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Meat and Potatoes; 5.0
Perks; 5.0
Homer Factor; 5.0
Dojo- Spawn, Dark Ages; Samurai Wars
Meat and Potatoes; 3.50
Perks; 5.0
Homer Factor; 4.0
Samurai Spawn and the Scorpion Assasin are approximately 7" tall. Both decked out in full samurai armor; grieves, helmet, the whole smash. All VERY well sculpted and amazing articulation.Jyakku looks like Ghidirah on acid and with two arms. The piece is approximately 11" tall, can be posed to walk on all fours. The figure also sports very detailed Samurai armor and equally rocking articulation. Dojo looks like Jaba the Hutt, accept with legs and armor. The piece is also 7" tall, sports an amazing sculpt with armor. However, articulation is VERY limited. Spawn, Assasin, and Dojo each come with a well-crafted weapon.
Every year, McFarlane Toys seems to try and top themselves; more articulation, more sculpting, more lines. Bu you gotta wonder when is it going to slow down? After this round of figures, the answer is not any time soon. The first promo shots for these popped up at the NY Toy Show, and as my preview article showed, I was already saving quarters for these babies. Just when you think McFarlane Toys has gone to the well for the umpteenth time, they create something new and awesome. No, we're not talking about the umpteenth repaint of a Batman figure, or another incarnation of the X-Men. The Spawn lines keep taking the basic premise of a warrior who sells his soul to the devil, and building more... and more... and more. Are they perfect? Not by a long shot. Nonetheless, these figures are, bar none, among the finest you will see produced in North America. What's the big deal? Read on...
The meat and potatoes are, over all, stunning. The sculpts on all four figures are.... ya know what, there aren't enough adjectives in a thesaurus to describe how amazing the sculpt is on these pieces. The sense of detail on each and every inch of the figures is incredible; not just re-creating the lines for leather armor, but even re-creating the BRAIDING. Perfect example; check out the sandles on the Scorpion Assassin. The straps holding the sandals on, recreating the tabi-socks, EVERYTHING.
Articulation... that's a touchy subject. Dojo is HORRIBLE. You can barely move his arms, and his legs? Forget it. Like I mentioned in my piece about McFarlane Toys, articulation is either awesome.. or reeeeallly sucks. In this case, suck city. Fortunately, the OTHER three figures have articulation as amazing as the sculpts... just be careful. Jyakku is pretty straight-forward; arms, neck, blah, blah, blah. Neat thing is if you're careful, you can make him walk on all fours. Very cool. The other two... the legs are awesome. You can even do SPLITS with these figures. I know, painful, but impressive. The arms.... PLEASE GET THE SCORPION ASSASSIN FIGURE. Why? Because the excellent Samurai Spawn figure has huge pads of armor on it's shoulders, so you barely see how the joints work. The armor on the Assassin figure is less bulky, so you see a very odd combination of joints. The result is very good articulation AS LONG AS YOU KNOW HOW THE THINGS MOVE. If you aren't careful and yank stuff around the way you THINK it's supposed to go, you will probably break something.
Perks, are pretty good. Each figure, except Jyakku, comes with a large weapon. that is also very well made. One gripe; can we have SCABBARDS? I jury-rigged some of the wire in the packaging to create a make-shift scabbard. It also would have been very appropriate for Samurai Spawn to have a wakizashi (short sword) to go with the longer sword. Hey, Toshiro Mifune always had a daisho (paired swords.).
Homer Factor? Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Now THIS is a figure, if you're into something that displays as well as has playability. No, these are NOT as sturdy as a Star Wars figure. They aren't MEANT TO. These are for fan-boys/girls who are looking for something very special to stick on their mantle or on the desk at work. People will look and go 'whoa, that's cool.' .... or in they are straight-laced wo-workers, they will go '..........uh, what's that.'
Final word? WE'RE NOT WORTHY.... WE'RE NOT WORTHY.... WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!!!!!!!!!!