Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#1242: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

X-MEN: CLASSICS (TOY BIZ)

I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks searching for the latest Marvel Legends Cyclops figure, with no luck so far (he’s the only one who illudes me.…).  Fortunately for me, I have an extensive backlog of figures I can pull from, allowing me to review a Cyclops just about any time I want to.  Heck, I can even review one that’s wearing the same costume!  In the same scale!  Isn’t that nifty?  I sure think it is!  So, without further ado, here’s a Cyclops figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops hails from the first (and sadly only) series of Toy Biz’s X-Men: Classics line.  Since they had launched Marvel Legends, Toy Biz had been using Spider-Man: Classics to release Spider-related characters in the same style, thereby clearing the way for Legends to release more obscure characters from elsewhere.  In 2004, they launched both X-Men: Classics and Hulk: Classics, in an attempt to do the same with those groups of characters.  Somehow, the X-Men got the short straw, and their line only lasted a single series before the team was rolled back into Marvel Legends (the line didn’t even last long enough for them to actually exit Legends, of course).  On the plus side of things, the line did manage to give us our first version of the X-Men’s stalwart field leader, Cyclops!  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and he has 37 points of articulation.  Due to a light up feature, his neck movement is restricted to just a cut joint, and even then, it can only go so far in each direction.  It’s better than no movement at all, but frustrating that that this guy is hampered by the same issue that the 5-inch figures had finally moved past.  Cyclops had an all-new sculpt, based on his Jim Lee-era design.  Though every piece here is new, I’ve always thought he looked rather similar to the Legends Gambit in terms of aesthetics.  I have to wonder if they had a common starting point.  The sculpt is a bit of a mixed bag if I’m honest.  The head is definitely the strongest bit; it’s probably the best Cyclops sculpt that Toy Biz ever produced, and just encapsulates the character very well.  I wish the body lived up to it.  It’s not awful, but it’s very scrawny.  Sure, Scott’s long had the nickname “Slim,” but this seems a bit excessive.  It also doesn’t help that it’s the Jim Lee design, and Lee always depicted Scott as pretty solid.  The figure suffers from some rather obvious articulation as well (a common issue with TB figures of this era), which only makes the lankiness look worse.  The actual details of the costume are actually pretty nice, and the work on the boots in particular is really top-notch, so that’s a plus.    The paintwork on Scott is okay overall.  The work is mostly pretty clean, and there’s some pretty good accent work.  There’s the usual slight inconsistencies of accenting from piece to piece of the figure, and the head seemed particularly prone to chipping, but other than that it seems fine.  I think my biggest gripe is the shade of blue they used; it just seems too muted for Cyclops.  While Legends was all about the collector driven extras, the Classics lines went a little more toy-etic.  Cyclops included a stand that I believe is meant to replicate a portion of the Danger Room.  There’s a cannon hooked up to one side, and Scott can be hooked up to the pole on the other side.  There’s a box at the top of the pole with a plug that goes into Scott’s back, and a lever at the base of the stand.  When the lever is pulled, Scott spins 90 degrees and his eyes light up, and then the cannon “explodes” via a spring-loaded feature, simulating him hitting it with his optic blast.  It’s quite gimmicky, and never worked particularly well on my figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I first saw this figure, it was as part of Raving Toy Maniac’s coverage of one of the Toy Fairs.  He was there alongside Series 5 and 6 of the main Legends line, with no info as to where he would be showing up.  Eventually we found out.  Of course, 2004 was kind of when Legends was at its worst in terms of scarcity and scalpers, so I never actually saw this guy at retail.  That summer my family took a trip to the large KB Toys warehouse store located in Dover, which I had been to once before, and which housed a huge selection of figures going back almost a decade .  When we arrived at the store, it was cleared out and closed, which was more than a little bit of a bummer.  Feeling bad for me, my Dad tracked this guy down from an online vendor, and bought him for me (he likes to buy me Cyclops figures when I’m down.  It’s a thing).  He paid a whopping $15 with shipping, which is kind of laughable these days.  This figure’s not perfect, but he was one of my favorites for a good long while, and I still think of him quite fondly.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0007: Savage Land Angel

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

Another Friday, another Flashback Friday Figure Addendum!  This one’s another look back at Toy Biz’s epic line of 5-inch Marvel figures, with Savage Land Angel!

