But I digress. Hot Toys' Thor 1/6th scale collectible figure, capturing fellow Australian Chris Hemsworth's meaty likeness and flamboyant costume, straight out of The Avengers film has arrived, hot on the coveted tail of the recent Black Widow...
I have him and, guess what, I'm going to tell you all about him, and clog up your precious internets with about a billion pictures. You can enjoy this gross intrusion... after the jump!
As this is our fifth Avenger to be reviewed (after Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury) we should pretty much know what to expect. Starting with this all too familiar box...
Which is actually an outer cardboard sleeve for the real box that rests inside....
The only unexpected thing being that this box feels noticeably heavier than all the others. Thor is pretty beefy and armoured up but the real surprise is an especially heavy accessory. More on that later, but I'll just say that it's a wondrous feat that I was even able to lift it. WINK. YEAH! THINK ABOUT IT.
So that's the accessory tray. Thor's pretty light on stuff but his armor is quite elaborate. His cape also feeds out the back of the tray so it doesn't get all crumpled. I want to draw particular attention to the extra sets of hands...
He has a lot of them and I haven't photographed him using all of them. The big reason for this is that I found his wrist joints especially tough to peg into the hand holes, specifically on his left wrist which refused to accept his hammer hand without falling off in an instant. It's rare that this happens and I think that the biggest factor is probably his interfering and rigid wrist guards. Assuming Thor is right-handed it's not too big an issue and the outstretched hand fit on fine, which is the one I'm ultimately going with. But, now you know, and that's why I've swapped them out as little as possible.
Okay, here's the basic figure straight out of the box.
While I'm obviously going to praise the typical Hot Toys attention to detail, I will say that this is probably my least favourite figure straight out of the box. It certainly looks like Thor, and I feel like all the elements are there, but the bulky armour disrupts the human silhouette and, in my opinion, makes him look a little more like a regular (and cheaper) action figure - especially from a difference. Once you get up close you can definitely see the care that has been taken, but Thor is a little stiff (go on, you can chuckle) and restricted compared to some of the others. But we'll examine that more specifically as we go.
Let's look at the head sculpt.
This is another one that has been a little mixed with the fans. There's no doubt that they've captured Chris Hemsworth but there's something a little derpy about him, particularly around the mouth, although that's more apparent in these blown up photos than it is in person.. He looks better from certain angles but I'm not entirely sure what this expression is aiming for. He looks a little distant to me.
The sculpted hair works and I think that rooted doll hair would have been a disaster. Oh look... I can see him better from this angle.... although he looks a little concerned.
And I think the profile is particularly good...
It's really all going to boil down to how you light and display him. In fact, a few hours after taking all the photos I took him downstairs and saw him with a light directly over head. It was far more flattering to the sculpt than these pictures where there's a lot of direct light on him. It made him look less plasticky and the Hemsworth likeness seem greatly improved. You forget that much of how we perceive these characters is governed by the way that they are shot and lit on screen. I noticed that with the Black Widow figure too - you got the right angle or lighting and she suddenly looks iconic. I'll have to play around with photographing these some more.
The costume is super detailed and you'll get to see all sorts of things you didn't even know where there. Like the microscopic runes that circle around the discs on his chest, or the tiny red stripes that run down his pants. And have you ever had a good look at Thor's boots?
You have now. Who the hell even makes those things? I hope it's Asgardian elves.
I was very curious as to how they would handle the chain-mail on the arms. I probably assumed they would be specifically sculpted and articulated but no, it's actually a rubber skin that completely encases regular Hot Toys arms that are hidden underneath. It looks pretty good but rubber makes me nervous - the instruction sheet warns to take extremely good care of it as it can crease or tear if you mistreat it. The biggest issue for me though is that it really hampers his arm movement. I found it almost impossible for him to raise his arm. You may be able to do it with some careful manoeuvring but I really wasn't going to risk damaging the figure. Even bending the elbow causes the rubber to fold and crease in unnatural ways.
Here's the back of the cape...
It holds its shape well and doesn't crease. It's a polyester - not especially regal, but perhaps far more functional, especially at this scale. It does the job. I guess it's kind of cool to see them go for a strong red too and not mute it like they often do with movie superhero costumes. (Yeah, I'm looking at you new Superman).
Now let's gear him up. Thor's most important accessory of all is, of course, Mjolnir, Thor's crazy hammer. He has both a left and right hand which are sculpted to tightly grip it.
I'm both impressed and surprised that the hammer is made of metal and is deceptively heavy. It has plenty of wear and scratches all over it, along with detail patterns and runes...
It's also incredibly reflective, which you should get a sense of in some of the later pictures. Despite its weight he holds it comfortably and it doesn't feel like it's going to fall out of his hand and smash through the glass shelves of my IKEA cabinets.
This is about as high as I can get him to raise it though. As you can see, the rubber chainmail is already starting to warp oddly in this pose...
But, then again, I'm sure it was really rubber in the film as well...
Thor's only other accessory is this Asgardian device that he uses at the end of the film to contain the Tesseract (Cosmic Cube)...
The cube is not removable (you'll need to buy Nick Fury or the Red Skull for a separate piece) and it looks dull in the picture above but captures light well if you angle it right...
It's nice but pretty niche, I won't be using it in my display, although I admire the work that went into it. He has an alternate hand that holds it quite well. I even got it to work on that accursed left wrist...
And here's a couple more shots to lead us out... I'm still not sure I got the lighting quite right. The more I look at the figure since photographing it, the more I enjoy it. I wonder if my initial muted reaction was simply because I'm getting too used to the Hot Toys quality. After opening up quite a few of these in recent months it may not have that initial wow factor. There's no question they've done solid work once again though, and he's absolutely necessary if you're planning on assembling them all.
The hair sculpt limits the movement of his head but you can swivel it if you're careful. This might be one of my favourite poses but it will take up too much room in the display...
And finally some team shots for comparison. It made sense to me to shoot him next to the other flamboyantly attired character Captain America...
They actually look a little ridiculous together and I felt a bit awkward like maybe they were almost holding hands. Superheroes are pretty camp.
So then I threw in a woman to try to balance it all out. You can see the comparative heights at least.
Hemsworth is only three inches taller than Chris Evans in real life so don't expect the thunder god to be towering over him. They look pretty cool as a group, but I'm really eager for Iron Man now. I don't yet own any iterations of the character and I feel like he's going to be necessary to visually anchor the team. However, rumour has it that Loki is going to be the figure up next, and perhaps not as far away as you think.
So, after a shaky start, I do recommend Thor and urge you to approach him with an open mind. And I do think that once we add in the billionaire robot and the green monster that he won't look quite as silly as he does now. I love you, Hot Toys!
And the good news is that you can still pick up Thor yourself via our good friends at Sideshow Collectibles. Order him right here if you're fast:
Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece Series Thor Sixth Scale Figure - The Avengers
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