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If Mattel's MOTU Classics toys have proved anything, it's that MOTU fans will buy anything you offer them, no matter what. But if it's proved two things, the second one is that even toys made out-of-scale with any other existant toyline will start to look fine once you have enough of them. That said, here are some more of McFarlane's wrong-sized Walking Dead zombies.
All the figures in this set come from Series 2 of the TV-show-based half of the toyline (the comic half was stalled, but is about to start again), starting with the famous "Well Zombie" from the Season 2 episode "Cherokee Rose." He's a bloated, water-logged mess, which you'd expect from a dead body that's been languishing waist-deep in water for however long. He's fat and bouncy, and not wearing anything other than a pair of jeans. His skin is wrinkled and pockmarked, and there appear to be wounds on his stomach. His posture is hunched and twisted, with wide-set legs and a twist to the side.
The articulation is not very involved. The lumpy head with its thin, receding hairline is mounted on a balljoint (which I can confirm because it fell off), as are the shoulders. They seem like plain swivels, but nope, balljoints. The elbows and wrists are swivel/hinge joints, with the worst-designed hinges we've seen in quite a while. Why are they not smooth?
All the Walking Dead zombies have a play feature of one sort or another - and since the Well Zombie's isn't super-articulation, you know it has to be something else. The truth is, he manages to re-create the most disgusting moment in the show so far (and considering
what show we're talking about,that's really saying something)! When our plucky band of survivors tried to pull the zombie out of his well, they only succeeded in pulling him in half: he split at the waist, with the lower half of his body and his snapping, stringy guts all dropping back into the water. Ew. The figure does the same thing, and even has removable guts inside there. The halves of the body have two large pegs to keep them together, so you can pick him up without him falling apart until you're ready. A PVC rope hangs off his back, and the set includes the canned ham they tried to lure him with.
The second zombie comes from earlier in Season 2. The first episode of Season 2, in fact: "What Lies Ahead." Penned in on the highway out of Atlanta, the gang has to lay low as a herd
of zombies pass them by. Andrea, before taking a level in badass, got stuck in the RV's bathroom with no weapons to defend herself. Dale, on the roof, sees she's in trouble and drops a screwdriver down to her. As a zombie bursts in, she stabs it in the eye and breaks its neck.
The RV Zombie is wearing shoes, jeans, a tank top and a short-sleeved plaid shirt. There's a wound on the left side of his jaw, suggesting that's the source of his zombie infection. His pose has him leaning very far forward, which makes him prone to falling over. He does have a V-crotch, so you can straighten him up a little, but then the sculpt gets messed up. Because this is 1997, apparently. The zombie's also got a swivel waist, hinged wrists, swivel biceps
(where they come out of the sleeves), and swivel/hinge shoulders. Pretty sad.
The head is hinged, but only to accommodate the action feature. Just like in the show, you can jam a screwdriver in his eyesocket and snap his head back - he has the tool in his eye in the package, but it is removable. The tip is bloody, and the eye socket is completely empty. The fit is a little bit loose, so it can fall out with a slight bump. Be careful you don't lose it in the carpet.
The final figure in the set comes from way back in Season 1. She's Hannah, the first zombie Rick meets (though not the first one shown on the show, thanks to the magic of flashbacks).
Dubbed "Bicycle Girl," Hannah is laying on a patch of grass, pulling herself along with her arms (since she doesn't actually have any legs any more).
She's dry and dessicated, with visible bones beneath her paper-thin skin. She's technically nude, though there's not much to see here. The figure includes a pair of pants that fit over her pelvis and one remaining thigh bone - it was probably done more to cover the gruesome legs than to preserve her modesty, but either way it's not accurate to the show: there, she had the thigh and entrails, but they seemed to come out of her torso, not hips. Wierd. She definitely didn't have pants though.
Bicycle Girl was played by local Atlanta actress Melissa Cowan, and the toy does
a fairly good job of capturing her likeness - or at least the likeness of her zombie makeup, which is what really matters. She's got stringy hair, blank eyes, and her mouth is open to take a bite of anyone who gets too close. They'll have to get very close though, since again, no legs.
Hannah's action feature is actually contained in the ¾" base she's resting on. Press the lever on the end, and the entire figure slides forward, raising up (her right hand is permanently attached to the grass).
It's an eerie and sad presentation, even if it does mean the figure has an obtrusive metal bar coming out of her side. The figure has swivel wrists and neck, hinged elbows, and swivel/hinge shoulders. You'll only really be able to use the ones of the left arm though, since the right is just designed to help the action feature. In addition to her pants, she comes with a broken Blackberry - an accessory from the webisodes, not the actual program. Neat!
While the first black and white zombie set was a Previews exclusive, this one can be found at Toys Я Us. But since McFarlane's Walking Dead toys are overpriced to begin with, an exclusive set is even worse. The grayscale paint helps though, and if you can overlook the tiny size, the action features are fun and varied.
-- 06/19/13
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