Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#4152: Galactus

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

GALACTUS

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

“Feared throughout the cosmos, the nearly omnipotent Galactus must consume the life energies of entire planets to satisfy his burning hunger! Only the herculean efforts of the Fantastic Four and Galactus’s former herald, the Silver Surfer, have prevented the world-devourer from making a meal of the Earth! But, should he return, the future of all mankind will once again be in doubt!”

Just before my winter hiatus last December, I wrapped up my reviews of the all the standard figures from Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four toyline.  I didn’t, however, quite look at *all* the figures, because they weren’t all exactly created equal.  If you’re doing really much of anything at all with the FF, you’re bound to run into their big, planet-eating foe, Galan of Taa, the Devourer of Worlds, best known as Galactus.  Galactus has a number of appearances on Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, and his herald Silver Surfer was present in the first series of the tie-in toyline, so it made quite a bit of sense for the big G to be included as well, and in fact he was, with a deluxe sized figure that I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Galactus was released in 1995, alongside the first series of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line.  He was his own stand alone release, a deluxe item offered up in a similar fashion to the dragons from the Iron Man line at the same time, and also somewhat like the Sentinel released in the X-Men line the year prior.  Galactus did differ from those other releases, however, in his use of electronic features.  The figure stands just under 14 1/2 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  In terms of scaling, Galactus is clearly not quite the towering giant he tends to be, relative to the others, he’s got a good 9 inches on the standard figures, making him larger enough visibly to sell the idea, while not being so large as to be an impractical size for play and display. Galactus’s articulation is very much a restricted thing, with motion at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and neck.  The neck is a very small degree of back and forth movement, and the arms, though certainly better in their range, still aren’t really doing much other than sitting at his sides or raising up a bit to hold his accessory.  Due to the electronic features, there is no movement at all in the waist or legs, so he’s a bit more statuesque in that regard.  He’s mostly just meant for standing there and looking rather menacing, which, to be fair, is kind of his main deal.  The mold was brand-new to Galactus at the time (tough the main bulk of it was later re-used for a second deluxe Galactus figure as part of the Silver Surfer tie-in line in 1998), patterned on his classic comics design, as well as aligning with his design as seen in the cartoon at the time (specifically his appearance in Season 1).  It’s more on the basic and stripped down side in terms of detailing, going for broader strokes, softer detailing, and some simpler line work.  The proportions are notably on the chunky side of things, and his head, already enlarged by the helmet, seems a bit too large for the body it’s sitting upon.  There are also some compromises made for the sake of the action features, with a mount on the torso for his accessory, as well as holes in the eyes where the pupils would be, in order to make way for the light up feature, and a spot for a speaker in his abdomen.  The most jarring of these is definitely the mount on the torso, but that’s easier to explain away as having a practical use on his armor, I suppose.  Though certainly leaning more into the toy side, the sculpt does still do a decent enough job of bringing his design into toy form, and it certainly fits well with the other figures stylistically.  The figure’s “horns” and skirt pieces are separate, removable parts on this release.  The horns can warp a bit (as seen on my figure), but do click into place securely.  The skirt pieces….don’t click into place securely, especially the back one, which will fall off at just about any given chance.  Galactus’s color work follows the usual hallmarks of his design, with a lot of purple and blue.  There’s some rather notable issues of matching between the different parts of his assembly, which is a little odd, but the design has enough segmentation to at least hide it a bit more.  Galactus was packed with a large “drill” accessory, which he can hold in front of him and which connects to the front of the figure.  There are actually two variants to the exact connection style of the drill, as seen in the photo, but the Galactus figure’s connection appears to remain the same.  There is a lights and sounds feature to the figure, and the drill interacts with this as well, but between the two copies of this figure I currently own, I wasn’t able to get either working to test it out.  For shame.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got my original Galactus, at least in part, because he was defective.  The local KB Toys had one whose electronic features didn’t work, so he was discounted, and my dad bought it so that he and my granddad could repair him and get him into working order, and, boom, working Galactus.  For a while, anyway.  This guy got carried around a lot to a lot of different things and certainly got a lot of play time before spending about a decade in the garage, without most of his parts.  In recent years, I’ve put some more serious effort into returning him to his original glory, and found all of his original parts, minus a single horn for his helmet.  Do you know how difficult it is to find just a single horn for a Toy Biz Galactus?  Really difficult, I’ll tell you.  The most practical way to go about it, it turns out, is just buying a second, complete, Galactus, which I in fact did (well, my Dad did, swooping in to buy the second one for me like he did the original) over the summer, when I found one for a good price at Yesterday’s Fun while vacationing with the family.  Perhaps this figure isn’t quite as impressive as the more recent HasLab release, but he certainly fills out the Toy Biz Fantastic Four line-up nicely, and I’m happy to have him back together again.  There: now I’m actually done with the Fantastic Four reviews.

