U is for Universal, Super-powerful, Superhero Heroes!

I don't normally carry Action figures here, but when we have them, and especially when they are contributions, they will find a place on Small Scale World as they have a place in the small-scale world. Sometimes that will be on the A-Z Blogs (which I've been working on in the background), and that was where these chaps - from Brian Berke - were headed until it seemed there was enough in the Spandex Leotards folder for a small season!

Also I can't be too snobbish about one aspect of the hobby 'tree' when I'm as likely to Blog Christmas-tree decorations or bubble-gum premiums the next day! Different strokes for different folks!

We have seen one of these before, in the Firefighter 'mini-season' back near the start of the year, but along with the firefighter was these Universal Hero figures, all of which could double for both Ninja warriors (with a can of black spray-paint) or Mexican Wrestlers!

Larger sets come with three figures and a helmet/mask, no prize for guessing who that's supposed to represent! Ten accessories include cats-claws, a kebab sword (?) a Katanga, three throwing stars, two odd-looking helmets and a truncheon with Arab-blade at one end and knuckle-duster at the other, which must be the oriental martial-arts equivalent of a Johnny Seven 'One Man Army'!

These two were donated to the Blog by Brian earlier in 2016, the fire fighter was mentioned above, but he came with another take on Captain Red-White-&-Blue! He gets to chose from a pair of swords or throwing stars.

Close-up of the same figure, there's not a lot to add, these are branded to OKK Trading and imported into the 'States by JPW International, I have seen them in the cheapie shops here, but not studied them closely.

LP/Lollipop Toys (who imported the Silvercorn sets) has upgraded theirs to 'Super Powerful' while having them made in a more Ninja-like colour of plastic! With those sandy breast 'plates' it's like they are trying to be heroes in a half-shell too!

That's because half of all brand-recognition is visual familiarity, the colouring of TMNT's being as distinctive a brand-mark as the name, or the shells! You'll notice from the box-art that these are available with a range of familiar-looking eye-masks and come in other shades of green (like TMN Turtles!).

A busy parent will see the colouring, the whacky bike, the two 'bad guys' on the other side of the card and buy these; then, when Junior kicks-off that they're not TMNT's, the parent (thinking on the hoof and lying like a banker) will tell them that maybe the Turtles were busy and recruited some humans to help!

You may have noticed that the first figure had light-up eyes? Well, so does this one and with the same card imagery is clearly from the same place, but is now a Samurai . . . yet looks like a Ninja! He also comes with a full set of accessories, a shield and two helmets - greedy!

S is for Small-Scale Superheroes

A weak post, but it clears a load of bits & bobs out of Picasa, so it's an exercise in housekeeping if nothing else, and the last image is all-new, and interesting.

Carrying-on from this morning's Kinder, I think the chap with a skidoo is from a superhero set of some kind, but also from a capsule toy or blind-back type line? Toy Options are part of a UK outfit (Character Group) with quite a few tentacles and have carried Galoob clearance in the past, this looking like a re-paint of a standard micro-machine winter-sports item, it may have been a James Bond thing; not a superhero thing?

To his right are the contents of the 'Miscellaneous' bag in the Galoob box, the pirate is for another day, while I don't know if the damaged bike is from Ninja Turtles (see below), Small Soldiers (seen here sometime; Mattel) or Biker Mice (storage, Applause?), but the chap in the middle is looking like he might be the spandex-bedecked victim of a nuclear accident, or radioactive spider's bite?

The image above is the side panel off something we've looked at before (Galoob baseball players) and shows some other BatSets^TM!

We've also looked at this Playmates set before, but it seems I had some shots left! Teenage Mutant Ninja Heroes in a Half-shell and some dude who's so fat he needs a tank to go to the shops! He'll be the bad guy; bald, loud-shirt, grey equipment, definitely a bad guy!

Seen before, but I had a spare image; they accompany larger action figures, found in corner shops and pound-stores, I'm still missing the blue one!

Now, these were sent by Brian Berke a year-or-so ago, but should still be findable and I quite like the looks of them, but I haven't seen them over here anywhere, not even Asda, which is where you'd look given that they state 'Walmart Exclusive'.

