Tag Archives: 90s

#1998: Sabretooth

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

SABRETOOTH

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Sabretooth is Wolverine’s greatest enemy. Both are products of the Top-Secret Weapon X program. But instead of using his super-sharp claws and fighting abilities for good, Sabretooth became the Evil Mutants’ master assassin! Sabretooth has the same powers as Wolverine, including a mutant healing ability. What makes Sabretooth so dangerous is the fact that he’s even more savage in battle than Wolverine! When the two of them fight, it’s anyone’s guess who will win.”

Despite his connection to Wolverine, Victor Creed, better known as Sabretooth, first appeared as a foe to Iron Fist.  Like fellow X-foe Mystique, he was an example of long-time X-scribe Chris Claremont spreading the love so to speak, and introducing characters he intended to use in X-Men in some of his other books.   Whatever his source, he’s been an enduring foe for Wolverine and the X-Men, and was at the height of his popularity alongside them in the ’90s, when he got his first action figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sabretooth was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  He’s based on Sabretooth’s original John Byrne-designed costume, which, interestingly enough, Sabretooth had just ditched in the comics at the time of this figure’s release.  The early line was kind of plagued with things like this, which is why characters had a tendency to show up a second time pretty quickly (Sabretooth’s second figure would arrive just three series later).  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation.  Sabretooth lacked neck articulation, a surprisingly common phenomenon in the early years of the line.  Unlike other figures this happened to, Sabretooth doesn’t really have any specific gimmicks preventing a neck joint from being added, so I guess it was just a design thing.  Whatever the case, it’s a bit limiting on posing.  Sabretooth’s sculpt was unique to him.  It’s okay, but not really anything to write home about.  It leans closer to the weaker of the Series 1 sculpts than it does the stronger Series 2 sculpts.  The details are rather soft, especially on the face, the hair is rather oddly shaped, and the proportions are really on the scrawny side for a Sabretooth figure.  His paintwork is pretty basic; the standard colors are all handled decently.  The two shades of yellow for the fur and his hair are kind of close to each other, meaning they kind of blend together and look kind of odd.  Sabretooth was packed with this weird sort of claw thing to hold.  He also had an action feature, where the front plate of his stomach could be flipped back and forth.  One side is clean, while the other has claw marks, thereby simulating his healing factor.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

By the time I was collecting, this figure had vanished from shelves, replaced by his more cartoon-indicative second figure, so that was the one I had.  I picked this one up a couple of years ago second hand.  Part of his appeal was being the first copy of this guy I’d seen without horrible paint scraping on the eyes.  He’s not really a great figure…or even a particularly good figure.  I guess if you really like his original costume, that’s a plus, but it’s not even the best version of that costume on the market.

#1990: Speeder Bike (w/ Princess Leia Organa in Endor Gear)

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SPEEDER BIKE (W/ PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA IN ENDOR GEAR)

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

The Star Wars franchise has long placed a good deal of emphasis on the distinct vehicles utilized by its heroes and villains, with at least a few new designs for every film.  For Return of the Jedi the cool new vehicle was the speeder bike, a hovering cycle that was perfectly tailored for exciting chase scenes.  It of course got a release during the vintage line, and by extension, it found itself among the re-purposed vehicle molds for Power of the Force II in 1997.  Where the prior release had been sold on its own, for PotF2, it was available with one of three pilots: the Biker Scout, Luke Skywalker, and today’s focus, Princess Leia Organa.

