Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#2416: 1996 Wolverines

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

WOLVERINE — LIGHT-UP, PATCH, SAVAGE LAND, & BATTLE ARMOR

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

As we reach the middle of this crazy Day of the Wolverines event, I’m doing a bit of a time jump.  We last left off in 1993, just as the X-Men line was taking off.  The Wolverine craze was, admittedly, at a minimum.  I’ve already covered 1994’s Wolverines, and by 1995 I had gotten into collecting myself, meaning I bought those Wolverines when they were still new.  So, we pick things up in 1996, when the X-Men line is starting to dip its toes into the world of weird.  Don’t worry, guys, this one stays mostly on the rails; it’s the next one you have to worry about.  Okay, into the fray once more!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

“Long before joining the X-Men, Wolverine was a well-trained mercenary.  One of the most important skills to him was stealth training.  Now when Wolverine needs to get somewhere secretly, he utilizes this background and his stealth equipment!  Donning these advanced stealth weapons and gear, Wolverine becomes a one-man covert operation.”

1996 was the year that the gimmicks really started to seep into the X-Men line, with the first one of note being the “Classic Light-Up Weapons” series.  Ah, yes, Light-Up weapons; what a classic.  While the general purpose of the assortment was to update some characters that hadn’t gotten figures since nearer the beginning of the line, Wolverine was also along for the ride, because, well, he’s Wolverine.  His standard figure for this release was, despite the “Classic” monicker, not a classic Wolverine, but instead a variant costume, which looks to be based on the stealth gear he wears in the Animated Series episode “Sanctuary Pt. 2.”  It’s not the worst thing to come out of the ’90s, and I guess it’s at least a fairly unique look.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall (even crouching, again showcasing the upward trend of height) and he has 7 points of articulation.  As with all of the Light-Up figures, Wolverine suffered a bit of a restriction on the articulation front thanks to the light-up gimmick, meaning his right arm’s not going to be doing much, and he loses out on elbow movement.  He doesn’t even get the ankle joints that Gambit, Psylocke, and Nightcrawler did to make up for it!  The sculpt on this one is…well, it’s an interesting one.  It’s an intense one, too.  They were definitely going for dynamic, especially as the line continued and…well, this guy is dynamic, I suppose.  There’s quite a bit of pre-posing going on, something we really hadn’t seen in this line before.  It’s not ideal.  Wolverine is also really bulked up and…I don’t wanna say “puffy”?  Again, not ideal, but fitting with the line’s ongoing efforts to make Wolverine larger and larger (that’ll hit critical mass in the next set of reviews).  The whole Light-Up assortment was treated to a set of re-paints, meaning we got this figure not only in his weird stealth colors, but also in a semblance of his regular color scheme as well.  Whichever version you got, he included a large light-up…thing, and two belts full of pouches.  Yay pouches!  No trading card here, I’m afraid.

“A hero whose adamantium-laced bones and razor-sharp claws make him the bane of his enemies, Wolverine is a hard guy to miss.  So when he finds himself on the island of Madripoor in need of a disguise, Wolverine takes on the identity of ‘Patch!’  Now secretly moving among the island’s inhabitants, Wolverine waits for the moment when he can finish his covert operation and return home to the X-Men!  With amazing mutant abilities and years of martial arts training, one thing is for sure–no matter what guise he’s in, Wolverine is always ready for action!”

Ah, yes, Wolverine’s “Patch” identity.  An oft-mocked concept that really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would come even remotely close to working as a real-world disguise, largely due to usual renditions of the design still keeping Wolverine’s signature hairstyle.  Let’s all marvel at Toy Biz managing to actually make a legit comics thing somewhat less stupid for adaptation into a toy.  It was…certainly a change of pace for this particular era of figures.  Wolverine Patch stands 4 1/4 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation.  That includes an articulated ponytail.  Did I say ponytail?  Yes, I certainly did, because Toy Biz actually gave Patch a different hairstyle than your usual Wolverine.  He’s got it pulled back, which actually makes him look like a different guy.  There’s an illustration on the back of the box which also shows this hairstyle, so it may be something that actually came from later Patch appearances, but my searching online didn’t bring any up, so I’m crediting Toy Biz with changing this one up.  Beyond this newly patch-ed and ponytail-ed head, Wolvie makes use of a slightly retooled body from the AoA Weapon X figure, which had been released earlier the same year.  Virtually every part of the body had been changed in some fashion, though, so it seems it was more to save on sculpting time, and less to save on costs. The figure’s got a armored thing that the package dubs his “Total Assault Arsenal,” which is supposed to be removable.  I don’t know if this is the case across the board, mine being the only copy I’ve opened, but on my figure the tab at the back of the belt had been glued shut, in fact even gluing a portion of the belt to the body.  It freed from the body easy enough, but it was no easy task getting the two ends of the belt to separate for removal.  That’s not ideal.  There were two color schemes available for this guy.  The one seen here, and one that swaps out the dark blue body suit and the red cables for black and purple, respectively.  He brings back the trading card as well, with this one being dedicated to showing off the broken claws of a post-adamantium-extraction Wolverine.

