Jim Lee’s WildCATS Action Figures
Image Comics changed the comic landscape in the nineties, but one area where the venture never quite came together was in the world of toys. McFarlane released toys for Image, Mattel released toys for Image, and even Playmates — as we can see in this ad from 1995 — released toys for Image. Talk about brand confusion for the average comic and toy fan!
These WildCATS action figures (Amazon.com search*) always looked pretty neat, but since I have none of them all I can do is admire this ad and the photos of the toys online. The nineties sure offered us a hell of a variety of action figures.
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With this said, McFarlane Toys has had a HUGE influence on the action figures that have followed its work on the Spawn action figures. They also contributed heavily to the idea of action figures being for adults as well as kids. I haven’t liked a McFarlane toy in years, but they did some great work back in the day.
I had a bunch of the WildCATS action figs. They looked cool, but because they didn’t have a ton of articulation and because they were so dynamically posed, you couldn’t really do much besides display with them. They’re not as bad as the Spawn toys in that aspect, but they were definitely better as display pieces. I mean, look at the Warblade fig pictured here. He always had to be kind of squatting like that.
@Paul – That style seemed really popular back in the nineties. I think that with limited articulation a neutral pose is best. Could kids actually play with these forever-hunching and crouching toys?