Airbending Aang
No, I’m not reviewing another one of those Spin Master toys from that AWFUL movie. I think The Blue Spirit was the only figure from that line that I had any interest in whatsoever.
This Aang is from the Fisher Price (which is really just Mattel for kids) toy line of several years ago; the one that was based on the original material before M. Night Shymalan got his crazy cooties all over the franchise.
I’d seen this figure many times back when I had first gotten into toy collecting and begun frequenting Toy Kingdom. The first wave of Avatar: The Last Airbender (from this point on referred to as “Avatar”) toys were abundant on the shelves. However, in a few months time, they went on sale and vanished from the aisles.
Several years later, I found the time to actually watch the cartoon and was totally blown away. I started regretting not picking up the figures when they were on clearance. Having Aang and the rest of the gang on my desktop would have been pretty sweet, but it was too late.
Then during the last Christmas Toy Fair, I found a vendor that was selling that first wave that I’d seen in Toy Kingdom (Aang, Soka, etc) as well as a second wave with characters from the second season. I got 4 of them from at P350.00 each; King Bumi, Zuko in his arctic gear, Sokka in his Water Tribe war paint, and “Airbending Aang”.
I love the packaging. Construction is a simple, carded bubble; easy to open with a letter-opener or butter knife but solid enough to protect the figure. The front has the simple attractive graphics from the show, but doesn’t detract from the figure, which is featured in a big window with the accessories. The back of the card has a few straight-forward (if rather boring) photos of the figure “in action” with a small bio-data card included to give you some back story. There are also a number of “also available” spots that tease you about the rest of the line
Sadly, Fisher-Price apparently decided that female characters would not sell in a boys market (much like they continue to do with GI Joe and Marvel figures). So characters like Katara, Princess Yue, or (my favorite) Toph Bei Fong, have no representation in this line even though female characters played a huge part in the series.
The Air Series (the first wave) of the toy line is composed of characters appearing in the first book (i.e. season), Water. It’s odd that the first wave of the line isn’t named like the first season of the series. Odder still that the first book of the series isn’t named “Air” since the protagonist is an “Air bender”. Go figure.
To hear the bottom line on this figure, click HERE.
