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Environment Specific Action Figure: Difference between revisions
Environment Specific Action Figure (view source)
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[[File:environment-specific-action-figure2_5633.jpg|link=Spider Man (Comic Book)|right]]
The tendency for toylines of [[Merchandise
* A snow version, with skis and a white winter outfit. Often called "Arctic Action Whatever."
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* [[Thememobile|Vehicles]] for every superhero popular enough to have their own toyline, even - no, ''especially'' ones that have no need for one. [[Running Gag|Fires missiles.]]
Additionally, these extra designs will almost always go way off color scheme or character concept: it's not unusual to see Batman sporting bright [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|blue]], [[Highly
It's almost [[Did Not Do the Research]], only they ''did'' do the research... ''[[Subverted Trope|market research]]''. (And, ''sometimes'', environmental research.)
Some [[Merchandise
{{examples
* The ''[[Street Fighter]]'' GI Joe line all had a standard assortment of GI. Joe weaponry such as rifles, handguns, knives, etc. The [[Street Fighter (Film)|Street Fighter]] line had an Arctic Action Guile. At no point does the movie ever leave a tropical climate.
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* Semi-averted with ''[[Star Wars (Franchise)|Star Wars]]'', where although there are a ridiculous number of versions of each character, most actually are from one of the movies or [[Expanded Universe]]. But we say "most": there's a Han Solo figure with a back-mounted... ''thing''... called the [http://rebelscum.com/POTF2dlxhan.asp Smuggler Flight Pack]. It resembles Ripley's [[Aliens|Power Loader]] that is [[Awesome but Impractical|too heavy for his weight to support]] and has a hair trigger that will make its limbs deploy at the lightest touch. Also looks dumber than hell.
** While, again, it's true to the universe, ''[[Star Wars (Franchise)|Star Wars]]'' produces a number of figures that use the same basic mold and look very similar to each other, but are in fact different characters and have different specialities. For example, anyone care to tell [[Pun|This Trooper]] the differences between the regular Clone Trooper and a "Coruscant Landing Platform" Clone Trooper? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? (The answer: unit colors, amounting to a couple of small stripes, and an antenna on the backpack.) See also ''[[Transformers]]'' below.
* ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Franchise)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' has more toylines than one would consider to be strictly necessary, so they had to fill them up somehow... The first cartoon's toylines, in particular, absolutely reveled in this sort of thing. Never mind noncanonical armors, the turtles were out there getting every conceivable job, from Green Beret to stage magician to, yes, [[Star Trek (Franchise)|Starfleet officer]]. (Does it scare anyone else that ''Raph'' is the medic?) There were movie monster Turtles, dinosaur Turtles, even ''clown'' Turtles. They're probably the [[Trope Codifier]] for this one. Interestingly, it took toymakers until about 2009 or so to actually make toys based on the 1st comic book incarnation of the Turtles...and they're all overpriced figurines marketed to the enthusiast collector market rather than kids, which makes sense if you consider [[What Do You Mean
* While ''[[Power Rangers (Franchise)|Power Rangers]]'' has begun integrating some of the armors from the toyline into the show, some of them are bizarre powerups and vehicles that never appear anywhere -- and thankfully don't. (''Skateboards? '''Seriously?''''') Really, if you think [[Power Rangers Dino Thunder (TV)|some of the armors that were used]] were insane, swing by the toy aisle next time you're at Target.
** The series took it a step further for ''[[Power Rangers Jungle Fury (TV)|Power Rangers Jungle Fury]]'', creating whole new Rangers for the toyline and producing them with every armor variation that the canon Rangers get - that is, the male canon Rangers. [[The Smurfette Principle|The female Rangers aren't so lucky.]] And there's even a handful of Red and Sixth ranger only powerups, too. (The new Rangers have made a handful of appearances on the show to justify the toys' existence. ''RPM'' had its own toy-exclusive Rangers, but no variants for them and no TV appearances.)
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* Mocked thoroughly in ''[[Watchmen (Comic Book)|Watchmen]]''. Night Owl (who is a both a [[Gadgeteer Genius]] and a complete and total dork with a costume fetish) is shown to have a closet full of different-themed Owl costumes, and is thus [[Crazy Prepared|prepared for anything]]. Like underwater work or protection from radiation. Like having to visit the Arctic circle, for which he has a snow owl outfit and matching snow scooters. Which still work perfectly twenty years after he's stopped fighting crime. Of course, he ''does'' mention doing routine checks and maintenance on all his equipment. His [[Powered Armor]] never actually worked, though.
* ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' had this when their toyline was big. The first season gave them their standard uniforms; later iterations featured different costumes and "fearful" expressions, different equipment (often bordering on the implausible), color-change paint, and glow in the dark features.
* ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'' is an amusing example of this trope occurring within canon. The Astray series Gundams of the title have, between the 6 or so of them, literally dozens of [[Mid
** Heck, ''[[Gundam]]'' in general has this in spades, especially in the Universal Century. They even have a term for it: "Mobile Suit Variation" is a model line specifically for environment- or mission-specific variants and [[Super Prototype|Super Prototypes]] that don't appear in the series, such as "Aqua GM", "Desert Zaku", "Gelgoog High Mobility". Many of them even become [[Canon Immigrant|Canon Immigrants]] and appear in a sequel.
* The figure line for ''[[Jonny Quest the Real Adventures (Animation)|Jonny Quest the Real Adventures]]'' didn't even ''have'' "regular" versions of the characters. You could get Race as a skydiver, Johnny as an astronaut or Jessie as a [[Badass Cape|cape-wearing]], [[Spy Catsuit|catsuit-sporting]] [[Ninja]], but good luck finding them in anything they actually ''wore on the show''. The closest to being [[Show Accuracy Toy Accuracy|vaguely accurate]] were the [[Cyberspace|Quest World]] figures, but these featured [[Rainbow Pimp Gear|candy-colored paint jobs]] that were in stark contrast with the dark-colored suits on the show, and featured a toy of the motorcycle from one sequence with ''giant yellow training wheels''.
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' toy line has an "invisible" (transparent purple) Espio, a [[Sonic Colors (Video Game)|Sonic with Wisps]], a [[Sonic Storybook Series|Sonic with Caliburn the Talking Sword]], and a Shadow who comes with [[Shadow the Hedgehog|his bike]]. Plus more [[Sonic Unleashed (Video Game)|Werehog]] merchandise than is really justifiable. That's not even getting into the plush line...
* Though not action figures, ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has become infamous for a merchandising empire built, largely, on figures of Rei and Asuka doing...well, ''anything''. Yes, [[Rule
** For those who prefer outies, there's Shinji and Kaoru. If your interest is less prurient, there are even [[Moe]] versions of the angels. Yes, even [http://www.e-life.youthinks.com/picture/eva/lel02.jpg Leliel].
* ''[[Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad]]'' was particularly horrible with this, considering all the variants of Servo were mere [[Palette Swap|Palette Swaps]] of one another, with no different gimmicks. They even tried to pass off some alternate paint jobs as superhero versions of the supporting cast - including a pink and purple one as the girl (despite the figure having a very male [[Heroic Build]]).
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[[Category:Toy Tropes]]
[[Category:Environment Specific Action Figure]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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