For a comic book character as iconic as the leader of the goddamn X-Men, Cyclops sure has such few good action figures of himself. Hasbro did us a solid in recent years with some releases here and there, but at the back of my mind, I always thought "You know, those figures are good, but I think I'll wait till some other company does it better."
And of course Medicom TOY did.
So after waiting a literal year (as is tradition with this company), I finally have in my hands one of my most sought-after action figures: MAFEX Cyclops, which I will be reviewing today!
This is my first comic book-inspired figure from Medicom's MAFEX line, so it's a delight to see this box in hand. The classic "corner box" on the upper left, the colors, and the overall box design is just *chef's kiss*. If I was made of money, I'd collect the rest of this line for the boxes alone.
I bet MAFEX Cyclops looks better out of the box, though.
Glorious. The preview pics last year don't do it justice. Standing at just below 6.5 inches tall, MAFEX Cyclops is a mighty mass of beef, which is ironic considering Scott's nickname is "Slim". The sculpting is great all around, with the design ripped straight from musty 90's X-Men comic books, and in hand the figure is much sturdier than I expected.
I haven't even gotten around to fiddling around with it yet when I discovered my MAFEX Cyclops has a *gasp!* quality control issue: the default head's visor is missing a chunk of red plastic on its right side! Jeezus. Is nothing safe from 2020?!
Trying my best to be a "glass half full" kind of guy, I soldier on. The rest of the details of the figure is great. I love the blue paint they used on the body, the pouches are lovingly sculpted as if by Rob Liefeld himself, and the different buckles and belts on MAFEX Cyclops are painted well with minimal slop. At least, as minimal as your OCD can stomach. My only fear is that yellow paint over blue would fade into green over time (yey Design and Color 101!), but that's a problem for Future Me to worry about.
Sorry, Future Me.
Good ol' Slim here can move like the best of them. MAFEX Cyclops has plenty of useful articulation for the collector who fancies themselves a good poser. I just love the "butterfly" shoulder joints that allow his arms to move around in a natural way. The chest harness stops a lot of torso movement dead on its tracks, though. But, I mean, you're not gonna pose Cyclops like he's participating in Olympic Gymnastics, right?
Right?
Accessories aplenty is a MAFEX standard, and MAFEX Cyclops comes with a buttload of them. He comes with additional gesture hands aside from his default fists like a pair of grasping hands and his signature two-finger salute-slash-button pusher for when pointing at your enemies with one finger just isn't enough.
MAFEX Cyclops also comes with not one but two alternate heads! One portrays him gritting his teeth as if using the focused totality of his optic power on one thing, and the other is an unmasked head with shades. Both look amazing, especially the toothy head because of the "smoking" visor that's very reminiscent of how Jim Lee used to draw it in the 90's.
If you're thinking, "Gee, George. That smoke effect looks very flimsy. It looks like you could break it very easily..."
You would be correct.
The smoke effect broke off from the visor with the barest of effort as I was trying to remove said visor from the head. Seeing as the point of attachment is literally nanometers small, I have no idea why Medicom thought this would be a good idea. Either that, or it's a trap to make ham-handed gaijin mad.
Nothing a little superglue could fix, but the fact that it's another QC issue is making me nauseous. When will the nightmares end?
Speaking of nightmares, MAFEX Cyclops' visors can be removed...and it is a fucking horror mini-game to remove. It seems they put the visors in while the paint was still drying, effectively gluing mine into place. Half an hour of cursing, bruised fingernails, and praying to the toy gods that I don't break my 80USD toy more than I already have, I finally got to remove the damn thing so I can mix and match the different visors available.
You can plug in one of two blast effects on a special visor included with MAFEX Cyclops, one with a narrow beam and one with a more wider spray. Both are made of translucent red plastic, sculpted well, and isn't weighty enough to mess with the figure's balance. These effects alone push this figure to the top of the charts, QC errors be damned. For years we've asked for effects like these from Hasbro, to the point that a lot of 3rd party customizers have stepped in to fill the void missing in our optic blast-less lives. And all it took was a company from Japan to give it to us WITH a Cyclops figure.
I mean, it took like 2 years, but still.
If you're buying MAFEX Cyclops hoping he will be in scale with the rest of the 90's-style X-Men Hasbro has put out in recent years, you're in luck. Unlike earlier releases, the new recipe of MAFEX action figures is in the true 6-inch, 1:12 scale. Which is great, because MAFEX Cyclops will find a home in many a retro 90's toy display and he will look great in them.
I've had firsthand knowledge of MAFEX's many QC issues, and through the years it looked like they've turned that reputation around. So it fucking pains me to get a figure with so much going wrong, especially at this price point.
But from what I've seen from other reviewers, it seems that QC issues are few and far between. At this point, I'll have to swallow my loss and make lemonade when handed such a lemon of a figure. Because aside from the shoddy workmanship, to me MAFEX Cyclops is the definitive 90's Cyclops action figure looks-wise.
FINAL VERDICT: MAFEX Cyclops is highly poseable, has much-requested accessories, and looks positively uncanny. It WILL dethrone whatever Cyclops action figure you have on your display...if you can stomach playing the MAFEX QC Issue roulette when you get it.
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