“The Beasts Call Him Brother, The Ghost Who Walks!”
I’ve been waiting a long time for a quality figure of The Phantom to hit store shelves. Those who have been following my blog know that I fell in love with the character years ago while reading the comic strips and watching the Billy Zane 90’s film as well as the classic serial featuring Tom Tyler in the iconic role. Unfortunately, finding an action figure of The Phantom that was both reasonably priced and looked good was difficult. Thanks to NECA, my wait for a good figure is over. They recently began releasing their Defenders of the Earth action figure line and while it’s not necessarily the classic version of the character that I love, it’s close enough to please me.
Released in 1986, Defenders of the Earth took three of King Features Syndicate’s most popular characters, The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the Magician, and teamed them up to do battle against Flash’s greatest enemy, Ming The Merciless, in a futuristic vision of 2015. Along for the ride was Lothar, Mandrake’s right hand man, and the children of all of the heroes (because bringing the kids along for battling a power hungry tyrant is sooooo safe).
So far NECA has released The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Ming the Merciless. Originally available only at Walmart, the figures are now available in wide release. That being said, I’ve only found all three of the figures at one Walmart in my area. I found one lonely Ming figure at another Walmart and haven’t seen any figures at any other locations. Mandrake and Lothar will be released later. The packaging for the figures emulates the classic Galoob line from the 80’s and brought a ton of memories back for me.
I like this figure for the most part. It features over twenty points of articulation (although most of them are extremely stiff) and comes with a ton of accessories. The Phantom’s little sidekick from the cartoon, Zuffy, is included and he features quite a few points of articulation as well. Accessories include a blaster, two blaster “firing” attachments, one ring “power” attachment, three swappable right hands and one left hand. I really wish that there were two right hands and two left hands, but we get three righties instead.
The figure is beautifully sculpted but it does have a few flaws. For starters, the aforementioned stiff articulation makes me a little hesitant to pose the figure too much. I currently have him standing with his right fist in the air and that’s probably how he’ll stay for the time being. Another major flaw is that the figure appears to have been cast in purple plastic and the hands, boots, belt, face, and muscle shading was painted on after the casting. That’s fine, but as soon as I took the figure out of the box, the left hand (you know, the only left hand) had paint chip off at the wrist and the paint on the left ankle POA also chipped giving me two bright purple blemishes on an otherwise perfectly painted figure.
I love the Phantom and really want to love this figure. However, at a retail price of around thirty bucks, I’d hope for better paint and looser articulation. My advice is that if you do buy this figure or any other figure in the line, keep it in the box. I will say that the Flash figure looks great and the Ming figure’s details are simply beautiful. I’ll probably get both of them sooner or later and I can’t wait for Mandrake and Lothar to hit store shelves. These seven inch figures look great, but McFarlane’s current DC Multiverse line is cheaper, just as beautiful, and features easier to move articulation. The Defenders figures are better than most of the Star Wars Black Series line in my opinion.
Thanks for checking out my post. Let me know what you think about this line of figures in the comments section. Do you own any of these figures? How about the McFarlene figures? Drop me a comment!
Ken's Alternate Universe! 