Angel

Angel was in the first series of Buffy figures--there's no way he wouldn't be in the initial selection of his own new line. A 246 year-old vampire with a soul, thanks to a gypsy curse, Angel begins a new chapter in his life when he moves away from Sunnydale and takes up residence in the City of Angels as a private investigator. As one of the most vicious vampires the world has ever known, Angelus' bloodlust was legendary. Now, Angel is driven to atone for his formerly wicked ways by protecting the innocent against those who would do them harm. Having graduated from "Buffy," Angel moved to his own spin-off show. He took Cordelia in his wake, and gained a supporting cast of his own. While the series isn't as dark as the writers intended (a vampire with a soul should be the equivalent of a recovering alcoholic), it still managed to find its own voice, distinct from Sunnydale. It's been quite a while since we've had an Angel action figure (three waves of figures, in fact), and things have certainly changed. The last Angel looked pretty good, but didn't move much. He lacked many accessories, and his base wasn't anything special. Today's Angel turns that all around. First, the looks. While the body is very good, with the grey shirt and black pants, the face leaves a lot to be desired; the original Angel looked MUCH more like David Boreanaz, even in vampface. This one has a hugely exaggerated forehead and his hair grows straight up, which looks bloody stupid. Bleh. And thanks to differing neck constructions, you can't even Boil 'n' Pop them. Bad show, MAC. Angel stands about 6" tall and is articulated at the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles. That's a ton more than before, and a great improvement. He even comes with interchangeable arms: two are articulated and have long sleeves; the others bare his arms and sacrifice movement to give us hands sculpted in position to hold the stakes that he's strappin'. In addition to the stakes, Angel has an impressive arsenal: katana and sheathe, double-bladed axe, a larger axe, a Scottish dirk and two sais. Variant Angel comes with a long sword, the double-bladed axe, and a dagger. Yes, you read that right; there's a variant, vamped out, version of Angel available again. With the same well-sculpted body, the variant has a vamp face (that still looks stupid) and sharp fingernails. Both come with the same base--a pretty cool section of sidewalk with a crumbling brick wall and a removable manhole cover. That rules! There's even a variant of Vamp Angel available to members of the Moore Collectors' Club, wearing a real black lambskin leather coat. I don't know how many were produced, but the serial number on mine is 5,999, which I think is kinda cool. Regular Angel has better weapons, the variant variant was better wardrobe, but original Angel has a better face. Which should you get? I'll leave that up to you.