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Custom recipes

Minimates
by yo go re

The Marvel Minimates were one of 2003's best new toy lines, and their modular construction made them great for cutomizing. Rather than provide individual pages for each of these characters, we'll just put them all here.

Jean Grey was one of the five original X-Men, and has been with the team on and off since then. She was replaced for a brief time by the Phoenix Force, a cosmic being that wanted to understand humanity. Putting Cyclops' angry head on Jean's body makes for the perfect Ultimate Pheonix. The parts for this all came from one set.

Phoenix


One of Daredevil's best enemies is the sure-shot assassin known as Bullseye. He's a great character with a tremendously clever "power," and he's got a wonderfully stylized costume. When he was made into Minimate form, however, he was painted the wrong color. Bullseye's costume has always been black, but the toy was blue. As you can see below, even simply choosing a darker blue would have been an improvement.

Bullseye


The variant figure included with Bullseye was an "Unmasked Daredevil," which used the hair from the Peter Parker mini. A few months before that was released, however, I combined Daredevil's head, Parker's hair and Professor X's body to make my own courtroom-ready Matt Murdock.

Matt Murdock

Take away his cane, and you've got anti-mutant propagandist Henry Peter Gyrich. Two for one!


The release of the Giant-Size X-Men box set offered fans lots of new pieces with which to build new characters. I made three right away: an un-armored Collossus, Ultimate Colossus and Captain America supporting character D-Man.

Piotr Rasputin Colossus and D-Man


Reed Richards is a scientist, so he deserves a scientific look. Pop off his arms, give him Bruce Banner's coat and send him off to the lab!

Science Lab Reed Richards


"Patch" Wolverine got Chameleon's legs and Mr. Fantastic's hair to become Marvel's top superspy. The cigar is on loan from Clobberin' Time Thing and the gun from the Punisher.

Nick Fury


Norman Osborn and William Baker (Sandman) have always been drawn with the same weird hair, so once Sandy was released, this Unmasked Green Goblin was an obvious choice.

Norman Osborn


The Namor in the Defenders box set was wearing his black body suit, but whipping up this "classic" version only took a few seconds. That's Namor's entire upper body, Green Arrow's hips and Gollum's legs and feet.

Namor


In addition to inspiring these with the mention of blaxploitation films, Luke Cage lent his head and hands to both versions of the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks; John Shaft.

I'm goin' to get laid; where are YOU going? It's my duty to please that booty.

Patch's legs and Punisher's coat and arms were added, as well. Richard Roundtree used Cage's hair and Punisher's shirt (turned around backwards), while Samuel L. Jackson used the back of Phoenix's sweater.


My first DC Minimate custom - that Punisher hairpiece was just too perfect to pass up making a Superman - check out that spit curl! X-Men box set Cyclops' body provided the perfect red trunks on blue tights for the torso, and Captain America donated his legs.

Superman


DC Minimate Catwoman + DC Minimate Robin's hair = Selina Kyle, just getting ready to head out for the night. Robin's hair works perfectly for the new, shorter cut that Catwoman's cramming into her new mask.

Catwoman unmasked


Now that we've got the new Batgirl, it just made sense to make the previous version. Oracle is made from Prof. X's legs and chair, Batgirl's chest, Mary Jane's arms and hair and Emma Frost's head.

Oracle


Someone said that you couldn't make any customs with the Indymates figures, so here's something to prove that wrong: by day, sexy businesswoman; by night, sultry dominatrix!

crack that whip


What's your best Minimate recipe? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

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