Toy Biz’ Planet of the Symbiotes: Venom The Madness
1996 was before my time as a toy collector. It was also before the Internet changed the hobby for us. When we were kids, the way we knew what was coming out was to go to the toystore and look. If you lived out in the boonies, you were dependent entirely on what you’re local department store toy buyers thought was going to be the next big thing. If they thought lawn darts were making a big come back you were up the proverbial intermittent excrement tributary without a means of propulsion.
When that World Wide Web finally did roll around, it turned things around for manufacturers, sellers, and buyers alike. Now you didn’t need to depend on catalog inserts in your boxes or schoolyard word of mouth to get the news out about the rest of your line. Now you had all sorts of avenues to information about coming releases and didn’t need the scratch to hire underpaid Japanese guys to produce a cartoon for you. Now you could order something online and have it delivered to your door even if you lived in the middle of nowhere with two sheep and a dog. Imagine what life was like for a completist back in the day!
The 90’s was when McFarlane Toys started making figures for the adult collector, setting the bar higher for all the other toy makers. It was when manufacturers realized that there was a market for toys targeted for older kids (at heart). It was also when Toy Biz first started making Marvel action figures.
When I first saw Toy Biz toys, I wasn’t really all that impressed. They weren’t really nice looking, and their sculptors seemed to have problems with proportion. I guess you couldn’t blame them. This was the era of Rob Liefeld and Erik Larsen, Jim Lee and all those other guys. Style was the name of the game. Anatomy be damned.
But apparently, Toy Biz got it’s act together and started pumping out some nice stuff by ‘96. Case in point; the “Planet of the Symbiotes” line. This line consisted of 9 figures; Hybrid, Lasher, Riot, and Venom the Madness, each with a variant repaint, with a 9th figure called Scream which was released solo.
Of the set, the only ones that really look passable are Riot and Venom. It’s a good thing my friend chose to get those two when he bought these as a kid in Singapore. I’ll review Riot later. Let’s stick with Venom.
According to the back of the card (which I don’t have really), during his stay on the Planet of the Symbiotes, Venom was pushed into a vat of toxic waste and mutated into a huge, hulking beast (more than he already was anyway). Can any one say Toxic Avenger? He grew more heads and arms, and apparently got a pair of red tentacles to play with. Insert assorted hentai flashbacks here.
I looked online for a glimpse of the card and found a gallery at www.figurerealm.com. The artwork looks pretty 90’s to me, and I can tell it would have been hard to keep these babies in pristine condition. Considering the weight those J-hooks would have had to take, every toy on the shelf must have been falling down, and every blister must have been falling off the card.
I tried looking this series up and some are harder to find than others. Venom looks relatively easy, but some of the variants look pretty rare. And even if you can find them, chances are they wouldn’t come cheap.
I wouldn’t mind finding a couple of my own, black and green to face off with my Spideys.
The figure itself is huge. He’s a bit smaller than the Toy Biz Marvel Legends Juggernaut. Considering this thing was released in a line that was only 5″ scale, that’s impressive. The sculpt is amazing looking, and really captures the look of Venom in the comics. The regular character I mean. I never read this “Planet” story arc. I’ve got no idea how The Madness looked after he got dunked. This may not be a faithful rendition at all. The comic could have had him with 20 heads, a dozen tentacles (ribbed for your pleasure), 4 arms, and one big white eye for all I know. He could have been dressed in knee socks and pig-tails.
What I’m saying is that this toy, on it’s own, is awesome.
It’s got an amazing amount of detail drawn in, with wrinkles around the mouth, the eyes, each tooth sculpted, the tongue whipping out. If you look closely at the arm, it’s even got ribbing along it, following his musculature. I don’t know if that’s canon, but like I said, who cares? It’s awesome.
He’s built pretty thick. Even though his chest is hollow, he’s pretty hefty and solid. The unit I was reviewing was splitting open along the seam of his torso, but it wasn’t anything superglue couldn’t fix. And face it, this thing is 14 years old. I’d say it’s hanging on like a trooper. Plastic quality is good, but more of the hard brittle kind rather than the rubbery kind Hasbro favors today. This isn’t something that a kid will be able to toss across the room.
