Tag Archives: Silver Surfer

#1215: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

surferml1

Didn’t I just review a Toy Biz Marvel Legends figure?  Man, usually I’m better about spacing this sorts of things out.  Ah well.  Well, the last review looked at a figure from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run; today’s review jumps back a bit, looking at the line’s second year.  So, without further ado, here’s Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

surferml2Silver Surfer was released in Series 5 of Marvel Legends, which hit stores starting in November of 2003.  Series 5 is easily one of my favorite series from TB’s run with the line, and in a lot of ways showcased the line’s true potential.  It was also the last series where just about every figure was easily obtained, and thus the last series I have un-compromised memories about.  Anyway, this figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation.  Surfer exhibits one of the earliest attempts at using a buck system for Legends.  He was built on the body initially designed for the second Spider-Man Classics Daredevil figure.  I always thought the body was too beefy for DD, but it’s not a bad choice for the Surfer.  It’s a sculpt that, like so many of the TB Legends, hasn’t aged super well.  The shoulders are a bit large, and the legs are somewhat gangly, but the general appearance isn’t awful.  My figure suffers from a minor assembly error: his left forearm is actually a right forearm, just flipped around, meaning the musculature doesn’t quite line up the right way.  Nothing major, but a slight annoyance.  The head sculpt on Surfer is fairly decent.  It’s stylistically consistent with the body, and presents a pretty reasonable version of the Surfer’s noggin.  It’s a little more alien than he tends to be depicted, and certainly on the cartoony side, but a fun sculpt nonetheless.  The Surfer exhibits some of the finer paintwork from TB’s Legends.  It may not seem like much at first glance, but there’s a really nice quality to the silver paint chosen; it’s much more vibrant and lively than the silvers you tend to see on production pieces.  There’s also the slightest hint of blue, airbrushed over the figure, which really helps connect him with the comics version of the Surfer, who was often highlighted with blue.  Over the years, various Silver Surfer figures have handled his titular surfboard all sorts of different ways.  This is probably one of the more interesting ones.  There’s a magnet in each foot, and the core section of the board is metal.  In theory, this allows you to affix him to the board while also leaving it without any visible footpegs when he’s not standing on it.  Of course, since molding the whole board in metal would be cost prohibitive, they had to sort of split the difference, and give the board a plastic frame, which doesn’t quite mesh with the metal section, and sort of messes up the whole seamlessness of the board.  Still, fun gimmick, though.  There was also an included chunk of space rock with an articulated arm attached, allowing for the board to be posed as if it were flying.  Perhaps the oddest accessory included with Surfer (and maybe even one of the oddest accessories of all time) is the Howard the Duck figure.  As far as I know, Howard and the Surfer have never met, so why they chose to pair these two up is anyone’s guess.  Nevertheless, it’s a proper action figure of its own, with four whole points of articulation, and an incredibly well-detailed sculpt that looks like it jumped straight out of a classic ‘70s Howard comic appearance. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s Disney’s fault.  No, not because they own Marvel.  They didn’t yet when this figure was released.  Anyway, I got this figure while visiting Disney World back in 2003.  Series 5 had just started hitting stores, and my family went to the nearby Walmart to pick up a few things.  My dad and I walked back to the toy aisle (as we do), and they had a Nick Fury and two Silver Surfers.  I wanted one of the Surfers, but my dad convinced me to wait.  Later that week, we needed to stop by again for batteries I think.  My dad went in on his own, and when he got back to the car, he was carrying this guy.  Turns out, he walked back to the toy aisle to check if they still had these, and when he got there they were all gone.  When he turned to walk back to the registers, he happened to look down and spotted this one lone Silver Surfer on the ground.  This figure’s not perfect, but he’s one of the better Surfer figures out there, even 13 years after his release.

#0970: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

SilverSurferMSH1

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

SilverSurferMSH2Silver 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.

#0062: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER                   

MARVEL SELECT

Previously, I’ve taken a look at a few odd figures from DC Direct, a company that produced DC Comics figures meant to be sold directly through comic book shops.  This allowed them to do story specific looks and some of the more obscure characters.  With that company’s success, Marvel wanted to get in on some of the action, so they licensed Diamond Select Toys to do a line of “specialty” figures of their characters.  It took a while, and some of the early figures weren’t so great, but their line, Marvel Select, has started to pick up some decent coverage, and put out some very nice figures.  They just recently put out a Silver Surfer figure, which I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As I said above, Silver Surfer was just released.  Marvel Select doesn’t use the typical “series” structure that many other lines use, instead releasing the figures one at a time.  Surfer’s not exactly a character with a huge variety of looks, having just the one, but this figure appears to be based on Surfer’s more classic 70s-80s look.  He stands roughly 7 inches tall and has 22 points of articulation.  Surfer’s sculpt is simplistic, but that’s not a bad thing in his case.  That’s also not to say there’s no detail work.  In particular, I like that they went the extra mile to put wrinkles on the waist, denoting the shorts that the Surfer was typically shown wearing until the 90s or so.  The head has a great look of calmness that characterizes the Surfer very well.  If I have one complaint about the sculpt, it’s that the abs are perhaps a bit too defined to match the rest of the figure’s aesthetic.  Surfer comes armed with a fair number of accessories.  He’s got his trusty Surf Board, a spare set of hands, to hand-blast pieces, the Infinity Gauntlet, and a display stand made to look like the Surfer is hovering over a rocky surface.  The board is well done, with nice clean line work.  It suffers from the common problem of figures of the Surfer in that it has to have foot pegs to hold him in place.  The hands are only minor variation, he’s got the flatter hands for basic “surfing” poses, and a pair where the fingers are slightly curled to allow the energy blasts to fit properly.   The Infinity Gauntlet is a cool add-in.  You have to remove the Surfer’s hand to put it on, and it doesn’t have a peg or anything, so it just kind of has to be wedged on just right.  It looks cool, though I don’t know of a time when the Surfer actually had it in his possession.  The stand is interesting.  It has a blue swooshing effect that the board slides into, but it also has foot prints and a foot peg to allow the Surfer to stand directly on the rocky surface.  It’s nice in theory, but there’s no way to remove the swoosh effect, leaving it looking a bit odd.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was picked up from my favorite online store, Luke’s Toy Store, during their Black Friday sale.  I had been wanting the figure, but wasn’t sure about paying full price.  Luke’s had it for $16, which was good enough for me.  I’m a moderate fan of the Surfer, and I’m glad to see a decent figure of him.  It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than a lot of his recent figures!

#0016: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOYBIZ)

Time for another Fantastic Four review it seems.  Today we’re looking at a sometimes foe, but usually friend of the team, Silver Surfer.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The figure in question is the first herald of Galactus, Norin Radd, aka the Silver Surfer.  Good old Nor here has 11 points of articulation and stands 5 inches tall.  At one point in time, he was a bit shinier, but my figure has long since dulled.  The figure’s sculpt is solid.  I think it would be difficult to mess up a bald, naked guy, but I’d probably be wrong.  He’s got a nice assortment of articulation, though I’m not really sure what’s going on with his right arm.  Is he supposed to be doing something specific ?  Because all I see is some kind of record scratching move.  Maybe this is actually a figure of often forgotten 90s sensation DJ Sizzle Surfer-izzle and I just wasn’t aware…

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was a moderate silver surfer fan as a kid, but I actually rarely used this figure as the Surfer.  He was a nice, generic figure, good for a million things.  His joints are practically worn out from all the play time this guy got!