Tag Archives: Marvel

#1354: Mary Jane Watson

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

MARY JANE WATSON

MARVEL FAMOUS COUPLES (TOY BIZ)

Hey, so Spider-Man: Homecoming is out today.  That’s pretty cool.  I mean, it’s not a super rare occurrence in this day and age, what with this being the sixth Spider-Man flick in less than 20 years (and the second reboot in five years).  Still, this one looks like it should actually be pretty good, which puts it above the last two movies in my eyes.  Anyway, in honor of the film, I’ll be looking at long-time Spider-Man recurring character, who may be his funky and fun female friend, his girlfriend, his wife, or his awkward ex via deal with the actual devil.  Yes, it’s Mary Jane Watson!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mary Jane was released in a two-pack with a Spider-Man variant as part of Toy Biz’s Marvel Famous Couples line.  It’s not a huge shock, since the odds of getting a Mary Jane in plain clothes sold on her own would be far from a solid business plan.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation (albeit with limited motion on the neck joint).  She’s patterned on her design from the ‘90s animated series, which is certainly a solid look, and more importantly, it’s a look that was fairly easy to pull off with completely re-used parts.  Yep, Mary Jane is head-to-toe a re-use of the Series 2 version of Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman.  The sculpt works surprisingly well for this design, and it’s also more unique than a lot of re-paints, since the original figure was all clear.  The hair’s not right for MJ, but you take what you can get, I guess.  The heavy work here is being carried by the paint work, which does its very best to turn Sue’s spandex costume into a sweater and jeans combo.  It actually works out pretty well, since MJ’s outfit was usually depicted as rather formfitting both on the cartoon and in the comics.  The only really unconvincing part is the boots, which are just painted on, and therefore look a little goofy.  Still, the paint is very bright, pretty clean, and largely very convincing when it comes to making her look like MJ instead of Sue.  Mary Jane included no accessories, unless of course, you count the included Spider-Man.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I saw this set a number of times growing up, but I wasn’t enough of a Spider-Man fan at the time to get the pair.  Since then, it’s never been super easy to find, so I just never got one.  Mary Jane was another figure from Pop Culture Exchange in Omaha.  She was loose and by herself, which is fine by me, since I have plenty of Spider-Men.  She’s not anything amazing or spectacular, or even sensational, but she’s decent enough, and she’s an important enough player that I feel my collection would be incomplete without her.

#1351: Captain America

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CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL UNIVERSE 10-INCH (TOY BIZ)

“Transporting himself back to the present day, the Spider-Man of the year 2099 materializes right in Avengers Mansion. Facing Captain America and She-Hulk, Spider-Man uses his amazing powers to escape. Scouring his now unfamiliar surroundings, this futuristic Spider-Man searches for the one who possesses the information he needs before he can return home – Wolverine!”

Okay, I know I’m not supposed to critique the bios, but this one’s really odd for Cap.  Like, all of the 10-inch figures from this era did this whole odd scenario used to tie together a bunch of random characters thing, but the fact that the bio goes out of its way to single out Wolverine and Spider-Man 2099, but just gives a passing mention to Cap seems a little bit odd.  *sigh*  I’m getting distracted….

Hey everybody, and to my American readers, Happy Fourth of July!  To my non-American readers, happy Tuesday, I guess.  I’m honoring this Fourth of July the same way I honor it every year: by reviewing a Captain America figure.  Let’s get onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released as part of Toy Biz’s Marvel Universe 10-Inch line in 1997, alongside the also mentioned She-Hulk, Spider-Man 2099, and a Wolverine of some sort.  Cap is seen here in his classic costume, more or less.  The figure stands about 10 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  He’s built using the same body used for the un-flamed-on Johnny Storm figure from the Fantastic Four line, which is quite amusing nowadays, but was completely un-connected to anything back when this figure was new.  The body’s okay for him, I suppose, though it’s a little small for Cap.  It also lacks the buccaneer boots, though those weren’t going to happen without all-new tooling anyway.  There are some artifacts of the old sculpt’s costume, which look slightly out of place, but are generally not too obvious or distracting.  The head is an upscaling of the Electro Spark Captain America from the 5-inch Spider-Man line.  As I noted in my review of the smaller figure, it’s a bit angry for my taste, but it’s not terrible.  Honestly, I think it looks a bit better at a larger size, so that’s actually pretty cool.  The paint is generally pretty decent.  The colors are all pretty bright, and the application is rather clean.  I’m not sure why he’s missing his pupils, but worse things have happened.  Cap was packed with his mighty shield.  It was a cool piece, but sadly mine was lost somewhere along the way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from one of my family’s summer trips to the beach back in the ‘90s.  My parents always took me to get something from the KB Toys in the nearby outlets, and this was the figure I decided to get that year, no doubt purchased alongside a VHS with some episodes  of the Ruby-Spears Captain America cartoon.  He was one of the earlier Cap figures I owned, probably my second after the Electro Spark figure.  He was definitely one of my  favorites of the 10-inch figures, and I still like him quite a bit, even if he’s a bit goofy.

