By: GreenLeader
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I recently picked up the John Steed and Emma Peel figures from the classic cult tv show "The Avengers" from the UK based company Product Enterprise, Ltd. There were a few surprises and disappointments with this set. So let's take a closer look at them. |
| First, one of the surprises. When I undressed the Steed figure, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He sports a retooled Ultimate Soldier body. |
| It's pretty much an exact duplicate too, although it looks like the mold might have been taken from an existing Ultimate Soldier figure rather than getting the original Ultimate Soldier molds, because some of the sculpting details have been lost which is usually the case when you end up recreating a mold when the original mold is not available. |
| The joints look like they've been slightly modified to make them smaller than the more clunky joints of the Ultimate Soldier, but they are basically the same. He even has Ultimate Soldier hands, although the plastic is more similar to the flat type used by Sideshow's figures. The body is also cast in a slightly lighter shade, somewhere between the Ultimate Soldier and the new headswap Ultimate Soldier figures. |
| One of the slight disappointments is that Steed doesn't have shoes that can be removed. All they are is just a simple sculpt with the standard Ultimate Soldier ball joint attached to the top and they just simply plug into the leg. Surprisingly though, they're articulated pretty well. Not as good as an Ultimate Soldier's foot of course, but good enough. |
| The neck joint is kind of a strange thing too. It looks like Product Enterprises pretty much ditched the original Ultimate Soldier neck design and simply glued in a post with a ball on the end, which the head is then attached to. Not the nicest looking neck since it has this huge gap inbetween the chest and the headsculpt. But the articulation works pretty good. |
| Another serious disappointment is the fact that Steed's hat looks to have been glued on. You know, cast in two pieces and then put together. I'm not really sure why they did this because a removable hat would have been much nicer, but it looks ok. |
| Another of those pleasant surprises was the fact that Steed's Ultimate Soldier copy body has been put together with screws. Something I thought from the beginning that 21st should have done with the Ultimate Soldier body. It makes it much easier to get inside in case you need to fix any loose joints that you can't get to from the outside. |
| Steed's clothes look ok on the outside, but if you pull them off, you can really see that they're very sloppily sewn with loads of hanging threads. The material is a bit cheap and thin too. His clothes include a jacket with brown suede like collar with buttons and those clear plastic Hasbro like snaps, a white long sleeved dress shirt with buttons and clear plastic snaps, and trousers. Oh yeah, and there's a little red carnation on his lapel, being that Steed's always the dapper dresser. |
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