Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#3941: Dragon Man

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

DRAGON MAN

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

“Created by Professor Gilbert, once an instructor of Reed Richards’, and granted a sort of pseudo-life by the mad alchemist Diablo, the android Dragon Man is an unstoppable juggernaut of rage and fury! His great wings enable him to fly, his powerful tail strikes with the strength of a dozen bulldozers, and his fiery breath is as hot as a raging inferno! The only thing that distracts this simple man-brute from the rampage of destruction is his fascination with Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman!”

Dragon Man follows the wonderful early Marvel tradition of having a name that’s a simple mash-up of two things, which is attached to a character that is not actually those things…usually an android.  That’s certainly the case here.  He’s not actually a dragon or a man, but just an android.  His earliest appearances aren’t too involved, with him typically just acting as a tool for other antagonists, but over the years, he’s grown into his own fully-fledged character, eventually reforming, and ultimately serving in a mentor sort of role for Bentley-23, a clone of the Wizard.  He’s gotten a surprising number of figures for how infrequently he’s been used outside of the comics.  Today, I’m looking at the first of those.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dragon Man was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line.  While the line generally served as a tie-in for the cartoon running at the same time, Dragon Man is one of two figures in the second set not to appear in the show.  A variation of this figure was also adapted to Toy Biz’s smaller-scale die cast line.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 4 points of articulation.  It’s notably rather restricted for this scale, but a lot of that’s to do with how the design works.  The sculpt is decently handled.  It takes Kirby’s base design for the character, and makes it work within the context of the animated style if the rest of the line.  The build and texturing is a good match for the character, and he’s just got a nice, satisfying heft to him. He has a “fire breathing” action feature, activated by squeezing his legs.  It’s the same gimmick as the Marvel Super Heroes Venom’s tongue gimmick, which is goofy, but fun.  The color work on this one is mostly molded color, but there’s enough paint to sell the rest of it, and it’s all cleanly applied.  Dragon Man is packed with a fireball piece which is…well, I’m not sure exactly what it’s meant for.  It’s not really something he can hold, or anything, so it’s just sort of an extra bit that floats around.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Dragon Man’s not a character I’ve had a *ton* of interaction with, especially not as a kid, since he wasn’t featured in the cartoon or any of the comics I read.  I had the die cast figure, thanks to a boxed set I’d bought for other characters, but never the proper figure.  In fact, this wound up as the *last* Fantastic Four figure I needed to finish the set, so I finally made it a point to track him down in the last month.  He’s simple, but there’s a definite presence to the figure, and he fills out the shelf nicely.

If you want to see this figure in motion, I did a quick video with him over on the Figure in Question YouTube channel, so check that out here!

#3937: Blastaar

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

BLASTAAR

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

“Dubbed the Living Bomb-Burst by the subjects he once ruled within the strange dimension called the Negative Zone, the mighty Blastaar has the power to generate staggering explosions from his fingertips. But, despite this power, Blastaar was eventually overthrown, and he was exiled to our positive universe! Now he uses his concussive abilities to try to recreate his lost empire…but the Fantastic Four inevitably foil his schemes for conquest!”

The Negative Zone, an alternate dimension that exists singularly throughout all of the Marvel multiverse and is ever writers favorite way of explaining things they don’t want to explain, first appeared in the pages Fantastic Four, where it was initially an uninhabited space.  A year after it debuted, though, it got its first resident of note, Blastaar, a deposed monarch of the Zone.  He made a brief appearance in the ‘90s FF cartoon, and by extension, got his first action figure via Toy Biz’s tie-in line for the show.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Blastaar is part of Series 2 of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line, released in 1994.  He’s one of the three villains included in the line-up.  The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Blastaar’s mobility is really restricted, due both to his design and his action feature.  The neck has a cut joint, but because of the hair, he sort of only moves it at an angle.  He’s also lacking any elbow joints, and his arms are at a very straight angle.  The sculpt is unique to Blastaar, and it’s actually a pretty impressive piece of work.  He’s suitably bulky, as the character should be, and there’s some very nice texturing, especially on the figure’s hair and beard.  He’s got a bit of a Kirby vibe, but also still manages to fit with the rest of the line.  The only real quirk of the sculpt is how the action feature works into it.  He “blasts” missiles out of his hands, meaning they need to run up the entire length of his arms, meaning the arms are totally straight, and he’s got holes on either side of the arms.  There’s also no clip or actual proper launching feature, so they just sort of pop back out.  The paint work on Blastaar is pretty simple for the most part, but hits all the important notes for the character.  He’s packed with the two missiles, for use with his launching feature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Blastaar is on the earlier end of additions to my collection; I got him as a gift from a family friend back when he was new.  I knew nothing of the character at the time, and he ultimately got kind of overshadowed by the fact that I got Cyclops II at the same time, and that was clearly where all of my focus went.  Blastaar himself kind of got thrown to the side, and ultimately ended up in my Dad’s collection.  I wound up replacing that one more recently.  He’s a good figure, who very much didn’t get a proper shake when I was a kid.  But…you know, Cyclops.

