.

The Calico Jack’s Pirate Raiders Minimates line is another in-house DST line, featuring an assortment of vehicles and figures designed entirely by Art Asylum. It is the next collection in the Minimates MAX series. They are currently Toys R Us exclusives, although a specialty store 4-pack has been announced.

Packaging

The packaging is the blister card pack showcasing the figures and accessories. The pack has an insert with the Pirate Raiders logo with control art for Calico Jack on the front along with Robert Deal and the pirate ship/flag wrapped around the side. The back shows the other figures available in the series with short bio of each of the two characters included. The bios are a nice touch. The TRU exclusive sticker is on the front.

The Figures

Charles Vanes

Avast mateys, the evil captain himself. Again a true historical pirate with ties to the real Calico Jack. See if this story sounds familiar: a notorious pirate captain known for his cruelty towards captured vessels, he was later voted out of captaincy and replaced by Calico Jack, he was cast adrift with his right hand man Robert Deal; after that he worked his way back up the pirate ranks only to be later captured and hanged in Port Royal, Jamaica. In storyline terms for this series the evil captain comes back from the dead to wreak havoc and take revenge on Calico Jack.

This is another well executed figure. The captain has a regular 2-inch head but the hat and hair are all sculpted onto the head as one piece. And wow, what an incredible job! First off the face details are great. You see the blue/grey skin tone, with bright red eyes, tons of creases and lines to accentuate the evil glare, along with gnarly teeth. His sea-green hair and beard are sculpted all around the head with a blue bandana and his high purple hat (love the starfish detail on the front and the seaweed sticking out of his hat).

He is wearing a long tailed burgundy jacket piece with folded up collar. Great job with the color and detail all around. It’s the little touch like the small gold starfish on the back of the collar that set these extras apart from those we see in other Minimate lines. Underneath on the torso piece you get a glimpse of his wasted away skeleton body under his burgundy shirt. Unlike the other figures his hands and gloves are one piece. I would have liked the separate glove cuffs instead of this one piece but tis a minor gripe. He has the black pirate boots and brown pants. On his right leg though you again get a glimpse of the skeleton underneath.

For accessories, this evil pirate captain has an ornate sword. This one in my opinion is the best one of the bunch. It has a silver blade with a gold hilt, but the design itself is just very menacing looking.

In conclusion, another top of the line figure and a fitting adversary for Calico Jack. Only the gloves are a slight niggle.

MMC Score – 9.5 out of 10

Old Dad The Cooper

The last figure in this first wave of Pirate Raiders is John Fenwick, a.k.a. “Old Dad the Cooper”. I guess it was debatable if the real life Fenwick was part of Calico’s crew, however in the storyline surrounding this series Fenwick was sentenced for being part of Jack’s crew. Captain Vanes brought him back from the dead to help with his quest for revenge.

“Old Dad” is quite an interesting Minimate figure and our first true peg-leg figure. He has a full head cover piece with a great “I’m going to get into trouble” look. You got the eye, cheekbone and teeth detail with this white skeleton ghost face underneath. What’s even better is that you can pop off the cover and it has the skeleton skull face underneath.

He has a full torso cover with a vest and black belt straps holding little knives that wraps around his chest. Take that off and you see his chest with some detail underneath. The arms continue his tanned skin tone and have colorful tattoos all over. He has one regular hand and another with a sculpted pad with three claws coming out that’s connected to the hand itself. He has green pants and black belt and shoe. What sets him apart from the rest is the sculpted peg leg for his left leg. They did a good job with balance with this piece. It works having the leg out straight or bending slightly, either way the figure does still stand upright.

For an accessory Old Dad has a rather interesting gun; a long brown musket with silver barrel and lots of detailing.

In conclusion: A great undead crew member with well executed peg-leg.

MMC Score – 9 out of 10

More pictures

Review and pictures by Lurch77

[starratingmulti id=”1″]

[starratingmulti id=”2″]