Toy prototype details
Name: SpelekosTM
Subtitle: alien ally
Line: KR|Horizon
Item type: action figure (dual figure) - Nº 14 in the line.
Character details
Name: Spelekos
Classification: uncertain
Sex: male
Relationships: brother of Denortos
Home: Cereutis
Era: 15 years after Foundation
Affiliation: Theriom (temporarily)
Rank: volunteer.
Background
First appearance: KR|Horizon #3 - The last horizon
Brief bio: originally a mercenary outcast from Cereutis, Spelekos became an unwitting pawn of his brother Denortos when, following his escape from a Cereutian supermax prison, he sent him to Tahron to recover an ancient trans-dimensional device in the form of a mask, which had been created by the Royal Council of Thinkers but had been lost and damaged during a battle between the Therioms and the Reptonoids. In a chance fight with Ir-AshTM, when Spelekos tried to use the retrieved broken device to kill his opponent, its power backfired on himself and accidentally fused him with the mask. Now permanently connected to a higher-dimensional reality, at first he agreed to help Denortos in a plot to annihilate the Therioms and conquer Tahron, but eventually, moved by his conscience, he betrayed his brother and turned him in to the Multiversal Balancers. Denortos could never forgive Spelekos for his decision and, after being unexpectedly freed from prison by Deptilion, he placed a bounty on his brother's head, forcing him to live on the run. Years later, although initially conflicted and reluctant to return to Tahron after his life of crime, Spelekos decided to go into self-imposed exile and defected to the Therioms, in order to put his powers to good use and stop Denortos from wreaking havoc once again. At last, his heroism compelled him to clash with his brother in battle, and to sacrifice himself for saving Masq-Lor's and his siblings' lives during their final conflict with Nemhetra.
Articulation
Description
Head: his face is protected by a full mask composed of an orange copper diadem (bearing three silver studs on the top edge) and a Cobra Commander-style silver reflective covering resembling a mirror. He sports a thick mane of long, cylindrical spine-like dark-blue (almost black) appendages embellished with engraved silver rings, which look like gnarly dreadlocks and hang down along his neck and back
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 limbs 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). Finally, he has a short pointy tail emerging from his trunks and protected by a leaf-shaped, spiny-edged dark-blue tail shield
Wearables: a metallic dark-blue armour with orange details (including various copper studs and intricately painted metallic highlights), two metallic dark-blue gauntlets, two metallic dark-blue boots, a metallic dark-blue belt (displaying a small horizontal pocket on the back) and a ridged orange crotch piece. Additionally, the figure wears a large copper removable belt that is ornamented with a pointed dark-blue strip of fabric as well as three round, mirror-like copper-edged silver plates hanging from the front (another plate is located on the back).
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| Spelekos' stylised armour. |
Action feature
In the comics, Spelekos wears a reflective mask, allegedly to hide a severe facial disfigurement, but in reality to conceal a large hole in his head in place of a face. This hole leads to a higher-dimensional reality, into which he can suck his opponents or allies similarly to a black hole. During the events of The last horizon, Spelekos absorbs Ki-Wun, Merados and Zor-Kan, who are then elevated to a higher-dimensional state, making them acquire human-like qualities such as an anthropomorphic appearance, advanced mental skills and sophisticated fighting abilities. Subsequently, Spelekos brings them in their new form back to their original world, but since his body is linked to the alternative reality and transferring a higher-dimensional being to a lower-dimensional reality creates a paradox, he is erased from existence. So, the figure will be released in a 2-pack that will include Spelekos and one of three possible post-transformation animal variants, which are all 16 cm (around 6") tall and fully articulated. As I'm going to describe below, each figure has a newly sculpted head, tail, weapon as well as a large snap-on armed gauntlet that replaces the standard left hand and works both as an armoured glove and as a sleeve armour. Each one also carries a rubbery removable neck piece, which fits right on top of the body to give it a larger, more animal-like appearance, and a cuirass that has a design very similar to Spelekos' armour. Except for some details, the rest of each figure is reused/repainted from a previous character.
Ki-Wun's head is similar to a cougar and is characterised by a round shape, thick tawny fur, erect ears, yellow eyes, white hair bundles at the cheeks (yes, he's getting old and he's growing white hair), sharp canine teeth and a large pointed, spiralling dark-brown horn projecting from his forehead. With the exception of the belt-plus-loincloth piece, he mostly reuses Foundation Tir-Hing's body, which shows thick tawny fur with white bands on the back. His right hand and both feet bear sharp claws, while a long tawny tail with a white hairy tuft at its end emerges from under his loincloth. Additionally, his neck piece mimics a white furry collar. Ki-Wun wears a lamellar brown leather armour with gold details, a brown wrist guard on the right arm, two brown calf protectors, a brown leather belt and a slightly long golden scale armour loincloth. His left-hand bronze gauntlet resembles a feline's head, which has golden details as well as a hinged sharp-toothed lower jaw, while his weapon is a flying claw consisting of a golden handle and a large, mean-looking 3-claw bronze&gold paw on the end of a wave-shaped, rigid brown rope.
