Tag Archives: Marvel Hall of Fame

#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.

#4092: Marvel Girl

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

MARVEL GIRL

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!”

In a nice bit of segue from last week’s Dazzler review, let’s talk about what has thus far been the quiet uniting theme of this month’s Marvel reviews, X-Factor.  X-Factor was, from the start, a plan to re-unite the original five X-Men in a new book, with the notable caveat that one of those five, Jean Grey, was very much dead at the time. The original plan was for Dazzler to join as the group’s fifth member, which actually made it far enough along that her joining a team with Beast was referenced at the end of their shared miniseries.  But, when Kurt Busiek pitched a compelling way to bring back Jean while still preserving the end of the “Dark Phoenix Saga,” plans changed, and Jean returned, briefly going back to her Marvel Girl monicker, albeit with a new costume to match the rest of the team.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Marvel Girl is the last figure from Series 6 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Hall of Fame, a Puzzle Zoo Exclusive line.  She likewise wraps up this assortment’s second go at the “She-Force” banner for the line.  This was the second Jean Grey in the line, both of them under the “She-Force” banner.  I guess they were trying to make up for how generally absent she was from the X-Men line?  She’s seen here in her green and yellow X-Factor costume, specifically the tweaked version of it where she’d switched from the full cowl to just the face mask part (likely a choice dictated by parts available, but it’s ultimately the better look).  Interestingly, this makes her the wrong costume to match the X-Factor Cyclops from X-Men Series 1, since he was in his white and blue from the second batch of costumes. Given she’s also taller than he is, it’s probably not the end of the world, though.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation.  She’s making use of the Spider-Woman mold, specifically the modified Jessica Drew version, which removed the action feature and added in elbow joints. Honestly, it’s not a bad set-up.  Apart from the lack of neck articulation (which was usually pretty spotty on the long-haired figures anyways), it’s a solid sculpt, with a good, basic set-up for details.  It lacks any extraneous details to throw it off, and it’s just generally a pretty okay match for Jean’s look of the era.  Her paint work is generally not too bad.  The yellow on green is a little bit wobbly around the edges, but the face is quite clean, and the accenting on the hair is quite nice.  Marvel Girl is packed with a rather odd back-pack weapon thing, originally packed with Ninja Psylocke.  It’s…well it’s odd, but that was true of most of the Hall of Fame accessories.  They were mostly just trying to fill up the box to justify the price.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

While I didn’t personally own this figure as a kid, my dad did, on the basis of it being one of the few easily available Jean figures at the time, so I do remember it being around the house.  I can’t say I have much memory of her beyond that.  I got mine a few years ago, at the same time as the Dazzler figure from last week.  While not top-tier in terms of costumes, it’s not a terrible design at all, and it makes for a solid all around figure.

#4088: Dazzler

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

DAZZLER

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!”