“During his time with the X-Men, Wolverine has visited many strange places, but none can compare with the Savage Land! A tropical rain forest located in the heart of Antartica, filled with prehistoric creatures long thought extinct, it is as unique as Wolverine himself.  But with his adamantium claws and heightened mutant abilities, Wolverine is a primal force to be reckoned with, even in a place where dinosaurs still roam.” 

Repaints were a fairly regular affair for the line by this point, be they as accents to a main assortment, or as an assortment outright themselves.  For ’96, the repaint series was titled “Flashback,” I guess as a reference to the re-used molds?  It certainly didn’t have much of anything to do with the figures contained within.  The assortment was 50/50 split on good use of a repaint and bad use of a repaint.  Fortunately, its Wolverine variant fell into the former category.  While the whole X-team would journey to the Savage Land the next year, Wolverine got in ahead of the game.  Savage Land Wolverine stands 4 3/4 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation.  He’s a repaint of the Fang Wolverine mold, which is one I actually haven’t looked at here on the site yet.  It’s one of my favorites, and quite frankly, it’s probably the best Wolverine sculpt the line produced.  It’s proportions aren’t nuts, and pre-posing is at a minimum.  Even its action feature, which makes use of a primitive form of butterfly joints, for sort of a claw slashing maneuver, is pretty decently handled.  The new paint does a respectable job of transforming the original costume’s details into a sort of a tribal affair, which makes for a fairly unique design, and distances it from the original figure quite nicely.  He’s packed with the same weapons tree and two blades as the Spy Wolverine figures, as well as the two additional blades from the initial Fang Wolverine release.  And again, there’s a trading card, this time of Juggernaut!

“Everyone knows that one Sentinel is no match for Wolverine’s adamantium claws…but what about five Sentinel’s? or ten?  That’s why Professor X and Forge developed a special battle armor for Wolverine!  Using highly advanced Shi’ar technology, the armor boosts Wolverine’s strength, and emits a focused energy that temporarily neutralizes the Sentinels’ power cells.”

Okay, so, a couple of things.  Firstly, I want it noted that I transferred the bio over directly from the back of the box, including that possessive “Senintel’s” that is meant to be a plural.  Secondly, though the bio talks all about this thing being anti-Sentinel armor, the descriptor on the front is “Anti-Magnetism Armor” which would lead you to believe that it would have something to do with Magneto.  Beast from this assortment *also* has Anti-Magnetism Armor, so I went to check if his bio was more properly oriented, only to discover that my figure came with the card back for Quicksilver.  I’d say it’s a safe bet that Wolverine’s “Anti-Magnetism” descriptor is yet another typo, especially given this is the infamous “Muntant Armor” series.  Let’s get away from the packaging and onto the figure.  This whole assortment was an excuse for Toy Biz to make use of the recently canceled fifth series of their Iron Man line, pumping them into the far more commercially viable X-Men as a string of goofy variants.  Wolverine made use of the planned Magnetic Armor (a little ironic, given the ultimate descriptor on this guy), sans the Iron Man head, and with the Space Wolverine head in its place.  It’s not a terrible construction, and certainly a much less forced set-up than the Beast figure from the same assortment.  It also ditches the more typical Wolverine color scheme for one that’s blue, red, and black.  It’s honestly kind of interesting that they didn’t go more on-brand with the colors, especially considering they already were tweaking them from the proposed Iron Man colors.  As a repurposed Iron Man, Wolverine’s got the same removable armor gimmick that most of that line did.  He also includes a trading card of Cable vs Nimrod, which is all holographic and stuff.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

