Oculus (2015 CORPS! Super Soldier)

Last year, Lanard surprised collectors with their first-ever female CORPS! action figures. While these girls wowed fans with their added articulation (including more mobile ball-jointed hips), other new offerings joined them on shelves. Alongside new vehicles, Lanard introduced two new scales of toys to their CORPS! universe. One was a bucket of traditionally-sized “army men” and the other was a set of six inch tall action figures. While the battle in a bucket was a cool throwback to the days of old, I was drawn to the new larger and highly stylized figures. The company produced twelve inch figures in the CORPS! brand for many years, but these new figures appealed to me based on their stylistic similarity to a past GI Joe line that I loved–Sigma 6.

I first picked up the primo bad guy in the series, a fellow named Oculus. His look, which is best described as Cable via an evil Nick Fury, is eye-catching (pun intended). The display packaging was unique, with a pointed cardboard backer that fits into a shelf-like base. It’s more akin to candy packaging than anything I’ve seen for actiin figures. The presentation allows for access to the top half of the figure, so kids can try out some of the articulation.

The six inch Super Soldier figures feature a decent amount of articulation, though they lack basic elbow joints, and only swivel rather than hinge. There are ball-jointed hips, whuch allow for more freedom of movement than most of the smaller scale CORPS! characters. This series actually has its origin in Lanard’s Dragon Do line of martial arts fighters from a few years back. I saw the figures on the website years ago, but have only been able to locate them at the annual Lanard sale. The Dragon Do series was interesting, and featured some nicely scaled and detailed accesories. This was another element that reminds me of Hasbro’s Sigma 6. Oculus has a handy plug-in feature for his sidearm, which is a nice plus.

The highly stylized scuplts, with hard-edged definitions and exaggerated proportions follows from the smaller scale CORPS! comic-book like design elements while providing a more bold direction for the brand. Oculus’ look certainly fires the imaginaton, and I look forward to more characters in this series.