If you want to see this figure in motion, I did a quick video with him over on the Figure in Question YouTube channel, so check that out here!

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0047: Dr. Doom

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

DR. DOOM

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

At the beginning of the week, I officially finished of my reviews of the first series of Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line, wrapping up a thing I started when I launched the site, 12 years ago.  But, I’m not quite done.  Oh no.  I’ve still got at least one more thing I can do, and that’s a Flashback Friday Figure Addendum of Latveria’s mad dictator, Doctor Victor Von Doom!

Today, we look at another figure from Toybiz’s Fantastic Four line from the 90s. Yesterday, we looked at Reed Richards, today we look at his arch nemesis Dr. Victor Von Doom

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The patriarch of Latveria was released in the first wave of figures. He’s based on the character’s look on the cartoon, which was obviously based the comic book look. The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation. He has a removable cape and a spring loaded right hand. The hand is launched by pushing the extremely obvious lever on the shoulder. It’s kind of an odd feature, as I don’t recall Doom ever doing anything that resembled what this figure seems to emulate. I guess maybe if he were a Doombot, but it just seems like an odd choice for a figure that would have probably been better without it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Dr. Doom was a great figure. I remember being pretty content with this figure, and as a kid he was one of my go to bad guys for whatever hero I was playing with that week. I think he still holds up pretty well for the time, aside from the odd action feature.

Man, check out that brevity.  Love it.  Miss it sometimes, honestly.  I do manage to at least cover all of the basics, so hey, pretty efficient.  I’ve always quite liked this figure’s sculpt, even if it does make him tricky to stand at times.  I do stand by my assessment that the arm launching bit is weird.  12 years later, and I still don’t quite get it.  When I first reviewed him, he was missing his only accessory, and black blaster, recolored from the X-Force line.  It’s basic and boxy and not really his usual style, but it gets the job done alright.

In addition to all the new fancy pictures, I also put together a quick video for this guy over on the newly launched FiQ YouTube page, so please check that out here!

#3934: Human Torch

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

HUMAN TORCH

FANTASTIC FOUR (TOY BIZ)

“Bombarded by cosmic rays while on an experimental space flight, teenager Johnny Storm gained an ability to match his fiery disposition. With but a thought, his body would ignite and burst into flame! Realizing that he must use his powers in the service of mankind, Johnny became the Human Torch, and fights to protect the world as a member of the Fantastic Four!”

