CORTEX COMMANDER

THE WORST ULTIMATES (SUPER 7)

Oh man, more Super 7?  What are the odds?  Well, honestly sort of high right now, because they seem to be shipping a lot of their stuff in big batches, so all of the stuff I had planned on getting over the course of the last, like, two years, is landing at the same time.  Yay?  Today, I’m talking about something that’s just the worst.  No, seriously, that’s not a judgement of the product; the line is called “The Worst.”  The Worst is actually one of Super 7’s in-house properties, and they’ve done a lot of it with their ReAction imprint.  With that being rather successful, they expanded the brand into their larger Ultimates branding, and I’m taking a look at one of those today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cortex Commander is part of the third assortment of The Worst Ultimates.  Due to slower movement on the first wave, this round took a little ways to get out, and appears to have been a rather low production run, if the case numbers I saw are anything to go by.  Each set has two figures in it, and Cortex Commander’s buddy is Killer Bat, the baseball-themed samurai.  Cortex Commander himself is a rather classic brain in a jar set-up, albeit with some military dictator elements to what I have to assume is a robot body.  It’s a pretty nifty classic sci-fi thing, so I do dig that.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation.  His sculpt is unique to him (though time will tell if Super opts to do repaints of these molds the way they did the small guys), and it’s a solid up-scaling/reworking of the ReAction figure.  There’s no denying that this design lends itself well to a toy, and in general it’s just very polished and sharp.  The sculpt looks the part, and generally manages to make the articulation work pretty decently.  His elbows are still rather restricted, but he otherwise poses well.  His paint work isn’t bad.  Generally, it’s pretty minimal, but what’s there works, and sells the overall design well.  He gets a lot of accessories, including three pairs of hands (fists, gripping, and a trigger finger/cigar holding combo), two head domes (standard and shattered), an alternate tank piece to swap the brain onto, a cane, a pistol, a globe with a nuclear launch button in it, and a pet pigeon with a similar brain jar set-up as the Commander.  It’s a pretty decent selection of extras.  The pistol’s a little loose in the holster, and it’s a little strange that there’s no standard right fist included.  Also, it might be due to spending a lot of my time with an 18 month old, but I find myself with “have you ever seen a brain in a jar, smoking a cigar, down by the bay!” stuck with my head while messing with this figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Worst is one of those things I’ve been aware of for a while, and I’ve been passingly interested in it.  The Ultimates in particular did look pretty cool, and this guy’s design spoke to me.  Initially, I thought I had missed out on my opportunity to get him, but I was able to get him through All Time, and then kind of forgot he was coming until he showed up, so he was a bit of a surprise.  He’s a pretty cool figure.  And, for the fun of it, here’s a picture of him getting punched in the dome by Captain America, as is the customary way of breaking in all my figures of fascist villains!

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.