Tag Archives: X-Men

#2418: Wolverines (and friends)

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

WOLVERINE — MODERN AGE/BATTLE RAVAGED/POWER SLAMMER, LADY DEATHSTRIKE, & SABRETOOTH

X-MEN/MODERN AGE (TOY BIZ)

Alright, let’s wrap this bad boy up, bub! When I was divvying up the figures for these reviews, I was doing it by the year of release, and in the process, I actually erroneously listed one of today’s offerings as being from ’99, rather than ’97, as it should be.  With the ’97 review as crowded as it already was, I’m just going to give myself a slight break on that, and group it in here.  It fits better here anyway, since none of today’s figures are truly from the X-Men line proper.  It’s gonna get a little bit complicated, so I might as well jump right in, I suppose.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

“His past shrouded in mystery, the man known simply as Logan was once a Canadian secret agent.  As Wolverine, Logan is a deadly, living weapon.  Besides being a master of a myriad of both armed and unarmed combat, Wolverine’s senses are superhumanly acute and rival many animals, making him a superior tracker and hunter.  Wolverine’s skeleton is laced with an unbreakable metal known as adamantium.  Wolverine is also equipped with foot-long adamantium claws that retract into his hand and can slice through nearly anything.  Coupled with a mutant healing factor that automatically regenerates any damaged or destroyed cells in his body, Wolverine’s ferocity in combat makes him a virtually unstoppable opponent.” 

I’ve delved once before (and rather recently) into Toy Biz’s Modern Age line, which was a direct market line of figures dropped in ’99.  Obviously, Wolverine is a far less obscure entry than Captain Britain, and far less in need of yet another figure, but he was very likely the figure that actually got retailers to support such a venture in the first place.  In that regard, he’s actually a valid comics variant, being a new take on the Brown Costume, which hadn’t actually seen an update since the very first series of X-Men back in 1991.  An update was probably a good idea, though whether this update was an improvement is perhaps more up for debate.  The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  Structurally, there’s not anything new to this guy.  He’s the Ninja Wolverine with the forearms and lower legs of the Water Wars Wolverine.  It all meshes together well enough, I suppose, but it means the figure is as much a caricature of Wolverine as the Ninja figure was.  With the unmasked appearance, they’re clearly aiming to capture his appearance from the cover of his first solo series, but these parts are pretty far from that look stylistically.  I’m also just not a huge fan of this particular head.  He’s got some major underbite going on there.  Wolverine’s packed with a sword and dagger…and, well, I mean, I think they’re meant to tie into his being based on the miniseries, wherein Logan travels to Japan and makes use of such things.  Trouble is, they’re re-used from the Hercules and Xena lines respectively, so they don’t look even vaguely Japanese in origin.  On the plus side, this guy does bring the trading card back.  Nifty!

“Flying at each other with berserker rage and vengeance are Lady Deathstrike and Wolverine.  Each possessing claws infused with the super-strong metal adamantium, Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike are sworn archenemies.  Believing Wolverine to be the key to unlocking the secrets of her father’s research, Lady Deathstrike will stop at nothing until she has defeated the mutant X-Man.  With a rivalry sure to explode when they next meet, Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike are headed for trouble.”

We now enter into the realm that makes up the rest of this review: two-packs.  Toy Biz was rather fond of them, especially later in the 5-inch run, as they were a pretty quick and easy way to turn around some “new” product with a small, concise theme.  It was also a way to get slightly harder to find figures back out in a way that assured a sale of two figures instead of just one.  The “Greatest __” set-up was a popular one for the two-packs, and this particular set, made up of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike, was dubbed “Greatest Archenemies,” and hit shelves in 1997 (yes, this is the offending item that broke my whole yearly break down).  I’m a little skeptical about Deathstrike being Logan’s greatest archenemy, but whatever.  The Wolverine included in this pack was a re-deco of the Invasion Series’ Battle-Ravaged Wolverine, which is honestly a pretty solid figure.  He stands 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Again, he’s quite tall for Wolverine.  And just kind of large in general, really.  This sculpt is one I’m fairly nostalgic about, the original release being my first Wolverine figure, and I do think it overall holds up pretty well.  The paint for this guy is rather drastically different, with it being a metallic paint scheme in contrast to the flat colors of the original.  This one also dials up the battle damage throughout, in contrast to the nature of the sculpt.  It’s not terrible, but I feel the coloring on the original is far superior to this release.  He was also given the weird armor from Patch, which isn’t a good fit for the body, or particularly great just as an accessory, but it sure is here.

Pairing off with this Wolverine was another go at Lady Deathstrike, previously seen in the Battle Brigade assortment.  She had two different decos there, but gets yet another here.  She stands 5 1/4 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation.  Her sculpt’s, uh, well, her sculpt’s not great.  I mean, I guess it’s not terrible, but it’s definitely not great.  I mean, all the important details are there, but the proportions are kinda wonky, and it’s really stiff.  It’s got those v-hips, and that’s pretty much never any fun for anyone.  For some reason, her forearms and hands are really soft and rubbery as well, and I’ve got no clue as to why.  Perhaps they were a safety hazard if cast in hard plastic?  She’s also got a radically changed color scheme, and I’m not really sure what it’s going for.  She’s pretty much only had the one color scheme in the comics, so this is an odd choice.  It’s also not very cleanly applied, and still feels kind of tacky in a number of places.  She gets the infrared headset and forearm cannon from the original Deathstrike release, but loses out on the big gross claw.  Also included in this set is a metal X-Men ring, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.

In 2000, things began winding down for the 5-inch line.  To somewhat tie-in with the X-Men movie and the subsequent re-runs of the cartoon on Fox, Toy Biz put together a brief line of repaints and re-issues for the 5-inch figures.  There were three series of single-packed figures, and three different two-packs as well.  Wolverine and Sabretooth, whose rivalry was highlighted in the film, paired off for one of the sets.  The Wolverine figure in this set is essentially just a straight re-issue of the Wolverine included in the Power Slammers Series, one of the two Wolvies released in 1998 (a year I’ve pretty much skipped today). The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  While the Rogue and Gambit figures that accompanied this Wolverine figure in his original series were based on the Shi’ar attire they were wearing in the comics at the time, Wolverine had no such attire, so Toy Biz just sort of made up something to loosely match them, I suppose.  It’s not one of my favorite designs, and looks more like a snowboarding suit than something Wolverine would wear.  The sculpt is at least a relatively decent one, with a fair bit of detailing mixed in and a reasonable set of prioportions.  They even kept the pre-posing to a minimum.  It’s really just the costume design that’s whacky.  The original release came with a power slammer contraption, but this one instead gets the splitting door accessory from the Battle Ravaged Wolverine figure.

