Tag Archives: 90s

#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.

#4098: Tarzan of Mars

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

TARZAN OF MARS

TARZAN: EPIC ADVENTURES (TRENDMASTERS)

Way back in February, I took a look at Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first enduring pulp hero, John Carter.  But John’s not really his most famous creation.  That would be Tarzan, occasional lord of the jungle, occasional Disney property, and definitely the one of the two that gets the more prominent merchandise push. The John Carter figure I reviewed back in February was actually part of a line of Tarzan figures, and I’ve apparently not actually reviewed anything Tarzan here on the site, so I guess here’s a Tarzan, but of a more Mars-y variety than usual.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Tarzan of Mars was released in Trendmasters’ Tarzan: Epic Adventures line in 1995.  He was, like the John Carter figure, released under the “Conqueror of Mars” subline, first in a two-pack alongside one of the Plantmen, and then in a few other configurations as the line progressed.  The figure stands (or, rather, much like John, crouches) 3 1/2 inches tall and he has 3 points of articulation.  Articulation is just at the neck and shoulders, but he’s at least got slightly better range than John.  His sculpt is mostly unique.  The head is shared with all the smaller Tarzans, but otherwise he’s new.  It’s an interesting design, not based on anything specific that I know of.  It’s certainly got quite a Warlord vibe to it, which isn’t a terrible vibe to give a Mars-themed Tarzan.  The posing is quite intense, and like John, the resulting proportions are certainly a bit odd.  The arms in particular are a lot longer than they should be, and also I don’t think they’re the same length.  Tarzan is screaming, which definitely makes more sense for him than it did for John, so I can dig it.  Tarzan’s color work sports a nice selection of differing colors, to keep him visually interesting, while also staying true to most depictions of the character.  His skin tone is notably a little different from John, which feels appropriate.  Tarzan was packed with a helmet, spear, and knife.  The helmet is by far the coolest piece, but all of them are pretty neat extras.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When this line came out, my Dad was set on getting a full run of the Barsoom related characters, which also included the various alien races.  Since Tarzan was packed with on of those, he bought the whole set, and gave me, a kid far more invested in Tarzan than anyone else in the line, the Tarzan, making this my first Tarzan action figure, albeit a slightly non-standard one.  He’s goofy, but I still really dig him, and he remains my favorite Tarzan figure in my collection.

#4097: Night Hunter Robin

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

NIGHT HUNTER ROBIN

BATMAN & ROBIN (KENNER)

