It wasn’t in the plans…..

….and yet somehow I now own Wolverine and the X-Men figures! I’ve mentioned before here that after a long toy drought here in Oz, the fact that we’re now getting some dribbles at retail makes it hard to resist the thrill of the find, and I certainly fell victim to that today, in a totally innocent browse in between getting my car serviced (well, trying to, they mostly just doofered around) and another appointment.

Lo and behold, there was a nearly full set of what I guess is Wave One of the figures from the latest animated X-Men series, which I have to say I’m enjoying greatly. I hadn’t planned on these for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment, but I blame three things: 1) I don’t get to buy toys at retails very often (see above) 2) Nightcrawler comes second only to Aquaman in my book and I find it pretty hard to resist Nightcrawler toys and 3) I didn’t realise they’d made a Forge figure, and he’s one of my favourite characters from the cartoon, despite his portrayal being so different to his comics persona.In the end I picked up all the heroes available (I only need to find Cyclops) and left Toad and Avalanche – I would have bought Magneto if they’d had him.

Hasbro is certainly making the most of the Marvel licence when it comes to the 3/34” scale. The figures bear some similarities to the Marvel Universe figures but are fairly close to the animated stylings. The smaller figures are basic but pretty functional, but the bigger figures, Colossus and Beast, are a bit clunky and awkward to pose. Colossus’ arm  articulation seems to be linked, so when you move one arm the other moves as well. He’s the hardest to pose and with his little pin head probably my least favourite. Each toy comes with a decent range of accessories – something Mattel could really be doing a better job on with Infinite Heroes, hint hint.

Now that I’ve fallen victim to this line, I’d hope for at least a few of the female characters – I’m surprised we didn’t get at least one of Storm. Kitty or Rogue in Wave 1, but then again I realise I am not in the “suitable for ages 4+” target audience for this particular series. But hey – I can hope!

There’s a full photo set of these at Facebook, and you can chat about them if you like in the talkback thread at the AFB Forum.