Packed in with Wolvie was a variant of Sabretooth.  Like Wolverine, the core figure is essentially the same as a prior figure, specifically the Sabretooth from 1997’s Ninja Series.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  His sculpt is suitably large and imposing, something prior Sabretooths hadn’t quite gotten down.  He’s also fairly well articulated, and generally looked as being the best general Sabretooth sculpt of the 5-inch days, despite being such a non-standard design.  He gets him some Wolverine hair (making it a little surprising that this figure was never repainted into Logan), and sort of a onesie.  It’s perhaps not as intimidating a look as his sheer size would tend to hint at, but then again, Sabretooth has never really had much of a sense of fashion.  This figure’s paint is largely unchanged from his single-pack, but he did get white boots in place of the original silver ones.  He gets the two pieces of clip-on armor from the Ninja release, but lacks that figure’s mask and tunic.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Honestly, this last round of figures is pretty much all made up of figures that were on the chopping block when I was briefly considering *not* getting every figure I didn’t have from the collection at All Time.  I of course then came to my senses and realized how silly I was being not just filling in the set outright.  That said, this is definitely the weakest selection, with some kind of uninspired repaints, some really goofy toy-original designs that just don’t quite land, and a strangely not artist-specific take on an artist-specific concept.  Nothing here’s as terrible as, say Battle Blasters Wolverine, but none of its as fun as Unleashed or Missile Flyers.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2417: The 1997 Wolverines

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

WOLVERINE – NINJA, MONSTER ARMOR, UNLEASHED, FUTURE, HYDRO BLAST, & BATTLE BLASTER

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

It’s going to get worse before it gets better…well, depending on your perspective, anyway.  It’s certainly going to get more numerous before it gets less so.  Yes, it’s time for part four of the Day of the Wolverines, where we move to 1997, a year that was quite jam-packed with Wolverines.  I mean, really, just X-Men figures in general, but as the most marketable, Wolverine reaped a lot of those benefits.  However, this is really where the line gives up on its “lets just make a fairly straight adaptation of a lot of X-characters” mission statement in favor of a more crazy, experimental, frantic, “try to grab all the attention we can” ideal.  It was…well, it was an interesting time to be collecting for sure.  Onward we go!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

“Long ago trained in the ways of the martial arts, Ninja Wolverine formed a powerful bond with Japan and many of its people.  So when Dark Nemesis threatens to destroy Japan, Ninja Wolverine is ready to tear him to pieces.  Joined by fellow X-Man Ninja Psylocke, Ninja Wolverine uses his razor sharp claws and martial art abilities to do whatever it takes to stop the forces that would enslave his adopted home land!”

Man, they really like the word Ninja, don’t they?  After the success of the Light-Up series the prior year, Toy Biz opted to go even further down the themed assortment rabbit hole.  Their first venture was one that was pretty popular in the mid-to-late ’90s: Ninjas.  Admittedly, not the furthest reach for an X-Men assortment, and Wolverine himself is a pretty solid fit for such a theme.  The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall and has 11 points of articulation.  After creep upward in scaling, Wolverine is back into a more regular scale…for now, anyway.  This was a new sculpt for Wolverine, and represents the line’s turn to more exaggerated proportions and expressions.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with Logan’s face, but I’m fairly certain I don’t like it.  We get our first acknowledgement of Wolverine’s bone claws for this figure, three years after the fact.  This marked the line’s first venture into a more mixed-media venture, which would prove a popular idea for Toy Biz, as it would re-surface for their X-Men vs Street Fighter line, as well as their Marvel’s Gold line.  It’s not the worst looking thing, I suppose, but Logan looks a little bit like he’s swimming in all that fabric.  Fortunately, it’s fairly easily removed if that’s not you jam.  In order, I suppose, to make up for his lack of metal claws, Wolverine includes a three-bladed sword, a ninja staff, a chain (which the kids dig, of course), and a grappling hook.

“Transformed by Mister Sinister into a creature possessing pure animal fury, Wolverine is now the monstrous beast, Fangor.  Breaking the bars of his holding cell, the monster Wolverine rages out of control.  Using his increased strength, Wolverine destroys Sinister’s mutagenic equipment and soon finds himself attacked by monster versions of Rogue and Cyclops!  Wolverine is mutantkind’s last, best hope against the power of Sinister!”

After being Ninjas and then fighting some robots for a bit, the X-Men played into their monstrous side, as well as their…armored side.  Look, they turned into monsters, okay?  And Wolverine was there because he kinda had to be, like contractually or something.  The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall (again, with the hunch factored in, meaning he’s again jumping in size.) and has 5 points of articulation.  The Monster Armor series for whatever reason cut back on the articulation for the individual figures.  Others in the set get a few more unique points of movement, but Wolverine just has the standard 5 joints.  Wolverine is definitely a victim of a shift towards a pseudo-McFarlane style, with pre-posing, exaggerated proportions, and a more “intense” design.  Logan takes an admittedly far more simian appearance, even before the monster armor is taken into account.  He also ditches Logan’s usual hair, in exchange for something more free form.  Despite its very stylized nature, it’s actually a kind of nifty sculpt, partly because it’s a bit more unique.  I also quite dig the torn-up costume detailing.  One notable thing missing are his usual shoulder pads, which were present on the prototype, but were gone by the time he made it to production.  This figure also had a notable cut in paint apps from proto to final product, resulting in a somewhat bland paint scheme here.  Wolverine included the five clip-on pieces for turning him into “Fangor,” which do their job as well as any of the others.  I don’t know why he doesn’t turn into, say, a Wolverine, but hey, who am I to judge?

“Feeling responsible for Professor X’s possession by the evil Onslaught entity, Wolverine seeks to save his mentor.  Finding Onslaught unstoppable, Wolvie rescues the one person whose reality-warping powers might be able to defeat the villain–Franklin Richards.  Now in New York City’s Central Park, Wolverine stands with the greatest super heroes in the final assault against Onslaught!”

Following the…let’s loosely call it “success,” I suppose…of Marvel’s Onslaught crossover, we got a brief tie-in line as part of the X-Men line.  There’s not much to it, but there was a Wolverine.  Yay?  Sure, why not?  We’d already gotten a Wolverine with bone claws, but this one takes it a step further, giving us, to date, our only figure of Wolverine post-adamantium-removal-and-attempted-reintroduction-induced-secondary-mutation.  It’s a very specific time in his life, I assure you.  It’s also, like, peak ’90s craziness for Wolvie.  The figure stands 5 3/4 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation.  Again, the Onslaught series represents a cut back in the articulation, and more importantly it leans hardcore into the increasing size of Wolveine.  Were he standing straight, this guy would have at least another inch of height.  Even amongst the larger than average Onslaught figures, that’s nuts.  This guy’s too large to fit in with Marvel Legends, for Pete’s sake!  Befitting the time period and the version of Logan, the sculpt is by far the most exaggerated I’ve looked at yet.  He’s really cartoony, and really goofy. I dig the retractable claws for this guy, but the actual fur on the forearms is just a really strange choice (according to Super Awesome Wife: “He’s hairy in all the wrong places”).  Honestly, a lot about this figure’s strange, truth be told.  His only accessory is actually an additional figure: it’s a little Franklin Richards figurine, in what has got to be the most ’90s attire Franklin ever wore.

