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Captain Toy/Michael's Review of the Week

Review of Major Marquis Warren - Hateful Eight
Sixth Scale Action Figure

Asmus Toys
Date Published: 2018-05-21
Written By: Michael Crawford
Overall Average Rating: 2.5 out of 4

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Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Introduction

Some collectors will remember when Enterbay announced they'd be doing sixth scale action figures for the Tarantino movie Django Unchained. Prototypes were shown, and they were glorious. I pre-ordered, as did many others, and as a fan of westerns, sixth scale, and Tarantino, I was stoked.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Someone decided it might not be a great idea to release the figures, and they were cancelled. *sigh* But the past failures of others didn't stop Asmus Toys of going after another Tarantino western, The Hateful Eight. They secured the license, created the prototypes, and made it to production with two figures so far.

I reviewed the first last week - John 'The Hangman' Ruth.  This week I'm looking at the second, Major Marquis Warren, the character portrayed by Sam Jackson.  Both of these have been shipping for quite awhile, and will run you around $200.

Still to come is Daisy, as well as a diorama of the inside door area of the way station where all the action takes place.  If they only make these three, I'll be fine, although I would most certainly jump on a Mannix if they got that far.

Click on the image below for a Life Size version
Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Packaging - ***
Again, they went with the poster artwork for this particular character. It's sturdy and well made, and everything is safely held inside several plastic trays. It's all collector friendly too, an assumption with any sixth scale packaging these days.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Sculpting - **1/2
This is one of those sculpts where a little squinting, the proper lighting, and just the right angle can get you something that reminds you of the character. The further you get from the ideal viewing conditions, the farther you get from something that looks accurate.

Before we get there, let's start with the two other key factors - emotion and realism. Both of these are well done here, with his bad ass attitude oozing out of the expression on his face, and plenty of skin texture, wrinkles, and aging to give the portrait a life-like appearance.

Even the beard and hair is a bit better than what we saw with Ruth, with enough detail to look good in hand without being too over wrought. The one piece head/neck allows for a seamless appearance, always a plus for realism (and a minus for articulation).

Ah, but then we get to accuracy.  Is it Jackson as Warren? In the next two photos, I'm going to highlight how much difference lighting, angle, and context can make. In the photo directly below, I think it looks quite a bit like him. The eyes, nose, and lips look good, and I'd recognize him in a heartbeat.

Now scroll down and look at the photo after the Paint section. Yea, not quite the same thing, right? In the first photo with the lighting from below, shadows hide certain issues and improve certain positives. With the outer clothing in place - hat, scarf, coat - you get lots of context too. In the next photo, he lacks the outer clothing, and the lighting isn't angled from only one particular direction to create harsh shadows. The lips and nose look smaller, and the weird patch of hair on the forehead looks out of place. In fact, the second photo looks more like his character from Django Unchained than Warren.

It's important to note that if this was a great sculpt, angle and light wouldn't make much difference. You could shoot Doctor Strange in any way, with any camera, with Vaseline on the lens, and you'd know who he was. But this is not a great sculpt, and requires certain conditions to pass muster. He's a great example of the sort of figure that might look great or awful to you when you pull him out of the box, depending on conditions. Remember the Seinfeld episode The Strike? Yea, the one with Festivus...Jerry's girlfriend was a 'two-face', someone who looked a lot different depending on the light. That's what Marquis is - a 'two-face'.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Paint - ***
The paint work is solid, good but not quite great. The skin tone is well done, and the work on the hair is realistic. Gray hair, like blonde, is particularly tough to get right, and they've done a decent job here.

The eyes are glassy yet life-like, and while there's a little bleed, it's not distracting. While this isn't quite at the level of the best work on the market - or even Asmus' very best - it's reasonable considering the price point.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Articulation - **
While I'm not in love with the portrait, it's perhaps the articulation that is my biggest disappointment. And technically, it's not the 'articulation', but problems with the hands fitting on the figure.

You know that the one piece head/neck portrait isn't going to be as posable, but it's not bad. I'm not sure it was necessary with the longer hair and beard - these could have easily covered a neck joint - but I'd only dock him slightly in this category for it.

The shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, waist, and torso all work pretty well, considering the multi-layered costume. Like Ruth, the hard sculpted boots make the ankles pretty much non-existent, but unlike Ruth the boot sculpt allows him to easily stand without toppling over backwards.

So where's the big problem? The wrists. He comes with two sets of gloved hands - one to hold the guns, and one to work with several of the other accessories. These gloves have long white wrists that run up the arm. You know what I'm talking about - they're standard issue Union Army stuff. In the movie, as you'd expect, these white cuffs go over the coat.

Unfortunately, on the figure they do not. They go over the suit jacket just fine, and that's how he'll be in the box. But he really, really needs to wear the heavy outer coat - it's his signature look. And these cuffs do not fit over the double set of thick sleeves. I tried and tried, and could only come up with one of two approaches: don't connect the hand to the arm properly (in which case it is constantly falling off), or shove the sleeves way up the arm, bunching them up around the elbow, so the hand can pop on.