The tentacles and the extra arms are made of the rubbery plastic though. They aren’t posable but it’s a neat looking gimmick. And since everything’s black, there’s no worry about discoloration.
The figure has an action feature, which was apparently a requirement back in the day. At least this one is unobtrusive. It’s a button on the back that pops three of his heads out of his shoulders. It’s a pretty nice play feature and doesn’t really affect his display potential.
More awesome.
While Venom: the Madness doesn’t really have as much articulation as the other Venoms in my collection, he does rank because of the sheer excellence of his sculpt. Venom was never really anything more than a brickbat for Spider-man anyway, something that was thrown at him, without finesse. Sure it’s nice when we get a figure like the Spider-man 3 6″ one that can really match the McFarlane Spider-Man figure pose for pose, but there’s something to be said for a great big, meanacing block of goo that looks as if it’s about to eat you.
So if you can find this guy, I highly recommend him. His articulation isn’t really anything useful, but he makes for a nice centerpiece for a Spider-man collection. The detail of the sculpt and the size of the figure really allow him to hold his own with the 6″ crowd.
Secret Wars Hawkeye & Piledriver
I’ve reviewed the Thor & Enchantress 2-Pack 2-Pack already. I got this at the same time. It was just sitting there on the shelf of Toy Kingdom Express in the department store of SM Megamall and I knew Bim needed one and here was two of them right there staring me in the face. Here in my hand was the current hot item, the toy that everyone and their mother was looking for. I knew if I put them back, if I even let their J-hooks TOUCH the metal peg, the next nerd in line would grab it off the wall and make a dash for the counter. It would then promptly appear on eBay with an insane markup.
Sigh.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m trying to regulate my toy addiction to a few purchases a month. Marvel Universe was one of the toylines I decided to cut from my list of things to look out for, mostly because 1) I really hate this scale for superheroes 2) they’re damned expensive for what they are and 3) they are more miss than hit. The only one’s I was on the look out for were Hulk and Iron Man figures since they are the ones that I have the most fun with.
However, I’ve always been a fan of Hawkeye’s look (since I read West Coast Avengers back in the day) and I’m a sucker for the guys that use a bow and arrow. I was never able to buy the 6″ version from the Marvel Legends line (it’s insanely expensive now since only collectors still have them in stock) and I figured it would be nice to have at least one representation of him in my collection.
Just like the Thor & Enchantress 2-Pack pack, this one comes with a reprint of the Secret Wars mini-series from back in the day. There are 12 all in all, but they haven’t really been released in order. This one is #9. Honestly, I didn’t even read it. It was thrown in my comics box with all the other Marvel Legend reprints. I’m a bad nerd, I know this.
The card serves it’s purpose of protecting the figures, but you’ll need to take a look at the figure inside. The Marvel Universe line has had its share of quality control issues and these sets are no exception. Check paint for scratches and spills, limbs for bent plastic, and the parts to make sure you aren’t getting a figure with two left thighs or something. Both of mine have some kind of scratch/flashing on Hawkeye’s right cheek.
The back has the requisite blurbs and boring product photography.
You’ll notice I haven’t really mentioned Piledriver yet. That’s because he’s the filler in this set. It’s a new strategy Hasbro seems to have for getting us to buy more toys. Pair one really awesome figure with a so-so B-lister and they will buy it. And they will. They paired Forge up with yet another Wolverine and we bought it. They paired Thor with a sub-par Enchantress and we bought it. They paired up those awesome SHEILD agents with boring Ninjas and we bought 3 of them (you know you did, don’t lie).
In this case, they are pairing up heroes with the members of The Wrecking Crew, a group of supervillians who have fought with several of the Avengers over the years. They’re sort of the jobbers of the Marvel Universe. Break out of jail, rob a bank, get caught by Thor robbing said bank, get their asses handed to them after getting caught by Thor robbing said bank, and then returning to jail only to escape and do it all over again with Spider-Man.