#1350: Cyclops

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CYCLOPS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“One of the most powerful forces on Earth, Apocalypse has become the greatest villain in the world of the X-Men. Activating the Apocalypse holo-droid, Cyclops helps the X-Men learn how to fight a foe who is as powerful as his is evil. Avoiding blasts from his gattling gun hand, Cyclops, along with Storm and Jubilee, take down the Robot Fighter with a perfectly timed series of attacks!”

Okay, so I’m gonna warn my readers up front: this month is going to be pretty Marvel-heavy.  That’s just what I’ve been picking up a lot of in the last few weeks.  I’ll mix in some other stuff where I can, but there’s a lot of figures to cover.  With that out of the way, I’ll be setting my sights on today’s focus, Cyclops, who hails from Toy Biz’s lengthy X-Men line from the ‘90s.  I know, from the bio, you might have guessed this was an Apocalypse review, but not so.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops was part of the “Robot Fighters” series of X-Men.  This was the 19th Series Toy Biz put out in the X-Men line and it was after they’d run out of steam with the more “normal” figures and switched to more gimmicky sub-lines that allowed for more variants of the main team.  The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall (he’s less hunched than Gambit, but still loses some height to it) and he has 5 points of articulation.  He loses even more articulation than his series-mates, bringing him down to Total Justice levels.  In fact, in more way than one, this guy feels more at home with Kenner’s TJ line than he does with most of the stuff Toy Biz was producing.  Even the design of his costume (which was unique to the figure and had no basis in the comics, apart from being vaguely inspired by his Jim Lee toggs) feels a lot like one of Kenner’s Fractal Armor designs.  As with Gambit, I’m still not certain how the Danger Room-related bios attached to these figures translates to these new, over-designed costumes, but there it is.  While the costume’s not the greatest, the thing that really holds this guy back is the pre-posing.  While Gambit’s deep crouch was workable with the articulation and allowed for a few decent poses, I have no idea what you’re supposed to do with this guy.  What’s he doing?  Is he shouting “come at me, bro?”  That’s all I can figure with the outstretched arms and slightly cocked head.  But it also appears that he’s in mid-squat or something.  Whatever it is, he’s really pissed off by it.  So pissed off that he’s gritted his teeth to the point of his visor engulfing his nose.  Wait, I think I’ve got it!  The Apocalypse hologram must have played a game of “got your nose” while Scott was right in the middle of his daily squat routine, and now Scott’s all pissed because that’s his very favorite nose, and so he’s ready to start something.  It makes perfect sense now.  The paint work on this figure is actually pretty solid, truth be told.  I like the shade of blue they’ve used, and the application’s all pretty clean for the most part.  They’ve even managed to make all of the yellows match pretty well too!  Cyclops was packed with a robotic recreation of Apocalypse, which is super goofy and super gimmicky.  It fires missiles and when you press the “A” the right arm falls off.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted when I reviewed Gambit, I remember this series hitting retail, but for whatever reason I never got any of them.  I’m a dyed in the wool Cyclops fan, so I was gonna get this guy eventually.  He’s another item from Bobakhan Toys; I fished him out of one of their loose figure bins.  He’s really goofy.  There’s no getting around that.  And, unfortunately, I don’t find him to be as much fun to play with as the Gambit.  That being said, he’s a goofy, very ‘90s Cyclops, and that’s kind of right up my alley.  I’ll just stick him with my Total Justice figures, where he’s less likely to be judged.

#1344: The Thing

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THE THING

FANTASTIC FOUR: DELUXE EDITION (TOY BIZ)

“Ben Grimm became the Thing after he was bombarded by cosmic rays in a space flight gone awry with scientist Reed Richards.  Since then he has dedicated his life to fighting crime as a founding member of the Fantastic Four, fending off many foes with the mere words — it’s clobberin’ time!”

