Forge

One side, MacGyver! You may be able to build an airplane out of bamboo and trash bags, but this guy can build a teleporter out of a paperclips and a Nintendo Switch. Living up to his name, Forge is an expert inventor who supplies the X-Men and other groups with advanced technology. Yes, and it's those "other groups" that are usually the problem - for instance, the time he copied Rom's Neutralizer gun for the US government, and they immediately set about trying to strip Rogue of her powers. In fact, when Tony Stark decided to stop making weapons for the government, Forge was their next stop. A lot of the time, he's basically Ian Malcom's "could/should" speech come to life: he gets so wrapped up in the process of making whatever new invention he's come up with, he doesn't stop to think about what the consequences of making it could be. Or often, even who he's making it for. Forge is Cheyenne, though a lot of artists never bother to draw him to look like anything other than a white guy. Maybe Hispanic if we're lucky. To its credit, this toy does give him Native facial features (or possibly Italian, if you're a Hollywood director in the 1940s). His hair is pulled into a ponytail, and he wears a red bandana tied around his forehead. He's always been more a civilian contractor than a typical superhero, so Forge hadn't had a great wealth of costumes. This one, for instance, is just a spare X-Men uniform he got while hanging out on Muir Island. There are a few customizations, such as the harness around his shoulders or his bucksin boots. He has flared gloves and a holster on his right leg - which is a new mold itself, to show that it's a bionic prosthetic. It's just too bad they didn't do the same for his right hand: that's mechanical, too, and he'd wear gloves that revealed it just as often as he did pants. I wonder if the hand from the last Forge figure would be able to swap in here? Eh, probably look too small. Forgey Porgey Pudding and Pie has the same articulation this body always gets - it's not like they decided to remove the thigh or one of the knee hinges when they gave him his techno-leg. The shoulders seem to sit too close to the body, though, because just a little bit of movement and the yellow paint has already started to scrape, revealing the blue beneath. The brown for the boots and various straps is a nice color, and his headband and belt are the same shade of red. While his legs is a metallic blue, the two guns he comes with are a darker shade. You may recall that Hasbro's first ML Forge came with a gun based on the cover of a comic; well this one does, too! The rifle is heavily influenced by Kieron Dwyer's art for the cover of Uncanny X-Men #262 (thanks to Dean from UncannyXMen.net for helping pin that one down); Forge doesn't use a pistol in that issue, so the one this toy carries would be a lot harder to identify. Fits the holster perfectly, though! The Build-A-Figure for this series is Caliban, and Forge gets the left arm. Forge doesn't have the flashiest powers ever, but that doesn't mean he makes for a bad toy. They could have perhaps upped the value by giving him Deathlok's tech backpack (and hey, why not his metal hand while they're at it?), but at least they remembered to expose his leg and give him some guns. -- 05/24/19

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