Blood for the Baron!

The 2008 Toy Fair in New York revealed that there would once again be Action Man toys coming to a store near you (perhaps). These 12" action figures and vehicles were popular in the 90s and even into the early 00s. These modern Action Man products are often not accepted by the Action Man community, who see them as a travesty of their beloved toys from the 60s and 70s. While they are different in style and theme, I believe they are cool in their own right and should be given a chance.

One of the toys shown at the latest Toy Fair was the Skateboard Extreme. It was first released in 2000, I believe, and now sports a more bright and "extreme" color palette as seen here:



Here is the original version from 2000:



So let me see if I can convince you to purchase this toy by reviewing the original Skateboard Extreme version.

First off, the skateboard itself. Like many Action Man vehicles, the tires are actually made of rubber. This always gives the vehicle some added weight and substance not seen in most toys of this scale. For that, it gets good marks. It has a working suspension front and back, using springs. This enables the skateboard to turn and manoeuvre through rough terrain or speed through on flat surfaces. Action Man is anchored into the vehicle by binders which attach to his special boots, which are made for this feature. The binders are perfect fitting, which holds the figure absolutely with no fear of him ever jarring loose.



The skateboard's motor is situated in the front of the board. Attached to the motor is the weapons system, which happens to be two saw-blades. It is deployed by attaching a blade to the port-side of the motor, locking it into place via an arm attachment, and winding it clockwise. Press the button on top of the motor and the saw-blade drops down and spins along the ground. Mine went at least 20 feet before running into the opposite wall. A very nice, good working weapons system.
(Just a fun FYI: the CG cartoon featured the Skateboard Extreme. However the motor was shown in the back of the board, which makes sense. However, the toy catalog plainly shows the motor in front, in order to utilize the saw-blade feature).



The figure is a standard Action Man figure. His "outfit" is bright and fits the color scheme of the skateboard well. It also comes with a neat helmet, and the fore-mentioned boots.



All in all, I think this is a great little vehicle. It has a cool "extreme" design, and fun working weapon deployment system. I think it is worthwhile to pick up if you happen to come across the reissue that was seen at Toy Fair. In fact, I like the new color scheme a lot, and I plan on picking it up if it happens to come to our shores over here.



Edit: I have no clue why it dropped me down to "guest" status and dropped the date and time of this review, other than I'm on dial-up and I "time-out" on BFTB often, icluding during this review.

nice review thank you for doing that, and great pics to go with it, I love to see a pic of the head, because I thought that the head sculpt was changed in 2004"ish" ( roughly )???

jamarmiller wrote:I love to see a pic of the head, because I thought that the head sculpt was changed in 2004"ish" ( roughly )???

Good eye! I didn't even realize that I had the wrong figure in the outfit until you mentioned it. I looked at my pile figures afterwards, and I can't tell you which one actually goes to this set!

I think the new figure has a better outfit, but the old one has a better paint job on the skateboard. Good review

These modern Action Man products are often not accepted by the Action Man community, who see them as a travesty of their beloved toys from the 60s and 70s. While they are different in style and theme, I believe they are cool in their own right and should be given a chance.

I'm definitely giving MAM a big chance. I had Action Man back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and I really like the whole MAM range. There are some vamsters who've set fire to MAM and done other unsavory things to the hero toy on certain forums, which is just nasty and shameful. I like all kinds of action figures, it's been in my blood since an early age, I respect what other folks collect and enjoy reading about their enthusiasm for the toy of their choice. This is a very interesting forum, I especially like the comic posts.