Superhero Times: a service of Action Online
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When reviewing an action figure, one usually wants to focus on the toy itself, rather than the character it depicts. Now, of course, lots and lots of actual toy sales are based more on character than on other considerations, but you, the reader, already know which characters you like and which you don’t. And we’re here to tell you if the toys of the characters are any good, not if the characters themselves are any good. ‘Objectivity,’ you could perhaps call this.
And this sort of objectivity is certainly what your humble reviewer will be aiming for here. But he should warn you: He is so incredibly excited by the fact that they’ve released “Monkeyman and O’Brien” action figures that he can hardly even contain himself. He would buy an Ann O’Brien figure even if it were made of the entrails of leprous ground squirrels. Though, hopefully, he would not then recommend it here.
Ann O’Brien is, of course, the ‘O’Brien’ half of “Monkeyman and O’Brien.” The daughter of a missing adventurer and inventor, Ann is changed into a towering powerhouse by extradimensional energies released by the arrival in this world of Axwell “Monkeyman” Tiberius. And the two of them then go on to have exciting and old-school-comic-book adventures. Not a lot of them, sadly; there were scarcely enough “Monkeyman and O’Brien” comics, during their 1990s heyday, to fill two average-sized trade paperbacks. But those adventures were entirely created by the redoubtable Arthur Adams, and as such have been fan-favorites ever since. This is evidenced by the fact that somebody decided to make action figures of them, all these years later.
PACKAGING: The Ann O’Brien figure is part of the second wave of Legendary Comic Book Heroes, and therefore has the default packaging of that wave. The plastic is a simple rectangle, and the cardback a simple blue. On the package’s left are pictures of comic book covers germane to this wave, and on its front are the name, picture, and comic of origin of the figure contained therein. It’s good packaging, eye-catching without distracting from the figure itself.
The back of the card has the rest of the wave pictured, and copyright information, and that’s about it. It has no bio of the character you’re getting, nor a highlighted comic cover, as the packaging for the first wave did. It is possible that this is actually because the review copy is some sort of advance figure; this line has yet to hit many stores. It is also possible that it’s because the review figure is Canadian, and the card needed room for all the bilingualism. Or maybe Canadians just scorn bios on figure packaging! They’re a whole different country, you know.
SCULPT: The first task of any figure sculpt is, of course, to resemble the character it’s depicting. And this is a tiny bit trickier for Ann than it is for most comic book figures, as she’s a basically normal-looking human who wears the sort of clothing that you might actually see someone wearing in public in the real world. But Marvel Toys gets all the relevant details right: the shock of curly hair, the jacket-over-tights look, the hugely muscular legs, the tennis shoes. They get Ann’s tall nose right, too, which is especially important. And the flexible jacket fastens shut, which is a nice touch! Ann wears a slightly bemused expression on her face, where the comic Ann is usually very emotive, and that’s too bad. But it’s a minor point, as well.
Another thing they get right is the size; this figure is quite big. In the context of this wave, this can be missed, since many of the figures of this wave – Marv, Stryker – are larger as well. But Ann stands a head taller than the default six-inch scale sizing, as is wholly appropriate. And you know what they say about tall women. Nothing disrespectful, that’s what.
PAINT: The Ann O’Brien figure is very brightly-colored. This is very appropriate to the general feel of her comic of origin. It is not necessarily so appropriate to Ann herself, who is actually most often depicted with a more muted palette than we see here. The hair, in particular, is not usually such a neon red as this; staring at the hair of this figure too long could cause eyestrain! Consult your optometrist. But for all that, it’s quite an excellent paint job, with little bleed and some especially fine detailing at the eyes.
The other good news is that the brightness issues are largely addressed in the Ann O’Brien variant figure. This figure is perfectly identical to the basic Ann O’Brien, only with darker clothing. And thus, it is a bit more comic-accurate, and a bit better-looking overall, than the basic figure. Plus, Ann has a lot of dimension-hopping adventures; maybe one of these can be the Ann O’Brien from a parallel universe.
ARTICULATION: This figure sports 27 joints, all told. Which is actually a bit fewer than the default for the Legendary Heroes, which is about 31. There are two reasons for this diminishment, one good and the other not so good. The good reason is that the standard swiveling forearm is placed at the wrist joint, at the same point that moves the hand back and forth, and so the forearm articulation isn’t really lost in effect. The bad reason is that there are no joints in the hands. And why not? Ann is a woman who likes to punch. But they never give mid-hand joints to figures of women, no matter how big or how punchy; even She-Hulk didn’t get one. It almost makes you want to contact a women’s equality group, if not for the fact that those organizations maybe have better things to do.
ACCESSORIES: Ann O’Brien has no accessories. She certainly could have had some; maybe some fancy super-science scanners, or the like. But on the other hand, there really isn’t any piece of equipment that is particularly associated with her. So we’ll let this slide.
Ann does come packaged with the right leg of her best pal, the colossal genius gorilla called “Monkeyman” quite against his will. Monkeyman is the build-a-figure of this wave, and is scaled to Ann quite correctly, but we’ll cover that figure soon. In the meantime, Ann can come across the severed leg of her companion, and scream her rage and horror at the sky, for especially gruesome playtime fun.
COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION: The Legendary Heroes seem to be running between 10 and 15 dollars, depending on vendor. The Ann O’Brien variant will most likely go for more than that. “Will most likely” because this second wave is only just beginning to trickle in to the market, as of this writing. It’s a bit hard to come by now, but that’s likely to change.
With a top-notch sculpt and very good articulation, this is an excellent figure by any sane standard. To the “Monkeyman and O’Brien” fan, though, it is an absolute revelation; we never expected to get action figures at all, much less ones of this quality. Out hats are off to you, Marvel Toys! We cannot thank you enough! But, Marvel Toys: You make us want more. They need someone to fight. And their villains are of colorful and interesting design! Please? Pretty please?
CLICK HERE for more images of Ann O'Brien.
Review and Photos by Matthew Kessen
