KR|Origin Review #26: Origin Weapons Pack

In my final review for the KR|Origin series, I'm taking a look at a brand new type of unit to the line – a Weapons Pack!

I've never reviewed any KR item that can be classified as an accessory before, but after this one, I really hope the tradition continues.

And bear in mind that this is not just any weapons pack. This is mostly the Origin Edition of a pair of devices that we already saw in the regular series, the Trinergon^TM weapons!

Within this set we also get repaints of the halberds that already came with several figures in the line (made different to mimic the final act of the Origin story) and even an assortment of new pieces.

That is my say for the introduction, short and sweet. Let’s run down the items in ascending order of preference, so I can end with what I consider to be the best piece in the set.

Elykta's light-cape

While the Origin Edition of Elykta came with the shadow-cape, in the regular series her figure was equipped with a luminous mantle that, once spread out, fictionally allowed her to turn into a flying light sphere. So far, Elykta's regular version has been the only figure provided with a real fabric accessory and I always wondered how it would be to replace that cloth piece with a rigid plastic component. Well, here we get the opportunity to display Elykta with a rigid spreading-out cape. And even if this piece is actually intended as a way to transform Origin Elykta into a new version of her future self, there's no reason we can't use it with the regular figure. The cape, which clips at the wrists and flips open, is made of a translucent glow-in-the-dark plastic and is ornamented on the two sides with a combination of silver/gold reflective stickers and orange/yellow fluorescent decals that form a complex line-design.

Loghar's hand effects

The pack includes a pair of alternate spell-casting hands for the Origin Edition of Loghar along with an update of the magic effect pieces. When plugged into the hands' palms, the effect pieces allow us to recreate Loghar's powers in a more credible way than with the original shield-like effects.

Reptonoid Troopers' skin-flaps

Originally, the Reptonoid Troopers came with two pairs of soft "wings" that connect to the back of the figures. When opened by raising the arms, these membranous structures create a sort of wingsuit that fictionally allows each trooper to glide long distances. If you are not a fan of soft, pliable plastic, then you'll be happy to find in this pack a rigid version of those skin flaps. Each of those pieces is formed of a curved element, which attaches to the belt on the back of the Trooper, and two flaps that seemingly extend between the arms and the sides of the body.

Trinergon devices

The first items in the top three are two faithful replicas of the trinergon gears that came with Ultra Masq-Lor and Ultra Deptilion, and that in the Origin comics are worn and handled by Galamars and Dark Flash. Each two-piece snap-on harness comes in black and features some vac-metalised details (silver in one case, copper in the other), including a shiny Key-inspired symbol on the front, while the back consists of a technological backpack, which has a ton of small sculpted embellishments. The right side of the pack has a holster to store the trinergon weapon, which looks a bit like a rifle (again, silver or copper) with two translucent blades (respectively yellow or blue) at the end of two opposite sides of the barrel. The blades, like the harness symbol, resemble two of the four components of the Key. The weapon has a cord that runs to the backpack where it is permanently attached.

There are a few differences between this variant and the original version of this accessory. First of all, there's no battery-operated feature, which I don't mind at all due to my allergy to batteries. Second, no clip-on armour for protecting the right arm of the wearer is included, which I mind a little bit. Finally, the pieces that in the original gear formed the IR transmitter and receiver, and were located over the figure's shoulders, here are detached, although they're still connected to the backpack via some sort of technological tendrils (which are flexible, but not bendy). Additionally, those "IR" pieces look like "blown-up", in such a way that they show the components of a mechanism similar to a lock. Here's where the action feature kicks in. In the comics, the trinergon weapons are activated by the halberds that compose the Key - each of the four halberds is inserted into one of those "locks" (two per backpack) and turned to energise the weapons. The inserting/turning feature works with the halberds that came with a number of figures belonging either to the Origin series or even to the regular series, and each halberd fits the wards of one particular lock.

