@bronzeaged WCW Buff Bagwell provided the torso for Namor, Kraven, and Nick Fury.
https://wrestlingfiguredatabase.com/products/slamcrunch-buff1
i'm 50/50 these days on toybiz's paint. What most call great paint apps on Toybiz was mostly just a wash being thrown on... and tbh that often made the figure look muddy as well. From an art perspective it's kinda a simplistic way to make something look better than it actually is.
IMO there were more paint hits than misses. I know what figure you all are referring to when you talk about paint making the figure look muddy: Cyclops. Yeah, that one was a fail. Yellow boots with the black wash didn't work. Are there any more offenders besides Cyke? I need my memory jogged for this one.
Also "just a wash" or "just a dry brush" can really go a long way in making sculpted details pop. It's not hard to do and I always appreciate when companies make that effort.
I remember calling so many Walmarts looking for that Giant Man wave. I was so excited for Kitty Pryde. I had to be about 14 or 15 then. That wave was so hard to get.
Despite loving the Hasbro aesthetic and quality more these days, there was a feeling a bit more powerful when opening a Toybiz package. The presentation was amazing. I loved that they came with a comic book. There was this weirdly pleasant smell of plastic when opening that clamshell.
Now all my Toybiz collection lives in bins. It’s amazing to see how many characters have been brought to life thanks to Hasbro. So many characters I would have NEVER imagined in action figure form back in the Toybiz days. (But seriously give us Crystal!)
My favorite ML, to this day, is the Icons Captain America, closely followed by Face-Off Cap and Green Goblin.
I still have a small batch of Toybiz figures I never got around to trade. Mostly the big boys; Face-Off Hulk, Abomination, Hulkbuster Iron Man, Juggernaut, Sasquatch, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Green Goblin, Face-Off Cap. They're hanging out with a few SOTA Street Fighter figures in a box under my bed. I take them out to display every once in a while. I have a few on card still; Beta Ray Bill, Omega Red, Green Goblin variant. Wish I'd gotten Doc Ock the only time I saw him. Heh.
Still trying to finish black Apocalypse, but Maestro with a tube is a pain in the ass to find without much hassle. 😆
So weird that they put Kitty on a movie Sue Storm body.
That was bizarre. I wasn't a fan.
All Toy Biz female figures were just so poorly executed. Nothing they tried worked. Ugly articulation, odd proportions, pitiful face sculpts.. Not one was done justice. Even the worst modern Hasbro body (used for Kate Bishop, green Phoenix, Invisible Woman) outshines every TB offering.
@yojoebro82 totally agree. Yeah I know the paint left some QC issues and was a problem sometimes, but it's laughable to me that we're in a better era now with plain plain plain figures. Too bad too because the Anniversary series in 2022, Legion, Lady Mandarin all look great in my opinion. Wish Hasbro did more of that type of paint work. It's more reliable than the sprays Toy Biz used I think, but just too few and far between.
ToyBiz was got be back into action figure collecting in my 20's so I'll always have a soft spot for them. I have yet to sell any of my Toy Biz 6-inch collection. I wish that I had kept more of the 5" collection than I did. Regardless, I don't think that I would have ever got back into action figures as an adult if not for Toy Biz.
In retrospect, maybe I wish I hadn't ever discovered them.... I'd certainly have a lot more money!
I never really cared for most paint washes, ToyBiz or otherwise. At its absolute worst, it often ends up looking like the figure was slathered in dirt. Which certainly works for some of the grittier characters, but for many others it feels misplaced. It needs to be REALLY subtle to work for me.
But I also prefer it when figures are bright and colorful, like they really just 'pop' on display, so that probably has something to do with it too. I know plenty of others probably disagree.
I'm gonna be a bit more broad here:
The Good
- This line was a game-changer. I really think McFarlane Toys (for sculpt) and SMC/ML (for articulation) made everything better for mass-market toys in North America. Think about what we had before - stuff like Starting Lineup and Star Wars POTF2. Forget collectors, stuff had to be geared towards kids. Sure, TB kept the kid features in the 'Classics' sub-lines, but they clearly had the collector in mind too. McF upped the ante on sculpt but the figures were almost statues. Even though the articulation in ML at times made the figure worse off functionally or aesthetically, it was an important step to getting us to where we are today, and I don't think that can be overstated.
- The Bases! I can't believe nobody's mentioned them yet! They barely get talked about at all anymore, yet most of them still hold up amazingly well! The Phoenix effect, The Daily Bugle billboard, the Atomic Steed, or some great bikes for Ghost Rider. I could go on, so I will - the busted up Sentinel parts, Vault and Hellfire guards lying about, or a jetpack with rocket blast. And they can all be hung up on a wall, whether it makes sense or not. When I get rid of TB figures, I'll usually hang on to these.
- The accessories were usually great too, and I've kept a lot of these. It always felt like a lot of thought went into them and that they were all plucked from a specific panel of a comic book. Sometimes, they were even bonus figures, like Howard the Duck or Impossible Man (RIP X-Babies & Grunts!).
The Bad
- Chase figures. So glad I don't have to deal with that nonsense anymore. DC collectors, I don't know how you do it.
The Weird
- You ever notice the price discrepancy between a loose and new SMC Spider-Man 2099? Apparently the comic is considered a rare variant for some reason, which drives the price way up.
All Toy Biz female figures were just so poorly executed. Nothing they tried worked. Ugly articulation, odd proportions, pitiful face sculpts.. Not one was done justice. Even the worst modern Hasbro body (used for Kate Bishop, green Phoenix, Invisible Woman) outshines every TB offering.
Storm and Phoenix were passable, the others......there was really no saving them.
The only TB females I still own are Storm and MJ from the Spider-Man movie. Otherwise, when I display my TB stuff I just put my Hasbro females in with them. I know some collectors could never tolerate this, but I think they look good together. A few of the comic artist I follow that do a lot of work with line and shadow---like Jim Lee or David Finch---will do a lot of line work on the males, but leave the females more streamlined and polished. I look at it like that when I display TB males and Hasbro females. It works for me. Yes, the Hasbro females are often as tall or a bit taller than the TB males, but that's for better men than me to worry about.
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Did anyone ever do a repaint of Scarlet Mitch's face to see what could have been? Ugh.
Toy Biz ML were a ton of fun at the time. But you never knew what you were going to get. A figure might be great or it might have a weird design issue that made it brittle, like the breakage issues on ML 14 First Appearance Iron Man and Abomination. But I kept all of my Toy Biz ML. All the Iron Man armors are still on the shelf as well as some of the other best figures like Face-Off Cap, Face-Off Hulk, ML 2 Namor, Dr. Strange, etc.
Hasbro is overall exactly what I always wanted. Great sculpts and functional articulation with figures that won’t fall apart. I can easily play with my kids with Hasbro ML or put them on a shelf. I wouldn’t feel that confident in the Toy Biz ML figures. I think we are living in a fantastic era.
I found the entire chase variant ML6 wave at Walmart and my mom refused to buy me Dark Phoenix because she thought it was "for girls." Got Brown Cable instead and traded him on Fwoosh for like 5 figures. Good times. Now ML6 Dark Phoenix is MIB on top of my display. :')
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