It’s been 3 years since I reviewed a figure of Benjamin J. Grimm, better known as the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing.  That’s quite a long time.  It’s a bit surprising, really, since he’s the FF member I own the most figures of, so you’d think he’d show up a little more frequently, but no.  Well, I’m fixing that today, and I’m also looking at yet another of the old Toy Biz 10-inch figures.  That’s always fun!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Thing was part of the second assortment of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four: Deluxe Edition line.  I think.  It got a little hard to follow after the first three-figure assortment.  The main thing to note is that they only ever released Ben and Johnny in this scale (flip side, they only did Reed and Sue in the Famous Covers style.  So, it works out, I guess?)  The figure stands a little over 10 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  As I’ve noted a few times before, the 10-inch figures made use of the two-up prototypes used for the 5-inch line.  This is partly true for the Thing, but he also has a pretty healthy helping of new or tweaked parts, presumably to help with costs.  The only part that looks to be a straight re-use is the head, which is a pretty great Ben Grimm head, so that’s certainly a good thing.  The rest of the parts follow the general look of the smaller figure, but he’s been given a much straighter stance, thereby giving the figure less overall bulk.  He’s still quite a bit more sizable than the other figures in the line, so it’s not a really big change.  In general, he also seems a little more boxy than his smaller counterpart, which doesn’t look quite as good, but once again, it’s not a huge difference.  Regardless, the head sculpt is the real star here.  The paint on Ben is pretty basic; he’s molded mostly in orange, with a bit of blue and while for his shorts and eyes.  What’s there is pretty decent, though obviously the paint on my figure has seen better days.  This figure was originally packed with a protective helmet, emulating the helmet Ben wore in the comics when he had the robotic suit to replace his lost powers.  It was rare that a 10-inch figure got an extra not included with the smaller figure, but this was the one that got it.  If only mine still had his.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have this guy growing up.  He didn’t hang around stores long, and he also didn’t get any prominent re-releases like some of the other figures.  This guy’s actually the first item I’m reviewing from my pretty awesome haul I picked up from Bobakhan Toys, which is a super awesome toy store I found just outside of Seattle while I was there with Super Awesome Girlfriend’s family.  I was, admittedly, a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of toys in the store, so I was trying to pick and chose a few things that most stood out to me.  Super Awesome Girlfriend picked this guy up and insisted I get him.  I can’t say that I really fought her.  I like this guy.  He’s not quite as cool as the 5-inch version, but he’s still pretty awesome.  And Ben’s my favorite FF member, so that probably helps with the cool factor as well.

#1337: Battle Acroyear

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BATTLE ACROYEAR

MICRONAUTS (PALISADES)

“Described as an ‘Enemy of the Micronauts’, this stalwart warrior is surely still a hero among his people and a formidable knight to his allies. Clad in his distinctive crimson and white armor, and possessing the strength to wield his massive Power Sword against the powerful intergalactic foes of his people, what childhood imagination couldn’t give Acroyear the chance to be a ‘good guy’?”

