Zombie Daredevil/Giant-Man

In our Marvel Zombies Minimates review, we suggested that box set was the first Marvel Zombies merchandise available, and that isn't entirely accurate: sure, it beat the Marvel Select Zombie figures to stores by three weeks, but it still wasn't the start of the merchandising flood. At SDCC '07, Diamond Select Toys offered an exclusive Marvel Zombies Minimates two-pack, featuring two red-clad (but otherwise unrelated) heroes, Daredevil and Giant-Man. Life as one of the undead hasn't been especially great for Daredevil. He was turned by Spider-Man, and had a hole punched through his chest by Magneto. And after the first feeding frenzy, when everyone was comparing injuries, DD complained of a slight swelling in his legs - since his heart was missing, and therefore not pumping blood any more, gravity was forcing it to all pool in his ankles. Science! To convey his injuries, Zombie Daredevil's torso block is cast from translucent plastic. It's hard to tell what's anatomy and what's costume, since everything is red, but we do see muscles and organs around the edges of the hole. The remnants of his spine and ribs are easier to identify, though. The Daredevil mask is removable, revealing Zombie Matt Murdock's face beneath, and showing us just how bad your hat hair can get when you wear a cowl. His billyclubs fit in a sling on his hip. Unfortunately, the construction of the chest block kind of ruins the effect of the wound: a few years ago, the interior of the chest was redesigned, and the waist peg lengthened. It's so long, in fact, that when you try to look through the chest hole, all you see is the peg. They should have cast the hips in clear plastic, as well. Fans generally consider Giant-Man an unpleasant creep in the 616 Universe, but he took that to new heights in the Zombiverse. Among trying to hunt the Avengers' butler Jarvis and squirrelling away food for future use, he also bit off his wife's head and decided he might not want to be cured, since he liked the taste of human flesh. Way to go, Hank! Other than the immediate lip-loss, which seems to inexplicably plague all the zombies, Giant-Man doesn't have any obvious wounds. His costume isn't even torn. He's painted with all the usual heavy black shadows, but that's it. They missed a paint app on the inside of his right leg, where his boot should be, and his grey torso V doesn't continue over his shoulders. The details of his mask - the antennae and ear dealies - are painted elements. For some reason, Art Asylum (or DST, I suppose) has started molding all their Minimates from white plastic, then painting the details on. It's probably a money-saving measure - they can make huge batches of blank white bodies whenever there's room on the factory's schedule, then paint them to be whatever they need later - but it does cause some problems. Adding an extra layer of paint, no matter how thin, makes the joints tighter, and leaves blank spots when you move the figure. Come on, guys, go back to using colored plastic. All Minimates move at the same 14 points: neck, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles. I experienced a first, this time: Daredevil's right knee broke when I moved it, which has never happened with a Minimate before. Sadly, it's not zombie battle damage, just poor construction. This set is also lacking one other feature seen on the box set: those figures were all made with the little "claw" hands, to make them look less human, while DD and Giant-Man still have the normal hands. Still, this is a good set, with two more zombies to pad your growing army. -- 10/13/07

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