ToyBox reviews – Page 3 – theLogBook.com

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment

Sontaran Experiment Set Having produced about as many different variations of Jon Pertwee in plastic as possible, Character Options spent much of 2011 producing numerous classic Doctor Who sets with variations on Tom Baker instead, with an unusual focus on the actor’s first season as the fourth Doctor.

Having already produced a collect-and-build figure of the enormous K-1 robot from Robot, Character skipped over Ark In Space and picked up the season 12 story with The Sontaran Experiment, issuing an unusual two figure set with a fairly large vehicle – the first non-TARDIS vehicle in the Character Doctor Who range since the Satan Pit lift (which wasn’t exactly a best-seller).

Doctor Who: Resurrection Of The Daleks

Resurrection Of The Daleks Another one of 2011’s surprise classic Doctor Who figure sets, this set hails from the early ’80s era of the fifth Doctor, and brings the classic version of a seemingly un-killable foe into plastic form. From Peter Davison’s only run-in with the Daleks, Resurrection Of The Daleks also reunited the Doctor with Davros – a reunion that both probably would’ve been happy to pass on.

Doctor Who: The Third Doctors

That’s not The Three Doctors, but rather the third Doctors. After displaying prototypes at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, Character Options followed up that year’s Comic Con exclusive first and second Doctors with the Doctor’s third incarnation, as played by Jon Pertwee from 1970 through 1974. Setting a pattern that continues through the most recent limited-edition classic Doctor Who figures, U.K. distribution was exclusively handled by Forbidden Planet, with FP’s U.S. arm, Underground Toys, taking care of North American distribution.

Doctor Who packaging from the Bizarro World

What if… Doctor Who had caught on as a viable toy franchise in the era of Star Wars?

PREVIEW: Funko Batman ’66 Figures

Recent years have seen a glut of new nostalgia-themed action figures in the now-traditional “Star Wars scale” of 3 3/4″ tall for the average adult human male character. Funko (frequently with cohorts Super7 in tow) and Big Bang Pow! have been the vanguards of this 3 3/4″ revival, with mixed results – I’ve loved seeing that scale come back after years and years of overpriced 6″ figures becoming the norm. On the other hand, there have been some baffling choices of licenses chosen (Taxi Driver? Pulp Fiction? Boondock Saints? Really?) that were good for a laugh at the time, but ended up warming the store pegs for a good long time with no takers. In the waning days of Hastings – one of the only local brick-and-mortal sources for these figures that I had prior to the chain’s closure – Funko 3 3/4″ ReAction figures could be had for two or three dollars each, and they still weren’t moving. Funko and Super7 have now parted ways, with Super7 retaining the ReAction banner (and its Kenner-style logo), and Funko now forging ahead with figures in the same scale, but with more detail and articulation. And possibly the most exciting license that Funko has lined up for its second stab at the 3 3/4″ figure market is the classic Batman TV series.

PREVIEW: Funko Stranger Things Action Figures

Funko had already made my action-figure-collecting year by finally putting Adam West-era Batman in the 3 3/4″ “Star Wars scale”, and they gave me a good chuckle by putting, of all things, Twin Peaks in the same format. Even though I knew they’d already snagged the license for Netflix’s ’80s-themed sci-fi-horror series Stranger Things, months of nothing but Funko’s Vinyl Pops had lulled me into thinking that action figures were highly unlikely.

I am delighted to report that I was dead wrong. As wrong as anyone who thought Will Byers was dead forever.

Doctor Who: The TV Movie Console

Alas, poor Eaglemoss. At the time of this writing, the company is essentially no more, and this was among my very last “new product” purchases from Eaglemoss before it folded. And it’s a welcome one at that – for one night only, this is what the heart of the Doctor’s TARDIS looked like, but for many of us, this version left an indelible impression, with its steampunk vibe. But it could be argued that, with its overarching, spider-leg-like girders (not represented in this otherwise neat little model), Richard Hudolin’s take on the TARDIS for the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie had a seismic effect on future iterations of the Doctor’s time machine. From Christopher Eccleston’s TARDIS onward, the notion of the console’s transparent center column reaching to the ceiling of a vast space, now held up by a number of spider-leg-like flying buttresses of one design or another, now seemed to be a fixed part of the design. Now that’s what you call an influencer.

The Most Important Device In The Universe

You’ve seen it in Star Trek II. You’ve seen it in Airplane 2 and The Last Starfighter. You’ve seen it in countless Star Trek TV episodes from The Next Generation’s first season onward, V, the early ’90s iteration of The Flash, Alien Nation, Buck Rogers, Babylon 5, Knight Rider, The X-Files, MacGyver, and dozens of others. Since it’s a rented prop piece, it’s never foregrounded in the story (except in Airplane 2, in which William Shatner’s character has an entire scene in which he wonders what the hell the thing does), but frequently makes a great thing for the camera to pan past whenever it shows up. It had two transparent tubes full of red neon lights, turning on and off in sequence, powered by a lowly 555 timer. It’s the Most Important Device In The Universe. And now it sits on my desk, something which almost certainly requires some explanation.

Doctor Who – The Jungles of Mechanus

Character Options’ Doctor Who action figure range, depending on who you ask, now numbers second only to the Star Wars toy line in terms of the sheer size of it, and let’s face it, a lot of that is different flavors of Daleks. For the most part, the figures are now sold solely through ubiquitous-in-the-U.K. retailer B&M, and almost always in box sets of either two or three figures; individual figures in the Jodie Whittaker era have been a rarity, with only Whittaker’s Doctor, Graham, and a reissue of the Judoon hitting stores in single packs. An interesting exception to this trend has been a handful of box set releases exclusively through Character’s web site, of which the “Jungles of Mechanus” box set is one. And yes, despite the title, it’s yet another Dalek set, though a very sneaky one.

Batman Classic TV Series 5 Points Deluxe Box Set

Quite a while back, Funko released what it promised would be just the first wave of an ongoing line of 3 3/4″ action figures from the 1966 Batman TV series starring Adam West – something I’d been wanting someone to make since I was a kid. There was some pushback from fans regarding the selection of villains, and the fact that Robin was only available as part of the Batmobile set; Funko assured concerned fans that Robin and the more obvious, “A-list” villains would make up the second wave. I snatched up that entire wave of figures like they were going to stop making them. (Spoiler: they were going to stop making them.)

That second wave never arrived. Not only that, but after issuing these figures, figures from Stranger Things, and box sets of figures from Twin Peaks and Married With Children (!), Funko seemed to back away slowly from the 3 3/4″ figure market altogether. It wasn’t just that more Batman wasn’t on the way, nothing was on the way except for oceans of Funko Pops. Which is fantastic if you like Funko Pops, but maybe not so much if you were hoping that the much-mooted second wave of Batman ’66 characters would arrive in that same decade. And that’s where we pick up the story in the 2020s: with years having passed since Funko’s Batman figures were released, there was absolutely no reason to expect that this collection would ever be complete – and that’s why Mezco Toyz’ 2020 announcement of a huge box set of new 3 3/4″ Batman figures and plentiful accessories was such a surprise.