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Sunday 17 January 2021

KR|Emergence Review #2: Bi-Harr (Emergence Edition)

Toy prototype details
Name: Bi-HarrTM (Emergence Edition), aka Combat Bi-Harr
Subtitle: double-headed general
Line: KR|Emergence
Item type: action figure - Nº 2 in the line.

Character details
Name: Bi-Harr
Real name: Anfis
Classification: archosauromorph reptile
Sex: male
Home: Tahron
Era: 3 years before Foundation
Affiliation: Rexodon
Rank: general.

Background
First appearance: KR|Emergence #1 - The cradle of evil
Brief bio: born as an abomination, over the years the dual-headed creature Anfis became a blessing for the reptilian species. Thanks to his two minds working together, Anfis turned out to be cleverer than any other living beings, and could develop incredible mental abilities such as knowledge absorption and thought manipulation, which allowed him to act as a master strategist and deceiver. Eventually, taking the name Bi-Harr, he raised the Reptonoid army and challenged the free mammalian people for rule over Tahron. Being gifted with twice the brain power of his rivals, his tactical advantage was doubled and allowed him to defeat several leaders of the Therioms, including King Tah-Ron and his son Khon-Uhr. However, the mammalian heroes finally succeeded in trapping his dangerous mental abilities beyond the multiversal walls. Centuries later, in order to overthrow the Theriom's authority with his military force now named Rexodon, a weakened Bi-Harr tasked the reptilian sorcerer and engineer Loghar with using magic and science to extract part of the mystical energy fluid from the homonymous stone and infuse it into a body armour. Possessing the same incredible power the stone had produced to regenerate life on Tahron, the armour worn by Bi-Harr gave him the ability to enhance his strength greatly and to wield highly destructive weapons. While his ultimate goal was to use the enchanted armour for recovering his powers from their extra-dimensional lock-up, Bi-Harr was finally thwarted by his former ally Lor-Drek, who damaged the protective covering in a fierce battle at Rokang Tar.

Associated SpawnCrystal
Name: Energy Rod (or Energy Wand)
Shape: singly terminated (i.e., pointed on one end) octagonal prism
Colour: yellow
Corresponding element: earth
Powers and capabilities: increasing strength and power
Creator: Multiversal Balancer SumyakTM
History: after the impact of a meteor had devastated the Earth environment, mainly through a lingering impact winter that triggered an ecological collapse and a subsequent mass extinction event, Sumyak embedded the Energy Rod into a piece of black rock and sent it to the land which became known as Tahron, aiming at creating a mass transformation process that would restore the original potential of the entire planet's biological evolution. The rock, later named energy stone, fell into the ocean bordering Tahron and, by absorbing vital force from the surrounding nonendangered life forms, produced an ethereal orange fluid that spread over the entire terraqueous area and bonded with all the living beings at risk of extinction. Once bonded to a host, the energy fluid could inject life force into it as well as turn it into a stronger, more evolved organism with a greater ability to survive and reproduce. Millions of years later, the evil reptilian sorcerer and scientist Khronodon unearthed the energy stone from the bottom of the ocean, allowing the Reptonoids to use it for absorbing vital force from hapless prisoners and to consume the exuded fluid for enhancing their fighting skills. When Bi-Harr led his people in a war against the Therioms, he attempted to use the stone's power as a weapon to destroy the mammalian enemies and start a new era of reptile dominance on Tahron, only to be thwarted by King Tah-Ron. While it was thought to have been destroyed during a fierce battle between Khronodon and the sage warrior-wizard Ki-Shudan (with only a small fragment salvaged by the latter, which generated the stone of deterrence eventually given to Elykta), the energy stone was actually hidden away in a vault beneath Rokang Tar. Before Bi-Harr's mental abilities were trapped beyond the multiversal walls by the Therioms, a powerful and bad-tempered Reptonoid wizard named Mohrdax betrayed his fellow reptilian warriors and, using the combined magic of the energy stone and another powerful relic connected to the SpawnCrystals -the orb of omens-, unsuccessfully attempted to steal those cerebral powers for himself, although some of the magic of the two artefacts was infused into his twin swords. Eventually, while Loghar planned to utilise the energy fluid to potentiate suits of armour for Bi-Harr and his soldiers, Khronodon succeeded in extracting the essence of the Energy Rod from the stone and producing the yellow shards. After the temporary defeat of the reptilian forces, Tir-Hing and Elykta hid the energy stone deep inside the labyrinth-cave in the Bay of Sortok, to prevent their enemies from retrieving it again, and entrusted it to the six-armed oceanic creature Colotros to keep it safe. Over the years, the quest for the stone and the wish to tap into its powers for both good and evil began to spread around Tahron, until Deptilion, the leader of the Destructomorphs, confronted the Therioms to access the energy source, finally failing in his exploit and destroying the powerful relic for good.

