Tag Archives: x-men 92

November 19, 2025

Mondo 1/6 X-Men ’97 Wolverine – Limited Edition

By Joe
The best there is at what he does.

Back in 2021, Mondo unveiled for San Diego Comic Con a sixth scale Wolverine action figure based on the X-Men animated series from the 90s. It was a presale to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the show’s premiere and product went out in 2022 closer to that actual anniversary. At the time, Mondo wasn’t planning on doing more, but the response was so enthusiastic that their one-off turned into a whole line. To sculpt the next figure, Magneto, Mondo enlisted the work of Alex Brewer – a fast rising sculptor in the toy world. Alex would go on to knock it out of the park with Magneto which naturally lead to more work for Brewer. It’s basically been his style and vision that has come to define the line, and as it’s pivoted to include X-Men ’97 as well, the need for a Wolverine to fit in with the style of the rest of the line became more apparent.

Things have improved over at Mondo over the past few years.

Wolverine has the unique standing of being the first in the line and now the 9th. Well, technically this is the third attempt at the character as we did get Wolverine in his civilian attire, but that’s pretty different from his business look. When Mondo had that initial Wolverine sculpted, they weren’t planning on more which meant not much consideration was taken for scale. That Wolverine was nearly 11″ tall, and as the line went on it became pretty apparent that he was too tall. This new Wolverine not only allows for a chance for Brewer to do the character, but also to correct that scale issue. And Mondo has for this new one which stands at about 10.33″ to the top of his head putting him in that 5’3″ – 5’4″ range which feels fitting for Wolverine. Even though the box says X-Men ’97 on it, it’s still adorned with production art from the original series with new artwork by Dan Veesenmeyer that portrays the updated look. Tom Rozejowski, a name we see a lot with NECA products, handled the paint for Wolverine and Tommy Hodges also gets a sculptor credit. I’m thinking he may have done the base, but I don’t know for certain.

This is actually the third Logan in the line. The new, unmasked, portraits are actually different here and are more or less interchangeable.

Mondo has been trying to straddle the line between X-Men ’92 and X-Men ’97 with these more recent releases. This figure definitely has a more ’97 look to it. While the costume is the same, there are some telltale differences and it’s mostly in the body hair. The original series left Wolverine’s chin free of hair for the most part, save for perhaps some close-ups. The hair on his arms was usually done with lines across the shoulders and biceps. For ’97, he has some chin stubble and the hair on his arms is done with several short lines In addition, the angle of the mask fins is slightly steeper and they don’t stretch quite as high. Of course, that aspect of the ’92 series was hardly consistent, but it’s in comparison to the model sheets. The yellow of the costume is also just a little bit darker, a touch more gold, and the same is true of the blue parts. In comparing this figure with the original release, the cel-shading is also less prominent. We have primarily two shades of blue on the new figure compared with three on the original. The same is true of the belt, though the yellow on the old figure only utilized two shades, but there’s more of it. The black portions of the shirt are also sculpted in now. There’s no paint slop, but it doesn’t quite fill the entirety of the sculpted-out area. There is no shading on the flesh, and like the rest of the color palette, it’s a touch darker as well compared with the old figure.

He’s also much shorter compared with his foes.

I have mixed feelings on the updates and changes. I find the overall sculpt more suitable for Wolverine. Not only is he shorter, he’s stockier. The original is very leggy and the torso slightly slender. I think the portraits are an improvement as well even if they have a very ’97 style. There is an included ’92 masked portrait, but the only aspect of it that reads ’92 is the shape of the fins. The stubble is still present. I definitely prefer the more vibrant paint job of the original and the approach to the arm hair. The arm hair with the new release is missing something. The show tended to show his arm hair as always breaking his silhouette, regardless of how much of the arm is visible. That makes it hard to translate to 3D so Mondo just went with these dashes that almost look like a dot pattern. I think they would have been better served keeping the same approach as the first figure. The flesh tone also feels a touch too dark. It’s certainly not bad, I just wish he better fit the ’92 style since that’s how the line began. I’m still going to have this one replace the original on my shelf and that one will be returned to his bed box, but I’m definitely always going to see X-Men ’97 when I look at him as opposed to the original series.

If you have the NECA Flasher Gremlin then your Wolverine will have access to a tall frothy one as well.

Am I being unfair? After all, the box does indeed say X-Men ’97 so it’s not hiding what it’s trying to be, but the line is trying to placate both and is not shy about its intentions so I don’t think so, but I’ve said my piece. Not only is the sculpt redone to conform to Brewer’s style, but the articulation scheme Mondo utilizes has also changed since that first Wolverine release three years ago. This figure embodies those changes, some for the better, and some not so much. This is an aesthetics forward line, but Mondo has room for improvement and this Wolverine is proof of that. The joints are all the the same as Cyclops, the most recent release in the line: head, shoulders, double-jointed elbows, biceps, wrists, diaphragm, waist, hips, double-jointed knees, ankles. The original figure used a different style of double-jointed knees similar to what NECA used to make use of with a hinge above and below the knee. This allowed for some swivel at those joints, but it is a little odd looking, though perhaps only odd because we’re so used to the other style. It also used a swivel joint above the elbow in place of a bicep swivel that was ugly and persisted for quite a few releases. The range at all of the joints present is pretty typical, except for a few places that have become an issue recently.

“Hey Cyclops!”
“Next time I use these!”

If you saw my Egon Spengler review, you will note I had issues with that figure at the neck and hips. Mondo textures the ball joints for a more snug fit, but they may have went overboard. The ball joint inside the neck was stuck on that figure and the hips were pretty stuck too. Wolverine has the same issues. I had to use a lot of force to move the double ball peg in the neck, though the hips required a hot water bath. Out of the box, they just wouldn’t budge and I put more force into it than I probably should have. After the hot water bath they moved better. I applied some lubricating oil to the hips and neck and it didn’t appear that any had been applied by the factory, but once the figure cooled down it mostly went back to the way it was out of the box. In addition to that, the diaphragm joint remains useless. With a lot of effort, I can get the torso to rotate there a click to each side, which is hardly much to speak of. There’s no forward or back. Also of a nuisance, the red belt rubs off onto the abdomen very easily and the blue of the trunks will transfer to the thighs as well. I’ve been able to rub these instances off, but I worry if I let it sit that way then it would become more stubborn.

“Light me up, gumbo!”
“Hey cajun, next time someone tries to save your life have sense enough to let them do it.”

Wolverine is a bit tough to pose as a result, and it’s especially a bummer because he has a lot of stuff to be posed with. For heads, we get that ’92 inspired portrait I mentioned before as well as ’97 masked portraits featuring a neutral, growling, and yelling expression. If that’s not enough, he also has two unmasked portraits: neutral and a teeth gritting/growl. They’re both really similar to the portraits that came with the Logan figure which is kind of disappointing as it would have been nice to get different expressions to share between the two. That figure though was all the ’92 series while this one is updated for ’97. It’s not much of a difference, just stubble and a different approach to the shading. He also has a more pronounced single bang of hair and his ears are fully visible. With how subtle the difference is, it’s kind of shocking they bothered to sculpt new portraits, but they do look good.

“That hurts, Wolverine.”
“Grrr…!”

For hands, Wolverine is actually a touch light. We have fists, gripping, and his “Come here,” gesture from the cover of Wolverine #1. I’m surprised there are no relaxed hands or pointing hands, but I guess most are likely to keep the fists in place any way. Packaged behind the figure is the traditional Mondo figure stand though this one has the X logo painted on it. I only call this out because I sometimes leave these stands in the box since they’re not really needed, but if you want to find Wolverine’s claws you’ll need to remove it as they’re hidden behind it. Mondo provided 8 claws so you essentially get two extras. They’re just gray plastic and they’re the same as the ones that came with Logan. I wish they were white to better match the show, maybe with a touch of light blue, but this plastic may not take well to paint. They clip in easy enough though and they’re compatible with all of the hands in the box. You also get a set of charged claws as seen in the first episode of X-Men ’97. They’re done with translucent pink plastic and they clip into the backs of his hands in place of the claws. There’s also an included mask for draping over his neck when using an unmasked portrait, a similar accessory to what we saw with the Marvel Legends version of the same. Mondo also through in another picture of Scott and Jean from the episode “Captive Hearts,” only this time it’s an enamel pin instead of a picture frame accessory.

The limited edition Wolverine also comes with even more stuff like an entire second torso. Yeah, this is the first figure I’ve ever bought with a swappable torso as there’s a bare one since Wolverine always seems to get his shirt blown off in a big fight. To help sell the damage there’s a strip of the tattered remains of his shirt included made out of a soft plastic. You just place it over a shoulder to complete the look, or you can have him go completely shirtless which is a look from the show. To accommodate this change, the arms need to pop out easily and they do, which you will want to take advantage of when unwrapping the figure anyway as there are plastic bags over the arm pegs. The shoulder pads slot over the shoulder pegs and are conveniently stamped for left and right, should you get them confused. The torso separates easy as well. Unfortunately, the diaphragm joint on this torso works no better than the regular one. Lastly, Wolverine has some Sentinel parts as well including the remnants of a head that serves as a base and a chunk of a fallen robot with wires dangling from it. It has three claws holes to go over one of Wolverine’s hands to complete the look. The base has two, deep, indentations for Wolverine’s feet which gives him a secure base, though does limit things since his stance is left kind of boring. He can kind of crouch on it, but I can’t decide if that looks more dynamic or if it just makes Wolverine look like he needs to poop. The foot holes are designed for Wolverine, but I did find Gambit can fit in them as well. Cyclops and the original Wolverine have feet that are too big.

This is pretty cool, but I wish they worked in more foot-holes for different poses.

For the most part, this Wolverine redo is much like past releases in this line. It captures the likeness well and certainly comes with enough stuff to help justify the hefty price tag of $245. This one was also solicited before all of this tariff nonsense with has really jacked up the price on subsequent releases, but I’ll complain about that in reviews of figures actually impacted. This Wolverine does capture the look of X-Men ’97 very well, just at the cost of not capturing the original series as well. I like the extra torso and stuff, but I personally would have traded it for more ’92 accurate arms and heads. Mostly, I’d rather the figures seek to emulate the look of the original series and make the ’97 heads the one-off for those that want it that way. The articulation issues with the neck and hips are unfortunate and really something Mondo needs to correct. If they want to charge this kind of money for their products then the quality needs to be there. They’re pretty receptive to feedback, and I do plan on dropping them a line regarding it. If you don’t have the previous Wolverine then this one is worth getting if you’re collecting this line. And even if you do have it, I think it’s enough of an upgrade to consider. It does fit the style of the other figures better, but if you’re happy with that one then maybe you don’t feel this is necessary. The limited edition is sold out, but the standard version is still available. It’s slightly cheaper, but may come with tariff surcharges depending on where you buy it from.