After the trinergon weapons are activated, these are shown to shoot absorbing streams towards Bi-Harr's heads. The two streams come in the form of effects made of rigid, translucent (yellow and blue) plastic cast in a wave-like shape, and can be snapped onto the ends of the weapons' barrels.

Stylised Trinergon harnesses.

Powered halberds

In the comics, Bi-Harr's mental powers are drained by the absorbing streams from his heads into the trinergon weapons. Then, each power travels along the cord, reaches the backpack and finally splits and flows through the techno-tendrils towards the two halberds, where it's stored. I really like the sparkling look of the halberds after Bi-Harr's powers are trapped, it reminds me of a night sky filled with stars. So, the pack contains four beautiful halberd repaints, made of translucent black plastic with glitter mixed in. Like with the traditional halberds from both the regular and the Origin series, these four pieces can be combined to form the Key; this is done by joining the weapons two by two via small tabs between them and then fitting the two pairs of halberds together via two small slit-shaped recesses.

Key and pillar-lock

At the end of the Origin story, the heroes reach a building at the centre of the multiversal walls site, where King Khon-Uhr assembles the Key from the four powered halberds and thrusts it into a slot on the top of a short pillar. The Key turns in the slot and is slightly pulled inside the pillar, releasing the powers it contains. The powers travel across the ground, making the stones of which it is composed glow, and reach the two trinergon gears, which in the meantime have been plugged into two niches in the building's walls by means of their techno-locks. More radiant energy emanates from the trinergon blasters and flows through the walls (again making the stones glow) towards two ball-shaped structures on top of the building. A lightning-like flow of energy is created between the two spheres and intercepted by a rod in the middle. A machine in Theriom City (supposedly supplied with energy by crystals similar to those that power the antykytron) produces a ray in the direction of the rod, subsequently generating two beams toward the two multiversal walls; these beams open two inter-dimensional portals and send the mental powers to two alternate dimensions. Once the powers are transferred completely, all the machinery stops functioning and the gates of the two walls shut, closing the inter-dimensional portals. Afterwards, the Key is extracted from the pillar and the central building begins to sink. Wow, I wish all this could be made in toy form. But no, we "only" get a new assembled Key and a pillar.

The Key is one solid piece (i.e., it cannot be separated into the four halberds) and is done in a new hybrid deco, with the classic silver colour transitioning into the powered Key look, to mimic the transfer of the powers into the pillar. However, the powered part, which matches the four halberds included in this pack, is not translucent and filled with glitter, but painted black and sparkled with grey paint.

The pillar has an amazing design and is, in my opinion, the highlight of this pack. It's got plenty of realistic detailing and a superb paint wash on; its rock surface shows a variety of textures, from the slate tiles to the granite substrate, giving the piece depth and detail. The trademark Theriom emblem over the face has a wonderful wood grain and metal texture. Plus, you can slide the Key (any assembled Key) into the slot in the top part, where it turns and drops down a bit.

Overall, the Trinergon devices, the hybrid Key and the pillar-lock really make this set, but there are some nice retool options too. I love that PoliganToys listened to some of my complaints, and used some of the pieces to give the characters diversity and option to be displayed in alternative styles. Of course, the downside to getting big accessories in the pack is that those took up most of the budget for this set and several other smaller weapons had to be left out. It is a trade-off, and I think they made the right choices on what to include and what not to include, because, in the end, the Trinergon weapons are worth it. I really hope there will be other packs of this kind in the future. Oh, yes, the future... stay tuned, because we'll be back soon to present a completely new KR series!

KR|Origin Review #25: Shaurus

While this year I've reviewed a fairly respectable brood of reptilian beings, there's always room for one more. Enter Shaurus^TM, the most gruesome of the Reptonoids and the KR|Origin final figure!

This 21^st action figure prototype of the Origin series is one of the best I’ve reviewed in 2017, up there with Galamars, Denortos and Gollyop. He’s got an excellent look, he’s just creepy and menacing all around, and really stands out on the shelf.

