Let's Party Like it's Almost 1999

God, I love action figures from the 90's. No, wait - I hate action figures from the 90's. They had crappy sculpts and bad articulation: it wasn't until Marvel Legends came around early this millennium that they got better. Look at that toy: no knee or elbow joints... I'd know this was from the 90's even without this ad on the back:

Okay, so I'm not giving enough credit to trendsetters, like McFarlane Toys, which raised the bar on what toys could look like and who they could be produced for, but... that's not the point.

The point is, this isn't a great action figure, at least not by today's standards:

I don't even really know who he is. Sure, he's clearly some villain from Speed Racer, but I don't know much about the show. I'm a huge fan of the movie (incidentally, I was too hard on it in that review: in hindsight, Speed Racer deserved 5 stars), but I've only seen a handful of episodes of the original.

But look at that gun. Look at those binoculars. And that cape... God, that's a fantastic cape. And, damn... that bomb kicks ass.

Yeah, older action figures weren't much, but the toy companies didn't rip you off when it came to accessories in those days. I found this guy going for $5 at St. Mark's Comics, and bought him for the bomb alone. Unfortunately, the wire connecting the dynamite to the detonator broke when I removed it from the package, a common occurrence when you're opening 10+ year old toys. No big deal: some superglue should clean that up (I'll get to that when I'm done painting it).

I bought him for the bomb, but when I took a closer look, the cape turned out even more valuable to me. More on that in a later post....

To be fair, the sculpt here is actually pretty good, as is the paint work. It's mainly the lack of articulation that dates the figure. Still, this guy isn't keeping his accessories long. I've got plans.