Alison Blair, aka the Dazzler, was originally dreamed up as a collaboration between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, first as “Disco Queen,” then “Disco Dazzler,” then simply “Dazzler,” as an attempt at a multimedia character, existing not just in the comics, but also as a “real” performer, much like the Archies, with albums, animated appearances, and possibly even real life performances as well.  The multimedia element proved difficult to make work on a reasonable schedule, and ideas kept shifting, and ultimately Marvel opted to just make her a proper Marvel character, introducing her in the pages of X-Men, before allowing her to move out into the wider universe.  Though never exactly A-list, she’s gotten quite a following over the years.  Despite debuting in 1980, she would get her first action figure until well into the ‘90s, with a figure I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dazzler was released in Series 6 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Hall of Fame line, a Puzzle Zoo-exclusive line of repaints and re-issues.  Series 6 was the second batch of “She-Force” figures for the line.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  As with the rest of the line, Dazzler is a total parts re-use.  In her case, it’s Black Cat’s head on Invisible Woman’s body.  Interestingly, this exact same combo was used for Jean Grey in the Famous Couples two-pack.  Honestly, it might work a bit better for Dazzler, since the hair in particular feels like a pretty good match for her disco-era look.  The body is decent enough, though it’s a more conventional super her suit than Dazzler’s bell-bottomed disco jumpsuit.  There are some adjustments to her overall look, so as to better match up with the sculpted costume elements of the body, which is a little surprising, since Toy Biz tended to just ignore such things outright.  The paint work does an okay job of capturing her look.  It’s largely basic, but the eye details are pretty sharp, and the hair gets some nice accent work.  The paint on the hair is a little tacky, though, and prone to catching a lot of dust.  Dazzler is packed with a recolored pair of Jubilee’s roller blades, as well as her effect piece.  While the skates aren’t quite the right vintage for Dazzler’s, it’s an inspired re-use to say the least, and the effect piece is also nice, even if it’s a little awkward in her hand.  Also included is a Fleer trading card, which for my figure was a Cyclops.  That’s pretty cool.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember seeing this figure when she was relatively new. However, my only exposure to the character at the time was “Pryde of the X-Men” and her brief appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series, both of which use her ‘80s flashdance look, so I didn’t really connect with this design.  In more recent years, I’ve gained a better appreciation for the older look (though I do still sort of prefer the later design), so I finally tracked her down, when she was part of a collection that Cosmic Comix bought about five years or so ago.  She’s a good example of the parts re-use approach being a solid way to expand the line-up when used well.  There are some minor oddities, but mostly she’s a good approximation of the character, and it’s clear who she’s supposed to be when on the shelf.

#4084: Wolfsbane

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

WOLFSBANE

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!”

Last week, X-Men ’97 finally returned with its long-awaited second season, with a whopping three episode drop at the premier.  The season’s structure has the main team split across time, so that gives some space for some of the offshoot teams to shine a bit as well.  Returning following their single episode focus in X-Men: The Animated Series is X-Factor’s ‘90s line-up.  They were one of the few teams that Toy Biz actually managed to finish outright (well, we never got Val Cooper, but she’s not *really* on the team), with figures spread across all sorts of releases.  I’ve actually looked at all but one of them, with the last one, Wolfsbane, serving as today’s focus!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wolfsbane was released in Series 6 of Toy Biz’s Puzzle Zoo-exclusive Marvel Hall of Fame line, as part of the second “She-Force” branded assortment.  This was the first of two Wolfsbane figures under Toy Biz, and this one was based on her then current X-Factor attire.  The figure stands just under 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  Wolfsbane is using a modified version of the Deathbird mold.  It’s an odd mold in terms of posing, since it’s got the v-hips, no elbows, and minimal movement on the knees.  It does at least have nice movement in the shoulders.  The body’s been modified to remove the various mounting spots for the wings.  It’s fine on the arms, but the back ends up with this rather odd raised flat spot that’s out of place.  Since the mold has no sculpted fur detailing of any sort, they decided to sort of offset the issue with actual fur (or at least a simulated version of it), glued to the figure’s head, forearms, and shins.  It’s weird, and all over the place.  Honestly, the arms and legs aren’t too bad, but the head is real wonky.  The shaping is just way off, and it’s very hard to get it look right.  Given her hair is already pretty much as it’s supposed to be, I don’t really know why they bothered, but here we are.  The color work on Wolfsbane is fine, I guess.  The uniform is a bit sloppy, and the colors don’t really match the others, but also they weren’t very consistent with those shades anyway.  The brown chosen feels rather on the dark side, given Rahne was usually closer to orange.  She’s also got no pupils, which is a bit odd, and her lips are downright cartoonish.  Wolfsbane’s accessories include five bones, because, umm, she needed five bones I guess?  The Hall of Fame accessories were always kind of weird.  She also included a trading card, in my case a Quasar and Gladiator fight scene.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve had the rest of the X-Factor for quite a while, having finished them up back in 2011 or so.  This one missed me.  Or I guess I missed her?  I don’t know.  I knew the figure existed, and I was generally sort of looking for it, but she just never really landed in front of me.  Back at the beginning of June, I took a trip down to South Carolina for memorial service for Jess, which gave me a chance to revisit some of my old regular spots, including our old comic shop, Power Comics.  They supplied with a good many Toy Biz figures during my time in Conway, so I was delighted to find that they still had quite a large selection of older figures, and I ended up snagging quite a few that I still needed.  Wolfsbane’s not the greatest figure from this line, especially with the weird fur, but I have to admire her from the perspective of Toy Biz actually finishing up a team line-up.

