Subject: Holy hankies! I got TOYS!!!

Posted by: Mystaque at 05/29/00 01:02

Pardon my exuberance and heed my warning: The following contains SPOILERS!! SPOILERS of Gorgonzola intensity!! So hold your noses, ladies and gentleminks, wrap this cheese in two sheets of wax paper, put it in the garage, and let's have a look at a few of the new X-toys. From the movie. The X-movie.

First off: What they don't show in the ads for these toys is the truly fun stuff. The figures themselves are fair to moderately decent in the looks department (except for Professor X: seems someone over at Playmates might have raised holy gingersnaps about another toy company purporting to use Patrick Stewart's likeness, so Charlie comes off looking like Albert Finney in "Annie," about thirty pounds lighter), and the 3D modeling pays off, except for the chicks, who seem to have but 2Ds (those Ds being in the hip and boo--uh, chest areas); but where these little plastic pals really deserve our buckage is in the accessories department. Let me explain....

[And one more time, for those who just tuned in: SPOILERS!!! Night-of-the-Dawn-of-the-Day-of-the-Dead-smelling SPOILERS!!!]

[I think. They might not be spoilers at all. See, I tend to think of spoilers as those things they attach to the trunks of cars so people can hang their Grand Ams and Beetles out to dry after they're washed. The comics-spoiler thing still confuses me a little.]

So, here we go. First up....

Magneto. Terence Stamp is going to die of jealousy over this. There he was, a little lame three-inch Senator-Some-Extra "Star Wars the Phantom Dumba**" figure with a "I won't cry over losing the election! I won't!" look on his poor plastic puss, and Ian McKellan gets THIS!! Ha ha!! Articulation everywhere, even in his ankles! A magnet in his left foot! Two-tone hair! Tasteful pink lip gloss! And a wire in his cape, so he can billow 'til the cows come home! One quiblet: The helmet. The thought behind it had to go something like this: see, we'll bop down to the home furnishings department at Target, buy a purple vase, bust one side out, and squash it onto Sir Ian's head. It'll look great! And it'll go great with the red lining of his cape, too! Riiiiiight.

Jean Gray with Battle Cleavage. (Just kidding. Er, uh, no, maybe I'm not. No, definitely: I'm not.) Proof positive that telekinesis exists: this figure can stand up. On her own. In spike heels (the perfect shoe for fighting evil and prejudice, and evil prejudice, under any conditions. Why do all the guy figures get biker boots then, huh?). Her accessory, though....mmm hmmm....

[SPOILERS!! Did I mention...SPOILERS!!!?]

....Mutated Senator Kelly. Wow. No, really: WOW!! This guy does it all. He can double as a cat barf gag, a fabulous muskie lure (treble hooks not included: sorry, you little fishniks), and (with the help of Mystique's accessory) Iggy Pop.

So, what is Mystique's accessory...?

A Wolverine disguise! An entire Wolverine, hollow through and through, in lovely soft rubber that smells like something that could incite a "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" ad. Of course, it doesn't fit her well enough to fool anyone who isn't stark raving blind, but she can (and did) share the halves around with her X-figure pals. Put the pants on Senator Kelly, and--as I said before--it's Iggy! And Jean can use the top half for a ventriloquist dummy!

Mystique herself, when she hasn't slipped into something more, uh, hallucinogenic, is scaly enough to grate cocoanut. And mine has two right feet. (Two questions, then: Is this another of her mutant powers? Or does Rebecca Romijn-Stamos have two right feet?) If there's anyone out there with a Mystique with two left feet, let's get this thing put right, okay?

Lastly, but most coolly: Wolverine. This guy deserves all the neatos, keens, and wowzas he can get. Like the old ToyBiz Wolverine figures, he's got thumb-grip punch/slash action--but this time, it really works. He's got good long arms, and when you really get him swinging--well, it's all in fun until someone loses an eye, right? But, ah, there must be a quibble, and for Wolvie, sadly, it's his accessory: a big loop of railway junk that wraps around him and "traps" him until a random Lord of Thumbs enables him to twist out of it. Only the LOT can't very well reach through the loop to get him twisting, can it? So there he is, looking like he's stuck in the hoop skirt Roseanne Barr might wear in a remake of "Gone With the Wind." Memo to toy designers: Why not just give him a big old green vinyl granny purse and have him use the thumb-swing to smack Magneto upside the purple vase with it?

And put some cash in that granny purse. Toys ain't free, y'know.

Mystaque