#4148: Penance

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

PENANCE

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“The young woman called Penance possesses the mutant ability to internalize negative energy around her, turning her body into a diamond-hard, razor-sharp weapon. Held prisoner by the energy-stealing mutant Empath for an undetermined number of years, she escaped and was transported to the doorstep of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Now, Banshee and Emma Frost face the challenge of reaching out to help a girl who can slice apart anything she touches”

Okay, so there’s this Marvel character named Penance, and their identity is all mysterious, and they’re wrapped up in some sort of weird…bondage related gear, and their gimmick is like, pain, and being literally edgy.  Would you believe that this has happened twice, with two completely unrelated characters?  Because it has.  And one of them is objectively better than the other, but given that one of them was “let’s take Speedball, a fun lovable character and make him angsty and broody and just totally ruin him,” the other one being “better” isn’t exactly high praise, but it’s where we are here.  Introduced in Generation X #1, Penance was a big ol’ mystery character, though she was originally intended to be a random Yugoslavian girl named Yvette.  A creative team change just kind of made things more complicated, as it was revealed that Penance was in fact Monet St Croix, and that her fellow Gen X team-member who was supposedly Monet was actually Monet’s younger twin sisters Nicole and Claudette fused into one being, masquerading as their older sister.  An altercation with Emplate (who was revealed to be the eldest St Croix sibling, Marius) put Monet back in her own body, and the twins into Penance’s body, but then they got removed as well, and the body that was Penance continued on as “the Hollow” for a bit?  Are you confused?  Well, yeah, that tracks.  Me too.  Anyway, here’s this figure of Penance, from when she was secretly Monet St Croix…well, at least in continuity, if perhaps not in reality.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Penance was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Generation X tie-in line.  She’s the final team member in the set, though I suppose “team member” is at times a loose term with her.  She’s got the uniform, though, is more what I’m getting at.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  Penance’s sculpt has a lot of similarities to Chamber in its approach, with its even more limited articulation relative to the others in the line, the sort of softer detailing, and the decision to put her in a team uniform she was wearing on the covers, but still not in the book at this point.  The softness is odd, especially for a character like Penance, whose whole gimmick is “real sharp.”  It’s not the worst, overall, and it covers the basic details of her design alright.  I think the head, particularly the hair, seems to miss the mark a bit on how she looked in the comics.  It’s just got too much volume and roundness in its shape.  Penance has a built in slashing action feature; pushing down the lever on her back swings the arms up and down. In terms of coloring, Penance is sort of brighter than she maybe should be, I feel.  She was wearing mostly black in the comics, but here it’s a sort of mid-tone purple.  It seems…off?  I feel like the softness of the sculpt wouldn’t be as obvious if it weren’t as bright.  Penance was packed with four shackle pieces that go on her arms and legs, as well as a display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t really have much of an attachment to Penance as a character, aside from knowing this figure existed, and reading some early issues of the comics back in the day, and she’s not exactly one I really invested myself in after the fact.  She’s…you know…kinda confusing.  The figure isn’t confusing, I suppose, but she’s also not great.  It’s a design that didn’t really translate all that well, and without the attachment to the character like I had with Chamber, it’s hard to feel much about this figure.  It…is?  So, that’s what she’s got going for her.  Existence.  Well, it puts her ahead of some of the other team members.

#4144: Chamber

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

CHAMBER

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“The privileged life of Jonathan Starsmore was shattered forever when his mutant ability emerged for the first time. Most of his chest and lower jaw was blown away because he couldn’t control the powerful psionic-biokinetic energy that exists within him. Chamber is the oldest of Banshee’s new pupils, but he’ll have to emerge from the shell that his injury has forced him into, before he can emerge as a leader of his fellow students.”

