Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#1104: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS

X-MEN: METALLIC MUTANTS (TOY BIZ)

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I’ve discussed Toy Biz’s larger 10-inch-scaled Marvel figures in the past.  Essentially, since Toy Biz did the prototypes for their successful 5-inch line as two-ups, they had an easy time re-using those sculpts for a line of slightly cheaper 10-inch figures (though, interestingly, the line was originally billed as a deluxe line of figures.  It was only later, when they decided to focus more on building as many figures as they could out of a limited pool of parts that it became “cheap”).  Toy Biz’s 10-inch X-Men line, like it’s smaller scale counterpart, was the most successful of the initial lines, even managing to get its own spin-off line, Metallic Mutants, where certain figures were re-released with metallic color schemes.  Today, I’ll be looking at the Cyclops figure from that line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

cyclopsmetallic2Cyclops was from the first series of X-Men: Metallic Mutants. The whole Metallic Mutants line was available exclusively at KB Toys (who would also become the exclusive retailers of the entire 10-inch line a few years later).  The figure is about 10 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation, which was a whole extra point more than his 5-inch equivalent had.  The figure is a straight repaint of the basic 10-inch Cyclops, who was himself patterned on the sculpt of Cyclops II from Toy Biz’s main X-Men line.  The sculpt is a little bit different.  He lacks the light-up feature of the smaller figure, which results in him getting the neck articulation the smaller figure lacked.  Aside from that, the sculpt is pretty much the same.  It’s okay for the time, but certainly isn’t one of Toy Biz’s stronger sculpts.  Due to the light-up nature of the smaller figure, the torso was made a bit larger to house the battery compartment, and that’s still seen here.  While the legs seem to match up okay with the larger torso, the arms and head feel rather under-sized by comparison, which makes him look rather odd overall.  Each piece of him seems fine on its own, but as a whole he looks a bit patchwork.  I will admit, there’s a certain quaintness to the sculpt that I appreciate, though.  The big deal on the figure, of course was the paint.  It’s certainly metallic, there’s no denying that.  The costume looks cool in the metallic shades, but what sort of throws him off is the decision to do his skin and hair in the same gold as the “yellow” bits of the costume.  Clearly, Toy Biz caught on to this being weird, since the second set of Metallic Mutants just had the metallic colors on the costumes, not the actual faces.  Cyclops included a blaster thing, in the same gold as used on the body, which is cool I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As hokey as this guy is, I’ve actually always wanted one.  Growing up, I had the little product booklet that came with the TB Galactus, which had these guys all pictured in it, and I always wanted Cyclops in particular.  I ended up finally getting this guy for my birthday this summer from my parents, who bought him from 2nd Chance Toyz.  Is he weird and goofy and strange?  Yes.  Do I love him? Emphatically yes.

#1095: Adam Warlock

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

ADAM WARLOCK

MARVEL OVERPOWER CARD GAME

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Around this time last year, I discussed the interesting case of the US Agent figure from Toy Biz’s ‘90s Iron Man line.  He was slotted for the third series of the line, but dropped at the last minute when Toy Biz cut all of their lines back to six figures per series.  US Agent’s mold would bounce around for a bit, and he was ultimately only available through a difficult to acquire, non-Toy Biz or Marvel sanctioned release. 

Running concurrently with the Iron Man line was a Fantastic Four line, which was also subject to the downsizing of assortments.  US Agent’s equivalent in this line was Adam Warlock, who was presumably dropped from the FF line-up because he, like US Agent, was the only character not to be featured on the cartoon the line was meant to tie-in with.  Adam would prove far more fortunate than poor US Agent in regards to his figure’s release, however, with Toy Biz actually finding a venue to put him out.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

