While looking for a good subject for this 4th of July, I went through a fair amount of patriotic-themed stuff, and most of it was junk. I was hoping for a good playset or a vehicle — I thought I had the old ID4 F/A-18 Hornet in storage — but clearly I must have tossed or donated a lot of that stuff over the years. But when I popped in one of my favorite comic shops, I had a stroke of dumb luck. So, for this Independence Day, we’re going to take a look at Lady Liberty herself.
Or at least her head.
The original X-Men movie of 2000 was a big damn deal, and ToyBiz, having hit their stride with the 5-inch line years before, had been experimenting with the 6-inch scale with the Blade figures. When the movie hit, they dove in in grand fashion with a large pre-Marvel Legends-style of figures, which also included an X-Jet and a couple of surprising playsets.
Taken from the final movie fight scene where the X-Men confront Magneto at the Statue of Liberty, there were two pieces made: one of the head section where the X-Men were temporarily imprisoned, and the other the Liberty torch, with “Magneto’s Mutant Machine” on top of it. I certainly remember seeing these around when they came out, and I think I had most of the figures, but I never did pick up these playsets, cheap as I’m sure they got.
Inside the box, you can see that this Liberty head isn’t exactly what I would call scale … no doubt why so many guys used them in their G.I. Joe setups. But, it is a decent representation, and it is a good foot tall. A little assembly is required, but it is pretty much exactly what the box art shows.
There’s some action features as well, of course: buckling floors, a “cage” to restrain X-Men with, and a launching catapult. For what is essentially a Liberty mask, that’s not too bad.
So while kinda fun and patriotic, what does a collector in 2017 do with the head from the Statue of Liberty? Well, actually, I can think of a couple applications. Obviously, you could tuck this and the torch into a city-scape display, like they’re obscured by other buildings in the foreground. Or maybe this could be in the backdrop of some future-setting museum; a piece of history that narrowly survived the Battle of New York in 2025. Snake Plissken could hang out with it. Or your Ghostbusters, especially some Mini-Mates ones. It could make one helluva trophy for a villain lair, I suppose. And like I said earlier, I have seen some really cool G.I. Joe setups, particularly like this opening movie credits setup I came across on Google:
Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, exactly. I might actually see if I can find that torch arm cheap on eBay, and maybe set this behinds some stuff on a shelf. There is something cool about it, even if is pretty … lackluster as a playset. And it speaks to an almost bygone era, were one-note scenes in movies became major points in toy lines.
I have to give a shout-out to my friends at the Nerd Store here in Utah for pointing this thing out to me and hooking me up. If you find yourself out here, pay them a visit!