Spores, Cannon Trunk, Hypnofrog, and Carrapax They Fight Gormiti Series 2 4-Pack Item No.: Unavailable Manufacturer: Playmates Includes: 4 figures, 4 cards Action Feature: n/a Retail: $9.99 Availability: 2009 Other: ...and bite
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Still more Gormiti! There's a whole mess of these guys, and since I've been obsessed with the idea of small, cheap, unarticulated figures it seems like a good idea to talk about more of them. Let's get started with the two Forest Tribe members starting with the super-cool Spores the Terrible. Looking like an evil version of the mushrooms from Fantasia, Spores' card identifies him as yet another evil creature with mind-control powers which, well, seems to be about half of these guys. The sculpt is quite cool, with the big hat covering his head in a similar way to the Black Mages of Final Fantasy and Orko of Masters of the Universe. There are several mushrooms on the figure, including his "hands" which seem pretty darned useless as ways to manipulate a doorknob or a pencil. More mushrooms can be found on his knees and shoulders, and the figure is surprisingly well-decorated given only three colors of paint are used to bring this figure to life. Since he has no hands Spores will be bad at paperwork, but it doesn't seem to be what you'd hire him for anyway. Like the rest of Gormiti, he's sized similarly to the old M.U.S.C.L.E. line at about 1 3/4-inches tall.

Next up is Cannon Trunk. The design, long with all four figures in this set, are excellent and it's really neat to see how this design seems to be inspired largely to the limitations of creating a tiny figure-- take a look at his "hands." Getting tiny vines that thin could be dangerous due to breakage, so rather than have "hands" the sculptors at Giochi Preziosi decided Cannon Trunk should be gripping rocks-- which launch out of his head. (Unfortunately, this kind of figure doesn't have a budget for such a mechanism, so you get to pretend.) The sculpt is quite excellent with a terrible freaky mouth that looks far creepier than his trading card art, with lots of simple detailing making up bark and vines on his body. This is one of the few figures which seems it would have made a really great action feature with a swell action feature, but it's just another small unarticulated PVC tree-- a good one, but this is one of the few times a little rubber guy like this seems like an idea which exceeds his plastic mandate.

The rest of the set is made up of the Sea Tribe, water creatures and ocean life. Hypnofrog, the Mocker is much wider than the other figures in the set but is as tall as the other small figures in the set. Like Spores he has mind-control power, which I assume was cribbed from Futurama's Hypnotoad. I could be wrong-- if it is, that's either a sign of extreme laziness or a loving tribute to one of Matt Groening's lesser television projects. While the Hypnotoad seems largely harmless, Hypnofrog is said to have a "mocking grin" while you hear the "sound of your bones as they are slowly crushed." Maybe "The Mocker" is not so much important as "Bonecrusher." The sculpt has some decent detail, with warts, and armored shoulder pads giving a little bulk and heft to the pot-bellied blue amphibian. A tail-- maybe he's part tadpole?-- completes the ensemble, creating a big, mean, thick wrestler of a creature who looks quite the brute.

>Rounding out the set is the token giant figure of Carrapax, teh Lord of the Sea. "PURE POWER!!" says his trading card, complete with all caps and twice the punctuation of your average sentence. He's a giant crab creature with similar shoulder pads, big claws, and strange bulbous feet. It's a big, mean, and muscular creature and I assume it is intended to be a big evil crab. He has a tiny tail and a very small head relative to his body, and the design doesn't seem to really take advantage of his paint. The pale blue and dark blue marks help give him a more interesting look than an unpainted figure, but having just typed that out I can't help but wonder if an unpainted one might be more visually interesting. It's OK-- it's the weakest figure in the set, but given its size it was probably intended to be its selling point.

I got this set on extreme clearance, and it's possible that you might be able to get this one for $4 at a Ross or other clearance outlet. I'm not sure if this line's end in the USA (it continued for a few more series in Europe) was due to pricing or lack of interest. The very idea is quite cool, but it's not like it has the "random" element of similar lines from the 1980s or any blind-packaging component here-- they're just multi-packs, with a very finite number of configurations, and very few additional accessories to play with. Small toys with no action features or articulation is very old-fashioned, so if you dig this kind of thing it's a line you should pick up while they remain cheap. My guess is these will creep up over time, but who knows? Without any chase figures or chances at mysterious legendary super-rare figures, there might not be much long-term collector interest once you pick up your set of regular figures.

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