Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#0992: Space Armor Iron Man

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

IRON MAN – SPACE ARMOR

IRON MAN (TOYBIZ)

SpaceIM1

Just like Captain America, my first exposure to Iron Man was via his cartoon from the ‘60s. However, unlike poor Cap, Iron Man wasn’t quite as obscure in the mid-90s. While Marvel’s big cartoons in the 90s were Spider-Man and X-Men, both Iron Man and the Fantastic Four received their own cartoons as part of the Marvel Action Hour. By extension, Iron Man (and the FF) got his own line of toys from Toy Biz, right as I was getting into super heroes and action figures. That was really quite convenient, wasn’t it? I’ve looked at a handful of figures from this line, but I’ve yet to look at the main man himself. That changes today, with my review of Space Armor Iron Man!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

SpaceIM2Space Armor Iron Man was released in the second series of the Iron Man line. He was one of three versions of Iron Man in this particular series, all of which were at least somewhat comics-based. The Space Armor has the notoriety of being one of the earliest specialty armors that Tony created. There have been a few different versions of the armor over the years (and a lot of the differences are really just based on inconsistencies between artists interpretations). This particular version was lifted directly from the cartoon’s design, which isn’t a direct translation of any particular look from the comics, but looks somewhat like a cross between the Model 05 and Model 10 armors (aka Marks I and II of the Space armor). The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation. Now, the interesting thing to note about Toy Biz’s 90s Iron Men is that each one was a basic figure, with a number of vac metalized armor pieces, which could be clipped on to complete that particular armor’s look. Exactly how close the figures were to their intended design without these pieces greatly varied from figure to figure. Space Armor Iron Man isn’t far off from the intended design, but he’s noticeably a lot sleeker, which results in him bearing more than a passing resemblance to the classic Iron Man design from the 60s/70s. Of course, the Space Armor was really just a slight tweaking of that design anyway, so that’s about right. The base sculpt is quite nicely done, with balanced proportions and some cool little armor details here and there. To facilitate the removable armor, the figure has holes on either side of the torso, the waist, the shoulders, the forearms, and the shins. These can be a bit distracting, but they aren’t terribly so, and the figure doesn’t look horrid without the extra armor. Space Armor Iron Man included eight armor pieces: a chest plate, back pack, two shoulder pads, two wrist guards, and a pair of boots. My figure is missing the shoulder and chest pieces, but you can get a pretty good idea of what the armor looked like. The backpack had a set of handholds that were attached to a hook at the top of the pack. When the handholds were moved a certain direction, the hook would retract. As far as paint goes, Space Armor Iron Man was rather simple, with various reds and yellows, the majority of which are molded plastic. What paint there is has been applied cleanly, and the flat red of the figure and metallic red of the armor work well together. In addition to the armor pieces, this figure also included a missile launcher, though, curiously enough, no actual missile to launch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This Iron Man is a very special Iron Man. And no, not in a “keep your kids of drugs” sort of way. This is my very first Iron Man action figure. You remember waaaaaaaaay back in my review of Night Hunter Batman, when I mentioned my dad finding an Iron Man figure at the Service Merchandise that netted me my second Batman? Well, after he got an Iron Man, I wanted one too. On her way to work one day, my Mom took me to the KB Toys at the mall specifically to get me an Iron Man. I remember we got there before the store opened and I could actually see the display of Iron Men through the store’s window while we waited. After looking at the available options, this was the one I chose, mostly due to him being the closest to the classic Iron Man design, which was the one I was most familiar with. To this day, he remains my favorite Iron Man I own, and I think he really holds up!

#0986: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

“When Captain America throws his mighty shield! All Foes who chose to oppose his shield must yield!”