We already got Thunderball with the Spider-Man in the first wave of 2-packs, and we’re getting Bulldozer with The Thing in Wave 3. I suppose The Wrecker will be one of the fillers in the Wave 4 assortment.
This time we get Piledriver, or Brian Philip Calusky, who “fights with his over-sized pile-driving fists”. Say what? Basically, he’s enchanted with Asgardian magic and is super strong and highly invunerable. Isn’t “highly invunerable” an oxymoron?
He’s supposed to have larger than normal fists as well, but you can’t really see that on the figure. Look normal to me.
Piledriver is just a plain figure with some paint applications to make him look different from say, Iceman. There’s no really unique tooling, no accessories. If you didn’t really want the Wrecking Crew, you could easily re-paint him into another character. Or a luchador. That would be cool.
Hawkeye is the complete opposite. He’s detailed, well sculpted, well painted, and he’s got a lot of unique accessories. I’d almost be willing to pay the Php 900 for him alone.
Almost.
He’s got his bow, an arrow, his quiver, arm bands, belt, and his loincloth/tunic and shoulder armor. The arm bands and quiver are a great touch as both are easily removable (though I’ve never taken them off after that one time). The tunic/armor is not, unless you want to dismember him. The loincloth portion has sculpted wrinkles in the cloth, and his shoulder pads have scale mail sculpted in.
If you’re a stickler for scale, the bow and arrow aren’t strictly right. They’re both done a little big. However, the length of the arrow is correct, unlike the DCUC Green Arrow’s arsenal. It’s a relief is what it is.
Unfortunately, he can’t hold the damned thing. I had to tie it to his hand with a clear rubber band. faceplam, Hasbro. Epic facepalm.
Articulation is what I’ve come to expect from Marvel Universe; ball jointed neck, ball-post shoulders, bicep cuts, hinge elbows, swivel wrists, ball-post torso, ball-socket hips, double-hinge knees, leg cuts at the boot top, and hinge ankles. The comibination makes for a nice mix at this scale that gives you some good poses.
Honestly, I like this set. Enough that I’ve decided to keep the figures, even Piledriver. Having played with the figure, I’m infected by a wave of completistitis. I now have to get a Thunderball and wait for the rest of the Wrecking Crew.
I’m still hoping that the first revision of the Wave 4 figures will hit the Philippines. That will include every 2-pack in the sub-line except Thor & Enchantress 2-Pack. It’s a great chance to get that Thunderball and the upcoming Storm and Nightcrawler, an Ultron for my Iron Man, and an Absorbing Man for my Hulk. So much for my boycott on the line.
Now if only Hasbro would give us a Mockingbird. That’s one B-lister I would have shelled out for in the Legends line.
Marvel Universe: Thor & Enchantress
Since I bought the Marvel Select Thor, I kind of felt he needed a few buddies. After all, I’ve only got the King Thor and Beta Ray Bill. Until we get that Legends 6″ Valkyrie later this year, there’s not much else Thor related. I figured 3.75″ is better than nothing, so I picked up the Secret Wars #11 2-pack with Thor and Enchantress.
I didn’t really have much hope of finding this set. The boards I frequent have been buzzing since wave 3 pics were released. Everyone wanted a Thor. Thor Thor Thor. I knew that as soon as units were shelved, they’d be scooped up. When they hit Toy Kingdom in Megamall, my hypothesis proved out. They were short packed (2 pieces while the other sets had at least 6 each) and gone within an hour of being taken out of the case.
About a week later I stumbled back to Megamall and lucked out. The satellite branch of Toy Kingdom in the department store had just gotten a shipment of Marvel Universe with 2 pieces each of the Thor and Hawkeye sets. This serendipitous occurence convinced me that I had to buy them, decision to quite Marvel Universe be damned.
