Toy Chest Tuesday! Witchblade!

Remember back in April when things got dorkier than usual? Refresh your memory here. Well today's Toy Chest Tuesday is sort of a sequel. So read on for some toy talk!


I can't say I have lived forever, but I can say that I was lucky enough to live in the 80's, quite possibly one of the best decades for toy collecting. At the time it just seemed like there were no other places that toys could take us. We had everything. Toys that transformed. Toys that smelled. Toys that were short, medium height, and super tall. Toys that got to live in play sets bigger than most people's homes. I mean the 80's was a great time of some truly outrageous high concept lines.

And then the 90's arrived ready to take everything learned from the 80's and just make it look more realistic and sexy. Emphasis on sexy. Some of the items that came out in that decade made everything before practically archaic. Move over He-Man, muscles looked ready to ripple! Forget wearing bras ladies of She-Ra, breasts were big and bountiful in the 90's. Toys became more realistic (in a plastic fantastic surgery kinda way) which had its pluses and minuses. One such toy line that really showed off for me just how far toys had come was the Witchblade line by Moore Action Collectibles. MAC had actually been responsible for a lot of awesomeness with Buffy, Chaos Comics, and other cool lines. But there was something about the Witchblade line that just summed up the decade toy-wise perfectly. Let's look!

Series 1

Emerald Medieval Witchblade

 

Before I go any further, I have to give a huge thanks to a wonderful collector and fellow blogger. Cal from the Canadian Cave of Cool recently sent me this lovely Emerald Medieval Witchblade figure. That was very nice of him. Check out his blog, as I'm sure most of you already have. He is very funny and is always posting really cool things. I get a kick out of his stuff. He also really likes the finer things in life, like Monster High, X-Men, and Wonder Woman to name a few. I mean honestly, who doesn't like those things? Am I right? Only ill begotten fools dislike those things and I just pity that.

 

Anyways, this Emerald Medieval Witchblade figure was a variant from the first series. (The original version will be shown soon.) So for those unsure of the Witchblade series, it was a comic series from Top Cow Productions and it involved a detective named Sarah Pezzini who merges with this powerful sentient weapon known as the Witchblade. This weapon can do all sorts of things and various people have possessed its power through the years, like the Medieval Witchblade.

Essentially Witchblade was similar to other big comics of the time: hyper-sexy men and women fighting in next to nothing. I was hooked. Not so much in the comic itself, but in the figures. They looked stunning and up until that time, toys just weren't looking this realistic. This toy line came out in 1998 and like a growing segment of toys from that time, the line was marketed for collectors and had a great amount of detail for not much money. I prefer this variant over the original because that Emerald metallic paint looks so cool. Plus she comes with a cape. Capes always make everything better. I've seen some lousy capes in my day, but when a figure has a cape that is just right, it is perfection. I just love a good cape.

There were only four figures from the first series. The detail was so superb on these figures that they looked like mini statues. With little articulation, they kinda were. Either way I've always had a "take-it-or-leave-it" approach to articulation. I mean sometimes it is nice for a figure to have articulation and other times I am just fine without it. For me, a whole lot of articulation can only mean more things to break. Anyways, aside from the four other figures, there was also a brief bio in the center. Medieval Witchblade had a name: Katarina. For purposes of my lengthy back-in-the-day-fanfic I called her Scarlet. I just felt like she was more of a Scarlet instead of a Katarina.

 

Medieval Witchblade 

As you can see, the regular Medieval Witchblade was slightly different from the Emerald variant. There is no cape and the metallic green paint is used sparsely. She does come with the same weapons though along with the same stand. I remember hunting these things down and having the hardest time doing so until one day Kay-B Toys had them all for like three dollars each. Oh you gotta love Kay-B Toys. Leave it to them to have had the items I was looking for at the cheapest price possible.

Even the back of the figure had a great amount of detail, even if her bikini piece seems to small on her. I have to give her props though, fighting in that outfit takes guts. He-Man never need complain again about his loin cloth, that's all I'm sayin. I mean one swift kick is all it takes and we all know if you like to visit Brazil or not.

Weapons fit easily enough into her hands, and that sword was nearly just as tall as the figure. But this was one of my favorite figures back then. For many reasons actually. First of all female figures were a rarity back then and in some regards they still are. But, to have a line of action figures where the females are as abundant as the males, well that is always a good thing. And I totally understand that the fellas were after the toy line for the ample bosom and lady parts, but this toy line and series was more than just the sum of its parts. Not for nothin, I loved my little story I gave her in my fanfic. She was cryogenically frozen in Medieval times by a sorcerer who was trying to prevent her from fully using the powers of the Witchblade and then her body was uncovered and thawed out during an avalanche that nearly killed Sarah and her friends. I based it off of Mannequin 2. I love the Mannequin movies, they were so good. Cheesy, but good. Anyways, in my phony baloney story she struggles with living in the modern world while finding love and enemies. It was not unlike Captain America except with more boobs.

