Combat Sei-LhaTM is one of those figures that was flying a bit under the radar for me, due to everything else that is expected to show up at the end of this year. But I am very pleasantly surprised by her.
PoliganToys has pulled out all the bells and whistles for this 51st action figure prototype. So, let’s take a look at this cool new "Iron Woman" variant of Sei-Lha.
Details
Name: Combat Sei-Lha
Subtitle: brave armoured soldier
Classification: human
Sex: female
Relationships: daughter of Xonedar, Masq-Lor's love interest
Home: Tahron
Affiliation: Theriom
Rank: second lieutenant; expert in electronic & computer engineering and veterinary medicine.
Background
Sei-Lha's first appearance in her combat armour takes place in the 11th KR comic issue Herrion's ordeal. Here, we learn a bit more about Sei-Lha's hyper-technological backpack, which was originally engineered by her father while working alongside Koptros. The two heroes put their invention to the test during their joint service in the Theriom armed forces, but eventually Xonedar reprogrammed the device to be utilised by his daughter. Similarly to Xonedar's body, the backpack is comprised of a series of microscopic technological elements, which can rearrange themselves in innumerable configurations, allowing Sei-Lha to exploit incredible tools in battle against enemies. Now, thanks to her backpack, Sei-Lha can even transform into a cyber-soldier with a spectacular arsenal of fire power.
Articulation
Standard, except that the wrists are ball jointed and there is no hinged abdomen.
Description
Head: protected by a full face silver helmet with light-blue details and a black glass visor. This helmet is a little Boba Fett, a little Iron Man and a little G.I. Joe Cobra Commander, but it works somehow. It includes a removable face plate, which can be magnetically attached to the front (i.e., covering the face) or to the top (i.e., flipped up) of the helmet. The inside of the face plate displays a surprising amount of sculpted features, which make the piece look very high-tech. Sei-Lha's face underneath bears a striking resemblance to the regular figure's face, but has some additional details, such as a light-blue cyber eye mask (with an eye hole on the right and a translucent green scope, for looking in on targets, on the left) and a silver headset microphone that runs down the right cheek
Body: covered from neck to toe with a silver armoured suit with metallic light-blue details. There is an impressive amount of intricate decorative features all around the various components of this suit and, in fact, there are very few spots on the figure that do not have some kind of sculpted tech-mech embellishments, such as cables and tubes, bolts and pistons, gauges and switches. But it all works together and does not get too busy
Wearables: the non-removable chest armour recalls the harness seen with regular Sei-Lha and carries a beautifully sculpted silver Theriom symbol that juts out from the light-blue background of the chest plate, while the armholes look like ammo belts. She also has silver gauntlets, silver thigh protectors, silver boots (with fin-shaped flight control surfaces and jet engines), a silver belt (which also looks a bit like an ammo belt) and a light-blue crotch piece, everything with a lot of great cyber details.
 |
| Combat Sei-Lha's stylised chest armour; the oval at the centre of the chest plate represents a silver version of the Theriom symbol. |
Action feature
Like with Sei-Lha's regular version, the real strength of this figure lies in the add-ons that come with it. First of all, in the comics the armour features multiple blasters that flip out from the wrists, thighs and chest. In the figure, the leg guards and the chest plate flip down (revealing some nice circuitry patterns underneath) and all the metallic light-blue guns are separate pieces that can be added during Sei-Lha's combat mode. We get two pivoting arm guns (which plug into the inner sides of the gauntlets), two knee guns and a chest double-barreled laser cannon (with the barrels that actually move in and out).
Of course, she's always equipped with her silver hyper-technological backpack, which is basically identical to the one that came with the regular figure, but this time it also has some moving and opening parts, to render the suit up machinery seen in the comics. Aside from the exoskeletal armour, the backpack can fictionally produce some other tools, which are included as accessories and can be placed (one at a time) on the figure's back after removing a piece that is comprised of the backpack itself and the shoulder armour (it's necessary to detach the head too). The first accessory is a shoulder/back armour equipped with two weapons (a grenade launcher and a flamethrower, with a separate large-calibre projectile and a blast effect respectively) mounted on two adjustable armatures, so that they can either be set in a vertical rest position or flipped over Sei-Lha's shoulders for attack. The second accessory is another shoulder/back armour equipped with swivelling wings. The wings are incredibly detailed, with hinged air-flaps and sculpted rocket launchers and turbojet engines. Surprisingly, since this is never shown in the comics, the outboard parts of the wings can be disconnected from the central structure and grabbed by Sei-Lha's hands (holding the plugs that normally fit tightly into the inboard parts), perhaps to be used as shields or blades or handheld missile launchers.
Lastly, in the comics the armour is shown, in at least one occasion, to activate a self-operating mode, eject Sei-Lha and then surprise the opponents by suddenly bursting apart. To mimic this autodestruction feature (or, more precisely, the moment immediately before the blast), there is a thin glow-in-the-dark line that splits the front armour in two down the middle. The figure also comes with an alternative full face helmet, which is amazingly sculpted in such a way that it looks like exploding, with shooting parts (especially the face plate) and flames.
Weapons and accessories
Apart from the five plug-in guns, the two additional shoulder/back armours and the exploding helmet, Combat Sei-Lha comes with a few more accessories. First, the figure includes a total of five swappable hands, which add a nice variety for posing. There is one pair of gloved open-palm hands to be used with the pivoting wrist guns, one pair of gloved gripping hands for clutching the wing-weapons and, just for fun, one ungloved relaxed left hand.
Also, the guys at PoliganToys have thought to give us an additional head that is actually meant for regular Sei-Lha, since it's a battle damaged version of her original helmeted head. This is a very nice piece, with the partially crushed and scratched helmet displaying a misshapen microphone, a bent antenna and a broken glass visor. The visor is my favourite detail, exposing a kind of light source used to illuminate the inner display panel when slid into place over Sei-Lha's eyes. The helmet can be removed, revealing a brand new Captain America-style headgear with a beige&brown camouflage colouration.
Finally, the figure includes a surprising weapon that is also meant for a previous Sei-Lha variant. It's an energy whip version of the sword that came with Possessed Sei-Lha, meaning that it has the same greenish oxidised bronze hilt and golden blade tip, both similar to small tridents, at each end. The lash portion is translucent yellow with silvery glitter mixed in and is made of an extremely soft plastic, so it really feels like a whip. I'm not sure about the relationship between this weapon and Combat Sei-Lha, but it's still a welcome addition.
Overall, I like Combat Sei-Lha an awful lot. The sculpt of this figure looks great and has been engineered really well. She has a lot of robotic feel to her and is very unique in both character and appearance. I think she is going to rank higher than I originally thought for my prototype collection. This Combat variant completes all the possible versions of Sei-Lha in the comics. I know a lot of people don’t like too many variants, but this is the kind of thing that makes the line cool to me, so I am very glad to have her as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment