La Lunatica of the X-Men 2099 series from Toy Biz

(Holos, now in shockin' flavor)

Toy Biz and Marvel, two companies that were nearly inseparable until 2006 when the license was sold off to Hasbro for a multi-million dollar price tag. During their reign at the top of the toy world, Toy Biz made some really awesome figures with groundbreaking articulation and they also made some of the worst figures I ever set my eyes on. In fact to this date, some of those ghastly figures are still the worst ones I've ever seen my entire life. You can't really be angry with Toy Biz though, their progressive evolution made action figures what they became today. I like to look back and say if there's someone to blame, it must be Marvel comics. Look at some of the artwork they had to deal with to attempt to compose a figure and you might just agree with me by the end of this blog.

(tonight's unfortunate choice. To be honest, I always used her as a female version of Lobo from DC Comics)

X-Men 2099 was one of those series that has simply been pushed into the black hole of collective forgetfulness of comic book readers. I have friends that are huge comic fans and they have never mentioned it in conversation, not even to make fun of it. To be quite honest, I had to go back and read a few issues so I'd have some background for this review. Also, this book came out in the mid 1990's when Marvel couldn't wait for an excuse to flood store shelves with yet another book of a futuristic/ alternate dimensional stories that have loose ties to current continuity. This series was full of a bunch of strange creations( both heroes and villains, and sometimes that line wasn't so clear) with such memorable names as Brimstone Love, Halloween Jack, Shadow Dancer amongst many others ( I won't bore you too much, those of you who continued reading past the mention of X-Men 2099 I personally applaud you.).

(behold, Toy Biz and their shameless attempts to take your hard earned allowance)

The basic card for the X-Men 2099 series was a die-cut backer done in blue, purple and gray with the X-Men 2099 logo at the top of the card. La Lunatica comes packaged with a funky silver colored blade that snaps into her hand and runs along her forearm and..........a futuristic jai-lai ball and catcher? (I'm about as lost as you are right now.) I always thought she should have come with a flight stand or something like that. Unless you read the back of the package or the comic you'd never know she's a vampire. A psychic vampire at that, feeding off of painful memories and turning those memories on them to defend herself ( man, this character kinda blows.) even though she possesses super strength as well. Her outfit has been altered to not be as risque as it is in the comic but the black straps painted on make the figure sexier looking than the bare flesh did. This is a tactic Toy Biz did several times during their reign behind Marvel's toy marketing juggernaut, changing outfits or even names of characters to make them less offensive on toy store shelves. This often confused most readers since they found nothing initially wrong with the characters in the first place. Especially myself, when making a quick run through a toy department and always thinking why someone was taking all the Holocaust figures when unbeknownst to me he had been renamed to Nemesis (really Toy Biz?). I was just looking at the name tags, I never looked at the figures because I had to meet my parents in front of the store by the time they finished shopping if I wanted to get something.

(kind of reminds me of Sindel from Mortal Kombat)

(slight resemblance, or maybe it's just the knockers.....it's the knockers) 

(I want to give the custom figure artist credit for this one, because I don't remember where I found this picture and I didn't know anyone had fond memories of anything related to the 2099 story arc)

X-Men 2099, a toy and comic series long forgotten and probably will never be resurected.

At least we hope not.