Revenge of The 90's

So, while many sites are pulling April Fools pranks today of varying cleverness, we have chosen to rise above all that. Instead, we've chosen to take you back in time for a look at the toys of the 90's. Well, two toys from the 90's. Give us a break, that stuff can get pricey!

RAC will be along later to present his part of today's update, so first up is my review of 1995's Space Case, from Transformers Generation 2. Starting Sunday, be sure to check back every day next week for our first special feature, The Revenge Of The 90's. Each day we'll highlight a different year with a review of a current toy showcasing properties of the 90's whose popularity has survived to today. And there's not a Power Ranger among them.

Look for us to get back to the normal Gundam routine starting the second week of April.

My contribution to today's feature is a review of The Phantasm, the villain from the first Batman animated movie. I bought this new, and miraculously managed to keep all its pieces together for a dozen years. I'm as amazed as you all are, believe me. Revisiting figures like this, and like some of the other 90's figures I've reviewed for this week, reminded me that I once considered knee and ankle joints pretty darned special, if not revolutionary. Bandai has spoiled me, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

On that note, I've gotten my hands on another batch of Gundam figures- I'm finally up-to-date with the last couple months of MSiAs- and it is my hope to ready a new review or two while the 90's avenge themselves upon us.

In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on It Figures! to see 90's-related toys that you can find in a store today- some refreshingly good, and some horrendously, frighteningly bad. You will see the tears of time.

1991 saw the release of Street Fighter II, which would serve as a stay of execution for the American video arcade for years to come. Its two lead characters, Ryu and Ken, are the subject of today's review. On the home console front, the Super NES was released, as was Sega's console-defining Genesis title, Sonic the Hedgehog.

This is also the year when computer-generated special effects came to prominence with Terminator 2. Personally, while T2 is enjoyable, I'd rather watch The Addams Family or Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, if I were specifically looking for a `91 film. Other possibilities include The Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, Hook, and Robin Hood: Prince of Theives.

On TV, new cartoons of the year included Darkwing Duck, Toxic Crusaders and Rugrats, which plagues us to this very day. Speaking of which, talk shows were Television's cheap and easy alternative to allowing creativity in 1991, inflicting upon an unsuspecting world Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, and Maury Povich all pretty much at once. It's a miracle we survived. At least we were finally rid of Dallas, however.

Among those who did not see out the year are musicians Miles Davis and Stan Getz, Theodor "Dr." Seuss Geisel, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. All are sorely missed, and if the latter two wouldn't mind returning to haunt those who work in their names, please contact Ron Howard and Rick Berman, respectively. Thank you.

In actual news, the largest occurrences of the year were the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both undoubtedly will have larger repercussions on the world than any of the above, but being 12 at the time I spent most of my time playing Sonic the Hedgehog and watching Darkwing Duck.

Sorry to disrupt the Revenge, but I'll keep it brief: Gunota has linked to a site with pictures of the 2005 Tokyo Anime Fair, which has pictures of the next three Zeta Gundam MSiA- including the first shot of the MSiA Hizack. Unfortunately, the entire Hizack display is not shown, but the missile pods, shield, and magazines for the Beam Rifle it shares with the Marasai are visible. Hopefully clearer pictures of Hizack will surface soon, but what's here is worth a look- the Asshimar in particular looks splendid.

UPDATED! A round of searching has found slick photos of MSiA Hizack and Neo Lorrnoke's Windam, as well as EMiA Zeta. That's the first shot of the Windam to surface, I believe.

Among the movies you could catch in 1992 was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and the new and improved reissue of the 1992 Mutations Raphael figure is the subject of our review for the day. Among the other movies you could watch this year were Wayne's World, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Home Alone 2, Basic Instict, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

1992 was also the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage, and there were a couple pretty bad movies about that as well. Other news of the year includes the Los Angeles riots, the sending of Jeffrey Dahmer, John Gotti and Mike Tyson to prison, the election of Bill Clinton, and Dan Quayle's infamous "potatoe" incident.

It was Batman's year, as Batman Returns- in my opinion the last watchable live-action Batman movie to date- was released. As was Batman: The Animated Series, which began a string of successful and more importantly excellent DC Universe animated series that continues to this day with Justice League: Unlimited. Also released this year was Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars, which I unfortunately missed as it went by- a situation I hope to remedy some day, as I've heard nothing but good things about it.

Elsewhere, animation aimed directly at adults was failing left and right in 1992, with series like Fish Police, Capitol Critters, and Ralph Bakshi's film Cool World all pretty well ignored. I'd recommend Batman:TAS to adults before any of those- and have, in fact. However, all was not lost, as this was the year that saw the premiere of Cartoon Network, which would run Flintstones and Scooby Doo reruns for several years before deciding to do anything worthwhile.