–Captain America Theme Song

My first introduction to Captain America was through VHS copies of the ‘60s cartoon. As cheesy as they are, I loved every minute of them. Sadly, in the mid-90s, when I was becoming so fond of Cap as a character, he was more or less absent from toy shelves. I eventually got the Spider-Man: The Animated Series version when it was finally released, but the figure I always wanted was Toy Biz’s first version of the character, which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. This Cap stands just under 5 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation. This figure predates elbow articulation becoming a standard for Toy Biz’s Marvel stuff, as they were still very much aping the Kenner Super Powers style, and none of those had elbow movement. Really, this whole figure in general feels like a Captain America figure done to fit with Super Powers (well, aside from size, since he’s taller than any figure Kenner put out), which is far from a bad thing. Rather than the more ‘90s-esc proportions of which Toy Biz would later become so fond, Cap is pretty subdued, and looks more or less like a real person. His torso features some awesome detailing for the scale-mail, and I love the way they’ve sculpted the star logo so as to make it pop a bit more. Figures of Captain America have the unfortunate tendency to miss the mark on the good Captain’s face. I guess he’s just one of those characters where it has to be just right. I think this figure’s the closest anyone’s ever gotten to my ideal Captain America, at least from a comic-based perspective. It’s a little round by today’s standards, but I really like the overall style present here.  There’s just a certain sincerity to it that lots of Caps lack. Cap’s paintwork is quite nicely handled, especially for the time. The colors are all nice and bold, and he really sells the whole patriotic super hero thing. His eyes are admittedly a little wonky, and it would have been nice for his belt buckle to be something other than the unpainted blue plastic, but those are relatively minor complaints. Cap was packed with his mighty shield, as well as a weird launching device for it. However, my figure sadly lacks these pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted in the intro, this was a figure I really wanted growing up. Unfortunately, he was released before I got into collecting, and wasn’t very easy to find after the fact. So, I had to settle for the US Agent repaint from a few series later. In fact, my dad, as awesome as he was, even bought me an extra US Agent and we painted him up in proper Cap colors, which held me over quite nicely. This particular figure ended up being one of the fifteen figures I picked up at the last Balticon. I’m glad to finally have the official version, and he’s aged a bit better than a lot of Toy Biz’s output from the same time period.

CapMSH3

#0984: Jack O’Lantern

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

JACK O’LANTERN

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

JackOLanternTB1

During their lengthy run doing 5-inch Marvel figures, Toy Biz really took a stab at getting out as many characters as they could, even if they were rather obscure. Though they never got as far into any property as they did X-Men, their Spider-Man line sure gave it a shot. Among the huge slew of villains the line gave us was the very first action figure of the somewhat offbeat villain Jack O’Lantern, which is the figure I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

JackOLanternTB2Jack O’Lantern was released in the “Bug Busters” series of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line. He was an interesting inclusion, seeing as he wasn’t ever featured on The Animated Series, but this was around the point that Toy Biz was moving away from using the cartoons as an influence in general. The figure stands about 5 ½ inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  This figure is based on the classic Jack O’Lantern design, which means it can serve as both the Jason Macendale and Steve Levins (the first and second Jack O’Lanterns), since they both had essentially the same design. Sculpturally, this figure was totally unique, which is both a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, the more character specific details, such as his head and his scale-mail tunic, are handled very nicely. The downside is that this figure came at the height of Toy Biz’s fling with oddly proportioned figures. The hands are enormous, dwarfing even his extra-large head, but they’re attached to a rather scrawny set of arms. Well, maybe the arms aren’t scrawny. From some angles, anyway. What they really are is flat. Jack also has in impossibly tiny waist and pelvis, which continues into a rather large set of thighs. He’s definitely got an odd appearance. The paintwork on Jack is pretty solid. He matches the multiple tones of green from the comics quite well, and he’s even got some very nicely rendered accent work on his head and torso. It would be nice if some of the accent work continued onto the rest of the figure, but it’s not too horribly jarring. Jack included a large bug thing, as well as a disc for it to shoot. These were both part of the gimmick of this particular series, and neither really adds to Jack in any meaningful way.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Jack O’Lantern is figure 13 of the 15 I got from this year’s Balticon. I didn’t have Jack growing up, mostly due to being relatively unfamiliar with the character. I’ve come to appreciate him over the years, and have been on the lookout for this figure since. Like a lot of Toy Biz’s output from right around this time, this figure shows his age. The goofy proportions are the biggest issue, though, given the character’s ghoulish look, they aren’t impossible to overlook. Not a bad figure at the end of the day.

#0983: Punisher

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

PUNISHER

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

PunisherWJ1

Hey! It’s another Punisher figure. That’s actually a pretty rare occurrence in my collection (since only own two of them). I’ve never been much of a Punisher fan, but Jon Bernthal’s truly amazing turn as the esteemed Mr. Castle in Daredevil has definitely changed my opinion, at least a little bit. So, let’s have a look at the second half of my Punisher collection!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