#4060: Viper

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

VIPER

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“Bursting onto the scene are the most powerful heroes and villains. Leading the pack against evil is the gamma-powered savage She-Hulk and the she-devil of the Savage Land — Shanna! Keeping to the shadows is the enigmatic ninja, Elektra, while Silver Fox relies on her training as a top secret government operative. But it is the Viper, who uses her powers and abilities for personal gain, no matter what she must destroy to get it.”

Okay, so here we are at Day 12 of the ever growing “Day of the Vipers,” where I look at every version of the—what’s that?  Oh, I’m getting word it’s not one of *those* Vipers.  It’s a totally different, completely unrelated Viper who works for a serpent-themed terrorist organization.  My mistake.  So, let’s look at this here figure of Viper, also known as Madame Hydra, though not for this particular figure.  She’s neat.  Maybe not as neat as a Cobra Viper, but still neat.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Viper is part of the seventh series of the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive Marvel Hall of Fame line, also the third and final to use the “She-Force” branding, as well as the final assortment of the line as a whole.  While the whole of this series is pretty heavy on kind of morally grey characters, Viper is kind of the most emphatically “bad” of the bunch, so I guess she’s the defacto “villain” of the bunch.  The figure stands just under 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  As with the rest of the line, Viper is a total parts re-use figure.  Like Elektra, she’s using Light-Up Psylocke’s body, complete with the now non-functioning battery compartment.  It’s now topped off by the head from White Queen, which is…fine?  It doesn’t at all do Viper’s usual covering the eye look, and seems very short.  But, I guess it’s decently menacing.  The base body is fine, though, as the costume details match up closely enough to work.  She gets a soft-goods belt and…yeah, that part’s not great.  It just kind of looks like someone tied a green ribbon around her waist.  Which, I guess, isn’t inaccurate.  Her color work has a lot of green, which is nice, since it differentiates her pretty well from the other uses of the molds.  Some of the application’s a little sloppy, but it’s not awful for the most part.  Viper includes two black pistols, which are re-used from older molds, and are kind of silly.  She also included a card, which for my figure was Professor X.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember pretty much nothing about this figure.  My interactions with Viper in general have been minimal.  I liked her in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and I *didn’t* like her in The Wolverine, and her comics appearances have never much inspired me.  But, she had this Toy Biz figure, and I do like those.  I think I got her at the same time as Elektra from last week.  She was certainly part of a larger batch of figures, I know that.  She’s fine.  Nothing fancy, but also nothing truly bad.  Well, maybe the belt, but it’s minor.  And, honestly, I don’t even think this is her worst figure (that would be the first Hasbro Legends release).

#4056: Elektra

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

ELEKTRA

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“Bursting onto the scene are the most powerful heroes and villains. Leading the pack against evil is the gamma-powered savage She-Hulk and the she-devil of the Savage Land — Shanna! Keeping to the shadows is the enigmatic ninja, Elektra, while Silver Fox relies on her training as a top secret government operative. But it is the Viper, who uses her powers and abilities for personal gain, no matter what she must destroy to get it.”

