I was going to write a long thing about Tyr sucking, but basically it boils down to this: he looks like when you were seven and you pulled off one of the arms off one of your action figures and then stuck a robot arm on it. And that’s just not cool. Not in a comic kids pay money for. They can stick their own damn robot arms on their own damn action figures. They don’t need comic books to do that for them.
Even when Dave Cockrum first drew him, he didn’t look cool. He looked like Dave Cockrum working on a prototype for one of the Starjammers.
If Cable had been invented in the 1970s, he would look like Tyr. I can’t think of any better way to describe Tyr’s total lack of cool than that.
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Wow. I used to have the action figure of this guy when I was a kid. Not because I wanted him, mind you. I had no idea who he was. My parents tended to buy me whatever they happened to lay eyes on, regardless of which specific ones I might actually want. That’s why the only Star Wars action figures I had were one of the admirals Vader strangles in Empire Strikes Back, the witch doctor ewok, and an AT-AT driver with no AT-AT. I also had an action figure of the guy with the swords in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc who gets shot in the street without much fuss.
Anyway, the Tyr figure had a gimmick where you squeezed his legs together and his missile arm would pop up and fire. So, as a little kid, 90% of the time, I had no idea where his dorky robo-arm even was. If there’s anything worse than a figure you don’t know, it’s a figure you don’t know who looks like Tyr and is missing an arm.
Very timely entry, as Mattel just announced a new Tyr action figure (http://tinyurl.com/yln97sc). 2010 is unexpectedly the Year of Tyr.
I happened to read Tyr’s initial appearances this past week, and I kind of like him. In his second issue, he’s been captured in the Clubhouse, but his robot gun hand shot off into space before it too could be imprisoned. There’s a moment where he’s just sitting in Legion Jail, waiting for his hand to break him out, and he’s really casual about the whole thing. The artist, I think it’s Cockrum, really captures his lazy indolence as he waits for his golden space sub-machine gun to fly in and save him. He just didn’t take the Legion seriously, and I respect that about him.
The rest of the issue is Tyr being completely overshadowed by said golden space sub-machine gun, to the point where you start to think the hand should be getting the Who’s Who entry. This is admittedly points against.
On the other hand, that mohawk/Fu Manchu mustache combo is amazing. And the design of his shirt isn’t half-bad either… it almost looks like a steampunk Punisher skull.
But yes, dumb character.
I can’t freaking believe they’re making a DCUC figure of this jerk. Whoever’s in charge of that line has such a boner for Super Powers, it’s ridiculous.
Well, I actually like him, and by the way thanks for the tiny pic Juggo, Tyr is looking good, I couldn’t find pics of him when I was writing my post on Mattel on DC Universe Classics, Masters of the Universe and others: http://actionfiguresbuff-jon.com/mattel-on-dc-universe-classics-masters-of-the-universe-and-others/
I’m already TYRED of seeing his face. Eh? Eh?
So reading the description, his arm was “apparently amputated and replaced?”
Well, it IS tough to be certain, and you certainly wouldn’t want to offend…
Here’s the line that gets me “a sentient gun-arm that can function independently”. Someone needs to re-introduce Tyr as a beleaguered bounty hunter who apparently lost an arm and had it replaced with the world’s most annoying sentient cybernetic. It’s like a buddy cop movie with Evil Hand Issues! Only his hand is also a gun! License to print money!
In all fairness that picture is based on his action figure which had a much less cool-looking gun so her could have a shooting missile action feature or something.
The Cockrin-designed arm was pretty cool.
And he did have a moblile planet filled with weapons and fantacial followers so there is that.
Is the background picture on the lower left Tyr getting encased in rock or ice or something? This guy is so lame, they have him losing fights in his own Who’s Who? Sad. Just sad.
A pity, as I challenge you to find a better Faroese metal band than Tyr.
Oh, come on, no love for “one of the warlords of the planet Tyrraz, from which he derives his name”? Let’s see, the warlords of Tyrraz: there’s Tyr, and Raz … Nope, that’s pretty much it, at least since Yrra got bumped off.
Did it play bad jazz music while this was happening?
Say, who’s the DC equivalent of when you’d decide to give your Barbie a fashionable bob and instead she ended up looking like a heavily made-up mental patient?
… Is that including the 10% Mohawk Bonus?
Okay, did Dave Cockrum do He-Man figure design? Because seriously, that looks like a He-Man figure.
(Which means I find it nostalgically awesome)
How does get his arm back after he shoots it at someone? Does he just go up to the guy he shot it at and ask politely? What’s the etiquette for that?
The concept of a Tyr action figure, in tandem with the review, just made me think of a child pulling off Tyr’s nonrobotic arm to replace it with a robot arm.
It’s a pity, because in general being the head of an organization (Or, in this case, “warlord of the mobile planet Tyrraz, which apparently sounds cooler than it is) gets a villain some credit from me – it’s a common trait of top villains like Doom or Darkseid. And it just seems to make more sense to have the head of a big group as an adversary for a spacefaring union of superheroes – a solo villain just comes off as stretching himself too far, trying to terrorize whole galaxies single-handedly.
You’d think with all the characters constantly killed off in every Crisis we’ve had the last 20 years, someone would have buried this guy and be done with it by n… (zombie Tyr rises up with a Black Lantern ring) Damn you Geoff!
Not related to Tyr, but I had to share this with you.
Let us not forget, there’s a pecking order of lameness.
Tyr was the only piece of cannon-fodder in the Legion of Super-Villains with the honesty to tell fellow LSV arch-lamer-namer Radiation Roy, God save us, that his name sucks. Which it does.
“The name is Radiation Roy, Tyr, not Radiator.”
“Change it. It’s stupid. I don’t associate with stupid people.”
Pot, kettle, black, yes, but he still slagged off a guy who could make him sterile with a snap of his fingers — his finest hour! (sarcasm)
Tyr is lacking in many things, but testicular fortitude ain’t one of ’em.
So what’s the story with Space Mr. T?
Not pertaining to Tyr, but I’d like your professional opinion on this:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/man-comics-ii-fuckin-a-comics
I can’t speak for MGK, but I don’t get the Popsicle Pete thing at all.
For some reason I am thinking of how annoying it must be to go to the loo with that one.
Dude what’s with all the cable hate? nathan is actually a character that was a GRRR HARDASS but developped from the gritty antihero to the reluctant messiah becoming one of the greatest superhero & contradictions (a powerful messianic leader who’s at the same time crippled by the T-O virus & fighting against the perverse side of social darwinism symbolised by En Sabah Nur).So yeah! Cable is AWESOME & FAR DEEPER than what writers or comicbook critics make him out to be,read casey, nicieza & weinberg runs for that & remember joe q & jemas interrupted the character because of some fucking x-over event conviniently spitting on character growth.& dont get me started on Bishop what marvel did to him was just a heresy
Tyr would do a lot better in Marvel.
Granted, this is because the Marvel version would actually be Tyr as in the Norse god as opposed to Tyr, the guy named after a Norse god. I’m pretty sure they only called him that because he fights stuff and he’s only got one hand.