The 90s X-Men line!  Now there was a line.  I haven’t really looked at this line yet on the site, aside from the Original Members Boxed Set, which wasn’t actually part of the line.  But in the 90s, the X-Men were the big thing.  They had a TV show, their comics sold millions, and they had one of the most comprehensive toy lines to date.  There was a Cho’d action figure for God’s sake!  Towards the end of the line, they began to run out of new characters to release, so they started doing these theme waves with rereleases of the main characters.  One of those theme waves was a set of figures based on the X-Men’s many trips to the Savage Land.  It featured figures of the X-Men in tattered “Savage Land” uniforms.  Today, I’ll be looking at the Angel figure from that line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

So, as I said above, Angel here hails from the Savage Land series of Toy Biz’s 5-inch X-Men line.  He stands roughly 5 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation.  If you read the review of the Fallen, you’ve seen a lot of this figure before.   He shares all but his head, arms and feet with that figure.  The head was actually one that saw frequent reuse over at Toy Biz, and I know this wasn’t the first figure to use it, but I honestly don’t know what was.   Anyway, it works fine here, though it might be a bit scowly for a pre-Archangel Warren Worthington.  The figure’s look is mostly done through paint, which depicts a tattered version of Angel’s blue and white costume from the silver age*.   It’s cool to see this costume here, but a bit disappointing that the costume never got a proper release.  Angel at one point featured a pair of (very small) wings, a gray vest with an X-logo, and some weird claw thing that attached to his wrist, but I lost most of those pieces many years ago.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got this figure on one of my many trips the KB Toys outlet in Rehoboth Beach.  I was very excited to get it because Angel figures were a bit of a rarity in the 90s.  I know I really liked this guy, and for reasons I can’t fathom at this point, I know he spent a lot of time in my Ghostbusters Ecto-1.

Well, that’s not an awful review.  Still a bit shorter than the average review nowadays, but not horribly so.  I actually listed off all of the relevant information for the figure, and even referenced re-used parts and everything (though, rather amusingly, the Fallen pieces I referenced weren’t even discussed in my The Fallen review).

When I last reviewed this figure, he was missing both of his wings and the little wrist claw, both of which were returned to him during The Find.  The wings are rather on the small side, but detailed nicely enough.  I’m not really even sure what the claw supposed to be, but there it is.  Still missing is the grey cloth vest.  Also, I didn’t mention this previously, but each figure in the Savage Land series included a creature figure of some sort.  Angel included a small Sauron figure, which I still haven’t found.  Maybe he’ll turn up one of these days and I can write a *second* addendum.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0006: Ultron

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

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Alright, it’s time for another Flashback Friday Figure Addendum!  Today’s figure is another Toy Biz Marvel entry, though this one’s from a bit later in the reviews.  Let’s have a second look at Avengers: United They Stand’s Ultron!

Ah, yes, Avengers: United They Stand.  Poor A:UTS. it gets a lot of hate and I’m not certain it deserves it.  Perhaps it wasn’t the greatest depiction of the Avengers to grace the small screen(That honor goes to the more recent Earth’s Mightiest Heroes), but I didn’t think it was all that bad.  The designs and animation may be late 90s over complication at its finest, but I thought the characterization was actually nicely done, and I loved the fact that the focus was on the slightly lesser known Avengers instead of Cap, Iron Man, and Thor.  One of my other favorite things was the tie-in toyline, which is what I’ll look at today.  In particular, the toy counterpart of the shows recurring antagonist: Ultron!  This isn’t the first time Ultron’s been mentioned on this blog.  I previously mentioned him in passing in my Vision review, where I mentioned Ultron was the creator of Vision.  Ultron himself was the creation of Avengers founding member Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man, aka Giant-Man, aka Goliath, aka Yellow Jacket, aka Wasp, aka Dude with serious identity issues!  Ultron rebelled on his creator and became a powerful Avengers foe.  He’s also set to be the villain in the upcoming Avengers sequel.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultron was released as part of the first wave of Toy Biz’s Avengers:United They Stand tie-in line.  Ultron had several different looks over the course of the show, but this one seems to be a bit of an amalgam of the various looks, with the largest portion of influence coming from his appearance in the show’s first two episodes.   He stands just over 5 inches tall, and features 11 points of articulation (13 if you count the moving knee-pads).  Ultron is a completely new sculpt.  It’s well done, and quite detailed, especially for its time of release.  In particular, the head really captures the look of the character.  The paint is pretty well done, being mostly all one color; a nice bluish silver.  There’s a wash over the whole figure to help bring out the details.  The figure also features a light-up feature.  By pressing the button on Ultron’s waist, you could make the figure’s eyes and mouth light up.  It’s a neat feature that helps to further simulate the look of the character from the show and comics.  At one point, Ultron had a large cannon that hooked onto his right arm, but I’ve since lost that piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My dad bought Ultron for me when he was initially released.  We happened to stop at a Toys R Us and there he was.  He was one of the last figures I acquired from the line.  It wasn’t because I didn’t want one, but because the A:UTS figures were quite difficult to find initially, so I kind of got them when I saw them.  Growing up, he was the closest thing I had to a classic Ultron.  Because of that, I have quite the soft spot for him.