Poor Palisades and their poor cursed Micronauts line.  Though its parent line, Microman, has been a pretty strong seller in Japan, the American-ized adaptation never quite took off the same way.  Mego saw decent success into the ‘80s, but it quickly dwindled under the juggernaut that was Star Wars.  20 years later, fan favorite company Palisades did their very best to bring new life to the line, but they ran into roadblocks at every turn.  The worst of it really hit right at the beginning. The factory producing Series 1 of the relaunched line pulled a fast one on Palisades, by sending them sub-contracted “production samples” which in no way represented the actual quality of the product being produced.  When the Series 1 figures arrived, Palisades was left with a stock that was subpar, with pretty much no funds to replace them.  Worse, stores were already getting the stock, so there was little they could do.  They quickly shifted production to another factory, and put into production a Series 1.5, which offered slightly fixed figures built on the Series 1 molds, with the hopes of tiding collectors over until proper corrected Series 1 figures could be produced later down the line (this, sadly, never happened).  Each Series 1 figure was given a new deco, with some sort of neat backstory to it.  My personal favorite was Battle Acroyear, the redressing of (you guessed it) Acroyear!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted, Battle Acroyear was part of the Series 1.5 assortment of Palisades’ Micronauts line.  The Series 1 Acroyears were perhaps the most negatively effected by the poor quality; the heavy metal torsos would cause the plastic around the joints of the limbs to disintegrate into dust almost immediately after opening, leaving collectors with little more than a pile of wobbly plastic bits.  That’s hardly going to do justice to one of the greatest warriors of all time, so the replacement was necessary.  The figure stands about 4 inches tall and he has 13 points of articulation.  Unlike most of the rest of the line, which used an internal band construction similar to vintage G.I. Joes, Acroyear uses a solid construction.  Like I said above, the figure has a die-cast metal toros, with plastic limbs and head.  Fortunately, unlike his predecessors, this guy’s legs can actually hold his wait, pretty well I might add.  Really, the construction on this guy is really solid; he feels like he could survive most things (and mine’s made it through a few shelf dives, so I know from experience).  The details of the sculpt are nice and clean, and appropriately reto-sci-fi.  While all of the Palisades Micronauts had minor deviations from their Mego counterparts, Acroyear’s were even more minor than most; there’s some slight tweaking to the shape of the head, but it’s the sort of thing that you can really only tell if you’re looking right at both figures.  Paint schemes were a defining factor for the Series 1.5 figures.  While the Series 1 Acroyears had deviated pretty wildly from the classic Acroyear colors, this one brings it back a bit, albeit with a twist.  The original Acroyears were all the same basic colors, with three different accent colors: blue, green, and pink.  This figure gives us a fourth accent color: red.  This is actually a pretty cool reference, as red was the color used for the heroic Prince Acroyear, the main Acroyear from the Marvel Comics adaptation from the ‘80s.*  It’s a color scheme that really works well with the design, and he certainly stands out on the shelf.  Acroyear includes a battle sword (a much larger replacement for the original figure’s smaller dagger), a spy drone, his extra large wing pack, and clear display stand.  The sword is suitably awesome, and the wings are cool, even if they aren’t quite as nifty as Space Glider’s.  The spy drone is interesting enough, and serves a secondary function: Acroyear can be “transformed” into a tank-like thing, using the drone as a turret of sorts.  Not as advanced as later Transformers, but cool nonetheless.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually had one of the Series 1 Acroyears back in the day.  Fell to pieces in like a day.  One of the more depressing action figure interludes of my childhood.  This figure ended up in my collection a fair bit later, after the secondary market prices on most of the line had shot pretty far up.  Cosmic Comix bought someone’s toy collection, and there were a handful of Micronauts in it, which I ended up getting for a steal.  Battle Acroyear was among them, and he’s easily my favorite of the bunch.  In fact, I think he’s my favorite Palisades Micronaut period.  He’s just a really fun toy.

*Since the team already had plenty of blue and green, Acroyear’s third color was chosen for his primary look.  However, due to the limitations of printing in comics, pink would have been nearly impossible to render consistently, so he was shifted to a straight red.

#1336: Astonishing Wolverine

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ASTONISHING WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Little is known about the man known as Logan whose past remains shrouded in mystery. The feral warrior, code-named Wolverine, possesses genetically endowed animal-keen senses of smell, sight, and hearing, as well as a mutant healing factor that can mend almost any wound. His deadliest weapons are his razor-sharp claws and skeleton both made of unbreakable metal alloy called Adamantium. However, with these abilities comes a curse, a bezerker rage that he must forever struggle to control. Now Logan must contain the beast raging within while he battles to protect a world that fears and hates him.”

