Fans of the Four Horsemen look forward to each summer when they release their wave of figures from the Seventh Kingdom, a magical world created in house. The characters in this universe tend toward the anthropomorphic – we’ve seen cows and elephants and warthogs and rhinos, just to name a few. This year they got in touch with their feminie side, producing a wave of 11 female figures.
The background is fairly simple. Queen Alluxandra is the human on the side of good, while Isadorra is the evil chick opposing her. The other nine figures are part of the “queen’s council”, warriors that fight for one side or the other. I’ve already reviewed Allux and Izzy, as well as the six matching cat girls. The leaves just three ladies, all a bit on the mutated side.
As is usual for a Four Horsemen Seventh Kingdom release, the figures are spread out over various retailers, each getting a different exclusive. I’ve got a complete list of the 11 and the corresponding retailer in the Where To Buy section at the end of the review. You can expect to pay around $20 – $25 for each one, but it depends heavily on the retailer.
If you have any questions, you can drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out my other reviews at my main site, Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, or even follow me on Twitter to keep up with the latest updates.
Queen’s Council – the Mutant Ladies
I have just three figures left to check out in this huge wave – Ccora (an exclusive with Corner Store Comics), Kromus (exclusive through Fwoosh), and Siliskk (exclusive from the Horsemen themselves). For reference, Kromus is the silver chrome looking figure in the photo right below, Silissk is the reptilian looking one, and Ccora is the darker, more alien bronze female.
Packaging – ***1/2
Unfortunately, the packages lack any sort of personalization, and there’s no markings to indicate who they are exclusive with, either. That’s really the only negative though, and they have one very, very major positive – they are collector friendly, even though they are cardback/bubble style packages.
The bubble simply wraps around the cardback, but is not attached in anyway. You can just slip it right off, and remove the interior tray. There’s a couple twisties, but nothing too major to impede the removal, and you can always pop the figure and accessories right back in, with no real damage to the package. The packages are also easy to store for the MOCer, thanks to the simple rectangular design.
Sculpting – ***1/2
I wasn’t a huge fan of the six cat variants, mostly because I’m just not that much of a cat person. But the body sculpts were great there, and these are exactly the same figure between the neck and the ankles, sans tail. They’re exactly the same as somebody else in the line anyway – for example, the arms on Ccorra are also used on Allux. Of course, if you hate reuse than this is going to be an issue for you, but if a company is going to re-use a lot of parts (as FH did here) they at least better be great parts.
The detail work on the armor and body is excellent, with lots of attention being paid to the patterns and textures. These have the feet like Allux and Izzy, not the paws of the cats, and other minor changes exist – they don’t have the large necklaces that adorned the cats, for example – but the amount of re-use is substantial.
The head sculpts is where all the uniqueness comes in, much more so than with the set of felines. There, one head sculpt was merely repainted, but here all three portraits are unique.
My personal favorite is Kromus. The long protrusions on the head remind me of molten steel or lead, and the large earrings offset the tall head perfectly.
Ccora is a great sculpt as well, however, and has a bit of the Phantom thing going on with the metal mask covering her face. One is left to wonder just what is under there…
Finally, there’s Silissk, the most mutated of the mutants. She has a very reptilian thing going on, and actually reminds me quite a bit of the Grindylow from Harry Potter without the flowing hair. I could easily see Match.com fixing her up with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
These figures stand just about 6″ tall, and I think they fit in much better with other 6″ scale figures, like DC Universe Classics or Marvel Legends than the larger 7″ scale lines like Masters of the Universe Classics, but your mileage may vary.
The hands are all identical sculpts, and are designed to hold the accessories. The figures stand fine on their own, although the hips are a bit too restricted by the skirt. More on that when we get to the Articulation section.
Paint – Ccora ***1/2; Silissk ***; Kromus **1/2
The paint work on this series hasn’t quite been up to the quality I expect on a small run specialty line, but it can vary pretty heavily from figure to figure.
Kromus gets the worst of it here, with too many marks and muffs on the silver. Silver is a tough color to do, as any model builder will tell you, but there’s simply too much slop for this price point here. Ccora has the best work of these three, with lots of small detail ops on the armor, and very clean lines on the mask and face. Silissk falls in between someplace, and something about the color choices is a bit off for me.
Articulation – ***
All of these figures are more articlated than you’ed expect, if you simply gave them a cursory in the package glance.
