Tag Archives: Toy Biz

#3704: Red Skull

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

RED SKULL

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“The Red Skull, a notorious American enemy during World War II, continues in his quest toward world domination. And being the military and political genius that he is, the world better beware! Traditionally an enemy of Captain America, this evil villain has recently turned his attentions towards the amazing Spider-Man and his heroic exploits. And not that weapons-master Red Skull has employed his special “Giant Skull Catcher” device, this villain of all villains makes any rival easy prey!”

Nazis.  I hate these guys.

So, remember when one of Captain America’s most prominent Toy Biz era releases was inexplicably in their Spider-Man line?  And that was kind of weird?  I mean, I guess there was a whole arc with Cap in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, so it wasn’t *that* weird.  Cap was supposed to get his own cartoon, but it was ultimately the victim of Marvel’s bankruptcy.  That left Cap and his supporting cast without a real landing spot, so Cap was in the Spider-Man line, and so was his nemesis Red Skull, the aforementioned Nazi, who I hate.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Skull was released in 1998 as part of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, as part of the “Flip ‘N Trap” assortment, which was an odd gimmicky assortment under the larger “Sneak Attack” sub-line.  It’s sort of strange that he was in an entirely separate assortment from Cap, and wasn’t even released in the same year, but there it is.  Maybe he sat around for a bit before release?  This was the first ever Red Skull figure, which has its own sort of notability.   The figure is a little over 5 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  Skull got a lot upgraded articulation, which was honestly pretty cool.  The sculpt was an all-new one, and I don’t believe any of it was re-used later.  Despite being in an animation-based line, the Skull’s sculpt doesn’t seem to be based directly on his animated appearance.  It’s more of an all-purpose Red Skull, I guess.  The sculpt’s slightly wonky.  The proportions are slightly odd, with notably large hands and feet.  The head also seems a little too actually skull-like for his usual looks.  The left hand appears to be sculpted to maybe hold, oh, I don’t know, a cube, or something?  But nothing of the sort is included.  The color work on Red Skull is generally basic, but there’s some decent accent work on the head to help with the sculpted details.  Red Skull is packed with his own “Flip ‘N Trap” thingy, which is a backpack with a large red skull thing at the front.  It launches these small yellow rubber spider things.  It’s honestly more of a space filler than anything, and doesn’t really do much for the core figure, but it’s not terrible.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I was a kid, on a trip to Toys R Us with my dad, I recall having the choice between getting this guy or X-Man.  I chose X-Man, because I guess I’m more of a heroes guy.  I did wind up getting Red Skull later down the line, obviously, courtesy they guys over at Cosmic Comix.  I lost some of the weird launcher parts over the years, but I was able to re-complete my figure thanks to trade-in at All Time.  Honestly, he’s kind of a weird figure, but then, so have most of the Red Skull figures.  I guess this one just sort of set the precedent for the ones that followed.  Ultimately, he’s not terrible, but he’s wonky.  I suppose that means he just matches up with the corresponding Cap in quality.

#3674: Stealth Venom

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

STEALTH VENOM

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

“In the past, Venom has been both hero and villain, and Spider-Man knows how powerful he can be! With his chameleon-like abilities, Venom can even blend into his surroundings and virtually ‘disappear’ from sight. So, although Venom is unpredictable, one thing is certain; when he does appear, things heat up!”