The bubble pack is the same as most stuff that’s been coming out of Team Hasbro these days; a boring looking card with boring looking product photography with a huge boring Marvel logo in red. Sigh. I can’t believe that these are the same guys who came up with the Sigma 6 packaging. Say what you will about Mattel, but their DC Universe Classics and Masters of the Universe Classsics come in some pretty neat looking boxes. Marvel Universe comes in some pretty blah looking boxes.
But me, I’m a toy collector, not a mint-in-box guy.
First blush… these aren’t very good toys. If we were back in the days before the 25th Anniversary Joes, they would have been amazing. Now there are some glaring mistakes that drop their rating with me.
For one thing, they’ve both got the dullest looking faces I’ve seen on a toy. You’d think they could have gone with a stern, determined look for Thor, sort of a clenched jaw. With Enchantress, given her talents, you’d think they’d given her a more seductive look. Bit of lip. Less tight mouthed librarian. The headsculpts really skew my perception of the two figures, bringing down their scores in my head. They make them look like cheap toys. Believe me, at Php 900 a pop, these 2-packs aren’t cheap.
Paint might have made them better, but what there is of it isn’t all that great. Thor’s pretty much cast in color except for a few details. Enchantress suffers the most, with the aformentioned tight lipped face, mis-matched skin tones and a paint chip or two with some sloppy edges.
Plus her knee ws paint locked.
Thor gets more points, but the doughy face and simplistic sculpt really bring him down. Since this is a classic costume, there aren’t really any details to it, but all the same, he looks… boring.
I do like his boots though. His boots show how even simple costumes like this can be made interesting. They look like wraps, with wrinkled material wound around his shins, and shadows between each length. Nice.
His hammer, too, seems to be given much more attention to detail than the rest of him. It suffers the same shortness that the Marvel Select Thor had, but it’s got a trump card. If you look closely on one of the faces,you can make out an inscription; “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor”
Of course this is 1:18 scale, so you won’t actually be able to read it, but you can tell it’s written there. That’s enough to bring most of us to a nerdgasm.
His cape is also removable, but in this case I would have preferred that they had glued it. It comes off way to easily, since it’s only held in place by two short rubber posts. And Why would you want to display him without his cape anyway? Would you display Superman without his cape? Or god forbid, Batman? That’s sacrilege.
Both of the figures have decent articulation (at least once I fixed Enchantress’ paint locked legs). Thor’s kneepads and Enchantress’ squiggly lines hide the double knee joints well. However, Enchantress is missing an arm pivot. It’s really annoying that she can’t twist to gesture in different poses.
They also have those annoying ball-socket joints that all the Universe figures are using now. They feel like they’re going to fall apart and they aren’t as useful as the old ball post joints. As much as I hate the new Hasbro articulation, I have to admit that at this size, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
All in all, this is one of Hasbro’s worst showings in their Marvel Universe line. If you’re a Thor fan, wait for the single packed figure. If you want an Enchantress… well, just ask one of the guys to custom one.
Transformers Animated:
Activator Class
Starscream & Dirge
The “Activator” Class was a special size/complexity class of Transformer created for the Animated line of toys. They shared the same size as the “Scout” Class figures from previous lines (about 4 inches in height) but with an added action feature; a spring-loaded transformation. You basically pressed a button and POP! they became a robot.
This isn’t a new concept. As early as the 2nd year of the original Transformers (as much as you can say original when talking about toys that were just copies of Japanese lines) line in the 80’s, we saw the Jumpstarters. These were toys with pull-back motors that would zoom forward and at the end of their run, a catch would release and they’d pop up and flip over, landing on oversized feet in their robot mode. It was a hell of a lot of fun until the gears and things wore down.
The Activators don’t have the pull-back motors, but their spring-loaded coversions work pretty well. Some work better than others. Starscream and Dirge fall somewhere in between.
The figures come in an asymetric bubble pack that should be familiar to collectors of the Deluxe Class Animated figures. It’s not the best packaging and it’s a pain to store, but it serves it’s purpose. It’s got some nice cartoon art and some passable product photos that display how the figure transforms. It’s all very easily understood, though if you’re really thick, there are some instructions included.
