Hall of Fame
| Class of Bootleg | Class 2 - Duplicated and Modified |
| Class Notes: | Could have been a class one - but they mixed lines. |
| Bootleg Source: | Marvel Hall of Fame (Packaging) and DC Total Justice (Toys) |
| Bootleg Rating: |
 (Four out of five stars)
|
| Sightings: | Australia |
| Vintage: | Early 1999 |
ToyBiz's "Hall of Fame" line. A cheap way to repackage existing characters and sell the same old crap all over again.
The Bootleg "Hall of Fame" line. A cheap way to repackage exsiting characters and sell the same old crap all over again.
The difference? Well, ToyBiz makes characters from Marvel Comic's universe. Wolverine. Spider-Man. Those guys. You can see them on the packaging at left.
The bootleg toys, however, decided for some unknown reason to reproduce figures from the "Total Justice" line. Characters from the DC Universe.
The real Total Justice line featured new sculpts of many of DC's top-flight heroes. There were three waves:
We'll take a look at each of the bootleg offerings.
The real version of this figure has two variations - one with grey armor, one with gold armor. Somehow I doubt DC comics would be pleased with this black armor version.
Aquaman's equipment has been cast in vac-metalized silver, with a black plastic launcher for his missile.
His trunks have been changed from the legit-green to a pale lavender, and his normally blonde tresses have been painted a deep brown.
To me, this figure ended up looking a lot more like Will Riker from Star Trek than Aquaman.
This flash comes with all the accessories of his "real" counterpart, but all cast in a dull red and yellow plastic with no paint detailing.
Flash's logo also suffers, now consiting of nothing but an outline of the finished shape.
The real fun of this bootleg are the "wings" on the side of Flash's head. They look like they've been melted in a microwave. Also note the slipshod construction on the torso...the arms are about to fall off and there's a huge gap between the pieces!
One thing all the Total Justice characters had were oversized masses of non-realistic muscle. Green Lantern lead the pack, with a facial expression that fairly screamed "Pass the Ex-Lax!"
The Bootleg version comes with all the correct accessories, but cast in a matte green instead of the cool transparent plastic of the original.
The painting on this figure is uniformly terrible - the logo on his chest is only half done, and the Q-Tip approach to detailing was well applied on his face.
Last of the Wave-1 figures to appear in this bootleg line is Robin.
Like the other Wave-1's, Robin comes with the correct accessories, but all cast in a uniform dull yellow plastic.
Robin's outfit is accurately rendered, but the chest logo is once again a single color - the black outline is present, but the yellow "R" is absent.
The face is again treated to the "lumpy" paint detail common to this line.
The cool bit about this bootleg is the particular copy that was sent to me. Notice the little square with all the arrows on it in the detail below? Well, that's the header from the roll of tape used to hold the accessories into the blister! Yet another example of poor quality control on the bootleg assembly line!
Batman is the first figure from the second wave of TJ figures to surface in this bootleg line. This Batman was a replacement for the odd "Angel Wing" Batman from the first Total Justice assortment, with cooler armor and a nifty black color scheme.
Unlike the wave one figures above, Batman doesn't come with the correct accessories. Instead, he comes with a dull-red version of Aquaman's missile launcher.
The mold for Batman underwent some odd changes....the head has been severly elongated, creating an "Easter Island" Batman.
The detailing on the Fractal armor is done in the same lavender of Aquaman's pants.
Next up we have the Man of Steal himself, Superman. Supes was a welcome addition to the Total Justice line. He was present in other action figure lines from Kenner, but none matched the over-muscled poses of TJ.
Superman comes with the correct accessories, and they even resemble the Kenner versions, except that they lack some stickers and paint detailing.
The painting is uniformly bad...look at the wussy rendition of the S-Shield on the detail below.
Also fun is the terrible embarassment that Supes is feeling...as evidenced by his beet-red complexion.
The final hero from TJ Wave 2 was the high-flying Hawkman. This is probably my favorite figure from the entire TJ line. The muscles aren't overdone, the pose is good, and the chest-plate is removable to reveal the correct harness-look for this hero.
The bootleg is very close to the original, with only minor color changes. He has the correct accessories (a pair of giant talons), now cast in a cool rust colored plastic.
The detail below shows the teltale signs of a bootleg, though. The mask has somehow been transformed from a fierce eagle to a goofy dodo bird. Also notice the lack of the hawk-symbol on the chest plate.
Still, this is a cool figure, even in cheezy-knock-off-mode.
Of all the bootlegs in the Hall of Fame line, Green Arrow got off the easiest. His color scheme is good, the detailing is not bad, and the construction seems OK.
He comes with the correct weapons, most of which have been updated with Vac-Metal treatments.
Unfortunately, this couldn't help the crappy sculpt that this figure is based on.
The Huntress, on the other hand, suffers a variety of humiliations.
First off, her armor, once a sperate piece, has been cast as part of the base figure. And her normally cool color scheme has been replaced buy a bizarre powder blue/peach pink combo. Hardly the "Woman warrior of the night" image she normally has.
At least the weapons are right, and again most have the cool vac-metal detaling. The main missile, however, is in the lavender we've come to know and love from Aquaman's pants.
One thing to be sure to notice is that Huntress's head is not seated on her neck. There's a good 1/2 inch gap there!
Although the "real" figure is Black Lightning, a better name for the bootleg would be "White Lightning." Instead of the African-American hero of DC comics, we have some poorly painted caucasian moron. He doesn't even have a tan.
He comes with all of BL's gear...all VacMetalized, and the paint scheme is correct.
Overall a disapointing figure, unless you're looking for laughs. I would rather have seen a villian or two (particularly Paralax) over this doofus. But what are ya gonna do?
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