Skip to main content

Wayne Manor/X-Mansion


Batman and the X-Men were the two biggest and best superhero cartoons of the 90's. They were also the two biggest action figure brands of the 90's. While the X-Men did have some cool playsets, they never really had a Mansion playset. Batman, on the other hand, did.


Starting with Batman Returns, this playset would be reused many times and with many different color schemes. Unfortunately, it wasn't until my days as an adult collector that I would realize how perfect it would be for an X Mansion. 5 years ago I was lucky enough to find one on Ebay in pretty good condition for under $30. A great deal, if you ask me! 

As a teacher, I used to hold a Comic Book Club after school and I used this as a display in my room. Later on, I switched grades to Kindergarten. I didn't really think it fair to keep toys in my room that children that age couldn't play with, so I brought it home and sold off most of my X-Men. Recently, I decided to get back into the X-Men game but I really want to focus on the early Toy Biz scale. Figures that were 4-5" and slim, nothing bulky like the later waves of X-Men.


The school grounds, perfect for team bonding... and also as the backdrop for attacks.



The humble interior, home for friendly interaction and mutant brooding.


The command center/war room for the team. Convenient location for Cerebro and a containment center.



The back of Wayne Manor makes a great Danger Room. You could even line it up with the early Danger Room sets, which I love. I can only imagine what could have been if they hadn't revamped the line after that. How cool would it have been to have modular Danger Rooms for every X-Man?


They say a house is not a home but its always nice to have a place to be with family.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mattel DC Retro Action Batman

  Late in 2020, I went back through The Toys That Made Us series on Netflix and the Star Trek episode took some time to really dig into the history of Mego. Many of the toys I played with growing up or have collected are technically before my time but Mego was WAY before my time. I always kind of had a general idea of the toys, mainly thanks to Robot Chicken, but something about the presentation of the episode really gave me an itch to try this type of toyline out. I decided to get just one figure, to try it out. If I didn't like them, no big deal, not a lot of time/money wasted. My favorite superhero is Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern/Ion) and I remembered that Matty Collector had a Mego-like brand for a few years. A google search later and I found a Kyle Rayner figure for $10! Perfect. I could hardly ask for a better price for making a trial run. A week later, the figure arrived and I loved it. They had an entire sub series of GL's that I bought and some other items but that is fo...

Kre-O G.I. Joe Forces/ USS Flagg

Seeing this boxed set a few years ago is what got me back into collecting G.I. Joe. I had passed on the joy of G.I. Joe to my younger brothers, and to its credit, its one of the few franchises that has stuck with them. I don't feel bad about giving them my collection because most of my collections began when my cousins passed them on to me. Plus, with all of the vehicles and playsets, they are a little much to have up and displayed. Finding the Kre-O sets allowed me to keep showing my love for G.I. Joe on a smaller scale.  The fact that it was a Slaughter's Marauders set is was truly sold me. Love the Sarge. So anyways, here are my current Joes. I've already posted a blog about my Cobra collection, which you can find here,  Cobra Forces . After this, I'll make a post on my Iron Grenadiers and the rest of my Vehicles/Playsets. USS Flagg Not an official set. I found this Chinese knock off and modified the cabin so that it could hold figures. Also added...

Flash Gordon

  Flash Gordon. For many of us, seeing that name evokes the imagery, sounds, and energy of the fantastically over the top 1980 film. The bright colors. The Queen Soundtrack. Brian Blessed's Vultan's booming and jovial voice. This was my introduction to the franchise as well. It's an amazing film that still entertains as much today as it hoped to do back then. In fact, the film stuck with me so much that it pushed me to look further back into the history of Flash Gordon. "If this was the 'campy version', what was it really like?" Digging deeper, I found the 1970's Filmation series AND their hidden film. I say hidden because it has yet to be re released outside of a Japanese Laserdisc copy that some kind soul uploaded to Youtube. This was a great series that included more of the Flash Gordon world than the 1980's film. I especially love this incarnation of Thun, the Prince of the Lion Men. And of of course, Bob Ridgely's voice stands way out with...

Star Wars Power of the Force Wave 2 Collection

  Star Wars Power of the Force. I'm so very glad I jumped back in this line when I did this past summer. For one reason, prices are starting to go up, thanks Disney+ shows ;). But the main reason is just how pivotal this line was for me as a child and a lover of toys. This was my main toy line for a long time, especially in a world without G.I.Joe and Masters of the Universe. One of my collecting goals has been to get the entire Red/Orange card collection, new. Looking at a backlog of pictures I've taken, I realized that I am very close to completing that goal. Wave 2 of this series was short but impressive. It was our first step into the Empire Strikes Back and two of the main additions made their appearance in this wave of three, Boba Fett and Lando Calrissian. The third figure is a pilot Luke. The card refers to him as being an X-Wing pilot but his outfit is actually closer to his snowspeeder gear. Either way, he could fill both voids. Pilot Luke was actually my first brand ...

Mega Bloks Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2016

When you become an adult and take up a career, you find that it is harder to keep up with everything going on in the world. When you are a teacher, this becomes next to impossible. That is why I am again in a situation where I found out about a toy line that I like after it has already been axed. This week's victim - Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Mega Bloks (Construx), 2016. Mega has had many goes with different eras of Power Rangers but none of them ever appealed to me by design or by the content. However, discovering the Mighty Morphin variety of Rangers was a sweet surprise this Christmas. I was 7 years old when this brand entered my life. I vividly remember seeing the first teaser for the show on television and running outside and pretending to be these characters before I knew anything about it. There was a certain energy to the series that had a captivating power over we children of the early 90's. Which is why 7 year old me was running around shouting, "Tyrann...