Inferno Fury

Xevoz: STIKFAS on Steroids

Xevoz Line, Hasbro, 2004

After the sheer disappointment of last week’s toy, I wanted to follow this week with one of the best toys in the last decade. Sadly, the Xevoz line turned out to be none too popular, which is a real shame. These were absolutely wonderful figures with incredible possibility, great accessories, a hearty sturdiness, and a nearly limitless possibility for expansion. Seriously, these toys should have been the next big thing because all the key ingredients for success were there.

Background

STIKFAS are the great secret of toy aficionados. The toys appeared very quietly and with limited release back around 2002, largely through the Internet and similar bizarre outlets. They saw little if any widespread availability. But Hasbro, being the ever-vigilant opportunists, took the STIKFAS toys and created a toyline around them, calling them the Xevoz line. What made the STIKFAS figures so appealing was that all joints were ball joints and they came with an array of generic parts, leading to nearly limitless possibilities when it came to posing and customization. The Xevoz would take this idea and jazz it up, but keep the core concepts.

There were a handful of different Xevoz toys, all of which were bizarre sci-fi concepts taken to a colorful extreme. Just about every part was interchangeable and the figures themselves were extremely study and yet maneuverable. There were different times (like the humans, the metahumans, the elementals, etc) as well as an online game component. There was even a dice-like game that could be played to simulate battle. Load the triangular extensions into the hexagon tops and roll it like a die. The bar that came up told you what damage you take, or what damage you did. It wasn’t a simple game, but if you got the hang of it, it added a whole new element of play to the figures.

Appearance – 5 out of 5

There’s no two ways about it; this thing looks frickin’ cool. The toy does a beautiful job of capturing the image of molten rock, flowing lava, and flickering flames all in one go. The transparent pieces are pretty uniform an nicely colored, making the toy almost look hot to the touch. The sheer number of joints as well as all the pieces gives this toy an almost infinite number of looks, from the demonic monster to the hallowed angel of the elements, and everything in between.

Construction – 5 out of 5

Hand in hand with the toy’s appearance is how well it’s constructed. Even though this particular toy is transparent, it’s still exceptionally sturdy and well-made. Each individual piece feels rugged and so strong, it feels like it would take a hammer blow to damage it.

Movement – 5 out of 5

I gave serious consideration to giving this a Six because of just how obscenely mobile this toy is. It can take any pose the human body is capable of, and then so many more. The plethora of joints (18 on the figure as shown), all of which are ball joints ensure that it’s extremely flexible and has mobility to spare.

Extras – 4 out of 5

The toy comes with numerous bonus features, including a spring-fired weapon, a sword and a staff, griping hands, and three different heads, all on top of the dice-like rolling game that each figure comes with. The only thing that keeps this toy from ranking higher is that there’s no arrangement of pieces that keeps them all on the figure: there are just too many. And without some kind of rack to put them on, keeping track of them can be a bit problematic.

Packaging – 2 out of 5

For all of the Xevoz line’s strengths, it’s packaging was definitely lacking. While it was striking and colorful, it wasn’t terribly memorable. There was an illustration of the figure on the front and a basic rundown of their personality and characteristics on the back. However, there was no real explanation as to any kind of narrative – even a basic one (hell, even Chutes and Ladders has a plot). There was also what appeared to be a haphazard collection of three other Xevoz shown, meant to tantalize the buyer, but it ended up just confusing at least this buyer because it was unclear just how many factions were represented in the line.

　

Overall – 5 out of 5

This is an unbelievably awesome toy! Seriously, minor packaging gripes aside, the only other problem was there were too many accessories to fit on the figure. That’s the best problem in the world for an action figure to have! Between the ruggedness, awesome look, customizability of the figures because of the different parts, interchangeability of said parts between different figures, and the rolling dice game element, and this was a toy line that by all rights should have taken the world by storm. It’s a mystery to me why the Xevoz line isn’t around to this day because I’d be the first one in line to buy every single friggin’ figure.