adamwarlocktb2After being dropped from the third series of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line in 1995, Adam Warlock was ultimately released in 1996 as part of a small KB Toys-exclusive line of four figures designed to coincide with Fleer’s Marvel: Overpower Card Game. The other three figures were straight forward repaints of earlier figures, and much more popular characters to boot, making Adam seem like an odd choice.  I guess Toy Biz just really wanted to get him out there!  Adam is seen here sporting his early ‘90s design, which was kind of a merging of his two previous looks.  It’s my favorite of his looks, but it’s entirely possible that I like it because it’s the one I saw on all those card backs in the ‘90s.  The figure is just over 5 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  Because of the light-up feature integrated into his eyes and Infinity stone, Adam doesn’t get any neck articulation, which results in him feeling rather stiff, even when placed with this compatriots from the same time period.  Stiffness aside, Adam’s sculpt is pretty good.  It’s certainly on par with the rest of the ‘90s FF figures, which is good, overall.  The proportions are a little weird in some areas (especially the upper arms; those things are huge), and the head’s a little soft in terms of detail, but he generally looks pretty good.  Warlock has a removable cape, which actually a fair bit different from the cape his FF prototype was sporting.  This one is much more dynamic in pose, and fits more with the stuff Toy Biz was starting to put out in 1996.  I kind of prefer the prototype version, if I’m honest.  The flow of this one kind of clashes with the style of the figure proper, since he’s just sort of standing there, and it’s all crazy wind-blown.  It also has some trouble sitting right on his shoulders, which can get very annoying.  Another thing that was changed from Adam’s prototype to thee Overpower figure is the paint scheme.  It’s not terribly different, but the yellow was swapped out for gold, and the red has been made a little less vibrant.  Like the new cape, it’s more in keeping with the sort of work TB was doing in 1996, but it results in him not fitting in quite as well with the FF figures as he should.  The gold paint has also not stood the test of time, meaning some of the details get lost.  Adam included his signature staff, as well as an Adam Warlock  Overpower card.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like US Agent, Adam Warlock is a figure I always wanted, due to his presence on the back of the Iron Man and Fantastic Four card backs, but was never able to find, due to the lack of information on such things at the time (the internet was around, but we toy geeks hadn’t quite migrated to it yet).  I’ve known about the existence of this particular figure for several  years, and I’ve even seen him once or twice in person, but I never got around to picking him up.  I ended up finding Adam while exploring the new area I’m living in, at a very cool shop called Power Comics.  Adam’s not quite as fun as US Agent, mostly due to Toy Biz changing so much from ’95 to ’96, and this guy getting hit with some weird amalgamation of those two years’ styles.  If he’d been a straight recreation of the figure as originally intended (like US Agent was), I think he might have been a bit better.  As it stands, I think he’s still the best version of the guy out there.

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#1076: Faramir in Gondorian Armor

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

FARAMIR IN GONDORIAN ARMOR

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

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Hey, remember how I didn’t really have a lot of Lord of the Rings figures in my collection?  Well, this summer I sort of tried to fix that.  Now, I’ve already looked at my favorite of the villains, the Witch-King, but what about the story’s heroes?  I think I’ve talked before of my aversion to main characters.  I gat why they’re there, and I even tend to like them, but my favorite characters are always the ones just slightly off the side of things.  For the Lord of the Rings, my favorite hero is definitely Faramir, brother of Boromir (I was also pretty fond of Boromir, too), and Ranger of Gondor.  Fortunately for me, Faramir got a couple of figures over the course of Toy Biz’s Lord of the Rings line, one of which I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

faramir2Faramir was part of the second series of Toy Biz’s Return of the King line (alongside the previously review Witch-King).  This was his second of the three figures he got from Toy Biz.  This one depicts him in his Gondorian armor from the last film in the trilogy.  It’s not his main look, but it got some decent play during RotK’s big battle scene.  The figure is a little over 6 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Or at least he should have 30 points of articulation.  Mine is down one of is bicep swivels, due to soft pegs and sticky paint, resulting in his arm tearing off on his way out of the packaging.  Fortunately, my handy dandy tube of super glue fixed him up, but now he’s a little more restricted.  As a whole, though, this guy’s a fair bit easier to pose than the Witch-King, which is certainly a pleasant change.  However, on the flip side of things, his sculpt is a little weaker than the Witch-King’s.  On the plus side, his head sculpt sports a pretty good likeness of David Wenham as Faramir.  It’s not as spot on as some of the figures in the line were, but it was definitely better than the Two Towers Faramir.  In particular, they did a good job capturing the slight detailing of his beard, and also avoided making his hair too bulky.  The rest of the figure is certainly well detailed.  The armor is very lovingly recreated, based on what Faramir is seen sporting in the film, and there’s some wonderful fine detail work exhibited by the various layers of it.  This figure’s biggest issue is proportions.  The head and torso are fine, but the arms end up being rather on the large side, resulting not only in them being out of scale with the rest of him, but also in him not being able to put them down at his sides properly.  The hands in particular are huge, and the elbow joints are painfully obvious.  The legs are also rather on the large side, with the feet definitely possessing a clown shoes vibe.  The overall appearance is fine, but it could certainly be better.  He also included an action feature, which is rather similar to than of the Witch-King.  When the button on his back is pushed, Faramir’s right arm swings down.  It works alright, but results in there being a rather obvious button on his back, which is rather frustrating.  Faramir’s paintwork is pretty good.  There are some minor issues here and there (the placement of the eyes being a major one), but he generally looks like he should, and he even has some cool washes on the armor to bring out more of the details in the sculpt.  Faramir included a sword and the helmet which accompanies his armor.  Both pieces are pretty cool, though the helmet is a little larger to accommodate Faramir’s hair.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never had any of the Faramir figures growing up, which is sort of weird, because I always rather liked the guy.  I do remember this one, but I just never bought him for whatever reason.  I ended up finding back a couple of months ago from Complete In Box (at the same time that I got Tormund).  He’s not a perfect figure by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s still pretty cool, and I’m just happy to have a Faramir.

