Tag Archives: ToyFare

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0092: Snake Eyes & Agent Scarlett

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

SNAKE EYES & AGENT SCARLETT

G.I. JOE VS COBRA (HASBRO)

Behold!  It is Friday!  The day at the end of the week where I do all the flashing back with the addendums and what have you!  What a day!  This week’s jump back into the past is jumping over into the G.I. Joe side of things, with a return look at Snake Eyes and Agent Scarlett!

In 1965, Hasbro invented the action figure with the very first GI Joe. The figure offered a take on the traditional doll idea, but meant for boys. He was 12 inches tall, had a cloth outfit, and was a pretty straight forward military man, offered in a variation for each of the four branches of the US military. After the end of the Vietnam War, soldiers and war were seen in a more negative light, so Hasbro had to change things up. This led to the Adventure Team era, which prevailed for most of the 70s. At the end of the decade, they faced another issue. Thanks to Kenner’s smaller scale Star Wars line, the industry was moving to smaller, less accessorized figures. Hasbro had to move quickly to reinvigorate GI Joe for a new audience, leading to the creation of GI Joe: A Real American Hero, which reworked the scale and made the line a collection of unique characters. It also provided the Joes with their first real foe, Cobra. It has remained the definitive take on the GI Joe concept pretty much since its inception. While the line never went away, after the 80s the line dwindled, until it was once again re-worked in 2002. That’s when I came on board. The line operated mostly on new sculpts, but there were a few re-releases mixed in. Today, I’ll be looking at one such release, with Joe mainstays Snake Eyes and Scarlett.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair was released as an exclusive two-pack through Toyfare magazine. They were meant to tie-in with the then current GI Joe VS Cobra.

SNAKE EYES

This is the 15th version of the ever silent ninja/commando/everything but the kitchen sink, Snake Eyes! Snake Eyes is 3 ¾ inches in height and he features 14 points of articulation. He’s meant to be a slightly more high quality recreation of the very first Snake Eyes figure, so he unsurprisingly used a lot of the same pieces. He’s mostly built out of the version 1.5, after Hasbro added the now standard swivels to his biceps, but instead of the original, he’s been given that of the second version of Roadblock. Not sure why that is, but I assume Hasbro had a good reason. Anyway, it’s a pretty great sculpt, even if it does show its age just a little. Obviously, it’s a tad more simplistic than most modern day sculpts, but that’s not too bad. He still has his fair share of detail, and he looks pretty great! The paint is a key point on this figure, as the original Snake Eyes didn’t actually have any. For this one, they’ve added some additional details to the various pouches and straps on the body to give him a little more variety. There is also a shade of very dark gray applied to the visor on his head, which was so subtle I almost didn’t notice it at first. Overall, the paint is pretty good, but there are a few areas where he has some bleed over. Snake Eyes included a submachine gun, a sword, some explosives, and a back pack, which a pretty impressive accessories compliment!

AGENT SCARLETT

This is the 6th version of Scarlett, or Agent Scarlett as she’s called here. She’s 3 ¾ inches in height and she has 14 points of articulation. Like Snake Eyes, she’s meant as a recreation of the original Scarlett figure from way back in the very first series of GI Joe: A Real American Hero. The figure is a complete re-use of swivel-armed version of the original figure, which is reasonable. Admittedly, the Scarlett sculpt is not as nice as Snake Eyes. Her arms sit a little bit far out at the shoulders, and the face is rather on the mannish side. It’s not terrible, but it’s not the greatest. The paint on Scarlett is a bit more intensive than that on Snake Eyes. All in all, it’s pretty good. There’s no real slop or bleed over, so that’s good. They’ve also made her a bit more colorful than her original incarnation, which is probably for the best. Scarlett comes armed with a crossbow and two swords, as well as a backpack.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

GI Joe was mostly in a lull when I came into the world of action figure collecting. As such, my first real introduction to the property was GI Joe VS Cobra. Once I had gotten the newer figures, I began looking into the older figures, particularly those of Snake Eyes. Thanks to an article run in Toyfare magazine, I learned of the second version of the character, which I really wanted. It didn’t prove easy to find, so I had to go without it until recently.

