At some point I'll stop doing this
BUT NOT THIS YEAR: TOYS 2010
By Matt Brown
December 28 2010
Being my annual roundup of the action figure universe according to me:
I'm a big Hot Toys guy, and I follow the development of their Movie Masterpiece series pretty closely; I first cashed into the line back in 2007 with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. (And still - no Barbossa?) MMS is a pretty expensive line to collect, though - $200+ per figure or thereabouts - so (in spite of what my observers may think) I don't collect more than photographs of most of them. Still, they are my favourite company overall, so I was a bit surprised to find that at the end of the day, their American little brother - Sideshow Collectibles - sort of kicked the pants off Hot Toys this year.
I don't collect toys as much as I used to, and this "top five list" is now pretty much a "the five I bought list", but against any real planning or intention from me this year, Sideshow dominated across the board. Here's how it went down:
1. "Nuke the Fridge" Indiana Jones (Sideshow Collectibles' Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull line, "Exclusive" edition)
This isn't actually called that, of course, but this bizarre collectible from Sideshow puts such a mega-grin on my face that it almost - almost - redeems that godawful movie. I guess other collectors didn't get the joke, and this figure is languishing in the sale bin right now, but as far as I'm concerned, Oldiana Jones in his Fridge of Doom transcends the line from action figure to pop frickin' art. As some readers might recall, I split my sides laughing for a good hour or two when this guy came out of the box, and he's sat faithfully on my desk ever since, a formidable reminder to never suck, ever, and also that climbing into objects that close from the outside can save your life in the event of thermonuclear catastrophe. (The latter, surely Mr. Spielberg's intention.) I'd also be remiss in not mentioning that this is the closest I think anyone's ever come to accurately representing Harrison Ford's unsculptable face in plastic - old Ford, sure, so cheating a bit perhaps, but there you have it. I think I'll have this doorstop around for ever.
Incidentally, the photograph above employs an accidental forced-perspective trick. This toy is about 12" long, not the size of a labrador retriever.
2. Beachhead (Sideshow Collectibles' G.I.Joe line, regular edition)
What a feat of engineering this thing, and what a flawless demonstration of how far Sideshow has come in five years. In 2005 Sideshow got their first big toy line going and released their first Star Wars figure, the very simple (and very excellent) Jedi Luke Skywalker; somehow in the half-decade since then, they've come far enough in design and execution to release a toy for their G.I.Joe line that is the equal of anything Hot Toys or Medicom has ever put out, at a lower price point. Beachhead ain't cheap - I got him for about a hundred and forty bucks after taxes - but another retailer could sticker him for well over $200 and get away with it. The attention to detail here is first of all exceptional, and second of all way over and above the usual line for Sideshow. This guy took me an hour to assemble, just because he came with so much stuff. And it was all, to the last piece, excellent stuff. It's a beautifully designed figure, and looks better on the shelf than nearly everything else I've ever bought. Even the Pro body, which had more than its share of problems starting out, is giving the True Type a run for its money here; Beachhead is a better military figure (and capable of better on-shelf display poses) than, say, Hot Toys' John Connor figure last year, itself no slouch. If Fridge Indy didn't make me split my sides with laughter so much, Beachhead would be number one for the year.
3. Dog Alien (Hot Toys' Movie Masterpiece Series #77)
I think this was technically released in a previous year, but it was my "graduation gift" from my colleagues at Telus - by way of the very generous Silver Snail gift certificate they lavished upon me - so it holds a special place in my heart and this year. As Hot Toys go, this is a huge piece of ambition executed rather badly - I actually had to get HT to replace the one I bought - because the skeleton frame is so tender that it snaps pretty much taking it out of the box, and it's a bitch to assemble in the first place. I also suspect the rubber exterior is going to give way in the years to come, because such things never last. But - with all that aside - this guy perfectly captures the psychosexual feel of the Alien3 Giger design, and when it's working, it works great.
4. Larfleeze (DC Direct Blackest Night Series 3)
The only toy I ever had fall victim to an earthquake, Larfleeze's greed bought him no more than a snapped neck when the Great Toronto Quake of Oh-Ten hit in June. And his articulation isn't worth shit - he should be able to really clutch that orange lantern. But I loved him enough to replace him immediately when he lost his head, and the whole Blackest Night toy line has been a real hit for me; something about bright colours and shiny things I guess. I'm such an infant.
5. Sandtrooper: Squad Leader (Sideshow Collectibles' Militaries of Star Wars line, regular edition)
And to round things out, my first armoured figure from the Sideshow line. I think here I benefited by waiting a few iterations before picking up a trooper; I hear the first few kicks at the Stormtrooper / Clonetrooper can weren't as effective. No such worries here. The armour is light and well designed, and doesn't restrict the figure too much; his equipment, backpack and heavy gun complement the weight of the toy nicely and make for a big, impressive piece. I was a big sucker for the orange-shouldered sandtrooper when I was a kid so this was yet another dream-come-true, and makes for a surprisingly good coffee-table piece - which is just where he ended up out of the box, and stayed there for about half a year.
Honourable mention: Star Wars Clone Wars action figures (Hasbro)
This line, I really did give up collecting a few years ago. There was a law of diminishing returns at work. But having finally twigged into the fact that The Clone Wars TV series isn't, y'know, total crap, I started paying attention to the toy line a bit more closely than I'd been doing... and the 8-year-old in me was pleased to see that unlike the last time there were no Star Wars movies to build a toy line around, Hasbro is sailing strong and might even be doing better than ever. The Clone Wars franchise has opened up the universe in a nice way, and Hasbro is doing what they do best: exploiting every interesting nook and alien cranny of that universe. My favourite thing about Star Wars figures when I was a kid was that it seemed like Kenner would make anyone - even someone on screen for seconds - and that tradition is alive and well in 2010.