Though my opinion of it has waned in recent years, at the time of its release, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men was a serious breath of fresh air.  I was never much impressed by Morrison’s “let’s put everyone in black leather and completely disregard prior character interpretation” New X-Men run that immediately preceded it, so taking the X-Men a bit more back to basics was pretty cool.  I also really liked John Cassidy’s art for the series, as well as his returning of several of the cast to more classically inspired costumes.  While most of the team eventually made it into toy form, it took quite a while.  Unsurprisingly, the first team member to make it into plastic was Wolverine, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astonishing Wolverine was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, also known as the “Apocalypse Series.”  It was the fourth Wolverine in the line, and was at the time his current look. There were both masked and unmasked versions of this guy; the one I’m looking at today is the masked version, obviously.  This figure also served as the inspiration for the larger Marvel Legends Icons version of the character, although he was slightly tweaked to offer an alternate version of this costume.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall (it’s one of the first times they actually got his scale right) and he has 40 points of articulation.  In terms of sculpt, this figure was all-new, and he’s based on Cassidy’s work from the comics, albeit somewhat loosely, since Cassidy’s style doesn’t quite lend itself to super-articulated action figures.  The head’s definitely the best work; there’s a lot of smaller detail work that looks really nice, without being too over-done like a lot of Legends Wolverines.  The rest of the body was good for the time, but doesn’t as much hold up to scrutiny these days.  Once again, there’s a lot detail work that’s really nice on the stitching and the piping.  However, he’s really, really scrawny, which removes some of his intimidation factor.  It’s the worst in the legs, where the precedence clearly went to the joints, resulting in an almost skeletal set of limbs.  And of course, they split the belt in two for the waist articulation.  Why did they do that?  Beats me.  Seems it would have made a lot more sense to go either above or below.  Worst case scenario, you could do the joint where it is currently and have the belt be an add-on.  But splitting it right down the middle just seems lazy to me, like the base body was already sculpted and they added the details later without taking placement into account.  On the plus side of things, he’s probably got the best claws we got on a TB ML Wolverine; they’re well-shaped, unlikely to break off, and resistant to heavy warping.  In terms of paint work, the figure’s decent enough.  The base colors match up pretty well with what was being used on the comics, and most of the application is fairly clean.  The only part that’s a little odd is the arm hair, which really just looks like a bunch of brown tally marks that someone’s drawn on him.  Wolverine included no accessories of his own, but he did come packed with one of the legs of Apocalypse.  So, that’s cool, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was a Christmas present from my friend Charlie.  He and I shared a love of Marvel Legends, and in particular, we were both on the lookout for the perfect Wolverine.  So, when this series hit, he made sure that I got this guy, which was very nice of him (I repaid the favor a year later when I made sure he got a completed Mojo Build-A-Figure).  He’s definitely got some flaws, but I really do think he was Toy Biz’s best take on Wolverine, and the best Legends version  of the character until Hasbro’s recent Brown Costume figure.  It’s honestly a little surprising that TB never retooled him into a more conventional Wolverine.

#1332: Skin

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

SKIN

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“Angela Espinosa’s body has six extra feet of skin – this is his mutant ‘gift’???. Even he doesn’t quite understand how it works and although he would never admit it, that scares him. He’s come to Xavier’s School form the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles to learn to control his skin, at least enough for him to appear as he did before his powers developed – normal.”

In the ‘90s, the X-Men were Marvel’s hottest property by far.  To cash-in on this success, they turned around and launched like a million spin-offs.  The more teen-oriented team of hip, fliggity-fly youngsters was Generation X, which was super, super ‘90s.  It had a pretty decent following back in the day, and since Toy Biz was giving a toyline to just about everything under the son, it also had one of those.  Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of the team’s central members, Skin!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Skin was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X line of figures.  He appears to be patterned after the character’s earlier appearances in the book, before he got all scruffy.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  For some reason, the Generation X figures were less articulated than most of Toy Biz’s Marvel output from the same time.  Perhaps it was to minimize potential risk on the financial side of things, should the line fail?  I don’t know.  Anyway, Skin was an all-new sculpt.  It seems to take the Kenner route, offering a more preposed figure with less movement.  It looks pretty solid; I like all the little minor details, like the folds in his skin.  In makes for quite a unique looking figure.  I also appreciate that his costume isn’t simply depicted as painted on, but actually has some dimension to it.  Now, if you want to get picky, the hands and feet shouldn’t be done the way they are here, since the skeletal structure is clearly elongated here, and his abilities only actually had to do with his skin.  That being said, most artists tended to ignore this rule, so the figure’s hardly inaccurate.  The paint work on the figure is okay, but there are a few issues.  The base work is overall okay, but the magenta on the arms and legs doesn’t quite match the torso.  It’s not as bad in person as it is in the photos, but it’s still noticeable.  The yellow paint is also a bit prone to chipping, which is a little annoying, but otherwise he’s pretty decent.  The figure has a “Growing Fingers” action feature on his left hand.  There’s a little latch on the forearm, and when you release it, the fingers shoot forward a half-inch or so.  It’s pretty much the same mechanic that was used on several of TB’s Wolverine figures, and it works pretty well, without disrupting the overall look of the figure too much.  Skin was packed with a back pack that can be clipped on his back.  It originally had a little headset attachment, but I’ve lost mine.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I missed out on most of the Generation X figures when they were new.  Around 2000 or so, I got some still-packaged mid-90s figures, and the whole first series of Gen X figures was pictured on the back, leading me to attempt to track down Skin and his team-mate Chamber.  It wasn’t easy (we had eBay, but the ‘90s action figures market wasn’t really there yet), but I eventually found both figures at a nearby comic book store for a pretty decent price.  Despite never being super huge into Generation X, I’ve always really liked this figure, and he holds up pretty well.