“With his strong adamantium bones and claws, as well as a mutant healing factor, Wolverine can stand up to just about anything.  So when the X-Men take on Apocalypse in his flying fortress, Wolverine leads the charge.  Pounded by the fortress’ automated defense systems, Wolverine attacks.  Using his razor sharp claws, Wolverine makes quick work of the robot guards.  Facing off against Apocalypse in mid-air, Wolverine won’t stop until he sends the villain crashing down once and for all.”

At this point, the actual themes of the assortments kind of started to fall off, in favor of just leaning really heavily into the gimmicks.  The Missile Flyers series was, unsurprisingly, a bunch of figures with big missile-firing flying contraptions.  Also, it was supposedly in the future?  All of the figure’s had “future” in front of their name, anyway.  At least it didn’t get shoved into every instance of Wolvie’s name like with the Ninja figure.  Future Wolverine stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Yay for knees and elbows again!  That said, he’s not a particularly posable figure, even with the returning joints.  Pretty much he’s hot the one pose.  His sculpt was all-new, and it was an all-new design and…well, there it its.  It, uh, it certainly happened.  His head’s real tiny, and his hands and feet are real big.  I’m glad that at least, unlike the Muntant Armor, this figure’s armor does actually mimic the classic Wolvie appearance a bit.  Also digging those groovy curved and wavy claws.  Very unique.  This Wolverine a mask (which the package proudly proclaims “fits over head”; that’s good, I guess) and a dragon-shaped wingpack with a launching missile for a head.  The wingpack is green for some reason, which clashes with the figure proper, but if I’m honest, doesn’t look half bad.

“When Los Angeles is attacked by deadly mutant hunting Sentinels, it’s up to the X-Men to stop them.  The Sentinels’ only weakness is their vulnerability to water.  Thus the X-Men arm themselves with powerful water shooting weapons in order to defeat the inhuman menace.

Fighting his way out of any situation is the most dangerous of all the X-Men — Wolverine!  Putting his enemies in their place with his retractable claws, Wolverine also has a powerful mutant healing factor making him quick to recover from any attack.  With heightened senses, no one can hide from Wolverine, making him an effective hunter as well.  Choosing the path of a hero, Wolverine fights along side the X-Men to create a world where humans and mutants co-exist in peace.”

1997 was the year that Toy Biz got into the water-themed stuff, with both of their main super hero lines getting in on the action.  Spider-Man had the Web-Splashers, and the X-Men had “Water Wars.”  The pretense of how they set up the need for these water-shooting gimmicks is pretty darn laughable, but removed from the gimmicks, they were actually an alright assortment of updates to some core looks.  We’d gone a little bit without just a standard tiger stripe Wolverine, and this one dropped right in nicely.  The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall (his stature was returning again to something more reasonable) and he has 11 points of articulation.  Though he lacked elbows, the rest of the added articulation sort of made up for it, and this was honestly Toy Biz’s most posable Wolverine at this scale.  The sculpt is far more stylized, and definitely more pre-posed than earlier entries in the line, but for the most part, this is a pretty respectably handled take on the character.  He’s packed with some shoulder armor, onto which you can mount his big water cannon.  It’s incredibly gimmicky, and incredibly tacked-on, but there it is.

“In a strange universe Wolverine brings a glimmer of hope to all mutants.  Fighting against the evil warlord Apocalypse, Wolverine slashes his way to making the world a better place for all mutantkind.  Along with Jean Grey, Wolverine is more trouble than he can claw his way out of, his transforming Claw Cannon Blaster and its secret weapon are more than able to finish the more than able to finish the job for him.”

Okay, I’m not even going to try and figure out what that bio’s *supposed* to say, because it certainly isn’t what it actually ended up saying, because that’s just an incomprehensible mess.  It’s okay, the figure it accompanies isn’t much better.  After Water Wars, Toy Biz decided they really liked this model of packing every figure with some sort of large gimmicky thing, so they launched the “Secret Weapon Force,” a subline that ran through the X-Men line for the next two years.  The first series was dubbed “Battle Blasters” because everyone had…big battle blasters.  I know, it’s real high-concept stuff.  Wolverine stands 5 1/4 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation.  All of the Battle Blasters figures were retools in some way, but while some of them were rather clever, Wolverine simply wasn’t.  For some reason, they opted to re-use not a pre-existing Wolverine mold, but rather a *Sabretooth* mold, specifically Captive Sabretooth from the Invasion Series.  It’s not a great mold to begin with, and is only made worse when co-opted to be something it’s not.  They’ve opted to do him up in his Age of Apocalypse colors, but he’s still got two hands, and no pupils, and hair that’s not even remotely right, so it just kind of falls apart.  It’s also just not a very attractive sculpt, and that jaw-opening action feature looks really weird.  No sir, I do not like it.  They weren’t willing to drop money on new tooling, but Toy Biz were quite happy to spring for this all-new Claw Cannon Blaster, which is…a thing.  Yeah, it’s dumb and I got nothing.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The “I’ve probably got enough Wolverines” was really hitting by ’97, and so I really didn’t pick any of these up new, or even pay them much mind.  I’ve got other figures from the same assortments, so I was still collecting, of course, but not these guys.  In the case of Unleashed and Future Wolverine, I’ll admit to actually wanting them a little bit as a kid.  They were, in fact, the two I was most hoping to see in this collection when Jason called me about it.  Goofy as they may be, neither disappointed.  The others are kind of a range of quality.  Water Wars is surprisingly good, and Battle Blasters may well be the worst Wolverine Toy Biz ever produced, with the other two falling in between.  Oh good, I’m finally through with the ’97 review.  It gets easier from here.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2414: Wolverines III & IV

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

WOLVERINES III & IV

X-MEN (TOY BIZ)

The isolation…it’ll do crazy things to a man…things like give him grand, lofty, and possibly insane ideas.  What kind of ideas you ask?  Well, I may or may not have recently been getting a little bit nostalgic for my “Day of the Vipers” event I ran back in 2018.  You know, the day I was insane and wrote six separate reviews and published them all over the course of 24 hours.  Yes, I get nostalgic about the times that I put *way* too much work into this site.  I’m not well.  I thought to myself that it might even be nice to do such a thing again.  But, what could I possibly use for such a follow-up?  Clearly I didn’t have anything tailor-made for such a marathon of reviews…and then I had something kind of drop into my lap.  So, hey, let’s fully embrace my isolation-induced insanity for a bit.  Without further ado, I present the Day of the Wolverines.  Here they come, bub!  Let’s kick things off with a journey back to 1992.  Not a bad year if I do say so myself, and a solid year for X-Men.  Toy Biz’s line launched the year prior, and we got our second and third series over the course of ’92, which brought our Wolverine count up to a firm four.  I’ve already looked at Wolverine II, so let’s go ahead and round out that set with Wolverines III and IV.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

“When it comes to fighting Evil Mutants, the X-Men know there’s no one better than Wolverine!  With his razor-sharp adamantium claws, his lightning-quick reflexes and his unmatched combat experience, Wolverine can outfight anyone!  Thanks to his super-fast mutant healing ability, in just a few short hours he’s totally healthy and ready for action again, no matter how serious his wounds!”