The team is filling out.

We have plenty more from Mondo’s line of X-Men, including a couple of Wolverines at that:

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Logan

Mondo has been absolutely killing it with its sixth scale line of action figures based on the now classic animated series X-Men. The company also really ramped up production in 2023 on the line by soliciting five new figures during the year. At over 200 bucks a pop, it was quite the hit to the…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Cyclops – Limited Edition

After putting a real hurting on my wallet in 2023, Mondo decided to take it easy in 2024 with its line of sixth scale action figures based on the animated series X-Men which ran from 1992-1997 on Fox Kids. Two figures ended up getting released this year, Rogue and now the leader of the X-Men…

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by Joe

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March 20, 2024

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Jean Grey

By Joe
After getting short-changed by toy manufacturers for decades, Jean finds herself with two animated versions in the span of a few years.

If you are reading this the day it goes live then Happy X-Men ’97 Day! Today is the day the long-awaited sequel series to X-Men debuts on Disney+. Rather than fast-track a review of the first two episodes to this blog, I decided instead to do what I most often do: review an action figure! It was in 2020 that Hasbro announced a subline of Marvel Legends based on the 1992 animated series which were released throughout 2021. Arriving in attractive VHS styled boxes, the X-Men line was more dud than hit. I wanted to love it, but it was hard to shake the feeling that Hasbro was just phoning it in. Despite that, I still bought them all and I continue to buy some of the tie-in figures since Hasbro decided not to deliver the full team. That’s why when the first wave of X-Men ’97 action figures arrived last fall I used it to supplement my existing roster of characters by picking up Magneto, Rogue, and Gambit. The figures had an animated look, though they lacked the cel-shading of the VHS line, but were close enough. Just in time for the debut of the series is wave two. It’s comprised mostly of new characters like Goblin Queen and X-Cutioner as well as some redos in the style of X-Men ’97. As a result, it’s a less attractive wave for me since I don’t want letter of the day Magneto and the VHS Cyclops was one of the few figures I actually liked. However, there was one figure in the line that intrigued me even though I had the VHS version: Jean Grey.

The new figure has a bit of a dead eye going on, but it’s better than the old which looks like a duck-faced Sharon Stone.

I’m not sure which figure was my least favorite in the X-Men VHS line from Hasbro, but the fact that Jean is in the running should probably say enough. The figure is dated and Hasbro couldn’t even be bothered to get the color of her costume right, but more than anything, I just hated the portraits. The figure was a re-release of an existing figure with a new paint job as that’s basically all of the effort Hasbro could muster when it came to the line. She had a ponytailed portrait, but it looked nothing like the version of the character from the show. They also included her down hair portrait, even though she never sported that look in that costume during the entire show’s run, and it was a release that just left me all sorts of grumpy in the end. The only positive I could lay on it was that the cel-shading was actually done pretty well given the standards of the line.

I know there are a lot of people who dislike cel-shading on their figures, but this costume needs something because the design is rather plain.

Jean gets a redo with X-Men ’97, and like most of the characters in the show making a return, she still sports a look that’s very similar to her ’92 counterpart. It’s a costume based on the look Jim Lee gave her and based on some of the promotional artwork I’ve seen it looks like she’ll have the ponytail some days, and let her hair down on others. The figure itself comes in the usual blister and Jean has her hair down look on the card despite the default portrait being the ponytail one. The figure stands approximately 6.25″ to the top of the head. Her costume is basically now a pale orange and dark blue. The figure is mostly orange plastic with a V-shape of blue on the front of the torso and a more rectangular one on the back. The shoulder pads are little cuts of blue plastic pinned into the top of the joint. The belt is still separate from the body, but it fits quite snug to the crotch piece. Paint is largely reserved for the face, X logo, and the blue parts of the arms and hands. The blue on the torso appears to be plastic that’s been plugged into the orange portion. The legs have a lot of sculpted details to the costume, but zero paint which give the figure an unfinished look to it. It’s obviously a limitation to some degree of the character design, but some linework in the grooves cut into the legs would have added a lot.

New Jean seems to scale smaller, but I like that. The smaller head relative to the body is a better fit for the source material as well.

The main draw of this figure for me is simply the default portrait. Jean is sporting a very neutral expression to the point where she looks almost bored. The face and ears are at least painted okay, though it’s a little messy around the right ear. The blue trapezoid shape on her forehead is just painted on and lacks presence since it blends in with the dark blue cowl. The hair is a separate piece of bright, orange, plastic. The sculpt is fine, but Hasbro missed a paint hit as her forehead is visible between the top of the cowl and hair and it’s just left blue. Her part is going in the right direction though and her ponytail isn’t stupid long so I consider it a win. Her eyes are also blue this time, which is consistent with the animated series. The prior release went with the comic green eyes. Most of the colors match with the only one being off the crotch piece which is a darker orange. It’s more noticeable in pictures than in person.

Looks like they missed some paint on her forehead. As far as I know, this is true for all of the figures.

The portrait isn’t a homerun, but it’s a solid double and a vast improvement over the VHS figure. And if you’re like me then I have good news as the size of the ball joint on both figures is the same. If you want, you can put this head on the VHS Jean body and the only blemish is the dark blue cowl which should be shaded black. It’s not enough to bother me and since the cel shading was executed well I do think this will be my preferred Jean going forward. I do think the forearms on the new figure are a better match for the original series as well when it comes to the gauntlets she wears, but they’re the wrong color and I don’t know how easy it would be to swap the arms. The shade of orange wouldn’t be an exact match either, but someone more committed than me could definitely kitbash the hell out of these two figures.

She does seem even smaller when put next to Rogue and Bishop.

As for the actual, new, figure, it does some things better than the old while also creating its own issues. For additional accessories, we get the hair down portrait. Swapping is easy and the hair looks fine, but will lock the head down and cut out almost all articulation at the neck. This portrait has a slight smile to it, but it’s again another lifeless face. She looks like a mannequin. Aside from that, it’s at least painted well and the hair hides the ears. The only other accessories is another set of hands. She comes with a right fist and an open left hand. The second set is a style pose pair that are open and very similar (if not the same) as the open hands that have come with past Jeans.

“Look, mom! Double elbows!”

The articulation is an area where this new Jean differentiates itself from the past ones the most. As far as I know, we’re dealing with all new sculpts here. The head is on a double ball peg instead of the hinged ball peg the other Jean has. It’s an improvement, though once again Hasbro buried the lower ball too deep in the neck needlessly limiting the range. She barely has any range looking down and only a little looking up. Rotation and tilt are fine, but Hasbro needs to figure these joints out. The shoulders are standard hinged pegs and she can raise her arms out to the side a full 90 degrees from the body. There’s a biceps swivel past that, pin-less double-jointed elbows, and a swivel and hinge at the wrist. The elbows will bend well past 90, though it’s not the most attractive joint. This Jean can at least get her hands to her forehead though.

Aside from the cowl being a little off, I think this looks pretty good. Certainly an improvement.

In the torso we have…nothing. It’s almost bizarre to see no articulation cut into a torso even though it’s theoretically a cleaner presentation. Instead, we get a ball joint at the waist. It goes forward and back a bit and offers full rotation and tilt. This is in comparison to the prior Jean which had a ball joint in the diaphragm and nothing at the waist. It should be both! Why can’t we have nice things, Hasbro? The hips will go out to the side past 45 degrees, but shy of full splits. Jean can kick forward about 90 degrees, but not back at all due to the shape of her buttocks. There is a thigh twist and the double-jointed knees are pin-less and work fine. The ankle hinge bends back all the way, but not forward very far. The ankle rocker is pretty steep, but there. Lastly, the ponytail just pegs into the back of the standard head and can rotate.

Yup, this is how she’s going to live on my shelf.

Is this new Jean an improvement on the old? Yes and no. There’s a softness to the sculpt, and when combined with the lack of any articulation cut into the torso as well as no paint, it gives the figure a very plain appearance. The softness does appear to at least resemble the animation, though I’m sure the show will feature shading of some kind. I don’t know why Hasbro didn’t get her a ball joint in the diaphragm as that would have really added to the articulation, but instead it’s just mediocre. It’s nice to see the arms updated with double-jointed elbows and I prefer the sculpted-in forearm gauntlets, but not enough to display this figure in place of the VHS version. Instead, I’m just taking this new head, slapping it on the old body, and calling it “good enough.” I just wish I didn’t have to spend another 25 bucks to get my Jean figure to this current state.

Get your X-Men fix right here before you check out the brand new X-Men ’97:

Marvel Legends X-Men Animated Series Jean Grey

For some reason, Jean Grey has never been treated well by toy makers. Back in the Toy Biz days, Jean had to wait several years to finally show up in the X-Men line of action figures, and once she did, it was in some gimmicky line in a costume that looked made-up. Her first, good,…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Bishop

We’re going to keep this Marvel/Mutant Monday thing going for one more week! After taking a look at a trio of figures from Hasbro’s new X-Men ’97 line of figures in its Marvel Legends catalog I’ve decided to do one more: Bishop. The first three figures I looked at were basically all missing pieces to…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Rogue

Previously, on X-Men reviews we looked at Magneto from the upcoming series X-Men ’97. The animated series may have been delayed into 2024, but the action figures from Hasbro are already here. And if you were collecting Hasbro’s line of figures based on the animated series from the 90s, this new line offers a chance…

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by Joe

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January 8, 2024

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Omega Red – NYCC Exclusive

By Joe
The Soviet super soldier has joined the ranks of Mondo’s X-Men line!

Last year, Mondo sold three different exclusives timed with popular conventions from its sixth scale line of action figures based on X-Men the animated series. One of them was a comic edition of Magneto which was sold at San Diego Comic Con. The other two were essentially preorders to be delivered at a later date. San Diego Comic Con brought Logan, a version of popular hero Wolverine in his civilian attire. New York Comic Con, which took place a couple of months later, featured Omega Red, the soviet super soldier who appeared in a pair of episodes. I don’t know how toy production works, but for whatever reason the exclusive sold most recently was the first to arrive at my residence so lets talk about Omega Red!

