I saved the best for last in this final part of my look at the second wave of Doctor Who Classics figures The pair we’re looking at today are no doubt fan favorites and awesome army builders to add to your collection. These are also the only two figures in the wave that are not tied to Fourth Doctor stories. The Ice Warrior hardly needs any introduction, although since they haven’t been seen in Doctor Who since the early 70s, maybe they do. Only encountered by the Second and Third Doctors, they were at least mentioned in the recent Tenth Doctor episode, “The Waters of Mars.” The Cyberman is the last one we need to complete the major changes in the Mondan race throughout the series. This model first appeared in the Fifth Doctor episode, “Earthshock” and was used with minor changes throughout the rest of the classic series. It is without a doubt my favorite of all the Cyberman designs and one of my Top Five Who figures released thus far. Let’s check these bad boys out…
The Ice Warrior is a fantastic recreation of the monster from the series, although as such he’s bound to look a little primitive to newcomers to the series. Reptillian, slow moving, and not to bright, the Ice Warriors were the fighters, while the Ice Lords were the thinkers. The sculpt here is really faithful to the old costume. The bulbous, turtoise armor is spot on, with tons of fine detailing to the sculpt, and I love the retro look of his simple claws. The only real flaw in this sculpt is that the head seems like it should sit lower into his shell than it does. Nonetheless, he looks fantastic standing next to my Second Doctor figure.
Articulation on the Ice Warrior is pretty good, although there are some things about his design that hamper it. The head rotates, there are ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows and his claws swivel. From the waist down things get a bit more restricted. He has good joints in his upper legs, but the rubbery lower part of his shell make these all but useless. He maintains a permanent wide stance and can only move each leg a small amount forward and back. He does have swivel cuts in his thighs and ankles and his knees are hinged. I’m not blaiming Character Options for the articulation in the legs, its clearly there, but it’s just at odds with the design
Fair enough. Besides, Ice Warriors aren’t exactly ninjas, they lumber around like robots.
The Cyberman is in a word, awesome. Granted, I’m a bit biased, since this remains my favorite Cyberman design of them all, but the fact of the matter is that this is one of Character Options best sculpts and it is so accurate its downright freaky. The use of the clear plastic for his chest plate and chin guard is really cool, as is the fact that his entire chest and shoulder assembly is molded as a separate piece. But what really makes this figure shine is the perfect head sculpt and the crazy amount of work that went into the detail of the suit. Every wire and hose and patch of chainmail has been recreated with painstaking care. Simply amazing.
The Cyberman is missing some of the usual articulation found on the current CO releases, but a lot of this has to do with the character’s design. The head does not move, but then it didn’t in the show either. His shoulders swivel, and while I would have preferred ball joints, CO doesn’t tend to use them very often in the shoulders. Either way, I think the omission of ball joints in the shoulder is really the figure’s only flaw. There are swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. He can swivel at the waist, his upper legs move both up and down and laterally, his knees are hingd and he has swivel cuts at his boots. He is missing the swivel cuts in his upper legs. The articulation in this figure is by no means bad, its just a bit lacking when compared to some others in the line.
The Cyberman comes with his gun accessory, which looks to be a pretty accurate sculpt. The gun features a shoulder strap, which works so long as you tuck it in under his shoulder armor. He can also hold the gun quite well in one hand or both.
It’s hard to put into words how cool it is to have such great figures of these two iconic Doctor Who baddies. I would love to pick up at least one more Ice Warrior and two more of these Cybies, but I doubt that’s going to be possible. They sold out crazy fast and the only way I was able to get these, was because I ordered the entire assortment. I suspect these are going to be two figures that sell for a lot on the resale circuits because everyone is going to want to army build them, particularly the Cyberman. Maybe we’ll get lucky and CO will do some minor retooling to the Cybermen and release “Attack of the Cyberman” and “Silver Nemesis” versions. As for the Ice Warrior, he won’t be truly complete until we get an Ice Lord to stand by his side!
FigureFan Zero 