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NECA Ultimate King Kong (3rd variant)


Several weeks ago, I became aware that NECA had put out a 3rd King Kong figure. The first one from last year had 2 open mouth head sculpts and a few hands. Then the next one was a poster color version, basically the same as the 1st, except for the more colorful paint job. This 3rd variant has the same body as the 1st release, but comes with different head sculpts and more accessories. It began to show up at Target without anyone knowing about it beforehand, causing collectors to believe that it must be a Target exclusive. This one appealed to me much more than the previous releases, so I went in search of it and finally found it. Let's check out this monkey man!






The box art for this figure is different than the previous releases (see photo above). This Kong comes with 2 head sculpts (one with gritting teeth, the other with a hinge at the jaw that allows you to open and close it), 3 pairs of hands (fists, holding and open palm), a stick, a Pteranodon and a small crawling monster. Both of the extra monsters have hinged mouths that can open and close, and their heads are on ball joints, so you can turn them in different directions. That's a cool feature despite their smaller sizes. The Pteranodon sports a bit of color on the back of the wings, reds and blue spots, and some purple shading on the beak, neck and back of head. There is a little bit of pale yellow paint bleed/scrapes on his wings, however. The stick fits nicely in his gripping hands, no looseness. 




Kong is painted with lots of really nice detail. He sports a few bloody scars throughout his torso and faces. His eyes are white pupils with grey iris' and both are painted quite well, as are his teeth, gums and tongue. He sports brown hair throughout his body with dark highlights, and dark grey on his leathery torso, face, palms and feet. NECA did an outstanding job on his sculpt, accurately capturing the look and feel of a giant ape. 









The articulation is where Kong really shines. You'll have a lot of fun and options for posing this big monkey. He sports a ball jointed head, hinged jaw on one of the heads, ball jointed, hinged shoulders and thighs, upper arm swivel, double jointed elbows and knees with slight pivot, hinged wrists on all the hands, upper torso on a ball joint that spins a full 360, and hinged ankles that can tilt forward, back and to the sides. NECA have done a fantastic job of making Kong as expressive as possible. Some of his joints were a bit tight, so I applied some heat to loosen them up (I soaked his extra hands in hot water to loosen those swivels up as well). Once you get everything pliable, there's no limit to how you can pose the 8th Wonder of the World.








The only drawback to this Kong figure (and this is minor, no pun intended), is that he's very tall and does NOT scale with any of the NECA Godzilla figures, completely towering over them. The King of the Monsters has always been bigger than cinema's favorite giant monkey, so I'm not sure why they chose not to shrink him down some. That aside, King Kong is an otherwise worthwhile release.





NECA's 3rd variant of King Kong is great, and offered enough goodies (hinged jaw, nice amount of accessories) to make me finally pull the trigger and get myself one. Ever since he made his debut in 1933, Kong has remained a pop culture icon. When he was paired against Godzilla in 1962, he developed another chunk of admirers in kaiju fans. I'm glad I held off on grabbing the prior releases. As a collector, I've learned to pass on a figure if it doesn't completely wow me, and this Kong did just that. I should be getting my S.H. MonsterArts Kong from the recent movie in the next few weeks, so this month will see a double dose of monkey power. The Tamashii Nations ape will have some stiff competition, because this one rocks.








 

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