Omega Red comes in the standard box from Mondo with new artwork by series storyboard artist Dan Veesenmeyer and an assortment of production art as well. Omega Red has the added wrinkle of featuring raised elements on the box with his hands and coils being a separate piece of cardstock that’s been attached to the box. It’s a fun little embellishment I wasn’t expecting. The front flap is affixed via Velcro, which is different from the Gambit figure we just looked at which used magnets. The inner tray is a floating piece and is not affixed to the cardboard backdrop. I’m guessing the little variations in packaging are just due to them originating from different factories. Also of interest is that Omega Red shipped to me via DHL and it came straight from the factory rather than going to Mondo first in Texas and then being shipped via FedEx. This meant the figure required a signature, but it wasn’t an issue since I was home at the time of delivery. I’m curious if this will be how the figures are shipped going forward or if Omega Red was a special case.

There’s not a ton in the box this time, and for me, I’m even short a hand!

Omega Red is certainly an interesting choice for this line. We have three heroes and three villains so far and I bet if you asked fans of the show which villain would arrive third most would have guessed Mr. Sinister. Omega Red was only a featured player in two episodes and one of those episodes is considered among the worst in the series by showrunner Eric Lewald. And that was because he basically had to write it in a weekend since they were an episode short (I forget why, but it’s detailed in one or both of his books on the series). Omega Red was also a fairly new villain in the comics when the show began and he may have even appeared in the series because Marvel wanted to spotlight the new adversary of Wolverine and the X-Men. He’s basically the soviet equivalent of a Captain America or even the Weapon X project. He was created by artist Jim Lee and writer John Byrne and I would say he’s a case of 90s style over substance. Still, Omega Red was undeniably cool looking and his old Toy Biz figures was one of my favorites as a kid because of that. He’s a good enough foil for Wolverine, and strictly from a design perspective, I was happy to see that he was going to be included in this line.

Looks good! Except for that empty “bubble” in the plastic…

Unfortunately, I do have an issue right off the bat with my figure. When I opened the shipper box and took a look at the goods inside, I noticed right away that there was a spot in the bubble tray that was empty. It was supposed to contain an optional left hand for the figure. I was hoping it had just become dislodged during the shipping process, but upon opening the box there was no hand to be found. Bummer. It’s disappointing that this wasn’t caught by the factory since just a cursory inspection of the product would have revealed the missing item. I’ve reached out to Mondo to see if they can send me a hand or exchange the figure – whatever is needed to get the complete package. They got back to me after a few days to say a replacement hand is on the way and should ship by the end of the month. I’ll update this space accordingly when that happens. UPDATE: The missing hand arrived as promised maybe two weeks after I reached out. Perfect customer service!

Another issue to be mindful of is the plastic splitting on these short tentacles.

Omega Red stands at roughly 12.5″ to the base of his ponytail. This would put him at a bit over six feet, which seems reasonable for a sixth scale action figure. Omega Red is a very impressive looking figure. I’ve raved about the paint jobs in this line with every release, but Omega Red represents a new high bar. Alex Brewer is the sculptor for this figure, and he’s been the sculptor for all of them I believe, but handling the paint master this time around was Mark Bristow. Mark, you knocked this one out of the park! There are two primary shades of red in use, a bright red and a crimson, with black and white mixed in as well. The metallic portions of the suit are white with a gray-blue and some black linework and the same approach is taken for the white flesh of his arms and face. This figure is just covered in paint and it looks amazing. This is a figure that is going to draw eyes to it on your shelf. The sculpt is also very impressive as he has this massive upper body. He is just a joy to behold.

He’s not quite as big as Sabretooth, but Omega Red is still pretty large.

Of course, with a lot of paint comes a lot of room for error. For the most part, the paint job on Omega Red is very impressive and cleanly applied. Upon close inspection, there are a few blemishes here and there mostly in the form of a small scratch. Some of the white accents could be applied in a more opaque manner, especially the white on the forearms which ends up almost pink. There’s also a ton of paint around the elbow joints that’s a risk to flake off or get scratched with repeated use. I also think the black under his chin might be just a tad too heavy, but that’s more of a subjective critique. Overall, the presentation is the strength of this figure and I doubt any who picked this one up will be disappointed by it.

Poor Wolverine, he has to share the shelf with two of his mortal enemies and another guy who famously almost killed him.

What’s a little more surprising with this figure is the small assortment of accessories. There was only one edition of Omega Red so perhaps that’s why, but he’s comparatively lighter than the rest of the line. He comes with fisted hands in the box, but should have a set of open hands as well. The cuffs around his hands are removable and will pop off when you swap hands, but they’re pretty easy to work with and are just floating pieces. He also comes with three different portraits: neutral/scowl, smirk, angry yell. All three look appropriate for the character and all three use the same hair mold. It would have been nice if one had a more windswept hair piece instead, but I don’t think his hair changed much in the show either. They are a bitch to swap though. It took some force to get the default one off and I could not get it or any of the others to pop onto the ball joint without first heating it up. And even then, it still was a challenge. I’d recommend picking a favorite and just sticking with it, though admittedly that’s a hard choice because all three heads look terrific.

I’m having a hard time deciding what my preferred portrait is for this guy.

The only other accessories included with Omega Red are his carbonadium coils. He has two sets: long and short. The long ones are pretty damn long – about 14″. They’re done with soft plastic with a bendy wire inside that works reasonably well. You won’t be able to do anything too crazy, but they’ll pose. They’re done with gray plastic and there’s some black shading on them as well. I wish there was a little blue or white too, but they look fine. They plug into the ports on the underside of his forearms and that works fine. The shorter ones are about 4.5″ long and work the same way so you get a little variety, but that’s it. I did encounter some splitting of the plastic on one of the short tentacles, so beware if you intend to bend them a bunch. The only other thing in the box is the usual Mondo stand (and it’s the older version which lack the no-slip bottom). I’m a little surprised we didn’t get an effect part as the coils glow with green energy in the show whenever Omega Red sucks the lifeforce out of his victims. Some removable ice blocks to simulate his frozen state could have been cool too. I think the assortment is fine, I’m just a little surprised at the sparseness.

Omega Red won’t “wow” you with articulation. He’s meant to just stand there and look cool.

The articulation for this line has not been impressive and Omega Red may be the worst one yet. He is extremely locked-down for me so this figure is definitely a case of what you see is basically what you get. If you’re not impressed with how he looks, then you will definitely not be all that pleased with the product. The head is on the standard double-ball peg, but the hair means it can’t really do anything. He can basically look down a bit and that’s it. Try to even turn his head and you risk a lot of paint transfer. The shoulders are ball-hinged and pretty tight. I can only get about 45 degrees of range out to the side, and the big shoulder pads will also limit rotation quite a bit. There is a cut about the elbow for a swivel, but as I mentioned in the aesthetics portion, there’s a ton of paint here so you want to be careful moving it so as not to disturb any of that paint. The hinge in the elbow is very tight and maybe moves a little past 45 degrees. The hands rotate fine and the ball-hinge is pretty smooth. I still can’t get the hands to rotate on that ball, but at least they’re not as tight as Gambit’s.

We got some snow this past weekend so of course I had to take this figure outside for a photo shoot!

The diaphragm features a ball joint, but the fit is super tight. I can’t get that joint to do much of anything. There’s a waist twist, but it’s behind his belt so that’s super tight as well. I get a little pivot out of it, but not full rotation. The ball socket hips work about as well as they do on the other figures. He can widen his stance a bit and kick forward a bit, but nothing crazy. The thigh swivels on that joint and it works fine while the usual double-jointed knees are in place. My left knee works fine, the right is super tight and I don’t want to force it. The ankles hinge forward and back a little bit and the ankle rocker is suitable.

Omega Red barely poses as a result of all of that. He’s basically just going to stand there on your shelf and look cool. A more adventurous sort could probably get a little more out of this figure than I, but I don’t want to screw up the paint at all. The end result is I have a figure that I absolutely love to look at, but doesn’t bring me any joy to handle. Some would say that makes this a pretty poor release since it is, after all, an action figure and should be able to pose accordingly. I can’t bring myself to say that about it though because it does just look amazing. This is a figure for those who prioritize aesthetics over articulation and accessories. If you want a bad ass, foot tall, Omega Red in your collection then this figure is awesome. If you want something that can be posed in a dynamic fashion then this will let you down. If you know what you want out of this, then you should be able to make an informed decision. I personally love it, but it’s not for everyone.

This Mondo line has been pretty rad, check these out:

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Gambit

It is my belief that when it comes to X-Men, the animated series which debuted in 1992, the breakout star of the show was Gambit. Wolverine was the closest thing we had to a household name going into the show and was the de-facto pick for favorite character of many. And while the whole roster…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Sabretooth

It’s Halloween 1992. You’re sitting in front of the television with a bowl of candy and your costume in pieces. Coming on is a prime time airing of Fox’s newest superhero cartoon: X-Men. You’ve seen the comics at the grocery store and in other places. You know Wolverine, you know there’s a guy who shoots…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

September 27, 2023

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Sabretooth

By Joe
No one loves Sabretooth? I love Sabretooth.

It’s Halloween 1992. You’re sitting in front of the television with a bowl of candy and your costume in pieces. Coming on is a prime time airing of Fox’s newest superhero cartoon: X-Men. You’ve seen the comics at the grocery store and in other places. You know Wolverine, you know there’s a guy who shoots lasers out of his eyes and that the bad guy can stick to your refrigerator. Outside of that though, there’s still a lot to be discovered. The theme song kicks in composed by Ron Wasserman which gets your blood pumping. A dazzling array of colorful costumes and bright lights play before your eyes – it’s too much to take in with just a single viewing, but as the characters line up for a colossal battle they slam together and the logo “X-Men” overtakes them. The screen is then filled by the snarling, angry, face of someone you don’t know. He’s massive! And scary! And he sends a police car hurtling towards the screen!

That character is Sabretooth and he has the honor of being the first character shown in an episode of X-Men. In less than a year, the X-Men will practically be household names. It will be the highest rated show on Saturday mornings and it will stay there through reruns all summer finally ceding the throne in the fall to a little show called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It’s kind of a big deal considering Fox was also airing Batman at the same time which was coasting off of Batman Returns and starred a character that had already been a household name for decades. As for Sabretooth, I had never given much thought to him being the first character we see in the show following the opening credits (which prominently displays all of the heroes and a bunch of the villains, including Sabretooth), but it was apparently by design. Sabretooth is the fourth release in Mondo’s line of sixth scale action figures based on X-Men, and on the inner flap of his box there’s a write-up for the character by the showrunner, Eric Lewald, and his wife and fellow writer Julia which explains why Sabretooth was chosen to essentially lead-off the series. And it’s because he’s big, intimidating, and scary. They wanted the viewer to understand why humanity would fear mutants. X-Men was not a show that was going to show its characters in stark black and white tones, and it was important to see how something like the Mutant Control Act could come about while also showing why it was fundamentally flawed in the episodes to come.