Besides, the idea of a dead mammalian creature, revived and transformed into a hideous monster by infesting snakes, and destined to participate in the creation of the main villain in the regular series, well, seems really awesome to me!

Details

Name: Shaurus

Subtitle: gruesome warmaster

Classification: the reanimated corpse of a catlipomor* that was turned into an irrational zombie-like creature by snaky parasites

Sex: male

Home: Tahron

Era: 520 years before Masq-Lor's time (now renamed Foundation)

Affiliation: Reptonoid

Rank: officer.

*Catlipomors^TM are fictional rare intelligent hybrid mammals, composed of the parts of several animals.

Background

First appearance: KR|Origin #3 - Battle for Tahron: Part II – Bi-Harr’s retribution

Brief bio: a nonspeaking, blood-thirsty undead beast from the Northern Forest, Shaurus drew Bi-Harr's attention after he showed his ability to cruelly stalk mammalian creatures, entangle them with his powerful long arms and torture them with the many snakes parasitising his body. Quickly enlisted into the Reptonoid troops, Shaurus often acted as a thoughtless, heartless enforcer during the war against the Therioms. While this made many heroic warriors perish through his brutality, it also drove him yet more insane, leading Bi-Harr to dismiss him because unfit for combat and imprison him in a dungeon beneath Rokang Tar for several centuries, waiting to find a way to tame him. He was at long last released by his master, to serve in battle once again, after a new generation of enemies threatened Bi-Harr's dream of conquest. During an epic conflict between several factions, the sorcerer Sphenorat merged an injured rogue Theriom member named Ir-Ash^TM with the monster, saving the defector's life and transforming him in an even crueller monstrosity, one of the most dangerous ever appeared on Tahron.

Articulation

Standard in the humanoid upper body; in the quadrupedal lower body, besides a ball jointed triple-tail, each leg features three hinge joints: at the shoulder/hip, at the knee/hock and at the fetlock.

Description

Head: vaguely similar to a horse skull, characterised by a yellowish-ivory colour, a mane composed of a multitude of dark-green living snakes and a strip of light-brown hair (the latter running centrally from the middle of the forehead to the back of the neck, where it develops into a fairly long ponytail made of four rattlesnake tails), a pair of bull-like horns (displaying growth rings typical of goats), evil large hollow eye sockets that emit a faint red glow, a beak-shaped nose, two whitish tusks that split apart at the ends, several sharp orange teeth that protrude from the mouth and short tufts of light-brown hair on the chin and cheeks. The larger snakes in his "serpent-hair" are bendy, whereas the smaller ones are not (but they are flexible)

Body: centaur structure, grey skin partly covered in scales and partly in warts. The upper body is composed of a cadaverous torso and a pair of long snake-like arms that end with large black-clawed hands. The quadrupedal part of the body shows lizard-like features, long slender legs with subtle fin-like ridges down the sides, three-toed black-hoofed feet, and three long slim tails partly covered with light-brown hair and ending in rattles. His body shows several yellowish-ivory bony details, such as the upper rib cage and spine, rings and ridges along the arms, an obvious quadrupedal spine ridge (with a pair of processes that look like tiny, ragged wings, which help him seem a little demonic), and spikes sticking out of the front knees and of the back of the hind light-brown hairy cannon bones. Additionally, three dark-green snakes are coiled around the left arm, the right front leg and the left hind leg; however, these snakes are bendy and fully removable, and allow for a number of display options

Wearables: a brown armour with dark-green details (including elements similar to eyes and fangs, giving the armour a subtle snake face look), two brown studded bracelets (with a slithering snake pattern between the studs), two front brown cannon bone protectors (with a gem-eyed, gaping-mouthed snake face design; the feet are coloured in brown like the greaves, suggesting that they might actually be toeless boots), two hind brown gaskin protectors (similar in design to the front greaves, but much simpler), a brown studded belt (whose buckle recalls the Reptonoid symbol, i.e., a reptile red eye) and a dark-green furry loincloth/peytral accompanied by two scaly tassets decorated with fang motifs.

