Mickey Mouse is the second figure I’ve collected under 86hero’s Hybrid Metal Figuration umbrella. The first was Donald Duck, which I reviewed here. Donald was #006 in the line, while Mickey is #001. He was sold out when I got Donald and prices on eBay fluctuated between high and damn high, so I was resigned to hoping for a rerelease. Then recently Robokillah put up a rundown of all the Hybrid Metals, both existing and coming soon, and that sparked a resurgence of interest to finally track down a Mickey so my Donald wouldn’t be so lonely. Well, I happened to get lucky and got one on eBay for a great price.
Mickey is based on his earlier appearances in the animated shorts. While there’s a consistency in his overall look over the years with his white gloves, yellow boots, and red shorts, the solid black eyes put him back in the dawn of the color era of his shorts. He’s not quite Steamboat Willie-era in age, but he’s also not Mickey’s Christmas Carol either. As a huge fan of all of these characters, I like having a representation of different eras, so I’d more than likely buy one that captured a later era. The both the Toy Story version and the Fantasia Mickey are good examples of that.
I wasn’t prepared for how heavy Mickey was going to be. Where Donald was a fairly equal mixture of metal and plastic, Mickey’s body is almost solid metal. He weighs very close to a pound. Luckily, with those big shoes of his, balance is not a problem.
He does have a tendency to tilt backwards depending on his pose, but the benefit to his heft is that once you put him in a well-balanced position, he is not going to move. I like a toy that lets you know it’s there, and there is absolutely no denying this toy’s existence.
Like Donald, Mickey has a ton of useful articulation. He has single-jointed knees and elbows, bicep swivels, and a large range of motion in his shoulders, hips, and ankles, which allow you to put him into a wide variety of poses. This is no half-statue that looks good while pulling off a few simple poses — it’s a full-fledged toy.
Mickey comes with three sets of hands: fists, open palms with splayed fingers, and open palms with closed fingers. Three sets of hands lead to a lot of expressive posing options, and I’d love if they made an accessory set with extra hand options down the road. Maybe an extra set of finger-pointing hands, or even a pair of ungloved hands to give us a reasonable facsimile of the Steamboat Willie era.
Not all, but a few of the hands have a tendency to pop off easily, like the hole is a bit too shallow. One fist does while the other doesn’t, for instance, so it’s not all of them. It’s not like they fly off if you breathe on them, so it’s not terrible, but they obviously improved the swapping by the time they got to Donald.
Mickey scales well with Donald. Mickey’s head may seem a little big but I think it’s in the ballpark, especially since his ears take up a significant chunk of real estate. Having the two of them together is enough to forgive any minor discrepancy even if it does exist, which I’m not completely sure of anyway, so that’s how much it bothers me.
A surprise I wasn’t expecting was a Santa hat made of a soft rubbery material with ear-notches cut out so it perfectly and snugly fit on his head. It doesn’t show up on any of the promotional images, so I had no idea it was included in the package. That will be a perfect addition to pop on his head every Christmas. I need a Santa hat for all of my toys, Mad Hatter style.
While I’m still looking for an affordable Minnie Mouse (#002 in the line), I’m glad I finally managed to grab a Mickey before too much time passed and he was impossible to get. And, once again, I’m left wanting them to make more of the classic Disney characters. To be honest, if they made a Daisy and an Uncle Scrooge to round out these two along with Minnie, then I’d at least have a pretty decent-looking display of deadly metal toys. The line seems to be going strong, so maybe one day.
