Anton’s Toy Box: Kenner’s 1992 ‘Aliens’ Line

Welcome to the table,

When I was a kid, I was exposed to way too many movies I should not have seen at a really young age. For some reason, though, I did not see Alien or Aliens until I was around 11 years old. It was thanks to a childhood friend whose parents did not pay a whole lot of attention to what he was getting up to. The blood did not bother me much. I had already had a bunch of surgeries, and death was fairly commonplace in my life, so there was not much existential dread waiting for me.

The creatures, though, the Xenomorph aliens, fascinated me endlessly. I wanted nothing more than to know more about them, so when Kenner released a bunch of Aliens action figures, I was beyond thrilled and would look at them any time I went into a retail store or one of my friends brought them around.

The first line of Kenner Aliens figures contained a handful of Marines that included Lt. Ripley, Corp. Hicks, Bishop (the android), Sgt. Apone, and Sgt. Drake. These were cool enough and had big guns, stickers, and mini comics. However, I could have cared less about those guys because I had a small collection of second hand and well worn 4-inch G.I. Joes who were in desperate need of hulking Aliens to fight. The size of the Kenner Aliens figures was perfect for afternoon battles across landscapes made of haphazardly sculpted Styrofoam and cardboard action playsets I would make myself as spending actual money on playsets produced by toy companies was not something my family did.

The Aliens that were part of that first run were the Gorilla Alien, the Scorpion Alien, the Queen Alien, and the Bull Alien. Each of these had a cool action figure gimmick and came with a different colored facehugger that you could wear as a ring and was perfectly sized to cling to the face of the aforementioned G.I.Joe.

In my homebrew childhood lore, Destro, the Battle Android Trooper, the Cobra Alley Viper, the Cobra EEL, and Snake-Eyes were immune to the facehuggers. Their masks kept the creatures from being able to inject them with a chestburster egg.

They were not immune to the beatdown that was delivered from my buddies, the Gorilla Aliens, though.

Gorilla Alien

 

The Gorilla Alien had this rad blue iridescent paint scheme over the black base paint of the figure. It also had a squishy hollow head that you could submerge in water and squeeze, pushing all the air out and, upon releasing, causing a vacuum that would suck up water, filling the head with liquid that you could then, in turn, squirt out when you squeezed the head again.

Now, when I was a kid, loose power lines, quicksand, and acid that could melt your face off were big fears of mine. It seems those things showed up in every form of media from textbooks to Saturday Morning cartoons. They were depicted, until the war on drugs started, as the worst threats anyone would have to face.

So a big, hulking gorilla-like Alien that could spew “acid” was a heck of a cool addition to playtime. The Gorilla Alien also had grabbing arms that, while doing little more than moving slightly on the shoulder joint, also added some cool motion to playtime.

 

Scorpion Alien

 

The Scorpion Alien had some coppery brown paint over its black underpaint. Its action feature was that when you pressed a thing on its back, it would “explode” by springing apart into three pieces. This feature was, I assume, made to emulate the blasting apart of the Aliens in the mini comics that came with each figure.

Queen Alien

The Queen Alien was larger than the other Alien figures in the first wave and had two of the iconic Alien features. It came with a double-jaw attack that would extend out a mini mouth. It could knock down most unstable characters when it hit them. The figure also had a swiveling waist that would cause the figure’s torso to twist, swinging its long, hooked tail back and forth in a way that could knock down figures and anything else small that got caught up in its path.

Bull Alien

I had one of the Bull Aliens, and it was rad for two reasons. One, the figure itself was super cool, having a red metallic overpaint to the black base layer. The figure was also a quadruped, the first Alien I had seen that moved around on all fours rather than being a humanoid that ran around on two legs. The Bull Alien also had a spring-loaded neck action feature that, at the press of a button on its side, would extend its neck and knock other figures down. Or, if you were like me, jam its horns into Styrofoam, where it would do damage to the G.I. Joe base it was attacking.

The second reason this figure was so cool was that, between the figure itself and the mini comic it came with, it planted the idea that Aliens could be more than what we had seen in the movies. If the facehugger was implanted in a large alien bull, it could produce a Bull Alien. A space gorilla would get you a Gorilla Alien,. So it stood to reason, to a small child’s mind full of wonder, that all sorts of Alien variants were possible if the facehuggers were able to implant in those creatures.

Kenner did not let me down, and soon after this line launched, we got a lot more Alien figures with all manner of strange hybrid variations.

Rhino Alien

The Rhino Alien had an action feature that was very similar to the Bull Alien. While its head had a new sculpt and single horn, it had the same button on the side and press to lock in and spring forward headbutt action as the figure from the previous wave.

Mantis Alien

The Mantis Alien had a very similar body sculpt to the Gorilla Alien from the earlier wave of figures. It featured a new paint job, a solid head sculpt that did not have the water squirting feature, and new spike arms that were massive, curved, and covered in spikes. This is one of the only figures from this run I have never seen in person, but I have looked at an awful lot on reseller sites, as I often think how much I would love to own these all one day.

