As far as action figures are concerned, parts re-use keeps costs down. PoliganToys has proven extremely creative with re-using parts in their prototypes and this strategy has already given me a ton of figures to review in a relatively short time. But every now and then, I get a treat... and Mal-Ah-KrosTM is a fantastic example!
You will see why this 50th action figure prototype from PoliganToys would be difficult to make. This Cereutian guy is really weird, with no apparent way of making him that wouldn’t cost a bundle.
For some time I have tried to figure out how to assemble this character by re-using parts from previous toys, but apparently they decided to produce this as a 100% newly-tooled figure with absolutely no recycling.
Details
Name: Mal-Ah-Kros
Subtitle: hard-shell warrior
Classification: crustacean
Sex: male
Home: Cereutis
Affiliation: Destructomorph (temporarily)
Rank: leader of the Mal-Ah-Krill squadron.
Background
Mal-Ah-Kros appears in the 10th KR comic issue Evanescing act, where he is presented as the leader of the Mal-Ah-Krills, a Cereutian group of crustacean soldiers. Mal-Ah-Kros became an auxiliary member of Deptilion's army after Denortos had crummily failed his mission on Tahron. An agile scout, shrewd strategist and keen combatant, he fought alongside the Destructomorph Troopers, leading a squadron of Cereutian warriors, during Deptilion's unexpected homecoming. With his hard shell that protects him from attacks, dreadful over-sized appendages and frightening protruding eyes, it's nearly impossible for the Theriom adversaries not to be clobbered by this uncompromising monstrosity.
Articulation
Standard, with the addition of two removable hinged chelae, four ball hinged arms and two fully articulated legs.
Description
Head: his bulky head seems encased in a purple carapace with a bumpy texture and is characterised by a spiny cranial crest, two pairs of antennae (the first of which is shorter and branching into two parts), a small greenish beady compound eye situated in the middle of the forehead, a sort of spiky nose and a small circular mouth (whose edges are thickly fringed with black hairs) flanked by three pairs of whitish jaws (the uppermost of which is larger than the other two). In his eye-sockets, where one would obviously expect to find the eyes, he actually bears a pair of small yellowish monster heads, each displaying a single bulging white eye with a vertical black pupil, a jagged bony brow ridge (slanting down towards the middle of Mal-Ah-Kros' face) and a hooked brownish horny beak (whose upper jaw ends with an ivory fang, while the lower jaw fits into the upper one and has two more fangs protruding upward from its sides)
Body: his body is protected by a purple chitinous exoskeleton with a cracked and bumpy texture. Each of his two main arms and 4 (four!) legs bears a line of fin-shaped appendages (whose fringes and folds detailing makes me think of a respiratory or sensory function) that runs down the side. His legs sport three-toed clawed feet, while his arms end with large, differently shaped chelae: a heavier, bulbous ghost crab-like crusher pincer on the left, and a longer, toothed fiddler crab-like cutter pincer on the right. Two pairs of additional arthropod-like limbs, each terminating in a forked claw, project from his back, which is concealed in a huge, beautifully sculpted and coloured empty gastropod shell
Wearables: a segmented (similarly to a shrimp's or a lobster's abdomen) golden armour with cracked orange details, two narrow golden bracelets, four segmented golden calf protectors (each with knee and instep guards; the rear feet look obviously bare, while the front feet are painted in gold, suggesting that he actually wears boots on those legs), a golden belt and an orange tail fan-like loincloth decorated with golden studs. The armour, the shin guards and the belt all carry a symbol consisting of three vertical wavy blue lines on the front.
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| Mal-Ah-Kros' stylised armour; the circle at the centre of the chest plate represents a Cereutian symbol. |
Action feature
In the comics, Mal-Ah-Kros shows a number of abilities. First up, he can hold approaching opponents tightly with his frightful chelae and then spin like a hammer thrower to knock them down. In the figure, each pincer exhibits a gripping movement and includes a spring-loaded snap-back feature.
Also, Mal-Ah-Kros' monster-eyes can pop-out to terrorise his enemies. So, the figure comes with "standard eyes" as well as an alternative pair of pop-out eyes. All the eyes are separate plug-in pieces and can be interchanged easily, although this requires Mal-Ah-Kros' mouth to be removable as well. Each stalked monster-eye shows a bloodshot appearance and the open beak with a finely toothed tongue sculpted on the inside of the mouth.
Finally, his whole body can retract into the sea snail shell that he carries on his back, which acts as a shield against his foes. Of course this skill couldn't be rendered in the figure, but the shell is a removable piece. Once detached, it also allows the rear of Mal-Ah-Kros' segmented armour to be exposed, showing a cracked orange spinal crest and the four ball jointed shoulders (each carrying a peg that connects to the seashell) at the base of the additional arms (the illusion is that those arms come out through the armour).
Weapons and accessories
Apart from the pop-out monster eyes, Mal-Ah-Kros comes with his threatening bazooka. While in the comics this badass tubular copper-coloured rocket launcher simply emerges over his shoulder from the seashell when required, in the figure the process takes a little work, since it's necessary to replace one of the four additional arms with the weapon. First, the seashell has to be removed and any one of the four extra arms (not necessarily an upper one) must be detached. Then, the bazooka, whose butt bears a curved element that ends with a ball joint, can be plugged into the free socket and the shell can be reattached. There is also a golden rocket that is a separate piece and can detach from the weapon's barrel, but there is no spring-loaded mechanism in this case.
