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What’s up everywookiee, it’s DrunkWooky here with another action figure review! Today, I’m taking a look at the McFarlane Toys 7″ Scorpion figure. This figure can be purchased at the following links along with his counterpart, Sub-Zero:
You can check out my review of Sub-Zero over here as well!
Packaging
The packaging is pretty much the same as the Sub-Zero packaging. I didn’t manage to get a front view shot for this write-up for some reason. Sorry about that. The packaging has one piece of adhesive closing the top flap, a figure stand blister packed to the back of the box inside, and some tape keeping Scorpion’s accessories in the tray. So, this figure isn’t entirely collector-friendly. If you want to use the figure stand, you’ll likely need to do damage to the packaging.
The one thing that really bugs me is that the image on the back of the package shows two of Scorpion’s gauntlet-mounted spears shooting from his arms. He only comes packed with one. It’s a small criticism, I guess, because all the solicits only showed one, but those who don’t pay as much attention to online solicits might think he’s packaged with two based on the package image alone.
Sculpt
Although not clearly marked on the box, this McFarlane line is currently putting out MK11 designs. It may just be the design of Scorpion from the game, but this figure seemed like a much more successful sculpt than Sub-Zero. For the most part, there was nothing wrong with the Sub-Zero sculpt, it’s just that his small blades throughout his costume were cast in soft plastic, making them bend and look less threatening. Scorpion’s design doesn’t have that element, though, and I think it’s a case of addition by subtraction.
The more simplistic ninja outfit gives the small details of each element more room to shine. Each of the “fabric” portions have different textures which add something interesting to look at from all sides. The muscles of Scorp’s torso and arms appear to be in proportion, and his face, together with the mask, has all the small details including eyebrow ridges, under-eye wrinkles, and the menacing sculpting to the mask.
Paint Application
The paint is all clean and crisp, well applied, and there isn’t any coloring outside the lines that I could see, unlike Sub-Zero’s errant blue paint splotch on his head.
I never thought I would say this about a McFarlane Toys product, but there are definitely areas that could use more of a shading wash. The handles of Scorprion’s swords could do with some shadow or grime in between the woven fabric. The rivets on his metal armor could do with some tarnishing in bronze or brown.
Another critique I have is that yellow is notoriously difficult to paint on top of black plastic. On the sheath for each sword, you can see that maybe only one coat of yellow was applied. This isn’t enough to get full coverage and you can see the black poking through from behind.
Articulation
Let’s start with the head, shall we? Scorpion’s head is hollow. He has a grey neck post, with a three-sided yellow peg connected to the top. That yellow peg has a ball joint connected to the top of his hood and one out front that connects behind his face. The idea is sound: make the hood swivel independent of the neck without locking the face into that position as well. However, I’m not sure the trouble is worth the result. To begin with, you’ll need to carefully isolate the face to swivel it without the hood. Second, if you swivel it too far, the face will pop off. This isn’t the end of the world, but it will take you a long time and a lot of hard pushing with your thumb to get it back on there. While you’re trying to re-apply the face, you are trying to avoid breaking the yellow peg because you have no leverage to push the face against–it’s connected to the middle of the peg which bends a little.
When it comes to results, yes, you can get some awesomely expressive head tilt from side to side with this mechanism. However, if this were just a simple single ball joint at the base of a solid head/hood, I don’t think the result would be markedly different.
Other than that, Scorpion’s articulation is pretty much identical to Sub-Zero’s. The shoulders are a ball and swivel joint. There’s a bi-sected bicep that swivels 360 degrees, a double swivel elbow, and a hinged wrist that rotates in the socket.
The waist rotates 360 degrees because the tunic isn’t actually attached through the waist, the hips are a rotating swivel that provides all the range of motion you really need, the knee is a double swivel joint, the ankle is a ball and swivel joint and there’s a toe joint which is always appreciated.
Just like Sub, you can get a ton of Ninja moves out of Scorpion. The only thing is that I found the joints either too stiff or too loose. His feet are pretty small as well, leading to balance issues. Like I said, you’ll need that stand blistered to the packaging. The limitation on his poses is less to do with the articulation he possesses and more to do with his small feet, height, and general balance issues. You can achieve just about all you want with that figure stand, but I stubbornly want to be freed of the stand when I photograph these figures.
Accessories
Scorpion comes with a figure stand, short sword, long sword, and his “get over here!” spear that wraps around his wrist.
The sword sheaths pop into his belt and tunic with some rectangular posts that pop into corresponding holes. I’d take a gander at the set up above to guide you. The long sword goes on first, leaving that upper center hole free to pop the short sword in. There, I just saved you a few minutes and some frustration.
I’ll say that Scorpion’s sword hilts fit into his hands a lot easier than Sub-Zero’s axes and skull. The gauntlet-mounted spear simply wraps around his wrist and this is pretty effective. No hole to pop it into, no complicated rigging, just wrap it and place it in his hand.
In the end, I like Sub-Zero’s accessories more, but these swords and spears work better in practical application to the figure. So, I’m torn. I want Sub-Zero’s accessories fitting into his hands as well as Scorpion’s do.
Price/Value
This figure is retailing around the $20 mark and it’s a decent value for that price. Again, like Sub-Zero, I wish McFarlane would have priced them $4 to $5 more and added some more accessories, but this is what we have. Give us some gore accessories like Storm Collectibles. Having said that, this is a fun figure to pose and I prefer this figure to Sub-Zero under just about every category. If you’re interested in the figure, check out these affiliate links again to grab your own. Let me know what you think if you pick this guy up yourself.