Ah, yes, Venom’s chameleon like abilities. Of all the Spider-Man villains out there, surely it’s Venom whose abilities could be best classified as “chameleon-like.” …look, guys, I can’t just stand by and let this Chameleon erasure happen! He’s the original Spider-Man villain. Can’t we get him some respect? No? Well, I tried. I guess I’ll just review this “chameleon-like” Venom.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Stealth Venom was released in Series 7 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line.  The whole set was dialed into Toy Biz’s tendency to give their lines the occasional repaint-heavy line-up, so there were minimal new parts across the board, all dialed into more recognizable characters.  This was Venom’s third time in the line, and the first of the kind of made-up variants.  It was far from the last of either thing, of course.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Venom lacks elbow joints for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, but there it is.  Otherwise, it’s pretty standard stuff.  His sculpt from the neck down was the same as the unmasked Venom from earlier in the line.  It’s honestly not a bad sculpt, and in particular it captured the animated approach to Venom pretty well.  He got a new head, which removed the removable mask feature…un-removed?  I don’t know.  There’s no unmasked head is my point.  It’s really bulky at the neck, and I’m not entirely sure why.  Also, he’s got this sort of permanently looking up thing going on, which seems odd for someone of his stature.  Venom’s stealth-ness came from the color work, which was translucent.  There were actually two different versions; the one seen here was the one that more closely mimicked Venom’s usual set-up, while the second one inverted the colors.  This one’s not nearly as different at a glance, especially in the photos, but I guess it works out alright.  Venom was packed with two clip-on hand attachments, as well as a web-line that was wrapped around his waist.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was surprisingly short on Venom figures growing up.  I had one of the 10-inchers, and I jumped on the original Spider-Man Classics one pretty quickly, but the 5-inch ones all eluded me until later in life.  This guy was mixed in with a handful of Toy Biz figures that got traded into All Time a month or two ago, and he was surprisingly complete, so hooray for me!  He’s kinda goofy, obviously, but it’s not like I’m collecting the Toy Biz stuff for its serious adherence to the comics lore, am I?  Now, I guess I just have to track down that variant.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3669: Halloween Jack

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

HALLOWEEN JACK

X-MEN 2099 (TOY BIZ)

“Once a schoolmate of the X-Man Meanstreak, Jordon Boone went on to become a most trusted employee of the monolithic Alchemax corporation, Alchemax installed nano-tech implants into Boone’s central nervous system-implants that render his cellular structure transmutable allowing him to change his shape at will. Calling himself Halloween Jack, this mischief maker causes trouble for friends and enemies alike.”

The 2099 imprint was a notable component of Marvel’s line-up in the ’90s, but these days, people tend to really only remember Spider-Man.  They did try to make some strides towards more unique storytelling, and X-Men 2099 in particular built a cast that wasn’t just re-hashes of prior characters.  The team also had a sizable portion of supporting players and recurring antagonists, such as Halloween Jack, a character who would later be revealed to actually be the future’s incarnation of Loki.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Halloween Jack was released in series 2 of Toy Biz’s X-Men 2099 line, released in 1996.  He was also re-released in 1997 on the Marvel Universe card back.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 17 points of articulation, which includes a moving ponytail.  The amount of articulation is honestly astounding.  Like, I’m not sure exactly why Halloween Jack of all characters go this much movement, but here we are.  The only thing missing was some sort of hinge on the elbows.  Jack’s sculpt was all-new at the time, though it would be re-used for Jackal in the Maximum Cloneage boxed set.  As Jack was a shapeshifter, his exact appearance in the comics was rather fluid, but the sculpt actually does a pretty good job capturing the general vibe of the character’s illustrated appearances.  There’s quite a bit of texturing in play, which certainly keeps him visually interesting.  His paint work is decent enough.  The black and bright green is a very striking combo, and the application is all pretty clean, though his face is oddly fuzzy, which is something I’ve seen on multiple copies of the figure.  Jack is packed with monstrous mask and glove pieces to showcase his shapeshifting abilities.  It’s not a perfect set-up, but they’re fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have Halloween Jack himself as a kid, but I did have the Jackal repaint from the boxed set, so I remember the mold pretty well.  I had plenty of opportunities to get a Jack over the years, but never really jumped on it, and then by the time I wanted one, it was tricky to find him complete.  Thankfully, he was one of a small handful of packaged figures that got traded into All Time, so I got a chance to open a sealed one.  He’s a surprisingly good figure.  It’s kind of crazy the amount of effort they put into specifically this guy, but Toy Biz had a tendency to do that every so often.  It’s just one of their quirks, I suppose.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3664: Strong Guy

