line from the 90s, and also comes from one of the boxed sets ToyBiz released exclusively through BJ’s Wholesalers. This time around, it’s Kraven the Hunter, one of the classic Spider-Man foes. He was a hunter looking for a more exciting hunt, which led to him fighting Spidey on numerous occasions and eventually joining the first incarnation of the Sinister Six. Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kraven was released in the BJ’s exclusive Monster Mayhem set, which also included 5 other figures, all repaints. Kraven stands about 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation, which were both standard for the line. Kraven is 100% re-use, being a repaint of the main Spider-Man line’s own release of Kraven. The previous Kraven was based on his cartoon appearance, whereas this one seems to be more comic based. The biggest difference present is this figure’s leopard patterned pants in contrast to the previous figure’s black pants. The sculpt is a pretty good one, and is pretty in line with the classic Kraven design, so I can’t blame them for re-releasing it in a more comic accurate palate. The paint work is well applied and clean overall, and it appears to be a bit more detailed than the single release figure. Kraven included no accessories, which is a shame, because his hand is obviously molded to hold one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I acquired this BJ’s exclusive at KB Toys. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, BJ’s would only actually hold on to these sets for a short while before selling them to KB for the rest of the distribution. Hey, it works for me. Anyway, I was on a trip to the beach, I think right before my brother was born, but I don’t recall for certain. My dad took me to the nearby KB and they had this set there. I had known about its existence, thanks to the internet, but I hadn’t seen it in person. I remember being pretty happy to get it, though it wasn’t really for Kraven. Still, he’s a decent figure, and does help bring back the memories of getting the set.

This is quite an early review for me, before I’d even made it to 200, and just outside the site’s first six months.  I can make a few quibbles stylistically, but for the most part, I had the formula of my reviews down pretty well at this point.  I will note that I didn’t actually talk too much about the figure’s sculpt, which is a shame, because it’s actually quite a nice one, with a lot of sharp, smaller detail work.  While most of the early Toy Biz Marvel figures were more comic than cartoon based, the Spider-Man line tended to lean more into actual cartoon accuracy in the sculpts.  That makes Kraven’s sculpt being so clearly a comics sculpt, not a show one, all the more notable, as well as the fact that the paint was haphazardly changed to match the cartoon for the single release.  It was evidently a late change, since this was the paint scheme shown on the back of the packaging of the original figure (which is part of why it was a good long while before I actually learned the two Kravens were different).  I did make a few factual errors in my original review, the first being that ‘’Monster Mayhem” was actually an eight figure set, not six, so there another seven figures that went along with him.  The second is that he actually *did* include an accessory.  While double checking the accessories of the single release, I realized I recognized the mold on his spear as the same as a random plastic spear I’d had in a parts bin next to my desk, but in a different color.  A quick double check revealed that, yes, this figure included the same spear as the single, but in black, rather than brown.  It’s quite a simple piece, and honestly doesn’t look or feel much like other Toy Biz accessories of the era, but at least it means he has something to hold.