Portal 2 Sentry Turret, Animal King Version

For a franchise with only a single (living) human character, the Portal series sure has a lot of oddly endearing artificial characters. From the psychotic, yet sympathetic GlaDOS to the oddball personality cores (SPACCEEEEEE...) to the innocent Companion Cube you burn alive, the cold machines of Aperture Science are frequent sources of humor and pathos in lieu of other fleshbags to interact with. And of course, one of the most amusing pieces of killer hardware you encounter are the murderous yet extremely polite Sentry Turrets.

In my travels today, I stopped off at ye olde local comic shop (in this case, Jetpack Comics) to see if there was anything interesting about and they had some of the brand spanking new Portal 2 Sentry Turret blind box figures by NECA/Wizkids.



The box is simple but hilariously tongue-in-cheek. The entire package is made up to be as if the turret within is a full-sized death appliance, this side showcasing a schematic and handling instruction icons to ensure your turret is not damaged in transit.



The opposite side features a diagram of positioning turrets in the home and blurbs about not using the turrets as home security systems and the fact that you may want to invest in an ANOTHER home security system to defend you from them as they tend to go rogue. The second paragraph is legal text removing any responsibility on the part of Aperture Laboratories if things go horribly, horribly awry. Both sections are hilarious and written perfectly to match the cynical wit and sarcasm of the video games.



The back of the box reveals the ten different color schemes the turrets come in. There are technically twenty figures in total as each paint scheme comes in both a "neutral" mode and an "attack" mode with guns extended. Some of the designs are pretty awesome, Sunburst, Clouds and Desert Camo being a few of my favorites. Really though, they're all pretty awesome looking. Except Table. Apparently there was an online poll to decide the tenth pattern in the series and Table won. Seriously? There was an awesome Hawaiian Shirt design that looked like a turret version of Dennis Nedry. But I digress, my point is that half the reason I decided to buy one was the paint schemes. I wanted an attack mode turret in a cool color scheme and boy did I get one.

 
Leopard Camo. Attack Mode. CROWN.

 I won on all fronts. I'm not 100% certain as the series just came out this month and none of the official documentation I can find mentions chases, but I'm pretty sure it's safe to say this is a chase variant. A giant leopard spotted, crown sporting sentry turret known as the Animal King shows up in the second game during an in game slide show and later during the closing credits while you are treated to an opera performed by levels and levels of turrets stored within the Apperture Science facilities. Apparently, The King is also a chase version of the standard Leopard Camo figure.



The Animal King is cast in a hard plastic that makes me worry about him breaking a leg if he takes a fall, with the crown made of a softer PVC. The sculpt is excellent, perfectly capturing the in game look and featuring some pretty intricate mechanical detailing on the inner workings of the gun panels. The only negative is an obvious seam that runs vertically up the turret. For the main body, this is fine since there is a seam between the plates there in the games, but this one also unfortunately runs directly across the eye, ruining the effect. The sculpt features no articulation, but other than unfolding, the turrets don't move much anyways so I'm perfectly OK with this.



The turret stands just under three inches tall at the top of the body housing, the antenna and The King's crown adding a little height in this case. He's a bit too big for menacing your G.I. Joes and Star Wars figures, but should be perfect for apologetically shooting at your DC Universe figures, or better yet the Gordan Freeman figure NECA just recently released. I should note that the whole "tripods aren't structurally sound" adage rings true here as The King will topple over on any surface that isn't perfectly level. I don't know if mine just has a slightly warped leg or if this is a design flaw, but a stiff breeze can knock this guy over.



Paint detailing is nice, the leopard print is sharp and there is no slop that I can see. A great little detail is systems readouts printed in the recessed open sides of the turret's body. These spots are hard to photograph since the gun panels are angled and real close to the body, but the left side features live ammunition warnings and an incredibly tiny block of text I can't possibly read while the right states armament & elect then gives a status report of the fusion cores. All of this printing is miniscule and put in a super tiny, pain in the ass spot on the figure so I'm suitably impressed at NECA's effort.



Even though this started as a total impulse buy (damn my weakness for blind boxes!) I'm ultimately quite pleased with The King here. It certainly helps that I pulled a chase version I didn't know existed going in, but the clean sculpt, excellent paint work and sheer variety would make me recommend you snag one anyways. A minimum of 21 different styles (and who knows how many other chases) is a tantalizing enough reason to grab a blind box, the fact that I only paid a mere five bucks for this guy is just icing on the cake (sorry.) While I can't guarantee that other retailers will be as cool as Jetpack, you should absolutely get one or two (or a dozen!) if you can find them at a decent price or happen to be a fan of Valve's other most popular series.

