Ever heard that infamous phrase? I’m sure you have. It was probably made by some chubby neighborhood kid, uttered back in a less-PC time. And even though it was less PC, you probably didn’t punch his chubby face like you should’ve.
Anyway, that phrase still comes out every once in a while when talking action figures. And usually the catalyst, the one thing that supposedly changes the manliest of men of action toys into Barbie is… cloth goods.
And it seems, irony of ironies, that this allegation isn’t lobbed at the 1/6 scale (as in Barbie-sized) figures — in fact, you would do well to treat any aspect of 1/6 scale collecting with respect, lest you find yourself on your ass. No, it’s usually directed at figures MEGO-sized and smaller.
In the modern age of toy collecting, though, you definitely hear it a bit less. Superheroes have dabbled in cloth capes off and on for years, Marvel Legends used to do excellent cloth jackets on occasion, and you have 3A that push the boundaries of realism when it comes to its cloth goods. And as of SDCC, there is a little line called “One:12 Collective” that I have a passing interest in…
But cloth goods on smaller figures didn’t start with 3A, nor did it really die with MEGO. In fact, there’s a long-lost line that delivered the precursors to much of modern figures — 1/12 scale, double joints, detailed sculpts, vehicles, etc.– and until Pabs (https://thefwoosh.com/2011/08/112-or-6-cloth-action-figures-a-return-to-spiral-zone) himself wrote a piece on it, I had no clue it existed: Spiral Zone.
Amazingly, for being a child of the 1980s and slavishly devoted to all toy lines with cartoons, I don’t recall ever seeing the show back in 1987. I do know that it had a pretty intensive storyline for its day, and in current terms we would probably see it as a sort of zombipocalypse variation. It’s worth getting into, but I’ll save that for a future discussion when I’ve had a chance to watch more episodes.
Pabs got into this a little bit, back in 2011 — one of the stranger aspects of this line is the very split-personality of the two seperate-but-not-equal toy lines. In Japan, Bandai produced figures and, for their time, they were extraordinary. The Bandai line had the best articulation, the best uniforms, and the brightest future of the two.
In America, the line was handled by Tonka. This is a fascinating and strange departure for a company known for their heavy-duty truck toys, and it would’ve been interesting to have seen where this might have gone, but Tonka was absorbed by Kenner shortly after the line.
Eventually, I’d like to dabble in the Bandai versions, but for the time being, I’ve only been able to acquire some of the Tonka goods, like this fancy Ninja pajama suit here:
To give you an idea of the actual scale, here’s Spider-Ock sporting it
:
It is very much 6-inch scale, but after seeing these figures billed as being close to 7-inch, I was a little surprised how snugly this fit on the smallish Spidey body.
Much like most of the ’80s, the quality of the materials is very good, and even though this had obviously been taken care of, I doubt any of my own clothes held up that well, let alone my ninja suit. Likewise, the plastic goods, like the boots, armor, helmets, and so on are pretty classy.
The figures themselves are a little less so. I understand the Bandai figures can be pretty delicate, and these with their lessened articulation seem pretty durable, but they suffer from that good ol’ Mego-esque floppiness that can set in after having been played with. “Tank” here was missing a hand, so I hooked him up, but otherwise he would be jointed at both forearms, elbows, hinged shoulders and hips, neck, knees, and maybe a waist joint in there. Still not too bad for a smaller scale 1980s action figure.
For demonstrative purposes though, Spiral Zone is proof positive that not only cloth goods can work on a smaller scale figure, but they’ve actually been doing it for a couple decades. And while the current users of the technique veer a little more toward vinyl pop-art figures in some cases, if it’s done right, they make just as playable figures as their 12-inch predecessors did for generations.