What’s an X-Men team without a guy with energy based powers he can’t control manifesting in a way that makes him an outcast, who also has a penchant for leather jackets? Well, like, I guess that’s maybe the New Mutants?  Generation X was having none of it, though, so when they officially made the group of youngsters that had teamed up during “The Phalanx Covenant” a proper team in Generation X #1, Jonathan “Jono” Starsmore joined the line-up, as Chamber, the guy with no lower jaw or upper chest.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Chamber was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X toyline.  He’s fairly pivotal to the comic’s first few issues, especially in regards to both Emplate and Penance, who were also in Series 1, plus there was also just a big push behind the character (and a sensible one at that, since he remained perhaps the book’s most signature character even well after its ending), so it all tracked pretty well.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  None of the Generation X figures were very posable, but Chamber gets hit harder than most, due to his design removing the possibility of a neck joint, leaving him with just the shoulders and hips.  Chamber’s sculpt was all-new to him and remained unique.  It shows him in his team suit (which in 1995, he still wasn’t really wearing in the book, but it was showing up on the covers), with his signature leather jacket over it.  Chamber’s original prototype had a rather different sculpt, with a more visible break between the energy of his torso and his head, as well as closed fists and a zipped up jacket.  The final product is…well, it’s fine.  The jacket is a separate piece, and it’s got a nice flow about it.  The torso/head is a bit soft on the detailing, which makes it a little tricky to make out exactly what’s going on.  His hair does at least have a nice dynamic flow to it, even if it does somewhat have the consistency of a tootsie roll. Otherwise, the sculpt’s perfectly fine.  He’s a lot less pre-posed than other figures from the line, opting for a more basic standing pose, albeit one with enough flair to not be too boring.  He had a light-up feature worked into the torso, which was the same as the one used on the Fantastic Four Human Torch; pulling the string on his back would create sparks in the torso.  It has the benefit of not relying on batteries, but since it’s just a friction thing, used copies tend to be too worn down to work, and new copies tend to have seized up.  Mine’s somewhere between those two points, but still isn’t in working order.  The color work on Chamber is decent enough.  He matches up with the other team members in terms of uniform colors, and his base application is all pretty clean.  Mine’s taken a beating over the years as you can see.  Chamber is packed with a team logo display stand, and…well, that’s it.  Just the stand. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have Chamber during the original line’s run proper, but I did have him very shortly thereafter.  Sometime in the summer of 2000, I got an X-Men 2099 Meanstreak, and saw the Generation X line-up on the back of his box, and got it into my head that I wanted Chamber and Skin, and my dad did a bit of hunting and we found these two at a comic shop sort of near by.  Chamber was the one I really wanted, and he’s always stood out to me as my favorite member of the team.  The figure’s honestly kind of mediocre, upon review, but the rather cool design of the character still bleeds through, and I do still quite like him.

And I almost let this review finish without noting it, but over the weekend, the site officially made it into its 14th year.  Man, time sure does fly.  Crazy stuff.  Thanks for reading everybody!

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0095: Ultron

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

ULTRON

THE VAULT (TOY BIZ)

We have arrived, dear readers, at another Friday, so it’s time for another installment of Flashback Friday Figure Addendum!  Today, we jump back a decade and some change, with a follow up look at Ultron!

Countdown to Avengers: Age of Ultron: 5 days remaining.

