For all the media attention and controversy that Todd's toys have
received over the past few years, you have to wonder why the most recent figures haven't drawn the slightest of criticism. Take Dorothy from the new Twisted Oz series. She's essentially a teenage girl in bondage gear being branded by a midget. And is being sold as a toy in Toys 'R' Us stores across the world, without the slightest bit of concern.
Ohhh-kay. Not even those insane Christian groups have shed any light on this. Sure, we're all paying attention to the hurricane and terrorism and war on terror stuff instead, yadda yadda
yadda, but wont somebody please spare a thought for the children?
This is where tonight's figure comes in. Kin, from Spawn Series 23: Mutations, is a brutal
re-imagining of everyone's favorite Spawn character, Billy Kincaid. For the uninformed, Billy had lots of thoughts for the children. He liked to mutilate and kill them in his spare time, while not driving his ice cream truck around, prowling for fresh meat. While Todd really can't sell a normal Billy figure for fear of being burned at the stake by angry villagers with pitchforks and a windmill, he's quite happy to make a
demonized version, a twisted crouched figure wielding a bloody axe and a child's severed arm, encumbered by a demonic monkey thing on his back and face covered by a bloodied metal mask wired to a bloodied pig's snout. What a wonderful world! We call him Kin, and he's available in good toy shops across the country, without a hint of protest.
Woo-Hoo!!
Kin is a lovely little figure to admire, with a beautiful sculpt hindered only be weak articulation. He's restricted to crouching only 5" tall (an inch more if you count his demon-monkey) because he has no leg articulation. Stuck in his crouched-over pose, he looks ideally pained, but it doesn't help for any playability. Kin moves at the elbows, shoulders, waist, neck and shins, and his little monkey friend has arm articulation, which makes for no playability, but why anyone would want to play with this in the first place is a question sure to be studied by psychologists for years.
Moving on, assuming that Kin is a collectors piece, this is a wonderfully demented figure. Clothed in steel-cap boots, torn brown pants and a pitiful orange vest, Kin is dressed to impress, complete with all the little details you expect before going completely over the line of insanity, to focus on his metal cap and disgusting face mask. His face is reminiscent of the
psycho-inbreds from Wrong Turn, a nice effect, and his big lumbering limbs dwarf his considerably small body - this is a really messed up figure. The monkey-demon on his back is detailed simply but effectively, with a little bit of paint slop, but
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overall quite good. Detail and
sculpt is great on the figure, aside from some minor paint issues, fortunately mostly ignorable because of the "dirty" appeal of the figure. It's disgusting.
Accessories impress; first up, we have the great severed arm, the former owner most likely a child. It's a nasty little thing, sculpted in warm soft rubber, with detail to show it's been poorly hacked from the owner, complete with bone sticking out. Lovely! The axe is Kin's weapon of choice, and it comes in two parts so it can fit together in his closed hand via a peg. Dirty and bloody, it looks a lot nicer than previous axes I've seen with figures, a great touch to the figure. Although not technically an accessory, the monkey comes off Kin's back, attached via electric skullcap and wire to Kin's head. The wire should be removable so we can see the monkey and Kin detached from each other, but it's not a big issue. Finally, the gross pig-snout thing fits onto Kin's face easily with a couple of pegs, and looks utterly foul. The mouth open and shuts thanks to that same warm rubber plastic, and the piece is well painted with glittering blood. Kin also comes complete with a base, which spins to show off Kin's sculpt, and also includes a cardboard backdrop to fit him into the Mutations line.
Overall, Kin is a fine figure which no sane person should be caught owning. How come there aren't people picketing this abomination all over the world?! The kid's arm is really pretty sick, folks. I love it, and the rest of the figure is fun too. Think Tortured Souls meets Spawn, and you've got Kin, fun for the whole family. Not.
