Sometimes a toy grabs on to you by the collar and just won’t let you get away no matter how much you try to get away. When that happens you feel a little like Alex in A Clockwork Orange with your eyes pried open, unable to blink, unable to look away. You know it’s inevitable. That’s how it was with this figure.
I’ve been a fan of the Disney mainstays since I was just a puppy, to the point that every year one of my main Christmas “gottawatch” shows is still Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Despite being a lifelong toy fan, I never really thought about the fact that I’d love to have superposeable figures of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and so forth, but now that the moment has come, I’m wondering why it never occurred to me before.
Donald Duck comes from the Hybrid Metal Figuration line by 86Hero. It’s #6 in a line that includes the original versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse (which I sadly missed out on), Batman, a Stormtrooper, and Mickey Mouse as Woody from Toy Story. A bizarre line to be sure, but completely worth it if it means turning out such a perfect representation of the universe’s favorite mallard with anger-management issues. It’s a bit pricey due to being an import figure, but that’s irrelevant: this figure hit me in all the right places. It’s called “Hybrid Metal” because the figure itself is a mixture of plastic and die-cast metal parts. He’s right at five and a half inches tall, which ends up being a good height for him, and his heft and quality makes the price seem OK.
It’s hard to put into words how great this figure is. I’m tempted to let the pictures do all the talking because you can look at it and see how faithful it is to the source material. This is Donald — in every possible way. With a design that’s as unique as a walking, talking cartoon duck, you run the risk of making him gangly while attempting to squeeze in the articulation points that require superposeability. But none of that is an issue here.
Donald comes with two pairs of heads: angry and neutral/happy. Both heads are spot-on and full of character. He also comes with six different hands: a pair of fists for when he’s angered up, a pair of neutral hands, a right pointing hand, and a right waving hand. His heads pop on and off easily,and the hat is removable to swap onto the other head. His hands may give you a bit of trouble, and you may sweat a bit thinking you’re going to break them while swapping, but don’t worry, they’re just nice and tight, and once they’re on there’s no chance of them slipping off until you pull them off yourself.
Articulation-wise, he’s got a ball-jointed head and neck, jointed shoulders with a bicep swivel, single-jointed elbows, double-pegged revoltech-styled ball-jointed wrists with full range of motion, ball-jointed torso under his sailor suit, ball-jointed hips, single-jointed knees, and ball-jointed ankles. With his heft and his wide duck feet, he’s an exceptionally stable figure and can get into all kinds of stances.
The lower half of his torso is plastic covered with a rubbery “skin,” which means his tail is flexible. It feels durable, so I doubt there will be any ripping issues in the future. Plastic, metal, rubber — they’re not kidding about the “hybrid” aspect.
Paint is impeccable. Granted, his color scheme is fairly basic, but there’s zero slop or spill anywhere. The only problem is the paint will eventually rub off the metal pegs in his knee joints. Mine’s already come off a bit. It’s not too big of an issue all things considered, but it is a danger.
All together he’s got pretty much all the basics covered for a full range of expressiveness, which is great because Donald has always been one of the most expressive of the Disney characters. What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Donald Duck? Fist clenched, angry, stamping his feet, shouting barely intelligible streams of what may or may not be ducky curse words and just unintelligible gibberish — yeah, any figure of Donald needs to be able to pull that off. A statue or (ugh) staction may be OK, but it wouldn’t be the full 360-degree experience that one would really need.
Donald does it. Man, does he do it. A toy like this makes you think of the possibilities. I really hope this isn’t a little taste that makes you thirsty and then dries up. I want a Goofy with this level of articulation. I want a Pluto. I want a little Chip and Dale. Hell, I need a Daisy for Donald to make an absolute ass of himself over. I want variations of the Mickey and Minnie they’ve already put out. I want a Scrooge McDuck. There are so many possibilities this has opened up that I never knew I wanted until I played with this one.
When you spend a more-than-average sum of money on a figure on a whim, there’s a sweating period, but I have zero regrets about this one. It’s in the running for my figure of the year, and if you have the slightest interest in one, I’d get him now because from past offerings, these seem hard to acquire once they’re gone.
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