Spock was one of the good guys. He was a bold explorer, a loyal friend, and he was clean shaven. This is an important fact, because with the addition of a simple goatee, Spock was no longer Mr. Nice Guy. They say he’s sick, he’s obscene. Ever since that fateful moment, pop culture has universally agreed that if you want an evil version of somebody, then you need to plop a goatee on him.
Once everyone got a gander at Mezco’s One:12 Spock, the next step was obvious: we needed a Mirror, Mirror Spock. We needed a Spock with a goatee (SWAG). To not have such a thing would mean that our Star Trek collection could never be truly complete.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Mezco to debut the fabled and iconic SWAG.
Now, Spock was not the only character to get an evil version, so only time will tell if we get more members of that very different crew. Spock is by far the most iconic of them all, so if he’s the only one that gets made, then I can live.
If you have the previous Spock, then you know most of what to expect with this body. There is a little hitch in that some of his articulation points suffer due to the unique nature of his uniform. Mainly the problem comes in those thigh-high boots that only Spock, Rick James, Sean Connery, and Vartox can pull off with such panache.
Everything else is mostly fine. Spock gets a nice range of motion out of his neck and torso, his arms have a swivel-hinge “elbrow-style” joint, which I do wish was a regular double joint, mainly because I couldn’t get him in a “goatee-stroking” pose. If you’re evil and you have a goatee, you have to stroke it, and I definitely feel the loss here.
The likeness of regular Spock is extremely strong, like, creepy strong, and it’s the same here. This is a little Leonard Nimoy with a goatee. He has an icy-cold expression on his face that has a touch of malevolence not found in Spock’s normal passive glare.
He comes with several sets of hands. He has one pair of fists, one pair of open hands, a mind-meld hand, a phaser-gripping hand, and an extra right hand to hold the little dagger he comes with.
The phaser slips into the elastic loop on his pants, and there’s an even tinier loop that I almost missed that the sheath for his dagger can slip onto.
His clothes all look great. Mezco’s fabric at this scale continues to look very nice. It’s not going to look perfect. because perfect is impossible, but it definitely does the job. He’s got two layers of clothing on his torso and a sash which I may need to tighten a bit as it wants to slide down quite often. The pants don’t interfere with his hip articulation at all.
The major articulation issues show up at the knees and ankles. The knees do get some bend because the boots are fairly flexible in that area, so he’s not completely locked into a rigid pose, but you won’t get many deep-knee bends out of him. His ankles take the brunt of the issues. His articulation is essentially cut down to swivels there. You can get a hair of movement, but not as much as you will get on the regular Spock. And the ankles on the regular figures are probably the weakest joint in terms of articulation range anyway, so it’s a bit tricky to find the right spot for posing him.
Overall, even with the issues, I’m glad they made this figure, and I’m extremely glad it was relatively painless to acquire. If you are a fan of Star Trek, then you know how iconic this Spock is and the impact the “add goatee for evil” iconography has had on pop culture.
Mirror, Mirror, Spock was a Thinkgeek.com SDCC exclusive and is now available for ordering on their website.