Tag Archives: Bonebreaker

#3163: Bonebreaker

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

BONEBREAKER

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“The villainous cyborg known only as Bonebreaker desires nothing more than the chance to wreak havoc. Employing his robotic abilities first as a mercenary and then as a member of the nefarious Reavers, Bonebreaker leaves a trail of destruction wherever his travels lead him!”

Back in 2019, Hasbro knocked out their first member of the cybernetically-enhanced X-Men foes the Reavers with Skullbuster, an admittedly soft opening for the line-up.  But, that’s what you get when you really don’t have the name recognition to justify much new tooling right out of the gate.  We also got the team’s two different leaders, Donald Pierce and Lady Deathstrike, though the actual ranks are still rather small.  And hey, now we’re getting arguably the most quickly recognizable member of the group, by nature of being half-man-half-tank.  Let’s check out Bonebreaker!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bonebreaker is the Build-A-Figure for the titular series of Marvel Legends, assembled from the parts included with six of the seven figures in the assortment.  This is Bonebreaker’s second time in figure form, following up on the original Toy Biz one.  Hey, it’s better than all of the rest of his team, so that certainly counts for something.  The figure is about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation, as well as a moving cannon and back-flap on the tank portion of the figure.  The proper articulation is confined to the upper half, which is making use of the upper portion of the Spider-UK body.  He also gets the bands from Captain Marvel, as well as a new head, overlay for the web gear and collar piece, and, of course, the tank half.  The new pieces are actually pretty impressive.  The head’s got a ton of character, between both the hair style and the crazy look on his face.  I especially like the hinged sunglasses, which add a lot of options for the character’s expressions.  The tank section is generally pretty solid as well.  The detailing is sharp and well-handled technically, and I really dig the dings and scratches.  The assembly is also pretty solid, considering how its got to be disassembled for the purposes of the Build-A-Figure set-up.  Bonebreaker’s color work is on the drab side, as expected, but there’s a lot going on, which keeps it interesting.  Bonebreaker is packed with two sets of hands (fists and gripping), as well as an assault rifle.  It covers everything he could need, and then some, so that’s a plus.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Back in the ’90s, I remember seeing Bonebreaker’s original figure everywhere, which sort of wound up deterring me from actually getting it, until I finally broke back in 2019 and finally got him.  Over the years, I’ve grown to like Bonebreaker a little bit more, and I was certainly intrigued by the prospect of him in Legends form, and this Build-A-Figure release looked pretty awesome when it was shown off.  In-hand, he turned out really well.  Clearly, a lot of fun was had with this one.  I’d love to see them tackle more of the Reavers to fill things out a bit, because they did really well with this one.

This assortment is really oddball, and generally pretty obscure, but boy do I like it.  Obviously, Havok’s the main star for me, because it’s Havok, and he’s great.  That said, Maggot and Bonebreaker are both really well handled figures of low-tier characters, who are just a ton of fun.  Darwin, Siryn, and Sabretooth are all rather by the numbers, but they do what they need to, and they do it well.  And you don’t even need to buy the Wolverine variant to finish the set!  Oh, right, there’s also Vulcan.  I mean, I guess he’s alright.

#2448: Bonebreaker

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

BONEBREAKER

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“The villainous cyborg known only as Bonebreaker desires nothing more than the chance to wreak havoc. Employing his robotic abilities first as a mercenary and then as a member of the nefarious Reavers, Bonebreaker leaves a trail of destruction wherever his travels lead him!”

Man, we are just jumping into the deep end with the obscure ’90s X-Men characters, aren’t we?  I mean, it’s kinda hard to top Senyaka and his lack of any staying power in the slightest, so that does give today’s entry a slight leg up…okay, so not “leg up”…because, you know, the lack of legs and all.  Tank up?  Tread up?  Ah, this is definitely way too much thought to put into a Bonebreaker intro.  Look, he’s half-man, half-tank.  It’s pretty cut and dry stuff, really.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bonebreaker was released in Series 7 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  It was the final series to be released solely on the more character-specific short cards, which actually proved a little tricky for the breaker of bones here, since they had to manage fitting his lower half into the package with him.  You have to wonder if that may have slightly influenced the decision to go to the larger cards.  By and large, Series 7’s line-up is one of the softer selection of characters in this line, with only two real “heavy hitters” in the line-up, one of them being quite possibly the most boring Wolverine the line ever produced.  Of the remaining five figures, Bonebreaker may possibly be amongst the best known (although I myself tend to favor Ch’od and Raza on that front; it really comes down to which era of the comics you’re most familiar with).  Why am I talking so much about all of this not Bonebreaker stuff?  I don’t know.  I’m honestly not sure I can bear to talk only about Bonebreaker for quite this long.  But, I suppose I’ve stalled for long enough.  The figure stands 3 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation, as well as rolling wheels (though not proper moving treads, unfortunately).  There aren’t exactly a lot of potential posing options with this guy, but it’s not exactly for lack of trying; there’s really only so much you can do with the design.  The sculpt is decent enough for the time, with a pretty on-brand sculpt for the human portions.  His lower tank half is actually pretty impressive, with fairly sharp and solid technical detailing throughout.  It rivals Ch’od for the best sculpting work in this assortment.  The paint work on Bonebreaker is fairly drab and basic, which I guess is more or less a clean translation of the source material.  The tank’s sculpt kind of suffers here, because the nice detail work ends up getting a bit lost in all that un-painted turquoise plastic.  It’s perhaps not the best choice of coloring.  Bonebreaker was originally packed with two guns, one hand-held, and the other for mounting to the tank.  I have neither.  For shame.

EDIT 12/25/20 – I now have both of the two guns.  Less shame!  Also, I found one of his included missiles that I didn’t even list before.  For shame again!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bonebreaker’s a figure I remember seeing…a lot.  This whole assortment (barring Rogue) was everywhere for a long time, but Bonebreaker is the one I recall seeing the most.  I didn’t get one, I guess because the design didn’t really speak to me, and because his appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series wasn’t one of my favorites.  But, I’m getting pretty serious about the Toy Biz X-Men collection, so I ended up picking up Bonebreaker here loose while on vacation last summer.  He’s honestly a bit better than I’d expected, and I’d like to see how he might turn out in Legends form.