Merados' head is similar to a horse and is characterised by a reddish-brown covering of hair, a wide silver stripe down the middle of the face and a standing, mohawk-like black mane. His upper body is mostly a reuse of Tir-Hing's torso (whose coat is reddish-brown with a broad dark dorsal stripe on the back, and white on the front) and Bellius' slightly-longer-than-average arms (whose coat is white), while his lower body is a brand new sculpt, in which the legs are covered with silver chain mail trousers, the feet are brown solid hooves, and a flawing black tail emerges through the back of the trousers. His neck piece mimics a zebra-like collar with stripes that seem to be composed of imbricate shiny silver scales on a black background. Merados wears a metallic purple armour with silver details. His left arm bears a silver armband, while the right arm has a silver spaulder and a newly sculpted metallic purple armoured glove (equipped with a hoof-like silver knuckle protector) that are connected by a sort of silver exoskeletal device. He also wears a pair of metallic purple armoured chaps, which are fastened to the trousers with their silver eight-pointed star-buckled metallic purple integrated cartridge/holster belt, and carry a coiled lasso strapped to the right thigh as well as a pair of silver rotating spurs towards the feet. His left-hand gauntlet consists of a huge high-tech gunmetal (i.e., a grey colour that has a blueish-purplish tinge) revolver type pistol with silver details (including a real revolving cylinder), while his weapon is a silver revolving rifle that can be stowed into the belt holster.
Zor-Kan's head is similar to an eagle and is characterised by green beady eyes surrounded by dark-red feathers, and a hooked yellow beak. She also sports highly elaborate, elongated, colourful (scarlet, green, black/dark-blue and golden-yellow) feathers extending towards the back similarly to hair. She mostly reuses Alatryx's body, which shows the limbs covered with scarlet feathers. Her right hand and both feet are scaly and dull yellow, and bear large black talons (three of which point forward and one goes backward in each foot). Her neck piece mimics a light-orange ruff marked with black stripes, while her long tail is rimmed by black feathers spotted with reddish-brown marks and includes two much longer black feathers, each ending in a reddish-brown fan. Finally, she has two pairs of fairly large dark-red, blue tipped ball hinged wings, two of which are attached to the shoulder guards and two to the lower back. Zor-Kan wears a laminar orange-brown armour with pearl-white details, an orange-brown bracelet on the right arm, two knee-high orange-brown calf protectors, an orange-brown belt and a pearl-white feathery loincloth. Her left-hand golden-yellow gauntlet resembles a bird of prey's claw, which displays three jackknife-shaped pearl-white hinged talons (two pointing downward and one in the middle pointing upward), while her weapon is a sword with a rust blade and a pearl-white cross guard whose design is reminiscent of a pair of wings.
Weapons and accessories
Apart from his alternative form, Spelekos comes with a shield composed of a copper disc resembling a Cereutian symbol (i.e., a four-pointed throwing star with what looks like a trilobite embossed in the centre), as well as two large "stag beetle mandible"-shaped silver blades and a fan-shaped blueish-grey blade sticking out of the disc's rim and positioned at 120° to each other (at the bottom and at the top, respectively). The bladed upper part can be pulled out to enlarge the shield, exposing a mirror-like shining surface that blinds attackers and deflects blasts (in reality a lenticular sticker that gives an illusion of a flash of reflected light). Although in the comics the shield is also shown to be capable of transforming into a flying carpet/cape that is used by Spelekos as a form of transportation and can quickly carry him to any destinations, no accessory related to this ability is included.
Additionally, there is an alternate face piece that can replace Spelekos' standard one and displays the open out reflective face mask (forming four projecting khopesh-shaped silver blades) as well as the trans-dimensional hole in the centre. Also, an included translucent blue blast effect can plug snugly into the face hole - this starts off as wild energy, and then turns into a bundle of tendrils at the end, which can clamp around another figure’s face in order to absorb them into the alternative reality.
Final thoughts
Character value: ♦♦♦ I kind of consider these prototypes as tribute figures from PoliganToys. Don't get me wrong, I love them and I really hope they'll continue to produce similar items - it's a great way to expand the KR line while also offering up some cool series-themed characters that are rather unique
Articulation: ♥♥♥♥ The articulation on the figures is pretty solid and the joints have a great range of motion
Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ All the characters feature a mixture of new elements and many reused parts from previous figures; even most of Spelekos' body parts are reused from Foundation and Origin Denortos. Still, it's the overall presentation and paintjob that really make these guys stand out. The paintwork on the three animal variants is excellent and really does pay homage to their original designs. The colours pop and the addition of the new armours truly ties the figures together as they beautifully match the look of Spelekos' cuirass. The separate neck piece that slides over the torso when the head is removed is a cool way of adding some more personality to the figures
Accessories: ♠♠♠♠ All the accessories are great, but I particularly love Spelekos' shield! The copper disc is gorgeous and goes beautifully with the metallic grey blades. It's a sort of very elegant looking design in my opinion, and the figure looks magnificent carrying it
Playability: ♪♪♪♪ These toys are a lot of fun, loaded with articulation and accessories, and the choice of pieces to construct them works really well
Overall: ☺☺☺☺ Although Spelekos is another epic figure in this line, I actually like the three animal variants more than him. Still, the tight joints, cool weapons, and fitting portraits make this dual figure an excellent entry. I really like this set and I'm sure lots of potential KR collectors would dig it too.
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