PunisherWJ2This Punisher was part of the “Monster Mayhem” set from Toy Biz’s 5-inch Spider-Man line. The set was initially a BJ’s exclusive, but it later showed up at KB Toys as well. All the figures in the set were loosely based around the “Man-Spider” arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This figure stands 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation. Structurally, this figure is the same as the last Punisher I looked at. It’s a fairly sensible re-use, since that figure was a fairly decent rendition of the animated design. The only downside to the sculpt is that it lacks any sculpted indication of a headband, despite there being one painted on. Speaking of the paint, it’s kind of the figure’s main selling point. The prior Punisher was based on his classic black and white look. When they were translating Punisher to animation, it was decided that black and white would be too hard to animate. So, he was given a slightly altered version of his War Journal look from the ‘90s, and that’s what this figure represents. With the exception of the clearly just painted on headband, the paint on Punisher isn’t bad, aside from the obvious wear and tear present on my figure. Punisher included a cloth trenchcoat (to complete the cartoon look) and a knife.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My dad bought me the whole “Monster Mayhem” set from the KB Toys in Rehoboth Beach, on a trip we took just after my brother was born. I remember being incredibly excited by the set, even though Punisher was not a favorite. I actually gave my original Punisher to my friend Charlie, who was a much greater Punisher fan than I, and seemed rather happy to have the figure. Of course, years later, I regretted this decision, since it meant my set was now incomplete. It’s okay, though, because I ended up finding myself a replacement at this year’s Balticon! Now no one’s the wiser….apart from everyone reading this review….which I believe actually accounts for about 100% of anyone who cares about my action figure collection in the slightest. Oh well.

#0978: Venom

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

VENOM

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

VenomMSH1

Venom, Venom, Venom. For as many Venom figures as I’ve reviewed on this site, there’s not actually a whole lot to this guy. He’s a pretty simple concept, taking the main hero and creating a “dark reflection” of said hero to serve as a villain. Of course, it was the late ‘80s, so he was also super huge (and he got huger as time went on). In the early ‘90s, when Toy Biz started up with the Marvel license, Venom was, amazingly enough, not in their first assortment of figures. Clearly they felt bad about that, because they then turned around and released three of him in the space of a year. Today, I’ll be looking at the last of those.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

VenomMSH2Venom was released in Series 3 of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. He was the second version of the character released in the main line (after the one released in Series 2) and the third in the overall scheme of things (following the Talking Heroes version). The figure stands just shy of 5 ½ inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation. He has no neck movement due to his action feature, which is quite limiting, but he is otherwise decently posable. The prior Venom figures had focused on bulk over all else. This figure, on the other hand, focused on making Venom tall (he’s a good ¾ of an inch taller than the Spider-Man from the same line), but not quite as bulky. The end result is a figure that looks not unlike Venom in his earliest appearances, before he had become quite as monstrous. The sculpt us actually pretty decent. It’s somewhat stylized, but not incredibly so, and he has a nice, subdued look about him, which is refreshing to see in a Venom figure. Venom’s paint is rather simple: it’s exclusively white paint on black plastic. The detailing doesn’t look too bad, though, as you can see from my figure, the paint wasn’t the most durable. Still, the pure black and white has a nice stark contrast about it, something that a lot of later Venom figures would miss out on by adding unnecessary blue highlights. Venom originally included a clip on torso piece, simulating the symbiote wrapping around him. He also had the previously mentioned action feature, which allowed for Venom to stick his tongue out when the lever on his back was pulled. It’s rather a goofy feature, but it’s also really in keeping with the character, so I guess it made sense.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Venom is the 11th of the 15 figures I got at Balticon this year. Amazingly enough, prior to this figure I did not own a single 5-inch Venom figure. This one’s not bad, and the quality of his sculpt, especially when compared to last week’s Silver Surfer figure, shows how incredibly fast Toy Biz was taking steps forward in that department.

Also, not related to me, but worth noting: this figure has become one of Super Awesome Girlfriend’s favorites. She constantly picks it up so that she can make it stick its tongue out at me. I’ve ensnared another action figure geek!

VenomMSH3

#0975: Scarlet Witch

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

SCARLET WITCH

AVENGERS: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST HEROES (TOY BIZ)

ScarletWitchAR1

I’ve been tackling a lot of characters’ first action figures as of late. Oddly enough, it’s not really been an intentional choice, just sort of something that’s cropped up. Today, I’ll be looking at the first figure of one of the quintessential Avengers, the Scarlet Witch. Though she’s been with the team since the mid-60s, and was also a recurring character in the ‘90s Iron Man cartoon (she was actually the only member of Force Works not to get a figure from that show’s tie-in line), Scarlet Witch’s first figure wouldn’t be released until 1996, when the Avengers got their own dedicated series of figures.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

