02.07.04
X-Men Classics - Cyclops and Archangel
  
    This review covers X-Men Classics Cyclops and Archangel. I originally was going to 
include the Hulk’s Joe Fixit but I ended up going a little longer than I expected on the 
X-men.
  
    While this whole new “Legends Style” is really nice, it’s been a around for a while 
now. Plus it’s produced some really great figures. While these aren’t quite Legends, 
I’ll certainly be comparing them to the Marvel Legends line. On that note, each of these 
figures is pretty nice, but each has it’s own flaws. Primary of which is scale. While 
the Legends Line is 6” scale (1 inch = 1 foot), the Hulk and X-men classics both seem 
to be 5” scale (less than one inch = 1 foot). This is mostly only a problem when you 
place them next to their Marvel Legends cousins; both of these guys seem a tad on the 
short side by comparison. They also seem a bit anorexic as well due to the scale 
difference. Like their Legends counterparts, they feature tons of articulation.
  
    The paint application seems a little sloppy as well, at least on Cyclops. The yellow 
on his suit looks generally ragged and there is noticeable slop on his boots and visor. 
They could have avoided at least some of this by putting the cut joint on his lower leg 
up at the top of his boot and maybe making the straps across his chest a separate piece. 
Other than the bad paint job, Cyclops is decent in terms of sculpt. Probably the best 
and most understandable part is that he has two fingers extended so he can pose as if 
to activate his visor. 
  
    Speaking of his visor, Cyclops has a light up gimmick. Wait, you guessed that 
already? I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to do since the eye thing is what Cyclops does 
and all and several of his previous figures have had the same gimmick. This one works a 
bit differently unfortunately. Cyclops includes an exploding (Danger Room?) turret. If 
you plug the figure into the base, then pull a lever on the side, Cyclops turns to face 
the turret, his eye lights up the gun explodes. The light up gimmick only works when 
plugged into the base. I suppose this was to prevent the need for a battery in the 
figure itself and the loss of the torso joint. Frankly I’d have almost rather had the 
missing joint. Cyclops destroying a little gun from point blank range is only 
entertaining zero times but a Cyclops that can stare down Magneto with his light up 
visor anytime anywhere is really cool. 
  
    Next up is Archangel. Frankly I know very little about this character and don’t 
care for him much at all, but I am a sucker for building up an army of super articulated 
X-men. This is the “Metal Winged” version of Archangel, in the comics he actually had 
real flesh wings once but they were ripped of by Apocalypse or something. The wings 
unfortunately are this figure’s biggest (literally and figuratively) hindrance. The 
wings are huge, fully stretched they have something like an 18” wingspan (I’m using 
a small 6” ruler to measure this here, so it’s 100% accurate). Unfortunately, this 
makes for a very back heavy Angel. You’ll never get this guy to balance on his own 
without using at least one of the wings a as third leg. You’ll probably need to use 
both of them.
  
    Fortunately, the wings are easily removable. In fact they come unattached in the 
package. Unfortunately, Archangel is a very boring figure without the wings attached. 
Does this guy even have any mutant powers beyond “Having wings”? Heck they aren’t even 
his real wings anymore; it’s like he’s just “Dude with a fancy jetpack”. Enough 
sidetracking though, because the wings go back on just as easily as they came off, 
making Archangel once again semi-entertaining. Back to the exciting backpack, other 
than being huge, it also includes a pair of missile launchers. The missiles used are 
those nifty coiled foil spring missiles that I’ve seen in several other X-men based 
toys. I’ve heard some complaints about them but I really like them. They tend to go 
farther than regular spring launchers and they take up much less space. I suppose the 
missiles could be damaged pretty easily. 
  
    But wait, I have a few more complaints about this huge backpack. Firstly, it has 
a joint on the peg that allows it to tilt up and down on Archie’s back. The side effect 
of this is that there is a hige ugly hinged peg between his back and the wings. A 
smaller peg and even possibly no hinge would have been preferable if it meant the wings 
sat almost flush with his back. Additionally, the wings only feature a couple of 
rotating joints each, one at the base and one midway down the wing itself. Some 
mechanism that allowed the wings to fold up to his sides would have been nice, as it 
is they are stuck sweeping away from his back. Then again, the wings hang so low you’d 
never be able to make his feet hit the ground with them positioned to either side. 
Though, back to the first hand, it would have really helped his balance problems when 
the wings are fully deployed if they were allowed to swing forward a bit. 
  
    Overall impressions. Neither is slated for a real Legends figure for the next 
several waves, so I guess I’d recommend them both if you’re looking for more X-men to 
compliment your existing line up. I’d say go with Cyclops at least since he’s the leader 
and all, Archangel is pretty much a nobody in my book. If you’re just interested in 
these figures alone it’s a bit of a toss up really. Cyclops is probably more fun and 
more attractive figure, but the paint ops on mine are a bit sloppy. Archangel on the 
other hand has pretty clean paint, but is generally boring in look. Plus his huge wings 
create more problems than benefits really. However, 7 bucks for this much figure can’t 
be beat by many, so both are probably worth picking up if you find them. 
  
    As far as the rest of the line, I imagine the Legends Gambit and Wolverine are less 
hindered by gimmicks (since Legends has no gimmicks) and the Legends Gambit definitely 
has a nicer color scheme. I have no real opinion on the Jacketed Wolverine; I just don’t 
really have a need for any more Wolverines at the moment (plus they didn’t have him). 
One final note for these two figures, the plastic on them seems a lot better than 
previous Toybiz figures, especially in terms of avoiding “joint freeze”. The last 
several Lord of the Rings figures I’ve purchased all suffered from Joint Freeze in 
some area and I’ve lost the arms on a couple figures due to it. I certainly hope they 
keep up the use of this plastic more than whatever they used before.