In the meantime, I purchased this set from Toyfare to hold me over. I remember being extremely excited when I first saw the order form in the issue in which they were offered! My always supportive Mom was feeling particularly awesome, so she ordered the set for me. Since then, it’s easily remained one of my favorite pieces of my GI Joe collection. It’s a great set and I really love it!

This review was very near the end of my first year on the site, though going by my records, I wrote it about a month in advance.  I certainly did go pretty in-depth on the background of the line, which is interesting, given that it was far from the first of my small-scale Joe reviews.  Earlier reviews were a bit more brief on the intros, so I guess I was probably trying to make up for that.  I recall rediscovering this set over the summer that year, after getting a few figures from the vintage line and doing a bit of digging in my personal collection.

In terms of the review itself, I think I did alright.  I didn’t quite know all the ins and outs of the vintage ARAH molds back in 2014, so I didn’t know the reasons for the Roadblock pelvis on Snake Eyes, which is just that the original pelvis mold was one of the many vintage molds lost when Hasbro returned to the scale in 1997, necessitating a lot of Frankensteining to get the old molds back up and running.  At the time of my original review, the figures were missing most of their accessories, but I’ve done a lot of digging, and managed to find the missing parts, which for these two is quite a lot of parts.

#3878: She-Hulk

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

SHE-HULK

MARVEL UNIVERSE (TOY BIZ)

So, here’s the neat thing about the original Secret Wars miniseries: it sucks!  Sorry, is that too harsh?  Well, I stand by it.  There were toys, and it’s big and flashy, and it’s got everyone’s favorites in one place, but it’s genuinely just a mess of a story that really doesn’t work if you put in under even the slightest bit of scrutiny.  There were, however, some good things that came out of it.  Obviously, Spider-Man’s new costume is high on the list, but also, in light of Ben Grimm’s decision to stay on Battle World, we get She-Hulk joining the Fantastic Four.  It’s a fun change of dynamic, and it worked out really well in their main book.  It’s also a great excuse for a She-Hulk variant.  Oh hey, here’s one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

She-Hulk is the seventh mail-away exclusive through ToyFare magazine, specifically offered up as an incentive for purchasing a year’s subscription in 1998.  This was Toy Biz’s second go at She-Hulk, which honestly makes her something of a rarity for the mail-aways, who tended to be new characters.  In fact, she’s also a pretty notable character in general, compared to the other caliber of characters generally offered.  The figure stands about 7 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation.  Her mold originally hailed from the Hulk line, which was made up of a lot of rather large figures.  She-Hulk was no exception.  She’s not incredibly posable, though.  The lack of neck or elbows, and the choice to give her the dreaded v-hips means she’s really only good for standing.  And even that’s a bit iffy, if I’m honest.  The sculpt is…well it is what it is.  It’s kind of soft, except for the hair, which is surprisingly sharp by comparison.  Her arms are rather long and her proportions are weird.  With all of the crazy builds of the characters in the Hulk line, I guess this one just sort of threw them for a bit of a loop.  It’s not awful, but not great.  Her distinguishing feature here is the paint work.  She’s got the FF uniform in place of her purple leotard, as seen in the comics.  It matches the earlier Fantastic Four line’s version of the team, so she can fit right in, even if that does mean that she’s got bright blue on the costume when it *technically* should be black, or at least a very dark blue.  I’ll give them a pass, since correcting it for her would mean she wouldn’t match the other figures.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember seeing the little pamphlet for this figure when she was offered up, but I didn’t fully comprehend at the time how you were supposed to get her.  My main She-Hulk wound up being the Hall of Fame version, and I just never got around to tracking this one down.  That is until I decided I was tired of all of my Toy Biz Marvel figures being boxed up or unopened, and put a bunch of them up on the shelves, at which point I started actively hunting the ones I didn’t have again.  She-Hulk wound up being the first of the ToyFare exclusives I was missing to wind up in front of me for a good deal, so here she is.  She’s got her issues for sure, but she’s good at what she needs to be, which is a Toy Biz FF She-Hulk.  Admittedly, I might be slightly biased on this one.

