Another nod to a classic and rare action figure, Armorvor Kugarrec
hit as part of a trio of new creatures near the end of September. And
it's good. Our new pal evokes a classic figure from the Laser Beasts
range known in English as "Scope Cougar," named after the game early
20-something toy collectors do at Target at toy runs. And now that I
have alienated all of you, I can just gush about this one.
Along with the Kugarrec and Arthrodak flavors, the Armorvor Neo Wyverillian
dropped three new heads on us all at once - which is kind of stunning,
given the Armorvor has only been a Wolf and Neo-Granthan for the last 8
years. Due to Matt Doughty's hesitance to waste anything, this figure
is particularly curious - the dragon head is painted grey plastic, and
the wings are molded in red plastic. What other parts are hiding out
there for future release?
Think pink with the clear glittery Armorvor Neo Nonilla.
Colored like a rabid Lisa Frank binder, this nifty figure brings you
the Neo Granthan head with the classic wolf helmet and a backpack. And
glitter. So much glitter.
Clear with more paint! The Neo Granthan Pyrotellica
is an orange release that looks like it probably owes a little bit -
OK, a lot - to Micronauts. The previous Armorvor toys have rarely been
clear, and those that have only had a tiny bit of paint. This is the
first one to have painted faces on clear plastic, making it unique for a
variety of reasons beyond merely being a new color with a newish head
sculpt. Seemingly fans didn't jump on this one, because it didn't sell
out quickly and actually stuck around along with his brothers beyond the
point that the orders actually began to show up. It's still available
as of my writing this, which is odd for a generally popular mold.
The name is evocative! The Neo Granthan Cliffstalker is a brown, chocolate-flavored take on the Battle Beasts-inspired
Glyos figure. With an orange skin and a red Black Core, this feels
like many of the popular 1980s robotic toys out of Tomy. While not a
perfect match, it immediately reminded me of Robostrux mixed with a little bit of the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing. He is orange with blue eyes, after all.
While
the name (and an unhelmeted hand-molded head) existed for a while, the
mass-produced mold is new here! One of three releases, the Neo Granthan Vrylless
marks the replacement of the wolf headed Armorvor in favor of a
dinosaur-headed Granthan. Two other figures hit at the same time, each
of which use the classic Armorvor body with a new head. The wolf helmet
head is still here, and you get 18 total parts as always.
The Armorvor Rig Crew Mimic
was the final painted wolf headed Armorvor, complete with orangey
colored fur. He's not the first one to be close to that color, but he
is in fact the last! I appreciate the finality, as the mold is
starting to feel old if you're a long-time card-carrying member of the
Glyos cult and I'm not sure if the line has fans who aren't more or less
on board with buying new figures every few weeks.
The Armorvor Neo Phase
is the end of an era. Along with the Rig Crew Mimic Armorvor, these
two guys round out the final run of wolf-headed Armorvors - the furry
head goes into retirement and will be replaced by something new in late
October. Until then, these two figures - and a fifth run of the
super-popular clear colorless version - seem to be available in the
Onell Design store. They're quite nice, and if you never picked up an
Armorvor I'd strongly advise you do so now as it really is the last
chance to get this head outside eBay. Over two years we've had dozens
of the little guy, but this is the first and only clear plastic one to
feature painted details. The Infection Red and Stealth clear colorless
releases are undecorated.
It's impossible to look at the Ecroyex Mimic Armorvor
and not love it. Depending on how old you are, you'll see any of a
number of inspirations. Perhaps the blue with red will remind you of
some of the "stealth" Iron Man action figures. Perhaps the silver head
and blue body will remind you of Micronauts, with the name coming off as
a garbled up variation on "Acroyear."
The generous crew at Onell Design are teasing upcoming figures during their current trip to China. In the post titled Big Boys you'll see an Armorvor
that's no doubt inspired by the blue metallic Stealth Armor Iron Man,
which has had numerous awesome action figures from Hasbro over the
years. This may also be the first metallic plastic Armorvor figure.
Armorvors sell out fast, always. At 2 per customer, the Sonesidar Mimic Armorvor
sold out rather quickly - I waited a while to write this review so I
forget exactly how long, but I know it was under 20 minutes. It was
part of the "Operation Sonesidar" series, which was the first series of
2013 which was inspired by the classic Fisher-Price Adventure People
action figure line. The bright colors are evocative of the 1970s-1980s
line, and this guy matches the driver of the Alpha Star vehicle which I
had as a kid. As such, I'm biased - and I like this a lot.
I don't know the exact name of the cybernetic Battle Beasts-esque Rhinoceros head as the package didn't have one, so I'm calling it a CyberRhino
head here. As with other releases in this hand-made series, the head
was sculpted by Jason Frailey (the guy who sculpted the Armorvor) and
was molded by the GodBeast, debuting at C2E2 last month. Most of his
heads debut online and are ordered through the October Toys forums, cast
in resin so you'll need to be careful with them. Sadly these heads
have yet to be cast in PVC, the kind of plastic used for most Glyos
figures. If I could, I'd love to invest in getting these cranked out
on a larger scale just so I could have more of them.