Xodiac The Man from Saturn Outer Space Men Action Figure Xpress San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives Item No.: n/a Manufacturer: Four Horsemen Includes: Alternate arms, ray gun, staff, 7 more figures Action Feature: n/a Retail: $115.00 (sold as a set with Astro-Nautilus, Inferno, Metamorpho, Alpha 7, Mystron, Commander Comet, and Electron+) Availability: July 2013 Other: The Sparsely Decorated White Plastic One
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As we look at White Star Xodiac - which I feel is pretty good - we're at a point where I think we can all say that we've seen the bulk of what this line has to offer and how it shook out. On the bright side, those of us who were too young (or not yet on this planet) got a shot at some really cool characters, rendered in a wonderful sturdy style. Also, it served as a stern reminder of how fickle the collector market continues to be as most of the figures were available for half price at some point or another if you were willing to wait. Most of the "Alpha phase" figures sold quickly, and there were a couple of fast-selling specials, but when you get right down to it this is another line that the history books say you could've saved a couple hundred bucks if you just waited it out on most of them, even if it meant paying a premium on eBay for the "rare" ones - it turned out the marketplace for the line was indeed small, but on the bright side I actually have some of these guys. You can't win 'em all, but I had a good time - and this is a pretty good figure despite being stupendously lacking in deco.

The regular Xodiac is not merely good, it's almost stunning with a rich reddish orange head and a metallic sparkly blue space suit. The colorful helmet and Saturn-capped staff are joined by a whimsical ray gun complete with a Glyos plug on its butt - all of which are recreated here, sans color. The same amazing sculpting of this 3 3/4-inch scale remains in plain white, which actually does a pretty good job of highlighting the bizarre head and sculpting work. On some figures like Xodiac, the white plastic gobbled up some of the head's detailing.

Swappable arms remain, and look identical between most of the figures in this set. The now blue accessories look good on the figure, although the more I see how some were painted PVC and some were cast in clear blue ABS, the contrast bugs me a bit. The clear works better. His accordion joints lose a little something without the paint, but hey, at least it's an easy way to see just how nice the sculpting is. The clear figures gobbled up some of the subtle nuances and the painted figures gave the figure a wholly different flavor, so if nothing else this figure did a decent job of helping me appreciate the other figures I've already bought - and served as a reminder of the emotional gut-punch of buying lesser repaints at premium prices. Early adopters don't always benefit.

While this set was blown out by Action Figure Xpress a couple of times, the 200-piece run showed that there really weren't many fans into this line in a big way. It's truly one of the more limited action figure lines out there, but it's the proverbial tree falling in the woods - nobody's paying attention, and it didn't make a sound. With so many Xodiacs this one will appeal mostly to people decorating a mid-2000s Apple Store or a figure customizer, but the rest of us can enjoy just how simple and generally good the head turned out to be. White looks good on this one, and we've got a few more figures to go (and I assume at least one or two surprise figure repaints en route) before putting this line to bed.

Additional Images

Additional Outer Space Men 2013 White Star SDCC Exclusive Images

Click here to see more Four Horsemen figures in Figure of the Day.

Click here to see more Outer Space Men figures in Figure of the Day.

Click here to see more Glyos Compatible figures in Figure of the Day.

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