#2875: Synch

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

SYNCH

GENERATION X (TOY BIZ)

One of the primary appeals of ToyFare‘s exclusive mail away offers, for the 5-inch Marvel stuff, at least, was the ability to fill in some teams and line-ups that were just missing one stray character here or there, or at least give them at least a touch more depth to their numbers.  There were a lot of short-lived lines from Toy Biz in the ’90s, so they had plenty of loose ends to worry about.  Case in point: Generation X.  The X-spin-off team had their own line, which ran two series, and left the central team without a number of its core members.  While it was still rather lacking at the end of the day, they did get at least one extra core member via the mail-away set-up, and gave current main X-Men team member Everett Thomas, aka Synch, his very first (and to date, only) figure in the process.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Synch was offered up in ToyFare Magazine #9, first becoming available for order in May of 1998, and shipping out later that year.  After nine Marvel exclusives, they had a Witchblade figure for issue #8, and then came back to Marvel with this guy.  He was then the last Marvel exclusive for six months, when Havok picked up the baton.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  The Generation X figures were at a weird spot for Toy Biz, articulation wise, as they decided to eliminate the elbow and knee joints on all of the figures for some reason.  Synch did at least get extra shoulder movement, by virtue of making use of Banshee’s body from the main line.  Toy Biz apparently felt Banshee always needed the extra movement, and Synch got that on a technicality.  Or, perhaps he just copied it from Banshee using his powers.  That’s a pretty solid explanation, right?  In addition to using all of Banshee’s parts below the neck, Synch also got the head from the Space Riders version of Professor X.  It’s not quite the face I envision Synch having, but it was a bald head that actually had ears, which made it a better fit than the Silver Surfer head, I suppose.  It’s honestly not the worst choice.  The rest of the work is handled with the paint.  It does an okay job for the most part, but for some reason the belt buckle is way larger than the actual sculpted piece, which makes it look really strange.  That said, they did actually try on this one, and he even got some extra accenting on the yellow parts of his costume.  It’s a bit heavy handed in some spots, but the effort’s at least nice.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually kinda liked Generation X back in the day, and I really liked my figures of Jubilee, Chamber, and Skin from the toyline.  I didn’t have a Synch growing up, though, mostly because he just wasn’t a figure I ever saw turn up anywhere.  I know he’s not generally regarded as being a very good one, but I’ve never much looked into that.  Whatever the case, my first real chance to get one came quite recently, when he got traded into All Time, which made him an easy pick-up for me.  He’s not a bad figure.  Maybe not great, but he gets the job done.  It’s a shame that they didn’t ever get M or Husk out, leaving the team incomplete, even with this guy included.  Of course, with him just being added to the main X-team, maybe this won’t be the only Synch figure for too much longer.  Fingers crossed.

#2868: Multiple Man

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

MULTIPLE MAN

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

The ‘90s X-spin-off teams that weren’t X-Force all had to sort of find their footing within the already established lines that Toy Biz was putting out, which meant that some of them were fewer and further between.  The line up to Peter David’s X-Factor run was definitely a slow build, as they sort of trickled out of the main X-Men line.  The likes of Strong Guy, Havok, and Polaris all found spots, but Jaime Maddrox was, I guess, a step too far for the main line at the time.  Good thing we had the exclusives game to rely on, huh?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Multiple Man was the mail away offer in ToyFare Magazine #4, offered up in December of 1997, and shipping out in early 1998.  Though ostensibly part of the X-Men line still running from Toy Biz at the time, his box had no such branding, or any branding at all.  It was just an all-white shipper, with him bagged up inside.  They hadn’t gotten very fancy yet at this point.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  He got extra joints at the ankles!  Good for him, I suppose.  Multiple Man was built on the body of Octo-Spider-Man, which was one of Toy Biz’s favorites to repaint.  It’s a pretty decent slender build body, and it fits usual depictions of the character, so it works well for him.  His head is re-used from Silver Surfer, and, apart from being perhaps a little devoid of character, it works perfectly alright for his full cowled look.  It does have a slightly weird fit on the body, but generally it works okay.  The rest of the magic is done with paint.  Much like the Polaris figure, Multiple Man’s paint work gives him a weird amalgam of his various costume designs over the years.  It was blue and yellow to match the rest of X-Factor, and it also had the x-symbol on the head, but the overall detailing on the main suit more matches up with his original costume design.  Ultimately, this is a case where I think the amalgamated approach may really work better, since it just feels like a classic Multiple Man.  It’s sort of a greatest hits set-up.  He’s unfortunately missing out on his usual overcoat of the era; surely a cloth one wouldn’t have messed up their margins too badly?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was exactly a year behind on getting a Multiple Man new, so I had to wait a few years.  He still wound up as one of my earlier additions when I started actually get them.  I remember seeing him in the same glass case that held the Wonder Man I was always looking at, but my first one actually came out of a $5 bin of loose figures, which was a real steal at the time.  I also picked up a second one, quite recently, when it got traded into All Time, because it really never hurts to have more Multiple Men.  He’s a simple figure, but I really liked him when I got him, and he’s a surprisingly effective figure.