Not 'deforms' so much as slight caricatures, and from Marvel who come second to DC in my book, but none-the-less a nice little set of what look to be 28/30mm figures.

I don't recognise the first one (Phoenix Man?) or the second (The Man Snail^TM), Captain A and the Archer bloke are a bit more familiar, while for UK readers - is the forth one down Bodie or Doyle!

K is for Kinder-kind Kids

Funnily-enough I've received Kinder or Kinder-like stuff from three other people in the last few days and had some stuff I'd bought to add to the mix as well, but most of it's not superhero-related, so will be in a later post on the subject, but these two are Kinder (or Kinder 'like') so we'll have a quick shuftie!

I think this is the Goblin? Marvel anyway, and one of these 'Big Head' deforms which I have little time for, I keep getting the footballers in mixed lots and they go straight back to charity!

I can't actually remember if this came from a show, a charity-shop purchase, or was in the bottom of Jim's lot the other day, but I'll 'thank you' anyway and Contribution will be in the tag-list as the other item in today's post definitely is!

Hahahahahahahah! Really? With that string? Heeheeheeheehee!

Guter Job Schultz, war er irgendwelche Schwierigkeiten?

Nein, mein Herr; Er ist nur einen Vichy großen Kopf!

Peter Evans sent me a bunch of Kinder's the other day, which as I say; we'll look at in a few days, but in the meantime one of them was from the above set, I think - like the Barbies - these are from 'pink' eggs, and obviously I'm going to have to pay more attention to the pink ones!

From the left we have Leprechaun Girl^TM, WaspBeeFly Lady^TM, Harlequin (?) or is it Harly Quinn? Supergirl, Wonder Woman (see below), Ninjagirlladywoman^TM and Bat-Girl/Cat-Girl? I think! You will - by now - know I don't take these American superhero's terribly seriously - being a Brit (Judge Dredd and 'War Comics', following-on from Tarzan and pulp-space) I find the formulaic superhero trope to be hard to revere.

How many people will fall in, get caught in the beam/ray/wave of, eat, drink, sniff, suffer a spray/spill/inoculation of, or be bitten by; something radioactive, diseased, secret, experimental, unknown or alien before DC and/or Marvel find an original storyline? They're one-trope stories, dragged out for years, even decades!

A four-part plastic figure-kit with a sticker! Are we heading back to the glory-days of the 1980/90's with Kinder's return to Steckfiguren? I hope so . . .

 . . . Up, up, and away!

Nice figure! You pull back on her ankle to flick her forward, it's not terribly effective, but nevertheless it's added-value and presumably the other figures have similar gimmicky features?

Don't get me wrong I don't hate them, I just can't take it seriously, I used to watch the Hulk every week as a kid, it was the same every week;

• Moves to new area/helps someone
• Seatles down with new friends/job
• Someone makes him 'very' angry (which you won't like)
• Packs his little rucksack and buggers-off to next episode! 

 'Return & repeat' very week!

B is for Badassasaur and Bionic Boy - Argentina Part III

Some you may be disappointed to learn this is the last of the unknown-believed-to-be Argentinian figures' posts; some of you may be delighted! I think I've saved the best (err . . . and the worst) 'till last?

This is the poorest quality of all the figures in this batch we've been looking at, the master hand-carved from a block of margarine . . . I think, maybe, probably!!!

I assume it's one of the monsters from the long-running Godzilla franchise, but which one is anybody's guess, although; if you're familiar with the films he'll be easy to ID with that nose spike and the spinal-ridges, not to mention that he quite deliberately has one humanoid foot and one combined dino-claw and can-opener?

For all the lack of quality; he's my favourite of the lot; being made in a luscious, marbled, salmon-pink plastic, no sign of paint so I'm guessing either a member of a larger play-set, or a very cheap kiosk type thing?

I'm sure Google would quickly reveal whether this chap is a giant from the Godzilla movies, a friend/enemy from Ultra Man or a character from another Japanese Anime or Manga series, but I don't care enough to look it up before posting, and I'm writing all these posts away from the Internet, so if you know, you're one-up on me!

