Monday 23 August 2010

Toybox REVIEW: Doctor Who Classics The Master & Axon 2-pack


The early 70s could have been a disasterous time for Doctor Who. The Doctor was exiled to Earth and therefore unable to travel in the TARDIS, meaning that week after week the monsters had to come to him. Earth was repeatedly invaded by aliens and it was up to the Doctor and UNIT to stop them. The format could have become stale and repetitive quickly, but (in my own opinion) it had the best core cast Who ever had to stop that from happening. And a lot of that praise would go to Roger Delgado's original (and still by far the best) Master. And finally he has his own figure, following hot on the trail of the Anthony Ainley Master figure (which I still do not own, as I am hoping for a rerelease in his standard Traken costume).

The Master is an entirely new sculpt, in the all black costume Delgado wore for the majority of his appearances as the character and comes with his signature weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator. The headsculpt captures Delgado's likeness brilliantly, emphasising that calm, collected evilness all interpretations of the Master have lacked since. It's a simple figure, not requiring as much detail and/or colours as some of the figures in the line, but it's utterly fantastic. The Doctor's greatest single foe finally gets a figure worthy of his name. Hands down my favourite humanoid Doctor Who figure Character Options have produced.

The Axon is also good, but certainly not on the same scale. As far as big lumbering monsters go it's a fantastic figure (it also helps that the Axons are one of my favourite generic Doctor Who monsters, but there are a few little issues. Firstly, the figure is a repaint of the unreleased Krynoid figure from the 4th Doctor story The Seeds of Doom (which I think was originally going to be the Build-A-Figure in Classics Wave 2). While admittedly the Krynoid costume was a modified Axon costume, the changes were noticeable and to those with a keen eye and/or an eye for accuracy the figure is a krynoid painted orange. Compare the figure to photos from the series itself and you'll notice what I mean. Now I'm not particularly bothered about this - the figure still looks like an Axon and I don't particularly care for Krynoids, but as Character Options have seemingly been striving for accuracy down to the littlest detail on some of their figures, this may come as a disappointment. Secondly I think the colours might be a little too light...but that might just be me nitpicking.

In conclusion the set is worth the purchase for the Master alone. The Axon is merely a lovely bonus. Now my favourite Doctor has his main foe to be posed with. I am a very happy fan right now.


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