[Howdy, Figure Fans, I’m tossing in a quickie for today’s update. It’s a departure from what I had planned, but I managed to really mess up my back this weekend and sitting at my computer desk for any length of time is absolute torture. Considering I wrote a fair portion of today’s feature in agony, I may have been a little bit hard on poor Destro here. Nonetheless, I’m hoping it’ll either start mending or I can get my hands on some decent painkillers before I’m back in the saddle tomorrow. -FF]
I’ve featured some of the Pursuit of Cobra vehicles on FigureFan in the past, but no doubt some people are wondering why I haven’t been looking at any of the carded figures. Well, I’ll grant you they look like amazing figures, but as far as I’m concerned the 25th Anni. Collection are the definitive versions of these characters and I decided that I was not going to collect a whole new line of the same guys and gals. I have to draw the line somewhere. Nonetheless, I’ve been meaning to pick up Destro here for a little while, mainly just to put him in my Arctic HISS. So, last week, I was ordering some figures from Amazon and I came in just a couple of bucks under the minimum for free shipping, so I threw Destro on to tilt the scale in my favor. I know, not exactly a ringing endorsement for why I bought him, but let’s check him out anyway…
The gorgeous retro cards for the 25th Anni. line are a hard act to follow, but Pursuit of Cobra has made a valiant effort. The cards are more dark and gritty, but they still look absolutely fantastic and display the figure beautifully. The back panel shows off an amazing photo diorama of the figures and toys in action. There’s also a filecard that you can clip and save, but it lacks the meaty content of the vintage filecards. The filecard also lists a piece of “mission specific equipment” that the figure doesn’t even come with. I usually have no qualms about tearing open my figures, but Destro here actually gave me pause. Hmm… maybe I should start collecting these just to hang them on my wall.
Opening up the bubble you see that the pack includes Destro, a figure stand, a tightly wadded up catalog-slash-poster, and a shitload of accessories. I’m going to break convention and start with the accessories, because there’s a lot of them and I don’t know what half of them really are. You get a pair of what looks like ice climbing spikes; You get a freeze gun with a hose and backpack; A couple of pieces of ice, which I assume are to attach to the figure Destro is shooting with the ice gun; A pair of goggles; An ice drill; Something that looks like a Star Wars Scout Trooper gun; And a standard Cobra figure stand with “Destro” printed on it. I don’t have a lot to say about a lot of this stuff, except the backpack for the ice gun doesn’t peg into his back very well, and I don’t like the way the hose comes out of the top. I don’t usually complain about accessories, but I just feel like Hasbro went for quantity over quality here.
Destro himself is wearing arctic gear with a soft plastic jacket and hood. The body looks nice and the snowy wash looks really good for a figure in this scale and price range. I’m not all that crazy about the head and I can’t really put my finger on what it is that turns me off. The eyes might be too big. It does have a pretty cool snowy finish on the top half as if his mask is freezing over. The goggles fit really well either up on his forehead or down over his eyes. I don’t have a lot else to say about this guy. The realism of the sculpt is very good, but there’s just nothing about him that stands out.
Articulation is what we’ve come to expect from the modern 3 3/4″ Hasbro figures. You get universal movement in the shoulders and hips; A ball jointed neck; Hinges in the elbows and double hinges in the knees; swivel cuts in the wrists; Swivels and hinges in the ankles; and the universal joint in the torso.
I got Destro for my Arctic HISS, and he’ll be fine for that, but I’m actually surprised at how little this figure impresses me. There’s nothing specific that I can really beef about, but he’s just a bland figure with an overkill of underwhelming accessories. I still think he looks incredible on the card and I wouldn’t be opposed to picking up more of these figures to keep carded, but only if I got them on the cheap. I’m sure Destro isn’t the best of this line, but he certainly doesn’t make me want to run out and buy more. Maybe I’ll start jumping back on board with the 30th Anniversary stuff.
FigureFan Zero 