I like Marvel movies just fine, but the toys aren't as exciting mostly because I've missed too many of 'em and am not a comics guy. But I don't turn away from the fun weirdness as it comes up - like The Grandmaster and Korg. Someone puts out a 2-pack of Jeff Goldblum and Taika Waititi as aliens, and you better make sure you buy those figures. And sell those figures. Just make sure people can get those figures, that's where we're going with this. Seemingly made of all-new parts, this 2-pack brings new toys of characters from an old movie. Marvel and Hasbro don't tend to do this often, so I'm happy to grab these as I was a huge fan of that flick.
The Grandmaster is about 6 1/2-inches tall, which makes sense as Jeff Goldblum is a tall guy. Korg is a hair under 8-inches tall, putting him slightly above his rocky cousin Callix from Masters of the Universe Classics. Each figure comes with a weapon. This is the only way to get a Korg at this time, but there's a Comic-Con The Grandmaster with a happy/crazed face and a pile of melted person. I went with this one, because a) cheaper and b) less hassle.
After getting Korg out of the box, I was immediately impressed by how much articulation they crammed on him. Rocker ankles, bend-and-swivel wrists, on the whole Korg has the full gamut of articulation despite being a unique sculpt of a giant rock alien. The armor on his left shoulder is fused there, which is actually really good for the range of movement. The pauldron doesn't block his ability to move around like most figures, you can move that arm every which way - even lateral movement, to a point - without anything popping off or being blocked. His harness is also molded to the figure. The only impediments to movement come in the way of hip joints, thanks to his pants. The joints you want are all present, allowing for action poses or an impressive amount of emoting. The friendly rocky creature has a great head sculpt that almost looks like it could talk. When you combine this with the gestures from his arms, it seems like he's ready to tell you about Doug or some other detail from Sakaar.
Go ahead and get this set for Korg.
The Grandmaster is also fantastic - and a real oddity. Jeff Goldblum doesn't get enough toys, but this one manages to do a lot differently than I would expect. When it comes to his articulation, his right arm has a bicep swivel and two elbow joints - but to preserve the look of the robes, the left arm has a bend-and-swivel elbow. That's the kind of joint you typically get on a 6-inch Star Wars figure. Strange! There are ankle swivels as well as rockers, to keep the pants nice. He's wearing sandals, they painted his nails blue, the "hyper real" face printing looks great, and the grey hair is a separately molded piece. Hasbro (or Marvel) did a great job sculpting those cloth robes in plastic, and if you get in real close you can see some truly amazing texture sculpted on there. Marvel action figures are usually pretty good, but it's wonderful to see the level of detail increased considerably in an era where creating a whole new figure from the ground up seems rarer and rarer. Thank goodness for studio approvals, perhaps?
You get your money's worth with this set - two taller-than-average figures with perfectly fine accessories and top-notch sculpting and articulation. Each one impresses in different ways, thanks in part to the design philosophy of these figures. I don't believe they would have looked as good with cloth parts. (See also: cloth robed Snoke.) The melt stick and rifle are both fairly good, if simple, weapons and neither figure has any problems carrying them around in acceptable ways. I'm glad I got this set.
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