They all have ball jointed necks, and because of the design of the heads, the range of movement is a bit better here than it was with the cat women. There’s also ball jointed hips and shoulders with the traditional swivel joint at the respective limb, and these have an excellent range of movement. Unfortunately, the skirt tends to inhibit much of this range in the hips, but you’ll be able to get some reasonably good stances.
The waist is a cut joint, and the pin ab joint allows the torso to tilt forward and back. Double pin elbows and knees allow for tight constriction of the limbs at those joints, and cut wrists round out the arm articulation.
The ankles have both pin and swivel joints, allowing the foot to not just move forward and back but side to side. This is a great addition, since it allows the foot to remain flat on the floor in deeper stances.
All the joints were tight this time around, but the restriction imposed by the skirt pulls this score down a bit.
Accessories – **
When I first heard the “snap, crackle and pop”, I thought I was having my favorite breakfast cereal. Alas, it was the sound of the accessories that come with these figures.
Each figure comes with a sword and a spear, done up in various colors to differentiate them. They both fit nicely in their hands, and there’s a small slot on their back for each weapon to be carried. These slots fit the swords better than the spears, but you can get them to work for both with a little effort.
Unfortunately for FH, every one of their releases has had some sort of factory issue. This time, it’s breakage. Both weapons have more than a tendancy to break, and getting one to stay intact as you put it in their hands, take it out of the package, look at it for an extended period of time, or even glance in its general direction, is quite the trick. I had better luck with these three, as only one of the spears snapped on me. Another one is hanging by a thread though, so I’m not sure if it’s fair to not count it. The swords remained in one piece, but I had issues with them when I first reviewed the human figures. And let’s not even talk about the cats – 5 of the 6 spears broke, making it seem reasonable to have the superglue out and ready when I opened up these three.
Fun Factor – ***1/2
Do you know any kids looking for strong, cool mutant female warriors for their toybox militia? Then these will fit the bill perfectly. Just expect that the weapons will need re-gluing more than once.
Value – **1/2
I’m cutting them slack on the price a bit, since $20 is still a Hell of a big bill for a single figure, even in the current economy. If you factor in the size of the wave – 11 figures! – you’ll need to save up more than $220 just to compete it! The issue that keeps this score from getting docked another half star is the low production run. Each varient is only being produced in the 250 or so range, which is quite limited even with the amount of re-use.
Things To Watch Out For –
I had far less trouble with weak joints on these three, but you’ll want to keep an eye on it. Which figure has a problem and which don’t tends to be pretty variable.
And don’t forget that the weapons, especially the spears, break from a harsh thought. I fact, I just heard one snap from across the room.
Overall – Kromus ***1/2; CCora, Silissk ***
I really love the two humans in this series, Alluxandra and Isadorra, but the various pussy cats left me unenthused. You have to have at least one of course, since you don’t want your horny rhino chasing anything else around the house, and my favorite feline is the blue version, Akkuli.
These three mutants are much more appealing to me, which probably says far more about me than it does about the figures. My Kromus has paint issues, but in the end her sculpting and design were just too strong not to end up on top.
Where to Buy –
The eleven figures are spread out over a group of vendors. SDCC was the first place to pick up Alluxandra and Isadorra, but you can get either one at the Store Horsemen right now. They also have the exclusive mutant Silissk. If you think you’d like the full set of 11 figures, you can purchase them in one shot direct from the Four Horsemen as well, and
save some money on shipping.
The other 8 figures are available individually from various websites:
1 – Baddatthiir – available at Big Bad Toy Store
2 – Raavia – available at Raving Toy Maniac
3 – Ccora – available at Corner Store Comics
4 – Oktobria – available at October Toys
5 – D’Zwirra – available through Wizard Universe
6 – Akkuli – available through Action Figure Express
7 – Biggara – also available through Big Bad Toy Store
8 – Kromus – available through Fwoosh
Related Links –
Other related reviews include:
– I’ve covered the six cat chicks from this wave, as well as the two humans.
– I’ve covered previous FANtastic exclusives and variants, including the Timekeepers, Ssejjhhorr, Xetheus, and Vaskhh.
– And if you’d like more background info on the first two series of FANtastic Exclusives, check out the toy wiki page.
Comments: 3 Comments
3 Responses to “Toy Box: Seventh Kingdom Queen’s Council”Leave a Reply |
September 20th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Wow, tough to decide on these.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:29 am
I thought I’d point out that Kromius (my fave!) is now up for sale over at Fwoosh!
September 21st, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Pick up the whole set if you can. You won’t regret it. These are really amazing figures.