By 1996, I was officially venturing into the realm of “I probably have too many Wolverines,” which is why I didn’t get most of these when they were new.  That’ll go double for the next entry.  I did get the standard Light-Up Wolvie new, though that was as a gift from my Nana, so I can hardly be blamed for that (he’s the only one form this set *not* from the All Time haul, but the variant did come from them).  What’s intriguing about this year’s line-up is how far away from potentially standard Wolverines we moved.  They’re all kinda specialized.  I think Savage Land is my favorite of this bunch, but that’s largely linked to him being a repaint of Fang Wolverine, who’s just a solid figure in his own right.  Light-Up is *not* a good figure, by pretty much any metrics.  I’ve got a little bit of a soft-spot for him, but I can recognize the many mistakes made there.  Armored Wolvie is a passable Iron Man figure, but really doesn’t feel like and X-Men figure, because he’s simply not one.  And Patch is…I mean, he’s just kind of there.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2415: Wolverine V – Part Deux

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

WOLVERINE V

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Before his transformation into the super hero called Wolverine, the man called Logan plied his trade as one of the world’s foremost secret agents!  His superhuman senses proved an invaluable asset in the realm of espionage, especially when enhanced by the most sophisticated sensing equipment money could buy!  And his unequaled skill with razor edged weapons made him an unbeatable fighter–much to the regret of the enemies of world peace!”

For the second part of my crazy Day of the Wolverines marathon run, I’m actually doing just a little bit of circling back, and taking a look at a figure I’ve kind of looked at before.  See, one of the things that Toy Biz experimented with a fair bit during their X-Men line was color variants.  They were a solid way of getting another sale or two out of the same mold, so there were a fair number of figures that wound up with one, or even two variant color schemes.  Sometimes there’d be a variant color scheme within the standard assortment, and then yet another as a retailer-exclusive, waiting just around the corner!  Such was the case with Wolverine V, Spy Wolverine!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spy Wolverine was part of Series 4 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, hitting shelves in 1993.  I’ve reviewed one of this figure before, back in 2014, and my general thoughts on its sculpt still pretty much stand.  I will say, that compared to the Weapon X figure from earlier, I’m a little surprised by the slight step back in quality on this figure, and honestly, on the Civilian Logan that hit the next year.  You almost have to wonder if there was some shuffling of figures in the line-up, or if maybe a few of the Wolverines were prepped at once.  Whatever the case, it’s a slight letdown, but certainly not a terrible sculpt in its own right.  I mean, who doesn’t want a bunch of snorkling Wolverines?  The difference between all of these figures is the paint.  For the main release, he came in either black and gold or blue and gold.  My initial review was of the blue, and the black is featured here. The KB Toys version swaps out the black/blue for an olive green, and the gold for bronze.  The general application across all of the figures is essentially the same, with even those darn goofy eyes appearing across the board.  For my figures, I found the KB version to be the cleanest.  All of the figures also included the same six knives, four still being on the tree behind him.  We also get more trading cards!  Black actually gets a Wolverine card (crazy, I know), but Olive gets Psylocke.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I picked up the blue guy back in 2014, I figured that would do me, and I wouldn’t need to worry about the variants.  However, when I came in to dig through this insane collection of Wolverines, I discovered that the only Spy Wolverine this guy didn’t have was the one I did.  It seemed almost criminal to not complete the set.  Right?  That’s a fair line of logic, right?  I’m not just making excuses for my habit, right?  The black version I don’t have much attachment to (aside from it feeling more chromatically correct based on the cartoon, I suppose), but I find myself really liking the olive Wolvie.  He just kinda works.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2414: Wolverines III & IV

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

WOLVERINES III & IV

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

The isolation…it’ll do crazy things to a man…things like give him grand, lofty, and possibly insane ideas.  What kind of ideas you ask?  Well, I may or may not have recently been getting a little bit nostalgic for my “Day of the Vipers” event I ran back in 2018.  You know, the day I was insane and wrote six separate reviews and published them all over the course of 24 hours.  Yes, I get nostalgic about the times that I put *way* too much work into this site.  I’m not well.  I thought to myself that it might even be nice to do such a thing again.  But, what could I possibly use for such a follow-up?  Clearly I didn’t have anything tailor-made for such a marathon of reviews…and then I had something kind of drop into my lap.  So, hey, let’s fully embrace my isolation-induced insanity for a bit.  Without further ado, I present the Day of the Wolverines.  Here they come, bub!  Let’s kick things off with a journey back to 1992.  Not a bad year if I do say so myself, and a solid year for X-Men.  Toy Biz’s line launched the year prior, and we got our second and third series over the course of ’92, which brought our Wolverine count up to a firm four.  I’ve already looked at Wolverine II, so let’s go ahead and round out that set with Wolverines III and IV.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

“When it comes to fighting Evil Mutants, the X-Men know there’s no one better than Wolverine!  With his razor-sharp adamantium claws, his lightning-quick reflexes and his unmatched combat experience, Wolverine can outfight anyone!  Thanks to his super-fast mutant healing ability, in just a few short hours he’s totally healthy and ready for action again, no matter how serious his wounds!”