Wolverine’s numerous costume changes in the early ’90s proved fortuitous for Toy Biz’s growing little X-Men line, allowing for three totally valid variants of the pint-sized hero right off the bat.  We’d gotten the brown costume and the Tiger-Stripe costume, so the only main look left was Logan’s strike team uniform, Jim Lee’s take on the old Kirby uniforms.  This figure, dubbed Wolverine III, was released in early 1992 as part of the Series 2 line-up, and then showed up again the same year in the Series 3 line-up as well (it’s believed he was the shortpack in both assortments, and this was Toy Biz’s way of getting him out in decent numbers).  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 10 points of articulation.  Structurally, this figure’s pretty similar to Wolverine II, although it’s worth noting that the only part shared between them was the torso (well, that was *supposed* to be the only part, anyway.  A good number of this figure actually shipped with Wolverine II’s legs in place of his proper ones.  This variant is commonly referred to as “Wolverine 2.5”).  The head’s also pretty close to the head that was used later as an alt-head for Series 5’s Morph.  Stylistically, this guy fits right in with the rest of the Series 2/3 stuff, and it’s honestly not a bad mold, all things considered.  I don’t think it’s aged quite as well as the Tiger Stripe figure, but that could also be the slightly more dated costume design at play.  This guy keeps both of the action features of the Wolverine II figure, for better or for worse.  I’m still not entirely sure what the purpose of the thumb tab on the back of these figures was, but Toy Biz sure liked it.  The claws were an interesting idea, but one I’m glad Toy Biz ultimately moved away from.  His paint’s fairly standard of the time.  The overall application’s not bad, but there’s definitely some wobbly lines on the edges of the costume. Wolverine III, like Wolverine II, included a gun, because why not?  Also, a trading card of Widget, a character I have no familiarity with whatsoever.  So there’s that.

“A top-secret government project transformed the Mutant named Logan into the unbeatable warrior Weapon X.  He was given unbreakable adamantium claws and a battle simulation helmet which created imaginary battle screens that looked virtually real.  Using these unique training weapons, Weapon X sharpened his combat skills to perfection.  The ultimate secret agent, Weapon X later used his high-tech training to become the heroic X-Man Wolverine!”

Still relatively new at the time, Wolverine’s Weapon X get-up was a pretty popular look, and pretty divergent from his main look to boot.  It’s use for Wolverine IV was pretty sensible, I suppose.  The figure starts Logan’s crawl upwards in height, standing just shy of 5 inches tall, and he has 9 points of articulation.  His sculpt is all-new, and it feels almost out of place with the others in its series.  While the early X-Men figures all adhere to a simpler style, this guy honestly feels like he belongs a bit later in the line.  The proportions are a little more buffed up (though not to crazy levels yet), and the detail work on the sculpt is actually quite sharp.  He’d end up getting the style of claws that most of the later line versions of Wolverine got, as well, resulting in a figure that just feels more advanced than his compatriots.  He’s definitely the most technically impressive of the Series 3 line-up, and one of the most impressive of the early line figures as a whole.  His paint’s pretty decent as well, with all of the basics covered, plus proper detailing for the cables and such.  This one’s the standard release, but KB also had an exclusive repaint, which had red cables and grey shorts.  Weapon X included his helmet and harness, which are a little bulky and loose fitting, but certainly not bad additions to the figure.  This marks the first time that the line didn’t stick Wolverine with an extra weapon of some sort.  He also got a Rogue trading card.  I do know her, so we’re doing alright there.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, this pair is interesting, because they’re both figures I sort of owned growing up.  Why “sort of”?  Well, my Wolverine III was actually the 2.5 figure, which KB had a lot of back in the day.  I tried painting him in the proper colors, but never got it right.  Weapon X I only had the core figure to, as he accompanied a loose Professor X my dad bought from eBay.  But, as you can see, I have the proper full versions of both now.  See, I got a call from Jason at All Time a little while back asking if there were any Toy Biz Wolverines I needed.  I said there were a number and he said “great, I just got pretty much all of them.  Swing by the store and you can dig through them.”  So…there’s your preview of what the rest of the day holds, I suppose.

Thanks to All Time Toys for setting me up with these guys to review.  If you’re looking for other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2395: Giant-Size X-Men

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

CYCLOPS, WOLVERINE, COLOSSUS, STORM, NIGHTCRAWLER, & THUNDERBIRD

MARVEL MINIMATES

The first year of Marvel Minimates was all kind of consolidated around the summer of 2003, so it was a little while before we well and truly got a follow-up, but they kickstarted their second year off with a bang.  After focussing purely on the Ultimate incarnation of the X-Men, for their first two entries in year two, DST decided to circle back around and give us classic X-Men in spades.  When it comes to classic X-Men, it’s hard to get more classic than the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1, which is what the line’s first dedicated boxed set was based around.  So, without further ado, let’s jump right in!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The Giant-Size X-Men boxed set hit in January of 2004, and was the first boxed set to be available through specialty shops.  It (and the AFX-exclusive Professor X and Magneto) introduced the totally windowless packaging that would become the norm for the line for the next four years.  In the case of this particular set, it was probably the nicest box the line produced, replicating the cover to the original issue quite nicely.  I’ve included a shot of it here, courtesy of minimatedatabase.com.  Of the six figures contained in this set, five would eventually be made available as part of a set of Target exclusive two-packs (Thunderbird wound up as the odd man out), with the major difference between the two releases being C3-style feet on the later figures.

CYCLOPS

Already two ‘mates in by this point, this set finally gave us Cyclops with his classic cowled appearance.  It wouldn’t be the last time we’d see it, even just for a short while, but it sure was important at the time.  He’s built on the standard old-style body, so he’s 2 1/4 inches tall and he’s got 14 points of articulation.  He’s got one add-on piece for his mask/visor, which is a pretty nicely sculpted piece.  I always appreciated how the visor on it was so instantly unique from the one on the Series 3 Cyclops.  It was also a nice enough piece that it lasted through to 2010 before being retired.  The rest of things are handled through paint, and admittedly not a lot of it.  Of the six figures included here, Scott was by far the least detailed, with not even chest detailing to make him stand out.  Given how he was always so creatively shaded in the comics, it’s a shame they didn’t go for that here.  They’d end up fixing that on later figures.

WOLVERINE

Already two ‘mates in by this point, this set finally gave us Wolverine with his classic…cowled appearance…wait, I just did this.  Sorry!  I mean, yeah, it’s the same deal as Cyclops, though.  Woverine’s two prior releases lacked his distinctive mask, so this was our first shot at it.  He got a new add-on piece for it, as well as new boots, and the same clawed hands from the two Series 3 releases.  It’s not a bad selection of parts, but it definitely didn’t hold up as well as the Cyclops mask did.  These parts would see only one more use before being retired.  Everything else is paint, and that includes the shoulder pads, which was an…interesting choice.  Clearly, they’re a three dimensional item, but they were just painted on here.  The separate pieces that came later were a better fit.  The rest of the paintwork is pretty decent.  Like Scott, he doesn’t have any sort of musculature on his chest, but he does at least get his tiger stripes, so it’s not a total blank void.

