KR|Horizon Review #8: Denortos (Horizon Edition)

Toy prototype details

Name: Denortos^TM (Horizon Edition)

Subtitle: alien menace

Line: KR|Horizon

Item type: action figure - Nº 7 in the line.

Character details

Name: Denortos

Classification: uncertain

Sex: male

Home: Cereutis

Era: 15 years after Foundation

Affiliation: Destructomorph (temporarily)

Rank: mercenary.

Background

First appearance: KR|Horizon #3 - The last horizon

Brief bio: a dangerous criminal from the surface of the extra dimension of Cereutis, Denortos lost his left arm and parts of his face during his desperate attempt to impede Wen Kai xi's destiny to become the Deity. Five centuries after being deported back to his dimension and imprisoned for his crimes, he was freed by Deptilion, who armed him with new face components and a powerful shooting arm. The Destructomorph chief marshal offered promises of power and wealth to Denortos in exchange for aid to create a trans-dimensional breach in the multiversal walls, which would allow him to absorb Bi-Harr's ancient mental powers. Under Deptilion's leadership, Denortos travelled to Tahron using a dimensional gateway, but eventually, growing ambitious and vengeful, he reneged on his deal and raised an army of his own to challenge the Therioms. In the end, he was banished from Tahron and forced into his native dimension once again. Despite he renewed his loyalty to Deptilion, the evil overlord punished Denortos by destroying his bionic implants and severing one of his legs from the body, leaving him nearly dead. After he had been found and healed by a mysterious Cereutian medical engineer, he transformed his old bionic arm into a deadly cannon and, returning to Tahron at last, allied himself with Nemhetra's army to determine rule of Tahron once and for all.

Articulation

Standard, except that the left arm has no articulation and the left leg only has a ball hinged knee.

Description

Head: elongated shape, dark-blue (almost black) skin, a strip of spade-shaped imbricate shiny silver scales running centrally from the middle of the forehead to the back of the head (developing into a spiny cranial crest), two short tentacle-like dark-blue antennas, two pairs of curved dark-blue spines pointing backwards where one would expect to find the ears, yellow right eye (with a horizontal slit-shaped dark pupil resembling a series of four small holes, similarly to a Tokay gecko eye) topped with a jagged brow ridge. A bronze guard covers his face partially and is composed of a scalene triangular eye patch (with a sculpted left eye, some fishbone-shaped circuitry, and one of the angles protruding outwards) and a chunky Hannibal Lecter-ish biter mask that protects parts of the two large nostrils and the mouth. This covering, which fits on the head perfectly and stays put thanks to two small notches on the figure’s TMJs, can be removed by gently pulling two truncated cone-shaped bolts on the sides, revealing the missing portion of his face; it looks both beautifully sculpted and rather graphic, showing two half-rows of sharp, piranha-like whitish teeth lining the remainder of his grinning jaws on the right side, and bloody exposed flesh on the left, which suggests the loss of an eye and of half mouth

Body: his dark-blue (almost black) skin is stretched over a series of bony plates with spine-like tubercles, which are arranged in rings throughout his body, giving a general segmented, armoured appearance. His right arm and leg sport claw extremities and large strips of spade-shaped imbricate shiny silver scales running down the sides (a similar stripe also extends from the nape of the neck, divides along the shoulder blades and continues along the back to the loin). He has a short pointy tail emerging from his trunks and protected by a leaf-shaped, spiny-edged dark-blue tail shield, while his abdomen and left pec display surgical sutures closed with stitches by means of metal wires. His organic limbs are characterised by the presence of bronze powered exoframes that allow for movement with increased strength and endurance; their components, which are embellished with a number of cables, run from the shoulder down to the hand and from the hip down to the foot, and fasten to the limbs at various spots, including the upper arm (via an armband bearing a single spike), fingers (via a cyber glove), upper leg (via a spiked thigh guard) and lower leg (via a spiked armoured shin/knee guard). Two bronze prostheses are fitted to the remaining stumps of his severed limbs; these artificial appendages are much simpler replacements compared to the more intricate, lifelike robotic arm he sported in the Foundation series. While the arm is just a short scalene triangular, inarticulate blade, the leg is composed of two parts connected by a flexible joint: a scalene triangular blade-like upper leg and a pegleg-like lower leg. Similarly to the face mask, the triangular bronze parts have some sculpted details such as fishbone-shaped circuitry and Cereutian symbols (each resembling a four-pointed throwing star with what looks like a trilobite embossed in the middle)