Wolverine’s numerous costume changes in the early ’90s proved fortuitous for Toy Biz’s growing little X-Men line, allowing for three totally valid variants of the pint-sized hero right off the bat.  We’d gotten the brown costume and the Tiger-Stripe costume, so the only main look left was Logan’s strike team uniform, Jim Lee’s take on the old Kirby uniforms.  This figure, dubbed Wolverine III, was released in early 1992 as part of the Series 2 line-up, and then showed up again the same year in the Series 3 line-up as well (it’s believed he was the shortpack in both assortments, and this was Toy Biz’s way of getting him out in decent numbers).  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  Structurally, this figure’s pretty similar to Wolverine II, although it’s worth noting that the only part shared between them was the torso (well, that was *supposed* to be the only part, anyway.  A good number of this figure actually shipped with Wolverine II’s legs in place of his proper ones.  This variant is commonly referred to as “Wolverine 2.5”).  The head’s also pretty close to the head that was used later as an alt-head for Series 5’s Morph.  Stylistically, this guy fits right in with the rest of the Series 2/3 stuff, and it’s honestly not a bad mold, all things considered.  I don’t think it’s aged quite as well as the Tiger Stripe figure, but that could also be the slightly more dated costume design at play.  This guy keeps both of the action features of the Wolverine II figure, for better or for worse.  I’m still not entirely sure what the purpose of the thumb tab on the back of these figures was, but Toy Biz sure liked it.  The claws were an interesting idea, but one I’m glad Toy Biz ultimately moved away from.  His paint’s fairly standard of the time.  The overall application’s not bad, but there’s definitely some wobbly lines on the edges of the costume. Wolverine III, like Wolverine II, included a gun, because why not?  Also, a trading card of Widget, a character I have no familiarity with whatsoever.  So there’s that.

“A top-secret government project transformed the Mutant named Logan into the unbeatable warrior Weapon X.  He was given unbreakable adamantium claws and a battle simulation helmet which created imaginary battle screens that looked virtually real.  Using these unique training weapons, Weapon X sharpened his combat skills to perfection.  The ultimate secret agent, Weapon X later used his high-tech training to become the heroic X-Man Wolverine!”

Still relatively new at the time, Wolverine’s Weapon X get-up was a pretty popular look, and pretty divergent from his main look to boot.  It’s use for Wolverine IV was pretty sensible, I suppose.  The figure starts Logan’s crawl upwards in height, standing just shy of 5 inches tall, and he has 9 points of articulation.  His sculpt is all-new, and it feels almost out of place with the others in its series.  While the early X-Men figures all adhere to a simpler style, this guy honestly feels like he belongs a bit later in the line.  The proportions are a little more buffed up (though not to crazy levels yet), and the detail work on the sculpt is actually quite sharp.  He’d end up getting the style of claws that most of the later line versions of Wolverine got, as well, resulting in a figure that just feels more advanced than his compatriots.  He’s definitely the most technically impressive of the Series 3 line-up, and one of the most impressive of the early line figures as a whole.  His paint’s pretty decent as well, with all of the basics covered, plus proper detailing for the cables and such.  This one’s the standard release, but KB also had an exclusive repaint, which had red cables and grey shorts.  Weapon X included his helmet and harness, which are a little bulky and loose fitting, but certainly not bad additions to the figure.  This marks the first time that the line didn’t stick Wolverine with an extra weapon of some sort.  He also got a Rogue trading card.  I do know her, so we’re doing alright there.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, this pair is interesting, because they’re both figures I sort of owned growing up.  Why “sort of”?  Well, my Wolverine III was actually the 2.5 figure, which KB had a lot of back in the day.  I tried painting him in the proper colors, but never got it right.  Weapon X I only had the core figure to, as he accompanied a loose Professor X my dad bought from eBay.  But, as you can see, I have the proper full versions of both now.  See, I got a call from Jason at All Time a little while back asking if there were any Toy Biz Wolverines I needed.  I said there were a number and he said “great, I just got pretty much all of them.  Swing by the store and you can dig through them.”  So…there’s your preview of what the rest of the day holds, I suppose.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2407: Spider-Man – Spider-Sense

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

SPIDER-MAN — SPIDER-SENSE

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

“Perched on a ledge high above the city, Spider-Man’s ‘6th sense’ begins to tingle – providing a split second warning that imminent danger looms behind him. Back-flipping with a speed and precision well beyond an Olympic athlete, Spider-Man turns to see the ledge blasted into airborne shrapnel thanks to the Scorpion’s thrashing tail! For on the day Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, his life was changed forever. And although he gained super-human strength, amazing agility, and enhanced reflexes – it’s his uncanny spider-sense which alerts Spider-Man to the dangers of his adversaries – and benefits him the most!”

