Review – X-Men Missile Flyers Future Bishop

“The mutant known only as Bishop never dreamed that someday he would be a member of the X-Men. Born half a century from now, Bishop grew up admiring the long-dead X-Men as heroes from legend.”
— from X-Men: The Ultimate Guide

Here we have another Toy Biz gimmick action figure from 1997, this time from the X-Men Missile Flyers series. The idea behind this series is that each figure comes with a flying, missile-firing backpack. Yep, that’s the entire idea. Bishop, that “mutant-from-the-future” who absorbs energy blasts and redirects it through his hands, actually looks pretty good. How is he as a toy?

Packaging

The X-Men Missile Flyers packaging design is nothing special, just a basic card/blister design with a flying, missile-firing Wolverine decorating the front of the card and a portion of the card back. In fact, the only thing I find at all interesting about the card has to be the photo of the “Future Apocalypse” action figure that was released as part of the line. I’ll admit to a love of villains and purple toys — and a particular fascination with Apocalypse’s character design — but from what I can see of this figure he looks very neat.

I may have to track down a Future Apocalypse.

Bishop

Above, we can see Future Bishop without his flightpack. Actually, this is a pretty good representation of the character as he appeared in several comics (and the X-Men cartoon from the time). The only thing Bishop’s really missing is a gun; his right fist is setup for a weapon, but he doesn’t come with one, so this makes me think the basic Bishop might have come from an earlier line. Either that, or Toy Biz was planning to include a gun with this figure and then changed their mind late in the process.

The sculpting and paint are pretty good — not as good as I expect these days, but good enough for the time and good enough that this Bishop is going somewhere nice in my toy display — but the articulation leaves me wanting. Bishop’s arms move at the shoulders — swinging out to the sides and rotating — while his head and waist twist and his hips and knees have very basic “hinge on a pin” articulation that we’ve seen for years. Overall, Bishop’s not a bad-looking figure and even without his backpack he’s a decent plaything.

Bishop’s “Missile Flyer” Backpack”

Every now and then, a toy gimmick works, actually turning a decent action figure into a fun, awesome toy. This isn’t quite one of those times, but the flightpack comes pretty close. Even thought it’s big and heavy, Bishop’s flightpack snaps nicely onto his body — no holes in the figure, though, since the pack snaps over and under the arms — and stays on tight. And it doesn’t seriously harm his balance, allowing Bishop to stand in a variety of cool poses with the wings on the pack spread out, wrapped around, him, or folded back. Take a look at the different photos here to see how many different ways you can display Bishop’s flightpack.

Sculpted with feather-like wings, the missile part of the “Missile Flyers” series comes in the form of two rotating, spring-loaded missile launchers that have okay strength (they were probably stronger a decade ago). The missiles look pretty silly, and aren’t the sort of thing a hardcore X-Men fan will really appreciate, but they’re not bad for pieces of a toy. I would have rather seen smaller warheads, but these weird-looking pieces aren’t terrible.

One problem with the flightpack is that the wings, if you’re not careful, fall off. They’re attached to the pack with a simple post, so reattaching them is no big deal, but it’s annoying to have a wing fall off whenever you pick the toy up a little too fast. Another problem is that the wings are just a little too heavy for the joints; whenever you pose the figure with the wings outstretched — which looks awesome, see above — the wings slowly droop because they’re just too heavy. That’s too bad, because I’d rather display Bishop with his wings spread wide than with his wings folded up.

Closing Thoughts

When I first opened this toy I expected to find another lame gimmick piece that would suck. I’m happy to report that the figure looks good — even if his articulation isn’t the greatest — and the flightpack, the piece I thought would really detract from the toy’s value, turns this into a cool-looking action figure with a weird, futuristic appearance.

I’m definitely going to keep my eyes open for a Future Apocalypse and, if the price is right, I may even be tempted into picking up some of the other releases in this series. If you’re a toy fan, more than you are an X-Men fan, you may want to track one of these down. For $3 or $4 this should make a great addition to your collection.

If you wanna see something really crazy, take a look at this post at bootlegactionfigures.com. Yep, someone thought it was a good idea to create knockoffs of the Missile Flyers series. In fact, two someones latched onto this idea. Weird.

Philip Reed really likes the look of Bishop’s wingpack, even if it’s kinda weird-looking and completely out-of-character for what he thinks of the X-Men.