While we are getting the umpteenth versions of the Avengers and the X-Men, there are still oh so many more or less popular teams of characters out there that are still waiting impatiently for their Heroclix debut. In this edition of Unclixed, it's the last part of our group spotlight as we focus on the heroes from the land of the rising sun, it's Big Hero 6!

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You know how the United States has the Avengers, Canada has Alpha Flight and the UK has Excalibur? Well, Japan has its own superhero team! Debuting in their own miniseries in 1998, Big Hero 6 was put together by a not-so-inspiring alliance of government politicians and corporate businessmen. This consortium recruited former X-Men enemy Silver Samurai to lead this team, where he would soon be joined by secret agent Honey Lemon (who carries a purse that has access to an interdimensional array of shrunken gadgets), ex-con GoGo Tomago (who turns into a high-speed ball of bombastic energy), teen genius Hiro Takachiho, his robot dragon Baymax and Samurai's old enemy, the former X-Man Sunfire.

The team quietly disappeared into comic limbo, surfacing again in another miniseries in 2008 with a slightly different roster. Sunfire and Silver Samurai are gone, being replaced with Sunpyre and Ebon Samurai, and other new recruits Wasabi-No-Ginger (a chef with energy knives) and Fred (a guy who turns into a gigantic monster).

After the second miniseries ended, the team once again slipped into comic limbo until they popped up again in Spider-Man's book to team up with him in fighting Doctor Octopus and one of their foes, the Everwraith.


Why clix them? The team didn't appear in too many comics, but most people will probably be famliliar with Big Hero 6 for another reason: The animated movie based on them that came out in 2014. The movie pulled in a crap-ton of money, won an Oscar, may get a sequel and is getting an animated series on Disney XD. Suffice to say, HeroClix should probably cash in on this. Especially since we've seen a number of clix sets capitalize on a movie or TV show with their comic counterparts getting made, so why should things be different now?


Who would they play with? Well, we've already got Silver Samurai and Sunfire figures, keywords be damned. They've teamed up with Alpha Flight and Spidey also.

What would their dials look like? For the sake of the potential mainstream playership, we're going to base these pieces mostly on the movie incarnations. Mostly. It might seem unusual, but let's remember that the Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD set for the comics included pieces based off the TV versions of Skye (who didn't exist in that incarnation in the comics) and Agent Ward (who wouldn't appear in the comics for almost half a year after the set's release). So this can't be too much of a stretch.

Hiro & Baymax - Baymax's dial would probably have Defend, damage reducers, Support and could pop out a Hiro bystander that can use Outwit and/or Perplex.

GoGo Tomago - Hypersonic speed, maybe as part of a special power that builds up an increase to attack and damage depending on her ricocheting off things. Maybe like speed tokens or acceleration tokens.

Honey Lemon - Since this heroine pulls chemicals, gadgets and supplies out of her "Power Purse", it'd probably translate to Clix not unlike Hat from the Superman/Wonder Woman set. Where you can just pick a different attack power or damage power and use that for a turn.

Wasabi-No-Ginger - Pretty easy here, giving him blades that can do penetrating damage.

Fredzilla - Probably less of a super-suit that blasts fire, this particular piece would more resemble the comic version of a guy that transforms into a kanji. So an activation click of Earthbound/Neutralized ad Shape Change that becomes a single base colossal. Probably not as nasty a dial as the Pacific Rim figures though.

What would your idea of dials for Big Hero 6 look like, folks? Feel free to reply as that's it for this edition of Unclixed! Be here next week for an all new Comic Accurate! In two weeks, Unclixed will be back with something else!

You have to go back to the uncarded sets, but we do have silver samurai and sunfire with the big hero 6 keyword.

Kaiju, not Kanji.

Though now I'm thinking of Letterman from Electric Company.

-J

thanks for the article. i'm still surprised big hero 6 came and went without any clix. and still haven't gotten any clix

I would say honey lemon's powerset screams the grenade mechanic

If we assume that Marvel influences the Clix lineup (such as the FF embargo), then it isn't quite as surprising. Marvel was largely cut out of the Big Hero 6 process -- even the related comics are produced by another vendor. I can't find the articles now, but I got the feeling there was some bad blood around the whole thing. Which is a total shame considering how well the movie turned out.

-J

I would so love a little movie based starter or fast forces. Heck, do a small gravity feed set and have it contain both movie and comic book versions of heroes and villains. I'd buy the crap out of that!

I want Baymax in his white balloon form. I was him in an inflatable suit a couple of Halloweens ago. It was a nightmare. I was in everybodys way. I took up the whole sidewalk. I had to take it off. Couldn't see out of the mask either and with the fan blowing to keep the suit inflated I froze my ass off.

I may be greedy, but I want both the original Big Hero 6 and the movie/upcoming-show versions. And you've got a great point, how did we NOT get these after the movie's success?

I would assume it's because they weren't extremely confident in how well it would do BEFORE the first movie came out so they didn't/couldn't get the wheels spinning fast enough for it to be a good idea for the first movie...the figures would have come out MONTHS after the movie had already been out of theaters...maybe in time for the DVD release, but even that is not something that most companies usually put a ton of effort into marketing for.

Perhaps they can better market stuff like that for when the second one releases and then they would have two movies worth of material to work with.