The Walking Dead Gets Five Gruesome New Toys
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We’re gradually approaching the return of AMC’s hit zombie drama The Walking Dead, shambling towards the October 13 premiere date like a hungry walker that just wants to chow down on a little human flesh. In the mean time we’ll have to satiate ourselves with clips and reveals about the upcoming fourth season, relive past adventures when the season three DVD and Blu-ray drops on August 27, and now we can restage some of our favorite scenes using this new series of action figures from McFarlane Toys. (Actually, they won’t actually be yours until January 2014, but we’ll ignore that fact for the time being.)
Yours for the bargain basement price of $69.99, this set comes with five favorites from the TV series. Newcomer Tyreese (Chad Coleman) gets his own figure, which makes sense given his history as part of Robert Kirkman’s comics, as well as the fact that he’s getting bumped up to a series regular this season. Unfortunately, his figure, and the one of Maggie (Lauren Cohan), are the least interesting ones in this bunch. Both just stand there in neutral poses, arms at the side, not doing much of anything. Each figure does have 22 points of articulation, so you can make them do whatever the hell you want. That does mean you’re able to give them a little bit more life, but they’re rather standard offerings.
The Glenn (Steven Yeun) action figure is in a similar situation, pose wise, but there is an added bonus to this little guy, you can switch out his head. You start off with normal Glenn, all fresh-faced and smooth, but after he’s tangled with The Governor (David Morrissey), he didn’t look so pretty, did he? In your game, when this happens, you can just pop off one head and replace it with his spare head, one that has been beat all to shit. It’ll add an element of realism and consequence to your shenanigans.
The charred walker figurine is by far the coolest design of any of these figures, with his burned flesh, creepy reaching arm, and ravenous snarl. As a kid, many of us spent a fare amount of time melting our toys, but in this case, we get the same effect without inhaling toxic fumes released by melting plastic. This guy only has five points of articulation, but he does come with a gas can.
There is one figure that may contain spoilers for those of you who haven’t finished season three of The Walking Dead yet. So if you haven’t, you may want to skip over this next paragraph. The character in question is, of course, zombie Merle (Michael Rooker). The emotional high point of the entire season is when Daryl (Norman Reedus) has to re-kill his own brother after he comes back. This is saying something, because we’re talking about a season where a young boy has to shoot his own mother in the head so she doesn’t come back and try to eat everyone. Sure, Merle is an asshole, but he’s still Daryl’s brother. Your bond is more with the younger Dixon brother anyway, and it’s his pain you indentify with. This just proves, yet again, that Daryl is far and away the best character on the show.
These toys arrive with a variety of interchangeable weapons, including firearms, bloody pipes, knives, and Merle even comes with his very own improvised shiv.
