One thing I love about Playmobil is that their long history of non-licensed figures resulted in figures that sort of looked like something from a movie. This Special Operations Agent is pretty cool as a bomb squad guy, but if you squint at him a bit, doesn't he look like Kane (John Hurt) from Alien in their space suits? Just a bit? I assume Playmobil will never license Alien, so I went ahead and picked this up because it's the next best thing. At $6 it's not exactly cheap, but you get a nice figure and a little tiny robot drone.
The main figure is pretty plain - a brown body suit with gray gloves and shoes, and a mask over the face. Instead of hair, a helmet is molded to the head. It's a neat design, but doesn't have many exciting landmarks. For that, you'll need to snap on the body suit, which should look familiar to collectors with older diving toys. It clips right over the body, with extra padded pieces to bulk up the arms. Slap on a helmet, slip rubber bands over the ankles to keep him together, and you're all set.
What I found particularly interesting about the figure is how it sort of looks like a space suit from Alien - the brown color, the grey highlights, the dome helmet, it's the sort of thing you'd see on LV-426 (happy Alien Day) in the classic 1979 movie. Thanks to the design, the arms swivel freely when suited up but the legs are completely blocked from moving. It's still a great 3-inch figure, and the suit's boots completely cover the figure's shoes. With a few color modifications, this could easily be Kane, or slightly closer to it, using this tooling. (It's not any less accurate than what Lanard was doing.) He can also hold the remote control, the dynamite, or other accessories without any fuss - just don't expect him to sit.
Also capable of gripping accessories is a small drone robot with a claw in front. The wheels don't actually move, but the 2-piece (assembly required) mechanoid has a handy hand to grip things if there's sufficient clearance. (There usually isn't.) It's green and black, and looks fantastic.
The set is completed by two orange safety cones, a sticker sheet for the sign and remote control, and everything fits together pretty well. The "warning" sign is great, and all of this stuff could be added to an existing building to play out the scene. I could use a couple more signs, but who wants to raise the price? Not me. Things are expensive enough as it is.
Back in the early 00s, a regular Specials figure was about $2-$4 with a couple of bits of gear - this one has a full body suit, plus a sticker sheet and a drone, giving it a pretty good piece count for the price. (Consider that 2000 $2-$4 is 2022 $3.30-$6.60 when adjusted for inflation, and supposedly the inflation hasn't kicked in yet either.) With a little imagination this figure is a perfectly nice space adventurer, and any figure that can get a lot of use is generally worth the price. Also I'd probably pay $2 for just the goofy little drone buddy, so I can say this was worth it for me.
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