KR Review #49: Nar-Aja

Is there finally a snake fighter in the KR line, or are my eyes deceiving me? After almost nine months full of dinosaurs, crocodiles and lizards, I am ecstatic to see a snake-woman making her way into the reptilian ranks.

I’m also overjoyed that this 38^th action figure prototype from PoliganToys has come out so well. You can bet Nar-Aja^TM has a well-earned front spot on my KR shelf.

Details

Name: Nar-Aja

Subtitle: snake amazon

Classification: lepidosauromorph reptile

Sex: female

Home: Tahron

Affiliation: Spektrosaur

Rank: colonel.

Background

Nar-Aja makes her only appearance in the seventh KR comic issue The siege of Erlokat, where she is presented as a descendant of an ancient lineage of mystical snakes created by the reptilian wizard Sphenorat^TM. Nar-Aja became fascinated with Lor-Drek's audacity and decided to join forces with him soon after the newly Spektrosaur army had been formed. Believing in the cause of exterminating all the mammalian opposition, she often had a crucial role in storming the enemies' territories with overwhelming terror. Loyally devoted to serve her fearsome master, Nar-Aja deprives her rivals of the ability to escape by the power of a gaze and then kills them with her evil venomous spit.

Articulation

Standard (excluding the hinged abdomen), with the addition of a tail, which is a ball jointed separate piece. It features two articulation points, two swivels at about one-third and two-thirds of its length.

Description

Head: similar to a cobra, characterised by reddish scaly skin (except on the lower jaw and on the throat, where the skin is yellowish), light-blue eyes, two large fangs and a forked tongue sculpted on the pinkish inside of the open mouth. Her neck is spread to form a flattened, widened hood, whose dorsal surface is reddish and exhibits two circular patterns connected by a curved line, while the underside is yellowish and displays a hypnotic eye-shaped reddish mark on either side. Although the neck-hood hampers the head movement a little bit, good poses are still possible

Body: yellowish scaly skin, claw hands and feet; her limbs sport large reddish bands that run down the sides. Also, she has a long, slim reddish (except for two yellowish crossbands) tail, which is a separate piece emerging from under the loincloth and ends with a pointy triangular (or spade-shaped) yellowish tip

Wearables: a brown armour with light-green details, two brown bracelets, two brown calf protectors, a brown belt (whose buckle resembles a cobra head) and a light-green loincloth. The cuffs, the shin guards and the loincloth look like made of large overlapping scales.

Nar-Aja's stylised armour.

Action feature

In the comics Nar-Aja has the ability to squirt venom from her fangs in self-defence. As you may guess, the figure comes with a translucent yellow plug-in spitting effect for her mouth. With this attachment, we get the fifth (!) repaint of the same effect we've already seen with Nibeon, Steel-Monster Deptilion, Blomok and Aktahnor. Please, PoliganToys, sculpt a new effect!

Weapons and accessories

Apart from the venom attachment, Nar-Aja comes with her frightening multi-bladed whirling scythe. This cool weapon has five long curved silver blades forming a rotating piece, which is attached at the end of a long light-green pole and spins when is given a flick.

In addition, a really fun and unexpected accessory comes in the form of Nar-Aja’s snake collaborator. I am not going to question why a snake woman has a snake as a pet, I just go with it. Anyway, this little greenish pal clips right on Nar-Aja’s left wrist, giving the illusion of wrapping around her forearm. Moreover, the 5-blade wheel can detach from the scythe shaft and clip into the snake's mouth, to form an intimidating wrist mounted buzzsaw.

Overall, Nar-Aja is a figure with all the points in her favour: a new sculpt, a unique weapon and two extra accessories to complete her equipment. However, an articulated jaw or a closed mouth head might have been nice, but their absence doesn't diminish the worth of the figure for me. Similarly, I’d have loved to get a newly sculpted attachment to simulate the venom spitting feature, but again it’s not a big issue.