Iron Maiden is my least favorite figure of the bunch, mainly because of her pose and lack of articulation. But that’s like saying I like regular chocolate ice cream less than rocky road, because this is still a nice looking figure with an absolutely fantastic sculpt. The thing that impresses me most about the Quake II figures is how much detail Resaurus packed into them. There is not one tiny part of this figure that isn’t covered with some kind of love and attention. And that’s not surprising because how could you not love this beauty? The Iron Maiden is a hellish mix of gnarled flesh and mechanical parts. Her torso looks like a reanimated corpse. Her right leg is entirely mechanical, while her left leg is a fusion of stapled skin and a robotic boot. Her right arm is withered and her left arm is a giant gun. You just don’t see detail like this on most figures, even ten years later.

Now the not so good stuff. Iron Maiden’s head does not turn. My guess is Resaurus nixed the joint because of the hoses running from her head to her body. Her arms rotate at the shoulders. She will theoretically rotate at the waist, but the skin hanging down from her torso makes it difficult. The real downside, however, is the articulation from the waist down. Her legs rotate at the groin and her legs are hinged at the knees and ankles. The problem is with the way her feet are positioned. Her left foot is turned outward, which makes her stance very uneasy. This figure is begging for swivel joints in her legs to correct the awkward stance, but there are none. So, besides being difficult to stand, the articulation that is in her legs serves almost no purpose at all.

The Iron Maiden only has one accessory and that’s her swappable left arm. The replacement arm is a nasty looking bloodied blade that looks like it would be perfect for skewering those nosey marines. The arm pops on and off really easily although with the blade installed you do lose the point of articulation that was in the gun arm’s elbow. One of these days I still plan on picking up a second Iron Maiden just so I can display her both ways. Now granted, with just the extra arm this lovely lady comes up pretty short in the accessories department, but considering the size of her pack-in figure, I think we can forgive that.

The Technician is a most interesting figure, if you can call it that. Its really just a hidious alien head flying around in a metal box. The outer shell is wonderfully detailed with an insane amount of sculpted rivets, hoses, welded panels, etc. Even the coloring of the plastic and the paintwork conspire brilliantly to give this thing a realistic and weathered metal finish. There are red tinted windows on the front and back, both of which open to reveal the head inside. The front is hinged, whereas the back one just pops right off.

The head is blue-green with yellow eyes and a series of black plates covering the mouth. I can’t vouch that this is what they actually looked like because I never got close enough to one in the game to peek inside, but I know that Resaurus worked closely with the concept art so there’s no reason to doubt them on this one. There’s a chaingun molded onto the side of the figure’s bottom, near its levitating thrusters. On the downside, this guy doesn’t stand very well. I’m thinking maybe it would have been worthwhile to release him on his own and include a clear flight stand of some kind to help him out and give him a levitating effect. Some day I may try to repurpose one of my DCUC stands to do the trick.

As expected, the Technician doesn’t offer much articulation, just a claw arm on the front that rotates and two smaller arms on the back sides that rotate. All three of which can be removed. One of the smaller arms on the side is pretty tough to get pegged in properly as it bumps up against part of the mold.

Like the Marines, The Iron Maiden is still available if you know where to look. She pops up on Ebay frequently and can even still be found in the forgotten corners of some web dealers’ online catalogs. She’s also argueably the most common of the whole Quake II assortment. You shouldn’t have to pay much more then $15 for her, and that’s a pretty good deal for two very well executed figures and a whole lot of plastic for your money. And that wraps up the Quake II line. As I said in the previous post, I would have loved to show off the Strogg Tank. He was a magnificent figure, and definitely the showpiece for the whole line. Ah, but like most of my Duke Nukem figures, he wasn’t built to last. Despite surviving in storage for about six years, I had him out once and posed him on my shelf and after just a few minutes he tottered over, hit the carpet and broke into at least a half dozen pieces. As much as I loved him, there’s no chance of me replacing him any time soon as he goes for quite a lot of money these days.

My box from Matty arrived yesterday, so I should get around to posting Evil Lyn, Hordak and Peter Venkman tomorrow.

