Tomopop Review: Mezco Toys' Scott Pilgrim figures

4:00 PM on 06.17.2011   |   Brian Szabelski

The series may be titled Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but heck, it's really not even a battle: Scott Pilgrim won, quickly transforming from a popular graphic novel series into a movie with Michael Cera, a popular game and a whole bunch of merchandise. For the most part, it's been an avalanche of Scott Pilgrim shirts and plushes that I've seen, and perhaps you've seen here on Tomopop as well. (For the record, I jumped on the bandwagon about halfway through the graphic novel's run.)

Mezco's Scott Pilgrim figures, though, are the first non-plush merchandise that I've seen. Releasing last month as a two-figure set, they were sure to get the attention of Scott Pilgrim fans the world over, but were they worth buying? Why don't you make like Mario at a flagpole and hit that jump button?

Figure Name: Scott Pilgrim 6" figure set
Figure Maker: Mezco Toys
Retail: US$23.99
Available now at Entertainment Earth | Amazon

Well, here's your packaging, folks. It's fairly colorful ... but it's really just traditional blister packaging. Both Scotts are in the same packaging as well, so there's nothing really to show off with purple Scott, but you can check the gallery for a picture if you're so inclined. Scott is also held in place by a number of twist ties, though thankfully, they aren't as hard to remove as on some of my past figures.

So, here he is out of the box. We're going to be using Green Scott for most of the shoot, if only because he's the one I liked most. As you also might notice, Scott doesn't come with a base (even though he has holes underneath for one? Weird ...) but he stands well enough on his own without tipping over. The design sure matches up with Bryan Lee O'Malley's style, which should please Scott Pilgrim fans. The sculpted pose is actually a little rigid, specifically around the pants, and for some people, I'm sure they're going to find it to be boring.

Green Scott is wearing his signature green shirt, along with blue heams and sneakers. The actual paint work here on the cuffs and neckline are great, the creases on his pants are a nice detail, and while the shoes don't have a lot of detail, they have enough to be worth mentioning. Also worth noting? No real visible paint errors on either part. There are some on the shoes/pants transition, but it's not noticeable unless you're looking underneath, and it is at best very minor. 

Scott's hands are sculpted with a bit of detail and, as you can see, he's wearing his wristbands, though the lines painted on aren't exactly straight all the way around. You can also see what appears to be a spot on his right hand that appears to be where the paint rubbed off a bit.

Green Scott's face is pretty well sculpted and painted, though I noticed his irises aren't perfectly round. Still, they're close enough that you won't notice too much, and more importantly, it looks like how Scott should look.

As for the hair, it's sculpted as a single piece without seams that sticks to the style. On top of it, no paint bleeds or thinly painted spots to note here!

What's cool about this figure is Scott's guitar strap is made of leather and actually looks pretty cool. It is a bit of a pain to get the strap slid around his body, but the end result is pretty nice.

Then, there's the guitar itself, which fits snugly into Scott's left hand at the neck. It's got some level of detail, but oh boy ... 

I ... I don't even have words for this. Okay, I have one: AWFUL. I don't know if the paint somehow rubbed off somewhere or if it left the factory in this condition, but the paintjob on the strings is just terrible and there's no hiding it. What's worse? It's like this on BOTH guitars I have (purple Scott comes with one as well), so I'm inclined to say it's a factory issue. Not good. 

It doesn't get much better on the body of the guitar. The strings are basically completely painted over white and in a few spots, the paint looks rough around the edges, though not as bad as on the neck.

Thankfully, though, you can pose Scott pretty easily. He has 8 points of articulation (one in each wrist, each shoulder and on each arm, plus waits and neck joints), and the neck joint allows you to pivot his head around so you can have him looking in whatever direction you choose. While the poseability's still a bit limited, you can create some interesting poses.

The other Scott features him in a purple shirt with some other slight differences. At its core, though, purple Scott comes with the exact same features and accessories green Scott does.

The one major change besides the coloring is that purple Scott features him smiling ... and personally, I just don't like it as much.

Here, you can see the other accessory that comes with the Scotts, the Power of Love Sword. Unlike the guitar, it looks decent without any noticeable paint gaffes, though there's a little bit of bleed up by the heart that I spotted. It only fits in Scott's right hand, though, so don't expect to have him dual-wielding swords.

So should you buy these? Well, the sculpted detail's not bad ... but paint lines are more than a bit of an issue that I'll admit left me disappointed. For these figures, US$23.99 feels like a steep, steep price and I don't even like purple Scott's face, to be honest. They're also essentially the same figure, and not being able to buy them separately is a disappointment (I would have only bought one if that were the case). Instead, I'd recommend not buying these right now and going for the limited edition Scott Pilgrim Mezco is releasing at Comic Con for US$20, featuring Scott in his winter coat.