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Hank Scorpio

Last year, Playmates decided to market a separate line of World of Springfield figures, called All Star Voices.  These figures were all guest voiced by well know celebrities.  The licenses for these characters (or more accurately, their voices) was more expensive and more difficult to obtain, so they price point was slightly higher.

Unfortunately, the idea didn't take off.  After two waves consisting of only five figures total, Playmates canned the All Star Voices line.  However, they already had the figures all set to go for the third installment of three - Hank Scorpio (Albert Brooks), Cooder (James Varney) and Llewellyn Sinclair (Jon Lovitz).  Rather than dump them, they had to come up with some other way to release them.

For Cooder and Sinclair, they did a mail away offer.  Send in two older figures, series 9 or previous, get two new figures.  It was a good deal, and they ended up with a good response.

But they knew that Hank Scorpio would be more popular, even though he was only in one episode.  So they added Scorpio to wave 10, swapping him into some cases and swapping out Scout Leader Flanders.

These are showing up in greater numbers now, as the shipments of wave 10 increase to the retailers.



Packaging - ***
I really like the All Star Voices packaging - the large picture of the character to the left of the bubble looks terrific, along with the bolder red color.

This figure also has the star sticker on the bubble announcing the B-Sharps Homer mail away, but unlike all the other releases since wave 2, there's no wave designation on the right side.

Sculpting - ***1/2
This is an extremely well sculpted WOS figure.  He's been given both a very good facial expression, and a terrific body pose.  Rather than either being static, they both possess a feeling of personality and motion.

Paint - ***
The ops aren't particularly complicated, but I had no issues with this particular figure.
  All the lines around the hair, eyes, and clothing were fairly clean, with no slop or bleed.

Articulation - **1/2
No surprises here - neck, shoulders and waist.  The pre-posed nature makes the articulation less crucial I suppose, and fortunately the arms and hands were sculpted to hold the flamethrower.

Talking Feature - *
Hank takes a big hit here, having only one line on any playset so far.  Let's hope we get further lines in future sets.

Accessories - ***1/2
Hank comes with three very cool, new accessories.  One is the large, two piece flamethrower.  It looks great, and fits easily on his back if you pop one of the straps out at the bottom.  The colors are pretty basic, but it's nice to get such a large accessory.

The other two are a grenade (canister style), and a walkie-talkie.  You can fit them in his hand, and it's nice to see no reuse.

Value - ***
I'm assuming you'll pay the higher $6-$7 celebrity figure price here, but if you get them for less than six bucks you can add some value. 

Overall - ***
This is a great looking figure with some terrific accessories.  I would highly recommend it, except that the voice feature is currently so limited.  I'm assuming since they had to pay for Albert Brooks voice rights, that we'll see other lines in other sets.

Where to Buy - 
I picked mine up at a local Media Play, but I've seen him at Meijers and EB since then.  On-line:

- I always recommend checking out New Force Comics for Simpsons purchases.  Rick has great prices and great customer service.

- Electronics Boutique is the only place on-line that I know of where you can buy Scorpio individually.  He's $5.99 plus shipping.  Make sure you search for 'Hank Scorpio' to find him. (MROTW Affiliate)


Figure from the collection of Michael Crawford.

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