Have you ever been so excited to see something new at a store that you buy a figure you never intended to buy before that day? It happened to me at Gamestop last week, so let’s take a look at Uncanny X-Force Deathlok!
This is going to be a slightly different format than my usual review. I’m doing a little collector introspection on this one.
I vaguely remembered the announcement of the Fan-Channel exclusive Deathlok, so it took me by surprise to find him of the shelf at Gamestop. I was so pleased I immediately took him to the register. Impulse buy in action. It wasn’t until I was cracking this figure open that I started to think if I really needed this figure at all.
I had the original ML Deathlok and the recent Hasbro version, but I never really played much with the recent Hasbro Deathlok.
I think the reason for that is that Marvel Legends is not my primary collection and the pace of releases are so fast and furious that I tend to fall behind. The further I fall behind in collecting the figures, the less likely they are to be posted here on Fwoosh and my life is such that I don’t have much time for figures I’m not posting on Fwoosh.
I’ll still buy a wave of figures when I find them, but they tend to sit for a while and I’ll open a ton at the same time. Mostly because I need to clean up. When I do that I feel like I don’t really get my money’s worth with that figure. I don’t really focus on the figure.
That happened with Deathlok, he got opened in a big group of figures I wanted to clean up and get out of the way. So now I’ve bought a repaint of a figure I didn’t really appreciate to begin with who is in a uniform from a book I haven’t read. I’m starting to think I need to exercise a little more self control at the store.
That said, opening up this figure and messing around with it has been a ton of fun. The figure is pretty much the same as the original Hasbro release with a new paint job, though the upper chest is slightly different to accommodate the change from flag to x-logo.
He comes with a pistol, a removeable backpack, a shotgun, a mini-gun, and a belt of translucent yellow bullets. The weapons all fit in Deathlok’s right hand well and look pretty cool, proportional to the figure, and appropriate to the sci-fi nature of the character.
The backpack comes off, but I think he looks a lot cooler with it.
I do like that we’ve got a holster for the pistol, though I wish the mini-gun had a handle on top for him to hold. I think that would look better than cradling it. I’m not sure why the bullets are trans yellow. Maybe I need to read the book for that answer. I’m also never sure which side to stick the bullets on a mini-gun. Do they feed left to right or right to left? It works both ways on the figure
The articulation on this guy is ML standard and it all moves well, though the biceps only get about 90 degree bend.
The repainted head looks to me to be an improvement on the original as I really like the quality the wash gives his decomposing skin. The silver is pretty shiny, so that’s nice.
So overall, this a pretty cool figure. I’m still not sure I needed it, but I’ve added Uncanny X-Force to my to read pile and he goes nicely with all the other X-Forcers I picked up in other BAF waves recently. The upshot of this for me is that this figure helped me appreciate the first Deathlok more than I had. It also got me thinking about my level of consumption and how I enjoy this hobby.
