POP! Television – Elvira (Mummy)

Elvira has long been a merchandising powerhouse, and I can only assume that her recent partnership with Funko has been as a successful one. Within the space of a year or so we’ve had two POPs, a Rock Candy figure and a Pint-Size Hero. Today, we look at the second of those POPs – Elvira in her Mummy costume.

While Elvira’s best-known look is the split black dress, she’s actually dabbled with a number of looks over the years. You can find them on Google Image search, though I would not suggest doing so on your work computer.

This particular POP, however, is drawn from this image, which is also replicated on the back of the box. I’m not sure if the pic was originally taken for that Fangoria issue, or it’s an older one that was recycled. There are probably more notable secondary costumes Funko could have gone with, but it works well enough.  

Paint is nicely executed for her makeup – but make sure you check her lips. The control art clearly shows that she’s got white “shine” on her lips, but if the tampo isn’t aligned properly then it just makes her look like she has wonky teeth.  

The paint on the body is a little sketchier. The lines on mine are mostly clean and well executed, but the hands and feet are a little sloppy. Additionally, I think the bandages themselves could probably do with a bit of a wash to bring out some more detail.

As well as the regular release, there’s a chase version of this figure, packed at a 1:6 ratio. It’s the same sculpt, but her bandages glow in the dark. Ideally I would’ve got that one – but it’s really the luck of the draw with chases, isn’t it?

Mummy Elvira is a solid POP, but non-essential for the more casual fan. It’s a good look, but not quite as classic as the black dress. Still, it’s good to see a bit more Elvira stuff out and about on the shelves. As a relatively recent fan, I missed the “golden age” of her fame, so it’s nice to see her enjoying a bit of a renaissance.  

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POP! Disney – Halloween Donald (2017 Fall Convention Exclusive)

Kingdom Hearts. It has a truly dedicated fanbase, but I’m not one of them. I played a few hours of the first game on PS2. It was fun, but I wasn’t (and am not) enough of a Disney or Square Enix fan to make my way through the entire thing.

So as with the Sleestak – if I don’t care about the property, why the hell did I fork out for this?

Basically, it’s because I’m a sucker for mummies. I’ve been obsessed with Ancient Egypt since I was a little kid. In the last few years alone, I’ve bought all manner of silly mummy-related merchandise since, including a Ninja Turtles pin, both POPs from the decidedly mediocre 2017 The Mummy, a POP and Mystery Mini from the excellent Boris Karloff movie, plenty of Lego, two Madballs, and a bunch of other Egyptian stuff that hasn’t made the site. So Halloween Donald here is hardly a stretch at this point.

Having now purchased him, I’m happier with him than I expected to be. The paint is better than average for a Funko POP, and the bandages have an appropriately brown look – it’s a step up on most pop culture mummies, who tend to just throw some clean white bandages at an existing character and hope for the best. In a world where people collect any old crap that Disney and Square Enix care to pump out, Funko must be commended for going the extra mile.  

My only real issue is that he’s cast in transparent plastic, to emulate his semi-ghostly look from the game. It may be “accurate” but it doesn’t end up looking terribly convincing; it probably could be executed via more sophisticated moulding techniques, but I doubt it would be cost-effective.  

This is a fun extra for Kingdom Hearts fans or general Disney obsessives, and pretty non-essential for everyone else. But as an avowed fan of Ancient Egypt, it was a must-have for me.   

POP! Movies – The Mummy: Ahmanet

As a little kid, around the age of 6 or 7, my parents gave me a book about Ancient Egypt. I think it was a Christmas gift, an Usborne Pocket Guide; a little pocket or digest-sized volume. I’d heard of Egypt before from church (Exodus and so on) but this was my first real introduction to them as a wider culture. I remember being gripped of the images of the Egyptian gods – particularly the jackal-headed Anubis – and it sparked off a life-long love of Ancient Egypt.

Naturally enough, The Mummy became one of my favourite Universal Monsters. The other day we took a look at the undead version of the Mummy from the upcoming remake, and today we look at her more human form. 

I had a look online but can’t yet find any stills of Sofia Boutella in this costume, so I can’t say whether it’s “accurate”. But it certainly looks more typically Egyptian then most of what we’ve seen of the film so far – white linen dress, lots of gold jewellery, lapis-lazuli-coloured fingernails, kohl-painted eyes and ornate hair*.