ScarletWitchAR2Scarlet Witch was released in the first (and only) series of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, a line which was designed to roughly tie-in with the Heroes Return event. The figure stands about 5 ½ inches tall and she has 7 points of articulation. The articulation isn’t particularly useful, sadly. You can get a bit of decent posing out of the shoulders, but even then, the arms have a tendency to pop off if you move them too much. Also, did you catch that height? Yeah, at 5 ½ inches, this figure is 6-inch scale. While that’s a prevalent scale now, at the time of her release, it made her too tall to go with couple hundred 5-inch scale Marvel figures that Toy Biz had put out. The first Scarlet Witch figure ever made, and she was out of scale with just about every one of her teammates. That’s a bit frustrating. On the plus side, the sculpt actually isn’t horrid, especially when compared to Toy Biz’s next attempt. The head is probably the best part. The hair a little thick and hard to work with, but the face is still probably the most attractive take on the character in sculpted form. The rest of the body isn’t bad, but some of the proportions seem a little out of whack. Her waist is definitely too small, but her whole torso in general feels a bit tiny when compared to the arms.  To be fair, the slightly oversized nature of the arms is preferable to the stick arms many female figures are saddled with. I do wish they were a bit less tubular, but the gloves and hands are certainly nicely detailed. Originally, this figure also had a cloth cape, which my figure no longer has. It wasn’t anything especially impressive, though. The paintwork on this figure is pretty straightforward, but also pretty good overall. My only real complaint is the nose: like McFarlane’s Carol from Walking Dead, Wanda has painted nostrils, and she would definitely look much better if they had been left unpainted. Wanda was packed with two “magic orbs” and a hex bolt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Scarlet Witch is yet another figure from the 15 figures I picked up at this year’s Balticon. Despite how much I liked the character, I never got one of these when it was new (I had actually been holding out for the United They Stand version, which didn’t even make it to the prototype stage…). While this isn’t a perfect figure, it’s certainly better than the one that followed, and it was the best Scarlet Witch figure available for over a decade. Which is honestly kinda sad, but there it is.

#0971: Hydro-Man

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

HYDRO-MAN

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

Hydroman1

You know what the absolute best reason to create a new character is? To replace another character you can’t use at the moment. Seriously, that always results in a fully formed, exciting character, who’s just as exciting as the previous character. That’s why everyone’s favorite Red Ranger is Rocky, Heavy Duty is hands down the best heavy gunner G.I. Joe’s ever had, Chachi was the coolest guy on Happy Days, and Coy and Vance Duke were universally loved by all. What’s that? I’m wrong on every single count? Oh, my bad. Apparently, substitute characters aren’t a good thing.

So, speaking of substitute characters, let’s talk about Hydro-Man. Strictly speaking, he didn’t start out as a substitute, though he’s always been rather similar in concept to Sandman. When James Cameron was working on putting together a Spider-Man movie in the ‘90s (yeah, it was a weird time), he wanted to use Sandman as one of the main villains, and an embargo was placed that prevented using Sandman in any media outside of the comics. So, when Spider-Man: The Animated Series wanted to use him, they had to settle for Hydro-Man (the same thing happened when the Fantastic Four cartoon did the Frightful Four, but Hydro-Man had been a part of that team before). This meant that Hydro-Man also got his first shot at an action figure, courtesy of the Spider-Man tie-in line. I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hydroman2Hydro-Man was released in the “Spider-Wars” series of Toy Biz’s 5-inch Spider-Man line. The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation. Though he lacks any sort of elbow movement, he makes up for it with a disc-and-pin style joint for his hips. This makes him a bit imbalanced in terms of posability, but I’ve certainly dealt with worse. Hydro-Man is based on his look from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which was a fairly faithful recreation of Hydro-Man’s look from the comics. The figure does an…interesting job translating his look to three-dimensions. Hydro-Man has always been depicted as being a pretty beefy guy, and this figure tries to convey that. He’s certainly big, but perhaps a bit too big. Well, in some areas, anyway. In other areas (such as the head), he’s too small. Hydro-Man’s been saddled with some pretty serious man-boobs. I think there was an attempt to make him muscular, but they missed the mark and he just ended up lumpy instead. Also, check out the mom jeans. Not exactly the sort of thing that makes for an imposing villain, there. On the positive side, the head sculpt, while a bit weird-looking, certainly has quite a bit of expressiveness. The arms are also pretty good. While I might like a pose other than straight-armed, the water effect is pretty believable and the overall sculpt is pretty cool. Hydro-Man’s paintwork is fairly straightforward, but also pretty solid. The application is nice and clean, and the translucent arms even have a few flecks of white paint to emulate the impurities in the water. Hydro-Man originally included a base to make it look like his lower half was also water, as well as a “water gun” for his left hand to hold. He also came with a small pump, which was used for his right arm’s water shooting feature. The pump could be filled with water and plugged into his back, and when squeezed, the water would shoot out of his right middle finger. It’s a rather gimmicky feature, and the removal of the pump results in a rather large, gaping hole in his back, which is slightly annoying.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Hydro-Man is the ninth figure of the 15 figures I picked up at this past Balticon. I never had Hydro-Man growing up, but I did have the Sandman that was a repaint of this guy. This figure is super, super goofy, and probably not one of the better figures from Toy Biz’s run. But, you know what? I kinda love this guy. I can’t really say why, but I do.

