Back in 2006, the Four Horsemen (the wonderful group of artisans that currently due amazing work on many Mattel brands like DC Univers Classics and NECA lines like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) started their FANtastic Exclusive figure line. These figures were voted on by their fans from start to finish. Everything from scale to articulation was picked by voting on their site, and the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con release of Xetheus the Champion of Mynothecea was the result, which I reviewed here at Quick Stop. For 2007, they repeated the process, only this time they produced not one but nine different figures, all based on the same basic body. They were called the Anitherian Nine, with their leader Ramathorr the Elephant Swordsman being the first release for last year’s SDCC.
I reviewed one of the nine back then right here at QSE as well, the rhino called The Gauntlet of Vaskkh. For those that read the review, you may remember that I complained about loose joints, a real issue for figures this large and heavy. It turns out that this was a major issue across the entire 9 figures, and the Four Horsemen ended up with a mess that lasted more than a year. After getting promises from the factory that the issues would be corrected and the early figures replaced with improved versions, that factory closed it’s doors. Worse, it looked like they might not even be able to get the steel molds back to produce the figures. Thanks to NECA, who stepped in on their behalf, they were able to get the molds, and they had them sent to a new factory to try again.
When the new factory received the molds, they had to inform the Four Horsemen that the old factory had left them un-oiled in storage, allowing surface rust to appear. That meant another delay as workers at the new factory had to inspect and clean all the molds before any production could begin.
After months of delays and factory issues, the Four Horsemen were finally able to complete the shipping of their 2007 FANtastic Exclusives. The various sites and retailers that had the eight exclusive versions are also shipping them out, and a tenth figure, the Chalice of Guudenuph (a pink elephant, get it?) has been added. He’s only available through their own website, the StoreHorsemen.
I’m looking at another one of the nine tonight, the evil Ssejjhhorr. This guy, with his cousin Ggruxx, were the bad guys to the other 7 Seventh Kingdom warriors.
Ssejjhhorr is an exclusive to Figures.com, and was limited to a run of just 550. He costs $30, similar to the other 9 figures in the series.
If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my site Michael’s Review of the Week.
The Seventh Kingdom – Ssejjhhorr
In the world of the Seventh Kingdom, where the Anitherian Nine hang, there’s good guys and bad guys. The good guys in this series – eight in total – are all large, hooved animals. There’s several elephants, a warthog, a rhino, even a hippo. They all sport the same basic body, with unique heads, accessories, and accoutrements.
The two evil doers are mutants, of course. Those damn mutants are always up to some sort of no good. If your brother has six toes or a vestigial tail, don’t trust him. The mutant head sculpts are a bit more hideous in nature, and there’s evil in their hearts.
Packaging – **
These figures are VERY large and VERY heavy, making the packages quite large as well. These are packed in an old style bubble on cardback package, but because of the extreme weight of the figure, it’s quite easy to tear the bubble free from the cardback with just normal handling. Finding these on mint cards in 10 years is going to be pretty unlikely, but you wanted to open yours anyway, right?
Sculpting – ***1/2
The Four Horsemen do great figures. There’s no doubt about that, and their work here is a nice example. Plenty of detail, with an interesting design and great execution.
The head is a mutated beast, with a single eye at the snout and huge, nasty teeth. He also sports long horns on either side of his wide head, and these horns come unattached in the package. They are designed to only go on one way, but they don’t stay on particularly well. You may decide that it’s worth it simply to glue them in place once he’s on your shelf.
The head sculpt restricts the use of the ball jointed neck a bit, but the rest of the sculpt works well with the articulation. The hands are designed to hold his accessories, and he stands great on his own in a variety of poses. As I said, these guys are big, and he stands about 9″ tall. Although they are big, they actually fit in pretty well with either 6″ or 7″ scale figures, depending on how big you think creatures like Rhinos and Elephants should be, if they walked around on two feet and wore armor. And if you’re looking for some additional figures that look at home with Hellboy, the mutated Ssejjhhorr works pretty well too.