Okay, we’re gonna do this Batman & Robin thing.  One.  More.  Time.  For now, at least, because this effectively wraps up what remains of my childhood collection, such as it is in reviewing condition.  Might change later, I guess, because who knows?  So, let’s cap things off with a Robin figure, since that’s how I started these reviews in the first place, some six years and some change ago.  This time, he’s red, for…reasons.  Anyway, here’s Night Hunter Robin.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Night Hunter Robin was released in 1997 as part of Kenner’s Batman & Robin tie-in line.  He was one-half of one of the two-packs they did early in the run (the other half being Poison Ivy), which largely seemed to exist to pump out some extra variants of the main cast relatively quickly.  In the case of this one, he’s at his core not super removed from the basic Robin design for the movie, albeit colored rather differently.  Exactly why that made him “Night Hunter” is sort of lost on me, but maybe they just though it sounded cool.  It does sound cool.  It sounds like perhaps the coolest descriptor a Batman-themed figure could get.  Sounds like the sort of descriptor that could, I don’t know, pull someone in to a whole lifetime of action figure collecting if they weren’t careful.  It also shows that the rather “grab some common descriptor words out of a hat” approach can lead to some doubling up, even when it’s seemingly unintended.  The figure stands just under 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  His sculpt is…well it’s really, really similar to the Iceboard Robin sculpt, but it’s not the same.  It’s not different in any ways that actually really matter, mind you.  The posing on his right arm is *slightly* less bent, and his pelvis is *slightly* wider, and the placement of the peg holes for his cape are *slightly* different.  If you didn’t have the two figures right next to each other, you could be forgiven for not actually knowing the molds were different.  In that regard, it’s a good sculpt, just like Iceboard was, so that’s pretty nice.  The main change-up here is the coloring.  The two packs really liked having at least one of the included figures be chromed, and that was Robin.  He’s predominantly a chromed red, which, as you can see on my figure, it’s quite prone to flaking over time.  The sections that were red on his main costume are now a very shiny black, which is a good contrast.  The rest of his coloring, like the mold, is different from the standard in very slight, very easily missed ways, but they’re there.  Night Hunter Robin was packed with a sort of missile/batarang/crossbow looking thing, which went over his arm.  It’s missing from mine, but I can’t say I really feel like I *need* it, so that’s okay.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m writing this review on the eve of my 34th birthday, which I suppose is appropriate, because he’s one of the many Batman & Robin figures I got on my 5th birthday, back in ’97.  In contrast to the others, this one I very specifically asked for.  I don’t really know why, but I remember I *really* wanted the two-pack, pretty much exclusively for this Robin figure.  I recall losing all but his cape for a very long while, but if I recall correctly, he turned back up during “The Find,” my big excavation of missing figures and parts at my parents’ house from just before I moved out of state back in 2016.  He’s a bit worse for wear, but I do still quite like him, and I do get something of a giggle out of him sharing a descriptor with my original Batman, a fact that escaped me until I sat down to write this very review. 

#4096: Tigra

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

TIGRA

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“Blasting out of the Marvel Universe are its most powerful heroines, the She-Force! Joining together to fight evil are mutants Marvel Girl, Wolfsbane and Dazzler along with Avengers Tigra and Ms. Marvel. Challenging the threat of the Brotherhood of evil Mutants, the She-Force has what it takes to get the job done. Using their combined abilities, the She-Force takes down the Brotherhood in one explosive battle!”

We started off this month’s theme of Toy Biz Marvel reviews with a feral heroine (who is *not* Feral, mind you), so why not finish them off that way as well, with this month’s singe non-X related Toy Biz review.  Today’s focus, the Avenger Tigra made her figure debut with today’s review focus, though she wound up with a rather quick follow-up to it, all things considered.  But, that’s later on, and also in the past (since I’ve already reviewed it), so let’s keep the focus on this specific figure.  Oh yeah, here’s Tigra!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Tigra was released in Series 6 of the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive Marvel Hall of Fame line, the second of the three “She-Force” branded line-ups.  She’s the last one I’m looking at from this particular set, which is notably in stark contrast to what I said when I reviewed Marvel Girl last week…yeah, I made a bit of a oopsie there.  Sorry about that guys.  I’d say it won’t happen again, but the rigors of a daily review site mean it *probably* will, so we’ll just deal with it as we can.  Anyway, here’s this Tigra figure.  She stands 5 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation.  She’s an almost complete parts-reuse of the Spider-Man line’s Black Cat figure, albeit it ever so slightly modified to add a tail to the back.  Honestly, it’s a pretty inspired choice.  Apart from the fact that she’s good boots, rather than bare feet, there’s not really any issues getting the details to match up pretty well with Tigra’s usual comics appearances.  The sculpt is a little bit stiff and pre-posed, and there’s admittedly not a lot to be done with the articulation, but at least she can just sort of stand there, I guess?  Well, slight asterisk on the standing, since that’s definitely something this mold was never very good at.  Thankfully, though, she’s got peg holes in the feet, so you can supply your own stand, if need be.  In terms of color work, she’s actually pretty great.  It’s interesting, because Hasbro had a bit of trouble getting her shade of orange right, but Toy Biz pretty much got it right out of the gate.  Otherwise, the color layout and the patterning of the stripes is pretty impressive, and there’s some nice accenting on the darker sections of her fur.  Tigra is packed with a recolored version of Lady Deathstrike’s big claw thing, which is now black.  It was an odd extra for Deathstrike, and it’s even odder for Tigra, but also it’s really not all that out there for the average “She-Force” accessory.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I had the United They Stand Tigra, which at the time fulfilled my Tigre-related figure needs.  That one’s not bad, but she’s admittedly a bit more queued into the show design, making her slightly more limited in her applications.  This one’s been on my radar for a bit, but doesn’t turn up as often as some of the others from the set, I’ve found.  Back in June, I took a trip down to South Carolina for a memorial service for Jess, and I got to swing by our old comic shop in the area, Power Comics, who still had a really nice selection of Toy Biz figures, so I got to snag a few I was missing, including Tigra here.  She’s not much for posing, but she certainly looks the part, which puts her a bit ahead of a number of the Toy Biz repaint figures.  Honestly, not a bad figure.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0084: Batgirl