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere!  This review is from my second month writing reviews, and you can start to see some of the regular review features coming into play.  Height, articulation and paint are all actually addressed this time.  And I even made it past 500 words!  Granted, most of it was the intro, but still.  Also, this is my first Flashback to a post-random review period. Cool.  Cool cool cool.

My actual review was pretty on point for this guy.  The only thing missing was his big ol’ arm cannon, which was amongst the many items excavated during The Find.  It’s goofy, but also manages to match pretty well with the rest of the figure stylistically, and, amazingly, it doesn’t impede his movement when attached (of course, the shoulder’s still a bit restricted thanks to the wiring that allows it to light up).  Also, I neglected to mention in my original review that Ultra’s sculpt, was an early product of the fine folks at Art Asylum, who would later launch one of the best Trek lines ever put into plastic, as well as creating my favorite brand of all time, Minimates.

I’ve actually got a story about this one! As a kid, I lost this figure around Christmas time and couldn’t locate him for a whole year.  Come the next Christmas, I put on my robe I wore one a year on Christmas morning and found this guy in the pocket.  Seems I’d stowed him there for safekeeping the prior year and total forgotten.  To date, this figure remains my favorite figure of Ultron, so I’m happy he wasn’t missing for too long!

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0005: Terrax

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

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It’s Friday again, and you guys know what that means: another Flashback Friday Figure addendum!  This week, I’m moving away from the Batman Forever stuff, and jumping over to one of my earlier Toy Biz Marvel reviews, Terrax!

Today’s review is another Fantastic Four figure, this is the last of the wave one reviews: Terrax.  There was one other figure in the first wave, Benjamin J Grimm, aka the Thing, but I didn’t have that version.  I had the later wave 3 version.  And can I just address the fact that I’m reviewing Terrax, but I’ve yet to get to the Human Torch and the Invisible Woman? You know the other HALF of the title team!  How exactly did TERRAX get himself a spot in the line before two of the title characters?  He’s really not that great a character, nor has he ever really been all that important…ever.  Anyway…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

So like I said before, this is Terrax, the second herald of Galactus, part of the first wave of Toybiz’s FF line.  He’s depicted here in Terrax’s only look ever, which must have made the costume choice pretty easy for the guys at Toybiz.  At one point in time, Terrax had a rock stand and his trusty axe (which tears through stuff.  Clever name….).  Mine doesn’t have these items any more.  The figure’s actually a very good depiction of Terrax, which is nice because he’s not one of those characters who gets many chances at having an action figure made.  His hands are interesting, because they’re both molded to hold his axe, but due to their vertical placement and his limited articulation, he can only hold it in one hand at a time.  This leaves the other hand with this thumbs up position.  What is this guy, the Fonz? (AAAAAAAAY!)  Actually, that might make his character a bit more interesting.  You heard it here first Marvel! (Do they even realize that this character exists?)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Terrax was another of the gift figures.  It’s fine because he’s a great, big, bad guy for your heroes to fight.  That was always good enough for me!

Okay, by this point I was starting to get into the swing of things.  Over 300 words and an actual intro.  Still doesn’t quite follow my modern structuring, but not terrible at all.  And of course, I was still doing full series reviews at this point, which is rather different than how I do things now.

Terrax is a little over 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Missing from my original review were his rock stand, removable skirt piece and his axe.  Of those pieces, the only one I found during The Find was his axe, but that’s okay, since the axe is definitely the most important piece!

