Zandar (30th Anniversary)

by KansasBrawler

Ah, Zandar…the Dreadnok whose entire defining characteristic is that he’s easily overlooked. It must have worked too well considering Hasbro never made a second figure for the character until the 30th Anniversary. Being a sibling to Zartan, he has a lot of high expectations, partly because he’s been
missing so long and partly because he does have a pretty strong following. While I never had his first figure growing up, my exposure to him during the DDP comics really made me like him as a character and I was hoping to get him somewhere along the line. He was probably the Dreadnok I was looking forward to most in the set, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that fact. Mercifully, Zandar lives up to those expectations and is probably one of the best figures in the set.

Like all the Dreadnoks, Zandar relies pretty heavily on parts reuse. Using the arms of Swamp Squad Zartan, the torso of Quick Kick, the upper legs of 25th Shipwreck and the boots of the M.A.R.S. Industries trooper, Hasbro has pieced together a look that I really like and does a great job of mimicking the look of the original Zandar. The additional shoulder holster and scarf complete the look and do help hide the parts reuse a bit. His brand new head looks angry and while it’s not a perfect likeness for the original Zandar, they took some design cues from the DDP redesign and make him look a lot more menacing than the original Zandar. He’s got a much meaner stare than before and I like that. Zandar’s always struck me as someone who should be a bit angry all the time, if nothing else because no one ever acknowledges his existence. Having that general grouchiness in his face really helps sell the figure as Zandar even though he’s doing something a little less 80s with his hair than the original. I like that Zandar and the more classic Dreadnok version of Zartan share arms, it really helps bring them together as a group. I like that the entire Zartan family (including Zanya) wear similar shoulder armor. I don’t know what store they could buy that sort of thing at, but it looks really good and makes them aesthetically cohesive. The legs are good, but they do have a few problems. Considering he comes with a knife, I wish that the knife sheath on Zandar’s leg didn’t have a knife permanently molded into it. His shoulder holster is functional, and having a non-functional knife sheath just feels like a bit of a step back. The other issue I have with the legs are the funky knees he winds up having. I really can’t tell where the knees come from, but they don’t lineup with the rest of his legs. I understand they were trying to make it look like he was wearing the kneepads he had back in the day, but they just look awkward. In fact, you’ll notice in my pictures that his right leg looks pretty funky in profile. I took them before I found the right way to pose the knees to minimize the odd construction they have. Something clearly got fouled up in the construction or design process on those knees. When the left leg is bent, the joint moves easiest below the knee while the right leg moves easiest above the knee. While the knees have flaws, I have to say, the of the M.A.R.S. Industries Trooper’s legs is genius. They really do look like the boots Zandar wore back in the day.

The paint job on Zandar does a great job at recreating his original look. While baby blue and pink aren’t the most intimidating colors, Zandar wears them well, and with his newer, angrier stare, he does look a lot meaner than before. The gold detailing on his boots is new (because his boots themselves didn’t have those details back in the day), but it looks really sharp. The lightning bolt tattoos on his chest are good, though the larger scarf (really, it’s more the size of a torn up poncho now—I wonder where he got a pink poncho from) really covers them up a lot more than I’d like. Those are some good details, but you can’t see them as well as you could back in the day because of the extra add on parts. His face paint is also quite nicely done and while the look isn’t exactly the same as back in the day, it’s close enough to pass the squint test. The paint detailing I really like, though, is the silver scuffing on the edge of his shoulder armor. It’s clear Zandar wears the shoulder armor to give him some added protection in bar fights or with the Joes. That scuffing shows that Zandar’s been in quite a few fights and hasn’t always kept his opponents from getting in a few shots. I like that kind of detail on my Joe figures and it works really well here. Plus, I find scrap metal painted baby blue a lot more believable than Zandar finding metal that color and using it for his armor. I like the fact that even Dreadnok armor is homemade and that Zandar had to repaint it to match the rest of his fabulous outfit.

I’m really of two minds about Zandar’s gear. His small weapons are great, but Hasbro’s attempts to recreate his signature dart gun really fall short. First off, I really like the knife. I can’t remember for certain where it was originally used, but I am pretty certain it’s not unique to Zandar. It looks really wicked and honestly, it reminds me a bit of the paired knives Zandar used back in the DDP run when he was working as a Coil operative. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it’s a reference that makes me smile. While it’s unfortunate that he can’t sheath it, the knife does fit pretty well behind the strap on his back so at least there’s sort of a way he can carry it on him. His small silver pistol is also really nice. It fits tightly in his shoulder holster and looks good in his hand. The original Zandar had a really neat rifle that was supposed to shoot darts or arrows. However, there’s really not a gun like that in the Hasbro mold archives so they improvised. Unfortunately, I don’t think either improvisation is really great, but one Joe reviewer noticed something interesting that can bring his weapons closer to the original look. The first attempt to reference his original rifle is the Eels spear gun. It’s an okay weapon, but I don’t generally think of a spear gun as a good weapon for a guy running around on land. Plus, I don’t know why, but the gold-ish paint job really doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t bother me on the knife handle, but that much gold color for a gun just really throws me off. Hasbro does give the spears a nice silver paint app and I’m glad for it just to break up the gold. The other attempt Hasbro made to get Zandar a dart rifle was giving him the Night Creeper crossbow. In Hasbro’s defense, I think in his first appearance in the DDP series, Zandar was actually carrying a pretty big crossbow. I just always associate this particular crossbow with the Night Creepers and it seems kind of odd to see it in someone else’s hands. I think the Resolute Scarlett crossbow would have been just as nice and not quite as iconic. However, as one Joe review site I read regularly noticed (sorry, I can’t remember which one, it’s been a while since I’ve read other sites’ Dreadnok reviews), you can remove the expanded crossbow part from the Night Creeper crossbow since it’s made of two pieces rather than being one solid mold. Doing that leaves you with an arrow rifle that looks shockingly like the rifle Zandar originally carried back in the day. Thanks, whichever Joe reviewer pointed that out. It really makes me like the Night Creeper crossbow being here a bit more. That said, I’m not really wild about either choice for larger weapons here. Personally, I would have preferred seeing the Spirit dart rifle and backpack. It just seems a little closer to his original gear to me. They did a good job with what they had in the weapons library and since the Slaughter’s Marauder Spirit had the Spirit rifle, I understand why they didn’t just give Zandar that weapon, but I think Spirit could have been given some better and/or different weapons to free up that gun for Zandar.

Zandar may have been long-forgotten (let’s be fair, almost every other Dreadnok got some attention if nothing else from the GIJCC set), but Hasbro finally gave him some attention and they did not disappoint. Despite his badly wonky knees (seriously, if anyone else has noticed this on theirs, please let me know, I want to make sure it’s not just mine), he’s a really good figure. They did a great job of referencing his original look while still taking a few liberties to make him more modern. The head sculpt really brings it all together and even though Zandar’s look has never been all that menacing, they really managed to do a bang up job with him. Everything you’re looking for on a Zandar figure is there, from the colors to the tattoos and face paint. It’s a great update and even though it’s almost all reused parts, they mesh very well together to create a complete figure.