Tag Archives: Strong Guy

#3664: Strong Guy

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

STRONG GUY

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Last week, I jumped back into Toy Biz Marvel with a discussion of the repaints that kept the line fresh on the pegs of KB Toys, one of the greatest supporters of the brand in the ’90s.  There were a variety of different ways they kept up with things, but at the tail end of the decade, they really dialed in on X-Men specifically.  There was a range of differences in terms of what they did with those figures.  Today’s offering, Strong Guy, was on the minor end of things when it came to change-ups.  Let’s jump into those, I guess?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy was released in the first assortment of the KB-exclusive X-Men repaint line, released in 1998.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  His sculpt is re-use of the Series 6 Strong Guy, which was the only other Strong Guy Toy Biz ever did.  It was definitely a little on the small side for Guido, at least as he was usually depicted in the comics at the time, and the articulation was a bit stripped down by the line’s usual standards, but it was a sculpt that certainly looked the part for the character.  While the Magneto from this line had a rather drastically different color scheme from the original AoA release, Strong Guy doesn’t quite go that far, but it’s still a bit beyond the differences between the Morph releases, which you could chalk up to production changes.  The colors are rather desaturated compared to the original release, which is certainly an interesting choice.  Also, the one true application change here is the moving of his X-logo from his left side to centered on his vest.  I guess that works better for branding?  I don’t know.  I don’t think Guido ever had the logo there, but I honestly didn’t keep up with all of his costume changes.  Like the original release, this figure was without accessories, but he does still have his “power punch” feature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Given how long it took me to even get around to opening my original Strong Guy, I guess it’s not a shock that I didn’t rush out to get this guy.  Honestly, I wasn’t even super sure I was going to do all of the variant hunting for all of these figures, at least initially, but I’ve gotten more invested in that over the years, so, when I found this guy at Factory Antiques, I opted to jump on it.  There’s not much new to this one, and it’s hard to say exactly *why* Toy Biz felt the need to do him, but, you know what?  I won’t knock them for doing another Strong Guy.

#2515: Strong Guy

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

STRONG GUY

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Okay, let’s get way better with this Marvel Legends game, you guys.  Yes, the last three days haven’t been the line’s best form, but it’s okay, because it’s all worth it.  Today, you see, we get to the final piece of this assortment, or perhaps pieces, I suppose.  Yes, it’s time to take a look at the Build-A-Figure, one Guido Carosella, better known as Strong Guy, the heavy of X-Factor’s second line-up!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy is, as you can probably piece together, the Build-A-Figure for the Strong Guy Series of Marvel Legends.  He actually stands out a little bit from the line-up that builds him, since they’re a X-Force/Deadpool mix, and he’s not really in either of those categories.  Presumably, they just wanted to make sure he had a slot to go into, what with the one proper X-Men assortment being AoA-themed this year.  This marks Strong Guy’s introduction into the Legends format, and his third figure total, following the 5-inch figure and the Minimate (which was itself released just in the last year).  The figure stands 8 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  Strong Guy is sporting an all-new sculpt, which is appropriate, since it’s pretty tricky for someone of his unique stature to share parts with other characters.  Given his larger build, the articulation works quite well, with a solid range of motion, and some great stability, even with his wonky proportions.  I quite enjoyed the old Toy Biz 5-inch sculpt when I took a look at it earlier in the year, and I remarked that it was honestly one of the nicer ones.  This one?  It blows that offering out of the water.  The costume details are nice and sharp, and the head sculpt is one of the most character-filled expressions that we’ve gotten.  Hasbro has been really stepping up their game on the face sculpts in the last year, and Strong Guy just pushes that even further.  Perhaps the only slight down fall of this figure, if you can truly even call that, comes with the color work.  Hasbro’s been stepping up this area more recently, so the fact that Strong Guy is mostly reliant on molded colors, and has minimal accenting does make him feel just a touch unfinished in some areas.  At the very least, a few more details on his jacket would have gone a long way.  That being said, the application is pretty decent, and the basic work still puts him on par with the most of the line.  It’s certainly a step up from where things were when Hasbro first relaunched the line.  Strong Guy doesn’t get any accessories, but given the sheer size of the figure and how he’s a completely new sculpt, that’s honestly totally fair.  Plus, I can’t really think of much he’d need, anyway.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I dig Strong Guy.  I dig Strong Guy a lot.  Ever since we got our first taste of X-Factor with Multiple Man back in 2018, I’ve been looking forward to getting this guy in some form or another, and with the Havok and Polaris figures further filling out the line-up, was even higher on my list.  As soon as this guy was shown off, I was totally on-board, no matter what figures I had to buy to get him…which may have been for the best, but I’ll get to that in a second.  Strong Guy’s an awesome figure, and I’m really glad to have him.  He looks fantastic with the rest of his team.

This assortment is a definite mix of highs and lows.  Strong Guy’s a fantastic Build-A-Figure, and a front runner for my favorite BaF of the year.  It’s really just Crimson Dynamo he has to contend with.  The figures that build him range from surprisingly good to downright abysmal.  Maverick is on the high end of that spectrum for me, but Black Tom, Warpath, and Sunspot all make for a serviceable middle-ground figure.  The Deadpool variants, however, are really treading on thin ice now, and neither one offered here is anything approaching needed.  And Shiklah is garbage, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

#2282: Strong Guy

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

STRONG GUY

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Strong Guy joined X-Factor for the simplest of reasons–the regular paycheck!  Caring little about the problems between man and mutantkind, he lives instead for the finer things in life–wine, women and song!  And he’s not above using his tremendous mutant strength to put those who would criticize his lifestyle in their place!”