The male Marine is just called Marine Major (if he had a name, I don’t remember it) and he comes packaged with a Barracuda monster. The Major is big and buff and one hell of a fantastic sculpt. The amount of detail on this figure really is impressive. He has a flattop buzz cut and a vicious sneer with a well placed trickle of blood coming out the corner of his grimace. His arms are bulging with muscles and veins and he’s got a bloody bandage wrapped around his left arm and a strap of grenades around his right. His combat outfit is a messy hodgepodge of plates, exposed electrical components and hoses. Its pretty worn and there are several bullet impacts situated about. There’s even sculpted treads on the bottom of his boots. The sculpt and paintwork here is just oozing with love for the project. It’s like the designers didn’t know when to stop, and I mean that in every possible good way.

Marine Major is slightly pre-posed and intended to be holding out both his weapons, but he still has good, serviceable articulation. His head rotates, his arms rotate at the shoulders and have swivels in the biceps arms. There are no hinges in the elbows and they are molded in a slightly bent position. His legs rotate at the hips and he does have hinged knees. No, he’s not super articulated, but there’s enough here to make him a solid and fun action figure rather than just a collectible statue trying to pass for a figure.

Of course, Quake II is all about the guns, and that idea wasn’t lost on Resaurus as The Major comes with two massive weapons: The missile launcher, with a removable missile clip, and a minigun-style rifle. The detail on these weapons is as impressive as the figure itself. In fact, I’d dare say these are some of the best weapon sculpts for a figure in this scale that I’ve ever seen. You can count all the rivets and there’s textured plating sculpted right in. He can easily hold both weapons at once, although how he could remain standing while firing them is beyond me… and yet he does! Clearly this guy is ready to murder him some Strogg.

Of course, The Major needs someone to shoot with those big damn guns and so he comes with the Baraccuda pack-in figure, which apart from being another really nice sculpt, doesn’t really do anything. Nope, this is just a hefty piece of nicely sculpted rubbery plastic. I’m not complaining as it’s still a wonderful looking piece, but considering the size of the Marine and his two weapons, its a very nice bonus for an already well rounded package. You rarely get this much stuff in a carded figure. Poor Baraccuda… I don’t think he really has a chance against those guns.

The femme fatale of the line actually has a name, Athena, although she was also known as the Jungle Marine. She comes with the more substatial of the two monster pack-ins, the Strogg Dog, but that’s probably because she and her weapons are much less bulkier than the Major and use less plastic. Athena is a really nice figure, but the sculpt isn’t quite as impressive as the Major. I think the main problem I have with her is the thin head and the vacant stare. Her face just doesn’t have the same expressive character as the Major, although she is fairly attractive and sports a decent bit of clevage and a pony tail. Too bad she’s almost wall-eyed. Her combat outfit isn’t as complex as the Major’s either, but it still has loads of detail and the same awesome little bullet notches and battlewear. As her title implies, the cloth parts of her outfit are camoed green for a jungle environment. Oh, and that Quake I tattoo on her arm? That’s like a big wet kiss straight from the designers. Athena has the same basic articulation as the Major. She has a rotating head, rotating shoulders, and swivels in her upper arms. Her legs rotate at the hips and she has hinged knees.

So as not to discriminate against the fairer sex, Athena also comes with two weapons. Sure, they’re both a little smaller than The Major’s guns, but she’s got to be able to hold them so fair is fair. She has a combat shotgun, and what I think is an assault rifle, although it looks more like a really bulky pistol. Its been a long time since I played Quake II, so the weapon inventory is escaping me. They both have great detail, but overall they are not nearly as impressive as the Major’s arsenal.

Of course, to make up for her smaller size and smaller weapons, she comes with a much bigger pack-in monster, the Strogg Dog. Rather than just a sculpted piece of PVC, this Strogg pooch is more like a second action figure as he has rotating joints on all four of his legs in addition to a big bendy tenticle-arm that comes out of his back and over his head. The sculpting on this figure is just amazing and I love the way the soft quishy organic bits contrast with the harsh metal cyborg components. The fact that this is just a pack-in piece and not really the main attraction just goes to show how much work Resaurus put into this line. You just wouldn’t see this kind of stuff on the pegs nowadays.

From my experience the Quake II figures are easier to find than most of Resaurus’ Duke Nukem toys. You can still scare up carded examples of both these figures for under $20 each if you look hard enough and that’s really not a bad price for figures of this size and quality. Also worth noting, these figures are much, much better made than the self-destructing Duke Nukem figures, so you don’t have to worry about breakage. Alas, the same can’t be said for the enormous Strogg Tank, as mine broke into so many places that I won’t be able to review him here. But next time I’ll round out the rest of the series by lookng at the Iron Maiden and Strogg Technician.