Restaurant Collectables: Marvel X-Men 1996 Burger King

As one of the longest running Marvel comic book series of all time, along with the likes of Spider-man, The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four, X-men is one of the most beloved and fascinating entries in the Marvel universe! With countless Animated series, Video Games, Tie-in products, Movies and books all inspired by the adventures of this band of misfits, freaks of nature who work together to protect humanity from those dangerous mutants such as Magneto who believe in supremacy over man kind, despite the fact that they too are hated and despised by the very people they have sworn to protect!

There was no shortage of Toys based on these colourful and bold Mutant heroes in the days when they had a hit Animated series and healthy comic book sales in the early to mid 90's chief among them were some fantastic action produced by Toy Biz to tie-in with the Saturday morning Cartoon series! Burger King also jumped on the band wagon and put out a really nice set of toys back in 1996 when the show was at its peak, these were available in the UK and Europe only though U.S fast food and X-Men fans were treated to an equally brilliant set of figurines from Hardees restaurants in 1995! Here we will be looking at the full Burger King set in detail:

Cyclops: Scott Summers AKA Cyclops can often be found leading Professor Xavier's band of mutant super heroes into action whenever a threat (be it mutant of human) presents itself! Scott can emit destructive and extremely powerful red laser beams from his eyes which is filtered through his ruby quartz visor enabling him to activate his mutant gift at will! As the groups leader Cyclops occasionally comes into confrontation with  fellow X-Men Wolverine who isn't particularly fond of being told what to do!  

This figure is a really great representation of Cyclops appearance in the then current comic book series and the 90's animated show inspired by Jim Lee's fantastic and now iconic X-men comic book designs! He also has a pretty nifty but simple spring loaded action feature which at a push of a button sends his arms up towards his visor ready to blast his powerful beams!  

Wolverine: Canadian loner Logan is a gruff and bruiser who happens to have certain advantages that makes him one mean fighting machine! Along with rapid healing abilities, which slows down his aging process, his entire skeleton is lined with a indestructible mental named "Adamantium" which is also what his razor sharp extendable claws are made of! though he isn't exactly a team player and is often at logger heads with other members of the X-Men, in particular boy scout Cyclops, but when the chips are down have no doubt that the pint sized Wolverine has his friends back's!

Wolverine appears here in his most iconic form adorned with his yellow skin tight spandex and mask combo! Again this is a very nice looking action figure which is really nicely detailed  and cleanly painted the only complaint being his claws appear a tad short! Additionally his arms can be moved up and down via two levers on his back to make Wolverine swipe his claws in battle, though not a very effective action feature but this is still a great action figure overall!

Gambit: Cocky Cajun Remy LeBeau was gifted with bio-kinetic charging abilities which can be weaponized by being transferred to objects such as playing cards or a metal staff for example! Gambit is a relatively new character to be introduced into the X-Men universe and is best know for his Pepe le pew style interactions with unrequited love interest Rogue, the character proved to be immensely popular helped by his appearance in the 1995 animated series!  

This is one of the best figures in this and truly fantastic looking with lots of great detailing throughout! His  action feature can be enabled by twisting his waist into position and then pressing a button on his back to release it again giving the impression Gambit is throwing one of his super charged playing cards!

Storm: At the time of her introduction to comic book readers Storm was something of a rarity; a strong, Black, female heroine who could hold her own against the likes of Wolverine or Cyclops, in fact whenever Scott is unable to lead the X-Men Storm AKA Ororo  Munroe takes on leadership duties! She also has one of the most interesting Mutant gifts; the ability to control Weather which always comes in handy!

If any figure in this set is a weak link then no doubt it is storm here, on her own this is still a well made and nicely detailed figure but when viewed beside her fellow X-Men Brethren she isn't quite as impressive! Its hard to put a finger on what it is about this figure that seems slightly off, it may be that this figure is a little plain looking when compared to the other three or that it hasn't as much in the way of sculpting details or paint applications but nevertheless this is still a decent figure and isn't a bad take on the character as seen in the show! She too has an action feature but its not particularly effective, Her arms which are spring loaded can be raised a couple of inches when a button is pressed on her back!




Several years before X-Men made their big screen début in 2000 they were best know by main stream audiences for the 1990's Animated series, which took its cue from the more recent X-Men comic books published at the time, the show featured slick animation and stories that were true to the mythology of the comic's pleasing the legions of comic book fan's as well as introducing  youngsters who had yet to pick up an X-Men Comic book! Burger King's tie-in promotion came out at a time when X-Men toys were very prevalent in stores and so Kid's would have been familiar with the likes of Wolverine and Cyclops and as a result these proved pretty popular here in the UK and they still hold up very well to this day!