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Grim Reaper

April 13, 2015 | By Errex More

It is no secret that a good number of my action figure purchases are directly inspired by the video games I indulge upon. One such game happens to be Marvel’s Avengers Alliance developed by Playdom, Inc. This is a Facebook turn-based, Freemium game that can also be downloaded as an app for Android or iOS devices.

One of the many allures in this game, is that it really mines the depths of the Marvel pantheon to bring out obscure characters like the Grim Reaper, whom also got made into a 3.75 inch figure by Hasbro as part of the first wave of figures from the Marvel Infinite Series.

Grim Reaper uses the medium build male body mold with a new head sculpt and a retooled right forearm. The head sculpt incorporates the characteristic prongs of the Grim Reaper’s mask but also displays a good amount of facial expression in the form of a maniacal grin.

The right forearm has bands sculpted around the limb, forming a bracer to hold Grim Reaper’s scythe-hand. At first, I though that the scythe and the forearm were either glued together or molded as a single piece, but it turns out these are both separate pieces.

Articulation is as good as one would expect from this body mold, and consists of:

• Hinged peg neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Upper biceps swivel.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Swivel waist.

• Ball jointed hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Double hinged knees.

• Upper calf swivels.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

• Rocker feet.

Even though this articulation design is very comprehensive and works well for the most part, the rubbery nature of the material used for the construction of these figures sometimes makes it difficult for the Grim Reaper to stay upright, more so considering that the rubber cape adds more weight and alters the center of gravity in the figure.

Despite having a two-color paint scheme, Grim Reaper has a fairly large amount of paint applied on him.

Apart from the Jolly Roger motif on his chest, the Reaper has dark blue highlights airbrushed over the black plastic at the head, torso, thighs and biceps. These highlights do not extend beyond the articulation cuts on the figure.The results of this decision look fine on the upper portion of the figure, but can be very distracting on the legs because it gives the impression that Grim Reaper is wearing biker shorts over black tights.

The paint application s on the face of my figure turned out neat and clean, and the simple paint job works rather well with the facial expression.

The only accessory included with Grim Reaper is his cape, which is made using the same mold as Moon Knight, but colored purple and airbrushed with dark blue for shading.

Is the end, this Grim Reaper is a fine representation of the character as he appeared in the comics and more importantly (to me, anyway) of how he looks in the Avengers Alliance games. The fact that this is also a fine action figure in its own right is just icing on the cake.