Resident Evil Week: Hoardax Reviews Colonel America from Marvel Select's Marvel Zombies by Diamond Select Toys

Special thanks to Hoardax from Hoard World for submitting another zombie themed review for our special Resident Evil week here at ThEpic Review!




   Some of you may remember Marvel Zombies. It was a Marvel Comic by pre-Walking-Dead-TV-show-Fame Robert Kirkman. I read it when it first came out. I seem to recall liking it quite a bit at the time. Anyway, it got HUGE. It's only looking back at all this that I have actually realised just how long ago Marvel Zombies came out. In my slime-filled brain meats, Marvel Zombies is still recent.

     Oh no. Uh-uh. It's not. Not by your human standards. Not really.

     Marvel Zombies came out in December 2005. That's almost eight years ago. Wowsers. Have we really been obsessed with zombies again for that long? I mean, Marvel Zombies only existed back then to cash in on how popular zombies were at the time. But even now, the zombie love just doesn't seem to be slowing down, does it? There's a joke about the speed of zombies back there but I'm letting it pass me by.More after the break.... 



  

     Anyway, to continue to capitalise on the Marvel Zombies fever, they obviously IMMEDIATELY put into production some action figures. It just goes to show how long it really takes to design, sculpt, tool, manufacture and release an action figure. Because this fella right here? Colonel America? He came out in December 2007. Two years later.

     I love the figure. I loved it back then and I still love it now. In fact, after taking these photos, my love for Colonel America only grows.

     This has been a fascinating history lesson for me in writing this five-year-late toy review.

     For one, I had completely forgotten that his name wasn't Zombie Captain America at all. It was Colonel America. I forget the reason for it now. I'm guessing in the alternate Zombie-verse Cap just gets promoted. I vaguely recall that this version of Cap has also been The President Of The USA. But am I remembering that correctly, or did I read it on Wikipedia? This is starting to get mildly existential. Let's move on.

 

 At any rate, I've been calling him Zombie Cap for years and years now.

     Colonel America was one of three Marvel Zombies figures that I knew of. The other two were Zombie Spidey and Zombie Hulk. I never bothered with either of them (even though they were kinda cool) because for me, Zombie Cap was where it was at.

     I'll be honest with you: Even compared to the relatively decent articulation levels of 2007, Zombie Cap falls completely flat in that department. But his zombie appearance is so stylised that it absolutely works in the favour of the figure.

     From memory, Zombie Cap came with a detailed base for him to stand on (of what exactly, I'm not sure-*It was 1 part of a 3 part base that features the mangled and torn corpse of the Silver Surfer- Editor*) and his accessories were his battle worn zombieverse version of his shield and the missing part of his skull. Unfortunately, I misplaced the skull cap that hides his exposed brain meats quite some time ago, so you won't see it in these pics. I haven't lost it per se. But I have moved house two and a half times since I first bought him, and I wouldn't want to be on a game show where the million dollar prize depended on me finding that removable piece of plastic.

 

 I don't think I've taken Zombie Cap down from display since I bought him almost six years ago. He's a keeper. It's not just my love for Captain America and Captain America action figures, surely. I think he is independently a decent plastic incarnation of a specific comic book version of a character.

     Funnily enough, while googling some basic facts to reacquaint myself with Colonel America, the first thing I found was a review by ThEpic Review's Barbecue17 himself! Right here over at Michael Crawford's site. How serendipitous. (*Dang, I forgot about that!-Barbecue17*)

   If you want to know more about Colonel America, you should really just read that aforementioned review from back in the day. I've been attached to this character, this incarnation and this figure since the start so I'm far too biased to write a critical review. Barbecue17's review from 2007 seems far more on the money. The only thing that has changed since then, really, is The Money.

     If you want to source a Colonel America in this current climate, you'll be looking at way more than the outrageous twenty dollars of 2007! As per usual, your best bet is probably Michael eBay. What a rascal he is.

     For ThEpic Review's Resident Evil Week, I am also doing Zombieriffic Reviews of the Tarman figure from Return Of The Living Dead and one of the most bizarre Zombie Superman figures I've ever come across. Tell your friends!


 

"Colonel America and....wait...who is this guy?"

     HOARDAX is an extra-dimensional, plastic underlord who probably doesn't even exist. He lives on Hoard World and spends most of his free time on Facey B, where he commands his human assistant to transcribe everything that comes out of his mouth in real time. He has hoarded all sorts of wonderful things over the past 30 years that he'd love to talk to you about. You should drop him a line some time. As well as ThEpic Review, he has contributed content to Doom Kick, Dinosaur Dracula and Poe Ghostal. He's currently addicted to Hoardstagram.