In the current Google Age, it can sometimes feel like there’s no real surprises left in action figure collecting.
Over time, that feeling of all-knowing can grow into complacency. Hell, you might even stop looking for certain types of stuff, because if it exists, you’d already know about it, posted it on the Fwoosh, and crashed a site or two in the process, right? Wrong. Google is a handy tool, and the era of companies with Facebook pages and Twitter accounts might make information quick, fast and free, but there are still hidden treasures that take a little digging to uncover.
Madelman seems to pop up once in a while on English-language blogs, often with taglines like my own, where a handful of us gringos marvel at how awesome this stuff is, and nobody’s ever heard of it! And yet somehow, particularly in North America, it seems to stay off the radar of most collectors. In Europe, that’s obviously not the case, and even in places like the Philippines and some parts of Latin America, these figures are old, old news.
I don’t wish to do disservice to the line by trying to truncate it’s history here, but I can at least tell you that Madelman has been a fixture of the Spanish collecting scene since the 1970s. There have been several iterations, including a futuristic 3 3/4″ line, but for the most part, Madelman has been a 6 1/2-7″ inch line featuring mostly real-world characters and very impressive soft-goods. It has gone through a few different brands and companies, but it has persisted into the 2000s. And while it doesn’t appear that there are any productions currently running, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the next iteration.
The figures pictured here are Special Operations Police figures from the latest line Popular de Juguetes. These were made around 2005-ish, or a little earlier.
The quality is a little different than what your average US-collector might expect, but the uniforms and gear are excellent, and the base bodies boast respectable articulation even by today’s standards.
Madelman figures feel a little like a cross-pollination of the original full-size GI Joes and their slightly smaller Mego contemporaries. Obviously the conclusion was reached that a smaller scale would make for a lot more options, and so these have consistently been done in about a 1/11 scale. I say that because while they’re often billed as 1/10, they feel like they fit right in-between the standard 6″ and 7″ lines, not unlike DCUC used to. The difference is mostly in that these figures have more realistic, 1/6 style proportions, so their heads and hands look significantly bigger than a standard 1/12 figure.
Articulation is pretty damn good. Hinged hips, bicep swivels, ball jointed neck and wrists, ankle articulation inside the boots, torso joint and single knees and elbows with very good range. They do have some of that Mego-type feel to them, so some poses are a little soft and don’t hold. But in a world prior to Marvel Legends, these would have been exemplary.
The gear shows design and execution not seen in scale outside this line (at least until Mezco.) The figures have watches, gas masks with hoses can com-links, functioning holsters and belts, radios and helmets. The soft body armor is padded, and velcros in place over the one-piece jumpsuit. They have removable balaclavas under the helmets.
The guns put even Plan B toys to shame. The MP5SD that comes with this pair has a sling, removable suppressor, and functioning rails for the red dot sight and the vertical foregrip. This is something I’ve never seen in production toys this scale, and it is truly fantastic.
I’d like to visit these more in the future; unfortunately, like many of the things I’ve bought this year, these can only be found outside the US. This is a damn shame, especially considering this run of Madelman was entering it’s heyday right before Spider-man Classics. As it is, there are some very good international sellers on eBay who are willing ship overseas, so I’m continuing to pick up whatever I can. The Popular de Juguetes sets can be had for fairly reasonable prices, but the vintage stuff can command some vintage worthy prices. It’s my hope that with Mezco’s One:12 Collective line, we might see something of a resurgence in this type of offering, as it truly does combine the best elements of both 1/6 and 1/12. In fact, I can’t help but see the closest parallel to Madelman in NECA’s vintage line. To that end, a marriage of styles- the high end cloth work of the vintage with the cutting edge sculpting and size of the 7″ figures- would be final push away from 1/6 scale that I so desperately need.
Regardless of what the future holds for Madelman, they are still fantastic figures. It’s just a shame that I was oblivious to them for over a decade.
