Review – Amazing Heroes Apocalypse
“One of the first mutants to be born into the human race, Apocalypse is also one of the mightiest and most dangerous. Endowed with colossal strength and an incredibly long life span, Apocalypse is nearly impossible to kill.”
— from X-Men: The Ultimate Guide
Even though I’m not a major X-Men fan, the Apocalypse character — ever since the first time that I saw him back in the late 1980s — has been one of my favorite X-Men villains. His appearance alone is fantastic, even if the giant “A” on his belt is silly, and the character’s fictional background — Wikipedia is your friend — makes him an interesting, complicated villain.
The image at right, a cover from the Evolutionary War series, sticks out in my mind as one of my first real looks at Apocalypse. I vaguely remember reading some of the books in this series as they were released — I had a friend at the time who collected the various X comics — but all I really remember about it was that I liked the look of both Apocalypse and the High Evolutionary.
Hey, is there a High Evolutionary action figure out there somewhere?
Packaging
Toy Biz didn’t even try when it came time to create the packaging for the Amazing Heroes action figure series. Every single release used the same card front, and the card back’s were as ugly as the Toy Biz designers could manage. I remember picking a few of these up when they were first released, and I think they were pretty inexpensive pieces at the time.
Even if you’re a MOC collector, I think you’d be better off shredding this packaging and freeing Apocalypse from his prison. After all, he’s a lot more fun out of the package than he is in the package.
Apocalypse
Standing a little over 5-inches tall, Apocalypse is an excellent representation of the character’s comic book appearance. From the hoses on his back/arms to the “A” on his belt, every detail of the character’s original design (I’ve seen newer artwork that dropped the “A”) appears to be in place. His head’s not exactly right, and I would have rather seen him presented showing teeth (like the comic cover above), but in general this is a great Apocalypse action figure that would have probably been ranged as an awesome Apocalypse action figure when it was first released.
As a giant chunk of blues and grays, Apocalypse’s paint job is pretty good, though his red eyes are just a little sloppy and, to be honest, most of his color comes from the cast plastic and not from any paint. The sculpting is great — as I said, this looks like Apocalypse — even if the copyright date on the figure (1993) tells me that this particular version was just a rerelease from an earlier series. (Anyone know which line the original is from? I assume the X-Men line that Toy Biz released when the cartoon was on.)
Apocalypse has very little articulation — thought a decent amount for a 1993-designed figure — with his arms rotating (and coming off, but we’ll get to that), his hips and knees bending, and his waist and head turning. It’s less than I hope to see from an Apocalypse figure in the Marvel Universe 3.75-inch action figure series (I hope they make one), but it’s an okay level of articulation for 1993/1997.
Weapon Arms
Okay, I’m gonna display my X-Men ignorance here: Apocalypse has arms that transform into weapons? Okay, I never knew that. Or, maybe, this is just a toy feature. Regardless, by removing his arms — and disconnecting the hoses — and popping on the alternate arms, you can give Apocalypse a claw and some sort of stabby/drilly thing. Neither one is all that cool, and my claw arm appears to be missing a piece since there’s no button — even if the instructions don’t say there should be a button it looks like there should be one — but I can see where younger kids might like the idea of a giant claw arm on their Apocalypse.
I’m not going to display Apocalypse with the weapon arms, since I prefer his more natural arms, but I’ll find something to do with these things, since as toy pieces they’re kinda neat. They just don’t fit my mental vision of the character.
Closing Thoughts
Despite limited articulation (his elbows don’t even move), I like the character’s design enough — and the fact that they matched the classic design — that I’m happy with this action figure. He’s got just enough articulation to be playable, but not quite enough to be amazing. Which is sad, since he is from the Amazing Heroes line.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I like the Apocalypse character design enough that I could see myself picking up other Apocalyse action figures. Is there a definitive, spectacular Apocalypse action figure out there? Or are we still waiting for one?
Philip Reed has never been a big enough fan of the X-Men series that he can rattle off storylines, backgrounds, and specific scenes, but he’s loved the look of Apocalypse ever since the Evolutionary War series.
In my opinion, the definitive Apocalypse is from the MARVEL LEGENDS series 13 Build-A-Figure which was… Apocalypse! He’s big and highly articulated!!
From the original X-Men Animated series, I liked Apocalypse Rising from the Onslaught line as he was big enough however he was basically a repainted Hulk.
This figure is indeed from the X-Men toy line. In 1993, Toy Biz unloaded a -ton- of X-Men figures. Pretty much anyone who was a character in the books at the time was made into a figure that year.
Comic book artist Bart Sears did the control art for the chunk of the X-Men toy series that included this Apocalypse (wave 3 in 1992). It goes a long way toward explaining why it’s such an appealing design– Bart Sears draws a mean figure. Also from this series were the Space Suit Cable, Krule, Tusk, Quark, and Bishop among others. If it was an X-Men figure from the early 90’s and looked like a really dynamic statue, it more than likely was designed by Bart Sears.
I finally got the BAF apocalypse, the only time I bought an entire wave to get the BAF. Immediately his left leg broke off at the hip. Very disappointing.
Oh Clark… I’m so sorry about that man… I haven’t been able to make a BAF yet… that would tick me off so much.
Phil, you hit it on the head again – this was another of the evolutionary leaps in figures. Compare to the first version here:
http://www.toymania.com/archives/xmen/apoc1.shtml
which was awesome when first released – at last! We had X-Men figures. But Toy Biz really stepped it up over the years and fixed all of those original sculpts eventually with better versions.
Transforming his arms into blades, guns, etc was one of the earlier powers that seemed to be forgotten as Apocalypse became a more generic “master planner” villain. In the early X-Factor books, I think he mostly changed sizes when fighting. Been a long while since I read those books…
So the BAF Apocalypse is the best? That kinda sucks, since those BAF toys are always ridiculously priced. I guess I’ll have to poke at eBay to get an idea on pricing.
@John K – “Transforming his arms into blades, guns, etc was one of the earlier powers that seemed to be forgotten as Apocalypse became a more generic “master planner†villain. In the early X-Factor books, I think he mostly changed sizes when fighting. Been a long while since I read those books…”
I never knew he had weapon arms. That kinda makes the character even neater than I thought he was. I never read those early X-Factor comics so I missed his introduction.
I’d concur that the BAF version is best, but the single-carded ML release looks pretty great too. I don’t actually have any of those versions, though — both are way too expensive for me! — so my experience with them is limited to online reviews and photographs.
As far as my favorite Apocalypse that I actually own, my vote goes to the 10″ version of this very figure. He’s of course not as detailed in terms of sculpt or paint as ML BAFs, and the articulation is the same as the 1993 version, but he towers over MLs so I don’t mind displaying him with them. I also have tons of fond memories of playing with that figure as a kid, so he gets points in that respect as well. 🙂
Wes, I had that very 10 incher, and I LOVED him. One of the kids in the family “borrowed” him one weekend, and I never saw him again. Never found another one like him in KB (Where you could almost always find these guys). 🙁
“Hey, is there a High Evolutionary action figure out there somewhere?”
No…and I agree he looks cool, but as a character he’s not very…actiony. I don’t think he really throws down with Apocy like on that cover up there.
Well, after griping about the broken BAF figure I decided to unbox him and give it one last shot to fix him. I think it worked, gave him back full range of motion and enough stability to hold a number of poses. He is now my favorite Apocolypse. I wish we could get a new version though, Marvel Universe?
i got a later version and he has this terrible billy idol snear going on. maybe mu will release apoclpse and he can had some of these wolverines their buts cause im up to my ankles in wolvie