Early in its run, Toy Biz’s 5-inch Spider-Man line actually tried to have some valid variants of its main character.  They weren’t always perfect, and sometimes there were some definite reaches to justify a whole new figure, but they gave it their best shot.  In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, there was this animation gimmick they had every time his spider-sense went off, where he’d get this drastically different, rave-esque color scheme for a few moments.  It was different enough in Toy Biz’s eyes to milk a few figures out of it, the first of which is today’s offering.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Sense Spider-Man was released in Series 5 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line, which hit shelves very late in 1995.  He was one of three Spidey variants in the line-up, with the other two being battle-ravaged and six-armed.  The figure stands just under 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is kind of wonky, in that it doesn’t really match with any other figure Toy Biz produced, in this line or any other.  The arms move only at the shoulders, but the legs get all sorts of range at the hips and knees.  He seems to be built with a wall-crawling pose in mind, which makes sense with his built-in action feature, which sort of mimics this with his arms…or at least it did when mine still worked.  It was pretty easily worn out.  It’s a little odd that they didn’t put in a little motion on his neck, since its inability to move the head upwards kinda wrecks the credibility of most crawling poses, but there it is.  The sculpt follows the model of the earlier Spideys from this line, being quite sparse on the sculpted details, opting instead to paint most of them on.  In that respect, the paint’s pretty good.  It’s taken a bit of a beating on my figure, but it’s held up alright, and the color work matches the scheme seen on the cartoon pretty well.  It’s a somewhat unique look, and I can certainly get behind it.  This guy was packed with a web-line, web hook, and a collector’s pin, though none of them really did much for the figure.  But hey, extras are extras, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

For Easter when my cousin Rusty and I were four, our grand parents bought both of us one figure from this series.  If you’re thinking this is the one I got, you’re wrong.  My cousin got this guy, and I got Six-Armed Spidey.  I wasn’t happy with that decision as I recall (which seems a but silly to me now, because Six Arm is clearly the better option.  Silly child Ethan), and my parents ended up working out some sort of deal (I’m sure related to cleaning my room or something) in order to take me to the mall and get me this guy for myself.  He’s not bad, but I don’t know how exciting he is, honestly.  I really wanted him, though.

#2359: Captain Britain

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

CAPTAIN BRITAIN

MODERN AGE (TOY BIZ)

“As a research assistant at Darkmoor Research Centre, Brian Braddock was a typical physics student.  During a botched theft at the facility, Brian was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident he suffered while trying to escape.  The legendary Merlin the Magician saved Brian’s life and bestowed upon him a mystical suit that gives him superhuman powers, transforming him into Captain Britain.  While the suit Captain Britain wears gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly and erect mystical force shields, he is powerless without it.  As Britain’s honorary protector, keeping the UK safe from peril, Captain Britain is a formidable opponent for any foe.”

At the beginning of their lengthy run with the Marvel license, Toy Biz initially focussed on the Marvel Universe as a whole, before splitting things up into several different lines, most of which were themed around one of the handful of Marvel cartoons which launched during the ’90s.  By the end of the decade, those cartoons were all pretty much wrapped up, but there was still a fair bit of steam in the 5-inch locomotive, so they did several single-assortment series, each with its own theme.  In 1999, they paired two off, a Silver Age and a Modern Age line, covering Marvel’s history through a mix a bigger name and minor characters.  On the more minor side, it was through these assortments that Captain Britain got his first action figure, which I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain Britain was among the four figures in the Modern Age line.  As the only character created post-1975, he was probably the best representation of the assortment’s purpose, especially since he was wearing an ’80s era costume.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Captain Britain was built on the body that began its life as Archangel II, a favorite of Toy Biz’s.  By this point, it had gotten some minor retooling to change-up the posing on the hands and to remove the remains of the wing-flapping mechanism from that figure, meaning he actually looks a bit better than most of the others who used this body.  The head is also re-used, coming from the Iron Man line’s Blacklash figure, though as with the Guardian figure that also used this head, the ponytail has been removed.  While internally its a nice enough assortment of parts, compared to the rest of Toy Biz’s stuff, it did make poor Brian rather small when compared to his comic book incarnation.  This wouldn’t be the last time Toy Biz would make a diminutive Captain Britain, either.  Did no one check the style guide for his height?  His paintwork was really cool…when he was new anyway.  On my figure, it really didn’t hold up to time, and definitely shows a lot more wear and tear than my other figures from the same era.  I have to wonder if it was something to do with the slightly metallic finish?  It certainly looked really nice when he came out of the package.  He’s done up in his Alan Davis-designed costume, which is his best one, really, and certainly the most lasting design.  Like others that use this mold, the details of the costume don’t quite match up to what’s sculpted, but it’s minor here.  Captain Britain was packed with an energy staff (recolored from Gambit) and Lockheed (repacked from Magik), but my figure has neither at this juncture.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got this figure when it was relatively new via a trip to the KB Toys outlet that was near the spot where my family vacationed.  I didn’t know a ton about the character, but I sure thought this figure looked cool.  At the time, I also got an animated Superman, so I recall the two of them facing off a lot during that trip.  Small stature and slightly ratty hold-up of the paint do drag him down a bit, but even in his current state I do really like him and I still have those fond memories!

