Ask most action figure enthusiasts what they collect and you’ll get a handful of standard answers regarding the core of their collection – admired superheroes and superheroines, movie or TV characters, or just things that look neat. Certainly, this is the core of my own collection as well – I’ll never pass up a good Batman, and I have a nearly complete collection of Muppets and Heroes figures, for no other reason than I like the places they came from. Lately, however, I’ve begun to look at the formal properties of my favorite action figures to identify aesthetic themes between them, intentional or accidental. I thank ToyGiants by the Fuchs brothers for this renaissance in my perspective.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m inadvertently collecting clear action figures. And I totally don’t mind.

It’s not an especially difficult collection to amass, since many, many action figure lines already incorporate the ‘clear’ action figure into their ranks, usually to represent ‘invisible’, ‘hologram’ or ‘ghost’ characters. These clear figures are almost always variants on existing, solid characters, and usually reuse the same expensive mold that the full-color version of the character utilizes. To add to the financial appeal of clear figures, the manufacturer doesn’t even have to pay for paint applications on most of these, and they can still be sold as completely different figures. It’s a racket, I tells ya!

Generally, the unpainted surface of these clear figures reveals the hidden beauty of the toy sculpt, which is often lost under imprecise paint or small manufacturing flaws. Seeing the pure shape of the figure as the light plays across and through it is a quiet kind of acknowledgment that there’s actually some artistry and skill underneath these bulging muscles and voluminous capes. The inner joints are revealed, pins and hinges laid bare, and plastic seams made obvious – but there’s something beautiful about them.

I envision my army of clear figures assembled in a display, creating a striking, unusual and ghostly community of the intangible and unseen. The following is a basic overview of translucent and clear action figures, for any of you figure collectors aspiring towards elevating your collections to another level. An artfully assembled collection of aesthetically unified figures can potentially offset and validate the blatant nerdiness of your Mighty Avengers shelf.

Hasbro’s Star Wars line has incorporated a number of blue-tinted ‘holographic’ figures, as they’re displayed via interstellar communications in the ol’ Star world. These include Darth Vader, General Grievous, Ki-Adi Mundi, Plo Koon, Count Dooku, Yoda, Darth Maul, Princess Leia and of course, the original holographic evil head, The Emperor. In addition to this, Yoda, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan also appear in ‘spirit’ form, as they did at the end of Return of the Jedi during the Ewok free-for-all.

Mezco’s recent Heroes line has incorporated clear variations of both Claude (the Invisible Man) and Peter Petrelli (who learns how to become invisible from him). The Hellboy 2 line features a SDCC exclusive ‘Supernova’ Liz Sherman, whose clear form is tinted blue and orange, and their Hellboy Comic line had a rare, translucent ‘Ghost of Lobster Johnson’ figure.

Palisades Toys’ Muppets line included an ‘Invisible Spray Fozzie’ and an ‘Invisible Beaker’, which both reference actual events from the TV show. Playmates’ Star Trek line had a spinoff series of ‘Transporter’ figures, which were half-painted representations of the main Enterprise crew, with their nether-halves partially phased out, as if being disintegrated and reassembled on a molecular level.

Of course, the Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman has myriad clear action figures, from the 12” scale movie figure down to 5” scale. Additionally, ToyBiz’ first modern Fantastic Four line of toys included an invisible Super Skrull, ‘cause he rolls that way sometimes. Similarly, Vision from the original Marvel Legends line had a translucent, ‘Phasing’ variant.

Violet from Pixar’s film ‘The Incredibles’ also shared this invisibility superpower, and the Disney Store exclusive figure of her reflected this, in both painted and unpainted forms, conveniently packaged together.

There are also ‘Stealth Mode’ Predators from various companies, also, and McFarlane Toys’ line of HALO figures features an ‘invisible’ Camo Master Chief figure. In the future, everyone just goes invisible instead of wearing those tacky grey-and-green-splotches. Even the old ‘The Shadow’ line of movie toys had an ‘Ambush Shadow’ among the line, which also used invisibility as a cover for ambushin’.

DC Direct recently released a clear Martian Manhunter figure in their Justice line, since the Manhunter’s powers involve invisibility, as well as phasing through solid objects, changing shape, telepathy, super-strength, great peripheral vision and perfect toenails. A clear Manhunter also appears in Mattel’s Justice League line, and a pellucid Blue Beetle figure was also released into DC Direct’s ‘First Appearances’ line, to represent his stealth invisibility powers.

Of course, one can’t forget The Lord of the Rings from ToyBiz, in which Frodo, Bilbo and Gollum all tried out invisibility via magic ring and were captured as such in action figure form.

NECA’s Castlevania line is based on a video game in which the main character, Simon Belmont, can temporarily become invisible when he finds the right power-up, and so it is with their action figure line.

So, while this is certainly not a complete list of every see-through action figure, it’s a good start, and it’s an interesting reflection on just how often the clear ‘gimmick’ is used. You might be especially interested in figures that are red, or figures that are mostly white.

Regardless, I’m a total sucker for it.

---

================

Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.