That Toybiz '92 Spider-Man with the GI Joe style joints was a huge step up from my first Spidey figure–from the 84 Secret Wars line. He had a nice bright paint job but only 4 points of articulation. He did come with a sweet lenticular shield though as did every figure in that line for some reason.
I was always bummed that I never got the Secret Wars Wolverine because he was way cooler than that 1991ish Toybiz one with the giant fists and the goofy looking removable mask. Toy Biz upped their game with their later Wolverines in that line, but by that point they have moved on from the brown and orange costume (my favorite) to the Jim Lee era yellow and blue one.
this one was a big disappointment, though. the figure was crap, and the tentacle harness thing was also crap. to make matters worse, the figure had a really thin waist, so yoy couldn’t even put the harness on a better figure because they were all too fat.
even though spider-man was my favourite cartoon at the time, and the thing that got me into superheroes in general, i only had two other figures from it besides the two above
and monster spider-man! though spidey has turned into monsters a few times in comics and cartoons, i think this particular design only existed in toy form. that big grey lump in the package is a big spider with a button on the underside that makes its legs close around a figure you put there.
I loved the Dr. Strange figure from that animated Spidey line. I don’t know why Toy Biz had waited so long to get around to him.
There was a pretty decent Spider-Man that came in that Toy Biz MvC two pack with Hiryu. I chucked him in a box somewhere and put Hiryu in a place on honor beside my TV for years, but it wasn’t his fault he got paired with the last Strider.
the batman and superman 90s cartoons are both legitimately excellent, and should be watched by anyone interested in cartoons and/or superheroes.
the x-men and spider-man 90s cartoons have terrible animation, had to follow nonsensical network rules (this is mainly noticable in spider-man, where he’s constantly shoulder barging enemies because he’s not allowed to punch, the sinister six become the insidious six because sinister sounds too satanic, and michael morbius is a vampire with weird lamprey things in his hands that runs around shouting about his thirst for plaaaaaasmaaaaaaa), but at the same time, they have season-long story arcs and lots and lots of guest characters, so if you’re a kid in the 90s, they’re an awesome introduction to the marvel universe. same goes for the hulk cartoon, though it had much better animation than the other two, as i remember, and not so many guest stars.
the fantastic four 90s cartoon was ugly, stupid garbage. the only reason to watch it is if you have nostalgia for it. the iron man cartoon is okay i guess. again, it had lots of guest stars, but it just feels kind of bland.
(fantastic four, iron man, and episodes of the 70s hulk cartoon were packaged together in some markets, including the uk, as “marvel action hour”)
as for non big two stuff, i’ll have to think about it.
Going outside of super hero stuff, GI Joe had some legitimate great episodes. The homage to The Prisoner with Shipwreck and his family is a particular standout.
I will forever champion Mighty Max. The final story arc is on this weird comparative mythology meets Donnie Darko thing.
I’ve been meaning to revisit Exo Squad and whatever the Battletech cartoon’s official name was. Both felt very in that mold of Transformers season 3 with a surprisingly oppressive atmosphere and an emphasis on serial storytelling rather than stand alone episodes.
Gargoyles usually gets a lot of praise. The toys were sculpted real nice, too.
I mean, I watched everything. But If I really think about it…
…Transformers Beast Wars was great. And The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest was also great.
Freakazoid. Power Puff Girls. Dexter’s Laboratory.
Of course, those were all later shows, post action figure cash-in started by He-Man. Its clear at that point, people were actually thinking about what they could do with a kids cartoon.
The Exo Squad show went…places. I remember one character dying, and then his soul got uploaded into his suit, which then would act on its own and yeah, that was a thing.
I watched a handful of episodes of this again recently, and I can’t tell if it’s purely my extreme nostolgia for it, but it held up way better than any 90s adventure cartoon should.
And the QuestWorld sequences are everything good and bad 90s cgi cyber aesthetic cranked up to maximum intensity and are worth watching for that fact alone.
