X-23 toy figure from Toy Biz (Marvel Legends): In a nutshell...

Laura Kinney a.k.a. X-23 from X-Men

Last November 26 I accompanied my friend and former co-worker to get her laptop from a service center located somewhere in Libis. It has been almost like two years since we last saw each other and so we decided to hangout in Eastwood after getting her beloved laptop named "Hades" and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with lost time with a good, lengthy conversation over cigarettes and Starbucks fraps. It was around 7 p.m. when we decided to call it a night since she lives in Las Piñas and she had to catch the shuttle in Makati going back to her place. After getting her a cab, I decided to hang around for awhile since it has been almost a year since I last went there and of course it was time for me to make another glorious pilgrimage to the 2Rats toy shop and check out some of their stuff that might catch my fancy. Surprisingly there weren't much anime gashapons on display unlike last year where you can get to choose a lot of varieties on display. I was supposed to get this cool-looking Bearbrick PVC figure for only Php 100 ($2.00++) but it was a good thing that I decided to stick around and searched thoroughly among their stuff... until I came across this loose figure of Laura Kinney or better known as Wolverine's teen female counterpart 'X-23' from the comic book series X-Men.

Full view of the X-23 toy figure

The shop had three X-23 loose figures, 2 of those are the ones that you see on the photos I've posted while the other one was a bit smaller and not too feminine in features, it kinda reminded me of a crossover between Lobo and members of KISS! Anyways, I decided to get the Marvel Legends from ToyBiz version since it has more feminine looks and its features, in a way, stayed true to the comic book character. Now for my personal assessment... Since purchasing it as a loose item, you are bound to experience flaws here and there on the item and I was ready for it, the figure's left arm was starting to loose up though with the right angle positions it is still poseable, but what I noticed was that her limbs, most especially with her jointed kneecaps, were quite stiff and using excessive force to bend it might damage the figure permanently. So as much as I wanted to make her do some action poses, I was limited to a few safe ones due to its stiff joints. And I always have to remind myself that this is just a loose item and rarely do you find second-hand toys in  tip-top condition. A few days later I found out from one dude who did a thorough review on this particular X-23 figure and from what I read, he seems to be totally dissatisfied with the figure as if everything was just a big joke, though his rants on his review are somewhat true and I can attest to the fact that it is not just pure hearsay.


Sculpting on the figure is just plain and dull, paint job not too fancy and lacking, the figure was made from "poor" plastic material, stability is not quite good and letting her stand on its own two feet is a balancing act and finally, articulation is quite bad on the neck, elbows and knees and one wrong move could mean permanent disaster on the toy. So I guess it was indeed a "joke" after all when Toy Biz released this X-23 Marvel Legends figure... too bad and they could have done a better job in making it look good instead of releasing it just for the sake of. But nonetheless I still wanted her since I couldn't afford to buy the Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue of her and I'll be using the lovely Laura Kinney as one of my upcoming characters in my existing web comics blog. Oh well, despite the flaws and all... I'm cool with it! 'Til next time folks!