ABE SAPIEN

HELLBOY REACTION FIGURES (SUPER 7)

In what has to be one of the quietest and understated moves the franchise has ever taken, apparently there’s a Hellboy movie coming out in two weeks?  The franchise got a reboot in 2019, and this one’s another reboot, specifically adapting the comics story “The Crooked Man”.  I guess that gives this movie a slightly better reason for not including Abe Sapien, since he’s not part of the original story, nor would he really fit its aesthetic.  It does mean that I’ll have to supply my own Abe Sapien appreciation, so here I am, doing just that!  Oh yeah!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Abe Sapien was released as part of the single-carded first assortment of Super 7’s Hellboy ReAction Figures line, alongside HB, Liz, and Lobster Johnson.  The figures are all comic-based, filtered, of course, through the usual ReAction lens.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  His sculpt was unique to him, and it does a respectable job of taking Mignola’s fish-man design and making it look like a Kenner figure from the ’70s.  Proportionally, his head seems maybe a bit big, but I think that may also be slightly linked to the way the gills work.  Beyond that, it’s a neat sculpt.  They’ve gone more for the “underwater adventure” look for Abe, so he’s got his shorts and belt, but that’s it.  The feet are an interesting quirk; as far as I know, Abe’s always been depicted with actual toes, albeit frequently webbed ones, but this figure gives him sort of hooves, kind of like what Hellboy classically has.  I’d chalk it up to shared parts, but the two have very different details elsewhere on their legs, so it can’t really be that.  Just one of those things, maybe to sell the frequent Kenner inaccuracies? The color work on Abe is pretty fun; the teal sort of color is brighter than Abe is usually depicted, but it fits the vibe of the line very well, so I very much dig it.  Application’s all pretty clean, and there’s a surprising amount of accenting.  Abe is packed with a harpoon, which is great for all those harpooning needs.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

These figures all hit during a period of time when I didn’t have much in the way of disposable income, so I wasn’t really able to jump on any of them when they first hit.  It’s always bummed me out, because I definitely dug the style, and it meant there was an Abe figure I didn’t have.  Thankfully, things have a tendency to come back around, and Abe here got traded into All Time a few months back, giving me an opportunity to finally snag one.  Yay!  He’s not a terribly complex or involved figure, but I enjoy him for his simplicity.  Definitely fun, and I’m now fighting the urge to track down all of the rest of them.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.