#2345: Goliath

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

GOLIATH (w/ ANT-MAN & WASP)

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Hank Pym started small. After shrinking his way to worldwide renown as the super-heroic Ant-Man, founding member of the mighty Avengers, he ascended to even greater glory in the guise of Giant-Man. Now, as Goliath, he continues to prove that size matters: His greatest asset is his big brain and knack for invention! Due to years of exposure to the size-altering properties of Pym Particles, Goliath can increase in stature at will and to a maximum height of 100 feet of shrink to the size of an ant. He grows by drawing additional mass froman extra-dimensional source, to which it returns when he reverts to normal. Goliath can shrink an entire laboratory or an array of firearms to the size of a microchip when not in use. The various compartments of his uniform straps contain a wide variety of miniaturized equipment.”

Toy Biz’s run on Marvel Legends was full of a lot of rather frustrating choices on their part, all in the name of trying to foster some sort of after market value for their figures.  It was…well, it wasn’t the best time to be a collector, but it was a really good time for scalpers.  Yay?  One of their ideas was chase figures, figures that were not advertised on the back of the package and were shipped in very low numbers, and were just short of including a note on the front that said “scalp me.”  The concept only ended up lasting for two assortments, Series 4 and Series 5.  I’ve looked at Red Skull, the chase for Series 5, but now I’m looking at the figure that officially launched it, Goliath!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted in the intro, Goliath was the chase figure for Series 4 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, and was subsequently the one figure in the assortment not listed on the back of the packaging.  He’s officially supposed to be based on Hank’s first Goliath costume, but, well, there’s some caveats to that, which I’ll touch on in a bit. The figure stands 8 1/4 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  That’s a pretty low count for a Legends release, and there’s a good reason for that: he’s not a Legends sculpt.  Instead, he was a wholesale repaint of the Giant-Man figure from their classic Avengers boxed set from the ’90s.  Now, you may recall from my (astoundingly short) review of that figure, that I was pretty fond of the sculpt.  It’s honestly one of he nicest sculpts to come out of their 5-inch days.  That being said, it didn’t really fit all that well stylistically with the Legends Toy Biz was putting out at this time.  I mean, he’ll look okay with the Iron Man and Cap, but beyond that he’s gonna be out of place.  Additionally, the sculpted details of the costume are pretty specific to Giant-Man’s costume, but those don’t line-up with the Goliath costume they opted to go for.  He shouldn’t have the antenna or the circle, and he should have goggles, and a completely different belt.  We wound up getting a couple of more accurate renditions of this costume once Hasbro took over, but for this one, Toy Biz was clearly wanting a cheap extra figure to produce and went with the “close enough” philosophy.  The paint work kind of rolls with the differences of the sculpt, and pretty much makes no attempt to hide them, because, honestly, it’s not like there’s much that can be done.  It’s a pretty nifty color scheme, and I certainly dig the metallic blue used on the body suit.  In order to distract a bit from the re-used mold and the lack of a base sculpt, Goliath was packed with repaints of the Ant-Man and Wasp figures from the same boxed set as Giant-Man.  They work a little better with the Legends aesthetic, though they’re not super-poseable or anything.  The new coat of paint does look nice, though.

 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Despite the somewhat lazy creation, I always wanted this guy when he was new.  Perhaps because I was giving into the very forces that Toy Biz was counting on, or perhaps because I just always liked this Goliath costume.  Whatever the case, I didn’t get one, because the after market for him was stupid expensive for a good long while.  Then the people paying the stupid money for him actually took a closer looked at him, realized how lazy a creation he was, and two much better versions of the costume were released, and now this guy can be had for a much more reasonable sum.  He ended up traded into All Time about a year and a half ago, allowing me to finally add him to my collection.  He’s not anything to write home about, but I can love him for what he is.