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

The main focus of these sets was the Speeder Bike, seen here as it appears on the forest moon of Endor.  As I touched on in the intro, a lot of the vehicles for Power of the Force II re-used the molds of their vintage counterparts.  For the bikes in particular, there’s a definite feeling of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  Measuring about 7 inches in length and standing about two inches off the ground, the Speeder Bike is a fairly decent replica of the on-screen version of the vehicle.  Some of the features have been simplified ever so slightly, and it still has the original mold’s adjustments to make seating the figure on it a little easier, so the controls are vertically oriented rather than horizontally, and there’s still that little plunger that held the original figures’ legs in place.  The plunger was no longer necessary thanks to the vehicle specific riders, but I can’t complain about it remaining, since that keeps it backwards compatible, and meant it could still be used with figures not specifically designed for this set.  The foot pedals have springs built in to maintain tension, allowing the bike to stay up straight even if not totally balanced in its weight distribution.  Later bikes would instead resort to flight stands and the like, but I actually like how this works, and it certainly makes it playable.  Speaking of playable, there’s a whole other spring-loaded feature designed with play in mind.  When you press the pack on the rear of the bike, it pops apart into several pieces, simulating the rather catastrophic damage the bikes tended to take in the movie.  In terms of coloring, the original bike was always a little on the pale side.  This one went a little more accurate, and also supplied some decals if you wanted to go even further with the accuracy.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Included with this bike was a variant of Leia, seen here in her camo gear from Endor.  Since this is what she’s wearing when on the bike, it’s pretty sensible, don’t you think?  Leia’s Endor appearance had previously appeared in the vintage line, though this would be its debut here for Power of the Force.  It would, however, later be retooled and released alongside a Commemorative Coin.  But this one was first.  She stands 3 3/4 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation.  These pilot figures were the first to sport knee articulation, which was a definite plus for this Leia, though the articulation is perhaps a little rudimentary in their implementation.  The sculpt is about on par with the rest of the line.  The helmet is permanently attached to her head, which is honestly the best way of handling it.  Her poncho is a separate piece made of a somewhat rubbery material.  It’s a little bit bulky, but not terrible as a whole.  Under the poncho, Leia’s got a fully defined uniform, which is a respectable match for what she was wearing in the film.  Leia’s paintwork is actually pretty darn decent.  Most of it’s pretty basic, but the work on the helmet and poncho is subtle and quite nicely implemented.  Leia is packed with a blaster pistol which, while it may look really similar to Han’s, is actually a totally unique sculpt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, the only of these sets I had was the one with Luke.  Back last year I finally picked up the one with the Scout Trooper.  Leia here?  The last of the three to be added to my collection.  All Time got her in last winter, and I picked her up during my splurge of PotF2 purchases.  For the money and time it takes to acquire, this release of the speeder bike, regardless of which figure it comes with is really the best option.  It’s pretty accurate, the spring loaded features are fun, and it scales nicely with the other offerings.  Plus, the Leia figure that’s included is actually not a bad offering, and is probably the best of the three potential figures to go with.

#1989: Sgt. Apone

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SGT. APONE

ALIENS (NECA)

“Tough and gritty, Apone keeps the Marines in line. Right arm now bio-mechanical.”

