Retro Week: ToyBiz Psylocke in the Snow

Betsy, waist-deep in snow.

I've been saying that I'd get around to doing a few retro week posts for a couple of months now, but it took being snowed in to get to it!  Out of the basement today is Psylocke from ToyBiz's X-men Classics with Light-Up Weapon series from the 90s.  Amazingly, her batteries aren't dead!

It's all photos from here!

Random Toy of the Day: Forge (Toy Biz Marvel Universe)

Forge, Toy Biz Marvel Universe edition

Because one light-weight 10" figure was not enough!


After picking up the 10" Toy Biz Union Jack last month, I wasn't planning on adding more figures from that line to my collection.  Given the age of the line, I wasn't expecting to come across that many more of them - and certainly not new/in-box ones.

But as seems to be happening to me quite a lot lately, I did end up coming across another one - new in-box and a character that I collect.  So naturally I couldn't just leave him on the shelf -  he had to join my army of action figures.

The figure itself is fairly similar to Union Jack, so since I don't have much to add, it's all photos from here:

Out of the Box: Union Jack (Toy Biz Marvel Universe)

Toy Biz Union Jack.

When the "All New Invaders" series ended a few weeks ago, I found myself in the mood to pick up a couple of tie-in figures.  The first of which was the Hasbro Union Jack that I posted about last month.  Having that purchase in my browsing history lead me to some of the older figures of the same character, and somehow (*cough*) one of them ended up in my cart.

On the opposite size of the size spectrum as the Hasbro figure, this 1998 Union Jack stands just over 10" (25cm)  in height.  The Toy Biz Marvel Universe figures are strangely light weight for their height (they appear to be made of a fairly light plastic), and have fairly minimalistic features.  I think the features would have been a turn-off on a non-masked character, but since Union Jack's look is minimalist on its own, it works for this one.

Out of the Box: Shatterstar (ToyBiz X-men/X-Force)

I was preparing a holiday-themed photo-shoot earlier this week, but the weather decided to not cooperate and a lack of sunlight meant those photos weren't going to happen.  As a result, I distracted myself by digging through the retro/discount bins and looking for more of ToyBiz's early '90s X-men figure, and Shatterstar (a fitting companion for the Rictor I found last month) joined my collection.

Shatterstar

In the box.

As is typical for superheros of that era he's awesomely (and ridiculously) over-the-top: a huge ponytail, an open-mouthed grimace, a pair of giant swords and a degree of muscularity that went out of fashion by the late '90s.  The features are fairly broadly done, but the figure (face and outfit) are neatly-painted, which isn't always the case for figures of this vintage, so that's certainly a plus.


The character might not look much like this in the comics these days (he was primarily used in  humour and romance plotlines when X-Factor v.1 was wrapping up last year), but the figure is a perfect reflection of how he was drawn 20 years ago.

A closer view of the face.

The figure has 10 points of articulation - shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, neck, and waist - two more than the Rictor figure (whose neck and waist were fixed).  As with the other figure, the boots are made out of a slightly softer vinyl than the rest of the figure, and that softer vinyl appears to have degraded somewhat.  Shatterstar's boots were slightly less sticky than Rictor's were, but the oiliness was still fairly noticeable.  It cleaned up fairly easily, but I imagine that the boots will continue to degrade over time.

Dual Sword Action, as described on the box.

As with all of the figures in this line, the toy has a unique action feature: "Dual Sword Action" in this case. Before taking the figure out of the box, I assumed that this would be one of those push-a-button/arms-move type actions, but it's actually less intuitive than that.   In order to make the arms swing from the shoulders, you need to push the back so that the figure rotates quickly from the waist.  It works (in a fashion), but it's such an awkward way of providing a fairly standard arm-swinging feature that I wonder why they bothered coming up with something so (relatively) complicated.

Overall I'd say that this is a solid playline figure - this Shatterstar may not be collector quality, but he's an awesome example of the ridiculousness of early 90s superheros, so I'm totally pleased with him on that front.

Out of the Box: Rictor (Toy Biz X-Men/X-Force)

It's been a while since I've talked about a '90s action figure, so it's time to remedy that and unbox this 1994 Toy Biz figure of X-men spin-off character Julio Rictor (specifically an X-Force character at the time this toy's production, although I always think of the character as part of either the earlier New Mutants or the more recent X-Factor).

The figure has that classic early '90s superhero look, with the muscle-heavy body, an oversized weapon and a  ridiculous outfit (the character hasn't looked like this in the comics for a long time now).  The figure takes a final step into the completely absurd with the action feature which is called "Power Vibes" - you wind it up and he moves slightly.  The motion is supposed to recall the character's seismic/shockwave powers but it actually just looks like wiggling.

In the box.

Still, the ridiculous costume is well-painted, and while the lack of neck gives the face a certain oddness, it's not a terrible likeness of the then-current art style (although he's not so fair-skinned in the comics).  Strangely, the boots are a softer vinyl than the rest of the body and seem to have degraded over time, so they're now a bit greasy, which is unfortunate.

The figure has 8 points of articulation - shoulders, elbows, hips, knees.  The lack of neck articulation is a shame, but not a surprise given the lack of neck in general.

The lone accessory is the gun, which is decently sculpted and fits perfectly in the figure's hand.  Most impressively to me (given some toys of this age), he's able to balance easily with the gun in hand.

Side view: the wind-up knob is very conspicuous here.

Overall, I'm in love with the complete ridiculousness of this figure - it's not particular good, but I'm entertained, and that's the most important part, right? ;)

More of the same line.
What absurd features do they have? 
And do I need to hunt them down to find out?

Out of the Basement: ToyBiz Light-Up Classics Wolverine (and Happy Labour Day!)

Digging through my mother's basement the other day, I came across a slightly more recent toy than most of the ones I've been posting about recently - Wolverine from the late 90s ToyBiz "Light Up Weapon Classics" line (I mentioned the Nightcrawler from this series a couple of months back).

Unlike the Nightcrawler, this figure is not terribly well engineered and can't stand on his own.  He also has a bit of an odd face sculpt, which is unfortunate.  On the other hand, he still has his original weapon, and - even more surprising - it still lights up!

I'm not sure if this toy is going to come home with me, go back into the basement, or be traded or gifted along, but it was interesting to see it again!

If you're celebrating a holiday weekend today, I hope it's a good one!

Random Toy of the Day: Aurora & Northstar (Toy Biz)

I'm back on my regular schedule next week, so today will be the last of these mini-posts (at least for now!).

Back in the late '90s, Marvel published the "new" Alpha Flight with a set of characters that was largely different from the '80s series.  And then, as that series was wrapping up, Toy Biz brought out a series of toys based on the '80s series.  Seems like strange marketing to me, but having started reading the old series and the new one concurrently, I did end up buying the full line of toys (the line consisted of three two packs - the twins that you see here, Snowbird and Puck and Sasquatch and Vindicator).

The rest of this series is probably still in my mother's basement, but the twins here have been moving around with me, and even though they're not he best quality figures, they are part of my permanent collection.  And at some point I will try to figure out what I did with their teammates.