COLOSSUS

Notably missing from the Series 3 X-Men line-up (despite Ultimate Colossus being a prominent member at the time), Colossus made his debut here.  He was one of the most involved ‘mates in the set in terms of parts count, with add-ons for his hair, tunic/belt, and boots.  All of the parts were new at the time, and they’re honestly the best of the parts introduced here.  They just do a really great job of replicating the feel of the character, and I always liked how they bulked him up a bit when compared to the others in the set.  In addition to having the most extra parts, Colossus also had by far the most involved paint work of the whole set, and honestly of most of the line at this point.  The banding on his metal skin wraps all the way around on his arms and legs, and he’s got a fully detailed front and back to the torso block under his tunic.  His face also is just so full of character.  It’s honestly a little shocking that this guy and Cyclops are from the same set.

STORM

Storm had gotten one ‘mate prior to this, but that was a modern design, so the classic was kind of needed, I guess.  Her original costume is pretty darn distinctive, and I think more properly captured that regal side of the character.  She had add-ons for her hair and cape.  The hair is huge, to comical standards, honestly, and makes her quite tricky to keep standing.  The cape, on the other hand, is small and very understated, and rather easily missed, I feel.  That was kind of the nature of the capes, at this point, though, so I can’t really say it was out of the ordinary or weird.  The paint is alright on her, but not the same level as Colossus.  She has the basics, and she does at least get torso detailing of some sort, so she’s a bit ahead of Cyclops and Wolverine.  That said, it’s also a lot messier in application than the others in this set.

NIGHTCRAWLER

Nightcrawler has been pretty sparse when it comes to Minimates.  This was his first, and remained his only until 2011.  So, this guy had to keep us content for 7 whole years.  Certainly, he must have been really good, right?  …Ehhh.  He did get a lot of new parts, with add-ons for the hair, chest cap, and tail, as well as unique hands and feet.  The hair seems a little too demonic, if I’m honest, but the hands, feet, and tail all are pretty dope.  The biggest problem I’ve got with this guy is that chest cap, which bulks him way up, despite the fact that Nightcrawler should actually be the smallest of the six figures included here. Why would they do this?  And then not fix it for soooooo long?  The paint was okay on this guy, at least.  The face again leans more into the demonic thing, but at least that fits okay with the GSXM-stylings.

THUNDERBIRD

The one truly exclusive figure in the set, this Thunderbird wouldn’t see a re-issue at all, and the character wouldn’t appear again until 2016, when we got another GSXM-set.  He’s the one that seems to diverge the most from the comics appearance, falling back more into a general ‘mate aesthetic.  He had a new hair piece and shoulder pads, both of which would remain unique.  They’re…well, they’re there.  Neither’s all that impressive, but I guess they aren’t bad either. The bit of his forehead that’s visible on the hairpiece looks really odd, and he’s missing the feathers from the back of his headband.  The paintwork brings in a few more inaccuracies.  He’s got visible pupils, which he shouldn’t, and his feet are the wrong color (they should be red).  Also, his face just doesn’t feel at all like Thunderbird.  I could see it passing for Warpath, but definitely not Thunderbird.  At least he got torso detailing?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like a fool, an absolute fool, I passed on this set when it came out.  I saw it at Cosmic Comix, I had the money to spend, and I dropped on the DC Direct import of the Batman Kubricks instead.  Why?  WHY!?!  I was young and stupid, that’s why.  This set’s never been super plentiful, and was going for a bit on the aftermarket for a while, so I just never got one.  I finally ended up getting the Series 68 set, and figured that was good enough, but I still had this little nagging need for this set too.  Fortunately, it came into All Time as part of a big Minimates collection they bought last fall, so, hey, I finally got it.  Honestly, this set hasn’t aged so well, but it’s really worth the price of admission just for that Colossus.  That’s still the best version of him the line produced!

As I mentioned above,  I got this set from my friends at All Time Toys.  They’ve still got a lot of that Minimate collection, and other cool toys both old and new, so please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2367: Colossus

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

COLOSSUS

MARVEL UNIVERSE (HASBRO)

“When you weigh almost 2,000 pounds and can’t be stopped by any obstacle on Earth, the term ‘fair fight’ doesn’t normally apply…unless your opponent can lift 75 tons and comes encased in impenetrable organic armor.  The unstoppable Juggernaut!  The unbreakable Colossus!  Look out!”

So, that bio might reveal some things about how this figure *should* be reviewed, which is to say with another figure, since he’s clearly part of a two-pack.  But that ain’t how I roll…well, this time, at least, because I just have the one of them.  I definitely dig me some Colossus, and he definitely has a tendency to really rock as an action figure, which really only makes me dig him that much more, and, well, here we are, I guess.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Colossus is one half of a Marvel Universe “Greatest Battles” two-pack, which is what the Comic Packs became after Hasbro rounded out their Secret Wars celebration.  Like the larger-scale set I looked at a while back, this pack paired off Colossus with Juggernaut, in reference to their battle in X-Men #102 (which was, unsurprisingly, the comic that came included with this pack).  This figure would mark Colossus’s third time in the Marvel Universe line, and following a single-carded release based on his Astonishing costume, and a differently colored “classic” Colossus in the Giant-Size X-Men boxed set.  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 25 points of articulation.  This Colossus draws from the same parts bank as his two predecessors, and is in fact sculpturally identical to the GSXM version, which was just a minor retool of the Astonishing version.  A number of these parts would also later be used for Death’s Head, who I’ve previously reviewed.  While the earlier MU sculpts were definitely wonky, but the time that Colossus was introduced, Hasbro had the formula down really well, and it results in a very nice sculpt for Piotr.  Honestly, I think it’s even a little bit better than the recent Legends sculpt, certainly on the head, at least.  Even his poseability is pretty good, especially for his stature.  There’s no real weak points in the movement, and his neck in particular has a fantastic range.  Really, the only downside to the sculpt is the same thing that afflicted so many MU figures: he’s got some real trouble standing.  Even then, it’s not as bad as some figures in the line.  Throw some ankle rockers on this guy and he’d be pretty much perfect.  The only thing that really differentiates this guy from the GSXM release is how he’s colored.  While that one went for a “real world” color with actual silver, this one opts for stricter comic book coloring, so the colors are (mostly) flat.  It’s a different look, and I’m not sure it works quite as well as the straight silver, but I do kinda dig the only slightly pearlescent grey, in a sort of a kitschy-retro sort of a way.  It reminds me of his appearance on Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, or even the old bendy figure Colossus (which was actually my first Colossus figure).  Colossus included no accessories, unless you want to count that whole second figure that was in the pack.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t get Colossus new, but I have had him for a little while.  Some time back, Cosmic Comix got a bunch of Marvel Universe figures in loose, and had them all out for pretty good prices.  I had the standard Juggernaut from the line, as well as the Astonishing Colossus, so I didn’t pay this set much mind as a two-pack.  However, this guy on his own, as a easy way of getting a classic Colossus, definitely had some appeal to me.  The sculpt is one of the finest the line produced, and the paint may be a little out there, but I can appreciate him for what they were trying to do.  Maybe he wouldn’t be anyone’s fist choice, but I really like him.