Shaurus' stylised armour.

Action feature

In the comics, Shaurus has the ability to use his lengthy, strong arms to get hold of his foes. The figure's bendable arms are beautifully sculpted and long enough (25 cm -around 10”- each!) to coil round three standard figures at once. The great thing is that, owing to its centaur body structure, the figure won't fall over because of the arms' weight. It is also worth noting that all the bendy parts in this figure feel sturdy and flexible, and are really good, easily some of the better I’ve dealt with in this line.

Moreover, Shaurus is able to use the snakes that infest his body for further entangling his enemies. So, the figure can be displayed in a sort of snake-attack mode thanks to a set of alternative/additional pieces. First of all, his head can be replaced with an alternate one, which features a metallic dark-green helmet (very similar in shape to Deptilion's helmet, equipped with two holes for allowing the horns to emerge and ornamented with a wavy bronze snake on the top) and a number of snakes projecting from several parts of his cranium: two dark-green pythons from the eye sockets, one large blue-green anaconda from his mouth and four light-brown vipers from under the nape protector (supposedly derived from his ponytail). Four additional reddish cobras can be plugged into four sockets on the back of Shaurus' armour, near his shoulders and flanks. Furthermore, each hand can be replaced with an articulated serpent head, which is characterised by an arrow shape, grey scaly skin, a yellowish-ivory bony sagittal crest, a pair of yellow eyes with thin slit-shaped red pupils, a hinged upper jaw and black spikes (reminiscent of the standard hand's claws) sticking out from the brow ridges (four) and from the chin (one). To be honest, I find this a bit confusing, since both the standard hands and the snake heads are quite different from what is shown in the comics, where Shaurus' arms appear to end in something similar to tentacles.

Finally, the figure makes a rapid succession of short, sharp knocking sounds when shaken, similarly to a rattlesnake.

Weapons and accessories

Apart from the alternative head and hands, and the additional plug-in snakes, Shaurus comes with a vicious war club. This heavy wooden weapon is made of a brown core with a thick end, around which two intertwined greenish snakes are coiled. I like this accessory quite a lot, it has tons of detail and, surprisingly, two different plastics in its make up, despite it is supposed to be a one-piece carved stick.

Overall, although I have not decided if I like him or Gollyop more yet, as the final addition to this line I think Shaurus is a definite winner. For the most part, all consideration was given to this badass member of the Reptonoid faction - well-executed sculpting and paint, as well as great looking alternate parts and extra accessories really make him shine. I’m very happy to add him to my collection. Shaurus also makes me remember all the excitement and happiness with the KR line over the last two and half years and what, in terms of prototype production, has been accomplished so far. Wow, so yeah, I look back on the moment, almost a year ago, Kai-Xi stood lonesome on my Origin shelf; now, I'm looking how many of her fellows and enemies I have gotten in my collection during the past 11 months! Again, thanks to PoliganToys for sending me their KR prototypes for this blog. We will be back soon for something completely different in terms of new KR items. Stay tuned!

KR|Origin Review #24: Dark Flash

While I had a ton of fun celebrating my first Thanksgiving in New York City (loved it!), it caused some KR reviews to be delayed. Today, I’ll look at one of the two (but they may be three... we'll see) KR|Origin items for December - Dark Flash!

One of the advantages of writing this blog is that I am given a chance to own figures that I never expected I'd add to my shelf. This 20^th action figure prototype of the Origin series is a great example of this, even if I know that, despite looking like a bit of a Masq-Lor variant, Dark Flash is actually a crucial character at some point of the story.

Details

Name: Dark Flash

Real name: Desion, aka Masq-Lor

Subtitle: disguised hero

Classification: human-primivod hybrid (but he looks completely human)

Sex: male

Home: Tahron

Era: 520 years before Masq-Lor's time (now renamed Foundation)

Affiliation: Theriom

Rank: warrant officer.