Assuming that this film follows the rough formula of the 1932 one and the 1999 one, Ahmanet will look like this in the Ancient Egyptian flashbacks, emerge from the tomb looking like her undead self and then return to a similar look to this once she’s regenerated by killing a few people. I also have a strong suspicion that Tom Cruise’s character will have some kind of psychic/magical link with her. We see in the trailer that he dies and is resurrected – but why? Probably he’s the reincarnation of her lover or something, like a gender-swapped Anck Su Namun.

Even if the movie’s not that great, my love of Ancient Egypt will let me enjoy this figure – it’s a good generic Egyptian princess or priestess figure to go on the shelf. Well done, Funko. 

*On that note, her hair looks totally implausible at first glance – but perhaps not as implausible as you might think. Wealthy Egyptians were very fond of shaving their heads and wearing wigs instead. The climate of Egypt was a little different a few thousand years ago, but it was still damn hot. So by shaving you could look good when necessary, and stay cool the rest of the time. 

The Funko Wishlist

I'm now more than four years into collecting POPs, and the range that's on the market has absolutely exploded since those early days. Still, there are some figures that I would love to see them produce. Granted, many of these are highly unlikely, and are probably best relegated to customs, but Funko have managed to surprise us before -- so I'll throw the ideas out there and hope for the best.

Rat Fink

In their early days, Funko produced a very extensive range of Rat Fink Wacky Wobblers and other miscellaneous merchandise -- the company had different owners at the time, and their releases were very heavily based around the weirder side of Americana, particularly pop culture mascots. But when Funko was sold in 2007 to its present owners, there was a bit of a shift in focus to more mainstream pop culture, which has only been heightened since the POPs came to the forefront of their range.

So by doing some Rat Fink POPs, Funko would actually be coming full circle. But even more than POPs, I'd love to see a Mystery Minis set that incorporates Rat Fink and some of his Weird-Oh buddies -- along with their vehicles too.

Carl Jung

Funko has dabbled in real people from time to time, though they have primarily been sportspeople and musicians. But what if they branched out to other fields? Along with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung is one of the two grand old men of psychoanalysis -- and he'd be a great addition to my shelf, though I concede that market for old dudes in suits may be a limited one, the success of the Bernie Sanders figure notwithstanding.

It seems likely that if Jung ever was done, he'd be part of a two-pack with Freud, given the two men's close association earlier in their lives. But if they ever do make him, ideally it would be based on Jung in his older years, when he really did become a senex. Ideally he'd be paired with his pipe, and possibly his Red Book/Liber Novus.

Egyptian Mythology

Though we've had a POP from the original Universal Monsters film The Mummy and there are more on the way from the 2017 remake, I would love an Egyptian mythology-themed line from Funko. The POP! Asia line has already demonstrated that mythical creatures can work -- and Ancient Egypt's animal-headed deities would be ideal for the format. Anubis, Osiris and Horus would be the bare minimum -- but imagine an Ammit, or a POP! Ride of Ra on his solar barque? This could be an amazing range, it wouldn't even need licensing costs, and you could have more obscure deities via simple repaints.

Naturally, such a line could be expanded to other ancient cultures -- why not also have a Zeus, A Cernunnos or a Thor? Or even go a bit left of centre, and produce something from the Aztecs or Sumeria? The sky is the limit (ha!) on this one.

Hellraiser 

Pinhead is the face of the Hellraiser franchise, but the franchise has a ton of interesting Cenobite designs. NECA has been the only company to ever really capitalise on these other characters, and their action figure line was released more than a decade ago.

Customisers have already given a few characters a whirl, and they seem to work in the format. So what's stopping Funko? Probably a couple of things -- licensing costs are bound to be one, but I suspect another reason is that Hellraiser is a graphically violent film series.

Pinhead's design is fairly unsettling, but it's probably the least gruesome of any of the Cenobites -- specialist retailers won't care that much, but mass market stockists might not be so keen to risk the prospect of little Timmy accidentally picking up Chatterer or Angelique, and the bad press that could follow. Nonetheless, it would be good to see Funko expand beyond just Pinhead variations.

