GIDEON

X-FORCE (TOY BIZ)

“Imagine fighting a stronger and faster version of yourself. That’s what it’s like for the X-Men when they battle Gideon! Whether it’s one person or ten, Gideon can absorb the abilities of everyone he fights, increase that power, and turn himself into a super-charged version of his opponents. Not only that, Gideon is also one of the richest men. His ultimate goal is a mystery, but one thing’s for sure, he has the power and money to reach it!”

By the ‘90s, a lot of the new mutants introduced into the X-books seemed to rely pretty heavily on  one-upmanship and taking a pre-existing character’s power set and making it “cooler” or “edgier,” frequently by just adding “gun” somewhere in their description.  Today’s entry, Gideon, debuted in the same issue of New Mutants as Deadpool, and effectively takes Rogue’s power mimicry abilities and kicks them up a notch.  Also, fun fact here, he’s an “External,” a concept explored in the early X-Force run about a group of extra special mutants who are immortal and have been secretly guiding history for a very long time.  Because somebody really liked Highlander, I guess.  As with so any characters from early in X-Force, Gideon was touted as being a “big deal” before kind of quietly fading into the background and largely being forgotten.  He did get an action figure, though, so there’s that.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Gideon was part of the first series of Toy Biz’s X-Force line.  There’s a lot of non-team members present, huh?  Also kind of amusing that Gideon predates the inclusion of both Cannonball and Sunspot, the two characters on the team he spent most of his time with.  They weren’t too far behind, at least, so it’s not the end of the world.  This was his only action figure, with no re-releases or variants even, so he was truly a one-and-done.  The figure’s just under 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  He’s missing the elbows again, which was quite common in this first round of figures.  He seems rather small, again pretty common for this particular batch of figures.  Not sure why the X-Force line in particular seemed so small and shrimpy.  I’d say that makes him something of a Li’l Gideon, but I think connecting this guy to a Gravity Falls reference might be too high class for him.  Gideon’s sculpt is totally unique to him and…yeah, it’s certainly something.  Gideon had a number of looks early on, all rather out there, and meant to showcase his…look I don’t know.  He’s dressed like a cyborg chippendale or something.  None of it makes sense independently, much less as a whole cohesive thing.  I suppose it’s at least unique and distinctive?  Yeah, let’s go with that.  The actual quality of the sculpt is pretty similar to the others in this first series.  He’s kind of soft on the details, and the direct resemblance to Liefeld’s artwork is minimal.  He’s sort of pre-posed on the arms, but otherwise rather stiff.  He looks awkward for sure, and his ponytail is hanging in a way that doesn’t really feel natural.  His color work is…unpleasant.  It’s accurate…more or less.  The comics were back and forth on Gideon’s hair color; sometimes it was white, and other times green.  I think green might have been more fun, but they went for white, which is fine.  Otherwise, it’s *fine*.  Once again, not very cohesive, but the application’s clean enough.  Gideon is packed with a briefcase that has a removable katana.  You know, as you do.  He’s got an action feature as well, where flipping the lever on his back moves his arms up and down.  You know, as you do.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have a Gideon as a kid, but my cousin Rusty did.  Neither of us actually knew who he was, nor was either of us really much of a fan of the guy.  I later got that figure, in a bag with a bunch of others, when my grandparents’ house was being cleared out, and he was in *rough* shape, and I ended up chopping him up further for custom fodder.  The one seen here was a much later addition to my collection, circa 2018.  I got him sealed for super cheap, because that’s how things are for Gideon.  He then sat sealed until last spring when I decided to actually appreciate the stacks of Toy Biz figures I had sitting around, so I finally cracked him open and put him on the shelf.  He’s not a great figure.  He’s not a good figure.  He’s maybe a mediocre figure.  His design is awful, and there’s very little appealing about the final product, honestly.  But, there’s something sort of amusing about how poorly executed every part of Gideon’s journey to action figure was, so…I kinda love him?  Wait…when did that happen?  I think all this Toy Biz reviewing is starting to get to me.