Pressing on through the initial wave of Green Lantern Classics comes two members of the terrifying Sinestro Corps, Maash and Low. Mattel got creative with this pair by including interchangeable heads and arms so that you get all you need to display whichever figure you want. Of course, if you want to display them both, you still have to buy two, since they share the same body. It’s a cool idea, but it got a little confusing when all we had were the pre-order product images to go by and some retailers weren’t so sure how this was going to work. It seemed like we might be getting an extra figure, but in reality that wasn’t the case.
The figure comes in the Green Lantern Classics packaging, which we’ve seen a few times now so it should be getting pretty familiar to you. The figure is theoretically available packaged as either character, although since the one I have is the only packaged version I’ve seen in person, I can’t confirm that. Either way, mine was packaged as Low with the Maash parts mounted beside the figure and clearly visible through the bubble. The figure is packaged in a pretty dynamic pose, but mine escaped any joint warping, I’m happy to say.
Since the figure is packaged as Low, I’ll start from there. The body is fairly generic and relies on paint apps for the Sinestro Corps costume. The only real exception to that are the sculpted bracers on his wrists and the silver belt. The paint apps are, however, pretty sharp except for a bit of slop around the shoulders. The bright yellow looks great contrasted against the black, which is probably why I always loved the Sinestro Corps uniforms. Low is a worm-like parasite, so I’m not sure it’s accurate to refer to his head. It’s just a big tube with a mouth full of teeth. Fun fact! He reproduces by laying thousands of eggs in you! He does have blue clawed hands along with his sculpted yellow power ring.
Pop off Low’s head and hands and replace them with Maash’s and you’ve got a whole new figure… well sort of. That operation of popping the parts off really makes me nervous, though, as the post for the neck is really thin and I was pretty sure I snapped the pegs off of the hands, even though I didn’t. I’ve only swapped the parts out once, and I don’t plan on doing it again until I get a second figure and can get the situated permenantly. All that aside, Maash is pretty damn creepy as his head is made up of three conjoined twins with three faces stacked on top of each other. He’s like a totem pole turned flesh.
The articulation here is strictly old school DCUC, with none of the new double hinges. The arms have ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinged elbows and swivels in the wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinged knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. The torso swivels at the waist and features an ab crunch hinge. Both heads will turn to some degree, but not as much as with the more human figures.
Mash and Low come with one of the pieces to build the Collect & Connect Arkillo figure. You don’t need to hunt down each packaged variant as they all come with the same piece.
I’ll always welcome another member of the Sinestro Corps into my collection, so it’s no surprise that I really love both Maash and Low. I’ve heard some grumbling among collectors over Mattel’s methods here, but I think it was a pretty cool idea. And, yeah, I will eventually be picking up a second one so that I can display them both at the same time and don’t have to worry about snapping off any of those posts while swapping out the parts.
Kyle comes with a giant gauntlet and sword construct that fits over his fist and he also comes with a green lantern. The ring construct is pretty cool looking, but I do have a real hard time getting it to socket right under fist, and I’m afraid to monkey with it too much for fear of popping off his wrist.
Ok, so in terms of body sculpt there isn’t a whole lot going on here. He’s mostly a slab of red muscle with his boots painted on. He does have sculpted arm bracers and a strap across his torso. He also has a loin cloth to protect his delicate demon modesty. But check out that head sculpt. It’s like Thor, Mr. Spock, Red Hulk, and an antelope had an orgy and this is the unholy product of that forbidden congress. Trigon’s mouth is agape with wonderfully sculpted and painted teeth, soft plastic antlers, and that extra set of eyes that is all the rage in Azarath these days. Obviously Raven gets her looks from her mother’s side.
Slapping superflous leather jackets on characters is one of those lingering fashion fetishes from the world of 90’s comics. A lot of times it looked gratuitous and just silly, but here I’m tempted to say that Superboy comes close to pulling it off, even if it still makes him look dated. But it is beautifully sculpted and really gives the figure a very distinctive look. The black jacket is sculpted in soft plastic, like a vest with the arms sculpted with the jacket sleeves and an immaculately painted Superman symbol in yellow in the back. The various zippers are also very nicely painted. If I’m going to criticize anything about the jacket, it’s that the way it bellows out at his waist is too exaggerated, but overall the effect is still nice.
FigureFan Zero 