Bonebreaker

At last, someone has invented the horseless centaur! The villainous cyborg known only as Bonebreaker desires nothing more than the chance to wreak havoc. Employing his robotic abilities first as a mercenary and then as a member of the nefarious Reavers, Bonebreaker leaves a trail of destruction wherever his travels lead him! That text is taken from the 1994 ToyBiz figure, because even though it's been nearly a year since the Eternals figures came out, Hasbro is still not putting BAF bios on the back of the boxes. Boo! That's bad! Be better, 'bro. Bonebreaker begs for a blow-by-blow breakdown or at least a bare briefing on his background! Bonebreaker is the Build-A-Figure for the tenth series of X-Men Marvel Legends. Buy six of the seven figures (ignoring Hot Claws Wolverine because no one cares about Hot Claws Wolverine) and you'll get the... 13? 14? pieces needed to build him. Since this isn't just a case of plugging arms and legs into a torso, it's a little more complicated than usual, but we have faith you'll figure it out. Before Donald Pierce came along with his chopped-up Hellfire Club Guards, Bonebreaker was the leader of the Reavers, a gang of dozens of random cyborgs operating out of Cooterman's Creek, Northern Territory. Then the X-Men rolled up and took out a good 95% of them, with only three escaping to continue causing trouble. They were all various levels of post-human, but Bonebreaker still managed to stand out from the crowd by virtue of not being able to stand out from the crowd: it's hard to miss a guy who has a miniature tank instead of a lower body! Obviously the tank has looked lots of different ways over the years, because that's just how comicbook art works, but also because it's something separate that he rebuilds when it gets destroyed in a fight. This particular design seems pretty directly influenced by the appearance in Punisher #33 and #34: the shape of the treads, the way the armor hangs over them, the paired headlights, the single machine gun in the front... it's not a direct copy, but the inspiration is clear. Even the shape of his belt is the same! One definite difference is the torso. Like the art, the toy is still wearing a leather harness, but he wasn't drawn with a shirt, and Dennis Chan has certainly sculpted him with one. Maybe they thought being barechested was too sexual? Seems unlikely. It's weird that his sleeveless shirt is the same olive drab as his tank, rather than being a different color for contrast. His harness sticks down lower than the bottom of the torso in the back, so it will always get pushed up a little. Obviously they want you to pose him hunched forward slightly. He's got silver bracelets at the ends of his bare arms, and wears a metal collar just like he did in the comics. If you don't like that particular thing, you can take it off and give it to Havok, who's supposed to have similar as part of his costume, but didn't. (Or if you want Havok to be complete but also don't want to shortchange Bonebreaker, you could always lend Alex Jigsaw's neck brace.) Bone's head is totally mental. His hair is a tall, wavy mohawk, in its usual gray, and his mouth is open in an utterly unhinged laugh. Like, have you ever seen that thing where people will photoshop Tom Cruise without teeth? It looks like that. Like, almost exactly like that. Even though the toy has teeth. It also has his black sunglasses, which are done as a separate piece that plugs into his temples, meaning you can either remove them if you want or even just push them up onto his forehead. How unexpected! You'd think just sculpting them on would have been enough. Having an unusual body means having unusual articulation. There's a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swive;/hinge wrists, a hinged torso, and a swivel waist - all the joints you'd expect on a human-shaped body. Technically the glasses would count as a point of articulation, as well. And the waist's range of motion (both turning and tilting) should be handled by thet grey "belt" ring below his abdomen, but that would probably have been too hard to engineer for a toy like this. The machine gun on the front of the tank is a balljoint, so you can aim it all around, and there's a hinged panel in the back beneath the two fuel drums where you can store his alternate hands when you're not using them (he has either fists or holding hands). Since the Reavers had cybernetic limbs, they'd often carry replacemet parts in case something got damaged during combat, meaning these extra hands may count as actual accessories, not just alternate parts. Instead of having sculpted treads and hidden wheels underneath, the treads are rubber wrapped around the the sprockets and wheels. They don't move freely - they're a bit too stiff for that - but do you really need them to? It would have been enough to simply sculpt permanent tank treads, since no one is going to be actively rolling him around the shelf; making them even slightly movable is already extra. Bonebreaker's only weapon is a large techno rifle, something perfectly suitable. Judging by the comic, that black tube on the right side of the tank is a missile launcher, but it can't pop up to fire on this toy - you'll just have to use your imagination. He could probably drop one of his canisters and shoot it so it explodes, but that's not an intentional weapon. When you're assembling the pieces, you can choose if you want the angine pointing forward or back; Hasbro's stock photos show it pointing forward, but you'd think those big air intakes would have an easier time sucking oxygen if they weren't pointed directly at Bonebreaker's back, so you might want to turn it the other direction. We now have a Donald Pierce (not in his purple Reaver robes, but still), Lady Deathstrike, Skullbuster (and Reese), and at last a Bonebreaker. So really all we need now are Prettyboy and the pair of Macon and Cole, and we'd have all the important Reavers covered. Bonebreaker is a character unlikely to get a figure except under special circumstances: we suggested him for that "Legendary Riders" line, but being a Build-A-Figure is a suitable choice as well. The toy turned out excellently, with good details and a great design, really delivering on this novel villain's second-ever action figure. Siryn | Havok | Vulcan | Maggott | Darwin | Sabretooth -- 10/03/22

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