I was surfing Ebay one day and saw a local guy selling 3 statues, 2 of which I knew I wanted. X-Men Sentinal Dio #2, #3, and the Thing Premium Format, all exclusives, all in fantastic condition. I saw one guy was winning all 3 auctions, and I used a bidding strategy I’ve been successful with before. Push up the price on the item I don’t really want, make him unwilling to pay as much for the other 2. FLAWLESS PLAN. Except, I ended up winning the Sideshow Thing Premium Format statue by $2.50. WHOOPS.
I’d seen him before in person, he’s an impressive statue. But what the hell was I going to do with him? He’s enormous, by far the largest of my normal statues. I like the Fantastic Four, but I don’t like them THAT much. Plus, there’s no other 1/4th scale FF statues, and there’s no companion piece for this guy. Well!
He arrived when I was in New York. When I got back into the city and picked him up, I was kinda pissed. How the hell was I going to get this beast home? I got lucky and it managed to fit in my friend’s car after about 5 minutes of trying to shove it into his back seat. After I cracked him open and put him on display, he grew on me really quickly. The regular face is good, but the exclusive face? It’s awesome! He looks furious, he’s in a fantastic pose, and the texturing on the sculpt feels great. The base on this gives a real sense of power to the Thing. It’s crushed rock, and for whatever reason, I’d never seen a picture of it before. Between the base and the pose, you get the impression that he just knocked out some super villain.
The shorts look fine. Not great, but pretty much what I expected. This version looks a hell of a lot better than the goofy long pants version. I’ve heard complaints about the “shadowing” effect they were trying for. It’s not that bad. It looks a little strange, and you’d think natural light would take care of all the shadows…but whatever. I want to repaint a few of my statues, but this isn’t one of them.
Overall, a 4.5/5 for the exclusive. Face is well done (the regular is good too, but the exclusive is better), pose is well done, he’s cheap as hell because of a poor decision by Sideshow to produce 2 versions with too large of a run, just an awesome piece if you have the space for it. For reference, I got mine shipped to me for just over $200 Canadian.
Buying Options : Quite reasonably priced on Ebay, and still available direct from Sideshow.
