Whiplash

What's in a name? Whiplash puts his skills as a weapons developer to criminal use, taking his cybernetic whips to battle against Iron Man. Originally a hitman for the Maggia, Whiplash was eventually set loose on Iron Man. If you think a guy with a whip versus a guy with a fully powered armored suit doesn't seem like exactly a fair fight, well, it helps to remember that this isn't just a normal Indiana Jones whip, but special ones made of special materials. He was around for a few years, then dipped out and came back in the '80s with a new costume and a new name: Blacklassh. That lasted until the late '90s, when he lost custody of his kid, got way into S&M, and changed his name back to Whiplash. Then he got killed for real when the Model 16 armor was turned sentient by the Y2K virus and lightning bolts conducted via whips, and was replaced by the guy they made up to cash in on the movies. Whiplash's original costume was a purple bodysuit with an orange cape and tearaway pants. Sure. John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton are responsible for this redesign, and it's unbelievably better than what the character wore before. It's basically just a black suit with lavendar boots, gloves, and cowl, and a huge purple cape. Even the inexplicable green ponytail sticking out the top of his mask can't drag him down. Blacklash did have a figure in the old Iron Man line this one is homaging, but it was painted blue, not black. Not a mistake: that line was based on the cartoon that was happening at the time, and even though Marvel Animation was trying to cash in on the popularity of Batman, it never occurred to them to use any black in their color palette, so the old toy was just being true to its incorrect source material. While this new one does use existing arms and legs, the chest is a new mold with his disco collar glued in place, and his cape permanently attached. Highly unexpected! But it does make for a better toy, so we're all in favor of it. Now, you may be thinking that, as a character whose entire gimmick is "perpetually using his handheld weapon," why does this figure include an alternate right fist? In what possible world does the guy who holds a whip need a hand that can't hold it? But you have to think of it similarly to Flash's Rogues: most of The Rogues just use high-tech wepaons, meaning literally anybody who picked one up could be a supervillain of the same calber, right? Ah, but they fight someone who can move faster than a human can think, so they need some extra edge of brilliance or cleverness to succeed, or else they'd just be locked up in prison on Day One of trying to be a criminal. In that same vein, Iron Man villains fight a guy who can build an armor to counter anything, so they need skills if they're going to fight him a second time. Yes, Blacklash may rely entirely on his whip, but come on: you can bet he trained himself to be fairly ambidextrous with it. Give the figure one open hand and one closed fist in whichever combo lines him up the best for your display. Blacklash's costume usually had very large discs holding the cape on, but this toy has small ones. You know where we do see little discs like this? In his Official Handbook entry. An entry that also happens to have a ponytail shaped exactly like this toy's. We see you, unknown sculptor. The figure gets the usual purse mold, though because this body is bigger than the Hob/Green Goblin bodies it usually goes around, it ends up sitting basically in his armpit than hanging near his waist. Of course, he includes his whip. At this period in the comics (and on the cartoon) he had the ability to contract his whip into nunchucks, so the 1994 figure came with one of those in addition to the whip, but this one doesn't. Anyway, the whip is molded from translucent yellow plastic and looks like jagged electricity (or rock candy), and the handle is painted solid gold so it doesn't look like he's just holding onto a lightning bolt. The open hands included with the figure aren't really shaped to hold the whip properly, and its weight will try to pull it down and twist it out of his grip, which is not great for a character who needs to be holding something. If it bothered you we kept referring to this character as "Blacklash" instead of "Whiplash" like the card does, we do offer you sincere apologies: Whiplash is a better name, but he never used it when he was wearing this costume, so it's really not right for the toy to do so. Neither of his other two costumes would make for good a good figure, and this is easily the most iconic thing he wore. Whatever you want to call him, he hasn't had an action figure since the '90s, so this is definitely going to be an improvement over the last one. -- 08/19/24