Welcome to Swamp Thing week, of Monster October here on Toy a Day. Swamp Thing continues the DC comics theme from last week's Super Screened September, and I believe Swamp Thing has been in a cartoon series and a movie, eventhough it started off life as a comic book.
Swamp Thing comes on a rather interesting packaging. Now this is a Kenner toy of the late 80s and early 90s so it combines awesome card art and individual packaging images with a simple design and layout. The result is that the packagin is interesting - there's the logo on the front and a drawing of the figure, with an inset that shows off his action feature all on the front of the card. The completely see-through bubble shows the figure to its perfection, including the weapons and accessories. The back of the card has all 10 figures of the line, plus the two vehicles. The action feature is relegated to the top right, and there isn't oodles of text anywhere.
The figure is simple and unpainted, as is normal for something of the 90s. The sculpting is very detailed, a lot more detailed than an 80s toy. He seems to come with 8 points of articulations - hips, knees, shoulders and elbows, but the action feature actually reduces these to 6, as the shoulders articulation doesn't really work too well. The action feature is that he falls apart. I'm not pulling your leg. Nope, to activate the action feature, either one of Swamp Thing's leg has to be pulled, and it falls apart. Pressing the button on its back brings it back to some semblance of rigidity though. It's a clever action feature.
The weapon is like the figure, very nicely sculpted yet unpainted. The log actually looks like a log, but the vine, not so much a vine. The vine can be fire via friction - there are no springs here, and it's a nice detail, but really these two make a better display piece than an action feature.
And since this is the first figure of the line that I'm dedicating the week to, how does he compare with random figures off my shelves? Well, he's a bit smaller than both MotUC or DCUC, but despite that, the sculpting is on par with the figures 20 years later, showing how much ahead of its time it was. And he's a lot cheaper than either of those figures too!
Swamp Thing comes on a rather interesting packaging. Now this is a Kenner toy of the late 80s and early 90s so it combines awesome card art and individual packaging images with a simple design and layout. The result is that the packagin is interesting - there's the logo on the front and a drawing of the figure, with an inset that shows off his action feature all on the front of the card. The completely see-through bubble shows the figure to its perfection, including the weapons and accessories. The back of the card has all 10 figures of the line, plus the two vehicles. The action feature is relegated to the top right, and there isn't oodles of text anywhere.
The figure is simple and unpainted, as is normal for something of the 90s. The sculpting is very detailed, a lot more detailed than an 80s toy. He seems to come with 8 points of articulations - hips, knees, shoulders and elbows, but the action feature actually reduces these to 6, as the shoulders articulation doesn't really work too well. The action feature is that he falls apart. I'm not pulling your leg. Nope, to activate the action feature, either one of Swamp Thing's leg has to be pulled, and it falls apart. Pressing the button on its back brings it back to some semblance of rigidity though. It's a clever action feature.
The weapon is like the figure, very nicely sculpted yet unpainted. The log actually looks like a log, but the vine, not so much a vine. The vine can be fire via friction - there are no springs here, and it's a nice detail, but really these two make a better display piece than an action feature.
And since this is the first figure of the line that I'm dedicating the week to, how does he compare with random figures off my shelves? Well, he's a bit smaller than both MotUC or DCUC, but despite that, the sculpting is on par with the figures 20 years later, showing how much ahead of its time it was. And he's a lot cheaper than either of those figures too!
This was the ONLY toy I had from the Swamp Thing line, and seeing it again brings back memories. I actually used to love that action feature on him, and back in the days of the big 4 articulation, it was fun to make him go loose and then be able to bend every which way. Oddly enough, the one thing i never had him do was act as camoflauge lol.
ReplyDeleteI love Swamp Thing, but I never had any of the toys. my friend had Dr. Arcane's evil CIA torture chamber lab though, which worked really well with our various Marvel toys of that era. I assume the Swamp Thing figures would have fit right in as well.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first Swamp Thing figure I ever owned. I liked it (the sculpting is quite good on these) but I always did wonder how a hollow log shot vines.. Swamp Thing's magical powers, perhaps?
ReplyDelete@Onigaijan: It's interesting that you enjoyed his action feature. Maybe it's a kid thing.
ReplyDelete@D.:Sadly I don't have the playset.
@BBQ17: If this was the Dick Tracy line, I'd make a joke about a hollow log shooting vines... but Swamp Thing could make things grow and speed up their growth, so yeah, it's definitely his "powers".
This is the only Swamp Thing figure I have too! I didn't know they made human figures in this line. I only ever saw Swamp Thing variants. lol
ReplyDeleteThere were 2 human figures in this line... well, at least 2. One of them is up today, I think...
ReplyDelete