As I mentioned above, the figure features interchangeable eyes, to recreate the pop-out action feature. However, to accommodate this, the mouth of the figure was made to be removable. Taking advantage of this design requirement, the guys at PoliganToys have created an awesome alternative mouth for Mal-Ah-Kros, which recalls the razor-sharp toothed jaws of a Dungeness crab to an exact likeness.
Comic
Together with the action figure we get the 10th comic issue Evanescing act, where we discover that Deptilion, using an extremely dangerous magic spell cast by Demo-Rha that almost killed them, previously fled to the extra dimension of Cereutis. There, he stole large amounts of a metal from local ores, to regenerate his crumbling body and rebuild his army of robotic troopers. In the present, Demo-Rha absorbs the energy of the inter-dimensional bridge between Cereutis and Tahron (created by Denortos) into her sceptre, making it capable to generate a ray that can teleport anybody from one dimension to the other. After punishing Denortos for failing his mission on Tahron, Deptilion hires the Mal-Ah-Krills, a Cereutian group of evil crustacean soldiers. His plan is to lead his all new militia of robots and aliens against the Therioms and to use the power of Demo-Rha’s sceptre to take over Tahron. Meanwhile, at Theriom City, the heroes are dealing with the aftermath of the Cereutian invasion; suddenly they hear some distant explosions and rush to identify the source, which they locate in a desert area. While several Theriom soldiers led by Masq-Lor and Fai-Rha travel towards the origin of the mysterious explosions, Deptilion and his lackeys launch an assault on the now-defenceless Theriom residence. The warlord demonstrates the power of Demo-Rha’s sceptre on Gax-Uhr, Tir-Hing’s brother, in order to force the Senior Minister to surrender the three halberds in his possession. After decimating most of Tir-Hing's fellows by teleporting them to Cereutis, Deptilion succeeds in completing the Key, paving the way to his dominion over Tahron. In the desert region, the Therioms find and confront Deptilion’s alleys; the Mal-Ah-Krills soon get the upper hand until Mor-Rak, who managed to escape from Theriom City, arrives and defeats the villains by transforming into a sand giant. Mor-Rak informs the heroes about the situation at Theriom City and, anticipating Deptilion’s next target, they all decide to journey to the multiversal walls. When, after their march to the walls and much to their dismay, the Destructomorphs find the Therioms waiting there, a battle between the two factions ensues. Elykta conjectures that the eye-stones of Demo-Rha’s sceptre must be crushed to save their companions. When the witch attempts to throw a lightning to Masq-Lor, he deflects the blast with his sword, causing Demo-Rha to drop her staff into a crevice in the ground. Due to the energy released by the sceptre, a mysterious arena emerges from the ground between the walls. The Deity, who is responsible for maintaining balance between conflicting forces, appears and explains that, in order to decide who really deserves to own the Key, Masq-Lor and Deptilion must fight in the arena. Deptilion, seeing his plans of supreme power in jeopardy, reluctantly accepts the contest in the arena. Although both the opponents are enhanced by the power of the Key transferred into two prodigious weapons, it is Masq-Lor who becomes the ultimate winner. Using all his strength, the hero even succeeds in separating the defeated Deptilion from his twin brother Herrion, who for many years has lived unbeknown to everybody inside the body of the Destructomorph leader, giving him much of his vigour. Deptilion, vowing revenge, manages to flee and Masq-Lor tricks Demo-Rha into giving him the recovered (but now useless) sceptre in exchange of one of the halberds from the Key. Demo-Rha consents and Masq-Lor transfers the energy of the arena back into the sceptre. He pulls out the magical eye-stones and begins to squeeze them, but the arena starts collapsing into the ground, taking the hero with it. Upon breaking the stones, the vanished Therioms are safely transported back to Tahron and Masq-Lor resurfaces from the debris. Later at Theriom City, everyone celebrates the completed reunion of Tir-Hing’s family, even if, unfortunately, the threat of Deptilion is far from over.
Overall, I don't only find Mal-Ah-Kros to be an outstanding figure (there’s no doubt about it), I genuinely think he is the best Destructomorph figure created so far... sorry Ah-Rak! This figure got turned from a potential weird crab-man into a solid surreal alien, and I love it. I can’t decide whether to pose him with his eyes in or out, with or without his bazooka, with or without his shell... but no matter what I do, this creepy arthropod is awesome and easily a candidate for figure of the year. I hope that PoliganToys will remember the possibilities of the great execution Mal-Ah-Kros represents when considering the near future of the KR line, since there are a few figures still left to be done.
About the comic, well, it's simply one of the best so far, both in terms of plot and illustrations. The fight between Masq-Lor and Deptilion in their Ultra configuration is amazing. And, ***HUGE SPOILER***, discovering that Deptilion is actually Tir-Hing’s brother and is also responsible for his children’s abduction, damn, is unsurpassable!
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