#2861: Morph – Age of Apocalypse

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

MORPH — AGE OF APOCALYPSE

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

Toy Biz’s tie-in to the big X-books crossover “Age of Apocalypse” in 1996 was a pretty quick, almost slapdash sort of a thing.  A single assortment, one and done, with no real follow-up.  They covered some of the heaviest hitters from the set, but with a story so widespread, there were certainly some gaps.  Toy Biz wound up filling in the line-up a little bit in the ensuing years via a handful of one-off and oddball releases, including a mail away offer to get our boy Morph out to people.  I mean, really, how can you not have Morph, right?  It would just be wrong.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Morph was offered up as an exclusive through ToyFare Magazine #22, first made available to order in June of 1999, and shipping out later that year.  He was the fifth post-line addition to the AoA line-up, following Gambit, Rogue, Nemesis, Blink, and X-Man.  He wound up being the last addition, actually, which seems both fitting and also downright unreasonable.  I mean, sure, he’s a great character to end the line-up on, but also how could you wait so long to do him?  How could you do that, now defunct toy company?  I demand answers!  Okay, maybe not so much.  The figure stands about 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  As with all of these mail aways, he was constructed from as few new parts as possible, which was effectively none.  He uses the body of the AoA Magneto, with the modified torso piece from the Battle Brigade release, which adds in the neck articulation.  In place of either of the Magneto heads, Morph instead gets the standard head from the Spider-Man line’s Chameleon.  It’s all topped off with a cloth cape, which is affixed to the back of the torso, which is also really prone to fraying at the edges.  In general, it’s a selection of parts that gets a lot of the specifics of his design down, but misses the broader design elements of the character.  Like, the head is bald, lacks a nose and ears, and has wider eyes, which is all accurate, but he’s also really angry and mean looking, and very square jawed, which isn’t so much.  Likewise, the body gets some of the costume details down, but then it’s also way too bulked up for him.  Given that he’s a shape shifter, you can make it work, but he does feel a little bit like he’s missing the forest for the trees.  Generally speaking, the paint’s not too bad for a Toy Biz release of the era.  All of the important details are there, and he matches Morph’s design from the books.  He’s perhaps a touch too bright, but I don’t mind that so much.  Some of the application is a little sloppy, but not terribly so.  That said, I did have a weird issue with the one in all the pictures here, which is that the cape sat up against his boot in the package, and now he’s got a weird pattern on that boot.  Morph included no accessories, but honestly, what is there to give him?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This figure is the reason I know that AoA Morph exists.  Well, not specifically this figure; this figure is a replacement I picked up last year, when a sealed one got traded into All Time.  My original’s not quite as photogenic these days (like I said, that cape likes to fray), but he was given to me by a family friend, who had ordered him specifically for me back in the day.  It was how I found out about the character, and a few years later, it was why I picked up the first trade of Exiles, because he was on the cover.  Subsequently, I’ve become quite a fan of the character.  This figure may not be the best version, but it was better than nothing, and I certainly have a soft spot for him.

