Tag Archives: KB Toys-exclusive

#3743: Robocop

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

ROBOCOP

ROBOCOP (TOY ISLAND)

In prep for this review, I was genuinely uncertain if I’d talked about Robocop on the site, and in fact, yes, I have.  I looked at the two NECA figures I had, which is well enough.  Of course, that’s all on the more recent side (relatively speaking, at least), but let’s go back to the beginning.  Or, you know, at least closer to it, with a little company called Toy Island, who devoted quite a bit of their business to making toys of things that probably shouldn’t have had toys in the ’90s.  There was a whole selection of Robocop stuff from them, following up on what Kenner had done in the prior decade.  And today, I’m looking at one of their smallest offerings.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Robocop was released by Toy Island in 1995, as a tie-in to the live-action show, rather than the movie.  Of course, for Robocop himself, it’s only a minor distinction.  He was part of the smaller scale stuff, which was a lot of one-and-done releases of main characters, usually designed to fill out the pegs at KB.  The figure is just under 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  He’s *sort of* 1/18 scale, but not really, because he’s ultimately rather small, which was the case with a lot of the Toy Island stuff.  He’s very limited in his posing, especially because he lacks a neck joint.  Of course, to be fair, Robocop was also rather stiff in his movements by design, so it sort of tracks in that respect.  The sculpt is itself pretty rudimentary.  His head seems to be a little thin, and also too big, which feels like its saying two different things, but it’s not.  That said, the armor and body details are all actually pretty sharp.  Sure, they don’t all completely line-up with the design for the character, but it’s also not terribly far off.  His paint work is pretty basic.  The armoring seems a little dark for the character, but beyond that, it’s generally fine.  Robocop’s one accessory was an M-16, which is just emphatically not right for the character at all, but it’s presumably something Toy Island already had a mold for, so there it was.  Regardless, it’s a piece that’s missing from mine.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was one of my Nana’s signature “bought one for all the grandkids” purchases, paired off with the Toy Island T-800, all of them purchased on sale at KB Toys.  I had no clue about either character at the time, and I thought they were actually linked, and had to sort of come up with my own story for them.  It was a good while before I knew anything about Robocop in actuality.  This figure’s pretty hokey, but at the same time, he’s really not bad, especially given what he was meant to be.

#2415: Wolverine V – Part Deux

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

WOLVERINE V

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Before his transformation into the super hero called Wolverine, the man called Logan plied his trade as one of the world’s foremost secret agents!  His superhuman senses proved an invaluable asset in the realm of espionage, especially when enhanced by the most sophisticated sensing equipment money could buy!  And his unequaled skill with razor edged weapons made him an unbeatable fighter–much to the regret of the enemies of world peace!”

For the second part of my crazy Day of the Wolverines marathon run, I’m actually doing just a little bit of circling back, and taking a look at a figure I’ve kind of looked at before.  See, one of the things that Toy Biz experimented with a fair bit during their X-Men line was color variants.  They were a solid way of getting another sale or two out of the same mold, so there were a fair number of figures that wound up with one, or even two variant color schemes.  Sometimes there’d be a variant color scheme within the standard assortment, and then yet another as a retailer-exclusive, waiting just around the corner!  Such was the case with Wolverine V, Spy Wolverine!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spy Wolverine was part of Series 4 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, hitting shelves in 1993.  I’ve reviewed one of this figure before, back in 2014, and my general thoughts on its sculpt still pretty much stand.  I will say, that compared to the Weapon X figure from earlier, I’m a little surprised by the slight step back in quality on this figure, and honestly, on the Civilian Logan that hit the next year.  You almost have to wonder if there was some shuffling of figures in the line-up, or if maybe a few of the Wolverines were prepped at once.  Whatever the case, it’s a slight letdown, but certainly not a terrible sculpt in its own right.  I mean, who doesn’t want a bunch of snorkling Wolverines?  The difference between all of these figures is the paint.  For the main release, he came in either black and gold or blue and gold.  My initial review was of the blue, and the black is featured here. The KB Toys version swaps out the black/blue for an olive green, and the gold for bronze.  The general application across all of the figures is essentially the same, with even those darn goofy eyes appearing across the board.  For my figures, I found the KB version to be the cleanest.  All of the figures also included the same six knives, four still being on the tree behind him.  We also get more trading cards!  Black actually gets a Wolverine card (crazy, I know), but Olive gets Psylocke.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I picked up the blue guy back in 2014, I figured that would do me, and I wouldn’t need to worry about the variants.  However, when I came in to dig through this insane collection of Wolverines, I discovered that the only Spy Wolverine this guy didn’t have was the one I did.  It seemed almost criminal to not complete the set.  Right?  That’s a fair line of logic, right?  I’m not just making excuses for my habit, right?  The black version I don’t have much attachment to (aside from it feeling more chromatically correct based on the cartoon, I suppose), but I find myself really liking the olive Wolvie.  He just kinda works.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.