Well, it took me a while, but I’m finally checking out the last figure in Funko’s Magic The Gathering Legacy Collection. And it’s about time, because I started down this road back in early February! If you haven’t been keeping score at home, I’ve found this to be a pretty solid line. The ladies were all great and so far only one figure was downright awful. The final figure is Garruk Wildspeaker and my, he’s a big one!
The packaging for this line is great. You get a window box that is designed to hang on a peg or stand on a shelf. The window shows you exactly what you’re getting inside and the side panel of the box has the figure’s name so you can line them up on a bookshelf and still know who is who. Garruk really fills up the box quite nicely. Between the figure and his accessory, there isn’t much room left in there! The only thing the package is really missing is a little blurb about the character himself. As I know nothing about these characters, I’m off to the Magic Wiki to learn a little something about Garruk. Wow, he’s a human, never would have guessed that. He’s also a naturalist, gruff, impatient, and he has a rather long and interesting backstory, which I won’t go into here. I was a little surprised at reading Garruk’s bio, because the figure looks more like a boss you might encounter in a Resident Evil game. I wouldn’t have pegged him for having that much personality or individualism.
I mean, just look at this dude… he’s a hulking beast of a man! What little of his skin that is exposed is left as bare white plastic, except for some faint gray tatts on his left arm. It sort of has the same unfinished look to the skin as Ajani did, but in this case there isn’t as much of it showing and it lends itself to an almost zombie-like appearance, which I think looks pretty cool. His outfit consists of a gnarly patchwork of cloth scraps, chain mail armor and some reinforcing plates. I like the makeshift stitching sculpted into his front sash and the myriad of belts are sculpted so that they’re actually coming away from the figure to give it more of a convincing layered look. His hunched back is capped off with a shaggy pelt with spikes protruding from it. I dig the tortured, grasping manner of his left hand and his right hand is shielded with an extended armor plate furnished with spikes. Another really nice touch is the shattered sword hanging off the back of his belt.
Garruk’s portrait consists of a soft plastic helmet permanently attached to the head, which is far more convincing then if it had all been sculpted as one piece. His black eyes can just about be made out inside the eye holes. The lower half of his face features the same unpainted white-gray plastic as skin, but with a brown painted beard as well. The face sculpt is very soft, and while probably not intentional it helps to carry that creepy ghostly visage that makes this guy look all the more formidable.
Of course, with Garruk being the final figure I look at in this line, he’s the final say on whether or not Funko has fixed the bulk of their jointing issues. I’ve only had one or two frozen joints in this whole series so far, and even those were nothing too bad. In the case of Garruk all of his joints work just fine out of the box, with the exception of his waist swivel. I’m pretty sure it’s there, but I can’t get it to move and I’m not about to force the issue. Otherwise, let’s run through the rest of the points: The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders and wrists and hinged elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have rotating hinges in the ankles, and swivels up high in the thighs and again down by the boots. The head is ball jointed as well. Most of the armor plates are made up of very soft plastic so as not to inhibit Garruk’s movements. He’s not what I would call super-articulated by any means, but there’s still some serviceable poseability here.
Garruk comes with one accessory and it’s a big, honkin’ ax! The head has some nice weathering to it and painted patterns to match some of those found on Garruk’s armor. The shaft is sculpted and painted to look like wood with sculpted leather straps wrapped around it and a ring for a pommel.
I would definitely rank Garruk as one of my favorite figures in the line. His character design is great and it translates pretty well into figure form. Besides being so satisfyingly big and hefty, the complexity of the sculpt used for his outfit is very impressive. It’s so easy to get lost in the details of every little piece of chain mail, buckle or strap. Overall, the muted gray and brown colors work well for him, but with a more dynamic paint job, this figure could be absolutely jaw-dropping instead of just very good. I could actually see this guy standing in with a number of other figure lines. As a whole, I think Funko did a solid job on this run, despite being criticized for paint applications not costing out in the final releases. To me, most of the figures still turned out just fine with only that one glaring exception, which is nearly too awful for words. I’m not entirely sure whether an actual fan of Magic The Gathering would be more or less charitable than I have been, but as straight fantasy figures, I’m glad to have these in my collection.