#1069: Future Apocalypse

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

FUTURE APOCALYPSE

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

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The X-Men were kinda big in the ‘90s.  Not sure if you guys knew that.  They were big enough to serve as a pretty good kick-off for the still fairly new to the market Toy Biz, who made quite an empire out of those merry mutants.  Early on, the figures were pretty straight-forward translations of the comics designs (with one or two Animated designs, such as Morph, thrown in for good measure), but as the decade progressed, they started running out of characters to scrape from the bottom of the X-Men barrel, and headed towards some slightly more gimmicky concepts, which allowed them to rehash some of the previously released characters in different and exciting ways.  One such gimmick was “Missile Flyers,” a series of four wing-ed variants released in 1997.  Today, I’ll be looking at Apocalypse from that series!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

futureapocalypse2As noted in the intro, Apocalypse (or “Future Apocalypse” as the box refers to him) is one of the four figures in the “Missile Flyers” series of Toy Biz’s X-Men line.  The figure is about 7 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  His design is a bit removed from the usual Apocalypse look.  He’s far more exaggerated and mechanized than usual.  I think it’s still a comic-based design, but I honestly don’t know exactly where it hails from.  It’s certainly an interesting look for him, though it does make him look more like a Spawn villain than an X-Men character.  It’s probably all that crazy exaggeration on the proportions.  The actual quality of the sculpt is pretty top notch.  There’s a lot of great detail work throughout, especially on the mechanics of the neck.  That looks pretty darn cool!  He does have a little trouble standing, mostly due to the sheer size of his upper arms, but you can get him to remain fairly sturdy with some careful posing.  While most of the Missile Flyers figures had separate, removable pieces for their missile-firing wings that earned them their name,  Apocalypse actually had his wings worked into the main figure.  Each of the wings is on a rotating hinge, allowing them to either be deployed over his shoulders or brought down over his front to form a sort of a robe type thing.  The two halves even form a cool A symbol, like Apocalypse is prone to sport, which  is a cool touch.  The paintwork on Apocalypse is decent enough.  It’s a lot of blues, greys, and silvers, which is right for the character.  My figure’s a little worse for wear, but still pretty good.  He’s not the most colorful figure ever, but it works for him (and was a good contrast to the other figures in the set).  Apocalypse was packed with a large missile, which can be fired from the hole in the middle of his torso (that’s gotta hurt!).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Apocalypse isn’t one of my actual ‘90s purchases.  As a matter of fact, I never got any of the Missile Flyers when they were initially released, despite quite liking them.  I ultimately ended up finding Future Apocalypse at a Goodwill this past Father’s Day (along with the bunch of Masters of the Universe figures I reviewed about a month or two back).  I’ve never been the biggest Apocalypse fan, but I like him well enough that I was urged to pick up this figure, and I have to say, he’s actually pretty cool!