#0970: Silver Surfer

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

SILVER SURFER

MARVEL SUPER HEROES (TOY BIZ)

SilverSurferMSH1

Though they were best known for their 15 year run with the Marvel license, Toy Biz’s first work of note was actual doing toys based on Marvel’s Distinguished Competition. Toy Biz’s DC action figures were little more than knock-offs of Kenner’s Super Powers line. When Toy Biz was granted the Marvel license, their initial offerings were rather similar to what they had done for DC. They offered a rather broadly ranging line, covering the major corners of the Marvel Universe (barring the X-Men, who got their own line). Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of that line’s versions of the Silver Surfer!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

SilverSurferMSH2Silver Surfer was released in the third series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Super Heroes line. The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation. That’s actually a pretty low articulation count for a Toy Biz figure, and it’s even a bit low for this particular line. This figure is mostly the same sculpt as his Series 1 counterpart. The only difference between the two is the lack of neck articulation. It’s an odd choice, and it definitely limits what can be done with the figure, but I’d guess it had something to do with the vac metalizing. The sculpt isn’t terrible, but it’s not particularly great either. He’s similar in style to the Toy Biz Green Lantern, in that his proportions feel rather off, and the level of detail is very low. Also, his head is just very oddly shaped. It’s definitely too small, and the face (which is very ill-defined) sits too high. In fact, the head in general sits too high on the neck, and the whole construction there just looks weird. As far as paint goes, this particular Surfer doesn’t really have any, he’s just vac metalized. Later Surfer’s would at least get detailing on the eyes, but that’s not the case with this guy. Just the straight up and down silver for him. Silver Surfer originally included his surfboard, done up to match him. Unlike other versions of the board, this one was really thick, and it had wheels on the bottom. So, he’s not actually the Silver Surfer, he’s the Silver Skateboarder. Radical.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Surfer is the eighth of the 15 figures that I picked up from a vendor at this past Balticon. I…I’m not really sure how I feel about him. I mean, the chrome look is certainly cool, but the actual figure’s kind of a bit lame. Toy Biz definitely improved in leaps and bounds over the years, but this guy’s a disappointment even compared to the figures from the same line. I hate to be this down on a figure, but this guy, well, he’s not great.

#0969: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE (TOY BIZ)

CyclopsAoA1

Man, I feel like I was just talking about Age of Apocalypse not that long ago. Oh, that’s right, I was! Back in May, I looked at the AoA version of the most popular X-Man, Wolverine. Today, I’ll be dipping back into that universe, to look at an X-Man who’s almost as popular, Cyclops! One of the things that the event liked to play with was which side of the battle certain characters were on. While classically villainous characters like Magneto and Sabertooth ended up firmly on the side of good, some of the more traditionally heroic characters found themselves on the side of bad. Such was the case with both Cyclops and his brother Havok. At the time, Cyclops as a villain was supposed to be really shocking, but it’s since become a rather predictable story beat (and Cyclops doesn’t stay evil in the story anyway, so…). Ah well. How about the figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

