Sadly i missed many of those and while i am still missing The Creature From the Black Lagoon from the 1/6 line, i am still missing the Frankenstein Monster and the Phantom of the Opera from the action figure line, but here we have The Mummy!! Imhotep!!! Why? Well, years ago i got this figure but with no accesorys and was custom repainted. I liked quiet a lot the new colors the artists gives him but his looked a little bit out of palce with the rest of the line but weeks ago i was able to get the original colored version complete with accesorys.
Soo basically this is a figure i review years ago and i am pretty sure no one will notice soo lets talk about The Mummy!! For a 1998 figure this guy was amde in quiet a tall scale, he is bigger than the NECA version and cant balance himself pretty well but thankfully, Sideshow gives him a pretty elegant base to deal with that.
He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs and knees. all of this are basic cut articulations soo they can only rotate and theres not much sense on moving his legs since he wouldnt be able to stand. Both the knees and elbows have a very basic hinge but this are very delicate. I seen lots of this figures with the arms broken exactly in the elbows.
Soo this figure is not very articulated and dont have a lot of display options but this was the way of the 90s, something that McFarlane was starting to make popular in that moment but Imhotep is not a pretty dynamic character full of movement either and this was the starting point of the "adult collectible" market soo articulations were used to be seen as something "childish". Tough the articulations are extremelly well hidden and almost invisible thanks to the bandages.
The sculpt is FANTASTIC!!! This is Boris Karloff face perfectly rendered along the Mummy make up, the wrinkled skin covering his face, the mark on the nose, the muddy hair, and under all those elements is pretty easy to see Karloff sad and serious expression. The slim body shape and wrinkled hands looks great as well as the bettle ring and the texture of the bandages looks quiet realistic, old and rotten and they wrap around his body with perfect sense. Even the bandages than hang around flows with the body naturally. Of course this is all thanks to Matt Falls, the sculptor that was in chargue to sculpt all this characters for Sideshow using the actors likenes.
The painting is divisive, but thats expected from a character of a black and white movie. The paint job on the bandages is superv, a bone color with some grey washes aplyed carefully as well as a weet texture make the bandages looks extremelly real and covered in oil. Details like the beetle ring and the eyes looks really good and the paint jov on the aged exposed flesh and face have a very subtle wash to make the wrinkles stand out nicelly, all in a grey......green tone? I am not sure wath color is this soo i am not sure if i like it. It makes the Mummy to look too monochrome but i guess this isnt a colorfull character, but also i feel this color is a little too dark and make difficult to notice the details of the sculpt.
This line came with a pretty mini diorama base with a plate in front with the logo of the movie, the actor of the character and the year if release (1932 for The Mummy), this make this figures looks like museum pieces. For The Mummy the base is basically made of sand with a mix of rocks and a couple of big rocks coming out of the sand with hieroglyps on them. While the rocks with the marks looks really good, the paint job on the sand and the other rocks is pretty bad and cheap looking. The tones dont mix at alll and the rocks looks very plain.
The rest of the accesorys tough are much better looking tough: a rock plate with more hieroglyps, a chest that cotains Toth scrool and the Toth scrool. The sculpt on the plate is really good, with cracks all over it and the marks are pretty clear and easy to see while the paint is a mix of yellow and light browns and gives it the looks and feel of an acient piece of rock the base dosnt have.
The chest is the same, it have two Horus sculpted at front just like in the movie and the golden seal on top. The coloring have the same mix of yellow and light brown that makes it looks mudy, ancient and dirty in a very natural way. Sadly it canot be open.
The scrool is a piece of yelowish paper with the edges cut all rough and more hieroglyps printed on it. We never see the scroll fully open on the front side of the movie but since this is the main object of interest n the movie, its very nice they detailed it this much. the scrool can be rolled up and it also have a golden ring to hold it in plce soo Imhotep can hold him.
Sideshow always add accesorys that are top quality and exact replicas to the items on screen soo they never disapoint in this. The paint of the base is the only dissapointing part and Imhotep face paint could be a little bit ligther but aside of that, this is the perfect representatio of the classic monster.
This line could looks silly now tough, with the limited articulations and sometimes odd paint choices, but from 1998 to 2021, this figures were the best loosking toys based on the Universl Movies and also the only ones using the actors likens. Not even Diamond Select came close to this even with its best peices and i find amazing that this figures were the Rolls-Royce of the horror collectors aroudn the world for more than 20 years.
Even tough i already have this guy in my collection with a totally different color palette, i am very happy to have him on his original form as well as with all his accesorys. Now if only The Phantom and the Frankenstein Creature could apeare like this in front of me....
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