Ladies and Gentlemen, the b***ch is back.
The Alien franchise is proudly celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, specifically the aptly named Aliens from James Cameron. Among the many memorable characters and creatures this gracefully aging film introduced, none could be bigger or more bad-ass than the Alien Queen. Sorry, Hicks. You still my dog tho.
And rightfully so, this regal monster has had her fair share of plastic iterations. The original Kenner version is still an impressive-looking figure, and I’m hoping we’ll see that crazy winged variant someday in NECA form. McFarlane was the first to really deliver that massive, highly detailed movie-accurate Queen we all wanted, and despite some wonky articulation and some stupid steel support rods through her feet, I really didn’t think I’d need another Queen.
NECA has always been pretty good about making me reassess those needs, though. And sure enough, their version of the Queen came out a couple years ago and really upped the ante over the McFarlane one. Now, for some reason, I went to the effort of selling off my original one with the intention of picking up the new NECA version, and somehow failed to do so. I’m honestly not sure why. And the secondary prices of the “black” Queen make that a very stupid oversight on my part.
So when the red “Genocide” version came out this past winter, I renewed those intentions. It just took me longer than expected.
As mentioned, this Queen is inspired by the Dark Horse Comics Genocide series. If this franchise is of interest to you and you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so. It’s been collected in trade, and I believe it’s also in the Dark Horse Omnibus series. The premise is pretty self-explanatory, but it provides a very interesting glance at Xenomorph hierarchy we’re not likely to see on the screen. Probably ever.
Anyway, she’s essentially a retool of the movie Queen with some new head sculpting, notably the “tusks” and the tendrils around her mouth. The articulation is the same, though I have heard this version is a little more durable and holds pose better. Going from the McFarlane version to this one is a significant jump, and I would say I’m pretty satisfied with the poses I can get. The design is inherently unstable, hence the inclusion of a stand, but I found it was possible to balance out her mass in some poses, with enough effort. And that’s still a lot better than steel rods through the figure itself. Again, no surprise to the owners of the first version, but I was really impressed by the opening jaw and “inner” jaws that can be inserted.
The most dramatic draw of this Queen would obviously be the paint job. And it is anything but subtle.
I was really impressed the more I looked over the work, though. The paint washes show off a ton of detail, and the variances in parts of the legs and body are really striking, especially in person. In fact, I’m thinking this Queen will be the ideal one to put in the center of all the upcoming Kenner-inspired variants.
If you missed out on the standard movie version, don’t wait as long as I did to snatch this one up. With as massive as the Aliens line has become, you might even want to grab it even if you did.