Sabretooth may be listed as figure 5 on the box, but he’s the fourth release.

It’s always fun to learn new details on decades old shows, but it’s also more fun to get a brand-spankin’ new action figure! As mentioned before, Sabretooth is figure number four in this line of action figures from Mondo, even though he was actually solicited fifth. Somehow, he leap-frogged over Gambit, but I’m not complaining. Spoiler alert, Sabretooth is probably the best year in the line and it’s a line that’s been trending in the right direction. Each release has been better than the last. While I subjectively prefer Magneto to Jubilee, I can’t argue that her figure is just a little bit better when it comes to function. Magneto had some ticks about him and his articulation is very limited due to his cape, but Jubilee remedied a lot of the little things. Sabretooth has an even cleaner sculpt and the quality control on the joints is superb. It’s not a perfect figure, but it is pretty damn close.

Poor Sabretooth…

Sabretooth comes in a massive box adorned with production artwork from the series and a new illustration by storyboard artist on the show, Dan Veesenmeyer. Sabretooth is the biggest figure in the line, so he gets the biggest box – makes sense. It has a front flap that opens up to reveal a window behind it, but Mondo packages their figures so well in plastic that the window isn’t very revealing for in-box collectors. It at least allows space for that write-up I mentioned which is both enlightening and pretty damn entertaining as it contains the line, “No one loves Sabretooth.” It also contains a reveal, of sorts, in that we the viewer are supposed to interpret that Sabretooth murders his son, Graydon Creed, at the end of the episode “Bloodlines.” The Friends of Humanity essentially leave their disgraced founder to suffer at the hands of Sabretooth and it’s hard to imagine the cold-hearted fiend taking it easy on the mutant racist just because they’re kin, but still a bit shocking to have his end confirmed.

He’s bigger than the others, but he could be bigger.

Out of the box, Sabretooth stands an impressive 12.5″ to the top of his head and around 13″ to the top of his mane. This makes him the tallest figure in the line, though he’s not much taller than Magneto. As was the case with past releases in this line, it’s likely that Sabretooth isn’t true sixth scale. The model sheet with height references from the show had him at 6.5′. You may think that’s too short and you would be correct as the model sheet has him with bent knees and hunched forward. I’m guessing that’s how he was supposed to be drawn more often than not, though in his early appearances we see him splayed out in a hospital bed which makes him look far bigger. Six and a half feet at sixth scale is exactly 13″, but this figure is 13″ when standing upright so it’s not exact. I personally get it as making this figure much bigger would make things a lot more difficult. Bigger equals more weight and that’s more of a burden on joints. It’s also added cost and this guy was already $240 as is. The figure can work at this size, and it’s actually more of a problem with Wolverine who came in much too tall. If he were the proper height the display would look better. As it stands, the only scale-related issue I have with Sabretooth is that he needed to be downsized not just in height, but all around, so his head size is small compared with the other figures in the line. Not egregiously so, but it noticeably and at this price point we have to get picky.

Who ya got? The egg-suckin’ piece of gutter trash or the runt?!

Issues of scale aside, the rest of the presentation on this figure is pretty damn fantastic. Once again, we’re dealing with a sculpt from Alex Brewer with the paint master being handled by Mark Bristow. This figure presents Sabretooth as he appeared in the show’s first season in which he made multiple appearances with most coming in the the show’s third and fourth episodes. This means he has the red-brown chest that continues all the way up to his cowl. Later appearances would have the red stop at his pecs. He also seemed to be drawn smaller in those later appearances, but we’re done dissecting his height. This edition of Sabretooth sports a costume design very similar to the Jim Lee redesign that was in the comics, but there are some subtle differences most notably being that the sleeves don’t feature any red on the back. Instead, they’re orange and the red begins at the gloves. Sabretooth’s costume always was a bit tricky to figure out as he looks almost nude, but his face is a different color implying it’s all a bodysuit. The episode “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape” would toss us a curveball though in having Sabretooth remove a glove revealing his forearm and hand to be the same color as his apparent sleeve implying he’s just plain naked. I think it was an animation error, but then there’s also a scene where Sabretooth basically transforms from a relatively normal looking person into the costume we see today so I have no idea what was going on there.

Sabretooth called the head of Talos an ashtray on the show which is kind of surprising that the censors allowed any reference to smoking to sneak in.

This version of Sabretooth is known less for the costume and more for just being a hulking monster. He is way bigger than he often was drawn in the comics and it’s almost all in his upper body. His shoulders and chest are just plain massive. His abs were also ridiculous with some shots in the cartoon giving him a 12-pack as his abs basically continued into his crotch. His design is over-the-top and I am here for it. This is how I picture Sabretooth in my head and basically every action figure I ever owned of the character have left me unimpressed because he just wasn’t big enough. For me, this figure is a long time coming as he looks like he stepped out of my VCR and into my room. While Mondo didn’t go as crazy on the abs as the show sometimes did, he does have an 8-pack and that feels appropriate. His shoulders and biceps are appropriately large as is the chest. His body tapers in towards his waist as it did in the show and his legs are long. The claws on his fingers are pronounced just enough and rather pointy too. We talk about shelf presence a lot in the action figure world, but this is a figure that has shelf presence to spare.

Protect yourself and your pet: buy a muzzle.

And a lot of that is due to the excellent paint job. The sculpts have been good in this line, but it’s the paint that really makes them next level. Anyone who turns their nose up at cel-shading on action figures has never held one of these figures in their hands. It’s impressive, and Mondo selected the exact right tones to shade this figure. Even better, is all of the black linework around every muscle and feature on this sculpt that really gives it that pop. And even with all of this paint, it’s applied in a very clean manner. You have to go hunting with this guy to find imperfections. Some of this has to be hand-painted so there will be some variations from figure to figure, but on my copy at least there’s little to no paint slop to be found. There’s just little spots here and there along the black lines where it could have lined up with the sculpt a little better, but it’s by and large pretty damn good. The only thing I would categorize as an eyesore on this figure are the elbows, which are unpainted. They have black linework on then, but the joint is bare plastic and it’s not a perfect match for the painted parts. It can be hidden some by bending the elbows. It’s also going to show up more under harsher lighting, and in my photos which I utilized a flash for most it’s more visible than it is on my shelf as I type this.

He sure does love his explosives!

Sabretooth comes with a pretty substantial spread of accessories, though he’s a character that also doesn’t demand a whole lot. For heads, we get two to choose from: snarling/yelling and an open-mouth smile. I think both work very well and suit the character and it is hard to choose between the two. I’ll probably go with the smirk more often than the snarl, but I do enjoy both. For hands, we get three sets: fists, C-grip, and what Mondo describes as dramatic. They’re basically open, clawing, hands and what I think many will choose to pose him with. The gripping hands work with a pair of accessories. One, is the head of Talos (or ashtray) from “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape.” It’s the head and the circuitry for the neck. Nothing articulates, but it’s painted very well and it’s a fun, episode-specific, inclusion. The other accessory he can grip is a handheld detonator and it goes with the explosives. This is from the episode “Cold Vengeance” where he and Wolverine battle in Alaska. Both aspects of the accessory are well-sculpted and well-painted and it’s another fun inclusion. I honestly can’t see myself ever displaying Sabretooth with the Talos head in hands, but I could with the explosives.

Does a mutant healing factor contribute to a healthy head of hair?

If you got the special timed edition of the figure from Mondo then you also got more stuff. For an extra 15 bucks, you get a third portrait of Sabretooth unmasked and sporting a smirk. This from the end of the episode “Bloodlines” referenced on the packaging flap. It looks great, but like the Fairy Tale Theater Jubilee head, it doesn’t match the rest of the figure as Sabretooth was out of costume for that scene. It’s still cool to get an unmasked head, but I’ll probably never use this and would have preferred a standard head with a new expression. Maybe unconscious? The timed edition also comes with the muzzle the X-Men put Sabretooth in when he was captured in “Beyond Good and Evil Part III.” You can basically slot it over either of the standard heads and then pop the head on to complete the effect and it looks pretty cool. It’s definitely a worthwhile inclusion. Lastly, we get a blaster and two trigger hands to hold it. The blaster is, once again, pulled from the episode “Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape” and it looks accurate to the show. This is an item I can see getting added to my display when I want to change things up because it looks pretty damn cool. The trigger hands also work well with the detonator, arguably better than gripping hands.

Sabretooth isn’t really a gun guy, but he pulls it off.

For the timed edition, I’d say that’s a pretty robust assortment of accessories. And if you wanted to save a bit of money and go the standard route, I don’t think you’re missing out on anything essential. Sabretooth is a brawler at heart, so really just the heads and hands are all he truly needs, but I’m always happy to have more. Where this line is typically not that impressive is the articulation. The characters really didn’t move all that well in the show so one could argue they don’t need to do much, but why be limited by the source material if you don’t have to be?

“Ya done nice, girly! And as a reward I’ll finish you off clean and fast!”

Sabretooth has a double-ball for the head that lets him look up and down a bit and rotate. There’s some nuance posing, and perhaps more important than the range, it’s easy to swap heads without scuffing anything. The shoulders are standard ball-hinges and he can get his arm up to about horizontal and rotate. There’s no biceps swivel, but he does have a swivel at the elbow which contains a single hinge that will bend about 90 degrees. The wrists are hinged ball-pegs so he can rotate and move the hand up and down or in and out depending on the direction of the hinge. And unlike Wolverine and Magneto, I had no issues getting the hands to rotate on the peg. In the diaphragm, there’s a big ball joint that lets the figure lean back a bit and forward a bit. It can rotate and tilt to the side as well. The waist is another ball joint, but it’s deep in there and the figure has one of those rubber diaper pieces so you won’t get much back and forth, but you will get rotation. The hips are big ball pegs that allow the legs to go out to the side past 45 degrees. He can kick forward as well, but not a full 90 with minimal range going back. The thighs do swivel, and the knees are double-jointed with swivels above and below the knee. The ankle hinges forward and back and have an ankle rocker. It’s the only joint that feels a tad stubborn, especially the right ankle, so the range isn’t quite what I’d like.

“Back off, dweeb!”

The articulation is basic, and the figure is quite heavy so there are limits to how it can pose. Aside from the ankle, nothing was stuck. The knees are a touch looser than I’d like and I’m sort of questioning if the double-joint makes sense here. Between the bending and the swiveling, the figure can sometimes want to kick out. I have had no issues getting him to stand, but I often don’t feel comfortable leaving him be in some poses. It does work better to have the figure in a crouch, which makes sense for the character, and I did leave him standing unsupported for days without falling. Mondo does include its usual stand and it’s actually slightly different. There’s more weight in the base so it probably works better than it typically does. And it’s actually usable with Sabretooth since he doesn’t have a cape or giant coat to get in the way. I’m not presently using it, but I did consider it this time around.