When NECA’s highly-popular Predator line started running out of actual movie-based Predators to release, they started reaching back to the ’90s line of Predator figures from Kenner, a fairly popular move.  Obviously, it’s not a huge shock that the Aliens line would follow suit.  We got the Kenner variant of Ripley back on the first Alien Day, with Vasquez following suit the next year.  There was an assortment of Kenner inspired Xenos released between the two in 2016, and we’ve finally gotten a follow-up assortment just this year.  We’ve also gotten our first main series release for a Kenner human, Sgt. Apone, a character whose movie version we have still yet to see, due to Al Matthews, Apone’s actor, being notoriously protective of his likeness.  But hey, at least we have *some* version of Apone.  And one that’s super ’90s-tastic at that!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sgt. Apone is one of the three figures in the Kenner-inspired Series 13 of Aliens from NECA.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 22 points of articulation.  As I noted when I reviewed the original Kenner Apone, his design from Kenner was perhaps one of the most divergent from the source material.  Gone was his uniform and standard military gear, replaced by something I can only describe as “uber ’90s”.  He’s got a backwards baseball cap, fingerless gloves, a bright-colored t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, and even a pair of sneakers inspired by the ones Ripley has in the film (which her Kenner figure didn’t have; I can only imagine that Al stole them from her).  The look is unique to say the least.  For the part of this specific figure, he’s done a pretty amazing job of faithfully capturing the details of the original figure, while still updating him so that he won’t look *too* out of place with the rest of the movie-inspired figures.  There’s a lot of great small detail work going on, from the wrinkles of his pants, to all the little stitches and wear on his boots.  The facial likeness is a tricky area of course, since it’s not officially an Al Matthews likeness, same as the Kenner figure before it.  But, like the Kenner figure, it’s still got a more than passing resemblance to the guy, meaning he still looks like Apone.  For the more resourceful customizers out there, I can see this head leading to a pretty easy movie accurate version of the character.  If there’s one drawback to the sculpt, it’s the way the cybernetic arm impedes the articulation on his right elbow.  It’s not terrible, and you can still get some good poses, but it’s not as good as the left.  In NECA’s defense, the original Kenner figure threw the arm on with no intention to articulate it, so they’re just doing their best to remain faithful to that design.  In the end, it’s not that big an issue, but it did somewhat stick out at me.  Moving onto the paint, Apone’s got some solid work, and is appropriately garish in color scheme.  He’s got his signature “No Bugs” scrawled across his shirt, which definitely looks cool, and as a whole the figure just really pops.  What I like the most about it, however, is that NECA didn’t just do the basic colors, they’ve also gone behind and added some accenting work, especially on those boots, so even though he may be bright and painful, he still looks like a real person.  Apone includes two “grenades” and a shotgun, just like his old figure.  The gun is re-used from one of the Genisys Terminators, but it’s actually a surprisingly good match.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve definitely been wanting an Apone for my NECA Aliens collection, and while I still want a faithful movie version at some point, I really can’t complain about getting this one.  The super ’90s nature adds a lot of charm.  Here’s hoping for some more Kenner Marines to go with him!

I got this guy from my friends at All Time Toys, who have (or had, at least) the whole series.   If you’re looking for toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#1984: Brainiac

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

BRAINIAC

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (KENNER)

“The fusion of alien lifeform and computer, Evil Alien Brainiac uses telekintec powers and a blasting space sled to control his enemies as he attempts to conquer the universe.”

After the smash success of Batman: The Animated Series, the show’s creative team moved to an adaptation of DC’s other big hero with Superman: The Animated Series.  Though not quite the same cultural phenomenon as its predecessor, the show was still a pretty solid success in its own right, and unsurprisingly netted its own line of toys.  But, while Kenner’s BTAS line actually covered a good chunk of the show’s cast, with the wacky-Bat-variants coming in later, Superman’s line was much more variant heavy from the very start.  There were only two non-Superman figures in the initial launch: Superman’s two biggest foes, the previously reviewed Lex Luthor, and today’s focus, Brainiac!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Brainiac was initially released in the first series of Superman: The Animated Series figures under the name of “Evil Alien Brainiac.”  You know, in case there was some confusion about his motivation or his place of origin.  Kind of sad we didn’t get this naming scheme across the whole assortment.  Why not “Good Alien Superman” or “Evil Human Lex Luthor”?  Would those have not appealed to the mass consumer as well?  Regardless, the figure in this review is not actually the Series 1 release, but is instead from the “Battle for Metropolis” four pack released at the tail end of the line.  The two figures are essentially the same, but there were some color differences, which I’ll touch on in the paint section. The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation, which was standard for the line.  After being reasonably faithful to the show designs for BTAS, the STAS line was a bit more stylistically divergent from the show.  Brainiac was one of the more faithful sculpts from the line, though he lacks the somewhat streamlined proportions of the show design.  Beyond that, though, it’s not a bad offering.  The details are pretty well defined, the costume details are all where they’re supposed to, and the pre-posing isn’t as crazy as some of the other figures in the line.  The paintwork on Brainiac does the sculpt well and keeps him fairly faithful to the show.  This second release was even closer, having swapped out the shade of purple for a slightly warmer tone like we saw in the show.  Both versions of Brainiac were packed with the same missile-launching Space Sled.  My figure is without said accessory, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My STAS collection growing up was actually pretty small.  Brainiac here was a slightly more recent addition (though still purchased almost a decade ago, so “recent” is relative), purchased from Yesterday’s Fun Toys & Games during one of my family vacations.  He’s a solid figure of a solid design, and really one of the better figures in this line.

