So, I finally got a few Monster in My Pocket second generation figures. It only took about six years. These revamped MIMP figures came out in 2006-2007 from MEG/Corinthian and were released in a few different places, including the U.K., Australia and Brazil (for much more details, check out the informative MIMP G2 post on Minifigures XD). Even though MIMP is one of my all-time favorite toy lines, the fact that these guys weren't available in the U.S. and I wasn't actively collecting when they came out prevented me from getting my hands on any. But now I'm no longer MIMP G2-less thanks to a member over at LittleRubberGuys.com who hooked me up with a few.
The four I've got are (from left to right in the photo above): Siren, Haniver, Leviathan, Harpy. There were around 50 G2 monsters released, so this is just a small sampling.
The first noticeable difference about these when compared to original MIMP figures is that they're painted. I usually prefer mono-color minifigures, but I have to say these look pretty cool with painted details. They're also made of a harder plastic than the originals, although the material is still pretty flexible.
Let's take a look at each of these four 2006 monsters as compared to their early-1990s counterparts:
Haniver: The original 1990 Haniver is a very bizarre-looking creature. I've always liked it, but it's just a total weirdo. It essentially looks like a giant dragon head with a gaping mouth. The 2006 Haniver is painted green and looks a lot more like what how one might more typically consider a sea monster to appear. I like how incredibly evil and pissed off it looks. The original will always hold a special place, but I dig the the newer guy, too.
Siren: The original Siren is basically just a crazy-looking lady in a gown with gravity-defying hair. If I didn't know it was a Siren, I'd probably guess it was supposed to be a Banshee or something. Whoever sculpted the 2006 Siren decided to make her more a lot more babe-licious, I guess to appear more like an alluring sea wench that would actually have the power to steer a ship of sailors to their demise. For this reason I think the newer sculpt has the edge.
Leviathan: The original '90s Leviathan is one of my favorite MIMP sculpts. I like how it's a classic, old-world depiction of a sea monster. For the 2006 version, they decided to get crazy. It was sculpted as a beached whale of a monster--a blubbery pile of wretchedness. It even has green pimples all over its body. My favorite part about it is that it strangely looks like it's striking a pin-up pose...sexy! Despite its weirdness (or maybe because of it), I like this figure.
Harpy: As with Haniver, the original MIMP Harpy sculpt is pretty odd. It's not necessarily what you would think of from reading about a Harpy in Greek mythology. Instead of looking like a bird-woman, it looks like a snake thing with a huge, angry witch's head and wings . The 2006 Harpy seems to be a more accurate depiction, featuring a bird-like lower body and woman's upper body and head. The paint details are pretty cool-looking on this one; I like the purple detail.
I like these things and hope to be able to add to my MIMP G2 collection in the future. For anyone else with some of these, what do you think of them?
Being a UK person, I managed to get nearly all of these when Woolworth's were closing down and clearing out, mostly for 49p for a pack of four.
ReplyDeleteBesides the leviathan and the mad scientist, I never really took to these - seems to be too much of a Todd McFarlane "X-Treme" influence about them.
It was still nice to see mythical monsters being packaged up and sold as toys again though.
That's a good way of describing it. Some of the sculpts are pretty cool though.
DeleteI have about ten or twelve of them, we have Siren in common and I rather like it, pretty good painting detail on a figure so small although her legs look kind of muddy. Some are improvements on the original line (I have Tengu and Redcap, both look way better) and others are a step backward. "The Big Three" of Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf are kind of ugly and less than representative in my opinion. At the end of the day, I wouldn't mind having them all if it weren't so expensive. I got mine in two lots from a guy in South Africa for something like 40 or 50 dollars.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not a big fan of how they just made a bunch of them look like giant ogres (Bigfoot, The Monster, Hobgoblin, Gremlin, etc), but thankfully there are quite a few worthy sculpts in the line
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