So who or what would you like to see Funko make in future? Throw your two cents in the comments below.

Funko POP Universal Monsters: The Mummy

Boris Karloff – a horror legend if ever there was one. Almost 50 years after his death, the image of him as Frankenstein’s Monster continues to dominate popular culture. Universal must be making more on merchandise than they ever did on the movie itself, going off the sheer amount of stuff that’s been produced in the decades that have followed.

But Frankenstein’s Monster wasn’t the only role Karloff was famous for – another was Imhotep, the titular character of the Mummy. Released in 1932 to cash in on the craze for all things Egyptian following the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, The Mummy was an immediate hit. Imhotep never achieved quite the same iconic status as Frankenstein’s Monster, but he remains an important part of the movie monster pantheon. The character also got a revival of sorts in 1999, when a remake (or re-envisioning or reboot, whatever you’d prefer to call it) of The Mummy was released, and became a tremendous hit.  

The original is not a perfect film, but it evokes a dark mood that still manages to unsettle to this day. I first saw it when I was maybe 10 or 11, and found "old" things laughable as opposed to frightening. How did anyone ever find such things scary? Hokey and melodramatic in parts it may be, but The Mummy quickly disabused me of the idea of old stuff not being frightening . And even now, more than 80s years on, Boris Karloff’s makeup as the titular character in his coffin still holds up quite well – just look at a real mummy here and compare with the image below.   

Yet despite my fandom of The Mummy, I was a little dubious about the execution of this POP – the initial illustrations and then the promo photos made him look quite boring, with far too much grey, all seemingly of the same shade. While the finished product is not perfect, it’s certainly better than the initially released images appeared. While he’s still almost entirely grey (his sole flash of colour is his gold/bronze scarab ring), giving almost a black and white effect, it looks much better in person than in photos. Still, I think a darker wash over the bandages (and possibly the hair) would bring out some of those sculpted details nicely. Aside from this, my only complaint is that the paint on the tip of his nose was a little chipped in the box. Still, given that he's fairly monochrome, it doesn't really stand out. 

Imhotep has a mouth, which is unusual among POPs. The Creature and Dracula both have one, which makes sense for their respective designs, but I’m not sure it was necessary for Imhotep. I also feel like the addition of more wrinkles would have been a good idea, though that might have made the overall figure a little too detailed.   

Though I don’t know how likely it is, they could definitely do another series of Universal Monsters POPs. The Invisible Man and the Wolfman in human form are just two potential options, and one could be Imhotep in his more “human”, Ardeth Bay form, which is how he spends most of the movie. He’s still heavily wrinkled, looking like a walking desiccated corpse, but although the makeup is not as extreme, the effect is at times even more disconcerting than when he’s wrapped in bandages. 

This depiction of the Mummy is a pleasant surprise. He’s not my favourite Funko POP, and he pales in comparison with the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but he’s nonetheless a lot of fun and turned out much better than anticipated. Highly recommended for vintage horror fans. 

Minifigure Week! Day 7: Pharaoh (Series 2, 2010)

Minifigures are one of my favourite things about Lego – and series 12 is on the way (possibly even out in your country by the time you read this). So to celebrate this upcoming release, every day this week, we’ll be looking at a different minifigure from the series that have come before. This is by no means a comprehensive overview – nor even necessarily a look at my favourites – but it’s an example of some of the unusual figures the line has produced since it debuted back in 2010. So on the final day of Minifigure Week, we take a look at the Pharaoh all the way back from Series 2. 

“That spot looks just right for a pyramid!”

This Pharaoh of ancient Egypt woke up in a museum one day, and he’s been a little confused ever since. He doesn’t know how or why he’s in the modern world, but it’s definitely taking some getting used to! He’s not used to taxi cabs and supermarkets yet, and he can’t figure out where all the sphinxes and crocodiles have gone, but he’s trying to make the best of things in his strange new circumstances.

First off, the place is definitely going to need some pyramids…so with the help of his friends at the museum, the Pharaoh is taking matters into his own hands and using all the bricks he can find to build his own. Now he has a little piece of home to share with everyone!

