Packaging - ****
Medicom does great packages,
although they still trail when it comes to providing background text
and information.
The
package is completely collector friendly, with no twisties or other
annoying ties. It's all easy to take out, easy to put back, and no
damage is necessary.
They opted to go with an actual
photo of the
character for their front graphic, rather than a photo of the figure
inside. This is always a gutsy move on the part of the manufacturer.
Why? Because it provides the buyer with an actual reference point other
than their (usually faulty) memory. When a company does that, it
usually means they're pretty confident in the quality of the figure.
Sculpting
- ****
I have never been a proponent of Medicom's 'human' sculpts. Characters
that are alien in appearance, or wear armor, or wear masks are
generally top notch, but they're human likenesses tend to have a bit
too much caricature or manga in them for my tastes.
That's
not the case with this Henry. They've nailed the Sean Connery/Henry
Jones Sr. likeness to the wall. In person, it's a fantastic facsimile.
In
photos, you will pick out a few flaws. The eyes are a smidge big still,
but they certainly don't have the Speed Racer look. The skin
isn't
quite textured enough to have quite as much realism as say, the recent
Hot Toys figures, but these are issues that require a very close
inspection.
There is some wonderful detail
in the facial hair,
and the more major age wrinkles are just about perfect. The glasses are
also as close to perfect as I've ever seen in this scale.
Some
folks may not find the stoic expression to their liking, since Henry
tended to smile a whole lot more than his son. But I have no complaints
about the sterner look.
He comes with an open gesturing
pair of
hands on his body, and a swappable set that includes a gripping right
hand and another slightly different gesturing left. These are in scale,
if a bit soft in detail.
I could mention his shoes here
or in the
Outfit section, but I think I'll roll them up with the rest of the
sculpt. I love the look of his high gloss black shoes, with
both
an excellent sculpt and proper scale. They are big enough to keep him
standing, and yet they look proper in relation to the rest of his body.
Shoes can be tricky, but these look great.
Paint - ****
I have a few nits I'll pick with the paint, but the bottom line is that
it's extremely well done.
The
eyes and eyebrows look just about perfect, and some folks will be happy
to see no catch lights added with the paint. The cast skin tone is even
and realistic, and the hands and head match fairly well.
The
beard work isn't quite as nice as what we just saw with the Clone
Ob-wan or the Alien Dallas, but it's damn close. There's a
little
over spray on the chin, but you won't notice it in person without a
very
keen eye.
Great paint makes a great sculpt
all the more better - Medicom did a great job in both categories.
Articulation- ***1/2
This is the Medicom RAH body, and if you've bought one before you won't
get any surprises here. While this isn't my number one sixth scale body
on the market right now - that honor belongs to the Hot Toys TrueType -
there's no denying that the posability the RAH is top notch.
I
had no trouble putting him in natural, relaxed poses. The
flow of
the RAH, especially in the torso and hips, allows for very realistic
stances. All the joints you'd expect are here, and some (like
the
ball jointed neck) are well above average in their range of movement
and posability.
There are three reasons the body
isn't my
favorite, however. One is the wrist pegs. While the wrists
turn
and move forward and back, there's no side to side movement possible.
The
second is the ugly head/neck joint. You can hide it on this figure in
photos, but in person the way the head is squared off over the neck
really stands out.
Finally, there's simply the
size. I was really
hoping that this figure would fit in with my Sideshow Indy, but that's
not looking like a good possibility. Henry Sr. only stands 11 1/4
inches
tall, and this shorter height translates (as you would assume it would)
into an overall smaller frame, taking up less volume. It's this less
volume issue more than just the simple height that will make him look
odd standing next to the SS Indy.
In fact, this reason alone is
why he loses a half star in this category for me, and if a) you're
sticking with just the Medicom Indy figures or b) you don't mind him
being that much smaller than other 12" figures in your display, then
you can give this figure the full four stars in this category.
Accessories
- **1/2
This is where the figure has the most issues for me. You have to keep
in mind that this is a $135 - $150 figure, and for that kind of bank,
the expectation around accessories is quite high.
Dr.
Jones comes with an extra set of hands, pretty much a requirement for
any high end sixth scale figure these days. The hands pop on and off
smoothly enough, and there's no flimsy feel to the pegs.
He also
has his umbrella, hat and suitcase. These are the most sensible
inclusions of course, but the quality of them is not what you'd expect
at this price point. The umbrella is simply a solid plastic piece,
while the case is a softer, slightly rubbery hollow container. The
sculpt and paint aren't bad, but the overall quality is pretty much on
par with what we saw with the far cheaper Kotobukiya statue.
Then
there's the hat. It fits on the head well enough, and you can
have it tilted back if you'd like. When I first shot most of
the
hat wearing photos, I had it down on his forehead, and I like that
quite a bet better from the aspect of how the hat itself looks on his
head. However, that's not how he wore it, and so I reshot
most of
them with it tilted back to fit the character appearance better.
The color seems off to me as
well, and if it looks
off to me, then it must be really off. I think it should have had a
darker, almost grayish look to it, and certainly not this light brown.
In fact, it's lighter in color than his suit.
The sculpt is
a bit soft as well, lacking some of the details that you'd expect to
set it apart. They did correct the scale a bit though since
the
early photos, and it does appear to be about the right size.
