KANG

MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS (MATTEL)

Yesterday, I said that Doctor Doom was the greatest comicbook villain of all time. But, what about the second greatest comicbook villain? If I’m honest, I’d probably go with the focus of today’s review, Kang the Conqueror. Now, I’m sure at least some of my readers aren’t super familiar with Kang. Kang’s an old-school Avengers villain. He’s a guy from the future, who went all the way back to ancient Egypt, then decided to come to the present, and then eventually went back to the future, so that he could then come back to the present. It’s a little complicated. In his past he was both Rama Tut and Iron Lad, and in the future he becomes Immortus (another Avengers villain). The point is, he’s a lot of fun. He’s managed to get a surprising number of action figures over the years, but today I’ll be looking at his very first.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kang is another figure from the first series of Mattel’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars line. He’s kind of an odd choice, truth be told. He’s not one of Marvel’s better known villains, and plays a very minor role in the tie-in comics. Still,I’m hardly going to complain about getting a Kang figure! He stands 4 ½ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. Kang was built on the basic body for the line, with the arms from Iron Man (and Doctor Doom) and a unique head. The head is goofy, but not a terrible translation of his design from the comics. It’s not quite as good as some of the later Kang figures, but it doesn’t totally suck. It’s a little flat. The Iron Man arms are actually a pretty good fit, though Kang is usually depicted in a loose-fitting shirt in the comics. Kang also has an add-on piece for his belt/suspender thing, which works pretty decently for what it’s supposed to be. Kang’s paintwork isn’t super exciting. I mean, it’s accurate to his design, more or less, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to make it very exciting. The purple and green are both very dark and sort of run together. Also, the face is just straight light blue, with no variation, which looks kind of lazy. Kang included a blaster and yet another goofy lenticular shield.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Kang at the same time as Doom (and, by extension, Bane), from a dealer at Balticon. My Dad actually bought a Kang about 15 years ago at a flea market, and I’ve sort of wanted my own ever since, though not enough to do any serious searching. But, for $2, he was definitely worth picking up. There have been better Kangs since this one, but this one’s still not bad!