I’ve discussed a few times here on the site Toy Biz’s strange fascination with not doing all four members of the Fantastic Four when they did the team in plastic form.  This first cropped up in their Fantastic Four line meant to tie-in with the 1994 cartoon of the same name, where, for reasons that baffled pretty much everyone, they split the main team between the first two series, with Reed and Ben in Series 1 and Sue and Johnny in Series 2.  Retailers, not particularly keen to carry the first series of a line that was only offering half of a team with the number of members in the name of the team, weren’t thrilled, and demanded the missing two members be added to the line-up.  Since the unique molds for Sue and Johnny weren’t yet ready, Toy Biz had to put together two hastily made replacements, using the parts available to them.  And that’s how we got today’s figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Human Torch was a Series 1 release for Toy Biz’s Fantastic Four line.  Sort of.  Kind of.  Not *officially* I suppose, since he’s not actually shown in the Series 1 line-up, but he was on a Series 1 card, and shipped alongside them, just like Sue, making him sort of a Series 1.5 figure, I guess.  This was Johnny’s second figure under Toy Biz, and would of course be quickly followed by another a series later.  The figure stands just under 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Since Johnny’s cartoon-based sculpt wasn’t ready yet, he was represented here as a repaint of fellow Series 1 figure Silver Surfer.  It’s a pretty bold strategy to re-use a sculpt from the same series for a totally different character, but they sure did it.  I guess it’s not the worst thing, since Surfer’s pretty basic in the first place, so he’s a blank canvas of sorts.  The weird DJ arm is even weirder here, but maybe he’s just waving “hi” to everyone.  What has to sell this figure is the color work, which does its best to be radically different.  He’s very orange, so that helps.  Since the sculpt is just basic and there’s no sculpted flames, this one’s just got them painted on, in glow-in-the-dark paint, no less.  It’s a very hokey look that really doesn’t work, but at the same time, it makes me think of the Mego Torch, and that does amuse me.  Human Torch got Cannonball’s launching stand, modified to remove the “X”, and also with the glow-in-the-dark flames.  It’s goofy and silly, but it does send him launching backwards, which is good for a laugh.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This is the second to last figure I needed to complete my Toy Biz FF run.  I never personally had this one as a kid (my dad did, though), coming into the line late enough to get both of the proper Johnnys from the later series.  This one always felt odd and half-formed.  He doesn’t even get to be a sufficiently different repaint like Sue did.  Just the second best flamed on Johnny in the line that only had two flamed on Johnnys.  He’s an interesting quirk of the Toy Biz approach, and at least one that’s got a goofy story behind him if nothing else.

If you want to see this figure in motion, I did a quick video with him over on the Figure in Question YouTube channel, so check that out here!

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0046: Hawkeye

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

HAWKEYE

IRON MAN (TOY BIZ)

Okay, I was a bit late on the draw with today’s post, so I bet you thought it wasn’t happening.  Well, ha-ha!  I’m here!  I’m doing the thing!  It’s Friday, so let’s go ahead and flashback, taking aim at Hawkeye!

 Countdown to Avengers: Age of Ultron: 9 days remaining.

Okay, we’re very definitely getting into the selection of characters that I consider to be the quintessential Avengers. And no one gets more quintessential-y than good ol’ Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye! So, let’s have look at a figure of that guy, shall we? In fact, let’s look at the very first figure of that guy ever released! That’ll be nifty!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

HawkeyeIM2Hawkeye was released in Series 2 of the 90s Iron Man line, which was done to tie-in with the Iron Man cartoon of the time. Unsurprisingly, Hawkeye is based upon his appearance in that show, which in turn was based upon the design he had in the comics around the early 90s. It’s a tweak on his classic design, and it’s not too overly 90s, so it works. I do miss the buccaneer boots and loincloth, but oh well. The figure stands roughly 5 inches in height and sports 8 points of articulation, which is actually a little bit below the standard of the time. The lack of proper arm articulation is certainly odd, what with him being an archer and all, but he actually managed okay, thanks to the pose of his arms. The figure’s sculpt was wholly original to him. It’s not bad, especially for the time. The proportions are generally pretty good. The hands and feet are a little on the large side, and the shoulders are a little high-set. He’s also got some ridiculously defined musculature, but to be fair, that’s actually true to the show. The costume details are pretty well handled, with clean lines and some nice texture work on the purple parts. The head is pretty much spot on for the character, with just the right amount of cockiness in his expression. Hawkeye’s paintwork is pretty much on par with other figures from the same time. It’s simple, but well-done. The colors are nice and bold, and everything is clean, with no real slop or bleed over. The eyes are totally white and pupil-less, which is not in keeping with his appearance on the show. However, given how small they are, it’s likely that pupils would have looked rather goofy here, so it was probably the right call. Hawkeye included a bow, arrow, quiver, a small knife, and the weird character badge thingy that was included with all of the figures in the first few series. Of course, my figure has none of these things because silly child Ethan decided to lose them all. Way to go younger me!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, I don’t recall the exact circumstances by which I came to own Hawkeye. I’m fairly certain that he was a gift from my parents. I know my Dad had a Hawkeye figure first, and that I really liked it, so I’m pretty sure he took note of this and bought me one of my own. It’s definitely an important piece in my becoming such an Avengers fanatic, I know that much. Looking back at it, it’s not a perfect figure. The arms are a weird choice, and he’s held back a little by the fact that he’s in a relatively short-lived costume. All that said, he’s my first Hawkeye figure, and he’s still my favorite.