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

STRONG GUY

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Last week, I jumped back into Toy Biz Marvel with a discussion of the repaints that kept the line fresh on the pegs of KB Toys, one of the greatest supporters of the brand in the ’90s.  There were a variety of different ways they kept up with things, but at the tail end of the decade, they really dialed in on X-Men specifically.  There was a range of differences in terms of what they did with those figures.  Today’s offering, Strong Guy, was on the minor end of things when it came to change-ups.  Let’s jump into those, I guess?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy was released in the first assortment of the KB-exclusive X-Men repaint line, released in 1998.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  His sculpt is re-use of the Series 6 Strong Guy, which was the only other Strong Guy Toy Biz ever did.  It was definitely a little on the small side for Guido, at least as he was usually depicted in the comics at the time, and the articulation was a bit stripped down by the line’s usual standards, but it was a sculpt that certainly looked the part for the character.  While the Magneto from this line had a rather drastically different color scheme from the original AoA release, Strong Guy doesn’t quite go that far, but it’s still a bit beyond the differences between the Morph releases, which you could chalk up to production changes.  The colors are rather desaturated compared to the original release, which is certainly an interesting choice.  Also, the one true application change here is the moving of his X-logo from his left side to centered on his vest.  I guess that works better for branding?  I don’t know.  I don’t think Guido ever had the logo there, but I honestly didn’t keep up with all of his costume changes.  Like the original release, this figure was without accessories, but he does still have his “power punch” feature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Given how long it took me to even get around to opening my original Strong Guy, I guess it’s not a shock that I didn’t rush out to get this guy.  Honestly, I wasn’t even super sure I was going to do all of the variant hunting for all of these figures, at least initially, but I’ve gotten more invested in that over the years, so, when I found this guy at Factory Antiques, I opted to jump on it.  There’s not much new to this one, and it’s hard to say exactly *why* Toy Biz felt the need to do him, but, you know what?  I won’t knock them for doing another Strong Guy.

#3659: Magneto

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

MAGNETO

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

For the bulk of the ’90s, KB Toys filled up a good portion of their action figure aisle with Toy Biz Marvel figures.  Earlier in the decade, they got a lot of close-out and liquidation deals on older figures, so they had a pretty steady stock of those, allowing for ease of access to fill-in a collection.  As they sold through that stock, however, they needed more.  The easiest solution was just to ask Toy Biz to reprint some old molds in stripped down packaging, which honestly worked out pretty well.  A lot of the figures wound up being nearly identical to the earlier releases, but every so often they’d mix things up.  Case in point?  Today’s Magneto figure.  Let’s check him out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Magneto was released in the second KB-exclusive repaint assortment of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, released in 1998.  He was an ever so slightly tweaked version of the prior repaint release of Magneto from the Marvel Hall of Fame line the prior year.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Sculpturally, this figure is the same as the AoA Magneto.  It’s a solid mold, through and through.  Definitely a more specifically dialed-in version of the character, of course, but it was Toy Biz’s most recent version of the character at the time, and AoA styling or not, the mold that fit the most with the rest of their output at the time.  The major change-up here is the paint.  Rather than a straight adaptation of the AoA costume, this one’s got more of an amalgamated look.  Definitely still leaning into the main classic color scheme, but he’s also got bare arms and a big white “M” on his chest now, which both call back to his ’80s costume (which finally got its proper figure due this year as part of the Legends ’97 tie-in line-up).  He’s also got a bit of silver thrown into the mix as well, for a little extra accenting.  It’s not a strictly comics-based look, but it’s honestly a pretty solid set-up, and the paint work is definitely very strong.  Like his AoA-counterpart, this guy is packed with his removable helmet and cape, as well as the big hand attachment.  I dig the hand a lot more this time, since it’s gets fully-painted detailing, which sells the whole look a bit better.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually came very close to getting this figure a number of times back in the ’90s, before I’d gotten the proper AoA version.  But, once I got that one, I didn’t feel like I *needed* this one.  Look, I was young; I didn’t know where I was ultimately going with this ’90s Toy Biz thing.  It’s one of those figures I’ve always remembered, and I’ve been hoping to get one for a bit.  As luck would have it, I happened upon a loose one while wandering through Factory Antiques during a day trip back in the spring.  He’s pretty nifty.  Like, yeah, not comics accurate, but it’s just a lot of fun.