Wearables: a glossy black armour with porous light-green details (the two colours alternate clockwise), one black wrist guard (ornamented with studs, a light-green gemstone and a knuckle protector), one black leather boot with a turn-down top, a double black belt (composed of a larger glossy belt bearing a Destructomorph symbol, i.e., a square-shaped blueish spider whose back slightly resembles a demoniac face, as well as some cyber details, and a smaller loose fitting leather belt underneath) and an asymmetric light-green loincloth characterised by a fibrous texture. The armour is removable and shows some tech details, tubes, battle dents and marks, and a silver Cereutian symbol on the front; its two furthest-apart components are connected diagonally via a shoulder belt that also holds a pouch on the back. The right side of the armour also carries a light-green bronze pauldron, which has spiky bolts, rivets and a sort of antenna, and is attached to the armour via a rubber “hinge”.

Denortos' stylised armour; the circle at the centre of the chest piece represents a Cereutian symbol.

Action feature

In the comics, Denortos appears with his former shooting arm refashioned into an extremely powerful and highly sophisticated missile weapon mounted on his right shoulder. So, the figure comes with a silver bronze backpack that snaps into a socket on the back of the armour, and has sculpted wiring, hoses, gauges as well as a gas tank equipped with a pivoting control lever. The right side of the backpack is armed with a rotating missile launcher derived from Denortos' old prosthetic arm; this can be set in either a vertical rest position or a horizontal attack position and is equipped with two projectiles that can be stored diagonally on the left side of the backpack. An additional 2-piece bronze armour is mounted onto the shoulder and the elbow of the outstretched bionic arm, converting it to a deadly weapon and enhancing an already awesome item (with a steel robotic look, showing some little details such as rivets and cables) that helped making Foundation Denortos one of the greatest KR prototypes ever. The butt armour is fastened around the whole shoulder part and is ornamented with bolts, while the side-gun shield is fixed to the elbow and bears some studs as well as a handle and a peg that holds the weapon in place on the backpack's horizontal revolving spindle. The two projectiles are also beautifully sculpted, each having a bronze body equipped with four "stag beetle mandible"-shaped silver blades all the way around. Either missile fits on front of the bazooka (where the wrist and hand used to be), but there's no spring-loaded mechanism to fire it. Apart from working as a mobile backpack launcher, the weapon can be detached and transformed into either a handheld blaster (using the peg as a second handle) or a stationary ground weapon (more on this later).

Weapons and accessories

Denortos comes with a nice assortment of accessories. Apart from the above-mentioned missile launcher backpack, we also get two weapons and two articles of clothing. The first weapon is a light-green toxic gun; this has a semicircular drum magazine that fits around his right forearm and is fictionally designed to shoot a gas that knocks his enemies unconscious (an ability that he used to possess himself).

Additionally, there is his signature silver shield. This is very similar to the bulky, trapezoidal shields that came with the Foundation and Origin figures, except that it's slightly smaller and without hinged fold-out parts. The shield, whose surfaces bear intricate tech patterns, attaches securely either at the figure's right wrist (after removing the green gemstone) or, like the gun, at the back armour (when the backpack is detached) via a peg. When the shield is used as a platform, the bazooka connects to it through an additional articulated piece, which makes it possible to convert the weapon into a stationary ground rocket launcher.

Furthermore, the figure includes a hood and a tattered cloak, both seemingly made of a coarse brown fabric, that can be used to update Denortos' Origin version and make it more similar to his wounded look in the KR|Origin comic books. The hood is meant to be used with the Horizon unmasked head and includes a scarf that covers his mouth and left eye; it snaps into the two small notches that also hold in place the face mask, and comes down over the head naturally. The cloak is pretty much perfect as it fits him well; while the "closed" left side conceals the missing arm completely (even though it's not necessary to remove the left arm), the flowing right side captures those panels from the Origin comic books in which his cloak is windswept. Moreover, there is at least another character that can easily make use of this mantle - to help complete his look, the human(ish) form of Dimness Wordron also needed a similar cloak. So, we are actually able to update two figures for the price of one with this accessory. The only issue with this solution is that since we're not getting two different capes (one with the hood up for Denortos, another with the hood down for Wordron), these were combined into one item, most likely due to cost; when it is worn by Denortos, we can see where the “up” hood is added as a separate piece and the “down” hood is still present on the back of the figure. I'm totally OK with it, since it still works to some degree as additional folds of a larger hood, but it might still look a little strange to someone else.