The faux fur ‘skirt’ that he wears is easily removable. It’s simply tied in back. Having it on does help differentiate the otherwise similar body though. Although all 10 figures use the same base body, the Horsemen were extremely creative in their use of armor and paint to give each one a unique look. I did find that the fur falls apart a bit easily, so take some care and don’t handle it excessively.
Sculpted on his back is a sort of weapon rack to carry his axes when he isn’t slashing through heroes. Again, since this is a shared body sculpt, this is the same rack that all the figures wear.
Paint – ***1/2
A great sculpt deserves – and needs – great paint, and here again they did an excellent job. Ssejjhhorr is largely red, while his life partner Ggruxx is largely green. Fortunately they picked two colors far apart enough on the old color wheel to make them very easy to distinguish.
There’s very little slop on any part of the figure, including the intricate armor. Cut lines are generally clean, and there’s a greater number of ops here than you might have expected.
My one issue is around the poor guy’s teeth – it appears he doesn’t have much of a dental plan. There are obvious rub marks on several of them, and I suspect this is from the package.
Articulation – ***1/2
The major area of issue when the line was first introduced, I’m happy to now report that the articulation is much tighter. They’ve gone with a ‘clicky’ style joint on the knees and ankles, making his support system much stronger.
You can still pose him in a ton of poses, including deep stances, and all the articulation that was here with the earlier figures – ball jointed neck, shoulders and hips, pin elbows, knees, and ankles, as well as pin and cut wrists – is all still there. There’s also a cut waist, as well as a sort of rocker or ball joint at the chest. It might be tough to get this joint freed up, but once you do, you can get a bit more tilting and turning out of the torso.
Accessories – **1/2
He has two accessories in his two large axes. These fit on both his back and in his hands, and they are some deadly serious sculpts. The only real issue is that these weapons were re-used heavily throughout the line, and I would have liked to have seen a few more unique implements of death and destruction.
Fun Factor – ***1/2
These are for collectors, but I’ll let you in on a secret…they’re fantastic toys too. Rather than simply produce Nerd Hummels, the Four Horsemen have kept these true to the concept of action figures, making them great for kids to play with as well as looking great on the shelf. You probably won’t spend $30 on a battle ready anthropomorphic elephant for your 7 year old to use against his Spider-man figures, but you certainly could if you were so inclinded. And that 7 year old would have a great time with him, too.
Value – **
Unfortunately, the one area that these get hit a bit on is Value. That’s because at $30, they are mighty expensive action figures. Buyers won’t be able to not notice the heavy re-use of the bodies and accessories, and they also won’t forget that these are not licensed properties.
Stilll, the run size on every version is extremly low, usually in the 300 – 500 piece range. Even doing 10 versions means only a max of 5,000 or so were produced of the entire series. That kind of extremely low production numbers, even without licensing, make for some pretty expensive figures.
Things to Watch Out For –
Not much. Like I said earlier, you might find the horns a bit frustrating and just end up gluing them in place, but otherwise you should be good to go. This is a sturdy figure with very sturdy joints, and little Billy could put him through the paces without too much damage.
Overall – ***1/2
This is another winning release by the Four Horsemen. The “animal as human” nature of these will only appeal to certain folks, but the designs are top notch with excellent sculpts and paint. It looks like they’ve gotten their factory issues behind them, and I’m looking forward to Scarabus, the 2008 figure!
Where to Buy –
Figures.com be the place to pick this guy up, or you can search ebay using MyAuctionLinks.
Related Links –
I looked at the 2006 FANtastic Exclusive, as well as reviewing the 2007 Rhino last summer. And check out the Four Horsemen’s site for details on this year’s figure!
Comments: 2 Comments
2 Responses to “Toy Box: The Seventh Kingdom – Ssejjhhorr!”Leave a Reply |
June 25th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
pick me pick me
December 4th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Great review. These figure look amazing and I am tempted to get one. Is there any problems with loose joints? Is there any figure you would recommend?