I have yet to hear anything negative about this piece. I've held off on video reviews because mine comes next month, but it looks like SS def has a hit with this one.
Looking forward to hearing your impression of it, and seeing pics if you take 'em.
My last couple posts since getting it, I gushed how sensational I think it is. Like most things, though, it ain't perfect.
I'll spoil the deep dive on the negatives for length
Spoiler
The most immediate negative is the price.
I threw reward points and a $100 GC at it, and I still had to pony up more than it's actual retail price when tax and shipping were added.
Had this been priced under $600 ($575, even $595), this would be a lot more active thread than it is.
The cost with shipping is daunting, though I think the value is mostly there- despite the mental sticking point of it only being 1/5. The overall mass of the piece feels closer to that of a fair sized 1/4.
Another negative for me has to do with the classic sabre and the smaller group of flames on the figure left side, below the sabre.
Both of these are made of tinted/clear resin. The problem is the sabre is so densely colored it might as well be opaque. And it's too dark a red. It simply looks like a red stick. It either needed to be a light up attachment, or else it needed to be painted closer to white with maybe some fluorescent pink shading closer to the hilt.
They attempted to paint some reflected light on his garb, but they must have gotten too much bellyaching about how aggressive that effect was on the previous mythos version, as the application here is so feeble it's barely detectable at all.
Years from now, I'm either going to repaint that piece (and punch up the reflected light on the costume), or incorporate an SMD. Probably the former. Either way should be a net improvement.
The flames on one side can catch light sourced behind the statue, which I think is a great effect. The flames on the other side are unfortunately butt up right against the base. Like the sabre, they would also benefit from being lit, but that would require modification to the base to drill room for the light as well as account for the wires and power for it.
That's another project I may tackle somewhere down the road.
One last big negative to this piece, that only recently occurred to me- it's going to be a massive PITA to dust. And being mostly black and dark tones, dust will eventually be a big issue for many people.
All the extensive folds, wrinkles, and recesses, and delicate edges, are going to make this a challenge to keep clean. This might be the first piece I regularly use compressed air for . I have a small compressor and airbrushes handy, so I may use those to blow the air, rather than the cans.
The feather duster and makeup brushes I usually use would take forever, and still not get every nook and cranny.
Bottom line- Epic piece that still could have easily been bettered in some ways, and that will entail some more active than usual maintenance.
Otherwise, I don't think this one will ever leave my "permanent" collection. It's right up there with my LSB 1/3 Avengers, the last Red Sonja, the IS Daredevil, and Conan: The Prize. It's as satisfying an incarnation of this character as I'll ever need.
YMMV, of course.
FWIW, the qualities that gagaliya hates about this are some of my favorite attributes of it. Love how the K brothers realized the shreds in the costume and the hints of scarred skin and cyborg prosthetics underneath. In conjunction with the pose, it presents the character as an epic, totally in control bad-ass again. That's a refreshing departure from the usual stiff mannequin pose, where the costume design is left doing all the work for visual interest.
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 1,371
I definitely think it's the best in-universe, but non-movie based version of Vader we've ever seen and possibly will ever see. I just received my Mythos Kenobi and I'm very impressed with him, so I'm even more eager to get Vader in the house. But I need to be rational and wait for some sort of deal, which will definitely be there to be had. Potentially on May 4th...
I do think that pandemic purchasing and pre-ordering skewed the numbers, which in turn has led to inventory bloat which is why we've been seeing so many deep price cut opportunities lately.
Given the ES, and the price, it does seem like they gave themselves plenty of room to offer discounts up on this in the future at some point. I suppose the likelihood, or frequency, of that happening will depend on how much they pad each production batch. If they keep it on pre-order for extended periods, and don't produce a big excess of pieces for direct point-of-sale purchasing, they may not have much incentive to discount for a couple years, at least.