Back in 2011, when I was in a full-fledged stage of Minifigure obsession, I bought a complete set of Series 2. It was expensive, but nowhere near what you’d pay for a full set these days. And somewhat foolishly, I also passed up the opportunity to own a complete set off Series 1 for around $150AUD. Again, expensive then, but ridiculously cheap now…sigh. As David Sedaris has said, it's the things you don't buy that stick with you the longest. But enough of past regrets and onto the present.  

I love Ancient Egypt, so the Pharaoh was a must-have figure as soon as I found out about him. I always wished Lego would do something Egyptian-themed when I was a kid, but I missed the late 1990s sets, and I'd have to wait until much later for my wish to come true -- but I'll expand on that in a forthcoming review.  

The paintwork on series 1 and 2 was good, but viewing the sets in comparison to series 3 onwards, it's clear that the designs were a little more basic back then. In the case of the Pharaoh, this isn't really to his detriment, as he's wearing relatively little and doesn't need a whole lot of detail. He's been given elaborate eyebrows to simulate kohl eye makeup, which was very common in ancient Egypt -- even the gods wore it. His cheekbones are also unusually pronounced -- is he meant to be one Pharaoh in particular?
Aside from this, the only detail I would have added is feathers in the wings on his scarab beetle chestpiece. 

He comes with two accessories: a golden Nemes headdress, reminiscent of Tutankhamen and a golden staff with a cobra-esque snake moulded around the top. A crook and flail would have been better, but it works well as a possible cheeky reference to the story of Moses and Pharaoh's magicians too. 

The Pharaoh is an excellent minifigure -- one of my favourites from the entire Minifigures range line. It's just a bummer that he's relatively expensive for new collectors to track down. There were some really cool figures in the first 2 series of minifigures, and it's unfortunate that they never made it all the way to Australia. Also, he makes a nice companion for the Classic Alien. Since they built the pyramids together, after all.  

As Minifigure Week comes to an end, I would be remiss if I did not thank Brickipedia. One of the best Lego sites on the web, this place has a tremendous amount of content on Lego both new and old. Writing some of this week's installments without it would have been near imposible!  

Lego Monster Fighters -- The Mummy (9462)

Theme: Monster Fighters

Pieces: 90

Construction time: 15-20min

Year: 2012

RRP: $14AUD

THE BACKGROUND

Well, I’ve moved on from being fairly unimpressed with the Monster Fighters theme through to owning most of the range. Funny how that works, isn’t it? So today we look at my latest (and likely last) purchase from the range – The Mummy.   

MINIFIGURES

There are two minifigures in this set – the Mummy himself and Ann Lee. Both of them are okay, if not great. The Mummy has printing on the front of his head, chest, back and legs, but the arms are blank. He fits in well with the Pharaoh’s Quest sets, but as a standalone figure, I still prefer the Mummy from Minifigures series 3.  

Ann Lee completes my set of the Monster Fighters themselves. She’s the only female fighter among the gang, and has a similar kind of visual aesthetic – Victorian-era meets combat fatigues. Ann Lee has two printed faces – a stern, determined one, and one with more of a smirk on it. She’s got some cool little details on her, like the garlic and stakes printed on her trousers (though it won’t be much use against a Mummy, of course). But overall, I’m not really sold on her. I think my main problem is with her hair – she reuses the same hair as the Cave Woman from Minifgures series 5, but styled with a crossbow bolt instead of an arrow. It’s a good piece, and it worked fine for that character, but here it looks a little strange. Maybe they should have just given her a ponytail or something.

 

THE BUILD

There are two vehicles this set – a one-person helicopter and an Egyptian-style chariot.

Like most of the Monster Fighters vehicles, I wasn’t overly impressed with the helicopter on first glance, but it’s grown on me since. It’s got a cobbled-together look that ties in well the overall theme – the Monster Fighters are facing deadly supernatural foes with very little in the way of resources. Of the vehicles I own from the range, but it’s still kind of cool – just a little too specific to be used in other settings too, I think.    

But the real centrepiece is the Mummy’s chariot. It’s got lots of ornate little details – the golden scorpion, the moonstone, the spears put on the side of the harness, the gold horns on the front and the green “lamps” on the chariot itself. There’s a lot going on, but never so much as to overwhelm the eye.    