 

Kenneth Irons

 

Back when I had my field day shopping for the clearance Witchblade items at Kay-B toys, I had also picked up the vile scrupulous entrepreneur Kenneth Irons. One of the main villains of the series, Irons wants the power of the Witchblade for himself and I feel like the figure does a good job of that. First of all, evil or not, I find it so sexy for a seemingly naked man to be covered in some sort of strange symbiotic skin rash. I mean this figure just looks simply amazing. There is so much movement and animation with this figure, it is great.

The Witchblade spikes off his body from his backside and looms over his face. Just a really cool sculpt. He only came with one weapon, but that is ok, because this figure just looks cool.

Even though his weapon looks really cool, it also looks really impractical. Like why would anyone need something like that? It just seems like a weapon designed to be a danger to the opponent and the one wielding it.

 

Series 2

Ian Nottingham

 

Oh sexy dreamy Ian. If bouncy bouncy Sara and Katarina were drawing in supporters of the female form, Ian was bringing in those thirsty for a six pack. I have always been particular about men with long hair, because it can really go either way, but Ian had me hooked. I thought this was the most handsome action figure at the time. I know that sounds strange, and I don't mean it to be weird, but this was a nice looking figure! Who wouldn't want a ripped shirtless man in black trousers with luscious flowing hair to knock on their door? Add to the fact that he was a bad guy and, well, you have yourself the anti-Fabio right there. Believe me, an anti-Fabio is hotter than an actual Fabio.

His back sculpt looks gross though. I'm just going to be real, that back looks like a hemorrhoid from a space alien. But his name is still sexy. Say it out loud. Ian Nottingham. Oh my goodness the names of the Witchblade characters were all good. They all sounded so nice. I'm always bad at coming up with names for characters in my own stories that I write. They never sound as cool as Ian Nottingham or Sara Pezzini.

Ian came with two swords. He was also found in that clearance bin at Kay-B. That had been a really good toy shopping day for sure. Anyways, Ian was Kenneth Irons' bodyguard. He was evil and fought against Sara. In my version of events I had him as the evil bodyguard, but I created a bit of a love story between Ian and Sara. I felt like they'd make a perfect couple with their perfect bodies and hair. I also really love a good story where a bad guy can redeem him/herself.

 

Sara Pezzini

 

And now we have arrived at the final figure. I never picked up the Witchblade figure from the first series. Instead I had to own the second series Sara with her Witchblade gimp outfit. The thing that I can't help but enjoy about this line was the silliness of it all. Sara looks ready to either show up in a sex dungeon or as an extra to a Mad Max movie. There is a certain charm/badassness about it all that I love.

The back of the card shows the other release for series 2 (Ian) as well as another figure: Fathom. Fathom's name is Aspen Matthews. Another damn good name! The bio though on this card does a really nice job of explaining what the Witchblade is.

Here is a closer photo of gimp Sara. The Witchblade armor pieces are removable. Her head pops off while the shoulder piece slides off much like the leg pieces. Aside from the head, everything is very easy to put on.

The shoulder Witchblade armor even reaches over to her back. The sculpting is so precise from the armor to the figure, it looks as if the armor was permanently attached. The amount of work that went into these figures is fantastic.

With the armor off, Sara is ready to hit a regular club. That is the only explanation I have for why she is dressed this way. That or Sara was going undercover as Pretty Woman. Out of all the figures though, this version of Sara only has articulation at her arms and neck. Nothing else moves and since her heels are spiked, this figure has a hard time standing on her own.

I like her hair sculpt. It is a nice full piece of hair. Actually the detail on the face sculpt is very impressive. Clayburn Moore had some crazy sculpting skills. The detail and movement in his items is impressive. Plus his name sounds really cool. He could have been a character from this series with a name like that.

Aside from the Witchblade armor, Sara also came with Police Force Weapons. "Freeze! I'm an undercover hooker with a handgun!" I can't help it. But the way the hand is sculpted, Sara has a trigger finger and everything for her two guns. The baton fits a little differently. Out of all of her accessories, it is actually the Witchblade armor pieces I enjoy the most. Gimp look and all.

 

I really enjoyed collecting these toys and adding them to my silly fanfic writings back in the day. It's also nice to look back on these figures because they were made at a time in our toy pop culture conscious where super heroes and collectible toys were hyper-sexualized in a way that hasn't really been seen since. I feel like collectible toy lines have found a happy medium. Female detectives are now sculpted in tight cat suits as opposed to skin tight club wear.

 

All in all I really did enjoy Witchblade. I never really read the comic series, but I followed it enough to know some of the basics of the story and to look on at all the cool cross-overs that went down at that lime. I mean it was destiny for Lara Croft and Sara Pezzini to cross paths in a comic book. Lara and Sara both represented a very interesting time indeed.

 

So that is about it for Toy Chest Tuesday! Enjoy the pictures and again, a big thanks to Cal. He helped really complete this Toy Chest Tuesday for sure! Take care everyone.