#1983: Phoenix

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

PHOENIX

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“The embodiment of the life force of the universe itself, the mysterious Phoenix Entity merged with the telekinetic X-Man named Jean Grey, transforming her into Phoenix! As Phoenix, Jean possessed nearly unlimited telepathic and telekinetic abilities – but the scope of her powers overwhelmed, corrupted and eventually consumed her. But, in the manner of her namesake, Jean later rose from the ashes of her demise, alive once again!”

Jean Grey’s spot in the X-Men has long been a tricky one.  She was a founding member of the team, and stuck with them until the “All-New, All-Different” team took over in Giant-Size X-Men #1.  Jean only actually departed for four issues, before returning for a rematch with the Sentinels that ended in her gaining the powers of the Phoenix Force.  She then remained a major player until “The Dark Phoenix Saga” ended with Jean sacrificing herself to save the day…from herself.  Then, like some sort of mythological bird that I can’t remember the name of, she rose from the ashes a few years later.  From that point forward, she was still a prominent member of the team, but never quite seemed in phase with the rest of them.  This kind of reared its head in tie-in materials as well.  For the ’90s X-Men toyline, it took three years to get a single Jean Grey figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Phoenix was the central figure of the “Phoenix Saga” assortment, the eighth series of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  The assortment was designed to tie-in with the cartoon’s re-telling of the “Phoenix Saga,” and as such featured a number of pivotal players from it (and also Warstar, but we’ll talk about him later), and would not only be the first assortment to abandon a strict numbering system for assortments, but also has the notoriety of being both the last assortment to be released on the slimmer character specific card backs and the first to be released on the newer generic cards, via two separate releases.  This was not only Jean’s first figure in the line, but also her very first action figure in general, which was a pretty big deal.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation.  Like a good number of this line’s early figures, she lacks any sort of neck articulation, due to a light-up feature in the hair.  Of course, given the shaping of said hair, it’s unlikely that she would have had much movement going on anyway.  Jean’s sculpt was new to her, but would see an inevitable re-use for a Dark Phoenix figure (pictured with Wilson 4) in 1996 as part of the KB Toys-exclusive Marvel Universe line.  It’s really not a bad sculpt, especially for the time.  The proportions are decently balanced, and not terribly unrealistic, and kind of breaking from a lot of female figures for the time, she’s not hideous or horribly distorted, which was a pretty big deal.  Compared to the Rogue figure from the assortment prior, she’s definitely superior, and she blows the Series 1 Storm figure completely away.  There have been better Phoenix sculpts since, but it took them a good long while.  The paintwork is fairly basic stuff; the colors are bright and fairly eye-catching.  The green could maybe stand to be a little darker to better contrast with the yellow, but it’s not terrible.  The clear plastic for the hair actually works pretty well, especially when you have the right lighting.  The Dark Phoenix figure is pretty much the same paint, but palette-swapped.  The yellow parts are now gold, which was an interesting choice, but perhaps not the wisest, as it again leaves the two parts of the costume without much contrast.  Phoenix was packed with a launcher stand, re-used from the X-Force line’s Cannonball (yes, Cannonball had a figure before Jean Grey; try not to dwell on it).  It’s not the most thrilling extra, nor is it super specific, which is probably why the Dark Phoenix figure dropped it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Jean Grey has been my Dad’s favorite member of the X-Men pretty much since he started reading X-Men.  After discovering the Iron Man line on that fateful trip to Service Merchandise, he discovered the X-Men line via this figure (well, his copy of this figure, anyway), which he found at a dealer’s table at a con for the total insane crazy no one would ever pay this much for an action figure price of $20.  But hey, it was Jean Grey’s first figure, and he wasn’t going to pass it up, so he did not. …And then KB Toys did their buyout of Toy Biz figures, and you could get pretty much everyone in the line for under $5.  Not one to dwell on such things, my dad get me a Phoenix of my own, which I got alongside a Blackbird for the rest of my figures, if I recall correctly.  She was amongst 23 X-Men figures of mine that went missing for a few years during my high school/college days, but was discovered during “The Find” and has been on active display since then, because she’s just genuinely my favorite Jean Grey in my collection.