However, whoever he is, he's the best paint of the lot, and not a bad sculpt, so my second favourite of these after the dino-monster above. I used to have a bookmark of a Brazilian toy site which I lost when I changed computers back in late 2011, but that had a big-box play-set called Phantom or Phantasm (?) where the main character-figure was a very similar (hooded, black and purple?) sculpt, so this figure may also be from Brazil?

To be honest, they would all have looked much better when new and the extreme levels of paint loss on all of them (last three posts) and the tatty capes are probably testament to their having been much-loved and played-with by someone , somewhere!

Thanks to Adrian again for letting me photograph all the figures in the last three posts - Mercator Trading's website.

B is for Better Bat Toys - Argentina Part II

They are still on the big-side and at around 6-inches would pass for Marx if they weren't equipped with purple faces and/or Playtex cross-your-heart and make-a-cone brassieres! And don't think I'm taking the piss because I don't like the figures in these posts, I'm just in Holiday mode.

This is the one which looks most Marx-like, is he based on a Marx pose, the base is very familiar looking, but the purple face suggests he should spend more time in the gym and less time crime-fighting with a heart-condition!

The rest of the gang, again there's nothing empirical to say they are Argentinian toys, but plenty to shout that they 'aint anything else! Bat Girl and what I think was once Wonder Woman have . . . ahem! . . . some unmistakable, womanly charms, although; that shape and they've usually been purchased from a Brazilian surgeon!

Meanwhile, Superman - for it is he - has had a wardrobe failure and attempted to choke himself to death with his own cape; Mk.I, shopping, originally for the bagged use of!

The Fly? Well-endowed Lobster-Fly Man? Those Argentinians, huh?!! Is he from a Japanese cannon; Atom Boy, Astro-Boy, A Straw Boy, Godzilla, something like that? See this'arvo's post for more on those!

B is for Bat Toys - Argentina Part I

Back to Argentina (or 'believed to be' Argentina), back to blow-moulds, back to dolls, back to Bat Toys! Listed under the unknown moniker, they are indeed blow-moulded Bat-dolls, probably from Argentina!

The man-bat himself with a cape made from [soon to be illegal; they already are in Kenya] shopping-bag polyethylene! We've seen a similar Tarzan here and given the size, they really are dolls, they even have the same plug-in arms as the cheap rip-offs of Action Man/GI Joe. This one's about ten-inches with only his arms moving.

The Boy Wonder (who appears to be Joe 90 moonlighting out of season-three) has five points of articulation in pink ethylene attached to a red torso, his cape is either a replacement or made with slightly less love than Batman's, same shopping-bag supplier though! [The next day . . . see comments - might be Mexican?]

We've also seen the Batman parachute toy before but I had a spare image kicking-about in Picasa, he was around eight-inches I think, while Robin is twelve-inches+. Thanks to Adrian at Mercator for all these.

S is for Super-Bionicles . . . Not!

Well. It seems we've embarked on a quick pre-Christmas superhero season! These, too, are from Brian Berke, and they're quite cool for what they are, not superheroes, but what look to be quality Bionicle rip-offs and those of you who have followed the Blog for a while will know I consider Lego to be the biggest pirates of all, so I'm always a fan of looks-like-but-isn't legot!

He's not a The Hulk, he's not The Thing . . . he's The Giant . . . a not very jolly looking green giant at that, this is the gift that keeps on giving. Here branded to Ever Bright (Kowloon wholesalers) with a sticker, he is otherwise a completely generic, rack-toy, type chap.

Captain A is for Astral-logo . . . I think we all know who he is really? Red white and blue . . . he's Captain UK . . . err . . . Captain France, n-no . . . Captain Formerly the Russian Federation! I'm joking - even I can see he's Captain Lego-likey!

This is clearly Polymerman! These are (for all my brickbats) very good take-offs of both well-known superheroes and the Bionicle concept and about ten-times cheaper that Bilund's products - I'll bet! Thanks Brian.

Just for the record - Hulk'ing America'n Iron! From China!

H is for [Super] Heroes in a Half-shell!

