RED SKULL

ONE:12 COLLECTIVE (MEZCO)

As prominent a fixture as he may be in the Captain America mythos, Red Skull isn’t a character that’s been particularly blessed when it comes to the world of action figures.  He hasn’t been particularly scarce, or anything.  In fact, he’s gotten a pretty decent amount of coverage.  What he *hasn’t* gotten is particularly good coverage.  This has been especially true of his 6-inch scale figures.  Of his six Legends-branded releases, two were movie figures, one was just a re-skinned Iron Man, another placed him on one of the modern line’s weakest bodies, one wore something decidedly un-Red-Skull like, and the first may well be the worst Legends figure Toy Biz ever released.  Not the greatest selection pool.  There are, however, some other offerings on the market, one of which I’m taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Skull was a late 2017 release from Mezco’s One:12 Collective, obviously meant as an accent piece to the previous year’s Captain America.  There were two variants of the Skull produced; the one I’m looking at today is the standard release, which has him in an all-black leather-jacketed number.  There was also an SDCC-exclusive that had him in his green jumpsuit from the Kirby days.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and has over 30 points of articulation.

Red Skull includes two different headsculpts.  Both of them are modeled pretty heavily on Jack Kirby’s original Red Skull design, which never seems to really get its due in action figure form.  It’s refreshing to see a more faithful rendition appear here, especially given Mezco’s tendency to modernize a lot of the time.  The figure comes wearing the more expressive of the two heads, which has Skull arching his brow and bearing his teeth in a lop-sided grimace.  It’s a very classic expression for him, and is especially well-suited to this styling of the Skull.  There are a number a small little cracks running throughout, keeping things from being too devoid of detail.  The second head isn’t too different, but gives him a closed mouth, more leveled brow appearance.  He’s still not a happy looking guy, but this is a more pensive, perhaps later in his career version of the Skull.  The details of this head line up with the first, really selling it as just a change of expression.  The paintwork on both is fairly similar.  The red is molded, with a black wash to bring out the details.  They’ve also correctly captured his bright blue eyes, a definitive feature of the character.

Red Skull is built on the mid-sized male body, a suitable choice for the character.  His uniform is a mixed media offering, as is usually the case for this line (though it wasn’t for the last figure I reviewed from it), made up of an underlying jumpsuit, with a leather duster on top of it, plus a shoulder-strap and belt to hold it in place, and a pair of sculpted boots.  The jumpsuit is fairly loose fitting, and has some printed on elements to keep it from being just a straight black affair.  The boots hold it in place at the base of the legs, and are actually two pieces so as to allow for movement at the ankles.  The leather duster is fake leather (not a shock at this scale) but is reasonably detailed, and nicely tailored to the body.  It also is stiff enough to hold some decent dynamic poses, which I quite like.  The strap and belt is a plastic element, and snaps in place to keep the jacket secure.  It features a working holster for his gun, as well as a very impressive Hydra logo on the buckle.  It can also be adjusted for use without the jacket, if you so desire.

In addition to the previously mentioned extra head, Red Skull is packed with three pairs of hands (in fists (L&R), trigger finger (R), open grasp (R), closed grip (L), and loose grip (L)), a Luger, the Cosmic Cube, and a display stand with the Hydra logo printed on it.  The Cube is my favorite of the included extras, and is a little different than the ML renditions we’ve gotten, being a more opaque piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t get this guy when he came out mostly because I hadn’t yet gotten any of the other Marvel releases, and, more specifically, hadn’t been able to get the classic version of Cap.  I also didn’t work at a toy store where I had easy access to such things.  This guy got traded in to All Time Toys a few weeks back, and I’d been commenting to the store owner Jason that I didn’t have a good Red Skull in my collection, so he kindly set it aside for me, and gave me a solid deal for it too.  I like this guy a lot, and he’s definitely the best Skull at this scale.  Heck, he’s probably the best Skull at any scale.

As noted above, I got this guy from All Time Toys.  He was a trade-in, so they don’t have him in stock anymore, but they do have a variety of other One:12 collective figures still available. If you’re looking for those, or other cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.