Alright, now we get to the main event! Before, I was looking at figures of the various Avengers members from the upcoming movie, but from here on out, it’s all Ultron all the time! Poor Ultron went quite a while without seeing any action figures. He didn’t even get a figure in Mattel’s Secret Wars line, despite being a part of the comic upon which the toyline had been based (thanks Mattel…). He was finally granted a figure during ToyBiz’s 5-inch Marvel heyday.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultron was released as part of ToyBiz’s The Vault line. The Vault was one of several one series lines that ToyBiz released around the same time, covering lots of different parts of the Marvel universe. The Vault is named after the Marvel universe high-security prison of the same name, and it featured a line-up of three lesser-known Marvel villains. This figure is on the larger side for this scale, at roughly 6 inches in height, and he has 16 points of articulation. The figure features an all-new sculpt, which remained unique to this figure. I’m not 100% certain, but I don’t believe this design is one from the comics. It definitely isn’t the “classic” Ultron, that’s for sure. It plays up the more robotic aspects of the character, which I suppose is a plus, but it lacks the elegant simplicity of the classic design. All that said, it’s a perfectly reasonable sculpt from a purely aesthetic standpoint. There are a nice variety of textures and details, and that helps to liven the figure up a bit. I quite like the clawed hands and two-toed feet. The head is probably the figure’s weakest point(and that’ll be a recurring point for the rest of the week); Ultron’s had loads of different body types over the years, but the one thing to remain fairly consistent is his head. It’s not awful here, but it’s pretty far from the standard Ultron noggin. It’s too thin, and it looks particularly pinched around the antennae. And speaking of those antennae, they represent another pretty big departure from the usual Ultron look. They should be further down on his head, hovering over his cheeks. Instead, they start where his “ears” would be and go upwards, looking a bit like a rabbit’s ears. The figure also suffers from some somewhat wonky paint apps. The actual color of his outer shell is wildly inconsistent, ranging from sliver with very slight blue overtones to a rather deep metallic blue in a few areas. Also, there’s this weird thing on his torso and lower legs where he’s got these strange somewhat transparent dark grey brush strokes. I don’t really know what they’re supposed to be, but they just kind of stick out and they were rather different from figure to figure. Ultron was packed with some sort of containment piece, which went over his head and hands and plugged into his shoulder. It was kind of cool, but ultimately non-essential (and I lost mine anyway). In addition to the restraints, Ultron also has a light-u feature, which made his eyes glow red when a button on his back was pushed.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure was actually my very first exposure to the character of Ultron. My dad, who was an avid Avengers fan, purchased one for himself, and when I asked who he was I was presented with several of his comic appearances to read. I pretty much immediately fell in love with the character. Not long after, I received my own Ultron figure as a Christmas gift from my good friend Pat Sponagle. Sure, he’s not the most accurate Ultron figure, but he was the only one in existence at the time. And, as the old saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. Eventually, I got the more classically inspired United They Stand Ultron, but this one served as one of my favorite figures up to that point, and he still holds some meaning to me. Inaccuracies aside, he’s a good toy.

I’ve encountered a few of these pre-Age of Ultron reviews in my addendums, and its an interesting reflection to see how excited I was for a movie that a lot of people just sort of overlooked.  11 years later, I’ve gone back and forth on my feelings a little bit, but I do think Age of Ultron is still the Avengers movie that feels the most like an actual Avengers comic, so I stand by my excitement.  Part of the countdown was reviewing all of the Ultron figures in my collection at the time, in successive order, which started off with this review.  It’s a review I stand by.  This isn’t a *bad* figure, but it sets a trend for sort of wonky Ultrons, especially from Toy Biz.  Missing from my original review were the figure’s accessories, namely a shoulder-mounted cannon and a set of restraints, which I have subsequent re-discovered.  As noted in the original review, they’re sort of weird and non-essential, but pretty fun.

#4140: Jubilee

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

JUBILEE

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“Jubilation Lee spent lots of time in the malls of Southern California before she first displayed her mutant powers. It was her time spent as an X-Man, however, that may have spoiled Jubilee – now that she’s just another student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. But considering her studies will include how to fully develop her ability to create explosive plasma ‘fireworks’, there’s bound to be plenty of excitement.”

