Universal Monsters: Funko Versus Remco

Funko's line of Universal Monster figures were supposed to be released in late August, but are apparently just shipping now. I've just received the ones I ordered and am mostly pleased with these figures. I love the Universal Monsters -- with one exception -- and have always wanted cool toys to represent them that wouldn't annihilate the wallet. I had the Imperial toys when I was a kid, which I thought were the coolest, but they're pretty damned expensive now. I had some of the '80s Remco action figures, which also go for too damned high of a price for my liking. (Each figure goes for around a hundred bucks each.) Recent toys by Diamond Select don't really interest me, and I'm not that big a fan of the retro-styled dolls to have paid the prices they can reach. I remember thinking the Remco toys were neat looking and was always bummed out that they were too expensive to buy, but I'm about to say something blasphemous...

I think these new Funko toys look better than the Remcos if you compare them. The Remcos are much better looking in the mind's eye, but when you pull up a picture of them, especially compared to the Funkos? Yeesh. The only Remco that looks halfway decent -- which happens to be the one Funko that I think is actually the weakest of the line -- is Frankenstein. Since I'm a nerd and like to keep this shit in the packaging, I've been considering ways to open the bubble without damaging it or the packaging, maybe buying a Remco Frankenstein and slipping it into the Funko packaging. I'm guessing this can't be done, though.

The Funkos are far from perfect, but even at their worst, they'll be better than the Remco.

Dracula. Not many releases ever look like Bela Lugosi, and Funko's is no different. (It looks like Armand Assante to me.) The Funko one at least looks a little sinister; Remco's looks like he drank some bad blood, regrets it, and doesn't feel well. I like that the Funko has that old '70s style vinyl cape, but Remco wins by having the red lining. I'm glad Funko at least changed the coloring between the prototype and the finished result, though -- the prototype had a weird blue coloring to it.

Frankenstein. Remco's is more reminiscent of Frankenstein to me -- like a mash-up of Boris Karloff and Glenn Strange. Funko's is...damned weird looking. It looks like Takeshi Kitano. Takeshi Kitano dressing up as Frankenstein for Halloween. (A friend thinks it looks like Neil Patrick Harris. Take your pick, but neither of 'em are Frankenstein.) The bolts on the neck of Funko are difficult to see and look more like errors in the molding than bolts. Remco wins this round.

Bride of Frankenstein. Remco never released a figure of her for comparison, but I'm a little disappointed in Funko's. It looks like Ana Gasteyer. Points for getting the scars on her jawline, though. (Which I included a picture of.)

The Wolf-Man. One of my top favorites of the Universal Monsters. The Funko is awesome, and really does look like the high quality make-up the character sported in the original Wolf-Man movie. (The quality dipped in sequels.) He also has an appropriately sad looking expression. It certainly looks better than the Remco, which...what the hell is that thing? It doesn't look like the Wolf-Man, I'll tell you that. It looks more like Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too. And while the old Imperial figure had me always used to the idea the Wolf-Man had a red shirt instead of the blue of the Funko, what the heck's with the jumpsuit he's wearing in the Remco release?

The Mummy. The Funko looks really nice in person and is nicely detailed. His head looks green in person, which is a little weird, but the sculpt does at least resemble Boris Karloff. (So what the fuck was up with the Neil Patrick Frankitano? If the Mummy can look this good, why not Frankenstein, which was Karloff's more important role?) The Remco is a joke -- he looks like a toilet paper monster, or like John Forsythe's ghost character from Scrooged.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The Funko looks awesome, it really resembles the Creature. Look at that ugly thing Remco released -- it's like the toy either got the news that his lagoon carried TB or it saw itself and realized what a goddamn awful, ugly sculpt it was, completely amazed that they were passing it off as the Creature and charging money for it.

The Phantom of the Opera. The make-up Lon Chaney created for his character in this movie is legendary. It's actually creepy and still really holds up, nearly 90 years later. He wanted to stay true to the book, where the Phantom is described as looking like a skull, so he had the imagination to tape his nose upward and glue his ears down, while also creating the look by stuffing his mouth with cotton and gluing fish skin to his face.

Now, it's always been a disappointment the way that the Chaney Phantom movie, because of its slipping into public domain, will often be excluded from the big round up of Universal classic Monsters. He's pretty much the first Universal Monster, so he should always be acknowledged. They'll tend to use Phantom of the 1943 remake, which strays from the material, is hardly a horror movie, and Claude Rains just isn't as good as Chaney. So, I was pretty excited to see Phantom in this line-up of Funko toys. As with Dracula, I like that old Darth Vader-styled vinyl cape it has, but the sculpt is a bit disappointing. They should have honored Chaney's make-up a little more, the roundness of the head just throws the look off. Also: the expression they gave him makes him look like he's horrified to have just learned that his strange, dark, creepy horror story will end up being a Broadway show. Like, "You're shittin' me, right?" Still, better than the Remco, though, which also has a strange expression, one of nervous worry, like the Phantom is reallllllllllly uncertain whether or not he should be included in the line.

I'd also like to point out the problem with buying stuff online versus buying something in a store: the turned head on my Phantom figure bugs the bejesus out of me.

Funko also released the Invisible Man, but I didn't buy it because that's the aforementioned one Universal Monster I really don't care about. I like the sequel with Vincent Price, but the first one -- and the other sequels -- are so damned boring. It's neat that Funko did an "invisible" variant, though, having the figure be made of clear plastic.

Despite my slight disappointment in a couple of the sculpts, I'm still glad Funko released these and still think they beat the Remco figures.

I'd also like to add that, due to their expensiveness, the pictures of the Remcos aren't mine -- I once saved them from the net and "borrowed" them here for the sake of comparing them to the Funkos. Sorry and thanks!