In a tweet directed at potential attendees, the organisers of San Diego Comic-Con gave the impression that this year’s convention (scheduled for July 23 – 26, 2020) could still happen. This despite warnings that the Covid-19 pandemic could last well into summer. Update: soon after I had drafted this post, the organisers behind the annual pop culture celebration, announced with deep regret that there will be no Comic-Con in 2020.
If that “show must go on” approach is serious, PoliganToys' SDCC 2020 exclusive release will be the Queen HolopodianTM!
Now, this large scale figure, officially the sixth in the KR|Foundation series, really makes for a visually stunning addition to the line.
Details
Name: Queen Holopodian
Subtitle: thorny protector
Classification: holopodian*
Relationships: creature venerated by the inhabitants of the island city-state of SemhadarTM; holopodian mutants' biological mother
Sex: female
Home: the depths of the sea between Tahron and the island of Semhadar
Affiliation: Theriom (temporarily)
Rank: ally.
*Holopodians are fictional large-sized echinoderms with some characteristics that are shared with crustaceans.
Articulation
The Queen Holopodian's articulation includes a ball jointed upper neck, a hinged lower neck, a swivel-hinged tail (the end of the tail is made of bendy rubber with a sturdy wire inside for posing) and 14 swivel-hinged legs (four of which feature two additional swivel-hinged joints at the elbows/knees and at the wrists/ankles, plus double hinged fingers/toes parts).
Description
Holopodians are marine, crawling/swimming creatures, though capable of dwelling on land and standing upright over short distances. When upright, the Queen is bipedal in form and her most prominent feature is her greater size compared to other characters, standing around 23 cm (around 9") in height, one and a half times the height of a normal KR figure and double the height of most other holopodian creatures seen in the comics. However, most of the time she either adopts a more hunched stance or remains vaguely "quadrupedal" when walking or sprinting.
The creature's head at first glance appears to be enclosed within a double, roughly spherical black hinged shell covered with long, thick sharp glossy-black spines and partially open, which seems to lack facial features (apart from a pair of green glowing eyes that peek through the serrated opening), until it unfurls like a flower to reveal a star-shaped, bumpy blueish face. When spread out, her head is larger than those of other individuals of the same species and is protected by a broad, crown-shaped carapace, which is composed of spiny, black bony plates derived from the above-mentioned shell. The five "face arms" radiate from a central disc that has a single round nostril, and are connected by a blueish, seemingly muscular membrane. The two top arms exhibit a pair of menacing pinkish eyes (they change colour to adapt to different light intensities), each surrounded by rough, brownish calcified outgrowths, and bear two flat membranous lobes resembling "bat wing"-shaped ears. Below the eyes on either side of the head are tentacle-like fleshy tubes, which inflate when breathing. The bottom arm is a snout-shaped mouth, which can open extremely wide, revealing a threatening upper jaw and four other side/lower mandibles, which are lined with several large, fang-like sharp whitish teeth in the front, followed by circular rows of many small dreadfully jagged teeth. The monster’s complex, large segmented maw is powerful enough to smash through bone and metal and is filled with a black prehensile tongue that can extend from it. The figure is packaged with the spread out head (with mouth closed) as the standard portrait.
With the exception of her face, which is blueish (although you can see some pink flesh on the back of each arm), and underside, which is covered by a series of overlapping, articulated brownish calcified plates that give protection while also providing flexibility, her skin is pinkish and slimy, and bears a number of projections in the form of porous warts. Her back displays four dorsal ridges that run down its length and bear comb-like bands of seemingly vibrating translucent light-blue hairs (which are probably gills), and is equipped with unconnected black armoured shell fragments, which have the same spiny, bony appearance of the head piece and are the remainder of her egg-form's shell (the "eggs" are actually inactive immature forms of adult individuals). An extra Y-shaped, light-blueish chitinous shell on her chest is present in the form of another armoured carapace, which is fictionally so resilient that it's even capable of repelling sustained gunfire. Similar chitinous outer cases protect the penultimate segments of her elongated limbs, which comprise three pairs of forelimbs (one digitigrade and two insect-like) and four pairs of hind limbs (one digitigrade and three insect-like). The two primary arms are long and thin compared to the body core and have webbed, six-fingered hands with four long skeletal middle fingers and a pair of stubbier opposable thumbs. The two primary legs are stocky and end in five-digit webbed feet, with three toes in front (the middle toe has a much longer claw than the other two) and two in back. In addition to her primary limbs, four secondary, much smaller arms and six secondary legs, each ending in a claw-like finger/toe, extend from the centre of her underbelly and tail, respectively. Each primary limb is equipped with three feathery, tendril-like pinkish prehensile appendages fringed with little filaments and terminating in bony teeth-like talons, which are fictionally sticky and can be used for offensive attacks. Finally, she has a long segmented, blade-tipped prehensile tail; the blade design closely resembles a bifurcated telson and acts as a slashing weapon. The tail also has a flat ridge of spines at the base of the telson, which helps the creature swim efficiently.
