Eye Guy

I know Power Rangers like Rustin knows the touch of a woman: vague recollections that it was popular with others while I was a teenager, but not something I ever really got into myself. But since this is 2011, the '90s were 20 years ago and the nostalgia cycle means Power Rangers belong in Old Toys Month. Power Rangers was all about questionably powered teenagers fighting monsters who came from a dumpster on the moon. Yeah, whatever, the plot doesn't matter. The important part of that was "monsters," because those make for the most interesting toys. For instance, whatever the hell this this is. I didn't have any clue what this figure was when I found him in a loose discount bin at a toy show, but the "Bandai" stamp on the foot immediately revealed his origins, and a few seconds' search online gave him a name: Eye Guy. Bandai didn't put individual bios on their MMPR packaging, but Eye Guy was one of Rita Repulsa's favorite monsters, and seemed to show some attraction to her. Eye Guy had an array of energy beam attacks he could launch from his various eyes, and could reassemble himself if blown apart as long as his main eye remained undamaged. And yes, that's very nice and all, but what really matters is that this is a monster made entirely of eyeballs. His mid-90s roots are evident in the skewed proportions and minimal articulation, but the sculpt is actually pretty decent. To be fair, it would be hard to screw up "lots and lots of randomly placed spheres," but the corneas irides are all sculpted in place, and there's a wrinkly texture on what little skin is exposed between the eyes. In a lot of ways, he's similar to Playmates' TMNT figures from the era (and that's probably where he'll end up integrating nicely once this review is finished). Eye Guy doesn't have a "head" so much as he has "a bit of a distinctive lump on the top of his shoulders." When the entire body is covered by eyes, it doesn't really matter whether there's a recognizable noggin or not. There's a hinged flap up here, which is either a lid for the giant "main eye," or a mouth that happens to have a big eye inside it - you can decide for yourself, since there are sharp fangs in there. The paint, obviously, is simple. He's molded in white plastic, and all the eyes get a simple red app. The three largest eyes get a bit more detail, but this was 1994 - complex paint designs were still a long way off. Articulation is minimal, with the aforementioned hinged lidmouth, swivel shoulders and balljointed hips. Press the huge knob on his back, and two of the eyes go flying off his torso, duplicating one of Eye Guy's modes of attack. The nipple-eyes are attached by string, so you won't lose them. That explains why this secondhand figure still has those, but not the staff thing he originally included. [It represented his regenerating form, when all his entire body was blown away except the main eye. --ed] Eye Guy is a delightfully ridiculous monster (sorry, he's Japanese - "kaiju"), and one of the most popular Power Rangers villains. Despite being killed in his first appearance, he got cameos in a lot of later episodes, probably because he's so visually striking (no pun intended). This isn't the greatest action figure to come out of the '90s, but it's not bad for the period, and you can probably pick one up fairly cheap if you want a creepy weirdo to menace your other figures. Wouldn't the Ghostbusters look good zapping him? -- 02/12/11

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