This guy got reviewed as part of my big countdown to Avengers: Age of Ultron, which took up most of the month of April in 2015.  I was really excited for that movie, which feels like maybe it was slightly overboard in retrospect.  I mean, I was still very pleased with the final product and all, but of all the movies to rally so hard behind, that one feels slightly odd.  Far be it from me to get too harsh on my past self for enjoying something, though.  I recall there was almost some last minute shuffling on the schedule, and this guy almost got replaced by the Marvel Select Hawkeye, but I decided that two Hawkeyes in a month was okay by me.  My review’s not too bad.  Hits all the important notes, and is generally positive about a figure that I do still very much like.  I was missing all of his accessories, though, and I’ve thankfully been able to locate them all in the mean time.  He sure does look a lot less silly actually having his bow and arrows!

#3930

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

SNOWBIRD & PUCK

ALPHA FLIGHT (TOY BIZ)

“In her human guise, she is simply known as Anne McKenzie. But those that are familiar with her true form know her as Snowbird, mystical protector of the Canadian North! Born of a human father and goddess mother, Snowbird was bestowed with various magical powers, including the ability to transform herself into any animal of the arctic regions, such as the ferocious wolverine! Nowadays Snowbird allies herself with other super powered individuals — like the jovial, cart-wheeling Puck — on Canada’s premier super hero team, Alpha Flight!”

Alpha Flight!  They’re just like other super heroes, but they’re also Canadian!  No, seriously, they’re mostly just other super heroes with Canadian elements tacked on top.  Well, I guess it helps keep them memorable.  There’s been a few rounds of toy coverage over the years for these guys, starting back in the ‘90s, when Toy Biz first debuted the team as an assortment of two-packs.  Thus far, I’ve looked at two of the three sets, and today, I’m wrapping up the set, a mere eight years after starting it, with a look at Snowbird and Puck!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Snowbird and Puck are, as noted above, the third and final two-pack from Toy Biz’s 1998 Alpha Flight line, wrapping up the team’s core line-up.

SNOWBIRD

In reading my old Alpha Flight reviews in prep for this one, I’ve discovered that I’ve mentioned that Snowbird is a Byrne creation the predates his comics work both times I’ve discussed the character.  So, guess I won’t fall into that trap again…apart from right here when I did it in a meta sense.  The real trouble with talking about Snowbird is that, while she may be the living embodiment of the spirit of Canada, she unfortunately doesn’t actually get much personality beyond that, so she’s just…there.  Her figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 11 points of articulation.  The neck is effectively useless, but the shoulders are actually pretty nice, and giving her ankle joints allows her to be s touch more stable than some other figures of the era.  Her sculpt makes her very, very skinny, which isn’t much of a departure from how Byrne depicted her, I suppose.  The head seems to get the character down alright, and the costume details are etched in, rather than just simply relying on paint.  She also gets a cloth cape piece, which is simple, but hangs well and gets the job done.  Her color work is generally basic, but it’s clean, and it gets the colors down appropriately, helping sell her rather striking look.  Snowbird is packed with two additional versions of herself, one in bird form, the other in, like, maybe badger form?  Is it a wolverine?  Would that be redundant?

PUCK

The objective best member of Alpha Flight (you can’t fight me on this, I have facts on my side, and those facts are that I like him more than the others), Puck wasn’t added to the team until after they got their own book, presumably to make up for Wolverine having vacated his “short guy” position on the team.  While later releases would make more proper figures, this release turns Puck into effectively a glorified accessory to Snowbird.  He’s a little over 2 inches tall and he only has movement at the midsection.  It’s not really articulation, since it’s a spring-loaded joint so that you can make him do flips.  It’s…odd.  He’s way too small for proper scaling; Puck’s a small guy, but, like, actual, real-life little person small, not fully shrunken-down smaller scale person small.  At the very least, his head should be bigger than it is.  As it stands, he’s really just sort of a figurine, with quite a bit of preposing, which I guess isn’t the worst.  The sculpt doesn’t look *unlike* Puck, which is at least on the right track.  His color work does feel especially muted and dark, making him feel very murky and easily lost in the crowd when the whole team is together.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Northstar and Aurora as a kid, and I got Vindicator and Sasquatch in 2017.  I sort of forgot I did’t have this one, to the point that when a sealed set came into All Time as part of a much larger Toy Biz collection in 2023, I *almost* passed on them.  Thankfully, I came to my senses.  This set’s not as strong as the other two, because it’s really not a two-pack.  Because of the way they handled Puck, it’s really just Snowbird and a bunch of accessories.  She’s fine, I guess, but she’s Snowbird, so not the most thrilling.  Puck is really just a placeholder, and his later figures have thankfully been much better.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this set for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3926: Cloak & Dagger