Long term, I'm going to try heating up the cuffs and widening them out. If that doesn't work, I may consider slitting the bottom side to allow the sleeve to fit. We'll see if it gets that far, but out of the box, this shouldn't be an issue.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Accessories - ***1/2
Asmus tends to outfit their figures nicely, and Marquis is no exception.

He comes with the four hands I mentioned. He has the set designed to hold the spoons or letter on his person in the box, and the second set of gun holding hands are the extras. They don't swap well - I've already gone into that in length. There's a couple extra wrist pegs too, just in case.

He has two revolvers, one with a black grip and one with a wood grain grip. These fit in the two holsters provided, and have great sculpts.

Critical to his character is the Lincoln letter. It comes as a very neat, very smooth printed paper, but you can fold it up and slip it into his vest pocket.

There's also a wooden spoon and bowl, as well as a larger wooden barrel and crate. These can all work with the aforementioned diorama too, filling out the perfect movie scene. He includes the pocket watch, chain, and fob, which we saw with Ruth as well.

There are three additional costume pieces, but I'll discuss those in the Outfit section.

Finally, he has not one but two display stands. One is the standard black with the movie name, while the other is round, and has a wood floor sticker on the top. Both use crotch support rods.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Outfit - **1/2
The outfit consists of his hat, scarf, outer coat, suit coat, vest, shirt, tie, pants, boots, and two gun belts. There is definitely plenty of soft goods here, but unlike Ruth, I'm not quite as pleased.

Let's start with the best pieces. The scarf looks great, and is easy to work with. The outer coat matches the on screen look pretty well, and there's a wire along the edge of the 'cape' to allow it to be positioned in more natural looking ways. There's some discoloration in the outer color, but it ends up looking realistic.

Those are the two best pieces. There are several that are fine - nothing exciting really, but I don't have any major issues. That includes the shirt, coat, pants, and black gun belt. There's something a little weird about the tailoring of the pants which make his legs look skinnier than they should be, but with the heavier coat in place it's not a huge issue.

Then we have the pieces that really need some help. These include the hat, tie, brown gun belt, and boots.

The boots are a decent looking sculpt, but the hard plastic makes the ankles useless.  They aren't as bad as Ruth's - he couldn't even stand properly in his - but I don't understand why they didn't go with a two piece boot design this time.

Worse is the hat. It's a thin plastic deal with a fuzzy exterior. It feels cheap, is slightly oversized, and doesn't fit particularly well on his head at any angle.

The brown gun belt has a very cheap, very rubbery belt buckle. It's weird, because the buckle on the other belt seems fine, but this was the one area where I was worried about damage.

And then we have the worst offender - the tie. I realize his on screen tie was an odd style. The knot was smaller, almost normal sized, but it widened out considerably by the time it entered the vest.  Here, the knot is huge, and there isn't a big change in width since it starts out ridiculously wide to begin with. It looks cheap, like something we got from Hasbro 15 years ago.

So yea, the outfit is a very mixed bag. Swap out the tie and hat, and things would improve immensely, however.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Fun Factor - **1/2
The gloved hands kill the fun here. It makes the posing and swapping much more difficult, and it means you're less likely to work with him over time.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Value - **1/2
At $200, he's well below the price of the usual high end sixth scale figure. However, the quality of several of the components isn't what it should be, counterbalancing the benefits of the lower cost.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Things to Watch Out For -
Not much. Some of the costume pieces - like the belt buckle on the brown belt - are a little soft, but I didn't have any breakage problems. I wouldn't remove the watch chain from the vest if I didn't have to, because it looks like it might be tricky to get back in place.

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Overall - **1/2
I really liked the John Ruth figure, and if it hadn't been for some issues with the beard and boot sculpt, he would have scored ***1/2 overall. It set my hopes up for this guy, but unfortunately, he has even more issues overall. While there are things to like and he's not a complete waste, there are three or four areas (hands not fitting, weak likeness, some costume pieces) that hold Marquis back from anything higher than a **1/2.

I'm hoping that Asmus learns from the first two - they certainly have improved over time with their Lord of the Rings license - and we get a much improved Daisy. Out of all the second tier sixth scale makers on the market right now, Asmus remains my favorite, and I'm hoping we seem them nail some of these lesser licenses. Let's face it, big boys like Hot Toys aren't going to touch anything that isn't Star Wars, Marvel, or DC these days, and it's up to players like Asmus to fill in the gaps. It only works if they can get consistent quality however, like they have with their more recent LOTR figures.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***
Sculpting - **1/2
Paint - ***
Articulation - **
Accessories - ***1/2
Outfit - **1/2
Fun Factor - ***
Value - **1/2
Overall - **1/2

Marquis Warren Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure by Asmus

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Where to Buy 
Online options include these site sponsors:

- has him for $200.

- comes in at $190.

- Entertainment Earth is at a whopping $280 with free shipping.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
I just reviewed Asmus' John Ruth figure from Hateful Eight, and they have Daisy coming soon as well.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

Discussion:
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This product was purchased for the review by the reviewer. Photos and text by Michael Crawford.

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