 

#2854: Bullseye

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

BULLSEYE

MARVEL UNIVERSE (TOY BIZ)

He’s maybe not Daredevil’s most prominent villain, but Bullseye’s probably his most *consistent* villain.  While DD’s other foes either didn’t start as his, or got passed off to other heroes, Bullseye actually debuted in DD’s book, and stayed with him most of his career.  How kind of him.  Of course, with Daredevil not tending to get his own dedicated toylines, that does mean that there are less reasons for him to get toy treatment.  That being the case, his first figure wasn’t a mainstream release at all, but rather an exclusive.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Bullseye was the mail-away exclusive offer in ToyFare #1, made available to order in September of 1997, and shipping out early the next year.  Bullseye’s costume really hadn’t changed much at this point in his career, apart from some minor adjustments here and there.  This one went for the most adjusted possible appearance, in order to keep him more current.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Structurally, Bullseye was built mostly out of parts from Punisher, with the head of Scorpion, both from the Spider-Man line.  Since they’re the same line and roughly the same time, the parts mesh together pretty decently.  The head maybe looks a bit too small, and it’s sort of tilted downward, but it generally works, and the parts do match up alright with Bullseye’s usual depictions.  The paint work on Bullseye is alright.  It gets the important details and he looks the part, but the application could certainly stand to be a little cleaner.  The stripes on the boots and gloves are a little uneven, and the paint on the face doesn’t quite seem like it knows exactly where it wants to go.  Overall, though, he’s about par for the course on these.  Accessories were a rarity on these figures, but Bullseye does actually get one; he’s got the same small knife that was included with Punisher, presumably so as to not leave him forever with an empty sheath on his leg.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bullseye is one of the most recent ToyFare exclusives that I acquired.  I picked him up in late 2019, as part of a collection of otherwise ’90s DC stuff that came into All Time.  I wasn’t really expecting him to be there, you know, being Marvel and all, but he was, which saved me the trouble of tracking one down.  He’s not much to write home about, I suppose, but he does an alright job of capturing the character, and he’s a good choice for re-use, because he really doesn’t suffer much from the lack of new parts.  Ultimately, a decent addition.

#2812: Union Jack

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

UNION JACK

MARVEL UNIVERSE (TOY BIZ)

NOTE: This review was written before June 6th.

Union Jack is one of those characters that’s rather hard to group within the Marvel Universe.  As effectively the British equivalent to Captain America, he generally tends to get fitted in there, but in the ’90s, when Cap wasn’t quite as much of a bankable power-house, that made getting a Union Jack figure a sort of a meandering task.  Enter the world of exclusives!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Union Jack was offered as a mail-away offer in ToyFare #7, made available to order in March of 1998 and shipping out later that same year.  At this point in time, the current Union Jack, Joey Chapman, was wearing a radically different costume, but this one of course had the appeal of potentially being any of the three of them, and Joey would eventually return to it anyway, making it a solid choice.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  He gets everything that was standard for these figures in terms of movement, as well as getting universal joints on his shoulders.  Yay for extra movement!  Union Jack is a repaint of the Spider-Man line’s Web-Glider Spider-man.  It was a pretty basic, clean base body, so it works overall.  The only slight downside is the presence of peg holes on the outsides of the calves, the back, and the sides of the torso.  They’re generally pretty small and easy to miss, though, and ultimately worth the trade-off of everything else the body offers.  It’s nicely balanced in terms of proportions, and just works well for the character.  He also gets a soft-goods belt piece, which is a little ill-fitting and goofy, but fits with the general aesthetic of other figures in the style.  His paint work is generally pretty solid.  They’ve done a nice job of capturing the distinctive layout of the character’s costume.  Some of the edges are a little fuzzy, and he makes the usual mistake of getting the pattern of the Union Jack inaccurate, since the white border is more or less uniform on all sides.  Still, it’s not horrible for what it is.  Despite a usual lack of accessories with these figures, Union Jack does get one: his knife.  Not typically his main go-to, but it’s one of the two weapons he’s always seen carrying, and it can even be stored in his belt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Seeing as I’ve already stated that Havok was my entry point on these exclusives, I suppose it’s fairly obvious that this was another one I didn’t get new.  He’s a relatively recent addition to my collection, picked up not too long before I started the site in 2013 (in fact, he just missed the window of me starting to look at new additions to my collection by four figures, according to my list; cut that one very close), courtesy of Cosmic Comix.  He’s a fairly basic figure, but also a rather well done one.  Probably one of the better ToyFare exclusives.