After three assortments of pretty solid team building, the fourth series of Toy Biz’s X-Men line is one of the stranger line-ups the line would produce.  I mean, it doesn’t have the weirdest character choices per se (well, apart from Tusk, because who the heck went “where’s my Tusk action figure?”), but more that it seems generally unfocused and all over the place.  It would be this assortment which introduced off-shoot team X-Factor into the line.  And what character would they use to launch?  Would it be team leader Havok (who had been scrapped from the Series 3 line-up), or even X-universe mainstays Polaris, Multiple Man, or Wolfsbane?  Nope, it was Lila Cheney’s bodyguard Guido, who had just taken the name “Strong Guy,” denoting his status as a…uhh….strong…guy.  Yeah…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy was added to the Toy Biz X-Men  line-up in 1993 as part of the aforementioned Series 4 line-up.  He would see a re-issue in 2000 in ever so slightly different colors as part of the KB-exclusive X-Men line, but beyond that, this was it for Guido, at least until last year’s Minimate and this year’s Legend.  Lucky Guido.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  He’s a little bit on the small side for Strong Guy (though that made him a nice fit with Hasbro’s Marvel Universe a few years later), but he’s got enough of a size difference that it works.  Strong Guy is missing joints at the elbows and knees, I can only assume due to his larger size.  Honestly, he makes out alright without them, so it’s not the end of the world.  Much like Ch’od, who was similarly limited in terms of articulation and also similarly-sized, Strong Guy’s sculpt ends up as a pretty solid offering.  The character’s distinctive proportions are well captured, and there’s a lot of character in the figure’s face, which helps to keep him looking fairly unique.  He also matches up well with the art stylings of the time, honestly in a far better fashion than any of the other X-Factor characters.  Strong Guy’s paint work is pretty solid for the time.  All of the important details are there, and the application is fairly clean.  Technically, there should be a patch of blue on his vest, but honestly the X-Factor art was stylized enough at the time that Toy Biz can be forgiven for not realizing that wasn’t just a harshly shaded patch.  Strong Guy included no accessories (though, like most Toy Biz figures of the time, he has his hands molded to hold *something*), but he did have a “Power Punch” action, which raises his arms up and down when his torso is spun around.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Strong Guy is not a figure I had growing up.  He actually was added to my collection during my post-freshman-year-of-college Toy Biz binge, after finding him at All Time Toys.  He was still packaged, and, for whatever reason, I just never got around to opening him.  He ended up sitting unopened for another 8 years, until I finally cracked him open a month ago in preparation for this review.  I don’t know why I delayed so long, but he’s a pretty fun little figure, truth be told.

#2274: Strong Guy

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

STRONG GUY

MARVEL MINIMATES

On a team of oddballs and easily overlooked characters, Lila Cheney’s bodyguard Guido, under the alias of Strong Guy, is probably the most oddball and easily overlooked of the second X-Factor line-up.  Perhaps because of that, he became sort of the signature character for the team, a fixture for incarnations going forward.  The team’s line-up just really feel complete without him.  So, making a toy version of the team without him simply hasn’t happened.  The advent of Build-A-Figures for Minimates finally made it possible to make this five man team work in an assortment that could still sell to retailers, all while giving us the whole line-up in a single shot.  And, hey, it gives Strong Guy his second ever action figure.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy is the Build-A-Figure for the 78th Series of Marvel Minimates.  He’s the fourth Minimate BaF, and the first one to really take advantage of the ability to get a slightly larger ‘mate out there by divvying up their pieces amongst four sets.  Unlike the rest of the assortment, Strong Guy is totally new to Minimates, which makes sense, what with him not really having other bankable looks to fall back on like the rest of the two teams.  The figure stands 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation, though like most bulked up ‘mates, there’s the caveat of the articulation all being rather limited.  Strong Guy starts with the basic ‘mate body, and then has add-ons for the torso cap, pelvis cap (with a torso extender), bulked up thighs, and straps for the wrists and ankles.  Somewhat amusingly, he doesn’t get the poofy upper arm sleeves like Havok and Polaris, which makes his arms seem slightly under-developed.  Why they didn’t opt to include those parts is anyone’s guess, but I suppose it’s possible they just didn’t cost out.  Strong Guy’s torso piece is all-new, and does a respectable job of recreating his distinctive proportions from the comics.  The design clips over the standard torso and replaces the arm pegs with another set mounted on the new torso piece.  For my money, they seem to sit out a little too far from the core of the body, and I definitely worry about their long-term integrity in terms of posing without breaking.  That said, they do the job alright.  The rest of the parts are re-used from elsewhere, and keep him inline with his teammates. His paintwork is respectable.  The best work is definitely on the face, which gets his design from the comics down.  The base color work on the body could be a little crisper, and the paint on some of the joints is a little thick, but he looks alright.  He’s got no accessories, but he’s technically an accessory himself, so I guess that pans out.  It would have been nice to at least get an extra stand for him, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Gee, I wonder where Ethan got this Build-A-Figure, built from the parts included in four sets that he just reviewed this week.  Yeah, this whole assortment was a gift from my Super Awesome Wife.  Havok was my primary focus, but I was also pretty invested in completing Strong Guy as well, which was the main push for rounding out the assortment.  He’s not perfect, but he’s a solid recreation of the character.  And now I’ve got this pretty nifty little X-Factor team.