Legends Sunfire Age of Apocalypse

 

Well, this is a story and a half.  I imported this guy, along with AOA Weapon X and Sabretooth as at the time, they were the only toy representations of the Age of Apocalypse X-Men figures.  If you haven't checked out those pots yet, please do so.  Oddly I was fairly positive that he was made by Toybiz (now gone), but he was ACTUALLY made by Hasbro.  So, there ya go. In case you were wondering.

To summarise my feels, Age of Apocalypse was the series that got me into the X-Men and comics that weren't Transformers (eventually I was a rabid Sonic comic guy too).

If I remember correctly, there was some limitation to this guy, as in shop or something.  He definitely wasn't a regular release.  ** Sometime later.**  After a bit of searching, Sunfire here was part of a vote through ye olde toilet reading Toyfare magazine.  The toilet reading is a compliment of the highest regard.  I loved that goddam magazine when it was alive.

Ok let's go!

His box is a fairly standard card and bubble affair, with the figure posed in a flying pose and an awesome fiery background going on.  Whew!  So much red!  I'd like to bring attention to the image of the toy on the back, there is no translucent plastic.  Well well well, I'm glad the real one has it, as that yellow ain't too cool.  There is of course some very nice artwork around the place, as one would expect with a comic character.

Let's get him out.

    

He makes a very nice looking slim flight character.  I like it.  The simple combination of the translucent plastic and the black paint make a very nice combo.  Seems somewhat reminiscent of MOTU Scareglow.  The character is Japanese and I think see some theatrical influence in the black paint in the chest area.  On his pecs for example, it looks very very slightly like kabuki makeup eyebrows. Maybe.  The black is applied very sharply and is thick enough to block light coming through (more on that later).

The other paint he has is his mask and some on his flames. 

In typical "gotta let the readers know this guy is Japanese" fashion, he has a Japanese flag as part of his costume, this time is his half face mask with a rising sun slapped on the forehead.  Does this guy and Captain America have patriotism arguments?

The other paint is some orange on his flame bits and it works really well.

I've since found that Hasbro have released a newer version and it is lacking the ankle/wrists flames, which I think is a real shame.  They look very good and very appropriate for the character.  He looks a bit plain and boring without them there. 

Articulation is great!  He has plenty of joints and his (essentially) naked man design means the joints are uninhibited.  Very good!

It feels like many of them have soft ratchets on most of the joints.  There appear to be no ball joints on this guy.  He is made up of a combination of swivels and hinges everywhere!

Let's list them!

• Double & hinge skull base. His neck protrudes quite a bit from the shoulders.
• Hinge & pin shoulders.
• Hinged pin/shoulders, allowing him to curl arms forward around his chest.
• Swivel bicep peg.
• double hinged elbow.
• Fore arm swivel.
• wrist hinge.
• Nice clicky abdominal crunch.
• Waist swivel
• Swiveling peg with a hinge at the hips connected
• to a swivel peg in the top of the thigh.
• Double jointed knees.
• Mid calf swivel
• ankle hinge for forward and back at base of leg.
• Left right ankle rockers.
• Mid foot toe hinge.  It's a bit too far back for toes, but works as a mid foot bend.

Bloody hell! That's impressive.

All these allow you to get some extremely dynamic poses out of the sucker!  

Not so dynamic poses, like, um, having him just standing around can be a little awkward.  

Naturally he looks best when flying.  However he has no ports for a flight stand, so you need to use a claw grab around the waist.

While he is pretty easy to generally get posed well, the thigh joints are a bit of pain.  They consist of the above mentioned 

• Swivelling peg with a hinge at the hips connected
• to a swivel peg in the top of the thigh.

The combination of such is nice, but can be hard to manipulate into the spot you want.  For example, the get the leg to lift at the hip you need to bend using the ratchet hip joint to lift it up, wiggle it around and then straighten the leg.  If it doesn't look right, lift the leg at the hip again and try once more....

Trying to get his legs close together for a standing pose can be an exercise in frustration.

Which I avoid by having him fly.

While doing a bit of research for this guy, I discovered a newer version, so I had a look at the pictures.  They looks very similar.  But I prefer this older one.  The extra flames on the limbs balance him out nicely and the newer one seems to use a slightly heavier body build that looks a bit off for a flying character to me.  Despite the paint and translucence plastic on the new one, it just looks a bit plain.

Sculpting is pretty good.  The face and mask look very stern and not happy.  A fair call for a guy who burnt a large area of Japan to try and kill Apocalypse and Holocaust and to help people escape them, yet was unsuccessful and ended up being tortured until rescue.  He has a very Magneto looking necklace, as many of the AOA X-Men do, nice flame effects and the rest of his body is just muscle sculpt.

Oh except for the soles of his feet, he has treads on the bottom of his shoes it seems.  There ya go. 

They've rather wisely given him a closed fist on his right arm and an open hand for the left.  This combo works very well for flying and flame attack poses.

Of course being a big sucker for glow in the dark toys, this guy is almost as good in that he lets light flow through him and with a nice bright light behind him, he effectively looks aflame and radiant.  It looks so good.

Cooking some crab.

Followed up by a bit of yakitori.

About my only concern I have is one of longevity and this guy consisting of entirely translucent plastic, which has a tendency to become brittle over time, however since this toy has been around since 2008 now and it's now almost 15 years old I guess it's gonna be fine.

I like it and just had an idea.  I'm going to find a little LED spotlight to make this guy shine on display.  It'll look great!