The cast of Generation X, which spun out of the “Phalanx Covenant” crossover, were a lot of new faces for the franchise, but in addition to the team’s two veteran advisors of Banshee and Emma Frost, the main team also had Jubilee, a fairly notable junior member of the main team in the years prior, who was, much like Kitty Pryde before her, graduating to her own team.  While the main X-Men line under Toy Biz rather dragged its feet on adding Jubilee to the line-up, her more prominent placement on Generation X would prove a quicker path to the action figure treatment.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jubilee was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Generation X line.  She was one of four team members in the opening line-up, and was the only returning character in the batch.  As touched on in the intro, this was the first of the three Jubilees under Toy Biz’s tenure, and also just the first Jubilee figure in general.  The figure stands 4 7/8 inches tall (with a slight crouch) and she has 6 points of articulation.  I’ve mentioned before that Generation X was a less articulated line than its compatriots from Toy Biz, for whatever reason.  Jubilee continues this trend, with no elbow or knee joints.  Her scaling is also off relative to the X-Men line (and, honestly, even relative to the other Generation X figures), since she’d be over 5 inches tall if standing straight, and that’s not really right for a character usually depicted as being on the shorter side.  I guess she fit in fine with those later run Wolverines that were always so large.  Jubilee’s sculpt was new to her and would remain mostly unique; only the head saw re-use, for another Jubilee figure.  She’s seen here sporting her Gen X team suit; it’s still got the signature yellow raincoat and gloves, but gives her a little bit more of a super heroic look than more civilian gear that she tended to sport.  It’s not a bad sculpt.  There’s a lot of pre-posing to it, though, and she definitely feels rather bulky for Jubilee.  Look at the size of those hands and feet!  I do quite like the head sculpt, though.  It feels pretty on the mark for the character, especially within the usual Toy Biz style.  Jubilee’s color work is rather basic, but generally does what it needs to.  There’s a lot of yellow, as there should be, and the paint (which has taken a rather notable beating on mine) is applied fairly cleanly.  Jubilee is packed with a blast effect (which her spring loaded left arm can “throw”…sort of) that was shared with the X-Force line’s Exodus, released the same year, a pair of roller blades, and a display stand.  Honestly, not a bad little set-up. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Jubilee is quite an early one for me.  I know she pre-dates my family’s move to the house I spent most of my childhood in, which puts her probably in my first ten?  Wow, that’s crazy early.  Anyway, since I was into X-Men: The Animated Series, and she was a core cast member, she was definitely high on my list, and my dad made a note of that and she was a surprise for me one day when he came home from work.  She’s been kind of an unsung part of my collection since that day.  I can’t say she was ever my favorite or top of my list, but she’s just always been a part of my collection, which is kind of nuts.  She’s far from perfect, and kind of awkward to fit in with the rest of my X-Men from the time, but still very much in the category of nifty.  And I do like that.  I like a figure that’s nifty.

#4136: Emplate

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

EMPLATE

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

“It’s unknown how long the evil being known only as Emplate has existed. Uninterested in plots of destruction or world domination, the mysterious mutant has one concern only: satisfying the eternal hunger that possesses him. To do this he feeds on the genetic marrow of other mutants – the younger the better! This, coupled with his ability to rechannel energy that he absorbs, makes him a most dangerous threat to Generation X”

The ‘90s X-Men spin-off Generation X started off in the pages of the main books, coming out of the “Phalanx Covenant” crossover, so, they’re first antagonists were, you know, the Phalanx.  When they got their own book, they also got their own antagonists, and first amongst them was Emplate, a dark and mysterious villain that nobody knew anything about, who actually turned out to be related to a member (or rather, members) of the team.  What? That totally *never* happens in an X-Men book.  Since Emplate was right there at the start of the book, he was also right there at the start of the toyline, getting his first, and thus far only, action figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Emplate was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Generation X toy line, as one of the two antagonists in the line-up.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 6…ish points of articulation.  The Generation X figures were all less articulated than the usual Toy Biz Marvel stuff, lacking the usual elbows and knees in particular.  Emplate’s neck joint is also essentially motionless, but he does at least get movement on his left wrist, by virtue of his extending hand action feature.  The sculpt on this figure was new at the time, and remained unique to this figure for the the entirety of Toy Biz’s run.  It’s based more on his earliest appearances, and it’s definitely got a lot of stylizing to it.  It’s certainly distinctive, though feels maybe a bit more tame than the art from the books.  There’s a lot of smaller work going into it, though, which is quite nice.  Emplate’s color work is sort of monotone, with big stretches of the same basic colors, mostly molded.  The purple/grey/black set-up made him stand out nicely from the other figures in the set, and do help sell a particularly villainous vibe to him.  Emplate was packed with a standard Generation X logo stand, as well as a figurine of DOA, his little Renfield-like buddy from the comics.  Honestly, I love the recurring “little guy” inclusions from this era of time.  We got some really neat extra characters this way.  I mean, DOA?  Who could imagine getting a DOA figure?  Well, I guess anyone who owns the guy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t read Generation X when it was new, so the only figures I got when they were hitting were the Jubilee and Banshee, who I knew from elsewhere.  I got some back-issues towards the end of the ‘90s, and wanted some of the figures, but they got scarce for a bit there.  Well, the team members, anyway.  Emplate?  He was never scarce.  In fact, he was kind of the bane of my existence for a while, as I kept spying Generation X packaging at comic shops, only to find it was Emplate, yet again.  I didn’t get an Emplate until I was an adult, back in 2020, in fact, as part of a large batch of loose figures I picked up while working at All Time.  He and DOA were both present, making for one of the few instances of a complete figure in the batch.  If nothing else, it’s a unique pair.