#2805: Firestar

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

FIRESTAR

MARVEL UNIVERSE (TOY BIZ)

NOTE: This review was written before June 6th.

It wasn’t terribly long ago I was discussing the creation of Firestar, a Marvel character that *didn’t* make her first appearance in the comics, but rather on Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends.  Despite being a rather popular show, Amazing Friends never got any direct toy tie-ins.  And, while that’s not so big a deal for the likes of Spider-Man and Ice Man, whose comic-counterparts had plenty of notoriety on their own, for Firestar, whose comic version has never had quite the same prominence, it made her more difficult to place for toy coverage.  As such, her very first action figure came not as a mass release, but rather as a mail-way exclusive, which I’ll be taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Firestar was the mail-away offer for ToyFare #2, made available to offer in October of 1997, and arriving the following spring.  Interestingly, while both Firestar and the immediate follow-up, Wonder Man, would gain prominence via membership in Busiek and Perez’s line-up for their relaunch of Avengers, that wouldn’t be until roughly a year after their releases, making it somewhat coincidental.  Much like Wonder Man, Firestar had no direct ties to any of Toy Biz’s currently running lines, making her another one-off.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 10 points of articulation.  Firestar was a total repaint, specifically of the Medusa figure from the Fantastic Four line.  It’s admittedly not one of Toy Biz’s finest.  The articulation’s kind of wonky, as are the proportions, and she’s also got a lot of sculpted details for her costume that don’t correspond to Firestar.  On the plus side, the lack of volume to the hair is at least less of an issue here, and, honestly, her being stuck in this pose with her arms sort of raised, does at least work better for Firestar than it did for Medusa.  In general, I do feel like the sculpt works better as Firestar, which is odd, because it’s so clearly not for Firestar.  Really, everything about this sculpt just continues to be weird.  The paint work is fairly sparse.  For the most part, she’s just molded in the proper colors, mostly the yellow, though the hair is molded in the proper red.  Beyond that, the paint’s decent enough.  Firestar had no accessories, but that was fairly standard with these releases.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in the Legends review, Firestar’s always been a favorite of mine.  I didn’t actually order this figure new, however, and she was one of those ones that had sort of a silly value for a while during my primary time collecting Toy Biz Marvel.  Instead, I wound up finally getting her during my period of getting back into 5-inch Marvel just after starting college.  I found her on a dealer’s table at Mego Meet of all places, and wound up getting her for something silly, like $5.  She’s not great.  She’s not even particularly good.  But, she’s an alright stand-in for the character, and she was our only Firestar for far too long.  All that said, the sting of this figure is certainly lessened by the existence of the Legends release from earlier this year.

#2798: Wonder Man

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

WONDER MAN

MARVEL UNIVERSE (TOY BIZ)

NOTE: This review was written before June 6th.

I was just talking about Hulu’s M.O.D.O.K. earlier this week, so why not talk about it a little bit more?  The show brings in a lot of slightly more obscure characters, and does some fun stuff with them.  Amongst those characters is Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, who is voiced by Nathan Fillion (who was previous supposed to cameo as Williams in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but had his role cut), and who serves as the rebound fling for M.O.D.O.K.’s wife Jodie.  As someone who’s been a Wonder Man fan since way before it was even approaching cool to be a Wonder Man fan (which, honestly, is any time before, like the last month), I was thrilled to see him show up, and loved the hell out of Fillion in the role.  I’d still love to see him pull it off in live action, though.  Wonder Man’s actually had a small handful of figures over the years, but today, I’m going back to the beginning and taking a look at his very first!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Wonder Man was the exclusive mail-away offer in ToyFare #3, made available for order in November of 1997, and shipping out the following spring.  Interestingly, the character was actually still dead at the time of the figure’s release, although his return in the third volume of Avengers would wind up happening in the same year as this figure’s official release, by coincidence no doubt.  While Havok had ties to the X-Men line specifically, Wonder Man was a far more open-ended figure, since there was no dedicated Avengers line at the time.  Unlike the later figures, he got no fancy package and just shipped in a plain white mailer.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Wonder Man’s sculpt is a complete re-use, namely of Archangel II, minus the wings, of course.  As I’ve discussed before, it was a sculpt that Toy Biz rather liked.  It’s not a terrible choice for Wonder Man, especially for that late ’80s, John Byrne West Coast Avengers look they seemed to be aiming for.  The head sculpt’s still a little bit wonky, and he’s got the remnants of the wing-flapping mechanism on his back still.  But, for a straight repaint, he actually really works, so I’ve got to give them some serious props on that.  The paint work’s fairly straight forward on this guy, but it certainly gets the job done, and conveys his design properly.  Wonder Man included no accessories, but he certainly falls into that territory of “what would you give him?”

