Review of Power Lords action figures

Introduction

In 1983, Revell (a company best known for their cool models) produced a line of action figures called the Power Lords: The Extra-terrestrial Warriors. The series was based on a human, named Adam Power, who could transform through the use of a Power Gem into Lord Power. He protected the universe from a variety of alien races, including the four fisted brutes. The toys used action features to get interesting results - for example, the Adam Power figure had a spinning torso that would reveal his alter ego, Lord Power.

The Four Horsemen picked up the license to revive this cool, retro series, and are releasing their first regular production series for sale tomorrow, May 23rd, at their site, TheStoreHorsemen. They've dropped the action features (instead of Adam Power swapping into Lord Power, he's two figures), and they've employed the Glyos system and their own creativity to expand on the alien races. For example, in the original series there was only one four fisted brute - Ggipptogg. With this new series, there are several in different colors and with different head sculpts.

Revell used Wayne Barlowe, author of Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials who would go on to develop creatures for films such as Hellboy and Harry Potter, as the designer of the original line, and the Four Horsemen are employing him once again as a creative consultant.

Tonight I'm checking out five of the new figures. There's Lord Power, who is too cool to wear a shirt; Adam Power, leader of the Power Lords, and the man who transforms into Lord Power; Ggripptogg, the four fisted brute (he's the red dude to the right); Ggrabbtargg, the four fisted sergeant (the orange dude); and Ggrapptikk, the four fisted trooper (the blue dude).

While Lord Power, Adam Power, Gripptogg and Ggrapptikk are the regular release, Grabbtargg is special. Here's the info straight from the Horsemen:

"The Ggrabbtargg figure is a Power Lords Fan Club exclusive and was only made available to the fans who purchased either the Power Ship level membership or the Volcan Rock level membership. That figure will no longer be available for purchase through Store Horsemen, but the remaining stock after PL Fan Club members allotment have been distributed may at some point be used as promotional give aways or for non-profit charity purposes."

As I mentioned, this first series goes on sale tomorrow, May 23rd, at the Store Horsemen, where they'll run $10 - $15 each depending on the character.

Like the Outer Space Men, expect a lot of color and style variations on these figures, which allows them to get the most bang for their buck, and still provide a truly interesting toy line at a reasonable price.

I've included plenty of photos, so make sure you scroll all the way through to see the complete set and their accessories.

Packaging - ****
The Four Horsemen like to employ truly collector friendly bubble/card back packaging with their toys. Here you have the perfect example - by turning down one of the four wrap around plastic edges, you can slip the card back out, remove the figure and accessories for play, and easily return it for display or sale later. No need to damage anything, but there is one annoying twisty tie to discard.

I also like the color and design, right down to using the Revell style logo for the Four Horsemen name in the top right corner. It has the perfect psychedelic look befitting a line like this.

Sculpting - ****
These are done in a 4" scale, making Adam Power about 4 inches tall, and the brutes about 5 inches tall.

As I mentioned earlier, the original Adam Power/Lord Power figure had a transforming action feature. You pressed a button and his torso spun around, revealing the shirtless, blue skinned, red veined Lord. Thankfully, the Horsemen ditched the silly action features, and gave us two figures to represent the two versions of the main character.

The Adam Power version is wearing his full space suit, and has a normal, dashing, heroic head sculpt. His alter ego has a slightly different portrait - the features actually are different, as well as having the red jewel in the center of his forehead.

The blue torso has the sharply defined red veins and chiseled musculature. I'm particularly loving his hair, with its windswept, tousled look. It completes the hero style perfectly.

The original series had a lot of that duality of personality theme, and in keeping with that, they've given the brute aliens some interesting head sculpts. Obviously, their heads look like the back half of a fish, with the tail working as the 'hair'. Some of the faces have a fish-like style as well. But the cool feature is that these heads are two sided, with a different face on either. Because of the high collar on the suit, you don't really notice the face on the back of the head, but spin it around an viola - a very different character! For an example, see the photo of the three brutes together - the red character (Ggripptogg) in the center has his head spun around to reveal his second look.

I also love the overall design, particularly the split arms and huge, tree-like feet. There's different texturing on the skin and armor, and the armor design makes complete sense considering the massive nature of the beast.

The sculpt works extremely well with the articulation design as well, always a key feature. The suits and sculpt do not get in the way of the posability.

The figures also stand great on their own, with no balance issues even in deeper stances.

Paint - ****
Considering the scale, the paint ops are very clean and sharp. The eyes look great, and small details like the eyebrows or striping on the space suit are extremely well done.

There's a little roughness to the finish in some areas, as though dirt or contaminants found their way into the paint while it was still wet. It's hard to see in person, however, and the overall quality of the small detail work overrides pretty much anything else.

