KR Review #15: Bi-Harr

New amazing prototypes have arrived from PoliganToys, so I have to finish the reviews of the previous ones this week. Let’s kick things off with the first reptilian leader - Bi-Harr^TM!

While this 13^th action figure is not necessarily one of my favourite so far, I have to admit that I love his striking look.

Details

Name: Bi-Harr

Real name: Anfis

Subtitle: double-headed general

Classification: archosauromorph reptile

Sex: male

Home: Tahron

Affiliation: Rexodon^TM

Rank: general.

Background

Bi-Harr's first appearance is in the third KR comic issue Clash of the leaders. Born as an abomination, over the years the dual-headed creature Anfis became a blessing for the reptilian species. Thanks to his two minds working together, Anfis was cleverer than any other living thing. Taking the name Bi-Harr, he raised an army and challenged the free mammalian people for rule over Tahron. Being gifted with twice the brain power of his rivals, his tactical advantage was doubled. Although he defeated several leaders of the Therioms^TM, these heroes succeeded in trapping his mental faculties beyond the multiversal walls. Centuries later, a weakened Bi-Harr attempts to form an alliance with Deptilion^TM, by promising (treacherously) to let him rule in exchange for getting back his powers from their extra-dimensional lock-up.

Articulation

Standard, with one additional neck.

Description

Left head: similar to a Pachycephalosaurus, characterised by wrinkled dark-blueish skin, a large bony dome atop its skull, a pair of large amber eyes with vertical black pupils, a muzzle ending in a pointed reddish beak (with a closed mouth), and a fairly long, thick neck. The dome's rear side is edged with yellowish bony bulges, which extend towards each eye forming a sort of bumpy eyebrow, while a number of short yellowish bony spikes project upwards from the snout (the most central of these spikes is covered in skin)

Right head: vaguely similar to an Apatosaurus (or a similar sauropod), characterised by scaly reddish skin, a large brown cranial crest, two short ossicones covered in skin, a pair of large light-blue eyes with vertical red pupils, several sharp white teeth lining the wide open mouth, and a thick neck (slightly longer than its counterpart's)

Body: the left arm and leg show a wrinkled dark-blueish skin with several yellowish bony bumps, while the right arm and leg show a scaly reddish skin with large brown ridges which run down the sides; he displays claw hands and feet (where visible). The real surprise about Bi-Harr's body is under the removable armour... I could never imagine that PoliganToys would come out with something like this: an astonishing convoluted structure which is actually his elongated tubular body running from one head to the other! So, we discover that Bi-Harr is actually a sort of four-armed amphisbaena (i.e., a snake-like creature with a head at each end), who uses two of his arms as legs, in order to acquire a bipedal posture. This tremendously intricate body structure is sculpted extremely well; a cool detail is the visible overlap of the two body types, where the wrinkled and the scaly skins melt into each other

Wearables: a silver armour (which bears two collars and two shoulder protectors on the top, and an asymmetric skull-symbol on the front), yellowish leather fingerless-glove and sandal-boot on the left limbs, brass bracelet, armband and boot (all decorated with arabesque patterns) on the right limbs, a studded brass belt and an asymmetric loincloth. The collars are embossed with two different designs: a round pattern on the left and a diamond-shaped pattern on the right; these patterns are also replicated on the two shoulder protectors, which, like the collars, are made of two different metals, probably copper on the left side and brass on the right side. The asymmetric skull-symbol is located right under the gap between the two collars, but its lower jaw stretches down to the bottom edge of the armour; each half of the skull resembles the correspondent head and is made of a metallic material, again copper on the left side and brass on the right side. The two halves of the asymmetric loincloth are also made of different materials: tawny fur on the left and scale armour (consisting of several overlapping copper plates laced together) on the right. The brass belt (which is also decorated with round studs on the left side and diamond studs on the right side) has a buckle which is a symmetric variant of the armour skull-symbol, whose elongated lower jaw covers the dividing line between the two sides of the loincloth. The upper part of this skull-buckle is red (while the lower jaw is goldish) and recalls the Rexodon symbol. The brass armband around the right biceps (where the ridge presents a trough) is removable and can be put on the other arm.

Bi-Harr's stylised armour; the shape at the centre of the chest piece represents the asymmetric skull-symbol with the elongated lower jaw.

Weapons and accessories

No, I haven't forgotten about the action feature section. Problem is that Bi-Harr has no action feature whatsoever. It's understandable, it's a matter of cost-saving due to his entirely new sculpt, but I can't hide a bit of disappointment.

Bi-Harr only comes with a silver halberd, which is one of the four components of the Key (the one with the blade curved outward) and the third halberd we get after Deptilion's and Tir-Hing's ones.

Comic

Together with the action figure we get the third comic issue Clash of the leaders. In the story we meet Bi-Harr, the leader of the Rexodons, for the first time. He has secretly observed the efforts of his former enemy Deptilion for long and wants to take advantage of his potential to seek revenge on the Therioms. After rescuing Deptilion from the labyrinth-cave in the Bay of Sortok, Bi-Harr arranges a meeting with his old rival and pretends to be interested in an alliance against the Therioms. Bi-Harr proposes the Destructomorphs attack Theriom City with the help of a few Rexodon members and Deptilion agrees in spite of warnings from Demo-Rha. The merged army attacks as planned, but this time the heroic defenders are well prepared. Suddenly, Bi-Harr appears in the battlefield and reveals that he and the remaining members of his faction have taken advantage of Deptilion's absence to destroy Dekropolis, the Destructomorph's headquarters. The Therioms are now forced to witness a battle between the Destructomorphs and the Rexodons. At some point, it is revealed that the real Deptilion has been replaced by an advanced Destructomorph Trooper, who is powerful enough to kill all the present opponents. Masq-Lor can't allow this senseless massacre and uses all his resources to destroy the robot. This causes an explosion that leaves a huge crater in the ground, separating the three factions. Being unable to continue the battle, the evil parties retreat, while the Therioms give aid to a now unconscious Masq-Lor.

Overall, my feelings about Bi-Harr are similar to the ones I have for Nemhisto. The figure is great, with a terrific look and an awesome sculpt, especially underneath the armour. On the other hand, I kind of feel the lack of some cool action features or accessories. But after all, Bi-Harr is a central character in the KR universe and I think that his figure is cool enough as it is.
About the comic, the story is pretty interesting for several reasons. First of all, we finally see one of the reptilian factions, which we have read about in the previous issues. Then, we discover that the mysterious powers locked behind the multiversal walls are actually Bi-Harr's mental abilities, although there's no mention about how the Therioms managed to move those powers from his brains to the extra-dimensions. Last but not least, it seems like Deptilion survived another disaster at the end of the preceding story, but eventually his duplicate's identity is exposed and we are left with no clue about his real whereabouts. For sure, a very positive aspect of this comic is that it features a lot of new characters, and that's what we like!