ARMORED XANATOS

 Last year NECA went crazy and released the entire line of Gargoyles in a single wave. It was a VERY TOUGH year for my walltet deffinetly, but there was one single figure i skip even if that means not completing the series: Armored Xanatos. I love the look of the red Steel Clan robot, the leader of the mechanical army that turns out to be actually Xanatos. I still have him as a Kenner toy from the 90s (the red variant, not the grey basic version) but in the end, he is just a color variant of an already released figure.

This review could be extremelly short but instead of that i am going to pretend i didnt review the Steel Clan figure, soo this guy is actually quiet masive, he is a little bit taller than Goliath and that makes this the biggest figure in the series but he is also extremelly heavy, quiet an issue for him to stand still.

Despite the use of the tail, the ankles get lose over time and they bend pretty easy soo extra precautions must be used here since given how heavy he is, he can damage anything under him. 

He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half foot as well as his tail, wings and the middle of the wings open up to the sides. All if this are ball joints soo in theory they have a lot of freedom of movement only limited by the design: the hair thingy clash with the wings soo he can move his head too much to the sides also the shoulder pads have a hinge too the open up to give room to his shoulders articulation.

The elbows and ankles have double articulations soo they bend pretty good and the tail is bendy with a wire. The wings shape is..... weird, really weird soo they can rotate but not open up because they end in a pretty awkard angle soo this is the only character (aside of the Steel Clan) to have articulated wings but theres not a whole option of poses for them.

The feet claws rotate soo they can be adjusted to the surface but still manouver them while avoidung th wings is really tricky. Speaking of avoiding, the whole wing as well as the claws in the hands have really ponty edges and they can cut human skin pretty easy!!! Also the phalanx on his hands are also extremelly sharp.

While Kenner gives Xanatos a pretty different armour that includes even a maks instead of a helmeth and made him looks totally different to the other robots, NECA´s version is screen accurate soo this is exactly the same sculpt as the Steel Clan robots, the only totally new section is the ted button on the center of his chest and the tubes that goes around his neck. This section is made with soft plastic and cannot be removed.

The design is extremelly cool and follows the character design of the cartoon adding a lot of extra deailing and using the Kenner wings design. The biggest point of attention here is the color, a metalic red. The red shines pretty nice and actually make the photographic job to be extremelly difficult since the red color reflects the ligth like no other color does, soo while the Steel Clan robot shines like a mirror this guy looks like a lighthouse.

Every union of the pieces and every bolt are painted in black, soo theres no lack of detail in here, but everything looks soo clean shiny, like a limousine (pretty fitting for Xanatos i guess). The abdomen, biceps and tights are painted on gunmetal black  while the slaws are white, soo the overall looks is really sext, menacing and elegant (tough i really hope the red paint stays in the bendy tail and donst start to chip away).

The accesorys are exactly the same as the Steel Clan: a pair of closed fist, a pair of holding hands, a pair of open hands and a pair of claw shaped  hands and not only they are really really good looking (specially the open hands) but they are pretty easy to swap as well.

He also have a pait of lasser guns for his amr armor. The piece on his arm can be removed and the lassers attach with a peg. They are pretty good looking and the metalic red on top matches the rest of the armor perfectly.

Then theres the fire effect of the jet blasters that keep Xanatos on the air: two small effects for the base of his feet and a big one for his back, all cast in transluscent plastic with some orange wash over them. They are really good looking tough the peg is soo small in the feet ones is kinda tricky make them stay in place.

Lastly, the only new accesory is Xanatos head with no helmeth that can replace the normal robotic head and also includes a soft plastic metalic ring that goes around his neck to hide the articulation and make the transition looks better. Sadlly, this head with a fierce expression also comes with normal Xanatos soo this is literally a duplicated accesory.

Also....i hate hiw he looks....i mean, the head is way too small for such a huge body...this dosnt looks like IronMan at all, the Steel Clan body is huge compared to a human body soo having Xanatos inside this dosnt make too much sense. In the cartoon they played with scales a lot and no one notice because, they are 2D arts, but in 3D you need to be pretty close to scale between figures and this really bring this issue.

Either you downscale the red rebot to look in scale to Xanatos (and wrong comapred to the other robots) of you sculpt a bigger head to go with this figure, but that would be extremelly akward looking compared to the rest of the line, soo NECA decided to just keep the same scale of the head and the body soo they dont match each other but each elemtn matches the rest of the line. I think this was the most wise choice but still i dont like how it looks.

Besides, this was a perfect chance to add a Xanatos head with a different face expression or blood driping from his forehead, or give him lasser effects to his lasers or some damage pieces of other robots....i dunno....pretty much every element of this figure is taken from ther figures of the line, except the red color.

This is why it take me soo long to get this Xanatos, he is extremelly cool looking and nicelly done, but in the end everything is recycled here, i mean, even Thailong - Goliath´s clon - had a different face sculpt and totally unique accesorys.

Still i am tempted to get another Steel Clan robot soo i can display this red leader one along two sentrys i dont have the space for it but now that the line is over and it will take a while for NECA to release the side characters maybe i will do it.