Oh, goody, it’s Elektra.  I sure do love Elektra.  Oh, wait, no, it’s the other thing.  I hate Elektra.  Okay, no, that’s not true either.  In actuality I’m generally indifferent on Elektra.  I think she can at times be *fine*.  I even outright liked her during Chip Zdarsky’s run on Daredevil a few years ago.  But in general, I think she’s just kind of “meh.”  She had quite a force of interest behind her in the ’90s and ‘00s, though, so she wasn’t exactly inescapable.  Toy Biz, who held the license during her high point, made use of that popularity to give her a few different figures.  The first was a rather baffling repaint of Psylocke in an X-Men assortment, but she also got a couple of other…repaints, but at least they weren’t in an X-Men assortment.  Here’s one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Elektra was released in the seventh series of the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive Marvel Hall of Fame line, which was the third to bear the title “She-Force.”  This was the final assortment of the line as a whole, and by extension the final “She-Force” line-up as well.  Elektra’s costume choice is a very focused one that’s really not the norm for her, going with her bald look from around “Fall From Grace.”  It’s a noted departure from her designs up to that point, and she’d *just* abandoned it for something more in-line with earlier designs, but it’s part of the story that brought her back into the Daredevil supporting cast, and it also pairs off with the armored DD that Toy Biz did during their Marvel Super Heroes run…if you don’t mind him being a bit too short.  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  The first Elektra was a repaint of the Light-Up series Psylocke.  This one continues with that in, admittedly, an odd way.  The body is once again light-up Psylocke, but the head is retooled from the Ninja Psylocke from later in the line, with the hair removed, a headband added, and a hole in the side for the trail of the headband, which is…just the remainder of the original figure’s sash?  Like, there’s still only one sash piece included, so you need to pick whether it goes in the head or the hip, and just leave a gaping hole wherever it’s not.  Why not just include two?  Budget, I guess.  Now, the weirdness regarding the body is this: Ninja Psylocke is herself a retool of Light-up Psylocke, with the spot where the batteries originally went filled in.  For whatever reason, Elektra is using the original version of the mold, so she’s got an empty battery housing.  Since they were already using the Ninja head, why not also used the modified torso?  Otherwise, I guess it’s fine.  The costume details between Psylocke and Elektra match up decently enough, and the head, while a bit awkward, isn’t terrible.  In terms of paint, she’s got a layout that matches her Light-Up figure, but the outfit is now white, her “resurrection” outfit.  Depending on which production run the figure’s from, she’s either a flat white or a pearlescent one; mine is the latter.  Elektra was packed with a sword, reused from Corsair, and not at all accurate to what she usually uses, but whatever.  She also included a card, which in my figure’s case was Gambit’s ex, Belladonna.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I owned exactly none of the Toy Biz Elektra figures growing up, so obviously not this one.  I sort of remember her existing, but I don’t know if I totally connected that she was the same character as the others.  I ended up adding her to my collection with a couple of other She-Force figures, which I want to say came from an antique mall?  I didn’t really think much about her at the time.  I still don’t, honestly.  She’s got some weird oddities in construction.  But, ultimately, it’s a pretty unique look, and not likely to get another run.

#4052: Ms. Marvel

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

MS. MARVEL

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!”

