Happy Halloween, my fellow action figure enthusiasts! It’s a day for mischief, a day for candy, and a day to laugh at Death. Today, we’re laughing at a special kind of death, a robot death, and it comes courtesy of Super7’s in-house brand The Worst. The Worst is a line of action figures that’s basically self-explanatory. They’re a villainous sort and many of which follow a certain archetype, but with a twist, like a Dracula that’s more like a man-bat. As the box says, “There are good guys. There are bad guys. Then there are…The Worst!”

I’m not big on unlicensed action figures or in-house brands. It’s not because I have an aversion to such on principal or anything, but that I just spend enough of my income as-is on licensed figures that I just don’t have much room to stray. Every now and then though, a design comes along that I can’t ignore. The Robot Reaper was very much such a design. He is as described, a robotic version of the Grim Reaper, but he has this old school aesthetic about him that just makes it work. I never paid any attention to The Worst when it was just a ReAction brand, Super7’s 5 POA line of retro figures, but when I saw the solicitation for this figure I was hooked. I just wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I played the waiting game, and once some impressions had arrived after those who pre-ordered it got the figure in, I felt confident enough to grab one myself. Did I make the right call, or is this thing really just The Worst?

Robot Reaper comes in the usual Ultimates! packaging with a nice painting on the front and a write-up on the back. Out of the box, the figure stands pretty much right at the 7″ mark. It’s obviously a plastic action figure with the typical Super7 engineering, but it’s all clad in a soft goods robe affixed at the waist with a faux piece of hemp rope. The figure is sculpted in a shiny silver plastic with lots of painted detail, much of which you can’t even see because of the robe. He has this big, glowing, red eyes that reminds me of traffic lights and I think his mouth is supposed to be open. There’s some gold piping in places and he’s kind of a reverse C-3P0 in that he’s mostly silver, but has a gold, right, shin. The robe is held via a Velcro strip along the rear of it and that rope. I’d take it off completely, but I’m afraid I’ll never get that rope as perfect as it is right now. Plus, I have no intention of displaying him naked. Most of the body though is done in a paneled approach with large swaths of silver and black, but some areas (like the spine) are far more detailed. Super7 hit these areas with a paint wash and it looks really good. The robe itself is pretty basic, but doesn’t look cheap. He very much looks the part.

What sold me on this guy is the 80s aesthetic to some of the electronics. He looks like he was created over 30 years ago and it’s fitting for a Grim Reaper character who is thought of as an ancient force. And 30 years or so in PC tech is an awful long time. From the front, he has a nice look, but from the back it gets real fun. The default head essentially has an old floppy, disk, drive in the back of its skull. I’m not talking the small, 3.5″, not-very-floppy disks that were still around well into the 90s, but those big, black, actually floppy disks that if you interacted with them may have contained games like Number Munchers, Odell Lake, and the legendary Oregon Trail. And yes, he does come with a floppy disk that fits in the slot. It’s labeled “People to Delete” and I love it. You probably don’t want to shove it all the way into the slot as it will be quite difficult to remove, but it’s such a fun design choice.

That silly gimmick is what sold me on the concept, but the figure also has a bunch of other stuff that works well to add to the package. For hands, we get a set of fists, pointing hands, gripping hands, and open hands. If you’re not in love with the disk drive head there are two others. One looks like a powered down version of the default head with some circuitry ripped out. It’s more in-line with the classic Grim Reaper as a skeleton being as this head is more decrepit, more cold, and more lifeless. The other head is the opposite. It has a more futuristic flair to it. The face is all black with a sculpted-in jaw. It’s framed by steel to give it that skull visage and there’s a red button, or light, in the center of the brow. It’s cool, but I’ll never use.

We also get some fun accessories to round this package out. First, is the big scythe which all Grim Reapers need. It can be held as a staff or by the handles for a swinging pose. The gripping hands don’t grip it as well as I’d like, and the texture of the wood is pretty bland, but it’s fine. If you want something a bit more unique, there’s a scythe attachment for his forearm that functions like an extra hand. It’s definitely more befitting of that futuristic head. The figure also comes with an hourglass that’s flat, pixelated, and looks exactly like the loading cursor from old computers. Lastly, there’s a Not-a-Game Boy for him to play. I don’t quite see how it fits the aesthetic here, but who is going to say “No” to a little Game Boy accessory? It’s purple with a gray screen and the only thing keeping it from being a Game Boy is that it has 3 buttons instead of 2. It also has one rounded corner, like the actual Game Boy, but it’s in a different spot. I wish he could hold it a little better, it’s more an issue of shoulder range, but it’s fun.

Articulation is pretty secondary for me with this figure, and it probably should be for this line, but Robot Reaper is actually pretty decent there. The head is on a double ball, and while it’s inserted way too far into the neck, there’s at least some okay range there looking up, down, and nuance. The shoulders are just ball-hinges, but he can raise his arm out to the side okay. There’s a biceps swivel, and the elbow moves about 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and all have horizontal hinges, though I would have preferred vertical hinges for the gripping hands, but it’s not a big deal here given the weapon load-out. There is a diaphragm joint that lets the figure tilt forward and back a little, plus rotate. There’s a waist twist below that and the hinged ball peg hips go out to the side for full splits. They don’t kick forward all the way, but do kick back almost as much as they do forward. There is a thigh pivot there and the knees bend back about 90 degrees and also bend forward, if you like, since he has no knee caps. The ankles are the only joints I don’t love as there isn’t much room for the ankle rocker to pivot. I think they should have done something there to remedy that, especially with this being a unique design.

By Super7 standards, this figure is well-articulated. The robe itself is going to hinder it some, but you could remove it if you really want to try to pose this guy up. the hem of the hood is wired too, so that’s like another point of articulation. He’s a reaper, so I don’t think this one needs to do much and it does what it needs to, and then some.

I love this figure and it’s 90% the design. I just think it’s fun, and if you look at it and see the same then I think you’ll like it too. The elephant in the room is, of course, the price. The MSRP on Robot Reaper is $55 and that’s just too much for some. One would have liked to see a lower price considering no license is needed, but at least the accessory count is solid and the quality control is about as good as it gets for this brand. Still, those willing to wait it out will probably be able to get this one on clearance eventually. I obviously thought it was worth buying at $55 as I wanted it for Halloween, but if I were stumbling on this in February then, yeah, I’d probably hold out for a better deal. There’s also a glow-in-the-dark version on the way, if you prefer. It’s a blue color, like a frozen version, and looks pretty cool, but I think this version is better.

Do you prefer your action figures be untethered from a major brand?

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