Review – Adventure People X-Ray Woman

I remember finding a weird, semi-translucent green action figure at a garage sale the summer of 1981. One quarter out of my pocket got me this odd-looking figure that wasn’t quite the size of a Star Wars figure . . . but it was close enough to work for my nine year old needs. Over time I picked up more pieces at the same scale, including a small space ship, a few other action figures, and even some animals. It wasn’t until several years later that I learned where these toys came from.

I’m sure everyone reading this is familiar with Fisher-Price’s excellent Little People series of toys, but there’s a good chance that some of you out there aren’t at all familiar with Fisher-Price’s Adventure People series. Running from the mid-70s through the mid-80s, Adventure People stood about 3.5-inches tall and designed for rugged adventure. From safari expeditions to deep sea exploration to outer space, the Adventure People were there.

Take a look at that card back. I remember playing with the Firestar I; I couldn’t quite fit most stormtroopers in it, but with some cramming and shoving they hung inside (as long as you didn’t move the ship too fast or turn it upside down). I even had a few of those other action figures (which quickly found their way to the bottom of the toy box, because they weren’t quite the right size for Star Wars . . . and they weren’t space-related). And I remember playing with a broken Alpha Probe (though it didn’t have the cool secondary vehicle). Man, I wish I had those old vehicles today.

But none of this is telling you about the X-Ray Woman.

X-Ray Woman

Surprisingly, X-Ray Woman — and all of the Adventure People — has slightly better articulation than the Star Wars action figures of that era. Joints at each arm and leg, just like Star Wars figures, the one real difference is in the neck: the Adventure People necks not only turn left to right but they also lean down a little, allowing them to kinda look at the ground. It’s a minor change, but it is an improvement. Of course, this is nothing compared to the G.I. Joe figures that started appearing in 1982, but for 1981 (when I picked her up), X-Ray Woman was pretty much perfectly acceptable.

As I mentioned earlier, she’s cast from a semi-translucent green plastic that gives her a strange appearance. Painted details bring out the belt, while computer-like paint design applied to the torso shows us that she’s a robotic creature (maybe, I’m not entirely sure). The plastic is kinda flexible, with the figure’s arms and legs slightly bending if you apply enough pressure.

X-Ray Woman’s head is the only piece that isn’t translucent, with the head a solid, dark green with white eyes and pale blue hair. Overall, X-Ray Woman’s paint application — not exactly the sort of thing we worried about in 1981 — is inferior even for the time she was released. Today she looks like she was painted by a five year old kid; she doesn’t at all look like a professional action figure.

Too Small for 3.75-inch, too Big for the Pocket

X-Ray Woman’s at an unusual size that I don’t expect will ever make a come back. She’s not quite big enough for the detail that we see in 3.75-inch action figures (pretty much every 3.75-inch scale figure from the 70s and 80s far surpasses her), but she’s too big to function as a pocket toy (today, that honor belongs to the Glyos System series from Onell Design).

Closing Thoughts

Not the greatest action figure on the planet, X-Ray Woman’s cool for one reason only: you can see through her bits. It’s not every day that you see a semi-translucent action figure, and it’s a neat enough gimmick that everyone wants one. Hell, even the Crayboth want one of their own . . . as you can see in the photos below.

If you’d like to poke at the Adventure People then you need to take a look at the 1983 Catalog, now showing at www.plaidstallions.com. I don’t know what the hell Opticon is, but I need him/it.

Philip Reed wonders how tough it would be to track down an X-Ray Man to join his X-Ray Woman. If they did meet, though, would they have an X-Ray Baby?