#2364: Jean Grey & Cyclops

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

JEAN GREY & CYCLOPS

MARVEL MINIMATES

I’ve been slowly making my way through the earliest assortments of the Marvel Minimates line.  The X-Men-themed third assortment’s been on the docket for a good long while in particular, since I officially started reviewing it back in December of 2016, with Cyclops and Wolverine.  Today, I’m finally gonna finish it, taking a look at the other Cyclops, as well as the one unreviewed team member, Jean Grey!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This set rounds out Series 3 of the specialty assortments of Marvel Minimates, and like the other sets in the line-up, it’s themed around Ultimate X-Men.  The two figures included here are notable for being the only ones to remain wholly exclusive to the specialty line-up, since Jean was paired up with either of the two Cyclopses and the Cyclops seen here is the one-per-case variant.

JEAN GREY

I’ve only briefly touched on my opinions of the Ultimate designs, especially as they pertain to this set of ‘mates.  Jean got saddled with one of the absolute worst redesigns of the bunch.  For a character whose personality didn’t really change too much from her mainstream counterpart, they managed to stick her with a costume that was divergent in just about every way and held onto pretty much nothing that was signature of the character.  Without a name attached to it, there’s any number of female X-Men that I would guess for this design before arriving on Jean.  But I digress…what of the figure?  Well, she’s on the old style body, with add-ons for the hair and necklace.  The hair is an okay recreation of the style she had in the early Ultimate X-Men issues, and the necklace is the same kinda bulky piece used on Storm.  It gets the job done on recreating the look she’s got in the comics, so I guess that’s good.  The paintwork follows suit, and she gets all of the important details, while going a bit more lax on the smaller details than later entries would.  She’s got the wrapped arms like Storm, which is still a pretty cool detail.

CYCLOPS

I’ve already reviewed the standard Cyclops, so why not take a look at his slightly different variant.  The variants in the early days of the line were a mixed bag.  While the Symbiote Spidey was honestly too big a design for the one-per-case thing, and Elektra was a whole lot of “meh”, the variant No Visor Cyclops falls into a subset of variants that actually wouldn’t even count as separate figures as the line progressed.  Seriously, the thing that distinguished him from the standard release was merely the fact that he wasn’t wearing his visor; nowadays it’s standard for a Cyclops to just include an extra hair piece.  You were originally meant to pay the price of a two-pack for one single extra part.  It’s a fairly nice extra part, I guess; it’s the same basic hair piece as the regular, but with no visor and actual proper ears.  I also dig that they gave him a slightly different expression, and also added the facial hair that he grew later on in the books, but it’s hard to say there’s all that much exciting about this guy.  He’s an accessory, not a complete figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cyclops and Jean were my second set of Marvel Minimates…just not this actual set.  I got the standard set with the regular Cyclops and Jean.  While I held onto most of the regular Cyclops, I lost most of Jean’s parts over the years.  When All Time got their big collection of Minimates in last year, I took advantage of it to fill in the gaps of my early ‘mates, and picked up a replacement Jean, and finally got that variant Cyclops I’d never had.  Reviewing these two without the standard Cyclops, I’ve kinda realized he was the real lynchpin of the set.  Jean’s got the worst of the team designs, and the variant Cyclops honestly feels a little bit pointless.  All that said, I’m happy to have at least finished out the assortment, even if I’ve realized that the best one of them is the one I’ve had for 17 years.

#2350: Storm & Logan

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

STORM & LOGAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Back in January, I delved into the time capsule of the earliest assortments of Marvel Minimates, and their choice to use the Ultimate universe’s versions of Marvel’s merry mutants over their mainstream counterparts.  Some of the characters weren’t too heavily changed, while some of them were.  Today’s set pairs both sides of that coin, with Storm (a character whose backstory and characterization were both fairly divergent from 616) and Wolverine (a character so unchanged from his mainstream counterpart that no one really noticed that the one included in this particular set *isn’t* actually the Ultimate incarnation).

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These two were paired up for the specialty Series 3 assortment of Marvel Minimates, and they would both also be included in the TRU 5-pack and 4-pack that corresponded to the assortment.  They were split up and matched with their opposite numbers in the Wolverine/Sabretooth set for the Canadian release, and then Logan found his way into one more stray two-pack for Walmart and Target.

STORM

Storm’s Ultimate incarnation may have been different in terms of character, but in terms of design, she really wasn’t that far removed.  I could see regular Storm wearing this at some point in the ’90s.  The figure is built on the pre-c3 ‘mate body, with long feet and all.  She had four add-on pieces for her hair, necklace, and boots.  The necklace is shared with her assortment-mate Jean Grey, and the hairpiece was re-used twice more (for Emma Frost and She-Hulk).  The boots remained unique to this release, though, and use the older style slipping over the standard feet style of design.  Like the others in these early assortments, the general style on these parts is rather basic, though she’s certainly one of the most built-up ‘mates of the earliest releases.  It’s a little odd for Storm to be one of the largest characters, but that’s really just how the trappings of the early line work out.  Storm’s paintwork is actually pretty good for the early figures.  It’s still more on the basic line, but there’s a fair bit going on, with the coolest bit by far being the wraps on her arms.  That said, she does miss out on actually getting the sculpted earrings painted; at least they got her ears, though.

LOGAN

The standard Ultimate version of Wolverine was packed with Sabretooth (and Cyclops), but you can’t have just one lone Wolverine, can you?  Of course not.  As I touched on in the intro, he’s actually the one figure in this assortment who wasn’t from the Ultimate universe, instead being just a regular civilian version of the original Logan, as denoted by the hair’s distinctive shaping and his lack of goatee.  He too uses the standard old body, but with a set of the old-style claw hands as well as an add-on for the hair.  This is probably my favorite Wolverine hair piece the line produced, which makes it rather a shame that this was the only time it was used (though it was shown on prototype shots for the DOFP Wolverine, before being replaced with the New X-Men Wolverine piece). The rest of the figure is handled via paint, and it ends up working out alright.  The face is a rather unique expression for Logan, but one that works in the context of the earlier ‘mates, and the detailing on the jacket is actually pretty impressive.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in my Wolverine and Sabretooth review, the only Series 3 set I picked up when these were new was Cyclops and Jean.  I got this one along with a handful of other older sets from Luke’s Toy Store back during one of their sales.  I’ve always wanted this pair, so I was glad to finally get them.  Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from them, but they’re both pretty solid ‘mates, even by more modern standards.

#2334: Colossus & Juggernaut

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

COLOSSUS & JUGGERNAUT

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“1976 Saw the release of X-Men 102, with its iconic cover featuring the mighty Colossus and unstoppable Juggernaut locked in combat, setting the stage for a rivalry that would shake the Marvel universe For decades.”

