Okay, okay we all know these figures look awkward, chunky, and full of suck. Less we forget the feeling when we found them on the shelves, okay same as above, but when I found these I thought it was great to get other heroes besides my beloved Batman and Superman. So it's with that thought I spotlight the 1989 - 1990 Toy Biz Green Lantern!
First up lets talk about action! Since these figures have about as much possibility as a brick the Biz had to throw in an action feature on many of these. I think this is the saving feature of the line, that they actually tried to give them some play value. Green Lantern here came with a short length of hose and a squeeze bulb that you could fill with water. Plug the open end of the hose to the back of his arm and you had a power ring that squirted. Okay maybe something more suitable for the Joker, fact is the Joker had a similar feature with a flower on his lapel, you could at least imagine it was the energy from the power ring. Hell with a little green food coloring it could be the energy from his power ring!
The fun didn't stop there, once you got tired of soaking your parents furniture with water and food coloring, you could be sent outside with your own power ring. Note that these things didn't fit chubby adult fingers. The ring has a spiffy glow in the dark feature. Hold the ring up to your power lantern (standard lamp or light source) and you were ready for action. The other accessory that came with this figure was a miniature lantern for Green Lantern to work the caboose of the train, oh yeah power his ring.
I've said it time an time again, I really appreciate the feel and look of these first attempts by Toy Biz, having missed out on Superpowers, I really appreciated the mix of heroes and the speed they were released. It never seemed like I missed out buying another great hero for my son when he was younger, and I never missed out on getting some of my favs as well.
2 comments:
i was lucky enough to be deep into the kenner superpowers line when they came out and these toy biz figures seemed like a cheap rip off...even when i look at the kenner vs toy biz side by side the toy biz entries pale in comparison. At the time though, it was pretty cool to see all those figures hit the market again. When they came out, figures like Green Lantern were available but there were no cartoons or movies to go along with them.
Granted these figures were rather cheap compared to the Super Powers line, but they offered so many hours of playtime for me as a kid that that'll forever remain my favorite incarnations of these characters, even over the newer DC Classics or DC Direct lines.
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