How can you possibly follow Bat-Bots^TM but with humanoid Tortles . . . no; Turpins . . . err . . . Terratoises . . . Doh! These shelfies from Brian Berk were sent in a while ago, but they should still be available in the 'States or on-line?

The back of the pack gives news of a full set of four being available and that if you put children under three years of age in a wheelie-bin, they may take-on a miserable countenance; so Don't! It's Christmas, everything goes in the bin after the New Year!

"Hey kids! If you're going out to beat things up with nun-chucks, remember to wear skate-pads!" Michelangelo keeping his chained fighting-sticks warm under his armpits!

I think the click-and-go refers to the base; there's no sign of other moving or replaceable parts?

Around 70mm, I'll be looking out for them over here, although [he thinks] I'm still missing one of the smaller Tactik ones (Donatello) I was picking-up a couple of years ago. These are under the new or second Monogram label, the same lot behind the Batman pencil-top bust we looked at a while ago, also courtesy of Brian.

Cowabunga!

B is for Bad Boy Bender and the Bat Bots

Who will be performing live at Guildford Civic Hall from when until then!

Or......

A is for Almost Superheroes

Or Super Heroes, Super-heroes or even Superhero's as some feebleBayers will insist on calling them . . . Superhero's what? Which one?

I'm going to presume, guess AND assume (it winds-up you-know-who and that pleases me) that these were larger gum-ball machine prizes, although they may have had a header-bagged issue as well, probably mid-to-late 1970's, but; maybe later . . . the accuracy doesn't really matter, as while they have a charm (like a lot of rack-toy shite), they are - on one level - really, really, really shite, and will only ever be a curiosity, even when the full facts ARE known!

They turn-up infrequently, but I've been encountering them pretty-much since I started collecting again back in the late 1980's, usually in ones and twos, although both this lot and the bulk of my collection in storage were together, obviously amassed by someone else who saw through the charm to the shite, no . . . saw through the shite to the shite . . . hold on - I'll get it right in a minute . . . oh - you know what I mean!

The weird thing about them and the reason for today's alternate titles (apart from the fact that I couldn't make up my mind which one to go with), is that while they look - at first glance - to be 50mm space robots of some kind, when you study them, they all have Batman's logo on their chest[cabinet]s! I mean WT-very-F?!

Then you realise the left-hand 'knobbly-knee' robot has a Bat-Hood^TM, with Bat-Ears^TM and a utility Bat-Belt^TM, while the one in the middle looks a bit like Bender from Futurama? In fact there are elements of Bender in both right-hand designs, but I suspect any resemblance is either coincidental or was the other way round with Groening and/or his/the artist/s having some of these esoteric lumps of polyethylene on their desk/s as they started the Futurama project?

To give the post another image! The reason I was picking these up even when I was only a small scale collector is they were smallish, at around 50mm, and I tended to collect the stuff no one else rated at the time - up to 50mm!

You can see the Gemodels spaceman (whom I always consider a spacewoman) which I also collected from the off (there's a bagful in storage, all different colours, even a marbled-swirl one - I think?) is a slight 50mm as well, with the Crescent-for-Kellogg's at a more traditional 54mm, the two German Wundertuten coming-in around the 60-mark and a factory-painted Hong Kong copy of Archer at their original 70-odd-mil.

Sometimes I look at these and wonder if I haven't just missed a Batman parody episode of Futurama, but then I realise the Asian toy-producers had pretty-much stopped using the HK marks by the time of the TV show (late 1990's) and I was encountering them earlier than the show anyway.

I'd like to think there are more poses, but I'm pretty sure my in-storage sample has the same three poses and no others? It's just struck me that the Bender-Bot is wearing his Bat-signal^TM Bat-logo^TM like a medal; on a chain!

Also - I'd like to say there are other colours, but my memories of the storage lot seem to suggest this is it, there may be dark blue ones, or maroonish-red ones, but I think rack-toy  'armyman' green, brown and 'sand' is your lot? Greyish-black maybe?

But they're great aren't they? I mean they're shite, but it's some great shite!

Go Batbots^TM!