#4132: Carnage

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

CARNAGE

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Of all Spider-Man’s foes, Carnage is perhaps the most dangerous, the most feared! Criminal Cletus Kasady shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock (better known as the Lethal Protector, Venom) – that is, until Brock’s symbiote freed its human host. However, Venom left behind a fragment of his alien costume, which bonded with Kasady… creating the sinister menace known as Carnage!”

When the Spider-Man spin-off Venom had gotten too popular to suitably serve as a proper antagonist in the Spider-Man titles, it was decided that the spin-off needed a spin-off, and thus, we got Carnage.  He’s sort of the ur-example of the Marvel approach to new characters in the ‘90s, where they’d take a successful character concept and make it more violent, more edgy, and more extreme, and it’s further dialed up, because Venom was already kind of that to Spider-Man himself.  Carnage was Venom on steroids (which is funny, since he was always depicted as being much smaller and skinnier), and should absolutely not have worked in the long run, but…he did? Like, actually kind of worked within the larger universe, and has proven to have a life outside of the characters that spawned him.  It’s honestly a bit remarkable.  Two years after his 1992 comics debut, he got his first action figure, and I’m looking at that figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Carnage was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, in 1994.  The line was more directly based on the cartoon designs (unlike a lot of the other Toy Biz Marvel “tie-ins” which trended more towards comic based), but in the case of Carnage, that was sort of a moot point, as he hadn’t really had enough time to develop distinctly deviations in his appearance the way some of the others had.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is pretty much the Toy Biz standard at the time, though he does get a waist joint, which wasn’t always a guarantee.  Said waist joint is tied into his action feature, as is his right shoulder; turning the figure at the waist moves his arm up and down, in sort of a chopping motion.  Carnage’s sculpt was all-new, and would serve as the basis of a few figures to follow, as it was scaled up for the 10-inch line, repainted for the “Maximum Carnage” tie-in, and ultimately slightly re-tooled for the later unmasked Carnage mold.  It’s a good sculpt.  It’s got the basic set-up down well, with good proportions and all of the important details.  His far more fluid symbiote design is handled via sculpted details, which feature a lot of texturing and “movement”.  The paint aids in this, using a relief style of black accenting to bring out the most from the sculpted texturing.  It does a surprisingly good job at replicating Carnage’s distinctive visual design from the comics.  Carnage was prone to creating a lot more constructs out of his symbiote than Peter or Eddie, so this figure showcases that with three different clip-on pieces, with an axe, a claw, and a more generic goopy symbiote thing.  They clip on easily enough, and help further sell the Carnage look.  The only sort of downside to them is that they’re totally smooth, rather than replicating the texturing of the main figure.  There’s at least some paint work to help sell it, but it’s not quite the same.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I had a surprising number of Carnage figures in my collection, but I seemed to have just missed this one.  Given how many others I had, I never really put the effort into tracking this one down, since he seemed rather basic.  As is the case with a lot of other “never put the effort in to track it down” Toy Biz figures, I wound up getting this one mostly because a complete loose one landed in front of me at work a few years ago, and given he had all three of the attachments, I didn’t really feel like I could pass him up.  While he mostly serves as a precursor to the figures that followed and would slightly tweak the formula, I gotta say, as a first figure, he comes out of the gate swinging for the fences.  There’s not really much you could do better, and he’s just a solid all-around figure.