#1976: Mon Mothma

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MON MOTHMA

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“The senior senator of the Old Republic went underground to form the Rebel Alliance following the rise of the evil Empire. She was instrumental in the Rebel’s struggle for freedom.”

Hey, look at that!  It’s Mon Mothma, better known as the only other woman in Star Wars…well, at least until 1999.  Okay, that’s not strictly accurate.  She’s not the only other woman; she’s just the only other one who actually spoke on screen.  She’s never been a super prominent character or anything, but the aforementioned lack of other speaking females outside of herself and Leia does make her rather memorable.  She’s also had no less than three film appearances, and none of them have been part of the same trilogy.  How about that.  She’s never been the most toyetic character, but she did find her way into the Power of the Force line in the ’90s, and I’m gonna be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mon Mothma was released in the 1998 assortment of Power of the Force figures, and made her action figure debut here.  Not a huge surprise, given she’s not the most action oriented character.  Mostly, she just stood there.  This figure depicts her in her official standing around robes, as seen in the film.  Nice.  She does this standing around at a height of 3 1/2 inches and she has 4 points of articulation; since she just stands, but does not walk, she does not have any joints at her hips.  Mon Mothma’s sculpt is actually pretty darn decent.  She’s not at all pre-posed, nor does she suffer from odd or exaggerated proportions.  Her head even sports a passable likeness of actress Caroline Blakiston, which is more than can be said for most of the human figures in this line.  Or any Star Wars line, for that matter.  Likenesses aren’t classically their strong suit.  Her robes are rendered via two separate pieces.  The underlying robes are sculpted as the figure’s body, with the upper robes being a separate overlay piece.  This not only allows her some extra mobility (since the upper robes are a softer plastic), but also adds some additional depth to a sculpt that could have been rather on the soft side.  Mon Mothma’s paintwork is reasonable.  It’s not thrilling or anything, but that’s kind of the nature of the beast, since she’s by design rather monochromatic.  Mon Mothma wasn’t running around blasting or slashing things, so she doesn’t get any sort of offensive armaments.  However, she does get a little pointing stick like she has in the movie, allowing her to dispense valuable knowledge.  And, as we all know, knowledge is power, so really, she doesn’t make out all that badly, now does she.  Bet she could take on the entire Imperial fleet with that bad boy there.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mon Mothma was a slightly rarer figure when she was first released, so I didn’t have one growing up.  Nor do I really think I would have sought out one, because she’s not a very play-oriented sort of character.  But, in my mission to get a complete run of PotF2 figures, I was definitely going to need her.  Fortunately, my friends at All Time Toys were able to help me out on that front, and got me a loose one for my collection.  She’s hardly the most thrilling figure the line had to offer, but the more mature collector in me still rather appreciates her.

#1962: Bossk

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

BOSSK

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

When ranking the distinctive Executioner bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back, the top spot is always, unquestionably going to go to IG-88.  There’s no contest there.  If I’m picking a number two, I think I’d have to go with Bossk, that shoe-less lizard guy in a Doctor Who costume.  Because, hey, lizards are cool!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bossk was released as part of the Power of the Force II collection in 1997.  He was one of three bounty hunters released that year, alongside 4-LOM and Dengar, all of whom were finally making sure the poor Mr. Fett wasn’t quite as lonely as he’d been since 1995.  This was Bossk’s second figure, following his original vintage release.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation, not surprising for this line. The sculpt was all-new to Bossk, and, amazingly, would remain unique to PotF; a couple of the other Bounty Hunters would keep their PotF sculpts in circulation for a little while, but Bossk was one and done.  Despite the willingness on Hasbro’s part to move past this sculpt, it’s really not a bad offering.  As an alien, Bossk benefits from being what this line excelled at.  The details are sharply defined, pre-posing is at a minimum, and he’s just a generally nice looking figure.  Even the paintwork on Bossk is pretty impressive.  Many of the PotF figures were more basic in their paint application, but Bossk has quite a bit going on.  There are one or two un-painted sculpted elements, but for the most part everything is painted up to properly match his on-screen counterpart.  Bossk is packed with a pair of blasters.  He has his rifle seen in the movie, which is decently sculpted, but there is unfortunately no way for him to actually hold it.  There’s a sling molded to it, so it can go over his shoulder, but it’s still a slight let-down.  He also includes a smaller blaster, which looks to have been made up for this figure.  Fortunately, this one can actually be held.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The only Bossk I had growing up was actually the vintage one, not this one.  This one proved a little trickier to track down than the other PotF bounty hunters.  Fortunately, I was able to get one from my friends at All Time Toys when a loose collection came in.  Bossk’s not without issue.  The inability to hold the gun is really frustrating.  Beyond that, though, he’s a really fun little figure.