#1063: Morgul Lord Witch-King

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

MORGUL LORD WITCH-KING

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

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My fandom of Lord of the Rings is something that can be described as “moderate” at best.  I’ve seen and enjoyed all three of the films, but never anything but the theatrical cuts (because I though 9 hours for the whole story was enough of my time).  I’ve read The Hobbit (and wasn’t that into it, to be totally honest), but none of the other books.  I enjoy the franchise as a whole and can really appreciate some of the characters and concepts therein, but you start to lose me if you get into the real nitty gritty stuff.  That being said, I did like the movies a lot, especially when they were new, and for me, that usually means a few action figures.  Fortunately, Toy Biz was there for me, producing a rather expansive line of figures based on the three films.  Today, I’ll be looking at one of my favorite designs from the movies, the Witch-King of Angmar, leader of the Ringwraiths, and one of the primary antagonists of the films.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

witchking2The Morgul Lord Witch-King (as he’s dubbed on the box) was released in the second series of Toy Biz’s Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King line.  This was the point in the line where they had switched to the smaller packaging style, and were releasing figures from the entirety of the trilogy, but the Return of the King figures were still off on their own.  The Witch-King is based on his appearance in the third film in the trilogy, after he’s taken on a more unique, armor-clad look in order to lead the Morgul forces into battle.  It’s definitely an imposing look, and possibly my favorite from the whole trilogy.  The figure stands just shy of 7 inches tall (going to the top of his actual head; the tallest spike on his crown adds about an inch more) and he has 18 points of articulation.  Though Toy Biz were articulation nuts when it came to the concurrently running Marvel Legends, the LotR figures were a little more reserved.  The Witch-King has a decent selection of joints, but is admittedly a little hard to pose, mostly due to the heavy robes covering him.  You can still get some decent poses out of him, and it’s worth noting that he’s very steady on his feet, which is more than can be said for a lot of Toy Biz’s figures from the time.  He can also move his head, which puts him above any of the other Ringwraiths the line released.  The sculpt on this figure is very impressive.  There’s a lot of truly phenomenal detailing and texturing, just all throughout.  This guy really looks like a 4000 year old undead warrior.  He’s very imposing, which is what he should be.  Even the interior of his (hollow) hood is fully detailed!  The scabbard for his sword is permanently affixed to this figure, and it’s a little thicker than such a piece would be in this day and age.  Of course, after the issues with the fragility of similar pieces on Funko’s Legacy Collection Game of Thrones figures, I can’t really say I mind.  Perhaps the only real nit on the sculpt is the crown.  Due to safety standards, the points of his crown had to be rounded off, resulting in something that looks more like a deer’s antlers than it does the menacing helm of the Witch-King.  Not their fault, of course, but disappointing nonetheless.  The paint on the Witch-King is quite good, far better than you might think at first glance.  The whole figure has various washes and dry brushing, to help bring out the smaller details of the sculpt.  The end result is a quite realistic looking figure.  Definitely some of Toy Biz’s better work from this period.  The Witch-King included a sword and a mace, based on the weapons he had own the film.  He also had an action feature; when the button on his back (which is quite well hidden, it should be noted) is pressed, his right arm swings up and down, to either flail the mace or slash the sword, depending on how you have him armed.  I myself would have preferred for the feature to have been left out to facilitate better movement on the right shoulder, but the effect is decent.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I always wanted the Witch-King when these figures were new, but he was one of the harder to find figures in the line.  All I could ever find was his less-cool look from Fellowship, which just wasn’t the same.  Ultimately, I ended up selling off pretty much all of the figures in my (admittedly pretty small) Lord of the Rings collection, so I didn’t really think much of it.  This summer, I ended up finding this guy at Yesterday’s Fun, and couldn’t bring myself to put him back, despite no longer owning any of his companions.  He’s actually a really awesome figure, and was definitely worth the wait.  Of course, now I want more figures to go with him…

#1047: Kitty Pryde

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

KITTY PRYDE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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Kitty Pryde is really a marker for change in the X-Men comics. She was the first new mutant to be added to the team following the All-New, All-Different change-up, and represents perhaps the only hopeful note to come out of the Dark Phienix Saga. Almost as soon as she joined, she became a focus point for the series. She’s also noteworthy for being one those rare instances of a comic character who was allowed to grow up, as her quest to become a full-fledged X-Man was one of her major story points. And, above all, she’s pretty consistently a fun character. Unfortunately, she’s had some rotten luck with action figures (if you don’t believe me just look at the last Kitty I reviewed). Toy Biz tried their hand at making her twice, with mixed results. I’ll be looking at that second attempt today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