#4128: Venom

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

VENOM

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Eddie Brock, former newspaper reporter, has joined with an evil, alien symbiote, giving him spider-like powers greater than those of Spider-Man himself! Driven by a twisted sense of justice, Brock has become Venom, humanity’s Lethal Protector…and he’s decided that humanity needs protection from Spider-Man!”

For a character only introduced in 1988, by 1994, Venom had a surprising amount of action figure coverage.  Toy Biz had added him to their run right at the start, and really just kept adding him.  By the time they launched their dedicated Spider-Man: The Animated Series line, they’d already done four versions of him under the Marvel Super Heroes banner, but that didn’t stop them from putting him in the first Spider-Man line-up too.  I mean, really, can you blame them?  He was pretty popular, and also on the cartoon, so it’s hard to avoid such a thing.  Let’s look at that fifth Venom today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Venom was released in Series 1 of the Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, which hit retail in 1994, right in time for the show’s launch.  Like others in the early assortments, Venom was drawing more directly from the show’s design, rather than the comics.  The figure stands 5 1/8 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  He gets the standard movement on the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, but loses the neck articulation in order to accommodate his action feature.  Much like the Marvel Super Heroes figures, this Venom is about he same height as his corresponding Spider-Man, mostly just relying on bulk to differentiate them.  That would become a gradual shift towards more monstrous sizes as the line progressed, but at this point, he was downright diminutive.  His sculpt was all-new, and a departure from the earlier Venoms, which had leaned into the character’s “symbiote with a mouth” look from the early days.  This one more represents his turn towards beastlier depictions, with much more intensely shaped eyes, a wider spread mouth creeping well past his ears, longer teeth, visible gums, and a whole lot of veins.  Truly, he’s a Venom who probably thinks this song is about him.  This was the Venom sculpt that served as the basis for the 10-inch figure as well, though that one had a more conventional neck.  Apart from being perhaps a little bit on the small side, it’s a pretty good sculpt, and looks quite a bit like his animated counterpart.  Squeezing the figure’s legs together activates his action feature, which extends his head upward, while keeping the jaw in place, so it looks like he’s opening his mouth.  It’s only a small extension, so not super noticeable, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.  In terms of color work, he’s predominantly just molded black plastic, with accenting in white and red.  The paint work is generally fairly clean, with only some minor fuzz, notably around the top of his logo.  Venom didn’t include any accessories, not even one of those weird plastic pins.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I’ve noted before, I didn’t have any of the proper 5-inch Venom figures as a kid, though I did have on of the 10-inch figures that was based on this mold, so I kind of experienced it a bit.  This one’s actually one of my most recent additions, picked up over the summer while I was on vacation.  He’s generally a rather straight forward figure, as far as Venoms go.  A bit more involved than some of the earliest offerings, but certainly not as crazy as some of the later versions got to be.

#4124: Dr. Octopus

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

DR. OCTOPUS

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“A laboratory explosion grafted four tentacle-like mechanical arms to the body of renowned Radiology expert Dr. Otto Octavius, warping his mind, transforming him into the genius know as Dr. Octopus! Octopus can control his titanium steel tentacles with but a thought – – and his thoughts are often of smashing his arch-foe, Spider-Man!”

The ‘90s was a pretty solid decade when it came to super hero cartoons.  At the head of the pack was Batman: The Animated Series, which everything else was kind of trying to imitate, at least in some fashion.  Perhaps the oddest case of this was Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which featured a surprising number of shared actors with BTAS.  Batman’s faithful butler Alfred’s voice actor Ephram Zimbalist Jr was one of the crossover actors, also lending his voice to Dr. Octopus, who was also one of the tie-in toyline’s first figures to roll out.  Let’s check him out today! 

