THE BACKGROUND
I’ve never been a Warcraft or WoW fan. I’m sure they’re
great games and all, but they’ve just never grabbed me. But I’d been seeing
this figure lurking around the corners of my local games store for quite a few
months now, and was impressed with his more-or-less likeness to Arnie’s
portrayal of Conan the Barbarian. But he was $34AUD, and I wasn’t willing to
pay that. He went on sale to a much lower price over Christmas 2013, but still
didn’t sell.
So flash forward to a few months ago, and I found myself having
a conversation with the salesperson behind the counter. They were very keen to
get rid of him (he’d been there for a year and a half at least, and his box took
up a lot of shelf space) so they offered him to me for $9. At a price like
that, I couldn’t say no.
Note: I should point
out that I will be primarily reviewing this as a Conan figure, not as a WoW
one.
SCULPT
I know nothing about Lo’Gosh, but I know a good pseudo-Conan
when I see one. Though it draws elements from several different stages of
Arnie’s look in Conan the Barbarian,
it primarily looks like it’s been derived from the beginning of the movie, when
Conan was a pit fighter – particularly the leather crown/headgear and the
spiked sword handle that looks like a set of knuckledusters. Of course, being from WoW and not actually a piece of Conan the Barbarian merchandise, it has some differences. The belt buckle is the leonine icon of the Alliance (whom I understand are essentially the WoW good guys), and he’s wearing pants as opposed to a loincloth.
Everything is sculpted with an impressive level of detail,
with Conan posed in a triumphant pose, swords held aloft above his head. It’s a
good mix between realistic and comic-y that I wouldn’t mind seeing on other
figures, particularly comic-based ones. It’s like a 90s comic book come to
life, but without a lot of the negative things that suggests.
There is only one thing that stood out to me as a little odd
– his chest looks a little too narrow for his body. I suppose this may be a
result of concept art not translating so well into three dimensions, or may just be adjusted this way
because of his pose. Nonetheless, my enjoyment is undiminished!
In terms of actual issues, the only “problem” is that
there’s a join line around his jaw. It’s a little ugly up close, but you’re not
generally looking at him from an angle where you’d notice it.
As for articulation, there is nothing at all. In the words
of Michael Crawford, he’s a “Nerd Hummel”. This is fine, as I knew what I was in
for when I bought him – but I can’t help but feel that describing it as an
“action figure” on the box is somewhat misleading. Maybe “collector’s figurine”
would be a better compromise. I don’t much care for “Staction Figure” which
apparently did the rounds a few years ago.
PAINT
The paint work on this guy is excellent. There’s been a lot
of attention paid to the little sculpted details, and very little slop.
Particularly impressive is the blood spray on the swords – this is an area
where it would have been easy for the company to cheap out, and in all likelihood gotten away
with it, but they do seem to have paid a lot of attention to making sure it
looks “right”.
There’s no one area that stands out as having obviously
crappy paint – an amazing rarity in this day and age, even among collector’s
figures.
AVAILABILITY
This figure was released in 2009, so your chances of picking
him up at retail are probably pretty slim. However, he seems to be in plentiful
supply on eBay. I’ve seen him as a low as $11, and as high as $80 – but the
average seems to be around the $30AUDish mark. As far as I can tell, that would
have been about his retail price when he was first released. Just be aware, you
may pay almost as much again in postage.
OVERALL
Though I really like the figure, I would have thought it was
copyright-infringingly close to Conan. There are lots of urban myths and
contradictory stories about whether He-Man was inspired by Conan, and
apparently some legal troubles too, so it surprises me that WoW and DC flew so
close to the sun with this one. But here we are, and it’s the best Conan figure
I’ve seen in a long time.
As might be expected, I’m disappointed that he’s not
articulated – I am still hoping that NECA releases a series of properly
articulated Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the
Barbarian figures – but as a shelf decoration for collectors, I think it’s
great. At $9, this guy was an absolute bargain. I kind of want to put him on my
desk at work, but he sends a much more hostile message than my usual Funko POPs…
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