KittyTB2Kitty Pryde was released in the Walmart-Exclusive Giant-Man series of Toy Biz’s run with Marvel Legends. She was based on Kitty’s then current Astonishing X-Men design. The figure stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 38 points of articulation. For the most part she’s the same figure as the Jessica Alba Invisible Woman that I reviewed a few months ago. That’s not great, because that body had some major issues, including, but not limited to: incredibly obvious joints, an impossibly small waist, and super fragile arms and legs. It’s not a particularly strong body. What’s worse, the details on the body don’t quite line-up with Kitty’s Astonishing design. It’s a weird body choice all around. I’m not really sure why they went with it, but I’m not Toy Biz. I’m also not out of business, so I think that I won this one! Kitty got a new head sculpt, which is okay, but hardly one of Toy Biz’s best.  Like Hasbro’s smaller attempt, she feels a bit old for Kitty, and the total lack of ears weirds me out a bit. Also, her hair is pretty much completely wrong for this interpretation of Kitty, being all around too long and just too bushy. Were it not supposed to be this specific Kitty, that would be fine, but it stands out here. The paint work on Kitty is probably some of the weakest on any of the Toy Biz Legends.  The face is alright, but the eyebrows are slightly off from the sculpt, which throws her whole look off. Also, the color scheme of the costume is totally off. In the comics, her costume was black and a warm shade of yellow. Here, it’s a dark grey/pale yellow combo that looks incredibly boring and drab. It’s not a fun look, and means she’ll tend to get lost in a group. Kitty included her pet dragon Lockheed, as well as the upper torso and head of Giant-Man.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t find this figure at retail, due to the all-around difficultness of finding this series at Walmart. My dad bought her for me from a reasonably priced eBay auction. At the time, I was really excited to get this figure. I mean, she was my first Kitty Pryde figure, and I’ve always loved the character. That being said, I very quickly found the flaws in this figure, and she’s never been one of my favorites. She’s probably one of the older Legends most in need of an update.

KittyTB3

#1044: Havok

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

HAVOK

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

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The X-Men are known for their tendency to change up the line-up a lot. Now-a-days, the team is rather large and nebulous (necessitating at least two X-Men titles to be running consistently since the mid-80s, just so everyone can get a fair shake), but when they first started, there were just five members. The team’s first additional member, Mimic, only lasted for three issues, before being de-powered and written out. Eventually, they would acquire their first full-time addition Lorna Dane (later Polaris) in X-Men #49. Just six issues later, the team would also gain Havok, aka Alex Summers the younger brother of Cyclops. Havok’s sort of been a peripheral member of the team for a lot of his career, but has served as team leader for both the X-Men and X-Factor on a few occasions. He also happens to be my personal favorite member of the X-Men, which is why I own just about every figure of him in existence, including the one I’ll be reviewing today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

HavokML2Havok was part of the Giant-Man Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends. It was the first Walmart-exclusive series of Legends, though it would hardly be the last. This is also Havok’s first Marvel Legends figure, though it’s the fourth Havok figure Toy Biz released. The figure stands 6 ¼ inches tall (not counting the headgear), and has 40 points of articulation. Havok is based on his classic Neal Adams-designed costume from the 60s (my personal favorite). The initial prototype for Havok had him in a more modernized design, but that figure was ultimately shelved for this more classic look. The figure is built on Series 9’s Bullseye body, in one of the earlier attempts at moving ML to a system of base bodies. As I noted in my review of Iron Fist (the final figure to be built on this body, released a full ten years after it debuted with Bullseye), this body was one of my favorites from Toy Biz’s run. It’s become a little clunky when compared to the more recent stuff, but it still holds up pretty well, certainly a lot better than some of TB’s other Marvel Legends. The only real issue I have with this particular iteration of the body is the shape of the lower legs and feet. The legs are clunky and tube-like, and the feet are large and sit HavokML3too far forward at the ankle. Havok’s only truly unique piece is his head, which does quite a nice job of capturing the early depictions of Havok’s face. I like that the expression is angry without going too overboard, and I’m especially glad that they were able to make the headgear look okay in three dimensions. Havok’s paintwork is pretty straight forward. The costume is just straight black and white (excepting, of course, the silver collar). There’s no accent work, but I actually much prefer it that way. The face has a nice, clean paint job, with some great little subtleties to the coloring, making it stand out nicely from the costume. Havok included the left leg (but NOT the left foot) of Giant-Man, as well as a copy of X-Men #97, which is one of Havok’s few focus issues during the “All-New, All Different” era (also one of his best appearances). It should be noted that the issue actually rather deceptively uses the cover to X-Men #58, which is the first appearance of the classic costume and the name Havok.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Pretty much as soon as Marvel Legends started doing X-Men figures, Havok was at the top of my list. I even made my own Havok custom (albeit in his ‘90s costume) from a spare Gambit, just to hold me over. I was beyond thrilled when this guy was announced. Of course, then the Giant-Man Series ended up being rather hard to come by, which acquiring Havok none too easy. Fortunately, my Dad just happened to find this guy the day before my birthday in 2006. Words cannot begin to describe how excited I was to open him. Ten years later, this guy shows his age, but still holds up remarkably well. I think I’d still rank him in my top 10 Legends.

