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Get ready to read, ya blorks!
Perhaps the most irreverent superhero in the world today, Strong Guy accepted membership in the government-sponsored mutant strike force X-Factor for the weekly paycheck he would draw! He now uses his ability to absorb and release kinetic energy to battle the enemies of the Unites States, while at the same time serving as the unofficial spokesman for mutantkind - whom he refers to as the "genetically challenged"!
We already used the text from the back of the 1992 Impel X-Men trading card set (the one where all the art was done by Jim Lee) for the Minimate, so for this one we jump over to the '92 Marvel Universe cards. That's right, we're reviewing two Build-A-Figures of the same character in the same year. Has that ever happened before? I don't think it has! This BAF is from Deadpool Legends Series 3; buy all seven figures, and you'll get the seven pieces needed to build him.
Growing up in Rhinebeck, New York, Guido Carosella was a shy,
nerdy kid who had trouble relating to his classmates. [It me. --ed.] To compensate, he became the class clown, a personality he still embraces as an adult. The figure is sculpted with a big, lopsided smile on his face, because he's having fun. His eyesight is bad enough that he has to wear prescription glasses, but since he's a superhero, he's got a pair that looks more like odd little pince-nez goggles. He's fully bald, save for a single forelock of white hair done in a spitcurl.
Guido's mutant ability was designed to
hold onto the kinetic energy it stores for just a short time before being released - unfortunately, when it first activated, he was being beaten on by a group of bullies, and then while running away was hit by a school bus. All this energy overloaded his system, drastically warping his body and leaving him in constant chronic pain. So yes, the fact that Strong Guy is this tall and has an upper body this large isn't just stylistic comic art, it's the way he actually looks.
X-Factor was the first team Guido belonged to,
so he's wearing the team uniform. Well, we say "uniform," but that implies they're all wearing identical clothes in different sizes; in reality, it's more a... unified "look" than a true uniform. Like, compare him to Havok and Polaris or Multiple Man: all their outfits are blue and yellow, but none of them share any of the same elements. The closest would probably be Polaris, because she's also got a big zipper running diagonally from the collar to the right armpit, and baggy sleeves held down by straps at the top of the gloves, but certainly nobody else has big silver armor on their shoulders. The yellow on this toy doesn't match that on the other figures, sadly; it's something Hasbro has had trouble with in the past.
Strong Guy may stand 7⅞" tall, but there are no surprises with the articulation. He has a balljointed head and neck,
swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed chest, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. Since his upper body is so much bigger than his lower body, it can be tricky to find a good balance point for him - he wants nothing more than to fall over.
The figure doesn't have any accessories. He fights with his fists, not with weapons, so there isn't anything like that they could have given him. You know what would have been awesome, though? A jar of mayonnaise. An unopenable jar of mayonnaise. Lucky for me, I got those Mini Brands sets a while ago, so I have a stand-in handy.
ToyBiz did make a Strong Guy figure back in the '90s, but he wasn't really all that much larger than the other characters, and was hampered by an arm-swinging action feature. He's a perfect candidate for a Build-A-Figure, and puts us one step closer to completing the X-Factor team: we can steal Quicksilver from a box set, so all we need is a Wolfsbane in her team costume, and maybe a Val Cooper to oversee them.
Bluepool | Black Tom | Shiklah | Maverick | Sunspot | Warpath | Pirate Deadpool
-- 10/02/20
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