AGONISTES

A year ago i started to collect the Clive Barker´s Tortured Souls from McFarlane Toys, a series i always wanted to own but didnt had the liberty to get until now, and i was susprised to see how damn good are this characters.

I been searching them everywhere and its very tricky to find them in theyr package (specially the 6″ series). I really dont want them “used” since they are pretty easy to broke and i saw many heavy damaged.

Tough i ended getting Agonistes this time, the very first character of the series. The creator of life, shaper of flesh and bone and builder of monsters, is he the responsible for the rest of the characters  and he is also one of the direct creations of God. His chapter from the novel; “ The Secret Face of Genesis” has been my favorite soo far since it was beautifully written by Barker and is pretty revelatory.

Yet, the poor guy dosnt have too much participation in the main narrative but Barker didnt had too much room to work anyway since how short are the little chapters.

Aside of that, i am impresed with the amazing work McFarlane did on this guy. Just like with the rest, he is really outstanding. He is a little bit smaller than the rest (same size of Lucidique) tough at the same time, he is the tallest thanks to his mechanical legs.

There is soo much richnes of texture in here: metal on the chains, soft plastic for the flesh, rubber for his clothes… and the paint job is amazing as well. His clothes are not just jet black, but they have grey shades and tones to make it looks like old leather and all the clips and stitches on it are perfectly painted. No splotch anywhere and each choulder pad and each boot have totally different sculpts.

His face is a mass of meat, with no eyes or nose or ears, just amputated flesh and yet, each of his fangs are both sculpted and painted perfectly, his gums and the wire on his troath are beautifully defined.

His skinles arm is also impresive, with a pretty realistic paint that mix red and withe to make it looks like raw muscle and tissue and his hand have skin… but is made with a pretty soft plastic that make it looks (and feel) like a dead meat hanging. Is the most disturbing part of the figure for me.

The “spider legs” on his back and shoulders are actually very detailed and constructed with metal tubes, barbed wire and gears with arcane writting on the sides. They dosnt looks like plastic at all and are fully articulated. Even the “nails” at the end are articulated with an engine like contraption and then theres the face…. Agonistes face stretched in between the legs, suspended above his head.

The face skin is made with pretty soft rubber and if you stretch it a little, you can see the opening of his mouth and eyes. To make things even more horrific, the back of the face is all bloody with rest of muscles and tissue and is still pretty weet…

The only thing that kills the image for me is Agonistes mechanical crown… its soo thick and is not painted at all, given it a pretty cheap look compared to the artistic look of the rest of the character. The crown is soo thick it gets in the way of the mechanical legs.

This is probablly the busyest design from the Tortured Souls…the crown is way too much and i am even tempted to remove the crown and display his bare head.

He can stand on his own and he can move his legs and shoulders, elbows and wrists, tough the skinless elbow feels a little fragile with the mechanical wires attached to it and the hand of the same side is soo soft…i am afraid to move them and broke them. In the end, he is like a statue, just like Lucidique, tough most of his articulations comes from the robotic legs.

At the back he have a kind of cape made with chains, with two hooks that can be used as weapons (one of them is bloody already) tough he have lots of knifes and swords hanging from his suit already soo he is the best armed monster from the collection.

I can see this toy for hours and find new elements here and there, like the opening on his troath or the missing skin of his stomach, or the small writting on the belts of his blades or the demonic shapes sculpted on the back of his suit…. this figures are just amazing for theyr size and 16 years later, they are still as amazing looking as they were back then.

This guy is as beautifull and elegant as the Scythe-Mesiter and one of my favorites. The excesses on his design are soo surrealistic and nightmarish, is imposible to stop looking at him…