What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe.
You done contemplating? Good, let’s take a look at Super7’s Thulsa Doom! He comes in the same elaborate packaging as Pit Fighter Conan with an outer shipping box and a sleeve that lends a leather bound book feel to the box. It’s nice stuff and I feel a little bad tossing it aside as it seems extremely wasteful. The recycling on this series of four figures alone filled up a quarter or my bin. I do have to wonder, how much could they knock off the price if they simplified this packaging a bit.
Thulsa Doom comes with an alternate head without the helmet, two sheathes, and five knives. The knives are interesting because two fit in the sheathes attached to his belt and two similar, but slightly larger, knives are in separate sheathes that don’t attach to anything.
The smaller knives look great in the sheathes on the belt, but they are slightly small for the hands and the handles aren’t quite the full length of the hand. Thulsa Doom can still hold them, however.
The larger knives fit in the hand better and have a larger blade that is shaped differently from the smaller belt knives. I think the idea here is to give you the option of having Thulsa Doom wield these more impressive and toyetic bigger knives since the smaller knives look proportionally correct in the belt, but a little unimpressive in the hand. Options are good.
The final knife is the “Fangs of the Serpent” weapon King Osric tells Conan and crew about when he gives them the mission to steal back his daughter. I don’t recall Thulsa Doom wielding one in the film, but it has been a long time since I’ve seen the movie, so I might be wrong there. Either way, it’s an iconic weapon from the movie rendered nicely here.
The James Earl Jones portrait is pretty impressive. They totally nailed the somewhat spacy, crazy-eyed look he has throughout Conan The Barbarian. The paint is simple, but it’s clean and effective. Thankfully the heads swap much easier than they did on the Conan figure from this wave.
The sculpting on this figure is a real treat for the eyes and the level of detail in the costume is honestly surprising. I don’t think I ever noticed the snake scales on the cloth parts of the costume while watching the film.
The cape is removeable and holds in place between Thulsa Dooms’ long hair and shoulders. You can take the cape off, but there is a bit of a gap between the hair and body, though it’s less noticeable on the head without the helmet.
The paint on this figure is also outstanding with some nice metallics and washes and drybrushes that bring out all the beautiful costume and armor detail.
The articulation is typical for this type of figure, though the arms and legs don’t quite get a 90 degree bend, the skirt and shoulder armor overlays are soft plastic stay out of the way of movement for the most part. The long hair and heavy cape don’t get in the way of head movement as much as I expected, but the head is a bit wobbly and doesn’t hold position as well as I would like. Thulsa Doom has:
- Ball and socket head
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, thighs, and ankles
- Bicep, waist and thigh swivels
- Single hinged knees, mid-torso, and elbows
Overall this is a great MOTUC style figure and probably my favorite of the wave. A big part of that is my love for Thulsa Doom as portrayed by James Earl Jones and the figure is a great representation of the character. He is a bit of a chunky figure and a stiff poser, but he looks amazing just standing there. I do kind of wish he came with Conan’s Father’s sword, but Rexor had that, so it’s not a big complaint.