Articulation
Standard, with one additional neck.

Description
Most of his body (excluding the worn items) uses the same sculpt as Foundation Bi-Harr's (except for one head that is reused from his Origin edition), although, to render his “charged up” status, the whole figure has been cast in a cool semi-translucent glow-in-the-dark light-green and has been painted in very bright versions of his original colours, with either uncoated parts or darker paint detailing some features here and there.
Left head: similar to a Pachycephalosaurus, characterised by wrinkled dark-blueish skin, a large bony dome atop its skull, a pair of large amber eyes with vertical black pupils, a muzzle ending in a pointed reddish beak (with a wide open mouth that shows small sharp yellowish teeth along the edges of the jaws), and a fairly long, thick neck. The dome's rear side is edged with yellowish bony bulges, which extend towards each eye forming a sort of bumpy eyebrow, while a number of short yellowish bony spikes project upwards from the snout (the most central of these spikes is covered in skin)
Right head: vaguely similar to an Apatosaurus (or a similar sauropod), characterised by scaly reddish skin, a large brown cranial crest, two short ossicones covered in skin, a pair of large light-blue eyes with vertical red pupils, several sharp white teeth lining the wide open mouth, and a thick neck (slightly longer than its counterpart's)
Body: the left arm shows a wrinkled dark-blueish skin with several yellowish bony bumps, while the right leg shows a scaly reddish skin with a large brown ridge running down the side; the newly sculpted upper right arm and upper left leg are protected by a shoulder/biceps armour and a thigh/knee armour, respectively. Where visible, he displays claw hands and feet. Under the removable armour, the torso is the same convoluted piece (representing his elongated tubular body running from one head to the other) used for Foundation Bi-Harr, with the same tremendously intricate structure and visible overlap of the two body types, where the wrinkled and the scaly skins melt into each other
Wearables: a dual-layered armour (the lower layer is made of brown leather, while the upper layer is mostly made of silver lames and bears two collars on the top, a spaulder on the left, and a holographic indicator on the front, right below the gap between the two collars), yellowish leather fingerless-glove and sandal-boot on the left limbs, brass bracelet and boot (all decorated with arabesque patterns) on the right limbs, a studded brass belt and an asymmetric loincloth. There is quite a bit of detail in the armour's design, mainly in the forms of cables and hydraulics; the back features a panel/tank with some sculpted wires moulding into the protective covering as well as two real translucent amber wires connecting the cuirass to the arm and leg armours. The collars are embossed with two different designs: a round pattern on the left and a diamond-shaped pattern on the right; these patterns are also replicated on the two shoulder protectors as well as on the arm and leg armours, which, like the collars, are made of two different metals: copper on the left side and brass on the right side. The two halves of the asymmetric loincloth are also made of different materials: tawny fur on the left and scale armour (consisting of several overlapping copper plates laced together) on the right. The brass belt (which is also decorated with round studs on the left side and diamond studs on the right side) has a reptile skull-shaped buckle, whose elongated lower jaw covers the dividing line between the two sides of the loincloth. The upper part of this skull-buckle is red (while the lower jaw is goldish) and recalls the Rexodon symbol.