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#1042: Phoenix

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

PHOENIX

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

PhoenixTB1

It’s been quite a while since the X-Men got any coverage in Marvel Legends. Back during the Toy Biz run, only 3 of the 16 series released were completely X-Man free, and they even got a boxed set and two different off-shoot lines. Even under Hasbro, the team was pretty well represented. Well, until recently, anyway, since the last time we saw X-Men Legends was two summers ago, and even then they were a pretty hard to find TRU exclusive series (I bought the only one of them I ever saw). Fortunately, Hasbro’s doing their best to make that up, with a new series of X-Men-themed Legends hitting just in the last month, and another on the way early next year. Of course, if you think that means I’m reviewing the new X-Men figures, you’ve got another thing coming! Well, another review coming, anyway. Since this latest set of Legends has a lot of re-released characters from Toy Biz’s run, I thought it might be fun to review the older figures in tandem with their newer counterparts. Today, I’ll be kicking things off with Jean Grey, aka Phoenix!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

PhoenixTB2Phoenix was released in the sixth series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends. She was Jean’s very first Legend, and she was only the second single-packed figure in the line, after Elektra (though both Rogue and Sue Storm had beaten her to release as part of larger boxed sets). She was also one of the two short-packed figures in the series. That was awesome. There was a variant of this figure painted up like Dark Phoenix, which was even harder to find. But, that’s another matter entirely. This figure stands about 6 ¼ inches tall and she has 44 points of articulation. While that might seem like of articulation, it’s not as useful as you’d hope. Yep, Phoenix is one of Toy Biz’s “twisting meat” figures, where the joints cancel each other out, resulting in pieces that spin for no reason. Oh joy. Sculpturally, Phoenix shared most of her parts with Elektra (and, by extension, Rogue and Sue). Jean obviously got a new head, but also a new pelvis, hips, and upper thighs, to give her more adequate hip articulation. The head is definitely the best part of the sculpt. The hair is a pretty spot-on recreation of Jean’s Phoenix hair (well, from when Byrne took over drawing her, anyway). The face is decent. She looks a bit like Laura Parker from Dark Shadows, who I can’t say is my ideal choice for Jean, but it’s certainly a more attractive sculpt than most of Toy Biz’s female Legends. The body is…umm, well they tried. I think. Her neck is incredibly square, her arms oddly flat, her bosom disproportionally large (and also covered by something that somehow manages to be both loose and tight fitting at the same time), and feet not unlike that of a duck. On top of all that, none of her joints are particularly well worked into the sculpt. Overall, she looks sort of a bit Frankenstiened, which isn’t really what you want in a Jean Grey figure. The paintwork on Phoenix is decent enough. The metallic green is particularly nice, but all of the colors are well chosen, and the application is by and large pretty cleanly done. The eyebrows weird me out, but I can’t really put my finger on exactly why. Phoenix was packed with a display base designed to look like the fiery bird typically seen surrounding Phoenix, as well as a reprinted copy of X-Men #101 (Phoenix’s first appearance).

 THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When Phoenix was first announced, I was very excited. Marvel Legends was my favorite thing at the time, and I was dead set on putting together a sweet X-Men set-up. Remember how I said she was short-packed? It gets worse. See, there was only one Phoenix for every case of 12, making her instant scalper bait. Now, remember how Phoenix also had a variant figure? Well, the variant was randomly put into certain cases of figures *in place* of the normal Phoenix, thereby making the normal version even harder to get. Because of this, it was actually more than a year before I got a Phoenix, courtesy of my friend Cindy Woods (who, along with her husband Lance, has done a whole lot to help me track down hard to find items over the years) as a Christmas present. Looking back on her compared to what came later, she’s got some pretty serious issues. That said, she was at one point my absolute most wanted Legends figure, and I was beyond thrilled when I finally got her. I can’t help but be a little sentimental.

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#0992: Space Armor Iron Man

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

IRON MAN – SPACE ARMOR

IRON MAN (TOYBIZ)

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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.

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