Toybiz Age of Apocalypse Sabretooth

Sabretooth, Wolverine’s brother of sorts.  I am prone to loving a good nemesis character.  This here is Sabretooth from the Age of Apocalypse comic series that ran in the mid 90s, which was a post-apocalyptic story where Apocalypse successfully conquered most of the world.  The X-men were run by Magneto as Professor X had been accidentally killed in a time travelling accident.  Go wiki it, I quite enjoyed it.

In fact it was the series that got me started on comics.
This figure from Toybiz was a Walmart exclusive, which annoyed me greatly as it meant I would have trouble getting one as Australia doesn't have Walmart.  Eventually I did find one and here he is.  Sabretooth, member of the Astonishing X-Men and a good guy.  Crazy.  That’s why I liked the Age of Apocalypse.

He came on a blister pack with a nice little bio thing with stats on the back.  If you collected all the figures in this wave, you could build a giant figure of Giant man.

One thing I really hate  with these Toybiz figures is that the plastic for the toy is that annoying sealed at the sides stuff and you have to completely destroy the package to open it up.

Once you have pried him out of the box, you are presented with a lovely yellow but very angry and tough looking character.

Originally I though he looked a bit short, but he seems to be the same height as my Thor figure, making him the 200cm ish mark he needs to be.    The design is simple in that it appears to be spandex. Nice, sure….  There is some incredible paint washed over the yellow plastic, which is a relief as this would look ridiculous without it I think.  He almost looks symmetrical, but his left hand has a metal glove of sorts, which if you read the comic was attached to a chain that was attached to Wilde Child.  It’s a shame that some form of WC isn’t included as that would have been ace and it’s not like Sabretooth comes with any other accessories.  Hell, I would have happily skipped Giant Man’s foot if they had included a Wild Child.


The face sculpt is suitably gruff.  Sabretooth was a bad guy working for Apocalypse originally, but defected to Magneto later on, so technically he’s a good guy.    The eyebrows are huge, as are his mutton chops on the side of his face.  The angles of his face, with the snarl and the flared nostrils really add to his mean look.  The only disappointing thing would be the eyes on mine as he seems to have white splotches in the middle.  He does have a lot of detail on his muscles with lots of veins and lined tone around the place, there is no doubt how strong he must be!

I really like the collar piece there.  It’s a dead-ringer for the one Magneto wears and probably a sign of loyalty.  His pony tail is long and swivel jointed, I must admit at first I thought it was too flowing in it’s sculpt, but you can have it just hang down his back if you want it, and it of course works well for those action poses.  In fact it works really well.

The articulation of his body, which is pretty good allows you to get him crouched down really low and bent over very nicely.  His articulation consists of;

• Ball jointed neck
• U/D/L/R Shoulder and his
• Abdominal Crunch
• Waist swivel
• Bicep Swivel
• Hinge elbow
• Double jointed knee (although essentially reduced to single joint due to sculpt of pants)
• Boot swivel
• U/D ankle
• Toe cut U/D
• Hinged wrists with a swivel in fore-arm
• Individual fingers(!!)

While the sculpt overall is pretty good.  To me his massive biceps look a little small, his left arm in particular looks kind of, I am not entirely sure, just weird.  like his elbow is too far up his arm…  Maybe it has to do with his fore-arm being rather thick with that gauntlet thing.  I don’t know, all I know is it just doesn’t look quite right.

You can see above how little movement the knees end up getting due to the pants sculpt.  Aside from muscles (and there are a lot of those), there is very little to really comment about the looks of the figure.  The colour looks good enough and also looks dirty enough, the metals are very nicely done, but particular mention should go to the magnificent leather paint they have done on his boots and belt.  It’s just amazing!

Of course the articulated fingers are incredibly fun!  Just look at the dodgy paint on mine though…  You can almost make him flip the bird.  Always a good sign in my books!

Sure, they might look a bit arthritic at times, but remember,  he is supposed to be in a tense scratching type pose with them.

Oh and one thing that is even better than flipping the bird?

“Air Quotes”

Oh Yeah!

So overall this is a pretty solid little figure.  About the right scale for other Legends and although plain in the design side of things (which is not Toybiz’s fault) he looks pretty sweet.  The balance is very good and I feel that he should be able to fill all your Sabretooth needs as a character. Even the white eyes (which might just be on mine) and the splotches of paint aren’t that horrible in my opinion.   I just wish there were a few more AOA characters kicking around the place.  Well, AOA that I could get my hands on… 

Plus, how can you pass up a figure who can Air Quote? LIKE A BOSS!