Do you ever feel like your intro’s been stolen right out from under you by Hasbro’s own copy writers?  Just me?  Yeah, I guess that might be a more exclusively me sort of an issue.  Well, you know, 1976 did see the release of X-Men 102…which, uhh, had this here iconic cover, and it–ah, it’s just not the same.  Look, you guys know the song and dance here.  I’m just gonna get right to reviewing the action figures.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Colossus and Juggernaut are the second of the two comic-based “80 Years of Marvel” Legends two-packs (the other being Wolverine and Hulk).  As with that one, it pairs one BaF-sized figure with one smaller one, although smaller is certainly a relative term in this case.  As the text above notes, the two are themed around their X-Men #102 appearance, though the individual figures do more or less adhere to the line’s already established style.

COLOSSUS

“A mutant with the ability to transform his body into metal, Peter Rasputin left his farm community to join the X-Men and fight for good.”

Colossus was a fairly early addition to Legends in the Toy Biz days, appearing just five series into the line.  That figure was one of the line’s best, and replacing him was certainly a daunting task.  When Hasbro finally got around to releasing a Piotr figure of their own, they opted for a more modern appearance that wasn’t actually a direct replacement, but we all kind of knew a proper classic version would come around eventually.  It took three years, but here he is!  The figure stands just shy of 8 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  This guy makes moderate use of the parts from the previous Colossus figure, namely the head, arms, and pelvis.  The torso, wrist bands, belt, legs, and feet are new to this guy.  The new parts are all very nicely handled, and I like the extensive selection of character-specific elements.  The old parts I’m admittedly slightly iffy on.  I liked the previous figure a lot, but he was from three years ago, and even in that time they’ve really made some strides forward, so things like the range of motion on the arms is a little disappointing.  Also, I understand Hasbro opting to re-use the clean shaven head from the last figure, but for me it just doesn’t quite feel right for a ’70s/’80s Colossus.  Were this, say, the Jim Lee design, it would be fine, but he lacks that particular flair of character that Cockrum and Byrne drew him with.  It’s not a bad sculpt at all, but slightly misses the mark for me.  Colossus’s paintwork is clean, bright, and bold, which is honestly a first for a Legends Colossus, since both the Toy Biz one and Hasbro’s prior figure went for a much murkier palette.  I like this look, and it reminds me a bit of the Marvel Select figure, which isn’t a bad thing.  Colossus is packed with two sets of hands, one in fists, and one in an open pose.  They match the hands included with the previous figure, but instead of one of each, now we get matching pairs.

JUGGERNAUT

“Cain Marko possesses superhuman strength and extreme durability that allows him to rampage through any situation as an unstoppable juggernaut of force.”

Juggernaut’s last time in Legends wasn’t long before Colossus’s, since he was the Build-A-Figure for the prior year and all.  I reviewed that one back when it was new, and I liked it a fair bit then.  Of course, the trouble with Build-A-Figures is that sometimes one or two of the figures that include their pieces are hard to get, making completing them quite tricky, so Hasbro’s seen fit to do a slight redux of that release for this two-pack.  Like that one, this figure stands 9 1/2 inches tall and has 28 points of articulation.  The sculpt is almost exactly the same.  The helmet is ever so slightly different, being a little smoother in texture than the first one.  He also ditches the original figure’s belt in order to be more accurate to the older Juggernaut appearances.  Further changing things up is the paintwork, which trades in the more strictly brown colors of the last figure for a much redder palette, which is again a far more classic look.  He also ditches the pupilled eyes from the last year for straight white ones, with sort of a shaded effect over the eyes for a slightly more dramatic appearance.  It’s probably the one change I don’t feel is an outright improvement, but it’s not a bad look either.  While the original Juggernaut was a Build-A-Figure, and therefore didn’t get any accessories, this guy actually gets quite an assortment.  There’s an extra unmasked head, a torn up helmet piece to go with it, and a spare set of open hands to trade out for the BaF’s closed fists.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Classic Colossus has been on my list since the more modern one hit three years ago, so he served as the major selling point for me on this particular set, with Juggernaut more or less just being along for the ride.  That said, I definitely dig the two of them being paired together, since it really calls back to their scenes together in Pryde of the X-Men, which remains a defining X-Men entry for me.  In hand, Colossus is okay, but has his definite flaws.  Juggernaut on the other hand takes the already pretty awesome Build-A-Figure and just builds more awesome into it, making this a truly fantastic version of the character.

I got this pair from my friends All Time Toys, where they are currently in stock here.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2333: Jean Grey, Cyclops, & Wolverine

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

JEAN GREY, CYCLOPS, & WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Love triangles are far from uncommon in serialized fiction, with a good deal of narratives being built around at least one.  The X-Men have been host to a fair number of them, but I don’t think any of them will ever beat out the Jean Grey/Cyclops/Wolverine triad…which is kind of amusing, because it was originally only a minor plot line, mostly meant as a way to give Logan a little character development, while also strengthening Scott and Jean’s relationship and solidifying them as the definitive couple.  Then Wolverine’s popularity went through the roof, Jean died and came back a few times, and Scott became the X-writers’ favorite punching bag, and now they’ve got some sort of vague polyamorous relationship going on?  Listen, the X-books are being written by Hickman, and he hasn’t deigned that they make any sort of sense yet, so we’ll all just have to sit back and wait for him to tell us whether or not we understand anything that’s going on, alright?  While we’re waiting for that, let’s flash back to the ’90s, when things were simpler, and we just had your basic love triangle between a newly married couple and their surly 100-year-old friend.  The basics!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Wolverine were released late last year as a Fan Channel-exclusive Marvel Legends three-pack.  Like the Havok and Polaris pack, they are loosely built into the “80 Years of Marvel” celebration, and also like that pack, the box is all themed around the trading cards of the ’90s.  It’s a cool design, but as with most of my figures, these things could ship in plastic baggies for all I care–actually no, I do care!  Paper bags!  Let’s be a little more environmentally conscious!  Until then, I guess a throwback to the ’90s trading cards is alright.  What was I doing?  Grand standing?  No, wait–action figure review! Yeah, let’s go with that!

JEAN GREY

“Jean Grey is an incredibly powerful mutant with the psychic powers of telepathy and telekinesis.”