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Busiek and Perez’s relaunch of Avengers was happening right as I got into reading comics, and my dad was picking it up and letting me read it with him.  Wonder Man’s return is kind of a notable part of that, and I definitely gained an attachment to the character through that.  I remember that there was a comic store near my parents’ house that had this figure in their glass case, for the unthinkable price of, like $25, and I used to stare at it all the time, but never got it.  My dad wound up getting me this one as, I believe, and Easter gift, more than likely in 2000 or so.  His nature as a repaint makes him a little iffy, but ultimately, he does work pretty well.

#2791: Havok

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

HAVOK

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

In the Series 3 of Toy Biz’s X-Men line, the original line-up included a Havok figure, who, like US Agent and Adam Warlock later would be, was cut from the line-up due to the slow-roll of scaling back how many figures were in each assortment.  Unlike those two, however, Havok was scrapped before getting to the prototyping stage, so the only thing we saw of him was an illustration of his head alongside the others in the assortment on the card backs for that set.  While Havok would of course make his way into the line proper several years later as part of the Invasion Series, that was after he had changed over to his X-Factor team uniform.  His classic attire would go un-produced for another six years, when it would finally make its way into toy form as an exclusive through ToyFare magazine.  I’ll be looking at that figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Havok was offered up as an exclusive mail-away figure in ToyFare #16, officially going up for order at the end of 1998, and arriving to collectors in early 1999.  Though clearly designed to accent Toy Biz’s ongoing X-Men line, the only branding on his fairly simple white box was his own name and the ToyFare logo.  Honestly, it was a bit surprising that he got anything at all, as earlier figures had just been in plain white boxes.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has an impressive 16 points of articulation.  Havok is based on the body of the Spider-Man line’s Daredevil, one of Toy Biz’s very best bodies from their 5-inch days, not only on a sculpt front, but especially on an articulation front.  It also was a fairly blank canvas, which made it a decent starting point for Havok.  There are some remnant details for the glove, boot, and belt lines, but given that he’s all black, they’re easy enough to look past.  Havok’s head sculpt is borrowed from Black Bolt, but with the tuning fork on the head removed and replaced with Havok’s usual head gear.  That head gear does have a tendency to come loose if you’re not careful, and the actual head’s eye holes on the mask don’t line up with Havok’s, but it’s generally an okay set-up, and certainly good given the standards for prior exclusives up to this point.  Havok’s paint work is fairly basic, but follows the design well.  It does have to contend with the sculpt not matching with the paint on the head, but it could be worse.  It hits the right notes, and that’s what’s important.  Havok included no accessories, but I’m honestly not sure what he could have gotten.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s again a Havok figure’s fault for a huge chunk of my collecting.  I know; you’re all terribly surprised.  I already had the main line Havok by this point, but when this guy was announced as an exclusive and I read about it on my main source for toy news, one Raving Toy Maniac, I was all about getting him, which meant buying my first issue of this weird ToyFare thing.  Upon reading this weird ToyFare thing, I was pretty well hooked, and got myself a subscription, which I hung onto until rather close to the end of the magazine’s publication.  It undoubtedly was responsible for me being as up-to-date with toys as I was at the time, and got me buying plenty of things I would have otherwise not even known had existed.  Havok himself is a pretty nice little figure.  Sure, he’s mostly repaint, but he’s a good repaint, and probably one of the stronger 5-inch Marvel exclusives from ToyFare.