CyclopsAoA2Cyclops was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s 5-inch X-Men line, which was entirely based around Age of Apocalypse. The figure is about 5 ½ inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation. Obviously, he’s based on Cyclops’ design from the Age of Apocalypse event. While Wolverine/Weapon X got a rather extensive redesign, Cyclops actually didn’t change all that much from his standard look of the time. Sure, there are plenty of minor changes, but the overall look is still pretty much the same. The biggest change is all the asymmetry. In the comics, Scott had lost his left eye in a battle with Logan, making him an actual cyclops. Isn’t that clever? Anyway, his visor has been tweaked so the eye slit is just on the right side, and they just kind of went nuts to play up the imbalance. With the asymmetrical armor, the pouches, the long hair, and the five o’clock shadow, the whole thing is very ‘90s. It’s almost quaint. The figure does a decent job of replicating this design, but holy crap is it stylized! His muscles are bulging all over the place, and his hands are huge, yet his head and waist still manage to be impossibly small. His head’s smaller than his bicep. That’s the kind of thing you might want to have checked! Also worth noting is that the structure and pose of this figure’s legs make him virtually impossible to keep standing for any length of time. On the plus side, the sculpt does have some pretty cool detail work, especially on the armored bits. He’s even got little sculpted scars across his eye! Cyclops’ paintwork is decent enough. The application is pretty clean,many the slightly metallic blue and yellow work really nicely. The hair’s a bit of a mess, but more or less gets the job done. The scars lose some of their subtlety with the huge red lines that have been placed on them, which is a slight letdown. Still, they aren’t terrible. Cyclops was originally packed with a weird gun thing and a brain in a jar. Classic Cyclops accessories! Mine, however, does not have these pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cyclops is another figure from the rather large assortment of figures I picked up at this year’s Balticon. Given that I was a huge Cyclops geek as a kid, it’s a little surprising that I didn’t get this guy when he was new, but I don’t recall ever seeing any of the Age of Apocalypse figures in stores. Honestly, this isn’t one of my favorite incarnations of the character. However, he’s not a terrible figure, and his ramped up 90s-ness does make him a bit of fun!

#0964: Mr. Fantastic

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

MR. FANTASIC

FATASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

MrFantastic1

The 2005 Fantastic Four movie is definitely far from a perfect film. Yesterday, I touched on the casting of Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman, which is often cited as one of the film’s biggest negative factors. On the plus side, they didn’t botch all of the casting. Chris Evans as Johnny was quite good, as was Michael Chiklis’ take on Ben. Ioan Gruffudd’s Reed Richards doesn’t stand out quite as much as those two, and he was unfortunately hampered by a lack of chemistry with Alba’s Sue of Julian McMahon’s Von Doom. Still, Gruffudd turned in a decent, stand-up performance. As with the rest of the cast, he got a handful of action figures from the movie, one of which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

MrFantastic3This particular Mr. Fantastic was included as a pack-in with the Fantasticar* that Toy Biz put out in the first Fantastic Four movie line. The figure stands just over 6 inches tall (without the neck extension), and he has 28 points of articulation. His articulation is a little weird, since it’s not in keeping with the rest of the figures in the line. That’s because this figure is actually a scaled down version of the 12-inch rotocast Mr. Fantastic. That figure’s hollow construction necessitated the “v” hips, and the lack of waist movement is due to the larger figure’s inclusion of an extending neck feature. At the smaller scale, the extending neck wasn’t feasible, but he still loses the articulation. Oh well. Aside from the slightly off articulation, the sculpt actually isn’t bad. I think the head has the best Ioan Gruffudd likeness of any of the Reed figures Toy Biz put out, and the body sculpt avoids a lot of the wonkier proportions that plagued a lot of the Fantastic Four movie figures. The longer forearms and larger than normal hands are a pretty cool way of showing off Mr. Fantasic’s powers, and I like the inclusion of all the smaller details on the gloves. Unfortunately, though the sculpt is a step-up from the other figures, the paint is a definite step down. Moving past the annoying scrapes of missing paint on my figure (which probably weren’t there when he was new), the paint is much more straightforward on this figure. There’s no accent work on any of the costume pieces, and there are several spots of noticeable slop, especially on the figure’s right thigh. On the plus side, the hair does exhibit some halfway decent work, so it’s not a total loss. Reed’s only real accessory was the extendable neck piece. It would have been nice to get a set of normal sized hands as well, but given that this figure was essentially an accessory himself, the lack of extra pieces isn’t unforgivable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Reed at the same time as Sue, from a dealer at Balticon. I actually looked at the Fantasticar set a few times when it was on shelves but I never got one. In addition, I had the 12-inch version of this figure, which I liked quite a bit. The smaller version isn’t quite as impressive, but he’s still a pretty decent figure, and he might be my favorite version of the character that this line had to offer.

*The Fantasticar didn’t actually appear on-screen until the 2007 sequel. The one that this figure was included with was a Toy Biz-original creation, since the movie design had not yet been developed at the time of this toy’s release.