Bi-Harr's stylised armour; the shape at the centre of the chest piece represents the armour's power indicator.

Action feature
In the comics, Bi-Harr, obsessed with the need to best his rivals in battle and prove his superiority, has his lab create high-tech, highly destructive armour supplied with the fluid exuded by the energy stone, in order to outdo his enemies in physical combat and counter their powers. When Bi-Harr dons one of these battle suits, all of his physical capabilities such as strength and durability are greatly enhanced, and his body becomes highly resistant to physical damage. In the toy, the front surface of the armour features a cool looking holographic sticker depicting a stylised (à la Autobot/Decepticon insignia) skull with an elongated lower jaw on a dark background, which represents both Bi-Harr's affiliation's symbol (it is kind of reminiscent of the Rexodon emblem) and a visual indication of the armour's "state of charge". The sticker uses a dual-image hologram, which shifts from an orange Pachycephalosaurus to a yellow Apatosaurus as you tilt it back and forth and observe it from different viewpoints. Moreover, the chest piece is actually a shell that can accommodate three interchangeable holographic breastplates: the above-mentioned full-power indicator, a half-power indicator with only the lower part of the skull showing (which is a single-image red hologram), and one with a significant battle damage (which is not a hologram though, but just shows the empty dark background marked with large cracks). The plates snap in tightly from the inside of the armour, which must be removed in order to change them. In a similar way, the undamaged skull-shaped right shoulder and left thigh pads can be removed and replaced with their respective damaged counterparts (one each).

Weapons and accessories
Apart from the interchangeable armour pieces, Bi-Harr comes with three yellow shards symbolising the essence of the Energy Rod, as well as a nice set of accessories. In the comics, he wields a powered-up weapon composed of a long copper tech-shaft combined with his silver halberd (the one whose blade is curved outward, which previously belonged to Khon-Uhr). This weapon follows his mental commands and is able to cut through any objects on a molecular level, allowing him to cleanly shear flesh, bone, steel, and any other material, except for those that have a connection with the SpawnCrystals and the stone that forms the multiversal walls. The shaft/holder can be connected to the back of Bi-Harr's armour via a translucent amber wire, while the edge of the halberd's blade is cast in the same GITD light-green coloured plastic that the figure is made from; their combination makes it for a rather unusual and impractical weapon, but judging by all of the bolts, springs and valves, it probably has a myriad of crazy auto-chopping settings.
Additionally, the package includes two alternate heads, which are re-used/-cast/-painted from the two previous versions of Bi-Harr and show their respective mouths closed, which is pretty cool.
Also, cut from the KR|Origin comics is Bi-Harr's combat training device, which he was shown to use in his amphisbaena form for getting some combat practice before taking on his mammalian opponents. It is built from a large steel pole fixed to a three-legged, paw-footed base, and has several wooden arms protruding from all around, which are used to train blocking, while a number of sand pads mounted on the front, back and sides of the pole train the strength and accuracy of striking. Around the shoulder level there's a single seesaw-like top arm crossing the pole from front to back and swinging up and down, each end of which is fitted with a steel chopping hand, as well as a log crossing the pole from side to side, each end of which is carved with a feline or ursine head and holds a hanging sandbag. Furthermore, it features two pointed middle arms protruding outward in a "V" configuration from the front, and a lower revolving arm (i.e., with an additional bar at an angle of 90° that ends in a mace head and turns clockwise or anticlockwise) projecting from the back, as well as a helicopter rotor-like arm at the top, located at head height (unique to this arm are the hub shaped in the form of an ape's head and each end fitted with a steel fist). The two spinning arms are fictionally coordinated, so that striking one causes the rotation of the other, and vice versa, requiring quick reactions for counterattacks.

