Buzz Lightyear

What the heck is this? Courageous and dutiful, Buzz Lightyear is far from your average plaything. This brave Space Ranger's super-charged suit is outfitted with an arsenal of the latest Star Command tech in the Mirrorverse, including lasers and an armor-blasting arm cannon. Cool, thanks, that tells us nothing. Some basic research reveals Disney Mirrorverse is an upcoming mobile game, and RPG that centers around an alternate-reality version of Mickey Mouse recruiting reimagined heroes and villains to fight off invading monsters. So it's basically "Disney Age of Apocalypse"? Sure, why not? The game is made by Kabam, the same company that did Marvel Contest of Champions, so that makes some sense. The game will have both Disney and Pixar characters, which is how the first series of toys manages to include Buzz Lightyear. Buzz is, of course, from Toy Story, the toy who thought he was real, and possibly the most popular children's character ever to be voiced by a convicted drug felon. (Between him and Robert Downey Jr, Disney really loves putting cokeheads in suits of armor, don't they?) Most of the characters in the game have been drastically redesigned, but Buzz has just been dialed up a little. He still wears a fancy white spacesuit with green and purple accents; in fact, depending on how bad your memory is, you may think it's the same one he always wore. But no, compared to the real thing, this is much more exaggerated. The lines are angular and blocky, almost like a Gundam, and his green chest pad comes up higher than his ears, rather than staying down by the body. Shame, then, that he doesn't actualy have his helmet dome, even as an accessory. The large red button on the left side of hic chest is still here, but the three on the right are just done as tampographed "lights" rather than sculpted elements. Some assembly is required when you open this toy. His backpack, with its removable wings, would have made the figure too thick to fit in the box, so you'll have to put that on once he's out of the tray. Does have a nice pose in the box, though, and the backdrop is the game's magic mirror portal thing (a cool idea that's 100% ruined by the idiot choice to glue a sheet of plastic holding the accessories to it). The wings are translucent blue, and have angular elements sculpted in; so they end up looking like "hard light" constructs or something, with circuitry to help shape them. The set also includes a card with art on the front and a bio on the back. Once upon a time McFarlane Toys' articulation was a joke. Hell, it was a punchline. That's really turned around now, so Buzz has a balljointed neck, balljoint/hinge shoulders, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge/swivel wrists, a balljointed chest and waist, swivel/hinge hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge knees, swivel/hinge ankles, and hinged toes. There are hinged booster jets on the back of his biceps, and while the sculpt looks like there are big rockets on his feet, the bottom of the feet are perfectly smooth. A lot of the hinges are stiff and sturdy, which is good, but the hips and shoulders are slightly wobbly, which can cause problems with posing and even just standing. There are two scales of Mirrorverse toys, because Todd just apparently hates 6" figures with a passion - Buzz is part of the 7" line, but he only stands a little more than 6⅛" tall. So if you ever wanted a Marvel Legends Buzz Lightyear, well, here ya go! I probably won't be playing Disney Mirrorverse - not because my phone is one of those olde timey ones where you speak into a fixed tube while holding the separate earpiece NO MATTER WHAT THE RUMORS MAY SAY, but because it's a mobile game and therefore is probably going to be approximately 90% fabricated grind, 6% microtransactions, 3% loot boxes, and 1% game. But the designs are definitely cool, and Buzz really is close enough to his standard look that you could probably sneak him into a display and not have anyone immediately notice that he feels out of place. -- 09/29/21

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