A couple of weeks ago Harold Ramis left us to venture off to the Undiscovered Country. That inspired me to go into my pile of unopened Ghostbusters figures to check out Egon Spengler. It also inspired me to finally get around to opening some of the other figures in that pile, so you’ll likely see some of Mattel’s now defunct Ghostbusters line turning up here from time to time in the weeks to come. Today we’re checking out Vigo from Ghostbusters 2. We’ve had pack-in ghosts before, but Vigo is really the only baddie that got his own singular release and that makes him kind of special. Ghostbusters 2 is a film that pales in comparison to the original, but it’s still a guilty pleasure of mine.

Vigo arrives in the same basic packaging as all the other Ghostbusters figures. The key difference is that the Ghostbusters emblem on the top has been changed to the Ghostbusters 2 emblem. I appreciate Mattel going out of their way to make that change, especially since this packaging is so damn attractive that I could see a lot of collectors choosing to display them unopened. The other difference is that instead of Mr. Stay Puft on the backdrop of the card, Vigo features a lenticular card of the painting that he came out of. Again, I’ve got to give kudos to Mattel for doing something clever and fun here.

Vigo comes clad in his full Carpathian armor and there’s some pretty nice detail here. The chest piece, shoulders, and skirt are all sculpted in soft plastic and layered over the figure’s buck. The one thing I was most looking for was the pair of sculpted skulls on his shoulder straps, and yep, there they are. Additionally, the sculpt includes all sorts of little barbs and rivets and even the lacing that runs up the back of his tunic.

I seem to recall a lot of people grousing about the head sculpt, but I think the portrait is actually quite good. It certainly bears a resemblance to the late actor Norbert Grupe. Maybe I’m just too forgiving, or maybe a lot of people are just dedicated to pissing and moaning about everything that Matty Collector does. Anyway, I like the deep set eyes and the angry, determined expression. The swept back grey hair is pretty well executed as well.

I don’t know how much articulation one really needs in an action figure of an undead Carpathian warlord, but Vigo has a fair share. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders. The arms have hinges in the elbows and swivels in the wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC style hips that allow for lateral leg movement. The legs have hinged knees and ankles, and there are swivel cuts concealed at the tops of the boots. He can also swivel at the waist. The lack of swivel cuts in the biceps is a little disappointing, but all I really need this guy to do is stand there and look menacing while Ray and Winston shoot slime at him.

Vigo doesn’t come with any conventional accessories. A baby Oscar might have been an interesting choice. He does, however, include the aforementioned lenticular painting, which is quite large and features two sides. The front shows Vigo or is empty depending on which way you look at it. The reverse shows the portrait of the Ghostbusters in their renaissance garb. It’s a cool addition to round out a figure that really had no need of any additional accessories.

Vigo is hardly a “must-have” figure, but once this line died and the figures started turning up for cheap, I found myself suddenly wanting to be a completist. I seem to recall picking up Vigo for around $10 on Amazon because, well why wouldn’t I? He certainly isn’t a bad figure. Granted, when the line was still viable and fans were crying out for some figures for their Ghostbusters to fight, I don’t think Vigo was really their first choice. I know he wasn’t mine. Just like everyone else, I would much rather have had Gozer. And why we never got the Terror Dogs is beyond me. Obviously Mattel had some tooling money to spend, and they could have basically sold the same Terror Dog to us twice. Maybe there were still some licensing issues tied up with NECA on that one.