Mortal Kombat
Pop Culture Shock
1/4 Scale Exclusive Scorpion Statue
Mortal Kombat has been a cult classic in the gaming industry for over two decades and
Pop Culture Shock Collectibles, founded by
Jerry Macaluso, has stepped up to the plate to bring us a fully sculpted 1/4 scale version of Mortal Kombat's flagship character, Scorpion.
This statue was first revealed in April of 2011, shown finished in July of 2011 at SDCC, and has just recently shipped in April of 2012. The anticipation for this statue has naturally been high, so the question is...was it worth the wait?
Let's start with the packaging;
This statue was packaged very well. An outside cardboard box covers the fully colored product box which was surrounded by styrofoam to keep the product box snug in the shipper. The product box itself is nice and colorful with a description about who the character, Scorpion, is. Opening the product box reveals a large styrofoam box containing the statue. Unfortunately we are greeted by the cheapest quality styrofoam around and instantly this thing begins to crumble upon manipulation. This is not a first for Pop Culture Shock, as almost all of their products are shipped with this quality styrofoam. By the time I finished completely removing the statue, my clothes, carpet, and dog were all covered in this stuff and a vacuum was required to clean up the mess.
Despite the cheapness of the styrofoam, this statue made the trip from the factory in China to the Side Show warehouse in California to my house in Virginia fully intact. My statue arrived undamaged! The statue I received was packaged very carefully within.
Inside the box were 10 items;
-Certificate of Authenticity
-Base
-Two hands that attach to the base
-The main body
-Three interchangeable heads
-A set of swords
-Scorpion's Spear
Let's take a look at the base;
The first thing that will jump out at you about the base is the color. The paint used for the lava is EXTREMELY bright. It's almost florescent. To me this is a problem because it's very distracting and forces the eyes of the viewer to focus more on the base rather than the statue itself.
The skeletal parts look good and the two hands that fit into the base attach nicely and also have the lava painted on them to show the effect of them reaching out to grab an unknowing victim.
Overall the base is okay, but loses a lot of points for the color and execution of the lava.
Now let's look at the statue;
Quite the opposite of the base, the statue is much darker and dull in color. The paint itself is applied without flaws, however I would have preferred the gold portions of the costume to be a little more vibrant. As it is, it's difficult to appreciate the detail that went into the sculpt because of the amount of black and the darkness of the gold. This is especially true of the masked head. The viewer will have to get very close to the statue to see the finer detail or have the statue displayed in very bright light as was done for these pictures.
The pose for the statue is excellent. Probably one of the most famous moves in Mortal Kombat, you can almost hear Scorpion shouting, "Get over here!" as you look at the chain launching from his hand. The chain itself is plastic and painted to look metal. At first this surprised me and was a bit disappointing because holding it in your hand makes it feel cheap, but after attaching it to the hand and stepping back, the chain meshes with the statue perfectly and is not distinguishable from the rest of the body. Also, given the fact that the chain is attached to the hand by a small magnet, it probably would have been too heavy for the accessory to be real metal. In the end, the chain being plastic does not take away from the statue.
