Legendary Comic Book Heroes - ANN O'BRIEN!

LCBH - Series 02 (Monkeyman Build-a-Figure) - Ann O'Brien - Marvel Toys 2007

There's a lot of 90's nostalgia happening right now in the toy world. Every time I tune in to Marvel Legends news there is some excited announcement about some 90s-specific costume making everyone giddy. But the funny thing is that this was the era when my escalating distaste for Marvel and DC comics was reaching its peak. For most of the 90s I was obsessed with Manga and Indy comics. And my absolute favorite thing coming from the US market was the Legend imprint from Dark Horse Comics. This imprint was following the footsteps of Image Comics with creator-owned properties, but the difference is that the caliber of creators. John Byrne, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Paul Chadwick, Mike Allred, Walt Simonson, and Arthur Adams all had seriously established reputations and all launched projects under the aptly named Legend banner. Where Image was all flash and entertainment, Legend was classic and artistic (and a breath of fresh air amidst the "extreme" style ruining mainstream American comics).

Kabuki Agents - SCARAB & AKEMI!

David Mack's Kabuki Agents: Scarab - Scarab & Akemi - Diamond Select 2004

I often gripe about comic life in the nineties. The big companies were just so gimmicky that I viewed 90% of comics in that decade unreadable. But one really positive thing was all the weird esoteric independent and foreign comics that suddenly had room to flourish. I fell headfirst into all the interesting manga titles that were now being translated, but another genre that really caught my eye was the artfully painted indy comics like Joseph Lisner's Cry for Dawn, Dan Brereton's Nocturnals, and of course David Mack's Kabuki. Kabuki followed the story of an assassin struggling with her identity in an alternate-future Japan. Honestly, I was in high school at the time and the stories were too intense for me. (I needed upbeat stuff to offset my moody teenage years). But years later I got really into several spin-off series like Kabuki Agents: Scarab. Unfortunately, David Mack wasn't providing much more than an occasional cover for these stories, but they did expose me to the pencils of Rick Mays (who I still follow to this day).

DC Direct's PROMETHEA (with SOPHIE)!

Alan Moore's Promethea & Sophie Bangs - DC Direct & ABC Comics 2002
 
Promethea is one of my favorite creations of Alan Moore, the profound writer behind such modern classics as Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, and others.  (Plus very notable work with such established characters as Batman, Swamp Thing, and of course Marvelman).  Promethea was also my first exposure to the brilliantly experimental comic art of J.H.Williams III who is currently thrilling the readers of Batwoman with his innovative manipulations of sequential art (Just pick up a Batwoman graphic novel and check out what genius things that man can do with a page of comic panels).  With both the art and storylines of Promethea being so extremely solid, it was no surprise that these characters were given the action figure treatment relatively early (3 years after their debut).  These figures are great.  Yes, they are a little pre-posed, but the beautiful Tim Bruckner sculpts and high quality production from DC Direct make them must-haves for any collector of indie characters.

Dark Horse Comics' MARTHA WASHINGTON!

Martha Washington from Frank Miller's Give Me Liberty - Dark Horse Comics 1998

This figure is a very nostalgic one for me.  When I was in middle school in 1990, I was captivated by the first issue of Give Me Liberty by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons.  At the time, I was mostly reading Batman and GI Joe comics, so this was the first time a more mature comic ever caught my eye.  That pesky word "mature" plagued me for years though.  My local comic shop guy refused to sell me a copy.  But I was easily distracted and quickly moved on to other obsessions, until a friend of my brother got a copy and flaunted it before me.  It wasn't until years later when, under Dark Horse's Legend imprint, the sequel series Martha Washington Goes to War was published.  I finally got my taste of Martha's dystopian future of political evils and social uprising.  To be perfectly honest I wasn't a huge fan.  But that's mostly because my tastes had actually reverted to simpler superheroics and fantasy by that point.  A few years after that, this action figure was released commemorating her more grown up look in Martha Washington Goes to War.  As usual, I'm a man of delayed gratification and I never picked up this figure until a few years ago.