Friday, August 13, 2010

The last Crusade

Hey, guys, do you remember this post?

What? You don't?

OK, it's all good... Go read it, I'll just wait here...

...

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da, that's all I want to say...

Still reading? Man you're kinda slow... OK, I'll keep waiting...

... to you, De Do Do Do, Dee Da...

Oh, finally. OK, so you've read till the end when I mentioned Major Disaster from Toxic Crusaders right? Great, well, guess who can't control himself and it's not Bill Clinton? I'll give you three guesses.


"ME", the right answer was "ME".

You know those slow days when you start to wander on ebay just because? Well, I found this pretty nice auction for all the remaining figures I needed of the Toxic Crusaders line. Eight figures total some are awesome, some are good, all of them are really freaky.

These are the good guys:


(Yes, those are the good guys)

By now, you know Major Disaster, an eco friendly hero so much cooler than Captain Planet, and if you are among the select few that consider Toxic Avenger a work of cinematic art, then you are probably familiar with Toxie too. Lets get something out there from the beginning, you may notice that all of the figures have very noticeable paint stains, well those are not stains, it is, in fact glow in the dark paint sprayed on each figure, since this didn't follow a pattern, you can say that each figure is somewhat unique. I like that, plus it makes the figures look kinda campy, just like the movie was.



It's great to have a Toxie toy, although a bit of a caricature I just wanted one since I saw the movie for the first time (side geeky note: Marisa Tomei started her career in Toxic Avenger as one of the girls from the health club pool, true story that nobody wants to hear). Toxie's friend, and God's gift to women (check out that tongue!), is called Junkyard, it's your average mutated dog fused with a hobo thanks to the power of radioactive waste... y'know, the story of my life. Both sculpts are fun but I'd be happier if Junkyards tongue was retractable, you can store it in his mouth but the figure looks odd that way.

Since we are talking about 1990s Playmates here, all the figures came with a ton of accessories even with one that was in a plastic bag and said "SECRET GLO-IN-THE-DARK WEAPON: So radioactive, we've put it under wraps!", yes, that meant that every figure came with a GITD accessory and it was secret. I would have loved this as a kid, damn, I even love it now!

Junkyard GITD weapon was a rolled up newspaper with spikes (awesome), and Toxie's was this:



His own pet ghost, Blobbie.



The other two good guys are Nozone and Headbanger. Nozone is like one of those gimmicky characters that you might enjoy for some time, but then it gets kinda boring. Yes, he has a huge nose, and you can take his hat off and pour some slime so it will look like mucus. Funny... for, like, a minute. But the character design has some cool things, the wheel instead of his right foot is a great detail. Headbanger is the one I'm not thrilled about, he looks a bit out of scale and the sculpt in both the surfer dude and scientist is not Playmates best work. One cool thing is that one is called Fender and the other Bender... I laughed at that...



On to the villains, one thing I liked about this series is that both bad guys and good guys were monsters. And I liked monsters for as long as I can remember (that's why the Evil Warriors of Skeletor always defeated the normal He-Man and his normal boring Human Friends).



The main villain of the series was Dr. Killemoff, and I must say I respect a guy that can make the four arm / purple suit / gas mask combo work and, boy, does the good Doctor succeed. The figure came with plastic tubes to attach to the mask, but I think it looks better without them. The other figure is Radiation Ranger, this one really needed the tubes. He's the army builder of the series, the Rangers are like Killemoff Stormtroopers.



The other two are called Bonehead (lame name, cool figure) and Psycho (cool name, not so crazy about the figure). Bonehead is a punk biker that enjoys acid rain and polluting the Earth (all the line had a message about ecology that was a bit ahead of its time in 1991 but it would be really in right now... Toxic Crusaders remake anyone?). Another thing about cool about him is that all of his accessories are GITD. The sculpt is simple but effective. Psycho has something that I don't really like, but I can't put my finger on. Since the figure has great detail, as all the others, and has some cool design ideas, like the way his bionic leg continues from his knee, I'll say that what I don't like is the expression of his face.

Overall, a fun line to have and an easy one to complete (that's also fun). There they are, between Toynami's Futurama and Playmates WildC.A.T.S. on my display.



Until next time.

(Don't pollute and stay in school!)

2 comments:

zebramatt said...

I had all these as a kid and I LOVED them. I'm coming over all kidlike just looking at them! (Sorry, that sounded rude, didn't it?)

Seriously can't believe my mum gave these away!

Tom Freak said...

The same happened to me when my dad gave almost all of my MOTU collection to my cousin who was to toys what Galactus is to worlds or a hurricane is to a porcelain shop.