One of the things that made Toy Biz’s 5-inch run of Marvel figures so—wait, hang on a second, I seem to be repeating myself a bit here!  As it turns out, today’s review of a Toy Biz Marvel Hall of Fame Ms. Marvel from the “She-Force” sub-heading is a *completely* different figure than the one I reviewed a week ago.  Of an entirely different character at that!  See, last week’s Ms. Marvel was Carol Danvers, the originator of the title, who vacated the name for “Binary” in the late ‘70s.  Since brand synergy meant that Marvel really didn’t want to let a name like “Ms. Marvel” lapse, they had to introduce a new character to take on the mantle, which they did in 1985 with Sharon Ventura, a professional wrestler turned hero who first appeared as a supporting player to The Thing.  Sharon rather quick mutation into She-Thing has made that her more generally known identity, to the point that her being “Ms. Marvel” can get lost in the shuffle a bit.  Toy Biz themselves seems to have gotten confused in the above text from the back of the box, which refers to her as an Avenger, despite the fact that Sharon was affiliated with the FF, and wouldn’t have any actual connection to the Avengers until well into the ‘00s, when “Avengers” had essentially become a catch-all title for “group of Marvel heroes.”  Anyway, despite being better known as She-Thing, to date Sharon’s action figure is in her Ms. Marvel incarnation, which I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ms. Marvel was released in the sixth series of Marvel Hall of Fame, as part of the second “She-Force” branded assortment of the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive line.  Sharon is seen here in her original Ms. Marvel attire, which I don’t believe she’d had in a while at the time of this figure’s release.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation.  Structurally, she’s a total re-use of the X-Men line’s Phoenix.  It’s a good sculpt, with nice balanced proportions, and it’s even got a sash.  I do really think it would be better for Carol than for Sharon, with Sharon, to my mind, making a lot more sense as a re-use of the Spider-Woman body, since that’s a little more muscular, and has straighter hair, both more in line with Sharon.  As it stands, though, this is still a nice sculpt, and the only real drawback is the lack of neck joint due to the remnants of the no longer present light-up feature of the original figure.  The main selling point here is the paint work, and I have to admit, it’s really good paint.  The costume is very bright and eye-catching, and not saddled with any of the “ignore the sculpted details” issues of Carol, and the accenting on the hair is nothing short of inspired.  Like, that just looks really, really cool.  There’s still a bit of fuzz, especially on the yellow sections (it’s Toy Biz, so there’s really no avoiding it), but overall it’s not too bad.  Sharon was just really strong, so there’s not a lot easy accessories to be had, but they tried anyway, and so she gets Quicksilver’s machine gun with the stock?  It was weird for him, and it’s weird for her, and she really can’t even hold it.  Very odd.  She also got a Fleer trading card, which in my figure’s case is a Sabretooth.  Why not?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I always seemed to get the Hall of Fame figures in batches, but this one is decidedly *not* a case of that.  She almost was, as one of my larger purchases was from a lot that did include her, but my Dad got that one, since I was already getting all of the others.  Instead, she wound up added to my collection courtesy of a sizable Toy Biz Marvel trade-in at work about three or four years ago.  She sat carded for a long time, until I decided that was stupid and lame, and opened her up, took photos, and stuck her on the shelf.  And she’s been there until now.  I messed with her for the review, and, apart from my quibbles about body choice, she’s a really cool figure.

#4048: Ms. Marvel

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

MS. MARVEL

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“It’s non-stop action when the Marvel Universe’s greatest heroines join forces against the power of the Black Queen! Locked in mortal combat with the notorious Queen, Jean Grey of the X-Men uses her telepathic powers to summon help. Jean is joined by fellow X-Man Storm, Avenger Ms. Marvel, and the mysterious Spider-Woman. Together, this team has all the power it needs to stop the Black Queen in her tracks! ”