#3626: The Beast

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

THE BEAST — SPACE RIDERS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Fun FiQ Fact #0105: The Beast’s real name is Henry McCoy, and he’s a doctor, which can get real confusing if you call him Dr. McCoy while he’s on a space mission.

Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiders!!!!!!  Oh, yeah, gonna look at some more Space Riders.  You know, cuz it’s a set of five and I’ve looked at four of them, so, like, let’s wrap that up, I guess.  Now, the undeniable heavy hitters of the set are Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey, so they’re a lock.  Xavier does a lot with the space side of things, and he’s rarer with action figure coverage, so he’s decent.  But, if you’re doing five of them?  Who else do you do?  There’s got to be some degree of playing favorites, I suppose.  Whatever the chase, the choice was Beast, whose scientifically-inclined mind certainly sets him up for success in a space-faring environment.  So, here he is, I guess.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Beast is the fifth and final figure from the “Space Riders” set that Toy Biz released in 1997 as part of their X-Men line.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  The articulation scheme is fine.  Restricted a bit, since he doesn’t have any elbow or wrist movement.  Also, he lacks any ankle movement, which was kind of a standard for Beast, to help with his crouching poses.  This one has to rely on some slightly more awkward posing to accomplish it.  The figure’s design goes for the “add some armor to the character’s usual look” angle, which we saw with both Jean and Logan.  In Beast’s case, that means a good portion of his body is just completely uncovered, which doesn’t really seem ideal for space, but, you know, maybe there’s a good scientific explanation for it?  Hank would probably know, I guess.  Beast’s sculpt is all-new, like the rest of the set.  It’s a rather unique one, not really following in the footsteps of any of the other Beast figures Toy Biz put out.  It’s…interesting.  The head keeps the hair more tame and refined, more in line with his earlier furred appearances.  The face isn’t quite right for that, though, and feels kind of, I don’t know, un-Hank McCoy-like.  The body sculpt has a good variety of textures, which at least keeps things visually interesting.  The fur texturing in particular is quite impressive.  The color work on this figure is a lot of blue and yellow, consistent with the others in the set.  The paint application is notably cleaner on this guy than the other four, at least for my set, which I certainly like.  As with the others in the set, Hank is packed with a face mask and a big space sled thing.  His sled is, understandably, much larger than the others.  It’s got a lot more vertical play, and there’s a large cannon thing…I don’t know that it works as well as a vehicle on its own as some of the others, but it works well as part of the larger interlocking vehicle assembly.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

After passing on the whole set many times when they were new, I finally managed to snag a whole set of them this past fall, courtesy of Factory Antique Mall.  Beast, much like the figure proper, was just along for the ride.  If I was getting the whole set, I was getting him.  He’s not as phoned in as Jean, but he’s definitely not the strongest entry in the set either.  But, I have the whole set, and they do look pretty fun together.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0021: Polaris

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

POLARIS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Whaaaaaaaaat!?! Another one of these addendums? So soon? You betcha! I don’t like bringing them back for just one thing, so, umm, I’m not! Ha-haaa! We’re keeping this Toy Biz Marvel bit rolling, but jumping quite a bit ahead in my reviews, all the way to 2021, when I reviewed Polaris!

“Lorna Dane, a long-time friend to the X-Men, is the mutant known as Polaris! Able to manipulate the forces of magnetism, she has learned to utilize her powers in various ways, such as creating force fields and firing pure bolts of magnetic energy! As a member of the government sanctioned X-Factor Team, Polaris will not hesitate to use her powerful mutant abilities to help the X-Men whenever she is needed!”