#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.

#2254: Beast

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

BEAST

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Blue-furred and boisterous, the Beast’s monstrous exterior conceals the fact that he possesses the mind of an articulate, well-read genius! Ever ready to answer the call should either man or mutant be in peril, the Beast employs both his dexterous digits and his scientific skills as a member of the X-Men.”

The ’90s X-Men line-up was a pretty sizeable, even just going by the cartoon’s more paired down version of the cast, which for a burgeoning toy line can be a slightly daunting prospect.  It took several assortments to make their way through the main cast.  Founding member Beast was a later addition, though certainly not the latest.  I’m taking a look at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Beast was released in Series 6 of the Toy Biz X-Men line.  Aside from the cartoon-creation Morph, he was the only X-Man proper in the line-up.  The same figure would subsequently be re-issued as part of the “Classics” line-up which put out all of the main cartoon cast in one assortment, and then again as part of the Marvel Universe line.  The three figures are essentially identical, and it’s worth noting that my figure comes from the “Classics” release.  This figure’s sculpt would also serve as the inspiration for both the 10-inch and Steel Mutants figures.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation…in theory.  In reality, it’s more like 7, because his action feature makes the joints at the knees and ankles effectively useless.  Said action feature is dubbed “Mutant Flipping Power” and means that there are springs in his knee and ankle joints, which are supposed to allow him to flip.  In my experience, it was never a very reliable feature and just made it rather hard to keep the figure standing.  Tied into the feature was this weird switch thing on the figure’s back, for which I’ve never figured out the purpose.  His sculpt definitely follows that early ’90s look for the character, at his most bulked up and monstrous.  Nevertheless, he’s still got that sophisticated Henry McCoy expression on his face, as if he’s contemplating the moral quandaries of his current heroic endeavor.  The rest of the sculpt is surprisingly smooth for such a hairy guy, especially when compared to other, similarly textured characters from this and surrounding series.  I can only guess they were going for more of a stylistic thing on Hank.  The figure’s pretty light on the paint front, with most of him being just molded in a light blue.  There’s a bit of paint for his shorts and belt, as well as his eyes and teeth.  For whatever reason, his eyes are solid yellow; he’s gone back and forth between having pupils and pure white eyes, but the yellow’s more of a Nightcrawler thing usually. Beast was packed with a suction cup-sporting bar to hang from, which was cool enough, though the suction cup long ago fell off of mine.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I don’t actually recall much about getting this figure.  I think he was one of those “my Dad got one and then I also wanted one” figures.  I certainly would have wanted him for the purposes of filling out my X-Men line-up.  He’s an okay figure.  The action feature gets in the way here more than on most Toy Biz figures, which can be annoying, but his sculpt’s fairly decent, and he definitely fit with that toon aesthetic.

#2240: Wolverine – Street Clothes

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

WOLVERINE — STREET CLOTHES

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

“Outside of the X-Men, Wolverine often escapes form the pressure of being a super hero by slipping into his secret identity, Logan. Unfortunately, trouble always seems to find Wolverine even when he’s out of costume! Still, uniform or not, with his six adamantium claws and one bad attitude, Wolverine has a way of taking care of just about any problem which comes his way!”

