Official solicit:

EON Kid Basic Figures - Armored Marty

It was 100 years ago when the legendary hero, Eon, used the great power of the iron fist to defeat the unstoppable General. Now that evil has returned and the potential to stop it lies in the hands of an unlikely heir — an 11-year-old robot scrap dealer named Marty. Join in the adventure of a lifetime as he learns to harness his abilities to fulfill his destiny as the Eon Kid! Figure features spring-loaded fist-firin’. Measures 5″ high.

January 2008
MSRP 7.99USD

I’ve got to admit, I’m what some might consider an “Eondummy”. I don’t know much about the show and its origins, the characters, or even the plot of the show really either. I mean sure, I’ve caught a few episodes on the CW here and there, and from what I can tell it’s your basic Spiderman/Luke Skywalker/Harry Potter setup, where some kid finds out he is the diamond in the rough who’ll save the day once he gets his act together, yadda yadda yadda. Other than that though, all I know is it’s kind of a cool looking show, with cool looking designs (and robots!), and once I saw pictures of the toys being released from Playmates I knew I had to have one!

Anything much more than that, and you’re going to have to hit up the Eon Kid wiki entry. Otherwise, on with the review…

So right away, we get an immediate taste for who Eon Kid is and what he does - and that’s using that big ol’ metal fist of his to punch stuff! The packaging features the CGI image of Eon Kid on the front, as well as some of the other characters from the show too. The back of the card has images from some of the other toys in the line, your usual feature and nothing out of the ordinary there. Out of the package, we can see Eon Kid as well as his accessory, a Ninja for target practice that you can shoot down with the the fist-firin’ gimmick (but more on that later…)!

On the show, the young hero Marty wears his “Fist of Eon”, which has all kinds of magical or technological or some such powers. Basically, it punches the crap out of stuff, and also allows Marty to transform into his armored form, Eon Kid. The design is reminiscent of other robotic youths of the past, namely Mega Man or Astro Boy and stuff like that, and is probably what appealed to me when I first saw the show/figures.

Eon Kid is around 5 inches tall and features about 13 points of articulation. The sculpt of the figure is pretty accurate to the CGI show version, right down to the Eon family crest on his upper chest. Oh yeah, and it looks pretty cool too. Paint apps for the figure are so-so, the colors and finish look great, especially the vibrant reds, but the finer details are kind of sloppy - especially around any of the metallic silver or dark grey areas on the figure. Also, the whites aren’t nearly as white as they should be, more like a cream/light beige or something. Easy enough to fix for any customizer-types with their own brush and paints, but you’re probably going to have to dig through the figures to get one off the shelves that’s not totally horrible, right?

Even though the figure has a respectable number of points of articulation, it’s still really lacking in that regard. The head only moves left to right, not up or down, which would have been an easy enough addition for the figure and seems kind of lazy that it wasn’t included. Further, there’s no movement at the waist or hip, even though there’re 2 immediate spots where it would have been easy to add some rotation, but instead the figure is pretty limited because of this. Finally, from the knees down it’s all one sculpt - the heels don’t move or adjust to help compensate for posing/weight issues at all - and that =’s BOO.

Other than that, the figure itself is a decent weight, and can strike a variety of cool poses, with a good center of gravity to hold them too. Balancing on one leg is the great Murdershow test of posability, and many figures fail the test, but Eon Kid here passes with flying colors!

Finally, the last feature of the toy, the fist firin’ gimmick is just neat enough. I’ve not actually seen Eon Kid shoot his fist at anything on the show, but hey, we love shootin’ junk here at Murdershow so good on Playmates for adding it! The fist has enough power behind it to knock down the Ninja target, and if I had to give a range I’d say the fist’d launch maybe 14-20 inches with some accuracy, after that, not so much.

In the end, I’m mildly disappointed with the figure. I’d been wanting him for awhile, and finally ordered one online since no stores in my area seemed to be carrying the line. Had I been able to look one up and down in hand before buying it, I probably would have passed. Although, I guess most of the disappointment stems from the articulation issues so I probably would have still bought it and found out later I didn’t like it. The paint problems are passable, but the posability makes me think this figure was definitely aimed at a younger crowd - even though it’s listed as 4 and Up I’d skew a little older than that given the fist missile and metallic paint apps.

Sadly, with a little more TLC or additions in the design phase to the figure, it could have been one of the greats. And as is, it’s not even thaaaaaat bad, just isn’t hitting me where I like to be hit I guess. The line overall looks interesting with each figure capable of their own signature gimmicks, not to mention (again) the great character designs too. I don’t know if I’m a fan of Eon Kid, or even of the toys, but it’s a nice alternative on the shelves and is certainly cool enough, all things considered.

Too bad they don’t make a Fist of Eon accessory for adults, because I’d be all over that…