10FIGURES
5MAKERS
2009EARLIEST
2026LATEST
THE LEGEND
Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, on 29 August 1958, one of nine children. He was singing lead with his brothers as a small boy, and in 1969 the Jackson 5 were introduced to the public by Diana Ross as Motown's newest act. Their first singles went to number one. He was still a teenager when he began recording on his own.
His adult solo career started with Off the Wall in 1979 and exploded with Thriller in 1982, regarded as the best-selling album of all time. On 25 March 1983, performing Billie Jean at the Motown 25 television special, he first showed the world the moonwalk. Bad followed in 1987, with the film Moonwalker and its Smooth Criminal sequence in 1988, then Dangerous in 1991 and HIStory in 1995. The HIStory World Tour ran from 1996 to 1997 across five continents. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, and he died in Los Angeles on 25 June 2009, aged 50.
OFF THE PAGE
Jackson's music videos were short films, and they changed what a pop video could be. Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller broke the colour barrier at MTV in the early 1980s, and from then on each era came with a look as recognisable as the songs: the single rhinestone glove of 1983, the buckled black of Bad, the white suit and fedora of Smooth Criminal, a tribute to Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon, with its seemingly impossible forward lean.
The Dangerous era added more. Remember the Time, directed by John Singleton in 1992, put him in gold among Egyptian royalty played by Eddie Murphy and Iman, and the Jam video the same year traded dance steps with Michael Jordan on a basketball court. On stage during the HIStory tour he wore military-cut gold. Those outfits are why collectors can name the year of a Jackson figure from across the room, and why every maker who tackles him picks a single moment rather than the man in general.
IN SIXTH SCALE
Hot Toys made one of the earliest serious twelve-inch versions in 2010, a deluxe figure of Jackson in the Bad video with a slim body, rolling eyes and an extra top from Dirty Diana. Since then makers have each claimed an era. Blackbox Toys has dressed him for the HIStory World Tour in gold and for the 30th Anniversary Celebration in white armour-style stage wear. InArt, known for rooted hair, recreated the Jam outfit and turned next to Smooth Criminal.
DamToys, usually a military specialist, has also taken on the Smooth Criminal suit, with a deluxe edition built around a jukebox. HAOMAO Toys chose Remember the Time for its first release, in gold breastplate and pleated skirt with an Egyptian throne. Collectors are hard to please here, since everyone knows his face. They watch the likeness, the hair, the fit of the trousers above the white socks, and whether the hands and feet can hold the poses he made famous. He shares the music shelf with Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury.
RELEASES BY YEAR
2
1
1
1
1
4
20092026
BY MANUFACTURER
Hot Toys
3
InArt
2
DamToys
2
Blackbox Toys
2
HAOMAO Toys
1
FRANCHISES
APPEARS IN
EVERY MICHAEL JACKSON FIGURE
newest first