One of the things that made Toy Biz’s 5-inch run of Marvel figures so expansive and pervasive was Toy Biz’s ability to *really* milk a mold.  Admittedly, they had some help in this venture, in the form of retailers who were looking for exclusives, no matter what they were.  A few different retailers got their own exclusive lines, which were pretty much just an excuse to run a mix of straight reissues of older figures, alongside “new” figures fashioned entirely from repurposed parts.  Online retailer PuzzleZoo got in on the action with their exclusive line Marvel Hall of Fame, which most notably introduced the “She-Force” sub-line, which ran for three of the line’s seven series.  It was an exceptionally rare move, putting out an entire assortment of female figures, and one that the line would do an astounding three times.  Amongst the unique characters in the first round of She-Force was Carol Danvers in her Ms. Marvel identity, granting Carol her very first action figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ms. Marvel was released in the first “She-Force” Series, the second overall series of Marvel Hall of Fame.  Its 1996 release puts it in an interesting spot for the character, who was still kind of bouncing around at the time, having lost her Binary powers in “Operation Galactic Storm.”  She would regain a fair bit of prominence not long after this figure’s release, when she resurfaced in Busiek and Perez’s Avengers, albeit sporting the title “Warbird.”  But, she was intermittently back to using Ms. Marvel at the time, so that’s the name she got.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and she has 10 points of articulation.  Ms. Marvel is a total repaint, specifically of the Fantastic Four line’s Medusa.  It’s not a great sculpt, honestly, and it’s also saddled with a lot of details that don’t correspond to Carol’s costume design in the slightest.  She’s got very clearly defined cuffs on her boots and gloves, which don’t correspond with the placement of those pieces on Carol’s costume, and there’s also a sash present for Carol that Medusa simply didn’t have.  Why they didn’t re-use the mold from Phoenix, who has a design *a lot* closer to Carol’s, is anyone’s guess; it’s worth noting the Phoenix mold was used for the second Ms. Marvel, Sharon Ventura, later in the line.  The paint does the heavy lifting here, of course, and it’s generally fine, but for some reason, they give her full sleeves, rather than sleeveless with opera gloves as the design’s actually meant to be.  Maybe they thought the extra paint-app was just too much?  Ms. Marvel is packed with one of those weird launching bases they liked to throw in when they didn’t know what else to do.  This is specifically the Human Torch variation of the mold, without the obvious “X” on the launching part.  It’s just black for this release, which is kind of bland, but I guess it makes it subtle.  She also included a trading card, which for my figure was Quicksilver.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Because of their exclusively online nature, I had very few of the Hall of Fame figures as a kid.  Ms. Marvel was not one of them.  I know my dad had one, because he had a more extensive Avengers set-up than me.  Mine is a much more recent addition, which my parents got for me in 2022, during a stop at an antique shop, which had a few of the Hall of Fame figures.  She’s…not great?  I mean, the Medusa mold’s definitely not a strong one in the first place, and it’s extra limiting, and it’s downright criminal that Toy Biz used it so many times.  But, it’s also not the worst thing? I don’t know, maybe I’m just warming up to the mold, but I think it might honestly work the best here of the three uses, clumsy as it may be.  I still think the Phoenix mold would have made more sense, but it is what it is, and it’s ultimately okay.

#0639: Invisible Woman

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

INVISIBLE WOMAN

MARVEL HALL OF FAME

InvisibleWoman1

The Fantastic Four have sort of become personae non gratae over at Marvel Comics in the last few years (thanks Fox) but they’re kind of one of the most important sets of characters Marvel’s ever had. Without them, there really isn’t a modern day Marvel Comics. It’s a shame they aren’t getting the respect that they deserve. It’s been a little while since any of the team has graced the toy world, but there’s a pretty decent back catalogue of stuff out there, including today’s focus, Invisible Woman.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

InvisibleWoman2Invisible Woman was released as part of the first series of ToyBiz’s Marvel Hall of Fame line. The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation. She, like most of the other figures in the line, is more or less a re-release of a previous Marvel figure. In this case, she’s a rehash of Marvel Superheroes’ series 3 version of the character. That figure was available in both color-changing and non-color-changing versions, but this one seems to just have been offered with the feature, hence her somewhat odd coloring. The sculpt for the figure is definitely a dated one; it’s from very early in ToyBiz’s run with the license, so they were still finding their footing. The head is rather small, the articulation isn’t worked in very smoothly, and the figure just feels rather clunky in general. It’s not the worst thing ever, and it’s not even the worst female figure of the time (I’m looking at you, Monkey Face Princess Leia) but it certainly shows its age. The paint on the figure is somewhat hard to judge, mostly due to the figure’s color-change “action feature.” I can’t speak for when it was new, but the feature doesn’t really work anymore, which leaves the InvisibleWoman3figure sort of in this middle state. I tried putting her in cold water, as the packaging says to do, and all it really did was slightly change the back of the figure. Now she looks like a pie…(Tim’s been calling her Miss Meringue). Invisible Woman’s only accessory is…uhh…well, it sort of looks like a Tron disk or a Fantastic Four Frisbee. I don’t know. It plugs into her back. So, there it is.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure’s another piece of the slew of figures I bought from Cosmic Comix a few months back. I actually own the original, non-Hall of Fame release, but I didn’t have the color-change version, so I figured this one was probably worth the $3 I paid. She’s not a figure that’s going to win any awards or anything, but she’s a neat little product of the early 90s.