still at it

reviews of spawn.com figure previews presents —

spawn series 33 — age of pharaohs — like the mummy, but with less brendan fraser and more spawn

i like brendan fraser, actually, almost entirely because of the mummy movies. i wish rachel weisz was in the third one. ah well.

actually, this reminds me more of mummies alive than anything else. generic egyptian tropes used generically. after eight seasons of fighting the goauld, i think maybe the egyptian motifs are played out in popular culture, yes? let’s give mummies a break and maybe go into celtic mythology for awhile. or russian.

spawn the immortal — more immortal-er than other spawns!

i guess this spawn is isis reincarnated. why isis got saddled with a deal with the western devil and wearing malebolgia’s necroplasmic costume and iconography, when he’s got his own mythology including his own lord of the underworld, well, whatever. just go with it. i wonder if he’s got the same magical countdown which was spawn’s only really interesting feature, or if he’s just got his own powers back?

the doctor strange collar doesn’t really work without a big cape, so it just looks silly. not particularly egyptian either. the rest of the costume is just a bunch of wrapped cloth, looking like spawn dressed up for a costume party.

ankh on the shield and butt of his spear, okay, at least that’s an egyptian image. wiki says osiris is traditionally depicted with a crook and flail, which symbolize pharaonic power and originated with osiris himself, but this is mcfarlane. why give a character-appropriate weapon when everyone can have jaggy metal spear things?

so he’s got one. it’s not a scythe, it’s not a spear, it’s not really practical. whatever. does it look dangerous? good enough. apparently.

ram skull for a mask, okay. little skulls on his belt, well, i can run with it. skull for a kneepad? seems uncomfortable and probably brittle, but also in character given the rest of the costuming.

jawbone for a toe guard? no. that’s just stupid. i can’t even imagine how he holds it on. no obvious fasteners. typical. and egregious given that everthing else on that leg has obvious and kind of primitive ties and cords. (actually, now i don’t see an obvious strapping for the kneepad either…)

he’s got his foot up on an oddly inclined stone with the spawn logo on it. is this just a mcfarlane base or some piece of egyptian landscape he’s using? i guess his pose is fairly dynamic, but i can’t get past the silly collar. he reminds me of a crappy eppy thatcher grendel.

warrior isis — dirty dirty girl

ah, there’s the mcfarlane we all know and love. true to form, this girl is wearing as little as possible. why they even bother, and don’t simply put all the men in thick cloaks and capes, and the all the girls totally naked except for one boot, i can’t figure out. as naked as possible without actually being naked!

although i give them points for giving her an actually practical looking weapon. oversized for her arm strength, and the giant handguard makes it look like it’d be a pain to wield, but it’s got a mostly even edge and looks like it wouldn’t break if you swung it at some dude.

always a dude. never more than one girl at once. except in the evil circus, where one was going into an iron maiden in her underwear, and the other was suspended by six spikes in her ribs, about to swallow a sword, with a dagger ready to go in the other end.

mcfarlane’s manchild design team has some serious issues with women. this is spawn the immortal’s wife. and she’s a resistance leader! that’s cool, right?

okay. isis. she’s probably wearing a thong under that dish towel. feathers on one shoulder, shield on her back, and an egyptian ringlet across her shoulderblades. tiny tiny bra held on, somehow. spirit gum, i guess. knit cap with more feathers. (bird goddess, see…)

no obvious place to stow that cleaver. full base, so she can more easily assume a sexy danger pose and shake that thang. if those canopic jars are removable from the base those could be neat accessories, but beyond ‘hey, she’s nearly naked!’ this doesn’t have much going for it. just like almost every other female figure mcfarlane has ever made. they’d have put trinity in a bikini given the chance.

again, this is less an actual egyptian kind of outfit than an egyptian themed stripper.

jackal king — my love for you is ticking clock BERZERKER!!!

what’s this? TWO practical weapons on one figure? my god! i don’t know how to react!

the blue wings look nice, but they’re just sticking out of his back like they were glued on. kind of wierd also that he’s a winged jackal god. fully human body, jackal head, but none of that extended neck/headress thing you see in all the old egyptian art. it’s nice that he’s not just a spawned up copy of the anubis soldiers from mummy 2, except we never got a figure of those guys, and they were cool.

