Monkeyman

I am a huge supporter of Build-a-Figures (BAFs) - nothing is quite as awesome as companies rewarding their customers, and that's what BAFs do. Some feel that BAFs are a gimmick to get customers to buy a full set of toys instead of just the ones they want to get the extra, but I disagree; I look at it as buying a full set of figures earns you an additional figure, and with the Legendary Heroes, that figure is both huge and awesome. And thus we come to Axwell Tiberious, a.k.a. Monkeyman, a 10-foot-tall super-intelligent gorilla-like being. click to embiggen The world knows them as the dimension-hopping, monster-battling team of Monkeyman and O'Brian! Always ready to defend the defenceless. Always ready to solve the unsolvable! Monkeyman, real name Axwell Tiberius, a 10' tall, super-genius gorilla from a world of huge civilized apes, was accidentally pulled into our universe when Ann O'Brien and her evil sister Akiko were fighting for control of the long-lost Professor O'Brian's Extra-Dimensional Access Device. There was an explosion! Ann and her sister were bathed in a cloud of weird otherworldly radiation! As a result, Ann grew to 7 ft tall and gained incredible speed and strength! Now, Ann and her new friend Axwell must work together to rebuild the extra dimensional gateway, try to find Anne's missing father, and try to discover a way to return Monkeyman to his homeworld! Monkeyman is part of the duo Monkeyman and O'Brien, the latter of which was also featured in LCBH Series 2, leaving Monkeyman the ideal BAF to be featured in this line. And what a BAF he is! The figure is assembled from only six pieces, not the eight that Hasbro has been giving us: arms, legs, head and trunk. How can ToyBiz offer such big BAFs in so few pieces when we were told that smaller figures made from more pieces was the fate of the future? Were we lied to, or is ToyBiz just taking a bath on these Legendary Heroes? I certainly don't know. Standing over 10" tall, Monkeyman is a huge fully-articulated, fully-detailed figure. The sculpt is of the high ToyBiz standard; the gorilla fur is lovingly sculpted and painted, as is his nifty green pants and brown-and-black top. His facial sculpt is amazing; you can see a fair bit of expression that changes with the articulated mouth, and further changes when you put on his glasses. Enraged, pensive, talking, all are there! With this in mind, the figure is accessible to collectors who want the character, and those who just want a large monkey - and who doesn't want a large monkey? He's also very durable, and articulated out the wazoo - find here movement at the shoulders, head and legs (balljoints, as you'd expect) as well as upper arms, elbows, knees, wrists, even double-jointed fingers and toes. It's a minor complaint, that although the fingers can make a fist, the toes cannot, which they should because he's an ape, but they don't move lower than his feet. Regardless, this is a toy that's superposable, superplayable and super-collector-friendly; you'd have to be insane not to like it. When it comes to accessories and BAFs, there's usually not too much to say - after all, the BAF is an accessory, but there's even something worth talking about here; his particularly nifty glasses! Yes, as a doctor, he wears glasses, and looks great with them; it's particularly notable since glasses are notoriously hard to pull off on action figures, and these are just completely awesome. And, as mentioned, they give him different expressions based on whether he is or isn't wearing them, and the collectors who just want a big angry monkey can remove them permanently. What it comes down to is that Monkeyman is an awesome toy, Legendary Heroes was an awesome line, and we're all much worse off for the loss. This is one that will be remembered. Marv | Star | Stryker | Judge Death | The Darkness | Ann O'Brien -- 09/01/08

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