With each release, it gets harder to find space, but it’s a good problem to have.

Mondo is not trying to give collectors a super articulated line, just enough to create some distinct poses. What Mondo prioritizes is the aesthetic and it’s hard to imagine anyone making a better Sabretooth figure than what we have here. I love this figure. This is the Sabretooth I wanted when I was a kid. Maybe not at this size, but definitely these proportions. The sculpt is awesome, the paint incredible, and there’s plenty of stuff in the box. I am as pleased as I could be with this release. If Mondo were doing this line at 1:12 scale they wouldn’t be able to keep the stuff in stock. By doing sixth scale, it does shrink the market because this line needs a lot of space and it’s not cheap to collect, but it is so much more satisfying to behold than what some other companies have done with this property. If you’re in on this line and cherry-picking, this is a cherry to go after.

If this review has you wondering about the rest of the line, see below:

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Jubilee

When one hears the phrase “mall babe” it implies a certain visual. Probably a short, young, girl with intentionally messy, short hair. There’s a certain confidence the phrase exudes so she has to have style. Maybe hot pink, bright blues, and certainly a long yellow coat with gloves to match! There has to be an…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Magneto

If you showed a random individual this blog and asked them what my favorite cartoon was as a kid I’m guessing they would go with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And they wouldn’t be wrong as that was my favorite for a time, but come 1992 I was starting to drift away from that show. Batman:…

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by Joe

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…

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by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television, toys

February 9, 2022

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

By Joe
Look who finally arrived!

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays experienced by many industries just played a large role in delaying product intended for the event to sometime after. I talked about this in my review of the NECA Toys San Diego Comic Con set for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The wait for that seemed long, but it wasn’t as long as it was for my most anticipated release related to the event: Mondo’s 1/6 scale Wolverine!

Each box is individually numbered and comes with a slipcase featuring storyboard art for the show’s iconic intro.

Halloween 2022 is going to mark 30 years since the premiere of X-Men on Fox Kids. The animated series was the introduction to the famed superhero team for a generation of fans. It was what helped vault the already popular team of mutants from just a comic book phenomenon to something bigger. Since then, the X-Men have seen their standing relative to other costumed superheroes falter some, largely due to Marvel selling off the film rights to 20th Century Fox leaving them out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has turned also-rans, like The Avengers, into some of the hottest properties in the world. Seriously, as a kid if you told me The Avengers would one day dwarf the X-Men in popularity I would have looked at you as-if you had two heads. It was just unheard of at the time that Captain America or Thor would ever have that kind of appeal.

Am I really going to open this?!

Well, 2022 is apparently the year the X-Men will attempt a comeback! In celebration of the animated series turning 30, we can expect a host of new merchandise to mark the occasion including a series of action figures from Hasbro. And it will spill over into 2023 with a new series set to launch on Disney+ continuing the adventures of the animated universe which ended in 1997. The appropriately titled X-Men ’97 is still shrouded in mystery, but we know a lot of the voice cast is returning to reprise their roles and there seems to be an energy about the franchise that hasn’t been there in recent years.

Oh my god, that’s perfect. How can I open this?!

The first of this new wave of merch is now upon us. Mondo’s take on Wolverine from the show was the first such figure I saw announced. I’ve been pounding the drum for a dedicated line of figures based on the show for years now, and seeing Mondo enter the market was a huge development. Mondo is a company I’m not personally familiar with. I certainly know of the company and their wares, I’ve just never owned any as they tend to stick to larger scales. And larger scaled figures come with larger price tags and larger space requirements. Do I necessarily want a sixth scale version of the X-Men? No, but seeing how it’s just the first of what I hope will be more toys based on the property I had to jump in and support it. And to make the package even more special is the SDCC theming which positions Wolverine in his longing pose on a cardboard bed pining over his unrequited love for Jean Grey. It’s a scene, and a meme, brought to life and it certainly put a smile on my face. What didn’t was the hefty price tag of $200 plus $20 to ship it. I wasn’t certain of the price until I got into the website to order it, and by then I was past the point of no return. At least with Mondo charging upfront some of that sting has subsided in the ensuing six months since I ordered this item. Any bruises have been replaced by my own longing to get this thing in-hand and see how it turned out.

I opened it.

First of all, the packaging is quite fetching. It almost feels like a crime to open this guy. It’s an elaborate window box positioning Wolverine on his bed, photo of Scott and Jean in-hand, looking pretty miserable. He’s got himself a nice pillow propping him up, and it’s the type of package that I see many people never opening even though he’s got an assortment of parts for a more traditional display. If the price tag wasn’t so high, I’m sure more would entertain the idea of leaving this figure sealed and buying another for display. This is the SDCC exclusive, while a standard release is expected to follow that omits the packaging and some of the accessories that will cost less. How much less is still unknown as the figure has yet to go up for order anywhere. I am very entertained by this package, but I can’t leave him in place, so out he comes!

He’s out! Though he doesn’t look any happier. Mondo included a stand that is unnecessary, and kind of boring. They couldn’t put a big, red, X, on that base and dress it up a little?

First of all, getting Wolverine out without destroying this box was a challenge, but one I successfully navigated. The ties on his torso aren’t actually twisted, so they can be pulled off once you slide the display out of the window box. Getting at the other stuff was more challenging as it’s under the bed and you need to open it up. I found going at it from the foot of the bed easiest and was able to slide out the inner cardboard box and the bagged accessory piece as well. From there, I found it easiest to just snip at the other ties holding him down to the plastic bubble. Mondo wisely put paper inbetween the ties and the figure so you don’t have to worry about scratching it as you remove them. The hands and picture frames are wrapped in plastic to hold it in place and that has to be just torn off. Once the restraints are removed he lifts out rather easy. The pillow is also tied down and I just left it for now. It’s funny, when the figure is in the box I never noticed that the pillow is basically just suspended in air on top of the plastic bubble, but once the figure is out it’s definitely noticeable.

Wolverine towers over his Fox Kids contemporaries.

Now that Wolverine is out, I can tell you he stands at about 10 3/4″ to the top of his head. The “ears” take him to around the 11 1/2″ inch mark. The sculpt is very neat as there’s not a lot of articulation showing. The cel-shading is also done in a manner where it goes from lighter on the figure’s right side to darker on the left. It’s most noticeable on the gloves as the top of the left hand is almost entirely painted in a dark blue while the right hand has just a bit of that on the left side and palm. The head features shading on just the left side of the yellow portions and it’s very subtle from the front. The exposed flesh on Wolverine’s face has some shading on the left side and above the chin. True to the show, the black ears feature no blue accents. The rest of the figure follows the same pattern with the paint getting progressively darker as you move from one side to the other. There are three shades of red and three shades of blue on the belt and trunks to accomplish the effect while a more saturated, honey-like yellow, is used to outline some of the muscles. It looks pretty damn terrific and accomplishes what it set out to do. One could quibble with the chest area as the shading is least pronounced there. Maybe adding in some white would have accentuated that as that was a common tactic in the show, but sometimes less is more.

Bring in a quarter scale turtle though and he’s dwarfed. He’s still got bragging rights on Venom though.

The overall sculpt for Wolverine is also quite nice. His ears really fan out and are a bit narrow in keeping with the show’s look. It stood out in images to me as being a little odd, but in-hand the likeness seems more realized, or I’m just charmed to finally have it. He’s broad-shouldered and the musculature looks rather true to the show and not overdone. I like how they did the hair on his arms entirely with paint which keeps with the somewhat flat look of animation. The X logo on the belt is sculpted and is rather clean which does a fine job of drawing attention to it. Everything looks well-proportioned too, though it will be interesting to see how much taller future figures are in the line given that Wolverine is among the shortest characters on the show. Mondo pretty much nailed the look of the character and it’s nice to see.

As far as I can tell, the “Come here” hand is best utilized to recreate this legendary cover. Too bad he doesn’t have a smiling, unmasked, head.

And that’s just out of the box with the sad face and no clawed hands. Underneath that bed is the other stuff. For starters, Wolverine has an open right hand and a relaxed, sort of gripping, left hand for the packaging setup. In addition to that he has the following: left open hand, left curled index finger hand (maybe for a “Come here” gesture?), a right gripping hand, clawed fists, and clawed fists with the sparking effect arcing between them. The gripping hand is here for the turkey leg accessory, another frequent meme or gif shared on social media, and it could also hold the picture frame if you really want it to. The clawed hands feature long, hard, grey, claws. I think one could argue they should have been white in keeping with the show, or white with some blue shading, but they look okay. The claws on the arcing piece are perfectly straight and it’s a great looking item. The sparking part is a translucent blue plastic and it’s soft and bendy which helps make it easy to pop the hands in place. I’m surprised they didn’t just make the blue part removable, but maybe they feared people breaking the claws when putting it on. Swapping hands is mostly easy, but those claws are tricky to work as it requires some force to remove the hands and you have to be mindful not to break the claws (or stab yourself). I’ll probably display him with the arcing effect for at least a little while. The picture frame is really well done and you can remove the picture from it via a slit in the top. It’s not probably not going to be easy though as it doesn’t seem to move around at all in there. It might be easier to just continue to use photoshop instead.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to swap the clawed hands if you just take the claws off first! I actually had forgot about the teaser images for this figure which featured Wolverine with un-clawed fists or with just one claw extended to carve the turkey. The claws are in there pretty snug out of the box, or at least they were on one hand for me. Maybe swapping hands around caused the other one to loosen, but either way, I was able to pull them out of one hand easily enough while the other I dipped in hot water first. It’s a great idea for a figure at this scale since the claws can be thick and durable enough to withstand such use and they’re not tiny and likely to get lost. All of the channels on Wolverine’s hands feature holes for the claws, but they definitely do not go in easy. I think if I really wanted Wolverine to have claws in the non-fist hands I’d probably have to insert a paper clip or something into the channels first just to widen them and push some of the paint out of the way, but it’s probably do-able. I don’t particularly think he needs to be able to have claws on his non-fist hands, but I do like the option to have his fists without the claws if I want. It also makes it easier to straighten the claws, as they probably won’t look perfectly straight out of the box. Of course, I took most of my pictures before realizing I could even do this, so if you think his claws aren’t straight enough in my images at least you know that’s something that’s adjustable.

Snikt!

