I do tend to cycle through hyper-fixations and recently I’ve been really focused on G.I. Joe and Universal Monsters, so the Operation: Monster Force line has hit an opportune moment for me. The second wave of figures dropped recently and features a lot of zombies, so today we are going to take a look at one of them, the Apophis Legion Counter Terrorism Unit Trooper.
The boxes are of a really nice quality with thick cardstock, brightly printed photos and a cool comic that explains the character origins. Basically, these guys are soldiers who were sent to fight the Forgotten King who were killed, reanimated, and ultimately controlled by him.
The figure comes with a ton of stuff including two guns (rifle and pistol), four blast effects, several sets of hands (gloved fist, pistol, grip, and open as well as zombie pistol and grip hands), three heads, two necks, a helmet, ear pieces, a mask, a knife, a sheathe, a walkie, nightvision, a beret, and an extra magazine.
The figure itself has a removeable vest and that vest has peg holes so the grenades, communicator, and pouches can be swapped and moved around for things like the knife sheathe or the pouch for the walkie. There is a plate on the front that can removed as well and there are two included with the same symbol, just one is more battle-damaged.
The helmet is modular and there is a mask piece that attaches to holes above the ears. There is night vision gear that can plug into a hole in the front and hinge down. and there are also individual ear pieces that can attach to the helmet. They are a little fiddly to get in there, but have stayed on once I got them attached.
The three included heads can all wear the helmets and between the different helmets, hat and head, you can achieve a wide variety of looks. The blast effects attach securely to the weapons and look really nice backlit.
The weapons have a nice solid heft to them with sharp sculpting and a good deal of detail paint for a bit more realism than we see from Hasbro in their similarly scaled Classified line.
The zombie portraits are wonderfully gory and each awful detail is highlighted with sickly gloss red. I especially like the grey-ish green skin tone as it recalls some of my favorite old remco Universal Monsters figures. They included a zombie skin neck and hands and even the hands have a bit of gore to them.
The figure is wonderfully sculpted and shares some parts with previous releases like Declan Van Helsing and the Delta Red troopers, but there is plenty of new stuff to indicate seeping wounds, not to mention the three excellent zombie portraits. The articulation follows the standard for this line, which is similar to G.I. Joe Classified, but with much better range of motion at the ball joints. Articulation includes:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, hips, wrists, ankles
- Ball and socket waist, mid-torso, lower neck, head
- Hinged neck and butterfly pectorals
- Swivel biceps, thighs, and one boot
- Double hinged knees and elbows
The figure scales excellently with G.I. Joe Classified and Marvel Legends and could work equally well as zombie SWAT guys or Cobras. The paint is fantastic with the blue of the costume matching the first two releases of the G.I. Joe Classified Cobra troopers nicely, but there is a wash to sell the grimy zombie effect. There is a ton of detail on all the little buckles and clips on the belt and vest as well a ton of gruesome zombie wound detail.
Overall, this is a great addition to the Monster Force line that could be useful with a lot of other collections too. The figure itself feels of a very solid, high quality with useful and tight articulation and the extra pieces allow for a variety of looks for army building. They are a little pricey for army building at around $40.00, but I feel like there is a lot of value for the money here.
