In the Amazon TV Series known as The Boys, a dysfunctional group of nobodies band together to take on a powerful organization known a Vought International and their super hero team known as The Seven. The super powered group are led by Homelander, a homicidal egomaniac who is nearly indestructible. He uses the remaining members of The Seven as his personal pawns, and violently punishes anyone who gets in his way. The show is an adaptation of the comic series created by writer by Garth Ennis and illustrator Darick Robertson.
Later this month, the first two The Boys figures by NECA Toys will hit shelves. Homelander and Starlight will initially be available at Walmart for a 30 day period, and then will make their way to other retailers. The two 7″ scale Ultimate Figures will officially be released for Father’s Day weekend (June 20th), but we have an advanced in-hand look at the two new figures. Our friends at NECA have sent over the figures for review. After the jump, you can check out my impressions and a full photo gallery of both figures.
The Boys – Homelander and Starlight Ultimate 7″ Scale Figures by NECA Toys
Pros
- Nice overall sculpts
- Good likenesses
- Great paint work
- Well done capes
- Easy to swap out parts
- No paint locking issues with the joints
Cons
- The style of double jointed knees and elbows look odd
- Head sculpts are too similar
- Homelander’s legs seem short
Overall
The Boys figures come packed in flapped window boxes. The packaging is designed to look like each characters costume, with a highly textured look. The back of the boxes give history on the specific character, along with a few photos of the figure. The figures sit in plastic trays, easy for storing any unused pieces. Homelander includes three head sculpts, eye beams, and two sets of hands. Starlight includes two head sculpts, and two sets of swap out forearms and hands.
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Homelander
The Homelander figure stands just over 7″ tall. The figure has about 30 or so points of articulation. Homelander has a set of open hands, and a set of closed fists. they swap out easily and look great. The sculpt work looks really fantastic in-hand, as the suit has a lot of texture work going on. Those small details are really intricate, and make the figure look more realistic. Articulation, and range of motion are pretty solid. There are double jointed knees and elbows, but the style that NECA is using on those looks really unnatural. After recently handling their MacReady and their Frankenstein, I’d have been fine with those being single jointed, which would have been more anatomically correct looking. The double jointed knees also seem to make his legs appear a bit short EDIT: Looking at screen caps, this does appear to be accurate to the show, but it does throw the proportions of the figure off when shrunk down. Along with the sculpted body is a fabric cape. The cape is embedded at the shoulders, and is handled really well. It feels like a natural part of the costume, and it’s a nice material with clean and crisp printing on it.
Homelander includes three head sculpts overall, and each one looks pretty good, though they all share a really similar expression. The first head sculpt is a fairly neutral, or smug, expression. The second seems to be a slightly annoyed portrait, and is the one that prefer the most. It’s got a great likeness to actor Anthony Starr, and seems to fit the style of the figure the best. The third head sculpts appears to be a modified version of the second, and adds holes in the eyes for the eye beams, and a red highlight around the eyes. I would have preferred there to be a more prominent difference between the sculpts.
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Starlight
The Starlight figure stands a little under 7″ tall, about 30 points of articulation. Starlight has a nice looking sculpt, with a high level of intricate detail work on the costume. Like Homelander, the costume has a lot of texture work, and that is replicated nicely here. Starlight has a good range of motion overall. The hips are hidden underneath a vinyl skirt, but the material is soft enough to allow for a decent bit of movement. There is a bit of hindrance due to the skirt, but that’s just the nature of using vinyl instead of fabric, which would have thrown the look off. The knees and elbows here use the same double jointed design seen on Homelander. With Starlight’s being a thinner character, the odd anatomy those joints produce feels more pronounced. Bending the arms at both joints creates a really odd looking elbow bend that I’m, just not a fan of. Starlight’s cape is connected at her shoulder joints, which gives the illusion of it being stitched in. It’s another effective cape, and serves the figure well.
Starlight has two interchangeable portraits. They both look to be the same neutral expression, with the second head sculpt having eyes painted white to show her powers. The good thing is, in person, Starlight’s head sculpt is fantastic. The likeness to Erin Moriarty is definitely there for me, and the paint work on both is excellent. The hair sculpt is a softer plastic so it doesn’t mess with the neck movement. Starlight also has swap out forearms as opposed to swap out hands. My guess is that this is to prevent the delicate wrist pegs from snapping, so I think it’s a pretty solid choice. The arms and portraits swap out really easily.
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There were no breakage issues, the joints moved smoothly, with no paint locking issues on either release. I know it sounds like I have more gripes than usual, but that’s probably because I recently reviewed NECA’s two best figures of the year in MacReady and Frankenstein. In-hand, these are solid representations of the characters, and they do look quite good. The overall sculpts, combined with good likenesses, and really nice paint work make for good display pieces. Check out a selection of images below, and the full gallery after that.
CompaniesNECA
CharactersHomelanderStarlight
Scale7 Inch