Not a whole lot of extra thoughts on this guy, I gotta say.  That’s all for cosmic Fonzie here.

#1215: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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

THE FIGURE ITSELF

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

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

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

#1213: Falcon

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

FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

falconml1

I’ve been a Falcon fan for quite some time, and while that’s really easy nowadays when you can walk into just about any store and have your pick of *multiple* Sam Wilson figures, that was hardly the case a decade ago.  That being said, even as a minor character, Sam’s actually been pretty lucky when it comes to action figures, finding his way into the relatively compressed line-ups of Mego’s World’s Greatest Superheroes and Mattel’s Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, as well as getting five different figures during Toy Biz’s tenure with the Marvel license.  Today, I’ll be looking at Toy Biz’s last stab at the character, courtesy of Marvel Legends!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

falconml2Falcon was released in Series 14 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, which was their penultimate series for the line.  There were two versions of Falcon available: classic and modern.  The one seen here is the more common classic version, based on Falcon’s second costume.  The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 40 points of articulation.  Falcon was built on the body from the first ML Iron Fist, which is an interesting choice to say the least.  While the Iron Fist body looked great in the prototype stage, it suffered from some real issues on the final figure, and a lot of that was passed on to Falcon.  The biggest issue is the shoulders, which jut way too far out.  Also, the under the shoulder joint fails to go all the way into the torso, leaving his arms forever slightly out to the side.  He looks like his arms are connected to his torso by a weird tube thing.  In addition to the arms, the exposed portion of the torso looks more like a grill rack than an actual person’s pecs, which makes Falcon look rather frightening.  Beyond that?  I guess the rest of the sculpt is decent enough.  The body was a lot less gangly than a lot of the TB Legends so that’s good, and the legs are actually not badly done (well, apart from those crazy nonexistent muscles).  In addition to the Iron Fist pieces, Falcon got a new head, forearms, hands, and feet, as well as slightly tweaked upper arms and shins.  The head’s always been one of my favorites from this era of Legends; it just really seems to capture the character well, and just has a nice heroic quality about it in general.  The hands are probably some of the most convincing hands TB ever put on one of their Legends, but also serve to showcase just how stupid the finger articulation was most of the time; what good does that joint do the figure?  The forearms and biceps have the wings attached.  The segmentation of the design allows for much more natural posing than was exhibited in the MU Falcon, and the wings are quite nicely detailed, with each feather being carefully defined and textured.  In terms of paint, Falcon is about what you’d expect from a TB-era Legends figure; lots of washes and airbrushing that vernally looked much better on the prototype than on the mass produced figure.  For some reason, all of the joint pins have been done in bright red plastic.  In the case of the elbows and gloves, this means there’s paint somewhat sloppily thrown over them to cover this up, but for the discs in the shoulders and the neck, this means a bright red stripe running across his skin.  Also, this figure seems to be exhibiting an issue similar to the Young Avengers Patriot figure where the pieces molded in white are slowly soaking up the color from the much darker joint pins, which is a slightly disturbing thing to see.  Both versions of Falcon were also plagued by a mix-up in the assemble process, causing the paint on the pelvises to actually correspond with the other version of the figure.  Amusingly, a similar issue showed up on the prototypes, only it was the forearms/hands that were mixed up that time.  Falcon included his trusty bird sidekick Redwing, who can be plugged into Sam’s back, as well as the lower torso of Series 14’s BaF Mojo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Series 14 is one of the few series of Legends where I wanted every figure in the line-up, and Falcon here was no exception.  While I actually got most of this particular series for Christmas the year they were released, I didn’t get Falcon as a gift.  I ended up getting him from Cosmic Comix, who were getting a pretty steady stream of Legends at that point.  The figure hasn’t aged very well at all, but I was very happy with him back in the day.  I’d love to see Hasbro redo this guy at some point.