NECA's Night Fighter Robocop

Though I never saw Robocop as a kid (thanks, over protective Dad!), I was still into Kenner's tie-in line and the spin off Ultra Police that were added later. Though I only ever owned ED-209 due to said Dad's fear the caps packaged with the figures would turn me into a pint-sized pyro, there was always one basic figure in the old Kenner catalogs I drooled over; Night Fighter Robocop. This nineties-tastic figure was cast in glow in the dark plastic with metallic blue highlights and a swap out chain gun arm. Obviously, the stuff little boys' violent dreams are made of. Fast forward to 2012 and toy giant NECA owning the Robocop license. So far, there have been standard, battle damaged and spring-loaded hip holster variations utilizing the same basic figure buck with new paint and or gimmick. Fresh out the gate however, is a Toys R Us exclusive that may make a few old Kenner fan boys swoon. Say hello to Night Fighter Robocop, 2012.

I have to talk about the packaging here because it is a great homage to the classic card style and features a very nice version of NECA's logo designed to resemble that of Kenner. The character portrait is drawn well enough, but still a little rough so that it fits the style of old school packaging art of the time.



The insert in the front of the clam shell features the yellow and red grid pattern present on the classic line's packaging as well as the character's name, role and special abilities. Unbeknownst to me, glowing like a light bulb is the number one method of fighting crime after dark. The best thing about the packaging however, is a line mentioning that no caps are included, another reference to the old Robocop line where everyone came with a roll of caps.



Out of the package, he looks pretty good. NECA's sculptors seem to have to captured every teeny tiny detail in the suit; Murphy here is covered in panels, rivets, joints and wires that faithfully recreate the movie prop. What blew my mind is that across the band of his helmet and front of his left thigh, etched in tiny letters is the legend "OCP POLICE - 001" This detailing is practically lost on the glow in the dark plastic, but as this basic mold is used for four different Murphy's, it undoubtedly shows up better on silver. Still an amazingly small detail most other companies wouldn't bother with.

As mentioned, the sculpt is nice and crisp, closely resembling the character's movie appearance. The head sculpt is simple but effective with a stoic, neutral expression that again nicely captures his cold, impersonal manner after being rebuilt. It almost looks like the top half of the helmet is removable, but sadly it is not. it would have been a cool feature to remove the upper half and reveal Murphy's scarred visage, but with costs of tooling and all...

Articulation is generous if a little stiff, but this is Robocop we're talking about. He features ball joints in his neck (at the shoulder instead of the base of the skull interestingly enough) chest and hips, pivot and swivel shoulders, swivel waist and forearms and lightly ratcheting elbows, knees and ankles. Some of these, like the elbows, are a little limited but he can hold and aim his gun and stalk mechanically forward, pretty much all you see him doing in the movie anyway.

In a cool little piece of engineering, NECA has made working ankle pistons that are hinged to be able to move with his legs. The glow in the dark plastic lets you get a good look at the little cylinders sliding up and down as you move his feet, a very nice touch.

Night Fighter Robocop comes with two accessories, the first being his heavily modified Beretta 93R pistol. Cast entirely in black, it fits in his gun hand a little loosely but should stay stable as long as you're not in earthquake country. Sadly, this figure doesn't use the spring loader holster version of the mold so he can't store his pistol, but he can be posed with it hovering over his hip like he's in the middle of drawing it. His left hand is molded in an open palm so he's only ever going to be a righty, which is fine since a big part of his character is how he uses the pistol, but I do wish it were in a slightly less neutral pose.

His other accessory is an alternate right hand with the data spike seen in the movie extended. The hands pop off smoothly and the spike itself is surprisingly hard and pointy, perfect for stabbing into the eyes of your other toys.

There is an area I have issue with on this figure and that is the paint. Night Fighter Robocop uses only a single color in the black seaming between the joints of his armor and on his visor, but as the picture above shows, it has a tendency to bunch up around the shoulder joints. After taking him out and rotating the shoulders a bit, I was disappointed to see large flakes of paint coming off. This doesn't ruin the look of the figure, but it would have been nice if it were a little more durable. Robocop also appears to have a very light black wash over the glow in the dark sections, but considering the uneven distribution and spottiness of it, I'm not entirely certain this isn't just slop paint dirtying the figure up. If you're going to grab this guy, take a good look at his mug first because that seems to be an area where the black spattering was most prevalent, I passed on a couple samples until I found one with a mostly clean face.

Paint issues aside, I can't really fault this figure, he's an awesome sculpt paying homage to an awesome classic figure and we all know I love glow in the dark toys. Poe Ghostal had a few words about Night Fighter Robocop, mainly lamenting the lack of metallic blue highlighting and gun arm, and while I see where he's coming from (and Poe, I totally agree both those things would knock this guy out of the park), I think NECA did pretty well for a quick exclusive that would tug at nostalgia collectors. Hell, I almost want a second one just to leave in package for display! Night Fighter Robocop will run you sixteen bucks and is of course only available at Toys R Us, but if the six or so on shelves when I was there is any indication, he's not such a hot item that you'll miss your chance if you don't grab him at first sight. And while you might not love him the first time you set eyes on him, I have a feeling he'll grow on more than a few of you just as he has on me.