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dr. Octopus was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line.  As with the rest of the line’s early run figures, he’s based on his cartoon design (in contrast to a lot of the other Toy Biz 5-inch lines), itself based on Erik Larsen’s updated Doc Ock design from the comics around that time.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  He gets the standard set-up for the Toy Biz 5-inch figures in terms of movement, at least for the most part.  You can also get a little movement out of the tentacles, which can slightly turn at the base, but it’s sort of iffy and inconsistent.  The sculpt for this guy was all-new, though it would see re-use a few other times under Toy Biz, as well as serving as the inspiration for the smaller die cast figure and the 10-inch figure.  It’s based on his armored attire from the show, and it’s pretty good at that.  It’s certainly a more cut take on Otto than we usually see, but it was the ‘90s; everybody just looked like that.  I remember, I was there.  The hair’s not quite consistent with the show, which leaned into his Moe Howard cut; instead, it’s a little more contemporary.  All-in-all, not a bad sculpt, which captures the character pretty well.  The tentacles are a softer material, to allow for the action feature.  Pulling the (incredibly obvious and oddly shaped) tab on his back pulls the strings within the arms taut, so they sort of close inward.  It’s not a reliably good feature, but I guess it’s no worse for long-term livelihood than the usual bendy ones.  Doc Ock’s color work is pretty simple.  It matches the animation model, and its fairly clean on the application front.  It doesn’t do anything crazy, but it gets the job done.  Doc Ock included no accessories, rather common for the earlier figures in the line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have this figure as a kid.  I remember him, and I remember others having him, but I never had one of my own.  Honestly, I never much clicked with Doc Ock until Spider-Man 2, and didn’t have much interest in figures of him until around that time.  This is a more recent addition, relatively speaking, although it’s probably been five years or so since I snagged this one loose from a collection that got traded into work.  He’s kind of a basic sort of figure, and doesn’t quite get into the sorts of things that later Doc Ocks got into, but he does manage to be a decent all-around figure. 

#4120: Spider-Man – Web-Shooter

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

SPIDER-MAN — WEB-SHOOTER

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Not all of Spider-Man’s amazing powers came from the bite of a radioactive spider – some were created by Peter Parker himself. Case in point, his astonishing web shooters! Using his scientific know-how, Parker crated a device which, when filled with a secret formula of his own design, could duplicate the super-strong web of a spider!”

When Toy Biz started out with the Marvel license, they divided the characters into two sets, with one line dedicated to X-Men (which would also quickly spin-off into an X-Force dedicated line) and one covering…the rest.  Spider-Man was undoubtedly a major focus of Marvel Super Heroes, with multiple variants per series.  So, it wasn’t a shock that he was the first property outside of X-Men to get his own line, launched to coincide with his own animated series.  There were two Spidey variants in the line’s inaugural series, both dealing with his web-slinging powers, and today I’m taking a look at the Web-Shooter variant!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Man — Web-Shooter was released in the first series of the Spider-Man: The Animated Series line in 1994.  In contrast to the X-Men line, which was (mostly) a comics based line that happened to coincide with the show, the Spider-Man was a specifically cartoon-based line, with all of the official branding from the show, and Spider-Man figures clearly patterned on his show design.  Web-Shooter was pretty much the closest the first series got to just a standard Spidey.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Apart from lacking a right elbow joint due to the action feature, he’s got the basic set-up for the Toy Biz 5-inchers, plus a waist joint.  Not a bad set-up.  The figure’s sculpt is something I’ve actually sort of looked at before, because its two-up prototype served as the basis for the standard 10-inch Spidey.  It’s a good, solid, basic sculpt, which does most of what it needs to.  It’s perhaps a touch stiff for a Spidey, and the right arm is very limiting, especially given than the “web missile” is attached to a string and therefore cannot be removed.  There’s a reason so many of these show up loose with the string cut.  The color work on this figure is pretty standard for Spideys of the time, being an almost exact match for the Web Racer from the same series.  The early figures all utilized painted webs, and, honestly, I’ve come to prefer that over the years.  Otherwise, it’s bright and colorful, and just a good looking Spidey.  Since his “missile” was attached to him, Spidey’s only accessory was one of those plastic clips that mostly served as a way of padding the figures out for the appearance of value.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have either of the Series 1 Spider-Men as a kid, and both are much later, “hey it’s in front of me” sort of purchases, rather than actually actively wanting him…which is probably why this is one of those Toy Biz figures that I accidentally bought twice without even realizing it.  Whoops!  Well, I have him, and that’s the point.  He’s basic and a little limited by his action feature, but he’s certainly not bad.  Since we’d had so many Spider-Men from Toy Biz already at this point, experimenting a bit on these first two always felt like an okay choice.