#1329: Iron Man

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

IRON MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“To the public, Tony Stark is a handsome, jet-setting industrialist and inventor. What they don’t know is that he leads a second life as Iron Man. The armored Avenger gets his fantastic powers from his suit of micro-mesh armor. It gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly via his jet boots, and a variety of built-in weapons, foremost among these being his devastating repulsor rays! Iron Man is dedicated to defeating those forces that would threaten the security of the nation and the entire world.”

Iron Man is easily one of Marvel’s best known characters these days, but that wasn’t always the case.  Aside from a brief cartoon runs in the ‘60s and ‘90s, he was largely out of the public eye until his 2008 film.  So, in 2002, when Toy Biz launched Marvel Legends as a follow-up to their successful Spider-Man: Classics line, and had Iron Man as one of the headliners of Series 1’s four figure assortment, it was a pretty big deal.  It’s hard to believe now, but when Marvel Legends debuted, the most demanded figure by far was the Iron Man.  Can you even imagine a time when the fanbase didn’t let out a collective groan at the inclusion of an Iron Man figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted in the intro, Iron Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line.  There were actually two Iron Men in the assortment; the regular release reviewed here, and the one-per-case horned-mask variant.  Even later, there was also a Walmart-exclusive release, which decked this guy out in his stealth colors.  This guy is based on Tony’s classic armor from the 60s and 70s, which at this point hadn’t been released in plastic form for almost two decades.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 38 points of articulation.  Some of the articulation (particularly the neck movement and the mid-torso joint) is a bit antiquated, but it’s mostly pretty workable.  Amusingly, some of the articulation the was more quickly deemed out of date within the line itself has actually become the more standard way of doing things, so in some ways he fits in better with the more recent Hasbro offerings than he does the later TB offerings.  Iron Man sported what was, at the time, an all-new sculpt, which would later be used for the Silver Centurion armor, as well as War Machine and Magneto.  The build is a little bulkier than the usual depictions of the classic Iron Man armor, but it actually makes sense, since it’s supposed to be wrapped around a normal-sized guy; it’d have to be a little heftier in real life.  The proportions are actually pretty solid for a figure of this era.  Compare this guy to his Series-mate Captain America, and you’ll note that he’s got a much more balanced anatomy.  He even avoids the dreaded duck feet!  The articulation is also pretty well worked-in for a Toy Biz offering; sure, there are still some spots where compromise has been made (the waist really sticks out), but it’s generally a good middle-ground.  In terms of detail work, this guy goes a bit more simplistic than later TB fare (another reason he fits in a bit better with the Hasbro stuff), but that’s definitely a plus.  All of the important details are there, they’re all very sharply defined.  The figure has a removable faceplate, which reveals Tony Stark beneath the mask.  I’ve always felt he bore a resemblance to Timothy Dalton, which is a neat little “what-if” casting idea.  The face has some of the best work on the whole figure, which shows real commitment on the sculptor’s part, since it’s largely going un-seen.  The faceplate is molded to fit into the contours of the face, and it actually stays in place really well.  In terms of paint, Iron Man’s handled really well. He’s got the base red and yellow, which are nice and vibrant, and then on top of that, there’s a hint of silver lightly applied to all the armored portions of the figure, which makes him look suitably metallic, while avoiding the issues of blending that plague the Iron Men that use gold in place of the yellow. Iron Man was packed with a display stand designed to look like a Stark Industries satellite and a reprint of Iron Man #149 (which contains “Doomquest,” one of my favorite Iron Man stories).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from my Nana.  Every year, she’d take me and my cousin to Toys R Us at the end of school and let us each pick out one or two things.   Of course, I went through the usual back and forth, having to reassure her that yes I really did want this Iron Man fellow instead of a handful of Attack of the Clones figures like my cousin was getting.  At the time, this guy was still pretty hard to get, so finding him so quickly was pretty sweet.  He was my very first Marvel Legend, and I gotta say, dragging him out for the purpose of this review has reminded me that he’s still very definitely one of my favorites.  As far as classic Iron Men go, this guy really hasn’t been topped.