 

I can’t speak for how “historically accurate” it is – not very, I suspect – but it nonetheless conjures up a great pop culture idea of what an undead Ancient Egyptian chariot should look like.  

AVAILABILITY

I first saw the Monster Fighters theme in stores around Halloween 2012, and apparently they had their American release in May that year. Most of them disappeared pretty quickly from stores; Halloween isn’t that big a deal in Australia, so I suspect that most retailers didn’t order a huge amount. However, since late last year, Kmart stores have had the range popping up in larger quantities than I ever saw them during their “official” release period. I can only assume that they got a good deal with an overseas warehouse or something. Still, they’re thinning out in numbers now – if you’re keen to get this set I would suggest grabbing it ASAP.  

Apparently there are two versions of the set – initially the Mummy and the skeletal horse both glowed, but the later runs of the set have only the horse as a glowing piece. Mine appears to be from the later run, which isn’t surprising that I bought it about two years after initial release! 

OVERALL

I bought this set as a birthday present for a friend earlier this year, but I fence-sat on it for a long time for myself. However, with my recent acquisition of the Rise of the Sphinx and the Scorpion Pyramid sets, I thought the chariot would be a cool supplementary piece. Taken as part of the Monster Fighters range, it’s not my favourite set (which would probably be the Vampire Castle), but it’s a great Egyptian-styled piece and a welcome addition to the collection.   

Lego Review -- Rise of the Sphinx (7326)

Pieces: 527

Build Time: 1 ½ hours

Year: 2011

Theme: Pharaoh’s Quest

RRP: See “Availability”

THE BACKGROUND

I love Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Egyptian religion has always particularly fascinated me. Their curious animal-headed gods and the myths that surrounded them were particularly intriguing to me, as someone who had been raised (and still identifies) as a Christian. But in the 20+ years that I have been reading about Ancient Egypt, none have fascinated me more than Anubis. Jackal-headed, he appealed to my early fascination with dogs. Osiris and Horus may have been more prominent in the popular Egyptian pantheon, but for me it was all about Anubis.

Though there is very little mythological material surrounding Anubis, he was a very important deity, particularly in the New Kingdom era. The Egyptians of the New Kingdom believed that the path to the afterlife was guarded by various threats and hazards, and thus undertook all sorts of protective measures – usually in the form of spells, many found in the Book of the Dead, to protect themselves as they made this journey.

After the deceased had made their way through the various challenges, they would encounter one final test – the weighing of the heart, overseen by Anubis. The heart would be weighed against maat, here represented by a feather. My (limited) understanding of maat seems to be that it was some kind of universal order, and things could be either in or out of harmony with maat. We don’t really have a direct modern counterpart in other world religions that I’m aware of, but perhaps we might be able to draw an analogy with the concept of karma – namely, good deeds will be rewarded, bad deeds have consequences.  

If the heart balanced with the feather, the deceased was judged worthy to enter the afterlife. But if the heart was heavier than the feather, it would be devoured by Ammit, seen here as the crocodile-headed beast lurking beneath the scales. Ammit almost looks cute by modern standards, but she was terrifying to the Egyptians. To have your heart consumed by her was a “second death” – total obliteration of the soul, to my understanding, and the ultimate horror which seemed to exist in Egyptian metaphysics. So on this basis alone, Anubis would have a fairly vital role in Egyptian religion.

Additionally, Anubis was seen as important to the mummification process – to the extent that one of the priests overseeing the mummification process would dress as Anubis, presumably noting important details and reciting prayers and/or spells to ensure the safe passage of the deceased.

Were we to give Anubis a DnD-style alignment, we would probably call him “lawful good”. What relevance does this have to today’s review? Well, despite his reasonably benevolent presence in the pantheon, more modern takes on Egyptian mythology tend to paint Anubis as a villain – understandable, given his association with death, if inaccurate. This particular Lego set follows that mould, casting him as a sphinx and – judging by the context of the set – an evil one who springs to life when certain ancient artefacts are disturbed.

THE MINIFIGURES

This set comes with three minifigures – Jake Raines and two Mummy Warriors.

