ast year, Sideshow Toy introduced the first two in a series of figures based on the 1963-65 TV show The Outer Limits—Gwyllm Griffiths from the episode "The Sixth Finger," and the Ebonite Interrogator from "Nightmare." In its continuing effort to produce quality replicas of creatures from that classic series, it recently added Ikar and Ikar's Soldier from the episode "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" and the Zanti Regent and Zanti Prisoner from "The Zanti Misfits."
In "Keeper of the Purple Twilight," Eric Plummer, a scientist on the verge of great discoveries, struggles over the final equations for his formula and is frustrated to the point of attempting suicide. While in his car, he hears a voice say, "You gain nothing by suicide." Moments later, an alien figure appears in the back seat, and soon a deal is struck. The alien Ikar agrees to give Eric the formulae in trade for his emotions—something of which Ikar's people know nothing. Ikar takes human form and helps Eric create a powerful matter disintegrator. But Ikar finds that emotions are not always easy to deal with. And what is his real motive?
In "The Zanti Misfits," another deal has been struck between humans and aliens. The Zanti people have coerced Earth into agreeing to provide space for prisoners from the planet Zanti. The moral Zanti people cannot execute their criminals and need a place to store them out of harm's way. They chose Earth as that prison. Earth has chosen historian Stephen Grave to document this first encounter with alien life. Meanwhile, a runaway wife and a convicted criminal enter the forbidden desert area reserved for the prison ship, thereby violating the agreement. The Zanti Regent in charge kills the man and pursues the woman. The prisoners take advantage of the Regent's absence and commandeer the ship, leading an assault on the nearby military base which is coordinating the landing event.
Sideshow's 1:6 scale Ikar and Ikar's Soldier are very accurate portrayals of the characters from "Keeper of the Purple Twilight." With his large cranium, Ikar is intelligent and utterly unemotional. He wears a gold crushed velvet-like body suit and has elongated fingers. Ikar's Soldier is practically identical to Ikar but has a smaller head for less brain mass, and has large blades for hands. The figures come with a model of the disintegrator gun, and display stands.
For the first time, Sideshow has created a full-scale figure. The Zanti figures are 9-inch-long ants with humanlike heads. The Regent has a black hair goatee and eyebrows, while the prisoner has white muttonchop sideburns and eyebrows. Each figure is finely molded and resembles the insectlike aliens from the show. Each comes boxed separately, but they are sold as a pair.
Ikar and his Soldier are limited to 7,500 units each. The Zanti Misfits had a production run of 5,000 each.
Extraordinary likenesses of legends
Sideshow has traditionally created some of the most accurate and desirable figures from licensed properties such as Twilight Zone, Get Smart, James Bond, Monty Python's Holy Grail and The Outer Limits. Some of those sets have been spectacular. Ikar and his soldier are less so. The two are so similar, with only the heads and hands differing, and the soldier played such a peripheral role in the show that it would have been more desirable to produce Ikar and the human Eric Plummer as a set instead.
As usual, the likenesses in this set are extraordinary, down to the strange uniforms the pair are wearing. Since the show aired in black and white, we can only speculate that the colors are accurate. As usual, each figure is highly articulated, and would have been made more posable only by hinging the ankles, something Sideshow usually does except in rare instances where footwear doesn't permit joints, as is the case with Ikar and his minion. Even so, each figure has around 30 points of articulation, far more than the average action figure of any size.
The Zanti Misfits are unusual in that they are 1:1 scale. Each insect measures approximately 9 inches long and about 6 inches wide, most of which is leg. Each of the six legs is articulated only with a fairly restricted ball joint at the thorax section, with no joints elsewhere. Ball joints also connect the abdomen and head, and the antennae are also on ball joints. With so many ball joints, you may expect this figure to be very flexible, but its range of movement is seriously limited. Each leg has only a small range of movement, as does the abdomen. The head's posability is better than the rest. Still, when Sideshow's other figures have more than 30 points of articulation, the 10 points in these figures is disappointing.
These insectlike aliens are in many ways superior to the originals used in the TV show. The major difference is that the originals were dirtier, had more hair sticking out everywhere, and had a kind of slimy look about them, while Sideshow's versions are clean, neat and orderly. Ironically, a note in the beautiful documentary packaging says that the producer, Joseph Stefano, thought the original stop-motion alien props weren't "pretty enough." These are too pretty. Too neat and trim. These should look uglier and scarier. These faces look too much like dolls and less like sinister alien criminals.
Despite the flaws outlined here, these figures are quite attractive and play and display well. Above all, they are accurate depictions of characters from this much-beloved TV show, which remains a legend in the industry.