"Your move, creep."
Added bonus glow pics!

Kenner's Mantis Alien

In the same package as Lava Planet Predator came another gem from the past, one of the most beloved of my vast Kenner Aliens collection, 1993's mighty Mantis Alien! Before we dive right in though, there are a couple of things I need to clarify.

Some of you may remember me expressing my dislike for toy lines that give a hero different costumes and gear of an extremely limited scope just to sell more figures. I feel that this angle only works well for a couple of characters (Batman, Iron Man) while it is supremely bad for others (usually Superman.) Kenner is no stranger to this tactic and they applied it to many of the licenses they held, including Aliens. The thing is, it works beautifully with the Aliens property. If you can get around the fact that some of the host animals the Alien figures spawned from could in no way house chest bursters, any variation of the creature's life cycle can be hand waved. Face Hugger Queen? A mutation caused normal Face Huggers to simply mature into giant versions! Killer Crab Alien? Planet populated mainly by giant, carnivorous crustaceans! The individual Aliens represented in the line could just be from specific hives where all drones are of that type, as they all matured from the same dominant host species.



Once again, the nostalgia here is nearly choking, the Mantis was one of my absolute favorites of the Aliens line as a kid, which is saying a lot as I owned almost every Alien made. The backing card is sort of the inverse of the Predator line; Art of a classic "drone" Alien flanks the bubble on the left beneath a vertically inclined version of the iconic Aliens title, with art of the Mantis Alien itself on the right. Behind the bubble is art of an Alien egg, incorrectly illustrated with the flaps opening from the bottom. This figure is so old, when I took him out of the shipping box, his bubble fell clean off the backing card! Convenient as it did almost no damage to the card art and I had wanted to save it for display purposes anyway.



The card back shows off some of the aliens and pretty much all of the horribly bad Space Marine figures. The Mantis came out about midway through the series, so he is advertised alongside such staples as the exploding Scorpion Alien, strangling Snake Alien, amazing Flying Queen and classic Queenie herself. New comers beside the Mantis include the Queen Face Hugger and the Rhino Alien, who like the Mantis, is a heavy retool/repaint of an earlier figure in the series, the Bull Alien. The Marines line up features the only good one ever made, Atax! You better believe he'll show up at The Barracks sooner or later.



Also featured are some vehicles from the line, the only remotely movie related one being the Power Loader. The Evac Fighter doesn't look too bad considering, but there's no decent pilot for it. Though I do know where I can get a boxed one for cheap... No! Must resist collecting urge...



Out of the package, he is nothing short of fantastic. As mentioned, the Mantis is a remold/repaint of the Gorilla Alien released earlier, but Kenner went so above and beyond on mold and paint changes, you probably wouldn't notice without close inspection. I don't own the Gorilla as of this moment to compare, but the Mantis uses the same torso and gimmick while receiving all new parts in form of arms, legs, head and an abdomen replacing the Gorilla's more traditional tail.



The Mantis Alien is cast in translucent green plastic, a method Kenner started using a lot in the Aliens line which I absolutely loved as a kid. There are some light silver sprays across his arms, legs, chest and head that really bring out a lot of the sculpted detailing, which this line is famous for. Way before McFarlane and NECA were turning out super detailed Aliens merchandise, Kenner was cramming every inch of their takes on the creatures with all kinds of muscle texture, bone extrusions and looping cables. What's even more amazing is that the sculptors didn't just design one leg and arm and mirror them for the opposite limbs; Each arm and leg, while similar in overall shape, have multiple unique organic details that differentiate them.



Being a toy from the nineties, the Mantis Alien isn't just there to look pretty, he has an action feature as well! Squeezing the lighter green tubes on the back together causes the figure to spread its arms wide, releasing them brings the arms back together to trap enemies in the Mantis' spiky embrace. You can also see that where the Gorilla Alien had a tail, the Mantis sports a newly sculpted abdomen piece, complete with veined wings and a hooked stinger.



The head is a lot less smooth than the standard drone, featuring a lot of ridges, spikes and folds across the dome of the skull. The top of the head has the heaviest application of the silver sprays seen elsewhere on the figure and the snarled mass of teeth are painted a metallic gold. With six points of articulation, the Mantis Alien can't strike a whole lot of poses, but besides grabbing and crushing, there's not much else you need from him.



The translucent plastic is a real hook to me, just look at how beautiful he looks with a strong back light! Despite the very non-movie design, the Mantis looks like he could pose for the cover of an Aliens DVD and not look at all out of place.



The Mantis Alien is an excellent example of how to do a repaint/resculpt right as well as being just as excellent an example of how to create variations on your main characters and still have them be appealing. Twenty years later, he still looks amazing and is a real gem in the Aliens line. I paid about fourteen dollars for a carded sample, but loose ones will of course be much cheaper. Your mileage may vary, but if you can find a Mantis for a price you don't mind paying, he's certainly worth it.


"You got it, Sarge!"