|
 
Manufacturer: Skybolt Toyz
Recommended Age: 9 and up
Category: Action Figure
Overall Rating:
2.5 Stars out of 4
Review by Ken
2½ Stars out of 4
Cynder is a creation of Immortelle Studios and you can check her
out in her own ongoing comic-book series from Lightning Comics. Some
background history first before I tell you if the figure rocks or not.
Cynder's real name is Cyndi Montgomery and she's this mutant with the power
to control fire. Her abilities originally manifested themselves as some kind
of psionic entity that eventually merged with Cyndi's personality. Realising
her new found powers, Cyndi decided to run away from her abusive parents and
start over afresh as yet another heroine in this already over-populated
superhero universe. Seems that Cynder also has this rather gory ability to
make people and things spontaneously combust. Yeesh. She's kind of like the
little girl in Stephen King's 'FIRESTARTER'; only not so little and
definitely more scandalously dressed and immensely attributed too, if you
catch my drift.
I have to say I was kind of disappointed with this figure. I mean, the
sculpting and detailing were up to their usual excellent standards, and the
figure even boasts some eleven points of articulation- at the neck,
shoulders, arms, wrists, legs and knees. But there's hardly anything new or
innovative here. For one thing, Cynder has no cool accessories whatsoever.
The only thing you get are two feeble looking pieces of plastic that are
supposed to act as simulated flames. You attach these to both of her hands-
and that's it. They don't do jack else. Cynder may be able to barbecue
people in the comic book; but when it comes to action figures, there's no
way in heck to create special effects like that. So the least Skybolt could
have done was to have the 'flames' either glow in the dark or have some kind
of light-up feature. But the biggest problem here, I think; is the figure's
total inability to stand upright for long. Every time I manage to get her
posed just right; she eventually topples over. I seem to be having this
problem with every single female action figure lately. Even Skybolt's Letha
figure had the same problem. She kept crashing to the floor so many times
that eventually, one of her knee armour plates came right the hell off. Had
to attach the frigging thing back on with super-strong Elephant glue. Damn.
Even the so-called 'collector's edition' display stand that comes with both
Cynder and Letha is useless. Firstly, it only has one peg hole to attach the
figure; and the stand is so light to begin with that it ends up toppling
over together with the figure. It can't adequately support anything!! All
this just gets me wondering if the toymakers ever carry out any kind of
weight/balance test beforehand to see if the action figures are really in
proportion and are able to properly stand in their respective poses as
advertised. Seriously, as cool as most of these figures look, they may as
well just be lying flat on their back. It's hard to really get critical on
Cynder's character since she's such a total babe and everything; but the
action figure experience was so uneventful that I have to rate it 2.5 stars.
You might be better off employing your hard-earned dinero on something else;
like say for instance those way-nifty DARK AGES toys.
Reader Feedback
This is in response to the toy review for the Cynder Action Figure by Ken. I am the Cynder co-creator, David Hernandez. First, thanks for taking the time to review the figure! We had a blast working with SkyBolt. We felt that they did a fabulous job with it.
You mentioned that the figure has a tendency to 'fall over'. I have seen that problem in many toys on the market, and it ticks me off too. I have to say that I did NOT see that problem in any of the Cynder toys that I tried out though.
I do agree that more accessories would have been nice, however the Cynder character has a small following of loyalist out in the market, and the result is that you expect low sales. Low sales equals low income. We agreed that it was more important to make the figure look toatally cool, and have the 11 points of articulation, rather than give you a ton of accessories with a figure that couldnt move.
By the way, Cynder is NOT a Lightning Comics character. She is an Immortelle Studios character. More books are expected in year 2000.
Again, thanks for your comments!
Take care,
David A. Hernandez
Cynder co-Creator
--DHernandez
If you are interested in purchasing this toy, you may search for it using the search box at the top of the left column.
|