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

BATGIRL

BATMAN & ROBIN (KENNER)

Greetings and welcome to the end of the week. We’ve done it once more, and I continue to be proud of us for making it here.  We did it again, guys!  We’re back with following up on some Batman & Robin stuff, because why not, I guess? So, here’s a second look at Batgirl!

“Gotham City becomes a very cold place when Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and Bane triple team to plot the icy demise of Batman and Robin. The crimefighters respond immediately by using the Batcomputer deep within the Batcave to develop an array of cutting-edge weapons that can be used in their battle against this multitude of fiendish foes. Discover the Secrets of the Batcave! – secret technology that gives Batman , Robin and Batgirl the ultimate ability to save Gotham City!”

Back in April, I jumped into the Batman & Robin line with a look at the “& Robin” portion of the film.  Today, I look at the central character who doesn’t get named at all.  I mean, seriously, isn’t it a little odd that the film where you explicitly call out Batman and Robin as your title characters is the one where you add in Batgirl as your third protagonist?  Isn’t that a little weird?  I think it’s a little weird.  Look at me, armchair quarterbacking a movie from 1997.  That’s a real good use of my time, right?  Yeah…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Batgirl was released in the first wave of Batman & Robin product from Kenner, hitting shelves in 1997 to tie-in with the film.  Unlike the various Batmen and Robins, she didn’t get any sort of adjective in front of her name; she’s simply “Batgirl.”  Man, no goofy Kenner name is just a bummer.  Did they even try with Batgirl in this thing?  Oh, right, I’ve seen the movie: the answer is “no.”  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation.  So, right off the bat (heh), let’s address the inaccuracies of the figure.  As I brought up in my Robin review, the whole Batman & Robin process was quite expedited, so the figures were working from early costume designs.  In Robin’s case, that was all well and good, because he kept his design, but in Batgirl’s case, that means she’s a bit off from her film appearance.  The big change is the full cowl in place of the domino mask she was sporting in the final product.  It’s not a particularly attractive design, at least as implemented on the figure.  She’s also got the wrong version of the bat symbol, and is missing a lot of the ribbing and such that ran throughout the body suit, making for a much more basic looking design.  There is also a removable cape, which actually is a pretty decently designed piece. Her paintwork is fairly basic stuff.  She’s rather monochromatic, but that’s honestly a bit more faithful to the film than most of the color schemes to come out of this movie.  Batgirl was packed with a “Battle Blade Blaster” and “Strike Scythe,” which are the weird green and black things.  They don’t correlate to anything in the movie, but they certainly exist, now don’t they?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in my Robin review, Batman & Robin was the first Batman movie I saw in theaters, and despite its lackluster quality, five-year-old me really enjoyed it.  Being the big thing of the summer, a whole bunch of the tie-in figures wound up as birthday presents for me that year, including Batgirl here.  She’s not necessarily one of my favorites, and that was the case even as a kid.  She really only served as my Batgirl until the Animated figure found its way into my collection and replaced her.  She’s okay, I guess, and like the rest of the line, honestly better than the movie that spawned her.