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

CLOAK & DAGGER

CLOAK & DAGGER (TOY BIZ)

“Teenagers possessing the powers of light and darkness, Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen are Cloak and Dagger! Drawing opponents into himself, Cloak later releases them weakened and unable to fight and longer. His costume conceals his shadowy power, a place of darkness that feeds on its victims. Wielding her power in the form of blades of pure light, Dagger is able to drain her enemies of their vitality; she can also use her power to alleviate Cloak’s hunger for light. Brought together by destiny, Cloak and Dagger remain a duo committed to ridding the streets of the criminals who would destroy it.”

Cloak and Dagger were created in 1982 as a pair of antagonists (but not villains) for Spider-Man, a fact that I used to open my only other Cloak and Dagger review, all the way back in 2018.  What does that mean?  Largely that my connection to the characters in tangental at best.  I’ve probably read a couple of comics where they appeared, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really read any focus stories, and certainly not any of their stand alone stuff.  They have a clever name, though, and a neat visual dynamic, so, that’s cool for toys, right?

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cloak and Dagger were released in 1997 as their own stand-alone boxed two-pack under Toy Biz’s larger 5-Inch Marvel banner.  In terms of styling and era of release, they’re a lot like the Famous Couples sets, but they were general release and without marked edition sizes. This was the first figure treatment for both characters, and they would remain the only ones for almost a decade, until Diamond Select released both Select and Minimates versions.  The set included the two figures, as well as a small tin with an illustration on the front.  Maybe you can keep all the weird junk from the other two-packs in it?

CLOAK

Cloak starts us off with a relatively by the numbers re-use based figure.  He stands 5 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation.  Cloak is primarily using the Octo-Spidey base body that Toy Biz was so fond of using.  It’s perfectly fine here, since it’s mostly just an excuse to hold up his cloak.  The head is a re-use of Deadpool II’s unmasked head, which, if nothing else, has the virtue of being a less frequently used part.  In the earlier days, Cloak’s face tended to have a lot of line work, so the texturing of the sculpt works okay to replicate that.  It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad.  The color work does a bit of the lifting on differentiating him from the earlier uses of the parts.  He makes a lot of use of accenting and washes, which works very nicely.  Adorning all of the reused sculpted parts, is a soft goods cloak piece.  It’s thick, and rough in texture, and mostly just hangs there.  The print with the stripes works, though, and it’s got a good presence.

DAGGER

Lest there be any fear of things getting too crazy here, Dagger keeps Cloak’s re-use basis going, also being rather by the numbers.  She’s just shy of 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation.  Her movement is very limited, due to a combination of the hard plastic hair restricting her neck, and the use of v-hips.  Generally, she’s just for standing.  She does at least get universal shoulders.  She’s constructed entirely out of parts from the “Ninja” series of X-Men, with the head of Psylocke, and the body of Deathbird (albeit with the torso and arms modified to remove the connection points for the wings).  The head’s actually a pretty solid match for Dagger’s usual depictions, and the color shift helps to differentiate in well from the original usage.  The body’s okay, but the sculpted belt-line goes through a spot on her waist that’s supposed to be skin, which does look a little bit odd.  Her coloring is pretty nice; the white sections of her outfit are pearlescent, and I’m always a sucker for that.  Beyond that, it’s fairly basic paint work, which does what it needs to and sells the look generally well.  The only slightly off bit is the amulet on the front of her chest, which looks very fake, but that’s about it.  Dagger gets four “dagger” pieces, which are actually just Marrow’s bone pieces, but cast in clear plastic.  Honestly, apart from being far too large, they work better than expected.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set proved my first introduction to the characters.  Of course, I didn’t know who they were, so I didn’t buy one new, and they weren’t my first *figures* of the two (those would be the Minimates), but it does still sort of cement them as the standard look of the characters in my head.  I finally got a chance to snag the set a few years ago, in a larger collection, with most of the other multipacks. As noted within the review proper, they’re both very by the numbers figures, entirely reliant on re-used parts.  But, it ultimately works okay for them, and I think this winds up as a pretty neat little set.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this figure for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3922: Gambit & Rogue