Two years into Toy Biz’s X-Men line, getting a new Wolverine was practically a clockwork affair.  Marvel made Toy Biz’s job fairly easy at first, since he had a whole assortment of reasonable costume changes to take advantage of.  By Series 6, they were definitely running thin on valid variants, though (hence that assortment’s Wolverine technically not being a Wolverine).  Fortunately, they did still manage to squeeze out a few more sensible variants before descending into completely made-up nonsense.  Today’s figure is one of those “sensible variants,” depicting Logan in civilian attire, as he was frequently seen in the comics.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Street Clothes Wolverine was released in Series 7 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, and was proudly marked as the “7th Edition” of Wolverine.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  He misses out on the usual elbow articulation due to his action feature, which I’ll touch on in just a moment.  Wolverine’s sculpt was all-new to him and would remain unique, never being used for any other figures.  And that’s really the best thing to be said about it, that it was never used again, because boy is it not one of Toy Biz’s stronger offerings.  By this point in the line, Toy Biz was actually starting to get the hang of that whole sculpting thing, so the fact that this Wolverine ends up so rudimentary and backwards is a little bit of a surprise.  This guy was in the same assortment as Ch’od!  That sculpt was awesome and fairly naturally posed.  This one?  Well, natural certainly doesn’t describe how he looks.  Let’s start with the head.  Of all the unmasked Wolverines that Toy Biz produced, this one’s got to be one of the least intimidating takes they presented.  He just ends up looking a little lost and bemused.  He’s also got those dopey looking super straight arms.  The illustration on the back of the box shows the arms having a slight bend to them, but there’s nothing of the sort on the final product, which makes the whole upper torso feel rather stiff.  The arms are of course like this thanks to the claw-popping feature.  We had last seen in on Wolverine I, where it honestly worked a fair bit better.  This just really didn’t hold to it.  Even the detailing on this figure seems rather soft compared to others in the same set, with most of the figure being very smooth and without texture.  Comparing the jacket on this figure to the one on the Rogue from the same assortment is like night and day.  Hers looks sleek and sharp and cool; his just looks puffy.  His paint work is alright, I guess.  Nothing amazing, but they did manage to keep his usual colors in the mix, and he doesn’t look any more awful than the sculpt already has him looking.  Street Clothes Wolverine included no accessories.  What, not even a goofy, out of place gun?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As a kid, I didn’t have this figure, but my cousin did.  It wasn’t one of my favorites.  Or one of his favorites.  Or one of anyone’s favorites, I’d wager.  Mine was fished out of a bin of loose figures a few years ago, alongside some other X-Men figures.  He’s not great.  That’s about the most I can muster.  Like, he’s not actively bad, so I can’t really say I hate him, but boy is he just uninspiring.

#2234: Bullseye

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

BULLSEYE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A former soldier with perfect aim, Bullseye never misses his mark. From the early days of his career as a costumed criminal, the ruthless assassin has set his sights most often on a single target – Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Any object – be it pencil, playing card or paper clip – becomes a deadly weapon in the skilled hands of the man who could be the world’s greatest assassin!”

Daredevil has a wonky history with villains.  His most prominent foe, the Kingpin, wasn’t even his villain to start with.  On the flipside, a lot of foes originally introduced in his book would end up getting grabbed by other heroes in the Marvel universe.  He just doesn’t get true claim to anything!  Well, he actually does get full claim to today’s entry, Bullseye, who first appeared in Daredevil’s book in ’76, and has remained attached to the character ever since.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bullseye was released in the 9th Series of Marvel Legends from Toy Biz, a series notable for being the first ever Build-A-Figure centered series of Legends.  Bullseye was one of the two figures in the line-up to get a variant release as well.  The standard release was sporting a pouty closed mouth look, while his variant had a mad grin.  It was…an odd choice, especially given the more drastically different variant from the same series.  The figure stands just over 6 inches tall and he has 48 points of articulation.  That’s a very high count of articulation, and includes individually articulated fingers.  Toy Biz was definitely articulation mad at this point.  Bullseye was the first figure to use his mold, but he would be far from the last; Toy Biz quickly retooled it into a base body, and it was still in use by Hasbro as late as 2015’s Allfather Series Iron Fist. A decade of use isn’t a bad run.  While it wound up looking rather dated by the end of its run, it was one of Toy Biz’s stronger sculpts…at least the base body, anyway.  The Bullseye-specific parts were a little more of a mixed bag.  The boots and gloves are pretty solid sculpts, but the head on both versions of the figure ended up being too large to properly scale with the rest of the body.  The prototype shots looked fine, so it was clearly some sort of error that cropped up during production.  It’s a shame, because he ends up looking a little goofier than intended because of it.  The two versions of Bullseye had divergent paint schemes, which both had their pluses and minuses.  The standard is a more strict white and black scheme, with just a little bit of accenting to make some parts pop.  However, they slightly messed up the gloves, Leaving the top stripe black instead of white, despite how it’s sculpted.  The variant fixed this issue, but swap out the white and black for a light grey and a gunmetal grey, which, while not a *terrible* look, isn’t nearly as striking as the standard scheme.  Unfortunately, due to the size of the included BaF parts for this line-up, the individual figures went without any figure-specific extras.  He included the left leg of Galactus, as well as a reprinted copy of Daredevil #132, Bullseye’s first appearance.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Both versions of Bullseye were a little tricky to get at first.  I got the standard first, courtesy of finding an untouched case of figures at the local KB Toys.  I was all content to just have that version, but in a bit of luck a few months later happened to find a whole pile of both Series 9 variants hidden at my nearby Walmart.  I like both figures for different reasons, but