This review is another pandemic shutdown review, written almost two months before it ultimately published.  I originally had it slotted with a different number and a publish date a month earlier, but it got bumped off the schedule to make way for the Siege Ultra Magnus Spoiler pack, which I was eager to get out quickly, I guess.  The mystery of it excited me.  The actual review here is pretty good, I think.  The shut down stuff definitely gave me some time to work on my craft, and I still think these are some of my best reviews.  I was missing her “Strike Scythe” at the time, but it turned up in the six years that have followed, so here’s an updated photo.

#4093: Ice Terror Mr. Freeze

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

ICE TERROR MR. FREEZE

BATMAN & ROBIN (KENNER)

When the first Batman movie came out in 1989, they just had the one villain, but by Returns, they’d decided they needed to up the stakes with two, which was kept for Forever.  By the time of Batman & Robin, it was apparently just not frantic enough, so they upped it to three villains, all of them classically unrelated.  In a movie featuring Bane, a tall, imposing, muscular villain with a notable accent, Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Mr Freeze, which is the obvious, undisputed set-up, right?  Arnold as the cryogenics expert?  Well, at least he got to make lots of ice puns.  After “Heart of Ice” revamped the character and gave him a tremendous amount of depth, Batman & Robin definitely did some major back-pedaling.  That said, almost 30 years removed, it’s a pretty amusing Arnold performance.  And, as with everything else about the movie, there were certainly some cool toys.  Let’s look at one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ice Terror Mr. Freeze was one of the two deluxe figures in the initial product drop for Kenner’s Batman & Robin tie-in line.  It’s one of the two Mr. Freezes at launch, neither of them really even approaching movie accurate, but we’ll get to that.  The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Ice Terror Mr. Freeze was a mostly unique sculpt.  The head’s the same as the Iceblast Mr. Freeze from the standard series, but from the neck down he’s unique.  The first batch of tie-in figures for the movie were especially affected by the rushed production schedule, and I’ve somewhat discussed that with the Batgirl figure, but the early Mr. Freezes were especially inaccurate.  I suppose you could argue that there’s a general silhouette here that’s sort of close to the film, and what’s visible of the face has more than a passing resemblance to Arnold, but beyond that?  It’s totally removed from what we see on the screen.  There’s…well, there’s certainly a lot going on.  He’s got lots of tubes and stuff, which, I guess isn’t a terrible concept for the guy.  He does seem a bit small for an Arnold Mr. Freeze, but that’s more of a line-wide issue, I feel.  The colors aren’t very accurate either, at least in their placement. The actual colors aren’t really too far, and he’s ultimately a bit closer in that regard than Iceblast was.  In general, it’s just a good Mr. Freeze color scheme, so I can’t really knock it.  In order to justify this as a deluxe release, Ice Terror Mr. Freeze gets a rather sizable accessory set-up.  Not in quantity, mind you, just in actual size, as he includes a “Street Chill Dragster” which is a three-wheeled vehicle thing that also transforms? It’s not a terribly involved thing, and the transformation is almost negligible, but I guess it’s not terrible.  Also included is the “Ice Crystal Rocket,” which is a big bazooka thing, which he can either mount on the dragster or hold.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The summer of 1997 brought me a whole selection of figures from this line, and this guy was one of the batch I got as birthday presents.  Even before it had totally sunk in with me that maybe it wasn’t a very good movie, I was a bit more critical of Schwarzenegger as Freeze, because I was such a big fan of Michael Ansara’s animated performance.  So, in that regard, this guy wasn’t really ever my default Freeze the way the original Animated figure was.  He did, however, serve as a pretty fantastic basic sort of villain.  I lost his dragster over the years, but recently got a replacement.  He’s really far removed from the movie design, but it’s undeniably a fun figure.