Today we are taking you on an adventure through a time warp, crashing back through toys and video games past to bring you a look at the (now decades old) Dragon’s Lair figures Dirk the Daring, Princess Daphne, and Mordroc. Released in 2002 to support the Dragon’s Lair 3-D game title, the now defunct AnJon toy company produced these three figures, along with a deluxe version of the dragon antagonist Singe, in pretty striking fashion. Sure, by today’s standards of combining sculpt with articulation, these guys might be showing their age a bit, but damn if they still don’t look great.
I will be honest, Dragon’s Lair, as an original video game title was a bit before my time, so while I don’t have the full nostalgic attachment to the first coming of the property, I have always been a fan of Don Bluth’s style, and the story and characterization from the property is a lot of fun. I remember when these figures were first released; it was right in the middle of the fabulous glut of Simpsons, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Legends, and Muppets figures I was collecting. I was also in college at the time, so I was already overextending a toy budget, so whenever I would see the Dragon’s Lair figures I would always say to myself, “I will pick them up later.”
As you can imagine, someday never came, and it was not until just a few weeks ago that these happened to cross my mind (quite by accident) for the first time in years. As luck would have it, a quick check of eBay returned some inexpensive results, so I grabbed all three of these figures right away. I was able to grab a Singe figure too, but he has not arrived yet, so he will have to wait for a future feature. It is funny, even though these could be considered quite dated by today’s standards, I think I actually appreciate them more for not having gotten them back in a time when I was buying so much as they would have probably gotten lost in the fray.
AnJon’s (does anyone know of anything else they did?) attempt at these figures ended with some mixed results, but through them there is still a lot to appreciate. I am assuming that this was their first (and possibly only) attempt at making action figures, so there are some things like joint quality and paint accuracy that tend to creep into that learning process, but, for the most part, they were on the ball with character likeness.
The star of the property, the heroic Dirk the Daring, is probably the second-best figure overall from these three, and I think his expressive likeness is his greatest asset. If you know the property, you cannot question Dirk’s bravery or heroic nature, but since comedy has been a part of this mythos from the beginning, he also comes by a bit of a natural penchant for haphazard buffoonery. That is just a nice way of saying he can be bit of a klutz. Like I said, I really like his facial expression, and the colors of his mail and adornments are bright and eye-catching. I have taken some extreme close-ups of his face and that is where you can see a bit of a breakdown in his paint work, but his articulation is a bit of a bugger for me as well. Sure, he could probably be more articulated so he would look more natural in iconic poses, but some of the articulation he does have is not very functional. His ball shoulders and arm cuts can be annoying since they do not line up perfectly, and his leg articulation can be downright maddening, so it kind of runs the gamut.
So even though he doesn’t move all that well, he does look pretty good, and he really wins when it comes to his accessories. He has a backpack that can open and close, though the latter is a bit hard to keep, as well as a few implements in the potion and two dungeon keys. The real highlight is the eyeball tentacle creature because you pretty much get a whole new character as a pack-in. I rather like this beasty as it has a good paint job and a well-functioning internal bendy skeleton. So, if the iconic Dirk is the only figure you would think about getting, at least he will have something to fight right out of the package.
The proverbial “damsel in distress” and lady love of the protagonist is Princess Daphne, and she was also included in what was branded as “Series 1” of this series. She has always had an interesting design, and by interesting I mean, um, saucy? But her rather extreme lack of clothing is probably to blame for most of the failures of functionality of the figure. The intended-to-be “sexy” likeness is a bit muddled, and she ends up looking a bit more “deer in the headlights.” She looks okay, but doesn’t scream “Daphne” from me right from the get go. I do appreciate that her hair is made of a very soft plastic, so you can get good movement from her head where I was suspecting it to be severely limited.
Unfortunately, her cut neck moves best out of just about any other points on the figure. Like I said, her outfit is skimpy, so I completely understand not wanting to cut up a lot of skin, but what you are left with is essentially a statue that cannot even really stand on its own without the help of the (included) gold pile base. For all intents and purposes, they did not even need to include the hip cuts as they are essentially useless. She does have shoulder cuts, but since her elbows are completely bent, and if her arms are not hanging at her sides, she looks as though she is in a very awkward running pose. So yeah, to stand around and look “in distress” she does that pretty well, but I am hard-pressed to even call her an “action” figure.
Daphne, like Dirk, does win in the accessories department and she gets three very nice pieces. The aforementioned gold pile base does its function job well, but it also looks really nice. Also included is the amulet she uses to communicate with Dirk. To me, it seems like it is a bit oversized, but the detailing is nice and the translucent plastic used for the crystal allows you to see the picture beneath (though it’s pretty obscured).
Finally, you also get the Fire Drake figure (red little dragon), and, like the tentacle monster included with Dirk, this is the real standout “accessory” for this set. Actually, I like this pack-in figure better than the actual figure, so take that for what it is worth. The sculpt detailing is actually very nice, especially on the wings and tail. He has a smug little expression about him and while he does not have a ton of articulation, his head and arms move quite well.
The last figure from this group of three is the real standout – the evil Mordroc. Frankly, I think this figure is a winner all around. To start, his likeness is pretty dead-on and the best of the bunch and that comes directly from a sculpt that is head and shoulders above the rest. I really dig his face sculpt and there are a lot of expressive lines and crags that add a lot of personality to the figure. His hands have a lot of detailing as well, and I would not want him pointing at me directly with those gross little digits. The rest of his sculpt represents his hunching-little-goblin look well and, surprisingly, he stands the best of any of the figures.
With Modroc you also get his staff, which is fairly simple, as well as two of the slapstick ding bats. The magic staff is serviceable, if not too terribly exciting (that is a design issue, though), but the ding bats are a lot of fun. For being so small, they have a lot of personality in both sculpt and paint, and even if you want to display them away from the rest of the figures (like on, say, a desk), they are funny little conversation starters.
After all this time, I finally got those Dragon’s Lair figures I have been watching for over a decade — all in good time, I suppose. Overall, I am nostalgically pleased with them. I really enjoy the overall look of them, and despite some of the shortfalls, the high points like Mordroc’s sculpt make them very visually appealing. These are pretty much long gone from most online vendors, but when in doubt, to eBay you go!
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