Well finally got him out of the packaging so I thoughts I'd do a brief review.
Now this figure has caused a great deal of discussion, the old is he isn't he a Transformers character debate, personally as a kid growing up in Manchester England, Deaths Head was a huge part of the reason I continued to read the comics, he was such an unpredictable and hard as nails character is was impossible not to be excited by him. This figure perfectly captures the presence he commanded in those old comics. The proportions are perfect and the he'd sculpt is superb. Now that doesn't mean that this is a perfect figure though, there are two things that bug me a little with the figure, the main problem is fixable so I'll start with that. As you can see in the photo above there is a large gap in the mid torso. I've tried to capture this better below.
This causes a huge problem when posing as the whole upper torso/shoulder/cape section just kinda flops around making him quite unstable, as I said this is fixable, I applied a dab of superglue beneath the chest and cape section to secure it to the rest of the figure, which looks much better aesthetically and provides greater stability when posing. See the picture below.
The second issue with this figure is the use of that weird rubbery plastic that all the main toy companies seem to be using these days, I don't mind it in certain areas such as the cape, but it is also used for his weapons and shield which make it difficult to store on his back without them constantly falling off, I can't help but feel that if they were to have used a slightly more robust material the weapons would store much more effectively.
Now on to the good stuff, he has good articulation, with a ball jointed head universal joints on his shoulders, hinge joints on his elbows and wrist rotation (thanks to the ability to swap his hands for weaponry), moving down the figure there is some movement in the mid torso section, hinge joints on the hips with thigh swivels and finally capped of with some ankle articulation, all of which provide the opportunity for some pretty dynamic posing options. The paints appear of good quality and the metallic finish on both the main body and the armour really make the figure pop.
I took the liberty of adding in some more weaponry in those pictures, just felt they added to the figure a little.
As for scale I would class him as a small deluxe, here's a couple of reference shots.
All in all I feel he is a very good figure, the cape section is a bit of a disappointment however easily fixed with some super glue, and some parts of the figure would have benefited from the use of more robust materials, but the fanboy factor of the this figure more than makes up for the above issues, he looks as though he has leapt right off the comic book pages and I am more thn happy to incorporate him into my Transformers collection. He looks good, yes?