Wolverine also has extra portraits to work with. The default one is the sad face which is mostly good for a laugh, but isn’t one you’re likely to display outside of the pose he came in, but it will probably be something fun to use with photography. He also has a neutral head and a teeth-gritting, angry, head. Both expressions work very well for this version of the character and it’s hard to pick a favorite, or would be under normal circumstances, but I’ll explain that in the next paragraph. Wolverine also has an unmasked head that looks…okay. He’s making an odd shape with his mouth and I don’t know what Mondo was going for. Something more neutral would have likely looked better. I do like the shading on his hair though and his mutton chops are on display. It’s not terrible, but hard to imagine many using it.

The hair looks good, but I don’t know about that expression.

Lastly, we have another odd, but welcomed, head in the form of Morph. He’s depicted with his black hair and a slight smile. His facial structure looks good, but the eyes are a bit off. They painted black lines on the bottom of the eyes and then additional lines below that and it makes them look like they’re upside down. I don’t think they needed the added lines for this particular expression and they probably should have outlined the whole eye. Still, it’s something people are unlikely to make much use of since Morph never changed his body to look like Wolverine in the show while leaving his head unchanged. He did the opposite with Gambit, though. I know Magneto is slated to come with an Evil Morph head, but beyond that I don’t know what the plan for the character is. Seems unlikely they’d go full build-a-figure with him at this scale, but who knows? Maybe they’ll just do Morph eventually and he’ll completely different portraits and these will be bonus extras for those all-in on the line.

This is actually a Morph figure with a bunch of Wolverine heads.
Hey, another use for sad Wolverine and the Morph head!

Where things do come apart at the seems a bit with this figure is with the overall paint job. Bigger figures mean more opportunities for shading, and also more opportunities for things to go off the rails. The main figure is largely good, but there are parts where the paint gets a little iffy. The black teeth, or claws, on the torso aren’t always sharp. The worst spot is on the figure’s right just below the pectoral where the yellow and black meet to form a little green. There’s also a little paint rub on the left thigh where it meets the blue trunks. Yellow is tough to work with as any little instance of rub is going to show, but it’s still disappointing. By far though the worst is with the neutral expression head. That has a bunch of the black paint mixing with the yellow over Wolverine’s left eye. It looks like what happens when you go from using a black watercolor and dip it into yellow without cleaning the brush well enough. It’s terrible looking and renders that head unusable, as far as I’m concerned. I did reach out to Mondo in hopes of getting a replacement because it’s not acceptable for any figure to have that bad a paint app, and certainly not one that cost 200 bucks. All of the other paint imperfections I can live with and find acceptable, even at this price point, but not that head. I haven’t heard back as of this writing, save for an automated response, but I’ll update this post accordingly should I hear from them. UPDATE – not five minutes after this post went live I was contacted by Mondo to say a replacement was on the way and should arrive within five business days. Nice!

UPDATE Part 2 – A week and a day following my initial reach out and I had my replacement. Only, Mondo didn’t replace the one head I had an issue with, they replaced the whole thing! Yes, they sent me a whole other, unopened, still sealed, unit. It’s kind of crazy and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I want that head, but do I want it enough to open another one of these or should I just keep it sealed and deal with the initial crummy one? I did take the bad head out of the baggie it came in to find it’s more like a glue that is on the head. I don’t know if I can remove it without damaging the head further. I’m tempted to try and then paint it, or I could just open the new one and see if it has a better neutral expression then ship it off at cost to someone I know would like to have this and might not care about a bad head. Regardless, that’s certainly good customer service, even if I think Mondo is kind of crazy to not just have some spare parts on-hand.

Well, that’s not good.

The articulation for this figure might be the only other area collectors are likely to find fault with. Mondo likely prioritized the overall aesthetic for Wolverine with articulation taking a back seat. Personally, I’m happy with that decision and I think it’s the right choice as the animation was pretty stiff. Wolverine’s head sits on a double ball-peg so you get rotation and the ability to look up and down slightly. There’s also some tilt. Some of the heads seem to have more range than others as I could get sad Wolverine to look up a bit, but angry Wolverine not really at all. The unmasked heads are a pain to get seated properly on the peg and sit quite deep so their range isn’t any better. At the shoulders are standard ball-hinges and you will want to take care not to rub the shoulder pads. They come out to the side a decent amount, but not 90 degrees. There’s no biceps swivel with Mondo instead opting for a swivel just above the elbow hinge. It works okay and I admittedly like the look of his arms so I’m fine with the trade-off. This does mean the elbows are single-jointed so that’s a bummer as you’re not going to do better than 90 there. The hands are on ball joints so they at least move around just fine. Removing the default ones was a little scary and I did dip them in hot water just to air on the side of caution, but I have not had any issues swapping them.

Posing isn’t going to be this figure’s strong suit, but he does balance really well.

In the torso, Wolverine has a diaphragm joint and a waist twist. The diaphragm joint is quite noisy so there’s a lot of rubbing going on so do be careful. It lets Wolverine tilt back a fair amount, but he doesn’t crunch forward hardly at all. You do get some twist too, but again, lots of rubbing and you have that black paint right underneath. The waist twist is just a twist and doesn’t feel like a ball joint. The belt and trunks are also all one piece so, again, be mindful of potential rubbing. At the thigh, it feels like we just have a simple ball and socket joint. Again, and I sound like a broken record, lots of rubbing on that crotch piece so how far forward he can kick is largely dependent upon how far you want to push it. There’s a twist there too which works fine and the knees are double-jointed, but really just present a 90 degree bend. At the ankles we mostly have a pivot, or rocker, joint as there’s very little up and down because of how deep into the foot the joint was set. He stands just fine, though Mondo did include a stand, but doing a running pose or something similar would be a challenge for Wolverine. The joints are all at a good tolerance. Nothing is loose, and none felt scary to move out of the box. It’s just not the most dynamic assortment of articulation, but it is very low profile. And really, the only thing that would have made him more exciting for me would have been butterfly joints so he could really reach out with those claws. Those tend to be ugly though so I understand why they aren’t present. Others may feel differently though.

Ultimately, this just looks like Wolverine from the show and I think that will make a lot of people very happy. Plus, that packaging! They even included the reference art on the back of the box!

Mondo’s first foray into the X-Men animated universe is mostly positive. Objectively speaking, this figure has some problems. The articulation isn’t great and certainly the paint on one of the heads is not acceptable. I also assume the more minor paint issues will vary from figure to figure and there are more subjective things to critique like some of the shading choices or the expression on the non-masked head. For me personally though, this figure is a ton of fun to both look at and handle. He looks like the character from the show I loved as a kid and I couldn’t be happier that this exists. Certainly, I wish he didn’t cost 200 bucks as this line will get very expensive if all of the figures are priced at that level. This is the San Diego version, but also the brown costume variant was priced at 200 so who knows what the going rate is going to be? On the other hand, if they only put out one or two per year then that certainly makes it a lot easier to budget.

Wolverine is lonely though. Imagine Sabretooth at this scale?!

This version of Wolverine was a convention exclusive limited to 3,250 pieces. If you want him, you’ll have to go to the secondary market or hope that Mondo does indeed release a stripped down version in the future. Again, Mondo has been pretty quiet about that release and future ones so I don’t know if that’s still the plan. The secondary market is basically you’re only source for this one now where it will likely cost more than the $200 Mondo charged. How much more remains to be seen. Right now, the listings are pretty high, but I don’t know if they’re actually selling. This is a rather niche item because of its scale and there’s a very real possibility that those hoping to make a buck have to settle for far less than they expected. Over three-thousand units isn’t a small number for this sort of thing so keep your eyes open if you want him. As for me, I can’t wait to have a more robust X-Men collection to display. Between Mondo and Hasbro, it figures to be an eventful 2022 for the almost 30 year old show.

That was a long one, I could really go for something to eat. Who wants turkey?!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

October 21, 2019

Take My Money, Hasbro, Give Me X-Men Animated Series Legends!

By Joe

 

x-men animated group shot

Let’s talk some X-Men!

It’s been probably 13 or 14 years since I’ve purchased a Marvel-branded action figure. This is somewhat shocking to me because from the age of 7 to around 25 I spent who knows how much money on Marvel action figures. I was there for the inaugural Toy Biz line of Marvel Superheroes and X-Men action figures and I continued buying Toy Biz figures well past the age of when it was considered “appropriate” by my peers. And even after I stopped actually playing with my toys I still kept them on display in my room. Two pieces of old countertop on milk crates served as my makeshift shelves. Good guys on one side, bad guys on the other. As characters changed allegiance in the comics, so did their placement on my shelf. Aside from that, I didn’t like to mess with them and the dust would grow thicker and thicker and probably contributed to my constant sneezing. I didn’t care though, because I really loved my toys.

When action figures grew up with me I grew extremely excited. There were a few dedicated collector lines, most memorably one based on the Onslaught mini series, but things really changed with Marvel Legends. I was a bit tepid at first with them, mostly due to the absence of X-Men, but eventually I got into it. I started with just a figure here and there, and soon enough I found myself buying entire waves. I also added the occasional Diamond Select figure which at the time prioritized sculpt over articulation making some of the toys little more than glorified statues. I even got into Mini Mates for a period, since they initially focused on the Ultimate X-Men which was a comic I grew attached to pretty quickly.

Eventually, I stopped collecting. Part of that coincided with the dissolving of Toy Biz by Marvel which chose to instead license its properties to Hasbro. Those first few Hasbro waves weren’t very strong, and with the build-a-figure shrinking down to more normal proportions it failed to really motivate me. I think the last wave I bought to completion was whichever one featured The Blob. And even with that, I think I had to buy some figures based on X-Men: The Last Stand which did not sit well with me. That also happened to coincide with me moving out on my own trading the confines of my old bedroom for a small apartment. I didn’t want to have to lug a bunch of toys around with me every time I moved, and once I got settled into my own home that I purchased the itch had passed. I had moved onto other hobbies and comics just didn’t appeal to me like they once did. Sure, there have been a few figures over the years that tempted me, but the rising cost in standard toys makes it pretty easy to just focus on the things that really bring me joy.

That could change though, and if Hasbro wanted me back (and who wouldn’t?) there is one thing the company could do that would guarantee it many of my dollars and it has to do with my favorite show as a child:  X-Men.

xmen three pack

This recent action figure three-pack is what put my brain into this mode. These almost work as animated versions, but they’re different just enough to not be perfect. And I’m not just referring to Wolverine’s bone claws.