“Long-time friend” kind of down plays that whole period in the ’60s when she was an actual member of the team.  Or that period in the ’80s when she was an actual member of the team.  Heck, you can’t even use the “maybe they were trying to keep it in line with the cartoon” excuse, because, there too, she was an actual member of the team.  What I’m getting at here is a simple question: why does this unnamed Toy Biz copy writer have a personal vendetta against Lorna Dane?  Is it because of all the times she’s been brainwashed and crazy?  Because you’re going to have to rule out, like, 90% of the X-Men, if that’s your thing.  I will not stand for this slander libel against Lorna.  It’s unreasonable, I tell you!  I’m so mad, I’m gonna review this action figure.  I know, that’s so out of character for me.  See?  See how mad I am?  It’s your move, person that wrote the packaging text on a figure from 25 years ago for a toy company that’s been defunct for over a decade…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Polaris was released in the “Flashback Series” of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, which hit shelves in 1996, and was the 15th assortment in the line.  It was that year’s requisite repaint series, which they’d gotten somewhat attached to, I suppose.  Polaris marked the third member of the ’90s X-Factor team added, and would be the last one added to the mainstream line.  She’s ostensibly in her ’90s team attire, but I’ll get a bit more into that in a moment.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation.  Since it was a repaint series, Polaris is, unsurprisingly, a repaint, specifically of the Series 6 Rogue figure.  It’s not a terrible sculpt, I suppose, but it was a little outdated by this point, making her a little stiffer than other figures from the same year.  And, while the overall design of the character matches up alright with the sculpt if you squint, it’s not a super close match, and ends up amalgamating a few of her different X-Facter looks.  It’s seems to be closest to the sleeveless with headband look she had slightly later in the run, but adds a jacket to the mix (since Rogue’s was sculpted in place), and somewhat awkwardly recreates a few of her costume design elements by ignoring or reinterpreting the actual sculpted Rogue elements.  This is largely done by the paint work, which does the heavy lifting to make Rogue look like Polaris.  Honestly, it does a pretty respectable job, and while it looks like she’s a repaint, she’s at least distinctly different enough to not look totally out of place if both figures are on the shelf.  Polaris was packed with a removable belt, and a weird translucent green gun thing…I suppose to make up for Rogue’s general lack of the obligatory unnecessary gun?  She also keeps Rogue’s “Power Upper Punch” action feature, which is a little out of place with Lorna, but it’s a part of the sculpt, so it stays.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had Havok in my X-Men collection from the very beginning, so I couldn’t very well not have Polaris to go with him, right?  I got her back when she was new, and if I’m recalling correctly, I believe she was given to me by my parents, alongside the second of the two X-Men carrying cases I had as a kid.  I’m fairly certain I actually got her before Rogue, which made her stand out a bit more in my collection at the time.  She’s perhaps not the most exciting or inventive figure in the line, but she’s not a bad figure either, and that places her into the half of the “Flashback” assortment that wasn’t totally pointless.  Good for her.

Man, I really let that poor nameless Toy Biz copywriter have it, didn’t I?  Really didn’t like the “friend of the X-Men” bit.  In my defense, I was going through some stuff.  And, you know, the bio was wrong.  And boy do I have trouble letting that sort of thing slide.  Also, in re-reading this for the purposes of this addendum, I caught, like, a bunch of typos in this one.  So, I’ve fixed them, so as to eliminate all the evidence make it easier to read.  Beyond the horrible typo-related sins, it’s a decent review.

When I reviewed the figure originally, I had lost her gun and belt, though I didn’t actually note the omission within the text.  I got both of them via a trade-in that showed up at All Time, so now my figure is back up to her full ’90s standards.  Hooray!  And, while I was at it with the new accessorized photos, I also went back and fixed the visible whole in my backdrop that was still present in the original pictures.  Because, you know, it looked bad.

#3621: Jean Grey

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

JEAN GREY — SPACE RIDERS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Fun FiQ Fact #0100: “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is the proper storyline to be published in the trade paperback format by Marvel.

