It’s J-Y-D and the L-O-D
and that ain’t no L-I-E.
So not long ago I bought
the greatest Rick Flair figure, and with it a great Sting figure because it was
discounted but also really cool and that *sigh* that completely broke the seal
and now I’m working on my own personal ‘dream roster’ in 6” figure form, to
help me out Mattel released IRS, Rick Rude, Yokozuna, Sycho Sid and British
Bulldog - because you better believe that my dream roster is mostly informed by
which characters Hasbro released no matter how shitty they were - but I’m not
reviewing any of them today because, well firstly Bulldog is sold out
everywhere because I live in England, I’m not sold on Rick Rude’s outfit, Yokozuna
proves that Mattel price their figures by the pound but mostly because I sold a
monkey suit. See I almost broke the seal when the Road Warriors, alias the
Legion of Doom, got an Elite figure buuut I didn’t and I regretted that because
now you can’t get them for less than £50 and as their Hasbro figures are some
of my favourite toys ever they’re utterly essential, then I sold a genuinely
gorilla suit on eBay and it allowed me to get both of them and Junkyard Dog for
£15 and the seller threw in a Road Warriors DVD as well. Sweet (I’ll get
Yokozuna next month)
.
Right then, Hawk and Animal
(alias the Road Warriors alias the Legion of Doom) were both released in WWE
Elite Series 30 and Junkyard Dog was released in in WWE Elite series 33, WWE
Elite being the ‘mid-price’ series of figures in Mattel’s WWE range, both came out
last year so they’re nowhere near recent but they all received a standard
retail release and Hawk and Animal were also made available as a two-pack. All
three of them rank as some of my absolute favourite wrestlers and their
inclusion in such a prestigious list is totally based on me having had toys of
them when I was small.
Junkyard Dog was portrayed
by Sylvester Ritter, the name and gimmick being created by Cowboy Bill Watts
while Ritter was wrestling for Mid-South Wrestling, he was for a good while the
top face (hero) in the company, feuding with the likes of the Fabulous
Freebirds, Ted DiBiase and King Kong Bundy and is very much considered "the first black wrestler to be made the
undisputed top star of his promotion", ironic as the man who created the
character would later be sacked by the WCW for being a racist prick. Ritter
then when over to the WWF and became a household name, including being one of
the main heroes in the cartoon Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n Wrestling, until leaving in
’88 to have a stint in WCW. Sadly Ritter died in 1998 after falling asleep at
the wheel. The Junkyard Dog was active in the WCW when I watched it but really
my fondness for him comes from having had the Wrestling Superstars Bendies
version of him from LJN for as long as I can remember. I have absolutely zero
idea why I had him, especially as I grew up in a somewhat racist household but
that Bendy has worked with everyone from the Dragonflyz to the Care Bears and
I’m very attached to it.
This isn’t that version of
Junkyard Dog, that version wore his red tights rather than the white 1980s soda
cup things he’s wearing here, there used to be a small fast food restaurant in
our local bowling alley (The Roller-Bowl) and the cups for their fizzy drinks
looked just like those trousers. Normally that would put me off but I was so
impressed with his likeness that thought ‘sod it’, that head sculpt is great,
maybe a little pudgy around the cheeks, but good enough to sell me the figure
although as my only figural representation of him as been a rubber bendy for
the last 28 years perhaps my standards are a bit lower? No, no that’s a good
likeness regardless. He looks fine on the shelf but if you look for two long
you sort of notice he’s just a little bit off and here’s what I reckon causes
it: I think that how Mattel make these figures is they look at the wrestler and
then match the parts they have to their physique and while they’ve matched
things correctly with JYD this kit-bash style of part reuse doesn’t gel overall
because you have parts coming from various different body types to make a new
one rather than the new pieces required to transition from say, a fatter body
to thinner arms (as the man did have). On the upside I love the thigh pieces,
the low muscle definition and the areas where the fabric is pulling, it’s
exactly the sort of style and sculpt I wish Mattel and Hasbro would give their
superhero figures, these would look great on Daredevil, Superman or Green
Lantern, if they didn’t have fucking thigh cuts anyway. The paint’s mostly fine
on mine except for a complete fuck up on the right leg’s ‘D’ of ‘Dog’, it’s all
smudged to hell (I also think the ‘THUMP’ is a little big but then these 80’s
wrestlers changed their tights every week so I’m sure it’s correct to one
iteration of this look). Articulation is fittingly mid-way between the WWE
(Basic) Rick Flair and Defining Moments Sting I already reviewed, he’s only one
joint at the elbows and the hinge/swivel combo join at the wrists but boasts an
ab-crunch, thigh swivel and those great double-joined knees, you can get sweet
a range, these figures are more poseable than any of the three men ever were,
and JYD’s legging design avoids the problems caused by thigh swivels.