Snake Alien

The Snake Alien was a real break from the traditional sculpt of the rest of these figures. It was a single snake-like figure that could stand on its own on a coiled tail or be wrapped around other Alien or Marine figures. The head of the Snake Alien also had a “push button” action feature that opened its jaw into a strange mandible-like spread that would snap back in place when opened fully.

Queen Face Hugger

The Face Hugger Queen was not an actual “Alien” in name, but it was for sure part of the lineup of non-marine figures that came from this wave. It had a tail that had this little hook cord piece you could pull out and then cause to come whipping back in. It also had a bunch of legs you could open up and then use to clamp down on your other figures with.

This could have easily been sold as a “Spider Alien” or a “Crab Alien” and would have 100% worked. I think in the grand scheme of things, they could have labeled this the “Scorpion Alien” and then called the exploding alien they named the “Scorpion Alien” a “Battle Damaged Alien” or something, and it would have worked just as well. Facehugger Queen is fine, but in my humble opinion, they could have gone a cooler way with this one.

The Flying Alien Queen

The Alien Flying Queen was a “special deluxe” figure that features snap-on wings that looked akin to giant webbed claws. When you snapped the wings on, you could depress a button on the figure’s back to make them flap. The figure also had one of my favorite features from an Alien figure. These clawed feet with a little ridge that, when you pressed it onto a figure, it would cause the hinged claws on the feet to close, clamping them down as if the figure was snatching up the thing it was clamping down on. While this feature did not work so well on bigger more heavier figures, the smaller 4-inch G.I. Joes were easily grabbed up by this action feature.

Panther Alien

The Panther Alien figure has a really rad gold color scheme over a white base, making it striking among the other figures for the visual differentiation alone. It’s also another quadruped figure, much like the Bull and Rhino Alien from the earlier wave. The Panther Alien, however, did not have a headbutt action feature. What it did have was a spring-loaded Alien Parasite that would launch off its back and go flying across the room.

Killer Crab Alien

The Killer Crab Alien had the oddest sculpt of all the figures. It featured eight limbs, a weird claw tail, and two spring-powered chest busters that looked a little too much like a singing Venus fly trap for my tastes. This was the first of the figures I came across that I thought was a bit goofy compared to the rest, but even as a little kid, I knew they could not all be winners.

Night Cougar Alien

The Night Cougar Alien was a black with red stripe repaint of the Panther Alien. The action feature of the launching spring-loaded Alien Parasite.

Wild Boar Alien

The Wild Boar Alien was another one of the quadruped Aliens. It did not have the extending neck of the Rhino or Bull alien, but it did have a cool action feature. When you pushed it down on its legs, it would trigger its head to tilt forward, and these long little orange spikes would fold out in a row along its head.

King Alien

The King Alien was another one of the Deluxe Figures, but it had a really weird sculpt to it that kind of felt like a mistake they just rolled with. It came with one of those squishy heads like the Gorilla Alien’s, but it also had these clamping hooks on either side of its head to hold onto other figures with. The action feature was supposed to emulate an effect where the King Alien would grip a figure and then spit acid in their face, but it had arms, so the head clampy thing just felt wasted on this figure.

Alien Arachnid

The Alien Arachnid feels much like the Snake Alien, as it was a real departure from the other body styles found in these figures. It had a bit of a Queen Alien feel in its body sculpt, and it had six little legs that grew down from the body, along with a soft squeeze and fill bladder you could suck up and spray out water from to emulate the acid attack. Arachnids have eight limbs, so the six limbs on this kind of irritated the nerdy little kid in me, but much like the four fingers on an animated character’s hands, it does not bother me as an adult…. okay, it does not bother me much.

Swarm Alien

The Swarm Alien was easily the oddest of all of these figures. It came in two pieces, with one having a laser eye action feature, flapping wings, and a horrible squawking cry effect. The flapping wing swarm alien bit would snap into a bipedal host Alien figure that had its own mouth and a strange little plastic tail with a spiked loop on it. I feel like they were just shoving plastic bits together to make this figure, but at the end of the day, it fit with the Predator figures that were coming out along with the later Alien lines, so it made sense we were going to get something weird before it was all said and done.

Queen Hive Playset and Mother Alien

Last, but not least, on this list is the Aliens Queen Hive playset. The playset had a big tower that had a semi-transparent container on top, which you could fill with slime that came with the playset. You could lock a figure into the Mother Alien’s tail and then let the ooze fall on them. The Mother Alien figure was not really built to stand on its own. It could be done if it leaned on its tail, but of all the figures, it was kind of built in an unbalanced way. The playset also had a little Chest Buster figure that pops out of the set, but it had a weird little mouth sculpt on it.

My hope is that with this new Alien show coming to FX, we will get a bunch of wild new Alien figures based on all sorts of strange creatures. Only time and the toy box will tell.

Until next time, there are a slew of Predator figures that are adjacent to or part of these waves of figures. When we get closer to Predator Badlands, I will circle back and tell you all about those. For now, have fun!