#1143: Wonder Man

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

WONDER MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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In a world where death is already meaningless, Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, is the type of guy who’s still noted for not staying dead.  He’s the male equivalent of Jean Grey in that respect, I suppose.  The guy died at the end of his very first appearance (way back in the *first* Avengers #9) and thanks to a friendly warning from Marvel’s Distinguished Competition on the potential problems with infringing upon established brands, he stayed that way for a while.  But then the Competition didn’t actually follow their own warnings, and Marvel felt comfortable enough bringing Wonder Man back a few years later, ultimately making him full-fledged member of the Avengers for several years.  He’s died at least two more times since then (currently he’s sharing a body with Rogue, which is awkward to say the least, what with her killing him and all), but never been gone for all that long.  Simon’s never been an A-list character, but he’s managed to get his fair share of figures over the years, including three Marvel Legends figures, two of which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

wondermanml4Wonder Man was part of the eleventh series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, officially dubbed the “Legendary Riders Series.” There were two different versions of Wonder Man available: the regular flesh-and-blood Wonder Man, and the variant Ionic Wonder Man.  Regardless of version, the figure stands 6 inches tall and has 35 points of articulation. Wonder Man has more than a few parts in common with the recently reviewed Captain Britain, being constructed from that same Black Panther body.  As I noted in my Captain Britain review, while the Panther body was certainly fine on it’s own, it was a slightly odd choice for pretty much every other character they used it for.  While it’s not quite as blatantly out of scale for Simon as it was for the good Captain, it’s still rather on the small side.  Also, for whatever reason, while the body looks decent enough on Panther and Captain Britain, it ends up looking kind of misshapen when used for poor Simon.  Not sure what the difference is.  One of the defining  traits of the Panther body was the unique texturing, which showed that it was a full-body costume.  Since Wonder Man’s design shows a fair bit of skin, his arms are all-new, and his torso has been slightly retooled to smooth out his neck a bit.  The weird thing is that they only removed the actual texturing, not all traces of those pieces being clothed, which means that Wonder Man ends up with these strange folds and wrinkles on his arms and neck.  Wonder Man also featured new pieces for his head, forearms, hands, shins, and feet, as well as an add-on piece for his belt.  Independently, all of the new pieces are decent enough.  The face seems a little low on the head, but not terribly so, and the boots, wrist bands, and belt all feature some cool detailing.  Why did I specify “independently?”   Because the pieces aren’t actually in scale with each other.  The head is too wondermanml1small, and the hands and feet are definitely too big.  The end result is a really odd looking guy.  The standard Wonder Man was painted to be sporting Simon’s fourth costume, which is probably his best known.  It’s not my personal favorite, but the odds of the Safari Jacket look ever getting a proper Legends release are probably slim.  The paint work is decent enough.  There’s some room for improvement, especially on the “W” logo, which isn’t quite shaped the right way and could have probably used a second coat.  That being said, the overall quality of the paint is pretty solid.  The variant Wonder Man represents his powered up Ionic look from when Busiek and Perez brought him back in the 90s.  Pretty much, he’s just molded in translucent indigo plastic, with some red for his eyes, logo, and belt.  Like the Hasbro version of this look, the inclusion of the belt on the Ionic form really isn’t accurate, and it’s made even weirder by the decision to paint the belt red.  Why would the belt remain red, but the wristbands and boots turn blue?  That makes no sense!  Ah well.  Each figure in the Legendary Riders Series included a vehicle of some sort.  Wonder Man’s is some weird W-shaped moped-thingy, which seems to exist for the sole purpose of reminding us all that Toy Biz didn’t have the foresight to realize just how few Marvel characters really fit the “Legendary Riders” theme.  He also included a little Yellowjacket figure, which could be plugged into his back, as well as a copy of Avengers #51 (an odd choice to include with this guy, since it doesn’t really explain the character very well, isn’t really anyone’s favorite Wonder Man story, and the look he’s sporting in the story is not the look he’s sporting on either figure).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m a pretty big Wonder Man fan, so I was pretty anxiously awaiting his addition to the line for most of Toy Biz’s run on Marvel Legends.  Then the prototype was shown, and I was more than a little disappointed.  Then the final product showed up and I was slightly less disappointed.  I ended up getting the regular version as a Christmas present from my parents the year he was released, and I later picked up the variant loose from All Time Toys a few years later.  Ultimately, neither figure is really perfect, and I was always pretty aware of that, but I was happy to have them nonetheless.

