DIMIC

We jumped on the waitlist after hesitating too long. After that, we decided to cancel our waitlist because we didn’t really knew the character and we wanted to slim down our purchases. Of course, right after that, we encountered him in the Incredible Hulks issues. In Incredible Hulks #623 – Planet Savage Part One to be precise. Yeah, we still need to backtrack in quite a lot of series…

In case you haven’t guessed yet, I’m talking about Skaar, the son of the Incredible Hulk. Didn’t know he had a son? Well, he did have one and you really don’t want to make that one of the Hulk family angry because he also carries weapons. And big ones at that.

For a little bit information about Skaar, I turned to our good friend Wikipedia and he has given me the following quote. Say hello to a wall of text! To just continue to the review: click here.

Skaar is a fictional comic book character appearing in books published by Marvel Comics, usually as a supporting character to Hulk. He is the son of the Hulk and the extraterrestrial Caiera, who conceived him during the “Planet Hulk” storyline. Created by writer Greg Pak and artist John Romita, Jr., he first appeared in World War Hulk #5 (January 2008).

Skaar is the progeny of the Hulk and of Caiera the Oldstrong, who conceived Skaar during the Hulk’s time on Caiera’s home planet, Sakaar. After Caiera’s death, and the Hulk’s departure from Sakaar, Skaar emerged from a cocoon, appearing to be the age equivalent of a human preteen. A year later he resembles a human teenager, and subsequently, an intelligent adult, in both appearance and intelligence. He also demonstrates himself to be a fierce and capable warrior, and becomes the enemy of Axeman Bone. He later gains the power of the stone-based “Oldstrong”, which allows him to draw energy from the planet himself, and comes to be seen by some on Sakaar as a savior.

Skaar has powers inherited from both his parents. Like the Hulk, his father, he has superhuman endurance, regenerative abilities, and superhuman strength and durability, which, like his father, increases when he is enraged, although he is not as strong as the Savage Hulk persona. He can boost his strength further with old power, in one instance having absorbed the energy of an entire city. He also can revert to a human form when calm or otherwise incapacitated. However, in his case, his other form is half-human, half-Oldstrong. From his mother, Caiera, he has the powers of an Oldstrong, emerging from his birth cocoon able to walk and talk within moments, and he can draw power from the planet and harden his body. Having been born within the depths of a lake of lava Skaar is resistant to intense heat.

So, that’s that. Now to the actual review.

Like I said before, we actually cancelled our waitlist. Not because we didn’t liked what we saw but because we wanted to stop spending as much as we were doing and because we didn’t really knew the character apart from it being the son of the Hulk which is actually one of Ingis’ favorite characters… Or actually the entire family is his favorite character.

But I couldn’t stop looking at the threads about this statue and when he finally arrived at people their homes, he turned out to be insanely awesome. One slight problem was that his price on Ebay and everywhere else had skyrocketed. The exclusive was already going for about 600 USD! Considering that his retail is 379.99 USD, it was quite saddening… We try to not pay more, or at least not insanely more, than retail price for stuff. But suddenly someone posted on one of the forums that a Dutch webshop still had an exclusive in pre-order. For ‘only’ 379,- euro (~485 USD) which is about the price we would have paid if we bought it directly from Sideshow Collectibles. So I quickly ordered one and we were in luck since it was their last one. Even though it was already released when we ordered, it took some weeks longer to receive it from this web shop but luckily all went well and we could add this badass statue to our collection!

I was home alone when they came to deliver this big boy. And my, he really is an extremely big boy! The box is that big and heavy that I couldn’t even lift it! I had to move it inch by inch and it took quite a long while. And it wasn’t that hard to guess that the statue itself would be big as well. And that’s the main thing you notice when looking at Skaar; it’s BIG, even for an 1/4th scale statue.
Of course, we bought the exclusive which in this case means an art print, a switchable hand holding an axe (instead of a sword) and a sword hilt to put in the scabbard. And even though a lot of people think that the axe is lame, it really adds to his presence. Of course, the people complaining probably don’t have the exclusive with the axe. I kid, I kid.

This is one of the last premium formats in the old meaning; it’s an 1/4th scale mixed media statue. The mixed media pieces are the leather wraps on his arm and leg, those holding his pouches and his kilt. It’s pretty well done although I’m afraid of leather mold later on… Ah well, we’ll fix it if that ever happens.

Even though there are some paint misses (image #4) and some things aren’t painted like the prototype (like the swords), it’s painted extremely well. And of course, the sculpt alone just rocks. I don’t particularly like the art print myself, it would have been better with his axe, but it isn’t bad.

About issues, there have been reported some and we even have one. As you can see on image #20, one of his ears is chipped. But because
A) there weren’t any replacements left at that time at Sideshow,
B) we didn’t buy directly from Sideshow,
C) the store didn’t have any left, and
D) we didn’t want to lose this one
we didn’t complain. And besides, you can barely see it. Someday we do have to go to someone who can repair statues because we got quite a few that need some minor touch ups so we’ll bring him along as well.
Other problems with this statue were mainly breakages, mostly with his hair and some with his legs. But luckily, no major screw ups like others we’ve had or have…

Conclusion:
I’m in love with this statue and would hate to part with it now that I’ve seen it in person. Even though I really, really like the axe, I don’t consider it worth around or over 600,- USD so if you really want to add him to your collection, the regular is still available at the Sideshow Collectibles website.

Pictures:

Item reviewed: Skaar exclusive
Type: mixed media (resin with cloth)
Manufacturer: Sideshow Collectibles
Variations: regular edition (without the switch out hand with axe and print)
Rarity: Exclusive can be found still but is very expensive. Regular is still available at the SSC website. 500 (ex) and 1000 (reg) made worldwide