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

GAMBIT & ROGUE

MARVEL’S FAMOUS COUPLES (TOY BIZ)

“Even though they’ve only kissed once, Gambit and Rogue are one of the X-Men’s greatest couples. Kept apart by Rogues mutant ability to absorb the memories and powers of whoever she touches, this couple still finds themselves inevitably drawn together. Whether they’re battling the Sentinels or walking side-by-side in the part, Gambit and Rogue know that there is nowhere they’d rather be than together.”

Hey, that’s not a bad bio…for the mainstream Gambit and Rogue…who these aren’t.  Confused?  Allow me to explain.  In 1996, Toy Biz dedicated a single series of their X-Men line to the “Age of Apocalypse” storyline.  It wasn’t really much coverage, but did its best to hit some of the heavy hitters.  It was originally a six figure line-up, but was cut down to five prior to release (something faced by the Iron Man and Fantastic Four lines at the same time, which led to US Agent and Adam Warlock getting cut), with the alternate universe version of Gambit winding up on the chopping block.  Not wanting to let a wholly new sculpt go to waste, Gambit was ultimately salvaged for use in a Famous Couples two-pack, alongside a similarly themed Rogue figure.  All well and good, apart from the two not *actually* being a proper couple in the alternate universe, and certainly not a “famous” one.  Ah, we’ll give them a pass on this one.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Gambit and Rogue are another of the three two-packs from the Toys “R” Us-exclusive Marvel’s Famous Couples line.  Each pair was released separately, with this pair hitting in 1997, during the run’s second year.  The set includes the two figures, their relevant accessories, and a metal pin depicting the two of them.  At least it’s got more direct purpose than the weird metal thing from the Cyclops and Jean set.

GAMBIT

Gambit is really the whole reason this set exists in the first place, as a means to release the unused AoA Gambit from the main X-Men line.  The AoA Gambit design is…well, it’s something.  Of all the designs, his feels the most like it delves into different for different, and it ultimately suffers from not being nearly as striking as the mainstream equivalent.  But, it’s certainly *different* so I’ll give it that.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation. The left shoulder is spring-loaded, so he’s got sort of a flinging action.  It also robs him of his elbow movement.  The sculpt is decent enough.  Rather on the pre-posed side, but pretty much on par with the other AoA figures.  He does wind up rather contorted, especially when it comes to the neck, which looks pretty strange in most poses.  He’s also a little tricky to keep standing.  His cape is a separate piece, and it’s kind of floaty and never seems to quite sit right.  His color work does alright.  This design is a bit slapdash in its color choices, kind of like they just picked at random, but they replicate them well here.  The application’s generally okay, though the skin tone on his face is quite thick, obscuring the sculpted details quite a bit.  Gambit is packed with his staff piece, as well as an energy piece for him to throw, which is, for some reason, cast in opaque blue.

ROGUE

Rogue’s a pretty notable character in AoA, and honestly more noteworthy than Gambit, so the fact that she wasn’t even planned at all for the line-up does seem kind of odd.  There are, notably, no women in the AoA series from ’96, so it might have been a retailer thing.  At least she didn’t ultimately have to wait too long.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation.  Since Rogue didn’t have a pre-existing mold sitting around to use, Toy Biz had to sort of improvise a bit.  They opted to re-use the mold from the Generation X White Queen figure, which isn’t a bad sculpt, but also isn’t exceedingly much like Rogue’s design from the cross-over.  I guess the head’s not too far off, and they decided to just make the rest of it work as best they could?  Honestly, it does work out a bit better than I’d expected, so I’ll give them some credit on their inventiveness there.  There’s a cloth robe/vest piece, which replaces the jacket of the original mold, and largely serves to hide a little bit more of what’s going on, which it’s ultimately okay at.  Otherwise, it’s paint work doing the heavy lifting.  It’s very much takes Toy Biz’s patented “just completely ignore the sculpted elements” approach, which is what it is.  I do like the colors, though, especially with the metallic sheen the whole thing gets.  Rogue gets a stand, which is the Generation X stand, but in gold instead of red.  Since she’s a bit iffy on her feet, the stand is certainly nice.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Back in the early days of collecting for me, it was less immediately clear what figures actually got released.  As such, it was a little while before I learned that there was never *actually* a single release for the AoA Gambit on the back of all the boxes.  I made do at the time with the light-up release, and didn’t know of this one’s release for a few more years.  I ended up getting this one at the same time as last week’s Cyclops and Jean.  It’s nice that they were able to get the Gambit figure out in some way, and also that they found a means to release a Rogue from the story, resulting in a pretty nice selection of the AoA cast in the longer run.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased these figures for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3918: Cyclops & Jean Grey