Among those who died in 1992 was physicist Gerard K. O'Neill, without whom Gundam's Universal Century would not have its distinctive space colonies. Also, Superman co-creator and artist Joe Shuster, who deserved far better than he got, considering that the comics industry still dines out on what he helped to create.

Video games this year included Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Genesis, while the Super NES got Final Fantasy II and Super Mario Kart. The good old NES kept on going with more Mega Man and Dragon Warrior IV. The arcades got Mortal Kombat which, coupled with Sega's horrid Night Trap, would soon cement video games' place as What's Wrong with Kids These Days. It has good company- former titleholders include comics, television, movies...

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were still a pretty big deal in 1993, with their third and final feature film, as well as a slew more toys. The remake of Mutations Shredder, who also hails from `93, is our review subject for today. He's also a pretty substantial improvement over his original incarnation, at least in terms of appearance. Although I really did like the swords the original came with.

It was a good year to have Robin Williams in your movie, as Aladdin and Mrs. Doubtfire both hit big. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was released this year, Steven Spielberg released both Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, and it was also the year Tom Hanks made himself known as a dramatic actor with Philadelphia. And finally, this was the year Army of Darkness was released, and that's just a really fun movie.

It was an all-around good year for Television as well, with series like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Homicide: Life on the Street, The X-Files, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Also, NYPD Blue and Walker: Texas Ranger. A fair number of these made it out of the 1990s- a pretty good track record for the year in terms of durability and, in an impressive number of these examples, quality. Animation had a fairly good year in 1993 as well, with Exo-Squad, Mighty Max, and Animaniacs.

In 1993 we lost Audrey Hepburn, Dizzy Gillespie, Andre the Giant, Raymond Burr, and the great Vincent Price. Other events of note for the year include Bill Clinton's swearing-in as President of the United States, the World Trade Center van-bombing, the ATF's standoff with the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX, and the first application of the term "Spamming" to unsolicited email.

Secret of Mana was arguably the SNES' best game in 1993. The Game Boy's was The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and the Genesis got the most sadistic game ever in X-Men. (For those who got stuck in `93: the answer to the "Reset the computer now!" puzzle is to press the actual Reset button on your Genesis. Pure Evil.) On the PC, the shareware version of Doom was released late in the year, and it didn't take very long thereafter for the first-person shooter to become a genre unto itself.

The 32-bit generation of gaming was getting up to speed in 1996. Among the releases for Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn this year was Mega Man 8, whose star is the subject of today's review. It's a good figure, especially for such a new company, and a dead ringer for our hero as he appeared in number 8.

The Nintendo 64 was also released this year, and Super Mario 64 would essentially have the same effect on gaming that the original Super Mario Brothers did- change the industry, and in so doing, inspire dozens upon dozens of bad games based around its formula. Polygonal 3D was the wave of the future in 1996, with many series such as Tomb Raider and Resident Evil being introduced, but it pretty much meant restarting the entire industry from scratch- speaking personally, I found the majority of 3D games not up to the quality I'd come to expect from a good 2D sprite game until the dawn of the Playstation2 or thereabouts, with a few notable exceptions.

In the news, this was the year that Deep Blue first won a game of Chess against Garry Kasparov, though Kasparov would go on to beat the computer 4-2. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested, the Prince and Princess of Wales were divorced, Dolly the Cloned Sheep was born, and Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in the November presidential election.

George Burns died in 1996 at the age of 100. Jerry Siegel, the other half of the team that created Superman, also died this year, as did writer Erma Bombeck, musicians Ella Fitzgerald and Tiny Tim, and actors Gene Kelly and Mark Lenard.

Speaking of whom(Lenard played Sarek of Vulcan, after all), Star Trek: First Contact was released in 1996, easily the best movie to feature the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Among the other top movies of the year were Independence Day, Jerry Maguire, Twister, and Mission Impossible.

Television had what I'd consider a mediocre year, with the debuts of Everybody Loves Raymond, Judge Judy, and 7th Heaven. However, this was the year that Power Rangers Zeo debuted. Zeo marks the first year that Power Rangers completely changed source material, as opposed to retaining elements from previous Sentai shows adapted for the US. In subsequent years, each Power Rangers season would become pretty much self-contained, like their Japanese counterparts.

On the animation front, the DCU's winning streak continued with the premiere of Superman: The Animated Series. A good show to be sure, but to this day Superman has a poor understanding of the concept of "dodge." Unfortunately, this was the last year for the animated version of The Tick, and the series is not available yet on DVD. But, premiering this year was Beast Wars, which many consider to be the Transformers' finest hour, and good science fiction in its own right. Like an idiot, I didn't watch because I thought that Transformers should be vehicles and machinery and stuff, darn it! So now I have to pay heaps of money for DVDs to see a really great show I essentially cheated myself out of.

Sometimes in life, we're our own punchlines.