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Blackbeard

November 11, 2011 | By Errex More

Even though I was not blown away by the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I admit that I found it entertaining and thus, my disposition towards the associated merchandise was fairly positive.

Then I saw online images of the Jack Sparrow figure by Jakks Pacific. Let’s just say that afterwards my expectation for the line fell through the floor. Still, once the figure started trickling to local stores, I had the chance to reevaluate my position regarding some of the other characters.

One that immediately caught my eye was Blackbeard. The figure looks much better than I had anticipated, with a nice material quality and fairly robust construction. The sculpture is not particularly impressive, but it captures a reasonable amount of detail and the bodily proportions seem correct at a glance.

There is not much of a likeness to actor Ian McShane in the headsculpt, but the costume is reasonably well replicated and consists of a outer rubber frock simulating the torso of a long coat and a big pirate’s hat. The leg pieces are the same molds used for the other male figures in this line and are shaped like a pair of loose pants with folded cuff boots.

Surprisingly, the long rubber coat doesn’t mess that much with the rather sparse articulation, which consists of:

• Swivel neck.

• Swivel shoulders.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Swivel waist.

• Swivel hips.

• hinged knees.

Fairly basic compared to other figures made in this scale, but still two articulation points above what Zizzle used to give to their more articulated PotC figures. Understandably, the coat would not allow for sitting poses, and the lack of ankles doesn’t really add a lot of posing options, but the overall functionality remains well within tolerable levels.

There is very little paint operations on Blackbeard, since most of the figure is molded in the correct plastic color but there are a few details painted in silver and gold. Then there is also the gimmicky part of this line, the UV paint application that can only be seen by shining a black light lamp onto the figure.

The gimmick works reasonably well on the figure’s hands and face, but the UV paint coverage on the coat is rather poor and apparently Jakks skipped a few of the decorations illustrated on the card.

Blackbeard comes with a removable bandolier with a sheath for his sword, a falchion, a small flintlock pistol and his hat.

The UV lamp included with him is shaped like a bottle, with the silhouette of a ship painted on the side. The lamp switch is a button protruding from the base of the bottle, which prevents it from sitting flat on it’s butt.

Even with the limited articulation, I actually like the way Blackbeard turned out. The figure is noticeably taller than the Zizzle figures, but I think this works well for the character, although he still tends to stick out a bit among my other pirates because of the noticeably higher production value in Jakks Pacific’s product.