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

CYCLOPS & JEAN GREY

MARVEL’S FAMOUS COUPLES (TOY BIZ)

“As founding members of the mutant team of super heroes called the X-Men, Scott Summers and Jean Grey began a friendship that quickly blossomed into love. Adventuring around the globe and even into outer space, Scott and Jean have faced the most terrifying of threats. But even when hardships struck this duo, they’ve struggled to overcome the danger and emerge together even stronger than before. Now married, Cyclops and Phoenix are the foundation of the X-Men team!”

During their expansive ‘90s run with Marvel, Toy Biz really experimented with all sorts of ways to get as many figures as possible out on the market.  While the bulk of their figures were single-carded assortments, they also had all manner of multi-packs, of all manner of themes.  In the latter half of the decade, they put out a decent chunk of themed two-packs, usually exclusive to specific retailers.  One of the larger sets of these was Famous Couples, which paired off some of the best known couples in the Marvel Universe.  And, you can hardly do such a set without touching on really the central couple of the X-universe, Cyclops and whatever code name Jean Grey is using this week!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cyclops and Jean Grey are one of the three two-packs that made up the Marvel’s Famous Couples line.  It was a Toys “R” Us-exclusive run, with each pair getting a 24,000 piece production.  The sets were released individually, with Scott and Jean coming from the line’s second year.  In addition to character-specific accessories (which I’ll address in the relevant sections), the set included a weird pressed metal sort of thing depicting the two embracing in a way that the figure’s could only dream of.

CYCLOPS

Cyclops had no shortage of figures under Toy Biz.  They covered most of his major looks, and this one was rather unique.  It’s his late-run X-Factor attire, which lasted all of 7 issues, but had a lot of influence on the later Jim Lee re-design.  This is the only time it’s gotten a figure, which is pretty neat.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  He’s a total kit bash figure, with the head from the Monster Armor release and the body of Archangel II.  Boy, did Toy Biz sure love that Archangel II body.  It’s an…interesting combo.  The head has that whole screaming thing going on, which is odd enough on the original release, where it’s worked into the whole body.  It’s extra odd on this very stiffly posed body.  Presumably, it was chosen as a reference to the cover of Uncanny X-Men #280, but given that the sculpt for the X-Men vs Street Fighter Cyclops was in production at the same time, it does feel like a bit of a shame that one wasn’t re-used.  The body’s fine, but still has the sculpted wrist cuffs that don’t line up with Scott’s costume, and also still the visible spots on the back where the wings would have connected.  Scott’s paint work is rather sloppy around the edges, but I do like the colors, especially the metallic blue.  Scott is packed with a recolored version of the Cerebro blaster from the Generation X Banshee, which is…fine?  I don’t know.  It’s a weird accessory, and it doesn’t really fit him, and he can’t hold it.