Nostalgia currently has me hooked via NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys based on the old cartoon series. That show may not be particularly good, but I loved it as a kid and it’s something I can’t let go of. Similarly, I have a huge amount of affection still for X-Men. That show was my life for a few years and unlike TMNT, the show is still watchable today even if it doesn’t hold up as well as Batman or possibly even Gargoyles. And I know I am not alone. There is a lot of love out there for that show and that has been preyed upon via action figures based on the costume designs of the Jim Lee era X-Men from the comics. There was a recently announced three-pack featuring Wolverine, Jean Grey, and Cyclops which is what really got my juices flowing. Those characters bare a strong resemblance to their animated counterparts, but the figures are also clearly aiming to capture the look of the comics and not a cartoon.

What gives me hope that such a line could work is because animated versions of these characters are not far off what is already out there. Take your standard Wolverine action figure, for instance. To make him better resemble the cartoon, Hasbro basically just needs to reduce detail. No stubble on his face, not much hair on the arms, and less muscle definition. DC has done a great job bringing Batman: The Animated Series to plastic form in terms of aesthetics, so why not do the same, Hasbro?

Because I’m such a generous guy, I’m even going to provide a road map for Hasbro. I envision six figures per wave with a build-a-figure bringing the total to seven. Adhering to modern times, the extra buildable figure is not some titanic character, but something closer to a standard sized figure. It would be a good fit for those figures that would need to be 7 or 8 inches as opposed to 5-6, which is what I imagine most figures would fall into. They could be done, and really should be, in scale with Marvel Legends and I would prioritize characters from the first two seasons. If the line’s a success, then sure go for more. If the series happened and worked out as outlined below, then I would definitely buy every figure and really annoy my wife as I hunted for more space to display them.

Series 1

  • Wolverine
  • Cyclops
  • Rogue
  • Morph
  • Mystique
  • Magneto
  • Build-a-Figure:  Sabretooth

This mix would get some fan-favorite good guys out early and also a few villains to pose them against. Wolverine is an obvious must for the first series as he was the most popular character. He should come in his standard uniform and additional hands, some with claws in and some with claws out. A second, unmasked, head would complete the look. Cyclops should also just have his normal look. If a removable flight jacket could be added without harming the sculpt, then all the better, but not necessary. Similar to modern Cyclops figures, he should have a second head with a blast effect and probably an extra set of hands including one with two fingers extended on his right hand to activate his “X” communicator. Morph, on the other hand, should have his flight jacket since he was most often depicted wearing it. He should also have black hair as he did in seasons one and two and an alternate “evil” head. Mystique would need few additional accessories, making her the likely landing spot for a larger piece of the build-a-figure. Magneto would need a helmeted and un-helmeted head to properly capture his long hair. A nice, heavy, fabric cape would also look great, but soft plastic wouldn’t be bad either. Sabretooth, being featured in episode one, makes for a good choice as the first build-a-figure given his size relative to the other characters.

X-Men (FOX) [1992-1997]Shown from left: Wolverine, Morph, Beast

That’s how I want my Wolverine to look, bub.

Series 2

  • Gambit
  • Bishop
  • Storm
  • Cable
  • Pyro
  • Avalanche
  • BAF:  The Blob

Wave Two would be anchored by the next most popular character after Wolverine, Gambit. He’d just need various hands and his bo staff to be authentic. Storm would be the other character from the team, and in the interest of “keeping them wanting,” would be the only other from the main team. Bishop and Cable both played large roles as guest characters and lend themselves well to action figure form. Cable should probably have his season two look which featured a metallic left arm, a more common look than the season one version. Bishop should also feature a removable time bracelet to go along with his really big gun. Pyro and Avalanche would serve as the villains with the BAF being their comrade Blob. A desire to assemble Mystique’s troop would hopefully help drive sales.

x-men_L48

Everyone can relax, Gambit is in series two.

Series 3

  • Beast
  • Jean Grey
  • Archangel
  • Civilian Wolverine
  • Graydon Creed
  • Mr. Sinister
  • BAF:  Apocalypse

Series 3 would be the one that nearly completes the main team. Beast, unlike most figures based on the character, should have a cheerful disposition as opposed to an angry one. Jean Grey would need her cartoon-accurate costume, something Toy Biz never delivered on when the show was popular, which was blue and orange as opposed to blue and yellow. She should also probably come with a Cerebro helmet. This would also be a good time for a second Wolverine figure. Since he was so often featured in plain clothes (yellow flannel with a brown jacket), a figure based on that look makes sense. He should have two pairs of clawless hands, ones that look like normal fists and ones that have the steel ports on his hands as he was incorrectly portrayed in season one. Diehard fans of the show, such as myself, really appreciate little details like that. Creed was a big player in season two, and he warrants a figure as a result. Of course, Sinister was the main big, bad, guy of that season and series three feels like a good spot for him. Lastly, Archangel should be included (with a masked head and unmasked head) to pair with the BAF Apocalypse who would be depicted in his animated purple and blue color scheme.

apocalypse cartoon

I don’t know why they made him purple, but the toy better follow in the same footsteps!

Series 4

  • Jubilee
  • Colossus
  • Omega Red
  • Forge
  • Civilian Cyclops
  • Professor X
  • BAF: Juggernaut

Series 4 would finish the main squad by including Jubilee and Professor X. Xavier would be the tough one to include as he would need his hover chair. Recently, Hasbro did a Professor X that I think retails for more than a standard Legend. The company could save money by retooling it and if it has to retail for more then so be it. Colossus guested a couple of times and is deserving of a figure himself. He should be clad in his blue pants and white tank top to match his appearance in the show. If a second, non-transformed, upper torso could be done then that would be really neat. Omega Red is a villain with a great, 90s, design, and even though he’s a bit bigger than other characters, I don’t think he’s so large that he would need to be a BAF. Cyclops had enough non-costumed appearances to be the second main cast member worthy of a civilian look. And Forge had multiple appearances as well. He should come with an alternate head so he could be depicted as main timeline Forge and future Forge. The Juggernaut is the last character that serves as an obvious choice for a BAF and would be a sought after one helping to make sure fans buy the entire wave. That only challenge with him is I think he would need two heads as well, one masked and one unmasked, because it’s hard to make a good-looking Juggernaut figure that features a removable helmet.

colossus 92

Colossus proved you didn’t need a real costume to be a hero.

Series 5 and 6

  • Phoenix
  • Gladiator
  • Nightcrawler
  • Dazzler
  • White Queen
  • Sebastian Shaw
  • Henry Gyrich
  • Bolivar Trask
  • Dark Phoenix
  • Banshee
  • Fabian Cortez
  • Empress Lilandra
  • BAF:  Sentinel

I’m grouping these two together because I have a radical idea for the BAF. It would be a sentinel and the pieces spread between both waves. The piece loadout would be like Giant Man from the Toy Biz days which did an oversized wave of Marvel Legends as a Wal-Mart exclusive. This would allow Hasbro to do a bigger figure to do the sentinel justice, because we need a sentinel for such a series since they were so important in that first season. The desire to have a cartoon sentinel would help move some of the less exciting, but still essential, characters contained in this wave. Trask and Gyrich, specifically, would be unsexy figures, but they had such a large presence over the first season that it feels wrong to exclude them. Much of these waves would also be devoted to the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Sagas. Doing both regular Phoenix and Dark Phoenix would also save Hasbro money since they’d basically be the same figure, different head. For Lilandra, I’d also go with the Empress version of the character as that would just make for a more striking visual. Cortez is the only character from a later season, but I see more opportunity for villains and I just happen to like him more than someone like Erik the Red or D’Ken.

sentinel 92

I don’t see how you could have a toy-line dedicated to the X-Men cartoon and not feature a sentinel somehow.

If the line was a success, it wouldn’t have to end there. I completely ignored Sinister’s Nasty Boys and all of the mutates from the Savage Land. They would really help to bolster the ranks of the villains, but it might be hard to convince people they’re more deserving of plastic than some of the others. An entire Savage Land wave could even be done, though I don’t know if that would be a big seller. Another big bad guy I left out is Mojo who would probably work best as a BAF. If he was done, then he would need to be paired with a Longshot.

As for heroes, there are alternate versions of other characters that could pad things out. Civilian versions of Storm, Rogue, Jean and Jubilee (or her in a flight suit) could be added. Beast and Gambit had other looks as well, but nothing really drastic (though Beast with his Howard the Duck shirt is pretty tempting). Archangel also briefly appeared as Angel in season one and returned in season four sporting his white and blue Angel costume. Wolverine had other looks as well, though my personal favorite would probably be the alternate timeline Wolverine from “One Man’s Worth” which also featured a mohawked Storm. Other guest heroes included Iceman, Psylocke, Alpha Flight and X-Factor so there are certainly more characters to mine from, I’m just not sure any really need a dedicated figure based on their look in the cartoon.

Hasbro missed its chance to honor the cartoon with a line of figures to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary. There’s still time though to recognize the 30th in 2022 and a toy-line near then would be an appropriate way to do so. If 2022 seems too far away right now it could be timed to end that year. The show is also about to gain new exposure via Disney+ where it and other X-Men cartoons will be available day one. And with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox it stands to reason that the X-Men will soon join Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe bringing even more of a spotlight to the brand. The time is right, Hasbro, make it happen!

 

 

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television, toys

September 5, 2018

Previously on X-Men: The Making of an Animated Series

By Joe

previously

by Eric Lewald, published by Jacobs Brown Media Group LLC

A lot of cartoons made an impact on me as a child. My first love was The Real Ghostbusters. Its goofy cast of characters and excitement were plenty of fun and there were interesting toys to supplement the series with, which was pretty much the goal of all cartoons in the 80s. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would come along and supplant Ghostbusters for me. For several years I was all about the Turtles, with a flirtation with Bucky O’Hare mixed in, though sadly the funky fresh rabbit never made it past 13 episodes.

In 1992 things changed, in more ways than one. My family had just been uprooted moving from the cozy confines of New Hampshire to what felt like a different world down in Virginia. For the first time ever, I was a fish out of water. As I was gearing up to start 3rd grade in a new state, a new town, a new school, I would be tasked with forming all new friendships either at school or in my new neighborhood. It’s not a task I’ve ever been particularly good at. Shy and a tad awkward, I wasn’t outgoing, nor was I particularly talented in anything so I had few ways of attracting people. As a result, my television was sort of my best friend for a time and thankfully I had a new friend in Batman who had just debuted on week day afternoons on Fox Kids, a network I really only knew of thanks to The Simpsons. Batman was all fine and good, and I consumed every episode as it aired (and have since gone on to write about, if you hadn’t noticed), but it never hooked me like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, even though that was a program I found myself outgrowing. What did resonate with me almost immediately though was the cartoon that premiered not long after Batman, I’m talking about X-Men.