The toy itself is small (there is a lot of wasted space in these packages) and there are no accesssories that aren’t already permanently connected.,That doesn’t mean it’s not a fun toy. In my view, accessories are what makes something like GI Joe fun, while the transforming process are what makes Transformers fun.
Dirge is just a repaint of Starscream. If you’ve seen the show, then you may be familiar with the episode where Starscream gets clones who each display one of his character traits brought to an absurd conclusion. In his case, the trait Dirge has is greed. There’s a third Activator seeker, Thundercracker, who was Starscream’s pride and egomania. Unfortunately, all of them are pretty hard to find. I got lucky with these two, but I haven’t seen a Thundercracker around.
The figures are boxed in their robot mode, so you’ll need to do some work getting them into their jet mode before you can enjoy the pop-up feature. It’s a lot like the conversion process of the Voyager Class Starscream in that you just need to flip his wings over and most everything else follows suit. Fix his legs in back and his nose cone out front, then make sure his arms are attached to his undercarriage and you’re done. The Jet doesn’t look all close to a real plane, with tons of kibble hanging off, but at this size, I don’t really mind.
Once you have him in the plane mode, you can then go nuts. Press the button on top and snap! The wings flip over and he’s pretty much done. All you need to do is flip over his blasters and shoulder armor, then straighten up his legs.
If you’re a Macross/Robotech fan, you’ll be happy to know that unlike the Voyager Class toy, these can easily mimic the gerwalk mode of the Veritech fighters. Because the arms don’t fold back like the bigger toys, they can hang down below the wing like they’re supposed to. If you can get a few of those transforming Revoltech Veritechs, you can have yourself a gerwalkathon.
These toys are really a joy to play with. Not only are they high quality figures, with strong plastic, breakaway parts and good paint applications (for a mass market figure at least), they are relatively well articulated. The shoulders, elbows, hips and knees are balljoints (though the knee is limited) while the head is on a hinge to let them look up and down. At this scale that’s enough to get them in a number of good poses.
Plus, if you are looking to complete an Animated Seeker army, then you’re probably going to want to buy a few of these. Since they’re small, they’ll be relatively cheaper to purchase and customize.
Value wise though, they aren’t that good a deal. Sure they’re great toys, but when they were first released, they were Php 500+ at suggested retail price. This was close to the price of a Deluxe figure. Even considering the action feature, I don’t think the price is on par with the amount of plastic used here. Towards the end of 2009, Playkit released some stock that it had found in some warehouse somewhere at Php 200. The figures flew off the shelves before the announcement even had time to spread.
You can resort to the bootlegs, but having seen and played with both, I have to say that the original really is better in terms of plastic quality, paint, casting, and the strength of the spring. These days, you’ll be lucky to find them via collectors at about Php 300-500. If you can find them at the low end of that range, I’d say buy ‘em.
Marvel Select Red & Green Hulks
The Incredible Hulk has been one of my favorite Marvel characters since I first saw him on television. Reruns of that old show with Lou Ferigno all decked out in his green body paint, flexing and grimacing like a nut… Now that was good TV.
When I started collecting comic books (I started in the library with real books and had to work my way up to comics), The Hulk was one of the titles that formed the core of my collection. I’ve since sold a bunch of the older ones, keeping mostly the ones from the Peter David, Dale Keown run. If you haven’t read Peter David’s Hulk, go out and find a trade now. It is worth the money, believe me. For that matter, go out and find his original X-factor run as well. Strong Guy. lol.
I’ve slowly been getting back into comic collecting, but having been gone from the hobby for so long, I don’t really know where to start. For one thing, there are only a few real comic book shops here, and selection of back issues is limited. I could probably order TPBs of past story arcs, but I’m a lazy bastard. Plus I’ve heard that since Loeb took over writing chores for the Hulk titles, things have gone downhill. Blatant marketing driven plots, insipid storylines, and weak characters have made the books something to avoid.
But I can’t resist this Red Hulk.
