I’m serving up a double helping of Mortal Kombat this week just because these figures have been hanging around in a box waiting to be opened since the beginning of the year. I’m on a mission to clear out that now inaccurately named “Recent Acquisitions Box” on the floor of my closet before it starts spilling out all over the place. Mezco has since announced that the 6-inch Mortal Kombat X series has been discontinued, so let’s finish it off today and open up Quan Chi!

I’ve already said all there is to say about the packaging in yesterday’s Feature. It’s not collector friendly, but it is attractive and serviceable and offers a great look at the figure inside. Quan Chi is an interesting character as he was first introduced to the video games in one of the less-than-stellar spin-offs, Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and debuted as a playable fighter in Mortal Kombat 4. But for his actual first appearance, you’d have to go back to the 1996 Mortal Kombat animated series.

Quan Chi is a cool enough looking character, but he doesn’t have quite the wow factor for me as Kotal Khan nor does he have that familiar nostalgia of the other figures. Still, there’s an awful lot to love here. His armor, for example, sports some bitchin’ skull knee pads and a blindfolded skull motif on his chest set atop criss-crossing leather straps. It looks like a cross between Daedric armor and bondage gear. Mezco put a lot of nice detail into his boots, as well as layering the “skirt” and hip armor over sculpted cloth pants.

On the back, the motif doesn’t get any cheerier. That fixture on his back once again evokes a call back to the Daedric armor from Elder Scrolls and check out the armor on the back of his arms designed to look like skeletal arms. I dig that a lot. He even has a little leather piece on the back of his belt with a sculpted fur border, which seems to serve no purpose apart from maybe offering lumbar support. All of this black and brown contrasts nicely with his pale white skin and the blood red tattoos that cover his arms. Oh yeah, there’s a peg hole in his back, but I’ll come back to that in a bit.

The portrait is decent enough. I like the sculpt, especially the scowl on his face. The eyes could be a little straighter, but they’re not too bad. The black outlines of his eyes run up across the top of his head and he has more of those great blood red tats up on his bald head as well. His impressive shoulder armor features some nice contours and the blades that protrude up from each side of his head look especially wicked. I’d hate to forget those were there and have to scratch my ear.

Articulation holds no surprises, it’s exactly what we saw yesterday with Kotal Khan, which means rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. There are ball joints in the hips, another in the waist, and one more in the neck. The high collar on those shoulders restricts the head movement a little, but not too badly. For accessories, Quan Chi comes with a total of three pairs of hands. You get regular grasping hands on the figure straight out of the package, as well as a pair of fists and a pair of hands for holding his weapon.

He also comes with some translucent green skeleton parts, which include a skull and a pair of crossed arms that peg into that hole in his back. I guess I’m not familiar enough with the character to understand what these are supposed to be, but they do look pretty cool.

Quan Chi also comes with a rather prehistoric looking sword. I don’t really associate the character with this type of blade, but then I hardly ever play as him so that’s probably my bad. I do seem to remember him wielding some kind of chain weapon. Either way, it’s a nicely executed accessory and he can hold it in either hand.

Quan Chi is probably my least favorite figure in this line, but that in itself is saying something because he’s still plenty cool and very well executed. It also has more to do with my personal preferences over character design than what Mezco did with it, because they certainly did do a fine job. And that, my friends, wraps up Mezco’s 6-inch Mortal Kombat line. With six excellent figures and a slew of variants, this was a solid line and one that I really wish Mezco had continued for at least one more wave. I really wanted Mileena. Cancelling the line was bad enough, but then coming back and announcing that they were starting it all over again in the 3 3/4-inch scale, that was the cruelest of Fatalities and I’m not going to start over until I’m sure they’re not going to do the same figures and then cancel it again. Instead, I’ll treasure what we got here and just appreciate all the love that Mezco poured into these wonderful figures.

Hoo boy! It’s been a long time since I last opened any of Mezco’s 6-inch MKX figures. In fact, the last one would have been Kitana way back in January. I love these figures, but to be honest when Mezco announced that the first two assortments (six figures total, not counting a bewildering myriad of variants) were going to be it, I let bitterness and frustration get the better of me. Well, I’m better now and the last two of these figures are still sitting in my hopper waiting to be unleashed, so today I’m going to open up Kotal Khan and tomorrow Quan Chi.

The packaging here really strikes a balance between no-frills and stylish design. The hourglass card hosts the key-hole shaped bubble with the MK emblem embossed right into the plastic. A simple insert calls out the series and the name of character. The package is designed so that it can stand on a shelf or hang from a peg and either way it shows off the figure beautifully. The fact that his sword is individually bagged to prevent paint rubbing shows some careful thought and I really appreciate that! The back panel has a small blurb about the character and a list of his accessories. Bonus aggravations points, Mezco, for calling out Mileena on the back of the package when she never got a figure in the line. Boo!

Damn, just check him out! Unlike the previous figures in this line, Kotal Khan is a new character introduced in MKX and heavily inspired by Mayan mythology. He also proves two things: One, the MK series can still produce some killer character designs, and two, if you give that design to Mezco, they can turn it into high plastic art. The attention to detail in this sculpt is just top notch and I don’t quite know where to begin. Kotal shows a lot of skin and besides his musculature there are faint patterns sculpted directly into his body, which give him a lot of character. The armor consists of an intricate collar and shoulders, as well as a loin cloth decorated with a grizzly split skull and his collection of jaw bones. Oh, like you don’t collect jaw bones too! His wrist bracers are sculpted wrappings with segmented plates on the outside of his forearms. His feet have sculpted wraps with what looks to be a feather fringe on the tops.

The portrait features a grim and detailed visage. The helmet conveys a subtle eagle homage with the open beak framing the face and and feathers protruding out the back. The paintwork on display here is simply fantastic, not only in its precision, but also how it manages to convey a dull and antiqued look. The gray and gold deco of the armor looks ancient and worn and the bones have a rotted brown finish. But what impresses me the most about the coloring on this figure is the blue-green skin has a chalky, almost marbled finish to it, which is just beautiful. It almost looks like the figure was carved out of jade. Damn, it’s cool!

The articulation in this line has been pretty solid and that trend continues here with Kotal Khan. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. The hips are ball jointed and there are ball joints in the waist and neck. The joints are nice and strong and I didn’t have any issues with fused or painted over hinges.

Accessories include two sets of hands and two weapons. The figure comes with a pair of clutching hands already attached, with the extra pair being the ones used to hold the weapons. The first weapon is his Tecpatl, a sizable sacrificial flint knife. This is the weapon he uses to perform his “Blood Offering” move in the game, where he basically carves up his own chest and sacrifices some health in order to do more damage. Bad ass!

As great as the Tecpatl is, his other weapon, the Macuahuitl, is the real showpiece here. I’ve always been fascinated with these swords. They’re basically planks of wood with sharp pieces of flint studding the edges to make a blade. It’s an ingenious design for a culture that didn’t have the ability to forge metal swords. This version is pretty damn big and features a red “blade” with sculpted decorations and a sculpted wrapped hilt. Not only is this weapon beautifully sculpted, but the edges are actually pretty sharp!

Even if I wasn’t a Mortal Kombat fan, I’d be happy to put this guy on my shelf… he’s gorgeous! I was originally going to blow out the last two figures in this line in one quick Feature, but once I opened them, I knew that these guys deserved their own attention. While Kotal Khan doesn’t have the gravitas of the older MK characters, he is nonetheless a great design and a magnificently executed figure. Playing around with him has made me both happy to have him and sad to realize that this line is dead and I have only one more figure to open up. And with that having been said, I’ll be back tomorrow to wrap up with Quan Chi.