Finally, there is a fun small accessory - a small shape-shifting object, which possesses the ability to transform from a meteor-like shape into a Cereutian canine-like beast. The gimmick is fairly simple and doesn't require much effort to transform; it's all about pulling the rock halves apart, unfolding the head, tail and legs, and snapping the rock shut. It's perhaps a bit silly, but it's a welcome addition anyway.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦♦ My favourite evil character gets a variant prototype that I had been wanting for quite a while - I find this version blends some of the detailing that I expected on the Origin prototype with some of the cyber look of the Foundation figure

Articulation: ♥♥♥ Even with all the new pieces (minus the artificial limbs), he has all the standard KR joints and nothing is prevented from moving how you want for posing. I’m unsure why PoliganToys couldn't add the articulation to his jaw. The other figures we have gotten had it, so I’m a bit disappointed that this edition doesn’t have it

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ This is one of the best figures of the line to date. Everything except the torso is first-time tooling. The head sculpt is spot on - there’s no doubt that this is the wounded head I was missing for displaying him in the way he appears after his battle injury. His mask is a separate piece to get the Horizon and Origin versions you desire

Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ This figure comes with some accessories that push him into the "must-have" category. The cape used by the Origin version to cover his wounds is an excellent addition. Sure, the articulation is more inhibited with the cape on, but I wouldn't really expect Denortos to be in action poses with this one

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ This figure is fun to pose and he looks great

Overall: ☺☺☺☺ Is he better than the Foundation and Origin versions? I don’t care. He’s definitely the best Horizon version we could possibly get, and is currently in the running for my favourite prototype of the year.

KR|Horizon Review #7: Sajron

Toy prototype details

Name: Sajron^TM

Subtitle: young apprentice hero

Line: KR|Horizon

Item type: action figure - Nº 6 in the line.

Character details

Name: Sajron

Classification: human with one-quarter primivod genetic material

Sex: male

Relationships: son of Desion (Masq-Lor) and Sei-Lha

Home: Tahron

Era: 15 years after Foundation

Affiliation: Theriom

Rank: trainee.

Background

First appearance: KR|Horizon #1 - The Destructomorph legacy

Brief bio: in the years following Deptilion’s defeat, Desion was elected Senior Minister of the Republic, and his wife Sei-Lha, the new enchantress at the service of the Therioms, gave birth to their son Sajron. The boy, blessed with paranormal abilities like his mother, grew up treated indulgently in Theriom City, knowing little of the past five hundred years' war between good and evil, until Nemhetra revived the Destructomorph threat. When Sajron's parents confronted Nemhetra's evil forces, he disobeyed their command to stay safe and instead set to fight alongside the Theriom army. His incredible potential was revealed to him the moment he wore his father’s helmet and, to everybody’s astonishment, successfully transformed into an enhanced warrior, helping turn the tide of the conflict. Because of his new-found passion for military combat, Masq-Lor trained Sajron in the ways of battle before greater evils could return to Tahron. Eventually, he made peace with Nemhetra and soon, together with his father's siblings, undertook the role of protecting the Key and the still-powerful multiversal walls from a fearsome and mysterious new menace. Though still young when first entrusted with the tremendous responsibility of defending Tahron from those baleful forces, Sajron followed in his father's footsteps by quickly growing into his role as a hero.

Articulation

Standard.

Description

Head: olive brown skin, very short box-braided dark-brown hair; his left eye is green, while his right eye is blue. He definitely resembles both his parents

Body: slightly shorter than the adult characters (only 14 cm, around 5.5"), olive brown skin, exposed arms. His hands wear a pair of black leather fingerless gloves

Wearables: an open mustard-yellow vest with silver edges and armholes, two silver bracelets, two silver boots, a belt with an off-white (i.e., a white colour with a grey tinge that looks like tarnished silver) buckle resembling the Theriom symbol (i.e., a seven-pointed star with the two side points elongated), and a pair of mustard-yellow trousers. The vest is worn over a short-sleeved frog-button black shirt (whose mandarin collar is open enough to reveal part of the big gold necklace –given to him by his father– underneath) accompanied by a shoulder belt. Both the shoulder and the waist belts are made of thick silver chain mail punctuated by braided black leather.

Action feature

To make up for being a bit smaller than average and for having few accessories, the figure comes with the materials needed for performing a magic trick, which relates to Sajron's passion for prestidigitation. In fact, in the comics he doesn't seem interested in developing his unfledged paranormal powers, except for performing magic tricks and making them more spectacular. The set includes:
•Two small, beautifully executed boxes, which resemble the two multiversal walls (one silvery/limestone-ish and one golden/sandstone-ish, with the two “portals” on their top sides) and open in a similar fashion to a match box

•Four pairs of cards (each identical pair representing one of the four KR|Foundation factions - Theriom, Destructomorph, Rexodon and Spektrosaur), which fit in either box

•A miniature version of the Key.