The first I heard about it was when the Red Hulk set of Marvel Legends were announced. I was like lolwhut? Red Hulk? why? Then Marvel started plugging this guy like he was their next Wolverine. We saw 2 more figures of him pop up, some other merchandise, and a ton of comic book covers on the shelf with his face growling at me. I forked over 30 pieces of silver and my right testicle to get myself an exclusive Red Hulk Legends set, then set about trying to procure his diminutive little brother from the Universe line.
The Marvel Select figure was the only one I was on the fence about. If you remember my Thor review, I’m not really a fan of Diamond’s Select line. They’re a lot like McFarlane Toys; sure they’ve got some nice sculpts, but I’m looking for toys, not statues. So when the Hulks first hit Comic Odessey, I wasn’t too excited, especially knowing how in demand they were from the hype on our local toy boards.
I changed my mind several months later when 2Rats brought in a shipment of them. I saw them at Toy Kingdom on a day when there wasn’t anything else on my radar. Figured since I don’t actually have a centerpiece for my Hulk collection (Raging Hulk where are you?), I could get them both as display pieces. They were a little more than what they had sold for at Comic Odessey (Php 1,500 for the green and Php 2,000 for the exclusive red), but at least I got SM Advantage card points. yay.
I won’t go over the packaging again since I covered it in the Thor review pretty well. Suffice to say it is one of the best boxes I’ve seen in my days as a collector, right up there with the Sigma 6 footlockers.
The two hulks are pretty much identically placed in the package. Nothing fancy, just standing there. They remembered to change the blurbs and graphics on the back, which is a plus.
The biggest difference between the two figures is the head sculpt. In fact it is the ONLY difference aside from the paint. The two bodies are made from the same mold, with the veins and bulges all in the same place.
The formost reason I didn’t want to get these two figures is the head sculpt. It’s awful. Really. Even saying that the sculptors were going for a more realistic look as opposed to the cartoony look of the Mcguinness inspired Legends figure, it’s still a fail in my book. Both of them look haggard, with sunken cheeks and eyes. Sort of like some kind of monster drug addicts, strung out and mad as hell about it. Green has the worst of it since the artisans decided to give him that old messy bowl cut.
The heads are connected to the rest of the body by a ball joint. It works pretty well; it allows both of them to look left and right,unlike their Marvel Universe counterparts.
Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing he’s got the smaller figures. The rest of his articulation is as lacking as the 3.75 scale toys. The arms are decent, with a generous range of motion at the shoulder, some at the elbow, with a swivel at the wrist. He has a waist cut that allows him to turn.
But when you go below that, things start going sideways. I don’t know why they sculpt Hulk with these bulbous legs. They aren’t really needed to sell the character are they? Hulk Smash. To do that, he needs his fist. Sure he can jump miles at a time, but does he really need thighs as big as his chest to do it?
Those sculpted muscles really block the movement of his legs, just as they do in the Universe toys. Don’t plan on getting your Select Hulks to do much of anything but stand around and grimace since those hips and knees are virtually useless.
I do, however like the sculpt of the back. The back of this figure is just awesome with big bursting muscle straining against skin. I bet he could knock someone out just by flexing his Teres Minor.
If that’s what floats your boat, you’ll want to get the green one. Paint apps on the green guy seem to be more complicated with more dry brushing. Diamond seemed to be satisfied with a subtle wash on the red one, so you don’t see a lot of the detail.
The only accessories they have is the small relatively flat plastic base. It’s sculpted as an impact crater, cast in red or green, then painted. Compared to some of the other Select stands, it just doesn’t compare, but then the mass of the figures makes the sacrifice understandable.
At the asking price these things go for and with the problems with the sculpt, I wouldn’t really recommend them for anyone other than Marvel Select completists and Hulk enthusiasts.
They’re both big figures, with some nice details, but when it comes down to it, you’re better off spending your money on a nice bust or a good sized statue of th Hulk than these not-so-much-action-as-half-hearted-activity figures.
Thanks to Cibo Marco for the shopped pic.
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
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