Skip to main content

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.








 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Titanic Creations Yongary 1967

This figure was released in late December, and I got it about 2 days before the New Year, so I'm counting it as a 2025 release. It is the Titanic Creations version of the Korean kaiju Yongary, Monster From The Deep. The film was released in 1967 as a Godzilla ripoff, with several ideas copied from the Gamera series, such as his tusks, his ability to fire a stream of flames from his mouth, and even firing a laser beam from his horn, similar to the slicing one used by Gyaos. The film is pretty goofy, but Yongary, like most of those Asian monsters, was pretty cool (to me, at least), so I was psyched that someone finally made a figure of this lesser known kaiju. When Titanic Creations put it up for pre-order, they announced a series of tiers, where they would add accessories when a certain number of orders were met. Enough fans ordered him, so that Yongary ended up with a shit ton of stuff, making him absolutely worth the price. In addition to the kaiju, you get a flame breath effect, ...

RicSan Custom Toys Kyōrū Kaiju (Titanosaurus)

My latest kaiju figure purchase is the Titanosaurus made by Ricsan Custom Toys. I own and love the Varan & Gabara, so of course I had to preorder this one when it was available. He was delivered earlier this week. This kaiju hails from the last Godzilla film of the Showa era, 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. The Black Hole aliens are back, rebuilding their robot in another effort to take over the planet. They enlist the help of an ostracized Earth scientist named Mafune and his daughter Katsura, who are able to control an aquatic dinosaur named Titanosaurus. They plan to use both kaiju and mecha to attack Japan. Titano was a cool monster, with his tail that opened into a fish fin, and he would use it to create whirlpools in the sea, and high winds on land. I'm hoping that S.H. Monsterarts makes one for the 50th anniversary of the film, but when I saw this Ricsan Custom version, I couldn't pass it up. Titanosaurus (called the Kyōrū Kaiju), comes in a white box, with its n...

Help Me… I’m Possessed (1974) / #Missingcouple (2024)

I've watched some weird, obscure horror movies throughout my life. I can now add this lurid 1974 schlockfest to that growing list. In a castle in the desert, Dr. Arthur Blackwood runs a sanitarium filled with mentally disturbed patients (as well as staff). He claims to be working on finding a way to cure people of any violent tendencies they have, and brags about his younger sister, innocent, child-like Melanie, as evidence that his treatment works. When she was a child, their parents had to keep her locked up and chained in the basement, to control her violent fits. Now that he's cured her, Arthur has his wife Diane come to the castle to meet Melanie, so that they can be one big, happy family. Diane begins to grow suspicious that something is amiss after a Sheriff shows up investigating the murder of 2 local teens, and sets about on her own investigation, hoping to uncover the sinister secrets that she feels her husband is hiding. Help Me... I'm Possessed is an outrageous,...