(this is the egyptian ruler of the underworld, by the way. why spawn isn’t wearing anubis symbology instead of malebolgia’s, and why anubis is wearing horus symbology, i couldn’t tell you.)

he gets points for an actual egyptian looking costume. the shredder blades on his toes don’t make sense but okay. ankh on one knee, horus on the other, half a skirt, half a headdress… okay, so it’s still wierd and impractical, but it looks like something a fantasy egyptian might have actually worn in public.

heiroglyphics on his stone base, which looks like egyptian stone instead of leftovers from the viking age that spawn the immortal is standing on. did isis get a full base because they didn’t have to spend any time sculpting details on her miniscule costuming?

yeah. this guy is actually pretty cool, and his pose is nicely dynamic. the wings help, good color and composition. i could see myself buying this.

soldier of ra — raaaa, i’m a soldier!

good lord. we can’t decide if we’re going to give him the gigantic axe emblazoned with the eye of ra, or the scythey pike thing. what the fuck, both of them, one in each hand. buy two and shake things up!

look, if this dude was fully posable, i might buy two. or one. not actually. if you want to army build egyptian troopers, get the totally sweet shabti trooper from mummies alive. kenner ftw!

okay. bright red skirt, fine. sandals, without spikes, metal casing, or random blades or skulls? well done. horned skull egyptian mask with eye of ra headdress? i can dig it.

but both of those weapons? dude is probably undead. i doubt he can lift even one of them, let alone wield both fluidly.

his base is a pile of sand, one foot only. what’s with that? why not just make figures that can stand up on their own, and let his ridiculous weaponry stabilize him as needed?

oh right, not toys. fine. dude gets a meh. not badly executed, but very plain. nothing terribly exciting. he’s found the golden mean. except that was more of a greek thing.

scarab assassin — spin spin spin!

now THIS is a mcfarlane figure. not only do i not know how you would make those swords, but he’s got two of them. they’ve got a hand-and-a-half grip, but are like four feet long. unless they’re made of carbon fiber, they’ve got to weigh a ton each. and dude is like twirling about slaughtering people.

does no-one understand that an assassin’s chief weapon is stealth? how do you walk into a room hiding that?
‘hey, aren’t those the chosen weapons of the secretive scarab assassins?’
‘ah, no, just your standard enormous curved swords. can i get an authentic egyptian drink?’
‘no, we don’t serve assassins.’
‘…i’m not… oh fine.’ and then he assassinates everybody.

the hard life of a secret assassin aside, not a bad design. he’s got the pharoenic beard, which makes up for his rohan style helmet, with an egyptian headdress attached. batman/horus masks on his knees. hope he remembers not to crouch. gauntlets aren’t bad, full cloak, egyptian style skirt, nice figure. the swords are ridiculous, but you could give them to the jackal king, and give his knives to this dude, and it’d still work.

his base is a pile of rocks obscuring the right foot. like he just stepped out of a rob liefield drawing.

the crocodile king — i’m a giant crocodile with a snake for a tongue!

he’s a giant crocodile with a snake for a tongue. seriously, what more does one need? this guy is awesome!

also, he’s in a vaguely silly pose. imagine him at a table playing cards, or carrying bags of groceries. with a saddle on his back and a microman guy riding him. sebek here has lots of fun interactivity built right in. he kind of reminds me of trex from dinosaur comics.

and he’s got sweet tats!

i’m not sure what else to say beyond the usual ’some articulation would be nice’. but really, he’s got a fantastic sculpt, a very good pose, and some excellent color choices. and he’s a giant crocodiile with a snake for a tongue. it doesn’t get any better than this.

also, mcfarlane has finally made a figure of a monster with an elongated spiky toothed lower jaw, with elongated spiky toothed upper jaw to match! i think that’s a first.