Pheyden Neo Standard The Original, But New Glyos System Series Item No.: No. n/a Manufacturer: Onell Design Includes: n/a Action Feature: Pops apart Retail: $10.00 Availability: July 12, 2018 Other: A Spin on a Classic
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If you're an indie toy studio, it has to be tough to refresh a classic over and over again. I picked up a lot of these guys, and some are still waiting to be opened - I just popped open Pheyden Neo Standard last month. He's been sitting by my desk since 2018, and is long sold out. I don't even see any on eBay, but First Pheyden may still be in stock at the Onell.store.

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This is the same 2 3/4-inch mold you've seen for years, in a faded blue with gray like most typical Pheyden figures. What sets it apart are where the paint goes - there are no traditional panel lines, but he does have painted fingers, soles, a painted scar (rather than clean, or a sculpted one) and has a line running down his chest too. It stands apart from the dozens - probably hundreds by now - of figures based on this mold.

After all these years he still holds up well. The joints are tight on this release, and all subsequent ones, and can pop apart at every joint. It's kind of funny to think that there haven't been a lot of enduring action figure franchises that have debuted in recent years, and very few have been quite this prolific. Glyos is not easy to get in to due to availability, but the quality is pretty consistent. I'd love to live in a toy landscape where these characters made it out to Toys R Us before it went away.

What's particularly curious about this one are the special paint operations. There is an alternate chest for Sarvos that has a sculpted split down the pecs, and there's a separate mold with a sculpted scar in Pheyden's dome. Why paint it to look like existing tooling for other characters? I can't say, but given the amount of tributes to other toy lines, maybe it was done just as a reference to the line's own legacy. It's worth noting the gray paint went on smoothly and shines nicely, meaning this figure will hold up well for years to come. It's not like a lot of kids got these to play with, either, so you'll probably find it in mint condition if and when you see one for sale.

As always, I recommend grabbing a few Glyos figures if you're curious - it's fun to swap the limbs between figures, and they fit in well with the Imaginext playsets you may find at Goodwill for a couple of bucks. I think this is a neat design, but the Scar Pheyden figures with the unique head sculpts are a lot more exciting. I admire the distinctive paint patterns here, but it plays just as well as any of the other figures from the past decade-plus of toys. If you see one for $10, though, just grab it. These are really low-run figures.

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