JEAN GREY

Jean was a little rarer under Toy Biz, but still on her third separate mold here, so that’s not so bad.  Like Scott, she’s in her short-lived X-Factor costume, which she had for the exact same span of time, and which has likewise not received any other figures.  The figure is 5 inches tall and she has 9 points of articulation, though the neck is very restricted.  Jean is also totally parts re-use, but curiously, none of the parts were previously Jean Grey figures.  Instead, she gets Black Cat’s head on Invisible Woman’s body.  Admittedly not a bad combo, and I’m honestly a little surprised it never got re-used for a more proper ‘90s Jean.  It’s a little stiff, and you can still see the costume elements for Sue on the body, but it does feel less clunky than Scott.  The paint is also a little cleaner here.  The colors remain the same, and she still gets that really cool metallic blue, which I still really dig.  Jean gets Blizzard’s ice fist and cane, but now in translucent red.  Not totally sure why, but they’re cool enough.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I vividly recall looking at this set multiple times when it was new, but for whatever reason, I never actually bought it.  Seems sort of silly, because it’s a Cyclops, and I do love an excuse to buy those.  This one got traded into All Time Toys a couple of years ago in a much larger Toy Biz collection that I bought way too much of.  A good cross section of the two-packs was present, so that made that part easier.  They’ve been sitting in my office waiting to be opened for a bit, but I finally cracked open a bunch of them in the spring, as I’ve been trying to get more of my Toy Biz stuff out on display.  This set’s kinda weird and quirky.  But also, I kinda dig it.  Like, it’s not great, and it’s not Toy Biz’s best take on either character, but they’re a fun and unique pair.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased these figures for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0042: Eric the Red

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

ERIC THE RED

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

It’s Friday, and that means we’re flashing back into another figure addendum!  I get to dive back into the world of Toy Biz Marvel, which is of course one of my very favorite things.  Specifically, I’m going back to my own personal earliest days, and revisiting the one and only ever action figure of X-Men antagonist Eric the Red!

Eric the Red was a famous Viking, known for being the father of—wait, sorry. That’s not the right Eric the Red. Right. Umm… Eric the Red was an alias used by X-Man Cyclops in order to infiltrate a group of villains so he could rescue the rest of the X-Men. What? Still not right? Hang on….

Here it is: Eric the Red was a member of the Shi’ar Empire, the alien race most notable for really hating the Phoenix. He actually stole the identity from Cyclops, for reasons unknown, and used Shi’ar tech to mind control Havok and Polaris into battling the current team of X-Men. Mostly, he’s known for his appearances in the 90s X-Men cartoon during the show’s version of The Phoenix Saga, which is what earned him this figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Eric the Red was released in the “Invasion Series” of ToyBiz’s X-Men line. In all honesty, I’m a bit surprised he wasn’t part of the wave meant to tie-in to The Phoenix Saga, but I guess ToyBiz was just making everything X-Men related at the time. The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation. That’s a bit less than the norm, mostly due to his lack of knee joints. I’m not really sure why he’s missing them, but they do cause him to be a little difficult to get to stand properly. From a sculpting standpoint, the figure’s amazing. The 90s X-Men line could be a bit odd or overly simplistic at times (doesn’t mean I don’t still love them), but this one is genuinely great. He pretty much looks dead on to Dave Cockrum’s interpretation of the character, which is really cool to see. There’s an amazing amount of sculpted detail, and I especially love how well the head’s been handled. It just looks perfect. The paint work isn’t quite as astounding as the sculpting, but it’s all well applied, and I do really like that all the red parts have been molded in metallic red. Eric included a crazy space blaster, which fit very nicely in his hand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Eric was a Christmas gift from my parents. I received him, along with Havok, I believe. He was a very early addition to my action figure collection, and as such, I have a lot of nostalgia for this guy. It also helps that he was in The Phoenix Saga, which I owned on VHS, and that he is also just a pretty great figure. He also made for a really great bad guy for just about anyone to fight, which is always cool. 

This review came from roughly the middle of the first year, and was a very early review for Toy Biz X-Men.  He’s only the second mainline figure I looked at here on the site, which is honestly a pretty deep pull, but also feels very appropriate for me.  I think my review’s generally not bad.  It helps that he’s a figure I genuinely like a lot, and I think that comes through pretty well.  I do still have a few notes.  Firstly, my figure was missing his “crazy space blaster” as I dubbed in my review, which I have subsequently replaced.  It’s a pretty basic piece, and he does hold it well.  Something I glossed over in Eric’s review, but talked more about in my year-end wrap-up review for Havok, is that Eric and Havok are my first two X-Men figures, purchased for me by my father for Christmas the year they came out.  Allegedly, my mother raised some concern that I wouldn’t know the characters, but that was pretty well squashed when I opened them Christmas morning.  Eric doesn’t maintain quite the same significance for me that Havok does, but he’s still pretty up there, and I do still really love this figure.