Articulation - ****
These figure employ the Glyos system. That means there are post and holes at the joints that allow other pieces to swap in and out.

However, this isn't quite like the Outer Space Men series, where the joints are then simply cut joints. They've added a pin and disc style joint on the limbs in critical spots - the elbows, knees and ankles - so that these have a much greater range of movement. For example, the arms can turn at the elbow, as well as move forward and back.

The necks aren't just cut joints either. Instead, there's a ball joint attached to the torso in the usual Glyos fashion. This ball allows the head all sorts of tilt and lean action, making every pose more realistic.

There's also cut wrists joints, and a cut waist. It's worth mentioning that while the human figures have the cool ankles, there's only the articulated knees on the larger brutes. That makes sense since they don't really have 'ankles'.

The one joint that could use a little work is the hips, where they've gone with a simple T style design. That restricts the stances from getting very deep side to side. It's a minor nit, but one I'm sure these guys can figure out moving forward. I never expected ball jointed necks with the Glyos system, and here we have them!

Accessories - Trooper ****; the rest ***1/2
The Four Horsemen went back to the original series when designing a number of the accessories included with these figures.

Ggripptikk is also called the "Ultimate Edition Barlowe Tribute Ggripptogg", and ultimate he is. He comes with a ton of extras, all designed to work with any of the four fisted dudes.

He has his deadly mace, which comes with a short handle. A second long handle is included, and it's pretty easy to swap - or you can just use the long handle as a matching scepter.

There is an additional longer loincloth as well, and it's pretty easy to swap this on by popping off the torso. As I mentioned in the Articulation section, the figures are all Glyos compatible, and you can swap just about any part at the joints.

There are two styles of arms that these figures sport - one with the forearms side by side in relation to the elbow, and one with them above/below. The Trooper comes wearing a blue side by side set, and has an extra set of blue above/below in the pack. He also has a red set of above/below which he can wear, or (more appropriately) can be swapped in with the red Ggripptogg.

If that's not enough, there's also three additional heads, blue, red and black. One of these is done to match Barlowe's original design (without a reversible face), and one (the black) is an armored sculpt.

The other four figures don't have quite the same sort of mad accessories, but they are all solid.

Each big alien has the mace with both the long and short handles, differentiated through slight color variations.

Each of the Lords has an identical blaster, plus a scepter weapon, again differentiated through a minor paint difference. They also both have a helmet head - not a helmet that fits over their head, but a helmet that swaps out for their head. This removes the problem of the helmeted version being too large.  These helmets have both a paint and sculpt variation, slight as it might be. They swap easily and look terrific.

And since these are Glyos compatible, you can swap in pieces and parts from other lines like the Outer Space Men. How cool is that!

Fun Factor - ****
One thing the Four Horsemen always do - they make great toys. These things are a ton of fun, with all kinds of play potential. They're perfect for the youngster on your shopping list, and because they aren't tied to any sort of tv or movie, they can use their imagination to create the worlds they inhabit. What could be more fun?

Value - ***1/2
While there's plenty of re-use here, it's done in the usual creative Four Horsemen style, which means you'll hardly notice because you're having too damn much fun. The production runs on their toys are also very low, making it quite surprising (at least to me) that these collector themed, online only figures are just $10 - $15 each.

Things to Watch Out For -
Not a thing!

Overall - ****
This is clearly a line developed with a lot of love and reverence for the original series. When you think back on some of the greatest lines, like the Palisades Muppets or the Playmates World of Springfield, you see the product of a group of people that truly loved the license they were working on. That's very evident here, and that speaks volumes about the quality and potential of this series.

I like everything the Four Horsemen does, but this is a line that really jumps out at me. The original alien designs were some of the coolest ever produced in an action figure series, and I know that the Horsemen are going to do them up right this time around.

I'll continue to cover this series as new characters come out, and I can guarantee you that a similar pattern with collectors will play out. With the third or fourth wave they release, I'll get emails and posts saying "God, those are really cool - I wish I'd started from the beginning though, because the first wave is so hard to get!" Don't be one of those people. Get in now while the getting is good.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ****
Sculpting - ****
Paint - ***1/2
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - Trooper ****; the rest ***1/2
Fun Factor - ****
Value - ***1/2
Overall - ****

Where to Buy 
Your best bet is their online store, called the Store Horsemen, or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
For more info on the Power Lords, check out the site Power Lords Return. 

Other Four Horsemen lines include the latest Outer Space Men, like Gemini and Orbitron, the Cyclops, and this early series.

If you like the Four Horsemen's work, you should check out their FANtastic Exclusives, like Scarabus and his variants, the Timekeepers, Ssejjhhorr, Xetheus, and Vaskhh. More recent, we had Allux and Izzy and the rest of the cat ladies, as well as the mutants from the same series.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

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