#1948: Spirit of Obi-Wan

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SPIRIT OF OBI-WAN

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

You know something I really miss? Mail-away figures.  They were quite popular during the ’80s and ’90s, and even made their way into the early ’00s, and were particularly common amongst the Star Wars lines, and they even netted me my very first Han Solo action figure.  To say I have a soft-spot for them is something of an understatement.  In their hey-day, they permeated all manner of merchandising.  Perhaps one of the most infamous is today’s focus, the Spirit of Obi-Wan.  One of the first offerings of the re-launched Star Wars line, he was born out of a partnership between Kenner and Frito Lay.  If you sent in a certain number of proofs of purchase from Frito Lay’s then-new pizza flavored potato chips, they’d send you this fancy exclusive figure.  Obviously, thought the smart toy collectors out there, this figure was going to be super rare and hard to find, so they had to order as many of them as possible, so that they could retire on them in the future.  Little economics lesson here: if you create false demand for an item, then the supply will rise to meet it, and then *nobody* gets to retire.  But enough about senseless speculation, how’s the actual figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Spirit of Obi-Wan was shipped out to fans in 1997, as the second mail-away offer in the Power of the Force II line.  He was the line’s second Obi-Wan figure, following his standard release in ’95.  It was also our first time getting Obi-Wan in his force ghost form, which is somewhat surprising given how much of the original trilogy he spends as a ghost.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and has 0 points of articulation.  Yes, you read that articulation count right; this figure has no articulation, at least not right out of the box.  There are clearly joints at his neck and shoulders, and you can get them moving without *too* much trouble, but they are affixed in place when new, on every sample of this figure.  Why is anyone’s guess.  It’s entirely possible it wasn’t even fully intentional, but there it is.  Obi-Wan’s sculpt is, understandably, rather similar to his standard release figure.  The only parts actually shared between the two are the head and I believe the right arm, since the translucent nature of the figure makes a solid construction on the torso more sensible than the removable robe of the prior figure.  It actually looks pretty decent, and possibly one of the most surprising things about this figure’s sculpt is that it wasn’t ever repainted into a regular Obi-Wan.  I do have to say, while not spot-on, the head actually seems to have more of a resemblance to Alec Guinness when unpainted.  Speaking of unpainted, that’s the nature of this whole figure.  While later force ghost figures would experiment with variations in coloration, this one is just a straight translucent blue.  I myself like this look a little more, if I’m honest; it makes him more identifiably different.  The Spirit of Obi-Wan was packed with no accessories, unless of course you count the assortment of coupons he came with, but that seems like a stretch to me.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had enough trouble holding onto my regular Obi-Wan back in the day, so I did not have this one growing up.  Instead, I added him to my collection thanks to my friends at All Time Toys, who got in not one, but two *sealed* copies of this figure, one of them still in its cardboard mailer.  Since they aren’t actually worth much of anything, All Time was more than happy to pass along one of the pair to me.  He’s not a super playable figure, but he’s a nifty sort of set dressing, and a great example of how badly speculators can screw up a market.  Don’t buy your toys as investments kids; it never really pays off.

#1941: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“The strongest of the X-Men, Colossus has the awesome mutant ability to turn his body into living steel! When he is in his living steel form, Colossus can lift as many as forty cars at once. His steel body is so hard that not even a bomb blast can hurt him! Normally Colossus is a quiet and gentle man, but when an evil mutant attacks, Colossus can be as fearsome a foe as any X-Man!”