Action feature
Aside from having great physical strength, holopodians are equipped with wide, armoured carapaces on their heads, into which they are able to withdraw their face and mouth as a means of protection. This structure is also thought to serve as a sort of sensory antenna, allowing the creatures to detect thermal, bioelectric and biochemical signals with great sensitivity. The Queen figure comes with three interchangeable heads: furled, spread out with a closed mouth and spread out with a gaping mouth.
Additionally, these creatures have a fluid maintained under pressure in a water vascular system between a double layer of tissue: an internal layer of bony plates and an external layer of skin. This system is connected to their facial tubes, through which powerful jets of water are expelled from the vascular interspace by alternately contracting their muscles. So, the Queen comes with two spurting water effects that plug into the ends of her muscular siphons snugly.
Weapons and accessories
Apart from the three alternate portraits and the water attachments, the Queen Holopodian only includes two accessories, one of which is another head. However, this head is meant to be used with Kinod in his generic holopodian mutant form. We know that, thanks to a few additional pieces, Kinod can also be displayed as one of his soldiers; these pieces include an alternative head that consists of a spherical bivalve black shell covered with spines and partially open, whose serrated opening allows a pair of evil green glowing eyes to peek through. In the first issue of the KR|Horizon comic book series, we meet TenopharTM, the last surviving member of Kinod's army and unauthorised guardian of Dekropolis, who shows that, like the bestial holopodians, he can spread out his head-shell to reveal a star-shaped, bumpy face. This unfurled version of the head looks different from both Kinod's and the Queen's heads. While its back is still protected by a spiny black carapace, the five "arms" are connected by a pinkish, seemingly muscular membrane and radiate from a central disc that has an anthropoid brownish calcified nose. The two blueish top arms exhibit a pair of evil pinkish eyes, which are topped by rough, brownish brow ridges and bear two elongated lobes resembling sensory appendages. Below the eyes on either side of the head are bunches of tendril-like pinkish filaments, which look like the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish. The blueish bottom arm is similar to a protruding chin and carries a humanoid mouth, which is slightly open and reveals several sharp whitish teeth. It's interesting to note that this head was originally depicted as similar to the entirety of a shell-less, green-eyed pink jellyfish, with a number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth; this concept design was finally discarded because considered too similar to Cthulhu.
The other accessory is a repaint of Xehrea's trident, which has been retooled slightly in order to be grasped by Tenophar. This weapon is a metallic dark-blue staff that has a trishula-like trident at one end and a swordbreaker blade at the other end, and features a translucent light-blue gem at the base of the central prong.
PoliganToys usually excels in the sculpting category, and the Holopodian Queen is no exception. Every little crevice of bony carapace is rendered beautifully, and as far as I can tell, looks exactly like the comic book version. Some might argue that the Queen, though big, is still too small; I'd say that compared to the standard figure, the scale looks right. The paintjob really brings out the intricate sculpt, displaying an appropriate salmon-pink skin tone with washes of shiny slime and brownish sand all over her. Apart from several heads, there's not many accessories here - you don't get much in quantity, but the quality is there. In the comics, the egg-laying queen possesses a large brood chamber attached to her lower torso; the inclusion of this egg sack would have definitely been great. The figure is only hurt by use of soft rubber pieces in several areas of articulation to allow movement, which may decay over time. Even with these minor problems, it's edging extremely close to a 10/10 rating, and really has the potential to be a crown jewel for any collector of KR figures. This is (hopefully) popping up at SDCC 2020, so be sure to check it out if you're attending.
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