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#1141: Captain Britain

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

CAPTAIN BRITAIN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Can you believe that Toy Biz handed over the reigns to Marvel Legends (and all the other Marvel toys) almost 10 years ago?  That’s pretty darn crazy.  It also means that it’s been long enough since every single one of those Legends figures was released that updates are pretty much a given.  This year in particular, Hasbro seems to have put some serious effort into redoing some of Toy Biz’s efforts.  While the Juggernaut series was perhaps the most evident case of this, it’s seeped into some of the other line-ups as well, including the recent Abomination Series.  Like I did with the X-Men figures, I’m going to be looking at the originals and the updates in tandem with each other, and I’ll be kicking things off with Toy Biz’s take on Captain Britain!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

capbritain2Captain Britain was released in the (first) Giant-Man Series of Marvel Legends, alongside Havok and Kitty Pryde.  The set was the first Walmart-exclusive series and would prove to be one of the last three series during the Toy Biz run.  Captain Britain is based on Brian’s second costume, which is the one he’s best known for, and is, quite frankly, his best look.  It’s worth noting that prototypes for this figure showed him in both this and his look from later in the Excalibur run pretty much interchangeably, so it was kind of down to the wire as to which particular look was getting released (in fact, the figure pictured on the box for this guy was painted in the other costume, prompting some to wonder if it would be some sort of running change).  The figure stands 6 inches tall and has 35 points of articulation.  The body that Brian is built on was initially sculpted for the Series 10 Black Panther figure, before being ever so slightly re-tolled for Series 11’s Wonder Man.  The good Captain gets most of the Panther pieces, with the slightly tweaked upper torso from Wonder Man, as well as Wonder Man’s hands.  He also gets a new head, forearms, and lower legs, which are mostly sculpted to match up with the pre-existing pieces.  The head is nice, and is probably one of the better head sculpts we got out of the TB Legends.  The helmet/mask even matches up with the rest of the body’s texturing, which shows that real effort was put into making the piece match up.  The forearms are fine; basic flared gloves.  The boots/feet are the real weak part of the new pieces; we were well into TB’s duck feet phase at his point, and it was something that they never really got past.  The lower legs are also completely un-textured, which feels rather weird compared to the rest of the body.  And, speaking of the body, that’s where we hit the next snag.  The Panther body was actually pretty cool for the time; it had a nice, sturdy build, and the added texturing to make it clear that he was wearing a costume, not just prancing around in body paint.  It hasn’t aged particularly well, but it was a reasonable piece for the time.  So, it’s not a bad base, generally speaking.  Except, of course, for the fact that Brian Braddock is canonically half a foot taller than T’Challa, which is a bit of an elephant in the room, if I’m honest.  The proportions of the new pieces have been kept internally consistent with the body, which means Captain Britain is, as a whole, in a scale that is completely his own.  There’s pretty much no other figure in the line you can put this guy with.  Captain Britain’s paintwork is decent, certainly on par with other offerings from the line.  The base work is mostly pretty clean.  The white piping on the red details is a little sloppy (because painting a textured base is a bit hard to do consistently), but not awful.  He’s also got some accent work, which feels like it goes a little overboard, especially on the white, or should I say light blue, areas of the costume.  TB never quite grasped how difficult it was to translate this sort of detailing from a custom-painted two-up to an actual production figure.  Captain Britain had no character specific accessories, but he did include the right leg (JUST the leg.  No foot.  That came with another figure…) of Giant-Man.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Giant-Man Series as a whole was rather difficult to acquire, thanks to Walmart’s trademark spotty distribution.  I eventually found this guy (and a few others from the series) while on a trip to visit some family in North Carolina.  Because the small mountain town definitely needed a large stock of this exclusive series of figures that most of the general public had never heard of.  This is a flawed figure.  There’s no denying that.  And, unlike so many Legends from this era, it’s not simply an age thing; he was always flawed.  The weird thing is, as hyper critical as I’ve been of this guy, and as many things that are wrong with him, I still have a soft spot for this figure.  And I’m not even that much of a Captain Britain fan!

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#1130: Savage Dragon

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

SAVAGE DRAGON

LEGENDARY COMIC BOOK HEROES

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Alas, poor Toy Biz, I knew them well.  Their main claim to fame was handling all the Marvel-based figures (at retail, anyway) from 1990 to 2006.  During that time, Marvel had filed for bankruptcy, and ultimately been bailed out by their partners at Toy Biz (who would have been in a bit of trouble had their main licensor gone under).  The two companies became one larger entity, and Toy Biz itself was reformed as an in-house company at Marvel.  They had quite a successful run, but it was eventually decided that licensing out the Marvel properties was more profitable than handling them in-house, and production of Marvel toys was moved to Hasbro.  Toy Biz reformatted as Marvel Toys, and tried to capture the success of some of their Marvel lines (namely Marvel Legends) by applying the same style to a number of independent comics characters, such as the previously reviewed Madman, and today’s focus, Savage Dragon.  Ultimately, the line was not the success they had hoped, as most general audiences who shopped at the likes of Walmart and Target weren’t really looking to buy figures of Ripclaw or SuperPatriot, leading to quite a few unsold figures and the eventual closing down of Marvel Toys.  That’s a bit of a downer.  Let’s look at a toy to cheer up!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