Final thoughts
Overall: bring on the bad guys! After Lor-Drek, Bi-Harr proved another truly awesome figure prototype in the Emergence line. Despite the reused (excellent) sculpt, he does still look great with his unique body design, a ton of details to his new outfit, and some fine paint work. I really like that they included his alternate heads and the beautiful training dummy, which plays well and is a lot of fun
Rating: ☺☺☺☺☺ / 5

Monday 4 January 2021

KR|Emergence Review #1: Lor-Drek (Emergence Edition)

A happy new year to all of you!! Hopefully it will be better than the past one.

The upcoming reviews will be about recently developed prototypes that belong to the latest Key Raiders wave, which came as a huge surprise to me! Like Origin, Enmity and Dimness, this is a prequel series, which will be titled Key Raiders: Emergence (stylised as KR|Emergence) and will concern a universe characterised by a science&sorcery vibe, recounting events happening 3 years before the adventures of the KR|Foundation series:

Timeline (intervals in years)

Era

Origin

500

Enmity

15

Dimness

2

Emergence

3

Foundation

15

Horizon


This series also presents the opportunity to show already known characters in new versions based on early concepts, and will help clear up many unsettled points that lead to Masq-Lor's and his siblings' endeavours.

KR|Emergence is also the first series that doesn't feature any one of the four magic helmets. Instead, it is centred around six mythical relics named SpawnCrystals. The SpawnCrystals originated when, after the intervention of the Multiversal Balancers, the core of a trans-universal, potentially annihilation-causing meteoroid was separated into pieces of fundamental substances with geometrically regular shapes by mighty Cereutian knights. Although their true nature and primordial origins were unknown, the crystals were thought to be sentient, powerful entities. Besides being named after, and representing, a different characteristic of physical or mental reality, each SpawnCrystal shared a mystical rapport with multiversal nature, and possessed wondrous powers and abilities not fully understood even by their creators; when tapping into them, these properties would range from teleportation to energy manipulation to healing power. Possessing the essence of any single SpawnCrystal would grant the user the ability to exert great control over the aspect of reality the crystal represented. The crystals could also form metaphysical connections between Cereutis and other worlds. Eventually, six of these SpawnCrystals were used by the Multiversal Balancers at different times after the impact of a fragment of the original meteoroid had devastated the Earth environment, mainly through a lingering impact winter that produced an ecological collapse and a subsequent mass extinction event. By reprogramming and sending the crystals to the land that was later named Tahron, the Multiversal Balancers aimed at creating a mass transformation process that would restore the original potential of the entire planet's biological evolution. The six SpawnCrystals, which were interconnected via invisible mystical bonds through all of Tahron, became the sources of the land's overall stability, and helped, along with planetary alignments, to regulate the weather, ecology, and other characteristics of the environment, including politics and magic. During the Emergence era, KhronodonTM, a dangerous reptilian sorcerer and mad scientist serving Bi-Harr, succeeded in combining dark magic with abominable science to drain the mystical energy from any objects that were connected in some way to the SpawnCrystals, allowing the Rexodons to use it in their war of conquest. The essence extracted from such objects could be converted into solid, coloured shards shaped roughly like holed sagittate leaves, which looked exactly like the crystals used in the AntikythronTM.

So, let's start with the first prototype review of this new series!

Toy prototype details
Name: Lor-DrekTM (Emergence Edition), aka Mecha Lor-Drek
Subtitle: dreadful leader
Line: KR|Emergence
Item type: action figure - Nº 1 in the line.

Character details
Name: Lor-Drek
Classification: reptile of uncertain group
Sex: male
Home: Tahron
Era: 3 years before Foundation
Affiliation: Unnamed Clan
Rank: marshal.