Okay, so, umm, I was doing this thing where I was trying to work through Toy Biz’s X-Men line series by series.  And I was doing pretty good.  And then I was double checking things and realized I jumped the gun going to Series 2, so I have to do just the tiniest bit of back-tracking and take a look at the team’s resident metal bruiser, Colossus!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Colossus is the final figure in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  At the time of this figure’s release, Piotr had been on the team pretty consistently since his introduction in the ’70s, so he was a natural choice for the line-up.  He’s seen here in his classic costume, which he had just returned to at the time of the figure’s release.  The figure stands 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  All of the figures in the set were originally designed with the lessened articulation, but most of them had it upgraded by the time they hit stores.  Colossus, for whatever reason, was one of two exceptions to this rule.  His sculpt is definitely scrawnier than later Colossi, but honestly he’s not that bad, especially in comparison to the rest of the assortment.  He’s actually a lot more proportionately balanced than most of them, so he looks pretty decent.  He’s rather pre-posed, in order facilitate his action feature.  What is this amazing action feature, you ask?  Well, there’s this lever on his back, and when you pull it down, his arms lift upward, in a weight-lifting sort of action.  I don’t know that it’s really worth the investment the figure gives it, but it’s not the worst.  The paintwork on Colossus is clean and bright.  It’s pretty basic, but it works.  Colossus is packed with a large weight, in order to help sell that weight lifting feature.  It’s a little tricky to keep him standing with it, but it’s doable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Colossus was not part of my collection growing up.  He was, however, part of my brother’s collection.  And as of late, my brother’s been purging a lot of his old figures, and Colossus was the only one I was missing, so, hey, that worked out pretty alright.  There have been better Colossus figures, but as far as 5-inch figures go, he actually still brings quite a bit to the table.

#1934: 8D8

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

8D8

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“Originally designed to work in smelting factories, 8D8 worked under EV-9D9 in Jabba the Hutt’s droid operations center.”

There are a lot of droids in Star Wars, of all sorts of differing models and styles.  When in doubt about what to do for a Star Wars line, they can always bring out the driods.  During Power of the Force II, one of the running sub-goals of the line was re-creating the line-up of the original vintage toyline.  That was a large contributing factor to today’s figure, 8D8, finding his way into the line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

8D8 was released in the 1998 assortment of Power of the Force II.  He’s the second figure of 8D8, and also the final figure of 8D8.  Why no updates since then?  Well, I’m gonna get to that.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Movement-wise, this guy’s not ideal.  He lacks the at the time standard waist joint, which is sort of odd, since the design clearly would have allowed for it.  The design of the hips compared to the arms means that the movement on both the shoulders and the hips is quite restricted.  Guess it all hinges on that sweet neck movement?  Yay?  The sculpt was unique to this figure, and though it comes from later in the run, it’s still kind of plagued by pre-posing.  He’s like, mid-stride, or something.  Whatever the case, he has a lot of trouble standing, and the pre-posing means that his already limited articulation is even further limited if you want to keep him standing.  On the plus side, the actual sculpt is a solid recreation of 8D8 as seen in the movie, and there’s plenty of sharp and clean detail work going on.  The paintwork is also pretty decent.  He’s mostly just molded in an off-white sort of color, but he’s got some silver accenting and his red detailing from the film.  Like the sculpt, it matches up pretty well with what we see on the screen.  8D8 has an “action feature” of light-up eyes.  Nothing super fancy, just a basic light-piping feature, but I guess it gives him a little extra pop.  8D8 is packed with the droid branding device we see him using in the movie, which is one of the better extras from the line.  Also, as a 1998 release, he included a Freeze Frame slide, showing him in the actual movie.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

8D8 is from a recent run on Power of the Force I did, in my ever-expanding mission to get a complete collection of the line.  I got him from my friends at All Time Toys, for essentially nothing, since I was grabbing so many others.  Ultimately, I can’t say he’s a particularly great figure, and I think it’s really just a design that doesn’t so much lend itself to toy-form, which is probably why it hasn’t shown up again.