savagedragon2Savage Dragon was part of the first series of Legendary Comic Book Heroes, and was kind of one of the flagship characters featured therein (alongside Judge Dredd and Witchblade).  As one of the earliest creations from Image, his presence in this line made a lot of sense.  This wasn’t actually his first figure (he got his own line from McFarlane back in the ‘90s); matter of fact, I believe it’s the last of his figures.  Also, there were two versions of Dragon available: with or without shirt.  I’ll be looking at the shirtless figure, the more common of the two.  The figure stands about 6 3/4 inches tall (not counting the 1-inch head fin) and he has a whopping 50 points of articulation.  I think that might have been a record for a Toy Biz/Marvel Toys figure.  18 of those points come from his fingers alone, which is quite impressive.  Many of the figures in this line made use of Marvel Legends tooling, but Savage Dragon got his own unique sculpt.  It’s not a bad sculpt, though it’s worth noting that he’s a fair bit more conservative in his proportions than Dragon is frequently depicted.  They’re still very exaggerated, of course, with the arms being roughly twice the size of the legs.  The articulation is worked in alright (better than many of TB’s Marvel Legends figures), but the hands definitely look a little like someone stepped on them in certain poses, but they look fine in a number of poses.  The paintwork in Dragon is pretty nice.  TB could be hit and miss, but this was one of their better ones.  All of the hair on his chest and arms is painted, and it does a decent enough job of capturing his rather hairy look from the comics.  The jeans have a nice wash on them, which suggests the proper texturing quite effectively.  The only part that I’m slightly letdown by is the shoes, which are clean overall, but just lack some of the finesse of the rest of the figure.  Savage Dragon was originally packed with a leg of the first series Build-A-Figure Pitt, which was not included with my figure, as I bought him after the fact.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted when I reviewed Madman, I missed LCBH in its initial run.  I mean, I saw them everywhere at the time, but I just never bought any of them (mostly because I pretty much knew none of the characters at the time).  I still have only a marginal knowledge of Savage Dragon, but I’ve become more appreciative of obscure figures, so when I found him at a flea market, I felt urged to pick him up (it helped that he was $5).  He’s actually a really fun figure, and between him and Madman, I’m really tempted to track down more of this line.

#1117: Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, & Gollum

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

FRODO BAGGINS, SAMWISE GAMGEE, & GOLLUM

LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING (TOY BIZ)

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Hey look!  More Lord of the Rings stuff.  In my last LotR review, I noted that over the summer I picked up a handful of figures from Toy Biz’s Lord of the Rings line.  Today’s figures make up the rest of that handful. Or something like that.  So far, I’ve looked at the Witch-King and Faramir, neither one the most major of players in the story (what can I say?  I’m a background character sort of guy), but today I’m changing that up and looking at three characters who are at the very center of the story: Frodo, Sam, and Gollum.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These three were released as part of the “Mount Doom Gift Pack” from Toy Biz’s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King line.  The set is made up of three previously released figures, with Frodo and Sam hailing from a two-pack released towards the end of the Fellowship line and Gollum being a re-release of his Two Towers figure.

