I love toys. I’m in my 40s, and I still love these little silly pieces of plastic that represent fictional characters from stories and various bits of entertainment that I consume. But, something happened in the last 10 to 15 years, where I feel like a lot of six-inch action figures got really same-y. They all have the 30+ points of articulation that Toy Biz innovated back with the Spider-Man Classics and Marvel Legends brands in 2002. And not just superhero toys: Star Wars Black Series from Hasbro, Mattel’s WWE Elite line, Jada Toys’ Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers line, and any time someone tries to make a serious go at a new toy line, it feels like the same thing: 6-inch, 30+ points of articulation, lots of mold reuse, alternated heads and hands, probably a piece of a “bonus” figure if you collect the entire wave, etc., etc.
And as much as I like superheroes, Hasbro’s version of Marvel Legends are maybe the worst offenders, for my taste. They’re just so… sterile. They’re even MORE same-y than the aforementioned lines, because there’s only a handful of bodies used between figures. Seriously, just look at how many figures use the 2012 “Bucky Cap” mold: https://marveltoys.fandom.com/wiki/Bucky-Cap_(Legends_Mold)… It’s nearly 100 figures!
Don’t get me wrong: There is certainly something cool about having every toy in your collection match each other, and be around the same size, so that it’s plausible to, for example, have your Ghostbusters and Star Wars toys interact with your Street Fighter and WWE figures. That’s fun! But, it also means there’s a huge lack of diversity in the toy industry overall.
A few years back, I jumped into collecting the 3.75” scale, specifically the Super7 ReAction figures. And those were fun! But, I got all the Transformers until they started doing repaints, and the TMNT figures, while cool, weren’t better than the 1988-1994 Playmates toys they were based on. Plus, with the costs plastics and whatnot going up due to tariffs and all, and IP holders charging more and more for their licenses, the ReAction figures are basically the same price as the other collectors lines.
So I decided to go back in time. Back to when toy collecting was the most fun for me: the 1990s.
I’m going to start my superhero collection over, with a focus on Toy Biz’s pre-Legends Marvel Super Heroes figures. And to stop myself from going out of control with the collection, I’m limiting myself to 1 or 2 purchases per paycheck, depending on cost. I’m not setting a proper dollar limit, I’m just keeping myself reasonable.
My first goal is to knock out the X-Men Blue and Gold teams from 1991-1992.
In 1991, the X-Men family comics (Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, New Mutants, Excalibur, and Wolverine) had a shake-up. New Mutants became X-Force, the original five members of the X-Men, who were going by X-Factor, re-joined the X-Men. Second- and third-tier X-Family characters like Havok, Polaris, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, and Strong Guy became the new X-Factor, Excalibur gained (and quickly lost) a host of new characters, Wolverine’s comic underwent random solo adventures to stories about his ties to the Weapon X project and his mysterious past, and a second X-Men comic (just titled “X-Men,” with no adjective) became the highest-selling comic of all time, with sales to comic shops somewhere between 8 and 12 million copies, depending upon who you ask.
Well, with all those members, the X-Men were split into two strike forces: The gold team, featured in Uncanny X-Men, was comprised of classic characters like Storm, Colossus, and Forge, who were joined by returning founding X-Men Iceman, Archangel, and Jean Grey, and quickly had the new addition of future cop Bishop. The blue team, whose adventures were chronicled in adjective-less X-Men, was a lot of the newer additions to the X-Men such as Jubilee, Gambit, Rogue, and Psylocke, plus founding members Cyclops and Beast, as well as the most famous X-Men hero of all, and the subject of today’s figure purchase, Wolverine.
The infamous X-Men cartoon from 1992 featured the entire blue team except for Psylocke, and replaced her with both Jean Grey and Storm. Colossus, Archangel, Psylocke, and Iceman would all appear throughout the run of the show as guest characters.
So, why Hyrdo Blast Wolverine?
According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Wolverine is five-foot-three inches tall. Like actual wolverines (who, incidentally, are NOT AT ALL related to wolves), he’s short, squat, scrappy, grumpy, and incredibly dangerous.
Hydro Blast Wolverine is shorter than a lot of the other 5-inch Toy Biz Marvel figures, AND he’s posed in a hunched-over position. His frame is massively wide, despite his stature. He’s in the classic blue-and-yellow “tiger stripe” outfit as featured in the cartoon and most of the 1990s comics. And the claws, the bane of most Wolverine toys, are separated from each other and solid. They’re maybe a little short (Wolverine’s claws, according to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, are allegedly 13.2 inches, although that’s longer than his forearm would be at 5’3″, so… take that one with a grain of salt).
Hydro Blast Wolverine came with a giant squirting water cannon originally, but 1) I don’t care about the accessory, I just wanted the figure, and 2) I got him from eBay, and the seller didn’t have the accessory.
Articulation is decent with swivel joints at the neck, gloves, and hips; hinge-and-swivel joints at the shoulders, and hinges at the knees. I was expecting a waist cut, and was surprised that one didn’t exist. Elbow joints would have been appreciated, but since this figure is just going to be posed on a shelf most of the time, I’m not sure that I’d position them much differently than they’re posed now.
Other Wolverines were in other costumes, or had action features that interfered with the toy, or were missing shoulder pads or his boot points, or had extra gear and/or pouches on the outfit, or didn’t have the mask, or were too tall, or there was SOMETHING I liked less than this version. Of the dozens of Wolverine action figures Toy Biz produced throughout the 1990s, I feel that this figure from 1997 represents the ol’ Canuckle-head the best. His facial expression is snarling. He’s hunched over, ready for action. It’s as close to what I would want out of a 5-inch Wolverine toy as Toy Biz made.
Fun fact: There’s a variant version of this figure that has bone claws instead of the “metal” ones on this figure, and no mask.
I didn’t like the face, though. And the bone claws was a fun idea, since that was certainly a big part of 1993’s Fatal Attractions storyline.
So here’s the first member of my new collection of X-Men, and maybe eventually the larger Marvel Universe as well: Hydro Blast Wolverine
I already have my second figure on the way: Weather Fury Storm. So expect a write-up about that figure in the next week or so.
