Misfit Robot Daydream: Six Million Dollar Man "Colonel Steve Austin" and "Bionic Bigfoot" Retro Action Figures

Look Out, Steve!

In all the excitement about Super 7 and Funko's retro Kenner Alien figures, as well as Funko's upcoming line of ReAction figures in the same vein, it's important to remember that they are not the only toy company making figures in this style. Zica Toys just came out with their first wave of Six Million Dollar Man action figures, which are heavily inspired by the 1970s Kenner aesthetic, while also having some fun modern touches as well. Read my review and see all of my pictures after the break!

Bionic Bigfoot and Colonel Steve Austin

The three figures released in the first wave are the Six Million Dollar Man himself, Colonel Steve Austin, in his traditional red tracksuit, a limited edition variant Steve Austin in a blue tracksuit, and Bionic Bigfoot, "the Sasquatch Beast." If these figures sell well (and it looks like they are, so far) Zica plans on making even more figures in this line.

Bionic Buddies

These figures are sculpted and painted in the classic Kenner style, and they come packaged in colorful retro style blister cards with fantastic, vintage looking painted artwork. They look so great in the package that I didn't want to open them up! I did eventually, because, of course, I want to play with them. But I think I might pick up a second set, so I can have it both ways. That's rare for me, I collect loose toys, not packages, but I'm going to make an exception in this case, because I just love they way that they look on the card.

Sweet Card Art

The figures are designed, more or less, with the traditional 5 points of articulation that vintage Kenner Star Wars figures had (joints at the neck, left and right shoulders, and left and right legs) but with the addition of joints at the knees as well. The addition of knee articulation doesn't hurt the look of the figures at all, but it does open them up to use even more vehicles and playsets than just vintage Kenner style ones (like G.I. Joe vehicles, for instance), so I think that's a plus. Steve Austin also has joints at the wrists, so his hands can rotate 360 degrees. The Bigfoot figure, however, lacks an articulated neck. His big hairy head is sculpted directly on to his body. This is the same way Kenner's 1970s Chewbacca figure was sculpted, though, so I don't consider that to be much of a negative.

The Sculpted Faces of Andre the Giant and Lee Majors

Another way that these figures deviate from the traditional Kenner style is that they feature removable limbs, with joints that are very similar to the joints used in Glyos System figures. With the Bionic Bigfoot, this feature is limited to his arms, I think. It's possible that his legs are removable, too, but I'm not sure. I played with them for a bit, but they didn't feel like they wanted to pop out. I didn't want to try and force it and possibly damage the figure. Still, removable arms alone are enough to reenact the scene from the episode "The Secret of Bigfoot," where Steve Austin tears off one of the Bigfoot's arms when they are fighting, and thus discovers that it is bionic. With the Steve Austin figure, I was able to easily pop off his head, arms, and legs, and reattach them on other parts of his body. The Bigfoot's arms use a larger peg than Steve Austin's though, so I was not able to swap parts between the two.

Hideous Mutant Freak

Since the joints were similar to Glyos joints, I decided to try swapping body parts between Steve Austin and Commander Comet from the Outer Space Men, since the Outer Space Men figures use Glyos joints. Commander Comet's head fit easily on Steve Austin's body. Austin's head fit on to Comet's body as well, but Austin has a larger neck peg, and as a result pops out above the torso a little bit. The pegs on Steve Austin's arms are a little larger than the Outer Space Men pegs. The Outer Space Men arms fit on to Steve Austin's body, although they were a bit loose. The larger pegs on the Steve Austin arms were too big to fit into the Outer Space Men body, though. The legs turned out to not be interchangeable between the figures at all, because of the differences between the shapes of the figures pelvises. So the body parts swapping experiment was not a total success, but it was still fun. If you have a lot of Glyos parts laying around, it might be fun to see what will fit, and what won't. You might be able to build Steve Austin some cool custom "Critical Assignment Arms" or other bionic attachments. Hopefully Zica will continue to make more characters using the same joints, because the more parts we have to swap between the figures, the more fun it will be.

Head Swapped Astronauts

Overall, I really like these figures. I was a little kid in the 1970s, maybe a little too young for the Six Million Dollar Man, really... I wasn't even two years old when the show started airing, and just barely turned six when it was cancelled... but I still caught it quite a bit in reruns, and I had several of the toys, including the original 13 inch Kenner action figure, as well as several of the accessories such as the backpack radio and rocket module. I was nuts for Star Wars when I was a kid, too, and had a big collection of 3.75 inch Kenner Star Wars figures. So I suppose I'm the perfect target for a line of action figures that combines the the content of one thing I'm nostalgic for and the form of another. But honestly, I think even without all of the nostalgia value, these are really fun, well made toys. Hopefully, these will be a huge success for Zica, and they will make toys like this for years to come.