In
the end though, these few accessories don't have the quality or number
for a figure in this price range. The inclusion of the diary,
or
even a seagull (like Koto's) would have been greatly appreciated.
Outfit - ***1/2
The outfit, for purposes of my discussion, consists of his shirt,
vest, jacket, pants, tie, and socks.
Let's
start with the socks. Yep, they fit, they're there, but
you'll
never see them unless you strip him down. Nice to have, but not
critical stuff.
Let's jump up to the other small
item, the tie.
It's a little oversized, and it tends to ride up on his neck
due
to the snap in the shirt collar, but I can live with both of those
issues. Ties, like glasses, are notoriously difficult to do in sixth
scale, and when you get one that's reasonably close, consider it a
blessing.
You'll never guess what the best
part of the outfit
is...the shirt! This is a very accurate representation of a specific
style of dress shirt, with very fine textured stripes running up and
down. I have no idea where they came up with this material, but it was
really quite a pleasant surprise. Other aspects of the shirt are also
solid, with decent scaled buttons and collar, and snaps to hold it
closed.
The jacket and vest are made
from a very high quality
tweed, with a nicely scaled pattern as well. However, the material
tends to be fairly thick, making the coat a bit ill fitting,
particularly around the collar. It's not
horrendous, and with a little futzing it gets better (and perhaps with
a little stuffing to fill out his frame a bit more), but it's a minor
appearance issue right out of the box.
My biggest problem with
the vest revolves around the closures they've used. Rather than go with
snaps, they've opted for the cheaper hooks that slip into a thread loop
on the other side. These tend to have more problems long term,
particularly with the threads breaking.
I did want to mention that the
large pockets on outside of the
jacket are actually pockets with linings, not just holes in the
material. That's the kind of attention to detail that you
expect
at this price point on every aspect of the figure.
Fun Factor - **1/2
While
this category won't have any effect on my personal Overall score, I
thought it important to point out that this figure really isn't
designed to handle real play. That's mostly due to the fragile glasses,
which wouldn't last 5 minutes with your average 8 year old.
If
you're looking for sixth scale figures for the kids, stick with the
Hasbro offerings.
Value - *1/2
This figure will cost you at least $135 right now at regular retail. If
you buy it from Sideshow like I did, it runs you $150.
The
simple fact is that this is not a figure worth that kind of green. The
head sculpt and paint are excellent, but there's nothing else about
this figure that makes it stand out from figures in the $80 -
$100 range.
It probably doesn't help that as
I was shooting this
figure, I was shooting the Hot Toys Kane and Dallas figures as well.
These two figures, with very complex outfits, excellent realistic
sculpts and paint, plenty of accessories, AND light up features cost
the same as poor Henry here.
With the kind of quality being
delivered by other companies right now, Medicom will have to find a way
to either provide more value at this price point, or they're going to
have to get that price point down to around $100 to compete.
Things To Watch Out For
-
Be EXTREMELY careful
with the glasses. They are glued in place, or at least it appears that
way. They are so thin and fragile that I'm not willing to
pull
hard on them to find out! The perfectly scaled specs come with the
price of fragility.
Overall - ***1/2
This is an extremely nice looking feature, sporting one of Medicom's
best human likenesses. While I have a fair number of smaller nits, I
could overlook most of them if this wasn't such a high priced
collectible. They needed to counter the high price tag with more and
better accessories, or they need to get that price down closer to the
competition.
However,
if money is no object for you, you won't be disappointed in this
figure. If Sideshow doesn't get around to producing a great Henry, then
I'll be putting this guy in the motorcycle sidecar in my display
permanently.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ****
Sculpting - ****
Paint - ***1/2
Articulation - ****
Accessories
- **1/2
Fun Factor - **1/2
Value - *1/2
Overall - ***1/2
Where to Buy -
There's plenty of options with my terrific sponsors:
- CornerStoreComics
has a 15% off coupon right now (HURRAH) for any instick item, which
includes Dr. Jones Sr. That gets the figure down to about $115 - much,
much better.
- Dark Shadow
Collectibles has him (as well as Mutt, Indy and Young Indy)
for $135 each.
- Alter Ego Comics
has all of them as well for $135.
- or you can
also search
ebay using
the sponsor MyAuctionLinks.com.
Related
Links -
There's been plenty of Indy stuff this year. For a sampling:
- one of my favorite new Indy
collectibles is the Mighty Muggs from Hasbro, and I've reviewed waves 1, and 2.
- for the sixth scale
collectors, I recently checked out the Hasbro
mail away Ark.
- on the cute side, check out the Adventure Heroes.
- then there's the Kotobukiya Indy and Professor Jones Sr,
the Blockbuster exclusive DVD case,
the 12" German and Cairo
Swordsman, as well as both 12"
Hasbro Indy's.
- in the smaller scale, I looked
at some of the deluxe two
packs and several of the single
pack figures, with a few more over at QSE.
- There's a number of cool Lego
sets, including this one.
- Gentle Giant did a 7"
version for the Disney parks.
- Disney has done a few other
Indy figures, including this wave
of small ones.
- and if you're looking for
something a bit bigger, check out the very cool sixth scale Grail diary,
or this sixth scale figure.
Discussion:
Want to chat about this review? Try out one of these terrific forums where I'll be
discussing it!
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