Tag Archives: Marvel Super Heroes

#0986: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

“When Captain America throws his mighty shield! All Foes who chose to oppose his shield must yield!”

–Captain America Theme Song

My first introduction to Captain America was through VHS copies of the ‘60s cartoon. As cheesy as they are, I loved every minute of them. Sadly, in the mid-90s, when I was becoming so fond of Cap as a character, he was more or less absent from toy shelves. I eventually got the Spider-Man: The Animated Series version when it was finally released, but the figure I always wanted was Toy Biz’s first version of the character, which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. This Cap stands just under 5 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation. This figure predates elbow articulation becoming a standard for Toy Biz’s Marvel stuff, as they were still very much aping the Kenner Super Powers style, and none of those had elbow movement. Really, this whole figure in general feels like a Captain America figure done to fit with Super Powers (well, aside from size, since he’s taller than any figure Kenner put out), which is far from a bad thing. Rather than the more ‘90s-esc proportions of which Toy Biz would later become so fond, Cap is pretty subdued, and looks more or less like a real person. His torso features some awesome detailing for the scale-mail, and I love the way they’ve sculpted the star logo so as to make it pop a bit more. Figures of Captain America have the unfortunate tendency to miss the mark on the good Captain’s face. I guess he’s just one of those characters where it has to be just right. I think this figure’s the closest anyone’s ever gotten to my ideal Captain America, at least from a comic-based perspective. It’s a little round by today’s standards, but I really like the overall style present here.  There’s just a certain sincerity to it that lots of Caps lack. Cap’s paintwork is quite nicely handled, especially for the time. The colors are all nice and bold, and he really sells the whole patriotic super hero thing. His eyes are admittedly a little wonky, and it would have been nice for his belt buckle to be something other than the unpainted blue plastic, but those are relatively minor complaints. Cap was packed with his mighty shield, as well as a weird launching device for it. However, my figure sadly lacks these pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted in the intro, this was a figure I really wanted growing up. Unfortunately, he was released before I got into collecting, and wasn’t very easy to find after the fact. So, I had to settle for the US Agent repaint from a few series later. In fact, my dad, as awesome as he was, even bought me an extra US Agent and we painted him up in proper Cap colors, which held me over quite nicely. This particular figure ended up being one of the fifteen figures I picked up at the last Balticon. I’m glad to finally have the official version, and he’s aged a bit better than a lot of Toy Biz’s output from the same time period.

CapMSH3

#0978: Venom

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

VENOM

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

VenomMSH1

Venom, Venom, Venom. For as many Venom figures as I’ve reviewed on this site, there’s not actually a whole lot to this guy. He’s a pretty simple concept, taking the main hero and creating a “dark reflection” of said hero to serve as a villain. Of course, it was the late ‘80s, so he was also super huge (and he got huger as time went on). In the early ‘90s, when Toy Biz started up with the Marvel license, Venom was, amazingly enough, not in their first assortment of figures. Clearly they felt bad about that, because they then turned around and released three of him in the space of a year. Today, I’ll be looking at the last of those.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

VenomMSH2Venom was released in Series 3 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. He was the second version of the character released in the main line (after the one released in Series 2) and the third in the overall scheme of things (following the Talking Heroes version). The figure stands just shy of 5 ½ inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation. He has no neck movement due to his action feature, which is quite limiting, but he is otherwise decently posable. The prior Venom figures had focused on bulk over all else. This figure, on the other hand, focused on making Venom tall (he’s a good ¾ of an inch taller than the Spider-Man from the same line), but not quite as bulky. The end result is a figure that looks not unlike Venom in his earliest appearances, before he had become quite as monstrous. The sculpt us actually pretty decent. It’s somewhat stylized, but not incredibly so, and he has a nice, subdued look about him, which is refreshing to see in a Venom figure. Venom’s paint is rather simple: it’s exclusively white paint on black plastic. The detailing doesn’t look too bad, though, as you can see from my figure, the paint wasn’t the most durable. Still, the pure black and white has a nice stark contrast about it, something that a lot of later Venom figures would miss out on by adding unnecessary blue highlights. Venom originally included a clip on torso piece, simulating the symbiote wrapping around him. He also had the previously mentioned action feature, which allowed for Venom to stick his tongue out when the lever on his back was pulled. It’s rather a goofy feature, but it’s also really in keeping with the character, so I guess it made sense.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Venom is the 11th of the 15 figures I got at Balticon this year. Amazingly enough, prior to this figure I did not own a single 5-inch Venom figure. This one’s not bad, and the quality of his sculpt, especially when compared to last week’s Silver Surfer figure, shows how incredibly fast Toy Biz was taking steps forward in that department.

Also, not related to me, but worth noting: this figure has become one of Super Awesome Girlfriend’s favorites. She constantly picks it up so that she can make it stick its tongue out at me. I’ve ensnared another action figure geek!

VenomMSH3

#0970: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

Though they were best known for their 15 year run with the Marvel license, Toy Biz’s first work of note was actual doing toys based on Marvel’s Distinguished Competition. Toy Biz’s DC action figures were little more than knock-offs of Kenner’s Super Powers line. When Toy Biz was granted the Marvel license, their initial offerings were rather similar to what they had done for DC. They offered a rather broadly ranging line, covering the major corners of the Marvel Universe (barring the X-Men, who got their own line). Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of that line’s versions of the Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Silver Surfer was released in the third series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation. That’s actually a pretty low articulation count for a Toy Biz figure, and it’s even a bit low for this particular line. This figure is mostly the same sculpt as his Series 1 counterpart. The only difference between the two is the lack of neck articulation. It’s an odd choice, and it definitely limits what can be done with the figure, but I’d guess it had something to do with the vac metalizing. The sculpt isn’t terrible, but it’s not particularly great either. He’s similar in style to the Toy Biz Green Lantern, in that his proportions feel rather off, and the level of detail is very low. Also, his head is just very oddly shaped. It’s definitely too small, and the face (which is very ill-defined) sits too high. In fact, the head in general sits too high on the neck, and the whole construction there just looks weird. As far as paint goes, this particular Surfer doesn’t really have any, he’s just vac metalized. Later Surfer’s would at least get detailing on the eyes, but that’s not the case with this guy. Just the straight up and down silver for him. Silver Surfer originally included his surfboard, done up to match him. Unlike other versions of the board, this one was really thick, and it had wheels on the bottom. So, he’s not actually the Silver Surfer, he’s the Silver Skateboarder. Radical.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Surfer is the eighth of the 15 figures that I picked up from a vendor at this past Balticon. I…I’m not really sure how I feel about him. I mean, the chrome look is certainly cool, but the actual figure’s kind of a bit lame. Toy Biz definitely improved in leaps and bounds over the years, but this guy’s a disappointment even compared to the figures from the same line. I hate to be this down on a figure, but this guy, well, he’s not great.