You’re going to see a lot of Super7 reviews coming down the pike in the weeks ahead, as I just got in new waves of their GI JOE, Silverhawks, I still have ThunderCats to cover, and somehow I’m going to find a way to photograph the ThunderTank for a review, but not sure how yet. Anyway, I believe The Worst is an original concept property by Super7, which started as ReAction figures and have since been bumped up to the Ultimates treatment. I think it’s a great idea for action figure companies to produce some of their own stuff, as it lets their imaginations fly and they don’t have to pay out licensing fees. I pre-ordered a couple of these because I liked the character designs, and the first one to arrive was Captain Deadstar!

The packaging here is very similar to the ThunderCats Ultimates, with a window box concealed by a sleeve that lifts off the top. You get some really bitchin character art on the front of the package, which frankly I think is frame-worthy. The coloring and tone here reminds me of some of the old Hammer Horror posters in the 70’s. I freaking love it! The back panel has the same art, because it’s so nice, gotta use it twice! It also has a blurb about Deadstar, who is the proclaimed Cosmic Ghoul Renegade! He’s a SPACE pirate, and them thar is the best kind!

Here’s Deadstar out of his box and adorned with his softgoods cape, which I’ll have on and off throughout the review. The aesthetic here is very simple and cartoony, making him look like he’s the lead villain from a forgotten Saturday morning cartoon, and oh boy do I dig that! The uniform is black and gray with gold braid on his right shoulder and four aiguillettes running across his chest. A pistol belt with a simple gold buckle supports a holster on his right hip, gold bracers adorn his wrists, a gray buccaneer boot on his right foot, and a high-tech peg leg in place of his left foot. What makes a peg leg high tech? Panel lines and gold circuitry what else?

The red cape is crafted of a rather thick and luxurious material, with thick reinforced stitching along the edges and a wire running throughout to give it that windswept look. It has a popped collar around the neck, and it secures onto the figure with velcro across the front. It’s a little puffy in the neck area, but I think it looks good, and it can be dramatically cast off when Deadstar is ready to pull his pistol and blade and get down to the business of pirating!

You get no less than three portraits with the figure, all skulls wearing a traditional three-point hat with the skull and crossbones sculpted into the top. I’m not sure if that’s thematically redundant, but it looks good. All three skulls have a really nice chalky finish to the paint that is pretty convincing as old bone, with some flakes here and there that suggest remnants of peeling rotted flesh. There’s also one gold tooth front and center, and two of the three heads have an eyepatch over the left socket. There’s no articulation in the jaw, but if you want an open mouth, the second head has you covered…

That’s pretty much the only difference here, but I love how weirdly expressive it is. I’ll probably end up displaying him with this one a lot more than the first.

The third option has closed mouth but no eye-patch, and subverts expectations by revealing a gold cybernetic eye in that socket, with a red iris. This one is pretty badass too, and it’ll probably spend a lot of time displayed on the figure. I will note that the head is mounted on a double ball jointed dogbone piece and you have to be really careful not to pull it out of the neck, because it is not meant to come out, and getting it back in took a lot of effort and frustration. I really recommend squeezing the neck closed with your fingers when you pop the head.

So, let’s talk articulation. If you’ve played around with any of Super7’s Ultimates figures, you should know what to expect, but here’s the rundown. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders and elbows, swivels in the biceps, and rotating hinges on pegs for the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have rotating hinges in the knees, and a hinge and lateral rocker in his one foot. There’s a swivel in the waist and a ball joint under the chest. The elbow joints will do about 90-degrees, and you get a little swivel up in the thighs. It’s all decent, but I wouldn’t call this super articulated. On the downside, the joints on this figure are crazy loose, especially in the elbows and wrists. I haven’t run into this problem with any of the ThunderCats Ultimates, and I was frankly shocked to see how bad it is here. It’s not quite bad enough to ruin the figure for me, but it is disappointing. Deadstar comes with three sets of hands, which include fists, open grip, and slightly closed grip. The later two are intended to work with his various accessories. And he does come with a butt load of accessories, so let’s run through them…

First up you get two versions of Deadstar’s parrot, one with wings closed and one with them open. I’m not sure if this guy has a name, but it isn’t listed in his bio. The parrots peg into a slot on Deadstar’s left shoulder and it holds pretty well. The sculpt is pretty good, and I love the X’d out eyes that reinforce the cartoony style. The head is also painted all white to signify a parrot skull, I guess? These are definitely fun accessories, with the one drawback being that you have to remove the cape to display it on him.

Next up we get Deadstar’s Shit List and a quill pen to cross people’s names off of it, or perhaps add more. The sculpted spiral-bound notebook shows a great sense of humor, even if it isn’t the most practical of accessories. He really doesn’t have a hand suited for the pen, but I was able to make it work. It also looks like he might have plucked that quill from his own parrot’s arse. He really is the worst!

You get this thing, which looks like a thermal detonator, but may be meant to be a space cannonball. I’m really not sure. It has a little sculpted detail and a painted red light on it.

Even a dead pirate needs his rum, so you get a bottle of booze, and a turkey leg to go with it.

You get a gold skeleton key. But what does it open?

Well, presumably this chest. And no, the key doesn’t actually fit in the lock. The chest is big enough to hold most of the accessories, which is pretty cool.

You also get this space pirate map, which is printed on some kind of stiff paper and can be folded to help Deadstar hold it by the edges.

And last, but not least, let’s talk weapons. Captain Deadstar comes with a laser pistol that fits into his holster and can be wielded in either of his hands. The pistol is cast in gray plastic and has some really nice detail in the sculpt. The design has a great retro Flash Gordon kind of feel to it.

And finally, he comes with a flaming cutlass! The hilt is cast in gray plastic and the flame effect is very cartoony to match the rest of the figure. I’m not sure if this is supposed to actually have a blade, or maybe it’s just a hilt that generates an energy blade. It looks cool, but I wish there was a way to wear it. It does have a loop, so I guess I could attach it to him with some string.

Captain Deadstar has a lot of great stuff going for him. The character design is fantastic and toony, the head sculpts are excellent, and a lot of imagination went into his massive assortment of fun accessories. All in all, I’m happy to have him in my collection. But, at $55, there is simply no excuse for the loosey goosey jointing. He has no problems standing up, even with the peg leg, but half the time his elbows can’t even hold up his weapons. If I weren’t already being selective in this line, the loose joints would make me think twice about going all in. And that’s me done for the week… come on back on Monday, when I’ll be looking at the first of the Silverhawks, and we’ll make it a Super7 trifecta with a GI JOE Ultimates figure on Wednesday!