Anyone know what this old Wolverine TB figure was called? Weird action feature port on the back. I actually liked it back in the day b/c it scaled better. Now I don't know what its called to sell it on.
@derrabbi That's a pretty good looking figure for being almost 20 years old. Really looks like toys took a step back with the balled hip joints.
Thanks @darkxorn.
He was my Wolverine until Hasbro finally replaced it. Most the TB ones were all janky, too big, weird torso sculpts, etc. @red_ogre Of course the action port thing in the back stunk. These ball joints don't look so bad b/c they then flare out to the leg. At least his trunks are definable unlike the banana hammock look of Hasbro until recently. Glad they are moving away from that.
Before I scrolled down to the package reveal, I was inclined to call him "Tiger Stripe Wolverine". I was impressed that I remembered it! XMC really helped fill some gaps for '90s looks and gave options for others. I know both Cyclops and Angel were in wave 10, which I THINK came out after this series, which included the aforementioned TS Wolvie, Cyclops, and Archangel. Really felt like we were getting somewhere with team building in that era.
XMC veered off too much though, giving us weird versions of Beast, Juggernaut, Avalanche, Cyclops, Wolvie.. I would have preferred they stick with canon costumes. This is where we got Storm in her white costume, Ultimate Nightcrawler, classic/powered-down/Ultimate Iceman, X-Treme Rogue and Gambit. Pretty prolific for a sub-line. I think Fantastic Four Classics and Hulk Classics only yielded two waves each. Of course, none of them compare to Spider-Man Classics, which had nearly as many waves as Marvel Legends proper.
That figure holds up pretty well. So does the ML6 brown suit Wolverine. I still have that one, it was probably one of the bests of the Toy Biz era.
I enjoyed the X-Men Classics subline, even with the weird costumes they gave us. There were some pretty good sculpts combined with some awkward articulation (as was typical from that era).
Oh yeah, I remember being really impressed when I saw the Astonishing repaint for the first time a few years back. This figure looks almost too good to be so old.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/electronic-men-jet-exclusive-1866560618
Before I scrolled down to the package reveal, I was inclined to call him "Tiger Stripe Wolverine". I was impressed that I remembered it! XMC really helped fill some gaps for '90s looks and gave options for others. I know both Cyclops and Angel were in wave 10, which I THINK came out after this series, which included the aforementioned TS Wolvie, Cyclops, and Archangel. Really felt like we were getting somewhere with team building in that era.
XMC veered off too much though, giving us weird versions of Beast, Juggernaut, Avalanche, Cyclops, Wolvie.. I would have preferred they stick with canon costumes. This is where we got Storm in her white costume, Ultimate Nightcrawler, classic/powered-down/Ultimate Iceman, X-Treme Rogue and Gambit. Pretty prolific for a sub-line. I think Fantastic Four Classics and Hulk Classics only yielded two waves each. Of course, none of them compare to Spider-Man Classics, which had nearly as many waves as Marvel Legends proper.
I remember being so excited about X-Men Classics. Early Legends hadn't really catered to the X-Men, so it felt like a golden opportunity to get some mutants. The weird costumes, action features, and inconsistent sculpts quickly killed my interest in the line.
It was a weird line, but I was pretty jazzed for it. We got some Ultimate X-Men in it, which I was reading at the time. I probably still have Ultimate Sabretooth in a bin. And tracking down the Bobby Drake was a mission for me that ended in success - twice! I think my first trade on this forum was a Bobby Drake for the Moon Knight variant. Good times. The Avalanche was pretty stupid though. He basically come with a bathtub scrubber with a wind-up feature to simulate his powers. Poor Avalanche has never really had a good figure.
Ooh, I forgot about that Ultimate Sabretooth figure. That was a good one.
As long as Spider-Man Classics went on, it did also give us a bunch of forgettable Spidey variations and even villains riddled with either limited articulation due to action features or gimmicks, or just ugly sculpts. Looking at Armored Spidey, Hydro-Man, Man-Wolf, Morbius. That line was worth it though some solid villain figures like Sandman, Scorpion, Hobgoblin, supporting cast like Daredevil, and Spidey variants like Snapshot, Cyber Spidey, Spider Strength (often considered the David Finch New Avengers Spidey), Spider-Hulk, and the coveted McFarlane/J Scott Campbell Spider-Man.
There's discussion going on in the Marvel Select thread that have me reminiscing on some minutia, but also some of the things that Toy Biz really nailed back in the day, that really hasn't been surpassed yet by any company. In particular, head sculpts. Series one Captain America, series two Thing, Face Off Hulk, Face Off Sabretooth, Series 14 Green Goblin, Spider-Man Classics Hobgoblin, even Spider-Man Classics (clamshell) Rhino. Those head sculpts are unbeatable. The figures they're on leave a lot to be desired, but those heads.. definitive.
There are still Mego headsculpts I obsess over. Green Arrow. Doctor Zaius.
The Classics figure was nice but had the crappy action feature which ruined it. I ended up buying a few and swapping the heads onto the Face-Off 2 pack body.
I somehow managed to get about 3 of the Astonishing repaint, which removed the action feature. The paint on the head wasn't as nice as the single release - but still a great figure that had a great spot in the display for a while.
Ohhh, I have some ID questions, but I wanna know if the toys ever appeared in the comics, if you'll indulge me!
The other Wolvie in that X-Men series ('Sentinel Attack Wolverine'), did that mini Sentinel accessory ever show up, or was it from the mad minds of ToyBiz?
Also, for the Legendary Riders series, did the vehicles that came with HB Ironman, Ultron, Scarlet Witch, Wonderman, Thing and Taskmaster ever show up in the comics?
@joedick I've always thought Thing's pogo-hopper-thing was from the comics but I guess I'm not certain about that.