Despite that paragraph full
of nitpicks I do like the figure, he doesn’t quite gel yes but he looks good
enough for you to look at him and go ‘holy shit, that so looks like him!’, my
only issue is one I knew I had and one that is VERY specific to me, I need to
get it out of my system but it doesn’t apply to anyone else in the known world
so just skip on to the Legion’s first paragraph if you want. It’s the chain, I
HATE mixed media on toys, I hate metal things on plastic things and plastic
things on fabric things, it makes me feel sick, I also hate little metal chains
(and most jewellery when it’s not being worn by someone) they make me feel sick
too. I don’t know why this is, I have some sensory problems it might be related
to but really I think it’s just because I’m weird. Junkyard Dog’s big gimmick
though was his collar and chain, it’s a removal accessory but no sane person is
going to display JYD without it, so I’m stuck with it, if it’d been plastic I’d
been ok (if it’d been red I’d’ve been delighted but that’s a reference you
don’t need to care about) but I think every other customer who doesn’t have
this weird problem would’ve been pissed if they bought a figure with ‘elite’ in
its title and it came with shitty plastic chains. The collar as an accessory is
fine though, and the chain’s actually pretty good in terms of scale and though
it does limit the head’s articulation I don’t doubt that the real one did as
well.
The Legion of Doom came to
the WWF in 1990, two years after the Junkyard Dog had left for the company
they’d just come from – WCW, previously at both the WCW and the AWA they’d
performed as the Road Warriors but were renamed when they came to New York,
though the packaging doesn’t name them either way they’re in their early 90’s
Legion of Doom costumes here so that’s what I’m calling them. It’s the best
choice for a lot of reasons but mostly because it was the outfits they wore
when they were turned into Hasbro WWF figures and I played with those for so
many hours back in simpler times when short stubby five-inch wrestlers could easily
take on giant Street Sharks and tiny Action Force. The team were Hawk and
Animal, played Michael Hegstrand & Joe Laurinaitis and are considered one
of the greatest tag teams of all time, having wrestled with Georgia
Championship Wrestling, the AWA, WCW and WFF as well as having big careers in
Japan, if all you remember of them is ‘that time Hawk fell off the Titantron’
please go and watch their 80’s and early 90’s matches, pleeeease. Hawk is no
longer with us, having died of a sudden heart attack in 2003 but Animal’s still
around, I met him this year in fact.
 |
| yeah...those are actually different costumes aren't they? Oh well, use them to compare the likenesses... |
The figures are just great,
there is so many places where you could easily and sometimes even forgivably
fuck up on these designs and Mattel’s sculptors, designers and especially
whichever underpaid Chinese woman painted these in the factories deserve so
much praise for not bollixing up, all of the paint on mine are nice, clean and
crisp, one of the spider legs on Animal (the one with the Mohawk) is a little
out of place (there’s a little gap) but that’s it, and given how complicated
the face paint and legging designs are? That’s pretty fucking good there,
though their nice trousers do perfectly prove my point about thigh cuts, I HATE
thigh cuts, firstly I hate them because they don’t make any sense as humans can
no swivel their legs at their thighs and secondly (though related to the first
point) using it will ruin any design on the legs in a way that would never
happen in real life, and as thigh swivels are often used instead of or to make
up for ball jointed legs you often have to use them to get certain poses. Anyway
likenesses are fantastic if not a little idealised for Hawk, I know he’s dead
but he was never this handsome and his head was never this slim (and he never looked that much like Robert Duvall), though
the sculptors get a bit of an easier time due to the benefits of facepaint I
guess, I don’t want to take too much away from them by saying that, there’s a
whole bunch of things that doesn’t let you off with so they’re good likenesses,
especially Animal.
The box has the cheek to
call their amour accessories so fine, I’ll play along. Each figure comes with
three pieces of removable armour – two gauntlets and their shoulder pads-chest
amour combo; this isn’t the first time this has been done I’m sure but it’s a
great idea, it allows you give the characters two looks, in-ring and entrance,
something that the nostalgic buyer who these are mostly aimed at couldn’t have
when they were kids and this great benefit actually makes making the figures
cheaper. Well done Mattel for making us appreciate you being cheap bastards who
love part reuse, and any bulkiness caused by them being removable just makes
them look more lifelike! That part reuse doesn’t serve Hawk as well as Animal,
though he was always the slimmer of the two he can look a little scrawny from
certain angles, the armour covers for it nicely if he’s got it on though. Both
of my figures do have the same issue and because of this I’m going to assume
it’s an issue with all of them, their right gauntlet is very loose and will
fall off if worn too far around the arm, they’ve fallen off a good few times
each just while writing this and taking the pictures (including one that fell
down the loft hatch, thanks for the extra exercise there, very in-keeping with
the toy) and I am really getting to hate their existence.
And that’s your lot, in
conclusion the LOD are awesome figures, probably the best a fan could hope for
when it comes to the line, JYD isn’t quite so perfect but he’s certainly
somewhere in the good-to-great area. I wish they’d drop the thigh cut and give
us some alternate heads and hands to better fit such an ‘Elite’ line but
they’re never going to do that so I’m not going to mention it again, all I have
left to say is don’t rush to pay eBay prices because you just never know when
you’re going to sell a monkey suit.
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