13.09
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 Figures
Jonathan Barnet
In this series Jonathan is a commander in the British Navy in an alliance with Calico Jack. However historically he was the pirate hunter that captured the real Jack in 1720 to bring him to the gallows.
He has good face detail with a blank stare going on. The hairpiece is another new design with grey hair below a bright blue commander’s hat. The hat features silver trim and has amazing detail with the feather and silver/red heart design on the side.
Jonathan Barnet is wearing a long tailed blue jacket piece with high collar. Truly one of the better jacket pieces we’ve seen with the red and gold detail of his chest piece and the silver shoulder pads with frills. Underneath is a chest block with even more detail of his blue button down shirt.
The arms are the same bright blue color with grey sculpted arm cuffs to give the full glove look. The hands are grey to match the cuffs. As with the Calico Jack set it would have been nice to have a pair of flesh colored hands included for the non-glove look. The waist and legs are grey for his pants with part of the legs in black color to represent his boots. He has the same feet with raised front for boots like we’ve seen in the Marvel line (Ares comes to mind first).
For accessories what else does this commander get but an ornate silver sword with gold hilt. He also has a silver gun, which has a decent amount of detail.
In conclusion, the Pirate Raiders line sees another well executed figure, with superb detailing.
MMC Score – 9 out of 10
Nukpana
Nukpana is one of Barnet’s crew and as others on the MMMV board has noted he definitely has that look of Queequeg from Moby Dick. Rather than South Pacific origin though, he is of Native American origin.
Nukpana has a tanned skin tone with superb facial detail. Not only does he have that half smirk half scowl but also red and black tribal tattoos. For a hairpiece he has a long single braid of hair with a gold band in the back. Even though it looks sculpted to the headpiece it is removable.
In this TRU wave this is the only figure to not have a torso cover. However there is tremendous amount of torso detail. There’s the outline of his chest and abs along with a feather necklace. AA went the extra step and included the tattoos on his arms too, an area that does not usually see many intricate tampos. There’s a really cool rising sun on his shoulder. However the back of the chest block is blank, which does hurt the look from that side.
Nukpana has a waist cover that is a nice Native American style cover with cream and brown stripes on the front with the brown flap on the back. His waist and legs are brown too. Nice boots too, gold raised fronts with brown straps around that the leg pieces fit snug into. There are similar forearm pads with the gold designed front with brown straps. However the one pad is equipped with an impressive large silver arrow blade rather than a hand. An extra regular hand/forearm pad would have been nice.
As an extra accessory he has a hand gun cover to use instead of the blade.
In conclusion: Lots of intricate designs and tattoos and really cool weapons make Nukpana a must-have for the pirate crew.
MMC Score – 9 out of 10
Review and pictures by Lurch77
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