Background
First appearance: KR|Emergence #1 - The cradle of evil
Brief bio: the last member of a race of magical dragon-like reptiles, Lor-Drek was enticed through manipulation to follow Bi-Harr's endeavours to rule Tahron, eventually becoming a prominent officer of the Reptonoid army. Together, they fought in many epic battles during the war against the mammalian enemies, and killed several Theriom leaders, including King Tah-Ron and his son Khon-Uhr. After various defeats, Lor-Drek questioned Bi-Harr's leadership and gradually developed the desire to raise an army of his own. Unwilling to share power with anyone, he left the Reptonoid forces to lead his newly formed faction, bringing Tahron into a three-way conflict. For a long time, the so-called Unnamed Clan, which also included former Theriom members such as Ir-Ash, Noctylius and even a very young Rhadiel, acted in the shadows, until Lor-Drek, seeking new resources to win his conquering war, challenged his one-time ally's autonomy in Rokang Tar. For his goal, he used advanced electro-mechanical parts made of a hard, metallic material that resembled the alloy composing the Key and the prodigious helmets, which were grafted onto his body by the technomage OphidokTM. Although Lor-Drek's hi-tech powered armour made him more than a match for his opponent, Bi-Harr succeeded in defeating him, and the attack resulted in Lor-Drek's near death. Chained in a dark prison of Rokang Tar and mercilessly stripped of his hardsuit, he was then freed by the loyal sorcerer Sphenorat, and soon he could resume his quest to dominate Tahron with his horde now named Spektrosaur.

Associated SpawnCrystal
Name: Space Pearl
Shape: sphere
Colour: rose (i.e., a warm pink or light crimson colour)
Corresponding element: metal
Powers and capabilities: enhancing agility and speed
Creator: Multiversal Balancer TheliokeTM
History: due to an unexpected, violent burst of energy released during the process of its creation, Thelioke died right after the Space Pearl was formed. Her heartbroken brother RamedrasTM compressed the crystal into an oval red shining gemstone, which was cached for tens of millions of years and eventually fused onto Galamars' forehead. The power of the crystal was transferred to Galamars' mercury-like blood, allowing him to travel from Cereutis to Earth and protect Wen Kai xi from Denortos' evil clutches. Using a mysterious alloy partly derived from his vital fluid, Galamars could also forge the legendary key to unlock the two portals beyond which Bi-Harr's mental powers were trapped, as well as the four prodigious helmets conceived for its chosen protectors. The remainder of his drawn blood was transformed into a box-shaped metallic piece of Cereutian technology and stored away in his foundry for future use, but it was immediately stolen by Denortos during the final battle between the Therioms and the Reptonoids, and given to the technomage Ophidok. When the reptilian army split into two factions, Ophidok stashed the box away in a library beneath Artelon, and he eventually used it to build Lor-Drek's artificial wings and powered suit. Having failed to extract the Space Pearl essence from Bi-Harr's halberd, the evil sorcerer and scientist Khronodon eventually succeeded in utilising the items removed from Lor-Drek's body to produce the rose shards.

Articulation
Standard, except that the wrists and the tail are ball jointed.

Description
In this incarnation, Lor-Drek is portrayed as a sort of Mechagodzillesque robot modelled after one of his foot soldiers, thanks to a bulky, angular powered exoskeleton seemingly consisting of multiple silver-coloured separate elements (which have a dark sheen and are worn like plate armour) and designed to provide the character with greater agility and faster reflexes.
Head: similar to a robotic common iguana, characterised by evil-looking yellow-orange glowing eyes, sharp teeth along the edges of the jaws and a side-crested headgear topped with a spike
Body: there is an impressive amount of intricate decorative features all around the numerous components of the segmented exosuit that protects his body, including a few small bronze details on the cuirass (whose design recalls Foundation Lor-Drek's outfit), gauntlets (whose wrist guards are shaped to resemble Lor-Drek's head slightly), boots (with knee guards) and crotch shell; I especially like the little gaps here and there that reveal metallic black tech-mech details beneath the armour. While his limbs display large spiky ridges that run down the sides, his hands are clenched in fists and his feet bear sharp claw tips, the back unit features elements that are reduced in size compared to his troopers' natural form, such as three smaller dorsal fins as well as a shorter tail.