To perform the trick, you must open one of the two boxes, show that the drawer is empty, drop one of four different cards inside, close the drawer and lock the box using the small Key. You may want to shake the box, letting your audience hear the card rattle inside. Then, open the second box, show that the drawer is empty, close the drawer and lock the box. Make a big deal about the box being empty - shake it to prove there’s nothing inside. Do some tapping on the first box and say a few magic words, unlock the box, slide out the drawer and show that the box is now empty. Unlock the second box, open it and show that the card is inside it.

Here's how it works. When you lock the first box, you simply turn the Key clockwise (a sculpted curved arrow pointing towards a closed lock symbol will indicate the correct direction), without pushing it down; when you unlock it, you have to push the Key down while you turn it anti-clockwise (also in this case, a sculpted curved arrow pointing towards an open lock symbol will indicate the correct direction), in order to engage a mechanism that makes a hinged side-flap swing down and cover the card inside the box. When you lock the second box, you have to push the Key down while you turn clockwise, to engage an identical mechanism that makes a hinged flap swing up and uncover the card (hidden by you beforehand) inside the box; when you unlock it, you simply turn the Key anti-clockwise, to prevent the mechanism from working. There are little sculpted lines (one horizontal below the open lock and one vertical at the side of the closed lock) that indicate the position into which the flap will move when you push and turn the Key in a specific direction.

The trick has both advantages and disadvantages. The main benefit is that it can be repeated immediately (with the order of the boxes reversed) and with no need to move the flaps back into place before performing. The downsides are that you can't ask the audience to choose a card from the 4-piece deck (you have to choose and prepare it prior to the performance) and that the Key-turning action is a clear indication that some manoeuvring is going on. However, I think it is a quite nice addition, even if someone may see this trick as a rather pointless silly gimmick. Perhaps something that interacts with Sajron would be far more welcome. Update: the figure will include a pretty large, flat "magic burst" effect that fits over Sajron's left hand and shows off his magical powers in action. This yellow magic accessory is kind of opalescent and includes some white stars that are painted to give further depth to the effect.

Weapons and accessories

In the comics, aside from being a dexterous illusionist, Sajron is also depicted as a skilful flail-fighter. So, apart from his magic trick, Sajron comes with a magic wand composed of a relatively long golden-yellow staff that has a flanged silver top ornament on it. This wand has the ability to transform into a two-handed flail consisting of a cylindrical silver striking head attached to the golden-yellow handle by a short (no more than a few links to form a hinge) chain, so that the former swings from the latter. The cylindrical head of this weapon is shaped with seven knife-edged flanges, making it capable of penetrating the enemies' armours with no problem. You can make the staff into either its plain or weaponized version by way of two swappable top pieces.

The figure also comes with an alternative head that wears Masq-Lor's helmet (in its inactive form) as well as an alternate left hand that has sculpted coloured pellets and a plume of smoke emanating from them.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦ I was initially against the entire concept of a son of Masq-Lor, which prevented me from digging this character, but his bio eventually grew on me. I’m into the past, present, and future of Tahron, and it looks like Sajron is pretty much an integral part of the last-mentioned one

Articulation: ♥♥♥ Being a fairly simple figure, he doesn’t suffer any particular loss of the KR-standard articulation, meaning that he can pose much like any other figure

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ The head sculpt, both with and without helmet, is what makes or breaks this figure. He certainly looks related to his parents, and the detail is quite strong, but he also honestly looks a bit older than the teen he is supposed to be. His paint is overall clean, without any really visible errors, and I like that his colour scheme contrasts nicely with his parents' tendencies toward gold, brown or light-blue

Accessories: ♠♠♠ He features a neat smoke bomb hand that’s an interesting effect, even more than the magic trick itself in my opinion

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ Just judging him from a pure figure standpoint, Sajron can be a lot of fun. He can get into any number of battle-ready poses and looks great posing with his wand/flail

Overall: ☺☺☺ Basically, my least favourite figure in the series turns out to be a good toy. If you don’t like Sajron as a character, you will not want him. But if you don’t mind or even enjoy the concept, he’s actually a well-sculpted and decently-made part of the line. He doesn't stand out like some of the great prototypes produced so far in the Horizon series, but he’s a pretty good figure going by his own merits. On a different note - even if it only appears briefly in the comics, I hope one day we'll see the regular scale prototype of his enhanced form.