Attaboy's Heat Seeking Axtrx

In an effort to annoy my friend Morgan, who really wants me to review the Kenner Mantis Alien, I give you Attaboy's Heat Seeking Axtrx vinyl figure!



This is a bit of an odd one for me, I won it from a contest on toy news site that I'm pretty sure no longer exists. I entered just because it was a random draw and never expected to win and when I did I wasn't sure what to make of it. 2004 College Zarak was completely unaware of the vinyl toy scene and Axtrx at the time was mainly a cool little thing I had won which also happened to really creep out a friend in my dorm.



A little research shows that this fellow is actually a gal, created by a designer going by the name of Attaboy who has a slight obsession with punctuation marks, hence Axtrx's name and nubbly silhouette. Axtrx had been released in a few colors before for larger scale releases, but this version is the "Heat Seeking" glow-in-the-dark green variant,  limited to just 500 pieces and including an additional bonus piece other releases lacked.



Like Kid Robot's DOOM, Axtrx's packaging was nice enough that I've held onto it it for almost a decade. Unlike DOOM's packaging however, Axtrx's has gotten a lot more beaten up so you just get the back panel. There's an entire wrap-around painting featuring Axtrx herself and a landscape of strange, bulbous towers spouting steam and flying structures that look suspiciously like science fiction condoms. Given the fact that this version of the character is supposed to depict her as near insane with the urge to mate, all this imagery is surely intentional.



Axtrx's main gimmick is that her mouth pops off like Mr. Potato Head and she has an array of other chompers to choose from. She's packaged with a standard smiley mouth, the spares stored in little indentations in the box's plastic insert when not in use.



Some of the mouths can be flipped around to change her look a little. Turning a smile to a frown for example when someone drinks Axtrx's last Voltage...



The most disturbing is perhaps the leech-like sucker mouth.



She's also got fangs for chompin'! That poor Steel Brigade Trooper...



This is probably the most neutral expression Axtrx has. It's funny how the eyebrows seem to emphasize the expression of the mouth currently attached, regardless of the vast differences between them. About four inches tall at the tips of her head nubs, she resembles a small, bipedal dinosaur-ish creature, complete with short spiked tail. Axtrx has always reminded me of Nickelodeon's Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, she'd fit right in with Ickis, Oblina and Krumm.



The bonus piece available only with this (and the limited to 100 pieces blue Comic-Con version) is a pair of huge buck teeth. Buck Fangs? Anyway, she's either sucking blood or opening cans with those things.



The Heat Seeking aspect comes into play as Axtrx glows quite brightly in the dark or under black light. So brightly in fact, you can see the paint chipping on the toes of mine, d'oh!



I must confess that even if I was largely ignorant of her background (I didn't even know she was a she until I started writing this!), I've always loved Axtrx. The design is whimsical and adorable and Axtrx looks like she could be slipped into a children's show like Yo Gabba Gabba! without anyone noticing. The weird thing is, I've run into a lot of people in my time of owning this thing who are terrified of it. I've seen people react to Axtrx like she's one of those evil cymbal-clanging monkeys, even insisting that I take her out of the room! It's bizarre and endlessly amusing to me.


Sweet dreams

Axtrx to me, is a great little piece. She's fun to futz with, she starts conversations and she GLOWS IN THE DARK! You may notice that things with this feature earn extra praise from me. As of writing this, I can't find this version nor the more limited blue glow version for sale anyway online, but there are a few standard green Axtrxs on eBay at the moment ranging from ten to twenty bucks, a very decent price. If you aren't one of the few supremely creeped out by her, Axtrx may very well be worth tracking down for your collection.

Kid Robot's Mad Villain Vinyl Figure

MF DOOM, now going simply by DOOM, is my favorite rap/hip hop artist. Between his clever lyrical work, unique voice and ability to seem to turn everything music related he touches to gold, he is in my opinion one of the most underappreciated artists of recent times. In 2007 (I believe), a company named Kid Robot, known for vinyl toys and working closely with artists of various genres, released a Madvillain vinyl figure based off the video for ALL CAPS from the album Madvillainy.

And here he is! Some history; Madvillainy is a collaborative album between DOOM and a DJ going by the name of Madlib. The entire album is amazing, but ALL CAPS is by far one of the best tracks on it and has had an incredible music video. Basically an animated "reading" of a comic book, scientists representing DOOM and Madlib are mutated when an experiment in their lab is sabotaged and they must flee from mysterious goons who seem to want Madlib's new found psychic powers. It's way cooler than I'm describing it.



I'm not normally one to keep a toy's packaging, but this is no ordinary packaging! Each side of the heavy weight box has reproductions of "panels" from the video, which is weirdly meta if you think about it.



I don't know if these are just really good copies or if they scanned the original art panels the video used, but they look fantastic. This side shows DOOM's scientist persona mutating into a hulking brute and slapping a convenient mask on his face.



The opposite side has DOOM facing off against the gang of thugs and their leader drawing a laser cannon on him, as well as a couple of the great fake comic ads present in the video.



The back panel features a real portrait of DOOM, a drawing of the figure highlighting it's "Lifelike Detail!" and "Action Pose!", comic panels of Madlib mutating into a big-headed psychic guy (like every big-headed guy in comics ever) and DOOM bounding off with him under his arm.



The figure itself is a very faithful reproduction of the music video's design, incorporating the trenchcoat, fedora and DOOM's trademark mask and keeping the cartoon style. The coat is nicely sculpted with lots of folds and wrinkles and his face has quite a few fine details as well, including eyelids and creases in his lips.




Paint work is smooth and clean with no slop or wear and the eyes are crisply painted with well defined pupils. The body's base vinyl color (except for the hands, which are separate parts cast in a chocolate brown) is the green of the coat, but the paint work is nice enough that you'd never know at first glance.



DOOM has only four points of articulation with swivel shoulders and wrists, but this is more than most designer vinyl toys have and is really all he needs. He can punch and he can turn his fists to better hand out knuckle sandwiches. These joints are enough due to his legs being sculpted in an action-oriented stride, giving a dynamic sense of motion no matter how you pose him.


"Until the next chapter!"

I am very pleased to have had the foresight to buy this figure when he was first released at roughly thirty dollars since now he seems to sell for no less than a hundred on secondary markets. There is also a gray coat variant which I have never even seen listed for sale anywhere after the initial release, so unfortunately it seems your chances at owning this guy are slim. Still, if you find one for a decent price he's worth grabbing if you're a fan of DOOM, Kid Robot, or vinyl toys in general.

Find out next week!