The X-Men were known to me in basic terms before the animated series premiered on Fox. About a year prior to the show debuting Marvel had launched a toyline complete with TV spots, even though there was no companion television series to pair it with. I suppose the toys could have been developed in conjunction with the Pryde of the X-Men pilot that had premiered and failed in 1989. The roster was pretty similar, though then relative newcomer Archangel replaced Dazzler in that initial run of toys. Aside from that though, I don’t think I had ever picked up an X-Men comic book and I may or may not have played the side-scrolling beat-’em-up arcade game that was also based on Pryde of the X-Men. And I didn’t even actually catch the sneak peek preview, which aired on Halloween of 1992. I had seen all of the television spots leading up to it and was very interested in the show, but I had tricks or treats to get and wasn’t good at working a VCR.

X-men_pryde_of_the_x-men_cover

The first attempt at bringing the X-Men to television did not go very well.

At school, I would hear about it though. They had cool powers, but people hated them. Why? It seemed like such a foreign concept. One character got arrested and another died! Wow! Perhaps morbidly, I really wanted to see that character death, whom I’d come to know as Morph. Frustratingly, it would be awhile before I finally saw it. Somehow, whenever “Night of the Sentinels:  Part 2” was aired on television I would miss it. I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone, since I was only 8, so if my family had plans on Saturday morning I had little say. My mom even enrolled me in CCD, or church school, which convened at 11 on Saturdays, much to my horror. I think I only went to two of those classes before my mom got sick of the revolt each Saturday, finally freeing me to enjoy my new favorite program in relative peace.

In no time I was obsessed, and X-Men was my favorite show for basically as long as it aired. I still have the many toys I amassed during that period in my life, and though I no longer read the comics, I still enjoy revisiting this cartoon. It’s why when I heard that showrunner Eric Lewald was releasing a book all about his experience in making the show and bringing it to television that I had to get a copy. I received a copy last November, and I’m a bit disappointed in myself since it took me this long to finally finish it and get to writing this post, but life is hectic.

Previously on X-Men is an account of how this unlikely hit came to be. When Fox premiered X-Men and Batman it was still a fledgling network. The Tracey Ullman Show and Married… With Children got the network its initial audience, and The Simpsons would then establish it as a viable alternative to the big 3:  ABC, CBS, and NBC. It was still struggling during the other parts of the day with programming often ending before 11 PM. Recognizing that there was a place for children’s programming, Fox brought together a web of studios and producers in a mostly haphazard manner that somehow led to network dominance. Shows like Bobby’s World and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes were filling out the kids portion of the programming early on, and while it sounds like they did okay numbers, they weren’t going to raise the network’s profile much. It would fall to the superheroes to do that.

lewaldscelebrating_orig

Julia and Eric Lewald

Lewald’s book does a great job in capturing those early days while also contrasting X-Men with its daily counterpart Batman. Batman was a show with tremendous financial muscle behind it in the form of Warner Bros. and DC. It was coming off two successful Tim Burton movies and featured a character recognized around the globe. As a result, it was largely an internal production at Warner and Fox got to enjoy the benefits. And then there was X-Men, the troubled property that seemingly no one believed in. Thanks to so many television failures by Marvel in the past, there was almost zero enthusiasm for a show based on the property. Margaret Loesch, who formerly headed-up television at Marvel and was hired away to run Fox Kids, was one of the few who believed in it. Having failed to get the show going while at Marvel, she knew a producer who she had hired and fired on more than one occasion that could handle the task. That man was Sidney Iwanter, and he produced the show along with many others for Fox Kids. Citing a belief that kids were smarter than network executives gave them credit for, he demanded excellence from the writing staff of X-Men, who were overseen by Lewald. These three probably deserve the most credit in getting X-Men to television and for it being the number one kid’s show when it finally did get there.

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Haim Saban, who is both a hero and a villain in this story.

The first 200 pages of the 400 page book are devoted to the development process and it’s a fascinating read. Lewald, who had no experience with the X-Men before getting hired to run the show, was entrusted with those initial 13 episodes. He had people at Marvel he could go to with questions, but in a pre-internet world that meant a phone call, fax, or worse. It wasn’t like there was a Google equivalent in 1992. Artist Larry Houston is credited with the look of the series, as he was one of the few onboard who was a fan of the comic. Also the Edens brothers, Michael and Mark, were Lewald’s main contributors in the writing department. Lewald’s wife Julia was also a part in the initial season and contributed to the book as well. It’s very interesting to read as Lewald takes the reader through that initial writing process, and it’s easily the most captivating section of the book. Their approach to character showed in the episodes, so a lot of what is said here was previously assumed. Such as the belief that killing off poor Morph in the second episode would create stakes and pull the viewer in.

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The early days of Fox Kids.

If there is an MVP character for the book though it just might be Haim Saban. Saban was a newcomer to television when Fox Kids partnered with him to bring the X-Men to air. Saban collected a fee for those first 13 episodes, but then it was on him to pay the writers and editors. Graz handled the art, while AKOM was contracted to do the animation. Saban is a notoriously cheap man, and reading about all of the accounts of his cheapness is both hilarious and frustrating. It’s well known now, but bares repeating to emphasize how cheap he was that Saban docked the pay for all of the returning writers for season 2. His reasoning? The show was a success, so now more people would want to write for it and therefore he could pay them less. The man is now a billionaire, so obviously he’s pretty good at making money, though he’s also a reminder of a lot of what’s wrong with modern capitalism. The second half of the book is comprised of interviews with the cast, writers, producers, and other executives and almost all of them have a comment about how cheap Saban was, and likely still is.

Many battles took place to bring X-Men to Saturday morning. Some I knew about before reading this book, and others I did not. It’s probably common knowledge that the first episode from AKOM was utter garbage in terms of animation quality. It’s a big reason why the show had to premiere as a sneak preview because the studio couldn’t get the episodes ready to premiere in the normal Fall window due to all of the animation fixes that needed to take place. A lot of money was spent getting it right, and it almost blew everything up. The original voice cast also had to re-do the initial episodes because the first takes were so bad. Saban, in order to save money, hired Canadian actors to voice the show because they were famously non-union, so casting, supervising, and ultimately editing the audio for the show was cumbersome. Having to send individuals up to Canada in order to re-dub the initial episodes was obviously time consuming as well.

X-Men (FOX) [1992-1997]Shown from left: Wolverine, Morph, Beast

Oh Morph, I still mourn for thee.

And then there was Stan Lee. Stan Lee is a pretty famous guy. I’m not sure if he’s today more known for all of the comic characters he had a hand in creating or if he’s more famous for being that old guy who cameos in every Marvel film. Stan Lee created the X–Men alongside Jack Kirby in the 60s, but after that initial unsuccessful run, he turned it over to other writers and artists so he could focus on other things. As a result, come 1992 he basically knew nothing about the modern X-Men and yet he insisted he knew what was right for the show. Lewald and Iwanter had to fight with Stan on everything in those developmental days. He insisted on narrating the episodes, as he had done with previous Marvel television shows, and his approach was entirely wrong for the show they were trying to create. Supposedly, he even proposed the premise of the show should be a few members of the team driving around and solving mysteries. Imagine Wolverine in the role of Scooby Doo? Who would Shaggy be – Gambit?! They somehow managed to placate him, without really giving him a voice in the show, and eventually he went away as the show moved along through its first season and became a smash hit. The frustration in having to deal with Lee, and the many other challenges, is felt in reading this and I ached for Lewald even though he’s more than 25 years removed from this aggravation.

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The success of X-Men helped pave the way for more Marvel cartoons like Spider-Man.

That first season was only 13 episodes, a far cry from the 65 episode order Batman received. Fox was so unsure about the property that it wouldn’t commit beyond that, forcing basically everyone involved to move onto other shows. Lewald went on to helm Exosquad with the Edens, and thankfully that too only received a 13 episode order so he was available to return to X-Men when it finally received the full episode order. Others did not, because that’s how television works. If a show isn’t in production, you’re not getting paid. That first season’s decision to present itself in a serialized fashion also presented problems for the network, as production delays on one episode messed up the order of everything. As a result, the network demanded that season 2 be more episodic, but Lewald and his talented team of writers still managed to give it a serialized feel with The Savage Land segments and reoccurring villains like Mr. Sinister and The Friends of Humanity. A wise move, since the serialized nature of that first season is a big reason why it’s so special.

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“Nightcrawler” is frequently cited as a favorite episode of many of the creators involved with the show. The book also contains a deep dive into its creation.

Like the show itself, which I think produced its best work in those first two seasons, the book somewhat suffers from a strong first half that isn’t matched by the second. The many interviews that span roughly 200 pages are informative, but some more than others. The voice cast mostly repeats itself with remarks about how it was fun to work on something that felt different and how they came to understand their roles. The actual writers and producers offer the more interesting nuggets. There’s a lot of praise thrown around which might get tiresome for readers, though they all have reason to praise each other since it’s easy to forget how successful this show was. Especially when taken alongside the production and development hurdles. Of the interviews, I think I actually enjoyed the executive ones the most. Loesch and Iwanter were candid and did a great job of transporting me back to the early 90s and the hurdles they faced in backing this show. It’s fun to read about how close these people were with these characters that meant so much to me as a child. They cared about them, which is ultimately why the show ended up being as successful as it was.

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Marvel has resurrected the 92 X-Men for its comics line, but the results weren’t enjoyed by this blogger.

It should come as no surprise that, as a longtime fan of the show, I fully recommend Previously on X-Men to other fans of the show. Even if you were only a casual fan, but tuned into the animated scene at the time, you might enjoy reading this one. It’s fun to read the comparisons of how this show came to be with the experiences these people had with other shows. X-Men was a production mess, a wonderful, beautiful, mess. It was still garnering good numbers when it was cancelled, and one has to assume it was due to costs. By then, Saban had Power Rangers and was able to bring more stuff in house. X-Men had all kinds of hands on it so a lot of people had to get paid, and as we already covered, Saban wasn’t a fan of paying people. Even so, it’s hard to argue that the show was cut-down in its prime or anything, but reading this book and revisiting the show really made me realize how much I’d love to come back to this world. Marvel did launch an X-Men ’92 comic, but it did not satisfy me nor did it read like an episode of the beloved cartoon, rather it felt more like a parody. Marvel is now under the gigantic Disney umbrella and its films basically print money. With the Fox acquisition though, suddenly the X-Men are back in play. Marvel hasn’t bothered with animated films in awhile, though it’s sort of bringing that back with Into the Spider-Verse. Maybe a direct to video follow-up for the 92 X-Men could one day be in play. Pretty please? At the very least, how about a Blu Ray collection with episode commentaries, Disney? The people who created this wonderful show obviously wish to talk about it and they still have a lot to say.

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