FRODO BAGGINS

frodosamgollum2Frodo, the nephew of The Hobbit’s titular character Bilbo, is the central character of Lord of the Rings, being the one tasked with taking the one ring to Mount Doom to destroy it.  He was privy to his fair share of figures from the films, of varying quality.  This one presents him as he appears for most of the three films, in his vest, jacket, and cloak.  The figure stands about 3 1/2 inches tall and has 16 points of articulation.  The sculpt on this figure is pretty decent.  The clothing has some very nice texture work, especially on the tweed jacket.  The coat is pretty windswept, which is usually the sort of thing that I don’t like on particularly posable figures.  That being said, it’s actually pretty well rendered, and doesn’t look as silly as some attempts at the effect.  The likeness isn’t the best Elija Wood that Toy Biz produced, but it’s alright.  While it’s not his spitting image, you can pretty easily tell who this is supposed to be.  His cloak is a removable piece, and is sculpted with a windswept style that matches that of the jacket.  Like the jacket, the effect works pretty well (I’m generally more open to such an effect on capes and cloaks anyway).  The texturing is once again pretty solid, offering a fairly believable cloth-like feel.  The paintwork on the figure is pretty decent overall.  The base color work is all pretty solidly handled, with everything more or less matching up to the colors from the film.  There’s a bit of accent work here and there, which helps to highlight some of the sculpt’s finger details.  There was clearly an attempt to add some color to Frodo’s cheeks, but I’m not sure it worked out as well as the painters had hoped.  He ends up looking like he’s been outside on a rather cold day.  Frodo includes his sword/dagger Sting, as well as a removable scabbard for Sting to be stored in.

SAMWISE GAMGEE

frodosamgollum3Where would Frodo be without his faithful gardener Sam?  Eaten by a giant spider at the very least, that’s for sure!  Frodo may be the central figure of the story, but Sam’s definitely the heart.  While Sam wasn’t quite as action figure heavy as Frodo, he did still get a fair number.  This figure matches up with Frodo in terms of where in the movies he hails from.  The figure is about 3 1/2 inches tall and has the same 16 points of articulation as Frodo.  There was actually a version of this figure, released as a single-carded figure during the Two Towers line, which had bicep swivels as well, but they opted for the slightly less articulated version here, probably to keep him consistent with Frodo.  Sam’s sculpt is pretty much on par with Frodo’s, if not maybe a little better.  His slightly larger build has been translated pretty well, and there’s still a tremendous amount of texturing and small details, with the jacket once again being some of the best work.  Sam’s clothes are a lot less windswept than Frodo’s, making him a more basic figure, which I certainly appreciate.  His head sports a pretty decent Sean Astin likeness, which definitely feels better than the Wood likeness on Frodo.  He has a removable cloak, which is blown back, rather than going in one particular direction.  He’s also got a removable satchel, which is a cool little piece.  Sam’s paintwork is a touch more drab than that of Frodo, but no less well-rendered.  The colors still match up pretty well with those of the film, and there’s plenty of nice accent work, especially on the coat and hair.  Sam is packed with his sword and a scabbard for it.  His skillet would have been cool too, but I guess that was too much.

GOLLUM

frodosamgollum4Oh Gollum, how hard you tried. No matter what you did, you always came up a bit short, didn’t you?  Even on this figure!  Yeah, so the packaging, the solicitation, and even the little figure illustration on the back of the box indicates that the Gollum figure that was supposed to included in this set was the actually articulated Gollum from the Return of the King line.  Instead, we got the bendy figure from the Two Towers line.  It’s nowhere near as good.  The figure is a little under 3 1/2 inches tall and, depending on how you look at it, has either no articulation or infinite articulation, thanks to the whole bendy thing.  I’m leaning more towards no articulation myself.  Don’t get me wrong, there are figures where the whole bendy thing works out alright, but I don’t think Gollum is really one of those.  He’s really only good for sort of awkwardly standing there, and he’s not even particularly good as that, because he falls over a lot.  Okay, I’ve given him crap for the articulation, but how about the actual sculpt?  It’s actually not bad, especially for being a bendy figure.  It does a pretty good job of capturing the CG model from the films, and pretty much looks the part like he should.  The details are a little softer on him than on the straight up plastic figures, but that’s to be expected to a certain degree.  When this figure was released individually, there were two different heads available: the angrier Gollum head (seen here), and the friendlier Smeagol head.  As far as I know, the boxed set version only had the Gollum head (which makes sense for the Mount Doom theme).  He does end up with a rather obvious seam at his jaw line, but it’s not immediately apparent from every angle, so it’s not the end of the world. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Back when the LotR films were still new, I actually had the Frodo and Sam pack from which the two in this set initially hail.  In fact, they were my very first LotR figures.  For whatever reason, I parted with them during one of my many collection purges.  I ultimately ended up regretting that, but never got around to tracking down a replacement.  I ended up finding this set at a nearby goodwill for like $10.  So, I not only replaced my original Frodo and Sam, but I also got a Gollum too!  Sure, he’s not a really good Gollum, but he’s better than nothing!