U is for Unknown UgL'RG

Not in the Charity shop packs of LRG's we looked at this morning but a purchase from the last Sandown Park toy show; who will go in their - temporary - crate until such time as I get them all out of storage (and married-up), where I know I have a few more of these, a blue one for certain and possibly a green one looking more like Atom Boy or a character from the Godzilla franchise.

Marked China and almost certainly a gum-ball machine prize/toy, I love the salmon-pink colour. Lacking a base, he doesn't have a pencil-top hole either, so - although there's no signs of a loop here - I wouldn't mind a small flutter on his having been available at some point as a key-ring? He may - of course - have been sold as a pencil rubber/eraser?

There are shades of Robocop to his design, but probably more coincidence than any production dating-aid, he's quite recent and - as I hinted at above - if not totally fictional; probably a Japanese Manga/Anime character.

H is for How They Come In II - Little Rubber Guys

Found in a charity shop in Farnborough, up the road, at the end of October, some immediately got shoved onto the Halloween 'spreadsheet', but worth a second look as I seek to clear them out of Picasa!

Again two bags - a bit pricier at one-ninety-nine, but then they were a lot heavier, although that was due to the amount of PVC rather than the number of items! Funnily enough; I haven't collected much of this stuff in the last few years, I've quite a bit in storage, but nothing rare or exciting.

However I think the LRG collecting community is larger and more active that the poly-troop brigade and they tend to Hoover them up with quiet efficiency? It may just be that they have yet to come to market in bulk, but as I say I picked a load up in the 1990's-2000's so I think it's more that they are collected with enthusiasm.

Contents of one bag, there was almost a 50-50 split between Monster In My Pocket's and everything else, with the everything else including Yolanda, Wrestler's IMP, a few [possibly/probably] Pokemon's, a Snoopy (going to bed!), Galoob and a pencil-top which I think might be from The Mask . . . did it have a morphing dog?

There was also a Mighty Max pocket-dungeon thing, but it's not clear if the two figures belong with it and I need to find a website that lists them all, anyone know where there's a good one?

I was forgetting the Virtual Toy Chest! Chronosaur, but the squid's from somewhere else!

The person who sorted these in (or for) the Charity Shop was scrupulously fair, and the contents of the other bag are - to the casual observer - the same, even to the splitting of duplicates between the two, apart from the large Lion which I assume is from that Disney bloke's dead-lion-dad movie that wot I never soor!

Anyone recognise the pink guy with the bobble-hat, he looks like a Muppet to me, but he could be from another Henson franchise, Fraggle Rock or Sesame Street?

While the squid belongs in this Lavabeast head with the skorpider thing!

So the squadron of (Pokemon?) bees was two each in the two bags, the Pet Alien eyeballs and gecko-lizards (Pokemon again?) likewise one-each. I'm guilty of never having followed-up on John's invitation to explore HOTT (other than by downloading the rules!), so I can't say for sure; but I suspect multiples like this would make for 'army building' units in that gaming system.

The bees certainly looked worried enough to be flying naked into the withering-fire of hairy, undead, lizard-men space-marines from some esoteric resin-caster working out of a garage with a 3D printer in Toronto or Turin! 

I love the winged-eye, he reminds me of the eyes of Mouse & Kelly which made such an iconic contribution to the whole feel of the Psychedelic Movement in the print media, yet also of the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange - with the bowler hat!

T is for Trio of Trojan Troops

As mentioned earlier today, the acquisition of that rubber Roman was the third of the three poses of Thomas Toys/Poplar Plastic's Romans to come in recently, while I do have a bunch in storage, this is another box ticked here!

They actually look a bit more Greek or Trojan than Roman if you ask me and far more Etruscan! Not rare and probably more common in this factory-painted PVC (Thomas) than the unpainted 'bright-colours' polyethylene you also find them in from Poplar.

H is for How They Come In I - Farm & Zoo

A quick look at some of the stuff which came in over the autumn just gone, specifically a few farm and zoo lots I found in local charity shops, nothing terribly exciting, but some things 'interesting'!

I'd already started sorting the contents of the first bag when I remembered to shoot a shot, so the 2nd bag is sat in the middle of an about-to-be-organised chaos.