Action feature
In the comics, Lor-Drek's wings are supplemented with a jet-powered artificial wing system, granting him supersonic speed during flight. Additionally, by wrapping his wings around his torso, head and limbs, his entire body becomes cybernetically-enhanced with a metallic powered armour (represented by this figure), which upgrades him to a much speedier warrior that becomes progressively more agile during his fights against his foes. Other features include self-repair capabilities as well as advanced sensory systems and scanners, such as a pair of electronic eyes which replicate vision, but at a superior level. His mechanical parts contain a vast array of inbuilt tools and weapons, including grappling hooks/lines and laser guns, and the hands can be configured into various weapon forms. Perhaps his most frequently-used weapon is a pair of sonic-plasma blasters, which can be employed at different settings either to stun his foes or to deliver concentrated blasts of ionising sound that are potent enough to shatter rock or deform steel. His mecha-armour also has an internal cybernetic brain that is connected to Lor-Drek's own, giving him genius-level intelligence and the ability to interface with external computer systems. So, the figure comes with a pair of tech-mech silver wings and an armour, which are meant to replace Foundation Lor-Drek's respective parts for recreating his augmented version in the Emergence series (the armour is identical to his Origin cuirass, but has an Unnamed Clan insignia -i.e., a light-green snake emerging from an upright, spirally coiled conic dark-green shell- emblazoned on the chest plate), as well as a set of silver interchangeable weapon attachments that can swap with his mecha-fists, namely a large blade that resembles Lor-Drek's halberd (the one with the S-shaped blade, which previously belonged to Kai-Xi and was then stolen by Bi-Harr), an open hand featuring a grappling hook (fictionally shooting from its back) together with a finger-mounted laser gun, and the two above-mentioned pentagonal, clawed sonic-plasma blasters. And just for fun, the figure's head can be exchanged with Foundation Lor-Dreks's for a great unmasked look!

Lor-Drek's stylised armour; the circle at the centre of the chest piece represents the Unnamed Clan symbol.

Weapons and accessories
Apart from his set of snap-on weaponry, wings and armour, Lor-Drek comes with three rose shards symbolising the essence of the Space Pearl.
Additionally, the package includes a head and a non-removable sheathed sword, which allow us to create a King Li-Khon figure resembling his appearance in the Emergence series. The head is predominantly ursine (even though he's a primivod, a fictional anthropomorphic marsupial) and is characterised by a thick whitish fur that covers most of the face, including the subtly pointy ears. It also displays a dark-brown bony cranial crest, a pair of blue eyes with purplish under-eye bags, a large dark nose, and a slightly open mouth that has a purplish upper lip and exposes a number of sharp yellowish teeth. He also wears a permanently attached silver crown decorated with eight prongs all the way around; each prong is shaped in a similar fashion to a fleur-de-lis (⚜) and bears a red gemstone at its centre. Together with King Tah-Ron's body, Enmity Li-Khon's robe+necklace piece and the included sheathed sword (it's the same piece that came with Enmity Li-Khon, but with the hilt in a light-blue colour instead of red), the old, even-tempered aspect of this head helps render a variant of Li-Khon that recalls the way he looks during his last days as a king, before the monarchy is abolished by an institutional referendum and Tahron becomes a republic.

Final thoughts (due to time restraints, I'm forced to make this section shorter from now onward)
Overall: Lor-Drek is the first revisited character in the new KR|Emergence line. I really like him, much more than I thought I would - the mecha design originally didn't grab me, but knowing his backstory and having him in my hands to play with has made me a quick convert. His appearance and slightly larger size makes him particularly interesting to not just KR collectors - he looks awesome next to his reptilian fellows fighting Bi-Harr, but he'll also fit in with other sci-fi themed figures, and that's exactly the kind of toy I like to own
Rating: ☺☺☺☺ / 5