Retro Toy Week: Gen 13's Fairchild!

Man, how many people still have this one? I know Fairchild here was a mail-in from Toyfare, deep back in the day, like around issue #4 or something. I probably, possibly have that somewhere too, but for now, Fairchild, Caitlin Fairchild...

Aside from the first few issues, and the Adam Warren-written ones, I didn't read a lot of Gen 13. Oh, I maintain everyone should own Grunge: the Movie, but Caitlin is only a supporting player in that one.

It does strike me as odd that Fairchild gets a figure, but the rest of her team never would. There would be some larger-scale cloth-costume versions of her, Lynch, Rainmaker, and Burnout; but Roxy and Grunge never got anything--it's like if the Invisible Woman was the only member of the Fantastic Four to get an action figure. And I know a lot worse things got immortalized in plastic in the nineties.

Still, as it stands, the stacked redhead is more popular than the whole rest of her team put together; so the only way to sell a Gen 13 line would be to make Caitlin a build-a-figure. That would force fans to buy the whole lot to get her. For some reason, I had the idea that she would be pieced out so both breasts would be sold separately, which is either the best or worst idea I've ever had for toys...

OK, the figure: articulated at knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and neck; and most of those are cut joints. Her sculpt seems a little silly now, but so does a lot of Fairchild's design: absurdly long bare legs (with weird garter!), big eyes, but somewhat surprisingly, her breasts don't seem absurdly oversized. I don't know who Wizard got to make this, but some restraint was shown in there somewhere...


Still: not unlike Gen 13 the comic, poor Fairchild the action figure is a bit dated now. Back to storage with her!