Background

First appearance: KR|Origin #2 - Battle for Tahron: Part I – The journey begins

Brief bio: using the power of the Antikythron, The Deity sent Masq-Lor and his heroic companions through a portal to the past of Tahron, back in a time when the newly formed Theriom faction fought for freedom against the Reptonoids. After accomplishing a dangerous mission, Masq-Lor decided not to travel back to the present and, instead, to stay and have a hand in the fierce conflict between the mammalian and reptilian forces. Although his actions would unlikely interfere with the history of Tahron on an overall scale, he was forced to hide his true identity and powers to his own ancestors, in order to avoid creating a time paradox. Armed with special bow and arrows, and disguised in a suit and mask borrowed from his fellow Tauton, Masq-Lor, under the alias Dark Flash, swiftly allied himself with King Khon-Uhr and his knights, assisting them in many battles and even turning the tide of the events in few occasions. During such battles, he acquired the knowledge of several ancient fighting secrets and eventually returned with this mastery to his own time, to finally defeat his archenemy Deptilion once and for all.

Articulation

Standard, except that the right hand is especially engineered with a front-to-back hinge to hold an arrow.

Description

Head: well, it is Masq-Lor wearing a black helmet with a half mask and gold details; a pair of green eyes is visible through the eye-holes, while the mouth, which suggests a daring expression, is surrounded by light brown skin. On the back we can see short tufts of black hair coming out from the base of the helmet

Body: covered from neck to toe with a glossy&matte black armour, whose components are in many instances reused from Myneran's and Elkymor's suits

Wearables: a glossy&matte black cuirass, two black wrist guards, two black leather-and-rope boots with black knee guards and shin guards, a studded black belt and two medieval-style black armoured tassets. Besides these basic components, he wears various glossy&matte black pieces of armour to protect the rest of his body, such as shoulder guards, rerebraces and thigh guards. There is an impressive amount of intricate decorative features all around the various components of this protective covering; I especially like the fine riveted golden edges of the wrist and knee guards, and the little gaps here and there that reveal black-coloured chain mail details beneath the armour. The cuirass displays a vac-metallised golden Theriom emblem on the breastplate, while the belt sports a buckle with a golden bow (and a lightning-shaped arrow) design as well as a few spare arrowheads all the way around. He also carries a black cape that is permanently attached to the cuirass.

Dark Flash's stylised helmet.

Dark Flash's stylised cuirass.

Weapons and accessories

Although Dark Flash is portrayed as a highly skilled archer and swordsman, his figure has no action feature, but it does come with a few great accessories: a dual-arrow bow, a quiver, a sword and a scabbard. The bow is incredible - it's basically a combination of two black recurve bows arranged in an "X"-shape, with two stacked barrel-shaped arrow rests and an additional piece that works as a grip, aiming aid and stabiliser. Conveying the complex construction of this bow with words is quite difficult, but you can get an idea by looking at this crossbow, which is the closest thing to it I found on the web. The two black trick arrows (with golden heads that fictionally possess some specialised functions, such as explosive or drilling) are separate pieces that can be held (one at a time) by the figure's special right hand and can detach from the bow, but there is no spring-loaded mechanism. The black quiver contains several arrows (not removable) and is attached to a loose fitting belt, a separate piece that can be repositioned to one's liking.

The sword, a repainted version of Masq-Lor's basic weapon, has a black hilt and a golden blade, while its black leather scabbard is another separate piece that, like the quiver, is connected to a loose fitting belt.

Overall, despite being a fairly marginal member in the ranks of King Khon-Uhr's servicemen, Dark Flash has got a decent (and extensively reused) sculpt and great accessories. There is a lot to like here and even though we know it is, in fact, Mask-Lor hiding under that suit of armour, the figure has a very unique look to him and if we want, we can easily pretend that he is a completely different character.