Jake Raines is okay, but suffers from the same problem that plagues most of the Monster Fighters human characters – and indeed, most human characters in any sort of monster/horror movie. Namely, he’s just not that engaging. He does come with a few accessories though, most of which have slots on the car for you to stick them in – a pick (for archaeological digging), a bundle of dynamite (for old-school archaeological digging) and a shotgun (for blasting the undead back to their graves).

The Mummies are identical, with printing on both sides of their head. One side depicts a face with two unwrapped eyes, while the other shows only one unwrapped eye. You can use them to differentiate the two if you want, but I was happy enough with them looking the same. Additionally, they come with two weapons – a spear and a scimitar. How you divvy them up is of course your choice.

I do kind of prefer the minifigure Mummy from series 3 of the minifigures range. White wrappings and green skin just worked a little better for me, personally. Nonetheless, they’re cool troopbuilders, and they do look like they’d present a genuinely menacing threat to Jake Raines and his companions.

THE BUILD

The set consists of three main elements. The first is the car. It’s a 1930s-style jalopy with a bit of hot rod thrown in, looking straight off the set of an Indiana Jones movie. I’m no real car fan, but it fits the pulp adventure style well and also wouldn’t look out of place with the Monster Fighters theme.

  

The second is the "temple" itself. This is the resting place of the golden sword, one of the artefacts which will apparently resurrect the long-dead Pharaoh if it falls into the wrong hands. This being an adventure-based set, I think it’s fairly safe to say that in most cases, it will fall into the wrong hands and the evil Pharaoh will return – but good will eventually triumph over evil. As a side note, the golden scimitar is identical to the regular one for the Mummy warrior, save its casting colour.  

The action feature of this section is kind of cool, though fairly unnecessary to me, personally. Pushing on a lever, the section of wall between Anubis’ front legs pops out, simulating the explosion of dynamite – you’ll see there’s even a little clip in there to click Jake Raines’ bundle of it in. The “explosion” then thrust the sword forth, revealing the ancient artefact to the world – now it’s up to you to decide whether the Mummy soldiers are successful in defending it.

 

Here is where the third element comes in – once the sealed chamber has been broken open and the golden sword revealed, Sphinx-Anubis can lurch to life, raising his legs up off the ancient podium it has sat atop for untold millennia, ready to wreck destruction on all whoever has disturbed him.

Sphinx-Anubis has a reasonable amount of articulation – his knees and ankles have ratcheted joints, and his hips all have swivel hinges. Additionally, his jaw can be opened and closed. I like to go for closed while dormant, open as he springs to life.

All of the hieroglyphics that dot the set are applied as stickers. I have mixed feelings about this; I tend to prefer printed bricks when possible, but I can also appreciate that people who build “outside the set” may have had their use from these bricks subsequently reduced. Fortunately I managed to align them all more or less correctly, a rarity for my often clumsy hands.   

AVAILABILITY

This set is a few years old now, so your chances of finding it at retail are pretty slim. Finding it on the aftermarket shouldn’t be too problematic, but be prepared to pay through the nose. I found this set in a Barnes and Noble while visiting Hawaii a few weeks ago, for $USD50 – which seems about right (though I don’t think throwing in an extra minifigure would have hurt). However, I seem to recall it being far more expensive in Australia, which probably put me off at the time. The B & N I visited had one more of this set left when I bought it, but whether it will still be there now is pretty uncertain.

OVERALL

Despite my love of Ancient Egypt, I wasn’t too impressed with the Pharaoh’s Quest theme when I first came across it. I was also buying the second series of Atlantis at the time, and with my limited resources I couldn’t afford to be split between the two. However, the benefit of hindsight has revealed that there were a couple of cool sets in the range – particularly this one and the Scorpion Pyramid (7327), which was the big set of the theme.  

Wildly historically inaccurate, the Sphinx is nonetheless a fun set which fits well into an Indiana Jones-style pulp adventure setting, which is exactly what I hoped for. Purists will decry the exclusion of a more historically accurate version – and it would be nice to get one in future – but whether it would offer the same sort of play value is questionable. For the time being, I have a giant Lego Sphinx-Anubis, and that makes me very happy…and I’ve enjoyed it enough to also buy the Scorpion Pyramid!