#1326: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

MARVEL COMICS FAMOUS COVERS (TOY BIZ)

“Born with the mutant ability to fire powerful optic blast from his eyes, Cyclops is cursed to forever wear a protective Ruby quarts visor to control his uncanny ability. As one of the founding members of the X-Men, Scott Summers help build the team and eventually became a team leader.”

Oh hey, here’s something I haven’t covered before on the site: Famous Covers.  More than a decade before the whole Re-Mego craze started up, Toy Biz attempted their own continuation of Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line.  The figures were originally meant to be the same scale as Mego’s stuff, but for a number of reasons, they were ultimately scaled up a bit.  Nevertheless, it was certainly an interesting venture, and it gave us a pretty darn fun line of figures, albeit one that was completely independent.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of my favorites from the line, Cyclops!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops was released in the fifth series of the Marvel Comics Famous Covers line, which was titled “X-Men Classics.”  It was the first of the two purely X-Men-themed series for the line.  Scott is seen here in his Jim Lee attire (which was his current look at the time), which the box proclaims as specifically being based on his appearance on the cover of X-Men #1.  The figure stands about 8 3/4 inches tall and he has 23 points of articulation.  Cyclops was built in the medium male body, a decision that I’ve pretty much always questioned.  I know Scott’s classically a little bigger than Spider-Man, but making him the same size as Thor and Captain America seems to be a bit much.  Scott got a brand-new head sculpt, which is nice enough.  For some reason, Toy Biz was really big on the screaming expressions for the Famous Covers figures.  Scott’s no exception, but at least it doesn’t look too out of place for him.  There’s some solid detail work on the hair and the visor, as well, so that’s a plus.  The head does seem a touch under-scaled for the body, which makes you wonder if he was originally supposed to be on the smaller body.  The costume is a mixed-media effort.  There’s the basic blue jumpsuit and the shorts, which are both tailored pieces.  They fit pretty well, and are surprisingly slim given the scale.  The harness and belt are one sculpted piece, and they fit well enough to the body (a little better than the recent Marvel Legend, truth be told) and replicate the pieces from the comics pretty well.  The gloves and boots are standard pieces for the line.  They’re made out of rubber, so they allow for a little bit of movement from the wrists and ankles, though not much.  They’re really bulky and goofy, and in the case of the gloves, wrong for the costume.  To me, it would have made more sense to just mold the base hands in yellow and do a cuff at the edge of the sleeve (which is a method they used several other times over the course of the line), but it’s not the worst thing ever, I guess.  Cyclops’s paint work is limited to his head and a few spots on the harness, but what’s there is really strong.  Definitely some of the best work Toy Biz did on their Marvel stuff.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I loved me some Famous Covers growing up.  The timing of this series was such that it made for a perfect Christmas present from my parents, so that’s how I got Cyclops.  I remember being really thrilled to get him (and the rest of the set), and he was one of my favorites for a good while.  The figure’s a bit goofy in retrospect, but I still really like him, and I have very fond memories of the line.

#1322: Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, & Hammer Drones

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

PEPPER POTTS, HAPPY HOGAN, & HAMMER DRONES

MARVEL MINIMATES

I haven’t reviewed Minimates in over a month.  That seems slightly odd.  To be fair, I haven’t actually picked up any new sets since the Doctor Strange assortment, so that probably contributed somewhat.  Since I’m leaning pretty heavily on the back catalog at the moment, it’s only fair that I look back at a small sampling of my rather large Minimate collection.  Today, I’ll be going way back to 2010’s Iron Man 2, with Pepper, Happy, and a pair of Hammer Drones!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Pepper, Happy, and the Hammer Drones were released in Series 35 of the main Marvel Minimates line, which tied-in with the previously mentioned Iron Man 2.  They were the two specialty exclusive sets; Pepper and Happy were each packed with a Hammer Drone, with Pepper being the more heavily packed and Happy as the one-per-case “chase” figure.

