Inhumanoids Redlen
Review by The Enthusiast
Add the Inhumanoids to the list of promising yet under-marketed eighties toy properties. Inhumanoids had a leg up, with Hasbro production and even a cartoon tie-in. Alas, the cartoon consisted of an anemic skein of seven-minute clips on Sunday morning animation graveyard Super Sunday. The story was compelling enough: A team of heroic scientist adventurers battles a series of re-animated ancient subterranean monsters with the aid of other ancient subterranean monsters. Sounds good, right? Apparently not to children or parents, circa 1986. The toys were neat, though.
Redlen here is one of the good Inhumanoids. He is a sentient tree-monster, not unlike an Ent. While he apparently assisted the humans, he looks unfriendly, even frightening.
The arms and legs are each minimally articulated. Redlen’s torso can telescope to make him grow. The mechanism in mine is worn out, and he doesn’t stay up very well.
The sculpt and paint are solid, capturing the feel of a knotty, sinister tree-creature. I love the menacing sneer on his face.
Also of note is the light port from his head to his eyes, which gives them an otherworldly glow.
Redlen also came in a gray colorway.
He’s not exactly packed with fun, but this handsome figure is a nice complement to a monster or Kaiju display.
Posted 23 October, 2009 - 17:47 by The Enthusiast |
Comments
7 comments postedHey, this is pretty cool. I only had one Inhumanoids figure as a kid, D'Compose. I dearly loved that weirdass skeleton zombie monster who would capture people in his ribcage and convert them to zombies. What a toy!
Tendril was cool too. He was the big Cthulhu-looking green monster.
He was my only Inhumanoid toy from when I was a child and he was HUGE! So much bigger than my Transformers, Gobots, etc. He was often the center of many an epic battle, smashing both Autobot and Decepticon alike with his massive viney arms :-D
Being a HUGE GI Joe fan I feel The Inhumanoids was sort of let down by Hasbro. By time this line came out GI Joe and Star Wars were the "it" scale for action figures. What I loved about Inhumanoids was that the figures were sort of in scale with GI Joe figures, They had nearly the same size head but the bodies were taller that your average Joe due to being in protection suits. Hasbro really should have made this an offshoot of GI Joe, but its own line like the Street Fighter figures. In many ways I felt it was an offshoot of GI Joe as the figures really were in scale with Joes but they never really went out and said it. I would have been more inclined to purchase the line of figures if they were. The C.O.P.S. figures also should have been in scale with the Joes but like Inhumanoids both lines were killed off in less that two years which I feel could have been avoided if they were a extension line from GI Joe.
Inhumanoids is a great line but sadly fell by the wayside. The Monsters always reminded me of Jumbos and it was a shame we didn't see more.
Excellent review and thanks for the write up on this one!
Leonardo Flores
CollectionDX Staff Writer-West Coast Bureau
Inhumanoids were great, but outside of a couple that didn't last long, I didn't have too many of them. I did have a Tendril, and recently at that! JoshB picked one up at a yard sale and ultimately passed it on me. I think I ended up Ebaying it. Both of us thought it was a good idea at first, then ultimately decided we didn't really have room and it was sort of out of place. lol
Anyway, great review! I didn't even know that there was a gray version of this guy!
"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High
Ah memories. I remember being really disappointed that other kids in my school didn't get behind the series or the toy line. I remember having this guy, one of the rock monsters and that one guy that split in two (well, in the series he was shown as splitting into two separate entities, the toy just had the figure and the shell that had covered him representing a separate figure.) It was a great concept. Very Lovecraftian.
Man, this takes me back! In fact, a year or so ago, I picked up the dvd compilation movie of the series. Great stuff! Absolutely terrible! ;)
The Lovecraftian feel of the show appealed to me as a kid, but what I really liked about the toy line was that it was so out there! I mean, it was seriously like every toy in the line was designed by a different team at Hasbro! They're so disjointed and wacky...so damn good!
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Sanjeev