You guys didn’t forget about the Space-themed X-Men figures, did you?  Because I certainly haven’t.  They’ve been sitting on the floor of my room for months, and, you know, I kinda wanna not have them there.  Reviewing them seems like the easiest way to go about that, honestly.  I’ve done Wolverine and Cyclops, so might as well do the third point on the triangle and get Jean Grey reviewed!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Jean Grey is the fourth member of the deluxe-sized “Space Riders” assortment of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, which was released in 1997.  The figure stands a little under 5 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation (which includes a spinning ponytail).  Jean is lacking the single wrist swivel that a bunch of the others in the set got, which is a bummer.  In general, she’s a bit stiffer, I feel.  Her sculpt is all-new, and it’s…fine.  Her design is dialed very closely into the Jim Lee look, making this the closest the main X-Men line got to actually doing that look during the ’90s.  Crazy, huh?  It’s pretty much just that look, with some extra armoring.  The sculpt is rather on the soft side, especially on the head.  It’s in rather stark contrast to the heads on Cyclops and Wolverine, which are easily the best parts of their respective sculpts.  For Jean, that would be…I don’t know, maybe her boots?  Those seem pretty nice.  Jean’s paint work is fine.  It checks the boxes, but like the rest of the set, it’s thick and a little sloppy.  Jean is packed with her own Space Racer, which has folding wings, and a pair of missiles.  She’s also got a mask piece, though hers is missing any actual enclosing around the mouth, which feels like it defeats the purpose.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

I actually got this one before the others, when a sealed one came through All Time a few years ago.  I even had to fight Max for it.  Okay, not really.  He wanted it, but I said I didn’t have one, and he told me I got first dibs on Toy Biz Marvel, which was very considerate.  No actual fighting.  Probably for the best, really, since she’s…well, she’s not amazing.  I mean, I guess she’s not terrible, but she certainly feels like the most phoned-in of the figures thus far.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to 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 #0020: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve done one of these, but it’s Friday, and I’ve got some addending to do, so, behold, a new Flashack Friday Figure Addedum!  I’m diving back into an older Toy Biz Marvel review, from way back in the site’s very first year, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2014.  I hadn’t even seen The Winter Soldier when I wrote this!  Crazy!  So, let’s look back around to Captain America!

By the time this review is posted, I will have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I’m hoping that I love it as much as I am expecting to, but I’ll just have to wait and see (EDIT: I saw it!  It was amazing.  Go check it out!).  In the meantime, to celebrate the release of the movie, I’ll be taking a look at my very first Captain America action figure.  Back before Cap was the household name he is now, the only way to get a Cap figure was in the tie-in line to the Spider-Man cartoon, of all places.  Cap had just made an appearance on the show, so Toybiz was gracious enough to put him in the eighth series of the line, dubbed Electro-Spark.  How does the figure hold up almost 20 years later? Let’s find out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

 

The Spider-Man line was 5 inch scale, but Cap was a big guy, standing almost 6 inches tall and featuring 9 points of articulation.  Toybiz seemed intent on depicting Cap as quite the hulking figure (not that one).  He’s so big, it’s almost like his super-soldier serum took super-soldier serum.  This was not a Cap you wanted to mess with!  The sculpt had some nice touches, particularly the scale texture on Cap’s torso, which is simple, but very effective.  The gloves and boots also show a nice level of detail.  There’s lots of folds and creases, making them stand out nicely.  The face depicts Cap in a very angry state, which wouldn’t be my first go to for the character, but it was the 90s.  Everybody gritted their teeth like that.  The paint work on Cap was simple, but it fits with the time, and it was fairly cleanly applied.  I quite like the stylizing of the “A” on the forehead.  Cap included his mighty shield, though this is probably my biggest issue with the figure.  The shield was reworked to give it some sort of light-up feature, which means it’s really small and like an inch thick. Plus, the star’s not even the right color!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in the intro, Cap was my very first figure of the character.  It was also the only version available for a few years, so this is what I had to live with.  The figure is probably one of the most dated sculpts of the old Spider-Man line, but I can’t help but love it.  I guess I just got used to what I had.  AS a kid, there was no thrill like getting to watch my VHS copies of the Ruby-Spears Captain America cartoon while holding this figure.