PEPPER POTTS

“Tasked with running all of Stark Industries as their new CEO, Pepper Potts must balance her personal friendship with Tony Stark against mounting evidence that the armor-clad hero may be unable to control his own demons.”

Definitely the heaviest-hitteriest-character featured here.  This was Pepper’s second time as a Minimate (her first ‘mate came from the first film).  The figure is a little under 2 1/2 inches tall and has the usual 14 points of articulation.  She’s built on the basic ‘mate body, with add-ons for her hair, skirt, and bracelets.  The skirt was a re-use from the Series 18 Gwen Stacy, and the rest of the add-ons were new to this figure.  I’m not sure exactly which part of the movie she’s from, but her general look is captured.  The end result is decent enough.  Not the most thrilling ‘mate of all time, but she gets the job done, I suppose.  As far as paint goes, she’s fairly bland again, but the colors seem appropriate to the movie, the application is pretty clean, and the Gwenyth Paltrow likeness is decent (certainly better then the first Pepper).  Since this series predates the standard inclusion of display stands, Pepper includes no accessories.  I suppose they could have given here, like, a phone or something, but it’s not a huge deal.

HAPPY HOGAN

“Not only Tony Stark’s bodyguard and chauffeur, Happy Hogan is also one of his closest advisors. As events unfold, however, Happy finds himself torn between his friendship with Tony and his feelings for another…”

Holy abandoned plot-lines Batman!  So, in the initial cut of Iron Man 2, Tony’s driver Harold “Happy” Hogan was supposed to at one point confess his romantic feelings towards Pepper, hinting at their pairing up in the comics.  It was ultimately cut for time, which is, honestly, for the best.  Happy got a greatly increased role in the second film (he doesn’t even get named in the first movie), and so he naturally got a Minimate.  This is, to date, the only action figure of Happy Hogan out there, which is pretty nifty.  Like Pepper, he’s built on the standard base body, plus he’s got add-ons for his hair and jacket.  The hair was new (and a decent enough match for Jon Favreau’s), and the jacket was re-used from Back to the Future’s George McFly.  The end result makes for a decent match-up to Happy’s on-sceen appearance.  The paint is pretty solid, but once again, not anything amazing.  He’s mostly molded in black, with some minor detailing for his shirt/tie, and his face.  The face doesn’t look a ton like Favreau to me, but he *does* look like Happy from the comics, so I don’t mind so much.  On his own, Happy’s another figure that’s not super thrilling.  Fortunately for him, he includes some pretty sweet extras.  He has a pair of boxing gloves (calling back to the boxing scene he has with Tony in the movie), as well as the Mark V in its un-deployed briefcase form, and a pair of handcuffs to hook the briefcase to his wrist.  You’ll need to do some very slight modding if you want one of the cuffs to actually go on the handle of the case, but that’s really the only issue.  Otherwise, it’s a really fun little set-up.

HAMMER DRONES

“Created using a fusion of technologies from Stark Industries, Hammer’s own company and Whiplash’s improvisations – the Hammer Drones are immensely powerful and potentially lethal in the wrong hands.”

That’s a great description…of the other Hammer Drones.  You know, the ones that were actually drones and that played a part in the film’s climax.  These guys?  Not those Hammer Drones.  No, these would be the prototype suits that Vanko scraps early into the film, that get no actual fight time, and aren’t even really drones.  I would guess these guys being in the main assortment instead of the ones that actually featured prominently is yet another example of plans changing in a movie after the reference materials have gone out to the licensees.  Worse things have happened.  At least it’s a decent design, right?  The figure uses the base ‘mate body as a starting point, but gets a non-standard head and thighs, as well as add-ons for the chest piece, gloves, belt, and boots.  The pieces actually make for a pretty cool little toy, though it’s rather far removed from the usual ‘mate aesthetic.  In terms of paint, it’s a lot of grey, but there’s nice work, especially on the little caution sections.  There’s a bit of slop and bleed over here, but nothing too terrible.  Like Pepper, the Hammer Drones include no accessories.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cosmic Comix got gipped on his Series 35 orders, which meant that I missed out on my usual way of getting the specialty exclusives.  I was able to get Pepper from Midtown Comics during a trip to New York that year, but they had already sold Happy by that point.  It took a year or so, but my parents eventually got me one as a Christmas present.  Pepper’s kind of bland and generic, and the Hammer Droids are ultimately rather inconsequential, but Happy is actually a pretty sweet figure!