After being Marvel Girl, then Phoenix, then Dark Phoenix, then dead, then not dead anymore, Jean decided to ditch the whole supramyn concept and go with her regular-ass name.  Seems fair, honestly.  It does make marketing her a little tricky, though, since everyone else is using these really sweet code names and she’s just regular-old “Jean.”  Whatever the case this particular regular old Jean is an important one, because she finally completes the core ’90s X-Men line-up (though we still need a proper Colossus)…well, for most fans, anyway.  Some people were fortunate enough to have found the Rocket Raccoon Series Jean, which had this same costume, but to call that release “hard to find” would be something of an understatement.  Plus, that was just before Legends really got the formula down, so an update is not unprecedented.  So, here Jean is in all her head-band-wearing, Jim Lee-designed-glory.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  She’s built on a variant of the same body that Phoenix was built on, but with a new upper torso and thighs.  She also re-uses the bracers and belt from the previous ’90s Jean, which seems pretty sensible.  She does not re-use the head from that figure, instead getting not one, but two new ones.  She gets one that’s a direct recreation of the last one, being the more comics-accurate hairdo (seen with Wilson on the right there), but also gets an X-Men: The Animated Series accurate head with her slightly tweaked headgear from the show.  That’s actually a first for toys, and I’m genuinely thrilled that I can now have a cartoon accurate roster.  Jean’s paintwork is mostly pretty basic, though I will say that there’s a little bit of slop on the blue portions of the costume on mine, and I had to check a few samples to get the best one.  Hasbro was definitely having a more lax QC day on this figure.  Jean doesn’t get any accessories beyond the extra head…well, I mean, unless you want to count the next two figures, which would be somewhat valid.

CYCLOPS

“Scott Summers can fire optic blasts so powerful that they can only be harnessed by a special ruby-quartz visor.”

Cyclops has already gotten his modern-Legends-take-on-the-’90s-design due, with a pretty darn cool figure, I might add. However, in a similar fashion to the Jean situation above, said figure was never amazingly easy to find, and he’s kind of an essential piece to a ’90s X-Men set-up.  However, Hasbro didn’t want to just do a straight re-issue, so they’ve given us a figure that works to fill in the roster for fans that missed the first figure, while still having something to offer for fans who already have him.  What’d they do to change things up: bomber jacket.  Yeah, Scott was prone to wearing a jacket over his costume in the ’90s (especially on the cartoon), so that’s what this guy replicates.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  He uses the same starting point as his predecessor, the Bucky Cap body, and also gets the same head and collection of straps as the previous, minus the wrist straps.  He then gets the jacket from Old Man Logan and the arms from Punisher.  The jacket works better with the straps than I’d expected it to, and while I’m still not sure it’s 100% perfect, it’s decent.  I do wish the arms had a better range of motion, but that’s really the only thing.  The other thing that this guy changes up quite a bit is the paint.  While the last one went more for the Capcom colors for the costume, this one leans more heavily on those animated colors, so there’s a darker blue and a brighter yellow.  I wasn’t sure about the change at first, but I kinda like it in person.  The only downside is that now I want an un-jacketed version to match this and a jacketed one to match the prior.  Oh darn.  Cyclops is packed with two extra heads, one depicting his ’90s sunglasses, and the second his ’70s/’80s, allowing for some nice options on the civilian front.  He also includes a second left hand in a standard fist, for those that don’t like the optic blast hand.

WOLVERINE

“The mutant known as Wolverine possesses razor-sharp Adamantium claws and the ability to heal virtually any wound.”

Did you know that Wolverines have an average lifespan between 7 and 12 years in the wild?  That’s your fun FiQ fact for this tiger-stripe Wolverine review!  Wolverine is *definitely* no stranger to the toy world, the Legends world, or even the modern-Legends-take-on-the-’90s-design world.  We got his brown costume twice, and so now I guess it was time to even things out with the tiger-stripe design, especially since, even at two-to-a-case, the last release had really disappeared.  This one acts as something of a smaller-scale companion to the 12-inch Legends Wolverine.  I loved the heck out of that figure, so the prospects of it translating to the smaller line were definitely a plus for me.  The figure stands just shy of 6 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  Structurally, he’s the same as the Apocalypse Series Wolverine, which makes sense, that being a very ’90s Wolverine and all.  It’s also just a really solid sculpt, and Hasbro can hardly be faulted for getting a little more mileage out of it.  The paint work changes up in a fashion quite similar to how it worked on Cyclops.  In fact, the shades of yellow and blue appear to be identical.  I don’t like the dark blue quite as much, but the yellow’s not bad.  Wolverine gets the best accessory selection of the set, with two extra heads, a pulled down mask, and an alternate set of hands with bone claws.  The two extra heads replicate the ones included with the larger figure, so there’s an unmasked head and an angry battle-damaged head.  I really like that battle-damaged head, and I’m glad we got it at the smaller scale.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was fortunate enough to get both Wolverine and Cyclops’ original releases at retail pricing, but Jean pre-dates me getting back into Legends collecting, and honestly I probably wouldn’t have found one anyway.  As I got more and more of the ’90s team, the lack of a Jean was more and more of an issue.  I was hoping for at least a re-issue, but when Hasbro announced an all-new figure, I was definitely happy, even more so when I saw that animated head.  I know a lot of people weren’t thrilled about the prospect of having to re-buy the other two, but I don’t mind so much, and find that both figures have something to offer even if you’ve got those previous releases.  All in all, this is a great set and I’m glad we got it.  Now I can finally stop using Phoenix in my X-Men display!

I picked this trio up from my friends at All Time Toys.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.

#2287: Wolverine & Sabretooth

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

WOLVERINE & SABRETOOTH

MARVEL MINIMATES

In a lot of ways, the earliest assortments of Marvel Minimates are an interesting time capsule of Mavel’s media presence in the early ’00s.  That’s why the first series is based on the two properties that were getting movies in 2003, and why our first set of X-Men weren’t based on anything from the mainstream universe, but rather the Ultimate line, which was getting Marvel’s big push at the time.  Though not the resounding success of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men was still pretty big deal.  We got four sets dedicated to the team, plus a bunch of repacks made up of those sets.  Today, I’m looking at Wolverine and Sabretooth.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Wolverine and Sabretooth were released in Series 3 of Marvel Minimates, specifically the specialty assortment.  Both were available at TRU in a five-pack, and Wolverine was also packed with Cyclops at Target and Walmart (and I’ve already reviewed him here). Both characters are, as noted above, based on their ultimate universe incarnations.

Sabretooth’s Ultimate incarnation started out fairly close to his mainstream counterpart, with some of his first movie counterpart injected in.  Also four adamantium claws, because four is more than three, so he’s better than Wolverine.  Take that Wolverine.  The figure is built on the original long-footed ‘mate body, meaning he stands 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The articulation is a bit restricted by the add-on pieces, so it’s mostly just the arms that move.  He’s got add-ons for his hair, hands, belt, and jacket.  They fit that older, much more simple aesthetic of the line, but are still pretty nicely sculpted pieces.  Honestly, the only part that looks really dated is the hair, and that’s amusingly the one piece of this figure that was re-used later in the line.  His paint work is again in line with the rest of the older stuff, but there’s a fair bit of detail going on, especially on the face and torso, showing some shades of where the line would go with such details.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The only Series 3 set I picked up new was Cyclops and Jean Grey.  Everyone else I passed on, I guess probably because they were the Ultimate versions…of course, then I also passed on the GSXM boxed set, so I have no idea.  This set is one I picked up from Luke’s Toy Store during one of their many sales for a ridiculously low price.  I already had the Wolverine, but it’s worth it just for Sabretooth.  He may not be my preferred version of the character, but he was quite an under-appreciated ‘mate.