Here’s the part where I get all hyper-critical of my old writing.  I mean, a little.  Honestly, this one’s not bad.  It breaks format a bit, since his release info is in the intro, and the “Figure Itself” segment jumps right to the stats of the figure.  Also, it should be “Toy Biz was generous enough” not “Toybiz was gracious enough.”  Wrong “g” word past-Ethan!  Beyond that, the review covers its bases pretty well.

What it *doesn’t* cover is the extra accessories I didn’t have at the time.  In addition to that surprisingly thick shield, Cap also got a weird transforming plane/jetpack thing.  It’s extra goofy and silly, but, hey, why stop that now.  I honestly had completely forgotten the whole thing at the time of my original review.  But, thanks to an assist from Max (who I totally am gonna blame, by the way), I got a second copy of this Cap, which had all of his accessories, and look, now he’s all complete!

#3616: Cyclops

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

CYCLOPS — SPACE RIDERS

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Fun FiQ Fact #0095: While Cyclops’s only space suited appearance in X-Men: The Animated Series kept his usual headgear from the show under his helmet, his fully cowled look showed up under his space suit in the “Pryde of the X-Men” pilot.

Hey, you know those X-Men Space figures I was talking about last week? Those are pretty fun. Wanna read about them some more? Well, I sure hope so. And, hey, this time it’s a Cyclops. Can never get enough of the Cyclopes!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops is the third piece of the “Space Riders” assortment of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, released as a deluxe item in 1997.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 8 points of articulation.  Like the rest of this line-up, Cyclops’s sculpt was an all-new one, based on a wholly original design for the character.  Cyclops’s design is definitely drawing a fair bit of its visual elements from the Jim Lee design, which makes a fair bit of sense.  One of the neat things about this particular release, however, was the presence of his cowled look, which hadn’t been featured in the main X-Men line since the first series*.  It’s fun to see how far the line’s sculpting had progressed since those early figures.  There’s definitely a lot of stylization to this one, and I’m not *entirely* sure how I feel about the weird sneering expression.  The body sculpt is a bit stiff, which was common with these figures.  The armored elements definitely feel a little bit tacked on and random, especially on the arms.  I’m not sure that suits a character like Cyclops, but it does at least feel pretty consistent with this era of X-Men designs.  The proportions are also a little bit wacky, with that left hand in particular being…just odd.  I don’t know.  It’s, like, too large, and also something seems off about his fingers.  The color work on this guy is pretty by the numbers.  It’s a lot of blue and yellow, and, honestly, what more could you ask of a Cyclops.  The paint’s not nearly as sloppy on this figure as it was on Wolverine, which is certainly a plus.  It’s still a little bit sloppy, of course, but nothing beyond the usual expected level for this era of Toy Biz.  Cyclops is packed with his face mask, his big inter-locking space sled, and some disc projectiles (missing from my copy).  I don’t like this mask quite as much as the Wolverine one; the visor bit is cool enough, but the shaping just seems a little off, and I don’t much care for the extra hose leading to his hand.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

Cyclops was the only one of these I had as a kid.  And I didn’t even have the space sled bit!  Really, I had looked at him a bunch of times and came very close to buying him (largely for that cool cowled head), but he was gone from retail by the time I’d truly made up my mind.  So, I wound up getting a loose one, at a toy show, I believe.  Or maybe it was a Comic Con?  I don’t know.  I remember fishing him out of a big cardboard box.  I was pretty excited at the time, but I did regret missing out on his extra gear.  Thankfully, I found a full set, and he came with it, so that was pretty fun.

*Though the look would have shown up again on a more proper ’70s/’80s Cyclops figure had the second round of Missile Flyers not been cancelled.