Initial sort (the organised chaos!) by type; horses, cattle, people &etc; in the middle is the 'interesting' pile, i.e. the things worth shelling out £1.75 for!

While up the top-middle is what I love about these bags, a random set of Swoppet legs in a farm/zoo lot! And this lot came after I'd blogged the other Cherilea chickens, so I've picked-up the best of a bag-full of them this year!

Playing with them before I put them away; literally just mucking about with sort of graph-tables made of figures! We've looked at the goats in close-up already and one day sheep and pigs will have a proper turn.

I'm interested in the two sheep to the far-left, if anyone recognises them, they are made of a hard styrene type material (they sound like dice when you rattle them in your hand) and may be from a die-cast or plastic vehicle (as load/passengers), board game or something more pin-down'able/recognisable?

The interesting pile, in the centre the standing dog from Britains which always seems to be slightly less common the the running and lying ones, but I may be imagining that? Clockwise from the farm-hand (who has crap paint, but a less common pale brown/dun-coloured pitch-fork) we have; Charbens monkey (?) with ball, Britians Mini-Set mare, Corgi 'Torro' bull, the Wend-Al calf we looked at the other day a nice rabbit family, paint's poor again but all the ears are there! The leopard is Hong Kong, but is the non-melanistic 'corrector' for one of the black panthers I have.

This turned-up in the same shop a few days later, and I feel it was probably supposed to be part of the other two, they cirtainly all got sorted at the same time.

Nothing terribly interesting here, the Poplar ancient give me a clean box-ticker on the PVC foot figures, the Britains Herald Friar Tuck has almost no paint, but both ends of his sword/scabbard, his crucifix & chian and his staff are all intactum, so he may be painted-up for fun, bit of flock on the base, really ruin him!

The superhero is from a capsule-toy line of some kind I think, that or blind bags? Is he Archer Man? The Bowman, Arrowman, The Quiver, Biker-shirt Man! . . . Those Marvel and DC's have had most of them at some point, the question ought to be is he a Good Guy Man or a Bad Guy Man! And; No, I don't care!

While we've already looked at the other items of interest as I Blogged one with the Wendal calf, and the other in the Lucky follow-up!

IS is for IT'S Still Chriiiiiiiistmaaaaaaaaaaas!

All month! And a bit of January!

Again; judging by the shelving in the shelfie these are available from Wal-Mart in the 'States right now, how can you not want this peanuts nativity, on the sideboard or under the tree!

Not much blurb as I don't know any more about them than you can see for yourselves in the images, another treat sent to the Blog by Brian Berke in New York, where you can have Snoopy under the tree for the rest of the month - Christmas Bargain!

I is for IT'S Chriiiiiiiistmaaaaaaaaaaas!

Yes, I think we've had that title before, or a variation on it and I'm sure we'll have it again because it's Chriiiiiiiistmaaaaaaaaaaas!

Muttonchoptastic!

Gisela Graham, purveyor of fine wholesale ornamentation to the gentry and anyone else who'll give her a few shekels for it! She is to Christmas; what Dorothy Perkins was for summer dresses, or to Christmas trees; what Cath Kitson is to tea-time and cushions!

Charity Shop!

We had two of these when we were kids, they came in our Christmas-morning stockings and were a tiger and a zebra, I don't know what happened to them but I've always missed them as they sat above the curtain-rail for the whole of my remembered childhood with a Wade drummer-boy, some Whimsies dinosaurs and wild animals (also Wade!) from Christmas crackers and a few other figural 'objéts', probably where I got the collecting-bug from?

In Operation!

I don't know what these are called in common parlance, do they have a name? Pop-ups, poppers, droppers, drop-downs, bowers, take-a-bows, collaps'ers, spring-ups? They are 'Pop-up Toys' in the tag list . . . all two of them!

I bought a Yeoman of the Guard one a year or two ago in Wilkinson's. Now, they say "More than two is a collection" so, that's another sub-branch/sub-section/sub-genre I seem to have embarked upon!

It's only 24 days 'till Santa comes!