As one of the 1980s action icons, reanimated Detroit cop Alex Murphy has never done too badly in the action figure realm. Thanks to the flims, a cartoon, and some pretty good console and arcade games, Robocop easily made the jump from R-rated movie to Kenner toyline.
And in the decades since those glory days, there have been some pretty solid renditions starting with McFarlane and really hitting stride with NECA. Even Figma gave it a shot recently. But for whatever reason, the solicitations for this Medicom one had me really wanting to take one more crack at it. As most of you know, the import lines like MAFEX have recently tended to schew closer to that all-encompassing 6″ floating scale this site is all about. And NECA has always ran just a little larger- for Robocop, it’s honestly not a bad thing, but I figured, what the hell. The last few MAFEX figures have felt like a major step up in quality from that old Bale Batman that drove me nuts back in the day, and cured the failings of that BvS Superman that Prodigy almost took out for target practice.
And now I’m very pleased that I did. Basically, Medicom was able to match the top notch paints and sculpt of the NECA versions, amp up the articulation in some effective ways, throw in some fun options parts, and get it all into a pretty Marvel Legends compatible size.
One of the first things that impressed me out of the box was the overall quality. Not just the visuals, either- Robocop came out very solid for an import figure. I know a lot of the days of accidental amputations and shoddy quality are behind for a lot of imports, but that fear is always in the back of my mind, so being able to put it to rest was a definite plus.
The sculpt and paint really do feel just a cut above the NECA ones, which were already damn excellent. In as much as any Robocop actually looks like Peter Weller, the faceplates, especially the “talking” one, evoke him well. The armor sculpt is just as intritcate, and the paint actually comes off a bit more cinematic- the chestplate in particular matches the screen really well. My frame of reference is the Robocop 3 release, kinda the “ultimate” of its day, where the figure has a lot more blue tinge. Other releases have the more subdued highlights, but this MAFEX version feels like it gets a little of all the above, with nice chrome, blue and purple worked throughout. The OCP plates, small vent and rivet details, and pistons are here as well, and like the NECA ones, the ankle pistons do move. One difference sculptwise here is that Medicom opted for an alternate part to mimic his thigh holster, as opposed the spring ones NECA occasionally uses. Having glued several of those shut after they have exploded, I’m good with this call. I’ll get into those option parts in a moment.
Articulation has to be judged on a bell curve, because really ANY extra range on a Robocop figure is much appreciated. And again, I feel like NECA has always done right by the design, even sneaking balljoints in where they could. This one just takes that admirable accomplishment and amps it up a few notches. Robocop has ball-jointed shoulders, but these also are set into a butterfly joint, which lets his static arms almost pull off what normally takes a bicep swivel. He has a double jointed neck and torso, both very nicely hidden, and double elbows neatly tucked in the flexible part of the armor.
Its been a while since I had a need to mention drop-down hip joints, but up until now it would be safe to say I wasn’t really a fan. This might sound a little bitchy, but my take is many of their uses are done as band-aids for bad figure design- not always, but you get what I mean. In this instance, I don’t think there would be any other way to give Robocop additional hip range. But I was surprised by how well they function overall, and for this character, you could damn near call these dynamic poses. He has ball-jointed hips with a slight swivel and thr drop-down function, single knees that can get a clean 90-degree break, and ball jointed ankles, with swivel. Easily better range of motion than any Robocop film suit could ever hope for.
Accessories include his Auto 9 (Beretta 93R for you gun nerds) in a glossy black finish, muzzle effecf, sets of fists, open hands, a trigger hand, pointing hand and the all-important data spike fist. There are 3 optional faceplates; stoic, talking, and “dead or alive,” and two thigh pieces to create the open holster for the automag. These peg into and replace about the top 3rd of the right thigh, at least they would if it weren’t so damn cold. I was struggling to point I was concerned I might snap a peg, but with a room temperature figure and no frostbite on your fingers its easy enough to swap. After I finished writing and taking pics, I gave it another go and no problems.
Lastly though are the damaged chestplate and helmet, and these are more fun and thankfully easier to swap. The chestpiece has a couple magnets to help with the securing, but really all the variant parts fit pretty well, if the hands might be a touch soft in their hold on the wrist peg. And these battle damaged parts are a blast. I expect some nice photosets out of folks.
Honestly, I was fairly content with my NECA figures for some time, and the articulation and detail came as a total surprise, so really the main draw for me to this figure was his size. And for a guy whose collection sticks close to about 6.5″ tall, this is where Robocop earned a purchase. Scale is tricky enough that I hesitate to call something “accurate,” I more just go with what feels right or gels right. So in that regard, here is NECA Robocop with NECA Dutch (from the FuzzyBlueDemon Hall of NECA:)
And here is MAFEX with my custom Dutch- built off of a Mezco Commander Rogers:
In the game of relative scales, I’m very pleased with this, and I can just about close the book on my “collection” Robocop, even if the upcoming MAFEX variants do look good. So, if you need a smaller Robocop for some slightly smaller figures, this is a highly recommended option. But if you run more of a 7″ scale anyway, or like a slightly more imposing Robocop, this isn’t going to challenge your existing goods. Sometimes you get something that fits a niche in an already niche collection, and that definitely happened for me here.
