So one of my latest projects at the shop has been to go through some of our action figure backstock and unload them on the eBay for rock bottom prices. Making money ain’t the point; making room is. But, in my storage area excavation escapades, I hit a vein of Skybolt figures.
“Skybolt figures,” you say? “What in Sam Scratch’s name are these ‘Skybolt’ figures you speak of?”
Well, it was a toy company that appeared to specialize in action figures based on female characters from small-press comic book companies. Here, let’s enjoy a few.
First up is the Hellina “Light Up Eyes Edition” –
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Yeah, I know, but most of the figures from Skybolt tend to look like this. Anyway, the eyes are clear plastic, so they apparently do light up, though there’s no way to check this myself since there’s no hole in the back of the package to press the button that theoretically should be there. Listed accessories include a detachable cape, a “telekinetic” dagger:
…a “nether-dimensional” whip:
…and a power base:
So those may look like an ordinary dagger, whip, and base, but don’t be fooled!
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My memory of the Nira X character is that she had about a couple dozen series, each running about one or two issues long, with the publisher throwing #1s onto the market to take advantage of whatever bump in sales a first issue could get, rather than having one ongoing series with increasingly declining sales. She also popped up in Avatar’s Threshold anthology series. This figure isn’t a bad representation, accurately duplicating Bill Maus’ style. I will take issue with the description of that itsy-bitsy gun as a “plasma cannon” on the packaging. I see the word “cannon,” I expect a big ol’ honkin’ cannon, not that little hairdryer. Feh.
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Okay, this one isn’t from Skybolt, but it’s of a kind. Most notable is that the face appears to have been “squished,” which may be hard to tell even in the larger scan, but take my word, it just looks peculiar. We also had the “nude” variant (which is not pictured, you naughty, naughty people), where the top comes off to reveal the character’s breastular area. The top had actually come loose in the package, which made it a little difficult to display in the store, as if having a package reading “NUDE VARIANT” wasn’t embarrassing enough to have on the shelves.
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Now, I know we carried comics with Sinthia in them…we’ve carried darn near everything else, but I swear I can’t remember having any Sinthias around. Anyway, this is the “limited edition Gold Sinthia,” restricted to only 5,000 pieces, which would surprise me if they came anywhere close to selling this many. And that costume…I’m not sure I’m comfortable with knowing about just how carefully this character shaves. Erg. To be fair, the short excerpt from the comic book that’s reprinted on the back of the packaging (common to all these Skybolt figures) did amuse, as Sinthia is apparently the rebellious daughter of Satan his own self, pretty much completely unimpressed by him and giving him the back-sass.
The character also comes with a sword and a scabbard. I always like it when action figures with swords have fitting scabbards as well. Good show, Skybolt.
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Speaking of comics with lots of #1s…Double Impact, in its various incarnations, was primarily about breasts and butts and guns. Okay, for some people, that’s fine, I’m sure…I’m not saying there isn’t an audience for it. But there’s also some talk about these two characters, Jazz and China, being a “lethal combat team” of secret agents or something, but really, it’s just scantily-clad gals shooting things and posing. God bless America.
These are the special “limited edition of 5,000” Platinum versions of the figures, which means the clothes they’re wearing are painted silver. Also, note that the bodies are the same, and only the heads are (barely) different. And yes, they have big guns. (And some weapons, too, har har.)
The back of the package has a sequence from the Hellina/Double Impact crossover, where the three characters decide to team up and take on the bad guy:
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“…A threesome he’ll never forget.” Well said, Jazz and/or China, well said.
Additional linkage:
A few of the Skybolt packages advertise a male figure, based on Valiant Comics’ X-O Manowar. While a photo of said figure is on one of the packages, it appears that it was never released (near the bottom of the page).
This site has reviews of the various Double Impact and Hellina figures, in all their hideous glory. (“Heart Ripper Hellina?” How’d I miss that?)
When I told pal Dorian of my plans for this post, he said “say, were you inspired by Dave’s Long Box’s Boob War?” Well, no, I was mostly inspired by “I’m gonna have to take pictures of all these things for eBay auctions so I might as well use ’em on my site, too,” but really, if you haven’t been reading his most recent series of great articles, and you want to know what comic shelves looked like in the ’90s, go check it out!
